#narrative foils of all time.

[phoenixkaptain]

Novel A New Hope Vader is my favourite Vader (so far) because he Is Anakin, he is everything Anakin is set up to be. He is intimidating, he is overwhelming, standing next to him feels like standing next to a black hole, he is-

The biggest little shit in the entire galaxy.

You canNOT convince me that he didn’t say half his lines with a shit-eating smirk. He is awful to be around, he is the worst person to ever exist, he is SO annoying.

And Novel Vader is so Anakin because the book can give us details the movie can’t. The book gives us the author’s choice of wording, the way the author intended the scenes to be, and Vader is such a little shit almost constantly but my FAVOURITE will always be when Tagge talks back to him about the Force, saying it isn’t as powerful or scary as he makes it out to be and Vader just-

“I find,” Vader ventured mildly, “this lack of faith to be disturbing.”

-the WORD CHOICE. The fucking WORDS chosen.

“Ventured”??? “Mildly”??? He is CHOKING this man!!! This man is DYING!! He is being such a little shit right now, this is it. This is the Him, this is Anakin Skywalker right here. He is using unnecessary force and being a bitch about it and there will never be anything that so perfectly encapsulates Anakin Skywalker than this fucking scene in this fucking novel.

On the topic and as a brief aside, the novel is what makes me think that Leia was planned to be Vader’s kid, or at least a narrative mirror to Vader, right from the start. She is also such an Anakin.

“Darth Vader… I should have known. Only you would be so bold— and so stupid.”

She just… also. Encapsulates Anakin. Like. Yeah. Yeah, this is what he could have been. He could have been a terrifying figure that people rallied behind. He is loyal to the death, as is Leia. She spits on Darth Vader while he’s having her dragged away. She mocks him to his face. This is the character that the Anakin Skywalker of future movies mimics. Her passion, her anger, her being a little shit and insisting throughout everything that it WAS a diplomatic vessel and they WERE on a diplomatic mission.

Leia is the first character to face down Vader in this novel and not show fear. She is the first character who refuses to submit in the face of the scariest guy in the galaxy. She continues to refuse to submit. She’s just. A great fucking liar.

Leia puts all her trust, her very life and the sake of the entire rebellion she’s fighting for, in a droid. An astromech droid. She begs for them to take the droid further, not for them to find her. She’s willing to die, and she trusts her death will not be in vain because she trusts a droid.

And that, if nothing else, is all the proof needed that Leia is what Anakin could have been.

[pankerdotpng]

GUESS WHOS BACK!!!!!!! AND WHOS INTO YTTD NOW!!

[galedekarios]

i hope in about a year-ish, we are ready to talk about how bl**dw**v* is literally the any two white guys trope

[sorenserotonin]

they put crack in the death note manga and its this panel

[ahotknife]

t-shirt that says I <3 DEUTERAGONISTS

[fondcrimes]

maybe it’s just bc I’ve been in some shitty crazy fandoms in the past but the fact that labru is seen as a random yaoi ship with no basis in canon is beyond crazy to me. what more do people want/need… if you don’t believe in subtext just say that 😭 I know most of y’all have no issue shipping aggressively mediocre ships so why do the standards change when a character dynamic simply requires a deeper reading. actually labru is quite straightforward which is even funnier to me

[batsplat]

casey also talks about sepang 2015 what do you think of that

oh in that podcast? uh... lemme listen again...

yeah idk it's not really anything new I'd say? he's said basically all the same stuff in more interesting and extensive ways elsewhere. I think casey inevitably has a very 'well feuding is bad and helps nobody' point of view, has expressed that before in the past, does it here again, and he's also drawn a parallel between himself and marc on several occasions. which... well, of course there's similarities in terms of public discourse or whatever, but the parallel really falls apart whenever casey argues the feuds cost valentino. like, I do think it's sometimes important to just. keep in mind. it's interesting that casey draws this comparison in his mind but that doesn't necessarily means he's right about this. I'm not sure how you'd argue that starting a feud with casey cost valentino anything competitively? you can argue it didn't help him I guess, and then we can have a debate about the ins and outs of the 2008 season. we can also have an argument that in a hypothetical world where casey isn't ill in 2009, valentino doesn't break his leg and casey isn't on a piece of junk in 2010, and valentino isn't on a piece of junk in 2011-12, then actually maybe valentino sparking open animosity with casey COULD have cost him. but we don't know that! didn't happen! I wish we could have found out, but we never got the chance! as it stands, the tally on this is pretty straightforward: casey won the title when things were reasonably civil between them in 2007, and valentino took control of the following season at the exact moment he worsened the relationship between the pair of them in 2008. obviously, it's all more complicated than that and casey would of course argue laguna didn't negatively affect his subsequent performances... but it certainly didn't help them. like, at the very worst valentino escalating tensions in 2008 is a complete net neutral. after 2009, them being bitchy to each other every other tuesday was completely competitively irrelevant beyond maybe affecting how they approached occasionally fighting for a podium position. hey, maybe casey used that feud to fire himself up through sheer spite throughout the later stages of his career, but that doesn't actually support his anti-feud stance - it's basically the exact same thing as what valentino does. they're both quite similar in that regard! always so hungry to prove a point, to show how someone else is wrong. kinda half the point with this feuding business is to get yourself going, get yourself motivated, yeah. he straight up openly admits to using yamaha's repeat rejection of him as a way of giving himself motivation, and at the end of the day that's really not all that different?

