#NATHAN GETS CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

canyourfavesurvivecastledracula · 1 month

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Mastermind

@would-we-be-friends-if-i asked:

Nathan Ford (mastermind, functioning alcoholic, father of a dead son, used to be an insurance investigator)

@pomrania writes:

The ones I'm uncertain about are Nate Ford and Hardison. [...] Nate Ford, there's a whole bunch of relevant things about him, but the thing an keeps coming to mind for me is that most of his personas (if he needs to be in character for a con) are deliberately VERY annoying, and I think it'd be fun to see how far and how long he could needle Dracula.

@r0sequarks writes:

And Nate…in many ways he is Jonathan Harked except replace the sweetness for being a manipulative bastard. He is a sad enough catholic that he would take the crucifix, but more importantly, I think he’d realize Dracula was the carriage driver and also the lack of servants, and even if he didn’t piece together the supernatural would notice something was off. I’m not sure if him picking things up sooner would help or hurt him though; either he makes it out with a similar plan to Jonathan or he takes things a step too far and gets killed before he can become a bigger hassle.

@darthlordcommie writes:

Nate: Figures out Dracula's deal, investigates properly, but can't hide his attitude enough not to be suspicious. Doesn't make it.

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Yeah....

Nate's strength is holistic thing. He's good at people (in a very different way from how Sophie is) - he's good at seeing how things fit together in a larger system and context. I could see him doing Mina's job and succeeding wildly at it.

I can't see him doing Jonathan's job.

Nate is in many ways his own worst enemy. Not just with the alcoholism, though that doesn't help. Like, if Dracula offers him a bottle of Slivovitz for the Calèche rude, he's drinking it. (We speculated that the Slivovitz might be drugged, and Jonathan was supposed to arrive at the Castle less cogent than he in fact does. If so, bad news for Nate.) There's some wiggle in exactly where in his character development we take him from. He might just taste the Slivovitz and then pour the rest on him and pretend to be the same drunken asshole he would have been had he consumed all of it... but I don't see how this helps him materially.

He might actually refuse the crucifix. Nobody is as weird about Catholicism as Catholics, especially ex-Catholics. I guess it depends on how jaded and angry at God personally he is feeling at the time - and how hungover he is that morning.

I agree with the assessment that Nate could solve Castle Dracula. He'll pick up on the fact all the people around him are terrified all the time, and that the source if that terror is the Count himself. He'll note the huge number of crosses on the hillsides, all the active little shrines. I doubt the folks will be as aggressive about pressing gifts on him - he doesn't attract sympathy the same way a fresh-faced innocent would - but he will pay attention to all the goings on and have a fairly good idea of what he's going to, at least on a psychological/personality level, before he gets there. He will recognize immediately that the Calèche driver is playing a role and wearing a disguise - he knows a con when he sees one. So maybe he will be more cautious with the Slivovitz than I was giving him credit for. I think between one thing and another he will have a fairly accurate picture of what Dracula is like as a person before he officially meets him.

And I'm not sure this helps him at all because he will inevitably choose a persona calculated to annoy! As you say, Nate's MO is to irritate the Mark into making a mistake. But... the mistake Dracula is most likely to make is getting so mad he accidentally murders his guest and has to order a new one. Very frustrating for Dracula - absolutely fatal for Nate.

And I think Nate's problem is he can't help himself. We talked about Hardison getting cocky, but Nate very much also gets cocky in a self-destructive way. And because Dracula is very much not as clever as he thinks he is, that's going to feed Nate's cockiness, especially without his crew there coaxing him back from the brink. Nate is better at this than Dracula is... but Dracula is a vampire wizard who murders people. He doesn't have to win the other contests, he can just cheat. And he does.

You've said Nate is similar to Jonathan Harker - I couldn't disagree more. He's too sad, jaded, and Catholic. He's not the laser focus on just one thing thereby missing the bigger picture guy either - he's the opposite of that. However, I do think he's a lot like Abraham van Helsing, right down to the Dead Son Trauma. (I don't think the baby eating in the Castle would trigger gim the way it would Eliot, but I think Lucy's situation would). Not nearly as cheerful though, but every bit as Obnoxious On Purpose - and of course, an actual genius who works much much better when he has people to tell him no.

So yeah, I think Nathan Ford can not survive Castle Dracula.

#leverage #nathan ford #crooks #other white collar #leverage week

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leverage-ot3 · 21 days

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okay I’ve seen a lot of posts about sterling just being crowley and. guys. the implications just hear me out 😭😭😭

bending lore slightly here BUT let’s say crowley’s body was once inhabited by a human and crowley is possessing the body (maybe he kills the initial inhabitant bc he doesn’t care)

but he still has the guy’s memories. he doesn’t bother keeping up appearances with his ‘ex wife’ because he is too busy building up his hell empire. BUT for some reason he can’t quite identify, he still feels something towards his ‘daughter’. he lets the divorce happen and doesn’t feel the need (or desire) to fight for custody, but he can never quite forget her, to cast her out of his mind for good

some hijinks ensue with the leverage team. it’s mostly because even a grind culture demon wants some off time every once in a while, and for him the insurance investigator stuff is more of a hobby. interacting with the leverage crew is very low stakes for him, and honestly, quite amusing. they aren’t on his level power-wise, but that ford character gives him the mental exercise he hasn’t experienced in, well, he can’t even remember

