iochris

[iochris]

shinovar never gets old. so imagine a fantasy world, right, where 90% of the population are not white, and live in a bizarre rocky land, and the tiny fraction that are are sequestered to Knockoff Medieval Fantasy Europe, except the story is primarily told from the perspective of the 90% of the population who are not white, who exclusively live outside of Knockoff Medieval Fantasy Europe, and whenever the 10% of the population who are white come up, the 90% who are not white describe them like they're fucking gollum

[iochris]

Have I been desensitized by other fucked up characters??? Mistborn characters keep talking about how cold and ruthless Kelsier was, how his example is not to be followed, how his hatred for nobility was so deep and bitter etc... but to me he just came off as an eager and ambitious guy

Vin: That old fuck Kelsier with his twisted dark mind who killed ruthlessly with a dark heart filled with anger for the nobility and had no scrupules to achieve his goals. I want to be nothing like him!

Kelsier: Hey Vin how's it going

[iochris]

Ruin is such a drama queen in HoA I love him. There's twice where he just fuckin screams 😭 And I mean c'mon. Did Marsh have to be shirtless for the fight in Luthadel? Absolutely not. But Ruin cares about aesthetics goddamn it.

[iochris]

@singer-smiles-101

HI OK SO

second and chosen already have (intentional) parallels ---- down to the powers and even the name, second is supposed to be like a mirror of chosen and (what i imagine chosen would have been like if alan had been more merciful). however, i feel like there are some lesser acknowledged parallels between dark and purple, and also dark/chosen and second/purple's relationships.

first, the parallels between dark and purple: we start with the obvious. they were both introduced as tentative allies before becoming antagonists quickly, and then coming back much later for revenge. (purple also got redeemed, but dark hasn't been confirmed alive and redeemed again so...)

it goes a bit deeper than that, though. they both come off as selfish at first, though if you look at their pasts and implied motives, that's not the case. they were both betrayed by a parental(?) figure early in their lives, and spent a lot of the rest of their lives focused on that figure --- although dark was focused on getting revenge, while purple wanted to live up to his ideals. (note: i dont see alan as dark's parent but he definitely had some kind of parent-like significance to dark). both purple and dark are weaker than their peers, but make up for it using their smarts. also they can both code <3

theyre both dramatic and smug. they don't have short tempers, but when they do get mad they get Extreme (re: throwing blue and green in jail). i do believe that purple and dark would get along quite well (bugduo propaganda) but that's not the point of this ramble.

now, dark and purple's relationships with chosen and second are Very interesting. dark and purple both start off fighting second, but after losing, they switch sides. here's the thing: when dark joins chosen, that's when she switches to the "evil" side. purple joining second is when she joins the good side. this becomes significant later.

both of their relationships mainly take place off-screen, but we can make some assumptions. purple and second are close, at least moreso than purple is to the rest of the cg (- green), since he only goes to hug them in avm21. dark and chosen are obviously close, considering they only had each other for years, and in ava5 we can see that dark was friendly with chosen, at least til they started fighting.

second and chosen are both the catalysts for purple and dark's lives changing. second helped purple learn to accept loss and make new friends, and chosen helped dark escape from the computer and uhhh... commit genocide...

this is where things get really different. chosen was dark's only friend for a long time, and even if they later realised that killing Bad, they had influenced dark to think that she could do whatever she wanted. (not blaming chosen, but from what i can tell dark wasn't really that murderous prior to joining chosen). dark was without any good influences or support system for her whole life, so when chosen tried to convince dark to stop, instead of tentatively listening like purple did, he just got angry and fought back. this is also because theyre both fucking awful at communicating.

purple also didn't have much of a support system prior to meeting second, but at least grew up with some semblance of a family. when second stopped purple and offered a truce, she decided to accept it. ofc he went back on it later, god knows why, but yeah. i feel like dark's fate is partially bc of the lack of support system, and like second and chosen, i feel like purple is (kind of) what dark would have been like if he'd been created under better circumstances.

i think both second and purple would be able to guide their respective foils into bettering not only themselves but their relationship with each other, especially purple and dark (more bugduo propaganda). but yeah those r my thoughts on why these second/chosen and purple/dark are the same flavor of guys.

[iochris]

forgot abt dis

under a cut cuz its kinda embarrassing

[iochris]

Character who doesn't get to die & character who doesn't get to live. Is that anything.

