#this guy personal life especially in animated is way more interesting than the actual conflicts | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

fallloverfic · 4 months

Text

Solo Leveling Episode 7 Thoughts

Excellent ep!!! Spoilery thoughts for the anime, novel, and manhwa below, CW: blood:

Jinwoo and Jinah are so cute together T-T I love them being close sibs. I mean obviously he helped essentially raise her since he was 14, when their dad disappeared and their mom was too ill to do everything, and then fully did so after he graduated because their mother was comatose, and I just... think about that a lot. This kid who has to raise another kid and never got to finish being a kid himself and had to immediately go into the workforce and give up going to university and he just wants her to have the opportunities he didn't and I just T-T

I feel like I accidentally am vibing with this because I got fried chicken on the way home from errands today, completely unaware this was going to be in the episode.

I love Jinah asking about him and how he's doing. Makes up for calling him a cheapskate >.< I mean to be fair to her, I grew up in a household that struggled for money and I was completely clueless about why we often didn't get stuff, though my parents really tried to spoil us to the extent they could. I do get it. It's realistic in my experience to react this way, especially when the younger person is kept clueless about finances. It's just T-T sometimes. But I do love that she cares about his mental health.

Jinwoo just processing his first murder(s) essentially alone cause he certainly didn't confide in Jinho and he is the older brother with a sister in high school who is just living a normal life and wants her to be happy and so cannot confide in Jinah and it kills me he kind of doesn't do this with anyone, ever T-T Sort of when the Hunters manager warns him, but not on an emotional level. I mean to be fair he's also kind of just, "I resented them for thinking they had a chance against me," which is pretty dark lol But he's obviously really conflicted about that cause these were humans.

Jinwoo has one goal and that is protecting the people he loves. He's pragmatic. I think it's interesting he doesn't focus as much on "they tried to kill me multiple times, it was self-defense and defense of another person". Just... "My family is what's important and I'd do it again if I have to." Which, yes, that's a consideration you can have.

I mean he "could" have incapacitated the Lizards, maybe, rather than killing them, but he's not trained to do that, lacked equipment for it, and in the moment it's hard to process that. It just bothers me he doesn't really do any actual emergency training or whatever other than just building up muscle, EXP, and fighting/movement skills. Even his healing solution is just... shove a potion in people's mouths and it's unclear if he has literally any training in first aid of any kind outside that time he helps Song Chiyul wrap his arm.

Also Jinwoo is still really cute :3 He's animated well.

Hehe learning about the detox, poor guy lol I honestly do love the detail that the system detects alcohol as a harmful substance. It's fun when stories add it in.

Jinah worried about him drinking too much T-T They love each other T-T I love themmm

(just skip down three paragraphs if you don't care about my rant about cellphones lol)

One criticism I have because I always focus on the appearance or absence of mobile phones in modern stories where they should be there: the novel focuses a decent amount on how Jinwoo's cellphone broke in the double dungeon, and he has to get a replacement specifically from the Korean Hunter's Association, and that is completely absent from both the manhwa and the anime, and the anime is compensating weirdly. The novel explains, "Hunter-issue smartphones used specialized technology, so Jinwoo had to put in a request directly with the association." (Vol 1, Chapter 4). So the phone does more than just allowing the Hunter's Association easy access to hunters (I think at one point it's shown it works inside the dungeons, when most technology does not, so I imagine it's powered somehow by mana/essence stones). Jinwoo doesn't have the money to speed up the process, so he has to wait for multiple weeks for them to provide him with a new one, and he forgets to take care of it until I think after he's out of the hospital, so that puts off the process even longer. This means: the association cannot contact him except via landline, and anyone with his cell number cannot do so either, unless, presumably, they have his landline number. In the novel, Jinwoo demands an explanation from Jinho for how Jinho has the number on the presumed landline (it's just called "phone" in the Yen press English translation, I don't know why he wouldn't have his cellphone if he has one in the anime outside his bedroom where Jinah is, and I can't imagine Jinho getting Jinah's cell number, or why the Association would have it other than maybe as an emergency contact, which, again, why would he get that number and I feel like Jinwoo would kill him if he did lol), and Jinho explains that he knows someone at the Association.

Most of this revolves initially around various people trying to contact Jinwoo during this non-cellphone time and not getting to him because he literally does not have a phone and, presumably, they don't have his landline number. The nurse whose number he got tries to contact him via his mobile and nearly gives up by the time he gets his phone back to see her messages. Like many related subplots, this is also part of showing that Jinwoo is just... bad at keeping in touch with people lol I mean he explains, sadly, in the novel, "No one ever calls me anyway." (Vol 1, Chapter 4). But he gave this woman his number and ultimately decides to ignore her/not respond when he sees all the messages she sent him rather than saying literally anything like, "Sorry I was out of touch" or whatever, or just politely turning her down. He does this for most people: most of his interaction with his cellphone is to decide not to use it lol I can see why the manhwa dropped this plot nearly entirely (except for a later modification, which I really like) because it feels clunky. But it creates this weird scenario where... it's South Korea, Jinwoo doesn't have a ton of money but he's doing fine-ish enough to have a giant TV and a computer, and he needs his phone for work. Phones and mobile phones in particular exist in the anime (e.g., we see Woo Jinchul use one, Dongsoo crushes one). So one would ask: why does he not have a cellphone (and when/how did Jinho get his number)? And unrelated: why doesn't his email almost ever get used? The webnovel released in 2016, both would have been commonplace things then; I mean the guy goes onto a forum to ask if other people have leveled up in the novel; it would have been a lot simpler to have Jinho send him an email, though I guess I appreciate the added Jinwoo & Jinah bonding created by keeping this to some extent.

It doesn't ultimately matter in the grand scheme of things. It was really one of the weaker elements of the story and it's really incredibly minor. I can, again, see why the manhwa dropped it and why the anime is side-stepping it when considering what to adapt. But anyway, that was my aside of "how cellphone usage/lack of it when it should be there changes stories". (Also for the record, I think it's good he didn't respond to the nurse, in the end, because that entire plotline is really creepy and probably violates some ethics, but it's also so completely unnecessary).

Jinho pointing out the fight with the Lizards was self-defense :3 Good!

The "this cafe sells coffee" glamour shots are making me laugh, I don't know why lol

One thing that's always intrigued me with this series, and I don't know if this is common to the genre or something, maybe it is, is how much buildings are used as collateral. Like it is a simple truth that buildings are a very core part of value for wealthy people and organizations. Real estate is where big money is made. A lot of people in power literally control large chunks of your local real estate. But a similar story would probably just say like... "I can wire x money to you as needed". Instead this just upfront goes, "I'm rich, but here's this really big money item you could have: a building." It's just neat.

O.o Jinwoo doesn't take Jinho's offer. That's interesting. He does take the offer in both the novel and the manhwa, so I'm unsure about why the change? Maybe it combines into his realization that he needs to level up to face enemies past Cerberus and Jinho is a convenient way to do that.

Dongsoo's Japanese voice actor (Junichi Suwabe) has too pretty a voice for Dongsoo alkdjaldja Like he sounds unfairly beautiful aldkjalalkj (Unsurprising for the guy who voiced Viktor in Yuri on Ice) I don't precisely know what I expected him to sound like, and I'd love to see who they picked for the Korean dub, but alkdjal dang. To be fair... he did also voice Jaeha in Yona of the Dawn, and Grimmjow in Bleach, so I'm not that surprised the actor sounds good... I just. Wow. Salud. I don't know that this works for Dongsoo (at least for me) but he does at least sometimes play annoying dudes lol (I love you Jaeha and Grimmjow, and Viktor and Oda, but still aldkjalj).

Stop fatshaming your sister Jinwoo. You deserved that kick even if you did not at all feel it.

Bonding time ruined T-T

The way the buttons on the system get clicked is such a satisfying look/sound.

O.O oh, Jinwoo's learning about the Elixir of Life way early. That's intriguing! In the novel and manhwa he doesn't learn until way later. The anime is really focusing overall on making his goal centrally about caring for his family rather than more about improvement for the sake of improvement (I mean in the novel it feels kind of like 60/40 trade-off with the former being improvement). I get why the change: it makes him more sympathetic. And it also makes him look less strange for trying this difficult dungeon early, and for why he focuses so hard on getting back to it, even before he knew about the elixir. Also gives him a solid goal for season 2.

The gentle piano is lovely, and really sets the mood well. Jinwoo has a lot on the line: his mother's health, caring for his sister, beyond his own survival. The juxtaposition is really good.

As someone who loves Greek myths, I have seen a lot of designs for Cerberus (I have two plushie three-headed dogs, including the Cerberus from Hades the video game). Can't say I'm a fan of this design lol It's fine. It's functional. It's a very good remake of the manhwa design. I guess it just... didn't look as eh. It moves well and works, and the team did a good job. I think just... seeing more of it highlights how I really don't care for the design lol Dubu/the team were really good at designing some monsters, but not others.

The fight is really amazing and well-paced, though. Though it's an interesting change that the system is the one reminding Jinwoo about the gland during this fight, rather than him doing it on his own (he figures it out after discovering the detox in both the novel and manhwa). I like him making the connection on his own. Jinwoo can be a little thick a lot, but he is pretty intelligent, and that was one of his smarter moments. Ah well.

Will never get tired of his eyes glowing in shots. His wounds steaming as they heal is also a neat effect.

He's getting the Elixir of Life recipe early too :3 That makes sense. Would be weird if they bring that up early and don't reference it again for... goodness I don't even know that they'll come back to it before the season ends. I don't think we will, because I wouldn't be surprised if the season ends with the Igris fight. But it gives something to look forward to for maybe season 2.

Also he gets the dog collar :3 BUT... like the manhwa we don't see him put it on lol In the novel he's really nervous about people seeing him wear it, but canonically speaking, particularly since he never seems to take his armor off other than to exchange it for improved gear, he puts this on and wears an invisible dog collar through a good chunk of the story (until he gets a better neckpiece) lol Love it. Ah well. Would have been funny to see animated but they are generally sticking to the manhwa, so. It would be funny if I was proven wrong <.< Have him put on the collar, anime!!

All in all, a really good episode, with some great animation, some more lovely music, and some lovely moments between Jinwoo and Jinah. This continues the trend of modifying stuff in interesting ways. Looking forward to episode 8!

More episode thoughts:

S01E05

S01E06

S01E07 (you are here)

S01E08

S01E09

S01E10

S01E11

S01E12

#solo leveling #solo leveling spoilers #sung jinwoo #yoo jinho #woo jinchul #great episode #fallfthoughts #sung jinah #hwang dongsoo #나 혼자만 레벨업

20 notes · View notes

apri-apri-no-mi · 9 months

Text

OPLA Review: I love it but it’s different!

Some context: I started watching One Piece when I was 19 years. So the straw hats have been part of my life for over 9 years. Nevertheless, I’m anime only. I have never read the manga. But I know about the story differences between the manga and anime.

I love the live action adaption! The characters feel in line most of the time. The pacing is quite fast, which is actually good for the story. It definitely broke the curse of bad live action adaptions. I can feel the love that is put into this series at each and every moment. Yet, it still feels different to the One Piece in my heart.

I was super excited for the series to be released. After my initial hype, I still tried to keep my expectations low. Yet while watching the first episode, I felt really conflicted. I loved it for what it is. But I wished I could love it even more. Does this even makes sense? Even after finishing the first 4 episodes, I felt every loving post and meme about it. But something was missing. And this feeling didn’t change after finishing the series.

After exploring my thoughts I noticed to main reasons for this:

First and foremost, I love One Piece for its emotions. I have goosebumps, I cry, I feel excited and motivated. With OPLA the emotions where conveyed on the conversational level a lot. A lot more than in the anime. But I was missing the emotions on the emotional level. Characters where saying what they feel. But I couldn’t sense them feeling it.

The second thing which is crucial about One Piece for me is the music! Especially reoccurring background music that also conveys a lot of the emotions. Yes, we had a little bit Bink's sake here and there. And the main theme song We are was incorporated twice if I’m not wrong. But besides that I cannot recall any music except the fishmen's background music. Most of the time I didn’t even notice the background music at all. Epic moments had no epic music.

Nevertheless, I am still very much in love with it. I see so many people engaging in my most favorite fictional world. And they get lost in it! Maybe some even start to read the manga or watch the anime. Some might won’t. But knowing the straw hats - somehow as they are - will be part of other peoples lives as well, makes me unbelievably happy!

And for everyone interested, here are some other random impressions and thoughts:

Almost all story changes where made with love and payed tribute to the original. Like having Chouchou in Orange Town or a girl offering Zoro onigiri. But making the Grand Line map the main story plot device leading to Arlong being kind of the end boss of season 1 felt off to me. It fits somehow into the story. But since Arlong is from the Grand Line, I feel like he wouldn’t be that much in need of the map anyway?!

Koby had sooo much screen time! It was an interesting choice. But I’ve admit, I liked it a lot! Yet I’m not sure if I like how Garp is portrayed. He seems a bit out of character to me personally.

I loooved how they integrated the wanted posters for each character! That was a really unique and cool idea!

We had a panda in the show!!! At this point I knew it’s just a big success haha!

There had been a lot of queer moments! So many more than in the anime at that time of the story. There will be so many fanfics lol

I loved Namis and Luffys first interaction. Even though it was different from the original , it was so cute and gave them some funny moments together. In contrast, Sanjis and Luffys first interaction felt really lame. I love how in the anime the first thing Luffy sees Sanji doing is offering someone starving food for free. This way he knows immediately Sanji is a good one. He asks him to join his crew without having tried his meals. In OPLA Luffy first sees Sanji as waiter resolving some fight. Luffy goes from "he's a good fighter" over "he's a good cook" to "he’s a good guy". And to me Sanji is a good guy first and everything else comes after!

The only time I felt emotions like in the anime, was the scene were Luffy gave his hat to Nami. I think it was almost a 1:1 adaption of the original scene and the dialogue. But somehow this scene felt also off in the live action, because it was so much heavier in emotions than the rest of the series. I’m sorry I’m really picky about the emotional stuff lol

Thanks for reading my rumbling about my favorite fictional universe! I’m really excited what OPLA can do in the future! For anyone starting to watch the anime, I have some last words for you: I’ll wait in Wano Kuni for you!!!

#I was missing the emotions #please more epic music #one piece #opla #one piece live action #luffy #nami #zoro #usopp #sanji #one piece review #opla review

7 notes · View notes

saikitsu · 2 years

Note

these three are my favorites to ask~

💀 if they were one of the 7 sins, what sin would they be?

👹 how much patience does your oc have? are they patient? or are they easily irritable?

☠️ how petty are they? and what length of pettiness would they go for?

évoooooooo hi thank you for the questions, it is fun to think abt this little creature hehe >< sorry if some of this makes no sense i am literally so exhausted but i wanted to answer these because i will have no time tomorrow so here u are!

💀 if they were one of the 7 sins, what sin would they be?

this was a tricky one, but i think that junie would embody sloth. though unlike the game, i feel he identifies more with the aspects of apathy and boredom rather than, you know, physical laziness as it's portrayed in the game (though, he does somewhat struggle with self-care as well). i've said before that he tends to withdraw from others and from himself very easily when faced with difficult situations, and to be content with/indifferent to his circumstances even when they are poor. acedia is a better term, i think, in the way he alienates himself from the people around him, the world, and even his own conscious self. it's not an exact description - rather than losing interest in life or in the people around him, he is intimidated by/afraid of his attachments and would rather deliberately ignore them and let them go to waste than to risk disrupting his life and his emotions. to him, life is inherently meaningless and short-lived, not worth either the immense pain or the exuberant joy that comes with it, even though he loves to see joy in others (sort of because he can reflect on it within himself, like getting a small taste of it despite not wanting to put in the work to be joyful himself). i think with time and effort he could change, but again, he is unmotivated and lacks devotion to life, to himself, and to others.

👹 how much patience does your oc have? are they patient? or are they easily irritable?

it really depends on the situation. he can be a push-over and will tolerate most of anything from an outward source, as he sees it as more exhausting to fight back/stand up for himself/disagree in any way shape or form, and therefore strives to go along with what others say. it's why i think that he might struggle to get along with many of the brothers, at least for a long while; he is so easily pushed-around and influenced, especially by such strong personalities, that eventually everyone realizes he just sort of goes along with everything, and nobody knows who he actually is/what he actually values. in this sense he seems patient, but in reality he just tolerates everything. on the other hand, any situation in which he is forced to confront an aspect of himself is extremely uncomfortable for him, and he will be irritable/avoidant to an extreme. corner him emotionally or physically and he will lash out like a wounded animal, even for something that isn't particularly intimate or vulnerable of him to confront.

☠️ how petty are they? and what length of pettiness would they go for?

he's not really.. like i said, conflict is terrifying and exhausting to him. even if he has been wounded deeply, he will simply shut down and avoid the situation or the person entirely. but again when he is desperately trying to remove himself from a situation he will stop at almost nothing, and in those situations his words shoot to kill. he will say something low/petty if he thinks it will get somebody to leave him alone, but he will regret it even if they are truly a terrible person and he will only do it if he thinks its his last resort (not that that's any justification, but that's just how he thinks).

