This was copied from the submission/judging rules (that's why the numbers are bad)
0. Standard tournament rules: be polite, et cetera.
1. Inconsistent characterization must be present past the first part- no Early Installment Weirdness.
4. Liberty is reserved to add more rules
5. Inconsistency must be in canon, not fandom misinterpreting. That's a separate thing.
6. Character development is not inconsistency.
7. Do not do a Squimbus v. Pikachu; don't vote for one character that doesn't really fit it over a character you don't know.
Match links below the cut. The winner of Quat A will face off against Quat B; same for C and D. The winner of Oct 1 will face off against Oct 2 for that Quat.
As the one who submitted Aubrey, I can say that a Descendants character stands no chance against a Glee character in the first round of a competition like this.
yeah, sorry, the seeding shaked out that way- aubrey had one submission and well.
Aaaaaahh so Voyager was the worst Trek in terms of characterization, so many amazing characters who were brutalized by bad and inconsistent writing BUT. What they did with Janeway really takes the cake. So much potential! So squandered! I wanted to love her so much but it was all a hot mess
Max Camp Camp
Season 4 fucked over his characterization so bad. Like. What the hell was that little "I'm a good person now" monologue. Also imo, it feels like he gets character development and then it gets pretty much immediately thrown out the window in the next episode. And yeah, I know that it's an episodic comedy but in that case, you shouldn't play pretend serialized for an episode. Also don't get me fucking started on The Forest
Submissions propaganda will be here. Feel free to reblog or reply to this post with additional inconsistency in characterization, or to refu
Submissions propaganda will be here. Feel free to reblog or reply to this post with additional inconsistency in characterization, or to refu
Out of all the Glee characters her characterisation was the most erratic which is really saying something
Though probably every single character in Glee would qualify, I went with Quinn is because she's probably the most notable example of this. Because of petty vengance reasons she's consistently given plotlines that are meant to paint her in a terrible light, despite the fact that it doesn't make any sense for her character to be doing any of it. From making her be absent from both her supposed best best friends' wedding, and high school boyfriend's funeral, to making her try to steal back her baby with barely any explenation given, she's always made to do the most out of pocket and personality-wise inconsistent stuff. Perhaps one of the most grevious offenses is when she starts dating Puck again, calling him the love of her life. This is the same Puck who took advantage of her and impregnated her when she was drunk, and whom she previously has shown literally zero interest in. Everytime she shows an ounce of character growth, the writers are like, haha, what if we made her backtrack on all that, and instead subjected her to more bullshit, wouldn't that be funn, WOULDN'T IT. Also: the fact that her friendship with Mercedes completely dissipated after season one is an easy forgottan crime compared to some of the other stuff the writers put her up to, but it still hurts an awful lot. They could have been,,, so much,,,,
Princess Audrey
First movie: after being the mean girl who hates on the main character throughout the entire movie, the MC does one good deed after doing a lot of bad things and suddenly they're both cool with each other, willing to do a music number together too. Book series: she's a nice but dumb/unskilled airhead apparently Animated series: she is no longer mentally ill. has no bad beef with the main characters. they're good friends now - no explanation. Third movie: OKAY ACTUALLY SHE'S THE MAIN VILLAIN NOW. SHE'S SO UPSET (after not seeming to care for the entire second movie), SHE'S GOING TO (somehow successfully) STEAL A WEAPON AND TAKE OVER THE WORLD. wait nvm the MC just gave her a friendship speech.
Submissions propaganda will be here. Feel free to reblog or reply to this post with additional inconsistency in characterization, or to refu
Submissions propaganda will be here. Feel free to reblog or reply to this post with additional inconsistency in characterization, or to refu
Submissions propaganda will be here. Feel free to reblog or reply to this post with additional inconsistency in characterization, or to refute it!
See #Max Camp Camp Propaganda as a tag.
