#((it put a lot of thing into perspective for me. and I really needed to hear that))

[funnywormz]

I think this shitshow with Toshiro stems from the trend of people INSISTING that interpersonal conflict must be a moral failing. Like I think there's something to be said about how people afford so much less patience to people who are autistic in the "wrong" ways, but also Laios and Toshiro just clash on a fundamental level that has nothing to do with that. Hell, you could read Toshiro as autistic as well. People related to Laios' side of the argument but instead of getting any nuance out of it they started projecting their experiences with ableist people onto Toshiro.

AGREE AGREE AGREE. i think that Fandom Brain gets people very used to thinking of conflicts in terms of "who is the bad guy and who is the good guy", so when they encounter a more nuanced conflict they don't really know what to do. i don't think toshiro is a bad person at all, in his conflict with laios he's just exhausted and starving and has been pushed to the limit and from his perspective, laios doesn't even seem that emotionally affected by the situation. i don't think what he said was right and it was pretty cruel, but i don't think he's a villain or deserves to be permanently hated as a character just bc he fucked up this time lol

also yeah you could definitely read him as autistic, and i think that highlights an issue in the autistic community in general bc like....... a lot of autistic people have conflicting needs which can lead to conflict between them/make them unable to stand being around each other. and it's not because either of them are neurotypical or bad people, they're just incompatible. like autistic people who loudly stim vocally and autistic people who meltdown when they have to be around loud noises, for example. it doesn't mean either of them is bad or not autistic, just that they have conflicting needs

i 100% agree with the last part too. i disliked toshiro at first myself bc i had been (and still do ngl) projecting onto laios hard and the conflict they had reminded me of times when people have been mean or angry at me irl for social blunders i've made unintentionally, or when someone i thought liked me/was my friend turned out to actually hate me. it's a common experience for autistic people and that scene resonates with that! but i think it also helps to take a step back from projecting our own traumatic experiences onto the scene and just look at it objectively. laios isn't perfect either and he's the one who actually starts the physical fight by slapping toshiro (i feel like i don't see many people mention this lol). i feel super bad for him in that scene but he's not a perfect victim and has done things wrong himself too

as an autistic person i've also been in situations where i can relate to toshiro too lol, like where someone is overly physically and emotionally familiar with me when we don't know each other well and i've wanted them to back off but haven't been sure how to say it without hurting their feelings. this kind of conflict is far from just being a "neurotypical vs neurodivergent" thing as a lot of people portray it in the fandom

idk i just wish people would think a little more deeply about the scene and put their own emotions and experiences aside to instead consider the conflict with the added context of the individual characters and their respective cultures + the situation they're in. people don't have to like toshiro but i wish they wouldn't paint him as a villain or make up awful shit about him just to justify their feelings when he isn't even that bad of a dude in canon yknow 😑. also we literally see him at rock bottom struggling and freaking out and i think that's important to remember. in a different context i doubt he would have ever said those things to laios

[stelladess]

On power creep, card games (mostly as an example) and gacha. Also how to prioritize what characters/cards to try and get. Kinda felt the discussion around power creep in the context of gacha is often kind of... incendiary and not very helpful, we are all here to have a good time.

So, this was mostly some stuff I have been thinking about in relation to Arknights, because I do not play Star Rail as seriously and play no other gachas then those two. I have played the yu-gi-oh card game since I was a little kid (some of my earliest memories is learning the game from my brothers or playing Kaiba the revenge on PC) so I am coming at this from a primarily TCG perspective and with the prior background of "has played game which has been made unrecognizable by power creep, and still loved playing it." So obviously, this already predisposes me to not see power creep as the biggest deal.

So... first of all, the incentives that causes power creep! Well this is pretty straightforward, the way a trading card game or a gacha makes money is by making you want to spend money on new cards/characters. You also need to have a solid team or deck as a whole, usually you cannot just brute force your way on a single powerful card or character. As a result to prevent players from just getting one strong team/deck and then never updating again is why we end up with power creep, since the option of just outright banning cards tends to piss people off even more and is straight up not a thing they do in gacha games. As a result, since players will usually not want to spend money/pulls on a character who will not improve their team/deck, especially when its so often chance based what you even get, it means that to make people keep pulling packs you gotta upgrade the power over time of new units. Generally the developers want to keep this at a slower pace, since it feels bad if someone gets a great character/card and then one month later they are weak, and if people feel like what they put in do not pay off they will not keep playing. But occasionally there are bigger bursts of power creep to kind of bring the state of the game to a new level, often brought on by accidentally making something too strong, at least that is how I think this goes from my experience. But for example, if when Typhon came out her damage was worse or just on par with Rosa, how many would have pulled for her? Sure you´d get some who would because they like her story, personality, design, etc. But not that many would have if we are being completely honest here.

This is not to say that power creep cannot be a problem, especially if too severe, as already touched on earlier it feels really bad when your favorites no longer hold up. I just want to highlight that it is an inherent part of the game that cannot really be avoided. It can also add a big pressure to feel like you have to keep up by getting all the new characters or cards, which can cause a lot of stress due to the random nature of who you get. Which is where the other thing I wanted to talk about comes in....

