#Theory-Crafting

[thryth-gaming]

Ryoko Saotome for MotW

Okay, to be clear, this is a theory-crafting. Ryoko is a character I have a long history with and it would be better for me to further develop her as a piece of fiction (and have already done so). I might end up doing a character based on her at some point, but I'd likely rename them and take a slightly different tack. Otherwise it would be difficult to work around the pre-existing story she has in my mind.

Okay, so, now on to the particulars, going to avoid going into too much detail but as follows:

Outwardly very friendly and polite with clear anxiety issues and low self-esteem.

Only really happy when witnessing that her loved ones are happy or else she is sparring. Outside those two, she fakes it.

An expert in a martial art based on channeling external energies. Is confident in her abilities but finds her energy control sluggish.

Unknowingly trained in a single technique based on channeling internal energies when she was a child. This is why her control is sluggish. Internal and external practices typically interfere with each other.

The one technique she was trained regarding internal energies is deeply, deeply flawed. You would even say cursed. It converts the negative emotions into energy, but it also causes that emotion to dominate the person's life. She is a "Rider" specifically a "Fear Rider". She doesn't really know much about this, just traumatic memories of the training.

From about 12 years onward she was out of the "care" of her parents. (her father abandoned her because he botched a theft from a secret martial training society).

She learns exceedingly fast.

She was originally a character in a 3-year PbP freeform Ranma 1/2 next gen game. She's built as Ranma's much younger sister, but similarly abused by her parents.

She was later a main character in a Ranma/Naruto crossover fanfic written primarily as an exercise to develop her character further.

Outward personality would peg Ryoko as The Mundane which is by design a bit. Most people would overlook her as a threat and to be honest, unless you threaten someone, she's more likely to fight you to surrender or defeat and non-lethally as long as she's not been triggered.

However, she's very much a dangerous foe. Monstrous is a possibility, but that feels more like a later step in her story. At start, it doesn't have as much of a hold on her.

The Initiate is a possibility but my idea is that she didn't really get assimilated into the society that took her and her sister in. Her sister would be a more likely candidate for the Initiate. The idea was that the society/ninjas left her to self train because they realized she was skilled enough to do so and also was steeped in the wrong style of martial art (external vs internal) so they couldn't teach her.

The Wronged comes to mind, but she hasn't even processed fully that her parents deserve justice or vengeance.

While the Chosen and the Divine are very melee and tough oriented. Their stories aren't nearly right for this.

Exile isn't bad, she isn't ACTUALLY from another time, but she has been sheltered from normal life. But the story isn't about a nemesis or the impact one had on the world.

So, what I'm going to come down to is Hard Case.

Hard Knocks is Secret Martial Art obviously.

For moves. Let's see

Furnace. This is basic to all Hard Cases.

Weapon Master. Because she's a skilled martial artist.

Stone Cold. Yes, fear dominates her life, but because of the Rider technique, she remains tactically competent.

For rating line. This is hard. She's friendly, but often overlooked and not taken seriously because of her anxiety issues. So, Charm can be low.

Weird can be low even though she is technically skilled due to the conflict between the two active styles of magic in her. The idea would be that after learning about the mix, she would learn to balance them, and the Weird would go up.

Cool, despite her anxiety, would be okay because again, it doesn't usually affect her in a tactical situation.

Tough is always going to be high.

Sharp should also be decent, because she is very smart and observant, even if she's hesitant to speak up about what she sees. With that, I think I'm going for the first rating line.

Charm -1

Cool +1

Sharp +1

Tough +2

Weird +0

Weird Move is No Limits because she is primarily about enhanced physical ability. Her baseline is above human do to the magic in her system.

Her ally could be her younger sister, but I think instead it might be better to be one of the mystics/ninjas/whatever that took them in and took care of them until she was 18.

Gear, Ancient Sword comes with Secret Martial Art. First divergence from the baseline. Ryoko was specifically not skilled with swords because she was never properly trained. MotW doesn't really allow for this too much... but it would probably be used as an explanation for poor rolls. She DID have a bokken (wooden training sword) that I could reflavor the Ancient Sword into, but the crowbar with Innocuous works better for that. I think I'll leave this as an actual magical sword she hasn't felt worthy of using yet.

