#and there's details about her designs that have stayed the same since her conception

[karniss-bg3]

I would like to hear your thoughts about Larian giving Kar’niss female pedipalps?

Personally I feel like it was just another f you from Lolth

Alright so, this is a complicated and detail-heavy topic. For that reason I’ll be splitting this theory into two sections: Technical Aspects & Lore. There will be a TL;DR at the bottom.

Technical Aspects

Kar’niss is a complex model and I imagine the rigging on him was wild. To my understanding his walking animation was done by hand which makes sense. His torso could be motion captured but the arachnid portions needed to be moved in engine. The best time to witness the separation is if you play music for him as a bard. His torso will bob and sway the same as the rest of the NPCs but his legs stay perfectly stationary. I do get a kick out of the idea of the Larian devs trying to put a tiny motion capture suit on a spider but alas.

I bring this up because the pedipalps add an extra layer of complication that the devs didn’t really need. In fact the concept art for driders doesn’t include them at all which suggests they weren’t part of the original design. A lot changed from concept art to the final version it seems. He used to have extra arms, his legs were longer, and his facial features were more twisted. His skin was also darker but it was either changed because he is a Szarkai or because his skin tone blended too heavily with the color of the chitin.

This would align with a lot of the concept art from D&D. There are many examples of driders without pedipalps, both male and female.

All that said, when it comes to the technical aspects, I have a theory as to why the original and final designs were so vastly different: Time. Kar’niss is one of the more detailed models in the game and even the final version didn’t turn out perfect. If you look closely at where his torso attaches to the spider body you can see some model tearing when he turns at certain angels, as well as what I refer to as “tubing”. I’ve seen this in a few games and it’s where limbs or portions of a body thin out to an impossible degree and they look like a squeezed out tube of toothpaste. This could be due to improper skeleton models, broken seams or rigging but as I don’t work in the industry those are my best guesses.

When you have a strict budget and time limit sometimes a development team has to cut some fat. They didn’t have the time to add in the extra arms, super long limbs or highly detailed face model. Perhaps they looked at the final design and weren’t satisfied with the lack of monster features. Thus, the pedipalps were introduced. But since drider are canonically sexless they designed the palps in such a way that they were made for battle; hence the sharp barb present at the tip of each. They are located face level for most races which make them perfect eye gougers or maybe they use them to subdue prey. Palps are also used to “taste” in most spider species and he could likely use them to discern if prey is edible or not.

“Pedipalps contain sensitive chemical detectors and function as taste and smell organs, supplementing those on the legs”

As for why they are female in design the simplest answer I have is that it was an oversight. If they were already scrambling to finish the model then they were likely going for the path of least resistance. Male pedipalps would’ve required a bit more work and either they didn’t think that much about it or chose the easiest design to model. I know about the Kar’niss is trans theory and I’ll be touching on that in the next section.

Lore

Anyone who has followed me for a while knows I’ve discussed drider lore a lot here so I’ll try to be a bit more brief in this section. Drider are meant to be sexless as Lolth didn’t wish for them to reproduce and rise up against Her. If Larian’s design of the palps were with intent then I believe we’re looking at Jurassic Park situation here. Maybe Lolth’s manner of birth control was to make all spider bodies female regardless of the gender of the drow who is changed. It would also align with the Matriarchal society drow come from as well as Lolth choosing to make driders in “Her image”. So yes, a “fuck you” from Lolth would be accurate in this case. The issue I run into is that Kar’niss is the only drider model in-game and so I have nothing to compare him to. I don’t know if all driders in this universe look the same or if there would’ve been a difference between females and males. It leaves it all up to pure speculation, sad to say.

There is a theory that’s been around for a while now that Kar’niss is transgender. While I think it’s a perfectly fine theory I don’t necessarily agree with it. It’s not because I’d be against him being trans, it’s more that I can’t find enough evidence to support it. For starters if he is trans, is he a trans man or a trans woman? We’ve learned that Kar’niss is a female name according to drow naming conventions and of course his palps suggest a female body. The name can be explained as an act of defiance as it is stated that if a man takes on a womans name they are considered troublemakers. If he is a trans woman, why would he ever allow himself to be misgendered?

There are several NPCs that refer to him as “he” and Kar’niss never once barks at them. It’s not as if he’s shy and in fact he’s proven to have quite the temper. He no longer follows nor worships Lolth and he’s under the protection of the Absolute, a cult that allegedly loves and accepts him. Why hide himself as a trans woman under these conditions? Especially in a game that is very progressive in terms of character creation and pronoun usage.

If he is a trans man then the spider body becomes a moot point. Did he transition before the drider transformation or did Lolth change his sex but slap on the female spider body as a way to mock him? Is that why he was changed? I imagine in a drow society where being a woman is a big deal having one that wanted to become a male, a lesser, would be the talk of the Underdark. I’m sure it’s worse for men who want to be women as that could be seen as “rising above their station”. It’s hard to say as modern day gender identity isn’t really addressed in drow lore.

There is a trans woman in Baldur's Gate 3 that the player meets during Shadowheart’s storyline. It can be easy to miss as her past isn’t revealed unless Shadowheart consumes the noblestalk Tav picks up in the Underdark. This is an excerpt from Nocturne’s journal.

“I am Nocturne. I think as her. I see her when I look in the mirror. I can't remember the last time someone called me by the wrong name - Shadowheart has been swift to gently correct slips of the tongue, and even swifter in challenging those who'd use my forsworn name in malice. I'm lucky to have her as a friend. “

While it seems she had trouble in the beginning, those under Shar came to accept her in time as far as I can tell. With this we can at least say that Larian has no issues adding in trans characters but Kar’niss doesn’t receive this treatment. Another thing to note is that Nocturne is voiced by a trans woman, Abigail Thorn. Where as Kar’niss is voiced by, what I assume to be, a cisgender male. In my mind if Larian would take that much time and care for accuracy wouldn’t they do the same for Kar’niss?

With all of that said if people have the headcanon that Kar’niss is trans that is a-okay, I have no issues with that or any other character! It’s simply a theory I don’t personally subscribe to because the elements don’t line up well enough for me. But hey if they ever expand on his story and he is trans that’d be cool. I don’t know if there is a trans man elsewhere in-game so it’d be nice to see that representation there.

Phew, that was far longer than I anticipated but I hope I covered the topic well enough as it has been debated quite a bit in the fandom. Once again I want to express that I believe folks are allowed to write and draw these characters how they see fit. It’s fantasy fun folks, go wild and enjoy your faves as you desire.

TL;DR: I think the female pedipalps are a technical oversight and were only added in to give Kar’niss a more monstrous appearance or to round out his design. I don’t believe he is trans due to the lack of evidence to support the theory. If Lolth had any bearing on the spider body it was likely to prevent reproduction or in an effort to make driders in her image. Overall, the pedipalps are more up to interpretation than hard evidence.

#baldur's gate 3 #kar'niss #bg3 #drider #karniss #baldurs gate 3 #answered #drow #drow lore #theorycrafting #spider anatomy #pedipalps #long post

[nemirutami]

I discovered you recently and was scrolling through your stuff when I fell in love with your Joker redesign. It’s just so Good! Not only is your art style perfect (for all your art, really) but the thought you put into it was just wonderful. My favorite part were the horns, they just fit so well! I’d love to see any other ideas you have, but really I just wanted to gush about how much I loved it. Thank you!

Aw, that makes me so incredibly happy!!!! As much as I rag on P5's story execution, I do adore all the potential there is to the characters and the potential in redesigns that better fit the character's personalities. I'll repost all the ones I've finished for funsies, but I think now is actually a good time to mention that I'm going to be compiling all my p5 redesigns into a little zine (a re-de-zine haha) with more detailed thought process behind what I was thinking when redesigning them (there wasnt enough blank space for all my notes, or my sketches)! I'll add some blurbs from the document I have in [these] brackets! I actually focused heavily on his mask, so I'm super relieved and excited that it's what you liked most about it!

JOKER

[[Aside from Akechi’s prince outfit (which I think was flawlessly executed), I knew that I couldn’t allow myself to butcher Joker’s design- especially since I intended to remake his mask, despite his mask being perfect as it is (and was also my base for the Black Mask design before I decided to remake everyone else). // My main concern was to make the outfit represent all of PT’s, not just Joker, but I also wanted to highlight Akechi’s part in playing as his foil. As such, where Akira has a heart shape connecting all phantom thieves together by a silver string of fate, Akechi has a distorted red glow that extends chains to weigh him down as well as wings to show his ability to choose his own path.]]

AKECHI [[I wanted to keep his face obscured, but add an option to show himself if he wished. So, a hood helped cover him up for me. It helped me make it feel as though it’s a “lost” part of Robin Hood that still clings on to his Black Mask design- a desire (though weak and decaying) to be a good person underneath it all for someone he once cared about. //

Akechi's chains (from his heart) symbolize his outlook on bonds, and how they tie you down, whereas Jokers symbolize the strength he has with his teammates. I felt like this was a little too sad to write on the concept page. Reading “Goro Akechi has no friends and it manifests in his Black Mask outfit” isn’t the most uplifting sentence you want to stumble across.]] ANN [[Ann was often forced to hold her tongue around Kamoshida in order to protect Shiho, and Shiho in turn tried to do the same to protect Ann. The whip I created for her is a play on the phrase “hold your tongue” showing a lion with it’s mouth open and its tongue hanging out- filled with thorns and ready to be used as a weapon to protect those that she values. One of her biggest weaknesses now becomes her force for change and success, and she ultimately uses her power as a thief to open the maw of the man that told her to be quiet- revealing all his ugly secrets with his own words.]]

FUTABA [[This one doesn't have any notes I can share yet, but she took ages to design, so that's why, lmfao!]]

MORGANA

[[ I wanted to make him blend in more with a classic SMT demon such as Jack Frost, but still distinct enough to stand out as “more than a demon”.

