#but i think it is also partially he's just. very likable by nature. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

animeyanderelover · 2 years

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Anonymous asked: Can I have Hc's for Lelouch, Suzaku, C2, Kallen, Cornelia, Euphy and Schneizel from Code Geass?

Tw: Yandere themes, unhealthy mindset, unhealthy relationship, possessive behavior, obsession, clinginess, paranoia, delusion, isolation, manipultion, sabotage, blackmail, stalking, guilt-tripping, gaslighting, abduction, death

Yandere Code Geass Hc's

Lelouch vi Britannia

♟️He's shown to be bored with the mundane activities of life and enjoys challenges so he'll most likely seek you out if you catch his interest permanently. It most likely starts going down the moment he receives his Geass and turns partially delusional since he sees himself as the only one who can change the world for the better. During time he turns significantly more possessive and manipulative yet no one notices. Lelouch usually engages in the act of the likable and social guy who is quite easygoing which hides his true nature quite well, even for you. Even without his Geass he is already quite manipulative, tries to charm you the normal way whilst getting closer to you and pushing you with small compliments and friendly advices towards his ideal vision. He wants them to see things the same way he does, believes himself to be in the right. Also quite arrogant, he looks down on others who might like you or the other way around. Maybe his aristocratic upcoming speaks out of him a bit.

♟️Lelouch is quite controlling and the more obsessed he gets, the harder it becomes to refrain himself from doing so. Especially the more trauma he suffers during his time as Zero which makes him increasingly more protective. He keeps you under all means away from any warzone by asking you to look out for Nunnally or arranging it that you're somewhere else. He starts to become slightly more pushy what you think of Zero and his ideas and will do about everything to change your opinion if you should have a negative one. What do you know anyways about this all? He knows better, he's seen more. At one point he turns downright monopolizing, constantly wants to know where you are and with whom you are as he keeps on getting more paranoid. Whilst he believes himself to know better than his s/o, Lelouch also seems to understand that his obsession goes too far. At the very beginning he might feel a bit guilty but eventually his morals get tainted and he stops caring. He's selfish, wants you for himself.

♟️Since he grows worse and worse over time with his behavior overall, this also is reflected in the way he starts feeling around other people when they interact with you. He grows more bothered by it yet keeps up the facade of the easygoing student though he will interfere if someone is too close to you for his taste. Very obsessive, he starts befriending your friends for the sole purpose of keeping them and even you under check. When he grows closer to you, he wants to quickly establish the image that you can rely completely on him. If you have troubles in school, he helps you and if you have forgotten something, he's quick to get it. Passive-agressive when someone flirts with you or when he notices that you seem interested in someone else, to not only them but you as well. He wants you to understand that he's best for you so he can't help but feel frustrated with you too if you don't seem to realize that.

♟️Not one to dirty his hands but he doesn't need to either. Lelouch is such an intelligent individual, I'm sure he'll solve the problem through his intelligence. His Geass is another factor that he can use though he uses his power wisely since it only works once on someone. Since he doesn't want to waste his power carelessly, he is more careful. He's aware what might happen if someone would find out that he is Zero and fancies you which makes him slightly paranoid yet he manages to keep his cool. Just like his behavior towards you grows worse evertime, his ways to handle threats does too. He turns more merciless against someone he can't use Geass against and who wants to harm you. Whilst he doesn't kill someone directly, he blackmails them and in the worst case makes them a casualty during a clash of England and his force. He plans it out as he always does though so no one else finds out, C.C. even assists him out of pure amusement due to Lelouch's obsession.

♟️Going back to his morals getting tainted over time, this is one of the prime examples. At the very beginning when his obsession was still in the process of blossoming, Lelouch probably looked down on such a tepid act. Over time his opinion changes though the more risky his situation gets and the more he gets lost in the Geass and the conflict. If you reject him one to many times, get yourself in danger, find out his identity and don't support him or distance yourself from him and he can't do anything against it, Lelouch is willing to take away your freedom. It might be initially a bit difficult to find a place where he can keep you and not let others like Kallen find out about you but he's determined to find a way and once again, weirdly enough C.C. lends him a helping hand gladly. He might even use his Geass on you to disable you from running away or telling others about him if push comes to shove. If he has already established himself as the new Emperor, things are easier.

♟️The green-haired witch finds the situation with Lelouch's little obsession quite entertaining, she helps solely for the purpose of being able to observe how far the man is willing to go and how you handle it all. Lelouch is going to be less trusting and very controlling if he knows that you don't support him or his opinions at all. He makes sure to isolate you from others so you don't consume any harmful opinions and goes into fullblown gaslighting once you are kidnapped and he is, only next to C.C., the only one you can interact with. He hesitates greatly to force you to love him with his Geass though, it wouldn't be real and so he hopes for Stockholm Syndrome more than anything at one point, coupled with a lot of manipulation from his side. If his relationship with you is fairly good, he gives you more freedom around others, at least you have the feeling that you do, and opens his heart more around you. He has an especially easy time to deal with everything, if he is indeed at that time Emperor since your chances to escape are low at best in this scenario. He has too much influence.

Kururugi Suzaku

⚔️Suzaku is initially mainly very obsessive and smitten with his darling. They’re all he thinks about, one of the main reasons why he wants to change the world for the better. They’re precious, have to be treasured in his eyes under all means necessary and considering his unhealthy adoration, he’s the borderline of a worshipper. He’s very open from the get-go, wears his heart on his sleeves and it’s quite obvious that he likes you a lot. The more he tumbled down his obsession, the clingier he grows. He’s constantly helping you to carry your staff, makes a small fuss when you’re sad or sick and is willing to do a lot for you. If you need something, he’ll get it for you without even being asked to do so. All to help you and make you happy since your well-being and your happiness are all he needs to continue his days. Suzaku is more aware though, even if fairly slow-witted he eventually realizes his unhealthy attachment and his obsession as you are by now the only thing on his mind.

⚔️Very similar to Lelouch though, he changes over time more and more. Differently from his friend though, he tells his darling openly what his ambitions are and what he wants to achieve, he tells them almost everything. Suzaku turns also very paranoid and more protective the more he gets stuck in the repeating cycle of death and fighting and it’s obvious since he looks more and more distraught, holds tighter onto you with each passing day and sometimes calls you to beg in a desperate tone to stay home, to not leave at all. He’s pushed mentally to the brink, grows more hostile as soon as someone treats you badly are says something mean that hurts you as he grows more and more dependent on your support and your happiness. He becomes more monopolizing himself in the name of keeping you safe. Eventually he snaps when Euphy dies who he looked up to immensely. He shatters and suddenly his guilt is completely swept away by fear to lose you too which is why he turns partially delusional, starts to tell himself that all he does is ultimately to keep you safe.

⚔️A bit naïve maybe since he trusts you a lot, he’s somewhat easy to manipulate if he isn’t too paranoid at the moment. He is willing to let you leave alone, though it’s highly likely that he texts you every hour to check on you. He’s mainly just happy when you’re happy so if you’re all joyful and smile if you meet those you love a lot, Suzaku can be happy too. If you ignore him for someone else a bit too long, he grows more clingy though, grabs your hand or hugs you from behind. The occasional glare he gives someone who flirts with you doesn’t go unnoticed either. With time he grows so much more overprotective and paranoid though that rather than being jealous, he’s terrified that someone will hurt you. The man is hypocritical in the worst ways as he wants you to be happy yet fears that everyone might hurt you emotionally or physically at one point which is why he pushes them a bit away, even if you like them.

⚔️Suzaku wants to change the empire, wants to stop the cycle of violence and death yet he proves to be a hypocrite once again. He realizes this all himself at one point. He’s very overprotective at one point, lashes out as soon as someone has spit something cruel against you which caused you to tear up. Most likely doesn’t let them anywhere near s/o for a while after, not until they’ve calmed him down enough though he demands an apology and acts hostile for a long while after. Suzaku threatens people quickly as soon as they’ve hurt you and depending on how close they are to you and what they did, he’s either milder or very intense. He appears to be more and more trigger-happy each day and ultimately is Euphemia’s death the reason why he completely breaks. He grows more vicious and hostile out of paranoia to lose you, throws his goals at one point away. He won’t kill as long as you’re safe but the moment you get involved in any way, he will lose it and kill someone if they don’t leave during his first and final warning.

⚔️It’s all for your safety in the end, isn’t it? That’s what he tells himself once the damage is already done. At this rate he is neither fully delusional nor completely aware but he knows that he just wants you to be safe and alive. He can’t live without you, losing you would be akin with losing his heart. You literally witness how he grows more monopolizing during the cause of his career, how he constantly wants you to stay inside or how he glues himself to your side out of protection when he has time. The most likely trigger is the death of the princess which leads him to abduct you shortly after. As soon as he is one of the Knight of the Rounds, he has more privileges and tries his best to give you this privileges so you can live a good life as well. He provides you with all he thinks you would want and seems to initially accept your cold treatment. He crumbles at one point though and has a meltdown in front of you since he can’t take your coldness.

⚔️His darling becomes at one point Suzaku’s pillar of mental support the more traumatized he gets. He clings onto them with his entire might, willing to justify even slaughter if it means that you are safe and alive. There is a cold side he starts to develop if someone tries to hurt or murder you in which case he won’t regret the act of killing at all, sees it even as a sort of justice since that person tried to harm you seriously. Sees himself as your shield and sword, he will protect and attack for you, is willing to get seriously harmed as long as he guarantees your well-being in the end. Very co-dependent since he turns snappy and paranoid if he doesn’t hear from you or hasn’t seen you in a while, can’t concentrate as well anymore. Tries his best to hold back his affection for you as long as you still hate him, he doesn’t want to sink too low though it might happen that he forcefully kisses you if he has a meltdown out of desperation. If you start to accept him though, he turns very affectionate and clingy, stops feeling guilty.

C.C.

🟩C.C. is somewhat troubled when she notices that she has managed to fall in love after years of isolation despite keeping her apathetic act intact. She's an immortal witch, overly cautious about love since all who ever loved her have faded away over the years. Her trust in humanity itself isn't all that good either, she's lived long enough to know that many have a hidden side to them so she searches for that ugly side inside of you. The woman tries to keep her distance from you, if you do know her she'll act even colder and dismissive than she already is. She's stalking you initially for the sole reason of finding that selfish side of yours so she can get rid of those emotions building up inside of her but it comes to whiplash her back in the end. Whilst she notices your flaws, she can't help but see the good on you as well and how you also struggle with your flaws and insecurities. In the end all it does is worsening her obsession.

🟩By no she has reached the point where she doesn't care anymore though despite being aware that her feelings are unhealthy. C.C. accepts her feelings though since she has by now acknowledged that she can't just erase her feelings like that. She continues her stalking for the purpose of her obsessive nature, even heads out despite knowing that Lelouch won't be happy but she does whatever she wants anyways. She's curious and wants to approach her darling, interact with them for real. A very honest person, more blunt to be precise, she is someone to speak what is on her mind. Manipulative too, most likely for the sake of keeping you to herself and letting you stay far away from the goals Lelouch is trying to fulfill. Once you got to know her, she also becomes surprisingly touchy with you.

🟩I do feel like she's the type to look down on others a bit as well since she has high standards and if someone doesn't fulfill those standards, she tends to dismiss and ridicule them. That aside, she has a deep desire to be loved and accepted for whom she is and that resurfaces strongly with her darling in the picture now. She's lived a long time though and has learned to be patient so she can tolerate it if you're somewhat affectionate with someone or the other way around though she doesn't move her gaze away from you either. She probably just observes to find out what the relationship between you two is at first, she would like to pride herself better than to be victim of petty jealousy without a reason. If it becomes obvious that one of you two is interested though, she interferes in some way. She is quite cold and sassy which most likely turns darling's counterpart off.

🟩C.C. makes an effort to initially hide her obsession even from Lelouch since it's a personal matter and she doesn't want anyone to know about it for now. She's a more islated woman as she is, solves most problems on her own with her intelligence and skill. She isn't one for mindless slaughter though, it's maybe a bit too much work for her. Everyone who bothers you and your time which she wants for herself, she ends up scaring away somehow. When Lelouch eventually finds out about her interest in you, she somewhat forces him to help her too as a fair exchange for all the help she gives him. She's very stubborn so she doesn't leave him much of a choice but to help her sometimes, even if she still solves most of it alone. C.C. is definitely not above taking lives though when she thinks that it's the best choice.

🟩Deep down she is able to feel remorse and guilt and that somewhat stirs up especially strong the better she gets to know you whilst you're still unaware of her true nature. She doesn't really wish to tangle you up in her life as deeply as other people. There's also this fear to be rejected by you if you'd find out what she is and with whom she works, especially if you do not support Zero's actions. She values your safety, doesn’t want you involved in the crossfire. Since she is so secretive and also less controlling than Lelouch, she isn’t actually someone to get triggered to abduct her darling unless under certain circumstances where they find out the truth and plan to tell the empire. Even in that case she might instead prefer that the Geass is used and you’re instead forbidden to talk about it with anyone who isn’t working with them. If she abducts you, she wants you to stay somewhere where other members from the rebels can’t meet you though, she wants you for herself and also isn’t fond of being asked too much about you.

🟩The green-haired witch can be quite shameless though when it comes to showing physical affection, even when someone like Lelouch is in the same room or someone else as long as she knows that their intentions aren’t bad. Lelouch is most likely the only one who knows about her darling and the one person who C.C. truly trusts the most when it comes to them. She escapes quite often so she can meet up with you to the point where she is most of the time not even with Lelouch unless he needs her for something. Still a very secretive person, C.C. keeps this certain mystery around her even after you got to know her better and she has told you a few things. She likes to tease you sometimes when you’re stubborn or make a interesting decision that only a human could make.

Kozuki Kallen

🛡️Kallen is very protective Yandere and looking onto her past, it is no wonder why. She's seen a lot of people die that she was close to, her brother and other members from the resistance group are only a few. She initially doesn't know how to feel about her romantic interest either, similar to C.C. she appears to be somewhat afraid to fall in love. You're somewhat of a distraction and as sweet that is, Kallen wants to focus on freeing her country from Britain. She hides her growing love for you though she tends to stare at you or space out a bit whilst thinking about you. If someone else asks her about you, she completely denies it and tries to act all tough even if she is also quite flustered. Is she really that transparent? Despises the act she has to put on in the Academy to hide her true identity since it makes things more complicated with her growing obsession.

