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snorlaxlovesme · 9 months ago

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thoughts and feelings about the Netflix's Live Action Avatar, now that I've finished:

overall, net positive! as i said in my previous post about the first 3 episodes [x], i'm someone who goes into adaptations with minimal expectations, treating it more like fanfiction, so I can spend more time enjoying myself than being a butthurt baby, so with that in mind i can say that I enjoyed myself a lot! there are episodes that i'm actually really excited to rewatch (5 and 6 are bangers and i won't be told otherwise)

i'm not going to lie and claim that any of the actors will be winning Daytime Emmys, but there were a few standout performances for me at least:

-Zuko was incredible. i love the way this version leaned into Zuko's desperation to capture the Avatar, because now he finally had a real chance of being able to come home after all these years. his acting pre- and post-Agni Kai in the flashbacks felt so sincere. his optimism was adorable before the war meeting and his shattered expression after Ozai banished him was fucking heartbreaking.

-i really loved the boy who played Aang. he was so charming and cute! and i think as the episodes went along he gradually got better at displaying more subtle emotion. for such a young child actor i thought he was doing amazing

-Sokka's actor was putting in work in the back half! i was impressed! the first half of the show I was pretty neutral about Sokka's acting but the more development he got the more I appreciated what his actor was bringing to the table. i think he just needed to be paired with the right acting partners in a scene to bring out the best of his abilities. Katara didn't give him much to work off of, but his scenes with Sai and Yue really hit

-Zhao was great too! they really re-worked his character to be a lot more important from the jump and i loved seeing how underhanded he was being during all of Zuko's quest. normally seeing Zhao on-screen just annoys me but i loved this version and how patronizing he was to Zuko

-idk man every time Gyatso was on screen I was crying. that's just how it is. every time i saw his face it felt like a warm hug

i think the weird part of this adaptation is that the parts that were adapted were pretty mid (or sometimes just bad) in a lot of cases, but whenever they added in their own original ideas it really shined! i feel like that's not the case with a lot of adaptation, people want to see what they know, but honestly if they added in more of their own original writing in s2 I would not be mad because i loved what these writers were bringing to the table (for the most part)

-i've already said that the way they structured ep 1 to include the start of the war was awesome. that was a cool change to show the audience from the jump that they weren't planning on boring everyone with a one-to-one(but worse) adaptation. it also set the tone really well bc my GOD do firebenders be setting people on fire in this show

-big fan of the early inclusion of Kyoshi and the idea that Aang can only convene with past Avatars at their temples. that was not a Hard Rule in the original and it always felt weird to me that sometimes he needed to be at a certain place on a certain day to communicate with his past lives but then in the finale he just had to meditate wherever he was. but yeah, they used Kyoshi lore from the novels and did indeed lose my mind about it

-Zuko and the 41st division. that was SUCH a cool storyline that was woven in starting at episode ONE and i was genuinely impressed with how hard it hit. i didn't see that coming and it had me CRYINGGGG. so yeah, BIG thumbs up for that original storyline. and also they inclusion of the post-Agni Kai Zuko recovering in the hospital and getting banished for claiming that maybe the weak just need the opportunity to get strong. heartbreaking, devastating on its own (Zuko's actor truly was killing me, i loved him so much) but once we see Zuko and Azula start going toe-to-toe next season that line will hurt me even more

-the bonding moment about calligraphy between Aang and Zuko was a really good bait and switch. in the original Blue Spirit episode Zuko didn't talk to Aang at all before firing at him. i like that i was expecting it to play out the same way as before but instead they had a moment of connection before Aang triggered Zuko and all potential for empathy was lost.

-which seems like a good time to address Zuko's character. i want to be clear when i say that i liked something because it was different from the original, it doesn't mean that i like it BETTER than the original. i simply think the new version is fun fanfiction that was written better than i expected. so when i say i like how they dealt with Zuko's obsession with honor, i'm in no way implying it's superior to the original. simply a good different

-anyways. in the original, Zuko's obsession with honor is fully connected to his need to be wanted by his father again. OZAI is the only one who can restore it, and it can only be restored by completing an impossible task for him. in the Netflix version it almost seems like Zuko's honor is tied to the disillusion that the Fire Nation itself is honorable. the bit about Lieutenant...Yi? sorry i'm getting his name wrong, but Lieutenant Yi gossiping about a superior officer, Zuko's disbelief that the Fire Nation would ever use such underhanded tactics like planting spies in Omashu, it was clear to me that Zuko bought into a rigid sense of morality and honor when it came to the Fire Nation. i hope we see more of that in s2 so that we can see Zuko's world truly rocked when he and Iroh become refugees

-Katara being hailed as a master was very sweet! i wish she would have gotten SOME training from Paku (could still happen at the start of book 2) but I did enjoy that during the Siege of the North that she got her own little battalion to command bc she was seen as worth warrior

-OH and I love how they explored Sokka's character. again, them taking out Sokka's blatant sexism didn't bother me, so i was happy to see that in taking that out they DID work hard to make Sokka's character motivations rich and meaningful. having him have the same complex about being a lacking warrior as the original cartoon but with the added twist of overhearing his dad's harsh words about his abilities really added something to Sokka's insecurities. i loved the inclusion of Sai encouraging Sokka to become an engineer because it was clear how much that meant to him. considering in the cartoon he does become a pretty badass warrior (while still being mainly an Idea Guy) i wonder how this storyline will play out later. if he'll try harder to fit into the warrior box he thinks he belongs in or if he'll blatantly begin to reject that role for himself and identify more heavily with his engineer side

-the cave of two lovers had me worried for a second because Sokka and Katara were paired together for that and im like UMMM so i thought it was pretty funny how they reinterpreted "love is brightest in the dark" in that scene. not as good as the original, obviously, but a funny reinterpretation that i didn't hate

i probably have more to say on the additions but this is getting long so i think it's time to get to some criticisms. this show was not perfect by any means and i have several gripes with it so i might as well get that out now

-WAIT first i must say that a lot of the bending looked phenomenal. particularly Zuko and Aang's bending. both actors (and their stunt doubles) were great martial artists and the fire effects and air effects were done really well. i was really worried about how they'd adapt airbending (since air is invisible) and they did a great job adding in dust cloud effects and making sure the props in the scene moved they like would if they were blasted by air

-AND i must emphasize that i was not mad at them chopping up storylines and mixing them together. the Mechanist/Jet plotlines had similar themes of seemingly Good People doing unethical things for what they believed to be a good cause, so putting them in the same episode made sense to me. and having Sokka and Katara getting spirited away and caught up in that mist (a fun LOK reference that time, i loved the easter eggs) and then captured by Koh was a good way to separate them from Aang the Blue Spirit arc could take place. that also made sense to me. people who get mad about the re-shuffling of episodes frustrate me to no end.

okay, now onto critique:

-unfortunately, Iroh was a giant flop. i don't know how else to say it. i didn't really like any part of him, from his costuming to his writing to his acting. something about him felt like he was plucked out of a campy low-budget stage play and just thrown into this show while only know his campy stage play lines. both Zuko and Zhao give pretty grounded, emotional performances and Iroh is SO jarring by comparison when he's in the same room as them acting like a caricature of himself for no reason. his wig was terrible, i wish they had made it more flowy because it stayed the same shape and position the whole time, he used the WEIRDEST announcer voice the whole time (like why are you using a voice?? no one else is using a voice??), and his robes seemed out of place when everyone else was wearing leather armor. and they had a moment in episode 4 where an Earth Kingdom soldier really laid into him because back when Iroh was a general he was responsible for the death of Earth Kingdom soldier's brother. i was interested to see this bc we BARELY get to see Iroh's Bad Side in the cartoon and i was curious to see where the live action would go with it. but it ended with Earth Kingdom soldier slugging Iroh or slapping his face or something and Iroh made some snoody remark about how war changes people, and he WASN'T talking about himself. like bro this man just told you you COOKED his brother alive he has earned the right to slug you, what are you talking about! i was expecting remorse, or at the very least a solemn look of guilt over the person Iroh once was, but nothing. it was bad. obviously having the iconic Uncle Iroh be so terrible is a huge mark against the show. i simply cannot defend that

-circling back to Iroh's wig. well. the hair and make-up department went out of their way to make important characters look like their cartoon counterparts and that was not always beneficial. why did Yue look like she was from Whoville. who okayed that.

-many people have already pointed it out, but it was weird in ep 1 that Aang's decision to leave was because he needed to clear his head, not because he was running away from his responsibilities. i have no idea why they made this change, unless the reason was to have every single person (including past Avatars) dog on Aang for not being around during the past 100 years. but even that doesn't hit the same bc it truly wasn't his fault! he went for a drive and got caught in a storm! he intended to be back in a few hours! idk that change didn't make sense to me. i know Aang felt guilt regardless but the guilt was supposed to be from the intentionality of Aang running away

-the way Katara broke Aang out of the iceberg was weird?? she wasn't angry at Sokka for his sexism, but she could have been angry at him for SOMETHING that caused her bending to grow out of control. or at the very least when she was bending the canoe towards her she could have done a sharp pulling motion towards her that ended with her arms behind her, therefore forming the cracks in the ice (kind of a callback to how in the pilot Katara could really only waterbend backwards at first). instead her hands were fully facing forward and she was gently bending in front of her and that led to the ice sphere exploding behind her. its been bothering me. whyyy

-character-wise, Katara was pretty one-note. like the addition of her guilt for getting her mom killed with her subpar waterbending, while not bad, didn't make up for how much she DIDN'T have going on. it felt like they toned down a lot of Katara's character strengths AND flaws to give Sokka more room to arc, then shoved all of Katara's development into the last 2 episodes. they didn't show much of her resilient hope in the face of adversity or rage towards injustice or how petty she could be. part of this could be her actor, who i won't dog on because she is a child actor who will get better with time, but i don't think the flimsy writing of her did her any favors

-score wasn't nearly as good as Jeremy Zuckerman/The Track Team's. remixing some of the A:TLA's score doesn't make up for the fact that all the original scoring in this adaptation was flat by comparison

-Bumi's whole thing was....weird. i didn't mind at first that they speedran through his reveal because i don't think there's a point to try and surprise the three people who haven't seen the original. 99% of the audience knew the King was Bumi, so I didn't see any problem with that. but the set-up flashback of Bumi lasted like 10 seconds and basically just showed him snort. it didn't give you a reason to get attached to him as Aang's past friend. and his current actions didn't help at all. the acting was very Michael Meyer's Cat in the Hat-esque. so. uh. SCARY AND OFFPUTTING. was not a fan of that all. and having him do a few random goofy tests for Aang AFTER already knowing his identity felt...weird? like what's the point of these now? and then having the reveal that he's NOT kooky, he genuinely IS pissed at Aang for being gone, well. hmm. it's not a bad idea in theory. i liked the concept of having someone FROM THIS TIMELINE (looking at you, Kyoshi, Roku, and Kuruk, and your unjustified rage toward Aang) be upset at Aang for leaving the world in such a state of imbalance. having Bumi be like DO YOU KNOW ALL THE SHIT I'VE HAD TO DEAL WITH SINCE THE WORLD HAS HAD NO AVATAR, was an interesting line of thought i could have rocked with, butttt.....idk man. it's BUMI. he's supposed to be a living memory of Aang's past to give him comfort and wisdom! it hurt to see this version be so cruel to Aang and basically force him to try to kill him just to prove a point. i would have rather had them write out Bumi altogether and use that episode for something else than to smear his name like that

-i'm tentatively alright with Azula's plotline right now. the Zuko line "Azula was born lucky, I was lucky to be born" is really essential to how their rivalry worked in the cartoon. Azula was a cold-hearted prodigy while Zuko was compassionate boy but average bender. i liked the idea of showing how Ozai intentionally pitted his children against each other. i liked seeing Azula's moment of defiance where she claims she's DONE being tested because she know how good her abilities are. i liked seeing the origin of her lighting bending. all of those were cool fanfiction. the thing that worries me is that we, the audience, have already seen Azula's doubt in herself, something we weren't privy to until the very end of the series. plus showing how hard Azula trains kind of undercuts the fact that Zuko is supposed to think he can't measure up to her because of her natural abilities that he DOESN'T have. they DID plant the seed to Zuko that Azula was the one backing Zhao the whole time, so we do have some of their rivalry primed to go. but the rivalry in the original is extremely one-sided. it will be odd to see Azula fighting just as hard to earn Ozai's affection, because intrinsically she should think that game was won a long time ago. so yeah. i'm not mad about it YET, just interested to see how it plays out

and then there are little nitpicks that could be resolved in season 2, should it get picked up again

-Aang not learning any waterbending or burning Katara with firebending can be woven into the early eps of season 2 before Toph's introduction

-the gaang's chemistry will only grow stronger with time. as the cast becomes better friends, as the kids become better actors with age, and considering they don't separate much in s2, i have faith that will iron itself out naturally

-tbh im sure there are more but this is so long i'm fizzling out. i'm fading. i must stop.

but yeah! good and bad! there's lots to unpack but in general i think it was fun. i'm excited for more.

#netflix avatar #long post #i am. exhausted.#writing this took so long

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one-chaotic-neautral · 3 months ago

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Heyoo!

