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danganronpasurvivoraskblog · 3 years

Note

Mod, who are your top 10 favorite characters and top 10 least favorite?

//I have actually been wanting to discuss something like this, so I’m glad someone brought it up to me.

//I’ll go through with this, but I won’t be discussing my least favorites, since I don’t want to bring any negativity, and to be honest, I enjoy writing pretty much everyone in this blog. I also fear if I share who my least favorites are in the main series, said characters won’t get as many asks, and I don’t want any unfair bias. I can definitely admit to hating Haiji though, because...well...he obviously won't be receiving any questions anymore. Besides, I doubt many people will disagree with me.

Honorable Mentions:

Makoto Naegi

Mahiru Koizumi

Kirumi Tojo

Kaede Akamatsu

Tsumugi Shirogane

Shuichi Saihara

Iroha Nijiue

Mikihiko Koyasunaga

Yoruko Kabuya

Tsurugi Kinjo

Uchui Porosen

Kibin Hatsudoki

//Though to be honest, everyone may as well be an honorable mention because I love writing every single one of these guys. Also, like I just said, don’t let this top 10 affect your asks. I love every character in this blog and I’m happy to make asks for each and every one of them. It was really hard to narrow it down to 10

#10: Tenko Chabashira

This might seem a little surprising, given that Tenko hasn't had a whole lot of screen time and story relevance so far. She's only been prominent in two arcs, Deadly Harmony and Novoselic Revolution, both of which she didn't have as much screen time as most of the other characters. However, not to spoil anything major, I have big plans for her, and what I've pulled out of her so far is something I'm proud of. My main goal is mainly to give her a bit of development, and tone down on the sexism element of her character. Not remove it entirely, mind you, because let's be real, Tenko unfortunately isn't Tenko without it, but basically to not do what the DR dev team did and make it the forefront of her character, while her other exceedingly good traits are just at the back until later on in the story.

#09: Kokichi Ouma

Kokichi is one of, if not, my favorite character in the original DR series. My main goal of him in this series is trying to grapple with his constantly changing attitude, mainly towards the DRV3 cast besides himself. At first he's glad to see them, then he turns spiteful towards Shuichi and Kaede when they try to fight him, then he straight up just abandons them and attempts to cut off contact. As he is right now, he's conflicted about how to feel about everyone. Sure, they all still hate him, but during Cabaret Kyojin's they came to his defense when he most needed it. That whole arc might've seemed pretty pointless and acted as needless filler, but my true intention of it was to flesh out the characters involved, mainly Kokichi and Kuripa. Speaking of which, that's another plot point that I'm looking forward to branching upon: the little companionship those two have going on right now.

#08: Monaca Towa

Monaca is a character I actually tend to struggle with in the grand scheme of things. The reason being that, arguably, she in canon is the second biggest antagonist in the series behind Junko. What I tried to do with Survivor though, is not make her an antagonist, but make her slowly become more and more redeemable, despite her actions. The reason why I went with this approach is mainly due to Monaca's last appearance in the series, where she states to Toko and Komaru that she's kind of just done with everything to do with Junko and Despair. I don't think it would be easy to bring her back as an antagonist because of THAT fiasco, and that is legitimately one of favorite scenes of her...which is funny because it's from DR3 and I kinda hate the anime. Her whole presence in Survivor is based around the idea of trying to seek redemption, but she doesn't outwardly want to admit this, nor does she really think she's worthy or deserving of said redemption. She's an adult now, and she grew a conscience. A guilty one that weighs her down and makes her come back to earth to basically settle things and make peace, and though it's been difficult, I love how she's turned out so far.

#07: Akira Tsuchiya

I understand many have their reservations about Akira after what he did this arc, but he's still legitimately one of my favorite villains in this blog because despite the fact that he's a psychopath who kills and ruins people all just for causing Despair, he's just kinda super relatable. He constantly lives with the attitude of just being done with everyone's shit, and I know a lot of DR fans can relate to that. He's also the kind of guy who marches to the beat of his own drum, which is obviously a very slow beat. He rarely ever does what Tsumugi tells him to do, unless the plan interests him or gives him something to do, and his character in general is based around the idea of "Shut-in NEET who just so happens to have a power complex." Overall, what makes him unique to me is just how normal he is, especially when he's compared to the chaotic sea that is the Danganronpa Villains.

#06: Mikan Tsumiki

Novoselic Revolution had the very important role in the story of mending Mikan. Without her efforts and the sacrifices she made in that arc, there's a high chance that the group would have failed to retake the kingdom from Angie and Mikihiko. It goes without saying that the screentime Mikan got in this arc was some of my absolute favorite moments on this blog from a writers perspective. A lot of people in DR dislike Mikan for her actions and character change in the third case of the second game, which I really don't think is fair. Mikan was just the character chosen to be afflicted with the Despair Disease. Nothing else would have been changed had it been a different character, so her role early on in Survivor is mainly her trying to come to terms with her actions, as well as things like making things right with Hiyoko (and Ibuki by extrension) and reevaluating whether or not she's a good person. Mikan is an emotionally and mentally broken child, and it's my full intent in my writing of her to heal her wounds like she does for so many other people.

#05: Narumi Osone

Easily my favorite Zetsubou villain in the blog. During Novoselic Revolution, I really buttered up how much I enjoyed writing Mikihiko, but in reality, I was just waiting for the Rebirth Duo (her and Akira) to burst onto the scene. She didn't make for as great a twist villain in Life and Lies of Akeru Yozora as I would've liked her to be, but even now, I still feel like she left an impact. I mean, she committed quite the number of atrocities. The main reason why I like Narumi though, is how she diverges from the rest of the Zetsubou group. While most of them are doing their evil things for reasons that constitute to causing as much Despair as possible, she does it for almost the complete opposite reason. She absolutely despises Despair, and the only reason she's with Organization Zetsubou, is so that she can patiently await and watch as the Hope that stems from the people fighting back. It's also plays into her ideal. Narumi is so obsessed with Hope that she believes that anyone and everyone who is without hope, and gives into Despair, doesn't deserve to live (and ideal that also allows her to easily hit it off with Nagito). To name the best example: The UUV. Their revenge fantasy is based around the Despair they feel post Ayumu and Marin's deaths, and not around the Hope of their goal of reforming society, even if by force. When Narumi notices this, is angers her so much she murders all of them in cold blood, believing them to be beyond redemption. As a final note, Narumi's violent nature and lust for bloodshed (and lest not forget her weird obsession with Makoto) is also made all the more tragic when you remember she's literally just a 14 year old kid with not a lot of life experience. For someone to be this far gone at such a young age is pretty depressing, but it also provides me with a lot of great writing opportunities, and god damn it she isn't a fun character to write.

#04: Mukuro Ikusaba.

I could pretty much just copy/paste the basic things I said about Monaca's personal conflict for Mukuro, but on a much more extreme level. This is something that I plan on actually branching on later down the line, but Mukuro's backstory and reason why she has a presence here is briefly mentioned by Sayaka in one post. To sum up what she said, when the Foundation were first starting to use the machines to bring back the victims of the first killing game, Makoto was the one who suggested possibly bringing Mukuro back, something that understandably, his classmates initially were against. However, at the time, Kyoko was still new to being the Foundation Chairwoman, and Makoto very much pressed the issue with her. Kyoko eventually agreed to the resurrection, but in exchange, any and all actions committed by the soldier, most notably any treacherous or bad ones, would subsequently be Makoto's responsibility. Of course, as you can imagine, Makoto accepted these terms, and Mukuro was resurrected. For a while afterwards, many were very wary of her presence, and most didn't outright accept her as a member of the Foundation, even when the Remnants of Despair officially signed up. What you have to remember is that Mukuro wasn't really brainwashed into helping Junko, at least not in the same way that the Remnants were. Most of what she did for Junko is what she did willingly, but Makoto felt that in reality, Mukuro was just another one of Junko's victims and she'd never known Hope in her life, which is why she turned out so chaotic, so his whole intention of reviving her was to redeem her honor, of which he was pretty much successful. The main trait of Mukuro's though that I tend to focus on, is arguably her most serious: her PTSD. Of all the characters who could have been hit hard with PTSD, it makes the most sense for it to be a soldier, and since the beginning of her revival, Mukuro has been cursed by the lingering ghost of her dead Despair sister. Junko's presence in her mind less drives Mukuro insane though, and simply makes her doubt herself and her presence, wondering if it was worth being revived, or whether or not she truly deserves to live. But regardless of how she feels, she's duty bound to the end, and still supports everyone unquestionably, especially towards those in her own branch being Makoto, her boss, the man who saved her, and of course her undeniable love interest, and Kuripa to whom she disciplines, but also acts as a mother/big sister figure to.

#03: Hajime Hinata.

It might just be me, but I feel like Hajime in particular is the fan fav in this blog. I feel he's shown up in more posts than any other character, which is fine by me given he's also one of my personal favorite characters, and is probably my favorite protagonist (it really changes depending on my mood, honestly, I think they're all as great as each other). The remnants of Despair's conflict is an obvious one that you commonly see in post-game fics such as this one, and in Survivor, and my personal opinion, Hajime is undoubtedly the one who has it the hardest. However, out of all of the characters in the series who HAVE trauma (and let's be real, that's undoubtedly a LOT of characters in both DR canon, and this blog) he's also undoubtedly the one who handles it the best. However, there is a limit to how much pressure he can take, and that causes him to lash out (like he did with Mahiru during Misfortune's Revenge, which I know we don't like to talk about but its the most notable example). He's been through a whole load of shit and the pressure is constantly crushing him like a gigantic boulder, yet he still forces himself to carry it. Outside of my own writing, Hajime has so many conflicting thoughts and trauma in other fics, and in Survivor, I don't intend to flat out copy them, but I do desire to live up to them. The reason why Hajime has so many burdens placed upon him, and as of Misfortune's Revenge now has double as many, yet is still able to keep going strong, is because he's no longer allowing himself to be weighed down by events that are in the past and out of his control. What makes his ideal unique, is that he has power, almost limitless amounts of it, but instead of focusing on what he can do with it, he's more conflicted and focused on what he CAN'T do, and changing the past is one thing he can't, and as of such doesn't focus on it. He only ever focuses on the present, and the future, and worries about that. And you've got to hand it to the guy, while it's definitely been better, his life is actually super good right now. He has at least 15 really great friends/found family members, a home on an island resort, an AI companion in his phone who will always help him out and support him, a smoking-hot red-haired girlfriend, a pretty good job and a lot more. For him, it's not simply a matter of abiding by the Foundation and fixing the chaos that he indirectly caused. It's also about the fear of losing what he has, and wanting to protect it.

#02: Ayumu Fujimori.

I've said this one or two times before, but I think Ayumu turned out spectacular, and when I eventually had to kill him off, I felt really bad about doing so. The main reason why I removed him, and why I currently don't have any plans to bring him back, is due to my future plans, having him around would make little to no sense. He serves mainly as a catalyst for the new phase of the story, a much darker one, and with his death, we enter that phase. I know many people are worried about it, but it's not just Ayumu's reason for being in the story that makes him great. While it isn't obvious right away, the main character that I was trying to portray with him, is that he's basically the darker side of Hajime. The two of them share very similar traits in character, personality and backstory. Some notable points would be

Both of them are incredibly self-doubtful, and that self-doubt caused them to become Ultimate Hopes.

Both of them once held huge admiration for a powerful group of people. For Hajime it was Hope's Peak and for Ayumu it was the Japanese Government

Said power called them useless, which led to their transformation

Both have pretty sad backstories, which involve two different types of cruel parents and family's.

They both have a best friend who likes to sleep.

Said best friend ended up dying horribly right in front of them, with them both unable to do anything about it, which eventually leads them both to go insane and make some bad decisions.

Though their methods differ, ultimately, they both want the same thing: a brighter future for their friends and the people they love

Ayumu might be a threat, and an antagonist, but he doesn't really count as a "villain" per se. At the core, he's basically just a misguided young man, who the world treated like shit, so he just wants to get back at it. He's also an influential figure, pulling many people into his fight, and gaining many supporters outside of his friends in the UUV. For the short time he was on the blog, he was an absolute BLAST to write, and you can damn sure bet I'm going to miss him.

#01: Kuripa Kurafto.

This is undoubtedly the riskiest part of this list, especially since we're talking about an OC here, but I also think a lot of you guys saw this coming. I can understand why some of you might disagree with me on this placement, but I'll tell you now, if you're unimpressed, trust me, I am barely scratching the surface of Kuripa's character. As of such, I have to go on this based off of what's already known about him. His whole character I feel comes full circle at the end of the Ultra Despair Gang arc, in which the first monumental event in the blog actually happens: him killing Haiji Towa by stabbing him in the gut and sending him falling to his death. This is then followed by a speech to Makoto, Komaru, Toko and Byakuya, which basically lays out the key part of Kuripa's character, being his ideals. Every protagonist in Danganronpa goes by a certain ideal that contrasts that of their enemies. For Makoto, it's Hope, for Hajime, it's Future, and for Shuichi it's truth. Kuripa is the complete reverse, being a protagonist that represents Despair. He's not outright a villain, or even a generally bad guy, but he definitely has some apparent darkness to him, and is also incredibly violent when at the peak of rage. Of course, it all stems from a huge event in his life, the murder of his little sister Kotoko by the hands of Matta Gyalusetsu, which has led to his over-arcing conflict: his desire to find Matta and kill him as revenge. I tend to hate characters in stories who have the "My Sister is Dead" archetype or trope, but the main reason is because most characters who have that JUST have that, and for Kuripa that's something I'm trying to avoid. One of the most important parts of Kuripa's character is the contrast between his dark, almost psychopathic side that believes murder is a suitable way to indefinitely solve a problem, and his regular self, who to put simply, is a complete and total clown. He's like a walking meme, and makes a total fool out of himself, either through just being a mindless tomfool, a playful perv, or a loveable idiotic otaku. Still, his presence is indeed important to everyone around him, especially seen through his interactions with Makoto, Kibin, Mukuro, Uchui, Kokichi, The Kyojin's and the High Roller staff. This is another thing in regards to Kuripa's conflict that is quite saddening to. Similar to Hajime, as things currently stand, Kuripa has an excellent life. He's a successful animator who makes a lot of money from his work, he enjoys his time at the Future Foundation and really looks up to both Makoto and Mukuro who both treat him with a reciprocated amount of respect, he gets to work in tangent with his best friend, he has many pals, some of which are part of an anime club, and on top of it all, he has a cute girlfriend who playfully flirts back and forth with him all the time. He has everything a guy could possibly ever want, but due to his one track mind, he can never be satisfied knowing Kotoko's killer is still out there, and he will do whatever it takes to avenge her...even if he needs to cut a few people down to get it...

//Doing this kind of self-reflective character analysis is pretty refreshing and fun to be honest, although, doing it makes it sound like I have a big head, and am complementary of my own writing where I know many might disagree with my techniques and opinions. You're free to, believe me, but please keep any criticism constructive.

-Mod

#tenko chabashira #kokichi ouma #monaca towa #akira tsuchiya #mikan tsumiki #narumi osone #mukuro ikusaba #hajime hinata #ayumu fujimori #kuripa kurafto #self reflection

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ripjaws · 4 years

Text

Ben 10 Survey Results!

Huge thank you to everyone who submitted a response, it was really fun looking through them all and I was genuinely surprised by the results of some of the questions.

Hopefully this will work under a read more because it's quite long and I don't want people to have to scroll a hundred years to get past it.

If anyone has any questions or anything please feel free to ask! :)

Thanks again!

General

Q1. How would you describe your gender?

36% - Female 25.3% - Male 24% - Non-binary 8% - Prefer not to say 4% - Agender 2.7% - Genderfluid

Q2. How would you describe your sexuality?

32% - Bisexual 20% - Heterosexual 20 % - Asexual 8% - Lesbian 6.7% - Prefer not to say 5.4% - Pansexual 4% - Gay 1.3% - Demisexual 1.3% - Questioning 1.3% - Polysexual

Q3. Current age

48% - 20-24 39% - 15-19 13.3% - 25-30 1.3% - Older than 30 1.3% - Younger than 15

Q4. Age when you first became interested in Ben 10

86.7% - Younger than 15 9.3% - 15-19 2.7% - 20-24 1.3% - 25-30

Episodes and season

Q1. Which series did you watch first?

88% - Original Series 9.3% - Alien Force 1.3% - Omniverse 1.3% - Reboot

Q2. Rank the series in order of preference

[IMAGE ID: Five separate groups of five vertical bar charts. The individual columns for each group are coloured in the same order and corresponds to what ranking they recieved on that question of the survey. According to the key at the top of the image the order is; blue = 1, red = 2, orange = 3, green = 4 & purple = 5. The Y axis of the graph goes from zero to thirty in intervals of ten.

The first group is labelled ‘Original Series’ and shows that it got twenty votes in blue, seventeen votes in red, sixteen votes in orange, ten votes in green & twelve votes in purple.

The second group is labelled ‘Alien Force’ and shows that it got nine votes in blue, eighteen votes in red, twenty-one votes in orange, twenty-two votes in green & five votes in purple.

The third group is labelled ‘Ultimate Alien’ and shows that it got thirteen votes in blue, ten votes in red, fourteen votes in orange, twenty-two votes in green & sixteen votes in purple.

The fourth group is labelled ‘Omniverse’ and shows that it got eighteen votes in blue, fifteen votes in red, seventeen votes in orange, fifteen votes in green & ten votes in purple.

The fifth and final group is labelled ‘Reboot’ and shows that it got fifteen votes in blue, fifteen votes in red, seven votes in orange, six votes in green & thirty-two votes in purple. END IMAGE ID]

Q3. Favourite season (Original Series)

40% - Season 1 18.7% - Season 2 18.7% - Season 3 17.3% - Season 4 5.3% - Don’t like/Haven’t watched

Most popular episodes were Ken 10 (S4E10) & Kevin 11 (S1E7)

Q4. Favourite season (Alien Force)

52% - Season 2 28% - Season 1 16% - Season 3 4% - Don’t like/Haven’t watched

Most popular episodes were Alone Together (S2E2) & Save the Last Dance (S2E4)

Q5. Favourite Season (Ultimate Alien)

36% - Season 1 25.3% - Season 3 20% - Don’t like/Haven’t watched 18.7% - Season 2

Most popular episodes were Forge of Creation (S1E16) & Duped (S1E2)

Q6. Favourite Season (Omniverse)

18.7% - Don’t like/Haven’t watched 18.7% - Season 2 16% - Season 5 12% - Season 6 10.7% - Season 1 9.3% - Season 8 8% - Season 4 5.3% - Season 3 1.3% - Season 7

Most popular episodes were And Then There Were None (S6E1) & And Then There Was Ben (S6S2)

Q7. Favourite Season (Reboot)

60% - Don’t like/Haven’t watched 17.3% - Season 4 10.7% - Season 3 6.7% - Season 1 5.3% - Season 2

Most popular episodes were Omni-tricked (S1E37) & Innervasion (S2E36)

Q8. Which live action movie did you prefer?

40% - Alien Swarm 22.7% - Race Against time 22.7% - Didn’t like either 14.7% - Haven’t watched either

Characters and aliens

Q1. Favourite main character

45.3% - Ben Tennyson 28% - Kevin Levin 17.3% - Rook Blonko 9.3% - Gwen Tennyson

Some ‘Why’ responses:

Ben -

I know it's a really basic pick but I enjoy Ben alot as a character. Even though I feel like he took an extremely sharp turn into immaturity in the final season of Alien Force onward (from what I've heard it was due to ratings), it still fit well after a bit of time of adjustment. Him being rash and selfish at times while still having a good heart feels...very human. I'm a huge fan of flawed protagonists and Ben is a prime example of such, imo! Plus I hradcanon that he has autism and it's a big comfort for me :)

I love his potential as a character and the way he hands having such power and responsibility thrust upon him. Ben has done so much for the people in his life and the universe, and I absolutely adore him.

I think of him like a kind person who tries his best to the right thing, he's pretty chill and optimist and in my mind he's a chaotic bi and i can relate to that

Kevin -

I like that he's always been an antihero in the original series. And in the reboot I really like the direction the showrunners are taking his character. He has a different backstory, motivations and I'm really enjoying his character development. It's a fresh take on his story and they're treating it with care, which I really appreciate. His Antitrix aliens also have some really incredible designs.

Cool powers, uncommon character in children's media, especially as a primary character often cast in a good light (ex con, high school dropout, masculine, not emotionally mature). His character development is some of the best in the series.

Gods, we could be here forever... Okay, short version- 1) I can relate to him on a mental health level, especially in the OG series we seemed to have similar issues and to handle them in similar ways 2) there's a lot of depth and variance to his character, he's angry and aggressive and dangerous but also a dork, a sweetheart, and very affectionate once he lets his walls down, he loves cars and supernatural romance, violence and magical girls, he'll rescue an aggressive dog for no reason other than it needed help but also he might consider how much he could get for selling you, he's a complex character and he's allowed to be in a way the Tennysons can't because of how firmly they sit in the Hero seat 3) for all of this, we never really know all that much about him and his experiences, at least in comparison to what we know is there- we never learn about his time traveling the galaxy, we haven't heard anything about his time stuck in time, it's only in the reboot we're getting trustworthy information about his background and even then it's rare tidbits- he's ripe for exploring in fic, headcanon, and so-on 4) his powers in the OG series, his status as mutant or alien or both who knows anymore leaves a lot of doors open to play and to look at the world through different angles 5) dude has turned into six different monstrous chimera forms over the course of the franchise and honestly you have to support that sort've shit in media otherwise they might stop

Rook -

Alien catboy with a glorious voice and have you seen those arms??? And he's so polite while also being hilarious when he gets a little rude/snarky and his character development is amazing!!

While I would normally say Ben himself, Rook is his only friend that hasn't tried to kill him. Additionally, he provides Ben with guidance as well as support the Gwen and Kevin are fickle about.

Having an actual alien joining the cast and serving at Ben's foil worked well to me.

Gwen -

Smart, talented, funny, snarky, confident, and super cute. Jock-prep-nerd energy all in one. Deserves the world. Criminally ignored by the majority of the fandom. Knows karate and judo?? College at 16?? Icon.

