#jun wong

[zoomzooml]

Redesign concepts of Webmaster and Feathers

After a year

WEBMASTER

My biggest problem with the Webmaster design is how cluttered it seems; there's just a lot going on here. So I tried to calm it down a bit; I took away one pair of legs to make him less cluttered but keep (more or less) original body lenght. And I know that in his episode Jun says “if something has eight legs, she doesn't like it,” refering to spiders, but I think eight limbs works too.

I also played around a bit with his colors and markings. As well as body structure and proportions, noting this dragon's show-off skill - spinning webs.

When he puffs up his “cheeks” just before he spits, you can hear a sticky, mushy sound - you know that something is going on inside. The muscles are moving and pushing something with a sticky, gluey consistency. I would like it to be somewhat repulsive.

When he spits silk in attack it does not come out as big ball of burning web. It's more like net in "V" shape, in form of many separate threads of silk shooted at the same time. Similar to actual spiders, but on the bigger scale. His webs also don't burn; I feel like it's an overkill.

I changed the arrangement of his forelegs slightly. I know it's not quite in line with the style of HTTYD (see Speed Spingers' front limbs) but in his case I think arranging his hands in a similar way to therizinosaurus gives him a more menacing look.

Deadly Spinners are dragons that give a very unpleasant first impression. They are not the most beautiful dragons around (at least not by the standard) and their behavior can be repulsive to some. The type of dragon that people are willing to pin an unfriendly, sometimes unfair patch on more easily than on other dragons - as many people do with spiders or snakes and other similiar animals.

Deadly Spinners don't live in large groups - either small groups or solo. But when they are in a group they have very close bonds and spend a lot of time socializing among themselves.

FEATHERS

She is a challenge to me, not gonna lie. She definitely is the most changed among my redesigns so far. She just seems very basic to me.

The most bothering thing to me about her are those "feathers". Because, Alex in s1ep3 calls these "feathers", as well as Olivia in s5ep2, wiki calls these "feathers-like scales", but they can move and are thick what implies they are more like Furies'/Night Light's head numbs? I absolutely can pass the crowns as feathers, but Queen's horns and holes in her meaty tail were here the last straw to not to

And yes, I made a shitty video because I'm really confused and wanted that confusion express lmao. I hope Tumblr won't take it down.

So idk, I wanted to clarify what the frick those things are and go from there. I had two main ideas - either give her actual feathers or quills similiar to those of Bewilderbeast. When drawning I wasn't sure about either idea but finally decided for the latter one. Feels more HTTYD-like I think? And very flammable feathers don't seem like the best survival choice when almost every other animal around can spit fire.

I reimagine Featherhides as way more nervous and skittish dragons. Changewings were mysterious but usually seemed calm and strategical. Featherhides' nature is more in type of "flee" than "fight" (tho they can get so smoke when needed, they are not defensless or smth). They are very easy to spook and sometimes will flee in panic from something very trival just to return seconds later when they realise there was no danger at all, or are curious of whatever scared them. They often make rapid little movements, much like birds - especially if something catches their eye and they are not sure what it is.

Featherhides also live in large flocks without a complex hierarchy. If they can - they run, if any of them can't - at least some of them also stay behind.

Once Feathers bonds with Alex she would be very protective of her little human.

When Featherhides mimic sounds they do not do weird things with their faces like in the show. It looks much more like like some birds do that. But that's just a sidenote.

[misterrttegrimborn]

[f-angy77]

A chance to update my list of my favorite DreamWorks couples.

Original Reference by Soupery (Tumblr)

[itsangelic1411]

Just realized I never posted these hair explorations for my Jun redesign, kinda wanna try to finish the redesigns of the whole team tbh

[kingofthewilderwest]

📓

You get a big notebook lol

I've been *VERY* close to returning to fanfiction for a rewrite / expansion of The Nine Realms, using the first season as the main base. I've had people encourage me to do this, I've yakked to irl friends about my ideas, this baby's been on the backburner waiting for fire for years.

Here's the deal. The Nine Realms has the wrong protagonist. Tom's conflict is external. "What is my ancestral identity?" is not a compelling question for a multi-season show.

You know what is interesting?

