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aftr_ooc2018-07-07 08:53 pm
lifeaftr_mods) wrote in aftr_ooc2018-07-07 08:53 pm
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New Island: Umui
NEW ISLAND: UMUI
The votes are in, and the slight majority favors the promise of ores and metals for harvest. And the Storyteller, content to oblige that desire, has disappeared for the first week of the month to fulfill it. And come July 10th, a new silhouette will grace the horizon - and our Locations page.
Transportation
The Storyteller is...subdued, perhaps more than usual, as they inform travelers that there is an open mana pool on the new island, making it available for travel. They can assure the lack of any immediate threats that they can perceive - no civilization, no predators, nothing at all. With that assurance in mind, the mana pool will take characters to the C1 square, should the characters choose to arrive via that method.
The Storyteller issues the name of this new land in the form of a dream, prior to its materialization:
Where the Weeds Take Root
Those of you who were here for the arrival of Ziziphus may find this island to be eerily familiar, at first: the rolling hills are thick with green-gold waves of grass, rippling in the odd breeze. And, the more they look, the more striking those similarities may seem; for like Ziziphus, the island of Umui boasts a great variety of flowers. Across nearly every square foot, a new crop of them springs.
And there's a silence. Strange, absolute. There appears to be no marked difference in the landscape...though certain dark blots on the horizon appear to be rising hills. Or perhaps strangely-shaped buildings, if they're anything like the derelict shape lumped not far from the mana pool. While it appears to be in significant ruin, it certainly was a building of some sort, once.
As always, we'll have a thread for questions and comments, and we encourage you to make use of our Mod Contact page for private correspondence!
( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )
QUESTIONS AND CONCERNS
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OPTIONAL SIGN-UP
Be advised that this is purely optional. Even once we've gotten back to you with the specifics of what this involves, you are free to disregard it, as the potential for character death may arise - though the decision as to whether it results in character death is up to you!
What we're asking for is essentially any symbols, motifs, and themes that you associate with your character. Themes relevant to their arc in canon or in game, colors, symbols, personal associations, etc. - in general, the more detail you can give us, the better. We can't promise we'll be able to incorporate everything you give us, but the more diversity we have, the easier our jobs will be!
(An example here might be: "My character is a villain with an arc that rests on themes of betrayal, who often dresses in black and is associated with crows," or "My character is a secondary character in the hero's story associated with the color blue. Their story revolves around self-sacrifice and selfishness. They come from a decadent family and have become alienated from their roots, and my arc for them in game involves them learning to come to terms with that.")
Please fill out the form below if you're interested!
CW: Foster
Player: Raile
Character Themes: Foster is initially a primary antagonist with an arc that rests on themes of self-destruction and self-actualisation, whose isolation and embrace of selfishness eventually comes to contrast (more peacefully) with the found family themes of the rest of canon. He has canonical themes of death and decay, oceans, and puzzles (jigsaw puzzles, Rube Goldberg machines, etc.)
Blood is probably too broad for themes, but blood and consumption thereof, especially his blood, is also... there.
High stakes, risk taking, that kind of thing are part of his "death of the self" theme, but objectification, oblivion (and personal obliteration), and control/loss of control/control over others are the other central pillars of most of his personal ideology and so most of his stories are filtered through this lens. [Collars, brandings, leashes, stuff like that is absolutely a part of it, though. I'm so sorry.]
Mushrooms/fungi and the colour green are pertinent more because of Lost Carnival, but are very strong motifs for him.
Also, bears. It's... the universe assigned him a fursona back in Portland and now bears are just a Thing.
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Player: Shiny
Character Themes: Well, Legion's story is full of a lot of biblical references (despite Legion not actually being Christian or religious) such as their name and also being literally strung up in a crucifix position and also martyring themselves in the Geth live timelines. There are also general philosophical and spiritual themes such as the nature of souls, defying their gods, the Reaper worshiping heretic Geth cult, freewill, deontology vs consequentialism, etc.
Other themes specific to Legion's timeline where the Geth don't live would be betrayal and the knife Tali used to stab them (which they still have with them and make use of), loss, loneliness, the mistreatment of synthetic life.
OH ALSO another suggestion would be things related to the agricultural unit since I go with the interpretation that Legion is related to/has programs from them/is like a sort of weird robot reincarnation? So agricultural stuff, the original widow sniper rifle they used, original sin themes (first Geth to murder a Quarian), etc. Yes, this does mean that had things gone the way they wanted, they would have both been the cause and the fix for a lot of the problems with the Geth and the Quarians: you guys can play with that as you please.
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cw; child abuse/neglect
Player: Nick!
Character Themes: Well, the obvious theme is fire and ice and the color blue. It's v. subtle. but Todoroki's main arc is basically just "an abused kid copes with that abuse and learns how to move on from his abuser". His story is mainly accepting that he can separate himself from his father and his father's legacy and take ownership over himself and his abilities. There are also heavy themes of forgiveness - seeking forgiveness from his mother, forgiving himself for his failings, and his father trying to seek forgiveness from him.
Also like, learning how to be friends with people and self-acceptance. Thawing the ice, so to speak. Also I forgot b/c I am very tired but there's also obvious, blatant duality themes wrapped into the internal conflict and things are very much done in halves, with Shouto considered his right/mother's half to be Good and his left/father's half to be Bad and unsightly. The self-acceptance he struggles with is ignoring those associations to be Just Himself and not viewing any part of him as better this worse.