//

Since Morgana is the collective human hope, I think he can take any shape or form. I only retained his cat persona because I wanted to stay true to the original design concept of it being an animal. If I was allowed complete creative form over a “guiding light” however, I think I would base Morgana’s design on Anubis or psychopomps- guides of souls (souls of human hope). The interesting thing about psychopomps is that while Anubis is also an example of one, commonly, so are crows. Meaning, I would have to design Morgana to fit a canine in order to imply Akechi himself could have perhaps had a guide similar to Mona if he was not used to bring about ruin. However, Morgana’s cat aesthetic is tied into Joker’s own traits (sometimes down to mannerisms), so getting rid of the cat persona was not something I really wanted. That, and the fact the last protagonist was based on a loyal dog made it hard for me to choose canine. I would have liked to pull something out of zoroastrianism if possible, but I was not sure how far I could take it before his design became entirely unrecognisable. And the point of a redesign was not to entirely change them to become different characters, but just to play around with different themes to better fit the character and their backstory/feelings/traits.

]]

I really hope this content was fun to read!!!! The next design I have in my WIPS is Yusuke. Honestly, I find Ryuji and Yusuke are going to be super challenging, since I ADORE their designs and I genuinely do not want to just touch them up randomly without purpose and happen to downgrade them. Morgana and Ann were my easiest targets haha.

#tnt answers asks #justanotherwanderingone #persona 5 #p5

[sp-ud]

I remember how when vee's unique human disguise was revealed some people were wondering why she didn't stay closer to luz's look, or at the very least why she got paler and like.

1) Vee doesn't have to look like she biologically could be camilas kid to you know, be her kid. C'mon guys.

2) In the long run, if she does decide to stay living with camila in the human realm, it'd probably be easier to explain that she's adopted than something like a long lost twin or a cousin. Especially to Camila's, and likely Manny's, families when they would inevitably meet Vee.

3) While it's never outright said, I feel like the creators are going for it taking less energy for a basilisk to transform the closer it is to their normal form.

Like, when she transforms back when she's low on magic, while the obviously non-human things are "because she ran out of magic", I think it could also be possible part of the reason she ran out of magic so badly she still had pale splotches was because she was trying to generate a look so different from her normal form.

And then there's this, from one of the crew's twitters, we have the 1st concept that went on to become the human vee we now know (and love)

And one interesting detail they drew attention to is how vee is now purposefully having her normal ears (and eyes, somewhat, she dropped the light blue sclera) out.

Which is weird, aside from the (honestly more likely) possibility that she just wants to generally look more like herself (which would also explain things like the paler skin) why would she want stuff that could put her at risk of being discovered as a demon?

And that is what led me to theorizing that maybe it takes less magic for a basilisk to hold a form closer to their normal one.

While vee no longer has to worry about having a finite source of magic (not only the cards, but also I imagine any of the witch kids wouldn't mind her needing to borrow some. Even if she'd probably be opposed), it's still probably better for her in the long run to use what she has sparingly, so it makes sense she would go for something a lot closer to her normal form.

And there's the fact, she's not the only basilisk we've seen transform. If we look at the Greater Basilisk...

We see that she also keeps things pretty similar, hair's the same, pale skin, eyes even look to have a hint of green in the disguise still.

While the GB probably had plenty of magic to spare, considering we now know the context of her actions is that she likely was starved after escaping belos, it makes sense she probably wouldn't want to use more than the bare minimum necessary.

And maybe I'm reading too much into these things. Idk. I just like to come up with in universe reasons for certain design choices like this. (Especially when some people weren't down with a new design at first.)

Also if this makes actually 0 sense. Blame it on me barely getting any good sleep, being awake since 3am, and it's currently 6am.

#toh #the owl house #vee noceda #vee toh #spud originals

[thesims4blogger]

Sims Delivery Express Brings Vitiligo Options to CAS

The Sims 4 had a new Sims Delivery Express (SDX) drop that brought new vitiligo options to Create a Sim (CAS). As always, this game update is free of charge and available across all platforms.

There’s a total of 21 new features for sims faces as well as 16 options for other parts of their bodies. You may find them all under “skin details”. Advertisement

At its release, The Sims put out a new video narrated by Canadian model Winnie Harlow, who has vitiligo in real life. You can watch it below, followed by a new Community Blog posted on The Sims 4 website.

Vitiligo Skin Feature in The Sims 4

Developer talks about the new update and Winnie Harlow collaboration

Sul Sul, Simmers! I’m Ash and I’m thrilled to introduce you to the newest addition to Skin Details in Create-A-Sim: Vitiligo!

Skin Details in The Sims 4

Skin details are an important area of focus for the dev team as we remain committed to expanding representation in The Sims 4. Birthmarks, stretch marks, scars, and freckles have empowered our players to tell diverse and authentic stories, and today’s update continues with these efforts. We have known for a while we wanted to add Vitiligo to the game, and we spent a lot of time learning about it and considering how to authentically provide it to players.

Bringing Vitiligo In-Game

When it came to Vitiligo in The Sims, we knew we wanted to start with providing a range of patterns showing different levels of coverage and symmetry. Our Concept Artist and Art Director collaborated to design a diverse set of patterns across faces, torso sections, and limbs. In our research, we found that depigmentation may have clear edges and some edges may be darker and irregular. Affected skin can be absolutely white, or can be pink or varying shades lighter than the surrounding skin. Since vitiligo affects people of all ethnicities and skin types, our Senior Character Artist intentionally created the first assets to work with a Sim’s skin tone. As you cycle through the shades and change from warm to neutral to cool, the color of your Sim’s Vitiligo will adjust to change with it.

Vitiligo can begin to appear early in infancy and as you age your patches can expand and change, so we knew we wanted to provide this feature to all ages, from infants to elder Sims. The patterns of patches could warp in shape if they were simply converted for each frame of Sim, so our Character Artist who expanded the selection ensured that they stayed consistent across bodies. In all, our artists developed 61 Vitiligo variants across all ages for this first release. Our team of developers, dedicated to The Sims 4 Base Game, is beyond grateful for the talent and time provided to us by the artists and their dedication to the quality of every asset they create.

How It Works

After you download today’s update, you’ll find the new Vitiligo assets in Create-A-Sim. Go to the Skin Details category for either the Face or Body. The new assets will show up right before the Birthmarks that were delivered with the Growing Together Base Game update. You can choose patches for your Sim’s face, upper torso, lower torso, arms, and legs. Several Vitiligo patterns will have more than one variant – you can choose whether you want to start with a less prominent part of the pattern at first or start with the full pattern. All ages will have access to the same pieces, so your choices can stay the same as they age or you can change them over time.

Winnie Harlow Partnership

The Sims 4 team is partnering with supermodel and beauty entrepreneur Winnie Harlow to introduce this new update. Winnie, who was an avid The Sims player during her youth, is excited to share styling and interior design inspiration with players through an original content piece that showcases a Simified version of the fashion model’s Hollywood home. She gives a room-by-room tour of her dream home and talks about what this level of in-game representation with the Vitiligo feature means to her. Simmers can download her home from the gallery as well as play with the Winnie-inspired Sim.

“It’s magical to see The Sims 4 team introduce this new Vitiligo feature,” Winnie said. “As a child, I spent a lot of time playing The Sims and I think it’s so beautiful to be able to represent your true self in-game. This partnership is a powerful statement encouraging players to embrace what makes them unique – both in-game and in real life.”

F.A.Q.

Can I choose the color of my Sim’s Vitiligo?

Not quite. Although all patterns contrast greatly with your Sim’s skin, the exact color of the Vitiligo patches depends on the hue and tone of the skin color you choose. If you change a warm skin tone to a cool one, the color of the Vitiligo reflects this.

Can I change my Sim’s Vitiligo pattern? Or, can I add or remove it later?

Yes, you can change, add, or remove any of the Vitiligo patterns by returning to Create-A-Sim and doing so in the Skin Details section.

Can the shape of the Sim’s pattern change based on their body?

Yes. Skin Details will adjust some depending on where you stretch or move their skin or body parts. If you widen a Sim’s nose, and they have a patch of Vitiligo across it, the patch will change with it.

Will Vitiligo affect my Sim during gameplay?

No. Like the Birthmarks feature, Vitiligo patterns will not have any effects on gameplay.

Can Vitiligo layer with other Skin Details?

Vitiligo can layer with all Face and Body details except Birthmarks. You can also use Tattoos and Body Hair with them.

Why can’t Vitiligo layer with Birthmarks?

Vitiligo uses the same tech as Birthmarks, so they will act the same way. You can’t layer multiple Birthmarks, and they don’t automatically transition between frames (younger to older, feminine to masculine). Teens will keep the same Skin Details for the rest of their lives though, as long as they use the same frame.

Will Vitiligo affect my Sim’s Body Hair color?

No. We hope to address the ability of Vitiligo to affect hair color in the future, but at this time, vitiligo will only apply to skin.

#news #the sims 4 #ts4 #sims 4 #sims 4 sdx

[a-dumbass-jester]

Og post Im just going into detail^^

OK so I started tjis like over a year ago and i never put my thoughts down anywhere and at some point I lost my yttd hyper fixation and is now violently regaining it so some stuff might be a bit inaccurate

————

{Human to doll}

I came up with tjis hc/theory of how the human dummies and doll dummies are the same because:

One(1): tragedy and angst

Two(2): I didn’t rlly like that fact that they were two completely separate people (especially clones) so this somehow became a tjing

OK SO, right after the human dummies died Midori (being Midori) was like “hm I wanna see if I can transfer their human souls/ ghost/ spirit into their doll copy”

and then he did and because it’s asunaro it somehow works

Before the AIs were put in the dolls they were conscious but just couldn’t move without the ai put in.

Because the AIs gave them the ability to move and do basically everything their souls attached itself to the ai

(PLEASE bear with me)

As for Hinako I don’t rlly know how exactly she becomes a doll but I assume asunaro has a doll (and ai) copy of her (because why not) and Midori did a similar thing to her but her doll was like underneath the coffin or smth

Summary: the dummies human soul was transferred their doll copy after they died (all six(6) of them) and it latched onto the AIs

————

{how their all "alive"/ together}

OK so this whole thing centers around kurumada being the dummie that is still alive so he can miss the others and ask to see their AIs

Because everyone remembers everything and because everything asunaro rebuilds their dolls

This is also for selfish reasons to because they’ve literally gone from being human to doll and can and have experience the differences and uses them (as much as they hate it) as test subjects to test differences

Summary: kurumada is the only dummie left alive and he missed the others a lot so he asked so see their AIs

Asunaro then rebuilds their dolls after the death game 

————

Most of this ending actually focuses of after the game

Human dolls

Ok so most of the time after the game they stay at asunaro because:

One(1): their like legally (and physically) dead

Two(2): they’re dolls. They wouldn’t age , I would be weird if someone just stopped aging(ESPECIALLY the kids). They’re made of plastic so if anyone got hurt they would just crack (especially kurumada with him being a boxer)

So most they just stayed with asunaro

Sleeping(even though they don’t need to any more) in the rooms the participants slept in in chapter 2

Also since they would be staying there for god knows how long asunaro let them customize the rooms however they’d like

Also because Asunaro kinda did:

- Kill them

- Stuff them into dolls

- Take away any life or future they would’ve had

- Keep them here

(-experiment on them)

So asunaro’s kinda like “yeaaa, Soooorrryyyy about that” and like lets them to whatever they want. They’ll also like get them stuff from the store or smth if they want.

