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neoflect · 2 months

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sharing some of my disorganized jojo musical thoughts now that ive had a week to sit on it and ive rewatched it several times over. i intended to wait to publish something like this until a subtitled version was available, but im not seeing any indication that thats happening any time soon so for now youll have to deal with my loose interpretations from my extremely rudimentary and rusty japanese… so take what i have to say about the finer points of characterization with a grain of salt. gratuitous spoilers below obviously, both for the original source material and the changes made in the stage production

my feelings are OVERWHELMINGLY positive. of course there are things i can criticize or that i would have personally done differently but oh man… i have literally not thought about anything besides this fucking show for a week. im 100% confident in saying this is a better adaptation of the source material than the tv anime. sorry to the davidpro staff, i respect their hard work and their love for jojo and their dedication to what is by any metric a pretty difficult property to adapt off of the page, but i dont know if i can ever forgive them for leaving half of the first episode’s storyboard on the cutting room floor in order to fit a standard half-hour tv slot, especially considering that what they cut is some of the really crucial character-building stuff. happily those scenes are not only reproduced in the stage version, some of them are expanded upon!

with the quick disclaimer that i’ve only managed to get my hands on the final 4/14 performance with shotaro arisawa and yoshihisa higashiyama, from what i’ve seen the casting is perfect. i’m sure there’s a rip of the 4/13 performance somewhere (i’ve seen clips) but i haven’t been able to find one… every single performer knocks it out of the fucking park, the cast chemistry is incredible and even the minor characters are loaded with charisma. and mamoru miyano… my god… mamoru miyano i owe you an apology. i was not familiar with your game. of course hes been killing it for decades at this point but i had soured on him a little bit recently because i felt like he was overcast in everything and i just didnt connect with his dnt reinhard at all, so when the casting was initially announced back in august i was underwhelmed, and of course my standards for the dio role in particular were astronomically high… i’ll go more into detail later in the post because i have so so many things to say about dio’s characterization here but mamoru miyano’s performance is like, life-changing. i had impossible expectations and he exceeded them.

sorry if im gushing. i am a hater by nature. its unusual for me to be so thoroughly pleased with something. im not even a musical theater guy. these are strange new feelings for me.

just to balance things out i’ll talk about a couple of the things that didn’t really work for me: first of all, the music is just ok. my initial draft of this post called the music “bad” but three additional viewings later i have warmed up to some of the songs. i don’t know if this is a shortcoming by dove attia as the composer or if it’s just me, as i said i’m not a musical guy and a lot of the genre conventions of musical theatre are not really the things i look for in music that i enjoy, but like… even at their worst they are serviceable. nothing here is sonically unpleasant to me. high points are “resolve of the ripple” (zeppeli’s hamon training song, a jazzy swing number - it’s simply catchy and fun to listen to) and the closer “phantom blood” (a sweeping ballad that reprises the earlier “light and darkness”/”golden spirit” leitmotifs into an epic duet between jonathan and dio as they join hands and walk off into the darkness together… made me cry! i wont lie! on every single one of my numerous viewings this one got me misty eyed!)

wait i forgot this is supposed to be the part where i’m being critical. ok my most loathed song in the musical is “dio’s world”. sorry dio nation. it doesn’t really work for me. i think this might be a case of my standards/expectations being too impossibly high because it’s not even really the worst song in the whole thing. and of course miyano eats it up so it’s not really his fault. i just find it kind of underwhelming… i find the melody a little grating, it’s kind of just a generic rock number, it’s just missing a particular je ne sais quoi…. the essence of dio isn’t there… lyrically though i am obsessed with the premise of dio recruiting his minions by selling himself as a kind of social revolutionary who is upending and inverting the brutal hierarchy of post-industrial victorian society with zombie blood magic. you win some you lose some.

the second sticking point for me is the costumes. they’re perfectly serviceable… adequate… but i mean when it comes to jojo “serviceable” and “adequate” costume design obviously falls well below what’s expected, right? a lot of the outfits have kind of a boxy, almost flat-looking kind of unflattering fit on the actors, which if i wanted to be generous i could attribute to the challenge of bridging the gap between these frail slender musical theater twinks and the two-meter-tall 250lb roided-out beefcakes theyre meant to be embodying. (bearing this discrepancy in mind a lot of the insane martial arts stuff in the second act doesn’t really land with the oomph that it should, but i also understand logistically why this kind of casting is not practical, and all things considered i think shotaro arisawa does a really incredible job of embodying jonathan joestar even though he kind of looks like i could snap him in half over my knee like a twig. he’s very cute. so i’m not mad about it.) of course, again, logistically, i understand that in a stage musical production, where actors only have minutes to complete costume changes, some sacrifices have to be made to the creative vision in the name of practicality. nevertheless this is jojos bizarre adventure!! i want to see some fucking baubles!!!!!!

