#My journey as an artist and a martial artist

[okara-illustrates]

It’s good you love asks (what it says on your askbox) because I love sending ’em. >:3

So how did you get into taekwondo? Parents signed you up on a whim? Classmates were doing it?

And how did you get into art? Like what was your process to learn, what did you do? Would you do anything differently if you could change any of your methods/steps?

GASP!! AN ASK!!! AFTER ALL THESE YEARS!!! AHHHHH

okokok I’m adhd I will ramble bear with me

Taekwondo:

I remember the day my mom signed us up for taekwondo very vividly. She had her big old Mac computer out. It was 10 years ago, so it was like it looked like a monitor essentially. She was scrolling through a list of sports trying to find something that my brother and I would enjoy. As she was scrolling down, I saw the word taekwondo, and I was extremely intrigued. So I asked her if we could do that I knew it was some sort of martial art, but I wasn’t entirely sure what it was, but I was willing to try it. Since she’s Korean, we already had ties to it so she was like OK sure so she found us a little Dojang and we began our lessons. I see yours went by my love for the sport grew and grew. By that time we had become close friends with our coaches as they like to be called. It’s easier to call them that. And eventually we became part of the competition team. It was a three-year commitment for nationals so we would be we would train and go to nationals three years in a row and then we were done unless we want to continue through our couple years of training with the team we grew closer than family like cousins like we saw this group of athletes day in a day out 4-5x a week 5+ hours a day. We went camping together we did team bonding activities together. We quite literally shed blood sweat and tears together we worked hard together we pushed each other. We laughed together. We cried together. It was a whole another kind of experience that was great until Covid hit. Once Covid hit, my family went from being busy all the time 24 seven with not even really a day of rest in the week to absolutely nothing and to me although I’m an extrovert it was thrilling. I loved it. But it meant that we couldn’t do taekwondo because it was a close contact sport you know so nationals was shut down for a while. I didn’t even get to go to nationals. I actually got kicked off the team because I didn’t like to put in the work except we were so close with my coach who by that time was diagnosed with stage four cancer he had me trained with the team anyway. So I technically wasn’t really kicked off but officially I was. He probably pushed me the hardest out of the entire team, even though I did not like to work all that much and my confidence had dropped like a rockin in the ocean. It was really bad, but I knew that he just wanted to see me succeed, and he just cared a lot, especially since you know it was pretty. It was pretty bad. I’m a speech to texting this by the way because I wrote a whole thing out and then Tumblr deleted it so yeah. Anyway, once Covid letter I got to see my coach a couple more times before he passed away in June and and that just rocked our team in a bad way. We kind of trauma bonded over it because we were all just so close together that it felt like losing a family member but not one of those like distant relative family members but someone who is very very close to us. Half of us got their black belts two months before he passed away, which really sucks because they didn’t have the closure that the other half of us got after a new master took over our school and we got to work at our black belts as a sort of tribute to our coach and I need to get some of those guys out of their house cause I don’t think they’re doing so well with it. But yeah, so that’s my little taekwondo history you know these past 10 years have been life-changing. I wouldn’t have changed it for the world it sucked yeah but also I grew a lot and without taekwondo. I seriously wouldn’t be the person. I am today if you read all this, I commend you you deserve a gold star. I don’t have a gold star, but you deserve one. I’m sure there’s one at dollar store or something. I don’t know OK now onto to art!!

My art journey ironically started in Covid. I’ve always kind of had a little liking to doodling characters, but I never really was serious about it. It’s just like every kid doodling you know I wasn’t special. I wasn’t talented. I didn’t you know have all the supplies I didn’t have classes. I’ve the only art class I’ve taken was a watercolor thing, and it didn’t teach me very much other than hues and values. I’m a self taught artist. But when Covid hit suddenly I went for being incredibly busy to having nothing to do at all so since my brain was an occupied with tae kwon do and homework and missing birthday parties and all that I had so many creative ideas that I wanted to get out on paper so I could see But being the non talented kid with absolutely no artistic skill, I had to really work at it. It took three years before I was happy with my arm. It was really grueling, but I had to give myself grace you know and be like hey my art is shit right now but it’s not always gonna be like that so I’m just gonna keep working at it and it’s OK that it’s shit Because I’m learning and as the months went by I wouldn’t see the improvement for months at a time it took a long time what I do was I look up human art references or like the drawing like the drawing references and stuff and I trace them and I trace and trace and trace and trace trace until it became muscle Memory Once it became muscle memory, and I had a basic understanding of human anatomy I would use references instead of tracing, so I just kind of built. I kind of took those baby steps. I was building up to the point where I could draw the human body without references just a drawing, helped a lot with that and at first when I first weaned myself off of tracing it looked horrible as you know it does when you’re a beginner, but I refuse to let that hinder me because I was learning and I gave myself grace for that. I don’t think I would really change anything. I did for my art journey, other than figuring out shading and lighting sooner and backgrounds cause I suck at those, but That doesn’t mean I’m necessarily bad at art or I should never continue being an artist because I suck at something, that’s just an untruth that we tell ourselves often times we suck at something so badly and we have such a high opinion of ourselves that we think that we should be good at everything on the first try and if we’re not, we think well I will never be able to get up to ____’s level. And that’s something that a lot of beginner artist struggle with and that’s why a lot of people quit because they think that they don’t have talent, but it is not about talent. It’s about skill and skill. Takes a lot of time to build up and that’s where a lot of artists drop off because experience artist tell them practice practices practice that practice what you need to And because there’s no really set instructions other than practice a lot of people think well I can’t do it when that’s not really true because I started out as the most average kid artistic skill like I was not talented at all I started out on the same base level as everyone else I just had to drive to do it and that’s the difference if that makes sense, but yeah, there’s my little spiel Again if you read this I commend you because I ramble a lot anyway yeah. :33

This is probably my favorite ask that anyone’s ever sent me. Thank you.

[princelythirsts]

you can do whatever you want with your ocs and stuff but I still find it funny I keep pairing Phemie with characters other than the character I literally made him to pair with

[tobiasdrake]

Incidentally, we can't really talk about pragmatism without talking about Future Trunks.

Krillin is a devious and underhanded martial artist, but still a martial artist. Trunks is an assassin. He goes straight for the throat at every opportunity. He's not here to fight; He's here to kill.

Much like his father, Trunks is not a martial artist. Every bit Vegeta's son, he's naturally gifted and has already become a Super Saiyan by both of his first appearances - in the story, when he fights Frieza on Earth, and also chronologically in Trunks the Story: A Lone Warrior.

I can't really say he's untrained. He was trained in the basics by Gohan. But Gohan is also not a martial artist; He's had one year and six months of proper martial arts training. One year from Piccolo and six months from Krillin.

Gohan's a fighter, guided by emotion moreso than technique. So there's a limit to how much Trunks can learn from him. Even Gohan admits that he's a poor substitute for his dad.

This, I should note, is a meaningful admission from Gohan because this chapter was published at the very beginning of the Cell Games. Gohan outright saying "I wanted to follow in my dad's footsteps but the clothes aren't enough" sets up an important contrast to the Gohan of the present time who has had that time with Goku and is ready to take his place.

But his concession of inadequacy is important for how we interpret Trunks as well. Trunks knows the stuff. He can perform Bukujutsu. Throw ki blasts. Power up into a Super Saiyan. But he's not Goku or Krillin or Yamcha or Tenshinhan; Like Gohan and Vegeta, he is a fighter, not a martial artist.

His heart is in the right place, but he's reckless and foolhardy. Chomping at the bit for a piece of vengeance.

This recklessness carries into his journey to the past. He never quite learns from his brief offscreen shitstomp by the Twins. He returns to a point in history just after Goku's return from space. Historically, this was a key moment in history where Goku showed up in the nick of time to save Earth from Frieza and his father King Cold. Which should technically be Great King Cold as it's Cold-Daio but he's far from the first king to have his Greatness dropped in translation, eh Piccolo?

But when Goku's late to the party, Trunks starts to worry and decides to step in himself.

Look at him. The spitting image of his father, full of piss and vinegar.

It's here that we get to see Trunks as a fighter for the very first time. Even chronologically; In Trunks the Story, they skip most of the action; It's very brief.

I mean. It's an absolutely hilarious joke that we see Trunks flying off half-cocked to go get revenge and then he's waking up from a coma on the very next page. Amazing cutaway gag.

But we're here to talk about Trunks's DNA as a fighter, so Frieza offers us the first material we have to work with. And Trunks? He does not fuck around.

Your soldiers are dead. Who's next?

You're dead. Who's next?

Your father's dead. We done here?

Trunks gives zero shits. In the span of two chapters, he massacres Frieza, Cold, and all of their soldiers without an ounce of hesitation. He is not playing.

He was even paying attention to the part where Frieza can survive grievous amounts of harm and come back. He takes great care to thoroughly and utterly annihilate every last bit of Frieza. Taking no chances.

Trunks isn't here to fight. He's here to kill. He is not interested in a protracted martial arts bout.

This fight, incidentally, also gives us a moment to talk about Trunks's sword. Cold-Dumbass thinks Trunks's sword is the key to his power.

He's an idiot. There's a reason he only exists for like three chapters and one page of a fourth. This man doesn't even understand how weapons work in anime.

Japan and the West have very different relationships with weapons. When Westerners think of weapons, we think of guns. Even when we write medieval weapons, we treat them like guns. Guns are disposable tools that bestow killing power upon their wielder. Any average Joe with a gun suddenly becomes a lethal warrior.

But Japan has a rich history and philosophy baked into their culture surrounding weapons and their role in martial arts. In anime, a weapon does not grant power; It manifests power. The weapon is an extension of its wielder. It's a means by which the wielder expresses their own strength.

In Trunks's hands, that sword can cut through Frieza. Because Trunks is powerful, and his might outshines Frieza's.

In Cold's hands, however, that sword is harmless. Because Cold is weak and cowardly. (Uh, relative to Trunks.) He has no power to express.

But Goku is strong. Goku knows power intimately, far beyond Trunks's understanding. And so Trunk's sword, his expression of power, is useless against Goku.

This is what Trunks's sword means, to him and to the story. It's an extension of his character and his strength; The means by which he delivers his killing force. Which is precisely what makes this moment so devastating.

When 18 breaks Trunks's sword, she breaks Trunks. The damage to his blade is honestly not that severe. It could probably be reforged. But the damage to Trunks's self-image, to his psyche, is unshakable.

Trunks never uses his sword again. He leaves it on the plane here.

And then we never see it again. Instead, Trunks decides to pursue greater martial arts training alongside his father, following in Vegeta's footsteps.

But he never quite loses his assassin streak. Though he begins to develop his abilities as a fighter from this point forward, Trunks is goal-oriented. He wants to kill the Twins. He doesn't care how that happens.

In the original version of these events, before Cell further altered the timeline, those blueprints were the key to Trunks's victory against the Twins of his timeline.

Though Cell has no idea how Trunks pulled off this victory despite being too weak to defend himself from Cell himself, the discovery of Gero's lab offers us a possible explanation.

The Twins have shutdown switches built into their systems. Though 17 destroyed the remote Gero built, Bulma is able to use these blueprints to build a new one.

So there's a solid implication that the weaker Trunks of Cell's timeline took Bulma's remote home with him and disabled the Twins that way. Again: He's not here to fight. He's here to kill. It doesn't matter how he does it.

...well, I guess it does matter 'cause that Trunks got wasted by Cell five minutes later.

Point is, Trunks wears his goal-oriented ruthlessness on his sleeve. He's not driven by pride of by love of the art. He has a job he's here to do.

However that single-minded focus, that determination to get it done, also holds him back. Trunks has never had proper martial training. He's been taught by Future Gohan, who is not a martial artist. And he's... taught himself near Vegeta. His developed his abilities and increased his strength, but he doesn't know fighting the way Goku or Krillin or Yamcha or Ten do. Nor does he have Vegeta's natural brilliance and general understanding.

Trunks, for all his strength and all his determination and all his killing instinct, is an amateur. We all know what happened to him in the last fight he ever fought here in the present.

Vegeta breaks the limits of the Super Saiyan and realizes that this power is good but comes at a cost, so he should only do it sparingly.

Goku breaks the limits of the Super Saiyan and realizes this form sucks and is stupid, and decides to go a different route entirely.

