#what kind of true villain is likable?

[antianakin]

Kind of interesting seeing the divide between people saying ‘it’s not really that anti Jedi, look it’s all one big misunderstanding’ and those who think it is anti Jedi.

Meanwhile, I’ve blocked more people with opinions I don’t want to see on the Jedi in the Acolyte tag since the last episode came out than I had since the first episode. Even if it’s not ‘that’ anti Jedi it’s still enough for people to voice their own critique of the Jedi.

From what I’ve seen, it’s not as bad as I was expecting but it’s bad enough.

I've kind-of talked about this before, but this is why I separate "anti Jedi" and "Jedi critical" as concepts. This show is Jedi CRITICAL, it is not ANTI Jedi.

Anti Jedi, for me, are the people who just sit there and talk about the Jedi like inhuman monsters. It's the fans who insist that the Jedi abused Anakin, kidnapped children, genuinely persecuted other cultures, forbid love of any kind, etc etc. It's the people who genuinely insist that it was a GOOD thing for the Jedi to be murdered in Order 66, that it was NECESSARY because the Jedi were just so so bad and unbalancing everything and this was meant to be or whatever. There is NEVER anything positive at all in anti Jedi stuff, they're just straight up villains basically.

Jedi critical is a range of things, but it tends to be a lot softer and it can even be positive towards the Jedi. There can be Jedi critical MOMENTS in overall Jedi positive stories (see Rebels, Jedi: Fallen Order, and Jedi: Survivor for some pretty good examples of this). This is not a thing that can happen with anti Jedi stuff because it doesn't allow for anything positive about the Jedi to exist. Jedi critical stuff sometimes BELIEVES it's being positive about the Jedi in a "individual Jedi are good people, but the overall organization had issues" way or a "their intentions were good, but they were too old-fashioned and blinded by tradition to realize their good intentions were allowing them to go along with corruption." It's not so much "the Jedi deserved what they got" as much as it is "the Jedi lost their way and caused their own destruction." The Jedi aren't villains here, they're a cautionary tale.

So when fans got worried about Headland's interviews where she explicitly said this would be a Jedi critical story, I think people thought we were worried it would be the FIRST thing. People started to assume that this meant the Acolyte would represent the Jedi as complete and utter monsters and nothing else, so when they ended up a cautionary tale instead, it came off as being like... "not as bad" as expected somehow.

But from what I could tell within my own little circle of internet, the show has ended up EXACTLY what we expected it would be. The Jedi have good intentions and they're not necessarily bad people individually, but there are ABSOLUTELY many many implications that the Jedi as an organization are becoming something negative. They may not INTEND to be a "domineering force in the galaxy," but by working with the Republic, they've allowed themselves to become no more than space cops. They may not INTEND to persecute other groups of Force users, but by being so powerful via their connection to the Republic and allowing themselves to become space cops, it sort-of alienates other groups of Force users by default. They BELIEVE they're doing the right thing and keeping peace in the galaxy, but in truth they're just being rigid and uncompromising. They've begun to allow power to corrupt them into the very thing they claim to fight against.

So, sure, there are elements of this show that end up quite positive towards the Jedi. The characters themselves are clearly intended to be likable and sympathetic, you're clearly supposed to feel sad when those characters were murdered a few episodes ago and that wouldn't be true if the Jedi were being represented as nothing more than villains or monsters. Nobody cried when Palpatine died, after all.

But there are a lot of other elements of this show that imply the Jedi are losing their way, that their connection to the Republic is turning them into a corrupt institution, that their arrogance now (even if the Jedi themselves view it as "nobility") will be what causes their own genocide down the line. There's implications that the Jedi's rules are becoming too strict, that they're allowing themselves to become more emotionally distant, that they're becoming disconnected from the galaxy and its people.

And, personally, I don't like this any more than I would've liked a show that made the Jedi into inhuman monsters. In a lot of ways, Jedi critical stuff is FAR more insidious than anti Jedi stuff. If the Jedi had been represented as just robotic, emotionless monsters, I think a lot of people would've just dismissed it as bad writing and that would've been the end of it. But the reason that "Jedi critical" commentary and interpretations has been so popular for over two decades is because it's COMPELLING and it makes sense to people. The Jedi aren't necessarily all bad, but they're "flawed" and this can feel a lot more relatable than the more canon interpretation that the Jedi are a symbol of compassion and selflessness, they're an example of how you SHOULD act, while ANAKIN is the cautionary tale of what NOT to do.

Both anti Jedi and Jedi critical interpretations basically flip the point of the story on its head by taking a message meant for someone else and applying it to the Jedi instead. With the anti Jedi interpretation, they're just taking Palpatine's story and giving it to the Jedi ("they're the REAL villains"), while the Jedi critical interpretation takes Anakin and the Senate's story and gives it to the Jedi ("they had good intentions, they lost themselves to fear, they let power corrupt them into the thing they claimed to fight against, etc").

So while Jedi critical stories can often COME OFF as better than anti Jedi stories because they seem to allow more room for positivity towards the Jedi, they're often not so different. "They all deserved to die" and "They may not have deserved it, but they caused it with their own arrogance" don't end up feeling all that different in their negativity to me most of the time.

The primary difference to me is that Jedi criticism exists in a RANGE, while anti Jedi stuff does not. Jedi criticism can be as small as one line out of four seasons' worth of positive content in Rebels implying that the Jedi made a mistake by going to war but never truly blaming the Jedi for their own genocide, or as big as shows like the Ahsoka show and the Acolyte straight-up blaming the Jedi for their own genocide and condemning them as weak failures who became corrupted by power and elitism.

It's a lot easier to listen to Jedi critical arguments and think "hey, maybe they have a point, this sounds reasonable and it's coming from someone I trust, so it must be true." And then it escalates. It goes from "Maybe the Jedi were a little complacent and old-fashioned" to "The Jedi were so arrogant that they didn't even do anything to try to save themselves because it would've meant changing some of their traditions" to "The Jedi Order completely lost their way and were ruining the galaxy and needed to be destroyed for the sake of balance." And you can see just how quickly a little bit of softer Jedi criticism can lead to genocide apologia. And most of the people who make those arguments will INSIST that it's not genocide apologia, they might even insist that they actually do LOVE the Jedi and find them really cool and fun and interesting. But they'll also turn around and, in the same breath, say that the Jedi brought their destruction upon themselves. You can see how Jedi criticism can grow, like a mold.

So, sure, maybe The Acolyte isn't as bad as some people were expecting because when they heard people getting worried about Jedi criticism, they thought it meant "the Jedi will be represented as nothing but murderous, inhuman monsters" and what we're getting seems, on the surface, to be better than that. Maybe for some people, it is. For some people, they're able to pick out like 20% of this show and just throw away the other 80% in order to just enjoy the characters. For some people, they're able to just rewrite the show in their heads to pretend it's less critical than it is. For some people, the fact that the show is badly written enough to feel contradictory sometimes means that the Jedi critical stuff doesn't seem so bad.

Some people are a LOT more tolerant of this kind of stuff than I am or just want to enjoy pretty much any Star Wars content that exists enough that they're willing to do extra work to find ways to enjoy it. Personally, this is EXACTLY as bad as I thought it would be, and I see no need to try to pretend this show is something it isn't in order to force myself to find something in it that's enjoyable to me. I'm willing to do that work only if that ratio is flipped and there's 80% of the show that's already enjoyable on its own and 20% that's a little off.

I'll just be glad when it's finally over and we can stop talking about it and let it disappear into nothing the way the Ahsoka show seems to have done.

[magpiemagica]

Monster High Reboot Movie Antagonist Appreciation Post ❤️

I’m not a big fan of either reboot (for different reasons I will not get into) but the movie antagonists always stood out as strong and interesting to me. This is my opinion; feel free to disagree.

Moanica D’Kay🪱 stands out in her movies; her evil intentions and antagonistic demeanor really make her a memorable threat, especially in contrast to the more kiddy world of G2. She commands an army of zombie boys (Zomboys) and is strong leader. Her main goal is to terrorize mankind as vengeance for humans forcing monsters to live in hiding. Moanica has been hurt so much in the past that she wants others to feel the pain she has. She doesn’t want peace; she wants havoc and destruction. Because of this, Moanica doesn’t understand why Draculaura would rather educate and befriend the humans rather than harm them. She is overall pretty f*cked up, even compared to G1 villains, and that’s what makes her so interesting.

Some other interesting facts about Moanica is that her favorite food is vermicelli pasta; she finds it “a scream that the name means “little worms”. She is from South America, more specifically Peru 🇵🇪. Moanica D’Kay is the last doll designed Garrett Sanders, Monster High’s creator.