ALSO B/C I FORGOT ENTIRELY...but there is a lot of hands! Hands all up in this series as one of the biggest motifs of all. Shouto refers to himself as a "hand crusher" b/c people who are around him get their hands ruined, but there's a lot of things like...reaching out for other's, taking people hands, trust and forgiveness and violence wrapped up all of that.
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Player: Raile
Character Themes: Kaworu is a sympathetic antagonist whose themes in the manga include selfishness and self-sacrifice, but who in other versions of canon actually represents self-love and selflessness both. He is absolutely related to Christ figures and Angels, with one theme being the Wings of Light (Version one and Version Two), which are part of his native form as Adam. Angelic themes are appropriate, in both the idealised Biblical form and the terrifying unknowable one. Halos and multiple eyes and crosses and so on... freedom and flight, although he has no freedom at all, actually. Mutilated wings or the loss of wings are also a thing for that reason.
Decapitation is a theme of his. Decapitated Angel statues are all OVER around him. His death is sort of a big deal. Uh.
As an Angel, he is both the Angel of Free Will and the Angel of Betrayal. SEELE really should have taken note of that one.
In the manga he is associated with cats, as he kills one early on and it is a very defining character moment. Pianos apply in all versions of canon, outer space and especially the moon. There is a 'black moon' of importance in canon, and though it's not the literal moon, his first appearance in Rebuild it on the moon's surface (totally nude), and he is depicted as The Heirophant, Death, and The Moon in the Evangelion tarot card deck.
Visually, there is also the Lance of Longinus and the 'Angel face.' (Angel faces one two and three) Red spheres (as in the Core and also the Soul) are also symbolic of Angels.
Also, multiplicity. In addition to the 'Evangelion is a story that repeats' thing, Kaworu's body is one of many cloned versions, and the Mass Produced Evangelions each have a dummy plug with his name on the side, with replications of his brain waves directing them. It's implied there may be actual copies of his body inside. (It's worth noting that the Mass Produced Evangelions also have massive bird wings they use to fly.)
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Player: Ruka
Character Themes: The Knight is a protagonist who has canonical themes of darkness and emptiness and overall that nice fun feeling of 'not meant to be a person' and 'thrown away because they were flawed and discarded'. They are a discarded child made from void bits and a king's will and like, holy plants.
Additional motifs include death and self-sacrifice, chains/being tangled in threads, erosion of self, heavy burdens/inherited responsibilities, probably a lot of sword and crown imagery, sickness/plague. Darkness devouring light/light burning away darkness in a 'fated enemy/final battle' kind of way, with light being firmly negative in every context it appears. Cutting away dreams/absorbing them is also a big motif.
Also, a general sort of exhaustion in a "i need to keep going and pushing myself even if i feel otherwise about it" sort of way. The Knight is very tired.
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Player: Nick! Again!
Character Themes: Lions, Obviously. Lions are kind of like the series' entire gimmick, he pilots a giant fucking lion, which means the colors blue and red (plus ice and fire b/c that's just how it fucking be) are also pretty liberally sprinkled about in his theming. He's also frequently associated with water/the ocean - references to a beach his family would stay at, missing the rain, being super jazzed over mermaids, going on a pool adventure, etc.
Also, again, a lot of...self-acceptance issues. His character arc is a lot of deep insecurity being covered with bluster actually being used to...find real confidence and ability. He's also got a lot of self-sacrifice going on and putting other's before himself, which is fun, and totally does not make all of that insecurity worse or nothing and isn't consistently a threat to his life. He does a good job at being the support for other people!
Also, guns and sharpshooting. Pew pew.
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Player: Zee
Character Themes: The master of the Grimm Troupe. Grimm is often associated with the colors red, black and the element of fire. His appearance is likely based off of the Calyptra moths which shares the theme with Radiance and her former followers (all of them are various types of moths as well). He travels through dreams with his Troupe when someone lights the Nightmare Lantren, yet has a heavily association with nightmares as Hollow Knight's god of nightmares, separated from dreams sometime ago in the past. Theatrics and showmanship are his forte, particularly dances such as his boss battle with the Knight, along with the scarlet flame of his dream battle as the Nightmare King. However secrecy, death and rebirth are associated with Grimm as well. The Ritual that the Grimm Troupe preforms involves Grimm's death and rebirth through the Grimmchild and is described by Brumm as a song with no end. Endless applies to Grimm through this Ritual but slave can as well since Brumm implies that he is as much of a slave as the rest of the Grimm Troupe are, bound to the Heart of Grimm or the Nightmare Heart. He is powerful yet powerless when it comes to this; as the poem goes, burn the father, feed the child. The show must go on.
An endless show of sacrifice and servitude.
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Player: Lexy
Character Themes: Loneliness is the revolving theme of her canon-dealing with being completely alone and coping with loss. Even when humanity was alive, scientists would frequently leave her on her own. She refers to other children on occasion, but her involvement with them is unknown and implied to be minor, if anything, before they passed on. She has always been alone and copes with that by treating it as a fact of life.
The experiment she was born from was meant to make her a catalyst that would connect hearts, forcing evolution in all humanity by linking everyone with an empathetic connection that wouldn't require the need for words to communicate. The premade catalysts ended up not working out, so she was essentially abandoned as a failed experiment. The heart has good and bad associations with her for that reason. She thinks hers is inherently bad, others are good, etc. Her level of natural empathy is what made her suitable for experiments and connecting with people on that emotional level isn't shocking or weird to her. That is Normal.