which is all to say that… after carefully considering it for some weeks… i still have extremely mixed feelings about dio’s grink ass feather bathrobe look. it’s not that i dont think its something he could wear (the concept of dio lounging around in his gothic vampire palace doing re-animator style body horror experiments on the local wildlife in this “officer i have no idea what happened to my husband”-ass nightgown is nothing short of hysterical to me) but then he wears it into combat and i felt a little disappointed… it has the same unflattering fit issue as the other outfits in the show, and it is just such an un-araki-like design… where are the gaudy color combinations? the bizarre geometric patterns? the tease of an exposed boob/thigh/midriff? erina gets a stage-original dress design that i have fewer issues with because the excessive pleats and ruffles have more of an araki-esque sensibility, but every time i look at dio’s robe it feels like there’s something missing. i’m going to choose to be nice about it because it’s not at all a deal breaker and, again, mamoru miyano devours the look. it’s fine. it’s always fun to have a new dio outfit. if anything, the fact that the blu-rays are being marketed as “2024 cast version” gives me hope for the possibility of a future production with a new vision for the costume design. (although the fact that this was such a difficult production - with stunts and pyrotechnics and moving setpieces - that its entire first week was cancelled indicates to me that the prospects for a future production from a different company are impossibly slim. i guess there’s always hope?)

in terms of the writing and the changes that were made from the original narrative, honestly i don’t really have an issue with anything that was cut. sorry if there are any diehard stans of Poco’s Unnamed Sister out there who are steamed that their favorite minor late phantom blood character got the axe, i kind of understand how you feel because i’ve been malding over david pro cutting the Danny Lore for eleven years, but i think it was the right choice and the story flows so much better. the real juicy meat at the core of phantom blood as a narrative and the thing that brings it head and shoulders above so much of the rest of jjba is the character-driven drama - that deliciously pulpy victorian gothic family tragedy - and the relationship between jonathan and dio. the musical beefs up the character drama and slims down the action-driven second half by trimming out the extraneous battles. the only real downside i see to this is that the absence of tompetty and his prophecy makes zeppeli’s arc and death feel INSANELY abrupt, but tbf that’s not a deal breaker for me. sorry zeppeli. you were born to die.

okay. okay. i think 1500 words into the post is enough fucking around so let’s talk about the real reason why you and i both know we’re here

musical dio is SO fucking sad. he’s positively wretched, you guys. he was born in a wet cardboard box all alone and forced to eat cement when he was six. he cries even more than he does in the source material and even when he’s not crying he frequently delivers his lines as though he is moments away from bursting into tears. back when the musical first opened i was snooping on the reactions on jpn twitter and one commenter said they could see miyano’s tears and snot from the nosebleeds even without opera glasses, a remark i initially assumed was hyperbole but that i now think probably was not. araki’s dio is certainly tortured and a deeply pathetic crybaby beneath all the cruelty and posturing, but changes in the musical and miyano’s embodiment of the character bring this pathos to the fore. he is literally haunted: dario’s ghost lingers, a manifestation of all of dio’s traumas and insecurities that emerges from the recesses of his memory to taunt him with the reminder that he will always be his father’s son, all the way up until the very minute that jonathan breaks down the door to his vampire lair. i am OBSESSED with this - not only for the obvious reason that i delight in dio’s suffering personally but also because kong kuwata is a delight and he fucking kills it every time. also lends itself to a category 10 leitmotif moment at the top of the second act when dio emerges from the charred ruins of the joestar estate singing dario’s theme and calling out to jonathan - if i had to pinpoint this is probably the moment when this musical stuck for me as the Real Deal. they Get It.

the first solo number in the show is dio’s disney princess I Want song (amazingly, simply titled “dio”) where he weeps for his late mother and his wretched lot in life, and then - in a creative decision that made me clap my hands and hoot and holler at my screen in real life - there is a reprise of this number (delivered, naturally, through tears) when dio is almost arrested for murder and decides to become a vampire instead. so there’s this amazing hopeful uplifting inspirational orchestral music accompanying the onstage action of dio ruthlessly slaying jonathan’s dad and then getting pumped full of lead by a bunch of cops. it is brilliant. 10/10 no notes. it’s moments like this that i think really sell the “softening” of dio in the stage version for me, even though i am historically Not A Fan of fanworks that take a similar angle - like, yes, he is sad, but specifically he is narcissistically obsessed with the spectacle of his own suffering, he is boiling over with bitterness and rage for everyone around him who (by his own estimation) could never hope to have suffered as much as he has. this sensitivity and self-pity he wallows in are not expressions of a guilty conscience or a desire to change - they’re entirely the opposite - every cruel and monstrous deed dio commits is always justified to himself because he is simply the saddest little boy who has ever existed. he has been done wrong by the world and so there is no limit to the depravity he may reasonably respond with. i’ve seen several commenters describe this as a drastically different interpretation of the character from araki’s dio (and someone told me on twitter that mamoru miyano himself has also said this, but i cba to go digging for an actual source so take it with a grain of salt?), but i… dont think thats the case! dio’s obsession with his own weakness and his self-perception as the eternal underdog (as compared to jonathan) are certainly more exaggerated in miyano’s performance, but i don’t think this is an angle to the character that’s been manufactured out of whole cloth. the genre conventions of the stage musical force the melodrama up to eleven and dio’s incredibly repressed angst is the most rich vein to mine for that. hair-trigger sadist dio is still here, it’s the same guy, he’s still killing people mercilessly, you’re just getting to see him sing a big ballad about his feelings instead of confining those to an internal monologue.

