#character rambles

[popecodysstare]

Please help me this man is so sweet with kids. No matter how violent and angry he is he is so good and gentle with Lena. Couldn't find a GIF for it but the scene where he offers to take her to the beach since Baz is not taking any interest in her and Pope tells her she did such a good job on the drawing 🥹🥹

[yannastarlight]

Shadow Milk Cookie Character ramble:

SHADOWMILK’S MAIN Trait IS CONTROL:

Knowledge, Deceit, Truth, Chaos all are just different elements of control for him

His main motive is control, gaining control of others and most importantly himself

Even his loneliness is a byproduct of his relationship with control

His entire relationship with Pure Vanilla is based on control

Puppets, Plays, Games, Manipulation, Theatrics every aspect of his character is defined by Control!!!

(Awesome Virtues of Freedom and Solidarity vs Evil Lonely Control Freak)

Shadowmilk is the main antagonist of Act 2 (Narrative perspective) because:

Carries the same themes as Dark Echantress: despair being the greatest evil which is caused by the Witches and overcome by Courage and Friendship (cough, GingerBrave cough)

Built up in tidbits since the Blueberry academy ep of Crispia (First headmaster created the ultimate cookie theory and was the first piece of dough added to the mixture)

The other half of the protagonist: Pure Vanilla cookie (who I’ll make a post dedicated to him soon)

Has time based powers in his Beast Yeast eps (7-8) which will be paired with Timekeeper who is the main focus of Act 2 (Time and Space theme?)

ShadowMilk redemption???:

Shadowmilk couldn't be redeemed in the ending of Act 1 because he refuses to accept the truth and will double down on Deceit in Act 2 as a result

The Truth has done nothing but hurt him therefore he has no reason to redeem himself (Likewise why Dark Enchantress couldn’t be redeemed because she doesn't actually understand/care about freedom.)

In order for Shadowmilk to be set on a redemption arc, he must accept the truth of his existence/creation/the witches and accept someone equal and understanding to him (Pure Vanilla perhaps) emphasis on “equal"

Losing control only motivates him to gain more of it.

I can’t say whether he’ll die a villain for live to grow into a decent person, but one thing for sure he will end up completely losing the control he desperately desires.

What the point:

It's weird becoming a Shadowmilk fan only after Beast Yeast 14 and 15 and watching the fandom turn on him simultaneously. I love the direction this character is going in, now that we have finally seen him under the mask he's so much more interesting now and I almost feel bad for him (he deserves to be hit by a 100 million giant hammers!!!). I disagree with the notion that his current direction is a bad writing choice, especially when you take into account both the thematic and narrative significance of his character. What I’m not here to debate about is the execution/ attention he's been given, because I like having peace of mind, and Act 2 hasn’t started yet. While he’s far from my favorite, he does fascinate almost as much as Dark Enchantress. I don't care much for people hating him but, so many fans completely misunderstand his goals and motivations (he's not even that complex lol) so I want to shed some light on the actual Shadowmilk cookie the story presents.

When writing Shadowmilk to be canon accurate it's important to keep in mind:

He is a control freak in every instance: he will do anything in the pursuit of control

He is a walking contradiction: his entire character is very contradictory (ex: proudly proclaims to be the fount of knowledge yet does everything to bury that part of his past, Claims to have given up on Truth and yet his primary goal is to rewrite/control it)

Knowledge is power: which is why he prefers psychological torment (understanding people is gaining knowledge and thus gaining power)

He is lonely because of power imbalance: Shadow Milk is lonely because he can't allow others have power over him (understanding), he can’t have an equal because as the fount of knowledge he is superior to all cookies

[adamic--sheep]

"half-blank, half-apocalyptic look" is such a peak description because a) it fits Armand's literal expression perfectly, and b) you can feel the distain in the words alone. like Armand is, in that scene, so viscerally angry yet painfully still. I don't think any clear thoughts were in his mind. just straight emotions. Anger, sadness, fear, a sense of betrayal; a type of resentment towards Louis, and most definitely towards himself. he knows there's an expectation of responsibility of him from Louis. he knows that Louis knows he'll forgive him. and he hates himself for it. he feels like he's being walked all over, and he lets it happen. he even tells him about it in the fight. through all of his faux-calm facade during those few days you can feel his anger roiling just beneath the surface. but he'll be quiet about it, maybe break some things in private (cough cough Daniel cough) but never fully let it breach the surface. because it's fine, he's fine, we're all fine.