You do not need every strong or limited character. And in fact you wont use most of them because you have finite team space. In a trading card game you focus in on a playstyle you like, or a few if its affordable enough, and then focus on building and enhancing those instead of getting every good card in the game. I think this is the healthiest way to view it in a gacha too. Prioritize who suits your playstyle and your team, or to fill weak spots you got (or you just like as a character of course). You do not need all the top tier characters in the game. You can skip multiple top tier characters in fact and still do just fine, these games are not balanced around the assumption you have *every* single one of the best characters or cards. And in fact, having to slowly make adjustments to better suit your needs is, to me at least, one of the most fun parts. And a lot of the strategy and fun of these kinds of games disappear if you have access to all the strongest options and can just brute force things. It is not healthy for your mental state to fret over having to have all the best options and it makes the game less fun, to me at least. These games assume you only have maybe half of the top tier options, and you can beat pretty much everything with that if you put some effort into strategizing, which is fun~!

[heybaetae]

hi

[puppyeared]

for like 3 weeks i was wondering why i was sleeping so much and felt listless. and just now I managed to email 3 people and responded to a month old message in the span of an hour because I got back to TAKING MY FUCKIN MEDS..........

[revrads]

"The Boy, The Mole, The Fox, and The Horse"

A story about a lost boy and his animal friends lifting each other up, believing in each other, and loving each other unconditionally can be something so personal

[grimalkinmessor]

I think that I struggle to write L because I don't know who he is beneath his masks.

Light is the protagonist, the main character, we see every decision he makes and get the reasoning behind them—his personality and mental facilities are an open book to the audience, even as he's shown to be someone who hides himself away constantly.

L is the same in that way, but we don't have that glimpse behind the curtain we do with Light. L being unknowable is what makes him so intimidating as an antagonist; you never know what he's going to do next, and you never know his true reasons for doing what he does unless someone else figures it out first. He's a big fat liar, just like Light, but unlike Light, we never get to see him be completely honest with someone.

I can write L's masks with ease, but ask me to get inside his head and give you his thoughts? I have NO fucking clue what's going on in there man.

Just like I feel like I can write Light's honest thoughts and personality with ease, but struggle a bit to write his false faces seen by someone else—it's a matter of perspective.

[pawphin]

long ramble in tags tldr: kindness rules

[kiwibirdlafayette]

on your Aitheaca au, when I was writing I was trying to imply that what was stolen was Capsize, but in my want to be vague I know I didn’t do a good job. Like my train of thought was that Ianite was, to a lesser extent, sensing Capsize in a similar vein to how she was sensing ‘Dianite’ when it was actually Tom, if that makes sense. I interpreted this version of Ianite as a goddess who despises not knowing, seeing it as a weakness in herself, so when she senses something that is “hers” but unrecognizable to her, she lies to Flash.

also! thinking about crew dynamics is interesting, cause depending on how you split them up you are almost always stuck with an instigator and an arbiter. The way you’ve split them up rn, Sonja and Tom are instigators (more Tom leaning than anything) and Spark’s the arbiter. Martha’s the arbiter while the other two are instigators. But this fluctuates depending on who’s in the room. Essentially, there’s always going to be a high chance for issues caused inside the group and out.

OH!!! Listen listen liSTENNNN do not say you didnt do didnt do a good job you did an excellent job, there aint nothin wrong with the choice to be vague with it I just dont catch onto things very well xD I really love that idea a ton, I totes agree that she would be able to pick up on Capsize's Ianitian quintessence (the ownership thing I feel could have ties to Capsize's connection to Ianite in the S1 world leaning on the side of being a messenger rather than the champion kind of cues that Jordan would carry if that makes any sense) and also what ya had mentioned on AO3 too, about Jordan's quintessence having ticks of World Historians in him as well that would obscure things a little makes a ton of sense as well and bangs :D

and yeah!!! Aitheaca Ianite is absolutely someone who is hellbent on being an 'all-knowing' for the sake of ultimate balance, where her logic is that if she can control everything, that's how she can guarantee that chaos or order doesnt have an opportunity to rise up- and is the principle on which her reign was founded on. I can imagine this brings her into conflict with the notion of the Watchers (who inherently possess this ability, while she has to rely on her intuitive judgement and using visual conduits/spies, like taking control of Flash) which is why I could maybe imagine she'd want to keep these kinds of things from Flash. She's very much aware of Merina's presence around her champion, and holds resentment that she can't have Merina as her spy and that under the right theoretical circumstance, could break Flash free of her manipulation at any given moment due to her having a higher form of omnipotence (all this being said, Merina is a lower level watcher and isn't at the level of possessing godly foresight that Ianite seems to think she has) I very much want it to feel like a psychological game that Ianite plays with her subordinates that she would only want Flash to believe and be aware of certain things while lying about things like weakness or potential flaw

