#since he's based on two older ocs kind of mashed together but (((: i love my stupid nature spirit friend

[cosmicmoved]

KARAM LORE !!  🍃

I’ve said before that he was a spirit and not in the sense of being a ghost so I’m going to use this post to explain what I’m going for in a little more detail. I can’t really think of a better word to describe what I’m going for but it’s more in the sense that he’s a spirit in the sense that he’s this magical entity that’s very much OF the planet. Spirit is used in this context in lots of different folklore across the world so I think it makes sense for me to describe him this way! However, a lot of the lore (I guess you’d call it) I’ve written for Karam is sort of made up and inspired by different things so I can’t really just name something he’s supposed to be like and get on with it. This post should, if nothing else, clear up what Karam is and what’s he capable of! ALSO! SIDE NOTE! Karam actually has a fraternal twin from whom he has been separated for like 250 years or whatever and I’d be very willing to let somebody else write that character if the concepts here seem interesting ;; (i think i said ‘brother’ in his bio but that’s really not a must!! tbh karam is officially nonbinary bc i personally do noooot see why a spirit would conform to human social norms like that --  on that note, karam uses masc pronouns and stuff but pls never call him a man, he doesn’t like that)

This point seems pretty important since I know I have mutuals with muses who fit the description but Karam can see ghosts. And he can tell that they’re ghosts. He’s very familiar with this concept and it doesn’t bother him or upset him. Honestly, death is kind of foreign to him as an immortal being and, since he has no reason to fear it, he doesn’t. I’ll go into more detail as to why this is important later on in this post but he does have that ability! As I’ve said before, Karam can generally tell what people are, at least to some degree. If he meets someone who’s something he doesn’t understand for whatever reason, he will at least know that they ARE something he’s never seen before. He’d know they were different from every other being they’d met. This is NOOOOOOT godmoddy, I promise! Karam doesn’t know everything!! But he needs to understand the basic of nature of things because that’s what he was put on the Earth to do, pretty much. If he didn’t know that a human was different from, say, a witch or another humanoid spirit like himself, that would make his ‘job’ very difficult. This does mean he will always know when a seemingly human muse is not human but, since he’s not human himself, he likely won’t use this information for anything, besides making the decision to be nicer to that muse than he might to a random human ASDFGHGFD........

A guardian spirit is nothing like a guardian angel, that much I feel I should get out of the way immediately. He does noooooot give a shit about people! He doesn’t do anything on command either. This title, as that’s really all it is, refers exclusively to the role he took on while living in his forest home (which, as stated in his backstory, was cut down to make way for modern housing). He was the guardian of that patch of land. When he was a child, after his mother left him behind, he wandered until he found a forest that was unclaimed and, like him, fending for itself. Karam assumes his twin’s fate was the same as his own, although they were abandoned in different places (his twin was left first and then Karam, as he was the smaller of the two twins and his mother wanted to be more careful with where she put him). Karam’s job was essentially to keep the forest healthy and protected from destruction and malevolent spirits/entities. Obviously, he didn’t manage to keep it protected because destructive human technology has pretty much outgrown him and mass deforestation is far too much for one spirit to ward off. This is a source of deep guilt for Karam and, in some ways, he feels like a failure for letting the forest come to harm but he blames mankind as much as he does himself. His anger is kind of directed at both but the anger he feels towards himself is much quieter. I don’t know which one’s actually worse but his hatred for humans (in power) is a lot more easier for him to voice.

Besides just keep the forest as a whole safe from harm, his role included watching over individual beings who lived within the forests; other smaller spirits like tree spirits and animals! If an animal died and their ghost needed guidance, Karam would be the one to aid them and help them find rest. He’s not very good at doing this with humans as their feelings are a lot more complex and while animals usually just need someone to calm them down and dissuade their fear, humans often have more complicated issues like lingering wishes and resentment. Human ghosts weren’t common in his forest but they weren’t unheard of and, despite his general distrust, Karam did try to help them as best they could --- especially in cases where it was the ghost of a child or something. As much as Karam dislikes humans, he would never blame a child for anything or mistreat them in any way. He’s not the best at talking to children because of...the way he is lmao...but he’d never be cruel to them and strongly believes they should be looked after in the same way as any other creature that needs protection. Animals tend to naturally trust him! Humans don’t because they’re more complex and often more detached from that sort of thing but animals don’t see him as predatory/a threat. 