if anything, the exaggeration of dio’s pathetic/cowardly/crybaby traits combined with his megalomaniacal aspirations and bottomless well of cruelty is just right. it’s perfect. fucking around, finding out, and then trying to weasel his way out of the consequences with crocodile tears just so you don’t see him drawing his knife to cut you clean open… yeah. thats the stuff. thats my one true blorbo. sad to say i will love him for ten thousand years.

i think that might be all i have to say… or at least all i feel like saying here… most likely ill come back and edit this post later. i certainly have some additional thoughts and some more esoteric/controversial takes but they’re not suited for a public blog. real ones will understand. im keeping my eyes peeled for somebody to translate this thing but to be frank i am kind of enjoying this little corner of fandom as it is right now: just the asians and the true hardcore phantom blood phreaks. i have not had this much fun in jojo fandom in almost a fucking decade. as soon as somebody publishes an english version my timelines going to get flooded with all the most deeply annoying “kono dio da” “speedwagon waifu” reddit guys and 15 year olds and my suffering will proceed. unfortunately this is my lot in life and i am doomed to be here forever because dio put a worm in my brain

#⚰️#jjba tag for blacklisting purposes but i dont want this in the main tag

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inkdemonapologist · 3 months

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nobody asked but since I've seen a lil chatter on the DCTL Graphic Novel on tumblr too, here's the thread I posted on twitter, speaking as someone who's done a little freelance work as a comic artist, under the jump:

Main thought about the DCTL graphic novel preview is: yeah, I've made designs like that when I was being paid by the page and expected to just throw in extra design work for free and I have a deadline and no time to scour the source material or really put my heart into the design No shade to the artist; every complaint I have about the pages we've seen is that this looks like someone who was just working (quickly) from a script. The artist is likely not a Big Fan, so they only know the info and descriptions they're given. And the artist's portfolio shows they're capable of the kind of designs and dynamics this comic needed. its possible they phoned it in for no reason, but feels more likely to be "not enough time/not paid enough/not given enough info to give it that level of care." Which, don't get me wrong; an important level of craftsmanship and care is missing and im not gonna blame the artist but i AM gonna be a hater abt it lmao It's not just about designs; the convo with Joey is another good example. It's a literal illustration of the things Joey said and did in that scene, but it's missing the point -- that scene is our introduction to the way Joey throws Buddy off-balance. That energy is missing. And that's the sort of thing that needs the script to convey this purpose well to the artist, that needs the artist to have time & freedom to invest in portraying it, that needs time & investment & knowledge to ask for adjustments at early stages and get the page right one more note: begging batim fans 2 think abt the plot of DCTL and realise why "maybe we will not make the creepy guy who dies at the end a black man in this" is perhaps a reasonable choice. like im a fan of poc norman headcanons too but pls recognise this would be a tough call!! anyway, genuinely cannot wait to see how off sammy is gonna be in this lmao. will he be a mid non-design like norman or will he be conventionally handsome or will he get graphic novel dave miller vibes b/c hes an antagonist? will we get the fabled black hair sammy??? i cant wait

TL;DR I strongly suspect this was an issue of not enough time/not enough money. That design looks nothing like the description of Norman, right? Like, there's hundreds of different AU designs of all shapes, colours and sizes that you could create that would still look like Norman Polk, but somehow they managed to make a character that isnt ANY of them, lmao??? So... how could that happen, unless nobody gave the artist a description of Norman? Or if they did, how did that design make it past anyone else, unless there wasn't time for revisions or a system worked out for revisions, unless whoever was managing the comic project thought it was fine if the designs didn't fit with the descriptions in the book? If everyone is doing their job, then the artist is given the information they need without having to go do unpaid YA novel research before they can start drawing. That's why you have a writer adapting it!!

("they should hire fans, a fan would've done a better job" OK BUT THATS B/C FANS ARE MORE LIKELY TO ALLOW THEMSELVES TO BE EXPLOITED AND DO EXTRA UNPAID WORK B/C THEY CARE!! THATS NOT A SOLUTION!!!! THATS A JOEY DREW STRAT!!!!!!!)

Anyway I could yell about this for 15 years so I'm going to shush for now BUT I JUST FEEL VERY STRONGLY ABOUT IT LMAO.

#genuinely tho now that i dont have to worry abt the possibility that it might be good #i can just relax and be excited to discover how far off it will be #im a hater abt this but everyone be nice to the artist lmao #bendy saltposting #we all write on the walls #is abby going to be in a suit like she's supposed to be?#how accurate will dot be?#will jacob even be black?#we could do a whole DCTL Comic Discrepancy Bingo i think it would be fun #HOW CLOSE TO GINGER ROGERS IS ALLISON GOING TO LOOK

