#like i don't dislike characters just because they're bad people
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(I've seen a couple of Peggy posts turn up today and please note I'm not trying to be contrary, just want to discuss things from a different perspective)
I've talked about this in another post before, but the MCU movies need to be examined in the context of the genre convention of superhero movies. From a writing perspective, CATFA (and all the Cap movies) needed to center on Steve Rogers (which is why CACW and TFATWS were failures in their primary story). All the other characters are meant to be support -- Bucky was the main foil, but so were Sam and Nat - Nat as the deceptive spy to Steve's blunt soldier, Sam as the modern parallel of Steve's traumas. By and large, CA1 and CA2 managed this balance well. Bucky Stans may not like me saying this, but as much as it would be nice to see more of Bucky's inner voice about his horrific experiences, that was not the point of those movies. The point of the movies was to focus on Steve, and Bucky's part - as lean as it was - fulfilled his narrative purpose. Of course it could've been gayer better, but it was good enough (** CA3 should have dealt with Bucky's recovery because that would have been important to Steve's recovery).
So now we come to the awkward subject of the Carters. We can argue about "better" female representation until our voices dry (that representation was given to Nat, by the way), but the two Carters were written as pure love interests in the movies. That was the first part of how the writing failed them. There was no narrative acknowledgement of how the Carter's experiences might mirror or contrast Steve's - and there were many! The first conversation between Steve and Peggy in the army - instead of drawing parallel between a man struggling against ableism and a woman struggling against misogyny, it simply plays up Steve as an incel and Peggy as the disinterested trophy. Instead of comparing how difficult it was for Steve and Peggy to get into the army, instead of discussing their respective reasons for wanting to join, the only parallel it draws between them is both are waiting "for the right partner" (i.e. a romantic connection only)....which it then reneges in CATWS when Steve talks about "someone with shared experiences" and does not include Peggy in that mix.
As the movies continue, more and more contrast is shown in Peggy's and Steve's experiences -- Steve, who laments of feeling lost and uncertain, and Peggy, laughingly dismissing him as "always so dramatic"; Peggy, who has lived a full life without him, and Steve, who still struggles to extract himself from the past; Peggy, who has used Steve's fame to set up SHIELD and thanks Steve for "finding" her husband, and Steve, who has to contend with the legacy of what Peggy has created and what her role might have been for "finding" Bucky; Peggy, who was willing to compromise with Nazis for whatever war she intended to win, and Steve, who stared Fury in the eye and said "SHIELD, Hydra, it all goes."
But the stories never have the self-awareness for these contrasts, as they do - and they do, the CATWS writers knew exactly what they were doing - with Bucky and Nat and Sam. The poignancy of Bucky's narrative/moral connections (and Nat's and Sam's) with Steve are intentional, but for Peggy, accidental.
She was written as a sexy lamp - which, while annoying, is part of the genre convention that I can ignore - with multiple moral failings, who continually demonstrates an inability to connect with Steve on an ethical or emotional level.
But since Endgame, Disney keeps insisting that she's the female equivalent of Steve. And that's where my dislike of the character comes from.
#like i don't dislike characters just because they're bad people#cos they're fictional and it's okay to play with concepts#but when someone take a morally bad person and insist they're morally good#that's when you gotta start asking questions#anti peggy carter
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can i just say. and this is probably a niche hill to die on. that i am so gobsmacked every time someone vaguely hints at the idea that jotaro doesn't care meaningfully for the other crusaders, usually particularly kakyoin and joseph, when those two actually tend to be the ones he reacts to being hurt the hardest
like he cares for his loved ones!!!! that literally plays into his character motives in every single part he shows up in!!! stop lying to me!!!!!!!
#me.txt#jjba#i'm going to ramble in tags actually. excuse me#ok. rereading sdc and so confused at the general perception of jotaro and his friends/family. he's not NEARLY as flat or as dickish#i understand that the anime (particularly the dub) tends to slander him but even then he still clearly cares for them! i'm confused#i also understand that a lot of people dig against jotaro and kakyoin as a dynamic because 'they're popular' and that generally disliking#popular things across media is a thing that i've seen consistently everywhere but the discredit to them simply as a DUO and not even as a#pairing is so..... odd..... like they're considered to be a duo that clicks for a reason. i enjoyed them even before i got into the fandom#every time i see someone say jotaro is overrated/dull i take a shot and assume they're an anime-only or only read the manga like once btw#joseph and jotaro also have a neat dynamic and they obviously both love and care for each other. like they're not going to go around loudly#or anything but literally the entirety of the lovers and the prelude to the dio fight IS jotaro being worked up over joseph getting hurt#equally i don't know if it translates to the anime as much but joseph is VERY complimentary when it comes to jotaro. like he sings his#praises so often and reminds everyone that he's his grandson so frequently (d'arby the gamer is a good example of this). either way it's so#peculiar....... there's not enough avdol and jotaro content btw (also in canon) because jotaro obviously looks up to him and avdol jokes#around with him on the occasion they interact after their intro which doesn't start very well. it's very cute#i do think an important thing to note about jotaro's character is how he acts AFTER his intro because he's so drastically different. early#jotaro and later jotaro aren't the same character and i do not mean this in a character development way. excluding the jail incident he's#completely different and probably shouldn't really be taken into account (especially considering the amount of slapstick in araki's intros)#and i think that's really???? what people center on for his character? Which sucks balls bad!#anyways. i could ramble more about this if asked i have so much to say but sigh. jotaro cares so much for his friends and family he's not a#flat fully cold asshole character regardless of whether you watch the anime or ova or read the manga. you just have poor media literacy#i wouldn't recommend watching solely the anime for his character though. the dub also changes a lot so it's... questionable#i love the anime and it's still important for him though. also adds neat stuff. i need to stop myself. i have many thoughts on the matter#jotaro kujo#joseph joestar#noriaki kakyoin#adding in case anyone sees: i am not saying that he is perfect about this. in fact he is very ass about it with jolyne and holly and that's#very important. he also is in fact an asshole sometimes. NOT as much as you guys are making him though!#please don't get me started on how much of a dick etc people make kakyoin to veer away from the 'woobified' characterizations of him#in fact i think that's bad if not worse because it CLAIMS to be in character. hes a prim asshole at times but not that angry or dishevelled
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as a media psychology researcher 85% of my job is figuring out the most horrifically academic way to say "you idiots wouldn't last a day on tumblr"
#my job really is turning band lore into observations that are abstract enough that we can do math about it#ADT my beloathed </3#time for me to rant now#you have no idea how frustrating it is for the general consensus in your field of research to be so completely off-base#sometimes the way I have to talk to get other researchers to listen to me makes me feel like I'm a traitor to my own beliefs#like yes. in a -very very basic- sense we do tend to like nice people who do good things and dislike mean people who do bad things#there are traceable social-evolutionary reasons for that#but its SOOOOOOOOOO reductive. especially when it comes to fiction (and it's not even limited to that!)#my entire dissertation is probably going to sum up like 'hey uhhh maybe sometimes people like characters because they're INTERESTING'#(cue 'what do you mean 'interesting'?')#and you'd think that's so fucking obvious (it is) but it will take me literal non-metaporical -years- of research to get that point across#when am I ever going to get further down my hit list. I also need to set aside time to destroy the concept of moral purity#and don't even get me STARTED on character identification. the measures for parasocial shit are so broken we might as well just start over#don't get me wrong I love my job. I get paid your hard earned tax dollars to do gay science#but sometimes I want to scream
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If I got a nickel for every time I didn't like a universally well liked queer character for kissing someone without consent, I'd have two nickels which isn't a lot but it's weird it happened twice.
