#element specific character tournament

[tourneys-by-me]

Round One - Umbramancy 4/4

Propaganda under the cut (beware of potential spoilers!!)

Brian:

No propaganda :(

Roxy:

Roxy Lalonde is a Rogue of Void. Her powers include general voidy stuff that puts her under the purview of Umbramancy, but as a Rogue, which deals in stealing for the benefit of others, the main way her Void powers manifest is in her ability to *steal the nonexistence from an object*, which equates to being able to just... Make stuff. She also recovered from chronic alcoholism at the age of 16 and has a similar fan-headcanon-quantum-superposition-of-gender situation to Link from Zelda where she is simultaneously coded as transfem and transmasc.

[mini-tourneys]

Welcome to the Sucromancer Tourney!

Here, sugar/candy magic specialists submitted by YOU will be put in a poll and voted on by YOU to see who is the best, wahtever that means.

This was made as a response to @elementspecificcharatourney 's tournament not including sucromancers (No offense to thier tournament, it inspired me to make this one and you should go check it out!), and because I wanted to try out running one of these tournament thingies.

Clarifications:

The charachter has to be a Specialist and it must be thier Main Element. Just because a character uses one sweet attack, dosen't mean their a sucromancer.

Charachters from NSFW media are allowed as long as there is a way for me to pressent them in a SFW way and I can find a SFW picture of them.

Feel free to submit using this google form:

[coles-walloper]

Gosh, I can’t get over how absolutely beautiful the concept art for Tournament of Elements is. Like. I could look at specifically Chen’s ferry, the setting of Zane’s ice dragon nightmares, and the underground noodle factory for… forever!!

And as far as reds and blues go, they just really pop out,,

I realize how prominent the color red was throughout Chen’s tournament house. And how the bright fiery reds contrast to cope blue hues.

And HUH — Skylor is my favorite Ninjago girl so I wanted to note this detail: Interestingly enough, from the concept sketches, her original design looks entirely different than her current.

Pixal’s original concept looks simple on sketch but in implementation would be way more darker than just her being disassembled… the head part esp (poor Pixal!! 😢).

Also leaving on a last note:

A little Sensei Garmadon <33

He was so precious and also very tragic, so I lowkey miss his character & this version of Garmadon!!!

The settings for ToE absolutely wins me over!

[butch-kyouka]

oddly specific hyperfixations for bsd characters

atsushi: hermitcraft

akutagawa: the teen wolf movie

ranpo: ninjago tournament of elements

kyouka: evil pinkie pie

dazai: girl meets world ableism episode

chuuya: joey graceffa escape the night

kunikida: breaking bad poetry

yosano: the victorious prison episodes

gin: pete wentz m

higuchi: the andrew garfield verse

poe: the red lotus from lok

sigma: jubilee middle ground

nikolai: señor wooly.

fyodor: aita sub reddit

kenji: nimona

tachihara: mandela affect specifically the monopoly monocle

lucy: naruto filler

[circlique]

Color Theory in ATLA: Part 1

Let’s talk colors! ATLA is a colorful show! It’s pretty obvious at first glance that each element and thus each nation has a color association. But how else does ATLA use color narratively? Today I’m gonna be doing a little analysis at two levels: surface and narrative. This post will cover the visual, surface level.

By the way, this is actually a propaganda post for @multicolor-fandom-tournament, where you should totally go vote for ATLA in the final. As much as I love Pokemon, I wanna see someone else win a poll for once. Give ATLA some love. Anyway, let’s get started.

For individual characters, there is some pretty obvious color coding/representation going on that is notable. For instance, Ty Lee wears pink and is girly with a bubbly personality. Mai wears dark red and black and tends to be gloomy and serious. Zuko wears red and is often prone to passionate, angry outbursts. Aang wears yellow and tends to be cheery and positive. Sokka, for all his cool collectedness, wears blue. Toph is represented by green and is first introduced as a vision in a swamp, where there are themes of connectedness, growth, and new beginnings. These are all fairly obvious and surface level, so I’m not going to go into them too much.

Beyond individual characters, each nation gets its own color. This is fairly straightforward. Fire is red, air is orange/yellow, water is blue, earth is green. People from each nation wear their nation’s color for the most part, leaving us with recognizable character designs that easily allow us to discern any particular character’s origin.

There are a few other interesting cases where specific colors are reserved for specific things, such as purple, which is only worn by royalty, Princess Yue, and gold, which is used in small accents in the Fire Nation, but larger usages seem to be reserved for the royalty there as well.

