#less character focused

[prosebushpatch]

I have every intention of being better at doing prewrites, but see, so far that has just accumulated a couple of folders with documents named after characters and when I click on them months-years later, it's just maybe one sentence describing a scene I meant to write.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Izutsumi character study

[denkies]

Bungou Stray Dogs fans watching s5 ep 11:

[tritoch]

Something that bugs me a lot in Dawntrail discourse is watching people who think they are defending the expansion argue away its best aspect. Because here's the thing: Wuk Lamat isn't like prior FFXIV characters. She takes up way more space than them. That's good!

A common thread you see in defenses is that people are complaining about things they were fine with earlier in the story. "Oh well actually Lyse was also the main character of Stormblood and people didn't hate her as much!" or "Heavensward is the story of Aymeric and Estinien and Ysayle, and the Warrior of Light doesn't do that much!" or "No one complained when Gaia jumped into the Eden raids, or when Emet showed up during Seat of Sacrifice" with the implied conclusion of "Wuk Lamat's not different from any other previous major character, your complaints have more to do with [sexism/transphobia/your crippling insecurity about not being the main character] than the way she's written." First of all people did hate Lyse. I get what you are saying but they very much did hate Lyse.

But Wuk Lamat is different. She's different because Dawntrail is unapologetically, full-throatedly her story. She is there at the start, she is there at the end, she is there basically all the way through except for a brief interlude. She is the character you talk to the most, she is also the character that talks the most. She has more of a complete arc than anyone else in the expansion. The antagonists develop much stronger direct and personal relationships to her than they ever do with you. Several major characters have relationships to you through her more than they do with you directly. At multiple points in the story you explicitly step back and are like "Go right ahead, queen, do the main character stuff." She 100% takes your role in certain ways. She's literally a new WL to your WoL!

and that's awesome! Like, holy shit! If you had traveled back in time and told me after Endwalker, "Hey, the next expansion will be almost solely and entirely focused on the character journey of a young woman, and she'll be nuanced and complex and allowed to fail but also allowed to succeed wildly, and her characterization will be interesting and her ideals will be very directly challenged, and she'll get to do some real classic 'sorry my noble opponent but I must stop you, even though I sympathize' shit, and the way she is framed won't feel excessively male-gazey, and she won't get stuck in the FFXII Ashe Miniskirt, and she won't just be someone you watch and clap for while the real protagonist and narrator is some random guy in her entourage," I would've been like "haha, okay, I like FFXIV as much as the next guy but I don't think it's shaken its baseline sexism off enough to do an expansion entirely about a woman and her personal growth and what makes her a good leader, especially after Stormblood's mixed reception. And CBU3 definitely doesn't have the guts to make her even more of a main character than any other prior NPC, and you didn't mention this part future time traveler, but I also don't believe they'll be willing to cast a trans woman in the role." And I would have been fucking wrong!

Yes, Wuk Lamat is the main character. Yes, she does get more attention than other NPCs, or even your Warrior of Light. And yes, that's totally fine, and even something to praise!!! You don't have to run from it to accommodate people who are looking for something to complain about!

[twinksintrees]

thinking about chuuya seeing dazai at the ada

and he’s fucking thriving

and he should be happy for him. he should be happy he’s in a better place now. and a part of him is, of course, but more of him is hurt.

hurt that he’s not with chuuya anymore.

hurt that he’s thriving, and chuuya isn’t in the picture.

hurt that he gets to go off and leave him and there are no repercussions. he gets to be happy, he gets to be healthy, he gets to do all the things he never could in the port mafia.

he gets to feel human.

and chuuya is stuck. watching from the sidelines, like he always is.

he watched as dazai destroyed himself in the port mafia. he watched as he destroyed akutagawa. he watched as he wasted away in a cold dark shipping container, alone, for two years. he watched as he left, was abandoned yet again. and now he watches as he lives, truly lives, his life to his fullest extent.

he hates himself for feeling this way. he should be happy. he should be glad, proud, over the moon, feel something other than this sickening twist of envy in his stomach.

he opens a bottle of wine when he gets home. he was never taught how to handle his emotions, and the alcohol hadn’t steered him wrong yet.

god what he would give to feel normal. to feel normal, real, human emotions.

instead all he has is anger, and guilt, and jealousy, swirling in his gut.

hopefully the wine will wash it all away

[laniidae-passerine]

Oddly for a sequel show, Cobra Kai is putting far too much weight on the original TKK film. They keep acting like this is teenage Johnny and teenage Daniel going toe to toe, but these are adult men. They should have lived adult lives and processed adult experiences and emotions before getting to the beginning of Cobra Kai’s story. Why can’t Johnny ever seem to grow up in a meaningful way? Why does Daniel keep chucking his healthy wealthy family life to the side to get involved in random ass karate shit? Why do they refuse to truly mend the fences between them? I understand showing trauma affecting them and TKK being an important moment in their lives, but the show acts like that was THE important moment in their lives. Nothing was bigger or more life changing than that (basically a high school karate tournament that happened one time) even though they’re decades past it. These characters aren’t truly allowed to be adult men grappling with the past, they’re written like stunted teens who are simply walking through some strange daydream life where they’ve got kids and jobs. And if the writers don’t ever treat them like adults, they’re never going to act like it nor will they ever grow in meaningful and permanent ways.

[lesbianralzarek]

trying to not complain about the discrepancy between how much content fictional women and poc have vs the white dudes in every fucking fandom im in, because no one owes me fanart/fic and i can make shit myself, but holy fuck can any of you name a woman?

