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divinecomedyproductions · 7 months

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I think I also want to explain my big bias about romance in epics: a heavily opinionated thread

Keep in mind, I’m not trying to throw shade at any indie creators who do this, just trying to explain my style and why

I really don’t like “Star-Crossed” Lovers and “Love interest to be built up and killed off” tropes. Not sure I ever did honesty.

I get why they work, they just don’t work for me. Unless like Peter Parker they get another chance again.

And three franchises were the final straw for me, and what drove me to go indie along with being inspired by indie works of others

First it was RWBY the tragic end of Arkos and what I feared to be sane of Black Sun among others along with the doomed fate of Oscar Pine

I tried to express my distaste of it on tumblr on my past accounts and RWBY wiki discussion forum(big mistake, I know) and I regretted it so much

Never had I met a fanbase so arrogant, self righteous, and sanctimonious about this kind of stuff, going on how amazing these tropes and dark stories like RWBY initially seemed circa V3-Finale along with Madoka Magica and Akame Ga Kill were and sneering at anything even one shade lighter than that

They were either passive-aggressively judging and gaslighting me, or outright lecturing me

How a epic story that has Dork knight and a lonely warrior woman isolated by society crushing on him, or a unlucky moody girl and sunshine himbo, a doomed hero having a well earned happy ending, especially if it involved resurrection as a good thing was nothing but “pandering”, petty, and worthless and the preference of the weak and cowardly

Even one fan said “people don’t find that interesting, sorry.” And that another fan seemed to stated characters like Pyrrha and Jaune are only fit for tragic endings because “that’s the kind of character she is” both of which these fans spoke as these things were gospel, or they themselves had some kind of storytelling authority

Then I heard about Superman and Lois Lane getting married and having a kid and even Bruce and Selena getting hitched, until hearing both marriages get trashed along with a few others

Along with the defense Dan Didio gave

It was absolutely MADDENING to me

"Heroes shouldn’t have happy personal lives. They are committed to being that person and committed to defending others at the sacrifice of their own personal interests.

That’s very important and something we reinforced. People in the Bat family their personal lives basically suck. Dick Grayson, Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake, Barbara Gordon and Kathy Kane. It’s wonderful that they try to establish personal lives, but it’s equally important that they set them aside. That is our mandate, that is our edict and that is our stand."

Like, these guys want to hopeful, but only in certain ways the pop-culture/literary ‘intellectuals’ deem acceptable as well as what they deem to be ‘interesting’ and what I had in mind did not only not qualify, it was seen as outright heresy

When I brought this up in my grievances with stories like RWBY, one holier-that-thou jerk supported it because

“Single Batman and Superman sells well”

After writing my preferences off as “pandering” and only for the likes such as Disney and Marvel,

The Self-Centered hypocrisy was staggering because what he said and his many followers were basically saying this;

“We don’t like it when your niche interest stuff is forced into our stuff, but when the case is in the reverse? We’re totally cool with that, and we hope it keeps happening.”

other fans said what I wanted was only for sitcoms, imposing themselves as gatekeepers of *epic storytelling itself*

From where I was standing, there is a growing hatred of couples in epics go through and making it and even getting married and having children, especially those of certain dynamics all under the guise of “hopepunk” and “The Greater Good.” Or whatever the term is now

Prattled on by conceited fandoms who in my opinion, have become a bunch of literary snobs who think way too highly of themselves

Who go around deciding what ways are legitimate “raised stakes” and “consequences”,

both which might I add are defined by their *own* standards,

along with their own preferences, especially fates for of certain kinds of ships and characters, which they flaunt as “objective” and above those of “the unwashed masses” in order to justify glorifying them as well as themselves for liking them

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Which then afterwards these fandoms pressure these standards onto aspiring writers such as myself or be exiled to sitcoms, romcoms, Disney, or Marvel.

Because it’s not “entitlement” if it’s directed at the peasants I guess.

That along with the fact their so insecure and discontent with just being different, they need to feel superior than others for their own preferences

Nor they can’t handle the idea somewhere out there there is story that have characters like the those of the stories they enjoy, but with a different outcome

All epic fiction, its characters, its settings, its themes, its use of its inspirations, the creator’s style needs to begin and end on terms of these self-appointed arbiters who, once again, try to justify by presenting their preferences, tastes, and “personal emotional beats” as objective and superior

And once again: I’m *NOT* saying creators who goes with the tragic romance route are bad or malicious, most of them are just doing their thing

This problem lies with sycophantic individuals among fandoms who appoint their chosen champion’s ways as law and act offended on their behalf, even though they never spoken to these creators personally nor did these creators asked them to pick up a sword in their name and are not held accountable for their behavior

And what’s worse, is that these groups imply epic stories where heroic couples get married and have families are allegedly incompatible outside of Disney or Marvel or else it ends up as terrible story

Which they will imply is the case for stories like DragonBall Z, Sword Art Online, and Naruto/Boruto

But when *their* way of doing things ruins a franchise like DC comics and people complain about it?

It’s the whining of unwashed masses or vocal toxic minority opposed to the enlightened few or informed majority

Because *their* way makes everything better and always will

It’s incredibly self absorbed and narcissistic

So that’s why I’ve been so keen on having my heroes find love, get married and having families. Especially ones who’ve been through so much sorrow.

I’m just weary of this and tired of fandoms telling me when I’m disappointed;

“It’s not for you” and implying “nothing should be for you and everything should be for us”

And I’m certain I’m not the only one who feels this way

You don’t have to share my personal tastes and distaste’s in story beats in epics, once again, I just want you guys to understand.

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mekominthecritic · 1 year

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Crowning a Spoiled Prince (Ch 1-33)

Review: Mangnaniui Nunimisida - Wheedrian

Story Recap: Legina is an unloved princess who is pushed aside for her very bratty little brother. She is betrayed by her fiancé and his adopted mind-controlling-sorceress little sister. Her father is assassinated and everyone who was loyal to the empire is defeated one by one. Lastly, her brother becomes a useless, weak, and uneducated emperor who is ultimately beheaded by her fiancé. Legina who has now lost everything clutches on to her last piece of hope, an enchanted necklace that will grant any wish in exchange for a human life. Alone on the battlefield Legina sacrifices herself and is given a second chance. She determines that she now has two goals to accomplish. First is to make her brother a competent king, and second, to leave the kingdom once her first goal is accomplished.

Opinions: This manhwa has been surprisingly entertaining for me. I honestly don’t feel like it brings anything new to the table, but it feels refreshing. I am particularly fond of characters that are assertive, unapologetic, and bold like Legina. Probably because I once was also unassertive, apologetic, and shy like Legina's past self. I also like how Legina is a naturally sweet character who doesn’t like to take advantage of others without reason. For instance, being honest about her intentions with Aaron and caring about his social image. Legina’s honesty, especially with Aaron is nice to see as well. Treating Aaron like family and not hiding the fact that she has experienced being on the battlefield in her past life, makes her a little more interesting, especially to Aaron.

However, just because its entertaining doesn’t mean it is ultimately a good manhwa. It has many classic tropes such as:

Distant father becomes doting after the MC changes

MC unknowingly making everything go her way (burning the sorceresses blood lab in the castle)

Male lead is interested in MC because she’s not like the other girls

The “I’ll never fall in love with you” line

I can already predict a scene where Legina’s brother becomes super attached to her and starts staring daggers at Aaron. They will most likely be the main characters that will protect Legina from her nemesis and devote their lives to her. There is also no way she will be living her peaceful life in the countryside by the end of the series. Either way, I’m really enjoying the development of Legina and her little brother. Seeing her understand that his upbringing was a big factor for making him a brat, and not hating him for it is really heartwarming to see. I hope I’ll be able to see more cute interactions with them together.

Also, the art is really pretty!

TLDR: Entertaining and pretty, but nothing new character or story wise so far. 7/10

#manhwa review #crowning a spoiled prince #Mangnaniui Nunimisida #mekomin

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writingwithcolor · 3 years

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Amber-haired, overly kind Black woman character

Anon asked:

Hi! I’m generating ideas for a book and one of the members of this group of teenage friends is a black woman with naturally amber/ginger hair. I don’t want to contribute to the trope of women of color having wild hair colors (like blue or pink). Her hair color isn’t necessarily what makes her special. It’s just something that is because she’s based off of someone I know who also has red hair. Is it ok then for her amber colored hair or is it inconsiderate?

Also, what makes the character special is her unwavering kindness (also based off of a friend of mine). But, I also don’t want to make the character too submissive. How would you suggest ensuring she’s not too easily suppressed because she is a character who is selfless, kind, and caring in every aspect and (at first) will sacrifice her own happiness for someone else’s (to the points it takes a mental toll on her). Her kindness can be taken advantage of and she’s somewhat isolated but adored for her almost saint like kindness (as well as smarts in school). Is this writing problematic? She is based off of a friend of mine but I want to ensure I’m not contributing to any pre-existing stereotypes or evoking new problems.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read and I greatly appreciate your help :)

Kindness doesn’t equal weakness or submissiveness so you should be okay here as long as you clearly understand the differences. Kindness can be both heart-warming and overbearing. It can be hard to take, even toxic, yet under-appreciated or go unnoticed. If you want her not to seem submissive, make her strong-willed. Allow her to be compassionate without having others treat her like a doormat. Let her kindness come from her want to do good by others instead of a fear of being disliked or angering people.

And be careful with the selflessness. There’s a risk of sacrificial negro business there… I’m actually very interested in seeing her learning to be kind without the self-sacrifice as a character arc as I think a lot of people are unaware of this, as well as plenty of people suffering from being a people-pleaser. As someone who’s been trying to learn something similarly, it’s good to think about why she is this way. Often this behaviour is a coping mechanism and can stem from trauma (the fawn response I believe it’s called). Especially as you mention your character being kind of self-destructive in this regard, I really think adding some space in your character development and background to this character trait is necessary.

Having her be adored for this behaviour seems deeply unhealthy as well and I think this is a great opportunity to explore this as well. Think about how this must feel to her? How she is “appreciated” for doing something that causes herself harm. It is toxic even if the people who view her this way don’t intend to or even know they are doing this. These are also usually the people who push back the first and the hardest when establishing boundaries when your character starts their healing process. People will get mad, guilt her, and abandon her for standing up for herself because she’s suddenly giving restrictions to something her friends have grown used to and often feel entitled to. Also consider what kind of relationships (platonic, romantic, any kind) your character will attract and how they will develop in terms of power dynamics as a people-pleaser.

Another thing that comes to mind is, you mention her being kind and selfless and caring, but imagine how it must feel for her to always give and never get an equal return in kindness. Even if she feels she wants this, that she maybe has to, this often breeds resentment, and in turn guilt and self-hate.

Now, take all that I’ve just said and add in that she is a Black woman. Someone who is expected to be this way. Someone who is often undervalued. Who’s expected to be strong and don’t need anybody. To not be allowed to show or even have weaknesses. How getting professional help can feel impossible with many places lacking Black therapists, the internalisation of the racism that amplifies the people-pleasing and toxic positivity.

Now, before I end up completely projecting onto your story or anybody else, it doesn’t mean that all of this applies to your character, your friend, or anybody else. Just that it is something that is true for some people and I think could be good to keep in mind and consider while developing and writing your character. Especially since without proper nuance and exploration of how selfless kindness in a Black woman has a high chance of turning out stereotypical and harmful on paper.

~ Alice

#asks #black #black woman #Black women #Strong Black Woman #kindness

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hogwartsfirebolt · 3 years

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Hello everyone! I’m back for my (omg time flies) third yearly drarry rec list, in which I share with you my 30 favorite drarry fics I read in the year, divided in three parts. What a year 2020 was. It was challenging, scary and confusing, and it was also an amazing reading year for me, I read so, so much more than I ever had before, and I’m really excited to share these masterpieces with you! The banner art is by @dragontamerdame who is one of my favorite artists and was kind enough to let me use this beautiful piece, which you can (and totally should) reblog right here. Now, with nothing else to add and in no particular order, here’s my

FAVORITE FICS I READ IN 2020 PART ONE

1. Who we are in the shadows - @quicksilvermaid - 100k - E - What happens when you’re forced to become the very thing you despise? Ex-Auror Harry Potter, tossed out of the Ministry for something he had no control over, has been looking for a way back to his former life. When he comes across Draco Malfoy in the criminal underbelly of Wizarding London and in need of protection, Harry figures bringing him in to face the Ministry's justice is his ticket back to everything he's lost. But nothing is exactly as it seems. Not even Harry himself. And as he gets drawn further and further into Malfoy's world of honour and deception he finds himself questioning everything he thought he knew—about his childhood nemesis, the Ministry job he misses so much, and most of all, about himself. What happens when you’re forced to see that you were wrong?

THIS FIC!!! It was the first one I read in 2020, and it immediately became my favorite fic of the entire year, and one of my favorites of all time. I have since read it two more times, the entire 100k of it. There are absolutely no words to describe how amazing it is, how much it floored me to read their characterizations, their jobs and the roads life took them on to end up where they end up, the connection between them in a time when they don’t even know how to relate to anyone, their sorrow and struggles which, despite being so rooted in the magical world, are painfully human, just... wow. It’s a masterpiece. It changed the way I view their characters, forever, and I suspect I will read it many, many more times in the years to come. It’s that kind of story. If for whatever reason you haven’t read it, this is your sign to take that chance and embark on this amazing journey.

2. Every Kingdom - @thistle-verse - 7k - E - Every kingdom needs a prince. Every prince needs a good and useful knight. Draco and Harry play their parts and renegotiate some borders while they’re at it.