Season 4 fucked over his characterization so bad. Like. What the hell was that little "I'm a good person now" monologue. Also imo, it feels like he gets character development and then it gets pretty much immediately thrown out the window in the next episode. And yeah, I know that it's an episodic comedy but in that case, you shouldn't play pretend serialized for an episode. Also don't get me fucking started on The Forest
Submissions propaganda will be here. Feel free to reblog or reply to this post with additional inconsistency in characterization, or to refute it!
See #Kathryn Janeway Propaganda as a tag.
Aaaaaahh so Voyager was the worst Trek in terms of characterization, so many amazing characters who were brutalized by bad and inconsistent writing BUT. What they did with Janeway really takes the cake. So much potential! So squandered! I wanted to love her so much but it was all a hot mess
Submissions propaganda will be here. Feel free to reblog or reply to this post with additional inconsistency in characterization, or to refute it!
See #Princess Audrey Propaganda as a tag.
First movie: after being the mean girl who hates on the main character throughout the entire movie, the MC does one good deed after doing a lot of bad things and suddenly they're both cool with each other, willing to do a music number together too. Book series: she's a nice but dumb/unskilled airhead apparently Animated series: she is no longer mentally ill. has no bad beef with the main characters. they're good friends now - no explanation. Third movie: OKAY ACTUALLY SHE'S THE MAIN VILLAIN NOW. SHE'S SO UPSET (after not seeming to care for the entire second movie), SHE'S GOING TO (somehow successfully) STEAL A WEAPON AND TAKE OVER THE WORLD. wait nvm the MC just gave her a friendship speech.
Submissions propaganda will be here. Feel free to reblog or reply to this post with additional inconsistency in characterization, or to refute it!
See #Quinn Fabray Propaganda as a tag.
Out of all the Glee characters her characterisation was the most erratic which is really saying something
Though probably every single character in Glee would qualify, I went with Quinn is because she's probably the most notable example of this. Because of petty vengance reasons she's consistently given plotlines that are meant to paint her in a terrible light, despite the fact that it doesn't make any sense for her character to be doing any of it. From making her be absent from both her supposed best best friends' wedding, and high school boyfriend's funeral, to making her try to steal back her baby with barely any explenation given, she's always made to do the most out of pocket and personality-wise inconsistent stuff. Perhaps one of the most grevious offenses is when she starts dating Puck again, calling him the love of her life. This is the same Puck who took advantage of her and impregnated her when she was drunk, and whom she previously has shown literally zero interest in. Everytime she shows an ounce of character growth, the writers are like, haha, what if we made her backtrack on all that, and instead subjected her to more bullshit, wouldn't that be funn, WOULDN'T IT. Also: the fact that her friendship with Mercedes completely dissipated after season one is an easy forgottan crime compared to some of the other stuff the writers put her up to, but it still hurts an awful lot. They could have been,,, so much,,,,
Before the events of the show Jamie was the right hand man of a king who ordered mass killings of civilians; Jamie violated his code of honor and assassinated the king in order to defend the innocent civilians. Most of the early seasons involve Jamieâs conflict between his morality and the code of honor heâs mandated to obey, with his decision to kill the king for the greater good of the kingdom being a massive Thing . Until the last season, when Jamie proudly says he never cared about the people of the kingdom or whether they all died? Itâs very odd- a very blatant explicit contradiction at the core of the writing, which is kinda how every GOT character gets treated by the last season :P.
Apollo Justice
He was an extremely emotional person when he was introduced in 4, going as far as to punch Phoenix in the face when he got angry and crying multiple times when people he'd just met were in danger. But in 5 and 6 (neither of which had the creator and head director/writer for the previous games, Shu Takumi, involved in the production) he seemed extremely emotionally closed-off and pretended like it was just another set of court cases when his best friend and his dad were murdered, and didn't spend any time mourning them. He felt less like his own unique character and more like he was just there to be a plot point.