Would you consider yourself a writer or an artist? (Because if you're in need for a writer, I might know someone...👀)

Honestly? This is an excuse to send you an ask bc u seem really cool, and I love ur sbi atla au. You can rant about it here if you want to. That's it, have a nice day :D

Hia!

I would probably think of myself more as an artist, while I like writing too I don't know if I quite have the commitment for it lol. Writing some of the au might be a good idea tho...

You have reminded me that I forgot to post the new stuff I had in regard to it, oops. I've figured out some plot stuff and what I'm doing with Ranboo, but I'm going to keep that part a surprise for now >:) I have a document written up on different characters back stories now, I just need a plot thread to tie them all together.

The current thing I'm concerned about is whether I should still involves characters like c!Dream or c!Wilbur after everything that's happened with their creators, cause that could affect the story's direction significantly. I think currently I'm still going to use their characters where necessary, what I'm going with rn is Wilbur died before the main storyline but was involved in some of the characters, namely Tommy's backstory, so he's still used in their development and such but I won't have to write him. His role in the story can mostly be replaced by Techno, Nikki and Tubbo. I also think it gives Nikki's character an opportunity to be completely independent from Wilbur's, cause I frequently see her be defined by her connection to him, which I know CC Nikki didn't like.

Dream I think is harder to deal with, considering he's the main bad guy in Tommy's canon arc, so I may have to use him, or get creative with some alternatives. Characters like George and sapnap are probably easier workarounds cause they're less relevant to the plot and more supporting acts for dream most of the time. And the au is mostly centred around the sbi and adjacent characters so others wouldn't be getting as much focus anyway.

It is getting into exam season rn so I won't be able to do a lot of stuff over the next 2-3 months (at least not without neglecting my folios lmao) but I think after that I can sink my teeth into this project properly.

Anyways my Dm's are always open if you want to chat :)

#sbi atla au #sbi au #sbi #sleepy bois inc #mcyt

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saiyanandproud · 1 month ago

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18 and 19? Those things can go hand in hand sometimes.

Munday Mumbling Asks

18. shipping / 19. smut

So, I will put them under the same reply as yes, they do kinda go hand in hand. Long answer, so I put it under the cut.

I tend to be multiship, which is the reason why I keep each thread on their verse to allow each story to unfold indipendently and give more leeway to creativity on both ends. I do also like to entwine threads when possible, but when I do, I always make sure to ask both mutuals if they are fine about it, and involve them in the plotting accordingly.

This being said, sometimes a ship does become so relevant to my muse's personal story and development that they do tend to 'stick' in their main verse, or somehow influence it. E.g., before Nucleotide (by @viopolis) was involved, Mariko had a massive one-sided crush on Fu (played by an old mutual of mine) which played a lot on her insecurities and protective instinct. It came with such a good writing chemistry between me and this old mutual that it just happened to shape the way I viewed my character, and gave me a lot more insight on her. A real treat. So now, despite said mutuals not being around to write here anymore, I still write Mariko has having this old crush in her past from when she was younger. So, when I started interacting with @the-demonpr0digyy's Fu, we discussed the matter (I felt their Fu deserved to be treated as an individual muse, and yay, multiverse and Conton allow many of this stuff to happen!), and it offered the whole opportunity of writing Mariko's hesitant approach towards their Fu with this mix of nostalgic bitterness and unfairness, because she knows it's not the same Fu, but a scar from the past can still burn. To put it shortly, I think it all comes down to the usual two elements that are an absolute must in RP -- flexibility and communication. I've seen that most of the fun I had with writing, and with writing ships too, came from keeping an open mind, and turning what could seem an obstacle ("Oh no! Mariko already had a crush on another Fu!") into an opportunity for character growth and unique interactions ("Did Mariko really outgrow her broken heart? And how would another muse feel as being treated with certain predjudices by her without knowing where these feelings come from?").

So yeah, ships are fun for many reasons. They offer angst and comfort. But like any storyline and any relationship, they need to be fed with ideas and opportunities, otherwise they can turn stale.

Smut is the same. I can consider writing it (but I need to be super comfortable with the other mutual and I prefer agreeing on how far it goes) but much like fight threads, it has to be plotted. How does it start? Where can it go? How will it end (yes, it has to end at some point) and what does it leave for our muses and their relationship? Does it test their strengths? Does it improve trust, does it undermine it?

In general, I consider smut a narration tool rather than a writing genre, something that can advance the plot but has to extinguish its purpose at some point. If it doesn't, it might just feel stagnant after a certain point, and thus boring, forced, and even kinda poisonous for the ship chemistry and the fun in writing it. It's good in the right doses, like violence and anything else. At least in my records.

Of cours all of this applies to threads and plotting. Any silly ask sent in for sinday and dash shenanigans are treated much more lightheartedly because I consider them as separate from actual plots, unless otherwise discussed.

#munday mumbling #about the blog #about the roleplay #(again these are my two cents and my approach to it)#(just so people are aware)#(and I'm happy to discuss different needs and perspectives and find a common ground obviously)

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knightotoc · 5 months ago

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Poor Things spoilers:

This movie puts a lot of work into stopping its themes (such as reproduction, scientific experimentation, misogyny, and death) from developing. Instead of pushing these ideas to their conclusions, as Mary Shelley does in Frankenstein, Poor Things freezes these ideas in place. In any story with such a horrific premise, are happy endings inherently conservative?

In the story of Frankenstein, Victor delays his marriage and its socially acceptable method of reproduction, and instead seeks companionship with other men and a new method of reproduction which gives him more control. But he underestimates his creation, and ends up losing all his relationships and control over anything. Adam has the opposite attitude to marriage; he wants a wife as soon as possible, and he needs Victor to get him one. While Adam's priority is emotional, Victor fears his creations' hypothetical ability to reproduce themselves. These characters have strong, sympathetic, and incompatible motivations, which leads to conflict and tragedy.

The motivations in Poor Things are trapped in a cycle of abuse, which, when paired with the movie's comedic tone, gives everyone a base level of unchallenged emotional (and financial) security. Godwin's father experimented on him, so he experiments on Bella. Bella travels the world, but in the end wants to stay at home and continue her father's scientific work.

The undeveloped theme of reproduction especially bothers me. It is hard to separate such a storyline from the upsetting news coming from pro-life states right now, and the movie's historical setting makes the lack of concern even more glaring. In Bella's past life as Victoria, her pregnancy caused her to kill herself. The madame at the brothel is taking care of a baby, which she uses to emotionally manipulate Bella. So even though this is a bizarre fantasy world, pregnancy is still a problem ... except when it isn't.

The idea of someone who discovers sex before she knows it leads to pregnancy is interesting, but this movie does not address it. It feels like too big of a problem to just omit, especially since it would tie other concepts in the movie together: heteronormativity, free love vs marriage, bodily autonomy, her own body vs mind, and the heart of the story, her relationship with her dad. Even a short clarification that she is now infertile would at least have filled a couple plot holes, but I really feel like this should have been a main theme.

The dynamic between Godwin and Bella is similar to the one between Coop and Murph in Interstellar. She is a smart, angry daughter, the superior to her foolish sibling. Though she emotionally rejects her father at first, she always intellectually supports him, and by the end is completely on his side. I appreciate that Bella has a more positive attitude toward her creator than Adam does -- as they discuss, without the experiment she would not exist -- but I still feel like she should have had more complicated feelings about the purpose of all this scentific work. Instead of becoming aware of the harm science has done to Godwin and herself, she simply uses science to punish someone else.

Her arc toward maturity feels incomplete: we see her learn to move, talk, want things, and think for herself, but the movie stops just short of getting her adult perspective on its own difficult topics. Young Frankenstein accomplishes this by having creator and creation transfer some of their brains to each other, so that the monster winds up more articulate and wise than the scientist. The original Victor does not give Adam this opportunity, but Adam still becomes independent by his own sheer force of will, and forms original, critical opinions on society, family, and the future. While Poor Things has more disturbing situations, its characters aren't as affected by them, so their arcs feel stunted and unsatisfying.

#poor things #frankenstein

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bellysoupset · 4 months ago

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Hi Soup~

I'm so behind with my comments, but I don't want you to get bored of me writing basically a novel every time I send an ask to you and flood your inbox. 🙈

So I will try to be "short" (and fit everything into 1 or 2 asks) but no promises 😅

I'm so excited to read about Jonah's (and Leo's) trip with Angie. Angie is a sweetheart. She loves Jonah so much, it comes through your writing so vividly. I enjoy getting to know Matteo and Jackie as well. The whole debate about Jonah going on this trip at all, the brief wedding planning, the worrying, and caretaking in this whole storyline are just amazing. I love that Jackie is acting like a mother hen not only with Jonah but with Leo as well. She knows what she wants, and even Jonah doesn't dare truly arguing with her - it's so nice to see her telling Jonah he is her child in her house and not a doctor, and that she would be taking care of him. And Jonah acting like he doesn't enjoy the attention is just perfect. Plus the whole Leo got sick then John got sick and even while John got sick, he was jealous of Luke taking care of Leo. Pure comedy. I can't wait to read about the rest of the trip.

As for Bell and Luke, I know you already wrote a fic with Bella not believing him when he is sick, but this new one was just so good to read. Poor Luke having that migraine. I'm glad Bell apologised. I just love their dynamic so much.

Plus Luke finally using his full name while working? He has so many opportunities now. What are you planning?👀

Also, I live for Luke being jealous of whatever Vince and Max have going on.

Can't wait to have Wendy join the club (but like, just a little. Max needs everyone in his corner).

The smut? The face time thing between Wen and Vin? Oh boy, you are doing things to me. You are writing these scenes so well, they are 🔥

(I feel like Wendy needs a bit more attention in terms of stories, so I will try to come up with a prompt.)

I don't think I need to say anything about the Vin and Max developing enemy-turned kinda colleague kinda crush dynamic. I absolutely adore it. The birthday fic? Thanks for giving Max a memorable - in a positive sense for once - birthday. Even though he still ended up puking, I'm glad he could enjoy himself. It was so nice of Vince to take him out, and even have back up plan for a back up plan. Max deserves it soo much.

Oh and Soup? Boring and your stories will never ever fall into the same category!!

The variety, the character development, the plotlines? They are one of a kind and always will be. I hope you will be here writing for us for at least a hundred years 🥺🙏🏻

I also hope I didn't miss anything. If I did, just know that I love it anyways.

Sending lots of love and a mountain of self-confidence your way

- 💜

See you're behind commenting (literally not a thing, any comment in whatever story makes my day!!) and I'm behind answering my inbox, I'd say we're even 😂

I'm having a lot of fun writing the extended relations of each characters! I'm going slowly so Jonah, so far, is the one with the most people in his corner, but I do plan to add some secondary characters for the others as well! I think it makes them so much richer and gives me many scenarios to explore! Writing Angie and Jackie has been a blast, since each one of them brings out a completely different side of Jon. I'm planning to have a story in the future with Jasper, we'll see how that goes!

DJSFLKD Wendy joining Luke's club of jealousy! LMAO that would be very funny, just the two of them in a corner glaring daggers in Max's direction. Not very realistic, Wendy is not a jealous girl, if anything realizing Max is crushing on Vince would make her sooo smug, not jelly, but this is a fun scenario.

🙈🙈🙈 I'm soo happy you're enjoying the teasing smut, both Vin/Wen and Bella/Luke, I love writing these sexy little ficlets!

And 💜! Don't you DARE think I'd ever get tired of your comments, not just the compliments, I genuinely love knowing how you are and the little side quests of your lives! How's university, what are you guys watching, I love learning you're well 💕💕

#lovely correspondence #💜 anon #i NEED to organize my inbox its no longer viable to live like this #hopefully this coming weekend i wont be working and i'll be able to lock it and go through all my asks and stuff #jackie in my head ADORES leo bc not only he's a sweetheart who loves her son #but bc he's part of the reason jonah became so soft which helped him rekindle with his fam #so she's secretly adopted this boy she just wont say it #unlike vince's mom who openly adopted him lol #leo is always a hit with parents

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ot-hoe-me · 1 year ago

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OC Tag Game

I was tagged by: @stephschoices

I tag: anyone who wants to do this.

I am putting this under a cut because some of these responses got LONG lmao.

* I am SO sorry that I’m so late responding to this but I needed time to Think Thoughts and then get them at least mostly in order (I hope.)

FAVOURITE OC: WHY ARE YOU MAKING ME CHOOSE THIS IS SO HARD!!!!

I mean, I love all of my OCs in one way or another so it’s very hard to pick. In the interest of not having any overlap with the other categories I’ll answer this one last. I was initially stuck choosing between Valencia Talward my Hunter-heritage Battle Mage, Trouble-mancing Main MC for Lena’s/ @shepherds-of-haven IF because I do love her a lot because she’s very kind and courageous, and the way Lina has coded the personality/talent stats you can excel in more than one rather than picking one and sticking with it (ONLY charisma or ONLY intelligence, cunning, etc.) and you can choose multiple and it be feasible. The biggest selling point is the immaculate found family vibe you cultivate with the ROs (that is, if you choose not to be an evil sob) and even better - see the relationship developments between each other this game and these characters and this world are made with obvious love and care. Can’t recommend ShoH enough. BUT.

