#to make this character arguably the most hated one in the game are having a good day and continue to ignore canon

[thebibliosphere]

Wait, is Jason in Gotham Knights body horror? Because it doesn't feel like his body even tho he's controlling it? (He died, he came back, it's not the same and never will be)

Or is it more analogous to puberty and feeling like you don't know anything about your body anymore?

Just having thoughts about that boy again

I think Jason in Gotham Knights is very much connected with his physical body. It's his biggest weapon, possibly more so than his guns, given his lasting connection to the Lazarus Pit and the power it gives him.

His backstory talks about building himself up to peak physical condition into the absolute unit he is now, and you can either see that as someone trying to reconnect with their physical self or someone vowing never to be small or weak again.

I tend to think of it as both. It's a reclamation of his physical form but also a transformation into something bigger and stronger that ensures he's the scariest, meanest-looking mother fucker in the room. Basically someone you can't underestimate as a threat.

(Try not to think too hard about the fact that he now largely resembles Bruce in stature, that he is now the group's heavy hitter, the most menacing and the most likely to strike fear into the heart of his opponents, and that Jason molded himself into the person he needed to be rescued by as a child. Don't do it. Do not. I am normal about this.)

But he obviously struggles with feeling present mentally sometimes.

You'll see him zoning out occasionally, touching the J-shaped scar on his face before violently shaking himself back into the present.

He has panic attacks while playing a dance video game with a coffin in it—a coffin his character becomes trapped in because he's not moving fast enough. (hello, trauma)

He's angry all the time and so relieved when Barbra expresses her own rage at something because, yes, finally, someone else is letting their emotions out instead of bottling it up (Dick).

His emails are littered with orders for self-help books, emails from his therapist moving his sessions around, and concerned messages from his friends (Roy comes to mind) saying if he needs to get out of Gotham, they'll make it happen.

Alfred holding him while he sobs over losing Bruce still breaks me every time. I have to pause the game and walk around my house until I feel normal again.

And then there's the cut scene where Dick asks, "Hey, remember that time we all [insert funny thing here]," and Jason admits, somewhat angrily, that no, he doesn't because Lazarus took entire swaths of memories from him and he hates how he can't connect with people the way he used to and he hates the way they all look at him (the way Dick is looking at him now) when he admits he doesn't remember something they clearly loved about the old him: the version of him who didn't have volatile mood swings or made people flinch when he did something as mundane as handle a kitchen knife -- the undead monster he came back as*.

The fact that Dick then contrives to recreate this memory so Jason can be included in a newer version of it -- while also giving him what is arguably a weapon -- fucks me up every time. Dick just yeets a kitchen knife at him, trusting that Jason will catch it, and then just steamrolls over Jason's rightful 'what the fuck' expression with "Hey, we're making food. Get dicing."

And Jason knows what they're all doing. He's aware of it, and he gets the teeniest, tiniest smile before smothering it out. Except he can't quite. He's still smiling as he chops the vegetables. And yes, they're all hopeless at cooking compared to him, and he knows he's going to end up taking over, but that's okay. Because this is for him. He gets to control it.

And that's how Jason gets to make a new memory, one where he is handed a weapon and gets to turn it into a genuine expression of nurturing and care.

Because he does care about them. He wouldn't conspire with Dick to bake Barbara's favorite childhood cookies if he didn't. He wouldn't try so hard to be gentle with Tim triggering the shit out of him while he's struggling with his grief. He just doesn't always know how to express it because he doesn't always know what he's feeling.

Is his anger valid? Or is this Lazarus Pit Rage? Is he being overly sensitive because of his trauma, or is everyone else underreacting because of their trauma? (Should he sign them all up for therapy, quite probably, yes.)

So, you could perhaps argue that Jason experiences body horror in the sense that he doesn't remember all the pieces of who he used to be. (Speaking as someone with severe memory loss from medical trauma, it's certainly a type of horror.) But I don't think it's because he's detached from it physically or doesn't feel in control of his body. I think it's his mind that worries him.

His body he can control. It's his mind that still sparks green sometimes.

---

*Re the scene with Tim when Tim calls the Talons monsters. "What about me? Do you think I'm a monster?"

No, they don't.

But Jason does. And it scares him shitless.

[thestargayzingheroine]

Why A Better World is my favourite "Evil Superman" Story

So in the last two decades or so, there's been a notable amount of dark and edgy stories around superheroes turning evil and whatnot and most of them really love to do their own expies of Superman. I've never been the biggest fans of these kinds of stories.

And then there's the actual stories of Superman and other heroes being outright villains or at least just massive assholes. In recent years, this has been largely thanks to the influence of media like the Injustice Games or the Synderverse DC movies. It's... honestly become a trope I am tired of.

Because you know the damnest thing? There is a story that does all these ideas really damn well and arguably better. It is the two-parter from the Justice League cartoon "A Better World".

Now, I am aware how most people favouring the DCAU has become a bit of toxic nostalgia at times and it's something I myself am trying to work through a bit. But in this case, I do think it's the best idea of doing an evil DC story, much better and more interesting than the Crime Syndicate, who if you ask me are not very interesting, though I do remember liking the Crisis On Two Earths movie a lot, which funny enough, was originally going to be this two parter before various things led to it being canned and then later repurposed as a direct to DVD movie.

Anyway, my main crux of why I love this story is simple... The entire Justice League turns evil... and the reasons are very much in-character for all of them. You look at the scene with Justice Lord Batman for example.

As fucking evil as the Justice Lords are... Batman can't quite fully hate his alternate self for his reason for taking part in all this being basically one-step further than his own mission, that no child should ever go through what he did. Hell, I recall reading that the reason the writers had Batman drop his batarang at the end of this scene... was because he genuinely wouldn't be able to come up with an argument to that.

Superman likewise kills Lex Luthor because yeah, Luthor literally exploited the flaws in Democracy and became president of the US, threatening to kinda basically start world war 3. It's obviously horrible... but Superman is a character whose main motivation is making the world a better place. And if people who abuse the systems of power of the world are hurting people, why shouldn't Superman put a stop to that?

And yeah, Superman should obviously never kill, he's the most paragon of paragons of the DC universe, a man committed to always being better than the villains he fights... but this is him pushed to his most logical extreme. Hell, the main Superman knows this and its why Lex used his knowledge of this alternate universe as part of his plan in the season after this, to goad our Superman into crossing the line because yeah, there's a part of him that could go this far.

But right as Superman is about to apparently finish him, the big guy says this.

"I'm not the man who killed President Luthor. I wish to heaven that I were but I'm not."

Because Superman like everyone else, obviously would have those same thoughts and same urges. He's human.

I've kinda gone off Injustice a bit because to be honest... the injustice games were kinda just this but a bit too edgelordy. Hell, in A Better World, Lois Lane still lives and the whole genesis of it doesn't revolve around her getting fridged.

So yeah, A Better World is probably one of my favourite mirror universe stories because of the fact that well... it really is like looking in a mirror and seeing just how easy the greatest heroes can become evil and how they wouldn't be massively out of character doing so. But also it reminds us that as much as this darkness can tempt some of our finest, the ones who don't go down this dark path are stronger in heart than anyone else. Because when the world becomes a dark and horrible place, it becomes very easy to be just as dark. But even though it can be hard to still try and be a good person even in dark times, it's ultimately worth it. Because good always triumphs over evil.

[pastelpinkkadan]

My most blunt, controversial ACOTAR opinions. Nothing is safe, nothing is sacred. Mind the tags for your own peace of mind please.

P.S.: Absolutely not directed at any other blog/person specifically. Just general fandom/shippers.

Elriel/Gw*nriel:

Gwyn is not that important of a character. She is a secondary character whose main purpose in the story was to be Nesta’s friend. She has no connection to any overarching plot. She could literally never be seen again in the books and all the main plot points would still work.

People have inflated Gwyn’s character and importance solely because they ship her with Azriel. And they ship her with Azriel because 1. She is the only other single female character (besides Elain) that he has interacted with. 2. Gwyn is enough of a blank slate for people to project/self insert themselves into and thereby romance themselves with Azriel 3. Gwyn has only been shown in a positive light, with only positive personality traits (good friend and can wield a sword) so there’s no REAL controversy on her character/personality. Because there’s not enough to actually have any controversy.

If Gwyn was actually that important, Emerie would also be as important, if not more so. But 90% of time Emerie is forgotten by the fandom. Even to the point that the theory of an Illyrian plot is somehow given to Az and Gwyn, rather than Emerie. The two people that, arguably, have the least skin in the game concerning that theory. And the reason Emerie is this pushed out of her own potential story line is because she isn’t shipped with Azriel or another Fae male.

If there was no Bonus Chapter Gw*nriel would not exist. Or at the VERY least, it would be acknowledged as the crackship that it is. Because outside of the BC, there is nothing in the main ACOSF to accurately ship them to the degree that the fandom does. Elriel, however, still has several books where canon scenes have taken place. The BC is absolutely not needed to show that Elriel have feelings for each other, we already knew.

“Well Elain gave by TruthTeller, so Elriel isn’t end game!” Is one of the stupidest reaches I’ve seen. TruthTeller was always, OBVIOUSLY, meant to be something lent to Elain for the war. It wasn’t a permanent gift, and Az didn’t say it was. He said he wouldn’t use it TODAY, implying he would expect to use it again in the future. Imagine -

“Well Gwyn gave back the books Nesta recommended to her, so they obviously aren’t friends.”

Thats what y’all sound like. It’s just purposely misinterpreting things in a scene that obviously aren’t there for the sake of your ship. It’s disingenuous and not at all the win you think it is.

You cannot call Azriel an incel/fuck boy for Elain and then ship him with Gwyn in the same breath. If he’s all those things with Elain, he’ll be the same for Gwyn. She is not magically going to make him “better” or a gentleman. Actually, he’s already a gentleman. He just didn’t have sexual thoughts about Gwyn and y’all can’t stand it.

Same vein, but if Azriel had had those sexual thoughts in the BC about anyone else besides Elain there would have been no issue/debate.

If a Gw*nriel book did somehow happen, it would 1000% be for fan service/peer pressure. No previous books have set it up, even the main story in ACOSF. Elriel has been setting up since book 2. It makes sense. Anyone who says it doesn’t just doesn’t want it to happen, mostly because they don’t like Elain. And that’s also mostly because they can’t see themselves in Elain, so they lash out.

Saying Elriels are delusional is the wildest thing, because Elriels have the most canon scenes spread throughout the books, Elain and Azriel have interacted with each other positively the most and the longest, and they are the only potential couple that actually bluntly like each other. They exist outside of misinterpreted bonus chapters and “what if” theories with no real backing.

Elain:

Whether anyone wants to admit it or not, part of the Elain hate IS misogyny. The amount of hate this character receives, compared to what she has actually done in the series, is entirely undeserving. She has received the same level of hate, if not more, than Tamlin, any of the ACOTAR villains, and Nesta, who is still a very controversial character. And for what? Liking Azriel, and not wielding a sword while doing it, apparently.

Elain liking flowers does not determine who she’ll end up with. For fucks sake we didn’t know Nesta liked to read smut or was great dancer until her book. And neither of those things determined her partner. It’s just what she likes. Same with Elain.

Nessian/ACOSF

The idea that Nesta will leave Cassian and make her own court is stupid.

Being anti-ACOSF but Pro-Nesta is a streeeeeetch, because all of Nesta’s actual good character development came from ACOSF. Like, did you like that she was angry and unhealed before? Because that’s where she would still be without all that happened in ACOSF.

People don’t understand the intervention that HAD to happen with Nesta in ACOSF. And I would even venture to say that most people against it have never HAD to have a real intervention with someone to that level. The level of, go to rehab/therapy or you are not allowed to be in my house/take up my resources. Because you will not get better on your own, you will only hurt yourself or others and I won’t enable you anymore. It’s a difficult decision that but often it is NECESSARY. Speaking as someone with several addict family members.

El*cien/Lucien:

All the theories about an El*cien plot line are completely focused on Lucien, and ignore everything built up with Elain. It’s always about Lucien figuring out his heritage, becoming some High Lord of one of the courts, or something with the Band of Exiles. Elain doesn’t have to be involved for any of that to happen. She’s pushed to the side in her own romantic story line. Nothing about her Seer powers, or the fact that she’s apparently been gaining spy abilities, or her place at the Night Court.

Lucien fans make me hate Lucien more than Lucien ever could.

The poor Lulu mindset can die.

While we’re at it, the theory that Elain likes Lucien so much that she avoids him is also stupid. That makes no sense. She loses her boldness around. She got better WHEN HE LEFT. All of Elain’s most powerful moments are when Lucien isn’t around. And that says something.

People cling to 1st book Lucien so much, but he has not been that way SINCE book 1.

Tamlin:

Tamlin already got a redemption arc when he brought Rhys back to life. He doesn’t need another one, and he certainly doesn’t need a full book.

The Tamlin/Elain ship is stupid and only benefits Tamlin, not Elain. Once again placing Elain to the side of her own romance, much like El*cien.