Mr. Komos 👔 (legal name Eddy Hyde Jr.) is a teacher who serves as the twist antagonist of the first G3 live action movie. He seeks revenge against the monsters of Monster High for exiling, discriminated against, and expelling his father, Eddy Hyde, for being half human. This discrimination by the school led to his father being killed. Eddy teaches anti human sentiment in his class, despite his heritage (True Monster Heart). The movie ends with him being turned to stone by Clawdeen. What interests me about Komos is that the movie tries to sell us on him being a big bad villain. I could never really see his motivations as evil? He is a pretty regular guy. Taking his anger on our main characters was the most cruel thing he did; besides that, he seems more justified than not? If an institution killed my father and spread lies about people like him, I would be pissed too. The fact that Komos wasn't redeemed, even though it would have been so simple as an exchange of apologies, confuses me. He could have been a great resource in making sure half humans feel welcome at Monster High. It would have been such a more satisfying conclusion than literally killing him??

Eddy/Mr. Komos is a intriguing character who could have been so much better if given better writing :(

Toralei Stripe😼 is a foil for Clawdeen and the second G3 movie's secondary antagonist (The main antagonists/villains of the movie, the witches, sucked). She is loyal to monster kind, has a grudge against humans and half humans like Clawdeen, and is Clawdeen's election rival. She is pretty toned down and likable here compared to her (in my opinion more annoying) G3 animated counterpart. Toralei is wrong for her prejudice of Clawdeen yet very sympathetic in her motivations to keep monsters/students safe from human witches. She seems realistic as a character and has a natural charisma to her. A pleasant surprise from a not so good movie.

The writers sometimes miss the mark with her (mischaracterize her very valid concerns about witchcraft as bigoted) but I hope that she continues to be present in the inevitable Monster High movies to come.

[nitrateglow]

Halloween 2023 marathon: 12-15

Rope (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1948)

Brandon and Philip do everything together: share aesthetic philosophies, go on road trips, and commit thrill kills in their living room. After strangling a classmate, they hide the body in a chest. They also happen to be throwing a dinner party that night. The thrill of possibly being caught excites Brandon, but Philip is on the verge of a breakdown all night. And when their old prep school headmaster Rupert shows up and starts to notice their combined strange behavior, matters grow potentially deadly.

I watched this one with my grandmother, who had never even heard of it before. She ended up really liking it, which made me happy because I think Rope is Hitchcock's most underrated film. Hitchcock himself dismissed the movie as a failed experiment. The central gimmick is that the film appears to be shot in a single take, lending the story the sense that it's all unfolding in real time. It's not a seamless illusion, but it is effective, so sorry Hitchcock, you're wrong.

Rope is a great companion piece to Dial M for Murder. Both are based on plays and both feature debonair, egomaniacal killers who seem more excited about the plotting of their crimes than any material benefit they could get from them. (Someone please write a crossover where Tony and Brandon compete to commit the best perfect crime ever. Like that is the fanfic content I want!)

Jeopardy (dir. John Sturges, 1953)

Doug and Helen are an ordinary American couple vacationing in Mexico with their young son Bobby. They go to a remote fishing spot to picnic. The pro of this spot is its nostalgic quality for Doug. The con is that its remoteness is inconvenient when you get trapped under heavy ass timber just as the tide's coming in... which happens to Doug. With only four hours to save him from drowning, Helen drives off to find help. Instead she gets kidnapped by Lawson, an escaped criminal who isn't shy about murdering people. He's uninterested in helping Doug, so Helen has to find a way to either escape her captivity or manipulate Lawson into helping her before it's too late.

What an underrated thriller! I mainly watched it for Barbara Stanwyck, but Jeopardy is a great suspense film with a fiendishly simple set-up. It's the perfect example of writing advice I once received about how to deal with writer's block: just keeping making your main character's life worse. Got a husband about to drown? How about being kidnapped by an escaped criminal while you're trying to get help?

It runs at just 69 minutes and not a second of that runtime is dull. I had planned on only watching half of the movie before going to bed because it was very late, but I was so wrapped up in it that I said "Screw it" to getting a good night's sleep.

Stanwyck is of course amazing. Her character Helen is written as a terrified housewife susceptible to "hysteria" (hello casual 1950s sexism), but she's actually pretty crafty. Stanwyck plays her as a fighter and even when her captor gets the upperhand, you can see in her eyes that she's scrambling for the next potential escape plan.

The best scenes are between Helen and Lawson. There's both an antagonism and undeniable sexual tension between them from the start. When she seduces him in a shack, she starts lounging about and puffing at her cigarette like her character Phyllis Dietrichson in Double Indemnity, which is both funny and awesome. In addition, it's ambiguous how into Lawson Helen exactly is. You could say she seriously considers running away with him once he helps her husband out, but the opposite might be true as well.

In this kind of story, it would be easy to make the husband a wet rag in comparison to the attractive villain, but Doug is super likable, keeping a cheerful face on his increasingly hopeless situation, and his attempts to keep his son calm and optimistic are truly touching. And that just adds to the suspense-- you don't want to see that guy drown, even if Lawson is also charming and charismatic.

And hot. Cannot deny, Ralph Meeker is super hot in this, like holy shit. He's got some definite Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire vibes going on.

Also this promotional image of Stanwyck and her two male co-stars cracks me up. It's the polar opposite of the film's actual tone.

The Sealed Room (dir. DW Griffith, 1909)

In an unspecified century in an unspecified country, an unspecified king finds out his mistress is having an affair with the court minstrel. What's worse, they have their trysts in a hidden room the king likes using as his love cave. He decides to brick the two up alive, just as a gotcha.

The Sealed Room is one of my favorite nickelodeon era movies. It's got a great Poe-themed story, enjoyably hammy acting (the king makes so many reaction image worthy faces and poses, I just CAN'T--), and a pretty sophisticated use of composition and space that emphasizes the claustrophobic terror inherent in the premise.

This movie also features a great example of what I often call "silent movie logic." It's those scenes where something happens that would technically make a hell of a lot of noise but other characters don't notice and most of the time, I don't notice unless I think about it too hard. But in this case, it's hard to miss-- the king's servants start bricking up the exit to the hidden room while the mistress and the minstrel are like five feet away. Those servants are either very good at their job or the lovers are too horny to pay attention to anything else.

It Follows (dir. David Robert Mitchell, 2014)

When high school girl Jay loses her virginity at the end of a date, she expects her life to change. And it does-- but not in the way she expects. Her date tells her he's just passed on a curse to her-- a mysterious figure will follow her around until it gruesomely kills her and the only way to get it off her trail is to transmit the curse to someone else via sex. Terrified and hurt, Jay and her friends try to find a way to stop the monster permanently.

It Follows had so much hype around it back in 2014. It was the horror movie du jour, with everyone praising the hell out of its old-school vibe and intriguing premise.

I'm sad to say I was underwhelmed. The premise IS cool, as well as a fun meta commentary on the traditional sexual politics of the slasher genre, and the lead actress Maika Monroe is very good as the soulful young Jay. I was never really scared though-- and if you're a regular of this blog, then you know it's not because I don't like slow-burn horror. I love it, especially when there's a bare minimum of crappy jump scares. This one just felt meandering, slow for the sake of resembling artsier classics of cinematic horror, and I lost interest halfway through. Even the monster ceased to creep me out by the end.

And that makes me sad, because I loved the score and the atmosphere of the film. There's a weird out of time quality to it-- the score is very 80s synth, characters watch old horror movies on the TV (Jay and her date even go to see Charade at a movie theater), and there isn't much in the way of teens staring at their phones (though one of Jay's friends has a cool clam-shaped e-reader). However, I just could not get into the story. It just lacked that extra something to make me love it. Or maybe I just wasn't in the proper mood.

I don't know. It could very well be a "me" problem.

