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internetgiraffekid1673 · 10 months ago

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I Had Miraculous Ladybug Thoughts, Specifically the Chloe Lila Alliance Situation, and I'm Making It Your Problem! I am So Sorry!

Just. Read the title of this post. I am the most biased person you could have on this topic. You've been warned.

Okay, so. Chloe. If you are in the ML fandom, first off, my condolences, we shall suffer together. Second off, you know that Chloe is incredibly divisive. On the one hand, she's an absolute a**hole to everyone around her at any point in the series that is not season 2 and parts of season 3. On the other hand, it is clear that she has no adults teaching her how to not be an a**hole or regulating her behavior because the only people who have the necessary authority should not have ever been parents.

And then you have that whole thing in season 2 where they started to explain her awfulness and gave her the bee miraculous and she started getting better and developing a support structure, and then she stopped being allowed to have the bee miraculous and dove headfirst off the deep end. This frustrates pretty much the entire fandom. On the Chloe hate side, you wonder why they were wasting time with this. On the Chloe love side, you just got baited, and you're annoyed as heck, and you also are wondering why they wasted your time with this.

But fine, okay, it's dumb, but whatever, the fanfiction can work with this. What the fanfiction has a MUCH harder time working with is Chloe and Lila forming an unholy alliance over their mutual hatred of Marinette and Ladybug. Because the problem here is, it's redundant, it doesn't make sense, and makes Lila even more of a Mary Sue.

Tangent warning: YEAH I SAID IT! I think Lila is a Mary Sue. You don't have to think that. My definition of a Mary Sue is "a character that warps the fabric of the story around them without it making any sense because the author likes/hates/pities/has other strong emotion about this character/ too much to care about a coherent narrative." Not everybody defines a Mary Sue this way, but by this definition, Lila is a Mary Sue. Everyone immediately loses their brain cells around her despite being compassionate and sometimes intelligent individuals who will kill for Marinette in most other scenarios. Nonsensical story warping just because the author said so. Tangent aside:

What this alliance does is it gives you two manipulative lying b*tches who willingly get akumatized to further their petty schemes and are out to destroy Marinette and Ladybug and are weirdly possessive of but don't actually seem to care for Adrien. There's really no point in having two. They occupy the same narrative niche and it is awkward and stupid and I DO NOT LIKE IT. Neither does most of the fandom it seems, because this alliance rarely appears in fanfiction.

There are a couple default solutions in fanfiction:

1. Redeem Chloe. I like this solution. I like Chloe, I think she's entertaining, and I think her interactions with other characters as a good guy are especially entertaining, I think she brings a lot of valuable skills and perspective to the cast as a good guy, I think she has a lot of reasons for being an a**hole that should be properly addressed, and I think the reasons her redemptipn arc got aborted were stupid. Most fanfiction goes the route of having redeemed Chloe viscerally hate Lila too, because Chloe goes after enemies with passion and her whole heart. This is a clean solution, but not great if you don't like Chloe all that much or are trying to make it canon compliant (best of luck to you, canon is all over the place).

2. Only focus on one as a villain and yeet the other out of the story. If Chloe is the villain, set the story during the time that Lila was off being Cerise or wandering around Paris or whatever, or before she showed up. If Lila is the villain, give Chloe an unrelated reason to decide she's not dealing with that today, thank you very much. Usually used in salt fics to dunk on whichever character grinds your gears more without unwanted interruptions. I like salt fics, and this is also a good clean solution. Having both of them is redundant, so just remove one. For Lila, it makes sense because she's a Mary Sue and writing her is annoying, so pretending she never existed is a great fix to that. For Chloe, it makes sense because "lying manipulative ladybug hating b*tch" only really starts being her archetype after the writers screwed up her character with a million inconsistincies. Before that, she was more of a "comically loud, bossy, really obssessive fangirl b*tch," so Lila just works better for certain plots. Downside is that you can't focus on Chloe-Lila interactions, and you sometimes have to do a bit of finagling to figure out how to remove them from a situation they would ordinarily be VERY invested in.

3. Make them hate each other. This is one of my favorite solutions because I have a weakness for villain rivalries that are equal parts comedic and dramatic, but bias aside, this absolutely works. They both want Adrien's sole, undivided attention, and, prior to aforementioned screwing over of Chloe's character, Chloe is the world's biggest Ladybug stan, and Lila is her number 1 hater. They also both have a weird power over the adults in the story that two 14 year old girls really shouldn't have. All these factors make it very easy to guess they would clash. Watch as they try to destroy each other! This plays into the "they both suck, but it's different flavors of suck," and makes those flavors mix BADLY together. The one downside is that it is hard to not make this the central focus of the story, because both of them are so over the top that they're absolutely going to drown out most other going ons, and this is technically supposed to be about Marinette and Adrien. It also erases some of the storylines you can get from an actually thought out alliance.

4. Redeem Lila. I have only seen this in one place, but it is a prominent place and that's more places than my suggestion on this whole ordeal. The prominent place being the Scarlet Lady AU by the very talented and lovely ZoeOneesame. Her take on it was basically:

"Chloe in this AU has the ladybug miraculous, and Chloe sucks at her job, so Lila's ladybug hatred is justified. Marinette is in love with Chat and isn't involved in the ladybug drama, so Lila has no reason to hate her. Adrien is both much smarter and much more active in this AU, so he wouldn't deal with Lila in the same hands-off way. Everybody else is also smarter in this AU and would probably know Lila was lying and also not care because they are forgiving and compassionate. So Lila's lies would most likely get called out, she would have the freedom and desire to figure out who she is beneath the lies, and she would have a justified hatred of Scarlet Lady matched by other characters in the AU, and would probably band together with them."

And thus, no filter, vindictive good guy Lila was born! Again, I have only seen this in Scarlet Lady, but it is amazing over there, so I had to talk about it. Redeeming Lila is an unconventional choice for sure, but I think if you arrange for circumstances where Lila would rather ally with the heroes than the villains, then you can get a lot of mileage out of her people-reading/manipulation skills helping out the heroes while possibly scaring the crap out of them at the same time. This has basically all the same downsides as the Chloe redemption though. It's not fun to do if you're here for Lila salt, and it's ABSOLUTELY not canon compliant.

Now. You may have noticed that nobody who writes fanfiction for this show does the canon Chloe-Lila alliance. This is for a myriad of aforementioned reasons: it's redundant, it continues the confusion of Chloe's character arc, and Lila is a Mary Sue, so anything that involves her tends to be frustrating. But, I think there is a way to make it work, so I'm writing about it.

First of all, don't do what canon did where 6 just have Lila teach Chloe how to lie. Take full advantage of the fact that they are two very different types of a**hole. They can ally for the same reasons: they both are super possesive of Adrien and are raging about him getting together with Marinette. And while I don't like the arc of Marinette being a trash and controlling guardian who shows inordinate favoritism to Alya and Zoe and literally nobody else because she's gay for them, you can still do that and have them both hate Ladybug too. I don't like that plot beat, mostly because it's never really addressed that Marinette is in fact a bad guardian outside of some light sulking from Chat, but it can work. She's a 14 year old girl in way over her head with no adults left to help (except the kwamis, but they don't really count because they are very unhelpful). It makes sense that she wouldn't do a good job at first. But whatever their reasons for teaming up, lean into the fact that Lila is a two-faced secretively awful person while Chloe is an in-your-face publicly awful person. From there, it depends on the tone you're going for.

Chloe is a great villain for humor because she's so loud and dramatic. She can get away with saying and doing really insane and rude stuff on the grounds that she's insane and rude (and also rich and powerful). People don't have any expectations for Chloe to be nice or rational, so she can do stuff like try and write a Queen Banana character into the class film and be met with annoyance and frustration rather than outrage and shock. So if you're going a lighthearted route, let Chloe be the one who does all the public legwork for their schemes, and let her be absolutely over the top about it.

On the other hand, Chloe can also be threatening in a far more tangible way than Lila. Lila can make people think you're a bit of a jerk, but it takes a lot of work for her to come close to getting Marinette expelled, even with all her Mary Sueness to help. Chloe can just look at the principal and say "My dad will fire you and remove all school funding if you don't expel her." Chloe won't make people dislike Marinette because nobody likes her, but she can physically hurt Marinette in ways that Lila can't. So if you're going for drama, you can lean into that. Chloe is in a completely different social class than everyone else and has actual power.

Either way, let Chloe be a complete drama queen who is publicly out to get Marinette, because there isn't anything anyone can do about it.

Meanwhile, let Lila work in the background. Lila has never been a comedic villain, only getting introduced after the show had taken a turn for the more dramatic, so don't bother. Leave that to Chloe's antics. Let Lila be the actual threat who is driving their plans. A lot of the reason Chloe was manageable while Lila never was is because Chloe's rage tends to be directionless and impulsive. She has a short temper that can easily be triggered, but also easily soothed, and she doesn't have any thought out plans or long form schemes. She just does whatever she thinks will make her happy in the moment. Have Lila be the one who convinces her to think in the long-term, and who comes up with an overarching plot to get rid of Marinette, adding a sense of real tension to the situation. Sure, before Chloe could have you expelled on a whim, but she also would have stopped bothering the second Adrien paid attention to her. Lila will help Chloe drop that boundary.

Lila also has the advantage of people actually liking her and being willing to do things for her without threatening or bribing them. Lila can do things like make it so Marinette doesn't have any of her friends around to help in an emergency. She can make it so people believe Chloe might actually be justified in her crusade against Marinette this time. She can plant seeds of doubt and distrust and she can socially isolate Marinette in ways Chloe can't. Make people love and believe in her instead, slowly destroy Marinette's support system, and so on. It not only is really dramatic and upsetting, it basically leaves Mari with just Adrien and Chat to rely on, which is FANTASTIC ship fuel if that's your jam. This can also let you have some other prominent characters come to the fore. Have some Kagami focus. Have some Luka focus. Bring in Socqueline and Felix and see how that changes things.

Point is, between these two, you could have a genuine, non-redundant threat that you can get emotional mileage out of. Lila is on one side turning all of Mari's friends against her and scheming to destroy her in the long term. Chloe is on the other side threatening Marinette's lifestyle---her bakery, her school, her fashion career, her public image, her existence in Paris---anything that can be damaged by the Mayor and the Style Queen is under attack. And then you have Hawkmoth on the other end, throwing akumas in her face and forcing her to make impossible choices. I would imagine Lila also gets akumatized on purpose whenever she needs a little extra help, while Chloe just gets egged on and pushed off the deep end by Lila whenever Lila thinks it'd be advantageous. So that trifecta is super genuinely threatening. But you can also have Chloe being a really stupid drama queen whose fits of rage can still be silly and poorly thought out, even with Lila helping her. And you can have some really heartwarming stuff as the people left in Marinette's support system band together and become even closer to get rid of these two once and for all. I just think this plot beat has a lot of untapped potential if the writers didn't make then fulfill the same narrative role, and I haven't really seen it explored yet.