🛡️She's semi-delusional with her obsession. Whilst she is a strong-willed woman and a compassionate lover, Kallen also seems to recognize certain aspects of her love as more of a taboo. Those are aspects of her that she doesn't want others to know about her, you from all people especially not. Feels bad for lying about you in school with her whole act as the ill kid yet she knows that it's for now the best. Kallen wouldn't want to involve her darling into the life she has as long as they're only a citizen. Guarantees that you are never anywhere near a battle field so you don't end up as a casualty or get hurt. Truth be told, she wishes that she could open up and stop lying towards you yet she has no choice for no, her mission is important and if you don't support the goals of Zero and her or are unsure how to feel, she can't risk anything.

🛡️A rather selfless girl who can sit back and not feel jealous when you spend time with others. You should enjoy a normal life so she doesn't want to interfere much with the people you are friends with. Sometimes Kallen does feel annoyed by someone and that's when she ends up in a corner since she knows that she can't act out of character. Sometimes she doesn't have a choice but to keep silent even if she wants to let a bit of her temper loose due to increased jealousy when someone flirts with you. Literally has to bite her tongue in order to keep quiet though she eventually finds a way to act in character as Kallen Stadtfeld to stop whatever interaction she is forced to watch. Sometimes she still falls out of character and snaps at the other person.

🛡️She's one of the best pilots in the series and rather ruthless in battle though she can't be that way when she acts as Stadtfeld in school. It's easier to trigger her protective side than her jealous side. When other members of the resistance organization find out about her romantic interest in you, she rarely ends up turning to them when she needs a bit of help. She wants to be able to protect you herself, doesn't want others initially involved since she is also a bit stubborn even though she learns over time to also rely on the help of others when it comes to you. If someone ends up pestering you in front of her, her impulsive side might even get the better of her where she ends up breaking out of her act and acts as the skilled warrior that she is. What she'll tell you later on about is something she'll start to worry about after the guy has disappeared. She's less likely to kill though since she is behind her tough mask quite a caring and gentle individual. She just scares someone and manhandles them a bit to give them a good scare.

🛡️Considering the fact that she is fighting for the freedom of Japan and her general love for her darling, Kallen is actually less likely to kidnap her s/o. Differently from Suzaku she won’t be a hypocrite by pretending like she wants the best for you only to lock you up in the end. There would be troubles if she were to lock you up and she doesn’t want to risk the possible ruin of your entire relationship with her. She just works extra hard so that there is never a reason for you to be kidnapped. She always makes sure you’re somewhere else when a fight erupts where she has to use her Guren and her identity is kept a secret though she might end up admitting to you that she is pretending in school after possibly having shown her true colors in order to protect you.

🛡️One of the more tame Yandere in Code Geass, mainly because she isn’t very possessive nor too overprotective and paranoid. Kallen is in fact quite a selfless Yandere who knows that her fight might one day possibly result in her death which is why she wouldn’t want to forbid you any interaction with friends. There is increasing guilt inside of her the longer she lies to you though and it shows. If she knows that you are trustworthy though, she might at least tell you about her real self and that she is constantly pretending in school. She isn’t overbearing and instead very caring and gentle with you. If she manages to become your girlfriend, she becomes prone to being very quickly flustered as soon as someone teases her about you, doesn’t matter if she’s her real self at that moment or pretends.

Cornelia li Britannia

💓The second princess of Britain is as possessive as she is strict with her darling. She's unsurprisingly aware enough of her own obsession, antagonizes her darling for it even in the beginning. The type to completely try to rid you out of her mind which results in her working even harder so she can concentrate on other things. It doesn't work as well though because you seep into her thoughts all the time. Eventually she seems to resign to her darker feelings but it comes with terrible consequences for her darling. It's like she expects you to make up for making her feel in such an intense way by completely submitting to her. Cornelia doesn't hesitate to ruthlessly use her influence against you to guarantee that you stay with her forever. She's aristocratic, expects behavior from you an if you act uncivilized or throw a tantrum, she's quick to lecture you harshly, followed by a punishment so you can reflect on your childish actions.

💓Despite that, Cornelia is also more protective over her darling. Don't get the wrong idea, she is never the type to coddle over them but instead she makes sure to teach them in the Knightmare Frame combat and hand to hand combat so they'll be able to defend themselves if they should be attacked. You'll have to be able to do at least the basics and she literally forces you through it all, scolds you for being weak and not being able to learn properly. Her knight Guilford also tends to look out for you if she is currently busy or during events where you two have to go elsewhere. Cornelia makes it quite clear to anyone that you are hers and if you're out in public, she ends up forcing you to at least act semi-normal since it wouldn't make a good picture if you'd look unhappy. She won't really show a softer side unless you end up behaving. It's the classic good behavior deserves rewards system.

💓Good luck if someone has the guts to talk with you out of interest since Cornelia makes your position quite clear to anyone. You're taken by her and so she almost naturally expects everyone to know better than to try to flirt with you. You've basically been educated by Cornelia how to behave around others. Her basics are that you act polite and don't dare to complain or beg for help to get out of the situation. If someone flirts with you, you shouldn't even dare to flirt back. You should ignore them, ask her or Guilford for help if that person turns out to be very stubborn. Otherwise she'll be quite displeased, ends up showing you the consequences later on. She'd never want to admit that jealousy creeps up on her sometimes too, she's far too prideful to admit that. If she gets jealous, she normally limits your social interactions for a bit until she's boiled down.

💓The lady is a ruthless woman who doesn't hesitate to hand out harsh punishment to everyone who poses some sort of problem for her or her darling. Possible admirers are quickly scared away or even imprisoned if they don't understand her harsh warning the first time. She's in a position of power and uses that to her advantage. Cornelia is cold-blooded after all, not afraid to intimidate you by showing you what exactly she is capable of. Anything but merciful, only few people are able to get away if they do something against her will when it comes to you. Not even her own men are spared, a rare exception might be Guilford since she trusts him, aware of his loyalty for her. She's sure to eradicate anyone who stands in the ways of her goals, one of her goals has sadly become you over time.

💓It's more or less a public abduction since many people can guess that you aren't exactly happy with the life you lead now. But no one can do anything against it. Cornelia is a princess, one of the most skilled combat fighters with the Knightmares and has her loyal men behind her who will head her commands, especially her personal Knight Guilford. It's cruel though for you if you notice that all of them seem to notice yet hardly anyone bothers to help, they all are too scared of her. If you're not a noble or even Japanese, you'll be given even more of this indifferent behavior. Your hope at one point might break that someone will help you and save you, you've seen how she deals with everyone who tries to help you to escape her tight grip. Being a princess and being ruthless and possessive is quite a deadly combination.

💓Her punishments usually include locking you away, letting you go a day without any food or threatening you openly that she could involve those you love if you don't behave, maybe even the one or other bruise. You don't want to know whether she'd really do it or not. At least she guarantees that no one else disrespects you, especially if she knows that you did nothing wrong. If that should happen, she'll act as harsh and ruthless as normal to whoever disrespected you, demands an apology from them. Guilford and Euphemia are normally the people you meet the most besides her, Schneizel occasionally as well. Cornelia is the type who won't expose her softer side for you unless she realizes that you've grown accustomed to your situation and have started to behave more. Euphy normally talks to her and asks her if she can be a bit nicer to you since she feels like her older sister is sometimes too harsh.

Euphemia li Britannia

💌Euphemia is drawn to her darling fast after they've caught her interest with something. She's a very open-minded person even to those who aren't from her country so she won't feel ashamed or conflicted about it at all. In fact she doesn't even realize that her emotions are wrong. Euphemia is more on a delusional side and besides being somewhat shy around you and flustered when someone asks her if she likes her darling, she more or less allows herself to fall willingly. It's like her heart soars up to the sky, it's such a wonderful feeling that she can't possibly think about it as wrong. Euphemia is more obsessive though as she can't help but be curious about what you do each and every day and what your hobbies might be. She won't use her influence to find out forcefully but you are present on her mind a lot so it doesn't take long before she starts approaching you to get closer to you.

💌The princess is very clingy and affectionate, even if you two are only friends for now. She can't help but link arms with you, hold your hands or give you tight hugs. If your living conditions should be bad due to not being from Britain, she makes sure that she'll help you, your family and your friends. I'd say her kindness is a problem because you have a hard time rejecting her if she asks you for something. It's never Euphemia's intention to pressure you yet she is so kind and nice to you and everyone you love that guilt pushes you to spend time with her, your family might urge you to return the favors she does for all of you just as much. There is this period where you suffer a bit though when her sister watches you with displeasing eyes and everyone seems to judge you for spending time with Euphy like this. You might try to avoid her but her hurt and pain eventually leads you to confess what's happening and afterwards she makes sure to talk with everyone so they stop doing this to you.

💌Euphemia is dazzling, an angel of some sort and people are struck from her beauty and kindness when they meet you. She's incredibly friendly to everyone, she always stays open-minded and cares about your own happiness and well-being. As someone who isn't really someone who watches you all the time nor really wants to, she's one to give you a lot of freedom to meet up with others. Sure, she's more on a clingy side but respects it if you ask for some time alone to meet someone alone. The pink-haired woman feels almost a bit bad for feeling jealous, she trusts you after all if you are in a relationship with you. She stays very professional though since she never acts on those feelings, she doesn't see the need to be jealous if she is already your girlfriend. She won't say anything unless someone becomes very touchy or you ignore her for a good few minutes in favor of that person.

💌It's so important for her that you're treated with respect even if you aren't from an aristocratic family or not even from Britannia. Especially in the two latter cases Euphy would be more protective over you since she is worried that people will target you and hurt you out of spite and disrespect. Her siblings are initially more iffy as well, especially Cornelia yet they decide to help her once they see the tears she sheds for her darling out of worries and sadness that they have to suffer so much. She's obviously not someone who wants crimes and war, she always tries to solve everything through talking. Yet I feel like the people around her who love her and care of her get more protective since they know Euphemia will be immensely sad and devastated if something would happen to you. Especially Cornelia and Suzaku grow very protective over her darling and are much more harsh with people who try to hurt you.

💌One of the very few who won't end up kidnapping you. Whilst she is delusional with her love, abducting you is something that would only disgust her. Euphy gives her darling a lot of freedom, is never really demanding. They're free to continue living where they live now if they want to. A problem that is within the realm of possibilites though is that you end up being targeted due to the fact that you're the lover of the princess. If that is the case there will be little to no way around moving you somewhere else, somewhere where the army of Britannia can protect you better. If that should happen, Euphemia is equally upset as you, maybe even more. She cries, apologizes to you since she can't help but feel like she's partially at fault for your situation. She never isolates you though, still allows you to go everywhere and is more hesitant to let someone act as your guardian and follow you.

💌Overall one of the most tame Yandere to have. She cares about your happiness and your well-being and never restricts any of your rights or your freedom unless it is for the sake of preventing an attack on you or might harm your health. Euphemia is also such a sweet girl to have, it is hard to not love her in some way since she does everything she can to make sure that you're happy. The people giving you the hardest time are the nobles who look down on you and also Cornelia since she is protective over her little sister and doesn't trust you. Euphemia eventually begs you to be less intense and cold towards you since she notices that you're scared of her. She wants you two to have a good relationship since she adores her sister and loves you. Loves spending good quality time with you and enjoys going out with you since she's often a bit more imprisoned herself due to her status.

Schneizel el Britannia

🏅For Schneizel this all is frighteningly amusing even if it shouldn’t be. He’s the one after all who thinks that humankind ultimately is only greedy and chases after their desires even if it’s detrimental to them. Yet here he is, desiring his little darling insanely. He should be angry or frustrated but he isn’t, he’s almost fascinated by the feelings you trigger inside of him. Feelings that dwell darkly more and more inside of him. Worst is that he is all too conscious about his obsession, he knows that he is obsessed with you yet he is incredibly indifferent about it. He’s instead interested how far you can push him without you even knowing what is going on yet. As the Second Prince and the Prime Minister, he could technically force you just like Cornelia would but that isn’t within his interest. As possessive and obsessive as he is, he holds disdain for the idea of forcing you with brute force into submission. He wants to make you love him via his charisma and charms.

🏅He cheats though because he is so very manipulative. Schneizel might not force you openly to be with him but behind the scenes he does everything else. If you’re financially in a difficult situation or have other troubles, he suddenly appears before you like a white knight and offers to help you and also manipulates your surroundings so that he pushes you to rely more on him. Gradually he plans to have you depend on him, change your opinion on others until you think that he’s the only one who truly understands you. Despite all of his manipulation, there is no denial that Schneizel also knows how to flatter you and make your heart flutter inside of your chest. He’s sweet, attentive and gentlemanly to the point where initially you’re too busy looking through your pink glasses to notice how he slowly isolates you from others and turns slowly more monopolizing. At one point he basically knows your entire schedule for the day, plans it and alters it even to his own advantage.

🏅He’s patient and knows how to keep his composure. A lot from this confidence simply steams from the fact that he knows all too well that he holds too much influence to allow someone else to get closer to you to steal your heart away. Especially if people know about you two, they kind of stray away out of fear from Schneizel. There is maybe this half-amused look on his face when someone does try their best. He probably just watches for a few seconds before he interrupts that person politely. He never appears outright impolite but there is this hint of condescension around him coupled with a barely threatening glint in his eyes. He’s still possessive after all, only he should sweet-talk with you like this. You might catch him by surprise if you actually seem interested and flattered since he can’t clearly see what on them might permanently catch your attention. He’s never frustrated or really jealous though. If a problem appears, he can always take care of it. He’s usually more flattering than normally if someone happens to make you bashful.

🏅Schneizel appears to be someone who doesn’t think much of mindless slaughter and let’s face it, there is no need for him to even have to resort it. He’s a cold-blooded strategist who can even rival Lelouch and his influence as the Second Prince and the Prime Minister gives him an immense advantage against everyone. Whether he is truly kind when he threatens someone when you aren’t there to witness this vastly different side on him is something to doubt but indeed, if someone heads his warning and never shows their face again in front of him and you, he lets them go. He’s capable of turning someone’s life upside down if he thinks that it’s the best way to bring across his message though. He’s quite cold hearted and indifferent to their suffering afterwards, he gave after all a warning, didn’t he? Most people distance themselves from you because of him yet he makes sure to implant the image into your mind that they just left you because they are busy with other things or lost interest which leaves him as the only one who stays with you.