#people who stalk my blog might be able to guess who but I will remain silent out of fear of being crucified by the fandoms#with both characters I UNDERSTAND why most people like them#their stories and goals are compelling and believable#I just can't see past something like that even though it's fully fictional#like this doesn't mean I don't appreciate their characters or like what they do for the story#I think both are very well written and I like that they're there#I just mentally cheer a bit when something bad happens to them#ESPECIALLY since neither really got any consequences for their actions#I think they're both selfish characters who avoid the label because they do some other arguably selfless acts#and them being both selfish and selfless is very cool!!! They're both very human characters which I find awesome#Once again I do like them as characters#i just know if I knew them irl I would fucking hate them#I don't want them to be hated (and honestly I don't hate them either just mild dislike) i just don't want people to act like they're saints
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I know you've wrotten meanstiel yourself but I was wondering if you had any other recs for it? Althought I do still need to read 2 of your ones too
Unfortunately going to have to come out as a fake fan because I haven't read ANY other meanstiel and even my megstiel is limited enough that I can't recommend any off hand. There's a very. Particular dynamic that I like for meanstiel. And I don't want to read bad takes on Meg because she is my blorbo and I feel this would make me unduly upset. So I haven't delved into the ao3 tags even a little bit.
I went through enough "trying to find decent throuple fics where my favourite is the least popular and there is a significant fandom shipping the other two" in the captain america fandom (where my favourite was Sam Wilson AKA the falcon and my primary interest was samsteve but people claiming to write "samstevebucky" were in fact writing stucky wearing a "sam is their therapist and has no plotlines or negative feelings and is functionally a sexy extra" trenchcoat). I've done my time in the fandom mines...
(This isn't meant to disparage or discourage people from writing meanstiel!!!!!!!!!!! Please do!! More thinking about Meg more better! I just probably personally won't read it lol)
#there are other Meg Scholars out there. and good ones!! but I just don't seek out meanstiel fics from other people.#god i miss samsteve#it's all sambucky now and I see the chemistry but not romantic chemistry. whereas samsteve had such a high energy meetcute.#i worry. with meanstiel. about the gender dynamics being bad. about her being ganged up on. about her being a sexy lamp.#about her not being a real focus. about her and dean moving past their stuff without any weight on it#like. to me. it's a corner not a triangle. meg loves cas and dean loves cas#and meg and dean dislike but tolerate to genuine friends with benefits each other#but the progression has to go slowly.#actually. if Ola mrcowboydeanwinchester wrote it. I would definitely read it.#they're the exception. because I trust her so fully with women.#or any of the writers from my book club#if bry wrote meanstiel....I'd explode...(positive)#anyway. long answer short. no. xjfhzhfhs.#so happy to be getting random asks about women or 'women' character ☺️
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haruka :(((
haruka..................
i hate it here nyx i hate it here so much im actually really mad about it punches floor. violently.
#GAHHHHHGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH#I HATE THE MILGRAM EXPERIENCE SOME TIMES#its . GAAAHHHH#truly feeling the full impact of#'getting attached to milgram characters sucks because you will have to watch them undergo a black&white public judgement of their actions#and if they're not forgiven it hits you worse than usual/would they forgive you too ?'#haruka's case is esp bad too.............#rbed a post about it earlier but it has that ableist tint too. sad quiet boy is palatable and ok but let's not get too ahead of ourselves#im guy who goes thru the 'favorite character is disliked' feeling quite often and it still hurts every time orz#'widely disliked' or 'person i like dislikes them' are both so baddd#(i don't think haruka is That disliked per se but people just don't cate about him enough i guess. which is bad too. because it's Him)#if i were to be born again could i be your favorite this time......................#mayoiayasep#preguntas
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Csm thoughts,,
#Putting these in tags cuz they're rather negative and like this people can ignore this if it shows up on search#anyways today i was showering and had a realization that like#if csm part 2 didn't exist and the manga had ended in chapter 97 i really wouldn't mind that. like at all#because so far there hasn't been anything in part 2 that stuck to me in such a way that i would be upset or miss it if it didn't exist#be it arcs world building (not big on religious allegories. that prophecy stuff really doesn't intrest me at all) or characters#in fact if it did end on the publig safety saga i probably would have liked it better#because then it would have ended and that's it. because part 2 exists i can see the story move foward#with the absence of almost everyone from part 1 and i just. miss them#so reading part 2 in general makes me inherently a little sad#and i feel like that's what blocks me from enjoying it or even growing to care for the new characters from part 2#because i don't care for any of them that much. not even asa and yoru#and this isn't me being mad at the story for killing people off. i think all deaths in part 1 happened exactly where they needed to#and the story is beautifully crafted. i just genuinely miss them#and see denji staggering about looking so tired all the time barely looking like the same guy from part one due to everything that happened#that also makes me fell just. like this pain in my chest that i can't even explain well#i don't dislike part 2 i don't think it's bad#it's just not for me and i don't think that will change anytime soon#tho i will still look up the new chapters because i wanna see what happens. tho if there ever is a part 3 i doubt i will bother reading it#hyena ramblings#rant? i guess?
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finally got to watch scream 5 since 6 is now up for streaming worst experience of my life.
#🐇#that's sort of overdramatic....I didn't care for it#I liked some of the new characters. I think I liked more of them than disliked them which thank god#I just wish it was better idk what else to say. the dialogue was bad and not even in a good cheesy sort of way it just made me roll my eyes#like I really enjoy sam's character and I feel like she could be so much more than what she is like hopefully it improves in 6#the end monologue with richie and amber was just so bad my ears were like no.I refuse to hear this. and I just tuned out like ay caramba#sidney's scene at the end hunting down ghostface was probably one of my favorite scenes#like the sydney writing felt very close to the original and gale's lines felt very forced#like everything she said HAD to be sassy and a gotcha moment so...bleh#I appreciated the whole requel thing I just wish it had been executed better#I'm excited for six because it seems like they're trying to make things different and original and that's fun#like I wish they'd make a scream movie that's still ghostface but completely removed from sidney and woodsboro#I enjoyed the kills though they were fun the gore was fun so I'm excited for the kills in 6#I know I always keep reviews vague and rambly idk maybe I should write my thoughts in a google doc as I watch things lmao#just kind of annoying the thing of like people only liking the original with this franchise in particular#because I genuinely don't think any of the sequels come anywhere close to the original and the two ghostface killers in this were so#unimportant to me that I'll probably just forget about them like I do mickey#omg also vince??? a TRAGEDY he was killed off after 2 fucking minutes he was such an intriguing dude! and he was related to stu!#such a waste even with the premise I was so annoyed I literally blocked the memory of it lmao
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One funny thing about the slowly resurfacing Anders discourse (and I mean by its real definition, like a debate or conversation not just yelling at each other) is that in his defense people will say, "he didn't tell Hawke what he was doing because he wanted to protect them from being his partner-in-crime" which sounds so noble on paper and in my opinion, is actually the case. Here's my problem: I don't just feel betrayed that he didn't tell Hawke what he was asking them do and making them guilty by association, I mostly feel betrayed because he was Hawke's friend and he blew up a church. Like personal betrayal aside he blew up a church. I think that's what bothers me here. It's a crazy thought, I know.
