#it's terrible to have characters that leave you with more ideas than you can execute in your limited time

[jade-of-mourning]

support your brother / sport brother

#lok #tlok #bolin lok #mako lok #lychee's trash art #idk where i was going with these scribbles but uh yeah #animal collective brother sport is making me lose my shit #you know you're going a bit insane over fictional characters when they invade your music #but the song is lowkey a bop i can't stop looping it #yeah it's basically a cheerleading song but also it makes me SAD #;;; probably because my brain decided to associate it with them lmfao #in other news i'm 6k into an extremely general outline for a decent length fic #lately been going OOOO gonna start seven projects at the same time!!!! #it's terrible to have characters that leave you with more ideas than you can execute in your limited time

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for pretending my original fictional characters are my "friends" for the purpose of asking questions online?

Alright, so hear me out: I'm a writing hobbyist, I run a long-term D&D campaign, I like writing characters a lot and sometimes do it even outside of any stories, you could even say that it's my passion. Whenever I create a character that would have experience with something that I don't, I try to experience that thing myself, or if I can't, I ask others online about their experiences to make sure I can write my character accurately.

Here's the problem: back when I used to ask questions online from a writing/creative perspective, I felt like a lot of them concerning more controversial topics were getting dismissed and I got a lot of unsolicited writing advice unrelated to the original question. The most infuriating were always "You shouldn't write a character like that." or "You should change this integral part of the character to remove the issue that you're having."

Now, you can have whatever opinions you want about writing certain aspects of characters, but I would kindly ask you to shove them up your ass. I firmly believe that you can't judge a character accurately merely by their character traits written down in a vacuum, the execution is what really matters. One trait that could be seen as problematic when written badly can really enhance the character, story and it's themes if incorporated correctly. I'm not going to remove integral story-relevant characteristics of my OCs, and I sure as hell am not gonna delete them entirely just because an internet rando didn't believe that I could do them justice. Literally the entire reason why I'm asking these questions in the first place is because I'm trying to be as respectful/accurate to your culture/ethnicity/sexuality/gender/religion/disability/anything else. I GENUINELY want to learn and understand, so why don't you at least try to give me the benefit of the doubt instead of assuming it'll be done terribly?

Anyway, to give some examples of the questions that I've asked that were met with this kind of response:

"How would you write an autistic character who uses ASL but doesn't like to emote with their face?" (Was told to simply "make" the character like using their face even though it would go against how their other symptoms interact with each other, plus it would change how other characters view them and thus the story itself)

"What kind of slang would a black character raised in Brooklyn use?" (Was told to not write a black character using slang as a white person.)

"How would a Muslim character go about leaving their religion after losing their faith?" (Was told that the mere idea of an ex-muslim person was offensive)

I don't know if other writers also struggle with this, or if I'm just the unluckiest and always attract those kinds of people somehow, but after having to deal with it way too much I simply started lying and pretending that my characters are real so people would stop questioning my writing choices and just focus on answering my actual questions. For example, instead of the three questions above nowadays I would ask:

"Me and my Autistic friend are learning ASL together, but she doesn't like making expressions for sensory reasons. Is there anything else she can do?"

"What are some examples of actual slang used by black people in Brooklyn? My friend is from there but he likes to mess with me by coming up with fake words and pretending like they're slang, at this point idk what to believe."

"My friend lost their faith and is planning on leaving Islam. They don't have access to internet due to their parents so they wanted me to ask about what could be the possible consequences and how go about the process, or even where to start."

Also, obviously, I do way more research than just these questions, but I also really want to know the opinion of people in these communities about these topics and the discussion that develops from it. That's not something that simply reading a book or an article on a topic can give you and I believe that interacting with the community itself is an important part of properly portraying characters that belong to them as well. Still, a few of my friends told me that it's kinda shitty of me to lie in this way, especially when the end goal is to be respectful about certain traits yet me lying to these people is a sign of disrespect in their opinion. Personally I don't see it that way, I simply want people answering my questions to treat them seriously and if presenting them as real scenarios is what gets them to do it I feel like I have no choice, it has nothing to do with the respect I have for the communities in question.

Also, if this matters at all: 90% of my writing is entirely personal and will never be published in any way at all, the other 10% being the writing that I do for my D&D campaign which only my players get to witness.

So, with all of that out of the way, AITA?

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

[ouroborosorder]

Arknights VFX question: Any highlights or personal favourites as far as the "Stick a whole background/huge jpeg in there behind the character" category of skills goes?

Oh I like this question. This made me consider things I've never looked at before, so thank you for that. I had to do research.

So, there's not a lot of ops like this, and shockingly, I don't have many positive things to say about them. BUT I did find a few interesting highlights I think are worth discussing.

First off, I will leave Eine Variation out of this, as I have made my thoughts on that Thing very clear.

But, my favorite skin in the game actually does indeed have the Background.Jpeg - Specter's As One!

Aaaand it's easily the worst part of my favorite skin. Don't get me wrong, i think it's probably one of the better executions of the idea, since it's like, a skybox, it matches the pallette, matches the artstyle of the skin, it's almost perfect. I wish it was a LITTLE less static, maybe have some distortion ripples across it like waves to keep the stars moving, or maybe have them twinkle a bit or something. But it's fine. But a good effect isn't everything.

Effects relies heavily on the principles of animation, too. Appeal, weight, color, and most importantly of all - timing. Having a proper lead in can make a bad effect good, and having a bad lead-in can make a good effect fucking terrible. And having no lead-in at all will absolutely fuck your effect and make it super clear that you took a jpeg from the skin art and superimposed it behind your operator.

Here. Look at the picture above. Now, I am going to tab back literally just one single frame in the animation and...

oh ...there's no fade in at all. It just literally appears in a single frame. It draws way more attention to itself than it needs to just by virtue of literally popping in. It's SUPER obvious that it's just Skybox.jpeg. If it faded in with some sort of noise mask (which takes literally less than 2 minutes to make,) it would be so so so much better. Again, this is my favorite skin in the game, and I already think S3 is quite beautiful, so this is nitpicking, but this skybox always bugged me a lot.

Now to say a sentence no one has ever said - going up a step in quality from Specter to Hoederer!

I can't fully get this one in a still image and I'm too tired to record a video / gif so just go with this, alright?

This one is ALMOST GOOD. ALMOST. IT'S SO FUCKING CLOSE. The texture is being distorted by a wavelike noise that is giving it the rippling effect of fire, which is the standard thing to do for making a stylized fire. The problem is that... The texture itself doesn't fucking move? It's just being UV distorted, just a bit of offset to the material and I just AUGH.

It's so so so obvious that it's just a static jpeg of fire that's being waved around like a flag to get it to contort into being fire. This wouldn't bother me if the actual fire texture didn't have implications of movement in the little waves and fades and stuff. I hate it it's so irritating it's so CLOSE. But also, animating an entire fire flipbook would have taken a lot more time, and I can 100% guarantee you the VFX artist is also unhappy with this one. Their A team was probably on Arturia or something. Speak of the devil -

I've had a few people ask how I feel about Arturia's S3 after I expressed my hatred for Eine Variation, and I am here to say - this unambiguously fucking rules, for a few reasons.