🏅Schneizel might end up coercing you into moving somewhere else where he can keep a closer eye on you and be near you. He has actually one legit reason, he’s aware that you’ll become a target if resistance groups and enemies of Britannia find out that he treasures you. He’d like to prevent the possibility of you being kidnapped before it even happens. The rest really is just his overall possessive and controlling behavior. If you know what he did and try to escape him, he ends up going with the slightly more forceful way but despite slight disappointment from his side that his efforts have reverted back, he hardly shows remorse. Instead he just begins to break you down and make you depend on him again, only that this time you know his bigger plan. He plans on Stockholm Syndrome, he’s next to Kanon the only person to interact with you and he’s still as gentle and suave as he’s always been.

🏅There is something very sinister about him and the way he basically just gaslights you into loving and adoring him, depending on him. His behavior overall probably never cracks, the most you saw is the terrifying glint in his eyes when you tried to rebel against him and he mocked you calmly for your futile attempts. Otherwise he never really lashes out, he never raises his voice but instead he isolates you completely, might threaten you with a calm tone that he might have to drag someone close to you into this all as well if you continue being so aggressive. He seems to have fun with this all to your despair. When his darling ends up cracking and depending on him, he stops this crueler treatment though since he's pleased. He starts doting on you more, starts to shower you in lavish gifts now that you stopped behaving so unreasonable. Never stops being toxic and manipulative, the main difference now is that his s/o believes him when he tells them that he only does what is best for them.

#yandere code geass #yandere hangyaku no lelouch #yandere lelouch #yandere lelouch lamperouge #yandere lelouch vi britannia #yandere suzaku #yandere kururugi suzaku #yandere c.c.#yandere c2 #yandere kallen #yandere kallen stadtfeld #yandere kozuki kallen #yandere cornelia #yandere cornelia li britannia #yandere euphemia #yandere euphemia li britannia #yandere schneizel #yandere schneizel el britannia

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alltheselights · 2 years

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Hey I don't know if you've seen the discourse about Louis' image that's been happening lately but I wanted to get your thoughts. As usual with tumblr people see things in two extremes. On the one end louis' image is awful and toxic and on the other end there is absolutely nothing wrong with louis' image and it's his real self 100% and how dare you criticize anything about him. I guess I fall somewhere in the middle. For me it's how he's been presented during promo. What are your thoughts?

I would say that I also fall somewhere in the middle and I think people have lost a lot of nuance in the conversation over the past few days. I kinda summarized my thoughts on this discussion a couple of weeks ago with this post.

I think Louis likes beer and football and doesn’t like wine or really fancy restaurants. At the same time, I do think he sometimes leans so hard into his “laddy” image sometimes that you lose the complexity of who he is, and I think he can come across as unlikable when he’s railing about things that other people enjoy even if he himself does not enjoy them. I think both he and his team try very hard to contrast him with typical Hollywood/rich people and want to make him fit in with the indie/alternative scene, but in the process, they often fail to show how emotionally intelligent, delicate, and sweet he is.

When you’re a huge fan, you do catch glimpses of that side of Louis through long interviews, interactions with fans, and behind-the-scenes footage. For much of general public, however, they often just see a lot of negativity related to Louis, whether it be the constant smoking or unhappy-looking photoshoots, the constant commentary from both him and interviewers about his drinking and smoking habits, and the comments where he’s talking about how much he hates wine, sushi, nice restaurants, TikTok, and so on. Even if those things are true, they shouldn’t be central to his image when there are so many positive, interesting, and impressive things to learn and see about him.

I think that unfortunately, both the general public AND a significant portion of this fandom fails to recognize that Louis has as many stereotypically feminine traits as he does stereotypically masculine traits. I think Louis and his team are partially responsible for the one-dimensional view of him and that’s why I wish they’d be more creative in how they present him. However, I also think fandom is partially responsible for the one-dimensional view of him (and of Harry, actually), and unfortunately, particularly the Larrie part of the fandom because so many Larries really embrace old-fashioned gender stereotypes and want Harry and Louis to be opposites, with Harry as the feminine partner and Louis as the masculine partner. When you look beyond their surface level images, that categorization is not accurate and they both have plenty of stereotypically feminine and stereotypically masculine traits.

Harry dresses the same as Louis does when he’s off the clock, is obsessed with exercise and fitness, and loves sports as much as Louis, as he enjoys football, American football, AND golf, which are all stereotypically masculine sports (whereas Louis only really cares about football). Louis wears a lot of expensive clothes, is always in tune with his emotions and the emotions of others, and is naturally flamboyant whenever he lets his guard down. So much of the fandom won’t acknowledge these truths because they don’t fit with their one-dimensional view of the boys or their assumptions about what role they both play in their relationship, which is based more on fanfiction than reality.

So anyway, all this to say - I definitely fall in the middle. I don’t think Louis is displaying toxic masculinity because he doesn’t like wine, but I also wish that he and his team would choose to reflect the complexities of who he is because I think it would help expand his audience and make him more likable to people who don’t see as much of him as we do.

I also think the fandom needs to stop reducing both Louis and Harry to one-dimensional and old-fashioned caricatures based on gender stereotypes and their not-fully-accurate public images. I hope that all made sense!

#asks

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outoftheframework · 3 years

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my proposal for tropes we as a fandom should adopt in all fanworks going forward: Duke Thomas edition

So every fandom has tropes and characterization quirks that have been generally accepted into fanon and, like, maybe? they were originally based on some obscure comic panel from the 80s or something but it doesn’t really matter because we’re all just,,, cool with it? Like for example- in the dc comics fandom, an art piece could show 3 of the bats that look virtually identical except one of them is holding a box of cereal so that one is obviously Dick Grayson. . . Y’know?

Anyway, these things usually come up naturally I guess but I’ve been here a while and it’s finally time to put my foot down. It’s high time for Duke Thomas to be more in fanon than “the sane one.” Because he might be the relatively new guy but he is certainly fears no gods or laws of the land just as much as the other bats, lemme tell ya.

TL;DR here are character quirks (”canon-based” or otherwise) that we should all really latch onto seriously I’m begging y’all to make at least one of these happen-

Duke “Habitually Jumping Out of Moving Vehicles” Thomas

This one’s actually based in canon y’all; Duke did indeed yeet himself out of the back of a cop car and off of a bridge (in We Are... Robin). Normalize Duke’s wearing knee and elbow pads as Signal because jumping out of a car turns out relatively fine once and then suddenly Batman’s rooftop disappearing act seems mellow compared to the amount of times Gordon has whipped his head around to see a now Signal-less backseat.

Like, he’s going 60 mph?? And he didn’t even hear the door open?? and tHE DOORS ARE STILL LOCKED??

Imagine this leaking into civilian life and Bruce waking up to a blurry photo of Duke mid-escape from a limousine on the front page of the Gotham Gazette.

(more under cut)

Duke “Puzzles are my Passion” Thomas

Duke is ~canonically~ very skilled at both solving and concocting riddles (as a child during that time where The Riddler just,,, controlled Gotham, he worked non-stop on riddles, trying to make the perfect one). Please y’all- let Duke solve puzzles. Have the other bats ask him for help after 36 hours straight of brooding over some brainteaser that Duke works out within the half-hour. He texts a picture of the solution scribbled out on loose leaf in the margins of his pre-calc homework because this boy shows his work.

My guy is a word-cross FIEND. A mind-sweeper speed-runner. That guy who mails into the Gazette to correct a solution in the “fun & games” section and also ps that photo is not of me I am simply a polite young man who is much too busy writing into the paper in the year 2021 to jump out of limos-

I also would love to see this integrated into the type of cases he investigates / runs into on his daytime patrol. Like, obviously the criminal activity is going to dramatically differ before and after sundown, but that doesn’t make Duke’s work any easier or less important. It’s a different skillset; he has to work differently. Instead of jumping into fights, halting mob meetings, saving civilians in dark allies, etc. Duke has to sort through all of the moving pieces before they all converge into something catastrophic.

It’s a known fact that criminal organizations in Gotham make and execute a lot of behind-the-scenes plans during the day specifically not to run into the bats. And Duke knows and monitors this shit all by himself; his work is crucial to logistics and information gathering for the bats as a whole. Now criminals have like, a 2 hour gap between bat-shifts to try and get stuff done. But Duke would 100% set traps on timers or lead them on this pre-set convoluted goose chase to distract them until the night bats come out and to let himself enjoy the whole thing playing out on the news while he finishes homework that’s due at midnight.

Duke “I Know a Guy” Thomas

So in going off of the basic concept for the “We Are. . . Robin” run in combination to his general likability, Duke has a lot of friends all around Gotham. Okay, sure, he doesn’t have a Super best friend or a Speedster on speed dial, but he does know this guy who details cars up on West 35th and will tell them all about the new mods on Black Mask’s transport vans if they come through the third floor window and bring takeout.

Bruce and Tim will be waiting for the facial recognition software to identify at least a partial match off of security cam footage when Duke pulls into the cave, takes one look at the screen, and says “Oh, that’s <insert name, address, abridged life story, and known associates here>.” This also brings in the opportunity for Duke to have some sort of perfect recall for faces, voices, names, etc. which I think could be a really cool element for his position as the batfamily member who has a lot more personal interaction with the people of Gotham.

I’m also into the idea of a lot of people knowing/telling stories about Duke. Not to reference the Chuck Norris meme but almost like the Chuck Norris meme lmao. Think about Jason mentioning his brother to someone and she replies, “Duke Thomas? Like that Duke Thomas? The one who swam across the harbor because he said it’d be faster than the subway and it actually was?” These stories have varying levels of truth to them but Duke will never confirm nor deny when he gets random calls from family members yelling “you dID WHAT”

So those are my top three, and the following is a little speed-round of headcanons :)

Duke has a super expressive face. Like when he’s relaxed around family, you can tell exactly what he’s thinking and how he’s feeling by his visual reactions to things

Duke rotates through picking up new and revisiting old hobbies at a pretty rapid pace. Some hobbies include: bullet journaling, origami, viola, cello, synth, conversational basics in multiple languages, up-cycling and embroidering clothes

Duke has a really fucking adorable smile. He can’t help it. He’ll try to grin sarcastically or smug to be annoying but his smile just cannot be anything other than endearing. He also has a very specific booming laugh that’s an absolute treasure to hear, because it’s the most genuinely happy thing ever.

Duke unironically enjoys Signal by Twice even though the first time he heard it was after Steph had set it as his morning alarm.

So.

Come and get your food, I guess.

Feel free to add on if you’d like! I’d love to see anything you guys write/draw/etc. based on anything from here if you feel compelled to do so!

Stay safe and be well :)

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narrativelysignificantturtleduck · 3 years

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so a while ago @volkswagonblues left a reply on this post saying that jeong jeong was an example of "someone who is ideologically 'right' but whose character is absolutely not likeable, or at least not in the mainstream fandom-popular way". i started writing this response, but i totally forgot it was in my drafts until i wrote my iroh analysis. it doesn't seem right for me to have an iroh analysis post and not a jeong jeong one so here it is, the jeong jeong character analysis nobody asked for:

volkswagonblues's response hits on exactly why i find his character so fascinating - he's good, but he's absolutely not nice or well-adjusted about it. and he's definitely not mainstream-fandom "likable". it's rare that i see hate for one of my minor character faves (one of the benefits of having them), but i have actually seen people say they don't like jeong jeong. mostly, it centers around him being "wrong" about firebending, as opposed to the sun warriors. i can see where that comes from. jeong jeong has the noticable accent and proverb-y speeches of the ~mystical asian master~ trope, but his viewpoint comes off as pretty harsh and simplistic. this can confuse an audience expecting easy answers from a kids show - are you supposed to see him as wise or not? for me, i think asking "are jeong jeong's beliefs wrong?" is the wrong question. instead, you should ask: "why does jeong jeong have those beliefs?"

and the more you think about that, the more you see that he isn't actually wrong. firebending is the only type of bending where the bender produces the element from their own body rather than using their surroundings. it is someone imposing their will on the world, even more so than the other forms of bending. iroh sums this up nicely:

"Fire is the element of power. The people of the Fire Nation have desire and will, and the energy to drive and achieve what they want."

there's nothing wrong with that in theory, but in the show, this drive and power manifests as the fire nation's imperialist conquest, and the goal they're trying to achieve is world domination. as a former high-ranking military official, jeong jeong has seen firsthand the ways firebenders use their power to hurt people. the culmination of the fire nation's ideology is a plan to burn the entire earth kingdom to the ground - exactly the kind of wide-scale destruction he describes in his first cautionary speech:

"Without the bender, a rock will not throw itself! But fire will spread and destroy everything in its path if one does not have the will to control it!"

you could say that firebending is misused by the fire nation, but that feels like a No True Scotsman fallacy ("that's not true firebending!"). the fact is, firebending's unique qualities fall in line with the nation's imperialist ideology. jeong jeong hates his bending because it is inextricably tied to the war he hates.

like many, i once thought a trip to the sun warriors would be healing for jeong jeong, but i've since realized that's not what he needs. jeong jeong is perfectly aware that firebending isn't always destructive - he counsels restraint and control, not total suppression, and he even alludes to sun warrior beliefs:

"Feel the heat of the sun. It is the greatest source of fire. Yet, it is in complete balance with nature!"

going to see some dragons who tell him that firebending is about the sun and life won't change his mind. 'of course it's not inherently evil,' he'll say. 'but it has been used in terrible ways'. his feelings aren't about firebending in the abstract. they're about firebending as it is used. that it has the capacity to support an ideology of conquest, that he and others have given into its destructive side and committed such atrocities with it. he's right to hate that. (i also feel like he'd resent the sun warrior civilization for their isolationism. i mean, i would, if i'd put my life on the line to fight against my nation and it turned out there were a bunch of people who agreed with me but did nothing about it.)

so if jeong jeong and the sun warriors aren't philosophically opposed (except re: their involvement in the war), why does his view of firebending seem so much harsher? because - and here we come back to the original point - he's not likeable. he's a strict teacher and plenty of us (especially if we were kids when we watched the show) have a knee-jerk negative reaction to that. his speeches about the danger of fire are grandiose. but here's the thing: the speech where he says the most derogatory things about firebending is not one where he's teaching. it's one where he opens up to katara:

"I've always wished I were blessed like you - free from this burning curse."

this reveal that he wants to be a waterbender means that everything he says to her about his bending is less about what he believes about firebending in general and more about his own personal struggles. and in that context, it's heartbreaking:

"It forces those of us burdened with its care to walk a razor's edge between humanity and savagery. Eventually, we are torn apart."

this is the core of it all - jeong jeong doesn't just hate the fire nation and its war, he hates himself, hates that he holds that destructive power inside him. he doesn't seem to struggle with the act of bending (another reason why the sun warriors wouldn't necessarily be any help) but he clearly doesn't want to do it, probably because it reminds him of when he did terrible things with it. no wonder he calls it a curse.

and so here's what we're left with: jeong jeong leaves the fire nation military because he is right that the war is wrong, and he counsels control and restraint in opposition to the imperialist ideology of constant expansion and conquest. however, he is severely traumatized and full of guilt from his participation in said imperialist conquest, and that means he comes off as harsh and overly negative. right, but not likeable.

while i was writing this post, i was rewatching a lot of clips from the show, and i got curious about his voice actor, who i suspected was actually asian (unlike most of the voice actors). it turned out i was correct - his name is keone young, and he's had a very long career - but he's hawaiian and doesn't have the accent that probably made me guess that. he has this to say about how he portrays the one-dimensional accented characters he often plays:

“I want to portray that person with an accent who is real instead of a stereotyped version of it," he said. "I’ve always wanted to see myself as the one the story revolved around so that it was my story not your story. I always try to convey I have some kind of philosophy or point of view.”

