#i love when characters who oppose each other acknowledge each other's traits (bad or good)
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
Text
For better or for worse, Spinel and Amethio really seem to know each other too well.
Spinel describing someone Amethio as someone "who doesn't know when to give up" when Agate told him that Amethio was probably acting independently. Spinel acknowledging Amethio's perseverance and resilience and still keeping an eye on him, as if he knew that Gibeon dismissing Amethio wouldn't be enough to crush his spirit completely and that Amethio would still find a way to keep going.
The whole thing with Spinel trapping Amethio in a cave with Liko was also another one of these cases of Spinel knowing Amethio too well, because he knew that there was no way Amethio wouldn't cooperate with Liko to get out of that predicament. Spinel using Amethio's nature against him because he knows the kind of person he is and that he wouldn't abandon someone who needs help. In turn, Amethio also seems acutely aware of Spinel's movements and keeps track of him specifically, which is something he doesn't seem to do with the other Explorers.
I wonder what's going on between the two of them.. Spinel said he wanted to be the one to go to Rakua with Gibeon. I wonder if his attachment to Gibeon is genuine, or if he has other plans. Sometimes, he comes off as wanting Gibeon to favor him over Amethio, like he wants to be the favorite child or something.
#really fascinated by amethio and spinel's continued dynamics#and how different yet similar they can be#like that one time friede noticed that both of them had the same reaction when he sent out a pikachu to fight them#they both felt underestimated etc#i love when characters who oppose each other acknowledge each other's traits (bad or good)#spinel acknowledging amethio can't give up. amethio being like “i know that guy is planning something. i don't know what but i know”#i wonder how long they've known each other or what spinel sees in gibeon#amethio#spinel#pokemon spinel#hz075#character notes#episode notes
22 notes
·
View notes
Note
I like Bakuguo but his attitude is starting to really piss me off. He's talking about Daku as if he's just ~crazy~ and as if he isn't partly to blame for Deku's toxic self-worth issues. It's infuriating to watch. If Bakuguo doesn’t admit out loud and in front of his friends that his bullying of Deku played a part in Deku's current destructive state and if he doesn’t verbally apologize and reaffirm Deku's worth then I can no longer like Bakuguo's character or Hori's writing.
tbh I don't really know why this is the discourse of choice for people all of a sudden, but this is already the second ask I've gotten about it, so I might as well address it lol.
I think fandom is conflating fanon!Deku and canon!Deku here again. fanon Deku is of course much more sensitive and woobified and has much shakier self-esteem. fanon Deku is the one that turns evil in so many AUs because of Kacchan's bullying. fanon Deku is the one that actually jumps off the roof in so many fics, as opposed to fishing his notebook back out of the pond a few minutes later grumbling about how Kacchan needs to think before he speaks or else he could land himself in serious shit one day if god forbid anyone actually does take his cruel words to heart.
and just to clarify before I get any further, I am not saying this to excuse Kacchan's actions in any way, because what he did was still completely terrible and unacceptable and WAY over the line, and what's more he knew it, too. the bullying was still shitty and horrible and awful, and definitely impacted Deku and made him miserable. I fully acknowledge that, and that Kacchan has a lot of atoning to do for it. this is not a "Kacchan did nothing wrong" post.
but that being said, I don't think canon Deku's reckless self-sacrificing nature actually has anything to do with the bullying. I think they're two completely separate things. canon Deku actually has pretty decent self-esteem in spite of everything Kacchan did to him. canon Deku doesn't think he is useless. canon Deku had a wholeass fight with Kacchan less than 10 chapters into the series in which he explicitly spelled it out for Kacchan that he had a lot of worth, and was going to prove it to him. canon Deku was persistent in wanting to become a hero and hoping and believing that he could find some way in spite of being quirkless. canon Deku never let go of that dream even when no one else supported it. I don't think he would have even given up on it after being told no by All Might, tbh -- we just never got to see how it would have played out because of everything that happened with the sludge monster shortly afterward. but he's not the type to ever give up on something that easily, and we've seen that. canon Deku never thought he was useless, but rather wanted to prove to everyone else that he wasn't.
the drive that Deku has to save and protect others even at the expense of his own safety is something entirely separate from that. he doesn't break his body for others simply because he has no self-esteem and thinks that his own life isn't important. he does it because he can't stand the thought of someone else getting hurt, and knowing that he could have done something to prevent it. it's as simple as that. like, Spider-Man has the whole "with great power comes great responsibility" thing, right? and he doesn't have low self-esteem; he simply believes that if he has the ability to help someone else, then he has a responsibility to help them. it's a personal creed. and Deku is based on Spider-Man. his philosophy is based on that philosophy, which was one of Horikoshi's core influences and is one of the core creeds in superhero fiction.
Deku is self-destructive not because he doesn't value himself, but because he is literally physically incapable of standing back and doing nothing if he knows that he can do something. he's the type of person who sees a car speeding towards someone and leaps in to push them out of the way. NOT because he wants to get himself fucking pancaked by a speeding car, but simply because he can't sit back and watch the other person get hurt without taking action. his body moves before he can think. and that's where the whole "doesn't take himself into account" thing comes in -- the fact that his thought process simply stops at "get them out of the way of the car", and never extends beyond that to "hey, and maybe I should try to find a way to do this that doesn't involve me getting hit in their place." to him, that's simply less important than the first priority, which is getting the other person out of the way.
and regarding that last part, while that may seem like a self-worth issue if he's prioritizing everyone else above himself, I think what it actually is just selflessness taken to extremes. like for instance, when a parent sacrifices themselves to save their child, them placing the child's life above their own isn't necessarily because they don't see themselves as having value. rather, it's that they love the child so much that they place their well-being even above their own. and that's what Deku is like as well. except that in his case he cares about EVERYONE, and so is willing to sacrifice himself for anyone. and that selflessness is his defining character trait, and simultaneously the most admirable and the most terrifying thing about him. it's both his greatest strength and his greatest weakness, which I think is fascinating to explore.
but anyway, so that's also why we never really see anyone thoroughly chewing him out for this behavior either. because the thing is, it is admirable how selfless he is. it's just that there's also a reason why most people are at least a little bit selfish. and that's because too much selflessness will ultimately and inevitably wind up getting you killed. at some point you either have to learn when to put the oxygen mask on yourself first, or else find yourself a loyal group of friends (or classmates) to watch your back, and make sure that mask gets on you when you need it. and maybe help you land the plane too while they're at it.
anyway so that was a lot of rambling, but basically it all boils down to three things:
when Deku berates himself for being useless (for instance at the end of the War arc), he's doing it out of frustration for not being able to push the others out of the way of the metaphorical car. that's the kind of uselessness he can't stand. the sitting-back-and-doing-nothing uselessness.
Kacchan's bullying was terrible, and it might have indeed played a part in Deku's choice of the word "useless" as a way of berating himself in these instances, but he is not the one who gave Deku this mindset of taking himself out of the equation. that's something that was already inherent to Deku from day one. (but that said, Kacchan has a lot of things to apologize to Deku for anyway, so if he wants to add this to the list I certainly won't stop him. he gets mad about Deku's suicidal attitude because it worries him, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he doesn't feel responsible for it. people underestimated his feelings of atonement before 284/285, and I think they're still underestimating him now.)
and lastly, one last important note, which is that Deku's current "saving" mindset isn't wrong, just as Kacchan's "winning" mindset was not wrong either. the lesson to be learned here is NOT that being selfless and wanting to save other people is bad. rather, it's the fact that he's trying to do it alone that's got him all fucked up right now. basically when you think about it, selflessness is really just selfishness on someone else's behalf. which means that in order for Deku to be saved, it isn't necessary for him to change his outlook or his selfless attitude, even if it is pretty crazy lol. rather, all he really needs is a good group of friends who are willing to act selfishly on his behalf in return. protecting each other through mutual selflessness lol. teamwork as self-preservation. hence why the U.A. kids are here now.
anyway so yeah, I think that's everything. sorry this got so long and out of control lol. this is just a very specific nuanced thing that's hard for me to express, but which I feel is very important when it comes to Deku's character. Kacchan didn't unleash Depressed Nomad Deku on the world (or at least not in this respect). but that being said, he and the others will hopefully be the ones to nudge him back on the right course again.
#bnha 319#midoriya izuku#bakugou katsuki#bnha meta#deku meta#bnha#boku no hero academia#bnha spoilers#mha spoilers#bnha manga spoilers#makeste reads bnha#asks#anon asks#long post
426 notes
·
View notes
Note
honestly THANK YOU for saying all that abt baghra bc i thought i was going crazy from not liking her??? bc i haven't read the books and only summaries of them on wiki and like. i dunno why ppl like her actually even in the show bc this guy, her son, is like "i wanna make the world better for us grisha" and she's just like "no." even tho he sees that she's MAKING HERSELF SICK from suppressing her powers! she's literally like in bed coughing in the flashback yet seem much healthier at the little palace. also like after everything, after her disapproval, after the fold, after centuries of waiting for the sun summoner.. he never abandons her. he makes sure she's cares for. he doesn't harm her. and i have to wonder if baghra has ever thanks him for that, for just not leaving her alone. like i dunno how im suppose ro believe aleks is a heartless villain when he still cares for his abusive mom like this. like has baghra even told her she loved him (honestly she reminds me of a classic emotionally unavailable asian parent but maybe that's just me). also im wondering if baghra ever told aleks that he had an aunt.. bc like.. now that u bring up her isolating him it's like hmmmm...
not at me being like alina... why do u trust the bitter old woman who literally beats u with a stick and verbally abuses u every chance she gets.. just bc she showed a bad painting... like.. pls use two braincells to see that who u figured out as his mother... is also using his protection..
like baghra could've upped and left with alina. but no. she stayed bc she knew she was safe under aleks's protection.
alsoim just impressed that after his first friend tried to drown him and harvest his bones... he didn't go into hiding???? he still wanted to make a safe heaven for grisha!!! HE STILL WANTED TO PROTECT GRISHA EVEN AFTER HIS GRISHA FRIEND TRIED TO KILL HIM FOR HIS FUCKEN BONES. like... this is the guy im suppose to believe is the villain???
honestly i feel like part of the reason why LB's plotlines seem so bad and disconnected (and sometimes outright racist but that's another rant) and why darkles is disproportionately more violent and villainous in the later books is bc she didn't expect the darkling to be so popular and wanted to stick with her guns of making him the villain. but also wanted the money from aleks's popularity. but like you can't have ur cake and eat it too.
Well thank you for sending this ask! It's very sweet and very passionate. I'm glad you liked my post! I didn't put as much thought into it as some of my others lol. I kind of just talked. But it was nice to be able to finally talk about some of the problems I have with both her character and the fandom/author's perception of her.
HERE is the post this is referring to, in case anyone's wondering.
👀👀 You've hit the nail on the head for so many things, here!
Baghra is extremely emotionally unavailable, basically to the point of neglect. She's also verbally and physically abusive, traits which I doubt were only reserved for her students and not her son. Baghra claims she would do anything to protect him, but I've known a lot of parents who have that mindset and yet still harm their children because they think it's "good for them".
Aleksander stays at Baghra's side for years, and even when they're opposing each other she's never too far away from him. Idk if you've read the books but he does eventually hurt her. And as much as I don't like Baghra, I think his actions were horrid. But I'm also honestly kind of surprised it took him so long lmao.
Yeah I mean, in terms of isolation, let's not forget that she never wanted to introduce him to his father, either. Baghra's sense of eternity clouds a lot of her judgments on relationships, which means she views most people as dust and therefore teaches her son to as well. The problem with that is that he's a growing child, and he needs those social and emotional attachments for healthy development.
I would bet quite a bit of money that Baghra has either never told him she loves him or she has told him so few times it's practically forgettable.
And everything becomes more complicated because so many of Baghra's actions are understandable because of her life and her history, but the impacts they have on the people around her, especially Aleksander, are permanently damaging. And the fact that that's never gone over in critical depth in the books or how it's glossed over in fandom is just very disconcerting. Like, acknowledging Baghra's failings doesn't mean we're excusing Aleksander's actions, it just means we're holding Baghra liable for her own. Which the fandom should be doing, considering she's the epitome of an abusive parental figure.
And Alina trusting Baghra over Aleksander is even more confusing! Especially in the show!! This is the woman who beat her and abused her and tortured her friends when they tiny little children (and who probably still does so now that they're adults). This is the woman who mocks you and harasses you and insults you on a regular basis. Why does Baghra revealing she's Aleksander's mother make Alina change her mind?! Like fuck, I'd just feel bad for Aleksander. No wonder he kept it a secret, I would too! And that painting is enough evidence?! Really?! A random painting shown to you by this abusive mentor that's been making your life hell. That's what you're going to betray your new lover over?
The friends trying to harvest his bones thing is a good point, too. I think Aleksander, especially show Aleksander, is incredibly idealistic. I think he cares too much for others - those he's deemed worth his care (a sentiment given to him by Baghra). Despite everything she's tried to teach him about hiding and abandoning others and never caring and never doing anything to help or reach out or connect with people, Aleksander still continues to do so. It's likely because he never got it from Baghra growing up, and so is desperate for those emotional needs to be fulfilled elsewhere.
His turning point, when Baghra tells him it was understandable that those kids tried to kill him because the world is such a hard place for them - that's crucial. And the reason it's possible as a motivating factor is because of that idealism and that desire to help and that desire to be everything his mother isn't. Baghra tells him this trauma he just experienced was because of the oppression of his people, and instead of following her lead and accepting that, going into hiding and abandoning everybody to their misery, he goes I can do something about that. I can make it so this never happens again. Which is usually how trauma like that combines with one's core personality traits at a young age, especially when there's none of the essential support systems in place to aid in recovery (ie, the role Baghra should have been filling but wasn't, because she decided to exacerbate the problem instead).
And yeah, one of my biggest problems with the ham-fisted "beating you over the head with a sledgehammer of evil deeds" look-how-bad-this-character-is! portrayal of the Darkling in the later books comes from the impression I get that Bardugo doesn't trust her readers. She's so desperate to have us hate this character and think him an irredeemable villain, not trusting any of her readers to engage critically with a morally gray character, that it feels quite a bit like condescending fucking bullshit. Which ew, I know how to engage with literature, thanks.
She really does seem to look down on a large part of her fandom, and imo, the infantilization of the female characters in her books seems to carry over to her impression of most of her female readers as well. Which is why the Darkling's character arc gets fucking destroyed. But he's still a good cash grab, of course, so she'll shake his dead corpse in front of the fandom for money every time she wants something from it.
Also! Another reason I think her plotlines feel disconnected (I'm sorry Bardugo I respect you as a person, but shit-) is because the writing in SaB is just bad. I mean, nevermind the absolutely nauseating implications of the way she portrays the Grisha as a persecuted group who's situation is never actually fully addressed as it should be, considering Grisha rights is what her main villain is fighting for (imo for a series called the Grishaverse, LB seems to be pretty anti Grisha), but her characters and story alone are just wrong for each other. They don't fit together.
And the ending is one of the main pieces of evidence in that regard! You can’t say the ending where Alina isn’t Grisha anymore is her “going back to where she started” when she’s always been Grisha. She just didn’t know she was Grisha because she denied that part of herself that she was born with.
Alina is reluctant to move forward or change, she struggles with adapting, and she’s very set on the things she’s grown attached to throughout her life. She also has some latent prejudices against the Grisha, and so denies the possibility of being Grisha for those reasons as well.
Alina’s lack of powers in the beginning of her life because she willfully doesn’t learn about them to avoid change versus her lack of powers at the end of the book when she’s accepted them and then they’re stripped away from her by outer forces are two entirely separate circumstances. You can’t make a parallel about lost powers and lack of Grisha status bringing her back to the start when she was always Grisha and she always had powers and she simply refused to come to terms with it because of personal reasons.
The first situation is an internal conflict that indicates a story about growth and a journey of self acceptance. Denying herself the opportunity to learn about her heritage and to find acceptance with a group of people like her because she’s tied to the past and because of the way she was raised is the setup for a narrative that tackles unlearning prejudice and learning how to connect with a part of her identity that was denied her and learning how to grow independent and self assured. It’s the setup for a different story entirely. The second situation is an external conflict that centers around the ‘corrupting influence of power’... for some reason.