"My mother is successful and the head of this base. She has high expectations and strong hopes for my future career. She's practical and expects me to drive myself the same way. What she wants isn't what I want. I am stuck on this base with almost no peers. I dream of magical realms beyond my own. I look to folklore. I look to dragon encyclopedias and I look to tarot. Dreaming of dragons is my way of hoping for something bigger than what I'm stuck in now.

"Wait, did we just find a dragon?"

Jun Wong, y'alls.

Jun Wong is the protag needed in a fix-it.

I've seen fans that find her annoying, but Jun is the perfect setup for a complex character story. From tensions with her brother, to her love of myth fueling 'knowledge' of dragons, to her family set-up, Jun brings a unique framework that can be ramped up and modified into a fantastic story. What happens when Jun finds her dreams of a supernatural world become reality when she learns dragons are real? What happens with the tug-of-war between her sneaking away from the base, away from her mother's eyes, to live her dream out for real? How will that change her interactions with her mother? What happens when the direction her mother's base heads is the opposite of Jun's and the dragons? How far can she be pulled in two directions before something rips?

Rescuing a trapped dragon is a great setup. Pull that plot thread out from S1 and make it longer and tenser. Make everything run deeper. Bruh. This would get so good so fast.

I've forgotten some storyline elements I was going to do when I first came up with the idea. Which is a shame. I forgot if Tom was finding Thunder or Jun, I forgot what dramatic plot tangle Jun was going to have with Eugene, etc. Maybe I wrote it down somewhere??? Maybe I'll remember with a rewatch??? But the point is. This could go hard. This could go good. I still have a lot of it dancing about in my mind. If I had infinite time, we'd be 75,000 words in yesterday.

[razangy]

I really like Jun's character and I'm sorry that the series didn't know how to handle her starring episodes well, given that her only good episodes are "Ride or Die" and "Journey to the Snowcano" , but she did a great job in a supporting role, having a great background related to her family and the Kullersens, really having many characteristics as a character that could have been developed very well, but the script always did the same with her.

Mainly and something that I like to change in my headcanon is the need for her to be a calm character, being that she likes to read books and draw, being calm and smart suits her very well, making decisions like her mother sometimes does or learning from all those stories that her father, grandparents, uncles probably told her. The script tried to make her a second Astrid and that didn't fit at all with Jun. it's noticeable that the intelligent side goes with her because she was able to learn Viking runes right away and after a while naturally read a book with Viking text without using a dictionary or anything, with her only being 14, learning an ancient language is not as easy as it seems and indicates that Jun is really very good when it comes to researching ancient civilizations (which also goes very well with Tom's exploratory side). why not make episodes centered on that? no, let's make episodes so she is capricious, something opposite to what she tries to prove.

Something that is rarely mentioned but is important is that the Wongs are a pretty broken family, there are small hints that Jun has divorced parents, and she is probably forced to be with May, at her request, and little time with her father whom she really loves. The opposite is the case with Eugene, he mentioned not having a good relationship with his father but does with his mother. Both children are forced to be with parents with whom they do not have a good relationship. May continually tries to make Jun be someone like her and that he can inherit the job she has, probably despising everything Jun loves that comes from his father.

Another thing that could have been addressed and made into a pretty touching episode of Jun talking about her dad but instead of having that we just got a poorly done episode of Jun being like her mom when really she wants to be her own person, I feel like this show did a better job of having D'Angelo proving to his dad that he doesn't want to be like him but it didn't do a good job with Jun because she could never really face her mom properly and tell her that she doesn't want to be like her. I feel like that topic was normalized for her and that wasn't right.

We lost a good story for an episode, and to show a real weakness in a teenager, which is: that your parents often have control over you, and it's something real.

We also missed the opportunity to address issues like divorced parents or a father abandoning his son, cases that Jun, Eugene and Tom went through because they were the 3 characters with broken families and it was never properly addressed.

We only had one episode dedicated to Jun, Wu, and Wei. "Journey to the Snowcano" I really like but it also makes me really angry, why do all the other characters listen to their dragons and it's okay but when Jun does it it's wrong? the same dragon wanted to go up the mountain and Jun was just trying to interpret it based on stories she grew up with but the script decided that now she was wrong, when all the other characters always listen to their dragons but it was easier to ignore the dragon that instinctively tried to go up the mountain.