————

Floormasters

OK SO tjis part is basically like 100 years later of smth, Sara (who won and took over asunaro) has died and asunaro did another death game to have someone take her place.

The dummies were used as floormasters because:

One(1): The irony of having people who were victims of the last death game and turned in the ones in charge

Two(2): They didn’t rlly have anyone else so they just went with them

So asunaro whipped their memories, messed with their heads and personality’s and turned them into floormasters

(I have entire designs(kinda) and concepts on what they would be and look like)

————

Finally resting

So after they’re back to normal, and the new participants find out about all of this they set a plan to finally free the dummies and let them rest

The participants delete their AIs from the database(?) and set their dolls on fire so their no longer attached to their AIs and can be freed.

————

Ok!!! So there is that!!

Hope you enjoyed, i guess!!

This sounds kinda bad written but here I guess

I wrote this at like 3/4 am

#the dumbass speaks #your turn to die #yttd #yttd dummies #ranmaru kageyama #mai tsurugi #naomichi kurumada #anzu kinashi #hinako mishuku #shunsuke hayasaka #yttd human dolls ending

[rainyraisin]

Okay I resisted the urge for long enough/j

Just gonna leave some small details here and then when the concept designs of the main 4 are done I'll start rambling about other stuff yxfbocugkvh

Basically, youngest Donnie (14), twins Mikey and Raph (15) and oldest Leo (16), age order will stay that but ages are subject to change. When the series starts out they don't really have the healthiest relationships with each other, tbh the best one is probably Raph and Donnie, but as the series goes on they come to understand each other more and become closer to one another, the catalyst for it is meeting Casey (aka Season 1 episode 1) as April tries her best but she doesn't really want to butt in since it's their business, even though she's basically part of the family at this point (shes known them for 4 years, shes 17 when everything starts, idk what age Casey will be yet probably same school year as April but a few months younger). Also Splinter will probably be more like 2012 but also like Rise where he slowly becomes a better parent to them over time, idk Splinter is the one main character I have like no ideas for atm and the only thing I have for him atm is pretty spoilery

But uh yeah take that small bit of info about my iteration so far as you will :) Things are subject to change ofc since these are all rambles from 3AM last night but idk i quite like it so far :D Definetly gonna be very family focused rather than there being much romance or anything. Idk maybe if I watch Samurai Rabbit, Leo can have his silly bunny guy :) I just love found family sm lmao

Also when it comes to villains I'm gonna utilise ones from both 2012 and Rise and maybe also make some of my own. If the villain is in both of those iterations I'll pick my favourite interpretation or pick the one that fits better (like as much as I love the Rise foot clan I think 2012 fits better here). Ofc they'll be tweaked and changed but they'll be based off them!

Okay I'm gonna stop now before I say absolutely everything 💀💀💀

#rai rambles #i love turtles so much im so excited about this #i love the concept of youngest Donnie sm #hes just gonna be a silly little guy whos a little fucked up actually #i have so many ideas and i wanna say them all RN but if i do then im not gonna start designs lmao i just know it #im stupid like that fyifihxggcjg #im gonna try so hard not to make too much Donnie centric stuff but i love him so much lmao #silly autism turtle

[practically-an-x-man]

✨🍕🧊🍀💎 for Ophelia and Rae?

Thank you so much! I hardly ever get to talk about Rae for these things (nothing malicious, just that so far none of my writer-friends have read A Love Once New bc it's so long, so nobody really knows her lol)

Under the cut for space :D

✨- How did you come up with the OC’s name?

Ophelia: Her full name is Ophelia Jo Octavius. Ophelia was chosen to give her the alliterative O's, connecting her to her father, but also for Hamlet's Ophelia (the literature connecting her to her mother, but also to hint at her tragic story and self-sacrificing attitude). Her middle name is Jo after Jo March - just Jo, not Josephine, a tiny detail that separates her from other multiversal versions of her. Plus, another literary reference.

Rae: Her full name is Rachel Ayla McKinney. I didn't pick Rachel for anything other than her using Rae as a nickname, but the name Rae means "protector" (connecting to her personality and shielding abilities). Ayla connects to her grandmother, a mutant with the same abilities she eventually develops (foreshadowing for ALON, since it starts before Rae gets her mutation). And McKinney is just bc she's Scottish lol, no deeper meaning besides that.

🍕 - What is their favorite food?

Ophelia: This one and the next one were answered here for her

Rae: She's traveled a lot, so she's stumbled into a lot of really good food that she couldn't recreate if she tried. I think her favorite was genuine tapas in Spain, split with a bunch of school friends while living abroad. Though Scotch eggs are a nostalgia food for her, and simple enough to make from home (wherever home may be at the time), so that's another favorite

🧊 - Is their current design the first one?

Rae: Not at all. I've had her for a long time now, she was one of my first OCs, and about the only things that have stayed constant are 1. The fact that she gets her mutation from Apocalypse, 2. Her power being linked to silver light, and 3. her saving Warren from the plane crash. Everything else, her name, her backstory, the rest of her story leading up to the fight in Cairo, came later.

🍀 - What originally inspired the OC?

Ophelia: I watched No Way Home at least three times in theaters. The first time was just enjoying the movie with my friends, the second time was looking for details with my family, but the third time was when I started to get the idea for Ophelia. She was inspired mainly on the concept of a couple being flung together during No Way Home, then separated when the multiverse is repaired. Once I got that far, the details of her as a character (particularly her as Otto's daughter) came from rewatching Spider-Man 2 and being reminded of what a sweet couple Otto and Rosalie are. Giving them a daughter just fit everything into place so perfectly.

Rae: Like I said, I've had her for a long time now. I think the very first inklings of her were before I even knew what OCs/fanfic/etc. were at all, and her story was just a little daydream when I was bored. Once I started actually choosing to write her story, I wanted her to be a fireball from the beginning - impulsive and reckless and stubborn, to contrast Warren being stuck between a rock and a hard place.

💎 - Do you ever see yourself killing off the OC?

Ophelia: Technically I did... it's how she gets into No Way Home, she dies in a laboratory explosion back in 2016 and gets flung to the new timeline with the events of the movie. But would I kill her again? Hm... only for fun whump side-pieces, not in her main fic. She's been through enough already.

Rae: No. Like Ophelia, she's been through a lot and deserves a break, but she's also too stubborn to die lol

OC Asks

#my friends!!! #answered asks #my ocs #rae mckinney #ophelia octavius #oc asks

[sapphire-weapon]

Idk if this is of any interest to you, but I remember way back you mentioned RE 7& 8 were hard to play because of the first person thing. I despise that style too. 7 and Skyrim took me forever to fully adjust to and I just generally dislike not seeing my character lmao. Anyway, RE8 does actually have an official third person playing mode now, and plays the same way as the other games. I just thought I'd mention it in case you were unaware and wanted another try or whatever, but I assume you likely know already.

Also, I'm adding on a headcanon that I've had since playing. Nobody else has said it, so I'm sure I'd hear a lot of disagreement. Many point out that Leon and Ethan would've been great friends or had shipping potential, despite them never meeting. I've always seen it slightly differently though, I think Ethan actually shows what Leon could've been if he wasn't traumatised (well, before Ethan got his own hefty dose obviously lmao). I really like E and do think the characters would mix really well, but it felt to me like they might've taken some early, bare bones Leon concepts and built a different character off of it. I don't know, that's just what went through my head before.

Also, is it really true that the Winters story is completely done!? I'm seeing that passed around a lot, but it's completely nonsensical. Rose is not a finished character and the DLC made it very clear that she has a huge role to play in the future of RE. I'd be so disappointed if that whole story was dropped, especially because she's so likeable...

So, real quick -

Yes, I do know that RE8 has a third person mode. I still haven't really had the desire to play it, though, because from what I've seen, it's a bit clunky. The game was not designed with third person in mind, which makes certain sections of gameplay artificially harder and/or lose their thematic impact.

The Winters' family story is done, but that doesn't mean that Rose will never be used again. Like, when the Raccoon City arc was done, that didn't mean that all of the legacy cast went away. They just moved onto the next story arc. Rose can still move onto the next story arc; it's just that the story arc won't be about her family.

As for the middle part of your ask...

I disagree that Ethan is a look at Leon's character if the Raccoon City outbreak didn't happen.

And I say that because -- and this is a theory that I've held close to my chest for years and have never really spoken about -- I think that Sebastian Castellanos (the protagonist of The Evil Within) was, in part, Shinji Mikami's creative exploration of where Leon's character could have gone if he'd stayed a cop -- which is why TEW plays so similarly and is structured so similarly to RE4 in the first place.

Sebastian started his career as an idealistic overachiever who was so good at and so dedicated to his job that he became the youngest officer ever in the KCPD to be promoted to Detective. But, in the end, he broke, too, and went off the deep end into a horrible spiraling meltdown that culminated in him turning into a paranoid conspiracy theorist with a drinking problem who nearly lost his job -- several times -- for insubordination, violent outbursts, and illegal investigations into the corruption within the KCPD. The only thing that saved him was his incredible reputation and spotless record from when he was younger.

If you're interested at all, I have a compilation of Sebastian's in-game journal detailing the rise and fall of his career here. There's also a visual representation of the good times -> the breakdown -> the result that the DLCs put into the game that you can watch here.

Basically, I think that Leon's character was always bound for tragedy, one way or the other, because I don't think that Leon ever had it in him to have a healthy response to grief and hardship in his life to begin with. All roads lead to the same place.

Ethan survived (well, "survived" LMAO) several different traumatic events and arguably came out stronger. I don't think Leon ever would have or could have done the same.

