#how does it feel to be living the cartoon stereotype where a character has a plushie thats just a mini version of them?

[sparklehoard]

YEET YAW!!

reblog to give a plushie to the person you reblogged this from

[tumblydovereviews]

In Defense of Max and Ruby

Max and Ruby is a Canadian preschool cartoon focusing on the lives of two bunny siblings- seven-year-old Ruby and three-year-old Max. In each episode, hilarity ensues as Ruby attempts to restore order in the house while Max, in his attempts to get the thing that he wants or needs, causes chaos. The show debuted in 2002 and aired new episodes until 2020, albeit with many hiatuses along the way. While the show has been over for over four years now, its reputation has yet to vanish. To this day, people still discuss it, especially in the case of Ruby's treatment of Max.

In order to examine Ruby as a character, we first must get to the root of the issue: where in God's name are their parents?

The reason that we never see the parents in the show (at least until Season 6) is simple: Max and Ruby is a show that encourages kids to solve problems on their own and grow in their independence. Adults serve little-to-no purpose in the grand scheme of things, hence why they never appear. The adult that we see the most in this show, Grandma Bunny, doesn't even live with the kids. Max and Ruby live by themselves the vast majority of the show's run, and as a result, Ruby is forced to act as a parent towards Max, and thus seeks control in her already-hectic life. Yes, she does come off as bossy at times in the way she treat Max, but that's to be expected of a seven year old, especially one who hasn't been properly sat down and taught how to relax a little.

The stereotype against Ruby defenders (Ruby rangers) is that they have a hatred for Max. If anything, I feel bad for Max; a lot of these scenarios that he is forced into could be prevented if he had the ability to speak up for himself. Unfortunately, Max clearly has some sort of developmental disability that limits his ability to function in that regard (some theories suggest Max as being autistic.) The lack of structure in the household also acts as a detriment to both kids. Ruby's rule fluctuate in weird ways. In one episode, she sent Max out to the store by himself to get groceries, yet at the same time he cannot be trusted with scissors and isn't allowed to stay at home alone when Ruby wants to go out.

A quality of Ruby's that I don't think is talked about much is how patient she is with Max. Sure, her ways of managing him aren't always the most thoughtful, but she barely yells at him or shows a excessive amount of negativity in his escapade. Ruby's controlling behavior doesn't come out of malice; it's a coping skill she came up with.

Ruby isn't a narcissist or a brat; she's a kid who hasn't been able to be a kid. Ruby desires control and structure over her life because the world she lives in is so unpredictable that she feels the need to mold things to be her way in order to gain that sense of predictability. Her target? Max. His neurodivergent, nonverbal tendencies lead him to be the perfect "guinea pig" for her.

But, how does this dynamic change when Max does learn how to talk in full, legible sentences?

Well, Max's impulsivity clearly still clashes with Ruby's need for control. However, most of the time, he tends to agree with her thoughts. Max has become so accustomed to following Riby's rule that letting her down is one of his greatest fears. But, simultaneously, he wants to be himself and act is his own, quirkily way. There's a tension of opposites bothering Max, and it shows.

Max and Ruby both need family therapy, clearly. Max may benefit from working with a speech therapist to further expand his vocabulary, or an occupational therapist to help with his impulsivity and expression issues. Ruby needs to be given more choices in her life; it's been proven that giving kids choice helps give them that sense of control without needing to resort to bossy behavior.

And, most of all, the bunny parents need to start parenting. It's great to let kids learn by themselves, but it only works to an extent. I'm not going to learn how to do calculus by making a PB/J sandwich; somebody needs to teach me actively, and the same thing applies to social-emotional learning.

Max and Ruby isn't just about two bunny kids doing cute, bunny things. It's a show about the effects of neglect on a young age. It's a show about growing up neurodivergent and feeling unheard and misunderstood. It's a show about growing up in a world that is ever changing, a world that you yearn to stay the same.

But hey, that's just a theory- a PRESCHOOL SHOW THEORY.

[blueinkedfrost]

Villain Likeability

Some antagonists are just despised by readers who want to see them meet a painful end as soon as possible ... But others get a lot of audience sympathy and attraction.

Why? This is what I think is important.

Tragic backstory that gives some explanation for why they are the way that they are.

Villainous virtues such as perseverance, verbal wit, initiative, ingenuity, a good cause that they've taken too far, etc.

If it's a visual or audible medium, how attractive they are in person and/or how attractive their voice is. (This does not apply to written works.)

Melodrama: The extent to which their bad deeds are viewed by the audience as melodrama that's very dissimilar to the real world, such as destroying an entire galaxy or committing telepathic torture, as opposed to all too realistic bad deeds such as bullying, cheating on your spouse, abusing bureaucracy for cruel purposes, racism, Nazis, or child sexual abuse.

The fourth factor is probably the most important. If the villain's horrible behaviour feels close to real life issues you deeply care about, then you probably despise them regardless of how sexy the actor is. If the villain's horrible behaviour feels more fictional and melodramatic to you, then you can enjoy watching them cackle and threaten from a safe distance.

So by this standard, here is the least attractive villain possible: A spiteful, petty, and lazy person who lives a normal suburban life, is played to look unattractive, and makes their neighbours' lives as miserable as possible by bullying them in their role with the Home Owners' Association.

Now here is the most attractive villain possible: Angsty backstory where their horrible family sold them into slavery, very witty and creative, played by a good looking actor, and commits stylish murders using weird gravity-related superpowers.

Why do these tropes work?

Tragic backstory: Angst turns the story wheels around! From Cinderella and probably even earlier, stories where horrible things happen to a character cause us to root for them. Humans like underdogs and stories about characters overcoming bad things.

Villainous virtues: If they have some admirable traits mixed with the badness, that's fun to read. Witty or entertaining characters amuse us, while competence alone at being a dangerous or threatening villain is attractive.

Attraction: As simple as whether the audience generally finds them attractive, or not. This can be closely related to demographics and bias. In Western fandom, the stereotypical fan is an educated white woman who's attracted to men. So even if a female antagonist has a tragic backstory, high wit and charisma, and attacks people with her clever musical magic, female fans might not like her as much as her attractive male counterpart. Similarly, fandom is often criticised for poor attitudes towards characters of colour and it's easy to think bigotry in our society has something to do with this.

Melodrama: Also varies by the individual. Your personal experiences won't ever be the same as another person's, so your fun melodramatic villain might remind someone else of their real life high school bully. Medium and setting make a difference. Villains who are literally cartoons in a science fiction universe will be taken less seriously than villains in a live action story in a contemporary mundane setting. Visceral impact of the character's misdeeds also has a role: a villain who brutally tortured and killed a beloved favourite in explicit detail is less likeable than a villain who killed thousands of random unnamed characters in a brief sentence, even though 'likeability of victim' is not how we (should) judge crimes in real life.

[kaylacautio]

Smiling Critters Headcanon List

I'm having a weird hyperfixation with the Smiling Critters lately and I do want to make a comprehensible story out of my headcanons, but for more instant gratification, I'm just gonna make a list. So here goes! These will primarily pertain to the cartoon versions because that's where my head's at.

We shall start with one for each of the critters because they all deserve love.

Dogday's tail wags when happy, like the good boy he is.

Catnap purrs when happy. Also his tail is prehensile, which doesn't follow along with his species but it wouldn't fit anywhere else.

Bubba's trunk is prehensile. Helps when his hands are full.

Bobby scratches her back on trees when no one is watching. Works better than her own hands most of the time.

Hoppy likes hard chews/hard candies. A lot. Her teeth grow uncomfortable if she goes without one for a while.

Picky enjoys a good mud bath. This could be either the spa variant or the "It just finished raining" variant. Out of respect for her friends, she will take a normal bath afterward.

Kickin lives up to the stereotype of chickens being associated with cowardice. He's working on it but he's still the most susceptible to Catnap's sneaking around. However, if anything were to threaten his friends, he would kill for them.

Crafty probably has the most powerful legs out of the group. Followed closely by Hoppy who doesn't skip leg day. You do not want to be too close to Crafty if she's startled or, heaven forbid, angry.

So you know how friend groups may have some people more drawn to each other than others? If I had to make pairings for who in the group was closest to whom, it would go something like this.

Dogday and Catnap

Hoppy and Kickin

Picky and Crafty

Bobby and Bubba

And now we have a few that would be used in the fanfic if I have any motivation to write it after this. They're mostly Catnap-centric since he'd be the main character.

Each of the Smiling Critters has a scent that just sorta naturally happens (to correspond with the scents their toy versions dispense), but Catnap happens to have two. His natural scent is lavender, while his Red Smoke smells like poppies. This comes from the fact that Playtime Co. apparently put some weird ingredients in their Red Smoke that I think gave it a poppy smell? When the Catnap toy was supposed to smell like lavender. So he gets both in the cartoon world!

Catnap is in full control of his smoke, for the most part. It'll come out in small harmless puffs if he's sleeping, or if he does something like a sigh.

Catnap, ironically, is an insomniac. He has frequent nightmares that prevent him from sleeping and is immune to his own gas. (He'd probably be narcoleptic if he wasn't.) He tends to space out a lot during the day because of this.

Dogday is also an insomniac and suffers anxiety as the group's leader. He is the most dependent on Catnap's gas to help him sleep.

The gas is somewhat addictive. I'm not sure in this case that it would drive its consumers to manic episodes like that sleepover cartoon, especially considering it's meant to aid sleep, but regardless Catnap has learned to be careful with it. He's tried other methods of helping Dogday and the others sleep but usually ends up feeding the addiction.

He'll also use the gas for self-defense if left with no other options since a heavy enough dose can knock people right out.

Romance plays very little role in the Smiling Critters' world but Dogday and Catnap might have feelings for each other. (Yes I ship it, but only in the cartoon world.)

Catnap is by far the quietest of the group. Upon first meeting him one might think that he's mute. But rather, he can't (or at least doesn't) speak above a whisper. To talk with his friends in a group setting, he whispers to Dogday and lets his bestie relay his thoughts for him.

On that same note, Catnap's quietness often leads to him scaring his friends by just standing there when they don't expect it. Sometimes he does it on purpose.

And then we have the most important headcanon, the one that basically would set this whole story in motion:

Catnap still worships the Prototype

But with a few key differences because this is the cartoon world we're talking about.

He's not so much of a Prototype-Bible-Thumper. In fact, he doesn't tell the other Critters at all out of fear. Fear of mockery or rejection, and fear of what his god could do to them.

The Prototype shrine is underneath his house, is smaller, and is constructed out of various toys and scraps he's found lying around. The human skeleton at the front is more than likely some kind of doll instead.

The electrocution incident that leads to the worship is caused by some faulty/exposed wiring. Perhaps his natural curiosity leading him into dangerous situations.

I can't say for certain that the Prototype is a benevolent god in-game, but he's certainly not here. He keeps Catnap under his thumb through fear more than anything else, he's the cause of Catnap's nightmares, which often portray gruesome deaths of himself and his friends, and he could drive Catnap to insanity at any given point. He could also give the poor kitty an existential crisis by revealing that he lives in a TV show or giving him visions of his "Bigger Bodies" self, but I haven't quite decided on that yet. Basically, Prototype's an asshole and Catnap stays due to both a life debt and fear of punishment.

And that, I think, about sums up the whole story premise I had without me having a proper structure for it. So yeah! The instant gratification monkey is happy.

[naughtynoodle056]

I wish I could comment but I can't so:

oh my godddd I know this is kind of counterproductive or, like, just pointless for me to say this as a white person adding noise to the conversation but please please PLEASE DO NOT LET THOSE PEOPLE GET TO YOU!

I've only found ur acc recently since I've joined tumblr instead of lurking and your art is some of the best I've seen.

I have Aphantasia and general face blindness irl, so defining features (not even ethnic features, just general appearances) in drawings are the main thing I've had to focus on my whole life because I struggle to accurately display them in my art.

I've practiced and studied countless art styles and ways people have drawn and depicted eyes, eyelids, mouths, hair, skin, lips, noses, faces, body types, etc. Of course it differs depending on the art style, but you literally managed to perfect the way you draw individual features in your characters that make them not only stand out from eachother, but as characters with unique and diverse backgrounds.

I don't wanna clog up ur inbox too much, so without repeating the whole thing again, I will say that I also saw @cheeseburgersinparadise's comment on your post and I was thinking the exact same thing.

Idk what these people want you to do short of making racial caricatures or stereotypical depictions of people.

So here's some things I really enjoy about your artwork instead:

Little differences in body type are noticeable and really cool to see

you're very consistent in your character's personalities and depictions, so even if in one drawing they have their hair tied up and in another it's just completely natural, I can still tell who it is at just a glance!

Despite what the armchair critics say, the skin tones you use are really good and I can tell they're well thought out.

Your lineart is awesome. I've never been able to use the uhhh the one effect (I forgot the name) that makes the lines all sharp and stuff without my drawing looking like a SBAHJ comic parody/shitpost, but in your drawings it looks super neat and has a cool kind of side effect where it highlights the colors and stuff, making it all really pop but at the same time feel really like.. story and held together? I'm terrible at describing visuals I'm sorry but just know it's good! You know how to actually use brushes and effects/overlays.

facial expressions. You nail them every time. 'nuff said.

Same Face Syndrome fears you.

