#but honestly the inconsistency with the characters... is hard to overlook

[child-of-dreamworks-animation]

@helterskeltermess

Oh, you get it.

While I can't blame the whole thing entirely on Joel Crawford, who happened to have directed both Croods 2 & pib2, and was certainly responsible for part of the issue, the main reason behind character inconsistencies, I think, is DreamWorks' decision to swap the animation team.

I mean, well, switching directors mid-production or mid-series isn't normal, but it's not that uncommon as well. The Shrek series has passed onto several directors along the way, yet no obvious character inconsistency is reported/spotted. Same with the Kung Fu Panda, the characters, by and large, stay in line with their personalities at their first appearances. HTTYD series is a bit complicated: the movie trilogy was directed by Dean DeBlois (so no inconsistency issues for sure), the TV series (RoB, DoB, RTTE) and multiple shorts were all handed over to different newbie directors(?). Although in some episodes, there might be some slight drift-aways from the original, but mostly it's doing fine. (I'm a die-hard fan for the httyd series, but yeah, I'm still very much unsatisfied with the way they deal with the movie finale :()

But in the case of pibtlw, well, FIRST, there is that incredibly long time span in-between the 2 movies. And SECOND, a switch of directors: originally Chris Miller who directed the prequel (approx. 2014-2016?), then Bob Persichetti (2019, also head of story of pib1), and finally Joel Crawford (2021?-2022). WHAT WITH the cancelation of the original piece Puss in Boots: Nine Lives and 40 Thieves and incessant changes of the scripts. AND the acquisition of DreamWorks by Comcast/Universal, during those turbulent days, a lot animators were laid off and left for other studios. In the end, with one thing and another, the former animation crew of pib1 was dissolved, and the story lost its track as a natural result. (Shame, they have made such beautiful concept arts back then.) I doubt if similar things have happened with Croods 2, but I never checked. I'm only aware that the majority of animators of pib2 come from Croods 2. So that's the cause, I suppose?

And speaking of Puss in pibtlw, true, he wasn't wildly out of character, but still he'd gone a bit too far. Vain, narcissistic, gloaty, (even going from party to party, and not taking his past deaths seriously) definitely sounds like him, but he's never appeared to me to be someone who would be actively looking for death, or put it in another way, he wouldn't laugh at death or life-or-death matters. Seriously, he knew the consequences, and he had seen deaths on multiple occasions already (see Shrek3 & pib1). Puss might well be tempted to conquer death (having so many lives under his belt) just as much as to live his life to the fullest. In other words, Puss still holds Life dear, however frivolously he is playing around Death. (Paradoxical? yeah, I'm well aware...)

The thing is, being arrogant/playful doesn't automatically discount Puss' love & passion for life. And by introducing that oppressive, larger-than-life Death Wolf into the sequel, DreamWorks has probably pushed Puss' personality a bit too far: initially, he was too big of himself, and then in the middle, he was so terrified petrified of death that he knew no better than simply running away. Multiple factors contribute to that, for sure, but still, Puss wasn't like that in pib1, was he? He was chivalrous, noble, and valued honor above all else, nowhere close to the somewhat selfish and all-abt-himself character in pibtlw, surely?

Additionally, I believe the change in style is also partly to blame? I'm not essentially against introducing that Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse art style into the sequel, it's just... I find it a bit too dramatic and comical to fit in? Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is first-of-its-kind in the (possible) animation series, so whatever they did with the style would be just fine. But that's not the case with pib sequel. The 1st movie, dated from 11 year ago, embraced a realistic style. So did the Shrek series. For consistency's sake, the sequel should have followed the original style. It's a bit outrageous actually to switch style amid series. But the new style is trendy and sooo cool, oh yeah, I know, still not a big fan* ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ , sorry to disappoint. And all those comical visual effects, while amplifying the emotions & drama, don't do much good closing the gap. In fact, I think the over-emphasis on drama and comedy seems to deprive the characters of their subtlety and delicacy (which btw supplemented by vast details in pib2, yet still... not quite).

Then again, I am not sure whether all these are the result of change of director/animators/head of story, or simply something lost in time--a lot had happened, you know. Just... Pity how the story could have turned out otherwise, had it been narrated by the original crew, retaining that original flavor. That's all.

*actually, what I'm saying up there is while the new style doesn't suit pib2 (the best), although somehow paradoxically I can't imagine a pibtlw in realistic style either, the visual effects in itself is still STUNNING. I've watched the latest trailer of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse twice, not without my brain buzzing after the 2ed watch lol, and I can't put in words how much effort animators have invested in this and how simply WONDERFUL it looks. It will win another Oscar, for sure.

This is a bit controversial, so I will put it under a read-more.

Anyway, haven't said this earlier but I think there is a tiny discontinuity in terms of Puss' personality between the first movie and the second. (I am not saying pibtlw isn't good, it's just... pibtlw is fantastic on its own, but to take the first movie into account, I suspect there is a slight shift in the character development of Puss.)

Puss has always been cocky and narcissistic and self-important throughout the series, but he isn't all that reckless. He isn't reckless to a point where he utterly disregards the value of life like he did in the sequel.

Puss has seen death after all. In the first movie, he witnessed Humpty giving up his life to save his hometown San Richardo. He knew what death meant.

Sure, committing suicidal acts by stuffing himself in a cannon only to prove Kitty wrong is definitely something Puss would be up to (typical of orange as well), but that's probably because he still has plenty lives to spare (he was on his fifth at that point).

Playing at adventure when the stakes are not so high is perfectly fine, but really... stamping on a boy's face (whether on purpose or not) with no apology whatsoever is surely a bit too much? Yeah, Puss is that awesome legend, that superstar that everybody looks up to, but at least some respect for life, for others?

He paid due respect in the first movie. He respected Kitty's privacy, and in return Kitty confided her tragic back story - that's basically how they ended up together in the first place. Trust and mutual respect.

And Puss wasn't too puffed-up to annoy Kitty. I mean, of course Puss is known for his irresistible feline charisma. Kitty knew it. There's a line in the first movie in which she said "I know you have a reputation with women". But after spending days, months, years together, Kitty is fed up and eventually she grows immune to it, much to Puss' dismay, which is all kinda cute. Anyway, this is beside the point.

All I am saying is Puss would never be as cautious as Kitty, (he had a, relatively speaking, secured childhood, lucky boy), but he certainly wouldn't overextend himself to a degree where he mocked death in the face???

Idk, it's been over a decade between the first movie and the second. Lots can happen. And there's Shrek (sorry, I'm not a big fan of the Shrek series but... he wasn't that full of himself in Shrek either??? *correct me if I get it wrong*)

It's just... it appears to me Puss is a bit out of character at the beginning of the sequel, but the rest is fine.

[about-faces]

What do you think of a Harley/Harvey romance? Or do you think they won't just fit and better left as friends or antagonists? Do you think Harvey would be a good fit as the 'token dude' among the Gotham Sirens (Harley, Ivy , Selina)?

Honestly, I don’t know what kind of dynamic Harley and Harvey should have. You’d think they’d have some common ground to build on, between their names and their taste in split fashion! But beyond that, they’re a pair of characters I can never quite figure out when it comes to them being together as anything but antagonists, which is boring to me.

(Note: when I speak about Harley, I’m taking about my own personal understanding of her, as I prefer the character. She’s been so inconsistent ever since she became the Sexy Elmo of the DCU, to the point that she’s more a vague merchandise concept than a character. For all intents and purposes of this, I’m thinking of her as Arleen Sorkin’s Harley from BTAS for the most part)

The big fundamental difference is that Harley is all about fun, while Harvey is all about pain. The guy literally wears his agony on his face, and is a big wet blanket for any irreverent antics Harley might want to commit. It's not even a Bert-and-Ernie situation where there's a wacky character and a stoic, straight-laced character, because Harvey is just TOO serious and TOO tormented to be any fun for Harley. There's little room for give-and-take between them. There's just Harley trying to be wacky while Harvey stares at her like someone who has entirely forgotten the concept of fun.

Now, that's not to say that Two-Face can't be a fun, wacky, flamboyant character for Harley to play with! But we'd have to go back to his late Golden Age characterization, where he was entirely focused on outlandish crimes based around the number two. I could possibly imagine a Harley who encourages Harvey to be that kind of Two-Face again, doing something like... oh, let's say, robbing a circus while riding on two horses at the same time. Harley might have a great time with THAT Two-Face!

Now, one might thinking about going the opposite direction. That, instead of encouraging his worst criminal instincts, there's some potential for Dr. Harleen Quinzel to actually be a healing influence on Harvey Dent. Unfortunately, I can't stop thinking about that comic where Mark Russell had Harley "cure" Harvey of needing to listen to his coin, which not only overlooks the core reasons why the coin is so important to him (Russell just kinda treated it as an obsessive quirk and no deeper), but it also shows how Harley's professional care only resulted in making for a more deadly, unpredictable Two-Face:

(Sidenote: brilliant as Russel is as a writer, you can tell he doesn't understand Two-Face because Batman doesn't refer to him as "Harvey.")

I'd love to see Harley as someone who truly empathizes with Harvey Dent, someone who actually understands his trauma from abuse and his internal divide, but it seems impossible to consider how both characters are usually written. It would require a Harley Quinn who actually does fundamentally care about helping people and a Harvey Dent who is written as both a good man and a victim.

Which is where Stjepan Šejić's Harleen was so fascinating and frustrating alike. Harvey is a major character there, and he's miswritten as a hardline dickbag who is all about being Hard On Crime, just for the sake of clashing with the tragically-empathic Dr. Quinzel.

This Harvey Dent is not sympathetic. He's a moralizing prick who straight-up advocates for a fascist police state, including releasing Arkham inmates to show Gotham in order to unleash martial law. It's a perversion of the subplot from the 1989 comic strips, where Harvey wants to resign for unwittingly almost aiding a plot to do exactly what he tries to do in Harleen. To top it off, this Two-Face is willing to re-flip his coin to get a desired result, which is just Bad Two-Face 101.

And yet, despite ALL that, Šejić makes an impressive stab at showing how his compassionate take on Harleen is two-of-a-kind with even this jerkass Harvey Dent.

Even now, I don't know what to make of this, nor do I know what it could possibly mean for either characters. But I remain intrigued by the potential implications of two tragic characters who both lost everything and became "monsters" all in the name of trying to help others. Two irreconcilable people, bound by fate and ideals and "Ha Ha."

So no, I don't know what kind of relationship these two could ever have. I'm even more doubtful there could ever be romance between them. But in other circumstances... who can say? Maybe in some AU, there's a tormented, scarred crime boss driven by revenge and punishing the Haves (Halves?) on behalf of the Have-Nots, and he surprises even himself by bonding with a whimsical, colorful, tortured, and tragically unstable mischief-maker in pigtails.

Maybe. Just maybe that'd work.

[tathrin]

✏ 🐺 ⚠ 📚 please! :D

Answers for this LotR ask-game.

✏ rewrites: here's a pencil, which ONE thing in the novels/films are you changing?