Wu and Wei are very good dragons, instinctively protective of their rider, as shown in Hearts of Heroes by responding to Jun's pain at being verbally hurt by Tom.

Jun believes in creatures that others think are fictional. She should be the rider with the closest bond with her dragon (after Tom), but we haven't had any more episodes centered around her and Wu Wei. We haven't had anything solely about Wu Wei, either.

Team moment: I think the team of 4 was very good until season 3, there were well-defined friendships and they didn't need a Eugene to divide the team. D'Angelo and Tom seemed to get along and when they argued, they made up. Alex and Jun also got along very well, they had several moments where it seemed like they could become best friends, Jun managed several times to make Alex not be so closed off, I really enjoyed when Jun hugged her several times. I feel like all this was ruined when Eugene entered the team and changed all the relationships. Even making Tom and Jun a couple because of Eugene's push was pretty bad. The team of 4 was good and balanced, each character had their good and bad moments but nothing really serious like we got in season 7.

A small aside from the above: Jun and Alex's relationship, although they were both different I really felt that they complemented each other very well, I really liked Alex's character before she started befriending Eugene, she really would have been a great best friend for Jun. Alex also calmly helped her deal with her phobia of spiders, and Jun encouraged Alex to stop being so closed off. I feel sorry for what the script did to their friendship.

Eugene case: I don't dislike Eugene's character as much as it seems, but I would have liked that since he was the oldest of the group, he would have behaved as such, a little more mature than the others and more protective of who is supposed to be his younger sister. I won't talk much about Eugene but it is noticeable that he has a certain imbalance, probably due to his parents, just like Jun. He could have been a weak character at the beginning but mature at the end, and show, unlike Jun, that he was like his mother, even show that he was fit to follow in his mother's footsteps. But the script did its thing, again.

And finally, the cherry on the cake: Tom, the most important person for Jun. I always saw this relationship as very nice, mainly because they are characters who have known each other since their childhood and people ignore that for some reason, they probably had a difficult childhood in which they relied on each other a lot. When Jun seemed to be sad, it was Tom who noticed and knew the reason for that, meaning he knows perfectly well the parental problems Jun went through, considering that they hadn't seen each other since they were 6 years old.

They both know each other, Jun knew every single thing that Tom couldn't do right, probably because he used to get into trouble. Tom also expressed that he loves Jun's stories which would indicate that they probably read them together since they were 6 years old, another thing that people ignore. There really was a lot to explore here: Tom wasn't much of a bookish person but he started reading them after Jun told him that the hidden world is based on the Nine Realms, activating Tom's exploratory side. They both have shown that they would probably work very well together making discoveries. Jun seems to be passionate about it and it feels like with Tom she would be able to explore that new passion, she doesn't want to be like her mother, she would probably make a good explorer like Tom. While Tom prefers more of an adventurer, she would go more for the investigation.

I don't want to make a fight about characters and couples but most fans underestimate this relationship because of their hatred towards Jun and claim that they like another couple more because they have more "chemistry" completely ignoring all the background that these characters have and why they are together.

Yes, I'm not happy either with how this relationship started, how they made Jun look like the problem with everything, maybe that fueled more of the excessive hate that the couple and the characters had, but even so, it shouldn't be a justification to take away credit from all the bond they had, even long before the first episode of this series. Yes, they had a lot better material to make the characters be together or at least develop their bond, but the script never knew what to do with them after they became a couple. Instead of improving as individual characters, it seemed like the characters were getting worse, even Tom returned to one of his behaviors that he was supposed to have abandoned several seasons ago.

The solution to this wasn't "he'd better stay with the other girl," it was to develop the characters properly; many characters here have gotten worse. I don't hate any of them; I love the entire crew. Even Eugene finds good things about him amidst all the nonsense. But what the script did to Jun still bothers me, because it's clear they never knew what to do with her. So far, her best episode will be "Ride or Die."

Anyway, I hope the Httyd fandom in general will stop throwing so much hate at her, when the problem here was the poor development and characterization. If you're only capable of hating something because you find it annoying, maybe you can't see beyond that.

I hope I can continue drawing my 20 year old versions of the characters and change several bad traits they had in their 14-15 years (17 Eugene). I also want to draw more of Jun with his dad, I feel like it's something I've wanted to see since season 2 and never got. I won't be joining the collective hate of any character, they all have good and bad things, the end.