So, so lovely. Even though I don’t read them very often, alternate universes fascinate me so much, and I am in awe of the author for being able to pack so, so much story, so neatly into 7k words. This features a princely, lonesome Draco, a charming, golden Harry, and a blossoming love that could change everything. It’s beautiful, and I recommend it deeply.

3. The Bucket List - GallaPlacidia - 32k - Draco will die in six months if he can't get Harry Potter to fall in love with him. Since that's not going to happen, he might as well spend his last days working through his Bucket List. Tap-dancing lessons? Rock climbing? Poetry-writing? Threesomes? Cocaine? Getting to know his adorable cousin, Teddy Lupin? Draco will try them all! Feat. Cheerily pessimistic Draco, devoted bitch queen Pansy Parkinson, and a Harry who can't help but notice that something seems DIFFERENT about Draco, these days.

I’m positive that many, many of us got acquainted with GallaPlacidia’s writing this year, and I, too, fell in love with it. This story aches in the most beautiful of ways, the humor happens to be somehow light in such a difficult circumstance that it ends up hurting when you laugh, it hurts when everything is right because it’s also wrong, it aches when it’s supposed to be a happy moment and feels tender and sweet when it’s not. I can’t even imagine the challenge of writing this kind of story, and they pulled it off beautifully. It’s a lovely story, one you will take with you long after you finish it, and, personally, I think it’s a great introduction to the author’s writing.

4. halcyon days - @the-starryknight - 1.3k - T - Sleepy mornings caught while the sun rises are reserved for silly word games and soft touches and feelings.

Oh my god, the amount of tenderness in such a low wordcount made me weak in the knees. I almost couldn’t take it. Being able to convey such a deep emotional connection in a short story seems like such a daunting task, and the author makes it seem almost effortless. I guarantee that this will make you bring your hands to your chest and sigh with how lovely it is. Reading it will be the best ten minutes of your day.

5. Clouds That Veil the Midnight Moon - @drarrytrash - 37k - E - According to Harry’s personal narrative regarding the incident, he’d hooked up with Draco Malfoy for purely self-destructive reasons, or out of convenience, or by some unlucky accident. Looking at him, sprawled in the moonlight, Harry is devastated to recall that he’d hooked up with Draco Malfoy because he’s hot. Draco is a secret werewolf and Harry is doing his best and they've got criminals to catch, darn it.

Reading this, I found myself laughing out loud, nodding profusely with how freaking spot on the characterizations are. The dialogue is amazing, so hilarious and real and Harry’s inner monologue is so, so him. I love everything about this story. I have a soft spot for werewolf fic, and this one hit everything I love about it, the case is interesting and engaging, the incidental characters, the OCs, Ron and Hermione, everyone and everything is absolutely perfect and I had an absolute blast reading it. You HAVE to read this and see for yourself what I’m talking about.

6. Sex Ed for Aurors - curiouslyfic - 8k - M - Some things, you need to learn on the job.

Oh my god this is so freaking good. The premise is, basically, that Harry is accidentally doused with a lust potion while in the vicinity of Draco, and suddenly wants him more than anything. I loved this take on that trope, we’re in Harry’s head, and it’s absolutely hilarious and endearing to experience the near childish glee he feels whenever Draco looks his way, when he smiles, when he feels he’s made him happy, meanwhile Draco and Ron are horrified and doing whatever they can to correct it. This is so funny and such a good time, I can’t recommend it enough! While you’re at it, you should definitely read megyal’s remix of this, which is also a blast.

7. plasticine porters with looking-glass ties - @bonesliketambourines - 15K - E - Lately, Harry thinks things don’t seem the same between him and Draco. His head is in the clouds when he thinks about what their relationship is now, and where it might be headed—he’s happy with their friendship, but he wants something else. A potions accident over a lunchtime visit to Draco’s lab (what does he get up to in there, anyway?) changes things, though, and accelerates their relationship faster than either of them had ever expected. How are they going to get through this new development together?

Atmospheric, beautifully-written and delicious. Their relationship is tender, just on the edge of something more, when they’re forced to quarantine together and face the effects of a potion that makes them see and feel things differently, which makes for the most intense, visual, gorgeous sex scene I think I’ve ever read. It’s just absolutely phenomenal.

8. i wake up falling - warmfoothills - 9k - M - Draco’s always leaving, one way or another. Harry’s usually 240 thousand miles too late.

In trying to come up with a way to summarize this story, I’m feeling the overwhelming urge to cry again, just like I did when I read it. It’s just so, so, beautiful, every single word of it aches in the best way, the longing feels deeply authentic and just, the setting and the jobs and everything is so unique and gorgeous. Every single work by this author is beyond beautiful, but especially this one is incredibly close to my heart and I think everyone should read it. It’s a gem.

9. In Every Universe - @skeptiquewrites - 27k - M - They sent Professor Harry Potter to search for Unspeakable Draco Malfoy. Draco has stolen a Firebird, an experimental magical device from the Department of Mysteries that lets you enter parallel universes as yourself. As Harry traverses from universe to universe, he begins to think Draco might be the one searching for him. A story about whether knowing what's possible makes it possible.

Stories where the characters find themselves somehow hopping from one reality to another are always so, so fascinating to me, and this one is incredibly creative and well-written, so entertaining all around. The mystery of it kept me on my toes, and every single reality was a joy to read. 10/10

10. Life goes not backward - @shealwaysreads - 8k - T - Harry still isn’t used to gifts, but this one is different. A story of coming home, finding safe ground, and the wild courage of putting down roots. Leaving one life behind isn’t always a sacrifice, and sometimes the greatest good comes from embracing the people you love.

My god, there are not enough words to describe how much this story means to me, how beautiful it is, how every single time I’ve read it, I’ve cried. Bella has undoubtedly become one of my absolute favorite writers in fandom. She has such a way with words, there is not one of her stories that hasn’t touched me, that doesn’t feel like an actual, full-length novel no matter the word count. I read so many of them this year, so many of the masterpieces she’s gifted us, but this one especially is so tender, so dear, that I ended up choosing it as my favorite of hers this year. Harry’s charactertization, the unbelievable warmth of their relationship, absolutely everything about this is gorgeous. Go read it, right now, and then binge all her other works!! You won’t regret it.

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Each of these fics is incredibly close to my heart and I enjoyed them immensely. In the midst of everything changing, I really found comfort and solace in the amazing works of the people of this fandom. I hope they give you the same amount of warmth and comfort they gave me, and I’m ALWAYS here to gush about any of them ❤️ Happy New Year!

#drarry #drarry fic #drarry fanfic #drarry fic rec #2020rec #ficrec #draco malfoy #harry potter #drarry rec list

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thedeviljudges · 3 years

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the devil judge + the seven deadly sins

so, i made a gifset about who i thought falls under the seven deadly sins. and also shameless plug - please go reblog the gifset i made for this. took me ages to do.

but i figured i might as well make a meta post to correlate. so this is that post. it’s not everything i could discuss. i could be here for hours more, truth be told. but i hope it’s enough to chew on.

while i feel like a lot of these are going to be a no-brainer, i still want to talk it through because idk. i can, and i want to, and i feel like it, lmao.

gluttony

the elite are privileged and have an opportunity to indulge so much more than the general public, but in many different ways. this is shown throughout the show in the fact that they can indulge on luxury food, have political power, they can make a phone call or snap their fingers and everyone must follow their orders.

and the thing about gluttony is that there is always more to be had. you take a little and then realize it’s not enough and so you ask for more. case in point: in episode 11 when sunah suggests that yohan could be the new president, the current one gives her an alternative: dictatorship. because it wasn’t just enough for him to be an actor and the presiding president.

you’ll also know they turn in on themselves - the two other guys in the elite group. one who owns the company and the other dude - i really cannot remember their names and what they do, but y’all know who i’m talking about. it was so easy for them, when threatened, to fabricate documents to give to yohan about each other in order to get ahead. gluttony is only shared in the relationships we have until one realizes they can take a little extra of the pie. it’s the selfishness of having all the leftovers. gluttony cannot necessarily exist without someone else’s sacrifice.

lust

i kind of had an ah-ah moment when i was talking this over with @technitango. i was trying to decide who was going to be lust because lust is portrayed very, very differently in this show than what most of us are used to. we, of course, know sunah who lusts after a life of indulgence and riches because she equates that with respect more than actually wanting it because it’s monetarily worth something.

but then i realized the public is lust because of their need for justice. i won’t say revenge necessarily because they’re doing as they’re told when given the judge show. but we can quickly see how that evaporates into something akin to bloodlust, for criminals and people who normally get away with shit, to have their fair taste at conviction for their misdeeds. we even see it with yohan’s fanboy club - the lust that comes from adoration and dedication.

and even more so, the public is easily swayed and so is the nature of lust. it follows in the vein of needs and wants, and as soon as new information is presented, however may false, so does the wants and desires of what people want sway. how easy was it for them to turn on yohan for a split second on two occasions - on two accounts of bribery.

envy

envy, above all, is about wanting what others have because you do not have it yourself. it may not be exactly what they have, but a form of it. some people don’t necessarily want money - they want what it can by, which is time, health and material goods.

sunah is the perfect example of this. she envies respect and recognition. she talks about bright and shiny objects, and that’s true to her kleptomania tendences, but more than anything, she wants to be seen as an equal because being poor with a vastly different upbringing means she’s looked down upon by those she thinks matters.

which also begs the question why she feels the need to seek validation from people in higher statuses to begin with when she can be the exception and not the rule - form her own understanding and environment to show others that the typical way of the elite is not actually all it’s cracked up to be - to which we see when she has no one to celebrate her victory with. it’s lonely being at the top. you get to your goal you thought you wanted but then what?

more importantly, sunah also envies family, relationships and simply put, human interaction. she wants to be cared for and treasured, and she looks for that in her position of power. because then all eyes are on you. because then that’s what people care about. what she fails to see is that those eyes are just as fruitless and just as wavering. to be a leader means people loving the idea of you but not you as a person.

“people of envious nature are sometimes stimulated to seek to emulate those who have completed some great achievements and in doing so achieve something great for themselves,” according to Understanding Philosophy.

wrath

while i realize that gaon not might entirely fit the wrath trope, he certainly has his moments, and i think he’s lived with a tampered flame since his parent’s death. he just learned to briefly put it out in the form of distractions and a false sense of righteousness and justice. it isn’t until he meets yohan that someone finally gives him the okay to feel the entirety of his emotions, that lets him breath and tells him it’s okay to feel anger and hurt. and while gaon ultimately chooses not to exact revenge, his wrath is what led him to becoming a judge and walking away from his teenage crimality.

gaon transposed his wrath into seeking justice, transformed it into livelihood, and reformed his narrative so that he was no longer angry and a teen with rash emotions. it was simply redirected and never really forgotten. yohan turned that redirection back around onto gaon’s ultimate heartache. fueled with that, it became easier to justify himself and his actions.

the most pivotal moment of turning his back on this mindset is, of course, the minister’s suicide, where he takes a good look at himself and doesn’t like what he sees. at this point, gaon’s upset isn’t necessarily at yohan but at the situation in which they got themselves into. because the thing is, gaon doesn’t absolve himself from what they did. he doesn’t turn a blind eye to that and try to dismiss it. he owns up to what happened and confesses how he feels to yohan and how he has to leave for his own good, and in some indirect way, for yohan’s, too.

with yohan, his ultimately weakness, despite never admitting to it, is family. his wrath comes in the form of anger when the ones he loves are threatened. yohan lives by a moral code of loyalty because that means you won’t be abandoned, and as a child who lived with that verdict since the day he was born, it’s an ever-pressing theme of his.

thing is, wrath comes in two particular forms for yohan. again, one is family and the second is the rose-colored glasses he’s given himself in his revenge story. he’s always had a goal to presumably make right the wrong for taking away isaac, but within that, 10 years is a long time to plot revenge, to the point where it becomes so much easier to lose yourself to that, to become enraged with it and forget the initial goal all along. we see this in his inability to form the bonding moments needed with his niece and his casual throwaway comments over people’s lives - the comment he made to gaon about moving on to the next plan, and the ultimately nail in the coffin of pushing gaon to leaving him.

his fury has also led him to convince himself his own humanity is nothing short of a lie. therefore, it’s easier to justify the means to an end because of his own self-worth and self-deprecation. it’s almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy: he even admitted to gaon’s mentor that he is an abyss. he’s referred to himself as nothing but an animal or a monster - all characteristics of despondency to survive and to justify what he’s doing. sort of like a catch 22, yohan claims he’s an animal/monster and behaves as such, but because he behaves as such, it means he’s an animal/monster.

wrath for gaon and yohan are very different yet the same. they are slow-burning, and that’s a dangerous type. it’s actually interesting when you think about the fire imagery surrounding the two of them because flames are quick to lap at anything in its wake, to destroy within a matter of minutes. and yet for the two of these men, their internal fire eats them from the inside out, painfully, until they’re almost unrecognizable to others and to themselves.

sloth

sloth was a little more difficult to pinpoint because of its characteristics. it was either the minister versus the mentor, both of which i think could work in this role. however, i chose the minister simply because she’s featured more and intertwines heavily with the plot line.

soth is a medieval translation of the Latin term acedia, meaning “without care.”

