theographos

[theographos]

You were RIGHT. People who write disgusting things should be investigated, and censorship is FUNDAMENTAL to protect kids. Those writers of crimes are ALL criminals. I'm reporting all of them. Thank you for your help!

See, this is one of Tumblr's most problematic feature. When you update a reblog, it doesn't update it for every reblogs.

To be honest I won't even blame you for that, after all there was little to no way of seeing my original reblog of the post.

So here is the first screenshot, my original reblog that I then edited to prevent as best as I could any other misunderstandings :

Here is the end of my disscusion with the OG creator of the post. It was a long discussion full of reblogs, so i'm not going to put all the screenshots here. Here is the link if you want the full conversation

As you can see, I simply misunderstood the post of blackheartbiohazards. I thought they meant all kinds of writer.

And I do believe that someone writing about how they abused little children and openly say that they did it, deserves to go to jail for those crimes (if they weren't already sent to jail for this crime beforehand) Just like any real life criminal When it comes to the fictional part of writing, it is fiction. It doesn't exist, it doesn't hurt any real life person. So like I said, I agree with blackheartbiohazards's point of view : trying to censor this is authoritharian.

A writer of **fiction** is not a criminal for what they write.

A criminal writing about the crime they committed and escaping jail is wrong.

I hope I was able to clarify my point.

#anti censorship #misunderstanding

[theographos]

Perilous Trails is not the best representation for Itto...

Itto is a very hard character to comprehend. The base is simple : a troublemaker with a heart of gold, and while he might be all over the place and a bit too competitive for his own good, he has morals that he strictly sticks to.

But in practice it's actually more complicated to show this balance in him than you might think. You have to make him careless enough so that the 'trouble' and 'himbo' parts of his personality are present, but responsible enough to ensure he respects the "Oni Pride".

He do whatever he wants because of the Oni Pride, he's not going to put on a picture perfect act when it's not who he is. But whatever he wants at the end is fairness, equality and the safety of others. And winning in the process is a pretty big bonus.

And while this quest shows some understanding of Itto, (we all saw him punching the door, i'm not going to pretend like it's not something Itto would do because it is, and it's hella funny.) it also lacks some understanding in the other aspects of this character.

For example when he puts up a fight with Yelan at the beginning of the quest. Yes Yelan is an authority figure in this case, yes Itto doesn't care in the slightest if an authority figure approves his decision or not (unless it's Granny Oni or Kuki Shinobu) and he shows it quite well in his character quest with the Tenryou Commission.

But this is not the same context here. He is in an unknown land, in a unknown place and is trying to keep his "savior" (Yanfei) safe. And a random women who quite seem to know what she's doing tells him that this place is dangerous and he shouldn't stay here.

His morals clearly indicates that he should not back down against injustice. And it's clear in this moment that this is not injustice, Yelan is trying to keep everyone safe, including Yanfei.

So based on everything I said so far, it doesn't make much sense that he would get angry against Yelan. He would bargain, try to convince Yelan that he is capable of surviving down here by proposing a duel or even convince everyone to get out of this place and get to safety, meanwhile he and Yelan will do whatever Yanfei needed to do in her place so that she doesn't have to be in danger.

And I get that they needed to put a fight here so that everyone would get stuck in the timeloop (or timehole, i don't know how to describe it). I get that they needed to have some kind of tension beforehand so that you could clearly see them slowly warming up to each other and forming the best of teams.

But this is exactly where the difficulty of storytelling is. You have a bunch of characters with their own flaws and strengths, you have a situation in which you want to put them in and now you have to use those flaws and strengths to make it work. It's not an easy work, no one said otherwise here.

But the fact that this is complicated doesn't mean you can rough up a character's personality, even just a little, so that everything works. The writers could have added some kind of pre existing tension between Yelan and Kuki, a sort of cold relationship like Diluc and Kaeya. Kuki has been to Liyue, Itto considers Kuki as part of the gang and thus a part of his family, so if Yelan let out some passive aggressive comment about Kuki because of some pre existing tension due to an old event between the two of them, then Itto would get mad.

Then Itto would want to fight her, then the situation goes wrong and boum they are stuck in timeloop/timehole.

Same thing for when Itto decided to knock a wall with all his strength to make the arguing stop. The part that triggers me here is not his sacrifice for the good of others, he is able to do that, it's the fact that he does this without saying anything before hand.

Itto is anything but silent that's for certain. Before doing that he would at least yell a big "shut up" to everyone. Maybe he could yell that, hit the wall and say to or three sentences before fainting, because of course he wouldn't have planned the part where something bad would happen to him. He would have thought that he could still have some force left in him after that, because he is full of hope and would only hope for the best.

But in my opinion having him unconscious for the second half of the quest wasn't the best idea in the first place. Firstly because I absolutely adore him and he is literally my main, so having a quest with him being conscious only half of the time isn't what I can call satisfying.

Secondly because at the end for Xiao's sacrifice, I would have absolutely loved it if Yelan AND Itto were the one to go and get him. I mean the two people who caused this whole thing (not entirely, but if they didn't fought in the first place...). Itto would never want to see someone close to him sacrifice themselves for him, Yelan cannot allow that to happen again.

One of them is spontaneous enough to jump, the other one is protective (and traumatized) enough to jump. I don't see why this didn't happen to be honest.

#arataki itto #genshin impact analysis #arataki itto analysis #character analysis #perilous trail #genshin impact #arataki itto genshin impact #itto analysis

[theographos]

@minu-moni

@failure-artist

Since Tumblr does not show when a post has been edited, I just wanted to clarify my part of the conversation :

And here are the last answers of the conversation I made with the author :

I hope you two and anyone who will read this have an amazing day

"I don't want to read this" is totally valid.

"This is disgusting to me" is totally valid.

"I don't want to read this because it is disgusting to me" is totally valid.

"I don't think anyone should be allowed to read or write this because it is disgusting to me" is authoritarian.

#I think it's not a good thing that Tumblr gives you no info on if a post has been edited or not #I get that with that you have to assume everything you ever said #but if you said something out of a quiproquo it's just there forever #can't they at least put a little “this post has been edited since” and link you towards the edited version ? #i think it would be a good compromise #writing advice #writblr #writers on tumblr #writing #reblog

[theographos]

@sinistermushrooms

Hi ! So I was going through the reblogs of a post about how you cannot force anyone to write and or read things that you like (more or less)

I'm not going to answer all of the reblogs, I just answer here and there. I'm not a psycho who mentions everyone who disagreed with them don't worry.

I'm not here with any ill intent, I just wanted to let you know that my OG reblog was a misunderstanding. The author of the post was talking about fictional writing, whereas I was talking about writing in general. I did not understood that it was only about fiction.

I expressed that opinion was this way because I know about a french author called Gabriel Matzneff who wrote autobiographies about himself. He was very clear in french medias that he did the actions (or at least 90% of them) that he wrote about in those autobiographies.

The problem is that those said actions, were pedophilia actions. He recognized, he showed no remorse, there are known victims.

At no point he was showing any kind of remorse, and at no point was he arrested for his crimes that he admitted. What I was criticizing here is that if you apply that rule to this man for example, it means that he is valid and you shouldn't criticize him nor the readers that are/were defending him.

Of course it was one big misunderstanding, and after that was resolved, I edited my OG reblog to make sure that everyone knew that for the fictional part of writing, I totally agree with the original author's post.

The reason why I answered your post particulary is because I want to reassure you that I'm not trying to censor anyone's trauma.

You are totally valid for sharing your traumas in a way that makes you feel uncomfortable. Healing can happen in many ways, and this is a healthy way to heal.

I hope that this misunderstanding won't take a toll on your mental health and/or your love for writing. I don't specifically know what you write about, but whatever that is you are free and valid to continue to do so, i'm sorry if my post made you doubt that just a split second.