I can't even go into any of the tags for 5 and 6 (which I still enjoyed despite their flaws) without having to scroll past a million complaints about the inconsistent writing. As much as I agree with them, I think that's actually more annoying than anything the games did. So here's to hoping Apollo (or anyone else from Ace Attorney tbh) gets in and the fandom can get it all out of their system in the reblogs and finally stop clogging up the tags. (although that's mostly tumblr's fault for changing the search function from tags to keywords. Most of the fandom is polite enough not to directly tag the game/characters in their complaints to try and avoid that, but now it still shows up whether they mean it to or not)
Submissions propaganda will be here. Feel free to reblog or reply to this post with additional inconsistency in characterization, or to refu
Submissions propaganda will be here. Feel free to reblog or reply to this post with additional inconsistency in characterization, or to refu
Why the FUCK does Shadow work for GUN when his whole origin story is that he hated everything because GUN invaded his home and killed everyone including his 12yo sister. And also made his dad? go insane. What. Why do we have both a game where Shadow learns the power of friendship and relying on his friends is strenght and a game in later timeline where he says âfuck friends they donât do nothing be strong = lone wolf.â He Would Not Fucking Say That
The only thing consistent about him is that he plays piano. Is he anxious? Is he a confident dick? Does he want to get stung by a bee? Does he REALLY like ketchup? Like he has no constitent personality he's just generic piano guy
Submissions propaganda will be here. Feel free to reblog or reply to this post with additional inconsistency in characterization, or to refu
Submissions propaganda will be here. Feel free to reblog or reply to this post with additional inconsistency in characterization, or to refute it!
See #Apollo Justice Propaganda as a tag.
He was an extremely emotional person when he was introduced in 4, going as far as to punch Phoenix in the face when he got angry and crying multiple times when people he'd just met were in danger. But in 5 and 6 (neither of which had the creator and head director/writer for the previous games, Shu Takumi, involved in the production) he seemed extremely emotionally closed-off and pretended like it was just another set of court cases when his best friend and his dad were murdered, and didn't spend any time mourning them. He felt less like his own unique character and more like he was just there to be a plot point.
I can't even go into any of the tags for 5 and 6 (which I still enjoyed despite their flaws) without having to scroll past a million complaints about the inconsistent writing. As much as I agree with them, I think that's actually more annoying than anything the games did. So here's to hoping Apollo (or anyone else from Ace Attorney tbh) gets in and the fandom can get it all out of their system in the reblogs and finally stop clogging up the tags. (although that's mostly tumblr's fault for changing the search function from tags to keywords. Most of the fandom is polite enough not to directly tag the game/characters in their complaints to try and avoid that, but now it still shows up whether they mean it to or not)
Submissions propaganda will be here. Feel free to reblog or reply to this post with additional inconsistency in characterization, or to refute it!
See #Jaime Lannister Propaganda as a tag.
Before the events of the show Jamie was the right hand man of a king who ordered mass killings of civilians; Jamie violated his code of honor and assassinated the king in order to defend the innocent civilians. Most of the early seasons involve Jamieâs conflict between his morality and the code of honor heâs mandated to obey, with his decision to kill the king for the greater good of the kingdom being a massive Thing . Until the last season, when Jamie proudly says he never cared about the people of the kingdom or whether they all died? Itâs very odd- a very blatant explicit contradiction at the core of the writing, which is kinda how every GOT character gets treated by the last season :P.
The only thing consistent about him is that he plays piano. Is he anxious? Is he a confident dick? Does he want to get stung by a bee? Does he REALLY like ketchup? Like he has no constitent personality he's just generic piano guy
Shadow the Hedgehog: Inconsistently Characterized?
Submissions propaganda will be here. Feel free to reblog or reply to this post with additional inconsistency in characterization, or to refute it!
See #Shadow the Hedgehog Propaganda as a tag.
