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adventures-of-olympus-devlog · 3 months

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Balancing Simplicity: Devlog 1

(6/20/24, devlog by Seth)

Goal: Working with a baseline pt 1 - Actions, Action Stats, and Rolls

Alright. Let's give this a shot. My goal for this week is to work out a baseline. I want Adventures of Olympus (AoO) to be highly expandable, and for that, I need a good framework to build on. I've been working through this for a while, and here's what I want in the baseline mechanics:

Simplicity. I want it to be easy enough for TTRPG newbies or young teens to understand, like a stepping stone to get into more complicated systems like D&D, Pathfinder, VtM, etc., later on.

Fluidity. Beyond simple mechanics, my vision is something that's malleable or fluid for storytelling purposes. Actions that don't feel rigid, and plotlines that don't feel like railroading.

Expandability. The framework should be sturdy enough to allow easy homebrew, such as gods or pantheons I'm less familiar with, or new locations beyond Camp Jupiter or Half Blood Hill.

With those three as my core ideals, let's get into the ideas I have to sustain them.

There are several systems I need to make the game functional. Here are a handful I find most important:

Game phases (currently Combat, Questing, and Camp)

Actions (Powered by the Apocalypse, or more specifically, Place of Thing)

Tools, weapons, trinkets, and other useful items (how to keep them simple?)

Character creation! (again. simplicity is vital)

Godly parentage, oracle influence, prophecies, storytelling mechanics, creatures--and I've gotten ahead of myself

There is a lot that goes into fleshing this out. So I'm borrowing from the open game system Place of Thing (PoT), or TheBurgerKreig's compilation of all the rules in the Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) system. AKA: the actions are covered and adapted.

Actions

In PbtA, there are five core actions. They're incredibly malleable and simple to grasp, which is what attracted me to using them. They are as follows:

Change: Impact the world around you.

Interact with an object, eg. lock a door

Persuade an innkeeper to give you a discount

Tend to a wound

Endure: Resist a consequence.

Negate a status effect

Take less incoming damage

Survive a poison

Fight: Attack someone or something.

Win an argument with a rude customer

Attempt to stab a creature

Break a door down

Know: Rely on instinct or wit in a situation.

Gain insight on someone

Recognize where the next attack might come from

Recall facts on a location

Risk: Take an action that is particularly dangerous.

Climb the lava wall

Allow yourself to get hit to make another attack

Hide from an alerted guard

To keep things simple, the "stats" I'm going to use are directly tied to the above actions. So, I'm calling them Action Stats.

Action Stat (AS): a number from 1-12 on your character sheet, used to determine whether its corresponding action succeeds. There are five, and they are exactly the same as the above actions. So, your character would have five Action Stats--Change, Endure, Fight, Know, and Risk--on their character sheet.

Now, I've yet to figure out how to determine what number each AS is. However, I have figured out how to roll for actions.

Rolling

Your character wants to do an Action! To figure out if it succeeds, you will roll two six sided dice (2d6). You want to roll at, or below, your Action Stat score to succeed. However, there's a bit of nuance there, to make actual progression in the story easier. Here's a table:

So, say you’re attempting to convince the shopkeeper that you deserve a discount on the chocolate you’re buying from his gas station. You roll Change. Your Change Action Stat is 4.

If you roll snake eyes, he gives it to you for free.

If you roll below a 4, you get the discount.

If you roll exactly 4, you get the discount, but he kicks you out right after.

If you roll a five or higher, you have to pay the full price, and he’s irritated at you.

And if you roll two sixes, he calls the police.

HOWEVER: There is a big issue with the above design. It doesn't allow for difficulty. Your own power dictates exactly how difficult any action is, regardless of how insane that action is. If you wanted to, you could state you're going to cut off someone's hand--and the only thing between you and completely incapacitating that character is your own stat and a dice roll.

Some solutions would be:

Adding an advantage/disadvantage mechanic. However, it's ripped directly from D&D, it's a bit more complex depending on how it's implemented, and it once again refers to situations, and not the action itself.

Changing the system to a Difficulty Class type. It's the easiest way to fix overpowered actions, but it would take work, and I will admit: I'm a bit attached to the PbtA idea.

Creating an Action Class system. Making certain actions more difficult than others by simply stating it's harder. I'm not sure how I'd implement it, and it also gives more power to the Game Master, which may end up unfair.

Creating a risk/reward system. Actions that are more difficult could end up with more consequences. But the end result would stay the same--you could do whatever you wanted.

Something else. None of the above ideas seem satisfying to me. But I have time, so if there are alternate routes, I'd love to hear them.

So I have a fairly alright system to start with, but an issue that does need to be addressed. This is the first of many, many mechanics I need to balance. But first: I need a way to make that Dangerous mechanic fit into the rolling.

That's what I have on this topic as of right now. Let me know if you have ideas!

Seth out. See you in the next one!

(Place of Thing is public, so is PbtA. They're both explicitly stated as community-based, so if you're interested, look them up! They're highly inspirational and for anyone to borrow from, alter, or use entirely.)

#pjo ttrpg #percy jackson #devlog #ttrpg devlog #pjo fandom #tabletop rpg #ttrpg

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benis-chillin · 7 months

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Backlog Reviews 2024: Bionicle the Game

Platform: GameCube

January 12th, 2024-February 28th, 2024(incomplete)

So…This is a fucking disappointment.

Now, Bionicle is literally a franchise that has defined my life. I love the lore, my iconography when it isn't an ass is a Kanohi Hau, and I have many of the toys. Heck, I even have a storyboard from the second movie!

However, I never had a console that could run this back when it was new, I never gave the PC version a go, and even after we got our Wii with backwards compatability, it was YEARS before I got it Gamecube ready.

But I always had a curiousity with it, since it was advertised in the Bionicle: Mask of Light VHS I grew up with. It looked, frankly, amazing to kid me, and I REALLY wanted to play that level with Tahu Nuva surfing on lava. Always loved that scene in the movie, and Tahu Nuva was my first Bionicle, so makes sense.

So this year, 21 years since it was released, I finally sat down and played it, and…

Most of it is just OKAY…With a cheat.

Basically, this game's only form of attack is a sort of weird energy blast that takes forever to charge. In fact, when testing the rom, I played Tahu's stage legit, and I just felt silly jumping all over the place and shooting off a blast when the thing finally filled enough to shoot. So, for my own sanity, I grabbed a cheat that gives me infinite energy, which made everything WAY more managable.

Though this does expose the game's weak shield gimmick as not all that helpful, since most enemies barely hit you, and your health points regenerate fairly quickly after you defeat them, so why not cut the shield and just give us infinite blasts? It's way more fun that way.

Moreover, the game also has a "Nuva blast" technique that is so finicky that you'll probably not find yourself able to do it consistently even once you figure it out. It's like, hold down the shield button to charge up energy, then press another button(Y, in my case)right as you let go for a small shockwave effect. Yeah, only really useful when they force it on you.

Though another big hinderance may be that this game was not at ALL optimized for the Gamecube controller. I'm of the opinion that the Gamecube controller isn't right for ALL games, but it's the best option for all the games it works in. And the fairly simple controls of this game SHOULD work out, but literally the only good button is A as the jump button. B is shield, X is the shoot button, and Y is for special attacks and actions. L and R are used as secondary camera rotation buttons(that barely even worked for me, and I don't think that was a controller problem), and Z seems to be unused.

And this layout is a nightmare!

X in particular should be reserved only for actions that you don't need to do as much, it should not be the MAIN firing button, especially if you need to use Shield and Shoot TOGETHER, as it seems it wants you to do.

My layout would keep jump as A, but make B the Shoot Button, put Shield on the shoulder buttons(you only need the stick for the limited camera in this game), and keep Y as special. Just my opinion.

Though Idk how much it would help the sluggish movement and turning speeds of this game. It was DREADFUL getting anywhere in this game! I actually started playing my next game, Batman Arkham Asylum, in the middle of this, and the difference in control fluidity was staggering. Felt like an N64 game.

This could've been a frame rate problem, though. I noticed that the PS2 footage I occasionally checked out was a lot smoother than mine, so I think they just didn't want to optimize anything for GC. Also had a recurring glitch where the music would just cut out at random points in the level. Not sure what was up with that.

As for the story…

What story?

Things just HAPPEN in this game with no rhyme or reason! First the Bohrok attack for two levels, then we're fighting the Kal, then we're fighting Rahkshi! Sonic Mania had more of a cohesive narrative than this, and Sonic Mania doesn't have a damn narrative!

youtube

And honestly, I could put up with all of this for most of the game! I was just happy to be experiencing a new-to-me piece of Bionicle media! I love Bionicle so much that I was willing to put up with a bit of bullshit!

But then came the Tahu Nuva level. The one I had been looking forward to for a good chunk of my life. Finally, I could experience lava surfing with Tahu like I always wanted to! I had this experience with the Toy Story 3 video game back in the day where I would just sit down in the Woody's Round-up mini-game and just ride Bullseye around town until I got tired, or the game crashed(it was on Wii). But still, the experience of getting to embody that part of one of my heroes was unforgettable.

And this level is completely broken.

Half of the things you're meant to shoot don't let you target them, shit keeps on getting in your way with no way to avoid them, and the Rahkshi will just randomly decide to be completely out of your firing range at certain points. The shot will fire, they will seem in range, but it never hits. And naturally, the defeat cutscene is unskippable.

Yeah.

So, I finally had to just give up. My heart was broken. I'm sad about this. So long, I'd wanted to do this…Guess I'll be waiting a while longer.

3/10

Next up is the one I've already started: Batman Arkham Asylum on PC. See ya then!

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#bionicle #bionicle the game #bionicle video game #gaming backlog #Youtube

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nekupen · 2 years

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#02 - Street Fighter III - 3rd Strike

Throughout the 90s Capcom was pumpin' out Street Fighter games up the wazoo. This includes two that sort of/kind of co-existed by the time they reached their peaks. Street Fighter Alpha and Street Fighter III, polar opposites in concepts and gameplay. Street Fighter Alpha focuses on the titular Street Fighters before SF2. Street Fighter III focuses on the Street Fighters way after SF2 (and SF4+5). I'll be talking III in specific as that game's my JAM.

3rd Strike - A few years after the first two Alphas came out, Capcom began work on a new franchise called New Generation. However, out of low faith and with the introduction of artist Akiman to the team, it became a Street Fighter title, although one with only two returning characters. 2nd Impact was a little better, it added Akuma and introduced Hugo from the Final Fight series. Then Third Strike came and added Chun-Li. Despite the arguably lackluster SF2 representation I feel like the new characters give the SFIII series more of its identity, not that SFIII lacks identity to begin with. With the series and its updates coming out from 1997-1999 and it focusing on the future and a new generation of fighters it has more of a hip and cool and awesome direction, compounding this is the music featured in 3rd Strike, which is a co-effort between Capcom composer Hideki Okugawa and underground rapper Infinite, the music best being described as a sweet mix of jazz, hip hop and some breakcore adjacent genres like house

Another beloved part of SFIII is its spritework and graphics. It runs on the CPS System III board, allowing for fluid graphics and in the case of the first release, elaborate backgrounds. In an era where 3D games were thriving and 2D games were dying, Capcom stuck to their guns, which was to their detriment...at the time. One of the best examples of this fluid spritework is Elena's idle. It's so fuckin' smooth it hurts WHY DID THEY POP OFF ON THAT IDL

The game started catching on some years later thanks to its technically deep and interesting gameplay. Capcom removed some features present in the Alpha series and replaced/tweaked others. No more air blocking, ya got PARRYING BAYBEEE. Press toward or down really fast and you do a fast ass parry that you can react out of immediately. Supers were tweaked into the Super Art system. Instead of having multiple super moves with strength depending on what button you use, you pick one Super Art when you're picking out your character. Sometimes it's a Denjin Hadoken kind of day. Other additions include quick dashes from Darkstalkers that allow you to just do a large steppy in the left or right direction and EX moves, a feature taken from Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game on the original PlayStation. (Important thing of note is that Akuma doesn't have EX moves but can use multiple super moves even though he only picks one at the character select screen.)