I don't know how your traumas feels like, but I know that mine would hurt even more if I someone told me that I wasn't allowed to write about them.

I hope you'll have a wonderful day, I hope that your healing journey will be okay, and I give you all of my support ♥️

[theographos]

@vodkafolie

I just saw your reblog passing by, and I feel the need to give you more infos because my edit of my original reblog is not showing on the post you previously reblogged.

My edit is that, I misunderstood the OG post, I thought they were talking about writing in general, not just fictional stories. Because you see, if we take writing in general, we have cases like the french author Gabriel Matzneff who wrote about pedophilia in his books. The problem is that he was openly affirming that his books were auto biographies, he was openly affirming that he did those kind of abuse towards little girls and at not point he was showing any kind of regret for it.

He was never arrested, you can still buy his books, he was even prized for his books even if everyone knew that the pedophilia parts were true. He even did interview on TV admitting that he commited them.

And some of his readers defended him, saying that "love is love" and all sorts of shit like that. And at first this is what I was criticizing. I was like "you cannot tell me that a writer openly talking about his crimes without any remorse is valid". But then the author of the post clearly told me it was only about fiction.

So I edited my original statement, saying that "In terms of fiction with no tangible proof and/or clear statements from the author, you cannot 'not allow' anyone from writing anything. Like the author said in another post, the author doesn't have to be your moral compass."

Now that this is cleared, I still want to address the comment you made about cartoons. Cartoons are not entirely made for children, it is a big misconception that people tend to have as they grow up. Shows like American Dad are cartoons, and personally I wouldn't let any kid watch it without any form of supervising.

Besides that cartoons are sometimes able to make big and good commentaries about relationships, personal issues, traumas and much more (Like Steven Universe, in which the fusions between two gems is a metaphor for sex, or the creation of a relationship between two characters. The metaphor depends of the context and the characters.)

But for the cartoons that are made and advertised towards children, it would be wrong to not take them seriously. Cartoons and TV in general is one of the major influences in a child's life. If that influence is not good, or not thought about enough, it just means that it is not a good influence towards the child.

And if indeed my brain has turned into mush because I interacted too much with "child's content" then can you really blame me ?

I mean I'm not the one who produced and put this show on TV, how was I supposed to guess that this specific program would alter my brain when it has been approved safe for children to watch ?

I'm not personally blaming you for thinking that way, I am more blaming a general thought that "everything that is for children is dumb and lacks of interest". I even thought like that during a time, it was until I discovered Steven Universe and changed my opinion about it.

Thank you for reading my post, I hope you will not feel offended by this post because this is not my intent at all. I'm merely trying to rectify a quiproquo, and since I know a bit about cartoons, I thought I could kill two birds with one stone and rectify the cartoon quiproquo thing.

I invite you to go through my account to see my full discussion with the orignal author of the post (if that interest you of course) like that you will have the whole context.

[theographos]

Okay, thank you for the clarification. I thought you meant any kind of writing in general, not just the fictional ones. Since that's what you were talking about, I whole heartedly take back what I said.

I am totally not suggesting to investigate fiction writers (with the only exception of if they publicly said that they did some of the illegal actions of their books). That is not the case for Agatha Christie, that is not the case for Stephen King, so nothing should happen to them and I do not believe anything should happen to them.

Nonetheless, after a bit more researches the example of Vladimir Nabokov seems to be quite appropriate with your statements, because the book Lolita is in fact a fiction from the author, he never said otherwise, but people decided that if he wrote that, it meant that he thought that. So in between the movies who sexualized the little girl (like the movie Lolita from 1962), his book got also censored from 1956 to 1958.

It is in fact a big example of what would happen if you take your interpretations too seriously, and believe that an author has to be your moral compass. I hope that this example will help you in any kind of debate you might have in the future. This was still very nice to talk with you <3

PS : I think I said Vladimir Nabokov was french, if that's the case then I was totally mistaken. He is from Russia and has lived a good part of his life in the US, and Lolita was written in american english, so I think it's safe to say that he is american

"I don't want to read this" is totally valid.

"This is disgusting to me" is totally valid.

"I don't want to read this because it is disgusting to me" is totally valid.

"I don't think anyone should be allowed to read or write this because it is disgusting to me" is authoritarian.

#writeblr #writblr #on writing #anti censorship #freedom of expression #media analysis #media criticism #fandom #fandom wank #archive of our own #ao3 #whump

[theographos]

I am going to share another response that I had with the author of this post, I hope it'll make my point clearer

"I understand your point, of course the reader's interpretation has much to do with it. I'm not trying to start any online trial about readers and writers, so let me put more nuance in what I previously said.

First of all, here is an example that confirms your opinion : Vladimir Nabokov's book called Lolita. Like I said it's about the abuse of a child, but the author chose to write his book from the point of view of the abuser. He made his intentions clear during interviews, his point was to critcise, to write a tragedy. Yet the readers did not understand that at all, and thought the child called Lolita was some kind of a femme fatale, it even became a popular femme fatale figure of cinema at the time.

Is it the author's fault that it happened ? No. Should he had been clearer about his intentions ? He was already clear enough. The fault is into the reader's interpretation, he isn't responsible for that.

But here is where I want to make my point : the author still has a mind of their own. I'm not saying that I am all knowing about an author's opinion just by reading their books. What I am saying is that some authors have written about romancized taboo subjects and openly confirmed that they did believe this taboo subject was a good thing.

My example here is Gabriel Matzneff, a french author who published books with clear pedophilia in it. He openly said that those books were autobiographics, even the pedophilia parts. Here I am condemning it because he is openly saying that he commited a crime.

What I'm condemning is that there are people who back in the days were clearly defending him, even if he himself did not hide what he had done, nor did he showed any regrets for what he had done.

I am not asking for anyone to play the moral compass for me, I am saying that nothing gives any validation to how he felt so comfortable talking about his crimes in public instead of surrending himself to the justice, I am saying that nothing justifies why he was given a prize on some of those books, even if everyone was aware of what he had done.

Yes I do find what he had done to be disgusting, but also at the time it was illegal, he recognized multiple times that he ahd that kind of opinion and that he commited those acts and some people were still happily reading him after knowing all of that, they were fiercely defending him.

Do I want to censor his books ? Not entirely, because they are the proof that he 'got away' with that kind of mindset. Should he be punished for his crimes ? Yes. Should France be more fierce about this particular law (that pedophilia is illegal), at least enough for that kind of situation to never happen again ? Absolutely.

I totally agree with your point of view for the vast majority of the authors out there. But for cases like Gabriel Matzneff, we should put a limit. For cases like Gabriel Matzneff, we should not give them any opportunity to excuse their behaviors."

"I don't want to read this" is totally valid.

"This is disgusting to me" is totally valid.

"I don't want to read this because it is disgusting to me" is totally valid.

"I don't think anyone should be allowed to read or write this because it is disgusting to me" is authoritarian.

[theographos]

I understand your point, of course the reader's interpretation has much to do with it. I'm not trying to start any online trial about readers and writers, so let me put more nuance in what I previously said.

First of all, here is an example that confirms your opinion : Vladimir Nabokov's book called Lolita. Like I said it's about the abuse of a child, but the author chose to write his book from the point of view of the abuser. He made his intentions clear during interviews, his point was to critcise, to write a tragedy. Yet the readers did not understand that at all, and thought the child called Lolita was some kind of a femme fatale, it even became a popular femme fatale figure of cinema at the time.

Is it the author's fault that it happened ? No. Should he had been clearer about his intentions ? He was already clear enough. The fault is into the reader's interpretation, he isn't responsible for that.