-v-)/ here u go! you know as i was writing this i kept thinking wow this creature is very troubled which i think is a little funny... i like this guy though i think he could get better in some universe but i like that he is like this, it's fun for me to write :> again thanks for asking

#does any of this make sense... zzz goes to sleep #junie is just my fun llittle good time guy (insufferable)#txt #ask #OC #junie

8 notes · View notes

haik-choo · 4 years

Note

I don't write cause I feel I don't have a good grasp on the characters personalities etc, the characterisation of akaashi post is so helpful! 👀👀 Would you do kuroo or bokuto?

a/n: I hope you like both of these! again, if yall want me to do others, let me know! these are across the span of their life, so some may seem college-related and some may seem young-adulty!

[MISCHARACTERIZATIONS OF BOKUTO AND KUROO]

bokuto kotaro.

clueless: i’ve stated this in akaashi’s post, but bokuto is extremely emotionally intelligent. he can pick up on the slightest changes in people’s demeanor or posture, he can tell if someone is sad or happy even if they aren’t good at displaying emotions. he’s not a dumbass -- and he can pick up on others’ limits and boundaries very quickly. despite his ability to read people relatively well, he has no qualms about pushing people out of their comfort zones and forcing them to do things they might hate at first, but will love later. he pushes boundaries according to your comfort level, and respects your hard limits.

only positive: a lot of people write bokuto to be someone ho’s only happy-go-lucky, or someone who rarely gets sad (aside from his moods that are less sad and more discouraged), but I think that almost dehumanizes him. he gets back up faster than most, yes, and at the end of a lost game where everyone is crying, bokuto is dry-eyed. he’s the type to get home and plop down on his bed, face-first into his pillow, lips quivering and eyes lightly watering. there are times where he feels insecure, especially when he’s younger, just because he can tell he’s different from the rest. he has a feeling that people are put-off from his personality, he has a feeling that he’s not as (traditionally/academically) smart as everyone else, he has a feeling that some people find him annoying. that’s why when he’s near his close friends he’s very loose -- he doesn’t feel the need to hold back even a little because he knows that they love him for him. this translates to his toxic trait with his lover being that he feels dejected/insecure if you ever want space. while he can read boundaries, he would really benefit from a lover who has just as few as he, because then he can be his truest self.

love-at-first-sight: he’s not the type to fall in love at one glance, he’s just not. yes, he might get interested or you may catch his attention, but he’s not going to fall in love with someone because they have a pretty smile. it’s not that he’s calculated or over-thinks his emotions, he knows exactly what he feels, it’s just that his heart is a little slow when it comes to falling in love. he’s such an energetic all-over-the-place person that love is never really on his mind (he gets into some trouble with accidentally leading girls on because he’s so friendly). when he eventually falls in love, though....oh boy. he stutters, he’s over-thinking all his movements when it comes to you -- he’s usually impulsive but with you he really, really doesn’t want to screw up. he wants everything to go smoothly -- so he’s the type to plan out a confession and actually try to stick to it. when it comes to something like love, bokuto is surprisingly slow and careful, because he knows how fragile a heart is.

never gets angry: i think most people like to imagine his anger is so rare because the image of an angry bokuto is scary, especially with his stature. and while it’s true his anger is uncommon (because he’s good at processing his own emotions and not lashing out at others), when he does get angry it can be pretty unnerving. he’s the type to slam his fist on the counter unknowingly when having a really bad fight with his lover, and he has a booming voice. he’d never hit someone, but he doesn’t realize how intimidating his physique is. anger is uncommon, but that doesn’t mean he’s not scary. he always apologize afterwards, though.

boundless confidence: i touched on it earlier, that he has bouts of insecurity, but again, i really want to emphasize that he’s not endlessly confident. honestly, maybe in the anime and manga he seems that way, but if you want to make him more human, have more life than a fictional character, you have to create limits or certain traits. bokuto is very sensitive, and the slightest thing can either inflate his ego or deflate it. plays in volleyball constantly not working may dig at his confidence, but he always re-inflates. in real life, outside the court, there are things that keep his confidence low everytime they happen. fights with his lover are one of these things; he’ll get jealous when they leave the apartment after a fight because he’ll worry about you finding someone more stable than him. jealousy alone is a solid sign of chipped confidence, something that someone as sensitive as bokuto gets every once in a while.

overall, bokuto is a lot more intelligent than what people give him credit for. he’s honest with his own emotions and can read people very well, which is probably why he’s such a people person, but he still has flaws. he does not have boundless confidence or have no perception of boundaries; he’s unbelievably understanding. he may be initially insecure, have intimidating anger, etc. but ,after all, he’s human, isn’t he?

kuroo tetsuro.

sex god: don’t get me wrong, I definitely believe that he’s had a lover or two, especially in college, and that he’s played the field a little bit. but i don’t see him as the guy that has had sex with every person in his major. he’s a genuine guy and can’t have sex with someone he’s not emotionally invested in -- despite not being a ‘player’, he’s totally gotten in trouble with a few people because they think he’s leading them on when he walks with them to class everyday.

intimidating: people always characterize him as this mysterious, sexually intimidating guy, but i just can’t see him as someone intimidating. if anything, he may be a little unapproachable because he has a really tight knit group of friends that he’s always with, but he’s not scary. he’s not the center of attention but he’s not a wallflower either, he enjoys observing people and watching drama play out, but he’s not silent and glaring all the time. he’s quite fun, he’s loud, and he enjoys embarrassing his friends in public. he’s the type to twerk in public and laugh his ass off when akaashi or kenma give him the side-eye and bro-kuto joins in. he likes to have fun, ya know? i don’t know about you, but a guy that twerks in public isn’t very scary, to me at least.

prideful: I understand why people paint him as a prideful guy, he obviously likes what he does and has a personable personality, but honestly, he’s not perfect. he often has moments where he doubts himself because of his past decisions, his career one of them. kuroo is an amazing middle blocker, and his choice to go into sports advertisement rather than an actual volleyball league no doubt haunts him at night sometimes. he thinks of the ‘what-ifs’, and he dreams of what he could be. especially since his best friend is bokuto, a professional player, it’s often on his mind. it’s a super touchy subject for him, and if someone were to question his job-choice i have no doubt that he’d get really sour and distant from that person because he’s not sure of himself either.

frat boy: he’s not someone who can’t cook, he’s not someone who sleeps at 5am everyday, hungover. he’s not the type of person to be immature in any way -- he’s got his shit together. i’m sure most people can actually see this, but kuroo is very responsible and realistic (which is part of the reason he didn’t do professional volleyball). he does his taxes, does his homework, gives out good advice, gets up early and eats everything that a healthy person should eat (in all the right proportions, too). he doesn’t even drink often, if anything he’s just a social drinker. he goes to bed at 10pm and wakes up at 6am to work out, no joke. he’s gotta keep that physique somehow.

decisive: i know i said he’s responsible, but i don’t think that translates to decisive. i can see him having a lot of conflicting things going on in his life, different wants and different paths that he wants to take but can’t keep all open. it happens in love, his career, his college major, etc. he wants a lot in life, he wants success, happiness, a good love-life, everything. when he had to choose between volleyball and a life-long, stable career, he was broken for weeks. was he good enough for his dream? was it wise to chase his dream? would it be better to get more kids into volleyball, do what he did, what he couldn’t do? in his love life he always hesitates, too: does he see a life with them? how long will they love him? will they be able to deal with him once they see that he’s not perfect? is it worth it? it doesn’t matter if he’s in love or not, because his extreme caution can come off as very distant and unwilling to let you in, hence his toxic trait. he’s indecisive, scared, yet passionate and hard-working.

overall, kuroo is full of contradiction. he wants a lot from life and is willing to work for it. he has dreams and tries to stay healthy and put himself out there, have fun, the whole shabang -- but he’s not perfect. he’s overly cautious when it comes to making important decisions simply because he can see a future with all of the different paths he can take. but honestly, isn’t everyone a little contradictory?

4K notes · View notes

animeyanderelover · 3 years

Text

Wooow! Finished all available seasons from Attack On Titan and it’s such a great Anime. The character development is more than just outstanding and I can’t wait until the Final season is being aired in my country! But for now let’s start with the basic Hc’s!

Tw: Yandere themes, unhealthy mindset, unhealthy relationship, possessiveness, obsessiveness, stalking, clinginess, delusions, paranoia, overprotectiveness, manipulation, sabotage, strict Yandere, mentions of kidnapping, death, torturing

Yandere Attack On Titan Hc’s

Eren Yeager

👊A trait that every character in Attack On Titan has is overprotective. He lost his mother and more comrades than he can count and won’t let anything harm his darling. One hell of an obsessive one who will bombard the s/o with questions about their life and interests. He’ll definitely steal a few of his darling’s things and will treasure them. He’s shown great character development and so I would say also the aware type who knows that such feelings are unhealthy. But due to trying desperately to justify his behavior he’ll have some delusional mood swings from time to time. I can see him even as the manipulative type who will pretend to just have an innocent crush on you and fool everyone when in reality it’s so much more.

👊Also the lovestruck, desperate and clingy type. He sees his darling as a gift from whoever lives up there in heaven and will probably worship the ground his s/o walks on. Poor boy went through a lot in only a few months since joining the scouts so it’s no wonder that he just really wants to hold and kiss his darling, showing them that they own his heart. He won’t leave his s/o’s side if he can because apparently even in the walls there is danger and he also doesn’t want anyone flirting with his darling.

👊Eren doesn’t have the best temper. But he’ll try to hold on just for his darling. Remember that the key word here is that he tries. He doesn’t have anything against it when Mikasa or Armin talk with his darling and can also hold on for a bit when it comes to his other friends, only exception being Jean on whom he keeps a sharp eye. But with other people he’s rather impatient, especially if they get too close to his darling. Will most likely start yelling and cursing at the person then and there, not caring that he makes a scene.

👊Eren is really impulsive, but he joined the scouts to protect mankind so he’ll feel very conflicted about that. I think he won’t kill. He most likely just starts having a fight with them. But sometimes his temper might get the best out of him and then he loses it, but for that to happen the person must have really pushed him over his limits. But he has to be smart about killing or else he’ll get in troubles. Might try to lure the person somewhere secure to finish them off in his Titan form and making sure that the body will never be found again.

👊He’s most of the time with you and has to believe in himself that he can protect you and also trusts Mikasa and Armin enough to keep you safe. But as soon as danger comes anywhere near you he’ll immediately start searching for you to protect you, especially if Titan’s are in the wall. After that he’ll lock you somewhere safe and sound up even if he managed to protect you and nothing happened to you. No one can blame him for being a bit paranoid.

👊Eren just really wants you safe and that’s perfectly understandable. He tries to show you that he can protect you, especially if you should ever witness him in Titan form where he wants to prove to you that he has control. He just really wants you to love him and appreciate him.

Mikasa Ackerman

🧣Mikasa is the overprotective and possessive Yandere, but only in the best ways possible. She lost her parents, her foster parents and so many more people so no wonder that she’s so scared over her darling’s safety and wants to keep them by her side for all time. Even though she might look cold on the outside, she’s an incredibly caring one on the inside and will often tell her darling how beautiful they are and how much she loves them.

🧣Also a stalker and obsessive one. She of course prefers to be with her darling, but she accepts it if her s/o wants some private time alone and will leave them be. She tries at least, but in the end she decides to rather watch from a safe distance so she can step in as soon as danger encounters her darling. Since she’s a stalker she’ll see a lot from what her darling is doing and will grab on every piece of information she can get of them like her life depends on it. Might even steal a few things from them here and there. The aware one who knows that she shouldn’t do that, but the world is a cruel place.

🧣Mikasa is perfectly fine with you talking to others. I can see her as someone who knows that she’s good looking and that everyone would love to be in her darling’s place. She also trusts her darling greatly. The only times when she gets jealous is when the other person gets a bit too comfortable with the s/o.

🧣She’s in comparison to Eren much more calmer. But she can get hella brutal if a person she loves is in danger and will take things in her hands quickly. She can be very reasonable and Mikasa is very intimidating if she wants to be. To get her mad a person has to threaten or hurt her darling. But she’s smart and will make a plan on how to kill that person without arousing any suspicions.

🧣Her darling’s happiness is important to her and since she’s almost all the time watching I think she won’t resort to kidnapping. That however changes the moment someone possesses a threat to you. As soon as she hears that her s/o is in danger she’ll instantly defend you and after she took care of the threat she’ll start checking if you’re hurt. After such incidents she’ll become more protective and will stick closer to her darling’s side.

🧣Mikasa is my favorite Yandere in here. She really tries to not scare you away with her partially unhealthy feelings and accepts the fact that you have other people in your life as well. She does know that you’re a grownup, but I can see her as someone who will baby you as often as she can and who will always find excuses to spend time with you.

Armin Arlert

🐚Armin is a wonderful mix of delusional, yet aware. He’s got some brain and actually knows that his feelings aren’t normal, but he just sees his darling as a god/goddess walking on earth and will just start thinking of it as really strong romantic feelings. As everyone else in here overprotective. He saw the people in Shinganshina die, he lost his grandfather and he witnessed how Eren got eaten from a Titan and has every reason to be overprotective over his darling. Also an incredibly clingy one who needs to be near you all the time.

🐚Lovestruck and a worshipper. This guy just wants to proof his worth to his s/o and would do everything what they tell him. I think he might even go as far as not caring if his s/o uses him as long as they accept him which makes him a really desperate one as well. Such a desperate one for his s/o’s love and approval. If you don’t acknowledge him he’ll feel absolutely unworthy. He’s smart and might be a very potential manipulative type, but I think he would try to not use that on his darling often. But there are certain trigger events where he’ll let his genius side shine through in a bad way. That happens when his darling tries to leave him, ignores him for someone else or is in danger.

🐚Armin doesn’t really think of himself that great and is often highly insecure about himself so if he feels jealous he wouldn’t have the courage to step in. Instead his self insecurity just increases. But he jumps over his shadow when he sees someone making you uncomfortable.

🐚Here this boy let’s his manipulative side shine through because he doesn’t want to kill people. Instead he uses his brain to somehow start spreading rumors about the person which will make other people more suspicious around said person.

🐚He would never kidnap his darling. When they’re in danger he’ll talk them into going somewhere save so he can make sure that they aren’t harmed. He often entrusts Eren and Mikasa with the protection of his darling if he can’t do it himself or feels like he won’t be able to do it alone.

🐚You might feel actually bad for Armin because of the fact how submissive he is to you and how dependent he is for your love. But I also believe that if someone pushes his buttons the wrong way he might turn into a little devil who will use manipulations with the reasoning to keep you save.

Jean Kirschstein

🐴Jean is a stalker and the aware type. He’s ashamed of his rather abnormal feelings for his darling and I can also see him as someone who thinks he is way out of their league to even be near them. So he just watches and follows his darling everywhere. Obsessive because he just found an angel walking on this rotten world so it’s only natural that he wants to know everything about them. A lovestruck one who thinks of his darling as an angel from heaven. He fell in love at first sight.

🐴A manipulative one, but in a different sense. He’ll try to befriend his s/o’s friends and will try to come in contact with his darling’s parents, trying to leave a really good impression on them so that they’ll introduce him to his s/o. Since he’s ashamed of his behavior he needs a lot of reassurance, making him a desperate one as well. He’s also the overprotective one since basically anytime something could happen to you.

🐴Jean gets quickly jealous, but since he’s ashamed of his feelings and doesn’t think he has the right to interrupt his darling he’ll just watch from the distance. If he gets courageous he might suddenly step in, especially if the other person gets touchy with the s/o. Then he’ll become a hothead.

🐴Jean needs a good reason to kill a person, but if the situation calls for it he’s ready to take someone’s life it means protecting his darling. He would only do that if someone plans to harm his darling.

🐴He watches most of the time and respects his s/o’s wishes, but if they get harmed and he couldn’t do anything, he might become slightly more paranoid and will beg them to stay in their house and will also try to talk parents and friends into thinking like him.

🐴Jean is only focused on your happiness and well-being and would never dream of hurting you. But it can be from time to time creepy when he just follows you around and watches you for hours. But he’ll make sure to never get caught by you or someone else.

Sasha Blouse

🍖Sasha is the clingy and lovestruck Yandere. She just adores her darling with everything she’s got and never, never leaves their side. She’ll always follow them around and can’t stop talking about them. Overprotective for obvious reasons.

🍖Also the delusional one who sees her darling as something above normal humans. They’re the only thing she loves more than food and that has to say something.

🍖Easily jealous and pretty obvious with it. Her whole face will scream jealous as soon as someone starts talking to them and she’s the type who keeps interrupting whatever interaction the both of you have and will annoy the other person until they’ve had enough and leave her s/o alone.

🍖I can’t imagine her as someone who would kill people. She would try to give them a hard time by annoying them and even make sure to somehow make them mess up their tasks so this person will get in trouble. Sasha would also try to somehow make the person humiliate themself in front of a large crowd. The type to slip here and there some rumors in, not too bad, but enough to make people talk about it. Embarrassing stories do that everyone will start giggling when seeing the person again. Also the type to report anything to their superiors if she sees how the person does something wrong.

