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general-cyno · 6 months

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I finally got to thriller bark and of course I'm having many feelings about it, so long ramble ahead. what makes this kind of sacrifice have so much impact narrative-wise is precisely bc of which character does it and imo there was no better choice than zoro.

while his life was certainly in danger, zoro still joined luffy's crew in way less dire circumstances than most of the other straw hats and he's someone that luffy actively sought out to embark his journey with. zoro's dream of becoming of the world's greatest swordsman is one that matches luffy's own of becoming king of the pirates. this doesn't lessen the importance of the crew's dreams, but imo it's clear that there's a reason why zoro's the first to join. why luffy trusts him to take care of everyone and lead them when he's otherwise busy fighting the biggest bads, incapacitated or just not present for whatever reason and why zoro does exactly that. why, for example, he trusted zoro's judgment abt usopp coming back even though luffy was initially ready to accept him without even an apology needed.

another thing to note, which I don't think is a coincidence either, is that zoro's either been mistaken for the captain or has left ppl wondering why he isn't more than a few times already, throughout the manga. zoro's strong, a very independent guy, who already had quite the reputation before he decided to be part of luffy's crew. ppl still call him the pirate hunter. he's got a dream he's hellbent on achieving, and it's not only his, but also kuina's. he's not afraid of dying for it but it's not like he wants to, yknow? and he's never one to go down without a fight. zoro also admits during the davy back ordeal that there's no point to him being a pirate if he's not part of luffy's crew. all of these things make thriller bark so special.

this?

is zoro renouncing to his dream, his promise to kuina, to his own life - not in battle, and certainly not as a way to achieve the very dream he's forfeiting - and he's doing it to keep luffy safe. bc zoro's absolutely certain that luffy WILL become the pirate king and if zoro has to cast all that aside to make sure of it, he will. this is zoro taking all of luffy's pain as his own while protecting luffy's life and dream, putting them even above his. which, to an extent, also guarantees (from his pov, at least) the rest of the crew's safety. that's huge, so much that even kuma questions his decision.

and yeah he's protecting the crew, but it's very obvious that he's doing this for luffy. kuma points it out, as shown above, and he had already voiced out his intention to leave with luffy's head only, specifically. it's luffy's pain that zoro's willing to take on and die for.

also perhaps you'd think this seems a bit one-sided no? but if you ask me, zoro choosing to pretend nothing happened is proof that it isn't. sure, it's not like zoro's the type of character who'd boast or openly talk abt this kind of sacrifice, but this is what he said to luffy when he agreed to join him:

luffy adores his crew. he's willing to die for them, protecting and saving them always, and he takes their dreams very seriously. zoro has witnessed this from the very beginning, and also took it upon himself to remind luffy of how much they all relied on him back when usopp left the crew, so that luffy wouldn't doubt himself. imagine how luffy would've reacted or even felt knowing that zoro had done this. for him.

in hindsight, this panel from the beginning of the arc is a bit of a tragedy honestly. (still cute though!)

#zolu #tp #long post #going insane in several different ways. I already cried on twt so ofc I had to come here too #I can't think too much abt that panel of zoro tossing aside his swords (EVEN WADO!!) otherwise I'd lose it fr the brainrot is catastrophic #I was heavily spoiled abt this ages ago anyway but it still hit me like a fucking truck #I remember seeing all these posts recently wondering abt why zoro is even this devoted to luffy and like.#if anything; zoro's loyalty and devotion are a reflection of luffy's for him (and the crew)#I love them so MUCH #also just. to think luffy's always risking his everything for other ppl and this time it's zoro who keeps HIM safe. I feel crazy #jay reads op

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destinationtoast · 16 days

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Snogging Rebecca was like making out with a grandfather clock: intimidatingly large and elegant, with more hidden complexity than you might first imagine.