#lindsay speaks#dragon age#LET ME BE CLEAR I DON'T HATE ANDERS#and even if i did my feelings are not somehow an attack on your feelings for the fictional character.#for me personally i think anders is an interesting character and i think the games would be weakened by the lack of his presence#that being said he's also a manipulative jerk to hawke both on rival and friendship routes --#rival lesser so bec he's just mad at you (fair you have to be a dick to get his rival route) friendship moreso bec he uses your#relationship to get you to do things you may not be comfortable with and if you question him he gets pissed and says you're all talk about#mage freedom when he won't even tell you the purpose of what he's asking. and i don't appreciate the lovebombing the 2nd time you#talk to him in act 1 if you even remotely befriend or flirt the first conversation 5 seconds ago#so no i don't loooooove anders because of the way he treats Hawke. but that doesn't mean i don't appreciate him as a character either#i'm not the kind of person to think that characters have to be good people to be good characters#for my poor a3 followers who are confused: like how reni isn't a great person but he's a great character slimeball that he is.#put simply when I'm discussing my dislike for any fictional character I'm not saying they're bad characters unless i specifically state#that i think they're bad characters. do you understand?
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Hi, I like your blogs but I want to ask how to write a flawed mentor? And how about writing reluctant mentor
Writing Notes: Mentors
You can use related tropes as a guide. Here are some examples I found for you:
FLAWED MENTOR
The "Anti-Mentor"
Think they are great at what they do and decide to train others in their ways. However, they are more often than not the worst at the very things they teach, and thus training with them could be considered anti-training.
In some cases, their student will be well aware of how bad they are and simply attend their lessons out of pity. Others will be honest and tell them how bad they are. There are those students who will think they are being great teachers by showing them what not to do.
Alternatively, the teacher may actually be good at what they do but terrible at teaching it. In these cases, they just don't know how to get their lessons across.
It's not so hard for the student to surpass the teacher here, because the teacher had so little to surpass.
RELUCTANT MENTOR
The "Apathetic Teacher"
Jaded, misanthropic, and very likely a Deadpan Snarker, this is the teacher who's been in the job too long. Dislikes students in general — been there long enough to know they're thick and (usually) irritating.
Hates the school, hates the job, really hates the management — but because s/he's known virtually nothing else, s/he still sticks at it, putting her/himself through it year after year.
Sometimes, this person started out as a young, Enthusiastic Newbie Teacher, who got beaten down by rowdy kids and an uncaring system, turning the teacher jaded over time. There's usually one person who will find that their no-longer-gives-a-shit attitude makes them a Cool Teacher anyway, or at the very least an occasional confidant.
They're likely to seek solace in the bottom of a bottle.
It's often implied, if not outright stated, that even their home life doesn't offer them much respite, either.
In pretty much all Save Our Students movies, one of these (if not an entire school of them) will serve as a foil to the idealistic teacher.
If the school is an inner-city one, expect this teacher to be the one to make some remark about how they can't really expect anything from kids with this "background".
Occasionally, an apathetic teacher will be won over by the enthusiasm of an idealistic teacher and will start caring about the students too.
In psychology, these people are called "burnouts."
This kind of teacher is likely to hand out an Extremely Easy Exam.
Apathetic Teacher vs. Sadist Teacher
The key difference between Apathetic Teachers and Sadist Teachers is the former hate their jobs while the latter hate their students.
Sadist Teachers often seem to take a sick glee in torturing their students; the teachers this trope describes don't seem to take much joy in anything, least of all their work.
This is quite similar to the "read a lot" advice we constantly hear. So, you can also go through your favourite stories (literature, films etc.) and learn from how your favourite authors write the character you are aiming to create in your stories. If I wasn't able to include here the exact one you need, you can look through the sources below. Hope this helps & thanks so much for your kind words :)
Sources: 1 2 3 ⚜ More: Writing Notes & References
#anonymous#mentor#character development#on writing#writeblr#spilled ink#dark academia#writing tips#writing advice#character building#fiction#writing inspiration#tropes#writing ideas#light academia#literature#writers on tumblr#poets on tumblr#writing prompt#writing reference#writing resources
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I'll ask, if it hasn't been already - regarding the tags on the fanfic poll:
What kinda things make you click out/give you the squick? I'm so curious 👀
rubs my hands together: could be a mix of things anywhere between character dynamics, personalities or even how the fic is formated
Btw for people who don't know what squicks are: 'Squicks' are just personal preferences that someone doesn't like. Nothing wrong with em it's just not your vibe. (Exp: Like how all my friends HATE tomatoes but I am tomato eater forever)
anyway long ramble list:
Can't read big blocks of text without breaks very well, and I dislike when characters (esp main characters that are talking in every chapter/scene) have bolded or italicized dialogue. I think it's fine for special reoccurring characters but it genuinely messes up with reading flow for me when it comes to taking in information if used too much
If I'm reading a fic specifically for a monogamous romantic paring, I don't care for the 'past lover interest reappears' trope or one of them currently has one, or the love triangle that results in one of them being like 'oh but i love them both i can't possibly choose!' *cough twilight cough* it just makes the relationship feel disgenuine and icky. zero stars. Any mention of a character's past relationship usually makes me just click out, just personally not here for that
-^^^ to go with this, big fan of the 'misunderstanding where someone thinks there's a love rivelry but the third person never had a chance.' Like to the main pairing there's only eyes for each other and that's all they care about, there's just some third person who's there and causing problems (either because someone in the pairing is jealous of the third person thinking they're gonna steal the other when it's not, or the third person thinks they're a love rival when in reality they're not even thought about) *cough Tyren cough*. I think there's a lotta comedy to have with this. Bonus points if it brings main pairing closer together
When characters have linear character development and recovery. I prefer my characters to realistically relapse and bit a little bit of a hypocrite as they develop from start of story to end. Failing and falling short and again makes the final result much more satisfying when they're healing
When characters use 'therapy speak' or otherwise react perfectly 'acceptable' to stressful situations. Again, I prefer realistic depictions of characters under stress, and work out becoming better under that stress rather than just One Big Thing Happen and suddenly they're never going to react negatively or lash out again because another character told them It Was Bad and To find Better Coping Mechanisms.
Unhappy endings. (Or open ended ones) Sorry for hurt/no comfort lovers but none of my fics will have unhappy endings. I like my stories to have people that go through absolute hell and still come out on the otherside
The ace in me doesn't care for fics where physical attraction is a large part of the ingredients that gets the pairing together. Not saying they can't admire each other when the sunlight hits them or wearing a nice outfit but just not a fan of reading about how 'sexy' a character is to another. Probably why I usually blast all my characters with the aspec beam
That's all I can think of off the top of my head but if someone had a more specific question I might be able to answer
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It's interesting (if often frustrating) to see the renewed Orc Discourse after the last few episodes of ROP. I've seen arguments that orcs have to be personifications of evil rather than people as such or else the ethics of our heroes' approach to them becomes much more fraught. Tolkien's work, as written, seems an odd choice to me for not wrangling with difficult questions, and of course, more diehard fans are going to immediately bring up Shagrat and Gorbag.
If you haven't read LOTR recently, Shagrat and Gorbag are two orcs who briefly have a conversation about how they're being screwed over by Sauron but have no other real options, about their opinions of mistakes that have been made, that they think Sauron himself has made one, but it's not safe to discuss because Sauron has spies in their own ranks. They reminisce about better times when they had more freedom and fantasize about a future when they can go elsewhere and set up a small-scale banditry operation rather than being involved in this huge-scale war. Eventually, however, they end up turning on each other.
