#idk characterizations how they are foil to one another | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

edwardsissyhandsthtdanceslikeabb · 2 months ago

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if azula needs redeeming, why wasnt she?

i read this analysis of Azuko? Zukla? idk but a critique of their sibling dynamic, particularly within the context of doomed siblings, and tho i don’t agree with it, it’s a testament to its writer that there’s innate value in carving out my thoughts from their own.

so a lot of my disagreement boils down to the fact that the way the analysis construed zuko & azula, from characterizing them as doomed siblings, to the way azula’s breakdown is framed, is a problem of taste and inferences, and how these interpretive elements can be incongruent with technical aspects like intent, convention, medium, or the functional mechanics of art overall.

firstly, i think its very important to highlight that while elite art is holistic and multifaceted, it is doubly focused and premeditated, and its constituents all occupy a purpose and position within it, as they are narrative elements first and foremost. which complicates things when creation and consumption are both such human, evocative processes, but i think looking at the rudimentary layers of a story are the north stars in subjective landscapes like this. and most salient of these, is the story’s anti-colonial roots, centering indigeneity explicitly, and the cultural, spiritual and earthly relationships therein, with the main conflict being restoring the dignity and autonomy of the subjugated, alongside the internal work and opposition that are necessitated in doing so. everything stems from that, and though there is complexity and nuance therein, and the story itself is immensely liberal in execution, it is also ultimately a good vs bad narrative, which it has every right to be, bc colonialism is bad, and colonialists are bad.

therefore, atla inherently adheres to convention, and has a preestablished idealistic framework. to illustrate this, it utilizes two central characters, both encapsulations of the dualistic nature of oppressor and the oppressed, and navigated thusly as foils to one another. zuko is thereby, the deuteragonist, and the depth or lack thereof, of his environment are equally conditioned by his position, as the confines of the kid’s tv medium, serialization as well as narrative structuring itself, craft him. kill your darlings and all that lol.

however, these positionalities, while abiding convention, are not binary, and while conclusive, they are not absolutist. zuko for example, is antithetical to a Madonna, stressed by him even having a redemption to realize, and azula too is done an injustice by any reduction to a whore / imperfect victim archetype. this compartmentalization, is luckily ill-fitting in accommodating their totality, and doesn’t incorporate the fact that consequence, in avatar, is not a condemnation of personhood, but a retaliation to action, and has mangled indiscriminately, with azula’s case actually, being the reclamation of principles and in-world intentionality.

to begin with, zuko, while most recognized for his redemption, is not functionally the redemptive character™, he’s an example of the sacrifice, sincerity and labor that are inherent to anti-colonial action facilitated by an absconding oppressor, of the inborn empathy and active resistance that are needed for a system to change, and how you don’t just get there through platitudes or amicability. those thematic niceties are ofc inherent to his story bc he’s fleshed out and the things that inspired him thusly are too, but that emotional and relational floweriness is a consequence of his actions, not their driving force (being embraced by imperial idolization, by his royal family, was not fulfilling), what drove him is a fundamental and intrinsic ideological disdain for the imperialist war machine — it was ultimately, an abstraction of self – by acting in service of others, which unlike letting imperialist standards (e.g. chauvinism and parasitism and “honor”) puppeteer him as an instrument of violence, is ironically, an act of true autonomy and discernment. deriving your value from mutualism and earning one’s stature, instead of asserting yourself on others and letting corrosive and paternalistic worldviews (and by extension the selfishness & self absorption i.e “honor” innate to that) rule your destiny.

azula, however, is meant to be an inversion of that, is meant to reflect what happens when you reject morality or connection, instead letting control and superiority entrap you. she is explicitly a cautionary tale, which also comes with its own oversights and inelegant implications, but she likewise, greatly exemplifies the internal decay and loneliness inherent to alienating yourself through cruelty and stratification. and is it not possible then that a girl who has valued herself by what she can inflict on others, would then have the very sanctity of existence warped at no longer being able to dominate, no longer deemed the ideal? is infection not a thing that savages, before it spreads? in this way, azula is poignant.

as the more intimate face of imperialism, she is humanized in her parasitism, but it is not used to soften her behavior, nor is it used to hand her redemption. it is not smth that she is owed for the very coincidence of her birth or blood, its earned, and she did not earn nor want it.

so when a character that suggested the utter evisceration of marginalized groups, and thereafter tried to murder a personification of colonial survivor’s guilt and endangered practices, is consequently left to mourn her superiority, just as her father before her, its smth we sympathize with within reasonable boundaries. when her brother, who she abused, doesn’t martyr himself to azula’s interiority, instead laboring towards his own destiny and happiness, rather than the genesis of azula’s redemption, that is not inconsistency, it’s peace. its making peace despite the fact that some would rather rot in the entrails of imperialism than afford its victims value, would rather hurt others, and in turn themselves, than embrace healing and progress

— (plus inflicting his values may not in fact heal, when healing is not inherently uniform, and growing is not innately moralistic).

now, there’s a whole nurture vs nature angle to this as well and these ontological arguments are often touchy, yes zuko had ursa and iroh. yes zuko was forced to challenge his preconceptions, but zuko wasn’t diametric to these things, and the supplementations he did receive were always compensatory. zuko was deemed genetically inferior by ozai and thusly ostracized, hence ursa’s gentle partiality, zuko was then mutilated and exiled, and naturally needed supervision, which was provided by an overseer who mirrored his disgrace. if denied these safeguards zuko would’ve been denied even palliative care, whereas azula was perceived as needing none when she was revered positionally and familialy.

yes being pit against zuko was toxic and destructive but its not at all equivocal to the outright abuse zuko suffered. ofc the threat of it was implicit but those who abet or orbit abusers are not inherently under threat, and i think azula is characterized similarly. it's not fear that colors her outburst against ozai, nor coerces her silence, its entitlement and a sanctifying of hierarchies: “i deserve to be by your side.” - it’s respect that earns her silence and it’s the promise of respect that goads her acquiescence, the prospect of accumulation. this is ofc not a healthy mindset to have bc azula hinges her value on perfection, performance and status, and it's evident how the pressure of that collapsed her, but it was a pressure she had embraced before. it was her adeptness that ozai latched onto, and before the inviolability of it was challenged, azula took advantage of her nature, she weaponized it, and it was that eagerness that ozai exploited.

as viewers we process this as the objectification it is, but its reality, is a systemic natured dehumanization, ingrained in any culture that seeks to mechanize its constituents (which is all societies actually. we are all complicit). ozai thinks he is honing her as did his father and his colonialist forefathers prior, and herein is not abuse in the conventional sense, but rather a tradition of commodification that extricates skill and hegemonizes personhood, it’s an existential death necessitated by imperialism. it’s the death of agency. azula embraced this necrotic philosophy until she was confronted with the consequences of her rot, and *that’s* what she got. consequences. of which she was spared throughout.

it was never personal.

sure we get glimpses of her humanity, her vulnerability, but they’re paltry and muddied too by an undercurrent of duplicitousness. azula flaunts zuko’s impending demise, yet later, includes him in her outings. azula relishes zuko’s mutilation, but also fetches him from the beach house. she falsely welcomes zuko back, then implores he join her sincerely. and azula shares her pain from ursa yet spurns softness still, from MaiKo’s juvenile fondness to ursa’s own guiding attempts. azula is ceaselessly cruel to zuko, then spontaneously benevolent to him once he has seemingly subsumed the apparatus of colonialism. and gives him credit for killing the avatar, yet shows a sly inclination of his revival. this isn’t to insinuate that azula is ontologically evil or that she’s an unnuanced, mono-faceted individual. and she was a child. yet zuko’s youth didn’t spare him from the grotesque terrors of death and alienation, and it didn’t temper her perpetual antagonism and bloodlust, she is demonstrably self-serving, and this is evidenced throughout.

this is not to shame her in her passivity, nor an expectation that she martyr herself or even commiserate with her brother. rather, her downfall is a reaping of autonomy, made subject to the tendency of one’s active leanings. in which the choice of her sibling abuse exacerbated her societal abuse, all festering, foremost, the abuse of her own soul.