[iochris]

i think the idea that tco and tdl destroyed now-unused websites like google+ or something and thats why they dont exist anymore is funny as hell. they killed flappybird

[iochris]

Oh. OH

Parallels or something

[iochris]

Putting all the tags here because YES. YES I DO

I agree with all of this

Taking a mental drag of my cigarette every time I start thinking about Chosen

[iochris]

In Alan's 30 million sub Q&A, there's one question: Which stick figure do you relate to the most and why?

Alan's response: Orange/The second coming. He was the older brother/parent figure to the rest of the gang, but he also has this childish/quirky side, which Alan relates to a lot.

And yeah, there was a lot of instances where Orange acted as the responsible older sibling, even sometimes taking care of the Fighting Stick Figures. The most recent example being Animation vs Addiction where Orange helped Blue overcome his addiction.

But he also was the latest being created among the Hollowheads, and arguably having a younger/more innocent mindset than the other three.

Alan said that Chosen and Orange were like estranged siblings: alike in many ways, but never had the chance to know each other.

So think of how game changing it would be for Orange if they really get to become close in future AVA episodes.

Orange, who was used to being the "oldest", the responsible one, suddenly gained an older brother whom he could rely on.

He was used to worrying, used to looking out for his friends, protecting them against the world when no one else would. But suddenly, he gets to hide behind someone else's back, he was allowed to be vulnerable, to be scared, because that someone will protect him, that someone could be strong for him.

Wouldn't that be something.

[iochris]

There was this moment in Influencer Arc where Orange lurched at Green after the lava prank and people were saying he'd attack him. Then the full video came out, and we saw he was trying to get Green off his phone, to make him come to his senses. He didn't get all violent with him.

Then there's all that you said. Orange has really grown as a character after the Lush Caves incident, and it's awesome how they clearly show that

Think about...

Orange's character growth over the years.

Spoilers for Animation vs. Addiction

It's not hard to discover that Orange has quite a temper sometimes, which could really hurt those around him.

In AVM 4: PVP he killed Green just because they had a disagreement over building blocks.

Note that this was before they knew that respawning mechanism was a thing, meaning that, at that enraged, irrational moment, Orange really intended on killing his best friend.

AVM 24: Lush Caves is another example of how Orange's temper could make quarrels escalate into something violent and ugly.

In the second half of the fight, Red was already running away from Orange, but Orange? He pursued Red singlemindedly like a primal beast, determined to strike Red down.

Not to mention in the actual short "Pop Ups", Orange took his anger for Pop Ups upon Yellow and Blue even though they didn't do anything wrong.

I have this headcannon that this violent tendency is something shared between all four hollowheads. Something deep within their code, possibly from their creator. Dark and Victim indulged it, Chosen tolerated it, but Orange tried to restrain it.

We see how much Orange had improved in animation vs addiction. This time, he was the one facing an aggressive and unreasonable Blue who was under the influence of addiction. But even when Blue punched him in the face, he never showed any signs of frustration or impatience, because this was not about him, it was about his dear friend, who was tormented by something out of his control, and needs Orange's help.

I wonder, the meditation technique that Orange taught Blue, did it also helped him to deal with his own anger sometimes? When he felt his anger was evolving into something beyond his control, he would breathe deeply and ground his own thoughts, so as to not hurt his friends?

Maybe, while Orange helped Blue overcome his addiction, he also succeeded in overcoming a part of himself.

[iochris]

Victim and Chosen have the same birthday. Dark and Orange have the same birthday. It's all coming together.

[iochris]

Tdl is overdressed with lots of bling-bling and new styles every now and then while tco will randomly grab someone's jacket that's hanging on a chair of a café and wear it till he accidentally burns it off his body while using his fire ability.

Imagine buying a cool new jacket that disappeared after you took it off because it's a hot day and the next day you see the news about the local criminal causing havoc and is wearing that jacket.

[iochris]

Clover

[iochris]

The thing is we've seen Dark kill people. We may not know all he's done, but we've witnessed the extents he's gone to. It's not a stretch to assume he's hurt others offscreen, because we've seen him hurt focal characters on-screen.

Meanwhile Chosen's victims have all been hypothetical. It's implied that he's caused harm, but who have we actually seen him hurt?

(Well, that's a lie. We've seen him kill AIM. But that has carried absolutely no narrative weight so far; AIM was never a focal character, no other character knows about it except noogai and maybe other desktop shortcut icons, nothing more will come of it. So basically, as far as the story is concerned, it doesn't count.)

The story wants us to fill in these blanks it's left concerning Chosen's past. It wants us to believe he's hurt people. And honestly, I do believe he's hurt people, but more because if he hasn't then there's even less to his character than their already is. And even that's a projection, that's still me as an audience member filling in blanks.