These tweaks paired with the game's slower speed compared to Alpha makes the game feel a lot more strategy based. The fluidity of the animations add a certain heaviness to all the attacks even if the attacks aren't that high in startup or ending lag. But it doesn't feel wrong, it feels JUST right and I think it perfectly compliments things like punishes or counters. It makes hitting that Shin Shoryuken all the more powerful, you feel me?

One of the most powerful SFIII clips that has circulated around the FGC (Fighting Game Community) for over a decade is EVO Moment 37, better known as the Daigo Parry. Obviously, it happened at EVO 2004, EVO standing for Evolution. The date was August 1st, 2004, Daigo Umehara and Justin Wong were in the semifinals. Justin Wong was playing as Chun-Li and Daigo was playing as Ken, and Justin had Daigo on death's door. Justin figured "this fuck's gonna go down from my supah move even if he blocks!!!" and so he did his supah move. But Daigo just upped and decided to parry the entire thing and counter with a super move. He had to parry FIFTEEN TIMES!!!! If that didn't sell you on how ballsy that was, parrying pretty much requires frame perfect inputs, so there was little-to-no room for error, and no error there was!!!

So what do I have to say about the game that hasn't already been said here? Play it. You can emulate it obviously but the quickest way to hop in and fight against someone online is with Fightcade; It's also been released on home consoles like the Dreamcast, PS2, Xbox, Xbox 360, and in the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection . It is in my honest opinion the pinnacle of 90s fighting games and sprite-based fighting games in general.

#street fighter #street fighter iii #street fighter iii 3rd strike #third strike #street fighter 3 third strike #fighting games #capcom

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juudaimes-true-form · 6 months

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You really thought it was inclusive to say fem-aligned and masc-aligned? Is that all you people think there is? Y'all really created a new binary and said fuck multigender people and the flexibility of their identities. Why are we creating flags with specific gender meanings for the stripes? That's not inclusive no matter how many stripes you put on the flag. Why are you so happy to exclude people?

We’ll walk through this line by line. It's a little long so I'll leave it under a read more 👍

1. You really thought it was inclusive to say fem-aligned and masc-aligned?

Yes, I do. There are a plethora of identities that fall outside of man, boy, woman, and girl that still align with these. Like demi-girl and demi-boy. By adding fem- and masc- aligned, it’s a nod to the viabinary spectrum who are non-binary and experience gender similar to binary ones. Furthermore, I feel it’s more inclusive than simply saying masculine and feminine identities like most of the current options do.

2. Is that all you people think there is?

No. I am well aware that there are genders that fall completely outside masculine and feminine or beyond human gender understanding entirely (like xenogenders).

3. Y'all really created a new binary and said fuck multigender people and the flexibility of their identities.

While I don’t know anything about you, anon, I can with certainty say that I am multigender. I don’t often use the label since I prefer bigender but I do know that falls under multigender. I understand how flexible gender and its expression can be.

In the flag I shared, the starting with a fem and ending with masc is a holdover of convention at the time. That can make it seem like everything else is sandwiched between these two identities which, I agree, isn’t flexible to the array of experiences anyone can have. It’s not purposeful and I don’t hold it against the creator because as I said it was a common trait –even in the original and other remakes of the bigender flag.

To lestis’ credit, the red-orange stripe (the one directly under the red) tries to honor the flexibility in multigender people and acknowledge other non-binary genders and all the ways they coexist or shift.

Could it be better? Of course! I’m not too certain what you mean by creating a new binary though.

4. Why are we creating flags with specific gender meanings for the stripes?

Not certain what you mean here! Saying masculine identities doesn’t conflate to a specific gender, neither does saying feminine identities and neither does saying nonbinary identities. None of the stripes have specific gender meanings. I think you’re the one conflating qualities of an identity with a specific gender here.

5. That's not inclusive no matter how many stripes you put on the flag.

I agree! Never will we include every single identity in a single flag. Especially with multigender identities, there’s a lot of combination, fluidity, and nuance that won’t come across. The same criticism can be leveled at every version and redesign of the bigender + other gender identity flag. I don’t think that should stop us from trying though. And as we’ve tackled, none of the stripes represent a specific gender, the stripes that do mention identity try to do so in a way that covers multitudes of expressions and identity.

I think lestis’ redesign does the best it can. It was the first flag I’d ever really felt represented with after accepting my bigender identity. But that’s just me, I’m not saying that everyone should also like lestis’ flag. The point of me adding it to the @/bigenderpolls thing was just so more people could see it. I don’t often see people adding lestis’ redesign as part of the bigender flag options and, for a long time, I’d honestly considered being flagless (which was a little disappointing but fine with me) because the other options just didn’t resonate with me.

6. Why are you so happy to exclude people?

Honestly attacking me personally doesn’t do much for you here. I am not happy to exclude people. I don’t have to prove that to you and, frankly, I’m not sure how I’d even go about proving that anyhow.

To put this into context: You are saying I am happy to exclude people because I tried to bring attention to the specific flag I used and hoped others would enjoy too. Like that is, ultimately, the start of all this.

You don’t know me. I don’t know you. But I would guess that you didn’t plop questions like these into the original blog’s inbox or anyone else who reblogged the original post with their opinions on the options.

I don’t have to defend myself to you, anon. You can look through my blog or whatever but if you already have the opinion that I like to exclude people then I doubt anything I say will change your mind.

You’re welcome into my dms if you really want to continue this conversation or you can block me and move on from this dummy (<- me). Either way, this isn’t a discussion I feel comfortable continuing over anon asks. I don’t think I’ll be answering another one of these.

Thank you for stopping by though!

#asks answered

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spoilertv · 1 year

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#SpoilerTV

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y-u-u-u-u-u · 2 years

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Week 11 - Assignment 3 playtesting

Before talking about the playtesting session, I want to share a quick update on the tweaks I’ve made to the gravity bubble mechanic, as well as the development progress.

For the gravity bubble, I added a scene timer called bubbleSpawn, and it will start right after the bubble gets deleted. After 1 second, a new bubble sprite will spawn at the previous bubble’s location. This solved the problem I talked about in the last development post, where the only way to let the player dash out of the bubble is to delete it, but I don’t know how to bring it back. I was a bit confused about how to respawn the bubble. I missed an obvious solution, and now the problem is solved.

Development-wise, our artist created some beautiful sprites for the tiles and platforms, and we also designed a boss character - "enemy scientist". He was created using the player sprite and will challenge the player at the end of the level. The scientist sits on a moving platform and throws grenades at the player, and the player will have to jump onto the platform to shoot him and jump down when he uses projectiles.

As for level design, I tweaked the level layout slightly to make the player always move toward the right. This change was made to reduce confusion on which way to go. I also incorporated additional platforming sections to prolong gameplay and, of course, added the final boss fight stage. Some parts of the level now feaure additional platforms beneath the main path to allow players to backtrack and try again if they fell from platforms.

Now, onto the playtesting session.

I was the only one from our team that went to the Halloween playtesting party, and as a result, I only did a preliminary playtest with a single person. There was quite a bit of positive feedback. The player was surprised by the mechanics we incorporated into the game, and he found them very interesting to use. He also praised the fluidity and intricacy of the character/object animations. However, the blandness of the background and the inconsistency of the recoil jump mechanic hindered the gameplay experience.

After the team made some further tweaks, we conducted more systematic playtests across 5 players. This time, we received a lot more constructive criticism that would help us further improve the game.

First of all, playtesters all stated that the inconsistency of the recoil jump severely affected the enjoyment of the gameplay since most of the platforming sections require the recoil jump to complete. This made going through the level quite frustrating, and At the current stage, the gun’s recoil needs multiple shots fired beforehand to activate. With each shot, the jump distance would increase, and after a certain amount of shots, it would revert to an unfunctional state. So far, we couldn’t find a solution for this major issue, and we suspected the only way to solve it is to switch to a physically-based engine.

There were more complaints regarding the level design. Most players pointed out that the level felt quite confusing as they often couldn’t figure out which way to go, and some sections of the level were simply not fun to traverse or too frustrating to get through. This would obviously be an issue on my part. As a first-time level designer, I’m quite inexperienced when it comes to making a level feel fun to play. I also haven’t played too many 2D platformers, which further increased the difficulty of level design for me.

Some additional problem lies with some of the experiments and enemies. Players often don’t know what to do with the friction gel and the gravity bubble and stated that the enemies felt weak and unchallenging to fight against, as both their attacks and movements are quite slow. So fighting them was more of a chore rather than a compelling challenge.

[email protected] | Shenghua Gao

#GDevelop #game development #playtesting

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thebandcampdiaries · 2 years

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Tee Slaves is back with a brand new release: "Disconnected"

October 2022 - Tee Slaves is a rap artist from Brooklyn, NY. She recently released a brand new piece of music: "Disconnected". What makes Tee Slaves special is the fact that there is a lot of fluidity when it comes to the style blend that the music entails. There is something quite special about capturing so many different styles under one roof, and Tee Slaves’s most recent release, "Disconnected", feels like a perfect compromise in terms of setting the bar higher and making things happen with a very broad creative approach. The record features 12 songs. Each track has something special to offer, and it is an opportunity for the artist to showcase her impressive lyrical flow and ability to explore different sounds and ideas. There is also room for some collaborative songs. Jam Young appears on the banger “Woah” while Jasmine Denise has a featured spot on “Meghan’s Mood.” Having two fellow independent artists to guest on the album was a winning move; which allowed Tee Slaves to bring even more variety to this already eclectic and original-sounding piece of music. In addition to that, The songs on the album are held together by a powerful concept, as the artist ponders on the current state of the world. Things seem to be broken all around us, and a state of confusion makes people wonder about their future and whether we can hope in some certainty in our lives. Like all the best rappers in the game, Tee Slaves is a natural-born storyteller who knows how to ask deep questions and pursue her truth. On the album, the artist is very outspoken, fiercely tackling systemic issues such as income inequality, access to voting, and the attacks against women’s reproductive justice.

Tee Slaves’s music is definitely going to be something for you if you do enjoy the sound of hip-hop music that feels personal and easy to relate to.

Tee Slaves’s "Disconnected" feels like an incredibly strong statement for the artist, and it will definitely leave an indelible mark in her career, possibly setting forth a new direction for her creative path and her ability to really push her vision forward and broaden her horizons in order to explore new ideas overtime.