Basically any time that someone brings up the "humanity" of this conversation, someone else will point out that they're still bad people. They're not at all guilty about what they're part of. They just resent the dangers to themselves, the pressure from above, failures of competence, the surveillance they're under, and their lack of realistic alternative options. The dream of another life mentioned in the conversation is still one of preying on innocent people, just on a much smaller and more immediate scale, etc.
I think this misses the reason it keeps getting brought up, though. The point is not that Shagrat and Gorbag are good people. The point is that they are people.
There's something very normal and recognizable about their resentment of their superiors, their fears of reprisal and betrayal that ultimately are realized, their dislike of this kind of industrial war machine that erases their individual work and contributions, the tinge of wistfulness in their hope of escape into a different kind of life. Their dialect is deliberately "common"—and there's a lot more to say about that and the fact that it's another commoner, Sam, who outwits them—but one of the main effects is to make them sound familiar and ordinary. And it's interesting that one of the points they specifically raise is that they're not going to get better treatment from "the good guys" so they can't defect, either.
This is self-interested, yes, but it's not the self-interest of some mystical being or spirit or whatnot, but of people.
Tolkien's later remarks tend to back this up. He said that female orcs do exist, but are rarely seen in the story because the characters only interact with the all-male warrior class of orcs. Whatever female orcs "do," it isn't going to war. Maybe they do a lot of the agricultural work that is apparently happening in distant parts of Mordor, maybe they are chiefly responsible for young orcs, maybe both and/or something else, we don't know. But we know they're out there and we know that they reproduce sexually and we know that they're not part of the orcish warrior class.
Regardless of all the problems with this, the idea that orcs have a gender-restricted warrior class at all and we're just not seeing any of their other classes because of where the story is set doesn't sound like automatons of evil. It sounds like an actual culture of people that we only see along the fringes.
And this whole matter of "but if they're people, we have to think about ethics, so they can't be people" is a weird circular argument that cannot account for what's in LOTR or for much of what Tolkien said afterwards. Yes, he struggled with The Problem of Orcs and how to reconcile it with his world building and his ethical system, but "maybe they're not people" is ultimately not a workable solution as far as LOTR goes and can't even account for much of the later evolution of his ideas, including explicit statements in his letters.
And in the end, the real response that comes to mind to that circular argument is "maybe you should think about ethics more."
#i had a whole 'nother tangent that i split off into a separate draft#but i've been thinking about why the 'but shagrat and gorbag are still BAD people' thing seems so inane and missing the point#but yeah. i feel like people desperately want to find some justification in tolkien (and elsewhere) for the idea#that doing something wrong to a person will become doing something right if you can find someone who 'deserves it'#and that literally anything can be justified if someone has been defined as a valid target (i.e. less than a person)#(you see this a lot in the whole twitter main character of the day thing - the idea that the problem is directing the firehose#against the wrong person by mistake rather than the firehose itself)#but it's super weird for a novel built on a metaphor about how using the tools of evil for a good end or against existential enemies#is fundamentally corrupting and only further props up what it's meant to oppose#and i mean... the character most like tolkien literally says he could not morally justify lying to an orc and rejects the ring#it's not exactly a deeply buried theme of the book#anghraine babbles#long post#anghraine rants#legendarium fanwank#legendarium blogging#shagrat#gorbag#tv: lotr#jrr tolkien
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Due to overwhelming popular demand (literally one person), I will now elaborate! The screenshots made this really long, so it's going under the cut.
I know I said 'not all that nice' in the original post, but I think a better word for what I read in Klavier would be that he's 'unfeeling' or 'callous', and I believe that largely comes from my initial impression of him. Many people cite the "This is the first time I've ever felt this way with a man" line as one of his most impactful early scenes, but, honestly, it didn't do much for me. Instead, the first time I properly took notice of Klavier was when he says this in Wocky's trial:
The first time I read that, I went, "Oh. He's demented."
And maybe that's a bit harsh, right? We don't know much about Wocky, but he is part of the mafia and under suspicion of murder here. Maybe Klavier's malicious glee at his soon-to-be untimely demise is warranted or excusable (though I would argue that it still takes a certain kind of cruelty to laugh right in the person's face). But that's the thing. This moment isn't a one-off instance but, rather, indicative of Klavier's oddly flippant attitude regarding death and other people throughout the game.
His rant in Turnabout Serenade about his keys, guitar and the dead body is probably what comes to mind quickest in this regard, but I would argue that Klavier's entire approach to court is a pretty obvious tell on this front. I don't think it's controversial to say that Klavier sees his cases as just another performance — what with the "Let's rock!"s and talk about everyone else "sharing his stage" — but he seems to treat the people involved like they're performers, too. There's a certain callousness that comes with his rockstar gimmick, which extends to his treatment of witnesses and suspects. Wocky is one thing, but Vera?
Like, the girl collapsed in front of you and is now knocking on death's door, Klavier; could you drop the showman-speak for one minute?
Maybe it's because Machi is a child, but I feel like this coldness of his comes across most clearly in Serenade. See, Klavier has a reputation for being the most straightlaced and honourable of the prosecutors, and I agree with that assessment! (I think. I don't remember what Blackquill is like, but for now, I agree.) His willingness to work with the defence is respectable and his dedication to the truth undeniable... but I think that only extends to truths he can see himself.
An interesting thing about Klavier is that he's never really behind Apollo in comprehending the truth of their trials, and he pursues it doggedly whenever he scents it. However, in the time before he realises what's actually unfolded, he pursues the truth he's determined with that same unbending zeal. He needs to understand what's happening — to be in control of the narrative at all times — to function at his usual pace. At the end of Serenade's first day of investigation, Klavier implies that Machi has been arrested because the powers that be required a swift arrest, but by the time the trial starts, he's 100% committed to sending that 14-year-old to the gallows. And he's not above using somewhat underhanded tactics to do it either.
There's a sort of ruthless edge to Klavier's treatment of not just Machi, but almost everyone involved in this case. He insinuates that Apollo might be lying about his witness testimony, knows why Lamiroir "saw nothing" yet chose to keep silent and have her brought out onto the witness stand to discredit her,
implies that Ema is the least useful detective on the force then embarrasses her on the stand by having her take the fall for the misunderstanding over Machi's eyesight,
straight up lies about not speaking Borginian to keep Machi from testifying, although he was translating fluently for Lamiroir just minutes prior
and even has his own updated autopsy report moment:
And are these all technically above board tactics to get to the truth? Sure (unclear about the lying, which he also does in the Misham case). But they're still mean-spirited, and his entire demeanour speaks of him just... not caring whom he hurts in his crusade for the truth. The feelings and reputations he damages on the way don't matter because they don't aid him in his goal. Finding the truth isn't about justice for victims or protecting the people caught in the crossfire to him. He wants the truth because... it's the truth. In that sense, he's a lot like og trilogy Edgeworth.
Something else Serenade makes clear is that this brusqueness towards people isn't exclusive to acquaintances and strangers; Klavier treats his loved ones with equal impassiveness. When Daryan crops up as a suspect proper later in the trial and Klavier is prepared for it, he ploughs forwards with that same unyielding efficiency and careless air. The few times he does lose his composure, it's largely due to the revelation of his own unwitting role in the crime. And when it's at last proven beyond a shadow of doubt that it was Daryan, his friend, his partner, the first detective he ever worked with, who tried to set him alight and killed someone, all Klavier has to say is,
... A cool, clean cut. No unsettled feelings, no messy loose threads. Just the hard truth and the calm acceptance of it.