But Trunks breaks the limits of the Super Saiyan and goes "AWWW YEAH THIS IS THE SHIT GIMME THAT POWER" because he doesn't know. He has a killer's instinct, not a martial artist's. He's never been trained in technique.

We see, over the course of this series, both Trunks's strengths and his weaknesses as a fighter. In every altercation, he goes straight for the throat. Which is brutally effective when he has the power to back it up but Trunks, more than anyone, is vulnerable to a crushing defeat if he doesn't have the Power Level to back it up. He has nothing else.

Still, he gets to go out on a high note. His final chapter sees him return to the future, not with the remote but with the great strength he gained in the Room of Spirit and Time. And he gets to clean house his way - slaughtering the Twins efficiently and thoroughly, in true Trunks fashion.

And also getting Cell for good measure.

Godspeed, killer. You were the best your world had left to offer but you rose to the occasion, and that's the most that could be asked of anyone.

[sailorblossoms-rankane]

(Posting my threads on tumblr so I can talk to fellow Akane/Rankane enjoyers, part 3) (manga exclusive, I haven't seen the 80s anime)

One of the first things we learn about Akane is that she’s both violent and sweet. Both are true, and much can be said about her hair journey.

Akane’s violent side is immediately obvious while her sweet side is more apparent along the journey. She’s trusting and caring, even with people who have done nothing but wrong her (a mf will try to kill her and she’ll still be like “I feel sorry for them/I want to help them”)

Her sweet side is also introduced when she meets Ranma. She sees someone uncomfortable in an uncertain/awkward situation, and she’s the first to reach out and be welcoming.

Akane’s haircut is violent, brutal, and shocking. As shocking as Ranma entering her world. It happens during the first real fight Ranma has on page, and it's likely no coincidence. Something is off with long-haired Akane... with the cut, she enters Ranma’s world as her true self.

Akane’s long hair is tied to Akane trying to be like Kasumi: modest, calm, quiet. It’s Akane trying to be someone she’s not, because she wants to feel loved and wanted. If she likes a boy, she wants to be liked back (as opposed to disliked because she’s too "boyish")

When Akane crushes on the doc, that’s a girl used to being bothered and harassed by boys (boys who think “I can beat her into dating me”) fixating on a safe male figure because he makes her feel secure and cared for (literally treating her wounds)

(To contrast: Ranma being stronger isn’t “she must submit to me,” which is what was associated with a boy beating her... it's usually “I’m stronger so I want to look out for her/help her/protect her” and that part makes her feel secure and cared for)

Akane “changing herself” isn’t really about getting the doc to like her, but about Akane feeling judged and inadequate as her true "tomboy self," because even if she cuts her hair short she still likes being feminine… and she’s constantly told she’s not.

Just look at how she dresses. Other female characters might often wear pants (outside of the school uniform, Nabiki usually wears jeans and shorts for example) but Akane is rarely not wearing a cute little skirt or a dress. Calling her uncute pokes at a sore spot.

Changing herself doesn’t give her what she wants, it just reaffirms her insecurity (if you have to stop being yourself to feel accepted, are you really accepted?). When the doc says "short hair always did suit you better," it doesn’t make her happy because she doesn’t actually want him.

Part of why he’s safe is because he knows her just as she is and still never judges when others do. “Short hair always did suit you better" is also “you didn’t need to change yourself to be accepted, you were always fine just as you are.”

This is part of why she cries so hard and why afterward she’s immediately over him… she mourns what she felt and believed (and perhaps the effort it took, growing out a pixie is not for the weak lol) and is ready to turn the page. But the insecurity that sparked it all remains.

That Ranma preferring her short hair makes her smile is an early sign that he stirs something in her. It also says something important: he can tease and insult her all he wants, but he likes Akane just as she is

And that includes her violence. her anger and her fire. When Akane is upset and tries a cooler approach, Ranma won’t let her. he prefers Akane sending his ass flying than her ignoring him 100%

I think Ranma also likes Akane’s "specific brand" of violence, because everyone and their mom is violent here (including Nabiki… psychological violence if you will lol) and outside of challenges/battles he only seeks hers by teasing her, knowing how she’s going to react.

(everyone is a martial artist/violent but I think part of why Akane is clocked as more tomboy-ish is attitude. All the girls will use “their feminine charms,” even Ranma, but Akane will grab a fucker by the shirt, look at them in the eye and jut out her chin, and that's "masculine")

Akane wants to feel normal, she wants to be liked by the one she likes. she associates “you’re not normal” as a negative thing, as “you will be disliked”... even if Ranma means it as “Akane is tougher than a regular girl” (positive) that's not what she hears.

Kasumi means no harm, she knows Akane well and wants to look out for her. but that gives her words more impact, and Akane looks up to her as the ideal of femininity (she also only wears skirts and dresses) (Akane has likely heard this shit a lot too, she was cast as Romeo, etc)

Ranma knows he can be a jerk, but he genuinely doesn’t realize he's saying insensitive shit just when Akane is at her most sensitive... when she snaps, that’s her armor coming up to protect her heart (just like being a jerk can be armor for Ranma)

So Ranma hurts Akane's feelings without realizing (being a jerk is armor because his feelings are too big, too much for him, and he’s not ready to deal with them) but takes Akane's angry response as her hurting his feelings.

This causes the following pattern: Ranma “lifts Akane up,” telling her exactly what she needs to hear from him, soothing her insecurities… and then completely lets her down/disappoints her by telling her exactly what she doesn’t need to hear.

Look at Akane’s face. she could’ve accepted Ranma's apology and moved on. Instead, she’s vulnerable and ready to admit fault too... she’s touched by the idea of Ranma wanting to make up because he wants to be with her (but then he downplays it lol a word-class fumbler fr)

And... he doesn't realize he’s doing this! he doesn’t want to hurt her. whenever he realizes he hurt her he always wants to fix it, even if he doesn’t fully get what he did wrong or why Akane is mad and/or how to make it better.

But “lifting Akane up and then kicking her down” is the type of shit that makes Akane feel like she needs to protect her heart. In a way, Ranma’s armor (jerk) makes Akane’s come up and vice-versa, so neither can give in. It's part of why admitting feelings is very difficult

There’s also Ranma throwing easy “I love you’s” when he thinks it's a challenge with people he has no feelings for, but completely combusts when he realizes he said to the person he’s in love with. It’s too much for him and he’s not ready to admit it, so “he takes it back”

On Akane's side, she isn't unaffected by hearing the boy she loves confess and then "take it back"... even if she can be perceptive and understands Ranma’s shenanigans this sparks more insecurity (and then jealousy)

This contributes to Akane being quick to get angry & misunderstand certain situations, as she’s expecting Ranma to “let her down”/ has no confidence that he doesn’t want anyone else (besides Ranma being in “impossible not to misunderstand situations, for the bit”)

Akane being perceptive but her insecurities getting to her: she knows Ranma. She’s correct in her assessment that he fucked up and is hiding it. But doesn’t clock his deflection because damn, what if he actually wants someone else, what if they have something she doesn’t

But Akane always goes back to believing in him. Because even if he disappoints her, she understands that he's just not thinking, it's his ego, he doesn't mean it, the situation is too much for him to handle etc. And he never stops trying to make sure they’re on good terms.

Also, Ranma makes her feel safe and protected. She likes that he’s strong and never gives up. She knows she can count on him when it matters most (which is why she’s also his ride or die, goes both ways). It’s part of why when she’s jealous, she imagines Ranma protecting Nabiki.

It’s not something she thinks about consciously, but being the one Ranma wants to protect above everyone and all else is part of how Ranma shows his feelings for her, and on some level, she can tell… one of the first moments ranma makes her heart speed up is this

She likes that Ranma protects her and that she can count on him, but she never wants to be a burden or the reason he has to sacrifice something. just like how Ranma wants to protect her above all else, no one goes as far as she does for his sake (see also: the final arc)

Adding on the crush on the doc: just like this scene, it's likely that whenever Akane went to see him, her wounds weren't just physical. "I hate boys" is not something she means as she never treats anyone with hatred, but it's coming from a place of frustration/exhaustion.

Each daily challenge would be annoying by itself, but the repetitiveness of it all would wear her down. Note how she never goes "I hate boys" again after it stops. It's only just "I hate Ranma, specifically" because he hurt her... but she doesn't mean that either

Ranma's presence puts an end to those challenges, so he brings her peace in that sense. His world comes with craziness and dangers, but unlike the school challenges, this is something Akane chooses to face because she wants to support him.

Fighting annoying boys because you don't want to date them and fighting to support a loved one are completely different things. The former wears Akane down, while she's passionate about the latter. Just like how she counts on Ranma to protect her, she always wants to have his back.

[howtofightwrite]

I'm writing a scene where a cultivater (chinese martial artists who fights ghosts) falls in a forest and I'm trying to figure out how someone who fights on rough terrain would train to fall. I tried looking at martial art/parkour/stunt man tutorials, but I feel like a lot of the basic techniques (rolling, and slapping the ground to distribute weight) wouldn't work well on uneven ground. I also tried looking at hiking advice but they just say to fall on your pack. Any insight?

Chinese cultivators don’t fall, they choose to reacquaint themselves with the ground.

That sounds like a joke, but the best way to understand Chinese cultivators and Chinese fantasy media is to realize that martial arts are the gateway drug to magic. And that will get you into a lot of trouble if you follow that all the way into Martial Arts Give You Superpowers, which is both the outgrowth of the western understanding of Chinese culture and a trope rife with orientalism. Cultivation seems simple on the surface when you’re watching Chinese media, but it’s more than martial arts, it’s more than religion, it’s more than mythology, (though it is all of those too) it’s a genuine transition into metaphysics that reorients how we understand and interact with the world around us. The concepts we see in cultivation come from real martial arts philosophy that you find in Tai Chi, Shaolin, and most other Chinese martial arts. They come from real religions including Daoism, Buddhism, a healthy dose of Confucianism, general mythology and mysticism from a wide range of subcultures, and, to an extent, Animism. If you aren’t doing your reading with the Eight Immortals, Journey to the West, The Legend of the White Snake, and others then you should dig in. I also really suggest watching the live action C-Dramas whether they’re true Wuxia or more Xianxia idol dramas (and in this case the idol dramas are better because the action is slower) so you can acquaint yourself with the stylized martial arts portrayals, a wide variety of choreography, character archetypes essential to motif based storytelling, and the most important aspect of all—wire work.

Understanding and conceptualizing stunt action done on wires is essential when you’re trying to visualize and create action scenes in any East Asian genre. Your first instinct might be to dismiss the stylized movement as unrealistic (it is) but remember that it’s also genre essential. Hong Kong action cinema has a very specific feel to it that’s very different from the way Western cinema structures and films their fight scenes. Even when you’re writing, you’ll want to find ways to imitate it through your visual imagery on the page.

Probably the best way to contextualize cultivators is that they’re wizards who do martial arts. They’ve learned to transcend the limitations in our understanding of reality through knowledge and study to perform superhuman feats. How superhuman? Well, it gets wild. They can be anywhere from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon/Who Rules the World fly through the trees levels to Shang Tsung’s “I’m going to slam my hell reality into your normal reality because commuting to work is too much of an inconvenience.”

Which is to say, they don’t always fight ghosts. Sometimes they fight other martial artists, sometimes they fight other cultivators, sometimes they fight demons, sometimes they fight gods, and sometimes they fight incredibly overpowered monkeys. They’re often monks living in seclusion on a mountaintop, but not always. Cultivation is more of a state of mind. Anyone can do it if they learn how to absorb spiritual energy from the world around them through meditation and breathing exercises. Gods cultivate. Humans cultivate. Animals cultivate. Remember, the demons and the ghosts cultivate too. Sometimes, your master gets reincarnated as a demon. Sometimes, you do. The amount of wacky spellcasting you can do is dependent on how much energy you’ve cultivated, which is dependent on how old you are and how good at cultivation you are. Using the power means you need to cultivate more energy, the greater the spell or difficult the battle then the more energy is lost.

This is important to the question of: how does a cultivator fall?

Metaphorically? Existentially? Physically?