[howtodrawyourdragon]

A Night At The Museum AU for The Nine Realms. In which Hiccup's (and Toothless' and maybe even the other Dragon Riders') body is found and some magical artifact resurrects him at night, allowing Tom and the other Dragon Flight Club Members to interact with the person who has lowkey been the closest thing they had to a mentor in the show.

[nosuda-cringe]

Buzzsaw made his apparition on the zombie au!! He seems a little bit more unhinged than what I remember....

Chars- @rainbowaudi

[demigod-of-the-agni]

I'm indulging you. Tell me about one character you hate and what you would do to change them into something better.

the flood gates have OPENED

the winner of worst character ever is Jun Wong

Most people on this round rock don't know her, or flat out refuse to get to know her, but that's okay. It gives me more reason to really tear into why Jun Wong as a character, as vehicle for a narrative's ideals, sucks.

Simplest terms: She's from the HTTYD spin-off show Dragons: The Nine Realms, is one of the main characters and is the main love interest of the protagonist. The thing is, she is terrible at everything she does. She infuriates me. It's like she is personally setting me on fire and throwing me into an abyss of hate. I just can't /stand/ this girl (read on to find out why).

It's not so much that I Hate her, it's just that she has so much potential but is casually written off as the "love interest" or the "quirky girl" with no defining traits aside from physical ones (like- okay, purple eyes? She's not even wearing contacts, it's clearly genetic because her brother also has purple eyes, and...East Asians don't typically have purple eyes?? it just looks unnatural on her, but I digress)

Back to the "casually written off" point - the studio themselves, Dreamworks, doesn't care for Jun or her character or her arcs. They don't care for her attributes or what she contributes to the entirety of Nine Realms series, aside from being a cheap Astrid Hofferson knock-off.

It's also ESPECIALLY clear that the show does not delve into her heritage very well, or when they do it's all very standard stuff (if not heavily based on racial stereotypes): "intergenerational trauma!" "tiger parenting!" "wanting to do her own thing!" I appreciate the idea, it's just that the execution of it is god-awful and terrible. The Jun-centric episodes that focus on these issues have little to no impact on her character. They're quite literally one-and-done episodes. They're not even filler episodes - if you take all her episodes out, nothing in the plot would have changed, nothing in her character progression would have changed. She still whines and complains and is still the same person she was when she was first introduced.

Fortunately for us, Jun is not a lost cause. Her character can be salvaged and be made so much better!

What I think should be done in order to improve Jun's character is to first change her character design. Let me tell you: seeing her final design in the show when the very first trailer came out made me feel weird (purple eyes bruv). But seeing her initial designs made me want to bawl my eyes out.

(IDs are in each image)

Literally look at her design. She looks so cool here. She honestly looks so much more nicer to look at than what we get in the show (doesn't help that the animation is so stilted). These designs have so much PERSONALITY in them whereas Jun's design in the show is... uh........

bruh i don't even know lol. it's just not a good look for her. I really wished they went with one of the other concept designs. Maybe not the ones with the dyed hair because it Will play into the Rebellion Asian Girl stereotype (since the show can't handle nuance if it was handed to them on a plate alongside a note with detailed instructions) but any of the other hairstyles and outfits would have 1000% translated better. The final design screams Basic Girl With A Purple Colour Palette and god I'm so bored of it. nothing about it is interesting. With the other characters there are other things that draw my eye to them, or make my attention last a little longer on them when they are the focus of a shot, but Jun? Jun's design is so plain. It's like slapping a slice of cheese on a really smooth ass and seeing it slide right off. No I am not ashamed to use that comparison because that is what I feel all the time when I look at Jun. Get a boring design, get bored reactions (and unhinged comparisons).

But honestly, the truly best way to really elevate her character is to, you know, do more research on her heritage and her background. East Asian cultures are RIPE with a variety of stories to tell - tying her connection to dragons via her love for stories (and consequently stories being her only connection to her distant father) is such an interesting facet of her already-established character to me!! Why not continue exploring that?? HTTYD has always been about family and friendships, so why not focus on what's Not present in her life: her father? He's still alive, mind you, but for reasons unknown has distanced himself from Jun, and Jun still desperately craves for him through her love for mythology - why???? what did they do together??? Why should I care about Jun's love of myths and the world beyond mortal comprehension??? Contrary to popular belief, this information MATTERS!!