Other choices:

Bokken (Crowbar)

Big Knife

Ignoring the vehicle section

Thinking "Old monster hunting journals" which I'm replacing with novels and manga. Because she enjoys them and is able to draw useful insights from such things.

Eventually I'd use "Borrow a move from another playbook" to grab Preternatural Speed - because Ranma and Naruto roof-hopping shenanigans. Probably early.

Possibly I'd borrow "Breed" as well, which Michael Sands confirms can be borrowed. To get both a Curse and a Natural Attack, about when I wanted her curse to go into high drive. Alternately, I'd just go into Monstrous, but this lets me ease into that. Claws of the Beast might be another way to do that. And Invincible might be a good way to represent how agile a Ranma-esque martial artist is.

So, the final starting character looks like this:

Charm -1

Cool +1

Sharp +1

Tough +2

Weird +0

Moves: No Limits, Furnace, Secret Martial Art, Weapon Master, Stone Cold

Gear: Ancient Sword (2-harm hand balanced valuable holy), Bokken (2-harm hand messy innocuous), Big Knife (1-harm hand), Action/Adventure Novels and Manga

[the-faultofdaedalus]

magic system where “dark magic” and “light magic” are literal terms - dark magic consumes photons, making an area around the spell visibly darker, sometimes to an Extreme extent, and light magic releases photons.

because of this most dark mages tend to work in very brightly-lit areas (either artificial light or outside in the daytime) to fuel their spells and wear and use lightly coloured clothes and tools so that they’re easier to see in the dimness their spells create, whereas light mages wear heavy, sometimes leaden robes (depending on the work being done) and the magical equivalent of welding masks to protect themselves from what can be an extreme amount of light, and sometimes other kinds of electromagnet radiation!

needless to say this is incredibly confusing for anyone unfamiliar with the culture

[sleepytrashpanda]

NEUROTYPICAL GANG/s

BUILT W/ SIBLINGS INC: @tofuthewolf

[amielot]

Uno Reverse

Bonus:

@arialerendeair keeps giving me ideas to springboard off of XD

final image was referenced from Calvin and Hobbes :3

[remxedmoon]

What are your thoughts on ISAT's magic system?

AUTISM BLAST

okay long rambly post incoming. for the record like 90% of this is pure unfiltered headcanon. and almost all of this is about colors. sorry if this is hard to follow!!! i need to get this all out of my system.

oh also! a lot of this is based on a really good post by @/chronologically-challenged that shows off the differences between each character’s craft style! go check that out it’s really good

okay!! so!!! colors. this is just my own thing, but i personally like to color code the different types of craft!

don’t worry about those middle tones yet just put a pin in those

there’s still a little bit of color variety within craft types (for flavor), but generally, rock is blue, paper is yellow, and scissors is red. i’m not going to lie to you i only did this because the splatoon testfire had these colors. it’s also why my triplets designs are colored like that!

i think these colors also just fit the descriptions of these crafts? red feels like a more aggressive and active color, which matches how piercing craft is generally more focused on dealing damage, blue tends to be calmer, which matches protective craft being more supportive , that kinda thing. something something children’s hospital. yellow is a bit of a wildcard here lol, it just looks nice with the other two.

putting aside the colors for a mo! don’t worry those’ll come back soon. i’ve also been thinking a lot about how dual craft types work, though this is a little more speculative. i’m entirely basing this on how mira works. basically, one craft type seems to be more ‘dominant’ over the other. while mira is both paper and scissors, she’s still weak to rock, her basic attack is scissors, and her scissors skill (jolly round rondo) does much more damage than her paper skill (artsy silent burst). she behaves more like a scissors type, with an extra affinity for paper. which i think is interesting!!!

in terms of colors, i think this would manifest as mira’s craft being tinted orange, as a mix of both her craft type’s colors! this is partially what those uncategorized colors are for. while her scissors attacks are only slightly tinted, her paper attacks would be a lot closer to orange! and this would apply to other dual crafts as well. a rock/paper type would have more greenish attacks, a rock/scissors type would have more purply ones, etc etc.

