#this was such an interesting think-through bc the whole story is about how generations impact you as a parent/person

[beta-adjacent]

Omegaverse Dynamics for…. Dungeons & Daddies: Odyssey!

Spoiler warning for Season 1 of the podcast! PLEASE don't spoil Season 2; I'm only on episode 5!!!!!

Summary:

Biblically Accurate (AKA if the cast were to choose the dynamics themselves): Darryl alpha, Henry omega, Ron beta, Glenn beta, Jodi alpha.

My personal hc's: Daryl omega, Henry alpha, Ron beta, Glenn alpha, Jodi omega

My Reasonings:

Darryl: Obvious choice here is alpha. Despite having a very small arc compared to the other dads, Darryl had leader/main character energy. However, you cannot deny that Darryl "stay at home dad" Wilson, Darryl "mom friend" Wilson, Darryl "I just found this child in a Chuck E Cheese and will protect him with my life" Wilson is QUITE omega coded. Darryl is a mom who happens to be a dad.

Henry: Due to his mom friend energy, the obvious choice here is omega raised by a beta mom/alpha dad. I could see Autumn as an alpha too tbh, but I somehow don't believe Barry would've wanted the equal-ish standing. The cooler answer is Henry's a beta, who always struggled to connect to his father once he presented. The even cooler answer is Henry's an alpha. In that case, Henry would have the constant reminder that he is Barry's heir in every aspect, and would be constantly fighting against the instincts he saw growing up

Ron: honestly, any dynamic goes. No matter what, his dynamic will be yet another disappointment to Willy. I think Alpha Willy with Beta Ron is the most canon-compliant choice, given that Ron has to try harder to be a parent to Terry Jr. (that feels very beta coded to me). If Terry Sr. was not a beta, or had the same dynamic as Terry Jr., Ron's self doubt would triple. But I'm also entertaining the idea that Ron presented as an alpha/omega to parent himself after Willy died, which somehow resulted in the opposite effect (ie being a man-child).

Glenn: My vote for most canonically accurate is beta raised by a beta. It's the same logic with Ron, in not having that natural "instinct" to take care of kids like Henry and Darryl. Glenn is difficult because he isn't necessarily trying to be as evasive and emotionally closed off as he is; he's just been raised like that, and believes he had a good childhood all things considered. I think his final confession to Narcolas was important, revealing that he'd been providing for Nick in secret this whole time. That's why I want to argue alpha Glenn. Shitty, shitty alpha Glenn who passes very well as a beta from the weed covering his scent.

Jodi: whatever would contrast with Glenn best, because that's the funniest answer. In the canonical sense, that'd probably translate to him "one-upping" Glenn by being an alpha (so BGlen/AJodi or AGlen/AJodi). But Jodi personally radiates omega energy to me??? Despite EVERYTHING ELSE in my bones telling me he's an alpha??????

[briebysabs]

Wait. Wait y’all. Is mochijun actually a fan of RGU? Bc hold on, and I’m probably going crazy, but lemme draw you in. And this will contain some RGU spoilers. Let’s start with Noé, I think he has some similarities with Utena. You might be like “Well, Utena is a naive, straightforward, pure-hearted character. It’s not that hard to share those characteristics.” Fair but think of it this way. Both Utena and Noé are “outsiders”pulled into the main story, the play if you will bc of an object of interest.

Whether it’s the rose ring or the Book of Vanitas. They are essentially anomalies that leave their impact and revolutionize people’s lives/way of thinking by being a kind person. Both of them encounter their partners almost like fate. Now I don’t know what Vanitas and Anthy have in common other than the need to be “saved” (whatever that entails) as well as being painted the witch or symbol of misfortunate by the world. Only being vulnerable and learning to reach out by being with Utena/Noé. But notice another thing, y’all ain’t gonna believe this. In the last episode of RGU, Utena fails to hold onto Anthy and their hands slip. Her last words in the tv series is I’m sorry Anthy I couldn’t be a prince.

I couldn’t save you.

GUYS PLEASE WTFF

RGU and VnC break the 4th wall to explain how these are characters, these are assigned roles. RGU has princes and princesses, VnC has observers and a narrator. We go through each “Act” of this tale. They portray the shift of adolescence into adulthood. Vanitas is 18, Noé is 19. I guess another thing Vanitas has with Anthy is growing up fast, both were shoved into the world of adults and thus believe they know how the system works. A pessimistic view of life, although thankfully Vanitas is not in eternal suffering. And we all know how much mochijun loves her flower symbolism, symbolism in general and honestly her art gives the same vibes as RGU. That sensual, like drop of eroticism idk how to describe it but you get my point. I don’t think it’s on purpose obviously but it’s cool to note. Do I think all this is intentional? Bc mochijun hasn’t come out and say she was inspired in some ways by RGU. I just made a couple connections, there might be more I can’t think of at the moment. But I think it’ll be really cool if it was.

Finally, we all got our time loop theories about VnC. RGU is a loop I’m just saying. Also I think this is kinda funny and interesting. The whole thing is this shojo manga au where Jeanne dresses up in boy’s uniform to school.

Dominique Saionji, prince of the school.....okay.

[cookiecomics]

(warning from future me: this is very long, soz)

heyy!! i'm about to start another reread of atott but although im trying to get better at this, im bad at leaving comments (i get too invested in the action & dont mark down my thoughts... so when i get to the comment part i don't remember all or anything i wanted to talk abt + i'm ruminating on what just happened. that's true for the updates i've been following and doubly so for binge-reading sessions) so i just wanted to say some things directly to you, right now, before i forget - i adore the colosseum to this day. i was invested from moment one and the way you described everything was so impactful. to this day i also remember the way ren was panicked & aiming to return home despite his concussion, it felt very visceral and real. also the entirety heresy ring, akechi finding out he was in the fraud ring (this cracked me up iirc. that boy read you akechi), the toy grandma wanted to give ren & akechi managed to get to him (and ren/arsene crying bc of it....), the river, the hanged man game.... gods, you captivated me so much even within those first chapters.

another moment that is very present in my memory is the whole section where ren is in shido's palace, hiding from akechi w/o knowing it's him, finding out he was the "birdman" and then the aftermath, akechi's high fever, the way ren did his best to take care of him, how he told him he'd do the hit on the principal for him. it was all so good!! like i found ur fics from the accomplice tag iirc so i wasn't surprised when it happened, but it was all so exciting still! my memory sucks so i can't even paraphrase what ren told akechi before leaving to do it, but i do remember how akechi was still convinced (and kinda hoped) ren wouldn't actually get involved & he'd just end up dead. then ren came back, with new glasses to boot! lol

ohh also that moment where ren crossdressed and akechi was definitely attracted but ofc he can't Say It so he just critiques his makeup capabilities instead....... i was like. of course. of couse you would.

and i found atott shortly after finding out i'm arospec despite being very interested in making fictional characters kiss & romantic scenes in general, so it was very interesting to read akechi believe he was aromantic & have to deal with Actually Having Romantic Feelings Fuck This lmaoooo tho tbf i'd actually react similarly if i found out i was demisexual instead of completely ace like i think i am, so i also identified with it in that sense, since i've know about that part of my identity much longer than being arospec lol

ah. this is very long but i have more i want to say... so im gonna keep talking lol. ren realizing he was cluster-b helped me realize & come to terms with my low empathy. i remember when first reading akechi suggest ren get himself checked for sociopathy i was a bit skeptical bc i worried it'd be just edgy stuff, but i'd been trusting your writing & decisions so i decided to be optimistic & i rlly liked how you handled it, and, again, it helped me come to terms with the parts of me that also wouldn't be seen favourably by some of these ppl who insist they're mental health advocates lol

also, i rlly like akesumi so when sumi realized he was munin i was giddy. her own smile about it made me happy too.... oh this makes me remember the scene of futaba finding out ren is her online friend too gods such good scenes!!!! and finding the palace keywords. which made me remember the bad ending chapter in maruki's reality which i only managed to read on my 3rd read of the fic & then was immediately invested into too.....