Find out more about Tee Slaves, and check out "Disconnected", which is currently available on the web.

https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/teeslaves

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9dd7CaCGWQ

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ermuellert · 2 years

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we’re kind of super sexy…

#shit ava says #yes lewy was amazing for us but i think our squad is so suitable for what nagelsmann seems to want #there’s a lot of attacking fluidity which makes the most of #the players we target; our targets are often players who can #play several different roles and have that versatility #i like us! even if we’re not perfect (yet)

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lunar-lair · 2 years

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hello one and all to the submas soul eater au post courtesy of my silly brain. note it's midnight and uh. im a lil crazey but hopefully this vibes anyways :o)

Ingo and Emmet

Starting with the Stars of The Show,,

Say hello to twin weapons Ingo and Emmet!! Ta-daaaa

Ingo and Emmet can wield each other but Elesa is also their meister bc due to their weapon type they're more effective being used at the same time anyways

Ingo is a sword and Emmet is a curved dagger! (Ingo was formally a broadsword but I just looked it up and those are used w/ two hands. No thnx)

Both of their hilts are exactly the same, silver, with Arceus' symbol etched in the top and the symbols from their in-game hats etched into the base (the first-later explanation. The second-family insignia)

Ingo has a very stealthy fighting style; his weapon is Emmet, so he has to rely on short range attacks and trickery.

Emmet goes in guns blazing; his weapon is Ingo, so there's no real point in stealth.

Both have sheaths to hide the other in (a weapon is easier to hide than a human), and rely on a lot of trickery.

When they go into battle, they both wear calf length, grey jackets that are far too big. Ingo wears a black hat and Emmet wears a white one, but that's more for allies than anything else.

They also wear dress shoes, but they always wear dress shoes. (Elesa thinks they're crazy. They give half a shit.)

They also have earrings! Sort of.

Both wear a small gem as an earring; Ingo on his right, Emmet on his left, so they face each other when they stand next to each other.

This gem amplifies their weapon abilities. (Again, an explanation for,,,probably another post at this point this is getting long.)

And on their other ear, they wear an earring with a chain and a clamp that goes on the shell of their ear.

In their weapon form, this translates to a chain; for Emmet, it allows a more ranged attack where he's semi thrown, and for both of them, it's more a way to ensure they aren't dropped. (Like the strap on a Wii remote.)

(also don't ask me how this works it just sounds cool lmao)

Drayden got them a pair of them, probably. He's their uncle in this au cause I said so and it's a cool thought. Maybe Clay helped make them/mine the materials louder shrug I haven't figured out most of the other gym leaders yet tbth

Ingo has chips taken out of his blade, and it reflects on his body as a few deep scars on his right side.

More on this in Elesa's post ;)

uhhh. other thoughts umm

They learned they were weapons when, while Ingo was fending off bullies, Emmet transformed on instinct (to which the kids ran away because THAT'S A FUCKING DAGGER????)

Their parents, a weapon and meister duo, quickly supported sending them off to the DWMA (which is still called that cause it still makes sense)

Once they hit about 20, they start teaching there, as well!

They joint teach one class, teaching different subjects one or the other knows more about, but the base idea of the class is 'A class taught by twin weapons for weapon duos!', as weapon duos are relatively rare.

(When they were looking for one meister, 13 and fresh to the DWMA, it took them awhile.

Luckily, Elesa was actually looking for a weapon duo; she enjoyed the thought of fluidity in fighting.)

In normal everyday life, they wear the same thing they do in battle, but just. Less confusing coats

They're way too formal. At least, when they're at the school. (Who knows, maybe they dress like normal people outside of it...Elesa will never tell.) Dress pants, shirt, tie (red for Ingo and yellow for Emmet), the works. And yes, they still wear the dress shoes while teaching, don't ask why, they won't give you a real answer. (Elesa has stopped trying.) They wear their black-and-white hats, but their jackets reflect that, as well.

Though they're a little different. Ingo wears black, Emmet wears white, of course. They're more thigh length than calf length, and they can close, but unlike their battle jackets, which are meant to stay closed, it's more for winter weather than anything else. They're more close-cut, but still decently comfy and too-big.

Emmet's is absolutely covered in pins. This goes for his hat, too, though he's a little more conservative with them when it comes to that.

Ingo doesn't mind pins, but has far less than Emmet does.

Both wear identical pins on the front of their hats, though. They were gifts from Elesa when they first became her weapons, and they've gone through a good few hats and many, many years, but they're still holding up.

and uhhh. i think thats it for basics w/ the boys! elesa post coming soon i Promise (and then a general post w/ a section on team plasma and the mcs. or maybe ill chunk that one up well see)

#argh. i hope this isnt too long #I HAVENT MADE A TUMBLR POST IN SO LONG....ARGHH #specifically like. a long one. abt an idea i have. esp one like this. ough #i dont care if this gets attention i just hope whatever attention is does get isnt negative OAKSKDK #ill put it into the main tags tho. for funsies :o)#pokemon #submas #soul eater au #trash talks

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trevs-chalobah · 2 years

Text

few notes on today’s match against everton away.

first of all, great to finally getting the win after losing the last four games in a row at goodison park. a win we had to work hard for but a win nonetheless. clean sheet and the first three points of the season.

mendy: made a couple of great saves showing his quality again after being subpar at times recently.

reece: not at his best. performance was below standards, especially corners. unnecessary yellow card for time wasting. moved around a lot position-wise, from rwb to lwb to rcb. room to improve.

azpi: showing great leadership as always. solid in defense. not the fastest anymore but still showing his great quality.

thiago: the goat. one of the greatest defenders of all time (not joking). calm and collected. reading the game brilliantly as usual. important interceptions and blocks outstanding.

kalidou: still have to pinch myself that we actually managed to sign him. great defending. winning aerial duels left and right. gave his all until he had to be subbed off due to cramps. calm in the box and under pressure.

ben: glad to see him starting again to gain match fitness. did well to drive into the box and draw the penalty. played well enough and the only way is up.

jorgi: some call him the pen merchant, i call him the specialist. he does what he does best, scoring the first chelsea goal of the campaign from the spot, sending the keeper the wrong way. solid in midfield but the transition to the attack needs more fluidity.

kanté: dare i say the old kanté is making a comeback? he was all over the pitch making great runs. good overall performance

kai: not good enough today. felt like his head wasn’t fully in it at times. slow in reaction and creating ideas.

mason: same as kai.

raz: what a breath of fresh air. left alone at times which left him with no one to pass the ball to. could have bagged a couple of goals. debute goal sadly offside. should have had a penalty in my opinion after being brought down in the box. made great runs into the box. such an exciting signing.

rlc: played as rwb after coming on as a sub for chilwell. had a couple good moments e.g drawing a foul at the edge of the box. otherwise low-key performance

pulisic: brought on as a sub for mount. most memorable moment tackling pickford outside the box and winning the ball. good performance but rather low-key as well.

broja: brought on for havertz. had a couple of great moments showing his potential. could be a real asset to the squad.

cucurella: slotted right into the squad. almost assisted raz for his debute goal. solid defensively as well. fantastic performance considering he had one session with the team so far. wonder what he can do after a couple more and getting used to the others.

conor: brought on for jorgi in injury time. not a long performance but did well in the time he had.

all in all, a game where we should have scored more as usual. hard fought win. need to work on improving the output on corners and set pieces. time to recover and prepare for the london derby against tottenham at home.

#chelsea fc

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nightswithkookmin · 3 years

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Goldy,

Kind of off topic, but a little on topic. Have you seen the band Maneskin from Italy? They won 2021 Eurovision Song Contest. Beautiful, beautiful people.

I have no idea of their sexual orientation or preferences, but they wear a lot of makeup on and off stage , and smooch on each other a lot on stage. Nobody bats an eye. They are a Metal band and they dress accordingly. I wish that everyone around the world was as accepting as all their fans are. They are super androgynous as well and they are SEXY as hell

Their charm and sexuality is so fluid and just so natural. They are who they are and they are beautiful and fun to watch. Their comfort with each other is how I wish ALL of us would be

Rock bands rock period

I wonder what they look like in brand ads. I wonder if they are given or are required to have a much tamer look with little to no rings and funky clothing or hoop earrings you can barely see.

Where are the dangly chrome earrings?! WHERE ARE THEY?!🤺

I like my BTS the way they are. It's what I bought in. I want to see men in corsets, waist snatched, dark eyeliners selling alcohol to men. Is that too much to ask?! Is it?!😒

This is what happens when they treat queerness as aesthetics and have no qualms drawing on- if not appropriate- gay culture and lifestyle. Y'all just ditch it for your hyper heteromasculinity whenever y'all want😒

Their ability to divorce themselves completly from certain looks at certain times is what gives me whiplash. When that happens, it creates the impression queerness is just a look, gender fluidity is not real and establishes traditional definitions of masculinity as the norm. You do not have to 'look like a man' to sell alcohol 🤺

I was literally waiting for this Kloud, Klout beer ad to drop ever since Winter Package at the end of last year because we all know what most people think about Alcohol and men. I was curious to how how BTS would market to men as compared to women and teens. I feel there is so much room for them to break norms and set new trends in the advertising world. I'm disappointed so far.

For contrast, look at how they look selling a nonachoholic beverage as compared to how they look selling alcohol. Can I weep? Can I?! See how they look like they just stepped off a set for a music video? They look like themselves. Their everyday selves but you look on your left and it's like huh??????

And in case the message and intent is not clear, here is a photo of different models modeling for the same brand.

Their girls look like "girls" and their boys look like "boys." I'd say BTS in those ads look much more similar to the male model here in terms of looks- that clear cut box labeled men- which to me is a problem.

I'm sorry but this is just lazy advertisement. Nothing at all ground breaking. The models look great. Taehyung looks tasty, heteromasculine and perfect.

I feel used to male oriented brands breaking boundaries and participating in the gender discourse in recent times I think my expectations for BTS on this topic in advertisement was this high.

If heteromasculinity is all y'all can tap into to sell a can of drink I'm sorry but that's misogynistic and sexist and homophobic.

If Jimin or any of these boys come out a few years down the lane in another documentary to say these kinds of shit affected them in any way I AM STARTING WORLD WAR III.

I'm tired of seeing Jimin and other Asian men be emasculated and treated as if they aren't men enough just because they look to them 'feminine.' You don't have to fix their masculinity or tweak it to suit your idea and ideals of masculinity. There's no one way of being man.

Don't get me started on the desexualization of Asian men and it's subsequent effects on Asian men. You hear Asian men are not sexy, they do not sell the fantasy, they are not this, they are not that blah blah blah and yet we sit here and wonder why someone like JK, who had probably internalized that shit, would say he wants to be seen as sexy too and perform sexy choreos and shit.

And no, it's not an American Asian problem, it's a global Asian problem. BTS are on the world's stage being socialized by the global community and they do face almost every microaggression prevalent within the regional communities. It's the American's take on them, Canada, UK, Africa, Asia, Europe, all of them. Everyone is projecting on to them their ideals and understanding of gender and who they should be. Did we not see BTS BIOT trending from the Philippines lately? Gay because WHY???? They wear make up and earrings and love androgynous?

Naa, I'm actually getting gassed the more I think about it🤺🤺🤺🤺🤺🤺🤺🤺🤺🤺

The notion that Asians aren't sexy sits on the opposite end of 'Asians are too soft and good looking they are not masculine' all on the something is inherently wrong with Asian men spectrum.

I keep saying Jikook are the two members who've faced and have perhaps had to defend their masculinities the most- from BTS themselves effeminating JK and always bringing his masculinity to question- you know they once said JK is the most feminine within the group? I think so too but that's besides the point chilee.