the ultimate characteristic of sloth is often identified as laziness, and while it’s easy to argue that the minister hasn’t been lazy in her ability to get where she is, she became as much when she started lying to get to her position. isn’t lying known as the easier way out? it absolves you of responsibility, of putting in the hard work, of apologizing and making things right. in the end, she had a goal and found the easiest solution to get there through her lack of responsibility for the roles she more than likely swore an oath to.

but that also translates into the other attributes of sloth: a failure to do the right thing, lack of emotions for people or of the self, and the fact that it “hinders man in his righteous undertakings and thus becomes a terrible source of man’s undoing” according to The Seven Deadly Sins: Society and Evil.

while i think there are a lot of components of sloth that may not necessarily fit the minister, the apathy and carelessness are enough to showcase her aggression, despondency and restlessness when what little efforts she does put in do not go her way. another interesting thing to note is that many of sloth’s traits correspond with symptoms of mental illness, such as depression and anxiety. it’s an interesting thing to note given the way the minister chooses to end her life.

greed

i don’t know that jinjoo would’ve had any provocation to the limelight if it wasn’t for sunah’s direction, but she’s eager to please and wants to be useful. it’s only natural for her to want more because it’s clear she’s a career woman, loves her job and has a heart for serving the people.

but like gluttony, greed is also that little thing that plants itself and can take on a life of its own. you start looking for justifications as to why you can’t have more than what you do, and in jinjoo’s situation, she’s already overlooked through no fault of her own. and it’s not that gaon and yohan are doing it purposefully, which is what makes their neglect heartbreaking, because truthfully, they’re after the same thing jinoo is. sure, it looks different and the foundation of it is different, same with their motives. but they’re all three judges on a residing bench working to exact justice - even if all three of them have their own personal agenda.

i don’t think jinoo fully aligns with greed, but she does want more for herself, and i think that’s only natural. you can tell she has a heart, and she’s keen not to be overlooked. this isn’t her pain point so much as it is she knows her worth and is more than ready to do what it takes to get where she wants. this, in and of itself, isn’t necessarily a bad trait, but we can see how it leads to being deceived, especially for someone who’s been left in the dark for so long.

she is enticed by the glitz and the glamour of being a head judge, but you can tell she feels some remorse and guilt for those thoughts at times. i think her sense of greed is a battle within herself more than it is extremely outwardly.

pride

soohyun’s pride comes in the form of her imbalance with right and wrong. her sense of righteousness and justice is so far leaning, even more than gaon’s. it can be chalked up to her being a cop, but we’ve seen instances of this outside of her role within that agency. her pride doesn’t let her see beyond saving gaon and getting to the bottom of every mystery that comes her way.

it also comes in the form of impulsiveness and her savior complex, putting elijah in danger, for example, instead of waiting for backup. it’s not necessarily from a belief that she can fix things all on her own, but she sees injustice and immediately jumps in. another case in point is her and gaon watching yohan wreck the minister’s son’s car. she’s ready to go stop him, but gaon pulls her back, most likely because at that point, they hadn’t been observing the situation for very long to get a read on it. also the fact that at that point, neither of them truly knew yohan and his capabilities.

but as to where her characteristics come from, we simply don’t know beyond that of gaon. it’s unfortunate because we don’t have much of her backstory, so there is no real understanding why she so firmly believes in entities of regulation beyond keeping her friend out of jail. she prides herself on her work and what she’s able to accomplish, which is why it’s devastating to her to have to protect gaon by cleaning up his bloody handprint.

aristotle is of the belief that, “pride, then, seems to be a sort of crown of the virtues; for it makes them greater, and it is not found without them. Therefore it is hard to be truly proud; for it is impossible without nobility and goodness of character,” from Nicomachean Ethics.

but pride for soohyun isn’t about honors or rewards. it’s for herself and her capabilities, her ability to protect gaon, and the virtues she’s set as the precedent for herself. because sometimes it’s not even about establishing morals and ethics upon yourself. it’s about feelings/intuition, logic and observation. and no, i don’t mean the feelings she has for gaon. there are things that humans do, both actions and words, that we inherently know are bad without someone telling us as much and without the rules of the world seared into our brains. there are some things we know, for a fact, are wrong to us as individuals.

for soohyun, she knows that gaon’s actions, and even her own, have consequences. from what we’ve seen, i think it can be argued that it’s really about not doing those actions to prevent an outcome - not necessarily from a place of being just and right. that doesn’t mean she doesn’t understand good morals/ethics, but again, we have no background of what her internal guidance actually is.

to put this in layman’s terms, we’ll use gaon wanting to stab the conman in his youth. soohyun knows it’s wrong because it will incriminate gaon and therefore she stops it. gaon’s gone to her because he sees her as a moral compass. but is her own internal navigation rooted in justice the way gaon had to find it in the judicial system, or is hers rooted in her pride of keeping gaon safe? she stops him from doing things that will get him in trouble, but is she stopping him because the action itself is wrong or because the outcome will result in undesirable consequences for the two of them?

and of course, there is a flipped argument to be had there - i’m not arguing that gaon stabbing the conman would be right or justified. but what i am saying is that for her, her worldview is the only right one, and when anyone steps out of that, even gaon, it becomes a bit of an issue: the pride she has for that is palpable.

every character indulges

truthfully, every character has at least one form of these sins rooted in their characterization. some are larger than others, but the breadth of it can be explored even further for each. and that’s what makes them more realistic and not just characters written on a page or following a linear progression of their writing deity.

the seven deadly sins are also notoriously rooted in religion. they’re also a defining feature of aristotle’s works that represent the golden mean, in which each vice is parallel to a virtue.

the devil judge is so layered, but i think at the heart of it, it’s about humanity at its core. sprinked in are the philosophies and contradictions and what it means to look in the mirror, what happens when we’re blind to seeing our true selves and most importantly, how much changes when we’re swayed by our own misgivings. it really asks us to understand nature versus nurture, that people must find a belief in something to keep them going, and how futile our hopes and desires can actually be if we’re not carefully regulating ourselves, nevermind the entities established by society to regulate us, too.

the entirety of the show genuinely begs the question as to who is truly right, who is truly wrong, and if it’s even possible to find the correct answer.

#x #the devil judge #the devil judge meta #*#*the devil judge #so i have some Thoughts #probably not very good ones but ya know

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definitely-not-a-wasp · 3 years

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I'm okay with a bunch of disorganized rambling honestly 😂. But if I had to narrow it down then I guess I want to know about main and side characters and how they compare to the original?

I know that tumblr is the Prime Site for disorganized rambling, but I have perfectionism issues. But that is a great question, nonnie, and I will be happy to ramble is a slightly less disorganized fashion.

When reading Maximum Ride as a somewhat-formed adult who discovered they enjoy English classes about 3.5 years ago, I noticed that JP, when writing, doesn't understand consistency. At all. Which means, in many ways, I have a free sandbox to work with.

Spoilers for my rewrite WIP, because I strongly believe that if a story would no longer be good if one had spoilers, then it wasn’t a good story in the first place.

I'm trying to keep the backstories the same, plus or minus the scientific method and a few characters (RIP my OCs. I want to bring you back so bad but it wouldn't fit with the thematic narrative). I've mostly kept their (starting) abilities the same, too. Without further ado, I'm going to introduce some WorldBuilding. (If I'm good at nothing else, I'm good at world building)

First off. Logically.

How are they getting Cable?

How are they getting internet?

How are they getting money to eat and stuff?

JP's answer: handwave it off. Sometimes you need to ignore logistics for the sake of plot. This is an answer I'd accept from an author that I like, such as Julie Kagawa, that makes amazing worlds, characters, and narratives that I will happily handwave a few things that wouldn't work in the real world. James Patterson, on the other hand, did not make any of that; he made a cool concept, some good rough-draft characters, and nothing else, and therefore this is an unforgivable sin.

Wasp's answer: They are not getting any of that.

Introducing Cottagecore.

The house is off the grid. Solar Panels and a wind turbine create electricity. They have their own well. They grow their own food, raise livestock for eggs, milk, and wool, and trap fish for meat. They get money through dumpster diving and pawning. They still have to steal half of the necessities they can’t make themselves. They do have a TV, but it can access about three channels on a clear day. Internet is only a thing when they go to the public library.

Giving the flock a background that’s heavy in farming and livestock rearing shores up the plot holes mentioned above, but in my opinion, ties the flock more tightly to the environment, thus giving them something tangible to lose when they have to leave the E-shaped house. Because they’re not just leaving a house and a safety net— they’re leaving their entire way of life with no promise of getting it back. It also gives them a tangible connection to the earth in case I want to actually pursue the global warming themes.

Main Characters

Maximum “Max” Ride (Birthname: nonexistent)

First off, I'm letting her be Latina, James Patterson.

In the original, Max was very much the headstrong, independent, action girl. Leaning into Strong Female Character (TM), but overall she had a strong, solid foundation and enough character consistency through the first three books for me to not have to just make an entire new character. However, I felt that she was, in some ways, a bit too Action-Girl and Strong and Capable. Yes, Max is incredible and competent, but she’s also fourteen. She’s a child.

In the rewrite, Max’s character is still headstrong, independent, capable, and sometimes not the best at listening to others. All of that’s the same. But she’s that way not because of girlboss energy, but because there’s no one else to do it. She doesn’t want to lead, necessarily. She wants to get some rest and let someone else handle the problems life keeps throwing at her. But she knows if she did that, the responsibility of leader would fall to Fang and Iggy, and she can’t ask that of them. She doesn’t want to place that burden on anyone else (Look, there’s a reason I chose Ayano’s Theory of Happiness as one of her signifier songs, okay?). Her narrative is very much centered around burden, and also around loss. She lost her cultural heritage when she was taken away from her birth family, she lost her childhood to being a leader, she lost a good deal of her friends to the school (RIP my OCs), she lost Jeb, and then she lost her stability. And she’s going to lose a lot more before the end of the story. So a lot of her character arc deals with learning that there are some things she can’t fix, some things that can’t be recovered. She can’t get the E-shaped house back. She can’t get her Little Baby Angel back, even after they rescue her. She can’t get her friends back from the school. And instead of working so hard to recover those or find something to replace them, she has to learn to live with that sense of loss and move on with her life without feeling guilty for leaving things behind. And she has to learn that asking for help and sharing her burden is selfish or weak.

Other changes I made that don’t necessarily fit into her narrative arc, but you asked for rambling so rambling you shall get:

Max hallucinates, because mental illness is also a prominent theme in the rewrite. She doesn’t have a psychotic disorder, but her C-PTSD causes visual/audio hallucinations, especially when she’s stressed or sleep deprived.

Max ends up having a Gender Discovery throughout the story and goes by He/She pronouns eventually. I don’t know when, but it will happen.

As far as genetic modifications/special quirks go, she can fly faster than the rest of the flock, but not 300 miles per hour. She averages about sixty mph with diving speeds of 240. She cannot breathe underwater or shut down her organs on command. She also has the Super Special Power to predict the weather, but that’s not because of genetics, it’s because she has chronic pain in her right arm that gets worse when weather fronts change.

Her favored weapon is her trusty rebar that she picked up from a condemned building. I think she’s going to name it eventually but I don’t know what yet.

Fang (Birth name: Gabriel Xue)

In canon, Fang is characterized in early books by being the “dark, strong, silent type”. He’s probably the most reserved member of the flock, to the point of falling into the Brooding Mystery Man trope in parts of the book. They care a lot, but they’re not the best at conveying that, especially with the younger members of the flock, and at times their high empathy leads them to making mistakes. Despite the high empathy, he’s often compared to a robot due to his lack of expression and external emotions.

Well, first change is that they’re not a man, so jot that down—

If Max’s narrative is centered around burden and loss, I would probably say that Fang’s is centered around humanity and moving on. None of the flock was treated as human while in the school, but Fang was more often than not treated like a wild animal due to “behavioral issues”, and therefore had and continues to have a difficult time considering themselves real and alive, let alone human. This manifests through a several different ways— where in canon Fang definitely had a ‘fight’ reaction, in the re-write they have a ‘freeze’ or ‘shut down’ instinct. They’re selectively mute for multiple reasons (including derealization, jaw pain, the fact that they didn’t learn how to speak until they were 10, and genuinely forgetting it’s something they’re capable of), a period of Cotard’s syndrome, and a tendancy towards self-loathing and self-sacrifice. In short, Fang is still halfway stuck in the mindset that most of the flock grew out of when they escaped in the school, and doesn’t know how to move past it.

Much of their character arc revolves around not necessarily seeing themselves as human, but learning to treat themselves as human even when they don’t feel like one (or even feel real), and knowing that just because they don’t feel human all the time doesn’t mean anyone else can treat them the same. They never start easily expressing their emotions, and they’re always going to be selectively mute, but they learn to accept that those aspects of themself aren’t character flaws or signs that they’re sub-human.

Other additions to Fang’s character include:

They don’t get their hair cut in New York. It stays long through the entire series. They have the longest hair in the flock by the end of the series, and they can wear it in so many styles.

Fang uses they/it pronouns because themes of reclaiming the weapons used against it and, more importantly, Gender.

They’re actually really good at spelling compared to the rest of the flock, because they and Iggy communicate with Print-On-Palm when they’re nonverbal, and they’re nonverbal for some pretty long stretches of time.

They and Max have... zero romantic tension. At all. There is none. The number of times Max calls them her sibling/little sibling in the first arc alone is staggering, and that will not change.

Igneous “Iggy” (Birthname: Jamsetta “Jamie” Griffiths)

I’ve talked about Iggy before. Canon doesn’t give us much to go off of, but from what’s shown, he’s smart, sarcastic, has sharper edges than Fang and Max, and also has a sizable ruthless streak. So that’s what I have to go off of.