ACOTAR:

If you hate everyone in the IC, you don’t actually like ACOTAR. They’re the majority of the books, including half of ACOSF. And it’s actually really stupid to hate the IC and still pretend you’re an ACOTAR fan. Because, again, the IC is the MAJORITY of ACOTAR. Please read something you actually like.

If you hate the entire main story and main characters of ACOTAR, but like one or two characters, you don’t like ACOTAR. You see yourself in a character, and want the story to reflect what YOU want to happen to that character (ie, yourself), and can’t handle that it didn’t. You don’t actually like the ACOTAR series. Again, maybe it’s time to read something else.

3 Acherons x 3 Bat Boys isn’t cliche. It’s a pattern. It’s a literary motif. It’s a theme. It is a pattern that SJM has naturally set up, the fact that you can see and assume that Elriel would be apart of that just means you can recognize basic literary devices in a fantasy novel. Which is the POINT.

I have no intention of debating anything. I’m just stating my opinions on my blog, like everyone else gets to do. So take that as you will.

Anyways, thanks for coming to my TedTalk.

[changeling-fae]

You know, thinking about how Raphael and the Emperor fill similar roles but with different methods and how Raphael’s “better the devil you know” takes on a double (triple?) meaning. Raphael straight up tells you what he is and uses that as leverage against the Emperor who deceives you pretty much the whole time.

And for a lot of people it works, people in general prefer honesty up front and while Raphael is absolutely a shady devil, most people would respect his candor over being lied to from the start. Not everyone of course, the Emperor’s tactics still seems to work on a lot of players, given how many never learn he was manipulating them from start to finish.

But I really do like the scene of Raphael laying out all his cards and giving you an opportunity to compare them against the Emperor.

The Emperor could argue he lied about who he was because no one would trust an illithid (which is likely true) but he now has the disadvantage of another shady being persuading his target because said shady being was up front with who he was.

I do vibe way more with Raphael (obviously lol), and I recognize a lot of it is, yeah he was upfront about who he is and his motives. And while arguably headcanon territory, it’s still pretty clear that Raphael has some “affection” (in his own way) for us versus the Emperor who the moment you break through his facade, clearly cannot feel affection.

When he tries to seduce your character and if you turn him down, the narrator actually makes a pretty clear note of planting suspicion about how fast and suspiciously quick the Emperor changed tactics and words despite 5 sec prior talking like he cares about us.

Actually I wouldn’t say it’s that headcanony that Raphael has an attachment to us, all the jokes aside about him having a crush, we get the evidence that he has an attachment from other places aside from Raphael’s mouth.

The diaries and plaque (if you sign the contract) proves it in the sense that in game, Raphael never expected us to see his writings or his vault. And the archivist in the vault says something along the lines about how special we are to Raphael and how Raphael has a “softer spot” for mortals than most, and the archivist says all this to us thinking we’re just some random devil in disguise. Information that wasn’t meant for our ears technically.

Meanwhile you got the Emperor over here who is very good at faking affection and sympathy until you start to examine him more. Then he drops it like a rock, it’s almost scary how quick he can.

Raphael is oddly relatable because he is kinda pathetic in his own way. You can see where and how he got to being who he is. The Emperor is, well, alien. He’s definitely very good at utilizing his old memories of when he was mortal to his advantage, but that mortal is dead and he’s basically just another illithid, just one who happens to be more independent than most.

And while this is all speculation on my part, it’s clear that Raphael both hates but is attached to mortals, likely because of his own existence. He’s half mortal but lives and is bound by the rules of hell like a devil. I think he envies some of the freedom to choose that mortals have, and that’s why he’s so insistent that mortals don’t have choice. He wants that freedom to choose but can’t because of his nature (“hell, hell, hell has its laws”) and he’s trying to convince either himself and/or mortals that they don’t have a choice either, to cover up that envy he feels.

Imagine being the child of one of the big bad archdevils who rules over a layer of hell. There probably is a level or feeling of helplessness that he never had a choice but to be what he is.

And you can contrast that with the Emperor who is no longer mortal and while definitely fighting for his own independence and freedom, is quite content to be what he is.

Considering the whole game has strong themes about choice, fate, and freedom, it’s just fun how even the antagonists shares those struggles same as our characters and the companions.

[tessarionbestgirl]

Since I saw your post about daemon’s redemption: Have to say it’s really goddamn telling that Daemyra is the most popular ship involving daemon while nettles is the least popular despite being his arguably only canonical love interest. Like yes Daemon x nettles is problematic though what ship in asoiaf isn’t and Nettles is who daemon arguably sacrifices everything for in order for her to escape unharmed plus nettles confronts all of daemons toxic ideals and forces him to change. I swear if nettles wasn’t a black woman and was white like rhaenyra people wedlock to daemon x nettles in a heart beat but because nettles was black people need to show faux concern and say “what about rhaenyra” you know the woman who tried to hate crime nettles

Oh yeah is funny because while I do ship Alys and Daemon on the show, I saw some D*emyra already being more open about them being a thing then Nettles and Daemon.

I even remember people making threads, how, makes no sense Daemon fall for Nettles because she has no Valyrian characteristics. What you know is exactly the point of why Martin wrote he falling in love for Nettles, despite the problematic aspects. It is the whole Brienne and Jaime arc. Brienne is not even close to a classic knight or the classic beauty of woman but she honorable and beautiful in her way as Nettles despite probably not having any Valyrian blood on her she still able to do something no one was, taming a big wild dragon while also not being westorosi beauty standard. All this affect Jaime/Daemon to question their views and change to better. ( And arguably Brienne and Jaime are way more popular than Nettles and Daemon).

Of course this is lost when Ryan adapted the Valaryons to be black, so in this sense I understand why Ryan wouldn't want to adapt the romance between them because part of what make it compelling is lost. Whatever her character shouldn't get repurpose to other characters, and had her importance diminished in the process, because if you saw the leaks, Sheepstealer is small and ugly, and not ugly in the way Vaghar or Vermithor are ugly. The dragon is ugly that stand out as weak and have no appeal even compared to other dragons and it looks even generic design.

Imagine if Game of thrones they have repurpose Brienne to Pod and made him a shitty swordsman and Jaime gave him a random sword. Meanwhile instead of Jaime learning important lessons about himself, the world and being a important step to disconnect from the toxic relationship with Cersei, he had learned to embrace even more hid worse threats and all he needs was to be loyal to Cersei.

The narrative in the book on purpose says "Jaime throwing a kid from the window for love is not right." While the show justifies Daemon killing for Rhaenyra, doing b&c and so on. You know how insane this is?! The fandom back in the time would go crazy over this. Meanwhile hotd fandom, specially tb, justifies it and even some like it.

And he done that for what? Fanservice? Because is that how it feels. This season feels in a lot of sense filler and response for Twitter fans. Either to criticize, to justify it self or to endorse the worse opinions there.

[eastern-lights]

Ok so we all know how amazing Baldur's Gate 3 is. I could talk for hours about everything it did perfectly.

But rn, I want to talk about what I think Dragon Age Inquisition did better. And this is not to judge which game is better overall, but what still makes DAI so special to me despite its flaws.

1. Voiced protagonist

Yeah, starting off controversial. I know some people prefer silent protagonists, but I just find myself wishing we could have a fully voiced Tav, even at the cost of fewer dialogue options. I'm sorry, but Tav's silent indifferent face just always breaks the immersion for me, especially when contrasted with the award-worthy acting and animation of the characters they're speaking with. In DAI (and DA2, although to a lesser degree) your character could be heavily customized, but they were always an actual person who fit in with the rest of the universe and flowed seamlessly with the story.

2. Mystery and dread.

BG3 is full of heavy, scary, traumatizing stuff hidden all over the place (or in plain sight). But it can always be explained in some way. There are dreadful things in Faerûn, but we always know what they are (mostly due to most of them having to have precisely given stats as the result of being based on DnD). We know what happens after death and what we can do to bring people back from it. The closest you get to truly dread-inducing mystery in BG3 is "Do Illithids have souls" and "where do illithids come from" and (at least in Act 1) "who is the Absolute".

In Dragon Age, the whole world is made of existential dread. What happens when you die? Dunno. Is God real? No idea and if He does, He hates you. What is the Blight? Are all darkspawn capable of independent thought? What is lyrium singing about? What happened to the titans? What happens when all of the Old Gods die? And this is just the Big Questions. There's a myriad of small things, small mysteries you encounter that just have no answers. Stuff that reminds me of those creepy Goldshire children forming a pentagram in World of Warcraft. While having an explanation for everything makes for deeper worldbuilding, a world full of mysteries without answers makes for a much scarier and, in some ways, exciting experience.

3. Group dynamic and party banter

I enjoyed the party banter in BG3. Hell, it had some of the funniest lines in game. But it didn't do enough to make the group dynamic feel any less Tav/Durge-centric. You hear the companions exchange banter, but you never get beyond stuff like "Karlach and Shadowheart both enjoy wine" and "Gale enjoys Lae'zel telling him about the Astral plane". The protagonist forms amazingly written relationships with each of the companions, but they never seem to have such a bond with one another. The closest we come to what I'd like to see is Karlach and Wyll's friendship, but even that's kind of shallow, I feel. The companions do comment on the others' personal quest, but it's always one sentence reaction, before going right back to being mostly indifferent. DA2 had the same issue, if to a greater extent (srsly, the companions had the same attitude about one another over the span of 10 years)

The banter in DAI was superb. It told a story. It had arcs. You could watch in real time as Solas and Dorian became friends over their shared magical nerd-dom. You could even take part in it, such as when telling Blackwall to stfu about jousting for a moment, or telling Sera that what you and Solas do in private is none of her business. You could see Dorian and Bull fall in love. You could watch Varric slowly chip away at Solas' worldview until he arguably came closer to changing his plans than Lavellan ever did. The relationships grow over the course of the story and by the time of Solas' betrayal, you're not just sad because he betrayed you, you're sad because he betrayed Varric, Dorian, Bull, Cassandra and everyone else. Because you saw how they cared about him, each in their own way.

There is nothing more heartbreaking than Varric's "Chuckles, what have you done?"

In BG3, the relationships are mostly left to your imagination, which has its perks, but still, the group dynamic feels more like a wheel with Tav at the centre rather than a web.

4. Having limits on the romance options

Let me start by stating what I am not saying: I am not saying that bi and pan people shouldn't be represented. Far from it. But I don't think making the whole group pan is the way to go about it. I can't help but feeling it is, in a way, pandering to players, making every single companion interested in them as long as they have a sufficiently high approval.

Making some companions explicitly bi, pan, gay or straight made for a more real experience. Getting rejected by Sera on the grounds of "We have a lot in common - we both like women" felt disappointing, yes, but also real. This also allowed the writers to make the characters' sexual/romantic preferences a part of their, well, character. We got Dorian's personal quest, which I think is great. Limiting Solas' options to just Lavellan allowed the writers to make it about him realizing that his people are not mere shadows. It allowed them to write the Vallaslin scene. None of this could have been done if he were romanceable to all races.

When you have diversity in romantic attraction among the companions, suddenly the pan and bi characters (in Bull and Josie respectively) feel like their orientation is part of who they are, rather than a game mechanic to prevent players from missing out on content.

[dol-dee]

So... you imagine DoL set in the early 2000s? ME TOO. Tell me more about that!

aaaaaaa yes I do!!!! (Sorry for the late reply haha. I kept forgetting to come back to this ask) I think I started to feel that way pretty early on, since there's hardly any electronics around in game.

You don't have access to a phone yourself (which, admittedly makes sense as an orphan) but electronics get barely mentioned in general. (I'm guessing the true reason for it, is that it would be too much of a hassle to implement electronics as a mechanic in game. bc arguably you should easily be able to buy a phone or w/e later on, if dol actually took place in our time) Named npcs often have phones to record you with (which I kinda forgot about tbh lmao) but unless in that context, phones don't get brought up at all iirc. None of the named npcs ever ask you for your phone number and Social media isn't really a topic of conversation either.

The only Computers that I remember mentioned in game are Leightons, Mickey's, Kylars and the one you can check in the police station. (I don't remember if Bailey even has one or not.) They are far and few between. They also all read as desktop computers to me and not laptops. Hell, the only gaming Console to ever be a topic of interest, is Robins. I don't think we hear of/see any handheld conosles at all. Even TV's rarely get mentioned.

Pop Culture, like manga, anime and games doesn't seem to be a big thing yet either.

All of that gives me the impression that most electronic is still pretty sparse and hard to come around and kinda reminds me of my childhood when those interests where still conisdered niche/nerdy and weird. The few characters that have desktop pc's seem to be ones that had/have enough money (like Kylar, maybe Bailey?) to foot the bill, are either in a high enough position of power to own one (like leighton) or they're involved enough in shady business that they might have the resources to have their own equipment (Mickey).

tbf a lot of my reasoning can be argued against or easily explained away, but I think dol is infinitely more interesting as a game/story when it's set during the early/mid 2000s, where most electronics were still hard to come by.