When we’re talking physically, wire work becomes very important. Think of your cultivator as being on wires. If they have the knowledge and understanding to do it, they can slow their own fall through the air to land harmlessly on the ground or twist over like a cat and launch themselves back off the ground to fly at their opponent in a counter attack. If they have the knowledge and understanding, they can teleport. If they lack the knowledge and understanding or want to trick their opponent, they can hit the ground like a sack of potatoes. If they’re relying on basics, they can also smack the ground to counter and spread out the impact then use the momentum from that fall to roll back onto their feet. They’ll do it no matter what terrain they’re on because it’s a basic technique that’s trained into their foundation to the point it’s a reflexive action. Any force distributed away from, and reducing impact on, important body parts like your spine is better than nothing. It’s better to sacrifice your arm than be paralyzed. At its heart, that’s the point of the technique. If you’re able to walk away with a functioning spine, it’s done its job. Your shoulder hurts? That’s normal. Your arm is sprained or broken? Sucks, but that’s better than the alternative that is paralysis and death. For reference, learning to fall was the first lesson my Wushu instructor ever taught me. It is that basic.

A lot of the time when portraying cultivators in media, the goal is to show them as being beyond the limitations of standard martial artists. How vast the gap is between the cultivator and the average human is dependent on both the setting and the cultivator. So, the average martial artist who possesses superhuman talents but hasn’t dedicated themselves to a life of cultivation and cultivators who are new to the path are going to be on the rung below and more likely to be knocked on their ass. Cultivators in the mid-range are more likely to have crafted or trained in solutions to being knocked on their ass which put them in a less vulnerable position while recovering and empowered/enhanced their martial arts. Cultivators in the top tier are usually straight up masters at spellcasting, if they deign to fight at all. Gravity need not apply. Rember, the time it takes you to hit the ground and roll to your feet is time your opponent has to launch a counter attack or move to a better position. Also, it means you’ve taken your eyes off your opponent. This is bad enough against a normal human opponent. Against another mostly immortal or ancient magic user this risks a terrible outcome.

Cunning and strategy are both as important as skill. Wisdom, knowledge, and hard work outweigh talent and raw potential. You’ll have to decide how esoteric you want to be and what limits you want to set. I really urge you to do this because the danger of power creep is real and especially prominent here. A character’s growth in power is often linked to their growth in character or their arc, as they gain a greater understanding of themselves and the world around them their skill increases. The self-discovery/self-reflection/self-interrogation/intense suffering to reach enlightenment portion is just as important and intrinsic to the martial arts portion of Martial Arts Give You Superpowers. It’s easy to focus on the Superpowers or the Martial Arts parts of the equation and miss the genre necessity of character growth. This growth often happens through heaps of steadily increasing trauma. Or, failing to undergo that by being too powerful and thus unable to progress is the joke like it is in Qi Refining for 3000 Years. (Go to hell, Bai Qiuran, you hilariously overpowered monstrosity.)

The irony is that the trajectory in character growth is the same trajectory the average student experiences when practicing martial arts. The only difference is that the power arc is inflated. This includes overcoming ingrained truths that you believe about yourself, about your own abilities, what you believe yourself to be capable of (both good and bad,) about your biases toward yourself and other people, your biases about reality in general, your understanding of good and evil, the potential upending of right and wrong, and facing the greater complexity found in the world at large. The stripping away of these illusions, coming to terms with uncomfortable realizations in a more complicated world, and the gaining of new understanding and confidence are vital to that growth.

Skill isn’t just represented in the power creep, it’s also found in a character’s sophistication and complexity in their approach to combat and life in general. Their awareness both of themselves and of other people, their ability to read intentions, their predictive abilities, their complexity in initiating their own strategy and tactics while also recognizing and countering the plans of others. It’s their insight into human nature and their cunning. It’s not enough to be powerful. The world is full of powerful people and not so powerful people who have the capacity to be just as dangerous. This isn’t Goku and Freeza slamming into each other while the planet explodes in nine minutes. You also need to be smart. It’s also not about being a better person. It’s about being a self-aware person. A person who is self-actualized. Monkey’s growth is in his awareness of the world around him through his experiences and in approaching problems differently rather than becoming less of a little shit. If you grow up in the West, one of the issues you’re going to face is thinking of these hurdles as materialistic rather than emotional or intellectual.

A lot of Western media misinterprets the concepts of “giving up” as physical sacrifice. One of the popular examples is physically sacrificing the person we love. In order to have enlightenment, we must be separated from them. We can’t physically be with them anymore. Whereas under a Buddhist structure, what we are actually sacrificing is our own ignorance, our own preconceptions, and beliefs that keep the world comfortable. Under this structure, we’re sacrificing our preconceived notions of who our loved one is. The person that we invented when we first met and we must force ourselves to come to terms with who they really are. The outcome of this isn’t necessarily going to be bad, but it’s still painful. The person we think we love could be perfectly wonderful. However, they’re not who we imagined. If we choose to hold onto the illusion we created, to ignore the realization that the illusion is the person that we love, we’ll only end up causing ourselves and our loved one more pain. We must fall in love with them all over again. Coming to terms with that is painful. All pain comes from ignorance. In sacrificing, letting go of, or overcoming our ignorance, we grow.

These are the emotional, intellectual, and spiritual challenges necessary for a cultivator because they allow the cultivator to level up. Yes, level up. Whether this is coming from the influx of gaming culture into media at large or because the concept synergizes with the Buddhist goal of progressing through the Six Realms toward nirvana, leveling up is how a cultivator’s increasing power is often depicted. Of course, once we reach the next level we can’t go back except by falling or failing and are no longer the person we once were. This then gets mixed in with Daoist principles of finding divine understanding by living in harmony with the universe. The more understanding we gain of the world, the more energy we can absorb as a result, but our original goals may be lost or changed in the process. If a character begins their journey on the path of revenge, their newfound contextualization of the situation that caused them immense pain may force them to give that revenge up or find they don’t want revenge anymore.

Failure is also an option and often a common part of the story. These stories usually follow characters through multiple lives and rebirths over hundreds and even thousands of years, especially if they’re also gods. This is the existential fall. The fall to the Dark Side. All our heroes are going to go through it at least once. This is also why a lot of Chinese media ends in tragedy with hope for the next round.

-Michi

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[writingmeraki]

eyes don't lie masterlist

a roronoa zoro series !

summary : In a twisted series of events that rendered you useless and completely hopeless, you would laugh at yourself if you knew that a cheery ball of sunshine and his crew of crooked pirates would end up saving your life and apparently also changing the whole trajectory of what you'd always thought was your future.

( or in which you learn what it's like to live as you embark on a journey with the supposed king of pirates and his crew where one particular mold green headed dumbass always irked you in ways you couldn't really describe. )

genre : fluff, angst, romance, humor ( as always, attempts of it ) pairing : live-action!roronoa zoro x gn!reader, s2e2l, strangers!2enemies!2lovers!,reader is a martial artist and a knifeman. warnings : death, cussing, kissing, suggestive content in the future, violence, mentions of weapons, warnings will be added for each chapter.

also ft : the rest of the cast of the live-action one piece series.

start date : 18/02/2024

TAGLIST : open ! ( just send an ask or reply on here )

CHAPTERS !

i. bravery or stupidity ?

ii. welcome aboard !

iii. to be annouced.

author's note : ahh here we gooo, this man has inspired me soo good to write something and actually has removed me from this rough writer's block! so here we have my first official written series on here 💀 I honestly don't know how long it'll be but it might be long/medium length! hope you guys enjoy this as much as I do and together we shall simp for this beautiful human being <3 also changing up my style and adding the author's note at the end cause I realised if I add it in the beginning, it looks so long sjshsksk but also guys I promise I haven't forgotten any of the requests even the very old ones, I'll literally trt to finish those too during this time, just yk when inspo hits, it hits. have a good day <3 !

!!! also based only of knowledge from live action ( yes ik some might get offended if I don't include stuff from the manga/anime so imma be honest and say idk anything other than the live-action!)

all written works as well as images and edits (unless credited) belong to pri.do not plagiarise, repost, re-edit or claim as yours. pics mostly found on pinterest. I don't own any of the characters from the movie, rightfully belonging to One Piece creators and the Netflix franchise and also this is a fictional work, not relating to any of the cast in real life.

writingmeraki Ⓒ 2023-24

[sombredancer]

Asian dramas and Love tropes

There are my favorite characters and their love stories as a list. Enemies to lovers

Drama: Her Royal Highness/长公主在上 Characters: Gu Xuanqing x Li Yunzhen Screentime: Main A boy is sent to be a servant in the unruly princess`s palace in order to find some dirt about her and to help his master to overthrown her, but something goes wrong... The HE is attached.

Drama: The Legends/招摇 Characters: Li Chenlan x Lu Zhaoyao Screentime: Main A leader of a demonic sect died trying to get demonic sword. Her soul returns to the world full of wish to get revenge on the current leader of her sect, who, as she thinks, killed her in the past. Found the way to be close to him, she learns that he wasn't the reason of her death and, moreover, desperately in love with her for many-many years. This is an adaptation of the novel "Ostentatious Zhaoyao", which I love more than a drama, but it's a good story in both variants. The HE is attached (although it`s a little bit obscure in the drama).

Drama: Till the End of the Moon/ 长月烬明 Characters: Tantai Jin x Li Susu Screentime: Main A boy who is destined to become a Demon God and to destroy the World tries to fight his doom. In a process, he falls in love with a transmigrator, who was sent 500 years back in the past to prevent his transformation into a Demon God. The irony is,making him falling in love is the only way to kill him for good... It`s an adaptation of the novel "Black Moonlight Holds the BE Script", which I like way-way-way more than the drama, not the least because the drama has BE and the novel has HE. I just watched it as a visually beautiful fanfic to the novel.

Drama: Love Between Fairy and Devil /苍兰诀 Characters: Dongfang Qingcang x Xiao Lanhua Screentime: Main My favorite drama of all times! Trying to save her love, a girl accidently falls into a secret prison for immortal criminals, revives the most fearsome demon of all times and heals his ability to feel. Later, forced to spend his time together with the girl from the enemy camp, the demon finds out that he actually likes her... The HE is attached. I wrote A LOT about them and made recap of the whole drama from the point of their relationship development in these posts: one, two, three, four, five and six.

Drama: My Journey to You /云之羽 Characters: Gong Shangjue x Shangguan Qian Screentime: Secondary In order to destroy the martial artist's clan, a female assassin was sent in there. While she is trying to seduce one of clan's young masters, he tries to expose her lies, but, eventually, falls in love with her. Unrequited. Maybe. This story has an open ending. My analysis of their relationship is here.

Drama: Butterflied lover /风月变 Characters: Ling Changjin x Bao Zhu Screentime: Secondary A wicked nobleman marries a princess because of her miraculous blood: it`s able to bring his zombie sister back to life. The princess allows him to treat her bad because she has been in love with him for a long time and believes he is a good person. Bit by bit he starts believe in it himself and begins to cherish his wife more... The ending is obscure (in a traditional Chinese way).

Drama: The Blue Whisper /与君初相识 Characters: Li Shu x Xue Sanyue Screentime: Minor A cat demon prince infiltrates the valley of demon hunters in order to set free the great demoness, but falls in love with one of demon hunters. Mutually. The ending is traditionally Chinese - they met again in another life. Т_Т

Drama: Immortal Samsara / 沉香如屑 Characters: Xuan Ye x Ran Qing Screentime: Minor An Asura king infiltrates the Heavenly Realm in order to steal the artifact that can help him conquering the world. The keeper of this artefact is a brave and honest goddess and he can't help but fall in love with her. After, he needs to choose: to be with his lover or to rule the world. He wants all at once, but there is no way to get it all. No HE for this pair. Pride and Prejudice

Drama: Lighter and Princess / 点燃我 Characters: Li Xun x Zhu Yun Screentime: Main A girl from a rich family with an anxious type of attachment falls in love with her classmate from a poor family with an avoidant type of attachment and tries to win his heart. It`s a problematic ship in a full meaning of these words and I like it this way. Yummy! The HE is attached.

Drama: Derailment /脱轨 Characters: Qi Lian x Jiang Xiaoyuan Screentime: Main A boy accidently meets his school sweetheart after many years of radio silence and understands that something is wrong with her. It turns out that her body is occupied by a transmigrator from a parallel world. At first he hates transmigrator for replacing his lover, but bit by bit he learns, that a transmigrator has not only the same appearance but the same habits and way of thinking, and falls in love with this new personality again... The story ends with HE but not in a way that you may think it would.

