#plural coded characters

[redefine-ur-plurality]

send asks with characters you headcanon as plural :3

[10piecechickenmcnugget]

drops this and scurries away

[thepluralifier]

Submitter Chatter: Technically not canonically plural, but pretty easy to read as such. I personally think he’s a traumagenic system because of what we find out about his abusive dad in the sequel movie. But I also can’t see him caring too much about labels.

If you have a question about what something means, google it 🩷💙🤍🧡💚 If you don't know the character feel free to vote regardless

[taxi-boi]

free my man! he did all that shit but he was [stigmatized disorder] coded and all of his actions were the result of ableist/sanist writing decisions made by the author.

[anachronistic-falsehood]

"it wasn't me who got it wrong, it was like a part of me, like somebody else inside me, they didn't understand the situation" vyncent has did 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

[is-that-plural]

OK HERES ANOTHER ONE FOR YA:;

MARTYN / MRATYN NIBBLEWOOD FROM RATSSMP!!

This is largely just a hc that I have, but he has different "personas" he'll put on, changing and making whole different skins and mostly just NOT explaining it to make sense in-universe. He has his Santa Claus persona, which. is Santa Claus- and a Hatsune Miku persona called Ratsune Miku! While the Santa one can largely be explained away as him "dressing up for the holidays and trying to spread cheer", this one is NOT explained. They all act like she's a separate person from him completely and never allude to the fact that they might be the same person. Martyn himself even uses she/her pronouns for Ratsune Miku! (She has A WHOLE SONG. ITS AMAZING. She sings it WITH Santa Claus but of course we NEVER see them in the same room bc they DEFINITELY ARENT plural or anything) He has smaller little personas, but none are as major as these two :)).

-🌀sys (jeremy)

!!

Rating: that sounds pretty plural to me !

[radioroxx]

TUMBLR ISNT LETTING ME ANSWER THIS ASK DIRECTLY so im taking a screenshot

anyways. no worries!!!!!!!!! i still love uty with all my heart i just dont post art for it atm bc its not where my motivation is lol. but i still love it so so much and drawing the gang brings me joy :)

genderfluid clover is very awesomeeeee!! i think its joyous to let them experiment like that and play with gender and see what makes them happy <3 my favourite gender hc in general but genderfluid is also very pawesomes

[forthedancingandthethriving]

Cute idea: LC, Plurality, and Root all tend to end up 'buffering' whenever they're flustered. Buffering is used loosely tbh tho. LC and Plurality can get out of it relatively easily, but for Root its a little harder. Its usually whenever their crushes end up flustering them that this happens

[eyeballs-in-my-head]

Onik try not to make every main character in your stories plural-coded challenge FAILED

Oh well, there's always next time <3

(I say, as I perfectly know I'll do it again next time as well)

[anistarrose]

I'd like to propose a dark horse candidate for the most interesting line in The Book of Bill. And it's this near-unreadable, seemingly one-off joke from the "Skin" page:

[ID: tiny text reading: "Help! This is not Bill Cipher. My name is Grebley Hemberdreck of Zimtrex 5. I'm one of thousands of beings Bill has devoured over trillions of years whose souls are now trapped inside him. You have to free me! It's horrible in here. He just keeps playing the song "Good Vibrations" by Marky Mark on an endless loop. Please, please, this is not a joke! The Zimtrexians were once a proud and mighty people, but now our spirits long for release from this..." End ID.]

Okay, so Bill devours souls who then live out a horrible existence inside him. That's just some typical and expected Bill behavior, right? Nothing to be shocked by? Maybe not, but one thing jumps out at me... and of all things, it's the way that Bill keeps playing that Beach Boys parody (correction provided by @fexalted: no, not in fact a Smiley Smile parody, but a real song!) on loop.

Because in The Book of Bill, there's a recurring motif of characters playing music for a very specific reason: to repel an unwanted presence inside their head. This is what Elias Inkwell, and later Ford, did with the "It's A Small World" parody — they tried to keep Bill out of their brains. Or, metaphorically... to drown out his voice.

[ID: a Journal 3 page with a cassette taped inside. It's titled: "The World Is Small Ever After for Always." Ford writes: "If it's war you want, it's war you'll get! If you want to torture me? I'll torture you back!" End ID.]

