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f0xgl0v3 · 11 months ago

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Larry the Legionnaire

I’ve lost it guys finally I’ve gotten around to the Larry post! Larry the Legionnaire (as he is sort of titled in the wiki which makes me giggle though it’s not an accurate title) is a character that shows up in SoN and I believe some point in ToA,

Larry is a Son of Mercury, Centurion to the second cohort and a Senator; though I believe that he swapped cohorts? In SoN I think it’s mentioned he was from the second but from what I’ve seen in Tyrants tomb he’s referred to being from the third. He first shows up in SoN to yell about how Frank shouldn’t be made Centurion because of several technicalities, and then from what I’ve seen he shows up in ToA though because I haven’t read Tyrants tomb and I’ve been… struggling through the hidden oracle and taken a break so I won’t really talk about it other than the brief notes on his personality.

Larry is a character that I think is silly. He is a goofball. But he also has one of the most frustrating roles to be played in like Camp Jupiter meta.

He is a character that directly muddles the water with rules over Camp Jupiter Centurion ascension requirements and Senatorial(?) requirements. Originally he could be read as a Senator who knows the rules and doesn’t like them being broken, he would’ve been the only named Senator we got- and that could’ve been interesting and would’ve solidified the idea that there are legionnaires whose other role is to be a Senator. But then we had to make him a Centurion, which (like I said in a different post) really made the Centurion and Senator roles very unclear (let’s be honest every role except Probatio and Legionnaire are unclear in the terms of ascension, the rules surrounding them, etc). But by making him a Centurion it only furthered the concept that they serve in the Senate as well and that rules applied to Senators could apply to Centurions (I don’t know if anyone else had that misconception, but I really did lol) and it just kind of sucked. I’ll make a post about my ideas over CJ role ascension and that stuff (not exactly canon because I don’t want to re-read through SoN and MoA trying to find that stuff)

Anyway! Uhhh, I would love to tell you about all the cool stuff about Larry, but all I really can say is the super limited things we get in SoN. Due to the fact I haven’t read Tyrants tomb..

However I will say the fact that according to the wiki they described him as, “Goofy” and said he expressed interest in becoming a pirate and that is very silly. I like the idea of Larry being just a goofy little guy that tries his best to be a good guy for the legion.

What I can draw from his character surrounds the idea that he is both a Centurion and Senator. The Senator is a voted on role in the legion and there’s only 10 of them (2 per cohort. And if we want to bring up the 5 outpost cohorts I talked about waaaay back in my earlier posts then the outposts have a separate group of senators that are sent down to New Rome) and that implies to me at least that we can draw that Larry is a likeable guy, he’s reasonable, from the fact he was in opposition to Frank’s ascension because he didn’t meet the requirements I feel we can take that in a couple directions,

One, that Larry is rule-oriented. He may canonically be lighthearted and goofy, but he still very well can be attached to the rules. Also would like to sort-of tangentially add that he was canonically one of the legionnaires that didn’t like and looked down upon the fifth cohort though that’s what everyone in Camp Jupiter commonly has agreed upon

Two, Larry was trying to say what was best for the legion. We know Larry is loyal to the legion and it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that he thought this would negatively impact the legion and tried to say his resignations; the fact that Frank was inexperienced and it’d be breaking the rules to make him a Centurion (but I guess Mars just didn’t care about that. Really like I don’t see much of a reason to make Frank in a position of power- but if someone else does feel free to tell me)

Anyway another notable thing is that Larry is a demigod. In a Camp where we’re told that legacies are the majority (or at least it’s implied? It’s certainly made to look like Legacies are the more common body in Camp) where seeing a Demigod says a lot. He’s not engrossed into Roman culture the same way legionnaires who grew up in New Rome and surrounded by it. How does that affect him? He gets to have the ability to not have that New Roman edge, to have a goofier nature that probably would’ve been frowned upon amongst the Romans. He’s fresh he’s knew, it’s relatable for other demigods in his position because they all come from not New Rome! And in the way of my headcanons he’s either in the Second cohort which is just full of legacies from New Rome who’ve gotten a higher cohort because of their letters of recommendation and continue to play second fiddle to the first- which makes it interesting to think about how Larry got into the cohort he did. And if it’s the third cohort than that’s the competitive cohort, then that puts an idea that Larry had some trait and characteristic that the third wanted. All of that is things I want to figure out in the future- which uh technically is the point of this post but Larry is a newer think for me.

We get no physical description for Larry, no last name for Larry. We get nothing for Larry!! And here is now some of my more random misc. ideas,

Larry’s name comes from Laurence- which itself means, “Crowned with Laurel” and I like giving character who have shorter names longer names (I don’t know why but I do). Though, as much as I want to go make his name Laurence- we have a Laurence, sure it’s a Bryce Lawerence. But the two would still be too similar, and I like just Larry- it’s silly, it is a short way to name a character that shows personality. In the best way Larry is just a silly name, it’s fun to say, I like saying Larry and a Larry looks like a good person in my mind. Though I’d like to say his last name is Ahlgren. Ahlgren is a Swedish last name that combines words for Alder and branch. This continues the plant theming in his name (first laurels and now Alders) while I also just wanted to use a last name from a place I usually wouldn’t. While I believe that Larry is from somewhere in Maine.. he just feels like a Maine guy, Larry’s mom worked in a little bakery in a small town and they had a pretty normal life. Sure the monsters were kind of odd but Larry mentioned them only for it to be his imagination. I’d like to say Larry came to camp when he was 11, his mother at some point sends him over (maybe due to Mercury or Lupaor some of Lupa’s wolves? We never like get how Camp gets legionnaires to the Wolf house other than Frank who like his grandma is like “okay go” and then like ??? Implied his mom and Grandma knew about it but still can I have details? Maybe I’m just forgetting.) where he survived through the Wolf house and went on to Camp. His quest (as funny as it is in my mind to just make it Luke’s quest again but I already did that gag for a Oc and I’m not doing it again) but his quest was definitely just a re-skinned old myth quest (because it feels like Hermes/Mercury likes doing that).

Anyway that’s all I have currently swimming around in my brain about Larry, I’ll probably add more in the future but for now, I just realized that Camp doesn’t seem to do offerings during meals from the one meal we saw which is… off? Odd certainly, maybe I’ll do a post over the offering/Divine side of Camp at some point but whatever. I don’t have any planned posts but I have a Castor/Pollux/Kind of Dakota post in my drafts that might be finished soon, I also took a nap this day and honestly couldn’t recommend more, feel asleep watching MandJtv plays I think? I like the Team Sky playlist.

Anyway goodnight!

#idk how to tag this #pjo hoo toa #hoo #hoo headcanon #pjo Larry #hoo Larry #hehe :3 #okay bye

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stygianheart · 2 years ago

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Fear of Sharing

*staring at ao3 as I try to learn how to publish a chapter* how the actual craphorns do I work this? HTML— I dunno how tf to do that—

Warning, very long rant coming up. Highly doubt anyone will read it but still. Short summary is: as a person who is currently in the process of publishing a book, I am paranoid due to past experiences of being accused of plagiarism when it was my work stolen, and being told that my writing is nowhere near good enough for the public eye. But I started to share my stuff again! So thank you to all who like my stuff!!

꧁———————————꧂

I have, like, the weirdest fear of sharing my writing. Which is funny, cause I’m currently physically/officially publishing a book and and hell, that’s definitely sharing my writing to the world.

I love writing. I’ve been writing stories since kindergarten, but I’ve always been afraid of sharing it. I think that’s coming amongst writers, because we don’t want to be told that our writing is horrible. When I got my first rounds of edits and feedback from my Editor, I refused to look at the paper until my friend read it out loud for me. I was so scared about getting possible negative feedback that I didn’t even think there would be any positive. (Which turned out to be wrong, almost all of the feedback was complimenting me and my ability to write flowing and easy dialogue, captivating scenes, a fascinating world and likable characters. Which is absolutely astounding in my opinion, I never thought I was that good.)

But it’s gotten to the point where the only people outside of my editor I share any my writing with is my close friends, who, as much as I love them, have a biased opinion. They’re literally my best friends. And I’m especially paranoid of sharing ideas with people, and for good reason.

Few years back, I had this idea for a story I was going to write for fun and for a school project, and it really was a clever idea. I don’t remember much about it anymore, because that was five years ago, but I do know that I shared it with people because I wanted someone else to be excited with. That was a horrible idea, because someone told someone who ended up stealing the idea as a whole. They stole the plot, stole the characters, stole the setting, and submitted it before I submitted mine. I was later accused of plagiarism because I happened to turn my story in a few days after the other person and I had to rewrite the whole thing from scratch. Being accused of plagiarizing a fellow student, who in truth stole it from me, made me realize I shouldn’t share my book ideas. And I guess that grew to a paranoia to not share my works entirely, because even if I have copyrighted it and everything is legally mine, I have the nagging believe that someone is going to steal it. In which I found was perfectly capable of happening. Just 2 years ago, I made a whole book and published it to an online site that, regretfully, does not offer the ability to copyright. I mean, it IS my own wiki on Fandom, so of course it doesn’t. Silly me. I later found a scholarship for people who submitted their own works—poetry, books, short stories, etc, and as a person who desperately wanted to be a English Major for creative writing, I submitted the book. (I named it You Can’t Go Back Home Again, and it’ll be up on my WattPad some day when I have the time.) However, a few weeks later, I received a email that told me I was disqualified from the scholarship for plagiarizing my book. A few online friends dug into this for me and as it turns out, someone had the audacity to take my book and publish it on their own platform. And they claimed it as their own. This person hadn’t entered the scholarship, thankfully, but the idea that I had stolen someone else’s story was still enough to get me disqualified. I was luckily able to fight back with evidence that the story was in fact mine, but I had still been taken out of the scholarship. (Summary: People who plagiarize are wetsocks and limpnoodles.)

So of course paranoia began to settle into my mind about sharing works online or with people. And since then, I’ve rarely shared something I made, out of fear of it being stolen and out of fear of it flopping terribly. Making the decision to publish my own book was a huge one that induced a lot of anxiety, but in the end, my desire to share my work overcame my fear of sharing it and being falsely accused of pirating. But as mentioned before, I was also afraid of my work crashing and burning.

I have been told once that my writing sucks. That it has no reason whatsoever to be available to the public eye. That it was “overly dramatic” and had too much “forced humor.” And sure, that was when I was in 5th grade and my writing style was beyond dramatic and over exaggerated, but it’s stuck with me since. I do try my best to add some humor into what I write, because a lot of the shit I come up with nowadays is extremely dark and needs some humor sprinkled in there so readers don’t go into a depressed mood (which is what my mom told me, not my words.) I’ve gotten complaints that I write mostly about male main characters and that there’s already enough of that in the world, I need more female characters. I definitely got an angry reaction when expressing the idea of making the only ‘girl main character’ in my book go through a gender-questioning arc later on in the series before coming out as a demigirl, telling me that as a biological woman, it’s my duty to write about women. (I’m non-binary, but I am AFAB.) And it’s been pointed out that a lot of my OC’s are queer and that I need to add some variety to it. I’ve noticed these things, yes, but it’s a part of how I write. Yes, a lot of the main characters in my books are boys/men/males. Yes, 9/10 times the main characters are gay. (I’m gay, what the fuck do you expect, you little judgmental wetsocks.) None of that means my writing and stories suck, but they’re excuses and reasons I’ve been told on why my writing sucks.

So in summary of my last few paragraphs, I’m scared of sharing my writing due to past experiences of being falsely accused of plagiarism and being knocked down by hateful people. So when I got just 1 like on my 3 am KobyLu fic, what remained of my little pride to share my stuff skyrocketed. When I checked on it the other day and saw a reblog and 14 likes, my heart was literally singing. And then I got a fic request from someone who said they loved my writing and wanted me to write a story for them. (I came off as “pffft nah” but Anonymous, that really made my heart cry out in joy.) The fact that people on here, complete strangers, liked my stuff that much meant the world to me. So I decided “hey, I think I’m going to start sharing my shit again.” I reopened my long since abandoned WattPad account and started uploading a story I wrote. I created an official ao3 account just so I could write the fiction request. And while I’m still terrified of sharing, just so much as 1 like or 1 reblog sends my minuscule ego flying up the roof.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still scared shitless of sharing my stuff. I write for the fun of it, really, but getting positive feedback and likes on something that feels like a part of my soul means the world to me.

Basically, this whole damn long post was a call out to the people who’ve liked my KobyLu fanfic and requested for more. You truly don’t know how much that meant to me, that my work so much as even crossed your forum and you liked it.

And thank you to all of the future peeps who will hopefully like the uprise in writing that will appear on my blog!

#writing #writing struggles #writer problems #thank you #it means the world to me #plagiarism sucks ass #please read? Maybe?#Copyright your work authors #I love getting likes #struggles of a writer #falsely accused #I’m sorry for the freakishly long story about me #I just didn’t know how else to write this without explaining why I’m so grateful

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deyadee · 2 years ago

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Aesthetic

I’ve always had this fascination with wanting to find my own aesthetic. I’ve adored goth fashion but I can never get into it because I picture myself in the accessories and want to puke. I’d look so fucking ugly and those tights would accentuate every inch of my fat. So much of aesthetic feels like it’s reserved for people that are attractive. Sorry honey, you’re too fat, go back to blending into the background and praying people don’t sneer when they look at you.

I actually bought some black tights to wear and after forever of getting them on I just glanced at the mirror and saw a fucking moron standing in front of me. My legs are short as hell compared to my torso so I look like a fucking fool. Just another reminder of why I shouldn’t ever fucking try.

Anyway, I’ve always wanted to find an aesthetic for myself. Goth just looks so beautiful and I’m captivated by anyone wearing it that I can’t help but stare. Those all-pastel-pink moodboards are so enchanting that I could sucked into a vortex of just admiring them all day. Watching complications of nostalgic 2000s things or liminal spaces just transports me to somewhere where I can just indulge in the memories and in the visuals.

So I decided to go through the A-Z aesthetic list on the aesthetic fandom wiki. I got about to F before giving up. I found one that kind of suits me, but even then not really. Each one I read through, each image, each description just showed me that I don’t fit in with anyone. Not in the cliché “cute girl-next-door YA protag that doesn’t fit in but is the chosen one and actually really cool” kind of way. Like I’m just fucking boring. No personality. Which is true. That’s something your mom will never tell you, because it’s easy to go your entire life knowing someone and it’s easy for you to spend your life never realizing you’ve got fucking nothing going on because no one truly fucking pays attention to your personality as long as it’s not completely shitty.

All of the aesthetics I felt kind of fit me or that I liked didn’t truly fit me. Being goth isn’t about being depressed and liking the color black or an all Halloween-esque ideal, being goth is about rebellion. It’s about fighting against “the man.” Patriarchy, society, upper-class, whatever the fuck you wanna say it is. What am I rebelling against? Nothing. I’m a fucking spineless loser whose had her entire life handed to her by her parents who actually worked hard to give her a life they didn’t have- only for her to stab them in the back and be a useless fucking waste of space. I profit from everything goth rebels against. So therefore, I’m a Mall-Goth. Only liking the outer appearance of things and not knowing the true depth.

I thought maybe something relating to Japanese or anime aesthetics might work, but again- I’m just a fucking weeaboo. I don’t know shit about the culture, I just mock it by being fat and ugly and using it as an escape from real life.

Nostalgia-related perhaps? Nope. Based mostly on regressing to escape from trauma or coping with the present. What the fuck do I need to goddamn cope with? I don’t have trauma. I wasn’t abused. I had shit friends and made shit decisions. A normal fucking childhood.

So what was the aesthetic that I found somewhat captured me?

Femcel Weeaboo, and Mall-Goths. So I guess I lied. But originally I only really looked into Femcel. Which hit the nail on the head, but the mood felt wrong. As bitchy and sad as I am on this blog, I’d say it’s only the most negative aspects and moments of me. The majority of my life I’m a bot on autopilot. Not happy, not sad. Existing. Not thinking about the consequences of my actions or trying to improve myself, or even being proud of myself. Just fucking there. So that’s where the Mall-Goths come in. Where I don’t give enough of a shit about anything to pick a side and just end up being a fucking poser.

I’m too much of a normie to fit into these groups I’ve always aspired to be in and modeled my entire view of fashion and beauty after, but I’m too fucking weird and niche (and fat/ugly) to be accepted by normies. Too fucking self-aware to be something, but too oblivious to not be.

Aesthetic is just fucking concepts to shove beauty into certain boxes while still shoving out anyone they don’t agree with or looks how they want.

#femcel

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bcbdrums · 2 years ago

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I’m so sorry, I feel like I’m just venting at this point.

I just want to talk about this I think it will help me explain myself in a better way and maybe some of the ask I send you will make more sense?

I think the reason I came to dislike the Kim possible fandom and the ships in general is due to…well, the fandom in itself.

Ron and Kim are my favorite characters.

But I experienced this thing in the fandom where they had this weird mentality:

If Ron was their favorite character it usually meant they didn’t like Kim and the stories that focuses on Ron usually portrayed Kim as bad person just to ship Ron with any other characters, (over-focusing on Kim’s flaws and/or on events like her leaving him in the janitor closet) there were a few exception to this, but even in this kind of stories Kim didn’t felt like Kim at all.

And I’m sorry for mentioning him again, there was this guy, this person. (I’m pretty sure we all know him) They had like 20 accounts to harass people? I don’t even know their name. They would pester anyone in the fandom about Kim/Ron and ugh. It was awful. And… I am saying this as a former KimRon shipper the fandom was a living hell.

That person takes the cake as the worst interaction I’ve had with anyone in any fandom I’ve been in.

But that’s just KimRon what about other ships?

Well, if the person identified with Kim and shipped her with Shego they would usually potray Ron in an awful way, ranging from flandarizing his comedic-relief moments, to portraying him as a bad boyfriend to (in the worst cases) portraying him as full blown abusive person.