Drama: The Love by Hypnotic /明月照我心 Characters: Li Qian x Li Mingyue Screentime: Main In order to build relationship between two countries an emperor arranges marriage for his son. His fiancée is from a barbaric tribe: she is good at horse riding and archery, but knows nothing about palace etiquette and ladies stuff. It`s a light and sweet story about finding a path to each other's heart. The HE is attached.

Drama: The Long Ballad /长歌行 Characters: Hao Du x Li Leyan Screentime: Secondary A tsundere of a low background with a poker face does his ruthless job in a court, that's why a young princess thinks he is an awful man and is scared of him. But in reality he is a loyal servant and son and, moreover, secretly in love with the princess, who can't stand him... The HE is attached.

Drama: Miss the Dragon /遇龙 Characters: Xue Qianxun x Qingqing Screentime: Secondary A very naïve bird demon girl accidently meets a tsundere god of netherworld and turns his well ordered life into havoc. He starts liking it, though. The HE is attached. Forbidden love

Drama: A Frozen Flower /쌍화점 Characters: Hong Rim x No Guk Screentime: Main A gay king needs a heir, so he forces his lover to conceive a child with a queen. In a process, a boy, who was groomed as a king's lover from his childhood, finds out that he likes women much more than men. A traditional Korean tragedy. Very beautiful and full of feelings, though. (No GIFs because they all would be erotic ones).

Drama: 100 Days My Prince /백일의 낭군님 Characters: Moo-yeon x Kim So-hye Screentime: Secondary An assassin who is working for a wicked court official is secretly in love with a wife of a crown prince, who happens to be a daughter of the killer of his parents. Forbidden love doubles! But it's mutual, unfortunately for him. It's a very beautiful and full of desperation and feelings story. No HE, we die like Koreans. More detailed story of their relationship is available here, here and here.

Drama: The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity/晴雅集 Characters: He Shouye x Zhang Ping Screentime: Secondary A woman, who is destined to restrain the undying evil within her body for eternity in solitude, falls in love with Yin-Yang master. Her love is mutual, but her lover can't be with her forever, so he leaves with her his guardian demon to brighten her loneliness. Protecting her for ever starts being the only goal of demon's life... A tragedy, but a beautiful one.

Drama: The Legends/招摇 Characters: Gu Hanguang x Shen Qianjin Screentime: Minor "The Legends" once more! The main doctor of a demonic sect is in love with a leader of a righteous sect. A girl is not allowed to love anyone, otherwise she will suffer from the poison, so he anonymously sends her packages of medicinal herbs. She is curious about anonymous sender, too. But nothing can be kept in secret forever... Unfortunately, no HE for these two. In the novel he is safe and sound, but he has no love plotline at all. So is a price of love Т_Т.

I will talk about my other favorite characters and tropes in the next post.

Also you can see: Enemies to Rivals/Lovers recipe Asian dramas and relationship dynamics (Pt. 1) Asian dramas and relationship dynamics (Pt. 2) Asian dramas and my favorite types of characters

[talistheintrovert]

Hi, Talis! I have a bit of a random question - do you have any sort of 'starter pack' recommendations for Chinese dramas? (I've really been enjoying Mysterious Lotus Casebook, but haven't been sure where to go from there.)

oooooh, EXCELLENT question!!

If we're going via "these men are in love but [CENSORSHIP SIREN RINGS LOUDLY]" then I'd go for

Guardian: semi-modern sci-fi/fantasy featuring a chaotic bisexual detective and the all-powerful god-like uptight professor he bothers into loving him. 10/10, bonkers CGI and ridiculous side characters only add to the enjoyment

2. Sound of Providence/Ultimate Note (really any of The Lost Tomb series but these are my personal favourites). Three idiots that call themselves The Iron Triangle (said idiots are a genius, a wiseguy, and a semi-immortal amnesiac) and their various tomb-raiding adventures!

Also has iconic side characters, might I add. The chronology of this whole series is so baffling and ridiculous I may have to make a video about it, but these two series hold a special place in my heart - they came out within weeks of each other, but in one the characters are in their 40s and in the other they're like... 22? at most? ICONIC, BEAUTIFUL, SHOWSTOPPING-

also the genius and the immortal amnesiac are in love, and the wiseguy is basically their third, it's a whole thing

3. Under the Skin

modern day crime series, featuring a detective and an artist. The artist is a SAVANT who can basically draw ANYTHING he puts his mind to, but in the past it meant he accidentally got an undercover cop killed without knowing. A few years later, he decides to become a police sketch artist as repentance. Said cop was our detective's mentor, and he's still salty about it but OH LOOK, THEY'VE BEEN PARTNERED UP!

4. WORD OF HONOR

my favourite of the fantasy homoerotic dramas, and the one that inspired me to start writing a video essay about them. Two soulmates meet who are destined for nothing but misery - one is trying to destroy the entire martial arts world for revenge and the other is an ex-assassin who's chosen to die slowly as penance for his murders. Through each other (and their idiot adopted son) they find happiness, kinda. This show is part of why I liked Mysterious Lotus Casebook so much - very similar found-family vibes, except they start out as enemies in MLC, whereas in this they start out as reluctant allies.

non-extremely-homoerotic recs:

Love Story Between Fairy and Devil

Evil being who has been trapped in a magical prison escapes said prison by accidentally body-swapping with an innocent fairy, but even after they swap back, he's tied to her (feels pain when she does, etc.) and so has to keep her around against his will. Enemies to lovers gorgeousness.

2. 19th Floor

fantasy/sci-fi drama where a group of strangers get thrust into an AI world (in a good way, the way AI ACTUALLY MEANS) where if you get hurt in the game, you go into a coma in real life. Every level has a different extremely fucked up mechanic to solve, and the cast are an absolute delight, also the main male lead is played by one of my favourite actors, so I'm slightly biased. Extremely cuntslay show.

3. My Journey to You

A group of female assassins go undercover in a kingdom to apply to be wives to the royals in order to take them down from the inside but OH NO, MIGHT THEY ACTUALLY FALL IN LOVE WITH THEIR TARGETS???? Also the female assassins are weirdly sapphic with each other, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and Esther Yu is one of the hottest women to ever exist and you may quote me on that.

gif from here: https://talistheintrovert.tumblr.com/post/730663645629054976 because it wouldn't let me do it properly (credit: @xiaolanhua )

4. You Are My Glory

dorky romance between two of the most stunningly beautiful people I've ever seen in my life, seriously, it's ridiculous. Their chemistry is good, the story is easy, and it's generally a fun, romantic watch.

5. Love You Seven Times

two gods(?) forced to live seven different lifetimes together because of a mishaps, it's glorious, it's gender envy, it's enemies to friends to lovers to enemies to lovers to friends to lovers excellence.

6. Till the End of the Moon

Did you like Love Between Fairy and Devil? then you'll LOVE this show, which has functionally the same plot, except that the female lead KNOWINGLY tries to seduce the future evil villain in order to either assassinate him or stop him from becoming evil, it's a coin toss for her. A brilliant show with fantastic performances and some of the best costume design on this list (which is a high bar, the costumes in all these shows serve unbelievable amounts of cunt).

I hope those are enough to keep you going for a little while! I'm always here to answer rec asks fr, it's one of my favourite things.

Anyway, I'm off to cross the nullabor, so I'll be out of range for the next few days, I hope you enjoy this nonsense!

[zanazirafanfic]

Charles and Kotallo

Been getting into Horizon a bit lately, and of course Kotallo became my favorite almost immediately. (Who's surprised? No one.) I couldn't resist asking @noshirdalal what he thought would happen if Charles and Kotallo were ever able to meet, since I see a lot of parallels between them and their personal journeys. I asked what they might discuss, and what they could teach one another.

This was his answer (transcription under the vid below the cut). I did have to chop off a couple of seconds from each end to make it fit in the under-10-minute limit, and have noted those lines in brackets in the transcript, but none of the answer itself is missing, only the intro.

As always, very insightful, and thought-provoking.

I have some years of martial arts experience myself in the past, and I agree that you do learn different things about a person sparring with them versus speaking to them. I can definitely imagine Charles and Kotallo needing to lock horns and test each other before they can let their guards down enough to have any kind of meaningful conversation.

I personally like to think there would be an unspoken but strong mutual respect between them pretty early on, an understanding of how it feels to be judged and labeled an outcast among your peers for things entirely beyond your control. Both have to constantly fight to prove - to themselves and everyone else - that they're more than the labels placed on them by society, and try to stay kind and levelheaded despite the myriad reasons it's easier to be callous and cruel. I think each would recognize and empathize with that struggle in the other. Of course it's helpful having friends like Arthur and Aloy who see and accept Charles and Kotallo for the flawed people they are (and likewise, it's helpful for Arthur and Aloy in return). But I think knowing, as Noshir said, that there's "a similar soul on the journey with them" would have made such a difference, especially for Charles. Even though they're roughly the same age, Charles seems a lot "younger" in terms of his search for inner peace and belonging. When I think about his line at the campfire, "Other human beings seem to understand why they were born but, for me... it seems like I was born to hurt and suffer myself..." I think knowing how Kotallo's story turns out would've given him so much hope, especially in the years between losing Arthur and reuniting with John.

Anyway, just rambling now. I love these characters so much, and I'm so thankful to be able to hear headcanons from the man who gave them life.

Thank you again, Noshir, it means the world!

Transcript (cut lines due to upload time constraints are bracketed):

[Hey, Zana. Oh man, I love your question, especially 'cause Kotallo and Charles are just two characters that I love so much.]

They do have a lot of similarities, huh? They both, I think - my headcanon, I suppose - they've both been betrayed by their fathers. They both have, at some point feel like they've lost their purpose. I think they're both incredibly proficient at combat, but struggle because they don't want to be defined purely through their ability to destroy other people. And I think they're both seeking redemption, of sorts. 

Yeah, that's really interesting. That's really interesting. 

So, if Kotallo and Charles were to meet [laughing], what would they do? Honestly, I think they would fight. Not fight because they're being adversarial. They're both men of action, and I think both of them carry a lot of suspicion, at best, for people who do a lot of wordsmithing, you know?

I'm a martial artist myself, and it's interesting when you... When you cross hands with someone you get a better understanding of who they are, in a way that in the normal everyday you just don't. You learn how they deal with pressure, you learn how they deal with pain, how they deal with adversity, how they see the world. How much control they have over themselves, how disciplined they are, how proud they are. Does their ego run the show? Are they easy to manipulate? And just kind of at the core of who they are, like, how quickly do they break? And I think that would be a test of mettle that they just couldn't pass up.

And while I think the victor would show mercy, I think they'd be out to kill each other. To see how far it can go. 'Cause that's really where you learn about a person. But then after that I think they'd be great friends. [laughs]

As far as like the things they would talk about and what they would teach each other, well that's really interesting, because, um... Y'know I think Charles comes from a land where all of both predator and prey are organics, right? Whereas for Kotallo, the vast majority of both predator and prey for him is mechanical. And they're very different.

So I guess it would depend on what world they're living in, right? If they're living in Charles's world, then I think... I mean what a magical place that would be for Kotallo. Like, tracking by spoor and all these other traits that, like, animals have that you don't have with machines. And then for - vice versa, if it was in Kotallo's world, Charles would have to learn very very quickly that even with the sawed-off, he can't just go in blasting. These things require tactics and precision, that he'd be very capable of because of his work with the bow.

But y'know, you shoot a deer with a bow, and if your skill is poor, I mean at worst you'd miss completely, right? But I guess the next worst thing would be to injure the animal and cause it to suffer without actually killing it. And then it runs off, and now you have to track it, and all this other stuff. Whereas in the world of Horizon, I mean if you don't severely injure or kill that - that robot, there's a good chance it turns on you, and all of its peers turn on you, and you're dead. So... [laughs] a very different circumstance. 

I wonder how long, if ever, it would take for them to open up about the redemption that they're each seeking. Y'know, Charles from his darker past, when he was really, you know, driven by fury. And then Kotallo - this is my headcanon, but - I think he's scarred by the things he did at Barren Light. That would be really interesting. And to hear, like, y'know, Charles try to talk to Kotallo about his best friend Arthur and what he's like and stuff, and Kotallo trying to talk about his best friend Aloy and what she's like. Oh man, that'd be a trip. [laughs] I think there'd be a lot of fun conversations to be had. Yeah...

As far as things that they could teach one another, besides the things we talked about with like tracking and - and the killing of the inhabitants of either world... It's funny, I think they'd actually learn a lot by watching the way the other one interacts with the people in that world. Both what to do, but I think a lot of also what not to do.