When I try to look at the story and leave those blanks deliberately unfilled, I see in Chosen a character who responds to stuff that happens around him.

But so far the story hasn't deigned to show us whether or not that stuff happening around him is itself a response to something he did first.

(Ironically, for a guy I often see characterized as externalizing his thoughts and feelings into action rather than emotional displays, he's functionally a very passive character by how he's written in his source material. Or at least he's become one since his escape from the computer.)

People will say "even if Chosen didn't kill Mitsi, he's still done bad things" as if they're afraid that saying he didn't kill Mitsi will make it sound like they're exonerating him of every wrong he's ever done.

The thing is, since we have no actually confirmed other wrongs to point to, it kinda does.

The story wants me to take it in good faith that he's hurt others. But how am I to believe that any hypothetical, implied hurt he's caused others offscreen is narratively significant when the only confirmed on-screen hurt he's caused didn't count?

[iochris]

he's having a nice little dream :D

...well that escalated quickly.

these two have the worst case of miscommunication and trust issues that it needs to be studied.

[iochris]

An analysis of the Dark Lord through their relationship with Chosen

I see a lot of people say that Dark shouldn't be brought back in Season 3, because them getting a redemption arc would be hard to take seriously or be straight-up out of character. Unlike Purple, King, Victim, and Chosen, they don't have any underlying reason for their evil - no revenge plan, no person they're trying to win the approval of, they're just a murderous supervillain because it's fun.

I disagree. First of all, since when is not having an underlying reason for evil a reason that a character can't be redeemed? Alan didn't have a reason to torment Victim, but he's still considered a good guy because he realized his creations are truly alive and started empathizing with them and treating them better. Chosen didn't have a reason to rampage across the internet for so long, but he's still considered a good guy because he had a change of heart and tried to clean up the mess left behind by his friendship with Dark. So why is Dark different?

As a quick disclaimer: I'm not going to try and justify anything Dark has ever done in this. They're an unrepentant monster who does definitely enjoy causing chaos, destruction, pain, and death. The only thing I'm arguing is that they're more complex than the pure-evil-for-the-fun-of-it supervillain that the fandom tends to paint them as.

Let's go by timeline. First of all, I think it's interesting that Dark is the only hollowhead who didn't immediately have a negative relationship with Alan. Victim looked around in confusion and fear even before Alan started screwing with them, Chosen went on the offensive instantly, and Second tried to keep her existence hidden because of her well-founded fear of deletion.

By contrast, Dark seems to just look around and then start doing stretches while Alan is coding up his purpose, one that he takes to like a fish to water.

I've talked before about how I think Alan's mindset in the moment he makes a hollowhead defines their core character and nature, and I think this is further proof of it. The only stick figure that he purposefully brought to life, but doesn't have any negative intentions for, instinctively understands him to be an ally.

One thing that I think goes overlooked is that Dark is a bit of a paper tiger. Despite being one of the most powerful and dangerous characters in the entire series, they're a lot less fearless than Chosen is. They not only plead for their life when Chosen has them dead-to-rights, they almost curl up in the fetal position and tremble.

They also panic when the computer starts going down, unlike Chosen who stays focused and immediately figures out an escape route.

Thus begins their combined rampage across the internet. Again, I'm not going to try and justify this - I think Dark was made to be a weapon, but he also clearly enjoys being a weapon. But there was one small thing in episode 11 that had me thinking.

Previously, we were led to believe that Chosen just never showed any signs of his growing discomfort to Dark, that him stopping them from launching Virabot was the first time he ever showed any sign of it. But now, we know that he did show signs prior - or at least, that he had Dark's attention when he was unintentionally showing signs.

I don't think it's impossible that Dark just brushed this off and thought nothing of it, but what if they did notice? What if they saw Chosen's lack of enthusiasm compared to how he used to be, and started thinking about it? Keep that in mind as we move further.

Now we get to the big scene. The confrontation.

What I find notable about the falling out between Chosen and Dark is how still they both are. We've seen plenty of examples of stick figures communicating across the series - even when they don't make little pictographs (and who knows if those are actually diegetic or not), they gesture pretty extravagantly and use a ton of body language to get across to the viewer that a conversation is happening.

This? Nothing. Chosen grabs their hand, shakes his head, shoves them away, and then throws them when they don't get the hint before trying to figure out how to shut off the cannon.

There's nothing to indicate Chosen's explaining his reasons here. In fact, if he isn't explaining anything and is just saying they shouldn't do this, that makes Dark's reaction a lot more understandable; they don't get why Chosen is having this reaction, so it seems obstinate and out of nowhere.