i think this color mixing would also apply to single craft types trying to use a craft type that isn’t their own, though it’d prolly become less pronounced the more a person ‘gets used’ to using that craft type, so to speak. in a while rockodile would be pretty solidly purple, while rock bottom is more of an indigo color, and odile’s craft skills probably only slightly tinted as well.

ok!!! that was a lot about colors. i’m really fucking normal about colors. onto craft styles!! this is still kinda about colors tho sorry. also, again, go check out @/chronologically-challenged’s post if you haven’t already, it’ll prolly explain this better than i will

for a tl;dr on that post, each country has a different way of using craft. the forgotten island has lightless craft that tends to manifest as stars and zigzags, vaugarde has big, rounded bursts of grey craft (with smaller circles around it), and ka bue’s craft is more diamond shaped/triangular and tends to be on the lighter side.

this is also the part i’m a little less sure about. i haven’t drawn these out in my normal style!! so a lot of this is subject to change. sorry about that!

anyways. i wanted to preserve the island’s lightless craft while still making it colorful, so i decided to give it a sort of. halo effect? i guess? i wanted it to vaguely resemble the ring of light around a black hole or a solar eclipse, but that is a lot harder to do with the zigzag shape of the craft + my color limitations. and as i’ve recently learned, glow effects look really weird with my pixelly art. so this is all just flat colors 😓

shhh don’t mind the art here i’ve totally posted it before 🩶

vaugarde is pretty simple comparatively!! the craft is a sort of midshade ingame, so i just made the main color the normal craft colors. not much to say here!

and ka bue is in a similar boat! i did kinda draw it in my odile sprite redraw, but i didn’t really look at references so it’s kinda boring looking there. not much to say here either!!

and!! as we can see from the king’s special attack art, craft styles can kinda mix together. king’s style follows the general shape of vaugardian craft, but keeps the shade and stars from the forgotten island! i think it’d be fun to play with that a little more teehee. i imagine these are a lot more variable depending on how engrossed someone is in a culture, hence why odile’s craft doesn’t borrow from vaugarde’s style. unless she does? it’s not like we see other ka buans using craft in game. who knows.

also because i forgot, some extra bonus doodles of that craft color mixing i mentioned earlier! yipee!

and that’s it!!! there’s probably some other stuff that i am. currently forgetting. but this post is absurdly long enough!!! thank you so much for the ask i’m so sorry for autism blasting you about isat and color theory. am i still cool. here’s all of my craft doodles as compensation for reading this giant infodump. i’m so so sorry.

[lilli-eyr]

ꁝꏂ꒒꒒ꄲ ꉔꋪꋬꊰ꓄꒐ꏂꇙ

[fagus-sylvatica-beech-hedge]

okay buckle the fuck up because I've got a lot to say and not much time to say it.

the central theme and purpose of dan and phil crafts, at least in my opinion, boils down to trust.

the trust that they have for eachother and have had for years, and the trust they place in us as an audience.

for example, the sheer amount of trust that (crafts) phil had to have in (crafts) dan to let him sacrifice him multiple times, and believe that he would be able to successfully complete the ritual and bring him back to life, in a way mirroring the fact that (real) phil willingly went back into the closet after living somewhat openly as a gay man for several years in university, for the sole purpose of letting (real) dan process his sexuality in his own time, therefore "sacrificing" that part of himself for a time and trusting that dan would eventually get to a point where he would be more comfortable being out.

PART II: THE HAND HOLD

of course, now in the present day with both of them firmly out of the closet, having lived together for over a decade and built their "forever home" from the ground up, they understand the implications that can be drerrived from their more "coupley" actions, especially knowing how the phandom used to be.

if you have been in this fandom for any sizable amount of time you might remember how any "sighting" of them possibly holding hands was prone to much speculation and excitement,

images such as the ones presented below were posted and reblogged many times, with varying amounts validity.

[images taken from pinterest as I couldn't find the original posts, if you know who posted these please do let me know]

so, them standing front and centre, unabashedly holding hands symbolises this new era that we have been entering since the revival of dan and phil games, this era of acceptance and the trust that they are placing in us as an audience by letting us see a bit more of this side of them.