anyway, what else does casey say... oh yeah, that him and the other aliens were already kinda prepared for this and had learned vale's tricks. that valentino had only been able to get into the minds of the previous generation. welllllll *wiggles hand* sure, I mean, he did clearly have to change his approach... he couldn't just use the exact same playbook to get to them, either on-track or off-track. but that's why he did change up the playbook... again, whether you want to believe valentino won his final two titles 'in the head' rather than just through pure pace kinda depends on how you assess the evidence, but it is at the very least a debate. and, y'know, it's always worth remembering that valentino's most important mind games with casey didn't happen in a press conference... it was on the track. and the on-track stuff really is just embedded in how valentino approaches winning. speaking of aliens, this is what dani and jorge have said:

like, valentino's entire approach to his riding, even to the way he's setting his bike up, is deliberately about directly fucking with you... he's not actually always trying to be faster than you as much as he's trying to give himself the tools to make your life miserable, to pressure you into mistakes, etc etc... and again, especially with casey (if anything because he was so mentally sturdy), the off-track stuff was really just window dressing. (I know they bicker a lot after 2009 but it's just so fundamentally irrelevant to actual on-track competition.) so you can be aware of those tricks, but it also doesn't necessarily help you when someone's being nasty to you on-track in a way you just fully do not enjoy. which is what it was like for casey! for casey, a lot of this comes back to the truly unpleasant context of how he was perceived by the public, how he was treated as mentally weak or 'broken' or whatever partly because he had the misfortune of coming up against a bloke who had the reputation for breaking rivals. I think it's quite natural to end up with a bit of a hardliner 'actually I've never been mentally affected by a result in my life' stance - and of course casey is a lot tougher than a lot of people give him credit for. that being said. sometimes your rivals affect you, shit happens, it's part of the game. it's fundamentally a nice idea to think that valentino's tactics weren't just morally wrong but also ineffective, which is kind of the appeal of this narrative, right? you want to believe you're above that, you want to believe you were adequately prepared and wise to valentino's tactic. it's unsurprising and understandable that casey does tend to tell the story that way, but again it's *wiggles hand* also hard to describe it as completely factual

uh. what else. oh I'm thrilled casey does canonically know valentino and marc were friends, he has said he wasn't following motogp too much during that time period so you couldn't be sure of that. does this mean anything? does it tell you anything? well, no, but it's just a pleasing thought to me. I like that. oh also 'provoking particularly aggressive riders isn't a good idea' is kinda a funny take from casey? like, he of all people would hate the idea of being cowed by someone's reputation like that... casey's right that provoking fast riders can potentially be dangerous, but y'know I do think that's probably not news to anyone almost nine years later. um. that's all I've got I think

[obliqueletterkennyreference]

its interesting to me how aang appreciators also tend to be zukaang shippers? or vice versa, zukaang shippers tend to be big Aang Appreciators. which is interesting cause i feel like hes the least appreciated character of the main cast generally speaking

[astrid-beck]

Bitches will be like I just really like beau and caleb idk why not for any reason. Yeah I am a neurodivergent student why do you ask

[ultramarine-spirit]

I don't think Jennette is Athy's foil. Their interests are somewhat opposed to each other, but Jennette is not dramatically different from Athy, nor does her character serve to highlight Athy's character.

A foil is a character that, from a narrative point of view, contrasts with another character (usually the protagonist), to highlight their qualities. The foil usually exhibits opposite or conflicting traits, and they serve to better reflect the other character's traits and motivations.

Claude, Lucas and in the manhwa Anastasius have ideas and values that are very different from Athy's, especially regarding family. However, Anastasius is clearly Claude's foil, and Claude is more of a deuteragonist than anything. I could kind of see him contrasting with Athy (because of reasons similar to Lucas', those being, how they chose to deal with their grief), but I think his role is to be Anastasius' opposite.

