#i dont like my characterizations. i like a lot of it but not all of it and im just

[speedofsoundsketches]

I personally believe if Idw wrote Maria that way and they said "we're just expanding on the character " fans would throw a fit. Dont get me wrong, the Sonic Ova will always remain superior to whatever American Sonic story product comes out. But cant help there seems to be a lot of forced hype over a short manga that's just mostly okay with a lot of flaws.

I can only speak for myself but part of my major problem with IDW is that the attempts to “expand on the characters” are usually by making them speak out loud their thematic modus operandi instead of allowing things to be said on a subtextual level. It’s why Sonic expositioning on his “le principles” sounds insanely forced because he’s never done something like that in the games or at least, never required an essay worth of words to do that. In the games, this is done by letting characters speak through actions first and punctuating that with clear, concise statements during peak moments of clarity. Sonic simply saying “What you see is what you get! I’m just a guy who loves adventure!” after going through an entire game of him showing us this about him is more convincing than long prose on why he thinks everyone should live exactly like he does in a holier-than-thou manner. (Which is such an antithesis of Sonic’s character in the games, he is far more humble and intuitive than ppl might expect.)

The manga did imo a better job of not only writing Shadow than he is in IDW but it was all largely game compliant. Nothing in it really contradicted anything already done in the games in terms of characterization. It just feels like “more of the same” but now we get to see some of the sad, bittersweet and touching sincere friendship between Shadow and Maria, plus the foundation of all the tense internal conflict and insecurities Shadow will have to face and eventually make peace with. Plus my goodness, the RANGE of emotions he has and that he’s not some completely unreachable hardass but has complicated and deep emotions. Plus the action in it? Ooooo stunning. Him knocking out soldiers and stopping a bullet all while tying it with emotional internal declarations he was struggling with and determining that he does still have purpose even if curing Maria failed is so PALPABLE. STANDING OVATION.

His beautiful thoughts on Maria and what she means to him after she dashes away all his fears that she sees him as a tainted experimental animal like the other scientists did when facing their doom like bruh I’m in tears. It’s so well interwoven with the outward kinetic battle and leaves enough room for that which is left unsaid. Shadow speaks through his actions more than words but his thoughts and feelings just heighten the emotional peaks in this short story.

It’s not perfect but this is literally all I’d ever want. Contrary to popular belief, I’m not actually that difficult to please. Just write characters as they are in the games and I’m happy!

[kiwikipedia]

it’s actually astounding how quickly a fandom can devolve a well-written Character to One (1) Character Trait They Exhibited Once Forever

[bigskydreaming]

The thing that kills me about the Star Wars prequel trilogy and why I will die on my hill that my problem is not that Star Wars is a tragedy, its that its a badly written tragedy, is that Anakin Skywalker was at his closest to being a good Jedi when he was ten years old.

[yellowocaballero]

Talk Shop Tuesday: what’s the most important thing to you when it comes to characterization?

[Sorry I am so behind on these I have been so fucking busy] CHARACTERIZATION I LOVE YOU SO. What a good question!!!!! I get compliments on my characterization a lot so I should probably think about this. Also @lazuliquetzal chime in if you want because you're just as good at this.

There's a lot of important things. The most important, I think, is that the character has consistent internal logic. It's like worldbuilding or magic. Their actions don't have to be objectively logical, but they do have to be consistent. The character has a framework for understanding the world, a way of perceiving the world and how it works, and an idea of how they think other people work. Everything that happens in their lives is filtered through that. They have to feel like a real person making real decisions, not an instrument of the plot.

Something I like to do is to make their greatest strength their greatest flaw. I think in writing there's no 'good' or 'bad' character traits - no virtues or sins. I think character traits are neutral, and that they can be used to good or bad effect. I think we do things because of other things that have happened to us, and that these things have positive and negative consequences.