[coffeeviolinist]

The Problems with DetCo Characters

Akai Shuuichi

The fact that this man is considered the standard of coolness within the DCMK universe should be considered a crime against humanity. His biggest talents are shooting guns and looking perpetually sleep-deprived while drinking bourbon and/or ragebaiting his one-sided mortal enemy. As for everything else? Complete and utter failure. Cooking? This man tried to serve RAW vegetables to the grandpa next door and his questionably adopted daughter. He is part British, which should be considered one of the seven deadly sins, and he voluntarily went to the United States of America, which I'm pretty sure IS one of the seven deadly sins. He gets told what to do by a child who could reasonably fit into a carry-on bag at the airport. He even managed to be the world's first deadbeat brother by FORGETTING he had a sister. This man needs to change out of the all-black attire immediately so people can appreciate him for the loser he is. Except the knit cap. Keep that on you bald motherfucker.

2. Furuya Rei

You know how everyone says "you can't run away from your problems"? Well, apparently, this bastard decided that just because he can't run from his problems doesn't mean he can't outwork them. Rei collects jobs the way some people collect Pokémon cards because lord forbid he go to therapy. Why talk about your own trauma when you can just traumatize everyone else, amirite? Let's not mention the fact that he supposedly hates a man so much that he quite literally dressed up as him and went out as him in public for some unknown period of time. Just kiss already, you know you want to. But seriously, I have no idea how this man has enough time in the day for all the jobs he has to do. At this point I'm convinced that his foreign parent is actually a magical being capable of bending space and time because what the actual fuck? Also, someone tell him to stop LARPing as your local friendly neighborhood barista because it is doing nothing for his aura.

3. Gin

Imagine the most boring, basic ass villain you know, and I can almost guarantee this guy will somehow be even MORE dull. In the old days, this man was genuinely someone to fear, but now? The only thing he's done in recent memory is kill off a few FBI agents whose names I can't be bothered to remember because they were invented purely for the purpose of being killed. And somehow, despite all that, he still isn't capable of finishing off their most incompetent agent, who I'll get to in a moment. His only redeeming quality is his amazing hair, but I'm not fooled. I know in my heart that man has the worst split ends known to mankind.

4. Andre Camel

We know nothing of this man's family or history, but I can only assume he must have some insane blackmail material on the FBI with how he constantly fumbles the most basic of tasks and yet somehow is allowed to keep his job. If you told him that his job was to stand in the middle of a circle and stare at a single spot for twenty minutes, he would find a way to screw that up, too. The fact that he was actively hunted by the biggest criminal organization in the series, yet the only "disguise" Akai could come up with for him was a haircut despite Camel having a...rather memorable physique, makes me think he's secretly hoping this useless bastard will finally be finished off next time.

5. Hattori Heiji

Someone tell this boy that it's the 21st century and he doesn't have to pretend he isn't gay for his rival anymore. He wants us to believe that he's in love with the girl he's known since he was but a wee child, but his confession was delayed for over five centuries because...his detective rival "confessed" in front of Big Ben (more like he and his childhood girl best friend got into a fight and he yelled out his feelings for her when she was about to run away crying, but I digress), and he wanted to make sure his own confession was aesthetically pleasing enough. Because, you know, having a pretty background is definitely the most important part when you're telling the supposed love of your life how you feel about them. Yeah, you're not fooling anyone, buddy. The closet is made of glass at this point. Oh, and when he finally did confess, he didn't even do it to the right person because apparently, he doesn't know his childhood friend well enough to notice when someone is disguised as her.

6. Sera Masumi

Nothing. This is best girl right here. No, I will not be taking constructive criticism at this time.

7. Rum

His entire arc was just the reheated nachos version of the Bourbon arc. More specifically, reheated nachos that have been left in the fridge about two weeks after they should have been discarded. The only difference is that Bourbon was a NOC while this guy is actually evil. Allegedly. Who knows, we might get a reveal ten years from now that he too is undercover with how the author likes to pull things out of his ass these days. For now, though, he's supposedly the second-in-command of the Black Organization, which you would think would mean this man would be an actual threat, yet the only thing ever threatened by him is my stomach when I try not to laugh looking at his ridiculous disguise.

8. Jodie Starling

Arguably the worst victim to date of Gosho's inability to write compelling women characters without tying them to a love interest of some sort. That whole arc with her and Vermouth? Yeah, we're just never getting a resolution to that, apparently. Her entire character now is staring admirably at her ex-boyfriend while occasionally doing things for the FBI, except said ex-boyfriend will inevitably have to come and fix whatever mess was made because god forbid a woman be allowed to be competent. I know there's a badass in there somewhere, but I fear it will never see the light of day again.

9. Morofushi Hiromitsu/Scotch

Look, I know having your cover blown was terrible and all, but was it really necessary to handle it like that, you dramatic ass bitch? You were thirty seconds from safety. Now you've given your best friend insatiable rage and the world's worst coping mechanisms. It's always the people you trust the most, smh...