I decided that the most logical choice for Favourite OC is my apprentice Estelle Circinus from The Arcana game. I have her as my icon and as my blog banner along with Asra, she’s the OC I have the most art commissions of - and I plan to add to that particular collection in the future. And finally, she’s also up there with Alice of being one of my most developed OCs with lore, backstory, what her future looks like beyond canon and I also have multiple AUs for her in various stages of development. So, Estelle is my final answer.

NEWEST OC: Aruna Chase/Singh

Aruna is my newest fleshed out OC who is my Baxter-mancer for Our Life: Beginnings and Always (surname Chase to fit this MC’s family.) and is my secondary MC for Our Life: Now and Forever (surname Singh because here the family is MC’s bio mom.) Of course she is obligated to flirt with Baxter at every opportunity before he leaves Golden Grove, but beyond that I don’t know if she’s going to actually romance anyone. (I already have a Qiu-mancer and they’re crushes from childhood. So my options are; making Aruna a Tamarack-mancer from Step 3-on, a Qiu-mancer Step 3-on, or not giving her a romance at all within the confines of the canon storyline for OLNF.) And of course, both games are by @gb-patch though the latter is only a demo at the moment. Highly, HIGHLY recommend playing OLBA though if you haven’t already (especially if you like guys but if not then that’s cool too, you can play completely platonically or aroace instead and not miss TOO much story.)

OLDEST OC: Alice Walker

Alice is my MC originally from Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky so when I bought Darkness when it came out in 2008 (according to bulbapedia, geez that really was 15 years ago. I was 12 years old when I first made her. Wow I am feeling old right now lol.) So playing that, then watching Lucario and the Mystery of Mew for the first time years after it was dubbed even, which I saw for the first time around that time + the release of Sky and playing it helped me develop her more. Alice was my first OC, first with an in-depth backstory and lore, and has without a doubt been the OC who has undergone the most evolution (lol) over the years. I still think about her to this day. But yeah, first she was just my MC for Explorers of Darkness/Sky who turned into a Pikachu in Darkness, but then she became someone who could wield Aura, so when Sky came out I made her a Riolu even though only boy MCs could be Riolu but I said screw that. Originally she was born in the Dark Future, but more recently I changed her backstory to being born in the “present” of the Pokemon Universe in the Kingdom (honestly, think it should be Queendom though frfr) of Rota. She’s four??? (this is me forgetting for the moment if I have her start her journey at 13 or 14 years old lol) years older than Red, Blue/Green, Leaf, etc. but still leaves Rota to start her Pokemon Journey at the same time as them and like. Going through the regions/games including The Mains, PMD: Explorers, Rangers of Almia/Oblivia and more recently, fan games like Pokemon Reborn, Insurgence, Empyrean and Rejuvenation (Rejuvenation is without a doubt my favourite of the fan games by far, though they are all really good, but this is still a WIP while the other three are complete.) So yeah, Alice’s new canon birth timeline/existence is a mix of game and anime worlds. She’s an aura guardian and after Arceus resurrects her after her sacrifice to prevent Temporal Tower from collapsing and stop Dialga from becoming Primal Dialga - they make her immortal. But not only that, they also bestow a portion of their power on her so she can act as their agent, and essentially as an avatar or proxy to carry out their will (by continuing to carry out her duty as an aura guardian to safeguard all of creation/life - but to the extreme) in return for them bringing her back to life. So she’s elevated to become a demigoddess, essentially. After that, she’s sent back to her own time, and then all across other points time and space and other dimension, becoming The Deus Ex Machina of Heroes. Because of all this her Trainer Title would have gone from Trainer Alice -> Aura Guardian Alice -> Eternal Guardian Alice. Basically THE Ultimate Mary Sue but she deserves this as the privilege of being my first-ever OC and because cringe is dead...also I ship her with Steven Stone because the age gap definitely closes because of the time-fuckery. Shhhhh.

MEANEST OC: Araina Emroth

I don’t really have any mean OCs tbh because I don’t like making or playing rude/bitchy or cruel characters, so the closest I can get to answering that question would have to be me asking myself who is my ANGRIEST OC? And how do they use that anger/how morally dubious do their actions get because of it? I have a handful of OCs that fit the bill but my reflexive answer to this is my MC Araina Emroth from the IF Spellbound: A Ghost Story. It is solely on the CoG forum but I am begging you - if you haven’t played the demo already please PLEASE do it - it is so good!!!! Anyway, to give you tiny tidbits to make you want to play, the reason why she’s angry is that, since I chose the rebel backstory over the knight backstory, putting it mildly, her kingdom is corrupt. So not only is she out for revenge, she’s of the mindset that she’s ready to take on the ‘whole world’ to cut out the rot of her homeland in order to redeem it even if she has to do it alone. Also in regards to Callum...I chose the childhood rivals bully route for him and as in all things, she never can fully let go of a grudge. So yeah, she's the passionate, charismatic revolutionary in life. And while she mellows out after 800+ years of being dead, hm. Wonder where the future will lead? (I am torn between getting her to time travel to her own body while she was still alive, and to snatch the amulet off of Callum and destroy it and then go on how it should have been. Or her finally being able to let go and find a way for her to live a new life in the present.) ANYWAY - play it!!!

SOFTEST OC: Fallon Rose

Most of my MCs are pretty-very soft so it’s kind of hard to pick just one, but, I will go with Fallon - my MC from Underfell IF and Mafiafell IF by @darkpetal16 for the fact with how she writes MC, especially in Underfell - is very kind, empathetic, optimistic, and very very forgiving by nature. You’ll see what I mean if you decide to play~ Please do, if you enjoy Undertale and AUs. (Also fun fact, her name is a pun on Fall and Rise.)

MOST ALOOF/STANDOFFISH OC: Serena Klein

Like with the mean OC category I don’t really have any aloof or standoffish OCs so the closest I can answer for this category is Serena Klein, my MC from @attollogame because I play her as intimidating/stoic, and cunning but. I would never say that she’s uncaring or unemotional. If anything, she cares too much and is very emotional but is able to mask it really well (unless it concerns her brother Atticus) and she also has natural RBF.

DUMBEST (AFFECTIONATE) OC: Belle Duval-Emma Tie

It’s a toss up between my main MC for @trinitytrilogy Zeus’ Dilemma, Belle, Demigoddess and Daughter of Aphrodite, who currently has a literal intelligence stat of 0 (RIP) though my headcanon is that she does at least have average intelligence. And my MC for Last Legacy (RIP because of NixHydra the company being complete idiots, and Dorian not really being better it looks very likely it will never be finished because the writers don’t have the creative/ownership rights to it. Not bitter about this at all.) Emma, because she is mostly a self insert aside from the whole barista and makes-own-cosplays cosplayer deal. And me being who I am...enough said lmao.

SMARTEST OC: Chloe Rodgers

Chloe is my main MC from the Keeper Trilogy by @keeperofthesunandmoon is without a doubt my smartest MC as with how high her intelligence stat is, and how quickly she grasps magic in her new life as a magician is prodigious - she is a literal genius.

OC I'D BE FRIENDS WITH: Ava Holden-Last

I’d be friends with Ava for sure, and why am I choosing her aside from making sure there’s no overlap? She’s one of my most normal and well-adjusted OCs, she’s successful, has no mental illnesses, she’s also plus size like me so she knows my struggles. She’s also a fashion designer so you know she’d be putting out fire clothes that I’d go broke for. She would be the extrovert who would adopt me, and of course I gave her my interests and hobbies/hobbies I wish I had as well so we’d get along really well. And I just have to say the she is defying the ‘mean girl californian’ stereotype and absolutely help a guy out with his English homework so he can go out on a date to kiss a cute guy, you know it. You best believe. Also she would threaten to beat up my depression, and I wholeheartedly believe that she would succeed in eradicating it. Right, and she’s my main MC for Our Life: Beginnings and Always by @gb-patch who eventually marries Cove.

#In conclusion BLEASE ask me about my OCs and not just about the ones I listed here - any of them #And I will do my best to answer #My OC #My OCs #Valencia Talward #Estelle Circinus #Aruna Chase #Aruna Singh #Alice Walker #Araina Emroth #Fallon Rose #Serena Klein #Belle Duval #Chloe Rodgers #Ava Last

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tokiro07 · 1 year ago

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Cipher Academy ch.37 thoughts

[And the Winner is...]

CLASS A SWEEP, BABY!!!

As if anyone is surprised. Honestly, the bigger surprise is that it happened this fast, but considering that Nisio is a huge fan of anti-climaxes, this was a shockingly strong finale for this battle

Looking over the course of the Trilemma, though, this really was the perfect spot to call it. I talk a lot about narrative utility and focus in these reviews, and this arc is a great example of how those concepts function

Consider what moments in this battle we were and weren't shown

We saw:

Class A capturing enemies (Anonymity vs. 3 Class B students)

Class A evading enemy capture (Nohime vs. 3 Class D students)

Class A losing a guard battle to release their captives (Iroha vs. Rikukeito)

Class A winning a guard battle to free an ally (Iroha vs. Hakanage)

Class A capturing a single enemy (Iroha vs. Yonakiuguisu)

We didn't see:

Class A getting captured (Anonymity vs. 3 Class F students)

Class C capturing Class D students (Yonakiuguisu vs. Class D)

Class A failing to capture a target (Yosaimura vs. Rikukeito)

Class A evading capture again (Toshusai and Yugata vs. Zakuroguchi)

With the exception of Iroha vs. Yonakiuguisu, all of the phases of the battle we saw were wholly unique, and all of the phases we didn't see would have been in some way redundant. We didn't need to see Anonymity's or Class D's captures because we've already seen a capture happen, and simply knowing that they happened is much more dramatically important than dedicating time to watching them happen. Same with Yosaimura failing a capture or Toshusai evading capture; we've already seen that process happen, so aside from the character interactions that likely occurred, those scenes had nothing to offer that would justify drawing out this storyline

Plus this battle hasn't been particularly character-rich in the first place, mostly giving us breadcrumbs that will likely lead to a much bigger payoff later, so I highly doubt that we would have gotten anything mindblowing in the interactions that were skipped. Fights for the sake of fights only create bloat, and it seems pretty clear that this isn't intended to be the venue where the fights exist for the sake of character development

Instead, this was our way of being introduced to the other CLPs rapid-fire beyond just learning their names. No one got a ton of attention, but every CLP laid out the starting points for how they'll contribute to the plot going forward

We already knew Zakuroguchi's goal from her conversation with Kogoe, so she didn't need a lot of screentime here

We learned that Anonymity has a connection to Class F, and Hakanage clearly had another agenda in her fight with Iroha ("I tortured out a ton of lines I wanted to hear")

Rikukeito was the only CLP aside from Iroha who was willing to risk capture to free their allies and delivered a powerful thesis statement for this arc ("You think we can't see people's faces if they aren't visible?") which I'll be taking a closer look at in a moment

Yonakuguisu clearly has some kind of connection to Iroha, and Iroha has requested a deeper conversation later; this is likely going to be the transition point into the next arc and will give us much more opportunity for learning about Iroha's past (which is ultimately more important than spending page time to learn about any other given character)

Of course, I'm always more interested in an arc that uses all of its moments to further each character involved (ex: the Election Battle in Medaka Box developed the heroes, villains and the plot itself with each fight), but the fact that Nisio didn't insist on doing that here strongly suggests that this arc is meant solely to be the preparations for things to come, not the goal in and of itself

This lines up with how the first arc went and what I've been saying would happen this whole time (at least I think I mentioned it...): each arc is meant to be expanding outward. In the first, Iroha was a fish out of water who was viewed as an enemy by his class. In the second, Iroha has become well-respected in his class, but now is an enemy of the rest of the school. While there's still likely some animosity for the moment, this should be more or less resolved with the Baumkuchen baking to come (though I'm willing to bet there's going to be a complication in there), so for all intents and purposes, the next arc will start with the school on Iroha's side and another, greater enemy coming along. Will it perhaps be a rival school? Or will it stay closer to home with Kogoe making her move? Kick Attack Planning? The Nohime Group? Whatever the next step is, the final phase (if we make it that far) is undoubtedly intended to be the Damoclesian World War that keeps being alluded to, which will require all of the allies that have been and will be amassed in the meantime to make it through

Cycling back to the thesis of this arc, I will once again remind everyone that while the first arc was an Effort Arc, this one is a Friendship Arc. The two driving themes that reinforce this are "understanding" and "togetherness," and they're tied together quite beautifully

"You think we can't see people's faces if they aren't visible?"