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blorbocedes · 1 year

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ok, so i got into f1 through dts in the past few years, and then stumbled across the brocedes rabbit hole recently. before that i didn't really know/like nico at all, because everyone made out like he was awful and obsessed with lewis. but i've just been watching the 2016 season, and not only is nico actually really nice (especially when he keeps being booed by crowds for literally no reason) but i have to say that i was shocked by how unreliable both mercedes cars were in that season. like, people make it out as though lewis' car was breaking down all the time and nico's was perfect, but in almost every race where lewis had car issues, so did nico. even watching the sky sports coverage (where they do talk almost non-stop about lewis and are definitely biased towards him), the number of times that they interview niki or toto going 'oh it was a perfect race for nico but car issues for lewis' and toto or niki say that actually both cars had issues is insane. also, people keep saying that nico would deliberately speak foreign languages in the cooldown room to exclude lewis (which im obviously not discounting), but in almost all of the cooldown rooms that they've shown for this season, it's just really awkward and quiet as they don't talk to each other, or anyone at all really. i feel like nico has just been done so dirty by everyone

come here anon let me kiss you with tongue

i went through this exact journey of discovery too where I was like yeahhhh everyone hates this guy! boo 🍅🍅🍅 so I went looking deeper into why (so I can be an #informed hater) and then I was like HUH.... he's not the manipulative evil obsessed with lewis can't get over their past relationship dude he's portrayed in fanon or exacerbated by sky news. in fact he was well liked by the grid!!! he invited others on Air Rosberg so they could all go travel together. and don't get me started on The Narratives of it all. my man was getting booed at Silverstone or for beating lewis, and he was saying thank you to the fans... the tifosi booed him for winning Monza and he turned that around and made them sing with him!!! (and then kravitz called it embarrassing 😶)

the British sky coverage bias is SO real, and not do get me started on the crashes which are all framed as "Nico got envious and rammed into Lewis" and not the amount of times Lewis didn't leave enough space, or he was the one who caused it....... but I digress. the W-06s were kind of like the 2022 Ferraris where they were insanely fast but notoriously unreliable. fucking hell when Nico won the championship -- EVERYONE including his own team of Toto and Niki were talking about whether Lewis lost due to DNFs, and it took sebastian vettel to be like. hey. can we talk about Nico's deserved win tho?

lewis was asked if he thought the better man won and he said he didn't agree with that, and then when he retired was like "oh I'm not surprised, it's the first time he's won anything in 20 years." 🥴🥴🥴

every time someone learns more about nico over what's regurgitated about him they're always Huh... he's just some well meaning cringe dude... and not an evil mastermind 🤥 I do not discount that they've both hurt each other in ways we're not aware of, but everything that's publicly available means that's not our stance to take (hate a guy on Behalf of lewis cause he won't say his name)

now I don't blame fans -- how would you know about something that happened like 7 years ago now? and Lewis is very skilled at the narratives around him, he had a team that despite letting both drivers race was clearly behind him; and everything since DTS, fanon has been reinforcing the same narrative.

ultimately, nico won 2016 and lewis won the narrative.

sorry this answer got so long!!! i have mental problems!!! happy to recruit you in our large number of 6 nicologists if you now swing that way. 💕

#nico rosberg #the villainizing nico thesis (condensed)#i wish he was as evil as fandom makes him out to be. instead he's just a guy very enthusiastic about electric cars #cringe (affectionate)#blorbocedes ask #nicology

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perfectmanisperfect · 9 months

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star wars rebels fans continue to be fed and taken care of and acknowledged and please don’t let me down im living. i cannot tell you how many times i’ve said it’s my favorite sw show and gotten looks. NOW YOU SEE!! PLEASE WATCH IT.

please i’m begging you it’s so worth it it’s so good it’s funny it’s sad it’s found family it’s rebellion era it’s everything and i love my ghost crew more than words and one day i will complete that og funko pop collection. PLEASE GUYS REBELS IS GETTING EVERYTHING NOW GO WATCH IT

ands that your daily star wars rebels appreciation post like ahsoka who sorry it’s REBELS TIME

i love you ahsoka i’m kidding but rebels is MY LIFELINE (someone has seen that show too many times) love that this show has literally become rebels season 5 like i can’t complain one bit. we get amazing ahsoka and get to see ghost crew and that’s what rebels was all about. i mean my favorite parts were ahsoka scenes and then every other scene because they were about GHOST CREW

ok i’m done bye thank you again kevin kiner for the beautiful music this show is not disappointing anywhere idc not being a hater is so fun

NO CAUSE YOU DONT GET ITS EZRA HES BACK THATS MY BOY I MISSED YOU SO MICH IM SO EMOTIONAL FUCKKKKKK ITS EZRA

#ahsoka spoilers #star wars #ahsoka #star wars rebels #ghost crew #ERZA BRIDGER #I MISSED YOU SO BAD #welcome back #ahsoka show

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malka-lisitsa · 6 months

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Well look at that it's 2024, and my new years resolution is to stay an unbothered icon queen, and hope the hater's die mad. But I also thought I'd take a second to shout out to the people who make the shit show of a year 2023 bearable, and even enjoyable in some cases.

As trash as the rpc has a tendency to be there are still a lot of you that make this place more than worth it. I clearly cant shout out to all 900 something followers but I can highlight some of you. If you're not listed don't worry I still appreciate you immensely for being here, these are just the people that have really impacted my time here so far.

@unsettledspirits / @zoomingupthathill what can i say that I already haven't. There's 3 months worth of daily reasons to love you. You built the one ship that beat Steferine with me, honestly it was a surprise to everyone. Happy to see you back on Max ruling over your ST kingdom.

@hybrid-royalty-main Damon you piece of shit, I hate you the absolute most, and I'm so glad youre here with all the boys tbh. You bring such a unique quality to each one of them. Especially were-jer, it has been an absolute HOOT watching you take on the challenges of a teenaged were pup.