"try exploring shape language" idk what crack these people are smoking because your art is like the pinnacle of good use of shape language in drawings. It reminds me of Canadian cartoons (IN A GOOD WAY. I GET CANADIAN RADIO/TV SIGNALS, I GREW UP WITH IT) where it's like 'less is more' in terms of line detail and instead putting the focus on the basic shapes in a way that can make even the quickest sketches/simplest versions of a drawing look lively

if nobody else got me, the tumblr crowd got me fr 🥹💖

It's hard to articulate how much this means to me (hence why it took a bit for me to answer this ask lol) because like. I don't know if y'all remember that one episode of iCarly where one of Spencer's favorite artists just blew him tf off and it lowkey ruined his life for a while, but I felt just like that fr

It can be really frustrating sometimes being a silly kink artist(TM) and feeling like because I have a particularly cartoony art style and don't often draw the most extreme WG art, I get kind of overlooked and treated like IDK what I'm doing sometimes, y'know? I never went to art college and studied drawing there, other than one cartooning class I took for funsies at a community college, my knowledge comes from what I learned throughout grade school and studied myself with online resources or books at the library. So sometimes it DOES FEEL A LITTLE like certain huge artists who did go to college for that turn a nose up at artists like me.

It's the craziest feeling when someone makes a criticism on your work that's just like, objectively unhelpful or even hypocritical, and then doubles down and like subtly paints you as one who just can't accept criticism. Because if I couldn't, then you wouldnt have such kind specific compliments on my art hahaha. My lineart is so clean because I took the advice from an art teacher when I was 16 and it was shaky. I keep facial features and whatnot simpleish and cartoony so I can depict expressions in a more fun way.

Hell, that artist's "fair criticism" about leaning into ethnic features more may have been referring to the fact that Shay doesn't have a noise here. This is seen in some other pieces of mine, too

but that was intentional... a gentle nod to certain anime facial expressions were they leave the nose out for Extra Effect

It's a little ode to the funny facial expressions in Sailor Moon that do much of the same

Speaking of the lineart effect, heh, I'm soooo touched someone noticed it omg?? ;0;

I like to duplicate my lineart and put the top layer on multiply with a lighter (usually warm) color and guassian blur it and then the bottom layer with a bright (often brighter) and then guassian blur it even more before setting it to glow dodge :^)

I feel vindicated that I wasn't just like. overreacting when I was DEEPLY offended by the "helpful criticism"

I feel like whoever made the skin color comment just. forgot about the concept of lighting in a dim room 💀💀💀 It was so crazy to me that she was talking to me like I haven't been drawing these characters for years at this point and use the same base skin color like. 98% of the time

ALSO DW I THINK THE CANADIAN CARTOON COMMENT IS A BIG COMPLIMENT CUZ I USED TO WATCH A LOT OF THEM ALL THE TIME!! 6teen is one of my dearly beloveds fr and a friend of mine said my art style reminded him of that so 🥺🥺🥺

TLDR: thank you for being a real one and the heartfelt ask I will be mentally hanging this up on my fridge 🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾 (also sorry Tumblr is wack and wont let you reply to posts smh)

[eolewyn1010]

Reading Percy Jackson TLT was an ordeal for me 2 - Characters

While I can repeat my disclaimer here that I only ever read The Lightning Thief (a translated version, no less) and won't try with the rest of the series, that's still about all of the slack I'm willing to cut Rick Riordan. I don't feel this is a good book, so get it off my chest I shall. Let's get down to business, and when I say business, I mean character work.

Is anyone here not a plump stereotype?

I have real difficulties to find a character here that has more depth than a cardboard cutout. I mean, let's forget about the main trio for now, but is there anything to Chiron beyond Wise Mentor? Oh, yes. The gaslighting. He wants Percy to go to Camp Half-Blood anyway. What is the point of telling him that he hallucinated shit for months?? That's an inexplicable dick move for someone we're supposed to see as a positive, caring mentor figure, but it's not the same as giving him depth. Nevermind that he was introduced via "sometimes he had an expression in his eyes like he was hundreds of years old", which... I said I hate this sort of oh, but it couldn't POSSIBLY be THAT foreshadowing. It's lousy. It's about as subtle as "this guy is EVIL, you see? He took money from an orphan charity fund to buy himself a bigass house with golden toilet seats!" It sounds like something from a cartoon.

There are a couple characters who have a little more groundwork to them than that - I appreciate Percy's mom and the subversion built up with Hades. I do not appreciate pretty much everyone else. People who are evil are obviously and obnoxiously evil (and in case of Medusa and Echidna, so obviously that they make Percy and Annabeth look dumb as fuck). They are also so stupid that you wonder how they function in their jobs (animal smugglers who feed lions with vegetables and herbivores with meat? Come on; they want to sell these animals alive). And Riordan's evil = ugly shorthand gets old really fast. Honestly, it already got old with his bully back at his human school. It also brings up a serious moment of confusion when Percy describes recognizing Ares because Ares looks similar to his daughters at the camp - except... Percy says Ares is "sort of handsome". He went out of his way to tell me how ugly Clarisse and the other bully girls are. So. Looks good on a guy, but not on the girls? Is that sexism or what? I wouldn't put it beyond Riordan for reasons I will go into when talking about mythology. Then there is every character we're supposed to hate using the same slur: "Freak." Can't you think of anything more creative? Especially coming from Ares, it sounds weird: Why would he think of demigod kids, of which he has a few of his own, on the same terms their shitty human step-parents do?

Annabeth, the know-nothing know-it-all

And then there's Annabeth, the deuteragonist. Also, the one where the set-up stereotype falls completely flat. See, we're supposed to think she's that smartass girl who knows everything better to the point of being annoying, kind of Hermione but with a terrible attitude. She's often described to look like her mind is going a mile a minute, she's Little Miss Exposition when Chiron is not around, she knows the world of the Half-Bloods and Immortals since she was seven; she has it all down. Well. Except several situations don't make her appear very smart at all. She ignores Grover's warnings when he says he can smell a monster, just as Percy does. She looks down on Grover for no reason (except maybe Fantasy Racism, which is a really bad trait for someone who has lived around satyrs and the likes since she was seven). She doesn't pick up on Medusa knowing Percy's name without being told. She prioritizes her being hungry over caution with strangers, just as Percy does. She leaves him alone with strangers when their instincts tell them both it's a bad idea. For someone who's oh-so-bright and level-headed, she fails the most basic logic.

Let's also mention Annabeth's big passion, architecture. It doesn't look very good when I know after the first vague description of Camp Half-Blood that Rick Riordan doesn't know shit about Ancient Greek architecture beyond having watched a few toga movies in his time. Because he repeats this lack of knowledge in a character who he claims knows better. Granted, the reason why I know better is because I'm minoring in Classical Archaeology, and most of the readers probably don't. But here's the thing: If you wanna write an expert in a field, you should really read up on the field. Ideally, let an expert edit the relevant parts of the text. "Write what you know" doesn't mean "hands off of non-you experiences!", it means "do your research"; it's a point of respect towards your reader not to assume they know nothing anyway. I don't know why he insisted on this being Annabeth's major interest - I mean, I do know; he did because it's a basic trait of Athena's and Riordan isn't very creative in character-building. The St. Louis Gateway Arch as an example of impressive architecture for a CLASSICALLY educated architect?? You've gotta be kidding me.

The other thing about Annabeth is that I just. Don't. Like her. She keeps being rude to Grover. She never explains anything to Percy and then complains about his ignorance. Her bitchiness is persistent and unprovoked. The reason she gives him for why they shouldn't get along doesn't even make much sense - because their parents dislike each other? The respective parents in question are barely even involved in their lives! What kind of a lame justification is that? You aren't your mother and Percy isn't his father, and parentage is not a personality (except when it kind of is, but I'll get back to that). And it takes so long for her to do anything likable... yet her constant insults don't count as bullying because, you see, she is pretty. Honestly, for at least half of the book, this seems to be the only justification why she isn't put on the same level as Clarisse. She tells Percy it's his fault the bus got blown up because he fought against the furies who made the bus blow up? Make it make sense. And then she bitches at him again because if he dies, she won't get to fulfill her mission successfully. Yeah. She just made her alleged friend's possible death about herself. Awesome.

This ship is sailing without me

I know a few things about the Percy Jackson series as a whole, for example that Percy and Annabeth are going to be an official couple sooner or later. There is the ship-teasing in this book already, and I assume it'll develop onward from here. Hm. I'm so not on board of this ship. I know a bickering romance when I see one, and this doesn't look like one. Because 1) the admiration and positive feelings seem largely one-sided for Percy, and 2) the insults and sarcastic retorts seem largely one-sided for Annabeth. This is not a balanced dynamic. It feels like Annabeth has made it her hobby to shit on her supposed love interest and be as unhelpful as humanly possible, but he compliments her at every turn, and she expects him to bow to her bossy attitude. And Percy outright says at one point that she talks to him and Grover the same way she talks to a dog. Bad news: The Cerberos scene was the only moment when I sympathized with Annabeth, and that statement severely undermined my sympathy.

But, say it with me now, she is pretty. So of course she's nothing like those nasty bullies, the daughters of Ares. And also, she blushed and was embarrassed when she was supposed to walk into that love tunnel with Percy to retrieve a MacGuffin, for fuck's sake; he didn't ask her for smoochies! "What if anyone sees us?" my ASS; you are 12-year-olds alone in a closed-down theme park; if anyone sees you there, they'll ask you what the hell you think you're doing on other people's property, you stupid bint!, so there! Yeah. No. I really hope for the future books (blindly; I will not read them) that they'll get to something that feels more mutual, because whatever they have in this book is far from cute. It's tiresome.

Consistency whomst? Don't know her

I have real difficulties to get a grasp on the main trio. Even Grover, whom I do like best among them, has a few moments that just make me go, "huh? How does that fit with what we have been told?" For example, at some point in the camp Percy and Grover are whining something about weaving baskets. It makes sense that Percy, the action-oriented 12-year-old from the human world, would think weaving baskets is the lamest shit ever - it makes zero sense for Grover to look down on it. He's lived in this world his entire life; what does he think how everything works if no one is taking care of the everyday jobs? What does he think how the camp is running if no one does the necessities?

Also. Does Grover have a good instinct for monsters, or does he not? He is the first to warn of Medusa, but with Echidna, it's suddenly Percy who gets a bad feeling. Percy also tells us that Grover is his best and only friend, then treats him as an idiot to make fun of half of the time. They cast a POC to play Grover in the series, and I swear to God, if they have a boy of color running around there eating garbage and mainly being present to be mocked by the other two protagonists...

Then there's Percy's attitude about people. Which also makes sudden switches from one adventure to another. The bus stunt with the furies? Fuck the other passengers, amirite? They can have all the trauma they can get; who cares if they get hurt. Afterwards, Percy talks about them in a supremely eye-rolling manner when the bus has crashed and everyone is panicking and there's probably injuries. But during his little touristic trip in St. Louis? He's suddenly all hero and wants to rescue people. Then he lets wild animals, including a fucking lion, on the loose in the middle of a city full of people, and snarks at Cerberos squishing dead people even deader. Does he care about humans, or does he not?

Even Annabeth, as consistently dislikable as I find her, had me go, "what?" Throughout half of the book, I was suddenly told that she's, like Percy, dyslexic. And narrator Percy says it in a manner of, "I had forgotten that she was also...", so I was like, "did I forget it as well?" and went back to look it up. I hadn't forgotten. It wasn't established before that point. Don't gaslight me, Riordan.

Where's my protagonist at?

While I liked Percy in the beginning, I found it increasingly difficult to emotionally connect with him. That started with the death of his mother. Besides Percy mentioning her on a few occasions, it didn't seem like he was grieving. His distress about her loss was very brief, and yeah, I get his whole angry-12-year-old spiel, but he's still a kid who just lost his mother? The only parent he loved? Eh. On the other hand, his ties to Camp Half-Blood are vastly oversold. He says it feels like a new home after a couple days; leaving it pains him deeply... after all of. Two. Weeks. How am I supposed to believe that? In what way was it more of a home to him than his human school? Where he also had a friend and some bullies, and his mom was not there? Even after the mission, the time he spends at the camp is just skipped. Zero connection for me as the reader. On the more amusing side of this, Charon in the Underworld singing a Barry Manilow song confuses me less than Percy, a 12-year-old millennial, recognizing a Barry Manilow song.

And sometimes I'm just wondering what the hell is going on in Percy's head. He describes the situation at Medusa's shop as increasingly uncomfortable - but he ignores the warnings of Grover and then Annabeth, and he allows a stranger to take a photo of them? CREEPY! Has his angelic mom not warned him about strangers? That seems wildly counterproductive. He tries to put it to his not remembering the Medusa myth in that moment and not connecting the dots, but I'm not buying it. She's all, "everyone loves children", and he doesn't go, "ew, stay away from me"? And after that, the very next situation he has a bad feeling about? "Nah, it's okay; I can stay alone with some weird stranger. You guys go ahead." *facepalm* Beating your reader over the head with something like that comes at the detriment of your characters' apparent intelligence. And the confrontation with Luke reinforces that. You don't have that many friends, Percy! And you refused to even consider the possibility of Grover or Annabeth being the one to betray you! To then cheerily prance away with an obviously troubled Luke doesn't look smart.