so, relatedly, is it not possible that a character of her cunning, who emotionally degraded her own sibling while gleefully championing his attempted imprisonment, before graduating to attempted murder by preparing to electrocute him while he was enfeebled on the ship, then later tried to kill aang, tried to kill katara, gloated abt intending to kill zuko at the air temple, injured iroh while making her escape from the gaang + zuko. also endangered and coerced ty lee into joining her, imprisoned mai, nearly killed zuko as he tried to save katara (which was likely her intent, or at least meant to cripple zuko’s composure — dishonoring the agni kai) — need i go on. azula’s benevolence is conditional, and consistently transactional, and so is it not possible then that she gauged zuko’s swaying allegiances against her own armaments - when faced with iroh, a waterbending master, an earthbending master with groundbreaking abilities (>_-), and the literal avatar, after observing their – plus aang’s growth, and having been cornered before, then decided rather, that having another asset, puppet, contingency plan, in her pocket wouldn’t hurt.

maybe she was being benevolent, or maybe, azula, who too sat in liberated territory and was gifted a chance for growth and morality, rejected that chance over the value therein, tenderized for extraction, parasitizing instead. maybe azula too, was acting in the imperialist tradition of exploitation. maybe she holds the capacity for compassion and care — which we have gleaned regardless — but the tangentials and hypotheticals of the world are often not what is actualized, and they are not a thing that can be affected. empathy is an active pursuit, and it is mutualistic, provisional — and so there is not a ‘who’ of azula’s redemption, but a what, the ‘what’ that is to be influenced. the personalization of one’s own form, of an internal receptiveness to commiserate with. bc as is, azula is merely a husk of colonialism, and being a husk of colonialism is meant to be sad, its deliberately tragic, unflinchingly pitiable. disorienting. life shattering. that’s what you’re meant to feel, it is not an inadvertence of zuko’s arc, and it is not a coincidence of the narrative.

she is a trajectory within herself, and her fate is a whole within itself. just as zuko labors towards rectifying his nation bc he needs to, bc there is value in dismantling colonialism, not bc the imperialists are owed it, but bc everyone else is. zuko also watches, not with apathy or boredom as his sister implodes at this, but with pity, with grief, bc azula manipulated herself a bed of corpses, and it is not him who must choose not to lie in it. when healing is intentional, is active, and zuko has chosen to heal. when azula cannot be handheld and shielded from her war crimes and systemic violence bc she wasn’t hugged enough as a child. zuko too lost a core sense of support mournfully young, and moreover at many points in his development journey, but the inclination that told him to speak up in the war room is doubly the same inclination that told him to afford jin affection, or help the earth kingdom family, and save his crew member in the storm, despite this very vulnerability catalyzing his banishment.

azula had friends and she had adoration and she had paternalistic validation, but contentment is unattainable when accumulation is your driving force. and the only thing left to cannibalize is yourself. with this, azula’s downfall was not only inevitable, it was natural, foretold even. and just as iroh doesn’t adhere to whatever deficits were sewn unwittingly into ozai, nor is it demanded — it also isn’t azula’s fallibilities that now damn her. azula isn’t the “bad sibling”, devoid of nuance, she’s the bad person™. despite it all.

katara has ptsd and toph is blind, sokka is a non-bender and zuko was deemed handicapped then maimed thereafter, instability is not azula’s punishment, its an externalization of her decay, and its meant to be unrelenting and all-encompassing, because abstraction and objectification are totalitarian afflictions. likewise, her condemnation is not a consequence of gender marginalization, tho the undertones of spoilt brat tropes and somehow unconventional, inevitably crazed women sully our palates. we taste bias even where it perishes, even as the fire nation is seemingly meritocratic, and unabashed, imperfect girls are idealized story-wide. from toph to azula herself, who may be conflated for a sanist archetype, yet challenges gender roles and infantilization in her prowess and militancy, as she’s sterile and calculating and impassive, where zuko is feeble and undermined, aimless, emotional. she is far beyond any trope, contrivance or embellishment, and doesn’t flourish or encumber zuko’s arc, as he equally isn’t made to for her’s.

azula is a force beyond zuko, until she can no longer deny him, and azula haunts zuko until she doesn’t, until her own crossroads loom, her contrived dualism of failure or victor, aggressor and victim. and she is forced then to reckon with loss. azula’s end is not a reductionism at hands other than her own, her fall is not zuko’s win, nor does the show frame it gloriously, there is no joy in her misery, no minimization of her tragedy, from the score to the tone, in her chilling, animalistic pules, azula languishes in her self-destruction, and it is one entirely independent of zuko. with this, we are shown azula’s nuance, the unthinking allyship she inspired, yet the coercion and dereliction it veiled. the camaraderie and kindness she offered, to warn zuko against visiting iroh, to credit him unduly, yet the threat it masked, to stay unadulterated, to stay unctuous. the vilification she detested, and yet the love she scorned for its fragility and irrepressibility. ursa doesn’t confirm azula’s worst fears, ironically, sadistically, any love she may have held haunts her, is nearly derisory. impossible.

and while no debate exists that ursa neglected azula, or that she failed her duty to nurture and cater her parenting to azula’s needs and interiority, the factors that complicated that, such as ozai’s own domineering hold, alienated mother and child from any means of cultivating real love, and thusly the influences azula did ingest were brutality, unchallenged in nature, entirely singular. it’s a self-flagellation, a ritualistic and sustained self alienation, amputating any vulnerability, all perceived pluralities.

so azula, despite not consistently having her perspective expressed, still encompasses the products of colonial rearing, and its destructiveness isn’t meant to be contested, sugarcoated, not with others and not with the self. fascism has denied us azula the person, and that may be a consequence of format, but it isn’t a consequence of the narrative. nor realism. we are meant to acknowledge azula’s complexities in the intentionality of their artful crafting, while not undermining that architects of oppression still bleed. one can see themselves in azula’s struggles, in the humanity of her endeavors, while not decontextualizing the tenets of her positionality, while not undermining that every character that claimed their redemption, did so by choosing another, by loving.

and azula’s journey to love, to embracing her own humanity, is a journey solely her own. this isn’t to say that she doesn’t deserve support or guidance or love or care, but that’s not the point. that wasn’t the intent of her character, and that wasn’t the thematic priority of the show. it's an extrapolation. bc some ppl suck and that’s ok. and there are ppl you cannot help and that is ok. and sometimes the ppl you love will suffer, and that has to be ok. bc sometimes you choose yourself, sometimes you choose what you can, and that is ok. it is okay to grow, and it is ok to move on. that’s the point. it is ok to spit out the poison. forgive any tactlessness therein, but it’s a tough pill, and its meant to have an aftertaste.

however, it's not cynicism that one is meant to internalize, and it's not intended to inspire fatalism either, although the symbology of azula’s toxicity is excised, the human struggles she encapsulated remain, the intimacy of our empathy persists, and it will color the fire nation’s vices and pitfalls. bc when one can’t just will away indoctrination, as we saw with both azula and zuko, and even still with paku or toph’s parents, as hierarchies are intersectional and multifaceted, and in the trials of decolonization there will thusly be azulas’, but there will also be zukos’, and pakus’, and sokkas’. all with their very intimate, equally human complexes to confront, unravel and rectify. just as there sit your perspectives, as there too exist my own influences.

and while zuko may merely be a beneficiary of the prevailing zeitgeist (tho imperialism explicitly requires non-consent lol), where azula once functioned, and he may be no more ontologically owed redemption than azula, or deserving love over her, when in the forever-war of subjugation, it isn’t abt ontology or criteria, nor logicisms or hypotheticals, its abt action. so zuko tries. and that resistance, that anti-colonial praxis, is a good start, it’s the most meaningful start. zuko isn’t king, or redeemed, bc he’s genetically “good”, its bc he tries. that’s the point. not how efficient he is or how proficiently he embodies apparatus.

reparation. that’s. the point. the triumph of resistance juxtaposing the tragedy of complacency. bc nothing is immutable, and so nothing is too far gone.

Besides… it’s only a kid’s show heh.

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icarussol74 · 6 months ago

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Spoilers for Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint’s epilogues below.

Ok so I finally (after getting distracted way too many times) finished my first read through of ORV a few days ago and as expected I can’t stop thinking about it. Of course the loops and KDJ’s fate are constantly on my mind, but there’s one thing that won’t stop bugging me. We don’t know the fate of Kim Namwoon in the 1865th turn. I know he’s not the biggest character (and three versions of him technically got happy endings) however, we even know the fates of Gong Pildu and Han Myeongoh. So while I absolutely love the epilogues it bugged me that there wasn’t even a single sentence about KNW. And since KNW was a major foil/parallel for KDJ I think it would’ve been really cool if 1865 KNW was helping try to save KDJ. Like for a media analysis standpoint it’d be the darkest reflection of KDJ trying to save what got left behind/the part of himself he hated/what made KDJ just like KNW.