Oh and last but not least: it simply makes for easier story telling haha. I think there would be way more ""plot holes"" you'd have trouble explaining away if it was set during modern times. considering how much digital surveilance we have nowadays.

Aside from all the examples I just brought up, dol just has that 2000s grime to me. It's so grungy and dank in it's vibes that it always reminds me of that timeframe. Just has that kinda clunky/kitschy charm to it. (a more eclectic personal explanation is that the seasons in game still feel the way I remember them for my childhood. nowadays everything feels really out of wack thanks to global warming. Although I'm sure that people who are older than me would say the same haha)

to keep this already long post short(er lmao) I'm gonna go into some headcanons under the cut; Basically which Characters have electronics and why:

Avery: has an expensive af and extremely clunky looking (by todays standards) work laptop, that she sometimes lugs around. Also owned one of the first mobile phones. Those really big and blocky ones. Maybe even had one of those phones that were built into cars. However, I think shed be kinda annoyed by mobile phones*, even if she's extremely diligent in answering her calls. (the grind never stops) *based on this comic from 1919 about pocketphones: Mostly because she strikes me as someone who doesn't care to be overly accessible and also hates it when whatever shes doing at the moment gets disrupted by something else.

Alex: Canonically has a phone in game. To me it's a landline phone. They don't own much electronics beside it. They have no desktop pc and no mobile phone. (canonically the own a tv and I feel like they'd have a radio, maybe even an old record player) Bailey: It would make sense for them to have a desktop computer but I can't remember if they canonically (and with that I mean in game) do have one or not. I could see it either way tbh. As they strike me as a stubborn hard ass whos paranoid about electronics and quickly gets annoyed by it) They only own burner phones aside from the official landline phone thats designated for "over the counter" orphanage business. Eden: Has an old ass radio and an extremely dusty burner phone that bailey gave them once. They don't own anything else

Harper: has a mobile phone they got from Remy, it's purely for business. I don't think they have one for personal business. They own a pager though bc of the hospital. They probably have a desktop pc too if only for hospital stuff.

Kylar: Has a Desktop pc, their parents footed the bill for that many screened monstrosity (tbf i dont know enough to remember if old pcs are even able to have several monitors connected to them or not). Probably had a mobile phone once. Whitney stole it. They own a few consoles but they prefer pc gaming (pc master race /j) Some 2000s era games (with no consideration for an exact timeframe) that I think Kylar would be into are : Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines American McGee's Alice Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 / Persona 3 Portable The Urbz: Sims in the City The Sims 2 The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

Robin: No mobile phone, the only electronics they keep around (until they inevitably need to sell them for emergency money) are an old tv and a gaming console. I have no concrete headcanons regarding the exact console and games unfortunately. (They seem to like superhero related stuff and I don't remember enough games that I associate with that direction of the top of my head)

Sydney: Has access to a landline phone but thats it. they don't have a mobile phone. Maybe they got to look at/ try out a pc at Kylars house once upon a time, but I don't think Sirris has one themself. I might be off with this but I could see Sirris being the one who bought a few early nintendo consoles like the SNES and Game Cube. Maybe even a gameboy.

Whitney: I don't think Whitney or their family is particularly wealthy so all of the access to electronics that they got, is either through wealthier friends, bullying or stealing. They have a mobile phone and probably a few handheld consoles they nabbed off their victims (in secret).

[snarky-magpie]

My Black family headcanons. Possibly unpopular again, because I draw from canon a lot—look, power to everyone who chooses to disregard completely, but it hurts my OCD brain that grew up with the books. So. Here goes.

Orion and Walburga weren't as physically and magically abusive as the fandom makes them out to be. This is a big one. Possibly my biggest disagreement with fanon. That doesn't mean they were good parents at any rate. No. Just that they weren't physically abusive. Why do I think that? First, Sirius tells Harry many awful things about his family, but he never brings up being tortured, either by regular means or by magic. He does his best to paint his family as monsters and relay the contempt and hate he holds for every member of the Black clan (with a couple of exceptions). If his parents were abusive toward him, he wouldn't have hesitated to use it as further proof of what monsters they were. Second, he was allowed to decorate his room in Gryffindor colors and generally flaunt his differences, which once again suggests that his parents couldn't have punished him too severely for minor transgressions.

Any abuse going on was more likely psychological in nature. Arguably, this causes even more damage in the long run, and unlike physical abuse, it's not always obvious at first glance, or second, or tenth, which makes it particularly tricky to approach. And it's probably also the reason why fic writers choose to depict physical or magical abuse—it's just easier to describe and effective at gaining sympathy for the characters going through it from the readers. I think Orion and Walburga had strict rules for their children (they had to behave as befitted the children of the noble house of Black), and put a lot of pressure on them. Despite not being physically abusive, they would dole out punishment without mercy when the children displeased them. Withdrawing affection, depriving them of their favorite toys or activities, subjecting them to rants about their uselessness and insults, forced isolation, and so on. They were likely rather volatile, prone to going into fits of anger for no reason apart from feeling irritated with her children (Walburga) and cold and detached (Orion). Also, last but not least, they played mind games with the children, pitting one brother against the other. Lifting Sirius up when they wanted to punish Regulus, and vice versa. Which brings me to my next point.

Sirius was the favorite son, until the Sorting at least. Yes, he himself mentioned Regulus was the favorite, "a much better son" according to his parents, but the thing with abusive parents is that they often pit one kid against the other and thrive on their misery. Handsome, brilliant, magically gifted Sirius was everything the Blacks might have wished from their heir. Until, of course, his infamous sorting into Gryffindor, where he was influenced by muggle-borns and, most notably, James Potter, the known blood traitor. From that point onward, Regulus became the preferred child, but rather out of necessity than choice. If we're to believe Harry, Regulus wasn't as handsome as Sirius (and as generally brilliant). We have no clue about his magical prowess or intelligence, although the fact he discovered the truth about Horcruxes points to him being clever. His parents visibly favoring Regulus and repeatedly telling Sirius that 'Regulus was the good son' were not necessarily what they actually thought. More likely, they were their misguided attempts at making Sirius see reason and bringing him back into the fold.

The brothers probably didn't like each other much. I know we all love fics where they love each other and have each other's back, but realistically, I don't think that was the case. Most likely, they stayed out of each other's way, which was easy since they were in different houses. It's not a stretch to assume that Sirius felt embarrassed (and possibly angry) about his Death Eater brother. Likewise, Regulus would feel mortified about a blood-traitor brother. Maybe over time, it would grow into something close to contempt, with his parents and his Death Eater pals whispering in his ear. Similarly, I don't think Sirius would blame himself for leaving Regulus behind or not helping him leave Grimmauld Place. At his core, Sirius is a character with strong morals who believes in personal accountability. So, according to him, Regulus deserved to reap the consequences of his decisions. (That's not saying he didn't mourn his brother or the potential of them mending fences in the future. Who knows, maybe he'd eventually realize neither he nor Regulus were to blame for their strained relationship and that the fault lay with their parents if he didn't die prematurely.)

Sirius would hate Jegulus (and I say this with love as a jegulus shipper). Once again, yes, I love fics where Sirius is a supportive brother and friend. I've even written a few. But in my heart of hearts, I don't think that would be Sirius' go-to reaction. Sibling dynamics can be complicated in the best of cases, with jealousy often playing a significant role. The Black Brothers are not the best of cases, and James belongs to Sirius. He is his best friend, his other half, the cornerstone of his new reality, and, in a way, his moral compass because James helped Sirius renounce his family beliefs. If James did a sudden one-eighty and started dating a person with a completely different worldview, not to mention a person close to Sirius, one belonging to the family James helped him leave, Sirius would see it as a profound betrayal of their friendship. He'd probably also feel disappointed in James and his sudden hypocrisy (because we know he loathed the Dark Arts, so for him to date a Death Eater would be out of character—which is why I love Jegulus, the inherent drama of it) and possessive over his best friend.

If you read the whole thing, I commend you :D Anyway, these are just my thoughts based on canon. Obviously, I'm aware fanfic exists for us to explore different scenarios, and they are fun to write and read. But sometimes (at least for me), it feels like it's too easy to drift too far away from what makes the characters, well, them, during these explorations.

[salty-an-disco]

narrator >:)

ohohohohoh, the most present absent parent himself! (joke stolen from a discord friend lol)

ask game link

• First impression

"Oh, we have a Narrator? Cool! Love stories where the narrator is a character. Oooohhh– an unreliable narrator, is it? This guy's really sus, but I do like the atmosphere he brings to the whole thing–"

• Impression now

What a fuckin' bastard. He's such a great character and antagonist, I love to hate him and hate to love him. Him being the sole reason this game even happened, and arguably causing more irreversible change to the universe as a whole as opposed to if he were to just let things play out as they would is such great dramatic irony. I love him and I hate him and I want to put him in a jar and shake it till he's nothing but sludge.

• Favorite moment

Any time he shows genuine fear (endlessly fighting Adversary and Networked Wild ending) is just incredible, and feels particularly cathartic when you interpret him as a gaslighting parent lol. Also special shout out to the 'I think you know who I am' when you go to the last mirror. Just. so good.

But for my fave moment, I think it gotta be the Moment of Clarity sequence. I saw many interpretations of it, and I think there's truth to all of them, but my personal favorite is that, in that moment, Narrator was able to relate to the princess.

Her suffering, her fears, the worst of her and how it can break her down, he saw himself in her, and didn't know what to do with it. Which is part of the reason he couldn't continue. And the most tragic of it all– that was still just another Echo. And any development/realization he had dies with him the moment he fades away to make space for the next Echo.

• Idea for a story

I have many scattered ideas relating to him, but a main one that keeps coming back, is Echo meeting other versions of himself. Other Echos from different loops, and, mainly– the one that started it all, Echo pre-construct, right before he killed himself. I think that'd be a really interesting character study, to make Echo face with the whole of what his choices did to him.

• Unpopular opnion

Uuuuuuuhhhhhh, not sure if it's really unpopular, but Echo's choices and character is more interesting if we take his claim of 'the world being close to an ending' as an extreme exaggeration, or smth like his personal world ending (a relationship, his main support system, his community, etc). There's just something incredibly human about it, and also, I just don't think it's interesting to make him smth of a 'hero of humanity' or whatever. Neither is it to make him purely a villain. He's literally just a guy who decided to mess with gods cuz he saw no other out to his situation.

• Favorite relationship

Echo & Shifty. Just– the vitriol, the hatred, the fact any time he actually interacts one-on-one with her, Shifty barely acknowledges him or return any of his resentment. How similar they actually are, but how they can never see each other face to face cuz of how fundamentally different their beliefs are.

• Favorite headcanon

This one is very heavy, so– [TW: suicide ment and suicidal ideation]

Whoever Narry was pre-construct was a deeply broken person who saw no out for his situation, but wanted to make sure he wouldn't leave without a significant mark on the world. So– he made the world's most convoluted suicide plan, with 'saving the world' as its rationalization for why he needed to go through that.

[somethinginworl]

He would not fucking say that - Kirby franchise edition (Results)

Well! Seems like a lot of people had a lot to say about mischaracterized Kirby characters, as a matter of fact, there were a whooping 57 entries! Well, let’s get going with them, shall we? Just,,, beware that this is a LOOONG post.

Haltmann

The dude 100% did fucked up shit and needs to be held accountable but people seem to so easily forget the degree he was influenced/corrupted by Star Dream. I don't understand why people hate Haltmann and love Star Dream who is arguably the actual reason HWC started colonizing and draining planets. Also the fact that Haltmann isn't conventionally attractive to the majority of the fandom makes him less sympathetic ig?? But the dude is a grieving father who made mistakes that sent him down a spiral into being corrupted and then deleted by a heartless machine. I can't help but pity him

Prince Fluff

Go on ao3. Look in his tag on tumblr. He exists only to be Kirby or Shadow Kirby's love interest most of the time, with no personality of his own.

He barely gets recognized anymore, and if he does, it's usually as a ship Prince Fluff was a big part of my childhood, with Epic Yarn being my first game. To me, he was Kirby's fellow main character, and they had a cool sibling/best friend relationship. But now, a lot of what I see of him is just . . . Kirfluff. Which is cool and all, but man's a prince! He can do more than be a boyfriend! Heck, he runs an entire kingdom by himself! One thing that I want to see more of is Fluff as a stressed but caring ruler, not just a sidekick/boyfriend to the pink puff. Give yarn boy his deserved appreciation!.