[td-frog]

thoughts on dcas e7:

tom+jake+aiden

god this season is doing such a good job with jake. after last episode it'd make so much sense for him to just be jealous and upset, but instead he's genuinely trying to communicate. and literally saying "you always wanted me to do this, so i'm trying, please talk to me" is like. really good.

idk for sure but it does feel like tom's lying about the boyfriend. at the very least, not giving any more information (valid choice if it's true given they're on tv and that ruined his life in s1) makes it seem like he's lying, which sucks for jake because at this point he is doing everything right.

not really surprised that aiden's mad at jake about it given he and tom are friends and he and jake don't know each other, but it is a little disappointing given how clearly (to the audience) jake is Trying His Best

also i do kind of love that this very much could have been the end of it if it weren't for ellie intentionally fucking it up.

villains alliance

i fully forgot that alec didn't know about the letters. of course he didn't, he would absolutely have taken it seriously because he's the only person in the alliance trying to make it work. i do think it's funny that he and riya had a conversation about it without even checking if anyone was listening tho.

gabby finding out was inevitable, ever since the "ellie would've told me line" but i do feel bad for her. i'm worried this is going to backfire on tess tho, since she offered to talk to ellie first. their relationship is really sweet and it makes sense for the game to mess it up, but yeah :(

magenta team

prediction from last time: "if it's magenta team it's probably fiore, which makes me think it won't be magenta team." well i was half right!

i love fiore so much and i'm sad to see her go, but honestly i really really love what they're doing with jake here.

like the theme of his character is Trust Issues, and in s1 that was a lot more lashing out at people over tiny slights which was not the most likable trait. but now he's learned that that's not healthy and is trying to correct it, but the core issue is still there. the fear and worry at being hurt or abandoned hasn't gone away, he's just not externalizing it as much.

like i genuinely don't think ashley is wrong for hanging out with ally, not eliminating ally, not picking up on the severity of jake's anxieties, etc. in fact i think kicking ally out would've made it worse, bc what he needs more than immediate reassurance that he's her ultimate bestie is to build up resistance to the fear of abandonment- being able to experience the worry and have it turn out okay without needing ashley to do something dramatic will help demonstrate that it doesn't have to be as big of a deal as his relationship trauma is telling him.

but also i get it. and i'm not worried about ashley turning on him, but i do think he's not going to handle it well bc he needs to be liked so bad and is not having a good time.

other thoughts

yellow team took more of a backseat this episode (besides the villains alliance thing, but that was a bit more ellie focused), but yul continues to be the world's shittiest boyfriend. grett has grown so so much since s1 and it's gonna hurt so bad when this gets exposed i know it :(

#trevek confirmed ig, still kind of largely ignoring it for personal reasons.

predictions

cyan team should be high focus next episode, mainly bc of the villains thing. i think it's likely ellie will react badly to being confronted about it, and i can see it causing team tension esp with gabby. if they end up having elimination i don't really see ellie surviving at this point? mostly because tom and aiden are already biased against her and while i can see gabby sticking with her i don't think she could convince tess.

i don't think magenta will be up for elimination again, mainly because i think their current drama needs some time to marinate. ashley won't turn on jake unless he gives her a Really Good reason, and i don't see that happening in a single episode. and if they take ally out that kills the tension of jake not knowing how it'll go. so that (along with them having the smallest team) has me leaning against them.

if it's yellow, it's probably yul. riya and alec have not been subtle about their dislike, and there's no longer a non-villain option. i guess if grett hasn't figured out his act by then it could be a tie (in which case i think yulgrett would vote for riya, and yul would win the tiebreaker for narrative purposes (it not making sense for him to go home before being exposed to grett)), but it could go differently. i think it's more likely to be cyan tho.

i should note i have no idea when to expect the merge. it feels too soon right now though.

also! i don't really think tess is in danger (although as team mediator and the tiebreaker between gabellie and tomaiden, she is the obvious candidate for getting out via trickery), but i do think she might be out soon- mainly, i'm expecting ally to be the one from her trio that lasts the longest, and i'm really interested to see how she reacts to tess elimination vs hunter. i also think it'd be interesting if tess gets out before they get much of a chance to catch up, and how that would affect things. anyways not likely to be next episode but i can maybe see that coming up at some point.

also also! i will very much enjoy seeing alec's response to fiore's elimination :3c (not that there will be one, of course, because he does not care :3c)

[sokkastyles]

Hi,

I've liked your takes on Azula. Personally, while i like her as a character (specifically as an antagonist), i've never really liked Azula. Perhaps that's why i have trouble picturing what a redeemed Azula would actually look like. I was wondering if you had any ideas on what kind of person Azula would be, post some kind of redemption.

Hi, and thank you!

As far as liking Azula, the way you describe feeling about her is how you're supposed to feel about her. She's a good character, but she's not supposed to be likeable as a person. Something that I think is a problem in fandom culture is that people get caught too much in character likability. To me it's a really weird way of looking at fiction, but it's oddly common in fandom spaces, the idea of whether x character is someone you would want to be friends with or date in real life, when most characters are not meant to be interpreted that way, they're meant to be interpreted as part of a story. Azula isn't a likeable person, but that's okay because she isn't supposed to be, and she's not auditioning for my friendship or anything, she's a fictional antagonist in a story, and she does her job.

On your question about a redeemed Azula and what that would look like, this is a really interesting question, and I feel like most people who talk about this get it wrong. I see a lot of sad baby Azula who feels immense guilt over her actions. On the flip side I see "redeemed" Azula who never feels remorse for anything and continues to treat the people around her like garbage, but they have to put up with her because she's "redeemed" now. I also see a lot of people proposing a redeemed Azula who gets to be a mary sue wish fulfillment fantasy - she is the most powerful bender, the most intelligent, funnier than Sokka (an actual take I've seen) and all around better than everyone. Which is a weird take on redeeming a character for whom one of their primary flaws as a villain was thinking that they were better than everyone.

To start thinking about redeemed Azula and what she would be like as a person, look at Zuko's redemption arc. One of the best ways to redeem a character and keep them recognizable is to take those flaws that made them a villain, and portray how they can also be virtues.

For example, one of Zuko's primary established traits early on is his dogged determination. It was one of the things that made him a villain, but it's also one of the things that pushes him towards redemption and building a new identity for himself. His ability to endure and get back up again helped him through his struggles even when it was hard, even when he had to give up a lot of what previously drove him and search for a new drive.

One of Azula's primary traits as a villain is her intelligence and quick wit. She is hypercompetent and ambitious. She's extremely observant and uses those skills to manipulate things to her advantage. I said long ago that I'd love to see an Azula redemption that takes those skills and refocuses them on something that leads her towards a path of goodness. One of the things that happens in the comics is that she notices that Zuko is struggling with being fire lord. She tells him in "The Search" that he doesn't really want it, and there is some truth to that. She's able to pick up on something true about his character because she knows him so well, and like previously, she's able to use that to manipulate him.

But what if she were able to use those powers of observation for good? What if, instead of manipulating people, she were able to use her ability to understand people and what motivates them to help them? There's only so far you can understand other people before you start to empathize with them, and it's hard to hate people if you really understand them.

I imagine Azula post-canon, struggling with the new world she finds herself in, not sure of her own identity. She starts out with trying to pick up the pieces of her old life. Zuko is fire lord, but she knows exactly where his reign is going. She was always able to think three steps ahead of him. He can't see the enemies in his own council. She knows exactly whose ear she would have to whisper in to bring her brother down. But along the way she can also see so many other possibilities opening up. Zuko would succeed in getting this new ruling passed if only he realized what this certain councilman wanted. She tells him so one day just because she's bored, and to both of their surprise, Zuko actually ends up taking her advice, and it works. Of course, Azula didn't want that to happen, it's just that she could have if she'd wanted to. But after that, Zuko eventually makes her a part of his council, and the more he trusts her with information, the more she buys into it just to see what would happen. Eventually Azula finds herself committing acts of kindness just because she can. She can see all the possibilities so easily, how to improve or destroy someone's life at a whim, and this amuses her. A curious thing starts to happen, though. The more Azula ends up, sometimes despite her own judgement, helping others, the more she finds that people actually like her. They come to her for advice. A young woman comes to her one day asking how she can get a certain powerful nobleman who her family wants her to marry to leave her alone. He is wealthy and well-connected, but she has heard rumors that he is disrespectful and aggressive to women. This man, he has secrets as well, and Azula knows exactly what strings to pull to get this man removed from Caldera's court permanently.

Along the way, the more Azula realizes about the people around her, the more she starts to see through her father's bullshit. The more she starts to build relationships with others, the more she realizes how empty the relationship with her father was. In fact, her father was the one keeping her isolated all along.

Eventually, she becomes a force to be reckoned with in her own right, except now she has something else to fight for and has also learned not to take herself so seriously. She doesn't strive for perfection anymore, but she's still known to be ruthless to those who cross her or those she cares about, and will have a biting word for those she dislikes. She would be fiercely protective of the new network she created for herself.

I also don't like the redemption scenario of Azula the hermit who goes off and does her own thing. There is some truth in the idea that redemption doesn't necessarily mean forgiveness from the ones you've hurt, but I don't see Azula being happy alone. One of Azula's main flaws is thinking that she's better than everyone else, and her tragedy is that she ends up alone. Her redemption, therefore, has to come through living for others. Isn't that what redeems all of us in the end?

