#ESPECIALLY BECAUSE THE OTHER MAIN CHARACTERS ARE FAIRLY CONFIDENT IN THEIR MORALITY REGARDLESS OF IF THEYRE RIGHT OR NOT

[catchyhuh]

is there anything more insanely insane than the fact that lupin calls himself a hero repeatedly in an exaggerated jokey way to the point that there's even a fucking song about it that's assumedly sung from his pov and yet whenever someone asks him if he's a good person he goes. mm. well. hm. well no not really. in fact i'd be rather disturbed if you thought i was in all honesty!

[masterofthez]

While I think the revival of Leverage is not as good as the original (not bad, but just not as good), I think the character of Harry Wilson is one of the best ideas for the show.

Harry fills a somewhat similar role to Nate. Not in the sense that he is the protagonist or the mastermind. Instead, he’s the inside man. He’s the character that has been in the system that the team is fighting against and was very good at it. Unlike Nate however, that fact eats Harry up. Sure, we get mentions about how Nate hates himself, especially in season one. He hates himself because he put so much work and time giving money to a company that ultimately doesn’t care about the lives of people. But that’s also being kinda broad. After all, the main source of grief is that he put so much effort into the company that killed his son. That’s the focus, and much less so about the fact that the company probably destroyed a lot of lives. That’s not a bad thing inherently. After all, Nate is always framed as the good honest man regardless of the situation he’s in. He’s this moral rock for the rest of the team in a lot of ways before everyone else grows a conscience.

That’s then where Mr. Wilson comes into play. He also worked for a not very good company. But unlike Nate, Harry did do horrible things to people. He protected the rich from the poor they stepped on. And he was good at it and well versed in the ways of an evil lawyer. And when he realizes the consequences of his actions, that eats him up inside. Importantly, nothing happens to him. He did his job well. Sure, he’s divorced, and he doesn’t have the best relationship with his daughter, but he’s also largely made peace with that. What makes him join team Leverage is that he saw the destruction that a monster just left in it’s wake only to realize that was the path he just walked.

The same role as Nate, but an incredibly different way. And this is true in a lot of ways. His emotional arch is moving past his own negative emotions, like Nate. Except Nate needed to move past his anger so he could move on with his life. Harry needed to move past his guilty so he could realize just how much good he could do as a lawyer. Harry and Sophie are confidants to each other just like she and Nate was, but Harry and Sophie’s relationship is very much not romantic. Instead, Harry is the only people Sophie can talk to about her troubles without the preconceptions about what the old team was like (Yeah, Breanna is new to the crew, but she was also aware of them before joining). For fairly obvious reasons, it’s clear why they didn’t bring Nate back to the show, but Harry is a grade example of making a character that fits into this save spot on the team while still being there own separate character.

[saiibeo]

and LOYALTY from the thing / @uncxntrxllable 'damn.' questions for muses status: accepting ! !

does your character have any loyalty to any group?

okay so... no. LMAO. kinda? this one can be very odd to explain, but i'm gonna do it especially since i think it's such a good question. corvus' loyalty usually lies with the people. remember when obi-wan said 'my allegiance is to the republic, to democracy'? yeah that's them (half joke... only half that's a whole other can of worms that i could open considering in their jedi verse they're a grey jedi for good reason). they only think about helping others for the greater good. they're not even a part of any hacking groups in their modern fantasy verse(closest to modern if you will) regardless of the amount of offers they had. that is, if anyone could trace them which is extremely hard to do. they made sure of that.

i'd say this can be verse dependent. their pro hero verse has their loyalties to the hero side and their villain verse has their loyalties to the liberation front in their main universe, but their main verse sees them only focused on exposing the hero commission and corrupt heroes. 'vigilantes' aren't really a group or a side per say. just people who didn't become heroes helping anyway. even then, corvus still isn't entirely loyal to those two groups either in those other verses. their loyalty lies with the people. the citizens that they swore to protect in the first place when they first became a hero in their original timeline.

i often categorize corvus as someone who is morally grey. they believe in doing whatever it takes to ensure the greater good of things. robin hood ideology. take from the rich give to the poor and if you're doing that you're not doing anything wrong. they believe achieving that usually stands with not pledging loyalty to any group. if you pledge loyalty to a group they can deem your actions as wrong at least within their ideologies. corvus doesn't like that getting in the way.

now there is two verses where that doesn't entirely apply. that would be their fallout verse and their resident evil verse. in their fallout verse they are loyal to river(sole survivor) and the minutemen. in their resident evil verse they are loyal to the dso/bsaa, but i will say that is completely due to the people within those organizations and more often than not their ideology never conflicts there and even if it does in their resident evil verse they're fairly good at hiding it and covering their tracks. they confidently do so knowing it wont have negative repercussions to the dso/bsaa(putting both each time because timeline matters for which they work for).

tldr: corvus usually pledges their loyalty to themself and people who need help, but rarely ever pledges loyalty to groups. they think it's messy and it hinders their work and their freedom to do what they have to in certain situations.

[theredhairedmonkey]

What Callum’s relationships say about him

Callum always seems to gravitate towards people who share the same values and traits as him.

This was clear even back in S1—when he saw Rayla stand up to Runaan to do the right thing,

He decides to stand with her.

So, it’s no wonder that he ends up having traits that line up pretty closely to the girls he ends up falling for. First Claudia, then Rayla.