I think they're both very socially awkward, and really struggle with that. And I wonder if they each wouldn't have more courage to kind of put themselves out there a little bit knowing that there is kind of a - a similar soul on the journey with them. I think Kotallo would teach Charles a lot about visual art, sculpture, painting, color. And Charles would teach Kotallo a lot about music. Harmonica, song. I think they'd complement each other really well. 

[I love that question. Thanks so much for that.]

[linkspooky]

What in particular inspired you to write Burn This City, Burn This City Down? It's a very unique fic.

Oh man I hope you're ready to take my hand and go on a journey with me because this is going to be long ride.

The first version of this fic came from 1) the ending of the Search where Azula runs off into the woods and we were just left on that cliffhanger for years. The first story that ever gave me the inspiration though was Katanagatari by Nisioisin, especially after I read the translated light novel for the first time.

Katanagatari is a story of a former princess who wants revenge teaming up with a human who was raised as a weapon known as Yasuri Shichika who comes from an entire family of martial artists living on an island. She takes Shichika out to the world and they gather twelve magical swords for the shogunate government. Basically, it's easy to see how you could put Azula into this scenario. Except instead of swords it was just going to be Azula wanting to resolve different political issues or, my earliest idea was killing members of the red lotus in the colonies far from Zuko's jurisdiction.

Lio came from this initial idea and he was one, a person in the forest that Azula met, and two a very strong martial artist who is unhealthily devoted to her. Basically it's what Azula thinks she wants in a relationship, a perfect solider who follows her every order and is unconditionally loyal. That relationship eventualyl breaks apart though as Azula eventually has to go back to her real friends, because Lio mirrors like all her bad flaws at her.

I had serious trouble coming up with an overarching plot though, because Katanagatari's plot is just "go to the place, fight the guy, get the sword" and it was just hard to come up with 12 seperate guys for Azula to fight. Also it wasn't feasible because she'd basically spend all her time away from canon characters. I tried to throw Jet in too so it wouldn't just be Azula and this OC, but it never really got past the planning stages.

There were a few manga I read that were also Azula adjacent that helped further my ideas along. I've referenced Akatsuki no Yona before, and TGCF too, but those were a little bit too much like Katanagari. I liked the idea of like Azula roaming the country side with a partner character improving things by herself for awhile like Yona does with Akatsuki no Yona but I ran into the same problem again it would be 90% Azula and this oc with no canon interaction. I did like making Hua Cheng really weird though, and that became Lio like, developing entitled, posessive and borderline stalkery behaviors.

I'm sure you've noticed the fic hasn't become incredibly surreal and weird yet. So the actual tone and the way the fic portrays mental illness comes from three works in praticular. Tokyo Ghoul, which is kind of where I got my start on this blog, Kara no Kyoukai, and Tsukihime. The idea to make Lio a disassoicative disorder personality so Azula would have someone to sympathize with her and understand she's hallucinating came from a character named Shiki Ryougi who is also a character who has a system.

The prose style that is lowkey horror comes from my best attempts to write in a Nasu style in Tsukihime. Basically part of the reason the fanfic is so surreal is because I want to use elements of horror to add to the surrealism in order to make the audience viscerally fear the feel that characters like Azula do when they lose control over the reality in front of them.

When going in the forest for the Search I wanted to lean heavily on the Suicide Forest or the Forgetful Valley being an actually terrifying or unnerving setting to be in. I also thought the Mother of Faces was a cool idea for a spirit that the comics completely blew. So one of the improvements was making Mother of Faces a genuinely terrifying inhuman entity where the entire forest is basically her playground and humans are her puppets. It's a continued trend I want to do in this fic to make spirits like genuinely terrifying, and at the most indifferent to humans and at the worst extremely hostile.

The second was making the forest an actually scary and confusing place to be in. The forest is the head, and Azula is the head, and she's dreaming the forest. The forest is a metaphor for how Azula is lost inside her own head and trapped because no one in the world empathizes with her or tries to understand her, and like, Zuko sees her run into that huge forest twice and just watches her go even though she could end up dead in a ditch.

There's two big inspirations I took for describing the forest itself. The first was the book roadisde picnic and the movie STALKER which are about a zone in Russia which is fundamentally altered by aliens where nothing in that zone follows the laws of physics and instead follows their own abusrd laws. The second was from the book and movie annihilation. In annihilation the strange zone where strange things happen is nature actively like, retaking the earth, and changing the humans who enter that territory into something else.

As for Azula's narration itself and the way her mental health is depicted, I basically got her narration style down especially in her trippy points by reading Girl, Interrupted roughly one hundred times. My general rule of thumb is that Azula's narration is incredibly dry and mechanical and straight to the point, and her prose is very minimialist until it's not. Azula is very high functionning until she is not. Then the self-loathing, and the paranoia, and the voices begin to creep in. Yet on the surface Azula will do absolutely everything to pretend she is not loosing her grip of things until she has, full on meltdowns. This pattern continues ad infinituum, Azula just gets better at hiding her sympatoms and appearing more functional. Girl, interrupted though with the very detached kind of narration, the anachronistic order I employ a lot in this fic.

So the fic rewrite existed for awhile, like there were ten different drafts of the first chapter where Azula just finds a masked man in the woods after running away from Zuko.

So, okay I lied there is one more inspiration for the way I write Azula which is Zaregoto by Nisioisin and specifically the way he writes the main character IIchan and this very detached narrator voice who like, clearly suffers from some type of schizo-type and will have the most surreal moments of narration. That is primarily a mystery series so that's what gave me the plot in it's final form. It's basically like a mystery series that's led by two unreliable narrators Azula and Lio, and Zuko who let's be honest another unreliable narrator, and then Katara and Aang who are the most reliable narrators but they're also kind of like, they're not as aware of the dark side of the world and are more naive. I basically told myself like, I'll write it like a mystery novel. Instead of solving murders though it'll be political intrigue, where we have to follow two unreliable narrators. Two unreliable narrators who we don't know everything about bevcause the narration skips along their history in anancronistic order, and that'll be a metaphor for the weird way that Azula and Lio both experience reality because of how disordered their thinking is now.

The surraelist stuff started to finalize into like a solid plot when I read another fic. I don't know if I should like, mention this fic. I'm going to complain about it so I probably shouldn't mention it by name. Okay I'm just going to be vague about it. There was a Zuko / Sokka fanfic where Azula has been fully redeemed by her brother and they get along great and she is basically, playing political games in the court for her brother's sake. Sokka however doesn't know this and becomes suspicious of her and becomes embroiled in the politics too. In this version Azula is kind of just Zuko's attack dog which was very funny.

It's a fic where I did like Azula and Sokka's characterization, and like revitalized my desire to write avatar fic but I also had just as many faults in it. Basically my biggest nitpick in any Zuko and Azula fanfic is where they protray Zuko as a compassionate brother who helped Azula in her rehabilitation because like, that's just not what happened. So Zuko kind of just felt like a non character because there's no acknowledgment that Zuko can really be just as bad to Azula as Azula is to him and like... I need that drama in my life.

It also like timeskipped past her entire recovery and like I don't want sane Azula, I want barely functional Azula wearing a mask of sanity and convinced she peaked at fourteen and just trying to feel like the way she did when she was fourteen. I need her to be like "oh yes, I'm fixed now" and then have her start to break down again because she never actually learned to deal with stress.

The other was that the ocs in the fic were absolutely boring, like the villains were one note. It was this grand spiraling political plot but the villains behind the plot had no human motivations and Azula killed them in like five minutes. I was like no, no I can make my own ocs. I will have this new fic have actual compelling antagonists who feel like they are characters in the story and actually move the plot and challenge the main characters.

So to Summarize this long ramble, basically my idea for this fic came from the collective works of Nasu and Nisioisin. It started out as like, a journey through the colonies and help people fic to like, taking place entirely in Caldera City. That's where the current idea of Azula dealing with factions who are trying to take her brother's thrown from her, and also she's trying to play the political game that everyone else is playing comes from. Azula is playing political games but like, also, the people she's playing against aren't one note bad guys they're actually interesting characters.

I also want to basically adapt a kind of like, mystery novel character following the mystery through all the political intrigue and finding the answer. I guess you'd call that "Noir". Like the confusing surrealism stuff in the search part of the story shows how lost Azula is in the forest. The confusing surrealism stuff in Caldera City will now be about how Caldera city is a city of liars, where everyone has their own hidden motivation and Azula has to navigate all of that again.

Okay, I hope that answered your qusetion. I can cite some more sources on scenes that inspired me. That scene where Lio saw Azula and the first thing he thought about was how he wanted to stab her a whole bunch is a reference to Tsukihime where Shiki meets Arcueid for the first time.

The story for Azula, Interupted of someone else framing Azula for killing cats and turtleducks comes from a really brief flashback in Tokyo Ghoul where Mutsuki remembers killing cats as a child and gets made fun of for it. Then she remembers running all the way to where she buried all the cat's tongues, and picks the jar up and cries and begs for the cats to forgive her. I know that's kind of a weird scene, but basically that whole chapter came from my idea of Azula remembering getting slapped by her mom for killing the turtleducks and begging someone to believe her and then it suddenly flashes forward to the future and Azula is still crying about it.

That's all I can remember referencing or getting inspired by for now.

[kraken17]

List of dimensional variants/counterparts of Enid and Wednesday introduced in my fanfiction Kooky Spooky in order of appearance.

This means that other characters that are counterparts such as Taylor Galpin, the Yoko and Weems from Agent A's dimension and the rest of the Adamos (High Fantasy Addams Family) are not on this list. Only Enids and Weds.

(Artwork from Kris6758 on Twitter)

First, those with some weight in the plot:

Eamon Sinclair (Chapter 1): Initially named in Chapter 1, with no formal appearance until Chapter 43. Eamon is a male counterpart of Enid and husband of Friday (the Wednesday from the 1973 cartoon). Basically, he is "our" Enid if she had been born male. Standard lycanthrope, though exceptionally strong.

Thursday (Chapter 9): Wednesday Thursday Addams. As Eamon, a male counterpart to Wednesday and Friday's cell neighbor. He looks identical to a teenage Gomez but with no mustache and with Fester's pallor.

Enid Saint-Clair (Chapter 19): The Enid of Woe's dimension (the Wednesday of the '90s movies). Brunette, of Greek descent and werecat rather than werewolf. Affable and nice, though with psychopathic tendencies and a love for exacerbated violence. Loves to fight people who can keep up with her. To call her "kitten" is to invite death. Better just call her “Nid”.

Agent A (Chapter 22): Wednesday Tuesday Addams. The Wednesday from a dimension gone to hell (literally). She's a grown woman in her forties, dresses like she's a MIB and is a practitioner of magic. She's also one of the few Wednesdays who doesn't make use of her pigtails or pull her hair back in any way, leaving her hair loose. If you want to put a face on her, I imagine her as Hailee Steinfeld about 16 years from now.

Wodnesdæg (Chapter 35): Lord Wodnesdæg of the House of Adamo, Prince of the Kingdom of Nova Gersia. Wod to his closest family and friends. Trans male version of Wednesday. He collects his hair in two short but thick pigtails. Likes to wear black armor that makes him look like the stereotypical Dark Lord from a fantasy novel, but first impressions aside his personality is closer to that of a Gomez Addams.

Eneit Synklar (Chapter 35): Enid's variant from Wodnesdæg's dimension and his betrothed. A barbarian and werewolf princess Enid, extremely tall and muscular, usually dressed in furs or light leather armor. Very outgoing, affable and friendly, though she lacks a bit of tact and has no qualms about breaking in half anyone who messes with her loved ones.

[UPDATE] The Bright One: SPOILERS! Read the fic 😁

Now, the ones that are more cameos:

Chapter 43:

A golden tyrannosaurus Enid and her ape-like sidekick Wednesday, inspired by the original comic book versions of Devil Dinosaur and Moon Boy.

A middle-aged futuristic soldier Enid.

A Wednesday who looks like a living marble statue with golden cracks adorning her skin and luminous white hair.

A Wednesday and Enid who look like stereotypical pirates.

Gargoyle Enid. A purple-skinned Enid with horns, tail and wings, inspired by the characters from the Disney series Gargoyles.

Chapter 45:

Cyborg-lycanthrope Enid.