[paragonrobits]

tbh i think the whole ‘Midna’s true form doesn’t look enough like a gremlin so her imp form is better’ is kind of a ground zero for a particular type of discourse in character design that ultimately boils down to a single question:

should a character’s design be a visual summary of their personality?

there are pros and cons to this thing. on the one hand, i always appreciate a design where a single look at it goes ‘oh yeah you know EVERYTHING about this person’. a lot of the most iconic villains really lean into this (though a lot of heroes don’t, for a particular reason), and these designs are a very effective way to instantly communicate character.

The flipside issue of this, though, is that while it doesn’t INHIBIT nuance, it does make it harder to convey it, or at least if you assume that a design should always communicate the fundamental facet of this character, it also means that by default those facets will have greater significance to an audience than more subtle or less obvious traits revealed through characterization and plot. For example, if your character is a huge and brutish monster with a soft side, and the former is what their character design communicates (because the soft side is a subversion), than this approach to character design can be more of a hurdle.

Character design as character thesis also creates a problem with audience response; if the audience overwhelmingly makes assumptions about a character because of the way they look, even if that’s not at all what you intended, they can and probably will warp that character to fit their preconceptions. (For instance, all the male characters who happen to be attractive by the standards of the audience and get reimagined as brooding bad boys whose pragmatism and ruthlessness is them being dark and mature, even if the actual character is an explosive dumbass with zero maturity and too selfish to consider that other people have goals independent of what they want.)

This is where you run into another big issue with this whole idea: remember when i said that heroes and protagonists often tend to have less interesting designs, or at least that their characters are not often communicated as well? This largely boils down to a desire to have characters that you WANT people to like to be broadly inoffensive; if you’ve ever created OCs and you shied away from a particularly unpalatable character trait or design feature because you thought it would turn more people away, than you know EXACTLY what i mean. Heroes are often compelled to be more broadly likable, but this also means flattening out their potential concepts in favor of something more... marketable. Which sucks. It fucking sucks. Its why so many heroes come off as boring compared to villains, and while you can get some fun ideas by making your heroes just as extreme as villains, its very easy to screw it up and create unlikable characters. (You can honestly study a lot of discourse this way.)

Going back to Midna, she’s actually a prime example of a heroic character that does this right, but the thing about her is that while being a gremlin is a big part of her character, it isn’t what defines her. She is, after all, the protagonist (though not the playable one) of this game, she is THE titular Twilight Princess, and this role is ultimately what defines her, and her growing into her responsibility. She may be a gremlin, but its not the sole aspect of her personality.

Personally, I’ve always liked her true form more (though to be honest, she would probably have more facial elements from Imp Midna if she appeared in more games especially now, since the highly mature and regal look of her true form is kind of a stylistic element exclusive to Twilight Princess, while she’d probably look more like Imp Midna but Gerudo-sized and proportioned if she appeared in Tears of The Kingdom), not least in part BECAUSE its such a contrast to her actual personality. It’s very fun to get a character whose design expects you to think one way of them, but they turn out to have a radically different personaltiy, while it does seem limiting for a character’s design to indicate who they are. It might communicate things easier, but it also leans towards a much flatter character; if you convey everything that way, what’s left to tell?

for Midna, when we see her true form’s contrast against the gremlin cursed form we associated with her, its essentially the story of her character development and the depths of who she really is told in reverse.

[carewyncromwell]

"What do you think?"

"...I think you're...very beautiful."

"I should hope so. And just who might you be? What are you doing here?"

x~x~x~x

Yay, Halloween is almost here! And my "movie character costume" for Carewyn and Jacob's aunt Pearl Cromwell is definitely a combo breaker. Although all of my other entries in this series have featured dressing my characters up as animated movie characters, I decided on a live action movie villain for Pearl -- specifically Mombi from one of my favorite underrated childhood movies, Return to Oz! (As a side, it was bloody impossible to find good quality still image references for this dress!! I had to simplify it quite a bit simply because I had so little to work with.)

Honestly, when it came to thinking of a costume for Pearl, I was kind of at a loss, in the beginning. Both Pearl and Claire are decidedly more subservient to Charles's will than even fellow Clan member Blaise is, considering that Claire is such a passive and ignorant character and Pearl follows him out of a misguided sense of honor -- so casting either of them as incredibly powerful, malevolent, self-focused Disney villains like Ursula or Maleficent seemed incredibly out-of-place. And yet even more "realistic" villains like Mother Gothel seemed more in-line with Blaise personality-wise, since Pearl's style of parenting tends to lean more on sternness and stoicism ("just suck it up and stop complaining," basically), rather than manipulation and feigned, cloying affection. Even Lady Tremaine, who I definitely eyed for a while, didn't come across as that great a match for Pearl, since she's never been the sort to want to social-climb through her children or otherwise, nor is she the sort to get any satisfaction from her subjugation and abuse of others, instead being much more the type to justify it as a necessary evil.

What really shifted gears in my head was finding a villain that looked more like Pearl, and Mombi immediately came to mind, since her original head has reddish curls just like how I imagine Pearl's, although quite a bit shorter and lighter in color. (Mombi's hair actually better resembles mine, funnily enough!!) And then yeah, I made the connection -- Mombi in Oz may be incredibly intimidating in her own way, but she's ultimately subservient to the real mastermind, the Nome King -- just as Pearl is subservient to the mastermind in her storyline, her father Charles. Mombi is perfectly willing to keep a child captive in a mirror on the Nome King's direction -- just as Pearl arguably keeps her own children, Arsen and Kain, inside the stifling Cromwell Manor because Charles is determined not to "lose" any other family members like he did Lane. And in the Real World, Mombi's non-magical counterpart -- Nurse Wilson -- is a very cold, stoic, oftentimes cruelly dutiful character who still betrays a tiny shred of humanity, since she does actually jump into a rushing river to try to rescue Dorothy at one point and looks genuinely distraught (maybe for the sake of her job, but also perhaps sincerely) when it looks like Dorothy is going to drown. This too is very "Pearl" to me: she can come across as heartless a lot of the time, but she isn't pure evil. Admittedly Pearl isn't as vain as Mombi by a long-shot, but hey, can't win 'em all.

I decided to base the head in Pearl's hands on her deceased mother Marilyn, just as a little shout-out to the rest of the Cromwell line. And well, that kind of macabre touch is very true to the film, that's for sure! Return to Oz overall is a movie I know a lot of people see as nightmare fuel, especially in comparison to MGM's The Wizard of Oz, which it tries to be a sequel to but doesn't match in tone at all. For me personally, though, I loved both films as a kid and I still do -- I like the MGM film for its music, dancing, and innocence, Return to Oz for its real sense of danger and darker, more book-accurate whimsy, and both for the unique and likable characters they created.

Coming very soon: our last two main Cromwell Clan members, Claire and Charles, to finish off these Halloween sketches for the year!

[toon4thought]

Got to see "Wish" yesterday.

I had no real strong feelings going into this celebration of a film going in. I just knew that it all was a culmination of Disney's history with fairy tales. And watching it... admittedly gave me more mixed emotions than I hoped.

Starting on a positive note: the visual presentation. The psuedo-watercolor look to the backgrounds really makes them pop with pretty detail, and while it would've been preferable to also have the characters hand-drawn, the cinematic screen really shows how many 2D sensibilities are actually in their linework and movements. Color work can really stand out in places too. It's not the most storybook-like animation nor most effective blend I've seen, but it feels about right for how I'd expect Disney to handle that.

The plot is, by design, very tropey - pretty much going off the checklist of what is expected from Disney fairy tales - and while it wasn't the most interesting thing in the world, I could certainly wrap my head around the thought process. However, I do have to criticize parts of the writing, in that it often felt like the dialogue was just over-explaining the plot details to the audience. It felt like there was little room for subtle depth when there easily could've been.

Similarly, characters are standard but likable. Asha - while not a new character type for WDAS - is charming and rootable. Her Seven Dwarves-referenced friends do a good job at getting involved in the action and all have their moments to shine. Star is cute, Valentino... eh, I can give or take. And King Magnifico is, of course, a villain you love to hate - starting out with the illusion of generosity, only for his true colors to become more exposed over time. He's not going to make many top 10 lists, but his animation and Chris Pine hamming it up pays off.

The songs - not the best, to be honest. They're catchy enough, are generally brought to life well, and many may well find a standout (my fave was "This is The Thanks I Get"). But you're not going to find a new "We Don't Talk About Bruno" here. I think part of the issue is that the approach to them felt fairly modern-leaning, which I think was a mistake when this is meant to be presented as a classical fairy tale. Though I will say, the actual orchestral score fares notably better on this front.