Initially, I thought that was just some neat attention to detail—Callum isn’t superficial about who he loves or cares about, so he has to feel some kind of connection or “affinity” to that person.

But now, I think there’s more to it than that. I think that, in many ways, Callum’s transition from pining on Claudia to loving Rayla also reflects and parallels his character development. From awkward sheltered prince to powerful mage.

Lemme break it down.

When we first see Claudia, she is so engrossed in her book that she was about to walk into a tree.

She’s described as always having her spellbook nearby (much like Callum has his sketchbook).

Claudia is a magic nerd, adorable awkwardness and all.

Much like a certain step-prince we all know and love, Claudia is pretty eccentric.

When it comes to fighting, Claudia prefers to keep her distance; her spells are long-ranged, and she’ll usually be on the sidelines while Soren does the physical fighting.

She loves magic, mainly for casting spells.

But she’s also capable of having an appreciation of magical things for their own sake.

However, for the most part, she keeps her feelings about magic at an arms-length. Claudia sees magic as largely an academic pursuit, a tool, or an outside resource that you can tap into (provided you know the spells).

For Claudia, magic is about what you can get out of it. Either a spell, or a ritual, or some kind of power just waiting to be unlocked.

Lastly, Claudia is ruthless. Like, really ruthless, willing to do almost anything to achieve a goal, even going through unethical means.

Particularly, she’ll “save” her family members through any means and regardless of how they might feel about what she did.

As a result, it leads her to justify all sorts of terrible actions that she probably would never have considered herself.

Claudia is ruthless pragmatism personified.

During the time that he crushes on Claudia, in S1 and S2, Callum has a lot of traits in common with Claudia.

For starters, he’s fairly bookish himself—the first time we see him, he’s drawing in his sketchbook.

We see him draw many times in the first two seasons, mostly for fun.

Or to calm down.

But even if he has only a few moments, you might see him sketching something—even here, on the Cursed Caldera when Rayla’s gone not five minutes just to check on a sound they heard.

He’s a nerd, just like Claudia—he’s eccentric, awkward, and adorkable (and thankfully, some things never change).

He’s also not action-oriented either, fighting from a safe distance or watching from the sidelines.

But most of all, he shares Claudia’s fascination with magic. Like her, this fascination is primarily with spells and not necessarily with magic as a phenomenon.

Here, while talking with Lujanne, she tells him all sorts of wonderful things about Primal Magic, focusing on how Primal Sources function as part of nature, but he steers the conversation back to what matters to him.

So, while he has an appreciation for magic as a natural marvel, and even though he has a distaste for Claudia’s brand of Dark Magic, he mainly sees Primal Magic as a means to an end.

For him, magic gives him something he can be good at. A way he can feel secure about himself. A way for him to feel right.

But as he learns about the Sky Primal, as he grows to understand the Sky Arcanum, he begins to move away from this.

By the time he wakes up from his coma and connects to the Sky, he no longer sees Primal Magic as just a source of spells and way to discover his self-worth—it becomes something much, much deeper to him.

It’s an experience, an intimate connection he now shares. His Primal Source is no longer an extension of his abilities as a mage, one that he can tap into for a wind or lightning spell. Now, he is an extension of it.

Callum expresses this change with just one line of dialogue.

I thought I had to find my wings, but that’s just it! I am the Wing!

It just so happens that this change in his way of thinking happened around the time he began to align himself more closely with Rayla. Ultimately, while Callum had already fallen out of love with Claudia by this point, it’s when the Sky Arcanum finally clicks with him that he starts to associate more with Rayla’s traits and values rather than Caludia’s.

The main difference between how Claudia and Rayla see magic is as follows:

For Claudia, magic is a tool, a resource.

But for Rayla, magic is an ambience, a part of everything around them.

Even though she doesn’t have much of the technical understanding of magic that Claudia and Lujanne have, she still knows enough to express how she and the other elves view magic.

Now, it’s not a stretch to say that this isn’t the only thing that Claudia and Rayla don’t see eye to eye on.

Unlike Claudia, Rayla is very action-oriented, using her physical abilities for just about everything.

That’s not even limited to just fighting; here, she gracefully slides across the ice just to catch up with Callum.

Or she’ll climb up a tree to ride one of the giant helicopter seeds down the valley.

Or she’ll lay out some rope and jump off an Ambler.

Claudia has a plan for everything—her bag has a seemingly endless supply of problem-solvers.

But Rayla, instead, relies on her can-do attitude—she won’t second-guess whether she can do something, instead jumping right into the middle of things and figuring out the details on the way down.

Rayla also prefers to be right in the thick of things; if there’s a fight, or someone’s in danger, she’s there.

However, Rayla also places a high value on morals. Even though she’s not above using underhanded means or trickery when necessary (such as tricking Soren and Claudia in 2x03), she very much believes in doing things the right way.

This is why, for instance, Rayla is very angry with Callum when he uses Dark Magic, and it takes quite a bit for her to be able to look past it.

Like, Callum has a spell, one spell, that will save both Rayla and the dragon, literally solving all their problems in one fell swoop, and this is the look she gives him:

Oof.

So, needless to say, in the first two seasons Callum resembles Claudia more than Rayla. He prefers to take a back seat on the action, isn’t all that confident in his physical abilities, and spends most of the time avoiding fights, especially when he doesn’t have a plan.

And, even when he understood that Dark Magic was wrong, he was nevertheless willing to do something unethical to save Rayla regardless of how she felt about it. He shares that ruthless pragmatism with Claudia that Rayla doesn’t.