- Keeley, in a fic I dreamt I was writing last night

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arolesbianism · 5 months

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Hiiii besties I um. Rly want money. Would anyone want a tweened icon like these for like $20? I'm usually pretty fast with them so it shouldn't take longer than like a few days max

#rat rambles #I can accept payment through pretty much anything as long as its not too much of a hassle to set up #dw if you can't afford it its not like an emergency I just want to have the money to buy my siblings (and myself) presents this year #so like 3 or 4 coms like this should be enough for some basic gifts at least #ofc feel free to tip or get one of my normal coms if you wanna pay more but Im going cheap since I just want smth #idk if I wanna advertise this too hard tho so do pls reblog but Im not gonna go all out with tags 👍#Ill also probably post this offer on toyhouse if this gets no results #so yeah limited time cheap ass tweened icons for less than my normal non animated busts get em while theyre hot or whatever

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prince-liest · 22 days

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You inspired me to write! And I got up to 2k words for the first time ever when it comes to writing for myself... but I'm struggling a bit 😅 Do you have any advice about narrator POV and how you use your verb tenses? It's like I have no idea how you manage to "head-hop" while still being an omniscient narrator so smoothly & effortlessly. And verb tenses. if I write "was" one more time I might pop a gasket lol. any help is appreciated <3 have a good one!

First of all, that's freaking amazing! 2k is a lot, congratulations! That might sound weird coming from me considering how many words I put out, but I 100% remember the struggle of being newer to writing and hitting multiple thousands of words for the first time - I'm so happy for you!

Second of all: I actually write exclusively in third person limited POV, not third person omniscient! Even though I'm writing in third person, the narration is fully from the perspective of the point of view character, which I personally enjoy a lot because it allows for a lot of unreliable narration and also characterization through how their train of thought manifests (choppy, stressed, dreamy, etc). That's why when I'm writing from the point of view of character A, for example, any assumptions about character B's motivations are what character A is thinking, not an omniscient narrator informing you.

That said, you still have to head-hop specifically to write the actual visible actions and dialogue of the second character, and that's actually the most recent thing that I used to struggle with in writing specifically because I got most of my initial writing experience doing roleplay where I was only ever responsible for one character's thoughts and actions at a time.

Honestly, the main thing I can say is that it gets much, much easier with practice. When you start out, it will genuinely just take you longer to switch from the mindset of one character to another! I used to take character notes to put together little snapshot profiles of character headspaces to re-orient myself between the characters I was writing when I felt like I was getting lost. They included things like a few traits to keep in mind, behavior mindset, and snippets of dialogue that I thought were very representative. I don't use these anymore, but I do still do things like rewatch episodes or reread portions of books when I'm learning new characters to orient myself to their personality. It's like code-switching to me nowadays.

As for verb tense: I was a consummate Homestuck, so I started out writing in second person present tense, hahaha, and while I've adopted the third person POV (and believe me, this took adjusting), I've kept writing in present tense as a personal preference. I like it because it makes things feel more in-the-moment as they're happening, because there's less grammatical fuckery involved when describing the past vs the present, and just because I'm used to it. That said, past tense is more common and stands out less to people, and I think that you are finding all of your "was"s a lot more noticable than a reader would! People generally don't really notice the tense of what they're reading once they get into the flow of it.

#ask #personal #Anonymous #my writing #writing advice #I also tried to switch to past tense and kept fucking it up #like genuinely switching tenses halfway through a paragraph and not noticing at ALL #and unlike writing in second person POV it didn't seem like an actual issue wrt readability so I just stopped trying #long post #I hope this was at least a bit helpful!#I've honestly never written an omniscient narrator so I'm afraid I can't be much help with that #I'm too much of a sucker for unreliable limited narrators haha #I love how telling a narration can be about a character's mindset #also side note my oldest fic on AO3 which is a little Soul Eater oneshot from 2015 is in second person hahaha #A RELIC #(ofc I have some fantroll stuff on there as well but that's SUPPOSED to be second person)

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adriancatrin · 2 years

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me: i want to draw something romantic

my braincell: sokka steals zukos NOODLES

#my art #i suck at coloring so i added the b&w too #i did Kind of try w the coloring tho #it’s just ugh #color shmolor #shadows shmadows #also why do reds not blend as well as other colors?? zukos clothes gave me pain #speaking of his clothes i put him in his ember island incognito fit because u can’t stop me #also also i kind of HATE drawing zuko where you can't see his scar?? it feels wrong somehow ugh #but this was the best layout i could think of so:(#if anyone wants to color it better somehow feel free lololol just source me ofc #for some reason my image description deleted and i can't get it back???#gah i suck at tumblr now it's been too long #this is pens and copic markers on stone paper #zukka #sokka x zuko #sokka/zuko #fan art #atla