10. Enomoto Azusa

Ignoring the elephant in the room (aka the bread comment), this woman is literally an NPC with speaking lines. Every single thing about her is the personified version of vanilla ice cream if whoever made the vanilla ice cream forgot to add quite literally everything that makes it taste good. Her defining character traits are "nice" and "gets flustered when people tease her about liking her male coworker". She works at a coffee shop and her favorite food is apparently strawberries because of fucking course it is. She looks like she would tell you that her favorite color is red and her favorite singer is Taylor Swift. Yet somehow, we keep having to see her because her entire purpose is being ship bait. Not that I think she deserves more, but can she go back to the land of nobodies where she belongs so we can move forward with the actual plot and maybe finish the story before all of us have gray hairs and grandchildren?

(To be continued at an undetermined date)

[bennie-jerry]

I like how Deadpool and Spider-Man's relationship in a nutshell is generally always, "Of course I kiss my homies good night."

[deskraven]

Transmutates talking about Minions of Unicron ^ ^

Context:

Earthspark AU Transmutate is talking about AU Sideways who literally became a minion of Unicron.

Uprising Trans-mutate once joined a criminal gang led by Cryotek named Minion of Unicron - she noticed inconsistency in the fabricated history she was taught but were silenced by authority when she tried to speak up about it. Cryotek gave them a narrative that explains the inconsistency and took advantage of her naivety to recruit her, only to abandon her later when her usage was exhausted.

In addition Trans-mutate and (her brother) Rampage were super power lab babies created by mad scientist Deluge to fight massive threats like Unicron. She was later able to track down their creator and sent Rampage to kill him and end the experiments.

And character ranting about BWU Trans-mutate:

While BWU Trans-mutate was described as naive and friendly and cheerful and easy to be taken advantage of, she's also someone radically idealistic who doesn't mind going to violent extremes for what she feels is right. She's protective and caring but at the same time ready to throw away her own and other people's lives. That side of her is something I really appreciate yet rarely see people talking about.

Like look at what happened - Cryotek was using her power for what seems to be a heist. Trans-mutate was okay with the action itself - she was okay with violent robbery and didn't regret it. Cryotek's gang was later described to be the most infamous in their area, one that "sent fear down the backstruts of citizens and criminals alike". I don't think Trans-mutate joined them without knowing that. She was shown to be good at processing information and sensitive to inconsistencies. What she's bad at telling is other people's intention.

So I'd like to interpret her gang phase to be that she wanted to do something to stop all the wrongs she has observed. And she's okay with using violence if necessary. She joined a criminal gang knowing perfectly well what they are yet believed they will eventually overthrow the government or at least use the stolen money to fund an uprising. But no they actually just wanted to profit off the status quo and kicked her out once she started being uncooperative after realizing their different goals.

Unfortunately she wasn't there when the uprising finally took place ;-; and instead chose to remain at Dinosaur City and help establish a new colony, and didn't even leave there to reunite with Rampage when she sent him to kill their creator/father. This is completely headcanon but I'd prefer to think her health might be deteriorating. According to her bio her frame was extremely fragile and transformation itself could cause strain on her structure leading to damage and ruptures. If that's not just thrown out of the window, her physical health must have significantly worsened after all the transforming and fighting with the Destructons.

Now about Earthspark AU Transmutate:

I want to avoid having them be heavily associated with qualities like innocence naivety and kindness. They would first of all be a Chaos Terran. When staying with the Maltos they would often remind them of the other Chaos Terrans in a not so endearing way. They would often act out violently when things don't go their way, and refuse to follow rules that they don't understand or disagree with. They also aren't very good with understanding morality, so it took the Maltos a shit ton of work explaining why it's bad to hurt other people. And that's their way of being naive and innocent ^ ^ I think it'd be cute if the Maltos, when feeling really frustrated about keeping this kid out of trouble, say they remind them of Spitfire / Aftermath / Sideways / Wreck-gar.

And when they finally get it they will enter their sensitive period for order, trying to stop everybody from fighting anything including arachnamechs because they don't see why these little fun-loving little bots aren't regarded as sentient beings. They would also question why freedom is only the right to sentient beings - what makes being sentient so special? Why can't everything be free? Oh speaking of that, why can't everything be free (☭ _ ☭)?

By the point their siblings were revived, they would have adapted to the Maltos' values and can follow modern human morals very well and would try to get their siblings to adapt as well. But in the end (which might be after many years), they might feel quite disillusioned towards the concept of morality after observing how it's largely shaped by the privileged, and form their own principles and morality which many might disagree with.

[andradrawsstuff]

Gave my Diluc redesign a proper attempt + ramble at the end bc I love him 🦉

Version 1 is to make him a little closer to his manga design and 2 is to make him closer to how he looks in official art (but with freckles too bc he deserves them!!!)

