#is 'Good Actually' for THIS particular character because the character is supposed to be somehow Better Than Other People.

[seraheart]

"Why are you so much more mad about Conan keeping secrets from people who deserve to know, than about Haibara keeping secrets from people who deserve to know?"

It's mostly the direction of the character trajectories, and the values the narrative assigns to these actions.

Extreme trust issues and hopelessness are Haibara's starting point. As far as I can tell, her slow-burn character arc is (was?) supposed to be about her learning to trust and have faith in people (and in the possibility of her own survival).

Meanwhile, Conan's apparent arc right now seems to be the opposite. His trust issues and increasing lack of faith in (most) people have been portrayed as an indicator of how he's "Better Than" those other pitiful, "Lesser" people beneath him, who just can't measure up, and therefore "don't deserve" his respect. Learning to respect (most) people less and less appears to be like the end point of his current trajectory. I hate this!

Haibara's trust issues and lack of faith in people are portrayed as symptoms of what's wrong with her. Conan's trust issues and lack of faith and respect for other people are validated as the "correct" approach due to Conan being "better than" these other people.

[notebooks-and-laptops]

The thing about Solas in DAtV is that because they were fundamentally unwilling to engage with the question of whether or not the Veil should actually come down (which is a symptom of them refusing to engage with anything remotely 'problematic' in the franchise to date: slavery, elven oppression, treatment of both city elves and Dalish etc.) he goes from a character who is supposed to be the embodiment of wisdom to a character who is kinda stupid. And further, it affects our questions surrounding his motives and relationships, his actions in inquisition and how compelling he is.

Like, there's a lot of people arguing ATM about whether or not a romanced Lavellans relationship with Solas was meaningful/if she knew him compared to how Rook knows him/if he loved her more than Mythal. And I think the answer is very tied up in this particular issue with the writing.

Because if Solas is a revolutionary who believes that the veil must come down, not just to fix a perceived wrong he did, but for the good of elvenkind...if we take a Solas who says 'people are always dying, it's what they do' and realise that he's saying that because PEOPLE DIDNT USED TO DIE and the way their lives are now so short is terrifying to him, if we take a Solas who says that the world today is full of those who seem tranquil to him and take that SERIOUSLY, if we get a Solas who is sickened by the way spirits are yearning for the world the way it was but are stuck in the fade without any contact and that's twisting them into demons and those willing to possess others to taste a glimpse of what was denied to them by HIS actions...

Then we get a Solas whose actions don't just make sense but we can see WHY they make sense. We get a Solas who is, yes, committing an act of horrendous violence by tearing down the veil but is doing so to literally save the world rather than just fix a regret or because he's bound up in Mythal somehow and what she would have wanted for the world.

THAT Solas who leaves Lavellan because of his revolution he must lead, who leaves Lavellan after seeing what this world does to those who are left of the people, that Solas...I think that we could then argue more than the relationships he formed in inquisition were real and he was tragically forced away from them by his own goals. That in some way he is doing this FOR Lavellan.

There should be a sort of semi-horror tint to this world for us through Solas's eyes because we can see a world of tranquil walking around like he does, a world where life is too short, a world of injustice and pain and reasons to go ahead with his plan

But Solas....kinda lacks agency in DAtV. I don't hate the Solas Mythal plot stuff I think it's quite interesting, but mix it with us never considering the merits of what Solas wants to do, of EVERYONE unilaterally deciding it's evil with no real debate or queries, with ZERO elves in the narrative siding with Solas or taking what he has to say seriously...THATS where adding the Solas and Mythal plot rubs me the wrong way. I don't want Solas to need to be released by Mythal before he can let go of his evil plan...I want a Solas who doesn't have an evil plan but instead a complex one. I want the conviction of Anders in Solas; that what he's doing is RIGHT and the ONLY WAY to fix a great injustice. I don't want to redeem Solas or even understand him I want him to CONVINCE me and me BELIEVE him. Otherwise the Solas we see in inquisition is more shallow and the Solas we see in Veilguard through Rook...maybe Rook does know him better than the inquisition did.

[canisalbus]

Hello! I'm not a furry either so I'm not sure how I stumbled upon your art, but I'm glad I did because I love everything you do for Machete and Vasco and I admire your art and how much effort you put in fleshing them out. They're gorgeous, and your colouring style is very pretty, too! I'd like to ask some things about them, if you don't mind.

1) Are they specific dog breeds? (I remember you said you're inspired by Borzoi fur for Machete's neck fur!)

2) Are dogs your favourite animal to draw?

3) How did you decide on their names?

The question about the names is because, fun fact: Vasco is an extremely popular football team from Rio de Janeiro, and right now they're competing in Brazil's largest football championship to become the country's champion. So I've been imagining Vasco dragging Machete to a football match and being wildly into it while Machete looks lost in the rambunctious crowd lol but also because I'd like to know if you're applying a nationality to them at all. Their clothes have picked my curiosity!

Thanks for sharing your art with us!

Ah, thank you! I'm glad you like my art and little guys.

1. Both of their breeds are fictional.

Vasco is a scenthound type of dog, if you applied Segugio Italiano's colors to Ariégeois/Porcelaine bodytype you'd get very close to what he's supposed to look like.

Machete is a sighthound and his closest real life counterpart would be Ibizan hound. He's mostly just a little fluffier here and there.

2. Yes, dogs are my favorite thing to draw. Canines in general. Sighthounds in particular.

3. I created Machete almost 16 years ago, I think I was simply reading about weapons and thought the word sounded sharp and had a good rhythm to it. In-universe "Machete" isn't his real name at all, it's something of a mean-spirited epithet/nickname he's acquired from his colleagues (mostly for being efficient at powering through mountains of thankless work, his severe (and increasingly cut-throatish) personality and the fact that he's originally from the part of Italy that was ruled by Spain at the time). His actual name (the one Vasco uses) hasn't been revealed.

I had liked the name Vasco long before I assigned it to this character, to me it sounds friendly and energetic but also noble somehow (but that's just my impression, I don't know any Vascos personally). One of the deciding factors was his color palette, I wanted to aim for shades that would resemble gold. In Finnish, "vaski" is an archaic term for warm colored metals like brass, bronze and copper. It's far fetched in retrospective but when the connection popped in my head I had to go for it.

As for the nationalities, they're both Italian. Vasco is a proud Florentine and Machete is originally Sicilian and now lives in Rome.

I can see how Vasco would be into football, Machete less so.

[rawliverandgoronspice]

The Dondon Post (or: the bizarre TotK's side content counterpoints to its main quest's immuable binary morality)

Speaking of strange TotK Choices, I think I have one singe post left in me about this game; and it's about the Dondon quest, "The Beast and the Princess".

(and about other stuff too, you'll see, we'll get to them)

More specifically: about how... strange of a thematic point it feebly attemps to make in the larger context of the storyline, and how it seems to be yet another mark of a world that, perhaps, once tried to be more morally complex that it ended up becoming.

Buckle up: it's a long one, and it gets pretty conceptual.

(good gem boys notwhistanding)

The Princess and the Beast

So, a couple of things about the setup. We are investigating potential Princess sightings; but at this point, either because we have already completed a bunch and know the general gib, because we have met a couple of wild Fake Zelda shenanigans, or through the simple fact that we are completing a side quest, we know there's a good chance it won't lead to an actual Zelda information. So when we ask Penn about what is going on and he replies with the ominous "we saw the Princess riding some kind of beast --a frightening one with huge, brutal tusks-- that the princess seemed to control", we get Ideas. Then the sidequest is registered: "The Princess and the Beast".

So. You know me. And if you don't know me, here's what you should know: my brain immediately flared up with the thought there was no way in hell this wasn't some kind of wink towards Ganondorf's renowned boarish beast form, especially given tusks were given so much focus.

My first assumption was: that's a miniboss right? I will get to fight some small boar-like thing that Fake Zelda rides sometimes. Cool! I didn't hold too hard onto my hope that the relationship of Zelda and/or Ganondorf to the natural world, or to each other would be expanded upon, since I had already been burned before, but my interest was piqued.

You have to understand how starved I was for any hint of complexity or mystery or ambiguity at this point. I was extremely eager for the game to throw anything at me that would surprise me, enlighten something pre-established, make the exploration lead to a meaningful discovery or deepening of characters, world or themes (and not just slightly cooler loot, or a bossfight, or a puzzle devoid of emotional context --cohesion and depth is what motivates my play sessions, especially in an open world game that I want to believe is worth losing oneself into). This was about the most intriguing task on my to do list at the moment, and so I plunged in immediately.

After really REALLY misunderstanding what I was supposed to do (I stalked every corner of every forest surrounding the tropical area at night or during blood moons in hope to see something --which was very much the wrong call), I arrived to the other stable, then was guided to the other side of the river where Cima awaits and explains that these creatures are actually a new species discovered by Zelda; that they are gentle and kind and not at all scary ("Dondons aren't beastly, they're adorable!"), and even somehow digest luminous stones into gemstones. They like the company of people and liked Zelda in particular.

I was... I felt two different ways about this conclusion, and I think it's worth to explore both: disappointment and some sort of... "huh!" Hard to describe this emotion otherwise.

I'll get the disappointment out of the way first, because it's the least interesting of the two. While I think the little emotional arc I was taken on was not devoid of interest --I was indeed taken on by the rumor and intrigued by its implications-- I wanted, well. A little bit more. And if the creatures were to be Zelda's pet project, I would have loved for them to be actually terrifying and feisty, and for her to develop an interest for these creatures in particular regardless. It could have been very interesting characterization that veered out of the perfect princess loving the perfect world floundering around her, always bringing her clear, practical benefits from the interaction.

(I have made another post that speaks of my discomfort that Zelda does everything everywhere and everyone loves her for it --I get what they were trying to go for, but it either lacks conflict for me to buy into that dynamic at the scale of several regions, or they went on too hard for my taste, as she is, at once and in the span of a couple of years at most: a schoolteacher, a gardener, an animal researcher, a scholar, a traveler, a military expert, a knower of landscape, a painter, a horse rider, an infrastructure planner, a [...] princess --at some point it begins to sound made up, "Little Father of the people"-esque to rattle the hornet's nest a little bit, especially if it's not shown as either a clearly godly characteristic or, even more necessary imo, a negative trait; another expression of her killing herself at work to compensate for a perceived flaw she's trying to earn forgiveness for, like she did in BotW. But that's another topic, and the clumsiness of her character arc has been well threaded by basically everybody disappointed in the story already.)

But, if I decide to be a little graceful, I'd like to explore my "huh!" emotion, and take it apart a little bit.