But once Season 3 rolls around, we see Callum start to move away from Claudia’s way of thinking as he begins to gravitate more toward Rayla’s.

Early on, Rayla shows Callum magic in Xadia. He begins to see magic and the world it inhabits the way Rayla does.

I’ve heard people wonder why Callum doesn’t learn that much magic in S3, and that’s because he’s learning magic less as spells and more as an experience.

And through that experience, not only does Callum learn a great deal about magic in Xadia, he learns about what the elves are fighting to protect. He learns why this kind of world is worth protecting.

And the more he spends in this world, the more we see him come around to Rayla’s way of thinking.

For starters, he’s much more action-oriented in S3—we see him follow Rayla up a tree, ride a difficult-to-tame mount, or climb a 70-foot Ambler’s leg while it’s walking.

I mean, he’s not as good as Rayla at these things…but baby steps.

Even though he may hesitate, he’s much less sure in his abilities than in S1 and S2. He doesn’t insist on taking an easier route. When Rayla gives him her sword, he simply follows her up the tree. He’s showing signs of that similar can-do attitude that Rayla wears on her sleeve.

As a side note, there may even be hints that his connection to the Sky Primal may be subtly affecting his range of physical abilities. We already know that the Moon Primal can increase the physical strength of the creatures connected to it (Viren notes that Moonshadow elves’ power increase depending on the phase of the moon, while Ez mentions that Phoe-Phoe drew her strength from the Moon Nexus). And it’s doubtful that he would have been able to scale trees or Amblers earlier in the series. Right now, that’s just a guess, but who knows?

He also comes around to Rayla’s values—there’s a right way to do things, and the ends do not justify the means.

Unlike in S2, where Callum was willing to use Dark Magic to save Rayla in spite knowing it’s something he shouldn’t be messing with, this season he takes a bit more principled approach.

After they fight over whether Rayla should stay, Callum uses a spell to discover that Rayla’s parents did not abandon the Dragon Egg, and in fact fought till the very end.

And the thing is…that actually gives him a solid argument for why this means Rayla should leave with them. They sacrificed themselves to protect the Dragon Prince, he could say. You should honor their memory by finishing what they started and protect Zym.

He could, just as he did with Dark Magic, use his powers to help save her life, and it wouldn’t even really be that unethical this time.

And yet he doesn’t, because this time he realizes it’s whether he can use magic to fix a problem. He’s not going to use magic to get Rayla to agree with him, or to support his argument for leaving.

Instead, he uses magic entirely for her. He does it to give Rayla the closure she needs, letting see her parents and showing her that they were in fact heroes.

And when she’s at a loss as to what to do next, Callum just gently reminds her it’s ultimately her choice. And he’ll respect that choice, provided she’s making it willingly.

He empowers her, reminding her that she gets to choose who she wants to be, much like he discovered for himself:

This is diametrically opposed to what Claudia would do in this situation. We’ve seen her take the Primal Energy from a living creature to cure her brother, even when he’s accepted his situation. She does something similar, or perhaps even worse, to save her father.

Claudia would use magic to save people through any means, even if those people might disapprove.

Callum used to think this way, but now he doesn’t, using his magic instead to empower the people around him, such as Rayla.

All of this shows just how much he’s changed. How much she has changed him.

As a last point, I’ve noticed something else that had changed in Callum, though it’s a lot more subtle. Before I mentioned that Callum would always draw in his sketchbook, largely for his own enjoyment.

Yet in S3, we don’t see any of that.

Sure, he carries his sketchbook around with him at all times, even during the Battle of the Storm Spire for some reason!

(like, did you think you’d have time to sketch while people are fighting and dying, Callum what are you even—)

But even when keeping the sketchbook around, we don’t see Callum drawing recreationally anymore—the one time he draws in it, he does it specifically for Rayla, both proving that he saw them in his spell, and giving her a change to see her parents’ faces again.

The reason for this is because he’s become far more preoccupied with the world that Rayla introduced him too. He’s not sitting down to draw what he sees in Xadia. He’s going to experience it himself.

This all culminates in one final moment in S3:

Callum lays down his sketchbook one final time.

And leaps off the pinnacle to save Rayla.

After this moment, we never see the sketchbook around him again.

I mean, sure, I definitely think we’ll see him drawing again in S4, but the sketchbook is no longer inseparable from Callum. The symbolism here is clear—Callum has been transformed.

And just to drive the symbolism even further, his blue jacket is torn to shreds, leaving Callum with just his sleeveless red shirt, scarf, and fingerless gloves. Not to get too bogged down into color motifs here, but this change was big, since red is typically more associated with “action” while blue with “calmness.”

But symbolism aside, he looks less like a young Merlin and more like a young Goku.

He’s no longer someone who will wait on the sidelines hoping everything works out. Callum is now someone who will jump right into thick of things, against all odds and with a determination to save the day himself.

In short, he’s become someone like Rayla now.

[jess-the-vampire]

Quick question why did you like Tom in the beginning of the series, I understand liking the character as we get to know more starting season 3 and forward (considering that he wasn’t an important character and especially not at the beginning of the series) but he was and asshole.