Lineage is not personality

Last but not least, why is this something that Riordan and Rowling gotta have in common? It frustrates me to no end - the assumption that you can easily sort people, in this case kids, into personality categories. And in Riordan's case, the personality traits are determined by their lineage. It's not Slytherins; it's the children of Ares who are cruel bullies. Annabeth the smartass is not a Ravenclaw; she's a daughter of Athena. The impulsive, fearless protagonist is not a Gryffindor; he's a son of Poseidon, one of the Big Three. Oof. This makes things very easy for Riordan, and it makes things very flat. Aphrodite is the goddess of beauty, so her kids are vain and useless (yes, I am planning to shred this via a look at mythology). Demeter is the goddess of nature, so her kids are gentle little flower children (same). Kids of Hermes cannot be trusted because he's a trickster. Kids of Hades were the fascists of last World War. Not only do these categories not work because Riordan's takes on mythology are at least very one-sided and superficial; he also tries to hammer home that who your parents are will determine your personality. It's a way to simplify characters, and a notion I loathe.

[kitcat992]

the ending of NWH was absolutely awful. they took everything that made tom hollands peter parker unique/interesting and ripped it away so now he’s the same as all the others before him, a poor vigilante who works alongside the police. no more avengers, no more of tony stark’s legacy, no more ned or mj. any future i was looking forward to him having is gone. they just decimated years worth of great plot :|

So, here's a hot take. When I first saw Civil War, I absolutely hated MCU Peter Parker. I had the same exact complaints as all the fanboys -- "Ugh, another way to shove Tony Stark in the middle of something. Why does Tony have to give him his suit? He's ALWAYS made his OWN tech. This isn't Spider-man, this is Stark Jr"

I left the theater quite pissed off. I mean, I was pissed off for MANY other reasons as well...it was Civil War, after all. That movie is the ground zero of what destroyed the MCU. But the way they forced Tony Stark into an origin story he didn't need to be in left a really bad taste in my mouth.

They changed that with Homecoming.

Sure, Tony was in Homecoming-- for like, a second, if you blink. But that movie took those complaints and worked with them. "Peter learns he doesn't need his suits, Peter learns to be a hero without anyone's help, PETER learns how to be Spider-man BY HIMSELF." I loved it. I fell head over heels for it. That's where my Irondad obsession began, but even without Irondad, I REALLY fell for this new version of Peter Parker.

You see, I've been a Spider-Man fan for over 2 decades now. I've seen so many versions come and go. Not just on the big screen, not just these movies. The cartoons, the comics -- there's ALWAYS new versions of characters, and Peter Parker is no different. But the frustrating part is almost always, he's the same. He's stereotypical Peter Parker. He can be summed up with just a few words. "Broke/poor, living in a dumpy apartment, with great power, dead parents, dead uncle, relationship struggles, quippy jokes." If I had to sum up most iterations of Peter Parker from the last decade alone, it's right there. No originality. No creativity.

As a Spider-Man fan of over 2 decades, it gets boring. It gets to the point where I skip my monthly comic-book order cause "eh, not feeling it this time."

The MCU Spider-Man broke that trend. It created something unique and fresh, it created something that had NEVER been done before. The closest I could ever relate it to is the Ultimate Spider-Man, where a teenage Peter Parker becomes Spider-Man, but receives the help of SO many other superheroes along the way. He's never truly alone, he's always got help at his side.

The MCU created a Peter Parker that was fresh, and required fresh writing alongside it. They didn't just follow the rhetoric of the many Spider-Men before it. They took small bits (Uncle Ben's death, struggling/poor Peter Parker, relationship troubles) and baked a whole fresh cake with it. All the other iterations took the same cake and cut a piece out, calling it a cupcake. This one started all over with fresh batter.

But fan boys will be fan boys. They're toxic MF's who think reading and studying comic books makes them superior to everyone else. They whined, they complained, they yelled and bitched. And you SAW the effect that had on No Way Home. We literally had a shot of a magazine with a cartoon Spider-Man, sucking a pacifier, dressed in Ironman jammies with the title "Iron Man Jr!"

By the way, that was the biggest insult the MCU has ever given me. That was a direct slap in the face. So many of us have written novels worth of Irondad fanfic but they decided to thank us with THAT.

Fuck you, MCU.

Anyway. Yeah, I had complaints about MCU Spider-man when he first came around. But they didn't just throw him on the screen and call it a day. They molded him, created him, turned him into something unique, creative, and energizing. They reinvigorated my love for Spider-Man.

And then they took it all away with one single scene.

They bent over, kissed the hairy ass of every fan boy who complained, and said "there you go! We returned him to form!" And thus, left many of us to view the shocking aftermath of their decimation to a character THEY created and WE loved.

I've gotten a few asks on why I'm so anti-MCU. Shit like this is why, and shit like this is why I won't be participating in new MCU content. It's an abusive relationship. I'm out.

[thevindicativevordan]

On Kong Kenan/Super-Man

It should've been him. He should've been the Superman of 5G/Future State/right now not Jon, and he should be the one getting an HBO Max series not Val. Hell he should be getting a movie!

God this dude is literally the best legacy character Superman has ever gotten, wholly his own person with his own lore and status quo while still building on the idea of "Superman". I am so pissed at DC for essentially just dropping him after his ongoing ended, what the hell Lee? You keep trying to make the Wildstorm characters happen, I need you to get my man Yang another Kenan book.

Have to admit I was a bit nervous at first about whether or not Kenan would be a worthwhile character. Yang's New 52 Superman run had been a disappointment to me overall, with only the the arc where Superman has underground wrestling matches against forgotten gods really sticking with me. Now he was introducing a brand new Superman? Didn't feel like he had "earned" that yet. But from the first issue I was hooked on this new character.

Kenan was unlike any other member of the Superfamily. He wasn't kind or sweet, he was an asshole! He was a bully! He was fantastic! Right from the start Kenan was set up to undergo a very different kind of character journey than the other members of the Superfamily. Empathy, humility, respect for people weaker than himself, these are all traits most heroes wearing the S-shield already posses by the time they first don the crest, but not Kenan.

Like all bullies he was even a bit of a coward himself at first, trying to bail on the experiment meant to give him Superman's powers right as it begins. After "saving" Lixin (the kid he bullies and steals lunch from every day) from Blue Condor he demands all the money Lixin has on him as payment. He's not courageous or selfless either at the start, Kenan is as much of an opposite of Superman as you can get short of being Bizarro. Learning the appeal of these traits formed the basis for his growth over the course of his series.

Seeing Yang bring in a lot of recognizable "Superman" elements in the series, but with a twist, was also great. Kenan is the one who bullies "Luo Lixin" rather than the traditional Clark/Lex friendship of Pre-Crisis and Birthright. Initially Kenan develops a crush on intrepid reporter for Primetime Shanghai, Laney Lan, but she dismisses him as too young and Kenan eventually ends up pursuing Avery Ho (Flash) instead. Baxi the Bat-Man of China has a similar relationship with Kenan as the traditional Superman/Batman in terms of being vitriolic best buds, however Baxi is the one who has the most respect for authority while Kenan is the rebel. Kenan is a part of the "Justice League of China" which does not meet with the approval of the already established Chinese superheroes, the Great Ten. That contrasts nicely with the good relationship the Justice Society and Justice League have, as well as seeing Yang lampshade the "Chinese copy" trope and incorporate that into his storytelling.

One of the funniest differences is how Kenan chooses to immediately reveal his identity as Super-Man to the world by taking off the compliance visor he was forced to wear, contrasting with Clark's choice to hide his identity. He was so eager to impress people that he never gave any thought to the danger he could put himself or his family in by revealing his identity until it was too late, something Clark is well aware of and has taken great pains to keep his identity secret. Was a missed opportunity for DC to have Kenan comment on Clark copying him for once when he outed himself under Bendis.

But one of the most poignant differences between Clark and Kenan is the gulf in separation between their relationship with their parents. Clark has a loving relationship with Ma and Pa Kent, trying to live up to their lessons as best he can. In contrast Kenan's mom was believed to have died in an airplane crash when he was just a child, and he never really knew her. His father was distant from him after that and the two weren't really close despite Kenan's attempts to impress him. So Kenan lacks that strong connection while still clearly loving both of them.

Pa Kent's death is one of the most tragic examples of Clark's love for his parents, and I've always been a fan of takes where Clark promises his father to fight for the powerless on Pa's deathbed. Kenan gets a similar scene at the start of his career, his dad "dies" (after being exposed as Flying General Dragon, a pro-democracy "supervillain" from the Chinese authorities perspective) and wants Kenan to promise he'll fight for Truth, Justice, and Democracy. But because Kenan's dad never really bonded with him, Kenan doesn't know what those mean, and can only promise that he never wants to see people die, something his father takes comfort in at least. In classic comic book fashion it's revealed that Dr. Omen, Kenan's "boss" and the one who gave him his powers, saved Kenan's father, because she is Kenan's mother! Kenan's relationship with his parents forms a lot of the crux of his character arc, and seeing how Yang utilizes the classic Superman concept of family kept the storytelling exciting.

Yang's brilliant exploration of the concept of "Superman" through the prism of Chinese culture was a great way to differentiate Kenan as well.

I absolutely freaking love how he tied to the concept of Qi to the S-shield in particular. Connecting the shape of the shield with the way Kenan has acquired his powers along the path of the Bagua (eight trigrams used in Taoism that represent the fundamental principles of reality), with his octagon S-shield outline representing all eight principles together, was mindblowing! So was the idea of restricting Kenan's access to his powers unless he was actually acting in a Superman manner, that tied his character growth to his power growth in an entertaining manner. There were so many characters and concepts that meshed Chinese and DC lore together, like how Emperor Super-Man was Kenan's "Doomsday", they even recreated that iconic dual kill shot! The Chinese Wonder Woman Peng Deilan, being based on the Chinese Legend of the White Snake! There was even some Korean mythology referenced with the Aqua-Man member of the JLC "Dragonson".

Yang also managed to do a Superman Blue/Superman Red story with Super-Man Yin/Super-Man Yang!

Shameful that it took me a while to realize what Gene Yang was doing but once I caught on I was touched. You can tell how much Yang loved Superman and his mythology, and how he was excited to incorporate as much from Clark as he could, while still using it in a way that was solidly Kenan's. And not just Superman's mythology, but the history and lore of the entire DC Universe. I-Ching got to be brought in, fleshed out, and used as Kenan's mentor! The "Yellow Peril" villain from Detective Comics #1, the comic DC gets its name from was brought in and revamped as I-Ching's twin brother All-Yang! Hats off to Yang for taking a racist caricature and attempting to make him into something more.

This series was a beautiful attempt by Gene Yang to build a space for Asian heroes and villains where they could be more than stereotypes, Kenan himself being a defiant mold-breaker in every regard as the complete opposite of most Asian characters in Western media (a jock, a bully, loves his dad but not on great terms with him, a powerhouse as a hero, etc). So much thought and hard work was poured into this by Yang and his team of artist collaborators.

Especially the costumes, man Kenan had so many great looks. From his starting outfit (which is my favorite Superman variant not worn by Clark himself), to the one with the Yin/Yang shield he acquired later on, to his Super-Man Yin & Super-Man Yang outfits, Kenan looked damn cool. Part of me is bummed they didn't go with the Chinese character shield they toyed around with, but I loved how Yang used the "s-shield" as a plot point, so I'm not too broken up over it.

All that great work Yang did to build that space up has been more or less forgotten sadly. It was nice to see Kenan in the DC Asian Month Celebration issue. Avery is going to be in Justice Incarnate at least (unsurprising considering she was created by Williamson). So fucking bummed that Superman Family Adventures cartoon didn't happen, they were going to have Kenan and John Henry Irons in it! Would've been a dream come true for me to see Irons in animation again, and Kenan making the jump to outside media! Maybe that would've encouraged DC to let Yang keep writing New Super-Man, or at least encouraged them to use him elsewhere instead of allowing him fall into Limbo.

Unfortunately I'm not sure what the future holds for Kenan. Jon is being pushed as Clark's replacement in the comics, with DC keeping all the other contenders such as Kon benched. Calvin is leading the Justice Incarnate team likely due to the upcoming Coates reboot that will make Clark black. Val will probably get something once Taylor leaves Jon's book or once they officially announce the HBO Max show is happening. So where does that leave Kenan, my new favorite PoC legacy hero? Currently my only hope is that Yang is working on something for DC involving him. Yang left Batman/Superman, where I was hoping to see a Baxi/Kenan team up, to go work on "exciting other opportunities" per his Twitter. So fingers crossed that there's something in the works for Kenan!

One day I hope he gets his day in the sun again.