Considering that the goal of the 1865th turn, aside from trying to save KDJ, was to save as many people as possible I really wanted to know what happened to KNW. I feel like it would’ve been extremely unlikely for them to decide he has to die while planning the group regression because both HSY and YSA knew KDJ regretted killing him. On top of this, YJH always tried to save KNW even when KNW betrayed him in various world-lines. I attribute this to KDJ telling 0 turn YJH that no one is born evil and encouraging him to lead KNW down a good path. Plus, even without all of those factors, if YSA started in the subway car again she’s the kind of person who would try to save as many people with the frog spawn plan. By the way, the hiding frog spawn all over Seoul to break the first scenario was hilarious.

So with all that being said, I feel like it’s extremely unlikely for KNW to die (at least in the first scenario). And I cannot be convinced that that silly little emo edgelord was not one of the teens that got really into the apocalypse craze and started catching a ton of frogs. By that logic YSA would’ve been able to save the Granny without killing KNW. Honestly he’d probably hero worship YSA just like he did for YJH. Another thing is that HSY literally refuses to have ABFD as her sponsor which I know is because her plan was to become a constellation, but that gives ABFD plenty of room to sponsor and get attached to 1865 KNW.

So basically, I feel like 1865 KNW would’ve survived all the way through the final scenario and would have gotten hella attached to Kim Dokja’s Company. Like sure he would’ve been a little asshole at the beginning of the scenarios but there’s no way YJH, HSY, and YSA wouldn’t have been able to guide him while completing scenarios at a breakneck speed. Then that brings me to if he survived, why would KNW stayed in the 1865th worldline? He would’ve gotten hella attached to all the characters from the 1864th turn and if he learned about regressors and how KDJ killed the 1864th him he would’ve probably wanted to meet the man who killed a version of him. Plus, through the various versions of KNW we’re shown throughout the novel, it’s heavily implied that he was depressed, suicidal, and had a terrible family life before the scenarios. So I’m not sure if there’s much of an argument for the idea that he just wouldn’t have boarded the ark and stayed behind in the 1865th turn.

I don’t know, maybe I’m misreading some of his characterization and reading too much into him not being mentioned in the epilogues. Unfortunately, that little fucking edgelord will not leave my head (probably because I can relate to him having dealt with mental illness). Idk, I just feel like a foil as important as him could’ve been mentioned in the epilogue whether it’s a short line mentioning they decided to kill him so he can drive the Gundam again or that he was ABFD’s incarnation again in the 1865th turn.

I mean maybe my sister’s headcanon is right and he really annoyed HSY so she decided to not acknowledge him in the epilogue (since like we’re technically arguably reading HSY’s writing). I think it’d be really funny if he’s just following Kim Dokja Company members around like a lost puppy and crushing on LJH like all other worldlines. I also think his relationship to LGY and SYS could be really funny because he’d treat them like little siblings and they’d hate it because they’re more powerful than him and claim to be around his age because of regression time shenanigans. What are other people’s headcanons for 1865’s KNW? Am I wrong that he’d survive or would he follow Kim Dokja Company because of how badass they all are (especially YJH and JHW)?

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animation-is-my-jam · 1 year ago

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Doctor two brain ships? Like all of themn? Or another question, which characters you DONT like shipping with ? you chose

Even though the rat man does give me fatigue sometimes, I still think he's great and his dynamics with other characters makes him really fun. For his ships, or if you're asking what ships I like with DTB--then yeah I can say.

-Like I said before on my top Otps, I'm very fond of him and Professor Robert Tubing. Tubing in general deserved more and I have a lot of headcanons/character writing for him, during that process I played with the little idea of him and Steven being ex-friends or colleagues. And with that very little interact DTB and Tubing had in "Cat and mouse game" I was like... but what if. So then I proceeded to go insane coming up with these ideas about Tubing and Two Brains having this wild ass dynamic and of course boats of angst. If Tubing was used more he literally would have been DTB's foil and I'm a sucker for that in shipping. Also yeah I did the ultimate cringe thing and created fan kids of them for an AU. I could go really on how much I love these two and how it sparks me to engage with Two Brains content. Plus giving Tubing what he truly deserves.

As for other DTB ships, I like them and think they're pretty good too. While they're not at the status of top ships for me, I respect them.

-I always appreciated Provoclone and it's kinda grew on me, but a bit hard for me to see Beatrice not as either sapphic or aromatic personally. Still cute!

-Butcher and DTB is really funny. Someone pointed out how they have a really (one is super affectionate and the other doesn't reciprocate or is too hesitant). DTB really likes Butcher but our meat man is all “y'all hear something?” with him, it's great. This one is kinda underrated, like most Butcher ships-- but again not for me personally, but I respect it's uniqueness if this is the dynamic to go for.

-Grilled cheese is good too. The Chuck's mom's not home episode really solidified their potential and wow that truly was one of the gayest. But also sometimes they appear to be at each other's throats too. They got a little animosity but will kiss each other vibe. Again not for me, but dang their name is good

- That's the more notable ones I can think of, I know there's also a boat load of other miscellaneous DTB ships that I'm missing but I think for me they all fall into "this is a neat idea" camp and nothing much else unfortunately. There's also the very rare but also hype idea of Headcanoning DTB as a flirt Aro--which I think is really cool and actually could be true if you want to stick to his characterization in canon.

As for characters (singular characters) I don't like shipping? Idk if that's just in general or something else..but I'll go with the first one bc I like painting targets on my back. (Disclaimer this isn't me saying I don't ship these characters with others bc it's problematic or whatever, it's just preference or HCs).

- Violet. Yeah I know kill me. But there's a good reason. Even though I appreciate like every Violet ship and think they're all cute in their own right... I'm sorry but to me this girl is Aroace. I know as someone who likes to follow canon interactions to justify ships, I should be all over Sciolet, Vibecky, Scoobecklet, but idk they're all cute, but I always imagined that after a certain time Violet would be great avenue to explore her being super affectionate and friendly to the point others might construe as romantic but nope she's just like that :) and that's perfectly fine.

- Same with Rex. To me they're aromatic, and not because he's an unfamiliar with things like emotions and acts almost robotic with his mannerisms with human culture bc he's alien, it's more like Rex does understand and they wouldn't say no to a date or partner, he just doesn't prefer it.

- I mentioned on the DTB ships that Beatrice (LRW) also follows into this category. I love her, she's my perfect blend of fail woman by day and girlboss by night, she deserves no one and nobody deserves her. Or sapphic but still prefers not to be in anything committed.

- Tim and Sally. Sorry but they're inseparable and probably too monogamous to shipped with others, even in a polycule.

- Ms. Power. Yeah I know I technically have a Pla//sma rope fankid, but to be fair I never said they were together. For me it's not a matter of HC with this one, I just don't really vibe with much of Powers ships, like I think girlie just wants to be alone nor do I think she would be a good partner if we're being honest. Like I'm iffy on even giving her a redemption arc since I like her so much as an antagonist. And even with evil partner ships I'm like eh. To me I think the only love she really needs is herself...both in a narcissistic way and to do something about that underlying self esteem she probably has.

#wordgirl #doctor two brains #wordgirl fandom #dr. two brains

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mcu-vanity-blog · 2 years ago

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GOTG 3 Review (done by the characters I care about)

Disclaimer: I didn't watch the Christmas special

Peter: Has a complete alcoholism arc in the first ten minutes for some reason? It's implied he's been drinking a lot since Endgame and then, like 15 minutes in, he says out loud "This wouldn't've happened if I hadn't been drinking" and then that's just the end of it? My brother in Christ, this movie is 2 and a half hours long, maybe cut that bit aye?

He is very much just another character in this entry. Most of his lines could easily be given to Mantis or Nebula and nothing would really change. Chris Pratt looks visibly unenthused to be here most of the time.

(New) Gamora: Honestly, could've been left out of the MCU entirely since her death in Infinity War. Zoe Saldana is the best part of every MCU film she's been in.

In this film though, she starts off with the Ravagers >> maybe learns that she's a slightly better person than she thought >> goes back to the Ravagers.

She's basically just sort of "also there" for the whole film, and is often just acting as a foil for Peter's arc (which, btw, is realising that this woman who looks like his dead girlfriend isn't actually his dead girlfriend; a fact he already knows).

Idk man, it's weird. I think Zoe just contractually had to be in this one?

Rocket: Is very much the main character of this film, but spends a good two-thirds of it asleep. You mainly see him in flashbacks where he's being abused/experimented on by the film's villain.