Fear and a desire for safety are prominent with her. She's terrified of So Much All The Time and runs away from human contact in her canon because hm, nope. Her world is plagued with ghosts and vicious animals and no one to rely on, so she learned to solve 99% of her problems by running/hiding. There is [1] ghost scientist that associates with her only to use her to kill off the first wave of survivors. She is terrified of him and goes along with this plan because of that. Thank god for Better Protags (shout out to ya boy Seto). She has a childish urge for comfort, safety, love, affection-all those good things, which leaves her terrified of losing the connections she has now.
Death and sleep are overall canon themes that hit particularly close with her. Before humanity was even wiped out, she caught?? created?? patient zero'd??? the 'disease' that would eventually kill humanity when Catalyst 2.0 was used and requires medication to function/stay awake/be a person. It's known that she'll build up an immunity to the medicine and succumb to the same fate. She was okay with dying in canon, not so much in her current state, where she has friends and family. Coming to terms with her eventual death, knowing that she can't really be with anyone again, is A New Problem. This is sort of her current arc, trying to cope with the idea that people will want to be with her, even if they find out she's sick, and being unwilling to test This because she's terrified of, again, losing them.
Treasure (garbage), cats, terrible drawings, laboratories, flowers, especially the lotus, which is her name's meaning in some written variations and she's found near them in canon. Purple is her favorite color. The Moon is the subject of one of her songs and it's a reoccurring object when she's in the picture. Silver is the color associated with her and how she's referred to for 8.9/9 hrs of the game-the silver haired girl. Baseball is the first game she played with other people in a dream. Dumb things.
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cw: crucifixion imagery in second link
Player: Nao
Character Themes: Ardyn is a main antagonist whose wider character arc is comprised of themes of self-sacrifice, rejection, betrayal, and revenge. As his world's first would-be savior, his former human self is heavily associated with messianic motifs in concept art; it's made very explicit that he is a fallen savior turned basically into a walking Lucifer reference. Elements of his design also carry semi-subtle nods to black feathers and a spiderweb, the latter of which appears to symbolize the control he has over the Niflheim army as well as the protagonists, the world, and the situation at large.
Broader and more conceptual themes are light and fire; both alluded to in his real name--'Ardyn Lucis Caelum' meaning very roughly 'light of the burning sky'. While both manifest literally in his healing magic and Armiger being light-derived and black magic including Fire spells, metaphorically his past self can be seen to represent the safety inherent in light and warmth in fire--and his present self can be seen as the blinding and destructive parts of both elements. Ardyn has anger issues in spades that burn like a wildfire, and much like a wildfire he doesn't care in the slightest who gets burned in the process.
More obvious is his affinity with darkness and grudges in general--Ardyn is literally comprised of a light-repulsed daemon plague that resembles literal shadow. It serves as the symbol of his former self-sacrifice and root of his literal fall to darkness at the perceived hands of the gods, Crystal, and his younger brother--none of which he is willing or able to forgive. He serves as the shadow to Noctis' light in that respect; while one is a selfless and forgiving king with the protection of those he loves, Ardyn was just as selfless and sees himself as having been stabbed in the back as thanks. His grudge isn't solely on Noctis, but on the gods, the planet, and all things in between.
Ardyn is associated with shades of red (tying back into the fire motif); his royal arms and Armiger itself as well as his hair color and scarf are all red/violet/orange tones in direct opposition to Noctis' blue and black design elements.
Finally, I would probably say a more understated theme of Ardyn's whole general deal is time--he's been alive for longer than most people can even conceptualize, and even his basic leitmotif has an underlying rhythm similar to the ticking gears in a clock. Tying into that, his driving motivation and ultimate goal (apart from revenge) is arguably death, a theme shared with the entire Lucian kingdom's aesthetic--except Ardyn's done it a whole hell of a lot and is effectively a walking corpse just waiting for it to stick.
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cw: internalized ableism and suicide reference
Player: Zero
Character Themes: aloof, cynical, depressed, and deeply entrenched in his own guilt, tim's story has a lot of themes of guilt and accountability. the memetic brain virus of the operator is entirely his fault from his perspective. he sees himself as something of a doorway for the operator's machinations - the entry point through which it began to infect everyone's lives. he moves in a continuous cycle of lashing out at people who get too close to his issues and then immediately twisting around and turning that blame back on himself. paranoia and by association deception/lies are huge parts of his characterization. he is by nature a mysterious character, even if he happens to be the one person on the main cast whose backstory we know the most about. he is an unreliable narrator taken to the nth degree, repeatedly called a liar by nearly every other character in the series. it's a label he detests but nonetheless acknowledges as utterly true. he considers himself a deeply unreliable person, and doesn't trust himself in the slightest - nor does he encourage others to trust him either.
tim's history also deals heavily with the nature of control. tim has spent a very small proportion of his life with any actual agency in regards to what he could choose to do or be. if it wasn't doctors delineating his diet, his medication, his routine, his schedule, then it was the operator's overarching reach. when it wasn't totheark backing him into corners and trying to force him into revealing his secrets, it was jay posting tim's medical records on the internet and exposing all the private segments of his history for the world to peruse at a whim. tim is, in many respects, just as much of the operator's puppet as everyone else in the series; the big difference with him is that he's the only one who recognizes this and uses his acknowledgment of that to cut his own strings and free himself from the operator's influence as best as he could. personhood and agency are deeply important to him as a consequence.