Dark Meta Knight

Hello! I am here to spread the good word of a character with no personality. It's the mirror thing. Of course.  Dark Meta Knight has No Personality. Zero. Nada. Zilch. He's Meta Knight but Dark. What does that mean? Your guess. He fights Meta Knight. And wins lmao skill issue blueboy. And fights Kirby. And loses a few times, which isn't surprising. He was dumb enough to split Kirby in four, though. Four times the Kirby is four times the amount your ass is grass. You're practically a forest at that point because you're so grass. So he's violent and has no personality outside of being violent. Woo! Triple Deluxe has him attack Dedede in Dededetour inside the Mirror. This has led people to think he fucked over Sectonia. This makes my heart bleed as much as Taranza probably did when he was punted off of Royal Road via Fuck You Lightning Ball. My man just has no sense of timing,,,, They just wanted to include a Meta Knight battle because Knight Battles are a Kirby standard at this point,,, You think a man that stupid can figure out how to take advantage of a woman's insecurity? I don't even know if he knows women exist. How many female Amazing Mirror characters are there??? Boxy??? Moley mentions having a wife once and Dameta doesn't know what he means. But other than being driven to immense violence and being scapegoated for the stuff his boss probably did, Dameta has other hobbies! Like whatever his motivation in Star Allies is. Something dastardly, I'm sure. People really like to pretend he's not part of the Star Ally club when my man is doodling with toddlers and posing with his less cool less edgy self. Would a villain have a silly little we heart kirby statue? No, didn't think so. Also I cannot imagine him as a dad to Shadkirby either. Do they even interact? I've seen both "Amazing dad" and "Outright abusive" as interpretations and I can't go with either. But I think that's because I don't enjoy Metadad that much. They're like awkward coworkers. He thinks they're student and mentor. They're not even that. Dameta barely knows Shadow exists.

Dark Meta Knight is very popularly characterized as like an abusive parent, usually physically abusive. Mainly to Shadow Kirby, of course. He's an asshole, yeah, but not THAT bad, christ. I've seen multiple fics where Shadow Kirby is some poor little hey what t the fuck hes fighting himself. um. Back to being a hater.

Shadow Kirby

Some folks still think he's shy/cowardly like from the Amazing Mirror Days. Not really true anymore. From what fans have seen from the ending of the game, he does protect the Mirror World. As for the spin off games that include him, he's pretty tough and even creates mischief sometimes.

Shadow Kirby is constantly treated as an "evil" Kirby. Especially bad after Fighters and fighters two. Not to mention "Parallel Kirby". There's also a strangely common trend of making them more sapient than pink Kirby, who tends to be infantilised to hell and back. Shadow Kirby also is often treated as a complete coward who can't do anything right, when they aren't called evil.

He's shown as completely different in several different occasions, not only in personality but in design I like shadow kirby he's purple and then he's not

Dark Taranza

Dark Taranza, gonna be honest what little characterization people give him are actually okay compared to the rest. But I'm still a hater and hang on im watching jerma clips. okay. He's like Sectonia if Sectonia was Taranza if that makes sense.

Shadow Dedede

Shadow Dedede barely gets shit but I'm going to be a little hater anyways. I don't like most characterizations. I see people make him like a dictator like bro he's literally just some guy.

Sectonia

have you seen how often people say that  sectonia and taranza were boyfriend and girlfriend in canon?????? they were never!!! shes the gosh dang final boss but shes only ever used to give taranza angst. she is her own person with a personality!!!! yes their backstories are interconnected but gosh!!!!

This not too prominent but I can't stand it when people portray her as an uwu shy girl pre-corruption. While she gave in her worst aspects, she was probably always a kind of vain, girlboss! I mean she knows how to fight with rapiers c'mon!!!

idk it just feels like lots of people just see her as Taranza's tragic dead wife and like nothing else you know? like she is more than that and I feel like what little content we have of her proves that (like the soul boss descriptions (especially the original japanese text of the 2nd phase!!) and the eternal dream song) - or maybe im reading too much into those because im hyperfixating on my blorbo whoops

Kine

I'm not sure how true this opinion is considering how little people talk about Kine, I feel this is partially the anime's fault, or maybe its because of how he just looks, but Kine is cool and is not some stupid loser fish. Before the days of Crystal Shards, Him, Kirby, Rick & Coo were the dream team at the time, always hanging out going, with various activities long before the days of Meta Knight or even Dedede. Kine is an awesome aquatic rep for the Kirby series not to mention drinking and being a pirate and Kine even has a Wife! Kine has got it! I guess this is a partial compliant of Ship of Theseus which can be applied with Rick & Coo too, but I feel Kine gets the most hate if any because of people who are unfamiliar just see a dopey fish and are unaware of his origins and his past with Kirby. I'm not upset with the current representation of the Kirby cast (I love the RTDL team being the main crew) but I do hope the animal buddies get some more love, Especially Kine.

Dedede

reduced to his significantly less in-depth and compelling characterization from the anime

Anime Dedede.

Magolor

one time i read a series of fanfictions where he called every female character in the story a bitch and was portrayed as the good guy in the story

Is it possible to both be flanderized and woobified at the same time? There is a lot of "removing his responsibility for his actions" but can we get better jokes than "hehe Microtransgolor hehe scammer egg”

Always an uwu soft boy. Like no that is a criminal not a catboy.

Bro would never be intimidated by Magolor

Marx

People either portray him as a edgy sociopath or constantly bored and annoyed. Portraying him as an adult or a teen kinda annoys me as well. I'm very picky about portrayals of Marx so don't get upset if you portray him as one of these I've listed.

Sometimes I see people only joking about the "hungry so he came along" thing with Marx and it's pretty overdone

They took one look at him and said “to the insane asylum bitch”. I don’t think he’s some crazy murder hobo rather a dude with questionable morals and puts his own mischief and fun before others it seems. Though Marx is indeed one of the least “character” characters when I mean he doesn’t have much depth in comparison to other characters. But you could do anything else than have him follow the Jevil path of him being crazy. Make him evil? Sure. Make him a cringefail idiot? Sure. Make him a crybaby bitch? Go ahead. But making him the definition of what a 14 year old white girl in New Jersey that probably is addicted to Instagram and thinks Webtoon comics are the highest level of art and storytelling’s definition of insane doesn’t cut it cuz. Slapping the spaz label without a thought of what’s being done on a character who fits the mark makes the Schizoid peeved who coulda known. As this is all coming from the one person who has likely ruined Marx’s character the most for Kirblur by making him a somewhat empathetic manchild who clings to both pipe dreams of normality and being a monster btw. (Also this doesn’t mean jokes, you can joke about him being a psycho like Jerma it’s when it’s taken 100% seriously is when it’s bad).    Also to add on, Woobification of Marx or any Kirby character period CAN be annoying if taken too far. I take full responsibility in the fact my variant is also woobifed to an extent but that train full of ticking bombs doesn’t bother me as much. Make him sadcry and be gay he deserves both those things. Send him to sad hell with the rest of them.

To the anon above... What?

Making him stupid or reducing him to just Silly Clown. Or just having him act in purely impulsive or spontaneous ways (which sometimes happens when juxtaposed with a more "collected" character like Magolor).

Daroach

this is something i’ve noticed specifically in chatfics, but when daroach is in the ensemble some of them tend to designate him as the Goofy Meme Dumbass for… idk, fandom quota? i really don’t know why it happens because he has a bunch of canon dialogue (and alternate continuity stuff like the novels) that show him to be cool and clever. i’m not saying he can’t have a sense of humor or anything (he’s definitely the type to have a bunch of quips), but it sucks when he’s mischaracterized because the fandom doesn’t give him that much attention as is. if you NEED a silly haha guy, marx is right there!”

Morpho Knight

"Morpho Knight is a creature of mercy. It's a benevolent entity putting tired souls to rest." NO?! I'm going to copy-paste some stuff I put in a post of my own. A while back, SYZekrom on Reddit translated Morpho Knight's entry, and it contains some... interesting information. Allow me to provide some excerpts. "He’s a red knight with butterfly wings, continuing from a pair of white wings like an angel’s, and a pair of azure wings with a bit of an evil feel." This is the first of two instances where Morpho Knight is outright stated to be evil. There's also stuff in the art book that supports my theory that Galacta and Morpho are permanently fused and the former is not dead, but I don't want to get carried away. These are its gacha figure descriptions in Forgotten Land: "The fluttering fiend that casts judgment upon final battles is drawn toward the isolated isles of Forgo Dreams. There, it feasts on the most powerful soul it finds and takes the fearsome form of a scarlet-clad knight… Let the most challenging battle of this new world begin!" –English "One of the dreaming birds, which are said to pass judgement upon decisive battles, drifts towards a forgotten, isolated isle as if summoned. There, it sips upon the strongest Soul and descends as a red knight. Finally, welcome the dusk… of the deadliest battle in this New World!"  –Japanese While at first glance there doesn't seem to be any information of note, the "fluttering fiend" bit in the English version is outright stating Morpho Knight is evil, and the phrase "he deadliest battle in this New World" doesn't sound particularly heroic. But I digress... Morpho is NOT a good person! This is clearly leading up to a villain vs hero confrontation! Which, may I add, implies that reaping Galacta Knight wasn't necessarily a good thing for it to do?!

Elfilis

elfilis is NOT entirely malicious. they would gladly accept hugs and kisses. being in a fucking capsule ALONE and AWARE for likely CENTURIES will DO SOMETHING TO YOU YOU KNOW?? god fucking DAMN dude... and after the ending of the true arena in the game, WILLINGLY GAVE THEMSELF UP TO ELFILIN. also they're not fucking DEAD you PSYCHOPAYHS elfilis is STILL VERY MUCH ALIVE!!!!!!! RUUAAAGGGH!!!!!!!!!!

Susie

Being Evil or being a Sad uwu girl who has had bad things happen to her seems to be the only way most people can portray this character.

Susie isn't a friend. She's selfish and wanted to take over the company. Her "redemption" is pointing Kirby at the world-ending machine, gives him armor, and then stands around. She doesn't even know his name. The closest she does for good is tell Kirby to do something he would've done on his own.

My girl really became the subject of hate thanks to a mistranslation. I mean yeah she likes robots and shit but the fact that people think she is a terrible person and that she's still colonizing planets makes me upset. i blame the translation team for everything.

When people say she has fully redeemed herself and is reduced to cishet, pretty girl??? Like no, star allies mistranslation my ass you fell for her corporate propaganda. The female characters in this franchise, while lovable, is not nearly as popular as a lot of the male ones. HAL literally gave us a morally grey girlboss who we can still sympathise with. She actually feels like a very real character in this fictional world.

You Know How People Are About Her

she's not even my blorbo!!!!!! everyone thinks she's a huge evil bitch who has done terrible genuinely unspeakable things. i read a fic that went on and on abt the horrible things she "did" to meta knight when he was mechanized (things so bad i cant even say) and i was pulling my hair out she did not fucking do any of that!!!! yes the universe can have pretty dark moments but good lord people only use her to woobify meta knight and give fuel to ship him with others and it pisses me off lol. or people go too far the other way and woobify HER to ship with him and aughhhh no one has a shred of media literacy. she's not purely good or purely evil she's such a complex character who did bad things because she was in a bad situation and the best example of a morally grey character who's on no one's side but herself and that will always be more interesting that 100% good or 100% evil. once again she's not even my blorbo but i've never seen a character butchered this badly by a fandom

Because of mistranslation (from what I've heard) Susie's whole mechanizing planets has been the number one thing when it came to susie hate and the only reason as to why people hate this girl so much. Honestly Susie's character has been fucked up immensely and no one has such a divided spread of opinions like she does. Some people brush away her backstory and make her a soulless being with no love whatsoever.

Oh my god. Oh my god. Susie Haltmann. I cannot with the fandom interpretations anymore. It's ridiculous how bad they've gotten. Susie is a two dimensional character. I absolutely despise seeing people portray her as some sort of greedy capitalist bastard and "the one with the braincell". In canon, she's consistently been portrayed as a sweet person (with a knack for violence, but EVERYONE in this series is like that). Everything bad she did in Planet Robobot was FOR WORK and the will of HER FATHER, and even if she did want to do the things she did, she's clearly not doing them any more. The "mechanizing planets and peoples" line in Star Allies is a mistranslation. And the "punishing savages" doesn't have to mean anything bad. It could mean she's punishing evildoers with her money and resources. In fact, I've seen some translations put it like that And Meta Knight... is just the straw that broke the camel's back. Oh lord. Why does everyone insist that he hates her? There's the little scene in Star Allies... but god, that isn't canon, it's clearly a joke. If anything, Susie might have been trying to talk to him and he was just trying to avoid her in a misinterpretation of the situation. It's supposed to be funny. Why are you imposing this onto people like this automatically makes Susie a devil incarnate and anything involving those two characters in problematic? Just shut up.

Meta Knight

Everyone thinks he’s just the ‘edgy character’ or ‘the uncaring mentor figure’ while in actuality he really does care for Kirby (and Bandana Dee) more than anyone gives him credit for!

Everyone either makes him all broody and lonesome, like shadow the hedgehog or batman; or they make him a goofy dad, like Dedede or Hugh Neutron. In reality, he's a weird uncle with unknown motivations, simultaneously selfish and practical. Also, he doesn't hide the fact that he likes sweets, he eats them away from everyone so no one steals them (Dedede and Squeak Squad).