🍖She’s all over her darling all the time so she won’t kidnap them and would never even think of it. If danger emerges she’ll just be even more clingy towards you to the point where it will be suffocating for the s/o.

🍖I think together with Mikasa one of my favs. She’s so open with showing her feelings for you and just wants the both of you to be a happy couple. She would never hurt you and is even ready to share her food with you. But only with you!

Annie Leonhardt

💗Annie is the aware and manipulative type. She’s very smart and knows that she isn’t supposed to feel this way. She’s good in acting when we think about that at first no one suspected her to be an enemy and she’ll definitely manipulate her darling into staying with her and cutting all of their social ties to dedicate all their time to her.

💗She’s overprotective and possessive over her darling. She’s seen bad stuff and has been trained to kill without remorse and she doesn’t want this world to mess her darling up as well so she’ll protect them from any harm possible. The world didn’t give her much so there’s no chance she’ll ever let her s/o leave her. She rarely shows her feelings, but I believe that she might show her darling her softer side. But she can still be very rough on them if she needs too.

💗Annie doesn’t show much emotions and has good self control over herself so she won’t act impulsively on this. But she does get jealous fast and she is pretty intimidating and will send the subject of her jealousy a cold glare. If the person doesn’t get her message she might step in and with her partially cruel humor scare that person away.

💗She was trained to kill without remorse and shows most of the times little to no regret in it. She is smart with it so that no one will suspect her as the killer. She kills when someone takes a liking to the s/o or when the s/o takes a liking towards someone and when someone disrespects or even hurts her darling.

💗She’ll rely most of the times on manipulation to get her darling stay willingly out of danger. If they refuse she might become more cruel with her words to them and will talk them into thinking that they’re weak if she has to. She only wants their best, doesn’t she? So being a bit more mean is worth it. And she will be able to get you to do what she told you to.

💗Her ways of doing things aren’t always right and deep down Annie knows that. Talking you into feeling worthless and forcing you into spending your time only with her is very selfish from her. But she just wants to protect you from the world and all it’s dangers. You’re also one of the very few persons she’ll ever be more tender to.

Erwin Smith

🎖Erwin is a manipulative Yandere. He might look at first like the perfect boyfriend, but it’s all an act to make his darling fall for him. He is incredibly charming and it won’t be hard for him to wrap his s/o around his finger. Overprotective because he lost his father and saw more than hundreds of soldiers dying.

🎖With time he’ll also become more and more the possessive one and at one point he might even try to make you break up contact with your family. But here comes the aware trait in where he’ll suddenly stop and remembering that this isn’t right. It’s a constant game of tug of war between his desire to keep the s/o for himself and letting them see family and friends because everything else would be wrong.

🎖He can keep his composure even under difficult circumstances. But it probably won’t even be necessary because he has some power and the knowledge that he and the s/o are together is most of the time already enough to make people stay away from them. If a person tries to talk to his darling a “friendly” warning is most of the time enough. Let’s not forget that he tells you convincing lies about the people you spend your time with which will cause you to avoid them.

🎖It won’t be necessary for him to kill someone when he can make their lifes a living hell since he is the commander of the scouts. He’ll spread bad rumors about that person which will eventually lead them to lose their job. Depending on how far someone angered him it will either end there or he’ll continue to ruin their life.

🎖If he’ll lock them up depends solely on him since he has a constant inner battle between his possessive side and more reasonable side. If he’s more possessive he’ll keep the s/o in the house even if there’s no sign of danger, if he’s in his more reasonable state he he’ll only does it when there is a threat for his darling. If his darling rejects his love or tries to leave him he’ll blackmail them to come willingly back and will keep them in his house for a shorter or longer time, it depends on how willing his s/o is.

🎖Erwin can be such a lovely boyfriend if he wants to be and nobody will ever suspect anything. That’s the problem here. No one would believe you if you told them how he really is. He has you tightly in his grip and you will always come back to him due to him threatening to spread rumors about your family out that might cost them their job. You need to play your cards carefully because this guy can turn from ‘perfect husband material’ to ‘possessive blackmailer’ in only the blink of an eye.

Hanji/Hange Zoë

🔬Hanji is overprotective and obsessive. They have seen many people die right in front of their eyes and that bounds them to be overprotective over their darling. They already display a huge interest for Titans and a natural desire to learn everything they don’t know. Imagine that ten times worse with the s/o. Hanji is absolutely the type to steal their things. At first only small things like spoons the darling used to eat with or garbage they threw away. But it will escalate further and further until Hanji has reached the level where they’ll steal toothbrushes, clothes and even start collecting their darling’s hair.

🔬Also the clingy type. Hanji is an absolute fan of PDA and Levi will probably scold them often for being so unprofessional in public. But Hanji doesn’t give a shit. Lovestruck, in their eyes her darling is perfect. Depending on whether her darling catches on on their rather obvious obsession they might become a stalker and start watching from a safe distance. Hanji is very intelligent and even though they’re very peculiar definitely can talk their darling into certain things, making them the manipulative type.

🔬Hanji shows very often very obviously their emotions and gets rather fastly jealous. I can see Hanji as someone who can be really scary and most people already think that they’re a bit crazy, but when they step in to interrupt their darling’s interaction with the other person they’ll creep them out with their odd and scary behavior and look on their face. The way they’re speaking adds even more creepiness to it.

🔬Hanji can go into full mad mode if triggered enough. They won’t kill persons. No, they’ll torture them first, separating their limbs from the body until they think the persons had been punished enough and then will kill them. That happens when someone insults their darling badly and disrespects them. Imagine what happens if someone goes as far as hurting Hanji’s s/o.

🔬Hanji can be very convincing and stubborn when it comes to certain things so they can somehow always find a way to make the darling stay out of dangerous places. But I can see them as someone who likes showing everyone who you belong to so as long as there’s no danger they won’t lock their darling up.

🔬Hanji will be honestly nothing, but sweet to you. But their obsession shines clearly through and they’re the type to ask you if they can get a few strands of your hair which will creep you out. But that’s not half as scary as seeing them torture those who didn’t treat you respectfully. No one wants to see a with blood covered Hanji holding those horrifying tools in their hands to torture a person with a crazed expression on their face.

Levi Ackerman

⚔️Levi is overprotective and possessive. He’s lost a lot of people. His mother, his uncle, his squad and countless others. So the moment he saw his darling? He didn’t plan to let them ever go. He’s a really strict and controlling one. He does appreciate it if his darling has a backbone, but he also expects them to know that he has the final word in everything and that they should submit to him. There are punishments given if his s/o doesn’t behave. Hopefully they learn through this. Obsessive, he takes his time to examine the s/o carefully to predict their actions better and to have a easier time to manipulate them since he has a bit of a silver tongue.

⚔️But at the same time he’s a desperate and on most of the time even a soft one. He never really got much love when he was a child. He watched his mother die and his uncle only taught him how to fight and left him alone after he had learned everything. So he does wishes that his darling loves him. And under all this proud and strict shell there is a soft spot which is only for you.

⚔️Levi carries a lot of anger inside of him, but is good in overplaying it. But it is rather easy to cross his lines and his possessiveness doesn’t help at all. It even worsens the situation and if his darling doesn’t break the interaction with the other person up when seeing Levi boiling with jealousy then they shouldn’t be surprised itf the other person suddenly gets kicked down by Levi and they get dragged back home by him. If the other person goes as far as flirting or touching you he’ll get more violent. If someone did touch you you’ll have to clean yourself up since Levi doesn’t want you to get filthy by someone else’s touch. And if you don’t want to wash yourself Levi has no problem in doing it himself. He’ll also mark after such events what’s rightfully his, at least he thinks so.

⚔️Levi needs to be careful to not let his rage and possessiveness get the best of him or else he’ll might slaughter a lot of people. He does have a higher position and will most likely give whoever made him pissed off a very, very hard life. If someone does go as far as trying to hurt his s/o or even trying to take them away from him he might just start attacking them the next time he sees them. But he’ll hold back and make a plan on how to kill them. If it’s a member of the scouts he might use the chance to somehow lead them into making a mistake so that they’ll get eaten by a Titan.

⚔️He hates taking his darling out of the house, his overprotectiveness and possessiveness are a horrible mix. He won’t kidnap his darling. It’s more like threatening them into coming willingly to him because he can be very scary if he wants to be. But I guess it also depends a bit on your position, meaning that he’ll handle this differently if you’re just an average citizen or a scout like him.

⚔️He has a huge soft side, but still be careful with him or else you’ll get punished. His punishments consists of locking you up without food for a few days or threatening you since despite his height he’s very scary. The problem with Levi is that most of the time you don’t know what’s going on in his head, you never know what he’s thinking. It might look to you on some days that he just wants to make your life a living hell, but that isn’t true. Levi just doesn’t really know how to act with these intense emotions. He really just wants you to love him, but chooses the wrong way to reach that goal. But give him time he’ll learn how to act better around you and more carefully.

581 notes · View notes

storm-and-starlight · 2 years

Note

thoughts abt the way fandom approaches eskel? im curious owo (hadn't played any of the games yet, and just went through half of the first book lol)

Okay, so I'm going to preface this by stating that this is... pretty deeply connected to a really rough patch in my life, so if I get overly negative here, it's probably because of that and I apologize. (Also because of this, I don't want to turn this into a discussion about Eskel; it'd just end up leading back into some bad places.)

Warning for fanon!Eskel criticism under the cut.

So basically all of this is my personal opinion -- I'm trying to keep direct criticism out of this as much as possible.

I guess it all boils down to the fact that I personally prefer characters with a bit more bite to them -- more anger, more sarcasm, more rough inter-character interactions, more trauma, etc. Eskel (or at least, my experience of fanon!Eskel) has absolutely none of that. He's generally portrayed as Nice and Soft and Kind, the Best Witcher and the Kindest, and generally Better than Geralt in Every Way, and it feels just... reductive? Like there's no depth to his character at all -- he's just there to be kind and polite and interchangeable. His entire personality is The Nice One, except that doesn't feel like a personality at all. Generally the only character conflict you get is "I feel like a monster because of the facial scarring" and that feels overdone, to the point where I don't even care anymore. Like... generically nice, sweet guy with self-esteem issues who feels like a monster because of cosmetic issues but who gets lovingly affirmed all the time and told he's perfect is just... not the kind of story I want to read. I prefer broken characters who rub each other the wrong way who try to find a way to fit together anyways, not... schmoopy fluff. (no shame if that's your favorite kind of fic, it's just not for me.)

And then there's Lil' Bleater. There was a point in this fandom where every single Eskel in every single fic I could find was just All About Goats All The Time. If he was there, so was Lil' Bleater. He was the Nice Goat Man and that was it. I could barely find fics where he seemed to have any other character trait beyond Likes Goats! It got... tiring, to say the least. Like... I'm ambivalent on the whole "big tough guy is actually super sweet and likes small animals" trope as a whole, but it was just so overdone that I ended up hating the goat. (I'm back to ambivalent, in case you were wondering lmao.)

There's also the way the fandom got... really pissed that he was a side character? Which I get, you want more of your faves, but he was a side character in the books, he's a side character in the games, he plays no major role in the plot of the books (in fact, the hansa is the most important found family in the series, instead of the witchers -- they show up for like the first half of Blood of Elves and never again) -- why are people getting so angry that he doesn't appear more?

Also, a side note, but Geralt is the character I identify the most with and feel the most strongly about, and having Eskel be more or less held up as the better version of him hurts. It's irrational, but it does.

Once again, I'm not really interested in discussing this, or in being sent recs for fandom content about Eskel -- I'm attempting to curate my own experience and the best way to do that for me is largely to just avoid him entirely. I don't want to yuck anyone's yum, which is why I try to keep this stuff off my blog, but like... there they are, those are my opinions.

TL;DR, I deeply dislike the way that Eskel ended up being portrayed in fandom and fanon as the perfect nice witcher who can do no wrong but still hates himself because of the facial scars and who is a huge burly man who is Softe and likes animals and especially goats and who is the Best Witcher -- it goes squarely against what I enjoy in character creation in stories, and is also so overused that I've moved past ambivalence to hate.

#apologies if this was a lot more negative than you were hoping for #I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about this but they're caught up in some really dark places in my life #and I'm using this to try to work through what I feel #more salt than the dead sea

6 notes · View notes

ladyloveandjustice · 4 years

Text

Belated Spring 2020 Anime Overview: My Next Life as Villainess

For the Spring 2020 anime season, I mostly watched continuations of shows I was already into. The one new show I did pick up was My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!

My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! follows Katerina Claes, a spoiled young noble girl deviously scheming to win the heart of a prince- oh wait, never mind, she hit her head and remembered her past life! Turns out she’s an eighteen year old Japanese otaku chick who died and got reincarnated as the villainess in her favorite otome game.

If you don’t feel like reading the wiki article, an otome game is basically a female- targeted dating sim where you play as a blank slate main character and date a bunch of pretty boys (and sometimes girls, but usually only if you go outside the mainstream ones), unlocking their backstories and collecting all the romantic endings.

Having played this game, Katarina is well aware that the Villainess character- who constantly tries to interfere with the game’s heroine and whichever boy she’s pursuing- is either exiled or killed in all of the games endings. And now she IS that villainess, living in the world of the game and all its characters! Does that mean she’s doomed to a horrible fate? What’s a girl to do?

Well, if you’re Katarina, what you do is be supportive and kind to the people around you and in doing so accidentally get every single character in the game to fall in love with you. And yes, this includes all the boys the heroine is supposed to date, the other female romantic rivals the heroine is faced with and the game’s heroine herself.

That’s right, we finally got us some bisexual romantic comedy hijinx last anime season, my friends! My Next Life as a Villainess was the delightful little show I really escaped into during these anxious pandemic times . All these girls casually falling in love with Katarina without it being treated as ‘weird’ was what particularly drew me to this show and warmed my gay little heart to see. It was honestly the perfect fluffy, low stress watch during these high stress times.

Anime has long been oversaturated with ‘harem’ stories- where a usually unwitting protagonist somehow gets a bevy of beauties in love with them- but it’s still unfortunately really unusual to see bisexual harems, especially ones with a girl at the center, so right away there’s a big draw to this story that helps it stick out from the rest. (And worry not, the story is largely focused on Katarina having fun with these pals-who-are-not-so-secretly-in-love-with-her, rather than having a ton the dubious shenanigans you see in more sexually charged tales.)

Harem protoganists also famously tend to have the personality of potatoes, being so painfully bland it’s unclear why so many people would fall in love with them in the first place. But that definitely not the case for Katarina. She’s brash, ridiculous, kind and INCREDIBLY dense, and that for a pretty dynamic combination in this setting! She does genuinely come off as a fun person to be around. Unlike a lot of modern isekai shows, she doesn’t stumble into having incredible magic powers or skills, so her compassion is genuinely her greatest strength and what saves the day and wins hearts time and time again.

Katarina’s five brain cells doing their weekly check-in

(The moment she won my heart was when she responded to a tragic Frozen style situation with her friend locking himself away from people because he believed his magic was dangerous by taking an axe to his door. My kinda girl!)

The premise also allows for some plausible built-in reasons for the characters to take such special notice of Katarina- having been raised in a different world, she isn’t beholden to all the social rules, class divisions and noble family drama all the other kids in this very specific midevial-esque fantasy world are so embroiled in. This combined with her naturally earnest, accepting and straightfoward nature means she’s able to cross boundaries and reach out to them in a way they aren’t accustomed to. She was significant in each character’s life because she genuinely was the first to show them acceptance and affection without pretense, if only because she isn’t even aware there was supposed to be a pretense.

Katarina’s focus on trying not to die and her fear she’s going to meet the same fate as the villainess in the game also at least gives some kind of a basis to her comical obliviousness to everyone being in love with her. She assumes that everyone has to be into Maria (the heroine) and terrified of her because that’s how the game GOES okay, that’s CANON! Of course, this logic stretches thin as time goes on and it would be abundantly clear to most people that things have diverged greatly from the game’s storyline, but the show makes it clear that Katarina’s determined, one track mind is as much a gift as a curse.

Her bullheadedness when it comes to picking up how everyone REALLY feels about her is an intentional gag on the show’s part and even her love interests are well aware of what a colossal dumbass she is and not afraid to point it out!

My Next Life as a Villainess isn’t without its flaws, and the personalities/backstories of some of the ‘love interests’ Katarina gathers may be a stumbling block on some- mostly the male ones. Geordo, “the black hearted prince” has a bit of the “ possessive shoujo bad boy” archetype about him, and though he’s far from the worst that genre of love interest has to offer (there’s not much bad he can get up to due to Katarina’s obliviousness, the lighthearted nature of the show, and his rivals constantly getting in his way), the way he refuses to break Katarina and his engagement off despite her repeatedly asking him to, as well as some of his lines here and there, are definitely NOT cute.

Keith is Katarina’s adopted brother, but clearly has a thing for her too. On one hand, they only first met when they were nine and he fell for her pretty immediately. On the other hand, he still refers to her as “sister” constantly which is kinda eesh.