Feel free to use this idea in fanfic, tell me that it sucks and would be bad, or ignore me, I mostly just needed to write this down!

If the mood strikes me or multiple people express interest (yeah right), I will make a (probably much shorter) post explaining how you can redeem both of them effectively and also why I think that would be bad in most circumstances.

Congratulations if you read this whole rant, now please go to sleep. Please. So much please.

#This got really long #the opposite of no regrets #all the regrets for making you read my unhinged ML thoughts #i think about this show too much for it to be healthy #miraculous ladybug #miraculous ladybug rant #miraculous ladybug fanfic ideas #miraculous ladybug rewrite ideas #chloe bourgeois #chloe bourgeois redemption arc #chloe bourgeois villain arc #lila rossi #lila rossi as a better villain #lila rossi is a mary sue #fight me #seriously #I want to hear other people's thoughts and why you would think she isn't a mary sue #lila rossi redemption arc #how to make marinette dupain cheng's life hell #a beginner's guide #chloe lila alliance #chloe lila team up #oh gosh I didn't even talk about Sabrina #that's a whole other thing #idk how to tag stuff #ignore me and go to sleep #the fans write miraculous better every single time #giraffe's ramblings

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calkale · 2 years ago

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Okay dead reckoning spoilers ahead ill put a cut just in case also if you like the movie maybe don’t read either 👀😬 but if you do please read the whole thing or at least the last paragraph because that in my opinion is the most important thing i have to say

Before i say anything i know im in the wrong here, i have a really personal issue with the movie that i dont feel comfortable sharing but its one of the names used A LOT in the movie, so that definitely plays a part in my opinion whether i like it or not. That being said, usually i can ignore stuff like that, ive done it with other movies but there was nothing else to grasp my attention so i got stuck on things like that.

Also wanna say this first because i feel like it explains why i hate a lot of the things i do. I could really be reaching here but i think they’re trying to set up hayley as the new face of these movies and dead reckoning part 2 is gonna be the end for tom. She was the main character, Ethan was not. She was a part of 2 stunts out of the 3 big ones in the movie and Toms solo stunt (the cliff jump) was maybe a minute of the movie and correct me if im wrong but thats never happened before, Toms always had a big stunt thats just him that takes up a good, MEMORABLE, chunk of the movie, and that just wasnt in this.

I didn’t like it at all. Up until the airport i loved the movie, i really liked the way it was shot, i liked the mi1 callbacks, i really liked ethan and ilsa and everything was good, i could ignore the AI plot (which i knew i wasnt gonna like going into it i hate AI villains) and just watch the movie but after the airport i started to not like the movie anymore. During the fiat car chase i realized i was gonna really not gonna like the movie. That was one of the three big stunts of the movie and i hated it, it just felt really rushed and there were so many characters who i didnt know and didnt know why they were there, WHICH IS OKAY i love not knowing things thats part of my brand im all about that but it just did not work here, sometimes not knowing anything about character works and other times it doesnt.

I dont remember a lot from the middle chunk of the movie, i wasnt enjoying it but trust me i was trying. Not even benji and luther made the movie enjoyable and to top it all off ilsa died and im getting mad again but that was one of the worst deaths i think ive seen. If shes not actually dead then thank god but also im sorry mcq but awful writing unless something got cut because she was free? She was dead? There was no bounty on her head anymore, that was why she “died” at the start of the movie and correct me if im wrong but she really didnt need to be in Venice with her face showing either. It really feels like she just died so hayley could be in the spotlight with ethan and there were too many characters so they had to get rid of her along with benji and luther who arent dead but may as well be with their 10 minutes of screen time.

But all of this i can look past, i dont like the plot? whatever, thats not why i, personally, watch mission impossible movies, i watch for the stunts, i wanna see tom cruise do some crazy shit but i didnt even get that. Im really mad about the lack of stunts in this movie i feel insane idk if anyone else is complaining about this but i didnt like a single one of them. Im so let down and i hate that im so upset over something like this but i am. Thats the promise thats being made when you go see these movies and in my opinion they didn’t deliver. All the fighting was really good i loved the fight in that tight alleyway with ethan and paris but i hated the car chase, the cliff jump could’ve been better? i dont even know what to say about that one tbh, and the train, ohhhhhh the train, i dont even wanna talk about the train, i was trying so hard to like it i wanted it to redeem the whole movie for me but it just didnt, i feel so bad but it didnt and im so disappointed.

#if anyone wants me to go into more detail i can try #im really tired so im gonna sleep and try and go for a run in the morning to clear my head too and maybe come bsck to some things #but this is how i feel #mi7 spoilers #sorry everyone #im also mad that i think this but what am i gonna do #not to bring john wick 4 into this but this movie feels like a joke after seeing that #i know theyre so different and i dont like comparing movies but they got it right and this kovie just did not #sorry mcq no makeout session 😔

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sokkastyles · 2 years ago

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On some level, I can understand where Azula stans are coming from, and I mainly blame the recent shows and movies that have been released. For a long time villains have just been evil with no remorse as presented in media, but recently we have seen movies that are like "hey actually this guy isn't that bad and they are a prodict of their surroundings and its not their fault they are evil" like the movie malefecent or alice into the looking glass. Not to mention, redemption arcs are super popular like Loki, kylo Ren, catra, and the diamonds from Steven Universe. I specifically named these character because i feel like they have done so much bad that it will take a lot more than just a sorry and a tragic backstory to make up for all the bad they did. Maybe Loki is okay, but he did some really terrible things, and i am on the fence about him. Not to mention the joker sympathy that has been rampant for a while because of the movie blaming society, and that is someone completely irredeemable except for the Harley Quinn show, apparently, but that is a comedy.

What im trying to say though is that there doesnt seem to be just straight up villains now and consatnt blaming of outside forces for a the bad villains do saying it's not there fault because they only blew up a children's hospital because they were hurting, not to mention medias constant depiction of toxic relationships and friendships that keep getting talked about like they are completely normal. I know some Azula stans are just kike that but some i fell are misinformed and seem to surround themselves with so many like minded individuals that they truly believe what they think is true and are hard pressed to change their opinion. (Also, pretty privilege exists)

Well, redemption arcs and villains with complex stories are hardly new. I haven't seen the most recent MCU stuff but has Loki been redeemed? In the comics, and in Norse mythology, he has always been something of an antihero, a character who would be good or bad depending on the occasion. I grew up on comic books and those kinds of characters frequently occur there. Magneto is another example of a character who would sometimes side with the good guys but also inevitably go back to being a villain. They're complicated characters with sympathetic pasts, but their pasts don't excuse their actions. And there's an important distinction there that I think is lost on a lot of people. Another example that comes to mind is Billy from Stranger Things, who I often see idolized on tumblr as if he had become a hero by the end of the story, or should have, just because he had a sad background and then sacrificed himself for the heroes. His death, and life, were tragic, and we understand by the end why he was the way he was, but he was still an awful, unpleasant person, and the show never suggests that we should see him as good now, nor should it.

A lot of the examples you mention with female villains I blame on the rise of liberal "girlboss" feminism. That goes with what you say about pretty privilege. Pop culture "feminism" wants to convince you that being pretty is empowering, the weaponized femininity thing, eyeliner so sharp you can kill a man, etc. When in reality, we're still catering to patriarchal ideas of desirability. And what's especially insidious about this kind of feminism is that it's often other women or other marginalized groups who are the targets of it. Pop culture puts this stuff out to pander to women by presenting a "feminist" ideal that is still non-threatening to the status quo. The idea that Azula or Harley Quinn, who in her first appearance in BTAS was a character who became a villain due to being manipulated and abused by a man, are empowering female characters is bananas. That's not to say they are bad female characters, and Harley is another comic book character who has always been likeable for her propensity to gleefully straddle the line between hero and villain, but I despise the girlbossification of these kinds of characters the same way I despise people making them into poor widdle innocent victims.

The heroization of the joker comes from red pill weirdos primarily, and those have also existed for a long time. See Fight Club for another example, but anyone with a brain knows that Tyler Durden is the bad guy, and that the stuff he's spewing about being woke and masculine is all just nonsense in the end. So I don't necessarily buy that it's all media's fault that people don't understand the point of these characters.

And there are absolutely still just "straight up villains." The obvious answer just by looking at ATLA is Ozai, but even then, the show still does a lot to tell us why he is the way he is, and implies he was once a victim of his family not unlike Zuko or Azula. People often ignore that, especially Azula stans who make such a distinction between Ozai and Azula in order to prove that Azula deserves redemption. I'm not saying that Azula and Ozai are the same in terms of how much sympathy the narrative gives them, by the way, just that I think it's odd that one is seen as so much more redeemable than the other, when their backstories are so similar. Ozai often gets labeled as one dimensional not because he is less complex than Azula, but because people don't want to see him redeemed and are uncomfortable with the idea, so they want to see him as less complex and more villainous. Which to me misses the point of the fire family dynamic and how the cycle of violence was perpetuated in that family.

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arcplaysgames · 2 years ago

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i'm finally up to the hawaii trip and i gotta ask: when Ryuuji's going on about the locals talking about the phantom thieves, does he put a little. i hate that i'm speaking mcelroyese here but does he put a little stank on it to make it clear that he's making fun of how they pronounce it

there is a thing in my next letter to you about how i suspect Mishima is a racist, but i think Ryuuji might be one too, from how he talks about the locals and An. like, neither of them are a level of racist that's socially unacceptable in japan, they're just a level of racist that pisses me off because i have to smile placidly and Be Tolerant at people who say this stuff ALL THE TIME

also, i KNOW i'm projecting but i am SUPER irritated that everyone who was a jerk to An is sucking up to her now that they need her english skills!

(You sent this to my side blog so I hope it's okay to publish, if not lemme know and I'll nuke. I'm gonna make it non-rebloggable just in case anyway.)

sup bro, sorry you reached the worst part of the game. Hawaii, esp if you don't have a romance locked, is horrendous. utterly miserable.

listen, sometimes we gotta use the McElroy-ese because its useful vernacular.

Flipping through my screencaps (which I have still not deleted for some fucking reason) of that awful sequence, I feel like Ryuji was at his most disrespectful and shitty. But some of that probably got lost in translation due to how the localization team had to bend so far to, like.... delineate between Japanese Characters Speaking "Japanese" and Americans Speaking English. It's hilarious, the two women who Ryuji fails to get it off with are speaking in THICK psuedo-Texan accents to make SURE the player understands.