[falderaletcetera]

The Princess (hulu/disney) and Damsel (netflix) (seriously can we start using more original names already) are absolutely in the same genre of "princesses put in princessy situations and acting in very unprincesslike ways", which I love, but I'd argue I Am Dragon/On – drakón fits the bill too.

a little less obviously. but without spoiling anything, neither the characters nor the genre expect her to be so selfish and resourceful, and (okay this is a spoiler) I personally felt the rug pulled out from under me when she was entirely willing to kill someone who'd just saved her life.

it's about the moment the story shifts from a tragic fairy tale with a passive princess to the princess turning around and saving herself, even if she has to hurt people along the way, even if she has to be everything the archetypal princess isn't. that shift is less stark and less tidy in I Am Dragon, but it's there.

[ectonurites]

The thing about ‘Tim is into blondes’ that really weirds me out is that no only has he dated more girls with dark hair but it’s that people are actively ignoring the women of colour that were love interests bc that doesn’t fit their narrative. Like Tim is shown to specifically not have a type like you said he specifically states he doesn’t care but in insisting that he likes blondes it just ends up feeling worse than just a little fanon. Idk I don’t think people are actually trying to be racist bc I don’t trust them to actually know canon but you know it’s just weird.

I might not make sense but it’s something I think about

Oh anon don't worry you 100% make sense and I absolutely have had this thought before, too.

Like I do agree that it's in large part a result of 'people not actually reading Tim's comics or being familiar with his canon' because it's not like these girls are the only big part of Tim's canon that the fanon-heavy people ignore... but the end result of them getting ignored is the same regardless of intent, and it fucking sucks!

[creativity-deficient]

I think my main complaint with all these specials coming out is that they no longer feel…special?? Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to be getting new content and I always end up enjoying them regardless (and I’m sure I’ll enjoy this one too it looks like it’ll be very funny) they just lack any sort of nuance to me. Like the plots to them feel like fairly ordinary episodes, just longer, and they’re always either Randy or Cartman focused. I get that they have a contract and are obligated to put out a certain amount of specials, I just wish they’d change them up a bit? Like they just don’t hit like past specials anymore.

[bakedbananners]

I think any criticism you can apply to Jason being a boring main character could just as easily be applied to anyone else in the Seven because the entire Heroes of Olympus series lacks a strong definitive narrative voice in general

[fubuwu]

Fuck it. I'm gonna bite the bait just to say that there were many instances where jc clearly trated wwx like a brother/friend in the BOOK, aka the canon text in case anyone was confused or have seemed to have selectively forgotten about.

From the part where jc scoffs at the prospect of wwx getting together with a servant. Laughing and proclaiming that he was treated better than he was (in reference to his own sister peeling his lotus seeds for him which she didn't do for jc).

Then there was him standing up for him on NUMEROUS occasions throughout the book. Such as before the LP Massacre. He could have let his mother beat wwx senseless, but he tried to stop her from doing so, begging and crying even for her to stop and take the punishment for him. Despite the risk it took to do so.

Not to mention the excuses he made to the rest of the cw after the war when he stood up for wwx and shrugged off his casual and overly familiar demeanour.

Then ofc there was the sacrifice he made for wwx (which he didn't have to do as the only male sect heir) whilst they were on the run from the Wens that ultimately led up to the events in the novel..

The Cloud Recesses era.. the part after jfm gave away his dogs and jc steadily welcomed wwx in his life, willing to scare away any dogs that threatened him..

These are all things a nasty, homophobic rich man would NEVER do for his servant if he only saw them as such.

If he was classist as you all seem to think he is, then he would never dream of doing all the above CANON EVENTS for wwx's sake. Js.

These were all in the book. To ignore them, that means you are ignoring mxtx's work and you clearly did not understand the complicated relationship wwx and jc had.

Because it was made clear throughout the text that jc never saw him as a servant. They shared a room, went to school together and made HUGE sacrifices for eachother. So much so, that their relationship pissed of jc's mother.

If you ignore that then you are ignoring a VERY IMPORTANT part of the text. And I have to wonder if y'all only came into the fandom for the mlm relationship between wwx and lwj and not the the story. Clearly, y'all are selectively ignoring some very IMPORTANT facts. Js. This book is MORE than just a bl........

And if that's the case, then you have no place arguing jc canon facts. Js.

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Smile And Be A Villain

queer character-driven historical fantasy, reimagining Hamlet before the events of the play

follows prince Hamlet who has been sent away to Wittenberg after being caught in a compromising position, meeting new people and discovering magic

and Ophelia, back in Denmark, dealing with the rise of the corrupting by-product of magic

while a war is brewing, and they have to figure out how much they are willing to sacrifice to save their country

duology

bi hamlet, aspec ophelia

[agnesandhilda]

jujutsu kaisen is a story that has the courage to ask "what if cannibalism was a metaphor for cannibalism?"

[asclexe]

the house md fandom would be fixed by more femlash

[skunkes]

Does Al ever struggle with his weight / has he ever?

do u mean like, Self Worth wise or actual physical fluctuation wise? if the latter I do like drawing him at firm strongman peak since he's a farmhand but sometimes he isn't actively maintaining muscle so he's saggier (<- most of recent art of him) ....

as for the former I've never wanted to stray in that direction for fat characters, and any issues he has wrt self image (slim as he know's he's endearing and handsome) are more about how his overall size (big and tall) might be perceived as dangerous or a threat due to some formative and isolating events in his childhood, and less about it being focused on weight specifically ykwim. because otherwise he has no issues there ^_^