The most immediate example I can think of: The current admin of the Kp wiki LoveRobin? Who is a very hardcore Kigo shipper. what happened is that when I first joined the fandom back in 2017 I had a- how do I call it? A “friendly” debate? Even though I could never make her see any of my points, at least she kinda? remained civil about it (for the most part)

It was initially about Drakgo, but then she changed the topic back to Kim and Ron and she randomly ended up comparing Ron to a rapist, and I was like ??????? (It was back in 2017 I was 17, when I stumbled upon the thread and it was so out of the left field) and then that guy found the thread of the conversation somehow and the fight got so bad, and I think it prompted LoveRobin to included stuff into the wiki like “Ron never said “I love you” to Kim” and I think she did this as as a way to, I really don’t know? Retaliat? To attempt to disregard the ship? Maybe? idk.

And that was years ago and I tried to get back into the fandom and it somehow got worse?

I know this is old and everyone probably knows about this at this point, but has anybody read Ron stoppable wiki page recently? Why is it written like that? It’s so needlessly negative and mean spirited towards the character for no reason (I know why it’s written that way, the wiki admin is a hardcore Kigo shipper ) but damn. That’s sooo petty.

This isn’t even the worst part yet That person (the person obsessed with KimRon) started harassing LoveRobin and he escalated things even further and ended up revealing personal information (is that doxxing?) about LR and I was like 😨. And listen at that point I don’t care what you ship or what’s your thoughts on fictional characters/ships are. that kind of behavior is simply terrible, awful, deplorable.

I though this was my main issue: the awful way Kim and Ron were portrayed in the fandom, but then it somehow got worse? Add to all of this the most resent talk about the age difference and that sealed the deal for me. (It’s too much drama and I cannot/will not ship a relationship that consist of an adult and a teenager)

From being neutral about the ship and being open about it I ended up despising it. Kigo became such a Notp for me now, and I can’t even enjoy KimRon as much as I used to because of all the fights and the bad experiences I also had in the fandom.

And all of this interactions killed my enjoyment toward any of those ships. I’m not kidding when I say the Drakgo community was the best and most welcoming out of all the three.

I mean, you're hitting on things I've mentioned in other asks...

The fact of the matter is, there's some historic toxicity in this fandom. Some of it goes on today. Some if it has passed. (And of course it's not isolated to KP; some fandoms have been irreparably destroyed by toxic shipping behavior...)

I've only had a few toxic encounters personally in KP myself. One was right after Graduation first aired. Like many people, I immediately went to read fanfic because I was riding high on fandom excitement. But that is when I discovered...anti-fics. People would write what started out on the surface as a happy, genuine ship fic. And then partway through it would flip and turn into a ship-sinker. Sadly, the first KP fic I ever read was a Kim/Ron ship-sinker deliberate anti-fic. The writer didn't even try to hide it once the surprise turn came halfway through. But it scarred me, and I didn't come back to the fandom until 2019.

As a result, I personally missed out on a LOT of the toxicity. But I've heard tales from those who were there and are still around today... I've experienced a little myself... But yeah.

The fact is, deliberate anti-fics exist. And yes, the wiki is useless because it's controlled by shippers who rather than write fact, editorialize everything to make it seem like their ship is canon.

I wish people would just ship their ships... I'm glad you've found the Drakgo community welcoming! May I recommend as a quality Kim/Ron to re-ignite your passion, Snippets of Forever. And I also suggest looking in the fave section of writers you like on FFn? Usually a good writer faves other good stuff. That's usually how I find anything to read.

#ask answer #kim possible #ron stoppable #shego #drakgo #drakken #kim x ron #kimron #kim/ron #kimxron

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serodev · 3 years ago

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How about some headcanons for Akaza and Rui with gender neutral kichidere S/O?

Warnings: Kichidere themes (someone who's crazy and dangerous, but their feelings of love are surprisingly normal)

Pairing: Akaza, Rui x gn!reader

Note(s): I don't want to admit it, but I had to go and google what kichidere meant because I've never heard that term before. Anyway, I hope you enjoy these headcanons! (I'm going to avoid using the word crazy because it can be a negative word for some people)

Akaza

» To say the least, he's a bit annoyed about your personality in the beginning. We know how he feels towards Douma, and that guy is pretty "friendly," so I don't see why he would be 100% content towards you if you act dangerous.

» However, he does get used to it at some point thanks to other demons, and possibly people as well, so it doesn't take long for him to stop avoiding you! It's hard to notice at first, but when you realize that he has started to spend a bit more time around you, you can't help but start developing a crush on him.

» It takes some time, but when you finally confess to him, he's surprisingly neutral about it. He doesn't outright refuse the possible idea of dating with you, but it takes some time for him to warm up to it.

» When he finally starts dating you, he doesn't even realize how you stopped acting dangerous and unbalanced at first, but when he does, it makes him feel a bit more comfortable around you, and it brings him closer to you as well!

Rui

» I like to think and headcanon that Rui knows a lot more when it comes to dere types thanks to his personality, so he doesn't get weirded out nor annoyed at you for acting dangerously. However, he will let you know that he won't let you act out too much since he's still one of the higher-ranking demons (even though he's a lower moon).

» I would say that you two end up fighting about the whole thing at first, especially if you don't listen to him and act up even after he has warned you, but thankfully things will calm down after a while.

» Rui notices the small changes almost immediately, and you can probably catch a smile or a smirk from him if you're lucky enough! That's why your confession won't come out as a surprise either, but he still hums a bit when you finally open up about your feelings towards him.

» The relationship you two would share after the confession would be pretty normal if you don't pay too much attention to Rui's sadism since kichideres can love normally!

Author's note: I hope that you enjoyed these headcanons! Again, I hope that I didn't make anyone uncomfortable for using the word crazy at the beginning (it reads in the wiki). I'm not too fond of the word myself even though it's not a slur, but it's definitely a negative word (for me), and I don't want to use those too much on my blog.

#akaza #kny akaza #hakuji soyama #akaza x y/n #akaza x you #akaza x reader #rui #kny rui #rui x y/n #rui x you #rui x reader #kny x reader #kny #kimetsu no yaiba #demon slayer #lower moons #upper moons #sero writes #request

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caelestis-composition · 3 years ago

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killshot anon! YEAH i totally agree w/ your view on kaeya. it's so weird to me that people will blame him for his role in a situation he was forced into as a child through no choice of his own. that itself had to be traumatic, not to mention everything that happened later. i hate when people say he's untrustworthy - like yeah, he's lied, so has everyone? it's clear he does it mostly to protect himself. not to mention that (& sadism) can be symptoms of trauma. kaeya deserves nothing but happiness

take a seat folks it’s time for a “brynn should’ve been an english major” lesson! today we’re gonna learn some literary theory; specifically, we’re gonna apply psychoanalytical trauma theory to kaeya’s backstory and current character. killshot anon i bet you never thought this would result in a whole ass essay.

disclaimer one! you are allowed to dislike kaeya! i am not saying you need to like him or his character, you’re entitled to your opinion and i’m not here to change your mind.

disclaimer two! i am in no way an expert and this is all for fun! this is just my silly little analysis of one of my favorite characters as someone who’s studied literary theory and rhetoric and can also apply personal experience. seriously analysis is like a hobby to me and this is just an excuse for me to ramble about kaeya.

disclaimer three! this contains lots of spoilers! basically for everything we know in-game, general knowledge as well as stuff from his voicelines and character story. don’t read this if you don’t want spoilers.

since this is going to be filled with spoilers and is about to get really long, everything will be under a cut. for those who wanna read my dumb super informal essay: enjoy!

final note: yeah this is over 2000 words long can you tell i like analysis

⭒

let’s start by getting a quick rundown of trauma theory out of the way. to begin, what is “trauma?” in this case, trauma is going to refer to an experience that greatly affects and changes one’s life; attitudes, memories, behaviors, mental state, etc. while not all changes may be bad, per se, the overall effect of trauma is generally a negative one, which is why it’s so significant. literary trauma theory, then, explores these changes and the impact of trauma in literature. it analyzes the psychological and social effects of trauma, explaining what those effects are and why they happen. in the context of a specific character, trauma theory breaks down said character’s behaviors, feelings, and general mentality in relation to their past experiences; trauma theory hopes to explain to others the reasons for why a character may act or feel the way they do, all based upon the character’s experiences, particularly traumatic ones. our character today is the lovely kaeya alberich, with the “literature” being genshin impact. i’ll be referencing kaeya’s wiki page to ensure i get all details correct for his character story and voicelines.

it would be good to review kaeya’s backstory before delving into the actual analysis. though we don’t know much about his life before living in mondstadt, we’re told he was sent as an agent of khaenri’ah. and by “sent,” i mean his biological father abandoned him in a completely unfamiliar land to serve khaenri’ah’s interests and fullfil his mission—what this entirely entails hasn’t been revealed. mondstadt, however, welcomed kaeya “with open arms when they found him.” crepus ragnvindr took him in as his adopted son, with diluc as his adopted brother. kaeya and diluc were “almost like twins,” so close they “[knew] each other’s thoughts and intentions without a word.” he’d began a new life in mondstadt, one surrounded by friends and family that loved him; one that was completely shattered by crepus’s death. kaeya arrived at the scene of the disaster, and was led to believe diluc was the one who killed their father to “set his father free” from the effects of his delusion. there’d always been one big question in kaeya’s life: if it came down to it, who would he support? the nation that abandoned him, but he still felt loyal to, or the nation and family that took him in and really loved him? overrun with guilt, kaeya confessed his purpose to diluc, sparking a fight between the two brothers. in this fight, kaeya receives his cryo vision. though both brothers stepped away alive, they’ve never been able to make peace with one another. now, kaeya is the eccentric and charming cavalry captain of the knights of favonius; a man who gets his way by using any means necessary, regardless of whether or not it seems right.

kaeya’s not evil; he’s morally ambiguous, and that stems from what appears to be a general distrust of others. his life is one shrouded in secrecy. from the moment he stepped foot into mondstadt, he was surrounded by secrets. even now, he doesn’t talk about a lot of things, namely his past, vision, and feelings. though he’s always willing to get information out of others, kaeya never reveals anything about himself. he repeatedly tells the player they can confide in him, but whenever you try and pry into his life, he deflects your questions with some sort of witty comment or flirty remark. anything he does reveal is vague, or spoken in some sort of “code.” for example, his “interesting things” voiceline. he tells us about the owl of dragonspine, how it “seems to look right through you, while letting go of none of its own secrets,” and then tacks on a “quite fascinating, don’t you think?” it seems like an awfully accurate parallel to himself; kaeya does all he can to get information from others, but never gives anything about himself. now, this whole thing—his relationship with diluc falling apart and his need for secrecy—could have probably been avoided if he had just come clean about his mission years ago. so why didn’t he? to start, kaeya was a literal child. not only are children unable to properly tell the difference between right and wrong, but they’ll also typically follow their parents’ orders blindly. kaeya had just been abandoned, and he wouldn’t want to risk being cast out by mondstadt as well if he came clean right away. you see, there’s this thing about trauma, something that trauma theory states. traumatized people feel a sort of shame or guilt regarding their traumatic experience; they’ll keep quiet because they don’t want to cause problems or bother others with their issues. of course kaeya wouldn’t tell the truth about his past, he doesn’t want to destroy the genuinely loving relationships he’d built in mondstadt. his fight with diluc only proves what he was afraid of: if he’s honest, he’ll be abandoned again. and if kaeya’s used to all the lies, why should he bother changing?

another thing, if he’s not going to tell the truth, then why would he have initially gone along with his father’s plans? again, he was a child. he really had no choice, and was forced into a very wrong and cruel situation. there’s a good explanation for this, too, which is also stated in trauma theory; traumatized people will still do their best to please their abusers. especially if said abuser is a parent, that will drive traumatized people to work even harder to please them. although his father hurt him by ruthlessly abandoning him, kaeya still sought to make him and his homeland proud. he was willing to be used as a tool for their gain; that is, until he found people who actually cared about him. he was an impressionable child, of course he’s going to obey orders. but as he gets older, he feels torn. does he serve those who abandoned him, or those that took him in? his father—and arguably, khaenri’ah as a whole—hurt him, sure, but he still feels some loyalty and connection to his former home. instead of revealing anything, he lets the situation play out. that way, he can’t be blamed when things fall apart.

the thing about claiming he’s untrustworthy is that hardly anyone in-game believes that. he’s adored by the older folks in mondstadt, and foes and allies alike find him easy to talk to. despite seeming lazy and uninterested in work, kaeya takes his job very seriously. in fact, his story states that crepus’s death was the “first and only time kaeya failed in his duty.” the “only time” is especially important, because it signifies kaeya still fulfills his duties successfully. he’s had a total of one slip-up, and hasn’t failed since. no, kaeya is not untrustworthy. rather, kaeya finds everyone else untrustworthy. it’s not unlikely that this is a direct consequence of being abandoned as a child. although it’s been established that kaeya and diluc were very close as children, when crepus dies, kaeya assumes diluc is the one that killed him. in order to jump to such an extreme conclusion against someone he was so close to, there had to be some underlying sense of distrust. furthermore, kaeya expresses feeling as though he doesn’t belong anywhere. he was abandoned by khaenri’ah, and then worried he wouldn’t be accepted by mondstadt. he is, but there’s still that worry. if you place him in your teapot as a companion, he tells you that your home feels like someplace he belongs, following it up with a “heh, who’d have thought…” kaeya still feels as though he doesn’t belong in mondstadt; despite the fact that he’s a high-ranking knight of favonius and rather popular, he still feels like an outsider. he doesn’t trust that anyone actually wants him around, and he finds joy in testing peoples’ trustworthiness. it’s noted in his story and through his voicelines that the beloved cavalry captain has a rather sadistic nature. he likes putting people into difficult situations, to see what decisions they will make. he does this to both opponents and allies, testing to see who’s going to back out and who’ll keep fighting; in the sake of allies, who can he trust? or who will turn tail and abandon their teammates at the slightest hint of danger? i mentioned it previously, but kaeya doesn’t care what measures he has to take so long as his job gets done and he gets the answers he wants. it’s a sort of self-preserving mindset, putting himself above the safety of others. kaeya’s trying to protect himself, which makes sense with all he’s been through. he doesn’t want to be hurt, and instead finds pleasure in threatening harm upon others. it’s twisted, sure, but it’s because he can only trust himself in a world that he believes is out to get him. he’s got as many enemies—if not more—as he does allies; of course kaeya focuses on protecting himself first, whether physically or through keeping his secrets, well, secret.

his most obvious traumatic effect is definitely his alcoholism. but he uses it as a distraction, not just to wallow in self-pity. this is seen again in his story, particularly in story 3. it’s found that when his favorite drink, death after noon, is out of season, mondstadt’s crime rate is decreased drastically. at face value, this just means kaeya spends more time working when death after noon is low in supply. but kaeya doesn’t skip work to go to taverns; it’s already been established he takes his job very seriously, so this means he actually patrols and tracks down threats while off work when he can’t indulge in his favorite alcoholic drink. he doesn’t get drunk simply because he’s depressed. if he did, there wouldn’t be a drop in incidents when death after noon is out of season. no, kaeya uses both the alcohol and fighting to distract himself. after all, it’s a little hard to think about feeling sad when you’re either drunk out of your mind or fighting for your life.

despite being so secretive, kaeya gives us glimpses of his true emotions from time to time. as previously mentioned, his flirty attitude is nothing more than a mask to hide how he really feels; and kaeya is terribly, terribly lonely. that may be why he seems so extroverted. constantly being around people should, logically, drive away that feeling, but it doesn’t work like that. when he talks with the player, he frequently expresses disappointment when you have to leave. each time, though, he dampens the weight of his words with playful or flirty language. he’s lonely, but doesn’t want you to know that, like he’s afraid of asking you to stay. he takes the seriousness of his feelings, and basically bends it into some sort of lighthearted joke. kaeya hides his true feelings—negative feelings, to be exact—so that he doesn’t bother anyone. which is, again, something that happens with traumatized people. he displays that hesitance to reveal his true feelings, because there’s a shame or guilt that comes with his past. he doesn’t want to bother others or hold them back, so he puts on a smile and amps up the charisma. one other very important thing—but very small detail—i would like to note is his feelings toward family. his fell apart not even once, but twice, and kaeya still holds familial relationships in high regard. we know he doesn’t exactly care how he goes about getting his work done. he doesn’t pay attention to what’s “right” or “wrong,” so long as he gets what he needs. but one of his informants, vile, notes that the cavalry captain has one exception: he won’t work with those who threaten others’ families. in fact, kaeya claims those who do should be hunted down and destroyed. even though his own families have caused him so much pain—and he ended up estranged from both—he still understands the importance of having people who love you in your life. because he didn’t get that.

kaeya’s not evil. ultimately, as a knight of favonius, his goal is to protect others, because no one was there to protect him. and because no one was there to protect him, because he’s been hurt time and time again by people who were supposed to love him, kaeya has taken to protecting himself. he hides any and all negative feelings with a charismatic, friendly façade, because he thinks it’ll drive away his persistent loneliness. any “bad” actions of his were hardly his fault; he was forced into a life of secrecy and lies, and then abandoned by the first people who truly loved him. kaeya’s a multi-faceted, tragic character, one that toes the line between good and evil, and that’s what makes him so interesting.

#brynn yells #brynn answers #killshot anon #brynn's writing #genshin #genshin impact #kaeya #kaeya alberich #genshin kaeya

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spammreviews · 10 months ago

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This is for characters who could be better, in my opinion, but who’s bad traits really don’t negatively affect the story that much.

385, 386, and 387. Garin, Drey, and Silva (Not Pictured)-

Garin, Drey, and Silva are Arianne’s conspirators in her plot to crown Myrcella. As I write this, I just finished listening to an audiobook of The Queenmaker chapter, and I do not remember anything about them. One of them’s part of that Dornish orphan group , one has an “open smile”, and another has freckles. These three are victims of the quick pacing of the Dorne plot in Feast, not being given any time to flesh out their personalities or characters.