he can feel their frustration and anger when they learn he has become employed by interpol and feeds off it. it’s great, and relaxing in a way he is never able to achieve while conducting hell-related business

one year he gets wind that olivia is in a really bad situation associated with his ‘ex wife’s’ new husband. he’s selling vital hardware to terrorists, and while that might actually be the kind of chaos he would normally support or be entertained by as the king of hell, something feels wrong about letting olivia stay anywhere near that man

he calls upon the body’s adversaries. he wouldn’t admit it, even under duress, BUT he feels slightly fond of them. nate for the three dimensional chess they play, sophie for her ability to charm and disguise, parker for her chaos and slightly unsettling nature (it’s the autism swag and being bad with human interaction but he doesn’t know that lol), hardison for his unapologetic intelligence and eliot for his hardened violent past and take-no-shit persona (he’s fun to tease)

they perform exactly as he expected, right into his carefully crafted plan. and then olivia is under his care and things get more complicated. he keeps her FAR, FAR away from anything related to the supernatural (heh). no one can find out about her, ESPECIALLY not those imbecile hunter brothers (if for nothing else than the embarrassment in revealing he has a weak spot)

not sure how to work it into this post but I also want to add that somewhere along the way he develops feelings for nate and sophie. the frame up job is near and dear to my heart and you can’t convince me that isn’t fighting as flirting behavior. his interpol persona is more of a side hustle so to speak, but he finds it fun (relaxing, even) to fill that role. there aren’t any obligations of other demons, bothersome hunters, or anything like that. nate and sophie are low stakes, except, they aren’t, really. they make him feel things he can’t ever really remember feeling. his heart beats fast when sophie sat in his lap and cradled his face, his hands sweat when nate gives him that certain smug look. he’s exasperated by the way they can run circles around him like no one else has ever before. they annoy him and get under his skin in a way no one else can and it’s infuriating. but also not, at the same time. maybe he likes it

and then the long goodbye job happens

hear me out and suspend your belief here for a second, because I can’t remember if crowley supernaturally knows when ppl die/are dead or not.

so nate is in interpol custody and the interviewer is obviously out of her depth. (most people are, when it comes to nathan ford.) he walks in and pours the man a drink, but he’s fuming. somewhere along the way he came to care about the team. hell and suffering is literally in his (official) job description, but he can admit (only to himself) that he admires what they do. it’s not for him, not anything close to where his passions and interests lie, but he respects their drive and purpose. he is also aware enough to acknowledge that they are a family, a group of misfits that never belonged quite anywhere except to each other.

and nate fucking blew it up, ruined it, because his vice is being so obsessed with the end game that he is apparently willing to let his team, his family, the people that anchor him to reality, die because the ends supposedly justify the means.

not this time. not to sterling crowley

he is enraged. he can admit within the confines of his mind that he cares for nate, for sophie, even for the other three (though nate and sophie have somehow made it a hierarchy where they are more important to him. which he will dissect later in private. maybe.)

nate let them die, he let sophie die, and for what? the black book? hell below, crowley would have made things easier somehow, if he knew that this was where nate’s sights had lied. he would have prevented this somehow. he wants to have prevented this. he doesn’t want any of them dead and is too afraid to check and verify because that would make it real. the idea of sophie (or any of them) somehow making it to hell instead of heaven would probably break something in him he might not be able to repare fully.

he yells at nate- he’s angry. hellfire burning in his heart because everything is ruined. the deaths aside (however hard it is to set them aside in his mind), nate will not recover from this, not ever. this will be the start of the end, he is sure. a miserable, guilt-ridden existence where he drinks himself to death and nothing will save him. it plays out in crowley’s mind in a thousand different ways that are beyond painful to conceptualize, even in theory.

the story starts to unravel and there is a game afoot. a solemn, miserable, infuriating game because the con is still in session because parker is alive and in the building- which sets another fire alight in his chest. ‘parker even know you got hardison killed?’ he rages for her grief when she finds out. he knows it will double when she finds out eliot has perished, too, because he isn’t fucking blind.

but nate is a brilliant man, lest he forget too quickly. they are all alive, and somehow still the entire crew slips through his fingers. he’s not even angry (he never would have been- he doesn’t actually try too hard to catch them. it’s about the game, not the consequences). he lets them keep the black book because he’s fucking exhausted and honestly, they more than earned it.

‘now we’re even. tell sophie to drive carefully’. they will never be even, not really. crowley would never admit or agree that being human is the superior state of being, but that have made him feel human in a way he doesn’t actually mind. they keep him on his toes and match him in a way unique to them, they remind him that there are other things than the realm of hell. not necessarily bigger than hell, but maybe just as important in a different sense.

watching the van drive away, something inside him settles. when he walked into the interrogation room that day he thought this was the beginning of the end. it’s not the end at all, not an end to anything. it’s a continuation of their story. maybe, he thinks, a beginning to a new era in it

#before anyone says anything YES I KNOW HOW SPN LORE WORKS I WATCHED IT FOR MANY YEARS #I am just making this silly post for my own (and possibly your) amusement #I’m not digging too heavily into spn plot because I haven’t watched in forever and don’t trust my memory to make accurate commentary lol #also I know it’s probably layed but lied looked better somehow don’t worry about it #sorry this is so long I wasn’t sure where to break it to a read more bc all of it was too important to me 😭💀#tell me in the comments if you’d prefer a read more and where you think it should go #I haven’t been into spn for years HOW DOES THIS AU HAVE SUCH A CHOKEHOLD OVER ME #eliot spencer #parker #alec hardison #leverage ot3 #parker x hardison x eliot #(background)#nate ford #sophie devereaux #jim sterling #nate x sophie #nate x sophie x sterling #crossovers #leverage x spn #leverage x supernatural #supernatural #crowley spn #crowley supernatural #crowley #leverage #mine #not even queueing this I need it posted immediately. instant gratification #pls like rb comment etc I need the validation #I ended up putting a read more for the long goodbye job