I think there's something interesting to have such strong parallels to setting up a story about the relationship between Zelda and Ganondorf ("The Princess and the Beast", like come on guys that's the conflict of over half the series), or at least Zelda and the concept of Evil since Ganondorf pretty much represents it in this game, and then have it go: actually, there was a horrible monster that everyone was afraid of, but Zelda was wise and patient enough to approach it and realize its potential beyond the tusks, what beauty can be brought upon the world if one makes the effort to look for what exists underneath. It says something a bit deeper about the world and about Zelda in particular. It intrigues, at the very least.

Is it a reach? Probably! Is my first interpretation that the quest is actually about "eww you thought Zelda would be interested in *disgusting vile monsters* and not sweet and gentle and human-loving animals that literally shit jewlery when cared for? jokes on you, she never would feel any ounce of sympathy for anything that isn't Good and Deserving" uhhh definitively truer? Probably! But I also don't want to dismiss that the quest made me think about it. If I had completed it earlier, I might have even felt like it was (very clumsy, not gonna lie) setup about the main conflict.

But that's also a good segway into my next section: the arbitrary limitations between the animal and the creature, the monstrous and the human.

And the fact that TotK points directly at it.

A Monstrous Collection

(these two guys are just. doing So Much and being So Valid despite being massive weirdos the game wants us to be slightly repelled by. I, for one, respect the Monster kinning grind and their general Twilight Princess energy.)

So. These two guys. There is so much to say about these two guys. I don't think I have seen the Trans Perspective on Kolton on tumblr, and I would love to get it because. I feel like it's a worthwhile discussion (just, how gender and identity is handled in TotK overall, I feel like it's a very complicated conversation and I have not seen super deep dives and I'd be very interested in hearing more).

Beyond the throughline of voluntary consumption of magical objects to turn into less human creatures being a weirdly prevalent plot point in TotK (Zelda, Kolton and Ganondorf casually transing their entire species for funsies --Ganondorf being particularly relentless with Fake Zelda, mummy/phantom shenanigans, Demon King and then literal dragon), I want to focus on Kilton a little bit.

Kilton is genuinely the only NPC in the game willing to acknowledge the inherent personhood that monsters have (the game does showcase them picking up fruits, mourning their boss if you kill them, being cutesy and happy to identify you as one of their own if you wear the appropriate mask --and that's not even getting into creatures like the Lynels, who seem to really edge on the limit of being a conscious creature with a system of honor and property and many other things). He does encourage us to think of monsters as more than a species whose only worth lie in how fun it is to eradicate them; even more, gameplay-wise, he does give us a reason to interact with them in other ways than just our sword with his museum. He does encourage us to see that beauty for ourselves and then select what we think is coolest/most intimidating/cutest/eight billion ganondorfs in every pose imaginable

The fact that Ganondorf is considered a monster was a great win for this feature in particular, and is very funny, but it's also... A lot, if we dig at it a little more than warranted. Beyond all of the Implications and all of the things of representation and political conflict and values already discussed ad nauseum: when did he stop being considered a human? What does that mean about the flimsiness of what is a monster and what is a creature and what is an animal and what is a person and what is even a hylian, as sheikahs got absorbed into the definition in this game? Especially with the stones taken into account, how profound changes in nature are a huge part of the plot (even when reversed and ultimately pretty meaningless): how easy it is, to make that slip? Who decides when that slip has been made? What is acceptable to hurt without remorse? What is beautiful and worth preserving? What is both at once? What is neither?

And again, in a classic Zelda conundrum (appreciative(?)): who the fuck gets to decide that, when, and why?

The Bargainers and the Horned God

(major shoutout to these big guys for being the sole and only providers of actual depth to the Depths, and for looking cool as heck)

So. Let's move the conversation to the Depths.

Conceptually: what an interesting idea!! And so well executed (initially)!! A mirror world to the surface, dark and hushed and full of unknown creatures; haunted by gloom and sickness and the unknown. Not a first in the series, far from it: from ALTTP to ALBW, and even taking the Twilight world of TP into account, this idea of a Dark World acting as a deforming mirror to Hyrule and revealing many interesting aspects as we get to explore both is always a very interesting take on corruption and envy and fear/weakness and/or some sense of darkness looming under the perfect exterior. I'd argue even the Lens of Truth of both OoT and MM's serve a similar function, both gameplay-wise, but also in terms of theme: not everything is as it seems. In the world of Light, darkness must hide itself; but darkness also possess its own beauty, its own hardships, and will stare back at you without blinking if you go seek for it. It's, in my opinion, one of the series' most compelling conversation about the cyclical nature of fate, the coldness of godhood, and how small one feels in the face of a universe that is more complicated than it initially appears --which is why Courage must be invoked to push forward regardless.

The Depth's otherworldly ambiance is truy wonderful, whether in the plays of light and shadows, the creatures native to the environment we meet there (wish we met more!), the soundtrack, the strange aquatic/primordial plants, the fact that the dragons visit this place and connect them to the outside --invoking ideas of balance and interconnectivity, that the tree branches look like veins. The coliseums, the mines, the zonai facilities and the prisons do seem to poke at many things about what the relationship to the past was to this place; was it ever truly a place? Did it look like this back then? Why was it buried? Why did it come back? But in spite of it all, I think the Depths struggle overall to question or reveal anything about the surface that we couldn't already assume going in (that the only thing congealing there is Ganondorf's gloom, his lonely domain of Wrongness, only shared by Kohga and the yiga --the only naysayers of Goodness and Light, contemptful and blinded by self-importance and rage). The zonite is mined by gloomy monsters --why, what for?-- so any notion of greed and over-expansion that could have been associated to the zonai is now reabsorbed into Ganondorf's general evilness, since it needs to be reminded he is everything and anything bad with the world: darkness and conquest and greed and capitalism and pollution and bad weather and sickness and darkness and violence and war and death and betrayal and fakeness and lies and patriarchy and exploitation. No matter that he never does a single thing with zonite in the game; rather set up elements of conflict that never go anywhere than, for a second, let the foundations of absolute goodness and absolute evil risk becoming shaky --and you coming to this unwelcoming dark place that hates you, killing the miners and taking their resources for yourself is, on the other holy, royal fur-covered hand, utterly legitimate. The resources were once Rauru's after all, were they not?

And this is what I would say, except... except for the dead. The fallen warriors, the poes, and, most important of all: the Bargainer statues.

The Bargainers are, in-universe, godly creatures guiding the fallen to a place of final respite, regardless of moral alignment. The poes are all, fundamentally, cleansed of judgement: they are lost souls whose past reality does not matter anymore, and all deserve that peace regardless. In spite of the heavy paradise/hell parallels drawn in that game, with Rauru/Zelda/Sonia as the guardians of Light where Ganondorf gets to become a Devil-like figure, it is confirmed here that no such thing exists when you actually die in this universe.

It almost feels as if the fabric of Hyrule itself, in a brief moment that refuses to elaborate on its own point, goes: "yeah, whatever is happening here between Light and Darkness, it doesn't actually matter. This conflict is futile and doesn't understand the real nature of being alive, dead, a god, a person, a monster, an animal. The truth lies elsewhere --but you will never be told what it is."

It's: wild.

One of the game's most striking traits of narrative brilliance in my opinion --to the point where I'm wondering whether it's there on purpose or was effectively an oversight since every other aspect of reality breaks its own back trying to reassure us that everything is at its correct place, receiving the appropriate treatment by the universe in a way that is never to be questioned.

Another case of that ambiguity being allowed to exist without being immediately crushed and repressed is the case of the Horned God (interesting parallel to Ganon's actual horns that he develops in this game in case the hellish parallels weren't clear enough already): a demon Hylia sealed into stone and pushed far from humans in a clear case of questionable behavior since, while the Horned God isn't exactly nice, does propose a different philosophy you are not punished for exploring; and yet, a proposal that has seen itself persecuted in a very real sense by the goddess of absolute goodness, patron of hylians, Zelda, and many more. Pushed away from view.

Interesting.

And Yet, Light Must Prevail

Okay, so, after all of this, we're left to ask... What the fuck is up with morality in Tears of the Kingdom?!

What do we trust? These half-breaths in the occasional sidequests that Light and Darkness is just the wrong frame of reference, that nature cannot be this simple, is ever-shifting and can be recalled or reaffirmed by arbitrary forces, and might even not matter at all in the universe's fabric, despite having so much of its lore soaking in the dychotomy? Or... everything else about the game, this insistence that Good must not only be assumed as whatever tradition the kingdom has passed down for thousands upon thousands of years, but remain utterly unquestioned the entire time? That Bad is without cause, graceless and unworthy of investment?

Are the Bargainer's statues the only thing worth listening to, that morality is a fable the living tells themselves --or should we be moved when Darkness destroys Light, when Light suffers to preserve itself and the world --but not when the Other is rightfully slain?

Was Kilton correct to see beauty in the monstrous? Was Kolton onto something when he let go of his previous form because there is no clear distinction between what should receive an arrow to the face and what shouldn't? Or should we rather focus on Zelda losing her human form as a beautiful and tragic sacrifice --but something that never actually altered her nature as a hylian, the descendant of a lineage of Good Kings meant to rule forever?

Is the Dondon good because it always was, or was it worth Zelda's love in spite of the fear it initially provoked?

Either way, at the end of the game, evil is slain. Ganondorf is, not killed, but --like his angry BotW boar counterpart-- destroyed, as monsters tend to be. He explodes over the lands of Hyrule, freed from Darkness; freed from everything wrong, since the foreign menace that embodied it all was wiped out in one fateful sweep of a holy blade cradled in sacrificial love. Nothing wrong remains. The Sages reaffirm their vows to protect the kingdom forward, and a very human --hylian-- Zelda smiles: Hyrule now forever and ever basked in eternal Light.

[sacchiri]

I recently bought the jp volumes of Hellsing along with the guidebook, and since I'm reading the series in its native language for the first time I might as well share some random things that stood out to me in no particular order.

This isn't meant to be an analysis of translation differences, I'm too lazy for that. Also it's been 12 years since I've watched the anime and read the low quality fan scans of the manga so some of these comments are just "Lol, forgot this was a thing"

Volume 1

... I really want to know who this guy is at the beginning, yelling at Alucard in overly familiar language to "Get your shit together!" and "You're the only one we can count on!!". We know from the style of speech that it's a dude, probably just some Hellsing rando, and maybe it's not all that strange since he has probably been working with the same soldiers for years--but it's still funny.

"I know, it's just so nice out :("

..The way "HELLSING Organization" is spelled out like this reminds me that apparently the name is supposed to be an acronym. No really.

...

God they're so silly.

