#the characters stories and arcs and even characterizations

[qiu-yan]

3 6 7 11 16 20 25

bro is trying to get me killed lmao /s

choose violence ask game

3. screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr:

this shit

6. which ship fans are the most annoying?

gonna be honest here, the single most annoying part of the MDZS fandom is that one hyperspecific sort of wang and xian stan who insists on shitting on not only the other characters, but also other wang and xian fans who ship the characters in ways they don't approve of. this kind of stan can not only be relied on to have the worst possible takes on everyone ranging from jin guangyao to jiang cheng, they can also be relied on to harass other wang and xian fans simply for putting wang on the bottom. fun times.

7. what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them?

surprisingly, no one yet. sometimes i feel the hater urge to dunk on the morally-pure version of wei wuxian that the diehard wei wuxian stannies have collectively hallucinated, but i still find the wei wuxian from canon to be quite compelling.

11. number of fandom-related words you've filtered

the "canon jiang cheng" and "canon jc" tags. everyone stfu

16. you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

"morally pure wei wuxian who did nothing wrong ever." to me, wei wuxian's hubris, his unique capability for inventing new kinds of cruelty, his failure to think of the consequences of his actions, his tendencies to run away from negative feelings, and his ultimate failure to protect the people he was trying to protect, are what make him a compelling character to me. these flaws in parallel with his courage, kindness, stalwart moral compass, and genuine love make him interesting to me. so i don't quite understand fans who instead insist on erasing all the morally grey and highly interesting stuff he did in favor of insisting he did nothing wrong ever.

20. part of canon you found tedious or boring

not quite what the question is asking, but i found the actual wang and xian romance in the original novel to be a bit lacking. mainly because (as other people have said already) a lot of the romantic development happened when lan wangji was drunk. at the very least, i wanted to see lan wangji's reactions to his various drunken adventures once he sobered up the next day, and i'm rather disappointed we never got to see that.

furthermore, on wei wuxian's end, it did kind of feel like wei wuxian was using this exciting new romance to distract himself from his past problems, even though it also seemed like he didn't actually know all that much about lan wangji. the only version of the romance that makes sense to me is the one where wei wuxian was already into lan wangji (subconsciously or consciously) in his first life; otherwise, wei wuxian falling in love with lan wangji during his second life, when he's yet to process any of the shit that happened in his first life, feels too much like him running away from his problems with a guy he believes will validate all his decisions. meanwhile, on lan wangji's end, i feel like the novel just did not give us a lot to work with in regards to his character. so it feels like, if you want to be a fan of lan wangji, you have to do a lot of the legwork of building up his personality yourself.

what also disappointed me a bit about wang and xian, as well as lan wangji's character arc itself, is that lan wangji is never really challenged on a moral-dilemma level in the same way that many other characters are challenged by the story. how do i explain this...alright, i'll put it this way. i've been brainrotted about madohomu (madoka magica) since i was in middle school. and that's partially because i know for a fact that, if homura was put in the trolley problem and had to choose between [killing 5 strangers] and [allowing madoka to die], she would choose to kill those 5 strangers to save madoka. but after reading MDZS, i realized i legitimately did not know what lan wangji would do in such a moral dilemma. because MDZS equates [being morally righteous] with [supporting wei wuxian], lan wangji is never placed in a dilemma where he has to choose between sacrificing wei ying and doing something the audience would think of as unforgivable.

these are just my own hyperspecific tastes, though.

25. common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing

gonna put my hater hat on for a second, but i kind of roll my eyes at the jiang cheng haters complaining about how jiang cheng stans keep posting in the "canon jiang cheng" tag. dude, if it bothers you that much, just block the jiang cheng stans. then things will be peaceful in your favorite tag again.

[probablygayattorneys]

make me choose: Apollo justice or luke triton? (@chaterbox1237)

"You're a defense attorney. You're supposed to believe him even when he lies. That's what Daddy told me."

"I'm going to pretend you misheard him. Every time."