Anonymous said:Also, why do you treat Tom as if he were a relevant character that needed tons of recognition .I have seen post showing you being a huge Tomstar fanboy/girl being angry with how the show treated Tom and even though is ok in liking a character, don’t you think you like him too much which clouds your judgment. Because Tom was treated fairly, maybe it would have been cool seen him happy with someone else, but he got his happy ending

You make it sound like people can’t enjoy characters who are jerks and act like jerks, those are pretty popular and fun characters for some people, after all, why do you think villians are so beloved despite being evil?

regardless, tom’s really not the worst at all in the first 2 seasons.

He’s not as great as he is now, but he’s not abusive and it really doesn’t take long to feel bad for and be attached to him. Literally by his second episode he’s already becoming more mature and trying to fix his mistakes.

Tom’s not one of these characters that has no moral compass, he feels awful about things all the time that are his fault, takes little pleasure in hurting people he cares about, and his entire motivation is to feel loved.

he doesn’t go about it the best of ways and he’s not perfect and he still did really dumb things, but he’s mostly harmless since the crew was at least careful enough not to make tom so bad he couldn’t be redeemed.

Tom never ended up truly doing any serious damage to anyone or anything, so it’s a lot easier to want him to be better then say…mina.

I just found tom fascinating because he felt a lot more like a character, i could understand why he felt the way he did, why he did what he tried to do, and why he was the way he was.

and without the show always needing to spell it out either.

he’s one of the few characters i think in this series where you can easily tell why he thinks and feels certain ways and when stuff happens in episodes with him, the impact actually CARRIES.

Marco’s talk in Mr Candle causes tom to stop bothering star, which causes tom to stop bothering her during CS because he learned he needed to respect her wishes, which leads to tom being mad and confused when star is like “No, bother me!, you’re being a total jerk for ignoring me now!”, which then leads to them warming up to each other, which then-

Tom’s a really fascinating case and one of the few times in this series where his emotions feel actually valid and natural (outside of the later half of s4b which was the only case that it didn’t)

I love seeing characters go through these kinds of growths, and i was really rooting for tom to earn true happiness from his character growth and have friends that love him because that feels like the true end for the arc of a friendless character who constantly feels like a failure and alone.

dude, i swear to god if you’re the guy who went on my other blog to insult me for not liking the end of tom’s arc and saying all my criticism was invalid, without actually providing any evidence….

my god, i really don’t wanna have to repeat myself but here we go

Tom’s not relevant? He’s been around since s1 and was on BOTH the posters for s3 and 4 (Over eclipsa, might i add?), tom is VERY relevant because of how prominent he was in the show and how much of a reoccurring character he was.

He wasn’t like janna who was mostly for comedic relief and didn’t really play a role in too many plots in the series, Tom was given so much screen time in most of the important episodes of the series.

This dude, had an actual ARC, an arc they dedicated episodes towards.

No, there is no happy end for tom, in what world is a happy end for a character to be constantly mistreated by their girlfriend and have them almost immediately leave them for their best friend, and then completely forget about them in another dimension….and then not even receive any actual sendoff in the finale at all?

Do you really think making tom feel inferior and unloved and him being OK with it is somehow fair at all? There’s nothing uncomfortable about that?

It’s just ok for our main lead to make him feel awful about himself? Not even apologize to him for kissing his best friend?  That’s fair to tom?

This ain’t even a tom only thing, most of the cast in the series didn’t feel like they got a proper goodbye, the only end that felt fitting for the most part, was ludo.

Most of everyone else’s ends were them kinda saying they’re doing fine after being gone for ages, and that’s about it.

I’m gonna tell you this again, it’s not enough for tom to just “Get better”, it actually needs to AMOUNT to something for TOM, he needed an end that made up for all the clear and obvious pain he’d been going through.

Zuko had this, his arc amounted to him changing roles, fighting his sister and becoming the next fire lord.

Characters like Lena from DT have this, where their shift causes them to overpower their fears and superiors and and find a real family that actually cares about her.

What did tom have?

Well, he’s friends with star and marco….but that was something he had a season ago before the last one…..so…what did he get in the finale because of his growth? Nothing, he loses his girlfriend and his best friends completely forgot about him.

You made tom suffer for so long, something the show makes very clear, and….he gets nothing, in fact they just made him suffer more and his anger management really didn’t end up amounting to anything or any relief at all at the end.

He just gets completely blown to the side by the end even though he’s supposibly one of star and marco’s close friends and he really ends up with nothing that fits all the pain he went through.

who in their right mind wanted to watch this happen to tom after last season? After conquer? where tom sacrifices himself for his best friends and it’s shown how much he cares about and loves them? 

After all that, star and marco just completely blow him off without even considering him? And that’s fair to tom? Are you serious?

By how these arcs normally work tom’s arc should’ve ended with him feeling confident in himself that he’s not inferior to marco, but that never happens.

by how it works he should realize his friends do value and care about him, but that doesn’t happen.

by how these arcs work tom should’ve found true happiness, but that doesn’t happen.

none of this is shown.

So it’s not satisfying.

This is like if ludo’s arc lacked dennis staying with him at the end or his family helping him rebuild his castle as he gets his band back together, he grew past his issues but….he’s unfinished….it feels like he didn’t get anything deserved to him.

star and marco were dang important to tom’s growth, they’re the most important relationships he has in the series, and he doesn’t even get an end with them, they both almost entirely forget about him.

and you cannot go around telling people their criticism is somehow invalid because they like a character as if none of that criticism is relevant at all because they like a character.

if anything, shouldn’t the fact someone was so knowledgeable about a character make the criticism more relevant?

i told you this before, you can’t just say everyone’s wrong “Because they are”, you say it’s satisfying for tom but don’t give a valid reason. it’s amounted to “ because it is” or “Tom’s not important enough to have a proper end”.