@baby-royalty My sired child with loyalty so unwavering you make the sire bond in the show look tame lmfao. The universe pulled us together the second I stepped foot into this hellsite again and I have enjoyed watching you grow into the person and writer that you are now. I'm proud of you.

@klaeus Kiki I adore you sm, you and your knock off brand doppelganger and scruffy mutt hybrid (affectionate) I love talking about the show and dynamics and honestly just about everything with you. You try, and thats more than most people do for me. Plus your grafics are just chefs kiss.

@multi-royalty Maddie this is like 3 years we've been besties, the caroline to my Elena. I've loved watching you branch out into new circles of friends and grow as a writer. You're absolutely killing it.

@ofcrossrcads Cribby, my darling I adore you. You are simply the sweetest, and keeping you here aggressively as my friend was one of the best things ive done in my life. I am always right here if you need me for anything <3

@hargrove JT WTF. How are you so talented? Honestly youre the bees knees and I am SO HAPPY to have reached out to write with you bc I wasn't expecting Katherine and Billy but here they are and tbh im here for it. Tho everything you write is top notch, you're just flawless with every reply. And for that reason katherine said, you can go ahead and keep your halfbreed in the dog house. LMFAO. But for real I am so happy to have met you.

@petrovawitch Kenz, Katherine says fuck you for bringing her pain in the ass sister back- but im really glad you did. We adore you both even if we're spicy at times bc you know were brats hehe

@havvkinsqueen / @stanfordprepped My fellow digidestins, I am so happy to have met you. Both of you are just pure goodness spun into a little ball of sunshine. Honestly the most supportive people ever, the RPC needs you desperately. Just please remember that I have your back just as much as you have mine. We digidestin gotta stick together. <3

Ok ok ok I cant shout out to literally everyone individually so these people also are super important to me and have made my experience here this year amazing, thank you for all you do-

@langdhon@ravenskeeper@salvatoraes@sarcasticsnackpack@sithdestined@nexusvcrti@ofvalor@imundus@brokenbrxther@loyaltylanced@spellsigns@ruinedmyself@ravmalakh@touchedbydestiny

#the one and only... sort of: ooc #2024 follow forever #im sure i forgot ppl but its 1am and im exhausted #alexa play take it easy on me

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morelsupports · 26 days

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my enemy is that i say ok blog. every time i see them theyre on the end of a random post and add literally nothing to it. nothing. but i cant block them bc theyre just on random reblogs of random posts it wouldnt do anything. but it is such a stupid gimmick and i dont even hate gimmick blogs i think some are fun but i say ok???? no creativity no variety just comes off as passive aggressive sometimes. alright im done being a hater now.

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princessbellecerise · 17 days

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"I don’t have a problem with how people see the characters, I have a problem with people seeing them as something they’re not."

Girl, so you do have a problem then.

Its ok to like the characters that you like but you can't claim something that even the author of the book denied, there are no good and bad, both places are coming from greed and revenge. Its not a childhood story.

And this goes for both teams.

There is literaly many arguments to why you should or not support each team if we are talking about George R.R Martins book.

Now if your talking about hbo...

Im sorry but you cant discredit his entire vision (the one i previously stated), while i aree that the show was altered to clearly pick a favorite that does not mean its black and white like that and it does not mean the you cant just respond with "oh they are just team green" in a passive agressive tone.

With thay being said, i do agree that team black had their motives, but so did team green.

Reading comprehension has gone out of the window lmao. If you’ve read Fire and Blood, read my post then I truly don’t know what to tell you.

It’s beyond obvious that you are supposed to root for Team Black. Like it or not, they are the protagonists and Team Green are the antagonists. Rhaenyra was usurped because of misogyny. You are supposed to see the injustice in that, THAT is the entire message of the dance in Fire and Blood.

And in my previous post, I literally explained why both teams are not “morally grey,” because Team Black is majority CHILDREN. Jace is NOT normally grey. Baela, Rhaena, Luke, Rhaenys, Cregan Stark, Black Aly, etc ARE NOT MORALLY GREY CHARACTERS. THEY are the characters you are so clearly *supposed* to root for. Now do you have to? No, obviously not because people are always going to have different opinions and not everyone likes the *good* characters. Just like Jon, Dany, and Robb from GOT have haters, so do these characters.

But you cannot sit here and call the entire Team Black morally grey when they’ve never been canonically described that way. It doesn’t matter whether you watch the show or read the books, majority of Team Black expect for Daemon, Rhaenyra, and Corlys will never commit the level of atrocities that Team Green does. And even then, what Rhaenyra and Corlys have done in the books and will do in the show will STILL never compare to some of the things TG do.

Daemon (and Dalton Greyjoy though he’s not a major player) are probably the only two characters that can be interpreted as evil/morally grey. The rest are not. They are not equal to TG whatsoever!