#resident evil #leon kennedy

[catebeesart]

Hello hi I found the post with the elven LI’s and I have taken your recommendation to ask about clothing references. I would very much like to see said folders. Also your art is very pretty :)

Hello! first of all, thanks so much <3 very appreciated! Second, this is gonna be long, so let me add a read more

Alright I'm gonna try to keep this brief but I think I'll fail

Like with all of the other character art I did, I referenced a bunch of real world folk/traditional costumes and mixed them with fantasy stuff. City elves are a bit more mish-mash than, say, the dalish, especially considering that these three travel a lot and some of them don't feel very connected with their hometowns.

Zevran

He was probably the easiest to do, since I had already drawn him before

His clothes are inspired by castillan traditional clothes, which I sort of turned into an excuse to give him those torero pants with the highest high waist I ever saw.

The boots are supposed to be the antivan leather ones the Warden can gift him, and they're inspired by spanish half chaps (from the lower left picture, that's a costume from Granada)

The dalish gloves are also there, but they're a bit less detailed, I just added some little Mythal trees to make them dalish-y

He has little strings of pearls in his hair because it's another renaissance Spain/Italy thing i really like

My favourite thing i gave him is the hip chain with the little charms. I forget where I saw this headcanon but it basically talked about how Zevran holds small trinkets very dear and that he probably uses the metal you can gift him by melting it into keepsakes of his adventures. they're really tiny but you can see the Denerim shield, the Circle symbol, a hammer for Orzammar, the Redcliffe windmill, the Dalish mask and of course the Grey Warden griffin

Fenris

He's the least traditional one, I doubt he'd want to wear Tevinter clothes after years in Kirkwall.

I used more-or-less accurate references for the armor, mostly for the wide use of leather that seems to make up most of Fenris's canon outfit. Still gave him a gambeson because I'm not a savage.

Originally I wanted to dress him in looser clothes, considering his marks might hurt from all the friction on his skin, but It's very hard to give loose fitting clothes to someone wearing so many straps, so I stayed sort of middle ground

I still kept some of his original design details, like the clawed gauntlets, the feathers in the braces and the bare feet, plus! Hawke's red favor and the Amell crest (it's on his shoulder now, where crests usually are)

Also he has a regular big sword instead of a fuckoff big sword because uh I'm a stickler for rules

The tip of the scabbard has a little metal hawk decoration :)

Sera

She doesn't like speaking of Denerim, but at the same time I feel like she would sill hold on to some of the little fashion quirks from there (which I also made up by making my Tabris wear Kurdish-inspired clothes and spreading it to the whole alienage)

So yes, the vest and some of the jewellery are inspired by Kurdish costume, while the rest comes mostly from her concept art

There is a Lot of Sera concept art, and I get it! cause it's very hard to keep to one singular idea while designing her. I brought back some of the combat archery armor that she had at some point in her development, plus the makeup stripe over her eyes (which I added at the very end and forgot to save the picture i took it from)

The asymmetrical gloves are sort of what an archer would wear, with the arm that holds the bow being more covered to avoid injuries from the bowstring and the drawing hand only covered around the fingers.

The pants are inspired by the medieval multicolored hose because listen, she's a little jester at heart and she would totally wear those

The HAIR was hard to decide, because the bowl cut is nice, but the side-shave is also very badass. the mullet/ponytail one was very close to being the final choice though.

#hoo boy thanks for letting me talk about all this!! #hopefully it was interesting! #I really really get lost in details #this was from a while ago so I had to look up some stuff that I forgot in the meanwhile #ask #tallfroggie20 #cate draws elves

[taudad]

T’au Fanfic - Malk’la Part 2

<Part 1>

TW: Blades, blood mention

Smoke slowly rose within the dimly lit room. The smell of incense filled the slow breaths of Shas’o Ko’Shi. It did little to calm his nerves. Frustrated, Ko’Shi sat back from his kneeling position and opened his eyes.

“Lights!” He didn’t bother to hide the emotion in his voice, his quarters were the one place where he felt free to emote without judgement. He wasn’t naive, however. Privacy is a foreign concept to those in service to the T’au’va. But the prestige of his station did provide the perk of not having to share his quarters. As the room filled with light, the Shas’o’s personal taste was illuminated as well.

A cleanly made bed stood in the corner; clearly folded by hand, but with the attention to detail that only a well practiced hand could provide. Next to the bed stood a simple desk attached to the wall so that it would land just above Koshi’s waist at its current setting. Standing on the desk were three electronic readers of various sizes, standing as books would in a simple rack designed to hold them. Above the desk hanged a large painting depicting the arid landscape of the homeworld’s plateaus and steppes. The adjacent wall was covered in a vast virtual screen, and as the lights rose the artificial night sky faded back to its default beige.

The last wall stood blank, apart from a closet door and a small table pressed against the wall next to it. On it stood an altar holding aloft a thin blade, sheathed and wrapped in red cloth. It was no longer than his forearm, and the straight edge cast an ever flickering shadow against the wall. In front of the blade lay a collection of broken pottery pieces resting on another piece of crimson fabric.

Ko’Shi extinguished the incense and candles burning adjacent to the shrine and carefully wrapped the pottery pieces, then stood and placed them gently next to the tablets on his desk. He would have done the same with the altar, but his hand recoiled; as if he forgot the blade was sheathed. After a pause, he gingerly took the blade and fastened it to his waist with the long cloth that had been draped over it.

Readying himself for what’s to come, Ko’Shi took one last long, deep breath before leaving the room. As he walked down the halls, the weight of what he was about to witness started to set in.

A Malk’la.

Every Fire Warrior from Shas’saal to Shas’o is taught the ritual, and every Fire Warrior prays that they never have to participate in one. It is both judgement and punishment for those who have strayed from the T’au’va, and due to how rarely it is meted out, a near superstitious shunning of those who are subject to one has spread among the Fire Caste like a disease.

However, such superstitions have no place among the warriors of the Fire Caste. Those who felt this way always irked Ko’Shi; a Malk’la was a correction for one who has strayed from the T’au’va, not a sickness to be avoided. Still, even though he fought it, Ko’Shi was anxious to be participating in one. Much less so, the Malk’la of his sister.

He hasn’t spoken to her since before his long Cryosleep. She had progressed to the rank of Shas’o, and was present for the catastrophe of the 4th Sphere expansion. Any information beyond that was classified, and Aun’Kyen had been unwilling to reveal anything further.

This level of separation wasn’t unusual. Though Ko’Shi and Inju were born and trained together, following their individual ascensions to Shas’la rank the T’au’va set them on different paths. Blood relatives rarely stay in close in the Empire; no T’au should be placed in a position to choose between their duty to the T’au’va and to their kin. And yet, Inju was to be his Saz’nami.

Why?

His sister has been a master of Mont’ka from a young age and was by all accounts a capable commander. Yet as a Saz’nami, she’ll be fully removed from the chain of command, her sole duty to serve as his guard. What happened, Inju?

“Shas’o Ko’Shi?”

Ko’Shi looked up to see an Earth Caste T’au of medium stature, wearing a long cloak of white with ochre trim and with faded red hair with grey streaks pulled into a traditional side braid bound tight by silver rings. They wore a similarly colored headband obscuring the top half of their Shio and their left eye’s iris was covered by an illuminated blue contact lens, a screen of data ready at their command.

“Fio’el Baryaci, forgive me I was preoccupied.”

“I noticed, Shas’o. How are you?” Their eye flared up a bright blue “Your pulse is elevated. You’re experiencing mild neck discomfort. You’re beginning to lose feeling in your hand gripping the blade at-“

“I’m fine!” He unclenched his hand “I’m fine, Fio’el. Just anxious.”

Baryaci paused “Ah, the Malk’la. Your first experience with one, then? I haven’t seen you this stressed since I pulled you out of that stasis pod.”

“Yes, this will be my first.” He rubbed his neck, he hadn’t even noticed how sore it was “I take it you’ve served as witness before?”

“Yes, just once. Recipient didn’t survive, too much blood lo- your pulse has increased again. …Ko’Shi’kan are you sure you are well?”

“…thank you Fio’el, but I assure you I’m alright.” He breathed in deeply and tried to center himself again without much luck “The Malk’la is for my blood sister.”

“Really? That’s highly irregular.” Their eye flared up once more “Yes, your medical records indicate similar ancestry, I’ll make note of that in case of emergency blood transfer needs. Odd, typically blood relatives do not serve in the same Cadre.”

“None of this is typical, Fio’el.” Ko’Shi snapped. Fio’el T’au Baryaci was the chief medical officer of the Ko’Shi Cadre, but that doesn’t mean they were his friend. “But this is the will of the Auns, and we must trust in their wisdom.”

Baryaci stiffened at the traditional response “Indeed. If you’ll excuse me Shas’o, I must prepare my assistants before the Malk’la begins.” They began to walk away before pausing “I’ll do everything I can to keep her alive, Ko’Shi. The Malk’la is a test of will, I’ll make sure her body survives.”

“…thank you, Baryaci. I appreciate it.”

The Fio gave Ko’Shi a sympathetic smile before turning to speak with their Fio’las. The gesture was well intended, but did little to calm his nerves. Nothing had. Not the words of his Aun, not the meditating he had done, and certainly not the knife he carried on his hip.

Ko’Shi breathed deep, taking one last pleading attempt to calm himself before he went in. The door was flanked by two Fire Warriors, clad in archaic, ritualistic armor with a faceless white mask obscuring their features. They did not acknowledge him as the door opened, slamming the ends of their Jeth’ri spears on the ground in unison to announce his arrival.

The smell of smoke and steel surrounded Ko’Shi, swallowing him as he stepped inside.

End of Part 2

#tau empire #tau #t’au #t’au empire #tau ocs #t’au ocs #ocs #ko’shi cadre #Malk’la #taudad

[sothasil]

hihhiihi i adore your work so much you have no idea, 2 things, 1; do you have any khajiit headcanons or the sort youd like to share? your thoughts are so fucking cool to me id love to hear more, 2; how the fuCK do you pronounce do'kataj?? is it like,kaht-ah-juh, kaht-jay? i love this shit.

I do have an idea because I've caught you sneaking in my notes for 4 year old posts :P thank you so much!

do you have any khajiit headcanons or the sort youd like to share?

I'm going to share everything related to explaining everyone's favorite girl Ma'Jahrann and her design!

[1] Earring: Given to her during her second naming day.