Now that I think about it, the only thing Seras has done this chapter since being turned into a vampire is say "I'm sorry" over and over.... girl you got shot in the lung, why are you apologizing

Not a huge difference, but what Integra actually says here is "Leaving a corpse here for 20 years... You're a terrible person too, Father" and not "What were you thinking, Father?" as the Dark Horse translation suggests (note the lack of question mark in the raw version). I thought that might be of interest to some.

Something else I thought was interesting is the first line Alucard ever says to Integra, and how uncharacteristically polite he sounds.

O-kega wa gozaimasenka- That's two honorific 御's back to back! (He even said them in kanji, even Walter isn’t that straightlaced and he’s literally the butler.) This is also the only time Alucard uses this overly flowery gentlemanly language with her, and good thing too because it would be so annoying if he spent the whole manga ending his sentences with ~gozaimasu.

What I'm trying to get at is, after seeing this sentence in the Japanese version, I'm like 100% sure he actually heard her when she was mumbling to herself about hoping to find a knight in shining armor, and he was totally going the extra mile in playing into that role for their first encounter. Which is kind of sweet.

Lol they misspelled Alucard on the top left... or rather, they incorrectly spelled it right?

One would normally expect Alucard to be written アルカード, and indeed pixiv dict lists アーカード as a misspelling (the u sound is weak in Japanese, so it's easy to mishear arukādo as ākādo). Hirano was definitely aware of the correct spelling though, since he used it in the pilot chapter and in his old character sheets. It was only when the manga officially began that he switched to the アーカード spelling. I doubt it was because of copyright issues because there is already a long precedent of vampire characters named アルカード in various old manga, OVA, and games in Japan that have coexisted without issue (like this guy Hirano mentions in volume 1's afterword).

Most likely Hirano simply thought it looked better, or was a means of differentiating his character from the others somehow. It certainly makes life easier for Japanese fans searching for fanart since アーカード is only going to bring up Hellsing and not the Castlevania character.

Jan Valentine even pokes fun at the spelling discrepancy later in volume 2, but since there wasn't a good way of expressing this in English it was left untranslated.

(Speaking of spelling inconsistencies, there's a lot of minor details I'm noticing now, like half the time the furigana for 吸血鬼 is written バンパイア and the other half it's ヴァンパイア... anyway)

Um, just noticed literally everyone's wearing glasses What should I do

Hirano's habit of jotting random comments underneath his panels is one of the underrated perks of reading the manga

The Dark Horse translation almost makes it sound like she's looking forward to seeing this battle play out, while in the Japanese she simply sounds apprehensive. Almost as if she's worried about them? And she's going out on the field personally to make sure nothing bad happens? Aww

Ok this is a weird tangent, but I just noticed the scans of the Dark Horse version I've been looking at use a slightly larger image range than the Japanese version does. It was only noticeable when I got to this part:

The second image is what the Japanese version of the scan looks like and I can confirm that this is what it looks like in my physical volume as well. You shouldn't be seeing the messy borders of the inking on the bottom like that.

Manga manuscripts are set up so that there are a few millimeters of bleed border around each page. You're supposed to color and line all the way up to (4) while keeping in mind that printing and paper cutting may result in the image being trimmed up to (3).

Either Hirano didn't color his lines all the way to (4) (this man has been drawing manga for years but this is Hirano we're talking about so it's very possible), or Dark Horse didn't honor the original bleed borders of the manuscript. I'm kind of leaning towards the former since there was a Hellsing exhibit in Japan a few years back where you could look at Hirano's original manuscripts and there's one where you can clearly see that he spilled a mug of tea or coffee across the entire page

Anyway, it's weird, and I'm curious to see if someone that owns a physical copy in English can confirm whether theirs actually looks like that. It's volume 1, page 141.

[celaenaeiln]

it’s a me a 12 am anon . my girlfriend and i had a discussion abt how odd it is that the fandom views and stereotypes the batfam like

dick is romanian and has more fem related traits and somehow it translates into him being a dumb womanizer or just an annoying mother hen?

jason grew up in the streets, i think its popular to hc him as hispanic? idk but jts odd how ppl do that and also think hes an angry heartless brute

cass gets that “badass asian dragon lady” archetype (tbh im not sure what it is but my gf is passionate abt it so like im confident she’s right)

tim?? somehow ive seen wasian hcs for him but the boy is autistic right? somehow a stereotype i see for him is like “weird and socially awkward but super smart” which . i dont think thats right .

steph is adhd right? i think? also falls into the dumb “waffles r my only personality trait” stereotype and uts just a tiny bit odd dyou see it?

damian (and by extension talia) gets done dirty a lot i think i dont .yeah

nyways sorry its been a while <3 would llve to hear ur thoughts n opinions

hey again!!

Batfam fanon is...not great. And it's things like this that remind me why I kinda avoided this fandom until I couldn't.

Dick

Dick is Romani and is canonically more feminized but the dumb womanizer thing is really getting on my nerves. First of all, he's one of the smartest characters, ever. The comforting thing about Dick is that he never loses.

The reason I love reading Dick Grayson runs is because I can read about his thought process, the way he analyzes, how he single-handedly solves crime like it's nothing.

Batman (1940) Issue #703

Secondly he's not a womanizer. He literally has a mental break down at the thought of dating or even kissing someone he isn't in love with. He's never, ever, ever going to sleep with someone he doesn't have atleast some level of romantic attraction to because he feels it's inherently wrong and canonically frowns upon that behavior when others do it.

The mother hen thing - I gotta admit is kinda accurate. He really loves his family and friends and takes care of them really well. He always makes time to sit and listen to all of them with all their problems and helps them solve it so that's fine.

Jason

The hispanic thing - what the actual heck. Literally why? Jason's "hispanic" fanon background along with Tim's "asian" background comes from a wider problem where society has become disillusioned by the same ethnicity for all characters and wants for diversity and representation in the media. I actually do believe in greater representation but not here. When people make Jason hispanic due to his street backstory, they're attempting to diversify canonically white characters but accidentally reinforcing and perpetrating damaging stereotypes about particular ethnicities. Because his background has drugs, poverty, and crime - you want Jason to be Latino? Can you possibly make things worse? And Jason being an angry heartless brute. Not even adding to the stereotype, Jason was not like that. Jason originally started off as troubled but excited kid. He was happy about fighting criminals and having a home and getting food. As he grew older, the more criminals he fought, he came to a realization that people weren't going to change which is when he started getting more violent and angry with them. He didn't do it because he was some sort of psychopath, it's because he cared a lot about the effects these criminals were having on innocent people. Because he can relate. His anger has nothing to do with his supposed "hispanic" background which is still - ?!?!? Why is this even a thing.

Cass

I don't really have anything to say about Cass being that archetype because tbh I kinda think of her like that too. She's exceptionally good at fighting, she's chinese, and she's the strong and silent type. I'd love to hear more about what your gf thinks about it though.

Tim

Again about Tim being Asian. No where near as damaging as Jason being classified Hispanic but also why? He's asian because he's smart? Because he's good at computers? C'mon the stereotype is boring. Isn't it exciting when you watch a movie or show and the Indian guy isn't an IT specialist? Or when the Chinese girl has neon highlights and loves partying? Or when the Japanese girl is rocking combat boots? The best way to appreciate diversity is actually letting ethnic characters have diverse personalities and talents. On a side note, there is not nearly enough celebration of already canonically diverse characters like Roy's navajo heritage or Jessica Cruz's latina one. Isn't it ironic how we're making racialized characters based on stereotypes because we believe there should be more diversity but ignoring canonically ethnic ones. Literally noone talks about Cass connecting to her Chinese side or the fact that she has dyslexia but we're readily jumping on the Asian Tim Drake train.

Autistic Tim Drake I can see where they're coming from because Tim sometimes has a hard time connecting to people. Like he sometimes misses social cues. And to be fair this theory actually has more credibility than some other ones because I don't know if I'd pass that off as awkwardness. But it also may be due to lack of human interaction. Tim's parents left him alone for long periods of time which he gleefully used to track robin and batman at night. I don't have a problem with this one because Tim may actually be inadvertently written as autistic at times so I guess it wouldn't be that far off canon.

Steph

People with ADHD are typically impulsive, don't focus on one thing for too long, and have a lot of energy which is very much like Steph.

Batgirl (2009) Issue #10

But mostly she just has a sense of humor. Which - like the case with Dick - because of course people can't be multifaceted, fandom generally takes for stupidity.

She's not dumb, she's just fun. I guess the waffle thing is because of human beings' pathological need to classify everything into categories and fanon likes to run with dumb blonde for Stephanie which really ticks me off. People can not be a gloomy avenger and still be smart. She solves her crimes and has a laugh while doing it and still pulling off the -

Batgirl (2009) Issue #12

Damian

Where do I start. What is even happening to him? Not in fandom necessarily but canon. What is DC doing???

[makedonsgriva]

Random, what are your top favorite fics that you've written (feel free how much that you want to list)? Why they're special to you? Is there a specific inspiration when you wrote them?

Oh this is a pretty cool ask!

I will list five here!

1. We Should Just Kiss (Like Real People Do)

I’m actually pretty proud of this fic because it’s the first one I wrote after a pretty long hiatus and I was very nervous about it because a) it was my first fic for a new fandom b) it has explicit sexual content and I wasn’t sure if could pull it off nicely c) writing calamity xie lian and wu ming was a task alright like this fic took me almost a month i guess?? and d) since it was something I’d written after so long I was nervous my writing would be crappy

But people liked it and even I was very satisfied and pleased with how it turned out in the end! I’m pretty proud of it. Idk how I was inspired to write this fic because I started on a draft of it in the notes app of my phone while I was commuting back to home after my internship (harrowing experience fr)

(Maybe the fic made me channel out all my frustrations caused by the internship via xie lian)

2. I Really Like Your Company

I love this fic because it’s the first multi chapter fic I completed and posted. Also because it was my lifeline fr while I was grappling with many things. I’d started it as a gift for one of my dear friends and then it just became so much more. It’s so warm and comforting.

I was throwing in tropes and all cute stuff I could imagine in it and it made me happy. Writing that fic, getting comments on it made me very happy. I love that fic.

3. Once More We Try

Okay I’m actually still working on this fic and as a matter of fact I was working on its latest chapter before this and I truly think this fic has quickly become one of my favourites because I love writing all the characters in it so much. There’s so much to explore and so much to write and it’s a challenge but such a good challenge!

Idk how I got the inspiration for the fic I was just scrolling through tumblr one day and I randomly got this thought that huh what if SY had died instead of throwing Binghe in the abyss? And then I posted that idea and.