First and least importantly, THE MONSTER MOVES. The monster itself has slight movement, you can notice its arms wiggle a little and mouth open and close. This is a small thing that goes a LONG way to make it feel way more dynamic and alive. It's also being distorted by a noise like Hoederer is, which is quite nice as a touch, really helps to make that limited movement feel way more significant than it is.

Second, is that the texture is monochromatic, but in a different way than Arturia is. The grays are colder, harsh blue-grays to contrast Arturia herself, who is a very warm gray. This makes it so that it adds a really nice background that looks like part of her, while also standing out and allowing her to stand out against it. It's a really smart use of monochrome to create visual interest using just different subtle shades of gray.

But that bluish hue also serves to compliment the only color in the effect - the blue light from the cello. Your eyes are naturally drawn to brighter glowing things, which is also the only colored spot on the effect - the cello from which her Arts emerge. As a result, the Beastie.jpg fades out of your attention, becoming monochromatic noise, which, due to being just kinda chaotic and aesthetically dissonant, you interpret more as abstract Shape than anything else. That abstract shape then makes a cone which leads you down into Arturia's center, which is her cello, which is where her Arts are coming from.

This is basically to say - These are very emblematic of what I think makes good effects textures in general. They work best when they're not alone. When these backgrounds are part of a larger whole that's all coming together to make an effect, rather than being the centerpiece of the whole thing. When I notice the background, it's a problem, in my eyes. Maybe people disagree. They keep putting them in skins, and a lot of people thought the Eine Variation goat was cool as hell, so clearly I'm in the wrong here, but hey. Who gives a shit.

I'm sure there's way more examples of this, (actually I know there are,) but I'm extremely tired and need to go the fuck to sleep. If there's any particular backgrounds ya'll want me to take a look at, lemme know and I'll get back to you when I've woken from my dread slumber.

#arknights #arknights vfx breakdown

[hamliet]

Wanted to ask what you think about this reading

( >︹<)

No but actually. It's anti intellectual, cynical, bad faith, not authorially intended, and not textually supported take. The sheer degree of misreading makes this almost laughable.

Like if you don't think that romantic love--which is not incongruent with spiritual love--is the entire POINT of the ending, of what offers Raskolnikov and Sonia practical futures, then they didn't read the book. They read their own presumptions into the text.

I'll quote from @linkspooky here. Link's talking about No Longer Human, which is in many ways a response to C&P, as well as how NLH's main character is perhaps more similar to the unnamed narrator of Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground. The point I think Link expresses really well is this:

For Yozo, each woman he meets is his Sonya, they are meant to redeem him and bring him peace, and when they don’t he leaves. Yozo someone missing the point that, Raskolnikov loved Sonya because he sympathized with her circumstances and suffering while Yozo really only ever cares about his own suffering...

The protagonist encounters a young prostitute name Liza, he tries to save her at first, but then turns around and starts to treat her terribly and has a mental breakdown in front of her that ends in this line. She finds him pitiable, and comforts him in that moment. 

However, after this moment of comfort he then he goes back to treating her terribly once more. He yells at her, and she grows tired of him. He pays her and she leaves and that’s the end of that relationship. 

See it’s a moment that’s simultaneously, a moment of human connection, but also it shows how the protagonist regards other people and why he can’t connect to them. If you only use other people to comfort your loneliness, you’re going to end up alone either way. The same way the Narrator uses Liza, Yozo chronically uses women. 

The person whose take you linked (no idea who they are) is basically doing the same thing as Yozo and as the unnamed Narrator--they're viewing Sonya as existing for Raskolnikov, but they don't cite any actual evidence for this, nor can they without removing context. Now, you can criticize Dostoyevsky's execution of the idea, but there is a vast, vast, vast difference between how Dostoyevsky portrays the Narrator and Liza and how he portrays Raskolnikov and Sonya. This difference shows that Dostoyevsky is not unaware of the idea of seeing a woman as an idea or an idol rather than as a human being.

Sonya is absolutely a person, and that's why she's able to impact Raskolnikov so much, and why he's able to empathize with her. It's her humanity. Someone who is denied humanity by so many and even by his own self meets someone whom others deny humanity to and can only affirm her humanity because of what he's heard from those who love her--long before Sonya and Raskolnikov ever have any sort of interaction. He affirms her humanity before he even meets her, and that's the point.

Yes, within the story she's a symbol for the suffering of humanity and for the suffering of poor women just as Raskolnikov is a symbol for the suffering of the impoverished students desperately seeking some kind of meaning in a life that looks hopeless. But to reduce the characters to their symbols and to argue that the text supports this is directly against the themes, because Raskolnikov seeing people as just symbols is exactly what fueled his toxic philosophy. It's coming to love someone as a human being that sets him free from that.

#ask hamliet #crime and punishment #fyodor dostoevsky #rodion romanovich raskolnikov #sonya marmeladova #notes from underground

[maglor-my-beloved]

Rescues

Characters: Maeglin, Eärendil

Words: 733

Warnings: suicide attempt

Read on Ao3

@jaz-the-bard I hope you enjoy this not-quite-drabble! I had a lot of fun with it!

Maeglin stood at the very edge of broken Beleriand, gazing down at the bottom of the jagged cliff he stood on. It was not Caragdûr, he thought, but it would do. Perhaps now, with Morgoth cast to the void, his curse had weakened enough that he could finally, finally die.

(It is not that he has not tried, in the years that have passed since Gondolin’s fall. He has, over and over, but each time his fëa has refused to leave his broken body, just as it had when his– Tuor had cast him from the walls.)

Oh, Maeglin knows he does not deserve the peace of death, but he has always been selfish, and what is one more act of selfishness, after all he has done? This one, at least, would rid the world of one more monster.

So here he stands at the edge of the cliff and tries not to think of the hands that had cast him to what should have been his death. Tries not to wish that he were here now, that his touch might be the last thing he feels.

He closes his eyes, takes one more step, and falls…

---

… only to land in strong, steady arms, and hear a surprised gasp. Maeglin opens his eyes, and is met with a light so blindingly bright that he immediately closes them again.

“Forgive me,” his unwanted saviour says, and the light dims enough that Maeglin can see him clearly.

He wishes he had not. He knows that face, knows the strong lines of his jaw, the golden hair, the cornflower-blue eyes, knows the way he raises his eyebrows and the way the corners of his eyes crinkle in concern.

Eärendil was a child when Maeglin last saw him, but there is no mistaking him, and were it not for the care in his face and the gentleness of his grasp Maeglin would not doubt it was him.

And yet – and yet he wears the necklace, the one Maeglin had given Idril at the Gates of Summer, the one that the Enemy could not possibly know about, and so this cannot be a trick. It is truly Eärendil.