The big difference between Iggy and Fang&Max is that Iggy has a much better memory of the School. Most of the flock have areas (months or years) that they don’t remember, or people that they’ve blocked from their mind, but Iggy... doesn’t. So he’s the one that remembers all of the other AVIAN test subjects that were old enough to have names and identities but died due to complications. Max might have the burden of leadership, but he has the burden of memory. And that has lead to both a massive fucking guilt complex, because why did he survive when they didn’t, and, as mentioned above, a ruthless streak that he doesn’t shy away from.

Which is to say, by the end of the story, Iggy has the highest kill count.

I love, love writing Iggy next to Max and Fang. I love writing Iggy next to Gazzy and Nudge. Because, I say this with all of the love of the world, but Iggy is not a good person. He is loyalty and love incarnate, and the world can burn down if he and his siblings are safe. Max and Fang will always try to save as many people as they can. They will wonder what’s wrong with them the first time they kill and don’t have a mental breakdown about it. They are good in a way that Iggy is not. He’s okay with killing Erasers. He’s okay with killing humans. He’s okay with killing people who might not necessarily deserve it, if they show themselves as a threat or are simply in the blast radius. He knows perfectly well that most of those Erasers he’s murdering are four and five and he is okay with that, because a lot of the AVIANs were that age when they died. (Yeah, in the rewrite it’s not Fang who has an issue with Ari; it’s Iggy who wants the 7-year-old wolf-boy dead.)

And this is, of course, juxtaposed with Iggy being really, really good with Nudge and Gazzy (especially in the beginning). Because, again, he actually remembers being a child. He remembers a lot of kids that died and is therefore fiercely protective of the kids that didn’t, as well as fiercely protective of the innocence that he never got. So he’s the one that cooks their favorite foods when they’re having a bad day, always makes time when they want to talk about something, and convinces Max to let them go to that toy store in New York because, yeah, he Max and Fang aren’t kids. They never were. But Nudge, Gazzy, and Angel can be. (And if he has to be a murderer to preserve that, then he’s perfectly okay with that.)

He and Angel don’t get along very well, though. The telepath doesn’t like hanging out with the person with the most clear memories of the school.

Other additions:

Iggy is trans and says trans rights

He also has paranoid episodes, because C-PTSD. Sometimes they’re very helpful. Sometimes they are not.

I actually decided that he’s one of the flock that doesn’t meet their parents. I know in canon he did, but I always found that very clunky because it didn’t add to his character. He was one of the characters who, until it was convenient for the plot, seemed to care the least about his family. I’d much rather give that to a character whose arc would benefit from it.

Iggy! Gets! Older Sibling Rights! Seriously, he’s two months younger than Fang, he is just as capable.

Iggy does not know braille because Jeb decided it wasn’t necessary for him to know. Iggy is also the best speller in the flock, because Print-on-Palm was the only way to talk to Fang for a solid year. Yes he mocks everyone over this.

Iggy is the only member of the flock that enjoys swimming and can take into the air from water. Everyone else in the flock is incredibly jealous.

Nudge (Birthname: Monique Robinson)

If Iggy is defined by his memories, Nudge is his polar opposite. She was seven when she left the School, but she has next to no memories of it. She is missing a lot of time in the first year she escaped. And that causes... a lot of things. It makes her feel disconnected from her older siblings, it gives her the ability to function in society in a way the other’s can’t, it lets her feel less grief over the ones that didn’t make it and she doesn’t remember, it makes her feel guilty that she doesn’t remember what she’s old enough to know.

Basically, in order for me to keep the character of Nudge as I saw her (more extroverted, not afraid of the world, fascinated with humans like her siblings aren’t, desiring to fit in instead of isolate), I had to put a little bit of distance between her and the flock. Of course, she loves them— that will in no way change— but she’s old enough that she should remember the school (and her dead friends) unlike Gazzy and Angel, but she can’t, and she very much fears forgetting the flock if anything happens to them. So she’s trying desperately to keep the flock close and wants desperately to experience the world at the same time, and doesn’t know what to do when she can’t have both. That’s her biggest character conflict throughout the series, along with that in-between area where she’s not quite where her older siblings are but understands so much more than Gazzy and Angel, and where she stands in that.

So yeah. Nudge’s journey is that in looking for belonging in the world, in her family, and in herself.

This is why she’s one of the ones that gets to find her parent, James Patterson.

Other additions include:

She never straightens her hair. Never. Her resources at the E-shaped house aren’t perfect, but she still has learned how to take care of her hair and has a few styles she cycles through.

She becomes the default person Max sics on people when the flock is trying to befriend them. Also their de-facto diplomat around strangers.

As in canon, she does take some time away from the flock to expirience ‘normal life’. This does not last long due to the stress of being separated from her siblings/not being able to help them and [REDACTED]

Nudge is... not the only person in her head. I’m not focusing on it much because she doesn’t actually know and neither does the flock (I don’t know if they ever figure it out during the series, either), but she has dissociative identity disorder. She’s not aware of her alter(s?). Her alter isn’t super aware of her, either.

The alter that I’ve developed is named Oxy and is not super aware of the outside world. In her eyes, she’s still seven and they’re still at the School. She would not recognize the body as her own if she looked in a mirror.

Nudge actually leaves the flock for a while to pursue her dream of living a normal life. She deserves it. She learns how to make muffins and the basics of software development. These things are unrelated.

Gasman (Birthname: No first name, surname “Falk”)

Honestly, writing Gazzy is kind of hard for me. Partially because I’m not great at writing kids, and partially because I feel like he’s a pretty surface-level character in-series that... isn’t super compelling in canon. But even if that’s the case, I try to treat all of my characters with respect, so here we go. In my rewrite, he escaped when he was four, which was half a lifetime ago for him, so his memories are ill-defined. Therefore, he managed to circumvent a lot of the trauma that the rest of the kids have, and not in the way Nudge did, which is by creating an elaborate blockage in her memories.

Which means Gazzy... really doesn’t know how to deal with all of this traumatic stuff happening. So much of his development turns out to be a coming-of-age narrative. Learning how to deal with the horrors of what his siblings grew up with. Learning the fears that they had the entire time. Losing his innocence when everyone around him never had it in the first place, and being so terribly alone because of it. Because, really, how can you explain such a deep loss to people who never had what he had? How can they help in a way that matters?

Also, relationship-wise, I’m slowly deteriorating the relationship between him and Iggy. Slowly. Or, changing it, at least. Gazzy hero-worships Iggy in-series, and for good reason, because Iggy is super cool, especially in the eyes of an eight-year-old, and especially when Iggy has taken care to cultivate parts of his behaviors to be child-friendly. Part of growing up is seeing the flaws in your heroes, and Gazzy has to learn how to deal with it. End of the series Gazzy is much less closer to Iggy than beginning of the series Gazzy, and neither of them are really okay with that, but they learn to live with it, because that’s really all they can do.

Notes:

I’m keeping the mimickry! It plays a bit of a bigger role because that’s how Gazzy learned to talk. I’m debating whether or not he has his own voice or if he just borrows the flock’s as he sees fit. He also uses it to scream really loudly and occaisonally burst the eardrums of Erasers.

At one point he cosplays as Jessica Jones. No you don’t get any more context than this.

He has a horrible sense of fashion.

I’m changing his name eventually because it sucks. He’s either going to change it to Gannet, Garrison, or Ivy Mike temporarily, and permanently to Zephyr. (I never said I was going to make his name GOOD, because he’s eight, but it’s changing. You’re welcome.)

Angel (Birthname: No first name, surname “Falk”)

It’s just... a completely different character, at this point. I’ve changed so many things about her in an attempt to make her consistent and act like a six-year-old and work in the whole “telepath before she has a solid sense of identity”, so it’s a different character. Also, I’m tired of writing coherently or in paragraphs, so have some interesting facts.

She has epilepsy! Super severe epilepsy! I think she might also develop juvenile MS in the future because her brain has so many scars from being a fucking six-year-old telepath. There’s no way she could get out of that unscathed.

She has more memories of the school than Gazzy, but only because she keeps accidentally reading the minds of Max, Fang, and Iggy. On a related note, she interacts with Iggy as little as possible.

The mind reading means that she has a hard time developing as a normal child with a normal sense of identity or reality. She can’t tell how much people are individual people and how much they’re just extensions of her. Conversely, she can’t tell how much of herself is actually her instead of the thoughts/opinions/identities of someone else. It’s... kinda fucked? But also super not-her-fault.

She’s albino because white wings. Also, because I thought it was cool. This also means that her vision sucks, though. Also she has the biggest straw sunhat and the most stylish sunglasses a six-year-old can have.

She’s responsible for Max shaving her hair off.

She has the highest swear count because I think it’s funny. She’s the only person allowed to say the fuck word in writing. Everyone else can only say ‘hell’ and the occasionally ‘damn’ but she can say whatever she wants for dramatic and comedic value.

She is NOT THE FUCKING VOICE, J*MES P*TTERSON.

Honorable Mentions

Jeb

I’m skipping Jeb because of how little I care about him. He’s a little bitch, next character.

Ari

STILL HASN’T BEEN REVEALED AS AN ERASER. I’ve been writing for 50,000 words and he’s over here saying ‘nope nope not yet, not dramatic enough’. He’s had speaking lines but has refused to make himself known to Max. I am so frustrated with this seven-year-old wolf-child that I’ve already considered how I would kill him, if I decide I want to kill yet another child in my writing.

So, my main thoughts for Ari is that he... really just drew the short end of the stick in every possible way. While Jeb didn’t sign him up for Eraser expirimentation, he didn’t do anything to stop it, and pretty much cut his losses when he realized this expiriment made a wreck of his ‘perfect, unflawed’ son, because Jeb doesn’t consider children of any species to actually be humans. So, Ari really hates his dad, which makes things complicated, because he also really loves his dad and really wants his approval.

Which means that he also really hates Max, because she’s the child that always got Jeb’s time and attention, even when Ari was human. I think, on some level, he knows that trying to tear Max down to a less-favored level isn’t actually going to help his situation— infighting for the love of an abusive parent won’t make them any less abusive— but he’s also seven, and his development is already severely stunted due to becoming an Eraser, and he doesn’t see ‘leaving ITEX’ as an option like the Flock does. ITEX is his everything. It’s all he’s ever known, and they tell him he’s doing the right thing, and he wants them to love him. He wants his father to love him. He knows that if he ever questions ITEX, his father will never love him. So it must be his older sister that’s ruining his life and being a horrible child, and once Ari drags her back down to his level, Jeb will realize who the best child is and love him properly again.

Ari, on an even deeper level, does care for Max quite a bit, because she’s his older sister and he wants that to mean something in a way that ‘Jeb being his father’ obviously doesn’t. He wants what she made for herself, and he hates the Flock because she loves them and obviously doesn’t love him.

Ari, if anything, is the product of neglect, and both loves and hates everyone who shows a chance of caring about him. And he’s seven, so he can’t notice these patterns, let alone break them.

So. Notes!

He doesn’t look like an adult. I thought that was gross and unnecessary. He’s seven, but he looks closer to thirteen or fourteen. Still young enough that he looks like every Eraser’s little brother, and the Erasers high-key treat him like it.

On a related note, he’s the only Eraser who can talk. The others don’t have the mental capacity or vocal structure to replicate human speech, but they can understand language (at about the level of a two or three year old) and are very good at nonverbal communication. This is why Ari managed to climb the ranks despite only having three years of “service” and also looking like a tween.

He doesn’t have an expiration date because that is SUCH a stupid plot point.

I’m giving him a chainsaw! I don’t know how, I don’t know when, but he deserves to have a chainsaw and GODDAMN I will give it to him.

Emergency and Gene

The OCs that I love and also killed pre-series. They don’t have any scenes, because they’re dead, but their deaths greatly effected Max, Fang, and Iggy, and they are very commonly referenced. Their voices are probably Max’s most common hallucination, to the point where she sometimes pretends they’re ghosts that she can talk to. They’re not ghosts. They’re dead.

Dr. Valencia Martinez

I’m actually keeping her pretty close to canon— loving, supportive, the type of person to take in a gsw victim with minimal questions. The difference is that rather than kindness fueling her actions, it’s incredible guilt. She has three goals surrounding Max: Give her as much support in any way she can, teach her as much about chicane culture as possible, and never let Max know that she’s her birth parent.

(She’s probably going to fail at AT LEAST two of those, but it’s the thought that counts.)

Notes:

She has a pet fox named Robin Hood that she rescued from an exotic animal salesman that got arrested.

I think I’m going to kill her. I don’t know yet, but it’s on the table.

Anne Walker

Y’know, the fake FBI Agent. Who’s not actually a fake in my story because I hated that plot point. She’s genuinely an FBI agent who put the Flock into pseudo-witness-protection in order to build a case against the Institute of Higher Living, accidentally got attached to her prime witnesses, raised them for a few months, realized a [SPOILER] and promptly had to let them get the hell out dodge.

I really like the Anne Walker that lives in my head. She is a VITAL part of the Flock’s development, their mental/emotional recovery, and adding to their safety net to fall back on. She serves them as their first adult role model, and is the first adult to show them what parent/child are supposed to look like from a healthy perspective. Though she has several fuck ups, she becomes someone that the Flock genuinely trusts and loves, which makes it all the more difficult for them to leave when [REDACTED].