Why the FUCK does Shadow work for GUN when his whole origin story is that he hated everything because GUN invaded his home and killed everyone including his 12yo sister. And also made his dad? go insane. What. Why do we have both a game where Shadow learns the power of friendship and relying on his friends is strenght and a game in later timeline where he says âfuck friends they donât do nothing be strong = lone wolf.â He Would Not Fucking Say That
THE FUCKING CHARACTER EVER!!! listen. shadow is such an impactful and tragic character who suffers so much and nobody fucking understands him especially the writers who massacred who he was as a person. not to mention sega themselves sabotaging him by enforcing mandates that restricted who he could interact with and locked him into the "early vegeta clone" archetype. im sorry this is going to be so fucking long b im going to go into detail about shadow's creation and his purpose, who he is as shown up until sonic 06, and how they both fumbled his character FUCKING IMMENSELY.
[SEE READMORE FOR ESSAY. It concludes: "Okay I restrained myself. According to the word counter website this is sitting at 1,712 words. Holy shit."]
Shadow was initially created 50 years ago for the purpose of achieving immortality by the United Federation (the in-game equivalent of the US), though he was also created for the research of weapons of mass destruction. The scientist the president had insisted take on the project, Gerald Robotnik, had initially refused because he thought it was crossing an ethical line and that it would be used for war (he was right lmao), but then he realized he could co-opt the project in order to cure his granddaughter Maria of her deadly illness called NIDS (basically HIV/AIDS). So he agrees and they start experimenting with chaos energy and living things and when that works, they go to making prototypes of this so called "Ultimate Lifeform". Gerald needed help though and thats when the Black Arms appeared, an alien race that came every 50 years with the Black Comet. In exchange for the delivery of the chaos emeralds in 50 years time, Black Doom the leader will help Gerald make this Ultimate Lifeform, even giving some of his DNA in order for it to work. The first prototype, the Biolizard, showed promise but in the end was too violent and couldnt survive without its support system. This caused distress among the scientist. The next creature was a little hedgehog, made using Black Doom's DNA. While tensions brewed, Shadow was created. Gerald knew that they would take this creation and try to turn him into a weapon, so he gave him a heart and personality similar to his granddaughter Maria. Maria and Shadow were inseparable, practically siblings. Shadow is 15 years old and Maria couldn't have been older than 16. (Sonic X places her at 12 but since that isn't official I don't really count it). Shadow often wondered about his purpose was, always wondering who he was. As tensions among the staff rose, the international military group Guardian Units of Nations (GUN) stepped in. They saw the danger such an experiment could bring and decided to take Shadow for themselves. They raided the ARK and killed all the researches and evacuated some of the civilians, aiming to get Shadow and Gerald. Gerald sends Maria and Shadow to the escape pods. However, a GUN soldier shows up. Maria puts Shadow in an escape pod to keep him safe but she is shot by the GUN soldier as Shadow can only watch in horror. Literally kills a sick teenage girl in cold blood. Maria tells Shadow that he was born to make people happy and keep them safe. He was not made to be a weapon, but to be a protector. That her wish is that he will help fulfill everyone else's wishes. Maria's last words to her little brother being goodbye and that promise as she makes sure he survives. GUN went with their plan of the cover up, telling the public there was a freak accident and all the scientist except Gerald were victims of it. Gerald is detained and sees Maria's name in the list of dead. He went mad with grief and instead of continuing to work on the cryogenically frozen Shadow to service the military, he used him as a weapon for revenge. He creates a program to cause the ARK to crash into the earth and even brainwashes Shadow, altering his memories of Maria in order for him to carry out the destruction of the planet. GUN, fearing that Gerald might retaliate a little too late, stopped his work and execute Gerald by firing squad. They keep Shadow dormant for 50 years.