(read the full interview here)

i bring this up because while i think jeong jeong's memorability can partially be attributed to the atla writers giving him a cool backstory and dramatic lines, what keone young says here about taking a character who's a bit of a stereotype and making them seem real, with their own philosophy and point of view...well, that's exactly jeong jeong. despite his limited screentime, we get a clear picture of who he is and what he believes. and who he is is someone who fully embodies his radically anti-imperialist politics, who has come to his beliefs from traumatic experience that's made him bitter. as the atla renaissance pushes us to reevaluate these children's cartoon characters with older eyes and modern-day politics, it's worth looking at a striking minor character like jeong jeong, who might not be fandom-likable but who has a lot of depth to offer and a perspective worth considering.

#atla #jeong jeong #nina's personal log

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magic-top-hat · 3 years

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MISSED OPPORTUNITIES in the JJK Anime adaptation Part 2

2. The Conservatives perspective of why they retain and believe in their traditional system of Jujutsu

Hey, I too think the higher ups and their society are messed up, but hear me out

Background:

Every person is the hero of their own story, and this rings true for how the higher-ups view themselves. However, they have valid reasons to impose unkind and strict rules, regardless if a "good" person is punished. Ignoring for a sec they like tradition, there is a simple cause and effect they abide by. Don't exorcise this curse under Jujutsu regulation? More lives loss. Natural consequences like this happens when Yuji loses control of Sukuna and kills every Shibuya civilian in the 140km radius who would have lived, or when Gojo hesitated to kill Geto the first time, the later ends up attacking them with an army of curse users and spirits, and almost killing his own students (Yuta, Maki, Toge and Panda).

Problem:

From the get-go, we follow the story from the lenses of Yuji and co. So from their perspective, any enemy of theirs is portrayed in a negative light. Therefore, viewers are partial to Gojo's ideals, being the first ideology introduced to us. We find out mostly from Gojo provoking the elders, Yuji and Yuta's suspended executions, Nanami's protective adult nature to Yuji, Maki-Mai's childhood and Momo's speech to Nobara, the problems with the current system:

Students and Younger Sorcerers are the first to die in the line of fire, as the elders are not putting themselves in harms way

Classifications of Cursed Spirits have become archaic since they grew increasingly stronger, but higher ups refuse to change the labels which misgauge the mission level's difficulty for the sorcerer assigned to exorcise it

Power, in the form of Curse Technique, is everything in the Big Sorcerer Clans, leaving discrimination to fall on the "weak"

A Woman's value in said clans is automatically reduced to maid-servant or concubine unless she bears a gifted son

Female sorcerers have to be both pretty and strong, since her inherent value is in her looks

Yeah, there's also other ideologies: Yuki's revolution on removing cursed energy entirely which is the root of the issue. But similar to team Gojo, she dislikes the higher ups. And their hate is justified because we see the intimate struggles of our cast. Then there's Geto who also sees the same problem as Yuki, but killed monkeys instead...

Gojo's reform of Jujutsu seems like the most peaceful, practical and achievable path for Jujutsu, right? Right..?

(Hot take: We're so convinced that our main characters are morally justified by their experiences and emotions that we sometimes bend our own morality.

Example: Maki killing the entire Zenin Clan and hunting remaining members...)

But for all the system's flaws, what does it do right by?

Solution:

Every hero we've encountered hates the higher ups. Gege Akutami wrote the higher ups and their conservative supporters in a very bad light (not saying the dislike of their system is senseless or unjustified). But to tell an honest story, I think Gege needs to write a likable, well intentioned character or group from the "other side" and flesh out his/her reasons for upholding the status quo. They don't have to preach their values, just let them exist really, and not be shown as evil.

I don't count the Kyoto students as good examples of "good-guys playing-on-the-wrong-team" because we naturally rooted for the Tokyo team and considered them the Kyoto team as "the other". This negative framing was reinforced also by how the Kyoto students were willing to do their duty and exorcise Yuji, a first year student. But they set up Todo as a good guy for not obeying the order.

Another example of "bad lighting": I don't think Principal Gakuganji is a malicious, death-seeking old man, just a rule-abiding one. All those attempts on Yuji's life were because for him, he's supposed to have died in the first place. He admits himself that he doesn't dislike Yuji. There is just a big risk by letting him live, and he's proven correct. Like a ripple effect, Yuji swallowing the fingers escalated the prominence of special grade cursed spirits.

The audience needs to be given all the cards (even if the good choice is obvious) so that instead of swaying us to one side by covering the other, we can get the full perspective and make the choice to root for who we see as the good guys. It's really not as simple as higher ups bad, young people good.

I want an episode following how effective the current system is, or at least what they do right, because that way I can make a well informed, objective decision if what the protagonists are doing is working to a greater or lesser evil, and how many lives would be loss by following the higher ups who see the the short term, simple cause and effect results of their ways or the idealistic youth whose goals are for painstaking planting, no immediate profit but long term success.

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snapeaddict · 4 years

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I was fairly certain Remus did regret his actions though. He literally tells Harry that he often stood aside and watched it happen without saying anything, and that he wishes he had. In the Prisoner of Azkaban, whenever Snape gives a dig at Lupin or insult him and Harry tries to stand up for Lupin, he repeatedly excuses Snape's actions. Hell, even when Snape tries to reveal Lupin is a werewolf and eventually causes his loss of job, Lupin never hits back, or even tries to defend himself.

I’ll divide my answer into three parts.

1 - Repentance vs Regret

So, you are right. I do think Lupin regrets some of his past actions - but the thing is, it seems to make you think he understood the seriousness of his actions/has grown up/is now a better person. And I strongly believe it is not the case regarding the subject of bullying.

“In repentance, there is a retrospection of the past mistake and a search for a better way so as to not commit the mistake if such a situation arises in the future. In repentance, there is a commitment towards change. Thus, repentance is an act that intends to make one a better person. If you are repenting, it means you are learning from your mistakes and willing to change to become a better person.”

This, does not apply to Remus. We know from the books he never understands and/or refuses to acknowledge what he and his friends did wasn’t justified or deserved; he doesn’t address it as bullying as I explain in this post. Lupin’s behaviour pattern is quite clear throughout the saga: he never or only partially acknowledges his faults and they are always someone else’s doing for the most part.

“Regret is a feeling of remorse that is a negative emotion as it leads one to think continuously about his past action or behaviour and causes more shame, guilt, anger, disappointment etc.

On the other hand, repentance is a positive emotion as it makes one learn about his mistake, and he vows not to repeat it in the future.”

Lupin gives the image of a kind, understanding and mature person who knows how to put into question is own behaviour when necessary when he tells Harry and Sirius he knows he should have prevented them from tormenting Snape (Chapter 29 of OOTP). But then, as the conversation continues, if you closely analyses his thoughts - he keeps indulging into self-beating and talking about his own behaviour. He is completely self-centred and cares more about the image he gives than about the consequences of his actions and this clearly is the way he functions:

- He is willing to risk Harry’s life by not telling Dumbledore Sirius is an animagus rather than confess he betrayed his trust as a teenager: he cares more about what the headmaster thinks of him than about the consequences of his actions.

- He finds the time to acknowledge he should have behaved better - what a mature reaction - but never acknowledges Snape’s trauma or the seriousness of what was done to him. He thinks of it as a “rivalry”.

- He puts a lot of effort into burnishing his and his friends’ image by justifying bullying with “rivalry”, “jealousy”, and agreeing with the fact “it was a mutual hate and those are things that happen” rather than admitting they behaved terribly.

So yes, Remus regrets his actions. But it is clear to me he firstly regrets them because it gives him a bad image in front of Harry and Dumbledore, and to himself; he never learns from his mistakes nor can make sure to not repeat them in the future, because he simply refuses to acknowledge them and put his energy into minimising them or making them, for the most part, Snape’s own fault. I find Remus to be a self-centred and cowardly person, and this behaviour goes along with it.

However, I am not saying this makes him a bad man and understand this is directly linked to the fact he is a werewolf and giving a positive image of himself is nearly vital for him. But clearly, the fact he regrets his actions means nothing besides what I just explained, in my opinion, because Remus refuses to acknowledge what they did. He never repents and we must not mistake regrets for repentance. Remember that being critical of a character doesn’t make him less interesting or likable and has nothing to do with your personal liking of him. Snape isn’t a saint either, it’s actually interesting to have characters with layers. However, Remus was written kindly and “loved” by the books’ narrative and POV; Snape was not.

2 - He still behaves, in his thirties, like a bully

...which shows he does not repent or feel sorry for what was done to Snape and their other victims. I had the chance to discuss this with @ottogatto and she was very helpful and gave me a very interesting insight on Remus’ behaviour as we see it through Harry’s eyes in the books.

As she explained, nearly every time the subject of Snape is brought up, Remus will subtlely put the fault on him. “He was jealous”, “Your father was more popular than he was and he hated it”, “He was jealous of James’ talent for Quidditch”, “Sirius and James were good at everything and everyone loved them, unlike Snape” are embedded quotes from HP5. Why was Snape furious against him at the end of HP3? “Because he wanted the Order of Merlin”; not because Remus had nearly killed him again as well as three students, just as he had done when Snape was younger. He keeps dismissing the consequences of his actions and justifies (to both Harry and the readers), the abuse Snape went through at the hands of the Marauders. He uses a florilegium of excuses commonly used by bullies that are both very vicious and even pervert in their aims (pervert = lead someone away from what is considered acceptable. Distort or corrupt the original meaning or state of things. Exactly what he does repeatedly). This is still the behaviour of an abuser. If @ottogatto finds the post she made about it, you may like to read it as well. Remus refuses to acknowledge Snape is right to act in the way he does regarding the bullying he went through and thus deepens the hate that already exists between Harry and Snape.

From the (wonderful) @ottogatto: You see, when you tell people how your target is jealous of you, it demonizes them in a shameful way. It tells how they are a pathetic person attacking you wrongfully, oh poor innocent human that did nothing wrong. Jealousy, after all, is a fault that remains completely on the jealous one. It gives your listeners the image that your prey is a mistrustful person while putting you in the position of someone who can be envied -- supposedly for your goodness. Because that prey is framed as mistrustful and ill-intentioned, it allows people to doubt whatever accusation your target might have: either "they're lying", or "exaggerating", or "making things up". Only those who are versed in the mechanisms of bullying -- the easy or the hard way -- will spot the problem. Otherwise, people will find a pretext, a rightful excuse, or an innocent, well-intentioned goal, to keep your prey alone, weak, and "punished".

3 - It is absolutely normal Lupin doesn’t defend himself or hits back when Snape reveals he is a werewolf

...because he is in the wrong. Snape doesn’t even cause his loss of job and you may want to reread the books while not taking Harry’s perspective for the unbiased truth. Dumbledore is obviously the one who asks Remus to resign. Remus just nearly killed three students and a professor, and roamed freely onto both Hogwarts grounds and Hogsmeade as a werewolf, risking many deaths and infections because he forgot the potion Snape had been brewing for him (he depended on Snape, another reason not to fight with him). Dumbledore just learns it isn’t the first time he betrayed his trust and he did the same for two years as a teenager, risking Hogwarts’s closure and reputation and his position as headmaster, breaking the promise he made to him when he was accepted as school. The worst thing is, it is Sirius who tells Dumbledore. Not Remus. Remus clearly demonstrates he is dangerous in spite of himself - Dumbledore learns as well he hid a very important information from him (Sirius being an animagus) during the year, supposedly risking Harry’s life. Dumbledore doesn’t apologize for Snape’s behaviour when he tells him goodbye and it is reasonable to suppose it is because he is fine with Lupin’s identity not being a secret anymore.

I understand Snape’s decision (and certainly Dumbledore’s as well, as read in Snape: A Definitive Reading and various clever posts on Tumblr) may seem cruel and negatively impacted Remus in a society full of prejudices; but I understand Snape’s decision as well. Lupin was a walking danger and had proved it countless of times, nearly killing him: I’ll always argue his decision wasn’t a bad one but you may disagree. I’m sorry for Lupin and what happened to him- but I also am lucid and acknowledge the fact he continuously risked people’s lives and was a danger to society at this point (because said society didn’t help him in any way, don’t get me wrong). But to come back to your main point, Lupin was the only one who caused his loss of job, and he had no legitimacy to call out Snape for revealing his true nature to the public, because clearly only this knowledge would prevent him from doing harm in the future. It’s a complicated situation that goes deeper than Remus and Snape’s relationship.

Lupin could also be deemed as dangerous on another level: he spreads around pro bullying rhetorics and makes it look okay if it was "deserved". He makes bullying less serious if the victim isn't likable. He makes bullying less serious because he is likable. And this is very wrong both in and outside the books.

#Snape meta #Severus snape meta #Marauders meta #Remus Lupin #anti remus lupin #Sirius black #James Potter #anti james potter #Anti Sirius Black #Pro snape #Bullying #Snapedom #Snape community #Severus snape #Harry Potter #Hogwarts #marauders era #Ask #Snape ask

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eventidespirits · 3 years

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Adam Allistair Freemont

Aliases: Edwin Lockhart, William Silva, Francis LaRue, Everett Brighton, James Fenwick

Apparent Age: "29"

Birthday: August 11th, 1897

Death Day: December 19th, 1926

Species: Vampire (Siren Bloodline)/Bloodbound Spirit

Gender: Cis Man

Pronouns: he/him

Sexuality: Primarily Heterosexual

Occupation: Photographer

Residence: Santa Marta, California; Morgan Kendrick's Psychic Realm

Universe: Primarily original lore but also Vampire the Masquerade where he's a Camarilla Toreador who defected to the Sabbat.