Iroha began this battle noting that nearly everyone else in the competition was in some way hiding their faces, either through masks, makeup, costumes, or generally distracting accessories, making their expressions harder for him to read. While he took this to be an immediate handicap to his main skill, he was able to apply this lesson immediately and effectively upon learning it, using information that was omitted or obscured to not only save Anonymity from Class F, but also to win the entire Trilemma

I had actually been wondering for a while what the win condition actually was, as I couldn't remember it ever being explicitly stated that the team with the most captives would win, and sure enough, Iroha realized the same thing because he was the only one who was able to understand and grasp the actual point of the contest that the teachers wanted to impart

"Unless everyone's safe, [victory] means nothing to me"

I've mentioned that Friendship, Effort and Victory are all related concepts before, and this is an excellent illustration of the concept. What makes one the victor of a war? Killing the most enemy soldiers, or having the most to show for your efforts? If Iroha had managed to capture Yonakiuguisu but eschewed the opportunity to save Anonymity, then both Class A and BC would have five surviving members and the deciding factor would have been the number of POWs, meaning that Class A would have lost. The reason that Class A won in the end was because Iroha was willing to take a risk for a friend, to ensure that his allies were not abandoned for the sake of a potentially Pyrrhic victory

Of course he still needed to capture someone from BC, as otherwise their number of survivors would have been tied and BC would win because of their POW count again, and that's where Effort comes in. Iroha couldn't just sit around and rest on his laurels, he needed to take action in order to win. This is the main reason that Rikukeito needed to free the captured Class B students, since it forced Iroha into action (if she hadn't done that, BC would only have three surviving members and DF would only have four since Yonakiuguisu was always going to capture the D girls, securing the win for Class A)

By both being someone who would fight for a friend and would only take calculated risks that don't endanger his team, Iroha proved that he was a cunning strategist with the ability to understand his friends, enemies and the situation as a whole, and by extension proved that among the CLPs, he's the one most fit to being the leader of the school, just as he did when he proved to Anonymity that he was the one who could best lead Class A

Iroha continues to be such a great protagonist, I really hope that he ends up getting a similar reputation to Undead Unluck's Fuuko by the end of this story. They're both so endearing, I love them so much

I anticipate that our next arc will be a Victory Arc, but I also get the feeling that we might not be done with this Friendship Arc just yet, and it might end up being a Friendship Saga. Or we'll fluctuate back and forth between all three values until the final arc either settles on one to be the most important or finds a way to perfectly balance all three. Hopefully, CA will stick around long enough for us to find out, and if this week's color page and every volume getting a reprint are any indication, we may just get to!

It's definitely surviving this round of cancelations at least, since one has already been canceled and two others are clearly scrambling towards their own rushed conclusions, so while I mourn for those losing series they wanted to see flourish, I am grateful that one of my favorites gets to live another day

#cipher academy #fouryearsandananime #4y1a reviews #yes i did skip to CA instead of UU this week #i heard the muses calling to me and i already ignore them in every other creative venture in my life so i figured i should listen this time

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o-uncle-newt · 1 month ago

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OK, doing this as a reblog rather than comment as I have THOUGHTS on this and they may as well be immortalized-

I started with the first book because I'd heard that the Peter/Harriet storyline was great but I believe in reading the whole thing of a thing for context. So I took Whose Body and Clouds of Witness out of the library, and HATED* Whose Body enough that I almost returned Clouds of Witness to the library unread. But I never ever do that, and I was genuinely intrigued enough by Clouds of Witness when I read it- in some ways the most classic manor house murder mystery Sayers ever did, but also far more interesting character-wise given WImsey's connections to all the people involved and Sayers's general great character work- that I decided to keep going. My recent trip to London included walking tours of both Oxford and Bloomsbury to see the places where Sayers/Harriet Vane lived and worked, so you can tell that keeping on going paid off lol.

But anyway, if you disliked Whose Body as a mystery then you'll like pretty much all of her other books better- she got much better at deciding when she was writing a whodunnit and when she was writing a howcatchem. Whose Body is the worst of both- you know immediately who must have done it, why, and like 80% of how, and so the book feels a bit like it was written solely to have the opportunity for that weird weird way of writing (about) Jews. If you thought that the pacing was off, in later books the MYSTERY pacing isn't always perfect, but she gets much better at character-driven, novelistic pacing so it doesn't always matter. In general, she develops a lot as a mystery writer but far more as a novelist.

Clouds of Witness is, again, much more classic manor house mystery, and it is a whodunnit, though the ending is... a bit controversial. But even if you hate it, the rest of the book is more than solid, and a good intro to the greater Wimsey family. The next novel is Unnatural Death, and while it's definitely better than Whose Body it has a lot of the same deep weirdnesses- it's a better mystery in that it's decided to be a howcatchem rather than a whodunnit and commits to that, and in some ways it's a better novel (though the pacing is off- it's way too slow at the beginning and way too jam-packed at the end) and it introduces at least one excellent character (Miss Climpson), but it is also EXTREMELY racist in the ways that Whose Body was antisemitic- as in, intending in some ways deliberately not to be but emphatically being so anyway.

The novel after THAT, The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, is fabulous, probably her best integration of mystery plot and novel plot, fascinating themes and character work, just really really solid and one of my favorite things Sayers ever wrote. It also has themes that I think are very important to read, and characters who I think are important to be introduced to, before getting to Strong Poison. I highly, highly recommend it, and it's for that reason that I will STRONGLY disagree with everyone who recommends skipping straight to Strong Poison because Bellona Club is Important.

So long story short, my recommendation is- go to Clouds of Witness (oh, and if nothing else, it introduces a plotline that gets resolved in Strong Poison). If you love it and want to see Peter develop chronologically, as a person, and are willing to read something that is deeply interesting while also being deeply flawed, go in chronological order to Unnatural Death (and while you're at it read the first short story collection- it's VERY uneven but there's some interesting Peter development there too). If you are meh on Clouds of Witness, try Bellona Club. I honestly think that Strong Poison is best when you've experienced and liked Peter as a person before reading it, because he makes some... interesting choices in it and it's helpful to know what he's like/his baseline. Clouds of Witness is one of the best early books for giving info about how Peter relates to family and ancestry and people who have been in his life a long time, and Bellona Club, while not Peter-focused, is one of the best at kind of giving us his general approach to the world on a baseline level. Both of those, I think, are important before seeing his world get tipped on its axis in Strong Poison.

Question for anyone who's read the Peter Whimsey books by Dorothy Sayers: where's the best place to start with the series? I read Book 1 ages ago and was not impressed, but I have heard that the first book isn't actually the best introduction, so I'm thinking of giving the series another shot. Any suggestions?

#lord peter wimsey #peter wimsey series #dorothy l sayers #whose body #clouds of witness #unnatural death #strong poison

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maacwanowrie · 2 years ago

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Opportunities for In-Demand Jobs in Animation

Worldwide demand for animated films has risen dramatically in recent years. The usage of visual effects has significantly increased in India, notably as a result of the great box office triumphs of historical dramas like Bahubali, which changed the game for the country's entertainment sector. Animation is about creating Visual Effects using the latest technologies and is more of a visual treat. Animation Courses in Pune overview of the technical and historical evolution of animation to help you understand and acknowledge the field

However, animation is no longer just used in movies. The need for qualified animation specialists is increasing exponentially in fields like cartoons, digital designing and marketing, web and graphics, online learning, gaming, AR-VR, broadcast, etc.

It is strongly advised that you develop job-oriented abilities, seek training from seasoned professionals, and seek their advice if you are creative and want to build a successful and secure career in animation. This will ensure that your skill set is exactly in line with industry standards. The initial step in establishing a profession in your chosen field would be to enroll in a reputable animation training program.

Let's look at some of the exciting career prospects in this fast-paced industry:

* Animator

Animators are responsible for animating the storylines. One of the highest paying occupations in this industry is it. A competitive compensation range and chances to advance up the corporate ladder to assume greater responsibility and manage teams are to be expected. This profile has subcategories for Keyframe Animator, 2D, and 3D.

* Compositor

Post-production is where compositing primarily takes place. Compositors are in charge of putting rendered footage or many layers of the same shot back together and combining them into one. Although the two main compositing tasks are rotoscoping and matte creation, a strong understanding of lighting is required to succeed in this profile.

* Conceptual artist

Concept Artists frequently produce multiple versions of a component that will be used in the animation under the direction of an Art Director. These revisions serve as the foundation for the work of other artists. For instance, they sketch the same character or landscape in many styles. The 3D modelers receive the completed sketch next.

* Artist/Designer

A designer's job is to visually communicate a concept. They are in charge of designing visual components like logos and typefaces that will establish the distinctiveness of the product. Excellent sketching, design, and color sensibility are prerequisites for becoming an illustrator.

* 3D modeler

A modeler determines the physical dimensions of every component in a photograph. Along the three axes, they must create an environment, props, surfaces, and characters. It is possibly the step in the workflow that takes the longest.

* Storyboard creator

Storyboarding is simply dissecting the entire script into a crude sketch format that illustrates where various elements (such as characters, landscapes, etc.) should be placed. This saves a lot of time and work by avoiding the needless animation of a sequence.

* Layout artists modify the templates that graphic designers give them. In that sense, they offer the ideal design. Additionally, they determine each keyframe's movement, camera angle, and character placement. The fundamentals of cinematography in filmmaking are these duties.

Character riggers, texture artists, and technical artists are additional in-demand job categories in the animation industry. These are specialized talents, therefore you'll need at least a year or two of experience working under a supervisor. Since switching between roles is always necessary, it is therefore advised that a recent graduate be a "3D Generalist."

The first step toward developing the necessary skills is enrolling in a reputable and internationally renowned animation training facility like Arena Animation. Depending on your artistic preferences and professional objectives, there are a wide variety of animation courses to choose from. You would be able to contribute to beautiful animations that are both technically sound and aesthetically pleasing with perseverance and ongoing skill development. Keep in mind that every animated film that has ever influenced you to pursue this profession began with a cube in the center.

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hamliet · 4 years ago

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The Crows Summon the Sun

Or, Hamliet’s review of Shadow & Bone, which gets a 4.5/5 for enjoyment and a 3.5/5 in terms of writing.

The true heroes of this story and the saviors of the show are the Crows. However, the problem is that the show then has an uneven feel, because the strength of the Crows plotline highlights the weaknesses of the trilogy storyline. But imo, overall, the strengths overshadow (#punintended) the weaknesses.

I’ll divide the review into the narrative and the technical (show stuff, social commentary), starting with narrative.

Narrative: The Good

It’s What The Crows Deserve

I went into the show watching it for the Crows; however, knowing that their storyline was intended to be a prequel, I wasn’t terribly optimistic. And while it is a prequel, the characters have complete and full arcs that perfectly set them up for the further development they will have in the books (which I think should be the next season?). Instead of retreading the arcs they’d have in the books, which is how prequels usually go, they had perfect set up for these arcs. It’s really excellent.

Jesper, Inej, and Kaz are all allowed to be flawed, to have serious conflicts with one another, and yet to love each other. They feel like a found family in the best of ways. Kaz is the perfect selfish rogue; he’s a much more successfully executed Byronic hero than the Darkling, actually. Inej is heroic and her faith is not mocked, yet she too is flawed and her choices are not always entirely justified, but instead left to the audience to ponder (like killing the girl), which is a more mature writing choice that I appreciated.

Jesper is charming, has a heart of gold despite being a murderer and on the surface fairly greedy, and MILO THE EMOTIONAL SUPPORT GOAT WAS THE BEST THING EVER. I also liked Jesper’s fling with Dima but I felt it could be better used rather than merely establishing his sexuality, like if Jesper and Dima had seen each other one more time or something had come of their tryst for the plot/themes/development of Jesper.

Nina and Matthias’s backstory being in the first season, instead of in flashbacks, really works because it automatically erases any discomfort of the implications of Nina having falsely accused Matthias that the books start with. We know Nina, we know Matthias, we know their motivations, backgrounds, and why they feel the way we do. It’ll be easy for the audience to root for them without a lot of unnecessary hate springing from misunderstanding Nina (since she’s my favorite). Matthias’s arc was also really strongly executed and satisfyingly tragic. Their plotline was a bit unfortunately disconnected from the rest of the story, but Danielle Gallagan and Callahan Skogman have absolutely sizzling chemistry so I found myself looking forward to their scenes instead of feeling distracted. Also? It’s nice seeing a woman with Nina’s body type as a romantic and powerful character.

Hamliet Likes Malina Now

Insofar as the trilogy storyline goes, the best change the show made was Mal. He still is the same character from the books, but much more likable. The pining was... a lot (too much in episode 4, I felt) but Malina is a ship I actually enjoyed in the show while I NOTP’d it in the books. Mal has complexity and layers to his motivations (somewhat) and a likable if awkward charm. Archie Renaux was fantastic.

Ben Barnes is the perfect Aleksandr Kirigan, and 15 year old me, who had the biggest of big crushes on Ben Barnes (first celebrity crush over a decade ago lol), was pretty damn happy lol. He’s magnificantly acted--sympathetic and terrifying, sincerely caring and yet villainous in moments. Story-wise, I think it was smart to reveal his name earlier on than in the books, because it helps with the humanization especially in a visual medium like film. Luda was a fitting (if heartbreaking) backstory, but it is also hard for me to stomach knowing what the endgame of his character is. Like... I get the X-men fallacy thing, but I hope the show gives more kindness to his character than the books did, yet I’m afraid to hold my breath. Just saying that if you employ save the cat, if you directly say you added this part (Luda) to make the character more likable (as the director did) please do not punish the audience for feeling what you intended.

