azure-za-raid

[azure-za-raid]

Dear artfight

I’m coming for you all 👁️👁️

Good luck

Look at my card, isn’t it lovely?

[azure-za-raid]

I’m coming for you 👁️👁️

Hey! Hey! I’m doing artfight again!

This is my second year and I’m thrilled to be here! Even if I technically don’t have time-

My artfight account!

Some of my character refs below the cut!

Sammy’s is a little outdated I will admit-

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This is lovely! I’m glad to see my art has inspired you to write

I do love the concepts and ideas you had here, I think you’ve inspired me too

One of many recommendations for Troll Jim drawings:

Jim being a “little” shit teasing Douxie cause he taller than him now.

He may be taller but Douxie’s still got several years on the buddy boy.

Recommended by @honeyxmonkey

More recommended pictures to come 😄

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I shall die on this hill with you

Sounding off my rent lowering gunshots again, it's time for me to talk about Trim.

One of the most significant plot points of Trollhunters S3 was, Jim turning into a Half Troll (Trim I will say for the rest of this). This significant plot point comes with several layers of controversy, and I'm going to add in my own opinion(s) to the mix.

Half Troll Jim should have stayed.

I have a couple of reasons why I think this, so let's break it down. Firstly, the thematic significance of Trim was great and are the main embodiments of several themes of Trollhunters. And secondly, Wizards butchers Jim's writing in multiple ways, ignoring the significance of Trim and downplaying Trim because the writers didn't know what to do with him.

To start with the thematic significance, there are two things that Trim signifies for Jim and the overall story of Trollhunters.

The first one is the main purpose of Trollhunters, combining the mundane and magic into something new and unique. Jim is the mundane and the amulet is the magic, while both aspects have technically been combined since the beginning with Jim being the first human Trollhunter there is a level of disconnect that remains.

That disconnect is the dichotomy between Troll and Human mentalities, to take the fight alone or do it with friends. Jim struggles with dealing with both sides in Season 1 Part 2 when handling Angor Rot. At first, he has his friends by his side helping him gather the Triumbric Stones to defeat Gunmar with the team together, but when AAARRRGH is killed, Jim attempts to handle Gunmar alone, which subsequently leads to the team going after him and Gunmar escaping.

Since then, Jim works upon finding the right balance between working with his friends, but without putting their lives on the line. Jim as a human can physically only go so far. So when approached with the choice to become Half Troll and be able to not only work alongside and help his friends, Jim takes it. Because if Jim remained human, he would have been putting his friend's lives on the line, alongside the rest of the world.

Trim is the full combination of mundane and magic, as long as Jim remained human the mental versus role dichotomy would have remained. Now Jim can not only work alongside his friends like when fighting Morgana, but also be able to fight and protect his friends from other threats as well like Gunmar.

There's another significant theme that Merlin takes the time to remind Jim of twice that is prominent in Trollhunters. The theme of sacrifice.

The second someone takes on the role of Trollhunter, they have taken upon the task of fighting to protect others till the bitter end. Kanjigar demonstrates that by sacrificing his life in order to prevent the amulet being taken by Bular. It's shown in Unbecoming that Jim was willing to sacrifice his life for the sake of others, to sacrifice half of human physicality to be able to defeat Gunmar and protect orders is a much lighter consequence than his own life.

Merlin shows Jim Unbecoming because it's a reminder that Jim was the only fit for the amulet. Then again, when making the choice to become Half Troll, Merlin reminds Jim of his desire to protect his friends over his own life. With that reminder in mind, Jim makes his choice and sacrifices half of his human side in favour of a stronger build.

There is an argument thereafter that Jim is "miserable" after making this choice to sacrifice half of his humanity because he's not fully human anymore. Though what humanity means is… complicated. If humanity means the sheer physical aspect, then yes, Jim obviously sacrificed half of it in favour of the boosted strength, speed, stamina, etc that comes with being half troll. But for the mental aspects of humanity, I believe Jim remains the same. He's obviously confused and afraid of his transformation, as anyone would be after turning half troll. Jim's role and mentality as a full human was tied to his friendships and connections with others, his kindness for them and his desire to sacrifice anything for them. This is not lost when Jim becomes half troll, in fact, Jim's mentality is examplified by it. Jim's role is not disrupted by becoming half troll, it's improved, and after the few bumps in the road, Jim is satisfied with the transformation and what it brings to him.