It's a very classic James Gunn thing I think; take a small and helpless guy and make the audience empathise with him because of how small and helpless he is. I guess it's not super nuanced in that way, but it's not necessarily an unenjoyable story for him.

It was weird that they decided to give us his origin in what is apparently the final entry of this trilogy though?

Like, "you've loved this character for 9 years now and this might be the last chance you get to see him and his friends all together again! How about we have sleep the entire time and, instead, explain exactly how he became who he was when you met him 5 movies ago!". It's kind of just silly (Dan Harmon articulates this idea really well here at 0:35-0:51).

Nebula: Gets more screen-time and characterization in this film, still not the most interesting character tho :/.

I also don't think that Karen Gillian can act :(. Would much rather have OG Gamora over her

Drax: Still just relegated to unfunny comic relief. His thing in the first movie was that his culture didn't have metaphors and he was a little careless/happy-go-lucky; he wasn't an idiot.

Ever since then? He has exclusively been an idiot.

Don't care, but feel sorry that Dave Bautista still has to play this role, even though he does very well in it <3

Groot: Again, hasn't been interesting since the first movie. He used to be this sort of mysterious, ancient, gentle giant type of character, but he's basically been just a type of sci-fi set dressing in all the movies since then.

I know James Gunn has said he's a brand new Groot from the one we see in that movie, but it's like... why? Compare the scenes of OG Groot to literally any scene of Gunn-written Groot and tell me which one is the more interesting character.

Adam Warlock: Surprisingly good. Unfortunately, he's that same James Gunn character of grown-up person with the mind of a child (think Killer Sharl in Suicide Squad), but it kinda works in this? I like that they let Will Poulter keep his accent and I look forward to seeing him written by more competent writers.

#gotg #gotg vol 3 #gaurdians of the galaxy #marvel #mcu #james gunn

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thelittlestspider · 2 years ago

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7, 16, 18 for evil dead?

i'll do it for both spiderman and evil dead.

7. what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them?

idk if i really have one for either? watch, i'll probably remember later lol.

16. you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

- i can't stand when people characterize peter as being this like perpetually shy, anxious, quiet nerdy guy who can't make it with people. this was kind of true at first (early in the comics), but peter is like a confident, handsome guy who dates a lot of people. he's also funny and mean lol. and kind of scary sometimes.

(which isn't to say that peter can't be anxious or whatever. but people take it to such an annoying extreme. also i hate that people have peter bottom so much. he's a switch who thinks he's a service top and i will die on this hill.)

- canon perpetuates this as well, but i really hate ash being characterized as a sleazy, stupid asshole who's only good at fighting monsters.

Ex: he has an engineering degree, and he's also really good at messing with chemicals because he makes bombs in aod.

another thing i hate is that in trying to make him more 'badass' they totally nuked ash's kindness (ex: comforting annie when she cries after henrietta torments her). they basically took all the stuff from 1 and 2 that made him sort of compelling and turned him into scotty (who they also did dirty for like. idk drama reasons i guess). which is one of the reasons i hate that they killed scott, is because they're literally narrative foils.

- ash bedroom-wise is sort of the opposite of peter to me, because everyone wants him to top, but he wants to play pillow princess 80-90% of the time. the man is Exhausted.

18. it's absolutely criminal that the fandom has been sleeping on...

- ugh i can't think of anyone for spiderman right now.

- ms. linda bates-emery, and amanda fisher! look i absolutely hate aved, but i love them so much and the way they did them was so sick.

#vacantgodling #kimi replies #kimi watches #in the ed au that lives in my head 90% of the dumb stuff in aved doesn't happen #and ash linda and amanda are a badass polycule raising brandy and lacey #and everything is okay #also i love putting peter and ash in situations together #like i want to put them in a saw trap maze together and watch them #trauma bond together while bantering the entire time. and then beating #the saw people with hammers

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subterra-rose · 2 years ago

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🔥 1, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13. Can you make these owl house related?

Anything for you anon 🫡

1. the character everyone gets wrong

RAINE. I hate that the traits that people always play up for Raine’s character is their shyness or that they’re always flustered around Eda? Like I know they don’t have a lot of character beyond what we’ve seen but these are most obnoxious traits to play up when we’ve seen them to be resourceful and brave

7. what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them?

Mattholomule. I don’t mind he’s characterized as annoying and arrogant in canon because I think characters like this are interesting, but I rarely see fanon do it well and I really started to dislike him because of it

8. common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

I will live and die by the idea that Philip was the town favourite and not Caleb.

9. worst part of canon

The ending in a way? I don’t think it was bad but there were parts that were ultimately unsatisfying for the build-up we got. I think the cancellation affected parts of it but idk, that can only go so far before the plot seems to crumple in on itself? I think with some of the stuff they focused on, they could’ve dedicated more time for other stuff like the Archivists, the Titan, or those nightmare sequences? Idk I feel like those were all important but we got stuff that didn’t really feel substantial like the hexside segment

10. worst part of fanon

Ppl who think Hunter and Amity hate each other? Or make Amity like. Possessive/obsessive with Luz, it’s not cute or sweet. And the fact it was so prevalent for like months after eclipse lake

11. number of fandom-related words you've filtered

4, I have two ships and two artists filtered lol (the ships are Huntlow and gusolomule but I usually look at them if a moot has reblogged it.)

12. the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

Skara! I won’t say she unpopular bc she’s bad but I think she’s underrated. She’s a really good foil character from Amity’s old friend group imo AND her design slaps

13. worst blorboficiation

I answered this with Belos on another post but god another one is Alador? I like him, I think he’s a good character, hate that people erase that he was complicit in the neglect of his children even if unintentionally. I think acknowledging he is a multidimensional character who has flaws but I see so much content woobifying him like that’s a grown man

#asks #ask games #anon

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voidcat · 6 months ago

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-taps mic- give us your hot take 🗣🗣🗣

16. you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

WHY DID THIS ONE GET LONG AS WELL- anyways again, written short and superficial bc u can already guess what comes after each answer in depth. this got too long and incohorent. i feel like that stereotypical adhd meme now....... thank u for the ask wife ily<3

tropes: highschool aus. youre stuck at school all day, still minors, prefrontal cortex still underdeveloped etc etc the downsides are soooo many. if ya want a good old modern au and have characters be classmates etc do a college au or smt. it gives more liberty too. used to dislike soulmate aus but turns out it was more abt the writing. they can be v good when written well (or w characters that match one another)

idk if this counts but people's need to always ship characters tgt like- do people not exist outside of relationships? is that the state we are in now? let them breathe. also vice versa when it comes to esp lgbt implied relationships for characters that are written w each other in mind. when erasing one, you take a part of the other one and toss it away too (ie: agott and coco in wha.) (ie for the former: dazai and chuuya. dazai and fyodor. tbh both dazai and fyodor w many charas... sigma w many charas. like for fyozai for example, u dont have to make them always abt ships those are character foils, i can assure u u will enjy the characters w/o shipping them at all times too... same goes for aku and atsushi as well.)

toji fushiguro on his own. there was a choso ship too ngl but i mightve just missed smt bc by then jjk became a chore to read so ill just skim over or read it quickly.

ykno that character type in media like edgy brooding man etc etc i wont even finish it iykyk, go touch some grass, learn to enjoy the small joys in life, accept that you cannot do everything alone or by self secrificing and accept the help from others. (the exact type of character that would miss the whole point of evangelion and prefer end of eva movie as the true ending... pls go get therapy)

again, the looks like a kid/teen but is actually a goddess timeless creature wtv thing.....

at the beginning of the series when they try to infodump the reader/audience on the lore of things by having a character recount stuff but its just heavy info dump and so painfully obvious theyre doing it for the sake of reader/audience?... yeah (aka the beginning of dune book) if we take this to fics: chill, not everything has to have plot, u can just write a timestamp type of thing, u dont have to overexplain everything, youre exhausting yourself for this too.....

idk how well this one fits but writing a character into smt painfully ooc for the sake of angst (like- cheating for some characters. or idk if youre gonna go for an infidelity trope at least lie the groundwork solid enough for it to make sense and fit.) also skaterat aus (im sideeying u haikyuu fandom from 2020..... if u were there u know exactly what i mean)

OK FORGOT TO ADD chatavters esp women whose entire purpose in a series is to contribute to the development of the male lead...... by extension manic pixie dream girls too

choose violence ask game

#answered #wanon #its not easy being a hater p2 /s #istg if i actually lose followers for these ill IPHSRIOŞGHŞIODGL ill get a good laugh thats for sure #rmr kids at the end of the day everyones entitled to their opinion<3 #i dont like to see some things so i dont go look for them nor go complain abt them to those who enjoy those

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three--rings · 2 years ago

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Although honestly, besides just being amusing, all the people judging people for being fans of certain characters in the Alice in Borderland tag just seem like...they have missed the entire point of the show.