However, throughout ATLA and some of the extended material such as the comics and Legend of Korra, the colors a person wears has been further used to show their multiculturalism, and sometimes detachment from culture altogether. In ATLA, there is a travailing music troupe that wears a variety of colors, presumably due to their travels necessitating the need to replace worn out garments with whatever colors are available. In the comics, there is a plot line about conflict arising in the former Fire Nation colonies, where people have been raised in a mix of Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom culture. Some of the people there wear both red and green.

Later on in Legend of Korra, we see that while Republic City is multicultural, many of the people there don’t identify super strongly with any one nation. After all, many of the people there have never lived anywhere but Republic City. As a result, a lot of the Republic City characters such as Mako and Bolin wear more muted colors such as gray. Although their outfits still have accents in their respective bending colors, their outfits reflect their heritage to a place that does not strongly emphasize any one nation’s colors over the others. Notably, Amon and his chiblockers wear gray too, because their entire deal is equality among benders and nonbenders.

Another thing that is heavily color coded in ATLA is eye color. Each nation has a corresponding eye color too. For fire it’s gold/amber, air is gray, water is blue, and earth is green and brown. Eye color is so heavily color coded that it even picks up some narrative importance. When Azula takes over Ba Sing Se, she, Ty Lee, and Mai disguise themselves as Kyoshi Warriors. Katara runs up to then to warn them of the coup, but realizes something is wrong when Azula’s pretty Fire Nation amber eyes flash in the light.

Eye color is used like this in a few other places too. In the Kyoshi novels, there is a character who goes undercover who must disguise his eye color to avoid being discovered. In the Yangchen novel, there is a character from and island in the Mo Ce Sea (which is roughly in the middle of the map) who describes how her home became so cut off from any one nation that she didn’t feel allegiance to any of them. Her eyes are specifically described as hazel/brown, which can be found in all four nations.

Eye color is so heavily nation-coded that it has spawned plenty of fan theories and arguments. Suki, for instance, has green eyes in some art and blue in others. Fans argue about what her eye color actually is, with some suggesting blue-eyes Suki may have Water Tribe heritage due to Kyoshi Island’s proximity to the Southern Water Tribe, and others suggesting it was just an animation error and that they were actually supposed to be green. Another example is Ty Lee, who is a nonbender but has gray eyes, causing many people to speculate she has Air Nomad ancestry. Notably, Zaheer ALSO has gray eyes and later gains the ability to airbend, so the popular theory is that he and Ty Lee may be the descendants of airbenders who survived the initial attack and hid amongst the four nations.

Indeed, different eye color is used to show people with mixed heritage, a notable example being Asami, who has green eyes but is descended from Fire Nationals who settled in the colonies in the Earth Kingdom.

And there you have it! Those are the surface-level uses of color in ATLA. Next time we'll talk more about color theory and narrative usage of color symbolism.

[thenon-fictiondays]

Hirano to Kagiura light novel translation 4-1

Chapter 4: Fall.

Part 1

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It might be September by now, but the sun’s rays know no bounds.

Heat from the weather aside, the schoolhouse on the coattails of summer break is permeated with the fervor of the students.

Among all those in the athletic clubs who have undergone away games and training camps, there are many who have deepened both their tans and their virility. The sense of achievement characteristic of those who kept up with their exercise lives within their growth spurts.

Hirano’s roommate is, once again, one of them.

Kagiura, who’s gotten a bit taller, has gotten used to high school, completely devoid of the anxiety he’d seemed to have around the time he’d started school.

Since they’d met up over the summer, he’s become more and more relaxed, and Hirano can’t help but think of him as a beloved younger brother.

Wait, but younger brothers don’t do things like give you earrings, do they?

Hirano isn’t really in a position to judge, with no siblings of his own.

He’d found his original earrings while organizing his luggage after returning from Kagiura’s countryside home. They’d fallen into his school bag and hidden themselves beneath the stiff bottom plate.

What should I do about it? he’d wondered, but figured well, whatever, and didn’t bother switching out his new ones. He’ll keep them in the dorm just in case, but ultimately plans to keep using the ones Kagiura gave him.

As soon as the new term starts, preparations for the Cultural Festival are full speed ahead. Even the first years, who aren’t used to running events without the guidance of a faculty member, are gradually gaining opportunities to build character. The Executive Committee members have so many responsibilities that it has become difficult to carry out their studies without the cooperation of their classmates.