"we know you know" and all that.

so then, devotion, to a god, to an influential online figure, or of course devotion to a partner.

and what is devotion if not trust? and then again what is trust if not love.

thank you for coming to my ted talk, I have no idea if this makes sense to anyone else, I wrote this whole thing in about 15 minutes while slightly delirious from the heatwave currently boiling my whole city alive.

so long and thanks for all the fish

-fagus.

[aussie-bookworm]

Strange thing I've noticed on the website but the Welcome Home logo is looking... dirtier?

Here's what the home page logo looks like:

And here's what the logo looks like on every other page:

It's easier to notice on the orange, yellow and pink letters.

Probably isn't anything too significant but I figured it was worth pointing out after the mentions about mold

[codename-adler]

1. so like. maybe jeremy’s dad is the man his mom cheated with. maybe jeremy only shares a mom with his siblings. maybe he learned it the hard way. maybe he blew up at the banquet and spilled the beans of his mother’s infidelity. maybe.

[marshiemonarch]

i saw the art of all the vessels together and thought "hehe vesselverse" and now im intrigued by that concept. now im thinking all of the vessels/souls are just in the void whenever theres a long wait or theyre not resetting and they just. talk about mundane stuff

"kris ate all the pie again, goddamnit.."

"can you blame them? dark world food doesnt satisfy hunger"

"GUYS I HAVE HOMEWORK I GOTTA GO"

Never interrupt Angel when they're writing about their conspiracy theories

(Featuring: @purplebehittindifferent @ultrabean @deltasaviorthemaker and @missowo)

[thryth-gaming]

A bit more theory-crafting - Sentinel Comics

Okay, so recently I had a commission for an urban fantasy character from Rachel Denton aka Tallinier and I let her go where she wanted with the direction. She ended up going for a deep-one/merfolk inspiration and also something a bit more colorful than the drab appearance deep ones usually get.

Rachel Denton's links:

Instagram

Patreon

Artstation

The Husk of Twitter

As a note, this reminds me of some past concepts of my own (which I resisted showing her until she was done because didn't want to influence her) but also reminds me of a video game named Call of the Sea.

In any case, I'm going to build a couple of characters off of this picture. And, because I feel like rolling dice. I'm going to start with Sentinels Comics.

Step 1 - Background

Roll, 7 and 10.

Options

7: Academic

10: Military

17 (7+10): Interstellar

I've done Academic recently, there is an amphibious alien species in sentinels, though they don't look like the picture above.

But it does mean that the idea of aquatic aliens is there. And I'm not sure I've done an Interstellar background, at least not in easy memory.

I think I will put the d12 into hmmm.... I'm going to say Deep Space Knowledge, and the d6 into Investigation.

For Esoteric principal, I'm grabbing Principal of the Sea:

And now on we go.

Step 2 - Power Source

Roll, 3, 5, and 6

Options

3: Genetic

5: Mystical

6: Nature

8 (3+5): Powered Suit

9 (3+6): Radiation

11 (5+6): Supernatural

There's a few magical interstellar characters in the canon of the setting, the picture doesn't seem to point to Powered Suit everything else seems likely. I've done a Genetic recently. I generally enjoy doing Supernatural... but I think I might do Radiation this time. No, actually, I am going with Mystical.

Okay, I'm going to assign the d10 to Awareness, d8 to Toxic (from Materials category), and d6 to Telepathy (from Psychic category).

For abilities, I'm taking Sever Link using Awareness and Modification Wave using Toxic.

For the extra Information quality, I'm taking Magical Lore.

And to the next step.

Step 3 - Archetype

Rolled 1, 7, 8

Options:

1: Speedster

7: Armored

8: Flyer

9: Elemental Manipulator

15: Wild Card

Hmm, I think I'm going to go for Wild Card.

I think I'm going to go with d10 Vitality, d8 Persuasion, and d8 Close Combat.

For abilities I'm going for Multitask with Vitality and Gimmick for Close Combat.

Then for the yellow ability, I'm going for Expect the Unexpected.

For the Principle, going with Justice.

And now for the next step.

Step 4 - Personality

Rolled: 8 and 9.

Options:

8: Fast-Talking

9: Inquisitive

17 (8+9): Naive

I've been having the image of her as an interstellar explorer, so I think I'm going to go with Inquisitive.