I realize this is partly something that is much clearer in the manga, but it definitely part of the point that we are introduced to Niragi as a irredeemable villain and yet he survives and becomes...sometimes an uneasy ally, sometimes an antagonist, sometimes a foil for our main character. That he questions his worldview multiple times.

And Aguni, who is introduced as a similar antagonist. Don’t forget he supposedly intended to rape Usagi. And he was responsible for the violence and bloodshed of the 10 of Hearts game. But the whole point of that game was that it was his guilt and his pain for the things he’s done that were driving him to essentially mass murder and suicide.

And yet the second half of the manga spends a lot of time redeeming him through his relationship (fatherly) to Akane and Doudou (rip for his nonappearance in the show).

And Chishiya is a terrible person throughout in the manga but does eventually show growth.

The story is VERY concerned with showing us why bad guys are the way they are with their backstories. And that anyone in certain situations can and will do terrible things. Even Arisu, in 7 of Hearts in the manga, intentionally takes the wolf and hides from the others because he’s scared. He decides he should be the one to live. He CHANGES HIS MIND, tho once he gets past the fear of death. That’s how he is able to win Hearts games, because he wants to beat the game and save people more than he wants to live, ever since 7 of Hearts.

But the story is also telling us that while anyone can do bad things, anyone can stop doing bad things and come back from it and rejoin community and find love of whatever kind.

Even Aguni. Even Niragi. That’s WHY he survives. That’s why there’s that moment when he says he’s rethinking his life. It’s not because the narrative is trying to say he wasn’t really bad or actively really trying to redeem him. But it’s trying to say it’s POSSIBLE. And it’s valuable that he is still alive because people should have the chance to change.

And yes I’m saying “in the manga” a lot. I do (mostly) like the show, but it muddles some of this stuff with their characterization changes. They made Arisu much “better” of a person with a lot less range, and Chishiya in particular is super softened.

But seriously you should not be able to look at ANY character in this show and see that their hands are clean of blood. They have ALL made selfish decisions that cost others their lives or they wouldn’t be alive. Arisu and Usagi are the least stained, I suppose, but Usagi was very cold and self-focused when we meet her and I talked about Arisu already.

So throwing out ice cold takes about how I can’t believe people like “X Character” after they did “y” is just...reducing a narrative about the nature of human capacity for evil and goodness and the importance of surviving in order to have a change to improve into...idk a Chick Tract or something.

It’s so very indicative that someone is twitter poisoned when the only way they can conceive of interacting with fiction is as a stan or anti and as a moral statement about the viewer.

Anyway, read the manga people it’s so fucking good. (I’m rereading it now, which is why I keep going...AND ANOTHER THING about the show.)

As Arisu says during 10 of Hearts:

#alice in borderland #alice in borderland meta #alice in borderland manga

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batmanisagatewaydrug · 3 years ago

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@deadgodjess yeah I thought I was done being peeved about this but I just spent a full forty minute yoga session unable to think about literally anything else. starting a new post because this one has gotten unwieldy but for anyone just joining us this is the tl;dr:

sorry it’s a day later and I’m still thinking about how dirty this godforsaken show [Gotham] did the riddler. why did you have to give him such a tacky ~ooooo mental illness is SCARY!! uh oh I killed my girlfriend by aCcIdEnT!!~ origin story when it would have been infinitely funnier for Ed to just run some numbers re: how many cases would actually get solved without him and come to the completely justifiable conclusion that he can absolutely get away with quitting his job and turning to a life of riddle-based crime.

I'm going to offer my alternative for what I, personally, think would have been a more fun Riddler buildup across Gotham's 4.5 season run. I am absolutely not seeking feedback, this is a thot exercise meant to be enjoyed by me, myself, and maybe like three people that I trust on this hellsite.

anyway having our boy Ed abruptly jump headfirst into the shallow end of the homicidal maniac pool was executed in a way that was not just wildly ableist but also mmmm dumb and boring as hell and really ripped away a lot of opportunities to use this character in a more interesting way, and by "more interesting" I cannot emphasize enough that I mean "ways that I think are funnier."

if I'm being totally honest I think producers/execs whoever got nervous about the show's continuation and insisted on pulling the trigger on Ed riddling out before season one ended in the hopes that having another Batman villain active pre-Batman would help build a little more railroad for this awful show to keep careening along on. this has to play out via the manifestation of a fucking evil alternate personality because, frankly, up until this point Ed has been characterized as pretty much a total sweetheart with absolutely zero ulterior motives and possibly the only brain cell in the entire Gotham City Police Department. he is literally Just Some Guy with hamfisted autism coding and a fondness for riddles who regularly gets dismissed and bullied by his colleagues, all of whom I wish would die in a fire (except for maybe Harvey Bullock because he's really the only man bringing any kind of eye candy to this show, but we're not here to talk about that).

what I'm getting at here is that the writers had a really great opportunity to spend a few seasons showing us how life in Gotham gradually wore down a man who was one a friendly and law-abiding colleague of Jim Gordon's into a little freak in spandex who cannot stop trying to one-up a man dressed as a bat. he actually could have been a compelling foil to Jimothy, whose whole deal is that he's somehow managed to remain The Only Honest Cop In Gotham despite years of horseshit; building on the relationship between the two of them and exploring how their paths eventually diverge could have been really cool and yes, I will be drawing on that in my posthumous script doctor.

as long as we're talking about the Riddler and basically everyone else in the show sans Selina (and... sort of Poison Ivy, idk, I don't like the in-universe age lift and I don't want to contemplate it too much) I think it's stupid that Gotham is basically setting up a universe where all of Batman's iconic enemies are actually more like a bunch of middle aged assholes that Gordon already has decade-old beef with. it's dumb but it's also what I have to work with because if we tweak things any further to make Bruce and all of his future rogues teenagers together I think we're just remaking Riverdale.

sorry we got a little lost in the weeds there, I wasn't originally planning on making that and I don't want to admit how much time I wasted on it. anyway after a little "oh boohoo I'm just a poor little guy I can't believe I did murders" Ed's pretty much straight to bugfuck crazy murdertown with every other villain on this show. everybody on Gotham is like two seconds away from committing homicide at all times except for MAYBE Bruce; pretty much every recurring antagonist is a kill-happy maniac and most of the one-off villains of the week are as well. even the Penguin gaslight gatekeep girlbosses his way through a truly staggering number of people in the first half dozen episodes alone. what I'm getting at here is that dropkicking the Riddler straight into the same mold isn't just ableist or lazy - it's also the very worst thing that writing can be, which is FUCKING BORING. what if, god forbid, we had one rogue bringing a different kind of sauce to the party? in this essay I will -

season one: my pitch here is actually so simple, because I literally just want to keep Ed's characterization the same for the entire season. no abrupt slip and slide into stabbing and/or choking people to death, just a weird little dude who's around and good at his job and has a little mug with a question mark on it. he shows up once an episode for two minutes to crack the case wide open and tell a riddle and the remind the audience that he's around. "yep, that's the Riddler," they'll say. "no need to give him a violent split personality, I know where this is going and I am indeed capable of waiting for that payoff."

season two: now at this point you might be saying "Makenzie wait - is your pitch going to assume that the original storyline of Gotham is otherwise proceeding as it did otherwise? because that's going to get pretty impossible pretty fast if the Riddler has a drastically different personality/role in the show." yeah hey listen man. listen. I don't give a shit about what actually happens in the show. I give a shit about the Riddler. don't ask about this again. this all takes place in an AU where Gotham is a competently written show; I know that's sort of a stretch but bear with me.

anyway season two is when we can start getting some cracks in Riddleboy's chipper little exterior but for god's sake, let's deploy a little subtlety. probably he needs to start getting bullied more - possibly because he's notably friendly with Jim and easier to bully than Bullock, Jim's only other friend. anyway, this is how Ed learns that sometimes fucking people over is okay, actually. nothing drastic, just manipulating evidence here and there to ruin the day (and then career) of some of the biggest assholes in the department and bolster his faves (Jim). I cannot emphasize enough that the first half of the season has to be about this man realizing that most of his coworkers are VERY DUMB and EXTREMELY EASY TO MISLEAD.

