#it's fascinating in a messy way

[agnesandhilda]

shounen mangakas love making their protagonists child soldiers employed by an institution that is supposed to be at least kind of correct even though they're using child soldiers

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Hi! I hope this is okay but I would love to hear more of ur thoughts about the Yunmeng siblings because they are important to me and your tummy hurt comic hasn't left my brain as just,,, such good immediate characterization! ^^ Thanks!

I have too many thoughts on the Yunmeng siblings to fit into a succinct post, but I can offer you a Jiang Yanli addendum to the tummy hurt alignment.

[elvisqueso]

Pocahontas refusing to confide in Nakoma.

Pocahontas (1995)

rambling lil' meta under the cut

i've been thinking a lot about pocahontas's relationship with nakoma and what kind of friends they really are in the context of the film. when we meet them both, pocahontas is elevated and nakoma is in a boat far below her, shouting up to reach her. i think nakoma is always reaching for pocahontas and pocahontas will only reach back sometimes. it's a pretty unbalanced friendship, when you look at it, and i wonder why nakoma remains the main point of contact in the community for pocahontas besides her father. perhaps it's because they're similar ages. maybe they're childhood friends who just got so used to each other that the one may take the other for granted.

pocahontas never confides in nakoma, and you gotta wonder why. even their first interaction has pocahontas demurring when she answers that she was up on the cliff thinking. thinking about what? She doesn't say, but she doesn't refute nakoma's assumptions.

and nakoma...what does she get out of this friendship? maybe she's just used to trailing after pocahontas this way, maybe she just doesn't have another friend, or she thinks pocahontas needs her.

nakoma is sort of a foil for thomas, who trails after john smith like a starry-eyed fanboy with an intense para-social relationship perspective. nakoma also is the active participant in the friendship, not pocahontas. nakoma fills in the gaps of their relationship with assumptions and guesswork, because pocahontas is so reticent, so hesitant to share of herself that nakoma Has to. and when pocahontas's seclusion goes too far, when she fails to confide in nakoma some of the most essential elements of what she intends, nakoma has to fill in the gaps again. and when she does it's Not Good, and her solution is to send their strongest warrior (a man with affection for pocahontas, who might keep her secrets if she needs him to) to try and save her friend. and then it all blows up in their faces and a man lies dead in the water for it.

every relationship in the movie is so tragic like brO—

[crimeronan]

writing raine and eda fighting is fascinating thus far because they are both people who are trying So Hard to keep their composure (raine bc they simply dont want to lose control and eda because she..... doesnt want to be the only person yelling), and yet. it's at a point where it's like. this argument would actually be more functional if you guys just gave in and shouted at each other. right now you're both pretending you're therapy-speak protags except neither of you has ever gone to therapy and neither of you will admit you have issues. like. good god could you just try to kill each other......

[jetlaggingbehind]

listen to me. in a swap au ramona's knives would NOT be matthew. matthew got over his heartbreak fairly easily once he had his own musical to perform on and knives does not have that kind of emotional resilience in the face of scott's shittiness she is seventeen years of age. matthew would more likely be like kim or something. he's hiding stuff and he never got closure but at least he has a healthy outlet for his emotions which helps him come to terms with it in some sense. knives would be ROXY. heartbreak central.

[ferronickel]

Thinking bout the time someone yelled at me because they didn't understand butches.

[leomssis]

xavi + messi x boygenius // mitski

[yellowocaballero]

Talk Shop Tuesday: what’s the most important thing to you when it comes to characterization?

[Sorry I am so behind on these I have been so fucking busy] CHARACTERIZATION I LOVE YOU SO. What a good question!!!!! I get compliments on my characterization a lot so I should probably think about this. Also @lazuliquetzal chime in if you want because you're just as good at this.

There's a lot of important things. The most important, I think, is that the character has consistent internal logic. It's like worldbuilding or magic. Their actions don't have to be objectively logical, but they do have to be consistent. The character has a framework for understanding the world, a way of perceiving the world and how it works, and an idea of how they think other people work. Everything that happens in their lives is filtered through that. They have to feel like a real person making real decisions, not an instrument of the plot.