It's the same with Kristoph later on — honestly, I'd argue it's even colder there. With Daryan, he had time to process the possibility and prepare for it. With Kristoph, it happens abruptly in court, and I'm not even sure that Klavier wholly believed Kristoph's original murder charges. There's a line right when he begins helping Apollo against his brother, where he says, "Honestly, I wanted to believe you", and I think the Shadi Smith charge is what he was referring to then. Even so, he puts it aside (much like Daryan, the few times he loses his composure are when he realises how he's been manipulated) and continues with his usual showy efficiency:
It ends, interestingly, harsher than it did with Daryan:
And there's something impressive about that, isn't there? That ability to come to terms with yourself and deal with your emotions so succinctly and conclusively. But isn't it also vaguely terrifying? It's murder on both counts here, so maybe it's a bit hyperbolic to say this, but it almost comes across like there are no second chances with Klavier. Like he sees other people, like himself, as being "simple", without room for greyness or capacity for meaningful change. People are fundamentally good until they do an inexcusable act, and then they're unforgivable and he's better off without them.
There's the argument to be made that Klavier's actually much more affected by these events than he lets on and this is just him masking his emotions to be professional, and I totally agree that that could be it, but I also don't think it fully is? I don't see Klavier as being one for masks, to be honest. I believe him when he says he tries to live simply — even the above examples I've given of him being unkind aren't parts of him he tries to hide; he's rather open about being apathetic, hence why I wouldn't call him manipulative. Like he says, he prefers to "keep things civil" because it helps him find the truth, and he's not particularly secretive about his friendliness being anything deeper than that. So, rather than him 'masking' his true emotions, I'd say it's more akin to him shoving those complicated feelings into a box, stashing it somewhere deep inside himself and refusing to ever examine it to the point where it doesn't affect his life in any obvious or even conscious way.
The one moment we know Klavier was truly conflicted about in his life (the forged diary page) he dealt with by, essentially, running away from. He left the court behind, threw himself into his band and only returned to it when it was forced into his lap, which relates back to how I think he only purses the truth relentlessly when he can see it clearly. He didn't look deeper into that diary page because it would have affected his simple relationship with Kristoph. We kind of see him do the same thing with the Gavinners, actually. Prior to Serenade, he's extremely proud of his band and brings up their achievements often. But after Daryan's arrest, he disbands the Gavinners and starts saying things like their lyrics comprised "ridiculous flights of fancy". There's a decisive effort to distance himself from that debacle, and I think he treats the people in his life much the same way.
There are also less significant moments that point to him not quite caring about other people's situations and his need for control — like when he glares at Ema for interrupting the Misham trial proceedings, though she did so to help them get to the truth; and when he sends Apollo tickets at 20% off though he's the millionaire rockstar and Apollo's the one living paycheck to paycheck — and one that sticks out is his case with Phoenix.
When Klavier warns him against using the page, and when he mocks him for the fraudulent evidence later, he says Phoenix has "embarrassed" himself. Not that Phoenix has made a decision that will ruin his reputation and leave him potentially without a means to support himself, just that he's "embarrassed himself". And I think that's adds another element to his unsympathetic treatment of people.
Klavier is sometimes just... a rich asshole HAHA I don't think he sees how certain hardships can push people to do awful things or really understands what desperation is like. When he's confronted with the darkness behind his cases and the nuanced circumstances that led to the people involved doing what they did, he treats them as amusing diversions, another element of the greater show that is the trial. And when you see how he reacts to complications in his own life, you kind of see why. He would never be driven to act in such a way because he doesn't allow those events to affect him. Whenever something goes wrong for him — really wrong, not just minor inconveniences he can moan about — he just... cuts the problem out. Keeps things neat and simple and moves forwards to a place where everything is, once again, within his control.
And, you know, maybe I'm just reading too much into moments that aren't meant to be taken particularly seriously — they do all fall under his self-absorbed rockstar gimmick, after all, but I don't know. I look at these moments in relation to one another, and I'm not sure he's as simple as he'd like himself to be.
wait, no. i think my ACTUAL hottest aa take is that i don't think klavier is all that nice
#klavier gavin#i know no one's gonna believe me after all this but klavier's not actually a character i think about very deeply or all that often so it#wouldn't surprise me if i have misread him. i should also note that i dont dislike him or think this callousness makes him a bad man by any#means. he kind of has the same appeal edgeworth has for me where i prefer them when they're not perfectly put together and charitable#i should also mention that i dont think it's a huge deal if that makes sense? it's the main point of this post so it seems a bigger “issue”#than it is (his treatment of personal relations i mean) but i dont see it as a source of some deeply hidden angst for him. i think if he#ever does examine his attitude towards people and the events with daryan and kristoph he'd kind of just go 'oh. that fucked me up huh.'#and sort of just sit with it. like i dont think it's something that would drastically change him aside from perhaps thawing him out a bit#and he's obviously got a lot of other things going on with him. i do think that his rockstar coolness perfectionism and tantrums are all#real parts of his personality. i just think this added chill is too. i think his desire for simplicity is what he likes about apollo#no offence to mr 37 hidden backstories but apollo tends to be quite simple himself when it comes to cases. it's just instead of truth for#truth's sake he's that way because it's his job. and i feel like apollo's general indifference towards klavier's background appeals#to him too. but it's also part of why i don't think apollo would have led to klavier changing (in this aspect) if they'd continued together#but we'll never know.#i love that kristoph moment. it matches up so well with so many chaarcters and just makes you pause. i basically used it here to pinpoint#klavier's attutude towards murderers (incl. kristoph) and to highlight their similarities. because they really are quite similar sometimes#with their desire to keep things neat and tidy klavier's odd... classism?? towards 'those borginians' and people who uh. *checks notes*#lick stamps and kristoph's general classism and their shared need for control at all times.#like for all their differences there are just certain things that make me go 'huh they really are brothers.'#and yeah as nice or not nice as he may be that moment with wocky always makes me do a double take bc wtf man that's kind of fucked up
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Some Dad!Cod Character Scenario and Appreciation Post
Characters In Mind: Simon "Ghost" Riley, John "Soap" MacTavish, Kyle "Gaz" Garrick, Alejandro Vargas, Rodolfo "Rudy" Parra, Alex Keller, König, Keegan P. Russ, Gary "Roach" Sanderson.
The original creator of the picture, they also have so many works that are used in so many fanfics as well so please credit her. I found her account here on Tumblr (@ave661) and here is the post.
AFAB!Reader and used pronouns are "you"
Apologies if this is a bit too short but;
ꕥ HOPE YOU ENJOY! ꕥ
A/n: I've had a good but also bad week (good thanks to @puff0o0 and other extremely sweet mutuals), it's neutral, I'm not here to rant of any sort but my personal life has not been good. I understand that not everyone will like me but it feels as though everyone hates me, most of those people happen to be at school. Sure I'm not really going to do anything about it because I prefer avoiding conflict but those same people are trying to flip the story around as if I'm the one who hates them when in reality I don't and by being mean to me they're giving me a reason to dislike them. Sure I'm average academically, sometimes I have difficulty pulling my weight in group works and I'm not outstanding in reportings but we all have our difficulties. I just don't understand people who love to hate on others because they have nothing better to do.
This is a word of advice to everyone, don't let others let you feel insignificant, you aren't and you have many talents that make you different from them. (I don't really practice what I preach because I love self-deprication, however I don't want people to feel the way I do because I know what it can cause)
Disclaimers/warnings: OOC??, Pregnancy, Implied birth, Children (Pretty sure that was obvious from the title), People who don't want/hate children be warned.