I also liked the change that made Alina half-Shu. It adds well to her arc and fits with her character, actually giving her motivations (she kinda just wants to be ordinary in a lot of ways) a much more interesting foundation than in the books. Also it’s nice not to have another knock-off Daenerys (looking to you Celaena and book!Alina). Jessie Mei Li does a good job playing Alina’s insecurities and emotions, but...

Narrative: The Ehhhhhhh

Alina the Lamp

Sigh. Here we go. Alina has little consistent characterization. She’s almost always passive when we see her, yet she apparently punches an officer for calling her a name and this seems to be normal for her, but it doesn’t fit at all with what we know about her thus far. Contradictions are a part of humanity, but it’s never given any focus, so it comes across as inconsistent instead of a flaw or repression.

I have no idea what Alina wants, beside that she wants to be with Mal, which is fine except I have no idea what the basis of their bond is. Even with like, other childhood friends to lovers like Ren/Nora in RWBY or Eren/Mikasa in SnK, there’s an inciting moment, a reason, that we learn very early on in their story to show us what draws them together. Alina and Mal just don’t have that. There’s the meadow/running away thing, but they were already so close, and why? Why, exactly? What brought them together? The term “bullies” is thrown around but it isn’t ever explored and it needed to be this season. If I have to deal with intense pining for so many episodes at least give me a foundation for their devotion. You need to put this in the beginning, in the first season. You just do.

A “lamp” character is a common metaphor to describe a bad character: essentially, you could replace the character with a lamp and nothing changes. Considering Alina’s gift is light, it’s a funnily apt metaphor, but it really does apply. Her choices just don’t... matter. She could be a special lamp everyone is fighting over and almost nothing would change. The ironic thing is that everyone treating her like a fancy lamp is exactly the conflict, but it’s never delved into. We’re never shown that Alina is more than a lamp. She never has to struggle because her choices are made for her and information is gifted to her when she needs it. Not making choices protects Alina from consequences and the story gives her little incentive to change that; in fact, things tend to turn out better when she doesn’t make choices (magic stags will arrive).

Like... let’s look at a few occasions when Alina almost or does make choices. For example, she chooses to (it seems) sleep with Kirigan, but then there’s a convenient knock at the door and Bhagra arrives with key information that changes Alina’s mind instantly despite the fact that Bhagra’s been pretty terrible to her. If you want to write a woman realizing she’s been duped by a cruel man, show her discovering it instead of having the man’s abusive mother tell her when she had absolutely no such suspicions beforehand. There’s no emotional weight there because Alina doesn’t struggle.

When she is actually allowed to carry out a bad choice, the consequences are handwaved away instead of built into a challenge for her. Like... Alina got her friends killed. More than once. I’m not saying she’s entirely to blame for these but could we show her reacting to it? Feeling any sort of grief? She never mentions Raisa or Alexei after they’re gone, just Mal, and I’m... okay. They were there because of you. Aren’t you feeling anything? Aren’t you sad? The only time Alina brings up her friends’ deaths is to tell Kirigan he killed her friends when they were only there because she burned the maps. She yells at Kirigan for “never” giving her a choice, but she almost never makes any, so why would he? Alina has the gall to lecture Genya about choices, but she herself almost never has to make any.

Which brings me to another complaint in general: Alina’s lack of care for everyone around her when they’re not Mal, even if they care for her. Marie dies because of her (absolutely not her fault of course) but as far as we know she never even learns about Marie. She certainly doesn’t ever ask about her or Nadia. Alina seems apathetic at best to people, certainly not compassionate or kind.

The frustrating thing is that there is potential here. Like, it actually makes a lot of psychological sense for an orphan who has grown up losing to be reluctant to care for people outside of her orbit and that she would struggle to believe she can have any say in her destiny (ie make choices). It’s also interesting that a girl who feels like an outsider views others outside her. But the show never offers examines Alina’s psychology with any depth; it simply tells us she’s compassionate when she is demonstrably not, it tells us she makes decisions when it takes magical intervention to do so. It’s a missed opportunity. This does not change between episodes 1 and 8, despite the episodes’ parallel structures and scenes, which unintentionally reinforces that Alina had little real development.

Inej and ironically Jesper and Kaz embody the concept of “mercy” far better and with far more complexity than Alina does. The Crows have reactions to the loss of people who even betray them (Arken, etc), learn, and course-correct (or don’t) when they are even loosely involved in having strangers die. They’re good characters because they change and learn and have their choices matter. When they kill we see them wrestle with it and what this means even if they are accustomed to doing so. Jesper can’t kill in front of a child. Kaz wonders what his killings do to Inej’s idea of him.

Narrative: The Mixed Bag

Tropes, Themes, Telling vs. Showing

So the show’s themes in the Alina storyline are a mess, as they are in the trilogy too. Tropes are a very valuable way to show your audience what you’re trying to say. They’re utilized worldwide because they resonate with people and we know what to expect from them. The Crows' storyline shows us what it wants us to learn.

Preaching tells, and unfortunately, the trilogy relies on telling/preaching against fornicationBad Boys. It’s your right to write any trope or trample any trope you want--your story--but you should at least understand what/why you are doing so. The author clearly knows enough about Jungian shadows and dark/light yin/yang symbolism to use it in the story, but then just handwaves it away as “I don’t like this” but never does so in a narratively effective way: addressing the appeal in the first place. If you really wanna deconstruct a trope, you gotta empathize with the core of the reason these tropes appeal to people (it allays deep fears that we are ourselves unlovable, through loving another person despite how beastly they can be), and address this instead of ignoring it. Show us a better way through the Fold of your story. Don’t just go around it and ignore the issue.

The trilogy offers highly simplistic themes at best--bad boy bad and good boy good, which is fine-ish for kid lit but less fine for adult complexity, which the show (more so than the books) seems to try to push despite not actually having much of it.

Alina and Mal are intended to be good, we’re told they are, but I’m not sure why beyond just that we’re told so. Alina claims the stag chose her, but in the show it’s never explained why at all. Unlike with Kaz, Inej, Jesper, and hell even Matthias and Nina, we don’t see Alina or Mal’s complex choices and internal wrestling.

Like, Inej’s half-episode where she almost killed the guy they needed was far more character exploration than Alina has the entire show, to say nothing of Inej’s later killing which not only makes her leaps and bounds more interesting, but ironically cements her as a far more compelling and yes, likable, heroine than Alina. We see Inej’s emotional and moral conflict. We can relate to her. We see Kaz struggling with his selfishness and regrets, with his understanding of himself through his interactions with and observations of Inej, Alina, the Darkling, Arken, and Jesper.

We don’t explore what makes Mal or Alina good and what makes them bad. We don’t know what Alina discovers about herself, what her power means for her. We are told they are good, we are told she knows her power is hers, but never shown what this means or what this costs them/her. Their opportunities to be good are handed to them (the stag, Bhagra) instead of given to them as a challenge in which they risk things, in which doing good or making a merciful choice costs them. Alina gets to preach about choices without ever making any; Inej risks going back to the Menagerie to trust Kaz. Her choices risk. They cost. They matter and direct her storyline and her arc, and those of the people around her.

Production Stuff:

The Good:

The production overall is quite excellent. The costumes, pacing, acting, and cinematography (for example, one of the earliest scenes between the Darkling and Alina has Alina with her back to the light, face covered in his shadow, while the Darkling’s face is light up by her light even if he stands in the shadows) are top-notch. The soundtrack as well is incredible and emphasizes the scenes playing. The actors have great chemistry together, friend chemistry and romantic when necessary (Mal and Alina, the Darkling and Alina, Kaz and Inej, Nina and Matthias, David and Genya, etc.) All are perfectly cast.

The Uncomfortable Technicalities Hamliet Wants to Bitch About:

The only characters from fantasy!Europe having any trace of an accent reminiscent of said fantasy country's real-world equivalent are antagonists like Druskelle (Scandinavia) and Pekka (Ireland). When the heroes mostly have British accents despite being from fantasy Russia and Holland, it is certainly A Choice to have the Irish accent emphasized. The actor is British by the way, so I presume he purposely put on an Irish accent. I'm sure no one even considered the potential implications of this but it is A Look nonetheless.

The Anachronisms Hamliet Has a Pet Peeve About:

The worldbuilding is compelling, but the only blight on the worldbuilding within the story itself (ignoring context) was that there are some anachronisms that took me out of the story, particularly in the first episode where “would you like to share with the class” and “saved by the horn” are both used. Both are modern-day idioms in English that just don’t fit, especially the latter. The last episode uses “the friends we made along the way.” There are other modern idioms as well.

IT’S STARKOVA and Other Pet Peeves Around the Russian Portrayal

Russian names are not hard, and Russian naming systems are very, very easy to learn. I could have waved “Starkov” not being “Starkova,” “Nazyalensky” not being “Nazyalenskaya,” and “Safin” not being “Safina” as an American interpretation (since in America, the names do not femininize). However, “Mozorova” as a man is unfathomable and suggests to me the author just doesn’t understand how names work, which is a bit... uh okay considering a simple google search gets you to understand Russian names. They aren’t hard. I cannot understand why the show did not fix this. It is so simple to fix and would be a major way to help the story’s overall... caricature of Russia.

Speaking of that... Ravka is supposedly Russian-based, but it is more accurately based on the stereotypes of what Americans think of Russia. Amerussia? Russica? Not great.

The royals are exactly what Americans think of the Romanovs, right down to the “greasy” “spiritual advisor” who is clearly Rasputin and which ignores the Romanov history, very real tragedy, and the reason Rasputin was present in the court. The religion with all its saints is a vapid reflection of Russian Orthodoxy. The military portrayal with its lotteries and brutality and war is how the US views the Russian military. The emphasis on orphans, constant starvation, classification, and children being ripped from their homes to serve the government is a classic US understanding of USSR communism right down to the USSR having weapons of destruction the rest of the world fears (Grisha). Not trying to defend the Soviet Union here at all, but it is simplistic and reductive and probably done unconsciously but still ehhhh.

However, I’m not Russian. I just studied Russian literature. I’ve seen very little by way of discussion of this topic online, but what I do see from Russian people has been mixed--some mind, some don’t. The reality is that I actually don’t really mind this because it’s fantasy, though I see why some do. I'm not like CANCEL THIS. So why am I talking about this beyond just having a pet peeve?

Well, because it is a valid critique, and because it doesn’t occur in a vacuum. The Grishaverse is heralded as an almost paragon for woke Young Adult literature, which underlines itself what so frustrates me about how literary circles discuss issues of diversity and culture. Such praise, while ignoring its quasi-caricature of Russia, reflects a very ethnocentric (specifically American) understanding of culture, appropriation, and representation. All stories are products of their culture to various extents, but it bothers me on principle what the lit community reacts (and overreacts sometimes?) to and what people give a pass to. The answer to what the community reacts to and what it gives a pass always pivots on how palatable the appropriation is to American understandings and sensibilities. There’s nuance here as well, though.

I'm not cancelling the story or thinking it should be harshly attacked for this, but it is something that can be discussed and imo should be far more often--but with the nuance it begs, instead of black/white. But that’s a tall ask.

#s&b #hamliet reviews #shadow and bone #six of crows #kanej #jesper fahey #kaz brekker #inej ghafa #alina starkov #malyen oretsev #the darkling #darklina #malina #aleksander kirigan #netflix shadow and bone #s&b review

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sugarcubetikki · 4 years ago

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Marinette Isn’t A Mary Sue.

At least a half of her salters constantly complain about how Marinette’s a Mary Sue and use this as a reason to justify their hate of her character (Ironically, the other half keeps complaining about how her flaws are really really bad). There are a number of so-called “justifiable reasons” on why she’s a Mary Sue. And I’ll just say that I don’t agree with any of them. These reasons can range from “absolute nonsense. are you even watching the show?” to “I can see why you’d think that but you’re ignoring this aspect.” I’ll be breaking down each and every claim that I know of to tell you why exactly I disagree.

Marinette never faces the consequences of her mistakes

This is one of the reasons I downright disagree with and think is absolute nonsense. Marinette is very fallible. The show has portrayed that on multiple occasions. When she makes a mistake, she always faces the consequences and she tries to fix it. That element to her character is what makes her a great role model and it builds up majority of her character arc. I’m not sure what the salters who say this are exactly thinking, but it looks like they really need to re-watch the show.

I’ll give you a fine example. Ikari Gozen is one of my favourite exhibits of her fixing her mistake. She judged Kagami too quick. Based on some presumptions she had on her personality, her feelings towards Adrien and her own jealousy, she judged her intentions too quick and made some really bad choices that episode by trying to sabotage her. In the first half of the episode, a lot of us were quite irritated by Marinette’s behaviour, we genuinely felt bad for Kagami. Which is quite surprising as Kagami is an over-hated character and Marinette is the popular protagonist. But no. The show painted the first half in such a manner that we’d feel sorry for Kagami and reprimand Marinette’s actions. The show itself acknowledged that Marinette was on the wrong side in that moment. That she wasn’t perfect, she was in the wrong. Until Marinette finds out that Kagami had genuine intentions, that she only wanted to be friends with her, she feels bad. She feels really bad with the way she treated her previously. And she realises that her unfriendly treatment could potentially lead to Kagami getting hurt, and yes, it did happen. Kagami did get hurt. And Marinette almost lost the chance of becoming friends with Kagami in that moment. And she would have to live with that guilt for some time if her mother hadn’t called. When her mother called, Marinette stepped up and took the opportunity to prove to Kagami that she was a good friend. That she was sorry. And did want to be friends with her. She made a mistake, faces the consequences and steps up to fix them. The way her relationship with Kagami changes in the course of episodes is a really good example that tells us Marinette is fallible.