kindness and empathy are secondary characteristics that tim himself doesn't always acknowledge and usually doesn't even recognize, but are there nonetheless. when he notices someone else hurting in a way he recognizes, he instinctively reaches out to help. the moment jay express symptoms that tim recognizes as similar to his own, he tries to get jay medical help to keep it from worsening. by the end of the series, he even offers a helping hand to alex, even as the other man is actively attempting to murder him and has arguably hurt tim more directly than anyone else in the series. while tim isn't without his limits - being taunted about what happened to brian was enough to tip him over the edge and utterly wreck kralie's ass, sobbing all the while - he's an innately compassionate person who especially doesn't like the idea that someone might be going through what he did, and that they might be going through it alone like he did. this also ties into an inherent sense of self-loathing that dovetails neatly into self-sacrifice: tim is almost always willing to throw himself under the bus for someone else's sake, as an extension of his self-blame complex. his assuming the blame for things going wrong (even when there's not much reason to, or when there's a perfectly rational explanation for why it probably isn't his fault) is almost a way of him asserting control over his own life in the only way he can. this also relates to his history of attempted suicide. just like too many other things in his life, this attempt ended in failure - a bitter reminder that his life never truly was his.
paranoia and doubt are tied also to the themes of lies and deception. tim is untrustworthy and untrusting; he'll keep your secrets, but he'll also keep far too many of his own. his history frequently leaves him invalidating himself and dismissing himself as "crazy," usually dismissing his own (rational) feelings as irrational spurts of madness from a broken mind. while tim will defend to the death anyone else who might be in a similar situation, his hypocrisy rears its ugly head in how dismissive and dehumanizing he often is in regards to himself. this self-contradiction also displays itself in less intensely destructive ways, however. tim is incredibly determined to the point where, despite having arguably been dealt the worst hand out of anyone in the series, he is consistently able to scrape himself up off the ground and not just power through to the other side, but also offer a willing hand in the process. despite how bitterly he wishes it could just be over already, he suffers from an almost pathological inability to simply lay down and die - though part of that might be the fact that the attempt on his own life he made ended in failure, possibly due to the operator's intervention. in-game, a sense of accountability has started to become a more prevalent theme for him; as much as he wishes he could simply let it be over, he's grown too close and too fond of too many people to just up and leave. he knows it would be irresponsible to put them through it, and doesn't consider their emotional turmoil worth the easy exit.
lastly, visual themes. tim is heavily associated with black/white dichotomy: the mask his famous alter ego wears is bone-white with black accents, and tim himself is often lit in very heavy shadows. he's obviously also associated with some fairly regular symbols: masks, cigarettes, trees, hospitals, pills, and the operator symbol, which is the circle with the x through it. he's also associated with fire. he smokes, and has an implied history with the fire in his old hospital. this has been far more prevalent in-game over time, to the point where fire is one of his main means of personal attack and defense. as a personal note, i tend to associate him with crows for a variety of reasons.
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Player: Roxy
Character Themes: Quite obviously, Guzma's main theme is skulls - given the fact he was once the boss of Team Skull in his canon. He deals with a lot of very dark, harsh themes like physical/verbal abuse, neglect, self depreciation/harm, and minor depression. He also often coins himself as destruction in human form given his extremely violent tendencies and his short fuse when it comes to his hairpin trigger rage. Guzma is a very violent guy, and deal with anger issues like crazy, born of his very dark, muddled upbringing. And yet he still views family in a very grey sort of way.
He also is extremely competitive and obsessed with the color gold - something he could never attain, so he adorns himself with flecks of it (his watch, the golden chain, his sunglasses). Guzma likes to win, and sees himself as powerful, but his competence has been tested numerous times...and he himself has been beaten down by others, making him hard to trust in people, especially people older than him. He's been burned so many times that he's lost faith in being someone people can hold in high regard, and instead surges forward on his own path, his own way. He's resilient, and maybe also a bit stubborn.
However, he's also got a gentler side that shows itself to people and things he cares deeply for. His pokemon he adores more than anything - they've been with him his whole life - and they adore him, too. He loves insects and finds them fascinating, though he has been known to use types such as dark and poison, perhaps influenced by Nanu and Plumeria, two people he knows rather well, whom he gets on with. He also is very protective, borderline possessive of those he deems as part of his "family" (his team), or a close knit group of friends. He understands other people's hardships and shelters them. He really is the definition of a big brother - someone who looks out for the little guys, who can't look out for themselves.
He'll often say he's a bad guy but it's not necessarily the truth. He's still human, and often makes foolhardy decisions, but he's willing to change, and understands the heavier mistakes he makes, sometimes taking them a little more strongly than others. He's hardest on himself first and foremost.
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cw: references to familial abuse
Player: Star
Character Themes: I’m probably missing many things but, here,,
ARC: Deuteragonist, originally set up as a villain. His canonical arc is a recovering from abuse arc- both escaping/ defeating his abuser, and starting to reclaim the aspects of his life that were hurt by that. Moving on and making peace with past traumas also extends to the thing where Damen shanked his brother.