In a world where Grisha do not have social, political, or economic power and they are hunted, centering your heroine’s journey of self acceptance and growth around an external conflict about... the corrupting influence of power (in a group of people that don’t actually have any power?!) just doesn’t work. It is literally impossible to connect the two stories Bardugo is trying to push in Shadow and Bone without seriously damaging the main character’s developmental arc.
The only way a narrative like this would work, claiming that she has gone back to where she started, is either a) if the Grisha weren’t actually a persecuted group and instead were apart of the upper class, or b) if the one bad connection between the two instances is acknowledged - that Alina denied a part of herself crucial to self acceptance and growing up, and that losing her powers at the end has also denied her. It is a tragedy, not a happy ending.
Alina suffered because she didn’t use her powers. She grew sick. It was bad for her. This was not a resistance to 'the corruption of power and the burden of greed', it was her suffering because she couldn’t fully accept herself.
Framing the ending as a return to the beginning can’t be done if you don’t address how bad the beginning was for your main character. You brought her back to a bad point in her life. You regressed her. This should be a low point in her arc. It should be a problem that’s solved so she can finish developing organically or it should be something that is acknowledged as a tragedy in it’s own right, for the future the world (the writing) denied her.
This is a ramble and it makes no sense and I’m really sorry, but my point is that Bardugo put the wrong characters in the wrong story. The character arc required for organic development doesn’t match the story and intended message at all. The narrative doesn’t fit the cast. She's got two clashing stories attempting to work in tandem and she ends up with both conflicting messages that fans still can’t comprehend in her writing and an ending that doesn’t suit her main character to such an impossible degree that it’s almost laughable.
So yeah, there's a few reasons why I think the story and the plot feels so bad and disconnected. I hope you don't mind me making this answer so long! 😅 I was not expecting to write this much.
#shadow and bone#sab#grishaverse#alina starkov#aleksander morozova#mymetas#the darkling#baghra critical#anti leigh bardugo#sorry!#sab salt#sab meta#fandomcourse#negative#negativity#myramblings#asks and answers#joonmono#anti baghra#leigh bardugo critical#abuse tw#torture tw
179 notes
·
View notes
Text
Ok so I finally got caught up on CMM (anon, I have a lot going on right now, maybe don’t send me over ten asks with spoilers in them��� I pinkie promise I’ll post once I read it) and thoughts-
Obviously the big one is Shannon and Hope. I would’ve paid all my gems to talk to either one of them, but I’m still a little salty that we did have to pay. For such a short scene, they recycled 30% of the dialogue towards the beginning and that was annoying. It would’ve been so easy to make them unique. Hope absolutely would have been insecure and said ‘did anyone ask about me’, but Shannon wouldn’t. Shannon doesn’t care, she could’ve said something like “lol does anyone even remember me?” or “it’s totally fine, sounds like it was an original islanders only party”. The reasons they gave for not being there were pretty good, and it makes me feel better than in-canon they weren’t un-invited. Hope’s part was much longer than Shannon’s but I liked Shannon’s more.
My big issue with the phone calls was that Hope’s call was just… flat. In the villa, Hope was smiling all the time, super expressive and warm, and her call just seemed really… flat. It lacked a warmth that being BFFs with her merits. And the conceit, that she’s at a stuffy wellness retreat trying to schmooze a client with her boss, would’ve been really ripe for her being expressive. Like “omg thank god a normal person, I’ve been doing nothing but smiling and agreeing all weekend”. I did like how she expressed insecurity and then corrected herself, it showed a lot of growth. I just wish there would’ve been more sincerity and personality.
I’m not mad about Chelsea and Rocco. I kinda don’t think they’ll last, because Rocco will eventually move on and Chelsea is desperately trying to cling to the experience of the villa through him. But I feel like it was effectively foreshadowed, and seems pretty in character for the both of them. It’s not the redemption arc I was hoping for Rocco though, I still hope Rocco sits down with Lottie or Priya and properly apologizes.
Chelsea’s password being BRA? Jesus christ, give it a rest, FB. She has more than one personality trait. The CMM writers really just latched onto 1-2 cute moments with each character in the main season and decided “this is all they think and talk about”. Same with Hope saying pacifically again and Priya’s gauche sunflower print.
The escape room bit was fun, but I wish the riddles hadn’t been multiple choice (instead the typing in thing and if you get it right Chelsea’s excited but otherwise has stock lines like ‘not quite… it’s a mirror!’). Also it would’ve been more fun if another character was trapped with MC, just to see them try to solve it. The humor in that section was good though, I especially liked the reaction to throwing the box at the wall.
LOVED the new outfits, they’re all super cute but like… Why did I spent 10 gems when literally no one’s going to acknowledge the costume change?? Like surely someone would be like “what… happened? Why did you change?” or even “you changed because you’re the murderer and were getting blood off your clothes!”. But nothing.
I’m not super invested in the mystery, and I don’t really mind that. The characters and their reminiscing is more important. But like… I don’t think the clues were handled very compellingly. The clues aren’t really tied to any one specific person, and they’re not insight into how the murders took place or what enabled the person to get away. It’s just… Here’s a note Chelsea gave you, here’s a thing that was at the scene. I’d like it more if it was things like ‘a bare footprint, a half drank wine glass, a cypher with a puzzle attached’. Something that you could be like ‘x character wouldn’t know how to do that, x character likes wine’ etc.
Also I don’t love how it seems like the murderer changes based on your choices? Like if they’ve coded it so that everyone’s possibly the murderer and it’s just revealed based on player choice who it is that’s not… A mystery… Like I’d much prefer if only 1 person was the murderer, or there was a pre-set killer for each victim.
Lucas died in my game (I’m romancing Priya), and there was a chance to flirt with him before he died. I know other people had Lottie die if Gary was the LI, so who dies if Bobby is your LI? Can you romance Lottie and the other person?
My eggs are still all in the ‘Noah’s the murderer’ basket.
I really hate how explicit the switch between the mystery and socializing has been. Obviously that’s a facet of everyone playing characters, but like three times now there’s been “let’s get back to the mystery!” or “let’s stop the mystery to socialize” and it just feels clunky and breaks up the story. I’d prefer if all of the characters collectively disregarded the characters they’re playing, except when clearly delivering dialogue in reaction to things, so that there’s less “are you in character right now or are you you?”. I’d also change it so that everyone really casually talks about their theories and the mystery but for the most part isn’t super invested in it. That way the player can choose to be the only one who cares about the mystery and solving it, or we can do away with the back and forth about it. I don’t know, I’m just not a fan of how we keep interrupting GOOD scenes like MC/her LI bonding, reminiscing with people, or Chelsea announcing her relationship to be like ‘lol let’s talk about a mystery’.
I’m shipping Lucas and Priya more than MC and Priya because when romancing her, Priya really doesn’t have any personality outside of ‘interested in MC’, versus when she’s roleplaying with Lucas or around everyone else she’s back to being herself. It’s creating this weird dynamic where the writing makes it seem like Priya is /uncomfortable/ or not herself when romancing MC, to the point where I feel guilty?? Like she seemed more in-character and excited when talking about a guy who dumped her than she has been when kissing and doing the nasty with MC all night. Like honestly you could replace her with Rahim in all her romance scenes and it would be more in-character for Rahim.
Overall I’m... Enjoying it. Like I’m not stopping mid-episode to do something else like I was with S3. But tbh I think I enjoyed Boat Party more, and I’m really only thinking about specific scenes and headcanons after putting my phone down (as opposed to S2 and S1 which lived in my head rent free after playing an episode)
Maybe part of that is I have a really poor working memory and prefer to binge consume media instead of playing it week by week, so I lose interest each week. Once it’s fully released I’ll have to play it in one go and let yall know if it’s actually bad or I’m just bad.
22 notes
·
View notes
Text
The Hawk X Demetri Manifesto
Okay, here is the thing. Despite being well past my teens, there's a particular ship of Cobra Kai that has drawn my attention, this ship being Hawk/Eli x Demetri. When I first watched the show, I was actually more invested in the adult characters storylines than the teens. I immediately rooted for Johnny and Carmen, and I was always hoping for more interactions between them. But then I saw episode 2x05, in which the atmosphere between the Binary Brothers becomes way more dense, and that's when I started to see some potential for them. Not because I'm a deranged person who fosters abusive relationships, but because I immediately caught the hurt/comfort dynamic of the duo, which is something that works really well when it comes to fictional relationships. However, it wasn't until 3x10 that I said, "Ok, that's official, I need to see more of these two! I totally support them!" And I was quite surprised to find a fairly large amount of people who are very committed to this pairing, to the point it's caught the attention of the screenwriters/producers as well. Honestly, I don't know if the showrunners will ever have the guts to make them an official couple, and chances are their supporters will have to keep reading between the lines of their bromance, but in any case, here is my take on why Hawk/Eli x Demetri is an option worth to be considered.
#1 - The Bromance
If there's something that many years of navigating the Internet taught me, is that the main driving factor for fan-made ships is the presence of either a solid relationship based on mutual brotherly love or a bitter rivalry that may or may not flow into hate/obsession. If you consider anime fandoms, there are thousand examples that fit into either of these categories: Yugi and Jonouchi from the Yu-Gi-Oh series (yes, that's how old I am), Yugi and Kaiba from Yu-Gi-Oh, Sakuragi and Rukawa from Slam Dunk, Light and L from Death Note, etc. And our Hawk and Demetri fit into both categories. When we first see them, they are the stereotypical nerdy friends (possibly childhood friends?) sitting at the losers' table, who have no one else but each other. When Eli is at his most sensitive and fragile, you can tell he feels comfortable being with Demetri by the genuine smile he has on his face as Demetri is joking with Miguel at the canteen table. Through his sarcasm, the mouthy kid acts as a catalyst to deviate the attention from Eli, speaking for him, reprimanding Johnny when he makes fun of his lip and trying to make him feel safe. Besides, you can see a certain degree of frustration in Demetri when Kyler and his gang are harassing Eli, and he's unable to do anything to defend him. And they even have a jingle for their friendship with a robot dance, I mean, how cute is that? But of course, a solid friendship between two helpless nerdy guys is not enough to spark a ship to be rooting for. In order for the magic to happen, another key ingredient is needed, i.e. a little bit of angst. Which brings us straight to the next point.
#2 - The Angst (aka the Hurt/Comfort Dynamic)
Even though I never liked the Twilight saga or any similar urban fantasy young adult works, I can easily see where the appeal comes from; the attraction to a charming, dangerous person who could either protect you from any harm or crush you like grape. Although with different franchises, I wasn't immune to the bad boy trope either (Yes, I'm looking at you, my teenage self drooling over Grimmjow from Bleach). If we can appreciate the genuine, brotherly friendship between nerdy Eli and Demetri, the shift that Eli makes as he transitions into Hawk and becomes more aggressive and dominant gives their relationship a totally different flavor. Attrition sparks a certain tension that, in the viewer's eyes, could either flow into a brawl or into passion.
During the mall fight, Demetri comes to the realization that his former best friend is actually someone who can crush him like grape. We see Hawk intentionally harming him for the first time, and Demetri's heartbreaking expression as he drops the line: "You'd actually hurt me?" And if that line gave us a pang in our hearts when we first watched Season 2, imagine rewatching it now that we know what happens in Season 3. Demetri is chased down the mall, running for his life, and then he's locked in a grip, as his best friend menacingly advances towards him. Demetri appears as the damsel in distress, however his friend is not the one who will fight to protect him, but rather his tormentor.
During the party at Moon's, Demetri manages to briefly go through Hawk's mask and reach out to Eli, thanks to a casual conversation about Dr Who. But then the beer incident happens, and Demetri defends himself with the only weapon he has – his loudmouth. The situation is reversed, and for a brief moment, he gets to be the dominant one as he discloses all Eli's most intimate secrets. Demetri is now actively contributing to the Hurt/Comfort dynamic; he's no longer just a target, but he's doing his part to enlarge that gaping hole that has formed between them. And Hawk didn't take it well.
From this moment on, Demetri becomes a sort of obsession to Hawk, who hunts him down the school, teasing him and taunting him sadistically, like a serial killer from a horror movie, during the big fight. Of course, in real life, this would be completely insane, and the police/a social assistant/psychiatrist should be called, but in ShipLand, these situations are pure gold. Okay, we get it, Hawk wants to get revenge for the humiliation at the party, and he wants to crush that nerd part of himself he sees in Demetri, but he does it with such an intensity that it borders on ridiculous. It's like this is his twisted way to acknowledge Demetri's presence. Eventually, Hawk ends up smashed into the trophy case, and I confess I felt a little disappointed when Demetri broke that hug to give Hawk a roundhouse kick. I mean, it was a great comeback, but I was sincerely hoping for a "No hard feelings man, let's get outta here!" scenario.
Getting back to the sick and twisted way Hawk acknowledges Demetri's presence, he destroys his science project after he got jealous due to him being confident in his nerd self and laughing around with his ex girlfriend (whom the writers insist he still has a crush on). Speaking of Moon, I have a feeling she likes Hawk mostly based on his badass appearance. Remember when she goes "I like this (mohawk) and I love these (muscles), but I'm not dating a bully"?
Then the football match happens. Okay, let's break this down. Demetri trips Hawk and acts all sassy, and a fellow Cobra Kai is immediately ready to take him down, but Hawk stops him. "Fight smart, he says". Too bad that literally 5 seconds earlier he had shoved a kid to the ground just because his ex girlfriend (again, duuuh~) ignored him when he winked at her. And then, as he's trying to intercept the ball, BANG, Hawk hits Demetri, sending him to the ground, pretending it was an accident. So, what does this tell us? That Hawk has some serious anger management issues? Yeah sure, but also that he cares about fighting smart only as long as it serves as an excuse to leave Demetri for him, because he's his designated target. Again, this is all but romantic, and it doesn't necessarily have to be interpreted as him lusting after his friend, but it's undeniable that this dynamic offers a lot of ship fuel.
The arm breaking thing is just too painful to even analyze. We see a completely helpless Demetri begging for mercy to his ex best friend, who has made No Mercy his life motto. And that scream, oh that scream. All I wanted to see was Hawk realizing what he had done and throwing himself on his knees while begging for forgiveness. But I'm glad that at least we get to see he feels awful for what he's done, and I like to think that, as he got home, Eli cried out all the tears he had in his body thinking about poor Demetri at the hospital, with a swollen broken arm, all because of him. Of all the situations, this is undoubtedly the most deranged and extreme, and if something like this happened in real life, the wrongdoer would deserve to be punished and would definitely need to be sent to therapy. But in ShipLand, this opens the road to many, many different scenarios, in which the bully understands his mistakes and shifts back to the good side, or the two share a tender moment after they reconcile, or the traumatized character has to to learn to trust the other one again, or the bully becomes overprotective of his former victim, etc.
#3 - A Rewarding Reconciliation
Finally, we come to the reconciliation, in which Hawk makes his heel-to-face turn. While we've seen him torn with doubt for an entire season about his sensei's teachings, his actions and the people he wants to surround himself with, the key factor that drives Hawk's redemption is the sight of his best friend being held down for him to beat. And with an epic stunt and his awesome KEEEH screech, Hawk jumps to the rescue of his friend. Like many of us, Demetri thought this was still part of the "Only I Can Torment Him" dynamic I discussed earlier, as he steps backwards a little concerned, but then he understands that action was actually meant to save him, and the two begin to fight side by side, in sync, watching each other's back. You can see Demetri's eyes sparkling at the thought of having his friend back.
Also, not only Demetri stands up to alpha bitch Tory in defense of Eli, but he also speaks for his friend when he's faltering, just like he used to. So kudos for Demetri.
#4 - The Red Oni, Blue Oni Dynamic
Binary Brothers are two sides of the same coin and complete each other with opposite character traits, visually expressed by the color red and the color blue. Being the color red typically associated with violence, rage, passion and irrationality, as opposed to blue, which is associated with calmness, melancholy and rationality, red is clearly the dominant color. Again, this opens many interesting scenarios for shippers.
#5 - Body Language
Besides the situations I described above, which may or may not be read from a romantic/attraction standpoint, there are also a collection of small gestures I noticed when rewatching the series with a more attentive look on their relationship.
- Demetri's heart-broken expression when Eli shamefully covers his lip during the anti-bullying announcement.
- The smile Demetri gives when Hawk responds "Hell yeah!" after Aisha proposes to crash Yasmin's party, implying he's learning to embrace this new wild side of his best friend
- The astonished look with which Demetri watches Hawk at the tournament and the way he's pissed no one knows his real name.