The other two guys are all right- Nicol’s big thing is he’s inexpressive and doesn’t talk much which, considering show doesn’t spend much time inside his head, doesn’t make him a very interesting character in the ensemble (maybe he comes across better in the novels) but there’s nothing wrong with him. Alan is undoubtedly the Best Boy in my book. He’s another common trope- rambunctious and competitive with Katarina but clearly soft for her- but he’s done well and they have a lot of cute moments together.

I find the girl love interests to be a much more interesting group overall, though this may be my obvious bias talking. Sophia has the strongest connection to Katarina, their backstories being intertwined in a surprising and touching way (I’m told in the novels her affection for Katarina was treated as more platonic, but the anime definitely plays it up as having romantic elements). Maria’s original role as the game’s heroine puts her in the most interesting position (and would make her the most narratively satisfying choice of love interest, if the show was actually interested in choosing). And while Mary is comically tenacious in her pursuit of Katarina, she’s doesn’t ever act ‘sinister’ or overstep boundaries in the way Geordo does, her “scheming” only really amounting to straightforwardly asking if Katarina wants to ditch her fiance and run away with her.

As I mentioned, one thing that really contributes to My Next Life as a Villainess being a relaxing watch is that the queer characters are treated with casual acceptance. Mary in particular isn’t subtle about her crush on Katarina, but nobody bats an eye at her and she’s completely open and comfortable with herself too. The observing maid notes that the girls are in love with Katarina with the same bland affect as when she notes she notes the guys are. And while the social practices of the nobles are pretty heteronormative- girls are always engaged in arranged marriages to guys, the guys are expected to dance with the girls (something Mary complains about!)- there’s apparently a booming queer romance novel industry that inspires our young wlw.

Katarina, having grown up in a different world, seems to be the one most prone to heteronormativity of her group. She never really considers that a girl would ever fall in love with her, but is also never hostile to the idea. It’s telling that when Mary very clearly indicates her desired romantic partner would be a girl, Katarina’s the only one that gets tripped up and has to walk back her assumption that Mary would be talking about a guy.

Mary LAYING DOWN THE LAW

Also, Katarina has SEVERAL “she’s so cute! My heart is beating faster!” moments with the other girls, on par in frequency with her moments with the guys. This strongly hints she’s an oblivious bisexual disaster.

So, My Next Life as Villainess is a fun, frothy watch and the rare positive example of silly wish-fufillment that’s inclusive to a wlw audience. But is the actual plot good, or remotely complex? The answer to that is no, the plot is fairly predictable and one definitely shouldn’t got into this story expecting a deep examination of the nature of fate or anything like that.There’s no real explanation of big reason as to why why Katarina was reborn into this game world and so on.

The antagonist that does eventually emerge plays off otome game tropes a bit, but ultimately isn’t that interesting or built up all that well. . The attempts at drama the show makes towards the end fall a little flat, especially since it tends to rely on very-late-in-the-game-exposition-dumps (dark magic isn’t even MENTIONED as existing in this world until like, the second to last episode where it becomes relevant and we get a vague infodump explaining its mechanics). The conflict honestly almost feels shoehorned in and the climax is pretty standard and doesn’t really utilize the big cast of characters all that well

But in the end, that’s okay! The show makes it abundantly clear from the beginning it’s not here to be Deep, but to be some silly fun. And it really fulfills that purpose well, from it’s catchy, peppy theme tune to its consistently warm tone. It MAY get repetitive at times for some, and I do have some quibbles- like how I found the childhood segments to be some of the shows best material and wish we could have stayed in that section for a bit instead of rushing through it, how I wish Katarina had kept her cute little scar, etc- but overall, it was definitely the soothing balm I needed during a very rough time and I absolutely recommend it if you’re looking for a chill, feel-good watch.

And hey, a second season’s supposed to be on the way too, so there’s something to potentially look forward to!

#my next life as a villainess #my next life as a villianess all routes lead to doom #destruction flag otome #otome gemu no hametsu furagu shika nai akuyaku reijo ni tensei shiteshimatta #anime overview #katarina claes #catarina claes #my reviews #spring 2020 anime

367 notes · View notes

lilred8220 · 3 years

Text

Maya’s (updated) relationship chart with the Obey me characters! Part 1!

This is a longer post with some spoilers and some of my Asmo's charming HC. This took forever but, I hope you enjoy it!

Lucifer:

At first, Lucifer didn't care for Maya due to feeling as though this would be a hassle to watch over a powerless human even if he was the one who picked her and her snooping around definitely didn't help.

Pretty soon however, he found her quite the wonder. Seeing how she easily won his brothers over and making packs with them fairly quickly. Even though he was concerned about her and his brothers, he couldn't help but be fascinated by her. He decided to give her a chance and try to get to know her and he was pleasantly surprised to find himself enjoying her company.

When he discovered that Maya had found Belphie, he was hurt yet conflicted. Maya broke his trust but it hurt him to watch Beel drag her off out of the house. When Maya returned, having to deal with the ridiculous plan to get him out of his room and having a heart to heart with everyone, he felt guilty, even if his pride would never admit it. For what had happened, he was mostly glad that the air was finally cleared, all because of a nosey little human and her caring nature.

Finding Maya dead crushed him more than he expected. He felt his stomach drop and for the second time, he felt so powerless as her dead body was in Mammon's arms. But then, Maya returned and she was alive, still breathing. He never dared speak this to anyone how he secretly thanked God that she was still alive.

Her connection with Lilith was a happy shock, even though it didn't change the way he feels about Maya.

As time goes on, his feelings for her bloomed to something more, yet he tries to keep it hidden because he is fully aware of Maya’s feelings towards Mammon (she hasn't been very subtle about it) and doesn't want to ruin his relationship with her. Even though it hurts his pride to do so.

As for Maya, when she first met him, she was quite intimidated by him, growing up in a christian family yet she became agnostic, her whole belief was thrown out the window and he's THE LUCIFER MORNING STAR. And so, she kept her distance from him…at first.

As time went by, she found that he wasn't what she expected or how her family spoke of him. She still would walk on eggshells around him from time to time, especially when he would throw a warning or threat her way but she found herself to feel happy to have his company most of the time.

After what happened with Belphie, she was worried Lucifer wouldn't be her dear friend anymore but, having had the heart to heart with his brothers and the reveal of her relation with Lilith, she knew that they would be fine.

Even with the occasional pranks with Satan or goofing off with Mammon, she grew to have a great respect for Lucifer. She knows that she can trust him with almost anything. She even would go as far to call him family. Even if her actual family doesn't like him, she would stand her ground for that claim.

Mammon:

When he first met her, he immediately didn't like her, due to the fact that he had to be her guardian. He really didn't want to watch over a weak human, complaining about it any chance he got. However, that quickly passed as he got to spend time with her.

Having her around, constantly being by his side, agreeing with him and simply supporting him was quite jarring to say the least. He wasn't used to someone being kind to him or not trying to insult him at any given moment. He was cautious of her affection at first, expecting her to use him or for it to be some cruel joke. But, as they grew as close friends, pulling one of his money making schemes, spending time in class or simply hanging out in her room, he found she had pure intentions.

That being said, that was put into question when Belphie came into the picture. When she was dragged out with Beel, he locked himself in his room and wondered if what he feared was true, if she really was just using him. When she came back and properly explained the situation, he knew that she was telling the truth and was more than glad that their friendship wasn't a big lie.

When Maya died, he honestly felt his world crumble. He held her body and felt that he lost the only thing that he truly cared for. If he wasn't so distraught by Maya’s death, he would've torn into Belphie for taking the one person who actually treated him like he was worth something. He was stunned yet overjoyed by Maya being alive but it also put his viewpoint on his feelings with Maya into light. He knew that he cared for her more than just close friends.

The reveal of Lilith was shocking, but that was honestly the last thing that mattered to him. What mattered to him was who Maya was and she was someone he cared about truly and deeply.

Time passes and he slowly slips deeper into her love and affection. His crush on her evolves into something more, something serious. He simply can't stand the thought of losing her to someone else, anyone else. He loves her, and wants to tell her and the world that that's his human, he's her guardian, her first man and he intends to keep it that way.

As for Maya, when she first met Mammon, she was a blushing mess. It was like love at first sight, even though she didn't realize it at the time. Her heart was racing and she tried her best not to stumble on her words. She couldn't understand what was happening to her at first, why she had all the butterflies in her stomach, even when all he did was complain on the way to HOL.

As time went on, she quickly realized that she was having an equivalent to a school girl crush for Mammon. She tried to push her feelings down, because, well, she just met the guy. As she got to spend more time with him however, she only fell for him more. She honestly couldn't help it! She often wonders how his brothers could be so cruel to him and hated it. Seeing him hesitate to her kindness broke her heart. She decided that instead of shoving her feelings away, that she would make it her duty to shower him with affection, giving him love that he lacks and so clearly needs.

After being dragged off with Beel, she was extremely scared that she ruined everything that she had with Mammon. When she came back, she quickly explained everything that had happened, assuring him that their friendship wasn't a lie. She was more than relieved for him to forgive her.

She found that her feelings for him would only grow and chose to accept it. She truly loves to be with him, hanging out, coming up with schemes, even if they go south, and she just simply loves him. She doesn't care what her family says about him, they don't know him like she does. They don't know how he protects her, cares for her, maybe even loves her. She wasn't one to believe in soulmates however, after meeting Mammon, she now truly believes that they were fated to meet.

Levi:

When Levi met Maya, he wanted nothing to do with her. She was a normie, thus, not worth his time. He didn't bother to get to know her, even when he and Maya worked together to pressure Mammon into a pact.

After making a pact with her however, he finally decided to actually get to know her and discovered that they actually had a lot in common. He first thought that maybe this is her still sucking up to him but, after seeing her games, her favorite animes and even some of the drawings she drew, he found that she was being genuine.

When Belphie revealed himself, his self loathing consumed him as she left with Beel. In his mind, he thought that it was all a lie because would anyone actually be friends with an otaku like him. When Maya apologized and explained herself, he was happy that she genuinely wanted to be friends with him. She was Henry to his Lord of Shadows. True best friends.

When Maya was in Mammon's arms, dead, his face went pale. His Henry, gone. Forever. How could this have happened? How could Belphie do this? Why? His one true friend was taken from him too soon. He felt himself release the breath that he didn't even know he was holding when Maya turned out to be alive. He was relieved, extremely happy that his best friend was ok and safe.

When Maya's lineage was revealed, it was definitely a plot twist he didn't see coming. He was glad Lilith lived but Maya was her own person, and cared about her as such.

Afterwards, Levi and Maya became best friends over their shared love of video games and anime. He finally found someone in real life who understands him, who actually gets him. He found his true friend.

As for Maya, she did want to be friends with Levi, seeing that they had plenty of things in common but Levi's constant reluctance to open up and being rude to her made it hard for her to not dislike him.

Slowly, as she showed Levi her shared love of video games and anime, she saw him open up to her and finally started to share his love for the same things. They soon became good friends and even started to marathon different animes every Saturday or play video games hours on end.

After leaving with Beel, she felt pretty guilty, knowing full well that Levi would dive into his self loathing. So when she came back, she quickly apologized, reassuring him that she truly wants to be friends and was happy to find that he forgave her.

With everything that happened, their friendship grew stronger. The two of them would geek out over all of the upcoming games, theorize over what would happen next in the next episode of the anime they were watching and even show each other the drawings they drew. They definitely have become very good friends.

Satan:

When Satan met Maya, he neither disliked her nor was interested in her. He simply saw her as an exchange student. Nothing more, nothing less.

His curiosity was piqued by her making pacts with his brothers left and right. He definitely tried to use her to piss off Lucifer by making a pact with her. Though, seeing her being so kind to not just his brothers but to him as well, he honestly felt bad for trying to pressure her into a pact for a petty reason. He finally opened up to her and was happy to be friends with her.

When Belphie showed up, it definitely was a shock, due towards Lucifer's actions more than anything. He definitely knew that Maya had no ill intent and knew it was for the best that Beel took her when he left. He understood Beel took her for her safety. When she came back, he didn't need her to explain herself. He pretty much understood the situation based on the kind of person she is. A person who sticks her nose in others business with nothing but the pure intention of helping others.

Seeing Maya dead, fueled him with a type of anger he's never felt before. He understood that Belphie hated humans but couldn't understand why he would do this to someone as caring and kind as Maya. Someone who only wanted to help him and his brothers. He felt a weight lifting off his chest when Maya was perfectly fine and alive.

Finding out about her and Lilith definitely made him feel some positive way, though he never really knew who Lilith was thus, didn't change his opinion of Maya in any way.

However, they became good friends. He would share his passion for books with her, telling her all about the stories he read as Maya listened enthusiastically, he would even listen to the few books she likes. Though their taste in books are very different, he finds the conversations he has with her something to look forward to, as she had a different viewpoint most of the time and her opinion definitely interested him.

As for Maya, she was pretty confused how he was the Avatar of Wrath. To her, he seemed like a pretty stand up individual. He didn't really stand out to her anymore then that.

But, as time passed, she had seen the cracks of his mask and was able to see exactly why he was called "Avatar of Wrath". When he tried to make a pact with her the first time was when she got a clear idea of why he has that title. He definitely made it more apparent with the swapping incident with him and Lucifer. That being said, she was always somewhat aware of why he was at odds with Lucifer. But she was fully aware after finding out that Satan's origins were…different to say the least.

She was a bit worried that Satan would be upset with her when she left with Beel. She was afraid that he would get the wrong idea of her; however, Satan didn't bother to let her apologize, having already figured out roughly what the situation was and her true goal was only to help. She was glad he understood where she was coming from.

When everything calmed down, Maya and Satan actually got to spend more time together and grew to be pretty good friends. They get together at the library sometimes and discuss the books that they would read at the time. Since Maya is a dog person, her and Satan would get into heated debates about what was better, dogs or cats. All of the time. Maya is also a reluctant member of the Anti-Lucifer League. All and all, they have a pretty good friendship.

Asmo:

When Asmo met Maya, she was a pretty face to talk to. He was quick to strike up a conversation with her, despite being forbidden to, he couldn't help but try to charm her, just for a bit. However, he found that she was pretty resistant to it and did love a challenge.

As time went on however, he kept coming to the same conclusion, that his charming really wasn't working on her, no matter what he did. So he decided it must be due to her being a virgin and gave up. But wait, his "six sense" was going off like crazy telling him otherwise. Wait, she isn't a virgin? Now, that's interesting…and now she has incredible hidden power? Sign him up! He knew she was special but she also was slowly helping his family come back together. She truly was a pure saint!

When Belphie came up, he was hurt by the thought that Maya was only thinking of Belphie and not him. Because, how could she think of anyone but him! When Maya apologized however, he knew to trust her word. She was always one to wear her heart on her sleeve.

Maya dying honestly scared him. He couldn't believe that someone like her could end up like this, to his little brother no less! All she wanted to do was help the family, how could he do this to her! He immediately hugged Maya when she turned out to be ok. Don't scare him like that! It's bad for his skin!

Lilith living was quite the shock, it's no wonder Maya was so sweet and caring. However, she was very different from her in many ways and she was someone just as special.

All and all, Asmo was pretty much Maya's BFF. He always gossips with her, doing her nails and goes out shopping with her when he gets the chance. He also admires how powerful she truly is. Being able to be immune to his charming and secretly being more powerful than Solomon is definitely something to respect in his eyes. He will try charming her every now and then. One day it'll work, right?

As for Maya, Asmo definitely caught her attention. He was stunning and kinda made her a bit insecure about herself. He was definitely the friendly type, she guessed it came with the territory of being "Avatar of Lust".

Getting to know him better showed that they clicked pretty well. They would tell each other juicy stories and share some more private stories with each other. Maya had to refrain from doing so for a while as Asmo would get too…excited and would want more explicit details of her more…intimate stories. Besides that, they both got along pretty well.

With the whole deal with Belphie, she felt pretty bad. She had hoped Asmo would see that she was just trying to help his family, like she always did and wouldn't take it to heart. She was very happy that Asmo accepted her apology.

Maya and Asmo were best friends after everything. Asmo would wipe away any insecurities that she would have by telling her how amazing and beautiful she is, take her out shopping, whatever it took. Asmo was basically Maya's hype man as Maya was his. Together they can take on anything!

Beel:

When Beel met Maya, she seemed…so small. Are humans supposed to be that small? It was kinda cute actually. When she introduced herself, Beel instinctively crouched down to meet her gaze yet he couldn't understand why she got all huffy. Cute.

Getting to know her, he got to see how lively she was, even for someone as small as her. She was like a firecracker and he enjoyed spending time with her. He also got to see how caring she was, trying to help his family anyway she can. It was something that drew his attention, family was important to him too so it definitely warmed his heart to see her care about them so much.

When Belphie came back, he was extremely grateful to Maya. She was helping him this whole time! He honestly couldn't thank her enough for helping Belphie in his time of need. He needed to get her out of there before Lucifer did something to her! He needs to repay her for all she's done and being her protector is just the start of that.

Seeing Maya dead to Belphie's hands…he honestly didn't know what to think. He knew Belphie hated humans but…why her? Couldn't he see, she was different, she was kind and caring and all she wanted to do was help him, help the family. He cares for Belphie but Maya was someone special as well. Seeing Maya alive, he couldn't help lift her into the air into a hug after Asmo. He couldn't be more thankful that she was alright.