Angel, can do no wrong, was capable of so much more than the show let her do, potential to be the most powerful member of the team if they'd just let her go a lil feral sometimes :/

She was a good voice of reason most of the time. Her powers were really interesting and overall I think she had a lot of wasted potential having to be sidelined since the series was about Ben ultimately

Q2. Favourite minor characters

40 votes - Paradox

22 votes - Max Tennyson

18 votes - Tetrax

17 votes - Argit

16 votes - Julie Yamamoto

15 votes - Azmuth

12 votes - Ester

10 votes - Looma Red Wind

9 votes - Glitch

9 votes - Kai Green

7 votes - Alan Albright

6 votes - Jimmy Jones

4 votes - Cooper Daniels

3 votes - Eunice

3 votes - Helen Wheels

2 votes - Elena Validus

2 votes - Manny Armstrong

1 vote - Cash Murray

1 vote - Driba

Other votes went to Penny Bennyson, Kenny Tennyson/Spanner, Lucy Mann, Rook Shar, Eddie Grandsmith, Myaxx and Pakmar.

Q3. Ship or Zed

64% - Ship 36% - Zed

Q4. Favourite main antagonist

20% - Albedo 13.3% - Kevin 11 12% - Vilgax 10.7% - Charmcaster 10.7% - Zs’Skayr 9.3% - Malware 5.3% - Forever Knights 5.3% - Eon 4% - Highbreed & DNAliens 4% - Aggregor 1.3% - Servantis & Rooters 1.3% - Khyber 1.3% - Dagon & the Esoterica

Some ‘Why’ responses for top 3:

Albedo -

When I first saw him during the airing of Good Copy, Bad Copy, I was scared that Albedo might be a one-and-done evil clone that doesn't get much development. These fears went away, and I was pleased to find out about his backstory and motives, just a sour soul in an unpleasant situation. Even in Ultimate Alien with his reappearance episode, he tries to work on his own to cope in a horrid human world. He isn't necessarily malicious until Ben gets in his way, he just wants to return to his own body and leave, even stating that he wasn't going to fight Ben anymore while he had temporarily returned to his Galvan form. I know DJW stated in some interview that Albedo could never be redeemed, but I believe there's some hope if he gets help. And I'm a sucker for those redemption arcs :)

Tragic frog man that could have been helped but nobody helped him and he doubled down on his hatred which led to him getting stuck in a cycle of revenge and punishment and it's the tragedy of how much better things could have been for him if someone just helped him that I love so much!!

Kevin 11 -

He’s very dangerous and has a terrifying power to absorb electricity and living DNA to have the same powers of who he absorbed it from and even turn himself into a mutant with all those powers combined leading to destructive power

Kevin was a good antagonist and a good protagonist, although i feel the transition was rushed. Anti-hero kevin in the reboot is great!

Vilgax -

He was always the endgame villian for Ben, despite how many battles they've had, despite countless losses, he always tried to stay one step ahead, and plan everything.

"Speak with care, Psyphon. Your counsel is valuable...not irreplaceable."

Q5. Favourite minor villains

38 votes - Animo 20 votes - Hex 18 votes - Michael Morningstar/Darkstar 14 votes - SixSix 13 votes - Zombozo 9 votes - Vreedle family 9 votes - Vulkanus 8 votes - Rojo 5 votes - Inspector 13 5 votes - Billy Billions 5 votes - Will Harangue 4 votes - Fistrick 4 votes - Nyancy Chan 3 votes - Lord Decibel 3 votes - Simian 3 votes - Subdora 3 votes - Viktor 2 votes - Addwaitya 2 votes - Fistina 2 votes - Kraab 2 votes - Psyphon 2 votes - Steam Smythe 2 votes - Sunder 1 vote - Liam 1 vote - Ssserpent

Other votes went to Maurice & Sydney, Bugg Brothers, Alternate evil Bens, and the Mummy.

Q6. Favourite canon relationship

66.7% - Gwen & Kevin 13.3% - Max Tennyson & Verdona 5.3% - Ben & Kai 4% - Rook & Rayona 1.3% - Julie & Herve 1.3% - Max & Xylene

Q7. Favourite non-canon ship

36% - I don’t have one 30.7% - Ben & Rook 6.7% - Ben & Kevin 4% - Ben & Julie

Other responses included Ben & Rex, Kai & Julie, Looma & Attea, Alan & Cooper, Ben & Looma, Kevin & Manny, Gwen & Cooper, Ben & Ester, Max & Phil, Azmuth & Paradox, Cooper & Elena, Kai & Ester, Ben & Zak Saturday, Ben & Eddie, Ben & Albedo, Ben & Kevin & Gwen, Kenny & Devlin, OC & canon, and Ben & a therapist.

Q8. Favourite alien introduced in the Original Series

18.7% - XLR8 17.3% - Upgrade 13.3% - Ghostfreak 10.7% - Diamondhead 9.3% - Heatblast 8% - Wildmutt 6.7% - Ditto 2.7% - Blitzwolfer 2.7% - Snare-oh 2.7% - Grey Matter 1.3% - Cannonbolt 1.3% - Four Arms

Q9. Least favourite alien introduced in the Original Series

22.7% - Eye Guy 18.7% - Spitter 8% - Articguana 8% - Frankenstrike 6.7% - Upchuck 6.7% - Stinkfly 5.3% - Buzzshock 5.3% - Snare-oh 4% - Four Arms 2.7% - Blitzwolfer 2.7% - Ditto 2.7% - Wildmutt 2.7% - Grey Matter 1.3% - Cannonbolt 1.3% - Diamondhead 1.3% - Ghostfreak

Q10. Favourite alien introduced in Alien Force

46.7% - Big Chill 17.3% - Rath 8% - Goop 6.7% - Lodestar 5.3% - Swampfire 4% - Chromastone 4% - Spidermonkey 2.7% - Alien X 2.7% - Echo Echo 1.3% - Humungousaur 1.3% - Jetray

Q11. Least favourite alien introduced in Alien Force

18.7% - Lodestar 17.3% - Brainstorm 13.3% - Alien X 10.7% - Humungousaur 10.7% - Spidermonkey 8% - Jetray 8% - Chromastone 5.3% - Goop 5.3% - Echo Echo 2.7% - Rath

Q12. Favourite alien introduced in Ultimate Alien

18.7% - Juryrigg 16% - AmpFibian 14.7% - Clockwork 12% - NRG 8% - Armodrillo 8% - Shocksquatch 8% - Terraspin 8% - Water Hazard 2.7% - Chamalien 2.7% - Fasttrack 1.3% - Eatle

Q13. Least favourite alien introduced in Ultimate Alien

30.7% - Fasttrack 18.7% - Eatle 13.3% - Juryrigg 9.3% - Chamalien 8% - Shocksquatch 6.7% - Terraspin 5.3% - Water Hazard 4% - Clockwork 1.3% - AmpFibian 1.3% - Armodrillo 1.3% - NRG

Q14. Favourite Ultimate Form

38.7% - Echo Echo 24% - Big Chill 10.7% - Swampfire 9.3% - Way Big 8% - Wildmutt 6.7% - Spidermonkey 1.3% - Cannonbolt 1.3% - Humungousaur

Q15. Favourite alien introduced in Omniverse

29.3% - Feedback 13.3% - Pesky Dust 12% - Gravattack 9.3% - Ball Weevil 8% - Bullfrag 6.7% - Whampire 5.3% - Bloxx 4% - Atomix 4% - Walkatrout 2.7% - Gutrot 1.3% - Crashhopper 1.3% - Kickin Hawk 1.3% - Toepick 1.3% - The Worst

Q16. Least favourite alien introduced in Omniverse

24% - The Worst 14.7% - Bloxx 12% - Mole-Stache 8% - Bullfrag 6.7% - Astrodactyl 6.7% - Kickin Hawk 5.3% - Atomix 5.3% - Gutrot 4% - Crashhopper 4% - Walkatrout 2.7% - Toepick 1.3% - Ball Weevil

Q17. Favourite alternate Ben timeline

29.3% - No watch Ben 24% - Gwen 10 17.3% - Ben 10,000 8% - Mad Ben 6.7% - Dimension 23 6.7% - Eon 4% - Nega Ben 2.7% - Benzarro 1.3% - Bad Ben

Misc.

Q1. Favourite watch design

37.3% - Original Series 29.3% - Omniverse 17.3% - Alien Force 9.3% - Ultimatrix 6.7% - Reboot

Q2. Favourite alternate watch design

29.3% - Biomnitrix 20% - Gwen 10 18.7% - Negatrix 17.3% - Antitrix 8% - Power Watch 6.7% - Hero Watch

Q3. Favourite planet visited

32% - Anur Transyl 20% - Revonnah 13.3% - Mykdl’dy 10.7% - Galvan Prime 9.3% - Vilgaxia 6.7% - Piscciss 5.3% - Petropia 2.7% - Khoros

Q4. Favourite locations

34 votes - Undertown 23 votes - Ledgerdomain 23 votes - Null Void 22 votes - Bellwood 19 votes - Friedkin University 18 votes - Mr. Smoothy 16 votes - Forge of Creation 15 votes - Los Soledad 7 votes - Burger Shack 7 votes - Plumber Headquarters 4 votes - Incarcecon 2 votes - Mt. Rushmore Plumber base 2 votes - The Perplexahedron 1 vote - Plumber Academy

Q5. Favourite Vehicle

33.3% - Kevin’s car (Original) 25.3% - Rustbucket 18.7% - Proto-TRUK 13.3% - DX Mark 10 5.3% - Kevin’s car (Omniverse) 4% - Glitch

Q6. Favourite Kevin mutation

40% - Original series 20% - Ken 10 future 12% - Ultimate Alien 8% - Omniverse 8% - Alien Force 6.7% - Omniverse flashback 5.3% - Reboot

Q7. Favourite Omniverse redesign

66.7% - Ben 26.6% - Kevin 6.7% - Gwen

Q8. Least favourite Omniverse redesign

76% - Gwen 18.7% - Kevin 5.3% - Ben

Thoughts

(Putting every single response here would make this insanely long so I’ve just put the most detailed/most echoed responses & include all sides of opinions when possible.)

Q1. Thoughts on the Osmosians retcon?

Okay, first up, do you know how much work I had already put into building shit surrounding those fuckers by the time of the retcons? I had been working on this crap since AF season 2! But no, they gotta go ruin that in one fell swoop, thank you, much appreciated. Second up, I wibble on it? Like, working with mutants is fun and interesting and I've done plenty of shit with them as well, but in the end I'm always going to be a pro-Ossys person. Mostly the retcons left more questions than they gave answers (how, if Osmosians never existed, did everybody and their mother know Kevin was an Osmosian? why, if Osmosians never existed, did none of the people not-involved in this whole disaster with Servantis's mindfuckery look at Aggregor being reported as an Osmosian and go 'wtf that's not a thing'? do they really mean to tell me that not only did Kevin never bother to look into his heritage, but neither did research-happy Gwen? or am I expected to believe the Rooters made enough fake information and put it out publicly that they fooled literally everyone? and if they did then why? when it would've done the same thing with less effort if they'd just, let Kevin be a mutant with a Plumber father who died) and I feel like they didn't really give enough to justify them. One of those cases of 'making your work less interesting to make it more 'accurate''. Personally, I forever keep working on Osmosians (where's the line where it just starts becoming your shit, I think I may be heading there) and I love on mutants and I flip between or combine the two as needed for whatever story I want to tell.

While the fake memories plot isn't great I think it's for the best because the original series meant for Kevin to be a mutant while UAF changed it to alien. I like him better as a mutant human. Too much alien connections in UAF.

I could scream for hours. Easily one of the worst decisions they ever made. Omniverse picks and chooses what canon to follow from AFUA + the original run and throws it in without care or concern to what it means for the timeline. Retconning something and keeping the effect it had is just bad writing. Kevin coming to terms with not being human and that’s okay was important to me when I was a kid. Knowing that he’s just been on an unending series of brainwashed nonsense all his life deprives him of his agency. I hate this decision more than several dozen essays could ever convey.

I wasn't mad about it. Mainly because I liked the idea of Kevin being a mutant than an alien. Alien Force really was pushing that aspect even with Gwen. To the point where she called her powers 'not spells' because of her heritage. Stupid that the rooters and fake memories were a thing, but necessary.

I was never a big fan of the Rooters Arc, but this doesn't bother me too much. It makes UA a little weird with Aggragor, but again, it doesn't really bother me, as most of Omniverse didn't explore Kevin (While UA Did), and was mostly about Ben.

Osmosians were such a cool idea, and it would've allowed for more exploration into what Mike Morningstar was as well, but just writing them off as mutates is so boring. As well as it makes Aggregors whole part not really make sense, like who is he then.

While well executed, it was unnecessary. You could have had the same story line where Kevin was used to mutate other kids and still had him an Alien. You could have had it where it was another alien species that used Osmosians to morph other species to theirs; a call back to the DNAliens if you want.

Q2. Thoughts on how the Ultimate Kevin situation was dealt with in UA?

Terrible. They wanted to go far. They wanted to go dark. But they didn't think their viewership could handle it so they dialed it back. I will always be curious to know what they would have written if they didn't have those constraints. Because the final product was a mess of contrasting tone and unsure footing about how far to go with questioning our hero's moral compass. They wanted to push Ben to see what he would do and apparently, we got that he would kill Kevin and maybe Gwen if she got in the way of saving the universe.... but not really because he didn't. And then the gang is happy all back together like none of it ever happened. They wanted to explore dark themes but have it leave no consequences on the characters. Also... it was so ableist and awful and Kevin deserved better than how Ben and Max (and the writers) treated him.

If they did everything the same but the argument was 'we need to capture him and lock him away' instead of 'we need to kill him'? I would be fine. It's the fact that they slipped so quickly into murder, into murder by his 16-yo bestfriend, that gets me. Like, there's apparently no space between 'recklessly risk our safety trying to talk him down' and 'Ol' Yeller his ass' and that just does not sit right with me.

Ben should have looked for alternate solutions before jumping on the "Let's kill Kevin" train. I understand why he did (this took place immediately post-Aggregor so Ben was still traumatized about having lost so many people and because he failed and "let" Kevin get turned into Ultimate Kevin, he felt as though every person Kevin hurt would be on him) but I wish he hadn't.

Pretty good actually. I like Gwen's emotions becoming a hindrance to the job, I like Ben putting on his big boy pants and I like Kevin going up to Aggregor and saying "y'know, I was a big boy villain once and I'm tried of just getting kicked around" (obviously paraphrasing)

Other than the scenario being overplayed, I think Ben was right. Kevin was eventually going to end up killing Gwen and he'd already put others in the hospital. He needed to be stopped.

Ben jumping straight to murder, yikes. Kevin dismissing Gwen to hang out with Ben almost as soon as he turned back to normal, yikes. Otherwise, it was an interesting plotline.

Really bad. Really shows how awful max and the plumbers really are. I mean , the guy saved the universe and now he clearly needs help but all they wanted to do was kill him.

it really felt like Ben just wanted to murder Kevin because he saved the universe that one time and Ben couldn't stand someone else being the hero for once

The worst, Max straight away wanting to put him down makes u wonder how long he's been waiting for that kind of opportunity.

I'm fine with it, maybe they could have spent some time dealing with the consequences of Kevin's actions, possibly even the ramifications it had on Ben and Kevin's friendship, but overall I'm ok with it.

Q3. Thoughts on the Plumbers

Plumbers ain't shit. Individuals can be acceptable or not but the organization as a whole has too much power, not enough oversight, utilizes child labor, uses a deathtrap of a hellscape dimension as a penal colony, has been shown onscreen sentencing people to imprisonment in said dimension without a trial, and I'm sorry the fact that a Plumber official could walk into a base with his team, assault several members of staff, attempt to kidnap a boy, admit to having and planning to continue to run illegal experiments on him and others, admit to having altered the memories of other Plumber officials, all in front of the entire base, and nothing was done until he tried to kill the golden child Ben 10 and failed, got his ass kicked by one of his victims, and in a place where presumably there were security cameras? And that the response was, again, to sentence him and his team without trial, take all the evidence, and peace out without so much as looking at nonetheless apologizing to his victims? Yeah, that don't fly. Doesn't sound like an organization that has it's shit together. Either the Plumbers don't have their shit together or the higher ups were in on it until it became something that could actually damage their reputation, and either way I Do Not Approve.

They're pretty cool. I know everyone's talking about how Plumbers are space cops and therefore absolutely corrupt and bad but this is a fictional universe in which corruption in organized forces isn't a necessity. Plumbers don't function the same way real cops do, they don't follow they same chain of command, they don't have the same motivations and they definitely don't have the same biases. Plumbers perform an essential function in the Ben 10 universe, which is to capture and contain aliens who aim to hurt anyone (or those who Ben defeats).

My knowledge of the Plumbers' unfortunately doesn't go beyond UA. They're not my favorite thing ever. Some of my least favorite episodes were the ones where the Plumbers or Plumbers' kids are involved, except for the episode "Everybody Talks About the Weather". The way Alan is introduced is really cool and very X Files-esque, and it ties into the DNAlien plot very well. But throughout the series I stopped caring about the Plumbers in general and I think that concept was given too much attention.

They don't do what they're meant to. They act like heros yet I don't think I've ever seen them do anything heroic. The DNAliens situation, the aggregor situation, dagon etc etc. Where were they??? Why did they leave the fate of the universe in the hands of a 16 year-old boy? Ben has the omnitrix sure , but he's still just one guy, how much can he fight? They showed up every once in a while but that's it. They were useless.

Of course the Plumbers have their problems, but looking at most characters we've met that were plumbers seem to be pretty good people. Max, Patelliday and Rook (and even Kevin, technically) are great examples of Plumbers, Servantis being a bad example of one.

Honestly liked it when it was disbanded. It’s cool they introduced Rook but like there’s so much wrong with how they run most things. My favorite version of the plumbers was tbh the first live action movie. Where it was just a bunch of old people watching out for Ben cause they actually cared about the people they protected (in this case Ben).

Q4. Thoughts on Grandpa Max

(The responses to this one were way more divided than I thought they would be omg)

He said Kevin was a mad dog that needed to put down. He's terrible. Military. Secretive. Kept his kids out of the loop and probably told the grandkids not to tell them about a huge and extremely dangerous part of their lives. Thus creating a gap between them and their parents that didn't need to be there. Child endangerment. Other than that....? He's important to Ben and Gwen so I tolerate him and he had some good life lessons to share. Also legendary adult figure in a kids cartoon who had relationships with multiple aliens.

He’s incredible, he worked in the Air Force, was going to be one of the first people on the moon (But he refused because he joined the Plumbers) had children with an Energy Being, he has a few grandchildren, and not to mention knows how to still kick butt despite him being in his 60s and was there to help Ben grow

He’s a complicated old man. Love him to bits in the original run and I love him in AF! He’s a utilitarian doing what needs to be done and suffering the consequences when need be. He does what he thinks is going to lead to the best possible outcome for the most people in any situation.

Needs to get knocked off his pedestal more often, both in and out of canon. He's got good traits, they're very nice, but there's other shit that gets glossed over, ignored, brushed aside, too easily forgiven, and just. They really needed a character who served double duty being a counterforce to him. Somebody to go 'wtf is wrong with you?' or 'yeah, no'. Ideally this would've been Patilidae, but no. We couldn't be so lucky.

Conflicted. Was he grooming Ben for plumber work, or just trying to support him in a situation he knew would be dangerous? It’s not made very clear...

I think he's got some sort of narcissistic personality disorder. I just can't forgive him for making Ben carry the burden of the Omnitrix at the age of 10 without ever explaining anything, and for not letting Ben and Gwen know he was alive after the Null Void grenade incident in AF. He clearly could have, if Helen could reach Gwen so easily. I think he views Ben more as an asset than a grandson at this point and that's really sad.

I love him! The progression from family hero to questionable old man felt kinda natural, like learning about a family member as you grow older and realizing they aren't perfect

He's awesome. He was a good role model for Ben and he was very supportive to both his grandkids. I hate that they made him mute in Omniverse and changed his design so drastically. I loved Max in every season from the original till Ultimate Alien. After that, he was pretty much just a prop.

Q5. And finally, give me your most controversial Ben 10 opinion!

It seems to be the worst thing to say that Ben isn't perfect and that Kai isn't demonic. And it's pretty standard for the women of color characters in every fandom to get the most hate so to me all the hate towards Kai when her personality is so close to Ben's AND she's also more hated than the ex-villain and the actual villains that tried to kill Ben multiple times just seems- hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. But really, and really I've needed to say this for a long time but I'm afraid of being strangled. Some fans will denounce incest/pedo shippers and people that interact with them and then reblog from a proud Bwen shipper with no self-awareness. Please I have the tags blacklisted are you safe to interact with and you just don't know? Or you're just saying you hate Bwen shippers to give yourself an out for reblogging their content????? Or are you all closeted incest shippers trying to maintain a public image???? I'm at my limit.

I do not think the reboot should have existed tbh :,D I know that it has a ton of fans and all due respect to them, but from what I've seen of it I don't think it was worth tossing away four interconnected series' worth of development and starting from scratch to end up with what we have now. I would be fine with it existing if we got an Omniverse continuation alongside it, but CN screwed OV over by the decisions they made near the end of it's run. So it's probably impossible it would return, even moreso because of the reboot already airing, and it would probably confuse younger audiences that don't know about Omniverse if two Ben 10's were running separately. I just really miss Omniverse, it had more potential and the reboot placed the final nail in for it to ever return.

The Ben 10 reboot is fun and meant more for kids rather than the ones watching for nostalgia. I didn’t like how Gwevin were sidelined and downplayed to make Ben look better. Sometimes it felt like Gwen was a bit naggy towards the two of them. I didn’t like how the fact that she was the only female lead how she had sometimes act like a parent or that they put Gwen and Kevin together just because. Their relationship felt forced and awkward a lot of the time. Omniverse’s designs while controversial were fun and unique but I didn’t like what they did with Gwevin, especially Gwen.

Kevin is totally smart enough to figure out an Omnitrix with the blueprints in front of him, we see him do amazing shit with technology- including the Omnitrix- in the OG series, people just don't notice he's as brilliant as Gwen because the show never made it as big a point that he and Ben were so very smart like it did with her before the reboot, so now they're being forced to acknowledge that Kevin might have two braincells to rub together and they're pushing against the supposed 'change'.

idk if it's controversial but there should've been way more episodes of just gwen & kevin & rook without ben or ben having a very minor role in the episode. just more time for those three to shine and show off how capable they are without ben always having to come in to save the day at the end

Gwen and Kevin aren't good friends to Ben. I mean they were initially, but once he got famous and they didn't, they stopped putting more than a half-assed effort to help him. They also don't really consider his feelings nor really care about the toll heroing takes on him.

The Reboot has the best jokes in the entire franchise and I don't why people give it so much crap.