He's not Kirby's fucking dad! He's an irresponsible uncle that hands out swords! And he is definitely in love with dedede, he is the only other dramatic bitch willing to build a skyscraper to beat up kirby (I am using intense anger for comedic effect) 

HES A FUCKING TWINK ASS FRUITY ASS MOTHERFUCKING CRINGEFAIL MAN. HE NEEDS TO HAVE HIS PERSONALITY INTERPRETED AS BOTH THE MANGA AND THE GAMES. YES HE IS MYSTERIOUS BUT HE ALSO WOULD TRIP AND FALL OVER HIMSELF. I NEED STAR ALLIES KICKING SWORD PISSED. I NEED MANGA ROSES BITCHASS META. I NEED THAT PARTICULAR VERSION OF MY BOY meat knight RIGHT NOW. meta knight is cringefail. half of the fandom agrees the other half does not. im explode.

He wants to look cool so bad but he is actually a huge fucking goofy goober. Any representation of Meta Knight being a badass is propaganda made by Meta Knight himself to convince you he’s cool. I mean have you seen his RTDL Deluxe pause screen description? King Dedede’s and Bandana Dee’s are in first person, but his is in third person? He’s literally talking about himself in the third person like hello????? Meta Knight is such a fucking lame goofy little man who thinks he’s the most badass motherfucker on the planet.

To fair this has been less common lately but back during 2014-2016 MK was usually portrayed in fanart/fanfic as either this wise veteran or cold edgelord. He is just an unhindged!!! Silly!!! Guy!!! He can be cool and cringefail!!! But he is also compassionate in his own aloof, awkward way!!! 

i am not a big fan of the metadede ship. i think people are shipping for the sake of having a ship and nothing else. As someone with a severely underrepresented orientation (aromantic and asexual), when I see a character I like, I will project onto said character. This is the case with my interpretation of Meta Knight. I saw a cool character that I liked who a) doesn’t have any canon love interests and b) didn’t really need a whole ton of friends/significant others to be happy with life. Meta Knight always seemed to be perfectly content with the friends he has on Popstar and his crew and everyone in the anime, so I looked to him for hope that I could live the same way. I was open to the metadede ship at first, but as time passed, I felt less and less comfortable with it. It seemed to me that people were so hungry for gay ships that they just pulled this one out of thin air courtesy of Kirby Fighters 2, which is to my knowledge the only piece of media that somewhat supports this. Why can’t people just be happy with MK and Dedede being friends or frenemies? I’m probably starting drama with this bc I know how popular metadede is on Tumblr so I apologize for upsetting you if that is the case.  But I also feel that I shouldn’t apologize just because I have a different opinion.

I dislike how "pathetic" the fandom has made him out to be. I don't like it when he's portrayed as overpowered but... "pathetic, whiny manlet" could not be further from the truth. How did we get to that?

Kirby

Often people make Kirby more dependent on others than he actually is. He's an extremely independent person that literally cannot be stopped by anyone who tries to get in his way

ik its been covered to death but matpat made that video about how kirby is evil and completely ignored the themes of friendship and kindness that are present throughout the entire series

dude hes not a baby. he drinks in the manga adukt kirbies are a fine interp god. and hes not a godkiller or some shit he just fights for his friends hes not some terrifying monster kirby is literally just some friendly guy. strong yeah but just some guy. he fights strong entities incidentally lol

The anime portrays them as a literal infant, and due to its overprevalence (despite not being in the same stream of canon as the games), this is often their characterization in the fandom.  Canonically, they indeed are a child (at most, they'd probably be a teen in the modern games), but they are old enough to talk, and they demonstrate a high amount of emotional and even technical intelligence.

Admittedly, this is one that usually only happens to people outside the fandom, but it bugs me when people portray Kirby as a sort of immoral monster who only does good things on accident. When it’s quite the opposite! He may not be incredibly bright, but he does his best to help people. Oddly enough, there’s not many cases of “he would not say that” in the fandom for me because of how loose Kirby’s story is. It is lore heavy but the actual characters aren’t super concrete save for a few and I think that’s perfectly fine

People forget that their air bullet!! is an attack!! its literally one of their only ways of dealing damage in DL1!!! I’m looking at you Smash Bros!!! Why isn’t it their nair?????????

making them a toddler who cant speak for themself

I swear everyone outside of the fandom sees Kirby as either a braincell infant or  a merciless force of mass destruction

Taranza

WHAT DIDN'T THEY DO!?!?!? Taranza, as we see him in Triple Deluxe, is such a fun villain. He's dramatic, arrogant, a total suck-up to Sectonia, and it's so. Fucking. Good. He's a devious bastard, he monologues!!! His animations in the Clash games are so fucking campy and dramatic it's chefs kiss!!!! Fanon Taranza is as plain as white bread. Sometimes as pale as it, looking at some of the gijinkas. No shade though! As little shade as there is melanin in him lmAO- He is flanderised to hell and back. There are so. Many. Fucking. Taranzas who happen to be nothing but sad and weepy about his evil dead wife. Where's the bite!!! The pizzazz!!! Even in canon, when he is a bit of a wet sack later on, he still hunts for an altar he can bring her back on. My boy's a wannabe necromancer!!! Write that shit in your lost lenore Sectonia fic you fucking cowards Queen's Phantom ain't just for show. The above is also evidence for woobification! The fucker is obviously sad his crush is dead! But can we pleeease focus on anything else. This is definitely not targeted at Hal Labs. Imagine being woobied so hard your creators backtrack your personality I would just die. "Ehehe he's the responsible mage!!" No the fuck he isn't he can't be trusted with anything he tries take control it WILL blow up in his face. He knows magic he's good at magic but is he responsible??? Fuck no my man's strongest attack is "Blow myself the fuck up via a giant burst of magic" and it shreds. Even worse is the "Taranza got mind-controlled by Sectonia" theory in tandem with this. That wasn't confirmed right. Right. God I hope not that would be embarrassing. He can't even have a moment to realise his devotion has gone too far and she doesn't love him or even care for him, and he has to finally make that decision to free himself from her like ain't that cool!!! And then making him all sad over her afterwards it's just a Little Fucked if you're tryna put it all together eh. Eh. And he's not suuuper objectified (That usually goes to Seccy rest in piss girlie) but the way he's treated in some ships is. Eugh. Fucking Magoranza amirite he's basically there to look responsible and cute (I've already explained my issue with this) and to fix the tortured soul who is Magolor (I do not like Magolor. Nor Magoranza.) Tbh Sectaranza does the same he's there to be tragic because his girlie's dead. When you give him less personality than the dead cardboard cutout you know you fucked up. Anyways these ramblings are here to remind you what Hal Labs stole from us: Taranza but not a TOTAL saddo. Theatre kid Taranza. Arrogant prick. He's even British.

For the anon above me, I just wanted to say that this entry is probably my favorite and lives rent free in my mind.

I'm definitely guilty of it and it's all we have to go off of but PLEASE he needs more than to be Sad. Give him hobbies and interests that aren't just gardening, at least. Make stuff up about him, please!

So, SO many people make him an absolute crybaby over Sectonia. Even though, yes, he has grief problems, it's not his whole freaking personality. Pretty sure they're forgetting the fact that he LITERALLY HELPED KILL HER.

Taranza is not just a little pathetic guy!! He’s a bitch— a little schemer if you will !!! He’s smug—he’s formal—he’s a little fucker!!! Taranza needs a new partner and that partner is me

Oddly enough I do think people make him out to be a bit too much of a goody two shoes. Like he has done some mean things in the past and it wasn’t all Sectonia’s fault, he literally *stole* the Dimensional Mirror after all. Don’t get me wrong I think he’s a good person in the end, but cmon. He has committed crimes

Taranza in some corners of the fandom has kinda been turned into this forever crying baby who can never recover from losing Joronia and like, I never see people who do that write about the recovery and being able to move on to the final stage of grief.

HE IS NOT A SIMP, MY GOD

Everyone needs to stop reducing him to pathetic simp. He is allowed to grieve but he's probably one of the more mature characters within the series???

People disregard everything else about his character to make his tragic relationship with sectonia his only character trait. Not sure if this quite counts as woobifying since he does canonically still mourn her (and obviously seeing a close friend/crush go down the path of self destruction and ultimately die from it WOULD NOT be something you'd get over quickly). But I'm so tired of taranza in fanart and the like being an uwu softboy with Crying as his main character trait. Like he's canonically more than that! He goes full cocky villain mode when you confront him near the end of triple deluxe and he can pack a punch in star allies with his magic! If you're going to write about him prove that you don't just know about the guy from twitter artwork!

And here’s a graph!

Anyways, thanks everyone for your submissions! What I’ve learned here is important: We’re all fucking delusional.

[lonelywretchjervistetch]

Okay, you like birds and you like superheroes, so you seem uniquely qualified to answer a question that’s bothered me for awhile: WHY is Red Robin named that when there’s already a Red Hood AND a Robin. It just. . . Blends with the rest of the post robin personas so poorly

(If the Crow wasn’t already taken I would have suggested that since Tim has that whole thing going on with the court of Owls and those two species notoriously hate each other.)

So if you could redesign Tim Drakes vigilante persona what would be your pick?

Hoo boy, now there's a goddamn question, isn't there? I answer it at the end, I promise, but I wanted to explain my reasoning. So, yeah, scroll down if you want the answer quick.

But OK, I can answer your first question really easily: why is Tim Drake called Red Robin if Red Hood already exists? Easy: because Red Robin came first. And I don't mean that as a concept or nursery rhyme or expression; I mean that a Robin, one of Batman's sidekicks, taking up the identity of Red Robin, existed first, complete with the costume. BEHOLD! Mark Waid and Alex Ross' brilliant comic book Kingdom Come, one of the most important DC Comics stories ever published, and arguably one of its most iconic near-future stories!

First published in 1996, this story came out after Tim Drake was introduced in comics, and well before Jason Todd came back to life as Red Hood. And...is actually Dick Grayson in the future, not Tim Drake. In fact, Tim never appears in Kingdom Come for some reason, but a future version of Damian surprisingly does! Ask Mark Waid, not me. Anyway, when DC introduced Damian Wayne into the main continuity, they realized two Robins weren't going to do. SO, they reintroduced the identity of Red Robin, and this time gave it to...Jason Todd. Yeah, Jason actually picked up the identity in main continuity first, during the Countdown to Final Crisis storyline. He was given the costume by Batman from an alternate universe that was a utopian society yaddayaddayadda, you get the point. Jason had it first.

But, that didn't last very long, and Jason became Red Hood again after that event was done. And so, Red Robin was eventually picked up by...Ulysses Armstrong. Yeah, the identity was stolen by a Nightwing and Robin villain previously known as the General, who was basically a child genius that used the identity to...well, kill Robin. Ulysses is an asshole, it's a whole thing. Anyway, after this event, FINALLY, Tim Drake takes up the mantle of Red Robin. So, yeah, Tim is the THIRD Red Robin in continuity. Which, now that you mention it, DOES make it odd that Tim would adopt the identity after it was stained by Ulysses. But, DC editorial wanted the Red Robin character to exist in canon, and Tim was the only character that made sense to wear the mantle. It's a reference for reference's sake, which isn't great, admittedly.

But, OK, you're asking me what I would do if given the reigns to Tim Drake's identity after Damian Wayne essentially steals the mantle of Robin. OK, Anonymous, I'll play your game. And I actually do have an answer to this question. First off, what does Tim Drake represent amongst the Robins, especially compared to the others and their superhero identities? All of the Robins are reflections of Batman himself, often somewhat unintentionally. Their superhero identities similarly reflect this. Let's give the two most prominent examples.

Nightwing is the superhero. Dick Grayson, originally, was the kid sidekick of Batman, and embraced that with a lightness that Bruce could never manifest. As a result, his ideals were that of the traditional superhero: the day-saving good guy who does the right thing for the disadvantaged, old chum. So, his adult persona reflects this. It's a reference to Superman (Nightwing was originally a superhero and Krypton that Superman told a young Dick about early in their friendship), and it's a sort-of cheesy heroic name that also references Batman. Nightwing, savior of Bludhaven! Has a ring to it.

Red Hood is a vigilante against the law. Jason Todd, originally, was a little street punk who stole the tires off of the Batmobile. He's a criminal. When he becomes Robin, he embraces the vigilante identity by also embracing his temper, becoming a rougher-around-the-edges Robin who doesn't follow the rules very well. And then, he dies at the Joker's hand. When he comes back to life, he embraces the idea of being a brutal vigilante that doesn't care about the rules or morality, essentially becoming a criminal in the process. And so, when he has to choose the name of a criminal, why not name himself after the man who created him: Joker. So, he names himself Red Hood, which is also the Joker's old identity before getting acid dipped. Maybe this was on purpose, maybe it was subconscious, but it doesn't matter. He wants to be a lawbreaker, so he gets the identity of a lawbreaker.