I think the big saving grace of the film, besides the presentation, is how thematically tied it is to it being Disney's centennial. Not just in how many easter eggs get littered in, but also how the whole heart of the picture is about following your dreams and to not let a higher authority take them away from you. Sounds simplistic, but they litter in enough nuance for it to feel relatable. And apart from it being something people really need to hear sometimes, especially in our late-stage capitalism world; recall too how Walt Disney himself first built this empire by taking chances on utilizing animation that no one else in Hollywood would. There's even precedent to this with a few bits seen in the film, but I'm not going to give that away here. It hits pretty hard, and serves well as a metaphor on its own merits.

I'd say if you weren't intrigued by the trailers, you're not going to be swayed by the film. But the kids and others wanting something to lift their spirits are unquestionably going to eat this up, as it really is the exact kind of tale that made Disney the titan we both love and hate today.

[chatonyant]

Every time I try to make a "villain" character I always get stumped on what kind of "villainy" things they can do

And by villain I mean like. Morally grey and on the side of "bad" (whatever that may mean depending on the story) but not a true "evil" character who's out there kicking puppies. Wow ok that's hard to describe. Villain in the way megamind is, not villain in the way the orange guy from the same movie is. Villain in a way that it's a role they put themself in and it's a little silly but also a little sad. Villain in a way that's *pizzazz*, in a way that's morally grey and also kind of fun.

Megamind and doofenshmirtz are very fun characters to look at for reference and inspiration except in the story I want to plan, the "villain" can't exactly go around.... idk, blowing up shit with glitter bombs.

Villain in a way that's kind of pathetic and stupid to look at but also villain in a way that if they tried they would genuinely be a threat. Villain in a way that makes them charismatic and likable but also not someone you would call a good person. Villain in a way that's doing harm but not enough for people (more specifically the audience) to find it distasteful. (That last part is hard to describe because depending on how and what these "bad things" are, the audience would not care. But sometimes there's things where the characters in the story are like "it's ok" and the audience is like "why would you forgive them" etc etc?)(someone who does war crimes vs someone who is racist) (as an example?)

Anyways all I have is a character who tries to bully another but instead trips and falls cause they're pathetic.

[aegor-bamfsteel]

To bounce back on the other anon, I have to say that the reason I didn't like the adaptation aspect of hotd is that they whitewashed the two characters from that time period I disliked the most from the book, namely aemond and rhaenyra.

Fans parrot "but the show made the greens much more sympathetic" but this is true for alicent and aemond only and rather than being sympathetic it's more that they're a lot less villainous and gained niche fans because they're pretty hated by the majority of the audience from what I see. But beyond that, the adaptation choices of the screenwriters are so strange. If you wanted to have sympathetic (or whatever that means) characters among the greens, it's much easier to acheive that with aegon, heleana and daeron whose terrible traits mostly come into action after the start of the war.

Have the first be a lazy hedonist nonetheless quite innofensive and disinterested in power, the second a joyful princess who is popular with the smallfolk thanks to her kindness and the third a dutiful nice boy with chivalric ideals. Boom, there you have your sympathetic greens without having to alter the story at all. It would have made the three's eventual downfall into cruelty or madness during the dance much more poignant if they used to be likable too. Instead aegon is a loathsome sadistic serial rapist, helaena a weirdo who barely has any lines and daeron was scrapped from this season. And aemond, the bloodthirsty psychopath who was described as fierce from birth and called his half sister a whore after learning of their father's death, has been turned into a poor meow meow who didn't mean it. As for rhaenyra, her whole personality was revamped, her bad actions erased and she was given a righteous purpose in the form of a prophecy to make her a daenerys lite.

Just imagine if in the first season of got d&d had tyrion as a mix of ramsay bolton and rorge, sansa as a ditz who is mainly here to look pretty in the background and not have jaime appear onscreen nor his existence being mentioned by his own family while turning cersei into a benevolent and peaceful noble queen and joffrey into a misunderstood brooding bad boy (now I'm not saying those characters are identical to the five children of viserys but they share similar archetypes and it's just a broad comparison anyway). Maybe the show would have been popular with the mainstream like hotd currently is but d&d would have faced a backlash from book readers way sooner than they did.

Although it is very convenient for the screenwriters that they can justify any change or stupid adaptational choice with "the book is biased" or "the book is an untrustworthy historical account". Then why even adapt it if everything written is false or made up ?

In the end, though I admit it's petty of me, I cannot completely enjoy this adaptation when the characters I disliked the most during my readings are glorified and the few I liked (+ Aegon who I didn't like but could've been more interesting) are not exploited at all. At least Daemon hasn't been whitewashed yet so that's a small win I guess ?

Thanks for your commentary about the show. I agree with a lot of what you said about the Green children’s characterization. I hated how they portrayed Helaena, since it’s clear they had no idea what to do with her; they gave her dragon dreams and insect obsession and sensitivity from scratch, making her unrecognizable from the brave, pleasant mother who put her own life over those of her children, and who was so beloved by the smallfolk they rioted when they believed she was murdered. You’re also right about Aegon and how he was given the worst possible interpretation to the point it’s impossible to sympathize with him since he’s a rapist and enjoys watching children beat each other; whereas Rhaenyra—who is supposed to be about as bad as he is (that’s the point of the conflict? The realm is suffering because these worthless rulers want their chair?), gets her horrible actions removed (feeding Vaemond’s corpse to her dragon) and some diplomatic ones added (she never wanted to betrothe Jace/Helaena, and she flat out refused peace with “Tell my half brother that I will have my throne, or I will have his head.”). Then Daeron gets mentioned once and isn’t going to be seen until Season 2, when the whole point of him is he’s a decent, humble kid who allows his vengeance for his nephew burn a town. Aemond is Daemon’s foil in the novella (they even want to strangle a messenger that gives them bad news), a fierce somewhat dashing fighter with no morals, he’s where sympathy should not be. I agree with you that your take on the characters would’ve been more faithful and complement the themes of the story. Really, most characters were in need of a rewrite.

I had no idea HOTD was popular in the mainstream—the reviews I read indicated that it was a massive step down from early GOT—but I have been relying on Songify The News for my pop culture knowledge, so what do I know. Why adapt it? Because it looks cool. Everyone loves dragons…except the people who get they’re dangerous weapons and give their riders an unhealthy amount of power and entitlement over others, but who cares about us? The after episode commentary—including the infamous comment of “It’s GOT—civilians don’t count”—indicate they’re going for big spectacle rather than carefully written characters and plot (not that the novella had that), while disrespecting some of the core themes of ASOIAF. It’s the opposite of writing I like tbh.

I’d say you’re not being petty, because these seem like reasonable criticisms of the characterization/writing, though Seven knows I’ve been petty before in this fandom. Who knows what they’re going to do with Daemon next season (we have Blood and Cheese’s confrontation of Helaena to consider, and it’s building up to be a Mysaria vs Otto conflict about the smallfolk. They’ve taken away all of Helaena’s good moments like mothering her kids sassing Aegon and pleading mercy for Orwyle; why not her defining character moment where she proves herself to be Best Targ of the Generation)? They did take away some of his comeuppance and brutality, at the expense of adapting an interesting character this season who could’ve served as foil for Rhaenyra and Alicent, Lady Jeyne Arryn.

[juniaships]

As much as I want to ignore Shrek the Turd I think it's a lot rewarding to address its flaws than take the easy way out. So here us a list of what I would've changed had I wrote the movie.

Harold's death

- the choice of song is rather out of place

- only serves to push a dramatic moment/shove Artie into the plot

- I actually like Harold :/

How to fix it:

- Harold doesn't die. Instead he gets an old man crisis & Lillian decides to take him on vacation to recuperate; naturally leaving Fiona and Shrek in charge

- Harold does die but the moment is treated with actual respect.

- Harold doesn't die BUT there is a death: Artie's father. The Royal Family go to Camelot for the funeral and meets Uther's estranged son Artie. That way Artie's daddy issues has more purpose in the story bc he truly can't reconcile with his dad, and Shrek a more sympathetic reason to steps up as a father figure.

- Alternatively, Artie's mom dies and he is sent to live in FFW bc his father doesn't want custody. So Shrek AND Fiona has to deal with a teenager and both have fear of parenthood byt still wants to give Artie the best. This also allows Fiona and Artie to interact with each other

Artie

Problem: suffers what I call Chicken Little Syndrome, he's kinda bland and we don't know much about him. Also his bullied nerd background Only serves to make him sympathetic cuz everyone is so mean to him! Beyond being kind and kinda dramatic Artie doesn't have much else

How to fix it:

- Everyone has beef with Artie because of his father's reputation. Perhaps Uther had a bad spending habit which left Camelot in financial ruin or his habit of flirting with women left a lot of illegitimate children now they're all fighting over rightful inheritance and puts down Artie bc he's the youngest/weakest

- Camelot has a very warrior like society but Artie is more diplomatic/soft, which makes him look weak in the eyes of everyone else. Eventually his softness saves Camelot

- Artie has a legitimate flaw (his trust issues) which makes him unable to properly communicate with others.