So for me, I didn't get the racist vibes but I don't think I would have picked out vibes since Ryuji and Mishima treat literally everyone so fucking reprehensibly that.... pal, I wouldn't have fucking noticed unless they dropped a slur. They treat everyone like garbage or like someone they might potentially fuck. That's it.

That all said, Ryuji is so happy to thoughtlessly dehumanize people around him and sulks when he's called out about it, so I wouldn't be surprised. It's frankly kind of stunning how he just.... has no redeeming qualities that stand out against all his copious fucking flaws.

For Mishima, MAN. MAAAAAAN. When I think about the scenes in his SLink and that really fucking weird one with Futaba in her SLink, I don't even fucking KNOW. Am eager to see what you pull out of this shit because it's Yikes with and without cultural context imo. I heard he's vaguely based on a right wing weirdo but idk. I find it interesting that the game never seems to outright say Mishima is a good person and often gives the player chances to call him out.

The weirdness around Ann is a constant though, yeah. She herself is such a fucking ray of light, it's always.... interesting how everyone around her (except the player character) treats her like an aberrant of some kind. Given the treatise of the game, I assume part of the point is to show the difficulties of Ann's position and the attitudes towards her and the exoticization? But since they don't.... ultimately do anything about it (and circle backward with the whole Nude Painting arc) and her SLink doesn't say anything about it.... it's just another missed shot, imo.

Honestly, if you can hang on 'til the Royal bonus semester, the only Actually Great writing of the game is there. That's the only place.

#karmotrines #p5 #cw negative #persona liveblog #lmao this post is like Full Negativity Mode #fuck Hawaii its the worst fucking sequence in the game

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starkstruck27 · 2 years ago

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do you go out of your way to like shitty characters?

No, but I DO go out of my way to clarify why I like them. It's because

NEWSFLASH!!

They're F I C T I O N A L!!

I assume this ask was meant to call me out for liking Billy Hargrove, mostly, though you did say characters plural, so maybe there's more. But I'll tell you the real reason I like them: I identify with them. They aren't perfect, but neither am I, and I'd rather see the flaws in them and think that if given time and opportunity they could change those harmful things instead of thinking that that's what makes them unlovable. If we're talking specifically with Billy (like I assume we are) I see myself in him because I too grew up in a household where violence and pressure to be perfect all the time loomed over me pretty much 24/7. I know where all his anger and emotional instability comes from because I've felt it, too, and I also know how it feels to have my views on the world and its people influenced by the person who controls my entire life. For example, my mother is a Christian woman, so I grew up Christian, and even now, if I say I like something like the band Ghost (who often poke at religion and tend to lean towards more satanic views on the surface) she'll think I'm a Satanist and start to worry about me. So as a result, by now I just go along with whatever she says so that I avoid the argument that will inevitably come if I try and say any different. It's the same kind of thing with Billy, he knows how his father feels, and he knows he'll be in trouble if he or Max go outside of that box he's put them in, so he does his best to keep her away from Lucas because he wants to avoid all that. And yes, I KNOW that Billy was supposed to be a lot worse in canon with the racism. But a lot of the characters were supposed to be a lot worse, and it was the actors that had to put a stop to that. And most of the characters got chances to redeem themselves, whereas Billy did not. Another thing about him is the fact that what most people don't realize is that Billy would've gone after any of the boys if he'd caught them with Max, it just so happened to be Lucas that he saw with her the most. This is proved by the car scene where he's trying to scare Max. But here's the thing: I have a little sister too, and if I thought that something was up between her and a group of boys that seem to be stalking her that she JUST MET, I would want to scare her away from them, too, and vice versa. And if I found my sister in a house alone with said boys, as well as one that was much older than her and they lied to my face about it, I'd be pretty freaking mad and worried, too. Especially if my father had slapped me around for not knowing where she was an hour earlier and told me to go find her or it would be MY ass on the chopping block.

I say all of that to say that while you think some characters are awful for the things they feel or the lives they lead, some of us love them all the more for it, because we have been through exactly what they have and we know what it's like to feel that way or be in that situation. Maybe we didn't react the same, but it shows that our feelings are valid and that we're not monsters for feeling them. It makes us feel more human.

Anyway, to get back on track, not only does it not matter who and what I like, but it doesn't really affect you in the slightest. You and I are most likely never going to meet outside in the real world. Or maybe we will, or we have, and we just didn't know it. But no matter what the circumstances, the fact remains that we are most likely never going to talk outside of this, and even if we do, how likely is it that on a random chance meeting we get to talking about our favorite fictional characters? It's slim to none.

Not to mention the only place that your opinion on these characters matters is on YOUR blog, not mine. If you don't like my blog, that's okay! You don't have to follow me, and you can even block me if you want. But I came to Tumblr because I wanted a safe, positive environment to rant about my life, my interests and see other people's work that are also interested in the things I like. I didn't come here to cater to other people's likes and interests, only my own.

For example, I don't like reading fics with A/B/O dynamics, but if I stumble across one on here or Ao3, I'm not gonna go out of my way to make someone feel bad about writing it. They're probably very proud of their work, and because of that they wanted to share it with people that are interested, so it's not my place to say they can't do that or put them down for it. It takes so much more effort for me to make someone else feel bad and maybe even start hating the thing they made that they're proud of than it does for me to just say "oh, that's not my thing, whatever" and scroll past it.

So, I know this was long and you probably didn't read it all. Hell, you probably only sent this ask to me to get some kind of reaction and it kinda pains me to be giving it to you. But you need to understand what I'm saying. We don't have to agree on characters, because at the end of the day, I like what I like and you like what you like. That doesn't make either of us bad people, it just makes us different. But what DOES make you a bad person is that you came after me with the intention of being hurtful. Seeing an ask like this won't hurt me though, because I won't let it. I just hope that the next time you go to put an ask like this in someone's inbox, you think about it a little bit more. Tumblr is a wonderful place with wonderful people. Do we really want to muck that up by only focusing on the problems we make up to start shit for no reason? For me, the answer is no.

I hope you read all of this, and I hope you think about it long and hard, as well as about the type of person you want to be both on the internet and in real life. Either way, just remember that your ask didn't offend me, I'm just trying to teach you something with this answer.

Have a nice day.

#billy hargrove #asks #dont be dickheads people #were not all going to agree on everything all the time #dont let that turn you into a mean person #please everyone just be nice to each other

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droughtofapathy · 7 months ago

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"People Get Hurt" please and thank you

6: What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?

11: What do you like best about this fic?

15: What did you learn from writing this fic?

6: What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?

This was the first story that came directly from another person's concept. @voltives came into my inbox with the most brilliant idea I've ever heard after they commented on one of my other Gilded Age works. See, this is what may happen if you leave comments on your favorite author's niche fanfiction. They might be so overwhelmed with glee that they'll write you exactly the story you want.

But anyway, having this be the idea of someone else was exciting. It was as if voltives just injected 100 ml of pure adrenaline and inspiration into my veins. From one single message of maybe 250ish words I was able to see the entire story from start to finish. I had the dialogue, the logistics, the setting, everything worked out in a single instant. It was one of the most enjoyable writing experiences because I got to do it for someone.

11: What do you like best about this fic?

Lina Astor getting railed six ways to Sunday. Next question.

No, okay, but actually. I just loved getting into the psychosexual dynamics. I eschewed any real "plot" so I didn't have to deal with justifying why these repressed 19th century old women were having marathon lesbian sex, and just went for it. It's self-indulgent in all the best ways. And okay, yes it's almost 30k of relentless smut, but it's also an extensive tri-character study. Getting into the mind of Armstrong and all her obsessive devotion? Like catnip, truly.

15: What did you learn from writing this fic?

Jumping off the above paragraph, I got to learn ways to write unlikable characters that kept the core negative tendencies and unfavorable traits while still making them compelling and almost sympathetic, in a way. Armstrong is such a bitch. Not even in an evil way, because she's really just a cantankerous old woman with period-typical racism and prejudice (and look, this show goes light on the racism of the "good" characters to juxtapose against the "bad" ones), but just in a really unlikable way. And yet, I am drawn to her. She's awful, she's nasty, she's a mean-spirited old harridan and I want to see her get what's coming to her. And I am deeply in love with her. I'd written her several times before, but either in a redeeming light (a la Armstrong in the modern au where she comes around) or just in a smutty unjustified context ("Not Much Reason to Rejoice"), but this was the first time I got to really delve into her inner workings. The meticulous aspects of her character made it a fascinating exploration and I really enjoyed teasing out the psychological motivations.

#always a delight to talk about one of my favorite works so thank you anon #look i made a hat

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fakesorbet · 3 years ago

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okay wait actually ur?? so right?? genuinely curious abt your take on pastry ive always seen her has a very very extreme case of religious trauma [not that that excuses some of the things she does] but also i am looking??? /gen

OHHH I have so many thoughts on pastry cookie and how the fandom sees her and pomegranate

i think we all r aware of pastrys backstory , basically faithful to the order until she faces the tower where she is shown the truth then traumatized .

that backstory is similars to pomegranates !

pommy , like pastry , was faithful to her village and devoted to the tree . i know ovenbreak and crk lore aren’t exact , but pom’s candy lore states

and in addition she was the high priestess , she had a destiny to lead her people and follow the sacred tree

so , my point is pom was / is manipulated by dark enchantress . there is no doubt in that and if u can’t understand that you lack comprehension skills . someone doesn’t immediately go from being a devoted leader to burning their village down .

pommy is also religiously traumatized, to believe in one religion so faithfully u were destined to lead it then learn the awful truth . [ huh wonder who else had that happen to them ]

however , de doesn’t do this to show pom the truth , it’s to manipulate her to joining the cookies of darkness.

Pomegranate shows Pastry the truth to actually show her the falsehood of her religion, something she understands and had to witness. That’s why I say Pomegranate and Pastry have similar backstories , Both are faithful to their religion until they are shown the truth. However, the difference comes from their behavior, which I think isn’t treated fairly by the fandom.

Pastry and Pomegranate are still both being lied to. Both are still under false pretenses and believe in their authority, the Only reason why pastry is seen as more redeemable than pom is because she does show more remorse [ barely ] , and because of her interaction with red velvet.

It’s so annoying [ to me ] how the fandom clings onto the one scene where pastry shows slight hesitation to shooting redvel . Had Pom not stepped in and shown Pastry the truth, pastry would have most likely finished her mission , returned [ maybe regretfully ] back to the order and moved on. While it does show Pastry has more of a chance of escaping the church , whose to say she won’t be like pomegranate and become devoted to dark enchantress ?