#hotd #house of the dragon #rhaneyra targaryen #daemon targaryen #hotd asks

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acourtofthought · 5 months

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I’m not sure if it’s ok for me to ask you this but I really like your posts and the way you interpret. Disclaimer: I am not antielain but I get confused with her sometimes. If anything I say comes off harsh I apologize and plz kno I didn’t mean that way. Just heads up this will be long

I guess I sometimes think ppl expect almost too much from elain. Part of it is because we don’t know much of her character/personality. Like ppl expect that she’ll do a complete 180 and prove us all wrong. I do think she will prove us wrong but not like that I guess? Not so drastic? I’m thinking similar to how Nesta grew in her book where it wasn’t a complete flip of her personality but it was a build up on it. I personally think that’s the whole point of these books it’s to learn to give love to ourselves (via the characters) rather than change ourselves or personalities”for the good of others”

So I think ppl associate bubbly chatty extremely giving bighearted personality to elain bc of how she was as human, before her life changed completely. But I don’t even see her as that back then? Basically there is a “type” I see assigned to her by fans and for me it’s just not quite there.

There is so much anti-elain content out there so I understand wanting to contradict that and disprove the haters. And I don’t mean to bash anyone, but I guess envisioning her in one “appropriate” way by fans is strange. I hear too many what ifs about her and ppl getting upset at those who don’t agree with the what ifs of her personality/character (those “what ifs” are treated like gospel)

Additionally- I saw a post of yours mention that elain might be disturbed about feyre’s pregnancy and how she might be upset with herself for not being acquainted with her powers to foresee it and I honestly love that. it’s an exciting addition to look forward to about elain, but couldn’t sjm have mentioned that in nesta’s book? Like a scene where the three sisters talk about it or something?? This is what I mean about seeing a lot of expectations for elain’s character. Dont get me wrong I love this idea and I theres a good chance e it’s true, but I have to see it be shown for her character and so far I’ve been given nothing. Also why didn’t anyone tell Elain that the childbirth could harm feyre?? Maybe she could’ve done something! That could add to Elain’s character right! Even if Elain isn’t involved with ic stuff that’s her sister. I mean, Elain was smiling at her sis by the end (could be hiding her pain of sisters almost-death maybe?). Do we really have to wait for Elain’s book to know that she was disturbed by the events of feyre’s childbirth?

An anti-elain thing I see is that she’s not very bright. I don’t agree with this. I’m thinking if she was always aware what was going on bw nesta and feyre could she have done nothing? Especially since nesta has said she would do anything for Elain’s happiness. What of feyre’s happiness u know?

Elain never hurt others like Nesta did but when it’s pointed out how kind she is, I do believe it, but I can’t help but wonder if she showed that kindness to her sister Feyre. Like Feyre is so quick to say that about Elain, and Elain did own up to her mistakes, but it’s hard not to imagine how Feyre must have felt as a kid. feyre is so sure of Elain’s love for her I’m just wondering where that surety comes from because as a reader there’s a bit of a disconnect to what makes feyre feel that way. Could it be feyre’s guilt of them turning fae? And then elain never blaming her sis for it? I think maybe a little of it is that feyre understands elain. Do you think elain is a dreamer im the sense that she wishes good things for all people? Elain did had a chance at happiness due to her family’s love for her, maybe id like to see more of it reflected for her family? Do something big for them? I know she shows them affection constantly, and i love that I think it’s so sweet, but it still doesn’t tell me enough about her. As of now, Elain to me comes off as someone who puts herself first (not selfish but just knows her worth, not self destructive like nesta ), which will be exciting to see from the classic self-sacrificial type of fantasy mc, she is someone who maybe isn’t always quite aware of what she needs to do but she was the will and desire for it, and lastly, though she focuses on her well being she is still aware of the feelings and concerns of those around her.

I guess I see that elain has some flaws and I’m okay with it. She’s probably hard on herself like Nesta is to herself. And I think she’ll probably still have a few hiccups along the way in her book which is always exciting in a book. I don’t tell myself that she’s this perfect, sweet, summerflower child who’s never done anything wrong. I think she is currently lost snd For now, could be changed later)I think that maybe this is the first or one of the few times where elain isn’t the one fully happy while others around her are l so it’s a new thing for her to understand, navigate, and find the happiness within herself and around her (she’s already doing some of that). Maybe she always found the happiness around her from things being good but now needs to find it within? Also she is now finding the part of herself she’s always maybe wanted to. Or now needs to be due to now being fae.

And why would it be wrong if she’s imperfect? What is this obsession with her being perfect knows it all who doesn’t owe anyone anything? Since the fandom likes to talk about these characters like they’re real- elain would most certainly not think of herself that way.

Maybe I’m not seeing it all clearly of her character? Sometimes it is hard for me to keep her character and personality separate I admit. I know she loves her family, I know she’s concerned about a lot that’s going on, but we only get like 1 instance of her showing anything and that’s it. So when the characters just keep saying this and that about Elain’s traits, but Elain is shown having that trait or quality once im ?? Where you at girl?

Ultimately I tell myself that it doesn’t matter how a character begins but rather how and what they grow into. I think being turned fae has forced her to do a lot of growing up (I don’t mean this in a bad way at all. As a reader, I think it’s v interesting)I’m willing to bet if sjm had done more planning from the start i would feel entirely different. I think im at a confusing spot with her character, but at a 100% hopeful&optimistic for her story kind of spot.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and If you don’t answer I completely understand. Frankly, I don’t want to add to any anti-elain discourse ( or even anti- nesta I love her) My intention wasn’t at all to bash Elain’s character. I am absolutely not an anti but if anything comes off sounding anti I apologize. I’m looking for some discussion and understanding of her honestly. I think the most important knowledge I’ve gained from your blog is that elain shouldn’t and can’t be compared to the other female characters of this series especially her sisters. I mean, none of the characters should even be compared, but yeah expecting her to be exactly the way her sisters are is not the way to go about understanding her character. I love your posts about elain and I very much like Elain thanks to you. I’m lowkey obsessed with elucien bc of you. and your posts are what got me interested in her character since you pay attention to her in such a healthy way.