That doesn't necessarily mean that Bill finds the voices of devoured souls to be troubling, let alone downright haunting, does it? Well... not quite on its own. But there's a "color" code on the page about TV static that says a lot:

[ID: a code consisting of colorful squares, translated to letters that spell out: "he never sleeps he never dreams but somehow still he hears their screams." End ID] (screenshot courtesy of @fexiled)

The context of the page implies these "screams" come to Bill especially when he listens to TV static, and the broader context of the book implies that these are the screams of his destroyed home dimension, Euclydia. Therefore, not necessarily those of the souls he devoured, from Zimtrex 5 and possibly other dimensions.

Except... do those two things really have to be mutually exclusive?

The beings that Bill devoured were accumulated over "trillions" of years, plural, according to Grebley. In Weirdmageddon 1, Bill claims to have resided in the Nightmare Realm for precisely "one trillion" years. So the "devouring" habit probably extends back even further than his time in the Nightmare Realm...

Enter @acetyzias, pointing out a very conspicuous word — and one of the only uncensored words — from Bill's description of destroying his home dimension:

[ID: the word "mandibles". End ID.]

Oh, and how does Bill describe the "monster" that destroyed his home to Ford, when Ford asks about revenge?

[ID: Journal excerpt reading: "Sixer, it would eat you alive." End ID.]

For a long time, Bill's destruction of his home has been associated with fire, even when the story's told by Bill himself. But through the way the book characterizes Bill's guilt — and characterizes how the consequences of what he's done remain lurking deep inside him — I think The Book of Bill lays out the hints for another motif: devouring.

And, well, when it comes to how Bill destroys things... it wouldn't be without precedent.

[ID: screenshot of Bill in Weirdmageddon 3, taking a bite out of the Earth. End ID.]

[paintedplum7]

Chewed Gum Theory and how Deltarune Chapter 3 might be a Commentary on Media Censorship

So a while ago, I made a mess of a post on Reddit rambling about a certain line of text in one of the Spamton Sweepstakes descriptions: "THESE [chewed up bubblegum wrappers] THOUGHT THEY COULD MAKE [merchandise] WITHOUT ME!?" It was very, very aimless and focused more on shipping than anything else, but after I stewed on the information for awhile, and talked about it with a friend, I think my ideas do have some merit! So how about I take this mostly self-indulgent theory on a larger scale and talk about how this throwaway line in the Spamton Sweeptakes might encompass Chapter 3 as a whole?

Content warning for suggestive language!

In context, for us as the audience, this line is about Fangamer, but what does it mean in-universe? The link on "[scrap heap]” leading to a Chapter 3 teaser certainly suggests it's about Tenna, possibly even his Cathodes Crew as a whole because 'bubblegum wrappers' is plural!

Chewed gum is often used as an euphemism for someone who's had too much sex, and as consquence became 'flavorless'. According to what I've read, the euphemism is often used by Christians to scare younger people out of premarital sex. It actually lines up for Spamton to use that phrase as it matches with the rest of his religious undertones, neat! But what does this have to do with Chapter 3?

First of all, Deltarune was recently rated to have 'mild sexual references' and 'mild gambling themes', which wasn't there before! I don't think Chapter 4 was what caused these content warnings to be placed; why would a church be a place of sex, gambling, and violence? It's more reasonable to conclude that Chapter 3 is what caused these to be placed. Film is known for sensationalizing those kind of topics, after all.

As much as I would love to talk about Tenna in reference to this theory, he really takes a backseat in here because there's not much yet on him as character to infer about as a whole. He and Spamton are heavily coded to once be in a relationship outside of their possible business partnership (romantic, perhaps sexual?), and that's really about it. The Tenna Supertheory is the reason why the Chewed Gum Theory even exists right now, so I recommend you go read that. Here’s a link.

I do want to talk about the Shadow Guys though! From what we've seen from them, they are linked to Toriel's socks; there's annimations of them putting her socks on, and there's of course the clip of one Shadow Guy shouting and getting embarrassed once you pull out the curtain and reveal them, wearing Toriel's socks. Toriel and her sock drawer has been a joke in UTDR since Undertale. Scandalous is an interesting choice of wording, because it implies there's something shocking or morally reprehensible about her socks (she doesn't even wear them!), and it lines up with what we know of her so far with her having occasional shocking moments in between the front she puts on (her swearing and alcoholism are two things that come to mind). While the socks themselves might not be a euphemism for something sexual, it is weird that they are emphasized to be something shocking, and how it reflects on the Shadow Guys.