IT BLEW UP?

so I thought whoa why wait for someone else to write it when I can write it so I got down to business and here we are! It’s super fun. I love this fic so much. It’s also my first fic for scum villain fandom and I’m so glad it’s been so well received ❤️

4. Song of The River City

Another TGCF fanfic! I’ve put it on hold for now as I’m planning to complete OMWT before I get back to it. I’m actually very proud of this AU where we have ghost king! Xie Lian who had died during the hundred sword scene and cultivator! Hua Cheng (who had dispersed his soul as Wu Ming and was re incarcerated as the cultivator). I’m planning to do great things with this AU and I also love writing a darker XL.

The inspiration for this fic was that I was just thinking about the hundred sword scene and I thought, huh what if that guy died here? So I got down to work.

I love this fic and writing all the characters in it and plotting out the backstories is very fun! Especially the latest chapter where I’d posted the fengqing backstory is one of my favourites. I’m proud of it.

5. I Remember It

So this is just 100 words long and I love this fic because I feel like I managed to break mine and all its readers hearts in so few words. I love writing drabbles because they are always a good challenge for me and this one is a particular favorite of mine. The inspiration for it was actually a fic idea that I later scrapped away. The fic was supposed to be from the pov of snowbaz’s kid and her experience with them as she got older and they aged too and yeah.. somehow it turned into that.

Thank you so much for the ask!

[tobiasdrake]

As a Sonic fan since as far back as i can remember, i don't care for the Sonic Movies. I didn't mind at first but learning that Paramount is Pro-Israel made me rethink a lot of Sonic's character in those movies. Sonic is one of my favorite characters in the franchise (along with Amy) so i can be particular about how Sonic is portrayed (i don't like IDW Sonic). I don't mind different takes but if you don't get him right where it counts i'm gonna complain. I also don't like Knuckles at all in the movies and Tails feels unbelievably tacked on.

I can understand that. I do like... well, Sonic 2, specifically. I think that one has more good than bad, though I'm less fond of Sonic 1 and the Knux show. But I do have my beefs with all of them.

Like. I love Jim Carrey's Eggman, but he's also definitely more Jim Carrey than Eggman. He's very entertaining, somehow managing to be even more of a cartoon character than the CGI anthro protagonists.

Knux is... complicated? Like. I think there's a lot of pushback in the Sonic environment right now against the idea of Knuckles as a dim-witted brute, because that was a popular portrayal for a while. Sonic Boom comes immediately to mind.

Sonic Movie Knux was hailed as a brilliant portrayal because they didn't play him as stupid, but instead focused on him as a proud warrior clan type. But also... they kinda did play him as stupid? It's just that they were making "Knux doesn't get it because of culture shock" jokes instead of "Knux is just stupid" jokes. Which is really just a different angle on the same thing.

I think Idris Elba's performance carried a lot of his reception. Also that a lot of his stupid moments are funny. But. Like. The complaint was never that he wasn't funny. Boom Knuckles is funny too. It still sucks to see him reduced to a comical goon.

Contrast his portrayal in Frontiers. Frontiers Knuckles actually gets to express his knowledge and expertise. He talks at length about Angel Island history and architecture, comparing them to the current environment; Things that would reasonably be within his field of expertise.

And then there's Tom....

...

...

...existing, honestly? I don't like Tom. He's here because Paramount has no faith in the Sonic IP to carry a film and thinks the audience really wants to see a relatable self-insert in order to be invested in the film.

You're not really supposed to be rooting for Sonic as "the protagonist". You're supposed to be rooting for Sonic as "my kid". The films are made from the P.O.V. of cheering from the stands while your ten-year-old hits a home run in his Little League game. You're meant to be proud of Sonic, not to relate to Sonic.

Which kinda sucks by itself but also the guy they think is a relatable self-insert to project onto? Is a smug white rural cop who yearns to be a Big City Police Officer and has conspicuously unexplored drama with his wife's sister.

Like, Rachel violently despises him for reasons that the films refuse to examine, because they just want to use her to make Sassy Black Woman jokes. And haven't really thought through how it looks when Maddie is married to a fucking cop that her sister ambiguously but firmly insists is the scum of the earth. The implications there went straight over the filmmakers' heads.

It's all just... There's a lot. They made bad decisions with Sonic 1 but managed to find enough success at the box office to justify sequels, and now those bad decisions are baked in. Paramount thinks that's what people want to see. They think people want a Knuckles series that's about another white cop with an alleged heart of gold battling the feds and confronting his personal family drama, guest-starring Knuckles the Echidna.

I like the movies enough to check them out. The second one was a fine enough "Turn your brain off and just look at the lights and sounds" film. I actually had a blast with the "Maddie and Rachel beat the shit out of a bunch of cops" scene that everyone hates. The fights between Sonic and Knux were a lot of fun. Carreyman and Stone steal every scene they're in.

But it is all very not-Sonic.

[thesurrendertender]

Miguel O’Hara is such an interesting character in across the spiderverse. It’s so obvious that he had personal problems with Miles and Miles alone: he recruited Pavitr that only had six months of experience, he thinks that Lego Spider man is one of his best, in one scene there’s Doppelgänger, a literal demon clone in a spider man suit, and he’s a part of the spider society because Miguel had no problems recruiting him. But he specifically avoided recruiting Miles, the one Spider Man who saved the multi verse and already had some extended experience.

Miguel and Miles are probably the only Spider Men with the similar experience and the ones with abnormal backstories. They’re both anomalies, except that, while Miles didn’t had a choice and didn’t mean to mess with the canon events, Miguel actively made the choice to be an anomaly.

Miles is the proof that anomalies can co-exist with the multiverse. I think this is what really made Miguel angry, knowing that some anomalies have it worse and some simply don’t. I mean, I would be angry too, if I lost my daughter and everyone in her universe because I was an anomaly, but this kid is an anomaly too yet he has a family, and his universe is still intact. It just wouldn’t make sense, especially when Miguel actively tries so hard to follow the canon after the incident to make sure no more universes can collapse.

In particular I really liked the train/missile scene. Miguel was projecting HARD onto Miles, telling him he’s “the original anomaly” that “if he hadn’t been bitten someone wouldn’t have died” that “he wasn’t supposed to be there” and that “he’s not a real Spider-Man” and ESPECIALLY that “he doesn’t belong”. all things that he experienced, all the things that leaded to the destruction of his universe.

Not to mention that out of all the Spider men Miguel is the odd one: he wasn’t bitten by a spider, he doesn’t have spider senses, he doesn’t have a sense of humour, his dna is 50% spider and he only has fangs and talons, and if I understood correctly those powers aren’t even permanent. Yet, he’s the one leading the Society. He doesn’t belong, he was an anomaly, because of his choice people died and honestly? He’s not even fully Spider-Man. All the things he says to Miles are just a mirror of himself.

He was projecting all his fears onto the only other person who could relate to what he went through, and mind you Miles was told by his mother, Rio, to never let other people tell him that he doesn’t belong just twenty minutes before in the movie. And now he got a thirty-something man slamming him into a train, guilt trip him and trauma dump him.

Also, I noticed how he actually tried to resonate with Miles at first, explaining him why the canon is important, why certain things must happen and why he can’t come back home. And then the moment Miles went “but why I can’t do both?” He got incredibly pissed and sent him an entire army of spider men to stop him.

This also happens when Gwen asks him why he’s so sure that canon events must happen and what if they just…don’t occur. And again, Miguel gets angry because he simply doesn’t accept being wrong, doesn’t accept that his incident was an isolated case and that the canon doesn’t always need to be followed. He doesn’t even give an explanation, he just tells her “oh so you want to see WHAT happens?” Because again, he did see what CAN happen, and it wasn’t good at all.

I hope that in Beyond the Spiderverse Miguel and Miles can reconcile somehow. I don’t expect them to be on good terms, I would just like to see them confront one another. I think that would be cool.

[my-my-my]

I'm aware you are currently working on the Kinktober, but whenever you've time, could you tell us how you think things would have been if Aizen were the Captain and Shinji the Lieutenant?

Thank you for sending me this ask, I've been mulling over it for a few weeks now! I wanted to answer this to give myself a bit of a break from kinktober. It was a really good thought exercise.

I'm not 100% confident in this response, and it's honestly a lot of rambling, but nonetheless, here are my thoughts:

Imo, their relationship would be dependent on what stage Aizen is at with the hogyoku/Hueco Mundo/his research. Before the start of the story, he recruited a low-seated Kaname into his larger machinations/ideology, in TBTP, Aizen was deliberate in choosing a "loyal" aide in the form of Gin to fulfill the more gruesome parts of his plans. But in his captaincy he chose Hinamori for her admiration. The timing of when Captain Aizen and Lieutenant Shinji occur will greatly affect their dynamic.

Regardless, I believe Shinji will still be completely distrustful of Aizen no matter what "era" he meets Aizen at. He can "sense" something is off about him, even if it is the "kind and gentle" Captain Aizen persona that is being displayed to everyone in the Gotei 13 for centuries.

I think it's important that Gin is the third seat in this scenario as well. Unlike what Aizen and Gin did in TBTP, where Gin killed the pre-existing 3rd seat, Aizen will "allow" Shinji to live, because he knows Shinji is distrustful of him. Again, he will use that to his advantage.

This may be a situation where in private, Aizen and Shinji are antagonistic towards each other, whether that be Shinji trying to trip Aizen up, or Aizen being colder and crueler with his words. It would definitely be a game of tug-of-war between them.

This is getting longer so I'll put everything else behind the read more.

That being said, the reversal of power is something that needs to be talked about. Aizen knew that at some point, Gin would betray him, he just didn't know when and how. I think by keeping Shinji away from his own plans, gives Aizen a bit of leeway in how he approaches Shinji as a Lieutenant. It might amuse him that his Lieutenant is so wary of him, but I wonder if this might be how the "real" Aizen comes out, and it's... humanizing to Shinji? Like the sweet, calm, gentle Aizen is an act, Shinji sees through it, and he gets to experience/witness the actual Captain Aizen. And in a way, he likes that better.

I still think Aizen will use Shinji/betray him somehow. Not in a sense of how he used Momo, but it still shakes Shinji to his core. There was a fundamental reason Shinji couldn't trust Aizen, and now he is seeing why.

Aizen's relationships to particular characters are so fascinating to me, and Shinji is one of them. It is "bonded" by a mutual distrust of one another, and from Aizen, a sense of "disappointment." Going by this, if Shinji fell into one of Aizen's traps, it would disappoint Aizen - his Lieutenant couldn't understand/see eye-to-eye to him. I want to say by the time he meets Hinamori, he is done away with trying to meet someone at his level/trying to understand him. It is why he does away with Momo like that, yet also why I don't think Aizen would do Shinji in a similar fashion.