Khajiit don't celebrate birthdays in the modern western sense of the term. Instead, they celebrate someone's new name. Now, Khajiit canon naming conventions are as follows: no family name, but one name, and a prefix/suffix. My interpretation is as follows: the first name day is when the child is born, and given their first name. During their childhood, they'll go as Ma'/M', and their second name day is celebrated, this time bigger and with the whole community, to welcome them in, and stays their name until until they reach puberty. At this time, a second name day is celebrated as they lose the M(a)'. In adulthood, names are also changed, but based on the feats of someone's life. The base name can be changed to an earned nickname, and if it is, you guessed it, celebration! A prefix or suffix can be added if the person deserves it, and again, you celebrate! Older khajiit who have accomplished the most will almost always have a particle to their name, while young adults with peaceful lives will go by just their base name with nothing fancy around it, until they solidify their existence in the world.

The purpose of these naming day celebrations are to inform the community of the person's name, and to party hard about it. They are meant to be memorable and serve as benchmarks in your life. For Ma'Jahrann, her parents gave her a solid gold earring when she was introduced as well, Ma'Jahrann! She wears it constantly.

[2] Fur color, unsual and eye catching.

As you might have seen on my post with the Ohmes concept art for Beyond Skyrim, I draw khajiit with a huge variety of skin and fur colors, just like humans, but I like to incorporate some cat inspired genetics in there too. Ma'Jahrann's coloring is based on "strawberry" or "golden" big cats, which is a type of melanine deficiency. In her case, her father has normal fur colors (brown and black, on a light skin), and her mother is melanistic, with extremely light colored hair and a light golden skin. Ma'Jahrann inherited a bit of both, with her dad's patterns but her mom's lack of melanin, and she ends up with this unusual golden and red fur color.

This being quite rare on top of looking striking, she's considered quite beautiful, since coat colors and markings are important for how Khajiit look at the beauty of their peers! In human equivalents, it'd be like seeing someone with a gorgeous skin color and the shiniest natural hair you've seen that perfectly compliments it. Her older brother got the short end of the genetics stick and looks very much like his mother but with his hair a bit darker. If he had fur, he would have no to very slight patterns.

[3] Long, thick tail.

Ma’jah is a tojay-raht, a type of Khajiit said to be at great ease in the trees. She has a long flexible body, short limbs, and a long strong tail to reflect this. I don’t have other tojay-raht OCs and have never drawn others, but they would share the same traits! However, the fluffiness is mostly just hers. She’s a great climber.

[4] Hair bangles

I’ve detailed these headcanons in my Elsweyr Style Guide before, but hair styling is very important to Khajiit style, and they favor braids, locks and updos in general, often very ornate! Ma’Jahrann styles hers in thick rows of braids close to her head, who end in a rag wrapped around four heavy metal rings. The shape of these rings is a lunar one. This style is done very tight and meant to last very long.

how the fuCK do you pronounce do'kataj??

Absolutely nothing in it schwaed, so clear those "uh" vowels from your mind! Pronounce the "a" and "o" like you would say Mario. The apostrophe works as a short pause/glottal stop (like when you say uh-oh! instead of uhoh), and the trickiest part is the last "j" - it's closest equivalent, assuming you are a native english speaker, is the "sh" sound (but voiced)

To get technical, it's [do.kataʒ], or [doʔkataʒ]. Channel your inner weeb for the first vowel but a shoddy english pronunciation would be dô kaht-ash! Rojatha’a would be rôshah tha-ah. There are no stresses.

#answered #khajiit #elsweyr #headcanons #do'kataj #ma'jahrann #one day i gotta do a masterpost of breaking down my TES character designs all of them are walking headcanon dumps

[feline-miraculous]

Kwami Swap AU: Fox!Marinette

I’ve been daydreaming a lot since I joined the ML fandom (read: fell obsessively in love with a kids’ cartoon show.) Andddd I may or may not spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about these characters and what makes them them, but the pOINT IS, one day I got thinking about Marinette and the Fox Miraculous. 

Because have we ever seen her use it? Yes. 

Remember Kwamibuster? AKA that time where Marinette effortlessly used the Fox Miraculous to create a multi-layered illusion with four different moving parts (Ladybug, Marinette, the akuma and the Miraculous Ladybug cure.) And she kept up this illusion for at least a minute while Chat Noir and Mme Mendeleiev talked, and she didn’t falter or lose concentration once. 

Firstly... girl, wow. And secondly - that right there is all the proof we ever needed that Marinette makes an epic Mistress of Illusion. Like. This was her first time using the Fox Miraculous, and she pulled off THAT?!! Can we just say, wow. 

But it kind of makes sense, doesn’t it? Because if you consider the qualities that a Fox Miraculous holder would need to be:

creative (in order to summon convincing and realistic illusions)

able to stay focused under pressure (to keep up these illusions mid-fight)

good at multitasking (to stay in control of the illusions and still be aware of her situation)

attention to detail (illusions need to be realistic down to the smallest detail otherwise they won't be convincing)

brave (it takes a lot of courage to change reality and sway the entire course of a battle)

responsible (illusion can be an incredibly dangerous power if misused)

smart (illusion masters must be clever enough to actually come up with their illusions, as well as how to use them to win the fight)

honest (at the end of the day, the illusion master has to restore reality to exactly the way it was without making any selfish changes)

Now let's consider how many of these qualities Marinette has. Creative - we know Marinette is exceptionally creative, right? Her designing and complex plans as Ladybug more than proves that. Able to stay focused under pressure - hell yeah. Once she becomes more confident in her superheroine abilities, there's very little that can distract Ladybug from her mission, right? I'm calling on Kwamibuster as another example of when Marinette was able to keep her concentration going despite being under a lot of stress.

Good at multitasking - same example! Marinette was able to keep tabs on multiple versions of herself as Multimouse without any problems. Almost her whole life, actually, is a great example of multitasking, what with being Ladybug, a designer and class rep. Attention to detail - again, Marinette is a seamstress and a designer. She knows all about how important the little stitches are to sew a complete, functional whole.

Brave and responsible - Ladybug has proved this time and time again, and actually, Marinette has, too, when she stands up to Chloé and becomes class rep. Smart - again, Ladybug's plans are perfect proof of this. (Hi again, Kwamibuster!) It's also canon that Marinette gets good marks, and, you know. Jagged Stone, Gabriel Agreste and Audrey Bourgeois recognised her as exceptional.

Honest - lastly, we know that Marinette canonically hates liars/lying. Yes, she'll do it if it's really necessary (like to protect her identity) but she'll always advocate for the truth if she can. She's more than capable of being deceptive and cunning if she has to (K w a m i b u s t e r !) but she does always restore the truth.

What all of this proves to me is that Marinette would have been an excellent Fox Miraculous holder. Of course she's an incredible Ladybug, but Fox!Marinette? That could've been insane, too.

The idea stuck in my brain, and, well, it just wouldn't leave. So I thought - if Marinette wasn't Ladybug, who would be? Since Ladybug canonically gives the Fox Miraculous to her best, most trusted friend... and since Marinette is the one with the Fox Miraculous here... that leaves the logical conclusion to be Alya for Ladybug!

That choice makes a whole lot of sense, too, and I'll probably do another post about why. But for now: this is my reasoning for why Marinette would make a brilliant Fox Miraculous holder!

And anyway yeah this idea absolutely! won't! leave! my! head! So now I’m making fanart for Fox!Marinette 🦊 Check out the concept sketch here!

I'm completely in love with the idea of Fox!Marinette now, ngl. Also, the Marinette & Trixx dynamic is one that can definitely be interesting to explore, right? Well, I'm definitely going to be back with more for this kwami swap, because honestly, I'm hooked!

#miraculous ladybug #kwami swap #marinette dupain-cheng #trixx #fox!marinette #fox miraculous #rena rouge #volpina #foxglove #ladybug alya au #mine #this au idea has taken over my life now please help #but also #i adore it 😍

[princekirijo]

This is the first time I've rlly heard about Riku since I followed you, what's his deal? :0 would you mind telling me a little bit about him?

HELLO THERE YES ABSOLUTELY I WILL TELL YOU ALL ABOUT MY BOY!!!!

Ok so this is the first ask I ever answered about him and it is a semi good summary of his plot but a lot has happened since then (it was over a year ago) so I'll go over it again here for convenience. This predictably got long af so it's under a read more.

Also if you want any more random bits of info you can find it by searching for "riku kirijo" on my blog (or on Tumblr itself he has his own tag 💀)! I make random little fact posts about him so there's more info in those. You'll also probably find my older art for him for his previous design, but the last art piece I did is his design as of now and probably won't be changed cause I'm super happy with it. Also if you look under "oc tag" or "au tag" I tag some random posts with those if I think they fit the au (it's usually silly jokes and stuff).

Basically Riku is my Persona 5 OC and he's the eldest (and only) son of Yukari and Mitsuru from P3 (I'm sure you know by now I'm a massive Yukamitsu fan but if not now you do 💀). Now obvs there's not enough of a time gap in canon for this to be possible so the gap in this AU is about 30 years, I haven't worked that part out yet. He also has one sister (Yuna).

Riku's story starts really about two years before the events of P5 (btw I mean Royal but I'm just gonna refer to it as P5 cause I'm lazy). Basically he was feeling very lonely, had a hard time making friends and felt he needed to step out of his moms shadows. So he decides to move to Tokyo to get a chance to live out on his own and have a change of scenery. Because he's only 14/15 at the time he can't live on his own and for reasons I'll go into another time, his moms can't come with him. So enter Chiyoko Hatanaka, one of Mitsuru's high ranking staff who offers to become Riku's guardian of sorts while he's in Tokyo. Mitsuru agrees and Riku moves to Tokyo with her enrolling in Kosei High (he's in the same class as Yusuke and Hifumi).

However a few months after they moved, Hatanaka starts to drop her nice act and reveals her true colors and starts abusing Riku (both physically and mentally). I won't reveal the reason why as that's a huge spoiler and I plan on doing something with this story eventually. Riku doesn't tell anyone ofc because he's too scared (Hatanaka has some serious dirt on the Kirijo Group which she uses to blackmail him). So Mitsuru and Yukari have no idea this is happening but have noticed weird changes in his behavior whenever he comes home to visit.