Vampire Wednesday, armed with a spear.

Reverse Enid and Wednesday: A violent lycanthropic but black-furred Enid accompanied by a disturbingly extroverted blonde Wednesday.

The younglings: A group of five or six young Wednesdays, the oldest no older than seven.

Saiyan Enid: A brunette-haired martial artist Enid with ki abilities, orange robes, staff and monkey tail. Inspired by Dragon Ball, although it can be interpreted as a reference to Journey to the West as well.

Gunslinger Enid and Wednesday, as if out of a classic Hollywood Western.

Sasquatch Enid.

The witches: Two Enids, one of them in school uniform and wand-wielding, clearly inspired by the Potterverse novels/films or other similar works. The second Enid, with green skin and black clothes, pointy hat and broom is more inspired by The Wizard of Oz and Wicked.

Punk-looking Enid with cybernetic implants like blades in her arms. Inspired by Cyberpunk 2077.

Angelic Enid, alternates between a humanoid form with wings and a fire-wheel form with multiple eyes.

Hellboy Wednesday (Hellgirl?).

[UPDATE] Chapter 50:

A witch-like Enid with a talking cat familiar.

[arthropodrespecter]

2013 vs 2024

tbh, this is incredibly difficult for me. as a trans woman, there are certain expectations for posts like these. some gruff but sad looking man who was transformed into a happy beautiful girl via hormones. so you might think that nothing has changed. or perhaps i have gone backwards, gotten hairier, bigger, becoming even more of a man than i started off as.

this might be hard to read, so i'll put the rest under a read more. CW for homelessness, starvation, transmisogyny, and probably a few things i'm missing.

my transition has been messy. in some ways, you might say that i spent the first 25 years of my life transitioning. as a child i was efemminate, loved to play dress up and dolls, but my father was so against this that he filed a lawsuit against my mother, getting a court order forbidding her from "forcing me to crossdress." this set the tone for the rest of my childhood, which is a story i will not get into here because it is much worse than the story i'm trying to tell.

growing up in a christian fundamentalist home meant that it wasn't until much later, after my mother gained custody and i had gone on to experience even further ruination of my life, that i even learned that trans people exist. that this was a thing you could do, could be. a brief flash, something hiding behind my eyes, and i had locked it away. of course i wasn't trans. i was an athlete, a martial artist, a musician, why would i need to think about gender?

when i was 16, i joined tumblr. i saw a blooming transgender community, got to see the inner thoughts and conversations that trans people were having, couldn't avoid certain things any longer. i started to identify as nonbinary, eventually even coming out to my mother, who certainly TRIED to be supportive. it was exciting, made my heart race a little, made me scared. i had no idea what i was doing, or how my world was about to turn upside down and inside out.

the summer i turned 18, i was severely injured in a martial arts tournament. my right knee had caved in, the bone at the site of the joint crushed by a man i had thought was my friend. i didn't realize what had happened, and so didn't go to a doctor until two weeks later, at which point the damage was considered irreversible. everything i was disappeared. i lost all will to live. i stopped drawing, stopped playing music. i started drinking heavily. my family knew i was struggling but any efforts to fix the situation just made it worse. my mother and older brother had been putting more and more pressure on me to get a job and get out of the house, even though i could barely walk. my older brother told me that my mother was going to kick me out if i couldn't start contibuting. i still couldn't. i became homeless for the first time at the age of 19.

when you're homeless, it's like every single day is drawn out into countless hours, and you either have nothing to do, or far too much to do, and nothing in between. i had an online partner at the time, someone who turned out to be a chaser targeting suspiciously egg shaped men and nonbinary people, who spent the entire time getting more and more frustrated that i didn't have the time to be a fucktoy. i ended up insitutionalized for a month, after which i was kicked to the curb and left with nothing but a backpack and the clothes on my back. any journey of self discovery i may have been having was on hold until i wasn't fighting for survival.

my rescue came from a nonbinary lesbian who reached out to me. i was offered a room, a place to stay for no cost. they helped me break up with my partner. i found myself in a new sort of situationship, but at a confusing cost. why was this lesbian interested in me? was that even okay? eventually we had a conversation. they revealed to me that they had thought i was a trans woman. the fact that i had been seen as a woman hit me like a truck in a blindzone i didn't know i had.

after a difficult few days of arguing with myself, i couldn't hide from it. i was a woman. maybe i had always been a woman. a thought more terrifying than it had any right to be.

i grew my hair out. i started shaving. after a few months, i was even able to book my first HRT appointment (thank you state of washington trans healthcare laws). i came out to my mother a second time, and her reaction was much different this time. maybe due to the distance that had grown between us, the past hostility that left scars still bleeding, but i suspect it was because telling her that her firstborn son was actually a woman was much scarier to her than telling her that i didn't really care about gender.

this photo is from the day that i had my first HRT appointment. my soft chin, once a weakness, could be bared proudly, the ambiguity in my face becoming something that i cherished.

a year later, i had the longest hair of my life. if i shaved and wore makeup, and dressed right, i could get gendered correctly so long as i didn't speak. in that regard, i was truly getting the full experience of womanhood. my relationship with my partner was going strong. i thought that i had found my forever.

things got messy. you will probably hear me say this again. you won't find many better ways to describe my life, other than messy. my partner had always been polyamorous, but i was not, and had not ever pretended that this was not the case. so when one of my partners friends confessed her love to them, they went into panic mode. suddenly they were pushing everyone away, reverting to old bad habits and anxieties, and our relationship began to fall apart.

the friend, we'll call her A, pretended to move on, started dating someone else. my own friendship with A was strained by the situation, and her new partner, a butch lesbian named rowan, seemed to be suffering for it. i realized that the only way our relationships could survive was if we tried to work out an agreement to polyamory. in the end that wasn't enough, but i was desperate. i was starting to see the cracks, realizing that if this fell apart, i would be homeless again. my leg injury had already been so badly worsened from my first experience with homelessness, i knew that going through it again would be the end of me.

since my partner and A were now seeing each other, i began to get ignored. the only time either of them spent talking to me was talking about each other, either joyous or trying to fix some new problem. at this point, i started getting to know rowan. we had a lot in common, i had never talked to a butch before, let alone known one, and seeing the way that they navigated gender made me jealous. i didn't know why.

more and more, rowan and i were separated from the broader relationship, and as we talked more, something developed. i had already felt it the first time we spoke, on some level, but it had grown and grown, from respect, to admiration, to desire and love. we were in a polyamorous relationship after all, so it made sense to me. but shortly after, when i told my partner what i was feeling, they freaked out. this wasn't the agreement, they had only agreed to them being able to date other people, didn't think that it would need to be specified because i wasn't polyamorous.

the entire relationship falls apart and we go back to being two separate couples, and the end of that came swiftly after. they cheated on me with A, and when i found out, that was it. my now ex partner told me that i could stay at the apartment until the lease ran out, and they would move back in with their parents. they took all the furniture, i was left with an ancient computer, a blanket, some clothes, and two pillows. my depression came back with a vengeance, and i stopped eating. by the time the lease ran out, i had lost a dangerous amount of weight. i became homeless for the second time at age 22.

this time, after only six months, i found a thin sliver of hope. i was given a place to stay. a single-wide trailer that i would share with three other trans women and a hairy nonbinary lesbian. you've probably heard the stories of similar situations. it's impossible to have healthy boundaries in a space the size of a can of sardines. or healthy anything really. i got involved in an incredibly toxic relationship with one of the other trans women, who i found out was dating nearly a dozen other people.

the only thing i could do was try to feel wanted. desired. i began experimenting with my image.

i re-established contact with rowan, but there was so much there that i couldn't bring myself to face yet. as i began to experiment with more masculine presentation, those around me took a greater interest in me. i was an object of desire. it was the most worth i had felt i ever had.

i wasn't eating again. so my weight kept dropping. in the three-odd years since my first encounter with homelessness, i had lost 30% of my entire bodyweight. this only made my physical issues get worse and worse.

i wasn't done with experimentation though. what could i do with this newfound territory?

the time came. i couldn't stay anymore. the relationship had fallen apart, and my connection to the household had been sent away in exile. the irony of this is not lost on me. i was lucky enough to be able to couch surf for a few months this time.

i lost weight again.

and again.

my knee got worse and worse. my iliotibial band tore. my birthday came and went, nobody celebrated except for rowan, now my only friend.

a week after my birthday, a lesbian couple contacted me. told me that they had a spare bedroom, and that if i could cover the costs of my own food, could stay for as long as i liked.

i started HRT again. rowan and i had managed to work through all the shit and scum of our past and started a relationship anew. it felt like this could be real.

i started to look a lot like my mom. kind of uncomfortably like my mom. rowan was butch, so i had thought i should be a femme. i didn't understand what that meant, but whatever it was i attempted, it wavered dramatically.

i began to switch, every month or so, between masculine and feminine presentation. my chest had grown enough that it was visible now, and i experienced an equal amount of joy and fear when i was gendered correctly in public, having learned to fear people finding out that i was a trans woman.

the weight didn't come back. it was like my body had burned itself so far down that it could not regrow. i had no energy, and my physical condition continued to deteriorate. but i was allowed to be myself. and i was in love with a butch. maybe that would be enough.

i began to develop a fashion sense of my own. the butch label was starting to appeal to me. and my roommates seemed to agree, since they both shifted towards butchness and masculinity alongside me. but it wasn't to last. one of my roommates, a TME lesbian i'm gonna call M, suddenly went off on a transmisogynistic rant to me. M's partner was a trans woman, and hearing this caused me to suddenly re-evaluate everything. did this happen because M viewed me as more masculine now, a more acceptable target? would this happen to G, M's partner?

i hardcore shifted gears back to feminine presentation. it felt safer. i stopped eating again. things weren't okay, but they were bearable this way. but then, one day, we got locked out of our apartment. a stupid, played out thing that happens to everyone at least once. while my roommate G went to see if the apartment manager was in with a spare key, i attempted to climb our balcony and get in through the unlocked back door. when i was up on the railing of our balcony, it gave way, and i fell to the asphalt below, breaking my back. following a trend that i set half a decade ago, i didn't realize it had happened. my back hurt, but i thought it would go away. it did, replaced by a vast numbness through the middle of my back. i began to collapse any time i tried to exhert myself physically at all. i would only find out why years later. the fact that i couldn't contribute to chores anymore, and nobody knew why, made the situation with M deteriorate much faster.

at my lowest point in years. my relationship with rowan was the only thing that kept me from giving up, but after the third time M decided to spew vileness at me i just spent months locked away in my room, terrified that any time i saw M was going to be another lecture about how i was disrespectful, loud, obtrusive, intimidating, too quiet, too lazy, whatever incoherent train of thought i would have to face next.

it was too much to handle in combination with the events of 2020, the lockdowns, the illness, the forest fires, things ended up coming to a head. at age 25, i became homeless for the third time, during the pandemic and a wildfire that filled the air with plastic fumes so thick you couldn't see ten feet in front of you.

i got in contact with my mother and had her take my cat, because i knew i couldn't take care of her like this. that was the last time i saw my cat in person before she died. rowan was frantically trying anything and everything possible to help me. i thought that this might be the end.

three and a half years ago today i got the best news of my life. there was a way out. it would be a long and tricky road, involving moving my whole life to a new country. but we could do it. not only could we do it, but we actually did it. in a months time, i was in rowan's arms. for the first time in our years of knowing each other, there was nothing keeping us apart any longer.

i was finally able to rest. able to eat. i started to regain weight for the first time in nearly a decade. i felt my energy come back, slowly at first, and then more and more until i was capable of functioning, even if at a low level. it's around then that i find out the truth of what happened to my back. it still hasn't properly healed.

in my gratefullness for life and love, i briefly forgot my identity crisis. i was happy to just exist without fear and pain. it wasn't until about a year ago, when a miracle occurred, that this changed.

i woke up one morning, feeling more energetic than usual. i think to myself, maybe i can do some light exercise, for old times sake.

my knee doesn't hurt.

my knee doesn't hurt.