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friendofcars · 4 months

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Hello! Here is data on point of view distribution across characters in The Dreamer Trilogy (which I will abbreviate as TD3) as a follow up to my TRC data from last year (viewable here). A rather long-winded discussion of the data, methods notes, and some supplemental figures and tables are under the cut. As it was not possible to include all values and stats in this post (nor in the alt text for image IDs), my spreadsheet can be viewed by clicking here,

This project quantifies and visualizes the distribution of chapters and pages in the books of TD3 across characters from whose POVs the story is told. I didn’t have much of a hypothesis going into data collection/analysis, especially not like I did for the TRC data, but I did expect to see Ronan’s POV having the most chapters and pages for the entire series, given the fact that he is the most central of the protagonists. I don’t think page time is the be-all-end-all for a character’s importance, of course, but it is still interesting to consider how spending more time from certain perspectives affects the perceived narrative. I won’t get much into that aspect of analysis in this post, but if anybody would actually like to discuss that, I’d love to!

Results (and Interpretation):

TD3 consists of 173 chapters and 1184 pages (using the U.S. hardcover editions), making the average chapter 6.84 pages. The longest chapter is 16 pages, and the shortest is 1 page.

Figure 1A: The average chapter in Mister Impossible (MI) is considerably longer (9.26 pages) than the average chapter in Call Down the Hawk (CDTH) (6.00 pages) and in Greywaren (GW) (6.40 pages), which makes sense as MI has just 38 chapters while CDTH has 80 and GW has 55 (see Fig. 2). To me, the effect of the longer chapters (and therefore extended time with the current POV character) makes the various POVs feel more temporally distant from one another- not in a narratively incoherent way, but in a way that echoes the sense of isolation experienced by dreamers and weaponized by Bryde as he tries to convince Ronan and Hennessy to abandon their loved ones.

Figure 1B: Chapter length is fairly consistent amongst POVs across the series. Matthew has the longest average chapter length (8.40 page) over a small set of chapters (5 total)- his character development (as told from his own POV) is limited to a small number of instances, which may have stretched his chapters a bit longer. The 'Other' category has the shortest average chapter length (5.13 pages) (Fig. 1B); it includes the typically short chapters from witnesses of Visionary explosions/aftermath (Mags, Dabney) as well as Nathan's manifesto excerpts. (As a side note, I've described the chapters depicting memories from the Barns as 'Mór and Niall.' These chapters do not collectively portray an equal balance of their POVs, but this was the simplest way to categorize them.)

Figure 2A-B: These graphs are representations of chapter distribution across POVs in TD3 in terms of chapter count (2A) and proportion of total chapters (2B). Some observed trends include Declan's proportion of total chapters remaining quite constant throughout the series, Ronan's decreasing, Hennessy's proportion of chapters nearly doubling from CDTH to MI (and staying at a similar proportion to MI in GW), and Jordan's proportion following an opposite trend (consistent proportion in CDTH and MI, followed by a more than 50% drop in GW). Carmen's proportion of chapters also declines after CDTH.

Figure 2C: This graph compares total chapters per character POV over the entire series. We can see that the largest proportion of the series is told from Ronan's POV (53 chapters, or 0.306 of all chapters). To put that in perspective, Hennessy has the next highest number of chapters (26, or 0.150 of all chapters), which is just under half the number of Ronan's. If all characters had an equal number of chapters from their POV (including the miscellaneous POVs as one category labeled Other), they would each have 21.6 chapters, represented by the horizontal dashed line; Declan, Jordan, Carmen, and Hennessy all have chapter counts relatively close to this number.

Figure 2D-E: These are representations of page distribution across POVs in TD3 in terms of page count (2D) and proportion of total pages (2E). Trends are similar to those depicted in 2A-B, but 2E does make Declan's increased proportion of page time in GW salient.

Figure 2F: This graph compares total pages per character POV over the entire series. The dashed line shows that if each character (plus the Other category) had equal page time in the series, readers would spend 148 pages with each POV. Again, page data is similar to chapter data, but comparing graphs 2C and 2F gives a clear visual indicator that Jordan's chapters (on average, 8.11 pages) are longer than Carmen's (on average, 6.08 pages), since Carmen has visibly more chapters in 2C yet nearly the same number of pages as Jordan in 2F.

Figure 3: Figure 3 shows distribution of chapters (3A-B) and pages (3C-D) in CDTH, as well as average chapter length for each character POV (3E). An equal distribution of chapters would have been 13.3 per character, and an equal distribution of pages would have been 80.0 per character. The 'Other' category included chapters from the perspectives of Lock, Breck Myrtle, Shawna Wells, Jason Morgenthaler (and Lin Draper, briefly, in the same chapter), Mags Harmonhouse, and Dabney Pitts. Carmen's average chapter length in CDTH (4.67 pages) is the lowest single-book average for character POVs appearing throughout the entire series. (Nathan's average chapter length is just 1.00 [Supplemental Figure 2], yet his POV only appears in GW via his manifesto excerpts, and while I have attributed these chapters to his POV, I interpret the POV as actually ambiguous. As with Kavinsky's text in TDT, it's not absolutely certain if we are reading from the writer or the reader's perspective [although in TDT, due to the lack of Kavinsky POV elsewhere, it's probably the latter]).