Kai Green is an abuser and I refuse to find anything redeemable about her character. "Worthy to wield Excalibur," my entire ass. And Ben and Julie's breakup was good for them both, as people, and just as much her fault as it was his.

Ben 10 is an incredibly flawed show and people need to stop getting butt hurt when the blatant misogyny, and copoganda in the show get pointed out or when any even minority critiques Ben's character.

Ben is the worst character in Ben 10 and the whole franchise would be better off without him.

Azmuth is fine for the most part and malware was not exactly the most understanding person

I think Ben should've stayed single. Every episode where romance (or the girl Ben was dating) was the focus of the episode was pretty boring to me, personally.

Ben's parents were right to try to stop him from being a hero, so were Gwen's.

Ultimate alien force season 2 and 3 were amazing.( not comparing the OS since obviously that's the best, or omniverse since I haven't watched all the episodes of that)

Pierce deserved to die for being a boring character. I just wish his death had actual consequences.

The reboot is a genuine improvement over the original continuity in MANY ways!

Oh geez, um, Kai was a good character, just her and ben were obviously toxic. Not everyone needs to like Ben and she isn't an abuser, they just don't get along and that's fine but by God, why did the writers have to force them in a relationship? That's all I could really think of on the spot. Oh! And that the first two season of AF were a watered down version of Ben and the plot focused more on Gwen and Kevin than it did Ben. He felt like a side character and I'm not mad about that, but I don't understand why people praise that characterization of ben when I remember more about gwen and Kevin then Ben. Dude, I've been watching the show for the past week and I can name more about kevin and gwen because they're memorable.

Azmuth's hot af, but y'all aren't ready for that conversation...

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If you’ve made it this far then thank you!

Again huge thank you to everyone who submitted a response and if you have any questions/comments please feel free to leave them in the replies/send me an ask/dm/whatever ^^

#ben 10 #ben 10 alien force #ben 10 ultimate alien #ben 10 omniverse #ben tennyson #b10 #gwen tennyson #kevin levin #rook blonko #WE DID IT LADS #looking back there were SO many questions i couldve added like more directly fandom related ones but ehhhhh live and learn i guess #it was fun to do anyway :3

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ziracona · 4 years

Note

Who of the DBD original killers do you think would be cool to see in horror movies? What characters do you think have the most potential for a film and what do you think it should/could be like?

Interesting question! Let’s see: Lisa, Sally, Philip, Max, Evan, Herman, Anna, Kenneth, Rin, Frank/Julie/Susie/Joey, Adiris, Danny (kind of), Kazan, Caleb, Talbot, and the Deshayes.

Hmmmm. Danny would work the least well as an original product, because he’s also a Scream expy thing. And then I also don’t think Talbot would work well outside a very DbD like in-universe heavy story, because he just has so much realm context backstory.

Out of the others, they all have potential. Basically none of the sympathetic ones would work as standalone horror characters, because they just didn’t like, /do/ murders before in-realm or live horror lives. The exceptions being Charlotte, Legion, Anna, Max, and Lisa. A lot of the others are definitely interesting enough to be really cool to watch their backstory lives, just, it wouldn’t be traditional horror. Charlotte and Lisa wouldn’t be the antagonists, but they /did/ both live complex horror lives before the realm, and there’s a lot of tragic potential there. Anna, Max, and Legion are all fairly sympathetic killers, but they /did/ live horror experiences before their time in-realm, so they have potential too. Out of them, I think Anna would be the strangest to adapt as traditional horror, since so much of her genre is tragedy and drama, and a narrative from her pov doesn’t play her as living a horror story, while Max and Legion’s do. It /could/ be crazy sad and work though, especially if you say, started the film from the pov of a kid who is kidnapped by her and the family who loses the child, and then only slowly as Anna goes from this horrific thing that kills people and steals children and eats human, to a weird kidnapper mother-wannabe, does she become less a monster and more complex. Maybe then you get flashbacks. It’d be dark, though, because even if you learned her past and understood what she’s been through and why she did what she did, and she and the child form any kind of bond, and she’s temporarily happy with a daughter and full of affection, you know none of her kids ever lived, so it would have to end with the child she’s had a few slow heartwarming moments with falling ill and her working hard to make her better, keep her warm, only to return from a hunt or panicked mission to collect herbs, relieved to have found what she needs, only to find a cold lifeless body waiting. Which she cradles for hours weeping, and then goes to bury finally behind the house, and only then does the audience realize this is one more joining fourteen graves that have come before it. And god, that’s just...so dismal. Chilling.

Uhhh, Max could be really good, but I would be so afraid people would adapt him badly because mentally ill and disabled antagonists in horror like, almost without fail are disgustingly treated. So, this one gives me fear. It could be a really nice character study, slow understanding movie though, where you go from identifying with him and him being the character in a horror situation, to the monster at the end of the film killing anything who comes near him in a frenzied need to be left alone. Also a very tragic and dark film.

The Legion would be a top pick, because it’s less dark and more like, unique? As far as horror goes. You get these kids, kind of a Gingersnaps, The Craft feel horror, with character-driven and a slow build into the actual horror of it all. Things only spiral slowly, and you like and sympathize with at least to some degree the stupid shit teens by the time things fall apart and their is blood on their hands. And there’s just--so much in the air. One murder. Unplanned. Punk troublemakers that just went off the edge into something darker on accident, and never really have time to choose what this means for them as people or if they’ll come back, because they are still in the immediate turmoil of processing that first kill when the Entity grabs them all. Could be really sick. Also there’s so much sweet-tragedy to work with here, I die for it. Ahhh, and baby Jeff Johansen! --Side note: while I think a lot of these would be cool horror films, honestly, I wouldn’t make horror flicks out of any of them. The reason isn’t that they would be bad films, but that I think the ideal way to adapt dbd killers cinematically would be in like, a DbD tie-in miniseries that’s a collection of stories that gives you backstories like archives does, but does it /way/ better. Like how Overwatch does character short films periodically for lore, except longer and probably live action. Or like the Coming To America segments in American Gods before episodes/chapters that introduce characters or backstory. I fkn love that concept in media when it’s done well. I think it would be super sick, and it would be a great way to tie things into dbd while letting different killers have unique flavors and storytelling styles to their shortfilms. (Honestly, DbD as a concept could make for some /fantastic/ tv show material. I’d /love/ to adapt it. And if there /was/ a show, it would be really cool to periodically have episodes that are just character backstories before you go back to the like, over-arching realtime plot).

Uhhhh, Lisa’s would be tragic, and it would /have/ to go full story. Poor kid just living her life, to kidnapped and struggling to survive. Trying to escape. Canibalized and tortured horribly. Eventually dying and vowing revenge. All the way to twisted and abused by the Entity, doing things she never ever would have chosen for herself, for just the...the fucking wholesale tragedy of her. Honestly, if DbD had a show, she’d be a /fantastic/ choice for first or second killer to get a backstory segment or episode, because like, people new to the media would understandably be like ‘yo these monsters are all 100% evil’ but then you get Lisa and you’re like ‘Oh fuck. That was one of the creepiest, and really she’s some poor young woman who needs rescuing as much as the survivors,’ and then there’s just so much left up in the air to question--who else is like her? And who is like Danny, or Freddy? Who is somewhere in between? Great for storytelling.

Uhhh, it’d take a long time to break down how I’d adapt all of these even with me doing shortform like this so I’ll try to be brief. Let me see. Charlotte would be great horror, back to the original question, not my miniseries fantasy, because her whole life is a horror film she’s the victim in, but her situation is complex and fascinating, and she’s a kid, and it’s so tragic, but not in a pointless way. Her life was full of love and pain, but it mattered, to her, to her mom who loved her and died for her, and to the baby brother whose corpse she couldn’t stop cradling and literally carrying not just with but in her. I think you’d have to finish that heartbroken for the girl, and hoping somehow she is able to find healing in whatever time she has left.

Sally and Philip both went through awful stuff, but Philip’s is not really a subject for just a horror film--although his time in Autohaven could be. Sally also had horrific experiences at her job, but again, like Max, less excited about this one because I don’t trust many people to do a good job with an asylum story. If done well, could be really tragic. Watching her fall apart trying to care about the people who just deserve help, and falling apart being abused by the criminals kept right in the next room over. The horrific ‘treatments’, the slow influence of the Entity whispering in her head, her finally fracturing and believing so completely she is saving people by purifying them and setting them free while she smothers a young boy who trusted her to death. Devastating. And Philip’s life overall and his time in autohaven lend themselves very well to horror, and he’d be a magnificent protagonist, I just don’t think if it was mostly the stuff in America, that that’s a full-length movie. Could be a really great like 45 minute short film. God, poor Philip. He deserved /none/ of this. Uhhh, Rin’s is horrific, with her as the victim, but like Philip, there’s not a /ton/ of buildup, so short film, not feature? Also God, poor Rin. She was just a kid. Doing her best. Please, Entity, fucking stop this.

This leaves Evan, Herman, Kenneth, Adiris, Kazan, and Caleb. Out of these, Caleb would make for a really good movie, but I don’t think it would be a horror film? It’d be a drama, or action-adventure. I mean don’t get me wrong--dark drama--his life was fucked--but like, it isn’t very horror-genre. Kenneth would be super gross but he fits classic horror well so if you want a killer clown, let’s goooo, but like? It’d just be two hours of him drugging, torturing and assaulting and then killing kids, teens, young adults, adults, and old people? And like, almost getting caught but not, and then being recruited by the Entity? And there’s just...not a story in there I see very worth telling? So I’d hard pass. Gross.

Uhhhh, Herman is boring if he’s rewrite. Torture bastard but like with mad scientist vibes is more interesting, and I could dig a CIA is evil film. Only, since he canonically kills /everybody/ in the building, you’d either have to retcon, or have a very disappointing film. Because Herman can’t be the pov character if he’s mad scientist Herman--you kinda need to see that from the outside at least as like, a deuteragonist. Not that horror is always disappointing if the cast all dies--sometimes that works--but like. Given the plotline I know Herman’s life takes, I can’t see your protag being slowly mind control tortured and then eventually experimented on and ripped apart until they die Herman’s last day being a very worthwhile storyline. If you retcon the complete losses though, and have maybe a spy who is the pov character, experimented on a lot, tries to escape and is punished, maybe tries to help a friend, tries to kill Herman in retribution for what he does to a colleague, and last day, somehow finds a way to survive whatever is done to them/not end up vegetative for the rest of their life or dead? Maybe puts a plan into action and messes up a machine and gets hit with a much lower than it looks like dosage of electricity and fakes vegetative, and survives, and witnesses the Entity come and take Herman even, and the Entity notices them and is like “Okay...more free food” so you have a last minute terrified beat to shit spy trying to break free of arm restraints and escape the place before the Entity gets them. Maybe rescues someone else too? Then baybeee we got a story with a great antag! Throw in a new protag to spice it up and u got something I’d like to see. If it’s just torture man lover Herman -the mad scientist aspect, I am not super interested but it’s not a /hard/ pass. I keep this pitch, it just becomes a less interesting film.

Adiris baby, I’m so sorry I didn’t do you with the sympathetic killers you know I love you your name was just late in my list because of how I typed it. Uhhh, her life doesn’t lend well to horror, although she’s a fantastic drama or epic. I’d love to see a major focus on her in-relam in a show, but as far as this question goes, I just don’t think that’s her genre.

This leaves Kazan and Evan. Guess I lied before about not going into any detail TuT but I’ll try. Uhhh. Kazan I am just not that interested in the story of? Man goes around killing farmers brutally for no reason. It’s less horror, more historical drama, unless you take the pov of a victim who seeks revenge or something. So, like Herman, he’d need a pov character fix to make it work. But the end result I find much less compelling. I’d probably pass. It’s just not that interesting to me.

Evan. Well, he’d be a good film I think. Classic horror. Rich, privileged, conceited bastard. Even worse father. Dead mom, drama as a young man. Becomes a horrific monster and loves it, cooks workers to death in his foundry furnace for no reason except sadism, lots of kidnapping workers and forcing them into slavery for him and then horrific murder. Kinda a torture-porn leaning here if you’re not careful, but it could be a really solid flick. I don’t think any of his victims survive though, so without a retcon, it’d be a pretty damn dark one. You could have any number of pov characters that just end up burned to death, or beaten to death, or buried alive and suffocated or starved, crushed to death. You could follow Evan and just be overwhelmed with horror and disgust for the person he becomes. But it works better than some of the other dark horror options, so I’d say it has potential. Especially as a lead-in to DbD, because then it works better as a storyline, because it isn’t totally over.

Hope you enjoyed this! Again though, a lot of these could make nice movies, but I think like 45 minute episode TV show for DbD would be ideal, and they’d all make /phenomenal/ backstory short films. Even the ones that really don’t lend to standalone feature.

#ask #Anonymous #dead by daylight #dbd #long post

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rachelbethhines · 4 years

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Tangled Salt Marathon - The Brothers Hook

It’s time to say goodbye to Hook Foot. He won’t be missed.

Summary: Rapunzel takes everyone to see Hook Hand in concert. However, this brings back bad memories in Hook Foot, as he was always overshadowed and looked down on by his elder brother. Hook Hand is revealed to be employed by the self-centered King Trevor who wants Hook Hand to play at the ceremony of the marriage between the Seal of Equis and his female mate. When Hook Foot sabotages his brother’s performance at the wedding he must face King Trevor in a dance off to save Hook hand’s career.

The Episode Placement Is Indeed Wrong

I talked about this last episode, but the ordering of episodes is confusing.

The Brother’s Hook does come after Rapunzel: Day One in terms of production order and is placed after it on the Disney Plus, but it supposedly aired before Rapunzel: Day One originally and the events make more sense in that aired order. As they’re traveling on foot here because they lost the caravan, and they’re all stressed out and fighting in the first scene of this episode. Also it world explain Hook Foot’s absence in Rapunzel Day One.

Yet why would they order things that way? Why hold off on resolving the Raps and Cass argument if you’re not going to even hint at it here? Why not place this earlier in the season so that you wouldn’t be dragging Hook Foot along in the Great Tree for no reason?

It just goes to show how rushed and poorly planned out season two actually was.

This is Another Pointless Parallel

So Hook Foot is suppose to represent Cassandra here and Hook Hand is supposed to be Rapunzel in this scenario but like that doesn’t work for several reasons.

For one, Rapunzel never discouraged Cassandra’s dreams. Cassandra herself just never opened up to tell her what those dreams were, and indeed even the audience don’t know what Cass’s dreams are now that she’s already achieved her goal of becoming a guard back in the first season. I don’t think even Cassandra knows what she wants.

Second, Rapunzel and Cassandra’s conflict isn’t actually about ‘dreams’, it’s about control. Each wants to control the other, to be in charge, because they think themselves always right. Both equate ‘being right’ and a lack of criticism as validation and to them, and this show in general, validation is equated with ‘love and compassion’ and is the ultimate end all and be all goal for everyone. Even though that’s not how validation works and a it’s a very unhealthy mindset to promote.

Third, no one owes you anything. Yeah, Hook Hand is a jerk here, but at the end of the day giving up on his dreams was Hook Foot’s choice. You are in charge of your own choices, and at some point you need to decide if you’re going to listen to rest of the world telling you no or have some self respect and do what you want because you want it. You don’t actually need anyone’s approval but your own. By making ‘validation’ the end all and be all of the narrative, it undermines characters agency and fails to teach people about self respect and accountability.

Same goes for Cassandra, even more so in fact. She needs to be the one to get off her ass and try for what she wants. No one is going to hand it to her and Raps doesn’t owe her a damn thing. Cassandra is the only thing getting the way of Cassandra because time and time again the series gives her chances that she refuses to take for ill defined reasons. There’s nothing at stake for her to lose if she just left.

Last off, no one learns anything from this. Cass gets nothing out of it despite being right there the whole time, and Rapunzel is too hypocritical and self centred to see that she is very bit the bully same as Hook Hand. Not because she crushes Cassandra’s dreams like the narrative wants you to think, but because she tries to insert herself and her views on to everyone.

Bullshit

Once again, may I remind you that there is over twenty villians in this show and only four of them get redemptions. Four! And one of those four was Eugene’s doing not Rapunzel’s.

The narrative does not support the ideas that it wants to push. If you want me to believe that Rapunzel does sincerely believe in second chances then you need to show her giving that chance to everybody equally. And no, not everyone has to take it, not everyone needs to be redeemed, but she needs to at least try. Especially if they’re a recurring baddie with a tragic backstory like Lady Caine’s.

Oh, and may I also remind you that currently a 15 year old orphan is rotting away in a jail cell because of the corrupt government and Rapunzel does not give a crap!

The Song Is Sounds Good But It Adds Nothing

It doesn’t add anything to the overall narrative and it fails to add anything to the episode itself because it gives us no new information.

This is extremely wasteful. Not only because Alan Menken and Glenn Slater are highly respected artists who are wasting their talents on crap like this, but also for pure budgetary reasons. Tangled has a limited budget for songs that is worked into the contract. Each season is suppose to get eight original songs and two reprises. (tho season three trades out one of those songs for an extra reprise)

In an arc heavy series like this, with such a limited number of songs to convey information, then you need to choose where those songs go wisely. The writers did not choose wisely in this instance.

Rapunzel You Are Not In A Position To Give Advice Here

This episode is foreshadowing for what season three would become. Which is a complete formula switch up that undermines the narrative’s goals.

This is suppose to be a coming of age tale. That’s in its mission statement. It’s what the writers supposedly wanted to achieve according to interviews and the very pilot episode itself.

That requires Rapunzel learning and growing. She can’t be in the mentor role. She can’t be the one to give out sage advice if she is the one who is meant to grow the most. She not there yet. She’s not experienced enough to fulfill that place in the narrative.

Season one may have been repetitive in it’s lessons but it at least tried to show Rapunzel owning up to mistakes and changing as a person, but here and in season three they toss that out the window and have Rapunzel teaching other people lessons instead. People who ultimately don’t matter to the overall narrative.

Instead of showing her growing as a person and coming to fit in that role over time due to experience, it has the opposite effect of showing Rapunzel as being patronizing, selfish, and unworthy to rule. Because she has no grounds for having an opinion, no basis for her advice to go off of, no experience to back up what she says, and zero claims for being in charge except for being born in a classist feudal system.

Had the narrative actually bothered to call out this instead of just having Cass pitch a hissy fit over nothing, then we could have gotten a really complex character and unique moral to the show, but that’s not what actually happens.

King Trevor Is the Saving Grace of This Episode

I don’t think the writers realize that Trevor isn’t the hateable douche that they believe him to be.

Oh sure he’s not nice, he’s essentially the equivalent of an annoying ‘I want to speak to the manager!’ type customer. But there is a huge, huge difference between being a Karen and being a fascist dictator. One’s irritating and the other is actively malicious and a danger to people's lives.

Frederic might be outwardly more pleasant but he’s still a person who abuses his power in order to harm poor people. Trevor is just a mother-of-bridezilla here and a perfectionist. Like big deal.

And to be honest Rapunzel isn’t that much better.

Like you are a bully Raps. You’re every bit a pushy and demanding as Trevor is, particularly in season three.

While she’s not actively malicious like Frederic, she’s still a danger to people because she refuses to acknowledge that the power she wields has an impact on others lives and that that impact can indeed be negative.

There’s something called the banality of evil. That being simply mean to others isn’t how true evil spreads. It’s people refusing to challenge the system, and if you are a part of that system then you are a part of the evil it spreads no matter how nice you are outwardly.

Rapunzel and the show at large, does not understand the difference between being nice and being kind. It introduces the concept of flawed government and systems but then does nothing to actually challenge it. It forgoes the actual work it takes to make change happen by focusing on easy outs and proformative progressivism.

Trevor does more than either Frederic or Rapunzel here with this one line alone than they do in three full seasons.

Eugene did indeed commit a violent crime, no matter how much the show tried to present such a crime as ‘funny’. Trevor is in his legal rights to prosecute the person who tried to kidnap his child/pet and assaulted his personage.

Yet he’s actually granting mercy here. More than that, he’s inviting them to his child’s/pet’s wedding. He’s offering friendship when he could have had them killed. Because Tevor, for all his faults, recognizes the power the that he wields and then makes the conscious decision not to abuse that power.

Moreover over he acknowledges the difference between what is a personal offense and not a an attack on his kingdom as a whole. What Eugene and Frederic did could have been considered an act of war and Trevor never even considered that an option.

It’s sign of bad writing when the person we’re supposed to consider a jerk and a recurring antagonist is more compassionate than the main heroine herself. Even as he jeers and makes an arse of himself.

This is the Point Where Rapunzel’s Characterization Buckles and Breaks

At first glance this seems like growth. She’s now assertive and taking charge, and Hook Hand did indeed had this coming, but in context of the greater narrative and how Rapunzel’s character develops past this episode, this is the point where the wheels start to come off.

Rapunzel is a hypocrite. We’ve established this as a fundamental part of her characterization back in season one and it’s the driving force behind all of the main conflicts with her in the first two seasons. But before now, her hypocrisy at least had consequences. It caused enough problems that if you were paying attention you could see it for the flaw that it was.

But here her hypocrisy is presented as being right. She looks over Hook Hand even as she tells him not to look down on others. She dictates to him how his relationship with his own brother should go, when she has zero context for said relationship. She’s heard only one side of the story and only a piece of it. She doesn’t know what actually went down between them while they were growing up nor does she honestly care why Hook Hand does what he does. Even as she asks him why.

Yet she is rewarded for this behavior. She’s never called out as wrong. The narrative bends over backwards to accommodate her and reinforces her views. Without direct consequences a character’s flaws are rendered meaningless, and so the character will only frustrate the audience rather than endear themselves to us.

That is the opposite of what you want to achieve in a story. You want to the audience to like you’re main characters, or at least find them entertaining in their awfulness. Making them right all of the time, even when they’re wrong sabotages this goal.

Trevor’s Still the Better Person Here

Like it may not have been Hook Hands fault, but at the end of the day he did screw up at his job and a paying customer has the right to be upset and refuse to work with you again or even demand their money back. That’s what being self-employed means. It’s part of the risk you take as being a contractor.

Trevor’s not being unreasonable here just because he raised his voice and wants Hook Hand to leave the wedding premises. Yeah the insults are uncalled for, I’ll give you, but remember that Frederic locked a tailor in a stockade for accidently ripping a robe; that he has the ability to fix if he wasn’t locked up.

And he resolves conflicts and personal insults with a dance off!

What happened when someone called Frederic out for being a poor leader and endangering lives, oh yeah they wound up in jail!