But here is where I want to make my point : the author still has a mind of their own. I'm not saying that I am all knowing about an author's opinion just by reading their books. What I am saying is that some authors have written about romancized taboo subjects and openly confirmed that they did believe this taboo subject was a good thing.

My example here is Gabriel Matzneff, a french author who published books with clear pedophilia in it. He openly said that those books were autobiographics, even the pedophilia parts. Here I am condemning it because he is openly saying that he commited a crime.

What I'm condemning is that there are people who back in the days were clearly defending him, even if he himself did not hide what he had done, nor did he showed any regrets for what he had done.

I am not asking for anyone to play the moral compass for me, I am saying that nothing gives any validation to how he felt so comfortable talking about his crimes in public instead of surrending himself to the justice, I am saying that nothing justifies why he was given a prize on some of those books, even if everyone was aware of what he had done.

Yes I do find what he had done to be disgusting, but also at the time it was illegal, he recognized multiple times that he ahd that kind of opinion and that he commited those acts and some people were still happily reading him after knowing all of that, they were fiercely defending him.

Do I want to censor his books ? Not entirely, because they are the proof that he 'got away' with that kind of mindset. Should he be punished for his crimes ? Yes. Should France be more fierce about this particular law (that pedophilia is illegal), at least enough for that kind of situation to never happen again ? Absolutely.

I totally agree with your point of view for the vast majority of the authors out there. But for cases like Gabriel Matzneff, we should put a limit. For cases like Gabriel Matzneff, we should not give them any opportunity to excuse their behaviors.

"I don't want to read this" is totally valid.

"This is disgusting to me" is totally valid.

"I don't want to read this because it is disgusting to me" is totally valid.

"I don't think anyone should be allowed to read or write this because it is disgusting to me" is authoritarian.

[theographos]

Necrophilia, pedophilia and zoophilia are illegal in most countries. I do not think that it is so far fetched to say that no one should read and/or write about a theme that is illegal.

And I am talking about this three subjects being the main 'appeal' of the book. Reading and/or writing a book about a child getting abused like in the book Lolita from Vladimir Nabokov is okay, i'm not saying otherwise, since it's clearly meant to show that this is not something that is okay, it is to criticizing the abuser.

A book in which a human being is having intercourse with a dead body (not a vampire or a zombie, an actual dead body) and it is portrayed as "sexy" or "appealing" in another way than to criticize it should not be okay. Romancizing necrophilia is not only disgusting, but clearly immoral. Same for pedophilia and zoophilia.

I'm not saying that you are wrong in the OG post, I just wanted to put a limit to the last sentence. Yes anyone and everyone is free to read and/or write about the themes they like, but again I don't think that it is far-fetched to say that this kind of illegal content is not valid to be written about in a positive light.

"I don't want to read this" is totally valid.

"This is disgusting to me" is totally valid.

"I don't want to read this because it is disgusting to me" is totally valid.

"I don't think anyone should be allowed to read or write this because it is disgusting to me" is authoritarian.

[theographos]

Unless it's like... Illegal or immoral. You can read that fae kinky story for all I care but if you bring a child, an animal or a dead body into this then it's not going to end well for you.

Edit : The author of the post was in fact solely talking about fictional stories. I thought that they were talking about writing in general, even more the books in which something illegal is talked about and the author later on admits on doing that said illegal thing, like pedophilia for example.

Since it was not the subject here, I feel the need to correct myself. I totally agree with them. In terms of fiction with no tangible proof and/or clear statements from the author, you cannot 'not allow' anyone from writing anything. Like the author said in another post, the author doesn't have to be your moral compass.

Sorry for the confusion, I hope everyone will have a great day

"I don't want to read this" is totally valid.

"This is disgusting to me" is totally valid.

"I don't want to read this because it is disgusting to me" is totally valid.

"I don't think anyone should be allowed to read or write this because it is disgusting to me" is authoritarian.

#writeblr #writblr #on writing #anti censorship #freedom of expression #media analysis #media criticism #fandom #fandom wank #archive of our own #ao3 #whump

[theographos]

If we're speaking solely on group dynamic, yes Toby is an emotional support with a wider "range" than Blinky. But here I was mainly talking about fighting dynamics, sorry if that wasn't clear enough in my post, i'll slightly edit to make it more understandable after I post this answer.

And like I said, yes he saved the world that made him officially a hero in troll's (even the world's) history. But what i'm criticizing here is that not only he only officially became a hero in the very last movie (i'm not saying he never did anything heroic, i'm saying that on a larger scale, he is the last one to do his first big act in the saga. Which could be fine if he wasn't so cast aside by the writers throughout the entire franchise). Jim did his first big act when he killed Bular and/or when he stopped the changeling from freeing Gunmar the first time. Claire did her fist big act when she teleported the entire trollmarket in a safe place at the end of season two. Toby had to wait 3 series to even get his big moment, meanwhile Claire and Jim both have a few moments like those in the three series.

Which again, on its own would be totally fine, i'm not saying that a main character has to do grandiose act to be a good written character. I'm saying that when you put that in the context of how Toby is written throughout the story, when you see that the human supporting characters able to help with fights (on a smaller scale) in Trollhunters, it shouldn't have taken that long for the writers to incorporate an act like that for Toby. Like I said he had plenty of room to have his moment to shine in 3Below, but we barely see him.

The writers found the time and the space to show Arcadia High's teachers helping to fight the Gumm gumms twice (first time when Jim rejects the amulet during his trial, second time in the finale of Trollhunters) but at no point found a way to add a heroic act for Toby before the movie ?

Dying to save someone/save the world can be a step for a character's development, but with Toby it just doesn't add up :

We have a main character with no particular useful competence for troll matters (Claire managed to understand trollic because she good in academic studies, Jim managed to swing his sword at Bular and survive because he had some experience with a knife for cooking, but toby doesn't have seemingly normal competence that comes unexpectedly handy ?), who fights without a combat dynamic, who in Trollhunters doesn't have any personal matter in the plot (like Jim with his problem with his mother, Blinky and his brother, AAAARGHH!! when he was dying, Claire with her possession) and i'm supposed to believe that all of it was planned so that he could have a heroic death ?

Like I said, to me the fact that he saved the world is just a way for the writers to give him some sort of closure after years of ignoring his character. It's not that I refuse to see that he saved the world and can do amazing things, it's that if the writers did all of that correctly, we would have had a build up during the whole franchise, something clear that would have hyped the audience for his long awaited big heroic act. But we didn't had that.

They all became what everyone said they couldn't be. All except Toby that is...

Once again i'm sharing my Trollhunter propaganda onto my loved ones, and by that I mean trapping them in the same room as me and forcing them to watch the show. (with consent) And this time, it's my bestie who has to go through that. And as I rewatch the show, I think about what I see and compare it to the rest of the franchise.

Jim, despite everyone and himself telling him he couldn't, became the Trollhunter in his very own way.

Claire, despite Morgana saying otherwise, became the new owner of the Shadowstaff in her very own way.

Blinky, despite Vendell and overall the whole Troll market telling him otherwise, became the mentor of a brilliant Trollhunter in his very own way.

AAARRRGGHH!!!, despite the Gumms Gumms and Queen Ursuna saying otherwise, became a fighter for the right cause and left his role as Gunmar's spawn for good. Or in other words, he learned how to be a fighter in his very own way

Toby, despite the plot telling him otherwise, became a hero fitting the common standards of heroism in medias and a hero fitting the Tales of Arcadia's standards.

But wait... Toby's character development doesn't really make sense with the rest of the main characters now, does it ?

No it has nothing to do with the fact that Toby is a "fleshbag"

So I already discussed on how the screenwriters could have given a more interesting role for Toby in another post, but I didn't deeply explained why in terms of storytelling.