Oh gods, just one? Ughhh that's hard. Okay, even stretching the definition of "one thing" to the utmost limit to be an entire character subplot...I'm still torn between Give Arwen An Actual Coherent Plotline (which I think would do the best thing to fix for the movies) and Show Legolas And Gimli's Friendship Arc (because that's at least something that just gets largely overlooked-and-glossed-over with the occasional flicker of lip-service paid to it at random rather than being an absolute cluster-fuck of incoherent half-assed thoughts that stumble all over themselves without any actual fucking resolution/explanation like the Arwen Stuff). Much as I would personally like to see the latter, I think if I were actually given the chance to change one thing, then it would be the Arwen Situation just because that's such a fucking MESS and it really needs fixed.

If we're going with literally just one single thing, then: Denethor burns to death on the pyre instead of running like three fucking miles to the end of the city what the fuck.

🐺 GROND GROND GROND: which of the battles is your favourite to watch? is there a combat scene in particular that you enjoy?

The Battle of Helm's Deep. As much as it bothers me that the elves are there without any plausible explanation, and especially that they just fucking disappear from the entire plot as soon as it's over, it also looks so damn good to watch! And my irritation is mitigated by the GRIN that I absolutely cannot stop from breaking out over my features every single time I hear "that is no orc-horn!" and see the look on Théoden's face when Haldir walks in (and the smug little grin on Legolas's face too because let's face it, he doesn't get to be a little shit in the movies the way he is in the books and that is a crime) as well as by the absolute fucking BEAUTY of that battle itself, not least of all the heart-wrenching scene where Haldir dies. THAT MUSIC OH MY FUCKING GODS AM I RIGHT!? Gods, even when you're watching it as critically as possible and picking-out the bits where cause/effect break-down and narrative order was shuffled in ways that don't make logistical sense and picking up on the minute little errors and inconsistencies...it's still so damn fucking good.

(btw I know I cannot be the only one who noticed, but since it seems that many of the little details that the early movie-fandom used to talk over obsessively in the 2000s have fallen out of common knowledge in more recent years...who else desperately wants to see the footage of the cut where it's Legolas who hauls Gimli out of the water after the wall is breached, rather than Aragorn? Because it's Legolas's hand that actually pulls him up, but then the footage cuts to Aragorn helping Gimli away...but it was Legolas whose hand pulls him out of the water, Legolas who yeeted himself down the stairs on an orc-shield to get to Gimli, so why don't we get to see the rest of that!?)

PJ, the Extended Editions are godsends don't get me wrong...but could we have ALL the deleted footage sometime? Pretty pretty please with elevensies on top?

⚠ fucking buckleberry ferry: from the clip of Dom and Billy discussing the one swear word they could theoretically get by censors, which line would you change?

I honestly don't know, because I don't know that that would actually do anything to add to the weight of things? But a very soft, "oh fuck" when Théoden sees the Nazgûl flying towards him, perhaps!

📚 boxset: how were you first introduced to Middle Earth?

My little brother actually read them first, and he made me read them. I think I was in eighth grade? Give or take a year or two.

Our mom had a collection of "classic novels" that she'd gotten from some kind of book-club some years back, so we had copies of all four books on the "fancy shelves" in the living room next to all the "real literature" and boring biographies and stuff, so I read nice pretty leatherbound editions first, with lovely maps and illustrations, and I think that added to the "weight" of the story in a way, because none of my other fantasy/sci-fi books ever merited such treatment so it made them feel special.

But it also made me leery of reading them tbh, because I'd spent my whole youth being told that the books I liked were crappy books that just Could Not Compare to the Worthwhile Literature that real readers liked (and which were, imo, usually shit). So I'd actually ignored LotR my whole life because it was on the Fancy Book Shelf so I assumed they were also crap. But my brother insisted that I suck-it-up and read them anyway, and that I had to read all of them and not just The Hobbit and call it a day (he knows what a stubborn, contrary person I am, and that it was A: going to take several thousand words for me to give them a fair chance and also B: the Hobbit alone wasn't going to blow me away) and I was reluctant, but he persisted and I did and oh boy was he right. Then like one or two years later, we found out they were making movies so of course we had to re-read them so we'd be ready and I think we both read them at least a dozen times between then and the release of Fellowship, to the point where mom eventually bought us each our own paperback copies so keep us from pestering each other lmao.

(The Silm took a while. I had to literally trap myself on a train freshman year of college with nothing else to do in order to get through that one the first time shhhh.)

[deliciouskeys]

001 for Butchlander and 002 for Homie, because I love to be obvious!

Tackling them out of order.

002 | Homelander

* How I feel about this character: 

I want to mush him and squeeze him and torture him and pet him and never let him out.

Oh and he’s a very interesting character and a joy to write. Somewhat as a result of the writer’s room, and somewhat as a result of Antony Starr’s acting.

* All the people I ship romantically with this character: 

I’m a whore, I will read him having sex with just about anyone, and I could make a case for him getting romantic with many characters on the show. Top romantic (heh loaded word) ships are Butchlander, Homewell, Maevlander, Starlander.

* My non-romantic OTP for this character: 

I honestly don’t know what this question means because all my ships are horny ones. But I wish we got more Black Noir being a father figure to him (I wish Noir had more to do in general before they decided to give him some background just before killing him off).

* My unpopular opinion about this character: 

Hmmmm. I’m a little afraid that if Kripke writes him a “redemption arc” in the show they’ll botch it with some incoherent drivel à la s3e8 so I’d almost rather they just didn’t.

* One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon:

I have more than one.

I’d rather see him depowered and live than die at the end, somehow.

I would have liked to see more of him trying to parent Ryan with Becca around.

I kind of wish he hadn’t killed Stillwell but mostly because I thought she was a cool character.

I wish he hadn’t taken over Vought because that decreases the chance we’ll ever see him operate outside of it.

* my OTP:

Billy Butcher reprogramming HL with tough, but genuine, love. And sex, definitely lots of sex. [refer to section below for much more word vomit about them]

* my cross over ship:

Heh, I think Makima from Chainsaw Man has a nice parallel to the Homewell dynamic. I’d read Batman x HL, I feel like Batman could deal with his bullshit effectively.

* a headcanon fact:

Homelander prefers his sexual partner be strong and wield soft power over him.

============================

001 | Butchlander

* when I started shipping it if I did:

Because I was watching the show very rapidly, I didn’t start shipping it outright until S1E8, but if I had a week between each episode it probably would have materialized no later than E6.

* my thoughts:

Scorchingly, achingly hot. The show canon is stingy with their onscreen time together, but each scene they meet in is glorious. One of the reasons I’m willing to overlook the inconsistent writing in s3 is that they are ramping up the butchlander element in the show. I love that they have ended up sharing a child while both being utterly unequipped to parent. I don’t remember any other enemyslash pairing setting that up and it’s so damn fun.

* What makes me happy about them:

I like to imagine scenarios where their respective traumas and defects (I don’t think they’re “the same”, kripke) fit together in such a complementary way that they end up accidentally helping each other become a little more emotionally functional.

* What makes me sad about them:

One of them lost his wife because of the other and that is a hard wound to heal.

* things done in fanfic that annoys me:

I don’t like when Billy cries too much. I don’t like when writers go all out with Butcher’s cockney but it sounds like Dick van Dyke (easy to criticize, hard to adhere to this rule). I’m more tolerant of different HL characterizations because I think canon has shown us more variety from him in different scenarios, but I tend to enjoy it less when he’s written as a sadist monster with nary an indication of any other emotions.

* things I look for in fanfic:

Generally prefer Bottom the Homelander [not because he has a better ass, but] because the fic is more likely to characterize both of them in ways I find more IC. Generally like when they at least start out antagonistic and hating each other if it’s a multichapter. Love when there’s an element of coparenting Ryan involved. Love when it’s an E rated fuckfest because [I’m here for the porn canon won’t give us, and] they are both presented as characters with energetic libidos.

* Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: 

Honestly? I feel like they’re both likely to end up alone, because I feel bad for whoever ends up with them if they’re not a strong person. Billy with Maeve, as alluded to in the Maevlander post seems fine endgame to me. Butchie is a big fat nope for me, not only because of Annie but because it gives me incest vibes since he sees him as a younger brother. Billy with some strong woman like Rainer probably works. Homelander… needs someone who can spank him if he gets out line. If Victoria Neuman can become that person remains TBD.

* My happily ever after for them:

Haha, I’ll take almost any iteration where they end up together and parent Ryan. I’m intrigued by Billy getting upgraded with Compound V and how they’d keep from becoming a terrible powercouple of supe cunts. I’m intrigued by HL getting depowered and Billy having to rehab him into being a functional human being out of that mental wreckage. I’m intrigued by them staying as human x supe, with both of them having a weird love hate relationship with being involved with a “race” they generally looked down on.

* who is the big spoon/little spoon:

Billy is the big spoon. I will only entertain the thought of HL being the big spoon if it’s written in Russian for reasons I can’t quite fathom and must have something to do with early childhood traumas 😂

* what is their favorite non-sexual activity:

They are pretty different people in terms of pastimes in canon. I named enjoying the outdoors in another meme. I’d like to think they’d also both enjoy having (or aspiring toward having) a normal family life, raising a child as if they’re normal, well-adjusted adult men, doing normal domestic things. Emphasis on the as if.

[deamsgirl]

For the fic writer asks: 🌿💞💥

🌿How does writing make you feel?:

Like I'm herding cats, honestly. 😂 I'm not a meticulous outliner/planner by any means, so when I write, I go wherever the story/characters take me. It's chaotic but it's also a lot of fun, and it feels so, so rewarding to finish and share whatever crazy results I ended up with.

💞what's the most important part of a story for you? the plot, the characters, the worldbuilding, the technical stuff (grammar etc), the figurative language:

I definitely enjoy the characters more than anything when writing. I usually don't do overly-complex plots (or any plot, usually, let's be honest 🤣), so I focus more on the interactions and relationships between the characters. I feel the same way as a consumer, too. I can overlook a lot of inconsistencies in the plot if the characters are engaging, but if I don't feel drawn to or moved by them? I have a hard time staying interested in the narrative.

💥find your least kudos'd fic - say something wonderful about it.

72 Hours - This actually wasn't the fic I expected to have the lowest amount of kudos, but it does make sense. It's still pretty early in the story and it deals with some heavy, emotional themes. But! I'm really excited about this fic and where it will go because it is giving me a chance to delve into the more serious side of Gary's character to show his resilience and adaptability. And also his paternal and protective side, which I am so here for. We get to see that with Ash all the time, but we don't really see Gary interacting with others in a true mentorship role.

Also, I usually write Gary and Tracey trying their best to annoy each other, but I never get the chance to expound on the fact that they genuinely like and care about each other as much as I want to. This fic is going to explore their relationship more deeply and I think it's going to turn out to be very sweet despite the heavy-handedness of the themes. ❤️

[birdiesflying]

Okay!! I have a lot to say here.