[ponett]

hi i watched the new my little pony movie and it was... pretty good! it was very cute, i like the new cast a lot, there were some nice heartfelt moments that had some surprising depth, all the locations were really pretty to look at, the poppy musical numbers were fun, the character animation is really lively. it's a solid little fantasy adventure flick for kids. i do have mixed feelings about the story though. here are some casual-ish thoughts. (i posted some of this on twitter last night but i have even more thoughts now. i'm sorry. i'm so sorry)

spoilers below the cut

okay so, i liked it a lot when it was just letting the new characters play off each other, but unfortunately my fears came true and almost the entire movie is laser focused on the oversimplified extremely on-the-nose trump era racism allegory plot. i do have to cut it some slack for their good intentions, and this is a 90 minute animated movie for 5-year-olds, so there's only so much they can do. it did also have a bit more nuance than i expected at points. (it's more nuanced than zootopia, for what it's worth. not that that's hard.) and hell, friendship is magic also screwed up its attempts at similar topics, and y'all know how much i still love that show. so it's not like i hate this movie. but it has such an oversimplified "we should all be friends!" take on real issues, and it frustrates me that it completely dominates the film, being the main focus of almost every single scene

there's some interesting stuff where they show how those in power are stoking peoples' fears to maintain their own power. like the big factory in the earth pony town is essentially an arms manufacturer capitalizing on the fear of outsiders, the cops mainly exist to uphold the laws segregating the ponies, the pegasus royal family pretends they still have the ability to fly and this lie seems to be the only reason they're in power (the queen literally gets arrested the second the truth comes out lol). but then they all just kind of... see the error of their ways shortly after meeting other types of pony, and there are no repercussions? not saying this toy commercial cartoon for little girls needs to fuckin kill the bad guys or throw them in jail or whatever, but we don't even get like a "they made them turn the arms factory into something else" type resolution, and no one even really acknowledges that these characters did anything wrong. no one is considered an oppressor, the movie takes for granted that these people in power who derive their power from bigotry were just misguided, and that they'll totally change their beliefs as soon as they're presented with new information. society is fundamentally unjust, but none of the individuals maintaining that unjust status quo are at fault for doing so

i also don't know if it's a good or bad thing that there's no explanation for why the ponies hate each other now. like on the one hand at least there's no historical backstory that inadvertently justifies the prejudices (like zootopia and its story about how the predators used to eat the prey). but on the other hand... how the hell did they get from g4 to here in the intervening centuries? at my most uncharitable it feels like this whole story about how equestria used to be this land where everyone got along and now everyone is divided is a heavy-handed metaphor for The Sudden Division Of America In The Trump Era as it's perceived by a lot of liberals. history didn't logically lead us to this point, no one is really at fault, everyone just arbitrarily started hating each other at some point and we just all need to put that aside and get along again. it's almost the FiM episode about how the cowboys and the natives should just learn to share all over again. (again: i will admit this is an uncharitable read of the film)

(sidebar with BIG SPOILERS: the very end also really bugged me, but that's more just a personal taste thing. in the leadup to g5 i was excited to see them make an earth pony the protagonist. i thought that was a nice change of pace after nine seasons of twilight. but then in the end of the movie, after sunny delivers the moral, she's magically turned into an alicorn... like oh we're just doing that again huh. okay. it also doesn't really gel with this story where the different types of pony are being used for a racism/xenophobia allegory)

i feel a little bad hyper-focusing on the way the allegory falls apart like this, but like. the allegory is the entire fucking movie lol. they are constantly talking about it in every scene, the first song mentions "building a wall," the main antagonist (who may or may not be intended to evoke trump???) manipulates the earth ponies' prejudices to make them all go full fascist, etc. it is not subtle. of course, this story isn't ALL bad - the adventures along the way were fun, i was relieved when everyone realized that the macguffin wouldn't magically make everyone get along again (although realizing this DOES make the macguffin restore everyone's magic which seems to mostly fix everything, so... lol), and a message about looking past stereotypes and misinformation to befriend people who are different from you definitely isn't a bad one for a kids' film. and obviously a story with this target demographic is ALWAYS going to have to simplify reality a bit. it's just extremely obvious that they wanted to go for a nuanced topical political story that would surprise the parents in the audience and maybe teach kids a thing or two, and it turned out messy

but again, i liked the characters. it was nice to look at. it was cute. i'll gladly watch a new show with these characters. i hope the inevitable show focuses less on this political allegory though lol

anyway there's a shot of fluttershy and rainbow dash in the opening scene so 10/10

[mk-wizard]

Hellboy Films: Why animated did better than live action

Hello, friends

Many of you may not know this, but out of all the superhero comics, Hellboy is my favourite. What can I say? As a little girl, I was a misfit, so a misfit hero like Hellboy was right up my alley and the concept of someone being born to be bad to turn out so good because he had a loving father to show him the way is beautiful. My introduction to Hellboy was the first live action film in the 2000s and at the time, I liked it, but then I started reading the comics. Once I got to know the real Hellboy and series, the more I fell in love with the comics yet at the same time, the more I go to not like the live action films and not just because I found the sequel and reboot in 2019 bad. There are many problems with the three live action Hellboy films which rub me the wrong way and not simply because they are live action. Most superheroes started off as cartoon drawings, but were well done in live action, but Hellboy missed all the notes. Now as a mature adult woman who is experienced at storytelling as well as analyzing, I rewatched some of the live action and I took time to watch the animated films. The difference in quality is night and day (no pun intended and I will give links to the animated films because they are stunning). I will now tell you all where the animated films went right and how live action went all wrong.

1- Hellboy’s design was better in the animated films. - I am more than willing to be forgiving when it comes to taking artistic liberties. Sometimes, the results can be beautiful, but in the case live action Hellboy, it was all wrong and I have to blunt, we can do so much better with graphic design now than just simply taking a tall buff man, putting make up and props on him. I hate sounding mean, but both versions just look like a guy wearing a cosplaying as Hellboy. It would have been much better if Hellboy was completely and entirely CGI or perhaps even an elaborate puppet costume like the ones used in the Jim Henson films. It may sound like enough to give the hero red skin, a stone hand, horns, a tail, cloven feet (which are covered), amber eyes, pointed ears and be very tall. He STILL looks too human compared to the comic and compared to what movie makers can do, it’s lackluster.

Now, we turn to the animated version which did more than just the obvious. Hellboy isn’t inhuman looking just because of the said traits before. He is inhuman because of his proportions and shape especially his face. It is a confirmed fact that he is not just not human. He is ugly and animalistic looking. His features are the combination of a satyr and gorilla especially when you look at how thin his legs, jaw, shoulders, posture and so on.  Also, his eyes aren’t just amber. He has no pupils, no schlera (the white part) and no irises. The entire eye is nothing, but amber which makes them disturbing to look at. He cannot simply cover his face, tail and hand, then simply blend in. He cannot even wear most human clothes hence why Hellboy is always shirtless and his hooves are exposed. In other words, animated Hellboy looks like Hellboy.

2- The animated plot was clean, to the point with no filler. - While I admit the first live action film kept it pretty simple, I find that it still had a lot of filler and too much subplot. If you ever read a Hellboy comic, you will know right off the bat that Mike Mignola is a master at the art of pacing without fluff. Yes, he respect that character development and buildup takes time, but he doesn’t drag things. Ever. And he does not make everything so angsty either. Yes, he hints that the characters have issues, trauma, emotional pain and at times, depression, but he did so without making them into whiners. For the most part, the cast and hero would pick themselves up and do what they had to like adults. If anything, they were also each other’s emotional support and they don’t hate people. The animated version captured that completely and even showed us that the cast did not consist of malcontents who played the “poor me” card to death. In the beginning of Blood and Iron, Abe, Liz and Hellboy were happily talking about a bakery they had found once which reminds us that with all their hardships they do seek and accept joy in life even from something as simple as good pastries.

Moreover, the plot of the film was to the point with some amount of subplots, but without getting complicated and without the subplots contradicting each other. Everything had a way of coming together neatly and even though we did sometimes get surprises, they didn’t feel like filler. They felt like things that were always there, but now, we are aware of them. Most importantly, there was no cheap or silly selling point tactics like relationship drama or the stereotypical father-son bickering (more on this later). Hellboy is not that kind of story.

3- The subtle messages and morals in the animated films were deeper and better. - Being the mature adult I am now, I can say that the first Hellboy really was just Beauty and the Beast while using the Hellboy cast instead and it presented in the message in all of the outdated and bad ways. Don’t get me wrong, I find the idea of Hellboy falling in love romantic and I admit that underneath all of the darkness and action, everything about Hellboy comes back to love. However, it is not romantic love where the end all be all is to be accepted by humanity by getting into a relationship with a human, then turning into a handsome prince even if only metaphorically. The deeper and more important kind of love Hellboy tries to teach is self love how you are regardless how strange people deem you. If you have done something with your life and made something of yourself, then it is ok to be you and are already more loved than you realize. The other kind of love that has always been important to the series is family unity. You see, Hellboy, Liz and Abe are like siblings to each other and Prof. Bruttenholm is an incredibly loving father figure to all of them namely Hellboy who he raised since he was a baby.

He made the big red guy into the man he is today. In fact, even as an adult, Hellboy and Bruttenholm are a very sweet and kind father and son duo. They are not at each other’s throats, they don’t snark at each other or are incapable of agreeing on anything. There is no spite, there is no anger, there is no resentment and there is no ingratitude. There is only love and honestly, THIS is the love that ought to be showcased more in the films.

With that all said and done, the animated films also had their subtle deep messages which we not only understand clearly, but we also appreciate more. In the first movie Sword of Storms, it was all about finding a balance between persevering and knowing when to let go. In other words, keep doing what you must if it is still relevant and making a difference, but if it isn’t and is the reason you’re stuck, by all means quit. There are many roads to closure. In the second one Blood and Iron, it was clear from the beginning that the message was to not underestimate the elderly. They may not be as strong as they once were, but their experience and wisdom gets them and you out of tough spots. They have been through everything before and know what to do. By all means, aid them and help them, but don’t treat them like helpless babies. I also have to say that when I look at the messages the two animated films were telling us, they are not only clearer, but pretty underrated ones too. In the case of the live action films, the messages were muddled if not done before.

In short, I look at the animated films and I’m impressed. If another live action Hellboy does come along, I hope that this time, it will be done right and I really don’t want to see relationship, gore fests, snark or family drama again. Of course, this all my opinion and I would love to hear all of yours.

Thank you for reading and stay safe.

EDIT: Wouldn’t you know it? I forgot the link to all things Hellboy Animated. Here it is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellboy_Animated

[ectonurites]

idk how to quote tags on mobile where is the conner kent essay i NEED it

ALRIGHT OKAY! here’s 5k+ words plus panels & screenshots of me comparing and contrasting the two drastically different versions of Superboy (comics vs young justice cartoon) and going over what makes them such distinctly separate characters. someday i’ll refine this a bit more its kinda just a word dump that’s been living in my brain that i wanted to actually articulate after i read through Reign of the Supermen but here we go:

--

Pretty frequently I see the question “Why is Superboy so different in the Young Justice cartoon?” float around in DC circles. I think there are two main approaches to answering this:

Why did the writers of the cartoon decide to create a very different version of Superboy?

What factors make this Superboy so different from the comic version?

For the first approach the answer is relatively straight-forward, from the start Young Justice as a cartoon was never meant to be a direct adaptation of the comics. They just used the title and a few elements so they could create their own approach to the DC universe with a focus on younger heroes. For example, Artemis Crock in their show is also COMPLETELY different from her comic counterpart, Zatanna is aged way down to be a member of the teen team, and Kaldur’ahm was created for this show (and integrated into the comics as Jackson Hyde). They were always trying to do different things than the main comics universe, so them making a different version of Conner also makes sense. Their approach to him is also very clearly influenced more by how he appeared in the Teen Titans comic run that was still coming out as Young Justice started airing (his design, and some other elements we’ll discuss along the way), as opposed to his original version from the 90′s/the Young Justice comic.

So the basic “why” is that from the start they wanted to create something unique to their universe, which they definitely did accomplish.

The much more interesting subject to dive into, though, is looking at the differences in Superboy’s story that contribute to him becoming such a different person. 

The drastic changes made to the following factors are what I view as the main source of his differences in personality/outlook/characterization:

The conditions and history of the world at the time he is introduced

The circumstances around him being introduced/leaving Cadmus

The reaction Clark has to him and how their relationship starts

The people he first interacted with & became close to, and how he interacts with the world

The timing of him finding out about his connection to Luthor

The State of the Worlds

In the comics, Superboy is first introduced in Adventures of Superman #500 by iconically saying “Don’t ever call me Superboy!” 

during a 1993 event called “Reign of the Supermen”, a follow up to the 1992 event “The Death of Superman”. Based on the title of the 1992 event, I think you can, uh, guess what one major difference in the setting here was vs. the state of the world at the time he was introduced in the cartoon. Obviously Clark didn’t stay dead forever, but Superboy first comes onto the scene as a young clone of Superman who insists he is the new Superman (one of the four characters trying to do so during the event). This is in the main DC universe in the early 90’s, which means that heroes in general, including teen heroes, aren’t a new thing! Not only has the Justice League been around for a while but so has the Teen Titans. Once Clark is alive again, Superboy goes off on his own to establish himself as an individual teen hero. 

So how is that different in the cartoon?

In the cartoon, Superboy is first introduced in the pilot episodes “Independence Day” and “Fireworks” 

on the 4th of July in (what most people consider to be) 2010. This was supposed to be the day that Robin (Dick Grayson), Speedy (Roy Harper), Kid Flash (Wally West), and Aqualad (Kaldur’ahm) would get to see the true Justice League HQ at the Hall of Justice, which... doesn’t go exactly as planned. 