First and foremost, no I do not think that Tobias would have been better if he wasn't a human, this post is more because I believe that Aliens and Toby lack "plot important" features (except for the movie) (waiting a whole franchise to give that kind of feature to a character or an important specie in your story isn't something we should acclaim). So I thought of ways to kill one bird with two stone, and give plot-interesting features to both the race and the character. Plus I think it's more interesting to think of solutions that fits the already established universe, and then think of solutions that fits my way of writing stories.

Second of all, yes the human bestfriend of a character can be wonderfully done, like in Teen Wolf for example. From the start we meet Scott McCall, the main character, and his bestfriend Stiles Stilinski. Throughout the whole show they are exposed to supernatural phenomenon, the entirety of the cast becomes linked to the supernatural world either by being hunters or by being a supernatural being. Everyone except Stiles.

And despite being human and a comic relief character, he is relevant to the plot. He is the "detective" of the group, he is always the one noticing strange things and finding a solution to the current threat they're dealing with. He is also incredibly funny, voluntarily or not, and the screenwriters take their sweet times showing how hard the plot is taking a toll on the characters through Stiles. Which means we see him having panic attacks, doubts, nightmares, etc.

And guess what ? He is the fan's favorite character ! In the last season, when Stiles's actor couldn't be more present due to an injury, it showed. You could feel the lack of Stiles in most the scenes, and the bestest parts were the scenes in which he appeared, also because they came up with an excuse to explain why Stiles isn't as much present as before.

But that excuse is so well done that when you see Stiles again, you're not only relieved to see him well, but also very interested because suddenly the plot drives forward so quickly. If you take away Stiles, the plot isn't going anywhere (because he was the one investigating most of the supernatural threats), and even the serie isn't that interesting anymore : it's less funny, less human and even.

Heck, the plot wouldn't even exist without Stiles ! In the beginning of the show Stiles takes the main character in the woods because they're looking for a dead body (dumb teenager idea)(his dad is the sheriff so it's not that weird). And in those woods, the main character ends up lost, gets bitten by a werewolf and the story starts.

So yes, a human bestfriend can be interesting in the story in an emotional point of view, he can be relevant to the plot and have an interesting dynamic within the main group.

Dreamworks isn't good with "bestfriend" characters

Trollhunters is in many ways similar to How to Train your Dragon. While Hiccup is trying to protect dragons following his own morals even if they differs from the rest of his village, Jim is trying to protect trolls following his own morals even if differs with the rules of Trollhunting. Of course both franchise have their own identity, and not everything is similar to the other. But they do share the fact that they're both animated by Dreamworks.

Yet I see one major problem that the HTTYD franchise had who's also present in ToA : The bestfriend character has nothing more than a "helping hand" kind of role. Astrid is interesting and has plot relevance, just like Claire, but they're more the love interest kind of person. Stoik, Valka and sometimes Gobber have plot relevance as Hiccup's parent figures and/or mentor, kind of like Blinky, Strickler and Barbara. I think I could compare AAARRRGGHH!!! with the dragons in some way. He has a link with the main bad guys of the show, just like the dragons (dragons and dragon hunters) he has that loveable side like the dragons and big fighting skills like them. (I'm not saying that AAARRRGGHH!!! is similar to an animal, i'm saying that his role plot-wise is similar in some ways to the role of the dragons in HTTYD)

But when we take a look at Snotlout, Ruffnut, Tuffnut and Fishlegs, even if they have distinctive character traits from one another and some sort of character development in some episodes of the shows, in terms of plot their role are basically "well the main character cannot do everything on his own, plus we need humor". Some episodes are based around them, just like for Toby, but no villains are directly linked to them, no plot points are directly linked to them. They're only in the plot because they are the friends of the one who's relevant to the story, whether it's the dragons, Hiccup or the rest of the Trollhunter team.

Toby, just like Snotlout, Ruffnut, Tuffnut and Fishlegs is a supporting character. Yes he has helped a lot but more because they needed a third hand more than because they needed his specific competences. And no Warhammer isn't what I can call a competence, since Jim's status as a trollhunter works with and without his weapon, and Claire's shadow magic has been awaken by the shadowstaff and even when it ends up being broken into pieces, she is still relevant without her weapon.

Warhammer was something that Toby wanted a lot, couldn't use, so they put a curse on it to kill two bird with one stone. The biggest competence that he had so far in Trollhunter was his dental problems. Without that, they wouldn't have meet Gladys the changeling or they wouldn't have found the Janus order. Because the rest of the time it's just luck. Luck isn't a competence, it's literally just luck.

In terms of a team, Toby doesn't have a distinctive role.

Jim is the front fighter. He is the one that is going to go straight to the enemy.

Claire is the mage, even if she knows how to fight, her main feature in combat scenes is her magic.

AAARRRGGHH!!! is a tank. He is strong and big, and is able to take on bigger enemies and take a lot of damage upon him.

Blinky is a councellor, he might not be the best at fighting but he will be able to come up with a strategy based off his knowledge as an historian, and also serve as some sort of therapist and moral compass, giving back faith and the will to fight to his comrades.

I have a hard time understanding Toby's role is this team other than "the helping hand". The moral compass is already occupied by Blinky, he is hardly a tank since AAARRRGGHH!!! can take upon the offensive and defensive aspects of that role. He cannot be the "troll-nerd" one who knows everything about troll culture, since Claire and Blinky already take upon that role. The best I could come up with is either the one who deals with humans, even if when it happens it's always more or less accidental and he is not comfortable in those situations (or not good, like when they had to exchange the formula with Vendell's staff), or again a helping hand, a sort of plus one in case there are a lot of ennemies or everyone else has a task and that problem must be taken care of right now.

That's why I proposed that he could be a healer. Not a very good one, since that would just make the team invicible (most of the times their difficulty comes from injuries or being tired, if you have a character that can fully help those problems there is not a lot of hardships).

Truthfully I have a hard time thinking of an actual role he could have within the team. Because being the "plus one" is already the role of the Creepslayerz.

It has to fit with the serie's message

Like I said in the introduction a recurring theme for the main characters is that people around them do not believe they are fit to become what they're supposed to be or what they want to be. A some sort "against all odds they managed to become [insert role]" if you'd like.

As I have established before Tobias is more of a "helping hand" kind of role, and no one has ever kept Toby from being a helping hand other than him. (Meanwhile every other main characters in Trollhunters doubt themselves because of everyone telling them to do so.)

The only thing he has been kept from doing by other characters (especially the villain) is to be the hero. He is only a human with nothing else, he can help but he can't make a difference on his own. But if we continue to follow the story's theme, he would need to become a hero in his very own way. To claim that title and to use it in a way that is most definetly his, whether with his own competence or his own moral compass.

Toby doesn't have that, since he became trollhunter after Jim, after Jim proved that humans can be trollhunters. He would only be repeating Jim's story with some differences, but the struggles would be the exact same. Meanwhile Claire is having her very own difficulty because she has her very own role as a hero. Her struggles are similar, but not completely the same.

See, when I talked about alien!toby it was because it was easy to tell yourself that aliens might not recognize Toby as one of their own, which could create some sort of "you want to be like us but you'll never be, you're just a human/too bad at it". It's also easy to imagine Toby having trouble with that part of him, either physically or mentally. After all he always thought he was a human, learning that you're part alien is a whole pre-written identity crisis.

And yes even his sacrifice at the end of RotT doesn't really fit the story's themes. Yes Toby saved the world in his own way, but what I don't like about it is the fact that he is considered a hero because he sacrificed himself.

He is not a hero because of who he is, he is a hero because of what he has lost. This is a one time kind of heroism, because as you might guess you do not come back from the dead every so often. I am not saying that he shouldn't have sacrificed himself, i'm saying that every main character became a hero before trying to sacrifice themselves. You saw a big part of their competences before that, but like I said Toby doesn't have particular competences in the show.