Maeglin is set down, and only now does he think to look around. They are on a ship, it seems, except there are no sails upon the masts, and beneath them is not water, but air, for many, many miles, the broken edge of what was once Beleriand far beneath them.

He straightens his clothes and faces Eärendil, his back to the railing. This is not a bad way to go – all things considered, it might be even better than to jump. After all, there is a certain rightness to being cast to his death by the very child he had once held above that terrible precipice.

“Do it,” he says. “It is your right.”

Eärendil frowns. “If you mean throwing you from the ship,” he replies, “I won’t. There would have been little use to rescuing you, if I did that.”

“How else, then? I will not fight you; I deserve whatever fate you have in mind for me.”

“Good,” Eärendil says, a small smile playing on his lips. Maeglin knows that smile. “Because I intend for you to live. See that camp down there?”

He points to the distant ground, and indeed there are tents, and silver stars on blue – the High King’s banner.

“My son is there,” Eärendil says, and he has a son? “If you truly wish for redemption, then go and serve him. I am bound to this ship, doomed to sail the skies forever, but you can go to him. You can protect him. Will you do that?”

Maeglin thinks that this is a horrible idea, but he has said he would accept whichever fate Eärendil saw fit. At any rate he will most likely be executed as soon as anyone recognizes him, but then at least he can say that he tried.

“I will.”

“Then swear that you will do no harm to him.”

Oaths are no less of a horrible idea, Maeglin knows, but he is cursed and doomed thrice over already, so he swears. It is almost a relief, to know that he couldn’t hurt Eärendil’s son if he tried.

Eärendil lets down a rope ladder.

“Bring him my love,” he says, before Maeglin climbs down. “His name is Elrond.”

#maeglin #earendil #december drabbles #maglor writes #I have just given up on making these even drabble-adjacent haven't I. oh well.

[ilynpilled]

Hey! So I'm from the Jaime/Lannister side of the fandom but wanted to ask your opinion on where you think GRRM is going with Dany. I don't mean spell out her endgame or anything, but what messages do you think he is trying to impart through her character? I see so much Dark!Dany! theory shaped by the show that has just never really resonated with how I read her in the books. I see her more as a figure who will try to be Queen of Westeros, but will ultimately end up abdicating or even sacrificing herself during the LN because finding "home" is more important to her than ruling... but that is not based on much other than gut feeling. What do you think?

yeah idrgaf about the show tbh. i think it fundamentally misunderstood key themes that the books were exploring. corrupted/mad dany feels so deeply cynical to me. people have been reiterating this: she is a subversive messiah figure & she is given a narrative that is so often reserved for the “male hero”. the gender commentary in that would fall flat on its face to me if she becomes mad fascist female ruler like bffr. yeah, she will get darker come winds, like everyone else she will have to make choices and will face moral dilemmas because she is resolved to continue combatting the institution of slavery. she knows she will not be able to do it without dirtying her hands in some way. i think grrm is gonna explore the concept of necessary force and the question of when it is more moral to take a stand and draw blood: is it justified to cut off and burn something at the root, especially if the alternative is allowing the cancer to exist and continue to spread? the institution of slavery is a wound that cannot just be covered up with a bandaid. like this is a very important aspect of abolition. the only way i can see the idea of “madness” be relevant is in a more subversive john brown paralleling way with how people thought that man was insane bc he wanted to end slavery lmfao. if terrible people think you are mad for attempting to make radical changes that harm them that is a good sign. also would hate her becoming an aerys parallel like in the show like that is cringe bio essentialism territory, again, antithetical to the themes prevalent in these books. d&d’s #subversive #dark #unexpected ending was unironically the equivalent of:

do not want her ‘idealism’ to be completely robbed from her at any point either really. im not opposed to tragedy but i dont think id vibe with it being too cynical in this instance. this series is about earned romanticism. its heroes are the dreamers yada yada. it is about a dream of spring. i always thought she represented hope in some way. she is gonna be the flame during TLN, literally and metaphorically imo. i do think there are thematic and more abstract aspects to lightbringer, like yeah humanity uniting over an ideal for a better future & it can be about hope or whatever, which is why multiple characters have some kind of flaming sword foreshadowing, but a main one is gonna be dany and her dragons. like on top of all the pretty overt foreshadowing, like let us think about the logistics here, what is gonna do more damage to the others?? three magic nukes or some convenient dues ex machina magical flaming toothpick we forge out of murdering a woman? i also do not want to instantly write her off as a doomed martyr either though. i see the appeal in the tragedy of the kind girl who wanted a home dying without ever getting to live in the one she created but still leaving it for millions upon millions of people present and future… but also idk i am just not crazy about martyrdom as a trope unless it is executed very well. i like when characters survive for a cause rather than die for it. dany always kept persevering, not just for herself, but others: her children and her people, so i like when altruism is framed in that way. also i might be a little bitter if she is the only one to die from the new generation or whatever like in the show

#ask #my opinions #sorry for no proper grammar etc im on my phone

[maythearo]

Ahem ahem, If I may rant a bit about Little Nightmares 3 with my thoughts on the trailer announcement + my predictions on how the game will go... cause I'm still freaking out and I'm so excited for this

Kind of a deserted, post apocalyptic theme, possibly associated with dangers of radiation or toxic waste of some sorts? I assumed because of Alone's gas mask design especially + Low's design is very post apocalyptic-like, and also from some of the enemies in the trailer. (Specifically about the obviously unnaturally big doll monster, and the bunch of human hands that crawled out of the sewer kinda resembling a humanoid spider creature for all we can see, maybe some of the enemies have been affected by whatever bigger danger this story may try to convey. I mean, characters from previous games were also unnatural looking, but for what I remember their designs and stories were fit of that very dark supernatural theme, as for this one in contrast seems to be going on a different kind of territory IN the means of supernatural, mixing a bit of more ""realistic"" tones to it)

The official podcast "the sounds of nightmares" seem to be going on a scientific/psychological evaluation and or experiments route, which I think grounds the story a little more, but at the same time I have NO idea how its narrative is going to relate to the game's itself lol something about dreams... hmmm

There is mirror travelling ig, that's super cool, but so far, I got no idea what it means 👍

I thought it would be a risky decision to leave the primary claustrophobic environment of the previous games and chose to go for a brighter, more "open world"(?) look for the main characters to adventure on, but at the same time, this setting can still be well explored on a horror perspective, despite me not seeing much of this theme being executed at all in any media I've consumed so far lol. I imagine it could be a great opportunity to contrast jumps between the game's levels, as in one stage you're out on the open desert and the other you fall into a darker area to explore through

Although I have my criticisms on some of Supermassive games' stuff, I'm still very fond of their work and takes on horror videogames in general, so I trust little nightmares 3 is in very good hands 👍

The ost is going to be awesome, the song in the trailer gave me goosebumps ngl

I believe we're not going to/are barely going to see Mono or Six in this story. Their arc was pretty well constructed beggining to end, but the lack of appearances of the two, at least for me, is not a negative thing at all! I think Low and Alone's story is going to focus on the world building through different lenses rather than exploring further what we already knew before. Mono and Six may be vaguely mentioned but not crucial to the sequel ig

Just a side note I'm a terrible game theorist, so if I said stuff that clearly contradicts something in the trailer or franchise, I am very sorry, I can't help I'm very inattentive most of the time, this is embarrassingenfjenfjebrk😫

I watched a full gameplay of the first and second game like, years ago- and only now I got the opportunity to play LN by myself. I finished the first game, went half of the dlc (I'm taking a break from it bcs it's so difficult for me and the switch version takes almost a full minute to reload after I die..) and I'm currently mid way through the second, although I still remember most of the stuff that will happen in its story. I'm following the episodes of the recent podcast, and I'm going to seach for the webcomic for me to read, yahooooo!!!