- How deeply hurt Demetri is when Hawk belittles him by saying: "Five against three. More like two and a half." He even tries to reply, but he's caught so off guard that words die in his throat.
- How Demetri takes a step towards Hawk during the mall fight, before Sam makes him back off, and how sadly he looks at Hawk's nearly unconscious body after Robby defeated him.
- How Demetri smiles and nods when he briefly connects with Eli at Moon's party, despite the mall incident.
- How Hawk watches Demetri juggle with the cleaning product from behind his bike helmet (how did he stuff the mohawk in there by the way)?
- Hawk's psychotic/sadistic faces when he smells Demetri's blood, and how he likes to hunt him down like he's his prey.
- Hawk's secret impulse to comfort Demetri after the arm breaking (I hope you get nightmares of Demetri's howl of pain for the rest of your life, Hawk).
- The way Hawk twitches his upper lip when he sees his friend Demetri in danger.
- How Hawk and Demetri are so absorbed in their new-found friendship, that they're caught off guard, and Demetri swings Hawk to allow him to deliver a kick using their handshake as a lever. And how they keep fighting together, shaking each other's hands even when they're out of focus and the attention is on Miguel vs. Kyler.
- How they're standing so close at Miyagi Do, in comparison with the other Red/Blue partners.
In conclusion, this kind of relationships are engaging and entertaining to watch, and they make us wish the best for the characters. They make us hope that, in the end, as Miguel puts it, love really conquers all (and what is friendship if not a form of love?), despite all the hurt they did to each other.
So this is it. I hope you enjoyed my Ted Talk. Feel free to share it with whomever you want, especially if you need some solid reasons why this ship has got some good potential.
And remember: the ship is in the eye of the beholder.
F.
42 notes
·
View notes
Text
13 reasons why season 4 review
THERE WILL BE SPOILERS IN THIS!! if you haven’t finished the season yet i suggest you skip this!! :)
also this will be super long because i tend to ramble and i’ll give reviews for each character/most of the storylines! ((half way through reading this i read @jessica-acholas and @analuciacortez reviews and i agreed with a lot of it so you guys should all read their reviews as well!!))
over all ranking:
as a whole, i would give this season a 7/10. i originally was gonna give it a 6 but they get an extra point for all the zalex scenes we got, and i also was thinking of the mess that was s3 so i had to give them that extra point too
storylines/the season as a whole:
my biggest concern/annoyance with this season was how rushed or repetitive it was
every storyline this season was either super rushed or super dragged out- no in between. the fact that we only had 10 episodes as opposed to the normal 13 probably had a part in this, which idk why they cut the episodes short. let’s start off with the dragged out storylines, one of them being clay’s nightmare sequences. i honestly did like his therapy scenes because it was good to see him get help and he was a much better narrator than ani, but his nightmare scenes were so long i literally had to skip all of them i got so bored. another dragged out storyline was jesstin, which i probably will get complains about. i think they have their cute scenes and i do love both characters, especially jess being tied with alex for #1 and justin being in my top 5. but my god their storyline/relationship is beyond repetitive, its been the exact same thing for 4 whole seasons. they break up, have a long speech about how they’re not right for each other, spend the whole season pining after each other, make up in the end and then have another speech about how in love they are. like writers please make up your mind- do you want them together or not?? we also had another repetitive love triangle this season just like every other with justin jess and diego as opposed to the justin jess and alex one for like 2 seasons.
now for the rushed storylines, one of them being alex’s relationship with charlie. i love charlie ever since we saw him in s3, he’s so pure and a lovable guy and i love how he loves alex. however they happened like out of nowhere?? alex went from being in love with jess for 3 seasons to being in love with 2 people in 4 episodes. if you blinked you would’ve missed the “build up” to their relationship, and honestly it felt like they just randomly threw in some relationship for alex because they didn’t wanna have zalex happen. i’m not saying this to be bitter (maybe i am lol) but zalex had 3 seasons worth of build up and could’ve been an amazing slow burn relationship for the whole season, instead they rushed another relationship. zach is also another character who had a rushed storyline with his drinking problem, which literally happened out of nowhere too?? he just showed up this season drunk in the first scene and drunk in literally every single scene we saw him in. this storyline also never got resolved, it just stuck there like the writers didn’t even care to end or resolve it. just like how zalex could’ve worked better for alex, it could’ve worked better for zach too since his drinking problem could’ve been helped by alex. i swear the writers just hate us at this point
characters review:
clay: one of my favorites honestly, he’s in my top 5. sure clay has had his moments where he’s been annoying and extra but so has literally every single character in this show- besides tony lol. like i stated above my main concern was how dragged out his sequences were this season, like i couldn’t watch all of them. also another huge problem i had with him this season was how big of a jerk he was to justin??? for like half of the season he was rude to him and would give snarky remarks/hints like when he was surprised colleges would even want justin, which i don’t blame justin for thinking that clay expected him to just relapse again and throw his life away. the same can be said for when clay said all those awful things to him at the party- his parents not being his and not trusting him like wtf? i felt SO BAD for justin there i was expecting clay to apologize to him. on the topic of the party episode, he literally crashed zach’s car and sent them flying 30 ft in the air just to leave zach all alone to literally die?? then there’s also the part where he and ani outed alex before he was ready to fully come out which sucks, that’s something you should never do but i know he was just worried about alex and didn’t want him to get heartbroken over winston - but why didn’t you tell him sooner??
ani: like i said with clay, i hated how she outed alex before he was ready to come out. i don’t understand how her and clay both didn’t think to tell everyone - especially ALEX who literally killed bryce and would’ve gotten hurt the most about winston?? they both knew that winston and alex both knew each other and met at the hillcrest party, so why not tell him winston is gonna be looking for information to clear monty’s name?? alex is literally the only person you guys SHOULDVE told first?? however i did enjoy her this season as opposed to s3, she had a great redemption and i liked that she finally apologized to jess for sleeping with bryce. she also wasn’t up everyone’s business this season and i loved all her scenes with jess, especially the prom ones
alex: HAAAAAA BI KING WHO GOT HIS HAPPY ENDING AND DIDNT GO TO JAIL FOR FLOORING THAT RAPIST!!! HOW DO YOU BRYCE AND MONTY STANS FEEL THAT BOTH OF THEM ARE 6FT UNDER WHILE ALEX IS FREE 🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳 i’m so happy he got his happy ending and became secure in his sexuality, that’s all i ever wanted for him since s1. i’m not saying this because i’m biased and he’s my favorite character, but he truly was one of the only characters who didn’t annoy me this season. he had a great arc even if it was super rushed, we finally got a zalex mutual love confession (i’m still bitter that we didn’t get our endgame but in my head we did), and i love how even if he and justin had their differences in the past seasons he was there for him in the end. i don’t really have any complaints about him besides the whole charlie thing being super rushed and so random?? why did the show put 2 bottoms together like we wouldn’t notice 🤨🤨
jessica: jess is my favorite character tied with alex, both of them have been since s1. i loved how she continued to be her badass self this season but a lot of the things she did/said kinda rubbed me the wrong way?? like i applauded her for calling out ani for judging who she was sleeping with after ani slept with bryce, but when you think about it diego literally is a rape apologist too?? jess tyler is literally your friend why would you date the guy who’s defending his rapist?? also don’t get me started how diego treated clay horribly this season, he was suffering with his mental illness and he played pranks on him and called him a psycho??? clay has always been there for you jess and he’s also one of your friends why would you still hang out with diego?? also in the first episode where justin breaks up with her and she got mad at him i got upset with her, justin made valid points he’s a recovering drug addict who needs to focus on himself not a relationship. i don’t understand why she got so mad at that, it was lowkey ooc for her? overall i still loved her i just hate how the writers reduce her to only a guy each season, but she still was amazing over all and looked beautiful!! her scenes with ani were great and i cried so much at her scenes with justin at the end.
zach: another one of my favorite characters who the writers did so dirty this season. i’ve loved zach since s1 as well, he’s in my top 5 and i’ve always loved how even if he was a jock he was still good hearted and there for everyone. i hated how in this season the writers forgot all of his traits and basically wrote him as a new person?? his drinking storyline was beyond random and had no build up/not even a resolution in the end. where even was his mother or sister this entire season. the show always paid him dirt and never focused on his home life when it was clear he didn’t have the best relationship with his mom. i’m so annoyed at how they wrote him as a “drunk” all season and didn’t even acknowledge his struggles. his scenes with alex were great, and i loved every single one of them. i’m still dying on the zalex hill and saying that they missed the perfect opportunity to make them a couple, it would’ve helped his storyline just like alex’s.
justin: oh my god, when i say my heart broke in the last episode it really did. i remember hating justin in s1, and then loving him in s2 with him being in my top 5 favorite characters. he had the best redemption arc, and i loved his portrayal of a recovering drug addict. i’m thinking now and he also didn’t annoy me this season just like alex, he was great and i’m so sad how they basically stomped all over his arc by killing him. it’s clear the show only killed him off because clay started the show by losing someone he loved, and ended it the same way. him dying by aids was so random and made 0 sense, i honestly thought he was gonna die from an overdose when discussing theories because i had a feeling it was either him or alex who were gonna die. they didn’t have a buildup for his hiv/aids- only added scars/bruises throughout the season which no one noticed if they weren’t closely examining him. i’m so saddened by his death and i will be planning a funeral for him along with zalex’s 💔.
tony: honestly a great character throughout the whole show, never was annoying and always was there for literally everyone. tony has always been a fighter and has been through so much without showing it, and i’m glad he got to go to college at the end and see his sister. i’m also so happy we got more scenes between tony and caleb this season because they are one of my favorite couples and are so underrated in the show and with fans ❤️ i was upset when he didn’t believe tyler, but i understood where he was coming from because he just wanted to be safe.
tyler: he’s so pure and i also loved his arc throughout the show, i’m so happy he has friends who love him and him and estela were so cute! i wish they explored more about him and the sheriffs working together because i honestly was confused about that before rewatching scenes. i also hate how they made him feel bad about monty dying when it literally was not his fault a rapist got killed in prison- monty’s rotting 6 ft under hello let’s celebrate to that!! i also loved how he was so supportive when he found out about winston and alex on the camping trip, he seemed worried about alex when winston said they broke up. i also love how alex was the only one who truly believed in him the entire show.
bryce: good riddance!! when i say i yelled when jess saw him when she was burning the tape why did he smile like pennywise?2@/@20so glad we saw no flashbacks of him this season and that he was just an annoying ghost, but even that annoyed me
monty: just like bryce good riddance!!! thank god we didn’t get that much of a redemption arc because i would’ve lost it- even though i literally rolled my eyes every time his ghost tried to say something that was supposed to make us feel bad for him. he’s rotting with bryce 🧚🏻♀️🤩
charlie: i loved him, he was so nice to everyone and so pure. i just wish they let him and alex be just friends because that came out of nowhere. i hope he’s baking more cookies and being happy
caleb: such a supportive bf i love him and tony, wish we saw more of him but i hope he’s living his best life <3
winston: he gave me joe from you vibes the entire season why was he creepy lowkey s:@:&;&!392&-03@3&4 nobody @ me but for a second i thought him and alex were cute during the bowling scene then i remembered who he was. he was a rape apologist which i hated, like dude he’s dead get over it i promise that dick probably wasn’t that good that you have to do a whole fbi investigation for him. the fact that he fell in love with monty and alex after like a week is sending me oddjdkckdkdj but i too am in love with alex standall so i see where he’s coming from, he gets points for not turning alex in at the end but i expected him to be a bigger villain this season but thank god he wasn’t because i would’ve floored him
chloe: my best girl who i wish we saw more of we only saw her for like 3 scenes?? the show did her dirty even in s3 she should’ve had more scenes her storyline was amazing :/ i did enjoy her and zach’s friendship it was so refreshing to see a m/f friendship and i’m glad they didn’t make them romantic. i didn’t expect her and scott to date but go girl!!
diego: literally came out of nowhere where were you for the other 3 seasons? i literally laughed every time he would talk about missing monty like who cares if he got you into football he was a rapist no one cares. i hated how he made clay go literally insane by pulling those pranks on him and calling him psycho?? “why’d you bring a knife” MF YOU GAVE IT TO HIM???? he was nice at the end so i guess i’ll give him some points and he also wasn’t a HUGE jerk i liked how him and justin helped each other when the cop was being racist/a dick and that he seemed upset at justin’s funeral
estela: her and tyler were super cute together and i loved how she acknowledged what monty did and didn’t try to make excuses to defend him. also loved how she wanted to join HO and was completely different from monty
so overall that was my review of the season, i will miss the characters so much and zalex will continue to haunt me every night i cannot escape 💔 jess and alex are my emotional support characters who would’ve thought. selena gomez and the 13rw writers you will pay for your crimes this season!
#13 reasons why#13rw#13rw season 4#13rw s4#13 reasons why s4#13 reasons why season 4#alex standall#zach dempsey#jessica davis#justin foley#clay jensen#tony padilla#tyler down#ani achola#estela de la cruz#diego torres#chloe rice#charlie st george#winston williams#montgomery de la cruz#bryce walker#zalex
99 notes
·
View notes
Text
Digimon Adventure Tri – Daisuke and the others? Who are they?
A Digimon Adventure Tri review.
----------
This review may be a bit late, but I didn’t watch the fifth movie because I was spoiled by a certain plotpoint and tropes and I really detest tropes of that plotpoint. Considering that I opted not to watch the fifth movie, I didn’t watch the sixth movie as well, I may get confused at the chronology of the events.
I had watched Last Evolution Kizuna, the review of which is linked here, thankfully the producers of Kizuna opted to have an original story as opposed to continuing from the plot threads that Tri left hanging over the course of six movies.
With the reason for this review’s lateness out of the way, let’s continue on with the Tri’s review.
------------
Despite the lateness, I am reviewing [デジモンアドベンチャーtri - Dejimon Adobenchā] Digimon Adventure Tri
As with some of the movies I had reviewed on my blog, I have an alternative title for Digimon Adventure Tri as a whole.
デジモンアドベンチャーtri 大輔たちわだれだ?or Dejimon Adobenchā Daisuke-tachi wa dare da?
Digimon Adventure Tri – Daisuke and the others? Who are they?
TL:DR
Tri was an enjoyable watch. If you want more characterization of the OG chosen 8 and their respective Digimon, it’s a definite watch.
If you’re a big fan of the 02 kids, they do acknowledge them, but better not to expect anything on that front to avoid disappointment.
For me, Digimon Adventure Tri as a whole is a 6.8/10 for me.
I love the many things they did here, but both my bias for the 02 kids and the many things happening just left a bad taste in my mouth.
If that doesn’t hint my love for the 02 kids, this is your confirmation XD.
-----------
I’ll start with the movie series’ art style. I still maintain my stance that I do not like the art style they chose for Tri. I will, however, expand on my reasons from the other review.
Tri’s art style is better suited for still images rather than animated. The best suited comparison I can make, and I’m sure a lot of people will protest, but it’s like the Pokemon’s Sun and Moon anime art style.
From what I heard, the new Pokemon art style focuses more on animation detail and flow. Tri’s animation and art style, while a major improvement from the fights seen in Adventure and 02, still come short seeing the ‘derpy faces’ and awkward poses found in the movie.
(Yamato has bulging pecs and it looked like both Taichi and Yamato skipped leg day)
The new art style does make the ENTIRE CAST absurdly attractive from Taichi to Himekawa even down to the background characters who have something unique in their designs despite just being one off characters.
The new art style does lessens the “cartoonish” vibes we got from the first two Adventure seasons of Digimon, so no extra-large heads, hands and/or feet. You could definitely feel that this was an updated version of the previous art style, although taken to extremes.
Although… Jiggle physics are seen on the Digimon.
------------
PLOTWISE...
Having watched the entire movie series, I can definitely understand why the 02 kids were given that treatment. However, there were plenty of instances to incorporate them into the plot organically than what we were shown.
The overall plot was heart wrenching, it delves into the themes of sacrifice and unchecked grief.
SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT! BE WARNED!!!
We’ll backtrack a bit, I stated above about how the 02 cast could’ve been incorporated into the plot organically than what we were shown.