I’m sorry you don’t think tom was important but he was a heavily prominent character and a big favorite and this is such a horrible end to his story and it’s so unsatisfying to watch his end be to get shafted like this after everything he was put through.

people tend not to like watching characters who try so hard suffer time and time again and then end up basically alone and abandoned by their friends by the end.

[whitefangworldbuilding]

The Strength of Sienna Khan

I find the subject of how to address where Sienna is on the power scaling of Remnant to be both an interesting question and rather pertinent if one ever wants to write a fic about her and so I have provided my own breakdown on the matter below. 

Opening:

Now, I certainly don't mean it in a "How much Ki does she have" or "Does her Semblance make her an S Class threat" or "She can move at Mach 5". No, I more mean it in a general scaling of, who would she measure up well against in a fair fight sense.

& obviously the answer should be "Whatever doesn't break established canon too much" (Unless an AU or what have you)

However, I do feel there is a sort of bare minimum that needs to be cleared based on what we've seen, but even more, what we know.

So, time for some grounds keeping:

Now I could go into how I doubt one rises to a position like Sienna's and survives being functionally at war with something like the SDC and presumably wanted in every nation save Menagerie and likely Vacuo without being badass, but given she has allies that only means so much, Jac certainly didn't survive based on his personal strength after all, so lets move on.

Someone might argue that anything beyond what we saw in Sienna's trailer (Sorry Adam's, but I digress) to not be applicable, however we only saw her fight once and it seems anyone not at mook level didn't really struggle in that fight so it is hard to get a gauge.

We can infer a lot from the fact that despite having her presumably elite guards, and six other soldiers, plus himself and potentially Hazel on side, Adam still chose to kill Sienna by surprise before she realized he didn't intend for her to step down. This can certainly give the impression that Adam did not feel confident he could defeat her either with that back up, or at least not without severe risks, but that still only gives us so much, because we don't know what those risks were.

Still, I think as a starting point as strong, or more likely stronger/better than Adam seems like a fairly reasonable place to start from based on that and the trailer.

But we can go deeper.

One integral thing to think about when considering where Sienna might be on the overall metric and scale is this.

Cinder didn't try to recruit or intimidate her.

Now, some might argue that "Sienna didn't exist before V4" or that "Adam was High Leader before V3" or what have you. I say this.

But I don't think it matters; not just because Sienna is canon, but because as far back as V1 when Blake imagined the shadow figures who replaced the previous leader, there was not just 1. This means that even if Adam was meant to be higher up than he eventually turned out to be he still would not have been alone, eh wither would have had contemporaries or superiors right from V1 and them needing to recruit in V2 and having such a small pool of forces in V/3 really doesn't give any eight to the idea Adam had the full resources of the Fang at his command.

(Though why the boss of a massive organization would be messing about on a train blowing shit up for the lols is beyond me, hence why I don't think he was ever the leader)

This means that regardless of whether Sienna the character, her design or background, ETC, did to didn't exist specifically before V4 doesn't matter because someone always existed in the WF who wasn't submitting to Cinder as Adam was and held a great deal of power.

So what does that mean?

Well what this means is that to reach a final conclusion we need to look at Cinder Fall and her involvement with the White Fang to reach a final conclusion.

So, Cinder is someone with the training of a skilled Huntress (Seemingly), had an assassin and hallucinogenic thief and fighter on her side, and the resources provided to her by Salem, but rather than going for the High Leader of the White Fang and thus potentially netting the entire organization, she went to Adam.

And we know it was intentional because Cinder knew who Adam would be, seemingly that he had an ego given her degree of flattery and she placed great emphasis on choosing him, meaning that give her intelligence on the WF, means she determined him the best.most likely candidate to agree that would be useful. Now this info wasn't perfect because it either failed to communicate Adam's ego effectively or the political situation in the WF, IE, that they would not be willing to work for a human like this, or at least not with her plan.

But by all of this we can determine Cinder had some moderately good Intel on the White Fang, so the question  becomes...

Why not Sienna Khan? (Or whoever pre her creation, but yes Sienna Khan)

This next segment will involve a slight digression down, but please bear with me.

Cinder is someone not against bribery, flattery or threats to get what she wants, we saw all of this in her recruitment of Adam, so her avoiding this route with the WF's High Leader means a few things. Firstly it means she likely knew Sienna would not agree to such a destructive plan because it served no purpose; this objection could be moralistic or pragmatic, but Cinder would likely assume the latter given her general disposition and attitude.

But would she, would anyone object if it meant not dying? Would someone actually fight a doomed battle and die just to avoid being forced to commit a terrible act, or being subjected to slavery via threat? I doubt Cinder would believe that possible at least for someone who operates at Sienna's level in the world.

Here's the digression.

This was based off Cinder's interactions with Raven but it still feels applicable here. When Raven said that she wanted to kill her own brother, Cinder did not for a second seemingly doubt her, not even assuming something sneaky like an alliance of pragmatism to deal with her (Likely because she knows they fear Salem). No, Cinder just accepts that Raven wants her own brother dead, cheerfully in fact.

Now, say what you will about Raven but given she still has a portal to him & hasn't slit his throat while he was asleep, I think we can agree she, while willing to endanger Qrow, doesn't actively 'want' him dead or to murder him.