Also This Episode’s Big Climax is a Fucking Dance Off

Out of all the low stakes conflicts in this show this is the lowest.

And it’s coming right off The Great Tree and the big Cassandra vs Rapunzel fight. This shouldn’t be here. It’s throws off the pacing the tone.

Well I Guess Trevor Kept HIs Word, Which Is More Than What Frederic Would Do

Like Trevor is defeated and he does indeed complain about losing, but everyone is apparently free to leave afterwards and Hook Hand still has a career so I guess Trevor kept his side of the bargain. Even though he has no reason to and no one to hold him to account for it. He just has a code of honor I guess.

Meanwhile, Frederic throws a teenager in a dungeon after promising to help him and completely ignores his supposed friend Quirin being encased in amber.

So What Was the Point In Bringing Hook Foot Along Again?

What did Hook Foot add? What did he bring to the story that no other character out there could bring? What does writing him out of the story now achieve, and why couldn’t he have been left out of the narrative all together?

If your answer to all of those question is ‘Nothing!’, then congratulations you have more sense than the showrunners.

I have seen a few people get angry and suggest that Lance should have been the one to go because getting rid of Hook Foot meant getting rid of the shows main disabled rep, but that’s ignoring that getting rid of Lance would mean getting rid of the shows only real black representation as well. Because tokenism isn’t real representation.

Yet for all of how poorly handled Lance’s character was, he still has more reason to be there than Hook Foot. He has a unique connection to one of the main characters that, once introduced, would be hard to ignore. There’s nothing connecting Hook Foot to the plot or the main characters, and that’s why he shouldn’t have been in the show at all. Regardless of how much you may have liked him.

Destiny Isn’t a Goal!!!

How many times do I have to say this!?

A goal needs to be specific. It needs to have logical motivation behind it. It needs a clear obstacle to be overcome for the character to achieve it.

A vague ‘destiny’ has none of those things.

Conclusion

Meh. That’s the word that best describes this episode and the majority of season two. It’s not the worst thing ever if you just want to shut your brain off for 30 minutes, but it’s not actually good either, and if you stop to think about any of it for more than two seconds it falls apart.

#tangled #anti-tangled #hook foot #anti-rapunzel #tangled the series #rapunzel's tangled adventure

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bartramcat · 3 years

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CSI, GUNSMOKE, and STAR TREK: Of Reboots, Remakes and Reinventions

So this whole CSI revival thing has me meditating on a whole bunch of unrelated TV shows, and the tendency of networks to try to replicate success.

Back in the dark ages, when I was a kid, networks were filled with Westerns and Sitcoms and Variety Shows. (Thank you Ed Sullivan for introducing me to so many different kinds of music and comedy I never would have sought out for myself.) I'll admit right now that, for the most part, I hate sitcoms. I'm not even a big fan of comedy films with the exception of Howard Hawks' breakneck version of screwball. The only two sitcoms I maintain a high regard for are The Dick Van Dyke Show and Get Smart. It's the writing. (Get Smart was never a true sitcom; it was a weird pastiche of parody and satire.)

So that brings us to westerns, a form I also tend to dislike, with the exception of Gunsmoke. In many ways, it is the quintessential western, by virtue of lasting so long, and, in others, it's not a western at all but a vehicle for morality plays and character studies in a western setting. At its core is a group of diverse misfits who come together to make a family; despite often unsavory or tragic backstories, they were united in their search for truth and justice and their love for one another.

I think one of the reasons Gunsmoke survived so long was twofold: the core characters and its ability to reinvent itself. Early on, the morality plays were more black and white, good versus evil in a very raw, harsh environment. The term that most comes to mind is stark, although the relationships among the principles were already complex. As Dodge grew, the "bad guys" became more complex, blurring the lines between good and evil. While some truly evil folks still turned up, there were more shades of gray, more bad choices, often born of desperation in an unforgiving landscape, than simply being "born bad." In the latter years of the series, while there were still episodes that explored the relationships among the principles, many episodes were character studies of either Dodge residents or transients.

Surprisingly, the black and white hour long episodes between 1961 and 1966 are some of the darkest TV has ever produced. Happy endings were not part of the formula. Some I would characterize as downright nihilistic. Not your stereotypical TV western. Several TV historians attribute this bleak depiction of frontier life as contributing to the declining ratings in the early to mid 1960s; the show would have been cancelled had it not been for Mrs. Paley, whose favorite show it was.

Gene Roddenberry once said that Star Trek was Gunsmoke in space. On a universe level, he was perhaps talking about frontiers: Gunsmoke was set on the American Frontier and Star Trek "the Final Frontier." Within the show itself, however, it too is about a group of diverse misfits who come together to make a family. It is perhaps worth noting that much of Roddenberry's early TV career was spent in westerns.

(As an aside, I was watching The Long Voyage Home a couple of months ago, and I started laughing out loud at an exchange between Spock and McCoy. My brother asked what was that funny. I said that the whole scene was so Doc and Festus. And it was.)

The original Star Trek was a failure as a TV series. It only lasted 3 years with no great ratings. Yeah I was one of those who wrote letters to NBC when they threatened to cancel it after the 2nd season. The characters and the concepts within it, however, had made an indelible mark on the consciousness of a generation.

For the most part, I hate movies based on TV shows, since I regard the TV and movie experiences to be basically incompatible. Both are on film, but that's where the similarity ends. I also loathe reboots. Star Trek is the only franchise that achieved success in both: the film and the reboot, primarily, I think, because the vision remained the same throughout all of its manifestations. The movies based on the OG show are not a redo but a continuation of the story of those characters first introduced in 1966. And I think as a TV series that TNG was actually better.

CSI has always reminded me of a weird combination of Gunsmoke and Star Trek, mainly because of the whole make a family thing. And the common bond among the family members. There are parallels that can be drawn among characters in all of the shows, but they are, for the most part, analogous at best.

As a TV show, I think CSI lost its way after Grissom left. Gunsmoke never lost Matt, and Star Trek never lost Kirk. The two earlier shows held onto their core characters for their entire runs, well almost. When Amanda Blake decided to take a year off from Gunsmoke in the 20th season, the show had a void. While the overall ratings were still good, I suspect the coveted women 18-49 demo took a huge hit.

For the most part, for me, TV shows are just TV shows. There are those I enjoy as in the moment entertainment. Rarely do I think about them after the credits roll. My go to show is Law and Order. It's comfortable. But I never connected to any of the characters in any substantial way. It is a true procedural. Criminal Intent is a whole other ball of wax, but that's due to Vincent D'Onofrio's Bobby Goren, who is easily in my Top Five of TV characters.

I'm not sure why CSI went so wrong after Grissom left. I suspect a large part of it was not only actor turnover but writing turnover. A loss of continuum both in front and in back of the camera. Initially, I think they were beset by panic: in an effort to fill the Grissom void, they decided to make it about Langston and not the team. The more fractured the team, the more fractured the show.

At the risk of offending some folks, I never cared about Langston, Russell, Finn or Morgan. Compared to the original team, they always seemed more caricatures than characters to me. In the later seasons, even Catherine, Nick, Greg and Sara seemed to lose a lot of their dimensions.

I have no idea what the CSI reboot will be trying to be. On the one hand, it could be trying to be TNG, but then what are Gil and Sara doing there? They certainly can't be part of a found family, since their family isn't included. There has to be some kind of viable backstory for them suddenly to give up whatever it is they have been doing to come back to the lab to save the day.

(In some of my potential scenarios, I suppose it possible they are globe-trotting NatGeo explorers engaged in scientific studies of whales and sharks, birds and bees, but they retain the Vegas residence to which they return to write up their treatises, thereby maintaining contact with the goings on at the lab. Yeah that's pretty far-fetched too.)

I suppose my fondest hope is that we will learn that several of the original CSI writers and production staff have signed back on, so that something of the original vision can filter through.

Shows can reinvent themselves. And they can be successful in different manifestations. In order to do so, however, there needs to be consistency in design and execution. There needs to be a coherent vision in terms of what the show is trying to do and to say.

And there really, really needs to be cast chemistry.

Here's hoping.

#csi vegas #gunsmoke #star trek #reboot #reinvention #csi

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maxsmusicmacrology · 4 years

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Album Analysis: Best of Crush 40

Halfway through the 90s, everything changed. The PlayStation came out in 94, allowing games with 3D graphics and high-fidelity (for the time, that is) audio. Big Red came hopping onto the scene with Super Mario 64 in 96, and Sonic Adventure came onto the scene at the very end of 98. As a latecomer to the 3D party, arriving over 2 years after Mario had such a successful romp, they needed something special. They needed…

Children’s media! I’m of the opinion that there are two main categories that children’s media can fall into: there’s media that is specifically made for children, like Blue’s Clues or Peppa Pig or those licensed Sesame Street games. Then there’s kid-friendly media that, while made for and marketed towards children, can still appeal to adults. This would be most Pixar movies, shows like Phineas and Ferb, and the object of today’s article, the Sonic franchise.

While there’s some pretty huge differences between children’s media and kid-friendly media, one thing they both have in common is the goal of teaching children a moral lesson. With varying degrees of success. This can be something simple like “stealing is bad”, but oftentimes there’s some greater nuance, like how the protagonist of Inside Out learns to value sadness and other “negative” emotions. But when working with hardware that has some intense limitations, like the NES or Sega Genesis, telling a complex story isn’t easy, which is why Save the Princess plots (Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, the opening to Final Fantasy) were so common: it allowed for a moral hero without requiring any deeper discussion. Sonic the Hedgehog went with a bit more of an environmentalist message- saving animals from an evil scientist- which was easy enough to portray in only 16 bits.

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I’m going to review this album out of order. This is a “Best of” album, so rather than being a picture of the band’s musical vision at any given time, it contains some of their best work from over a decade-long span. What I’m especially interested in is how the music interacts with its respective game and how it evolves with the franchise, so let’s take a look at song #15 first.

Open Your Heart kicks off Sonic Adventure with a bang. It’s the first thing you hear when you boot the game up and it accompanies the final battle. Well, most of it, anyway- part 1 of the battle gets Open Your Heart and part 2 gets generic “tense orchestral music”, which is a flat-out awful decision, but I digress. Tonally, it’s perfect- it starts out tense, preparing you for the fight ahead, and then the guitars kick in to pull you forward. But more importantly… this is why I brought up the moral conflict earlier. The story is simple, so the game leans on the song to deliver its message.

Much of the lyrics are as relevant today as they probably were for most of human history: the quieter intro bit describes various catastrophes, and describes the fear and confusion that follows (much like the one we’ve been living in for the past few months). The song’s chorus is built around a dialectic: Can’t hold on much longer/but I will never let go, but then ends with Open your heart, it’s gonna be alright. Together, these components combine the fear of catastrophe with the innate desire to make things better. It instills the idea that it’s okay to have conflicting feelings about a course of action, then promises that your heart will make the right choice.

Live and Learn is the main theme of the direct sequel, Sonic Adventure 2, and fills the same roles as Open Your Heart. The opening riff plays when the game is launched, the full song plays over the final battle, and it delivers the moral lesson of the game. If Open Your Heart introduces a lesson about conflict, then Live and Learn teaches you what to do when you’ve made the wrong choice. What happens if you trust the wrong people, stay when you should’ve run or run when you should’ve stayed, let something important fall into the wrong hands?

The very title of the song hints at its message- you learn from your mistakes and do better- but to me the line that really hits comes in the second verse. But you can’t save your sorrows/you’ve paid in trade. It recontextualizes all the regret someone feels from a mistake as a sort of currency: it’s not to be saved, kept in your mind and dwelled on- you’ve exchanged it, traded it for valuable life experience. If you focus on the mistake instead of the lesson, you’ll never grow, and it’ll all have been a waste. Not only is it a natural progression from the last song, it’s an absolute banger of a track.

Next up is Sonic Heroes, the intro track to… Sonic Heroes. That won’t be confusing. I don’t have a whole lot to say about this one, it’s not the big moral apex of the game and it’s much more of a title theme than the song the game wants you to walk away from. It’s goofy as hell to listen to, but it always puts a smile on my face.

What I’m Made of is the final battle theme to Sonic Heroes and is, in my opinion, the finale of the Open Your Heart trilogy. Looking at the three songs is a sort of rudimentary 3-act structure: you have the introduction and first conflict, the dark part at the end of act 2, and the triumphant closer. The protagonist takes the lesson they learned through the story and uses it to defeat their opponent. What I have in my two hands is enough to set me free. Use the lessons you’ve learned through hardship to better yourself. The songs form a very nice trilogy when viewed like this that parallels the games quite nicely, and I’m confused as to why they’re all out of order on the album.

That finishes off the Adventure and Heroes saga, and now onto… Shadow the Hedgehog… god. I Am… All of Me is the opening track to the game and also the first song on the album, and it’s so goofy. It tries to be all dark and intimidating because Shadow is the dark and edgy character, who has guns and says “damn” because he has a tragic backstory, and the character isn’t edgy because he’s a cartoon hedgehog and and the song isn’t edgy because it’s a song about a cartoon hedgehog.

That doesn’t mean it’s bad, mind you. I enjoy it, and in a way it’s a perfect fit for the game. It’s like a kid wearing a vampire costume on halloween: they can try to scare you all they want, but the worst they can do is make you smile.

All Hail Shadow is the next Shadow the Hedgehog piece. This one was originally by a group called Magna-Fi, and was covered by Crush 40 for use in later games when the band broke up. Shadow the Hedgehog features multiple paths and multiple endings, and this is the “true hero” ending when the player makes all the heroic choices. This song does a good job painting Shadow as Sonic’s foil: both of them are heroes from this point forward, but while Sonic is more of a classical hero, Shadow is an anti-hero. Somewhere in chaos we all find ourselves/this destruction is the only tale we tell. The game features Shadow trying to recover his memories and find his true self, figure out who he really is, and this is the song that has him rediscover himself as a hero.

Finally, Never Turn Back is the true ending theme for the game, and the last Shadow the Hedgehog song in the album. This is the “moral lesson” song I’ve been on about so much, and it’s a damn good one. It starts with a slow cover that samples I am… All of Me, then it gets a powerful kick that rings in the rest of the song. The message in the song is similar to Live and Learn about not repeating mistakes, but Never Turn Back gives a sense of a much more arduous period in one’s life. If Live and Learn is about recovering from a mistake, Never Turn Back is about recovering from a long series of them. It’s been a long rough road but I’m finally here/Move an inch forward, feels like a year. It’s very much about cutting yourself free of a bad period in your life and how difficult it can be to even stay put, but the positive vibe of the song reminds us to celebrate the small victories. It’s a bit more mature of a message for a game that… at least tried to be more mature.

I haven’t talked a whole lot about how the music interacts with the events of the game partially because this is a music review, but partially because it’s gone perfectly hand and hand with the music so far. There hasn’t been much dissonance between “rock music that gives life advice” and “young-ish hedgehog learning how to live life”. That’s about to change, though, because it’s time for Sonic 06. At the end of Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic declared that he was no one special, “just a guy who loves adventure”. This is when that ceased to be true.

The first three songs we discussed weren’t about Sonic. The singer was a nameless narrator occasionally fighting a nameless opponent. They were relevant to the series, but they could be about anyone. That’s what made them so versatile. His World is the main theme of Sonic 06, and where the other 2 versions of the song existed more to hype up Sonic as a character, the Crush 40 cover was more about the events of the game. As a song, it’s pretty good: it’s a more intense version of the original song, and it’s got a slower but steadier pace to it. But here’s what sets it apart from the other main themes: it’s about Sonic. It’s not a lesson about facing conflict and overcoming adversity wrapped up in an upbeat rock song, it’s about the events of the game and how awesome Sonic is. He isn’t the everyman anymore, he’s an important figure, a chosen one to save the world from this point forward. The music reflects that.

To really drive home this new direction they were going, Sega released two games for the Wii called “Sonic Storybook” games, where Sonic would become the main character of two classic stories: Arabian Nights and the legend of King Arthur. They’re both terrible in… just about every aspect, but the first entry Sonic and the Secret Rings is godawful. The main theme Seven Rings in Hand wasn’t written or originally performed by Crush 40, but for some reason they decided to cover it for their album, so I have to talk about it: it’s trash. It’s a bunch of empty lyrics about nothing with some pretty subpar mixing.

While Sonic and the Black Knight isn’t much better, it at least has a killer main theme. Knight of the Wind as a song is pretty badass, but it suffers the same issues as His World. There’s no more important meaning, it’s just about Sonic being a knight and saving people. It has a few familiar “never give up” themes, but it doesn’t do anything as well as Open Your Heart or Live and Learn. It falls into the Sonic Heroes mold where it’s fun to listen to and less fun to really take apart and analyze. The ending theme (which strangely precedes Knight of the Wind) Live Life samples Knight of the Wind, but that’s pretty much the coolest thing it does. It’s slow and pensive, making a sense of faux-thoughtfulness to cover mostly shallow lyrics.

With Me (Massive Power Mix) is the last Sonic and the Black Knight theme here, and was originally written by Crush 40 and performed by singers from the band “All Ends”. The album features a version performed by the band itself, and the song is unique in that it’s sung from the POV of the game’s villain. As a result, it features a look into a character who walked a “dark path”, weighed down by the mistakes they made. Don’t blame [me] for what I have become. It’s an ideological clash against the values in the other songs, arguing that anyone can be tempted to become evil. It’s deeper than anything in the game, but it’s shockingly good considering its source material.

That does it for the main series themes, but there’s a few others on here- a couple tracks for the racing games, an oddly placed cover of Fire Woman, and a too-slow ballad-sounding original song called Is It You. However, I think I’ve gone on long enough, and I’ve discussed everything I wanted to: how the songs showcased on this album elevate the messages given in the games.

Ultimately, all these songs are mirrors of the game they’re in, for better or worse. For that, I have to applaud the band’s versatility- even if most of the songs are the same genre, they cover a wide range of moods and messages depending on what the game demands. They can write a kick-ass guide to getting over failure or a fun little romp to introduce a game. Even divorced from their source material, many of the songs stand well on their own, and there’s a very good reason why fans of the franchise want Crush 40 to return for future installments.

Videos cited:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJYxYzxFyZw Peppa Pig - Caddicarus (warning: weird shit)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JWYDUYqhlc&list=PL5F29F0909BF08B56&index=15 - Best of Crush 40 Playlist

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voI-9TdS0Jw - Seven Rings in Hand (Crush 40 Ver)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HrOjyltyEM - With Me (Massive Power Mix)

#children's media #sonic the hedgehog #crush 40 #album review #coming of age #rock music #upbeat music

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wittyy-name · 5 years

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Hey, Wittyy, do you have any tips on planning a dnd campaign? Especially as a first timer. Advice? Lifehacks? Warnings? (to clarify first timer, i know a lot about dnd and even read some worldbuilding guides but I'm not sure if they're working for me, maybe you have a little different, unique approach to planning process?)

This ended up being a very long post about me rambling about my experience world building my first campaign, so I’m just gonna slap it under a cut lol

Idk how much advice I can give?? I’m running my first long term campaign and kinda just flying by the seat of my pants at this point. World building is a PAIN and it can be hella frustrating, but it’s also kinda rewarding?? And I have experience with it from writing stories that definitely helped.

I built a world from scratch, which is a first for our dnd group. We’ve done a campaign in Skyrim, and we’re also doing a campaign in the Witcher universe. Mine is the first where the players can’t just google world info, which I like a lot.

My campaign started with an idea of having a party of bards. And I wanted them to have a REASON to stay together. Not just the typical dnd “we’re together bc why not”. I wanted them to KNOW each other but still have secrets to hide?? So it wasn’t just strangers?? So THAT was my starting point. And I asked myself, how do I make that happen? So I had the idea that they all have to start bard level 1. They were in a band for a year together, but then they broke up. They haven’t seen each other in five years. ALL of them have gone through hell and back ((bc what’s dnd without tragic backstories??)). They’re level 4 now, and they got to multiclass into whatever they wanted to. So they’re forced back together through circumstance, and they’re stuck in this party of people they used to know but are now so different.

My goal for my group was simple: I wanted a story where every player feels like the main character. I wanted them to have their own secrets and quests and things to figure out and pursue. I wanted each and every person to feel like they’re leading the group. Everyone to feel important. So I had several brainstorming talks with each of my players. I figured out what they wanted to play, and ideas they had, and then we expanded on them and build up their characters together (bc it’s easier when you have a dm to build with you). Another goal I had was to give everyone a personal rp challenge. Which is unique to the player. It’s mean to help them build up some of their weaknesses and gently guide them out of their comfort zones.

So now I have six players with crazy unique and complicated backstories. They all have secrets and weird quirks. They all have goals to pursue and things to keep from the others. And most of them have aspects of their backstories that THEY dont’ even know. Missing memories, secret bloodlines, unknown curses. This is really important to ME. Since these are secrets even from the players, they get to learn surprising new things about their characters as the campaign goes on. Even THEY don’t know everything about themselves, and that’s exciting to them. It means more work for me as a dm, but it’s worth it for them.

This was an important factor for me in planning my campaign because my group plays online. With online dnd, it’s harder to keep engaged. When you’re not in person and you can’t feed off the energy, it can be easy to lose focus. I noticed that from previous campaigns, and I tried to come up with ways to help it. What I came up with was this: the best way to keep online players engaged is to make them invested in their characters. Simple, yeah? By having complex characters that they put so much into, they love those characters, and thus love playing them. By giving them an rp challenge specifically suited to them, it forces them to pay attention, to constantly be in the mind of their character so they can consider how that character would act and react at any given time. By giving them individual goals to pursue, they’re constantly trying to figure shit out. By keeping aspects of their characters unknown, it gives them a feeling of excited anticipation. All these things help keep them engaged and locked into their character’s minds, which makes the whole experience a lot of fun.

As for the WORLD, I kinda just... figured out an aesthetic that I thought was cool and tried to run with it?? I don’t remember how I got to this idea, but I thought the feywild was cool, so I said “what if something cataclysmic happened and the material plane and feywild are now mixed together and people have adapted to living with a constant fey presence?? And then one night I was almost asleep when I thought of SKY SHIPS and FLOATING ISLANDS. So I said “what if a lot of the material plane races raised sky cities to get away from the fey threat on the surface??” And so I had my aesthetic for the world, I just needed specifics.

I thought “well, if there were old kingdoms before the Cataclysm, how would they have been affected when the planes merged??” So coming up with an old political climate, and how things have changed since. How the surface and the sky cities function now. Where do all the races fit into this map? Into this world? The feywild and Material Plane are only two of the three mirror planes, how does this affect the Shadowfell? Okay, the shadowfell is starting to leak through the thin veil and we have pockets of shadow portals that are becoming worse and worse as the centuries go by.