Something I like to do is to make their greatest strength their greatest flaw. I think in writing there's no 'good' or 'bad' character traits - no virtues or sins. I think character traits are neutral, and that they can be used to good or bad effect. I think we do things because of other things that have happened to us, and that these things have positive and negative consequences.

Obviously a character has to have consistent motivations and to change over time. A character shouldn't end the story in the same place where they started. Character focused stories ought to have your characters change throughout the story - Sherlock Holmes doesn't have to have moments of character growth but your slice of life character definitely should. I think the setting around them really helps - giving them foils really helps develop and flesh out both characters.

I feel like that's all pretty basic notes though. For me and characters, there's way more to it than that. It's hard to explain. I think I can only ask that you make the plot and tropes fit the characters, not the characters fit the plot and tropes. Fanfic has a horrible habit of making characters one dimensional and stripping away a lot of nuance to fit in with different slots in relationship dynamic, roles in a team dynamic, or niches in an AU. The character should come first. And love of god if you make their personality seme or uke I will come find you with my yaoi baseball bat.

Oh and the best character-building exercise is to figure out if the character would ever be a cannibal or not and I am barely joking.

[spoofymcgee]

alright i've watched death in heaven and i've entirely revised my take on clara's character to the point where i think the 6k character study of her i finished last night is just. totally inaccurate and wrong.

my original perception of her was based on the fact that the narrative and the doctor's perspective both try very hard to make her a good character. she's the doctor's companion, which means she has to be good and kind and nice.

except that she isn't.

clara oswald is special. and she knows it. she's different from everyone else–there's something exceptional, something remarkable about her–why else would she get to travel the universe with the doctor? she isn't like everyone else, and she likes knowing that. it makes her feel powerful and better and bigger and in control.

she wants to have everything normal people have and more, to prove that she can live a regular life and run out in the middle of the day to save a planet, and this is what keeps proving to her that she's important.

she's the impossible girl–there's something different about her, and as long as that is true she's worth something.

which is not to say that she's bad: she's a little callous and sometimes cruel, she isn't very compassionate or sympathetic, but on the whole she has a basic set of morals.

and it's fine, for a while, i think.

but she fits everything into very specific boxes, including people, and knows where they go and of not how to control them than at least how to work around them.

and then the doctor changes, and she's not there to see it, and he regenerates, and she is there for that.

and he doesn't act like she's learned to expect, she can't rely on him, he doesn't treat her like she's special anymore, he's more critical, more honest, and she gets afraid.

she can't predict him anymore, and she's also afraid that he's getting too close to really seeing her, or maybe just stopping to pretend that he hasn't already. and somewhere, maybe subconsciously, she wants him to think that she's good and kind, wants to keep believing that she is, and she's just as afraid as he is that she isn't a good person.

and that's the crux of the problem with the doctor and clara's dynamic–they're too similar. that's why, in hell bent, the doctor doesn't need clara to figure out what's going on–he never has.

the doctor needed clara because he needed someone to believe he was good when he didn't. even if she couldn't convince him, he needed someone there to see him as good. twelve spends a lot of time thinking about whether or not he is good, whether or not he can be trusted, what kind of man he is and wants to be.

eleven spent the last three hundred years of his life defending a planet of innocent people who he got involved with his war. he watched them fight and die and tried to save them and knew that, in some very real ways, it was his fault.

as eleven, the doctor got big. the doctor got important. the doctor became a legend and a god and a figurehead and a nightmare and he doesn't know which one of those things cancel the others out.

so he needs someone there who just sees him as the doctor, plain and simple.

to clara, the doctor isn't important because he's a good man, or he does good things, or because she cares about him as a person. he's important because he proves that she's different from everyone else, that she's special–he's her path to the stars, to singularity.