But Cinder was willing to accept that she did, and I feel its for much the same reason as one tumblr post mentioned. Cinder assumes everyone else is as petty and evil as she is. That might not be 100% accurate, but I think she'd definitely assume that of people like Raven, Sienna & Adam, even if she likely regards it in degrees, IE, Adam was the most likely to go along with her plan hence seeking him out.

End of digression.

This to me means that Cinder would not be acting on the assumption Sienna would object to her plans morally, or assuming that Sienna would sacrifice herself to stop them, because she likely thinks Sienna is incapable of such things.

So why wouldn't she seek her out and try to force Sienna's hand once she had half the Maiden powers? Cinder seems rather confident in the ability of power and fear to command respect and yet she didn't aim any higher than Adam despite the potential benefits.

Well given Adam was able to blits through her former guards relatively easily -though be it with a bit of shock given they didn't expect him to go that off the hook- this means to m that Sienna would be the major deciding factor here, not her guards or mooks, especially given Cinder can control Grimm and so could likely organize a Grimm attack to keep the grunts busy while she and her allies go for Sienna.

Thus, to me, this means that as far as Cinder was concerned , even with half the Maiden powers, her wonder minions and potentially Adam...

She still did not feel confident in taking down Sienna.

Or at least she was not confident in being able to force Sienna to surrender or to kill her quickly and turn her into a martyr without it being very blatantly clear that she did it, that Adam was a traitor, and generally just turning the entire WF against her or causing it to fracture apart defeating the purpose of the battle.

Given Cinder's ego likely means she has a fairly high bar before she feels threatened or like she couldn't pull off a "just as planned"; the only conclusion I can reach is that even after gaining the Maiden powers and potentially/likely/certainly Adam as an asset, Cinder still did not think she could overpower Sienna easily enough to either win, or at the very least accomplish her goals.

Conclusion

So, when we put all this together what do we get?

Well, we know that Sienna was at least a skilled fighter and one of at least comparable strength to Adam in the trailer.

We know that despite having her guards, back up and Hazel, Adam did not feel confident in either winning or at least not in a quick fight and so resorted to a sneak attack.

We can deduce that despite her powers and connections, Cinder did not feel she had adequate resources to either defeat Sienna and force her to heel, or kill her quickly and frame it on Vale to make Adam High Leader.

Thus, I reason, that Sienna Khan would likely have at the very least be stronger and more skilled than Adam, and could have put up a good fight even against partial Fall Maiden Cinder, Emerald & Mercury, enough that trying it would not be deemed worth the risks involved.

Exactly where you want to put Sienna's strength is obviously up to your own discretion, even if you follow this analyse there's still a lot of room for interpretation or extrapolation.

But I hope that this breakdown has proven insightful and well reasoned, thank you for your time.

Notes:

I almost wish I had made a video of this :D

Brainstorming Semblances could also be fun.

My main one for Sienna is that she has a 'crest' that she can store her Aura in, storing up potentially days, weeks, months or even years that when activated means she can drastically multiply her strength, sorta like Adam, Yang or Nora, but its pre-stored and has a massive gauge, This is the one I give her in the War idea (and in general) hence her being able to vaporize that cruiser, though using said Semblance can be hard, slow and painful and take a long time to recoup.

Other idea include Nine Lives, IE self Resurrection.

One idea I had in a fun little snippet I wrote ages back involved Sienna being able to forge a psychic link with animals, awakening their Aura, extra intelligence & having them fight along side her as her familiars. She had tigers :D

Another had her able to make solid, independent duplicates, or at least one that operated as an e extension of her, dividing her power in half, but letting her be in two places at once.

Another was tat she operated a bit like Cortez from X-Men, but in this case she basically cleaved off a chunk of her own Aura and infused it into others to give them extra strength and energy but could also return said power to herself if she wished to, weakening the, especially if they'd become dependent on her enhancements.

There's probably a lot of other ideas and if you folks have any I'd love to hear-em, but those are some thoughts.

[jungianthing]

1, 5, 11, 12, 13, 14, 18, 19, 23, 31, 35, 39

character development questions.

this is really long so it’s going under a cut!

1. How do they move and carry themselves? Pace, rhythm, gestures, energy?     joker is super dynamic in the way he moves about: like, just physically speaking, he walks with a bit of a swagger and he has a kind of confident lope to his step. he’s also pretty high energy when he’s actually moving, but surprisingly still in terms of gestures. he doesn’t really talk with his hands but he does fidget and shift if he’s sitting or standing in one place for too long. he’s the kind of person who has a constant undercurrent of energy running through him and it shows.

5. How do they dress? What styles, colors, accessories, and other possessions do they favor? Why?     in modern verse i have this idea of joker in my head right down to what he wears. i have a few things in his wardrobe tag but generally i’d describe his clothes as colourful with lots of patterns and very bright. he wears his jeans rolled up at the ankles and has one pair of white low-top converse that he’ll wear until they’re completely busted and then just buy a new pair.     he also has a bunch of really stupid tshirts that he’ll wear outside and also recycle as pyjamas. whenever he’s on vacation he really likes hunting down those off-brand shirts that are clearly supposed to be showing like bart simpson or something but because he’s copyrighted it’s a spiky orange kid on a tshirt with a slogan saying DON’T HAVE COW or something. he really loves those. he also will kind of impulsively buy clearly super personalised tshirts that people have left in thrift stores.     most of his clothes are really well-worn and casual-leaning and if he has anything on the more formal side (like pullovers and plain shirts) they’re most likely birthday/christmas gifts from his mom.     he has a really high quality backpack that he’s had for a few years now which he usually has with him most of the time, and the only other static part of his wardrobe is his mickey mouse watch (it’s in the movie too) which he’s had since he was about eight or so. he’s really attached to it out of sentimental value; his mom bought him a rolex for his birthday a few years ago and he caused a huge fight because he took it back to the store instead of wearing it because he already had his mickey watch.