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moonscape · 3 months

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thinking about that one person in the pmd tag a few years ago who was like "if you like gates and super you're an IDIOT who only likes them for nostalgia" like. what. first of all who fuckin cares if somebody likes something for nostalgia it's no big deal. and secondly who's to say you don't like rt and explorers for nostalgia? they came out first after all.

#bwark #i think as long as you can accept its faults it's okay to like something for nostalgia #and ive seen gates and super fans do that time and time again. they can admit that the games have problems but still love them #it's explorers fans who can't seem to do that?? people act like explorers of sky is the most perfect game and like. no it's not #i'm saying this as somebody whose favourite game ever is eos and considers it a work of art: it's not perfect #on my most recent playthrough the dialogue was especially grating good lord it's so bad #i know hero and partner are gay and in love but can partner please stop repeating hero's name every 5 seconds #not even getting into how bad aegis cave is and how darkrai is an utter failure of a villain #and rt just has first game syndrome. i can't be too harsh on it but there are a lot of glaring problems #and ofc gates and super have their problems. gti haters never fucking shut up about them #tldr all of the games are wonderful while simultaneously sucking shit at certain aspects and i wish pmd fans would stop splitting hairs over #their superiority complex over it. pmd fans stop talking forever please and thank you <3

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dimiclaudeblaigan · 2 months

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I know you all know by default how much I love this conversation, but in RD at least, a lot of characters fall out of relevancy after a certain point (whereas in PoR you could argue that having full supports prevents this). Shinon is one of the only side characters who doesn't really do this, having three base conversations throughout part three (which is pretty fucking good considering several of the chapters aren't even with the Greil Mercenaries).

Back in PoR, Shinon asks for praise/gratitude. Expects it. By this point he doesn't want it anymore. He didn't want it when he was selling bows for emergency income (which Rolf took up as well) and he doesn't want it here either. His personality has chilled out so much from being a hothead and he's much more expressive of his actual feelings (even if you compare his standard death quotes in both games, he's much more emotionally expressive in RD).

A lot of characters - most honestly, including even the GMs (barring Boyd if he A supports Mist which gives him more content and expresses a whole lot of maturity compared to PoR Boyd) tend to drop off in development. They might stick around (ex. PoR puts all the major groups in the spotlight until the next group shows up and goes through all of them), but the development eventually stagnates outside of supports (including in base conversations, which this one is such).

Since RD doesn't get supports with full conversations, you only get snippets of development/characterization through them, while the base conversations may offer insight into the characters and show you how they've changed over the years but don't truly develop them. Shinon is a very lucky situation for his character because he keeps returning in both games, and it helps develop him across both games with a full timeline (similar to Naesala, who has a fully fleshed out story and personality development over both games and never stops dead at any point in the pair of games).

In PoR Shinon was distant and selectively a bit cold (Greil, Rolf and Gatrie excluded from that, and Mist to an extent as well). RD gives the impression that he just... doesn't care about all that anymore. He's fine where he is and has learned he can live with these people and not have to expect betrayal. He doesn't have to anticipate being on his own ever again. There's no real reason for him to keep up the walls and barriers to protect himself, and he's not living just to survive anymore.

Most times when I end up loving a character it's because of the content given to me and what have I to work with, rather than loving a character and searching for things to love. I fully expect that that's why I finally, after years of being unable to decide who my Tellius favorite was because I loved several of them too dearly to decide, found myself able to settle on Shinon.

When I got older and gave it more thought, considering all the development and traits of each of them and how responsive I was to them, one day I asked myself, well okay, what if someone asked you who your favorite was? What if you still did love the same ones as your number one, all of them, but could only give one name quick and simple? Who would you pick? The first name that instantly hit me was Shinon. That was enough for me to decide okay, there's a reason he's the first person who instantly came to me if I had to truly settle on one. I hadn't quite figured it out yet, but I knew there was a reason that if I had to pick a single standout, it would be him.