Then for Jimin, he's always been either over feminized or defeminized, masculated and treated as if his femininity is wrong and invalid. Didn't a certain Karmy call him a fake woman or something like that? It's almost the same microaggressions transfems and gay men steroetyped as bottoms recieve on a dialy basis in this shit hole we call planet. It's all so ghetto.

Ass holes like to masculate and invalidate fems and masculine femininity, it's appalling. And people like to gaslight and pretend these microaggressions cannot have Freudian effects on these people- he is too strong to be bullied, oh he worked so hard on himself he can't crack so easily, oh it's nothing they're just being sensitive, it was joke, they're reading too much into it, and my personal favorite- y'all are over analyzing when you point it out😌

Some people are legit serial gaslighters, they will gaslight you before you can say the Jay in Jesus.

As a black woman growing up in a community that view black women as strong and incapable of being mentally attacked and traumatized by certain experiences- black people don't get depression or mental health issues because they are black and they are strong- being masculated and defeminized on a dialy basis, I tell you- shit is torture.

All of this, and we sit here and wonder why Jimin wants to go to the gym and build muscles and blend in with the boys etc. Could be nothing, could be a response to the over feminization of Jimin, the emasculation or it could be he is internalizing some things. We will never know.

Personally, I feel JM is on the precipice of something and may be its something, may be its nothing but imma put my foot on these companies' neck and keep it there 🤓

Because it's not just about Jimin. It's about all the people who look up to him. All the people he has influence over. For every queer child who sees themselves in him and these men.

Any who. I think I've said everything I want to say on this topic. The weight on my chest is lifted. Asian men are sexy, their masculinity is VALID. Queer masculinity is valid too and they need to be inclusive of it. If you don't wanna include it leave BTS as they are. We get the representation as they are. Don't tweak them in y'all's brand campaigns. Don't fix Jimin's Jawline and make it more chiseled. HE IS PERFECT THE WAY HE IS.

Now please, let's talk about BigHit and the recent shipping agendas.😐

Signed,

GOLDY

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toujoursmiraculous · 3 years

Text

Thoughts and Reaction to ROCKETEAR!

It's a long post, but when are these ever really short? xD Seeing Carapace first made me so excited. I've been sad we haven't had much of him in the show. And then I saw that it seemed like Ladynoir was doing pretty good as they only had Carapace helping them this time. More S2 & S3 like. So I was like cool, cool, this is great. But what the heck scientist WHY ARE YOU BRINGING TYRANNOSAURUS REX'S BACK! Obviously she's going to be something big later on, she's too nicely animated not to be back. Not to mention Bob Roth's plans. Anyone else both intrigued but also scared at what that could do later? Big upcoming plot point, I think.

I screamed awwww because this is everything. I've wanted a LB/Carapace and Marinette/Nino friendship bond in this show since season 1. This scene made me incredibly happy! I'm a huge Nino fan, for those that don't know, so you can imagine how much I love this episode. Even though sad Nino.

"Alya, everyone has to believe that you will never use the Miraculous again!" End of episode: So anyway... So what I'm seeing here is, Alya's not fond of the idea of being just a spy, not being in on the action. Even though it's Ladybug's plan. Chat Noir isn't fond of what's going on right now either, where he thinks what's going on is all Ladybug's plans. Alya makes the decision to not do what Ladybug wants and tells Nino she's still Rena Rouge. So what's Chat Noir going to do to go against her? Because that's coming up on the horizon. Despite everything being easier for Marinette since everything's not just on her shoulders now, she's still been unable to play video games with her dad, and we know how much she loves doing that. :c That's really sad she doesn't even have time for her family anymore. DJWifi over here being all adorable. "You don't love me anymore!" Me: *Chat Blanc flashbacks* Alya suggests her new content could be Chat Noir edits and Marinette's like YES DO THOSE. Then those edits helped push Nino into thinking she was into Chat. Big oops. Not gonna lie, the rewind freaked me out for a moment. Last time I saw that was Chat Blanc so I thought something big was up. But nope, it's just like that scene in Puppeteer 2. Ugh poor Nino! He knows something's bothering Alya, but she won't say what it is and her behavior's too off from how she normally is. Poor guy. x.x Grumpy Nino that Carapace doesn't get attention and then they wrote his girlfriend with Chat Noir. I remember when Alya was grumpy for a bit about Rena Rouge not getting a party to celebrate her. Movie Ladybug telling Movie Chat Noir that he's better with Movie Rena Rouge. Is this a reference to the episode in Avatar, The Ember Island Players? Getting strong vibes when Play Aang and Play Katara were like, we're just friends nothing more and it's great! Play Katara was extremely into Play Zuko. I can see why Ladybug dismissed the movie (or was it the previous one since it's been awhile? Maybe?) because Rena Rouge and Chat Noir???? The writers (of the movie) just wanted to be different because everyone can see Ladynoir, unless they're blind. Alya and Nino are Andre's favorite couple. YES THANK YOU. I mean they're not my favorite because Love Square. BUT they're my second favorite next to them. Those kids are super adorable but definitely that kid playing Chat wasn't doing Nino any favors. First picture Alya shows. Chat with a heart tail. Yeah that's not doing her any favors lol. Nino: UGH CHAT NOIR'S COMING IN BETWEEN ME AND MY GIRLFRIEND. I KNOW, I'LL CALL MY BEST FRIEND TO VENT TO ABOUT IT. Best Friend Chat Noir: Best Friend Chat Noir: Welp maybe I should see what's up. Maybe I went a little to hard on the cat charm and she's fallen in love with me. Me: Oh oof here we go. Also can I ask, if anyone knows, who animated this episode? The fluidity is great and it looks really pretty. But it doesn't quite look like SAMG's work either. Whoever did it, I love it. S2 Chat Noir: You're not replacing me with a turtle, are you? :c S4 Nino: Who would want a reckless turtle as a partner? BOYS STOP. But yeah this whole scene had me laughing so hard XD Very dramatic and I love it. Nino's hilarious even when he's worried and sad! I would've absolutely loved to have heard this in English with the old English voice of Nino, but the new one worries me on whether or not he'll do a good job sounding like Nino and less high-pitched and whiny. :/ New York Nino was great but S4 Nino....x.x THE TRANSITION BETWEEN HIS INNER MONOLOGUE AND SPEAKING REGULARLY AGAIN 😂😂😂😂 Brilliant! It doesn't really feel like Miraculous Ladybug this episode, and I love it. Not that I don't love the show as usual but wow this is great. Okay, I want to point out that Chat Noir

probably was more worried about it than he would've been otherwise because of what happened with Marinette in Weredad. It probably made him more cautious about this sort of thing.

LOL Chat's sulking because Alya's laughing at the idea of being interested in him. 😂😂 I know that's a blow to one's ego and all, and he's dealt with this kind of thing a lot so I do feel bad for him, but that is his best friend's girlfriend and he definitely doesn't want her to like him. Alya: With him it's not just ❤️it's *makes massive hand gesture indicating she loves him deeply* SO SO SO CUTE OKAY ALL THIS DJWIFI 😭 Alya: And I don't even know your secret identity! I would never fall in love with someone I don't know. Chat Noir, literally fell in love with Ladybug, whose identity he doesn't know. Well Alya, I wonder if you saying that matters for later somehow.... o.O Nino running away crying is honestly one of the things that hurts me most in the entire show. Ugh. Adrien over here being all, I'm having a good day. I'm happy and smiling and it's great. And then it wasn't. Adrien, if Nino let him and didn't interrupt, would've told him about how Alya really doesn't love Chat Noir, and that would've seriously led up to his identity being exposed since Nino was watching and filmed them. o.o Did you notice how he was going to tell him about it? S4, the basement is where it's at. Adrien: Uhh, when did you arrange all this? Nino: *pounds fist on desk* I ASK THE QUESTIONS! 😂 So like. Why is Nino interrogating Adrien when he's after Chat Noir? He doesn't know they're the same person. XD He's looking at him like Adrien has info he's keeping or something omg.

Also again this animation is so nice. Adrien, feeling uncomfortable and so turns the music off. Nino, wanting his dramatic music on while he interrogates Adrien, turns it back on. Adrien, feeling even more irritated and uncomfortable, wants the music OFF and turns it off. Nino, turns the music back on. This may be a reference to something, I don't know, but lolol it's so funny. This episode is both super hilarious and super angsty! Honestly they've done such a good job in my opinion. Nino: I'm talking about something that I shouldn't tell you! ...but I'm going to tell you anyway! Alya's Rena Rouge and I'm Carapace! Okay but the way Adrien went from shock to utter anger, knocked his chair back and grabbed Nino's shoulders like "Tell me the truth. You two know about each other?" Aw man, my poor sunshine boy. A lot of the stuff bothering Adrien is all circumstantial, none of it is to purposefully keep him in the dark. And yet from his perspective, that's how it looks. "I thought secret identities must be protected at all times! If that was the truth, you would never tell me this!" Alright so three things. If he's referring to him saying that Nino and Alya know about each other, that was situational and important info for him to know now that this is out. It wasn't important to know before this. The time it happened was dire and was really no time to get around it. If he's talking about Nino telling him the secrets, well yeah that's not supposed to happen and Nino broke that trust. But also, I get the feeling pretty strongly at this point Adrien's going to be breaking some rules too and one of which is he's going to tell Nino who he is. Adrien's being too emotional in this scene to not be involved in it all, I'm wondering if that's going to be questioned later by Nino. He's acting like he knows too much to be a random viewer of the heroes like the rest of Paris. Also Adrien's best friend just totally dissed Chat Noir and went off about how he throws himself at Ladybug whenever he sees her with roses and love confessions. 😂😂😂 This is just too funny! "But he's always rejected because Ladybug finds him annoying! And she's completely right!" Omg Nino, that's not the reason anymore, shush! "And then Rena Rouge appears and he goes *tickles under Adrien's chin* hey pretty lady! You look elegant and you have great perfume." OMG does Chat Noir actually say and do stuff like that to Rena Rouge or is he just exaggerating here XD "If I could I would shut his mouth forever!" Yeah Nino, say what you really think about your best friend in the entire world. Yikes poor Adrien though. I never imagined he'd hear all these bad things about himself from his best friend directly like that. :/ That's a major misunderstanding of him. Which kind of pushes me more towards the "he's going to tell Nino" theory. Sad Adrien transformation DDDX Alya: *explained everything about why Chat Noir went over to her house in the middle of the night* Marinette *facepalm* Ugh that Chat Noir... Well at least there will be no misunderstandings there! xD "Chat Noir, you stole Alya from me! I will steal your life from you." Good lord man calm down. You can't just kill a man! Fanon: Chat Noir gets attacked by a guy over Marinette. Canon: Chat Noir gets attacked by a guy over Alya. Time to go back to the basement! lol Nino's music's still playing xD And the video is left with it paused on Chat Noir hugging Alya. Marinette looked a bit sad, but it was probably more about the situation being a mess rather than being sad he'd hug her. Meanwhile, Chat Noir's fighting Nino and would rather get beaten up by him than fight. x.x "I can't believe that I doubted you." "I can't believe I chose to do anything but be with you!" She wiped away akumatized Nino's tear just like how Ladybug wiped away akumatized Chat Noir's. ALL THE PARALLELS 😭😭😭 But that hug is so sweet!! Nino broke off the akumatization just like Alya did :o Dang, I wonder if that means something later too. "Love and secrets do not go well together, Ladybug. And I'm sure you have a lot of

them!" Secrets = from Chat Noir. Love = for Chat Noir. Yeah even Shadow Moth knows at this point. xP Thanks for that foreshadowing. Nino's charm is my favorite charm so far! It's my favorite shade of blue. Chat Noir: Everybody has doubts sometimes...even me." Ladybug: Is everything okay, Chat Noir? Chat: Oh yes...pound it!