It is 2am so I’m not going to make this super long cause I’ll be here till 9 if I put in everything (edit after writing: yeah I did make it super long. Idc I agree with all of it still)

Relationships. Do I even need to say anything about this? A lot of the relationships suck. I think Emma and Jacob’s dynamic was interesting if they kept it platonic, but I’m sure the straight people would complain about that too. I think they could bond over Abe without Jacob feeling like he has to be a replacement. I actually was screaming with joy when they broke up. But then Noor came along and I just felt… icky about that too. Her and Jacob could’ve been way better as friends!! Why can’t he just not have a gf! Noor is going through so much when she’s around Jacob and I really just think she needs the support of a friend than a relationship during that. Fiona and Hugh were cute although they weren’t around eachother for like 3 books. Uhh I hate the queerbaiting in the last book and I’m also weirded out by Julius’ age considering Horace is described as pre pubescent (so like 11-13) and he is 18. Real disturbing

There’s also just a ton of inconsistencies in these books like how are these characters teleporting?? (Enoch being at the mall to bully Horace in AMoD despite not even being in that scene. And when in TDoDA at some point he tells them he’s gonna go take a nap to see if he has any interesting dreams and then when they go to another building he takes part in the conversation? But they go back to the ditch house and he’s still there taking a nap? What?) also just plot inconsistencies like in the most recent book. I posted about that a wee while ago. Why is Miss Peregrine lying about shapeshifting. Does Riggs have an editor? I could do a better job than whatever they are doing.

The prophecy? Useless. What was the point?? Nothing. I feel like there was potential to use Clairvoyants like Horace in this but he was overlooked (as per usual. People are constantly undermining his abilities :/ makes it hard to root for them) and Noor was pushed to be the main character. I wish we got more stuff on Julius during this, there’s another post I saw talking about how they wish his character would be developed more and I totally agree. I honestly just wish Caul didn’t come back in general and that we would’ve had more stuff about the Americans or Normals. Or like an ymbryne rebellion thing. Idk there’s so much wasted potential

Characters: I feel like some characters were so irrelevant. Claire doesn’t have a backstory (most of them don’t, even if they do they aren’t fleshed out well) and uses her peculiarity about once in the first book and like never again. Love her but she’s kinda useless. It’s clear who Riggs focuses on during each book (Emma - not in last book. She was totally ignored -, Enoch, Millard, Noor, sometimes Horace) and other characters such as Hugh don’t get attention despite being equally as interesting. I also think Riggs has trouble writing multiple characters in one setting. I kind of wish these books were multiple perspectives because Jacob is generally kind of unlikeable and he doesn’t know much. I know we don’t know much either so it’s easier to learn things when people are explaining it to him but… idk. He gets kind of boring to read from sometimes. I’ve warmed up to Jacob overtime, I used to hate him so much more, but he’s still quite annoying. Melina, Ricky and Sams writing really bothered me. They coulda been really interesting side characters. Uhh yeah I just feel like we don’t learn that much about the characters despite being around them 24/7. What happened with Enoch’s old loop? What happened with Hugh and Fiona bc they’re older than him and probably had to stay in a loop too? Emma at the circus? Bronwyn’s whole backstory with her stepfather? What about her grief over Victor? What about everyone’s grief over Victor? I think he and Enoch were hinted at being friends at some point. Also why does Enoch hate Jacob? Maybe he hates Abe for making Emma upset and Jacob is a result of Abe leaving her? Is he jealous of Jacob for being able to make friends so easy when it’s been tough for him? Idk. It’s never explained (the movie is so wrong though he does not have a crush on Emma. I hate the movie) also a lot of these characters are very mean to eachother (I mentioned this earlier) for no apparent reason? Hugh’s whole thing from book 3-5 made me genuinely upset and none of his friends cared?? Ur friend just presumably died and you guys think it’s weird that her bf is sad?? Why aren’t you crying too? Ridiculous. Most are quite rude to Horace about his ability I’m ngl. In the last book Enoch basically says dreams are untrustworthy right beside his best friend who literally has prophetic dreams. I love Enoch but damn he is so stupid sometimes. Also Jacob says like twice that “ohh here we are undermining his peculiarity again!! LOL sorry will happen again” like dude?? Anyway I just feel like they should be nicer to eachother. Miss Peregrine’s wards have been in a loop together for around 70 years and nobody thinks to comfort Hugh when his gf might be dead and just calls him delusional when he wants to search for her? These are awful friends

reblog w ur mphfpc opinions GO

[natalie-k-pan]

10 Ways the Loki show Disappointed Me

part two

6) The trailer was misleading advertising. Marvel’s done it in the past with little to no backlash:

Iron Man 3 presenting the Mandarin as the ultimate foe for Tony to defeat, only to find out he’s a charlatan in a minor role.

Falcon and Winter Soldier was presented as a light-hearted buddy adventure, only to tackle darker themes about nationalism and racism. (Not saying that those themes were bad, just that the TFAWS’s trailer was not truthful to the story).

In the case of Loki, the trailer presented the plot as Loki making time-traveling shenanigans and being captured for breaking the timeline. They included the D.B Cooper clip, and the scenes of Loki in New York and as king in Asgard. These clips never show up in season 1. The D.B Cooper scene was a off-the-cuff moment, and the highly-anticipated (imo) President Loki was around for five minutes.

The trailer shows the storyline being about Loki breaking the timeline, with Mobius saying in a voiceover, “You picked up the tesseract, breaking reality. I want you to help us fix it.”

Marvel’s publicity team knew what story we would want to see from the character. And that’s not what we got: it was a mix of Loki tagging along with Sylvie to take down the Timekeepers, and detective-esque  scenes of trying to overthrow the TimeKeepers. 

It was never about Loki having an adventure, breaking the timeline, and having to fix it.

There’s a difference between having scenes that don’t make it into the final product, between not revealing enough of the story to spoil plot twists...and deliberately choosing certain scenes and quotes  to present a false version of the story.

I guess Marvel was worried that no one would watch it if they showed us the real product.

7)    Loki’s powers were wildly inconsistent, especially compared to what we’ve seen before.

In the past, we’ve seen Loki do illusions, duplication casting and in Thor 2, some very light telekinesis. After hearing of his mother’s death, he throws several pieces of furniture in into the cell walls with his mind. This is after losing the person who probably mattered most to him at the time, and feeling responsible for her death--it’s a powerful move showing his magical capabilities.

In the show, in Episode 3 we see him pull a Roomba towards himself in order to use it as a shield during a fight--pretty in-line with what we saw in the Dark World.

One episode later, an entire flipping tower is falling towards them, and he reverses it with his mind alone.

It was in the face of death, you say. Of course he was going to pull some cool new magical move.

Sure. In the face of death, I could see him jumping from throwing chairs to something heavier, like maybe a crumbling wall or a fruit stand.

BUT A TOWER?

 WHY?

 HOW??

He’s never done anything on that scale magically. In episode 2, he got tossed around by a (human) Alabama man. Why would he not use that move to bring the roof crumbling down if he was fighting for his life then?

So he’s got massive telepathic power when a building is falling but can’t use it in a fight against regular people.... okay?

Honestly, due to the fact that they’ve weakened him so much, and when Loki said, “I think we’re stronger than we realize”, I’m betting Season 2 will include Loki discovering the extent of his magical powers. 

 I don’t like this idea because again, it contradicts the previous canon. In Thor 1, Hogun literally calls Loki a “master of magic”. He went toe-to-toe with Thor and the Avengers and now can’t beat regular humans. A thousand+ year old being unaware of his own untapped potential doesn’t seem correct (yeah, they did that with Thor in Ragnarok, I know).

This Loki’s power levels jump up and down according to the plot, trying to make us believe that due to his spoiled past, Loki needs to apply himself to learn more about his powers.

 8)  Loki was out of character.

His lying and scheming was way too obvious. I was incredibly confused the first couple of episodes because it would be strange how he would be a pathetic buffoon  one minute and yet The only moment I was sold on his competence as a liar was episode 2 at the renaissance fair where he attempts to fool  the TVA. He was actually competent for once, but he gets caught, and goes into apologizing and sucking up 30 seconds later.   

He gets drunk when they’re on the mission on Lamentis. This didn’t make sense--when he was trying to conquer Earth, he had the opportunity to also goof off and he’s always been shown to take things seriously, with the exception of Ragnarok.                                                 

The “I’m a narcissist” scene. While Loki is the type to crave attention--in Avengers, Tony calls him a diva who wants his name plastered to the skies--it comes from a place of feeling overshadowed, never able to match his brother Thor.  Which we can see has some basis:

In Thor 1, his adopted parents raised him to hate his race,

lied to him about it,

 and when he was hanging over an wormhole, his father finally rejected him.

In Avengers, Thor tells him in  that his slights are “imagined”. 

 Thor 2, his adopted father told him his “birthright was to die”.

While it doesn’t excuse his actions in Thor and Avengers, it’s pretty clear that his family, particularly his father, have let him down.

So to make him experience character development and understand why he does what he does...the writers took him back to Asgard, and had Sif beat him up repeatedly until he admits he does terrible things because he’s a...narcissist.

It was pretty hard to watch that scene, especially because I related to Loki as someone who felt overshadowed and overlooked. He tried too hard to be what his family wanted, to show that he was “the worthy son”.

But here in the fantastic year of 2021, this show decided to throw away all of that emotional nuance away.

 9) The costumes were bad.

The brown variant jacket with its ugly orange block letters.

The guard suit on Lamentis looked like a cross between a purple sweater and a plague doctor mask. honestly makes me shuder to see it

Loki’s green-and-gold costumes are some of the most distinct, instantly recognizable outfits of the MCU. And he almost immediately loses it in the first episode. It ends being given to Sylvie, (like most of Loki’s better characteristics) and he stays in a detective skinny-tie suit instead. The costume is okay, but it lacks the flair and style he’s had previously, and he never gains it back.

10) The season finale really did showcase this show in the best way-- ig hype followed by disappointment.

For five episodes, we rushed towards the ultimate villain, the mastermind behind it all. Episode 6 was like...being handed a pack of bubble wrap, swinging your hand hard, expecting that satisfying pop! only to have it slowly putter out with a sad little sound.

First, Kang looked like he got his costume from Party City. The purple cape isn’t doing him any favors. Then, the man sat there and monologued for forty minutes, making jokes, telling us how he set the plot up, and how the multiverse worked.

 I know Marvel gets flack for there always being an CGI climactic action scene, but…they had 6 episodes leading up to the Big Bad, and for it to end that anticlimactically with a man in a Party City purple cape was a letdown. The finale had no menace, no teeth. In the words of Mobius, it was just…talkie-talkie.

All in all, this show really suffered from ignoring Loki’s past, where he would realistically be emotionally-wise, and a lack of focus on its title character’s development. Settings and costumes being better/unique would be also be nice, especially given its popularity. At the end of the day, I don’t see the character I empathized so strongly with in this show.

[buttofgrayson]

As someone, who's favorite character is Dick Grayson and I find often reasons to be angry at or even hate the batfam, can I ask you to rank them from your most preferred character to the one you dislike the most?

Haha you feel my pain! Yeah being a Dick Grayson fan is rough when it comes to the batfamily. Let's see if I can rank them for ya!