384. Skahaz no Kandaq-

At the very least, Skahaz No Kandaq is a bit more interesting than a lot of similar characters in Slaver's Bay, such as the Wise Masters of Yunkai, as he is on team Dany, which presents us with some interesting moral quandaries, and the ethical dilemmas Dany faces in Mereen is one of the more interesting parts of the book.

However, when we first meet Skahaz in Dance, we’ve already seen a million other characters just like him in both Essos and Westeros.

And, therein lies the rub. What Skahaz represents isn’t bad, and he serves his function alright in the story. However, characters like him or a dime a dozen, especially in Dany’s story. It got to the point where I had to frequently check the Wiki as I read because I kept getting characters mixed up.

Some of the characters similar to Skahaz are higher up simply because they are given some sort of quirk or schtick which makes them stand out. For instance, Clayton Suggs is a follower of Stannis who’s weirdly enthusiastic about sacrificing people and he makes rather off-color jokes.

Clayton Suggs is actually very similar to Skahaz, but you’ll see that he’s way higher up simply because I remember him.

Also, Clayton Suggs is mostly a joke character, whereas Skahaz is actually intended to represent an ideology which is meant to tempt Dany. However, Skahaz being so cartoony means that he doesn’t really work as well because it means we can’t see the ideology as a realistic threat.

I have no problem with one dimensional villains, I just want my one dimensional villains to be interesting in ways other than them presenting interesting moral quandaries, which really has nothing to do with Skahaz as a character. Dany would still be in an ethical dilemma even if he didn’t exist, he’s just a convenient way to represent the evil that she must accept in order to succeed. I remember hearing once about character writing. If a character can be replaced by a lamppost, then they’re not a well written character. Well, Skahaz could be replaced by a chainsaw.

One dimensional villains can also work if they’re intended to be unknowable monsters who terrify our main characters, but Skahaz hasn’t been that so far. He does not invoke fear.

Also, Dany’s chapters can feel so on the nose, and Skahaz does not help this. Some of the best parts of Song is when it is subtle and ambiguous, but so many of these characters in Mereen are unambiguously evil or unambiguously untrustworthy, and the idea that Dany is facing all of these moral dilemmas is constantly shoved down our throats, as is every other major idea of her chapters in Dance. It would be fine if these chapters were fun, but they aren’t.

In conclusion, for the love of god STOP GIVING EVIL CHARACTERS BIG NOSES.

383. Areo Hotah-

Feast and Dragons are long books which add a lot of new characters. A lot of these character’s stories interrupt the stories of characters we already like and are already invested in. So, it can be tough to get through someone else’s story when we know that someone we like a lot more is waiting at the other end. What makes everything worse is how gosh darn boring Areo Hotah is.

Something they tell you in creative writing classes is to think about the characters “want” and what they “need”. Areo Hotah wants to do his job, and he needs…something, I guess.

As such, there is very little conflict within the heart of Areo Hotah. Areo knows who he is and what his place in life is, there’s no path for him to change or grow.

I wouldn’t say that Areo has no personality, as he has the personality of a stereotypical bodyguard. He’s big, not dumb but also not smart, simple minded, and he doesn’t like to talk. It would be fine if this was just what was on the outside, but we get the same on the inside. There’s no hidden depth to Areo Hotah.

The two biggest points of interest within Areo’s character is the fact that he was abandoned as a child, and the fact that he still feels like an outsider in Dourne. Those are both interesting, but neither is really explored. Areo doesn’t seem all that lonely or in need of some comfort. He’s just…Areo.

Why is Areo Hotah so committed to his job? Is it because his entire life’s purpose has been devoted to his ax and fighting? We’re never really shown that. Is it because he was abandoned as a kid? That was one line.

Not only do we know why characters like Jon, Brienne, and Davos, are so committed to being good at their job, we feel their wanting, and see how it cuts deep to the root of who they are.

But Areo Hotah? He’s just…Areo.

Also, Areo barely seems to have opinions on anything. What does he think of Doran? He…respects him, I guess, but also, we barely see that, and it doesn’t really matter. It’s nice when characters bring along a certain perspective and this perspective influences their actions. Areo just does what he’s told, which means he’s less of a person and more of a tool. Yes, he has an impact on the plot, but only in the sense that Doran gives him tasks. He has the same impact as Ilyn Payne or the Catspaw. Basically, Areo has no agency.

His description as a “human camera” is fitting, as not only does he simply observe, he also rarely commentates on anything.

I suppose this isn’t super important, as he only has three chapters so far, but still…I’m sure he could be an interesting character if given more time to development, but the thing is, a lot of characters were very interesting by their first chapter, and that’s because we had time to learn who they are. The first third of Thrones doesn’t have any real plot, so we get to just familiarize ourselves with the characters and the world. Areo is not afforded that honor. His first chapter has to do so much legwork setting up the world, introducing us to minor characters, and setting up the situation in Dorne, there's very little time left to actually explore him as a character. Meanwhile, his chapter in Dance also has a huge amount going on, with time being taken to recapping the Dorne plot from Feast, setting up Winds, and giving us a very symbolism based meal.

I kind of forgot that the chapter was even an Areo POV until the end, because we get a very long stretch of time where Areo straight up isn’t mentioned. You could take Areo out of the chapter and nothing would change. Not only that, but nothing that Areo Hotah hears seems to affect him at all. The last sentence of the chapter is Areo repeating his mantra of “Serve, obey, protect”, but it feels hollow. Areo has no reason not to do any of those three things, and it also doesn’t seem like he’s finding it difficult to do any of them. Areo’s chapter in Dance isn’t about him, it’s about Doran and the Sand Snakes, and their conflict. Areo has no stake in this conflict, as he seems to be pretty apathetic towards it, all he cares about is protecting Doran, which the chapter has nothing to do with. I don’t even know why the chapter is from Areo’s perspective, as Arianne is also there for almost the whole time. She actually affects the narrative of the chapter, which you want a protagonist to do, even if it’s the protagonist of a single chapter. I guess you can argue that Doran is actually the protagonist/ main focus of the chapter, and the only reason why Areo is there is because Doran’s inner thoughts need to be a mystery. However, you could say the same for Davos and Stannis, and Davos is way higher than Areo.

One last thing. Areo reportedly really likes Arianne, referring to her as his “little princess”. Despite this, we’re never given any signs of affection beyond this. No kind words are exchanged.

One of the parts of Areo’s feast chapters I like is when Areo thinks that Balon will be harder to kill than Arys. I know it’s not the intention, but it makes me think that Areo has killed dozens of Kingsguard before. They keep sending them, and Areo keeps on killing them.

382. Aerys II-

Everyone talks about how Aerys II “went mad”, but in what way??? Did he develop schizophrenia? Psychopathy? Antisocial personality disorder? I know they don’t have those terms in Planetos, but they could give us a little bit more than “the mad”. Maybe “the mad” is just code for “the dickhead”. Why was Aerys such a dickhead anyways? Who knows! Summerhall? Maybe.

381. Amory Loach-

Amory Loach has the opposite problem of Rorge, in that he doesn’t have any gimmick or flair to his evil. He’s just…an evil dude. I guess that makes him more realistic, but it also makes him boring. It’s kind of fine because he only appears in three or so chapters, however.

380. Rafford-

Rafford is another evil rapey guy for Arya to kill. He’s evil in an uninteresting way, and that’s fine, I guess, because that’s the point of his character, and he didn’t need to be anything else. Once again, he barely appears.

379. Craster-

There’s already too much incest in this story, and there’s already too many awful people in this story. The mystery of Craster’s exact motivations are a bit interesting, I suppose.

Also, Craster does stand out a bit in his extreme commitment to being the biggest asshole possible, like when he complains about the sounds Gilly makes when she gives birth to the baby he forcibly impregnated her with. He’s not just incomprehensibly evil, he’s also a shiteel who’s a jerk to everyone. However, there are many other characters who also fit that description.

Craster might just be the most evil character: child rape, child sacrifice (most likely), incest, being a huge jerk to people who just survived a zombie attack, being a jerk to everyone else, saying he’s a “godly man”, constantly moralizing the night’s watch for extraordinarily minor things while being extremely evil, it’s legitimately impressive.

378. Cleos Frey-

Jaime’s chapters in Storm work fantastically in part due to how well Brienne and Jaime work together. They are the perfect narrative foils, with each of them having to learn the opposite lesson (Jaime needs to be less egotistical and Brienne needs to learn to love herself). Not only that, but the presence of each other is perfect for teaching them their lessons. Seeing how much of a dipshit knight Jaime is helps Brienne to understand that knights and chivalry is bunk. Seeing this cool warrior lady teaches Jaime that toxic masculinity is bad.

We can see what Jaime and Brienne need to learn from their respective nicknames for each other, “wench” and “kingslayer”. When they use their real names, it shows that they see each other as human beings. This idea of names humanizing people is important to Storm, playing a part in Davos and Jon’s stories.

It also helps that Brienne and Jaime’s personalities and life philosophy are basically opposites. Despite this, they have similarities in the sense that they have been outcasted before, which helps them to bond.

Jaime and Brienne have the vibes of a couple from a 1930’s screwball comedy executed with perfectly precise character writing.

Cleos Frey also briefly accompanies Jaime and Brienne on their journey, and his job is to die.

He…has a personality. That personality is “cowardly”.

372, 373, 374, 375, 376, and 377. Hosteen Frey, Black Walder Frey, Stevron Frey, Ryman Frey, Lothar Frey, and Rhaegar Frey

These are a bunch of other Freys. Their personalities are basic and the same as three dozen other characters.

Here’s the thing about the Freys, the personality of the individual Freys doesn’t really matter, as they work best as a giant amalgamous glob. The whole of the Frey family is hilarious, simply because they are a massive group of people who are all evil and pathetic in their own way (except for Jinglebell and Rosalyn and blah blah). I get them mixed up all the time, and I think that’s what George intended. Every individual Frey is but a grain of sand in a vast beach. It doesn’t matter how good the individual grain of sand is, as long as the beach itself works as a beach.

Each Frey is not a fantastic grain of sand, but they do make a fantastic beach.

371. Chataya-

George usually writes women with the same complexity which can be afforded to a man, but Ellaria feels very “men writing women”. She’s a prostitute who worships a love goddess and every description of her is icky. Her personality is “horny as heck”.

370. Aegon I-

We hear about Aegon I a lot, but we know next to nothing about what he was like. Was he into sports? What was his favorite toothpaste flavor? Did he wear white or black socks? We may never know.

Overall, Aegon I is too perfect. Well, there was the incenst. Besides from the incest, and the colonizing, and the burning people alive, and the imperialism, and many other atrocities, he’s too perfect.

In contrast, his inspiration, William the Conqueror, is a much more interesting figure. He had a crazy life, where he was born a bastard, so everyone hated him, and he became this macho man as a result of that. Aegon doesn’t have any of that interestingness.

369. Arys Oakheart-

You know, if it wasn’t for Feast, I might put Ser Arys Oakheart higher. During the Sansa chapters in ACOKm he works well as a minor side character, as his niceness and chivalry clashes well with everything else going on. Him being “fond of gossip” adds a bit of playful contradiction to his character which is nice.

Then, there’s Feast, where he's a stupid horny guy and that’s pretty much it. He has very little in the way of personality and the only internal conflict we get from him is “I’m not allowed to have sex, but I wanna.” I guess this does factor into the theme of people’s primal desires versus how society tells them to act. However, it feels empty with Arys since it’s so basic. We get a similar story with Jon and Ygritte, but that’s completely different for many reasons:

Firstly, we get multiple chapters of Jon slowly falling in love with Ygritte.

The Soiled Knight is Arys’ first POV chapter. He appears in three chapters before that one. Arianne, meanwhile, previously appears in one chapter. Their relationship is not well built, we do not feel the sparks.

Secondly, to Jon, Ygritte symbolizes freedom. To Ygritte, Jon symbolizes idealism and a sort of purity.

With Arys and Arianne, they’re both horny for each other. Their “love” doesn’t represent any deep desires within them.

Thirdly, when Jon and Ygritte have sex in the cave, the whole scene feels liberating. I’m asexual, I usually just get embarrassed during sex scenes, but the scene in the cave is very well done, focusing on the way the two feel about each other in order to get this really romantic and intimate feeling. As such, it might just be the best sex scene in the entire series.

The sex scene between Arianne and Arys in The Soiled Knight is just horniness.

Fourthly, Jon breaking his vows is a huge deal because we see how much honor and oaths mean to him. Jon needs to prove that he’s a bastard who is trustworthy and that he can make Ned’s ghost proud.

With Arys, who knows!? All we know about is that he’s scared of being killed by a Dornish person, and he hates spicy food. Why does he care so much about his duty? Who knows?!

The thing is, we, the audience, don’t care about honor and vows and oaths. However, we care about Jon and his quest to measure up to his own expectations. So, it’s a big deal to us when he breaks his oaths. We don’t give a shit about Arys. He’s another generic honorable guy who isn’t afforded a compelling backstory or anything of that sort.

Also, ASOIAF loves subverting the “knight and princess” trope. I keep comparing Arys to Jon, but there’s also Jaime and Cersei, Jorah’s crush on Dany, hell, even Renly and Loras. Now, Jaime and Cersei have a toxic and unhealthy relationship, but it’s interesting to read about because their interest in each other reflects their own vanity. Jorah’s crush on Dany is cringey, but it advances Dany’s arc by her having to deal with this schmuck. We never even get confirmation about Renly and Loras’ relationship, but I’m sure I can pop open A23 and read lots of fanfic which is infinitely more interesting than Arys and Arianne.

By the time we open up Feast, we’re kind of sick of the same subversion.

Also, George chose to write the line “Was there ever a woman with nipples so large or so responsive?” which is easily in the running for “worst lines in the series”.

I guess you could say that the idea of The Soiled Knight is that Arys feels isolated and alone at Dourne, but Arianne is the only one who’s nice to him. However, I’m giving the chapter a lot of leeway with that analysis, as it’s barely even suggested. It’s clear that Arys doesn’t feel at home and is experiencing cultural issues, but it’s unclear if that translates to Arys having no friends. There are many characters in Song who have to deal with being in new environments that don’t feel at home in. However, with those characters we get more than a page and a half of them thinking about how the food there is spicy. Sansa’s isolation in King’s Landing, Arya’s homesickness in the Riverlands, and Jon’s outcast nature is extremely visceral. With Arys I have a vague idea of how he feels. Good writing needs to be specific, but the only specifics we have with Arys’ “isolation” is spicy food and the Oakhearts having a history with the Dournish.

I felt nothing when Arys died. In that same book, Brienne briefly meets a little person who’s a Sparrow. Later, we learn that this Sparrow has died. Despite him only appearing in a few chapters, I felt soooo much worse about The Little Sparrow dying than I did Arys. The Little Sparrow was nice, he had a sense of humor, he had a personality, he was unique, and he made you wonder what his backstory was.

Arys could only wish to be that. Instead, he’s a half-assed subversion of a trope Song has already subverted a million times before.

367 and 368 Ago and Jogo-

I think that Dany’s Dothraki warrior pals are better than her handmaidens, simply because I think it’s cool when people do stuff with weapons.

358., 359, 360, 361, 362, 363, 364, 365, 366. Alerie Hightower, Ser Jacelyn Bywater, Paxter Redwyne, Harys Swyft, Polliver, Tycho Nestoris, Meryn Trant, and Mandon Moore.

These are all random side characters with no interesting character traits and either no personalities or barely any personalities.

357. Rorge-

Rorge is another bad guy who’s bad for the sake of being bad, and is bad in the way a lot of other characters are. At the very least, he appears rather rarely.

356. Rakharo-

Rakharo is the best of Dany’s Dothraki warrior pals because of this quote, “Khaleesi, better a man should swallow scorpions than trust in the spawn of shadow, who dare not show their face beneath the sun. It is known.” (A Clash of Kings, Chapter 40). Now, that’s one of the awesomest things anyone has ever said, so for that reason and that reason alone, he’s going above his brethren.

355. Balon Swann-

Wow. An honorable knight who’s cool and a badass. Yawn. I’m yawning. Yawn. Being cool in a bland and unoriginal way is as interesting as sucking in a bland and unoriginal way.

354. Smalljon Umber-

Now, Greatjon Umber is a lot of fun, but Smalljon doesn’t really have any characterization beyond being tall.

I do appreciate the contradictory name. (Even though we have a similar deal with Little Walder Frey).

353. Daario-

Stop perving over a teenager, you perv! Daario also has terrible fashion choices. Like, I can appreciate the ambition, but this Icarus has flown to close the sun. He does have a personality, so there’s that.

Many of the Essosi characters feel like a stereotype of a culture that doesn’t exist. For instance, Daario is greedy, kind of effeminate, rather silly, horny, theatric in the way he speaks and acts, and those are very commonly stereotypical traits.

He almost feels a little bit like Jaqen. However, Jaqen is far superior in every way. Jaqen's mysterious, it’s clear there is something deeper going on with him, and the way he acts and talks is so strange it becomes endearing.

Daario, on the other hand, never captures that same fun energy of Jaqen. This might, in part, be a result of his environment. Jaqen sticks out so much from the grit and medieval European aesthetic of a war torn Westeros, and he bounces off of Arya extremely well. It also makes him stand out from Rorge and Biter, who he’s introduced alongside.

Daario, on the other hand, is amid many other “effeminate” greedy tricksters. This makes him blend into the background.

Moving on, George really likes the protagonists being forced to work with untrustworthy characters and then be deceived by them. With Daario, it works because Dany does need him, and the way she goes from being extremely untrusting of him to straight up in love with him feels realistic, as Daario is an adult manipulating a 16 year old.

However, by the time Daario shows up, we’ve already met Littlefinger, Varys, and Roose Bolton. It feels a bit tiring. I guess that’s the problem with Daario. There are hundreds of characters in this series, and I’m sure it is very hard to make each one unique, but Daario is so similar to so many other characters, except for his appearance.

I do think one thing that makes Daario a bit interesting is his temper, as he gets really angry during a few of Dany’s chapters in Dance. He usually seems so calm and collected, so him getting enraged at Quentyn is a bit of a surprise.