Story-wise, it would certainly add another level of cruelty once Aizen forces hollowfication on Shinji. Again because of the power dynamic now at play. It was certainly cruel of Aizen to do that as a Lieutenant, but if he were the captain? I think it's crueller. I can't find the words as to why I find it that way (lol), but I think its because fundamentally, while Captain and Lieutenant relationships are diverse and complex, there's an underlying bond of "do no harm." It's why when Aizen stabbed Momo, it was shocking - a Captain wasn't supposed to do that to their Lieutenant. Yes Renji and Byakuya fought, but that was of Renji's choice and will. Momo trusted Aizen, her superior, and yet here we are. I think a similar feeling would arise if Captain Aizen had hollowfied a Lieutenant Shinji.

I don't want to say story-wise, things would have played out the same. Shinji's experience and position as a captain is why he connected with Urahara to some degree. I'm not sure if that would play a part if he were a Lieutenant. It would still drive Urahara to action (because Hiyori would be involved), but Urahara's feelings towards his squad and captaincy in general, might not be as fully-realized.

Ok I'm going to cap it here because I'll just go in a circle LOL. Thanks again for sending this ask! It was nice food for thought.

[angelbroad]

"That's not the point"

Type: Fanfiction

Fandom: One Piece

Characters: Monkey D. Garp, Sir Crocodile

Realationship: Implied past Crocodile/Dragon

Cleaning up the disaster in Alabasta had been a tremendous task for the Navy. Garp had been aware of more events than most of the Navy, as Smoker had clued him in that his son had appeared to save Luffy from him. He'd done better than Garp, he supposed. They were now down one Warlord, and a raised bounty for his grandson and his ragtag group of Strawhat pirates. With that being said, Garp had expected calls, but not this particular one. Never this.

One day, he had received a call from Impel Down, shortly after Sir Crocodile's incarceration. And wouldn't you know it, Garp had found himself as the former Warlord's one call from prison. He was expecting a few things. Maybe a plea of innocence, some threats, certainly some amount of yelling, but not this.

"Crocodi-"

"What the hell is your problem??", Crocodile's voice was so loud, Garp had to pull back to protect his ears.

"Is this about your arrest? Because-"

"Not only did you know my son survived, but you and that idiotic son of yours didn't even care to tell me his name? That he would be in Alabasta??"

Oh...he knew. Garp had to redirect this conversation somehow.

"I didn't know that he'd be in Alabasta, and you are the last person I expect to care about their kid."

"That's not the point. I was told by everyone around me that my own flesh and blood didn't make it past birth. You took him from me, and didn't even bother to do the raising yourself!"

"Like you would have done a better job than me!"

"Maybe I wouldn't!", Crocodile agreed, and Garp was able to hear his hook scraping the table on the other side of the line, "But I would at least have tried, and not dump him to some random woman in the damn woods!"

"Is this what you called me for? Honestly, how petty can you be-"

"I nearly fucking killed him, Garp!"

The Admiral's heart sunk. He hadn't expected Crocodile to go easy on anyone, especially rookies coming to halt his plans, but nearly killing his own son...that was way further than Garp would have ever gone.

"...What?"

"Thrice.", Crocodile said, "Something neither of us would be feeling guilty over if you actually told me the truth!"

"You were the one that nearly killed him!", Garp tried to argue, deflecting as much responsibility as he could. Anything to force himself to turn a blind eye to his own mistakes when it came to the boy. Dragon didn't believe he could raise Luffy, but he didn't want his then mother to throw him into the dangerous world of piracy. Garp only realised when Shanks had come along that perhaps Luffy would turn out like he was presently regardless.

"...This conversation is over."

"Garp-don't you dare hang up that den den-!"

Crocodile didn't even finish his sentence before Garp hung up. He couldn't do this. Garp knew postponing this conversation would likely cause more harm than good in the long run, but he was old and far too proud to face his own faults in this situation. He swore he could practically hear Crocodile shout curses at him from the depths of Impel Down, but Garp told himself that everything would be under control. Crocodile wouldn't get out of Impel Down anytime soon with all the crimes he had commited, so Garp had all the time to mentally prepare for this conversation.

Even if that time might never be enough for him.

[ceruleanwhore]

In my soul, I feel disgusted and betrayed by this finale and I am shocked that the same writers who were able to give us such a truly wonderful show somehow came up with such a terrible ending for it. This episode directly opposes the very nature of the show more than any other episode in such a way that then calls into question the rest of the series. This episode feels every bit as hollow and sad as Ted himself seems to be throughout the finale and makes me wonder if we ever were actually supposed to believe and to hope at all in the first place, even though I thought that was the point of the series. 

The first of many issues I have with the episode is how they handled Rupert. The whole show is about belief, but specifically believing in others’ capacity for good and ability to change for the better. It’s about believing in redemption and reconciliation, which they actually could have done for Rupert even this late in the show. The scene in episode 10 where we get a glimpse of the inner child that’s still tucked away somewhere inside him showed us that even he still had this potential, up until they did what they did for the finale. While I, personally, tend to be more like Sassy was in that scene — gleefully cheering for the downfall of an odious scoundrel — it felt completely wrong for this show in particular to include that kind of public humiliation, which we the audience are all supposed to be cheering for, and in the middle of Ted’s last game ever with Richmond.

Where we actually could have used a side bit about a scoundrel getting his comeuppance is with Ted’s ex wife and their ex therapist. I think it’s absolutely terrible that they went and set up Rupert’s downfall the way they did while Jake apparently gets off scot free and never gets his license revoked or anything. There also is never really any acknowledgement of just how wrong what he did was, how he should have his license revoked, and how his actions call into question every bit of therapy Ted and Michelle got from him. No one ever questions ‘Oklahoma,’ never mind the entire divorce, relative to this man’s breach of ethics and it bothers me to no end that the most we get is his absence at the end from scenes with Ted, Michelle, and their son. We didn’t need Rupert dressing up like Darth Vader and physically assaulting someone, we needed Michelle realizing how completely wrong her whole relationship with Jake is, dumping him, and reporting him.

The next issue is Ted himself. Obviously, he was in a gloomy sort of mood throughout the whole episode, but I think it’s really important to point out how that didn’t actually clear up once he got home. I do believe he was happy to see his son but, from the plane ride onward, it’s like he’s just hollow. We see him coaching little league soccer for his kid and yet there isn’t any of the heart and soul in it that we’ve seen him put into his other coaching. It’s like he’s depressed, which is understandable because he just left a whole incredible, supportive community to come to Kansas where, like Odysseus at the end of the Oddyssey, he’s a stranger in his own home. He goes from having a whole city around him to support him to seemingly having nothing and not even being a welcome member of his own family since he’s still divorced. Also, as others have pointed out, that montage that seems to be a dream sequence when he’s on the plane ride home is all about him writing himself out of the lives of everyone he just left behind. He’s decided that it’s better for everyone there to just forget about him and move on with their lives as though he was never there and he’s literally dreaming about how happy they’ll be to do that. 

This is a major thematic issue for this series because one of the main points of the series is the idea that everyone can change for the better and, more importantly, just about every character does. Ted spends all that time in England working on his own shit like everyone else, and even gets over his aversion to therapy in order to seek help for the first time ever, just to throw all of that away at the very end because apparently he’s just back on his bs and that’s it. This is where it would maybe be alright if there were another season after this one to address and fix this, but there isn’t. In the very last episode of the whole thing he’s throwing away his entire community, dreaming about how happy they’ll be without him, and there’s nothing and no one there correcting that. To me, this is like if right at the end of the last episode with no room left to fix it, they just had Beard go steal another car and then act like the audience is supposed to be okay with it.

The other thing, going off of that, is how they handled some of the relationships, and I specifically want to start off by talking about Ted and Rebecca. They have the distinction of being the only ship to truly be baited, more than once, and very unnecessarily so. The bait scene at the start of the final episode contributes nothing to the plot, the characters, or their relationship with each other — all it does is mock the members of the audience who were foolish enough to believe they ever could have been together. This, to me, also goes against the core values and themes of the show, because ship baiting like that is inherently mean-spirited and Ted Lasso at its core is meant to be kind. There is nothing kind about essentially dangling something over someone’s head, playing keep away with it, until you finally just chuck it in the river and laugh at the person for being so foolish as to think they were ever going to get it. It’s mean for the sake of being mean and again, for the umpteenth time, it contributes nothing.

So then let’s get to Roy, Jamie, and Keeley. Jamie and Roy are another example of a strong relationship that’s developed beautifully over the course of three seasons regressing at the very end because oh no, people ship it and we can’t have that. I do think that Keeley turning both of them down was necessary but Roy and Jamie literally getting into a fistfight over her was completely unnecessary and detrimental to their individual characters. By this point, they both are mature enough and respect Keeley enough that it’s genuinely ooc for them to be fighting each other about who gets to date her while she’s not even there. Season 3 Jamie and Roy would’ve been leaving the decision to her without reverting back to macho Neanderthal crap. 

To me, this is also about the creators recognizing that people in the fandom have ships and, for whatever reason, feeling the need to try and shut that down rather than just leaving well alone. If, instead of getting in a fight like they did, Roy and Jamie had a conversation about their shared experiences of wanting to be with Keeley but not knowing where they stand with her and recognizing how hard it is for each other, then it could end up contributing to the further growth of their relationship and, along with it, shipping and oh no, we can’t have that. Just like with Avatar: the Last Airbender, the presence or lack of romantic relationships is not the issue here, the problem is with writers accidentally setting up an incredibly compelling ship and then being like “oops, we didn’t mean to do that,” and trying to ctrl z it in the finale, at the detriment of the whole story. Why oh why do writers keep feeling the need to sacrifice the quality of their whole story for the sake of trying to get people to stop having opinions?

So then last up is Ted and Trent. As many others have pointed out, that bit where Ted’s reading the book and makes that comment about the ‘laugh police’ in response to Trent’s excitement and anxiety is extremely out of character. Ted “but he’s our dork” Lasso would never say that and I was horrified to hear those words come out of his mouth. However, this goes in with the destruction of his entire character arc and every bit of growth he’s done throughout the past three seasons all in this one episode, because that was him actively pushing Trent away because, as previously acknowledged, he’s back on his bs.