Short note: This is also a dedication to all the Mistki and Hozier fans out there <3
He was so used to the smell of hospitals, the smell of medication, it always indicated death for him but this was a whole new feeling. It was the opposite of what he has seen most of his life
So much so that he refused to hold them, afraid of potentially hurting the fragile little one. He looked at you as if you were crazy when you tried to hand him the baby, "Come on now love, you can't just avoid holding them forever" you said to him as of it was a life or death situation.
Hesitantly letting you guide him through the proper way to hold them, he felt his breath hitch at the sound of cooing. The first time the baby opened it's eyes, the first thing they saw being their dad.
The moment he looked at the baby sealed it, he was going to protect them their whole life, he would go as far as feeling all the guilt of having blood on their hands again if it meant your baby would be protected and cared for.
The baby was so small that it's little head was practically the size of his palm, he didn't know initially what to do when the baby cried and shocked himself when he managed to make them stop.
Once the baby was old enough to crawl, he'd let the baby crawl all over him. The little one babbling non-sense while he just chuckled and replied as if he understood what the baby was saying. Gods be damned if he misses an important milestone such as their first word or their first time walking.
You'd often wake up to seeing him shirtless snoozing on the couch, the tv playing only ads for home appliances late at night while the baby only in a diaper having skin to skin contact with their dad, his huge hand big enough to support the little one from falling.
He almost cried the first time your baby reached for his face an touched it, resting it's tiny little fingers on his cheek, giving him a gummy smile. His little one unaware that they just healed something they never broke.
He NEVER wants to ever see your little one grow up, though sure it makes more memories with them, sometimes they just wish time stops for a second so they can enjoy the moment longer.
Initially was terrified that he'd pass his trauma down but he realized that wouldn't be possible and he will NOT ever let them go through what he did.
Eventually chose to resign from his work because the risk was far too much, what if he died? He'd leave you and your child to grieve over him? He won't be there for them growing up and he'd miss everything.
Sure he's worked most his life to get where he is now but nothing is ever worth more than spending a lifetime with you and your child together. He's been lonely almost all his life until he met you.
You are his family, his everything. He promised that whatever happens, he'll crawl home to you...
#cod x reader#simon riley x reader#ghost x reader#john soap mctavish x reader#soap x reader#kyle gaz garrick x reader#gaz x reader#alejandro vargas x reader#rodolfo parra x reader#call of duty fanfiction#cod headcanons#cod scenarios#alex keller x reader#konig x reader#keegan russ x reader#gary sanderson x reader#roach x reader#pregnant reader#afab reader#Aethelwyne Lia writes
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I wish everyone collectively understood aventurine’s character like you…things would be so much easier! I genuinely don’t understand how people keep getting his motivations wrong??? Could it be because some of the most popular Aven fanfics were written prior to his release? That could have contributed to some of the takes we tend to see about him…thoughts?
I struggled all day to come up with a concise way to answer this and couldn't think of one, so here, have a long-winded ramble:
I don't think early fic writers have much impact in the situation with Aventurine's character now, since most people can look at when a story was posted and go "Oh, this was before we had ____ information."
I think that Aventurine's problem is being a male character in a gacha game. Gacha game characters are designed to sell. Hoyo can sell female characters very, very easily. Give her huge tits and a visible underwear strap and you're good to go. I love all my guy friends, but I'm not gonna sugarcoat it: straight men are not the hardest audience to please. Hit a particular fetish (feet, spandex, dommy mommy), and you're gucci.
Nah, we all know why Jade's trailer is Like That.™
Male characters in gacha are harder to sell because women as consumers are a little harder to predict. Does every woman want a tall, ripped hunk? Shit, no, small cute boyish models like Aventurine are selling better now? Why?! Would a bad boy be more popular than a nice guy??? It's harder to account for women's tastes, especially because they are often (a little) less visually-oriented.
Hoyo is good at what they do though, and they've figured out that male characters sell very well when they possess at least one of two specific traits:
Endearing vulnerability/helplessness
Gay ship tease
Give a character both, like Aventurine? They might as well be printing money.
That sound you hear is Hoyo's stock prices rising.
So, from the very beginning, Hoyo is incentivized to create a character that appeals to people, a character people will want to crack their wallets open for. And they achieved this, first and foremost, by giving Aventurine traits that female players (in particular, but men too), find especially appealing: emotional and physical vulnerability.
We see Aventurine's pain. We sympathize with his grief. We identify with his struggle to make meaning of his difficult life. He's our woobie, blorbo, babygirl, whatever the hell they're calling it now.
He can't hide his suffering anymore. He's on the very edge. He's a dude in distress. He's surrounded by enemies! He misses his mama! He's been betrayed! No one understands him like you do, dear player!
The ultimate feeling evoked is: He needs to be saved.
When people talk about male power fantasies, I think they forget that women can experience them too, and "Emotionally vulnerable man that only I (or my favorite character) can fix" is actually a female power fantasy.
And from there it's really easy, right: the people who shell out cash to buy warps for their harmed-husbando feel like they've saved him; the people who are into mlm ships look for the nearest hot dude to be the savior Ratio was waiting for his time lol.
Morally and intellectually, this type of deep-down-golden-hearted, emotionally-wounded male character is very easy to digest. There is nothing to dislike about this type of character or role in the story: this character is a good guy who has just gone through so many terrible situations, whose victim status makes him endearing, and whose lack of agency means that any of the questionable or downright bad things he does are always the result of someone else forcing his hand, and never something he would have chosen himself.
His motivations are always clear and consistent: get free, heal, and live happily ever after.
Insert the Wreck-It Ralph meme: "Do people assume all your problems got solved when a big strong man showed up?" But to be fair, a big strong man did kind of solve Aventurine's problem, so--
Anyway, it's simple. It's straightforward. Morally, it's pretty cut and dry, black and white: Aventurine is our hero, which means everyone dictating the course of his miserable life is evil.
Hoyo is not remotely discouraging people from literally buying into this emotional appeal.
And trust me, I get it. I'll be the first to admit that hurt-comfort is its own entire genre in fandom because it is so appealing. People eat up Aventurine's tragic backstory like candy! The idea of watching a character go through hell at the hands of bad guys just to finally find a happy end is like the definition of everyone's favorite story.
In fact... people love Aventurine's suffering so much, they have invented whole new ways for him to suffer that aren't even in the game.
This is where we get all the headcanons that Aventurine was a sex slave, every single person he meets hates him because of his race, the Stonehearts are executioners holding knives to his throat, Jade enslaved him to the IPC with a lifelong contract, his material possessions belong to the company, the IPC is forcing him to take only the most dangerous missions where he is being required by his evil jailers to continually put his life on the line... You name it and I promise you, I can find a fanfic where Aventurine suffers from it. 😂
Bro can't even sleep in on his day off; life is so hard for this man.
Being serious: if the game is telling us that Aventurine is a victim... Why not make him the perfect victim?
Why not envision an Aventurine with no freedom, who bears no responsibility for any of the horrible situations he is in or any of the dubious things he does?
It's so natural to like that version of Aventurine, so appealing to see a totally powerless underdog use his own wits and charms to claw his way up to freedom. Or, if you're the kind who really relishes angst: It's even appealing to see Aventurine lose more. To delight in fics where he loses his wealth, where the IPC punishes him for past crimes while he's powerless to stop them... (I assure you, this is many people's cup of tea and the fanfics prove it!)