1. Dick Grayson

Of course my favorite batfamily member and my favorite fictional character of all time! I tend to really like characters I feel like I would like if they were a real person and Dick fits that perfectly. Not only that I feel like he works as a character more than so many others. He's Batman and Superman without their narrative problems (being to powerful, not able to be an underdog, limited story potential, lack of fun). So honestly I think he's DC's best protagonist. Likeable, admirable, fun, sexy and exciting and engaging. Dick has this energy to his character that leaps off the page and it just pulls you to him.

2. Barbara Gordon

I love Barbara so much and really always longed for better stories for her. She's someone (like Dick) that you really feel like you would like and admire even if they were real. She works amazing as a character and could fill almost any role you want for her. So versatile. Personally though I think she's pretty hard headed and can come off as very condescending. I feel she's kinda bad at thinking about others feelings because she's just so in touch with her own. Not a total bad thing but something that can be a bit annoying.

3. Bruce Wayne

As I get older I find myself amazed at how much more interesting the rest of the batfamily is compared to Bruce. He's like our window into these more likeable characters lol. That sounds bad. I like Bruce because he's such a pure idea. You always understand his actions through the person you know him to be. He's such a clear understandable character that you can instantly spot something he says or does that's off because "Bruce wouldn't say or do that". He has a consistent voice. As a person? He's infuriating. He's hard headed and he expects his family to take sacrifices for him just because it's what he wants. He's been especially terrible to Dick but in all its consistent with the person I know him to be.

4. Cassandra Cain

Cassandra just like Bruce is a very boiled down consistent character. And she's best girl! So strong and so caring she really is a lot like Dick. More than a lot of other batfamily members (minus the quips). And she just has such an interesting backstory and themes of her own. I can't find things to dislike about her. The only thing is that I'm just more likely to read other batfamily characters because sometimes she can be a bit one note.

5. Damian Wayne

Damian is a mistake. He should've never been invented. As a character his entire purpose is "what if batman had a son?" But he does. He had three of them already. Damian's existence actively makes the batfamily worse because it takes from all his brothers relationship with Bruce in a "well those weren't his REAL sons" sort of way. This was the moment there became too many batman characters. Does he work as a Robin? Yes. Does he work as a Robin as well as Tim? No. So why is Damian higher on the list than Tim? Because Damian breaks everything around him but isn't broken as a character. As a person though I like Damian a lot. His demeanor as a mean kid is pretty charming and it makes it really mean something when he progresses and is actually a really good person.

6. Tim Drake

Poor Tim. He's too old to be Robin and too young to be his own man. Red Robin and Drake both didn't really work well as identities and at this point he might just be the character with the most unused potential. It sucks because this character used to work so well. He works as THE NEW ROBIN! A Robin for the new age! Kinda spiderman-like. Learning from the successes and mistakes of his predecessors and making his way to be Robin the way he wants to be. It works so well! He's so likeable and charming and he fits the role so well. Sadly he doesn't have it anymore. Big oof. Sorry Tim.

7. Jason Todd

Jason is a broken character. And I don't mean that in a "he's so broken and sad!" Kind of way. I literally mean he doesn't work in a storytelling sense. He's incredibly inconsistent. A muddled character because people wanted to have their cake and eat it too. They want Jason to be a killer who hunts criminals and is against the batfamily but they also want him to be a part of the batfamily and to have his murders overlooked. It makes no sense unless you want everyone involved to look like an idiot. Look guys I know the animated movie was good but that character that was in that movie is only worth telling that one story with. Keeping him as the killer villian would be to tell that story over and over again (like we've been doing forever) and making him a proper batfamily member would take everything his fans like about him away from him. Jason isn't who fans want him to be either. He isn't charming or funny or sexy like Dick. He's pretty unlikeable and the parts you like about him is the parts he got from Dick (and Dick does better). I know I sound like I hate Jason but I really don't want to. It's just the honest truth.

8. Stephanie Brown

How dare I! Stephanie is best girl! She really is. I think she's pretty fun and likeable. I never dislike seeing her or anything. I like her spoiler costume a lot. So why is she so low on the list? Because I don't know much about her. Something really just stopped me from connecting to this character and I don't know why? Unlike Damian or Jason I have zero strong feelings for Stephanie in either direction and that's almost as bad as if I disliked her. I don't know there just hasn't been a hook for me to feel like she's worth taking a dive into. I can tell at the very least she is a better character than Jason but aside from that I can't say I like her. I have no attachment to her.

[gale-gentlepenguin]

Gale’s Top Ten: Favorite ML Characters

Similar to my Least Favorite list, I am going STRICTLY by how I enjoy the person’s character in Canon only.  This is also my opinion, so Odds are you won't agree exactly with my list. and it does get a bit rambley

Let me know what your favorite characters are, I would love to hear about them.

_____________________________________________________________________

10. Juleka Couffaine:

Interestingly While her Brother made the other list, Juleka is a character I find very interesting. She gets a lot of funny quips and comments which you wouldn't expect from the quiet girl. She is actually one of the class that I find has an interesting character, she wants to model, but is lacking in confidence and finds herself in situations where she is photographed badly. She has anxiety but she still tries to live her dreams. She is a supportive Girlfriend Friend to Rose, a trust worthy member of the Help Mari bag Adrien club, and also just adorable. I love seeing her on screen and her akuma, while interesting in design has quite an interesting performance that is always fun to enjoy. Heck, the producers of the show used her Akuma THREE TIMES in season 3. She is a rocker girl with a soft side, and she actually helps give Luka a good chunk of his personality (so there is so MAJOR points for that.

9. Alya Cesaire / Rena Rouge:

Marinette’s blogger best friend and Fox Heroine of Paris. Alya has a lot of personality. Dedicated to finding the truth and being a good Wingwoman to Marinette. Alya does have a few faults, where she gets carried away in whatever catches her interest and sometime pushes Marinette in scenarios that can be considered Awkward, but she always has the best intentions and will fight for her friend. Now A LOT of people have recently become very bold with their feelings of negativity towards the girl, (salty fans) And I know an au or two have not been kind to her (one in particular that came out during Oblivio comes to mind). But I am not judging on Fandom criteria or salty au’s. I like Alya’s character and I can't wait to see more.

8. Lê Chiến Kim / King Monkey

The energetic Athlete who may be a bit slow on the uptake, but always down for a dare. He is the embodiment of endearing and he always makes me laugh when on screen. I just love how much energy he has. He is a dork and he doesn't give a damn what you say. One of the few characters that got even better in season 3, I love this monkey boy and his wonderful antics. Nothing more to it except, only he would bring a swimsuit in a train.

7. Max Kante / Pegasus

Our robot making class genius got a heck of an upgrade during season 3. His character shining like a diamond. He rocks his transformation, his relationship with his mom, best robo bud Markov, and his dynamic with the jock bro Kim are all wonderful. He gains mad respect for Marinette and I just love how he plays off of everyone. The boy is smart and has a way of getting a few good moments in pretty much any episode.

6. Alix Kubdel both Present and Future:

Whether she is a roller blading graffiti artist with some cute sarcasm or a time lord that is simply trying to correct history, Alix is a character I enjoy seeing on screen at any interval. I think if I HAD to pick, I lean towards present Alix, because I find her much funnier, plus her dynamic with EVERYONE is great, I was especially loving her bits with her bff Nathanael. but Bunnyx has me curious on a LOT of things regarding the future. Though her reveal did mean that adults got no time limit on powers seems like a cop out, but if the price is seeing Bunnyx then its Time well spent.

5. Kagami Tsurugi/ Ryuuko:

Okay, I know there are a lot of people that are not a fan of Kagami. You are wrong, but that is your opinion. Kagami is easily one of the most interesting characters in Miraculous ladybug. She is a mirror (like her name implies) of both Adrien and Marinette. She reflects the feelings Adrien has, growing up with a controlling parent with hardly any free time that enjoys fencing and just wants to make friends. She reflects Marinette’s crush on Adrien, both seeing him as the sweet guy underneath and not for shallow reasons. Kagami’s confidence paralleling Marinette’s when she is driven. Kagami can also be hilariously awkward and really wants to make friends. Her time as Ryuuko is also a delight to see. Now I know some people are all complaining that her characterization is inconsistent, and honestly, I don't see it. Kagami has always been an intense person, when she wants something, she goes for it, even if she is unsure of how things will turn out (her feelings for Adrien) or how to go about it (Trying to make friends with Marinette) She is honest to the letter and I think that is something very admirable.

4. Nino Lahiffe / Carapace

GIVE HIM MORE SCREEN TIME!

Nino is Adrien’s best bro. Nino goes out of his way to be supportive and caring for Adrien. The boy got akumatized because he was pissed at Adrien’s dad for NOT letting his son celebrate his birthday! Nino is so loyal, both as a bff or as a BF. He is a caring older brother and a cool superhero. The Dj/ Film director wannabe is a chill and fun dude that Totally deserves Wayzz (More then another turtle I know *Cough* Cough*)

I honestly can't find a single thing to dislike about Nino, he is just such a good dude. Sure he can be a bit of a foot in mouth guy, and can be a bit naive on somethings, but he is such a bro you can't help but love him.

3. Plagg

It Physically hurts me that I can't put him higher on this list. The two in the main spot are just in Leagues of their own. Plagg is the most developed Character in the series and I will FIGHT ANYONE on that. Plagg starts out as selfish and only caring about cheese but becomes a friend and Confidant to Adrien. He cares about his blond son and wants to see that boy happy and safe. He does know the rules and if he knows Adrien is not doing the right thing (i.e. trying to be another hero when he is chat noir) he will call him out on it. But Plagg also encourages Adrien’s teen rebellion, such as when he was so proud of Adrien sneaking out to go to London with his class. Plagg is the perfect Kwami for Adrien and his jokes and Banter is the best part of the show’s comedy. I love this little entity of destruction and I want more of him.

2. Adrien Agreste / Chat noir

Honestly Numbers one and two are interchangeable, but I think Adrien fits perfectly as the second spot on the list. I love how compassionate and caring he is. Adrien is an interesting character. In season 1 you would find that Adrien and Chat noir were pretty much opposites, Adrien was calm, obedient, composed, almost formal, while Chat noir was wild, flirty, impulsive, rebellious and a wisecracker. Both forms maintain his need to help others and his passionate love for his friends and his Lady. 

Adrien/ Chat noir’s dynamic with Marinette/ Ladybug is always a delight to see, changing depending on which side is being seen. The flirty chat with Ladybug, the sweet love struck Adrien with Ladybug, The cocky yet caring Chat with Marinette, and the Sweet caring friend Adrien to Marinette. The love square allows for exploration of their character and I wish we could have seen it better utilized. Chat noir loves Ladybug, even if she doesn't love him the same way, he still fights by her side and will do anything for her. (a few minor bumps, but hey it happens, he is allowed a few hiccups)

As the series goes on, Adrien starts acting more rebellious, starts joking more, even a bit more flirty, he starts becoming more comfortable with himself and others, he even lets himself be selfish at times. He cares about others and he is afraid of being locked away alone. His fear of being alone has made him very naive and trusting of others, willing to overlook behavior to an extent, with the exception that it doesn't hurt anyone he cares about. (Lila being someone that has crossed this line, and seeing Adrien actually being intimidating for once.) Is he flawed? Yes. That what I love about him, he is portrayed at this perfect model, but that is more of a mask then Chat noir, and Adrien is slowly peeking out and I can't wait to see him shatter it completely. 