Marinette has way too many talents and achievements

Okay. This one is somewhat reasonable and I can see where people are coming from here. However, I still don’t think it accounts for her being a Mary Sue. Here’s why. In Miraculous World, not going to lie, everyone is pretty talented, they’ve all made crazy achievements. Do I need to list now?

Alya runs a famous blog: The Ladyblog. She even earned an interview with Nadia Chamack. Nino is a DJ. He appeared on a show and won! Marc and Nathaniel write/illustrate and publish comics! Ivan, Luka, Juleka and Rose are in a band: Kitty Section. They played live on TV! Adrien’s a teen model, multilingual, pianist, has great physical skills due to fencing and basketball. Even Lila has decent modelling skills, she works for Gabriel now. Kagami is an excellent fencer. That comes from the idea that she’s from a prestigious family world-renowned for fencing. Marinette is pretty close with Jagged because she designed his #1 album for him. Also, she won the contest for Gabriel and was recognised by Audrey Bourgeois. Max literally built a super-intelligent robot with emotions and everything.

So, what does that mean? They’re all Mary Sues and Gary Stu’s. No! We need to remind ourselves that this a kids show and there’s the aspect of encouraging kids to believe in working on their own talents, so they’re encouraged to do anything and push ahead for their dreams. Plus, it doesn’t portray that their talents come naturally, it shows that they work for them and developed these talents through practice.

Clumsiness and stuttering are Mary Sue traits

First of all, not every character that has these traits is a Mary Sue. It always depends on how these traits are represented. Her stuttering isn’t just there for no reason. It’s meant to display her difficulty with expressing her own feelings. We’ve had episodes with Marinette saying how it’s difficult for her to say what she feels. Episodes! And it isn’t just a meaningless detail. It represents her fear. Her fear of rejection. Her fear of being in a relationship and things going wrong. Her fear of many things. Her fear is the reason why she hesitates. Why she stutters. And it tells us that fear is completely natural. Fear in love is something that’s natural.

I'm so tired of not being able to just tell him how I feel! But I'm so scared, Tikki, always so scared he'll reject me.

What if he tells me that he loves me? Or that he doesn't love me? Or that he likes me, but not in that way -

Yeah. Don’t you dare tell me that this fear isn’t depicted in the show. It’s blatantly obvious.

As for her clumsiness, it represents her nervousness. It comes in the form of her fear to mess up. She’s clumsy when she’s nervous. And thus she’s afraid she can mess up due to that clumsiness and nervousness. In the Origins, her insecurity, her nervousness was all displayed in the form of her clumsiness, and she knows she displays her nervousness through clumsiness And she was afraid that her clumsiness could mess things up. That’s why she believed she was disaster-prone. And incapable of being a superhero. Because she was nervous and scared.

She gets too much screen-time

This one I really don’t get. How is having more screen time making her a Mary Sue? She’s the main protagonist. Of course, she’s going to get a lot of screen-time. Her endearing personality and active lifestyle molds the storyline of the show. She’s easy to follow along. If you’re comparing her to Adrien, I’ll say that...Adrien’s a mysterious and sheltered character. Giving him too much screen-time can get boring because he’s stuck at home all the time. We can focus on his family mystery but if the show does it too much, it ruins the mystery aspect of it. I adore Adrien getting screen-time with episodes focused around him too but I’m not going to expect him to get as much as screen-time as Marinette because his character is different, and him getting as much screen-time as her doesn’t work for the style and demographic. And claiming that she’s Mary Sue because of more screen-time is stupidity.

Encouraged jealousy and despising other girls around her crush is a Mary Sue quality

Firstly, the show never encourages Marinette’s jealousy. It doesn’t encourage it. Plus, she’s not jealous in every situation. Only in specific situation when she thinks there’s something off about the person like Chloe and Lila. In Volpina, Marinette had realised she had gone overboard with calling out Lila. And she did face consequences for it. Her akumatization. And she did try to fix her mistake in the end by apologising for overreacting. Lila was the one who turned her away that time. As for Kagami, her jealousy arc changed based on her attitudes about Kagami. During Frozer, she wasn’t jealous per say, upset but not jealous. Frozer made Marinette and Kagami misunderstand each other, that’s why they’re quite petty towards one and other for the next few episodes. In Animaestro, I don’t think Marinette would’ve been that petty if it weren’t for Chloe. But yeah, that episode isn’t one of her best moments. I’m not a fan of it either. In Ikari Gozen, these misunderstandings were cleared and so were the issues from Animaestro, and it’s fine now. On a overall, I don’t believe Marinette would get jealous around everyone. At least, not in a way where she would try to stop them from getting close to Adrien all the time. It depends on the person and situation.

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In conclusion, Marinette isn’t a Mary Sue. She’s fallible, has flaws, fears and works for her achievements. And that’s on point.

#sugar analyses #miraculous ladybug #miraculous #marinette dupain cheng #ml fandom salt #ml meta #ml analysis #character analysis #anti marinette salt #marinette is not a mary sue

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the-music-maniac · 3 years ago

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You ever notice how similar Xie Wang and Han Ying’s stories and character arcs are?

A warning here that this contains spoilers for all of Word of Honor/Shan He Ling. Stop reading now, I reference a ton of shit.

I was actually discussing a couple fic ideas with a friend a few weeks ago, and I got to wondering after thinking about those parallels I could see -

Does Han Ying x Xie Wang exist as a ship?? Is that a thing?? That exists?? Can it please exist??

It has so much potential. There's so many narrative parallels with these two characters.

They're two people who deserved better than their respective endings, who never got what they wanted, because of the manipulation of men who wanted power and would stop at nothing to get it (Jin Wang and Zhao Jing). The manipulation of those who saw them as less then what they were.

They also have similarities in their relationships with their "mentor figures" - Han Ying and Zhou Zishu, and Xie Wang and Zhao Jing. They have quite a lot of differences too, enough that their lives parallel each other instead of mirror, and I just think that their personal experiences could make for a very compelling storyline if these two were to interact. It would be an interesting road to a development of a potential relationship, and moreover an opportunity for both of them to learn from the other and heal.

And real talk? I just want the both of them to be happy tbh (and of course that obviously doesn't need to involve a romantic relationship - I just have no self control. I'd be just as ecstatic about a really good friendship though).

I also know they never interact in the drama - but then again these two are also literally dead in the drama. Reality is what you make it 🤣🤣. And considering how close the Scorpion was working with Tian Chuang - honestly I'm pretty sure you can't really say they haven't met either.

So anyways, I guess reasons why I think this would be a good ship dynamic:

First of all, their relations with their mentors and how it's similar to each other and also not. The resulting potential for mutual support:

Han Ying's dearest wish is to be a disciple of Zhou Zishu's, as he says plainly in that one episode.

The thing is, there could be quite a lot of subtext taken from that - I've read interpretations that he's in love with Zhou Zishu, or at least has romantic feelings for him - a strong crush possibly - which I can plausibly see (I can also see it just being platonic, which I will talk about later). But yeah, a romantic interpretation just because of how strong his devotion towards Zhou Zishu is. The wistful looks?????

In that kind of situation, IF the romantic feelings are two-sided instead of one-sided - which I would like to go on the record and say that with Han Ying and Zhou Zishu, I don't believe it is - and as a result actually becomes something, that type of relationship would not be the most healthy, because there's a very strong imbalance of power. Even if the mentor figure genuinely cares and actively minds the mentee's feelings - the mentee still undeniably has that level of hero worship - it won't ever be equal. We can see that already in Han Ying's case, Zhou Zishu repeatedly tells him to stop treating him with so much formality because he's not the leader anymore and yet Han Ying still remains deferential.

In that interpretation, if that were the case of it being two sided - Han Ying would have quite a lot of similarity of experience to Xie Wang's relation to Zhao Jing -

And here I can talk about how Xie Wang and Zhao Jing's relationship is uh. Kinda sus tbh. Like. That doesn't look like a healthy or platonic father-son relationship and it gives me the creeps. In Xie Wang and Zhao Jing's relationship, I'm more inclined to believe there's some semi-incestous yifu fucking going on than anything platonic, there's just so many sus moments - and if I'm not mistaken they dubbed over a line in the show where it was basically stated plainly that it's not a platonic relationship. Or at least - Xie Wang doesn't view Zhao Jing platonically (and I don't believe Zhao Jing discourages it at all, if anything he actively encourages and guides it to make Xie Wang dependent on him). So we got another setup where it's potentially one sided romantic feelings/hero worship. Or maybe two sided for them, who knows.

But the thing is, while I talked about unhealthy romantic relationships in my section about Han Ying, a fundamental difference between Xie Wang and Han Ying's relationships with their mentors is that Zhou Zishu's relationship with Han Ying would be a lot healthier. A LOT healthier. So much fucking healthier, I cannot emphasis that enough. And that's mostly because their relationship is not two-sided, and because he sees Han Ying as a person.

He cares about Han Ying a lot but not as anything beyond platonic - he views him as a student and a subordinate and protects him as such. Han Ying on the other hand could have romantic feelings for Zhou Zishu. Not in love per se, it feels to me like it could be a mix of a really strong crush with really strong hero worship. I don't think Han Ying truly knows Zhou Zishu's other aspects of personality (yet?? I guess because if we're gonna hypothetically bring both Han Ying and Xie Wang back to life he probably will eventually get to know Zhou Zishu properly), because I doubt he ever showed anything beyond his stern assassin leader type of persona to his subordinates. He was likely caring yes, but in a way that keeps people at a distance. So, a mentor-mentee type of relationship where Han Ying could be crushing quite hard on Zhou Zishu. But still a healthy one, as Zhou Zishu, one - doesn't intend to pursue a romantic relationship with Han Ying - and moreover, although might know about his feelings, or his devotion at least(tbh you'd have to be blind not to), he treats them, and him, with respect. He doesn't try and manipulate Han Ying, or use his emotions for his own purposes. He sees Han Ying as his own person. His affection and regards towards Han Ying remains unconditional, even if Han Ying messes up or doesn't follow instructions. Instructions that, btw, repeatedly try to keep Han Ying out of the line of fire, and makes it clear that Han Ying is to put himself first.

Everything Zhao Jing does however is solely to cripple Xie Wang and make him wholly dependent on him. He's been grooming Xie Wang from such a young age, and his positive regard and care is ALWAYS conditional. As soon as Xie Wang messes up, he takes it away as punishment, and because of how Zhao Jing's made himself the center of Xie Wang's world, that action is devastating to him. He subtly encourages and toys with Xie Wang's regard for him for his own purposes, he tries to make Xie Wang jealous so he works twice as hard to earn back Zhao Jing's attention. And as we see with his intention to eventually discard Xie Wang as soon as he is no longer useful - he doesn't view Xie Wang as a person. He's merely another tool in his arsenal.

The reason why I wrote such a long ass analysis about the similarities and differences between Xie Wang and Han Ying's relationships is because as I mentioned before, one reason I think this would be a pretty interesting ship and dynamic is how these two could help each other. At first, it might be more Han Ying helping Xie Wang.

Xie Wang hasn't ever experienced what a proper and healthy guardian type relationship is like, or even what it means for someone to choose him first. He's a victim of abuse, and should he manage to survive the avalanche at the end of the show, there is potential for him to start to undo all the damage that Zhao Jing has inflicted on him all those years, especially if the man is truly no longer around. And I think Han Ying would be in a very good position to offer him support in that journey. Moreover, if Han Ying has had an experience similar to that, it could be the reason he would want to offer support to Xie Wang. He's experienced a lot of what Xie Wang has experienced, but he's also seen what it is for someone to genuinely care about him, and as a result likely has a more healthy view on that type of relationship. They're similar enough for Xie Wang to potentially not want to push Han Ying away if he ever offers his help, but also dissimilar enough that Han Ying could offer new avenues of thought.

At the same time, if you just read Han Ying and Zhou Zishu's relationship as a really strong type of hero worship, this dynamic could make sense too. Han Ying clearly looks up to Zhou Zishu quite a lot, and on top of that, Zhou Zishu in a way represents everything Han Ying has wanted and couldn't have - aka a family and a mentor figure and a home to call his own. Regardless of if it's purely platonic or not, it's still an infinitely healthier relationship, a parallel to Xie Wang's experience, so the potential of the offer of support remains the same.

Second of all, similarity in origin and life experiences, which is a small thing tbh but still an important thing:

Han Ying is someone I don't know a lot of background on tbh - I presume he doesn't have a family anymore, and somehow ended up in the Window of Heaven. I've read fics where Zhou Zishu was the one to save him at some point and offer him a position in the assassin group, and I'm inclined to take that as a plausible head canon (unless it's actually canon, idk I haven't read tyk yet).