There were many instances where they could’ve been mentioned by anyone of the cast: the appearance of the Digimon Emperor, Hikari and Takeru checking up on Ken after the Emperor’s appearance, even the instances where they welcome Meiko into the group by encouraging her in times of distress; among other things.
A simple muttering of “where are they?” or “how are they doing?” from anyone, especially from Hikari and Takeru who were a part of the 02 team, would’ve made their exclusion from the main events a bit bearable and understandable.
Them not acknowledging their absence is a very out of character: for Takeru and Hikari, as they were teammates; from Taichi and Yamato as they mentored Daisuke, the former passing the goggle-torch unto him; Mimi and Sora for Miyako; Joe and Koushiro who has commented how reliable Iori was and how his thirst for knowledge was an admirable trait.
all my cons bullet points are my salt towards the 02 kids’ absence lol
In other matters, another thing worthy of criticism, this is for the franchise as a whole, is the fact that there’s a Leomon death inserted in every iteration of Digimon. (01&02 have the original Leomon, Tamers had Juri’s Leomon, Frontier both had Ice Leomon and KaiserLeomon in Kouichi Kimura, Savers had BanchoLeomon.)
Leomon’s death this time around fails to have an impact considering it has become a meme nowadays. Anyone vaguely aware of the franchise would even joke about the Leomon’s screentime before he dies, which was the case in the Tri movies.
There are two events in the Tri movies that didn’t really needed to be there, which really hampered my score for the movie series. First one is how the Mysterious Person, using Young Gennai’s form, to lick Sora’s face.
Another event that didn’t need to happen was how the same Mysterious Person choked Meiko to the point of her losing consciousness, those events IN THE SAME MOVIE really put me in an uncomfortable state, as did a lot of people.
This may be my bias speaking, but I really don’t like how Daigo died in the movie series. I am sure his death potentially served to raise the stakes of the plot, but not really.
The stakes of the plot was already at an all-time high with showing the “deaths” of the 02 kids in the first few minutes of the first movie. It’d raise the stakes even higher HAD THE OG 8 CHOSEN CHILDREN ACKNOWLEDGED THE ABSENCE OF THE 02 KIDS.
Daigo’s death was unnecessary for the stakes were already planted, but they failed to sow those particular seeds hence his death was needed. That and I really love Daigo Nishijima.
Tri could’ve been a rescue movie on top of stopping the apocalypse movie, Meicoomon shenanigans included.
I will admit that learning of Taichi’s supposed death in the tri movies, turned me off from watching the movie series to its completion, back when this was first released. Learning that Daigo, my favorite character, dies in the next one really turned me off from the franchise. Watching it now, I still maintain my stance that he didn’t need to die.
Devimon’s appearance really felt tacked on, he would’ve been a great plot point for Takeru to overcome in the movie, instead we got a few seconds of appearance then nothing. Not even delving into Takeru’s psyche about Devimon’s appearance.
The entire last movie was needlessly dark and that’s says a lot.
-------------
Considering this is a review, no review is complete until you state all the positive things you can say about the movie.
As with the debut season of the franchise, Character interactions are at the forefront of the movie series. In here we learned things about them, including Hikari’s teasing remarks towards Takeru or how Yamato is actually scared of ghost stories.
We also learned that the Teenaged Wolves broke up, due to musical differences as Yamato claimed and formed two new bands. “Knife of Day” and “World of the Knife”. The fact that the characters saying the band names have a Might Guy teeth shine effect on them was incredibly hilarious.
Koushiro being a blushing mess when it comes to Mimi was also great.
The viewers can really see the entire group’s dynamic with each other.
The digimon themselves aren’t just one-note characters. They may act as a foil to their human partners, it doesn’t change the fact that they weren’t one-note compared to what we’ve seen in both Adventure and 02.
Interactions aside, each human character having breakdowns and developing in the movie series was another thing I liked about Tri, tying them to digivolving to ultimate/mega level was a pretty neat idea.
It means that Taichi and Yamato aren’t the sole stars of the Adventure saga now.
Speaking of characters, the new characters in this movie-series [Daigo Nishijima, Maki Himekawa, Meiko Mochizuki] were introduced organically and were pretty great in their roles. The twist that the former two were Chosen Children before Taichi and the others was neat as well.
The three of them performed their roles pretty well: Daigo being a shady mentor, who’s loyalty is divided between his student and his work; Meiko being the new kid on the block really helped establish how out of place she really is, it does help that Mimi was incredibly welcoming towards her; Maki’s unchecked grief led her to taking drastic steps just to be reunited with her partner digimon, kickstarting the whole plot of Tri.
[I have a theory that Daisuke and the others were reporting to Maki, once she learned that they were aware of Yggdrasil’s plans, she led them to a trap that was when they were one-shotted by Alphamon.]
We go back to Leomon. It was nice to see a familiar face. Even his scenes were hilarious and awesome. Him being able to stave off the infection from various points in the movie he was in was also great. It makes sense in character as he does have incredible will power, going back to the Adventure days when he was possessed by Devimon’s black gears.
I also appreciate that the boys and girls had equal opportunities at being the eye candy. The boys were the eye candies during their time in the hot springs, while Mimi and Meiko had their chance as eye candies during the school festival.
Last and certainly not the least, were the new arrangements of the Original Sound Track of the Digimon Adventure themes from Butter-fly to Brave Heart’s orchestral version. They’re simply that good to listen in a loop.
-------------
As for suggestions, I have a few. This is constructive criticism after all.
Acknowledge the absence of the 02 cast.
Explain why they were absent in the first place, or at least what the characters think why they were absent.
From vacation abroad
On Yacht
Even visiting people out of Tokyo would also work
Both Leomon and Daigo didn’t need to die. Mortally wounded characters are fine, makes us think they’re dead for a few minutes to delve into character development, as was the case for Taichi and Hikari.
Make the 02 kids’ lives as stakes in the plot.
Cut back on the flashback images.
Exposition is also good, even Taichi voicing out his hesitance would’ve made for a great character moment, instead of just glaring at the enemy.
D.R Gennai shouldn’t have licked Sora. That event really didn’t need to happen.
D.R Gennai should’ve just let Meiko bleed to the point of unconsciousness instead of choking her as he taunts Meicoomon to fear and give in to her infections.
Devimon should’ve been an earlier opponent that was later reused in the ending movie to show how much Takeru has grown add in digivolving to Seraphimon.
A video file of Daisuke’s and the others’ defeat at the hands of Alphamon should’ve been viewed after the reboot happened, that would’ve raised the stakes higher.
Daisuke and the others should’ve joined the last fight in the last movie. Escaping from the hospital through their Digimon before collapsing at the very end.
I have no problem with Daigo’s partner becoming Baihumon. I think it’d been better had it been Azulongmon, considering he was the goggle head during his time and thus the leader of his group.
We know that Azulongmon is the leader of the Four Digimon Soverigns.
I think it’d come full circle had Daigo been partnered with Azulongmon.
I think the movie would then end with everyone visiting Daisuke and the others, Meiko included, introducing her to them.
Overall, I give the movie series a 6.8 out of 10 rating. It was a good watch, but the plot fell once they delved into darker themes and darker events for the sake of being dark and without substance. There were a couple of events that didn’t need to happen but happened for the sake of being dark.
Daigo’s death was certainly one of those events. The stakes could’ve been raised higher had the 02 kids were integrated into the plot and not just relegated into glorified silhouette cameos.
These suggestions would still run the course of the plot we got in Tri, but it would’ve flowed the plot organically and didn’t go dark for the sake of being dark.
I wanted to be generous with my rating, but it just won’t do. Even my bullet points review had more Cons than Pros. Factor in my bias for the 02 kids, and you get a 6.8 rating.
#digimon adventure tri#taichi yagami#daisuke motomiya#takeru takaishi#hikari yagami#yamato ishida#mimi tachikawa#joe kido#koushirou izumi#meiko mochizuki#daigo nishijima#maki himekawa#sora takenouchi#hackmon#alphamon#ordinemon#review
30 notes
·
View notes
Note
Let me start by saying that I love all of your meta and analysis soooo much especially the ones about Ozpin. I was curious to hear what what do you think are some legit motally grey things/mistakes he did, not the garbage the haters love to throw around. The only things I can think of are either in an impossible situation with only shitty options (where I don't really consider the decisions as immoral since morality needs agency and the chance of a better choice) like with Pyrrha and Oscar (1/2)
Thank you, anon! And honestly? I couldn’t agree more. I often say that Ozpin has made mistakes partly so that people don’t blow off the points I’m trying to make with, “Oh an Ozpin stan. Ignore her, she thinks he can do no wrong and thus can’t provide an objective opinion.” But honestly? Not all mistakes are created equal. There are mistakes one makes because they’re selfish, foolish, didn’t bother to take precautions---things that are preventable and therefore invite heavy criticism and an acknowledgment of responsibility. However, there are also mistakes that, as you say, are simply outside of your control. You don’t have the information available to make an informed and therefore better choice, or you simply just have bad choices from the get-go. For me, the vast majority of Ozpin’s mistakes are the latter.
Overall, I think the largest mistake he bears responsibility for is prioritizing his love for Salem over basic ethics. AKA, choosing to become a wannabe god with her and encouraging this mentality that they are intrinsically superior to everyone else in Remnant. Granted, there are many other factors involved in this, including Salem’s status as a creature now consumed by darkness (she was heading down this road no matter what Ozpin may have done differently) as well as her abuse towards Ozpin, her manipulation, and the sheer overwhelming terror of the goal Light set him. Which just reinforces that all Ozpin’s mistakes are understandable to one extent or another. He’s human and his mistakes resonate because, if people are honest with themselves, they’d probably admit, “Yeah. If I found the love of my life again I’d be tempted to ignore Light’s warning about her too. If I was offered a life of luxury and power under the guise of protecting the people, I might cave and go along with that as well...” We get how Ozpin got to that point, we may admit we couldn’t have done better, but we likewise understand that the man he became, regardless of how he got there---from natural human desires to abuse---isn’t okay. As Oz and his host ask themselves, “What are we doing?” And we see how he comes back from that edge. How he rejects that sort of power later when it’s offered to him after the Kingdoms were reunited. Ozpin learned from his mistakes.
Which adds further complications to his choices in the present day. Just as Ozpin learned that the world doesn’t need him as an all-powerful figurehead, he likewise learned that sharing secrets leads to nothing but the worst kind of consequences. The first time he reveals what he’s hiding? His wife announces that she’s going to take over the world, then murders their children, then him. A more recent time he reveals information? A very close friend betrays him to said wife. Tries to kill him. Nearly kills his allies. Is eventually killed himself. The latest time he was forced to reveal information? People are shouting, grieving, he’s punched into a tree, the one friend still at his side completely rejects him.
The fandom points to Ozpin’s lies and secret keeping among the group as his greatest mistakes and yes, objectively I agree. Without context I can say no, he shouldn’t have made a promise if he didn’t intend to keep it. He should have just told them that there were questions left, or that the relic attracted grimm. But the thing is that context is there and it always matters. I’ve spoken before about how I think Ozpin made that promise with precisely zero expectation that he’d ever be put into a situation where he might conceivably break it, that I’d also hesitate to tell a group that there were invaluable questions left when they were clearly eager to use them recklessly (which they then did), and that keeping the grimm aspect secret was the only logical course of action because telling them would just attract more. But even ignoring all of the potential justifications attached to each choice, I simply don’t believe we can ignore Ozpin’s trauma. I might not have lied to people like that, but I haven’t been horrifically traumatized for a thousand years whenever I do tell someone information. Ozpin has been conditioned not to tell people and though yes, everyone technically has free will, trauma like that will “force” you to take what you perceive as the only safe option. It fucks with your perception and your understanding of what even is an option in this situation. Ozpin simply no longer has the ability to go, “I’ll trust them!” like the others around him do and their reactions certainly didn’t help teach him otherwise. Imagine that for a thousand years you’re punched every time someone lifts their hand. Then someone you’ve just met demands that you stop flinching whenever they raise theirs. No matter how much you may want to stop, you can’t. Not immediately on someone else’s order. The human experience doesn’t work that way.
(As a side note, the reason why I emphasize a thousand years so much is because I believe the extent of the trauma and its implied consistency is really relevant here. As is the close tie between that trauma and Ozpin’s choices. There are many other characters out there who I don’t believe “But they had a hard life!” excuses their actions: Snape, Bakugo, recently what I’ve read of Yennefer---among others. It’s notable to me that Ozpin didn’t endure traumatic events by revealing information and then, say, go abuse his students for years. Or tell someone to kill themselves. Or take over someone else’s mind. Not only is his trauma more extensive than the vast majority of characters we meet, but he hasn’t used that trauma as an excuse to get away with horrific---and unrelated---choices. The love of my life rejected me and then died... so I’m going to abuse eleven-year olds under my care. My mom is demanding and people cater to me too much... so I’m going to gleefully beat up my weakest classmate. I dealt with being ugly for a good chunk of my life and now can’t have kids... so I’m going to take away someone’s autonomy and endanger a whole town. Unlike most other characters with tragic backstories, Ozpin has a one-to-one correlation between that hard life and the mistakes he’s made: people hurt me when I tell them things... so I just won’t tell them things. By keeping that strong connection it eliminates the possibility that Ozpin is just using his trauma as an excuse (knowingly or otherwise) and he is, notably, still a good person beyond those very specific choices. We see his horror at the decisions he has to make. We see his endless attempts to be as kind towards others as possible. We see how much he’s fought not to allow his trauma to warp him into a person he’d despise. A person like Salem. Just like not all mistakes are created equal, for me not all people making mistakes are equal either. I’m less likely to forgive your mistakes if you’re an all around horrible person. You’re clearly a good person trying your best? Your mistakes are easier to stomach and, as discussed above, I’m more inclined to assume that these mistakes stem from things outside of your control. If someone who has been nothing but cruel to me lied I’d automatically be pissed. If someone who has been nothing but kind to me lied, I’m inclined to ask them why they did that, expecting that there’s a good reason attached to that decision.)
So did Ozpin make mistakes? Technically yes, but I think they were mistakes largely outside of his control. Either he only had shit options available to him or he was in a position where the group demanded something of him that his mental health simply wouldn’t allow. People have to remember that we’re not Ozpin (insert obligatory, “He’s fictional” here). We have more options available to us when it comes to our choices, simply by means of not having gone through what he has. His choices are always limited, both by outside factors and his own experiences, and they likewise always have inevitable downsides. Ozpin doesn’t get the luxury of choosing anything that turns out well.
As a final note, with Volume 7 underway I’d say that another potential mistake has been introduced: making Pyrrha the Fall Maiden. Meaning, unless the story reveals that Winter actually can’t become the next Winter Maiden due to her age (unlikely given that others have said the non-canonical age limit is 30), it raises the question of why he’d choose a 17 year old over a 20-some graduate. However, to me this is pretty clearly a writing issue. The creators were more concerned with keeping the story revolved around RWBYJNR than they were the implications of having Ozpin choose Pyrrha over a more suitable adult. So though yes, I’d technically consider that another mistake.... obviously not much Ozpin could do against his own creators lol.
Which finally leads to me saying that although Rooster Teeth seems to want us to believe that Ozpin is a morally gray character, they haven’t succeeded in writing one well. That characterization requires a fair balance between what most would consider “good” and “bad” traits. Not a good person presented with only bad choices. Or a character so horrifically conditioned that his ability to make a better decision is almost impossible. We wouldn’t call a person who was manipulated or forced into doing bad things a morally gray character, nor would we use that term if, somehow, they were sick and that led to those choices. That’s how I view Ozpin, mentally as opposed to physically sick. After a thousand years he needs evidence that trusting people and giving them his secrets won’t result in him being hurt. Until he’s shown that, expecting him to trust people just because they insist they are trustworthy is like asking someone with a broken leg to run you a race. They can try, but good look expecting them to succeed.
50 notes
·
View notes
Text
Fanfiction 102: Unit 1, Villains
Welcome back to class! The topic of villains came up while writing Fanfiction 101. The Editor and I consider villains important. They are the most important characters in a narrative because it is their actions and their choices that shape the plot, the desires of the main character, and their actions. Usually, in fanfiction, you already have a villain. If you write Harry Potter fanfic, your villains are Voldemort, Umbridge, Snape, Lucius, etc. If you write Supernatural fanfic, your villains are Crowley, Lucifer, Chuck, etc. We can acknowledge that for most fanfic writers the most you’ll have to do is accurately capture the voice of a villain so you can replicate them for your story in a way the audience will believe. This is done by studying the character and taking care to not reduce the villain to a one-note trait of their personality. However, we see lots of fanfic writers add in their own villains; these are usually secondary or minor characters. Sometimes they are backstory villains only, or sometimes they’re just bullies meant to be an added antagonist. These villains, because they are all your own, need to be the most important characters in your stories, and that’s why we’re here to talk today.