In this world, superheroes are a newer thing, this is something that the creators have talked about before. At this point, while there is an established Justice League, there are no known teams of teen superheroes. Just the fact that as of season one Dick Grayson is still Robin is a pretty good indicator that this world is early in it’s time with a Batman. Now, the sidekicks aren’t a secret, as they appear very publicly in this first episode, but they are almost always seen acting with their mentors at this point. Again, there is no Teen Titans in this setting, and there never has been. 

So when they do form the first teen hero team? It is kept covert-ops. They do not publicize that they act as a superhero team, and the members who weren’t already publicly known heroes (mainly Miss Martian and Superboy) end up being pretty… unknown to a lot of the world outside the hero/villain community! Again their existence is not strictly kept a secret, but they keep the fact that there’s a team of minors who are heroes going on independent missions VERY under the radar on purpose. Thus, those who aren’t going around doing super public hero activities just don’t have nearly as much of a presence.

So to summarize:

In the comics, Superboy is immediately put in a spotlight (he befriends a reporter and is all over tv and literally trademarks the name Superman) becoming known to the world and establishes himself as a solo acting hero YEARS before joining any teams.

In the cartoon, Superboy is kept relatively out of the spotlight, immediately becomes part of a covert-ops team and doesn’t act solo very often. The well known teen heroes in this setting are sidekicks working under a mentor, and Superboy does not actually act as a sidekick.

What does this mean for Superboy?

Superboy in the comics gets to, right away, act on his own and get a taste of what being Superman is like. In the cartoon, he’s brought into the world at a time where there already is a Superman. I think back to this bit from the therapy episode, where he says:

“See, from the moment I first opened my eyes in that Cadmus pod, there’s been one thing I’ve wanted, and feared. To know what it is to be Superman.”

Comics Superboy started out getting to do that! He immediately got a shot at filling that role, and he then makes the choice to relinquish it back to the original once he’s alive again. He (begrudgingly at first) understood that it wasn’t yet his time to be Superman, and knows he’ll someday fill those shoes for real- but in the meantime being Superboy is gonna be his own thing and he’ll embrace it and make it work.

Cartoon Superboy is left in a shadow, not ever truly knowing what it’s like to fill those shoes (except in a doomsday scenario training exercise gone awry that he then just feels intense guilt over). This leaves him a lot more frustrated and lost, and I think is a major contributor to how angry this version of Superboy is compared to his much more ‘chill go with the flow’ attitude in the comics.

Cadmus

In the comics, in that same issue he’s introduced, we find out that Superboy broke out of his cloning tube prematurely and left Cadmus with the assistance of the second Newsboy Legion, who also gave him his first leather jacket, before the programming that would allow Cadmus to control him was implemented.

He quickly gets up to speed with the situation, that Clark is dead. So he comes on the scene starting to save people and saying he is Superman, or at least the clone of the original one. A major thing that does influence his character here is the fact that… this is the 90’s. He is designed around the idea of what is ‘cool’ back in 1993. (look, even his original character design sheets call him cool)

So right off the bat he’s got a stereotypical ‘cool teen guy in that era’ personality, which is often played for comedy to add a little lightness to some of the dark things happening during this event. 

Anyways, he has left Cadmus, he’s acting on his own, and he starts realizing that his powers aren’t exactly the same as Superman’s over the course of the Reign of the Supermen story.

After the main conflict is settled and Clark is fully alive and acting as Superman again, the two of them end up going back to Cadmus to find out what the exact deal is with him. I’ll go into this more in a later point, but they find out he’s not exactly a clone of Superman (or Lex- him being actually involved as a DNA donor is a retcon that happened a decade later). They agree to let someone from Cadmus (Dubbilex- the grey guy with the horns in this pic) leave Metropolis with him, as he sets out on a press tour to establish himself as Superboy now that he relinquished the trademark on the Superman name back to Clark. 

Let’s pause and look at how this is different in the cartoon.

In the cartoon, when the trio of Robin, Kid Flash, and Aqualad decide to prove themselves to their mentors they run off on their own to attend to a fire at Project Cadmus when the Justice League got called off to do something else. Upon arriving, they accidentally uncover some weird things about Cadmus, like the crazy amount of sublevels, the creatures roaming around, and the fact that it’s not on the main power grids. They eventually find Superboy, still in his cloning tube. They break him out, but then get captured themselves.

When they are then put into tubes by Cadmus personnel, they manage to convince Superboy to help free them by promising him things like getting to meet Superman, and see the moon. The group of four now working together manages to escape from the building and it topples down, where they are then greeted by the Justice League who are Not Happy.

Superman flies away shortly after, and the group of kids explain to their remaining mentors that sure, they disobeyed orders, but they accomplished something good here, and they are going to keep doing it, whether the League likes it or not. The compromise is the formation of The Team, to be covert-ops while the Justice League acts publicly, and the boys are joined by Miss Martian.

So to summarize:

In the comics, Superboy leaves Cadmus pretty independently (with some assistance) to go act on his own as a hero immediately. He returns to Cadmus later for more information, and they reveal truths to him about his existence. After he knows his truth, he goes off to continue establishing himself as a solo hero but lets Cadmus still supervise what he’s doing through Dubbilex.

In the cartoon, Superboy is rescued from Cadmus by Robin, Kid Flash, and Aqualad, without knowing pretty much anything about himself besides the fact that he is a clone of Superman, and is immediately put on the covert ops team. 

What it means for Superboy:

Comic Superboy goes to act on his own, even after he admits he’s not the real Superman anymore. Yes he’s not 100% alone in terms of ‘he’s got people (Rex, Roxy, Dubbilex, Tana) around him’, but as a hero he’s a solo act and ends up taking residence in Hawaii. In the cartoon, by joining a team right away, he’s taking on a very different style of being a hero, especially because the team itself is covert-ops. Rather than regularly saving the day all on his own much like Superman, which can help comic Superboy feel like he’s still living up to the name more, cartoon Superboy is working under the radar in a group setting, while still wanting to desperately fill those Superman shoes. 

He is overconfident in his abilities and wants to be the hero he was created to be, so him being put into this very different type of superhero situation is another major contributor to the frustration/anger. Even later on when comics Superboy is part of forming the Young Justice team, they were never a secret covert-ops team, they were always publicly known. (hell, a reporter is the one who gave them the team name Young Justice because he’d misheard Bart)

Superboy & Superman

In the comics, as we have established, Clark was dead at the time Superboy first came on the hero scene. Clark comes back to life, during a little bit of a lull in the middle of the huge conflict. He immediately accepts that Superboy is one of four who came forward to try to replace him, and one of the only two (Superboy & Steel) who genuinely only had good intentions in doing so. Clark, Steel, Supergirl, Hal Jordan, and Superboy then all work together in the big battle against the Cyborg Superman.

Once things are settled, Clark is curious about him, and where he came from and his origin, so they end up going to Cadmus together with Guardian and learning more about him, as I previously mentioned. Once it is established that Superboy is in fact a metahuman clone who was created to mimic Superman, but is not actually a clone of him, Superman still accepts him and thinks he’s earned his right to continue using the ’S’ shield and have the name of Superboy. 

They part ways so Superboy can go on his press tour, but in general they have pretty positive interactions where they mutually respect each other! Not too much later in the comics even (I forget exaaactly when this happens but it’s definitely before the 1998 Young justice comic), Superman is the first one to give Superboy a real name, “Kon-El”, something he is so happy about he literally cries.

How is this different in the cartoon? 

When the boys first escaped, and Superboy first meets the Justice League, Clark is standoffish. Other members of the league need to nudge him over to go actually talk to Superboy, and it’s not much of a conversation before he flies off and away, leaving Superboy frustrated and alone.

This… turns into the standard for almost the entire first season. Other characters constantly telling Clark that he needs to reach out and be support for the boy (like in this iconic diner scene with Bruce and Clark), but Clark consistently being too freaked out by the fact that someone made a clone of him without his knowledge to properly accept Conner. While this does over time get better, this being the immediate reaction when Superboy is brand new in the world definitely… has an impact! 

He is rejected by the person he idolizes, and feels neglected and abandoned, and definitely kinda overcompensates with ego to try to make up for it. 

So:

In the comics, Superman and Superboy work together from the start, not falling into a hero/sidekick situation but rather acknowledging each other as individual heroes with respect for one another. They grow to see each other as family much faster, and little tension between them. A crucial difference in situations, though, is that at the time these versions first meet Superboy is not actually a clone of Superman.

In the cartoon, Superman at first avoids Superboy, and does not offer guidance or mentorship or anything the boy needs. It is clear that he wants to work with Superman and be like him, since it was what he was created to do. It takes a lot of time for Clark to accept Conner in this setting, and there is a lot of tension for the first several months Conner exists. (they seem to settle this towards the end of season 1/during the gap between season 2, but it still has it’s impact on who Conner is early in his life)

What does this mean?

I feel like this is another major factor that contributes to Conner being so angry all the time in the cartoon, he feels immediately rejected by the person he’s supposed to be someday, rather than accepted by him. Again, very different from how comics Superboy got a chance to be Superman, and a chance to then work with the real deal as equals. 

Friendships, Relationships and Identity

When Superboy is freed by the second Newsboy Legion, it’s primarily out of a ‘we’re clones who are stuck here, but you need to be out there, you’re what Metropolis needs right now!’ kind of idea. The first person he actually becomes close to is a reporter named Tana Moon.

Tana and Superboy’s relationship is… bad once it actually becomes romantic due to their huge age difference (she’s around 23, he is for all intents and purposes 16), but during the Reign of the Supermen where they’re still just friends for the most part, it’s not as bad. Tana becomes the GBS correspondent who focuses on everything Superboy (at this time still insisting he is the new Superman) is doing as a hero, and they become close friends.

GBS then also brings in Rex Leech (and his daughter Roxy) to be his agent, to promote Superboy and manage things for him. Rex is exploitative as hell, but Roxy does become another really important person to Superboy. These characters along with Dubbilex are his main supporting cast at the start of his solo comic when he’s in Hawaii.

In this whole era, Superboy is pretty much a celebrity. He’s cool, he’s a superhero, and I think it’s very notable he does not have a secret Identity. For a decent chunk of time, he is always just ‘Superboy’ (until, as I mentioned earlier, Clark gives him the name Kon-El. Even so, he doesn’t adopt a regular secret identity [Conner Kent, although he actually used a different one, Carl Grummett, before that!] until he begins living with the Kents in the early 2000s). By the time he joins any teams, Kon is pretty damn confident in who he is as a hero and has a relatively good grasp on who he is in general, if anything he’s a little too confident.

Young Justice was created in the aftermath of World Without Grown Ups when the trio of Superboy, Robin (Tim Drake) and Impulse (Bart Allen) had teamed up. After they saved the day they realized they worked well together and formed their team, utilizing the old Justice League base in Mount Justice. They were eventually joined by more members, especially relevant here is Wonder Girl (Cassie Sandsmark) who Kon later dates for a portion of the Teen Titans run that these four are in after Young Justice ends. 

The four of them become close, and when Kon dies during Infinite Crisis it rips a hole in everything they had established growing up together over the past several years (Cassie joins a cult dedicated to bringing him back, Tim tries to clone a new Kon, Bart got aged up and took on the mantle of the Flash, etc) and Bart’s death that followed similarly shook the remaining Cassie and Tim. This group eventually does get to reunite, with Kon and Bart coming back during Final Crisis, solidifying how even things like death don’t keep them apart for long. It’s hard to look at the comic book versions of these four characters and imagine how they would be without their connections to each other... until you look at the YJ cartoon and see a world where they’re not even all part of the same generation, let alone a friend group.

Now in the cartoon…

The first people Conner primarily interacts with are Dick, Wally, Kaldur, and M’gann, along with the League members who interact with The Team pretty regularly, Red Tornado, Batman, and Black Canary. He’s shown to be friends with the other memebers of the team and get along with them relatively well, but in general he’s not much of a social person. 

Much like in the comics, Superboy is considered very attractive, and immediately upon their meeting, M’gann is interested in him. Very, very interested in him.

At first it definitely does seem more just like an innocent crush, but it’s later revealed to be a little more… concerning than that. As in ‘Megan subtlety influencing Superboy to become her dream boyfriend based on a TV show she likes’ concerning. Like… she literally gives him the name ‘Conner’ after the TV show character that was the boyfriend of the character she bases her human self and entire identity on. The two date and once that becomes a thing, a lot of their plot lines in the following seasons revolve around the ups and downs of their relationship.

In general in this show, Superboy doesn’t really get much of a chance to establish himself on his own terms. Within months of him leaving his cloning pod, he and M’gann start going to high school with secret identities, so he’s already having to hide who he truly is to blend in with other people, before he even knows who he truly is. 

So to compare:

In the comics, Superboy gets to figure out who he is as Superman’s Clone/Superboy very publicly, has multiple love interests and a celebrity status, and over time becomes part of a tight-knit group of friends. He doesn’t use a regular secret identity for the first several years he’s active.

In the cartoon, Superboy has one love interest with a very large impact on him, not nearly as much focus is given to his other friendships, and he immediately adopts a secret identity meaning he needs to hide who he is from the start. 