Despite that, whenever Daario shows up I always think to myself “here we go again”. Other than three or so surprising moments, you can always tell how Daario is going to act because he’s basic.

A minor detail concerning Daario is that he doesn’t wear underwear, which is very fitting.

_____________

I would like to say that this is not a ranking of the characters based on morals. This is based on how good I think they are as characters. This is obviously extraordinarily subjective, however, I enjoy ranking and sorting.

There are three factors I generally considered for this ranking.

The first is how well written I think the characters are. Do they have dimensions, do they serve their purpose within the story, do they stand out from the very large crowd of faces within this story, et cetera. This one is less important if they are a very minor character.

The second is how fun I think they are. The point of some of these characters is to get a chuckle, and if they did that, then they succeed as characters.

The third is vibes. Sometimes, I just vibe with characters.

Art Credits to

The_Mico

https://m.facebook.com/198918470118215/photos/a.232323176777744/465124813497578/?type=3

Amok https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/File:Visenya.jpg

Riot Art Therite

https://riotarttherite.tumblr.com/

The Three Hares

Rae Lavergne

Weak Aside

https://www.tumblr.com/weakaside

Paolo Puggioni

Image of Nettles by Rlyeha https://www.deviantart.com/rlyeha/art/Nettles-885635180

Special Thanks to

A Wiki of Ice and Fire

https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Main_Page

and

A Search of Ice and Fire

___________

Without further ado, the list. This is a ranking of all characters from best to worst, with 398 being the worst and 1 being the best.

_____________________

F Tier:

398. Xaro Xhoan Daxos-

Xaro is like a weird homophobic stereotype. One could compare him to Varys, but Varys is a character and he has dimensions. There are moments where we are surprised by Varys. Varys has a boring room. Varys went out of his way to save Gendry. Varys has a fucked up backstory. Despite all of Varys’ silliness he never feels cartoony. He’s an actual capable and intelligent person who’s motivations are mysterious and intriguing. Et cetera, et cetera.

Meanwhile, Xaro Xhoan Daxos has no surprises. He’s just…ridiculously one noted, and that note teeters on the edge of being kind of homophobic with a few weird lines which I hope were not George’s intention.

All of this would be fine if he only had a few chapters, but he appears in two books. Two!

Everything Xaro says and does is so basic. He’s got simple and un-unique strategies because of his simple and un-unique motivations. Half of his lines and actions feel the same. His purpose within not just the story, but within individual chapters and conversations, never changes. I’m getting really angry right now.

I get that we are supposed to hate Xaro, but the hatred I feel with him is not a fun hatred. I do not love to hate Xaro. I simply hate him. He annoys me. The way he talks is so fucking annoying, with this stupid eloquence wich makes simple sentences turn into paragraphs. It reminds me of papers I read in college. “I have crossed long leagues and stormy seas to help you once again.” “A pretty metal, but fickle as a woman. Gold, now…gold is sincere.” Shut the fuck up. He also talks about how hot Dany is every other second. I get the point that the traits of Dany which are valued are her appearance, so even someone who’s not attracted to women is going to act pervy, but it’s still annoying.

Xaro is also ridiculously condescending. It’s purposefully infuriating, but it’s so cartoony and on the nose it’s not even a funny kind of infuriating. Perhaps he might go higher if he died a terrible death, but for now he’ll go here.

He also adds nothing to the story. He has two conversations with Dany in Dance. The first one lasts for pages, and it’s only purpose is to give us a bunch of information. The second one’s purpose is to piss Xaro off so he can declare war.

In conclusion, Xaro Xhoan Daxos is too ridiculous to be taken seriously, and too annoying to be taken comedically.

397. Yezzan zo Qaggaz-

It’s really hard to tell apart one Ferengi-esque Ghiscari from another (I think the enslaved people aren’t Ghiscari, but I’m not sure). They’re all ugly, cruel, ridiculously decadent, and greedy. It’s bland, it’s repetitive, and it’s almost, dare I say…lazy. The world of Mereen feels so drab in comparison to the world of Westeros because everyone there basically just acts basically the same. At least with the Ferengi, we were introduced to sympathetic and complex ones, and we learned about the nuances of their society and all that jazz. The Ghiscari are not afforded that same privilege. The exception is Hizdar Zo Loraq, who will be discussed later.

I’m obviously not saying that George should have introduced us to a nice, sympathetic slaver. Please do not misconstrue my meaning. I’m saying that George could have introduced us to a slaver who’s personality stands out, or a Ghiscari who wasn’t a slaver or something. You can make a character complex and interesting while still having them be completely irredeemable in every way. This is ASOIAF, after all, and this story has lots of characters who are atrocious people but who still have interesting internal psychologies. Hell, sometimes adding complexity or whatever to a character can make them more hateable, as we will later see. I know the Ghiscari suck, but there’s no slaver who provokes the same degree of anger in me that Joff or Ramsay does, and I’ll explain why later.

These are all evil, irredeemable human-shaped pieces of shit, but at least Joff and Ramsay are characters. Ramsay isn’t even that complex…he’s mostly just sadistic for no reason, but his sadistic cruelty is still interesting because he is a character with traits beyond “evil”. He’s a specific kind of evil, and there’s a reason he’s that kind of evil, and that specific kind of evil comes in a variety of ways. Grazdan and Yezzan and Kraznys are just evil.

Once again, I am not saying that George should have made a slaver sympathetic. I want to emphasize that. He could have, at the very least, given one of them an interesting quirk, like one of them is a big fan of card games or whatever and the other slavers are really annoyed because he always wants to play. I don’t know. I’m not a critically acclaimed writer of dozens of fantasy and sci fi novels.

Obviously, George making the slavers all greedy and decadent makes a clear point, but there are ways to portray greed and decadence interestingly, as we see elsewhere in this story. With the Ghiscari, George just ramps up the traits to extreme levels, making the slavers too cartoony to be seen as a realistic threat. I’m not against this series being a bit silly, but the slavers feel beyond parody, and this hurts his criticism of the systems of Slaver's Bay, as the story focuses less on how the system doesn’t work, and instead simply shows that the people who benefit from it are annoying and gross. Now, the story can focus on how a system is fundamentally flawed and also show how the people who benefit from it suck, because this story does do that, but not with Slaver’s Bay.

It’s also definitely possible to show oppressive forces as being ridiculously stupid and annoying while still having them feel real. Outside of ASOIAF, Quentyn Tarantino does this very well with Django Unchained and Inglorious Bastards. Within ASOIAF, well…we’ll see.

In conclusion, the character of Yezzan is extremely lazy writing.

396. Grazdan Mo Eraz (not pictured)-

It’s really hard to tell apart one Ferengi-esque Ghiscari from another.

Much has been written about how ASOIAF is not just a psychological story (meaning that the plot is driven by the character’s internal psychologies) but also a sociological story (meaning the plot is driven by the world around the characters). Dany’s story definitely succeeds on a psychological level as Dany’s character is well thought out. However, it only occasionally succeeds as a sociological story, in my opinion at least.

This is because the society Dany interacts with in Storm and Dance doesn’t really feel like a society. We never see what daily life is like in Mereen, or see a diversity of thoughts and opinions within the citizens of Astapor. Everyone feels like a part of one big homogenous blob. A society is made up of individual people, with all of these individual people having their own psychologies. In a sense, sociological stories are psychological stories- but with the psychology of thousands or even millions of people. What is the internal psychology of Grazdan Mo Eraz? Why has his society made him think and act this way? The answer is, he has none. He’s just another bad guy.

With much of the plot in Westeros, we see that these characters have ideologies which are a result of the world they're in, no matter how minor these characters are. For example, the two knights Brienne meets in her first chapter in Feast are clearly influenced by these ideals of knighthood and chivalry and gender, and these are very minor characters. Even the most displaceable of characters, such as Euron, are clearly influenced by their society's values.

We never get this with anyone in Slaver’s Bay.

395. Kraznys mo Nakloz-

It’s really hard to tell apart one Ferengi-esque Ghiscari from another. These three slavers are equal in value to me, as they are extraordinarily similar characters, with their only differences being different versions of sucking. One is harsh, one is jolly, and one is mocking. These are very common types of assholes within ASOIAF. I get them mixed up in my mind all the time.

I have one more issue with the Wise Masters of Yunkai and the Good Masters of Astapor. George wrote a fat character who suffered extreme amounts of abuse and bullying because of his weight and has to learn to love himself. However, he also wrote a bunch of characters who are fat to show that they’re rich. This trope isn't even subverted in any way, like with Wyman Manderly. The Wise Masters are fat, and it seems like we’re supposed to be disgusted by the fact that they’re fat because it means they’re decadent and gross. With Wyman, his weight is cleverly used against us, as we assume he’s just a bit player who only cares about himself, but then it turns out that he’s an extreme badass who uses his obesity as a shield. Even with Illyrio, we get the idea that he is more than what he seems to be, and he also serves as a reference to the “jolly fat guy” trope from Shakespeare. However, with the wise masters, they’re just overweight. We are supposed to think it’s funny that Kraznys “has bigger breasts than Dany”. I suppose maybe it’s actually to show Dany’s immaturity, and that she’s negatively influenced by beauty standards, but that’s not something which is really explored. With Cersei, we get her trusting hot people who betray her and disliking “ugly” people who are actually trying to help her.

That doesn’t seem to be a big part of Dany’s character. Kraznys is what he seems to be and nothing much more than that.

394.Doreah-

She was not much of a character

And ohhh…she had no personality

And I got this crazy feeling

I’m gonna ah ah put her low

And oh she was so boring

I didn’t care when she died

And I got this crazy feeling

George didn’t care either

As Dany only thinks of her once afterwards

You may ask what’s her name

And I’ll whisper her name

I’ll whisper her name

And her name is D-O-R-E-A-H

DOREAH! D-O-R-E-A-H

And oh, I’m gonna tell the world

She was Dany’s handmaiden

No, not Jiqui or Iqui

The only difference is that she was blonde

And the way she was described

Was very creepy

DOREAH! D-O-R-E-A-H!

Oh, what’s the point?

What’s the point of her?

Quentyn died for someone’s sins, but not mine.

392 and 393. Irri and Jiqui-

I have forgotten the existence of Irri and Jiqui. They are Dany’s Dothraki “friends”. I feel like George screwed up by making all of Dany’s friends (other than Missandei) uninteresting, and also making most of the Dothraki she encounters lacking in any depth. Jon has a large treasure trove of kooky characters for him to bounce off of. Some of these characters are wildlings, who are displayed as having a wide variety of character types.

Meanwhile, there are two flavors of Dothraki we meet: fierce men and fragile women. This fill-in-the-blanks approach to character writing is super boring, sticking out extraordinarily from the rest of the series. I don’t care about Jhogo because he is the same as Aggo who is the same as Rakharo. I don’t care about Irri because she’s the same as Irri who is just a non-Lysene Doreah.

Irri and Jiqui are not characters. That requires character traits, which they lack.

391. Reznak Mo Reznak-

Reznak Mo Reznak is just…too goofy. His whole evil manipulator schtick feels like something from a C-tier Disney movie, and there simply isn’t anything done to make him in any way interesting or memorable. And, with many of these other lower tier characters, one could argue that they work well as set dressing, but Reznak’s set is already dressed fine. We get the idea that Mereen is a pit of vipers, and we get that there are all these people giving Danny bad advice. He adds nothing but another voice, and as voices go, his is the most annoying.

390. Aegon IV-

Aegon IV feels like an AI generated list of things you don’t want a medieval king to be.

389. Alliser Thorne-

Purposefully asshole characters are old hat. Sure, Alliser Thorne was created in the 1990s, but uhhh…whatever. Alliser does feel a tad bit tropey, which makes him kind of annoying. He’s also not evil in a fun way, just a jerk. I also don’t like Rast, but I didn’t get an image of him, so I’d also put him here.

I suppose one could say that we need two dimensional jerks like this in this part of Jon’s story, and I suppose that is true. However…I still don’t like him.

I’ve seen a lot of war movies, and there are tough drill instructors who are just as dimensional as Alliser yet still manage to be more interesting. Just look at Heavy Metal Jacket.

Also, like what is Alliser’s deal? He has no motives beyond just hating everyone for no real reason.

388. Jaehaerys II-

Jaehaerys II is easily the most boring Targ king. Maybe he had a personality, but I can’t say for certain.

11 notes · View notes

sokayisaidiot · 4 years ago

Text

Why Tommy is one of THE BEST written characters in existence.

Alright, that’s it

Here I give you my fuckin Take on why Tommy is one of the best written characters out there and can easily compete with best-selling Novels like Percy Jackson and Harry Potter. I’m sick of a trashing that doesn’t even make sense. So buckle up. Here I will tell you why Tommy has one of the best written characters in history of Books and Movies. Remember, I write this all in my perspective and take many examples of other character books as well

Before this all starts, I will also talk about the main characters of some series, since Tommy has the reputation of being a “main” character.

When I look at the books I’ve read, I see a large range of characters and there way of making the story interesting.

Now, to establish a good character, we need key points of motivations, to make them relatable and bla bla blub:

Personality

Part of the story

Their Powers

Flaws

Relationships

Prized Possessions

History/the backstory

The moral and story the character tells

First tho, I want to explain some words I’m going to use here!

Mary Sue/Gary Stu:

Those are characters who are flawless, have missing chunks of personality and mostly one way written. They are easy to achieve when you are trying to make your character look badass.

Examples in some Fandoms are

· Rey Skywalker (Star Wars Sequels 7-9)

· Hermione Granger (Harry Potter Movies)

· Bella Swan (Twilight)

Tree-System:

Imagine a tree. You plant something small and soon you have something giant with many branches, roots and connections. You have the seed you plant and with caring and care you let it grow. Then you have somewhat a sapling. The tree grows with the care and soon you have a tree with many branches.

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Personality

Negative:

Tommy’s personality is very brash and out of control = He’s barely containable in fights, going off to do his own risky plans and starting two or so fights. He can’t forgive a person very easily like Eret, who took it a long time to get forgiveness and Techno, as he shot Tubbo at the Festival. He makes decision that also cost his life like the duel because he hates losing

Tommy can be very lazy, giving the thought he wouldn’t have to do the hard work = Shown when he tries to steal the hearts of seas from Eret or potions from Techno, bargain with “drugs” by Puffy and Ponk or gives other people the work he doesn’t want to do like he did with getting cobblestone

Like a child, he often clings to close people and annoys others for attention = His desperate attempts to have company or someone praising him shows, when he tries to get Philza’s approval (or a pat on the back), constantly looking out, if Tubbo’s either okay or where his is,

He doesn’t like to wait or doing things in the long run = He constantly asks when something is finished, when they could go or in his exile, when he was allowed to go back to L’Manburg

He doesn’t show often his cooled down, scared and vulnerable side = He often overshadows his trauma with a facade of jokes and bad hidden hurt he brings out. When he talks about something bad, he’s clearly confused, not really knowing on how to understand it. Also he runs away from things he can’t control a panic attack like visiting the final control room or looking away from the holes in Logstedshire

He runs without head into a battle so often as possible = Only when they had their final showdown for the disc, Tommy was seen preparing in story, thinking it would be his last fight

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Positive:

But as he has negative traits, his positive shows to many people clearly.

His unwavering loyalty to the closest of people = His loyalty to Tubbo, Wilbur And L’Manburg are, were and always will be a part of him. He stands against anyone who goes against that, even if it means pain in many ways.

Passionate about dear projects of his = You can see Tommy talking about his discs or see an video where he would spent days getting different discs. Those things are very known to be rare things, so for Tommy to possess it gives him somewhat power. L’Manburg was the same passion, even a bit more, as you can see he was ready to give up his most prized disk. The last and in the moment is his hotel

Bravery like no one makes him as one of the dangerous person on peoples hitlist = He stands up for others. He stood up to L’Manburg. He in the end didn’t care that he lost a life. When he sees a foe, he won’t stand down and submit, he will fight against the oppression and tell them that in the face. During the mission to get a visa, he stood against Schlatt, even if they were clearly in the loose of people and disadvantage. Or getting an apology of Sapnap for killing Niki’s fox. Fighting against 5 people with just one ally while the other is a hostage.

His leadership = There are not many people who can take it up, but Tommy is an exception. He can coordinate people with his loud voice and somewhat thought plans. He is charismatic, even if he’s not so good at it like Wilbur, he still can motivate people to fight for themselves or others. He’s seen to lead others into battle and taking in the fighting part a leading role

Unselfish. That’s one of the most arguable things about Tommy`s character = You can´t look at a kid and say he is selfish because he wants to get something dearly back. Especially Tommy, after he gave the things up, he cared about. But if something is happening again, he will lay it down to do the other thing. As seen by the egg, he had a hard time thinking what to do. He, in a long time, didn’t want to be catalyst for something to happen. Not when he in the moment could have stopped it. So doing this act for himself ones, was a good decisions, since they clearly weren’t ready for war

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Part of the Story

Outside of the story:

Let’s all just get something “straight”. What would Dream SMP without Tommyinnit. Now. Don’t get me wrong. All the creators on the SMP are amazing. They are all wonderful and deserve every bit of Attention and fame they get. But just imagine.

We heard from Tubbo, he was the one, who got him into the SMP. Schlatt and Wilbur came because of a “visit”. Quackity was added because TOMMY said he was bored. And from that, we got somewhat of a tree system. As Tommy was invited and drawn into conflict by Sapnap (shoutout to best boy!), he got more people.

He also has the highest viewership and kind of shortest streams, since he is doing college next to Youtube and Streaming. He can’t give up his high viewers since all of those 200.000 (average) – closing 650.000 People (doing something like a big lore stream in prison or the disc final), choose to watch him.

Also a reminder again, Tommy has his storyline as does everyone else. When we saw Tommy and Techno during the partner up arc doing something with the dogs, they saw the start of the red vines arc BUT said they were on the wrong storyline. Tommy was asked by the eggpire writers if he wanted to be a part of the story and he said yes. Why do you think he nearly says nothing about the egg. He leaves it to the writers. Also, it was said by one of Wilbur’s Character descriptions, that Tommy was okay with others doing something with his character, while Techno was more reluctant with his.