[tabl3]

how far from the lref source material do you consider the rewrite? cause i saw my little cousin watching the show and i just did not associate your rewrite with the show NOT A BAD THING OFC i just realized that i seperate the two works a lot even if i objectively understand that the rewrite is based on the show.

so basically i was just wondering where that line was for you?? do you see them as super connected or are they completely different?

completely separate

i'd say the first two shows are like 80 percent canon to my rewrite, but nothing in ef is lols

there are some scenes i repurposed from the show in the very beginning, but other than that nothing is

basically i saw the potential and made something better out of that dumpster fire

[berrybore]

…people are mad that Percy didn’t befriend a titan that tried to kill him? Why would he even want to? They are not friends, Percy just said they were so a huge ass titan wouldn’t feel compelled to start attacking them again, kinda like no worries all good and safe here.

Bob wasn’t worthy of that friendship until he tried to help him, at that point Percy was so overcome with guilt for lying to him about being friends he confessed everything and accepted death as punishment for being a bad friend. He didn’t get mad at bob, blame him for needing to be dunked in the Lethe in the first place (you know since he was trying to kill him, Nico, and Thalia, which makes him completely at fault for losing his memory), didn’t defend himself in any way just asked that bob save Annabeth at the very least?

As I understand it bob didn’t hold it against him for long? He did come back and save him and Annabeth, and even sacrificed himself so they could get out. Overall, became a better version of himself, but like before all that, why would Percy go back and talk to him??

[bestbonnist]

What Kahaku says here is just so wild to me. Both because the way he uses religious rhetoric is mildly disturbing (occasionally Kahaku will say something about god and I am forcibly reminded that he was indoctrinated by a cult) and also because technically, he's correct. Kai, Hylo, and Messar are loyal to the Beholder and not Fushi (whereas Kahaku, being better than them [heavy sarcasm], is of course loyal to Fushi and no one else). Let me explain.

Kai has to pretend that he doesn't know who the Beholder is in front of Fushi, but he, Hylo, and Messar did have a conversation with him behind Fushi's back, with Bon's assistance, because he's the one "steering this ship." Not Fushi. Kai, Hylo, and Messar (and Bon!) believe that this battle is out of Fushi's control and that the Beholder is the one who's actually pulling the strings. And to take advantage of that situation, they're using Fushi's power to resurrect them to its full potential. Bon, and Kai, Hylo, and Messar believe that this is the best option they have.

Kahaku describes this as the three of them being loyal to the Beholder and disdains them for it, but that's horseshit. Fushi never asked for their loyalty nor did Kai, Hylo, or Messar offer it. They're comrades, working together towards the same goal as equals. The way Kahaku seems to think all relationships have a leader and a follower and that Fushi is naturally deserving of others' loyalty says, uh... way more about him and his life with the Guardians than it does about them. Just because he personally had to swear his devotion to Fushi doesn't mean everyone has to. However, what Kahaku defines as loyalty—the trust between comrades—has still been misplaced. Kai, Hylo, and Messar have seriously broken Fushi's trust, ironically because of their dedication to their shared goal.

Kahaku doesn't have a damn clue about their conversation with the Beholder, he's just intuiting all of this because he doesn't like Bon very much and doesn't want to believe that Bon's a good person. All of his logic is entirely based on himself, his distrust of Bon, his desire to be the only person Fushi needs—one way to get there is by encouraging them to ditch Bon—because somehow that proves he's worth something, his religious upbringing. And yet somehow he still manages to make a valid point. Even when he loses he wins <3

The only things he gets wrong are that Bon has genuinely changed since Uralis, and Kai, Hylo, and Messar are well aware of what they swore fealty to. Bon's not decieving them, they know exactly what's going on. But Kahaku assumes that they have no clue, or else there's no way they would have done that. Because that's crazy and a violation of Fushi's trust. So obviously they wouldn't, right? :|

And again, obviously, Kai, Hylo, Messar, and Bon have their reasons for doing this. In their own way, they're trying to protect Fushi's humanity just like Kahaku. And the other option is, what? Letting more people die?? Because that's what'll happen if they don't do this, it's not an option at all. But they've still crossed a fucking line, not just with Fushi, but also with Kahaku. Right before he starts spouting about demons and curses, he begs Kai to let him go, because they're supposed to be comrades. Kai refuses, and that's when Kahaku (correctly) guesses that Bon wants him out of the way.