To write of Jim as miserable, dare I say, would be a disservice to who he is. Adventure was what he was searching for all this time, and he finds it in Trollhunting with his friends, it's shown in Unbecoming that he was unsatisfied when he wasn't the Trollhunter, that was when he was most miserable.

With the narrative themes of Jim fulfilled, and his role set in stone. Jim should be set to continue his life, happy as a half troll… right?

In comes Wizards with a steel chair and a bone to pick with good writing.

Beyond the timeline disruption, general poor characterization, and whatever the fuck they did with Angor Rot, Wizards had no idea what to do with Trim. After Trim defeated Morgana and Gunmar, in the writer's eyes they had nothing else to do with him, so they butchered him getting hit in the heart, turned him into some feral full troll, killed him off and then had magic tears bring him back to life. This isn't Tangled Wizards, and Tangled actually had built up to that moment.

What makes this writing decision so bad is that alongside the general existence of the Green Knight, the entire arc was completely unnecessary, except for one thing: to bring human Jim back. The writers realized they had a really op protagonist and enemies that could have been beaten by him with ease as a half troll, so they had to nerf him to make the "final fight" more interesting with more stakes and not the absolute beat down it would have been.

The writers also attempted to drag along Jim's arc, trying to make him a king with Excalibur, despite the fact that the role of a King was never fit for Jim in the first place. He's not the type to sit idly by ordering troops around in a high position, Jim is an equal fighter, he wants to fight alongside his friends, not lead them.

To put it simply, Wizards reverted Jim's sacrifice in Trollhunters by not only making him human again, but also getting rid of the Trollhunter amulet. Becoming half troll was never the act of destroying Jim, it was the destruction of the amulet, and the roles, adventures, and friends that Jim earned alongside it. Jim was never meant to be a King, he was meant to be a protector, but not just alone, alongside his friends too, helping and working with them for the greater good. Half Troll Jim is the thesis of Jim's role as both a friend and a protector, and it was slaughtered by poor writing.

[azure-za-raid]

I shall provide you all with one of the first looks into my upcoming fic

Here we have designs for Jim in both human and Half Troll forms and Toby

Some background for this AU

It started as me wanting to redo my Jersey and Wizards fics

I never initially intended to go as far back as changing Trollhunters, only changing Wizards and RotT and including Jersey

But over time I began making some lore changes and realized that many scenes from the original ended up getting altered, and without proper content, many of my changes to Wizards would fall apart

So as such I went back and only planned to do the minor changes necessary while keeping most of Trollhunter’s largely the same

But the with more editing and tweaking, this fic eventually become a full AU rewrite starting from Trollhunters

So now— some changes made

Trollhunter now begins in Jim and Toby’s freshman year. And the amulet of daylight make Jim become a half troll

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Let’s go! Time for the best upcoming fic of the fandom!

I stand by you 😉👍🏽

If you've seen my couple analysis posts from the past couple weeks you might have noticed that I have recently revisited this fandom after several years of not interacting. Back in 2021 before I eventually fell off the train I had crafted a rough idea for an AU about a completely unconventional and rarely mentioned character to be the wielder of the amulet. All the while reconstructing the TOA timeline as a partial fix it.

Well, since I've jumped back onto the train car in the past month or so, I decided to revisit that AU and refresh it... a lot. To the point that I have the first half of season 1 of Trollhunters entirely planned and the main ideas for the rest of Trollhunters and 3Below outlined in my head.

Anyway, if anyone actually bothered to read this far, then they would be wondering who I decided to be the lucky Trollhunter, so I'll just get to it.

Mary Wang. Mary Wang is the Trollhunter.