NOBODY asked for this post but I DO NOT CARE, little nightmares fascinates me from story, to gameplay, to visuals. It's one of a kind on its storytelling and art. Just my thing and I care about it very much. But that's it thanks for listening to my insanity arc

#shut up may #my brain is running laps atm. how do I make it stop

[proudfreakmetarusonniku]

I think as a whole the finales to season two plan was essentially just. Tie up as many loose ends as possible, burn everything currently going on to the ground, retain as many people as possible in a better workspace for communication and storytelling from the ashes. Which I have. obvious issues with. I think the execution of it did massive discredit to pretty much EVERY story being told on the SMP by either rushing them to a conclusion, sharply derailing them in a way that ignores their themes and development, or leaving them in limbo because they couldn't finish in time or wouldn't change their stories. Tommy and Tubbo killed off characters whose entire arcs were spent learning how to live. The entire cast for the Syndicate left because they were being asked to disregard Technoblade's impact on their characters. The entire Egg finale was retconned into pointlessness because everyone died a few weeks later.

That being said, I kind of understand where the sentiment was coming from. Multiple new CCs complained of having no way to get into the lore, Ranboo killed off his character from exhaustion with the series, and actual streams with more than a few people became extremely rare. I think the idea of cutting their losses and trying to keep the same people so that they could create something new with more passion and a better system was probably a good one. At that point the Dream SMP was a massive wreck and I see why it was appealing. I think it was executed terribly, should not have been headed or planned by Dream, and is fundamentally worse in that it was for literally nothing. If you go back to that period, you can see that a lot of the creators were genuinely excited for the second season, but Dream was never going to go through with it.

Honestly I think trying to do so And trying to tie it into the lore of the first one was doomed in general. I wouldn’t have had an issue if they’d just done something else, but that just added so much fucking issues it was a mess, especially since it was blatantly just a lie in hindsight. I’m not mad at the CCs at all, I just am frustrated.

[my-fool]

The ending to the old guard 2 comic was just so mid. Complaining under the cut

It's revealed that in the distant past (probably upwards of thousands of years ago) Andy was a slaveowner. This obviously pissed Nile right off. I wish Nile was allowed to have a more emotional reaction, but she basically says either you're with us or you're part of the problem. And then because Andy is too depressed to stand, Nile and the rest all leave her. That's where Noriko and her henchmen find her later.

For one thing, owning slaves is terrible. But it was literally pre-civilisation as we know it. Six thousand years ago. A crime is a crime, but Andromache states that there was no alternative to POWs captured during raids apart from mass-execution, and to be honest, I kind of agree.

For another, many of them likely bear similar crimes. Crusaders executed unarmed prisoners they couldn't afford to feed, both muslims and christians committed pogroms, arab muslims engaged in slave trade in north africa far before europeans did... I'm not saying yusuf or nicolo did any of these, but when you live a thousand years, it would also be weird to *never* have any hand in anything like that at all. Even in the modern day it's almost impossible not to financially support modern slavery through buying cheap clothes. It's a dirty world.

I wish Andy had done something in the present to alienate her team. Like, refused to rescue Booker because the time limit wasn't up, even though he was being tortured. Or to go after Noriko herself even though the others don't trust her an inch. Andromache was very depressed and apathetic in this comic, but she's a very proactive character and I think if the loneliness started to eat at her she's more likely to be self destructive than withdrawn.

Noriko's motivations make no sense. She was killed over and over by the impassive sea, so she's decided she needs to punish humanity. Humanity had no role in your deaths??

Maybe it would have been too similar to the first book's villain, but said something like "We immortals cannot die from illness or old age. Therefore, we are destined for thousands of violent deaths. We are demons put on this earth to wage eternal war. If we want peace, we need to remove ourselves."

And then the thematic discussion would be: can a soldier be a force for good, or is any form of violence immoral? They've killed a lot of people for one "justified" cause or another. And they've been wrong before.

It would also make sense for Noriko -- she was an assassin, and now that shes "reformed", all she's really done is swap one victim for another.

But really, the pacing scuppered the book. Volumes of comics are always around 5 issues, and the author wasted about 3 full issues on vague set-up and hinting at Noriko as a major threat when really she's just anti-Andy, so the idea that she can end all 5 of them on her own is a bit silley.

#the old guard #logged #force multiplied

[brokenpaladin]

10, 20, and 38! (I rolled a dice so I have no idea which ones these are 👀)

And A for the creator ask!

Oh boy, a fun selection!! This'll be long, hopefully I can put a read more here via mobile. Also, I'm gonna answer the creator one first,

A) Why are you excited about this character?

*drags over a chair* WELL I'M SO GLAD YOU ASKED. Though I guess an easier question would be what am I not excited about over Talis. I love him!! He's my boy!! He'll second-guess himself into the ground over something as simple as small talk, and he'll commit physical violence to protect a frightened stranger. He's convinced he's a terrible, foreboding presence and he gives off the biggest kicked puppy energy ever

He's seven feet tall and tries to stand as small as he can. He knits and mends to calm himself. If he stares at the sky too long he'll cry. He'll swear on his life to help someone get somewhere safely and he fully means it. He can't spend more than a few weeks traveling with someone before he's convinced he needs to leave for their own safety.