The background quality will be Star-Hopping Deep One.

Step 5 - Red Abilities

For Red Abilities I can choose.

Athletics powers

Intellectual powers

Materials powers

Psychic powers

Information qualities

Mental qualities

Physical qualities

Social Qualities

I think I'll go with Push Your Limits and Aware Response.

Aware Response goes with Investigation.

Step 6 - Retcon

Going to take a third Red Ability in the form of Impenetrable Defense with Toxic.

Step 7 - Health

8 + Vitality 8 + Red Status 10 + 4 = 30

Green: 30-23, Yellow: 22-12, Red: 11-1

Step 8 - Finishing Touches

Time to fill in the character sheet.

[galliro]

So my theory for what the magnus protocol is is that its an attempt to weaken the entities by seperating then into smaller and smaller sub groups so that none have massive amounts of power as seen in TMA with smirke's 14.

[chacolachao]

Something I've been thinking about since The Murder of Sonic... Where did that cake come from? I know he went and got it at the end but they stopped in a location they weren't scheduled to stop at, found a cake shop, and then bought it in a few seconds? Now, that's not the part that surprises me actually... It's the fact that the cake is customized. The kicker here is that the cake is flawless, doesn't even look rushed, AND its got a (presumably edible) image of Amy on it.

So there's a couple options here:

While on the train before getting murdered he gets on that computer that was in the back and rapid fire orders a cake from a bakery that maybe might be somewhere in the middle of their two destinations. (As this train is meant for fun events I assume it runs in a circle for this story**) He sends over an image of Amy too for edible printing. Then immediately after the train crashes he races to the bakery, wherever it may be, picks it up, and comes back with it. Definitely plausible, makes sense, though I'd have to check whether or not Shadow went for the computer room before Sonic could even get a chance to. **I don't remember if there was a specific destination

This dude gets himself murdered and immediately after the train crashes and everyone gets off, he races to the nearest bakery to pick up a premade cake. Along the way or once he gets there he sends them an image of Amy to print, using his hero clout to get it printed immediately skipping the queue. (Those things take like only a minute to print so it could work.) As he's waiting for it to print he decorates the cake. Roses could already be there but I'm assuming he wrote the words on the cake. He's the only one who could manage a rush job that well and we already know his muscle control is top-notch. Judging by his canonical signature below:

That's cursive baby, probably written quickly, but also perfectly. He could totally handle writing on a cake carefully. Photo prints, put on cake, race back.

One of these is more fun than the other and I'm too sleep addled to think it through any further.

[stbot]

til death do us part: think pink!

[sunseed-fandump]

Here's what I wanna know

Obviously the Silver Tree is what's in the middle

But what about the FORKS???

They're connected to the tree in this visual representation but idk if they're supposed to be symbolic or literal. Are they a part of the seal? Another aspect of the prison??? We know what the tree does but how do the forks work in this equation?????

WHATEVER they actually are, it's possible those are going to start coming into play with this upcoming Mystic Flour Update. They're probably going to be the main driving force in exploring the rest of Beast-Yeast for the characters. Why?

Well if the Tree was the only part to it, then all they would have to do is camp out in the Faerie Kingdom and defend it. From a storytelling AND gamer standpoint, spawn camping ain't fun. So they need another thing for the characters to aim for: the forks.

They're either the Beast's individual prisons, conduits that are keeping the tree alive (like roots feeding nutrients to it), or some other third thing I can't think of rn.

My quirky little game theory is: Dark Enchantress is going to start going for the Forks because the initial plan with the Faerie Kingdom's Seal went nowhere. Spread the enemy forces thin across the entire continent, lead them on a wild goose chase, and then attack the Tree head-on once everyone is occupied with defending the Forks.

Badda-bing badda-boom ya got the Beasts freed and narrative chaos ensues.

[snebleps]

Please do the thing.

I can't believe this took me half a year. It turned out my leather was way too thin.

But I held on to the flatness Pipa pipa in my heart until I obtained some that's more suitable for a bookmark.

Here it is on a book page about the danger of frogs!

(This is in reference to the flattest frogs)