anyway, what i want to say is, thank you so much for writing atott. it is almost constantly running through the like, background of my thoughts, and the story has been very important & dear to me. i hope you know it is genuinely engraved within me at this point. i love it so much. ♡

GOSH what a beautiful thing to come back to ;3; thank you so so much for your kind words and for trusting me as well dsfkjhsdfjk as someone who is cluster b AND on the a-spec merrygoround, I'm glad my handling of the topics have been great for you ;3; thank you for telling me all that you love about the fic ;3; hoping to get an update soon for Goro's birthday <3

Again, any and all love for Ren's palace makes me giddy since it is by far the aspect of the fic that took the longest to plan ;3; and there's no such thing as "too long" comments or asks for me by the way please know this is very sweet to read, i hope you have a great day! and look forward to people having a hashtagbadtime next chapter sdkjfhjkf

[misc-obeyme]

random obey me lore idea

so like. we know mc's magic went wild and was causing weird shit to happen to the environment and making weird magic fluctuations throughout the realms. but what if it also had an effect on magical creatures (demons, sirens, fairies, vampires, etc). i like to think that the bursts of wild magic essentially caused mutations in them (either already grown ones that were near the sites when the incidents occurred or those born or 'turned' in the cases of vampires/werewolves/ what have you). they could be major mutations that drastically change appearances or les visible ones that effect traits. like making vampires so sensitive to sunlight that they cant even go out at night bc the reflection from the moon burns them or making them more resistant and letting them survive semi prolonged exposure to daylight. making creatures more powerful or significantly weaker. giving them abilities before unseen in the race that can then get passed on to offspring or those that the afflicted individual turns and as time goes on it becomes more common in the species. others looking down on the afflicted or outcasting them bc theyre "not a True [creature type]" and it greatly affects sociopolitical interactions amongst them all. the amount of work the sorcerers society would have to do to document everything lmao

in my mc's story they get turned into a vampire (i really like vampires and also tend to pick and choose the various vampire lores i like bc if i ever became allergic to garlic whats the point of trying anymore lmao) but when they turn a combination of their magic going haywire and the ring light causes the vampirism to mutate as it takes its hold

just some Thoughts <3

-🥐

Oh my little baker friend, I LOVE this idea!!

I too am a fan of vampires. I do the same thing when it comes to vampire lore whenever I write vampire stories. Just because I find most vampire lore to be ridiculous in a lot of ways. I think a vampire that can go out in daylight, appears in mirrors, has no aversion to garlic, isn't super pale, etc is far more terrifying because they can blend in with regular people to the point where they're indistinguishable. And I think that's just a more compelling premise all around personally! (And I have written quite a few vampire stories in my time... it's a concept that has never truly released me lol.)

But anyway, it's fascinating to think about how mythical creatures existing in the world would react to increased magical surges. I love the idea of this having some kind of lasting impact, too. Like it ripples through the generations of creatures because some of those things are passed on. It's cool because in the actual story, once that stuff was resolved, we never really heard about it again. So it's interesting to think that MC's magic going crazy actually impacted something long lasting.

Now I'm just imagining the Sorcerer's Society hating Solomon even more because it was his apprentice that caused all this extra work for them lol.

I also really like thinking about how an MC that already has some magical properties would react to such things. It would make sense for an MC being turned into a vampire to have drastic effects due to the strength of the magic created by the ring.

I have an AU where my MC is half fae, leannán sídhe specifically, and I didn't even consider how something like that might change them. Now my mind is going crazy with ideas about fae that have mutated due to the magic and end up more monstrous than beautiful or the other way around. The unaffected fae are like, okay get out you guys are messing things up lol.

There is so much space for interesting interpretations of things like this. Because there's definitely an implication of such mythical creatures and such existing, but we don't get a whole lot of context on them. So you can pretty much come up with whatever you want, which is truly fun. I mean I think they did mention vampires briefly and I like to think that since vampires aren't really humans they can kind of move between the human world and the Devildom. I wonder if the ones in the Devildom would react more strongly to MC's magic while MC is in the Devildom, too? Maybe there becomes a more obvious distinction between vampires that live in one world vs the other.

Though you also mentioned demons and if demons started to mutate too that'd be a whole problem for Diavolo I would think. You could really expand on that idea. Like maybe members of the House of Lords get mutated. Then you get to decide if that means they get kicked out or if the other House of Lords demons see them as beneficial to their overall cause. Of course I don't know how important the House of Lords is in OG season two since we didn't even hear about them until Nightbringer, but it's still interesting to think about!

Yeah I could speculate about this idea all day! I quite like this idea, 🥐 anon! Feel free to tell me more about your vampire MC (or anything else really) if you'd like! I love to hear about such things!

[allamericansbitch]

speaking of 1989... i really hate that swifties on twitter and some on tumblr are making so much of that era about taylor's eating disorder, saying that she was constantly miserable and talking about how it must be so awful for her to relive that era. in advance i'm sorry if this causes a flurry of anons in your inbox, i don't mean to start anything, i just want to share my experience and i'm not comfortable to do that on my own blog right now.

i have had an eating disorder for a few years now, but i've usually been able to keep it in check. this past year, though, i've been struggling much more than normal. i don't want to share too much but there were many times that i didn't eat anything for 48-72 hours either because of other mental health reasons or because i didn't think i deserved to, as is very common. however, this past year has also had some of the best moments of my life, largely because of the people i surrounded myself with. i made a large group of friends where i don't feel like i have to put on a fake persona to get along with them. i was able to get out of my comfort zone and go to social events and gatherings i previously would do almost anything to avoid. and in many ways, despite the struggle i had i would not want to take back this year because of how many happy moments i've had.

and i view taylor's 1989 era in a similar way. yes, she was struggling with an ED but she was also breaking records right and left with her album, moving to a brand new city, and making such a large impact on the general public as well as the music industry. she perhaps was not doing well in private on the eating front, but i am positive there were other bright moments in her personal life at this time too, that she may have not chosen to share with the public (and understandably so).

all this to say, it's very naive and harmful to reduce a person's life at any moment to the mental health struggles they are going through. as humans, we should give each other grace to be more than our lowest moments and this applies to people like you and me as well as taylor.

i really didn't mean for this to get so long, but thank you for reading and i hope you're doing well sarah 💙

YES YES YES! i've said this before and completely agree! im so sorry you're dealing with that and going through a particularly rough patch rn, sending you love and always remember to be patient with yourself.

fans have always had a very black and white view of taylor (bc they dont see her as a person, rather a character or solely a form of entertainment etc etc), so when she mentions one bad thing, they assume the entire era was miserable and a terrible experience, the whole time. not a moment of happiness or anything. which just lacks so much common sense because you can struggle in one aspect of your life but that doesnt affect all the other aspects of it. plus she has said she's struggled since she was a preteen, so she had her ED when she was in debut era, fearless era, speak now and red era, but they never said she was miserable and awful it was to relive those? so why only 1989? it just goes to show swifties always want to see her struggling in some capacity because it makes her an interesting story to them.