A lot of it harkens back to this conversation. It is development in and of itself, and also very expressive of who he is. The fact that he also doesn't fall off in conversations and is more recurring than not also gives me more to examine about him and more to think about. It puts him in a more likely position to think about him and who he is than I would for characters the writers didn't really bother developing (including other recurring characters like Marcia, who keep coming back in both games similar to Shinon, but see no development as a person - unfortunately in her case, in either game).

He has a very rich, detailed and unforgotten-by-the-writers character and one whose story ends on a very high note. I say "ends" in the sense of main story/base content, but it technically continues if he's taken to the Tower and gains the ability to A support various other characters who he otherwise could not support or could only reach a B support with, such as Sanaki, Tibarn, etc. This conversation is like an accumulation of his growth between both games, including the subtle things you can only pick up on through actions/other character lines.

Ike says he (everyone, which includes Shinon) chose to stay with them when he told everyone who their next employer was/what they'd be doing/etc, and Ike gave him and Soren an out if they weren't comfortable with it. They weren't all forced to go. That says by itself that Shinon made that choice on his own. He chose to stay with them when he was not yet totally comfortable with laguz and was still working on that part of himself (the fact that he uses the term "laguz" at all is already a huge step up from where he leaves off on his A support with Janaff, which did not leave off poorly at all).

Last time Shinon was uncomfortable with something in the Greil Mercenaries, he made the choice to leave. When he did come back, he was not exclusively surrounded by only the GMs and otherwise, purely laguz (which prior to meeting Janaff I would argue he was not ready for at all at the time). Here, he was, and he still made the choice to stay with them knowing exactly what his situation would look like.

Another thing worth considering is how much of a hothead Shinon was in PoR, but he still took Rolf on as a student. While I'm not sure exactly how accurate Mist's statement is about "forcing" Rhys to teach her (it's possible she was pushy about it because he didn't want to, such as because it might mean she might end up on the battlefield), we do know Rolf wanted to learn and was accepted.

We can easily infer through their conversations that Shinon would rather teach him to survive and have a safety net rather than worry about him being on a battlefield. Shinon saw that he was motivated to learn and, regardless of the fact that he was still in survival mode himself and not of the mind of "I'll be with these people forever and want to help them", taught him while apparently having told him "things like this happen" with mercenaries (i.e. different employers, separation, etc). If they ended up on opposite sides but Rolf could wield a weapon, that could endanger him, but he does it anyway. His priority is always survival, but it's also the survival of children and anyone he cares about. He also dies begrudgingly in his PoR death quote, which is completely opposite of his death quote against Rolf.

Another thing for me: he's also very confident and aware of his capabilities as a marksman. He knows what he's worth and at this point, he no longer brags about it (he used to all the time in PoR). He sees no reason to have to prop himself up. There's no insecurity in him that makes him feel the need to try to be open about being better than anyone else. He knows and accepts what he's worth without feeling the need to tell people about it.

If someone asked him what he thought of himself/his own worth, yeah, he'd admit his skill and capability without being too humble, but he also wouldn't go overboard with it or say it during instances that don't really warrant it (basically, if absolutely nobody asked, he'd say it anyway in PoR. In RD he doesn't really seem to give a shit anymore about letting the whole world know how good he is). He's lost the whole pick me, look at me sort of attitude. Imo it's also due to a higher amount of respect he has for himself now, and a much healthier one. He doesn't care about being the best anymore (he'd be perfectly happy if Rolf was instead) and is just satisfied knowing his skill on his own. He's satisfied not being alive just to survive, but to be with this mercenary group and actually able to live.

As a side note, we never actually see him having drunk or in the middle of drinking in RD, so... it's also likely he's worked on his possible PoR drinking issue too!