Figure 4: Figure 4 shows distribution of chapters (4A-B) and pages (4C-D) in MI, as well as average chapter length for each character POV (4E). An equal distribution of chapters would have been 5.43 per character, and an equal distribution of pages would have been 50.3 per character. The 'Other' category included two chapters, both with what I deemed omniscient narration. Declan had the shortest chapters in MI (8.20 pages), and Jordan had the longest (11.4 pages, the longest average for a character for a single book in this series).

Figure 5: Figure 5 shows distribution of chapters (4A-B) and pages (4C-D) in GW, as well as average chapter length for each character POV (4E). An equal distribution of chapters would have been 6.88 per character, and an equal distribution of pages would have been 44.0 per character. The 'Other' category included Nathan's manifesto excerpts (3 chapters), 1 chapter from Liliana's POV, and 3 other chapters with omniscient narration. While Ronan never has the longest chapters, his chapters are shorter relative to other POVs in Greywaren, perhaps as a result of the way his chapters are written during his time asleep/in the sweetmetal sea. I have not yet investigated whether chapters tend to be longer while characters are awake vs asleep or dreaming, but that's something that could be measured from the existing data in the spreadsheet! There is also a dramatic drop in Jordan's POV time in GW compared to the previous two books, perhaps because of her increased divergence from Hennessy and desire to establish a life that follows her own narrative.

Other findings: A major difference I noted between TRC and TD3 was the lack of split chapters in TD3. In TRC, the data analysis was made slightly complicated by having to account for the fact that a non-negligible number of chapters would make a distinct and discrete switch between POVs partway through. While I did not observe this in TD3, I did encounter more ambiguous/nebulous POVs as I previously mentioned. The increased presence of omniscience in the trilogy, for me, contributed to the increased sense of scale and stakes compared to TRC. This increased continuity amongst POV (not amongst core/recurring POV characters, but amongst groups of characters/communities depicted in the omnisciently narrated chapters) also contributed to a sense of dissolution of barriers and identities, perhaps thematically in line with Ronan's character development and increasingly holistic perspective of both his humanity and otherworldliness (although Ronan is not necessarily featured in these 'boundary-breaking' chapters). I also briefly looked at occurrences of back-to-back chapters from the same POV; this happens most frequently for Ronan in all three books, mainly in CDTH, and sometimes featuring a dreaming chapter directly before an awake chapter (or vice versa) in immediate succession. Declan (MI), Carmen (CDTH), and Jordan (CDTH) all have a pair of back-to-back chapters at some point in the series; Hennessy has 2 (MI, GW).

Conclusions: In all honesty, despite this project being quite fun and fulfilling and of course, worth doing, I do not think I have any particularly insightful conclusions about the data beyond what I've already discussed. Ronan took up the largest share of the chapters and pages as expected, although I am not sure I expected this to be true by such a large margin. I also was surprised that Declan did not have more chapter/page time, but it is possible that his notable inclusion in chapters from other characters' POVs increases his prominence in the series (and I suppose this is probably true for all characters who frequently appear in chapters outside their perspective). As with TRC, the number of POVs expands as the series develops, often with the effect of increasing the scope of the story's implications, and perhaps, more importantly, showing the story from additional angles that contextualize and/or distort narrative established by other characters' perspectives. I hope you've enjoyed exploring the data as I have, and those interested in my methodology may continue reading below!

Methods:

Data collection was straightforward in the sense that I simply counted the pages in each chapter and then assigned each chapter to a character based on the POV represented. The POV character assignment was more difficult than it was for TRC, as TD3 has more omnisciently narrated chapters, which in itself is easy to categorize, but they often zoom in on or are 'biased' towards the experience of a particular character, so I had to make some decisions as to what, for me, constituted sufficient focus on a character’s internal narration and expression vs. omniscience. In the spreadsheet, I took notes on these more subjectively driven decisions. Again, you can view it here! It also contains data on whether the chapter is from an awake or dreaming POV, and has the first lines of each chapter, among which are some fun repeating patterns.

For bar graphs with dots, each dot represents a single chapter. You may also notice that the graphs are missing p-values from statistical tests this time around! This is because, since completing the TRC data, I’ve realized that such measures of uncertainty re: significant differences are not appropriate for my dataset, which is not a sample representing a population, but rather a complete group of chapters (so parametric tests are not necessarily helpful or valid). However, I still like to run the tests for my own amusement and to see what the results would be if this were a dataset for which ANOVA and contingency tests were appropriate, so I have standard deviation bars on the graphs where calculable (but no standard deviations in the text of the results section for legibility) as well as the p-values in tables at the end of this post for anyone also curious. I did still calculate the numbers of chapters and pages that would represent an equal distribution across POV characters, which are represented by the dashed lines on the relevant figures. I think this is helpful to visually gauge 'over-representation' and 'under-representation' of character POVs.

Below are the supplemental figures showing all character POVs rather than lumping some together in an 'other' category. The MI data in figure 4 is not expanded below because the chapters designated as 'other' were omniscient and thus would have remained in the same category.