Fast forward to just after Madarame's Palace and Yusuke mentions to the thieves that there's someone he'd like to look into - Hatanaka. He and Riku had this kind of mutual understanding of what was happening to them but never really acknowledged it (they didn't know how - I planning on going into more detail another time). The thieves agree after they see her name on the Phansite (anonymous request from Riku himself). At the TV station the shujin trio actually meet Riku (he's there because Yukari or Mitsuru are giving an interview idk yet). He introduces himself after telling some creep hitting on Ann to fuck off and he's very chatty and kind UNTIL Hatanaka shows up when he becomes super quiet. The thieves are like huh that's weird we should look into this chick for sure. So they do and ofc she has a Palace.

They start investigating and they find out her palace is at her and Riku's apartment (more of a penthouse) and the keyword is Studio. The palace is called "The Studio of Arrogance" and is modeled after a TV station. Riku accidentally gets dragged in and captured by Hatanaka's goons. The thieves find Hatanaka interrogating a chained up Riku where she reveals a few things (again spoilers) and torments him. He has enough, breaks free of his chains and then BOOM Persona time.

His persona is Pimpernel, the titular character in the book The Scarlet Pimpernel. He specializes in Physical and Aqua (Water element from P2) attacks and his best stat is speed (easily the fastest thief).

Riku and the thieves fight off against her goons, and escape to a safe room where they tell Riku everything. Riku also wants to change Hatanaka's heart so he teams up with the thieves with his code name being "Noble". I have a WIP of his phantom thief outfit and Pimpernel so I won't say much about the design for now (purple Flynn rider that's the best mini description I can give 💀)

After they've beaten Hatanaka's palace and changed her heart successfully the rest of the story is pretty much the same but with Riku in it. Mitsuru, Yukari and Yuna also play big roles because the three of them move to Tokyo to stay with Riku after they find out about the abuse. They each have their own background arc too but aside from Mitsuru I don't really have any ideas for them yet (even Mitsuru's is a concept idea).

And that's pretty much his story for now at least! If there's anything specific you want to know please ask because I will literally sit here for hours and rant about him <3

#asks #anonymous #riku kirijo #oc tag #au tag #captain au #this took me forever oops #BUT AH THANK YOU #ive been meaning to do this for a while cause the other ask is outdated #but yeah this is way more than you asked for but enjoy!!! #as always if you need anymore info let me know #i have a 30ish page google doc on this boy and it keeps growing #hes actually been around for around 3 years i wanna say? #which is why a lot of this is very detailed djcbxhhssush #but yeah! hes my boy! i love him! #also I'll probably pin this #but enjoy reading <333 #if i remember I'll actually link the searches so its easier to find those tags #tumblr's search system isnt the best either so sorry about that 😭 #but thank you im kissing you for this /p

[fermented-writers-block]

Lus and the Human Portal Clone Theory

Even before Keeping Up A-fear-ances aired, I have been working for almost a year now on running through all the possible various suspects with wonderful folks like @sepublic​ , @anistarrose​ , and @elementalist-kdj​ . Like the post title indicates, from sheer process of elimination, the only conclusion that made sense to me was a clone made of Luz by the portal door, and I’ve been working on refining and reworking said conclusion up to the version I will lay out here.

Now, as @safetayy​ , @theowlhouseheadcanons , and @50shades-of-blue have heard from me before, the portal I've long suspected was not made to go from the Demon Realm to the Human Realm, but rather to go from the Human Realm to the Demon Realm by humans, for humans. This is because it then could tie into the hypothetical existence of a Luz clone without having the issue of asking where Eda, Lilith, and King's clones are, as the clone in this case is the result of a function of the door to create a basic level duplicate of any human that passes through it rather than it happening for just anyone that passes through.

With this, it's because the suitcase form of the portal looks as thought it indicates it was used for temporary trips to the Demon Realm, much like how suitcases were used when railways and international boats made travel more accessible for the middle and lower classes. For example:

Going by the way the door “faces” and the way it swings open, the ergonomics of the portal makes it look an awful lot like a right handed out swing door, with the Human Realm on the “inside” and the Demon Realm on the “outside.” And the arrow in the diagram depicts the general direction of traffic that such right handed, out swing doors are typically design with in mind - ergo, showing what way the portal appears to facilitate travel in.

Now, before you ask, the reason why I think the portal could have been created in the human realm in the first place is that it might require an extra component/bit of help or two from the Owl Deity which I’ve discussed before in the past as hinted by these connected designs:

I’ll explore how I feel the revelation that such a twist about the portal’s origins could play into the themes and narrative of the show under the cut, but overall, I feel these are potential significant details to keep in mind for the rest of this arc of building a new door and handling the idea of Lus having initially been made as a temporary-duration clone, hence how "Luz" comes off so uncannily in the letters as she wasn't meant for long term impersonations.

That, and why I named this the Human Portal Clone theory, for those wondering about the name.

Alongside this, my thought has been that walking back through the portal to the Human Realm basically makes the portal send a recall signal to tell the clone to return to it, where the clone would be reabsorbed into the portal and its memories are given to the original. However, with Luz going back into the Demon Realm for a brief time in YBOS, I am of the mind that it doesn’t just make another clone, but rather that doing so merely made the door turn off the recall signal and allowed "Lus" to resume the impersonation.

And as for the clone itself and why they’re writing letters to Camila, well, imagine it from Lus' perspective. To her at the time of creation, the last thing she probably knew was that she had been chasing the cute little owl that took her Azura book into the woods, and right when the bus to Reality Check Camp was about to arrive.

Also, if you think about it, Lus being the work of someone we/don’t know yet raises way more plot threads/questions than answers compared to being the work of the portal, as outlined below:

TLDR at end of post for those wondering

Belos? How and why before YBOS where he actually started paying attention to Luz for the first time and actually got his hands on a portal? 

Eda? Why would she do all this and not tell Luz she can goof around without needing to worry about her mom or the camp/in time to fool the camp, especially when it took a good amount of time for Eda to even start feeling that close to Luz? 

Hooty got ruled out from the getgo since he can’t hold pencils, King just isn’t that subtle, and everyone else that Luz knows has the major issues of just straight up not knowing about the camp in the first place. Well, that and a lack of another known method of getting to the Human Realm in the first place.

The camp? Why would they worry about a missing camper whose disappearance is all HER fault and thus would more logically result in a call to her parent than some convoluted clone conspiracy? 

And finally, some currently completely unknown third party?

If we’re talking a Changeling, A) it’d be easy for Luz to dismiss them and B) that just makes all the ominous portrayal of Lus super straightforward instead of a subversion like is the show’s shtick.

If we’re talking dimensional counterparts, A) they have to REALLY have led a very similar life to Luz’s in order for there to be enough common ground for Luz to listen, and B) dimensional counterparts aren’t even a confirmed or likely thing that people cooked up from Episode 1 side characters influenced by Amity’s concept art.

And if we’re talking some complete surprise third party group or another, it doesn’t make sense to introduce a third party and their motives and plans to the show this late in when Belos is already taking up the bulk of it all.

Hell, if anything, the continued existence of the duplicate in of itself would indicate that the target of the conspiracy is none other than Camila Noceda than anything to do with Luz or Eda, especially with the complete lack of anyone taking advantage of Luz and or Eda. 

From the getgo, Witches Before Wizards already hard-baked into the show the idea that Luz is NOT inherently special or anything into the foundations of the show from the getgo - ergo, Camila likely just is an absolutely regular human being, someone who has no justification for such a convoluted conspiracy to surround them.

That said, I believe that the idea of the portal having originated from the Human Realm could potentially play into some interesting stories to be had with Camila and Lus here, especially as the conspiracy board shot from the promo was confirmed by Dana to apparently be from S2A, not from the episodes past Yesterday’s Lie:

After all, with Luz searching the library for a way home this coming episodes, perhaps she might figure out something the next couple of episodes that allows her texts to send through, which would logically lead to the above picture. That, and Camila and Lus being confused by and trying to figure out what’s going on there.

I mean, the cabin in the woods likely has a very close connection to the portal and it’s origins given how closely tied the two structures seem to be, and as far as we can tell, Luz never mentioned the cabin in her videos to Camila, but if Lus tries to retrace her steps, that would be a natural vector to lead Camila to the cabin and thus allow us a chance to actually investigate it.

That said, all following the trail would do is lead her and Lus to a dead end at the abandoned cabin, where they would have nothing else to do except discuss their complicated relationship concerning Luz and twiddle their thumbs while waiting for Luz to finish things on her end - which while something I think would be interesting to see, I just don’t see how much of a way to keep them in the greater picture of the show without some kind of project or activity that the two of them could work together on on screen. 

And that’s what leads me to a particular train of thought here, starting with the question of what if Luz FAILS to make a working portal over the course of S2A and such?

With the possible in-universe mystery over what the heck is going on with Lus, perhaps the cabin might hold some notes from the original last human owner - if not potentially the creator - of Eda’s portal as well as potentially some of the same materials and such from previous trips.

Cue CAMILA building a working portal, following in the footsteps of the original creator and such and thus finding a reason to stay on screen, all the while potentially demonstrating both why Belos wanted the portal instead of making his own, as well as diving into the Owl Deity’s connection with the original portal. Heck, maybe the Owl Deity is only accessible in the Human Realm and that plays a part in Belos wanting to get to the Human Realm, which would bring Camila directly into contact with the magic her daughter has been interacting with.

Also, just imagine the internal conflict going on here with Lus. After all, helping Camila build a portal to get the original Luz -and hoo boy would that be a tough thing to grapple with- would most definitely do that and make both Lus AND Camila question how much the latter likes Lus vs Luz.

Like, just imagine it. There would be major chances for Lus and Camila to discuss what would happen if and when they’re finished with the portal, and what will happen to Lus’ relationship with Camila if and when Luz gets back.

Does Camila really prefer her daughter to be all more “normal” like Lus, or does she prefer the old, “weird” daughter from before the summer with Luz?

Perhaps she might be able to figure out how to strike a nuanced balance between the two, and all on a metaphorical journey to truly build a better connection between her and her daughter(s?). 

TLDR: Or in short, I can’t help but feel it would be fitting to see Camila building a bridge WITH Lus TO Luz. 

Particularly, by being the one to craft an actual working portal in the Human Realm instead of Luz in the Demon Realm, showing a parent putting in an active effort to get down to their child’s level rather than waiting for said child to try to get up to their parent’s level even if they can’t or find it incredibly hard to do so.