It still fits the theme "don't think, become" of the show, but if we look on the plot from afar it means that Jim had to fight to become a hero, Claire had to fight to become a hero, same for AAARRRGGHH!!!, Blinky had to lead to become a hero and Toby had to die.

This is quite a horrible thought don't you think ? That the only way for one of the main character to be fully recognized as a hero in the plot is to die. It worked in some shows, especially for morally grey characters, but throughout this whole post I showed you how Toby had nothing meaningful given to him, and the only thing he always had was ripped from him.

This is not something carefully planned, it's just that they did not cared.

Nothing in the whole franchise justify the tragedy that is Tobias's character arc. Changelings became heroes, Gumm gumms can be heroes, humans too, except for Toby.

Toby is left with crumbs. No magical ancient weapon, just a warhammer that doesn't even have a story worth mentionning in the show. No cool and original duty, just the one that his bestfriend had and who decided to give it to him to make him happy. A big act of heroism, that only Jim will ever remember because this happened in another timeline.

His role as trollhunter, his warhammer, his role as "protector of arcadia" at the end of Trollhunters, even his dynamic in the group is merely a pat on the head in hopes that it will make him shut up and comply. And while some characters are beautiful tragedies, Tobias is not an intentional one. If it was one, you would have seen it coming. If it truly was meant to be a tragedy, the writers would have dropped signs, they would have portrayed it in a particular way.

Even if they lacked time in the later seasons of Trollhunters and Wizards, they had time in 3Below. They had 2 seasons to give anything to Toby, whether tragical or magical.

But they didn't, so nothing shows that they intentionally did it. I even think that they did realize what they had done at some point, and their only way to arrange things was to make him die so that he could finally be a hero.

A hero that only one character will ever remember in the show, because they couldn't even give him that glory, it had to be reaped away from him in one way or another. Because at the end of RotT, in terms of timeline, it never happened, or at least it didn't happen yet.

In conclusion to all of that, I will repeat what I have said a thousand times in this post : Toby wasn't done justice with this movie. He didn't have the ending he deserved, and his story arc in my opinion isn't really a story arc. It's more like him complying and shutting up about his situation because he was given something that looks shiny, but holds no real importance nor deep meaning (or some twisted meaning).

The writers did not want to include Toby in the plot for most of the franchise, and when they did it was in the only way they knew of : something that looks shiny and cool but is in reality just a way to shut everyone up and move on.

#3below tales of arcadia #tales of arcadia wizards #wizards tales of arcadia #trollhunters tales of arcadia #tales of arcadia #rise of the titans critical #tales of arcadia : rise of the titans #rise of the titans tales of arcadia #tales of arcadia rise of the titans #rise of the titans #toby domzalski #toby domzalski critical #tales of arcadia critical

[theographos]

They all became what everyone said they couldn't be. All except Toby that is...

Once again i'm sharing my Trollhunter propaganda onto my loved ones, and by that I mean trapping them in the same room as me and forcing them to watch the show. (with consent) And this time, it's my bestie who has to go through that. And as I rewatch the show, I think about what I see and compare it to the rest of the franchise.

Jim, despite everyone and himself telling him he couldn't, became the Trollhunter in his very own way.

Claire, despite Morgana saying otherwise, became the new owner of the Shadowstaff in her very own way.

Blinky, despite Vendell and overall the whole Troll market telling him otherwise, became the mentor of a brilliant Trollhunter in his very own way.

AAARRRGGHH!!!, despite the Gumms Gumms and Queen Ursuna saying otherwise, became a fighter for the right cause and left his role as Gunmar's spawn for good. Or in other words, he learned how to be a fighter in his very own way

Toby, despite the plot telling him otherwise, became a hero fitting the common standards of heroism in medias and a hero fitting the Tales of Arcadia's standards.

But wait... Toby's character development doesn't really make sense with the rest of the main characters now, does it ?

No it has nothing to do with the fact that Toby is a "fleshbag"

So I already discussed on how the screenwriters could have given a more interesting role for Toby in another post, but I didn't deeply explained why in terms of storytelling.

First and foremost, no I do not think that Tobias would have been better if he wasn't a human, this post is more because I believe that Aliens and Toby lack "plot important" features (except for the movie) (waiting a whole franchise to give that kind of feature to a character or an important specie in your story isn't something we should acclaim). So I thought of ways to kill one bird with two stone, and give plot-interesting features to both the race and the character. Plus I think it's more interesting to think of solutions that fits the already established universe, and then think of solutions that fits my way of writing stories.

Second of all, yes the human bestfriend of a character can be wonderfully done, like in Teen Wolf for example. From the start we meet Scott McCall, the main character, and his bestfriend Stiles Stilinski. Throughout the whole show they are exposed to supernatural phenomenon, the entirety of the cast becomes linked to the supernatural world either by being hunters or by being a supernatural being. Everyone except Stiles.

And despite being human and a comic relief character, he is relevant to the plot. He is the "detective" of the group, he is always the one noticing strange things and finding a solution to the current threat they're dealing with. He is also incredibly funny, voluntarily or not, and the screenwriters take their sweet times showing how hard the plot is taking a toll on the characters through Stiles. Which means we see him having panic attacks, doubts, nightmares, etc.

And guess what ? He is the fan's favorite character ! In the last season, when Stiles's actor couldn't be more present due to an injury, it showed. You could feel the lack of Stiles in most the scenes, and the bestest parts were the scenes in which he appeared, also because they came up with an excuse to explain why Stiles isn't as much present as before.

But that excuse is so well done that when you see Stiles again, you're not only relieved to see him well, but also very interested because suddenly the plot drives forward so quickly. If you take away Stiles, the plot isn't going anywhere (because he was the one investigating most of the supernatural threats), and even the serie isn't that interesting anymore : it's less funny, less human and even.

Heck, the plot wouldn't even exist without Stiles ! In the beginning of the show Stiles takes the main character in the woods because they're looking for a dead body (dumb teenager idea)(his dad is the sheriff so it's not that weird). And in those woods, the main character ends up lost, gets bitten by a werewolf and the story starts.

So yes, a human bestfriend can be interesting in the story in an emotional point of view, he can be relevant to the plot and have an interesting dynamic within the main group.

Dreamworks isn't good with "bestfriend" characters

Trollhunters is in many ways similar to How to Train your Dragon. While Hiccup is trying to protect dragons following his own morals even if they differs from the rest of his village, Jim is trying to protect trolls following his own morals even if differs with the rules of Trollhunting. Of course both franchise have their own identity, and not everything is similar to the other. But they do share the fact that they're both animated by Dreamworks.

Yet I see one major problem that the HTTYD franchise had who's also present in ToA : The bestfriend character has nothing more than a "helping hand" kind of role. Astrid is interesting and has plot relevance, just like Claire, but they're more the love interest kind of person. Stoik, Valka and sometimes Gobber have plot relevance as Hiccup's parent figures and/or mentor, kind of like Blinky, Strickler and Barbara. I think I could compare AAARRRGGHH!!! with the dragons in some way. He has a link with the main bad guys of the show, just like the dragons (dragons and dragon hunters) he has that loveable side like the dragons and big fighting skills like them. (I'm not saying that AAARRRGGHH!!! is similar to an animal, i'm saying that his role plot-wise is similar in some ways to the role of the dragons in HTTYD)

But when we take a look at Snotlout, Ruffnut, Tuffnut and Fishlegs, even if they have distinctive character traits from one another and some sort of character development in some episodes of the shows, in terms of plot their role are basically "well the main character cannot do everything on his own, plus we need humor". Some episodes are based around them, just like for Toby, but no villains are directly linked to them, no plot points are directly linked to them. They're only in the plot because they are the friends of the one who's relevant to the story, whether it's the dragons, Hiccup or the rest of the Trollhunter team.