Ultimately, there's nothing wrong with liking characters who are exactly this straightforward! It's completely fine to embrace characters that are intentionally written to be morally above-board, whose primary role in the story is to generate angst by being a good person who suffers, or those characters who never show unlikable traits, bad decisions, or contradictory actions.
The problem is that that's just not who the game is telling us Aventurine is.
Hoyo may be capitalizing off people who love to envision poor Aventurine still living his life as a slave... But the game also needs to tell a complicated enough story overall to appeal to people who don't care about this specific husbando--Aventurine's role in the actual game's plot has to be interesting enough for almost everyone to appreciate it, not just Aventurine's simp squad. (Don't get mad, I'm in the simp squad with you.)
So his character doesn't stop at just being a pure-hearted victim who is still waiting to be saved.
Aventurine is not that easy to label, and I think the biggest struggle in this character's fandom right now is between people who prefer the even-more-angsty, still-a-slave Aventurine versus people who want a morally grey, self-destructive character instead.
To me personally, while I greatly understand the appeal of fanon!Aventurine and the joy of a really juicy angst fic where characters lose it all, I think that missing out on the depth that canon is suggesting would be a real loss on the fandom's part.
The character motivations that Aventurine shows in the game are complicated. They cancel each other out. They're basically self-harm! He makes almost every situation he's in worse for himself--on purpose.
He is a good person, but also a person who has done unspeakable things. He does have morals, but he's not above allowing those who don't have them to use him to their advantage.
He's both the victim and the victor. He's his own worst enemy. He's a lost little boy who's been making terrible decisions for himself since he was like eight years old, and a grown ass man who is barely managing to fake his way through an existence that destiny is not letting him quit.
This kind of character is a lot harder to embrace. He's done things that most people would find appalling--like willingly joining up with the organization that let his entire race be massacred. He's invented a whole new peacock persona to frivolously flaunt riches he doesn't even care about (Poison Dart Frog Self-Defense 101). He actively plays into racist stereotypes about his people to manipulate others through their preconceived expectations. He's made a mockery of his mother's and sister's hopes and dreams by endlessly trying to throw his own life away.
He has flaws! He bet everything he had on a ploy without doing his homework to find out if the people he was risking his life for were even still around. (Maybe he already knew, and couldn't bear to admit it, even to himself.) He's intentionally off-putting and obnoxious to everyone he meets (Poison Dart Frog Self-Defense 102). He terrifies everyone who gets close to him by (seemingly) carelessly throwing himself into the jaws of death without the slightest provocation.
He knowingly allows the IPC to exploit his power and talents for profit. Did everyone forget that his role in the Strategic Investment Department is asset liquidation?! Like, his actual day-to-day job is ruining people's lives. Canonically, Aventurine kills people when his deals go bad.
His motivations change off-screen in two lines of story text. We're told in one line that his biggest reason for joining the IPC was to make money to save the Avgin, then in the next line we find out that's impossible. And... then what? What motivations does he even have now? The whole point of his character arc from 2.0-2.1 is that he was on the edge of giving in to utter despair and nihilism because he couldn't even perceive a single reason to stay alive. He has no purpose in life before Penacony, and that didn't start with the Stonehearts at all??
People keep saying Aventurine was held in the IPC by golden handcuffs, but how do you tie down someone for whom profit is meaningless? What can you offer to a man whose only desire is to bring back something already lost forever? How do you imprison someone whose only definition of freedom is, canonically, death?
Working for the Stonehearts is obviously not healthy. But that's why Aventurine was doing it--because taking dangerous missions allowed him to put himself at risk. The job that he originally pursued hoping to save his people became a direct means to self-harm, and the IPC's only real role in that was just happily profiting off the results.
The journal entries for Aventurine's quests are there deliberately to tell the player what is on his mind, and none of it has to do with escaping from his job:
Like... Work is the least of this man's problems.
At really the risk of rambling on too long now, he's also just a massive walking contradiction:
Aventurine is among the most explicitly religious characters in the game, yet he's one of the only people in the entire game that we have ever seen actively question his people's aeon.
You might be tempted to think Aventurine's risky gambles with his life as an adult are a result of giving up after finding out about the Avgin massacre... Butttt no, Hoyo makes sure to tell us that even at knee-high in the Sigonian desert, Kakavasha was already willing to risk himself in a fight to the death against monsters because even back then he found his own life to have less value than a single memento.
He's the "chosen one" who will lead his people to prosperity... except they're all dead.
He's explicitly suicidal... andddd also a pathstrider of Preservation.
He wants to die... He doesn't want to die. He wants to make it end, yet goes to staggering lengths to continually survive. (Every plan risks his life on purpose--but every plan's win condition is also to live.) He life is the chip tossed down, but his hand is trembling beneath the table. When faced with an otherwise unsurvivable situation, Aventurine literally became a winner of the Hunger Games. He beat other innocent people to death with his own chain-bound hands just to come out alive.
He knows the IPC failed the Avgin and left them to die... and he still willingly sought out a position of power in their organization. Maybe he really is after revenge... but maybe not.
He starts his journey in the IPC with a truly noble goal in mind: to help his people using his newfound wealth and power. He's a good guy who did genuinely want to save the Avgin and repay all those who helped him. But once it became clear he was too late, once it was obvious he would have no use at all for that monetary wealth and power he risked his life to get... What did he do with it? Unlike Jade, we don't see him over here donating to orphanages. (I'm not that heartless; I'm sure he does actually do a lot of good things with his money on the side, but the point is that the game does not show us that--it shows us, over and over again, Aventurine putting on a wasteful, over-indulgent persona toward wealth. We've supposed to feel how meaningless money is to him, how meaningless everything is becoming to him.)
He outright refuses to use underhanded tactics or to cheat at gambles, which is meant to show us that's he's more morally upright than his coworkers. There's an entire exchange where he says that he'll never stoop to using manipulation the way Opal does. But... he doesn't have any issue fulfilling Opal's exact agenda. He was never remotely morally conflicted about denying the Penaconians their freedom by dragging Penacony back under IPC control.
He's willing to risk his own life, which is one thing--but he's also willing to risk other people's well-being. Topaz accuses him of constantly egging their clients on into dangerous situations; we've actively seen him shove a gun into Ratio's hands and pull the trigger with no care for how Ratio would feel about that on their very first meeting... Dragging the Astral Express crew into the entire Penacony plan in the first place was exceedingly dangerous...
To me, I just think it's vital to understand his character through the lens of these contradictions because they demonstrate the extreme polarity of Aventurine's life: from rags to riches, from powerless to empowered by multiple aeons, from willing to kill to survive to killing himself... He has quite literally lived a life of "all or nothing," and while he is the victim of many terrible situations out of his control, his arc as a character involves facing the truth of himself and the future his own actions are hurtling him toward.
Frankly, the Aventurine that canon is suggesting is a little annoying. You want to grab him by the shoulders, shake him, and say "Why are you like this?!" And he won't even have an answer for you, because he doesn't even know why he's still alive.
In the end, to me, this is so, so much more interesting. I can read an endless supply of hurt-comfort fics where Aventurine escapes the evil IPC and Ratio is there to fill the void in his life with the power of love and catcakes and be a perfectly happy clam online, but I want canon to continue to serve us this incredible mess of a man who constantly takes one step forward and two steps back.
Who is fully aware of his role as a cog in the grotesque profit-wheel of cosmic capitalism and still manages to say he never changed from the rags-wearing desert rat of the Sigonian wastes.