His abilities are largely those that help him as a guardian figure. He is a fighter, first and foremost and this means his natural abilities include the following; great stealth, physical grace and enhanced sensory abilities. These senses, in particular, are sharp enough to sense disturbances even in loud rooms, to hear a twig snap in vast quiet. He is the kind of fighter who uses this speed and agility to his advantage to the point of relying upon it, adopting a rather gymnastic fighting style. He’s also a very talented swordsman but he’s found this is kind of a weird skill to hang onto in modern times. He is also capable of using some elemental magic, namely manipulation of light and water -- this is partly because he feels some kind of natural affinity to the moon but these are also useful life-giving abilities. He can’t heal people but many lifeforms can be nursed back to health with these sorts of powers. These magics aren’t especially strong and he tends not to favour these abilities for he isn’t a particularly gifted mage and these abilities are more defensive than offensive. But he can fuck up your lightbulbs if you piss him off, I guess???? His offensive abilities are all much more physical. Karam is also pretty hard to injure unless you’re very powerful, on account of his accelerated healing. Most injuries don’t hold him back for too long and he’s also harder to harm in the first place than most humans. Obviously, if you cut off a limb, he can’t grow it back or anything like that. He can’t heal injuries that aren’t...healable.

He has pretty normal weaknesses in that you can harm him any way you harm someone else. It just takes more work. He’s immortal, in that he won’t die of natural causes, but he’s absolutely not invincible or invulnerable. He CAN be killed. It’s just not easy to do. Karam is also NOT the strongest spirit out there. He’s stronger than a lot of spirits because he has to be, he EXISTS to protect weaker spirits, but there are stronger spirits out there and even within his type of spirit. Karam is powerful and probably more powerful than he needed to be for his small forest -- a lot of larger forests might have a stronger spirit protecting them -- but he stayed in his forest until it was destroyed out of loyalty. The spirit who had protected it before him had left to find something better and, being a child, Karam had found it just challenging enough to suit him. Although he outgrew it in terms of his own power, his love for it kept him there. Another notable weakness of Karam is also one of his strengths --- his enhanced senses, while they help him in many, many ways, also make navigating the noisy human world quite stressful, especially now that he’s taken to living in the city. A lot of places are too loud and bright and crowded for Karam and he doesn’t always cope with it too well, leading to a preference for walking about at night.

#« 𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐀𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐒𝐋𝐎𝐖 𝐃𝐄𝐂𝐀𝐘 (ᴋᴀʀᴀᴍ) » / 「 headcanon. 」 #oh cool this was just meant to be a quick explanation sort of post but it's 1 #*1.5k words so uhh.....pls read it ): #apologies if this makes like NO SENSE LMAO !! i'm really bad at talking abt lore and things like that #i'm sure there are things i've forgotten to talk about ! #i'll talk abt his forest in more detail later.... #but maybe this will explain what he IS better than before ! #this was kind of a weird concept to try and convert into smth that works for indie rp #since he's based on two older ocs kind of mashed together but (((: i love my stupid nature spirit friend #i might revise some things in the future idk...the stuff abt the moon was pulled from one of those older characters so maybe i'll think abt #that one some more but most of this is basically !! what u need to know !!

[destiny-smasher]

Kingdom Hearts 3 impressions

So, uh, I will ONLY be talking about stuff up until the very start of the second World, and only AFTER the break. Kingdom Hearts 1 was an incredibly important and influential piece of media when I was growing up. I was writing fic based on Smash Bros. just before KH rolled onto the scene was like, “Yo, Disney and Final Fantasy, BAM, fuckin’ random? fucking RADDDD” and I was all about it. You had FF characters remixed with OCs remixed with Disney characters, and the villains were all crossing over to form the League of Bad Cartoons, it was a great time. And then Nomura realized his gamble was a win and decided to waste the next 15 years of everyone’s time shoving in every trope he liked, every IDEA that felt “cool” together into a mish mash of whatever the hell this “narrative” has become. Suffice it to say, I’ve got beef with Kingdom Hearts as a “story.” It just occurred to me today that a big part of this is thematic/tonal.