This one is more speculation, but that How to Draw Dragons book, huh? That's definitely going to be referenced in Chapter 3 either as a joke or a fully-fledged Darkner. It's easy to brush it off as a joke, but it's presented similarly to how Toriel's sock drawer is. It's viewed as something scandalous Asriel owns, hell, it's even secluded in the bottom of a drawer. That certainly seems to be a running theme in the Dreemurr household, huh?

This is really all I have regarding concrete evidence in things we know happens, and is likely to happen in Chapter 3, so I'll be using real world background information for the rest of this theory!

My friend pointed out to me that while the previous chapters so far are based around settings surrounding entertainment, there's also a lingering commentary on how these concepts have a darker side. There's a little in chapter 1, but especially in chapter 2. All the darkners in Chapter 1 were left abandoned because the lightners who came to the classroom and played with them grew up and moved on with their lives, and Chapter 2 reflects on how invasive the internet can be at times with nonstop ads, and algorithmic learning systems that base around your search history; it's interesting! I wonder if anyone made a theory about it.

I think Chapter 3 also will have an underlying message on the dark side of television, and what is television and film infamous for throughout it's entire history? Censorship, of course! The most infamous example is Hays code, a guideline of censorship rules that deemed what is unacceptable for media viewing that was placed in the mid-1900s. It restricted depictions of sex, violence, and other topics seen as obscene during that time period. If we take the Shadow Guys, and How to Draw Dragons as a representation of obscene ideas being hidden by the people who don't want them getting out (The Dreemurrs), then it is likely that Chapter 3's Dark World will reflect that! I almost imagine the Cathodes Crew wants to be scandalous and obscene, but they're restricted by their "guidelines", the Lightners, the Hays Code in this situation. Obviously, they get around it, but it wouldn't have the same bite. The sexual and gambling references are 'mild', after all.

So that's my theory! It's really long, and I wrote this at 2 AM so there's probably more I could say but can't, but I hope it's coherent as it is! Feel free to tell me about your thoughts on it and add onto it! Thank you!

[directdogman]

Hi, I hope this isn't a bother. I'm trying to make a dating sim and want to have a section where the player inputs their pronouns (like you gave the option to in Dial Town). Despite my hours of effort though, I can't figure out how to do it. I'm using Visual Novel Machinery for Unreal Engine (because Unreal is required for the class I'm making this for). Even if you aren't familiar with it though, just the basic 'pull code from here and input there' would be so helpful. I'm sure I can piece it together in a way Unreal will understand with a bit of help. Legit though, I made unreal crash twice when I tried to run the initial code for it, so I'm at a loss. Side note: Your games are so awesome and a big part of why I want to make a dating sim to begin with. I wish you all the peace and love on planet earth!

Hello hello:

The trick is using a string for every instance of a pronoun in player dialogue (which is just a variable set of letters.) They, them, their, theirs, etc. Be careful when you set the system up as some pronouns don't conjugate for all cases. For instance, their and theirs are separate words, as are her/hers, but his uses the same word for both pronouns.

You also have to account for case too. This is how I set it up (this is all done right when the pronoun is first entered btw):

1)let the user input a pronoun for each option. each pronoun is a different string, one for each pronoun type (you'll see my list below)

2)i then use a script command right after that to turn all of the pronoun strings entered to lower case. This is account for players possibly capitalizing the first letter in the pronoun instinctively. IE: characters won't say: "Hey, where's He going?" instead of "he going?", which is correct.

How you convert to lowercase is different for each programming language, but I bet there's an equivalent command in UE.

3)Then I copy each pronoun twice, essentially creating two duplicates for each lower case pronoun (so there's now 3 identical pronouns for her, three for hers, etc.)

4)For the second set, I run a command that capitalizes the first and only first letter of each separately (this is useful for if a sentence starts with a pronoun, meaning the first letter would be upper case in that sentence. EG: His cowboy hat looks RIDICULOUS.)

5)for the third set, i then turn the whole string upper case. this is useful for if a character speaks in all caps or if the character is shouting/emphasizing. (EG: "Where's HE going?!")