#the owl house #the owl house theory #owl house theory #toh theory #toh #owl deity hooty theory #camila noceda #lus #lus noceda #luz noceda #toh speculation #the owl house speculation

[lanshappycorner]

Deuce Spade facts and fun facts🥳🥳

This is a list of facts and fun facts about Deuce! This list is based on true facts only and any observations I've made, however observations can be subjective, so those will be labeled properly! Let's start off with some facts already in the wiki :)

First Yr, class 1-A, student no.24

Birthday: June 3

Age: at the beginning of the game, Deuce is 16, but currently, he is 17 [his profile in game has not been updated, but as time is proven to flow in game, it is unclear but can be interpreted that the characters do canonly age]

Gemini

173 cm / 5'8" ft

Homeland: Rose kingdom

Family: Mother, Grandmother, it is implied that his father is out of the picture as Deuce states that he is the only man in the family so his father has either left or is dead

Club: Track and Field [alongside Jack]

Best subject: PE

Dominant hand: Right

Fav food: Egg dishes / omurice

Least fav food: Bell peppers

Dislikes: Limited time sales

Hobby: Magical wheel (twst motorcycle I guess but it looks kinda funky)

Talents: Machinery Maintainance [good with fixing gadgets and etc]

Used to be a delinquent before he heard his mother crying on the phone to his grandmother about his behavior. Afterwards he decided to change

Owns a pink leopard printed suit

Cannot do middle school math, he will take a lot of time to solve simple Algebra problems

Gets nervous and stops functioning entirely when talking to women

Onto some fun facts outside of the wiki! These facts have been gathered from various sources (ppl who can read japanese, ppl who have told me abt info in the twst guidebook, twitter, and ofc the main translated story), but I cannot prove 100% authenticity of this, so take it with a gain of salt

Canonly a pretty boy. Deuce is described as the "cool pretty type" in the twst guidebook

Smells like flowers [applies to all students from Rose kingdom]

A romantic, he admired the king and queen of heart's relationship and trey teased him about it

Thought that baby chicks hatch from store bought eggs until the MC and Grim told him the truth

Can cook eggs (he likes them over easy)

Wanted to make a magical wheel club but was rejected so he joined track and field

Bought magical wheel magazines when he was younger and studied it

Wanted to ride his magical wheel in the heartslabyul maze (mentioned he forgets bad things when he rides it so like...it makes him feel better)

Hates limited times sales/shopping but is extremely good at it. He can remember the price of an item, when exactly it sells out, the percentage/probability of when it can sell out, discount prices and pretty much any math that has to do with it [he's extremely good at shopping because his mother brought him out a lot with her to limited time sales]

In addition to the point above, it is implied he can memorize and calculate that for pretty much every item he intends on buying (everything I listed above is in relation to the time he bought 20 limited time puddings which greatly impressed Sebek who wasn't able to grab even 1, but it was later revealed that he also bought 8 bag full of items requested by Trey for baking, as well as the others probably from heartslabyul) so basically Deuce big brain and very good memorization abilities

Hilariously in the instance above, Sebek, who is like...a real fae, has said that what Deuce did was not something a human can do

Flirted with a plant because vil was fucking around with him and told him to

Was ready to fist fight Riddle

Was about to go find Leona to beat him up but Vil was like do u have no fear and Deuce pretty much said that he can get thru to Leona with his muscles

Was about to fight Malleus (jesus christ) but ended up fixing his tamagotchi and came out completely loaded and rich (good for deuce, get that cha ching babey)

Won a Track and Field competition (noted to be rare for a first year)

He is literally a pretty boy, it's been pointed out that he looks good in the ceremonial clothes (but we already know that)

Admires Riddle and sees him as a role model, has called him boss (like...yakuza boss terminology) once

[Observation] Has a pretty good relationship with Jamil as he has asked Jamil to help him practice his Stargazer dance, and mentioned him once again when talking about how Jamil fixed his hat and said that he was a reliable upperclassman

Has said fuck and would not hesitate to say it again 🥺

Has been called honest and cute, was fawned over by kalim and trey. Kalim said Deuce was similar to his younger brothers

During his delinquent phase, he was blamed for many things he didn't do as well, Deuce said that he realized no one believed in him despite what he says, but because a policeman stood up for him, he wanted to become a cop when he grew up

Used intimidation tactics [the equivalent of "u wanna fucking go let's go I'll beat ur ass" to scare off ppl and silver was like hm I will have to try that sometime, to which deuce was pretty much like ahahah no dont

Deuce refers to Yuu as his "mabu", basically calling Yuu his best friend

He can change a lightbulb, and he talks abt hand washing materials and just domestic house stuff in general as if it's common knowledge. In other words it's implied Deuce is really good at housework due to doing a lot for his mother

When he was a kid, he used to cry because he thought there were monsters outside, but it was just hanging laundry

Is more scared of Riddle than ghosts

It's implied that one time (or several times...) he stayed after school with Crewel, and the poor guy had to attempt to explain the same concept over and over again to Deuce for hours until he understood

Ace always cheats in card games with Deuce, so Deuce claims that it's not very fun playing with him

Bad at astrology bc apparently all stars look the same to him

Likes cafe latte

Does tease ppl, he once messed with Yuu and in the process called Ace "Ace-kun" (Ace called him "Deuce-kun" as well). There has been an instance where he's teased Jack about his Niceness TM

Used to have over 30 gang members following him at age 14-15. (You'd think that him being so young would make him like a lackey but no he was the boss)

Has a thing for summoning cauldrons since he was young, but apparently you need to have a large amount of magic capabilities to summon objects, so [observation] deuce may actually be extremely powerful bc he was able to summon things at a young age, but he hasn't refined his powers yet so he still seems weak compared to a lot of the cast

During his delinquent phase, apparently he had a really wild hairstyle and he used his magic on people weaker than him

[Observation] Deuce is actually pretty good at lying. In his Halloween card he was able to put up a good act and deceive some of his ex gang members into following him into the forest before mildly roughing them up (keep in mind that he has not had contact with these ppl for at least a year, yet somehow he was able to assert enough authority to tell them to follow him. Also, he thought of this plan on the spot, and acted malicious enough so that the gang members would believe in him—which proves that he's not only quick witted but a convincing actor, as Jamil actually believed his act for a while)

It's implied that he and Ace are often in leadership positions, as they helped to lead heartslabyul in designing their Halloween booth, but they also mentioned that it was much easier compared to organizing unbirthday parties

[Observation] despite wanting to be an honor student, Deuce is still able to take unjustly means to achieve his goals (EX. Making a deal with Azul to pass his test), in general, deuce doesn't care too much about the method, be it through cheating or violence to get to his goal, but he does value a fair battle

[Observation] a lot of Deuce's strengths are subtle as we are frequently told abt how much of a bad student he is, but if u rly think abt it, deuce is put in leadership positions a lot, he's good a memorization and small technical details, he can be at times quick witted and deceiving, and he has the potential to be extremely powerful in magic. In conclusion Deuce is a menace and once we find out what his unique magic is I'm 100.01% sure he will become a greater menace and I think he should fight a lot of people and win

That will be all for this post! There may be more fun facts/observations that I may have missed, but feel free to add on to this! Anyways thank u for reading and please stan Deuce Spade♠️💙

#please read this i spent hours on it <3 #i am sorry for being a walking deuce encyclopedia #twisted wonderland #deuce spade #twisted wonderland deuce #twst deuce

[dutchdread]

Hi again, I'm the same anon from your last ask. So my next question then is why would you consider it to be a bad story if Cloud ends up with Aerith in the end? You also say Cloud and Tifa supposedly have something going on, but even if they did, Aerith doesn't know that. Neither Cloud nor Tifa tell anyone, or even show that there's anything going on between them throughout the whole story. Did you see that in Remake that Aerith even asks Cloud if Tifa is someone special and he says no?

Thanks for the question. Your question is comprised of two parts, why Cloud ending up with Aerith would be a bad story, and then the secondary part about Aerith not knowing about the history between Tifa and Cloud. I think understanding the later will be helpful to understand the former so I'll start with that. This goes back to what I said in my last reply concerning the difference between thinking someone is a bad person, and thinking they're a bad character. First off, let me just make clear that I don't judge Aerith too much concerning her behavior in the OG, since as you rightly state, she didn't really know that there was anything going on between Tifa and Cloud, she probably knew there was some attraction there, but nothing about the extent or the history. And if in the remake it turns out she's actually blissfully ignorant I'll be more lenient there as well. However, in my opinion the remake heavily implies she does realize there is a thing between Tifa and Cloud. You mentioned Aerith asking if Tifa was Clouds girlfriend, and him replying "no". However, as always, there is context here, for starters, the scene doesn't end there and then. Aerith replies knowingly "but she's someone special". Moreover the scene is also only one scene in a series of relevant scenes concerning Clouds relationship with Tifa, which starts with Jessie asking about who Tifa is too Cloud, this plotpoint then continues through Aeriths flower. When Aerith gives Cloud the flower she mentions that his girlfriend will love it, then later when Aerith asks him who he gave the flower to Cloud says he doesn't remember, and Aerith calls him out on the lie. The question is then answered when Aerith goes to the 7th heaven and discovers Cloud gave it to Tifa, prompting a smile from Aerith. She figured it out, actually, she probably figured it much earlier, but now it was confirmed. She had a hunch about Tifa, just like Jessie, Cloud was defensive at first, then evasive, but ultimately, Aeriths hunch was correct, Cloud gave the flower to Tifa. He can pretend all he wants, Aerith knows. Personally, I think she smiled because it reminds her of the future. Throughout remake Aerith is hinted to know more than she lets on, and that's especially true concerning Tifa and Cloud. When Tifa is kidnapped she pushes Cloud to go after Tifa, calling Tifa Clouds special person. If I recall correctly she even uses the same terminology that she used to describe Elmyras husband. She actively tries to make Tifa jealous by calling Cloud her bodyguard, and then she straight up tells Tifa to follow her heart. She gives me the distinct impression that she knows perfectly well where Cloud and Tifas hearts lie, and is trying to push them into action. This is borderline confirmed during the Aerith resolution where she basically straight up admits to knowing more about Clouds feelings than she actually should, assuming you think that this apparition is at least somewhat related to the current Aerith in some manner. The thing that really clenches this in my opinion is a trace of two pasts, where Tifa straight up tells Aerith about her and Clouds history. If Aerith doesn't get it by then, then she's being willfully ignorant. But lets say she does indeed not know, that would to some degree absolve her as a person. But it would still make her a bad character, because WE, the audience, know. We know that Cloud is supposed to end up with Tifa, we know that's how the story goes. And when you rewrite old stories in such a way that you take things away from one character, just to give more to another character, you run the giant risk of insulting the characters involved. You see this in things like the star wars sequels, where they effectively character assassinated Luke Skywalker in order to artificially make Rey seem better. But there are two reasons why this doesn't work, for one, it tends to create Mary-Sue like characters who just get given everything, and two, it inherently causes the fans of the other characters and stories to resent the character that's taking it away.