So um. The placemet of Adrien's poster in between Chat Noir, Ladybug, and just with this entire situation feels very strange. Very intentional. But no clue exactly what that could mean..... Nino and Alya are happy over there watching those two, like they're waiting for them to figure things out or something. But really, Adrien should've talked to Ladybug when he could still do so calmly and be reasonable. I doubt that's going to be the case later on. And honestly Ladybug doesn't even know what's going on. Every episode we've seen really either has them working together or she's unable to be Ladybug when he's unable to be Chat Noir most of the time. I've said it before but these two really need to communicate. Nino and Alya are like a less adorably romantic version of what they'd be. "But they're a couple and they know their secret identities, so why does that rule exist for us but they can know?" Very simple. Because they were temporary holders and the Miraculous they had, Hawk Moth hasn't made it his life's mission to obtain, unlike them, who are permanent holders and Hawk Moth's been after them fiercely to make a Wish that could destroy everything. But. The fact he's asking this, and Marinette's Chat Blanc nightmare, really points in the direction that he's going to eventually find out that while she's thought about telling him all along, Chat Blanc's kept her from doing so.

Okay, so while it looks like he's staring up at the moon, if you notice, it really is just one of the pink bubbles.

Now, they could be making it seem like it's the moon though to give it a double meaning. But poor Kitty, he's feeling so awful right now over in that dark corner Dx Nino felt bad for only two episodes? and it got resolved, so hopefully this all won't last too much longer for him! Marinette had a few shaky episodes so hopefully he'll have a few before it gets resolved. But somehow I think that may be wishful thinking. This episode was so amazing, honestly. Wonderful writing, made me laugh a lot, aw a lot, and hurt a lot. It focused on the core 4 characters which I've wanted more of for a long time. The animation was beautiful. And it just felt so different in such a good way. Chat Noir's having a hard time right now, and I know there's a lot of anger and hate about it going around. But please, think of this as him hitting a rough spot in the road to a much better and brighter future. He's going to end up okay, he'll understand it all someday. And that day's honestly not that far for him if you think about it.

#ml #miraculous ladybug #ml spoilers #ml season 4 spoilers #chat blanc #rocketear spoilers #ml spoilers season 4 #toujoursmiraculous thoughts and reaction #ladybug #chat noir #carapace #rena rouge #alya cesaire #nino lahiffe #marinette dupain cheng #adrien agreste #miraculous tales of ladybug and cat noir

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retvenkos · 3 years

Text

No, I am not done talking about aging up the characters of the Grishaverse, thank you very much...

(Spoilers for pretty much all of the Grishaverse!)

I’m going to come right out and say it - I don’t think aging up all of the characters was the smartest move. I think the Grishaverse is compelling, and the characters can be very complex, and part of that leans on the ages of the characters. I’m going to be talking about why I think (at least some) of the characters should have retained their same age, or at the very least, shouldn’t have been quite so aged up.

But first, I understand some reasons as to why they aged up characters, so I’m going to state them outright, to advocate on their behalf (but also, I can try my hand at debunking some of these. For funsies):

1. Mass audiences will be less interested if the main story feels too Y.A. - most adult audiences won’t want to watch that genre.

(This is a very fair argument! However, when comparing Shadow and Bone to other popular (non Y.A.) fantasies, Shadow and Bone is very Y.A. Compare Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings to Shadow and Bone, and you can see how the Y.A. genre permeates the text. There are character moments and story beats that Shadow and Bone utilizes that are characteristic of the Y.A. genre. It was created with that audience and expectation in mind. No matter how hard the show tries to divorce the source material from it’s Y.A. roots, it is still very much a Y.A. story. The second most important plot line is a romance and not the implications of how society created the Darkling and how society Must Be Fixed if we ever want to move on and win the war. Those problems of the wider Grishaverse are better tackled in the Nikolai Duology (which still stumbles), and the Nikolai Duology feels like a different story/genre because it’s tackling something different. Shadow and Bone is an inherently Y.A. story, and really, it is the later books in the Grishaverse that deviate from the tropes and traps of the genre. No matter how you dice it, the original trilogy is very much a Y.A. story. Lean into it, and you might be better able to mess around with the fluidity of the genre, all while your audience knows what the story is, and what will come of it. Alternatively, the writers could have gotten deep into the text and tried to bring up the deeper problems of the story (most of those grey areas) to make it less trope-like, but that would require an almost complete retelling, which we did not get. Too often, Y.A. stories are divorced from the genre when they are adapted, but it’s not done in an organic way that looks at the text itself, and it feels very off when viewing. Just let Shadow and Bone be what it is. If you want a longer rant on this, hmu.)

2. Some very serious things happen to these characters! To write about it is one thing, but to watch a 17 year old Alina be manipulated in this way or to watch a 19 year old Genya be used in this way is dark and very much Not Okay!

(Yes! Watching all of the terrible, terrible things happen is bad enough on it’s own, and when you de-age Alina from 25 to 17 and Genya from 30 to 19, there are some very big consequences! It’s not nearly as inviting or Okay to view! Anyone would be rightly horrified! Especially older audiences! Well, forgive me for being so blunt, but that is part of The Point. Part of what makes all of this so cruel and so unfair is that these characters are young - they are barely no longer children - and that is what heightens the injustice of it all. Alina is a teenager who is tasked with saving the world and freeing an oppressed people! And she doesn’t want to do it! That’s a lot to handle, right? Arguably, by keeping their young ages, you are better breaking out of the Y.A. adaptation trap because you are making a statement about how young these characters are and how unfair all of this is. Y.A. adaptations always age up the characters for palatability, but by keeping them young, you are making it more grungy and more frightening without even changing the source material!)

3. Okay, but adult audiences don’t want to ship teenagers. How will we get them to watch?

(This argument is probably the most sound, and it makes the most sense! Netflix wants to get the widest audience they can - they know teenagers who read the book are going to watch it anyway, so they need to get the older crowd invested. An easy way to get people invested is to get them hooked on a romance plotline. Then you have to watch the show to see how it progresses! It would be hard to do that if adults feel uncomfortable telling 16 year olds to kiss already. Another problem is that Shadow and Bone doesn’t have an adult cast - they have the young ones and that’s about it. Compare that to Game of Thrones (or, if you want me to stop with GOT references, shows like Cobra Kai) where there are 2+ generations - fans have the older group to ship, and the younger group to wish the best for. This is a trap of the Y.A. genre. They are Kids, but they are Not. In the book, this works fine, as their ages aren’t mentioned often. In fact, in the books, they read like competent 25 year olds, except for key moments when they show their age, which usually feels bittersweet (the Six of Crows Duology is much better at this than Shadow and Bone, but I digress). So what do we do? Well, D*rklina fans aren’t going to like this, but I would argue that we keep Alina and Mal aged down, and the story subliminally changes from “the love triangle” to “coming of age while dealing with abusive relationships”. In fact, this is another great way to divorce it from the Y.A. genre, which was already a goal we had in mind.)

✧ *:･ﾟ

Now, let’s move onto character analyses... everyone’s favorite.

In this section, I’m going to break down some main characters from the Shadow and Bone Netflix show (and some upcoming characters, just for the hell of it) and I’m going to advocate for changing their ages. At the end, I’ll give you a rough ballpark estimate for what I think they should have been.

(Also, I just want to address that I loved the actors chosen for the Netflix show, and this is in no way an attack on them. They did great, and they’re performances were amazing. This is me talking about an issue the showrunners made, not the actors.)

Alina Starkov

First, we get to talk about the lovely Alina Starkov. Jessie Mei Li is 25 years old. Her book counterpart is 17. That’s a whopping 8 year difference where a lot of growth happens. Alina Starkov in the books is doing her best for a girl who is told that she is going to save the world. She doesn’t have a lot of experience outside of the orphanage and the army, and so her knowledge of how Grisha are treated is ignorant at best, and malicious at worst. She doesn’t see nearly all of the suffering that is happening in the world, and for the most part, it stays that way. She knows the Fjerdans don’t like them, she knows the Shu are bad too, but she doesn’t really know the extent. She really gets a good look at it in the 3rd book, but for a large part of the series, Alina doesn’t really know what she’s up against, and her age is an easy explanation for her ignorance. A 17 year old growing up in a remote orphanage hasn’t had the greatest education. A 25 year old Alina has less excuses.

(There’s also a lot to be said about how Alina mostly... doesn’t care about the wider issues plaguing Grisha. This is decidedly Bad. I’m going to say this once, and I will say it many times again, but generally, audiences are more okay when a younger character does Bad Things because they reason they’ll learn in time. Thus, for a show, it’s strategically better to make these characters younger. Saying this doesn’t mean I support Alina’s disregard, it just means I recognize how it is utilized in storytelling.)

But why is her ignorance important, you ask? Because, Alina misses a key point of why the Darkling does what he does. To her, his actions of expanding the Fold are very black and white. Even when she’s with him, she refuses to see how it’s justified. Thus, a younger Alina is a little more understandable.

If Netflix was planning on focusing on how the Darklings desires are good but his methods are wrong, keeping Alina aged up is fine because she could be the voice of those concerns. However, I don’t really see that happening, so aging her up seems cheap.

Furthermore, part of the injustice of Alina’s character is that she is a child tasked with saving the world. She is a teenager who is being worshipped as a Saint, and who is going to have to martyr herself for the good of the world. It’s unfair. It’s cruel. Alina being 25 doesn’t somehow change this injustice, but to the average viewer, seeing a 17 year old child dying for the good of Ravka - dying because she’s the only one who can stop the villain - is more emotional and more disturbing. There’s your grit, Netflix. It was already handed to you.

And I know, Ben Barnes (who plays the Darkling) is 39! It would be extremely uncomfortable to watch him fall in love and manipulate Alina! Again, I’m apologizing to the D*rklina shippers, because that is The Point. The Darkling is hundreds (perhaps thousands) of years old. That is why his talk of “eternity” is so compelling. He has felt it. He has lived it. When he tells Alina that he will break her, it should be greatly disturbing! It would change the feeling of the story completely if Alina looks like a teenager. It would be a story about survival - not of romance. And while survival is definitely a Y.A. dystopian or fantasy trope, depending on how it’s handled, it could be markedly different from its predecessors.

However, book Alina is a minor, and that doesn’t sit right with me. Thus, I would make Alina 18, or 19 at the most. She should still very much be a teenager.

Malyen Oretsev

Mal is the next character we get to talk about, and I’m sure you have an idea about what I’m going to say. Archie Renaux is 23 and his book counterpart is 18. That’s only a five year difference, which isn’t that damning, but still leaves some problems.