At the end, this is what my list of strings looks like, hopefully helping you visualize what I've done:

Then, when a pronoun is referenced in dialogue, I use the string that matches the correct version of the pronoun I need. So for he, i use #6 normally, #12 if it's the start of a sentence and #18 if the character is shouting. it's good to keep a list like this handy so you don't have to go looking every time you write dialogue.

The big other thing to watch out for is how plural pronouns affect verbs. He and she IS, but they ARE. I have the player tell the game whether or not their pronoun of choice is plural after they're entered it in and then simply load two separate versions of each sentence with one set for ises and one for ares.

You can also make some more blank name variables to use for verbs and have the game check if the pronoun's plural and then reference a string like with the pronouns (ie, having a string for is that changes to are if plural and using that in dialogue.) Both solutions generally work and I use both for different situations in dialogue.

Beyond that, I can't really give any engine specific advice, but this is how I do it. Best of luck with your game! :)

[crash-bang-boom-corp]

If you wanna write a story with a plural character or protagonist(s), litearally just WRITE IT. WRITE IT!!!!!

I mean, the idea of writing a completely perfect, wholly representative piece of plural media when there's practically nothing like that out there yet for which you can base your references on is a standard you should not hold yourself to. Just write it. Put it on tumblr, put it on wattpad, put it anywhere. please. i beg of you. i desperately want something to read that isn't JUST fnaf daycare attendant fanfic (though it is great highly encourage)

like- asking for advice is great, and I wholly encourage it, but what matters is that it gets written, even if its mediocre rep or mediocre writing or both. Don't think you need to fully understand every plural experience out there before you even try. Like, be educated, be open minded, be flexible, but also be WRITING. (or drawing, or coding, or scripting.)

it is damn near impossible to find media that doesn't exemplify the evil alter stereotype (or at least put a twist on it). i. i just. uuuuugh

please just go, write, code, script, be free, write that plural story, make that plural OC, add that plurality into that fanfic. make that character have a plural game mechanic.

Run wild.

The bar is, and I cannot stress this enough, currently in hell.

I promise you can't fail that hard if youre at least trying your best.

Also, if you need an editor or a peer reviewer, I'm here for it. I don't have a massive writing portfolio, but I at least kind of know what I'm doing and if all you need is a second pair of eyes I can probably do that for ya.

Hell, even if its just for yourself, add a little plurality into it. Every story i write has some plural character in it, and most have a plural protagonist plus plural side characters. Not that they're *good* stories, no, they're terrible, but what I'm trying to say is just write it oh my god WRITE IT.

------------

Look, i'm not saying that NO ONE is writing these stories. they exist. they're out there. I honestly don't know why I even went on this tangent. just, if you're nervous, if you think you won't do a good enough job, just DO IT.

this is your SIGN

[samdeanjohn]

i understand why "female coding" is controversial and i even understand to an extent why people choose to make it an "everyone is equally wrong and ridiculous" problem. however, dean's atypical position in the narrative, especially considering what he may seem like aesthetically when we first meet him, has been a topic of discussion since 2005. dean enjoyers (including critic sheila o'malley) have for the most part always approached this with the nuance it deserves and alongside discussion of his (and the show's) masculinity. it's not treated as some forever get-out-of-jail card, but as a legitimate analysis of his character and his relationship with gender.

but as with many things about dean that make him fascinating and anything but a caricature that neatly fits into tropes, it inspires a certain insecurity from some fans who prefer sam. part of it comes from the belief that supernatural has one main character and therefore only one of them can be a complex individual, which of course would not apply even if jensen really was a supporting player and not a co-lead. still, the idea that purely by existing and being popular dean "steals" things from sam persists. under the guise of "reclaiming sam's main character status" dean's traits and relationships are frequently appropriated and given to sam in a way that distorts both characters beyond recognition. since the motivation is really contrarianism, the reasons why some things are interesting and resonant with dean get lost in the copy/paste process.