Notes:

She and Max do butt heads initially, because Max is paranoid and also afraid of becoming uneeded. This ends up being incredibly important because Max needs to learn how to live and find meaning in life without being the designated Leader/Parent/Big Sister

Anne, at one point, sits the entire flock down to teach them about consent, which was something no one ever talked about with them before. She goes in talking specifically about consent in a romantic/sexual sense (because they’re fourteen and that’s something they need to know), but quickly turns into a full-fledged no, people are NOT allowed to do that to you, what the FUCK.

She’s responsible for giving the flock a laptop. It’s because Angel is online schooled (bc telepathy makes actually learning difficult) and was therefore provided with a computer.

Anne is also allowed to swear, but only when it’s funny.

Michael “Grey” Rivers

Aka Grey from the Sewers Aka GR3Y H47 Aka Mike from the Bronx Aka Gifted Child Syndrome Incarnate Aka Would-be-in-MIT-if-his-parents-weren’t-horrible. He’s my son, your honour.

Basically, his backstory boils down to him being a genius, getting into MIT at 14, his (horrible) parents wanting a perfect child who could “make it out” of the Bronx and represent his family/neighborhood/borough to the world. When he inevitably failed their expectations due to stress, a schizophrenic-spectrum disorder that completely alienated him from the rest of his support network, and refusing to take his psych meds because the side effects were horrible and they made it harder to think (and therefore pass his classes), they kicked him out. He fully intends to go back to MIT when he turns 18 and has control of his finances/scholarships/medication/therapy.

So that’s how the flock meets him.

Mike ends up in a very prominent support role for the flock both in technological persuits (helping them track their parents, helping them get information from ITEX, trying to disable Max’s chip and failing multiple times until it becomes a matter of personal honour—), in helping the older members of the flock figure out how to deal with hallucinations/delusions (because he’s actually been to therapy, unlike them), and in being one of the only people who talks to them and helps them without any ulterior motive. He’s not trying to build a case against ITEX/The Institute of Higher Learning, he’s not double crossing them, he’s not plagued with guilt. He just genuinely wants to help them, and they genuinely want to help him, and that’s their first introduction to a healthy, non-codependent relationship.

My many disorganized notes on Michael Rivers:

He’s from specifically Morris Heights, Bronx, NYC.

He would say that his last name is actually Rivera, but his grandparents changed it to Rivers so it would sound more English, and his family has been in America for so long that he doesn’t know much about any Latino heritage he may or may not have. He identifies as African American, not Afro-Latino. He’s just bitter that his family felt the need to change their surname to have better opportunities in New York.

Nudge aggressively befriends him pretty much the moment she meets him, bullies him into teaching her how to code, and he very quickly adopts her as his pseudo-little-sister.

His delusions in the book seemed to involve government conspiracies, but as that’s the one delusion that is proved correct in the book, I’ve decided it would be best if his delusions and reality intersected a bit less if I don’t want to write him having a manic/paranoid episode in the second scene he has screen time. So his delusions are more based on “none of this is real”, “someone is recording everything I do and setting me up to fail” and “my ill-wishes on people can and will come true if I dwell on them too long.”. Government conspiracies are one of things he is skeptical about because he thinks most conspiracies are either “CIA admitted to this twenty years ago” or “antisemitism”.

He’s taking online free college classes that don’t actually give him any college credit, but they have good information and help him feel like he’s working towards something. He plans to double major in computer sciences and electrical engineering, minor in marine biology. He’s wanted to join NOAA since he was twelve and he is nothing if not stubborn.

There you go. These are my characters, now. I have custody.

#maximum ride on main #Maximum Ride rewrite

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ambiguousdisorderken · 3 years

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in your expert opinion what are some of the most destiel-heavy episodes of spn? i stopped watching around season 7 and have no interest in engaging w the plot of the show at all but i’m in the mood for some gay yearning ykwim

Hi anon! Thank you for reaching out to me about this, I’m, no-joke, very flattered. I’d seen a couple posts on this same question, very thorough and detailed lists on Destiel-centric episodes, but at the moment I cannot find any of them, that would’ve answered your request much faster. So, in advance, sorry, my reply is probably coming in extremely late, but I did write this from scratch, so yeah.

Even though storylines in SPN can be very shitty and hollow, I do feel that to get the full Destiel experience -that long-drawn yearning- one would have to watch the entirety of the show, even if Cas isn’t in the episode or if there’s no explicit mention of their relationship/bond because it gives you a better understanding of them as characters and of how their relationship affects the narrative.

Now, you mentioned you stopped around S7, which is completely understandable and justified given the Dick plot game was very weak and, in my opinion, annoying (so little Cas!). I’m going to start listing from S7 in case you want to refresh your SPN before jumping straight into unseen episodes. Also, since you mentioned no interest in the plot and are specifically craving those sweet crumbs of gay yearning, I’ll skip most one-sided / too subtle episodes and cut to the chase.

Lastly, I hate spoiling things, but you’ve probably seen it all on Tumblr. I tried to keep the episodes’ descriptions short, as it might come in useful. Stuck to key words, quotes and/or little comments.

Season 7

7x01 – Meet the New Boss: Godstiel, sincere apology. Cas: “I'm gonna find some way to redeem myself to you.”

7x02 – Hello, Cruel World: Mourning. Trench coat melancholy. The heart-wrenching eulogy: “Dumb son of a bitch.”

7x17 – The Born-Again Identity: Emmanuel!Cas, reunion, longing, hurt.

7x21 – Reading is Fundamental: Honey!Cas, hug, hurt, reunion, that painful SORRY (board game) scene.

7x23 – Survival of the Fittest: Honey!Cas, forgiveness, adorable, wified Cas. Dean hits us with: “Nobody cares that you're broken, Cas!" but also “I'd rather have you, cursed or not.”

Season 8 (this season is so good and Destiel is the driving motor of it, I swear. If you can, watch it complete.)

8x01 – We Need to Talk About Kevin: Dean in Purgatory looking for the angel. Cas is referred to as “your [Dean’s] angel.”

8x02 – What’s Up, Tiger Mommy?: HUG!!!, Purgatory reunion, face touch, very romantic. Monster: “ You'll find your angel there.” // Dean: “Let me bottom-line it for you. I'm not leaving here without you.”

8x05 – Blood Brother: Cas vs. Benny cat fight lol. Dean: “Cas... we're gonna shove your ass back through the eye of that needle if it kills all three of us.”

8x07 – A Little Slice of Kevin: Cas comes back from Purgatory, but before that Dean starts seeing him in places. Very tragic; hallucinating your dead significant other trope. Has That boner scene. Dean: “I did everything I could to get you out! EVERYTHING!” Cas helps Dean see what truly happened in Purgatory and not his self-altered memories. PACKED!

8x08 – Hunteri Heroici: Hilarious, romantic, intimate. Dean and Cas have an heart to heart. They actually communicate. Cas “I’ll watch over you.”

8x10 Torn and Frayed: They work a case together, and when I say heart eyes…

8x17 – Goodbye Stranger: THIS. EPISODE. Dean “I need you.”

8x19 – Taxi Driver: Separation. Naomi to Dean: "You're hoping Castiel will return to you. I admire your loyalty; I only wish he felt the same way."

8x22 – Clip Show: Lack of trust, hurt, tense interactions. Romantic too (basically, Cas gets Dean an apology basket).

8x23 – Sacrifice: Meaningful conversation and a gay couple hit by Cupid parallel. Dean “So this is it? E.T goes home?"

Season 9

9x01 – I think I’m Gonna Like it Here: Dean prays to Cas IN.A.CHAPEL. Worry, longing, separation. Dean “Please, man, I need you here.”

9x03 – I’m No Angel: Human!Cas and jealous!Dean.

9x06 – Heaven Can’t Wait: Human!Cas TEXT-BOOK LONGING. GAY AS FUCK. Gazing, touching, they even TALK (for real).

9x09 – Holy Terror: Adorable Cas, flirty vibes, happyish, funny. Cas: “Cas is back in town!”

9x10 – Road Trip: Cas comforts Dean, Cas and Crowley bitching at each other, overall protective!Cas.

9x18 – Metafiction. Cas finds out about the Mark of Cain.

9x21 – King of the Damned: Hug, strong boyfriends vibes.

9x22 – Stairway to Heaven: Cas gives up an entire army, for Dean. Metatron about Cas “He's in love………………………. with humanity.”

9x23 – Do You Believe in Miracles?: At this point, it’s canon stated that Cas will do anything and lose everything if that means saving Dean. Metatron to Cas “You draped yourself in the flag of heaven, but ultimately, it was all about saving one human, right?”

Season 10

10x01 – Black: Demon!Dean and sick/brokenhearted Cas in a slutty robe missing his man.

10x03 – Soul Survivor: ICONIC. Angel on Demon action! Cas turns down Hannah because he’s too gay and in love. Intimate Deancas talk.

10x05 – Fan Fiction: No Cas, but Destiel references.

10x09 – The Things We Left Behind: That.Lunch.Date. Deancas introduction to co-parenting.

10x14 – The Executioner’s Song: We get Daddy Murder aka Cain. This is a Pivotal episode to understand Dean’s character development. Plus, it has Deancas interactions.

10x16 – Paint It Black: No Cas, but Dean opens up in confessionary; repressed BISEXUAL AS FUCK.

10x18 – Book of the Damned: Charlie meets Cas. Gay energies everywhere. Cute domestic little scene.

10x20 – Angel Heart: PARENTING! Essential to understand Cas from this point forward.

10x22 – The Prisoner: Just… just watch it. One of THEE Destiel episodes.

10x23 – Brother’s Keeper: No Deancas interactions but it’s the finale, and I recommend watching it because next season takes off literally right from here. No time jumps.

Season 11

11x02 – Form and Void: Could skip to the very end which is when Cas comes back.

11x03 – The Bad Seed: Cursed!Cas. Dean takes care of him, even wraps him in a blanket. He also cradles his face. Extreme Hurt/Comfort. Jacting joices rejoice.

11x10 – The Devil in the Details: Could skip but has Casifer in it. Interesting to see his dynamic with Dean.

11x18 – Hell’s Angel: Casifer. Dean "It? It's not an it, Sam, it's Cas!"

11x23 – Alpha and Omega: Huggg! Cas willing to go on a guaranteed suicide mission with Dean. Very tender and sad.

Season 12

12x02 – Keep Calm and Carry On: ANOTHER HUG! Dean presents his boyfriend to his mom<3 Soft and romantic.

12x09 – First Blood: Reunion hug<3, Cas pining… as in he counts his every minute without Dean.

12x10 – Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets: Direct parallel with canon couple. Crystal-clear mutual affection. One of the best. Angel Ishim to Cas about Dean “I'm gonna help you. I'm gonna cure you of your human weakness same way I cured my own… by cutting it out.”

12x12 – Stuck in the Middle with You: A dying Cas confesses his love. “I love you. I love all of you.”

12x19 – The Future: We find out Dean gave Cas a MIXTAPE!!! Very romantic and full of yearning, also worry and what could be seen as a betrayal (ish…).

12x23 – All Along the Watch Tower: Hands down, one of the most distressing Destiel episodes. Cas dies.

Season 13

13x01 – Lost and Found: This is the worst because you have Dean trying to assimilate Cas’ death. Core of Dean’s widow’s arc. Jack introduction, that’s their new kid.

13x02 – The Rising Son: Widow’s arc (you could skip it, but why would you?).

13x03 – Patience: Widow’s arc (you could skip it, but why would you?). Dean to Sam “He manipulated him, he made him promises, said, ‘paradise on earth’ and Cas bought it and you know what that got him? It got him dead! Now you might be able to forget about that, but I can’t!”

13x04 – The Big Empty: Continuation of widow’s arc and Cas wakes up in the Empty. The Empty to Cas: "I know who you love. There's nothing for you back there." // Dean to Sam “I need you to keep the faith, for both of us. ‘Cause right now, I… Right now, I don’t believe in a damn thing.”

13x05 – Advanced Thanatology: Suicidal and hopeless Dean gets his win. Cas comes back. Gives me the chills.

13x06 – Tombstone: COWBOY BOYFRIENDS!

13x14 – Good Intentions: Happy and fun Destiel scene. So Very Married.

13x23 – Let The Good Times Roll: Season finale, Dean talks about retiring (plans include Cas of course) and just very nice to see them interact.

Season 14

14x03 – The Scar: Reunion.

14x08 – Byzantium: Deanand Cas dealing with their child’s death, then bringing him back by Cas making a deal with the Empty. IMPORTANT EPISODE.

14x09 – The Spear: Cas uses the royal We – married behavior.

14x10 – Nihilism: Dean is stuck in his own mind, and Cas and Sam try to bring him back. Cas “Please, you have to -- you have to try to remember, because the people in your life -- in your real life, out there -- we need you to come back.”

14x12 – Prophet and Loss: Dean gets his very own Dr. Sexy, aka Dr. Cas.

14x14 – Ouroboros: Basically another date (their kid tags along) and They TALK. Very intimate and established marriage vibes.

14x18 – Absence: Shits starts to go south. [ Dean: “Who cares what Jack said? We don't know what happened! But I swear, if he did something to her, if she is -- (points to Castiel) Then you're dead to me. (Castiel looks crushed after Dean says that).]

14x20 – Moriah: Tense and very upsetting. Relationship very damaged.

Season 15 (I would advise watching the entire season because it relies heavily on Destiel. They’re the heart and the emotional motor leading the plot onwards.)

15x01 – Back and To The Future: Deancas’ in the aftermath of their kid’s death. Tension gets worse.

