#he's not boring or basic to me

[the5n00k]

Ollie Chen and the Concept of Identity and Self Worth

Not as long as the other analyses so I won't cut it this time

Quite a few people have boiled down this character's entire arc to prejudice and unlearning taught behaviors but I refuse to believe that is all there is to this character. Especially after one of his biggest episodes came After his redemption arc and explored his insecurities. Which is where I come in and lay them out for you in a long, convoluted, half asleep essay detailing what makes this character so interesting and personally relatable to myself! (Sadly)

Ollie is a good kid. He was raised to believe and build his entire personality and life off of the idea that he is the good guy and ghosts are the bad guys. He's disappointed in himself when he thinks he's failed the "greater good" of Brighton by losing the story sprite in Book Marks the Sprite. It's not hard to see he has a major hero complex and believes that if he's not saving the day himself, he's disappointing everyone. It's not ever spoken but it could be a product of his father.

Ruben Chen is ALSO very goal oriented and on a one track mission to rid the world of ghosts with more passion than his other family members. He's the one that single handedly convinced the entire family that ghosts are bad because of a traumatic experience. By failing to capture a ghost, Ollie is failing his dad. Everyone at some point in their lives has wanted to make their parents (or somebody they look up to) proud. And it's devastating to him to believe that he doesn't. He reminds me of Varian from Tangled the Series in that aspect, trying to make his father proud and putting on a persona when he's just a scared little kid. (Another character I was skeptical about joining the main cast of characters I was familiar with only to fall madly in love with his character arc)

Another thing he's built his life around is the title "research specialist". He's the so-called "expert" on ghosts according to the GCC metube introductory video. So during A Frightmare on Main Street, when Molly, the first person he bonded with in this new town, the first person he told about their ghost hunting, his CRUSH, tells him he knows NOTHING about real ghosts?

He is DEVASTATED.

His whole life, his title, crumbled in an evening. Faced with the reality that he had been misinformed since birth and that him and his family are the REAL bad guys. He denies it, (multiple times before this too, so much so that Molly was so fed up, she finally said what she had been feeling about his family's ideology for MONTHS) obviously that is one difficult truth to just suddenly accept. But he eventually comes to terms with it. Happy ending, right? He's not a bad guy anymore! Well...

Here's where the self worth comes in. If he's not a ghost hunter and isn't part of a team doing good anymore, who is he? He was the research specialist, he had a mildly successful metube channel with his family (who still hunt ghosts btw!), if he's not useful to them, what's his purpose?

They don't really explore this aspect very much aside from visually showing it to the audience in the episode The Unhaunting of Brighton Video. He's seen not quite keeping up with the rest of his new group, The Ghost Friends. He's awkward, out of sync, doesn't understand their inside jokes, he's almost completely excluded for the first part of the episode. Scratch even voted against him joining the group to begin with. (Apparently Libby voted for him with Molly, I wish we could have seen that exchange and dramatic gasp of betrayal from Scratch) It doesn't help that the ghost is yelling at him for most of the episode for being a screw up despite being a screw up himself.

Honestly Ollie and Scratch have more in common than you'd think in terms of reinventing yourself and being afraid of your past but that's a post for another day.

The next episode I get this read from is Let's Play Turnipball. In it, Ollie plays a very convoluted and confusing local game along with Molly's coaching. And right away you can tell he is Not confident and that she is totally overselling him. He knows he's going to let everyone down because he can't remember any of the stupid rules. He tries his best and for the most part is successful until he loses them the game by accident. (While Perfektborg is actively trying to lose, hope Molly didn't tell him that) He kicks, curses the game, and walks away to go mope about his loss. He just wanted to prove himself in this new town he's still unfamiliar with. He wanted to be useful otherwise he would have just told Molly he didn't want to play anymore. But he didn't want to let anyone down.

But then, the entire town embraces him in a celebration!

He's... confused. But excited! And accepts the town's appreciation. It was so nice to finally see him get a dub for once.

My conclusion for this? Ollie was raised misinformed and misled for his entire life, yes. But that affected him beyond his anti-ghost agenda. He became reliant on being the hero (A Frightmare on Main Street) and stubborn in his beliefs, believing everyone else wrong. He's TERRIFIED for most of the season because of this, by far the jumpiest member of the ghost friends. He's traumatized by horror stories and insurmountable expectations of saving the world from a supernatural threat that isn't even there. Unless you count the frightmares in which case, yeah, sure, I'll give you that. So when all of that was ripped away from him and turned on its head, his entire self image SHATTERED.

I almost wish we had an episode to explore that but it doesn't seem like we'll get that. But this scared, confused boy is finally coming to terms with the fact that he doesn't have to be The Ghost Hunter or Molly's Hero to be useful. Heck, he doesn't even need to have Molly to be in the show. (UNLIKE SOME LOVE INTERESTS COUGH COUGH WENDY COUGH COUGH WASTED POTENTIAL)

He's becoming his own person outside of The Ghost Chaser Chens. And I'm excited to see how they'll react when they find out.