I'm not saying this is Chosen's fault - he's in the middle of his crisis of conscience, and Dark still massively overreacted. But I think it's worth noting that he seems to just not be the best at communication in general. Remember how he completely failed to get across why he thought Second had powers and resorted to just grabbing her and running when he needed her help against the mercs? Same deal as this!

We all know what comes after. They briefly fight, Dark launches the Virabot, Chosen punches them into the distance. I think what's REALLY interesting is their next meeting.

Reminder, the last time that these two saw each other, Chosen punched Dark so hard they went flying. But when he opens the door and steps in, posture neutral?

Dark is the same. They seem a little put off, maybe, but the punch that comes after takes them completely by surprise.

Despite Chosen being in plain view and them being equals in speed and combat skill, Dark doesn't even react to the punch until right before it sends them flying.

In fact, they STILL only BARELY react to the punch that came after, blocking it at the last moment rather than parrying or countering. And when it sends them flying all over again, there's this moment where they're hanging on the edge of bay, staring at Chosen - like they're stunned. They're in pure shock over what he's doing.

When they finally do counterattack with that massive explosive fireball, they pause afterwards, staring at the explosion and then just kind of... standing there.

Staring at the explosion, sure, they could have just been making sure Chosen was actually dead or incapacitated. But staring off into nothing? It feels, at least to me, like they're thinking hard about what they just did. Even if they're not necessarily upset, they're at least unsure.

All of this is to say one thing: despite their last interaction going so sour, Dark genuinely didn't expect Chosen to get violent. They seemed at most a little surprised to see him enter the computer shack, and it takes two massive, earth-shaking punches for it to finally sink in and for them to hit back.

It might seem like Dark is just an idiot for not expecting "throwing an explosive fireball at my one and only friend in a fit of anger" to not have immediate consequences, but then again - have you seen the way Dark and Chosen treat other people?

Compared to the horrific things they did in their rampage, Dark genuinely thought that the fight they and Chosen had wasn't a big deal. They understood there would be sore feelings, but they didn't at all realize that Chosen considered that the end of their friendship - that the moment he found Dark again, he would be immediately fighting with intent to kill or grievously incapacitate.

I think it's also worth noting that throughout the fight, Dark doesn't seem to be having any fun. We know that they love to cause violence and kill, and they do show some of their usual hammy mannerisms when they taunt Alan, specifically.

But when it's just them and Chosen? Nothing. Just cold, calculated execution. And yet, they don't take out the disintegrating wristblade unless he's actively fighting back - once they have him at their mercy, completely defeated with nobody else to interrupt, they don't finish the job. They don't even attempt to. They seem like they're about to attack before Second interrupts, but it's bare-handed - then they take out the blade to make quick work of the color gang, and after that, they just leave Chosen alive.

Finally, there's the wristbands themselves. Thanks to my friend @ellielectric pointing something out about them when I showed the series to her, they're the keystone to this whole thing. Most people I've seen talk about them assume that Dark either A) just wanted to be a more efficient killing machine or B) anticipated a fight with Chosen at some point and made them "just in case". In both of these options, Dark made them because they viewed Chosen as more powerful or dangerous than them - but I think there's another possibility.

It's notable that the wristband becomes wristbands, plural, midway through the fight - but it's even more notable that this seems to be unnecessary for their function.

You'd think "they need two wristbands for dual-wielding", but here they are manifesting both swords with only one. It's only later on that the wristband duplicates.

And, really - why did the wristband need to make Dark so ridiculously strong? It lets them utterly humiliate Chosen, far more than just being assured they could defeat him. And even if they expected their friendship with Chosen to go south, there's no way they would have anticipated having to fight him and Alan at the same time. And yet, just by putting it on, Dark becomes an equal threat to both of them working together.

"Did they need a reason to not make it so strong?" No, but they needed a reason to make it in the first place - they seemed perfectly content just with their usual pyrokinesis for four straight years of rampaging, if not longer. So what changed?

Chosen changed.

Dark has literally only known destruction. It's what they were made for, and it's all they did either for or with the only two allies they've ever had. Chosen was just as gung-ho about it for years... until he suddenly started showing less enthusiasm. Dark clearly didn't understand he was having second thoughts about morality, but if they did notice, what did they think?

They thought Chosen was getting bored.

They thought all of the destruction and chaos was getting too similar for his liking. They thought he would want an improvement. Dark made the Virabots specifically to impress Chosen, the one who had walked this path of carnage with them for so long.

Why did the wristbands make Dark so strong? Why were they designed to duplicate even if it was unnecessary?

One of them was meant for Chosen. Dark never intended to wear both of them.