What it means:

These factors play a big difference in his attitude, particularly highlighting how extroverted his comic version is and how introverted his cartoon version is. Comic Superboy never really needed to hide who he was until years into his career, vs being told to do so early on in his life. When you get used to needing to hide things so early, that can definitely lead to being more private/disconnected from others. Also somewhat related- in the comics, when Kon is given knowledge in his cloning tube, more pop culture got included. He mentions knowing Star Wars without having seen it, and references a ton of TV and Movies, vs the cartoon version of him that seems to have been given a lot of history of the world but not the current fun stuff. It’s the difference between knowing what’s going on in the world and what’s popular, vs only knowing the past and what’s fundamental. Not knowing pop culture like this can also really contribute to feeling alienated and lead to introversion. (I just... I think about how in the comics Kon’s favorite TV show is Wendy The Werewolf Stalker, in the cartoon Conner just... watches white noise static)

Also, having a completely different set of friends with different personalities has a big effect, people are always gonna be influenced by the people they’re close to to some extent. Bumping Conner up to Dick’s generation of heroes instead of Tim’s not only gives him completely different friends, but it also puts him in this position of being one of the ‘Original Team Members’. By this I mean, a member of the first iteration of the only teen team, one of the people that younger heroes coming onto the scene and joining the team in later seasons see as an experienced and older team member to look up to (despite the fact that cartoon Conner is permanently 16- they never fixed that for him like in the comics). That just creates a different dynamic entirely, because in the comics even when the Tim/Kon/Cassie/Bart group are more experienced on their team late in the Teen Titans run, they are still always going to have heroes like Dick Grayson, Donna Troy, Wally West etc as the older generation of ‘original teen heroes’ who came before them.

Also, while I am talking mostly about in-universe reasoning here, I do wanna bring up one slightly more meta reason that might also have contributed to them choosing to go for a more ‘introverted brooding hero’ characterization with him: the fact that their version of Wally already filled the ‘flirty jokey’ archetype original Comics Kon fits into. Having two characters like that in the show from the start would definitely get... overwhelming. And at the time this show was first airing, in the comics, he was relatively devoted to Cassie and not nearly as flirty anymore anyways.

Lex Luthor / Details of Cloning

In the comics, as I have already mentioned and will now actually explain, when Superboy was first introduced he was not the clone of Superman and Lex Luthor as we know him to be today. Kon was a metahuman clone, made with the DNA of Paul Westfield who worked at Cadmus, that they genetically altered to look like Superman, and gave powers based on the energy aura they discovered to exist around Clark’s dead body. This telekinetic field gave Kon the distinct powers he had for his first decade of existence: His Tactile Telekinesis (often referred to by him as TTK)

Lex Luthor was originally not directly involved in his creation, but he was aware that it was going on as is revealed during the Reign of the Supermen arc. Kon’s TTK allowed him to mimic Superman’s flight and strength, but not all of his powers. TTK also gave him powers Superman DOESN’T have, such as his ability to dismantle machinery or mold materials he is touching into different shapes. (The reason this is called Tactile Telekinesis is because there needs to be a tactile element, he needs to be touching the things) 

It is not until 2003, a decade after Superboy was created, that writer Geoff Johns in his Teen Titans run decided to alter Superboy’s origin. He established that Lex Luthor had been the real human DNA donor and that Superman’s Kryptonian DNA was actually used in the cloning process. Around this time, Conner also begins to exhibit more of the typical Kryptonian powers, like Clark did around this age. 

This information is at first only known by Conner and Tim, because the email had actually been sent to Tim directly. The two keep it a secret as Conner was not ready to tell the rest of the team, because he fears the implications it has, and is afraid of becoming evil or being rejected. This revelation about Lex being one of his ‘parents’ DNA-wise coming years into his hero career changes a lot of things for Conner, and makes him begin to question who he is. Unfortunately, Lex does at one point take control of Conner and force him to break Tim’s arm and attack Cassie directly (as well as the rest of the team, but these two specifically are what Conner expresses the most guilt over after the fact). This era of Conner in the comics is where he’s definitely closest to his cartoon counterpart, because he’s very troubled and dealing with a lot of heavy stuff regarding himself as a person. Yet there’s still traces of who he has always been in there. I mean, if you’re only familiar with cartoon Conner, can you really imagine his final words as he’s dying after saving the world being “Isn’t it cool?”

Now, looking at the cartoon…

Conner finds out about his connection to Lex in November, only a few months after having existed outside of a cloning tube. He finds it out on his own, from Lex speaking to him directly, after Conner went back to investigate the remains of Cadmus and ended up having a fight with Match (another clone who is able to pass for Conner’s duplicate who they… their version of Match is another thing they drastically changed from the comic version but as we’ve established that’s something they like to do so I’m not gonna dwell on it).

In the cartoon, Conner’s powerset is, from the start, different from both Superman and comic Superboy. Here he has heightened senses and strength and the ability to leap really far, but he lacks actual flight and some of the other standard Kryptonian powers, and has no TTK. The cartoon explains these gaps in his powers as being due to his half human DNA, and they introduce these patches that are able to suppress his human DNA and give him temporary access to full powers. Lex uses these patches as a way to manipulate him. Much like in the comics, Lex has a code word programmed into Conner that effects him, although it isn’t quite used for the same amount of ‘total mind control’, and he doesn’t get fully brainwashed and turn against the team or anything. Instead, the code word (here “Red Sun” rather than “Aut vincere, aut mori” [Translated as “to conquer or die" / "victory or death”]) just leaves him stuck in a hypnotic trance.

So:

In the comics, Kon finds out after years of believing he was a metahuman clone who was given powers to mimic Superman, that he is actually a clone of Lex Luthor and Superman, which alters his entire perspective on himself! This causes him to become a lot more unsure and anxious about who he is, in stark contrast with how confident he was before. There are still traces of his old self within him, but this is a development in his character that influences him moving forward, making him a bit more serious but still at his core the same person he used to be.

In the cartoon, Conner finds out after months of thinking he was a clone of just Superman, that he has half human DNA and the donor was Lex Luthor. While he always had confidence in his abilities, he was still somewhat lost as a person in knowing who he really was outside of things other people have assigned to him (teammate, boyfriend, superhero, etc), and finding out this information about himself just adds to the uncertainty and frustration.

What it means:

Having this struggle be something Conner has to deal with so early in his existence is one of the most fundamental changes in my opinion. Finding out that Lex Luthor is one of your clone parents is something that will alter your entire perception of yourself and who you are! In the comics, Conner had already been confident in who he was so it shakes his world in a really big way, but in the cartoon he still didn’t know who he really was so it just adds to further confusion. 

I think that even with the more serious characterization Kon starts getting in the 2003 Teen TItans run, his history and past as the fun cool 90′s Metropolis Kid isn’t entirely forgotten, it’s still a part of who he is/was. Sure, maybe he’s sometimes even embarrassed by how he used to be, but it’s not treated as though it didn’t happen. All of his history comes together to create the character and who he is by the time he wears just a T shirt as a costume.

By skipping over the fun era of his life and jumping right into who he was when he started facing these huge changes, it creates such a completely different set of challenges for him and that contributes directly to how he’s characterized. 

Putting it all together

The ultimate point I am trying to reach in all of this is that, beyond just ‘they made a writing choice to make him different’ the environment that Superboy was brought into and the events that took place right when he came into the world greatly influenced the type of character he would become. Every time an adaptation is made of something like comics, there are going to be changes and alterations to fit the world the creators want to make. Sometimes these changes are minor and don’t actually change who a character is (an example for the YJ cartoon’s universe itself: In the tie-in comics [issue 6] it’s established in this universe that the Flying Graysons weren’t just Dick and his parents, but other family members were active parts of it too. One was an uncle also named Richard, who actually survived the fall that killed the rest of his family but was left paralyzed and thus unable to care for him. This uncle already used the nickname ‘Rick’ which is likely why Dick ended up using ‘Dick’ as a name in a modern setting even though it has fallen out of popularity as a nickname because uh, connotations. This is something that is mostly unique to their world and helps to explain some things, but it’s not like tragically losing a few more family members changed their version of Dick and his backstory that drastically. At his core, he still has many similarities to his comic self) but they’re still changes, and that’s okay. Superboy, though, is such an extreme case where they made so many changes that at his core he really does become a completely separate character. Sure he has the name and design, but I was able to write five thousand words about differences here and am struggling to come up with more similarities beyond that.

I think there still could be specks of the original Superboy buried inside cartoon Conner, and that maybe he could have been more like his original version under other circumstances. Looking at these differences and where they come from is, I think, a cool way to begin to understand what elements contribute to who each version of Conner Kent really is. I think it’s clear from how I wrote this that I prefer the comic version, but there are definitely things that are fun to look at and think about with both.

--

if u read all of this UH thanks for listenin to me ramble! sorry if this is incomprehensibe!

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

#1: Chloe’s “Damnation Arc” That Was Totally Planned From the Start

Time to talk about one of the most infuriating anecdotes of Astruc, and it shows how chaotic the production of Miraculous Ladybug is.

Chloe Bourgeois the resident mean girl you see in a lot of cartoons and shows with a school setting in general. She's the daughter of the mayor of Paris, so she tends to get her way a lot. And her callous personality has left several people emotionally vulnerable, which is how Hawkmoth creates his minions of the week, Akumas. Of the 26 Akumas in the first season, Chloe has contributed to 12 of them becoming akumatized through bullying, insulting, and publicity humiliating them.

In the first season, Chloe was the kind of character who you loved to hate. She was someone who served as a minor threat in the civilian lives of the main characters, and she would usually get her comeuppance at the end of the episode.

There was effort into giving Chloe character development, don't get me wrong, with six episodes between Seasons 2 and 3 dedicated to it. But for every moment of heroism Chloe got, it was always negated by the end, having her go back to her old self and learning nothing in the process. This was because of a strange idea Astruc has. For some reason, he wants the status quo to be the same so new viewers can jump in at any time. While that may work for a show like SpongeBob SquarePants or The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, but not for a story driven show like Miraculous Ladybug. So Chloe's “character development” was an unfortunate case of one step forward, two steps back. This ended up disappointing fans, who were really hoping for Chloe to get a proper redemption arc. What's important to remember was that Astruc claimed that he planned for everything that's about to happen from the start, when you'll see that it couldn't be further from the truth.

Even after getting an entire trilogy of episodes focusing on her “development”, Chloe didn't really grow as a person. The only thing that changed was Ladybug would occasionally loan her the Bee Miraculous because of how good she is as Queen Bee. They tried mixing things up in Season 3 when Ladybug said she couldn't be Queen Bee anymore because her identity was public and it would be too dangerous... rather than how rude she is to everyone she meets, and is overall irresponsible with her powers (In her first appearance, she sabotaged a train so she could pull a Syndrome and save it herself, and it was quickly swept under the metaphorical rug). So throughout the third season, we'd get snippets of Chloe saying “Queen Bee could handle this if you let her!” whenever she was on screen. This culminated in the season finale, where she got fed up of waiting, and willingly sided with Hawkmoth to get back at Ladybug.

And when fans were naturally miffed at all this time wasted on a character arc that went absolutely nowhere, guess how Astruc responded?

I find it ironic that Astruc is saying fans shouldn't insult the writing team or other fans because they didn't like the twist... while insulting fans who didn't like the way Chloe's character arc went. Astruc could have easily turned down the idea of a Chloe redemption arc, or find some way to compromise instead of whatever we got. But even if he didn't, why does he have to be so callous about it?

Even if you don't like Chloe, this still screams bad writing. Why focus so much on a character's development so much if you're going to just throw it out the window? There were several times where Marinette was scolded for saying she couldn't change, and that she needed to see the good in Chloe, and now you're just turning back on it? If she was irredeemable the whole time, why dedicate so much time to her “damnation arc”, as Astruc puts it? Why not focus on getting to know other characters and their relevance to the story like Master Fu? Why not focus on writing more interactions between Marinette and Adrien? You know, the two leads whose relationship is the main focus of the show?

And it wasn't just here. Before the season finale, whenever people talked about how they loved Chloe and fanfics showing her growing as a person, Astruc just shut them down. If someone tries to reason with Astruc the importance of being kind to others, he'll just say something like “That doesn't matter, Chloe sucks!” Because that's a good lesson to teach kids, right? People can never change, so why bother?

It's not just those characters either. The last decade we got characters like Weiss Schnee, Pacifica Northwest, and Amity Blight. These were all mean girls who weren't just one-note caricatures of bullies, but characters who actually grew as we got to know them the longer their shows went on.

The thing is, Chloe has all the pieces necessary for a redemption arc, and there are fans and writers alike who want her to get a proper one. But because of Astruc's own stubborn beliefs, he refuses to let anything interesting happen. Change is possible, some of the most interesting characters in fiction are those who genuinely want to be better (Just take a look at all those examples I used earlier, and I'll show more if I need to).

And when someone pointed out that character development is a thing?

I mean, it's not like there was any evidence in the show that made it look like Chloe was trying to be a better person—OH WAIT.

And then, that same person pointed out the redundancy of having two mean girls to antagonize Marinette in her civilian life, relying on the stereotype that all girls do is fight over cute boys instead of actually finishing the redemption arc the writers set up, as well as showing a screenshot of a Tumblr post that perfectly summarizes my feelings on Chloe's character development.

What does Astruc have to say in response to these valid criticisms? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

That's literally all he said to this person. He didn't refute anything that person said, he didn't defend any of his writing choices, he basically plugged his fingers and his ears, and went “LALALALALALA, I'm not listening! I'm not listening!” Dude, you chose to open this Twitter account and take questions, so expect a little criticism thrown your way. But what should I know, according to him, he already planned this for years!