In addition, the fandom woobyfies pastry and redvel . like some of u guys cling to ships because of 1 moment [ which is fine , but sometimes it becomes just hypocrisy when u judge other ships / characters ] people make pastry to be this poor victim who doesn’t know the consequences of her actions , when while slightly true , she still is complacent . it’s trauma , she’s being lied to , and the same can be applied to pomegranate. But the fandom treats pom differently because she doesn’t hesitate in her actions , and she isn’t shippable with men .

like i get if u don’t like pom , she is irredeemable and does fucked up things but I think weird y’all completely ignore ones trauma and solely call her derogatory terms like ??? yes trauma doesn’t excuse actions , but you’ll ignore poms and then call dark choco a giant soft boy even tho he was willing to kill kids [ gen ]

also the fact that affogato has no redeemable quality and is selfish , but it’s okay and even ‘ fun ‘ because hes hot gnc man . the same could b said with licorice he has no moments of hesitation and was willing to poison the entire hollyberry princess contest , but because he isn’t a threat it doesn’t matter that he too is morally grey that learns toward black . And same for other characters with trauma , their actions r excused because of slight moments of what they could be but they still always end back on the villain side .

ANYWAYZ THIS IS SO LONG !!! sorry i have so much i can say and idek if this makes any sense / answered ur question . basically pommy and pastry have similar back story but because pastry gets woobified [ idk how to spell it ] , and is shippable , people forget it was pom who saved redvel .

#THIS IS SO LONG #writing a whole essay to defend pommy #cookie run #pomegranate cookie #pastry cookie #again idc if you like or hate pom i just think some of u just lack comprehension skill #/nm #pastry and pomegranate are both spectrums of religious trauma #that’s it that’s the post

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tibby · 4 years ago

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tibby thoughts on pll, the liars plus allison

listen. the show itself is NOT good. it has never been good. even when i was 14 watching it and had a head full of gossip girl and glee brainrot, i knew pll was a bad show. you could say it aged terribly - which it has - but it was also kind of out of date at the time. it's messy, it makes no sense, it has terrible morals even for a teen drama...and yet. AND YET. i find myself returning to the first three seasons every year. i will never watch past that and i never have, all my information from post-s3 is by what i've read...and yet, once again, here i am. about to start s2. i don't even like this show but goddamn they put something in it that keeps me returning again and again. it's a curse.

anyway. let's talk about the girls:

spencer hastings: the LOVE of my LIFE. troian really was too talented for this show and you can see it in virtually every spencer scene, she's just so good no matter how dumb the plot is. spencer is by far the most complex and layered of the liars, even if they very rarely handled her problems well. she's smart and brave and funny and kind of insane but she is my dearly beloved and she is probably the reason i keep coming back. fucked that the show never addressed the amount of adults who preyed on her outside of blaming spencer for it to create conflict with melissa, but also pll is just, infamously bad when it comes to this shit. also i don't CARE, s1-s3 spoby are GOD TIER hets. he was her safe place to land!!!

hanna marin: i feel like sometimes they dumbed hanna down too much or focused on her being comedy relief even when it wasn't appropriate but ashley benson's strength is comedic acting so i guess i can't really blame them. regardless, love love LOVE hanna, easily my second favourite liar after spencer. they handled her ed relatively well for pll standards, but i do think the show relied too heavily on fatphobia, even away from alison. also hanna and mona's relationship is hands down the most interesting one in the show...like, i'm a mona apologist, so maybe i'm biased, but the kind of Intense Friendship they had for a year and how much mona's betrayal fucked with hanna but also how she knew mona could be better and constantly tried to prove it to the others...makes me insane. vandermarin 4 ever. haleb is cute too.

aria montgomery: as a strong believer in the #AriaIsA theory i am constantly disappointed they never embraced the full extent of insane aria because she was always at her most fun there. which might be my lucy hale in fantasy island stan card talking but it's TRUE. let more women be unhinged!!! also fuck ezra fuck ezria fuck marlene king for trying to make that shit romantic when aria should have murdered that fucking predator.

emily fields: just....boring. i wish i could like her because i know she was an important lesbian character for the time but god. she's just so dull. shay mitchell's lack of acting skills do not help. i liked emaya, i guess? mainly i just am so disinterested in emily sorry.

alison dilaurentis: THEY SHOULD HAVE KEPT HER A VILLAIN!!! like okay yes i didn't watch past s3 but everything i saw of ali after they decided to redeem her was SO boring and they made her so dull, i guess because it was the only way they could justify emison or whatever. ali was not just a mean girl in flashbacks she was manipulative and controlling and derived joy from hurting others. she blinded jenna and made toby take the fall even after finding out that he was a victim of SA at jenna's hands. she was so horrible to mona that mona quite literally lost her mind. harassed lucas and paige endlessly. and that's not even touching on how she treated the other girls...like the entire thing pre ali being revealed as alive is the four liars realising how awful she was for them and trying to move on from that, especially with the fact ali was "dead" and they'd never get closure weighing them down. like ali was TERRIBLE but that's what made her FUN and INTERESTING and sasha killed it despite being so young so WHY!!!! WHY!!!! TRY AND MAKE HER OUT TO BE A GOOD PERSON AND CHANGE EVERYTHING THAT WAS INTERESTING ABOUT HER!!! MARLENE KING YOU SHOULD NEVER BE ALLOWED TO WRITE AGAIN!!!!

#ask #anonymous

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supercantaloupe · 4 years ago

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on Aelwyn Abernant, the Reformed Villain Squad, and redeeming teenage antagonists

an analysis on antagonist character development in Fantasy High. spoilers through sophomore year and (mildly so) the most recent roll20 oneshot. essay under the cut bc i am very long winded

the turnaround with Aelwyn in s2 is handled so well i cant get over it. she was such a major antagonist in the first season and just. despicable. she had no pathos. we hated this bitchy older sister who tried to kill Adaine and her friends and raise an evil dragon, and when she gets knocked on her ass and thrown in jail, we cheer.

and then s2 fucking starts saying “hey she’s in jail still if you’d like to look into that” and pursuing that thread ends up being almost as comedic an idea as it is a reluctant one; it’s also quickly shunted to the background as soon as more pressing leads present themselves, to the point where we almost forget about her until Adaine is kidnapped and then the first time you see her it’s just. viscerally upsetting.

she’s bad. she did evil. she got what she deserved.

but she already got what she deserved. last season.

she got her ass handed to her by a bunch of 14 year olds including her little sister (how embarrassing!). her plans were thwarted. she got punched in the face and made fun of. she already got her punishment.

it just……immediately registers as over-the-top Wrong to be told “hey, remember that antagonist you beat last season? she’s still being punished for that, except it’s way worse than just going to mumple.”

and there’s that reminder that like…this is a teenager. a child. who has been manipulated and abused. which is a really fascinating look at this character we used to see pretty much unilaterally as a one dimensional bitchy villain.

i mean we got a more in depth look at Penelope’s and Biz’s motivations in s1 (Penelope being the popular rich girl sorceress obviously hungry for power and the alllure of the high school clout that is being prom queen, but also we know that her having to turn on her best friend Sam Nightingale as part of the scheme was something she was reluctant and not happy to do; and Biz being that predatory incel creeper type dude besides just a nerd with computers and a lack of social graces). and they were as much willingly active in the plot as Aelwyn was. yet in s1 they really never do bother to explore Aelwyn’s motivations. i remember after watching s1 but before s2 that was one of my biggest lingering questions: why tf was Aelwyn involved?

well. she was manipulated and abused. her terrible parents raised her in an awful environment that conditioned her to Listen and Obey and Behave and Be Perfect, and then Kalina helped cinch the noose around her neck with threats and coersion into the KVS Kaper and the NMK crown debacle. she doesn’t freely choose any of it; she’s coerced, manipulated, abused.

and she already got justifiably punished for her bad actions in s1. the torture is almost literal overkill. it’s just……there’s this immediate turnaround in sympathy and view of the character. on first watch, it’s viscerally upsetting to see her getting so brutally punished for actions she already faced consequences for, and on rewatch, it makes your skin crawl to know she’s being tortured for terrible things she had little choice in carrying out. and tortured by some of the very same people who coerced her to behave terribly in the first place, to add insult to injury.

and it’s still fucking frustrating when they rescue her and her memory gets reset and she goes back to her parents because it’s like “well shit, she’s evil again, and we just wasted all that effort for nothing” but it’s also sad cause we know she’s running back to her abusers and she isn’t happy about it but doesn’t feel like she has a choice. and it’s sadder still that what eventually inevitably gets her to turn to good for good (i.e. away from her parents) is just. a full dissociative mental breakdown.

(but then she survives and it’s gonna be good!!! until Adaine dies in her fucking arms. which is. almost funny. she’s been through so much shit and that isn’t something that Brennan would have just. preplanned. like a written in plot point. no, that was just an unpredictable consequence of the battle. what a juicy fucking moment. she’s been through All That Shit™️ and has finally turned to fight for good and her sister just fully dies in front of her. yeowch)

and she turns out okay in the end. she comes out the other side alive and whole and supported by her sister and her friends, with the hope of a future and recovery. there is an acknowledgement that A) she can and will grow from her mistakes and damage, B) it’s going to be really hard, and C) the post-s2 one shots both prove that she’s doing okay now. hell, she has a whole squad now of other former-teenage-villains-turned-good-guys. she has friends now, Ragh and Zayn, with common ground, and a secret handshake and everything. they’ve all grown from the mistakes of their past into better, happier, healthier people

and about Zayn and Ragh. we’ve seen a lot of characters, protagonist and antagonist, teenage and adult, PC and NPC do some really fucked up shit and get punished for it. but why do they get happy endings? why are Aelwyn, Ragh, and Zayn the only members of the RVS and not someone else like Biz or Penelope or Dayne?

well, the latter two are dead by then; but then again, Biz and Ragh were also killed by the Bad Kids in s1, and subsequently resurrected. (Zayn died too, but was neither killed nor revived at the Bad Kids’ hands, so i’ll get to him in a sec.) and there are plenty of adult antagonists the Bad Kids face who are killed and left that way by the Bad Kids without second thought: Johnny Spells, Coach Daybreak, Captain Wicklaw, the Abernant parents (presuming Arianwen doesn’t survive in the forest for very long, which i doubt). why do some characters get second chances while others don’t?

in the case of Zayn, his death was pretty much out of the Bad Kids’ hands, and they later found out he was manipulated by Daybreak into being bad anyway because of his sad living situation. he was a pretty minor antagonist in the scheme of things, and when we re-meet him as a ghost in the s1 epilogue, he’s pretty obviously remorseful for his actions. and dying seems like a steep enough punishment to me for the shit he did to contribute to the KVX caper; returning as a ghost, free from the trappings of his unfortunate living life, he now has the room and freedom to grow into a better person.