Obviously a character has to have consistent motivations and to change over time. A character shouldn't end the story in the same place where they started. Character focused stories ought to have your characters change throughout the story - Sherlock Holmes doesn't have to have moments of character growth but your slice of life character definitely should. I think the setting around them really helps - giving them foils really helps develop and flesh out both characters.

I feel like that's all pretty basic notes though. For me and characters, there's way more to it than that. It's hard to explain. I think I can only ask that you make the plot and tropes fit the characters, not the characters fit the plot and tropes. Fanfic has a horrible habit of making characters one dimensional and stripping away a lot of nuance to fit in with different slots in relationship dynamic, roles in a team dynamic, or niches in an AU. The character should come first. And love of god if you make their personality seme or uke I will come find you with my yaoi baseball bat.

Oh and the best character-building exercise is to figure out if the character would ever be a cannibal or not and I am barely joking.

[sweetandsourcookies]

lying here in bed and thinking abt how alienated out i feel in the cookie run fandom. and then theres a polish sitcom playing in the background from a different room.

[spider-man-2o99]

The prevailing belief of many ASTV viewers seems to be that Miguel O'Hara is an actual, literal vampire. Do you think this funny.

Nope! <3 it shows such a lack of willingness to do even Basic Research that would take maybe two seconds to look up that it makes me want to Kill. like. cmon. he has Fangs because he's half-spider...,,.,

They're hollow, and whenever he Bites People, it is specifically with the intent to POISON them with the VENOM from his FANGS-- he also Says That every time he does it, like he's an anime character, lol, and it means a lot to me. we don't know the exact makeup or potency of his venom, but we Do know that it's fast-acting, paralytic, and (apparently, thankfully) non-toxic, at least.

[mla0]

i hate when people portray michael and/or patrick as some kind of master manipulator who was terrible to shaun and stormy. like, in the past, michael sometimes got portrayed with little autonomy, or as childish and overly innocent in a weird way. that in itself is an issue with the treatment of mentally ill characters (infantilization), but the solution isn't to argue that he's actually a monster who only wanted to hurt and mislead people. the same goes for patrick. i don't enjoy the "goofy flirty mass murderer" interpretation for very similar reasons, because in the canon patrick did indeed do some wild shit but i think it's a stretch to say it was out of malice, except maybe towards eric lol

obviously there will be different views of these characters and this isn't meant to be gatekeep-y or anything, i'm just concerned with how certain portrayals can quickly slide into negative biases towards mental illness. i think if you're going on this route you might want to ask yourself why, and consider how it could make the mentally ill people within the fandom feel when they see their own symptoms portrayed by their peers as synonymous with being dishonest or manipulative

[pyrosomatic-metamorphosis]

genuine question but is there any fandom where a character is well written by the majority. im thinking about fandom culture and the spread of frustration when people dont write characters well but. honestly in all the fandoms ive been in there's only like, a Select number of authors who i trust to write Well, let alone write Well AND In Character. character analysis and writing and getting inside characters' heads are all separate skills (all of which are trained by roleplaying fyi can CONFIRM playing pretend with your friends is good for you). there's been more than once where I've disagreed with an interpretation that others agreed with, and then I turned out wrong. or i turned out right. like it doesnt matter WHO is right it just matters that differences in character analysis exist, so even if you DO write well AND write in character, your in character is still going to be someone else's out of character