oh, i don't think she knows that. i think she wants to believe–and does, maybe–that she loves him, that he's her friend, the one person she'll never leave behind. that's what she's supposed to feel. but the second something happens that isn't supposed to, the second her life diverges from the narrative she wants it to have, her first course of action is to try and force the doctor to do what she wants by threatening his life and freedom.

and that's good enough for twelve. if he's a tool to her then he's not a god, and she's controlling enough that if he spins too far out from good she'll pull him back so she doesn't lose him, and doesn't lose the sway she has over him.

my proof for this in clara's character is the way danny's story ends.

she didn't object to the fact that he died. in the end, she more or less killed him. for a girl whose first plan when the only person she loves dies is to threaten to kill herself and her best friend in a volcano, she gives up very easily.

if this was a story about how much she's unwilling to let danny go–which it seems to be–then she shouldn't care what he wants. she should be trying to make him stay, or at least convincing him, she should be crying, she should be screaming and trying to stop the doctor from flipping the switch.

but instead she offers to do it. she stands there quietly and demurely holding him while everything wraps up.

clara was more upset by the fact that he died in a boring, ordinary way than the fact that he died, because ordinary, normal death didn't fit into the story of danny-the-hero, danny-the-soldier, danny-who-saved-the-world. she is not ordinary and so she is owed a star-crossed love story by the universe and star-crossed lovers are not separated by car accidents.

but if he dies a hero, if he sacrifices himself to save her and everyone on earth, if he's special, then she gets to keep being special by association, gets to be the woman he loved so much he resisted cyberman brainwashing for, the woman he saved the world for.

for clara, traveling with the doctor while maintaining her normal life is a litmus test of how special she is, and because she is special she is owed the life she thinks she should have by the universe. danny is part of what she is owed, and part of the reason she is owed it.

for the doctor, clara is the only person he has to rely on to see him as a man and measure whether or not he is still good, still doing the right thing, still staying within the lines.

neither of them are ever going to give each other up, and they both believe so strongly that if they express any genuine attachment and strong desire to keep travelling together then they'll scare the other off. so they won't even admit how attached they are to each other, and they won't walk away even though they keep pretending they will, because they need each other like air.

the second the doctor loses clara or clara loses the doctor, the illusion collapses, and they're going to have to see who they really are inside.

and. god. that's so fascinating to me.

[amelikos]

Spinel's relationship with Blacky really gained layers, I'm kind of fascinated.. the thought that they live in their world only they can understand.

[timlucys]

the day the fandom realizes that chenford doesn't currently function within the confines of a healthy, communicative, adult relationship is the day i will know peace.

[drbtinglecannon]

I've never seen Ratatouille before so we're watching it now, and it's been giving me horrific anxiety from my old cook days

[floorpancakes]

watanuki being compared to caged birds and beautiful women and cats who have sex and cats who die and witches and butterflies and ancient flirtation methods and flouncing about in his metaphorical mother's boxes of silky clothes, airily operating like a beautiful spectre who's grown into his body but stuck in the past is so ?????????

[zehecatl]

loove how Rei and Kai both fill the role of antagonist in this first bit of the season, but in totally different ways

Kai is harsh and downright cruel, and while Rei isn't kind, it's a very. measured ruthlessness? he doesn't delight in breaking Takao's bey, and he doesn't even do it completely, but he still very much puts him down

when Rei says "why even bother?" to Takao going to get his bey fixed, he does so with a smile- he isn't bothered by the resistance, which Kai so fucking is, and instead finds it amusing. Rei is a predator, who finds the hunt entertaining, and so when they struggle, he doesn't mind- but he also doesn't see a point in it. to him, he's the hunter, and Takao is the hunted- why put up a fight about something inevitable?

meanwhile, Kai is shaped so deeply by his trauma. to him, beyblading is so intrinsically tied into your worth as a human being, anyone who isn't stronger than him has no worth. and even then, he unhappy about it, because if someone is stronger than him, then he's weak