- Artie has a few true friends who are outcasts like him. But their support drives him to pursue a career in politics so he can help them and ppl like them (giving his speech more credibility)

The Princesses

Problem: most of them were boring at best, unlikable at worst.

How to fix it:

- Give the princesses more likable personalities: say they WERE strong and capable but got so caught up in glamor bc they don't want to remember the painful past

Problem: Charming and Rapunzel

- Comes right out of nowhere

- doesnt make since given Charming's arc is all abput becoming villain why would he date ANOTHER princess?

How to fix it

- Rapunzel's new motivation is she doesn't want an ogre on the throne, or she got tired of the princesses bullying her for her baldness. Or that she's jealous the princesses still have their princes yet Rapunzel lost hers. Or maybe Charming DID save her and she's working with him as a favor.

- However she discovers Charming is not as cool as she thought bc he still treats her (and any princess) like objects and not their own person

- Keep Rapunzel in the princess group and create a new character from scratch

- this new OC is a part of the villains not because she is one herself but because they're the only ones who accepted her for one reason or another. This makes her a foil for Charming and Godmother's relationship. She's wants to help them & save the Poison Apple from closing.

- however Charming is very bad at being evil so she teaches him how to be more assertive and this sets up a romance.

Issue: Arthurian myth

Problem: Aside from being retooled as a school campus, the Arthurian mythos doesn't have much prominence in the story

How to fix it:

-change the main goal to finding Excalibur or the Holy Grail (kiddie Monty Python)

- or have it where Camelot is in a crisis of succession so an election or tournament is held to decide the new king. Noblemen from all over participate (introducing us to the Princesses). Shrek and Fiona helps Artie while Charming joins so he can finally get his own kingdom

- Artie turns out to have magic instead of Merlin (who is just a wacky alchemist/scientist) but he lacks confidence

- At the end have it where Artie forms the knights of the round table (with some of the characters and villains as members)

- Maybe make Charming "Lancelot"

Girl Power Message

Problems: They were sidelined most of the movie, preventing Fiona from truly delving into her responsibilities as Queen. Also most of the girl characters like the Princesses & Guinevere were portrayed as shallow b*tches or not having much relevance

How to fix:

- Make Fiona the focus character this time and her story is juggling queenly duties and her trauma in the tower

- Have the princesses be an underground guerilla force they help her take out Charming during the movie

- or have it where the tower was actually a school to train princesses-to-be and Fiona's Kiss was part of a sceret test of character to see if she really is fit to be Queen; accepting her ogress form means she accepts EVERYONE, so she passed the test

- Fiona demonstrates her leadership skills by planning and carrying out targeted attacks, & taking care of civilians

- MAKE ARTIE A GIRL it makes a cool twist fitting for a franchise like Shrek. Or give Artie a female companion/love interest who accompanies him on his quest (perhaps Guinevere or a new character)

- instead of Merlin they meet Nimue/Lady of the Lake who takes the role of the kooky mentor

- Like I mentioned, explore why Rapunzel betrayed the team; perhaps make her have a change of heart and help her ex friends escape.

- Or like giving Charming a new love interest one who is a caricature of the Evil Sexy Villainess or YA Novel Girlboss Protagonist (have her learn it's okay to be vulnerable)

- have Shrek puss and Donkey be the ones in danger and fiona and her princesses are the ones to go on a journey to save them

Puss and Donkey's subplot

Problem: it doesn't do much to serve the story but for cheap comic relief. Donkey is a father himself but doesn't seem to do much to help Shrek and Artie

How to fix it:

- make Puss absent of stay with the princesses to help them

- Donkey talks with Shrek about his experiences as a father

- Remove the body switch entirely

- or have a subplot where Donkey and Puss still aren't getting along and Merlin switches them so they can learn to see from a new perspective.

- Maybe have Puss admit he doesn't have a good relationship with his own dad or something, or is actually great with kids (stunning Shrek and Donkey)

Shrek's arc

- Issue: we don't delve much into his backstory, he only wants to shirk his royal duties instead of doing the smart thing and actually confronting them

How to fix:

- introduce more Ogres or Shrek's dad. Have it be a family reunion or Shrek's dad finds out he married into royalty and that sets up the overall conflict

- Have the babies born before the movie and the plot is spent with him being a stay at home dad or caring for them while in Camelot while Fiona is tbe working parent

- also sets up an arc where Fiona struggles to balance mother hood and her job

- artie gets more used to ogre (children) leading to a realisation he has to step up to make a better future for their sake (again a more sympathetic reasoning)

The Villains

Issue: Charming is just Farquad 2.0, the rest seem to be props in their own story, Rapunzel

How to fix

- Make a new character who represents the villain side we get an intimate look at how society treats outcasts

- Give the villains more screentime like say we follow a group of them during theur trip to capture Shrek. They eventually have a confrontation and in the fray Artie ends up helping a villain much to their shock. They realise Artie isn't a threat. Or have it set at the play

- give Hook or Doris a prominent role

- or a new major villain; make it Charming's dad who takes him under his wing under the guise of wanting to help his son but is just manipulating him for the throne

- Make Charming struggle how ti adapt to being a villain due to his upbringing

- make some of the villains less open to wanting him in his group or have it where they try to help him be more evil (setting up potential jokes)

- Have Charming and Fiona have an actual moment with Fiona pointing out she did dream of a prince but is happy with Shrek and warns Charming that he still wouldn't be happy even if he did get everything

- Give Charming an actual villain love interest as a foil to Shrek and Fiona

- Don't include Charming at all (marry him off to Doris even lol) and create a new villain inspired by Arthurian lore. Maybe the Black Knight? Mordred? Morgan le Fay?

- Or even Artie himself! he wants to use his new position to enact revenge on his bullies

- Instead of the villains taking over it's the other fairytale heroes led by a jilted Charming and Shrek teams up with the villains to save FFW

- Make Uther the main villain

[antianakin]

This is so interesting because I generally feel as though prequels Anakin has a better foundation even if the execution was often pretty mediocre, while TCW Anakin is less interesting overall but the execution of that character was better.

To extrapolate on that, I think prequels Anakin is focused in a lot more on Anakin being SCARED, on Anakin being kind-of selfish and greedy about never having to lose anything or anyone ever again, but being just genuine enough that people don't realize just HOW selfish and greedy he's being. I think the dichotomy of Anakin wanting to be a good person, but being so scared of losing ANYTHING that he's willing to sacrifice EVERYTHING is so so interesting as a character base. The problem with prequels Anakin, to me, is predominantly with the way the films show Anakin during the time when he's still supposed to be considered someone good and kind.

I think some of that has to do with tropes of the time, Lucas's difficulty writing dialogue/romance, the insistence on putting in tons of long CGI action scenes, and Lucas's own biases/prejudices. Anakin's character arc struggled then, and it continues to struggle now. He's NOT likable, and that was, in large part, kind-of the point. But you're not supposed to HATE him the way audiences did, or just feel like he doesn't WORK as a character. Obi-Wan's assertion that he was a good friend once shouldn't feel like a complete lie.

So Anakin is, I think, a more complex character in the prequels, but the fact that the Star Wars films were made by and large for 12 year olds and so struggle a little with that complexity is not surprising, and that makes the Anakin from the films less likable in a way he was probably not intended to be.

TCW Anakin is focused in a lot more on his ANGER, his violence. He becomes infinitely more suave and charming in TCW than he really ever is in the films (even including ROTS), but he's also almost consistently saying and doing violent things with the Imperial March playing behind him. Anakin in TCW isn't really all that far off of some pretty basic dude film action heroes here, and therefore isn't really all that complex. He's a villain-in-the-making and his charm isn't meant to make him seem like a genuinely GOOD PERSON so much as it feels like Anakin's just VERY good at putting on an act in front of certain people most of the time. There's no true focus on the terrible things Anakin's done despite how violent he often is because the structure of TCW means that they refuse to ever address ANYTHING that happens previously in any meaningful way, so the Tusken massacre gets completely forgotten, and Anakin just wanders around completely happy despite us as the audience knowing he's an unrepentant baby killer. Which, as a few other people have pointed out, makes him seem almost WORSE or scarier as a character, than if he were thinking about it more and seeming more conflicted over it.