there's this sort of. vibe. that to play in the sandbox you Need to be able to make a castle, and if you can't make a castle then you shouldn't bother, and it completely dismisses the idea that youre in that sandbox to PLAY in the first place. there's this Weight of disappointing someone if you can't build something that they like, but that forgets that you aren't there to build them a castle. like, be KIND. if you disagree with someone then please make an effort to do so kindly. i dont give a shit about fandom discourse but there is a reason kids get removed from sandboxes if they keep throwing sand in people's eyes. but if they don't like your misshapen sand pile, then youre not obligated to change it. even if you yourself end up hating that same sand pile later- youre not building a legacy. youre playing. and sometimes the result of that play is out of character drivel. theres a reason there are so many authors and so few who i like to consistently read and thats because everyone is Fucking Around in their hobby space. hash tag brag or whatever but i can build castles. ive built several that im v proud of. ive also dug holes in the sand for fun and then tripped on them when trying to get up. I often dug a hole and then got up and fucking- whoops, its a castle now, and i didn't realize i'd made something to be proud of until after the fact. the whole time while creating shit i was Convinced it was bullshit that didn't make sense. and then other times i was Convinced it was bullshit and then i was Right and i can look back and go. huh. ew. but it doesn't matter what the end result was, because i had fun playing in the sandbox

this wasn't meant to turn into a ramble but i have Feelings about bad art and art that's badly perceived and how public perception can screw with your head and how making art youre proud of is fucking. it's so difficult!!! it's hard!! it's really fun, which is why i try to make it, but i promise you it is Okay to not tryhard creativity. even if you CAN, it's okay not to do it all the time. or ever, even. fuck around find out have fun etc

[marinsawakening]

It's pretty fun for me to play Zelda games in a manner mostly isolated from fandom opinions. Like don't get me wrong I've absorbed a lot of LOZ spoilers, headcanons, interpretations etc. via osmosis, I am not playing these games blind. But regardless of how many spoilers and fanart/fanfic I've seen going through the AO3 tag after playing BOTW was still an Experience because it made me realize that the way I interpret both Link as a character and the game as a whole is apparently completely counter to the majority fandom opinion. Something I was blissfully oblivious to while playing the game.

[navii-blaze]

Quick practice using copics again, pretty good outcome given I haven't used them in a while + shakey hands syndrome

[funkily]

its been really interesting to see the cultural shift with flower husbands . because they were icons obviously and they at least HAD the highest amount of non-dsmp mcyt ship fics on ao3 (havent checked lately) . and then around afterlife they (relatively) died down with scott saying he wasnt doing anything else, "flower husbands is dead," etc . the general Hot Take is that people are a little burnt out on it actually . and then double life comes around with ranchers and theres this sort of opposite resurgence , in which scott is treated as a toxic ex (not that toxic scott content didnt exist before this mind you) and tango is jimmys "savior ." after this fh content lulls again . with the steady stream of ranchers content theres some angst every now and then . some things arise from empires 2 , more angst from liml . now the common take is that flower husbands would realistically Suck (shocking a ship that isnt healthy in real life (<- silly)) but in a more general sense , usually removed from ranchers . and theyre right , but its still interesting . like what happened to "they are the blueprint"

[lazaruspiss]

anyways i recently found out that i think a few days ago at this point someone added onto one of my posts but i didnt see bc i have them blocked lmao

[hecksupremechips]

Hypothetically should I play p3 reload with the femc mod like does anyone know if it’s good? It certainly LOOKS good but I wanna know if it’s essentially just portable with good visuals or if it’s reload but with kotone instead cuz if it’s the latter I am not interested

[cloudcountry]

getting told you write a character well by someone who has liked that character for a while and has read hundreds of fics of them is like a blessing HELP ME

[lacomandante]

.

[drifloonz]

The multiple miki thing might be because Miki could've been based on Charizard M and that thing is known for cloning itself.

Tbh i cant fault shadowmalerenamon for completely changing doors open when rewriting it. Having missingno be the main antagonist was miles better than how Steve was in the original.