But it’s also VERY rare, maybe even unprecedented, for a piece of media like Kingdom Hearts 3 to come around. For years, then months, then weeks, then days, I told myself, “It’s not real, that game doesn’t exist, I won’t believe it until I’m literally playing it” and just could not be bothered to be hype or interested, if only because Nomura’s “vision”, from my perspective, warped something I admired in my youth into a fucking train wreck, leaving me very little to feel emotionally invested in outside of Aqua and by proxy the two lads she is trying to protect. (also I GUESS I’m slightly invested in Axel/Xion/Roxas.../Namine? for similar reasons now that I think about it?) Well, guess what? Kingdom Hearts VERY WELL might be real, and I very well might be about three hours into it. And for all of the beef I have with the plot, I am fucking relieved that those three hours have felt/sounded good, as a video game. NOW we’re gonna talk about the first World. --

When I first heard that Olympus was gonna be the first World in KH3 I was disappointed and BAFFLED. We’re visiting that place a THIRD time? And why THAT World? Turns out, there’s actually some substantial thematic relevance and that’s actually A-OK, not to mention that starting with a familiar world after ALL OF THIS TIME is not such a bad way to kick things off. First off, structurally, I actually really enjoyed the way this world played out. Two of my biggest problems with KH as a video game series have been that worlds feel like empty, vacant, haunted houses, and that said worlds are usually small and linear with a lot of pointless backtracking. Olympus fixes all of this. There are NPCs. Actual fucking PEOPLE in this world. Sure, they’re just people in danger, calling for help, but they’re THERE for once! And they have vocies! EVERY line of dialogue (except for like one “plot” moment) has actually been voiced so far! About time. Also. This World is not as linear as most KH Worlds. In fact, it help more open and dynamic than ANY World in any KH game so far, not to mention it featured three, THREE (wtf) unique and distinct types of settings. The city, the mountain, and Olympus. Nice. ALSO also. The music. We’ve been here before. We KNOW that Olympus theme from earlier games. And as you traverse the city, up the mountain, you hear this more sweeping, movie-like version, and it’s like “oh whoa nice” aaaaand then you get TO Olympus and it KICKS in, the old song, up to modern snuff. That was great. That was a thing that really helped convey “Kingdom Hearts is back, baby.” The World was big, compared to typical KH worlds. It had multiple nooks and crannies to explore, side-paths to go down, treasure to find hidden away. There is a LOT of verticality. Running up walls and seamlessly hopping over things in the environment makes traversal more enjoyable than it ever has been. Even though a lot of the World is technically a linear path it’s not structured like a path. Going off and exploring rewards you with items and the like, and the World is big enough to actually feel like you have places to poke around in. Having said this, WHY is there no...map? Like. You literally COLLECT Maps from Chests like you used to. But near as I can tell, there’s no way to pull up an actual MAP, to seer where the main path is, to see where the side paths are. It’s boggling. Maybe the game has the option hidden away somewhere but if so, that’s just silly. And if there’s just no actual map option at ALL that’s just...baffling. There were barely any load times for how much SPACE there was to navigate, and things looked very shiny and pretty, and ran at a smooth 60 fps MOST of the time. Tech specs aren’t everything, but when your brand is built on “looking pretty” it sure af helps when you bring scale AND a smooth framerate to match. It’s weird, and a bit jarring, sometimes in a good way, to see all of this stuff rendered in modern tech. Stuff looks...a little too plasticy a lot of the time, (which actually ought to pay off when we get to Toy Story?) but the environments so far feel rich and vast and detailed all at once in a way we just have never seen the series, because we’re basically jumping from PS2-level tech to PS4. So that difference in production is more noticeable for the wait -- I just wish things looked a bit more...I guess cel-shaded? Like the original trailer. Things (specifically, characters) look a little too flat/plasticy at times, for how pretty things are. Combat seems to be as flashy as ever and I’m sure I’ll feel differently as I get further in and unlock more options but it’s still too easy, simple, and mashy for my tastes. I