[aplpaca]

why is having your ocs be your special interest unfortunate? please tell us about them!! (curious, friendly tone)

It's unfortunate bc theres not content for them that exist without my own effort 😔(outside of a couple friends) so i cant reblog posts about them like i would for like critical role or something. ive got a variety of "main character" ocs and most of them started out as ttrpg characters that then got their own non-rpg "canon" in a story universe im making with some friends that may or may not end up turning into a series of books. (overarching "plot" of it is that the birth of a new deity ends up connecting people and politics of several planets in different universes)

so like my "main" characters for that are vyma, claysen, and yianni. vyma also has an equally canon ttrpg incarnation for a game thats still ongoing, but claysen and yianni started out as ttrpg characters but now their "canon" is just their storyverse incarnations. i put actual character descriptions under the cut

ima talk about vyma's storyverse incarnation for this, since theres Spoilers for her ttrpg canon that players who follow me dont know yet (but like, the core personality is the same between the two so yeah). but anyway, her full name in storyverse is Vyma Bapp-Matieyepa sip-Sabapak, which is kinda long bc cultural naming conventions include familial last name, chosen/official clan affiliation, and familal-but-not-official clan affiliation (if someone has that). She's one of the unofficial leaders of a revolutionary/resistance group (other leader is one of @cosmemery's characters Naki) that funnels political prisoners to freedom and tries to counteract the imperialism of the country that subjugated theirs and the harm from their own gov that tries to meet the imperialists in the middle. Vyma is pretty tall, pretty butch, and pretty ace. She's got lowkey disabling hyperempathy, but this gets paired with an autistic flat affect that makes her come across unintentionally blunt, monotone, and insensitive at times. she's kinda overcompensated for social issues by using her hyperempathy and just general problem solving to get really fucking good at reading people/figuring out how people are feeling. this unfortunately does not make her any more conversationally adept, and in some cases makes her kinda preachy instead. her flight response (like the trauma response, not just the general fight or flight) is through the fucking roof and she would and prob will grind herself into dust in an attempt to make what she considers a positive impact. she's chronically sleep deprived and refuses to talk about her feelings in a way thats not dodging the question. she likes to bake, but hasnt been able to in a while.

Claysen Hishari (birthname Jarren Claysen Vidravalsh) is like lowkey highkey kinda of A Lot in terms of stuff he's got going on. id like to think i do a decent job not being Edgy (TM) with him but like,,yeah. He's a formal noble who escaped his shitty dad after his mom died and ended up being blackmailed into becoming a spy/assassin. He also technically has emotion/identity-influenced magical power equivalent to at least a minor god, but hes repressing that and its only almost killed him once. His appearance is altered via illusion magic almost constantly. He's more visibly autistic and uses a trade sign language to talk fairly frequently. When he's not signing, he has a very specific speech pattern, and often pauses in the middle of sentences while he figures out how to make words work. At the start of the story, he basically hasn't had goals or ambitions or strong personal convictions for A While, and a lot of his growth is Growing A Fucking Spine and Learning To Act On Things. A lot of his other growth is self acceptance stuff (both autism and the whole emotionally volatile magic thing bc por que no los dos). He has a pretty fuckin codependant relationship with @cosmemery's character Kay, and even before they actually become romantic, theyre platonically flirty with each other to a kinda obnoxious degree. hes bi, super reserved but has a certain air of competence/force of presence to him despite that, and has a special interest in spiders and bugs in general

And apparently tumblr has a word limit for asks or somthing bc it wont let me add my last characters paragraph onto this so im gonna just reblog it with yianni's stuff in a sec

[tomwambsmilk]

Succtwitter has the most interesting takes about Shiv. She's apparently the victim in her marriage bc she's a woman and Tom uses his privilege as a man over her. Now I HATE to victim blame but two of the most abusive things Tom does to Shiv is reactionary to Shiv's treatment of Tom. Shiv treating Tom as irrelevant (to his face) made him feel like in order to be remembered and important while he was in prison was to have a kid with her, and then he betrayed her for constantly leaving him out of the loop and making him feel as though his position in her life was being called into question. Both things are AWFUL and indefensible but they're also a hell of shiv's own making

Yeah, this is part of why I tend to avoid using the word 'abuse' when discussing Tom and Shiv's marriage. Largely because the rhetoric around the concept of abuse - and specifically around the idea of abusers as ontologically evil - means there's no room for nuance as soon as the term enters the discussion. And I also don't think that's a helpful or necessary lens through which to analyze what's happening in their relationship.

That being said, I do think one of the primary tragedies of Shiv as a character is the way the destruction of her marriage is a self-fulfilling prophecy. She's so afraid of betrayal and hurt as a consequence of intimacy that she holds Tom at an emotional distance (something I absolutely think was part of her motivations in wanting an open marriage). She doesn't feel safe in emotional intimacy, and the commitment involved in getting married has deepened her unease. But holding Tom at that distance is what drives him to eventually betray her, something I believe he absolutely would not have done in season 1, or even season 2. He tries to play both sides, sure, but when he absolutely cannot, he sides with Shiv - up until season 3. That's why "my therapist was wrong, and I was right" hits so hard; it's not actually that her therapist was wrong, but that she's manifested her own fears into existence, and because she's not able to see how her own actions played into that she's doomed to keep perpetuating that cycle in other aspects of her life. When people downplay that aspect and remove Shiv's agency in the relationship, I think they neuter her character a little, and they undercut some of the tragedy of the story. Part of the reason she's compelling is that, even though she absolutely is mistreated by the people around her, she isn't simply a victim all the time.

I also think Tom's season 3 desire (and pressure) for a kid is a lot more complicated than just Shiv's treatment of him. There's a lot to unpack there, and so many posts I see oversimplify some aspect of it, which is too bad bc I think, as a plot point, it's a pretty brilliant convergence of several different aspects of Tom's character, his ideals, the outside influences on him, and his relationship with Shiv, and as such is pretty revealing on a lot of levels. But that's for a whole separate post, I think!

Anyways. It's frustrating because there are ways in which Tom's misogyny (which I think is largely unconscious, and rooted in the general misogyny of the Waystar culture - but it's still misogyny) negatively impacts Shiv, and you can have that conversation while still acknowledging the rather significant role Shiv herself has played in the destruction of her marriage, and the (again, significant!) ways she's mistreated Tom. These are not two mutually exclusive concepts!! Their relationship is messy and nuanced!!

[fixfoxnox]

my friend, i am begging you for legitimate advice: how tf does one make plot????

most of All of my writing is just thinking everything up on the spot with no plan bc whenever i do try to think things through beforehand i always overthink the tiny irrelevant shit and end up stressing myself out and dropping the whole idea for months like it personally wronged me

i have this au i wanna do and i have like all of the world-building done, i know all of the general stuff and managed to actually keep the basics pretty basic, but i have No Idea where to start with actually organizing a digestible presentation of this world

(i’m like a tolkien sorta writer where i can invent these vast, complex, in-depth worlds unlike anything else, but when it comes to picking One Guy or group/s to hover over like a nature documentary as they just go around doing things and then i also need to make this little whatever interesting and entertaining at the same time??? i’m useless T^T)

Hi, okay I'm going to give advice to the best of my ability, but please know that I am by no means an expert, and what I say might not work for you! Every writer is different and your process will reflect that!

So the biggest thing that I think a lot of people forget when coming up with a plot is that plot isn't just one thing right, there are pieces to a plot that work together to create a cohesive story.

The five elements of plot are: Exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and conclusion. I think that part that you are likely getting caught up on, that a lot of people get caught up on, is rising action.

It seems like you already have a lot of exposition through your world-building, and you can work that stuff in throughout your story, not just at the beginning. So let's just focus on Rising Action.

It seems to me like the issue that most people have with getting their story started is that they don't really know what their conflict is going to be within the story. So let me ask you a couple of questions that could potentially help. I'll try to give examples as well so you can see fully what I mean.

Where do you want this story to go? What is the ending conclusion that you're aiming for? This doesn't have to be something fully concrete yet, it could be something as simple as two characters getting together, one character becoming king, one character dying, etc.

So for SiTO: Where do I want this story to go? Well, my end goal is to have Soap/Ghost/Roach together in a relationship. I also want Roach to fully accept his place in his new life and be happy.

What type of conflict exists in this world? What is stopping your end goal from happening? This will help you determine conflict as well as some things that are going to happen within the story.

So for SiTO: What is stopping Roach/Soap/Ghost from getting together and Roach being happy? Well, currently it's Makarov, but on a deeper level, it's Roach himself and his first life.

Then from here, we ask some of the bigger questions, or as my playwrighting professor called it: The Seder Question.

What makes today different from every other day?