Villains are the most difficult to figure out. When you write a villain, you are writing a character and explaining to yourself, and therefore the audience, not only why this person is a bad guy, but why they’re doing bad things. I do not like villains who are Bad Guy McBadGuys that exist solely to make the OC’s life miserable. That isn’t a villain. That’s an asshole. These characters are the most common villains we see, and I myself am guilty of writing them in the past because we don’t want to give the bad guys thought. Usually, the writer wants to focus on the protagonist, but the side characters and opposing characters need way more thought than the OC. The OC’s motivations are easy to figure out. Their job is to complete the quest, save the day, and oppose the villain. Their entire goal as a character can be written around a villain, and when that happens you better be damn sure you know why the villain is doing what they’re doing. One-note villains are common in both Harry Potter and the Avengers. Usually, this is because the villain is either a Death Eater or HYDRA, and they can be bad for the sake of being bad because we know both groups are bad guys. I want you to remove yourselves from that approach. I would highly encourage you to read the comic series published a few years back called Captain America: Hail HYDRA. If you know Avengers you probably know this comic, because it’s the one where the writers tried to say that Captain America, God’s Righteous Man, has been a secret HYDRA agent this whole time. It was a whole Twitter moment, it was the #saynotoHYDRACap thing. That comic. In that comic, along with Captain America pledging his support to HYDRA, is an account from a character named Robbie Dean Tomlin. We as the audience follow Robbie’s story and see how a young kid can get wrapped up in an organization like HYDRA and get beaten and broken down to the point that he’s willing to become a suicide bomber for them. What Hail HYDRA can teach us is how to make a villain relatable, and how a normal character can get wrapped up in a group that we as an audience can look at and immediately know is bad. We see them as evil, but we never question why or how a character gets involved in that. If you are going to write a villain that can compel an audience, you need to start asking those questions. Why is this character where they are? Are they angry? Are they scared of someone else? Does this character think they’re doing the right thing? If so, why are they/do they use violence to accomplish their goals? Why is that necessary? When you look at Robbie Dean Tomlin’s story you can answer all those questions. You get him not as a villain, but as a character, and that’s where it starts.
Another great example of villains as characters and not as bad guys is found in Avatar: The Last Airbender. Specifically the episode ‘The Boiling Rock’ where Sokka and Zuko break into the Fire Nation’s highest security prison and pretend to be guards. Their goal is to break Sokka’s dad and girlfriend Suki out of prison. The important note is that during the episode Sokka is able to chat with the Fire Nation guards. These people are his adversaries in this episode. They could imprison or kill him if he is discovered, but the guards aren’t set on that. They aren’t hell-bent on torturing the prisoners either. They’re just people. Not only that they’re nice people. The guards are nice to each other. They’re nice to Sokka, and they give not only their characters but the Fire Nation more dimension. Not every Death Eater under Voldemort is going to share his exact viewpoints or his bloodthirst. They are not all hell-bent on, ‘I must capture and kill Harry Potter,’ or, ‘I must spit in the face of muggles and mudbloods because they have to know their place.’ The same is true for HYDRA, or the Empire if you’re writing for Star Wars or the Fire Nation. You have to start writing your characters as people and give them the backstory and reasoning that would make them evil.
Me personally, when I am writing a story the villain is the first character I write. I want to know them and know why they’re about to be mean to my OC. We’ll use two different villains I’ve written as examples: Anna and Sion. We will also use a common villain from fanfiction, Dolores Umbridge, for comparison.
Treat your villains like protagonists. In a sense, they are the protagonists of their own stories, they just happen to be the antagonists of your OC’s. Know about their hobbies. Whether they have a family. If they don’t, what happened to that family? This information doesn’t need to be used necessarily, but it helps you as a writer know your antagonist as a person. For Anna, I know that she loves the outdoors. She likes rock-climbing and kayaking and she enjoys time outside. I know she has a son that she loves dearly, and she has a specific brand of French candy that she keeps well-stocked for herself. Sion, I know she has been married twice and has kids from both marriages. I know she likes fantasy novels because the idea of mythical beasts sounds cool to her. Dolores Umbridge, we know as readers loves the color pink. She likes frilly and lacy things. She loves cats. She’s the epitome of the old white ladies who shop at Dillards. It’s okay for you to give your villains something that isn’t stereotypically villainous. When we get into good examples of villains we’ll explain more why quirks and characterization is so important.
Once you’ve created a character with a personality, start to flesh out where they work. What they do. This will give you a better idea of how they will interact with the OC. This too can be against the grain of stereotypical villains, which the Editor and I usually see as men in dark rooms brooding over something we the audience don’t know and beating the OC because it’s fun. Again, that isn’t a villain, that’s just an asshole. I also as a reader don’t know who that villain is as a person. I just know that I’m supposed to really really hate him or her because they’re mean to the OC. So, give them a personality, and tell me about their life. Are they the CEO of a massive corporation? Are they politicians? A teacher? A spy? Give me something I can take in and help me as the reader understand who this person is. We know Dolores is senior undersecretary to the Minister. She is a woman in a high place who loves her job. Anna, for example, we’ll say is a former spy. She was a spy when she was younger and has moved up in her organization to the point where she oversees other agents and acts as their support. Sion on the contrary is the head of the department of Chemistry wherever she works. She oversees students and has her own research lab. All characters have opportunities to interact with people, and therefore the OC. Your villain shouldn’t be a hermit. That’s less realistic, because then, how can we expect them to go antagonize the OC if they never leave the house?
So, we now have a character with a personality, and we have a character with a career that fits their story. A good way that I’ve found to turn a character who would otherwise be good evil, is to pile on those flaws and have them act on their weaknesses more so than their strengths. We give our protagonists strengths and weaknesses but seldom do they lean on their weaknesses and put faith in insecurities. Let your villains down that kool-aid. It’ll make the drop into madness smoother. For Sion, we’ll have a character who is insecure. She is insecure about her usefulness, she’s worried her department will be absorbed into another, she’s insecure about her age and about some freak from nowhere with none of her training or experience being able to take away and undercut her value in the society she lives in. She has many children to provide for, and has a lot to lose should she lose her job (psst, this is where the OC comes in). Anna as a character grew a bit differently. Her insecurities came from her backstory, where she fell in love with another spy, had a long happy life with that spy until the same life that brought them together and made the world a game killed him. Her weaknesses come in that she feels abused by the system, and that she will not let others be abused by the same system. She feels more gallant than a character like Sion, and that she is saving characters who wouldn’t listen to her otherwise. Who doesn’t understand that the world is filled with bad people and no one else is willing to take out bad people? (psst, this is the easy driving force for the protagonists to oppose). Dolores’s insecurities come from ignorance. She follows the Minister on blind faith and doesn’t want to be proven wrong. If he fails she sees herself as failing too. In addition, she has internalized intolerance that has built up over time because of the oppression of half-breeds and muggle-borns. She helps write laws that oppress muggle-borns. She makes them submit for questioning. Dolores is happy where she is because her prejudice is a blanket of security for her. She loves her job, and she wants to stay where she is. So when Dumbledore or Harry try to uproot her, she is antagonistic.
The impact of Sion, Dolores, and Anna, is that you end up with characters who do bad things but don’t see themselves as bad people. Anna believes she is doing the work that no one else is willing to do. That she is going after bad guys. Sion believes she is keeping her department alive. That she is looking out for the good of her people. Dolores is serving her ministry. None of these characters are truly evil, but when you present a young upstart who comes out of a factory that gets the spotlight and attention, or a group of ragtag kids who are trying to save as many people as they can regardless of experience because, “you can’t change where you come from,” or a wizard trying to shake down the years of intolerance at the central government, you get antagonism that is natural and makes sense. You get conflict that makes sense not only for the protagonists, but it makes sense for the antagonists to oppose them. That should be your goal when writing a villain. It should make sense for the villain to oppose the protagonist and vice versa, and it shouldn’t be because the villain is evil and that’s it.
Now, to drive these points home further we’re going to break down great villains from the media and discuss why they are successful in the context that we’ve given you. We hope that by explaining these villains in the terms that we’ve just described, the importance of creating villains as characters first will make more sense.
Let’s talk about Azula. She was the first to come up when the Editor and I discussed villains. We as an audience know Azula’s backstory. We know she was “born lucky,” and was beloved and revered by her father and grandfather. We know she had a bad relationship with her mother. We know she had friends. These are all aspects of personality that make Azula someone we can understand. Azula is serving her father and the Fire Nation. It just so happens that that nation is under more evil leadership. When we see the downfall of Azula, we see how the writers used her own insecurities to become her undoing. We see her instead as a deeply paranoid person, who is afraid of being betrayed by people she is supposed to trust. You see her crack under her own pressures. The brilliance of Azula is that we as an audience can relate to her in her downfall, and we see who she is beyond being a bad guy. She’s not like General Zhao, whose motivations and desires were more straightforward. She has complicated goals and wishes and desires that allow us to understand who she is as a person.
Lucifer from Supernatural is another great example of a compelling villain. You see it in his development. He is meant to be the ultimate evil because he is after Sam and wants the end of the world. What the writers on Supernatural did is really explore the why of Lucifer’s actions. You see it in how his brothers talk to him. You see how Lucifer was, “the only one who could see what was going on.” That he couldn’t handle the new baby (mankind) coming home and lashed out. That he was kicked out of heaven by trying to prove that humans weren’t perfect. You see in the actor himself, that Lucifer is given a reason to be angry and a methodology behind his anger. This makes him more compelling as a villain. He isn’t evil just to be evil and he isn’t opposing humanity just to do it, he has a reason behind what he does. It makes us understand him as a character because his anger is relatable.
Loki is often a villain or a love-interest in fanfiction. Sometimes when we’re feeling spicy, he’s a villain turned into a love interest because oh my god growth. Loki is given familial relationships and friendships that help us understand who he is as a character. On top of that, he’s given justifiable anger similar to that of Lucifer’s, which makes him act bad but believe he is in the right. Often when we read Loki fanfiction we see the tortured soul Loki who needs someone who can “understand” and “see him” in ways that his brother of 100-odd years somehow inexplicably cannot. This does not just apply to Loki (see Draco Malfoy, Lucifer, and sometimes Paul Lahote but he isn’t a villain). If you are going to give Loki a family that doesn’t know or understand him, you need to give Loki character traits that said the family wouldn’t know about. Hobbies he likes, activities he enjoys. Often Loki is reduced to reading, but in-depth analysis can allude to his reading being a means of escaping a bad situation. Does he write too? Tell me more. Loki is often reduced to either the tortured soul or the lunatic and he is neither. He is a boy first and foremost, who has been lied to his whole life, who was taken in as a political prop and was shoved aside and made to feel unwanted because he was not the blood son. That kind of stuff stays with a person. It messes you up and puts a lot of negative ideas in your head. From here is the source of Loki’s anger, but don’t say that his family doesn’t know him. They do, what they don’t do is accept or nurture him. The exception to this is Frigga. Loki’s motivations as a villain come from his backstory and the relationship he has with both his father and brother. Where fanfic writers often stumble is this dynamic, which is not one of unfamiliarity but one that lacks acceptance. Loki was ostracized for being different, but that isn’t to say Thor and the Warriors Three didn’t know he was different.
Let’s talk about the Death Eaters. The Death Eaters are a great example of how systemic intolerance shapes a generation. They serve Voldemort out of both fear and loyalty because his power is something that is ingrained in their minds as something that is right. His ideas are perpetuated by Salazar Slytherin and enforced by pureblood families. The Death Eaters are examples of those who grew up in intolerance. They don’t necessarily follow Voldemort because they agree with him, but because their families do, their colleagues and friends do. They are so deep in this life they don’t know how to get out. Look at the obvious discomfort of the Malfoys in books 6 and 7. They clearly don’t want to be there. Death Eaters are way more complex than people give them credit for. If you’re writing Death Eater characters, lean into the Draco Malfoys and the Regulus Blacks of the world. Study how people in cults act and reflect on their time after leaving the cult. These resources will help you write characters that are more compelling than just, ‘Mudbloods suckkkk lmao.’
Because he is so popular as a villain, we’re going to talk about Lucius Malfoy in addition to Death Eaters. Lucius Malfoy’s representation in fanfiction is horribly executed 9 times out of 10. This is because he follows the same fate of many characters that we discussed in Fanfiction 101. Lucius Malfoy is reduced to one-note beats and the most blatant parts of his personality. Because he is a villain, that beat is “I hate mudbloods and love Voldemort.” He’s like one of those MLM moms who are like, “love my God and my Essential Oils.” Lucius Malfoy should not be reduced to MLM moms with Live Laugh Love and internalized misogyny. He is way smarter than that. You don’t become one of Voldemort’s most devoted followers and come back from that without having your wits about you. Lucius is way smarter than what fanfiction writers commonly give him credit for. He’s intelligent. He’s driven. He was a Head Boy in his time at Hogwarts, and he knew how to try and sink his enemies without implicating himself. If you write Lucius Malfoy you need to dip into the cat-and-mouse games that are Lucius's personality. He’s not aggressively evil. He’s quiet. He slips in after the fighting is done and takes what he wants. The best example of this is during Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Everyone knew that it was Malfoy who slipped Tom Riddle’s diary in Ginny’s cauldron. However, there was no proof. Lucius Malfoy is a careful man, and in fanfiction that needs to be reflected.
Villains are the most important character in your narrative. You need to view them as people. As characters first and as bad guys second. Your OC’s story can be centered around the villain, who should be complex, thought-out, and should have methods behind their madness. The audience needs to understand who your villain is by reading about them, just as much as your OC or side characters.
Next week we’re discussing superpowers. We’ll break down how to make a cool set of superpowers, the common mistakes in superpowers, and give good and cringe examples.
Xoxo, Gossip Girl.
#ff102#fanfiction101#fanfiction102#fanfic#fanfiction#writing#OC#self-insert#Original Work#Sherlock#Harry Potter#Supernatural#Marvel#Daredevil#DC Comics#Batman#Avatar The Last Airbender#atla#Percy Jackon and the Olympians#percy jackson#twilight
5 notes
·
View notes
Text
Virgil and Logan
First of all, major spoilers for the new video, so proceed with caution! tl;dr at the end ‘cause this got long.
So it finally happened in this video. What we’ve all been suspecting for the longest time was properly confirmed: Virgil used to be a part of the group that we refer to as the “dark sides.”
Of course, with that confirmation also came some pretty conclusive evidence to the other theory that each “light side” has an opposite—in the form of Roman and Remus (lovely play on Romulus and Remus, by the way). Naturally, that means that the second the video dropped, there was immediately a ton of speculation about who Virgil’s “light side” is, as well as to who Logan’s “dark side” is, with a popular theory beginning to quickly emerge with the conclusion that Virgil is Logan’s “dark side.”
Now, I will admit that this theory is compelling for a number of reasons, one of my personal favorites being that Virgil is very grounded in logic, but a form of logic twisted both to fit his own goals and to, unfortunately, cater to and intensify his own fears. On top of that, both Virgil and Logan have shown protective streaks throughout the series. However, I really don’t think this theory is quite hitting the nail on the head...
For one thing, based upon the Rainbow Theory, which, again, received greatly conclusive evidence with Remus’ color being green, there still remains one “dark side,” Orange, and I think that whoever that is will be Logan’s actual “dark side.” I have a few reasons for thinking this:
Logan has never displayed any sort of true annoyance / fear / affectedness toward any of the “dark sides” we have encountered thus far. He has, without fail, always been able to rationalize poor behavior, whether it be from Deceit, Remus, or, yes, even Virgil. If Virgil were actually Logan’s “dark side,” one would think that Logan would be more affected by him, but he’s not. Logan has not yet been daunted by any of the “dark sides,” and has, in fact, been a vital tool in shooting down all three of them--Deceit in his first appearance in “Can Lying Be Good?,” Remus in “Dealing with INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS,” and, finally, Virgil in “My NEGATIVE Thinking.” I believe that we will finally meet someone who can actually shake Logan to his core in the form of Orange, whenever that character makes his appearance. As of right now, Logan has been the guiding force through the “dark sides”; it’s why Deceit firmly sidelined him last episode--because he’s a threat. If Logan has a “dark side,” it needs to be someone who will put him off his game so completely that the others are forced to fight him without Logan’s aid, using the lessons that Logan has taught them (as a side-note, it is my theory that this is what will finally bring us to Logan’s room).