am HOPING we get more moments that require quick reflexes and specific tactics like the harder moments of older KH games. The amusement rides mechanic is...weird. It’s given NO context in universe. And they last a little too long/feel too overpowered for how easy they are to utilize. Similarly, there are frequently seemingly random party-member tag-team attacks that...just seem like “press triangle to win” moves. I wish they entailed more interaction, and/or felt less common/random. I like the IDEA of these kinds of moves, especially ones that change your controls/method of attack for a few seconds (like Hercules’ team attack) but the execution makes them feel too cheap and easy to abuse, with combat that’s ALREADY skewing on the “too easy” side for the genre. I like the “form change” for keyblades, and that you can swap keyblades in the middle of a fight. Really hoping this allows for some good tactical stuff later -- buuuuut that would also require the game to ASK OF ME to do more than “mash X,” which KH as a brand typically does not do... Characters SPEAK in reaction to gameplay moments, when you initiate things in the environment, etc. It’s a nice touch that makes them feel more like characters in an RPG. Donald and Goofy are ALWAYS in the party, alongside the Disney member(s). NICE. Maybe KH3 is putting its best foot forward, but overall, I was pleasantly surprised with Olympus. It single-handedly corrected MOST of the issues I’ve ever had with Kingdom Hearts level design. I only hope the momentum keeps going. Moving on, Gummi Ships. What little I played is easily the best they have every been. I love having an open world with optional places/fights to explore, while still giving me those shmup-like bursts of action. The Gummi Phone seems like a fun mechanic, and taking selfies/photos makes SENSE for this game because of how visually detailed it is -- but the pleasant surprise was how I took selfies with Donald and Goofy and they REACTED to it, starting to pose and commenting on it. On the other hand, the loading screen being nonsensical “social media” posts from KH characters...I don’t like it thanks go away. x’D I’ve spent only a few minutes in Twilight Town and INSTANTLY I am so much more enamored than I ever was in previous games. Not just due to the bump up in visual fidelity, but also because -- GASP -- NPCs??? Are you trying to tell me this is an actual TOWN that people LIVE IN?? Holy shit, Kingdom Hearts, I never knew! For all of this stuff I liked, though, KH3 is still...a KH game. Which means after you get through the intro, after you gear up to land in Olympus, the game flashes the title: “Kingdom Hearts II.9″ ...no. Just no. Fuck. Stop doing this shit. Whenever an Organization 13 member (or EX member) shows up and starts speaking all cocky in riddles like the flamboyant anime jackass they are, whenever Mickey starts dead-ass blathering about weird nonsense whenever the plot HAS to acknowledge “oh right Sora golly gawrsh ya FURRGOT this random bullshit a-FYUCK better shove this expository throwaway dialogue right in here before we go n’ furrget again!” whenever Kairi continues to be irrelevant and invisible after ALL THIS TIME whenever Rikku has to say some obligatory thing about his darkness or his copy of himself or Ansem or whatever whenever the plot informs Sorta/Dornold/Goffy about another convoluted ridiculous THING that we already know about and they MAYBE already know about because it is OBLIGATED to because this game’s entire purpose has become to “wrap things up already Nomura” I am reminded of the freshly opened scar on my heart from how much SHIT this series has dragged itself through for...what? Nothing worth all of this, IMO. Thankfully, these moments feel less and less pressing in KH3′s opening hours than they certainly could be, though I’m sure the closing hours of the game -- once they’ve tidily gotten all of that silly, inconsequential DISNEY CONTENT out of the way (even though that’s the BULK of the game environments and HALF of the series’ identity/purpose) -- those closing hours will surely be packed to the gills with all of this crazy crap. Maybe by then I might finally care enough to finally get the catharsis I’ve waited over a decade for. I dunno. I’m just relieved the game looks, plays, sounds, and feels as good as it does so far. EDIT: almost forgot to mention this since it hasn’t actually come up yet BUT I picked up a BUNCH of “ingredients”??? Like. FOR COOKING??? Which is one of my all-time favorite mechanics in a video game?? (thanks Paper Mario) So I’m at LEAST excited to see what THAT is all about.

#KH3 #Kingdom Hearts 3