Damian Wayne is the martial artist. To be fair, Damian still hasn't come into his own as an adult, since he's...well, a teenager. Because of that, we don't know what his identity is going to be, other than...well, Batman. Yeah, he's quite literally the son of Batman, so it does make sense that he'd become the next Batman. But again, that is yet to be seen. In terms of being a reflection of his father, though, he's the overdisciplined and overserious martial artist, and also...a child. Yeah, no offence to Bruce, but he's still in many ways a child in a mask. And so, Damian originally represented that. But now, as he's grown older in comics, he instead reflects the self-assured determination of his father, as well as the superior martial arts skills. And that finally leaves one major aspect unaccounted for, and you know what it is.

Tim Drake is the detective. Look, Tim is known as the "smart Robin" for a reason...because he is. He's the smart Robin. But in terms of being a reflection of Batman, he represents the Dark Knight's more Holmesian aspects. He's the inquisitive analyst, the tactician, the observer, the planner. So, whatever Tim's adult persona is, it should reflect him as a detective and tactician. And here's a question: should it be a bird at all? I mean, Nightwing only evokes a bird, and Red Hood definitely isn't a bird. So maybe Tim should actually be the only one to keep the bird thing in earnest. But if he does...maybe he could be a little smarter about it.

Y'know, I like your suggestion of "Crow", Anonymous. Smart bird, love the enemy of owls point, too. But Crow feels...off. It's not a great superhero name, as you pointed out. Of course, we're really looking for the name of a good detective. So, maybe you have the right family, just the wrong member. SOme people I've seen suggest Jackdaw, which...come to think of it, may just be a Reddit joke, but either way, I don't like it? So, instead, how about...

The Rook (Corvus frugilegus) is a Eurasian corvid known for its ability to solve problems. It's often seen in the presence of similar, related birds (like the Jackdaw), and lives in nests called rookeries. They have the ability to use complex tools, and even understand the concept of gravity. But perhaps the biggest reason why I think Tim should take up the name Rook, other than the fact that his hideout already has a name now (the Rookery), and the fact that he can keep the "R" on his costume, AND the fact that Rook is also a pretty good codename for a detective or spy...is the double meaning.

After all...I feel like Tim is the kind of person who plays a lot of chess to harness his skills in planning and tactics, amongst other games. He probably has played a lot of games with Alfred, maybe with Bruce. And another name for the castle piece is, of course, the rook. A double-meaning, and BOTH work for the character. And for some reason, I've never seen anybody suggest this as a name for Tim Drake. Maybe I haven't looked in the right places, but thinking on it now...I honestly really want this name for him in the future. Give him a dark costume, maybe replace the red with blue, or even give him the Red Robin costume, recolored to reflect this identity instead! The possibilities abound, really.

Hopefully that was a satisfying answer for you! May not work for everybody, but that's what I would do if I were in charge of Time Drake! Definitely not Drake, or Sparrow, or the other names he's been given in the last few years, just sayin'.

[thefirstknife]

glad to see that ppl are aware that nimbus doesn't deserve the hate they get bc it stems from them being nonbinary! but i also see them be compared to cayde a lot, which i understand. but ppl are like "they're basically another cayde" and idk how i feel about that. it seems weird and ignorant to sideline them as cayde but nonbinary when nimbus is more than that despite our lack of interactions + lore w/ them. ppl already had a hard time comprehending how they processed their grief through humor and their recklessness in the deterministic chaos mission so it's no surprise they just view them as a cayde comparison :/ sorry, i could be overthinking things i'm not sure. what do you think?

I feel similarly, it feels a bit reductive to just boil them down to another Cayde, though I understand the comparison. People mostly say it because a lot of the hate for Nimbus is the, genuinely, fake outrage over a character being a little silly and humorous at odd times which is strange because everybody loved Cayde who acted the same. And imo, with fewer good reasons for it as well; although both Cayde and Nimbus hide behind a persona to mask their feelings, I feel like Cayde, one of the Vanguard leaders with hundreds of years of experience under his belt should be a little less silly than a rookie Cloud Strider who's never had anything happen to them in their short life until the start of the expansion.

They're both different characters, but share some similarities in how they're perceived so I understand the comparison especially when people ONLY hate Nimbus for "making jokes." And you have to ask "If you dislike characters making jokes, how can you like Cayde then?" It's always people's first association when someone complains about a character making jokes. I don't think people often think of them as just copies of each other, it's just a natural comparison to draw when people pretend to be bothered by jokes.

I also feel like both of these characters have jokes that are a product of their time; this isn't unusual of course, but people tend to look down on anything new. Naturally, the jokes from MY youth were good and funny, the jokes the kids have these days are cringe and bad. That's essentially it.

I like both of them for their own reasons and I enjoy both of their humour styles. Also, a lot of people thought Cayde's behaviour in vanilla D2 was super cringe btw, I remember people being fairly annoyed that he was "cracking jokes" in the middle of one of the, arguably, worst situations the setting has ever been in (Red War, loss of Light). A lot of people don't remember that, but people did NOT like Cayde's silliness. I understand why, but I never really had an issue with it; it was just a relief from all the gloom otherwise. I think it makes sense to add a little bit of silly, and I think the same applies to Nimbus.

This is why people tend to compare the two! And then you look at all of that and you wonder why Nimbus is the one getting the hate and in most cases it boils down to transphobia. Not always, people can dislike the character for other reasons; but in a LOT of cases, online especially, it's just that. It's evident from the misgendering and the type of hate being hurled around which went as far as insulting the devs and the VA (who is nonbinary and spoke publicly about finding it hard to find work because of their identity). Again, people can dislike Nimbus for other reasons too, but it's really hard to divorce the overwhelming hate for Nimbus from their identity and the state of the gaming community currently.

[rallamajoop]

I have too many feelings about Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (3/3)

The story so far: we've covered gameplay and worldbuilding, we've covered story. Now I get to talk characters. And while I'm at it, go off on a tangent or two about some of my favourite touches from Human Revolution, and why I'm still in the habit of calling the hero of these games by his last name.

Characters

Much as I do love Jensen, it’s no secret that Francis Pritchard is my favourite character in this series. His snarky banter with Jensen during missions is so much of what made Human Revolution for me. When I later tried out the original 2001 Deus Ex, I even joked to a friend, “There’s this guy in my earpiece who keeps giving me straightforward, good advice. It just seems so unprofessional!”

Faridah Malik, Jensen’s pilot, is his other major human contact in HR – a friendly face to get him to and from different settings, and occasional voice in his earpiece as well. But it’s not just Malik and Pritchard you’ll be hearing from – you’ve got Jensen’s boss, Sarif, mocking him for his surprise that the SWAT penthouse villain has a panic room, plus so many other random contacts calling Jensen up and prompting ‘how did you get this number?’ complaints that I started to wonder if it was tattooed to the back of his neck.

I knew going into MD that Pritchard wasn’t returning (except in DLC). Halfway through the first mission, it began to dawn on me that Jensen’s new, aggressively-British, aug-hating coworker, Duncan MacCready, seemed to be being set up as the new Pritchard – ie, the asshole in his earpiece with whom he’ll gradually develop a grudging semi-friendship over the course of the game. This did not immediately enthuse me. Pritchard’s initial dislike of our hero may have been petty, but at least it was personal, seeing Jensen as an under-qualified nepotism hire. MacCready just hates anyone augmented, which would be pretty weaksauce even if Jensen had, y'know, ever actually chosen to being augmented to begin with.

It's not like it would be hard to come up with better reasons why someone might distrust Jensen: he's secretly working for a hacktavist network, was declared legally dead in circumstances he can't explain, and MacCready would be right to find him suspicious. But I knew MacCready was a popular character, so I resolved to give him a chance.

The reality proved much worse: love him or hate him, MacCready is hardly in the game at all. You can go talk to him in the office a bunch of times about why he hates cyborgs so much, but he’s only deployed with Jensen in the very first mission and the very last one. Jensen seems to have relationships with a number of his other new colleagues, but for most of the game, there’s no radio chatter at all. Infolink calls happen occasionally, but are vanishingly rare. Even when doing missions for the Collective – a group dominated by augmented hackers – Jensen’s left to fly relatively solo.

Jensen’s main contact at the Collective is Alex Vega, arguably the new Malik, at least in that she’s an augmented woman of colour and nominally a pilot (though she doesn’t actually do any flying for us) on friendly terms with Jensen. In fact, DXMD has given Vega a substantial redesign to make her less of the shallow Malik-clone she was in her "original" appearance, in the lesser known mobile game Deus Ex: The Fall. You can see her and Malik in the comparison below.

Yeah, there's really not a lot to set them apart. She's a pilot? Give her short brown hair like our last pilot, stick her in a flight suit, and call it a day.

As of MD, the new!Vega is black, does her hair completely differently, has more obvious augmentations, and doesn't live in a flight suit: okay, fine, no harm in giving the character some individuality (though why you'd insist on giving her the same name as the old Vega at that point I do not know).

But looks aside, it's on the characterisation front they've really let her down. There was never a lot to Malik beyond being straightforward, friendly and professional. But you do get an optional side-mission to help her solve a friend’s murder, and the big set-piece where she’ll die if you leave her and run like she tells you to (also the reason I’ll probably never get a certain achievement, but fuck it, I like Malik, I don’t need that achievement that much). Straightforward as Malik is, what makes her work for me is that it’s so easy to buy her as someone with her own life outside Jensen’s crazy world. It’s to the point where I almost don’t want to see her get dragged any deeper into the whole conspiracy plotline, because she’s so easy-going and normal she shouldn’t have to be. Basic as that is, when you’re having a reaction that strong to a character, they’ve done something right.

Vega, by comparison, clearly should be a much more memorable character – a pilot working full-time undercover for a top-secret hacktivist collective? But Vega too seems nice, and normal, and yet has no role in this story except to be Jensen’s contact. You can ask her a bit about her backstory, but it made so little impression I can’t remember it. She’s nominally so much more important than Malik, but she never gets to do anything as interesting as making up a nickname for him, hijacking a bunch of public TVs to get back at her friend’s killer, or make the tough decision to tell Jensen to leave her and run. She’s just there to deliver plot-relevant information.

Other characters fandom had led me to expect much more of were similar non-events. Koller, Jensen’s go-to guy for aug maintenance, is certainly a character, but not one that grabbed me, and he appears all of twice, neither time for very long. There's got to be a hell of a story as to why Jensen, an Interpol agent with connections to a whole network of augmented hackers, is going to a weirdo like Koller for aug maintenance, but the game doesn't seem to think that's a story worth sharing, so there goes another wasted avenue to do something interesting. Chikane, Jensen's actual pilot, has far more meat on his bones character-wise and more interaction with our hero. But he’s probably a traitor (I say ‘probably’ because the strongest hints are a coded message in a well-hidden safe, and finding it changes nothing), so there's not much point investing in what camaraderie they develop. Similar is Delara, an obvious Illuminati-plant who spends the game acting innocent and helpful enough to make you wonder if maybe she’s alright after all, only for an after-credits scene to reveal that, yup, she’s an Illuminati plant. Is this supposed to be a twist?

The one major character I did get decent value out of is Jim Miller, Jensen’s Interpol boss. Seeing a convincingly Aussie character in a position of authority in non-Aussie-made media is novel enough that I’m always going to get a kick out of it (even if his backstory does involve that whole ‘Australian civil war’ thing, which is hilarious in so many ways that I’m not sure non-Australians appreciate). Doesn’t hurt that Miller’s subtly queer too – hacking his computer will turn up info about his (ex-)husband and kids.

And that’s about it. There’s a local Prague underworld, but no-one involved is as enjoyable as either of the Tongs in HR, and agreeing to put yourself in their debt on Koller’s account means you’ll get to do a couple of extra side-quests, none of which will give your conscience much trouble. Is this really the best they can do?

When it came out, Deus Ex: Human Revolution was rightly criticised for a weak ending and some seriously ham-fisted attempts at worldbuilding and social commentary. I knew all that going in, and was still astounded by how bad it was at introducing its own ideas. But for all its flaws, I fell in love with its characters, and there were some touches that really stuck with me. I've had a whole mini-essay rolling around my brain for months just on the subtext it packs into who's on a first or last name basis with who – Jensen especially.

Our hero is ‘Jensen’ to most of his workmates (past and present), but ‘Adam’ to Megan and Sarif – Megan because they used to date, and Sarif because he’s the kind of friendly, personable boss who calls all his employees by their first names. But that familiarity takes on a whole other sinister dimension when you realise that Megan and Sarif are the same people responsible for basing their research on Jensen's DNA without his knowledge or consent (and in Sarif’s case, cutting off three perfectly good limbs while he was in a medical coma). Eliza – an AI who’s been watching him for god knows how long – calls him ‘Adam’ too. (So does Wayne Haas, the cop you have to talk your way past to get into the station, which is just more proof he’s Jensen’s bitter ex.)