Appearance:

Height: 6'0

Build: Tall and lanky with angular shoulders and long limbs. He has a trim, lightly muscled physique with long delicate fingers and soft hands.

Eye Color: Luminous Yellow/Gold with slitted cat-like pupils and a darker, amber band around the edges.

Hair Color/Texture: Black, 1b hair texture. Just long enough for the ends to brush against his shoulders. Partially brushed back and parted to the right but a significant amount of his hair ends up falling into his face.

Face: Angular with a square jaw and high cheekbones. He has a mostly straight nose with a slight convex curve to the bridge. He has deep set eyes with heavy lids and dark circles and usually looks somewhat sleepy but in a strangely sensual way. Defined lips that are usually curved into a sadistic little smirk. He's quite attractive but in a way that feels vaguely dangerous or even predatory.

Distinguishing Characteristics: Adam has bright golden eyes with slitted cat-like pupils. He also has a rather large, jagged scar on his back, located between his shoulder blades. I'd include his *other* distinguishing characteristic but that's kinda NSFW ;)

Posture/Body Language: Confident, even arrogant, chin up, shoulders back but not in a way that looks particularly stiff. His body language is generally relaxed and easy, bringing to mind a big cat at rest -- there's always something about the way he moves that implies a predatory nature laying beneath his cool, collected surface. Adam walks with clear purpose and long, smooth strides and always knows how to make an entrance.

Voice: Soft and smooth with a deep timbre and confident inflection. Adam's voice is somewhat like poisoned honey or arsenic laced velvet -- smooth and sweet but with something slightly off.

Clothing Style: Adam prefers dark colors -- burgundy, blood red, black, charcoal, rich deep browns and the ocassional pop of gold or cream or a white dress shirt. He wears primarily expensive, tailored button downs made from things like silk, velvet or very high thread count cotton with the sleeves rolled up and the top three (or four) buttons undone. Sometimes with brocade, floral or striped patterns. If it's cooler out, he'll wear a black blazer or something similar. When it comes to pants, it's almost entirely black or charcoal tailored pants or pitch black jeans. He usually wears very few accessories -- a nice watch, a belt, a silver and garnet ring and a pendant on a thin silver or gold chain. Generally wearing pointed toe oxfords or other dress shoes. When it comes to outerwear, Adam generally prefers things like wool coats and the ocassional leather jacket (always real leather, too) (to get a better idea, check out his [Pinterest Board]

Skills

Social: Manipulation, Lying, Gaslighting, Flirting, Proper Etiquette, Public Speaking, Blame Shifting, Negging, Seduction

Physical: knife combat, some hand to hand combat, basic combat training (circa 1914), long range firearms/sniping, Ballroom Dancing, Fencing, Horseback riding, the carnal arts

Talents: Photography, Drawing, Poetry, Lying, Being an Asshole, Manipulation, Painting, Seduction, Sex

Knowledges: Fluent in French & Italian, Masters in Psychology (circa 1926), Photo Development (wet plate, autochrome, modern methods), some basic knowledge of financial law and property law

Hobbies: Photography, writing, breaking pretty girls, avoiding his deep-seated psychological issues, general hedonism

Special: Emotional Influence, Telepathy, Emotional Transference, Enhanced Stamina, Enhanced Strength, "Immortality", Enhanced Senses (esp sight), minor regeneration, sweet blood, emotional radar/supernatural empathy, hypnosis/mind control

Psyche

Strengths: Charismatic, quick-thinking, clever, good at understanding the thought processes of others, empathetic, deeply romantic, treats service workers well, dedicated, generally calm, high emotional intelligence, has critical thinking skills, polite*, can be incredibly sweet, adaptable, pays a lot of attention to his partners in bed, passionate, artistic, creative, protective

Weaknesses: selfish, self-absorbed, arrogant, manipulative, almost completley lacks compassion, disdain for basically everyone around him, dishonest, has a horrible temper, needs constant attention and praise, has a massive inferiority/superiority complex, overconfident, easily susceptible to flattery, deep-seated intimacy issues, can't stand being wrong, terrified of vulnerability, paranoid, detached from his own emotions/denies his own humanity, callous, sadistic, can be incredibly rude, actually a bit of a coward, condescending, possessive, jealous and generally kind of a dick.

Fears: genuine intimacy, abandonment/loneliness,true death, being buried alive

Goals: To finally create the perfect art piece (i.e., break someone in just the right way -- he's not even sure what this MEANS, he's just sure he'll "know" when he finally does it), to just enjoy his immortality.

Personality: On the surface, Adam seems likable enough -- at least, at first. He's incredibly charming and thoughtful, often anticipating people's wants before they're even able to articulate them, witty, intelligent and seemingly very polite...

But beneath that surface lurks a spoiled rich kid who learned early on in life that having money, being good looking and charming meant he could get away with almost anything. Adam is self-absorbed and arrogant and almost everything he does is a carefully crafted performance intended to get people on his side and manipulate them into doing what he wants.

Beneath even that, which he desperately tries to ignore, is a little boy who was spoiled by his mother and entirely ignored by his (largely absent) father -- a young man who was traumatized by being forced to fight in WWI and who is full of deep-seated fears and insecurities.

To make up for this, Adam is often sadistic towards the people around him -- but in that way where it's difficult to tell that he's actually being cruel until one looks back at the conversation.

He has difficulty genuinely connecting to others because of those insecurities and instead uses his powers as a Siren to make the people around him love and adore him-- no matter how badly he treats them.

Life

Best Memory: Being gifted his first camera, meeting his Maker.

Worst Memory: Somewhere between when he almost died during WWI and his actual death...

Biggest Achievement: Getting his Masters

Prized Possession: Silver and Garnet ring gifted to him by his Maker, his first camera, his black 2020 Ferrari Portofino (with the red leather interior), (he also has an engraved custom sniper rifle but a friend picked the model and shit for me and I cannot remember what it is for the life of me)

Favorite Color: Red, Gold

Favorite Food:

-Mortal Food: Partial to anything rich and flavorful, prefers food that's not pointlessly ostentatious (nothing coated in gold leaf, that's absurd), dry red wines, Italian Cream Cake, Eggs Benedict, Crepes Suzette

-Blood: Blood taken in the heat of the throes of passion from someone that's truly and deeply in love with and obsessed with him...

Favorite Scents: Blood, Gasoline, Cloves, Cinnamon, Resin, YSL Nuit, roses, vanilla, rain, the sharp smell of a cloudless winter night

Favorite Songs: Winter, 1st Movement - Vivaldi, Raindrops - Chopin, La Vie En Rose - Edith Piaf

Can't Leave Home Without: At least one knife somewhere on his person.

Birthplace: San Francisco, California

Childhood: Adam is the only child out of six in his family to survive to adulthood with four older siblings who had either in infancy, had been stillborn or died of tuberculosis when Adam was still too young to remember them. He had one younger sibling, a sister named Mary who was killed in an accident at the age of 6 when Adam was 8 years old. His parents were already a little bit older by the time he was born and his father was the owner of an incredibly lucrative railroad line and had profited greatly from the Gold Rush as well as owning multiple properties in San Francisco and neighboring Santa Marta...

Due to the loss of her other children, Adam's mother doted on him -- giving into his every whim, supplying him with the best education she could and basically just spoiling the ever loving fuck out of him. His father, on the other hand, was always busy with work and when he was home, had nothing but criticism for Adam who desperately tried to gain his approval to no avail.

Adolescence: Adam developed a passion for photography as a teenager and discovered that being good-looking, clever and rich meant he could get away with A LOT more than most people and also meant that he rarely heard "no" and accepted it as an answer even less often (though he rarely resorted to force to get his way, relying instead on bribery, flattery, blackmail and implied threats). All of this gave him quite an interest in psychology and he intended to become a clinical psychologist. During his adolescence, Adam would have a great many girlfriends and despite being a selfish and manipulative little shit, was actually not the world's worst boyfriend and no hint of the violent temper and genuine sadism he'd develop after being Changed.

Adulthood: Adam's education would be interrupted by the outbreak of WWI,which if asked he will describe as "incredibly distasteful and personally inconvenient." He was a skilled marksman and sniper but was otherwise unremarkable -- much to his father's disdain. After nearly dying in one of the trenches of France after taking a grievous bayonet wound in the last few months of the war, Adam would be sent back from the frontlines and would shortly begin work on continuing his education...

However -- despite the fact that he would complete all seven years necessary to get his degree, Adam's interest in becoming an actual psychologist wouldn't ever come to fruition. In 1925, he would meet Amelia Madeleine Smith -- an unbelievably beautiful and charming socialite from Santa Marta who would see Adam's potential as a source of money and influence for the Nightingale Court of Northern California. She would spend the next year carefully grooming him to become her protege -- manipulating him much in the same way he would later manipulate the women he dates as a vampire -- using emotional transference, mind control and mundane manipulation to cause him to fall madly in love with her... In December of 1925, Amelia would finally perform the ritual of transformation on him and bring Adam over into the world of the Supernatural.

Unfortunately for Adam, his Change would take nearly two weeks to complete -- two weeks spent in absolute agony beyond anything he'd experienced before. Amelia, believing the most important first step for a newly born vampire is to break their bonds to humanity would kidnap his mother during this change and leave her for him to kill upon waking. Adam would remain with Amelia (who used her bond as Adam's maker to control most of his actions and her abilities as a Siren to continue to influence his emotions) until 1980 when she was killed by a member of the Bram Park Wolf Pack in Santa Marta, leaving Adam behind. During this period, Adam would end up being "taken in" by a bonded pair of Stryza -- Camille Belikova and Lucy DeSantos and would act as their primary draw for new playthings.

Recent: Adam met Morgan Kendrick at the Velvet Box goth club in Santa Marta when Morgan was twenty two years old and would sweep her off her feet, intending to make her into his "masterpiece"... Three years into this relationship, Adam would finally Change Morgan, which would break the initial control he had over her and result in her, in a fit of rage, completely draining him and through a magical fluke, causing his spirit to become bonded/fused with her blood...

Recently, Adam's presence has disappeared from Morgan's psyche due to the machinations of Miss Belikova and her wife -- though it appears that the two of them are still inextricably linked in a way beyond the usual bond between Maker and Fledgling.

Relationships

Family: Lawrence Freemont (Father; Deceased), Anne Freemont (Mother; Deceased), Mary Freemont (Sister; Deceased)

Lovers: Amelia Smith (Maker; Deceased), Morgan Kendrick (Fledgling, Ex, Soulbond), Many other unnamed girls.

Friends: Camille Belikova, Lucille DeSantos, Jonathan Andreason

Enemies: Morgan Kendrick, the Bram Park Wolfpack

Acquaintances: Miranda Cortez (Queen of the Nightingale Court of Santa Marta)

Income: Moderately Wealthy

Vehicles: 2020 Ferrari Portofino

Residences: Penthouse Apartment in Vista Rosa, a small Victorian row house in Val Del Mar and a 1br/1ba apartment in Park Verde (all located in Santa Marta)

#about: Adam #Adam Freemont #character profile

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the-terminal-archive · 3 years

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“OH!!!! LOOKIE HERE!!! A teenie tiny gemmie!!!” There was a long, drawn-out sigh as I made my way over to where Ametrine had hauled themself away to. Just what were they planning? With Seraphinite in such danger, too? “Look!! See? This!!! This is a Mica!” They pointed to a small clump on the floor, little flickers of light reflecting off of it. “We’re going to use that for practice?” “Do you want to be killed?” “Well, no. However,” I used one of the knives given to me and gave the mica a gentle strike. It crumpled up on the floor like a dead bug. “This is a horrible subject you’ve given. However, it...is quite an odd one.” “Hm?” “Well, all of the messed up gems are supposedly partially formed bits of beings like us, yet… Something wrong happens along the way. Wouldn’t you imagine them to be a lot...larger?” “Well, Mica is kinda flaky, isn’t it?” “...We may have angered a bunch of tiny Mica, then.” “See! That’s threatening! I told you I knew what I was doing!” “You never said anything of the sort.” “Hey, Demmie?” “Hm?” “Shut up.” It was said in a joking fashion, and, I’ll admit, it was a little funny. I found reason to smile as the other couldn’t help but burst into laughter. What a curious fellow. Annoying, sure, and hopelessly reckless, but...something about it made them likable. Perhaps that was the opposing nature of having the thoughts of two gems speaking… I wasn’t inclined to ask. “Is it alright if I ask you something?” “Mhm, mhm!! Ask awayyy!”

“How did you meet him?” I gestured at the sleeping one, and I saw their smile fade. “Oh! I… didn’t really get to ‘meet’ him, so to speak...Savvy just told me he was there one day. They said they found him in someplace called the Chronicle looking for information about...artificially creating something? I don’t remember what, but they found him all beat up! He said that he was protecting some other small white gem… I’ve never heard of a gem that color, so I think he’s lying, haha!!!” The laugh was short-lived. “All I remember was walking into the room Savvy stored him in, and he looked...confused? Scared, even? I dunno why he looked like that… I still wonder why I remember it so clearly.” “That’s quite the story… I don’t really think I know why he was so scared, either.” I sighed, my gaze planted on Seraphinite. “...You met him before he was fixed up, too.” “Yeah! Savvy told me that he really liked not having all this, so they tried to give him as little as possible!” “Then he must have had major injuries.” Poor thing, having to live with something that isn’t part of himself. I hadn’t realized such a phrase got Ametrine to pause their walking, so I turned back to face them.