Kai starts off the series so so troubled and traumatized, and he doesn't know how to show anything but cruelty, because being anything else is weak. when Max finds him to talk about their fight, Kai expects him to be angry and upset- so when Max isn't, Kai thinks he's lying, because he can't fathom a world where that wouldn't be the case

it's such a fascinating set up, and i love the dichotomy we already got going, even with them not having talked to each other, and i think them including Kai in the seats speaks volume

basically, uh, they're foils your honour

[natasha-in-space]

One thing I noticed is just how... formal Jumin and V are with each other during the casual/deep story when compared to their interactions in another story. There's a sense of awkwardness that never really gets addressed by either of them, but that's what makes it realistic to me. Have you ever grown apart from your close friend over the years? Yeah, it looks just like this. They still care about one another, deeply and sincerely, but so many things are getting left unsaid, and they just keep piling up. It's easier to just not address them at all. Besides... you don't want to make your friend feel uncomfortable. Jumin respects Jihyun's privacy, almost to a fault. It's a shame his deep trust is not appreciated.

[void-and-virtue]

OP I LOVED UR ANDREIL POST GOING CRAZY THINKING ABOUT IT if you have anything else in that amazing brain of yours on this take please do share because i absolutely LOVED how you articulated this aspect about andreil. its something i particularily appreciate about their dynamic and relationship with anger and Their Issues TM. your post will cross my mind whenever ill think about it from now on.

I don’t think I have ever gotten an ask and this is kind of making me go insane??? I hope you know that you made my day and also, I’m so glad people share in my endless brainrot bc when it comes to this series and these characters I simply cannot stop

It really isn’t nearly talked about enough that the thing that got Andrew to actually look at Neil and become interested was (as cited by Neil himself at some point tho I can’t remember in which book that scene is from the top of my head) Neil’s bone-deep jealousy of Kevin. It’s—it ties into that whole epiphany that Neil has at some point, when he looks at Andrew and realizes that while he is hurtling towards his own breaking point and about to burn out and shatter into something he’s not sure he’d recognize if he survived the encounter, Andrew hit that point and broke from it years ago. And that’s an understanding that goes both ways between them—in a fucked up way, it feels like Andrew might be the future that Neil has waiting for him if he doesn’t end the year six feet under: hollow and drifting, passionless after everything he had to rip away from himself to be able to survive. At the same time, Neil probably reminds Andrew of how he used to be, back when he had hope for things only to have that hope rip him apart—which is exactly where Neil seems to be headed for the majority of the story.

I think that a lot of Andrew’s understanding of Neil comes from the fact that he knows intimately what it feels like to be caught between a rock and a hard place and cut his own lifeline, only to then fail to die on impact. Neil hasn’t had to resort to that yet, but he is hanging by a thread. You’d think that watching him struggle would only serve to drive it home for Andrew that he made the right choice in closing himself off, except… well. His expectations of life and the people in it are so bleak, it’s no wonder he finds himself drawn to Neil’s messy emotions and every unexpected show of spine like a moth to a flame.

Neil, for all of his issues and scars, can still feel things—can still want something so badly it defies all logic. Can want something with such visceral, fucked-up intensity that it resonates where it shouldn’t. It’s an ability that Andrew thinks he’s either lost or cut out of himself to stay somewhat safe, sane and alive a long time ago, but that remains as the most fundamental crack in the foundation of his being. It’s a fascination that seems to come out every time he’s sober and eventually ties into him wanting Neil—wanting something worth wanting and putting a name to it once he finds it. They look at each other and don’t want a watered-down version of the person in front of them. It creates a relationship that embraces issues big and small and accepts (even values!) the messy parts of being human. It means that any space shared between them immediately becomes safe once they settle into something comfortable together. The way they handle the uglier sides of each other’s personality honestly makes me feral because it’s always done with understanding and acceptance and they even find positives or comforts there that the other can’t see and that’s probably a reason for why 1) their chemistry is so off the charts and 2) their relationship is so damn healthy (in addition to their communication being stupidly good when it comes to each other).

Andrew wants something real and Neil wants to be real. And then they get to have exactly that.