THEMES: Double-meaningness is one of the central, overarching ones. Many of his themes apply in more than one sense: Falsehoods apply both in a “Laurent is a lying bitch” and “A fair amount of his reputation is wrongful slander” sense, sacrifice applies both as “sacrificing lives or friendships for your interests” or “sacrificing yourself because your interests happen to besomeone else/the greater good”. This iteration of Laurent also has a very strong sense of not measuring up/ not being good enough- he’s the inferior brother, the second choice, not good enough to take down his uncle (his canonpoint is just shy of him doing that. Oops.) Not even a proper magi.
MOTIFS: Blue & gold(though in LA he physically wears black or grey). A starburst symbol, inherited from his brother. Horses, books (a childhood motif, now seen far less), ice, stabby things. CHESS. A variety of metals/gems have been associated with his uncrackable stubbornness (“cast-iron bitch”). Actually, gems are a big motif because Soulgemmed CRAU, along with wishes and contracts.
This is his Wraith form, with the addition of three circular ‘eyes’ in a triangle formation (eg)
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Player: Katy
Character Themes: Naive child grows up is the main and most obvious theme of No.6 and Shion's story. Loss of innocence and understanding of the world as a whole and the suffering of life.
Strength and that strength is something that comes in many different forms. Being a burden and relying on others is a theme all the way through and by the end of his story Shion learns that he is also someone who Rat can rely on in his own way. Due to canon point and his previous game we are not quite there yet, but it is still a theme that I try to keep to- Shion slowly learning that he can be a person others rely on and to do so he just has to be himself. He doesn't have to be anyone else. Immidiate and oft empty kindness vs doing actual good is another theme explored.
Redemption and revenge is another theme that runs through the entire series. Shion is a boy who lived as an elite and knew nothing of the suffering outside of his city, Rat is a boy whose whole people were murdered when he was five years old by No.6. The question of whether to destroy No.6 or to save it is a major contention point in almost every episode- do they save No.6 and seak to redeam it or are the crimes to huge and must No.6 and it's citizens be destroyed- this big question is also asking the smaller question of can Shion be redeemed as a citizen of No.6. Can Rat forgive him or are they to be enemies?
Once again this theme has been interrupted by canon points- Shion doesn't know the extent of No.6's cruelties. However the theme of others suffering whilst Shion doesn't is something that has remained a strong theme. Notably his labyrinth punishment where he was forced to see Rat hurt and killed repeatedly for all the crimes and mistakes Shion had ever made. But also many times were his friends and family were hurt.
Linking to this the idea of control and helplessness is a theme that is there in canon (he is under the control of No.6. He has to be rescued from that control he cannot break out under his own agency.) and was also a huge theme in general in Animus. Learned helplessness and being controlled.
Also with Shion comes loss of personal control- Shion has darkness inside of him and this manifests as him losing control of his anger/fear for those he cares about. Control of self vs control from others.
Reality is also one of the running themes in Shion's character- he always wants to know the truth even if it is painful. No. 6 is a perfect lie. After his world traveling adventures this has evolved into reality vs illusion, what is true? What is reality? Can we ever actually trust what we think we are experiencing.
Nature and wildness over control and order is a theme of the series in general. Bees are the obvious animal association but also dogs and mice as well as through his games cats. He is named for the Aster flower. Colours are soft purple and also orange.
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Player: Laura
Character Themes: The most obvious symbol for Lup is fire - both its vast potential for destruction as well as its warming, nurturing, protective aspects if it is controlled and channeled properly. Same as her fire spells, her wrath fuels her determination but must also be controlled and directed in order to not lead to more damage (verbal or physical) than is helpful in the moment. Control over herself, her fury and her powers is another key part of Lup. The powerful magical artifact she created, the Phoenix Fire Gauntlet led to absolutely horrific amounts of destruction because it caused the wearers to lose all self-control and give in completely to their anger. But if worn by someone who could control it (and used it morally), an endless source of fire could have immense creative potential.
More broadly but still tying into these themes, power and the loss of power play an important role for her. Ever since she was a powerless, homeless orphan fighting for survival and looking out for her brother, the acquisition of (mainly arcane) power meant safety, control over her own life and reaching her goals. Later, during the mission with the rest of fantasy NASA, growing furiously in arcane power was her main focus in most planes and it meant not just her own survival but that of all realities everywhere. Getting trapped in the Umbra Staff saw her endure a total loss of power and agency, an almost complete loss of self. She fought constantly to gain even a sliver of agency, putting all power she still had into channeling her own spells through the umbrella in a few key moments. Even here in LifeAftr, having her powers so severely limited was and still is a source of stress and anxiety, feeding not a little bit into her trauma surrounding the loss of her existence/self. If she can't light up half the island in a powerful show of force, how can she make sure she's really here and seen by others?
Being a twin, I like a bit of mirroring, half of a whole kinda stuff for her, but the main thing here is balance. The twins are opposites in many respects and have always balanced each other's flaws, or not even flaws so much as... preventing each other from leaning too far into their natural tendencies. Taako calms Lup's wrath, curbs her recklessness to some degree, Lup makes him take risks, curbs his selfishness, and so on. They're at their best when they can function in tandem.
Another important theme in her life and her overall canon is family. She went from being rejected by her parents at a young age and being handed around among other uncaring family members, having only her twin as true family, to gaining a found family in her Starblaster crew, learning over a century how to care for them and be cared for. This theme has continued in LifeAftr by forming a family with Ren and "adopting" more kids like Chara and Seto.