Toby, just like Snotlout, Ruffnut, Tuffnut and Fishlegs is a supporting character. Yes he has helped a lot but more because they needed a third hand more than because they needed his specific competences. And no Warhammer isn't what I can call a competence, since Jim's status as a trollhunter works with and without his weapon, and Claire's shadow magic has been awaken by the shadowstaff and even when it ends up being broken into pieces, she is still relevant without her weapon.

Warhammer was something that Toby wanted a lot, couldn't use, so they put a curse on it to kill two bird with one stone. The biggest competence that he had so far in Trollhunter was his dental problems. Without that, they wouldn't have meet Gladys the changeling or they wouldn't have found the Janus order. Because the rest of the time it's just luck. Luck isn't a competence, it's literally just luck.

In terms of a fighting team, Toby doesn't have a distinctive role.

Jim is the front fighter. He is the one that is going to go straight to the enemy.

Claire is the mage, even if she knows how to fight, her main feature in combat scenes is her magic.

AAARRRGGHH!!! is a tank. He is strong and big, and is able to take on bigger enemies and take a lot of damage upon him.

Blinky is a councellor, he might not be the best at fighting but he will be able to come up with a strategy based off his knowledge as an historian, and also serve as some sort of therapist and moral compass, giving back faith and the will to fight to his comrades.

I have a hard time understanding Toby's role is this team (combat-wise) other than "the helping hand". The moral compass is already occupied by Blinky, he is hardly a tank since AAARRRGGHH!!! can take upon the offensive and defensive aspects of that role. He cannot be the "troll-nerd" one who knows everything about troll culture since Claire and Blinky already take upon that role. The best I could come up with is either the one who deals with humans, even if when it happens it's always more or less accidental and he is not comfortable in those situations (or not good, like when they had to exchange the formula with Vendell's staff), or again a helping hand, a sort of plus one in case there are a lot of ennemies or everyone else has a task and that problem must be taken care of right now.

That's why I proposed that he could be a healer. Not a very good one, since that would just make the team invicible (most of the times their difficulty comes from injuries or being tired, if you have a character that can fully help those problems there is not a lot of hardships).

Truthfully I have a hard time thinking of an actual role he could have within the team. Because being the "plus one" is already the role of the Creepslayerz.

It has to fit with the serie's message

Like I said in the introduction a recurring theme for the main characters is that people around them do not believe they are fit to become what they're supposed to be or what they want to be. A some sort "against all odds they managed to become [insert role]" if you'd like.

As I have established before Tobias is more of a "helping hand" kind of role, and no one has ever kept Toby from being a helping hand other than him. (Meanwhile every other main characters in Trollhunters doubt themselves because of everyone telling them to do so.)

The only thing he has been kept from doing by other characters (especially the villain) is to be the hero. He is only a human with nothing else, he can help but he can't make a difference on his own. But if we continue to follow the story's theme, he would need to become a hero in his very own way. To claim that title and to use it in a way that is most definetly his, whether with his own competence or his own moral compass.

Toby doesn't have that, since he became trollhunter after Jim, after Jim proved that humans can be trollhunters. He would only be repeating Jim's story with some differences, but the struggles would be the exact same. Meanwhile Claire is having her very own difficulty because she has her very own role as a hero. Her struggles are similar, but not completely the same.

See, when I talked about alien!toby it was because it was easy to tell yourself that aliens might not recognize Toby as one of their own, which could create some sort of "you want to be like us but you'll never be, you're just a human/too bad at it". It's also easy to imagine Toby having trouble with that part of him, either physically or mentally. After all he always thought he was a human, learning that you're part alien is a whole pre-written identity crisis.

And yes even his sacrifice at the end of RotT doesn't really fit the story's themes. Yes Toby saved the world in his own way, but what I don't like about it is the fact that he is considered a hero because he sacrificed himself.

He is not a hero because of who he is, he is a hero because of what he has lost. This is a one time kind of heroism, because as you might guess you do not come back from the dead every so often. I am not saying that he shouldn't have sacrificed himself, i'm saying that every main character became a hero before trying to sacrifice themselves. You saw a big part of their competences before that, but like I said Toby doesn't have particular competences in the show.

It still fits the theme "don't think, become" of the show, but if we look on the plot from afar it means that Jim had to fight to become a hero, Claire had to fight to become a hero, same for AAARRRGGHH!!!, Blinky had to lead to become a hero and Toby had to die.

This is quite a horrible thought don't you think ? That the only way for one of the main character to be fully recognized as a hero in the plot is to die. It worked in some shows, especially for morally grey characters, but throughout this whole post I showed you how Toby had nothing meaningful given to him, and the only thing he always had was ripped from him.

This is not something carefully planned, it's just that they did not cared.

Nothing in the whole franchise justify the tragedy that is Tobias's character arc. Changelings became heroes, Gumm gumms can be heroes, humans too, except for Toby.

Toby is left with crumbs. No magical ancient weapon, just a warhammer that doesn't even have a story worth mentionning in the show. No cool and original duty, just the one that his bestfriend had and who decided to give it to him to make him happy. A big act of heroism, that only Jim will ever remember because this happened in another timeline.

His role as trollhunter, his warhammer, his role as "protector of arcadia" at the end of Trollhunters, even his dynamic in the group is merely a pat on the head in hopes that it will make him shut up and comply. And while some characters are beautiful tragedies, Tobias is not an intentional one. If it was one, you would have seen it coming. If it truly was meant to be a tragedy, the writers would have dropped signs, they would have portrayed it in a particular way.

Even if they lacked time in the later seasons of Trollhunters and Wizards, they had time in 3Below. They had 2 seasons to give anything to Toby, whether tragical or magical.

But they didn't, so nothing shows that they intentionally did it. I even think that they did realize what they had done at some point, and their only way to arrange things was to make him die so that he could finally be a hero.

A hero that only one character will ever remember in the show, because they couldn't even give him that glory, it had to be reaped away from him in one way or another. Because at the end of RotT, in terms of timeline, it never happened, or at least it didn't happen yet.

In conclusion to all of that, I will repeat what I have said a thousand times in this post : Toby wasn't done justice with this movie. He didn't have the ending he deserved, and his story arc in my opinion isn't really a story arc. It's more like him complying and shutting up about his situation because he was given something that looks shiny, but holds no real importance nor deep meaning (or some twisted meaning).

The writers did not want to include Toby in the plot for most of the franchise, and when they did it was in the only way they knew of : something that looks shiny and cool but is in reality just a way to shut everyone up and move on.

#Not so much of a fun ending for that one #Trying to fix things doesn't erase those said things #if you want a human character in a fantastic story #3below tales of arcadia #tales of arcadia wizards #wizards tales of arcadia #trollhunters tales of arcadia #tales of arcadia #rise of the titans critical #tales of arcadia : rise of the titans #rise of the titans tales of arcadia #tales of arcadia rise of the titans #rise of the titans #toby domzalski #toby domzalski critical #tales of arcadia critical

[theographos]

First of all, I would like to thank you for your post, because I love finding new storytelling content to rant about.

On one hand, you are right : an open ending is there to make the fan theorize, write fanfictions, to give them a chance to explore the world your story have in their own ways. This is the intention in every open ending whether they are correctly executed or not.

On the other hand, people's reaction towards the open ending of Tales of Arcadia is much more understandable than you might think.

An open ending, storytelling wise, is a very dangerous thing to do. If not done perfectly, it will leave a lot of fan frustrated, unhappy, you name it.

And while fans should not get the final decision on everything, they matter a lot when making a story, especially for when you're writing the ending.

Let's talk first about an example of a good open-ending : Inception.