One issue with this is that Ted then never has a proper goodbye with Trent and the closest thing to that is the note he left asking Trent to change the title of the book. It’s not that I necessarily think he needed individual goodbyes on screen with every other character but Trent in particular was hugely important for Ted, like how Rebecca was. Do you really mean to tell me that Ted wouldn’t actually say goodbye to the journalist who wrote what, coming from him at the time, was essentially a glowing review when he was actually hired with the intention of destroying Ted’s career? Do you mean to say he wouldn’t get a proper goodbye with the man who threw away his whole career over him? The man who then decided the first thing he wanted to do after leaving said career was to write a book about him and his team? Seriously?

The other thing with Trent is that, where Ted’s ex wife and even Rebecca have felt the need to use ‘Oklahoma’ with him to get him to tell the truth, Trent has a talent for discerning the exact truth from Ted regardless of what he does or does not say. It would have been perfectly in character for him to go talk to Ted like Rebecca tried to but then actually succeed where she failed because he would be able to clearly read Ted’s signals and throw that all back at him. Unlike Rebecca, he could directly call out how much Ted didn’t actually want to leave.

That is actually the biggest issue this episode had — cowardice. The only reason I can think of why they wouldn’t even consider doing something like what I just described is because, like with Roy and Jamie, they are perfectly aware of the chemistry between those characters and how they have set them up so it reads like they’re in love with each other, and a scene like this would be just about impossible to do without coming across as romantic. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Ted and Trent would’ve already been snogging by the start of the season if one of them were a woman. This show did the thing where they’ve decided that they can have a couple gay characters, but those characters can only get with specifically devised side characters because God forbid you just have your two existing characters of the same gender kiss a bit. Between the pairings of Ted and Trent, and Roy and Jamie, there is enough textual evidence of mutual attraction and the potential for real, romantic relationships that one could write over a hundred pages about it, and that is not an exaggeration. When I look at this finale, one of the things I see is the titular character being destroyed because they decided that was better than letting people think that he could maybe not be straight.

The last issue I have here is that there really were no goodbyes. Rebecca showed up at the airport and that’s it and I thought that was very weird and, again, very much not in accordance with the entire rest of the show. Even if they didn’t have the entire team show up at the airport to say goodbye, it didn’t make sense to not even have just the Diamond Dogs show up for that. Where tf was everyone? Because just from watching the whole rest of the show, I think it would be impossible not to expect the team, the dogs, the folks from the pub and maybe also Shannon from town. It was a cold, empty departure far from fitting for the show at all and it left me coming out of that finale feeling cold and empty from the crippling disappointment. They had a whole show centered around interpersonal relationships and support and then had the coldest, loneliest ending anyone there could have devised.

My final thought here is that this is not an ending and the only way to salvage this wreckage is with another season. This feels like something they’re doing to drum up attention and interaction so that it’ll be successful when they do come in and announce that they’ve changed their minds and there will be another season, like an encore at a concert. However, if this really is the end, then I am absolutely disgusted and feel very betrayed right now because this show told me to believe and taught me that maybe hope isn’t actually a bad thing that’s out to get me, just to turn around and crap all over that. This show didn’t just apparently waste hours of my time, it was actually helping to get me to move on from past pain and start to accept hope as a good thing, until it shattered mine. They desecrated the very art they created and then expected the audience to applaud such disrespectful destruction, and I am disgusted by it.

[for-those-who-wait]

i feel like i might have already said this but i like the way you describe Hunter’s physique, if i may. as described by his friends (in your writing of course), his shoulders are bony which i interpreted as the arms a lot of volleyball players have. i have a lot of friends who play that sport and they have skinny arms but they’re also insanely strong (for obvious reasons), which sometimes feel like their bone from how compact their muscles seem to be. Hunter is very athletic and needed to be good at cardio and arms as Golden Guard, which probably gave him the kinds of shoulders a lot of volleyball players have!!

i have no idea if that’s what you were trying to convey when his friends leaned on him, but in my opinion your description was spot on!! it’s just a thought that’s been circling around my head for a while

I was trying to convey a more lean physique but also was trying to imply that he wasn't very well-fed when he was in the Emperor's Coven.

He's definitely got a lot of lean muscle from his particular brand of fighting, and he's definitely going to be very strong and in-shape just from whatever training he has to do. This man is Not Soft, and that's part of why I chose to mention his being real bony since it's a very physical and hard-to-ignore aspect about his past status as the Golden Guard (apart from his scars, mannerisms, etc., you know what I mean). I was trying to give him a sense of otherness in a way, since a lot of the time I find myself writing TTT Hunter as feeling very alienated from his friends due to 1) his previous actions/status as the Golden Guard and 2) being a Grimwalker, something he assumes they would find terrifying and despicable. Like because he's got harder and leaner muscle, and because he's not as comfortable to hug, he's not like them and is somehow lesser than them. Meanwhile his friends are like damn what a cool guy, I should give him a hug

As for not well-fed thing, IIRC there isn't a ton of canon information about what he actually did in the Coven apart from his two mentioned missions (Hunting Palismen and the mission he was supposed to go on [that he ends up going on anyway] in Eclipse Lake), but from the eye bags and things I've seen in a lot of other fics and art and stuff, a lot of people seem to agree that he gets severely overworked. Maybe he's got a bit of a workaholic in him since the Emperor's Coven seems to be a very dog-eat-dog environment and he feels the need to get ahead of the curve. So I put my own little HC in there that he either forgets to eat or literally doesn't have the time because one thing that always gets me is when a character actually gets to experience consistent good meals for once in their life. I will absolutely write that in whenever I get the chance hahaha

Thank you for the ask, sorry for the ramble!

Edit: Also addendum to the second paragraph, I love the concept of "character who is not good at comforting tries to comfort someone" and Hunter being physically very uncomfortable to hug kind of shows that the way he grew up wasn't conducive to those types of interactions. He wasn't "made" to be comforting, or to be comforted, and that just hurts me a little bit

[karlachismylife]

Temptation When I Look At You

Oh boy this actually was a struggle... I actually don't know why, because this is like the most Gaz response ever, but the situation and setting just weren't coming to me at all? I was actually so surprised that I couldn't think of at least ONE situation where this exchange could happen. Maybe because it just seems too single-track? Anyway, I don't feel like this is good, which is a great pity, cuz I wanted to do more Gaz :( But I hope it finds its enjoyers. I still put a lot of love for the pretty trixter boy into this. Might be self-indulgent and thus annoying... and honestly there's not much Kyle here... yeah, I'm just insecure about this one, but it is what it is, definitely couldn't do a better one. Next time maybe? And it somehow ended up being longer that Ghost's... I don't know what I'm doing.

CW: gn!reader, reader is bad with social cues (author is too and it probably shows), fluffy pining and awkward flirting for the pretty boy Kyle.

(Title from "Temptaion" by The Flirts)

also no it's not horny but i gave up on searching for an Elliot gif where he's not naked and accepted my fate

Not being good at flirting and reading it has never actually been that much of a problem for you. Sure, you've had your awkward moments, some downright embarassing, some midnight realizations a week later (ah so THAT'S what they wanted from me!) - but overall, it's not that bad. You're not completely oblivious and you can flirt back and forth, you can more or less tell someone's showing interest in you - or show it back. That has always been good enough for you.

Until you saw him.

You're not sure what it is about this guy in particular - yes, he is very, very handsome, but looks alone aren't usually enough to make you feel that enigmatic pull in your chest and the need to try and talk to the person that makes you feel this way. As you watch him across the tables of this fun boardgame event you came to with your friends, you feel more and more charmed. You can't even hear his voice as he talks to his game opponents from here, so it's not that either.

He just has an aura. A cheezy romantic film protagonist aura. The one the audience can't help but fall in love with and root for - the kind, noble, attentive, caring, respectful, charismatic, funny and cheeky modern knight aura.

You relay that all to your friends and they all turn around to look at the guy - they couldn't be more synchronized if they tried, and you facepalm hard, because you didn't even want to make a big deal out of it, but now of course he'll notice.

The thing is, you're perfecrly happy just basking in this sweet, slightly dizzifying feeling of this movie-character bloke's presense. It feels good, puts you in a dreamy state, and you don't need more - after all, this is just a vibe you mostly created in your head. Trying to get closer to the person probably will only destroy it since he's most definitely not a movie character. Why even burden a man with some expectations and ruin your own fun?

"Wanna go talk to him?" Right. Your friends aren't in on your inner peace with never getting to know the stranger you were so quick to idolize. One of them even motions with their head in the direction of the man, and if he somehow missed the little swan ballet your favourite muppets were showing earlier staring at him, he definitely notices the gesture now.

Curious brown eyes snap up, immediately locking with yours, and an absolutely charming, too sweet to be just polite, smile stretches on his full lips before he seemingly goes back to explaining something about a game card his rowdy-looking playmate is holding.

Damn, he really isn't helping you to shake the heart-shaped pink glasses off, is he?

"No," you can barely tear you eyes away, but you still see one of your friends blatantly grabbing your cards and going through them. The cards that are supposed to be your closed hand. "I'll be doing movie stuff tonight. Always wanted to try."

"What do you mean, "movie stuff"? Gonna ram into him holding a stack of papers hoping he'll help you pick them up?" Another friend does you a service and yanks your cards from the thief's hand, putting them back in front of you - not before looking at them, of course. Unbearable.

"Kinda, yeah. I mean, not that, but you know... stare at him, then look away as he notices... what else is there?" You sigh and put your cards back into the deck, exchanging them for a new hand. "I just wanna see if it actually reads in real life. What, you were never interested in how they manage to realize they're attracted to each other before exchanging a single word in the movies?!"

Several pairs of eyes blink at you silently, and you realize you asked the wrong people.

"The only movies I watch are fucking nature documentaries, babe, they use their noses and mating calls to figure this shit out."

"It's movie magic, normal people talk to each other, exchange numbers and then go on three awkward dates to leave with another girl from the third one."

"Why don't you just start going out with girls already-"

"But WHAT IF I'm not into them?"

"You made us watch six Resident Evil films just because they had Milla Jovovich in them, I'm pretty sure..."

You tune out in the middle of your friends' loving banter and find yourself shuffling the deck for too long as you stare at the victim of your affections. He's laughing and you can make the sound out as he pats his big buddy with a mohawk on the shoulder.

When he catches you looking again, you shift your eyes automaticly. Huh. Looks like you started your little game already. There's really no harm in trying to see how this movie magic holds up in real life, right? You're ready for your plan to lead nowhere. You're here for fun.

That's how you quickly realize just how bad you're actually at this. Watching him and hiding your eyes with a smile that actually lifts the corners of your lips naturally is not that hard, even if it makes you irritatingly distracted during the game - and therefore the punching bag of the evening, but the rest of this social play is harder than any strategy you're trying to pull to get a comeback in this round. As you have to draw another heap of punishment cards, you catch your movie guy smiling again, and you smile back - only to realize that he's actually listening to his other mate's story. Kinda embarassing, but you remind yourself this isn't supposed to lead anywhere.