Speaking of the others--or, more specifically, “the others,” I find it rather interesting that Virgil refuses the term “dark sides.” He used to be one of them, but even with that experience, he obviously doesn’t believe that that title is fitting. Every single time that the word has been brought up or that Virgil has referred to those sides, he either seems uncomfortable with the title or outright refuses it. In its first appearance, which comes from Roman in "Can Lying Be Good?”, Virgil winces at its use--now, obviously this could be because he was one and that term stings a little, and that’s likely a contributing factor, but with other evidence, that just doesn’t seem fully right. In the last episode, Virgil refers to them as Deceit and “his friends.” Multiple times, he’s called them simply: “The Others,” including within this episode when, in a display that I think makes my whole point, Thomas specifically calls them the “dark sides” to Virgil’s face, only for him to immediately respond with this alternative title. This leads me to the crux of my theory:
I think we, and all of the “light sides” minus Virgil, as well as Character-Thomas have been going about this the wrong way. Thinking of the sides as “light” and “dark” may be doing more harm than good. Logan said himself in this episode that Patton/Thomas think of things in terms that are far too “black and white,” with Roman being a major contributing factor to this. Who named the “dark sides”? Roman. While I do think that some of the sides are rather opposed to one another, they are also necessary to complement each other and make Thomas into a full person--and when I say complement, I mean that quite literally. Roman and Remus are literally cut from the same cloth. They were, presumably, one full side originally before the divide that produced two Creativities. I will concede that “light sides” and “dark sides” are convenient shorthand terms, yes, but the idea of such diametrically opposed sides ignores the areas of Character-Thomas’ personality that are morally gray (honestly, Deceit is the best example of this) and forces us and the characters within the narrative to put the sides into boxes that they don’t necessarily fit in. I don’t approve of Remus’ viewpoints or many of Deceit’s, but I also acknowledge that they may have things to bring to the table--or, at least, Deceit does. And if we add on the fact that Virgil was a “dark side,” or rather, an “Other,” then that’s just full confirmation that things in Character-Thomas’ head can’t be evenly divided into “Light” and “Dark,” something which is only further backed by the Rainbow Theory--there can only be seven sides if that theory is correct. There isn’t room for each and every character to have an opposing character--a “dark” to their “light” or vice-versa--and if I were placing my bets on which character won’t, I’m going to have to go with Virgil.
Virgil’s mere existence and his very proven capacity for both good and evil is an immediate point against the dichotomy implied by the idea of “dark sides” and “light sides.” A side so neutral cannot exist within that dichotomy, and it is clear that Virgil knows this and, in fact, disputes that dichotomy through his insistence on refusing to use the term “dark sides.” At the end of the day, Virgil proves that the “dark sides” are not evil by nature--they have a very real capacity to do good for Thomas if they only decide to, and, more importantly, decide to do it with the cooperation and help of the other sides. Virgil’s redemption arc came as a result of his long-term interactions with the “light sides,” and it was through their support that he began to work with Thomas instead of against him. What is important about the current “dark sides,” Remus and Deceit, is that they refuse to work with the other sides, or even, really, with Thomas. In their current states, they aren’t good for Thomas because they aren’t working with him, in a different meaning of the word for each. Deceit believes that he is the only one who knows best for Thomas (a trait which Logan also occasionally exhibits, and which becomes a problem when it makes itself known), and it is because of this belief that he will not ever be a “light side” if he continues to refuse to change his ways--because Deceit, much like Virgil in the beginning of his character arc, cannot do good--or, in this case protect Thomas--without balance from others. A point has been made in the series that too much of a good thing is bad, and while I don’t personally believe that Deceit is a fully good thing, I don’t actually think lying is always bad, either. What makes Deceit, the character, a bad thing is his refusal to find his balance and to see that just because he advocates for something, that does not automatically make that something good. Remus, on the other hand, is in the unique situation with Roman of neither of them being a full, actualized side. By themselves, they are each only halves of a full Creativity who separated due to repression. The reason that Roman and Remus are so diametrically opposed as to make them the only true representations of the ideas of “light” and “dark” sides is because they are disallowed balance by their very natures as separated sides. Balance, and therefore, goodness and helpfulness toward Thomas, is impossible for Remus, in particular, out of the two of them, because while, in the separation, Roman was given the liberty of good creativity, even with its idealistic drawbacks, Remus was left only with the bad creativity--the thoughts that could never be helpful or necessary in, as Virgil says, the mind of a “stable” person. It is because of this that, although I do think Deceit has the capacity for good, I don’t think Remus does, and, vice-versa, I don’t think Roman has a full capacity for intentional wrongdoing--because neither is a full side. They are the only actual, indisputable justification for the use of the “light” and “dark” terms, which, again, were notably coined by Roman, who would naturally gravitate toward these terms as a half of a whole. All of this is to say that, I don’t believe there is any possible way for Virgil to have a “light” side, and thus, for him to be Logan’s “dark” side, because I don’t believe that those concepts work. Indeed, although Virgil may once have worked with “The Others,” he was never a “dark side” because “dark sides” don’t exist--just sides neglecting or unable to achieve balance within Thomas.
In conclusion, because this has become far too long, I don’t know how much stock I’m willing to put in the concepts of “dark sides” and “light sides”--I don’t think the lines are so definite in any case except for Remus’ and Roman’s due to neither being a full side (which leaves lovely room for Roman angst, by the way, my dudes). Because of this, I don’t think that Virgil is Logan’s “dark side”. It’s a fun theory, yes, but I can’t bring myself to believe in it. I do think we’ll meet Logan’s opposition eventually, but I don’t think things are so cut-and-dry as “light” and “dark,” especially for Virgil, who not only disproves the whole thing merely by existing as a character, but who also has shown himself to be extremely threatened by both of the other “dark sides,” rather than by any “light side” opposition of his. Whereas Patton is clearly disturbed by Deceit, his opposition, and Roman is outright taken out of the picture by Remus, Logan has not yet been daunted by either, and Virgil has been intimidated by both. Virgil’s real “opposition” in this whole thing, in a way, is himself, and, more specifically his past, which he is scared to death of hurting Thomas with, just as he puts unbearable pressure upon himself to protect Thomas from that past. Meanwhile, I see no possible way that Virgil could be Logan’s opposition, because they have never held that attitude toward each other in the way that Deceit-and-Patton and Remus-and-Roman do. Even in their worst argument--”My Negative Thinking”--they ended the video by complimenting one another, and Logan, notably, by going so far as to reassure Virgil. I think that the whole concept of “light sides” and “dark sides” comes down to balance, or a lack thereof, and I don’t think that Logan and Virgil can possibly be on opposing ends of any kind of spectrum because they provide that balance for each other rather than constantly fighting for an upper-hand in pursuit of their own goals, as the other opposed pairs do. So yeah. That’s just my theory. A Sanders Sides theory.
TL;DR - The theory that Virgil is actually Logan’s “dark side” has been floating around since the release of the new video, but, for a number of reasons, I’m convinced that this isn’t the case, and, in fact, put very little stock in the truth behind the concepts of “light” and “dark” sides to begin with, for other reasons.
#sanders sides#ts spoilers#dealing with intrusive thoughts#ts sides#thomas sanders#sanders sides spoilers#ts theories#sanders sides theories#virgil sanders#logan sanders#roman sanders#patton sanders#deceit#deceit sanders#ts deceit#remus sanders#ts virgil#ts logan#ts roman#ts patton#ts remus#theories#video theory
155 notes
·
View notes
Note
I heard that Ougi is a pretty similar to Kumagawa? Or even better than him? I didn’t watch Monogatari, but is that really true? If it is, I might give Monogatari a try.
Ougi and Kumagawa: Shadows of the Main Character
They’re both fantastic characters, and I personally reccomend anybody reading to check out both series. Thank you for sending me this ask so I can talk about two characters I love, anon!
They’re similiar because they are both written after the same archetype. This is archetype in a Jungian sense, which means common character types that appear in almost every story. However, Ougi and Kumagawa are intentionally written that way. They are written as shadows and opposites to oppose the main characters of their respective works.
The shadow is simply the dark side of someone’s personality. And what is dark is always known only indirectly through projection. That is, one discovers his dark side as something belonging to others: friends, relatives, fictitious characters, etc. This is why the meeting with the personal shadow is considered to be a moral effort. The difficulty of integrate the shadow is huge, if we have to face alone this powerful figure.
The shadow is the first to be met when one starts his self analysis. As long as the shadow is not assimilated and controlled by the consciousness, it may appear in dreams and fantasies mingled with the anima archetype .
The black shadow may appear as an archetype too. The devil’s images and the demonic features (symbols) are very common to men’s dreams.
So in other words these are traits that are present in the main character, which the main character can never acknowledge. So they appear as being representd in another character instead, because the character expresses all of those traits instead of repressing them. It’s like a person who has violent tendencies that keeps them hidden, meeting someone who is openly violent on the surface. The theory of the Jungian shadow states that since we can only recognize these traits through projection if we are more ignorant of them, then you would be especially sensitive to seeing that trait in others.
It’s an idea that Nisioisin has played with a lot even since his second novel, where he presents the serial killer who is the same but also the complete opposite as the main character who acts as a detective solving murder mysteries.
Maybe it was a very primal experience. The very first word we ever heard. A record to be termed our roots.A past to be likened with associations. Vectors with identical origins and directions.As if to precede the everyday. As if reflected in a mirror. That is to say,I think we were similiar. “Zaregoto vol 2″
These mirror like characters who seem to be polar opposites but at the same time, they reflect each other. Because internally they are the same but one of them chooses to repress, and the other chooses to express.
The shadow is associated with primal, instinctual feelings that we ourselves are unaware of most of the time. The shadow is what we ourselves do not acknowledge, but at the same time the shadow needs to be acknowledged to be a full fledged person.
They are associated with shadows because they are hidden and yet always with me. The shadow cannot exist without a light being cast on it, but it inevitably exists in tandem with the light. They are associated with mirrors, because the shadow unconsciously reflects.
Mirrors, shadows.Broken glass, a warped reflection.
Therefore we see both the confrontation between Araragi and Ougi, and the conforntation between Kumagawa and Zenkichi/Medaka. Ougi and Kumagawa, respectiely, are both playing the shadow to their respective protagonists. They are trying to force the other characters to understand.
2. Confrontation
To elaborate on this point let’s look at two scenes on confrontation. Kumagawa Misogi is the dark side of Medaka’s good intentions, and Zenkichi’s struggles to be stronger.
Zenkichi is heroic in his violence. He fights to protect others. Him getting into fights or acting with violence is never a bad thing. Kumagawa is villainous in his violence, when he fights he’s always framed as horrifying and twisted. Zenkichi fights honestly, Kumagawa uses dirty tricks to win.
Medaka trying to make everyone happy is never shown as a bad thing this far in the manga. If people don’t want to be happy, they’re obviously wrong. Kumagawa however, is framed as wrong and horrible for wanting to make everyone miserable. Even though both of their goals are distinctly inpersonal, loving everyone and hating everyone, it’s just projecting a feeling on a mass of people. Neither of them really love or hate anyone in particular because they’re both so distant from other people, so inhuman.
Kumagawa represents a part of Medaka and Zenkcihi that neither of them want to confront or acknowledge. In a twisted way the whole minus arc is Kumagawa trying to get them to understand his suffering, that there is no good way to suffer, that there are no such thing as good or bad victims instead of the simple and beaufiful thing that Medaka sees as saving others most victims are in fact ugly.
Medaka can’t understand why Kumagawa would want to lash out and hurt other people, why he’s looking for someone to blame for his misery, but she doesn’t understand that right now he sees the only other option is just shutting up and taking it. Which he has been doing his whole life and what drove him insane to this point. She doesn’t get that there’s no good way to suffer.
Kumagawa is even saying that he’s trying to get people to feel what he feels. That is he’s playing shadow, he’s making his suffering which is mostly unacknowledged plain for all to see. And Medaka doesn’t want to look at him, she wants to look away and keep being blind to the shdaow.
The next chapter is even titled “it’s about accepting”, and Kumagawa says that if Zenkichi were to accept the same amount of negative things that happened in his life, that Zenkichi would have turned out like him.And we see once again, Zenkichi rejects him. Someone like Kumagawa was never in his sight to begin with, he does not understand him, he does not want to understand him, he is completely blind to his shadow.
Ougi does the same, he confronts Araragi about his own reckless behavior. Ougi believes the same things that Araragi pretends not to know but otherwise represses.
However, you haven’t read monogatari so I won’t spoil the whole arc for you. Ougi confronts Araragi in three different situations, basically trying to convince Araragi to try to solve everything on his own rather than depending on others.
They confronts Araragi with his own repressed self hatred, and feelings of inadequacy that he spends all of his time repressing. Ougi the same as Kumagawa is presented as someone Araragi has to accept to become a whole and complete person.
Though, they are same in archetype they’re almost completely different in character. Kumagawa does everything himself, he fights. He doesn’t plan ahead for anything and instead relies on his own cleverness, and his way to bluff and guess his way through situations. Ougi is intelligent, and often works by manipulating other people through the shadows and pulling on strings. He’s good enough at reading people on an intellectual level to predict them. Ougi is all intellectualism, he’s all logic, whereas Kumagawa is raw emotion, he tends to do everything based off of his own personal feelings which is why he ends up acting so chaotic because those feelings themselves are illogical. Kumagawa is pure empathy, and he gets along with other people shockingly well and basically just acts like a normal dude when he’s not trying to be the worst. Ougi is defined by how abnormal they are, they can’t not act abnormal. Every conversation they have with someone they unnerve them. Even when they’re not trying to, they act suggestive, and overly polite while at the same time being intrusively creepy, like they’re stuck in permanent spooky ghost mode.
They also believe completely opposite things. Kumagawa believes the world is entirely meaningless and chaotic, and therefore lacking in order. He instinctually rejects all meaning and order. He’s obsessed with being wrong, accepting what is wrong, what is rejected, because he knows there’s no such thing as what’s right.
Ougi is the opposite. Kumagawa would reject everything Ougi believes in. Ougi believes that there is a pre-supposed order of the world. That there is a way things are supposed to be. They believe n rightness, and that you have to strive for the right way to do things.
Ougi wants things to be neat, proper, and orderly. In other words Ougi represents the idea of fairness, justice, balance. Kumagwa believes in unfairness, injustice, and that things are funadmentally out of balance. Kumagawa embraces the disorder of everything around him, whereas Ougi tries to force things to become more correct as they see fit. Ougi is trying to fix everyone on the right path, Kumagawa wants to throw things into chaos.
So while the same archetype they are actually pretty different as people. I don’t think it’s that important which one is better or worse because they’re both reflecting different ideas in the first place. If you enjoyed Medaka Box, then you would likely enjoy Monogatari as well! I reccomend everybody check it out.
The more you read of Nisioisin’s works the better, and if you have any questions feel free to send them in my inbox!
44 notes
·
View notes
Note
I used to LOVE Daenerys but seriously her fandom is a bunch of bitter fucks who like to slam Sansa for literally everything and it made me dislike Dany as a result. I hope the leaks are right and Sansa comes out stronger.
Yeah, the Danielle fandom has honestly turned me off from her more than anything Danielle herself has done. (I mean, I also absolutely HATE the white savior part of her character, but it’s her reception as a feminist icon that bothers me even more.) The depictions of POC in her chapters are abhorrent to me so I have a very hard time connecting to her, but I don’t absolutely hate her. I just hate when people try to act like the POC should be grateful for her dismantling their society unasked and without a reparation plan, and then bringing them over to Westeros to literally die in the second battle they fought. As a person whose family has been affected by real-life white people who do real-life Danielle shit with the same Danielle logic, I just can’t find her empathetic in certain ways. It’s totally fine for people to like her, they just should acknowledge that she’s not all good.