The whole story is a complicated plot on dreams inside of other dreams, to a point where you do not know which part is real and which isn't. Whether you are a character in the movie or the audience, you can roughly estimate what is a dream, but can hardly decipher where is reality. And the end is an open ending who continues to give you that feeling : the main character comes home, everything is happy, good, loving... But the movie stops before giving you a confirmation on if the main character is still dreaming or has returned in reality.

An open ending for this movie was appropriate : it helps with the feeling of confusion you feel throughout the movie, it makes you theorize, want to rewatch the movie in order to find some clues about the ending. The strong point of this movie is the story (a story that took roughly 10 years for Christopher Nolan to write) which gave the director enough confidence to add an open ending.

For Tales of Arcadia, it's another story...

The character development is mostly good, the design are great, the animation is very good for the budget it was given, the pacing throughout the series goes from good to meh, overall these are good points for the franchise.

However, with its many plot holes, last minute changes (Hello Morgana, how does it feel to go from "witch older than time" to "Arthur's sister who tried to fight for her rights as best as she could" ?) and the fact that they do not always respect the important themes of the serie (Oh hello Troll!Jim, I wonder why you're here at that very specific moment ?) makes the story and the worldbuilding not their greatest strength. It's overall good, but not good enough to assure a good feedback if you decide to end the story with an open ending.

All those weak plot points (like aliens for example) badfully gave some frustration to the audience. No show can be perfect of course and a lot of people, me included, continued to watch the serie without any major problem. But the frustration was already there.

For example in season 3 we saw Merlin with the usual mindset of "jim is actually too weak to fully be the trollhunter", a mindset that many characters had throughout the show before Jim proved them wrong. Yet here we're supposed to believe that Merlin is actually right, that Jim is too weak to fight against the villain that he was meant to fight since the beginning (since it's the ultimate role of a trollhunter to fight Gunmar)

Here again, we're supposed to believe that the world will be fine if Jim is not the trollhunter, even if we had an entire episode dedicated to how the world will be in ruins if Jim isn't the trollhunter. (or at least, that Jim allows everyone to be prepared for the war with Gunmar, meanwhile if he wasn't it would just had been a surprise for everyone)

Presented like this, the sentence "the franchise is erased" makes more sense. The very theme that started the franchise, which is "Jim may appear like a weak flesh bag, but he's more than capable of handling it" doesn't makes as much sense as before. Sure Toby is human too, so the theme is still somewhat present, but still : What was the point of Jim to "prove to everyone that he is the trollhunter, and that even if the amulet never chose him he would still be the trollhunter" if the ending is about how he gives up that title and give it to his bestfriend ?

What's the point of having a main character who would rather fight hell and back alone than bringing his loved ones into this, give to his bestfriend the role who gave him numerous trauma, that made him crippling under pressure, that almost killed him so many times ? This is not character development, it's just ignoring who Jim is, before and after his character development.

In itself, all of that creates a sense of frustration, that only grew bigger and stronger with the ending.

The writers should have recognized their weaknesses and the many critics that they were given and step down on the storytelling.

I could compare this situation with an artist wanting to paint a five feet painting, even if all they ever did was small sized paintings. Sure they could do it, but it wouldn't be good. It would a start and a good training, but the probabilities that they end up with a good painting is close to 0.

It's the same thing here : the writers did an okay job with the plot, but attempting an open ending with the story they had wasn't a good idea.

I will conclude by two points :

The first one is that the best ending for Trollhunters would have been a usual happy ending. Yes it is not the most original, but it would have been the bestest choice with the already much present weaknesses of the story. The frustration would have been calmed down, it would have feel like a real ending to most of the fans, because even if your plot is weak, you can try to win the fans with your characters. That could have happened to the movie.

The fact that an animated serie, on neflix, had the chance to become a franchise with a movie is already something exceptional ! They didn't need an open ending in any way. It doesn't make their story more interesting, nor more special (yes some movies/shows intentionally try to be bad, for them fame is all that matters) since there has been other cartoons produced by Netflix, like Voltron, who were good shows but with terrible endings.

My final point is that in no way i'm criticizing anyone for liking the ending of the franchise. Because first of all liking something doesn't mean the something is good, liking is subjective, but with the rules of storytelling you can objectively decipher if a story is good or not. Yes there will always be some part of subjectiveness, but I tried to stay as objective as possible.

If you liked the ending of Tales of Arcadia, I am truly happy for you. Don't let anyone take away that joy. And if you hated the ending, just like Characcoon said, don't let that ending take away the beautiful moments you spent watching that franchise.

Bad shows aren't the end of the world, especially since the beginning of Internet. Fanfics will always exist, whether in your mind or on someone's tumblr. And the goodside of it all is that next time you see a show who had those writers for the scenario, you will know what you can expect from them.

A word about Tales of Arcadia, specifically about the ending of the movie. I've seen a lot, I mean A LOT of hate and disappointment over it, so I'm here to share my two cents.

I think it was one of the greatest ending this series could have gotten.

Yes, all these years, all these characters, relationships, struggles, events... erased from this world. I've read a few critics and most of them were around this topic, that everything we felt with these characters have been deleted from existence. All the story we've learned, loved, cherished, nurtured? Gone. It didn't happen in the end, because the future has been changed in a very drastic way.

But that's a lie.

It did happen. For everyone involved with making Tales of Arcadia such a masterpiece, it happened. For us, the fans, it happened. And for Jim too, it happened, and god knows that kid needs a break.

Here's what this ending feels like for me: a brand new world. An open ending (sort of) for us to think about! Finales like this, where the ending feels more like a beginning, is for us, the fans, to continue on! To keep the story alive and going with our own ideas and concepts. And who will be the one to tell us that "this is impossible to happen"? No one! It's a brand new timeline, JUST FOR US TO CREATED UPON!

I can't WAIT to see what we can do with this new concept that has been given to us. I can't WAIT to see the different ways everyone will continue this story. Because, for me, FOR ME, this is what this ending feels like.

Jim's story is not over, it hasn't been erased. I still remember everything, I've been with ToA since the start. I remember all my tears, my laughs, my joy. I remember my hate and disappointment too, tbh, it's not perfect. Everyone's been saying that now it feels stupid to have all these emotions over something that didn't even happen? Just like that? Don't let some time-changing time-travel erase your experiences! This story is still with us! And with Jim.

With that being said, we can delete the entire Staja subplot from the movie and nothing would change. We can delete it from our minds too. Get the MiB pen in here, where did I put it-

#tales of arcadia #trollhunters rott #trollhunters #3below #wizards #toa #toa wizards #trollhunters rise of the titans #film critic #analysis #trollhunters rott spoilers #critic #trollhunters critical #tales of arcadia critical #rise of the titans critical

[theographos]

Baldur's Gate 3 deserved to win.

If you're a stranger to the video game community, let me give you the context of this post :

The Game Awards of 2023 happened this thursday. And for the nomines of Best Game of 2023 we had Alan Wake 2, Baldur's Gate 3, Marvel's Spider-man 2, Resident Evil 4, Super Mario Bros. Wonder and The Legend of Zelda : Tears of the kingdom. And the winner happened to be Baldur's Gate 3.

And ever since then we can see the salty reactions of fans of Spiderman 2, who were baffled at the results. Some argue that Baldur's Gate 3 has nothing more to offer than Spiderman 2, and there are even people who claim that they never heard of Baldur's Gate 3. A statement that I find odd, because even if I'm only briefly present amongst the video game community, even I was perfectly aware of how successful Baldur's Gate 3 has been since its release in August 2023.