Kagiura also has the situation of being part of the ‘Sports Recommendation Squad’, and his grades are not up to snuff. It would be good if they don’t take a hit from his extracurricular responsibilities, but that will come down to his own efforts.

It’s not just the Executive Committee members who are swamped. The students in the culture clubs are also at their busiest, and with the autumn tournament right around the corner, there’s no way the athletics clubs can cut back on practices.

The sweltering nights have yet to abate; yet despite these conditions which could even be called cruel, most of the students are eagerly awaiting the Cultural Festival. You might even get away with saying all of them.

Because, after all, girls come to visit the cultural festival. 

And even without that element, a festival is still a festival. 

This is a time when the whole student body is restless, so the Disciplinary Committee will be on top of keeping everyone in line—or such is their public stance, but they won’t be too strict about moderating uniforms and hair styles.

In any case, a high proportion of the students will be in costumes on the day of the festival. 

There's also at least one class cross-dressing every year. 

This year, that’s right, it's the class that Hirano is unfortunately a part of. More specifically, it's been decided that Hirano will be one of the ones in drag. 

Oiwa-san—a famous spirit who makes an appearance in the Yotsuya Kaidan.¹

There are many variations of the famous ghost story, in which Oiwa, the deceased wife, holding a grudge over the betrayal of her husband, Iemon, slaughters every last person involved. Apparently, they will be basing the makeup off of Tōkaidō Yotsuya Kaidan², which is popular among Hirano’s classmates.

He’d been shown reference images of the ghost, her face half disfigured and inflamed by poison, but the picture was nightmare fuel when viewed in the dark.

Supposedly it’s a style of Halloween makeup that’s been popular in recent years, but the trial makeup that had been applied to his arm after school in order to match the shade to his face had been truly grotesque.

This information is to be kept top secret until the last possible minute on the day of, in the interests of building hype.

While Hirano is putting away his homework, the door opens with a click.

His roommate is home.

It’s still bright outside, but the dining hall is just about to open for dinner.

“Hirano-san, I’m home!”

“Welcome home, Kagi-kun.”

These days, Kagiura usually gets a bit bashful in reply to Hirano’s greeting, seemingly tickled. So naive and innocent he must be, making such an expression with no fear of being misunderstood.

There were days they’d spent together, but summer vacation had been long.

There’s an air of a different kind of newness from the one there’d been in the period before they’d gotten used to sharing a dorm—Kagiura probably feels it too. At least, Hirano thinks so.

He feels closer to Kagiura compared to before. After all, he’s met his immediate and extended family, so of course they’d feel more intimate. It’s as if the part of himself that had been on guard while thinking about how to act as a senpai in his second year in the dorms has been absolved.

After Hirano had filled out his print-outs as if in competition with Kagiura, who’d spread out his homework in a frenzy, they’d headed to the dining hall a little later than usual.

It always takes him about 3 or 4 days to get back into the swing of dorm life.

Speaking of which, he thinks.

Before Kagiura moved into the dorms, Hirano had been quite nervous.

He’d talked to Hanzawa about it one time when the Disciplinary Committee had a meeting, and they’d brainstormed strategies to avoid scaring Kagiura off.

He’d also felt it would be a waste of his efforts if he was only friendly at the beginning of their time spent living together; thus, they’d come to the conclusion that it wouldn’t be too far out of Hirano’s depths to give him a nickname and use “-kun”.

Oh yeah, that’s right. At the beginning I called him Kagiura-kun.

He’s been calling his name every day, enough that he’d ended up shortening it, thinking it’s too long and clunky.

Kagiura has morning practice tomorrow, too, so there's no way he can let him oversleep.

Hirano got that, but there was something on his mind that just wouldn’t go away, so he asked before shutting off the lights. 

".....Hey, um. I know you're working hard, so I don't wanna rain on your parade, but are your studies going all right? I haven't heard how your proficiency test went yet."

As the words leave his mouth, he thinks, what am I, a private tutor? and laughs drily to himself.

For the results of the test held right after summer break, a list ranking every student in their grade and the standard score were passed out to each person, the same as for the periodic exams.

For first years, they can be used as nothing more than a reference, but due to the breadth of the material covered, in some cases they might be used to determine which schools to apply to when compared to results from previous cram schools.

“...I just barely passed.”

“What’s the damage?”

“The teacher said, ‘You didn’t do badly enough that I need to pull you aside, but keep working hard’...”

“I see.”

Which is bad in and of itself, really.

Kagiura hangs his head dejectedly, and Hirano’s tempted to comfort him all the more for having seen the extent of his efforts, but his lack of preparation is unmistakable.