So, in bare bones, he's an orphan who is taken in by a mentor figure, and becomes a high ranking member of an assassin group.

Xie Wang is also someone who no longer has a family - we don't know that much about his background either, but I presume he was happened upon by Zhao Jing in some way - I'm not sure at what age tbh, is it assumed that he was raised by him?? Or maybe in teenage years??

Whatever it happens to be, Xie Wang was taken in, maybe even "saved" by (although if you ask me, he'd be better off without) Zhao Jing.

So in essence it is the same thing as Han Ying's experiences, an orphan who is taken in by a mentor figure, and becomes a high ranking (or the leader of) an assassin group.

And not only that, as I mentioned from the beginning, these two both realize and know, eventually, that they’re being used by men who are desperate for power (Jin Wang, Zhao Jing).

I mention this actually as just an extension of my first point, because while I mentioned that Han Ying very obviously can support Xie Wang in that particular “past grooming and abuse” aspect, there are probably still many hidden traumas and scars for these two from the lives they’ve both lead. Their similar experiences lead to similar choices which helped shape who they are, and as a result, I think these two could truly understand each other and where they’re coming from.

Their personalities would fit pretty well with each other. I think:

I don’t know if my interpretation on how these two are is accurate tbh, so feel free to let me know if you think it’s out of character.

To me, Han Ying seems like someone who would be pretty calm around the people he cares about; responsible, smart, eager to learn, with a steady sort of presence. He seems like someone who would wear their heart on their sleeve around people he trusts too, but not in any overtly obvious way. I think the reason why I get that impression is that, upon rewatch, I could plainly see his worry about Zhou Zishu in episode one, but when I first started the show, I somehow missed it entirely. Han Ying also didn’t show any qualms about admitting to Chengling that he wants to be Zhou Zishu’s disciple - which can be a very personal piece of info. The way he was around Zhou Zishu, and Wen Kexing also gave off an air of innocent eagerness to do well in his accomplishments and for approval. I’m not saying he’s always like this, because I’m rather certain he has a darker side too - as we see with all the characters, no one is without their traumas and no one is without artifice or without complexity. They’re all grey moral in a very human way, and Han Ying is no different. We’ve seen before too that once he’s got his game face on, the man is pretty competent and also ruthless (his conversation with Gao Chong for example) - I don’t think he could be any less if he’s that high up in the Tianchuang hierarchy. But at the same time I can also see him being a bit of a very subtle disaster (almost?? Slightly dorky??) in certain situations, and we can see that kind of peek through when Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing hijacked his kidnapping attempt and he was kind of like uhh. Okay so, I’m in a choke hold, I think that might be my former commander, so like. Let them go. It’s actually really funny cause while Wen Kexing was telling Gao Chong and Chengling to hurry up and leave, I swear you could see Han Ying contemplating his entire life.

The face of a man confuzzled.

Xie Wang on the other hand, is someone that’s more impulsive, liable to push or be mischievous, less of a steady personality and more like - for lack of better word - an absolute gremlin. A pretty murderous one. It’s a bit hard to tell all aspects of how Xie Wang is tbh, since he has many different mannerisms while talking to different people. With Zhao Jing he has a very subservient, almost dutiful, childlike and innocent air about him, and a sort of. Sa jiao (撒娇) type of demeanor. He craves approval from Zhao Jing, and is just generally very baby around him, and I’m really not sure how much of that is how he actually is and how much of that is him learning that this is the best way to get Zhao Jing’s attention. And tbh I don’t think all of that is grooming, I think Xie Wang probably does have the potential to be as soft or as innocently childlike and happy with others he cares about (just hopefully in a lot healthier way). I think we see his soft side a little with Qianqiao when he gives her the cure. Despite that though, we can still see other aspects of him surface. He makes suggestions and pushes when he thinks Zhao Jing’s refusals are unreasonable, he just goes and does his own thing sometimes (um usually murderous things. Like when he killed Song Huai Ren and told Zhao Jing he’s a traitor). He’s mischievous about some of his actions (after literally stabbing a man, ‘what? he said I should kill him if I have the ability’). He’s a lot more obviously gritty and aggressive and morally grey than Han Ying appears, which I think adds dimension to his character when added in with everything else. He’s also very smart, competent, ruthless - obviously since he runs the Scorpion, but he’s surprisingly fair and almost? Honourable? In certain aspects? And like Han Ying, he does somewhat wear his heart on his sleeve, retains that eagerness to do well and is somehow not as jaded as he could be, as he still finds the capacity to eventually care for a stranger (Liu Qianqiao).

I may be oversimplifying how these two could be, but with their personality types I think they have a lot of potential both in a romantic relationship or as close friends. And in a way that at first glance would probably be puzzling - how in the hell did these two become friends/get together (lmao you’ll see Han Ying in his rather sensible disciple robes and then Xie Wang is just there in his braids, dramatic black outfits, winged eyeliner, etc. 🤣🤣😅😅) but on closer thought, makes sense. Han Ying could be a more steadying presence for Xie Wang, and Xie Wang in turn could help him loosen up a bit more. (That’s kind of oversimplifying it but it’s 5 am where I am rn and I’m too tired to elaborate) I also believe Xie Wang might push Han Ying to be more ambitious, be able to do things for himself more - because Xie Wang went through a process of, everything I do is for someone else, until I realized they were using me, and now I’m going to do it for myself. In that way they could potentially push each other to higher heights in what they do, and they are pretty similar in ideology and morals and previous actions. They both have blood on their hands, and they’re not afraid to be ruthless or do what’s necessary to get the job done. They have their traumas, their complexities and an understanding of what it’s like to put on masks for different people.

The potential for found family. All the found family. Gimme:

This one I feel like is more obvious and changes some things about canon, but the timeline I imagine for if Xie Wang x Han Ying would be a plausible ship is one where Han Ying survives the stealing of the fake glazed armour incident and becomes one of the disciples of Siji (second disciple of the sixth generation????). Everything else would likely proceed in a very similar way (although in this au in my mind Gu Xiang and Cao Weining are alive). And then during the avalanche incident, with WenZhou trapped in the armoury, Xie Wang ends up surviving and they end up finding him somehow.

Whether or not it’d be out of character for WenZhou to save him I think could be explored, but the bottom line is that eventually they would probably take him back to Siji. There, whether him meeting Han Ying goes smoothly or not is up to interpretation - I very much doubt it would be an amiable meeting tbh - in fact I fully imagine it to be antagonistic af at first, considering what opposing groups they used to be a part of and the knowledge of how deadly the other can be - trust would be hard to come by, which makes a slow development all the more interesting. And moreover them becoming friends or dating would likely help Xie Wang into the dynamic at Siji because now there’s a more tangible connection between him and the place, and I can see while he’s getting to know all the people of Siji, eventually thinking of them as family as well. And Han Ying in turn gets another person who cares about him, and for him to care about.

I’ll be honest here and say that I don’t particularly care at this point how realistic or in character it all would be - I need found family in my life I have no self control. Xie Wang and Han Ying my beloveds needs all the good things.

Another possible meeting is just Han Ying being sent to negotiate with the Scorpions instead of Duan Pengju (is that how it went? I’ll admit I’m a little fuzzy on plot points here) and meeting each other that way. There could be moments of understanding while working together, an inevitable kinda separation, and eventually seeing each other again at Siji, after all the shitshow is over. The development could continue from there.

The closer age gap:

I’d like to preface this part with a disclaimer that I’m not trying to bash any other ships that are out there, this is actually just entirely my personal preference.

I don’t really like big age gaps in my ships unless their both established adults - for example in their 30's 40's, even 50's. Even if one of them remains young in body, it’s just not a dynamic I generally like. The most popular ship that comes to mind here is Ye Baiyi x Xie Wang - and all the more power to you if you do ship it tbh, I can see it being really adorable and healing for the both of them, especially since Ye Baiyi never really gets a happy ending either (and he absolutely deserves one 😤😤😤) - but that as a ship dynamic is personally not for me, especially after Xie Wang’s kinda hinted relationship with another man that’s also older than him. Ye Baiyi obviously is ten million times the man Zhao Jing could ever be, and it would be an infinitely healthier relationship anyway, but yeah the age gap thing is just my personal bias.

So I don’t know, I appreciate that Han Ying and Xie Wang are both closer in age to each other. I know there aren’t confirmed ages (I think?) but if I had to take a guess, I’d say I think both of them are probably in their early to mid twenties.

Anyways, it’s literally 5:43 am now where I am, so I think I’m gonna end this way too long post and pass out. Honestly, I’m not even sure if this thing is coherent anymore, I’m half delirious with exhaustion while writing this. I might possibly write a fic or do something about this Xie Wang x Han Ying ship, I might not, but I just wanted to get it out there. It’s a cute idea.

Oh god my eyeballs are burning. Cheers, goodnight.

#word of honor #xie wang x han ying #han ying x xie wang #Han Ying #Xie Wang #Shan he ling #I mentioned WenZhou #so I suppose I should put them in?#CaoXiang #Four Seasons Manor #Zhou Zishu #Wen Kexing #Jin Wang #Zhao Jing #liu qianqiao #word of honor spoilers #spoilers

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me4ml · 4 years ago

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Why don't you like Maribat? Why do you think it's a spite or salt ship?

This is presumably because of my Adrigaminette post or the whole Maribat being on the ship list thing.

Quick disclaimer: if you read/ship/write/like Maribat, cool! This is not an attack. This is me answering why I, personally, do not like it. It’s tagged anti, and salt, so it should be filtered. Please don’t harass me over it.

Another note before we start: a lot of what I’m about to write is based on what I’ve read, fic wise or meta, and I blocked off the Maribat tag and fandom a long time ago. It may have changed over there-I doubt it, and I have zero desire to go and look-but this is based on what I’ve seen and read about.

There are, principally, three reasons I can’t stand Maribat, why I think it’s a spite/salt ship.

1). I don’t like Damian Wayne.

2). I don’t like how Damian and the DCU are written in Maribat.

3). Maribat is a mutated salt fic.

If you want to see my reasons why, the rest is under the read more.

1). I don’t like Damian Wayne.

Damian’s not just my least favorite Robin, ranking behind any of the others who have born the name. He’s my least favorite Batfam sidekick overall.

Part of this is his introduction, where he’s a violent, murderous, arrogant, entitled, snotty little brat of a thug. Lest we forget, one of his first acts is to go out, kill a guy, cut off his head, stuff a grenade into the decapitated head’s mouth, and try to blow up Tim. This is his introduction! There are a number of other occasions, including how he treats Jon, his best friend, and the rest of his siblings.

Another part is that he believes that he deserves to be Robin simply because he’s Bruce’s son, and therefore has the blood right to be Robin, to become Batman, and damn anyone else, who are all pretenders. Doesn’t matter that those characters might have a right to become Robin, or the future Batman, he’s the bio son, he deserves it!

Additionally, Damian feels.....not unnecessary, but repetitive, in his actions/characterization. There are other characters who can perform pretty much the same way for whatever storyline is necessary, without including Damian.

Trained by an abusive family to be the best, as an assassin and warrior? Cassandra.

A killer who breaks the main rule of his mentor, which causes tension and strain in the family? Jason.

Incredibly intelligent and talented? Tim.

Damian isn’t unique in what he does, and while that can make him an interesting character, it can also make the focus on him unnecessary.

As well, so much of Damian’s actions and motivations feels like he gets away with stuff, in-universe, because he’s Bruce’s biological son, and so Bruce gives him too much slack, and out-universe, because the writers let him/the fans will defend him. He gets woobified, or leather pantsed. Which leads to:

2). I don’t like how Damian and the DCU are written for Maribat.

For all his (numerous) faults, when written well, Damian can be an interesting character. For example: How does he deal with being deeply insecure? By putting on a mask of arrogance and overconfidence.

Some more examples: How does Damian act like an actual child, when he’s never had a childhood? How can he be a hero, if he’s been trained to be a killer? Can he ever catch up to his siblings, or will he feel like they’re always better than him?

Damian’s sense of being Batman’s son, of being the heir to the Cowl, slams right up against the idea of the Batfam: that there are people who have just as much of a right to call Batman their father/father figure, people who are just as talented and skilled and capable as Damian himself is, if not more. Watching Damian develop, when he’s written right, is actually enjoyable; mainly because when it’s done right, it shows Damian actually progressing and growing, becoming more of a person, with friends and interests. Most times, seeing Damian with his pets can be adorable, same with when he hangs out with Jon.

Is he still a brat? Still sometimes a bit too much of a Demon, an al-Ghul? Yes, but that’s always going to be part of him, and as long as he’s shown to try and grow, or gets called out on that, it’s less of an issue (There’s a completely different rant to be written about how DC likes to chuck character development or backstory into the trash when it suits them for a new run. Damian gets hit with this, as does Tim, or they get handed the idiot/conflict ball, but not the space for it).