Before I dive into another rant of mine, I would like to say that if you never heard of Baldur's Gate 3, it's a video game based on Dungeons and Dragons (with some minor worldbuilding differences apparently) and who work just like a D&D campaign : you role dices to know if your attack landed or not, it's a turn-based game, roleplay is encouraged. It's playable on PC and on Playstation and it offers a multiplayer gamemode.

Now let's dive into the rant shall we ?

Disclaimer

I do not consider Marvel's Spiderman 2 bad, and i'm no video game expert either. So don't expect some deep dive into both of the game's gameplay or graphism. It's just not what i'm good at. What I'm good at however is to pinpoint the content present in those games, and that's what i'm going to do.

Baldur's Gate or not, Spiderman had no chance to win.

I mean have you seen the nomines ? First of all there is a Zelda. It would be unwise to pretend like Tears of the Kingdom has not been a major hit ever since it came out. It doesn't matter if you like Zelda or not, the facts are here : Tears of the Kingdom is really good. Yes it has its bad sides, just like every game really, but it's still good ! But seeing the results of the different categories they were nominated, I would say that they had equal chances. Because for the Player's Voice Award and the Best-Game Direction they were both nominated, but none of them win. It shows that in 2 of their shared best aspects, there was still better than them, and a 50/50 is not a guaranted win.

Next we have Alan Wake 2, who also won the Best Game Direction Award, the Best Narrative Award and the Best Art Direction Award. Spiderman 2 was nominated for Best Game Direction and Best Game Narrative but didn't win. Again, if we take a look at the facts, Spiderman had no chance to win ! Again it's not because it's not a good game, it's because another game did even better. I mean Alan Wake 2 has a level of storytelling close to Inception, visuals that mix real-life footage and game footage and fans of the Remedy Connected Universe (the sort of game franchise that Alan Wake 2 is part of) have been waiting for this game ever since 2013. (the creator said at that time that because of the lack of success of the first Alan Wake, the studios weren't interested in a sequel at that time.) Meanwhile, Spiderman 2 has been teased ever since 2020. This time Spiderman 2 had a severe disadvantage compared to Alan Wake.

I will not pronounce myself about Resident Evil 4 and Super Mario Bros. Wonder, since I don't have enough knowledge about theses games. All I can say is that those two games also come from a successful franchise just like Zelda and just like Spiderman.

But why did Baldur's Gate 3 won then ?

If we look at the results of the award, it was no surprise. They won the Player's Voice award, Best RPG Award, Best Multiplayer Game Award, Best Community Support Award and Best Performance Award (Neil Newborn's performance with the character Astarion. If you never saw it, just go ahead, your ears will thank me. He can go from cocky to sassy to evil to dominant to soft without a difficulty) and were nominated in 4 other categories. Meanwhile Spiderman 2 was nominated in 8 categories and won none of them. So from a factual point of view, it means that Spiderman 2 is good, but not the best.

Now if we look at the game itself, it's absurd to even believe that Spider-man 2 would ever win. Let me list you a bunch of contents that are available in Baldur's Gate 3 :

First of all you have tons of option to customize your character. Not just from an aesthetic point of view, but also a gameplay point of view. First of all you have 11 races available for your character, with 40 sub-races, all giving you different stats and different ways to play and/or build your character. Then you have the classes, with 12 main classes and 46 sub-classes, and again they all give different stats and different ways to play your character. So with that you can play the game 5 times and will not have the same combat experience each time.

Oh you don't want to spend too much time on character creation ? It's fine because they give you 7 pre-defined characters with their own identity and their own stories, that you can even personnalize on top of it. So again, you can play this game entirely 7 times and you will have a different experience each time.

Like D&D you will have a party accompany you, a group of people with whom you travel. These characters are romanceable and also have their own quest on the side, quest that have at least two different outcomes with major changes for the character in question. So here you have at least two reasons to replay the game, like that you can experience both ends of your favorite character's quest.

Baldur's gate 3 is a game based on choices. I am a big fan of visual novels, in which your choices matters a lot, so i'm fully aware of what it means to have choices with almost every dialogue of the game. But if you're not, just you know that you cannot experience the entire game in a row. You have to do at least twice each dialogue to fully experience it.

Baldur's Gate is also a game based on a roll of dice. You can look at a painting, roll a perception check, fail and find nothing, but if you replay the game or retry, you could win it and discover that actually that painting is a map towards a treasure. So you could have missed a ton of hidden quest without even knowing it, just because you didn't talk to the right pnj or won a particular roll of dice.

Last but not least, there is three different difficulties for the game. So three reasons to replay the game if you want to enjoy it to its fullest.

And like I said, Spiderman 2 is really good, I mean it wasn't nominated as Game of the Year for nothing, but it is not able to keep up with a game like Baldur's Gate 3, which proposes hundreds of hours of new content.

Conclusion

I think I have talked enough about how much Baldur's Gate 3 deserved to win, and why it's so popular. But Spiderman 2 isn't a total failure you know ?

Even if it didn't win, it was still nominated in 8 different categories, which is really good ! Out of all the games who were out in 2023, Spiderman 2 has been nominated for the award, he's still in the top 5 of the bestest games of the year for The Game Awards !

A nomination is not something to overlook, because it still means that you won in some kind. Sure it's not as great as an award, but it's still something to brag about !

If we look at last year's numbers, there was around 10 000 games who released in 2022, and we can only guess that we got to 11 000 games in 2023. Again, in 11 000 games, Marvel's Spider-man 2 was chosen in the top 5 of the best games for this year, 5 out of 11 000 is roughly 0.45%, so really it's a great victory !

Spider-man 2 still won something, it's still considered as a good game if we follow the Award's opinion. Not the bestest, but still good enough to be part of the 0.45% of games chosen for the award of the Best Game of 2023.

#i really don't understand why y'all are mad #like being nominated isn't bad? #it's still a win wtf #and wdym you never heard of it ? #it's really talked about in the game community #maybe not as much anymore #but in august it was #and it's not like it was only for the girlies and the gays #i'm confused why the “pro gamers of years” would have never heard of it #and for those who aren't really in the gaming community and who didn't heard of it #well that's understandable #yk it's just not your thing #i even saw people saying that spiderman 2 had more content #more content than a dnd based game ? #that's optimistic #baldur's gate 3 #baldur's gate iii #neil newbon #video games #game awards #the game awards #the game awards 2023 #game awards 2023 #marvel's spider man 2 #spiderman 2 ps5 #spiderman 2 game #spiderman ii ps5 #marvel's spiderman ii #pc games #ps5 games

[theographos]

This. Is. So. Cute !

If that interests anyone, I made a post about why it would have been a good idea to make Toby an alien, or at least alien-related. I mean, he does deserve some love and light !

I want to believe….

-That alien Toby will actually be a thing so he can get the love he deserves 

#tales of arcadia : trollhunters #tales of arcadia trollhunters #tales of arcadia #trollhunters #tales of arcadia : 3below #tales of arcadia 3below #trollhunters tales of arcadia

[theographos]

This is a very cute design of an half-alien toby ! I can really feel his personality with that drawing

yeetz it’s an alien boy

#trollhunters #toby domzalski #art #alien!toby #alien toby #half-alien toby #half-alien!toby #3below #tales of arcadia #tales of arcadia : trollhunters #tales of arcadia trollhunters #3below tales of arcadia #tales of arcadia : 3below #tales of arcadia 3below #trollhunters tales of arcadia

[theographos]

https://www.tumblr.com/infographicisminetocommand/176726285999/chase-the-freakin-stars-yeetz-its-an-alien-boy

Hi ! Thank you for the links those are really cute fanarts ! I answered your asks just to warn you that sending links in anonymous without any other words whatsoever can be kinda scary on the internet No big deal obviously, and I ended up really linking the fanarts ! I just wanted to warn you in case you encounter any problems because of this.

Lots of love on you ! Have a great day and thank you again ! <3