Lilith…was alive and Maya is her distant descendent? He felt the weight of Lilith's "death" finally lifted off his shoulders. Even if it was just a little. He's happy that she was happy. As for Maya it's just another thing that makes her so amazing! He understands she isn't Lilith and Maya couldn't replace her. Yet, Maya was still just as special in her own way. She perfectly fits into the family.

He became extremely close to Maya. He always thought sharing food with her, spending time with her or simply relaxing in her room was the best. He just thinks she fits so perfectly in his embrace. He knows he cares for her but it's different. He couldn't exactly put his finger on this feeling he has and what he doesn't realize yet, his feelings were starting to grow into something more.

As for Maya, when she met Beel, she was pretty shocked how big he was to her, like everyone was already taller than her but, Beel and Diavolo were different on a whole nother level. Hey! You don't have to crouch down like I'm a kid! Though, she can tell by his smile that he means well.

Hanging out with Beel made her realize that he was basically a gentle giant. She honestly thought he was such a sweetheart. After getting to know each other better, he would tell Maya a few stories about him and his brothers, even some about when they were angels. All these stories fascinated her and she returned the gesture by telling him a few stories about her, her own older sisters and the rest of her family from the human realm.

It honestly warmed her heart to see Beel so happy to be with his twin again. It was a bit upsetting to see Beel blaming himself for what happened to Belphie. She tried to reassure him that he's not to blame, it's not like he could have known after all.

Maya and Beel were the best of friends when all was said and done. They hang out everyday, go out to eat at a new restaurant every Monday after R.A.D. and even try a new recipe whenever it's their turn to cook dinner. Maya spends almost as much time with Beel as she does with Mammon. Maya thinks as Beel as her best friend and admires him for his loyalty to his family. She knows family is important to him like it is to her and every passing day, Beel helps make her feel like she was truly part of the family. A home away from home.

Belphie:

When Belphie saw Maya walk up to the attic, he simply saw his ticket out of his prison. He didn't want anything to do with her yet, he needed her, to use her to get out. She was a human. Because of human's, Lilith died, they need to pay. All of them. For the time being, he'd play along, until he was free.

Though he would never admit it at the time, he was honestly glad to have her keep him company. Since the only other person who knew he was up here was Lucifer, it was nice to see someone else, anyone else. He still didn't like her because of her humanity but somehow, he was starting to notice how nice she was being, how determined she was to help him. She really shouldn't blindly place her trust on anyone she meets. It works out for him though, right?

Finally making his grand entrance, he loved the pissed off look on Lucifer's face, the shock on everyone else's and Beel…his twin, he really did miss his brother. It's unfortunate the Beel decided to drag him and Maya off, he'll have to take care of Maya at a different time but for now, he just wanted to spend time with Beel.

Killing Maya…was a rush. His mission was complete, the exchange program would crumble. Though at the same time, he had a pang of guilt. He couldn't really understand why nor did he really care. But, wait, she's alive?! How?! Why?! That is quite interesting, isn't it? But that pang of guilt is gone, slightly. He'll avenge Lilith. He's doing this for her.

No…no…no! It can't be true! It's a lie! Wait…it is true? Truly? But…if all that is true and Maya…he felt extremely guilty when the truth came into the light. Thanks to his brothers, the guilt he had for Lilith's fate is finally beginning to heal, he can finally start to move on. As for Maya…that's a whole new guilt to take form. He needed to fix this. He had to.

Belphie knew that Maya no longer trusted him, he could see her try to move past what happened but he noticed her new…ticks. She would fidget when she was around him, a hand rubbing the front of her neck, how her body would always be turned halfway to him, seemingly ready to bolt at any given moment. When he was in his demon form, he would see her visibly shaking. Even when they start to be friends, every now and then she'd flinch at his sudden movements or if he would get too upset about something. His demon form however was still out of the question for her. He knew that this would take a long time and he would wait patiently. He would wait forever if he had to, and if he's being honest with himself, he would be more than grateful for her to fully trust him again simply because he feels that he doesn't deserve it. He could never forgive himself for what he's done and he would do whatever it took for her to fully trust him again.

As for Maya, seeing Belphie locked in the attic was definitely a shock. What was he doing here? Why? He's a human, huh? But, he looks familiar. Wait, he was in the painting by the stairs, he's Belphie!

Getting to know the mysterious 7th brother, she couldn't put her finger on it but something was…off with Belphie. Something in the back of her mind was nagging at her but she ignored it. Sure, this family had its fair share of kinks but she wanted to help in any way she could. She simply wants to help.

She thought the reunion with Belphie wouldn't be this…tense. The nagging in the back of her mind was getting stronger by the minute as Belphie seemed to change, it was only a moment before Beel dragged us off but, something about him in that moment was a bit…unsettling to say the least.

Maya's trust in him was shattered. She hated him. After everything she had done, despite her gut instincts warning her of this, she still helped him and he killed her…well, she really wanted to hate him, she had every right to but yet, she understood that his hatred wasn't actually aimed at her but at humanity as a whole. She just got caught in the crossfire. For a while, she kept her distance from him. That was until Belphie had wanted to have a serious talk with her, to apologize. She agreed on the condition of having Mammon and Beel nearby to intervene if necessary. Once they cleared the air, she tried her best to move past it. It was hard. Very hard. It would take her an extremely long time for her to get over her new ticks she developed because of him and even longer for her to trust him again. She would forgive him but she could never, never forget.

#obey me #obey me mc #obey me maya #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #obey me diavolo #obey me barbatos #obey me solomon #obey me simeon #obey me luke

26 notes · View notes

faelapis · 4 years

Text

so. while this was confirmed a year ago, new tweets by ian jq have reawakened the discourse about humans being the first intelligent life gems encountered. note intelligent life, not organic life. alien animals still died from previous invasions, but humans are the first intelligent creatures gems encountered.

apparently, the party line on twitter (where nuance goes to die) is that it’s too “convenient” that humans are the first other intelligent species gems met.

i take a few issues with that assessment:

a) “it was pink’s first colony, isn’t it convenient the diamond concerned with organic life owns the first planet populated by intelligent organics? wouldn’t they have died if any other diamond got them? isn’t that super lucky?”

no. we know rose/pink was very interested in organic life from before earth. she always thought aliens were cool, interesting, fun, and liked learning about them and keeping some as pets - such as the rainbow worms. we know she visited the others’ colonies, even if she doesn’t own them. she’s the only diamond who is simultaneously “selfish” enough to visit colonies up-close on a whim because it’s fun AND doesn’t see herself as too good to play with local organics.

so, then, why on earth (hah) wouldn’t she care if there had been intelligent life on any of the other planets? she didn’t fight for earth just because she “owned” it. she cared because she was able to form connections to humans... which she would have done regardless of which diamond’s colony it was. if anything, ownership is a hindrance to her usual romps, because blue & yellow expected her to stay put in her moon base. smile and wave. be a “leader”.

b) “how is it realistic that humans are the first intelligent life gems have met?”

the SU universe as a whole is not a universe filled with life. it has been framed as cold, animalistic, overall lifeless, purposeless, and one in which you gaze at an empty sky and beg for an authority figure to give your life meaning. this works much, much better if life, especially intelligent life, is incredibly sparse. they are small flickers in a cold void. it adds to the feeling that both humans and gems feel of loneliness and pointlessness, where you create these intricate structures of organized almost-religion to feel devoted to a purpose. this existentialism, which we will explore further below, is a huge part of SU’s themes.

c) another theme - and this one is important - is that gems and humans have been treated as this mirror parallel of life, people, and society (tm) for the entire runtime of the show. hence, steven as the bridge. a bridge, usually, connects two sides, not five. they are more similar than they are different - to the point where you can use gemkind to comment on how humans are like, and see some of the horrors and tragedy of what humanity looks like “from the outside”. not once has there ever been implied to be any other intelligent species to disrupt this elegant, thematic dichotomy. ever.

d) unlike fanon speculation, the show has always been very careful about never implying there were any previous rebellions. SU is not a star wars-esque universe populated with a million different intelligent species and cyclical rebellions + alliances between them. it is a big, cold, empty void, with tiny pockets of fragile life. which is part of why the connection between two alien species is so remarkable. it is the exception, not the rule.

e) many of us who looked at homeworld in a not-badfaith light already came to the conclusion that humans are probably the only intelligent life they’ve met. (based on what we know about the universe, its logic, the themes, the implications of other colonies, pink diamond’s personality, no other species ever bonded with enough to fight for, etc etc,)... and those of us who did, including myself, have (lovingly!!) compared the crystal gems to hippies or eco-terrorists. this 100% holds up to how homeworld gems generally, and the diamonds specifically, see them.

this is why blue thinks a “solution” to pink being sad about the invasion is to create the zoo. it’s a petty conflict, from her perspective, of environmentalism vs conservationism. like how, if a capitalist is kinda sad about a rainforest being bulldozed, you might as well just take some pretty toucans and panthers and stick them in a zoo. they’re preserved for humans to enjoy. problem “solved”. it worked with the kyanite colony & rainbow worms, why not here?

this is part of why lapis accuses the CGs of not caring about gemkind. they put this silly little dirtball above gemkind, starting a war that hurt (”real”) people?

this is also why pink, mocking the other diamonds, says “you wish to save these life-forms at the expense of our own? ha! don't be absurd!”. gemkind needs resources to create more gems. so, to the diamonds, of course that’s more important than Making The Bees and Monkeys Sad. they’re not even directly killing them, they’re just taking resources. it’s not “””their fault””” they need ‘em too, gems are more important. the same way, to us, humans are always the most important. many of us don’t give a damn about how we hurt animals.

f) it galls me that anything but the darkest possible interpretation, even when it makes perfect sense with what we know, is always seen as “convenient” by people who watched nostalgia critic once and think they’re now great media critics. i saw similar comments to jasper being brought back to life, even though it made perfect sense with what’s implied about the powers of the diamonds. most of that, too, was woven together by paying close attention to implication, not outright stated in a lore dump - but that doesn’t make it “convenient” in the bad way. it makes it the logical outcome of this world, if you paid attention.

like jasper coming back to life, it also told us something thematic about the diamonds’ absolute power over life & death. steven is kinda horrified, even if it’s a good thing, that things can ever be fixed. he still feels like he needs to be “punished”. he holds this toxic mindset that punishment is more important than healing, because of the pit of self-harm he’s fallen into... which is kind of how some people see the diamonds, and the world as a whole.

even if things can get better, it doesn’t matter. at least not as much as punishing and distancing ourselves from the “bad people”. even though, actually, things CAN get better, and that’s more dependent on systemic change than it is on punishing “bad” individuals... that doesn’t fascinate them. it’s a fucked-up idea of “consequences” that is sadly prevalent in fandoms: they’d rather the world be doomed if they get to kill the bad people for it, than the world being slowly healed in this bittersweet way that includes everyone.

and i’m tired of that. on the whole, fiction is a reflection of this very dour, justice-oriented view of the world where we can only gain satisfaction from punishing the bad guys responsible. SU’s response to that is, that actually, just this once... no! the world gets better, and the “how” doesn’t revolve around individual punishment. it’s trying to heal everyone.

g) it seems to me that for a substantial amount of people, “convenience” has less to do with the themes and logic of the world than it does with wanting canon to live up to their fanon image of homeworld and the diamonds. even if that means a ton of offscreen intelligent life dying Just for the sake of a 1-v-1 earth-vs-gems conflict, with no agency in the story. i don’t understand how that would make it better. all other life we’ve seen have been animals. pink was around for other colonies - even if she didn’t personally “own” them - yet didn’t care deeply enough to fight for them. because she couldn’t bond with worms the same way as humans. (yknow, unfortunately, for the worms :’<)

also, you don’t NEED other species of intelligent life to have been made extinct to still have a somewhat cynical interpretation of the diamonds’ intentions here. even if it makes the world less grimdark in praxis. it’s not enough to be aware of humans in the abstract, blue and yellow still won’t listen. you need to actually interact with humans in order to learn about / care for organics that don’t serve a purpose in your system. this was just the first chance gemkind had to do so. it makes sense that some would be curious, while others more jaded and dismissive, after encountering a universe mostly made of the lifeless & animals.

to give the other diamonds some credit, they’ve probably encountered plenty organic life, and thus have built up a bias that everyone but gemkind are aimless, animalistic life forms, and its up to them to give themselves purpose. why should humans be any different? oh wow, they live in groups? big whoop. so do ants. they build nests? so do birds. they babble? so do parrots and rainbow worms. they still serve no purpose. they still die if you breathe on them.

it’s only when blue meets greg - thousands of years later - that we see even the tiniest of cracks, in which blue is made aware of some level of emotional intelligence, but is still firmly entrenched in the view that he’s just a Slightly more advanced organic than others. like... puppies comforting you. she was surprised he could even do that much. this was a slow process for rose as well!

but anyway, at the point of the war, to many gems, they are concerned first and foremost with gemkind. life matters because of your singular, gem-oriented “purpose”... but some gems, like pink, who never saw herself as a justified goddess, take the opposite approach. they don’t see themselves as “above” other life out of either lack of awareness of the capabilities of intelligent life forms or a self-appointed Higher Purpose. they’re curious, and then, willing to fight for life they can bond with, once they learn to love.

which brings me to...

h) how a big theme of the show as a whole is selflessness vs selfishness.

here, the crystal gems as a whole have actually been on the side of selfishness, from homeworld’s perspective. the end of gathering resources would mean they would no longer create more gems. which, to HW, is selfish. which... of course it is, if you think you’re the only intelligent life out there.

the way homeworld gems express themselves is through an elaborate system of self-perpetuation and creation, in which the emergence of more gems is a higher purpose for the collective. the individual doesn’t matter. to them, the random creatures they find on other planets do not matter. they’re just organics.

humans matter to pink because she’s, like i said, curious about alien life, and less convinced about her own purpose... but also more personal, relationship-driven, and cares about what happens the specific individuals she subjectively bonds with, rather than prioritizing the overall “needs” of her species, like a good queen bee is “supposed” to do.

homeworld thinks that no individual feelings - even a diamond’s - is more important than perpetuating of the system that gives their species meaning. most gems are happy to be shattered for that cause, because they’ve never formed those “selfish” relationships that makes life worth living without purpose. so actually, yes, this works with pink’s motivation, and blue and yellow not being as easily swayed works with theirs.

(all of this is extremely relevant to the arc steven has in “future”, btw. he needs a reason to be needed, purpose. and pearl’s arc, white diamond’s arc, jasper’s arc, etc etc - living for purpose vs living for relationships and selfish exploration of the self is a massive theme of the whole show!! at leaast if you pay attention to anything more subtle than merely “here’s a lore dump!”, which the show has always avoided. it’s more sublime than that. you, too, are supposed to only have a small, subjective understanding of the world, like steven does, which teaches you to value subjective perspectives. your purpose is not higher than the agency of others, and you shouldn’t control the world.)

i) it makes dramatic sense, actually, to center the conflict around the first time gems have met another species that stand a chance of understanding them! hence steven is a bridge. that’s a good basis for mirroring two species, a conflict that raises interesting questions about how we, too, see non-human life, the premium we place on emotional connection vs “purpose”, and how even when we learn to value humans that are different from us, we might still fuck around and bulldoze a rainforest, if it’s convenient and we can justify it internally.

and again, it’s more logical. as we know it, the story went “long ago, gems took resources all over the universe, until pink found a species intelligent enough some of them learned to bond with on a deeper level than Cool Pet Worm”, NOT “long ago, gems zapped a bunch of intelligent species - which we will not mention ever, or give any agency in the story - and pink just ignored that, until she randomly decided humans were more important than all those, for no reason, even though she’d met countless intelligent species before”.

the former makes more sense in ~every reading of canon, be it thematic, logical, personal, character-driven, etc~... except the one most favored by SU’s most badfaith of critics, which is that the only “logical” way for the story to go is one in which we can safely label the diamonds as inhumanly, unchangably bad, rather than having base assumptions, motivations and logics that aren’t so different from many non-dictator humans.

i think for some, they protest not because that makes more sense on a thematic, logical or character level, but simply because they want to. they’re USED to being fed that narrative satisfaction has to do with seeing the bad guys face comeuppance, in place of inclusive, welfare-oriented healing. faced with storytelling that rejects their view of justice while also openly being subjective, sublime, and loving of all of its characters, not just the “nice” ones, they see it as a “failure” to be what they’re used to.

if the world CAN systemically heal in a way that includes people you personally don’t forgive, that must be a “flaw”. if those “bad guys” haven’t actually killed hundreds of intelligent species offscreen who have no chance to heal, that doesn’t fuel your justification for the most cynical interpretation of justice possible, so that, too, “must” be a “flaw”. if it’s framed as possible for them to work towards undoing their harm, that deprives you of the satisfaction of edgy punishment for unhealable hurt, so that, too, is of course a “flaw”. any world where healing is possible for everyone, and the perpetrators can contribute, must be a “flaw”, to a mind only concerned with the validity of vengeance.

even when the story is perfectly candid that you’re personally allowed to be hurt and traumatized (like steven - and most characters, really), you’re still allowed to feel... you just can’t expect society as a whole to abandon its “inclusive healing” model and function on your logic; that your pain is solved by vengeance. it isn’t.

in short, cry about it.

