#like the character development we’ve seen both poppy and branch (and other characters) go through is so amazing to watch

[unspecifiedfigure]

just saw trolls band together and i’m back in my annual trolls fixation

[dreamsinger-rose]

Reply to @somuchflippinglitter’s commentary of my TWT Branch’s Character Growth Post

(Did anyone notice how often we see Branch in monochrome in TWT, basically Gray Branch again?)

Hi! @somuchflippinglitter I’m actually happy to see such a long, thoughtful post. You make some good points, and there are other points that, if I may, I’d like to explain my reasoning more clearly. BTW this is a verrry long post that I thought would work better as a separate post rather than a reply to a reply.

The original post (scroll through the comments to see the commentary I’m replying to)

https://dreamsinger-rose.tumblr.com/post/616517422712848384/twt-spoilers-branchs-character-growth

Some of Branch’s actions can be seen as out of character, yes. For me, the main one is how much more mature he seems in some ways, such as not acting as sarcastic as in the first movie, but I have assume that he’s had at least a year of being social and developing meaningful relationships with the other trolls, who no longer regard him as the ‘crazy guy who lives in a bunker and still thinks the bergens are out to get us’, because he did turn out to be right. So he has less reason to be sarcastic, and more reason to care what other people think of him.

Yes, Branch was definitely the “love interest” here. But because he was, he was the one person with the influence to make Poppy listen when it really mattered. Also, I guess you could say it was “rubbed in your face”, but then, he literally told her he loved her in the first movie (which could have been friendship-love). I can see two reasons for Dreamworks to emphasize his love-interest status: to clearly tell the audience he’s IN love with Poppy, and to show he’s grown emotionally-open enough to make the choice to confess to her. This also implies time passing and character growth.

I looked up the symptoms of PTSD and he fit all of them, (in the first movie). But his PTSD wasn’t caused by the singing and dancing that attracted Chef to capture his grandma, it was caused by the trauma of her loss and his subsequent guilt and grief. The ‘not wanting to sing or dance’ was a symptom of his PTSD, not the cause itself.

That’s why after Poppy and the others comforted him and didn’t heap blame on him after he confessed how it was his fault his grandma got killed, Branch’s grief, and especially his guilt (and self-blame) lifted, and right afterward we started to see him healing. His symptoms began to subside. That “happy shout” came after his confession, not before. He was able to sing when Poppy needed it, and that broke the no-sing/no-dance block in his mind, and that helped him heal even more.

I personally have been considering Trolls Holiday canon, and TBGO as an alternate universe, since we know both have wormholes and thus it’s canon, ironically, for there to be other versions of Branch. For example Branch’s bed is vastly different in each. TBGO Branch does have the same basic personality as movie/special Branch but somewhat different experiences.

Either way, Branch’s basic personality to me is someone who is guarded and not very trusting and therefore prone to anxiety when things happen that are outside his control, like how he got all stuttery in Holiday “D-did you say wormhole?” The Trolls to Trolls clips in particular gave me a lot to think about, since he acts a lot less confident in some of them compared to his confidence in the first movie. Totally blew my mind that all Poppy had to do to make him cave in (high-pitched voice/submissive body language) was MENTION his bunker, never mind its location.

It’s true that sexiness is in the eye of the beholder, but actually I have some solid scientific/aesthetic reasons for thinking of Branch as sexy. First, Branch’s character has been designed to look masculine: large nose, mouth, hands, feet. Broad face. Bigger teeth, compared to Poppy. Thick hair, which implies virility, something females unconsciously look for in a mate. Also, rather than letting his hair grow random and kind of ragged like the other male trolls, Branch’s hair is always neatly trimmed, which implies good hygiene, which is also something people find attractive. Whether he’s an animated troll or not, he’s been designed to look very male and therefore appealing to those who like guys.