“Kagi-kun, after the cultural festival is over, you gotta step it up. If you miss some of the notes, get someone to show you theirs before the next day. Don’t let them build up. If you end up with a backlog of notes to take, you’re not gonna be able to understand them.”

Hirano knows deep down he’s probably worrying too much, but he keeps the expression on his face stern. The beginning is the key to everything. Among his classmates in the ‘Sports Recommendation Squad’ who, like Kagiura, are bad students, there are many whose grades plummeted after going on to their second year.

Who knew he’d become this much of a worrywort after becoming someone’s senpai?

“Yeah…Hirano-san, will you teach me again?”

“Sure. But you better bring back good grades.”

“I will! …By the way, can I ask you something?”

He ducks his head as he asks the question, a gesture with all the charm one would expect from someone as cute as him.

“What’s up?”

“When you were a first year, did the senpai you roomed with teach you how to study, too?”

“Nah, no way.”

“Hm…did you not get along?”

“It’s not that we didn’t get along, we just weren’t really that close. I wasn’t nearly as friendly a kouhai as you are.”

This is usually the case for dorm students. Hanzawa, contemptuous of homosexual relations, has a reputation in certain circles for having a finely-tuned gaydar and showing up to cockblock any time he senses anyone getting a little too close.³

His distaste isn’t unwarranted; apparently it has to do with his family, so even Hirano feels bad for him.

“...Does that make me special, then?”

“Why are you so happy about that?”

At Hirano’s jests of what are you, a dog? Kagiura breaks into a grin.

“Yeah. You know, I’m glad I’m your roommate, Hirano-san.”

Hirano smiles wryly; Kagiura’s got him wrapped around his little finger without a hint of insincerity.

With Kagiura cozying up to him like this, he doesn’t stand a chance.

*****

T/N: (1) Not sure I need to add more info on this to the story, but it's pretty interesting, so you can read more about it here.

(2) A movie based on the story made in 1959.

(3) Yall....idek what to say about this. I tried to keep the tone lighthearted but the original text literally says 'gay-hating Hanzawa' and describes his feelings as disgust. Idk why the writer put this but our boy is NOT like that 😭 I actually broke my vow of not looking at the official TL just to see how they handled this bit and they completely watered it down lmao. and tbh, yall know my dedication to accuracy but I WAS TEMPTED. While going back and forth about what I should do, I told my sister about it, and she suggested that Hanzawa doesn't actually hate gays, he just hates gay sex and will stand for none of it in his dorm so...we're going with that interpretation 💀🙃💀🙃

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Special shoutout to @jeizet, @jujupanic, @massyworld, @umbreonwolfy, and @acidsuzanne-blog for sponsoring these updates 🙌

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 07/09/2023

Bigger at Night (Chung Yard)

Season 4 Episode 2 Featured on: SiIvaGunner's Highest Quality Rips: Volume for Wii U

Ripped by MtH

BIG CHUNGUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's kind of funny to see just how naturally Big Chungus, the demon itself, slotted into being a core part of the SiIva meme line-up. The meme, obviously, has cemented itself due specifically for how unfunny and Reddit-coded it was, something with no real comedic value beyond making fun of its oversaturation akin to something like Pickle Rick. During Season 4 Episode 1, Big Chungus suddenly showed up in a couple rips in April - a solid four months after the meme had effectively exploded and already became tiresome to a lot of people. KFaD2 took advantage of this and turned the meme, along with a certain bandicoot and echidna, into a joke contestant - a character representing the idea of "dead memes" being remembered purely out of irony. And as I've said before, if Season 4 Episode 1 was the competition, then Season 4 Episode 2 was the celebration.

After the tournament was over, and Cool Meme Team had made themselves known to the SiIva audience...Big Chungus started showing up again. More than even during the tournament, he sort of just became another meme in the roundup, and at this point most everyone was on board. The four or five songs used in association with the characters offer such a wide spectrum of melodies to use in interesting and funny ways, and rips like Bigger at Night (Chung Yard) show how the meme had gotten past just having ironic appeal. Its a genuinely incredible, authentic-sounding arrangement, to the point of even being used in its album release video's list of examples of just how good rips have gotten over the years. MtH has this touch for quality that is just indescribable.