One thing a lot of people disliked about Mal in the books was his temper and the way he expressed his frustrations. Now, while it’s true that viewers tend to be more forgiving with male characters having bad attitudes, this attitude problem could still be something that viewers will dislike in later seasons. This problem is only larger when you factor in an older age. Already, I expect people to complain about Mal’s temper and his inability to vent his frustrations in a healthy way (avoiding talking to Alina, blowing up, having a sour mood, having violent or explosive tendencies). This is only going to get worse when another argument added is “he is a grown man. He should have learned how to cope by now.” This argument isn’t completely nullified by a younger age, but it is made a little more understandable to the audience. (Again, in no way am I justifying these unhealthy behaviors, nor am I saying it’s okay when younger men do it, I’m just saying that viewers on a whole are more likely to excuse this behavior from a younger man - a sad reality, but a reality nonetheless.)

And as for his tracking ability, which is the best out of everyone in the world, he is gifted primarily because he’s an amplifier. At the end of Ruin and Rising, it’s noted that he can’t track nearly as well as he could because the world doesn’t hum with life in the way it used to. The in-world explanation probably also explains the ease with which he can pick up new skills. Thus, Mal doesn’t need to be aged up for skill reasons.

So, I would make Mal 19-21 in the series. He can be the slightly older than Alina, and everything works out how it should.

The Darkling

This one is going to be really quick - I think the age they made the Darkling was fine. Ben Barnes is 39 and we really don’t get an answer as to how old the Darkling is in the book (although he’s older than 400 years old, because the Fold was created 400 years ago).

It’s worth noting that in the books, the Darkling isn’t described as being much older than (a 17 year old) Alina, but having him be markedly older than Alina was a smart move for subtext, but also for the presence that the Darkling has, and the reverence with which people regard him. The Darkling has power - I can’t imagine a 17 year old boy having the same effect as a grown man.

I have no beef with a 39 year old Darkling. I wouldn’t age him down much more, but I also wouldn’t make him much older, either.

Genya Safin

Genya Safin is another character I feel like should be addressed. Daisy Head is 30 years old. In the books, Genya is 19. Now, Genya’s character is an interesting one, because arguably either age suits her character. Throughout the series she’s shown to be more mature and capable than Alina, and while she places importance on the cliques of the Little Palace (which was poorly shown in the show, imo), she was raised in this environment from very young, and she’s at the bottom of the ranking. Her investment in it is justified. Sadly, I think more viewers would be moved by her story of sexual abuse if she were younger, but what happened is a tragedy and it was wrong no matter how you dice it.

Her age is one of the few I’m neutral on.

However, she and Alina are shown to be very close in the book, and while that doesn’t carry over as easily in the show, I think it would be nice to place her at least a little closer in age to Alina, but still keep her a little older so that she can offer her advice and it doesn’t feel preachy or unearned.

I would place her around 19-26. She has a lot of room for her age, because it’s not vital that she be any specific age.

David Kostyk

I’m very briefly talking about David because Luke Pasqualino is 31 and David in the books is 19-20. I aged down Genya, and since they are love interests, I would like them to be in a little closer range of each other.

However, David is a very gifted Fabrikator - so much so that he changes the war considerably in later books - so I still want him to be older than the average cast.

I would place him around 24-29, and mostly, it would be based around the age of Genya. I wouldn’t want him to be 29 if Genya is 19. That’s just the ballpark range.

Zoya Nazyalensky

The final Shadow and Bone character I’m going to talk about is Zoya because she’s really important later in the Grishaverse. Online, I could not determine exactly what Sujaya Dasgupta’s age is, but the two ages most commonly given are 19 or 21. Zoya in the books is 19-20, so Sujaya is one of the most faithful castings in terms of age.

I think it’s important that Zoya is around the age of Alina. Not only do they have a shared love interest in the form of Nikolai (and the Darkling in the show, which I absolutely hate), but they also have a rivalry for the Darkling’s favor (which isn’t romantic, but about sTATUS), and having her be markedly older than a teenage Alina would be weird, in my opinion.

Furthermore, Zoya’s character is pretty closed off and (dare I say) one-dimensional in the original Shadow and Bone trilogy, so keeping her younger isn’t going to make her any less believable. She’s not particularly wise, so keeping her young won’t be an issue.

Finally, she has a romantic plotline with Mal (even if it doesn’t go anywhere), so we want to keep her within range of Mal’s age, too.

I would place Zoya at 19-22. Thus, I am in agreement with the showrunners!

Nikolai Lantsov

A character that has yet to make an appearance in the show is Nikolai Lantsov, who is stated as being 20-21 in Siege and Storm, and the rest of the Shadow and Bone trilogy. Nikolai hasn’t been casted yet, but I decided to put him here because why not?

Nikolai, interestingly enough, is a character I would like to age up, however, only slightly. Nikolai is a very accomplished character, as anyone who has read the series knows, and while he does have the grooming to be that smart and accomplished, he is able to outsmart the Darkling and other older characters on multiple occasions, and him being so young just seems off. Of course, I understand why he is young - his love interests are, and he certainly has his moments where he’s boyish and unprepared - but these reasons pale in comparison to all of his talents and accomplishments.

Taking all of this into consideration, I would put Nikolai at 23 or 24. It’s a minor age change, and it would really just make him more apt to grow into his role. He’s still young enough to where people can underestimate him, but he’s old enough to justify having such smarts and charm. The only argument I can see going against this is his love story with Alina, seeing as she’s 18/19, but I think there was a lot that went into his pursuit of Alina. At first it was political, but after that, it became about how Alina was someone who challenged him and knew him for all that he was. It was less of a romance and more of a friendship that lended itself to a nice opportunity. It could have been more. It wasn’t. Plus, the age gap isn’t egregious.

Tamar Kir-Bataar and Tolya Yul-Bataar

I’m briefly talking about these twins, because they are originally 18-19 in the Shadow and Bone Trilogy, and I would like them to be older overall. Tamar and Tolya are some of the most competent characters in the Grishaverse, and having them be the same age as Mal and Alina is off, in my mind.

I would like them to be at least Nikolai’s age or older, so 23-27.

✧ *:･ﾟ

Finally, we’re on to the crows....

Kaz Brekker

Ah, yes. The Bastard of the Barrel. His is a character I was actually really glad to see aged up, before watching the show. Afterwards, I have some more complex thoughts. Freddy Carter is 28 years old and Kaz, in the books, is 17.

Kaz in the books is very competent. So much so that he outsmarts everyone he comes up against - characters who are older than him and often have military strategy. Furthermore, he is ruthless. He is probably one of the darkest characters in all of the Grishaverse, and all of that is placed on the shoulders of a 17 year old. To make a comparison, he and Alina are the same age when their stories take place (Shadow and Bone for Alina, and Six of Crows for Kaz). I don’t know a lot of young celebrities to make the comparison, but he’s a teenager. He’s a child. Aging up Kaz in the show was something I was very much on board for. Kaz is a ruthless killer and an expert thief, and making him older was a smart move, imo. A Kaz in his 20′s made more sense.

However, when we meet Kaz in season one of Shadow and Bone, he’s very much in his fledgling state. Not a single plan of his goes as planned. He is foiled at every step, and the most gruesome thing he did in the show wasn’t bad, when you compare it to thing Kaz has canonically done. Rumors say that the Six of Crows arc is going to pick up in season two, and while I hope it doesn’t, I covered that particular argument far more in depth in another post and won’t address it here. Whether or not I think show Kaz is up to snuff, I think they aged him up too much and they depowered him too much.

Part of Kaz’ secret weapon was that he was wicked smart and crazy competent, but people underestimated him because of his age. They figured he didn’t have nearly enough experience to be as ruthless and cunning as he was. They were clearly wrong.

I think that Kaz in his 20′s makes sense, but Kaz in his late 20′s does not. Especially when you factor in the fact that he was so epically unsuccessful in the show, the extent to which they made him older wasn’t doing him any favors. It made him less “Dirtyhands” than he is.

So, final say, I would have made Kaz 20 or 21 in Shadow and Bone. We’re de-aging him so he still has time to grow, but he’s not crazy overpowered at 17. Furthermore, in a perfect world, he has time to age between Shadow and Bone and the events of Six of Crows.

Inej Ghafa

Inej is played by Amita Suman who is 23 years old. In the books, Inej is 16. In an interesting turn of events, I don’t find Inej in the books to be terribly overpowered so much as she is just really talented.

Inej in Six of Crows is hesitant to kill. She’s smart and watchful, and she’s a really great spider. She’s given backstory to explain all of this, and it makes sense. At most, she is mature for her age, but that is also given a pretty damn good reason. She has to be.

The few reasons I could see as to aging up her character is to make it less awkward for the romance between her and Kaz, as well as make the crows group more cohesive in age, with fewer outliers, both of which I am not against.

I would make Inej around 18 or 19 and call it a day.

Jesper Fahey

Jesper is another character that I largely have no problems with. Jesper is played by Kit Young who is 26 years old, and in the books, Jesper is 17.

In the books, Jesper is an extremely talented marksman, but part of that (even if he doesn’t know it or doesn’t want to acknowledge it in the books) is because he is a Grisha Fabrikator and he is using his gifts to bend the bullets he shoots and aims them where they need to go. His character wasn’t particularly overpowered in the books, and as for his personality, in the books he acted the most “teenage-like,” but in the show, he retained his same youthfulness without it seeming out of place, so that isn’t particularly damning.

For Jesper, I don’t mind aging him up or making him younger. Both work.

However, he has a romantic plotline with Wylan (who I will get to eventually), so we wan’t to keep that in mind.

Final say, I would make Jesper 18. He’s the same age as (or slightly younger than) Inej, and that sits well with me.

Matthias Helvar

Oh, boy. If you’ve been on my blog long, you know this is the character that started this whole rant. Because here’s the thing: Matthias is an incredibly complex character. And part of that complexity comes from the fact that Matthias doesn’t know about anything beyond what Fjerda has taught him. He is heavily indoctrinated and heavily ignorant, and his struggle is what makes him such an interesting character.

Matthias is played by Calahan Skogman who is 28 (in my other meta, he was 27, but birthdays, y’know?). In the books, Matthias is 18 when Six of Crows takes place. That’s a whopping 10 year age gap. As you can imagine, so much happens in 10 years time. Now, with Matthias, we’re going to look at his life a little more in depth so that you can really understand how this 10 year gap affects his ignorance.

Matthias’ family were killed by Grisha when he was a child. We don’t know how young, but that doesn’t really matter, because either way it’s traumatic. Soon afterward, he starts training to become a soldier. Now, just when drüskelle are allowed to be fully initiated at Hringkälla is unknown, but I’m guessing the age would be at youngest, 14 (although, it’s probably closer to 16, but I’m not arguing about that right now). Grisha are supposed to be the most dangerous type of person. The Fjerdans are not going to put 12 year olds out there to fight them. So, a roughly 14 year old Matthias is going on expeditions to catch Grisha. When he is 17, Matthias meets Nina. At this point, he has only been a full drüskelle for 3-ish years. Regardless of how many Grisha Matthias has captured, 3 years is a vast difference from his show counterpart, who is 28 and therefore (as a drüskelle since he was 14) has been capturing Grisha for 14 years. In fact, in the show, they give Matthias props for having been the one with the clever ideas for capturing Nina, which shows he has done this often. After that, Matthias spends one year in Hellgate, making in 18 in the books and (eventually) 29 in the show.