come the second half of season 2 we get to see him getting a little too cocky, which will ultimately lead to his downfall. tl;dr being smarter than everyone is fun but still doesn't solve the problem of nobody else noticing or caring that he's smarter than them, and it's really starting to rankle. this will be the point when Ed upgrades to like. full sending his own boss cut-up magazine ransom notes and shit making demands to try and steer the GCPD more efficiently. there are, obviously, subtle little riddles embedded in these letters, but Gordon is the only one who will notice because Gordon's the protagonist and gets to notice things. this will end in a big confrontation, whatever, he's not going to turn Ed in because he believes Ed was genuinely acting in the interest of flushing out dirty cops, but he's also a little bitch so he IS going to tell Ed that he'll turn him in if Ed doesn't resign. Ed goes quietly and with a frankly unsettling amount of glee that someone was finally smart enough to solve one of his little puzzles. personally I love when the Riddler won't really look at or acknowledge anyone who won't play his silly little games I think that's so fun of him.

season three: the first half of season three is actually by far the most fun for me because it involves Ed a.) doing the Riddler thing where he tries to be a private detective for a while and b.) getting mercilessly bullied by all of Gotham city for a bit. you can fill in the specifics of the goofs yourself but suffice to say he's just a plucky little guy investigating some weird ass shit and still getting dumped on a lot in the process. our boy is going to have to learn to get a little unscrupulous.

it's vital that during this half of the season Jim comes to him at least a couple of times to ask for input that frankly none of the useless sadsacks at the GCPD are qualified to provide now that Ed's gone, because they're all doing the equivalent of that John Mulaney bit where they look at a corpse and go "ew! clean it up!" instead of gathering anything useful in the way of evidence. for some reason that I can't QUITE put my finger on it seems important to establish that Jim Gordon is willing to work alongside people who are operating a bit outside the law as long as he believes their intentions are good. and listen - Ed will genuinely help him! but he is also absolutely going home and idly jotting down notes for how he'd get away with exactly the crimes he helped solve.

the second half of season three involves him getting nabbed by Someone and pretty much extorted into helping them work against the GCPD on account of being a former employee who knows exactly how they investigate. what ensues is a series of crime scenes that have an abundance of fake evidence designed to lead the cops in circles that go nowhere - UNLESS you piece together some extremely abstract hints being hidden there, because Ed is sincerely making an effort to alert his old GCPD chums to what's going on. except, oh no, the stress of being held hostage is getting to him and he is SORT OF starting to enjoy how good he is at this and also beating his head against the wall in frustration over how fucking stupid literally every single one of his former colleagues is. he'll get rescued (by Jim) by the end of the season but god will he be bitter by then.

also I said he was being forced to work for Someone and it truly could be anyone in this horseass show but like. come on. it's Penguin. the rest of canon can go to hell but it's so important to me that Penguin still wants to fuck the Riddler so bad it makes him look stupid. it's just hands down the funniest thing that happens in all of Gotham and I wouldn't change it for the world.

season four: alright so Eddie boy starts this season trying to go to therapy about his whole kidnapping and probably PTSD thing but we the audience will realize very quickly that he's getting twitchy and is just purposefully playing with like. MULTIPLE different therapists and giving them all wildly different information to see if he can get each of them to give him different diagnoses. he has absolutely no idea why he's doing this except that it's fun and he evidently can. this man is living on the knife edge he's so sweaty and gross and he wants to do crime again SO bad and is really running out of reasons why he shouldn't.

if this show were written by people I could trust I'd say we could actually do a really thrilling mental health(TM) storyline here focusing in on Ed getting increasingly manipulative and ruled by compulsive behavior. I'd say the crux of his arc in the first half of the season is Jim convincing Ed to check himself in to some kind of mental health facility for his own wellbeing - probably Arkham, since it seems to somehow be the only mental health facility in Gotham despite the fact that it appears to be patterned on ghoulish 19th century sanitariums more than anything. anyway, this lasts approximately one day before Ed disappears from the facility and leaves an elaborate riddle behind, thus ending his arc for the first half of the season.

second half starts as a straight up revenge plot against Penguin because I love when these awful little homos fight with each other, but Gotham being Gotham I think a bit of an emotional roller coaster can ensue. Penguin can definitely convince Ed to ease off and work with him as more of a partner for a bit, but I still want this Riddler to be a murder lite contrast to most of the other villains in the cast so I think that will be the point of contention that ultimately drives them apart. the Penguin CANNOT stop lethally girlbossing; it's his first love.

anyway after that Ed's just fucking with the GCPD for shits and giggles because fuck 'em, am I right? he's definitely got the whole question mark suit Look going by this point; hanging out with the Penguin for too long changes a man.

season five: god I don't even know; there were only 12 episodes and one of them was for the flash forward. he tells some shitty riddles and probably gives Gordon one final helping hand but in a way that benefits him, firmly securing his status as "sometimes useful, always a bastard." all that really matters this still happens to him. this is the last we see of him, dangling next to Robin Lord Taylor in just the least convincing fake gut I've ever seen in god's green earth.

anyway sorry this got so long I'm genuinely appalled and disgusted with myself. I have problems!

#gotham time

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joshnekuu · 3 years ago

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Longish post gushing about Sonic 2, major spoilers for the movie, especially the ending.

Sonic 2 was really fun but obviously my favorite parts were the Sonic and Tails friendship, and then Sonic and Knuckles interactions... I’m having trouble putting into words exactly how happy this movie made me, honestly. It really genuinely feels like the sort of thing I would have written as a kid. The actual acknowledgement of Tails’ backstory from the games with being an outcast because of his two tails, Sonic being such a good big brother with him and trying to protect him and feeling guilt over failing, the precious lil moments with Tails hugging him and Sonic tucking him in ;;

And Knuckles.... my beloved.......... While I wasn’t completely on board with the lore for the Echidnas and Master Emerald in this world, getting to see baby Knuckles and also having both him and Sonic be orphans from a conflict neither of them could fully understand at the time and that being a connecting point between them that allows them to feel empathy for the other is so good that I’m willing to accept this lore shift (and also because it means that Knuckles is not bound to Angel Island so he’s able to stay with the others and there can actually be Team Sonic fluff, which I’ve been so desperately craving for so long ToT)...

My fav scene with the two of them is definitely Sonic rescuing Knuckles, and then Knuckles coming back for him when he realizes he can’t swim. Like gosh. Literally something out of a middle school ip fanfic I’m not even kidding I know I have written something exactly like that as a kid.

I loved how Sonic just genuinely didn’t wanna fight Knuckles and only ever fought or antagonized him because Knuckles didn’t give him another option, how he had empathy for Knuckles and his loss and had an understanding that Knuckles wasn’t really a bad guy, just placing his trust in the wrong people. Just... such good fuel for friendship stuff with them ;; But Sonic risking his life to rescue him, especially with water, was just! So!!! aah... this movie is everything to me rn hsxkdjsk

In general I just really adored Knuckles characterization. I think they did a really good job of finding a middle ground between ‘Knuckles is powerful and competent’ and ‘Knuckles can be dumb as bricks’ without overdoing the latter. They did a really good job of showing that he is very competent in his own fields, has an incredibly strong sense of honor, and has a healthy dose of initial distrust for Robotnik despite allying with him- and in that same vein, because of his strong sense of honor and loyalty, and his very limited understanding of the world outside his culture and isolated upbringing, Robotnik is able to manipulate him, and any other naivete from Knuckles just feels very natural for someone as inexperienced as him in the world outside of his training and upbringing.

ALSO KNUCKLES SCOOPING TAILS UP ONTO HIS SHOULDER IN THE END SCENE AT THE BASEBALL DIAMOND..... THATS PROBABLY LIKE THE SWEETEST INTERACTION THOSE TWO HAVE EVER HAD IN CANON IM CRYING IT WAS SO CUTE... BIG BRO KNUX HOURS.......

It was kind of subtle but I do think that the decision to have Knuckles and Sonic both be the last survivors of a conflict they were too young to fully be a part of while it was going on, and having them ultimately decide to bury the hatchet and take on the duty of guarding the Master Emerald together rather than only one side taking the responsibility, was really lovely? I’m kind of tired so I’m not sure the best way to word this rn, but like... the idea of the younger generation choosing peace and friendship and to work together to make the world a safer place rather than carrying on the senseless conflict of their ancestors was very good. Idk how intentional it was, I feel like it was fairly subtle, but it was present enough, especially with Knuckles and Sonic very obviously being foils for each other, and it made me happy...