Why today? What starts our story? If let's say, your characters are constantly going on little adventures, what makes the adventure that you're telling us about different? Why does this adventure become something different?

Essentially this question asks you, what starts your story in motion.

So for SiTO: What makes today different from every other day? Roach dies and is reborn. That's what's different.

Ask yourself how this initial story beginning action or change impacts your characters. How does this initial beginning action eventually lead us to our end goal for the story?

If you're struggling with which character to focus on or which group to focus on, you may want to consider going through your world and determining which characters have the most connection to some of the conflicts going on in your world. So, for instance, let's say in world building you decided that one of your kingdoms was going to war and that is a major thing going on in this world. Which of your characters has the most connection to that war.

Generally speaking, it might be easier for you to determine which characters you want to use after you've determines what the main conflict of your world is. If you have multiple conflicts at once, you should try to connect them to one another in some way and, if you can't, you might want to consider either scrapping or putting whichever conflict on the back burner for the time being (So maybe you really like a conflict, but it doesn't fit in, so we save it for later when the other conflict is either taken care of or not such a big deal anymore.)

I also find that typically, when I'm writing, I may have one character who sticks out to me as the easiest to write from. If you're having trouble deciding between different characters, you might choose a short little writing prompt for yourself and write something short for it with each of those characters. This will give you an idea of which of the characters you actually seem to want to focus on as writing for them will likely be a bit easier.

I would also like to say, I find it much easier to fully put together a plot and little mixes when I have the end goal and, most of the time, a climax for the story in mind. From there I can more easily build up to those goals.

As I said, I am not an expert and this may be more kinda rambling than usable advice, but I do hope I was able to help at least a little bit!

[zirconynx]

Final Destination Game in the style of Until Dawn/The Dark Pictures idea

Recently been fixated on Final Destination and I had the random thought of how interesting it'd be to see a Final Destination game in the style of Until Dawn/The Dark Pictures Anthology or even like Telltale's The Walking Dead and how those game styles actually go really well with the general premise of FD.

Think about it, if a Final Destination game took a Telltale TWD approach it could work well game-structure-wise since usually characters that can die in one episode in the game or later in another episode usually end up doing nothing for the narrative following their first possible death. In an FD game then they could tie it back to the whole cheating death theme. At the very least writing off the fact that they don't do much in the story after that point is a little bit more excusable because of the narrative and how death works compared to TWD where it was just blatantly obvious that the writers didn't intend for that character to do anything or affect the story beyond that death point (lookin' at you Nick from TWD S2)

I think there's so much potential for an FD game in the style of Until Dawn/The Quarry/Dark Pictures Anthology since the choices the players make would have more of an impact on what happens in the narrative and how they affect how a character ends up dying or at what time (taking into account the different Death's Designs). I haven't really thought this through entirely yet but I'd imagine that the players could influence how late or early a character dies or, depending on how much they explore or notice details in the environment, can have the option to save a person at the last second which would have a drastic affect the story (an example being that if you save someone who was next on the list bc you were quick enough then the game/story would follow the rule of skipping the saved person and moving onto whoever is next on the list). Obviously this would get complicated to write AND program depending on what type of Death's Design is used for the story. Personally I'd like to see a FD game that sorta combines the Death's Designs from all 5 movies (yes i am basically cherry picking which aspects of the Designs i personally like but hear me out, also, very long post about Death Designs down below)

In terms of whether all the main characters end up dying or not, I'm gonna use the theatrical canons since for this post and FD 3 specifically, I assume Kimberly and Burke to be alive since there's nothing to state the contrary AND since the official ending is ambiguous, it;s up to interpretatiob whether Wendy survives or not since the Alternate ending and Choose Your Fate stuff where the newspaper of Kimberly and Burke falling into a woodchipper and Wendy for sure dying aren't canon to me.

For order of deaths, I'd make it simple like FD 1 where it's just that the characters die in the order they would've in the premonition but can be skipped if saved by another on the list BUT i would also include the rule from FD 2 where "giving new life" i.e. giving birth or dying at the correct time and then being revived after officially being considered dead by the design as a way to stop the cycle, tho i wouldn't include the reverse order thing from FD 2 since it was a direct consequence of FD 1, but the game would follow one cast of characters so this wouldn't apply. Personally I'm not a huge fan of the rule where someone gets added to the list because they were saved by someone that IS on the list as I feel that gets complicated and for major disasters with lots of people that can get saved by the visionaries (FD 4) would create an inconsistency at best or major plot hole at worst depending on how much focus would be given to which aspects of death's design.

As much as I like FD 3, I don't think it substantially added anything good in the way of how death works (the pictures having clues of how people would die but also included the later deaths after a premonition that was not planned by Death didn't make sense to me so). The only aspect of Death's Design from FD 3 that I would personally include would be how it'd be possible to still cause the main characters' deaths if they didn't pay enough attention (or didn't get the "give new life" path) even at the end of the game (this is the only aspect of the Choose Your Fate stuff that I would incorporate since my hc is that if you notice the things like the hole in the train map or connection to some previously established main characters that died, then you end up surviving the subway crash but if not you don't). For the subway scenario, in the case the player does notice the signs and the odd grouping back together of the main cast then you can have the option to step off early and avoid death again (and have their spots filled as I will discuss later with FD 5) or can still get on, have the premonition but still die. If they ignore or didn't see the signs then they can get the premonition but survive. Doesn't make a whole lot more sense but I'm sure it could be worked on so that these possible endings could be included.

I haven't watched FD 4 but from what I've seen on Youtube and briefly read on the fandom wiki page, the only new thing I can deduce is that Nick had two (?) major premonitions, one of the Raceway and one of the Mall. Since premonitions are never really explained I'm kinda neutral on whether the characters should get more than one premonition (since Wendy got 2 but whether she survived the second is up in the air). Since FD 4 is the odd one out of the entire series i'd be more inclined to say just have the characters have 1 premonition rather than being able to have multiple since a lot of that movie is supposedly complete nonsense.

Personally I don't mind FD 5 but only because of the twist ending. I actually don't like the rule of "taking someone's remaining time adds it to your own" since i feel it would make the writing even more complicated than it already would be by having to mash all these different death's design elements together. Since i find the added time to be pretty confusing, I'd rather simplify it to just that a person who manages to cheat death will have their spot filled in with a random person for the original disaster (so the total death count of the accident is the same but not the people involved). To tie it all back together i'd make it so those who cheat death throughout the game can have these possible endings (and endings to the game):

1. another event claims them in the end (Alex & brick / Clear & hospital explosion/ Wendy & possibly subway / Nick & truck at cafe)

2. they get skipped over by being saved (Carter at the end of FD 1)

3. they get to live by having died and been revived (FD 2, depends on if you really want to include a giving birth plot line or not or if you include the rule of absolutely nobody surviving no matter what)

4. the visionaries live long enough to become one of the random people (or not random, could be death's plan and all that) that fill the spot of another visionary (hc that Sam takes the place of Alex even though this is probably not canon and he's just meant to be part of the kill count anyways. Alternatively, others took the Flight 180 survivors' places even tho we saw no one else get on by the time they get kicked off the plane i think)

Now with the main way i would personally tackle Death's Design if it were merged for this game, I think it'd make for a very interesting game experience with all these rules and choices like choosing to save someone which in turn skips them or the multiple ways the game could end based on what you do or don't find or what you can figure out in time.