People have been hating on Sansa since the moment she was introduced, either for her interests or for things that were completely out of her control, so Sansa hate is frustrating but not new. The Danielle vs Sansa thing these past couple of seasons has just been the icing on the cake. What I don’t understand is why Sansa has to be brought into every single bit of Danielle discourse and why people have to act like they are diametrically opposed. Since season 6, before they even met, people were making fun of Sansa and comparing her unfavorably to Danielle when neither of them had anything to do with each other. It got worse in season 7 when J0neryses and J0nsas started getting ridiculous. The drama between Danielle and Sansa is contrived as fuck, just like last year’s drama with Arya. We know that GRRM’s Sansa loves the company of women and being a woman, and she would never treat her sister or Danielle the way she did in the past two seasons. It’s pathetic how badly D&D write her and how they constantly frame her as if she’s the pettiest character in the show. I can’t even analyze it seriously because everything on the show is so stupid, but even with an in-universe analysis, Northern independence and food supply are legitimate concerns. Winter is here and Jon lost confidence of the Northern lords because he went to Dragonstone and knelt to Danielle right after becoming KitN. Now Sansa has a bunch of angry lords to appease so I don’t see how she’s petty for being wary of a Targ when the last known Targs burned her family and started Robert’s Rebellion. And last episode, Danielle and Sansa didn’t even talk, but people are still putting Sansa down because… she didn’t physically fight? Because she’s not a warrior? From the beginning, the fundamental point of her character has always been to show the validity of non-violent skills and non-toxic personality traits. There is not one Sansa fan who give a fuck that she can’t fight. If anything, we’re more upset that we were robbed of an amazing chance to display Sansa’s empathy and level-headedness in the crypts. Fucking Blackwater, anyone!? How is it cowardly or pathetic of her to stay in the crypts to save/comfort hundreds of people who also can’t fight and wouldn’t have had any other place to go during the battle? It’s not Sansa or Sansa fans’ fault that she always gets the short end of the stick because the writers hate everything she stands for. I haven’t heard much of the leaks, but as long as Sansa gets some recognition for her skills I’ll be happy. I’m not really invested in Danielle’s ending, regardless of whether it’s good or bad.
55 notes
·
View notes
Text
The World Goes By
Author: locke-writes
Title: The World Goes By
Synopsis: For @lt-sammi-matthews Twist on the Myth challenge. The myth was Robin Hood and the character was Frank Castle
Rating: T
Word Count: 2,539
You lay there for a moment staring at the ceiling, Frank asleep beside you. It was moments like this that made you regret everything you had ever done. With Frank as The Punisher you didn't have a chance at a normal life anyway but your own associations made each day difficult. At any minute you could be caught. Frank knew this and you knew this but nonetheless you took the risks when available. Like tonight.
If you had your wish everything would be different. You wouldn't be slowly stepping out of his apartment before sunrise and taking a cab back to your own. You wouldn't be checking your phone for calls, texts, or emails. Instead you'd be right back in bed beside him, asleep with the window open and the cold night air coming through. But you weren't there. You were home, or as close to home as one can possibly be when they've never really had a home before.
But that's what you get when you lead a life of crime.
That's what you get when your uncle is Wilson Fisk.
Growing up he had always been your mysterious uncle who only appeared every so often at family gatherings. As you grew up you began to understand that there was more to your uncle than anyone knew. He was good at keeping secrets, unfortunately you were good at discovering them. He had asked you to be quiet throughout high school and you had obeyed. He had paid your way through college as well, in an effort to keep you quiet.
Although he was family that didn't stop you from debating turning him in to the police every time you got word of a crime that traced back to him. Having been taught the difference between right and wrong you were aware that everything he was doing and had been doing was illegal. The lack of financial stability that might come from him being in jail worried you. The entire lack of financial stability was what drew you into becoming a business partner.
But the guilt is what drew you to Frank Castle.
Wilson Fisk was the name and the face behind an entire criminal organization. For the most part you had been the brains with the advice of James Wesley. It was odd the lack of any emotion you held when Wesley was killed and Fisk arrested. Or rather dealt with by the Man in Black. Daredevil as he had come to be called.
Wilson Fisk had been taken down but the organization behind it all was still standing. Not that anyone would ever know.
When Frank Castle made his entrance into Hells Kitchen it was everywhere. Granted it was hard to ignore the stories of entire gangs slaughtered by one man. You weren't worried for yourself at all, you were flying under the radar building the criminal empire back up. You weren't worried about anything to do with the so called Punisher.
Frank Castle had known who you were as soon as he realized that he was being followed. Just as you were monitoring him, he was monitoring you. It seemed only logical to keep an eye on you along with every other mob boss and dirty cop in the city. Especially when following you could lead to Fisk himself and possibly the exact person who killed his family.
Watching and waiting took more time than you would have liked. But that was in part due to the trial. While you wouldn't have necessarily called it the trial of the century it was something that everyone in Hell's Kitchen was paying attention too. You were paying attention to it for multiple reasons. Your curiosity regarding Frank Castle or The Punisher, and the fact that his lawyer was Matthew Murdock, the man who the world knew as Daredevil even if the two people were supposedly two separate beings.
Frank being sent to prison was not a surprise at all. Neither were his actions among the time that he was behind bars. You knew that your uncle had plans for him, you two still talked in letters that had been sent and the occasional visits. The guards that monitored these visits and checked the letters had all been bought ahead of time. You knew it would be easier dealing with business if you knew those who were watching over him. Fisk was pleased with himself, as he always was when he thought that things were going his way.
All in all you blamed your curiosity for the ever-changing nature of your relationship with Frank Castle.
He was an enigma in a way. He shared traits with Daredevil but was entirely different in his approach. Revenge. It hadn't needed to be stated for you to know that that's what he was after. Karma. That's what he was giving everyone he went after.
The first time you ever spoke to him face-to-face was on the roof of one of the many apartment buildings in Hell's Kitchen. Although this building was where you chose to live. No money from any jobs you pulled went towards penthouse apartments or anything of the like. You chose to live in a small two bedroom. It shocked some people that you were some criminal mastermind living in an apartment that looked just like any other. It looked below your means, but you chose it for that factor, that and because you enjoyed it. It was cozy and it was home.
Frank Castle wouldn't see the inside of your apartment for six months, he'd only see the roof.
That first meeting he let you know that he'd been aware of you the entire time he'd been acting as the Punisher. Which of course you figured he was aware. You wanted him to be. You wanted him to be as curious about you as you were of him. The conversation was brief, a mere introduction of two opposing forces.
It wasn't going to be the first meeting nor would it be the last. But at that meeting Frank let you know that he wasn't going after you. He didn't let you know that he could tell you wanted an out, he just let you know that he didn't see you as a threat. You were in the middle of a rebuild and not nearly ready to come back to the criminal underbelly of the world. Once you were that extreme menacing force you had been. Then he would come for you.
The second time you met Frank Castle it was at a diner. You were both there for lunch and it was someone's idea to sit together. Looking back you couldn't remember who had asked and who had agreed, only that it had happened. It was odd getting to know Frank Castle not as the man who could kill you at any second and turn you into the police if he wanted, but just as a man having lunch in a diner. A man who was trying to piece himself back together after an unspeakable tragedy.
Your meetings became more frequent. It was engrained in your mind that these meetings were bad ideas. That at any moment Frank could use all that he had learned against you. Somehow this didn't matter. You kept showing up.
The both of you had come to see the other as a friend. And both of you knew that the other was the only friend who knew your secret.
Friendship with the man who was your enemy.
Friendship with the man who was to become far more.
The first time that Frank Castle saw the inside of your apartment was when he came stumbling to your front door bleeding. He grinned when you called him an idiot before passing out in your doorway. Not wanting to explain to any of the doctors who knew to pick up when you called you patched him up yourself. Painkillers and water were set up on the side table next to him for when he awoke. The next morning he was gone, a small thank you note sitting next to the empty glass.
You knew that everything had changed in that instant. You knew that you were going to have to acknowledge the feelings that you had started to grow for the man. You could have let him die on that couch and no one would be the wiser but rather than leave him to bleed you saved his life.
In turn Frank Castle would save your own.
The first time that you saw the inside of Frank Castle's apartment you didn't know why you were knocking on his front door. Something inside you needed to be near him, needed to be with him as though he was the only one who could understand the conflict within you. He didn't talk moving to let you in. Food was ordered and the two of you sat next to one another watching some movie that was on tv, occasionally petting his dog laying at your feet.
Frank didn't need to have what you were feeling explained to him. It was like an energy radiating off of you. A melancholy sadness.
He held you for awhile, squeezing you gently. Then he brought you to bed holding you tightly while you buried your head in his chest. You knew he deserved to know about part of the conflict inside of you.
"I think I'm in love with you Frank Castle" you whispered.
In response he kissed the top of your head.
That was the first time you slipped out of his home in the middle of the night.
After that moment you were split into three pieces. The first part of you was the head of a criminal organization, the second part of you was the person who everyone else saw and thought was normal. The third part was the person that Frank Castle saw. That third person was all of you, no secrets, no masks. You trusted Frank and he trusted you.
It was never enough though. You didn't want to be three people. You wanted to be one.
You wanted always to be the person that Frank Castle saw. You were sick of hiding. But hiding was safe.
No one knew what was going on between you and Frank. The meetings were always secret. They happened in many places and on occasion weren't meetings but dates, yet still they remained secret. It was safer that way. For the both of you.
Although you knew that it wasn't always going to be safe.
So once again you slipped out of Frank's bed in the middle of the night and went home. This was never discussed but you knew that Frank understood. You'd stay the night if you could but there was no telling who could appear at any time at your apartment. There was always a chance of some surprise meeting, someone coming to check up on you. Not to mention the fact that even if no one was aware of your relationship with Frank Castle someone could find out.
Should someone find out there'd be only one person they'd tell. One person you would never want to face. Wilson Fisk.
There were times you wondered if it was at all worth it. Seeing Frank Castle.
Was it worth it to risk all that you had ever known. All that you had built. Was being with him, being in love with him worth it?
The answer each time was yes.
Frank didn't need to be told that this time was different. He knew it by the change in how you had been acting but he knew never to ask about business. He didn't want to know as the man who loved you, he would find out anyway. He'd become aware about it as your enemy. As the Punisher.
That was the thing. He was in love with you and yet he despised everything you had built up, everything you had done in Hell's Kitchen. There were only a handful of truly helpful investments you had ever made, the rest were to further the crime in the city. Not that it really needed any help. But Frank knew there were two sides to every coin and in this case one side was absolutely better than the other. He just wished that for once both sides weren't doing any illegal activity.
Although he knew that being a vigilante was also technically an illegal activity.
Although he also knew that you were unaware of his plan. Of his leaving Hell's Kitchen.
He loved you far to much to ask you to uproot your life and come with him. Especially when he had no plan or idea. He was just leaving, getting out of town before he was caught and arrested again. Frank had no real reason to stay anyway, no family to keep him there. All he had was you and while he knew that you had never wanted the life for yourself that you had in the moment, he also knew how difficult it was going to be for you to give it up.
He worried that he wasn't going to be enough.
Yet he refused to lie to you.
Waiting until it got dark he slipped away to your home. He was leaving tonight with or without you, bags packed and ready to go.
You listened intently as he explained that he was leaving, that he wanted you to come with him. You argued and debated. It was difficult to imagine a scenario where you'd be safe after leaving this life behind. But it was also difficult to imagine a scenario where you'd be without Frank Castle by your side.
"We're already criminals in the eyes of the world. We'd just be criminals together and in some other place. We'd be criminals with a home of our own someplace far off' he stated.
"And when they come for us?" You questioned.
"Then we fight them"
In the end after much discussion you agreed. He was offering you an out, one that you had been after for years. One that you had thought impossible to find. But there it was. Frank gave it to you and you snatched it up with some hesitation but ultimately you knew that this was it. He was right, you were both criminals according to the law but what did it matter. Frank was a criminal for doing good and you were a criminal because of family influence. You'd just throw that influence aside to make your own decisions for once, not decisions that would better the lives of the despicable while ruining the lives of the innocent.
You wrote a letter to your uncle that night. You suspected that somewhere at one point he knew what had been going on but a letter would confirm it. You confessed that you were leaving everything behind for the man who destroyed it all, let him guess who that would be. You didn't care anymore.
Frank Castle was an outlaw.
He was now your outlaw and you were his.
Together the world had no idea what was coming.
The Punisher and the one who loved him.
#locke writes#frank castle#daredevil#frank castle imagine#daredevil imagine#frank castle fic#daredevil fic#frank castle fanfic#daredevil fanfic#frank castle oneshot#daredevil oneshot
49 notes
·
View notes
Text
Thoughts about masculinity in Steven Universe
So I’ve heard a a few people criticise Steven Universe’s portrayal of masculine women. Their general claim is that, as a rule, the female/feminine-coded villains in Steven Universe (Jasper, Yellow Diamond, Bismuth’s first appearance etc.) are much more masculine than the feminine/female-coded heroes.
Now, that claim didn’t make a damn lick of sense to me, because in my opinion Steven Universe has always been great at portraying people who aren’t purely masculine or purely feminine. Among the core Crystal Gems, Pearl is the only one who’s almost purely feminine-coded. Amethyst is burly, impulsive, and loves wrestling; Garnet is tall, deep-voiced, and meticulously obsessed with forward planning to the exclusion of emotion. And while Steven himself isn’t an especially masculine hero, it’s become increasingly apparent throughout the series that pretty much all of his good traits, both masculine and feminine, come from Greg rather than Rose.
I mean, I get that I’m kinda listing a grab-bag of semi-contradictory traits here instead of looking at the whole picture of these characters, but the Western coding of masculinity kind of is a grab-bag of semi-contradictory traits, so what do you want me to do about that?
But then I thought more about the masculine traits of Steven, Amethyst and Garnet vs the masculine traits of Jasper, Yellow Diamond, and Bismuth’s first appearance, and I had a realisation.
The good guys in Steven Universe display positive masculinity. The bad guys in Steven Universe display toxic masculinity.
(cont’d below the cut)
I mean, compare the masculine traits of Garnet to the masculine traits of Jasper. Both of them are tall, extremely strong, and deep-voiced -- pretty masculine-coded as feminine genderless rock aliens go. But what masculine trait does Jasper have while Garnet doesn’t? Rage. Jasper is a constantly angry seething bigot, pretty much the walking embodiment of toxic masculinity. The peak of this is when she tries to force Lapis and the corrupted gems to fuse with her -- by Gem standards, this is equivalent to rape, and rape is pretty much the most toxic masculine act that exists in Western culture.
Garnet, on the other hand, balances her positive masculine traits against her positive feminine traits, which is what makes her such a strong character in both the in-universe and out-of-universe sense. (Heck, you could argue that Ruby represents Garnet’s positive masculinity and Sapphire represents her positive femininity, literally fused into one being, but I’m not sure that Ruby or Sapphire would appreciate such a broad reading of their personalities).
Yellow Diamond’s masculine traits? Constant dismissal of other people’s emotions and a failure to acknowledge her own. Toxic masculinity. Bismuth’s masculine traits (in her first appearance)? An obsession with weaponry, warfare, and revenge -- toxic gorram masculinity.
And when you expand this out into non-gem villains, the distinction gets even clearer. Look at fucking Marty. He’s the most toxic man on the gorram planet, and the show is absolutely not afraid to call him out on that (Greg has to remind him that women are people for fuck’s sake). Or Kevin, perhaps? Kevin’s negative traits come from his desire for fame and his inability to respect the emotions of others, and a lot of his bad traits come from the fact that he’s ignoring his own inability to get over a bad breakup in his past. He’s not quite so overt with his masculinity as Marty is, but he’s still extremely toxic about it -- think of him as equivalent to Tom Haverford from Parks & Rec at his most womanising and least self-aware (Kevin would fit right in at Entertainment 7Twenty).
And what about Uncle Andy? His villainous moments come from when he obsesses with the past, ignores change, and gets angry at “hippies” -- the Gems manage to un-villainise him by getting him to accept change. And okay, that’s more of a description of American conservative traits than of toxic masculine traits, but since American conservatism is more or less completely powered by an ever-burning fire of toxic-masculine thinking, I still think it’s sort of justified to file him under the “toxic masculinity is bad” pile.