All in all, he's just one of the few non-main characters who came a whole long way with a full story. He feels very different in RD, but not so much that he feels like a different character entirely. For me, I can feel the growth in who he is, and that to me is an excellent handling of a character. When I can feel how different they are from beginning to end, I can feel the intent of character growth behind it. I can't tell you with certainty that the writers took a liking to him and so biasly kept sticking in dialogue for him (and singlehandedly made him one of the solidly best units in RD, for that matter...), but he's definitely repeatedly present and has hefty, story/backstory littered implications.

His dialogue feels meaningful to his own personal story in all his conversations. In other words, he doesn't have a conversation that feels devoid of meaning. It comes across more as all of his content exists for a reason/has meaning behind it. There's no wasted dialogue with him. When he's there, it means something for his character (comparatively to other side characters who may have lengthy conversations but you walk away having gotten nothing out of it, be that in PoR and/or RD).

He has fewer supports than most of the cast in PoR, but every single one had some kind of direction to it. Even if you look at his C support with Janaff and go "well that's just classic early PoR Shinon", the point of that is exactly that: that he starts out who we recognize and develops from there. That support alone goes from that to a lot of growth in three conversations, and beneficially so on both sides.

Simply put, he has more content the average Tellius character (including all of his boss quotes in chapter 18), and everything leads up to who he is by this conversation. It's a full story for a side character, later including personalized support dialogue for A supports, and he just happens to exhibit a lot of growth and traits that I already lean toward (hence why he was in my top spot all along, just tied with others. Now he's not tied with others and has the top spot to himself!).

I think it's likely it's the fact that as mentioned, none of his conversations are throwaway conversations. You never walk away from his conversations having gotten nothing (I mean, I'm sure people who refuse to see it don't notice precisely because they are willing themselves to refuse to see it to find excuses to keep hating him). Even in his first RD base conversation, the fact that he acts as you'd expect but drops a "laguz" in there is already a hint for his growth direction on top of being there at all. It's really just up from there, as is the case with all his content.

I tend to lean toward characters with a whole fountain of insightful conversations and depth, and in FE games you often don't find those characters outside of the mains. While I'd argue Tellius is a lot less tropey than modern FE (there were some tropey types like Makalov and Ilyana whose characters are basically nothing without their tropes), a lot of its side characters are still reduced to very surface level characterization with no real growth.

Shinon was very lucky to get as much as he did, and I'd say he has just as much if not more personal depth and lore than even some of the mains themselves. Imo he's a very lucky and rare find in FE games, when there are so many goddamn characters that the writers can't flesh them all out (reasonably of course, but it makes it even more special when it happens for non mains). Even with the Fodlan games and all its content, a lot if not most of its characters are full on tropes with little to nothing in the way of anything else. Engage suffers from it too, with a few diamonds in the rough and not much else.

That's not to say I hate the games or their characters, because obviously I would not still be playing new titles to the franchise if I hated it. I'm saying it makes the ones with as much depth as Shinon a gold mine to be found amidst a very large cast of characters that don't usually get that treatment.

anyway i will always talk abt shinon more when able so this is Not The End but i will end this post here lest it turns into another 20+ paragraphs.

#DCB RD Run #Shinon #i was gonna post this a long time ago but then my fandom interests shifted again #but then a friend in said fandom showed blatant interest in shinon and that's all it took #i wasn't kidding when i said even when i go into other fandoms tellius just STICKS with me #shinon can't leave me and i can't leave him i am simply bound to him at this point #i remember back in the day when i couldn't determine who my fave was in these games #and i just asked myself like... if someone asked for your fave and you could only pick one char #who would you pick in that situation (since when trying to decide i was always like #it's oscar ike shinon ranulf and soren and probably reyson!!!) but if i had to pick only one?#asking MYSELF that was difficult... but if i considered someone ELSE asking me?#my answer was immediately shinon. as shinon himself would say! ''no hesitation''!#that was when i actually genuinely knew my answer. kinda hard to deny when my little heart and brain just #instantly processed that answer without any actual thought. I stuck with it since and honestly???#I've been so happy for it. I've been so happy expressing my love for him!#I love Ike too ofc but it's a very different feeling ig since Ike is already insanely loved by the fandom #shinon is like... my special little guy

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