Maribat hurls this all out the window. Damian’s bad traits are all “fixed” offscreen-he’s developed, matured, gotten better, whatever you want to call it. It’s basically a writer’s hand wave to make Damian into the character who will be the lead of the story, perfectly suited for his main role of being Marinette’s boyfriend and utterly devoted to her every whim and will. He’s enchanted by her at first glimpse, and defends her against everyone who hates her, because no one can understand her like he can!

Uh, what? This is not Damian Wayne. Even at his best, he’s no broody boy, pulled from his “dark path” by the love of a gentle girl. He’s a Jerk with a Heart of Gold-emphasis on the Jerk. There’s a reason his nickname usually involves “Demon.” Is Damian trying to get better? Yes. But even then, he’s not the type to immediately fall in love. He takes a while to warm up to people, for them to earn his trust, and Marinette would not be like that?

Let’s say that Robin is in Paris for a case, he runs into Ladybug and Chat, and after they explains what’s going on, Robin gives them a stare over his mask, and goes “TT! What a worthless hero, I would have caught him already.” LB and Chat would probably want to deck him, and that’s before he keeps talking.

Same with if Damian transfers to the class, or they meet on a field trip to Gotham. Damian’s not gonna care about some random French teenagers on a tour, or if he was transferred he’s gonna be trying to figure out why his father sent him to Paris, and be focused on the mission, not making friends.

Of all of the Robins, the ones that would be the most likely to capture Marinette’s interest would be Dick or Tim, not Damian. He would remind her too much of Chloe, as Damian, and as Robin, he would be dismissive of Ladybug’s abilities, which would absolutely piss her, and Chat Noir, off.

In characters that aren’t Damian, no one seems to be written properly over in Maribatland. One huge example is that Marinette is so beloved, so pure, that she can make any character fall in love with her, and reform by her pure goodness, including a fic where the Joker-THE JOKER!-becomes her “Uncle J,” and pranks Lila on her behalf.

Uh-huh. Sure. Completely and totally something that one of the biggest, most sadistic twisted, notorious villains in pop culture would do. Maribat winds up worshipping the ground that Marinette walks on, cause she’s “Teh best evar!”

Which then leads to my third and final point:

3). The whole Maribat concept is a mutated salt fic.

Most of the themes you’ll find in Maribat? You will find in nearly every salt fic.

Maybe my biggest issue with the whole Maribat idea is that it doesn’t feel like a proper crossover, which, at their best, explore how characters from one universe and their rules would interact with characters from another universe, and the rules of that one. Putting ML and DC together is a rich opportunity to play with concepts in both worlds!

And yet, it’s mainly used to bash ML characters who the writers despise, predominantly Adrien, Alya, and Lila, with members of the class thrown in depending on feeling, and potentially even Marinette’s parents! The only “good” ML characters are the ones who are on Marinette’s side, usually Luka, Kagami, a Chloe who for some reason has been redeemed and is now Marinette’s best friend, and whatever members of the class the writer decides to throw in there.

You’ll notice it’s not called “MiracuBat��, or LadyBat and Bat Noir-it’s MariBat. It’s meant as a focus on Marinette, making her-the hero of the Miraculous Ladybug franchise, someone in-story in story who is incredibly smart and talented and the leader of her team, future Guardian-even more awesome.....by beating down everyone else around her.

Marinette is simultaneously treated as an beaten-up, beaten-down walked-on carpet, and the best person to ever exist ever, go who only needs a group of new, different, better people to recognize that and save her from the clutches of those greedy and ungrateful assholes! That doesn’t include the fics where she’s the unknown child of a superhero or supervillain, making her even more special.

It’s Chameleon salt, class salt, with pointy ears and a cape on.

Some specific examples.

Adrien: Adrien is a spineless doormat who prioritizes Lila over Marinette, or an entitled bastard sexual harasser, only fixated on Ladybug, or even both. Sometimes it’ll get worse, as Adrien will threaten or abandon Marinette if she steps off of his “high road,” and Chat will be a budding rapist, stalking or capturing Marinette after he’s learned she’s Ladybug, while ignoring her prior to that. He will, of course, have his ring stripped and handed off to Damian, who is the “true” soul of Destruction and so therefore a “perfect match” to Marinette’s Creation soul. Occasionally it will be Jason, or Tim, or Dick, but the key thing is that it’s not Adrien!

While Damian’s issues are magically fixed, Adrien gets no such courtesy. Adrien has been abused, just like Damian, and while Damian’s abuse is more extensive and extreme, abuse is abuse. If anything, if Damian met Adrien, he would probably see another abused kid, and want to be his friend/have his “adopt stray person!” Instincts go off. I can much more imagine Damian dragging a bewildered Adrien into the Batcave and yelling “Father I’ve found another one for you to adopt!” than I can Damian immediately hating Adrien, or Chat, simply for breathing.

We never see Clark taking Adrien under his wing, or Bruce, or any of the other Batfam; nor any of the other Justice Leaguers. We never see Selina try to fight Bruce over the kid, because he’s cat-themed, and Selina can train him, this one’s hers Bat, get off!

Adrien’s never treated as a kid, or given actual development. A major complaint among salters is that Adrien is treated as perfect and never develops, and in fic, rather than developing him, Adrien either remains static, with his flaws narratively exploded, or is developed negatively. He’s there to be beaten up on and punished by the writers, if not actually physically beaten up by characters in the fic.

Alya: the not-so-good friend, the cheap excuse for a journalist, the awful person who abandons Marinette for Lila and her “connections.” Never mind that Alya was Marinette’s friend from the beginning, or that Marinette’s chosen her multiple times for a Miraculous. One instance of questioning Marinette about Lila, and Alya’s a backstabbing bitch.

Maribat treats Alya as neglectful, bossy, domineering and submissive at the same time to Marinette and Lila respectively, and as a journalist, the worst of the worst. She’s played as a two-bit paparazzo, and once again, the DCU is used to punish her. We don’t see Alya get mentored by Lois or Clark-indeed, if they notice her, it’s with disdain or disappointment. Often, they’re crushing her under their heel, calling her not only a bad journalist, but a bad friend/person. This forgetting, of course, that Alya runs her blog as a hobby so far, she’s only a teenager, and that she’s had Marinette’s back against Chloe and Lila.

The Class: the dupes or allies as needed. Class salt levels depend on what the writer needs. If they’re pro-class, they’re all on Marinette’s side, aside from Alya Adrien and Lila. Chloe, for some ungodly reason, is “redeemed” nigh instantaneously, and often will become Marinette’s best friend, if that isn’t Kagami already. Kagami will drop Adrien like a wet tissue, never trying to reconcile him with the clas, or encourage him to stand up for himself, or if she does, Adrien, of course, will not listen.

If the writer is anti-class, whoo boy. Openly mentally, emotionally, physically abusive to Marinette, the worst gang of people you would ever have the displeasure of meeting, they all need to be in Arkham.

We never see any of the class make friends with the Batfam, the Titans, Young Justice-unless they’re on Marinette’s side, of course. There’s no Alix stopping Selina at the Louvre, for instance, or Max hanging out with Babs. It’s all based on how Marinette is treated as to whether or not the class is portrayed as being worse than the worst of the Rogues Gallery.

Wrapping it all up, Maribat has made me dislike the entire concept of a DC/ML crossover.

Even if someone had written an non-salt, in-character crossover, I don’t know if I would read it, simply because the well has been that poisoned.

#anti maribat #anti maridami #anti daminette #maribat salt #daminette salt #maridami salt #anti damian wayne #Damian Wayne salt #ml fandom salt #anonymous #ask answered #long post

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kalinara · 4 years ago

Text

So, recently I found myself thinking about Teen Wolf, specifically the MTV show from the early 2010s. And I’m reminded about how fascinated I was by the Argent family in the first three seasons of the show.

I loved the Argent family for the same reason I loved the Lightwood family in Shadowhunters. In a lot of ways, I think they’re very similar. Both families represent people who are raised from birth in a system in which they believe they are righteous warriors, protecting innocent people from horrible monsters, while being blind to their own prejudices and committing some truly heinous acts in the service of their “cause”.

There are differences of course. The Argents are not part of a greater society, and do not have institutionalized power over the Hales or presumably other werewolf families (though they’re certainly good at exploiting human organizations and legal systems). The Argents are also very clearly villains, while the Lightwoods are sometimes adversarial but contrasted with more extremist villains like Valentine.

But both families represent a theme that I find fascinating: the way that growing up in an isolated culture of violence, hate and extremism can warp an individual and the ways that they might overcome it or not.

Honestly, Teen Wolf as a show was always more complex and layered than I think it’s given credit for. It didn’t always deliver on what it was trying to say, but there were a lot of interesting ideas.

So anyway, the Argents fascinated me from day one, because there were some very interesting layers. We had Kate, and later Gerard, who were the complete monsters. We had Chris and Victoria as more noble demons. And then we had Allison, who was the complete innocent in all of this.

And actually, it’s the fact that Allison WAS innocent that got my attention. Because that says something really interesting about Chris and Victoria. We know, at least in retrospect, that the Argent family are fanatics who raise their hunters very young. The little that the show told us about Chris and Kate’s upbringing is pretty horrifying. Gerard was raising weapons, not children. We can probably assume Victoria’s upbringing was similar.

(At least going by her death: she’d clearly bought into the Argent mindset by that point, even though she’d met at least one non-malevolent werewolf at that point.)

Allison was clearly taught skills useful for the hunt: marksmanship, gymnastics, et cetera. But they never told her about werewolves. They never told her about what they did. And until Kate’s death, they’d had no contact with Gerard. In their very flawed way, I think they were genuinely trying to protect their daughter and give her something better than they knew.

A lot of this didn’t become clear until Gerard’s arrival. Before Gerard’s arrival, it was easy to see the Argent family as a group of fallen Knight Templars. They’re extremists, but ones with a cause that might, once upon a time, been worthwhile (at least when we look at monsters like Peter Hale) and still possessing a remnant of a code of honor. Kate was portrayed as the outlier, based on Chris’s disgust at her deeds, and the willingness of Victoria and Chris to leave Scott alone at the end of the first season.

But then, in season 2, we meet Gerard. And it becomes clear that Chris and Victoria, with their antiquated code of honor, are the actual outliers, at least in the modern Argent family.

This doesn’t mean that Chris and Victoria are good people at this point. They’re not. They still hunt. They were still complicit in Gerard’s actions. But there are clear lines drawn here.

I remember being really surprised when Chris pulled the gun on Scott at the beginning of season 2. It seemed like a direct contradiction to his and Victoria’s resigned acceptance at the end of season 1. But then it makes more sense when we see Gerard’s arrival at Kate’s funeral. Chris and Victoria were probably never going to be happy with their daughter dating a werewolf, but if they truly hated the boy, they’d have just told Gerard what he was. Instead, they spend most of that hilariously awkward family dinner lying through their teeth.

I think Victoria often gets the shaft when folks discuss the Argent family. She seems to get labeled as the same kind of monster as Kate and Gerard, while Chris is recognized as a more complex character. I don’t think that’s fair. For the most part, Chris and Victoria are a united team, working on the same page. They both had the same potential to turn on Gerard and become a reluctant ally to Scott and the team. It’s just that Victoria went one way, succumbing to fear and desperation, choosing to sacrifice Scott to save Allison, and it doomed her.

Chris went the other, and he became an ally. I hesitate to call his arc a redemption arc, at least at this point, because I'm not sure I think Chris is capable of true remorse for his past decisions. He’s not really wired like that. He can recognize that the Argent code was flawed, and certainly that Gerard and Kate crossed the line, but I’m not sure he could ever really acknowledge how cruelly he treated Scott or the other victims of the hunt.

To be fair, I’ve only seen bits and pieces of the series after season 3, so it’s possible that I’m wrong about that.

So I don’t think Chris has a redemption arc, per se. But he does actively choose to become better. Mostly because of Allison. Because as terrible a father as he can be sometimes (and the Argents were TERRIBLE parents), he does love her and he wants to become the person his daughter wants him to be. And we see that best of all in that moment when Allison rewrites the code. CHRIS may not be truly redeemable, per se, but the family can.

At least until Allison’s death.

I stopped watching the show regularly after they killed Allison. It’s not that I disliked the other characters. They were great. Kira and Scott are adorable. Derek was slowly starting to turn into a character that didn’t annoy the shit out of me. I love what I’ve seen of Malia and Lydia’s development.

But my investment was in the Argent storyline, and that really died with Allison. Chris was still around, and I was glad to see that because he’s still my favorite, and he continued to be a willing and ready ally to Scott, which makes me happy. But he’s basically lost his narrative significance. There’s no Argent clan to be redeemed anymore, just one broken soldier with a tangential involvement in Scott’s adventures, who gets an unexpected happy ending with Scott’s mother. (which is an amazing IDEA, but as others have mentioned, there're a lot of missed opportunities with that set up.)

It’s a good, fun show, that I will sit down and finish in full one day. But I’ll always regret the loss of my favorite element. Oh well. There’s always fanfic. Assuming I can wade through the 16 billion Stiles and Sterek fics to find it. :-D

#teen wolf #chris argent #allison argent #gerard argent #i would kill for some good argent fic recs #that aren't 'petopher'#no offense to the fans but that one does not work for me

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