He once became a crux-point person in the change of power in an entire city, was nearly executed in another's place, and I'm not sure he realizes it. He befriended an injured owlbear. He's functionally homeless. He's absurdly powerful for a random forest stray living outside a town in the middle of nowhere, and he still will hire himself out as a day laborer in exchange for a meal

More seriously, he's become a very near and dear representation of an archetype I've always felt drawn to but never really sat down to extrapolate or write with abandon-- the self-sacrificing hero. The one who will put himself in danger to protect others. And specifically, the toll that takes, time and again, throwing yourself between another and cruelty you can't stop. The way it warps your thoughts and your view of yourself

And hopefully also how you learn to redirect that protective instinct into a healthy direction, how to grow and heal and value yourself again >:T But we're working on that bit

10. What lie do they most frequently remember telling? Does it haunt them?

I mean, tbh, everything haunts him-- he lets nothing go :') But the lie he tells most frequently, and actively, is probably about his own state or well-being. The simple regular ones, "I'm fine" and "it's nothing", the ones you tell to keep going. He doesn't think much of it, actually. He's sturdy and has survived worse, so to fuss over a bout of fear or a single wound feels painfully pointless

20. If they were asked to explain the difference between romantic and platonic or familial love, how would they do so?

Oof….. um, that would be a tricky one for our paladin lad. For you see, he's aromantic! He's never really felt a draw towards any particularly romantic relationship? But he's always been an affectionate, friendly lad, even as a kid, so growing up it was a little tricky to navigate-- he and his mom had many a long talk about how it felt weird when people made a big deal about holding hands, or how sometimes the way someone insinuated around him spending time with a friend felt uncomfortable. But she listened to his anxious talking over it, and helped him figure out that while he was fond of folk, he didn't feel drawn to them in a coupling sort of way-- just general affection or physical attraction, though he always got embarrassed to bring that up (I mean he was an absolute goob as a kid)

Now though, you're mostly just going to get a momentarily puzzled look and a shrug. He's not so talkative, these days

38. What memory do they revisit the most often?

Consciously, none. Or, he tries not to think on anything that has been, but he finds his memories of living in Neverwinter intruding most frequently when he's awake. For good or for ill, that was his safest and best home when he returned to the surface. He'll push those memories away as often as he can, because he doesn't think he has any right to miss his home there. He left voluntarily, after all. They would have kept him and looked after him forever, if he let them…

#dnd character #original character #dnd #paladin #dragonborn #ask meme #asked and answered #((hello and welcome to Look At My Disaster Son Hours)) #((he's trying his best his best is just very messy and earnest)) #paladin talis

[onewholivesinloops]

Idk if its just me but i really hate irie kyousuke. He was introduced in the chapter revolving around satokos abuse, and was painted as a good guy despite being a creep. Tbh if you remove irie from higurashi nothing would change and would actually make it better

Yeah, leave it to Ryukishi to write a scene about Irie wanting to propose to Satoko and make her into his maid then in the same breath have a serious one where he talks about how he wishes he could adopt her to give her a life better than the one she currently has. It's really uncomfortable and I cannot stress how much I hate it as well... ...However! ...and please be patient with me here... Best faith read - something I think is worth noting is the fact that the only thing standing firmly between Irie and adopting Satoko is the fact that he isn't married and only married people are allowed to adopt children according to the law so it's possible to read this as him joking about this because it's the only legal recourse available to him.

That said, Irie jokes about wanting to marry Satoko and making her his personal maid, which is really insensitive to say the least because it's exactly why her life takes a turn for the worst whenever Teppei comes back considering he treats her as an object to serve his wants and needs above her own; meanwhile Irie is joking about such stuff presumably with good intentions and to lighten the mood. It's still stressed multiple times that if you put the nonsensical things he's always saying aside, his desire to help Satoko isn't out of malicious intent and he genuinely cares for her so I don't think that aspect is intended as serious. It comes off more as just him committing to a bit/trying to do a funny (though having Keiichi and other characters be like "Irie is a good person if you look past the pedophilia act" is still a major bruh moment), but I think all of this could be analogous to how Irie's lobotomies in the past were out of good intent and genuine desire to empathize with mentally ill people who end up committing crimes and save their lives after what happened to his father but were obviously very terrible ideas?

Anyway even though I can totally see this being an intended parallel I still think it's one where criticism of the execution is valid especially when this aspect of his characterization could've been conveyed more delicately without having to make such jokes at the expense an abuse victim. It's really unfortunate because when you remove this aspect you'll notice that he isn't a bad character at all especially in the connecting fragments bit of Matsuri. I actually really like how those flesh him out, but even then with all the love I have for Higurashi I can't really look past this and enjoy his character. I do appreciate how it's been toned down across adaptations especially in recent stuff like Gou/Sotsu and Gou/Meguri though. It kinda reminds me of some of Battler's behavior in ep1 of Umineko and how that can be "justified" in retrospect but I don't wanna go into spoilers about that in an ask about Higurashi.

#not me procrastinating on this ask bc i was so scared of getting cancelled for my irie takes #asks #higurashi #gamo.txt

[ganymedesclock]

Rule of 3, perhaps?

Not too terribly much to say about this one; timing and meaningful repetition are tried, tested, and proven to time. Threes are a satisfying number, along with fives and sevens- I can't really say why. They lack the symmetry of twos, fours, and sixes but there's something about those low odd numbers, especially threes.

There's even a form of micro rule-of-three, which I just did now if you're looking- tried tested and proven to time. a repetition of "t" sounds, with the third beat held off a bit. It makes a pleasing sense of rhythm in prose.

Anonymous asked: Fate worse than death if that's not too broad

Consequences are a big part of any story! It's not too exhaustive to say that, so I think there's two major caveats to the Fate Worse Than Death as a concept.

If you feel like you have to invent a form of hyperdeath because you've been a little too liberal with the death-defiance, that might be worth looking into in your story format itself; I haven't found a lot of Fates Worse Than Death that actually hit as hard as a well-written character death.

Be a little careful what you're saying about living with pain or torment or in an uncooperative body. Your fantastic "worst fate" curse might actually just be another person's normal lived experience, and suggesting death would be better than that is a bad look.

Anonymous asked: Crouching moron, hidden badass for the trope ask thing?

Like anything, it depends widely on execution. On the one hand, I don't particularly care for the insinuation that a character has to pay for you caring about them by doing something really flashy and cool- on the other hand, I am often much more fond of / look towards this trope when it's in the case of that a character holding a position of power or significance probably earned it somehow.

If you design your world to be a challenge to navigate for a rowdy, superpowered unit of special boys (e.g. the standard RPG world), then there should be some sense that the other people who live here can leave their homes and turn out okay. And this can be both funny and a way of following my previously-established rule ("no one person needs to be important but people are important, as a category- it matters that someone's alive and real and has experiences") and spicing things up by making competent people not all preemptively flatter you by how cool they look.

A hypothetical example of this: your heroes might interact with a foppish nobleman who never seems to have any idea that he's in danger and swans through situations with at best cheerful disdain. This is assumed to be because he's an airhead, but an astute audience will pick out that he never actually seems confused about what's going on, nor delivering inaccurate assessments if he's confronted. At great length, the nobleman is cornered, and, bright-eyed, seizes the largely ornamental rapier he's carrying, and starts spouting very predictable dated "have at thee"s!

...and then it turns out he's a champion duelist and half the reason he hasn't been concerned before now is that he didn't think any of these prior issues were worth his time. It may not necessarily endear him to our haggard heroes at that point to know he could've helped out at any point, but it makes sense- if we're depicting a clearly 'old school' noble, dueling was an aristocratic preoccupation quite a bit, and the man could have even gotten himself into trouble specifically because he's too scary to be taken down a peg in the traditional manner, and too irreverent and bloodthirsty for people to like his company.

#send me a trope #readmore #just for you first anon I answered three asks on this specifically [clicks fingerguns]

[the-cat-chat]

October 15, 2022

The Fly 2 (1989)

The almost-human son of "Brundlefly" searches for a cure to his mutated genes while being monitored by a nefarious corporation that wishes to continue his father's experiments.