Family represents the importance of relationship bonds to the story and to Lup. Bonds are what powers the Starblaster, they're what hold the planes of existence together and they eventually turn the fight against the Hunger around. To Lup, bonds are what enable her to turn into a lich without, again, losing her sense of self and control. If she, in her lich form, lost her bonds (canonically her strongest bonds are her love for Taako and Barry, and I would certainly count Ren and Chara in here as well), she would lose her grip on her identity and she would be overwhelmed by her own arcane powers, becoming massively destructive and dangerous. During the Relic Wars, she turned against her bonds to take too much control of the situation, too much responsibility, leading her to go off on her own to try and lock away her relic, which led to her death and being stuck in the umbrella, and ultimately to everyone having their memories erased.
A few other things that don't tie as neatly into each other: the color red, for the IPRE uniform but also her lich form being a red robed specter. Her umbrella, which was her prison (due to her own hubris, because she's the one who designed it to consume arcane energy of defeated mages, never anticipating that she'd be defeated one day), but it's also how she accesses and directs most of her power, and she has taken ownership of it again. Her trauma and fear of being forgotten, unseen, unheard, again being a loss of agency, self, and bonds. Life and death - she champions life, loves life, but her relic has one of the highest death counts and she is undead. And there's her fiery optimism, hope and faith that enable her to push through unbearable circumstances.
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Player: jazzy
Character Themes: Taako does not have a super obvious elemental association like Lup-- his magic specialisation is transmutation, which is not canonically really tied to traditional alchemy but I'm super gay for alchemy and he DID make the Philosopher's Stone so I think of it like that regardless and no one is gonna stop me. So, functionally, he gets all the elements, but more specifically and in keeping with the twin theme, he still gets a kind of fire. In chemistry, any change or reaction but particularly the application of heat is represented with a Δ, a delta. Likewise in math/physics, for any kind of difference, change of state, etc. I don't know the origin for sure but I'd give 50/50 odds it's because an upwards triangle is the alchemical symbol for fire, which is just the O.G. chemical change. It's important to me that they both share this symbol but in very different usages. (Ren seems to have developed an association of the twins with the sun and moon, which is adorable. and the moon being a symbol of change makes that even better imo)
(here in island hell he's shackled to the element of water and ice, both in terms of his surroundings and his extreme reliance on it in spellcasting. Water's also another big symbol of change, but that's just alchemy for you, they all are technically.)
His government assigned sin from the judgey-world is, I think they landed mostly on greed? He started with so little and never stops wanting more and is never satisfied, etc etc. The relic he made obvs does transmutation, and is most often misused giving the wielder what they want, to horrible consequence. A child turned a whole town into candy; when it tries to tempt people it offers to turn things into gold and diamonds, etc. And of course the judges were pretty right, Taako does just steal shit, he wants the finer things, he likes luxury and is concerned with Getting Paid, he's a classic earth sign there. He stole silver flatware, he stole gold (and shoes), he stole diamonds and gems (admittedly for a real good reason tho). His relic turned a whole lab into pink tourmaline. Associations with any precious metal or gem are, I think, valid, but those in particular.
More emotionally speaking but still in keeping with greed or want as a theme, he just isn't good at letting go. Like Lup, now that there are meaningful people in his life, he means very much to keep them, because the idea of losing people is horrifying to him after having lost Lup so thoroughly for a decade. He doesn't want to lose people, he doesn't want to lose himself, he's tired of losing.
Despite often alienating or being alienated by others, he still forms connections more quickly than he intends to or likes. And in the absence of that possibility, the flip side is that he just doesn't care and won't want to, because it would be a waste. All the doomed people on a hundred worlds, he calls 'talking dust.' I think of him as someone who...cherry picks, however inadvertently, people he cares about and puts them above the general populace, and I think the whole Stolen Century and gaining the IPRE intensified this quality. Without Lup's more developed compassion, this theme of family and bonds means he can have some pretty scarily black and white thinking about others and whether they matter. Which is to say, mostly people don't matter, but when they do they do. (The idea that it's different for anyone else, that this Special Person status isn't necessarily reciprocal, can be threatening and even very upsetting for him to realise--Lucretia's ideas in that regard were different from his and he's still feeling some kind of way about it.)
Obviously cooking is a big thing (this is just alchemy you did fire to and can eat so of course it is). It started as a way for the twins to make themselves useful, indispensable even, (a concern that still crops up, especially in the survival situation of early LifeAftr days) but it serves other purposes too. It's a cautious way to display affection, it's a great way to get positive attention, it gives him control over something, it's an avenue for self expression. He was initially not super thrilled with the idea of cooking here, however irrationally, because he spent a long time thinking his food poisoned a lot of people right to death. That didn't turn out to be the case, and due to necessity and I guess just logic he's gotten past it a lot here in LA, though it took him a little longer given how fucked up and untrustworthy magic is here.
Poison as a concept probably deserves its own bulletpoint. When they had to pick animal masks for a thing, Taako chose the mongoose and cited their resistance to poison. He knows now how Lup died when she got umbrella'd--also poison. When Guzma tried to sell him spider poison and even advocated /eating things that had been killed by it/ he was pretty horrified. It's an awful flip side to a lot of things he's about, it's unsurprising that he's not a fan.
(he also chose the mongoose for being unexpectedly fierce. i'd say doing the unexpected is also kind of his thing.)