MY KNEE DOESN'T HURT.

a wound that i thought would dictate my life forever, given actual time to rest and food to fuel the process, had healed. everything that i had ever given up on came rushing back into my head, ideas about who i could be, what i could become, what other injuries i might be able to recover from if i treat them right and rebuild myself. ten months ago i began to work out consistently. my back is slowly healing. i am stronger than i ever was before.

i have had to rebuild myself so many times. did i ever discover the secret of butchness in the process? no, that's something that i think will take the rest of my life. for now, my butchness is an enduring pillar, the only part of myself that never fully burnt away. standing up for myself, being my own person, loving another butch, refusing to lose the kindness i so desperately clung to my whole life, refusing to limit myself and my dreams, this is who i am. i am friends with other butches. i am not alone anymore. for now, this is butch. this is me.

[thattimdrakeguy]

Hey,

So if it's not too much to ask, can you give me a summary on the Core Four's personalities? I really wanna know for analysis reasons, I'm re reading all the core 4 young justice and teen titans books and trying to decipher my favorite one.

I can give you the personalities as intended by their creators no problem, Person Newtonote.

Now as you read you might think "Oh, hmm, that doesn't add up with what I've read" when it gets into the Young Justice and Teen Titans books, but that's 'cause different writers write different things, and some writers understand some characters better than others, and some of it is just plain character development, or in worse case writers doing what ever they please 'cause they don't care.

I'll let you judge when what happens.

Onto what you've asked though, I'll try to keep it simple as I can while still being detailed:

Tim Drake:

My personal favorite, that much is likely obvious.

As intended, he is an idealistic young boy, and dreamed of Robin as an even littler boy (he's pretty small for his age). He's clever, and resourceful, and thinks very very highly of the legacy of Robin. It's his heart though that got him his job as Robin, and his compassion and genuine passion for the role of Robin. And he displays what many may call boy scout tendencies. Even admitting to original Robin Dick Grayson that he enjoys helping old lady's cross the road (or something like that.)

Being raised in private schools, without a lot of friends (He's shown having no friends until he goes to public school to my knowledge), he's a pretty naive and oblivious, trusting person. And it's through out his journey's he has to learn how dark Gotham City can get. Though compared to the other Bat-Family members of this era (90s) he's very much the heart and light-hearted youthful energy to it.

His social ability is mostly perfectly fine, he's no complete weirdo. Kid can get friends easy peasy. Easily likable to folks. Endearing. But he has an oblivious side, and can get ahead of himself. Has a habit of getting spiritually adopted by people who instantly want to protect him. Anyone from Batman, to former CIA agents, and even villains. He's just got that babyface on him, and button nose.

He also deals with anxiety in terms of being Robin, being worried that he may be stripped of the job, or let people down, or mess something up. And sometimes that lends him having a lot of insecurities about himself. While having some prior training in martial artists, and implications of having taken gymnastics, also a former boy scout, he still doesn't naturally take to the role like all other Robins around him. Which means he has to try a lot harder to have his keep.

In the Bat-Family in this era (the 90s) he's the heart, and baby to everyone. They're uber protective of him, and take him out of the action when they deem it to be too much for someone like Tim. Within Young Justice he puts on a heavy Robin persona to hide what he's really like. Making himself out to be a more Batman-esque mysterious leader.

When really, he's a dorky, fanboy, who loves Kaijus, Crocky the ??? Crocodile I guess (Basically Barney the Dinosaur), super heroes, cars, Warlocks and Warriors (Dungeons and Dragons), sports, comics, Sci-Fi, fantasy, and cartoons. Self-admitted geek, with some popular interests in there.

Think of Tim as sort of Autistic kind of. He's never officially said to be. But when you read his origin, it's definitely a legitimate way to interpret him. Though I believe his uniqueness is intended to really be molded by Tim's passion, and obliviousness from a lack of parental figures in his very young life.

Tim is supposed to be an optimist, as told by his creator, but to be real a lot of writers seem to forget that, even when making jokes about how he's optimistic compared to others. I think sometimes the writer's own cynism leaks out into him. So remember that...despite a lot of writers forgetting it. Be better than them.

Cassie Sandsmark:

My personal second favorite member, but, please, make up your own mind here.

She's a rebellious teenage girl, and tomboy. She stays up pass curfew to party, but is at heart a good hearted individual who truly wants to help. This comes at odds with her stubborness and headfirst attitude. She hates being treated as a kid. And shows a great deal of intuition and cleverness. She's also a babysitter. Seemingly a good one too.

Her need to prove herself can put itself ahead of her own logic though. And she buts head with her very stuffy mother who doesn't appreciate Cassie's care-free nature. She means a lot to Cassie, and Cassie wants her approval. Cassie's natural being is...very much in contrast to what her mother would prefer though. It's fun.

A lot like Tim she's also shown to be a Super Hero fanboy. For her it's specifically Wonder Woman and the Flash, while with Tim it's basically anyone the writer decides he hasn't met offscreen yet.

Through her journey's she learns to contain herself though, and better use her powers.

Bart Allen:

The most teenager-y teenager you ever seen. He has ADHD, but not the uber-hyperactive, talkative, hugger you see in some more modern misunderstandings of him.

Originally he was pretty quiet. Super popular in his school. Girls loved him and considered him a pretty boy. But in reality he has no social knowledge, because he was raised in basically a video game for two years. He's essentially an alien learning to fit in with human civilization. So he's incredibly reckless without intention. It takes him awhile to truly process the concept of death and related repercussions. So he's sort of dangerous.

He can be quite surly, and mean spirited on occasion. But like most heroes, he has a good heart that comes out in the end. It's just simply the 90s and being Anti-Authority is the norm. His name is Bart after all. Underneath that is a young man who does sweet things when he has it in him.

Just don't think of him like a baby like how a lot of people make him out to be. He's a teen's teen.

Original Bart, like original Tim, and original Cassie, to me, is the best version of the character. The most nuanced, and interesting.

Oh, and minor violent streak on Bart too. Started a fight before, and stuff like that.

He cares inside. That has to count for something right?

Kon-El:

Hot-Headed pervert. Over-confident. Fame hungry. Lady magnet. Stubborn. Head first. Sort of a prick. But again good hearted.

I haven't read him as much as the others, because I don't personally care for him. Then in the early 00s with Teen Titans they decided just to make him an angsty young Clark, which is personally boring.

I don't have a lot of great things to say about him. His solo is very dated, and overtly sexual. Something I have no interest in reading.

He's at his best in Young Justice though, where he isn't written as jail bait by a writer who thought it'd be great if he dated grown women to fulfill teenage boys dreams. Instead you get to have fun with a very flawed character without the distracting perversion...mostly.

Punk styled. Loves dressing like a punk. Until he doesn't. Ruh-roh.

--

Again though, different writers write different things. They catch onto different things more than others, some are plain neglectful, others don't care, some want to change stuff for the sake of it. It's comics, you'll be lucky if it's consistent.

But on my years of studies, all that is what the character's where intended to be by their creators. So a lot of it is a starting pad, but it's also the purest form of them you're going to find.

[tobiasdrake]

FUN FACT: Did you know Frieza had a finite amount of soldiers on Namek? (And he doesn't kill his troops.)

Also Appule is kind of important and there's a clearly marked place where Goku's six-day space journey happens in the timeline?

I have a laundry list of grievances with the Dragon Ball and DBZ animes. We're here to talk about one of those right now! The Z anime gives Frieza infinitely respawning soldiers that just seem to pour out of his ship whenever he needs them.

This interferes with a key plot point of Frieza's portion of the Namekian Dragon Ball hunt: That Frieza, for all his power, is rendered helpless when his attack on Moori's village goes south.

See these guys?

These guys ruin Frieza's entire goddamn week.

Get his ass, my Namekian thembruhs.

A consistent weakness of Frieza's forces is that they fight blind. By this point in the series, characters on Earth have been taught advanced fantasy martial arts involving manipulation of ki or chi. They can concentrate ki into attacks more powerful than the wielder, sense ki in other beings and feel incoming attacks without having to see them, suppress ki to become invisible to ki detection, etc. etc.

The Earthlings are goddamn amazing at ki manipulation, and the Namekians are just as good.

But Frieza's Planet Trade Organization represents the uncaring hand of capitalism. There is no artistry in their methods. There is no true discipline or understanding. They're a bunch of paid thugs with guns, looking to gentrify planets for their boss: a real estate mogul. So they rely on fallible technology that fails time and time again when put up against experienced martial artists.

The battle at Muri's village is no exception, as Frieza's forces get slaughtered by the "harmless" interlopers.

With only the elites vaguely understanding, from second-hand accounts, what they're seeing here.

Which, in turn, gives Muri the opening he needs to cripple Frieza's campaign by destroying the Scouters they're using to track down Namekian villages.

This is Muri's checkmate. Muri destroys the Scouters, the technology Frieza relies on to find Namekian villages on this planet and take their Dragon Balls. Meanwhile, his reinforcements wipe out Frieza's army.

That guy right is the only survivor of the massacre.

This is Appule. If you've ever wondered why Appule was so important that he got to be his own distinct character in Tenkaichi 3, this is why. Appule is the last grunt left standing.

Though Dodoria makes short work of the Namekian warriors, the damage is done. Frieza's lost his Scouters and he's out of manpower. He's going to have to fan his men out to search the planet, a planet larger than Earth, by looking around with their eyes. And the only men he has left to do that are Zarbon, Appule, and Dodo--

...are Zarbon and Appule.

So. Y'know. Frieza is two deaths short at this point of being completely and utterly fucked sideways.

As his two remaining men set out to search, Zarbon takes great care to tell Appule not to do anything that might get him killed.

It is absolutely pivotal for Frieza's campaign that these two live. There is no one else on this planet who can do the job. It's Appule who ultimately succeeds in finding the last Namekian village.

For some reason, in their eagerness to rewrite the story so that there are far more soldiers on Namek for some reason, the anime makes this Appule's vampire cousin?

Uh. Okay, man. Sure. In any case, it's Appule who finds the village and Appule who reports its destruction to Frieza. He's not a significant character by any stretch, but you can see why he warrants a bit more name recognition than Frieza Soldier #72. He has more impact on the plot that Cui does, that's for damn sure.

Too bad about Vegeta though.

It's a lot easier for Vegeta to get away with this gambit in the manga than it is in the anime. In the anime, somehow the infinitely respawning Frieza soldiers (who he regularly kills for funsies) flooding the halls don't give away the fact that Vegeta's still here.

But with Appule dead, Zarbon and Frieza are the only people left alive in the ship. It's a lot easier to distract two people for a minute than a limitless garrison.

In the manga, this is the closest Frieza ever gets to team-killing one of his own soldiers. Once he realizes Vegeta has stolen all five of his Dragon Balls, has a sixth Dragon Ball stashed away, and is now just one Dragon Ball away from immortality while Frieza's blind and understaffed? All because Zarbon fucked up?

He says some shit.

So. Yeah. He's not above killing his men when they fuck up so bad that they cost him immortality and give his most dangerous archnemesis the means to topple his empire and end him.

But that's a much higher bar to clear than shooting down his infinitely respawning dudes because, uh....

*checks notes* With the Ginyu Force on their way, Frieza can afford to kill his own guys because the Ginyus are better than them anyway. So he keeps them all in the ship and murders them for no reason despite the fact that Vegeta is actively making off with his Dragon Balls right this second and he has no idea to where.

Yeah. That's. Uh. That's a pretty significant story difference. In any case, Frieza's campaign grinds to a screeching halt when....

That's it. That is the very last one. Frieza's campaign is sunk. Until the Ginyu Force arrives, Frieza has no forces and no resources left. He is an unbelievably powerful man, the most powerful in the universe, and the only way he could ever hope to catch up to Vegeta is by flying aimlessly around a colossal planet and looking for Vegeta with his eyes.

I've often heard people express confusion about where Goku's six-day transit is supposed to fit into the Namekian timeline. This, right here? This is it. At this moment, it's over for Frieza. For the next five days, he is soundly defeated. He's out of the race for the Dragon Balls entirely.

And the only reason Vegeta hasn't won the race is because of that one Ball Gohan smuggled away from him.

So Frieza, defeated, is forced to sit in his broken ship with his thumb up his ass and wait for reinforcement.

Vegeta, with six Dragon Balls, is forced to sit on his balls with his thumb up his ass hoping the talented martial artist Earthlings currently suppressing their ki signatures get stupid and give him something to detect - knowing that if he leaves for a second, those little shits with the Dragon Radar might scoop 'em up from under him.

While Gohan and Krillin, with ki signatures suppressed, make the five-day trek at minimum power to Saichoro/Guru.

It's here. Right here. Where everything stops for five days to pass, and for Goku to approach the planet. All because Frieza ran dry on resources and manpower to keep up the hunt.

