#corruption arc>redemption arc

[this-vs-that]

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[moosethren]

Ash's Fallout AU, made by @pirate-cashoo! I absolutely love how she turned out, thank you so much!

A bad accident combining the Cloud and radiation in the Sierra Madre made sure to seal Ash's fate as a ghoul. She's not a sniper you want to get on the bad side of.

[sozzledjuja]

last time they saw each other, he exploded and she went full psycho. now they're back... a little more crispy, a lot more traumatized.

happy sibling reunion i guess????

[greenbloods]

but the thing is that penny's relationship with tyrion in adwd can only be understood as a reflection of jaime and brienne's relationship in asos. the romance isn't quite there: tyrion explicitly rejects penny, something remarkable considering his mental state during this time. but we see how tyrion and jaime both see themselves in their younger, more naive female counterpart, and through their own desire to protect this person from the cruelty of the world how they learn to extend to themselves the empathy which theyve explicitly seen themselves as undeserving of for so long.

[canisalbus]

I've been following you for years, and I love your art. Seeing you repost your older art pieces reminded me how much I loved the angry, bitter, miserable Machete art and how it resonated with me... but a part of me is also so happy to see the current art of him being happy. Cute art of him as a unicorn, or chilling in a bathtub with Vasco. Like, we're all growing and healing :')

[whump-in-the-closet]

characters who have to redeem themselves. Except “redemption” isn’t what they expected. They begged for forgiveness and now their every action is monitored. They have to let everyone know that they messed up— they can’t go anywhere without the whispers and dark stares following them.

Once proud, they now walk with head bowed and never never make eye contact. They’ve leaned that much. They have scars where everyone can see, purposefully placed there as a reminder of what happens when they mess up. It doesn’t matter how much they swear they’ve changed, the blows come all the same. Casual now— just backhanded slaps and grabbing and quick orders to shut up—

they’ve learned their lesson. They don’t want redemption.

[aerithisms]

zuko's redemption arc is very good, it is beloved for a reason, but it's also poisoned discussion on redemptions in fandom in such an annoying and exhausting way. people always talk about the idea of "deserving" when it comes to redemption and at least some of this feels like it stems from atla depicting zuko as having originally been a kindhearted child who got corrupted into bad behaviour by abuse. therefore he "deserved" to get redeemed because he was always a good person deep down.

there is obviously nothing wrong with this being the way zuko's character is written but because it's the most beloved redemption arc in all of fandom now everyone thinks every character with a redemption arc has to have secretly been a good person all along. as though arcs about characters seeking redemption aren't actually about exploring people changing, they're just about confirming their inherently good nature. i think this is a very shallow way to think about human beings and a very boring way to write fictional characters!!!

the question of whether it's a good idea to give a character a redemption arc shouldn't be about whether they "deserve" it. the whole point of redemption is that the character starts out a bad person at the beginning of the arc, and we explore what it takes for them to change. it's bizarre that so many people in fandom have taken the stance that people don't really change, they're either bad or they're not, and redemption arcs are only for exposing the goodness that was already inside people.

the question of whether it's a good idea to give a character a redemption arc should be about whether it's the most compelling direction for that character and whether it aligns with the themes of the story. that's all. it's not a question of morality as if the characters are real people, it's a question of what the story is about and is trying to communicate. sometimes this means it would be mean spirited and ill fitting with the themes not to give a character a redemption arc. sometimes it means a character who has yet to show any modicum of remorse or kindheartedness will receive a redemption arc, because the story is interested in how that person could possibly change. and sometimes it means a character who does show signs of goodness may never get to realise that, and will never change their ways. it depends what the story is trying to say and what makes for the most interesting and fitting character journey for that story. because the character is not real and is first and foremost a tool to communicate that story.

[memphishing]

Newly acquired thousand-yard stare

[theislandoflosttoys]

So I'm playing through crk and just got through the forgotten academy section and umm?! Shadow Milk? Lmao ngl the whole academy gives off his vibes, but didn't realize they were going to show his picture too, granted he has a mask on but this is for sure Shmilk. Wonder if they'll ever so a skin for his headmaster days.....and can't help but wonder how he got corrupted, what happened?? ✨️🤔

[brojogon]

What's this trope called?

(Update: I invented four related terms: Idealjadedpragmatism, IJPism, phoenix paradox, and phoepara, so I answered my own question. If you're interested, learn their definition here.)

My friend Serialsocka and I have been thinking so hard that the aliens detected high amount of brainwaves inside our head, yet we still don't know the name of the trope the picture below represents. Any help equals a million hugs.

Explanation

I have a character called Celestion. When he was first created, he was a teenager more innocent than Charlie from Hazbin Hotel. Despite being annoying, all he wanted to do was help people become better. When he realised he's not contributing to anything meaningful, he began to doubt himself and think he's useless: he can't change people. However, he can change himself for the evil. He turned into a Florida man: obnoxious person who does petty crimes.

This is his current personality, where I kept his annoying trait before and after the corruption arc. I plan on having a redemption arc where he learns how to be discreet, but also keeps his other bad traits. What is this type of redemption arc where a hero-to-villain character loses a bad trait they've had since forever, but don't turn into a hero again?

[pushing500]

There is nothing quite so terrifying in the game as watching the nociosphere teleport closer. And closer. And closer. And closer. To the colonists all huddled together in the deepest part of the thickest walled room of your base.

There is nothing quite so horrifying as the slowly dawning realization that walls aren't going to do you a bit of good.

There is nothing quite so awful as seeing a quarter of your colonists obliterated in the first few seconds while the rest scramble madly for exits from the dining room turned charnal house now lit only by burning bodies and the evil glow of a giant archotech horror readying another plasma blast.

Just sayin', I think the nociosphere is one of the most horrifying things in anomoly

Oh, absolutely!! Even just playing the game and watching it at work keeps me on the edge of my seat.

I'm very grateful that the Jones boys can summon powerful mechanoids as "nociosphere enrichment" so they don't have to worry about being killed by an angry orb. It's gotten me thinking about what my other colonies might have done if faced with such a foe.

I think that the guys in The Animist Alliance would probably have just... scattered. Maybe I would have used Albina's animal warcall ability, but I don't know how much good it'd do. The RimWorld wiki says that zeushammers might be useful against the nociosphere, so maybe Irwin and Xanxalbur could keep it distracted momentarily? Still... I don't think everyone would survive a fight like that.

The Children of Ecthuctu would just nope out lmao. Abandon the colony and find someplace else to settle. They might worship eldritch horrors beyond mortal comprehension, but not this mortal horror beyond mortal comprehension. Ecthuctu is not sphere-shaped.

[air-mechanical]

Bellini, my favourite, a kind liberal repressing his feral desire to go to war and sieze the crown in bloodless righteousness.

AU where he doesn't hold back from the start. His burning ambition is not only advertised, but is weaponized. For the greater good. Because he wants this. He deserves this. And you deserve this. You deserve good. You deserve him. You need this. You need him. And he's going to deliver.

No matter the cost.

[arcturus-night-star]

Sides of the same coin

[miniagula]

they make me ILL and SICK IN THE HEAD

[borgialucrezia]

cesare borgia's michael corleone era save me...save me cesare in his michael era...

save me cesare who has always told himself he was doing what was necessary to protect the family from their enemies only to enjoy the sense of power more than preserving the family and in the process falling deeper into a path of tyranny until he was too far gone ending up isolated, feared, and hated by the very people he loved and once devoted his life to protect...