As mentioned before, a big appeal of Big Chungus rips in particular to me is just how many songs the meme comes packaged with - its mainly using the aptly named Big Chungus song by CG5 as its lead melody, but later switches in elements of both BIG CHUNGUS | Official Main Theme by Endigo and Big Chungus by The Slopster as the rip progresses. A kind of variety gets to be injected into this already high-quality arrangement without having it lose focus from the core joke.

That joke, of course, being the very sensible and sane "What if Big Chungus was in Shovel Knight". SiIva truly is wonderful for enabling things like this happen - and for it to always be of such high quality.

[absolutelynotsanebaby]

hello! I would absolutely love to hear more about your ninjago high school au! you art is just so pretty and the idea looks intersting

HI IM SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG TO RESPOND TO FRHFWRIWOFFHEWIO im so bad </3 but as for the au!!

it's pretty simple lmao, just a fun mostly light highschool AU. its like...my take on the movie almost (<- doesnt like the movie much). secret identities. Some more specific character stuff is

cole, nya, and jay r pretty infamous for getting into fights, cole because he's a bit of a punk kid (in the 90s old man on his yard yells at u way), Nya because she doesn't take NADA! and jay by accident he doesn't know how he does it. these three are their own little trio is the wider group too :)

Zane and lloyd tend to be around each other a lot because of studying, Zane is very much a helpful guy to have around in that regard (walking computer) so lol

Cole and morro are buddies actually in a like. gossip way. morro knows everything (for no reason) and cole gets his info from him.

Jay's a skater kid, eats shit all the time so he's constantly covered in bandages

Kai thinks he's so cool and is absolutely one of the 'popular kids' and frequently says the rest of the ninja are "losers" and "destroying his image" and then plops down to eat lunch undisturbed. popular kid guard dog core

Zane doesn't die but he DOES get kidnapped and it sparks a "tournament of elements but there's a lot more complaining about missing school" arc

Lloyd is stressed, he's freshman. u get it

parent wise: lily is still passed (AND cole and lou are still working thru that and their relationship), Jay is still adopted, lloyd was still in a boarding school for a while (which I hope explains enough), Dr. Julien is passed too (zane is under Wu's custody) but Kai and Nya have their parents (but they're very busy with work, trying to make ends meet)

thats all for now :)

[skippygiraffee]

I can't speak on the gameplay elements of the game itself (since I'm someone who decided to purposefully beat my GBA Sapphire game with a team of 6 Skitty because they were my fav Pokemon at the time), but I think SWSH excels in one specific element: the characters

my enjoyment of Pokemon games comes mainly from the story and characters, which is why I actually tend to enjoy the newer games, and I think SWSH does a fantastic job of just letting the characters tell the story of the region. each gym leader and their ties to the town they're in (looking at Piers mainly, but also Milo, Nessa, Opal, even Raihan's job in Hammerlocke), the way Sonia uncovers the mysteries of Galar with the character while also going on her own personal journey, and Leon trying his best to shield kids from falling into the same pitfalls he did and ultimately failing because he can't save everything like he was built up to believe he could. Hop is one of the best rival characters, and I adore his own development as a person after losing to the player. same with Bede and Marnie. the League Cards were also an amazing touch, giving more insight into who these people are, and I just enjoy seeing all of them interact together in the Star Tournament (though I know that's DLC exclusive, but still)

the characters just make it for me, and I'm happy to have seen them and experienced their stories

[tourneys-by-me]

Round 6 (Bonus!) - The Elemental Free For All

[coffeeisfortheresponsible]

i can’t find it but someone asked me about my ninjago wings of fire au a while also so here it is!!!

i uhh kind of abandoned this au?? not because i lost interest in it or that i never finished it but just bc i can’t draw dragons lololol

BUT I THINK IT IS SO COOL AND I HAVE SO MUCH TO TALK ABOUT

basically each wings of fire tribe/region is associated with a specific season/seasons so!

sea kingdom- seabound + possession

characters:

nya: seawing, princess

maya: seawing, queen

trimaar: seawing, king, dead

benthomaar: seawing, prince

morro: seawing

kalmaar: seawing, prince

misako: seawing

sky kingdom- sons of garmadon + tournament of elements

characters:

kai: skywing, fire-scales

ray: skywing

harumi: skywing

skylor: skywing, princess

chen: skywing, king

amber: skywing, queen, dead

clouse: skywing

garmadon: nightwing/sandwing

sand kingdom- skybound + hunted

characters:

faith: sandwing

ronin: sandwing/mudwing

nadakhan: sandwing, king

delara: sandwing, queen

clancee: rainwing

dogshank: mudwing

doubloon: sandwing

mud kingdom- master of the mountain

characters:

cole: mudwing, prince

lily: mudwing, queen, dethroned

lou: mudwing, king, dethroned, dead

fungus: mudwing, animus

plundar, sandwing

vangelis: icewing/mudwing, king, illegitimate

vania: icewing/mudwing, princess, illegitimate

kataru: mudwing/icewing

rainforest: prime empire

characters:

jay: rainwing

pixal: rainwing

cliff: rainwing, king, dethroned

scott: rainwing

libby: rainwing, queen, dethroned

racer 7: rainwing

okino: rainwing

unagami: rainwing, dictator

ice kingdom- ice chapter

characters:

zane: icewing

dr. julien: icewing, animus

vex: icewing, dictator

akita: icewing/mudwing

outside of kingdoms

wu: sandwing/nightwing

lloyd: 1/2 seawing, 1/4 nightwing, 1/4 sandwing

mistake: last pure nightwing, animus

for clarification,

nya, benthomaar, and kalmaar are siblings

kai and nya are not related and maya and ray have never met

pixal and zane are not robots, zane is still dr. julian’s son, but cyrus borg does not exist

lloyd is still misako and garmadon’s son but is being trained by wu

garmadon and wu are brothers

nightwings are basically oni, and are nearly extinct except for mistake

kataru and akita are still siblings but live in different tribes

jay is the son of libby and technically a prince, but rainwings do not keep track of their eggs and therefore he is not aware of this

garmadon moved to the sky kingdom to train under chen a long time ago, but later left and was cursed by clouse to slowly lose his sandwing traits and turn evil. harumi heard of these stories and left to go find garmadon bc she believes he can overthrow chen and make her queen

morro and harumi are more like antiheroes than villains

there’s like a ton more lore and i honestly have the full thing fleshed out so please ask me questions if you’re interested and i’ll try and make some art for it!!!!!

[nocturnalfandomartist]

What if there was a Minish Cap sequel?

Journey to the Minish Realm

I was a little unsure whether to post this to Untold Myths or not, but decided to post it here. Basically what happened:

And now I'm a little obsessed with the idea.

Story

Exactly one year after The Minish Cap arrives the next Picori Festival. Link anticipated Zelda would ask him to go with her,

The tutorial section would be Link preparing for the tournament, which he actually gets to compete in this year... After the Minister practically begged him to keep an eye on Zelda while she watches over the whole thing, anyway. For the tournament, Link uses a replica of the Picori Blade rather than the Four Sword.

At the peak of the festival, when Link finds he is at the final two, the opponent set for Link is suddenly injured– too much to compete. As they try to find a replacement opponent, a lone silhouette volunteers after a rather dramatic entrance using a wind spell. They are none other than Vaati, who has mysteriously returned from his defeat... But his form is corrupt and indefinite, constantly leaning between his humanoid form and the monstrous one he was slain in. The husk of who was once a great sorcerer seems overly confident despite the fact he can barely hold himself together, proclaiming a rematch is in order. Although the Light Force was removed from him, somehow a portion of the monster form's power has lingered with him.

Link, although alarmed, prepares for a fight... But Zelda quickly intervenes to protect Link. Vaati is only more provoked by seeing her after he failed to contain the Light Force after draining it from her, about to attack her as well. However, he stops himself as a different idea comes to mind. Using a power unknown to the pair at the time, he manifests his own version of the Minish Door, knocking Zelda right through it and following after daring Link to join them.

Without a moment's hesitation, Link races through the door after Zelda. He awakens in the Minish Realm, managing to find Zelda after she evaded Vaati. The two now find themselves in a world they have never seen, and seek out an old friend to help them return home... And stop the revived Vaati.

Worldbuilding

The Minish Realm is structured like a mix of Hyrule in MC and FS. While vast, it features a lot of areas tied to a specific element.

Other Ideas

Guide character Zelda, Spirit Tracks style...

I call MC Link "Pico", so someone might give him that as a nickname.

There are four types of Minish in the Minish Realm, the ancient sages that proceeded Ezlo being responsible for the Picori Blade. There are Forest Minish, like in Hyrule, Snow Minish, Fire Minish, and Wind Minish. Vaati was a Wind Minish before his descent.

Ezlo has refused to take an apprentice after Vaati. Although he does miss teaching, especially after departing from Link, he unadmittedly worries about pushing another one down the wrong path. Unfortunately for Ezlo, a ton of younger Minish have heard how he helped a hero in Hyrule like the old Sages... And now they all want him to be their teacher.