And finally, here are the omitted p-values, if you'd like to pretend along with me that all the chapters in TD3 are not a complete set but rather a representative sample of a greater population of chapters that's out there in the universe. :) When I give a p-value below the 0.05 threshold but still write 'no significant differences amongst any combination of characters, I mean that the p-values generated for the comparisons between each possible pair of characters were all above 0.05, which are distinct from the overall p-value generated from the ANOVA.

#the dreamer trilogy #call down the hawk #mister impossible #greywaren #ronan lynch #declan lynch #jordan hennessy #carmen farooq-lane #long post #rchl #now onto more qualitative/linguistic things! xoxo

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childotkw · 2 months

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ok to the Orion time travel ask I'm just imagining him trying to sacrifice Nathan to demons or something because he hopes it'll make Nathan(Harry) show up faster or something xd people start getting concerned Orion is trying to cull the weak purebloods or something

Nathan: did you just try to sacrifice me to a demon? Orion: it's for your character development, don't be a baby Nathan: the only thing i'm about to develop is rage issues Orion: excellent! that means it's working! :D

#anonymous #HP #ybtm(ibty)#orion black #nathan ciro

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688199 · 4 months

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Astruc’s bullshittery: Debunking his tweets

Astruc’s tweets and claims about Felix is something I would never understand. He contradicts himself, for what? To make people hate Felix?

Case 1:

Sure he isn’t referring directly to this “version”. But when the PV was made, the concept of polar opposites was established, even shown through the early storyboards with Chat Noir presenting Ladybug with candles. It may not be a curse here yet, but it shows that Chat Noir was always meant to genuinely love Ladybug.

So it proves that the concept of Felix pretending to love Ladybug is a very “one-off” idea. Heck, even in the PV, you can see Felix being quite eager to transform. Does he look cursed to you?

Lastly, the existence of the 2012 bible is evidence that it’s possible to make Felix/ Chat Noir have an ulterior motive behind being flirtatious yet at the same time not moving away from his love for Ladybug.

Case 2:

In what way is this mysterious and evil? Again, even though Felix has the “Adrien” name in the bible, it’s obvious that Astruc is separating Felix (suit wearing, dark personality boy) with Adrien (the canon one).

It is true that Felix may be a bit evil, with that one singular image of him dropping an apple on Marinette’s head. But it’s a super early concept that isn’t present in the bibles (further supported by the fact they are shown to be able to use powers without transformation, and Felix being a pure misfortune manipulator.), meaning the idea didn’t reach that far into pre production.

That version of Felix is also shown more in Quantic Kids concepts, and even then, he was shown being slightly affectionate towards Marinette (cue that image of him smiling at her).

Instead of mysterious and evil, Felix had been long moulded more into someone who is driven, confident and dark (sarcastic). There’s way more art and descriptions depicting him that way.

Astruc even contradicts himself here when he says he cannot imagine Marinette liking Felix because it’s so clearly stated here why she does.

Not only that, Felix is written to have a soft side which he doesn’t show others. He even has fondness towards Marinette. But he doesn’t allow himself to fall in love. This means he actually sees himself falling for her if he gets distracted.

Overall, Felix might have underwent a very rough patch with him being mysterious and evil like what Astruc says (though in the fandom this version is often referred to as Nathan), but the development of his character shows that there was a lot of focus on improving Felix.

The time where Felix officially “became” Adrien is a few months after the earliest bible we have, where you can see the most changes being applied to the “Adrien” name. He doesn’t have a picture attached to the description (showing how they were still coming up with his design), he’s Papillon’s son, and has the goal of wanting to fit in rather than healing his leg. This is “Adrien” and no longer “Felix”.

Based on what Astruc said, he came up with “Adrien” because blah blah blah, but the Felix we’re seeing in the earliest bible is the same Felix he was dealing with before he came up with “Adrien”. Which, in my opinion, had quite a bit of depth to him that could be written well.

So is Astruc just straight up lying/ exaggerating Felix’s development and character in order to justify his decision to replace him with Adrien?

Adrien is significantly easier to write about as he’s more one dimensional, whereas Felix has a lot more inner conflict happening.

Maybe that’s why Astruc said: “Try writing Felix for 72 episodes”. He’s admitting to being a bad writer :/

#ladybug classic #precanon ladybug #ladybug precanon #ladybug pv #felix sphinx #thomas astruc #he can go fuck himself

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ember-not-amber · 4 months

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I just watched the first 6 episodes of “My Life With The Walter Boys” and immediately Cole is a no for me as a love interest for Jackie. 1) He’s an asshole and a fuckboy and I hate him with every fiber of my being and 2) he’s a senior and she’s a sophomore so that is gross, plus, he looks 25 and she actually looks like her age so whether he gets character development or not I will not be rooting them to get together because of their age gap.

Cole also looks like a wannabe Chris Pine and his hair part is so fucking ugly idk why it just does not work on him when it’s flat against his head as if it was gelled down like some 30s-40s hairstyle, maybe a side part would look better.

I stan Nathan bc I have nostalgia for Farkle from Girl Meets World, I really like Danny he seems really nice and I want to see where the story goes with his character. I fucking hate Jordan shoving his stupid camera in everyone’s faces like did anyone consent to being filmed? Wth is he filming everything for?!? It seems like it’s played off as a unique personality trait that he has but it’s really just annoying and invasive. Jackie didn’t consent to being filmed when she came to live with them and he should have gotten everyone’s consent before filming them for whatever reason (I don’t remember if it was ever mentioned why he liked to film stuff happening in the family bc I was too busy shitting on this show during the first 2-3 episodes). I feel like this type of character has been done before in movies or shows but I can’t think of another example bc it’s not that common.