Meanwhile, Pritchard and Malik – the two allies Jensen can trust to have his back – both call him ‘Jensen’. When Malik starts to get more familiar, it’s not by switching to first-name-basis, it’s by giving him a nickname (‘Spyboy’, which he responds to by calling her ‘Flygirl’). And that’s most of why I still default to calling the guy ‘Jensen’ myself: intended or otherwise, the game is pretty consistent in that the only people who call him by his first name have a serious lack of respect for his boundaries. I can’t tell you how intentional all that subtext was, but it shines through like a beacon.

He’s not the only example either. The game never tells us that Pritchard hates being called by his full first name, ‘Francis’, but it doesn’t have to – you can tell based on the way Jensen uses it (and it’s notable that he’s ‘Frank’ to Sarif, the ‘we’re all family here’-boss of the year). It’s a great little characterisation note for the both of them.

So you can imagine my disappointment that in DX:MD, most of Jensen’s new workmates just call him ‘Adam’. Maybe you could argue that now that unearned familiarity is going the other way, since here ‘Adam’ is the double-agent sneaking around under their noses – but then, Alex calls him ‘Adam’ too, and there’s nothing to suggest she’s shady. Miller and Duncan call him ‘Jensen’, which tracks with their characters and relationships, but I’ve long since hit the point where I can’t hear people calling this guy ‘Adam’ without twitching a little. Why are you calling him that? What are you really up to, you creep?

And this is just one thing I loved from that previous game that was lacking in the sequel. Pritchard and Malik may top my list of favourite characters, but it goes on and on. Tong Senior is more charismatic than any guy that shady has any right to be (and Tong Junior is just such a fantastic little shit), and Keitner deserved so much more screentime than she got. David Sarif is a fascinating mess of completely terrible person who still deserves real credit for standing up against the 'real' villains behind the scenes. Megan's level-headed conviction that she's doing the right thing even while working for incredibly shady people fascinates me. Quinn is great in both his personalities, and I even enjoyed Kavanagh and the sleezeball that is van Brugen so much more than I had any right to. There are compellingly grey characters all over this script, and the writers deserve serious credit for all of them.

But there’s no-one in Mankind Divided I enjoyed as much as the best players from HR. Including, I hate to say it, that one DLC which brought Pritchard back at last.

So, yeah. It's time to talk that last little footnote to this game.

The System Rift DLC

DX:HR had only one DLC mission, but it set a high standard, introduced some of my favourite characters (see above!), and contributed to the greater story in a big way. By comparison, MD has three DLC missions, and all have the exact same problems as the main campaign: there’s just nothing to invest in here. Do you actually care whether Jensen is able to save an undercover agent who’s gone native in some prison facility? Not once you’ve met the guy, trust me, he’s painfully bland. And that mission may actually be the strongest of the three.

The story justification for System Rift is as perfunctory as possible. Pritchard calls Jensen up out of the blue to call in a favour. He needs Jensen to recover some data from a bank vault, and along the way, you might find some evidence of shady insider trading between characters you’ve never met. And you have to ‘save Pritchard’s avatar’ from a virtual world, because reasons, which is exactly as trite as most attempts to build cyberspaces into gameplay. Oh, and you get to ride a funicular elevator at one point, because that’s about the level of what we get here as a callback.

As for new characters, you'll meet Shadowchild, a hacker friend of Pritchard, who I found depressingly dull. Attempts to characterise her mostly mean sitting through dialogue like “there are only a few hackers in a world who could do this, but fortunately for you I am one of them,” delivered in a relative monotone. Much as much as I enjoyed the fact that Miller was queer only if the player is paying attention to the details, doing the same thing again with Shadowchild just makes me feel like the writers don’t have the guts to make a character gay enough to risk upsetting the homophobes in their audience. It’s executed that much worse here too (look, I fully assumed whoever Shadowchild needed Jensen to leave that coded warning for must be someone she’d long since lost real contact with, because why the fuck would she need or trust a virtual stranger to do that for her real, current girlfriend when the stakes are this high? Come on!)

But what really kills this DLC for me is that Pritchard and Jensen’s relationship is given so little to work with. They’re not working together to find the people who put Jensen in hospital or tracking down the secrets of Jensen’s past this time. We’re not getting any insights into Pritchard’s past or hunting major Illuminati secrets either, there aren’t even innocent people in danger – there’s nothing personal here, nothing to invest in. The data Pritchard wants is a MacGuffin in the purest and most meaningless sense, and Jensen’s only helping because he owes a favour (and you won’t even know what for if you haven’t read the novel).

The fact Jensen’s now working for Pritchard directly ought to add new tension to their dynamic, but all it seems to do is throw a dampener over what grudging camaraderie they ever achieved. I do like that they've reached the point where Jensen doesn't even sound like he's sneering when he calls Pritchard 'Francis' anymore, but most of their banter was underwhelming – and dull as I found the core conflict of Black Light, even it delivered on that. Jensen is a surly asshole to Pritchard for no good reason from the moment he answers the call, and the idea that he’s pushing friends away to protect them is present but (at least for my money) underplayed. Pritchard, meanwhile, is here largely to deliver mission-related exposition. There were definitely exchanges I enjoyed ‒ I'm a shipper, I can't not like Jensen's last little 'take care of yourself' at the end ‒ but it's not much to hang a DLC on.

(And to be clear, if you did love System Rift for what it was, no judgement here. But goddamn, did you deserve something you could’ve loved so much more than this.)

So with all that said, where does that leave me for a conclusion? If the plan with Deus Ex: Mankind Divided was to make the series more like the original Deus Ex, then for my money, they’ve succeeded ‒ at least in that the plot is uninvolving, the characters are bland, and their relationships don’t evolve in any interesting way. But even the original DX managed some memorable reveals and a gloriously weird multiple-choice ending, where the heros could tell themselves they’d taken down the Illuminati and cured the plague. Jensen’s grand success at the end of MD is that a key UN vote on augmented rights hasn’t made the currently shitty status quo any worse. Everything that Human Revolution did well is missing here, and everything it did badly is just as bad.

And yet, at the end of the day, my single biggest disappointment may be that this really is it. There’s probably never going to be another Deus Ex game. I don’t know how you’d save a franchise from a rut like this, and it’s naïve to imagine you can only go up from here – but apparently it’d take more than one lackluster entry to kill my investment. It’s a hell of a bummer to see it end on a game that seems so ashamed of everything its predecessor ever did well.

It's enough of a bummer that rather than leave my own impressions rest there, I'm replaying Deus Ex: Human Revolution now, and you know what? Turns out it's not all nostalgia that's making me remember the last game so much better, because I'm having a great time with it all over again. The side quests you can pick up are just as truly absurd as they ever were (sure, random hooker I just met, I'll plant drugs in this guy's apartment for you!), but the stakes feel meaningful, the character dynamics are fun, and Pritchard is back being his terrible, sassy self. My absurd quest for enough XP to unlock all the cool powers ASAP has me spending way, way too long trying to set up double-takedowns and carrying vending machines around the middle of Detroit police station to try and block the sightlines between the computer I'm hacking and all the cops standing around the same room. Look, this is apparently my idea of fun, don't judge me.

For over a year now, I've had a couple of unposted bits of Jensen/Pritchard fic sitting around, never quite completed, and replaying the game has reignited the motivation to get them into some kind of shape worth showing to people. Lord knows I don't have the power to uncancel this franchise, but at least letting my own unfinished fic see the light of day is something I can do.

[thedaythatwas]

don't mind me, I'm just thinking about how much akechi would probably hate the fact that people defend his actions with some form of the argument "he was so young when he first started killing, he was taken advantage of and groomed by shido, etc."

this is going to be a long one, so let me add a page break real quick:

let me be clear: he was! the last thing I want to do is diminish akechi's agency, but when you are a young teenager there is absolutely no reason an adult in your life should be encouraging you to commit murder for their political gain. that feels... self evident? we know that akechi was young when he killed wakaba isshiki. shido saw an opportunity, and he took advantage of it. he's scummy. absolutely zero argument there.

still, it is integral to understanding akechi's character to remember that he viewed himself as taking advantage of shido throughout their relationship. he was aware that shido was using him, but he viewed himself as using shido right back. in his head, he had complete control of the situation, and his actions therein. for all accounts and purposes, he did! we all have control over our actions. akechi didn't need to do anything. we also know that he was eager to follow shido's orders, not for the sake of the orders themselves, but for his belief that his plan would end with shido utterly defeated and betrayed, groveling and desperate and recognizing akechi for everything he was. valuable. someone who maybe, shido shouldn't have abandoned.

so he was meticulous. perfect, and beyond reproach. we can see it in the interrogation room, when he shoots "akira." it's clear that he's still playing their game (asking akira if he's "figured it out yet"), but when he goes in for the kill, akechi is cold. we know that he cares about akira, but he puts any feelings that he might have aside for the sake of his ultimate goal. nothing is more important than ingratiating himself to shido and subsequently ruining him.

akechi's desire for revenge is complicated. yes, he wants to hurt shido, but more than that, he just wants to prove he's worth something to the man that ruined his life. he hates shido, and he needs him to see that he should have done better by him. he needs to be loved, even if that desire ends up twisted. we've all been there, yeah? it makes a lot of sense, all things considered. this in mind, it's pretty clear that akechi did not have nearly as much control over his relationship with shido as he thought he did. but I digress.

so, back to akechi defense. akechi sees himself as the sole perpetrator of his actions. technically, he was. but he was still taken advantage of. those truths can coexist.

that doesn't mean their coexistence is easy to digest. in the third semester, akechi acknowledges that he was manipulated by shido. arguably, his defining characteristic during the third semester is his refusal to be under someone else's control again, even at the cost of his own existence. still, he regrets the fact that he let himself be manipulated more than he regrets his own actions. for those, he seems unapologetic.

the crux of the issue here is akechi's acknowledgement that he let himself be controlled. that itself is a form of agency. allowing himself to be influenced was his own fault. at least, that's how I suspect he sees it. he can't allow it to not be his fault. that would be too hopeless for him to process.

akechi is angry, and sure as hell, he lets everyone know it. third semester akechi is absolutely awful in a completely different way from base game akechi (and I say this in the most affectionate way possible). as much as goro akechi hates the world, he hates goro akechi. anger internalized is rarely solely internal, likewise, anger externalized is rarely solely external. anger is also often a mask. the black mask is angry in the same way that the detective prince is polite to a tee. neither persona (no pun intended) is complete.

(after all, we know that akechi has feelings other than anger, even if he tries to downplay them. he turns himself into the police in akira's stead. he may not harbor affection for the rest of the thieves, but he certainly feels something for akira. call it respect. call it a need to be seen. call it love. I think that those are all pretty similar in the mind of our guy in question.)

the way I read it, akechi is his own worst enemy, and consciously or not, it seems that he sees himself that way as well.

to claim that akechi isn't accountable for his actions under shido would grate at him because, well, it just isn't true! at least not entirely. the argument that he was manipulated? it wouldn't work either, because akechi sees himself as at fault for that too.

the guy has issues. and isn't that what makes him compelling?

anyway! that's enough for today. perhaps I'll continue this later. believe it or not, I still have things to say!

[anchanted-one]

Koth Vortena Theories

I think it's well-known by now that I'm a massive Lana Beniko fan. But one character I don't talk much about as much, though I like him a lot as well, is Koth Vortena, arguably one of the biggest missed opportunities of SWTOR.

This is going to be a big post about Koth Vortena, unsung hero of Zakuul.

Apologies for the bad drawing.

So here's what little we know about Koth.

He's against harming civilians. To the point he'll walk away from leaders he finds too cruel and/or tyrannical. Sort of resolved in the game. His loyalty increases over time if you're Light, and evaporates if Dark.

Like most Zakuulans not in the know, he is a devotee of Valkorion. This is never resolved.

He has a conflict with Senya that goes nowhere. She cryptically tells you to keep an eye on him, as he has already betrayed one master. But this warning is only relevant in the most obvious way (see point 1). A Lightsider wouldn't have to worry at all. Not to mention, Senya is also a defector. So we don't know where her venom comes from. Her accusation that Koth abandoned his post flies in the face of her later statement that the Knights of Zakuul should've rebelled once Arcann slaughtered the Scions (who are way more legitimate targets than the civilians of Denon)

He is still loyal to Zakuul itself. If you are Lightsided (i.e. he stays with you past KOTFE) he is the only one who advocates for Zakuul. Even Arcann and Senya don't.

All of these paint a rather incomplete story.

I know KOTFEET got more rushed as time went on, but Koth's story is the one that stands as the most obviously abandoned.

The biggest nonresolution is his devotion to Valky. And by extension, the Eternal Empire's adherence to Valkorionism. The citizens of Zakuul still believe in Valk by the end of KOTET, and we have no reason to believe that they're any closer to figuring out the truth.

I recall that in cut content, there was a discarded accusation from Senya about his ambitions. We also know that KOTFEET was supposed to be a three-parter, with Arcann being the big bad for KOTFE, Vaylin for KOTET, and Valk for Part III (KOTIE? KOT Immortal Emperor?).