1. Marinette Dupain Cheng /Ladybug

What can I say about this lovable daughter of mine?

She is without a doubt one of the best teen hero main characters I have ever seen. (And I am taking Kim Possible Level, Danny Phantom level) 

Marinette is creative, caring, compassionate, competent, clumsy, competitive, considerate, and a bunch more C words that mean good things. She is a top notch designer, guardian in training, and all she wants is to win over her crush, who she doesn't know is in love with her alter ego.

Marinette has a LOT going for her and I enjoy how she overreacts and I find myself relating to her in a lot of ways. Though she is worlds more competent then I will ever be, and she is 14.

Marinette also takes the weight of the world on her shoulders, always having to plan ahead, always having to be ready, and now she is the guardian.

I can talk on and on about how amazing she is and how interesting her flaws are, but I feel so many other people have talked about that to death. I will simply say that she is very likable.

She gets the audience to WANT her to succeed, she is so selfless that you feel for her everytime something doesn't go well for her. The season 3 finale felt Like LITTERAL Knives in my back seeing how much unnecessary pain she was in, all because of something that really wasn't her fault. (I am still salty about the finale) I really want her to be happy, and I hope she and Adrien do get together in season 4. Or I will be flying over to Paris and Punching EVERY PERSON writer at Zagtoon. INCLUDING a punch to Thomas so hard his non-existent grandkids will hear it.

Back on target.

Marinette is a delight and I am glad Miraculous ladybug exists because it introduced us to an amazing Heroine and Character.

[ceescedasticity]

@tanoraqui said: I’m honestly not sure Thingol WOULD be sympathetic to a king with a missing daughter. I suspect part of why he initially reacted so badly to Beren is he thought of himself and his family as relatively untouchable by strife, so his attitude here might be…sympathetic, but not stirred to action, much less action against his own kin. What aren’t the Noldor telling him THIS time?

I really hope not. Or at least, that Thingol's irked enough by Eöl marrying Fingolfin's daughter and not telling him that he's willing to see him as a possible bad guy and launch an investigation pretty fast.

This situation is not a good look for Thingol no matter what.

Case #1, the least bad look, is if he had no idea what his vassal was up to, which is embarrassing and not holding his own but forgivable — Eöl is outside the Girdle and clearly very sneaky and using weird magic and hard to keep track of.

Case #2: If he knew Eöl married Fingolfin's daughter and never noticed she was not being allowed to contact her family and detained against her will, that's harder to explain. There's not having an eye on your sketchy vassal, and then there's having an eye and overlooking what he's doing. Plus if he realized Fingolfin didn't know, not mentioning it is… diplomatically inconsiderate.

Case #3: If he knew she wasn't being allowed to contact her family and was detained against her will and let it stand— I hope Thingol wouldn't do that, no matter who the wife was. That's inconsistent with my read of his character. He did imprison Lúthien up a tree, but— I don't think he'd do that.

Case #3 I don't think is salvageable. We're not going to see actual war because with the Siege (let alone the Girdle) that's not feasible, but I think we see all the Noldor treating Doriath the way Nargothrond and Doriath treated the Fëanorians after the Silmaril Quest debacle. And I don't think that would change unless Thingol stepped down.

Salvaging Case #1 is doable. Thingol could put 90% of the blame on Eöl pretty easily. There'd be bad feelings, but it's diplomatically salvageable.

Case #2, hmm. He could say he didn't realize Fingolfin didn't know (implication: it's Fingolfin's fault for not announcing she was missing). That's not going to go over well with the Noldor, but it scans.

If he did know Fingolfin didn't know and lacks plausible deniability, he could try to turn it around with "you didn't tell us about the Kinslaying". But I don't think that would go over well with anyone not firmly on his side already — because, after all, his lack of knowledge of the Kinslaying didn't make any of the victims more dead. This was an ongoing situation.

Even given the above mitigation strategies for #1 and #2 — if Thingol is not willing to put the blame on Eöl, if he says the Noldor are wrong, won't check, and won't authorize them to check… Then I think we are probably looking at trade embargoes. We are probably looking at infiltration of Nan Elmoth. Depending on how much the Noldor suspect we may be looking at a raid on Nan Elmoth. The Noldor would probably try to restore relations with Doriath after Aredhel was safe, but they would consider themselves the wronged parties and I think most people outside Doriath (and some inside) would agree.

And given that lack of mitigation, or in Case #3, I think Thingol's only real route to try to save face with his own people or try to get Círdan or the Nandor to take his side is to say the abduction didn't happen. Aredhel is lying. She must have been willing. She isn't dead!

My guess is the immediate [after travel time] result of Fingolfin finding out Aredhel was in Nan Elmoth possibly under duress would be Angrod or Aegnor in Menegroth going "So that's the situation. As you can probably imagine we're all very concerned. The High King is requesting that you step in as Eöl's liege lord and see that Princess Aredhel is escorted safely to her kin, either to us here or to Himlad, so this can be sorted out."

*at any response not to the effect of 'wtf I will be looking into that right now'*: "If that's not going to be possible in the immediate future we would offer to locate the princess ourselves, given your authorization to operate in Nan Elmoth as needed."

*if Thingol doesn't seem inclined to bargain on either of those*: "Uncle is very distraught about this. I wasn't informed of this officially but I think he sent another messenger to Nargothrond to discuss possible trade embargoes…"

Though I don't think they'd actually get to the second or third point because, as I said earlier, Thingol would feel sympathy for a king with a missing daughter.

—Or if Fingolfin's not in a patient mood, we probably get Finrod in Menegroth going "Princess Aredhel, who was abducted and imprisoned by your vassal Eöl, is being rescued by her kinsmen. Sorry about the violence, not sorry about the territorial violation, let's discuss mutual reparations."

[ranibell]

Disney Fairies Shipping Rant

(Warning: unpopular opinions ahead. You may disagree, but I’ll defend my opinions! I don’t mean offense to any of the people who like certain pairings in this series--what you like isn’t a reflection of you as a person, or your intelligence or heart, it’s that simple--I just have a hard time understanding why it is some of these are as popular as they are.)

I marked 4 “NOTPs” on that shipping meme, and...let’s talk about it, I guess!

I’ll start simple. Tink/Bobble:

This was particularly big back in the day with the first couple of TB movies before the majority latched onto Tink/Vidia. I never really “got it” but for the most part I wouldn’t have ever had reason to dislike them as a ship if it hadn’t been for the shippers themselves...

I liked Terence as a character, as well as his relationship with Tink, and the Bobble/Tink fans were very vocal about disparaging Terence in favor of Bobble, when that’s really unnecessary. It’s possible to like an underrated character without the need to bash a popular one just because you’re personally not interested in them.

I basically won’t go into it any more than I have in the past--after I did a two-part video reading of comments on this one Tink/Bobble fan art piece, I wrote up my feelings here and it still stands up. Basically the sight of the ship leaves a bad taste in my mouth not because of the characters involved themselves, but by the attitude the ship seemed to be entirely based on.

The only thing I would add is that I ship Bobble/Clank and to me, they’re as good as an old married couple that just wasn’t confirmed because it’s Disney :(

Clarion/Milori:

What can I even say? I’ve ranted extensively on my old blog, but to rehash, here’s the deal: There was no reason Milori’s character needed to be invented in the first place. The major plot holes and inconsistencies in The Secret of the Wings seemed to have prompted his becoming a character, but I think more importantly it was for the cliche, forced “forbidden romance” sub-plot between him and Clarion.

They didn’t need to replace the female Minister of Winter from her position to bring in this Lord of Winter, his role and existence wasn’t properly set up, and his backstory + relationship with Queen Clarion wasn’t developed at all, they just relied on the fact that having a tragically star-crossed love interest who’s attractive is enough for people to accept at face value.

And they were right, I guess... 🙄

So again, for me it’s not that the pairing of these two characters in inherently a bad thing, but it has never tracked for me that such an underdeveloped, boring pairing is one of the most popular in the fanbase, like most people just accepted it because it was canon and I’m like “we’re allowed to....NOT ship canon pairings, if they add nothing to the characters and story...you don’t have to just accept it”

Zarina/James:

This is another one that is a majorly popular ship in the fanbase, and to me it’s similar to shipping Anna with Hans, but possibly even worse. He manipulated her and tried to get away with murdering her. In James’ case, he emotionally/psychologically manipulated Zarina for A YEAR before betraying her and then tossing her into the sea to die.

There are a lot of people who think Hans should be able to have a redemption plotline, and I’ll make no comment about that, but the big difference between him and James is that we KNOW Hook will never be redeemed. We know he has never and will never feel remorse about his actions or treatment of Z.

He goes on to become the most fearsome pirate of all time, murdering without second thought--and still goes on to manipulate Tink and capture her in a lantern, because, I quote, “a jealous female can be tricked into anything.” His line in TPF mirrors this attitude (“Fairies are such gullible creatures”) so like....he is and will always be a misogynist who never held respect for Z or Tink or any fairy/female.

Also, The Pirate Fairy was as poorly written as SotW if not more so, and Z herself wasn’t a well-developed character, so I should say “to each their own” for anyone who wanted to believe there was chemistry between Z + James and ship them, but it’s gross and disgusting and wrong. (no offense)

Tink/Vidia:

Back to something much less sinful, but even more heretical within this fanbase. Vidia is one of THE most popular fairies from the movies, and Tink/Vidia is one of the most popular ships. That’s fine. My stance happens to be different, because I guess I don’t view things the exact same way.

Vidia was cruel to Tink at first--and she’s nowhere near as bad as James; she’d never seriously want to hurt/kill somebody. But even after she is redeemed from her antagonist position....she’s honestly still pretty b*tchy to her so-called “friends.” I won’t be forgetting the scene in Legend of the Neverbeast anytime soon when Gruff sneezes/gets snot on them, Rosetta says “ew, my mouth was open!” and Vidia replies “It’s always open.” Like, there’s just no need for that, ever, it’s mean-spirited and didn’t need to be said, it didn’t help anything.

People seem to love sarcastic characters with a secret heart of gold, but I just can’t dig the way Vidia is treated like this amazing character just because she didn’t turn out to be genuinely evil, no matter how her attitude stayed. In the books, her character is more interesting to me--and she’s portrayed as a mean person, but also she knows it and the narrative doesn’t treat her like one of the girls who, oh, it’s just okay that she treats her friends poorly!

So yeah, Tink/Vidia never sat right with me. Also, within the books, they actually hate each other, not even like a sassy frenemy relationship, they can’t stand each other. Tink does NOT have a lot of patience--she would never stand for Vidia’s nasty attitude and just not call her out on it every time. They would never work in a relationship.

So, the reason people will hate me for having this opinion is because many seem to embrace Vidia as this lesbian icon (like those posts about how if she was your favorite fairy growing up, you’re gay) and Tink/Vidia as this natural pairing to come from their interaction in the movies. Lots of people automatically ship it, and I can see the distaste toward Tink/Terence as if it’s the boring, straight ship with no merit besides being basically canon.