I like Alex, he seems like a green flag but he does look like if Gilbert Blythe got watered down 100x😭

#original post #my life with the walter boys #mlwtwb #cole walter #jackie howard #alex walter #Jordan Walter #nathan walter #Danny Walter

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lucky-dreamfisher · 1 year

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BATR Archives Highlights

BATDR was updates with extra content in the form of Archives. Most of the descriptions are related to the development of the game, but some have interesting lore implications.

“ghost of a man”... hmm.. is this implying that real!Henry is dead?

“show a natural progression of the Ink Demon’s evolution as Wilson as held the cycle in place” this line seems to be confirming my theory that the person in charge of the ink machine influences both the ink demon’s appearance/behavior and possibly the ink world’s as well.

Interesting... so the story of BATDS takes place at the same time as the story of BATDR. There are still some unopenable mystery boxes in BATDS, so I hope that the game will be updated with some more lore tidbits.

“Among other things” sounds so creepy, given that she said he told her she resembles his mother. I hope what it actually means is that he was just treating her as a replacement parent.

Well, this confirms that they were going for a straight out redemption storyline for Joey Drew. Can’t say I like the way it was handled, but given all the problems they had to face while making the game, they gave it the best shot.

I feel like confirming that Nathan was a good dad after all kind of cheapens Wilson’s character, because it basically means that Wilson was evil for no real reason.

The last line in Wilson’s description is very interesting though. It explains how he lost his eye, and why he looks so old, despite being no older than mid-40s.

Alas, he’s still a one-note character with an over-the-top personality. Especially with the confirmation that even his monologue about having a bad childhood was a load of bull. But I do love the confirmation that our theories regarding Nathan Arch Jr were on the right track. Personally, I wish they would have left that narrative complexity in, because BATDR feels stripped of all of it. Everything is very obvious and exactly the way it looks like and there isn’t a lot of content left for theorycrafting. Imagine if they did keep Nathan Arch Jr, but made it ambiguous which “Nathan Arch” reference/tape in the game refers to which of these two characters. Would be fun to try to figure that out.

Given Carley’s size, the person inside her could only be a child.

So why are we resetting the cycle again? The ink creatures seem to be thriving when the cycle is held in place.

So Heidi is neither a child nor a failed Audrey, she’s just a deeply, deeply traumatized woman.

We lost Sammy so that we could get Lord Amok. Welp.

Glad to see an explanation for his powers though.

First canonically nonbinary character in Bendy! ;D

#bendy and the dark revival #Bendy and the Ink Machine #joey drew #nathan arch #nathan arch junior #wilson arch #Henry Stein #Heidi batdr #porter

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thecindercrow · 1 year

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I get why we all disliked his character by the end of season 2 (good writing, acting, and character development), but fans who are still so angry with Nathan and SO against him having a redemption arc here in season 3 perplex me so much. Realizing your fuck-ups and bettering yourself by finding the positives in the people and life around you and in turn helping those people to do the same are surface level themes of the show, and instead of engaging with that you’re going to roll your eyes and say the show should just abandon Nathan by the wayside? Another frequent theme is the ways we mask our insecurities and how often those defenses are actually damaging to ourselves and the people around us. Which, again, is prominent in So Many characters, but you just choose not to care when it's about Nathan? You watched Jamie's and Rebecca's (also well-written) whole turnaround stories but don't think Nathan deserves or could have the same thing, huh?

#“but nathan said and did awful things and was a selfish little brat” so did jamie! so did rebecca! so did roy!#and I don't mention jamie for no reason either. they have parallels! their stories have common themes!#jamie's story begets nathan's story and helps kick it down the path #and tbh I would Love to see that come full circle later and have jamie play a part in nathan's story again #nathan shelley #ted lasso #also I've vaguely heard about people even taking their complaints to the actor which is just pathetic #if you've done that you need to log off for a while and rethink many things #slight edit: added Rebecca into the text of the post because I think mentioning her story is important too

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chloe-caulfield94 · 9 months

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Chloe „guilt tripping” Max

Chloe is accused of “guilt tripping” Max to do her bidding. The prime example of that is supposed to be when she tells David that her joint belongs to Max, expecting Max to go along with the lie, because Max “owes her” for abandoning her for five years.

I disagree with the above interpretation of the joint incident. I think it stems from some players not listening to what Max actually says. It’s true that Max feels guilty if she has witnessed Chloe being hit and insulted by David. But why exactly does she feel guilty?

Max explicitly says, wondering if she should rewind time, “David was such a mean bastard to Chloe ... What if I had stepped up to help?”. She doesn’t say “I should’ve bitten the bullet for Chloe because I owe her”. Max doesn’t feel guilty that she has some unpaid debt towards Chloe. She feels guilty, because she’s seen someone get hurt and she could take that hurt away, by putting herself at risk.

We feel compelled to protect our friends not because we owe them. We feel compelled to protect our friends because we care about them. If you feel compelled to help someone only if you owe them, you are not their friend. Friendship isn’t transactional in nature. Max doesn’t owe Chloe to go along with her lie. The same way she doesn’t owe Kate getting into a screaming match with a campus security officer. But Max doesn’t help others because she owes them. She helps others, because she can’t stand seeing them get hurt.