JayBell: Well well well...what to say about this gem. I went into this movie knowing that is was going to be a shit show. And it was! In that way, I guess you could say it met my expectations exactly.

I actually didn’t mind the plot on paper. The idea of a lab-raised, monster-spawn, former child experiment going on a justified rampage of revenge sounds pretty fun. I also liked the idea of Martin curing himself with the same machine that led to his disease. They even give Martin an interesting moral dilemma: you can cure yourself but only if you doom another person in exchange. The execution is where it falls apart entirely.

The writing is just not good, and the acting leaves much to be desired. The character motivations are juvenile. The lab’s supposed purpose is to use the teleporting machine in order to cure people, and they really want Martin to turn into Martinfly so they can kill and study him. But why? How is studying his dead monster corpse going to help the lab at all? The lab’s handling of Martin’s case is unrealistic even for this super unrealistic scenario.

Watching the romance was painful, and I wish they focused more on Martin’s treatment at the lab and less on romance. For one, they actually time skip over the development of the whole relationship (also what’s with the stupid fly fishing gag??). So I never developed any attachment to them as a couple at all. And when they had their big “conflict,” it didn’t really have the impact that it should have. The resolution happens like two minutes later with no drama and no consequences, so what’s the point of having that conflict at all?

A few other things to note: the doctor/lab lady was mean and cruel for no discernible reason at all, and the random security guard was similarly perverted just to be perverted and provide “conflict.” He also has an unreasonable amount of power for a guard.

On a slightly positive note, it’s just as gross as you’d expect it to be, which makes it gory and disturbing (all good for a horror movie).

All in all, it felt like they were trying to force a repeat of The Fly, but with worse writing, less emotional impact, and none of the charisma of Jeff Goldblum.

Rating: 2.5/10 cats 🐈

Anzie: I thought The Fly (1986) was traumatizing. Okay?? And yes, I thought about it for days after we watched it. Okay?? But this, THIS….. was somehow more horrifically traumatic than the 1986 movie. Okay??? And AT LEAST in that one we get to stare at a shirtless, nerdy, young Jeff Goldblum that despite the terrible hair…. (let’s just all be honest) was a looker. OKAY!!!! I will think about this until I black it out from my entire brain.

I knew it would be bad, but come on. The whole concept is out there, sure, but this this was Baaaaad. I thought the 5.1/10 on the internet was just haters not knowing true art when it was right in front of their faces. No a 5.1 is generous. The story is sooo boring and sloooooooow. And the concept that he’s five years old….just without anymore detail….. just gross. And why was the security guard such a gross freak?

And my bigggggest complaint is the dog. The poor dog! And how did they make it look like that?? And it was sooo sad. I had to look away. Actually scratch that, I have another complaint that might be more pressing. Had ANY of these people EVER seen a FLY????? Like it wasn’t enough to do the usual thing for special effects like they did in the first one- no they did that and then more! Like this thing was a giant evil gremlin. And the weird cocoons and goo on things. Ugggg. And scratch that bc my actual complaint that will haunt me FOREVER is Mr. Bartok getting what he deserves and being turned into a giant blob with just an eye and some teeth hanging out. I’m DONE. It was gross. Like they somehow did a good job with these awful things while also doing a terrible job. And I don’t know which has scarred me for life.

And least just be honest with ourselves okaaay for my own sanity. DO NOT tell me that there was no way Jeff Goldblum couldn’t have figured out how to turn himself completely human again. And THAT, that’s where the real problem of all of this lies.

Rating: 2/10 🪰 flies (it’s disrespectful we watched this the week before Jeff Goldblum turned 70)

#movie #movie review #film #film review #horror #80's movies

[sshbpodcast]

Sending off Kes with our tops & bottoms from S3 of Voyager

by Ames

You’ll remember that we here at A Star to Steer Her By found season 2 of Star Trek: Voyager to be a little whiplashy. Well, welcome to the Nekrit Expanse, kids! Simultaneously home to some of the best and worst of the series yet! People don’t talk about the early seasons as much because a lot of people skip to season 4 when Seven of Nine gets introduced, and really that’s kind of a shame because it means they miss Jennifer Lien’s chance to shine as Kes… at least when the writers remembered to do anything with her character in the first place.

You’ll see the least amount of overlap we’ve had in our lists in a while now! That’s how inconsistent this season was. But don’t despair: your fine hosts are here to walk you through the good and bad of this season. Read on below for our much anticipated tops and bottoms lists, and/or listen along in our season wrap discussion on this week’s podcast episode (season wrap starts at 1:08:05), where you can hear the bonus picks from guest star James Rossi!

[images © CBS/Paramount]

Top Three Episodes

Let’s kick it off, as is my prerogative, with the good stuff, in which you’ll mostly see a lot of examples of some really superb acting from our stars and guests. But first, the fluffy fun stuff…

“False Profits”: Chris If you were betting on Chris picking a Ferengi episode in his tops list, as is his wont, then here’s your prize: a copy of the Rules of Acquisition (cheapest binding possible). It’s always a fun time when these frogmen are involved, a lot of the jokes land exceptionally well, and Neelix gets to play dress up! If you’re looking for a romp of an episode once in a while, this one scratches that itch.

“Rise”: Chris Dark horse candidates for top episodes can make us feel even better than some of the more mainstream fan favorites because it’s more of a surprise. They come out of nowhere and leave us feeling pretty positive. There’s a lot to like about “Rise”, from the poignant Neelix-Tuvok discourse, to the genuinely fascinating idea of an orbital tether, and even to watching Sklar fall to his death like a cartoon figure.

“Real Life”: Caitlin If you were expecting an episode that starts off as a campy 50s sitcom to have you weeping by the end, then you’re probably familiar with “Real Life.” The Doctor gets a taste of what it’s like to live as an actual person, with baggage and family drama and a constantly messy house and everything, and it’s not what he was expecting. It was something much more familiar, nuanced, and dare I say, real?

“Before and After”: Ames, Jake We will always applaud a time travel story that does something new and refreshing while also making literally any sense at all. Jumping backwards in time to solve a riddle by adding information you got from the future is such a smart idea that was executed incredibly well. And many accolades to Jennifer Lien. These kinds of episodes leave us wishing the show had given us more Kes before her impending exit.

“Distant Origin”: Ames, Caitlin, Jake When you hear there’s an episode about dinosaurs in space, you roll your eyes a little. But "Distant Origin” treats the subject with such seriousness that it sucks you in. The parallels to Galileo make it something any science lover can parse, the anti-science rulings are so relatable, Chakotay is on point for a change, and the acting from Henry Woronicz as Gegen is perfectly lovely. It’s so good that you forget about the whole weird dino thing.

“Remember”: Ames, Caitlin, Chris, Jake Damn, when you let Roxann Dawson stretch her legs a little bit, she really impresses! We were spellbound by watching her live out the life of an Enaran woman growing up during a terrible genocide. Like in “The Inner Light,” the concept of experiencing the culture and history of another race in order to better understand them was thought provoking and topical, and Dawson absolutely delivers!