15x02 – Raising Hell: Tension rises, this is very intense. Cas “Dean. You asked, "What about all of this is real?" We are.”

15x03 – The Rupture: Breaking point ends in divorce.

15x06 – Golden Time: Painful phone call which speaks volumes about the current state of their relationship at the time. Also, good to see where they’re standing and how they’re coping.

15x08 – Our Father Who Aren’t in Heaven: Strained relationship so obvious they’re offered couples’ therapy.

15x09 – The Trap: MASTERPIECE. Back to Purgatory. Can (and is) taken as Dean’s love confession (because it is).

15x12 – Galaxy Brain: So married. Little domestic date, you can see LOVE written in their faces.

15x13 – Destiny’s Child: AU!Dean and Sam. Not a yearning episode per se, but AU!Dean? SO GAY.

15x17 – Unity: God reveals that the only act of free will in any universe he ever created has been Cas choosing Dean.

15x18 – Despair: Cas confesses his love to Dean.

#Anonymous #thanks for coming to my ted talk #im posting this at 2:30 am so i'll most likely reblog it at a more reasonable hour ..in case anon is closer to my time zone #why am i even saying this..im sleepy #destiel #answered #destiel episode guide #there might be number/name mistakes because again sleepish.forgive me #long post

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crimeronan · 3 years

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Can you explain the appeal of Julian Blackthorn? This is a genuine question because I read the books and came away utterly bored by him and unconvinced of his moral greyness as opposed to like, Adam Parrish’s. He seemed so one dimensional to me but I want to know if I’m Wrong TM considering I tend to be very very biased toward my favourite characters and bored by the rest, and my favourites were Mark and Kieran. So maybe I just didn’t pay him enough attention??

it’s been a while since i wrote any earnest tsc meta but cringe culture is dead and the chance to infodump about my julian thoughts has me vibrating where i’m sitting so. yes okay.

technical stuff

(aka: things pertaining to How The Story Is Constructed)

cassandra clare’s characterization has become much stronger just in general since she first began writing the series like twenty years ago

perhaps most importantly: the more recent stuff i’ve read from her has involved characters who actually grow, change, and learn from their past mistakes

rather than repeating the same stupid decisions over and over again

and over and over and over some more

seriously take a shot every time someone in tmi miscommunicates or self-destructs in ways They Have Learned Not To Do for no real reason. u will die of alcohol poisoning

in tda this shines ESPECIALLY with the evolution of mark, kieran, and cristina’s relationship, but that’s a separate post

clare’s trademark is also the angsty traumatized jerkass love interest with a secret heart of gold

the woman is almost singlehandedly responsible for draco in leather pants and the proliferation of this kind of character type in fandom and teen lit. this isn’t a criticism it’s me marveling at how if you commit hard enough to a single trope you truly can change the world. follow your dreams

sad jackass with a heart of gold isn’t an Inherently Problematic Character Type

but poorly done it can lead to relationship dynamics in which one partner is constantly being hurt by and then forgiving the other despite them making no real effort to change, because they are narratively absolved due to being sad

(there’s a lot of this with earlier jace content. in some ways i think will was later created specifically to be a same-archetype protagonist who actually does get called on his shit and grow. that’s also another post)

also if all of your sexy male love interests are tortured jackasses with a heart of gold then people start calling you a one-trick pony

enter julian blackthorn!

from the very start everything about him is designed to be the INVERSE of the heart of gold jackass. which immediately makes him interesting just from a meta perspective

(mark and kieran are also both alternate angles on this time-honored archetype. mark gets the heart of gold and kieran gets the jackass and then they’re both much more deeply messy than that. yet another post)

julian is kind, self-sacrificing, empathetic, artistic, emotionally supportive, responsible, and favored by old grannies everywhere

so a completely nonthreatening milquetoast guy, right

immediately forgettable if you’re only here for the dramatic conflicts and shithead antics of clare’s other protags

except that he is A Mess

and that he has structured his priorities very carefully, and they are as selfless as you expect from The Hero (TM) but they are also Not Heroic (TM) and they do not align with the moral framework The Hero (TM) is supposed to use

moral ambiguity in characters always exists in relation to their narratives imo. you mention adam parrish - trc’s narrative already mucks around in different ethical shades of gray, and adam falls on the canon scale about where julian does on his canon scale. both more willing than the average pov character to do the ruthless thing or make the fucked-up choice if the ends justify the means; both with an intensely strong sense of internal priorities that they adhere to at all costs, both so unbelievably fucking down for murder; etc

i do think there are ways julian’s choices could have been pushed even further, but considering the number of readers who hate his guts already, i can see why clare opted not to go for the most controversial possible conflicts

so we’re flipping the narrative

instead of seeing this angsty bad boy and peeling back the layers of his trauma to find his heart of gold, we’re seeing the put-together selfless family man and peeling back the layers of his Responsibility Mask to expose the rotting husk underneath

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

THAT IS FUN AS FUCK

then when julian DOES lash out in hurtful, uncontrolled ways, he has significantly more narrative justification for it than most of clare’s protagonists (will elaborate in characterization thoughts)

julian is also interesting as fuck because of how his struggles allow for a more in-depth look at the failings of shadowhunter society, something that’s also sorely lacking in clare’s earlier work

his apparent amorality is simply the result of him making pragmatic and impossible choices because he has been faced with fucked-up ethical dilemmas since age 12 Because Society Has Failed Him

which opens the door for narrative exploration of how and why he’s been failed so badly & what needs to change

i also love that he has such a coldly calculated way of analyzing situations and allowing harm to occur when need be, bc a lot of clare’s early protagonists have such a bad case of Rush In And Get Myself Killed Because I’ve Got Feelings About Impulsive Heroism syndrome that i wanna push them in front of a truck

probably there’s other meta narrative stuff i could say but i’m stopping myself and moving on to character analysis

characterization stuff

(aka: reasons why i’m also attached to him in a vacuum)

i don’t read him as one-dimensional at all tbh

u may feel the narrative pushes “ruthless julian blackthorn” too much without delivering enough actual ruthless julian But i don’t think that’s the same as having only one dimension

from the get-go, the big question centered on julian is always “how far are you willing to go?” and the narrative pushes the stakes slowly higher and higher to continuously test julian’s “the price is always justified” mindset

he has a far more layered and realistic response to trauma than clare’s early protagonists - trauma affects every single aspect of his personality and how he conducts himself, and the effects vary depending on the circumstances

his conviction that he has to be the perfect parent to his siblings because they will fall apart if they see him show weakness?? rooted in how he feels like he’s fallen apart since losing the stable adult support he once relied upon

his willingness to hurt semi-innocent people, commit coldblooded murder, manipulate people using political leverage, allow harm to befall any stranger if it protects his family?? rooted in how he has already had to ask himself how much he’s willing to sacrifice, and how his family is his only source of stability when the world has never done Shit for him

his conviction that he has a darker heart than anyone else because he killed his possessed father, even though intellectually he knows he was saving his brother’s life?? rooted in having no means of processing this trauma and being unable to voice his feelings for fear of backlash from a deeply non-understanding society

the way he represses every single negative emotion he ever has, to the point where emma - his actual literal magic soulmate who can feel his emotions - is startled to find him hurting or angry?? once again all about how he has to be the perfect father or he’s failed completely

the way his anger is so totally disproportionate to different situations and the way his negative emotions can only come out in completely uncontrolled breaks?? all that repression baybey. this kid has not processed a single bad feeling in five years. every single real grievance and petty annoyance has been festering indefinitely inside him like a slowly spreading infection

julian’s arc involves him needing to get thru being his worst self to actually start to heal

as in, he has to actually learn to acknowledge his feelings, take care of himself, lean on his family, and let other people take some responsibility

he also has to learn that in his quest to be the perfect emotionally controlled authority figure, he has not actually learned how to control or deal with his emotions. like. At Fucking All. good god

the narrative setup is also about asking “how far are you willing to go?” until the answer is finally “not this far. not this far”

and once he reaches that point, he has to reevaluate everything about how he weighs his priorities and morals and plans, etc

(i also like that emma has a perpendicular arc in which she’s always the one tempering julian and telling him “no we can’t go that far” until she’s willing to do something horrific that he absolutely won’t and HE has to stop HER. very sexy)

it’s also just really nice to have a character who’s learned to relate so well to literally every single member of his family while still having a very detached ruthless interior consciousness. i have similar feelings about how adam teaches himself to love people, but with julian it’s spelled out more explicitly in canon & it’s a more central character theme

i’m sure i’m also forgetting stuff here but this post is long enough so i’m gonna say good enough

and like i said in the tags on my other post, there are things i’d personally write differently if it were my story - plot points i’d shift, character contrasts i’d up, themes i’d explore differently, pacing i’d adjust, etc. i have plenty of ways i could be nitpicky and editorial about the effectiveness of julian’s arc. but i also don’t feel like writing them out at the moment & none of my critiques on effectiveness have an impact on the core appeal of his character 2 me. he’s so fucking good

#replies #tsc #tda #julian blackthorn #meta #long post #ungodly long post.#shadowhunters #Anonymous

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cybernaght · 3 years

Text

Guardian rewatch: Episode 5

I thought this would be a shorter recap. Ha!

Every now and then throughout this show we are getting CGI wide shots of the Dragon City, mostly establishing the time of day. They have three settings: nighttime, daytime, and sunset/sunrise. While quality-wise those wide shots would not feel out of place in a video game from ten years ago, with buildings looking all rubbery, I actually really like this sunset sky. I also appreciate that they firmly establish that this is city is not, in fact, a real place. I almost wish the architecture was a little bit less familiar, but making the city look truly otherworldly here would make location scouting much harder. As it happens, the buildings on the forefront have a very 60’s art deco revival inspired feeling, and there are some distinctively neoclassical buildings peppered around as well. We can also see that the roads are very wide, and generally there is a hint of Stalinist grandioseness about the downtown. Unfortunately, it looks nothing like the locations and sets the characters are running in; we also get a feeling that the Dragon City is very large, which is not entirely consistent with the very few locations that were available when shooting the series. This shot does, however, remind me the city I grew up in (Moscow).

The actual plot of the episode centres around Huang Linqi and his fiancé, Li Jiaqi, going missing - it will be important, because their disastrous wedding will produce the most Clark Kent moment that Shen Wei will ever have. We also meet the parents of the couple, who are stinking rich and extremely unpleasant. It also introduces us to Butler Wu (Wu Tian’en) and his son, who will become important in later episodes. Butler Wu is not actually the villain of the piece, despite this shot clearly telling us otherwise.

Back at the university, Shen Wei is having a morning tea with his dean. He holding his teacup with almost god-like elegance, very close to actually covering his mouth when he drinks, which is extremely old-fashioned. This is in stark contrast with him brazenly and un-gentlemanly showing his ankles.

Shen Wei is asked to move off campus, because, apparently, having a chief of the special task force showing up at your office is bad for the reputation. Since the professor does not look surprised, and states that he has already found a flat, I’m guessing that he was clever enough to have predicted this turn of events, and used it to secure the place a breath away from Zhao Yunlan. It is up to speculation as to when he started scouting for an apartment: it could not have been more than a few weeks since he met Zhao Yunlan, and finding a flat can take a while.

At the SID office, we are treated to a lovely moment between the team members, crowding around Lin Jin’s new invention: a popcorn-specific microwave.

It’s very sweet to see the team indulge in some nonsense outside of their case work, made even better by Wang Zheng being there. The fact that Zhao Yunlan is on board with his department’s time and resources being spent on a popcorn maker only makes this scene better. He is crouching on the table, because chairs are for the weak.

After inspecting the crime scene, Zhao Yunlan is spending some time outside chatting to Buttler Wu, and comments on Li Jiaqi’s good looks, since Zhao Yunlan is a man who can appreciate beauty.

As Xiao Guo is awe-struck at his boss’ ability to note someone’s prettiness from a distance, Chu Shuzhi literally rolls his eyes calling those “instincts of a beast”, and Zhao Yunlan fails to reprimand him for the remark, because… fair enough. Very fair enough. It’s hard not to relate to Zhao Yunlan, a self-admitted bi disaster.

Shen Wei is being shown his new apartment. He does not even look around it, staring instead at Zhao Yunlan’s front door across the hall from him.

Moving here is a completely senseless thing to do. How on earth is he planning to hide his Hei Pao Shi persona while being a next door neighbour to the chief of SID? My conclusion is that from a character stand-point, it’s nothing but an act of desperate devotion; from a narrative stand-point, this codifies that their relationship is about to get very intimate indeed.

The SID members are interrogating Buttler Wu: as is often the case, instead of bringing him in, like they did with Shen Wei, they hijack a cafe nearby to have a more relaxed conversation. As they talk, Shen Wei is making his way past the cafe, which both Wu Tian'en and Shen Wei notice.

Shen Wei proceed to follow Butler Wu, who calls him out on it. This leads to a removal of his glasses so epic it warrants a jump-cut to close-up, on top of the dutch angle used mere seconds prior to it.

Instantly recognizing Shen Wei as Hei Pao Shi, Wu Tian’en sinks to his knees in reverence. Again, fair enough. After having a brief conversation about their shared history, Shen Wei states that Butler Wu is not allowed to lay a hand on Zhao Yunlan.

“Chief Zhao? You’re stalking him?”

“You don’t need to know more.”

That is not a no. Mostly because that is a yes.

Shen Wei promises to not take Wu Tian’en away before the man resolves his current problems, adding that he hopes his old acquaintance won’t have any regrets when that happens. As Shen Wei walks away, he muses “Then how much time is there left for me?”