Let me say it again, every creator is awesome and individual! Nobody should be compared to others. But with Tommy coming to the Dream SMP, there really was a change in the game.

Remember, that’s because we also have a BT (before Tommy) and AT (after Tommy) Timestamp in the wiki!

Inside of the story:

Now, with Sapnap, Alyssa, Ponk and Tommy in the first ever big conflict its shown the importance. People assume Tommy is one of the conflict bringers, even though he was dragged in it by having something stolen by Sapnap and then forced to fight with him, to get it back.

The Consequences he’s got where having his discs get stolen. This is what Tommy’s biggest character motivation was the first two seasons. Those discs are known on the server and when you think about gifting something to C!Tommy, it would be a disc.

Techno = Disc Wait

Badboyhalo = Disc Pigstep, Chirp

HBomb = Disc Pigstep, Wait

Tubbo = Stal

LazarBeam = Far

Tommy is a openminded boy who longs for funny little adventures and pranks, since he is just a young person. It’s in his nature.

So why, when he does something, are people looking on him?

Because the things he was and is a part of some of the biggest events. And him being so loud and brave and rash lets him stand out. If you look at the old (hah) Revolution of L’Manburg, who can you hear talking the most and the loudest? Tommy and Dream. They were the most outgoing about the war with Sapnap, Tubbo and Wilbur following. Fundy was more quieter (thankfully he has so much more lore now).

Tommy’s character is known to fall or be dragged head first in almost every conflict. He has connections to who? Mostly everybody. So of course he’s connected big parts to the stories.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Powers

Okay. Every “main” character or character with huge importance to the story has some kind of power. Looking at Dream, who is a “demigod” or Ranboo who I don’t even have to talk about. So what about Tommy?

Well. He doesn’t have any. Tommyinnit is one of the people, we get to have as an “human” character

Hannah = nature “Spirit”

Karl Jacobs = Timetraveller

Antfrost, Technoblade, Ranboo, Fundy = Hybrids

Dream = Something something green blob

Awesamdude, Puffy, Philza, Sapnap, Eret, Schlatt = Adding Features (wings, eyes, body parts)

Badboyhalo, Skeppy = completely different species apparently

Tommy has, as we know of the moment, a not confirmed power. The assumptions of the egg are not clear, since we haven’t seen those interact in a while. All we know is, Tommy didn’t get hurt, destroying a part and not feeling anything, while being in contact. That in canon considered.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Flaws

As talked before in personality and also in an assumption, we see the pattern of loyalty and brashness repeating.

Flaws are the most important parts of a character. It shows the struggle of their adventure and learning how to live with it.

Percy Jackson learned loyalty is nothing, if you don’t have someone to project it on.

Harry Potter and Luke Skywalker learned being a hot head didn’t really bring him forward and it’s important to have a plan

Frodo Beutlin learned that it is okay taking care of yourself and what attachment means

Anakin Skywalker learned fear is controllable and it shouldn’t be a remaining part of your life

Tommy learned over the time that his rashness could hurt others, loyalty couldn’t come back to him like he gave it out and he learns even more in the coming future.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Relationships

Tommy’s relationships is a mess of strings. Some are badly knotted and some are very clear.

A characters connections is an important part for the character himself.

Relationships in life are

· Enemies(-figure)

· Rivals(-figure)

· Friends(-figure)

· Family(-figure)

· Lover(-figure)

· Complicated family(-figure)

· Complicated friend (-figure)

Relationships are a part of everyone’s life. Not with everybody is a good relationship holdable. Either it’s because their hurting each other or another person. People change and that’s a part of life.

Tommy realized, even tho it hurt, that Techno wasn’t good for his mental state and health. It went against everything Tommy ever stood for.

And Tommy and Tubbo’s relationship wasn’t really that broken. It’s normal for friends to fight. Normal for them hit their heads in. Tommy and Tubbo were surrounded with people who were, at the time, a terrible addition to their mental life.

The Dream SMP doesn’t talk it out, hell the talking club was just destroyed because they preferred fists over words. So why do you think everything is going out with a fight, if it’s all they learned.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Priced Possessions

Every character has to something a connection.

Might it be Percy Jackson and his sword

Might it be Harry with his glasses, broomstick and wand

Frodo and his stupid ring

For Tommy we all know it’s his ender chest inside and secret chest. He keeps many belongings in his chests and always has been one for those things. He kept flowers, compasses, Friendship signs and most importantly, his discs.

The care for something of items are important. Might it be a teddy, old photo or jewelry. People get protective over it, because it holds sentimental value to the person.

If you ask me, to let go of my teddy bear, I will show you my middle finger. Probably beat you up too.

You can’t just throw out your memories into a fire or pit of lava. This is just showing you never had a care and everything you had a memory with it before would have been gone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

History/Backstory

We don’t have much here, but still something to work with.

A Hero doesn’t have an easy live. And it’s an said thing that every Hero needs an origin Story.

Tommy, said not really anything about his past.

All we know is that Tommy didn’t have anyone, presumably an Orphan, he knew the sleepy bois already a long time ago and he never learned on how to ride a bike, saying he never really had a family.

Signs that he didn’t even leave half a good life are:

· his knowledge on stealing and preferring this over working for it

· Liking to live in weird spaces like carved out holes in sides of hills (his hobbit hole or the basement by Techno) or living in his tent over a hole house

· His liking of cobblestone and dirt, which are easy gettable blocks

· Holding his goodies and friends close to him

· Craving for attention or contact in general

And now for the part with the dream SMP.

We saw how it changed him. We saw his trauma and all the bad things that happened to him.

And that’s why we say his actions came from those past experiences and things. We are NOT excusing them, but showing. Past trauma CHANGES a person. It brings experience and a heavy amount of pain and anger. ESPECIALLY at a young age, you will change due to your experience in life. You will grow worried and anxious. Tommy did that. He grew more anxious, angry, scared and also experienced.

Stop saying trauma doesn’t explain it. Yes. It does. His lashing out came from his past and negative experience. Imagine growing up in a world where this is the norm. War and banishing. As well as death. Tommy has reasons why he is acting and does stuff.

Understand it. You don’t have to forgive him or anything. But understand it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The moral and the story the character tells us

When we see Tommy, we see a boy who went nearly through it all. Mental/Physical Abuse, Abandonment, War, Suicidal thoughts, betrayal, Death, etc…

He doesn’t show forgiveness for his abuser. Still has signs, that he fights with the past abuse, but he tells us a story of learning from past mistakes, that even in the darkest hours, there’s a way out. Things will, can and be ugly and those are dark hours, but in no way should you think that it’s over. Life is more than one way and can always turn into a new direction.

Life takes something old away from you. Life gives you something new. You lose someone, you find someone new. Friends can turn into enemies. Enemies can turn into friends. You can meet the weirdest people. You can meet the most amazing people. You can be alone and in the next second, you’re not. You will often lose, but you also can win if you give everything.

Life can be weird and that’s okay.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My Fazit (that’s german)

The thing is, he is very real for many viewers such as myself. He acts like how many teenagers his age reacts.

He doesn’t be “baby”, because he shows the “ugly” sides of trauma. He shows that attachments are good and you shouldn’t forgive your abuser. In no way. He shows that acting out and lashing out are two things that happen, when you have been in wars for many times and nearly just know that.

He has many flaws and mistakes but those make him even more real. He is showing how he is growing.

As a person, friend, (pseudo-)family.

He is real to many of the viewer since he doesn’t have any powers that are existing in our world to solve their problems. He knows that nobody would have helped him and Tubbo against Dream if he didn’t pay others.

Also that you can’t be friends with everyone and that it’s okay that not everybody likes you.

Tommy´s character is the most human and realistic character in a way of how we would react. We are humans who are lashing out and who are having ugly sides.

And also please stop saying that, since I really can relate to Tommy and I don’t want to be feeling like a “bad-written Character”…

And Don’t even get me started on Tommy’s acting dude!

He is one of the best actors and that one livestreams! In from off 200.000 – 600.000 People!

On the face cam alone is so much to see…

· You can see his face with each emotion shifting,

· when something funnily weird happens, he looks dead eyes in the camera

The voice acting…

· His breathing,

· the stuttering in his voice,

· THE GODDAMN EMOTIONS IN HIS FACE

HIS MUSIC CHOICE!

· He changes the music fitting for the situations as in fighting scenes or funny moments.

· He also has some funny bits with his music.

· Like a goddam DJ!

The ingame character

· His movements and head stares

· The jumping around when he gets overactive

· Long stops when he thinks or is sad!

You can see, I am a person from Tumblr and saw way too much bullshit around tommys character.

Stop critiquing him so badly.

You could say, I woke up and chose violence

>:D

#tommyinnit #mcyt #dream smp #character analysis #dream smp character analysis

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whencartoonsruletheworld · 4 years ago

Text

The Thrilling Saga of Connie paying real life money for the Worst Sonic TV Show

Let’s begin with the simple fact that me and my sister, @birdsareblooming “Cori”, have both been hyperfixating on Sonic the Hedgehog since last March. During this hyperfixation, I was on Sonic Wiki to copy-paste song lyrics onto my stolen mp3s, and I called my sister in and pointed at the template at the bottom.

“What is this Sonic Underground thing?” I asked. “It has one shit billion songs.”

So we clicked on the page to read about it, and each sentence we read was a punch in the gut and this quickly became the funniest thing we’d ever read. Highlights include:

It looks like this:

“Sonic[...] is known to be a prince”

Sonic has two siblings who actually have good characterization but their names are literally just Sonia and Manic. Like. Sonic split into two names. jesus christ

Also Sonic and his siblings all share a voice actor. honestly Jaleel White does his best with it but

“The three siblings possess enchanted medallions that transform not only into musical instruments, but also into weapons.”

“Some fans consider Sonia to be a clone of Amy Rose, minus the attraction Amy feels for Sonic.” YEAH I SURE HOPE IT DOES

“Manic is the most often captured of the siblings” himbo king

Knuckles shows up, and for the first, like, two sentences his description is very similar to the game, and then you get immediately pulverized by “He has a pet Dinosaur called Chomps.”

Literally so many sentences on Sonic Wiki are lowkey salty about this show. The page features lines such as “Sonic Underground bears little relation to the often complex Sonic universe (including previous animated series, as well as Sonic comics and games), and shares only three established characters” and “many of the characters in the Freedom Fighter group that were in Sonic the Hedgehog are completely left out (including Tails).”

“The show met with mostly negative reviews.”

*checks air dates* It only lasted two goddamn months

So after seeing this we thought it was the funniest thing and we showed our older sister, @patema-introverted “North.” To our surprise, our at the time “knew nothing about this sonic bullshit” sister recognized the show. Turns out she’d seen trailers for it as a child and that was her sole exposure to Sonic canon.

We were in quarantine at the time, so we ended up finding it on YouTube and binge-watching it all together as a sibling bonding activity. It was just as hilarious as we thought it would be- some stuff was legitimately good, like the sibling dialogue for instance, but good lord were the character designs ugly, the plot all over the place, and pretty much every song, um, not great. Also there was one episode that we skipped because it got, um, I think “stereotypical” is the nicest word I can use here.

But the point is, we had a jolly good time watching it, and afterwards we binged all the other Sonic shows and bonded as a family.

After quarantine, North and I go back to college. My roommate gets groceries at Walmart, while I get them elsewhere, so while she and North collect food I wander the DVD aisle to look at the cool movies and also dumpster-dive in the bargain bin for Cats (2019). I am also short as fuck, so the top shelf of movies I cannot see, I can only read the labels.

So one day I was browsing the DVDs, and glancing over at the labels for the top shelf. I read over the final one before the shelves end.

And then I stop, do a double take, and have a heart attack, because there is a label that reads “SONIC UNDERGROUND $3.74″

I immediately climb the shelf but there aren’t any DVDs atop the shelf. However, the label is still there. I excitedly tell my sister and roommates, freak out with them a bit, and then give myself a mission statement:

I will buy the $4 Sonic Underground DVD from Walmart

I did not want it as a gift, I did not want to find it online. I wanted to walk into a store, pick up the Worst Sonic Show on DVD, walk it straight to the checkout, and in front of the cashier and God, pay for it with my own money. I did not care if it was the whole series or two episodes; I needed to do this for my own serotonin.

We would go to Walmart about once a week. Every time, I would go to the DVD aisle, and go right to the end of the shelves. I would stare at the label SONIC UNDERGROUND $3.74 and empty space above it and wonder who the fuck was buying this other than me. I would occasionally ask employees if they had any copies in storage. I would build a shrine to Manic in my room. Okay, no I didn’t, but only because my RA would have murdered me.

Christmas break comes, and we have to go home. We have a nice Christmas, and Cori and I infodump at each other about how we would make Sonic Underground a good show (note: we’re both galaxy braining) and also play Bendy and the Ink Machine. Fun times.

When we finally get back to College, it’s late January- long story short we have a very long winter break. My roommate who gets food at Walmart got food without us the first week cause she showed up first, so we take her out to Walmart the first time in the year of our lord 2021 on January 29.

I wander the Valentine’s aisle, immediately grabbing a sequin puppy. I go to the DVDs and see Animaniacs Season One, also grab that.

And then.

There it is.

The Holy Grail.

Above the label SONIC UNDERGROUND $3.74, is one DVD left.

Already I am losing my mind. It’s roughly seven hours of episodes- I couldn’t find an episode list, but I think that’s half the show, for $4! And the cover is amazing.

That’s a png of Sonic from Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog (1993) with a medallion badly photoshopped over it. The medallion is too small.

Manic is shoved into the corner. He doesn’t have his medallion at all.

Sonia isn’t even pictured on the front cover, probably because they realized she was the worst designed of the bunch. I’m not ragging on her though, because she’s still one of the better designed characters of the show. Those background characters make me cry

So you bet your ass I finally paid my hard-earned $4 for this shit. Upon getting home, I discovered that there was even wilder shit with this DVD than I thought.

For starters: the bonus features listed are as follows:

Original Concept Art - did not expect that these character designs were the final draft

Storyboard-to-screen - did not expect they bothered to storyboard this

Music Video Jukebox - that’s cute, they thought we liked the music

Interviews with original screenwriter & executive producer - I fully expect the only questions to be “why.”

On the left of this list are screenshots from the show, where people can finally see Sonia, who we Know™ is a girl because she is pink and has hair and also an actual body shape instead of just circles like her brothers.

But wait... what’s that in the lefthand corner?

That looks like some kind of robot. But it’s not a robot from Sonic Underground! That didn’t appear once. Why is it here?

The mystery continues upon opening the DVD case: inside are advertisements for other collections, including other Sonic DVDs: two volumes of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog (1993) and the final episodes of Sonic the Hedgehog “SatAM” (1993)

First of all, the first volume of AOSTH has the exact same PNG of Sonic as the Underground Volume 1. Not even trying to hide it. But second... the second volume of AOSTH also has this robot on its cover.

And THIS ROBOT IS ALSO DECORATING THE THIRD DISC IN THE SET?

So you may be asking, who is this robot? Is it from AOSTH or Underground?

IT’S FROM FUCKING SATAM. The one show that doesn’t have it decorating the DVD covers.

Also, not only is it from SatAM, it only appears in one fucking episode. Not a major character! AND IT HAS A DIFFERENT DESIGN ON THE PROMO ART, WITH HAIR AND FANGS.

Why is it showing up everywhere? What is going on?

I have not yet had the opportunity to watch this glorious piece of animation, but I am so glad at the confusion I have felt upon receiving it.

But before I go, I must share with you the best part of this DVD purchase. And it was flipping to the back, scanning the details, and discovering the exact runtime of the episode collection.

Guys, gals, and enby pals, friends and enemies, Nintendo and Sega, the first Volume of Sonic Underground has a runtime of...

420 MINUTES.

Maybe I’m wrong and this IS the best Sonic show.

#sonic underground #sonic the hedgehog #sonic 2020 #walmart #mine #connie writes #story time with tumblr

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vrishchikawrites · 3 years ago

Note

I just want to ask out of pure confusion. I was checking out some stuff in MDZS wiki and I saw this:

I noticed that real fans keep saying that WWX was never really adopted. And some "fans" keep saying that WWX is adopted (and that is why he "owes" the Jiang family a huge debt, which um, where did they get that idea?). But this wiki confuses me. Unless...I can't really trust wiki anymore.

To be honest, adopted or not (which I'm leaning to the latter), WWX never deserved any of the bullshit YZY and JC handed to him. So I guess I just shouldn't trust the wiki?

Ahhh my dear, the Wiki is run by a hardcore JC stans. Like really hardcore. The kind that calls LWJ JC's former senior martial brother-in-law (which is ridiculous)

The text isn't absolutely clear but it is fairly obvious that it isn't a formal adoption. Firstly, WWX retains his name and he honors his parents. He very much dislikes anyone claiming he doesn't belong to his parents.

Secondly, he doesn't address anyone with a familial address. It is always shijie and Jiang Cheng, and Yu-furen. While he does address JFM as uncle, it isn't really in a familial way.

WWX is never greeted as a Jiang Clan member by people outside the clan. He's acknowledged as a Head Disciple and people speak of JFM favouring him - often in a negative light.

WWX himself acknowledges he is a 'kind of' servant. I read some meta that I can't recall now about him being some sort of retainer.

He's allowed to eat with the family and live close to the family quarters. JYL certainly considers him a younger brother. YZY most definitely treats him like a servant

If she didn’t whip him a few times and tell him to get out, kneel at the ancestral shrine, and keep far away from Jiang Cheng, he already considered that pretty good.

Chapter 29 Morning Dew II Fanyiyi translation.

There's no mention of this in the Wiki. In many ways, the Wiki is favorable to the Jiangs. I wouldn't trust it for information.

When I want to do research, I go to the Wiki, look at the chapter reference mentioned near the fact and then verify myself.