“Is something on your mind?” “...He didn’t have major injuries…” “What?” “Last I remember, they were-” They keeled over, noises of pain emanating from them. “Dammit… I think something is close by!!” Now that they said it, I realized that I also seemed to be experiencing pain. “...We should hide.” “N-No, we don’t need to!!! Phantom...uh...they said we needed to suppress it as best as we could!” “Mm…” Seems that even seraph stirred from this, holding his head. “What’s happening…?” “Bad things!!! Bad, bad things!!! Uh!! Demmie, I hope you learned how to use those small stabbie blades!” “I did not-” “Well! That’s just dandy, isn’t it?” I wanted to reply back, but couldn’t. All I could do was stare at the figure before us. They were… mostly human, to my surprise. They just seemed a little misshapen, so...why were we all getting head pains? “Sorry to give you such a scare! Hehe…” There was a nervous giggle from them. “I just...don’t know why there are people here! It’s rare we get a visitor, even more, rare that it’s people like you!” “Well, yea, we’re just passing through to get to this...guy named Topaz, I think.” “Ah! He uses this route as a gatekeeper to his own place, so that makes sense. You’re going in the completely wrong direction.” “I told you this was a bad idea, Ametrine.” “W-Well! Shush!” They huffed, pouting and looking away. “We don’t even know if we can trust this guy!” “Who else do you have to trust in a wasteland like this?” They retorted, seeming a little hurt to be thought of in such a manner. “W-Well...I...Ok, yeah, I don’t know. But still, everything that grows here usually becomes a monster! And you… You look kinda like one!” “I’m a special case. There wasn’t a large enough deposit to create anything larger by drawing in materials…”

“Then, that makes you a gem that’s harder to grow?” “Nah, just given no space to do anything like that! The others, though...” They went over to the orange trees, which, upon closer inspection, were just big pieces of stalactic amber, “They’re in here. Amber is an easy means of encasing gems for the thousands of years they need to take form.” “Yet, you speak of this place as if it’s dangerous?” Ametrine looked around at all the forestry. “...But, there’s so many of those!!! There’s no way there could be that many!” Such a statement was met with a smile, but no words would reply to them as the new figure turned away. “Come along. It is my understanding that nobody found you?” “Well-” “Yep!!! Nobody found us! Not one!!!” I looked at the small one in utter disbelief, and they seemed...nervous? Why? “You’re not very good at lying. Now, tell me, who did you see?” “We believe it to be a small piece of mica.” “Another yellow gem? What are they doing out here…?” They uttered some other words to themself, none of which I even cared about. “Well...let’s just hope that we don’t run into it again, hm?” And to that, a nervous chuckle would follow. “I’d hate to get violent… S-Sure, I can be, but… It’s not what I’d like to do. I’m not even that strong on my own, haha!!” “Then...just what are you?” They spared a glance back at me when I asked such a question, flakes of iron sparkling on their cheeks. “I feel like someone as smart as yourself should know what I am.” their eyes went over to the one in Ametrine’s hold, their expression softening. “Plated… a terrible fate must have befallen him.” They seemed to think further on this, a bit of worry present before they sighed. “Y-You’re sure you wish to take him to Topaz?” “Just for a quick little peek, we prommy!!!” “...sure, sure, I’ll hold you to it!” They seemed rather forward about us not being there at all...but for what? Nobody has really thought of harming us aside from the corrupt. As we made our way to the entrance, Seraph had started to wake up a little more, remaining so in Ametrine’s arms. He didn’t speak- did he wish not to walk? Was this what it was all about? As rude as it was, it was also somehow pitiful. “The correct way of getting through here is uh...y’know...following the path.” Once they said that, I shot a glance at Ametrine, who seemed confused as to why I did so. How could they already have forgotten that they were the one that led us away from where we were going?! “Well, this is going to take a long while to walk through… And, Topaz really loves to say that this place is treacherous, but it’s really only due to the beasts that exist if they stray from this path. I’m lucky I got you three in time, hm?” “...I remember…” “Huh?” The unknown figure looked at the one who spoke. Oddly enough, it was Seraph. Did everyone just...forget things at the drop of a hat only to conveniently remember it when the time called for it? “...I don’t know how I forgot this place, but...I’ve been here. Many times. I'm unsure if this situation will resolve without...turmoil.”

#cookie run au #fanfiction #writing #demantoid #ametrine #seraphinite #chapter one: the reason for creation #-- . . - / -- . / .- - / - .... . / ... .--. .- .-. -.- / --- ..-. / - .... . / .---- -.... - .... / .... --- ..- .-. .-.-.-

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libralita · 3 years

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The Hunger Games

Suzanne Collins

Summary: Could you survive on your own in the wild, with every one out to make sure you don't live to see the morning? In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister's place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before—and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weight survival against humanity and life against love.

Rating: ★★★★☆

Review:

This review is probably going to be all over the place because while I really enjoyed this book I don’t know how to properly articulate it. I think my problem is that I stated in my review of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes that I had technically not read The Hunger Games trilogy. Emphasis on technically. Throughout this readthrough, I had very vivid memories of the events of this book partial due to having to read it for an English class but also because it was such a big thing in pop culture. When Katniss bows to the Gamemakers, I had vivid flashbacks of that gif being everywhere. So it was an odd experience and that’s why I’m struggling to articulate my feelings.

First, I think the book’s biggest weakness is Katniss herself. While I didn’t hate her, she’s not the most likable protagonists until she gets into the Games. Seeing her struggle but using her quick wits and surviving is really great. But, honestly Peeta is what makes this book shine. The moment that gripped me is when Peeta says that he’s in love with Katniss during the Interview. Even though I knew it was coming, it still just made me clutch my chest. Their relationship is what really works in this book because of Katniss’s conflicting feelings with Peeta’s genuine.

One…not necessarily problem with this book, just something that caught me by surprise is that this book’s pacing is insanely fast. It makes sense as to why because you have Katniss being in basically constant danger. She’s trying to survive in District 12, then she’s trying to make herself marketable in the Capitol. And once the games are over, the danger is far from over. So, this causes the pacing to be probably the fastest I’ve seen. I think the only part I would say this is a problem, is with Rue. Not to say that the death was bad or anything but I think it could have done with an extra scene of them bonding to really feel the impact. Not bad, just could have dealt with a little bit more. Other than that, this was a fast paced, interesting book. I’m excited to continue on with the series.

And now, since I read Ballad a few days, it’s time to talk about the subtle hints so spoilers for that! Collins made a lot of parallels between Katniss and Snow. First one I noticed is when Coryo is sick and lying in the street, no one helps him. I’m pretty sure he has to get up on his own (his cousin might have helped him but I can’t quite remember) but in this book it’s Peeta who helps her up. Also, I’m pretty sure that the ending to Ballad implies that Lucy Gray never returns to District 12 (whether because Coryo killed her or she ran off) so that means that Haymitch survived the games all on his own. Congratulations! My two favorite moments were when one of the tributes had her ring taken away because it could be used as a weapon, the Gamemakers are very concerned about that and I’m like “hmmm, I wonder why. So no one brings in rat poison?” Second was:

“He’s still smiling when he settles the second on my head, but his eyes, just inches from mine, are as unforgiving as a snake’s.”—Page 364

Maybe you should sing him a song, but not about hanging because that’ll bring up bad memories. I wish we got more of Snow in this book but I’m sure we’ll get more in the trilogy. I can find all those fun little parallels and references. Also I am curious what the Avox girl’s story is and wonder how much it’ll get fleshed out in the future books. That seems to be something bigger about it.

#the hunger games #suzanne collins #hunger games #reviewsdaytuesday

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rivalsforlife · 4 years

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"Pearl buried her head further into her knees. She didn’t know anything about Trucy’s real mother and father… but it wasn’t fair for her to try and make Mr. Nick and Mystic Maya her real parents. Pearl couldn’t remember ever meeting her father, and her mother… Her mother…" from "marriage, magic, misunderstandings"? maybe the bit in which trucy & pearl argue before that too, if you want? (thank you for the phoenix & maya friendship content)

you are so very welcome anon, I have like three default states and they’re dadworth, narumitsu, and phoenix+maya friendship... but the last one rarely comes up and that’s partially why I’m really glad you asked for something from this fic!! For that I’ll do the argument and a bit of the scene you’re talking about haha... underneath the keep reading here:

Pearl finished wiping at her eyes. Something was still bothering her about what Trucy said. “Um… Miss Trucy…”

“You can just call me Trucy, Pearls.”

“Um, okay, Trucy…” It was strange. She wasn’t used to calling people names without a title. “Why do you call Mr. Nick and Mystic Maya your… Daddy and your Mommy?”

One little thing I try to do with Trucy’s dialogue now that I’m not totally sure I did a year ago when I wrote this fic is have her adapt how she refers to people depending on who she’s talking to... like say if she’s talking to Phoenix she’ll call Pearl “Pearls” and when talking to Maya she’d call her “Pearly”. I see her being very quick to adapt to other people’s speech patterns to make herself as likable as possible, even at a young age, as part of the magician persona.

... I say all this not even entirely sure if Trucy does this in the fic? It’s 20k words and I’m not gonna go through it all to check haha, but that’s definitely a thing I started doing at some point.

Pearl on the other hand has been raised to be very formal by Morgan and put proper titles in front of everything, even nicknames (see: Mr. Nick and Mr. Scruffy Detective...) even then it’s a little hard for her to call someone her own age with a title (hence why she doesn’t do it in narration but does in her dialogue here). ... Thinking about it now, Trucy is probably the first person around Pearl’s age that she’s ever met, which is pretty depressing.

“Because they are,” said Trucy, like it was obvious. “Or they will be.”

“But they’re not going to be your real Daddy and Mommy, right?” Pearl pointed out.

Trucy’s expression got strangely serious. “What do you mean by that?”

“Well… Mystic Maya has Fey blood,” Pearl explained. “So… so her daughters are going to have Fey blood, too, and they can channel spirits like I can and like Mystic Maya can. But you can’t, so… you’re not going to be Mystic Maya’s real daughter.”

“But Daddy is my Daddy.” Trucy crossed her arms, and she was starting to look angry. “And whoever my Daddy marries is going to be my Mommy, right?”

Trucy “calls her new father ‘Daddy’ within 0.2 seconds of being unofficially adopted by him” Wright and Pearl “raised in Kurain Village” Fey probably have veeeery different attitudes towards how family works. A lot of it ties into my Kurain Village headcanons which haha I DEFINTIELY rambled on about in another commentary, so I won’t repeat most of it... but like I said then, it’s my belief that spiritual power being hereditary leads to a lot of attitudes on the importance of women with that spiritual power having biological children who will have that spiritual power. In Kurain Village, there’s no real “use” in a spirit medium adopting a child, since that child can’t inherit the legacy of the village.

And of course Pearl is super sheltered so I don’t even know if the concept of adoption really exists for her. In this fic she doesn’t even really understand the idea of how babies are made, because she is nine years old and extremely sheltered and you just know Morgan would refuse to answer any questions she may have for fear of exposing Pearl to “impure thoughts”. (When she’d just be asking a basic biological question. Then probably never got around to asking Maya or Phoenix.) So Pearl isn’t totally sure of the mechanisms but what she does understand is that for Trucy to have spiritual powers, Maya would have had to give birth to her, which she didn’t; and because Trucy doesn’t have spiritual powers she wouldn’t be recognized as a viable heir in the eyes of the village, and thus, can’t be considered Maya’s daughter. Pearl’s also feeling a fair bit of jealousy which I’ll get to in the next scene... but that’s also influencing her actions here.

Trucy, like I said before, seems to be pretty quick to just accepting new family as her own. I guess this may make sense coming from the Gramarye background... like I don’t think Valant and Zak were related, but he’s automatically her “Uncle Valant” despite that, so she already sees family as something that doesn’t need blood ties. But it’s also only been a few weeks since she came to live with Phoenix and is of course dealing with some unacknowledged trauma regarding her father abandoning her, so the insinuation that she doesn’t have a “real family” is getting to her a bit too.

They’re also babies so they can’t really understand or voice any of this.

“But… but not your real ones!” Pearl shouted.

“Why isn’t it real?” Trucy shouted in return.

“Because… because it isn’t!”

Trucy didn’t have anything to say to that. She just glared at Pearl for some time with her arms crossed. Pearl glared back. It wasn’t her fault if Trucy just didn’t understand something as simple as that.

“I’m going home,” Trucy muttered, and then turned on her heel and stormed off. Pearl sulked for a little bit, before beginning to feel overwhelmed by all the crowds, and then followed from a safe distance.

Admittedly children are very hard to write haha. They’re both dealing with a lot of stuff but as kids can’t really process it super well...? So I wanted their argument to come off pretty childishly, which makes sense since they are. eight and nine years old.

And I don’t really like kids much and don’t ever have much reason to spend time with them, so I don’t know how kids talk...? I attempted the best I could from my memory from ten years ago, and no one’s said anything about it being off haha.

Anyways... the scene after this is just supposed to provide some more context into the environment that Pearl grew up in and what she was taught from Morgan. I’m not going to go into too much detail about it because it wasn’t in the request, though. Key points are that Pearl grew up in an environment where it was expected that she would have biological children someday -- like, even moreso than society right now. And she’s expecting the same thing from Maya because of the environment she grew up in.

Okay, now for the part in the ask:

Trucy had already locked herself in her room by the time Pearl returned to the office, so Pearl sat on the couch with her knees to her chest and sulked. She didn’t want to fight with Trucy. If Trucy was going to be Mr. Nick and Mystic Maya’s kind-of-daughter, then she wanted to get along with her. She couldn’t bear it if Mr. Nick and Mystic Maya wanted to spend time with Trucy more than they wanted to spend time with her.

Kind of touching more on the jealousy Pearl feels towards Trucy -- she thinks that Trucy’s going to get to have Phoenix and Maya as parents (which is... half right) and that upsets her because, for the past few years, she’s pretty much been their “kid”. She worries that Trucy’s going to take her place.

Pearl buried her head further into her knees. She didn’t know anything about Trucy’s real mother and father… but it wasn’t fair for her to try and make Mr. Nick and Mystic Maya her real parents. Pearl couldn’t remember ever meeting her father, and her mother…

Her mother…

Sooo yeah this is all happening only a few months after Bridge to the Turnabout, which always makes me so sad about Pearl. Because I don’t think it was ever explained to her what her mother did, since she still seemed to be under the impression that Morgan would want what was best for Maya, hence why she went through with the letter. The realization that Morgan betrayed her and used her to hurt Maya probably crushed Pearl. She’s not going to get over that very easily.

And since Morgan was locked up Phoenix and Maya were probably as close to her own parents as she got. I’d say Phoenix would probably adopt her in a heartbeat if she asked. Maya probably sees her more like a little sister, since there’s the same age gap between Maya and Pearl that Mia and Maya have. But with Pearl’s current attitudes on family I don’t think she’d fully admit to herself that she wants Phoenix and Maya as her parents, so she’s pretty much abandoned by her biological parents and now fears she’ll be abandoned by her “new parents” - and kind of drags Trucy down with her in a sort of “if I can’t have them you can’t either” way. It’s more subconscious because Pearl isn’t a cruel person by nature, she’s just a grieving kid.