Nobody has to ship Tink/Terence if it’s not their thing--I happen to like them, but they objectively have a LOT of development throughout the books, films and other media. More so than any of the canon ships like Clarion/Milori which people ATE UP even though they had NO development. If you ship Clarion/Milori and think Tink/Terence is boring, ya basic and hypocritical, but I digress.

What I mean to say is that if you’re not into Tink/Terence or basic, overhyped “straight” ships in general, your other option is not immediately Tink/Vidia. I’m bisexual myself, so it’s not like I’m anti-Vidibell because of homophobia or something. I really enjoy and appreciate f/f and m/m ships as well, and there are so many amazing fairies to ship Tink with who would have a more healthy and beautiful dynamic--which I think...good representation is better? Just me??

Tink had a lot of chemistry with Silvermist, in fact, someone who is genuinely kind and caring for Tink and vice versa. Tink/Sil is probably the most beautiful and natural pairing in the whole movie series, and it’s like no one has ever even CONSIDERED it because it’s so much more entertaining to have an enemies-to-lovers dynamic with the fairy who was mean to Tink, rather than the one who objectively cared the MOST.

Also, Tink and Zarina--they had a helluva dynamic in TPF. Stay hydrated with a drinking water game every time there’s a potential moment to read into wrt shipping them in that film. But then people want to ship Zarina with a man who tried to kill her instead.

So that’s the thing--I’m not mad at Tink/Bobble and Tink/Vidia because they go against Tink/Terence, but because of the attitude about it when arguably there are way better options than the ones people promote and those ones get entirely ignored and overlooked. It just grinds my gears. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

If you ship these pairing, I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings by calling them out like they’re these awful things--tbh the only one of these that I genuinely think is entirely and inherently bad in concept, is James/Z and I have no remorse if I offend anyone who ships that. Unfollow me, nasty.

To explain that in practice: if a picture of Clarion/Milori, Tink/Vidia or Tink/Bobble is cute, I’m still gonna reblog it and even tag it for those who enjoy the ships, because it doesn’t hurt me or anyone even if it’s not my taste. If J/Z is ever even implied I’m blocking people XD

[fleurderussie]

Rereading Pride and Prejudice. Part 2. First impressions

Okay, okay, okay, I actually intended it to be the first part, but I was unexpectedly blown away by my own thoughts on Mr. and Mrs.Bennet and when I got back I realised that I’d already written too much for anybody to read, so, here we’re at the second part of my essay that is basically part number zero.

As I’ve mentioned before, there’s some pleasure in finding the hints about the ending of the story that you’d read before. And I daresay there’s A LOT OF foreshadowing (can I call it foreshadowing? Sorry, English isn’t my native language) in Pride and Prejudice. Jane Austen is a master and I respect her even more now after noticing all these little (sometimes - not so little) details that point to the chain of events. 

First of all, the ball where Jane and Bingley see each other for the first time. Jane is a beauty, Bingley is Bingley, Mrs.Bennet already counts their future children (only to pretend afterwards that she isn’t quite sure whether he liked her or not) and later Charlotte Lucas discusses the whole deal with Elizabeth. 

Jane is known for her easiness and lightness of heart but at the same time she’s quite good at hiding her real feelings and Charlotte gives a comment that I didn’t pay attention to at first (it’s easy to forget as the conversation takes place early in the book) but that hits me hard now:

“If a woman conceals her affection with the same skill from the object of it, she may lose the opportunity of fixing him”

Elizabeth strongly disagrees and even says that Charlotte makes her laugh and her words are not the case for Bingley and Jane’s love, but...we all know what is going to happen after some chapters. (Charlotte, by the way, kind of foresees her own wedding, saying in that very scene, that it’d be better for people to get engaged before they really got to know each other!)

And it’s not the only case of Elizabeth’s opinion turning exactly against her. 

Thanks to their mother’s care, Jane falls ill and has to stay at Netherfield for some time. Lizzy, being a good sister (I absolutely love their friendship!) follows her. During her stay there was a bunch of conversations, one of them - with Mr.Darcy. Darcy states that Mr.Bingley only boasts that he could leave a place at any time, had he wish to do so, while in reality he would stay if a friend asked him to stay, being, hence, too easy to persuade. Lizzy disagrees:

“You appear to me, Mr.Darcy, to allow nothing for the influence of friendship and affection. A regard for the requester would often make one readily yield to a request, without waiting for arguments to reason one into it”

Lizzy praises friendship - and I give her all the credits for it! - but later, when Bingley, basically, does what she was talking about: yielded to his friend’s request and left Netherfield, she is angry at him, calling him inconsistent. 

While Elizabeth is quite inconsistent herself and Jane Austen makes sure that WE KNOW IT. She is disappointed in her old friend for marrying for the sake of not being an old spinster and really struggles to forgive her (now, I’m not in any way blaming Lizzy as I experienced something like this myself), but at the same time she can easily justify Wickham’s actions, which, in my opinion, are much more morbid:

“The suden acquisition of ten thousand pounds was the most remarkable charm of the young lady to whom he [Wickham] was now rendering himself agreeable; but Elizabeth, less clear-sighted perhaps in this case than in Charlotte’s, did not quarrel with him for his wish of independence. Nothing, on the contrary, could be more natural.. she was ready to allow it a wise and desirable measure for both”

Here, she calls it a WISE decision while in Charlotte’s case marrying for money and position is something unforgivable, though Charlotte’s perspectives were far worse than those of Wickham’s. Not to mention the fact that Wickham is just an immoral scoundrel (but more of it later). And, surprise-surprise, Charlotte foresaw it TOO (I’m honestly amazed at this woman’s talents):

“When Darcy approached to claim her [Elizabeth’s] hand, Charlotte could not help cautioning her in a whisper, not to be a simpleton, and allow her fancy for Wickham to make her appear unpleasant in the eyes of a man ten times his consequence”

BOOOOM!

It’s actually amusing how many times Elizabeth was completely wrong. I mean, it’s right there, in the title, but still, Lizzy is so amiable as a character (jokes aside - she’s my forever number 1 in any list of favourite characters) that we easily overlook her lack of judgement and even rushness in deciding one’s character. Moreover, Jane Austen tricks us into feeling like Elizabeth, thinking like Elizabeth and, man, being Elizabeth! Not that I complain about it, but once you start looking at the events from the side, everything seems quite obvious. 

But more of this “obviousness” and other things in the next part (yes, I’m here for a loooong ride)

[bluerosesburnblue]

As frustrating as Sora's treatment can be by Yensid and the others (except Kairi, Donald and Goofy. And Namine too I think). I also kind of like that part of Sora's character journey (so long as it keeps getting payoff). A lot of fans always talks about Roxas or Riku are the most relatable. But for me personally I find Sora to be incredibly human and relatable. I remember talking to someone about how sad I was for Sora in the KH3 ending. But they insisted it had to be done because Sora was the -

only main character who’s never suffered so he had to get a bad end. I disagreed but didn’t pursue it since that seems to be a common view of his character. He’s not tragic enough therefore not as good. I’m not claiming Sora is the most tragic (though who knows the future. Nomura is sadistic) character. But he knows sadness. He lost his home and friends. He’s been abandoned by those he counted on most. He’s been betrayed and had to fight his best friend. Called worthless and belittled by most-

lost and scared in new places. Facing dark evil to the point he’s sad he’s not as innocent as he used to be. Resented for things he has no control over. Torn apart. Ect I’m not even counting everything. I remember playing KH1 when I was little and going through stressful times at school. Sora wasn’t the smartest or strongest like Riku. But the 2 of us tried to stay positive and focus on what really mattered to get us through the hard times because it needed to be done. I think we’ve all-

know what it’s like to be overlooked in favor of someone who everyone thinks is better then you. To be taken for granted. To have people ignore you just because you dare be yourself (different). Sora has gone through a lot of trials he hardly gets credit for from both fans and characters (it kind of bugged me when Mickey decided to fight Xehanort he only called Aqua and Riku to help. I guess its Masters only). Lots of people know Sora is special and are grateful for his caring empathetic -

presence in their lives. But it’s a lot of them are inconsistent how valuable they see Sora’s ultimate strengths and the accomplished they achieved alone. I see that. I see a lot of Sora s who are happy kind people who struggle through things and don’t let themselves change for the worst. That’s why I don’t see Sora as some Mary Sue figure he gets labelled as.  Sora uses the pain he’s endured to reach out and struggle together WITH others until they’re better. I love to Sora get recognized-

and every time he does and wait for the day he gets the acknowledgement of how awesome he is. Sora doesn’t succeed because he’s perfect. He succeeds because he surrounds himself w/friends who help him and he follows his heart over any kind of ego based title or old master. That’s why I hope future installments take advantage of Sora’s dissapearence. Have the characters try to find the right way w/Sora gone when things get dark (or too bright. Foretellers are light based fanatics).

Hey, up until KH3, I was one of those fans who preferred Roxas and Riku (you can probably blame that on being an introvert and having Days as my first game). But KH3′s given me a new perspective on Sora and I really appreciate him now. He’s a good kid who always tries his best and that’s really what we should all strive for

I’m honestly surprised that there’s this idea that Sora’s never had to deal with self-doubt on the same level as Riku and Roxas. He has; he’s just better at hiding it behind a smile. Riku’s was self-doubt born of his own great fall after cockiness, Roxas’s was due to being a manipulated pawn for the vast majority of his life while conscripted into a gang that lied constantly, Sora’s is born from the overwhelming pressure and expectations others put on him in part due to the fact that for the longest time he was the only one who could fulfill them

Sora’s “never suffered?” Sora’s suffered a lot and I always recognized that. Sora had the unique role of being “the only active Keyblade Wielder, who’s also never had formal training and is running on hearsay and willpower.” He’s had to pave the road in the present without even being able to see the road behind him. That suuuuuuuuuucks. And to do it all while your two closest friends are missing? Yeah, he had Donald and Goofy but they barely knew what the hell was going on and Donald didn’t even care about helping him at first!

Literally all this boy wants to do is go home with his friends. He is never allowed that simple pleasure because he just happened to get a giant key by accident

And, like you said, suddenly as more and more Keyblade Wielders are added to the mix, many of which are part of the old tradition, the more Sora is put down. Him managing to do everything he’s done with minimal guidance is incredible, but it wasn’t “right” so no one in the old order cares. He’s like that kid who got every answer right on a math test but because he didn’t do his work the “normal” way, then he gets half credit for everything (this is from experience because I have a friend who did that in high school)

It’s a situation where if you haven’t been in it before, you will at some point. Desperately trying to get recognition, being overlooked for whatever reason despite doing great things and knowing you are. Ironically enough, his earlier struggles have gotten more relatable and also respectable for me as I’ve gotten older. And now that I can see his arc in full, I agree that Sora has some of the most universally relatable struggles among the cast. Maybe that was intentional. Maybe it’s just my changing life experiences. Who knows. We should all try to be a little more like Sora, regardless. Continue to strive for good things even if all of the adults are being massive idiots and telling you you can’t possibly succeed

[cboffshore]

Hey there, @abunnsburrow! Thanks for two things: one, this rant, and two, adding to the pile of Things That Drive Me Bonkers From Yonkers About Skybound (which is already a MASSIVE pile).