in the cases of Daybreak, Spells, Wicklaw, and the Abernant parents: these are bad people who should know better. these are fully grown adults who actively choose to do evil. whether they think it’s the right thing to do or not (in Daybreak’s case), whether they think it will benefit them and don’t care about anyone else (in the Abernants’ case), or whether they don’t care much at all and are just doing shit because they feel like it (in the cases of Spells and Wicklaw), these are all adults who consciously make the decision to do terrible things and hurt other people. of course Johnny Spells, who is generally a punk thief and thug, is not on the same level of bad as Angwyn, who kidnaps and tortures his own daughters for political gain, but the point remains. these fuckers should know better. they’re grown ups. they had their chances to be good and they chose not to heed them. their minds are set on bad actions and they are a continued danger to other people as long as they are alive. when they die, the Bad Kids do their damndest to make sure it stays that way.

now, in the cases of Penelope and Dayne: these are teenagers who actively chose to participate in an evil plot. Penelope, Dayne, and Biz were all fully cognizant of what they were doing trying to raise KVX back to his former power. why? well, to some extent, we can only speculate. i suspect Penelope was just one of those Regina George bitches who is rich and popular and powerful and obsessed with power and popularity within high school as if that’s the end-all-be-all of existence (which, like, when you’re currently in high school, is a somewhat understandable worldview i think). Dayne being her boyfriend and a musclehead jock probably falls into a similar line of thinking. they are actively and willingly trying to cause harm, and teenager or not, must be stopped. they’re killed, anyway, during the Climactic Battle™️ anyhow; it’s not like the Bad Kids were going to gain anything at that point by keeping them alive.

now, Biz: Biz is the creepy Nice Guy incel type, sees woman as a prize he deserves to win, yadda yadda. he does, like Penelope and Dayne, actively choose to help KVX. there might be something to be said about his motivation the Bad Kids discover after the arcade battle by detecting his thoughts (that being to upload the captured maidens from the palimpsests to “call the shots” himself) is an altered memory; whether this was his original motivation from the start or not, i’m not sure. but the Bad Kids do kill him – and then resurrect him for important, time-sensitive information. and they beat it out of him – he gets two of his fucking fingers blown off. and Riz reattaches them once they have their info, and they realize his memory is altered. of course, the Bad Kids don’t know at this point that the altered memory was something he, Penelope, and Aelwyn had planned and agreed on and done to themselves, but this points to something important in my opinion: the Bad Kids, and the narrative/show as a whole by extension, acknowledge that external manipulation affects how guilty someone is in a crime.

which brings us to Ragh. Ragh, introduced from episode 1 as the meathead jock. Ragh the archetypical one-dimensional high school bully. Ragh who works with the harvestmen in effort to (ostensibly) end the world/provoke international war. Ragh, whose low intelligence but high loyalty and internalized homophobia led him to be fully swayed and blindly led by his coach and captain, who have actively chosen to do evil. Ragh who is killed in combat by the Bad Kids and resurrected for information, not Daybreak. Ragh, who the Bad Kids realize was probably not aware of exactly what he was being made to do and how bad it really was. Ragh, who by their kindness in sparing his life and directing him on a better path, becomes a well-rounded character and an active ally to the Bad Kids during and after prom, an invaluable companion during their quest in sophomore year, and overall a really good friend and person.

(it might also be worth considering the case of Jawbone here, too, who started out a very minor antagonist in a fight but ended up becoming a major NPC because the Bad Kids talked to him, found out he came from an unfortunate situation and set of circumstances, and showed him kindness in offering the school guidance counselor position, a kindness that isn’t really owed but given anyway and ends up changing his entire life for good.)

and then, Aelwyn, whose case is already discussed above. so, why is the RVS what it is, why them but not others?

if you’re familiar with Avatar: the Last Airbender, you’re probably familiar with Zuko’s character arc, and how it’s often lauded as a masterful example of developing a villain into a hero over the course of a narrative. what makes Zuko’s arc so well done and exceptional is that he starts out as a kid in a bad situation under the influence of bad adults seeking to do bad deeds, but he later realizes the error of those ways, actively removes himself from that situation despite the difficulty and danger in doing so, goes through a lot of shit and reflects on his past mistakes and learns from them, and then actively chooses to fight for good in the end with the help of close, trusted friends, found family.

this, i believe, is the same in the case of Fantasy High and its treatment of the RVS. its members, like Zuko, are all teenagers who came from shitty situations and were manipulated by evil adults to do bad. they are punished for their bad actions, and they learn from their errors and mistakes. with the kindness and help of good people, friends and chosen family, they are able to escape their abusers and bad situations and grow into their own people. and they actively choose to improve themselves with that help and fight for good.

Fantasy High, through the arcs of Jawbone, Zayn, Ragh, and especially Aelwyn, asserts that it is not your fault if you come from a bad situation and are forced to behave badly as a result. it does not pretend that you are absolved of any responsibility for those actions; quite the opposite, as even though they were externally manipulated into their evil actions, all of those mentioned characters face tangible consequences for their actions and later express remorse for their mistakes. but Fantasy High also asserts that even if you have made great mistakes in your past, even if you came from a bad situation beyond your control, even if you were manipulated and abused, with care and love and support and a hell of a lot of work and effort, you can improve your situation and find good, happiness, peace, you can thrive. evil adults who should know better don’t get redeemed. teenagers who aren’t coerced but actively choose evil don’t get redeemed. but abused kids deserve another shot at happiness. with enough work, and some love and help along the way, they can get there, even from the lowest imaginable point, from rock fucking buttom. it’s possible.

#fantasy high #fantasy high spoilers #dimension 20 live #dimension 20 #fantasy high sophomore year #fantasy high freshman year #d20 #dimension 20 live spoilers #brennan lee mulligan #aelwyn abernant #zayn darkshadow #ragh barkrock #sasha reviews #hello tumblr. tonight i bring you a 2.3k word essay. tomorrow? who knows #i'll just throw myself into the nearest river if this doesn't show up in the tags this is fine #this one's for y'all in my notes i see u and i love u here's some content #the first half of this is mostly copy pasted from my discord ramblings #i didnt intend for this to be as long as it got but yknow. i never do and it always is #so thats why the first part of this is written differently from the rest of it lol

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bloatsome · 4 years ago

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I know this is probably seen a lot, but personally I am rather tired of the notion that Draco deserved Snape’s redemption arc and/or Snape truly wasn’t brave then they prove said claim by bringing up Lupin. I love Remus, he is my favorite character and I adore him, but he has a lot of emotional cowardice to him. He is afraid of emotional confrontations which is why he refused to tell about the animagus secret out of shame and why he ran during the entirety of HBP. Sure his actions in the werewolf camp could be seen as brave, yet they were also laced with a sense of emotional cowardice too. Yes, he was physically brave, but emotionally? Not so much. And people equate bravery to somehow being a morally superior person. Which isn’t the case exactly. You can show bravery but still be an awful person. It just seems ridiculous to pin Lupin and Snape against once another considering they played very different roles. Lupin had his own life to worry about with his family whereas Snape dedicated every moment of his adult life to preserving Lily’s memory through helping Harry.

And I do think Snape’s redemption was well deserved. It’s funny that people bring up Draco as if he’s similar to zuko at all. Draco, in the main series, never thought the cause was wrong. But, like most of the Malfoy’s, they left when it stopped being a net benefit for them and they began to face consequences. It’s silly that people think that he somehow got this grand redemption stolen from him when in actuality he was not that complex of a character to allow said redemption to occur. Sure you can argue it was interesting to view it from the lease of exploring learned prejudices, but even then he continued to adopt said views when he was maturing. I do not like to compliment Sirius Black too much but he actually broke free from his parents beliefs and went against them. To what extent we don’t know (again the whole standing up against all wizard prejudice doesn’t really fit bc he did use his werewolf friend as a weapon against his will and it could be inferred he as well as James distrusted Lupin for his disease) but he was younger than Draco when he started to disagree with the whole blood purity thing. While you can break free from prejudice at any time in your life, Draco never got the incentive to do so, nor did he seem to realize it was wrong. Therefore, the notion that he was purely manipulated into his beliefs seems rather odd to me. Draco could’ve gotten a redemption arc, sure, but canon Draco didn’t. And that’s okay. Not every character needs to be redeemed and I just tend to think it’s bc Draco was hot or something and that’s why people were so bitter about it. I mean I know I was when I was younger and in that Draco phase. It’s just silly that people assume he would get this Zuko level redemption when honestly he never truly deserved it.

Honestly yes!!!

The Malfoys are a fun dynamic to explore, but seriously if they ever had an important talk with their son and teach him family values they'd say "our family totally runs from things, Draco."

They never really consider the wellbeing of anyone but themselves and leave when it gets ugly. They're the epitome of cowardice and that's honestly fine but people need to stop pretending they were actually deserving of a redemption arc.

And yes, Draco did grow up in that environment but like you said anon, so did Sirius Black. And Draco didn't bother questioning his beliefs. Why? Because he was comfortable feeling above everyone else. The fact that he couldn't k*ll Dumbledore face to face because he almost shit his big boy pants doesn't prove his moral righteousness.

#anti draco #anti draco malfoy #pro snape #snape #hp #severus snape #snapedom #anti snaters #asks

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peachcitt · 4 years ago

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shadow and bone netflix series analysis

what up besties i said as a joke that i wanted to do an analysis post on the changes made in the s&b netflix series from the grishaverse books, and then i realized i wasn't joking and that i actually wanted to do that

it's finals season, i am an undergraduate english major, i have had about five hours of sleep within the past forty eight hours, and believe it or not i am doing this analysis as a fun reward for finishing a research paper. i am putting this out here for you so you can decide if these are the kinds of vibes you want right now.