Other Minish Sages will be present. Three, to be exact. Ezlo is the Minish Sage of Forest/Earth, but there is also one of Ice, Fire, and Wind.

Ezlo can turn into a bird similar to his cursed cap form. He claims Vaati gave him the idea...

[neversetyoufree]

I just realized that there are a lot of similarities between FMA and VnC; from certain characters and their dynamics to story beats. And that’s because Mochijun’s inspiration was Hiromu Arakawa. Isn’t that right?

Hey anon, I'm super interested to hear what dynamics and story beats you think parallel between FMA and VNC, because I'm personally having trouble thinking of any? Like I genuinely really want to hear more about this idea and what connections I'm missing.

I suppose you could make the small angry+strong sunshine duo comparison between Ed and Al and Vanitas and Noé, but just about every other thing about their dynamic is very different lmao. It's been a hot minute since I read FMA though, so I could be forgetting something.

As for Mochizuki being inspired by Hiromu Arakawa, I actually didn't know that until you said it here! I did some googling, and here's an interview (in French lol) where she talks about that for anyone else curious. Thanks for the fun fact, anon :D. I know they've also talked in public before about being fans of one another's series, which is extremely cute. It's always exciting to me to see the creators of things I enjoy supporting one another's work.

That said, though, I'm not sure how much I think FMA was an influence on VnC specifically? Mochijun has talked about her inspirations for VnC, and a lot of it came from Interview with the Vampire, Sherlock and Watson, and her actual visits to Paris. I suppose the whole thread of Paracelsus and the Babel Incident could be inspired by Van Hohenheim's whole deal? But we know so little about all that right now that it's hard to say if there's much parallel beyond "mysterious alchemical history."

Now that I've finished saying, "huh, I dunno about that" in various tones to every part of your post, though, I do have one way that I agree FMA and VnC are similar! I have a longer post about this in my drafts that I might dig up someday, but I think they're similar in the way that they approach their shonen/action elements.

Shonen tends to often be really driven by fights/action. The characters want to get stronger, and the process by which they get stronger forms the heart of the series. It's why training and tournament arcs are such staples lmao. With FMA and VnC, however, the action isn't really the series' core. There are a lot of fight scenes in both, but the fighting and getting stronger is never really the point.

I hesitate to get more into the specifics of what I mean by this now because, frankly, I haven't reread FMA in like six years, and I'm almost certainly going to forget something big and/or say something wrong if I try to talk about it in too much detail. But I hope you can kind of get what I mean?

They're both series that are very invested in forcing their characters to examine certain themes and question themselves. To be a little reductive, FMA is about ethics and VnC is about death and salvation. It's just that sometimes the means by which Ed, Al, Noé, and Vanitas are forced to question those ideas is by fighting.

A lot of shonen (though certainly not all) falls into the category of "stories about action and fighting that also have themes," whereas FMA and VnC are more "stories about themes that also have action and fighting."

[parachutingkitten]

Here's my sin:

I didn't really care for Prime Empire at first. Same with Tournament of Elements and Skybound. I'm not sure why now that I've warmed up to them; they're pretty great seasons -- not my favorites, but still.

Also, I'm not sure if this counts, but Clutch Powers had no reason to be in the Ninjago universe. They could've made up a whole new character for that role and it would be fine, but no, they decided to pull in an already notable Lego character and turn him into a walking pile of shit

prime empire got BASHED when it was airing. there was so much complaining on the tag. most everyone seems to like it more on rewatch. Skybound, you can have almost any take on it and it's not out of the norm. Now ToE on the other hand... that's a fandom fav, that might be worthy of a sin. Make a season 4 appreciation post of some kind, and you're good. can be as general or specific as you like.

You are definitely not alone on the clutch powers thing though. I do like the character they invented for him but, yeah, from what I've heard, no reason this character should be clutch.

if you have a sin you would like to confess, please direct it to @ninjago-sins

[genshin-design-poll]

Genshin character design tournament- Faruzan vs Yun Jin

Please judge based on visual appearance alone, not your attachment to the characters.

Context:

Faruzan is a wily and distinguished professor of language, specifically how it pertains to ancient machines. She is from a region based on China and her element is Anemo (air)

Yun Jin is a skilled and thorough Chinese opera director. She is from a region based on China and her element is Geo (earth).