Nothing you said came off harsh at all and I was excited to receive your message!

This is going to be long and rambling so I apologize in advance.

I absolutely agree that some seem to expect too much from Elain, both right now and later, especially when SJM has given us quite a bit of growth from her already and she's not going to become a completely different person.

She started off the series kind but fine with allowing herself to be taken care of. She still had thoughtful moments though, she used her "allowance" from Feyre to buy Feyre paints and to buy her father a new chisel rather than using it all on herself.

But by the end of ACOTAR, she started taking care of Feyre, planning the ball to honor her return, finding her a dress, preparing a horse and a satchel for her.

In ACOMAF, we see her apologize for failing Feyre, we see her willing to risk her engagement by letting Feyre use their manor to meet with the human queens.

In ACOWAR, after she had lost everything, she only spent weeks (maybe 2 months) sitting silently in her room in a depressed state. Then she started learning how to bake (and now helps cook for the IC) and thought of a way to help the humans, by having them head to Graysen's estate. Then she was cruelly rejected by Graysen, was kidnapped a second time but still helped save Briar and Az, then saved Cassian and Nesta (as well as many others) when she stabbed the king but then saw her fathers murdered body.

Though she mourned those things in ACOFAS, she still did not regress. She continued taking care of Feyre and Rhys's garden, began helping those in Velaris with their gardens, continued cooking for the IC. Then in SF we see her stand up to Nesta, see her offer to search for the Trove, see her go to the Hewn Cith with the others despite Feyre offering to let her stay home and despite the fact that it's cruelty bothers her.

I honestly don't know how anyone could expect anything else out of her before her own book and even after her own book, she's not going to morph into someone unrecognizable. She's not going to become a bloodthirsty, dagger wielding spy who thrives on going after the enemy and plotting their demise.

I see some claim she needs to get fed up with the others holding her back, where she'll head off on her own or seek out Lucien to help her. But where in Elain's personality has she ever shown to be rash? Where has she ever shown to be that angry with her sisters that she's going to go behind their backs to prove something? It's exactly like you said, Nesta's arc made sense for Nesta because that was within Nesta's personality.

If Elain has a problem, she addresses it with the person (as we saw in her argument with Nesta) and moves on. She was laughing by the end of SF when Nesta said "fuck you". She nearly watched Feyre and her nephew die in front of her. At the end of SF, Elain and Feyre were beaming at Nesta while Elain held Nyx in her arms.

Where in that is anyone getting the "I'm mad and I'm going to prove them all wrong!" vibe from Elain?

I have a feeling Elain's setup will be that of Rhys coming to Elain for help with something in Spring or the continent and that will kickstart her book. She's already told us that "she's part of the court and will do what is necessary" so all that we need to have happen is Rhys finally asking her to get her hands dirty. Her setup doesn't need to look like Nesta's did.

I do think we're going to see a different version of Elain when she's around her people (Lucien, Vassa, Helion, Jurian, the LoA), but to me that's kind of a given based on SJMs pattern of the FMC coming into her own once she's with her found family. So I do think we'll get more of the outgoing, life of the party version of Elain that we saw in ACOTAR, at least the Elain once she was overseeing their new manor and at the ball.

To your point about Elain feeling guilty, I don't think, if Elain were taking the events of Feyre's pregnancy onto herself, SJM would necessarily tell us that in SF. For one thing, Elain doesn't often share her deepest sorrows and regrets with her sisters. We know she's mourning her father because we're told how often she visited his grave but it's not because she sat down and had a deep heart to heart with Nesta or Feyre over it. Just like we had to wait for SF to see Nesta's complicated emotions over her fathers death, I think we'll have to wait for Elain's book to get inside her head and understand how she's processing everything that has been happening. For another, the end of SF was meant to wrap up Nesta's arc. We were meant to walk away with that HEA vibe for her character, not necessarily focusing on anyone else. I think SJM subtly hinted that we're about to have Elain's story when she closed out the book with the rose carving, when Nesta lets go this symbol of Elain and releases it into the world as a "permanent marker of beauty and good" but I don't think she wanted us majorly focusing on anyone else outside of Nesta and her journey.

For anyone calling Elain dumb, I think ACOFAS and SF prove how intelligent and aware Elain is. After Elain talks of traditions, Feyre notes her wisdom. In SF, Cassian notes how Elain had seen everything about Nesta and understood.

SJM has confirmed that Elain is a quiet dreamer, that she has a different strength than Feyre or Nesta, and that she expresses love openly in a way that Nesta always struggled with so I don't think we can deny those aspects of her personality, I'm not sure why people keep trying to claim her story can only happen if she spirals down the way Nesta did or until she gets angry at their treatment of her. I think it's more important to respect that because Elain is so different from her sisters, the start of her book might look different than what some expect and maybe she's going to simply internalize her frustrations then talk it out with them in her book. If she's even harboring resentment. I mean, SJM already had Elain call Nesta out for treating her like a child, she joined the others in the Hewn City as "part of the court", and she was laughing when Nesta swore at her and nearly lost both Nesta and Feyre at the end of the book so maybe Elain isn't really worried about resenting her sisters right now, maybe she's just glad they're all safe and alive.