Second, I’ve read articles/studies on body language and dance choreography. The “hip sway/push toward us” in particular is characteristic of someone trying to attract a romantic partner. His open arms are seen as inviting/welcoming, which is appealing. Also, him pointing his toes toward someone, biting his lip, and what looks like direct eye contact are also body language that says “he’s into you”. The eye contact in particular will be seen as attractive because it implies confidence, which is universally considered one of THE most attractive traits for either/all sexes.

So my point is it’s not so much that he’s an animated troll, but that a live human who has similar features (big hands, etc) and uses the same body language and eye contact is going to be seen as attractive by a large number of viewers, who will respond on an unconscious level. The outward appearance – blue-green skin, long ears, is not really what we’re responding to as far as attractiveness goes. Thus, to me, an adult female; Branch is sexy.

So, by ��acting out of character’, did you mean because he was (selfishly) having fun as he danced to the new-to-him Kpop and Reggaetron music? Or do you mean you thought since he left Poppy that meant that he was being selfish and protecting only himself?

You’re right that he cared less about music than other things, although since he was the one who liked Country music and he seemed to understand the Funk troll’s story on a deeper level than Poppy, it was my understanding that he DID care. The reason he seemed out of character is because despite Branch’s love for Poppy, we have to remember his basic, unshakable core characteristic: protection/defense.

In the first movie, he built a bunker to protect himself. He expanded that protection to Poppy and his friends and eventually Bridget, because he came to care about them all. We assume that he’s now friends with much more of the village. (I take his random comment “Ah, what a troll,” when talking about Legsly as support for this.) So now his entire village is under his protection.

He had to make the hard choice to go protect the village when he knew Barb would be heading there (Barb didn’t know Poppy had the string) since Poppy wasn’t doing it. And he couldn’t make her, he could only try to persuade her, which he did. So he was behaving true to himself. He IS loyal to Poppy, but when she essentially abandons her post to go to the Rock trolls’ home, he has to step up and do what he feels is the right thing, no matter how badly he wants to keep Poppy safe. That’s why I think he’ll be a good king, since he put the welfare of his people ahead of his need to stay with Poppy.

Branch didn’t go all untrusting with Hickory because Branch didn’t KNOW Hickory betrayed them. He wasn’t there when the disguise came off.

In your take on Branch and Poppy’s relationship, it’s true that them not having a “good connection” felt a little too convenient after all the relationship-building they’d had over the past year or so. To be fair, if you were writing the movie’s script and you needed some reason for Branch to get motivated to try to confess his feelings for Poppy, what do you think might have been a better scenario?

Me, I liked the high-five because it was symbolic of the progress of the relationship – no contact in the first movie, trying but unable to get a strong connection at the beginning of TWT and a strong connection at the end of TWT. But yeah, not being able to make contact made it sound like their relationship had backtracked instead of progressed, which is out of sync with all the previous progress we’ve seen.

I would have loved to have seen more “vulnerable Branch”. They probably had scenes like that, but had to cut them to keep the movie short enough. It could have been laziness, I suppose. But if there had been more scenes like that, the movie would have been a romance story rather than an adventure, and kids probably wouldn’t have liked it as much. I hope we get to see some cut scenes on the DVD. (Me, I would have liked the movie to be like a half-hour longer and all Broppy scenes, haha).

Thanks for taking the time to give me your beautiful long reply to my post, @somuchflippinglitter You were very respectful :) and I honestly think analyzing a kids’ character is really important since kids learn a lot about the world by what they see on TV. Not so much the fantasy, but the way people relate to one another. Like, Branch could have tried to take Poppy back to the village by force, but he let her make the choice that she thought was right, while he did the same. Each respected the other. And I respect you.  

[valflame]

AYYY it’s Pigeon back at it again with the ooc nonsense. Somehow I managed to get 300+ followers on a blog for a character from a very old famicom game that’s never officially been localised which is just Wild™ to me, but I’ve gotta say it’s been a thrill already. This isn’t my first Fire Emblem character ( yoink, he’s second :T ) but it’s the first time I’ve ever bothered actually engaging with the community a little and I’ve gotta say, I’m super glad I did!! I still haven’t been here that long and I’m still all hearteyes at all of you guys. I’ve been Pokémon-Community-Ride-Or-Die for years but you guys make me so so happy about branching out a little bit; I’ve gotten to meet a lot of really lovely super talented people with incredible ideas and I’m just so glad to have been exposed to so many friendly creative folks.