For example, the wiki says that WWX realized YZY didn't whip him as hard as he claimed. But in the EXR translation, he doesn't explicitly mention this. He observes that even tho YZY whipped him many times and the wounds burned and tingled, he was able to move around.

While this can be interpreted as he wasn't whipped as badly as YZY claimed, it is also a very logical adrenalin response. Now, idk how it comes across in the original Chinese text but 🤷‍♀️.

I'd say take everything you read there with a grain of salt and look at the references to confirm facts.

#reader asks #re: wwx #re: fandom

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shihalyfie · 3 years ago

Note

Hi :) If it's not too much trouble, could you please share your take on why they'd continue the Adventure brand after tri. was such a flop? (and a tangent: what does "dark history" even mean?). We got Kizuna, the reboot, and a 02 movie. Logically, it doesn't really make sense they'd keep investing in it.

This is a thorny topic, and I'd like to reiterate that although I've ended up making more posts related to this series and the discourse surrounding it recently (probably because it's even more on the mind now that another movie is on the horizon and a lot of people are apprehensive for various reasons), I do not want this blog to be making a brand out of being critical of this series. I’m writing this here and in public because I figured that there is a certain degree I need to clarify what I mean about audience reception/climate and how it might impact current or future works, and I’m admittedly also more than a little upset that I occasionally see Western fanbase criticisms of the series getting dismissed by people claiming that the only people mad about it are dramamongering or ignorant Westerners (which could not be further from the truth). However, this is mainly to address this and to answer your question, and is not intended to try and change anyone's existing opinion or impression of the series as much as it's me trying to explain (from my own personal reading of the situation) what practically went down with critical reception in real life; no more, no less.

The short summary of the matter is:

The series was a moderate financial success (albeit with some caveats; see the long version for details) and definitely outstripped a lot of prior attempts to revive the franchise;

However, the overall Japanese fanbase-side critical backlash from tri. was extremely and viciously negative to the point where even acknowledging the series too much could easily result in controversy;

Kizuna’s production and the PR surrounding it very obviously have this in mind with a lot of apparent “damage control” elements.

The long version is below.

Note that while I try to be diligent about citing my sources so people understand that I’m not just making things up wholesale, I’m deliberately refraining from linking certain things here this time, both because some of the things mentioned have some pretty crude things written there -- it’s not something I feel comfortable directing people to regardless of what language it’s in -- and because I don’t want to recklessly link things on social media and cause anyone to go after or harass the people involved. For the links that have been provided, please still be warned that some of them don’t really link to particularly pleasant things.

I am not writing the following information to suggest that anyone should agree or disagree with the sentiments being described. I know people tend to take "a lot of people like/hate this" as a signal of implication "it is correct to like/hate this" when it's not (and I especially dislike the idea of implying that Japanese fanbase opinions are the only correct ones). There's a reason I focus on "critical reception being this way" (because it influences marketing decisions and future direction) rather than how much this should impact one's personal feelings; this is coming from myself as someone who is shamelessly proud of liking many things that had bad critical reception, were financial failures, or are disliked by many. As I point out near the end, the situation also does seem to be changing for the better in more recent years as well.

Also, to be clear, I'm a single person who's observing everything best I can from my end, I have no affiliations with staff nor do I claim to, and as much as I'm capable of reading Japanese and thus reading a lot of people's impressions, I'm ultimately still another “outsider” looking in. These are my impressions from my observation of fan communal spaces, following artists and reading comments on social media and art posting websites, and results from social media searches. In the end, I know as much as anyone else about what happened, so this is just my two cents based on all of my personal observations.

A fanbase is a fanbase regardless of what part of the world you're from. There are people who love it and are shameless about saying so. There are people who have mixed feelings or at least aren't on extreme ends of the spectrum (as always, the loudest ones are always the most visible, but it's not always easy to claim they're the predominant percentage of the fanbase). That happens everywhere, and I still find that on every end I've seen. However, if I'm talking about my impressions and everything I’ve encountered, I will say that the overall Japanese reaction to tri. comes off as significantly more violently negative on average than the Western one, which is unusual because often it's the other way around. (I personally feel less so because the opinions are that fundamentally different and more so because we're honestly kind of loud and in-your-face people; otherwise, humans are mostly the same everywhere, and more often than not people feel roughly the same about everything if they’re given the same information to work with.)

This is not something I can say lightly, and thus would not say if I didn’t really get this impression, but...we're talking "casually looking up movie reviews for Kizuna have an overwhelming amount of people casually citing any acknowledgment of tri. elements as a negative element", or the fact that even communal wikis for "general" fandoms like Pixiv and Aniwota don't tend to hold back in being vicious about it (as of this writing, Pixiv's wiki refuses to consider it in the same timeline as Adventure, accusing it of being "a series that claims to be a sequel set three years after 02 but is in fact something different"). Again, there are people who openly enjoy it and actively advocate for it (and Pixiv even warns people to not lord over others about it condescendingly because of the fact that such people do exist), and this is also more of a reflection of “the hardcore fanbase on the Internet” and not necessarily the mainstream (after all, there are quite a few other Digimon works where the critical reception varies very heavily between the two). Nevertheless, the take-home is that the reputation is overall negative among the Internet fanbase to the point that this is the kind of sentiment you run into without trying all that hard.

I think, generally speaking, if we're just talking about why a lot of people resent the series, the reasons aren't that different from those on the Western side. However, that issue of "dark history" (黒歴史): there's a certain degree of demand from the more violently negative side of the fanbase that's, in a sense, asking official to treat it as a disgrace and never acknowledge it ever again, hence why Kizuna doing so much as borrowing things from it rather than rejecting it outright is still sometimes treated like it’s committing a sin. So it's somewhat close in spirit to a retcon movement, which is unusual because no other Digimon series gets this (not even 02; that was definitely a thing on the Western end, but while I'm sure there are people who hate it that much on their end too, I've never really seen it gain enough momentum for anyone to take it seriously). If anyone ever tells you that Japanese fanbases are nice to everything, either they don't know Japanese, are being willfully ignorant, or are lying to you, because there is such thing as drama in those areas, and in my experience, I've seen things get really nasty when things are sufficiently pushed over the edge, and if a fanbase wants to have drama, it will have drama. This happens to be one of those times.

(If you think this is extreme, please know that I also think so too, so I hope you really understand that me describing this sentiment does not mean I am personally endorsing it. Also, let me reiterate that the loudest section of the fanbase is not necessarily the predominant one; after all, as someone who’s been watching reactions to 02 over the years, I myself can attest that its hatedom has historically made it sound more despised than it actually is in practice.)

My impression is that the primary core sentiment behind why the series so much as existing and being validated is considered such an offense (rather than, say, just saying "wow, that writing was bad" and moving on) is heavily tied to the release circumstances the series came out in during 2015-2018, and the idea that "this series disrespected Adventure, and also disrespected the fanbase.” (I mean, really, regardless of what part of the world you’re from, sequels and adaptations tend to be held to a higher bar of expectation than standalone works, because they’re expected to do them justice.) A list of complaints I’ve come across a lot while reading through the above:

The Japanese fanbase is pretty good at recordkeeping when it comes to Adventure universe lore, partially because they got a lot of extra materials that weren’t localized, but also partially because adherence to it seems to generally be more Serious Business to them than it is elsewhere. For instance, “according to Adventure episode 45, ‘the one who wishes for stability’ (Homeostasis) only started choosing children in 1995, and therefore there can be no Chosen Children before 1995” is taken with such gravity that this, not anything to do with evolutions or timeline issues, is the main reason Hurricane Touchdown’s canonicity was disputed in that arena (because Wallace implies that he met his partners before 1995). It’s a huge reason the question of Kizuna also potentially not complying to lore came to the forefront, because tri. so flagrantly contradicts it so much that this issue became very high on the evaluation checklist. In practice, Kizuna actually goes against Adventure/02 very little, so the reason tri. in particular comes under fire for this is that it does it so blatantly there were theories as early as Part 1 that this series must take place in a parallel universe or something, and as soon as it became clear it didn’t, the resulting sentiment was “wow, you seriously thought nobody would notice?” (thus “disrespecting the audience”).

A lot of the characterization incongruity is extremely obvious when you’re following only the Japanese version, partially because it didn’t have certain localization-induced characterization changes (you are significantly less likely to notice a disparity with Mimi if you’re working off the American English dub where they actually did make her likely to step on others’ toes and be condescending, whereas in Japanese the disparity is jarring and hard to miss) and partially due to some things lost in translation (Mimi improperly using rough language on elders is much easier to spot as incongruity if you’re familiar with the language). Because it’s so difficult to miss, and honestly feels like a lot of strange writing decisions you’d make only if you really had no concept of what on earth happened in the original series, it only contributes to the idea that they were handling Adventure carelessly and disrespectfully without paying attention to what the series was even about (that, or worse, they didn’t care).

02 is generally well-liked there! It’s controversial no matter where you go, but as I said earlier, there was no way a retcon movement would have ever been taken seriously, and the predominant sentiment is that, even if you’re not a huge fan of it, its place in canon (even the epilogue) should be respected. So not only flagrantly going against 02-introduced lore but also doing that to a certain quartet is seen as malicious, and you don’t have as much of the converse discourse celebrating murdering the 02 quartet (yeah, that’s a thing that happened here) or accusing people with complaints of “just being salty because they like 02″ as nearly as much of a factor; I did see it happen, or at least dismissals akin to “well it’s Adventure targeted anyway,” but they were much less frequent. The issue with the 02 quartet is usually the first major one brought up, and there’s a lot of complaints even among those who don’t care for 02 as much that the way they went about it was inhumane and hypocritical, especially when killing Imperialdramon is fine but killing Meicoomon is a sin. Also, again, “you seriously think nobody will see a problem with how this doesn’t make sense?”

I think even those who are fans of the series generally agree with this, but part of the reason the actual real-life time this series went on is an important factor is that the PR campaign for this series was godawful. Nine months of clicking on an egg on a website pretending like audience participation meant something when in actuality it was blatantly obvious it was just a smokescreen to reveal info whenever they were ready? This resulted in a chain effect where even more innocuous/defensible things were viewed in a suspicious or negative light (for instance, "the scam of selling the fake Kaiser's goggles knowing Ken fans would buy it only to reveal that it's not him anyway"), and a bunch of progressively out-of-touch-with-the-fanbase statements and poor choices led to more sentiment “yeah, you’re just insulting the fanbase at this point,” and a general erosion of trust in official overall.

On top of that, the choice of release format to have it spread out as six movies over three years seems to have exacerbated the backlash to get much worse than it would have been otherwise, especially since one of the major grievances with the series is that how it basically strung people along, building up more and more unanswered questions before it became apparent it was never going to answer them anyway. So when you’re getting that frustrated feeling over three whole years, it feels like three years of prolonged torture, and it becomes much harder to forgive for the fallout than if you’d just marathoned the entire thing at once.

For those who are really into the Digimon (i.e. species) lore and null canon, while I’m not particularly well-versed in that side of the fanbase, it seems tri. fell afoul of them too for having inaccurately portrayed (at one point, mislabeled) special attacks and poorly done battle choreography, along with the treatment of Digimon in general (infantilized Digimon characterization, general lack of Digimon characters in general, very flippant treatment of the Digital World in Parts 3-5). If you say you’re going to “reboot” the Digital World and not address the entire can of worms that comes with basically damaging an entire civilization of Digimon, as you can imagine, a lot of people who actually really care about that are going to be pissed, and the emerging sentiment is “you’re billing this as a Digimon work, but you don’t even care about the monsters that make up this franchise.”

The director does not have a very positive reputation among those who know his work (beyond just Digimon), and in general there was a lot of suspicion around the fact they decided to get a guy whose career has primarily been built on harem and fanservice anime to direct a sequel to a children’s series. Add to that a ton of increasingly unnerving statements about how he intended to make the series “mature” in comparison to its predecessor (basically, an implication that Adventure and 02 were happy happy joy series where nothing bad ever happened) and descriptions of Adventure that implied a very, very poor grasp of anything that happened in it: inaccurate descriptions of their characters, poor awareness of 02′s place in the narrative, outright saying in Febri that he saw the Digimon as like perpetual kindergartners even after evolving, and generally such a flippant attitude that it drove home the idea that the director of an Adventure sequel had no respect for Adventure, made this series just to maliciously dunk on it for supposedly being immature, and has such a poor grasp of what it even was that it’s possible he may not have seen it in the first place (or if he did, clearly skimmed it to the extent he understood it poorly to pretty disturbing levels). As of this writing, Aniwota Wiki directly cites him as a major reason for the backlash.

In general, consensus seems to be that the most positively received aspect of the series (story-wise) was Part 3 (mostly its ending, but some are more amenable to the Takeru and Patamon drama), and the worst vitriol goes towards Parts 2 (for the blatantly contradictory portrayal of Mimi and Jou and the hypocritical killing of Imperialdramon) and 4 (basically the “point of no return” where even more optimistic people started getting really turned off). This is also what I suspect is behind the numbers on the infamous DigiPoll (although the percentage difference is admittedly low enough to fall within margin of error). However, there was suspicion about the series even from Part 1, with one prominent fanartist openly stating that it felt more like meeting a ton of new people than it did reuniting with anyone they knew.

So with all of that on the table: how did this affect official? The thing is that when I say “violently negative”, I mean that also entailed spamming official with said violently negative social media comments. While this is speculation, I am fairly certain that official must have realized how bad this was getting as early as between Parts 4 and 5, because that’s where a lot of really suspicious things started happening behind the scenes; while I imagine the anime series itself was now too far in to really do anything about it, one of the most visible producers suddenly vanished from the producer lineup and was replaced by Kinoshita Yousuke, who ended up being the only member of tri. staff shared with Kizuna (and, in general, the fact that not a single member of staff otherwise was retained kind of says a lot). Once the series ended in 2018 and the franchise slowly moved into Kizuna-related things, you might notice that tri.-branded merch production almost entirely screeched to a halt and official has been very touchy about acknowledging it too deeply; it’s not that they don’t, but it’s kind of an awfully low amount for what you’d think would be warranted for a series that’s supposed to be a full entry in the big-name Adventure brand.

The reason is, simply, that if they do acknowledge it too much, people will get pissed at them. That’s presumably why the tri. stage play (made during that interim period between Parts 4 and 5 and even branded with the title itself) and Kizuna are really hesitant to be too aggressive about tri. references; it’s not necessarily that official wants to blot it out of history like the most extreme opinions would like them to, but even being too enthusiastic about affirming it will also get them backlash, especially if the things they affirm are contradictory to Adventure or 02. And considering even the small references they did put in still got them criticism for “affirming” tri. too much, you can easily see that the backlash would have been much harder if they’d attempted more than that; staying as close as possible to Adventure and 02 and trying to deal with tri. elements only when they’re comparatively inoffensive was pretty much the “safe” thing to do in this scenario (especially since fully denying tri. would most certainly upset the people who did like the series, and if you have to ask me, I personally think this would have been a pretty crude thing to have done right after the series had just finished). Even interviews taken after the fact often involve quickly disclaiming involvement with the series, or, if they have to bring up something about it, discussing the less controversial aspects like the art (while the character designs were still controversial, it’s at least at the point where some fanartists will still be willing to make use of them even if they dislike the series, albeit often with prominent disclaimers) or the more well-received parts of Part 3; Kizuna was very conspicuously marketed as a standalone movie, even if it shared the point of “the Adventure kids, but older” that tri. had.

(Incidentally, the tri. stage play has generally been met with a good reputation and was received well even among people who were upset with the anime, so it was well-understood that they had no relation. In fact, said stage play is probably even better received than Kizuna, although that’s not too surprising given the controversial territory Kizuna goes into, making the stage play feel very play-it-safe in comparison.)

So, if we’re going to talk about Kizuna in particular: tri. was, to some degree, a moderate financial success, in the sense that it made quite a bit of money and did a lot to raise awareness of the Digimon brand still continuing...however, if you actually look at the sales figures for tri., they go down every movie; part of it was probably because of the progressively higher “hurdle” to get into a series midway, but consider that Gundam Unicorn (a movie series which tri.’s format was often compared to) had its sales go up per movie thanks to word of mouth and hype. So while tri. does seem to have gotten enough money to help sustain the franchise at first, the trade-off was an extremely livid fanbase that had shattered faith in the brand and in official, and so while continuing the Adventure brand might still be profitable, there was no way they were going to get away with continuing to do this lest everything eventually crash and burn.

Hence, if you look at the way Kizuna was produced and advertised, you can see a lot of it is blatantly geared at addressing a lot of the woes aimed at tri.: instead of the staff that had virtually no affiliation with Toei, the main members of staff announced were either from the original series (Seki and Yamatoya) or openly childhood fans, the 02 quartet was made into a huge advertising point as a dramatic DigiFes reveal (and character profies that tie into the 02 epilogue careers prominently part of the advertising from day one), and they even seemed to acknowledge the burnout on the original Adventure group by advertising it so heavily as “the last adventure of Taichi and his friends”, so you can see that there’s a huge sentiment of “damage control” with it. How successful that was...is debatable, since opinions have been all over the board; quite a few people were naturally so livid at what happened with tri. that Kizuna was just opening more of the wound, but there were also people who liked it much better and were willing to acknowledge it (with varying levels of enthusiasm, some simply saying “it was thankfully okay,” and some outright loving it), and there was a general sentiment even among those who disliked both that they at least understood what Kizuna was going for and that it didn’t feel as inherently disrespectful. (Of course, there are people who loved tri. and hated Kizuna, and there are people who loved both, too.)