This post kinda devolved into just a "what if i mashed all the Death Designs together into one" but I still think it'd be interesting if they did do this for a Final Destination game in the style of The Dark Pictures Anthology since those games I'd say are the best at having branching paths based on which characters are alive or not at certain points in the story and have quite a variety of endings (usually 1 - 4 or 5 but different enough that i'd say it'd work for an FD game)

[yioh]

I'm south asian and it infuriates me that I actually like the sumeru characters 😭 I feel like I'm betraying my own identity and it genuinely pains me to think abt their designs for too long

Tighnari is the worst for me bc he became my favorite character in the whole game personality-of and I've grown to love his design because of it but???? I just feel so guilty for it bc I know it's just not. Correct???? And on top of that the english voice actors being told to pronounce the characters names wrong deliberately to make it easier is just so gross ughhhh. And I feel like I'm a bad person for continuing to play the game and indirectly supporting hyv's colorism as a result but I'm so attached to this game and these characters and im :'(((

omg bro don’t worry at all askdbdjdb ur absolutely allowed to enjoy the game, that’s exactly why we play it in the first place right🥺 like sure genshin gets a lot of stuff wrong but there’s also a lot that it does beautifully e.g. the entire world building in sumeru and the environment design is one of my favourites in the whole game !! for me, i just have lower tolerance and can’t stand hyv’s colourism as well as orientalism

but like… as long as you can acknowledge that the issues exists and don’t pretend like sumeru is just some cutesy exotic place (as i’ve seen a lot of people do 😭) it’s really honestly fine imo

like i agree that tighnari has a very interesting personality, also i’ve seen a lot of people complain abt his design but honestly i think the amazigh inspiration is one of the most obvious in the game and think it’s so wonderful that amazigh people get to be represented through such a cool character🥺 not to mention how much i myself learned abt all these cultures that are usually never talked about in other media, it’s really really cool !!! i also think his design in general is actually very pretty lol i really adore the mesh of colours and how it’s an obvious reference to amazigh clothing,

there’s really no correct and incorrect way to think about it because everything is so meshed together and weirdly structured, we can definitely agree that the colourism and orientalism is very much an issue (as seen with dori and nahida mostly), treating many brown cultures as interchangeable is also really annoying in general because of how much it already has been done in mainstream western media and the effect it already has is amplified, (abt the english translation i don’t even play in english because 💀 i never liked how they translated stuff in general to english tbh even before sumeru)

but at the same time, hyv brought light to so so many under represented cultures and stories, even the music !!! them using actual instruments we hear in our own music like the sitar is so amazing !!!!

don’t feel bad at all for enjoying the game, i always play it to destress and will continue in the future, it’s not like the company will ever listen to complaints or critisisms by boycotting the game anyways so there’s rly no point and u might as well enjoy what u like yknow😭 i only rly have a bone to pick when people are able to just . mindlessly enjoy the game as if it doesn’t have valid issues (which clearly does not apply to you hdfjbdkdf)

i talk too much but also i just wanna mention that… as a southasian the colourism bothers me the most but i feel like a lot of my disappointment in sumeru mostly comes from an aesthetics pov😭 i think in general i just had a different vision for the type of characters we’d be seeing, seeing cultural references in clothing has always w spiked specific joy in me because the history behind all the clothing just makes everything feel much more real and impactful ??? whereas other then tighnari, nilou, kind of layla, candace and maybe cyno (i haven’t read much on his design) everything just looks as if it’s been inspired by some generic anime rpg isekai fantasy game🥲 like kaveh, nahida, dori etc etc ,,, so rather then sumeru being ‘wrong’ moreso what hurts me is the potential is what it could’ve been ?? i think that’s why it bothers me when everyone gets so excited abt kaveh’s design or whatever when i’m just here like wow… another blonde white boy with a feather in his hair 😭😭😭😭 they can use sanskrit language and panipuri as food but not have the southasian inspired archon with hindu motifs wear cultural clothing or have even slightly darker skin as a lot of southasian people do 🤨 ok this is just me venting again LOL but basically . don’t stress at all it’s really really fine to like the characters you do (i can’t support positive opinions abt nahida and dori tho MDBSKXND i may be petty) but u Defo don’t have to feel guilty abt enjoying the game 🥺 most of sumeru characters aren’t even southasian so you’re not betraying ur identity at all !! merely enjoying new cultures :’) just make sure to remain critical and be observant of how the people of those cultures being shown feel abt these things and don’t let your opinions be dictated by whether it’s ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ often times in these situations it’s never that clear cut 😭

[heliianth]

here’s another ask for you: talk abt whatever you want!!!

WAUGH thank u for a new one!!!!! ilysm!!!!!

rambling abt sonic and character foils and the IDW comics below the cut this is aimless enough for me to want it be an opt-in experience LOL

i was gonna talk abt this last night but it was 11 AnyWay. i saw a criticism of the IDW comics on reddit a long time ago and its got me thinking recently. someone said they didn't quite enjoy the way the comic was tackling sonic as a character not because of the inconsistencies in his pre-established beliefs (which are present) per se but because IDW keeps challenging them in ways that don't feel, from what i remember the comment saying, "good-spirited"? i hadnt heard that critique before so it was unique enough to catch my interest but not actually think much until now. but theres a reason for that hold on ok

so. to preface this whole thing. some of the most beloved stories in the series are ones that Do challenge sonic's beliefs. thats the reason why, when the series wants to tackle more mature content, they make foil characters. sa2 which reddit largely considers as having the best story has foil characters everywhere but specifically it spends a lot of energy on it's themes of identity and growth by making sonic and shadow clash not just physically but ideologically. that talk they have after final rush/chase basically spells it out and its framed as shadow hearing sonic out and then dismissing him ("what are you/i'm me/i see, well, i'm gonna beat your ass" <- basically). and then later on sonic's viewpoint is reinforced when shadow (airquotes) dies, but not before sonic himself is visibly impacted in the credits sequence. that whole story right there was, at least thematically, one about sonic having his beliefs challenged. SatBK does this as well, a game which is applauded within the general community as having the most accurate sonic characterization. stories that do adjacent things, like the OVA, s3&k, sa1, where character foils are a prominent part of the theming (though maybe not presented in a way where sonic himself necessarily feels ideologically Challenged), are often very popular as well

the time i saw the criticism was about when the surge saga was coming to an end, but i was new at that point so i really dismissed the whole discussion. sonics allowed to be challenged, thats what happens when you have a static character as a protagonist. but now that ive reread IDW a few times and have identified some of my own issues with the run so far i've been thinking about that reddit comment more often. why is the way IDW challenges sonic so different from the way stories like SatBK or sa2 challenge him? why is one intriguing and the other not "good-spirited?" nowadays i think the issue is less with tone or intent like the wording of the original comment implies, but the conclusion of those stories. all of those previous examples i gave culimate in sonic succeeding, yes bc hes the title character, but moreso bc hes the vehicle through which the themes of the series are delivered. SatBK wasn't going to have merlina win because the story was trying to tell the audience that life is only worth living when its finite. sa2 killed off shadow because it was about how being unable to move on eats someone from the inside out. these are broad overarching themes that are present in the whole series and its generally agreed that sonic at his best is representative of those themes, which is why hes static

but IDW kind of has a messy history with conclusions. or, at least, conclusions that feel like they are trying to Say something in the way i've been talking about. after everything is done and the threat of the week is defeated, it all kind of returns back to a status quo, which im very sure is not the fault of the writers. long-running series are supposed to have a status quo that keeps stuff the same so that new audiences wont be alienated by huge character histories and lore timelines and things to catch up on (The Most Intimidating thing abt like archie for example). its partially why u see almost no fleshed out arcs that span multiple games after 06 (man the word partially is doing some legwork there but if i talked abt why sonic games changed so drastically after the mid 2000's i would be here all fucking day). and there are conversations to be held about that status quo and its place in the games and whether its beneficial or not but imo when talking about IDW, a comic which is supposed to have continuity, it kind of obliterates the potential of having meaningful conclusions and the themes that come along with them. because IDW always approaches "sonic feels ideoloically challenged" and it never goes beyond it. it nudges and hints at criticism of IDW sonic's beliefs, actions, and philosophy, but it doesn't do anything with it. the status quo says sonic can't change that much, which is good when the conclusion of stories have themes that prove he's already got it figured out, and bad when there's a big gaping question mark where a lesson should be. the surge saga i think is the glaring example of this precisely because its so conclusionless (theres also how sonic himself engages with her but thats a convo for another day).