( mention of suicide ig )

i respectfully disagree . i see where you're coming from but i think all of the rewritten strangled... duology i guess bc strangled red itself never got one

( thank fucking god to be honest. it needs No change. although at the same time its kind of funny it never got one bc its the most popular one and going more into him as a Person if smr didnt fuck it up would be nice ... but im too attached to my own interp based off of his canon implications to care about what smr kind of has to give. and he already did that in og strangled red, to a degree, although it focuses on the tragedy there is character stuff to be extrapolated from the implications of the story if youre very deeply ill. like me. )

- is a lot less character-focused, at least on steven specifically, and is focused on explaining or rewriting shit that never needed to be explained or rewritten. it is a revisit and reinterpretation of the story, that to me, is just purely kind of . Not good or fun to read. and the new shit it introduces is fucking stupid imo. steven being banished by the town instead of... fucking. killing himself ( especially specifically by cop. that's lame and way more boring + FUCK THE POLICE !!! + It feels out of character for steven he would just do it himself like actually. Also yk. hanging yourself is narratively thematic and ironic. ) or whatever goes so much harder .

guy who loves his town and home region and wanting to be a role model and wanting to be cool so badly being driven mad and then the entirety of kanto, his homeland, forsaking him and walling him off goes crazy . Also because it implies they're scared of him to some degree which also makes me go crazy as an implication.

[ more put below bc i love to fucking yap about strangled red and how much i dont like the rewrites ]

i Will not step down from 'the rewrites arent good' . Doors open is mostly bad because stevens characterization is garbage. even though its random and from left field ( why the fuck is he in sprout tower ) it couldve been handled well if it was written better characterization-wise.

also i supposed the 'M charizard makes sense. not. not really i don't actually think smr thought that through. if he did, which he couldve because she is named #'M# in Strangled Red, cool, but i still think it's just to make the "miki" name thing with 4 party members he has. which is cool admittedly. it's just that i hope it is never explained why he has 4. and it never has since, doors open rewrite didnt do anything with that thank god.

and bc he wouldnt have any other mon other than miki post-incident and afaik that thing only replaces existing partymembers, and steven canonically releases all his team in SR + pokemon avoid him. but yea. Doors open i treat as a 'spinoff' in a sense bc nothing from it really makes sense when properly thought through, and its basically there to make the lost silver crossover i feel. also, yk, he literally says "Never." in strangled red when you press switch on 'M / missingno/revived/whatever you want to call miki post revival. its kind of out of character for canon-compliant steven to have anything other than miki post-incident for these 3 reasons - i only made a team for him post incident bc im autistic about pokemon and pokemon teams so that was for fun.

basically it makes more plotholes and questions than not the more strangled reds plot stuff tries to be explained or added upon esp in the remakes which i think are not fun reads if you like steven as a character anyways. and also bc strangled and doors open in the ogs are easter eggs. trying to explain what is supposed to be an in universe easter egg in pokemon would obviously be kind of a lesson in futility. not. not exactly but at least in the way smr does it.

strangled makes sense, you just go to his fucking house and hes there. yea. doors open is like. Yea hes in johto now. dont ask. but its also easily explainable as... He just fucked off to johto. For what reason? idk. hates kanto bc theyve forsaken him and banished him to the Woods, just wanted fresh air i guess, or just for fun. these are all more plausible reasons.

iirc the rewrite doesnt even say why hes there and if it does the reason is convoluted and not needed. i think its just 'hes a ghost hallucination... thing??? following the mc which is the most boring route to go for with steven and the most uninspired thing ever, and missingno was not the antagonist just a plot device in the og story Why are we focusing on it so much.' and its still a plot device in the rewrites! it isnt explained ( good the explanation would be kind of awful ) and i cant see any good way to explain missingno other than the way i do as a fun idea. which is biased but the 'failed clone of mew number 3' is a fun idea.

this is an insane ramble from a deranged person. if you can't tell i fucking love steven as a character and smr does him dirty except in strangled red, really. strangled... is fine but bc he barely talks in that one and when he does its like. yea. that checks out.

no hate to you btw none of it was directed at you specifically just smr and strangled reds various canons. you just gave me an excuse to ramble about how much i dislike the remakes tbh. I fucking LOVE analyzing why i hate things esp involving steven bc hes not greatly written by his og creator and not often greatly written by the fandom either .