Moreover, Kizuna actually has a slightly different target audience from tri.; there’s a pretty big difference between an OVA and a theatrical movie, and, quite simply, Kizuna was made under the assumption that a lot of people watching it may not have even seen tri. in the first place. An average of 11% of the country watched Adventure and 02, but the number of people who watched tri. is much smaller, in part due to the fact that its “theater” screenings were only very limited screenings compared to Kizuna being shown in theaters in Japan and worldwide, and in part due to the fact that watching six parts over three years is a pretty huge commitment for someone who may barely remember Digimon as anything beyond a show they watched as a kid, and may be liable to just fall off partway through because they simply just forgot. (Which also probably wasn’t helped by the infamously negative reputation, something that definitely wouldn’t encourage someone already on the fence.) And that’s yet another reason Kizuna couldn’t make too many concrete tri. references; being a theatrical movie, it needs to have as wide appeal as possible, and couldn’t risk locking out an audience that had a very high likelihood of not having seen it, much less to the end -- it may have somewhat been informed by tri.’s moderate financial success and precedent, but it ultimately was made for the original Adventure and 02 audience more than anything else.

I would say that, generally, while Kizuna is “controversial” for sure, reception towards the movie seems to be more positive than negative, it won over a large chunk of people who were burned out by tri., and it clearly seems to have been received well enough that it’s still being cashed in on a year after its release. The sheer existence of the upcoming 02-based movie is also probably a sign of Kizuna’s financial and critical success; Kinoshita confirmed at DigiFes 2020 that nothing was in production at the time, and stated shortly after the movie’s announcement that work on it had just started. So the decision to make it seems to have been made after eyeing Kizuna’s reception, and, moreover, the movie was initially advertised from the get-go with Kizuna’s director and writer (Taguchi and Yamatoya), meaning those two have curried enough goodwill from the fanbase that this can be used to promote the movie. (If not, you would think that having and advertising Seki would be the bigger priority.) While this is my own sentiment, I am personally doubtful official would have even considered 02 something remotely profitable enough on its own to cash in on if it weren’t for this entire sequence of events of 02′s snubbing in tri. revealing how much of a fanbase it had (especially with the sheer degree of “suspicious overcompensation” Kizuna had with its copious use of the 02 quartet and it tagging a remix of the first 02 ED on the Hanareteitemo single, followed by the drama CD and character songs), followed by Kizuna having success in advertising with them so heavily. Given all of the events between 2015 and now, it’s a bit ironic to see that 02 has now become basically the last resort to be able to continue anything in the original Adventure universe without getting too many people upset at them about it.

The bright side coming out of all of this is that, while it’s still a bit early to tell, now that we’re three years out from tri. finishing up and with Kizuna in the game, it seems there’s a possibility for things improving around tri.’s reception as well. Since a lot of the worst heated points of backlash against it have a very “you had to have been there” element (related to the PR, release schedule, and staff comments), those coming in “late” don’t have as much reason to be as pissed at it; I’ve seen at least one case of a fanartist getting back into the franchise because of Kizuna hype, watching tri. to catch up, casually criticizing it on Twitter, and moving on with their life, presumably because marathoning the whole thing being generally aware of what’ll happen in it and knowing Kizuna is coming after anyway gives you a lot less reason to be angry to the point of holding an outright grudge. Basically, even if you don’t like it, it’s much easier to actually go “yeah, didn’t like that,” not worry too much about it, and move on. Likewise, I personally get the impression that official has been starting to get a little more confident about digging up elements related to it. Unfortunately, a fairly recent tweet promoting the series getting put on streaming services still got quite a few angry comments implying that they should be deleting the scourge from the Internet instead, so there’s still a long way to go, but hopefully the following years will see things improve further...

In regards to the reboot, I -- and I think a lot of people will agree with me -- have a bit of a hard time reading what exact audience it’s trying to appeal to; we have a few hints from official that they want parents to watch it with their children, and that it may have been a necessary ploy in order to secure their original timeslot. So basically, the Adventure branding gets parents who grew up with the original series to be interested in it and to show it to their kids, and convinces Fuji TV that it might be profitable. But as most people have figured by now, the series has a completely different philosophy and writing style -- I mean, the interview itself functionally admits it’s here to be more action-oriented and to have its own identity -- and the target audience is more the kids than anything else. As for the Internet fanbase of veterans, most people have been critical of its character writing and pacing, but other than a few stragglers who are still really pissed, it hasn’t attracted all that much vitriol, probably because in the end it’s an alternate universe, it doesn’t have any obligation to adhere to anything from the original even if it uses the branding, and it’s clearly still doing its job of being a kids’ show for kids who never saw the original series nor 02, so an attempt to call it “disrespectful” to the original doesn’t have much to stand on. A good number of people who are bored of it decided it wasn’t interesting to them and dropped it without incident, while other people are generally just enjoying it for being fun, and the huge amount of Digimon franchise fanservice with underrepresented Digimon and high fidelity to null canon lore is really pleasing the side of the fanbase that’s into that (I mean, Digimon World Golemon is really deep in), so at the very least, there’s not a lot to be super-upset about.

#tri negativity #shiha's ask box #springcrafter

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aliceinteyvat · 3 years ago

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Genshin Impact Idol AU ideas

So we all know the groups Veechu made with 4nemo, DCKZ, L/yue and, TVT DREAM however, I thought it was a crime the actual idol Barbara wasn’t in a group so, I made my own! I do not have the skills to draw this so, I will be including concept photos by actual groups(older and newer as well as the time in those examples i think suits them just for an example bts run era - dope era for a boy group) for the general vibe. Click on their names for a link to the kpop wiki about them. I also won’t include Lumine because many fans have made their own headcanons for that I like.

Feel free to use the ideas I added to this in fanworks just please credit me for the idea of the groups I made myself if you do. All will be under the read more so mobile users don’t break their fingers trying to scroll past. Wiki links are included for each real world inspiration. If looking for a specific character use ctrl+f on PC to search for them to make your life easier.

Note: their stories can be changed if you would like to make it different for your art/writing/whatever. I just think a bit of drama makes them feel more real. None of the stories are 100% based on any real group even their inspirations aren’t direct copies. As new characters are released/shown in stories I will be adding onto existing groups I made up or, making new ones so if you like my ideas save this and come back to it.

7evelUp! [pronounced Level Up!]

A rookie girl group created from the top seven trainees(voted by judges & public vote) in a survival show that quickly gained international fame from their debut single and, performance. No one doubts their talents however, some question how legitimate the voting/ranking was in the show. No one blames the girls themselves for this and, there is no real evidence to prove this. All of the members believe the show to be real due to their own experiences too although, a few of them due to their low self-esteem believe other trainees would’ve been better suited in the group even if they are thankful for the support. It will take a while for all of them to adjust and, have it all feel real. Will they rise to super stardom or, crack under the immense pressure?

- Members

Amber (leader, main dancer) 3rd place(got the leader position because she is the one who brought every team she was in together to usually win the challenges showing her leadership skills not from ranking)

Barbara (main vocalist,maknae,center) 1st place

Noelle (lead dancer,visual) 6th place

Sucrose (lead vocalist) 7th place

Xiangling (lead dancer, lead rapper) 5th place

Yanfei (main rapper,oldest) 2nd place

Yoimiya (lead rapper, vocalist) 4th place

- Real World Inspirations

Weeekly(Tag Me era - 7Days Tension era)

Girls’ Generation(Into the New World era-Gee era)

TWICE(Like Ooh Aah era - Heart Shaker era)

SYZYGY

An unconventional girl group with a unique sound. Despite their enormous amount of talent/skill , they haven’t been as successful as their small company had hoped. However, they continue to invest everything they can into this group much to the displeasure of the other idols under the company. Will their burning hot passion find success with the masses or, will they disband early leaving their company in complete ruin?

- Members

Hu Tao (leader, main rapper, vocalist)

Fischl (lead vocalist, lead rapper, maknae)

Mona (lead dancer, vocalist, visual)

Rosaria (main dancer, vocalist, rapper, oldest)

Xinyan (main vocalist, dancer,center)

- Real World Inspirations

Dreamcatcher (Chase Me era - Odd Eye era)

1NB (Stalker era - Once again, Winter era)

1MP@CT [prounced Impact]

A previously underrated boy group that seemingly appeared out of thin air on the #1 spots of all major top music charts. Most attribute their overnight success to their newest song going viral on social media but, some who work within their company secretly wonder if it has anything to do with the CEO’s private life and, the new anonymous investors. Regardless, they have made a name for themselves. They have a work ethic like no other and, will do whatever necessary to rise to the top. Even though fans are starting to worry their agency is pushing them too far. Will they become legendary performers the kind that future generations remember by name or, will their boss’ dirty little secrets make them guilty by association to the press when/if the time comes?

- Members

Baizhu (leader, lead vocalist, lead dancer)

Dainsleif (main rapper, lead dancer, maknae)

Scaramouche (main dancer, lead rapper, oldest, center)

Albedo (main vocalist,visual)

- Real World Inspirations

Big Bang (Fantastic Baby era - Bang Bang Bang era)

ATEEZ (Wonderland era - Fireworks era)

B.A.P (Badman era - Hands Up era)

DoDoCo

A junior girl group for kids/tweens made(and managed) by Alice to promote her daughter Klee and, have her gain experience for her dream of being a real idol. Although they perform, act, model and, release music similar older groups they still are children so, their concepts are always wholesome feel-good things to appeal to kid’s even younger their age or, younger. They also don’t have the same restrictions or, work hours due to their age. This group is very popular with Elementary schoolers and, sometimes even their families but, can be annoying to anyone older due to how cheesy it all is.

(Note: I don’t personally agree with kids being idols irl especially some I’ve seen that look like older teen/adult idols it’s scary. However, since it is a thing that exists and, this is a fictional head canon let’s pretend this is a world where none of them get hurt and can live pretty normal lives during & after their time as idols if they choose to do so. I just didn’t want to leave a playable character/important story character out of the AU entirely. Also, Sayu would be here but since she’s not officially released yet and, we don’t know any story about her I think it’s best for her to join later.)

- Members

Klee (leader, main dancer, vocalist, maknae,center)

Diona (main rapper, dancer)

Qiqi (vocalist, oldest)

Yaoyao (main vocalist, rapper)

- Real World Inspirations

RE:KIDS ANGEL (Ocean era) note: also their only era so far it seems but, apparently RE:KIDS is a larger thing with many other kids kpop groups so I assume others would have a similar concept.

CutieL (Debut era - Jungle Journey era)

Dandelion

A girl group that has stayed at the top for the past 7 years known for their elegant concepts although, they have had other concepts in the past(sexy, cute, etc.). Not only is Dandelion super famous but, each member has their own solo careers just as successful. Outside of the group Jean is known for her solo albums and, charity work. Lisa is known for her modelling career and, secretly is a successful author under a pen name. Eula is known for her many wins on dancing contest shows and, the many important roles she plays in dramas. Since this year marks the dreaded 7 year curse fans worry they might disband or, go on a permanent hiatus. Before this year they seemed inseparable to fans but, something happened during their last tour. Jean and, Lisa who were known to be best friends suddenly won’t even sit next to each other. Eula who was usually more reserved during interviews is having to do most of the work since they’re just awkwardly sitting on the opposite sides of her. Eula has never been the best at public speaking and, her blunt responses are causing antis to go on huge smear campaigns on social media. Jean who previously wanted to renew her contract is thinking about starting her own company. Lisa who previously wanted to renew her contract now wants to leave and, join a modelling agency. Eula still wants to renew her contract but, she doesn’t want to be solo yet. She is trying her hardest to get the group back together but, her harsh personality is only making the problem worse she feels. Will they stay together or, will they split? And if they stay together, will it be the same Dandelion fans fell in love with or, are some bridges burned forever?

- Members

Jean (leader, main vocalist, center, dancer)

Lisa (main rapper, visual, sub vocalist, oldest)

Eula (main dancer, vocalist, maknae)

- Real World Inspirations

IZ*ONE (Violeta era - Panorama era)

GFRIEND (Sunrise era - Mago era)

TWICE (Fancy era - Alcohol Free era)

Solo Idols

- Ayaka

From a wealthy Inazuman family Kamisato Ayaka (known as Ayaka) shocked the entire nation when she decided to stop pursuing traditional dance(which she had earned many honors and, was famous for since she was a small child) and, instead go overseas to become an idol. Due to her connections it wasn’t long after becoming a trainee that she was put on the same survival show that formed 7evelUp!. However, her good luck ran out when after filming she got into an accident in her company’s car on the way to her company’s trainee dorms. Thankfully, no one was seriously injured but, she sustained an injury to her ankle that made her unable to perform for the rest of the show and, therefore was disqualified. She was a fan favorite and, everyone was heartbroken that she couldn’t compete. Due to her popularity, her company decided that if she could prove she was able to work after being healed they would let her have a solo debut. She far surpassed their expectations being even better than she was before, resulting in her debuting the same time 7evelUp! did. She doesn’t have any negative feelings towards those girls but, she views them as her rivals. She is quickly gaining popularity for her insane talent in singing, dancing, acting, modelling and, song-writing. She is known to the media as “The Idol Princess” for her family’s wealth, her talent and, her graceful demeanor. Don’t put her into a box though, she can pull off any concept with ease. The question is though, will her company allow her the freedom to express herself to the fullest?

- Real World Inspirations

Note: I am not saying she would be super similar to these artist’s work but, I am saying she has the range and, the potential to reach this level of fame. Since I can’t pinpoint a single solo artist that has what I think she would do I’ll put the ones I think have the insane talent and fame I think she would have as well as a similar feeling although it will take a while for her to get to their level

- IU

- Taeyeon

That was all of the Genshin Impact characters that I know enough about currently to feel comfortable making headcanons for them! Let me know what you think and if you make fanfic of or fanart of these ideas please credit me for these specifically and veechu for the idea of the idol au in general! Feel free to spread this post around if you want to or repost it too with credit. I also would love it if you tagged me if it’s on here or would be kind enough to send me a link to your work/work you find of it.

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xnoctivagusx · 3 years ago

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⋆ visuals ⋆ musings ⋆ playlist ⋆ headcanons ⋆

❛ Fathers are KIND. Fathers PROTECT you. Fathers RAISE you. I was protected by the monks of Azarath. I was raised by my friends. THEY are my family. THIS is my home. And you are not WELCOME HERE .ᐟ ❜ ― RAVEN ROTH, TEEN TITANS .⋆ ˚ ⁀➷ @reshieldedintro

( Lee Yezi, 27, she/her, csi female. ) are you a HERO ? Something tells me that the cat fur on an indigo cloak, late-night reading, and brewed herbal tea make you who you are, RAVEN ‘ RACHEL ’ ROTH. with powers of Unique Physiology, Dimensional Travel, Empathic, & much more, you’re sure to have a philosophical and oscillate personality — and you definitely belong to SWORD. Were you listening to ME AGAINST THE DEVIL by THE RELENTLESS on your way to the subway? It suits you. We can’t wait to see what you do next! ( galaksen, 28, she/her, pst. )

.THE BASICS.

BRITH NAME: raven REBIRTH NAME: rachel roth ALIAS: raven, pride NICKNAMES: rae-rae (only gar is allowed), rach, rae, rave AGE: 27 years old PLACE OF BRITH: azarath PLACE OF REBIRTH: earth DATE OF BRITH: october 31 ZODIAC: scorpio SPECIES: cambion GENDER & PRONOUNS: csi-female, she/her ORIENTATION: demi

WIKI LINK: HERE, HERE, & also HERE. BASIS: my portrayal of Raven is inspired by her comic run from 1986 to 2011 as well as taking inspiration from her days in the 2003 teen titans cartoon. There will also be headcanons splashed within as well.

.THE APPEARANCE.

FACECLAIM: lee yezi VOICECLAIM: click here to hear voice. EYE COLOUR: indigo HAIR COLOUR: purple with blue and black undertones. HEIGHT: 5’3 NOTABLE SCARS: multiple scar wounds on her back from Trigon’s attacks, burn marks on her wrists from brother blood. ( she wears multiple bracelets to cover them at times. )

.PERSONALITY.

MBTI: infp MORAL ALIGNMENT: neutral POSITIVE TRAITS: philosophical, loyal, studious, intelligent, self sufficient. NEGATIVE TRAITS: sarcastic, seemingly emotionless ( but isn’t ), moody, antisocial. DEADLY SIN: pride

.FAMILY & AFFLECTION.

FAMILY: though she has a father (TRIGON ), mother ( ANGELA better known as ARELLA ), and six brothers ( GLUTTONY, GREED, SLOTH, ENVY, WRATH, LUST ), the monks of Azarath. Raven only sees her mother as blood. Other than that, the closest she has to a real family would be the TITANS.

AFFLIATION: Titans, Sentinels of Magic, New Teen Titans, Justice Society International.

.ABILITIES & SKILL SET.

brief intro; unique physiology, empathic, and martial artist. click here to view full list of; skill set, abilities, && weakness.

.QUESTIONNAIRE.

what was Raven doing when she passed through the portal ??

having just gotten done with patrol, raven had decided it best to just teleport back to Titans Tower. ( It was Pizza night after all. ) but. . . that was defiantly a mistake seeing as once her feet touched the ground, there was the slight sound of guns being cocked and the telltale sign of boots scratching against cement. and on top of that the ground beneath her own feet felt off. so, she just raised her hands up in surrender. nothing would get her anywhere if she didn’t know exactly what was going on. and maybe this ‘ S.W.O.R.D ’ organization would give the answers needed.

where is she living ?? is she living with anyone ? ?

one of the first things raven did was scout out locations that could be used for a escape from the hustle and bustle of the busy streets. and as such, she was lucky enough that sword offered an accommodation. no roommates as of yet, but in all honesty she’s okay with that. but if any of the other titans come through like she had, she sure they’ll all try to pitch in to help each other out.

why is she affiliated with who she’s affiliated with ? ?

a costumed wearing woman comes out of thin air? plus being surrounded by a group of armed men and women from a world unknown? it wasn’t really her choice. with an organization that is foreign to her, there was only one way to go about it all. learn their ways and their aim in order to understand her surroundings. though, hopefully, raven will be able to find a certain familiarity to this new world.

who are her major friends, allies, and foes ? ?

the only friends she’s ever known would be the likes of the TITANS. without them there would be a telling as to where she’d be right now. and raven owes them her life. she has few friends from outside the titans such as John Constantine. but the Outlaws would be a close second. allies would be the likes of the JUSTICE LEAGUE, the SENTINELS OF MAGIC, and the JUSTICE SOCIETY INTERNATIONAL.

as for who her foes are? that’s an easy answer. anyone and everyone who believes in her father TRIGON. as well as those who are in league with BROTHER BLOOD. though, those who hurt her friends would also be considered a foe.

whose hands does Raven believe the country should be in ? ?

the people, plain and simple. raven’s been in the seat a few times where she herself has had to overcome the temptation to rule over those of less standing. and she believes that those with powers should lend aid to those who do not.

what’s Raven’s current mental state at ? ? her physical state ? ?

mentally? Raven is almost always in control of her mental state, though after passing through, she’s had her hands full with not going into another state of panic. being able to feel others emotions as well as having to hold back her own due to her own powers has mentally drained her. physically though, she’s at top condition. well, except for the tiredness from having to stay awake due to nightmares. but that’s a whole other story.