(Also we need to do More Research in general. The Tarot Card Incident in S1 will never not get on my nerves because GOD you couldn't have picked a more easier thing to research!! You could become experts within days!! And yet you still got it wrong!!! And EYE am not even a Tarot card expert!!! The Tarot cards are literally never brought up again after the first five episodes of the show, so there goes another facet of Jun's character down the drain.)

Additionally Jun needs to be given authority over her own character progression. So far it's always been A Person Is Opposing Me And I Have To Overcome That. They Don't Like Me So I'm Gonna Make Them. She's constantly being taken advantage of in her own episodes (S6E3), and it becomes more of race to the viewers on whether or not she can actually pick up borderline manipulative behaviours. (That whole episode was. uh. red flag after red flag. I hated that episode.) It is a disservice to the character to constantly place them back at square one after every victory, and I become more frustrated for Jun than by her actions. Maybe it's because it is set in stone for her to be the Astrid to the protagonist's Hiccup; they damage her authority and independence to benefit the status of the hero (who is most absolutely a fuckwad, but we can talk about him another time).

There's also an annoying inconsistency in how Jun's quality as "mystic nerd/quirky girl/smart one" manifests in the show. Like, it's so obvious that she's capable of critical thinking and using her prefrontal cortex and making unique connections with the world around her she couldn't be anymore neurodivergent if she tried; I'm more inclined to believe that she can pick up a variety of skills in a matter of minutes just because she wants to. She is Actually Smart sometimes, but the show itself disregards this and dumbs her down and gets her into stupid situations (like the aforementioned Red Flag episode). And I honestly don't know why (racism. god forbid having a woman of colour make her own decisions). If you want to have her be the Quirky Girl, let her be Consistently Quirky. I want a Quirky Girl who knows what she's talking about and refuses to be bogged down by other people. Let her be Silly please.

So. yeah. I'm more annoyed with the fact that Jun Wong has a TONNE of potential as a character but literally with every chance she gets to shine said chance is flushed down the toilet and spat out into a tar pit.

We could have had a complex character who turned to stories and myths both as a way for her to escape the expectations of her overly-demanding mother, and to connect with her absent father.

We could have had a complex character who overcomes her beliefs about herself, challenges the beliefs of the world around her, and wants to make a name for herself

We could have had a complex character who has more recognisable traits that speak to her personality and compliment the interactions she has with the cast

Make her neurodivergent this is the only fuckin way

We could have had a complex character who beautifully represents the intricacies of East Asian cultures, as well as a character whom people of Asian descent can look up to

But alas, these are things considered by people who care about the characters they create. Jun Wong is another victim of studios who "tick the Diversity checkbox and refuse to develop her character further and let her be a multi-faceted vehicle of ideals for the narrative"

also obligatory announcement:

Alex Gonzales is best girl. the only good character in this dumpster fire of a show

[sleeplesscrescent]

Here's the first of my human redesigns for The Nine Realms. In the actual show, I absolutely hate this character, and I know I don't throw that word around lightly. Her character writing is just atrocious, she's supposed to be the secondary protagonist other than Tom, but she is consistently extremely selfish and unlikable, and rarely ever actually apologizes or learns from her mistakes. There are aspects of her writing that feel kind of racist, like they have her believe very strongly in spiritualism/mysticism, but she also believes in cryptids which makes it hard to take her real spiritual beliefs seriously.

So for mine, I ditched that aspect and leaned fully into her being a nerd for ancient history and mythology, mainly because she idolizes her estranged father who is a famous archaeologist. Her admiration for her father leads to her having a lot of issues with her mother, whom she mainly lives with. (Eugene lives mainly with their dad and his situation is pretty much the reverse of hers.) When Tom lets her in on the secret about the existence of dragons, she is enthusiastic. In her eyes, it opens up the possibility that the myths and legends she's read about are based in reality, and it gives her an outlet to escape from being stuck at Project Icarus with her mom.

(Also she's not having a romance with Tom because I hate the childhood friends trope in romance. So they're just friends. Sorry guys, I just prefer Tomalex.)