(And I have to fight an uncomfortable sinking feeling in my stomach, which is occurring a lot as I rewatch those series.)

The same evening at the SID offices the team is struggling with the case so much Da Qing suggests asking Hei Pao Shi’s help. Zhao Yunlan bristles at the idea, and… calls Shen Wei instead. Of course he does.

To be fair, he does so to check whether the other man is stalking him, but he also calls him by his given name rather Professor Shen, reinforcing that he makes this enquiry as a friend, not at as the chief of the Special Investigations Department.

During the phone call Shen Wei is absentmindedly playing with the corner of the publication he is reading.

While Yunlan does not deny that he still thinks Shen Wei is potentially up to something dodgy, he still proceeds to ask his advice on the case. This continues the dynamic from the previous episode: it’s not that Yunlan is completely blind, it’s just that he trusts Shen Wei regardless of the secrets he might be hiding.

Moving on, here’s what I have to say on he topic of bad CGI. There are several reasons in the world for a piece of visual media to have a poor quality computer animation. It could be laziness, or it could be absence of imagination, both of which are inexcusable. It also could be absence of funds, as is the case with the Guardian. And, honestly, I am alright with that. It’s not their fault, and I would much rather see this drama as it is - bad CGI and all - than none at all.

And, the quality of CGI here has energy similar to Live Action Sailor Moon (PGSM), which I honestly find both nostalgic and endearing.

That show also has a talking cat, but it’s performed by a literal plush toy on strings, so Guardian certainly wins here.

While Huang Linqi and Li Jiaqi are being kept together (possibly in an alternate dimension, seeing as how they have emerged from the lake completely dry), they talk through their relationship issues, and the audience finds itself with a sugar-sweet take on the arranged marriage/strangers to lovers trope. I feel a little bit bad about their disaster wedding now.

At the same time, Xiao Jun and Wu Tian’en’s story is a tiny echo of Shen Wei end Je Zun: the son thinks his dad left him to fend for himself when he was young and vulnerable, and distrusts the very concept of love because of that perceived abandonment. Unlike Je Zun however, he stops to have an actual conversation, which ultimately forces him to quit his senseless act of revenge, and make the first step on the path of reconciliation and redemption. This is Guardian telling us that communication skills do, in fact, matter.

He also drops this bombshell of a line, which hurts my heart a lot.

“In the face of death every love in the world is mere foam”

On an entirely separate note, I am very glad that the actor who plays Butler Wu is wearing nice thick knee pads.

They are very visible, and they make a little “boing” when he hits the ground, but the actor has to fall to his knees twice in this episode, both times on hard surfaces, one of which is literal gravel, and I’m happy that the production is being considerate of their actors’ physical well-being.

While this episode does not mark the first time Zhao Yunlan is being understanding to the Undergrounders in pain, this is the first time anti-Unvergrounder bigotry is explicitly framed in a negative light. The two evil businessmen, who cast a child aside just because he has special powers, are shown as unquestionably in the wrong. Xiao Jun is lightly scolded for his rash actions, but he is not brought back to SID in cuffs, and he is not immediately given away to Hei Pao Shi. Far from that: he is brought in softly, to spend some time at his dying father’s side.

As Butler Wu slipping away, we once more see Guo Changcheng being recklessly heroic, as he is prepared to use the Longevity Dial to share his life force. Instead of letting him do it, Zhao Yunlan snatches the Hallow away and decides to perform this particular miracle himself. This is the same man who will later sacrifice his eyesight to bring people’s lives back. Bai Yu’s acting in that moment is utterly phenomenal, showing a whole range of emotion from horror to determination to dismay in mere seconds.

Hei Pao Shi teleports in, and, without a preamble, scolds Zhao Yunlan (the first episode in the series-long “don’t touch the Hallows” saga), and then asks him whether it’s worth shortening his life for an Undergrounder. This is in equal parts a provocation and a test, because I’m fairly certain that Shen Wei was going to save Wu Tian’en anyway.

As SID members beg Hei Pao Shi to save Butler Wu in perfect unison, Zhao Yunlan states that a person is a person, regardless of their origin. Shen Wei notes inwardly that SID had changed, and, as expected, heals Butler Wu, while Yunlan stares at his power with relief and awe.

Since I have talked about the wide shot of the Dragon City, let’s talk about its counterpart in the Underworld.

I have failed to notice before that there appears to be a vast city next to the volcano river, some way away from the royal Palace, looming over it. Geographically, this makes little sense: we will see characters leave the Palace and instantly end up in a city square throughout the series, but I still really enjoy this wide shot. It is also interesting to see the architecture of the place. It is somewhere between (western) medieval abodes and futuristic shipment container blocks, with living spaces built on top of each other, crammed-in, and unpleasant. I also love the lighting here, contrasting blue and red.

Hallows random power #n: projecting their brethren. Imagine how useful it would be if they also did that for the Brush and the Lantern.

The next day, Zhao Yunlan and Da Qing are on a leisurely morning jog, while Yunlan is wearing bottoms that my partner refers to as “sheggings” (as in, shorts + leggings)

They are talking about Shen Wei, naturally. In my head-canon, Zhao Yunlan is driving his colleagues nuts because can’t help himself but bring the good professor up every goddamn minute of every goddamn day.

As they turn the corner to go home, they bump into the subject of discussion, who informs them that he moved into the building, and leaves abruptly looking more than slightly pleased with himself.

Finally, we are treated to Guo Changcheng’s surveillance exam. I don’t know why he thought this outfit would make him look less conspicuous.

Eventually, the SID will learn that some of their staff members don’t have to be fighters or detectives. In Xiao Guo, they have found the heart of their team, and that is enough.

Next up, Episode 6: The Coat Zhao Yunlan Will Buy

—

PS: I have mentioned earlier, that I have a sinking feeling as I watch Guardian, and I would like to elaborate on that. You see, I am very scared of flying. It’s an irrational fear, but it is the one I nonetheless have. There is a very specific feeling I get just as the plane starts gaining speed on the runway: there is joy, because at the end of this journey they is something to look forward to (my parents’ hugs, a drink with a friend, a favourite place, a new city to explore), but there is also a painful anticipation, as I brace for the moment the aircraft will tilt upwards, knowing that I will be pushed back into my chair by gravity, battling against an onslaught of a panic attack, shaking, learning to breathe, fighting with everything I have to keep my heart rate down. Watching Guardian from the beginning, knowing where the story is going, mirrors that feeling perfectly.

PPS: The following conversation happened with my partner as I way typing this recap.

My partner: Do you think Shen Wei ever wears sheggings?

Me: Sweetie, I think he would rather die.

#guardian #shen wei #zhao yunlan #weilan #rewatch #recap #please help I can't stop rambling

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flightofaqrow · 3 years

Text

YOUR CHARACTER IN FIVE QUOTES!

( repost, do not reblog. ) Tell us your favorite quotes from your character. Give us an idea of who they are by five things they’ve said.

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Alright, buckle up, I’m stealing this meme and repurposing it for my own use. Probably more than five, and including some quotes from others about him, though I’m going to try to keep it in groupings, and also not meant to be exhaustive of qrow’s character, but rather, to point out some very poignant lines that have effected my portrayal and... some possibly in an unpopular way compared to what I’ve seen in the fandom? I think Qrow Branwen is more complex than fitting the broody broken boi trope would give credit for (though he at least fits it as an overall stereotype).

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1) I’m absolutely sure Qrow had a rough start and transition from the tribe to ‘civilized society’, coupled with typical teenage hormones and mood swings, but generally, Beacon was a good time, and he sees himself as a good huntsman, and (though we may joke about it sometimes) he absolutely does not have an active nor passive death wish.

Yeah, yeah, I know he has a song all about how he self depreciates and carries shame, but that’s a theme of his attitude, not backed up to be every single aspect of his life by actual canon. Quite the contrary.

I don’t know where fndm gets the idea that he constantly lost his battles (especially to Raven) or was perpetually looked down on or stayed an angsty, broody teenager (who could never possibly have ever even breathed a single happy breath on his own without Summer??) all four years. As if school was hell and he never came into his own until STRQ was a graduated unit or something? If ever?

Leo tells Raven she and her brother are evenly matched. Raven herself - who takes pride in being stronger and more clever than others - describes them as a pair: “we were good.”

“you're talking to a member of the coolest team that graduated Beacon! ...we were pretty well known back in the day. ...hey, we looked good! and I have a number of inappropriate stories to back that up!”

“let me tell ya, these kids are way better than we were at their age. ...well, not better than me, specifically...”

“a professional huntsman like myself is expected to get results as soon as possible.”

The way Qrow talks about his past, as well as carrying a memento of team STRQ around with him, it’s very nostalgic for better times. The way he talks about his work, if not himself, can actually be to the point of being self-aggrandizing, instead of depreciating. He’s even able to admit that his dreaded semblance, Misfortune, “comes in handy in a fight.”

“lots of us thought you were just layin' low. eventually, we just came to accept that you were probably dead. but the stories about you, i based my weapon off of yours. i wanted to be as good as the Grimm Reaper.”

Qrow talks about himself as striving to be better. It seems he never really sees himself as reaching that standard, but it certainly implies he knows he’s not at the bottom - he had an ideal he wanted to reach and likely worked towards. Notice the use of “us” and “we” as well - he talks about himself as part of a group of larger huntsfolk circles. Who knows if this refers to students or licensed professionals or both, but this heavily, heavily implies that he was more than just a sad, outside loner, at least for a time; he chatted with others and traded stories about goings-on and missions and idols.

Somewhat related and leading into...

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2) At least around this blog, Qrow does not have an inferiority complex because of Raven.

Does he have some internalized shame about being soft that he can’t quite shake? A few insecurities about being unwanted compared to her natural leadership and competence? Yes. Does he consciously view himself as lesser than her? No.

Also... he’s not co-dependent on her. To a degree, for while? Yeah, there was probably an unhealthy reliance going on there. But Qrow and Raven establish themselves with their own identities at some point, they’d have to, to chose different paths so stubbornly. There’s a rift there, eventually, if not always having been at odds in some ways and comfort in others.

“Raven's got an interesting way of looking at the world that I don't particularly agree with. [The weak die, the strong live. Those are the rules.]”

“...they were killers and thieves.”

We are shown that the twins were raised with this weak/strong dichotomy. Raven bought into it, but Qrow explicitly separates himself from that belief. Shown again when he mocks Raven with, “because that was your rule, right?”

He believes in true family, he believes in protecting the weak, he believes in doing good, he believes in standing up for what’s right. He may not like being emotionally vulnerable, but he shows softness and kindness to others, and for as much as he likes his flourish when fighting, he also isn’t afraid to look an absolute fool either.

He is shown de-escalating conflict time and again, even if he also falls back into violent, defensive patterns at times, too. He resents Raven for the choices she made, and as far as I interpret, thinks she’s the lesser one for running away and abandoning her family and her mission. (Meanwhile, she thinks the same of him for turning his back on the tribe.)

He all but spits on the tribe’s way of life, is willing to attack them outright to get the Spring Maiden. Why would he judge himself by those standards any longer? No, he lives by his own code, a huntsman’s code, and even has some pride in that. It’s why he can call Clover out on it. It’s why he folds when Robyn holds him to it.

It’s why it hurts when he finds out what gave him more meaning, aligned more with his own heart, than the tribe’s dogma may not actually have any purpose at all...

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3) There’s so much to unpack here:

“No one wanted me... I was cursed... I gave my life to you because you gave me a place in this world... I thought I was finally doing some good... Meeting you... was the worst luck of my life...”

No one wanted him? I believe this means the tribe, maybe even Raven, maybe trying to make friends, but no one until Oz? Does this include STRQ? I have trouble reconciling that one with everything else we’re shown. I still maintain he was part of bigger circles, but we get confirmation that these were probably fleeting or superficial. He knew people and was known, but no one stuck around. Also more confirmation of his values. Gave me a place sounds like so much more than refocusing to me. It’s not gave me a direction, not told me what to do, it’s took who i am and gave that person a place to thrive - despite the bad that comes with - to work towards something better. Just like he always wanted.

But then he backtracks. What is it he regrets? We do know how he likes to go into dramatic hyperbole about these things when he’s upset. [eg. “we’re not family anymore.” “i shouldn’t have come. i shouldn’t have let any of you come.” “we can kill the man who put us here.” “gone. like everybody else.”] (I love that crwby lets their characters do it. we all say things we don’t mean in the moment, give voice to those intrusive thoughts.)

I’ve talked before about how I picture him having flashes of all the lives he could have had instead. Would he have gone back with Raven and at least still had her? Would he just have been a normal huntsman defending people from Grimm without the crushing extra knowledge? Might he have been able to have a relationship or family of his own had he not signed up for the vagabond spy life? Does he just resent losing Summer and Raven because of how things went down? We don’t know, and I think the point is that he probably doesn’t either, but the weight of sacrificing all those alternatives and putting so much faith in Ozpin, stacking so much of his life’s work and identity on being part of the inner circle, comes crashing down on him all at once.

also quite fitting...

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4) "Nice place to raise a family. ...If you're ...into that sort of thing."

This is from his World of Remnant narration, talking about Patch, but it hits so damn hard. The softness and warmth in the first half of the statement, followed by the harsh need to qualify it in regards to his own outlook... We learn all we need to know about his opinion of the subject.

We see the conflict right there - the possibility of such a thing brings a wholesome lilt to his voice, yet he implies that it’s not something he personally intends to pursue. Is that because he doesn’t want it or because he thinks he can’t or shouldn’t have it? I don’t think that’s clear, and he may not know either.