So yes, the villains of Steven Universe are generally masculine -- but the important thing is that they’re toxically masculine. But not all masculinity is toxic, and Steven Universe is not at all afraid to show us positive masculinity so that we have a contrast between good and bad masculinity. All of the Crystal Gems use both their masculinity and their femininity for good, and Greg Universe is pretty much the living embodiment of positive masculinity (I’m honestly surprised that he and Marty didn’t annihilate each other with their opposing masculinities the second they met). Steven Universe doesn’t hate masculinity in general, nor does it hate masculine women -- it hates toxic masculinity, and that’s a perfectly valid thing to hate.
16 notes
·
View notes
Note
Hey, since you talked about your feelings on td//dk and kr//bk (which were super interesting to read btw!) do you have anything to say about opinions on k//cchako?
Hey there! :) And thank you! So let’s see…Uraraka andKacchan. I see fan content of them on my dash fromtime to time, but it rarely garners any deeper thought, so I often just scrollpast with little to no reaction. Simply put: I don’t harbor enough investmentor interest in them as a ship. Even so! Yes, I still have opinions about them, so I’ll try to go in depth here.
From their limited amount of canon interactions together, therewere actually two noteworthy scenes of them that I really liked. 1.) During theirmatch in the Sports Festival, and 2.) the databook omake situated after Deku andKacchan’s fight vs All Might. (However, in both cases, their interactionsrevolved around Deku, so…)
I liked their match in the Sports Festival because it wasone of the first times we get to see another side of Kacchan – an important one thatreveals some of his honor code. Fighting seriously against a girl, thateveryone else in the audience assumed was ‘weak and frail’ based onappearances, and therefore automatically judged their match barbaric andunfair…well. Aizawa (Dadzawa), and Uraraka herself, proved them wrong. Urarakaproved her grit and Kacchan treated her as a legitimate threat regardless ofgender stereotypes. (Actually, he approached their match seriously and cautiouslybecause he thought she had a planfrom Deku.) Further acknowledging herstrength with the ‘what part of her was frail?’ comment too.
It’s herewhere I thought, ‘nice, this is a guythat can be trusted, because he earnestly puts his all into the things he’sserious about and expects the same -the best-from his opponents in return.’ (If they don’t,he interprets that as them underestimating or looking down on him.) Without anyother ulterior factors swaying him, there’s a steadfast consistency and honorto that kind of focused mindset, both in how he handles himself and impartially approaches thethings that matter to him, which makes him predictably trustworthy in the long run. (Also meaning, if there’s ever anyfault/betrayal in that mindset, it’s a break in character…which ayyy, Deku willtake notice! ;D)
However, I took the Sports battle and these establishing traits(Uraraka’s grit and Kacchan’s honor) as separate strengths respective to each character, rather than anything shippy.Because Uraraka ultimately fought for herself (and her parents) while Kacchanproved he’d take any girl (anyone)seriously if they show proper worth and challenge respect. So it wasn’thim showing special treatment for Uraraka in particular, but an example of hishonest and impartial competitive sportsmanship.
Now we have Uraraka thankful that Kacchan took herseriously, and therefore she’s unafraid to confront/approach him on her ownterms -as equals- later. Which is good! :D And it’s why I like the omakecontent of them so much, where she questions him about his behavior in the endof term test:
Uraraka: “It’s like you’re intimidating (Deku) because you’re scared and wanthim to go away from you.”
It’s greatbecause her intuition can clearly read through him: Kacchan purposely singles out and keepsDeku at bay because he fears how Deku makes him feel. Like, boom! She totallycalls him out. ;D BUT…I didn’t read this interaction of theirs as shippy either,because it revolved around Deku AND showed how much Uraraka is in support of their reconciled friendship. She WANTSthem to get along! (If anything, it makes hermore like their wingman… So ayy, bothshe and Kiri would be supportive of their repaired relationship!)
So, from these two canon interactions (only one was a significant event in the manga by the way…), I see the potential basis for a refreshing m/f friendship, where shecan mentally joust and bicker with him without any major consequence. However,as a romantic ship, no; it’s not enough to convince me.
Aside from how limited their canon interactions are, and howin both cases they revolvedaround Deku…the two of them have other canon characteristics to consider. Notonce has Kacchan ever shown interestin any girls in ‘that’ way (or really, invested interest in anyone other than Deku)…and Uraraka hasher utterly transparent feelings for Deku to resolve. Already, that starts themin separate, opposed lanes with respect to their connection to Deku. So whenconsidering them as a ship instead, Ihave to repeatedly ask myself howthey’d ever manage to merge onto the same lane, and what that would even entail,narratively.
Because what wouldit mean? Would Uraraka’s feelings for Deku simmer down to sisterly affectionsof support and admiration, leaving her to choose the immediate second option:Deku’s riv–…wait a sec, what aboutKacchan’s feelings for Deku? (This is writing off that same elephant in the room issue I talkedabout in my previous post…) Are theyboth actually rivals for Deku’s affections?! XD Would Uraraka choose to bewith Kacchan, for the sake of helpinghim ‘get over’ his feelings for Deku too?? WAIT hold on. This is the SAME thingI talked about with kr/bk: it is notUraraka (or Kiri’s) business, or even their responsibility, to forcibly butt-in with the hopes of ‘changing’ or ‘fixing’ Kacchan’s problems/bad behavior FOR him.Except in Uraraka’s case, there’s theadded, antiquated gendered trope of the ‘good girl’ saving the ‘bad boy’ at theexpense of her own wellbeing. Sacrificing her own happiness to care for him fulltime. Which…oh no. Urarakadoesn’t deserve such a harsh fate like that. And Kacchan is not there to become a ‘pet project’ to coddle and change at theexpense of his feelings either. Theseare all some of the main arguments against the ship that I’ve seen, and I agreethat I’m definitely not interested in seeing a one-sided/harmful relationshipdynamic perpetuate like that…but I still have one final, personal dealbreaker.
Which is how Kacchan (my fav) ultimately becomescharacterized. And it relates to his ‘honor code’ established IN his fightagainst Uraraka too. Consider how Hori likely designed Deku and Uraraka to bethe ‘obvious’ endgame het pairing…with them having ongoing, mutual crushes oneach other (truthfully, I really only see fledgling, one-sided flustered admiration/envyfrom Uraraka’s side…) Now then, HOW does this make Kacchan look in turn, forhim to step in between them like this? If he knows they’re friends who like each other, would he really purposely step in to sabotageDeku’s chances with the object of his affections (Uraraka)? No way, not even outof potential spite against Deku or something. It would betray the very consistent and steadfast ‘trust’ about hischaracter that I talked about before.
Because Kacchan’s a gruff asshole ingeneral, but THIS (essentially ‘stealing’ Deku’s crush) would be an underhanded dick move of a whole new lowfor him. Completely at odds with his established character development. He outrighttells villains how he despisesunderhanded tactics like cheating and lying! Doing something like this would contradictand destroy his own ideals. Even if he somehow had a crush on Uraraka (which would already be a stretch andsuspension of disbelief, since he’s never shown any interest in girls likethat anyway) he’d do everything in his power to stay in his own lane and continueaiming for his goal as the top hero. Kacchan lives by his own strict standards andperfectionism in his drive to become the best.He’s an asshole, but not that other kindof asshole. Whenever I see shippy fan content of kac/chako being together atthe expense of Deku, this is the kindof asshole it makes Kacchan appear to me, which is a mischaracterization Ican’t tolerate. It’s a reason I haven’t seen other people talk about, but it’s alwaysbeen in the back of my mind, and probably the main reason why the idea of theirship rubs me the wrong way.
Whew, but thankfully, I don’t see any signs from Hori that they’llbecome endgame. (And it’s why most fan content of them slides past like water off a duck for me.) Truthfully and honestly,I really want Hori to step up Uraraka’s game, to make her a fully fleshed out characterand therefore, a viable contender in either of the boys’ hearts. Because atthe rate she’s going…she’s falling behind to the wayside compared to how Hori’sdeveloping Deku and Kacchan’srelationship. And she’ll have a tough time displacing the lifelong feelingsDeku has had for Kacchan, unless she does something drastic. (Ayyyy so where’sthat one traitor theory~)
Honestly, using Uraraka (or any girl actually) as shipfodder for the boys, just because of her gender, is something I’m not a fan of.I would rather be a fan of Uraraka based on the merits of her own character,and not from her designation as a satellite love interest to anyone. But IF Urarakahad to end up with anyone endgame, I would muchprefer her with either Iida or Tsuyu. Both of them are loyal and good friendswho would treat her with respect and provide needs in the way she deserves.
Alright! I think that covers everything. This actually got alot longer than anticipated. XD Thanks for reading!
#Anonymous#replies#bnha#kacchan#uraraka#shipping#meta#this one comes to about 1500 words#honestly longer than i expected :O#but i think that covers everything i like; prefer; and observe about the characters
64 notes
·
View notes
Text
Are You Above Average ? 🧠 Check Out These Personality Traits — You Might Be, According To Philosophy
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an act, but a habit.”
— Aristotle
To live well is to move toward existence with the correct methods of philosophy.
Success, happiness, and a life well-lived are not secrets. There is no magic recipe, hack, or trick to them. There are the timeless habits and characteristics that have stayed valid for thousands of years and will stay genuine forevermore.
The best exercises we can apply to our lives have just been sorted out, and have been repeated by philosophy again and again, for a long time. Why? because they are true and they work. These instruments of individual power have had a significant effect for extraordinary individuals for quite a long time, and can have a similar effect for you.
12 Attributes of Above Average People
1. They Respect — And Exercise — Their Power Over Their Reactions
" It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters."
— Epictetus
You, me, everybody has control over their actions — in the event that they so decide to focus on dominating the habits. This guideline for action and perception is a core value of stoic philosophy.
We don't control what happens more often than not. We can't handle markets or climate or traffic or the behavior of others. Yet, we can generally control how we react, and history's best perceived that is the thing that issues most — that it's not what occurs, but rather our reaction, that decides our direction, our outcomes, and our lives.
2. They See Happiness As A Decision, Not A Goal
" A man’s as miserable as he thinks he is. "
— Lucius Annaeus Seneca
As Abraham Lincoln would later repeat, “ we are as happy a we make up our minds to be”. As corny as it sounds, happiness is a choice, but the vast majority transform it into a restrictive prize.
Cash, career achievement, they certainly play a part, however, what ends up happening to CEO’s and celebrity stars when they feel miserable? there's obviously more to happiness than that. Money and Materialistic Things can only content us so much. There is an inner perspective, and it is this: to allow yourself to be happy.
3. They Listen More Than They Speak
" Practice really hearing what people say. Do your best to get inside their minds. " — Marcus Aurelius
Listening is a ground-breaking ability, and to listen to somebody, to really listen, is the characteristic of an above average individual, for the vast majority are bad bad listener despite the fact that they might think otherwise.
As Epictetus stated, “we have two ears and one mouth so we can listen twice as much as we speak”. To stand separate from the rest, we should be good listener and selective speakers. As Tim Denning composed, “there is power in saying less.”
4. They Have A Vivid Direction In Life — And A Purpose
" If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable."
— Lucius Annaeus Seneca
What are you doing here? What is your purpose? What is your raison d'être?
Individuals who transcend the standard, who accomplish their own extraordinary type of significance, know the responses to those questions. Having a clear, defined reason, has the important effect of organizing your effort, bringing your power to bear on something tangible, consistent, and directed. — Dale Carnegie.
However numerous individuals try, but go around circlers, failing to have the life they desire. It is as Marcus Aurelius wrote in his diary: “People who labor all their lives but have no purpose to direct every thought and impulse toward are wasting their time — even when hard at work.”
5. They Are Truly Kind
"Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness." — Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Kindness is the characteristic of an incredible soul, an honorable heart, and is in fact a quality seen by philosophy as a strength as opposed to a weakness, as many people refer to it. Not false kindness, not egotistical kindness that has many strings attached, but rather the valid, solid, genuine consideration that gives without expecting anything in return.
Marcus Aurelius, in his time the most impressive ruler of Rome, composed that ”kindness, as long as it is without flattery or hypocrisy, is unconquerable. It is a strength to be valued and nourished.”
6. They Do Not Rely On Luck
"I was once a fortunate man but at some point fortune abandoned me. But true good fortune is what you make for yourself. Good fortune: good character, good intentions, and good actions."
— Marcus Aurelius
Luck is an extremely fickle lady. The best luck is simply the one we make for ourselves. Luck assumes a part in certain successes, without a doubt, yet the majority of the world's greats say otherwise, they were not by some coincidence, but rather by the simple formula of: blood, sweat and tears.
Seneca, the incomparable Roman stoic philosopher, once said that “no one has ever been wise by chance. Few are exceptional by chance either”. The vast majority wait around for luck to improve things, overestimating their luck. The above average don't stand by. They get up and make their own — through the correct character, the correct intentions, and the correct actions.
7. They Are Intellectually Humble
"It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.”
— Epictetus
The mind is only as receptive as it is humble . Somebody who thinks they know it all, who accepts that he is instructed to the point that he shouldn't be educated, isn't just foolish, but an incalculable moron. As Epictetus, and numerous philosophers have instructed, an above average individual is the person who acknowledges the limits of his or her knowledge, and doesn’t care about being correct, but simple for the truth.
“If someone can prove me wrong and show me my mistake in any thought or action, I shall gladly change. I seek the truth, which never harmed anyone: the harm is to persist in one’s own self-deception and ignorance.”
— Marcus Aurelius
8. They Practice The Art Of Contentment
" Any man who does not think that what he has is more than ample, is an unhappy man, even if he is the master of the whole world.”
— Epictetus
Wealth is not just money.
Wealth is a mindset
Philosophy has since quite a while ago perceived this fact, which today has gotten extremely well known in the personal development field. Particularly in our consumerist culture, an ever increasing number of individuals find that their assets are not sufficient, and continue pursuing more — rather than understanding that the genuine disease is inside, in their minds.
Epictetus, who was born into slavery, said that wealth comprises not in having extraordinary belongings, yet in having not many needs. Also, when asked who is rich, he said this:
"He who is content."
Anybody can want more and more. It takes an above average individual to dominate the craft of happiness.
9. They Are Not Ashamed To Ask For Help
“Don’t be ashamed to need help. Like a soldier storming a wall, you have a mission to accomplish. And if you’ve been wounded and you need a comrade to pull you up? So what?”
— Marcus Aurelius
Requesting help takes strength. Being straightforward with yourself as well as other people, to know when you are up the creek without a paddle. It takes a specific measure of humility to admit this, yet it is additionally a demonstration of strength — Aurelius, as solid as he was as Rome's head, perceived this quite well, thus can we.
10. They Take Full Responsibility For Their Lives
"You have to assemble your life yourself — action by action. And be satisfied if each one achieves its goal, as far as it can. No one can keep that from happening.”
— Marcus Aurelius
One of the foundations of above average individuals is taking responsibility — for their lives, for their careers, for their personal development, for their successes and failures, for their bad behaviors, everything. What's more, as Marcus stated, no one but ourselves can make our own lives, no one but ourselves can make our dreams come true.
Nobody else can get you to where you wish to go. Others can help you, indeed, yet everything starts, and ends, by your actions, your will, your goal. You should take responsibility and create a life step by step.
This implies not accusing others or circumstances as well. It implies not stooping so low as to point the finger at others, which is a misuse of energy.
“Small-minded people blame others, average people blame themselves, but the wise see all blame as foolishness.
— Epictetus
11 They Radically Protect Their Focus
"The value of attentiveness varies in proportion to its object. You’re better off not giving the small things more time than they deserve. "
— Marcus Aurelius
Our focus is just as significant as what we put it on. Numerous individuals squander their focus on unimportant details, on amusement and interruptions rather than their legacy and blessings to the world. Above average individuals respect their focus, secure it, and fundamentally guarantee that they focus around what matters most.
12. They Are Filled With Love
“If you wished to be loved, love."
— Lucius Annaeus Seneca
A live without love incomplete and empty. Possessions, success, power, fame — mean nothing if you live in it alone.
“There is no enjoying the possession of anything valuable unless one has someone to share it with.”
— Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Above average people are filled with love for others, and are not afraid to show it. So for those we share our lives with, as Marcus Aurelius wrote, let us treat them with love, real love.
You do not need to be a billionaire to be great.
As tacky as it sounds, all you need is love. True love.
#personal development#mindset#mindblown#philosophy#smart#read#longread#life#life quotes#quotes#motivational quotes
0 notes