#steven universe #homeworld #the diamonds #rose quartz #pink diamond #rose diamond #jasper #su theory #su future #su analysis #and by 'a few issues' i mean 'let me write you a novel about why this was always canon'#i know it must be a big blow if you've decided you're morally superior for hating SU based on fanon assumptions #but that's kinda on you fam. stop listening to bad youtubers. and do indeed cry about it - it's healthy

479 notes · View notes

hello-nichya-here · 3 years

Text

Zucest - Is It Really Flirting?

(Originally posted on AO3 as chapter 43 of Defending and Analysing Zucest)

@azdaema-does-art asked: So I think a big stumbling block for me with this ship is that I very much adhere to the reading of the show that holds:

Quasi-Seducer!Azula (as seen virtually anytime) and Quasi-Seducer!Zuko (as seen in "The Waterbending Scroll") are not actually expressions of desire from them. Rather, this is Zuko and Azula trying to be intimidating by modeling their behavior off their father (circling, personal-space-invading, low seductive tones, etc)

When actually trying to flirt neither Zuko nor Azula acts anything like that. When Zuko goes on that date with a girl in the Earth Kingdom, or Azula flirting with that guy on Ember Island, they're both awkward disasters.

I'd be curious to hear you address this. (Or point me to some awkward disaster!zucest fanfic.)

***

That is a really good point and I'm glad you brought it up. While I understand that reading of the show, I disagree with it slightly for a few reasons (beyond my own bias).

Need to be in control: No one can argue against the fact that neither Zuko nor Azula know how to have "normal", healthy relationships with others, mainly due to how unequal 99% of the relationships in the Fire Nation are since imposing your own will over someone else's has become part of their culture. Both Zuko and Azula accepted being treated like mere tools/punching bags by their father, Zuko was constantly insulting Iroh over the smallest things and Azula full on threatened Ty Lee's life to make her join her on her chase after her brother and the Avatar - both were scenarios where desire wasn't a factor at all (thought I know many fans that would like to think otherwise XD)

However, during The Beach, we saw how both of them try (and fail) to deal with romance. Zuko was extremelly paranoid that Mai was interested in another guy, for no real reason, and was constantly trying to intimidate her into either admiting to it or into saying she disliked the guy, even though she had clearly said she was completely indifferent to him. And Azula, after her kiss with Chan, decided, on her own and not giving a damn about his feelings on the matter, that not only would they be officially a couple, but that they'd dominate the earth together. Control is, more often than not, a major factor in all of their actions and relationships, so Azula wanting to intimidate Zuko in the bedroom scene (which she very much tried to do and succeeded at) doesn't automatically rule out the possibility of atraction.

Mixed feelings: While "I wanna fight/kill my sibling" is sort of these two default state, there are moments that show that they do have at least some positive feelings for each other. Zuko doesn't give a shit that Aang is going to kill Ozai, but seeing Azula falling "to her death" and then chained up and defeated after their Agni Kai quite clearly made him emotional, even if he tried to control himself. Azula's positive feelings for Zuko are so obvious I had to do an in length discussion of it in chapter 12 "Is Zucest just about sex?" Combine all of the conflicting emotions they have for each other with their need to control the other, and some scenes end up getting some connotations the writers weren't planning them to have... supposedly (I'll get into that in a bit)

Awareness and familiarity: Don't get me wrong, Zuko and Azula are two extremelly traumatized, socially awkward teenagers who have no idea how to flirt (or how to fit in with people their age) but we also need to take context into consideration, especiall when it comes to Zuko's date with Jin and Azula's interactions with Chan.

In Ba Sing Se, Zuko was outside of his comfort zone, away from home, in enemy territory, and so paranoid that he assumed Jin came into the tea shop so often because she knew they were Fire Nation, not because she had a crush on him or simply enjoyed their tea. And while he liked her and the date was nice, Zuko was very "stiff" and even looked a bit uncomfortable (not to say very uncomfortable) at some points - which is oddly simmilar to how he was acting during the bedroom scene (hell, Azula was quite clearly looking at him just like Jin did, as I pointed out in "The most important parallel in Avatar"). Finally, we cannot forget that, even though he was awkward as fuck during 90% of the night, Zuko did manage to do something kinda romantic by lighting up the place, meaning he isn't completely oblivious to the concept of flirting (which is proved by his relationship with Mai).

Now, when it comes to Azula, the poor girl has almost no idea how to flirt. Almost. Talking about Chan's sharp outfit shows she's got some of the basis down, like "say something nice" - the problem is that her concept of "nice" is very different than that of most people. She did sort of know what to do once Ty Lee gave her some tips... but she quickly reversed back to her regular ways - which once again shows that flirting/seduction has an element of control and intimidation for her. She probably doesn't always mean to act in ways that could be considered flirty, but that doesn't mean she is completely oblivious to the implications of, let's say, invading her brother's personal space and talking to him in a low tone while wearing nothing but a robe.

And since I mentioned Azula going back to what she knows, that leads us to another thing to take into account: the fact that Zuko and Azula quite literally knew each other their whole lives - meaning if they were to ever flirt with each other, it would probably look at least somewhat different than when they were out of their element. Azula was the one in control, so she was far more comfortable and confident than she had been with Chan, and Zuko was the one being intimidated, which explains why he kept his guard up. Once again, that "theory" is sort of confirmed if we compare how Zuko acted while flirting with Mai on The Headband versus how he tried to interact with her in The Beach - when he used a non-traditional, but very Mai-esque "You're so beautiful when you hate the world" he got her equivalent of an "I love you" when she told him she didn't hate him, but he tried to do more "normal" things like getting her a pretty shell it blew up on his face. He knows Mai since they were both kids, meaning he usually knows how to deal with her, just like Azula usually knows how to deal with him.

Intensity: While a lot of Azula's behavior can be explained by her copying Ozai, we need to remember that there's only so much he could affect, especially since her way of "intimidating" Zuko was far more touchy and incestuous than his, and lasted a lot longer. Azula gets close to people when she's intimidating them (see how she toyed with Aang in The Drill), but not as close as she did with her brother. The sole exception to that being Sokka on The Day Of Black Sun - but that is on somewhat shaky ground despite the accidental sexual tension since the first time she got close to him she was being launched by the Dai Li and he just happened to be standing a little bellow the direction she was launched at, and the second time had him pinning her to the wall (which is in character since Sokka usually goes straight at his foes to intimidate them while fighting), and as soon as she had her firebending back she pushed him away. On top of that, she was trying to distract him, Aang and Toph, meaning he wasn't her focus at all, and she ignored him on all the other times their groups were facing each other.

With Zuko on the other hand, she was going full force, like I said on my analysis of the bedroom scene. She played coy, stared at him in a very intense, weird way, circled the pillar on her bed, stretched in front of him, got on his personal space touching his shoulder and chest, and bit her lip while talking basically purring her words. That is all a bit too much for me to believe it was just about intimidation. And the touching gets even more suspicious when you notice Azula does enjoy and is willing to give physical affection - she hugged both Mai and Ty Lee after seeing them again, pulled Ty Lee close while conforting her and apologizing for her harsh words at The Beach... and put her hand on Zuko's shoulder while saying he restored his own honor to reassure him after he was feeling bad for betraying his uncle.

Intention of the actors/writers/animators: Avatar is no stranger to parallels. It also isn't a stranger to adult themes/jokes, fanservice, and ship teasing. For instance, even thought they didn't end up together and were never canonically interested in each other, there was A LOT of hints/teases of Zutara - dude fucking took lightining to the heart for her.

Just like the writers and producers were aware of Zutara, Tokka and many, many other ships, they were also aware of Zucest and even jokingly shipped Azula and The Blue Spirit at a panel. The animators habit of sexualizing the characters speaks for itself, so I won't even go into that. Finally, Grey Delisle, Azula's voice actress is a Zucest shiper, has brought it up many times, asked people to send her fanart and fanfic of it, created the phrase "Zucest is best cest", and has full on said she voiced the scene as if Azula was trying to seduce Zuko, - which regardless of whether or not the writers intended for the character to be doing, means that there is a very strong incest subtext to the scene and that, in a weird way, "Azula" herself confirmed her motives to act the way she did.

#zucest #azuko #shipcest #meta #azula #zuko #fire siblings #atla #avatar

20 notes · View notes

rwdestuffs · 3 years

Text

Volume 8 is a poor man’s Infinity War.

Think about it. The main teams in both situations (RWBYJNORQ and the Avengers/GotG) are in separate squads trying to do their own thing.

Here’s our main issues:

In Infinity War, the main teams are split up because they can’t get to one another. They didn’t have a choice in splitting up, and thus, there wasn’t an opportunity in the first place to have interactions between characters like Tony and Steve. While yes, Thor goes off on his own on his own will, it is out of necessity.

And on top of which, each squad is doing something proactive.

Team Cap is trying to get the stone out of Vision so that they can get rid of it and stop Thanos. Team Iron Man is confronting Thanos directly. Team Guardians is also trying to attack Thanos and get back Gamora before the Soul Stone location is revealed. Thor, Rocket, and Groot are trying to get a weapon that can kill Thanos. They are all effectively doing something.

And Thanos’ squad are all split up trying to retrieve the stones. And they are also proactive in trying to do so.

And in the end, it is through Thanos’ direct actions that he is able to succeed.

Now, let’s compare this to Volume 8.

In Volume 8, the only one separated from the group that wasn’t by choice was Qrow, and later Oscar. Oscar gets to come back in the last quarter of the volume, so it’s very not like Thor’s reappearance in Infinity War.

Both squads are separated by choice. They actively chose to split up. This means that character interactions that were sorely needed can’t happen. There’s no Blake interacting with Yang, there’s no Nora and Ren interactions. And the few interactions that each team does have is hollow at best because it kinda comes out of nowhere. Take Ren’s resentment at the situation that they’re in for example. It’s brought up, and then dropped. There was hardly any buildup to it, and it doesn’t even go anywhere. Or take Nora’s sudden “I need some time” thing near the end. She was the one who initiated the kiss, if anything, it should be Ren who says that he needs the time to process his feelings. Especially since his semblance is literally suppressing his emotions! It would make more sense if he needed the time to process given all that he’s been through, and what his literal soul-based superpower does. Ren needs the time to process his feelings. Not Nora.

Or heck! Take Blake’s encouragement of Ruby as another. They deliberately nerfed her character to justify her belief in Ruby’s ability as a leader and a fighter. But the for a majority of the time, RWBN is in a mansion… Not even talking about what to do or about their own relationships, they’re drinking tea. At this point in time, Team Cap has gotten a plan set in place on how to get the stone out of Vision’s head and what they need to do to make sure that it works. Team Iron Man is already en-route to take the fight to Thanos, the Guardians are off to Knowhere to keep the reality stone out of Thanos’ clutches.

This is why people kinda touted JORY’s part as being better. By virtue of actually doing something, they kinda got the better arc by default. Sure, the interactions were really bland, and the discussions of what they have going on with members of the other squad are bare-bones, the fact that they actually do something is a virtue in of itself.

Salem, on the other hand, has her hands on another of the relics, but can’t access it. Emerald and Hazel are having second thoughts about the side that they are on, and Cinder is… Just being herself.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I do like the Emerald defecting thing. I really do. But I kinda wish we spent more time on it, and that we got to see what she did to be trusted with her weapons when they got to the mansion.

Qrow, at this point, is trying to come to terms with his involvement in Clover’s death, and like… It was Clover’s own fault. He followed a clearly unlawful order, didn’t take a prison transport, and prioritized the “suddenly declared traitor” Qrow over the literal agent of Salem who was right there, and gave the three character a hard time, and only two of them are now conscious.

So, Robyn’s whole thing about him being the better person kinda feels like it comes out of nowhere, mainly because we never really got that interaction between Robyn and Clover to really have her make that conclusion.

Both stories also have a “Save the android who has the ability we want to keep out of the bad guy’s hands” thing going for them. But there’s a stark difference between the two deaths.

With Vision, his death comes at the hands of Wanda, his love interest. The person whom they both confide in each other with, and the person who he trusts with his life. So when Wanda kills him to keep the stone out of Thanos’ hands, it’s tragic. And when Thanos uses the Time Stone to undo all of that, and make her efforts all for naught, it’s even more tragic. Wanda had to see her soon-to=be-husband die twice.

But with Penny, her death comes at the hands of… Jaune. A character that she barely had any interaction with. Instead of it being Nora, the person who reassured her that the virus that was hurting her was only a “part” of her and that it didn’t define her, it was Jaune. Instead of it being Winter, the person whom she was effectively partnered with since Ciel was forgotten, it was Jaune. Instead of it being Emerald, the person who killed her the first time, it’s fucking Jaune. A character whose most significant interaction with her was boosting her aura so that she could fight off the virus.

Now, both endings are kinda similar too.

Except where Infinity War’s ending was done and it was blatantly clear that it was because everyone was separated and that it was because Thanos had basically already won, and the fact that it was also because the war against Thanos wasn’t over yet, this ending makes it clear that the war for Atlas was lost. And while the show does also show us that the war for Remnant is far from over, the way they did it makes it feel as if they wanted to emulate Infinity War, but had no real idea as to what made it work in the first place. It’s a lot like a lot of the other things they tried to emulate. Like the “Introduce your character by having them stop a robbery” thing. They know it works, but they don’t know why or how it works.

This overall helplessness and the idea that the bad guys win sometimes was done better in Infinity War because they knew what they were doing. And yes. I do acknowledge that it’s unfair to compare a multi-million dollar movie that was ten years in the making to a single volume that was likely thrown together with the hotpot of notes that were left behind, and that Infinity War also had more than a bunch of underpaid animators working on it, but still! It feels like they had this whole thing worked out in Volume 7. Penny had the maiden powers, Winter was in conflict with what Ironwood was doing, Qrow was feeling guilt at not being able to save Clover, the main teams had to look for Oscar again, there was a set up for team work that needed to be done, it felt like a lot of things were thrown in for the sake of the plot, only for it to not be capitalized on in later moments.

Ruby’s squad wanted to save everyone, and didn’t have a plan until Oz decided to show up again and tell them what the relic could do. At least Jaune’s squad had a plan. And given how his last few plans worked out, it’s a miracle that it actually worked.

The separate hero squads in Infinity War all also had plans of their own. Yeah, they all failed, but at least they actually had a plan. With this, only one team had a plan, and it got derailed because Oscar got kidnapped by a grimm that can only break aura in a single hit after a few in-universe minutes of being petted by Salem.

This volume tried to be Infinity War, but ended up being Dawn of Justice… And we already had that volume in the form of Volume 4. This show needs to stop trying to juggle too many things at once and start focusing on one big thing, and also needs to close up the things that they haven’t really closed up.

#rwde #writers crit

16 notes · View notes

youralternantpersonality · 3 years

Text

Please Take Me

Request: Yes by anon. Embry Call x Reader: Hi! Could I please have a request where Embry saves the reader’s life, and in doing so imprints on them?

A/n: It’s been a minute since I wrote something. So, thank you to whoever requested this! I hope it is what you wanted, and I hope you like it. This request helped me remember what I miss and enjoyed the most about writing. So, double thank you, my love!

Enjoy!

***

You know how they say, always pay attention to your surroundings. Especially at night. And if you're a female (even though it does happen to males too). Yeah, well, guess who decided to not pay attention exiting the grocery store after my shift. My boss, Lenny, asked if he could walk me to my car and I refused. One, because he’s kind of creepy—he’s nice, but he just looks at you like he’s shocked at something. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him blink at least 3 times in a conversation I had with him. But secondly, I was exhausted.

I had 3 Karen’s and their husband Bob come into the store to complain about the quality of the meat, the long lines, or just because I had an “attitude.” And of course, I had to kick out at least an additional 4 people for not wearing a mask.

“It’s my right as an individual to not wear one.” Yeah, Dick and Barbra, it’s also my right to kick your ass.

“We have the right to not serve you, so go put on a mask or don’t come back. I simply don’t care.” I turn to the phone to make an announcement. “Security, please come to the front. We have a D.A.A.M.” D.A.A.M—Dumb Ass Anti-Maskers. But yeah, my day, like most days, was just peachy.

I always park my car on the side of the parking lot. Right next to the exit way and within eyesight of the security footage. I was halfway there where suddenly, I was pushed to the ground. I looked around and saw no one or thing around. So, I calmly got up, and I can feel the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I sprint to my car and unlock it. As I get in, I take a breather and turn on my car. I look in my rearview mirror, and I see dark red eyes looking back at me. Neither one of us moved. You know how you’re in so much shocked as something that if you look away, you’ll be afraid you’ll never see it again or you question if you ever saw it.

Yeah, that’s what is happening now. Neither of us blinked, moved, or exhaled. It wasn’t until a creepy smile formed on its face that I reacted. Before I could scream or move towards the door, they had their hand wrapped around my mouth.

“Drive, and don’t do anything stupid little one.” I nod my head and slowly drive off back towards my home near La Push but just beyond Forks' line. I slowly drive to buy myself some time to find an escape. But apparently, he already knew what I was thinking.