If I may respond with my own...

A critique of Nadakhan that I see all the time is his inconsistency and insistence on doing things the hard way, which is something I love looking at and almost defending. But I admit: I've kind of overlooked the Delara aspect of it in my own analytical work. Despite the way her influence is treated in the show (more on that in a bit here), their relationship is honestly the most consistent thing about Nadakhan, which is weird!

I think the thing that really makes people in the fandom question their relationship is Nadakhan's pattern of redirection any time someone else brings her up (i.e. glossing over her death when his crew returns and offers condolences,sidelining Flintlocke's questions about Nya looking like her, brushing off Jay's accusation that he never actually loved her, probably a few others too). With the exception of the few moments where Nadakhan interacts with Delara's memory while he's completely alone - discovering her death via InfoVision and that moment where he consults his pocketwatch in 58 - Delara's almost presented as an open secret or a wound nobody wants to touch, not even Nadakhan himself. Everybody knows she existed and that she was important to Nadakhan (hell, even Cole jokes about it early on, so it must have been pretty accessible knowledge!); nobody's willing to approach the issue head-on. In those private moments, though, we do get the sense that Nadakhan did actually love her, which is bolstered by her resurrection being his first personal wish. Infatuated to the point of being illogical is the whole point - actually, it ties in nicely to Jay not wanting to directly address his feelings towards Nya but ends up in such a different place. Whole other essay, that. Back on track! Nadakhan's secrecy drives so much of the plot that it's hard to imagine that it's a new thing for him. He very much strikes me as an introvert, and your point that Delara was the only person he ever felt that comfortable around (up to informing Delara but nobody else about the infinite wish bonus) makes me go

Amazingly, Nya's the only character to break that pattern of skimming over Delara's influence, first in her central role in Nadakhan's master plan and then in the scene in 63 where she leverages Nadakhan's sentimentality against him. It's the only time someone else intrudes on that relationship, so to speak, and Nadakhan doesn't redirect the conversation - he leans into it! He openly (if briefly) reminisces on his former wedding dreams, and as soon as Nya's facade begins to slip, he's understandably very upset because he's losing what he thinks might help him get Delara back a little more easily.

What I think adds an extra layer of tragic depth to this - specifically from a meta POV because it's never addressed in the show - is Nya's role in kicking off the season. One of my biggest sadnesses over Skybound is that they never touch on Nya being the reason Djinjago fell. In a way, what happens to her is fitting - her entire arc is a balance of finding her identity versus having it ripped forcefully away via marriage, which is the kind of sadistic shit Nadakhan would absolutely pull - but that's never addressed, and it makes you wonder what would have happened if it were addressed. For now, it makes the entire situation on Nadakhan's end worse: Nya, a perfect image of his one true love and a reminder of better times, is also the reason his entire home realm is gone. That's something I think about a lot (especially recently since I've been doing some Skybound analysis art), and I just.... I can't get over it. For someone who never actually appears in her own flesh, Delara's one hell of a character.

I personally haven't looked into Delara's manipulative capacity - most of my analysis work focuses on Nadakhan - but you've made me want to consider that angle, and I'd be happy to talk this over more any time!

The Delara Rant

@cboffshore

a singular person has given me permission to rant about Delara so HERE IT GOES-

If you watch how Nadahkan feels and interacts with Nya and Delara, you can see that at minimum that had an actually equal relationship in terms of power over the other. First of all, I want to address Nadahkan's whole marriage thing. Now, we have to ask a very important question: Why didn't Nadahkan just marry a random person off the street?

Think about it, the djinn marriage doesn't seem to have any requirements for it. There's no magic reason stated in canon that makes it so it has to be someone he loves. This tells me that Nadahkan was so infatuated with Delara that he was willing to go through the trouble of specifically marrying someone that looks exactly like her. He didn't have to, there was no obligation to, she's dead after all. Nadahkan went through so, so much trouble to get Nya that it makes no sense from an objective standpoint. He is clearly infatuated to the point of being illogical and a later interaction shows this even more. See, later on Nya is able to manipulate Nadahkan. Let me reiterate, Nya is able to manipulate Nadahkan, the Djinn who is famous for being one to manipulate others. She is able to convince him to abandon the sword so Jay can get it. Nadahkan doesn't even considers this behavior strange which tells me that Delara did this too. ALSO! BIG THING! DELARA KNEW ABOUT THE MARRIAGE GIVING INFINITE WISHES! She knew! She knew the entire time meaning that Nadahkan shared that with her. There was no other way she could know, knowledge of Djinn is limited in Ninjago and clearly none of the crew have visited Djinnjago. This is the woman who was practically able to wrap Nadahkan around her finger, to the point where he shared personal things like that, and that intrigues me to no end. Also she seems to genuinely be infatuated with him as well and THAT fact is even more interesting. Delara, clearly, had the ability to get anything she wanted and she was just some ordinary person! She, purposefully and willingly(she could probably talk her way out if she wanted), got herself the most powerful husband in Ninjago! THIS WOMAN IS SO FASCINATING AND JUST NGJNGNJENG I WANT MORE! I WANT MORE OF HER!

[moved99999999999]

U guys wanna know what I think about that hell hotel show

I feel like twitter’s very tired of seeing ppl talk about Hazbin Hotel, so I putting my opinions on tumblr where they belong. I’m not a “professional critic” by any means, but I’ll try my best given what I know. And don’t worry, I’ll be incredibly nit-picky to suit the internet’s needs.

I’m gonna mainly focus on HH itself instead of Vivzie’s accusations because that's a WHOLE other can of worms to open.

During the time of me writing this, I haven’t watched any YT reviews, but I’ve read a few threads criticising the show, so take that as my social influence bias.

My ted talk is allllll below the cut. Enjoy~

Context: 

My first exposure of Vivzie’s work was her “Die Young” animation that I came across around 2016. Instantly I fell in love with how “smooth” and lively her animation was, and especially the fact that it was hand drawn. Animation like that was extremely rare to come by (and still is) and seeing her execute it so well with such complexed characters was amazing to my fetus self. 

A few years later and I see the first trailer for HH. I instantly went OH I RECOGNISE THAT STYLE AND THOSE CHARACTER TYPE DESIGNS and was looking forward to what it had to offer. 

On “opening day” I watched the pilot ASAP to avoid my opinions from getting warped by all of the key-mash memes and post call-out bitching (literally the extremes of the HH opinion spectrum), and overall.....

I thought it was good. 

Not ground breakingly amazing, not horrifically terrible, but charmingly good.

(Ok now it’s actual review time)

Animation Quality:

As a hand drawn animation that has the freedom to get creative with its shots, a lot of effort was clearly put into how everything moves (it definitely didn’t take any lazy flash puppet shortcuts for the main sections of the show) and I can appreciate that. However it tends to be... rather inconsistent, most likely due to the varying skill level of the animators on the project. It’ll be nice and smooth one minute, and then awkward and choppy the next which can make the viewing pretty confusing at times. I’ll be honest I found myself overlooking these inconsistencies due to the characters and backgrounds themselves being very visually engaging, especially considering how over designed some of them can be (which I applaud the team for handling cuz wow that must have been painful). However, the needle thin and exaggerated art style makes some things incredibly hard to look at. While it helps with adding fancy details, it hurts in catching peoples eyes in the right place.

It’s also chalk full of little details, visual gags, and references that are hilarious to look at if you have the luxury of pausing every two seconds (the news segment and Sir Pentious turf war w/ Angel and Cherri are good places to look). But I feel like these lil details were put in at the cost of some some continuity errors (Charlie not wearing her coat in one shot, and having it back on in the next, papers being blank, etc.) and lip-syncing issues which really shouldn’t be happening considering all of the detail they were able to put in. There are also some shots that have just SO MUCH detail put into them, only to be shown for less than a second. I get that’s the cost of animation sometimes, but save the detail for the shots that need it, because at that point you’re just causing the animators to waste their efforts.

However, I was surprised at how professional the soundtrack and editing was. Not one but THREE songs in this single episode was really surprising, and the variation and quality of each was great (as cringy as Charlie’s song is)

But overall, the production quality is surprisingly good for a project like this, the editing, sound effects, and sound track act like a cherry on top. Of course there are some noticeable drops in quality, but given time and a budget, it has enough chops to look like an actual show.

Writing: 

As far as overarching plot goes, it seems like it’s going to be one of those procedural shows that tries to be serialised, but it’s a creative twist on hell and has an interesting premise to begin with. You can get really creative with seeing how you’d dive into getting redemption out of all of these seemingly lost causes, and I’m sure there are many people willing to know the backstories our main cast. As a pilot, it did it’s job of launching the plot very well, setting up the premise of the hotel and introducing characters in a very engaging way. I was legit really interested in each segment with who in introduced, and it didn’t feel like I was being overloaded with names to remember (which can be a problem for many medias and introductions). The cohesion between each scene is VERY smooth, and I genuinely enjoyed some of the cliché cuts/gags. 

Unfortunately I can’t extend this interest to our main character. Charlie is one of the most generic tropes we’ve ever seen. She’s a boring Disney princess who has a “cute happy positive goal to change her world” and the only thing that would make her more generic is if she wore a dress and cried “I’m tired of being so privileged”. 

(Although it’s impossible to tell, I honestly think Viv is just projecting through her, especially considering how horrifically accurate the hotel’s opening mirrors the internet’s reaction to the pilot itself)

I would be more forgiving if she was a supporting character or someone less important, but she’s the freaking protagonist, arguably the character that has to be the most interesting. Angel’s personality seems to be “flirty porn star”, and while that’s just as bad as being a boring Disney princess, at least he gets a few jokes and has a profession more interesting than Charlie’s. Around the end of the pilot he just seems like he’s getting involved because Viv likes giving him attention. If he’s supposed to be leeching off of the hotel, wouldn’t not care if it survives or not?

(There’s that whole stereotype issue that everyone keeps bringing up, but I genuinely think that’s BS because people are blatantly ignoring the fact that Angel is a porn star, Vaggie is portrayed as helpful, and that the show takes place in H E double hokey sticks.)

The transitions may be smooth, but the dialogue pacing can get really awkward at times. This paired with the animation sometimes having awkward quality drops makes some movements incredibly jagged, and has some detailed shots show for incredibly unbalanced screen time as mentioned before. 

I don’t have enough to give voice acting it’s own section so I’m just popping it down here:

The voice acting is legitimately better than several big name projects I know. It’s consistent, great at expressing the character’s mood properly, and each voice fits each character perfectly. My only gripes are that Alastor and Sir Pentious tend to grain on you after awhile due to them keeping a single tone for too long. 

Character Design: AKA the only thing I have legitimate experience with.

First thing’s first. The characters are WAY too over designed. There are so many markings and accessories that are incredibly unnecessary. I think the mindset for these characters was “the more complicated and attractive the better”, which makes them look like they’re designed by an edgy tumblr artist (heck I fall for this too some times).