11. How are they vocally expressive? What kind of voice, accent, tones, inflections, volume, phrases and slang, and manner of speaking do they use?     he relies a lot on vocal humour in general. as he says in the book, years of drama classes have made him a mimic. he has a real aptitude for impressions and he can usually pick up on someone’s voice after only talking to them for a few minutes. john wayne was the first person he ever learned to mimic and he has a pretty easily identifiable voice so he falls back on that one a lot, but he can do a whole bunch of impressions.     joker is super loud, and he has a pretty surprisingly high-pitched voice, but he talks fairly slowly and enunciates quite clearly and recently he’s been trying to make a concerted effort not to be so fucking obnoxious. like, he really is trying. because he speaks so slowly and tends to think a while ahead when he’s speaking, he doesn’t really stutter that much and he tends not to trip over his own words unless there’s something getting in the way of coherent thought like overwhelmingly negative emotions.     he also peppers what he’s saying with a lot of internet terminology because he’s just in the habit of it, like he has said “oh worm” in a real conversation before.     also he sings a lot but he cannot sing at all, his singing voice is like the dude from wheatus in teenage dirtbag, it’s absolutely abysmal and i cannot emphasise this enough.

12. How are they bodily expressive? How do they use nonverbal cues such as their posture, stance, eyes, eyebrows, mouths, and hands?     he usually stands pretty straight because he really likes being tall, and he’ll kind of reflexively spread out to occupy as much space as possible if he’s sitting down - like, he’ll spread out his legs or lean back in his chair and throw his arm over the back of it or just lie down on a sofa.     like i said he doesn’t gesture when he talks but he does do a lot of fiddling, he’s restless but he doesn’t gesticulate. he smiles a lot, like big full grins and sort of half-grimaces and he also bites his lip when he’s smiling too.

13. How do they greet the world — what is their typical attitude towards life? How does it differ in different circumstances, or towards different subjects? Why do they take these attitudes, and why do they change? How do these tend to be expressed?     he’s pretty much relentlessly positive? the only time that changes is when he feels that he doesn’t have to be around someone he knows really well. he’ll usually contain negative feelings and emotions and refuse to share them with strangers because he wants to project himself as someone who only Is Funny and Finds Things Funny.

14. What do they care deeply about? What kind of loyalties, commitments, moral codes, life philosophies, passions, callings, or spirituality and faith do they have? How do these tend to be expressed?     he’s a sort of passive atheist in that he doesn’t believe in god but he doesn’t really care either way; his family only used to go to church for christmas and only because of the sense of community. his main loyalty is to people he considers his family, which is his little sister cecilia first and foremost, and then his parents, and his boyfriend ben (@sameriver) and his best friend cowboy (@mousekateer), and then friends like leonard and kennedy. he cares about being happy and being loyal to people who trust him. that’s pretty much it.

18. What kind of person could they become in the future? What are some developmental paths that they could take, (best, worst, most likely?) what would cause them to come to pass, and what consequences might they have? What paths would you especially like to see, and why?     his most likely path for the future is that he’ll maybe mellow out a little; he still has some work to do trying to get over that obnoxious hump he’s been working on for a while. in the last few years of high school he was a huge jerk and it was only his breakup with his girlfriend in college that really made him aware of how he was as a person, so right now he’s trying to fix that. i don’t think there’s anything in his life right now that could cause him to go back to that, because he’s really happy with what he has and he knows he wouldn’t have it if he was still a complete fucking douche.

19. How do they behave within a group? What role(s) do they take? Does this differ if they know and trust the group, versus finding themselves in a group of strangers? Why?     joker takes quite easily to being a leader, but he feels he’s more suited, appropriately, to a sort of ~court jester~ role where he just cracks jokes and whines but generally does what he’s told. he does like to question the person in charge, though. generally he’s the same with everyone, regardless of whether he knows them or not.

23. How do they respond to difficult social moments?     joker’s the kind of person who just rolls with the punches, so if something becomes difficult he’ll just remove himself from it. he’ll usually just try to laugh it off.

31. Is there anything that counts as a “dealbreaker” for them, positively or negatively?     in terms of a relationship, someone who doesn’t get along with him, someone who’s constantly questioning the things he says or the jokes he makes, someone who obviously would be annoyed by him, someone who doesn’t talk straight to him. also hair in the shower drain, he hates that shit, if you leave stray pieces of hair in the shower he will go the fuck off

35. How and why do they internalize knowledge? What effect has that had on them?     idk, i guess when something speaks to him or has some kind of impact on him personally or emotionally? he has a pretty good memory for words and phrases because he mimics them a lot.

39. What sort of questions or thoughts recur in their lives, either specifically or as a theme?     he tends not to question things that deeply, like he is capable of critical thought but if it doesn’t concern him then he’s not liable to lie awake at night worrying over it.