Also, I really hated her original design, it felt like someone just threw up purple all over her outfit, like every piece of clothing she wears is purple?! And her eyes were purple too?! No other human character in the entire franchise had an unnatural eye color like that. So for my redesign, I mainly took inspiration from her concept designs, which were a million times better than what we actually got. I also wanted to use some tiny inspiration from the dark academia fashion aesthetic, since I think it fits well with my version of her.

[firefliesdream]

Things I don't like in Dragons: 9 Realms season 7.

Massive spoilers, go watch the show first, this is your warning.

WHAT THE WHAT WAS THAT?

Everything was going fine until Episode 4: In the Cards, and even that started like a normal episode; Eugene not caring about Alex’s sensors, Jun and Tom reading the book, D’angalo being late, these are not uncommon occurrences in the show. But then Jun makes them read the tarot cards and everything goes downhill from there. She thinks the teams’ gonna break up, but Tom thinks they're gonna break up. This leads to several misunderstandings and things that would be normal for them are suddenly the worst things ever; Like the dragons and Eugene eating the purple plants, (which I think is a Blue Oleander reference). In the end, after 1 (one) failed mission, they decide to break up the team? 

And I feel really bad for Eugene this season, I really do. All this kid wants is to be friends with the others, and once they break up, he has no one. He tries to make his own team, and fails miserably, he then goes off on his own and gets captured  by Buzzsaw. Meanwhile, D'angelo's at his dragon hospital, Jun and Tom go on a date and Alex just taunts him the whole time he’s trying to teach his other team. If this had been season 6, nothing would have happened, but now it’s “your leaving us to go on a date? HOW DARE YOU?” and “YOU WENT ON A RESCUE MISSION WITHOUT US? ARE YOU CRAZY?” It’s just pointless accusations we really don’t need.

And Alex in “Alex Not Found?” I feel for her so much, she spent her whole life making friends online because if you don’t really know someone, they can’t really hurt you. (She doesn't say that I made it up). But now, she has real friends; Tom, Jun, D’Angelo, Eugene, and then they break up? She deals with it by making Wendy, an AI she can talk and play with, and every time she’s about to do that, one of these “friends” shows up needing a favor. And I know some of you might look at the scene in the cave when they try to make a plan and she says “no, I’m not helping you right now! Leave me alone.” as her being a jerk, but as someone who knows what that’s like, I can tell you her head wasn’t in the right place. She had one singular mission: Finish the game of chess with Wendy, and they kept stopping her from doing that. That can get so annoying that you feel like your heads gonna explode if you don’t finish the task at hand, not to mention all of them had taken advantage of her earlier that day. 

I don’t blame the others, they didn’t know, and while Tom shouldn’t have called Wendy a “fake friend,” he was also in a tough spot; For all he knew, this might have been his only chance to get the Dragon Riders back together. Breaking the tablet was an accident on Thunder and Feather’s part, but at least the others got it fixed.

That's all I’m gonna say here, I’ll make another post for all the good stuff I found and liked. (There is a lot of it). 

If you don’t agree with anything I said here, that’s ok. We all look at the show with different views, and I hope to see some of your thoughts on this season.

Have a great day!

[dogs-over-people]

Jun is the WORST character ever!

Tom x Jun is forced. They have no foundation!

Hey, we’re all entitled to our opinions. We’re all allowed to criticize the show and characters, especially the writing at times. But sometimes I read posts from other people in the fandom and wonder if we watched the same show? I wonder how my perception of the show and characters can be so wildly different from other people’s.

[aevykcreates]

Finally made the three characters from Zem!

Zem is Merlin from Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs.

Aury is Jun from Dragons: The Nine Realms.

And Vahl is Douxie from Trollhunters.

[f-angy77]

Current state of the Nine Realms fandom.

I need to draw this meme 😂😂

[itsangelic1411]

Gotta admit that Jun Wong is by far one of my most disliked characters ever but some people just hate her the same misogynistic way they hate astrology girls irl and that sucks af

[readbyred]

I can’t emphasise this enough - I am a spontaneous and occasional viewer of D9R. So when I tell you I just saw Eugene for the first time in an episode where he screams ‘mommy’ several time and MOANS at one point I’m not exaggerating. That was his character entrance for me