i looooove pokémon npcs whose team members subtly imply something about them that's never touched upon in the story or at least never outright said. i love villains having friendship evos. i love trainers who commit hard to one aesthetic or vibe with their team (beyond simply sharing a type) and i love it even better when there's one random exception especially if that's their ace. i love when later down the line someone boxes the cute fun soft baby pokémon they used to have in favor of a seemingly stronger or scarier one to show that they're getting serious. i love when they have a pokémon that's difficult to get and raises lots of questions about them. i love it when the lore behind a pokémon fits the character to a T and i love it even better when it appears to contradict them. give me the story-gameplay harmony but better yet give me what appears to be story-gameplay dissonance but might actually have implications if we're willing to dive deep into it
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Qi Rong being so beautiful in the donghua is really throwing me off because he's rude and annoying and a total menace but he's also Xie Lian's cousin and looks like him, therefore also beautiful, and the donghua team making him THAT pretty is really distracting me from the gremlin that he is
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Fuck whatever DC is doing with the al Ghul's characterizations and story lines, I've decided that from now on the al Ghul's are gonna be DC's version of the Addams Family instead.
Now I don't mean just give the various al Ghul's the exact personalities of the various Addams and call it a day. That's boring, that erases all the interesting parts of the al Ghuls, that's just using "find & replace" and not actually adding anything. I mean give them the vibes of the Addams Family.
Keep the al Ghul's as the al Ghul's with all their scheming and machinations and world domination attempts but give them all the unhinged energy, the casually insane view of the world, the deranged levels of love and devotion for family. Make them that group where objectively they are batshit insane but also you cannot argue with the fact that they are indisputably the most stable and functional family in the entire universe.
They're creepy, they're kooky, they're mysterious and spooky. Ra's many opulent homes and impenetrable fortresses are a museum and the al Ghul's really are a screa-um whenever people come to see-um (or when they lay waste upon their enemies in a surprise attack that has been planned for months and is just the first domino in a series that will ultimately lead to achieving a far greater goal).
They all love each other and want each other to be happy, they express this primarily with stabbing and murder attempts (its fine, death is a thing that happens to other people).
And forget the League of Assassins being a cult. Just make the whole vast globe spanning organization a collection of cousins/aunts/uncles/dear old friends ect. No one (not even the al Ghuls, if they cared to keep track of such things) is sure who is actually related to them and who just got absorbed into the ever expanding family tree based on their vibes being right.
(Is Sensei Ra's father you ask? Well he's certainly someone's father - probably.
Anyway have you heard about Cousin Cheshire? Despicable poisoner of a young woman, capable of the most horrific things imaginable - yes she is the sweetest dear. Like I was saying though, she just had a baby!
Everyone in the family is just so excited to throw a baby shower to celebrate! Ubu has really gone all out with the spike traps, he does so love getting to welcome a new addition to the family.
Talia of course has cultivated a brand new strain of the most toxic plants imaginable to make a brand new kind of necrotizing poison. You know, as a nice little romantic gift for Cousin Cheshire and that young man of hers. It really is so important to make sure you take time for you and your partner to go on dates and have a few pitched battles to the death on dark rooftops in the pounding rain when you have children.
Now there is some to-do about it all of course, you know how family get together can be. Everyone is arguing over who should get to give little Lian her first weapon and what it should be. Nyssa is pushing for grenades but Ra's is insisting on a sword - he's traditional like that you know - but Dusan has the vote so far on throwing knives. You know the kind that have the little divots along the edges of the blades them to make it easier to get the poison you dip them in to stick.)
I'm just saying that the al Ghuls should be a delightful cross between the Bond Villains they were originally conceived as and the lovingly unhinged Addams Family. It just feels correct in my heart.
(Again keep the interesting aspects of the characters and the nuances of who each of them are like their drive to save the world through destroying humanity and their strong environmentalist leanings and their constantly playing 5D chess and everything, but like, take away the racism and the cartoonishly evil for no reason bullshit and give them some fun feral energy to go along with it).
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I have a question abt thunderstar's justice. Why is killing Clear Sky the wrong thing to do in this situation? I mean I know the in-character reason is One Eye is seasoning him, but there's presumably an OOC reason that that's the situation, a moral that's trying to be told. Clear Sky is not only an unrepentant serial abuser but he's *still skyclan's leader.* he's still in a position to do immense harm as a petty immature warmongering autocrat.
Largely because it will resurrect a 12-foot-long prehistoric megabeast who takes his paychecks in the blood of your enemies. The climactic ritual takes place after One Eye's first defeat in this story, which Skystar had reluctantly joined into after he watched him eat Tom.
They only managed to defeat One Eye through quick thinking on Moon Shadow's part. After this, Star Flower seduced Skystar so she would be able to use him in a ritual to bring One Eye back. She kills him 8 times, bleeding him out fully, counting as 8 individual sacrifices.
Skystar is unrepentant, yes. Thunderstar's stand isn't being done in some attempt to acknowledge Sky as a worthwhile person, or bestow 'forgiveness,' saving him here is not a 'reward'.
But this isn't retaliation or stopping him from committing some evil deed; Skystar was seduced by Star Flower to end up on the wrong side of a sacrificial alter. He joined with the other Clans to oppose One Eye earlier. He's already died 8 times before Thunder arrives.
Thunderstar could have all the might of One Eye on his own side, if he takes Star Flower's offer. He could open up Skystar's worthless throat and be done with him right here. It would feel good, it would feel so, so good.
But where is the honor in that? And where would it end, afterwards, with an ancient God released back into the world?
"A true warrior doesn't need to kill to win their battles," means that there are times you are releasing someone who will go back to a position where they could do harm. But 8 lives down, after being helplessly tortured for hours, being sacrificed to a monster he had previously lent his strength to fight... that is where it crosses the line between Justice and Revenge.
It wouldn't make Thunderstar ""just as bad"" if he took that deal. He doesn't take it because he's better than Skystar will ever be.
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Quick sketch of my OC Marchosias in True Form
He was engulfed in Holy Fire before being cast out from the heavens, and no matter how many eternities he spends in Hell, he will forever carry the remains of that - hairs singed and tips still embers at times, his skin burnt even to the bone in places, and always a thin layer of smoke dancing through his fur from that constant reminder of his betrayal.
You can't outrun heavenly punishment
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none of this “i can fix him!!” let’s make leu worse 😂
LMAO HONESTLY-- I ENDORSE
Make him worse! Make him more obsessed with you, more clingy and more pathetic! "How bad can he get?", you guys may be wondering..? Well, my friends... Fuck around and find out, I say 👀
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