So, why was it so important that I detail that for you? Matthias’ change of heart is prompted by Nina, a pretty Grisha. I’m not saying their bond is shallow, but if you are a man who has a nasty past with Grisha and has been hunting them for 14 years, having a pretty Grisha change your mind is a little shallow and a little unbelievable. Even though Nina saved his life, I think it’s a little hard to sell the substantial change of heart he has. On the other hand, if Matthias is 18-19, he’s still a hormonal teenager, and his feelings for Nina prompting some critical thinking makes more sense. Furthermore, Matthias is younger and more impressionable. It would be much easier to change his worldview, if he were younger.

All in all, I would de age Matthias to be 19-20. Slightly older than in the books to allow for Nina to be a little older than her book counterpart (which I’m about to get to.)

Nina Zenik

Almost finished with my rant, we’re talking about Nina. Nina is played by Danielle Galligan who is 28 years old, and in the books, Nina is 17.

Now, Nina Zenik is a capable character. She is a spy. She speaks multiple languages, she’s a talented Grisha, and she’s quite self-assured. All of that advocates for an older Nina, so that she may have time to hone these impressive skills. Furthermore, Nina is the most sexualized of the Crows. I wouldn’t mind her being older, and I’m sure general audiences would be in favor of her not being a teenager.

Nina is also a soldier and she has a very complex storyline in Six of Crows, and later. By all accounts, aging her up is not a bad idea. In fact, I quite like the idea that Nina is older. I agree that she should be aged up, just not to the extent she was.

If this were my world, I would make Nina 20-22. That would make her the oldest out of all of the crows, and I quite like that.

Wylan Van Eck

Wylan has yet to be casted, but he is 16 in the books, and pretty damn smart. He’s not street smart, mind you, but he’s a chemistry nerd and demolitionist, so he’s very competent. He’s still under his father’s thumb, but I don’t take that to mean he has to be young - abuse can affect you well into your life. He’s definitely a character more naive to the realities of the Barrel, but that can easily be played off as “the rich boy is out of depth.”

There’s nothing that explicitly needs him to be younger than an adult, although the argument for making him young amongst the crows is strong and still stands.

He has a love story with Jesper, so we want to keep in mind the fact that Jesper is an adult.

Wylan also has the tricky little storyline of him being tailored into being Kuwei, so in determining his age, we want to keep him in the ballpark of Kuwei. Luckily, he was tailored from a Grisha on parem, so truly, anything is possible.

For his smarts, his competence, and his love story, I think we should age him up.

All in all, I would make Wylan 18. It’s not far from his book counterpart, and I think it makes sense.

Kuwei Yul-Bo

Kuwei is another character who was yet to be casted. He is 16 in Six of Crows, and I would say he is the character who most shows his age. Kuwei may be wicked smart, but he’s a chaos gremlin who doodles in his notebook, pretends to not understand Kerch, and also renames himself to be nhaban - “rising phoenix” in Shu. He doesn’t scheme the way the rest of the crows do, and while this can be explained away by the fact that he’s not a criminal, there still seems to be something hopeful and youthful about his character.

He’s still a boy in mourning over the death of his father, and he’s currently one of the world’s most wanted. In Crooked Kingdom, he’s vibing in a tomb for the majority of the book. Kuwei is honestly such a fun character that I hope gets more complexity in coming Grishaverse content.

Kuwei is very similar to Wylan in that he’s wicked smart (although his dad is a scientist and they have worked together, so there is some in-world explanation) and he has a crush on Jesper (don’t we all?).

Taking this into account, I would make Kuwei 17 or 18.

✧ *:･ﾟ

TL;DR, the characters of the Grishaverse were aged up and I’m a little miffed about it. The reasons for aging them up are to detract from the source material being a Y.A. story, but you cannot separate a story from it’s genre. The story is inherently Y.A. because it uses story beats that are typical of a Y.A. story. It’s not just viewer expectation - the story is Y.A. The ages of the characters in the books are very young in some cases, but in the show they were aged up too much, imo. It detracts from the tragedy of them being young and forced to survive, and it adds very little in most cases.

✧ *:･ﾟ tagging @missumaru

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tokyokookmin · 3 years

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I really loved your explanation regarding vmin it was retable. kanmom51 anon, Im using a little of your ask for @tokyokookmin to explain and narrate a lil about JIMIN shes a JM biased too so I felt that it would be appropriate to ask her.

"Because it’s no secret that JM doesn’t get any praise from the company, the choreographer, and all."

"When it comes to the members it’s a different topic. They hype Jimin up. We have J-Hope constantly praising JM. Jk completely in awe with JM dance. Jin thanking him for helping him rehearse."

"So for me Bighit for some reason doesn’t do anything for JM, no credit in his work, no acknowledgement, nothing."

I felt that every single word that this anon has said is pure truth and this remark deserves much more attention. We all know what's currently going on with JM, the situation is really bad and its getting worse, toxic solo stans are bashing him and they are comparing him to other members from every perspective + even the hate that he's getting bcuz of him "annoying jk" in that memories 2020.

I need you to explain on how a wonderful person JM is. Your impact makes a huge difference on people mindset. tysm keshhh.

Hey there anon!, I deeply understand your emotions. The hate that JM is going through is really bad and I have personally reported those accounts on twt etc. I even took a few snapshots of a tiktok video comment section... I will surely share them some day or another. Well then lets get started! I can't compare J-HOPE TO JM because they are my biases and both of them captivated my eyes, I just can't resist their flawless moves and they make a great dance unit... it would be incomplete without one of them + JK lol.

Most armies would say that JK is the golden maknae or he's the best overall in the team, well y'all took JM for granted, he's capable of doing so many things as well. But before that we need to talk about his dancing skills, I have made one blog about the 3J. Here's the link if you would like to know about their achievements/viral moments https://tokyokookmin.tumblr.com/post/654670945252933632/a-guide-to-the-dance-line..... this blog was mostly just me collecting info's lmao-.

1. DANCE ☝️

Well I found this incredible video from tiktok and I thought that this video would be perfect to describe his contemporary skills. Utmost respect to the creator for creating such a masterpiece!

Jimin Van Fleet Award!

Do we really need to talk about this? We all knew what impact he had given to audience with his remarkable traditional korean fan dance.He is extremely talented, after all he trained in contemporary.

“I received many really big awards today. I sincerely appreciate it, and it was a day when I thought I would like to share it with you with better music and stage in the future. Thank you all for your support. #JIMIN# We have been unclear” #JiminWorldwideLoved 📷📷📷📷

"As emphasized by the ballet dancer, being lifted is not easy, just like in the case of Jimin in the said stage. A strong core, glutes, and chest are vital for the one being lifted." https://youtu.be/3RW91KT3bXw - another review from a japanese dancer.

He is extremely versatile and he can master any sort of genre.He excels in dancing,his moves and fluidity of his body is astonishing they way he moves every tissue in his body to perfectly to complete the cheoreo is just mind blowing, he is truly the embodiment of dancing! Believe me or not, you should pay more attention on his facial expressions... he keeps it graceful. His fingers and angle are on point.

From MAMA 2016 Lie meets Boy meets evil to MMA 2020 black swan 🦢..I wonder what's coming up next.

2. Loving member

Jimin is the member that I connect emotionally to, he's a sentimental person but he just doesn't show it you just have to pay attention on his behaviour and actions. He consoles many of the members and he provides comfort for them. The picture I attached below sets a great example.

1. BTS MAMA 2018... It was a tough year for them. They were close to disbanding, and the members were emotionally drained. My heart sank when I saw hobi breaking down in front of the crowd, you can find tons of fancams but you should take a close look at Jimin. He handled the situation very well and I love the way he gives his subtle touch of love towards the other members.

2. Taehyung grandma death announcement

I don't think that I need to explain the about the situation. Taehyung was really sad and felt guilty as he couldn't mention his grandma name. He broke down and Jimin immediately noticed him and ran towards him and just gave him little pat/huggie.

3. The Final

Even by looking at the picture you can see the comfort. You know that GCF-TOKYO song “there for you’ which implies that Jk means he will be there for jimin but "you gotta be there for me too” which means jimin gotta be there for him too. So yeah, JM just know jungkook well and he comforts Jk pretty well.It was so cute and i wished i was a part of the audience, i would have had a panic attack looking at them being so cute,fluff,intimate ON STAGE . Too bad it’s impossible now .

3.He's a badass [ athletic/ physical ]

Jimin has often talked about his experience in kendo,japanese fencing,Geomdo (검도, 劍道) “Way of the Sword” & hapkido. HAPKIDO: electid korean martial arts .It is a form of self-defense that employs joint locks, grappling, throwing techniques, kicks, punches, and other striking attacks.

https://youtu.be/oUcHghZQxiw - a video you may refer to.

.4.Academic excellence

After Namjoon Jimin has the most remarkable academic achievements in bts. He was one of the top students in junior high and was THE top student in Busan arts high school from ALL the departments. Fun fact Jimin IQ is 128! He was valedictorian too.

"When he was in junior high, he was one of the top students so Jimin's dad thought of enrolling him in a foreign language school. When he decided to go to an arts school, his teachers tried to stop him and were disappointed. He was accepted as the top of his class and attended Busan High School of Arts. He was doing really good. Then he switched to K-pop dancing and decided to be a trainee in Seoul. Teachers also tried to stop him and were disappointed. Park Jimin's life is really something.

36. Our Jimin didn't spend a lot of time preparing for the arts school. He was dancing popping when he decided to go to the arts school. He then learned modern dancing for a little over a year and was accepted at Busan High School of Arts as the top of his class even though he was a dance majorπ TT TT Every member in this group could've been successful at anything. That group is our pride, BTS.

60. Wow! If there's only one dance class, it's really incredible~ It's hard to get a top student from dance department. And it was achieved by a male student and it's Park Jimin TTTT

67. That's what I know too.. I was looking into Busan Arts School before and one class for dance is probably correct. It was mostly music and art classes that I remember. So from Busan Arts School, one out of ten classes and a male student from dance department getting accepted as the top of the class...the percentage is just incredible. I know that the dance class has about 40 students? And male students could be 25:15 or 30:10. Jimin broke through this and became the top.

Namjoon and Jimin really made a huge gamble. They could've went the easier way. Truthfully, if they went their way, they both would have succeeded. But becoming an idol and not knowing what their future will be and BTS not being successful from the beginning must have been really hard for them. But now I'm glad they're successful and they can realize they've made the right choice."

cr @artimitatesjimin

I really respect and idolize him. His personality is unique and its different.He's been through alot. Being kicked from BTS for 8+ times, the members ranking his looks as the last and being called fat and ugly, that's really disturbing. He starved and went on diets just to please the audience and to have a jawline. He works his ass of and he really deserves more. He's obviously cutie,sexy,lovely,sweet guy! He prioritize his career, family and fans before anything. He has absolute heavenly vocals (+crazyyy high notes) and he is the definition of stage presence. PARK JIMIN IS THE STANDARD. Solo toxic fans are definitely going to attack on me but this is the reality.Jimin deserves more and he's such a sweet person. He performs with his whole heart and expresses it wonderfully,he goes all out and each performance comes out from his soul. He loves to perform. I MEAN FOR THE LOOKS, JIMIN IS THE FIRST FOR JUNGKOOK~.

He once even wasn't able to attend THE GRAHAM NORTON SHOW due to his sore muscles.

He went through alot and he deserves the #1 in brand reputation, who doesn't admire his determination?