so when that redditor said they thought the surge saga lacked a "good-spiritedness" that stories with a similar concept like SatBK or sa2 had i think they were picking up the vibes of the story being kind of... pointless at least in terms of themes and actual impact on the characters, rather than a lack of earnestness, a tone blunder, or strange intent on the part of the writers

im really curious how the urban warfare saga is resolved now precisely bc this lack of meaningful conclusion problem is so prevalent . depending on how passionate i am i may make a more formal analysis post abt it or something, but probably not considering i read IDW very very casually . which feels like a contradiction after writing all this but . yanno

[striveattemptfail]

so i took this screencap after i read the latest ep and—

hn. (=_=)

idt i'll liveblog this week but i'll put my Thoughts under the cut

(tl;dr jason's Moobs and artemis' arms are the only thing getting me through this webtoon and unfortunately i am near hitting the point where that can no longer sustain me 😔😔)

(also pls heed the tags on this post bc there is a lot of Wank And Bitching. if you don't wanna read the meandering negativity, pls move along ᕕ(ಠ_ಠ)ᕗ)

okay so Thoughts™️:

i said i'd stick around to make sure lobo was done well but considering he folded and fucked off in <5 panels i can't even judge that

and idr if i mentioned it on my blog but i told some friends i'd stick around for the first season of rho and likely drop it after that

but idek if i can keep to that anymore

i've read a lot of really crappy comics, superhero issues and webcomics alike. i've had my fair share of whiplash pacing and wildly ooc canon

i'm not saying i'm an expert at judging comics, but i'll give myself enough credit to say at the very least that this webtoon is Just Not Good

while i'm personally not bothered by changing the art style—

(actually, it's one of the few things i appreciate in traditional publishing for superhero comics, so introducing it to the webcomic medium has been really interesting to me)

(but that's a whole other post lol)

—they're not using the change to its full potential, or even for its intended purpose

i get that the webtoon weekly schedule is brutal and borderline inhumane for a lot of asian artists, so it's probably hell on earth for western artists having to switch to that kind of scheduling

nico offloading all the inking to another artist so he can get a break makes sense

but if that's the case, the art should be more polished—and it just isn't

it's still abundantly clear to me that corners were cut to get eps out on time with the same kind of length

i'm not an illustrator, and my eye for perspective is already pretty awful with my glasses on, but i think it still says something that my half-blind ass can still see errors

if the art has to change to give the regular artist a break, why isn't any of the art (both from the original artist and the fill-in artist) not up to par?

and this isn't even considering that the art just changes in the middle of an arc, which makes everything hella confusing for a reader who can seamlessly read episode after episode due to the nature of the webtoons platform and the webcomic medium in general

at least if there's an art switch in most traditional comics, it's introducing a new arc or volume to that series, and it's physically broken up into multiple comic books/issues

the changes in rho thus far have just been ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ at best, and (to me) without any thought about how the style could affect the overall story

to be clear: wayne family adventures also does this. but at least toby succeeds in emulating starbite's art style enough not to break immersion. and because it's been toby every time, the changes in art style is usually only noticeable when scrutinized

unlike with rho thus far, who's had different artists with similar but still distinctly different styles

so the abrupt art change is not only impacting the immersion of a reader but the effectiveness of the storytelling

and i don't even wanna get into patrick young's abysmal writing thus far. i know better than to yell on the internet about comic writers after namedropping them lol

i love jason. i genuinely like his rebirth outlaws team. for all the flack i give lobdell for rhato (2011) and in general, he did some actually decent things for all three outlaws during their 2016 run onwards

(some things. i'm still not forgiving him for rhato (2016) #25, or the fact that willis todd was apparently gd wingman, or for a lot of other things, but that is a discussion for yet another post lol)

i honestly cannot say the same for patrick young's writing

aside from the (fucked up) storyline happening to bizarro, i stand by my point that the highlight of every arc thus far has been the villains

which would be a compliment if it weren't for the fact that the series is supposed to be about the titular (anti) heroes of the story, or if the heroes were just written half as well

and yet?? i've been disappointed by every development for jason, and the mostly lack thereof for artemis, much less the downright disrespectful treatment for all the other characters introduced thus far

bizz really is the best boy, not only for his kind nature but for being the only decently written character out of the three

i get that superhero comics allows for different characterizations and the webtoon is continuing that tradition

doesn't mean i like what's happened to most of the characters

it's just........it's been really disappointing reading this webtoon

and i honestly feel bad for those who've spent hard earned coins unlocking any of this webtoon's fastpass eps

verdict: am i gonna drop this sooner than i thought? likely so

unfortunately for me i am a stubborn masochist of a stan so i'll be testing how long i can hold on just out of love for these characters 🥴🥴🥴

[khamomile-kitty]

Ok there wasn’t a reason to actually tag me in this. Idk if you’re new to tumblr or if this is just how you tend to do things but generally unless you’re responding to somebody you don’t need to @. Plus I’m p done w this whole thread lol, the aardvark person got boring very quickly amd most of the rest is just ppl arguing abt character death. Regardless I’m gonna respond bc you @ me amd writing is a hot button interest for me lol but pls don’t do it again.

Anyway, ANYTHING in writing can be done bad. This isn’t special quit bringing that up like it brings nuance to this, it doesn’t. Secondly, character death due to worldbuilding. That’s what that is btw, killing characters bc the world is supposed to be dark and gritty is a part of worldbuilding, it’s there to show you what people in that story deal with, what loss they are going through at every turn, it’s not SUPPOSED to feel gratifying or anything even nuetral. It’s SUPPOSED to feel bad. Often times, it’s done “out of nowhere” for the exact POINT that it came out of nowhere: bc death on that dark gritty world can come around any corner, if characters said that all the time but we never saw it except for one-off characters or non-named characters, it would feel hollow. I promise you, the amount of times that s fully established story, not a fanfiction, kills a character off for no reason is 1%. And half of those are marvel movies that the actor wanted out of their contract. (JOKE! Don’t pick up your tomatoes)

Amd bc either you edited your comment or my memory is just getting worse, I’ll address the other bits of that argument you made. One, yes, it is potentially bad writing if the story has this character that’s built up to be a big role means absolutely nothing other than the BIG role of taking a bullet (or some other death) for the protag. Amd if we’re veering away from that example, having a death that’s focused on period makes them something of an integral role, bc HOPEFULLY, the author has built this narrative to the point that taking out this character death changes the story, or at least changes the tone. IF, however, it is not amd they are not, amd the story treats this character like a minor footnote in the story and never calls back to them again, that’s bad writing. But, as you note later on, that is a problem with the writer. It is not a problem with the trope.

Amd perhaps this character does to something the protag could survive or has survived bc of the simple fact that THEY ARE NOT THE PROTAG. Perhaps to showcase the helplessness and frustration of this death, that it was preventable, that it was stupid, that the protag could have taken the hit. That contributes to the tone of the death and story overall. Generally, try to think of WHY the story might have called for this, and HOW the author wants you to feel from it. There can be nuances to even situations like these.

If you have to ask, “Why did the author do this?” THINK about WHY the author did this. Maybe wait and see if that question is answered, because sometimes, the arc is not done. You just have to read the whole thing, or at least the relevant arc before coming to a final conclusion that the author didn’t think it through. Even on longform content farm shows, there’s SOME level of thought out into the decisions made. Sometimes they aren’t liked! That’s fine! But it’s not necessarily ALWAYS bad writing.