I can't see Chloe blaming her weed on Max as the work of some manipulative mastermind. I see it as something that a terrified, abused girl might do to not get hurt.

Chloe lies about the weed because she’s scared of David hitting her. It’s almost certain that he hit her previously. Notice that during the arguement in Episode 3 David briefly raises his hand towards Chloe, to which she reacts with a scared face – this happens even if David didn’t hit her in Episode 1. David’s gesture would not scare her if he didn’t hit her before. And if Max stays in the closet, Chloe says to David: "Don't touch me again asshole. That's the last time", which also implies that it happened before.

I also think that it's unfair to use a single interaction between Max and Chloe which takes place early in the game to make sweeping statements about Chloe's character and her attitude towards Max. Focusing on this one incident completely ignores Chloe's character development. Just like Max, she finds her courage and is willing to risk her life to protect her friend. In Episode 4, when Nathan catches Max in the boys' dorms, Chloe shields Max with her own body and pushes Nathan away, despite knowing that Nathan is armed and almost shot her just three days prior. When Nathan shows up, Chloe's facial expression is one of fear, but the moment he starts walking towards Max, she steps in.

There are other problems with the "guilt tripping" accusation. It rests on the assumption that Chloe bringing up Max’s five year absence is somehow wrong. I think it would be incredibly weird if Chloe didn’t address that elephant in the room in some way.

When friends feel betrayed or disappointed, the most healthy course of action is to talk things through. If you never discuss difficult things with someone, they are not your friend. An acquaintance perhaps, but not a friend. If you don't talk about difficult things with other people, that means you do not trust them and don’t feel comfortable with them. Imagine that instead of telling Max that she felt abandoned (and promptly welcoming her back home), Chloe would pretend that her father’s funeral was yesterday and that she and Max were never separated. That would completely poison the atmosphere between them. Max would constantly be expecting that conversation to come, only it never would. It would hang over them like a dark cloud.

Another problem is that this accusation ignores the fact that Chloe lies about the joint’s ownership only if Max fails to hide in the closet. If she wanted to use Max as a scapegoat, why would she tell her to hide? And allow her to stay hidden after David asked her about the weed? If Max stays in the closet the entire time, she says "I'm sorry" after David walks out. To which Chloe replies: "For what? He would've been a bigger dick if he caught you in here". In the version of events in which Max gets to the closet on time, Chloe does not expect Max to leave the closet and take the blame. So she doesn't think Max "owes" her that. She's super surprised if Max does come out of the closet. Which is why this is the only version of the weed incident in which Chloe lets Max in on her revolver secret.

As an aside note, the words David says to Chloe are just as awful as the slap itself. There are several versions of his angry tirade. The worst comes if Max didn't argue with him at Blackwell. He says that Max should stay away from Chloe for her own good, because Chloe will only drag her down. Can you imagine hearing your own parent talk about you like that? Hearing things like that from your own parent is crushing. When Max says that David was “a mean bastard”, I think she meant not only the slap, but also how he made Chloe feel worthless. Which is the opposite of how parents should make their children feel.

#chloe price #max caulfield #pricefield #life is strange #lis #guilt tripping #david madsen

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theresattrpgforthat · 6 months

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This might be a long winded question, but for a while I’ve brainstorming on and off ideas for a TTRPG system based on those stories about “secret worlds where you have different abilities when you enter them” (Persona, Deltarune, Omori, more I’m sure), and I was thinking “there’s gotta be an RPG for that”, so like… is there? Is there an RPG where you enter a secret world to influence and help things in the real world? Or enter a secret world and develop special abilities when you do?

THEME: Alternate Worlds

Hello there! The Persona series is one I'm tangentially familiar with, so I've mostly got games that list it or The World Ends With You in their references. I've noticed that the PbtA community (and its siblings) really seems to like this genre.

Heartbeats in Perfect Sync, by Nathan Blades.

In your city, there’s an otherworldly force that lurks in the hearts of many: The Pulse. Feeding on negative emotions, they’ll devour everything… if not for a group of ordinary people with a mysterious app installed on their phones. Activate the app and you’ll be bestowed with a weapon that can purge the Pulse, but opening your heart can be dangerous…

Heartbeats in Perfect Sync is a tabletop RPG inspired by the shounen battle aesthetic in games like The World Ends With You, Kingdom Hearts and Under Night In-Birth. Play as a group of ordinary people who fight monsters with ridiculously over-the-top weapons.

Character creation in this game looks to be wonderfully simple. You fill in a ad-lib style sentence with information about your job, your weapon, and your fighting style. You pick a special move, and mark your Heart Rate, which marks your emotions. Your Heart Rate can grow or shrink, but get too close to either end of the spectrum, and your character becomes a dark version of themselves, super-powered and extremely cool-looking. If you like dramatic moments and rule-of-cool fight scenes, this game is for you.

The Midnight Generation, by Five Points Games.

The Midnight Generation is a rules hack for Masks: A New Generation by Magpie Games inspired by the Shin Megami Tensei: Persona series of JRPGs. Take the role of teenagers thrust into mystery and conflict. Explore the cognitive landscape of The Midnight World, the realm made by the collective unconscious of humanity and the distortions that arise when people retreat from reality. Take control of powerful Facades, spiritual manifestations of one's true self to battle powerful Shadows, willful manifestations of human emotions and to overcome the trials set forth in The Midnight Generation!