structure of the analysis will be vaguely as follows:

changes made, in chronological order (or as best as chronology i can do under the circumstances and doing absolutely zero fact checking)

analysis of change when looking at the themes of the books which will include my personal feelings

personal theories (if any) derived from the change for the trajectory of the netflix series

so, like, long post warning. also spoiler warning for the netflix series as well as probably most, if not all, grishaverse books

now let's get this baby started

alina's appearance and shu heritage

so the series starts right off the bat acknowledging alina's shu appearance and the in-world racism and prejudice she's experienced because of it, which was not in the books. however i found alina's shu appearance to be completely in line with the book's themes. alina was already isolated at keramzin and the army because of her sickliness, and she's isolated at the little palace because of her power and her awkwardness. so purposefully making her shu was, i felt, a nice world-building decision as well as a new and interesting layer to her character. also, it's always nice to see diversity in media, so i have literally no qualms with this change

in terms of the rest of the series, the grishaverse is a very politically-motivated story. there's a lot of in-universe politics that happens in the shadow and bone trilogy and especially in the king of scars duology, and i think if the series chooses to extend into/include the king of scars duology story (which, i really hope it will), alina being shu (or at least part shu) will be very interesting to see considering king of scars and rule of wolves deal with negotiations and treaties with shu han. i think also having alina be shu and someone who has experienced countless amounts of in-world racism become a saint, seeing how she and the rest of ravka navigate her identity and identity politics will be really interesting. generally speaking, i just really hope the later parts of the series really delve into alina's identity, what it means to be a saint and also "look like the enemy," and the ravkan people's mixed feelings about her

alina's sickliness/childhood relationship with mal

in the books, alina is described as thin, always having trouble sleeping, hardly ever hungry, and sickly looking because, as we learn later, of her constantly unconsciously repressing her grisha abilities. this is part of the reason she's isolated at keramzin in the books; she's sickly and awkward and no one bothers with her except mal - because they're the same age and mal is strong enough to defend her from the older orphans at keramzin. however, the show doesn't really delve into the effects of what suppressing her abilities do to her except for a few offhand lines (alina angrily saying "im never that sick" when mal suggests she say she's stick to stop from going into the fold, mentions of her larger appetite when they're on the run in the woods). instead, the show kind of flips alina and mal's childhood personalities; mal is depicted as shy and easily picked on, and alina is the protector.

i'll just say it: this change fucks so hard. i love it. i think it says such wonderful things about their characters, and i like that alina begins the series as someone incapable of turning a blind eye to bullies and someone who cares very fiercely for the people she loves (not that that isn't the case in the books - i just think this change does a great job of looking directly at it in the way that shows have to). i think it's easy to root for her, and it's easy to see how she will become a saint to the people. in addition to that, i love what this is saying about alina and mal's characters and how they grow up; that separation from alina caused mal to have to face his own problems head on in traditionally masculine ways (because that was what ana kuya criticizes him in the show for; for always running from fights and being too soft, and i think it's really telling that our first view of mal as a kid, im pretty sure, is gingerly holding a bunny which portrays feminine caregiving and then we jump cut to mal fighting in a dirty boxing ring in the first army, something gritty and masculine). masculine ways that he had to be indoctrinated into and that may not actually be in his natural disposition.

meanwhile, separation from mal meant alina no longer had to be a dominant protector, and she does not connect with anyone in the first army as strongly as she connected with mal, so she doesn't really feel the need to be as aggressive as she was as a child. however, you can see that quiet protectiveness spark up at times - notably when people other than herself are picked on, such as at the food line when she claims not to know the others in the cartography unit so they don't get penalized along with her. i do wish, however, elements of her sickliness had been emphasized a little more in the show because of grisha theory, which i will talk about in another section.

first entry into the fold

okay i will be honest. this change is probably the one that scared me the most when seeing it in the trailers, and i am kind of still iffy on it now. in the books, alina's first journey into the fold and the inciting moment for the entire series is just luck and orders. everyone in the first army has to go through the fold at some point, and it just so happens to be alina and mal's time to go through. however, in the show alina is not initially assigned to go into the fold, but mal is, and alina goes out of her way to make sure that she gets on the skiff so that mal won't have to go alone/without her. there's this level of 'choice' (or at least the illusion of it) in the show in terms of alina and mal getting onto the skiff and going into the fold; at one point or the other they both try to tell the other not to get on the skiff and just choose something else.

the thing that irks me the most is alina's stubborn "i'll make it" line that she tells mal after she's on the skiff. it screams 'fantasy dystopian protagonist' (divergent is the first to come to mind for some reason) in a way that alina never comes across in the books. alina never chooses to make her life more difficult - she's always given two terrible options and has to take the option that fits with her morals or her perception of the power she needs to surivive and win the fight. but i know the only reason alina goes out of her way to get on the skiff is because she's separated from mal, which aligns nicely with the protective nature the show has inscribed on her.

the thing that redeems this change for me is that when alina tries to get just herself onto the skiff (by burning the maps to ensure that she has a purpose there), she ends up endangering the lives of her entire cartography unit. this keeps with the theme of a whole lot of alina's later decisions throughout the books affecting so many more people than just her, and i like that this is a lesson that she learns very early on. this change also seems to be a trade out for the final entering-the-fold scene, but i'll talk about that later.

alexei

here he is, the lynchpin himself. in the books, alexei is dry and rude in a funny way with alina, and they have this really great banter at the beginning of the novel, and then he's, like, the first to get carried off by volcra. very harrowing in the book, i loved it. in the show, alexei's character is a little (a lot) different - he's naive and blunt in a silly way, and he very obviously has a crush on alina. instead of being carried off by volcra in the show, though, he jumps off the skiff and runs blind into the fold - committing what we think at the time is an act of suicide - which was extremely harrowing to see in a completely different way, and i loved it. even if they changed alexei's personality i still love him (and his death) dearly

so as previously mentioned, alexei acts as the lynchpin between the six of crows plot and the shadow and bone plot; he manages to escape the fold alive, and makes it all the way to ketterdam to tell a select few people the legendary sun summoner is alive WHICH. okay ive just decided that's my next topic. anyway back to alexei.

his death in ketterdam is awful because of the personality change, which is why i don't mind missing bitchy alexei from the book; his hopeful little "if i tell you, you'll set me free?" that pulls at your heart and also tells you immediately that he is going to die as soon as he tells everyone what he say is done so well. i also like that through treatment of alexei, we get some characterization of the crows; inej immediately gives him water and glares at the mercher in quiet rage on his cruel treatment, kaz doesn't flinch when alexei is killed but inej and jesper do. i also thought it was interesting to have the mercher (dreeson was his name i believe) to be the one to get his hands 'dirty' and actually be the one to shoot alexei because in six of crows, there is always the sense that the merchers are cruel and conniving, but that they very carefully keep the death of the poor and the grisha off their own hands. im wondering if this hands-on killing is a dreeson-specific trait, or if this more hands-on cruelty will be explored more in other mercher characters we meet, like van eck.

sun summoner legend

this change is so?? i don't really know what to think of it. narratively, it makes sense in the show to have this legend be in place so that alina's importance is immediately recognized by people across the different countries.

however in the books, no one really expected alina. her presence wasn't foretold or divine (at first) or fate in any way. she became a saint because i think in part people weren't expecting her, and once they saw what she could do, they wanted to believe in her abilities so bad they made her divine. this change was also weird to me having just finished rule of wolves where zoya (i think) reflects on amazing things that have happened throughout the story and she notes that alina was not some sort of legend that people were expecting - none of what happened was. everything that happened from alina to nina's miracles in king of scars to zoya's expanded abilities by the end of rule of wolves to the "age of saints." all of those things were just chance people being in chance situations that all slid together in a strange, amazing coincidence. they got lucky.

and i think, at the center of the books, is this kind of purposeful disillusionment of the saints and religion, what with the main character of the original trilogy literally becoming a saint and yet never truly feeling saint-ly or being perfectly divine. the sun summoner legend the show brings up seems to depart from this. it'll be interesting to see what the show does with the legend and how alina feels about it as she fulfills it, and im honestly hoping that we'll find out later in the series that the legend was actually just some poor guy a few hundred years ago making something up to give people hope.

the crows timeline/characterization

in the books, the six of crowd ice court heist happens three years after the events of the final book of the shadow and bone trilogy. but obviously the timelines are smushed together for the show to create a new and different direction for their story and also, as we see at the end of the season, a new and different direction for alina's story as well

ive also seen bardugo say that because of the converging time lines, the grishaverse story will not take seven seasons (one season per book in the grishaverse) to get through. for this reason, im thinking that the parem story/ice court heist will begin if/when we get season 2. given that parem is a big part of kos/row, i see a crows and nikolai interaction happening in season 2 that sparks a beginning discussion on parem.

but back to the crows characterization! the crows are completely in character for me in almost every way, and i found the interactions between kaz, inej, and jesper to be very in character. however kaz's plan to capture alina doesn't work out almost at all which is something that he definitely wouldn't have let happen in the books. im chalking this up to the converging timelines - these crows are baby crows. they're young, a little less experienced, and they haven't gotten their groove on heists (and they don't have the rest of their crew) yet. but i anticipate seeing more crows-classic successful heists in season 2.

there are a couple of things i want to talk about each crow, so it's subtopic time

nina and matthias

perfect. their interactions were almost always word-for-word from the book. i can't remember if matthias had actually been the one to actually catch nina in the book, but if not, then it was a nice touch. it was interesting to see that both of them were so willing to be traitors of their country for each other in the show, because even when they're in a romantic relationship outside of fjerda and ravka in the book, they struggle with even the idea of betraying their country.

i like how they changed nina and matthias' "escape" from fjerda to ravka, and how nina explicitly betrayed grisha she knew to their faces. im interested to see how they'll integrate her back into the second army, or if they even will do that. also, i like that fedyor slowed matthias' heart to make him pass out before he sees the other grisha, so it was easy to understand how matthias could've thought it was nina deceiving him all along. their confrontation in the boat was (chef's kiss), and the horror on nina's face as she realized that this situation she put him in won't be as easily solvable as she thought was just wonderful.

jesper

perfect. i love him. and the coy little hints that he's a fabrikator were so good. also the line in the very beginning where he asks for a demo man, which foreshadows wylan was very nice. the only thing out of character is one time kaz asks him to be a distraction and show jesper claims that being a handsome distraction is not part of his talents. it literally is, why did they make him lie.

inej

literally so so good. i love that we meet her while she still has her oath not to take lives; we get to see her develop and learn that sometimes death is necessary, but that she still isn't yet comfortable with killing. on some level, she never will be, and i think that was a perfect place to start her character. however, i am confused about the show giving her a brother. where is he. is he going to be important?? why is he here???? i can't even make any solid predictions about him because inej having a brother came straight out of fucking left field. here's one flimsy prediction based on nothing at all: inej's brother is grisha and is an indentured servant. may also be involved in the parem plot, or works at the white rose where nina will befriend him and connect with the rest of the six because of him. who fucking knows

kaz

i already kind of went over their disaster plan that still somehow worked out for him, but i love literally everything else they did with kaz. the refusal to show his bare hands was literally art!! we got that tease in the first episode and the camera pans up as soon as the gloves come off. that was perfection - as well as the intimacy and trust portrayed between kaz and inej without them ever touching. i also loved the hints and nudges for his story with pekka - the way he always says his name with obvious distaste, and when we see him interact with pekka for the first time on screen. how he asks if they've ever made a deal before and pekka just goes "nah" and kaz just glares at him. perfect. and i also think the show really leaned in to the soft parts of kaz that inej sees in him, especially when he basically said she (and jesper) meant more to him than any saint?? oh my GOD. i kind of like this honest departure from kaz's book "greed is my god edgy edgy blah blah" especially when he's afraid he'll lose inej. i also think it'd be funny if we hear kaz say "greed is my god" and be edgy about it with us AND inej knowing that is superficial because of what he told her. that would be hilarious.