Third, when an author suddenly pays special attention to a side character only to kill them off, that’s SUPPOSED to be frustrating. They were doing that on purpose. Those are the emotions the protagonist feels, they just got to know this person and now they’re dead. The author has you get to know them first bc killing them off (especially in an emotional way like taking a bullet for the protag) is supposed to be impactful. Killing a character the reader barely knows does nothing but make the reader feel bad for the protag. Which is fine, that’s there no matter what usually, but the author wants you not just to feel bad, but to FEEL THEM. Feel what they are feeling, viscerally. If the character wasn’t built up beforehand and that’s the part you’re upset about, a lot of times the author has to pick what takes precedence in the story. Scenes and dialogue and characters have to move the plot along, even when they are just hanging out. Maybe the cast was large, and they had to pick on characters that would make more sense narratively than that one. Maybe it’s near the beginning of the story, and the character dies so soon in that they HAD to do it that way. Maybe they were just using a Very Common trope and hoping it would bring a looming sense of dread. (most readers start getting suspicious when a character suddenly gets a lot of attention or special scenes, and rightly so, bc it is a common narrative trope at this point, and most of the time it is used, it’s expected that the audience will see it coming somewhat, but hope that it won’t, until it does. There’s a book that plays with this concept, literally called They Both Die in the End. I know nothing abt it other than they both die at the end, but I’ve been told it plays w the readers emotions exactly like this. Amd it works. That’s why it’s used.)

In short, you can not like a characters death, you can be angry and frustrated or even not want to consume that media anymore. It doesn’t mean that it’s not a well established amd thought through process.

Also I wasnt using an ad hominem, that implies I was making any sort of argument at all, at the arguer or the argument, amd not just making a joke. (It also implies that was not a joke or not funny, which I and several others can disagree w you on but that’s an opinion. Regardless it was meant as a joke which means it is not an ad hominem, which is specifically attacking the arguer instead of the argument to cast doubt on them.) This was an Appeal to Humor.

im starting to think you guys dont like it when stories make you feel things

[indirectcomedian]

hey its crow from ao3 I wanted to ask if you'd watched the most recent MoTM Christmas episode? (there is a gluttony cameo)

i also want to ask your thoughts on greed and other rosemary shards we haven't seen in your fics because I'm curious

may these questions find you doing well!

hi crow!!!!! i am very happy to answer your questions :) im gonna try my best to break up my word vomit here

- i have seen the christmas cameo!!! gluttony stealing the stupid christmas sweater off some poor guy she took the soul of is fucking hilarious

thoughts on the shards i havent written about!

-greed

i will admit that i am not as familiar with the story of greed shard as i am the others, purely because a lot of the content is behind rise paywall (ik the whole anthology is like $12 but i hate spending money on shit bc im in college and broke). i think her decision to be more of a manager and tactician rather than “in the fray” is interesting, and i wonder if it is because she saw the downfall of the pervious shards and thought better than being all buddy buddy with others (though obviously out of kayfabe this is bc of her injury). i will say tho her relationships with paradise lost (how she acts with them) are a lot closer than the word “general” or “tactician” implies, so it could just be that she perceives herself as more emotionally distanced than she actually is. i think its in rosemarys nature to get a little freaky with all her alliances, must be a demon thing.

-wrath

i simply love her. her feud with cherry bomb has to be one of my favorite wrestling storylines of all time! i think its really clever how they still kept the story going even when cherry was injured and unable to participate in actually wrestling, something that professional wrestling companies today struggle with. of course love her absolute ferality and how she will throw down with no regard to her wellbeing is so entertaining to watch. in writing her i want to explore more of the “symbiotic” side of her sharing the body of courtney rush and what exactly working together with a demon soul shard looks like. in the little period of time that it was just courtney rush in impact she says that the demon is like a protector to her and she misses her and i think that is so oddly sweet. also imagine the interpersonal conflicts you could have with someone you share a body with.

-lust/decay avatar

same with greed, im sure i havent seen EVERYTHING there is to see with this era of rosemary, simply because i wasnt into wrestling at the time and i cant find everything through backtracking online. i feel like she is the most cartoonishly “villainous” of all of the shards, as one would have to be to be in a storyline with the hardys, i guess. love the sexuality played for evil and how she managed to escape the manic pixie dream girl allegations by being actually insane. she kind of bridges the gap between wrath shard and envy shard by being feral also a planner and tactician. she may have the most tics and odd behaviors of the shards (particularly with hearing voices, in an early out out of character interview she said that lust is “schizophrenic”) and i think that would make her very challenging but very interesting to write.

-pride

i would say the most human appearing of the shards? shes interesting because she does participate in human stuff like occasional drinking for fun and teamwork, but also is the very opposite of a yesman in every friendship dynamic she has (taking on the full burden of curbing the enthusiasm of both taya and jessicka). not to say she doesnt have fun! lots of demony things are played for laughs instead of horror with pride. she is a bit more willing than envy to accept help in manners regarding the undead realm (though shes definitely not thrilled with taya helping her in the undead realm). i actually contextualize pride a lot as rosemary trying to avoid another situation like envys.

thank you for the ask!!! i love talking about rosemary in all eras :)

[a-bonafide-genshin-fan]

fide's fontaine experiences + opinions!

right so fontaine recently released and i figured i'd make a little compilation of all the stuff i've done!

This is a very long post, so i'll be adding a keep reading just so this isn't a massive block of text!

firstly, the actual region itself (not story related so no spoilers)

i immediately got hydro before i even started the quest bc i'm a little adventurer who doesn't do what the game tells me

i'm very excited and impressed with the region thus far, all of the areas look super pretty and i adore the underwater sections, though the combat did take me some time to get used to

i very much enjoy the fact that most of the underwater enemies require you to attack them first, really makes it fun to traverse underwater without being chased by some random hillichurl every five seconds

additionally, once again, the enemy desgin of this game is top tier, like i cannot stress this enough, genshin design is wonderful

from the land enemies, my favourite by far are the doggos, i love them so much. i was in vc with a few friends when i was exploring and we all starting gushing about the dogs. they are so cute

as someone who adores transformers, seeing such lovingly designed robots in my second favourite piece of media was such a treat, bit of a shame that i have to fight them though

i also love the environmental worldbuilding. the fact that the court of fontaine has several buildings and structures crumbling into the water really sells the idea that the water levels are rising and it is actively having an impact of the structural integrity of the city and its surrounding regions

i very much like the fact that the two robots bosses (i forgor their names), require you to ask an npc to fight them. and the fact that their fight is a dance just makes me so, apoirjapoghdpsfaog, like i love bosses like that, that have a story behind their fights, that aren't just throwing punches but fighting with such elegance. add that their robots and mwha! chefs kiss

i also find it interesting that part of the region has a massive dragon skeleton, similar to inazuma, i'm very excited to find out what happened to it

right so onto the actually story itself, i will be spoiling some majour parts of fontaine's main story quest so readers beware!

first furina. i'm iffy on her. on the one hand, the idea of an archon who is less of a god and more of a mascot for their respective ideal (in this case justice) is very interesting to me. on the other hand, god is she a little bitch. but that doesn't mean i hate her! i think her annoying personality and general lack of ability to read a room work towards establishing her as the face of fontaine, a country that defines itself by showy clothing and the performance of both the opera and the trial. i think it's very neat that hoyoverse is willing to make a character like this, particularly a female one considering many of the women in this game, as much as a i love them, have very similar personalities in terms of how they interact with both the traveller and other npcs in the game.

also i think that compared the other archons, furina seems... i don't know a bit absent. she's very showy and her people, while adoring her performances don't really hold that much respect for her. she's a performer, fitting in perfectly with the themes of her land and i find that fascinating but at the same time it makes me wish that there was more interactions between characters (and regions as a whole) between each other. none of the game's areas feel like they exist as an interconnected world. like, is fontaine's rising water levels affecting liyue and sumeru. i know that the sea is technically an inland lake so the surrounding cliffs would likely protect those regions but still, that would affect trade and business and a bunch of other stuff. just a thought

like i said earlier, i was in vc with a few friends while playing through the story quest and we were all so confused through the first act of the game. i definitely think that it's one of genshin's weaker opening story quests. i found it rather odd that we, the traveller, were selected to be lyney's lawyer. like??? the traveller does not have any qualifications to be doing this. just because they have saved several nations (mostly via combat) does not mean they have any qualifications to be defending someone in 1. a court of law, and 2. a court of law in a country we just arrived in. that was weird

i do not have much of an emotional attachment to lyney and lynette. i think they are very interesting characters but i do not care about them in the same way that i do, someone like, yanfei or venti, characters. i do find their story rather interesting though, being raised in the house of the hearth and thus being part of the fatui. i also think that the traveller has every right to be upset with them over that reveal though, especially since they are defending lyney in a court of law. that is key information that should have been provided at the beginning.