I do think Feyre and Nesta see certain aspects of Elain's personality but as all sisters do, I think sometimes they are blinded by other aspects. I also think they at times see her in a way that makes them feel better about things. Like Nesta assuming Elain was fine and settled at the start of SF only for Elain to remind them that she's struggling too. However, I do think Elain isn't truly Elain around them either, that she hides some of who she is. Like Rhys said, she may have been worried about disappointing them.

And yes, Elain has flaws (as they all do). It's funny that some will claim she's one dimensional while complaining about her flaws in the next breath. If she's canonically kind, loving and makes them all laugh at times while also being flawed....then how can she be one dimensional? I think it's because some are expecting her character to look like that of Feyre or Nesta's characters and the other badass female warriors in the series (or her other series). And that's a very narrow minded view, to only think someone is interesting if they look like every other single warrior heroine that SJM has written.

And despite her flaws, she has never lashed out at the other characters and I don't think she's given enough credit for that. She was afraid of the fae yet willingly opened up her home to them, has treated Feyre's found family with kindness from the start, made sure Feyre had a special cake for her birthday and has never blamed Feyre for what happened to her, held Feyre when Feyre was breaking down after Elain's kidnapping (so yes, I do think she has shown Feyre kindness ever since Feyre returned to the human lands in book 1).

Like you said, it's not that she's so much selfish as in "I do what I want regardless of how it affects others" so much as 1) she is more of an optimist and it's not easy for an optimist to understand a pessimists pov because optimists are constantly trying to focus on what's good and 2) she does seem to have a sense of her own worth and isn't going to beat herself down the way Nesta did, at least not to the extreme level did. She can still struggle with things while not self sabotaging. It's the same with Az and Lucien. Both Az and Lucien struggle with self worth and trauma but only one of the two is constantly trying to risk his life in foolish ways, arguing against orders, fixating on things he has no control over (i.e. Mor / mating bonds), brooding, distancing himself from the group. The other, despite his sadness, tries his best to focus on what he can control and I think that's Elain to a tee (T?).

And Elain has been open about the things she wants but she's never forced others to do them for her. For example, Nesta asked Elain whether she wanted to head to Prythian in book 2 or stay and Elain said she had to stay. Because she was engaged. So logically, it makes sense that she would. But never did she insist that Nesta had to stay with her, Nesta chose to stay. Elain should be allowed to make her own choices without someone calling her selfish.

I think she definitely could be labeled as selfish in the first two chapters of ACOTAR but I don't think we can say the same by the end of that first book. Some will claim Elain was selfish for bringing up their father to Nesta when, if she were observant as is claimed, she should have seen Nesta didn't want to talk about him, but.....Elain should be able to talk to her sister about their father because Elain lost him too. The trauma of their fathers death did not soley belong to Nesta (especially considering Elain actually loved him meaning she lost someone she was extremely close with) and while Nesta had a right to say she didn't want to talk about him, Elain is not wrong for attempting to bring him up in the first place.

And your comment:

"Ultimately I tell myself that it doesn’t matter how a character begins but rather how and what they grow into"

is hitting the nail on the head. Elain was meant to start in one place then grow from there but she's not going to grow into her full self until she's with the right people in the right place. I think the reason Elain's personality doesn't jump out to many is because she's not in the right place with the right people, just like Feyre wasn't fully herself in Spring and only came into who she was meant to be once she was in the NC. And maybe the reason there was more room for SJM to show us Nesta's personality was because as soon as Nesta ended up in the NC, she was with the right people in the right place. Her struggle came from letting go of her own self hatred but it was clear that she was free to be herself, even act out, because she belonged.

If Elain was super sassy, bubbly and outgoing in the Night Court then the entire narrative that SJM has built for her falls apart. She's got her full personality on mute because she's still waiting to find her own path with her own people and it's only then that her sisters will finally see her for all that she is too.

That's what I wish some in the fandom would understand about Elain. That they really shouldn't villain-ize a character for at times seeming odd and out of place, where she's in the background and not involved in the way the others because SJM has been hinting at her having to leave the NC before she can become true FMC energy. She's not going to have that energy before her book though even when she does, she's still going to be recognizable. She's still going to be loving and kind, she's still going to make friends easily, she's still going to want sunshine and nature. I think anyone trying to keep her in the NC tries to reason away the fact that they'd be sucking out a major part of her personality by claiming "Velaris has sunshine too! She can just avoid the Hewn City!" That's like saying someone can get the same sunshine in Alaska as they can the Bahamas.

But until it's time for her full arc, SJM has to keep Elain in a bit of a holding pattern since she's been driving home the narrative that she doesn't fit in where she's at. Elain isn't boring or worthless, she's just waiting for a reason to leave the NC and do her thing (again, something that won't happen until her book) and her individual journey can not be compared to Nesta's because no matter how much she fought it, Nesta always belonged in the NC and it was made clear to readers from the start.

#elucien #elain archeron #pro elain archeron

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