[libraryleopard]

Lulu—I have made it a goal of mine next year to Get into Movies more because I really have gotten into a rut of just rewatching movies / tv shows and not trying much of anything new. I have been following your watching journey this year with great delight, and not a little bit of inspiration I might add, and I wonder if you might give me some film recommendations? 🙏 like whatever you want - I am pretty much open to trying out anything (with the exception of horror movies that go hard on the gore/body horror). Thank you most kindly!

Ooh, yes, I'd love to give some recommendations! Here are some films I've enjoyed in the past year and a half or so.

Rye Lane dir. Raine Allen Miller: Super charming rom com about a chance encounter between two people in London who have a chance encounter after both recently going through break-ups. Vibrant, funny, good sense of place, excellent chemistry between the leads.

Chevalier dir. Stephen Williams: Biopic about Joseph Bologne, the son of an enslaved Caribbean woman and a white French plantation owner who becomes a celebrated composer and duelist in the court of Marie Antoinette. I love a big lavish period drama (and honestly my main complaint about this is that the protagonist's life is so interesting you could probably make a whole second movie following this one) and the lead performance from Kelvin Harrison Jr. is very good!

Showing Up dir. Kelly Reichardt: Quiet film about a sculptor in the weeks leading up to a showcase of her art at a local gallery and how her job, friends, and family keep getting in the way of her preparations. When I watching this, I kept waiting for there to be some disaster to push her everyday stress to the breaking point, but it's not really that kind of movie–it's just about how hard it is to carve out space to make art when everything in your life seems to be competing for your attention.

Polite Society dir. Nida Manzoor: Infectiously fun and stylish action-comedy about an aspiring martial artist who becomes convinced that her sister's new boyfriend is bad news and she must prevent their wedding. So energetic and hilarious (though I will give a content warning that there is a scene of an unwanted invasive medical procedure). Nida Manzoor's TV show We Are Lady Parts is a fantastic comedy about a Muslim punk band, also!

Mutt dir. Vuk Lungulov-Klotz: Indie drama about a trans guy named Feña having a terrible day in NYC as he hosts his visiting father from Chile, runs into his half-sister, and reconnects with his straight ex-boyfriend who hasn't seen him since he transitioned. I enjoyed how this was set over such a compact amount of time and also that the protagonist is allowed to be kind of angry and an asshole at times.

Aftersun dir. Charlotte Wells: Ohhhh this film absolutely devastated me. It has a framing device of the protagonist reflecting on a vacation she and her father took to Turkey when she was a preteen and he was in his late 20s as she tries to reconcile the memories of that trip with what she wasn't aware of a child. Really naturalistic performance from the child actress, frankly devastating performance from Paul Mescal, ending that has haunted me in a good way for months! This one is, like, really sad to the point that I described the plot to my mother the other day and she was like "why would you inflict that in yourself," but in a really nuanced and subtle way that creeps up on you, plus interesting themes on memory.

Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret dir. Kelly Fremon Craig: Actually perfect film about a eleven-year-old girl navigating her family's move from NYC to New Jersey, the differents faith of her family, and the start of adolescence. I never actually read Judy Blume's book, but this film is just so sweet and heartfelt.

Blue Jean dir. Georgia Oakley: Tense historical film about a lesbian teacher in 80s England balancing her double life in a climate where "promoting homosexuality" in schools was forbidden under Section 48. Very stressful but also riveting, great atmosphere capturing the aesthetic and politics of the time.

Scrapper dir. Charlotte Regan: Quirky, colorful, and heartfelt film about a resourceful twelve-year-old girl who lives alone in a working class neighborhood of London after her mother's death until her absent father turns up and wants to forge a relationship with her. Good movie to watch after being devastated by Aftersun but also well-acted and fun and has a great performance from the lead kid actress.

The Taste of Things dir. Trần Anh Hùng: Period drama set in 1880s rural France about a chef in love with his personal cook and determined to woo her with his cooking. This movie made me SO HUNGRY because it's just long scenes of people cooking and eating delicious meals and just truly luxuriates in the beauty of that. (Though it was also sadder than I expected, so there's that, ah well.) Never have I wanted to eat boiled vegetables and beef so badly as when watching this movie!!

La Chimera dir. Alice Rohrwacher: My favorite movie of the yearrrrrrrr. Magic-tinged period drama heist about a British archaeologist in 70s Italy with the magical ability to sense hidden Etruscan tombs–which he uses to plunder the contents and sell them on the black market with his band of fellows thieves. It's about being haunted by the past, both ancient and in a grieving way! It's about the desecration of art for money! It's about a catchy folk song with liberal use of the triangle!

I Saw the TV Glow dir. Jane Schoenbrun: Unsettling/sad horror film about two misfits growing up in the 90s suburbs who become obsessed with the same obscure TV show–until the lines between fiction and reality blur. So haunting and heart-wrenching and also the soundtrack is phenomenal.

How to Blow Up a Pipeline dir. Daniel Goldhaber: Eco-terrorist heist film about a group of disparate people banding together to do exactly what it says on the tin. Good use of nonlinear narrative and ensemble cast, also a good conversation starter if you tell people the title of the film you just watched, haha.

The Unknown Country dir. Morissa Maltz: A grieving woman embarks on a road trip to reckon with her loss and place in the world. Indigenous community and family and a beautiful sense of poignancy. Lily Gladstone plays the lead and they are just absolutely luminous.

Bird dir. Andrea Arnold: Coming-of-age film about a 12-year-old girl living in a squat in England with her brother and irresponsible dad who befriends an eccentric man looking for his family in the area. It's a really interesting mix of gritty and fantastical and I thought the ending was uplifting without feeling unrealistic or saccharine and I admired that.

Hope you have fun on your quest to watch more movies, I've had fun on mine! If you're based in the US, I'd especially recommend seeing if your local library has Kanopy or Hoopla because I've watched some good movies that way.

[silviakundera]

Dramas I watched in 2023

[Chinese Dramas]

My Journey to You - Wuxia. Spy games, badass ladies, subtextually homoerotic cousins. Gentle & sweet ML who melts the cold & calculated heart of FL assassin. Gorgeous setting and cinematography. Left me with a burning desire to see Zhang Ling He play more gentle babygirl MLs and Esther Yu to play more anti-heroes. Absolutely perfect to me.., if we just pretend the director didn't add a pointless cliffhanger in the last 5 min. Which is how I choose to live my life.

Story of Kunning Palace - 'rebirth' costume drama that I waited to air for like 2 years or something and then it... actually didn't disappoint? And was almost everything I wanted? 😳😲 This is THE couple for that post about the pair that need to be stuck in a neverending monogamous relationship with each other as a quarantine measure to protect everyone else.

A Journey to Love - wuxia perfection. The stand-out drama that I wasn't expecting. Murder mommy & murder daddy became an otp for the ages and all of the supporting characters were interesting and dynamic. I cared about so many more characters than I expected and never fast fowarded. Just immensely satisfying.

The Ingenious One - wuxia with a weak, scheming scholar protagonist on a revenge quest (yes, we've all heard that before!) who puts together a group to execute his cons, Leverage style. I love me a martial artist x weak scholar couple 👌. Some exciting twists & turns in this one. Both A Journey to Love and The Ingenious One are best enjoyed coming in with little to no information. Hell, skip the trailers and simply dive in!

Hidden Love - Modern drama. Top tier romance-novel-on-screen writing and acting. It felt honest and real. The coming of age arc for the FL was well done. Great brother & sister relationship that feels authentic. The ML's backstory was so heart breaking because it was never overplayed for melodramatics. Just a quiet pain, a distance and a burden he carried with him.

Road Home - Modern. "Do you remember who I am?" / "Yes. If I were to turn to ashes, I would still remember you." I am very weak for the "reunited exes", "second time around" trope when the actors are capable and the breakup wasn't a narratively convenient 'misunderstanding'. As a career woman who works very long hours, I also tend to appreciate modern drama relationships where the couple manages to stay functional & supportive while not having a lot of free time for each other. That's my version of wish fulfillment 😂. I felt like this narrative made me fully understand why they couldn't make a long distance relationship work as young adults but now they're ready and have experienced enough of the world to know that they are happier with their lives joined together than apart.

Love You Seven Times - xanxia. I wrote a whole review post (love letter) on this one, since it seems rather underrated. I feel like this one may actually end up one of my fav examples of the genre. I just sincerely bought into the couple and their mutual devotion.

The Last Immortal - xanxia. Terrible trailer but turns out to be a decent show. I'm a fan of the genre, so I'm enjoying it. (I think you do need to be, to enjoy it - it doesn't transcend or really subvert..just a solid representation of xanxia) I like both lead actors and they do a good job with the material. It's working better for me than Ancient Love Poetry and Ashes of Love. After being eager for Song of the Moon in 2022 but then being let down (I dropped that one quick), I'm very happy 2023 brought me 2 xanxia I liked.

Three Body - modern sci-fi. Book 1 of my fav sci-fi trilogy of recent years. As a novel fan first, I was pleased to see it on screen with talented actors. Eager for book 2.

Love Me, Love My Voice - modern drama with an unusual couple (2 introverts) and dubbing fandom hyper fixation. A laid back relaxation drama, to de-stress with. Minimal plot, no conflict. Just sweet slow burn relationship building, singing & audio performances. Supportive friendships.

Here We Meet Again - modern drama that suffered from sloppy editing. I mean almost incoherent editing in a couple places, like when they are counting down the days until getting married and then.. It's not mentioned again? 🙃 But I very much enjoyed the couple's chemistry. I can't say it was objectively good but it sure was compulsively watchable for some reason.

Royal Rumors - Costume drama that was so aggressively mediocre that I don't have any real explanation for not dropping it. Except I find the lead actress unspeakably alluring. Blame my hormones.

Dropped

Back to the Brink - xanxia. Great concepts but the execution didn't work for me. I'm not a fan of slapstick and wacky humor within serious subject matter. (It's the reason kdramas can be very hit or miss with me.) The amount of humor layered into AJourney to Love is basically my limit for tragicomedies. (Note: I did go read the book and it was very entertaining - the tone was much more to my taste.)

My Lethal Man - modern. Embarassing english name, but they had me in the first half, not gonna lie. Then after her identity was exposed, I wasn't feeling it idk. Sometimes it's just not that complicated.

Destined/Chang Feng Du - costume drama. idk really why I dropped. I watched about a 3rd of it and then was distracted by other shiny objects. I plan to come back to this one in 2024 and finish.

Romance of the Twin Flower - costume drama; unholy abomination of a great novel. I hope somehow, someday, the culprits pay for their crime. Need I say more?

[Korean Dramas]

Perfect Revenge Marriage - a modern rebirth tale. For the 90% of it, I was high on the love of a drama that is just what you didn't know you wanted. The camp, the dedication, the scenery chewing, the glorious evil step mother. It was magical. And then the last 2 episodes I found underwhelming. I can't really explain it, the climax just didn't hit for me. But that's very much a personal taste issue and I'd definitely recommend to all drama lovers who enjoy the genre. Seriously, the performance of evil step mommy was a master class.

King the Land - modern workplace romance. I've heard complaints that there wasn't much of plot. But tbh that was fine with me, because some dramas are simply character pieces. This was all about the personal growth of the FL and ML. I ended up invested and rooting for the ML to become a decent guy who isn't a gross classist like his dad.

Destined with You - modern reincarnation drama. I blame my lingering kdrama good feelings about King the Land for convincing me to keep powering thru this one. Such a strong start but then half-way in I began to realize it simply wasn't going to go into the direction I wanted it to. I still have no idea what they intended to communicate with that love potion subplot.

Vincenzo - modern crime drama. I was late to the party on this one. But after I got around to watching the delightful Kinnporsche, this was rec'd to me as another drama that embraced the bigger than life unreality of Fantasy Mafia™ and provides a rollicking good time. Absolutely ridiculous and compulsively watchable. 10/10.

[American]

House of the Dragon - Awful people doing awful things to each other, as a 1st act before everything goes straight to hell. Plus freaky dragon-riding fantasy incest. What's there not to like?

Fall of the House of Usher (YES i DO watch every horror drama by Mike Flanagan thx) - Was it as good as the first 3..? No. Did I still breathlessly binge it in 2 days? Yes. Awful things happening to awful people, poetically. 👌 👌