[egophiliac]

don't think I'm not still obsessing over 7-12

[tibby-art]

canon event for me

[koipalm]

liushennnn in my attendant sy au (read right to left)

notes on this au:

sy transmigrates into a new body when sqq fights the system trying to force him out of his body. sqq is livid and decides to take sy as his retainer/secretary/assistant, forcing him to do most of the accounting & administrative work on qing jing peak and work for sqq for free while also helping sqq avoid his tragic fate by telling him spoilers and secrets about the world that sy remembers. sy has no golden core and no cultivation, and cant wield a spiritual sword or fight. sy has no documents, no money, and no prospects. sqq basically provides everything for him & can also take it away. sy moves into the other room in the bamboo house and cleans and organizes as well, although his own room is a mess. sqq never makes it clear what sy's position on the peak is, so all of the disciples follow his orders in fear of disobeying sqq. sy is basically 2nd to sqq, although he doesnt see it that way; he sees himself as sqq's overworked servant. he resents sqq for his control over sy's life, but he's terrified of being kicked out.

sqq takes sy to the peak lord meetings as well, using sy to carry documents, serve tea, and to give him information about anything that might be useful to sqq if it comes up during the meeting. sy also often acts as a messenger for sqq between peaks. he doesnt get much interaction outside of senior disciples and the other peak lords.

since sy's hands are usually full with documents, accounting books, talisman paper, & anything else sqq wants him to carry, sy can't use his fan to hide his face as much. instead he uses his hair & his glasses. his skin is sallow & he often misses meals from running around doing sqq's errands, so he always seems tired. clothes he wears are simple & loose, either slip on or buttoned up. he dislikes loud & bright patterns bc he doesn't want to stand out, but sometimes has no choice bc sqq buys his clothes. sqq will often make him wear more extravagant patterns, even when it makes sy nervous about attracting attention.

since sy seemed to appear out of nowhere to the other sect members, sy is very worried about acting too suspicious and getting kicked out. he copies sqq as much as possible to acclimate to the world and seem unphased & elegant.

sy is very interested in the other peak lords since he interacts with them often, especially liu qingge. liu qingge often catches him staring, but sy tries not to interact with anyone more than he has to. liu qingge usually sees him hiding behind sqq as a buffer. if sy does speak, he does it low & quiet, & if behind his fan if possible.

sy looks like his old body & has long black hair, similarly styled to sqq by his insistence. sy dislikes this.

sqq calls sy "a-yuan" bc sy doesnt like it. sy doesnt like telling people his name though bc it makes ppl think theyre related, which he also doesnt like, so he doesnt stop sqq from indroducing sy as "a-yuan". this makes it very difficult for other ppl to know what to call sy in fear of being too familiar

sy does meet sqh earlier in this au, and he helps him as much as he can get away with behind sqq's back. since sy is less bound by the system than sqh is, sqh sometimes "sponsors" sy to do things he himself cant do.

sy calls sqq the equivalent of "sir".

[florshedworf]

this is my HOT SCALDING II TAKE ‼️‼️��️ cobs is a great villain for the show that he is in for a show that promotes creativity, meaningful relationships and hope the fact that the big bad is a forward thinking, cold-hearted capitalist is actually perfect

[sadgirlautumn]

i’m bored and curious so y’all should let me know who as concert openers you really enjoyed and who did you dislike?

[buttercupshands]

rewatched Kurogiri's holiday story from ultra impact (not related to sketch at all)

(but it did inspire me)

on another note

finally!!

[moeblob]

Warning for: The (spider) legs showing below!

Under the hoodie/layers, she tends to wrap her legs around her kinda like a hug! And so in the first part that's the weird bumps under the hoodie. They're starting to unravel a bit. She hates being called a monkey cause it's NOT her fault she's short and has to climb on things and up things and includes people in "things" category.

[splatoon-confession-box]

The final bosses seriously need to stop trying to kill everyone in the world, i cannot take it seriously. What happened to just stealing the zapfish or something? honestly when i lost the mr. grizz fight i cheered and never attempted it again because i thought it would be funny to have the entire world be fuzzified forever. also because the fight just sucked. have fun being a furry everyone

[lizzybeeee]

I pity anyone studying history at univeristy of orlais trying to write their thesis during inquisition, with Inquisitor and the team stumbling over new historical facts every five seconds (tyrdda bright axe, here you go an entire saga and btw she was a mage; dragonology an entire text from ancient tevinter; whay happened at the red crossing here you go; dwarven ruins boom hissing wastes; INQUISITOR AMERIDAN)

"I can't wait to publish my paper on the collapse of the Kirkwall Circle and the Mage/Templar War! I'm so glad the conclave is next week and I can wrap it all up!" *conclave explodes in the distance*

No, legitimately though, it must be equally exciting and frustrating to be anybody in the research/educational field in Thedas when literally every ten minutes the Inquisitor is tripping over some new historical artifacts or history! Just giving a lecture and then having a dozen hands pop up to object because the Inquisitor discovered something a few days ago. And since the majority of those discoveries are related to the elves I imagine the Orlesian's would be annoyed as hell that they can't really 'control' the narrative or information getting out.

I thought it was really cool that we got to see a little bit of that in Jaws of Hakkon? I'm a sucker for history in general, so hearing Professor Kenric go on about buckles and using them to date battles/artifacts pleased my little nerd heart. I also loved his little mnemonic to remember the elven pantheon! Solas's terse "most people do" when Kenric says he's forgotten Fen'Harel makes me laugh every time.

I would have loved to have picked up a codex entry that was an excerpt of his book on Inquisitor Ameridan! In general, I love that DLC and Ameridan so much - that must have absolutely caused a riot at the university when it was revealed (if the inquisitor chose to). In general I think more media should incorporate archeology into it...it's just such a cool thing and a great world-building tool.

[ptvstvrrr]

Icl his s1 and s2 eras were just soooooo good

[jessicas-pi]

y'all got me all hyped to do more merfolk AU art so I finished the Love's Lights scene

[lokiinmediasideblog]

I called Crimson Peak camp, I don't know what that says about me xD

[kens-ramblings]

thinking about the robins all relating to “the moon will sing” by the crane wives. i will never recover from this.

[fatuismooches]

EVEN MORE CUTE DOTTORE MOMENTS TO MAKE YOU SMILE 🙏 (because I am too tired to post anything of quality)