But the main question remains: If you didn't want Chloe to develop or grow as a person, Astruc, why did you even get our hopes up in the first place?

[capnportofficial]

Top Five Things I Hate (And Top Five Things I Love) About The First Live Action Smurfs Movie

Things I Hate

1. Clumsy Smurf's casting

I have nothing but respect for Anton Yelchin, but let's be real, he did not understand Clumsy Smurf and he pretty much fucked that whole role up. If it was a background character with a bad voice, I could handle it, but Clumsy is a main character in both live action movies.

2. Smurfberries being blue

SMURFBERRIES ARE FUCKING RED!!!

3. All the potty humor and dirty jokes

I get it, one or two potty jokes are fun for the kids, and adults like dirty jokes, but there's only so many I can put up with before wanting to turn the movie off. Especially Gutsy's "watch the smurfberries" joke. Bitch, you're a Smurf, you probably don't even have balls to make balls jokes about.

3. The "Walk This Way" Parody

The song "Walk This Way" is about sex. I can only assume the Smurfs' rap was supposed to make it more appropriate. It did the opposite- the Smurfs' rap feels more sexual than the original song.

It's like...

writer 1: this song is good, but it's about sex! we can't have them sing about sex in a kids' movie!

writer 2: let's change the lyrics, make them smurf themed! that should make it work.

writer 1: great idea! let's make it about smurfette!

*they proceed to write the lyrics "savor all her smurfberry flavor" and see literally no problem with it.*

Also, some more of me ranting about it from Discord:

4. Gutsy Smurf's design

I like Gutsy Smurf as a character, but his design is way too detailed for a Smurf. Not only does he have sideburns way too early, but the plaid on his kilt... imagine having to animate that frame-by-frame in the days of the original Smurfs cartoon. It just doesn't fit with the other, easy-to-draw Smurfs.

Also, the kilt basically turns him into "Scottish Stereotype Smurf." Painter has a French accent and traits associated with French stereotypes, but he doesn't dress stereotypically French, so he doesn't seem like a national stereotype. Meanwhile, Gutsy has a Scottish accent, traits associated with Scottish stereotypes, and dresses stereotypically Scottish. So he ends up just being a national stereotype.

5. Narrator Smurf

I don't like when characters break the fourth wall. I like it even less when characters have no other personality traits besides breaking the fourth wall. And I despise the fact Narrator Smurf does this all while wearing an adorable outfit.

Things I Love

1. Papa Smurf and Brainy Smurf's casting

Jonathan Winters voiced Grandpa Smurf, so you know he knows how to do a "wise old Smurf" voice. Yet, his voice for Papa sounds distinct from Grandpa, while still having the same energy.

Fred Armisen, meanwhile, managed to capture Brainy's energy from the 80s cartoon perfectly. More recent Brainy Smurf voice actors have kind of dropped the ball (Danny Pudi's voice lacks some quality I can't pin down, and Youssef El Kaoukabi didn't even try), and honestly, the quality of voice acting can make or break a Smurfs adaption for me.

2. Brainy's freckles

Just... Brainy's freckles. Brainy with freckles is the best design choice in the entire movie, and I adopted it into my character designs because I loved it so much.

3. Grouchy getting high off his ass and ranting about dating

People talk abt that moment like "lol its so funny hes fallen in love with a plush m&m" but here's the thing- he's just accidentally ingested a whole bunch of artificial chemicals he's never had in his system before. Neither he nor the audience has any clue what effect these chemicals have on the body of a Smurf. As far as anyone knows, the blue dye in the M&M he swallowed might be a hallucenogenic substance for Smurfs!

What I really love about that moment is the fact he talks about dating like there's multiple options. Because there are! There's a bunch of other Smurfs, and even if they're not girls, bisexuality is a thing that exists. To my knowledge, this moment with Grouchy is the only moment in any canon Smurfs media where a Smurf very clearly acknowledges the other male Smurfs as romantic options. Even though it's played as a joke, it's very important to me.

4. Patrick Winslow

I love how befuddled and confused about everything Patrick is. I also love how absolutely done with everything he is. It helps get me through annoying Smurfs moments to have a character there that's just like "what the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck is wrong with you."

5. The Smurfs v. Gargamel at Belvedere Castle

This scene... a masterpiece. Gargamel is so confident that he'll win, and then Brainy goes "Gargamel! Make that three little Smurfs." Strikes a match. "And, I went home and got a few friends." A firework goes off, we see a fuckton of Smurfs surrounding the place, and they start ominously chanting the La La song.

Then the battle starts, and meanwhile, Gutsy is launching an attack from the air. This scene is so cool and badass, and I love seeing the Smurfs kick ass. It's the best scene in the movie.

[maxwell-grant]

Charlie Chan. Who is fascinating, because he was created explictly to be an anti-Yellow Peril character. Unlike most Chinese characters of the time, he's both intelligent, physically capable, and unambiguously heroic. In the novels, he's simultaneously proud of being Chinese AND proud of being an American citizen. He gives orders and instructions to white people, and the narrative treats this as perfectly normal and acceptable. There's a bit in the first book, when an attempt to trap the..(1/2)

(cont'd)There's a bit in the first book where an attempt to trap the protagonist fails, because a message supposedly from Charlie clearly isn't because Charlie's English isn't broken, it's like poetry. Etc. The movies made him more stereotypical, & played by white actors in yellowface, but still, he's a heroic Chinese man, who is as capable and patriotic as any white man. Nowadays, he's thought of as racist caricature. Which he is, but still, it makes one think.

I'm not nearly as acquainted with Charlie Chan as you are (and I definitely suspected he was less racist in the original books because that's nearly always the norm when it comes to pulp characters) but yeah, that "Which he is" is forever going to be the most unfortunate and saddest part of it all when it comes to Charlie Chan. For all the virtues that can be bestowed on Charlie Chan, for everything great that the character had going for him and inspired, the fact that the least offensive image of the character I could find to put here for illustration's sake is from the Hanna-Barbera cartoon kinda exemplifies the big elephant in the room when it comes to Charlie.

Charlie Chan is a great example of two things: One is the way progress is never a fixed quantity and often what was progressive and forward-thinking in it's time can become something outdated and backwards and downright offensive given enough time, and the 2nd is my constant stressing that this is all the more incentive to reclaim the pulps and either highlight or fix aspects of them, instead of dismissing every aspect of them based on the preconception that everything about it's history is unforgivably bigoted and must be handled with the nuance of a sledgehammer.

I stress time and time again the need to highlight and understand the prejudices that went into pulps, because either ignoring them or wielding them as a weapon to attack them does no favors to anyone. The pulps weren't exceptionally bigoted - look at literally any medium in it's time period and you'll find bigotry and prejudice and hatred - and they were exceptional in the number of POC heroes and heroines. Pulps were a medium of experimentation and cheap entertainment that gave way to much, much more varied kinds of protagonists than were permitted in films, serials, novels, comics and radio serials of the day. Imagine if no one was allowed to bring up and discuss superheroes without mentioning the Superman Slap-a-Jap posters or the Captain Marvel story so horrifingly racist it was recounted by an American ambassador after it deeply offended a friend's son and a major influence on the 1950s anti-comic trials. "Pulp fiction had deeply, unforgivingly racist depictions that deserve intense scrutiny and cannot be ignored" and "Pulp fiction was significantly ahead of every other medium at the time in regards to authors and editors striving to publish stories about heroic POCs, this cannot be dismissed and is something that needs to be perpetuated" are not exclusive facts. "A product of it's time" is not an excuse and never was, but it's a fact nevertheless.

Every time someone speaks favorably of Charlie Chan in any capacity, they have to start with a long preface of everything positive that the character had going for him. Yes, he's a deliberate subversion of the Yellow Peril, he's a heroic protagonist, he's plump and good-natured and humorous but far from a joke, he's friendly and pleasant and well-educated and wise, he's a good dad and family man and a terrifically sharp detective who's so good at his job he gets called to solve crimes all over the world, and none of these traits are apparent to people who have to google the character and repeteadly see a white man in awful make-up into every single image of the character, who watch the movies and cringe at the broken English. It's hardly relevant in the face of all the Asian-American critics who acknowledge the character's virtues but rightfully point out that this fortune-cookie spouting caricature, acting subservient to whites and whose virtues are based around his proximity to a white American ideal, doesn't represent them and they shouldn't pretend it does.

Which isn't to say that to like Charlie Chan is "wrong", a lot of East Asians love Charlie and the character's obviously got fans in Asian Americans. It's a complicated subject and I obviously cannot begin to vouch in a subject so heavily based around perceptions I cannot experience. And I deeply detest the idea of speaking for others on their particular experiences on this kind of matter, which is something Americans do a lot everytime they talk about representation in media.

So instead, I'm going to tackle this on a roundabout manner by going on an unrelated tangent to bring up an example of representation that isn't quite representative of what it's supposed to be, has a lot of issues that have been dissected by critics among the people it was supposed to represent, and none of that stopped the character from being popular and beloved and from being claimed anyway. And it's a Brazilian fighting game character, which means it's completely within my ballpark.

Yeah, obviously Blanka doesn't look like anyone who lives in Brazil (whatever resemblance he bears to redheaded jungle protectors of Brazilian folklore is purely accidental). Obviously neither Jimmy nor Blanka are Brazilian names or even exist in the Portuguese lexicon. Obviously there are issues in Street Fighter's approach to representation across the board, sure, and I'd actually say Laura is much worse than Blanka in that regard (again, my opinion, obviously not universal), but the fact remains that Blanka is and has always been pretty controversial. Obviously there's Brazilians who took offense to Blanka and they weren't wrong to do so, and I obviously do not speak for everyone here, that goes without saying.

Obviously the idea that Brazil's major representative in a global cast of characters, the first big name Brazilian character in videogames, is going to be a freakish jungle monster who roars and bites faces has problems, as is the fact that all the others get to be regular people representing fighting styles from their countries while Blanka doesn't. None of the Brazilian SF characters represent Capoeira, which is kinda shitty to be honest. And there's a whole stereotype of Brazil as a backwards land of beasts and savages that Blanka's creation played into. There's no shortage of ground to criticize Blanka's representation and Ono actually apologized in an interview once, but then he learned one teensy little thing:

Street Fighter is very popular on Brazil. Would you like to leave a message to the fans from there?

"Ono: Yes, I'm aware. At the time of Street Fighter II a lot of the arcade machines produced went there, so I knew we had lots of fans there. A message to Brazilians, well, I'd like to apologize. I know Blanka's a weird character and I don't want any Brazilian to feel uncomfortable with that.

When Blanka was conceived, we knew there were forests in Brazil, and so we thought he could look like that. I was actually kinda nervous knowing I'd meet Brazilian journalists. Still, this is the first Street Fighter in ten years, so we'd like all fans to play, including Brazilians, which are many.

Thanks. Well, but you should know that Brazilians love Blanka

"Ono: Ah, good! I was scared of getting beat up if I ever went to São Paulo! (laughs)"

(That's from a 2012 tv special called The Greatest Brazilian of All Time where over a million viewers voted to elect whoever they wanted, and Blanka was going to win. He was polling ahead of Aryton Senna and PELÉ, fucking Pelé, yes this happened. He wasn't even disqualified for being a cartoon character, it was an open poll, he was disqualified due to canon stating he had been born in Thailand, which I think may have been retconned since then. Again, A MILLION BRAZILLIANS voted for this contest, and Blanka was going to win.)

Blanka is great and sweet and lovable, he made the best out of the incredible shitty hands fate dealt him and became a cool and strong green man who shoots lightning and flies, a self-taught warrior who rides whales and planes to fighting tournaments, and he loves his mom and friends and kicks ass and after he's done he dances in joy and gives the kids of his village piggyback rides, and Brazil loves him. He doesn't represent any existing person or fighting style, he's rooted in a negative stereotype and incorrect assumptions, he's not even really Brazilian, and he's our boy and nobody can take him away from us.

No criticism of Blanka, no matter how in-depth or even right it is, is ever going to affect that, because regardless of what was wrong or misguided and offensive about him, we claimed him and loved him so throughly that Capcom kept playing up Brazilian representation in every subsequent game post Alpha, and because of Blanka's impact and reception in such a big game, Brazilian characters have become a staple of fighting games, and that's how we got much more diverse representatives in those games. Fighting games have more Brazilian representation than LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE on media not produced here. It started as BAD representation, with way less thought put into it than Charlie Chan, and it still mattered to a lot of Brazilians who reclaimed it and made it better than it was ever intended to be, and as a response to it, it gradually became better. 

Progress is not a fixed quantity, it's an uphill battle, and it's not unwinnable. Everything's gotta start somewhere.

The Good Asian is a ongoing comic that I think does the best job I've seen yet of handling an Asian American detective protagonist, which is not really a high bar in the first place, and more to the point, The Good Asian illustrates the 2nd part: the reclaiming. The Good Asian deals a lot with the realities that a 1930s Asian-American detective would run into, the strained circumstances and relationships between said character and the world around him, because it's born from an author who took a look at Charlie Chan and Mr Moto and the like and recognized the potential in those stories that could not be fulfilled in it's time period by the people writing said stories. 