pekka, tante heleen, per haskell

these three aren't part of the six, but they are part of the original six of crows story and i still wanted to talk about my opinions on them, so they're going here.

i fucking loved pekka, how ruthless he was, and his irish accent. that was wonderful. because of how fucking hands-on and brutal he was, though, i wonder if they're going to keep the jakob hertzoon piece of kaz's origin story the same, because this pekka was so good at being violent that it was hard to picture him even pretending to be a benevolent benefactor to orphans. he is a dilf, though. i am not afraid to admit that.

my only problem with tante heleen is that her actress looked too nice. like she might bake me cookies and offer me a ride home from school. total milf as well but not in the scary sexy way that she was in the books. she had smile lines, she was so dainty, she seemed so genuine. i want to see her be a little more cruel.

per haskell, the actual gang leader of the crows, is not in the show at all. it seems as though the show made kaz the official boss of the crows while he is only second in command in the book. this makes me wonder how they'll handle or if they'll even include that fucking awesome scene in crooked kingdom of kaz earning the gang's trust over haskell. it would be weird to introduce per haskell in season 2 when he wasn't even mentioned in season 1, but it wouldn't be altogether terrible considering the crows spent very little time in ketterdam this season. however, this makes me wonder if, when kaz was away on his little saint pilgrimage (i am calling it that specifically because i know it would piss him off) someone else stepped in as "boss" of the crows. in the show, kaz also leverages the deed of the crow club in order to be able to take inej with him, and presumably the jewels alina gives him will solve that problem, but what would happen if any of the crows find out he made that deal? would he still have to earn the gang's trust back in a show of power and respect like in crooked kingdom? much to think about.

mal

back to the shadow and bone story, ive already briefly (not really briefly) gone over mal characterization alongside alina, but i want to mention how the show includes his perspective alongside alina's and how important that is. the shadow and bone trilogy is told entirely from alina's perspective, and alina is in some ways an unreliable narrator. she tends to think of her relationships and feelings as one sided unless her friend/love interest is looking her in the eye and telling her exactly how they feel about her. the one exception is genya, and that sort of bites her in the ass until it doesn't, but i digress. the point is, the only mal perspective we get in the books is alina's perception of mal, and the bonus content of the "lost" letter he'd written to her while looking for the stag in fjerda. granted, that letter says a lot about mal and how he feels about alina, so if you didn't take the time to read the letter when reading the book, chances are you weren't so hot on mal unless you have sexy critical reading skills like me (or just really love the childhood best friends to lovers trope).

getting all the gritty, messy details of how hard mal is trying to get back to alina in the show makes him so much more of a sympathetic character than he may have seemed at first glance for the majority of shadow and bone from alina's perspective. the show really stresses that the bond alina and mal have is mutual and powerful, and i think that's fucking perfect, actually.

this point was really driven home during the episode we see that mal has a matching scar on his palm that is related to alina, just like how alina has a mal-related scar on her palm. that scene in the brig was so good, especially when they ask each other what they're in for, and alina says "the usual," and after a pause, mal replies "the usual" as well. he could be lying because he knows she would feel bad if she was the reason he chose to stir trouble to go to the brig, but he could also be saying that he usually actively chooses to be sent to the brig for defending alina or because alina is usually already there and he wants to be with her. knowing that and then seeing alina have the scar on her palm erased was. fucking devastating (in a good-ish way), and im kind of hoping alina either chooses to have the tailoring removed so she can see the scar again or injures her hand in a mal-related injury so they can match again :(

i have more to say about mal, but i'll save it for the grisha theory/amplifier section

the darkling

overall, darkling portrayal was very spot on, but i didn't really like how he just. gave alina his name so early on. in the books im quite certain he doesn't give alina his first name until the third book? regardless, he doesn't give it to her until they've fought and been enemies for a while. theoretically, kirigan giving his real name to alina so early could be a manipulation tactic (like his moments of 'vulnerability' and 'weakness' with alina in the book), especially because we lose that 'heart to heart' by the campfire after the darkling rescues alina from the fjerdans where alina first starts to see the darkling as human.

i also thought it was interesting that alina kisses kirigan first - in the books they're actually having a serious discussion (i can't remember what about, but when she realizes the darkling is Not Good, she remembers the first time they kissed as a thing he possibly did to distract her from thinking her own thoughts), and the darkling interrupts her with a kiss sexy enough for her to forget what's going on. the show however chooses to do a girlboss she-can-move-on-if-she-wants-to moment which is pretty cool and let's be honest, if you like men and ben barnes is right in front of you giving you Sexy Eyes a whole lot, you are going to want to kiss him. that scene where they get interrupted during a steamy kiss, and they laugh and kirigan leaves the frame just to rush back for one last kiss? that nearly fucking converted me. that was really sweet actually. the show does a fantastic job of showing how captivating kirigan's interest can be.

last note about the kirigan for this section - isn't kirigan the name of the guy who owns the guilded bog for nikolai in kos/row? i can't be sure because i don't have my book with me and i refuse to look up information when i have gone this entire post without looking anything up, but if his name isn't kirigan it's pretty fucking close. i don't know what that means, but i don't think bardugo is the type to name characters similar names for no reason. we'll know for sure if/when the guilded bog is introduced.

zoya

most of zoya's portrayal is really in line with her character and her development throughout the shadow and bone trilogy as well as king of scars and rule of wolves. i think the show did a great job of showing how zoya was in the darkling/kirigan's favor for a while before alina arrived and how she resents alina at first for causing her to not be the darkling's favorite anymore. in addition to that, knowing we find out she is part suli in row makes her casting so much better, and i like that we get to see a little more of her personality in the show than we do in the book shadow and bone. of course we see more of her in siege and storm/ruin and rising, but it's nice to have her become a sympathetic character through the knowledge that she has family in novokribirsk and that she purposefully mans skiffs to see them before she fully sides with alina.

the one thing that made me. just confused was zoya calling alina a "half-breed" at the little palace?? it was so out of place (that particular part of the insult; im pretty sure the other thing she said was very much exactly what she said in the book. some insult about orphans i think), especially knowing that zoya herself is a "half-breed," so that didn't make sense to me.

however, i was glad to see alina immediately embrace zoya as an ally - because she knows from the start of zoya's alliance that she had family that kirigan killed. in the books, alina's parentage is not at all important, and their deaths are never specified to matter, but the show points out from the very beginning that alina's parents were swallowed by the fold. i think this makes alina's immediate compassion and forgiveness of zoya make sense, and it was also very sweet and a little funny to see alina pull zoya into a hug that she so obviously does not expect or want to express as something she wants. it was perfect.

east vs west ravka civil war

i don't have much to say about this except it makes kirigan's actions at the fold seem a little better. not great, not by any means, but knowing that the leader of a growing coup was right on the other side really cements in the idea that kirigan is doing this for what he thinks is the greater good of ravka. im pretty sure in the original trilogy, there was also some tension between east and west ravka, but none of it comes to a head until the events of kos/row. great set up for future ravkan tensions in future seasons.

david and genya & fedyor and ivan

before we get into the last meat and potatoes of this post, i want to talk about love because it's a little bit of a break. take this time to stop reading, stretch, relax your jaw, straighten your back, drink water, etc. you've been here a while. you deserve it

okay so first fedyor and ivan. in the books, fedyor and ivan are just bros (i don't even remember them ever really interacting?) but in the show it is heavily implied they are dating. this is so funny to me, and i love it so much. especially because ivan was in a het relationship with marie in the books (but because the show kills marie off before she dies in the books, obviously that is not happening), so they really just decided that ivan and fedyor were gay for seemingly no reason. except i think ivan died on the skiff during the final battle in the show which is kind of a bummer because he lives through to ruin and rising and has an... interesting arc. fedyor, i think, dies in the battle of the little palace in siege and storm, but i wonder what they'll do with this relationship in next seasons. maybe fedyor will take ivan's place as grieving boyfriend with ptsd, but im not sure. i honestly don't even know for certain if ivan dies in the show, so we'll see.

as for genya and david, i would just like to point out the little hints of mutual affection. in the books, it's kind of implied that genya had feelings for david first and he didn't realize his own feelings until after she's scarred by the darkling, but in the show we see david actually looking at genya during the winter fete! like looking, appreciating the view! i loved the show choosing to include that small amount of mutuality, and after finishing rule of wolves it definitely made me feel some type of way. david and genya. i love them, they're perfect.

grisha theory/amplifiers

we're nearing the final stretch in this post, however, i have a lot to say about grisha theory and amplifiers, and i also have a lot to say for the battle of the fold so this "final stretch" will probably be. a very long stretch.

so obviously because of the nature of books and narrative writing, there was a lot of space within the shadow and bone book to go over the grisha theory alina was learning at her time in the little palace in great detail, however in the show we hardly even get any grisha theory at all. the little we get is actually from the apparat. im not sure if we get anything from bhagra. i don't even think we get the phrase "like calls to like" which is the most basic piece of grisha theory throughout the entire grishaverse.

i am definitely. bitter about this. i obviously didn't want huge long meditations on grisha theory in the show, but pretty much the whole time alina was at the little palace, i felt like she had so much time free time to wander around the palace, hang out with nadia and marie, daydream about mal and kirigan. don't get me wrong - those are all valuable activities - but i feel like it missed the point of alina's time at the little palace. she felt isolated there; yes, she had nadia and marie, but she couldn't share with them everything she was going through because she didn't want anyone to truly know how difficult mastering her abilities were. and because she was so isolated, she throws herself into grisha theory, especially during the times in which she can't summon her abilities by herself. this is when she learns about why she's been so sickly her whole life (because she has not used her abilities, and grisha derive some form of life force and energy from using their abilities), all about amplifies, and other really cool world-building for grisha abilities and culture. instead, it was difficult to tell (at least for me) in the show if the palace and the little palace were even different places while in the books the little palace was such a whimsical, ancient, and magical place for alina compared to the gaudiness of the main palace.

the collar

anyway, complaints about architecture and alina's subpar theory education aside, the little bit of grisha theory we get is from the apparat when he talks about ilya morozova and the three amplifiers he was attempting to make during his lifetime. when the apparat is describing amplifiers, it almost seems like amplifers - not just morozova's inventions - are super rare in the world of the show. amplifiers are relatively rare in the books, obtained by only some of the most powerful grisha (zoya, ivan, alina), but they still exist. from what we've seen of zoya and ivan, they didn't seem to have amplifiers on their person, so it looks like alina is unique not only in getting an amplifier from one of morozova's beasts, but also in just getting an amplifier in general, which is a little weird.