My intention with this AU is to deal with multiple things at once that I personally desire to address:

Firstly, focusing on the actual underutilized and underrated characters. Mary Wang, Darci Scott, and Shannon Longhannon are all characters that sit as unused beyond a couple small things with minimal plot significance, I would like to change that. Consider it a role reversal of sorts, with Mary, Darci, and Shannon replacing Jim, Toby, and Claire. Though I do not intend on downright ignoring our original Trollhunter trio either.

Shining spotlights on characters who I believe deserve more attention. This is technically code for me fleshing out the TOA villains more, properly building up to both redemptions and deaths. Not just the villains of course, several other characters whom have been reduced down to a few components by the overarching fanon I would like to fully address and break down into their complexities as well.

Giving 3Below more attention. The one thing I've noticed that is lacking when some AUs are crafted is downplaying the affect of 3Below. I consider this downplaying an attribute of TOA's sudden switch up from the fantasy of Trollhunters to the sci-fi of 3Below. I intend on making the transition more seamless and give both the Trollhunters and 3Below plots time to shine.

Worldbuilding galore. If there is one thing I love, it's worldbuilding. A lot of my desires for this AU stem from my desires to flesh out the world of TOA. I'm fixing the timeline, incorporating the books, using underused artifacts, and playing around with the magic system of TOA.

Fixing Wizards and ROTT. I don't care what people say, Wizards is not as well written as you like to think, and it was in fact the testing grounds for ROTT. I intend on keeping the timeline stable and properly fleshing out the Arcane Order and the subsequent final battle. Without unneeded time travel that ignores the character development of everyone (that goes for both Wizards and ROTT).

If you have paid attention to the TOA tag you may have noticed that @azure-za-raid made some lovely art of my redesigns a couple weeks back for my AU which I really appreciate!

This AU is technically still in the planning phase, and will be for the next while. Though I have begun to plan how exactly I will write and publish this eventually. My idea is to break it down into parts based on the current antagonist, and completely write that arc before publishing on ao3. Kind of like how Trollhunters S1 is broken down between Bular and Angor.

If there are any questions, feel free to send me an ask about it, I'm always happy to talk about things!

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Have you posted any of your upcoming fan fic to AO3 yet? I saw the turn around and a small bit of your writing, and it looks bad ass!

Not yet, a lot of my of my works are still in process of development

But I am planning on sharing more about them in future post

Such as ideas, designs, etc

[azure-za-raid]

Guess who’s gonna rewrite Wizards (again)

But it’s different please trust me—

Listen

So some of y’all probably know of “Wizards Corrupt”

Well, a bit ago I reread it, and it was dog awful

But now being a better analytical reader and writer, I am going to revive this rewrite from about 4 years ago

Long live Arcane Order Jim!

Anyways, here’s an image from said rerewrite with ideas I had for designs of a younger Kanjigar, Blinky, and Draal, with Jim’s Wizards’ outfit

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Another commission for @thekingofthenameless

Their version of Bellroc based on early concepts of Bellroc

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Here we have multiple variants of Guinevere for @thekingofthenameless

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Another commission from @thekingofthenameless

Merlin’s parents, Orpheus and Adhan

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Another commission from @thekingofthenameless

Morgana!

Corruption and armored variants included

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He old lmao

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Good ole friends

A friendship that crosses dimensions

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Let’s go!

I'm back on my bullshit. Go my scarab, be free.

Excalibur, Tales of Arcadia's shiny "new" weapon introduced to us in Wizards. As we all know, Excalibur was handed off to Jim in the movie who's name we do not speak of. However before the trailer drop, I remember several theories going around of who would be the wielder of such a weapon, one amongst those who were theorized to hold the weapon was Steve Palchuk.

This will not necessarily be a what-if theorizing segment of what I think would happen if Steve had Excalibur, but rather this is an analysis of Steve and how him holding the handle of Excalibur would have been a fantastic writing choice.