So... Pearl has no memory of her biological father, presumably he left before she could remember. He certainly doesn’t come up much in conversation. Morgan probably still hurts too much for her to think about, hence why she can’t quite finish her thoughts about what her mother did just now. The kid really does deserve good parental figures in her life, she just needs to change her attitudes a bit to see them for who they are.

Overall with this fic... it’s got a special place in my heart for the Phoenix and Maya friendship content obviously. Also, for a while, I wasn’t a huge fan of Pearl... partially because I don’t like kids, also her shipping opinions annoyed me... but then I sat down and realized I had 20k words of feelings about her? At the end of the day she DEFINITELY deserved better and I will fistfight Morgan in a parking lot for her sake. A lot of this fic was kind of dumping my Kurain Village headcanons onto the floor and shouting “LOOK AT THESE!!” while also being able to write Phoenix and Maya friendship from a perspective clouded by heteronormativity and also emphasizing the importance of platonic and familial types of love being just as if not more powerful than romantic love... which are all things that are really up my alley.

... And of course it’s the least popular of my fics because it’s a 20,000+ word one-shot that doesn’t have any ships. I know I sometimes browse around and see a long fic and go “wow! why don’t you split those into chapters!” like a hypocrite. So I’m not surprised, but that just makes me even more thankful that you’re asking about it? So... thank you! It’s midnight now and I don’t know how coherent this whole thing was but I really appreciate it!!

#dvd commentary meme #marriage magic misunderstandings #can you believe I forget the order the title is in all the time #asks

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an-avid-reader · 4 years

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Everything, Everything - Nicola Yoon

my rating: 3/5 stars

Madeline has never seen the world outside of her window--she has been diagnosed with severe combination immunodeficiency (SCID), making her allergic to virtually everything. One bad molecule and poof-dead. Her life had been nothing too out of the ordinary until a boy, Olly, and his family had moved right next door. Madeline knows that somehow, someway they will fall in love.

Link to Goodreads || Spoiler-free review below

I’m more of an adventure/fantasy type of person, but from time to time I like to pick up more light hearted books where I need to remember a whole bunch of details from the characters to the world--and this book was exactly that. The way the story is written, there aren’t any chapters, so I found myself saying ‘oh just one more page won’t hurt’ and before I knew it, I was at the end of the book!

Quick reads are fine, but in this case, I felt like Madeline and Olly’s love story didn’t have enough time to develop. The story is very much based on the plot diagram, and I wished that the falling action after the climax was extended. Without going into too much detail, Madeline’s mother is an integral part of her life, which we can see from the beginning. However, towards the end of the story, her mother is sort of let go ?? I get that this is Madeline’s story, but it would have been nice to have a bit more closure.

One thing that sort of bothered me right away was the fact that Madeline’s mother was also partially her nurse? Carla is her other nurse, but she isn’t there 24/7. It just bothered me because irl, nurses and doctors (or any practicing job, as far as I’m aware of) cannot treat/represent their family member(s). Likewise, a doctor cannot become their own physician (doctors need to see doctors too). In addition, some of the drawings at the very beginning, like the graphs, bothered me because Carla and Madeline’s mom need to take some of her vitals every 30 minutes but the graph has coordinates at every hour ?? I think there were two or three pictures like that, but the rest of them were fine. I appreciate the fact that they were drawn by her husband--which 10/10 love the Q&A with the author at the end!

I appreciate the fact that Madeline is a mutliracial character. Again, this stems from Yoon’s inspiration--she is Jamacian-American and her husband is Korean-American; Madeline is African-American and Japanese. I’m glad that more YA characters are being represented, it helps younger audiences/POC to form connections with characters (even though Madeline’s situation is a little unique?) Nevertheless, it’s great to see!

At first I thought I wasn’t going to like Olly, but he grew onto me--at first I thought he was just going to be some boy who Madeline gushes over (which she does a bit initially). Together they were very cute, and the way Yoon lets us see through Madeline’s lense is nice. For their first kiss, for example, it’s not overly described, and it felt like it was very natural. I also really enjoyed the IM messages and the emails sent between Olly and Madeline; we got to know more about the characters in an interesting way. Once again, I wished we got to delve more into Olly’s world; I felt like there was so much potential to unpack his story, which would make his character even more realistic.

So overall for me, this book was just a bit too fast-paced, which led to some events being rushed, but the story itself is cute and the characters are quite likable, despite Madeline’s unusual circumstances. I also have to appreciate that Madeline is a huge bookworm and Carla, the nurse, is her biggest cheerleader (we love healthy relationships!)

If you’ve read this book, I’d love to know what are your thoughts/opinions? Let’s chat! =D

Thank you for reading my review, I hope you are having an easygoing day, especially under these circumstances (I hope you and your loved ones are safe!)

~ Cassandra / an-avid-reader

#mine #review #book review #everything everything #nicola yoon #ya #scid #booklr #books #reading #young adult #fiction #bookworm #spoiler-free

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bighound-littlebird · 5 years

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The Alarm that Never Sounded: GOT's treatment of the SanSan Romance

by Miodrag Zarkovic

Originally posted here.

When adapting female characters from ASOIAF into the TV show "Game of thrones", David Benioff and Dan Weiss aren't unlike Robert Baratheon: if they can't disrobe it, they're bored with it. Their rendition of Melisandre, for example, isn't an intimidating and imposing practitioner of dark and supernatural powers, but rather a seductress who's able to make people obey her only if she rewards them with sex (Stannis, Gendry) or gold (Brotherhood without Banners). One more example would be their rendition of Margaery Tyrell, who was turned from a teenage girl with a perfect facade and somewhat mysterious foundation, into a promiscuous lady willing to do anything – even have sex with both her brother and her husband simultaneously, as she proposes to the latter in Season 2 – in order to achieve her personal political ambitions that are literally limitless.

With that in mind, Sansa Stark never had a chance to be properly adapted in the show created by D&D. Now, the word 'properly' has a rather wide range of possible meanings, and this essay will attempt to examine at least some of them, but, for now, let's say that the most obvious aspect in which TV Sansa was shorthanded is her screen time. In "A Clash of Kings", the book that was the basis for the Season 2 of GoT, Sansa's POV chapters, along with Tyrion's, are the only ones that depict what's happening in King's Landing, the capital of The Seven Kingdoms and the center of political power in the story. This goes for the first two thirds of "A Storm of Swords" as well, e.g. until the moment Sansa escapes from King's Landing. In short, her chapters couldn't help but be of paramount importance in the narrative sense. In the show, however, Sansa's significance is greatly decreased, and not only because the show doesn't follow the "POV structure" of the novels, but because she's reduced to nothing but a prized captive for the Lannisters.

Yes, TV Sansa is a minor, and she's played by a minor, named Sophie Turner. Her age, due to the laws that forbid the usage of underage children in explicit sex scenes, prevented D&D from using Sansa in a way they adore. And her age couldn't be drastically changed without drastic consequences on her overall arc which is, in ACOK at least, built around her first period. That's why, for example, D&D couldn't cast Natalie Dormer – one of their favorite ASOIAF characters, by the way, because they did alter Margaery to suit the actress, instead of the other way around – in the role of Sansa, because Dormer, while certainly looking younger than she is, could never pass as a minor.

And that would probably be the only thing that makes Sansa off-limits for Natalie Dormer, or some other actress D&D adore, to play her in D&D's adaptation. Everything else would've been doable. Had George R. R. Martin not put her first period in the books, Sansa's age, promiscuity, vocabulary, even wardrobe, would've been changed accordingly to suit D&D's vision of a progressive Westerosi woman, which means the first three would've been amplified, while the fourth one – wardrobe – would definitely be reduced and freed from all the unnecessary parts. She'd probably even hook up with some rogue brute at some point; when she'd find the time for him, that is; after she's done with Joff, Tyrion, Lancel, and god knows who else, she'd certainly figure out cynical killers can occupy her bed just as good as other available men can.

Speaking of cynical killers – enter Sandor Clegane. One more character that, alas, couldn't be played by Natalie Dormer, and therefore not of particular interest to D&D. Sandor in the novels is a truly memorable fellow, who slowly but steadily grows in readers' eyes as the story progresses. At the beginning, he's nothing more than a merciless brute used only for killing people Lannisters want dead. Very soon, however, a reader finds out there might be some traces of soul under that rough surface. More and more we find out about Sandor, more and more intriguing and understandable he gets. Even – more likable.

Now, what makes him likable? The stories Littlefinger tells to Sansa?! Of course not. The stories Sandor himself keeps telling to Sansa are what fleshes him to the extent that was probably impossible to predict at the beginning of the series. Through his conversations with Sansa, we find out every important thing there is to know about him. Later on, when he hangs up with Arya, Sandor is already a fully developed character, whom we aren't discovering any more, but rather following. And he became like that precisely through his exchanges with Sansa.

The show went the other way, and a pretty odd way, at that. D&D decided it was better for Littlefinger to deliver the story of how Sandor's face got burned, and that decision carries some very serious consequences in regards to characterization. For example, Littlefinger appears as someone who does know the secrets of King's Landing, but, at the same time, as someone who doesn't hesitate to share those secrets with persons he doesn't have any control over. Yes, he warns Sansa not to tell anyone about the story; but, he warns her because, and here comes the funny part – Sandor is going to kill her.

Now, why isn't Littlefinger afraid Sandor's going to kill him? After all, isn't that the logical question because it's Littlefinger who offers Sandor's secrets to others? It seems there are only two possible answers: 1) Sandor is not that scary and dangerous as Littlefinger claims, or 2) Sandor is a dangerous fellow, but Littlefinger is the bravest individual alive, because he goes around telling the secrets of people that physically can literally eat him for breakfast; and he isn't shy even, because he doesn't fail to warn Sansa how dangerous is the situation he himself dares so boldly.

Whatever conclusion a viewer draws from there, something is going to be radically changed from the source material. Quite possibly, in fact, a lot of things are going to be altered. After the said scene, both Littlefinger and Sandor are drastically different than their book origins. And the characters we ended up with in the show, are not nearly as complex and intriguing as their book counterparts. This is especially true for Sandor, who's nothing if not scary and dangerous. He is supposed to frighten the living hell out of everyone who isn't his older brother. If you take that away from Sandor, you're only left with his tender side.

But, even his tender side was almost entirely removed from the show. This time, not only by Littlefinger, but also by Tyrion: in the throne room, when Joff orders Kingsguards to undress Sansa, Sandor stands there silently. His face expression suggests he isn't pleased with what he sees, but that's it. He doesn't stand up to his king with firm "That's enough" as in the book. It is therefore on Tyrion exclusively to deny Joffrey the pleasure of torturing the girl whose only crime was that she saw him in a moment of unflattering weakness. As in the books, TV Tyrion enters the room with his sellsword and he defends Sansa from Joff, but the important difference is that in the show it looks like Tyrion is the only one both willing to oppose Joffrey and capable of doing it. In the novel, we can sense that Sandor is ready to do the same thing, only, in his case, it comes with a much bigger risk, which is not without importance.

So, in this particular case, Sandor was sacrificed for the sake of TV Tyrion. TV Littlefinger, however, wasn't forgotten in that regard, because, once again, he's fed with lines that originally belong to Sandor. In the finale of the second season, it is Littlefinger who tells Sansa to look around and see how much better than her all those liars are. Just as the last time around, this change serves neither Littlefinger nor Sandor: the former's creepy-mentoring side is exposed much earlier than it would be logical, while the latter is robbed of yet another moment in which he shows how much he cares for Sansa and how protective he is toward her.

Sansa is a case on its own, as far as wrong adaptations are concerned. She's in the league with her mother Catelyn Stark, as two Stark women that were literally butchered in the show. The thing two of them have in common is the nature of their complexity: opposite to other female characters in ASOIAF, like Dany or Arya or Asha or Brienne or Cersei, Cat and Sansa aren't interested in hurting their enemies with their own hands, or, in the case of Dany, with her own dragons (this goes for Cersei, too, even though she's the one ordering the suffering of others, not committing it: her aggression is always personal, as we can sense in the first three novels). And, what's more, Sansa isn't interested in hurting anyone, actually. Cat does have an aggressive side in her; it's female aggression all the way, but aggression it is. Sansa, on the other hand, almost never desires other people to suffer in any way. There's only one noticeable exception: Joffrey. She does think on one or two occasions how nice it would be if Robb put a sword in Joff, and, by extension, she wishes Lannisters are defeated in the war against her family. However, we have to consider the situation she finds herself in at those moments – imprisoned by the Lannisters and at Joff's 'mercy' all the time; small miracle she wishes them ill. I've never been a girl arrested by the grave enemies of my family, but if I was, I'd definitely pray for their most horrible deaths every single night. And, we have to remember that, after Joff's death, she fails to feel happy over it, even though she tries to a little.

Therefore, it maybe isn't a stretch to say Sansa is probably the one character that is most unlike the author himself. Other major characters, especially POV ones, do resemble Martin at least partially. For males, it's obvious: even though GRRM never fought in a war, nor had any military training whatsoever, men are men; even in our day and age, no male is a complete stranger to war; while depicting all those dramatic battles and duels was quite an achievement (which no personal experience would make any easier, truth be told, because in ASOIAF the combat as a phenomenon is illustrated from any number of angles, each among them presented with an abundance of details), ultimately it was in himself where Martin could find a lot of answers about his male characters, whose position in a society is never independent from their combat prowess or lack of it. Female characters, on the other hand, had to be trickier, just like they always are for male authors – let's admit it, they are not that good in creating great females, just like women writers usually don't produce male characters that are a match to their female characters nor to the male heroes created by male authors. In our day and age, these "gender rules" are rarely spoken of, but they continue to exist, due to gender predispositions that are nowhere as strong as in the mind of an individual. There are exceptions, as in good male characters created by women and vice versa, but they are in a clear minority compared to underdeveloped or unrealistic characters whose only "fault" was that they didn't share the sex with an author. And in that regard, ASOIAF could very well be unparalleled: it is perhaps impossible to find any other story that features nearly as many memorable male and female characters both, as ASOIAF does (truth be told, that fact alone should be enough to inspire analysts and scholars to look at ASOIAF at a different, more demanding light, and not as a genre piece).