                                                          Anywho I’m a weenie :T

Onward to the shoutouts!! Even though I love you all, but shoutouts!!

THE GENERAL FAM: @pxgtails​ @binarycolours​ @rebursting​

Ah yes, pops meema and fish. ‘But they’re not even in the Fire Emblem community’, I hear you say. WELL TOO DIDDLYDARN BAD, I reply, THEY’RE STILL THE FAM RIDE OR DIE. The last couple years+ have been a delight with you three, and you get permanent spots in my heart and on any and all infrequent bias lists I’ll ever make because firstly I Love You and secondly I just feel like I’ve benefitted immensely from knowing you. You guys taught me a lot, you’ve been inspirations, I’ve bounced so many ideas and had so many good times off/with you and I’m always jelly-kneed overjoyed over the moon whenever I think about how lucky I am to be able to call you guys my friends. The Best, all of you ought to follow them regardless of fandom. >:,T

HONESTLY THOUGH I REALLY DOUBT I COULD PUT INTO WORDS JUST HOW IMPORTANT YOU THREE ARE TO ME, I honestly consider you three of my best friends, not just in rp but in my life in general. You three are some of the most creative and fun loving and genuinely delightful people I’ve ever met, and after years of knowing you I still can’t get over how beautifully unbelievably thought out pops’ worldbuilding always is, or how incredibly humour filled and never forced meema’s writing is, or just how entertaining and full of life fish’s characters are and I’m Love Forever

JUGDRAL CREW: @nagablooded​ @steelsilk​ @lordofthewindsong​ @sinisteriisms​  @lightbranded​ @thundergoddessoffreege​ @princeoflenster​ @holysight​

AYYYYYY LEMME TELL YOU WHEN I MADE A BLOG FOR A GENEALOGY OF THE HOLY WAR CHARACTER I WASN’T EXPECTING ANY OTHER CHARACTERS ( save for maybe a Seliph or something ) FROM THE SAME GAME MUCH LESS AN ENTIRE SUBSET COMMUNITY, BUT LO AND BEHOLD!! THERE YOU GUYS ARE!! You guys are great, the discord server’s wild and I love you all. There’s a special kind of crew-ship that comes from being a bunch of folks playing characters from a lesser recognised part of a bigger franchise amiright. Anywho it’s always a delight talking to you guys, you do you >BV

M’KNIGHT MIMI/NOÉMI: @holysight​

does mimi getting her own spot even surprise anyone at this point considering she practically runs my hecking blog and about 50% of all my threads on here and a good 90% of all my memes are with/tagged by her smh

MIMI, THE SIGURD TO MY ARVIS, THE PROTAG TO MY ANTAG, THE CONSTANT VOICE NAGGING IN THE BACKGROUND ALWAYS THREATENING TO BEAT ME UP WHENEVER I SHOW UP IN A GROUP CHAT WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY VOWING TO DEFEND ME FROM THE WORLD SOMEHOW. Oh boy where do I even start. You’re hands down the best buddy I’ve made within this community and I always get this awfully huge grin on my face whenever a message notification pops up in my IMs from you, WHICH IS SOMETHING. I definitely didn’t expect to have gotten to like someone so much in such a brief amount of time in a relatively new community and yet HERE WE ARE, your writing’s beautiful, your characterisation is beautiful, your whole dang blog’s beautiful, your bully face is beautiful, you’re beautiful. Mimi For President Of Pigeon’s Blog 2k17