If you are a fan of MASKS, but want to use the original rules in an alternate setting, The Midnight Generation might be worth looking at. This book is fairly comprehensive - it comes with guidance on how to create the people, places, and other elements necessary to play in a Persona-like universe, as well as a city you can pick up and use with little extra effort. Another thing I really appreciate about this supplement is the addition of 10 playbooks that communicate the themes and struggles of Persona characters, including the Icon, who is masking their true self from the world around them, and the Shadow, how was born in the other world from the emotions of mankind.

Vibe Check, by Ostrichmonkey Games. (@ostrichmonkey-games)

Vibe Check is an illuminated by LUMEN tabletop role-playing game for 3-6 players. Players take on the roles of Players in the Watcher's Game - a week long challenge with the prize being another shot at life, while another player takes on the role of the Game's Master to introduce complications and consequences the Players must overcome as they fight to survive the Watcher's Game.

Vibe Check features LUMEN's fast paced dice pool system, tailored for action filled combat and paired with plenty of powers and cool abilities. Fight the Pandemonium within the Inversion to earn new Tokens and rewards. Upgrade and buy more powerful gear. Survive the Watcher's Game.

Inspired by The World Ends With You, Vibe Check places your players in a high-stakes afterlife competition to become alive again. As members of the afterlife, you’ll receive special abilities attached to your archetypes. For example, the Cryptic archetype had an ability called False Gnosis, which allows them to state something and roll to see if what they said was true. Your character’s looks are also important to determining their stats, with each Look belonging to a Brand. Do you have an entire set of clothes bought from Antiquity’s Glance? Now you can carry more things on your person.

If you like games with moddable upgrades and simple (but rewarding) combat, then Vibe Check is for you.

Eidolon: Become Your Best Self, by Reveal Your Master Plan.

EIDOLON: Become Your Best Self is a Powered by the Apocalypse RPG in which your character gains the power of an Eidolon, a physical manifestation of their soul that reflects their truest, innermost self and grants them incredible reality-defying powers! With the help of their friends, they'll fight against the pressure of the Undertow, the shadowy flow of collective psychic energy that imprisons society in an untenable status quo.

While this is a PbtA game, Eidolon has a battle system that uses a mechanic called “crashes”. Every blow that you land will escalate the fight, with victory becoming less and less likely the longer the fight draws out. This requires creativity and teamwork to overcome, drawing from your collective resources to save the day.

If you want to hear this game in action, the designers have an Eidolon Playtest podcast where they play through various seasons of Eidolon.

Shifters, by Moonlit Bard.

You are a Shifter, someone who can step from our world into the Major World beyond to do battle with sentient emotions and compulsions known as Forms.

Forms can be malevolent spirits inciting violence, landscapes saturated with desire, objects that seethe with chaos and discord, or anthropomorphic personifications of envy. No matter their appearance, they spell disaster for our world, and only you can stop them.

There’s not much info I have for this game, other than that it’s in demo form and is currently a one-page RPG. However, if you’re interested in games where emotions have power in an alternate world and so far nothing on the list here is speaking to you, this might give you something light enough to hack to your heart’s desire.

Stand Up, by Elena Murphy.

Stand Up is a Belonging Outside Belonging game about rebellion, forming bonds, fighting injustice, and changing the world.

Take on the roles of normal people with the capability to become heroes, explore a fantastical world that houses mankind’s inner feelings, and find a way to fight back using power only you can wield.

If you are a big fan of the Persona series, this game is for you. Collaboratively build a hidden world, called The Reversal, formed from the perceptions and feelings of humanity. Choose from a set of seven playbooks, all named after tarot cards. Bind your characters together, and then determine your Setting Elements.

Because this is a Belonging Outside Belonging game, Stand Up has no GM. Instead, it has setting elements that are picked up and played by players whose characters are not active in any given scene. This keeps the entire table engaged in the story even when their character isn’t involved, and lightens the burdens of GM-ing while giving everyone an equal chance to contribute to the story. If you enjoy story-games and a lot of control over when your character succeeds or fails, Stand Up is worth checking out.

Voidheart Symphony, by UFO Press.

There’s a wound in the world, a rot eating at hope and community and empathy. You’ve seen it in dark alleyways and gleaming boardrooms, gifting terrible power to those who will use it to hurt others.

You’ve had enough. You’re going to dive through that wound into the nightmare castle on the other side. You’re going to find the avatar of the one bringing you misery, and strike them down.

But what’s next, once you’ve stolen their power and ruined their ambitions? Will you return to your daily grind? Cherish those who are close to you? Or revel in the power you have taken from the void? Because within that wound, the castle waits, and it is hungry.

Voidheart Symphony is a tabletop roleplaying game about mundane people diving into a demon-filled labyrinth to save the ones they love. Based on Apocalypse World and Rhapsody of Blood, it’ll fill your story with dramatic choices and dynamic action. The World and the Void will both offer you their power, and make their own demands. How will you strike that balance? What will your revolution fight for? That’s your story to tell.

This is probably one of the darkest games on this list. With an alternate world that is meant to trap your characters and pit them against demons all the while, this is a game about rebellion in the face of little to no hope. I’ve heard a lot about this game in a number of different circles - it is well-loved and well-played. If you want to take a look at some pieces of this game before you buy, the Itch page includes free playbooks and reference sheets, as well as a link to a Google Sheets Character Keeper!

#tabletop games #indie ttrpgs #dnd #game recommendations #asks #hidden realities

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