Anakin being such a simpler character in TCW means that it's a lot easier to make him "likable" to audiences. He's familiar as an archetype, and he can be put into a nice neat little box where his actions never feel like they don't match up to what the narrative is saying about him. The choices he makes and the music they use is CONSTANTLY letting you know "this dude's evil, he's gonna be Darth Vader, he's only a year away from being Darth Vader, he's gonna kill babies, DON'T FORGET" so even when he's in his "nicer" moments in TCW, it's always kind-of in the shadow of the fact that he's a villain and that's the most important thing about him.

Prequels Anakin is complex enough that he required better writing than he ended up with, and that's the true tragedy of the prequels lol. He's not necessarily intended to be "likable" in the same way as TCW Anakin was. Prequels Anakin isn't a dudebro action hero in the same way, he's not Bruce Willis (I say this as someone who has seen exactly no Bruce Willis films but can't think of a better dudebro action hero right now).

So I'm personally more interested in the message being told via Prequels Anakin, I think it's more complex and unique, but I can understand people gravitating towards the easier, simpler, more familiar version of Anakin that exists in TCW.

[nightfrostshadow]

Cat And Bird

Took part in the secret santa event @creweemmaeec11 hosted and this is for @laffy-taffy-creations! I hope you like it ahhh writing this kind of topic was new T-T really hoping its fun to read *scream*

The prompt request was- heroxvillain who have pent-up emotions from both being oblivious to their (and eachother's) feelings and that realization moment of just 'oh, I've been so desperately in love with them for years- WAIT WHAT?' in their thinking

A figure zoomed past the window the hero was currently staring out of. Was it bad the hero knew exactly who it was without needing a proper glance? She quickly looked around at the ball in full swing. Breath-taking beautiful outfits, masks and equally graceful people dancing with their partners. It truly was a mesmerising scene. The hero sighed. She was all alone.

Well, it wasn’t really a tough choice now, was it? She had worn her boots underneath the long gown for times like this. Her gown, a beautiful flowy fabric was also made in a way that she could run if she just folded the bottom of her gown and tucked it into a loop sewn into it. She always made sure her outfits were a little something she liked to call- ‘run ready’. In less than a minute, with her gown converted to a knee length dress she leapt out of the window and went straight after the villain.

The villain wasn’t trying to lose her. In fact, it seemed as though he waited just long enough for her to catch up and then finally stopped on a rooftop and smiled at her while bathed in moonlight. She glared at him. “Really? Right in the middle of a ball?”

The villain raised his eyebrow,” Oh you mean the ball where you stood at the corner staring at the couples dancing in the centre wistfully? That ball? Oh dear, I’m sorry it must have been so much fun for you.”

The hero looked exasperated and she glared at him. “Why would you wait for me?” “Well, why did you follow me?

She saw him looking at her with a playful smirk on his face and took a deep breath to calm herself and the urge to punch him. She thought to herself, he was right. She had figured he definitely wasn’t out to do anything villainous that night If he was ready to play catch with her and yet she had followed him.

She sighed as she looked out at the night sky. She had to admit the rooftop had a beautiful view especially in the moonlight. An absurd thought hit her and she almost laughed. She looked towards the villain who was also staring at the night sky.

He turned to face her when she spoke, “You know, if any writers saw this scene they would be running to go write an enemies to lovers story about us. Seen quite a few on Tumblr myself. One was even about us,” she laughed. “Was quite a hilarious one actually.”

He started laughing. “I certainly knew you would have fans given you’re the hero. Who knew a villain like me would have some too?”

She scoffed, “You know damn well you have fans. Looks, charisma, you’ve got it all. Only problem is your moral compass is a bit broken. I see why they like you.”

The villain smirked; he stepped closer to hero. “Looks like you’ve given quite a lot of thought about how likable I am?”

He looked into her eyes, and she held his gaze for a few seconds until they both burst out laughing. The villain thought to himself could it be true? He did slow down when he saw the hero chasing behind and would start go on fake missions just so he could see her.

The hero was also thinking about why every time she and villain met she had..fun? She wouldn’t even try her best to catch him and get him sent to prison.

The laughter suddenly stopped as it hit them both. She froze and glanced towards villain to see his expression. He was also doing the exact same thing. Eyes wide, face shocked, they both quickly whipped out their phones and one quick google search later.

He spoke first, “ Oh dear so it seems that we indeed are- “enemies to lovers.”

“I was going to say –‘in love’ but I guess that works too.”

The villain chuckled as he smiled mischievously, ”Well we have a lot of stuff to figure out but for now...Let’s just go back to that ball you just ran from. This time you’ll have the best dance partner.”

The hero grinned,” Thought you’d never ask”.

In no time they were outside the ball and choosing a mask for the villain to wear. It was quite a fancy ball and they had even laid out some masks of different types on a table outside for people to take if they didn’t have one.

Hero had on a mask which had two golden feathers on each side.

The villain thoughtfully looked at the hero’s mask and winked as he reached for a cat mask with soft ears and whiskers on it. And with that, the bird and the cat entered the ballroom.

The music swelled as the villain held out his hand and the hero took it. 

[pb-dot]

Why do I never rewatch Last Night In Soho?

Edgar Wright's Last Night In Soho is a strange movie for me. I enjoy a lot of the things it does, the otherworldly sleaze of the lighting, talented actors playing smart characters trying to figure out a mystery, truly jaw-dropping in-camera tricks to portray the impossible, and a saucy twist. It's the kind of movie I'd watch time and time again but somehow, I just can't make myself do it. More musings and Last Night in Soho spoilers under the cut.

Part of it, I suspect, is that Thomasin McKenzie is just too damn good at her job as the protagonist Eloise. She's instantly likable and does the naive enthusiasm of the young and ambitious with such intensity that I find myself entirely unwilling to, as it were, "put her through" the entire cavalcade of fear, humiliation, and doubt of her own sanity that is to follow by actually watching it play out.

It's odd because usually I watch horror movies for that specific niche. I love seeing characters going through fear, pain, and adversity and emerging stronger on the other side. The ghosties, ghoulies, and assorted monsters help to make the scenario sufficiently fictional-feeling, granted, but I get a similar rise from "man against nature/elements"-movies such as Fall.

It could easily be because the main source of horror actually is not the ghosts nor the time-traveling body swapping that lands Eloise in the increasingly unenviable nights of Anna Taylor-Joys fallen starlet Sandie, but rather how incredibly grim the lives of the two women get as the story churns along. Sandie finds herself forced into steadily more degrading sex work, and there are no ghosts or curses in play. The world has just historically been shitty to women, and although Eloise doesn't suffer from the same, she is still belittled, frequently harassed, and gaslit by her supernatural connection and the martial world both.

What really gets to me, I think, is that in the end, Eloise learns that her assumption that Sandie eventually got murdered was faulty and that she instead murdered her pimp boyfriend and several former clients, if not assaulters is the right term here. Not to go all #girlboss here, but frankly, who could blame Sandie? I'm not saying the girl deserves a medal, but surely Sandie is not a villain for this?

It is somewhat ambiguous whether the movie agrees with my take at all, seeing as Eloise's landlady, secretly an older Sandie all along, drugs Eloise and plans to kill her to ensure her crimes stay hidden. It's not an unrealistic reaction to learn your 60's crime spree has been discovered, granted, but it also makes the climax a bit of a bummer.

Eloise and Sandie are in such a powerful position to understand each other at this point. Sandie has been young, beautiful, and hopeful in a hostile city, and Eloise has literally been Sandie. I don't know what sort of peaceful compromise can be reached in this situation but attempted murder and accidental arson seems like a worst-case scenario. The movie to its credit seems to agree that this is a tragic one, but I'll argue that it's not a good tragedy if it isn't inevitable.

The movie does end on a happy note, but it doesn't quite fit, mostly because it didn't seem entirely connected with the rest of the story thematically. It's great that Eloise is doing better, of course, I could watch that girl succeed all day, but it hasn't really been the type of experience she has been having. She has withstood the world revealing itself to be a colder, eviler place than she thought, but she has reached no meaningful synthesis between this fact and her natural optimism. Things just working out for her right now, despite experiencing a small lifetime's worth of trauma and indignities. I guess it's nice if you can get it, but it doesn't feel true to me.

I don't really like to nitpick movies like this, especially movies that I like the vast majority of, but the ending in Last Night In Soho doesn't work for me, and it's probably because of this I haven't gotten around to rewatching it. I feel like there's a version of the movie, at least of the script, out there that I could really enjoy, and that's ever so slightly maddening.

[maybe-a-little-wicked]

I’m finally putting my thoughts on Shadow and Bone season 2 down, and some of these opinions are controversial! Whew! But I need to talk about them so just buckle down or scroll away heh. 

1. Season 2 wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for a few glaring flaws and the fact that it’s an adaptation. What are the major flaws, in my opinion? Too many character plots to follow, a lack of interest in the writers room on their protagonist, and a rushed plotline. 