SURPRISE!!: @desbearer​

YOU’RE HERE FOR A VERY SPECIFIC SPECIAL REASON

We’ve never interacted on this blog, we don’t speak super often ooc and we don’t talk on the daily. Why, then, are you on this list? BECAUSE, FUN FACT, WHEN YOU MADE THE TBFLYE GROUP VERSE AND POPS SEIZED ME BY THE ANKLES AND HAD ME ( gladly tbh, it’s always such a thrill ) JUMP IN WITH YURI I SAT THERE THINKING ‘HEY, I OUGHT TO BRING A SECOND CHARACTER INTO THIS FOR A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE BUT IDK, I’D PROBABLY NEED TO MAKE A NEW ONE. WHO’D BE A GOOD CHARACTER TO PLAY THAT’D FIT INTO A MURDERVERSE WELL??’ and BOOM, I wound up making Arvis on a mostly spur of the moment decision thinking it’d be fun to play a villain for once in a murder game setting. The first blogs I interacted with on this blog weren’t even fire emblem blogs, they were from your hecking murderverse, so if it weren’t for you this blog wouldn’t exist at all!! And for that I am immensely grateful

That and also, you know, you’re a phenomenal writer so more people ought to follow you >:T

A COUPLE OF COOL CATS: @murdermage​ @naglfcr

You two!! We haven’t talked all that much out of character beyond tags yet, but you two are super fun to get to rp with!! RP is a wonderful hobby where people get to express themselves by masquerading as characters they like online and working through scenario exercises throwing them at other characters, but every once in a while you find a single poppy in a field of rye that really just seem to take a character and run with them and make them their own while also totally getting a real handle on the character’s personality so that they seem like they’ve got their minds down pat, and I’m lucky enough to have found a pair of poppies. Henry is such an eccentric character that it always seems like it’s easy to just fly off the handle with him, but you play him in a way that does away with none of his eccentricity without tossing out the fact that his time with the Shepherds is starting to help him grow as a person, and I love that!! And every time you respond with Lyon it’s like I’m talking with Lyon; you’ve got what I think is a perfect take on his character, his psyche and all his hesitation and imperfections, and I adore that. You two keep being gr12 BV

YOWSA ON THAT WORLDBUILDING/CHARACTER FOCUS THOUGH: @i-nsubordination @ofimitations

                                                                      OH BOY

Let it be said now that I l o v e worldbuilding. It’s the best thing ever. I live for it. When a person devotes enough of their time to do real research and/or familiarises themselves intimately enough with a work in media to basically be able to recount it and call specific quotes up from it like it’s a piece of referential academia I weep with joy. When they go further than that to go further than canon and build and develop intimate, detailed facts about not only their character but about the environment surrounding their character I basically backflip over the moon. You two?? You’ve got to be a pair of the most devoted to worldbuilding and character study-ing blogs I’ve ever seen, and I live for it. We don’t even have to interact for me to get excited!! I get more alert whenever I see you guys on the dash, because whether it’s a thread or a headcanon post or just general conjecture pointing something out from canon I know I’m in for a stellar time with you two. You’re both a couple of my all time favourite blogs, not just in Fire Emblem but on tumblr in general. You do some truly beautiful work.

GENERAL LOVE:

There are way too many lovely blogs for me to be able to specifically talk about all of them, so I’ll list a bunch of my favourites off the top of my head!! Even then, I’m probably missing a bajillion because I’ve just come across that many wonderful blogs and people here, which is saying something!! From the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for showing any interest in me and for just doing the things that you do. You brighten up every dash you show up on. Onto the list!!

@incoronat @godpick @hikaup @sonxfdoom @quiveringshaft @wyvernbourne @windmxgic @exaltstolen @eirikc @exaltcurse @reginlcif @tacentpennae @youmaggots @invisibleimpossibilities @ikyc @praeceptumx @drakoonica @fellheaven @gentlexbloom @grandschemed @heiwanoryu @honorbourne @kazealous @laceur @zofiavanguard @nesufuratu @noblejourney @pacianse @nobiliis @pitifullypious @thcrcn @timidtaguels @sablya @ncblelineage @naschkattze @southfaire @northfaire @healor @heiwanoryu