Especially if a character is going to be animated, you have to keep in mind the value of simplicity. You absolutely don’t have to fill in your character with markings and trinkets to make them look unique, I mean just look at the gen 1 pokemon starters. Thanks to the limitations of the game, the sprites were forced to be simple, and it was that simplicity that made them such unique and varied creatures. You can tell Blastoise is a bulky water blasting turtle just with a quick glance. 

Many of the characters suffer from over complication, but I’ll look at Husk for example. He has these stripes all over him that do not contribute to who he’s supposed to be at all, and only look like they’re added to make him more unique. The markings that DO help are the little card suite marks on his wings, because those at least infer he’s linked to a casino/gambling type of theme. I would say his outfit helps as well, but formal wear and bowties are worn way to often by the main characters, which brings me to another problem.

They may look different, but they feel way too similar. From the same skinny body type, to generic head shapes, to outfits, the focus characters just don’t stand out amongst each other. Even the ones with interesting features still suffer from feeling generic. I’d say Sir Pentious is a good example of this. He has a serpentine/naga body and clever hair style that make his concept really creative, but his skinny body type, complicated eyes all over his tail, and generic “young but supposed to be at least middle aged” face just push him back into obscurity. He’s even wearing the SAME outfit as Alastor (who's an even worse offender of that generic face problem), and unless Viv has some plan to link the two, I’d say the characters need to stop using a dress code.

A successful character design can to tell you who the character is just by looking at them. You should be able to tell if a character’s personality, function, age, the universe they belong in, and if they’re important or not, and that’s a big problem when it comes to the background characters. If you pause on one of the extras for a minute you can see all of the effort put into designing them, and that takes away so much attention from the main cast. Not only that, but they have actual variations in their body types and outfits, which makes them more intriguing than who we’re supposed to be interested in.

Regardless, this pilot has potential, and if they can get someone to comb out the flaws, you can end up with something good. No one can deny a legitimate animation was made here, and the team successfully executed the start of a story, and that’s something anyone can look up to.

TLDR: The pilot is good. It has some major flaws, but it has potential to be a good show.

If you actually read this far epstein didn’t kill himself.

[moononmyfloor]

Review: The Tyrant's Tomb by Rick Riordan

Thoughts on The Cover

Well, if you've seen my previous posts by now you'd know that I'm not a big fan of loud and action-packed covers. I prefer classy, if not always subtle. But you might like it! See, Reyna is owning the bigger portion of it, which is a nice change. :-)

Ok to Low Points

Halfway through the book, I was STILL unable to "get" into the story

Literally, not much was going on for 2/3 of the whole book, which is very surprising considering:

The time between the release dates of The Tyrant's Tomb and The Burning Maze is the longest as of yet. Whereas other books within a series have come out within twelve months of each other, these two books will be released within eighteen months of each other.

.....and that even the most boring books by Uncle Rick had some silver linings here and there to keep you engaged. Even The Dark Prophecy had the gang arrive and settle in Indianapolis, visit the zoo and free Griffins and REVISIT the emperor. Here? Apollo and Co. escorted Jason's hearse into Camp Jupiter in a frankly insulting manner(more about that later), Apollo got sick, we see that the noble prophecies are being tattooed on Tyson's back, Apollo and Co. went on a lil' trial quest and returned, Apollo got more sick.🤷‍♀️ I was so confused I opened the previous books to see how far those stories had progressed by midpoint.

It got slightly better later on, but it doesn't change the fact throughout the 1st half of the book I just kept on turning pages SIMPLY because I wanted it to get it on with and finish the story. Sad.

2. The so-called Tyrant

I didn't see much tyranny, like...only 3 pages were spent in the Tyrant's Tomb and his company, bad old Commodus and Caligula had more appearances than Tarquin who re-appeared in the very last chapters only to get immediately vanquished courtesy of Diana.....yeah. That's that.

3. How Jason's final voyage was depicted

Uncle Rick doesn't write emotional crying scenes well.

People talk about peeing and pop chewing gum bubbles while delivering the hearses of valued, honored characters.

And I seriously wonder in what position and condition poor Jason's body was after all the drama his coffin underwent.

And based on the spoilery lines(which sadly turned out to be not spoilers at all) we saw in the Magnus Chase series I thought we'd at least get a Percy-Annabeth cameo in this, that Jason will have more of his closest comrades mourning and sending him off. Nah. Nada. Not even a mention of Annabeth. Then why did Uncle Rick mention things like Annabeth and Percy being at California and even Magnus joining them at their time of crisis? Utter puzzlement. And we were also robbed of Nico's reaction to Jason's demise, considering how much Nico valued Jason as a brother-in-arms and a friend. Let's not even talk about Thalia. Why, Uncle Rick? :-(

Which brings us to...

4. Plot Inconsistencies

Why do I have to talk about this in each and every book? :-( Seriously, why would you write about Percy and Annabeth going to New Rome to attend college and being broken hearted over Jason DURING the period of Demigod communication malfunction, only to have us know they have YET to travel across the country and when we meet them again it would still be at New York? And now the communication is working, proving that Uncle Rick conveniently forgot about the clues he conveniently dropped.

AT LEAST I'm glad one thing is consistent in the Trials of Apollo series, that when Zeus decided they'll stop meddling too much in demigod affairs at the end of Heroes of Olympus, he meant it and now it's super duper hard to seek a god even for dire needs, no matter how wonderfully (ill)timed that decision was, costing lives of valued heroes.

5. The Haiku-titles weren't amusing at all this time.

I found one fun haiku .

O, blood moon rising

Take a rain check on doomsday

I’m stuck in traffic

6. The whole Apollo-Reyna debacle.

I would say Uncle Rick pulled a clever twist by turning fan theories on their heads here, but it too way more plot space than needed and when he got to the "Gotcha!" part, I was not feeling it. For YEARS now, we heard abut this no-mortal-no-demigod thing over and over, and fans predicted it might mean Apollo's the one for Reyna. And when it initially seemed like it was the route that Uncle Rick was indeed taking, the only thought that circulated inside my head was; "Reyna doesn't need this completely random and unwanted baggage! Give the girl a dam break!!" But then he was like; "Lol nooo. You kids are wrong", but STILL I was not happy...well, for obvious reasons.

What's the point of this whole plotline? So unnecessary. I mean, the fans always wondered WHY exactly would Reyna think she needs a partner in her life, but now I see Reyna might not have had time to contemplate her personal life logically like WE had what's with her dramatic life. Of course the shallow gods would think her heart was something to be "cured" and Reyna never stopped to think that it's quite the opposite till Apollo provided her with a breather and reason. And to answer why din't she choose to join Amazons instead of Hunters is probably that she wanted to be her own person and not be under her sis the Queen once again. She'd indeed have the freedom, calm and few friends so she wouldn't feel lonely and bored with the Hunt. She might even choose to leave Hunters after she found herself in her own time. I get it. But the way it was dragged and executed was meh.

If Uncle Rick intended this plotline of Reyna to be empowering for female readers, in my opinion it was not. Yes, even a badass girl could have weaknesses, not enough self-confidence and wobbly life choices, but Reyna took too much time with her "Eureka!" moment.

It was funny while it lasted, at least.

“Lester.” Reyna sighed. “What in Tartarus are you saying? I’m not in the mood for riddles.”

“That maybe I’m the answer,” I blurted. “To healing your heart. I could…you know, be your boyfriend. As Lester. If you wanted. You and me. You know, like…yeah.”

HAHAHAHA. That Totally came from the left field Lester, even for you.

“Your girlfriend was pregnant when you had her killed?” Reyna launched another kick at my face. I managed to dodge it, since I’d had a lot of practice cowering, but it hurt to know that this time she hadn’t been aiming at an incoming raven. Oh, no. She wanted to knock my teeth in.

“You suck,” Meg agreed.

I mean, if THIS is not the ultimate deal breaker then what is? Apollo might have changed for better by now, but it doesn't mean we can overlook what he did. I for one certainly don't need a loveline for him in this series. I'm glad Uncle Rick drew(or at least seemed to have) a clear line here.

High Points

It took half the page count even for Uncle Rick's special brand of snark to return. Nonetheless I managed to find some good ones. Which is what matters, right?

1.

“So,” I said, making a second attempt at nonchalance, “are you and Thalia, er…?”

Reyna raised an eyebrow. “Involved romantically?”

“Well, I just…I mean…Um…”

Oh, very smooth, Apollo. Have I mentioned I was once the god of poetry?

Reyna rolled her eyes. “If I had a denarius for every time I got that question…Aside from the fact that Thalia is in the Hunters, and thus sworn to celibacy…Why does a strong friendship always have to progress to romance?"

Preach, sister. But then again I would have to ask did YOU have to swear to celibacy to prove your independence....which is sort of the point🙄..

2.

Even when I was a god and could speak any language I wanted, I’d never sung well in Italian. I kept mixing it up with Latin, so I came off sounding like Julius Caesar with a head cold.

LOL

3.

It was time to be helpful. I needed to be repulsive for my friends!

Which you're most of the time...the latter sentence I mean.

4. Don't we all relate? 😂

“O protector of Rome!” I read aloud. “O insert name here!”

5. And one more.

I bet Gregorix was wishing he’d pursued that business degree his mom always wanted him to get. Being a barbarian bodyguard was mentally exhausting.

.

Heartrending quotes.

1.

This was the source of all our communications troubles—one sad, angry, forgotten little god.

2. This was the wisest quote I saw in the book. The simple indescribable deepness of letting go.

“Good-bye, Apollo,” said the Sibyl’s voice, clearer now. “I forgive you. Not because you deserve it. Not for your sake at all. But because I will not go into oblivion carrying hate when I can carry love.”

Even if I could’ve spoken, I wouldn’t have known what to say. I was in shock. Her tone asked for no reply, no apology. She didn’t need or want anything from me. It was almost as if I were the one being erased.

3. I was saddened to learn about Julia's untimely loss, but I'm sure everybody had a meltdown moment at the following scene.

The old god’s face hardened a bit more, which shouldn’t have been possible for stone. “I see. Well. I’ve concentrated the last bits of my power here, around Julia. They may destroy New Rome, but they will not harm this girl!”

“Or this statue!” said Julia.

4. Honestly? I too forgot until Apollo pointed it out and then I had *shivers*! They're one immediate family, grieving over one loss that affects all of them in various ways, and having mixed reactions about each others the members who survived!

I shivered. How easy it was to forget that this young woman was also my sister. And Jason was my brother. At one time, I would have discounted that connection. They’re just demigods, I would have said. Not really family.

Overall Conclusion

This is the most bored-outta-my-mind I felt after reading a PJO universe book. Am I finally growing out of the Percy Jackson and the Heroes of Olympus fandom? Oh dear, I hope not. I can't imagine living without it and I'm SO not happy with this new development. Just as I feared, Uncle Rick couldn't keep it up after the excellent Burning Maze and now.....please, for your fans' sake who had been loyal for years, I hope at least the final book delivers. Just so we could at least part ways/go dormant with pleasant sentiments and a content heart.🙆‍♀️