He is pragmatic to Lup's idealism, cautious and evasive to Lup's recklessness and bravery, disinclined to trust in general and self-absorbed to a fault, much more than she is, but in general they balance each other out. Having her erased from his memories of his life left the memories of himself alone much clearer, which exacerbates the selfishness, self-absorption, and general assholishness, as well as his extreme self-reliance and occasionally very strong belief that he's the only person who can get things done.
Even though he now remembers growing up with Lup and always having at least her and later the whole IPRE to rely on, he also still remembers how it felt not to have that. He doesn't like being really and truly alone (though he will certainly bribe the entire camp to leave if he can, these days) and he feels strong sympathy for people who grew up similarly or are similarly alienated (see--Ren). He still remembers being dumb, sneaky, and lonely, even if that self-perception turned out to be distorted.
He would say he doesn't have a favorite color, but he's a liar and it's purple.
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Player: Casey
Character Themes: Chip is a main character (primary protagonist of the first book moving to supporting character in later books) with an arc revolving around found family, recovery from abuse, and acceptance of personal flaws. They have personal themes revolving around dogs/wolves, the divine, and growth.
Colors are an especially large theme for them as a character, and a huge lens through which they view the world. Black is associated with darkness, anger, pain, and power; white is associated with (absolute) purity, unforgiving morality, judgement, and personal worth; red is associated with humanity, physicality, and positive growth; green is associated with deception, masks, mazes, and the natural world. Chip's struggles revolve in large part around white and black being eternal antagonists that harm in different ways, red as an ideal, and green as a threat to be wary of.
Religion as a toxic and controlling influence is a very large part of their story, as is the importance of acknowledging the inherent worth of oneself and others. Dogs, wolves, and other canines are representative of safety and family, and crows represent a less prominent motif of freedom and choice. Divine entities (mostly in the form of Protestant Christian symbolism but also applicable to any revered entity) are a very strong motif regarding the idealized self and unacheivable perfection, of which obsession with is explicitly depicted to be self-destructive and undesirable.
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Player: Casey
Character Themes: Edward Elric is the main protagonist with an arc containing themes of family, co-dependence, ignorance of privilege, and moral use of amoral concepts. Edward himself has a huge association to alchemy, and by consequence control--the progression of his arc shows him losing more and more narrative control as the consequences of his actions (and inaction in some cases) becomes apparent, but in place of that he gains a greater sense of maturity and acceptance for both himself and others around him. Bonds, both familial and not, are a huge theme and a source of both power and stability, and broken bonds are a universally devastating event.
The false sense of moral high ground from science and logic versus faith and the supernatural are also a large theme for Edward, and something he wrestles with over the course of the series. This goes hand-in-hand with his position as a member of a privileged class--the first primary antagonist of the series is a person of color who seeks revenge for the unjustified decimation of his country, while the final antagonist is a person of privileged background whose amoral use of science directly causes the suffering of millions, a direct reflection of Edward's developing perception and awareness of the imbalances in his society.
Red and gold are both very thematic colors for him, and earth and metal are his element--his eyes and hair mark his connection to his bloodline (whose internal drama drives the main plot of the series), and his iconic red coat connects him to the blood-red Philosopher's Stone that acts as a 'forbidden fruit' within the narrative. His fighting alchemy always uses the earth and stone in his environment, as well as the metal of his prosthetic arm and leg. I also personally associate Edward with the sun, as it reflects both his color motifs and has a connection to alchemy as a symbol of the soul and man's divinity.
Thanks to Ryslig, he has also gained motifs of and associations with inhumanity, rage, darkness, fog, and goats. Corvids, fire, and deep forests all have positive connotations for him, and blood is a very potent symbol of death and hunger.
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Player: Birb
Character Themes: I'm gonna try and keep this short because you both already know most of this but I also want to deviate from the norm and be surprised if you catch my drift here SO
Probably the major symbols of Chara's two directions of development is thematically angels and demons, sort of continuously referenced in prophecies and bad times, depending on what timeline you're in. As far as their story goes, however, Chara's story revolves around the concept of obtaining control, duty, perceived betrayal, and of course, lOvE.
The most immediate color association for them is the red of DETERMINATION, however, there are also very strong tie-ins of green and yellow, KINDNESS and JUSTICE respectively. Past this, purple also sort of sits in the side of their symbolism, though it is strongly tied to the much larger running theme of angel. Lastly, sepia tones also relate to Chara, as this color scheme is only used in-game during memories that involve them, sans (shut up) one.
Imagery-wise, Chara's got-- a few. Golden flowers, knives, a heart-shaped locket. One could argue mirrors but ngl that fits Frisk better imo. Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto is essentially just Chara, the novel.
Sol Raveh also has a fuckin lot of symbolism and character development shifts soooo to run down a few of those:
Emotionally, paranoia, spite, bitterness, devotion and heartbreak are probably the biggest for Chara, though exhaustion and fear are up there too. In particular, a fear of being forgotten is a heavy one for them currently.