One theory I had was that Koth might have become a new host for Valkorion at the end of KOTET. Willingly or otherwise, perhaps depending on player choices. And that perhaps his eyes would be opened at the end of III, which would end in an Echoes of Oblivion-esque way.

The second theory is related to another piece of cut dialogue, this one from Vaylin. She tells Arcann "Thexan isn't our only sibling," or something similar. Now, the obvious implication is that the Player Character is this mysterious missing sibling, but after a quick look at this reddit post's summary, I had a different theory. A very tinfoily theory.

(Quick summary: this post compares the Imperial family to the Zakuulan pantheon. Valk is Izax, Senya is Scyva, Arcann is Esne, Vaylin is Tyth, and Thexan is Aivela. Which leaves Nahut, the god of apathy or the hated son)

Maybe that other sibling--or half-sibling, per my tinfoil hat theory--was Koth Vortena. I don't know if it was confirmed that it was the Outlander for sure, but this kinda clashes with the roleplaying aspect of the game. And the species. Our player character is definitely not a hybrid.

Maybe at some point, Valkorion had another mistress who bore him another son, but who got exiled with him for some unknown offense. Possibly, before the twins were born, as Koth appears to be a bit older than Arcann.

Reasons why I was thinking about this now.

He is the only other major Zakuulan we frequently interact with. While it still makes sense that he's an ordinary guy, it could've also meant that he was going to play a significant role in the future of Zakuul.

Senya's dislike of Koth would be a little more understandable if she always saw him as a threat to her own children's legitimacy, and couldn't let go of it even after all this time. It also goes with her accusation about his ambition. Koth might not know about his parentage, as his in-game reason for hating Senya totally makes sense. She was Arcann's loyal Knight who hunted him and his crew, and nearly killed them on at least a few occasions. But then, he might just as easily resent her for believing that she was the reason why his mother was cast aside, even if she had nothing to do with it.

Again, his unflinching loyalty to Zakuul no matter its inner darkness. His continued mission to keep it safe, even after KOTFEET. He is an excellent candidate for the new leader (emperor/king) of Zakuul, had it not been instead given to... who's that other guy? Doesn't matter.

This theory actually goes well with the 'Maybe Koth was meant to be Valkorion's new vessel' angle.

Combining both theories, here's what Koth's originally intended story might have been like, but got cut because it was seen as racist.

Despite the obvious problems in this story, I feel like this would've had a more complete arc for Koth, and allowed him to have a story of his own that wasn't relegated to the background.

Koth would become a contender for the Eternal Throne after proving his lineage.

He helps the Alliance overthrow Arcann and Vaylin, but perhaps in a more prominent leadership role. Zakuulans disaffected with Arcann would flock to his banner.

He is approached by Valkorion, who manages to escape the Outlander's body.

Koth accepts--perhaps reluctantly--to serve as his vessel. He is still loyal, after all. Perhaps he might request Valkorion not to destroy an Outlander he's grown fond of (and Lana.)

Inside Valkorion's psyche, he gets horrified, finally seeing the man for what he really is. The revitalized Immortal Emperor may be openly harsh and cruel, even to the people of Zakuul, which might be the reason why they also lose their faith in him. Or the Alliance could find proof revealing his true nature.

Inside his own head, Koth helps the Alliance (who at this time might include OL, Lana, Theron, Scourge, Kira, Satele, Marr, Revan, the Exile, the Tiralls, and maybe even others like Dramath) fight and slay Tenebrae/Vitiate/Valkorion. He might survive, or not. If he does, he's the new Emperor of Zakuul, but with only a small portion its once endless fleet. (Perhaps the Alliance was forced to sacrifice the Gravestone to bring it to this state. But there are enough ships left that the Pub and Imp decide not to tangle with them)

I would like you guys' opinions on this!

[joltyflare]

(Sun and Moon Show Rant #4: Ruin's Arguably The Most Tragic Character In The Series)

Buckle up guys, this is gonna be a long rant!

So, Ruin. He has basically become the most hated character in the series after Solar's death. I'm a Solar simp, believe me, so I understand why people are mad. But I don't hate Ruin for it. I don't hate Ruin at all. I'll explain more in this rant.

So, at first when Ruin was "cured" I was skeptical like everyone else. I mean not too long before he was injected he went on about how he was a good actor. I felt like this could be foreshadowing. In hindsight, I was correct. However, I actually fell for his ball pit shark, clumsy, unable-to-fix-things-but-trying antics (which one of my rant posts displays as an example IN FULL). When he revealed himself to not be that it took a few days to get used to his character, which was made harder by the fact he was responsible for Solar's death.

That said, I did have the theory that he was going to do things that Sun and Moon wouldn't like that possibly involved the Creator Council and I was right on the money with that theory and I was so happy! Kinda. I didn't like that Solar of all people had to die. I was just happy my theory was correct.

Anyway, I got used to this real side of him that has finally been revealed. Then, as I thought about it, and as more episodes passed, I realized how much I love Ruin as well as how tragic his life has been. He might just have the saddest backstory of any character in this series! Sure, he hasn't died yet (as far as we know), but he has suffered a fate much worse than dying.

So, now onto the part everyone is here for...

First of all, Ruin has had to deal with the trauma of slowly watching his friends succumb to a virus that he found out too late he was carrying. He watched as they turned against each other and as the world was sent into chaos because of the virus! By the sounds of it in the episode where Eclipse confronted him about why he was made, it sounds like Ruin didn't know why they were turning against each other at first and found out later. Keep in mind that he was the carrier of this virus, which means that he was carrying it without realizing it if this was the case.

So far, we can only theorize as to how he came to the point where he carried the virus and spread it to the other animatronics without meaning to. Someone pointed out that it was slightly implied his Creator didn't make it and someone else did. People assumed this to be Ruin, though with what we know about him he obviously didn't do it...right? Well, people have proposed the theory that the Creator somehow tricked him into making it and carrying it. From what we know about Creators, all of them are manipulative and have a way with words.

Anyway, so...yeah, he had to deal with watching his friends lose their minds and turn on one another, succumbing to a virus that ended up destroying his dimension. This was bad enough on its own but it obviously gets worse from there.

Ruin had to pretend to also be inflicted himself. He had to act like he didn't mind killing people. To put it in perspective: He had to pretend that he was a psychotic killer robot who killed and maimed people and animatronics for fun and games. When in reality, he didn't like it. Not one bit. He had to do this to survive and have his plans remain undetected. For years on end. He had to trick people into thinking this was what he was like and he had to kill just to prove it, when in reality he hated every second of what he did and currently hates himself for it.

On top of that, his body deteriorated and fell apart. That was just something he had to live with as part of his act. As a way to fit in with his now-deranged former friends who also turned on him because of their virus.

He had no choice but to pretend to be some deranged maniac who loved killing and had to deal with his friends slowly decaying physically and mentally, also while learning there wasn't much he could do for them in the end. However, he did learn that he could save other dimensions...by destroying the Creator Council. And this was a goal he had to work toward for a long, long time. He had to figure out how to kill all the Creators involved and when he did figure out a way to do so, the only thing he could come up with was to destroy 5,000 of their dimensions entirely and essentially kill off every single inhabitant of those dimensions. He couldn't think of another way but he knew they were too dangerous to keep alive and that 5,000 wasn't that big of a number when taken into consideration the infinite amount of dimensions that would have been affected by the Creator Council.

Maybe Ruin even thought that destroying the dimensions was a better fate for the ones that were destroyed than having their Creators ruin them themselves. Maybe he thought them just being destroyed in a fraction of a second was merciful for the dimensions, which would make sense after what he saw his own one go through.

He couldn't think of a way to get rid of the Creators without many casualties. Not only did he know this, but he also knew that those in other dimensions who were affected by these collapses would seek him out to kill him. He knew he'd have enemies after this. He knew anyone who had loved ones from those dimensions would lose them suddenly. But he had no other option. He thought about this and plotted this for years. He didn't want to make anyone else suffer but strongly believed that the consequences were worth getting rid of the Creator. He did this for the best interests of every other dimension that would have been affected by this council...which would have been way more if he hadn't stopped them.

Ruin never wanted another dimension to suffer the slow, violent fate of his own. On top of this, nobody would love him for it. He knew this. He knew that after he did this, everyone would hate him and that nobody would appreciate this and that most people he saved would obviously have no clue. To him, it was necessary to save others and he didn't care if it was a thankless act.

We also have to keep in mind the fact that he did this in a dimension where he began to be treated kindly (at least for the most part) by its inhabitants. Kinder than he believed he deserved, knowing what he had done and what he was going to do. Even though they kept him at an arm's length, he got to know Sun, Moon, Solar, Earth, and Lunar to a degree. Some of them mainly through observation. He knew they wouldn't approve of what he was doing and knew the only way to distract them was to bring back someone they feared and hated most, after having slowly been getting treated more and more kindly by them, knowing they believed they had spared his life after saving him from a cure. Yet he felt he had to bring back their greatest enemy to distract them. All while keeping the act of being innocent, clumsy, and just weird.

Before this, he had to make everyone fear interrupting his plans by resurrecting Bloomoon, someone he knew would maniacally kill everything in sight and had to pretend he shared their joy in doing so.

But, yeah, back to his relations with Sun and Moon...he began to clearly begin feeling some sort of fondness for them, I believe, because I have my doubts he would've even thought of keeping Solar alive when he had been under the "virus" persona. At that time, I don't think he felt any sort of kinship with them yet and would simply have continued to treat them as part of the necessary casualties without even bothering to think of sparing Solar from his equation... But after that, when he'd spent months around them and even got to the point of knocking Solar out and copying his code, I believe he did genuinely begin caring more than he would have liked given what he was planning. I believe that this is why he did try doing what he could to spare Solar and found out he couldn't no matter what he tried.

So, after failing to find a way to prevent Solar from being wiped out with the dimension, Ruin had to watch his family react to his death and watch them grieve. Not only did he wait for them to come so he could at least explain what he did, but he continued to face their grief and then allowed them to do what he liked. This leads me to...

He believed he would die. Then and there, he believed Moon would probably kill him or send Eclipse to kill him. If not, then he probably believed this would occur immediately after Moon copied his data. But Ruin surrendered himself entirely to him and his family. Keep in mind that this guy has magic. He could've done whatever he wanted to after this. But he handed himself in. Some people think that this could've been part of a different plan but...really? I don't think so. I mean, by all means, he could have gone off and done anything he wanted. Monitored everything from afar if he needed to. But he didn't. This shows further proof that he really, truly does lack self-interest. This is huge right now in determining whether or not he's truthful. Plus, everything else he has acted out so far has involved him suffering a bit as a result. This Ruin, the one who killed all the Creators and gave himself up to Sun and Moon and their family, is undoubtedly the real Ruin. We finally have him as who he is.

Adding onto the fact that he handed himself in, he now has to watch their grief up close even longer after believing he probably would be dead by now. He has to watch as they suffer Solar's loss and has to deal with being confronted and hated on as he stands completely still in his cell. He has admitted that he hates himself and that he wants to die, having no real reason to live now that he believes he has freed the universe from the Creators. Wanting them to hurry up and kill him already. Having no friends who are alive. I don't believe he expected to be alive this long. Since he admitted to feeling genuine guilt over the death of Solar and hating himself, it's safe to assume it must hit him hard inside being reminded of the things he felt he had to do. He didn't enjoy making others suffer or tricking others. He was just good at pretending and it was a skill he needed to get what he felt he had to do.

I think he didn't want to get close to the family and began to care for them more than he wanted to admit. He even admitted that made it harder for him to have to trick them, knowing that Moon was even thinking of considering him family. That would've been his last opportunity to have friends or family again and he gave it up completely for his goal.

Ruin is an anti-villain who did what he believed he had to for the good of others, despite it being in a way that was tragic and awful. He believed it to be the only way. He had to watch his friends die. He had to pretend to be maniacal and evil and enjoy killing for who knows how long...and imagine how his first kill felt when he had to do this!). When he finally dropped that act (which he was probably quite happy he had an excuse to do!), he had to pretend to be a clumsy family friend. He gave up the chance to truly have them as his family and friends to achieve his goal. He now has to sit in a cell, watching the grief of everyone around him, knowing he will be both hated and scorned for what he did, even giving himself up just to face their wrath because he deserves it. Waiting for his death. He believed it was for a good cause...even if he'll never, ever be recognized for it. Even if he knows he is going to be despised for as long as the universes exist, with no one who will appreciate what he did.

And that is just tragic.

You can also note that he sounds more and more worn down with each interaction he has in his cell.

Well, I wonder what will happen to him now. I feel like his story is not yet over and he will not get the death he yearns for. He's still important to the plot, I believe, and I feel like he still has potential that can be squeezed outta him!

I'm so curious to know what will happen to who I believe is the most tragic antagonist in the series. Character in the series. If he dies, I hope it's meaningful. He's such a good character!!

Edit: Oh, yeah, and he also mentioned knowing a thing about grieving with others. Bonus angst points