I had the area where the Cataclysm happened, but what happened there? This was admittedly the hardest part, and I got a huge writers block here, but I figured it out. What society lived there. The magic they used. How shit went wrong and they merged the planes.

What gods exist in this world? Well, I picked a single pantheon in the dnd handbook and said “these are the gods” bc I didn’t want to incorporate ALL of them. But the idea of this pantheon was that there was no afterlife, which started play into ideas I had for the lost city that started the cataclysm. And it kinda all started to come together.

The whole time I was building the world and history, I kept my character’s backstories in mind. I wanted all of them to be important SOME HOW. All of their importance differs. But I wanted them all to be tied to big world big picture things SOMEHOW. So they could all feel chosen, in a way.

But the best part?? This is an open world campaign. There are things in the world that are happening, and they’ll happen with or without the party’s interference. But their interference can cause domino affects in world events. I didn’t want to set my party on ONE QUESTLINE. I wanted them to CHOOSE. So I slapped them down in a town, got them used to their characters, and now they’re out of the “starter zone” so to speak. They can choose where to go. What ideas to pursue. They all have driven backstories, so it’s interesting to see who kinda pushes theirs to the front of the agenda. And there is no Good and Evil. I wanted a whole world of gray area. So the party’s opinions of world events will probably change depending on who’s backstory they follow first. Who they meet first can shape how they think and what side they get on. Which is super exciting. The whole campaign is malleable and the party has free rein. In fact, they can choose to never interact with world events and just do small time fuckery quests. It’s all up to them. But shit will be happening and the world changing. And it’s exciting to see where they get to go.It’s a very character and roleplay driven campaign, which is what we all wanted. And seeing them so invested in characters is so nice. Seeing them love my world is great. And knowing what I have in store for them is exciting.

I know this isn’t so much TIPs as me just rambling about my experience, but maybe it’ll help??The best actual advice for building the world... come up with an aesthetic you want and the goal for your campaign. Those are your keystones. Now ask yourself why? How? Where? Who? You want a king to be insane? OKay, why? You want there to be a world that’s mostly water with ship travel? Okay, what’s the history? How have the people adapted to this world? How are cities constructed and what social constructs come about in a mostly ship/water based world?

I can give you some specific examples from my campaign about how I designed social constructs for different societies if you want, but I feel like I’ve rambled enough for one post lol. Good luck!

#wittyy replies #Anonymous

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stagekiller · 5 years

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“Those who grant sympathy to guilt, grant none to innocence.” ― Ayn Rand

To cut a long story short, we could conclude that clownman grew up in a toxic environment. And as much as I hate to make him sound like a victim, he...was a victim of circumstance. So, today, we delve into Jerome’s feelings in regards to his past.

Before I begin, I would like to declare that I am very much opposed to any fandom interpretations of his character that present him as a ‘poor wittle baby whose mommy didn’t love him yadayadayada’. This is watering down the character. It’s Bonnie & Clyde syndrome. And my goal in this post is NOT to make you sympathize with him, hence the quote.

Second, small disclaimer; these are fictional characters in a fictional settings. Though it may bare resemblance to things that happen in real life, I, as the mun, by no means condone any actions described.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: child abuse, corporal punishment, incest, gaslighting, spoilers

Throughout this post I will be making references to Arthur Phleck, so consider it a spoiler zone for JOKER(2019). These references are mostly used as comparisons in regards to ‘The Joker’s essence and how the victim mentality comes into play in all different iterations of this DC villain, establishing victim-play as a character trait.

PART ONE : ONCE BITTEN, TWICE SHY

To begin with, I want to delve into how Jerome himself sees his childhood, how he feels about these past events and how he chooses to present them to others.

Jerome is someone who hates vulnerability. He is not one to open up or be vulnerable around others where it counts. That is a symptom, or rather, a consequence, of the abuse he has suffered. Child abuse survivors often have severe trust issues, because the people they were supposed to trust (their family) have betrayed them in some shape or form. For example, if a parent baits their child to confess a naughty thing (”If you tell me, I won’t ground you.”) they did and then punishes them after confessing, it is very likely that this child will be more hesitant to confess the next time. After enough repetition, the child may start suspecting other adults of similar behavior. The foundation for a cognitive structure has been laid; “If I trust people with information, they may use it against me.”

According to Mary Ainsworth, the bond between mother and infant is the most important because the child will then base their future attachments on that prototype. In an oversimplification, parents teach us how to bond with other people, among other things. They are responsible for teaching us how to behave socially and how to interact with others. Furthermore, research has shown that children with depressed mothers are more likely to develop conduct disorders, due to the lack of proper interaction and stimuli at an early age.

PART TWO: THESE HUMBLE BEGINNINGS

Now, to put all these things into perspective, in my headcanon, Lila Valeska was very much a depressed mother. A depressed alcoholic, to be exact. A broken woman, looking for self esteem in any embrace that would be offered to her. And, because of that,s he was completely incapable to equip Jerome and Jeremiah with the social skills they needed. She never intended to abuse them. And she wasn’t evil. She just wasn’t enough.

But the problem only begins with Lila. Zachary Trundle very much played the part of her controlling older brother. We can actually see that he was rather controlling in canon, telling her what to do with her kids ( note how Zach told her to throw Jerome in the river but Lila still kept him around ) and being in charge of moving Jeremiah when the time came. We can conclude that Zachary played the part of a father, a brother and potentially a husband substitute as well.

And it was Zachary who molded Jerome into what he became later on. But... more on their relationship on a later post. ;3c

Last, but not least, let’s not forget about Paul Cicero, who not only wasn’t there to console Jerome but also gaslighted him. ( “The world doesn’t care about you” ) He tried to instill the core belief in him that he was unworthy and he should just suck it up. And what that does to kids is usually make them think that they deserve the abuse and not try to escape from it. In Jerome’s case, it also resulted in him abusing himself later on. Because when this kind of situation has been NORMALIZED for you, anything other than pain feels abnormal and weird. Jerome would not know how to react to healthy relationships.

PART THREE: ONE IN EVERY DECK

“Playing the victim role: Manipulator portrays him- or herself as a victim of circumstance or of someone else's behavior in order to gain pity, sympathy or evoke compassion and thereby get something from another. Caring and conscientious people cannot stand to see anyone suffering and the manipulator often finds it easy to play on sympathy to get cooperation.” ― George K. Simon Jr., In Sheep's Clothing: Understanding and Dealing with Manipulative People

All iterations of the Joker have a tragic backstory. Most DC Villains do, as a matter of fact. But how they deal with it differs from one iteration to another. For example, Ledger Joker uses different versions of a tragic backstory to either disturb or gain sympathy from his victims, or to make a point ( ‘you wanna know how I got these scars?’ ). Nicholson Joker uses his tragic backstory as feud fuel and victim cards to pin his misery on Batman. BTAs Joker is shown using some tragic backstory to sway Dr. Quinzel, but later on in the Mad Love episode we see that he’s used the same victim card on Batman too.

But Phoenix Joker is by far the most compelled to play victim cards. The difference with previous iterations is that Phleck Joker sees himself as the victim too. I’m not saying that the others didn’t, to some extent. But Arthur is immersed in the part. He thinks of himself as a mentally ill loner. He doesn’t just use the victimhood card in a manipulative fashion. He actually experiences emotion over it. That is a much more realistic interpretation of what has come to be known as the serial killer victim complex.

I’ve dropped a link to a video of a real life criminal talking about himself and his past actions in a very similar way to Arthur Phleck, here. Please view at your own discretion, it does contain disturbing material.

So how does Jerome view the things that happened in his childhood?

On the show, Jerome uses victim cards in a similar fashion to previous Joker iterations. “ With Uncle Zach, the beatings never stopped...they went on and on, and yet...nobody ever helped me... ” He tells Bruce. For a moment, we see him performing an emotion. But it is shallow. And that is because, as I mentioned above, Jerome hates vulnerability. So, to me, he is somewhat of a combination between Phleck and the previous Jokers.

He will use his tragic backstory for pity points when it is convenient. But does he actually see himself as a victim? No. Because that would contradict his prideful nature! A victim is weak, puny, abused and broken. Jerome can’t be those things, because seeing himself as such would be an ego collapse. Jerome sees his life as a movie. Another soap opera. He removes himself from the reality of the situation. There is a ‘that’s life’ mentality in that too. There’s a ‘my life is a comedy’ mentality in that too. But, unlike Phleck, Jerome doesn’t feel bitter about it anymore.

Even when referencing how he killed Lila to Jim Gordon, or complaining to Jeremiah for abandoning him, the emotional aspect lasts for a minute. Then he starts laughing and making jokes about it. It’s like he wants to distance himself from the reality of the situation. And that’s why he doesn’t use the victim cards in most situations too. Because they would make him look weak and small. And he’s not pathetic like that.

For example, he wouldn’t start talking about his tragic backstory just to sleep with some cult girl. These tactics are RESERVED for very special individuals, like Bruce Wayne and his brother. He would use this kind of thing against people he knows are emotional or bonded with him to some extend. That’s why he doesn’t do it to Jimbo, for example, because he knows Jimbo isn’t as openly compassionate as Bruce, who would feel sorry for him and want to help him.

TO CONCLUDE: Once again my post got huge and if you made it this far, thank you for reading :D I hope I conveyed the general picture adequately to you!

To those who abuse: the sin is yours, the crime is yours, and the shame is yours. To those who protect the perpetrators: blaming the victims only masks the evil within, making you as guilty as those who abuse. Stand up for the innocent or go down with the rest.” — Flora Jessop, Church of Lies

#{ headcanons }#{ characterstudy }

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askthedevicer · 5 years

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So let’s talk about North

@dc-200 did an excellent character study for her, and so now I want to go into the META of it all.

Because, as we all know, North has always been something of a polarizing character, and I don’t actually think it has anything to do with her, but rather with how the narrative uses her.

Again, dc-200′s post goes into North’s personality, so I won’t rehash that. I will add that North has all the makings of a protagonist. She’s got the tragic backstory, the Cause, the drive, the passion, and she goes through character arcs. Also, the way her backstory is handled is impressive.

After all, her being a Traci model is an entirely controversial and tragic thing, but all of that is implied. The game never goes into graphic detail for shock value, or uses it to suppress North, or uses it as an excuse to have people shun her. When she and Markus share memories, he doesn’t ostentatiously point it out to positive or negative effect, and she never lets it hang her up. It can be inferred that her experiences help shape some of her extreme personality, but it does not form who she is. She is not defined by her past.

Speaking of her extreme personality, North does tend to follow the principle of “The needs of the many outweigh the few” in that she believes in gaining the freedom of her people at all costs. I won’t make a judgement call on whether this is a positive or negative thing. I will say that it’s important to note that she doesn’t believe herself, Markus, Josh, Simon, or any of the “Leaders” of Jericho to be above this belief. It shows in the Stratford tower scene, when she points out that Simon becomes a liability, and also in the Jericho battle, when her first concern is that her “people will be slaughtered” and when she doesn’t asked to be saved after being shot.

Point is, North has a deep and complex character, so why do so many people see her as just some violent android?

Simply because, while her character is complex, her role as utilized in Detroit is not.

North exists to be Markus’s understudy, and in the event that Markus does not die, she serves only to highlight the his more ruthless decisions. This is paralleled by Josh’s pacifist options. From a game and storytelling standpoint, these two serve to make Markus’s dual paths more dynamic....Except, they don’t. There is a clear difference in how the narrative treats Josh and North, despite the fact that they serve the same purpose. So instead of pointing out two opposing but equally valid arguments, Josh and North just end up being the proverbial angel and devil on Markus’s shoulders.

This is, of course, the first problem. The “devil” is North. At least, it’s really easy to make that connection, and devil has a great many negative connotations. When the pacifist route leads to unmitigated success, the violent route does seem to indicate that it is the "evil”path.

As if to reinforce this, North’s route leads to many unnecessary deaths. This is the second problem. Don’t trust the security android. Don’t bring back the newly deviated androids. Shoot Simon. Kill the Stratford guard that ran away. Start a war with humans. Use the dirty bomb if necessary. Everything North advocates stems from fear and ultimately leads to more death. Maybe there was supposed to be some high-handed allegorical themes somewhere, but it ultimately just made North look cowardly when, if you didn’t pick her option, she just turned out to be wrong every time.

This brings us to the third problem. If hypothetically, the game were to remove Josh and the options he advocated for, we lose the fandom-acclaimed “best ending.” If they removed North, what would they lose, really? This is the crux of the problem. The player is never punished for choosing to side with Josh the way they are if they side with North. Even Markus’s relationship with North doesn’t suffer when following pacifism.

If, even once, siding with North had been mandatory for the best ending where everyone survives, the existence of her character would have been 100% validated. As it is, North exists so that if the player makes a mistake and kills off Markus, the overall plot of the game doesn’t get derailed completely. That is the most tragic thing of all.

#detroit become human #dbh #dbh North #dbh markus #dbh josh #meta #I love NOrth #I hate how the game treats her #I hate that this has influenced so many people to think badly of her #justice for North 2k19

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tumblunni · 5 years

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An underrated good part of Maddiman's characterization that makes him both more redeemable and more terrifying is how he genuinely does not seem to know that what he is doing is evil.

Like in yokai watch 3 he sounds genuinely confused that the three turtle yokai wouldnt want to be "improved" by being fused together. He genuinely cared about them and apparantly treated them quite well because they loved him too and didnt want to leave even though they didnt want to fuse together. And all it took to get him to stop was someone simply explaining why this was bad, which he was completely surprised by yet also instantly trusted and believed even though you were someone he'd only just met and had no reason to believe was trustworthy. Like he's just so goddamn nice and friendly like that??

Seriously its so interesting how his personality manages to be so ridiculously ludicrously cute and nice even when he's doing mad science doom! And i think its interesting cos it feels like they had to develop him this way in order to get him to become the complex character they wanted in yw2, when all the evidence seems to point to that not being planned at the time of yw1. Seripusly he acts so OOC when you look at it in retrospect! Justa generic scary doctor minion of mckraken, and clearly didnt have the backstory planned cos why would a human yokai join the anti human group? But this strange personality duality allows them to retroactively make it more in-character to this new character they made for him, without needing to retcon anything.

Like when you look back on it, you could kinda reinterpret his yw1 appearance through that lens? Maddiman is a nice dude but he gets easily obsessed with his experiments and seems to have a blind spot where he forgets that they dont seem so great to everyone else. Everyone would enjoy being my experiment, they could become super powerful and also part of important history in the field of science! Fwahahaha! And while i am doing the totally not evil thing of cutting out a child's heart to shove in my ultimate weapon and turning his discarded corpse into a yokai, i may as well mess around and do some ~ultimate theatrical hamminess~ to make it fun for the lil guy! *big innocent eyes* *"you are the villain of this story" flies right over his head, ignored*

I mean in yw2 he doesnt even seem to be mad at Nate/Katie over what happened last time, even though he does seem to remember them. (Saying "that boy/girl again" when talking about them defeating Hans) Instead he's just frightened that someone broke into his laboratory, and then annoyed that they ended up setting Hans on themselves cos of their own damn fault. Like he was never planning to attack you at all if you hadnt bumbled into that mistake! And in Medal Wars he literally just says "oh hello good morning" when you walk into his lab, and you initiate the fight with him instead of simply explaining 'hey maddiman whoops you accidentally caused a blackout, i see your experiment is over now so maybe you could unplug your machine and fix things?" Srsly like 90% of all maddiman related problems could probably be resolved with 'hey mr orb dad could you please not do the bad?" "Oh wait i was doing a bad? I had no idea, sorry!"

And its also really good how this is a character trait thats generally rather absurd and goofy, but also when you think about it it makes sense with his tragic backstory. "I'll do something extreme and ridiculous rather than the logical conclusion, with seemingly no awareness that this choice is foolish and self destructive, and also this could be resolved if i simply talked about my problems with someone who could set me straight" is played for drama in his past, and it becoming a recurring comedic character trait is a good way of making it sorta like..integrated into his personality, all realistic like.

I dunno i just feel like they put a lot of depth into this random joke/coverup for a retcon. And it makes him pretty unique! And also pretty versatile cos honestly in any future game they could probably put maddiman inthe role of ally or antagonist for any quest ever, and itd always make sense every time. He's left open for a lot of accidental misunderstandings even after he's turned good,just cos thats who he is. He's mr supergenius with absolutely zero common sense!

Also i feel like "dont worry, experimenting on people isnt bad!" is possibly an extension of how reckless and self destructive he was as a human. I mean we're told he worked so hard he lost his family, worked so hard He wore the same clothes for weeks, starved himself, never slept, literally drove himself to death because of this. Feels like "dont worry i can replace sleep with caffeine" was the first step in "dont worry i can replace my no longer beating heart with this supernatural IV drip" and "dont worry i can fix literally everything wrong with everyone whether they want me to or not"...

I dunno maybe im thinking too deep into this, but thats kinda my job as a Certified Grandpa Analyst (note: may or may not be a job that exists)

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 6 years

Text

A Look Back on the Twilight Saga

I have never felt older than I have this year, in which the film adaptation of the first book in the Twilight Saga turns ten. Ten years ago, that movie came out, three years after the book. And what a book and movie they were! They inspired so much rabid devotion and equally rabid pushback, with people gushing over the beautiful romance in equal amounts as people saying how the books were offensively awful and filled with misogyny and romanticization of abusive relationships. Golly, I sure am glad discussion of fiction has improved since then and we don’t have dumb arguments like that anymore!

All joking aside, it is pretty interesting to look back on the series. With the passage of time, and the release of so much young adult fiction in cinemas between then and now, I have to say that looking back… Twilight is a pretty good film and, for the most part, a pretty good series.

Now, such a bold statement could never have been made in that period during the heyday of the series, where the popularity of the series was slowly souring and people began openly rejecting the series as trash. But I feel that rejection was just part of an obnoxious cycle I’ve seen a lot in recent years, where anything remotely popular with audiences (such as Frozen) becomes hated at the peak of its popularity, seemingly because of the sole fact that it is popular and not really due to anything having to do with the actual overall quality.

See, here’s the thing: despite the series having a reputation for being poorly written tripe, it really is a lot better than anyone gives it credit for. Now, I’m not going to say the writing is on par with other young adult fantasy series of the time, like Harry Potter or Percy Jackson, because that is just patently untrue. What the Twilight Saga was, and what it always seemed to aim for, was the level of quality of a tacky airport romance novel you pick up while waiting for your flight to kill time. It’s nothing but wish-fulfillment fantasy in which an unhappy young woman becomes the reason for living for several unfathomably hot supernatural men, a sentiment that quite frankly resonates with the modern atmosphere towards supernatural romance and the prominence of self-proclaimed “Monsterfuckers.” Bella’s situation is pretty much a dream come true, is it not? Among tacky supernatural romance novels, Twilight and its sequels are easily the queens of the genre.

Here’s the thing that really sets the Twilight Saga apart, though: there is actually a serious amount of thought and care put into nearly all aspects of the romance’s universe save for the actual romance. Every single member of the Cullen family has a fascinating backstory: Carlisle was a vampire hunter turned vampire who proceeded to venture across the world in the ensuing hundreds of years building up a family and practicing a different way of living; Alice was committed to an asylum and has a past shrouded in mystery; Jasper was a soldier in the Confederate army who was turned into a vampire and tasked with raising a vampire army; Rosalie’s backstory is Kill Bill, BUT WITH VAMPIRES!; and Emmet, while easily the least impressive of them all, still died apparently fighting a bear, and considering how he is one can only imagine what on earth he was doing. Esme is the only Cullen without a deeply fascinating backstory, but even what little we do get is a bit tragic: she lost her child and so committed suicide, or attempted it anyway. There’s absolutely no need for all of these rich, complex backstories for characters in a throwaway romance novel, and yet here they are. And that’s not all.

The rest of the world and overall vampire society is presented in a very interesting way. The Volturi in particular are a fascinating idea, a secret cabal of vampires who rule over all other vampires with an iron fist, but one that is, while a bit tyrannical and unforgiving, seemingly necessary to preserve the existence of vampire society. Hell, their rules don’t really seem TOO harsh, and they only really spring to action when there are vampires fragrantly and blatantly exposing themselves to human society. They wish to keep the vampire world hidden in the shadows, where they can feed in peace away from prying eyes. Their position is understandable in a lot of ways. They also have a very interesting history to them, having apparently wrestled power over vampirekind away from a sect of Romanian vampires. Now, I did say they are a fascinating IDEA; in execution, they always tended to be a bit… useless. Their appearances in New Moon and Breaking Dawn are ultimately wastes of time, as they are never really opposed in any sort of meaningful way and get away in the end with the status quo wholly unchanged. No impact is ever made on vampirekind when they’re involved, which almost makes me wish that they were kept in the shadows and used far more sparingly. Their influence over events in Eclipse, where they only send out their powerful agents, showcases that Stephanie Meyers could use them very effectively when she wanted to.

The werewolves are a bit less effective. While they do have an intriguing backstory, there is something a bit… problematic about shoehorning a bunch of fictional elements onto the real Quileute tribe. On the other hand though, a positive and heroic portrayal of Native Americans in fiction is never a bad thing, and Jacob Black is easily one of the more sympathetic characters until halfway through Breaking Dawn. It’s a very tricky, mixed bag. I kind of wish that the issue with the handling of Native American folklore was the biggest controversy with the series, but there’s actually one far worse and even stupider.

The Twilight Saga has come under fire for being a negative influence on young women, for romanticizing abusive relationships and stalking, and for being some sort of massive insult to feminism. Now, these arguments aren’t wholly without merit, but the issue is that they are being filtered through human understanding and imposed on fictional creatures in a fictional universe. If a real-life human acted as clingy, impulsive, over-protective, and obsessed as Edward is towards Bella, yes, it would be absolutely terrifying. Here’s where I let you in on a little secret, though: Edward Cullen is, in fact, not a human. He is part of a race of ageless semi-undead beings who live off of blood and glitter in the sunlight. He immediately sees his soulmate in Bella and goes out of his way to ensure they end up together, acting on the instincts granted to members of his kind. Trying to fit all of his actions into a human narrative is as fruitless as if an ant tried to explain humanity to his colleagues filtered through his ant experiences. The fact is, Edward operates on a far different moral code than humans. This is not uncommon for vampires in any fiction; Marceline of Adventure Time fame is a vampire who is certainly not above doing some rather sketchy stuff, for example. While Edward’s actions can come off as bizarre and creepy to humans, for a vampire, Edward is actually downright romantic and even benevolent. One also needs to take into account that Edward is a kissless virgin who has spent a hundred years doing nothing but reading romance novels and listening to classical music, which would go a long way to explain his awkward and sometimes offputting ways of trying to replicate human courtship rituals with Bella.