as to not derail with other examples, i will focus on the gender thing. it's really not a coincidence that with the post-spn finale fandom renaissance, along with dean appreciation there was a new push to diminish him in every possible way. i'm sympathetic about the disrespect and misplaced aggression shippers were exhibiting toward sam and jared. but the answer isn't to tear down dean to elevate sam who is awesome as he already is. especially from the side of fandom that mainly focuses on the brothers (plural!) and is theoretically supposed to like both of them. after dean's death , we got new waves of posts about his gender, sexuality and trauma and instead of simply contributing to the conversation or ignoring it, some people got mad. and we got endless gender essentialism in the form of "actually, sam is female coded. no, sam is a woman. every woman in the horror genre is sam. sam outliving dean who died young and beautiful to give him a heteronormative "happy" ending is sam being the final girl. she/her pronouns for sam in casual conversation. claiming sam textually suffered misogyny from dean who is the most cishet man on tv and nothing but a amalgamation of every "toxic male" trait ever", etc. all incredibly childish, exhausting and self righteous. it's unforgivable to watch 15 seasons of a show and come away thinking either brother was that simple.

when people discuss dean and femininity, they don't seek to cast dean as the one and only victim and everyone around him as a patriarchal abuser, it's not about guilting anyone into liking dean better, it's certainly not about female coding making dean incapable of having flaws or causing harm. and as horror is a primarily female genre, it's not about how no other male character in the show can occupy a female trope. this whole thing is misunderstanding why people are drawn to dean in the first place. it was never about wanting a perfect person to put on a pedestal as an example but about appreciating the complicated whole, thorns and all.

what's troubling about the "sam is a woman" rebuttal is that the word woman really becomes a synonym for perfect victim. it becomes all about being infantilized, having zero autonomy and never making a single choice. when it comes to actual female characters, audiences have always valued their agency even when a narrative has afforded them very little. at least the deer/lamb/rabbit sam trend is more honest about what it's attempting to twist him into. the more i see this phenomenon in whatever form it takes, the more i'm convinced it's really just about creating the blandest least dynamic character possible. and sam deserves so much better than that.

[moiraimyths]

Is it possible for romance to bloom while mixing platonic and romantic choices? Sometimes the flirting gets a bit too overt or I just feel the platonic choice suits the mood more (especially often with Shae) so I was curious about how this might work! Do I need to pick romantic choices n number of times to get it on the right track or will it be fine if just sprinkled occasionally?

Short version: Yes, you can absolutely mix your choices! Long version:

There are a lot of choices in NDM. Some are general flavour choices, others are good/bad ending choices, and the remainder are choices that impact your relationship with the cast. When those latter choices are selected, one of these little icons will appear briefly in the top left of your game: A heart, two hands, or a crown.

Heart choices are the most romantic-coded choices; overt flirting, amorous expression, kissing, etc. They're the type of choices you'd generally expect to see in a romance game, and their purpose is to signal that you're pursuing a character romantically.

Hands choices are the more platonic-coded choices; congeniality, friendly ribbing, hugs, etc. If you find yourself faced with two choices and one seems more romance-y than the other, then that second one is most likely a hands choice and will signal your intentions as friendly.

Now if we stop there with our choice options, we run into a bit of a problem: By themselves, these options feel superficial, or too rigid for realistic relationships. Flirting alone does not a love affair make, and who hasn't kissed their homies goodnight before?

This is why we have crown choices. These choices are essentially neutral relationship points that could be plausibly romantic or platonic; gestures of loyalty, positive affirmations, expressions of care, etc. More importantly, if you -- the player -- decide to mix and match your heart and hands choices such to the point that they're essentially even or within a reasonable margin of error, the crown choices will allow you break the tie toward your preferred ending.

Ergo, let's say by the end of Shae's route, your relationship choices are 49% hands, 41% hearts, and 10% crowns. Hands (or the friendship ending) is leading by a teensy amount over hearts, but you really want the romantic ending. In this scenario, you'd be prompted in-game to answer how you perceived your relationship with Shae, which would turn your crown stat into the hearts stat, tipping it to 51%, which secures you that romance end. Same choice would be presented if you incidentally or intentionally had a plurality or majority of crowns over hearts or hands.

Ultimately, we want our players to be able to define their experiences and choose the relationship choices that feel most natural, without necessarily needing to worry about tallying up how many times they opted for smooches over hugs. So have fun! As long as your choices aren't majority heart or hands, you won't be too "boxed in" to one path or another.

[ilexdiapason]

there's a youtuber called endicott who's running a series where they listen to tma for the first time using a character named edwin endicott and im so obsessed. plural coded mf <- he has an outburst about how he refuses to let michael into his mind because it's bad enough with jon and prentiss already