Who over and over again flirts with nihility but, ultimately, even if he has to wrest it from the grip of the gods themselves with bloody, chain-bound hands, chooses life.
#honkai star rail#aventurine#aventurine meta#hsr meta#character analysis#listen I see you angsty fic writers who bully our favorite for maximum emotional gain#I am a ratiorine fan with the best of them#so I fully understand the appeal of the “I can fix him” fic#but like#there is so much else just waiting in the text of the game#that makes Aventurine such a rich complex and nuanced character#admitting that the IPC is the least of his issues makes him MORE interesting#not less#I promise#also like#getting so tired of reductive reads of my posts#just because I don't think Aventurine is a slave of the IPC#doesn't mean I think the IPC are good people#I'm not sure how many times I can say#'They're evil and are actively exploiting him for profit'#before people will stop saying I'm an IPC apologist lollll#I promise it is possible for Aventurine to have agency AND for the IPC to still be evil#those two statements can co-exist
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arcane's depiction vs. endorsement and why it flopped
~ i think i'm finally ready to complain ~
My general opinion of season 2 is potential squandered. My recent post about Viktor's storyline as an intentional tragedy lets ya'll know that I did, for the most part, enjoy his arc (hot take, I know, and I know lots of people disagree with me, and I fully understand). If he'd gotten the screen time necessary to pull it off, it would have been legendary in my book. But the lack of screen time, even in the case of the season's eventual BBEG, speaks to my greatest issue with Arcane: no commitment.
(Critical) Discussion of Jinx, Ekko, Sevika, Vi, and Viktor below!
Arcane, as a tragedy (I've said this word too many times to count smh), asks the plot, "what is the worst thing that could possibly happen to this character?" and answers in kind. This is why we get Viktor's lost agency until the very end (and like I've said in the past, I completely understand and hold space for those who dislike this route).
If we ask this same question of the following characters, the scope of loss and despair innate to Arcane's final narrative is made very clear:
Sevika: a revolutionary forever devoted to the cause, not the individual, is nominated as an individual to represent the masses in a governmental body that has no interest in her class-conscious ideal.
Ekko: the people's hero in every sense of the word who never sees the fruits of his labor/sacrifice and who goes without the acknowledgement he deserves (more than any other Arcane character).
Vi: the ultimate victim of Piltover police brutality coerced, through grief, trauma, and loss, into working for the system that oppressed her. Even Caitlyn, for all her good intentions, seems incapable of ever understanding this.
Viktor: a genius hellbent on ending the same suffering he endured at the hands of Piltover's oppression has his agency revoked, driving him to inflict the same choicelessness he endured on Zaunite innocents.
On paper, these arcs are devastatingly sensical. And we don't always need happy endings in our stories (I'd sure like them, more often than not, of course). We can and should witness the harsh realities of class oppression if we don't experience them ourselves. The writing team painstakingly crafted and foreshadowed these worst-case scenarios throughout season 1. For example, in 1x07, Ekko being immediately shot at by Marcus at the bridge confirms our suspicions that Piltover Enforcers are a lost cause, not just full of bad apples but internally broken beyond repair. It felt that, despite all the hope, this struggle was doomed, and we were careening toward something dark - "In the pursuit of great, we failed to do good."
Had these arcs been successful, audiences would be confronted with the systemic issues we see today that implicate the physical and mental health of downtrodden individuals on account of lazy, prejudiced leadership. This actively happens. It is actively happening, sans the fantasy of it all. This is where Arcane should have shined: they depict the tragedy of these characters, but DO NOT endorse it.
But Arcane chickens out and the entire thing fails. Here are the Flop Era Spark Notes:
Maddie is the egregious bad apple stereotype that absolves all other agents of the regime. She clearly is not a stand-in for Enforcers at large because, all of a sudden, they're capable of coordinated artillery strikes that are necessary to the defense of Piltover, which the viewer must suddenly and abundantly care about. So glad she died. Also, Arcane, you cannot introduce abject warfare in the last 30 minutes of your show successfully.
Jinx's "revolutionary" plot was a red herring, and Sevika humbly vying for the spot was never delivered upon. They pay lip service to the Undercity organizing, but the scene is interrupted for larger (messier) plot concerns almost immediately. No commitment. No depiction to even refrain from endorsing.
Ekko and the Firelight Tree. Clearly this was set up as a means of showing how Piltover's mistakes were physically seeping into the only sanctuary left in Zaun. Yet this is just...never resolved? If someone has some insights into this, please let me know. No depiction. No discussion about endorsement.
What could Vi specifically gain by aligning with the Enforcers/Piltover? Human connection with Cait, sure, but why return to them in 2x06? Vi's character begged all season for development, but she kept returning to her nonsensical error of her ways (looking backwards) until the very end, and this is basically what "kills" Jinx. This is a nod to her lonesomeness post 1x03, sure, but to what end? Again, why the Enforcers?!? Oh, because now that Cait has been redeemed and Sevika is in Piltover to save the day, there are no systemic issues left to fix? Sure, Riot.
WHY DEVELOP VIKTOR'S ENTIRE HEXCORE ARC OFF SCREEN?I'M ADMITTEDLY BIASED ABOUT THIS, BUT THE AMOUNT OF DISCUSSIONS I'VE HAD WITH VIKTOR NATION ABOUT THE DEGREE TO WHICH HE WAS INFLUENCED/MANIPULATED BY THE HEXCORE (now that we know Sky was a manifestation of his humanity, not her Actual Self) IS DESPICABLE. HIS COMPROMISED AGENCY NEEDS TO BE FRONT AND CENTER AND OBVIOUS, OR ELSE IT SURE SEEMS LIKE RIOT IS ENDORSING THE LACK OF AGENCY IN VIKTOR'S STORY. I shouldn't have to make 1k word posts to explain this. I'll do it because I love him with my whole heart, but still.
I begged and pleaded for months for BBEG Viktor (I'm really proud of my predictions from October), but by introducing a villain/conflict beyond the Piltover/Zaun dichotomy, Riot severed all threads of class conflict that were so rife and exciting in season 1. The proletariat and the bourgeoise will never coalesce like they did by the end of 2x09 without systemic revolution. Sevika is just one individual. Ekko's people need him. Jinx and Viktor are gone. Vi is downtrodden, and we have SO LITTLE to show for it.
In summary, we just didn't get enough explicit explanation of any character development to make Arcane-As-Tragedy successful. They did not stick the landing. The finale leaves us all with various bad tastes in our mouth. Instead of lamenting the harsh reality of oppression, I'm confused about what Riot prioritizes and agrees with, what they aim to criticize, and what they condemn.
I'll die on the hill that revoking Viktor's agency has the potential to be one of the greatest tragic hero storylines I've ever seen, but it's a lonely hill because I'm fighting against the writing team's consistent flops. At least Balayage Viktor was so gorgeous.
shameless self plug for my earlier discussion about the innate political clashes in season 1 that were abandoned for flashy fantasy fights in season 2:
#i think i'm so worried to complain because i want to preserve what i like about s2 in amber#and i truly see SO MUCH potential in it#but it boils down to shuffling the development where the viewer can't see or heart it#they'll never make me hate you jesus viktor#and sorry for the spicy caitvi take#i don't want to offend anyone by that and i'd love to hear more talk on that point#arcane#arcane season 2#arcane s2#arcane spoilers#viktor arcane#sevika#ekko#ekko arcane#jinx arcane#vi arcane#caitlyn kirraman#arcane meta#my post#viktor propaganda
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