EDIT: thanks to @laelipoo for pointing out that zoya is actually shown to have what looks like a tiger’s tooth embedded in the skin of her wrist in the first episode! so okay this shows that powerful grisha still have amplifiers in the world of the show, but this probably suggests that instead of being pieces of jewelry like in the books, they act more as body modifications, which is really interesting. if im not mistaken, ivan’s amplifier is a necklace in the book, so maybe his show-amplifier would’ve been embedded in the skin of his chest. regardless, i’d still like to see more discussion on how amplifiers in the show work - which, now that we know zoya most probably has an amplifier, we might get to see with her becoming more prevalent of a character in the projected arcs of the show (both shadow and bone trilogy as well as kos/row)

i can't remember if morozova was ever referred to as "the bonesmith" (i feel like he has been, but not in the way the apparat refers to him in the show), but i feel as though that was a kind of. foreshadowing for how we would see the stag amplifier work later in the show. in the book, the stag's antlers are a literal collar around alina's neck that remains there until she loses her abilities, so the metaphor of being "owned" by the darkling is definitely there. it never stops being there until she loses the ability that makes her his mirror and his tool. however, in the show we definitely. do not get that.

so i've seen some people say that they hate the design of the stag collar, and i cannot say i was a huge fan of looking at it myself. but that just really cemented in the fact that kirigan forcing the collar on her is a complete violation of her body and her agency. the fact that the bones erupt from her skin and that her skin looks irritated where the bones puncture through her skin just reinforces the idea that this fusion is not natural and is not supposed to be pretty because kirigan taking control of her in this way is really really terrible actually. in addition to the collar, the show also gives kirigan a circle of bone embedded in his hand - which, hand versus collar, who has the most agency in this situation, his hand is quite literally around her neck, etc - but i feel like they made this change so that non-readers could see and understand the mutuality of the amplifier in a physical manifestation because the show doesn't expand on that theory at all.

i really liked that the show kept the reason for alina gaining control of the amplifier being her connection with the stag before kirigan killed it because that at least is consistent with the theory in the books, especially with the expansion of that same theory in kos/row with zoya's connection with juris and how true use of an amplifier requires mutual connection, understanding, and suffering between the grisha and the animal.

i also thought that the way the show portrayed alina taking back control of her power with the stag's horns absorbing into her own bones was a really effective way to show that the power is hers now, and that it is a part of her. however, i wish the show had kept some evidence of the collar because of how it quickly became a piece of her iconography in the books as well as a symbol of her power. seeing as how alina stabbed the circle of bone out of kirigan's hand (very sexy girlboss moment), i wonder if kirigan will still be able to control her abilities. if he can, i hope that any time he uses her abilities, the horns emerge from her skin again as a visual signifier that alina is being violated and that her own power is being used against her. OR even at the times in which alina uses kirigan's power against him (like if the show depicts the conclusion to the battle of the little palace where alina uses the darkling's merzost) to have the horns come out of her skin to show that she is reinforcing her bond with him. both would be really cool.

alina and mal

okay so in ruin and rising we learn that not only are alina and mal bffs and in love whatever, but also that they've been drawn to each other because mal is actually the host to the last of morozova's amplifiers. and then alina looks back at the times in which she's felt the most powerful or when they encountered morozova's beasts, and she realizes that all of those times coincide with when she had important moments with mal. this reveal is huge in the series, and without the build up, i fear it might seem like it would've come out of nowhere if the show chooses to go in the same direction.

for example, alina and mal in the book only find the stag after they kiss for the first time. however, in the show they don't kiss. they don't even move mal's "i see you now" speech to right before they find the stag. it's simply a jump cut to alina and mal in the forest looking at the stag. they might be talking, but i don't think it was an 'important' moment for them.

however, they've been setting mal up as a better-than-average tracker since the very beginning with ana kuya asking him specifically to hunt for dinner. mal also admits that when he saw alina's power come from the tent when kirigan is testing her power that he heard a 'high-pitched tone' and somehow intuitively knew that it was her or something like that. he also tells alina that he'll always be able to find his way to her, no matter what, which is really romantic of course, but it is also part of their connection as one of morozova's three amplifiers and the girl who will possess at one point in time two of the three amplifiers.

i also think that the scene in ruin and rising when alina kills mal for his power is supposed to directly mirror the scene in the shadow and bone book where alina tells mal before they find the stag that she wants him to kill her before she can be caught by the darkling; part of the reason she feels strongly enough to ask this is because she understands grisha theory enough to know what the darkling's plans for the stag and her are. when she's protecting mal and the stag from the darkling, she begs mal to kill her. but he doesn't. and in ruin and rising, when they're out of options during the final battle, mal tells alina to kill him. and she does.

but without alina asking to be killed paired alongside the lack of intimate mal and alina moment before they find the stag, i wonder if the show will be heading in the same direction as the books in terms of mal's status as the last of morozova's creations, or if they'll decide to do something different.

battle of the fold

i think the most obvious difference in the battle of the fold is that kaz, inej, and jesper are like. just chillin on the skiff. additionally, zoya is on the skiff (her presence there was discussed in the zoya section), and mal is not a prisoner in the skiff like he was in the book - he snuck on. for the six's presence on the skiff, i don't mind it and i actually like how they participate in the battle (inej throwing a knife into kirigan's chest and nearly ending his shit right then and there was something we always wanted but did not know we wanted. same with zoya and inej bonding during a fight), but the change in mal's freedom status on the ship is a little more complicated.

in the books, the darkling lets alina and mal spend one last night together (with bars between them) before whatever happens on the fold. i can't remember if he tells alina that he plans to execute mal in the fold, but regardless it becomes apparent that is his plan when he throws mal overboard, on the edges of alina's sunlight, and begins reigning in the sunlight so that mal will be consumed by the fold. it's the fact that mal is in danger that alina manages to gain control of her power once more, and she saves mal. the group of dignitaries from the various nations are still on the ship when she makes her escape, and she uses the Cut - a form of summoner ability that she has never used before and has only ever been used by the darkling. she makes the terrible and difficult decision to let the dignitaries die in the fold alongside the darkling, because she believes it's a worthy sacrifice to make, and she and mal escape together.

i think this sequence of events would've tracked really well in the show with how alina had previously been depicted as mal's protector, but the show chooses not to have alina save mal and kill the dignitaries. instead, the show has kirigan kill the dignitaries and also has mal have a homoerotic fist fight with kirigan which is. not exactly not in line with themes the show has put on, especially with how mal and kirigan have interacted before in the show.

in the books, we don't see mal and the darkling interact without alina as a buffer, and so a fistfight between them in the battle of the fold in shadow and bone wouldn't have made narrative sense and would've just ended up feeling cheap. however we do see mal and kirigan interact without alina in the show - when mal is showing kirigan where the stag is and kirigan learns alina's favorite flower through mal, and when kirigan gives mal that petty little speech about how he'll get alina eventually while mal grows old and dies.

there's an interesting phenomenon in certain kinds of love triangles; most of the time you see love triangles in the classic sense of Person B and Person C both being in love with Person A, who has to make the choice between B and C. however, that's not a true love triangle - there also needs to be a connecting factor between B and C. and, in most cases, that connecting factor is the ritual of masculine homosocial rivalry. so when applying this kind of love triangle to alina, mal, and kirigan, we see that both mal and kirigan have feelings for alina, but they also have a connection to each other through their rivalry, which is as much about rituals of masculine conquering (whether the person they are wanting to conquer is alina or the other man is a very interesting question to which the answer is yes) as it is about being the person alina loves.

do i personally like the kirigan/mal fight in the fold? no, i would've much preferred to see alina rescue and protect mal. however, i do recognize that the fight makes narrative sense within the show, and it was really funny to see kirigan get his shit rocked by mal's bare fists a couple of times. i would say i hope he's been humbled by the experience but we all know that's not true.

also remember when i mentioned that kirigan is the one who kills the dignitaries here instead of alina leaving them to die? and remember, way back in the beginning when i said that alina inadvertently getting her cartography unit killed in the show may have been a swap for some deaths in the battle of the fold? alina being excused from the deaths of the dignitaries in the show but responsible for the deaths of her cartography friends at the beginning is what i was talking about. like i said way back (or maybe i didn't say it but im saying it now), it makes narrative sense. i get it.

however, i think the choice not to have alina perform the Cut on the skiff when she regains control of her power is an interesting one. because, in the book, that was an ultimate show-off of power (even if it was a terrible moment for alina). no one else but the darkling can perform a Cut, and as soon as alina forcibly takes control of her power from the darkling she uses his own signature move to leave him for death? that's a power move. that's irony. that's a physical manifestation of alina being able to adopt and take advantage of some of the darkling's power and use it against him, which is definitely a main theme in the book as it happens every single time alina gets close to defeating him and also when she actually defeats him.

so the Cut is really important, and i want to see in what other situation the show might have alina perform a Cut of her own against kirigan, or if they'll even include that aspect of reclaiming of power. i really want them to.

conclusion

so what have we learned? i think, first and foremost, we have learned that i have so many opinions and should learn how to be sweet and concise with my words. we have also learned there were a lot of changes between the grishaverse books and the series, and these were only the changes that i remembered off the top of my head having watched the series almost a week ago and having reread the books over the past few months.

in addition to those things, we have learned that, in my academic opinion, many of the changes made to fit the story into the screen were positive changes or, at the very least, changes i am interested in seeing develop. in the end, i am just a fan, and regardless of what season 2 may throw at us, i trust bardugo's decisions because she has never let me down narratively before, so i'll probably end up loving things the show ends up doing because i am, at my core, a simple sort of person.

i had a lot of fun writing this all up, and i hope this super long post was informative or entertaining in some way. thank you so much for reading<3<3<3<3

#shadow and bone #s&b #shadow and bone netflix #s&b netflix #long post #alina starkov #malyen oretsev #the darkling #general kirigan #shadow and bone analysis #shadow and bone meta #peach stuff #jesus christ. if you read all this you are so strong. stronger than the us marines. i am so sorry im like this #you'd think during finals season my theory and analysis brain would turn off but no. apparently not #i did this as a reward. for finishing a research paper. i wrote and compiled all of this as a REWARD #also if my details are off or wrong in any way it's because i didn't do any fact checking <3 #im only human after all #and you can always comment or message me saying i fucked up and i'll edit this post #i haven't slept in. maybe 30 hours #i have gotten 5 hours of sleep within the past 48+ hours. i am having a great time #today is my break day though my next final isn't due until friday evening so i'll just. do it tomorrow and friday #anyways yeah. im so sorry for this. this also may be the best thing ive ever done

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