Each member is unique in their own way. I want no hate or malice on my platform ~

Bits and pieces I collected anon! love ya ~ stay safe.

#bts park jimin #park jimin #tojungkookjiministhethebest #jiminbiased #istilllovejikook #bts jikook #kookmin

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a-froger-epic · 3 years

Text

The Queen fandom, Freddie Mercury and Characterisation

Or: Why are those anons like this? Why are those writers like this? Why don't we understand each other?

In this essay, I will-

No, I’m serious, I will. And this is an essay. It’s roughly 2500 words.

The friction, concerns and hurt in fandom around Freddie’s characterisation - most recently centred around a fic the author tagged as ‘Bisexual Freddie Mercury’, stating in the notes that they have chosen to write Freddie as bisexual - have given me a lot to think about. And if you have been asking yourself the questions above, this here might be of interest to you.

First off, why do I feel like I need to talk about this?

The answer is not: Because I’m so very influential in fandom.

I think my influence in this fandom has been vastly overstated by some people. If I were so influential, everybody would rush to read anything I rec or write. And trust me, they really don’t. My relevance is confined to a very specific part of the fandom. That part is made up of: Freddie fans, Froger shippers, some Roger fans, a handful of writers who like to support each other and like each other’s work, and people who are really into research.

There are many parts of fandom where my opinions are entirely irrelevant. Looking at the big picture, by which I mean only the Queen RPF fandom, I simply am not that important. Looking at the even bigger picture: the Queen fandom as a whole, the majority of which doesn't read or care about RPF - I am literally nobody.

Furthermore, everything I will be talking about here is in relation to the RPF-centred part of Queen fandom.

So why this public essay?

Because I have been deeply involved for two years in a divide of opinions concerning how Freddie ought to be written and how people think of RPF. I think this is in large part because I - like several other authors currently writing for the fandom - absolutely love research. It's my idea or fun. I love to dig into these real people’s lives. Not everybody does that and not everybody is comfortable with that. It’s a personal choice depending on people's levels of comfort surrounding RPF. But this does put me firmly in the camp of Freddie fans who like to explore who this man really was, and track down every last fact about him.

Freddie Mercury vs. Fictional Freddie

I’ll admit that I am one of those people who have the urge to speak up when they see somebody claim that Freddie was bisexual, and sometimes I will say: “Well, actually, we do know that he didn’t see himself that way, because…” For me, these have often been positive exchanges.

I think there is overwhelming evidence that Freddie Mercury identified as gay from his split with Mary to the end of his life (wonderfully curated here by RushingHeadlong). In the niche of fandom I have frequented over the last two years, as far as Freddie the real man is concerned, I have barely ever seen anybody argue with this.

But fanfiction and talking about real Freddie are not one the same thing, and they shouldn't be, and as far as I am concerned they don't have to be. Some writers like to put every last fact and detail they can find into their fic, in an attempt to approach a characterisation that feels authentic to them (and perhaps others), and other writers are simply content to draw inspiration from the real people, writing versions vaguely based on them.

But writing historically and factually accurate RPF is more respectful.

Is it? I've thought about this for a long time, and I really can't agree that it is. This, to me, seems to presume that we know what kind of fiction these real people would prefer to have been written about them. That, in itself, is impossible to know.

However, if I imagine Freddie reading RPF about himself, I think that he might laugh himself silly at an AU with a character merely inspired by him and may be really quite disturbed by a gritty, realistic take full of intimate details of and speculations about his life and psyche. Such as I also tend to write, just by the by, so this is definitely not a criticism of anybody. Freddie is dead. Of all the people to whom the way he is written in fiction matters, Freddie himself is not one. There is no way to know what Freddie would or wouldn't have wanted, in this regard, and so it isn't relevant.

Personally, I can't get behind the idea that speculating and creatively exploring very intimate details of Freddie's life, things he never even spoke of to anybody, is in any way more respectful than writing versions of him which take a lot of creative liberties. As I've said so many times before, I think either all of RPF is disrespectful or none of it is.

So who cares about Freddie characterisation in fiction anyway?

Clearly, a lot of people do. Freddie Mercury was an incredibly inspiring figure and continues to be that to a multitude of very different people for different reasons. There are older fans who have maybe faced the same kind of discrimination because of their sexuality, who saw Freddie's life and persona distorted and attacked by other fans and the media for decades, who have a lot of hurt and resentment connected to such things as calling Freddie bisexual - because this has been used (and in the wider fandom still is used) to discredit his relationship with Jim, to argue that Mary was the love of his life and none of his same sex relationships mattered, to paint a picture where "the gay lifestyle" was the death of him. And that is homophobic. That is not right. I completely understand that upset.

But.

These are not the only people who care about Freddie and for whom Freddie is a source of inspiration and comfort. What about people who simply connect to his struggles with his sexuality from a different angle? What about, for example, somebody who identifies with the Freddie who seemed to be reluctant to label himself, because that, to them, implies a freedom and sexual fluidity that helps them cope with how they see their own sexuality? Is it relevant why Freddie was cagey about labelling himself? Does it matter that it likely had a lot to do with discrimination? Are his reasons important? To some degree, yes. But are other queer people not allowed to see that which helps them in him? Are they not allowed to take empowerment and inspiration from this? Can you imagine Freddie himself ever resenting somebody who, for whatever reason, admired him and whose life he made that little bit brighter through his mere existence, however they interpreted it? I honestly can't say that I can imagine Freddie himself objecting to that.

This is the thing about fame. Anyone who is famous creates a public persona, and this persona belongs to the fans. By choosing that path, this person gives a lot of themselves to their fans. To interpret, to draw inspiration from, to love the way it makes sense to the individual. Please remember, at this point, that we are talking about how people engage with Freddie as a fictional character creatively. This is not about anybody trying to lay down the law regarding who Freddie really was, unequivocally. This is all about writers using his inspiring persona and the imprint he left on this world to explore themes that resonate with them.

This is what we as writers do. We write about things which resonate with us and often touch us deeply.

But don't they care about the real Freddie?

Yes, actually, I would argue that a lot of people care about "the real Freddie". It seems to me that depicting Freddie as gay or with a strong preference for men is what the vast majority of the RPF-centered fandom on AO3 already does. You will find very, very few stories where Freddie is depicted having a good time with women sexually or romantically. That he was mostly all about men is already the majority opinion in this part of fandom.

But another question is, who was the real Freddie? If the last two years in fandom have taught me anything, it is that even things which seem like fact to one person can seem like speculation to another. I have personally had so many discussions with so many people on different sides of the debate about the exact circumstances of Freddie's life and his inner world, that I must say I don't think there is such a thing as one accurate, "real" portrayal of Freddie. Even those of us who are heavily invested in research sometimes disagree quite significantly about the interpretations of sources. So that narrows "You don't care about the real Freddie" down to "You don't care about Freddie because you don't interpret everything we know about his life the exact same way I do". Sure, by that definition, very few people care about Freddie the same way you do.

The bottom line is, there are so many writers and fans who love him, people who are obsessed with him, people who care about him deeply. They might care about who they believe he really was or who he chose to present himself as to the world, the way he wanted to be seen. But ultimately, in my personal opinion, if somebody is inspired to write Freddie as a fictional character they feel that Freddie means a lot to them. And it is hurtful to accuse them of not caring.

But what some people write hurts/triggers me.

Yes, that can happen. Because the nature of AO3 is that everything is permitted. Personally, I am very much in agreement with that. You will also find me in the camp of people who are against any sort of censorship on AO3, no matter how much some of the content goes against my own morals or how distasteful I find it. Some people disagree with that, which is fine. We must agree to disagree then. Here, I would like to quote QuirkySubject from the post she made regarding this whole situation because I cannot put it better myself: “The principle that all fic is valid (even RPF fic that subverts the lived experience of the person the fic is based on) is like the foundation of [AO3]. The suggestion that certain kinds of characterisations aren't allowed will provoke a knee-jerk reaction by many writers.”

No matter how much you may disagree with a story's plot or characterisation, it is allowed on AO3. "But wait," you might say, "the issue is not with it being on the site but with people like yourself - who should care about "the real Freddie" - supporting it."

This is some of what I have taken away from the upset I have seen. And it’s worth deconstructing.

I've already addressed "the real Freddie". Moving on to...

The author is dead.

This is something others might very well disagree on as well, but to me the story itself matters far more than authorial intent. And what may be one thing according to the author’s personal definition, may be another thing to the reader. Let’s use an example. This is an ask I received yesterday:

This author thinks they were writing Freddie as bisexual. However, going by the plot of their story, I would actually say that it is largely very similar to how I see the progression of Freddie’s young adulthood. To me, personally, Freddie would still be gay throughout the story because he arrives - eventually - at the conclusion that he is. The author and I disagree on terminology only. And I think simply disagreements about terminology, given that some terms are so loaded with history in Freddie’s case, trips a lot of people up.

It seems to me that many people still equate bisexuality with a 50/50 attraction to men and women, when in actual fact many - if not most - bi/pan people would say that it is nowhere near that distribution. Some people are of the opinion that anybody who experiences some attraction to the opposite sex, even if they have a strong same-sex preference, could be technically considered bisexual. (However, sexuality isn’t objective, it’s subjective. At least when it comes to real people. What about fictionalised real people? We will get to that.)

Let's briefly return to real Freddie.

What I'm seeing is that there are several ways of thinking here, with regard to his sexuality.

1. Freddie was gay because that seems to be (from everything we know) the conclusion he arrived at and the way he saw himself, once he had stopped dating women. Therefor, he was always gay, it just took him a while to come to terms with it.

2. Freddie can be referred to as bisexual during the time when he was with women because at that time, he may very well have thought of himself thusly - whether that was wishful thinking and he was aware of it or whether he really thought he might be bisexual is not something we can say definitively. He came out as gay to two friends in 1974 on separate occassions, and he talked to his girlfriends about being bisexual. (Personally, I think here it is interesting to look at who exactly he was saying what to, but let's put my own interpretations aside.)

3. Freddie can be seen as bisexual/pansexual because his life indicates that he was able to be in relationships with both men and women and because there is nothing to disprove he didn't experience any attraction to the women he was with. Had he lived in a different time, he may have defined himself differently.

Now, I'm of the first school of thought here, personally, although I understand the second and also, as a thought experiment, the third.

I think all of these approaches have validity, although the historical context of Freddie's life should be kept in mind and is very relevant whenever we speak about the man himself.

But when we return to writing fictionalised versions of Freddie, any of these approaches should absolutely be permissible. Yes, some of them or aspects of them can cause upset to some people.

And this is why AO3 has a tagging system. This is why authors write very clearly worded author's notes. This is the respect authors extend to their readers. This, in turn, has to be respected. Everybody is ultimately responsible for their own experience on the archive.

Nobody has the right to dictate what is or isn't published under the Queen tag. As far as I am concerned, nobody should have that right. As far as I am concerned, everybody has a responsibility to avoid whatever may upset them. I understand where the upset comes from. I also maintain it is every writer's right to engage with Freddie's character creatively the way they choose to.

None of us can control how other people engage with Freddie or the fandom. None of us can control what other people enjoy or dislike about the fandom.

The best way to engage with the content creating part of fandom, in my opinion, has always been to create what brings you joy, to consume the content that brings you joy and to respectfully step away from everything that doesn't.

#Queen fandom #Freddie Mercury #bi Freddie

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