Although Kai, Hylo, and Messar had the chance to learn what was going to happen to them before the battle, as well as the chance to opt out, Kahaku and Fushi have been lied to this entire time and are only now learning that no one actually trusted them. To be blunt, they didn't sign up for this shit, and there's a limit to how much they can take. The immortal soldiers, too, have a limit to how much they can die for their cause before they break.

[shummthechumm]

i will never let this scene go why would they write this

[aroacettorney]

when will aup sidestories return from war and stop leaving me bitter about how the main story ended

[ghosty-schnibibit]

me finishing the new graphic novel like on the one hand yes the art is gorgeous as always yes the chalice scenes were handled well yes the lunar interludes got included in a cool way but on the other hand me looking at ren (and also a bit at taako by proxy) like

[glitchyred]

The knowledge that I should probably look into the final arc of the ben drowned arg to adjust the semicolon characterizations vs the reality that I don't think anything about ben drowned ever gets less confusing. Like you go through the cartridge arc and you're like yeah I think I know what's happening. No you don't. You Do Not

[mejomonster]

i think in my indulgent Demon immortal Fei Du au, I’m going to make him part fox spirit on his mom’s side. Just because priest made SO many references in Silent Reading to fox spirits being with humans, and to Tales from a Chinese Studio stories. It wouldn’t be right if my boy Fei Du wasn’t actually a sneaky fox too ToT

[vaugarde]

journeys is one of the most disheartening pokeani arcs because you can tell they had a decent setup for it but also that they had no clue what they wanted to do and lost steam partway through

[adhdo5]

Why is it so hard to decide what characters are Actually Doing and why is there no advice on the topic

[violentlydefending]

maybe nobody's played plvspw and maybe plvspw is insane and maybe it takes place in britain but it's still better than aa5 and 6 i'll die on this hill

[sigmastolen]

ahhhhhh "dark vengeance" exactly as delicious as expected, rebecca roanhorse gives pretty decent maul pov and sam witwer is clearly having the time of his life

between dooku, cad bane, and maul, this book really delivers the villain camp

[rubiatinctorum]

mlpfim was like cocomelon except in 2010 and on television and with a preexisting audience to piss off

[minakoaiinos]

Evangelion 3.0 was supposed to be Shinji and Kaworu's Adolescence of Utena and it just wasn't. Like it had all of the elements to make something interesting. Kaworu has been going around for two movies now asking if it's his turn to show up and it was so fucking juicy at the end of the second movie that he said he was going to make Shinji happy this time like he knows they're in a time loop and instead of time looping in the cool interesting way that Adolescence of Utena did where the original concept repeated itself to the point it cycled back around and gave an alternative ending that said new interesting things about the themes we have been talking about all along, Eva 3.0 just relied on us caring about the original in some kind of vague yaoi way and tossed in some piano aesthetic and ultimately didn't say or do anything new when it was literally supposed to. It's just one more side effect of what I think is a fault of all the rebuild movies so far- the animation is so polished that it's lifeless and all of the important character work is completely lost in the shuffle until it feels lifeless too.

But considering how much Kaworu tipped the narrative in the original anime despite how little screen time he had and how much he's been hyped up here I really expected something new here and didn't get it. Part of what made the Kaworu narrative in the original anime so interesting was that for twenty something episodes we felt Shinji's loneliness and isolation and we trudged through so many episodes with it that Kaworu's presence felt like such a palpable relief in how he wanted to talk to Shinji and touch Shinji and it was also completely sinister in that he was just saying those things because that was just what Shinji wanted to hear. None of that was conveyed in 3.0 and that would be fine if it said something else interesting about their situation and it literally said nothing at all.