He's awaken by Eggman, who wishes to rule the world using the Ultimate Lifeform from his grandfather's journal. Shadow speaks subserviently, referring to Eggman as "my master" and using the Japanese pronoun of ć (boku) which is more humble and is informally giving deference. This is only for this interaction, since Shadow has plans and he takes charge, with sometimes Eggman looking at Shadow for confirmation, such as when Rouge asks to join them. Sonic Adventure 2 is the game we first are introduced to Shadow and its when he is at his most raw and mentally unwell. He is traumatized and the pain is fresh. It may have been 50 years for everybody else, but it had just happened for him. He grapples with flashbacks due to his PTSD, he hears Maria in his head telling him to keep his promise and to not "make her upset" and he is overall not in a good place mentally. He is willing to kill himself if it means keeping the false promise that Gerald had placed in his head. He does this plan, not because he himself wants to, but because its what Maria wants and for the longest time, that is how Shadow goes about it. Shadow cares so much, and its seen by how he sees Maria in Rouge and he risks his life to save her. It shows in how much he loved Maria and how he will keep this promise regardless of what happens to him. When Amy speaks to him, he is instantly reminded of Maria and he remembers the true promise. He cries at the memory, and then immediately goes to set things right. He lets himself fall to his death because "this is what you wanted, right Maria?" This kid is 15 and traumatized and he is hurting so much and it GETS WORSE.
Eggman finds him, and makes android copies of him, then seals him away with a killer robot in an abandoned hold. He spends the entirety of that game becoming close to Omega and Rouge who find them both and he doesn't even know if he is the true Shadow because of all these androids running around and he has no memories. He remembers nobody. Not Rouge, not Amy, not Sonic. The only thing he remembered was Maria's name and her death. Not even the good memories. From Heroes (this game I just explained) and on, Shadow's main antagonists deal with wanting to control him. What we know of Shadow currently is that he is selfless, he loves with all his heart, he is self-sacrificing, and though he is withdrawn and cocky, he still is willing to say that he thinks Sonic might actually be the Ultimate Lifeform. Surely, they've given us this great thing! How can they possibly fuck it up?
Shadow he Hedgehog (2005) absolutely destroys his character and gives him an absolutely bad rep BUT there is some good stuff in there. Remember the Black Arms? Remember that deal Gerald made? Yeah it's been 50 years. Knock knock, Shadow's other shitty dad is here!! You thought this kid's mind was gonna stop being manipulated? lmao. anyways shadow the hedgehog makes shadow absolutely edgy. he's kinda a dick he just... can kill people. it's a Weird game. sad to say he never recovered from this with the exception of Sonic 06!!
Now Sonic 06 is literally a broken game that can barely run (still funny tho so I play it) BUT THE WRITING FOR SHADOW'S STORY IS ABSOLUTELY SO GOOD?? they made him a GUN agent though which was. Something I was NOT expecting. BUT its a return from the edgy hedgehog we saw the year before so I'll look past him working for the same organization that killed his sister. A common thread about Shadow-specific villains/antagonists are that they all want to control him in some way shape or form before killing him. Gerald, Metal Sonic (kinda. he just set off the identity crisis by showing all the Shadow androids), Black Doom, Mephiles, Infinite. They all follow this thread which happens to accidentally create a story arc (bc it was definitely by accident) but thats not what we're talking about. ANyways, Mephiles wants to get to Shadow for Shadow sealing him away in a scepter in the past (theres time travel it gets confusing) and Shadow manages to win not only because of his own strength, but because he was not alone. He is made up of the people he loves, just like Sonic is, and everytime Shadow beats Mephiles is because he had Omega, Rouge, or both with him.
Sounds good right? Just one stinker game so surely its all fine? No. Because then Sega set mandates. Shadow wasn't allowed to have friends, he was not allowed to crack jokes or be anything but an angry rival to Sonic. They dissolved Team Dark (the team between Rouge, Shadow, and Omega) and now Shadow is alone. His biggest strength used to be his love for his friends and their presence in his lives and now they boiled him down to an "early Vegeta" clone. Sonic Boom released, and he is literally just a violent asshole who antagonizes Sonic for no reason. He barely shows up anymore and when he does its so painfully off that its best he doesn't. The writers of the meta era didnt really use him (which is a relief because they admitted that they only ever read wikipedia articles about sonic games and never actually played them). He was decent in Forces but he barely showed up and honestly that's for the best. I have major issues with how they write him in the comics as well but I think that has to do with mandates and it seems that theyre letting off since Frontiers since all the characters were revamped and are giving us good characterization. He's going to be in the next Sonic movie and I am hoping they do him justice.