And you'll never see this guy again, so just bear through.

Next time he actually walks past you - to get some more plastic chips they need for their game, and you follow him with your eyes - actually appreciating his physique in the process, damn, he really is good-looking - and run your hand over your hair in what you feel like should be subtle flirty manner. He notices, eyes narrowing with that smile again, and maybe - you're not sure, and that's how you remember why you actually don't get those fucking movies - nods at you. Or maybe he just moved his head in a perfectly natural way navigating the passages between tables.

"Pathetic," offers your friend a helpful constructive criticism as always. "Honestly painful to watch."

"What's painful to watch?" Ah, and there's the last piece of your friend group, late as always, plopping down on the couch next to you after they've successfully obstructed the view of your movie prince's ass.

"See that hot guy? Grey Henley? He's a lab rat for our dear one's flirting experiment. They've been staring at each other for the last fourty minutes like we're stuck in a bad porn opening scene."

"Why don't you just go talk to him like always?.." Before your lovable I-Don't-Know-What-Clocks-Are friend even finishes, everyone at your table lets out very sarcastic "Hmm", "I wonder why", "Ooh, there we go" and "Why did no one come up with this idea, huh?". Shitheads shoving you under fire.

"Because that's not the point! I'm not trying to get anywhere, I just wanted to see if-" you're forced to hush your own heated retort as the Hot Guy passes your table again. He probably noticed that - if that barely noticeable glance with a curiously raised eyebrow is meant for you, of course, and you suddenly feel flustered.

Social experiments are hard, man.

"I don't get it, but you do you, I guess, as long as he keeps distracting you so we can rob your bank." With a groan, you grumble that they are the worst friends ever, and get your head back into the game.

For about fifteen minutes, then you find yourself locking eyes with the guy again, watching as he leans to whisper something into the Mohawk's ear keeping eye contact with you for some reason.

Something shifts inside you when you see that big guy turn and stare at you with zero subtlty and a comfusing, too intense look. He earns a slap upside his shaven head from the movie guy and sticks his big nose back into their game, but the insecutiry lingers, slowly wiping your smile off your face.

What if you're actually coming off as weird? No, worse - what if they think you're too persistent? Maybe the movie guy tried sending you hints he isn't interested and you missed them all? That actually sounds quite realistic with your lack of understanding what exactly you're doing. And now you're annoying him to the point he has to note that to his friend. And you're ruining what is probably just a fun game night he wanted to enjoy with his buddies. And- oh that's why you always preferred to be direct.

"Hey, what's wrong? Did he flip you off or something?" Your own friends - actual treasures, no matter how much you all are roasting each other - get quieter too, turning (thankfully, not all at the same time this time) to look at the guy.

"No, no, nothing like that. I just think maybe you're right, stupid idea." You exhale, feeling better after a supportive pat on your shoulder. "Well, at least I can say I tried that method too, right?"

"Experience," notes the Milla Jovovich fan with a finger raised in the air and absolutely mentor tone right before beating your card with a heavy-hitter. "You had fun and that's all that matters. Now gimmie your cards, it says I can take three of yours of my choice, cuz you sucked ass."

You get over your short moment of embarassement rather quickly once you fully focus on your game - and you even win some back, ending up second-to-last. How did the late one manage to win, you don't know.

"Another round?" As you agree, they start gathering and shuffling cards, and you glance around, noticing that the free snacks table just got toped up with a fresh pastry basket.

"I'll go grab cookies, you want some?" You take your friends' orders for all kinds of stuff and squeeze along the narrow passages to get to the desired snacks.

It's as you're topping off your plate with a little hill of cookies, brownies an cinnamon rolls that someone's dark skinned arms with grey sleeves rolled up nicely come into view, pouring tea in a thermos mug.

"What's gotten you so shy suddenly? I thought we were having fun."

Your pastry Tower of Babel crashes and tumbles almost off your plate, resembling something more like a volcano eruption aftermath than a proper construction. You don't need to guess who that voice belongs to - honestly, that effortlessly sultry, teasing, movie star timbre can only belong to one person - but you follow the steam raising from his mug and are greeted by the smiling amber eyes you've been staring into half of the evening.

"Sorry, I was just... sorry for staring, that was inappropriate. Hope you have a nice game, still." An apology is due, you think, and you really hope he accepts it. He seems like a chill dude, the kind you don't want to upset because they just don't deserve it.

He deserves to feel good and be surrounded by people that make it happen.

"Hardly inappropriate, but thanks for the apology," he chuckles, and you hide your eyes in the baked ruins you're trying to fix before they fall onto the floor instead of reaching your friends. "Is that why you stopped looking? Or did you lose interest and I'm being inappropriate now?"

Since when did direct approach start making you so flustered? Isn't this what you're actually used to? "This" being actually asking normal questions, not standing so close to a movie protagonist that smells even better than all the fresh pastry on the table in front of you - tastes better probably, too...

"What was that?" He leans closer and you're on fire like a match, in an instant. Did you just say some of that out loud? Is he laughing? No, better question, is he mocking you? Because what you hear next is... "Oh, nothing, Kyle, I just said I couldn't stop eyefucking you because I want to kiss you so bad. Well, then ask me nicely for a kiss, pretty. After I take you out and learn your name."

And just like that, the scene ends, with the charmer back at his table and a piece of paper with his number on top of your crumbling cookie architecture.

Handwritten. Just for you. From Kyle.

"Did you really have to flirt with him over my brownies?" You don't really remember how you got back to your friends. Your cookies getting split between everyone as a tax for you taking too long.

"Props to the guy for saving you from yourself, honestly." Thermos cap filled with tea lands into your hand, the other occupied with the phone number. Finally, you blink, glancing over to Kyle's table - he winks at you, eyes crinkling. Not so subtle.

"Guys, you know, worst part is, I still don't get how this movie shit works..."

[tokiro07]

Ichi the Witch ch.4 thoughts

[Eight-Foot Vertical Leap?!]

(Contents: narrative structure - worldbuilding, character analysis - Ichi/Desscaras/Kumugi, thematic analysis - Joy/Friendship)

Maybe it's because this is the fourth series I've written weekly reviews for, but I'm really seeing the legwork going into these early chapters

I don't really want to get to the point where I'm beating a dead horse, but I feel like keeping track of this will somehow be beneficial to me in the long run

Chapter 1 - establishes the premise (high concept, basic setting, core cast and themes)

Establishes the cast's personalities and dynamics

Establishes the flow of the series

Begins actual worldbuilding

I don't know if it's just because I haven't paid a ton of attention previously, but the fact that I'm able to so clearly see the functional layout of the storytelling so far makes me feel like this series in particular might end up being a masterclass in basic story structure. I suppose we'll have to see how it continues to develop in the coming weeks, but I wouldn't be surprised if next week and the week after introduce the primary goal and primary antagonist, though maybe that would be too structured?

Of course, it's entirely possible that next week will just be more worldbuilding for a bit, since we're most likely going to get a closer look at the Witches Association, but I have to figure we're going to need to establish a goal soon on account of Ichi being some kind of aberration that captured the ostensible most power Magik in all the land. I'm envisioning something like Gojo offering Yuji a stay of execution in JJK, though I don't know if Ichi is going to be considered a criminal

For now, though, let's focus on the glimpse into the worldbuilding we did get

Worldbuilding

First and foremost, the disparity in magic availability is pretty stark. As Desscaras points out, you aren't likely to see a lot of magic users out in the sticks, and those that you do see seem to get whisked away to the capital for training (as we saw in ch.1). Meanwhlie, magic is extremely common in the capital, to the point that basically every shopkeeper on the street seems to be using or selling magic

I don't know if that's going to become a major recurring theme, but I think that kind of inequity is something we should keep an eye out for. Series like Black Clover touch on it with the literal tiered structure of the Clover Kingdom, but as far as I recall it was never a major point of contention in their society, so I'd definitely like it if Nishi gives it a bit of attention

The fact that there's a clear divide between genders suggests that social inequity is already on Nishi's mind, so economics would probably be a good way to expand on the concept from a different angle. I do believe she's considered it, since the literal first thing she brings up in this worldbuilding expo is the tourism market, a concept I definitely didn't expect to see in a fantasy series like this

While I don't really know enough about the history of tourism to dispute how old the practice is, Nishi definitely seems to be going out of her way to establish that this world is a little more advanced than ch.1 would make you think with the inclusion of a flying motor scooter. It kind of feels like how Naruto inexplicably had TVs or HxH suddenly revealed it had the internet, but this at least happened quickly enough that it's not too jarring

There's also the fact that it's all magic anyway, so nothing really feels too far outside of the realm of possibility; Desscaras had apparently received a ton of messages on her magic mirror in ch.2, so obviously that was meant to be a stand-in for a phone

Magic System

Speaking of magic, this chapter does seem to confirm a suspicion that I've had since ch.2: not all magic comes from the Magiks

In ch.2, Desscaras was able to create and dispel a cage without seeming to use a chant; at the time I figured the dispelling didn't require it and the casting happened off-screen, so I didn't pay it much mind. Then in ch.3, she not only cast a silencing spell on Ichi without a chant, she also mentioned putting magical power into the ropes they used on Raiko

Now in this chapter, the saleswoman mentions charging the magic boots with magic power; in other words, the basis of this magic system isn't just the Magiks, but magic power, an energy source that women seem to either possess or have access to. This would explain why it's so special that Ichi was able to use Uroro even though logically any man should have been to pass his trial - men literally aren't supposed to be able to access magic power at all, even to use basic, non-Magik spells

Brief aside, I really hope that any visually impaired readers are able to hear the difference between magic and Magik in their text-to-speech readers, cus otherwise this series is going to be kind of annoying

Anyway, it's not just a lack of compatibility between men and Magik, it's basically like men lack an organ that would allow them to channel magic power. While it does make a bit more sense, I am sad that it suggests that the line "in this world, magic is alive" isn't entirely accurate. If there are spells that can be cast without passing a Magiks trial, then that kind of cuts into the uniqueness of the power system a bit, though again we'll need to wait and see how it develops

Along with dropping more hints about the magic system, this chapter also drops more hints about what kind of person Ichi is and how he fits into this world

Boy Meets World

It was lightly touched on in ch.1 with Ichi hunting the Flower Field Guardian for the villagers, but Ichi seems to like helping people. I kind of thought he did the hunt for the sake of it and the gratitude of the people was just a nice bonus, but seeing him go out of his way to help a complete stranger even at the risk of exposing his secret drives home that he enjoys being kind just as much as going on a good hunt