“Don’t even think about it, my little rabbit. Take a left up here.” I follow his orders, and he leads me to a wooded area. I park my car close to the street, and we get out and head towards the woods. I’m not sure how far we’ve gotten, but I know as I look around, all I see is darkness, tall trees, and I can’t hear the passing cars on the main road.

“Let’s play a game, shall we?” he says, squeezing my arm, whispering into my ear. I look up at him, and he smiles and chuckles.

“Don’t worry, my little rabbit, we’re just going to play a nice game of ‘Hound and the Heir.’ You know that child game. Do you know or remember how to play?” he says, circling me. I nod my head, yes, tears coming down my face, not excited for what’s going to happen next.

“Good! How about I be generous and let my little heir go first. Ready…” I know I’m not going to make it.

“Set…” I say a quick prayer.

“GO!” I take off. Not sure where I’m going, not sure what direction I’m heading. All I know is, it’s better than where I was before. In the meantime, I scream and cry for help.

“HELP! SOMEONE HELP ME!” I scream into the night—to no one. I hear the demon’s laugh around me. I don’t know where but I try to push myself more to get out of here. It wasn’t until I felt a pair of hands push me into a tree as I was jumping over its root. I slam my right shoulder and scream in pain. The bastard grabs me, lifts me up effortlessly, and tosses me to the ground, landing on the same shoulder. This time, I heard a pop.

Like the Hound he is, he creeps up to me, and just as he is close, he lifts his head and looks behind me, and backs away. I look behind me and see giant wolves breaking through the trees, growling.

“Son of a bitch…” he says and takes off. They all go after him, except for the silver-white wolf. She stays behind and looks at me. She waits until a big black, dark brown and a dark silver wolf comes back. Three other figures come out as men. What the fuck is happening?

“Don’t worry, you’re okay. We’re going to take you back to our place and get you cleaned up.” Says the smaller one with the babyface. I just want to pinch his cheeks.

“Like hell you are! Who the fuck are you guys?! What the fuck just happened? I just got kidnapped, and all of a sudden, I’m supposed to be okay and just allow a set of random strangers to take me again?” What kind of backward hell is this?

“We promise, we’re not going to hurt you.” Says the leaner one, I turn to him to say a snarky remark, but it gets caught in my throat. Hot fucking damn… “Be cool bitch, be cool…wait…”

“There's 4 wolves and 3 shirtless guys. What combination of that says ‘safe’ to you?” I ask him. Instead of giving me an answer, he just stares at me. I look at the others as they're looking at him. The babyface one and another one that resembles a chipmunk starts laughing, and the wolves look irritated or unbothered. Regardless, I move to get up but end up falling.

“FUCK! SON OF A BITCH! My ankle!” I say, staying on the ground, trying to cradle my shoulder while trying to not put pressure on my right ankle. It seemed that’s when Mr. Fuck Me woke from his daydream and came over to me.

“Here, let’s get you to Emily’s house.” then proceeds to effortlessly lift me up as if I am a feather.

“Holy shit, you're strong…don’t fucking drop me.” He smiles down at me and laughs,

“I promise I won't.” He turns to everyone, “We’ll see you guys there. Yes, Leah, stay behind.” He says, talking to the white wolf.

“Great, I’m stuck with a psycho who talks to animals… What is this? The Wild Thornberry’s?” I look around. He smiles,