regarding childe though. i find it strange that people are saying that the traveller was being too harsh with lyney and lynette while being to peaceful with childe. from what i can recall, the traveller has somewhat reconciled with childe and has known him for quite some time in comparison to the twins, whom they met only a few days prior. personally childe is one of those characters that i think is overhyped by the fandom (like hutao) but i enjoy him quite a bit. he's a headstrong individual with a strong personality and a very loose set of morals. so i'm interested to see where his story will go in the following updates since he got put in jail lmao

also the fontainian legal system is a clown show. no not a clown show, it's an entire circus. it's so silly. the fact that so many people were clapping or shouting during the trials of lyney and marcel made my blood boil. like these are murder trials, show some goddamn respect for the victims you pricks, people have died. the blatant lack of respect from furina for both the victims and the accused, along with the fact that lyney had literally no reason to commit those murders, is one of the reasons why i tend towards disliking her more.

neuvillette. god neuvillette where do i start with you my dear. firstly, one of my friend's wants his coat so bad, she threatened to seduce him and then steal it from him so that was a joy to listen to whenever he showed up on screen. i also like his personality. he's so autistic, you can rip that headcanon out of my cold dead hands before i give it up. i actually really enjoy him, he serves as a nice character foil for furina, providing a calm to her otherwise bratty personality. very good narrative foil! i also like him just by himself. his lack of understanding towards humans and their emotions is something that i, an autistic with a trouble towards understanding their own emotions relates to heavily. also he just looks visually neat. even though he and furina are both very blue, he has a lot less stuff going on in his design. furina is very loud, lots of accessories and so much noise, but neuvillette is very quiet and sleek.

i didn't really find navia to be all that interesting to be honest. i like her story and that's nice and all but she feels forced. i do not enjoy the fact that she simply barged into the traveller's case. i would have enjoyed her simply offering to help and then have the traveller turn her down. then upon being shown the box by lyney, have navia tag along and offer some advice when paimon expressing being stuck. then let her become their partner. act II feels weird because this continues the trend of the traveller helping other people with their problems when they really shouldn't have to. i do like the idea of the traveller helping simply because they want to help, it's my personal interpretation of the game and why they help so damn much, but i do not like the fact that game basically gives you no options to say no.

if it were up to me, i would have the traveller and navia have their little lunch date and then they would go near the fountain. upon having the little hallucination the traveller would wake up and paimon and be really worried. then i think we should see navia emerge from the opera house and then the robots would have attacked. upon being caught up in the cross fire, only then would the traveller feel motivated enough to help, because now their life has been threatened and so has paimon's.

other than navia i really enjoyed all of the characters! even navia herself has a really unique design, though i do wish her upper body wasn't so cluttered design wise, her exposed shoulder's + collarbones would have worked better with a full lace shirt covering her skin rather than just bare skin. it breaks up her palette too much in my opinion.

i was a little surprised at how little a role arlecchino has played so far. like from the trailers it seemed as though she'd be front and center but i do enjoy the idea of her bailing childe out of prison and i do like the fact that she does not seem actively malevolent.

oh do i hate the legal system. like citizens of fontaine, please get a better system than an a.i. who gets to make all the decisions. you're archon is a fucking ipad baby with a god complex and should not be allowed within 20 yards of the building if her accusations thrown towards lyney having anything to say. part of me (the yanfei main part) really wants a dialogue line from by babygirl talking about how much a clown show fontaine's legal system is compared to liyue's.

the idea of the primordial sea is really neat, however, i do hope and beg and pray that we'll get an actual explanation as to why its effects only work on those born from fontaine.

i'm so happy marcel got dunked on. my friends and i were all rooting for his demise the entire time he was in the fountain

anyways i'm rambling so much rn! but i really do like fontaine so far despite my gripes with the legal system being absolute dogwater. i'm very excited for the rest of the region to be released and the continuation of the story. thank you for coming to my ted-talk!

[spacevulpix]

also i finally figured out what it is that bothers me about the book of boba fett THIS GOT LONG

there's cool ideas in it - shit that i love seeing in star wars. boba fett being approached by a businessman who seems to have good intentions, only to find out he's swindling locals for 4x the worth of his water and a cool biker gang needs jobs so boba employs them as his personal guard? sick! i love every part of that.

the problem is that all these things happen in one episode, more like one half of one episode. the watermonger only exists to bring boba to the biker gang, the biker gang only exists to make krrsantan's attempted assassination a six-on-one fight to even the odds out/to pull off possibly the lamest car chase scene in all of cinema. like, they didn't even get wind machines to give the ILLUSION that these hoverbikes had any speed on them at all. no motion blurs, just an incredibly slow moving group of bikers chasing an incredibly slow moving space convertible.

the hutt twins want to lay their claim to jabba's crime empire on tattooine? great! we never get to see the hutts as serious players, only as the butt of the joke or idiot fail sons. except, this is the book of boba fett, so they're only here to make you confused for 2 episodes whether the mayor or the hutts is trying to kill boba fett, then in the third episode (only their second appearance) they reveal that somehow, off-screen, they learned it was the mayor of mos espa who was playing both sides bc he'd already promised jabba's territory to the pike syndicate for.... reasons? i guess?

and of course there's the fact that 20% of this show is actually an extension of the mandalorian season 2. it's like disney was scared people wouldn't watch season 3 unless they were certain grogu and mando were reunited from the jump, so they took all the emotional impact of grogu being made to leave with luke at the end of season 2 and reverse it in a very short time frame. it's star wars, so we don't know exactly how long it's been, but i think it's a safe bet to assume it's like, less than six months and that's being generous. based on how little progress luke has made with grogu in those episodes, it reads more like he's been there for a few weeks, maybe two months at most.

and it's so frustrating because this is what andor gets right! granted, andor had more episodes in it's season than either season of the mandalorian/book of boba fett/kenobi show (don't get me started) but that writer's room had SUCH a better grasp of the progression of time. you feel it in how the characters interact - even though it's only been two episodes since these two met, you can feel the emotion in their voices as they try to communicate everything that's happened, and it makes months feel like years.

every episode of andor feels like the natural progression of the events of the last - each main character is both part of andor's overall character narrative, yet they each have their own personal narrative building alongside and on top of the story as a whole. cassian may not have been directly responsible for bix being captured and tortured, but it was him who inadvertently brought the empire's attention to ferrix. syril may have eventually risen through the ranks of corporate security as long as he continued bootlicking, but he's too ambitious to understand his place in the system, and he's quickly cast out the moment it's clear he won't play the game.

and in boba fett, you can see where they could have gone bigger on concepts like this, because they're trying to do something similar! they're just failing real hard at it! it feels like that heist episode of rick and morty where they're hitting plot beats with minimal interest just so they can have a small army of characters you might have formed some kind of connection to from seeing them on screen at least once beforehand. i feel like it even cheapens some of mando season 2, like cobb vanth was such an interesting character and i could see him and boba having SUCH an interesting relationship, where they never quite see eye-to-eye because cobb disapproves of boba's criminal empire and boba thinks cobb is privileged for being able to look down on the unsavory elements of his empire despite all the good he's doing at the same time

but nope, he's cannon fodder for cad bane. and it doesn't even make sense to imply this deep relationship between cad bane and boba fett bc they never aired that scene from the clone wars where boba gets the dent in his helmet from cad bane firing on him!