The criticisms leveled at Bella are rather unfair as well; while she often finds herself a damsel in distress, it rarely is something she doesn’t want. When Bella is in danger, it’s because she wanted to be there and put herself there. Yes, she does get into trouble, but that’s mostly due to her being a stupid horny teenage girl with zero impulse control. Recall New Moon, where she constantly did dangerous stunts so she could have hallucinations of Edward chastise her. Bella is, quite frankly, an adrenaline junkie, and I feel she’d rather resent being called a damsel. Even the times when she is in danger, it is no real fault of her own, but rather the fact she is a normal human out of her depth in a supernatural world. Bella is not Blade, she is not Van Helsing, she is not Alucard; she is Bella Swan, normal teenage girl, and she tends to be as effective as your average teenage girl in situations where superpowered monsters are hunting her. Imagine if we applied these sorts of criticisms to other characters in fiction… “John Conner in Terminator 2 is such a worthless damsel in distress character, why does he not just fight off the T-1000?” or how about “Why do the kids in The Goonies not take the Fratellis head-on? Why do they constantly flee from them when they cross paths? And Chunk, getting captured by them, what a pathetic damsel moment.” People not being successful in areas where they are out of their element is not some horribly evil thing. I also resent the idea the series is some horrible, anti-feminist work, particularly because the entire series revolves around Bella’s choice, and when she is not given agency she goes out of her way to take that agency. For all the flaws of Breaking Dawn, and there are many, I will give it this: presenting Bella as being in the right for wanting her choices respected is a good thing. With that in mind, I think the entire series is a lot more feminist than many are willing to admit.

And look, I’m not saying this book is a flawless masterpiece or anything like that. I have mentioned this is definitely a book more impressive for the world it creates than for the actual romance it centers around. But I do feel that, generally speaking, the books never descended to the point many who criticized the books say they did. I say “for the most part” because I cannot even muster up enough good will to say a single good thing about Breaking Dawn. But generally, the writing quality is decent. Even some of the twists on vampire lore are interesting and refreshing.

For instance… the sparkling. This is one of the most infamous additions to the lore of vampires in Meyers stories. When in the sunlight, rather than bursting into flames as vampires tend to do in fiction, their skin sparkles and glitters as if it was encrusted with diamonds. It does sound silly, and it really is, especially when they show it off in the movies… and yet, it is actually far more accurate than just about every depiction of vampires in nearly 100 years. You see, the idea vampires are killed by sunlight is actually a relatively new addition to vampire lore, being created for the famous silent masterpiece Nosferatu because they couldn’t come up with any other way to kill the vampire. In the original novel of Dracula, for instance, the titular count strut about during the day with no ill effect. So, by accident or perhaps by some better understanding of the creatures than most writers, Meyers was more accurate than nearly all contemporary portrayals of the characters. Also interesting – but not nearly so to the point I feel the need to dedicate a whole new paragraph to it – the idea of vampires having a sort of “love at first sight” thing that allows them to discern their soulmate was copied by Hotel Transylvania, so I feel like that addition to vampire lore has its merit as well.

The film adaptations tend to not truly fix the flaws with the storytelling, but instead to paint over them with some truly inspired silliness. The utter apathy Robert Pattinson exudes for his role as Edward Cullen is palpable in how he acts, and it tends to make Edward’s creepier actions actually less threatening than the were in the books – and I’d argue there he wasn’t particularly threathening, despite his angsting. Taylor Lautner’s oft-shirtless portrayal of Jacob Black seems a lot more genuinely, but equally cheesy; his and Pattinson’s onscreen chemistry really gives them the feel of two romantic rivals, which makes it easy to see exactly why there was such a devoted following rooting for one or the other back in the day. Then we get to Bella.

As usual, Bella is a horribly misunderstood character here. It’s easy to blame the books for how one-note Bella appears in the movies – as a romance protagonist, Bella has enough personality for you to care while still being enough of a blank slate that you can put yourself in her position so that you can fantasize about the outcomes – but I almost feel like her portrayal was a deliberate choice. Kristen Stewart is actually a very good actor when in the right role, and I feel like even in the past I’ve been too hard on her portrayal of Bella. I think I might go so far as to say her version of Bella is better than the book, because Stewart actually does inject some vapid, awkward teenage girlishness to the role. That’s something wonderful, especially about the films – the teenagers, more than a lot of other series, tend to feel like real people. They say the dumbest stuff imaginable, but really, is that not what being a teenager is? Everyone was a stupid, vapid idiot as a teenager, it’s just how teens are. So all t hat combined with everything else that has been said, does any part of Bella’s characterization truly feel THAT abnormal for an otherwise normal, brooding teen thrust headfirst into the world of the supernatural? I personally don’t think so; Bella is actually one of the most real characters of the series, an anchor to humanity in a sea of supernatural strangeness, a character that is absolutely perfect in her dull, flawed, overly-romantic personality. She may not be the strongest, or most interesting, or even the most pleasant character in all of fiction… but she has an air of realness to her few other characters can hope to achieve. Perhaps this is why a lot of people rejected and mocked her; it’s so much easier to dismiss and belittle something than accept that it is something real, warts and all. No one wanted to accept the less pleasant parts of Bella, and so she was rejected by all except the fans of the book; meanwhile, seemingly disinterested goth girls would be fought over by two equally strange men for her affection, all while she talks in a sort of half-awake near-monotone.

I was in that situation myself. It’s all real teenage bullshit.

I feel like this more than anything explains why the Twilight Saga ended up being violently rejected by so many people: too many people saw through the supernatural elements and into the real life teenage angst and did not like what they saw, as it reflected their own experiences. It’s so bizarre to say, but Stephanie Meyers may have been too real for her own good, and her portrayal of angst-ridden teen love triangles may have been just too close to home for a lot of people. I’m sure a lot of older people had negative experiences in high school as I did, so anything that reminds them of those stupid, painful years is not going to seem pleasant. With other stories that feature realistic elements with supernatural settings, such as Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, and so on, they never really faced this kind of scrutiny and rejection as while they also are grounded with realistic portrayals of their teenagers, they also take place in overtly supernatural settings; there is no place where an experience could be like that of Hogwarts or Camp Half-Blood. But there’s probably of plenty of places like the dismal, dreary town of Forks, Washington, a perpetually cloudy town out in the sticks where nothing ever seems to happen. Reading about teen angst in such an agonizingly depressing setting will not go over well with anyone who has had negative experiences in regards to the elements portrayed, supernatural dressing or no.

Looking back at the Twilight Saga, after years of imitators of varying quality and numerous attempts by mediocre young adult franchises to capture this saga’s lightning in a bottle, the stories sans Breaking Dawn seem to have aged quite well, and hold up a lot better. Removed from the rabid fandom, overwhelming hype, ad constant mockery, the series stands as a solid and kind of cheesy young adult romance series, one with superb worldbuilding that I have yet to see any young adult series after it match and an absolutely fantastic ensemble cast that is just rife with fanfiction potential. I find that even the lead trio, be it in the films and in the movie, have a lot more layer and depth to them than initially thought, with Bella in particular a character I feel deserves some serious reevaluation. And while I’d never call the series a masterpiece to rival Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, or Lord of the Rings, I do think that the series is good enough to unironically be enjoyed. While there is of course plenty to snark at here – it’s a story featuring a rather honest depiction of teenagers, after all, and teenagers are idiots – I think there is a lot more to like than the insane hatedom of the book ever gave it credit for.

And even if you can’t bring yourself to admit the series is genuinely good (albeit cheesy), there’s no denying that it had a pretty good impact on popular culture. Aside from being the basis for Vampire Sucks, which has the honor of being the only genuinely good Seltzer and Friedberg film, it put supernatural romance stories back into the mainstream again. The biggest example of a supernatural romance film that I can see got a lot of mainstream recognition was 1990’s Ghost, which is held up as a romantic classic; while there were plenty of supernatural romance films between then and Twilight, none of them seem to be recalled fondly or even at all, and none of them can even come close to saying they had the sort of cultural impact Ghost did. Twilight, though… it had a huge impact. Without Twilight, we probably wouldn’t have gotten Warm Bodies, we probably wouldn’t have gotten Horns, and honestly? We probably wouldn’t have gotten The Shape of Water, or more realistically, the movie would not nearly be as accepted. Twilight for better or worse conditioned us to see the humanity in supernatural entities and find attraction in them (not exactly a new idea as far as vampires go, I know, but it definitely put it in the minds of young adults). I can easily see the genesis of the modern crowd of people lusting after the Asset, Pennywise, Godzilla, and Venom being the Twilight Saga; it was a gateway drug that put in the minds of youths “Hey, monsters can be really sexy. Like, REALLY sexy.”

The Twilight Saga is truly a fascinating work, for better and for worse. There is a lot in it that I really admire, and there’s plenty in it that I resent, but even at its worst I can never say that the series was boring. For all the flack I give Breaking Dawn, it is still far more readable than any of the garbage Cormac McCarthy has ever shat out, and nothing in the series was as overtly misogynistic as some of the dialogue in Ready Player One. As cheesy as the film series got, the first was a surprisingly effective indie supernatural romance and the third was a gloriously Gothic cheesy delight, with the second being the awkward but still enjoyable middle film and Breaking Dawn: Part 1 being the only genuinely awful film in the series; nothing positive could be said for the slew of imitators that crawled in this film’s wake, such as Beastly, Red Riding Hood, and even some of the would-be successors to this franchise such as the cinematic adaptations of Percy Jackson, Divergent, and The Hunger Games among others, which despite them being based off of books of far greater critical acclaim had absolutely no respect for their source material the way the Twilight Saga films did. As silly as some of the acting in the movies was – and it got very silly, considering the lead three all seemed to actively despise their roles – none of their acting was as painfully bad to sit through as Jennifer Lawrence’s attempts at acting in the first Hunger Games film, or the entire cast of the Percy Jackson movies. I would never say that Twilight is the absolute pinnacle of young adult literature, but I think a lot of us had our judgment clouded back in the day, and with the benefit of hindsight I think it’s safe to say the franchise was a lot of fun; I’d even go as far to say that it is an underrated work of genius in many aspects.

Removed from the climate that created it and put into a world it helped shape, I think the tale of Bella Swan and her romance of the angsty immortal Edward Cullen resonates quite a bit better. So thank you to Stephanie Meyers and everyone involved with the film series, because without your work, the world we live in would probably be a much less interesting place, with far fewer people horny for monsters. I really don’t think I would want to live in that world.

#CineMike #essay #my writing #Twilight #The Twilight Saga #Eclipse #New Moon #Breaking Dawn #Edward Cullen #Bella Swan #Jacob Black #Robert Pattinson #Kristen Stewart #Taylor Lautner

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sulietsexual · 6 years

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Hi. I read you are on TVD s4 & wanted to know what do you think about the original vampires? Also, how do you feel about Klaroline (Klaus x Caroline) ?

The Originals are extremely interesting and I really love Elijah, Rebecca and Klaus (we didn’t really get to know Finn and Kol is kind of meh). Their backstory is so intriguing and kind of tragic, in that their mother essentially forced them to become monsters and then hated them for what she turned them into. Their constant betrayals and their inability to trust and put their faith in one another creates a really fascinating dynamic, especially because you can tell that under all the hatred and hurt they do genuinely love one another and put a lot of stock in their familial bonds.

Elijah is really interesting because he seems to have a moral code which he very much tries to stick to. When he gives Elena his word he tries to keep it. He attempts to be honourable and he can recognise when his siblings (particularly Klaus) go too far. He also seems to genuinely care about people and to recognise those who are innocent and who don’t deserve to get caught in the crossfire between his siblings.

Rebecca is also extremely interesting, especially since she seems to be frozen in time. Despite being a thousand years old, she doesn’t have the same air of immortality that her brothers do or the same “old soul” vibe. It’s like she just ... stopped when she turned. And that’s really sad because one can see how, despite everything she’s experienced, she’s never gotten to experience what she truly wants; a normal life, someone to love her, a human experience of school and boys and prom and graduation. She craves a human life but enjoys being a vampire and that contradiction within her makes her impulsive and emotional and very endearing.

Then there’s Klaus. I know I’m not supposed to, but dear god, do I love Klaus. He is fascinating and evil and horrible and lonely and desperate and a million other things which all work to make him this intensely complex and intriguing character. He commits so many horrible acts, he doesn’t hold any regard for human life, he thinks himself superior and above everything and everyone and yet he’s so desperate for connection and love and loyalty and he has no idea how to genuinely earn all of that. So he kills and tortures and makes his hybrid army and it’s all to escape the unending darkness and bleakness of his solitary life. He’s vengeful and awful and then he turns around and wonders why people don’t love him, why his siblings are so quick to betray him, why his hybrids hate him. He gets so indignant over people trying to kill him, yet thinks nothing of putting others - even those he loves - in danger. He’s a walking contradiction, an evil, horrible person and yet I can’t help but love him, especially in those moments where he shows that somewhere underneath it all, his humanity is still flickering.

As for Klaroline (man, some of my mutuals are going to be so not happy with me) but I actually really like the dynamic and understand why it’s such a popular ship. Let’s be clear; this is not a healthy, functional or good dynamic. Klaus has harmed and tried to kill Caroline and he’s driven Tyler away from her multiple times. But there is something in Caroline which connects with Klaus and that something comes directly from her being a vampire and I find that fascinating.

Because Caroline managed to adjust so well to being a vampire, it’s hard to remember that she has all the dark and vast impulses which come with vampirism; part of her is predatory, part of her is dark, part of her loves being a vampire, loves the strength she draws from it, the scope it provides her, the opportunities it opens up. And this is the part of her which Klaus connects to, the part that he recognises himself in. And, as much as she doesn’t want to admit it, Caroline see this part of herself in Klaus. Despite everything he intrigues her, she’s drawn to him, she finds him alluring and attractive.

And, despite everything, he does love her. But he loves he in a very Klaus way. We see how Klaus treats the people he loves - he has no problem daggering his siblings or harming them, not to mention he killed his own mother. And we see that same toxic and dangerous love with Caroline. He’ll think nothing of hurting her but he won’t actually let her die. He’ll bite her to prove a point but then cure her. It’s twisted and wrong but also kind of fascinating, especially because there are a few genuine moments between the two where Caroline forces him to actually be a decent person. Despite everything, it’s a truly intriguing dynamic.

#Anonymous #answered #the vampire diaries #tvd meta #klaroline #meta

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dontcallmecarrie · 6 years

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Hello! So you keep everyone pretty in character, and you seem to understand them really well (In my opinion), so I’m curious- How much do you think it would take for Wanda (And Pietro, I guess) to be on semi-friendly terms with Tony? Would it even be possible?

…oh, boy. Um. This has been sitting in my inbox for a while, because I had a tough time quantifying things, plus didn’t have the time to do it justice before now, but…Okay.

Okay, pull up a chair because this is going to take a while because I know there’s a buttload of very well-researched posts out there but there’s some things I still need to get off my chest when it comes to the Maximoff twins.

Just as an fyi, though: my take on them’s 100% based on the movies, because my comics knowledge of them is next to nil—I think they’re apparently Jewish, and Romani(?) in the comics and that the writers erased that when they cast the people they did, but that’s about it—and apparently they’re very different in the MCU, which I’m not even caught up on since the last film I saw was Doctor Strange.

Heads up: this post will not be Maximoff friendly, especially for Wanda, but I’m also doing my best not to bash—more like me lamenting what we could have had, via picking apart my interpretation of their characters. Also features quite a bit of my rambling because this also turned into a meta ‘why I think AoU sucks’ rant, sorry. Under the cut, because it got long and RIP mobile users otherwise.

Now, for me, I try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, even if I don’t like them. Try to make an attempt to like them, try to get a feel for their character instead of flattening them…but it feels like a futile endeavor, in this case.

Admittedly, I’m rather biased towards Tony […understatement of the year, probably, he’s the reason I even got into the MCU], so that didn’t help. But…just.

Okay, taking a step back, I can’t help but feel that AoU was a tire fire on a number of levels. The twins’ entrance in the MCU could not have been handled worse, in my opinion, and the choices made had me gritting my teeth when I watched it. This, coming from someone who liked the Star Wars prequels […that’s a thing for another post, I guess, but even if it was cringey at times it still had its moments].

The narrative was a mess, and the way they forced so much of it [hi, Bruce/Natasha ship and obligatory Damsel In Distress tropes] did everyone involved a major disservice, and by introducing the twins the way the writers did actively sabotaged them, in my opinion.

Because in the cutscene during one of the prior movies, they could’ve introduced them in a far, far better light than what they went with. If the twins had been kidnapped and experimented on by HYDRA preying on the local populace and taking advantage of the teeming number of orphans due to the conflict going on? That, I could stomach. Hell, make up some bullshit backstory of how the Tesseract’s radiation affected people who grew up in a certain radius of some abandoned building if you want an excuse to give them powers if we’re not going the X-Men route, it’s not that hard!

No, instead, the writers made them HYDRA volunteers.

That, I—I can’t. Worst part is, I think I get what the writers might’ve been going, for, but…look. If you want to make an attempt at criticism of American policy via using a fictional country as the staging ground of what seemed to me to be a deja vu of the Soviet-Afghan War, and want to have your heroes come out of that, and keep them sympathetic, do not code them as affiliated with Nazis.

Because the rest of it? I could almost get. Even if it hurt, seeing them go after Tony like that right off the bat, I could see why. To these people living in a war-torn country, grown up only seeing the bad side of American interventionism their entire lives, I don’t think I would’ve resisted the urge to punch someone who symbolized it either.

After all, for decades Tony was it, perpetuated the military-industrial complex and took it to new levels, designed bomb after bomb and skewed the balance of power in a huge way. Even if Tony changed tracks, after Afghanistan, and worked to fix it, that doesn’t erase what happened. […plus, y’know, there’s the convenient bomb with his name on it, probably courtesy of Obadiah’s double-dealing.] So, that part, I get. I don’t necessarily like it, but I get it.

By including HYDRA, however, the writers ensured that 95% of my sympathy vaporized before I had a chance to get attached to them. At the time, my then-optimistic self was still trying to see them in a good light, and…okay, bit of a military history lesson here, for context, as to why I mentally made the connections I did [and why I felt they fell so flat in the movie]. It’s probably me reaching, but this was my thought process for it.

Minor disclaimer: this is just what I remember off the top of my head, so if it sounds incredibly simplistic, that’s why. Apologies if I get anything wrong, by the way.

The Soviet-Afghan War happened in the ‘80s, lasted nearly a decade, and devastated the local populace in a manner not unlike Vietnam. The Soviet Union basically invaded Afghanistan after shit went down in their government, and the locals fought tooth and nail to kick them out. If I remember correctly, it’s been considered the USSR’s Vietnam War, due to that…plus, y’know, the fact that the US sent in their guys to low-key help. Not by sending in troops, mind, but they sent in guys to train up the locals to fight back better. Not sure what else, but I know that part because it ended up biting everyone badly later on, since that war’s also where al-Qaeda got its start, and its training.

Reason I even brought this up is, Sokovia’s situation to me had a metric fuckton of parallels to that. I probably screwed up on the conflicts the writers were thinking of, but that’s what I was seeing, and to me, it’d make sense then that the twins who grew up in such a place wouldn’t think very highly of the Avengers, or SHIELD, etc.

…anyway, that’s the implied backstory I picked up on in the movie. From there, makes sense that the twins would reach out to shady groups to get power to fight back, and if it’d been AIM, or literally any group other than neo-Nazis, I feel like it would’ve made them more sympathetic without flattening their characters.

To me, that was strike one against the twins, in regards to things I can’t forgive. Maybe it’s simplistic of me, but given the shit that’s gone down lately, my tolerance for anything that smacks of Nazis is borderline nonexistent. Sorry not sorry.

But, removing that element, the twins could’ve been interesting. We could’ve had a story where the Avengers run into people who do not think of them as heroes, and see where that went. Could’ve seen an American-based group deal with people who aren’t friendly, who have a good reason to be that way. […I’ll just ignore the evil AI trope, this is supposed to be a character study not me bashing AoU even more.]

Removing the HYDRA element, we have the Maximoff twins:

Pietro, who’s bitterly sarcastic and fiercely protective of what family he has left after essentially growing up in a war zone. Pietro, who’s speed means he can raise hell in the blink of an eye, made himself a nuisance because of it more than once throughout the film. Pietro, who we only know in the the one movie he shows up, since he gets tragically killed off in the end.

And then there’s Wanda.

…okay. Um. Here’s the thing: I’ve only seen her in two movies, and AoU was a train wreck and Civil War was a tire fire.

So.

This is my perception of Wanda:

Once you remove the ‘hey let’s flatten our female characters this round!’ lens the writers apparently had going on during AoU, as well as me removing the HYDRA element […which, for me, is absolutely necessary], and you have Wanda Maximoff: a very, very driven young woman, who’s been [understandably] angry at the world for the better part of her life and only now has the power to fight back. Wanda, who’s equally protective of her brother since he was all she had left, and whose loss was devastating on a number of levels because of that. Wanda, who now has to pick up the pieces of her life and carry on, and deal with the huge burden of responsibility that comes with a power as potentially insidious as hers.

For the most part, throughout AoU, that was the impression I got from her. Pietro I’d actually liked because of his snark, since the start; Wanda, on the other hand, I’d actively disliked [yo, triggering someone with PTSD? Not cool] but had been steadily warming up to—until Johannesburg.

For me, the dealbreaker with MCU’s Wanda was when she took the biological equivalent of a nuke, and aimed it at the largest civilian population she could find. She could’ve turned the Hulk against the Avengers, could’ve had him running off in a random direction and thus forced the team to chase after him in the most high-stakes game of keep-away there ever was, but no.

No, instead Wanda unleashed the Hulk on the biggest city in South Africa.

I mean, taking a step back, I can see why the writers went there: this is an action movie, after all, so why not throw in some hero-fighting-hero scenes? But in-universe, that choice was what cinched it for me, that this was not a hero in any meaning of the word. If the writers wanted her to be one, they’d need to throw in a redemption arc, after Johannesburg—and they didn’t.

No apology, no acknowledgment, not a word of responsibility, like it never happened.