And crew dynamics!! yessahh the instigator-arbiter combo was absolutely intentional >:] For the sake of chaos (dianitee moment) but also while it would be so easy to just pair them off in travelling groups as syndisparklez/foxxsize or embersduo/zombiecaptains it makes for more interesting writing for them to be split up with the person they had the rockiest history with + a Ruxomarian who does not want to be stuck there (in some random reality across the multiverse) to begin with. In a way the thought process is the "get along or fucking die" premise especially when they start encountering like Flash but like ya said it really is a lot of infighting xD in the Martha led group the dynamic centers around 3 Ianitees all holding some kind of reasonable resentment towards one another (though they can bond over seein their goddess/mom in such a different light and how thats affecting them; like Martha especially not having seen much of Ia in Ruxomar and while she spent time with S1 Ia, I can imagine how jarring it is to run into a universe where your mom is a corrupt deity) And then the Spark led group is just a mess, because Tom and Sonja are both massive instigators in their own way and while they can get into some absolutely unhinged shenanigans as a duo a rift was absolutely torn between them post-S2/Isles era that they become prone to not be willing to go back on their opinions of something and hear the other out. Spark hasnt spent a lot of time with either of them so its hard to take on anything but a methodology of compromise which neither of them want to really entertain- When the four are together the banter can feel a little friendlier because deep down they do all care for one another, they just have a hard time expressing it

In terms of the other instigator duos with Spark n Martha (speaking of, I have a scene with them two and Sonja, which has been funky to ponder on when they encounter Mianite for the first time) its kinda just chaos. Chaos like when you put two besties together xD

[zarovich]

feels like everyone around me is living while i make no progress whatsoever. just barely surviving

[himemeika]

The more I think about CoS the less I hate it tbh...

[nthflower]

I need to do arttttttlttttttttt

[scottspack]

okay wait actually i saw a post about how the surge of puritanical teens online stems from these kids growing up without any online privacy which CLICKED for me and is so so so true and why im so glad ive kept my tumblr separate and secret from my real life for literally a decade because truly i believe you need somewhere private to be weird whether that’s in a specific friend group or online or whatever but if everything you do and consume and enjoy is peer reviewed by people who have direct access to you irl, it’s going to make you extremely extremely cautious about doing or consuming or enjoying anything that people around you might think is weird and then you become the young person online spouting off rhetoric that even my bible thumping hick ass republican grandma would think is old fashioned

[yeleltaan]

//Hello everyone! Alright, here’s an update on things:

I’ve got one more exam to do before I’m done. The good news is that I’ve got plenty time to prepare it, and I’ve decided I’m not going to wait until then to do the things I want to do. That being said, I know it’s going to take me a little while to truly pick up the pace here and I’d like to give a little priority to adopting some healthy habits and improving my lifestyle.

There’s one thing I wanted to address though. I realize that I haven’t really engaged much with the dash and most blogs, both the newcomers and the returning faces (which, by the way, I’m very glad to see back- seriously, it’s lovely to see characters embark on new stories when they seemed to have reached a conclusion, and watching writers come back to the fandom after some time away).

Truth is, I’ve found the dash overwhelming lately. This comes partially from me being too busy to engage, and therefore experiencing something like FOMO because I can’t quite keep up with stuff and be a part of it. The Soulsborne RP community is either getting bigger or becoming more visible to me, and that’s great, but it does also present a challenge to me because if I’m engaged in your character and/or blog, I want to see what you do! I want to see all these things you’ve put effort into, I want to give you feedback, send an ask here and there, have my muse interact with yours!

If I give your post a like, I haven’t just looked at it. If it’s a drabble/headcanon/thread, I’ve read it and re-read it to get a good understanding of it and try to find whatever clues or references you’ve put in there. Perhaps it’d be better for me and the other mun if I gave likes more liberally, but I don’t know, it’s important to me that if I give your post a like, I’ve genuinely had a moment where I’ve stopped and paid attention to nothing but that exact post.

Anyways, where I’m getting with this is that I do feel rather bad that I haven’t quite been able to... welcome? you with the attention and energy I would have liked to have given you. I hope that despite the delay with which I approach you or continue our interactions, we can make up for lost time later.

I’m unsure how I’m going to handle this. I don’t intend to unfollow anyone because of this, as my issue isn’t a lack of interest but my difficulty displaying it and putting it into practice. I do think I’m going to keep a fairly passive attitude (for now) when it comes to seeking new RP partners though, because I cannot comfortably seek and approach some of the blogs I’ve seen mutuals interact with when I’m already struggling to give my time to said mutuals. I’ll still be happy to plot and write interactions with blogs that approach me though.

Anyways, thank you for your patience once more and hopefully it won’t take long for you to see me more here. May things go well for you!

[wabblebees]

.

[waywardsalt]

damien and linebeck have the minor dynamic of damien being a guy who’s pretty well built and has a healthy bit of fat on him and linebeck having the prestigious title of ‘boniest man on the great sea’

[usareiis]

Ik in the past decade or so anime adaptations have tried to adapt mangas exactly and even gone back and done other versions of anime just to make sure to adapt the source material and that's a good thing and definitely has its place, but also I genuinely think we should let people make up 100+ filler episodes again