I feel like so much of season 2 is lovely. It’s got beautiful scenery, I love how we explore this world. It really builds upon season 1. But there’s this big disconnect between the writers and the main characters, especially Alina and the Darkling. (This is by no means a criticism of Jessie or Ben, they’re fucking phenomenal). Alina’s story doesn’t seem to matter all that much to the writers, who are way more into the crows storyline. 

People online were saying that the crows were the best part of season 2, and that’s true, but it’s NOT a good thing. Why? because this is shadow and bone, not six of crows. And the crows are great and I love them, but I did kind of resent their storylines a bit because I felt like their story was depriving me of Alina’s. And yeah, we can all sit here and argue that the crows are objectively better, but that doesn’t change the fact the show is shadow and bone. 

With so much focus on the crows, it doesn’t seem like Alina’s the main character at all, and if you’ve read the books you can really see just how much they’ve cut from her story. They didn’t even talk about the religious undertones! 

And the Darkling. Oh, the Darkling. Listen, I’m not here to debate whether or not you should like him, but he’s a good fucking villain, and the relationship between him and Alina is important. “But he’s abusive!” Okay, and ignoring the nuance of their relationship is taking away representation about abusive and toxic relationships. Not all fiction has to be cozy and warm for it to be valuable. you don’t need to like Darklina at all but you should recognize the importance and value of their story, and season 2 didn’t give that. So much of Alina’s story is tied to his. They are foils to each other, so similar and yet so vastly different and to ignore the complex relationship they have does them both a disservice as characters. 

This finally leads me to a rushed plotline. I get it, they were trying to tell the whole story and were worried the show would get canceled. So, take the crows out (ouch, my heart). Reduce the Storytime for the crows. There were other ways they could’ve combated the rush. I don’t think it would’ve been perfect (shadow and bone really needed to be three seasons) but it could’ve helped. Flat out, way too much happened in too little time and it does every single character in the show a discredit. 

Also, to touch on the adaptation aspect: I think they could’ve gotten away with more of everything I mentioned if they weren’t an adaptation. Like, the darklina relationship dynamic might’ve been able to slide a bit without the books (though I still think it would be a damn shame not to explore those complicated dynamics). 

2. Mal is likable here, idgaf. even at the end when people were mad about him dumping Alina, I think he was pretty justified honestly. He doesn’t owe Alina his love, especially not romantic love. He went through shit too, he was going to die for her. That doesn’t mean I like him as a romantic option for Alina. The character alone (in the show) is fine. It’s when he’s put into the mix with Alina and the Darkling I seem to struggle with him, and I don’t mean in the romance. There’s this power imbalance between them as characters that doesn’t work, and I’m not sure how else to explain it beyond that. 

3. At the end of it all, I don’t care that it sucks. Why? Because more seasons means more fanfiction. I have reaped the benefits of season 2 just from the influx of fanfiction alone. Adaptation means renewed interest in the fandom. idgaf if adaptation sucks, I'll go see them and support them for the sole purpose of more fandom content. (Also I think season 8 of GOT broke me a little in this regard). 

[tobiasdrake]

Okay. I've had some time to digest these. It's time to rank the final chapters.

Hikari Reclaims His Kingdom I don't know what to say here. It feels like there was a lot more effort put into Hikari's finish than a lot of the others. A lot of the conclusions do the "Everyone from past chapters shows up to pitch in" thing but Hikari's translates that into a series of multiple successive highs rather than one gradual build-up.

It's just payoff after payoff after payoff after payoff, and everyone one of them is a huge and earthshattering emotional resolution to a thread that's been running through his setup chapters. Just. Solid storytelling that sticks several different landings all at once.

Agnea's Dance-Off Duel Up there is Agnea and her spectacular bout with Dolcinaea for her mother's legacy. The stuff with La'mani felt like manufacturing last-second conflict just for the sake of giving Agnea's returning cast something to do, but it was lighthearted and goofy fun. I enjoyed it all the same.

That said, the actual throwdown with Dolcinaea hit me a lot harder than Hikari's confrontation with Mugen. However, I would say that Hikari's other payoffs outshine Agnea's comedy antics on her way in the door enough to tip the scales in his favor.

Ochette Becomes Island Aelfric They're still pretending that the violent colonizers are supposed to be likable for some reason but the rest is pretty cool. The Night of the Scarlet Moon delivers exactly what was promised. Which you'd think might be kinda bland since what was promised was "Nebulous forces of amorphous, nondescript evil sure will evil up the place," which is not a particularly engaging story in and of itself.

But that serves as the backdrop to the ultimate confrontation with Akala/Mahine, an adversary that is deeply rooted in what should have been a harmless choice Ochette made once. A crushing foray into the shadows we cast without ever knowing; The unintended consequences we can't have predicted. All leading up to a triumphant moment of spiritual self-actualization and a soul-crushing farewell to a friend that could have been. This got heavy, fast.

Throné Meets and Stabs Her Gross Dad Throné had some of the best emotional highs in the series but she kinda. Ran out. Of characters with complex and interesting relationships with her to kill off. No matter which way you slice it, whatever Claude was, he was just going to be some dipshit we just met five minutes ago. He was never going to hit that same emotional high of facing down Father especially.

They went this eldritch spooker route probably to tie him in with the overarching Shadow plot. But it all feels like lateral development rather than added depth. "He's not just some guy who runs the guild, he's some immortal guy who runs the guild. They aren't killing each other, they're his children killing each other. Throné hasn't been groomed to be the successor, she's been groomed to be the successor."

None of it feels like it adds anything to the story, so much as mildly alters the context of the story in a lateral way. You thought this was happening, but actually that was happening, which is really still this but in a funny hat. A lot of new facts are established which make everything a lot grosser but don't really change anything.

Castti vs. The Evil That Wears Trousseau's Face That brings us to the "Cackling supervillain that's just evil for evil's sake" portion of the endings. An utter disappointment of a villain, Trousseau is a one-dimensional performance piece draped in the aesthetic of a tragic villain.

The game talks at length about how good and kind he once was and how that set him up for a terrible fall. But we don't really see "tragic villain" in his dialogue and actions. He's just a one-note supervillain who kills people because he's evil, utterly devoid of personality or any reasonable motive. Existing purely to hype up the true nature of the Shadow, and offering little more as a foil for Castti.

But he's still utilized in an interesting fashion, at least. The conflict he creates, the poison rain, offers a conclusion that feels well-tailored to the sort of protagonist Castti is: An overworking apothecary who can rest when she's everyone around her isn't dead.

Partitio Solves Capitalism Through Friendship Like Agnea, Partitio was in a situation where the enemy he has to face isn't a physical threat. But unlike Agnea, Partitio lacked a cool competition that could be metaphorically represented through the language of boss fight, so we get a weird, forced battle with Roque instead after Partitio's already won.

A victory earned solely through appealing to the myth of the Good Billionaire, and that's capped off by the most inappropriate possible ending: Onboarding the evil capitalist as a partner for a new business venture.

A story that started strong at "Unionize to fight the oppression of the rich" somehow manages to end at "The rich aren't so bad if you give 'em a chance; They just get bad ideas sometimes and need a firm, guiding hand to help 'em provide a net good for society."

Osvald Wrestles for His Lamp Harvey is an even weaker character than Trousseau. He's the most evil from the word go for no explicable reason. Always has been, always will be. Walking around in his Dracula cape with six different elaborate speeches prepared in his pocket about how evil he is.

Harvey is the least interesting villain in the game. This conclusion features Osvald and Harvey finally having it out over whose academic theory is right. Which is actually about Osvald realizing that love for his family is more important than academica.

But it's actually not. It's about the academia; Elena is a non-character, and Osvald's love for her serves only to help him crack his formula and beat Harvey. He drops her on the curb immediately after the game's other horribly inappropriate resolution.

It would be hard to write a shittier ending than this.

Temenos Slays a Heretic Somehow Temenos's ending manages to be worse than this. A series of baffling choices brings us a genocide survivor going on wild Capital-S Supervillain rants about how she's going to kill the gods and exterminate mankind. Pulling Stock Villain lines out of absolutely nowhere.

Meanwhile, Temenos. This character who has been defined by his inescapable skepticism. Whose most profound and interesting trait is his willingness to scrutinize even the church and the very gods themselves. Finds himself suddenly shunted into the more traditional and least interesting possible dynamic of, "This non-believer dares to threaten our church! I will BURN the HERETIC!"

My favorite part was when they presented us with a mysterious maze puzzle and then skipped immediately to the end and told us Temenos was a very smart boy for solving it offscreen. What was even the point. What are you even doing here.