[mdhwrites]

I think a major part of my frustration with Luz's character arc (if it can be called that) is that I think the best character arcs often involve the character starting at a place where there is something they are wrong about or there is some flaw they need to grow from. Anne from Amphibia (and Sasha and Marcy as well) is a great example of how to do this well. But Luz never really has her fundamental beliefs or character challenged except I suppose in Episode 2 of the show when she learns she's not a chosen one. (Which as you've pointed out before is arguably undermined by some of the chosen one-like tropes she falls into later anyway.) There's nothing (according to the show) that she was wrong about or needed to change her mind about or needed to grow in any way from. The only thing she learns is that it's okay for her to be herself. Which, uh, pretty sure she already knew that in Episode 1? "Us weirdos stick together" and "no one should be punished for who they are" and all that? So really she learned nothing. I like Luz well enough and I find her charming (when she's not pointlessly angsting about ~helping Belos~ anyway) but come on, that's no way to write an interesting main character. Anyway that's my two cents, any thoughts on the matter? 🦎

So this is great in conjunction with my earlier blog because it is effectively a question about what you prioritize or think is important in a main character. What parts of character analysis do you care about? But I talked about character analysis in general this morning. Let's talk main character analysis. And yes, I've done this before somewhat with talking about if Luz is a good protagonist but didn't talk about main characters and arcs. So why don't protagonists usually have a more defined arc than the characters around them? That answer is actually pretty simple: The more defined they are, the less you can do with them. The character might say no a plotline or not react correctly to another character who needs them to behave in a specific way for their plotline. The more their character demands actual attention, the harder it is to tell the rest of the story since they are theoretically the focal point of the story. Frankly, this happens with Luz. Part of why S2B struggles to FUNCTION, let alone S3, is because Luz is demanding attention when before now she didn't. She was there, she might do things but the character she was interacting with, or the element of the world, was what came first. The most immediate example post Yesterday's Lie of this is actually the beginning of Elsewhere Elsewhen. Lilith just got hired to be a historian... But Lilith is a plot device almost as much as the time pools are in that episode. That's why Luz misses most of the party because the show wants to claim she's doubling down on her angst and worries and so she's finally actually putting more work towards figuring out what's going on. If the mouse hadn't spoken up, it's questionable if she would have gone to the party at all. And that sucks for Lilith's character because she HAS to be simplified than in order to not take up too much attention from what Luz is doing and her personal plot line. She's a gag character mostly in that episode for that reason because Luz is the dramatic anchor now despite this episode featuring what is theoretically a large change for Lilith in accepting a position DRASTICALLY lower than her original one. Reaching Out suffers similarly. It is theoretically about Amity's relationship with her father but Luz's angst is such a priority that Amity even struggling in the tournament isn't allowed because that would take too much time away. Luz can't properly react to Amity because the writers are so focused on her keeping this secret. Worst yet, to both Reaching Out and Falls and Follies, is that the writers can't have Luz actually stop lying so despite Amity asking Luz to stop TWICE, that can't have an impact on anything because they will not let Luz get past this. If she does, Hollow Mind's aftermath either is instantly resolved and we don't get her trying to stay in the human (which boy if that wouldn't have been nice) or becomes far more complex and has negative ramifications as characters have to now treat Luz differently based on the new information. Frankly it's a problem with ALL the character writing in TOH. Statements and future plans matter more than what the characters might actually do or real growth. This is also why characters are replaced as much they grow into new versions of themselves. Momma Eda is incompatible with her old self unless more thought and more complex answers are put into how she handles new problems dictated what she theoretically grew into. It's better to just forget most of what Eda does in S1 instead and just accept the new characterization.

And when your form of character arcs through replacement, that's a REAL problem for your main character. They dictate the tone and focus of the show after all. They have to change by inches without throwing the entire thing out of whack. And MOST people agree that S2B feels entirely different from the rest of the series, if not also S3 in general. And yeah, that's gonna happen when everyone has to now deal with an angry, upset, lying, secretive ball of emotions that is what Luz became in S2B. All while not being allowed to actually influence these emotions because the resolution is only allowed in S3. And halfway through it at that! Frankly, I would argue that instead of the issue with Luz being that she had no arc (and it's fine if that is the bigger deal to you. Arcs are compelling and spending too much with a main character who never changed is what made me eventually stop watching Randy Cunningham: Ninth Grade Ninja) but that when they tried to change her, they put no real thought into it. Despite this being their main character, their core, they treated Luz like they do any plot point, any character arc, any theme. It's just to make a statement and to try to prove it's better without the thought needed to make it better than other shows. And you do that to your main character and you are going to kill your story. ========

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I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead, If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

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