People don't like people who are simply handed everything, even fictional ones.

In a sense, this is also why Cleriths so often seem to hate Tifa, because they feel like Tifa took their story away from them. The difference, of course, is that Cloud ending with Tifa is a part of the original game itself, while Aerith coming back to life and ending up with Cloud would be a 25 year retcon which would blatantly disadvantage one character in favor of another, this in turn would reek of favoritism, which in turn would generate bad blood in the player. A character who needs to take away from other characters in order to be put forward is not a good character. Good characters add to the characters around them, not take away, that's what Aerith in the OG does, that's what Aerith ending up with Cloud, would not do. This effect would then be magnified by Aeriths already over importance to the plot. Having the universe revolve around one character generally isn't good writing. One of the things that makes Lord of the rings so timeless and beloved is that Frodo is just a small hobbit in the grand scheme of things. Likewise, one of the key elements that makes FFVII so appealing to human nature is Clouds humanity and lack of importance. The fact that Cloud turns out to not be a soldier 1st class, but just a grunt who wasn't good enough, who still ends up being the one who saves the world, speak to the human spirit. Aerith living and ending up with Cloud wouldn't be just a small difference where the overall story would stay the same with only the love interest switched, no, it would inherently ripple effect into all other aspects of the story. From the smallest details to the overall themes of the story, from directing to the personalities of characters, everything would be effected and all of it would fall apart. I could go over a hundred examples but I'll limit myself to some of the smallest and largest. Stories have a flow, where what is happening follows logically from what came before. It's not that it's impossible to write a story where two characters that are roughly similar to Cloud and Aerith fall in love, get separated by death, and where the Cloud character mourns and pines for her after she's gone. The problem comes when you add in Tifa, Zack, and all the other context and details of the story. Consider Zack, if we take the concept of Zack as it relates to Cloud and Aeriths relationship and boil it down to the essentials we could see it as a story about a girl falling in love with a boy because he's channeling the spirit of her dead ex, the main internal conflict the characters need to overcome could then be the question of whether these feelings are true, or whether they are just the shadow of her feelings for the old boyfriend. On the surface, this premise works as the basis of a story. The problem lies in the execution. If you write such a story there are a few things you can and cannot do. For one, you have to make this love exceptionally obvious, you can't tell a story about whether or not feelings are true if you never even get to establishing the feelings in the first place. One of the key things you need to do for this is establish the two characters central importance to the others internal emotional arcs. The first thing you DON'T do is establish a second female character and have Clouds emotional arc revolve mainly around her. If you want to tell a story where Tifa and Clouds relationship turns out to just be friendship, while Aerith and Cloud turns out to be love, then you show the scenes establishing that. However, whenever Cleriths argue for a story like this they have to assert that Cloud no longer loving Tifa is just something that happened off-screen and is never mentioned. But if this were true, this would be extremely important to show. So again, if this is the story, then this is bad direction, aka, storytelling. Scene choices matter, if your story requires you to assume that the scenes you're shown aren't important, and that the crucial bits have to be imagined to happen of screen, then that's bad writing. And the reason you can't suddenly do it now, 25 years later, is

because of a thing called "set-up". Even if they were to change to story to suddenly direct it as such now, it would constitute a drastic change of direction, which means the larger 2-decade long story we've been told is no longer a single coherent whole. If the story in remake is that Cloud always loved Aerith, then why wasn't the ground work for that lain 25 years ago? If you want to say that the story is about Cloud loving Aerith, and ending up with her eventually, then you can't have Cloud not speak her name for the second half of the original game, and devote that time completely to establishing port-mortem that Cloud wasn't himself while with Aerith, and that his true self has deeply ingrained feelings towards another woman. And not some minor character who exists only as a plot-device, some fake hurdle designed to try to raise some fake tension, but Tifa, a character who is routinely established to be the "heroine" of the game, someone of equal importance to Aerith who cared for Cloud while he was in a coma, whose history with Cloud started his internal character arc, whose history with Cloud resolved his internal character arc, and who lives with Cloud 2 years later.

And the same thing goes for Zack, it was possible to write him as negligible when it was just FFVII, if you ignored the addition of Tifa and JUST focused on the Zack element as a side character. But the addition of Tifa and the existence of Crisis Core cause the narrative to become disjointed when trying to view it as a single story. This is why people so often want you to ignore Crisis Core, because they understand that if a conclusion of a story is that Zacks role isn't that important, then why did your story spend an entire game cementing the importance of Zack? One of the things I hear most from Cleriths is "why couldn't Cloud just get over his childhood crush on Tifa and fall in love with Aerith? It happens in real life" , or some other variation of "why couldn't this happen?" But this shows the problem with how they want the story to go, because stories aren't real life. Anything CAN happen in a story, but not anything should. Stories have a concept called " checkovs gun", if a gun is introduced into a story in the first act, it has to be fired somewhere down the line. If the gun turns out to not have a role in the story, why was it there? But the same thing doesn't apply in real life, in real life, chekovs guns almost never fire, with few exceptions, real life is a bad guide to how to write stories. Stories written like real life, generally suck. If characters in stories behaved like characters in real life, half their lines would be "uhhhhh", and half the scenes would be them sitting on the couch having meaningless unrelated events happen.

The entire flow, pacing, and sequence of events is wrong in a Clerith version of this story. In order to sell the idea that FFVII is a story about Aerith and Cloud getting together you first have to sell the idea that all these plot threats concerning Tifa essentially don't matter. But if they don't matter, then why are they there? What purpose do they serve? What purpose does Tifa serve? Or Zack? In order to "fix" their preferred interpretation, Cleriths need to get around this problem, which causes them to have to re-interpret everything that happens and twist it in order to create the appearance of a coherent story. This requires them to resort to minimizing characters, character assassinating characters, and generally misrepresenting everything that happens. I think there is no bigger indication of why Cloud and Aerith getting together would suck as a story than looking at how the people who propose this version of the story look at Cloud and Tifa as characters. What follows are some excerpts from the dumbest person I've ever debated.

This went on for over 200 replies, this is not a mentally sound interpretation of the story, but this is what you need to believe in order to get the Aerith/Cloud love story to work. You're forced to minimize Tifa and her importance to the story, and you need to demonize Cloud. So basically you have two options here, you either have to say "all this stuff with Tifa and Zack, doesn't matter", all their scenes, all those plot threats, they all aren't a part of the larger story being told and ultimately amount to nothing. Or two, you remove all those scenes or rewrite them to instead focus on Cloud and Aerith. And both those approaches suffer from the same basic problem, they're both effectively going "screw everything, all that matters is Cloud and Aerith". Which brings me back to my earlier point. If your story is pushing everything aside in order to hype up the main character, you're not writing a good ensemble story, you're writing a bad fan-fiction. This is the writing people HATE. Cloud is no longer a sad but likable character with complex motivations and feelings who wasn't as important as he thought he was, no, he's cliche self-insert main character that the world revolves around, who every girl genuinely loves regardless of whether or not it makes sense, even though he's a complete asshole who abandons children and takes advantage of women just because he's "lovesick". No other man could ever compare, a week with him braindamaged and you forget all about the man you pined after for 5 years. Aerith is not compassionate to a man who blames himself for his failings and thinks he'd do more harm than good, she's compassionate to a piece of human filth who refuses to go save children because he doesn't care about them. She's not just a girl with a big destiny and a tragic fate, no, the universe itself resets to make sure she gets laid. Tifa isn't a powerful woman who devotedly supports the man she loves through his darkest hours, instead she's a weak unimportant doormat without self-respect who even in 2 decades could not measure up to a week with Aerith. Zacks connection with Cloud doesn't come with complex implications about Aeriths feelings, Zack never really mattered, his entire story of getting back to her? Doesn't matter, it only exists to show how much Aerith must love Cloud to choose him over Zack. The entire lifestream reveal concerning Cloud? Doesn't matter, nothing matters, it's in the past. The central reveal of the story isn't important because Clouds true self suddenly likes Aerith now.....good writing. etc, etc, etc. Where Aerith was once a part of an ensemble cast, the heroine of the external plot, tasked with saving the world through her powers as an ancient, while Tifa as the equally important heroine of the internal plot saves Clouds through their shared feelings, now everything instead revolves around Aerith, and the other characters only exist in service to her, not as characters in their own right, but only to make sure she and Cloud gets together, like every hated mary-sue in history. The pain of her death? Gone, the impact and nuance of the story? Gone. Literally everything that made FFVII special? Gone. And concerning the small, even the little details would no longer be coherent, Cetras thematically guide people to the promised land, note: "GUIDE", but now Aerith would suddenly be the promised land herself. The through-line of Cetras "returning to the planet"? Gone, if Aerith doesn't die that doesn't link to the story anymore at all. Tifa's bar being the 7th heaven, aka, the final heaven, aka, the promised land where Aerith guides Cloud to? Suddenly a meaningless name. Tifa's last name "lockhart" being a direct hint towards the "tender feelings locked up inside Clouds hart"? Completely trivial, the feelings weren't that important to the story. And I could go on for hours, every aspect of FFVII, from small to large, would be fundamentally poisoned if Cloud ends up with Aerith.

I could rewrite the story to make it work, but that's the point, then you'd be rewriting the story in order to diminish every other character and story in favor of Cloud and Aerith. Which brings us back to it becoming a horrible fan-fiction where no one and nothing matters except Cloud and Aerith. It's ok to write unimportant characters, it's not ok to make your important characters unimportant in retrospect in order to wank off another character. Thanks for asking.

#cloti #FFVII #ffvii remake #cloud strife #aerith gainsborough