#reshielded:intro #I might end up making a whole page off of all this #but for now have this while i stare at my screen at 03:33 like what do.

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saby-chan · 3 years ago

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Fire Lord Ozai: A blood thirsty monster or the less fortunate “Zuko” of his generation?

Hello again and thank you as always for clicking and allotting some of your time to read my humble post! Since I’ve happened to notice quite an increase in posts lately regarding the controversial character and nature of the former Fire Lord, the now imprisoned fallen prince Ozai, and I’ve personally promised in my previous post that I will share my own analysis on him if people asked me to do so (which actually happened), I am here to deliver my own take on this very intriguing man’s character, while also building a potential past for him based on stuff gathered from the show’s cannon.

I would like to start this essay with what I find to be my favorite quote ever: ”Monster’s aren’t born, they are created.” ~ Naruto Uzumaki (Naruto) What I like about this quote soo much and find very inspirational is the truth it holds within its short, yet powerful message. We are often fast to judge a “book by the cover”, to reduce others to what we assume of them by their appearance or latest actions that we’ve seen them do, but never actually take a moment and wonder where they come from, if this person we soo harshly look down upon really has been this way since their very beginning?

I’ve come across many comments on social media related to ATLA, especially on YouTube videos on which people would throw with harsh comments such as “Aang being a coward for choosing to spare the villain just because they saw a dumb baby pic of them” or “Ozai is the essence of evil and even as a baby he’d been a monster”. I can’t help but wonder who hurt these people to make them be so cruel? Like, how messed up must you actually be to say that a baby, a friggin baby, is the embodiment of all evils? Or that a child was a coward for choosing to see his opponent’s last bits of humanity and opted to spare them?

Aang was soo morally conflicted about the idea of killing Ozai not only because it contradicted the morals of his people, but because he himself understood that this man hadn’t always been the cruel beast he came to met in their first and final showdown. It’s important to note here the fact that upon finding that picture, Aang was actually convinced it had to be Zuko as a baby since it looked so innocent and cute and was actually surprised to learn it was Zuko’s father. And that’s the thing, Ozai was born like us all as an innocent and sweet baby. Babies aren’t in any way evil or twisted, they don’t even have the notion of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ defined in their small, still developing minds. In fact, the very choice of the creators to add this picture in the show is meant to tell us this very thing: this man wasn’t always like this. But if he wasn’t always like this, then what happened to make him become this way?

Well, in order to find out the reason, we must go back in time to the very beginning: Ozai’s childhood and upbringing. For this next part I am going to solely focus on the show cannon, as the comics aren’t the products of BryKe and have a lot of inconsistencies to the source’s cannon (you can go and read my other post on why they fail when it comes to Zuko’s character and his family).

From what we know and can easily deduce by ourselves just from their appearances, Ozai and his brother Iroh have a huge age gap between them (somewhere between 10 and 15 years). This has to be our first red flag: isn’t it soo odd that this family opted to have their children at such a long distance between pregnancies? It almost feels as if Ozai hadn’t actually been part of his father’s actual family planning... In other words, he was a ‘mistake’ child (I actually hate having to use this terminology, but it will become relevant to when we expand on Azulon’s relationship with his sons). Sure, some may argue that Azulon actually decided to have two sons in case something were to happen to his first born, but wouldn’t it have been more logical to have his second born at 2-3 years max distance from his first? Why choose to have your second child when you are much older and thus risk having a baby with issues, if your sole purpose of this child is to serve as an insurance that you don’t ‘run out’ of heirs? It just doesn’t make much sense, so let’s go for the moment with the possibility that Ozai was an unplanned pregnancy.

This perspective actually gives way to another very interesting aspect: remember the infamous “Born lucky...Lucky to be born” quote? What if I tell you that there is a possibility that this quote wasn’t Ozai’s personal wicked invention, but actually something he himself heard from his very own father? It had been puzzling me for a long time why he choose to say “You were lucky to be born” to Zuko, which implies that Zuko wasn’t supposed to exist. I mean, it’s soo odd that Ozai went with something implying that Zuko was an unplanned pregnancy, since Zuko was the first born. So my theory is that maybe Ozai wanted to convey a different message to Zuko when he said that quote, but due to his anger he ended up replicating the same line he received from Azulon at some point in his childhood. We never got the exact flashback when the line was delivered from Ozai to Zuko, so we don’t have the exact context that lead to it (remember, we are excluding Yang’s take on the matter from the comics).

I mean, this feels like something that wicked old Azulon would have said to his least favorite child. Okay, so let’s go with the scenario that Ozai was an unwanted child, to which we could also add the possibility that Ilah’s health deteriorated after the first birth, which makes plausible the family’s initial decision of stopping at 1 kid.

Moving on, we know from the old ATLA character wiki’s that Ozai’s character design was made with Zuko in mind, being meant to be a grown up version of Zuzu, without the scar. An interesting choice indeed and even Iroh’s letter to Zuko on Ozai from one of the ATLA books describes Ozzy in a similar way to teenage Zuko in book 1: stubborn, feisty, determined and with a volcanic personality (easy to anger and competitive), so it means that these were intentional choices to imply that Zuko and his father are more similar than we were led to believe at first glance. Maybe Ozai was the “Zuko” of his generation. Also, in one of the interviews on the royal family, BryKe stated that Ozai worked very hard to get where he is in book 3, referring to his firebending specifically (we all know how Ozzy got the throne, so clearly, he didn’t “work hard” for that), so maybe he wasn’t always the strongest man alive, with the most exceptional firebending skills out there, like Azula who showed ease in her learning, but rather someone closer to Zuko’s weaker performance as a child, building his way to success through endless hard work until he became the prodigy we know today.

Continuing with our theoretical scenario, after his birth, the second child show’s lesser skills compared to his brother Iroh (by that I don’t mean that he wasn’t gifted at all, but that maybe Ozai wasn’t as fast and great of a learner like his big bro), so Azulon opts to just ignore him and continue focusing solely on his golden child. In my headcannon I actually think that Ilah survived the birth and so she was left in charge of the younger child’s education and upbringing. At this point Iroh is already 10 or older, so he is forced to focus on his development, which prevents him from spending time with his lil brother, but just for the sake of being positive, let’s assume that Ozai still had both his mother and his big brother to keep him sheltered from Azulon’s darkness for a small portion of his childhood.

I choose to believe that Ozai had his mother’s love for a small bit of his childhood due to his willingness in the show to allow Ursa (who mind you, as the granddaughter of Roku was considered a treacherous individual) to spend a ton of time with both Zuko and Azula and share her philosophy with the children, as seeing his wife playing with their children probably reminded him of his own bitter-sweet memories he had with Ilah. They also probably spent a lot of their time near the turtle-duck pond since that pond’s existence prolly dates long before Ozai and Ursa married and had their own children.

Unfortunately, Ilah dies and little Ozai remains all alone, to be influenced negatively by his father (and even by his grandpa Sozin, we don’t really know for certain when the old man died, so he prolly was there for a short time when Ozzy was still a child). Azulon most likely blames Ozai for his wife’s death as the second birth might’ve really had a huge toll on Ilah’s already fragile body, bringing her closer to death, so he still neglects and ignores the child, if not straight out bullies and abuses him for not being on par with Iroh. This prolly leads to Ozai becoming jealous of his brother since Iroh has their father’s love, pushing them further apart. I headcannon that this jealousy between the siblings led to Ozai complaining to his dad when he finally had too much of their father’s discrimination (at a similar age to when Zuko prolly did and got the infamous line, if not younger) only to get the “Iroh was born lucky, you were lucky to be born!” line with the sole purpose of hurting him since now the child knows that he was never wanted.

When Azulon scolds very furiously adult Ozai in Zuko’s memories for daring to ask to be named crown prince, he literally says something like “What, you dare ask me to betray MY own son?!” (this is like red flag number two), line that pretty much testifies how Azulon chose to pretty much treat Ozai as if he wasn’t his son too, showcasing how much he despised his second born and favored the first child over him. Since we are on the topic of their last conversation, the punishment Azulon gave to his son alone proves this man’s level of sadism, which leads me to be believe that Ozai’s childhood was full of this type of punishments for bad behaviors that could be easily corrected trough a long serious lecture or a lesser punishment focused more on teaching him an actual lesson.

The old wikis also mention on the page about the hall with portraits of the previous Fire Lords that it was the place where Ozai chose to spend most of his time in his youth, seeking advice from his ancestors. I mean, seriously now, if he had a good and supportive father and a present brother in his life, would Ozai had chosen to seek guidance from the dead instead of his living family? That piece of information that was easily overlooked by many proves how lonely this man was in his youth.

So for the most part of his life, Ozai grew up under the toxic influence and abuse of his tyrant father who refused to acknowledge him. Yet he managed to grow up still full of determination to one day prove his worth to Azulon and gain his acceptance (just like we saw with Zuko in book 1, who was desperate to regain his honor and be accepted by his father). But unfortunately, no matter how strong he became or how good of a firebender he was, Azulon was unmoved and unphased by his second son’s performance.

From what we could gather from the little info we received in the show, it seems that Ozai was never sent to the battle field to aid his older brother, being kept as a stay home prince, with the only occasion he actually left home being to search for the Avatar (I don’t think Iroh was sent to do his part on searching the Avatar since he strongly believed that there wasn’t going to ever be one, so it’s safe to assume Azulon assigned Ozai with this mission just to get rid of him for a few years) and the only purpose he ever served to his father was to become part of the old man’s genetics experiment in order to create strong unparalleled firebending offspring (which I am pretty sure were meant to be ‘biological war machines’ used by Azulon in the war, as he didn’t really seem to give a shit about Ozai’s children compared to Lu Ten). So just imagine the level of disappointment and dishonor Ozai must’ve felt as a man and young aspiring soldier to find out that he was going to be used like a ‘non-bending daughter’ in a strategical marriage and never get to serve his country in what he’d been taught was the greatest and most important war for their Nation.

All in all, this marriage didn’t really end up that badly because it seems he and Ursa were actually very compatible. The old wiki for Ursa states that she was a noble woman and the perfect match for Ozai, which leads me to believe that show Ursa was intended to be a very strong willed and determined woman who earned his respect. The show never stated that Ozai never wanted his first born or that he was disappointed with Zuko from birth like the comics say, so it’s safe to assume that Ursa and Ozai actually ended up falling in love at some point since they had not one, but two kids with relatively a short time in between pregnancies.

There are actually many signs in the show that actually prove that these two loved each other and Ozai didn’t abuse his wife: from the fact that they went every year to see Ursa’s favorite play despite Ozai hating the poor performance of the Ember Island Players (I mean, what man would do such a sacrifice as to endure the same torture every single year just to make his wife happy if he never loved her?), Ursa’s undeniable and sincere love for their children (in the show it was never stated that Ursa saw Zuko and Azula as someone else’s children, so if she were indeed an abused woman who was forced to have these children, she wouldn’t have ever loved them to such an extent, especially Zuko who resembled his father the most physically), the fact that Ursa had equal rights in their marriage and raising of their children (her even scolding and grounding Ozai’s favorite child without hesitation), to the most significant scene to the Urzai ship in Zuko’s flashbacks: Ozai sitting troubled all alone in Ursa’s favorite spot by the pond, in a sad and brooding atmosphere, after he lost her, instead of celebrating what had to be the happiest day of his life since he was finally crowned Fire Lord (it’s clear who had more importance in his heart: Ursa meant more to him than the throne, so losing her outshined his achievement). In fact, Ursa must’ve been the only thing that still kept him outside of the darkness that threatened to swallow his heart and once he lost her, Ozai had nothing else to keep him on the right path.

And even as a father, it seems that Ozai wasn’t always cold and distant to his children, as his true self depicted in Zuko’s memories on Ember Island shows him caring for both of his children, even holding Zuko close to him with a protective arm on the boy’s shoulder. Except the Agni Kai, there don’t seem to be any instances in which he was physically violent towards his son before the banishment (Iroh literally let Zuko in to join that faithful war meeting willingly. Would’ve he done that if he knew his brother to be very violent towards his children in case they disobeyed? If yes, then it would make Iroh actually very questionable on a moral standpoint) and even on an emotional level, I don’t really think that he was actually abusive to him (at least while Ursa was there) because from Zuko’s conversation with Zhao, he’s adamant that his father will take him back and even states "You don't know how my father feels about me. You don't know anything!", meaning that the father he used to know showed him a level of respect and genuine affection (if Ozai were to bully Zuko since the boy’s very early childhood, do you think this kid would grow up to be so sure that his father wants him around and would he defend this bully when someone badmouths them in front of him?).

Even with Azula, despite people demonizing her from early childhood and saying that she was manipulated since birth by Ozai to become a war machine, I do believe that she shows genuine love and affection towards her father. I do choose to believe that back in the good times when the family was happy, Ozai spent quality time with his daughter, filling in the gap left by Ursa’s neglect. I theorize that the reason why kid Azula badmouthed her grandpa and uncle was because she was being very protective of her father: since she used to like spying and eavesdropping, it’s safe to assume that she prolly witnessed many instances in which the old man bullied or insulted Ozai, favoring Iroh over him. It’s a bit harder to see it that way since her snarky comments involve dark topics, but since they live in a society governed by power and war, I see them as something similar to if Azula would’ve said “Uncle sucks and he will surely be fired from his job!” or “Grandpa is old and weak, he should leave the family business to dad!”. Even the fact that the only thing capable of shattering her to pieces was her father leaving her proves how much she cared for him. Ty Lee and Mai’s betrayal was a big blow on Azula’s control and sanity, but she didn’t breakdown until Ozai discarded her after his coronation as Phoenix King. There’s nothing more painful in this world than to be left behind by the person you loved the most and was there by your side your whole life, whom you wanted to follow to world’s end and back. That was the moment Azula finally realized that the father she used to know and love was actually gone and had been in fact, long gone for years at this point.

But if Ozai cared for his family what made him change? Easy, it all comes back to the fact that his father never acknowledged him. The throne doesn’t seem to be his ultimate goal in life since Ozai discarded of the Fire Lord title very easily, tossing it to Azula without any remorse or hesitation. It was more about the meaning behind getting the crown: replacing Iroh in the line of succession was the ultimate proof of his father’s acceptance, that he wasn’t only a “mistake” and “failure” in his father’s eyes, but since Azulon ended up saying and doing what he did, backfired Ozai and made him understand that no matter how hard he tried, the old man will never see him for what he is. So yeah, for a proud man like Ozai this was a hard defeat to swallow, which in turn sparked his strong desire of winning the war and becoming the king of the world: if Azulon wouldn’t accept him even in death, then Ozai will prove to the whole world that he was above his father and his “perfect” brother by accomplishing what they never could and even better and no one was going to stop him, not even his own family.

This is what differentiates Ozai from Zuko: while both had similar upbringings, Ozai never broke away from his obsession of gaining his father’s admiration, allowing himself to fall prey to the darkness left by Azulon in his heart and abandon his true self, only to become the copy of his abuser, while Zuko stood up to his dad and chose his own destiny. If Aang were to come back around 20 or 30 years earlier, then he might’ve actually been able to save Ozai just like he saved Zuko, but unfortunately it wasn’t this way.

Do I think that Ozai could still be saved and redeemed even after the events of book 3? Definitely! Since he’s actually a broken man and still has a tiny bit of humanity left within, I think he still has a chance to change his heart. The only thing is that it’d be a long lasting process: first off he needs to spend a long time in solitude and reflect on his life’s choices and his past, understand where he went wrong and that what happened to him in his childhood is called abuse, which he ended up replicating on his own children. After he understands his wrongdoings and becomes willing to rediscover his true self, he needs to understand the truth about the war, that everything he’d known was fake propaganda and that there was nothing glorious in what he, his father and Sozin did under the excuse of “sharing their Nation’s greatness with the rest of the world!”. But most importantly of all, the only remedy that could possibly save him is love. It sound cliche, but by responding to hatred with more hate like Zuko did in the comics would never change the world “for the better” or bring it “to reality”. The only way to save both Azula and Ozai would be trough showing them the power of love, hope and empathy, how they don’t have to struggle alone and push everyone away. And especially by redeeming Azula, she would be a very important piece in Ozai’s redemption: since he had a closer parent-child relationship with Azula and cared for her the most when he did care, realizing how much he made her suffer through his actions, that would probably break Ozai enough to make him admit that he was wrong all along.

So yeah, this is my analysis on Ozai’s character using the cannon information from the show and old wikis and why I think he is just the product of a very bad environment and an abusive parent who never showed him love (if there’s a reason for why Ozai might be uncapable of showing a healthy parental love to his children is because you can’t show what you’ve never learnt yourself), being the Zuko of his generation who never got to experience the positive influence of an “Uncle Iroh” to guide him on the right path.

You can agree with me or not on this one, but this is what I choose to believe. Maybe I am way too good by choosing to see any potential good in anyone, but I feel it’s a better way than to counter hate with more hate like Yang did in his monstrous portrayal of Ozai in The Search.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments and if you agree with anything I’ve said, feel free to leave a like and to reblog this post.

See you next time and stay safe! Bye-Bye!

Saby out.

#atla #atla rant #avatar the last airbender #ozai #azulon #ursa #zuko #azula

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