—

Bottom Three Episodes

The bad list is much more varied because this season was just all over the place. Let us count the ways in which we were infuriated this season.

“Warlord”: Jake Unlike in “Remember” where we were captivated by Dawson’s performance, we’re left wishing we saw something else from Jennifer Lien being possessed by a tyrant. While she did very well with the material, we saw a lot of missed opportunities for Kes to get to be an active part of her being saved, which is a shame. Also, the politics fell pretty flat and we’re introduced to the tiresome Paxau Resort.

“Macrocosm”: Chris Even if you excuse the poorly aged CGI (and good luck trying), this episode just feels like a cheap knock off of Alien. Or maybe Aliens. Discuss among yourselves. Janeway pulls off the Ripley character type well, but it was like she forgot how to be Janeway at the same time. We’ve seen this kind of story pulled off in other episodes better, with strategy taking precedence over action, which seems more right.

“Favorite Son”: Caitlin We’ve tread this ground before in all-female societies that turn out to be a bunch of bitches. Is it sexist or just lazy storytelling? Perhaps a bit of both. This episode is mostly a tired repeat of episodes like “Angel One,” “The Lorelei Signal,” and maybe “Spock’s Brain” a little, and we tuned out pretty fast. They should have gone with their initial impulse and just let Harry be an alien from now on. That’d be more original.

“Darkling”: Jake Back in the day, Jake had a lot of negative things to say about how “The Enemy Within” gets The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde quite wrong, and we see the same kind of response from him on viewing “Darkling.” The Doctor is much more literally turned into Mr. Hyde and it’s just kind of goofily written, fairly patronizing to Kes, and wraps up so easily that you could blink and miss the literal climax.

“Coda”: Ames We move on from Jekyll and Hyde to Frankenstein in our classic literature section of the blogpost because “Coda” just feels like it was stitched together from the cadavers of scripts that died on the writing table. The whole thing feels like it doesn’t quite fit and all the seams are still showing. Finally at the end, we get a cop-out ending about aliens pretending to be your ghost dad and Contact did it way better.

“Scorpion, Part I”: Caitlin Though a fan favorite for many Voyager fans because it reintroduces the Borg and sets the stage for a much beloved character to join the cast next season, defanging our favorite techno-goth adversaries so quickly may be poor service to what should be an extremely powerful race. They went from being an insurmountable threat to a domesticated cyberpuppy all in one fell swoop.

“Blood Fever”: Ames, Chris I’m actually surprised this one wasn’t unanimous because it is just so appalling how much sexual assault gets swept under the rug for the sake of story. The more you think about pon farr, the grosser it gets because it removes the potential partner’s ability to consent, and that was problematic even before the Me Too movement. Vulcans, be more logical about all of this please. Logic is way sexier.

“Sacred Ground”: Ames, Caitlin, Chris, Jake The episode that did end up being unanimously bad was this messy confrontation between faith and science that ended up just feeling as repetitive, meandering, and pointless as Janeway’s spiritual quest did. It’s still unclear what the point of it was supposed to be because nothing paid off and the whole thing felt like filler. Take this from a podcast full of atheists: blind faith isn’t going to do it for us.

—

So long, Kes, and thanks for all the times the writers remembered there was a lot special about you to write about! We’re still here though and haven’t transcended to some new plane, so keep following along with us as we welcome a new crewmate on the Voyager over on SoundCloud or your favorite podcast app, hail us on Facebook and Twitter, and stop sexually assaulting your coworkers, Vorik!

#star trek #star trek voyager #voyager #podcast #star trek podcast #top three #bottom three #false profits #rise #real life #before and after #distant origin #remember #warlord #macrocosm #favorite son #darkling #coda #scorpion #blood fever #sacred ground

[zeta-in-de-walls]

Hey guys, eh little ramble about C!Dream.

I sometimes see takes that are rather sympathetic to his character, suggesting that even if some of his actions were reprehensible, his descent was partly due to others failing to reach out and help him. That he has his own reasons and people painting him as the villain essentially forced him into the role. Dream’s suffered too. 

And yeah, you can look into these ideas as an effort to get a better understanding of Dream’s motivations but it’s very easy to fall into excusing Dream’s actions too much or blaming others too much for Dream’s actions.

It’s a tricky thing, but for any action, there’s gonna be some level of personal responsibility assuming you have at least that much power/agency. (There are cases where a character does not have that much power over their own actions. I would argue that Badboyhalo is being heavily influenced by the egg. And there are other times when a character is basically being forced to do something against their will. I don’t believe Dream has ever been in such a situation - his actions in prison might count as he’s absolutely trapped in there with no options. Regardless, this post is only about his actions prior to his prison sentence.) 

Dream is responsible for his own actions.

 -No one pressured him to build obsidian walls around L’Manburg to trap the citizens in forever if they did not do as he demanded.  -No one compelled him to destroy Tommy’s armour every day.  -Or to convince him that L’Manburg was better off without him and to deliberately sabotage his party to make him believe no one cared about him while knowing Tommy was already feeling terrible and contemplating suicide. -Nothing forced him to destroy L’Manberg. -No one made him decide to kill Tubbo and lock Tommy in prison forever. These actions aren’t mistakes made under pressure, these are premeditated plans.

Now, one might argue that Tommy provoked Dream, that he had an irrational hatred for Dream long before Dream actually did anything terrible to him. Dream only became a villain because Tommy and Wilbur villainised him first. Again, this is removing Dream’s own responsibility from his shoulders too much for me. 

For comparison, Quackity tried pressuring Tubbo into executing Ranboo post the festival because he was a traitor. He even said he’d leave L’Manburg if Tubbo didn’t. Tubbo ultimately refused though! Quackity may have been pressuring him, but Tubbo had agency and if he’d actually gone through with it, it would have been as much his own fault. 

Besides this, it also suggests that Tommy and Wilbur were way worse to Dream than canon really depicts? I would argue that Dream did far, far more to provoke Tommy than Tommy did Dream. Dream for instance, griefed a bunch of places and blamed it on Tommy when Tommy hadn’t even been doing anything. To suggest Tommy viewed Dream as an evil villain prior to his exile is also untrue. Post Nov 16th, after Dream had already betrayed Tommy to join Schlatt (plus also having helped Wilbur gather TNT), the two of them sat on the bench together and listened to Blocks while watching the sunset. Tommy didn’t even care that Dream blew up his house. A week later, Dream and Tommy were friendly when they streamed with Lani. Tommy viewed Dream as a friendly rival at this point, and had for some time (the day before the Nov16th war, Dream had helped Tommy when he was in conflict with Sapnap after he’d killed Tommy’s horse. Also after Dream had announced he’d be fighting against Tommy in the Pogtopia war.)