The Good Asian pays little reverence to Charlie Chan, but it acknowledges that it cannot exist without Charlie Chan, and it reclaims the Charlie Chan premise at the hands of someone more adequately equipped to tell a gripping story that goes places none of Charlie's contemporaries would ever go. Regardless of how good or bad of representation Charlie Chan was, Charlie Chan mattered and was beloved and inspired a better example for others to improve on or rebel against.

I desperately wish that I could google Charlie Chan without having to look at a guy in yellowface, and the ONLY way that's going to happen is if the character ever gets meaningfully brought back and reclaimed for good by people who can meaningfully tackle the character and present him as he should have always been presented.

And then, I imagine it would be a lot easier to show people on how swell Charlie really is. A true, positive role model and hero, who no longer has to look like a gross cartoon to be able to exist at all. Who can finally be what he was always meant to be, and always was deep down.

[rootin-tootin-cum-shootin]

Dating Headcanons for Aomine and Kagami

In honour of my dear friend Jackie @todorokibois​ finishing her rewatch of Kuroko no Basket, and the accompanying Ace Brainrot she has as a result, I have made this. Is it stupid long? Yes. Did I have fun making it? Yep! Am I going to have her screaming at me tomorrow? Absolutely! Anyway! Enjoy this monster of a headcanon folks!

Aomine Daiki x gn!reader x Kagami Taiga

Wordcount: 2,540

Kinda an awkward fellow at first

He has the emotional awareness of a brick wall so he's not exactly the most in tune with his or others feelings

It would take quite a bit for him to even realize he has feelings for you

Oh man but once he does?

All those feelings he was denying or ignoring hit him hard and all at once

As if Daiki got hit by a bus (a bus made of feelings)

Once he has acknowledged that he likes you

Well, then he gets a little more awkward

Because he has no real clue what he is doing

He has asked Momoi about what he should do, considering she's the more emotionally aware one of the pair

But her suggestions largely consist of classic and almost stereotypical wooing gestures

So with her generic advice in mind

He will buy you flowers and ask you if you would meet him for coffee at "that one place you say you like"

(Like he totally doesn't remember the exact name, location and your regular order after you mentioned it a couple times)

Once you'd get there he would have your drink already ordered, with a nice snack for you there too

And as you sit down to chat and eat, he would hand you a nice bouquet of your favourite flowers

And ask you if you would like to go on a date with him sometime

If you don’t want to see a flustered Daiki, don't mention how this meetup for coffee could be a date.

He will have steam coming out of his ears, because he will internally malfunction.

Daiki will actually be genuinely suave once he figures out he doesn't need to be so performative all the time

You like him for him, not because he acts like a character from a shojo

Honestly there's nothing he enjoys more in this relationship then getting to see you smile

Listens to you so well, he is always attuned to you.

He will play every gift he gives you off as if he didn't remember you talk about how much you loved that piece jewellery because it reminded you of something a character wore in a few episodes of your favourite childhood cartoon one time 2 months ago

And he definitely didn't pick up extra jobs in order to get the cash to pay for it

No way, it was completely a coincidence.

As you may have guessed, the ever blunt and arrogant Aomine Daiki's love language is gift giving

He just wants to see you smile

And if making or buying you a little trinket just because it reminded him of you will do that then so be it

Daiki would honestly pay any amount of money or spend any amount of time if it meant he could make sure you felt loved

Dates are often spent with the two of you just chilling around the house

Netflix and take out on the couch while you wear your PJs? His favourite way to spend a Friday off

Dates where he tries to make you dinner from scratch? Yes please, he wants to impress you through your taste buds. (Which doesn't always work the way he wants)

But he does love to take you out for lunch or dinner

He will offer to pay for everything anytime you go out

Speaking of paying even if you insist on going Dutch

He is absolutely going to attempt to pay before you can even get your wallet out

It honestly becomes a game for you two to see who can pay for dinner first.

The only time he actually lets you pay on a date if say you're going to be driving some distance for a special date

Then he's chill if you pay for the snacks while he pumps gas on your way to that festival in the next city over you both wanted to attend.

He tries so hard to be a gentleman around you

You make him more humble, and he wants to be the best version of himself possible for you. Because you make him want to put in the effort to better himself.

But all that goes out the window the moment you attend one if his games

Then his usual attitude gets even worse, he becomes an actual monster when he plays on the days you watch

The pride he feels when winks at you as he scores the final basket of the games.

Its subtle but its his way of saying "See that babe? That was for you"

This man also lives for post games smooches

His team hates it (they're jealous because you two are so damn cute)

But he will always press his forehead to yours, and ask breathlessly if he can kiss you

Once you say yes, he leans in slow and with a ghost of an I love you resting on his tongue shows you just how he feels

His hands steady on your waist, holding you close as his lips press against yours and takes your breath away. The way you some how always manage to take his away every time he looks at you

When he pulls away for a breath, your noses touching, your lips still millimeters apart, he will tell you that he loves you

All in all, he may not know exactly what he's doing, but man is Aomine Daiki in deep. He wants nothing more than to be the light in your life that you've become for him. Please take care of this Ace's heart, he's trying his best for you.

Taiga is genuinely intense when he likes you

To the point where the moment he knows he likes you, you know too

Now to other people they may think its embarrassing, but he honestly doesn't care

Once Taiga's sure of his feelings for you the man could care less if other people knew

Because why should he hide away how he feels for the sake of other people

Arm wrapped around your shoulder as you walk beside him

Always offering to help you out even if it makes him go far out of his way

Actually telling you straight to your face that he's doing all these things because he has feelings for you and wants you to reciprocate them

Taiga really can be a tactless dumbass sometimes but, hey at least its cute how he's trying to woo you

He wouldn't immediately ask you out though

No he saves that for when he's sure you reciprocate those feelings

Because let's face it, if Taiga likes you, you're most likely already his friend

So when he attempts to pursue you romantically, it is literally everything you could want

He'd honestly know just how to not only fulfill the things he knows you want and even daydreamer about having in a partner while still making it genuine to who he is as a person

Now his love language is absolutely Quality time

So when you two are hanging out together, you have his undivided attention

Taiga honestly would schedule time in his training regiment's schedule when he's preparing for tournaments

Even if its just a 30 minute phone call

He sticks to it

And when you do start dating, he ensures that you go out on a date once every two weeks, minimum

Stay in dates are accepted and appreciated

In fact it was on one of those stay in dates where he asked you to be his significant other

He also texts you quite a bit

Even if its just to say "I know you're busy but make sure you remember to stay hydrated"

Or to send you a cute picture of #2

When you do go out, its usually to do some fun or spontaneous event

A pottery class? Sure why not

Rock climbing at a gym? Let's try it out, maybe you'll even catch each other falling so you can make a corny ass joke

A Tango class? Why not! It could even help with his footwork in basketball

Taiga just wants to spend time with you so he s down to try anything you want at least once

So as long as you're excited for it he'd be happy to accompany you

Even if its just to go get groceries.

He's not terribly jealous by himself, but sometimes if you're out on a date and he's feeling like he hasn't seen you enough in recent weeks

He might steal your attention back from whomever you were speaking with.

Will take you to professional level basketball games

Heck one time you two went to see the Harlem Globetrotters and it was one of the best nights of his life

The both of you were amazed by the tricks and laughing along with the jokes.

You both even got a signed ball after one of trick shots ricocheted off the rim of the basket hit him on the head.

You two have a custody agreement for that ball by the way

But hey that was the risk of sitting court side, and at least it was a great memory

By the time you two left the gym, your cheeks hurt from smiling so widely

And as you two discussed the event as you walked back to his car, the streetlights hitting your face just right

In that moment he realized that he was absolutely and intensely in love with you.

It was honestly really sweet. But did he tell you how he was feeling? N o p e

But speaking of basketball

You are invited to every single one of his games

He wouldn't be mad if you couldn't come to every one, but he hopes that you would come support him at his big tournament games

On the days you go, he plays about 1000 times better

Riko loves those days because he listens to her and the Hyuga when they propose strategies without complaint

She especially likes it because he never loses when you show up

Yes she does ask you to go to every game and practice Seirin has.

And after every game, he takes you out for dinner. Even if its just at a 24 hour fast food joint. You two share a meal after each and every game you attend

He honestly looks forward to those times more than the actual games sometimes

Taiga isn't the type for extreme PDA but you bet your ass he loves to kiss you

No matter where you are, if you’re out together, he's giving you kisses

His hands resting on your cheeks, delicately stroking your skin with his thumbs

As he tenderly presses his lips to yours, passion and adoration oozing from his kiss

Because even though he has a hard time saying how much he loves you

The emotions he can't quite find the right words to say all come through with every press of his lips against your skin

All in all, dating Taiga would be fantastic, he's caring, considerate and always confident in both you and the relationship.

Now let's start off by saying Taiga becomes so much more jealous when he realizes Daiki is also pursuing you

The pair immediately turn it into a competition

If one of them buys you lunch, the next day the other is taking you for an expensive dinner

Taiga asking you to go to one of his games again? Sorry Daiki already asked you to go to his on that day

Daiki asking if you wanted to watch a movie at his place? Nope! Taiga bought & gifted you tickets for the concert your favourite band was putting on and had asked you to go with him months ago

Lord help you if they're playing against each other

Both will show off to the point its detrimental to their teams

You thought they were intense before? HAH! The tension between them is almost crushingly heavy now

(There's a reason for that) They bet that whoever won would be the only one to take you out for a month and the other person can't even ask.

Yes that bet is dumb

Yes their coaches kicked their asses for how they're behaving

After that they realize that maybe they shouldn't fight over you like you were a prize to be won

Because they both notice how much seeing each other fight like that hurts not just their relationships with you

But how it hurts, you in general

So with heavy and begrudging hearts they set their romantic rivalry aside

And come to you hearts in their hands and ask you if you'd give them both a chance

Because they recognize that at this point, if you haven't picked one of them

You probably aren't going to choose just one of them

And they would be damned if you chose to just walk away because of how they were acting

So after some explanations of their jealousy towards the other boy on their parts

And you willing to forgive their weirdness

You are now the happy owner of not one puppy of an Ace as a boyfriend.

But two doting Ace boyfriends!

Their individual relationships with you are mostly the same as above

But there are a few throuple dates, where you all go do something together

Heck sometimes the boys will do something without you and have little boys dates

By god can they be protective of you

Creepy old man staring at you? Taiga and Daiki are already glaring at him like nobody's business

Getting hit on and are uncomfortable? Daiki is dragging the person outside to beat the shit out of them while Taiga makes sure you're okay and feeling safe

They actually make a great team in terms of the relationship. Working in tandem to make sure you're happy, healthy, safe and feeling loved

The cuddle piles you find yourself in, are exquisite

Your back smooshed against Taiga's chest and Daiki's head resting on the top of your head while he holds you tightly

Who needs a blanket anymore? Certainly not you my dear, you have two very hot Aces to keep you warm now!

And you bet your ass those two will eventually end up kissing each other

Because well their competitive spirit towards each other never truly went away

Now their competitions look more like "who can kiss our significant other more"

(BTW the score for that one is Daiki III Taiga II, because Taiga fell asleep 3 hours before you and Daiki did the last time they played that game. Taiga still hasn't forgiven his brain for that)

The boys eventually come to terms with the fact that they think the other is hot, and sometimes (ie. Most times) they want to kiss.

They will absolutely deny it if asked by anyone but you. Because they don't mind you seeing them smooch, because then you may join them in the makeout session.

They may say they're as straight as an arrow, but every arrow has some flexibility to it under the right circumstances.

All in all its actually a really healthy poly relationship, once they get their heads out of their own butts that is

[amazinglissawho]

As a POC myself I've never seen any POC characters on screen/in media who don't serve as either comic relief or as side characters that perpetuate annoying stereotypes.

And honestly? Sometimes misrepresentation feels worse than no representation :(

Hopefully we get lead POC's who are well written soon

I feel your pain Anon. I think the best we can do is talk about shows that do exist and give them attention. If anyone has any recs please reblog them!

While I don't know what race you are so I can’t be sure that my recommendations represent you, here are three recommendations that have leads who are POC. The first two have summaries from different sites, which I will link too.

One Day At A Time:

Media Type: SitCom

Show Summary: "Follows three generations of the same Cuban-American family living in the same house: a newly divorced former military mother, her teenage daughter and tween son, and her old-school mother."

(Lissa Note: This is an incredibly underrated show and I can't not say how funny and well written this show is)

The Hate U Give:

Media Type: Book with a Movie Adaptation

Book Summary: "Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.

Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil's name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr.

But what Starr does - or does not - say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life."

(Lissa Note: I can not say how much I adore this book. It made me laugh and cry and the description did not do it justice. I think its a book that everyone that can read it, should.)

Infinity Train:

Media Type: Kids Cartoon

Summary: An anthology series where each book (season) tells a different story about passengers on a train. One of the main characters of Book Two is Native American, in Book Three one of the leads in a black woman, and Book Four’s two leads are Japanese-Canaidian and Korean-Cananidian respectively.

(Lissa Note: This show is absolutely incredible. I highly recommend it to anyone and I’ve seen many commend the rep that is in this show. It’s a very good mystery show with a good mixture od drama and comedy, though I do recommend looking for content warnings as it gets pretty dark for its target demographic)

If anyone has any more recommendations, please share them!