To state why I think the choice would have been well-made I need to break down my main talking points. Firstly, the choice would have been a incredibly strong ending to Steve's entire character arc. And secondly, the thematic standings would have made far more sense than it would with Jim.

Steve's entire arc is about proving himself.

He starts off in Trollhunters lashing out against anyone who looks at him wrong in order to show that he's better than everyone else. This sounds kind of like a crack theory but I have proof of this ideal which I'll mention later.

Anyway, people don't deny Steve or go against that idea of his normally because they don't want to get caught in the crossfire, which further attempts to prove to Steve himself that he is special. When Jim intervenes against Eli and eventually wins the fist-fight against Steve, it becomes a defining moment for both of them. Jim proves to himself that he can in fact win a fight against Draal and Jim directly counterattacks against Steve's mindset.

With the entirety of Steve's identity being threatened, he now targets Jim, albeit in a very stereotypical bully fashion but he still targets him and threatens the things that Jim cares about and his identity. For example, Jim's love of vespas is threatened by Steve owning a vespa as well. Jim's crush on Claire, Steve is going to get in his way as much as possible (the play understudy, etc).

What makes all this fruitless for Steve is that Jim doesn't care, Jim could care less that Steve has a vespa and by the time Jim's Trollhunting is revealed to Claire it's already set in stone (get it cause-) that Jim and Claire will become a couple. Steve basically has nothing to prove himself as better against Jim, they both got a vespa, and Jim "gets the girl". So when Spring Fling comes around and Steve is one of the nominees, he focuses on that, the title of king to show that he's special.

Once again, Jim could not give a shit, and Steve ultimately wins. Which is a major ego boost for him, taking him out of that very desperate mentality he held beforehand… but not without it being threatened first, and not by Jim.

Steve's pixie scene, like to many other characters is pivotal to understanding how they operate (thanks Angor, you save this theory/analysis). What is viewed typically as just a gag, rather provides us with some useful insight into Steve as a character and backing to my theory that Steve desires to be special.

In Steve's pixie scene he sees several highly confident copies of himself, all doing things like him. With these exact carbon copies of himself, Steve's entire identity of being special is once again threatened, because if everybody is Steve and Steve is supposed to be special… then he himself isn't special, isn't unique, isn't different from everyone else.

In fact, he drops quite the brutal line during all of this "Don't kill myself. Don't kill myself. I'm special." So… yeah. I'd say the pixie scene is enough proof alone that Steve hinges everything on seeing seen as special. At least until S2 when he teams up with Eli and becomes a Creepslayer.

When Steve discovers the hidden world of Arcadia beneath his feet, via a "raccoon" in his garage which is actually just a goblin he, interestingly enough, goes to Eli to ask about the monsters in Arcadia. And they both determine that they together need to help save Arcadia from the monsters in the dark. What makes the Creepslayerz episode so pivotal for Steve's arc is that Steve does not pursue the idea of saving Arcadia alone, but rather goes to someone he was previously pushing down against, Eli. I would argue that Steve actually did believe Eli on some level about the monsters in Arcadia, but in order to prove that he special he made sure to ostracize Eli for talking about it, because if Eli was getting attention then Steve isn't.

Over the course of this episode, Steve's desire to prove himself to being special and his actions taken to prove such a thing go from putting down and harming others to helping others, not just alone but aided by someone else.

This is big. And the first steps taken by Steve into stepping into the roles that would be needed for Excalibur.

What exactly are the roles needed for Excalibur though?

Based on some light research the general idea was to be a "true king". But that is a quite subjective standard to have. What does it mean to be a true king? For the sake of this not becoming more philosophical, I will say a "true king" is a person who possesses the qualities of a strong leader and is more morally sound than the average depiction of a king nowadays.

While Steve was not a good person, nor a sound leader at the beginning of Trollhunters, he begins to grow as a person from the Creepslayerz episode and on. Helping others, becoming kinder, and becoming more brave. By the Eternal Night, Steve had taken the steps needed to become a better person.