[medianox-astrum]

🕸 1⭐️ 2💡 3🦋 4🐲 5🎨 6📌 7💖 8🖤 9♨️ 10✒️ 11💭 12🎵 13🎇 14🌻 15🌩 16🔑 17💎 18🏆 19🎬 20 reVENGE

>:u !! lol i guess i had it coming

🕸 1. Who’s the oldest character of yours that you still use?

Oh geeze i have a lot of old characters that I don’t use anymore, so the oldest I still keep up with is Marci even though I just made her recently.

⭐️ 2. Who’s the oldest character of yours, defunct or not?

The very first distinct repeated characters I made was when I was in elementary school. It was a dog a cat a mouse and a rat that got up to typical cartoon antics. The dog and mouse were friends but the cat kept trying to get rid of the mouse. the rat showed up later to help the cat. Their names were Princess, Marzipan, Swiss and Cheese respectively. 

💡 3. Has creating a character ever made you realize something about yourself?

Many of my early characters that weren’t like me were not very well developed. More of my recent well-developed characters are typical good people, sometimes with things here and there that relate to me that I can easily point out. It hasn’t been until I’ve started branching out into complex characters that aren’t like me at all, usually more ‘evil’, that I’ve realized my own different moral guidelines if that makes sense.

🦋 4. Any minor characters that have either taken over or branched off into their own stories?

Typically not. I tend to hyper focus on singular characters that any supporting or background characters are usually pretty underdeveloped. 

🐲 5. Do you prefer to make human, animal, monster, or _____ characters? Why?

i have tons of older animal/non-human characters because I usually extensively draw them. Humans are hella hard to draw, especially in dynamic poses, so I used to avoid them. Now almost all of my characters are human, since I’ve focused more on world building and environments, and human life tends to be more complex than animals just doing animal things.

🎨 6. When creating a character, do you come up with the visual concept or the written concept first?

definitely the visual. i make characters and build stories around them.

📌 7. Do you have characters that you know you’ll never use, but can’t bear to get rid of/recycle?

oh plenty. i have lots of one offs that I’ll never do anything with but i just like them, usually because they’re fun to draw.

💖 8. Is there a character that embodies your good traits, or traits you wish you had?

I think Willow is easily the closest to myself in terms of decision making. She cares about helping people but doesn’t take it too far. I definitely wish I had Marci’s cunning and confidence, and perhaps Tori’s ability to dedicate herself to a cause regardless of the outcome.

🖤 9. Is there a character that embodies your bad traits? Several characters? Which ones and what traits?

Hmm, I suppose in a sense Marci’s handling losing poorly and wanting to do everything herself without involving others are some. Most other bad traits my characters have are products of their environment.

♨️ 10. Is there a character that explores your interests or fetishes (orrrr is that just all of you characters)?

Hahhaaha umm…..many of them definitely have skills and abilities I wish I had, but Marci is a succubus after all so….

✒️ 11. If you have characters that embody certain traits of yours—good or bad—has writing them changed how you view those traits? Has it affected you in any way?

I try to remain as separated from my characters as possible, I’m really affected when I come out of their headspace and reflect on their thought processes and decisions, such that I sometimes am surprised by the differences between me and them.

💭 12.  Do you fantasize about being any of your characters, or are you more detached?

I’m not sure I fantasize about being them per say, but again their abilities are pretty kick ass. 

🎵 13. Do you create playlists for your characters?

I don’t go out of my way to make song lists, but i do keep track of songs that are super fitting for them. I managed to find an entire album that fit Marci.

🎇 14. When writing for specific characters, is there anything you have to do to get into the right mindset?

usually I need the right mood music to incite whatever is their main emotion at the time.

🌻 15. Which character is your guilty pleasure?

definitely Akona. She’s raw power fueled by primal instincts. She’s completely unattached  from any worldly ties or responsibilities, her goals are only that what she wants to accomplish. she’s wild, free, and terrifying.

🌩 16. Is there a character of yours who’s a real struggle to write/draw? Why do you think that is?

humans in general are hard for me to draw, writing isn’t as much a problem for me other than the technical side of it. I’m pretty confident in my understanding of my characters, I know what and how they act like. I guess initially it was hard to get into Marci’s headspace, as she doesn’t care at all about other people besides a select few, while I constantly worry about everyone.

🔑 17. Which character is the easiest to draw/write?

probably Willow as again she’s fairly simplistic and similar to me.

💎 18. Is there anything you really wish you could do, character-design-wise, that you feel is outside your current skillset? A concept that you wish you could pull off but are uncertain about?

it always comes to the world building for me. I might have a cool concept for a character but no idea how their world actually works. I’m good at hyper focusing but not so much at larger scaled things beyond general ideas.

🏆 19. What’s more important to you: visual design, unique personality, a trendy character aesthetic, etc? If you’re not sure, then what’s the first thing you usually nail down in a character?

it really depends on the medium. if it’s something like a comic or a unique world-heavy setting, then visual design is super important. if it’s more like a book then complex and interesting personality is essential. for me, i usually pin down attitude first, their facial expression and movements.

🎬 20. Do you ever plan to do anything (comic, animation, etc) with your characters? Or are you just happy to have them?

i’m currently trying to write a book about Marci, I’ve started and stopped quite a few comics. i hope that one day i might get enough recognition that people can just enjoy my characters for what they are rather than having to exert a lot of energy into a medium.