…and then there’s Civil War to consider. Where the writers butchered her character along with everyone else’s, because now they’re calling the young woman who grew up in a war zone, who knowingly and willingly underwent experimentation for the chance to fight back, who lost everything and still carried on–a child. The sheer lack of agency they removed from her was an insult in and of itself, in my opinion. That, and the fact that apart from Natasha [who’s got her own thing going on, but I digress], she’s the only non-American on the team.

Which leads me to yet another opportunity missed: the perspective Wanda had to offer, because of that. Having grown up the way she did, in a country screwed over by others’ interventionism [hi, Stark weapons, what’re you doing here in Sokovia?] she would’ve had a very different opinion on how to do things than a team that, for the most part, was born and raised in the US, with all the biases that includes. Where the rest of the team’d be more inclined to just rock in to other countries without hesitation, Wanda’s knee-jerk reaction to hearing that would be a “fuck no”, for instance, and…um.

Okay, irony is, I can’t help but think that Wanda, as a non-US national, would’ve been 100% on board with the idea of ‘hey, this US-based team can’t just barge into other countries and fuck shit up, cut it out’. Which, incidentally, is what the Accords were about in the MCU […but that’s a rant for another post], even if Ross was undoubtedly angling for something shady when he was presenting them the way he did.

…I rambled, didn’t I. Oops.

So, as for the latter part of your ask:

what would it take for her [and Pietro, had he lived] to get along with Tony?

In canon, I find it highly unlikely. As in, the world’s more likely to end, and apparently something like that happens in Infinity Wars if the spoilers I’ve glimpsed are anything to go by? [Nowhere near caught up means I have no clue what’s going on anymore, and some people don’t tag their stuff which leaves me even more confused, but—rambling again, oops.]

As for in any fics I’d write, with my take on their characters:

Okay, for that to happen, we’d have to go wildly AU. Me being me, I’m removing the HYDRA element […’nuff said], and Johannesburg didn’t happen either, so what you have left is the Maximoff twins, and the guy who embodied everything they hated about the US/the world in general, even if he was doing everything in his power to change.

Suffice it is to say, it’d be a rocky start, but.

But, I’d like to think they’d eventually get along, somehow. Slowly, and painfully, but over time the twins’d realize that Tony’s actually human, and not an amalgamation of everything they hated, not the boogeyman they grew fearing. Would see that he’s just one man, and a flawed one, struggling with severe PTSD […I’d like to think Wanda’d feel pretty bad about triggering him the way she did, later on, but that’s just me] and doing his best to atone for being the Merchant of Death. Would see that he’s just a man, doing his best to make the world a better place—the twins’d realize it’s not an act pretty quick, and from there, they’d have common ground.

Don’t get me wrong, there’d be plenty of mishaps along the way, but.

Over time, and with Tony asking—and actually listening to them, taking them seriously when they give their opinions on what they think about how to approach something, instead of dismissing them because of their age—they’d start to warm up to each other. Because at heart, Tony’s an ally, and trying to be an even better one, and I’d like to think the twins would pick up on that pretty quick. And Tony, between his guilt complex and seeing what the twins have done with the tools they’ve had at hand, would reciprocate, and forgive Wanda for doing what she did once she apologized […again, my opinion of triggering people with PTSD rears its head].

Or, worst-case scenario I can think of: the twins tolerate him, because he’s trying to be an ally and even if they might never like him personally, they can respect that.

To me, though, this feels a bit static for their characters, especially given how dynamic we’ve seen them in the past [going from antagonist to Avenger in the same movie, anyone?], so I’d rather see the one where character growth happens instead.

Incidentally, your ask also brought to mind a scene I’ve low-key wanted to see but haven’t yet: one way I can see Tony and the twins bonding is via very, very dark humor. Because Tony was raised to be the heir of a weapons company, and the twins grew up in a war-torn country, there’d be plenty of morbid humor to go around, weirding out almost everyone else on the team [barring Natasha].

Specifically, something along these lines, during a time when things are still pretty rocky:

“Okay, guys, I know you hate my guts because of that bomb, but you’ll be pleased to hear that something similar happened to me a while back.”

“…go on.”

“So I’m in Afghanistan, headed back from a presentation, when the convoy I’m in gets attacked, we’re getting shot at with my own guns. But that’s not the best part, even—not five minutes later, I get a bomb with my name on it. Literally, I’m not even kidding here.” Tony said, his hand drifting to his chest unconsciously. “That’s where the shrapnel came from, by the wa—oh, hey Steve…why’re you looking so pale? Geez, take a few deep breaths or something, that’s—um, guys? Give me some space, will you?”

aka the twins [and the team] get a sneak peek at Tony’s tire fire of a mental state and his tendency to cope via joking, and realize that yes, he is legitimately that self-deprecating. If the twins didn’t start to ease up on their dislike before, they do now, if only because it’s not worth directing their anger at a guy who hates himself even more than they possibly could. Waste of energy, that.

also, afterwards, cue a lot of bonding over that sort of thing, such as hating Hammer Industries for doing what the Merchant of Death used to do, and quite a few brainstorming sessions about how to approach the military-industrial complex, etc.

tl;dr: my take on the Maximoff twins in the MCU’s mostly had me Photoshopping my headcanons into where they’re supposed to fit, due to a myriad of reasons; AoU and CW did them a huge disservice, but apart from the remarkably bad writing, they had a lot of potential. My take on them would’ve had the twins warming up to Tony eventually, realizing he’s trying to be an ally, but said take would also have gone wildly AU not ten minutes into their introduction, so.

#I got an ask!#behind the scenes #if you're going to be evil might as well do it right meta #meta #thinking aloud #not Wanda friendly #MCU #character study of sorts #marvel #Naught rambles #Naught replies

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chirpingtiger · 7 years

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anonymous asked:

1) Re: Wanda and her lack of redemption arc- One of the MCU's biggest fuck yous was that they allowed Zemo to apologize to T'challa for his Father's death as collateral in his revenge scheme, but didn't have the decency to allow Wanda to do the same to the Avengers for stripping them of their autonomy and using them to hurt other people (of which the primary victims were Tony and Bruce). If they wanted to redeem her and make her more sympathetic, they really should have allowed her _____________________________________________________________

ambitious-witch answered:

I’m really sorry that I didn’t answered this last night, nonny but it was very late here and I was on mobile.

1) Exactly. But honestly I like Zemo more than Wanda for that. They allowed him to apologise, but also they showed him not being so bat-shit hateful blaming all the evil on his life to the Avengers (just the death of his family) and he neither played the victim. Like Wanda did.

The problem with Wanda lays directly in her “tragic backstory”, I mean, just listening to it, it’s ridiculous:

This is a backstory that doesn’t work for an anti-villain/anti-hero to go straight up a hero. Because it’s illogical. The audience that has a minimal knowledge of how the world works knows that blaming the person that made the weapon is stupid an illogical.

Second part of the ask:

2) to make real amends to her primary victims. Also, having her sit and talk to Tony about her anger against the American military industrial complex (which was what killed her parents) and how she conflated that with Stark. She has serious trauma that needs to be laid out. I mean, Tony could have talked about how he too realized the faults in the MID and is trying to make amends for his ignorance and inaction. How it has led him to believe in accountability and checks and balances

Part three:

3) LIKE THE FUCKING ACCORDS. It would have been 10x better than Steve’s convo w/ her in the beginning of Civil War, where he treats her unintentional murder of 12 ppl as a small hiccup that can be corrected w/ “try try again”. But no, all we end up w/ is a character marketed as a child half the time, and an adult the other half. It’s character assassination and it sucks. Either show her struggle w/ redemption and accountability as a member of the Avengers, or keep her a villain.

The problem here nonny, it’s that the dynamics are terribly flawed and bad placed. With Wanda, her deed of joining the Avengers it was not for goodness, it’s was common sense and self-preservation. We never see her re-thinking about Tony or showing a single little remorse about hurting him, neither she seems to want to stop and think about the situation. Tony talking to her would have required she trying to go closer and talk but to the first moment that we see her on screen with him her intention are clearly hostile:

Look at the corporal language of this part. This is a hero? No.

This is an anti-hero? No.

This is someone who is conflict?

I dare say: no.

The point about anti-heroes and anti-villains is they know, very deep in them, they have a doubt, a conflict. Wanda doesn’t. She knows what she is doing. She knows that she is hurting someone and she knows what she did. Take a look to Bruce too:

Also take her reaction when he calls her out for mindfucking him:

Her expression seems to be the one of someone who regrets her bad deeds.

But…

Her face hardens when he threatens her and she doesn’t speak about the topic again. Not with him, not with Clint in their oh so marvellous pep talk.

Someone that answered one of my posts said that showing Wanda’s struggles were that ridiculous scene whit with her crying in front of Clint, so the audience have to see her as a poor misunderstood child that was very scared and didn’t know what she was doing…

That’s not how it works!

Wanda should have showed struggle and conflict since the beginning of the movie! She should have interacted with people that she hurt as you said but she didn’t!

And before somebody says something…

Clint doesn’t count! Steve doesn’t count!

Clint was not attacked by Wanda, he didn’t suffered in her hands. Steve? He forgave her at the instant. He attacked his armour-less teammate because of her word. He told Natasha, one of Wanda’s victims “she with us”, like she hadn’t some right of feeling uncomfortable by her presence!

They don’t count!

The base, the point for an anti villain to be redeemed and made an ally or friend in front of their enemies is the interaction and and the villain admitting that they hurt the protagonists. It’s simple, take Regina Mills in Once Upon A Time. She never became in a full hero but she earned trust by admitting her bad deeds. She showed struggle and doubt. She became a wondeful anti-hero Wanda didn’t.

Just look at the moment when she decides to side with the Avengers:

What choice do we have?

This is someone that learned form her mistakes. No.

No.

No!

This is somebody that wants to fucking live. She wants to keep herself and her brother alive. There’s no doubt here. Not struggle in the loyalties. No conflict! She switched sides in the beginning and she does it again because it’s convenient for her. Not for goodness or anything that changes that she hurt people during all the movie!

She doesn’t doubt for a fucking instant to go to the “winning side”:

What kind of anti-hero can you get of that?

Which leads to CW. You said that she siding with Tony would have been the better, and yes, it would have been a good character development she being remorseful and keeping her initial supposed believes about accountability but with motherfucking Johannesburg, how it’s that possible?

How?

Like, that’s what the Russo and M&M tried to to do and failed miserably. They tried to sell us an anti-hero. They washed her awful deeds and make her look as conflicted when she never hesitated at the beginning.

They tried to us to believe that she can’t control her powers.

And that

bullshit.

And just bullshit.

They also made her clothes more clear, her hair too. Miss Elizabeth was wearing a wig, it was not difficult have one as her hair was in the previous movie.

They tried to vanish the darkness of her. Why? Because it its more difficult present a redemption for villain than a anti-hero. Or as that idiotic writers seem to think: that poor kid that did no wrong.

Because it was more easy to forgive this:

Than this:

So, they invented this new Wanda, and put all the blame in Tony’s shoulders. The funny thing it’s that the audience it’s stupid enough to believe it. That might talk about the power of the female characters of being forgiven for everything as long they have a pretty face and a delikate body.

Even if it’s a character without struggles or good intentions, or remorse.

So, nonny, my opinion is firm. Wanda Maximoff’s redemption arc was a fuck you because she didn’t deserved or needed one.

Because Wanda Maximoff is better as a villain.

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An interesting take, to be sure, @ambitious-witch. But as with most of these types of posts, you’re leaving out a few key details that vastly change the meaning of the extracted clips.

Let’s start at the top.

Wanda as a villain in AoU had one stated goal - destroy Tony Stark in revenge for her parents’ death. (The Avengers were kind of lumped into that revenge plan because they were acting as ally and protector to Tony.)

However, what you’re failing to mention is that this isn’t just a ten-year-old girl experiencing an intense, two-day long trauma that scars her for life and imprints the name that she had to stare at the whole time in her mind as the culpable party.

This is an entire country that believes that Tony is at fault for their loss.

In the beginning of AoU we are shown the Avengers attacking Strucker’s lab. In one of the scenes, Tony lands the Iron Legion in the middle of Sokovia and has them announce to the citizens that the sector is not safe.

The citizens are extremely wary - a few of them fleeing the area - but as soon as they figure out that the suits are just standing in place talking, they all start throwing things and attacking the suits.

Why is this?

Because HYDRA has been set up there for years, using stolen (or purchased) Stark tech to terrorize the city and kill people.

This isn’t just one random bomb. This is years of weapons emblazoned with the Stark logo being dropped on the city, knock-off iron legion suits shooting people in the street...this is and has been an all-out war, and the only clue that anyone’s had is that all of the weapons say “Stark” on them. And coming from an American weapons tycoon, that’s pretty damning evidence, as far as they’re concerned.

So damning, in fact, that when Strucker is looking for human test subjects for a highly dangerous and potentially deadly experiment, he gets dozens of volunteers, all of which die at his hands.

Except for the twins.

Destroying Tony is Wanda and Pietro’s main goal, yes, however at this point it is no longer just about revenge for their parents.

Maria shows video clips to Cap of the two of them leading riots in the street, trying to fight back. In response to Maria’s comment of “we aren’t at war anymore,” Steve tells her “they are.”

This isn’t two kids with a crazy revenge plan. This is two young adults who have suffered bitterly and are determined to see the cause of that suffering stopped before it can do any more damage to anyone else, even at the expense of their own lives. Because even if Tony Stark is not the one personally pushing the “fire” button on the missiles, he is the one creating them. And with no arms supplier, there will be no more weapons to use on Sokovia.

If the story had been shot from the perspective of someone in Sokovia, Wanda and her brother would have been the heroes of this story all along.

We as viewers are purposefully kept in the dark about what’s been going on there until the twins are established as the “villains” of the story - making sure the revelation is received as a sad explanation of why they’ve set themselves up as opponents to the Avengers as opposed to starting with a goal that we as viewers can get behind.

In fact it’s not until near the end that we figure out that Sokovia isn’t just some HYDRA-loving anti-Avengers stronghold, but victims of numerous and immeasurable crimes committed in the Avengers’ names.

Making Wanda and her brother “unlikable” before making them sympathetic was done purposefully to make sure that the viewers didn’t pity them or sympathize with them too quickly, or else the Avengers would seem far too harsh going into later fights.

The twins had to throw the first stone, or the Avengers would come across as unsympathetic.

More importantly, we are only ever shown the twins acting villainous toward the Avengers.

Maria states that Wanda only ever seems to inflict non-lethal damage to her victims, leaving them temporarily traumatized but alive and more than able to recover. (Ultron is the only one killing when they are stealing their resources, and he is leaving very telltale signs that it was him.)

A number of the places they hit up are run by HYDRA or smugglers - all of them “bad” people doing bad things.

The twins are kind to and friendly with the poor people in Sokovia. Wanda is protective of Dr. Strucker. The two of them are hesitant and uncertain when Klaue doesn’t immediately cower in fear, not wanting to escalate the situation any further than they have to.

And the second that they find out that Ultron’s goal is more than just the death of the six Avengers, they pull a 180 and attack him.

They follow a very common movie arc: fight against problem, join “ally” to fix problem, find out that “ally” is lying/backstabbing and that enemy isn’t quite as bad as we thought, team up with former “enemy” to stop the bigger threat, form a new alliance with once-enemy, save the day.

(Hell, a number of these themes show up in the plot-line of movies like Iron Man and Black Panther.)

These two are not villains. They’re a pair of teenagers fighting in a war to save their people.

A pair of teenagers who have been manipulated and abused and made to think that they were doing the right thing since they were ten.

(And yes, I realize that the actors are in their mid twenties, but canonically Wanda and Pietro are closer to 18 or 19 during the events of this movie, and thus are not yet legally “adults.”)

I don’t see you throwing a fit over Zemo torturing and eventually drowning that one HYDRA agent. Or Stark blowing up a terrorist group. Or Fury shooting the people attacking his ship in Avengers.

The difference? We as the audience know that they’re bad guys, so it’s okay to do whatever to them, because they clearly deserved it.

We don’t care, nor are we made to care, if the person being thrown down a flight of stairs or stabbed in the face was just a desperate man who needed money for his family, or someone who was there because some higher-up had blackmail over their head.

We don’t know, and quite frankly (as far as most viewers are concerned) it doesn’t matter.

This is the same situation, just seen from the other side of the coin for once.

Wanda and Pietro know that the Avengers are bad. Therefore why would they question if what they’re doing - attacking them - is wrong?

The other problem with painting these two as hardened criminals is that they don’t ever really act it. Every scene that they’re in, the two of them are hovering around one another, uncertain. Seeking reassurance. Comforting. In Wanda’s’ case, quite often, hiding.

In fact, Wanda’s always shown to be the more hesitant of the twins.

Pietro is quick to rush off into a fight, while she lingers behind until it comes to a confrontation that she cannot avoid. This is shown three times. First, in Strucker’s lab, where Pietro rushes outside to mess with the Avengers and Wanda hides in the base until Steve tries to get Strucker. Second, in the scrapyard, where Pietro zips off and Wanda hesitates at Ultron’s side until he tells her “time for some mind games.” Third, in the tower scene, where Pietro is first to take action when he unplugs the cradle, but Wanda doesn’t join the fight until she’s the last one on her side that’s still standing.

Even in the very first scene, you see them holding hands, and Wanda chewing her nails with nerves.

Immediately after that we get a close up of their faces, showing the two of them looking scared when they hear that the Avengers are on their way.

They aren’t out there actively hunting the Avengers down. They’re waiting for orders, because they don’t really know what they’re doing. They’re frightened of what’s about to happen. They’re both in this way over their heads.

They may not be ten anymore, but a lot of what they do is very child-like because of the rough and traumatic childhood the two of them had. They never grew out of it.

These two put on a bold act, but the minute the real teeth come out they’re just a pair of frightened and uncertain children. Often, until Ultron shows up as the “adult leader” of the group, the two of them don’t even take action.

And again, I’ll bring up the scene with Klaue.

The two of them step into his office and pull their go-to “be afraid of me” act to get info, but Klaue straight up brushes it off.

He laughs at their threats. Talks down to them. Offers them candy. Teases them. Dares them to do their worst.

And Wanda and Pietro are at a complete and utter loss because they don’t know how to approach a situation where their threats have not been enough. Ultron’s instructions did not include a caveat for “if the dude straight up laughs at you instead of spilling everything he knows and begging for his life.”

Therefore, the two of them are left standing in the doorway, looking to one another in confusion for what to do next, and Wanda even starts moving back into the shadows where she’ll be more safe.

Similarly, in the end fight, Wanda constantly looks to Clint - the nearby adult - for instruction.

Wanda and Pietro don’t even attack the Avengers at the scrapyard until Ultron gives the command.

It’s the same scenario in the scene right after they go to the tower with Steve, when they confront the other Avengers alone - the twins ultimately let Steve make the calls for them.

Unfortunately, the still-shot you have of Wanda doesn’t quite do justice to her reaction in the scene.

This isn’t “closing off.”

See the way she leans back a little? The little hitch in her chest? The way her throat tightens? This isn’t this isn’t her hardening off, this is her trying not to show fear. She’s seen the Hulk. She knows that Banner is the only one who might be able to tear her in half despite her powers.

It’s why she immediately stops fighting and freezes up when he grabs her.

You can clearly see the terror in her eyes the second she realizes who it is that’s got their arm around her throat.

In this scene, the twins have walked into the lion’s den - the Avengers’ home base - and even though they’re trying to look tough and keep their cool, they’re both terrified for their lives.

You can hear the fear in Wanda’s voice when Clint shoots the floor out from under Pietro. You can see the two of them sticking right by each other’s sides and looking around nervously in case they’re attacked.

They don’t argue or make excuses when they’re confronted, they back down because they know that they’ve wronged these people and the Avengers are under no obligation to listen to them.

The two of them are risking death at the Avenger’s hands so they can try to warn them about Ultron and prevent things from getting any worse.

And I would beg to differ with your interpretation of this scene. This is in no way self-preservation. This is suicide.

Her last little act of defiance barely a scene before nearly wound up with her and Pietro being shot.

And yet here she is, standing up to Ultron again. But this isn’t her siding with the Avengers to save her skin.

This is her picking death with the losing team.

Because in this scene?

ULTRON IS THE WINNING SIDE.

Ultron’s plan for a new world included Wanda and her brother. He was going to wipe the slate clean, and leave the two of them as the “better” humans in his new world. The “evolved” race that would rule at his side. If they’d stayed with him, they would have been guaranteed safety, because as we saw at the scrapyard, the Avengers are no match for the three of them, and Ultron is fond of the twins in his own strange way.

But they don’t stay with Ultron, where they are guaranteed life and safety.

This line here is Ultron’s last warning that she either assist him, or die with the rest of the Avengers trying to fight him. This was far less “oh well, Ultron is losing, guess I’ll change sides because I’ll get to live” and more “I don’t see how there is a choice here because unless I stop him he’s going to destroy the world.”

“What choice do we have” is a statement of morals, because as far as she’s concerned, there IS no choice. She has to stop him or die trying.

Helping him any longer is not even an option.

Now, as far as your point about Steve and Clint’s trust in her being “worthless” because:

“They don’t count!“

It’s quite frankly ridiculous.

There is one person who even comes close to fully trusting them before the final battle starts in, and that is Steve.

Steve has been playing devil’s advocate this whole movie, because he understands what the twins are going through. He’s not so caught up in his own country and his own issues that he can’t look at a situation from another perspective and say “I understand why they’re doing this.”

In fact, he even offers the twins a chance to walk away right before the fight at the scrapyard.

He didn’t magically start trusting them out of the blue, he’s been willing to hear their side of things from the start.

“Clint was not attacked by Wanda, he didn’t suffered in her hands. Steve? He forgave her at the instant. He attacked his armour-less teammate because of her word. He told Natasha, one of Wanda’s victims “she with us”, like she hadn’t some right of feeling uncomfortable by her presence!”

And here is where you start leaving out key details again.

Of the Avengers, Clint was the only one to fully escape having Wanda play with his fears, because he beat her to the punch. However, despite the fact that he’s the only one unscathed, he’s the most vocal about not trusting her.

It is not until much, much later - when Clint has already seen her in action, desperately trying to save the civilians from Ultron’s clones despite her own fear - does he step in to talk her down and keep her from having a panic attack because he realizes her heart is in the right place.

Even then he doesn’t actually decide to trust her until she saves him from being cornered and killed by the robots.

Out of the remaining Avengers, three of them suffered major trauma from Wanda’s actions, and two of them got off relatively okay.