The little detail of him leaving his knife as collateral for the magic boots also solidifies that he has a pretty strict moral code; he won't murder, he won't steal, he won't abandon someone in need, and he won't make up excuses either. He could have swiped the boots and said "it was an emergency, I was planning to return them afterwards," but instead he took the time to write a note and leave behind something of value to prove his intent rather than leaving without explanation expecting the end to justify the means

Of course, he's still pretty naive; it's silly for him to assume that the shopkeepers place the same value on his ordinary hunting knife as he does and that it would be equivalent to specially crafted magical boots, and his logic that he didn't use magic since he didn't cast any spells is patently incorrect. Any dolt who sees a man using a magic item is going to piece together that he's the Manwitch that people are talking about, because even something as basic as that is still a fundamental impossibility in this setting

But that naivete is an important bit of development for us to understand and become endeared to Ichi's character. He was a little goofy in ch.1, and we got hints in both chs.1 and 3 that he's a bit crazy, but this chapter expands on what I believe is the most important element of not only his character, but any good protagonist: his ability to enjoy himself

Joy to the World

Previously, hunting was the only thing that we knew Ichi cared about, and his newfound ability to use magic simply allowed him to hunt new prey that he wouldn't be able to otherwise. However, the presence of magic was no more than a facilitator, an excuse to bring him into this world of monsters and witches, but he himself had no clear interest in it

With this chapter, though, Ichi's opinion on magic is firmly established: it's fun. I don't know how it compares to hunting, and obviously those two passions are just going to overlap, but an explicit interest in the subject matter will make the inevitable training arcs to come something Ichi will actively want to participate in rather than a chore

More importantly, though, because we're looking at this world through Ichi's eyes, his fascination with magic is our fascination with magic. Ichi and I now care equally about the potential of this magic system, and I can now trust that he will go out of his way to explore it in a way that I want him to. If Ichi couldn't be bothered to care about the magic, then why should I be expected to?

This approach of synchronizing the interests of the cast with the interests of the audience is something that I've definitely noticed in a lot of other manga as well: Luffy's thirst for adventure, Fuuko's genuine love for all of the other Negators, Iroha's knack for puzzle-solving, Asumi's immersion in MMA techniques, all of these are great examples of the author showing the audience what joys their world has to offer to the audience

A long time ago, I once posited that along with Jump's values of Friendship, Effort and Victory there was a fourth, unspoken value. At the time, I thought it was Dreams, but I've since realized that the attainment of a Dream is Victory. Nowadays, with the unbridled mirth I've seen from Jump's protagonists across the last several years, I've realized that that fourth value can be nothing other than Joy. Victory without Joy is hollow. Effort without Joy is suffering. Friendship without Joy is transactional. None of the others stand without Joy, and yet Joy itself stands alone just fine - Joy can be found anywhere, as it can be created from within those who need it wherever they may be

Media naturally has plenty of room for morose, pessimistic and overall nasty protagonists, so of course not every Jump manga is going to prioritize Joy, but not every Jump manga prioritizes Friendship, Effort or Victory either. This early in the game, I don't even think I can say which one Nishi intends to focus on just yet, but I can say for sure that she wants Joy to be a major element going forward, and that honestly makes me more excited than any promise of cool monster designs or an intricate power system ever could

That said, if I had to guess, of the three main values, I'd say that Ichi the Witch is most likely to prove itself to be a Friendship series based on what we've seen already

You've Got a Friend In Me

Not only is it extremely likely that Uroro's arc is going to see him actually form a bond with Ichi, but Ichi's moment of sparkly-eyed delight with magic even seems to be endearing him to Desscaras as well. It was brief, quickly replaced with her usual sneer and penchant to evade responsibility, but something definitely stirred within her in that moment. A memory? A long-lost emotion? Hope? Whatever it was, Desscaras' opinion of Ichi is slowly but surely changing, and by the end she's definitely going to cherish this crude little monkey boy she found in the middle of the woods

Along with the subtle developments of our established cast, though, we also finally got our first new addition since ch.1! Kumugi's introduction was much too detailed for a throw-away character, and her presence for Ichi and Desscaras' crash landing in front of Monegold puts her in the perfect position to be dragged along for the ride (perfectly in accordance with her established fail-girl status)

I've already suggested that Desscaras won't be a consistently present party member since she's the mentor archetype, so Kumugi offers to fill the void she'll leave by going in the near opposite direction. While Desscaras is the strongest and most skilled Witch in the land, Kumugi is a Cadet who seems to have nothing going for her; no luck, no respect, and likely no notable capability. Both serve as excellent foils to Ichi, a bright-eyed, one-in-a-million talent without an ounce of experience in this world who as of yet hasn't uttered a single word of complaint about anything. Hell, the guy literally got crapped on in ch.1 and he just laughed it off, whereas Desscaras' would no doubt blow a gasket and Kumugi would likely faint in shock

I don't know how big this cast is going to get or if the core cast will be consistent or on rotation, but the three friends we've already gotten for Ichi all already provide such clear paths for how their relationships can and likely will develop that I can't help but feel like those relationships will be Nishi's main priority. Not that I don't see how she could pivot to Effort (the hunt) or Victory (the trophy), but the mere fact that the actual hunt for Raiko actually happened off-screen and was only expanded upon after it was complete suggests that the process and result are less important than the people present

I don't envision Kumugi as a romantic interest just yet, but I do anticipate her anxieties and negativity being strongly impacted by Ichi's spontaneity and optimism. His personality sets him up to drag her into big and unexpected trouble, and those experiences will likely help her come to grips with her own internal struggles. If I'm right, then Ichi is likely to have a flat character arc, wherein he's the one teaching everyone else the right way to be rather than learning from people who have already found their answers

This is more or less what I predicted in ch.2 when I suggested that Ichi would fundamentally change the way that Witches approach Magiks, but now focused on a more interpersonal level than a strictly narrative one

What's particularly interesting about Ichi though is that it doesn't seem likely that he'll have a completely flat arc, since he seems so open to new experiences and ways of thinking. He's strong-willed, but the new experiences he gains will certainly begin to change his perspective and values. Like I said, his personality is likely to get him and Kumugi into trouble, but on the flip side, Kumugi's apprehension is likely to help her get herself and Ichi out of trouble at some point or another, allowing the two to meet in the middle rather than just dragging each other kicking and screaming into their way of life

As usual, I may be getting ahead of myself, but if things go the way I expect them to, I want to be able to look back and see at what points the puzzle pieces clicked into place for me. And if I'm wrong, I'd like to have a record of how I came to those conclusions so I can compare and contrast my expectations with reality more effectively

Until next time, let's enjoy life!

[he-is-lightning-in-a-bottle]

Top 5 Beloathed Tropes, in No Particular Order

Hi beloveds. Because of a recent certain episode of what had previously been a favorite drama, I feel compelled to share some hate. Hate for these godawful tropes!

Noble Idiocy - This is when one character sacrifices something dear to them (usually their relationship with another character) out of the mistaken idea that it's somehow better for everyone this way. LISTEN UP PEEPS! It's a lie. It's so disrespectful of others, especially if it's a breakup. It's assuming that you know what is best for them, that you know what they're thinking and feeling better than they do, that you know what they'll want. All without ASKING THEM or letting them make their own decisions. You know what this signals to me as a viewer? That your relationship is doomed to failure even if you eventually work through this stupidity. Why? Because if you're willing to do this once, what's to stop you from doing it again? Your worldview is inherently flawed in a deeply selfish way, particularly because you're passing off your selfishness as sacrificial "love" and "respect" when it is the opposite! I no longer trust you! In summary: don't sacrifice your relationship/work/happiness because of stupid reasons that you could easily work through with some decent communication!

Time skips for the ending. - Time skips can be a valuable narrative tool. They can give a character who just endured something dramatic or traumatic time to become stable again. They can provide a fluffy epilogue to a fluffy ending, demonstrating to the audience that a year later everyone is still happy. But time skips are evil if they come in the penultimate or final episode just to add drama, and they're particularly evil if they relegate character growth offscreen. THIS IS WEAK WRITING. This is wanting to correct a character flaw without doing the work to show me HOW it gets corrected. It's especially egregious if it's a character flaw called out by the narrative in prior episodes because then I have an emotional investment in seeing it resolved, and THE WRITERS JUST STOLE THAT FROM ME.

Intentional Miscommunication - Let's just call this what it is. Lying. It can be well done (and even humorous) if the main character is trapped in a lie by circumstances beyond their control and they must perpetuate that lie for Reasons. Think Unintentional Love Story and Business Proposal. These often begin as low-stakes lies of omission because a character doesn't know yet how involved they'll become in the other's life. But it gets dumb as fuck when it either drags on beyond a couple of episodes (think Twins) or involves an intentional outright lie (I'm looking at you, Last Twilight). Dear TV writers, as a good rule of thumb, please resolve all misunderstandings within the length of an episode. And if the entire plot happens to be built on a lie, at least make it accidental rather than intentional. Why? Because someone who intentionally lies to others, particularly someone they claim to love, is no longer trustworthy. If you throw this trope in at the end of the drama, I'm no longer going to believe these characters can have a Happily Ever After no matter how happy you show me they are on screen.

Mean/abusive tsunderes. - Everybody loves watching a cold or reserved or grumpy character come out of their shell and bloom. But stop making tsunderes who are downright mean or abusive! Particularly ones who miraculously fix fundamental character flaws as soon as they're loved by the right person. Do tsunderes right, please! They're supposed to begin the story coming off as harsh or severe, but it's supposed to be for a good reason that engenders sympathy once we (and the other main characters) understand them. They're not supposed to actually be abusers! And it's the worst kind of storytelling to show their abusive nature magically changing because they feel in love. All this tells me is that as soon as their fluffy in love feelings dissappear, their abusive nature will reappear. I actually fear for their romantic partner.

Amnesia. - I hate it when all the character growth gets undone by this magic trope. Not only is the amnesia portrayed on screen usually totally medically inaccurate, but it's just lazy and dumb to use this for drama instead of something more realistic or believable. I can only think of three stories that did this well -- Jack O'Frost, Naughty Babe, and Crazy Love. In those stories, the amnesia (if real) was momentary, but then they pretend it is still there for valid sympathetic Plot Reasons. I also don't mind if it's the literal setup of the plot, ie the whole story is about a character with some form of amnesia adapting to their new life (think: Momento, 50 First Dates, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). But please stop throwing it into the middle of stories just to be Dramatique™

@lurkingshan This is for you! Thanks for your Last Twilight rant spurring this on.