I’ve kept his original eye size and facial feature placement, but just changed the shape of his eyes and brows and added more detail. Ik ppl don’t generally like Diluc redesigns but I really wanted to give it a go without reducing any of his features while also giving him a more updated look

Bit of a ramble abt his design, character and mischaracterisations (buckle up its a long one)

When I say that I really, really want him to get a redesign, it’s coming from a place of only love because I absolutely adore this man and have for the past 5 years. I love his manga design and his big round eyes, I think it does a very good job at giving him a very owlish look, especially with his small pupils and that little ring in his iris. It does such a good job at portraying his youthfulness and babyface but with a bit of uneasiness bc of his owl eyes.

My biggest problem with Diluc’s in game model isn’t his babyface or how big his eyes are and where they are on his face, it’s the execution of it that I’m talking about. Don’t get me wrong, he’s absolutely adorable and I love his goofy big bug eyes, but to me it feels like they’ve changed his eye shape and stripped away loads of his features; his little eyelashes at the bottom of his eyes, his thin red eyebrows, his eye colour being too dark to see his small pupil (which is supposed to give him that owlish look) and the biggest crime of all which is his SUPER fluffy wavyish hair that’s now flat and just there. Yes, it’s an early game model, but then you also look at Kaeya who arguably is one of the best executed models out there. He has his little eyelashes, he’s got loads of detail in his eye and even his hair is pretty well done for early game standards.

The thing that makes me the most sad about the model is that there’s such a lack of detail. I love his eyelashes, they’re also much longer in official art and manga, which makes him look more feminine, and his eyebrows being super thin too. I love love love that Diluc is supposed to be a very feminine man, I love the way that all the official art gives him a dainty and careful look, because he kind of is. Yes he’s strong and an insane fighter, but that doesn’t mean that he’s not soft and caring. I don’t mind that much when ppl give him a little extra muscle on his arms bc claymore user and what not, honestly something that really irks me is when femininity is constantly attributed to skinniness and needing to look frail. Femininity shouldn’t equal not having any muscle or masculine features, it’s a whole massive spectrum. I absolutely hate it especially when buff fem women get drawn as masculine and tomboys but in reality that character would wear a dress and be dolled up despite their body shape eg Scorpia from She Ra.

That’s not to say that I don’t hate it when ppl make Diluc Varka 2.0 though, because at that point you’re not making him buff for the sake of logic, it’s also usually accompanied by reducing all of his other features and completely changing his character’s personality. While I don’t mind ppl giving him maybe bigger arms and just a smidge of stockiness in comparison to Kaeya, but keeping in mind though that Diluc is also supposed to be quite lean because he’s agile and stealthy. I absolutely despise it when ppl turn him into mini Varka bc they get rid of his soft round features and make them really sharp. Something else that really irks me is in fics when they turn him into this overconfident dom kinda guy that’s super bossy and cold, only caring about what he wants. There is a damn good reason that I can only read fluff and even just skimming past stuff that turns him into that hurts me sm 😭 This man is an absolute sweetheart who would take every single step to make sure that you are okay in any type of scenario. He’s very caring and it really doesn’t take long to see that side of him. Just go to his voice lines! His tcg card description is literally “his heart is his biggest enemy”.

That’s not to say that mischaracterisation can’t go the other way too though, bc I’ve also seen ppl turning him into a completely innocent bbygirl that can’t do anything wrong and is only sweet and shy, forgetting that this guy committed mass murder in his past and still sees nothing wrong with it (yes they were bad ppl but they were just that: people). He’s also a vigilante that can and will kill if needed, he has a shady network of ppl with Nefer at the top who has also done questionable things, and he’s also the richest guy in Mondstadt. He’s morally grey, and I love that. He’s young, thinks that he’s matured now but is actually trying to run away from his past by putting on big guy clothes and a mask. You can see his immaturity shine through with both his physical appearance and his behaviour, being very sarcastic and sassy as well as a bit of a drama queen. He can get petty and mischievous and is incredibly easily rage-baitable lmao. I love how much that contrasts against his generally stoic but calm demeanour, it makes him human. You can tell he’s a 22 year old trying to act older than he is, and as a 22 year old myself I can say that him and Kaeya act realistic to their age more than most characters in the game. I genuinely think that Diluc is one of the best written characters in Genshin and he has soooo much potential. Heck, I main him and he even does nearly as much damage as my Varka, just a bit slower. I just wish that they made his design more accurate to what he should actually look like and that maybe one day we’ll get get a redesign, who knows.

Anyways sorry about the MASSIVE ramble, I just love him so much and wanted to get all that out. If you stuck through it all, congrats here’s a gold star ⭐