The one who got off with the least damage from the encounter was ironically Tony Stark, who was shown a vision of what was supposed to be his worst fear - him being responsible for the death of his team - and who proceeded to shake it off and walk away, none the worse for wear.

(Note, this is one of Wanda’s early attempts at this kind of thing, a point which relates to a section further down about Wanda’s skill with her powers. She’s not very good at the whole nightmare vision thing just yet in the story, but by the time the scrapyard scene rolls around she’s gotten plenty of practice.)

Tony never actually voices any opinion on whether or not they should trust the twins. He just rolls with it.

The other Avenger who got off pretty light was actually Thor, who took his vision as a warning that something big was coming and went to investigate further. He also doesn’t specifically voice an opinion on the twins, but seems to be A-okay with trusting the two of them.

Of the three that had it pretty bad, Steve was able to recover the best. Perhaps this is part of the serum - his body fixing the physical symptoms of mental trauma - or perhaps he’s just better at coping with his particular fear because he’s been doing it since he awoke in the present. Either way, Steve is at least relatively functional after his run-in with Wanda.

He’s also the first one to trust her, because she and her brother risked their necks fighting Ultron to save both him and the innocent people that Ultron tried to kill as a distraction. Like I’ve mentioned before, Steve is still willing to give them a second chance because he knows there’s backstory there and he can sympathize.

The two that had it the worst were Natasha and Bruce.

Natasha, who straight up went out of commission when all of her heavily repressed trauma got dragged back to the forefront, isn’t really around for the scene where the twins switch sides. She comes in after the fact, when they’re already mid-fight, to find that the twins are fighting against Ultron with them.

Steve reassures her that the twins are on their side, and Natasha rolls with it.

She takes Steve’s word for it because she trusts Steve as much as she trusts Clint - absolutely and entirely.

You forget, these two just went through the events of Captain America: Winter Soldier together, where “everybody we know is trying to kill us.” Natasha and Steve had to trust in each other completely, it’s the only way they lived to see the end of that movie. Natasha’s trust in Steve is not reset just because the film title changed.

However the real key here is that Natasha’s trust in the twins is not complete.

She’ll trust the twins for this fight, because Steve said they were there to help, and then she’ll make her own call on whether or not she feels like forgiving them. This wasn’t Steve saying “I’ve cleared these two, I expect you to magically be okay with that.” It was Steve reassuring her that during this fight, their only attacker would be Ultron, and that the twins were helping to fight back.

In a battle situation, that’s all Natasha needs to know before her attention turns to saving people, because there is no time for a debate or questions during an all-out attack.

There is, however, a good amount of time that passes between the end of the Sokovia fight and the credits scene where we see Wanda with the other “new recruits,” and we are left to assume that something has been worked out between everyone because they all seem okay with each other now.

It is also a full year before we really see Wanda again, in Civil War, and the first thing we see is Natasha coaching her through a stake out, as a mentor.

Clearly there is no lingering animosity here.

As for Banner, well...

Bruce basically says that he could kill Wanda without remorse. He’s pissed, and rightfully so.

However, he ALSO doesn’t deny needing the twins’ help when fighting Ultron. He never says “we shouldn’t trust them” or “we shouldn’t let them come with us;” and Hulk flies off into space (literally) before Banner gets a chance to actually sit down and think about whether or not the twins should be allowed to join the Avengers.

In fact, the only one who straight up says that he doesn’t trust anything to do with the twins is Clint...

The only one who didn’t get affected by Wanda’s nightmares.

So I’m honestly not quite sure where you’re getting your argument from.

As far as I make it out, the people who got the nightmare treatment were aware that they were seeing their own memories and thoughts and fears played back to them. Wanda wasn’t showing them anything new, so most of them didn’t take the attack as anything personal, and in fact we see Natasha having a bit of a personal crisis over the not-so-great bits of her past that are being shoved back in her face for the second time since CA:tWS.

She’s not mad at Wanda for bringing it up, she’s mad at herself for being the way she was before Clint saved her.

Clint, who isn’t sure what the others saw and is watching everything from the outside, is pissed. He watched his friends suffer because of whatever the witch did to them, and he’s not only angry with her, but dead set on not forgiving or trusting her, either.

At least until she and her brother both save him, and he starts wondering if they might not be so bad after all.

”You didn’t see that coming.”

As for Wanda being in control of her powers, I would say it depends on what aspect of her powers we’re talking about.

In AoU she has been sitting in a cell for God knows how long, practicing the same four moves:

Move small solid object. Shield. Look through people’s heads and pull certain thoughts to the forefront. Throw her power around like an energy burst.

Of these four, by the time Civil War rolls around, we only ever see her use the first two.

Age of Ultron:

Civil War:

When she does this trick, she does it with great proficiency and incredible accuracy. She’s good at this one. Her shield has also improved to the point where she can multitask while holding it.

In Civil War, however, she’s picked up a number of new moves:

Levitation/flying with her powers. Moving non-solid objects like poisonous gasses. Forming a net with her powers to lift teammates. Manipulating large solid objects with her telekinesis. Manipulate object behavior.

However, we no longer see her using throwing her power directly at anyone anymore. She picks up objects to throw at them, or grabs them by a hand or foot and tosses them back, but she no longer throws the raw energy around.

She also doesn’t go into anyone’s heads.

Do you have any idea how easily she could have pulled something like this at at the airport battle? Re-routed team Stark on some wild goose chase while Team Cap all waltzed over to the jet and flew off with no problem?

Stark and Co. wouldn’t have even known what hit them until Team Cap were loooong gone.

But she doesn’t.

Because Wanda doesn’t do that anymore. She’s not that person anymore.

Even with Vision, she’s not going inside his head, she’s just changing his density - first to de-materialize him and make him let go of Clint, and second to make him so heavy that he fell through the floor.

Wanda doesn’t throw her raw powers at people anymore because it’s too dangerous and unpredictable, and she doesn’t go into anyone’s heads anymore because of privacy issues and “brainwashing” and the other negative connotations that come with it, even if it means taking the hard way out of a situation.

She’s changed up her whole fighting strategy.

That being said, I would argue that she is NOT in control of her powers as a whole.

She is in control of certain aspects of her powers to certain extents - namely the ones that she’s practiced repeatedly - but in the grand scheme of things, she really has no idea what she’s actually capable of, therefore she cannot control exactly what her powers will react like if she tries something that’s not on her list of “the eight tricks I’ve practiced for the past six months.”

Thus, Lagos.

She probably didn’t even realize that she could bubble that much raw kinetic energy into such a small space - she was just reacting to the fact that a bomb had gone off in the middle of a packed marketplace and she needed to do something or hundreds of people would have died...likely including everyone in the building, had the foundation gotten destroyed by the blast.

(And would you demons please stop saying that she murdered people in Lagos? I mean really. Do you consider it murder when firefighters can’t get everyone out of a burning building? Or when rescue workers can’t find everyone buried beneath earthquake rubble in time to save them? Or when ambulance workers can’t rescue everyone from the remains of an awful car wreck? Wanda was stopping a bomb from killing people by containing it, and couldn’t get it far enough away to save all of them before the bomb went off. She did not murder anyone.)

In the grand scheme of things, no, Wanda doesn’t know how to control her powers, because she’s not entirely sure just what her powers can DO.

She’s still learning.

I also understand where you’re trying to go with the “lightening the color scheme” angle, but I highly doubt that’s a “nefarious plot to trick the audience into thinking she’s good when she’s not” so much as it’s a stylistic choice to show that she’s in a better place now, both mentally and physically.

Her hair is not only lighter, but has far fewer tangled curls at the bottom, and sports two highlights at the bangs. This isn’t an attempt to portray her as “suddenly good now” so much as an attempt to make her look a bit less like an orphaned street rat. Her hair is clean and brushed and bright and with an actual style, much like Bucky’s hair was actually kept when we saw him in Civil War as opposed to Winter Soldier. It’s to show that she’s taking care of herself better now because she now has the means and mental presence to do so.

Case in point: Her hair appears lighter here than at the final battle. It’s all cinematic, to make her look more or less filthy as the scene requires.

As for the outfit, she’s wearing lighter clothing in that one picture because it’s summer and she’s trying to blend in. Just like how Natasha, who normally sports black, is dressed in pale colors and wearing very little makeup.

In many other scenes in the movie, Wanda retains the black/grey/red color scheme that she’s had going since AoU, such as in the knife clip I linked above:

Black clothing in a similar overall style (short dress, boots, and jacket) just with less heavy eyeliner because she’s grown up a little and is keeping herself a bit more maintained than before.

Claiming cinematic trickery here is really reaching for threads.

So, to wrap this incredibly long post up...

NO, Wanda is not, and never was, a villain.

Up until the truth is revealed, each party (the twins, and the Avengers) believes themselves fully in the right. When the truth does come out, it is revealed that to some extent, both parties are in the wrong.

Wanda is not conflicted about facing the Avengers because she’s fighting to protect innocent people from them. She becomes conflicted when it turns out that the Avengers weren’t fully to blame for what was going on in Sokovia. (Side-eyeing Stark, here.)

Wanda is neither villain nor anti-villain...

She’s the hero of her own side of the story.

Wanda and Pietro are both heroes, whose story - through the lies and manipulation of people claiming to be allies - intersected with that of the Avengers.

Case in point: these two are alone.

The other Avengers have left the area.

If they were really doing this to save their skin and not to help people, wouldn’t this be the ideal time to say something like “make sure you get on the ship before it leaves” or “as soon as the Avengers aren’t looking, we run” or “the minute the crisis is over, we turn on them?”

There is no reason for Wanda to lie in this situation.

This is why I argue that she was never truly a villain.

In fact I’d go so far as to say that these two are no more the villains of this story than the Avengers were the villains for them.

It was all a big misunderstanding.

Wanda and Pietro were only ever in this to help the people of Sokovia, and they got screwed by the lies and manipulation of the only adult influences they’ve had in their lives since they were ten.

The second that they found out Ultron’s real plan they tried to stop him, even going so far as to approach their enemies for help.

They both act selflessly to rescue civilians and even to rescue the Avengers in the fight for Sokovia.

Throughout the film Wanda and Pietro rather pointedly avoid all collateral damage where they can, and never intended to cause any harm to innocents in their quest for revenge.

(And because I know this is your main screaming point: Johannesburg was 300+ miles away from the shipyard. How was Wanda to know that Hulk was going to run over 300 miles to attack a city when all of her other victims went comatose when shown their greatest fears? It doesn’t logically follow that she would expect anything else, because only the audience knows that making Banner agitated enrages the Hulk, and Banner even says in the movie that Johannesburg was when the world saw the “real Hulk” for the first time. The destruction in Johannesburg was never Wanda’s intended outcome when she went after Banner so you really can’t treat that as intentional.)

In the end, they were willing to overlook their own lust for revenge in order to do the right thing.

And both of them were willing to die fighting to fix what they’d done wrong.

Wanda missed the escape boat because she went to finish off Ultron.

She is shocked when Vision comes back to save her, because at this moment she was entirely ready to die.

Pietro does die.

They were both willing to put their lives on the line to make what they’d done right, and Wanda just got lucky enough to get saved.

Because of all of the above reasons, I think we can firmly state that Wanda was never meant to be a villain in the MCU.

Although on that topic, let me ask you...what exactly do you think would have happened if the writers had decided to go your route? If they’d decided to make her the villain instead of going the redemption route?

She single-handedly takes out every member of Team Stark at the airport battle in Civil War. The only one who even managed to land a hit on her is Rhody, and he only did so by sneaking up behind her while she was preoccupied holding up thousands of tons of rubble, and shooting her point-blank in the back.

And all of that was Wanda being gentle and holding back.

If she was a villain - if she was actually going all out - would any of the Avengers even survive a fight against her?

Based on the way she disintegrated those robots with just a second of lost control, I severely doubt it.

You do not want her as a villain in any capacity. I guarantee you that.

That being said, by strict definition, no, Wanda is not an anti-villain.

But she’s not a villain either.

She’s a unique and complicated character, whose story was approached at a fairly new angle as far as script writing is concerned, and who managed to be both protagonist and antagonist at once.

There is not a doubt in my mind, however, that by the end of Age of Ultron, that girl was just as much of a hero as anyone else on that screen.

Chirpingtiger out.

#pro wanda maximoff #wanda is a hero #wanda is an avenger #gotta love the antis who run away from fights #i'm kinda hoping english is not their first language #aou #marvel #avengers aou #typical for them to claim that anyone who attacks tony is irrideemable #what I really don't understand is how the blog is so full of hate for Wanda #but their AO3 is full of Tony/Wanda??#I don't understand people

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pineaberry · 6 years

Text

Clan-uary is Pride Month

Aric Jorgan x Sartem Roan (F!Republic Trooper)

It started of as a character bio but I twisted it into a ficlet.

In which Jorgan unlocks Sartem’s tragic backstory. There will be Angst and Fluff and just GUSH.

She’d been in the cargo hold, searching for the last of the nerf-jerky rations, when Aric walked up to her and shoved a small parcel in her general direction.

“I know you’ve been busy lately, so… ah, here,” Jorgan shifted awkwardly as he always did when he handed her a gift.

It was customary to bring one’s lover gifts and tokens of appreciation. Having grown up with sisters for littermates, he knew all too well how picky and critical Cathar women could be. A potential mate was always judged by the quality of his gifts. Was he a good provider? Was he observant? Was he strong? Was he clever? Was he a good hunter? Were his claws and teeth dull? Was his mane tangled? In a word, was he worthy?

He’d seen more than his share of Cathar men torn to pieces by a single phrase from a woman who found him lacking and refused to tolerate his advances any longer. Then again, the persistent ones ended up with bloody gashes in addition to a wounded pride. Yet, like all the times before, the moment he offered her the clumsily wrapped gift, she gave him a bright smile. She didn’t even know what was in it but there was approval in her eyes... such large blue eyes he’d felt he could drown in them from the moment he first saw her. The knots in his stomach faded away at the sight of them.

“Aric, did you make this?” she asked as she brought out a bracelet of intricately woven leather cords threaded with small tumbled stones. “It’s beautiful.”

It was a simple enough design. He lacked the dexterity for the complex symbol knots that professional jewellers made for festivals. Still he remembered enough of the simpler knots he’d been taught as a kit. Love. Beauty. Friendship. Loyalty.

“I… I wasn’t sure what your colors were, but you seem to like blues so I went with that,” he said apologetically, “there’s a space for your sigil.”

“My what?” she asked giving him a blank look.

“Your sigil. It’s the third month of the year, I figured you’ve been too busy to make anything for the ceremony.”

“Third month ceremony…” she repeated and he was met with another blank stare.

“The ceremony. The Clan Ceremony,” he insisted some annoyance slipping into his tone to mask his own nerves.

“Oh!” she said as though something had finally clicked in place, “yes. Cathar ceremony month. Clan… Clan-uary... I… don’t really know what that is. I don’t have a Clan. Anymore… -ish…”

“Everyone has a clan,” Jorgan said as though she’d declared there was no such thing as breathing, “even foundlings. If you’re a Cathar, you have a clan.”

“Oh. Sorry I just- It never really came up,” she replied looking sheepish.

A sense of wrongness filled him. She really didn’t know who her people were. How could she not know? It was… well it was sacrilege that's what it was! Even orphans knew their clan name. This was a part of their identity; of her identity!

“Your parent’s never told you, sir?” he asked reigning in his outrage, “I’m sure we can find something about Clan Roan in the Republic records.”

“Bit hard for them to do that from a grave,” she mused looking at his gift absently and running her thumb over the polished stones. “Roan is a human name and I doubt you’ll find anything flattering about them in the Republic Database.”

Aric frowned and Sartem could all but feel it on her skin. She sighed and took a seat on a nearby supply crate before she patted the spot next to her.

“I guess I should have told you this before, there’s really no easy way to explain it,” she said as he took a seat next to her. “I don’t know my parent’s names but I know what they did and who they were. Before I was born there was a schism growing between the Cathar and the Republic. There were prominent people in my parents’ clan that were adamant about their loyalty to the Republic. However, my father shared some misgivings about the Republic’s commitment to the Cathar. He believed the Republic had used our people against the Mandalorians resulting in our near-extinction. The resulting tragedy ensured our continued dependence on the Republic.”

“That was over three-hundred years ago,” Aric protested.

“Yes, and he believed the Cathar were finally strong enough to make a choice, whether it be Empire or Republic, he felt we should be able to choose,” she said before growing silent for a moment. Never once did she look up from the stones in his bracelet, “my father was a very influential member of his Clan and my mother very eloquent. They publicly debated the opposition and afterwards members of all the other Clans began to consider his words. There began to be murmurs against taking Cathar loyalty for granted. Eventually, the Republic noticed.”

Aric grimaced. It wasn’t lost on him what ‘being noticed’ implied.

“They sent both my parents to Belsavis and scrubbed their records. They were to be held in stasis fields indefinitely. I think… I think my father knew my mother was pregnant because he gave his life so that she could escape. I was born in an ice-cavern somewhere on Belsavis. My mother and siblings were too weak to survive the cold. I would have died too but I was found by an escaped prisoner. Captain Roan was an Imperial strategist sentenced to life imprisonment. I spent around seven years on Belsavis hunting, playing, and hiding among the ice. Captain Roan was kind to me. He named me after his own deceased daughter. I still remember the stories he told me every night. Sometimes they were about the stars, or Sith Lords, or strange planets. Sometimes he sang to me because he said I made him smile,” she looked sad at the memory, “I think he wanted a better life for me. In the end, I think he knew what it would cost him. One day, he told me to pack my things and walked me into the nearest Republic outpost. When we got there… They kept hitting him… They didn’t know him, he was unarmed, and they just kept hitting him… I wanted to bite and scratch and protect him, but he ordered me to stay put. Eventually they took him away and I never saw him again.”

Her eyes burned with tears, but they didn’t fall.

“Someone brought me to Coruscant… I was placed in a home along with other children with unfortunate parentage. Marsalyn was our keeper. She was an older Twi’lek woman who had been rescued from the slave camps by the Republic. She was very kind and patient, but she was forbidden from teaching us anything that would divert our allegiance to the Republic. I remember she used to tell us terrible stories of what the Empire did to her family and how lucky I was that the Empire hadn’t gotten to me first otherwise I would have been enslaved. ‘Pretty Cathar girl like you would get snapped up in an instant. They like to keep your kind like pets.’ She used to say. I grew up wondering how someone as kind and clever as Captain Roan could do something so terrible as to end up in Belsavis. Did the same man who sang me to sleep and tell me stories about the stars also burn that number into Marsalyn's neck? If the Empire was full of evil selfish people who wanted to enslave me, why did he give his life so I could be free?”

She held his gift in her hands if only to keep her fingers from trembling.

“I was fifteen when Marsalyn fell ill. She tried to hide it from us, always putting on a brave face. A decade spent in an arms factory without protection from poisonous chemicals finally caught up to her in the end. She had no family, no children. We had been her younglings. Without Marsalyn we were orphans again; wards of the Republic. They sent us off to the military academy. One of the foundlings I grew up with was a brilliant slicer. By all accounts she should have been snapped up by the SIS, but she was a Sith pureblood. Defections by pretty faces like Dorne are distrusted but still welcomed for their usefulness. Ailsa had known nothing but the Republic her entire life, yet she was feared and hated for her species. The SIS wanted nothing to do with her. It was Ailsa who began to search for the past our Keepers kept from us. She was the one who found out how my father died and why. She was the one who helped me piece together my past and showed me a report stating how my mother and siblings were found. Prisoner TX-54987 shot to death during a firefight and TX-54988 found dead of hypothermia along with four stillborn kits. Their names are lost but I remember. I know I don't live like them or follow their customs. I know they would be disappointed that their deaths were meaningless, but I haven't forgotten them. Mother, Father, Captain Roan, Marsalyn even Ailsa… they're all gone now, but I remember them.”

Aric kept searching her face as though to find a clue as to what she was feeling. He didn’t know what to say in the face of such knowledge. The Republic had stripped her of everything: her status, her dignity, her family, her Clan. Only to reshape her in their image and dress it up as a second chance at life. The experience would have made anyone else bitter and angry, but from what he had seen, it had only made her kind. His brow furrowed and he wished he had the words to express his own regret and sorrow at her loss.

“I’m... sorry… it must be difficult in our line of work…”

“Empire, Republic, good, evil, or neutral, they were all of them people. We’re all just people in the end, Aric. There’s bad people who do good things, and good people who do bad things. Believing every Imperial is inherently evil only serves the people who profit from this war. It makes us easier to control,” she said with a sigh, “Havoc is not an execution squad. Under my command, it never will be.”

He tentatively placed a hand over hers and she finally looked up to meet his gaze.

“I’m just a soldier. I can’t say I understand everything, or that I agree with everything the Republic does, but it brought me to you,” he whispered, “and as selfish as that is, I’m glad.”

“Yes, well that… is incredibly selfish, Aric,” she smiled at him before kissing his lips softly.

He could sense her affection through some inexplicable combination of scent and touch. She found him worthy. He could not contain the purr that bubbled from his chest at the realization. Later he would curse at the deeply embarrassing show of emotion, but for now, he was too happy to care.

“I’m glad I met you too,” she murmured nuzzling under his chin as he instinctively wrapped his arm around her, “happy Clan-uary, Aric.”

He snorted and gave a rumbling laugh. “For kriffs sake, don’t call it that-”

He then felt fingertips dig past the soft fur under his jawline and scratch against his skin just so. Were it anyone else, just thinking about doing something like that would result in lost fingers if the loss of an entire arm. Yet with her, the rest of his protest melted into a loud rumbling purr. It was childish, it was humiliating, and he didn’t give a damn. He held her tightly and she felt as though she were encased in a warm, pleasantly rumbling cocoon.

“Thank you for the gift Aric,” Sartem said as she nuzzled his neck.

His piercing eyes closed blissfully at the motion.

She had accepted him. Him. Not Jonas Balkar with his stupid smiling face. Not all the leering Senators and soldiers. She’d chosen him, and it made Aric feel invincible.

Was this what finding a life-mate felt like? They weren’t officially mated, not yet, but even now he didn’t think there would ever be another like her.

Sartem had spent her entire life hounded by loss, yet she somehow made it out untarnished. Every Cathar should feel as though they had a place in their Clan where they belonged. He vowed help her find that place. They’d all failed her: their people, her Clan, her government. However, if she allowed it, he would spend his entire life making up for it.

#Aric Jorgan #Republic Trooper #SWTOR #SWTOR OC #Sartem Roan

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