Steve's love for Aja is also very developmental for him, because she is a queen, and holds far more power and ability, and is essentially far more special than him. But rather than attempt to push Aja down, he falls in love with her. By 3Below and Trollhunters S3, Steve recognizes his place in helping others as one of the Creepslayerz with Eli, who he formerly tormented.

Though by the end of 3Below and the beginning of Wizards, Steve's identity is threatened again. But this time is because he won't be able to see Aja or Eli again for quite a while. His identity then hadn't hinged on being special, it had been hinged on helping others alongside and with the people he cares about.

Not that Steve doesn't necessarily care, in fact he begins looking for a place amongst others to help and fight with them in the beginning of Wizards. But the Trollhunters team is already set, so Steve keeps searching for belonging with his identity alongside other people.

When the group lands in Camelot, Steve begins to look for his identity within the knights of Camelot. Now faced with professionals, and lacking anyone to associate himself with, Steve's identity is under threat again. But rather than lash out against others or even himself, he just keeps trying. Jim, who Steve had previously bullied, he now saves the life of and helps him during Wizards. He battles against Nimue and earns her tooth as a weapon, but doesn't search for more, he just keeps to what he has earned himself, trying to become better. By the old Battle of Killahead, Steve is entrusted the role of helping others by Lancelot, whom Steve admires greatly. So by being given that role by Lancelot and continuing to help others afterwards in Lancelot's steed, Steve has essentially built his own identity revolving around helping others and being brave, neither of which stem from being special.

This full development arc of Steve, displaying his shifting goals and him changing as a person to become better is incredibly important. As it would have been 10x more thematically significant for Steve, the person who wanted to be special by default to earning the title of special himself through hard work, dedication, bravery, and helping others would have been a great finalization. Steve is special not through a default matters that typically come with earning Excalibur, he's not a good person or a good leader by default but he grows into those roles. Steve grows into Excalibur.

Fortunately for you, my first point is a lot longer than my second point.

For the hints of foreshadowing and theming, while Jim did technically pull Daylight out of the conveniently placed boulder in his backyard in Trollhunters. Steve also has plenty of hints for Excalibur himself, hidden throughout the set of series.

In Trollhunters, Steve becomes Spring King, which is incredibly funny on his own, because at that time Steve was not qualified to be a leader or figurehead of anything at all. But the fact that it could have easily been drawn back upon is hard not to ignore. The first time Steve was assigned King, he did not deserve the title, but earning Excalibur, he would have earned that title. That parallel could have been a fantastic writing device if Steve had been the choice. In 3Below, Steve is deeply in love with Aja, as said is a queen. The hints of royalty are not subtle here either.

And of course in Wizards. Steve does not only resemble Lancelot, but also subtly resembles King Arthur. While there has been people who assign the thematic roles of the Wizards to Jim, Claire, and Douxie (King Arthur, Morgana, and Merlin). I believe a more accurate telling to what the roles could have been in order would be Steve, Jim, Claire, Douxie to King Arthur/Lancelot, Deya, Morgana, and Merlin respectively. Ultimately, I would argue that Jim's role should have always remained as the Trollhunter, not a king. The Trollhunter armour always gave the air of a knight and protector rather than the high standing role of a king. While Jim does also have leadership qualities that should not be ignored, he also uses those leadership qualities in the heat of battle, organizing his allies and defeating enemies. Jim would be far more suited for the role as a war general than a straight up king.

Nonetheless, I'm under the impression that giving Steve Excalibur would have been thematically amazing. As it would highlight the change of a person and how becoming kinder and more helpful are actual qualities that make a person special. Jim was kind and helpful on a default, therefore people associate that with his personality, not the general requirements of what it means to be a good person. Steve shows that people can change and become better, and his character development in the background would have had a fantastic finish with him earning Excalibur, becoming not only an actual king, but the kind of special that he wanted people to look up to in the first place.

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It’s the guy! Super Saiyan 4 Goku from Dragon Ball Daima

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Here are some designs for @taag-the-withering’s Mary Trollhunter AU

Here we have Mary, Darci, and Shannon!