And I’m glad this movie dared to ask the question we’ve always wondered: what would happen if eggman used the chaos emeralds himself instead of just using them to power his machines? We now finally have the answer, and that is: it would be pretty fucked up! Genuinely loved it though, seeing Jimbotnik unhinged from reality, and how absorbing the power of the emeralds made him incredibly powerful but also somewhat unstable, and how the powers manifested beyond teleportation and stuff. It was just. So cool gosh. Definitely not something I expected.

And GOD THE FUCKING SHADOW STINGER. WHAT THE HELL GUYS. As soon as they introduced G.U.N. I had a feeling they would drop some SA2 hints but holy SHIT I was not expecting a full on reveal like that, god damn. I’m so hyped for the third movie.......

On a less positive note, I feel like I need to mention the one part that I Really did not like, which was during the wedding... The part with the wedding with Tom punching Randall to get the ring like dude you had the real ring you could have just told him he had the wrong one and traded them. We 1000% did Not need a scene with Mr. Cop punching a Black man literally what made them think that was necessary :IIIIIIIIIIIII I definitely noticed they tried to avoid bringing up the fact that Tom was a cop during this movie, but that didn’t make that scene any less uncalled for :/// I was glad that Rachel was given more in this one because I never liked how she was treated in the first movie, and while I feel like they still could have written her with more tact, I’m glad that she got to get in on the action and help save the day, and find love u.u Even if that whole subplot was a bit random hskjd... But yeah. I think that was probably the only part of the movie I actively disliked and was upset by, but it was just in very poor taste and I honestly don’t know what was going through their heads to make them think that was acceptable :/

Not as severe as the above, but in terms of like. Lore and stuff, while I did mostly accept the change from the Master Emerald being part of Echidna culture and something they were tasked with guarding to it being guarded by the owls instead, it did still rub me the wrong way a bit... Something about the Echidnas being painted as warmongering and having created this super weapon, only for the owls to decide ‘no one should have this much power’ and that they were the only ones capable of protecting it, just didn’t really sit right with me... It’s probably because of how much it differs from the games and even the comics, but the idea of the owls just deciding they have the right to take the emerald from the echidnas just... feels yucky? Like, it carries a very strong undertone of the owls seeing themselves as superior, and by extent the echidnas as inferior, and needing to be set straight by them... Which yeah, just doesn’t feel great :p I was half expecting there to be a reveal that the owls’ side of the story wasn’t wholly true, or for Knuckles to reveal that the echidnas never truly intended for it to be used as a weapon, but the closest we got was Knuckles saying that ‘order will be restored’ when he almost got the Master Emerald, which to me implied he only had good intentions for it.

#sonic 2 #sonic movie 2 #sonic movie 2 spoilers #sonic spoilers #sonic movie spoilers #sonic 2 spoilers #team sonic continue to be the best boys in the universe and i'll die for them #sonic

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septiembrre · 3 years ago

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I'm a little late but I just saw your post from a year ago about latinx rep in good girls and its sad reflecting back on it and how the show could've done better. Rio was just another stereotype, I hate how he was ambitiously latino and there was just no connection to his culture. Was he first, 2nd, or 3rd Gen? If he was 1st Gen it didn't make sense to have the family speak English. One thing that always annoyed me is how OOC he was at times and how the writers purposely made him out to be like some brown aggressive misogynistic man. They didn't bother making him complex. In a way I'm glad the show got canceled. As a Mexican woman the way Rio was written was racist.

Wah, I’ve been sitting on answering your ask. I wanted to tease your ask apart and respond to it sentence by sentence. But... my brain kept rechazandolo, so now I have feelings dump instead.

Since Good Girls ended, I have been parsing through how I feel about S4 and GG overall — sometimes more positively, sometimes more negatively. Then, I flip to reminding myself it’s not that serious (it's just tv! this is supposed to be my leisure activity!). Then, I waffle back to reflecting.

So, no textual analysis just feels and whining under the cut. I know folks are still mourning the end of the show and I don't want to yuck anyone's yum. Tagging with #ggnegativity.

My short answer is that Good Girls is my beloved, sometimes joyful, sometimes hurtful, complicated little show. Even now that we’re no longer getting new episodes I’m wary of sifting through the information we have about Rio because it’s a mess and it seems like a lot of his character was poorly thought out (ahem, all those dumb messages from Bill Krebs confirming multiple instances of lack of intentionality or care!).

I say this because I was tempted to start responding to you by riffing off of your comment with, “y'know, now that you say that, I think he’s third or fourth gen…”, pero who cares? And the point was never specifically about what gen he is, or even more specifically about... lol, I was going to say it doesn't matter what nationality he was, they just needed to pick one. Ugh, but the wording of that is too glib. The lack of intentionality behind these details feels sanitized to me, it feels very white gaze, it feels lazy.

However, I could have forgiven a lot of this weak character construction if his baseline, plot-related characterization on-screen was more consistent. But, Rio was often used as a plot device in a way that often fell flat for me, a weekly recurring bogeyman whether his antagonism made sense or not. On one hand, I feel for the creative team, because I think they were in a hard place, trying to avoid romanticizing Rio, and trying to seemingly backtrack the sexualization of him in Season 2, but... Idk, it's complicated.

Retrospectively, it’s sitting with me how much Good Girls is rooted in whiteness. While it's something I discerned before (lol, most obviously with 2x13 and in S3 with Lucy's disposability), you know how some shows get to their third or fourth season and finally start investing in their marginalized characters? It’s a crappy thing to hold out hope for, they're crumbs! But, I was. And we did get some Rio worldbuilding. But, ultimately, it felt weak to me -- under-conceptualized or under-worked.

For example, I liked Nick as a Bigger Bad who drove Rio and Beth together. I also thought that Nick's non-existent moral code was a lovely foil to Rio's, and that this contrast humanized Rio in a way that he needed. It also cast a new light on Rio's behavior of the earlier seasons, outside of Beth's perception in a way that I thought was healthy and needed. Great, meaty stuff! However, Nick and Rio's relationship came across as shallow to me. There really did not seem to be a lived-in quality to their scenes. The show really struggled with that element overall -- even with the three lead protagonists (their decades-long history with each other and interactions between their families being largely absent). I wonder why they made that choice.

It's strange because on the flip side we got a hefty amount of contextualization for MLM guy Vance and Annie's bf Kevin... Even that cop who Mick killed! All white men, too.

Me da pena.

Or maybe the thing that bothers me is that those scenes between Nick and Rio didn't center Rio's perspective effectively? Despite the one-on-one scenes being outside of Beth's framing (Rio being a secondary character typically tethered to Beth's story arc), there still was a lot of distance between Rio and the viewer? Like I think of Vance in his kitchen with his wife and child, and the way we as viewers were brought into that to empathize with him, and I think of the distance of Nick+Rio boxing scene or the scenes at the bar. Argh! It's hard to pinpoint without the textual analysis I feel too grumpy to do. It was such a narrative choice to keep Rio aloof and I side-eye it.

Anyway --

Overall, the writing room/show creators/decision-makers didn't seem to consider Latine/x/a/o viewers throughout the crafting of Good Girls and that sucks. It really feels like I'm being told to conform to the white gaze in watching the show, and after 2x13 that makes me feel prickly and defensive. A part of me yearns to do a rewatch to map Rio’s character (and inconsistencies) but I still yield joy from Good Girls — it’s been my main comfort story during the pandemic. I also rendered joy from Season 4 specifically — some of those scenes between the leads at the end were phenom!!

I am leaning into what's bringing me joy right now, so I feel hesitant to stew in critique, even while I also feel some sort of need to make sense of the hurtful racializations. I have a compulsion to write them all down on the same post or list -- somewhere where I can see them all at once and understand. But, at the moment, it’s not a use of my time and energy that feels good. Opting into fics and writing is bringing me a lot of joy during hard times.

I have to close with one final whine, that I am SO fatigued with television options right now. I find myself desperately wishing for more TV out there whose priority audience isn't only white folks. Good Girls isn't alone in its treatment of Latinx characters, or alone in mishandling characters of color or gay characters, or prioritization of empathy for white het male characters, but certainly, creating something more thoughtful shouldn't be so hard.

#preguntitas #gg negativity #lol this is basically a long journal post #good girls and latinidad #nbc good girls

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spider-xan · 3 years ago

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One day, I'm going to write about how while I enjoy the Raimi films, and the whole 'comics-accurate Norman Osborn' debate is a mess bc his characterization changes all the damn time in the comics, I was never really a fan of Norman and Otto, but especially Otto, being written as composite characters with Curt in a way, re: the good scientist who's friends with and a mentor to Peter who develops an evil superpowered side that horrifies him, though it works fine in the films as films rather than adaptations. (And honestly as great as Molina's Doc Ock is, I don't think he's one of, if the most complex comic book film villains ever, like, his character is p simple tbh, and that's fine.)