At the very least, I fall into the camp of him believing he doesn’t want it. Combine that with the fact that he does pick up that spy life, which makes keeping his distance a necessity, and makes settling down near impossible, and then he definitely knows it’s not in the cards for him.

So I think it ultimately falls somewhere between. Why would he make the commitment to being a lone spy if he had dreams of love and a family? ...But then why would he resent making the sacrifice of that possibility later if he didn’t?

Having his nieces around probably softened him up to the idea, but he’d already made his decision by that point. He’s also solid and generally happy with his choices at the point it would most matter. He’s married to his job. He’s fulfilling his missions well, in well-suited ways for his strengths and flaws. He has his nieces around as a balm on any sort of biological clock. He has his purpose with Oz. Until he doesn’t.

This is an incredibly long-winded way of restating that one of the headcanon hills I do stand to die on is: Gray-romantic Qrow.

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5) “some people are just born unlucky... my semblance isn't like most - it's not exactly something i... do.”

I am constantly confused by the amount of people trying to do character analysis around Misfortune and Qrow based on standard semblance lore, when he has yet again stated explicitly to the contrary. We all have carte blanche ya’ll. We can do whatever we want with this, because he’s already told us his semblance breaks the rules.

My full headcanon for it is here and my opinion about the direction I hope it takes is here but tl;dr

Unless we learn otherwise, there are very, very few ways I believe Misfortune is a reflection of Qrow’s soul, if at all. This is from the first headcanon, but it’s worth restating, because it’s important to me, aaand fits the theme of pulling in some quotes from other characters:

Everyone likes to quote Ren and his description of someone’s personality being incorporated into a semblance. I don’t buy it for qrow. Here’s the FULL quote: “A common philosophy is that a warrior’s Semblance is a part of who they are. Some say your personality and character can define your Semblance while some claim that it is the other way around. Of course, there are still many who don’t see a connection at all.”

So unless we find out otherwise I will also die on the hill that qrow is an example of the middle part. Qrow’s personality/soul has nothing to do with why his semblance is what it is, but being forced to grow up and live with Misfortune has defined him tremendously.

OKAY, there are some smaller quick ones, but I’ll stick to my five points like I promised at least, and maybe do a lesser version some other time. :]

#qrow branwen #* legends and stories; some of them true; some made up = meta *#* hey don't get mad cause i'm right = headcanon *#long post tw

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avenger-hawk · 3 years

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Hi you have a great understanding of Sasuke's character and awesome blog. Could I ask you for tips on how to write Sasuke right in fanfiction? When I try I never seem to get him right

Hello and thanks Anon. First of all, y’all don’t get offended if I’ll destroy some of your fave tropes in fics...I don’t judge ppl writing what they want in their fics, it’s their own fic so ofc they write what they want and how they want it and if they have fun with gay-uncle-Izuna, CEOItachi and sluttySasuke good for them...but when ppl impose their OOC Sasuke (or Nar or Itachi&co) as the real thing, and boy if they do....well. Nope.

Anyway I replied to similar asks here, here and here, so I’ll copy-paste some parts. My Sasuke tag. More Sasuke meta. More headcanons. More essays tag.

Sasuke is not dominant. He’s not bossy. He’s not assertive. He’s very passive in relationships and he values individual freedom, his own and other people’s. Ppl mistake his determination in pursuing his goals with assertiveness but it’s a totally different thing. He never makes the first move with ppl, unless he has a goal and he needs them, and even when he needs them, like Taka, he never imposes his will on them. He first freed them then he asked their help for his own goal, saying that he would accept if they refused. He never imposed himself on his brother (a child wanting his big brother’s attention is not being dominant, it’s natural) and he never did it on Nar or anyone else.

Sasuke is not selfish, he is the most selfless character in the whole series. He respected people, he didn’t see himself above them. He didn’t see himself as a genius or anything. He worked hard because he had a low self esteem, he was always compared to Itachi and he always lost. He was humble enough to ask others’ help, like asking N*ruto how S*kura was able to climb the tree with chakra in the beginning, or asking Team Taka’s help to find Itachi, asking Kakashi to make him stronger and following Orochimaru for more strength. And during all these, he was thrown in his face parts of the tragic truth about Itachi and his clan and he always had to get back on his feet and fight more. His world crumbled so many times on him and yet not only he reacted but he always was able to help those around him. Not with big words like N*ruto but really, freeing Orochimaru’s prisoners, Taka, and earlier protecting his team from Gaara, protecting N*ruto from Haku, and later proitecting N*ruto from Kaguya and then protecting the whole world from her, protecting Itachi’s ideal, his sacrifice from those who threatened to make it useless. He was ready to become the world’s only enemy to keep them together, following what he thought Itachi had taught him indirectly.

Sasuke is neither possessive nor jealous. He never showed any sign of possessiveness or jealousy towards anyone. He protected Taka and N*ruto. He defended Itachi’s name, unlike too many like to think: when he threatens Danzo to stop talking about Itachi it’s not because he’s jealous but because he doesn’t want that bastard to talk shit about his perfect brother, especially cause that bastard was the reason of his ruin. He was defending his name from an enemy and it was pure and selfless, not possessive at all! Proof of this is when Hashirama praises him instead, Sasuke is happy. He likes people to speak about his brother in a good way! When they were children Itachi always dismissed Sasuke who pouted but never got really angry or jealous at Shisui for example. And at the end of the fight vs Kabuto he aknowledged Itachi’s resolve to leave even tho it broke his heart to lose him again, and he let Itachi go with the saddest face but the utmost respect.

Sasuke is not arrogant. He has a low self-esteem. He was raised in the shadow of his genius brother, he suffered for his father not noticing him, he later developed an inferiority complex towards N*ruto as well because of his quick progress, compared to his own that he perceived as slower and not enough (that’s why he joined Orochimaru). When he brags it’s not because he’s the bragging type (aka N*ruto, Kiba &co) but it’s because he’s either making fun of N*ruto, since they were rivals/friends (not to mention it’s a shounen trope) and, even more so, because he is proud of his achievements. He worked so hard always and when he created a jutsu or smth he says it. Because he has low self esteem but he’s not socially awkward or shy or whatever (see later paragraph). So he is proud of his own results. (which is also a very TE thing, for those who care about mbti stuff).

Sasuke doesn’t value his life much. This is a result of his low self-esteem, which leads to poor sense of self-preservation (to prove that he’s strong, like when he was a genin and he trained so hard,and later to pursue his goals, for which he’d give his body to Orochimaru and his life over and over). Also he is so determined to achieve his goals that he’d do anything for them. He was ready to die on many occasions in canon for this and even later, after the ending, he’s seeing himself as a tool. Also, he never really got over the sense of worthlessness first caused by his father and then by Itachi’s words the night of the massacre. Not in a real life trauma-like thing, but as a way to see himself. this means that all those stereotypical rocking back and forth, cutting, whatever behaviors are not like him, who always got back to his feet and lived, although not for himself but for his goals.

Sasuke is not bitchy or spoiled. If he was he would have a great self esteem, and he clearly showed to have a very low self esteem instead. He never made anything about him actually, as all his goals were about others, his family, his brother, and so on. He was the one who did better teamwork in team7 actually, and he protected his friends and comrades, not to mention he freed Orochimaru’s prisoners and fought for the village and its people. How is this spoiled or bitchy, and btw, bitchy ppl do get offended and he never paid attention to offenses towards him, only towards his brother.

Sasuke is neither the haughty élite type nor the shy/socially anxious/‘emo’ type. He is neither Neji nor H*nata. He is aloof, he is always lost in his own thoughts and he doesn’t care about socializing because he wants to become strong, because he cared more about his family and goals, because he cared more about their opinion than the opinion of classmates. He valued strength since the beginning, being raised the way he was raised, so he valued the praise of strong people and not of the others, unlike those who seek praise from everyone. On the other hand his being aloof doesn’t mean he can’t have normal interactions, and the fact that he doesn’t use honorifics doesn’t mean he has socialization problems. Only that he doesn’t pay attention to these things anymore. He was always pragmatic, and after the massacre he became pragmatic to an extreme level, cutting off all unnecessary things, manners included. It doesn’t mean, though, that he doesn’t respect some people (=those he deems strong. Including Team Taka). He just shows it through actions.

Sasuke is not se/xually aggressive/dominant/whatever. He is too busy with his own goals to have se/xual or romantic thoughts (unlike other characters both male and female, not just Karin but also S*kura, Ino, and ofc N*ruto). I wouldn’t define this being asexual tho, because their universe is not ours and I’m sick&tired of all the real world/Nar universe parallels. He’s passive in relationship and on many occasions he showed indifference to se/xual anything, not disgust. Just, it wasn’t his thought. Because he is on a different wavelength. So even when he told characters to not be so close to him or smth, he didn’t move away, he just told them, which kinda proves my point once more of how passive he is towards ppl and relationships, he just lets them be. On the other hand, aceSas is better than hornydominantSas that is so OOC it hurts, be it with Itachi, Nar, S*kura or whatever other girls/boys.

Most MAIN characters didn’t understand/didn’t try to understand him. The ones who understood him more are unexpectedly not his friends. Not counting Taka ofc.

Sasuke is passive. He is the yin and N*ruto is the yang. In case this isn’t clear. It’s canon. Kishi used a yin/yang parallel for him and N*ruto, so while N*ruto is yang/sun/warm/ positive/active/male principle in nature/masculine, Sasuke is yin/moon/cold/negative/passive/passive/female principle in nature/feminine. Passive doesn’t mean weak. It means receptive, adaptable, flexible, which Sasuke is, since he’s the one who adapted his life and goals to new events, truths and changes, unlike most others who just kept going their own way no matter what (see N*ruto or Itachi). Many see him as assertive because he faces every situation in a very determined manner, taking actions and deciding everything independently. But being an independent thinker has nothing to do with being assertive or passive. I say he’s passive because he actually always reacts to what life (or Itachi) throws at him, every time. His reactions are quick and strategic, so it’s easy to miss this, but still, again, Itachi or N*ruto actively engage the environment and life, and influence other people, not Sasuke. He’s also passive with people, in relatioships. He never seeks anyone unless it’s for practical reasons, he only reacts to them approaching him. And he reacts in a very calm way, quite mild compared to how determined and detached he is, considering that a lot of characters invade his personal space or more, in the whole series. When he chases after Itachi it’s because he’s his younger brother and it’s natural for them, and mostly because Itachi set up his life so that he would focus on him, still it’s Itachi who is assertive, and he reacts in return. He makes a deal with Orochimaru, to obtain strength and give him his body in return. When he forms Team Taka, before asking their help, he first gives them freedom and only then he asks them to join him, making it clear that he won’t force them if they’ll refuse. He gives them something before asking something in return. This is not just a passive thing but something more because he is not selfish, like I said before.

Sasuke is an independent thinker. Unlike other smart thinkers like Itachi or Madara, to whom the story associated him, Sasuke was kept in the dark about many things, so he developed his own view of the world later, but when he did it was original and unique, just like his fighting style and strategy.

Sasuke is private about his thoughts and feelings but he’s also honest about them. Itachi is mysterious and not honest about his feelings, not him. He is aloof, it’s different. Just because he doesn’t trust many people and he’s lost in his own thoughts it doesn’t mean he is a shoujo mysterious character lol.

Sasuke is goal oriented. He does whatever it takes to achieve his goals. He would have given his body as a vessel for Orochimaru, not caring about what would happen to him, as long as he could have his revenge. He would have lived an eternity in solitude so that the world would have lived in peace. And, again, his goals are never about himself.

Sasuke wanted to die after he killed Itachi, but then when he woke up and was told the truth he had another purpose, and so he lived on.

Sasuke admires and respects strength but he’s not power thirsty. He wanted to become strong because he wanted to be worthy of Itachi and his father, than because he had to avenge his clan, then he had to avenge Itachi. It’s because he had low self-esteem and was selfless that he sought power. He wanted to be beside his father and brother, not to surpass them, actually. It’s Itachi who talked about surpassing.

Sasuke is very smart and logical, but he is easily manipulated with the right arguments. Like using Itachi, or appealing to his low self esteem, his feeling of worthlessness, his emotions. Because people who are logical are actually not emotionless. In fact they have a hard time controlling their emotions when they feel strongly, and this can be seen clearly every time Sasuke loses control. He becomes more impulsive than N*ruto who instead gets calmer, because he’s more in touch with his emotions (lol ofc he is, everything is always about his own emotions and feelings). Sasuke puts his feelings and emotions aside to reach his goals, he acts logically and pragmatically, he observes, makes plans, finds the better ways to do things, no matter how hard or dangerous for him they are. He has logical arguments even though they appear ‘crazy’ to other characters, and it’s sad to see how in the end he was belittled by N*ruto, as if his arguments were meaningless, they were not addressed at all, just deemed wrong, not with counterarguments but with illogical emotion based words that just made him feel unstable, as it happens when you have logical arguments and they tell you ‘you’re just depressed, you don’t get things right’.

In the end, he was tamed into submission. He was defeated, put in jail, isolated, guilt tripped and berated because of his ideals and goals, denied the justice he rightfully demanded.

All these can be observed directly. Others, more subtle things about him I wrote here, towards the end of this long post.

#sasuke #I don’t have much motivation to reply to asks tbh but this is important I guess #Anonymous #vivalarevolution: visions #vivalarevolution #vivalarevolution: not crazy but desperate

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