“Naw, let’s just say you’re life is about to get interesting, cutie.” He says, then smiles and winks at me. Um, sir…please fuck me.

~~~

“And that’s it,” Embry says nervously.

“That’s it?” I asked, questioning as if what he told me was enough to not have a billion questions.

“Yep.” I shake my head.

“How does it work? Does it hurt?” he smiled,

“Yeah, at first it did, but it gets better over time. You should see us when we first phase. You know how when a baby deer or giraffe is born, they can barely stand, and they wobble all over the place. That’s what happens to us. Only we’re over six feet with big heads.”

“Speak for yourself. Paul's head is the biggest.” Jared says, interrupting us. We were at Sam and Emily’s house, and it had been a month since the terrible day in the woods. Embry brought me back here with Leah to get cleaned up. Ever since, he never left my side…not that I was complaining. It was just weird; I never had or even actually wanted someone to be around like he is. Hell, I can barely stand to be around my own family.

“Anyways, you’re giving me a ride one of these days.”

“Not while you’re hurt…” Embry said in a monotonous stern voice…Zaddy. Let me stop…

“Fair enough. Now, is there anything else I should know before I ask questions? I would prefer to have all the information out now; that way, we can move forward.” Everyone—Jared, Sam, Emily, and Embry—becomes quiet.

“And, that’s my cue. I’m going to see how long it takes to annoy Kim before she kicks me out of her house. Good luck!” Jared says, grabbing 3 cookies and a biscuit before running out the door. Sam and Emily give words of encouragement to Embry and leave.

“Embry…what’s going on?” I said, looking at him. He clears his throat.

“Well, there is one other thing. Just to let you know, it’s completely voluntary. You don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to. You are 100% in control between us. Okay?” he says nervously. I look at him suspiciously. I nod my head for him to continue. “Well, there's this thing called imprinting. You know…you know how after a while, you couldn’t figure out why but you felt like you wanted to be around me—for us to be close to one another?”

“More like need, but sure, continue.” He shakes his head and smiles.

“Well, there's a reason behind that. You know what mating is, right?” I nod my head.

“Like eagles when they mate for life. Right?”

“Yeah! Exactly! Well, that’s what happened that night in the woods. When I looked at you like a deer looking at headlights. I, uh, I imprinted on you.” He says nervously. I start feeling conflicted. On the one hand, I'm glad like a mother fucker that I get to have Embry in my life, but on the other, would he have wanted me without imprinting?

“I know what you’re thinking, and honestly, I actually already did like you.” He smiles as I looked at him, confused. “Last year, at the beach. You were walking back to your car while I was walking with Quil and Jake towards the water. We kind of passed each other. I don’t think you noticed me, but I saw you and thought you were the most amazing person I’ve seen. After that, I may have tried to go to the beach as often as possible to see you, but I never did. It wasn’t until the day in the woods that I saw you again. so my initial reaction was both happy because I finally found you again and because I found you.” He says, holding my hand. I started to tear up and smile.

“That’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever said to me.” I laugh and reach in to hug him without hurting my shoulder and ankle.

“I’m glad. So, it’s up to you, Y/n. Whatever you want us to be, I’ll be that and there for you always.” I smile and place my left and on his cheek.

“I want you to always be in my life Embry call.” I smile back at him. He grabs my wrist and kisses it and rubs circles on the back of my hand. We eventually start closing the distance between us.

“May I kiss you?” he asked quietly. I nod my head, and he smiles. “I’m going to need verbal consent, love.” I laugh at him,

“Yes. Yes, you may kiss me, please.” And he does. It was gentle, and it felt like home. Then it really felt like home when we heard whistling, hooting, and other unnecessary noises coming outside of the sliding door. We turned to look, only to see Jared, Paul, Jake, and Quil being stupid. I hit my face in Embry’s shoulder as he gave them the finger.

Who would’ve thought that my life would go from boring to adventurous all because of a vampire? I could honestly say I would have it any other way…like for real, I would have instead met Embry at the beach, but at least I can say I have met the love of my life.

*Masters List is in the description bar*

29 notes · View notes

nagitoandkokichioneshots · 3 years

Note

Hello, Mod Mikan! while I was playing genshin impact, I suddenly thought “what if Nagito has a talentless S/O who is mentally weak? (Like when everyone is going to experience defeat for three times she’ll practically feel despair the heaviest)” Like I’ve never been so talented and I am always easy to give up but I am fine with myself and I really think its alright—but everytime I think about Nagito and me—I just thought that couldn’t be compatible y’know? He was so into Ultimates and the “symbols of hope” but what if there was a Y/N whose like Hinata. Just a reserve course kid, helpful yet easy to feel despair the most- I could just imagine Nagito’s sarcastic remarks and how much he would be so cocky around them. He would pretty much underestimate them then rant about how worthless and undeserving they are in the group.

Like I imagine when Y/N was talking about their opinions and thoughts in a class trial, then Nagito would just disrupt them and speak as if they weren’t there. If Y/N told him “I am speaking”, Nagito would be like “HuH. YoUr OpInIon Is WoRthLeSs, We Don’T nEed It iN ThE ClaSs TriaL”. Y/N would feel humiliated and shameful, Nagito will probs express his disappointment “WhAt A WaStE Of TimE”. Since he deemed himself “trash” knowing that you feel humiliated by trash made him feel like Y/N was trully a hopeless being. Knowing Nagito, he would probably think Y/N was the traitor among them. He would rise suspicions just because Y/N was trying to be themselves. “Its obvious. The person who will be the traitor is Y/N. Y/N is too bland and talentless to be able to join the Ultimates. Plus, when it comes to despair Y/N is the only one who can give up just by small trials and error.” while Y/N is just there listening to every word he said.

But since I am a sucker for rivals to lovers relationship and I always love the concept of “opposites attract”. Sincerely, I really think Nagito would be better with a talentless one y’know? His expectations for the Ultimates are too high, “overcome despair and all”. I headcannon that he will push his talented S/O even though its really uncomfortable or out of their league because he believe that an angel of hope can overcome everything. His obsessive behavior for the symbols of hope made him feel so worthless that he will offer his life as a stepping stone. Its really an unhealthy behavior. If ever he have one, if he ever have the patience to understand a non-Ultimate—I do think he will put atleast some worth to himself now that he understands the point of view of a non-Ultimate but thats just a thought. I wanna hear your thoughts or opinion about this one! I honestly wanna wrote this idea in a short oneshot which I will never post-

Mod Mikan: Good morning/afternoon/evening, my dear! Ah, this seems like a very interesting ask. I have a lot of thoughts of Nagito X untalented SO, but to save you the time, I’ll try to be as concise as possible

*crackles knuckles*

Personally, I feel like Nagito, eventually, would be able to develop a normal relationship with either an Ultimate SO or a reserve course!SO. But I feel like time is key. Either way, at the beginning of the relationship, he would raise some red flags and some people could label the relationship, even before it starts to blossom, as toxic

With Nagito and reserve course students, we can see how rude he can be. Oh god, he’d be so mean! Especially since he calls himself ‘worthless trash’ someone that thinks so lowly of himself insulting you would honestly bring down someone’s self esteem rapidly. He would throw back-handed insults, sarcastic compliments, and just brush them off. When he’s not ignoring the ‘worthless’ existence of reserve course students, he’s probably insulting the hell outta them

Is it weird I lowkey want Nagito to call me useless trash? I don’t like degradiation, but Nagito can do whatever the hell he wants with me :)

I’ll stop

We can clearly see this with Hajime, when Nagito is being a highkey dick towards him. But everyone seems to forget about this one piece of dialogue Nagito says to Hajime before the fourth class trial:

Nagito is coming to a struggle with why he still has strong positive feelings towards Hajime. He knows that Hajime and him are ‘the same’, yet he still is having a conflict with why he can’t bring himself to hate Hajime. This is because he has romantic feelings towards him, and is conflicted with his own beliefs vs his emotional feelings

I also kinda picked up that Nagito was.....’happy’ kinda that Hajime was a reserve course student. I know it’s weird to say that, but before the 4th class trial, Nagito says “We’re the same” and “At least I know my place”. It’s a long shot to think about this, but I don’t think he was mad at Hajime for being talentless. What he was really mad about was that Hajime tried to become and claim that he was more than an ordinary guy, while Nagito was content with being a mere stepping stone. They’re two sides of the same coin

The reason why I don’t write for Nagito X Reserve Course!Reader is because I genuinely don’t know how to pan out the relationship. He’d be so rude towards them, and I honestly wouldn’t know how to write his developing feelings towards them mixing with his own beliefs about the untalented. I see many writers write Nagito X untalented SO beautifully, and everything is well played out and elegantly written and thought out. I personally do not have the bright mind to do something like that, plus with Hajime’s case, it’s a bit different if it would take place in a non-despair AU (cause I don’t like writing during a killing game for obvious reasons)

With Hajime (cause Nagito’s romantic feelings towards him are canon), Nagito always thought he was an Ultimate until he got a hold of the files in Chapter 4. Yes, Nagito felt that there was something different about Hajime from the others, but he never thought that Hajime was talentless. Still, even though he becomes a sarcastic shithead towards him, he still retains his feelings towards him, while bringing him down. I know it sounds weird, saying it out loud, but that’s what makes this concept so interesting

With an Ultimate SO, Nagito would put them on a pedestal and worship them like a god-like figure. He’d see his Ultimate SO as a ‘prince/princess charming’ and a deity creature that can’t do anything wrong. This is very unhealthy and toxic, considering that he’s worshipping them, getting down on his hands and knees and praising them until the day he dies. While this is can pan out as borderline obsessive behavior, Nagito IS in fact capable of acting normal around Ultimates. A famous example is his friendship with Chiaki!

A lot of people forget this, but Nagito and Chiaki ARE capable of being just as good friends as him and Hajime. He holds an immense amount of not just respect, but also trust, for Chiaki if he trusts her enough to go down through the underground passage at their school and see him holding Junko at a gunpoint. Even when SPOILER ALERT:

Chiaki dies in the anime, he has a ‘flicker of emotion’, where he looks sad at her death, but then comes to with his typical, calm demeanor. Which implies that Chiaki was deeply someone that he really cared about and got to know as a person, not just as an ultimate

It’s been a while since I watched his OVA, but in there, he apparently considers Kazuichi and Fuyuhiko good friends, which I actually found cute (I love BROTP). And he tells Fuyuhiko that he secretly hates the talented and wishes for a world without any talented so everyone would be equals. However, Nagito is a stubborn dude. He equates one’s worth with one’s talented. After all, isn’t that what Hope Peak’s academy, the school Nagito admires SOOO~ much all about?

This is why I personally believe that Nagito deserves an SO that is patient. I personally do not have the patience that Hajime has (Cause let’s be real--Hajime probably has A LOT of patience if he deals with Nagito :)). Cause either way, at the very beginning, the relationship would be toxic since either extreme would be present. But time is key. I feel like with time, Nagito would either

1) See them as an equal

2) See himself as an equal

It is honestly such a fascinating play on romance fanfics, since Nagito X Reserve course!SO are a very rare thing to stumble upon, yet when I read about them, it’s well thought out while being canon. Nagito can be an asshole towards the untalented, but he’s also seen being capable of being mean towards the Ultimates as well (*coughs* post dead room Nagito *coughs*) I know it’s unpopular opinion, and Nagito can be himself and more relaxed around a reserve course student, but I feel like he is capable of having a healthy relationship with an ultimate and untalented person, as seen with his friendship with Hajime (a reserve course student) and Chiaki (The Ultimate Gamer)

Also, the fact that Nagito found out the boy he was crushing on, along with all his rolemodels were remanats of despair really doesn’t help out with trying to not hate them

#Mod Mikan's thoughts of the day #Mod Mikan speaks!#This was so fun to write tbh #I loved talking about this #Ik I have an unpopular opinion #But these are my honest thoughts #nagito komaeda

25 notes · View notes

mrs-nate-humphrey · 3 years

Note

What do you feel about amandamaryanna’s video on gossip girl and cosplaying poor? It reminds me of those tik tok videos that are about the most insane rich person behavior you’ve experienced. I feel like it’s subjective because the characters Dan Vanessa and Zoya are basing their poor ness around THEIR environment. So yes, there are MANY people who are actually poor but compared to their UES counterparts they would be considered “poor” due to the fact that they do not have the insane amount of disposable wealth that the other characters have and I do not really see that as them trying to cosplay as poor.

Also what are your thoughts on her argument on GG not really talking about class consciousness and POC issues. Even though the characters Ursula, Jane and Raina had short appearances on the show, as a Black person I think that is was great that they added the few POC characters on GG because their identity was not the main focus of their characters. Usually with Black or POC characters they have to go through some racial turmoil as part of the plot and in GG they got to be rich UES-ers simply because they are. Even though GG is very verryy flawed Penelope, Nelly, Kati, Isabelle and Zoe were shown how POC characters can be rich like the white characters in the show as well GG is obviously a fictional show that’s not based on anything so I don’t think that racial income statistics/racial implications need to be talked about 24/7.

so i started watching this video & just ended up reading the transcript instead. anyway. under a read more:

like, yes. i agree with her on one hand - i think gossip girl 2007 messed up by making dan's grievances be connected to financial status, because the humphreys certainly weren't "poor". like i think this point she says makes sense to an extent:

The comparison between outsiders and insiders and gossip girl is all about relativity. To the average viewer it seems absurd that a character like Dan is supposed to represent the outsider when he is so farther in than any of us could get.

But honestly, something i hate is how people who talk about this show act as if everyone who's watching is expected to know the prices of rent in new york city, etc. like i did NOT realise how expensive that loft is until someone else mentioned it to me and i would not have guessed! who is your "average viewer" - is it an American? someone who lives in New York? someone who lives in Brooklyn? you can't just define an average viewer in that way, i feel! like you are making a BIG Assumption there and it's not necessarily accurate. people who aren't american watch american tv! such is the world we are living in.

but keeping that aside, yeah: dan and jenny had stable and secure housing, the guarantee of meals, and were attending expensive private schools, so i think the show's messaging regarding class was a little strange. they definitely weren't in a financially unstable situation.

but also, you're right. like, dan and jenny weren't super duper broke, and at no point do they actually act like they are, tbh. dan is very 'oh my parents sacrificed so much to send me to st jude's' and jenny is very 'damn i wish i was richer' but there isn't really an instance where the humphreys seem to view themselves as being extremely poor, that i remember at least. in s1, jenny says something along the lines of, "we're humphreys; we're not exactly royalty." and like. she is not wrong! they're financially stable kids, but they're ordinary kids living in an environment where everyone else has the safety net of millionnaire parents to fall back on, and however much money rufus has, he isn't that.

so i think it's a grey area, like, YES, the humphreys have wealth related privilege (i don't know if this can be said for v, because honestly we don't know much about her living situation, but we do know that she works as a waitress for a bit in s1, and also that she's homeschooled, so she isn't shelling out big $$ for school fees.) but also dan and jenny are treated as 'less than' because they are considered nobodies.

and i feel like THAT is the angle the show should have taken. not "i am oppressed because i am not rich" but rather, "everyone at school alienates me and treats me different and it's making things so difficult for me." whenever people say that dan and jenny acted like they were more oppressed than they actually were i'm like. they were both, in different ways, made to feel small and insecure and hopeless, at school? like of COURSE they're gonna feel victimised. dan is treated like he doesn't exist, and jenny is treated so horribly that i don't even have an adjective. like. i think the writing of the show would've been much stronger if it had focused on THAT and not made it a class thing.

i haven't watched the reboot beyond ep02, so i'm not gonna comment on that.

so yeah, i don't think it was 'cosplaying poor' as much as it was 'showing wealth related stuff extremely inaccurately.' like an anon told me, portraying nyu as community college is super inaccurate, as well. and it makes no sense? like i don't know why they had to do this and why they couldn't just... shoot at a regular community college. gossip girl 2007 did not care for representing poor people at all, like, if you watch the show you can tell that it just luxuriates in this aesthetic of like: more food than anybody can eat at every meal. so many luxuries. unnecessarily expensive things everywhere. like the show was very much luxury porn. to me it felt like it wasn't cosplaying poor as much as it was offering people a chance to wank off to the rich. & maybe because of that, the humphreys weren't allowed to be poorer. gg 2007 wasn't supposed to represent all of NY, it was supposed to represent the uber rich elite. and then you have dan and jenny humphrey, and vanessa abrams. they weren't allowed to be rich, because we needed a class conflict. but they weren't allowed to be poor, either, because this show was all about rich people aesthetics. so we got something weird & in the middle instead.

people forget that chuck was canonically a billionnaire - like, that is a LOT of money. and he is dan & jenny's peer! sadly, i think solely because of THAT, a lot of the oppression the humphreys face... checks out. like chuck being shitty to both dan and jenny - he' has an unethical, absurd, uncomparable-to-whatever-the-humphreys-have amount of money. he can do whatever he wants & buy his way out of there. rufus humphrey's ten thousand dollars or whatever amount he mentions are like pocket change to that guy. if jenny is gonna be treated like a commodity by everyone around her, do her upper middle class roots and expensive loft really matter? well, not do they matter as much as like. can they protect her? (we've watched the show. we know the answer is no.)

re: the characters of colour... i think it's subjective. i ADORE raina, and honestly, if we'd had a NJBC that was nate, serena, blair & raina, the show would've actually been AMAZING. like raina was such a cool character to me - i liked that she was driven, passionate, intelligent, sensitive, caring, fun-loving, thoughtful.... she wasn't on the show for long, but her character felt really solid and fleshed out. i remember a review (idk who wrote this one) in which someone felt that raina's character was "lazy" because a lot of her traits and her backstory paralleled chuck, but i strongly disagree. on raina, those traits were interesting. on chuck, any backstory and larger motive felt like a carpet to cover the dust that was his predatory nature, and to me, felt forced and off. like. this dude assaulted people, i don't care about his daddy issues. but raina seemed SO amazing. her backstory actually fit her personality and gave her depth, and to me, didn't feel forced.

i liked ursula, too! she was a really minor character, but she had a whole arc, and i liked that a LOT. her friendship with serena was very cute! i sadly do not remember jane. i think she was... someone's assistant? but i don't remember who. but i agree with you about raina and ursula, their arcs were very interesting and did not end up being about racial trauma & all that, which, like you said, is refreshing when done right.

that said, i think blair's minions were, uh, an example of blair's racism, and i think it would've been cool if the show unpacked that. blair uses her minions as a status symbol - her 17th birthday at kati's place which is anime themed (?) leaves a bad taste in my mouth because it feels very tokenising of a culture that blair isn't a part of? it would be different if blair treated her minions with respect and dignity and like they were her equals and peers, but she doesn't. the word "minions" itself makes me flinch because it's such a "oh you're inferior" kind of word. it felt to me very much like - they never got to be characters in their own right. they solely existed to prop up blair. and i think that is racist. there was a sense of "Oh, I can't be racist! I have a Black friend and an Asian friend" from Blair - like that's what kati & is were to her. and i think that is a big problem, especially glossed over like that.

i also do think that racial stuff doesn't always need to be the focus! but i don't think it can ever be completely ignored, either. an example of something that is maybe unintentionally racist, but racist nonetheless, is how dan cuts vanessa out of his life entirely but forgives his white friends for treating him farrrr worse. it's an inherent double standard, because dan kind of went "oh yeah. my threshold for white people fucking me over is really high, but if my Black best friend who's so close we're practically family does something even slightly wrong i'm going to cut her out of my life 4ever." did the writers realise this? i don't know. maybe they just didn't think about it. but this is exactly the sort of double standards and racist bullshit that woc, especially Black women, have to face irl (though of course i don't need to tell you that at all), except here, the narrative doesn't even address that, hey, maybe dan's being a dick by reacting this way. and i think that's a problem, too.

#long post #meta #racism #anti blair waldorf #(for tags)#anti gossip girl #ok 2 rb i GUESS #and if any poc want to add something more or correct me please do #ditto the class stuff - i am not american #and really just working with context clues

7 notes · View notes

human-enthusiast · 3 years

Text

Absurd Person #1 - Monkey D. Luffy (kid)

Let’s start with not only the main protagonist of One Piece but also the first character to give Luffy any sort of injury...

...his dumb, seven-year-old self...

*Disclaimer: I don’t own this image - screenshot from Episode of East Blue

The last time I wrote this, I forgot to hit save and my browser just reloaded the page and lost everything. After that I just went “I’m done” and rage quit Tumblr for the night (which I normally don’t do). That’s how my Sundays usually go😒🥴

Now Onward!

Basic Classifications

Real World Ethnicity/Nationality: Brazilian

Class: farm / country / lower class

Culture (the one he grew up around): Dawn Island - Sea-side village

Fishing community

Farming / Ranching community

Hard work ethic

Small and close community members; relatively friendly; little to non-existent conflict

Selective mix of being open towards strangers (especially with merchant vessels for better trading opportunities) and weariness towards those they expect to be harmful (likes Pirates; I’d imagine the people of Windmill Village were understandably unnerved with the Red-Haired Pirates first showing up).

Core values (personal to Luffy): pride, physical strength, adventures on and outside his home village,

Relation to authority: neutral - shifting slightly towards negative (no clear basis of opinion; can only go off on Luffy’s fascination with pirates as the main viewpoint)

(The added information feels a little scatter-shot but figured I give it a try based on little information from the manga panels and how it lines up with real-world similarities. Most information is based on logical speculation and could change with new information in later chapters.)

I know that the Romance Dawn arc consists of the chapters up until he meets Coby and Alvida (I think...), but the depiction of Luffy’s character in the first chapter seems different from when he is seventeen and setting out to sea. So, I’ll treat kid Luffy as a separate character for the first analysis.

First Impressions and Introduction

Now, I am an anime watcher, first and foremost, so my first impression of this character stems from the Anime. My introduction towards this ball of chaos was when he popped out of a barrel, that he put himself into after realizing that a whirlpool suddenly appeared (how he missed it? - It’s Luffy), and then inexplicably took a nap in. That was the absurd reason I was able to stick with One Piece in the first few arcs (until Baratie became one of the major reasons I stuck with it - I’ll explain why when we get there).

And since the first chapter was used for episode four in the anime, I was already somewhat familiar with how the story started and who Luffy was as a kid. However, reading the first chapter felt....different than what I would’ve expected. And because the anime cut out a few details from the chapter, there definitely are some things to take from kid Luffy at that point.

So my first impression was, as follows:

The kid is unhinged...That explains some things...

Complete wild child of a backwater village from Day 1.

LIKE-- The anime episode DID NOT explain how he got that scar and the guy didn’t bring it up ever. To be fair, that wasn’t a big focus because the anime didn’t make it a focus. Reading that part though did more for his character and a little of his upbringing, through speculation, making it a rather slow-building but also fascinating introduction into this series.

Just a bit of an add-on, but if the manga introduced Luffy in the same level of neutrality as what the Anime did, It may not have fully made it clear if Luffy was going to be the main protagonist. Then again, it’s a shounen manga, maybe it was rather obvious to everyone else. Regardless, his introduction served to

(1) Make his entrance memorable

(2) Establish his character that could either compare or set him apart from his teen self.

(3) Act as a sort of precursor towards the introduction of Luffy’s world and upbringing (which isn’t completely established until the last few arcs of Pre-Time Skip)

Personality

The best way I could describe Luffy at this point is a stereotypical kid...

Energetic, short-tempered, adventure-seeking, easily impressed, and ignorant...

That last description is actually something I brought up in a separate post about the “Fluid themes” of One Piece. Because I found that a small but overarching part in many (almost all) themes and world issues that One Piece reflects has some level of unawareness or apathy. Jimbe put it best during the Fishman Island Flashback when they found Koala (paraphrasing)

“They are afraid of us because they don’t know us.”

Know us referring to acknowledging them as people on the same level as humans.

Because of that and plenty of other instances from the East Blue, it can be a potential center for many characters who go up against or wish to explore the world and find that they are a frog in a well.

And that’s what kid Luffy represents. A rather aggressive frog in a well that wants out.

Granted, he is a seven-year-old, whose schooling has a closer equivalent to the 16th and 17th centuries of our world, living in what appears to be a farming community, so I’d imagine his education only focuses on at least the basic levels of reading/writing, mathematics, etc. A small, unexciting farming village probably has more concerns over their melon crops rather than what the world has going on. Adding in Luffy, you get a kid who dreams about being a pirate and adventuring outside the isolated village, making him avidly interested in a world he has no experience with. Or in a world he thinks is all fun and games.

That’s pretty standard for any child that has a mild and peaceful life. No doubt Shanks and his crew would tell him stories about their adventures. Not as a sort of attempt to make him a pirate, but because he was easily entertained by it, building up this expectation with stereotypical pirate personas. And whether he has his “destructive” tendencies before they became a fixture in Windmill Village, they definitely seemed to amp it up enough for Luffy to try and prove he was “man enough” to be a pirate at seven years old.

Then when you add in this idealistic expectation with the selfishness of a young child, it creates an opportunity to learn. Because, as any kid may go through, will find that their fantasy of the world won’t be what they expected, and will often react negatively. Luffy’s expectation of Shanks is that he is the strongest man worthy enough to be a pirate.

Now, Luffy’s view of a “real man” stems a lot from this stereotype of men solving their problems through fighting only. Which also embodies this rather damaging philosophy of never running away or backing down from a fight (which I refer to as stupid bravery - something that comes up in a certain other character).

The amazing thing about all the combined aspects of this kid is the ability to create a learning lesson for Luffy. Which can become a motivational factor in his pursuit as a pirate.

His easily impressed nature makes it known both when the Red-Haired Pirates talk positively about piracy adventures and when Shanks leaves the village. The difference between the moments can be showcased by the difference in determination and will to make an effort to achieve his dream. As he declared he wants to be King of The Pirates, he sets himself to work at it, rather than try and go with others.

How He Shapes the Story / World Around Them

I don’t know if anybody else made a similar connection (I wanna say someone DID but I can’t remember where) but in combination with Luffy’s general enthusiasm growing up hearing wild stories, his narrative reminds me so much of Don Quixote De La Mancha.

It’s been a while since I last read that story-- and by read I mean translate some paragraphs from Spanish to English during my Spanish I class in freshman year of high school. Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoyed the story. Part I entails an old man who, after indulging himself with various stories of knights and valor, decides he wants to partake in his own adventures. Under various delusions and misadventures, his story becomes a rather well-known one.

Don Quixote was called the first “modern book”. That was something my Spanish teacher mentioned regarding its acknowledgment by the world and always stuck with me. It was one of the first stories of the early medieval period to focus on a regular man. Other stories before this tended to be about legends, gods, demigods-- individuals who often were referred to as legends because they were born into high status (often above humans). Either through original texts (often for religious purposes) and then through varying interpretations (such as the Arthurian Legends), these tales were a part of the status quo.

Kid Luffy is a person that reflects so much of the Don Quixote story (And not just because his village has windmills-- the most iconic scene about the knight’s story). He is that simple, normal boy that longs for his own adventures when there seemingly is already a well-talked-about story about someone who achieved infamy. In place of that is a man named Gold Roger whose execution we see in the manga’s opening. At this point, we don’t have much understanding about how it impacts the world as of yet, we just know it is setting up for something significant to the story.

Luffy becomes that “regular” person from a small-town with big expectations for a grand adventure.

That perspective can slowly build into the story by starting in a simple setting with a character going through one of the first dynamic changes in his life. Luffy’s experience with Shanks’s sacrifice sets a course in his own adventure. A story that trails into a rather bonkers adventure at the end of chapter 1.

His development is what shaped his world. It’s the way he learns when as it stems from the consequences of his actions. Especially ones where the smaller ones turn out to be very costly, making it a hard lesson that ingrains into the young kid. His actions created by his old ideologies sparked an intense reaction in the people around him. Especially Shanks, who felt he was worth losing an arm towards.

How The WORLD Shapes HIM

So, for the sake of the fact that kid Luffy’s “World” in Chapter 1 mostly consists of Windmill Village, I’m adding in Shank’s and his crew’s influence to extend and further give credence to his influence. Because, as of this point, Shanks represents a glimpse into the life of a pirate that Luffy strives for.

With Luffy being in a quiet environment all seven years of life, there is growth through basic schooling and healthy child development (theoretically since Makino seems to be the most likely one acting as his guardian), instead of doing things outside that norm. Now Shanks is the odd factor that creates new development into Luffy’s dreams and future ambitions.

The crew’s stories, charisma, and connection towards the kid actively (and probably unintentionally) created a positive expectation if he chose to pursue his dream. While that sounds inspiring, there were also negative aspects. Such as driving his ignorance and impatient nature to seek it out too early in his life.

Shanks then became a mediator. Luffy often has mixed feelings with Shanks as the man begets a level of encouragement while verbally making fun of Luffy for being a kid constantly. Despite that, it doesn’t completely deter Luffy’s ambitions. All it does is slowly drop his high expectations in Shanks after the first bar incident. This is again done by his childish outlook of physical strength and bravery equating to his ideal of a real man.

With Higama, Luffy learns about real-world dangers, and how bravery won’t always be enough to win battles. The same can be said for physical strength but at that moment it doesn’t apply to Luffy.

Shanks’ and the crew’s involvement helped Luffy’s views change. His expectations are fulfilled, which in turn reveal that he was wrong about them.

Finally, seeing Shanks’ sacrifice unfold drove Luffy into a pang of newfound guilt. By then, he was able to change one part of his world views from a childish fantasy into the beginnings of a mature way of thinking.

He gains some level of patience. Along with a set goal to work with. Attributes which are identifiable with Luffy in the chapters last few panels.

Patience = Luffy took time to train and learn to set sail at age seventeen.

Set goal = Be King of the Pirates

Add-Ons

When I say that kid Luffy, after Shanks’ sacrifice, gained a level of patience, it is meant as a deduction during that chapter. By no means am I insinuating that it became a permanent trait for his character. Because as of chapter 1, all of Luffy’s personality has yet to be revealed.

And this will apply to other posts for various characters. They may behave in ways during or in response to a particular event but it doesn’t necessarily equate to that becoming a whole personality trait. Calling Luffy patient, with having full acknowledgment of his personality during the bulk of One Piece, is completely off. But, there can and will be moments where Luffy will act patient when he deems it necessary.

This is a little hard to articulate but I hope it makes enough sense.

🏴‍☠️🐒

After-Notes

Here’s my first attempt at this analysis. It felt scattered even after editing everything. Breaking down characters sounds easy (and most times it is) but articulating and connecting things takes a lot of work.

Here's to hoping it gets easier with the next character. And maybe shorter paragraphs.

Up Next: Shanks (East Blue)

#OPA #One Piece #East Blue Saga #Romance Dawn Arc #Monkey D. Luffy #Chapter 1 #One Piece Characters #Worldbuilding #Analysis

14 notes · View notes