Lucas fits a little more. He has an extremely similar backstory to Athy's (rejected and neglected by his biological family, kept away from the main house, then abandoned by his teacher, he chooses to "go to sleep" instead of facing his depression). Because of his traumatic experiences, Lucas chooses to freeze his heart instead of risking getting hurt again, which is the opposite of what Athy ultimately decides to do: Accept that she loves Claude and considers him her father, get hurt over and over, but nevertheless try to build a healthy relationship with him based on honesty and trust. This is what changes Lucas, (metaphorically and kind of literally) melts his heart, and makes him fall in love with Athy. However, Lucas is never truly put in a position where he is opposed to Athy. On the contrary, he is the character that stays by her side unconditionally, helps her reach her goals and protects her. That's why his role is the love interest.

I have thought about this topic before, and I always concluded that Athy simply does not have a foil. However, while answering this ask, I realized that there's a much better candidate for that position: LP!Jennette is wmmap!Athy's foil.

They both wanted to be loved by their family, but while Athy wins Claude's heart (at first by acting but shhh) by the sincere feelings of love and the relationship they slowly develop over time, Jennette never truly wins Claude over, unbeknown to her. The thing that makes Claude "love" her is the manipulation of her black magic. Moreover, while both LP!Jennette and wmmap!Athy know that their own good situations hurt the other (LP!Athy, wmmap!Jennette), wmmap!Athy goes very far in trying to befriend Jennette and help her, which can't be said for LP!Jennette (to be clear, she was never actively cruel to LP!Athy, but she also never tried to help her). What reflects their contrast the best is that, both know or learn the truth of their parentage, but Athy ends up telling Jennette the truth. LP!Jennette stays quiet and acts as if she is ignorant (which, as she herself admits, further hurts LP!Athy), because she feels Claude owes her the family and good standing she has, as he killed her real father.

I think the fact that wmmap!Jennette explicitly tells Athy that, if she were in Athy's place, she wouldn't have done what Athy did (comfort her, reach out, and talk to her first), is the novel's acknowledgement of how differently LP!Jennette and wmmap!Athy acted. While both had innocent and understandable desires, and you could say both were selfish in their own ways, LP!Jennette always prioritized her interests over anyone's (this is another conversation, but she also knew Ijekiel didn't love her and was unhappy, but she still kept him as her fiancé because that was her desire), which is the opposite of that wmmap!Athy did. More extremely put: wmmap!Athy saves Jennette from being executed or punished in any way because of the black magic storm she caused at her 18th birthday party. LP!Jennette does not do that for LP!Athy when she is framed. LP!Athy is executed, the day of her 18th birthday.

[myjustice]

humoring the looping implications from furina's salon solitaire character story.

furina has seen clorinde, navia, lyney, lynette, freminet, chevreuse, & all of fontaine dissolve into the primordial water via the great flood once or twice before but since those memories were taken away from her she doesn't remember them, she only vaguely recognizes that some time looping was present.

[4328fox]

Vesperia Ship Week, Day 2 -- Appetizer (Part 2!)

instead of trying to dig too deep, let's turn our attention to the fact these guys get equally ridiculous when talking to each other

seriously, what were they talking about in the dahngrest walker skit

[celestialrealms]

anyway am i really the only person who’s noticed this, honest question:

maybe i’m just biased because i want him to either be nightbringer or just get some actual screentime, but is it just me or is barbatos the only character besides the brothers who is visually represented on the title screen? 

there’s also this:

at the bottom of the official nightbringer website barbatos’s triangle motif in a cyan/turquoise color is once again repeated, along with being on the background to the app store/google play links.  

idk. i am biased because i want him to have an important role as my favorite character, I just think it’s interesting. Maybe I’m reaching, but I haven’t seen it mentioned despite the fact that it stares me in the face every time i open the game  🙈

[doomednarrative]

The thing with the hell bros is that I can and do fully acknowledge that they serve the exact purpose they're meant to in Kabuto. They're foils to Kagami and Tendou in every way and they fit that role well and the ending they get Is fitting for serving that role. I don't think the actual canon should have changed for them, it works as it should.

But.

When it comes to making fan content for them. They are my special guys. And so of course I like to say I'd love to see other ways that things could have gone for them. But thats strictly from a "having fun playing with the toys in my little sandbox" side of fandom and not out of a want to actually see canon be changed.

[dewwshi]

a comic of a couple of my ocs and the dynamic that they have

interaction source!

[faroresson]

Ough thinking about how many times the "Do you think love can bloom on a battlefield" "Yes I do" dialogue was proven right

Like not all the love lasted, and not all of it was healthy. but it was there! Romantic, Familial, Friendly. Metal Gear as a series is just so full of people falling in love with each other in the midst of crisis.

You can literally trace the timeline of the game by the entanglements, fuck you can track the series just on the romances (one sided or reciprocated)