I think Norman in the first!Raimi film does come off as a flawed person at best, and an asshole at worst, with the Goblin implied to be his power hungry side and darker impulses given an outlet, but in NWH, I feel like they really doubled down on Norman actually being a genuinely nice, good person, completely separate from the Goblin, and as good as Dafoe's performance is, it's just not an interesting characterization to me (not Dafoe's fault at all), and idk honestly, a lot of MCU decisions feel very 'let's research which tropes people like', and this feels like another casualty to that tbh

Also, I expect nothing from the MCU, but I still long for a live-action film Doc Ock who's actually a magnificent bastard who's believable as the Master Planner, founder and leader of the Sinister Six, etc., who's a foil to Peter in how he could have gone down a darker path without the positive influences in his life, and Molina could do it, but it would make no sense with his version of the character.

#no re-blogging #xan's spidey meta #insomniac otto was a better sympathetic ock imo #bc he still had a dark vengeful side #and even that version feels like it borrows a lot from connors and the curt/peter relationship #tssm norman and otto are still my favourite adaptations #nwh spoilers /

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peony-pearl · 4 years ago

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As like one of the minimum of maybe 3 people who like Hollander (and that’s probably being generous), he was absolutely written and executed horribly.

His introduction and motive is brought up out of the blue by other characters in the midst of a LOT of stuff going on. When we see him in person for the first time, the only words out of his mouth are taunting, his only words being about how he alone can heal the degradation.

His first actual scene, being the flashback, only shows him talking to Angeal and Sephiroth about Genesis’ treatment. His only words? ‘The problem is the mako energy that seeped in through the wound - first he’ll need a transfusion - you aren’t viable’.

There is no hint or tone of his disdain for his job; we don’t see him at work or in his office or element. (there is no point in the game that he does any research or science). It really only serves to help the initial surrounding mystery of why things are happening and how the copies exist; but that’s it. The characters have background knowledge that Hollander has been unhappy in his job. Yet his initial cutscene offers only that he is being knowledgeable about the treatment Genesis needs. His body language and words are professional and to the point; almost with an air of concern.

But immediately after, Hollander’s actions in his scenes consist of ‘oh no I’m in danger/run/gloat’. He’s there, he says something, typically a few one liners to answer a situation that Zack is immediately going to interfere in, and then that’s it.

How many times does Hollander himself mention the word ‘Shinra’? None. He only offhandedly tells Angeal ‘it’s time to exact vengeance for our family’s suffering’, which is most likely shorthand of his view of how Shinra treated them.

He viewed Angeal as family and very obviously told him - offscreen, about his relationship with Gillian. We don’t even see Angeal’s initial reactions to Hollander telling him and Genesis about their origins. Angeal’s had very high esteem for his parents, but most of his inner conflict comes from his views of his sense of humanity when he reveals to Zack that he’s a product of Jenova cells and science. Not that his family dynamic has been ruptured. (Angeal is a whole other conversation). Hollander was so open and quick to call Angeal family; laughing off Angeal’s objections and his statement that his father is dead. What if Hollander’s laugh and his change of subject (to Gillian) was due to his years of feeling pushed to the side to begin with? If only we’d had any reason to believe that; that would have actually been emotional development.

In Junon, even after everything he put shinra through, Hollander is still kept safe as per the President’s orders. He’s performed some heavy transgressions and yet he’s merely jailed for it for the time being because of the knowledge he has about the Jenova Project. Wouldn’t that be just as infuriating to him as his time before his rebellion? Being held under Shinra’s thumb after another scathing failure?

We see him escaping; reacting to Zack’s interference with his usual smarm. That desperation we saw from the last scene he occupied in which he tried to keep Angeal whole or to get another piece of his hair for another sample has been completely erased and is never mentioned again. He looks at Zack with a harrumph - the puppy who has consistently been nipping at his heels; the boy who was forced to kill Hollander’s pride and joy - a hmph. A smarm, a grin, chasing mech after him. There is no true reaction. It’s hollow; it’s meant to serve as a chase sequence and it does.

It is no character growth, it is no revelation of those missions in which Zack is chasing Angeal and Genesis and the copies; that time as Zack finds his footing as a 1st class SOLDIER and performing Shinra’s work to find them; as Zack continuously forced them to relocate again and again. Hollander never mourns Angeal. His ‘family’; his perfect monster; at least we don’t see it. According to the FF7 timeline, he is held in Junon for a year and a half. A year and a half to stew, not only in his failed attempt to thwart Shinra, another failure to add onto his shameful collection, but to remember Zack, the boy who took his creations and turned him back over to Shinra.

IDK I feel like the most appropriate way would have been actually getting a peek into Hollander’s frayed psyche. We already know his morals are skewed. While he, like AVALANCHE, opposes Shinra, his motives aren’t for the better of the Planet or the people; it’s for his gain, and he spared no qualm about the Genesis Copies attacking civilians. He still spares no guilt over the Genesis copies attacking Junon. Hollander’s motives are for him - but we barely even know him. He’s just there to be the road block, but with important bits here and there; to prop up the more compelling bits that supposedly wouldn’t have existed or happened without his intervention. So why is he so empty?

Seeing Zack again, and again, and again, foiling his goals, taking everything away from him; you’d think he’d almost put Zack on the same pedestal as Hojo. The only man we’re told (TOLD) that Hollander hates so much.

Speaking of Hojo - Hollander mentions Hojo’s name ONCE. His supposed arch-rival and we only hear his name once from Hollander himself - in passing.

‘No one knows where the Jenova Cells are being kept! Not even Hojo knows! You’ll never find it!’

Cool.

So... Even Hojo recognizes Hollander has this chip on his shoulder as seen when Genesis threatens him (via Hollander’s command; a command we don’t see him give); but we never actually hear Hollander outwardly despise him. No annoyance, no loathing; nothing.

We get virtually NOTHING in terms of who this guy is save for some smarm and he runs from danger. He wears that Banora shirt just so folks can be like “HMM I WONDER WHAT THAT COULD MEAN. ANYWAY.”

Almost everything about his character is phoned in by everyone around him except himself. There are a couple of soldiers with lines pertaining to Hollander’s character - and it’s probably more development than he himself provides on screen in actual scenes. Which is a real shame considering Hojo could have gotten a really great foil; we could have discussed more about rebellions against Shinra; discussed more about what Hollander could have seen with Aerith and Ifalna and Gast; discussed more about Angeal and Genesis and Gillian THROUGH Hollander besides that one (1) cutscene that doesn’t actually explain anything (Except what Angeal’s abiliies can do); discussed the dichotomy of folks going against Shinra, such as motives vs actions. Hollander and Zack could have had some great conversations as Zack becomes more jaded and Hollander could have used that to his advantage; but then when Angeal is killed, even at Angeal’s own forcing of Zack’s hand, would Hollander have only wanted to see Zack suffer as he did? A hellish sentence of decades being either overworked or ignored?

“What is this? Are they putting me out to pasture?” - A line Zack says after being sidelined for a while. A line I can easily imagine Hollander saying after being declined the Director of Science, or when he’s held in that jail cell in Junon.

So many Connections - just not even explored. And that doesn’t even count the characterizations of folks like Genesis and Angeal. While we at least learn motives and personalities, we see them so rarely that they continuously jump from one extreme to the other. Just to keep the player in that loop of ??????? for you to keep going. Regardless, Zack is the emotional core, and he serves it so well and is a fantastic hero and main character.

But I can’t help but feel like there’s a missed thread; several really all things considered. Nothing that’s crucial; but something to help tie things into a neater little bow; just a little extra effort for these new characters would have made this already wonderful game something a bit more integral to the overall lore of FF7.

Of course, now that FF7R is here and is making something new of everything provided, this whole discussion is kind of moot lol. All I can do is wait (Very excitedly) to see how the Remake continues to expand on these amazing characters; and whether or not my dumb scientist returns or not. I have great faith in the future of the franchise (except the whole ‘Intergrade only being on PS5′ really sucks but boo hoo I guess); so regardless of what happens, I’m more than certain I’ll keep enjoying what happens.

#FF7 #Final Fantasy 7 #Crisis Core #FF7 meta #a dumb lady talks about her dumb favorite scientist nothing to see here

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