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Player: Zero
Character Themes: WELL OBVIOUSLY there are huge themes of sickness and mortality as the drifter spends their entire canon hunting for a cure. the whole world is similarly suffering from an affliction that stems from the same source as that which is killing the drifter, and it is through the drifter's actions that the world is eventually cured. loneliness/isolation plays a large part in this search. they spend a lot of their journey isolated and dealing with fantasy racism, as well as not really having access to a lot of people of the same species as them. npcs don't tend to interact with them unless necessary, and some have even beaten up and left for dead the only other member of their race they find in the game.
nonetheless, persistence holds a massive weight in regards to despite literally dying the entire time, the drifter manages to accomplish incredible feats that not even others of their ilk could. even when coughing up gallons of their own blood, the drifter manages to push through and defeat several incredibly complicated and difficult boss battles. this is also related to a warriorlike stoicism - they physically cannot speak, but they're also not overly inclined to as a person, preferring to display themself purely through action.
kindness is by far the most important game changer in regards to their personal arc, both in canon and later in lifeaftr. it was the kindness of the guardian that saved their life and gave them something substantial to fight for besides their own health (and was possibly the first real unselfish kindness that someone offered them in god knows how long), and this utterly shook their worldview to its core. it was what moved them to be a generally more compassionate person in lifeaftr, instead of looking out solely for themself. regret is also a weight here, out of consequence - they never want someone to die without repaying a debt, and thus never want someone's kindness to go unanswered again. this ties into a theme of self-sacrifice; despite spending much of their canon searching for a cure for their own gain, the drifter ultimately commits an act of sacrifice on the behalf of the rest of the world - the vast majority of which have been spiteful and generally uncaring toward the drifter's plight - and thus acts with that same sort of kindness that the guardian once showed them.
devotion and religious faith of the religious sort has become key to them over time, first through hyper light drifter's anubis figure, who continuously revives the drifter from death and guides them to the final destruction of the immortal cell. later, the storyteller and amaterasu would become key figures of that same sort of worship and faith. they are unquestioningly obedient to figures they consider gods - they don't second guess or question their motives or decisions, no matter the consequences, but simply accept their instruction as sacrosanct.
lastly, visual symbols: pink is a color motif present throughout the game. blue is the obvious association for the drifter's skin color. there is also an importance in the shapes of rhombi, and multiples of four.
oh yes and the characters of hyper light drifter are also associated with tarot cards. the drifter's is the magician.
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cw: mentions of ptsd and suicide
Player: Zero
Character Themes: wash is one of the most dynamic characters in the series, leading to a lot of fluxing changes throughout his lifespan. however, certain themes remain super core to his character regardless of that. one of the most important of those is accountability. wash is very justice-oriented, not necessarily in terms of doing the morally right thing (he knows he's often not morally correct and has killed too many people to pretend as such), but in regards to seeing people face consequences for what they've done. the director should face consequences for what he did to the alpha, freelancer should face consequences for what it did to its agents, south dakota should face consequences for what she did to wash, hargrove should face consequences for what he did to the people of chorus, locus should face consequences for his hand in the chorus civil war, and wash himself should face consequences for what he's done to everyone else. he doesn't let himself off the hook for anything; while his sense of justice once skewed into vengeance, he has since learned to let things go and not let that sort of slow-burning rage consume him, except where it pertains to himself. even years down the line, he's shown to still experience massive guilt in regards to some of his darker choices, like shooting donut in cold blood.
self-destruction is a prevalent theme as a result, contradicting very fiercely with the equally weighty theme of survivability. wash is like a cockroach. despite massive amounts of physical punishment and emotional trauma he's endured, he keeps fucking going - but he always manages to find ways to position himself in a position to die easily. he doesn't actually expect to survive a lot of his missions, and is perfectly willing to take the brunt of the risk if it means everyone else he cares about doesn't have to, but he's simultaneously very fucking good at wriggling out of no-win scenarios. he also bore personal witness to epsilon attempting suicide in wash's head, which notably shattered his psyche for an extended period of time.
memory and sense of self are core aspects of wash's character as well. his dynamism as a character has to do with how he's been smacked with other people's memories and then had to struggle to separate his sense of self from someone else's over a long period of time. psychological trauma is still very central to his character despite the massive strides he's taken since then, and he still deals with issues of trust, paranoia, and PTSD. the effects of this trauma has contributed to a loss of self-identity - he went from earnest and slightly dorky to cold and pragmatic. recovery is significant here as well: not only was that his callsign after freelancer toppled, but much of his life after season eight of rvb involved starting to glue himself together after all the trauma he's endured and ultimately coming out a slightly healthier person because of it (though he's notably still not entirely there yet). he was considered the "spiritually strongest" of the freelancers due to his ability to walk off one experience after another and still come out ready to fight.
betrayal and trust are other dichotomous keystones of his character. it was repeated abuse of trust that led to him turning on allies and friends, one after another, and it was receiving an act of unconditional trust and kindness that pulled him back from that ledge. just as justice very easily becomes vengeance, wash's anger was a huge contributor to his ability to hold incredibly long grudges. combine that with a sense of secrecy and an oftentimes infuriatingly cryptic nature, and wash can be downright duplicitous when the occasion calls for it. this speaks to his combat prowess as well - his strength lies in guile rather than brute strength.
lastly, in terms of visual symbols: wash is associated with a gray and gold color scheme, but the color blue is also significant thanks to his affiliation with the blue team. also the state of washington i guess.
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Player: Angel
Character Themes:
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cw: human experimentation
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spoilers!!!
Re: spoilers!!!
Spoiler Warning for FFXV & Episode Ignis
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cw: complete lack of self-preservation
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ffxv spoilers
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rwby spoilers
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cw: dear evan hansen's eternal garbage heap
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cw: child death and child loss
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cw: Spoilers if you don't go here?
Re: cw: Spoilers if you don't go here?
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