As for friends abandoning him, this again suggests people were way colder to Dream than canon depicts. George was supportive of Dream when he was exiling Tommy. While he didn’t see such an extreme response as necessary, he definitely let Dream do what he did on his behalf. Punz was loyal to Dream right up until the disc finale. Sam built the prison on Dream’s request and remained at least neutral to Dream until the disc finale. 

Sapnap’s an interesting one, he was hurt when Dream declared the only thing he cared about was Tommy’s discs and took offense to Dream’s dethroning George rather arbitrarily and fought on George’s behalf against this. That said, Sapnap was doing this still in the position as Dream’s friend. A good friend doesn’t merely enable them - it’s good when Sapnap condemns Dream’s worse behaviours. He SHOULD be angry when Dream says he cares about nothing but Tommy’s discs and look for an explanation. 

On Tommy’s first full day of exile, Sapnap joins Dream in essentially bullying Tommy, enough so that Tommy actually challenges Sapnap on this. At the festival, Sapnap actually declines joining Tommy, stating that Dream is his friend and he’s not going against him. The next day, Dream never bothers to talk to Sapnap, while Tommy goes out of his way to apologise to him and invites him to be his friend. Only then does Sapnap give up on Dream. I believe if Dream had reached out, he would have had Sapnap’s loyalty. But he did not. 

Perhaps they could have done more for Dream, but it’s very hard to help someone who is burning bridges. Dream was elusive, he let his friendship die as he came to believe that attachment was a weakness. It’s a tragedy, yes, but Dream is also responsible for the breaking down of his friendships. 

Dream was not forced to be a villain, to be abusive. He had friends, he had power. Like every character, he had a choice. And he chose poorly. 

#meta #analysis #dream smp #long post #c!dream critical #tommyinnit #dream & tommy analysis #sometimes i feel like people take the character has trauma thing too far #its best used to justify heat-in-the-moment emotional choices #and even then you want immorality to be condemned and for the character to apologise #its also important to remember agency #i sympathise a lot with tommy during and post-exile because he doesn't have veyr much agency #dream meanwhile has plenty of agency #also tommy apologises and addresses his trauma #sometimes a lt of arguments for dream feel like headcanons than confirmed canon #where tommys trauma is explored in great detail in the narrative

[krispdreemurr]

i would like to hear about deltashuffle 🥺

ok so starter notes: we're loosely calling the ch2-based shuffle Cybershuffle mostly bc like. lancer!kris and ralsei!susie and so on are still good and important. also, like the ch1 shuffle, this is a group project and like friends and i have been working on this together, i did not have all these ideas. but all that said let's go thru the main characters real quick!

Susie Spamton taking the role of Kris: The younger of two adopted kids, Susie's had a tough time of it lately. With her older brother and arguably the most mature person in the household, Asriel, leaving for college, taking care of things and keeping things running when her dads can barely function has fallen on her shoulders. Maybe that's why she's been so quiet lately, so distant, so much more... responsible. Maybe it's for the better if she's gotten past her punk phase and settled down. Right?

Princess Noelle taking the role of Ralsei: It's nice to imagine, sometimes, being needed and wanted for who you are, even if you barely know who that is. It's nice to pretend you could be the hero rescuing the princess, even if most days you feel like the monster. But Noelle isn't quite the fantasy she maybe once might have been, with a quiet, cold bitterness about her role and her loneliness seeping into her. She could grow beyond. She hopes.

Lancer taking the role of Susie: Much the same as original Deltashuffle, Lancer is a young middle school student who seems to be constantly ending up in trouble for restlessly dismantling things and bossing his classmates around. He doesn't talk about his dad much at all.

Krismas Holliday-Kaard taking the role of Noelle: Don't call them by their full name they'll die. Anyways. Quiet and strange, in an ongoing state of rebellion against their overbearing mother but only when she's not actively looking. Has more in common with their dramatic theatre kid dad than maybe they want to admit. Good at school, good at keeping to themselves, good at not being known much at all. Used to be close to Susie, but drew away from everyone after Dess' disappearance. May or may not worry about the middle school kid they keep seeing in the same lurking spots as them and want to adopt him as a little brother a little. Absolutely hates that they turn blue in the dark world bc they look like their dad

Ralsei taking the role of Berdly: Number two in the class and always on his best behavior, Ralsei is a sweetheart who teachers and parents love and other kids loathe. Close to Kris, if only because Kris' mom set up plenty of playdates between them. Very concerned about doing things properly and by the rules, and staying on top of his image. People refuse to talk about his resemblance to Asriel it just weirds them out

Prince Berdly in the role of Lancer: Adopted child of the regent Swatch, Berdly knows his high-class etiquette by heart and will enforce it on you. We're working on this but it's hard because it's Berdly.

And minor characters, trying my best to keep this shorter:

Sweet Cap'n Cakes are in the role of Rouxls. A band of rebels against the unocracy, they keep trying to corrupt the ruler's son by hanging out with him but he's just so lame

Rouxls Kaard is in the role of Rudy. Kris' father and husband of Carol Holliday, he's a bit spineless unfortunately but he does love his child and loves acting out dramatic Shakespeare duels with them. Has been unwell lately.

Rudy is in the role of Jevil. Don't worry about him. He's free from pain now.

Jevil in the role of Asgore. Still the owner of the clown museum slash gift shop. Comes by to harass Spamton regularly despite the fact they're divorced. Has known the grocery store owner for two days and they're also already divorced.

Asgore in the role of Seam. A tired, tired man, wishing for something better, not expecting it to come. In the meantime, he keeps tending his flowers. There's someone he wishes he could give them to...

Seam in the role of Sans. Local grocery shop owner. Is crushing on Spamton and Jevil and hates self for it. Upper floor of grocery store is dedicated entirely to cursed goods.

Sans in the role of Gaster. There's nobody here. Stop looking.

Gaster in the role of Queen. Part of the basis of the operating system who saw there was more beyond, and who wants to let the dark flood out so he can know everything. Fixated on preparing Kris for their role opening fountains by running increasingly dangerous and stupid tests on them.

Queen in the role of Alphys. She drank too much age appropriate battery acid last night kids so she's going to take a break while you all play minecraft, that's probably educational,

Alphys in the role of Spamton. A helpful desktop assistant to guide you on your quest, who can make useful suggestions, find helpful items, and even send e-mails! Wants to help! Let her help! Let her help! Let her help! Let her h

Spamton in the role of Toriel. Who let this man adopt. Anyways. A former big shot ad executive now running a shady used car lot. House is full of weird products from past schemes and scams. Terrible at taking care of himself, relies a lot on Susie.

Toriel in the role of Swatch. Keeps things running! Wears a cute vest! Baked you a pie (wait wasn't she meant to be working for your enemy)

Swatch in the role of King Spades. The head of the dignified and composed Uno Lands, they're an accomplished refined gentleperson. Lately, though, as if preparing for an important guest, they've gotten increasingly controlling and demanding about making sure everything functions.

Nubert as Sweet Cap'n Cakes. My man.

what do you mean there's someone missing. there was never a character there

#cybershuffle