Martin's girls, however, aren't completely unlike the man who came up with them. Most of them are willingly participating in "men games", e.g. power-plays and/or wars, which makes for a precious connection to a male mindset of the author. They are thinking and behaving as women (or, in the case of Arya, and Dany to an extent, as girls), but all of them are interacting with something that, in all its glory and misery, can roughly be called "a man's world". Some of the most beautifully written chapters in the series are delivered from female POVs – The Red Wedding and Cersei's "Walk of Shame" come to mind right away; but, in a thematic sense, those and other female chapters don't differ too much from male POVs.

Except for Sansa's chapters, which unmistakably belong to something we can roughly call "a woman's world". Chapters of both male and female POVs in ASOIAF are often rich with testosterone, but Sansa’s ones are almost entirely driven by estrogen: look no further than her captivity in King's Landing, that actually is, as already said, focused around her first period – that decision solely should bring a lot of respect for Martin, because he had to know going that road is never easy for a male writer.

And the funniest thing is, it all fits. Sansa's storyline is distinctive in tone, but not odd. It is a legitimate part of the general plot of ASOIAF. In fact, as her story progresses, Sansa becomes more and more important for The Game, even though she showed no clear inclination to participate in it so far, but at the same time, Martin keeps Sansa away from all those "male" aspects he decorated other female characters of his saga.

And on top of everything, we're presented with her love story, a romance with no other than the man who, prior to discovering some delicate feelings for Sansa, could pose for an ideal brute of Westeros. At the beginning of the story, Sandor Clegane could be perceived as the exact opposite of Sansa. As someone who has no business whatsoever in her world, just like she has none in his. But, with some craft wording and master subtlety, Martin succeeds in illustrating the flood of emotions that go both ways in their relationship. Those emotions are never easy, nor appropriate, let alone allowed – even by Sansa and Sandor themselves! – but they're hard to be denied.

The complexity of their multilayered characters, of their respective positions in a society and in an ongoing war, and of their relationship that resists all known clichés, represent some of the strongest evidence that ASOIAF is much more than a genre piece. There's a lot in these novels that escapes genre boundaries, but nothing more evidently than SanSan. Stuff like that is not your usual fantasy element, no matter how flattering fantasy can be as a label (Homer, Shakespeare, Tolkien – to name just a few all-time greats that created unforgettable stories with supernatural aspects in them). Any author who comes up with that kind of love story involving those kind of characters – and with a legion of other characters, and with no less than four different religions, and with themes of honor, redemption, identity, bravery, equality, ancestry, legacy, freedom, revolution... – deserves to be analyzed not as a genre writer.

Now, one can only imagine what kind of enigma Sansa and Sandor were for Benioff and Weiss. And it pretty much remained unsolved, because, when faced with all the complexity of these two characters, Benioff and Weiss decided to remove it almost entirely, along with their relationship that is reduced to occasional and odd mentioning of 'little bird'. TV Sandor was simplified to a one-note brute that goes around TV Westeros and lectures people about the pleasures of killing, a one-note brute he never was in the novels, not even in the beginning of the saga. TV Sansa, on the other hand, was denied her book complexity by shutting down all her layers, one by one. For example, Benioff and Weiss completely removed her decision to go behind her father's back and inform Cersei of his plan. They simply refused to go down that road. They did something similar to Catelyn, whose infamous line to Jon they didn't remove entirely, but did replace it with a much softer one. It is pretty safe to assume that Cat's and Sansa's complexity did bother Benioff and Weiss from the get-go.

What's also removed from the show is Sansa's agency, primarily represented in the novels by her secret meetings with Dontos, a disgraced knight she herself saved from Joffrey. In the show, we got only the saving scene; it was filmed and executed clumsily, but it was there at least. However, until recently, nobody could be sure Sansa did save Dontos, because the man disappeared afterwards (he was briefly seen as joggling balls in "Blackwater" episode, in the scene in Cersei's chambers, but he was unrecognizable for the vast majority of audience). It is reported, though, that Dontos will be returning in Season 4, so yes, Sansa did save his life after all. But, even when he returns, Sansa's attempts at escaping will be two seasons younger than they should've been at that point, and it's hard to see a way D&D can remedy that neglect.

Show-lovers often defend D&D in regards to Sansa, by saying her personality is a difficult and tricky one for portraying on screen, because even in the books she's introverted. Now, maybe she isn't the most extroverted character ever, but she's pretty far from reclusive, as she does communicate with the outside world a lot at the beginning of the series, before she's imprisoned. And even while in captivity, she can't help but communicate with Sandor and Dontos. What's more, around two of them she is her true self, which provides a wide array of possibilities for a good and informative dialogue that, in an adaptation, could compensate for the lack of inner thoughts. With Dontos, she's open not only because she saved him, but also because he explicitly offers his help (and, truth be told, it is he who enabled her to leave King's Landing eventually, so, even though he wasn't exactly honest with her concerning his motivations, her trust wasn't as misplaced as it may seem at first). And with Sandor, she's open for no particular reason – other than those subtle, emotional forces, that both of them can't help but follow and eventually become the closest and most intimate beings to each other.

The way Martin incepted and developed the barely visible, but undeniable romance, between Sansa and Sandor, is nothing short of literary brilliance. With so few words and interactions, he managed so much. The vast majority of readers are aware of restrained attraction they mutually feel, even though they didn't share a single physical aspect of the romantic relationship.

Martin is indeed a master of subtlety, as evidenced by what looks like the endless amount of carefully hidden clues that point to any number of narrative puzzles, realization of which do make an entire story much richer than if taken at face value. And he's never more subtle than with two romances: Rhaegar/Lyanna and Sandor/Sansa. Now, the respective nature of subtlety of those two romances is rather different. With Rhaegar and Lyanna, a reader is – through Robert's retelling – offered a version that is actually the very opposite of what probably happened, and only later a reader can pick up clues here and there, and finally figure out the story of a fatal attraction between the two. But, the clues are presented throughout the text, so much that, even if you don't decipher everything after the first read, at the end of "A Game of Thrones" – the first book of the series – you'll probably sense that Robert's view on events wasn't exactly accurate.

The story of Sansa and Sandor is a very different one. Their relationship is never as much as addressed, even by themselves. Sandor isn't a POV character, and he's not exactly open to people, so his silence on the matter isn't unexpected. But, Martin didn't address their romance even in Sansa's chapters, which are typically packed with inner thoughts of the POV character. It looks like Martin decided to do it the harder way and make their romance somewhat a mystery even for Sansa, which, in hindsight, does seem to be the most logical way: what teenage girl would be fully aware of a romance that "inappropriate", and experienced in those dire circumstances?! As a result of that decision, the readers got a completely fascinating depiction of a romance, that can be described as a train you hear from miles away: at first, you can't even tell is it a train or some similar sound, but slowly, with every second, you're more and more certain that your ears didn't trick you, and very soon the train is so loud that it is the only thing you can hear at all. In the novels, a reader may find something strange at first, when Sandor shares the secret of his burned face with Sansa. Some alarm may be turned on deep inside. And it becomes more apparent each time two of them share a page, with a culmination during the Battle of the Blackwater Bay, when Sandor, after he decides to desert the Lannisters, visits Sansa in her room and offers to take her home to Winterfell.

It might be the only instance in the entire series where Sandor did ask anyone's approval, which does speak volumes about his feelings for Sansa. Considering the manner in which Martin described this romance, Sandor's actions on that day was as good as a confession of his deep attraction to her. Sansa, on the other hand, doesn't have a single moment which could be pointed at as a prime evidence of her undeniable love for The Hound, but this doesn't mean her feelings toward Sandor aren't palpable. It's one more mastery of the writer: through her frequent (and skewed, but in a telling way) memories on the last time she saw Sandor, he was able to show her feelings resonating more and more inside her.

In the show, Martin was denied a chance to do the same thing, even though he wrote the "Blackwater" episode in Season 2. Thanks to the already destroyed storyline, and to god knows how many changes, and to D&D's decision to remove from the final cut some scenes Martin referred to with his scenes, the one between Sansa and Sandor near the end of that episode, served more as a greeting to book-fans who like SanSan in the source material, than as a goodbye between two not unlike souls who shared much, and could have shared a lot more, and maybe are going to if they meet again. In that scene, Rory McCann was visibly better than usual as Sandor, and Sophie Turner was as good as usual, but, just like with anything ASOIAF, the scene doesn't have nearly the same impact and importance if taken out of context.

The exact context of their SanSan is yet to be fully revealed in the books, too. Because of the already mentioned subtlety – a quality that seems to intimidate showrunners Benioff and Weiss, who, in their turn, do retaliate with their on-screen war on subtlety (just recall what they turned other romances into; for example, the romance between TV Jon "Not The Brightest Kid In The Block" Snow and TV "I Know Everything And Therefore I Can't Stop Talking" Ygritte) – Sansa's and Sandor's love story is by no means an open book. Their romance has its own share of mystery, one of which may be: what inspired those two persons to feel so strongly for each other? Personally, I always thought their mutual attraction isn't only based on a "beauty and the beast" model. There is that, but in their case it goes deeper. If that was the engine behind his emotions, Sandor had more than enough opportunities to find a beauty for his beast long before Sansa entered his life. With Sansa, I'd say their mutual attraction is rooted in their personalities. For example, if you take away Sandor's aggression, he also isn't interested in hurting others. He's naturally talented for violence, and he lives in a society that respects that kind of talent, and that is why he's violent for a living, but at the end of the day, the suffering of others isn't any kind of reward for him. Possibly, because he isn't interested in other people that much. Though, when he is interested in someone, the interest is as strong as they come.

(We don't know at this point, but it's not a stretch to imagine that his reaction to the news that his hated brother was killed wasn't unlike Sansa's reaction to Joff's death. "Am I glad he's dead? Well, not exactly, even though I wanted him killed.")

Sansa may very well be like that, too. That would be one of the possible explanations of her AGOT actions. Like the rest of the Starks, Sansa is a complex character that has some issues of her own, without which neither she nor the other Starks would be such memorable characters as they obviously are; it is the fact that they are both willing and strong enough to fight those issues, that Starks stand out for. Without going into details (as if I could!), I expect that in the remaining novels Sansa is going to face the reasons that made her go to Cersei that damned night and with the consequences of that action. And whatever comes out of that soul-searching will be inevitably combined with her claim to Winterfell that Littlefinger brought up in AFFC. And that combination is going to elevate Sansa's arc to even bigger and more important levels than so far, even though so far she was the one Stark that was most engaged – unwittingly, but still – in the bloody dynastic war for the Iron Throne.

And she'll have to cross paths with Sandor Clegane, one way or another. Their relationship was so meticulously built up, it simply has to get some sort of a closure. What that closure is going to be is impossible to predict, because we are talking of one George R. R. Martin, a writer who managed to shock us as he pleased more than a few times.

What is also impossible, is to take anything that did or didn't happen in the show as any indication at what the closer may or may not be. There isn't a storyline in GoT that wasn't drastically changed, and weakened in the process, but Sansa's arc, along with her relationship with Sandor, is among the biggest victims of D&D's inability to adapt.

Whether you happen to like what Benioff and Weiss put in the show, or don't, you'd be advised not to recognize any significance in their decisions for further developments in ASOIAF. Just like show-lovers tend to remind everyone else, GoT and ASOIAF are two entirely separate beasts. And book Sansa and book Sandor, along with everything Martin has in his store for them, can be really glad about it.

#sansa stark #sandor clegane #game of thrones #asoiaf #asoiaf meta #meta #books vs show #long post

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flightfoot · 5 years

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An explanation of my stance on Adrien

Really looking over what I think of Adrien as a character, how he’s portrayed in the story, and the writing of conflicts and characters surrounding him, I think I approach the whole subject differently than most other people in the fandom do.

For one thing, I tend to draw the line between “writing that makes me dislike a character” and “how that character is portrayed in the narrative” differently. A lot of times, if a character you like does something you don’t agree with, it’s blamed on bad writing. While if a character you aren’t particularly fond of does something you don’t like, it’s blamed on them as a character.

Problem is there isn’t really a clear line of demarcation between things that you blame on the character and things that you blame on the writing, since technically anything a character does or doesn’t do is because they were written that way, and anything that occurs in the narrative that’s related to a character may be at least partly attributable to them.

So for me personally, I tend to consider “how the narrative treats the character” to be more of an example of the writing of the show, so if I don’t think the narrative is treating the character the way I believe they should be treated, I tend to consider that a case of bad writing, rather than something that’s attached to the character themselves. Meanwhile I tend to view the characters actual actions and inaction as being something that’s more attached to the character themselves, and so colors my perception of them more.

For instance, there’s the whole conflict over Adrien with several girls chasing after him, either because they genuinely like him or because he’d be a good trophy and give a boost to their social status. Most fans view this conflict with distaste. I do as well. But instead of attaching my distaste for this conflict to Adrien himself, I tend to chalk it up more to bad writing, and somewhat to the characters involved in the chasing. As has been pointed out before, Adrien could be replaced with an inanimate object for this conflict and it would pretty much turn out the same way, because while the conflict is ABOUT him, he himself has pretty much nothing to do with it and is only vaguely aware that it exists. Since he as a character has pretty much nothing to do with it, I don’t really consider it to be attached to him, and my dislike for the conflict has little impact on my feelings regarding Adrien.

It’s kind of similar to Ginny’s situation regarding her feelings for Harry in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Ginny develops a debilitating crush on Harry, to the point that she turns red and clumsy whenever he’s around and has trouble getting her words out straight. She’s apparently very preoccupied with her crush on Harry and what he might think of her, but her attempts to do anything romantic regarding him don’t go well. She sends him a singing valentine which he finds thoroughly embarrassing, but he doesn’t actually do anything about it or anything about Ginny’s feelings for him. Ginny’s whole preoccupation with him is thoroughly in the background of the book, since her whole romantic conflict has nothing to do with him personally. It’s just something happening on Ginny’s end. It has little to do with Harry himself

Also, sometimes the direction the narrative points and the direction that the character’s actions points conflict. For instance, it’s been pointed out that when Marinette steps out of line, she tends to be called out - often by Tikki. On the one hand, her being called out and being held at least sort of accountable makes her more likable from an outside view, since she isn’t a karma houdini. On the other hand, when Tikki acts as a voice of reason and Marinette deliberately ignores her - at least at first - such as in Animaestro and Ikari Gozen, it makes her less likable because she HAD someone telling her what she was doing was a bad idea, had a moment to step back and realize it was a bad idea... and didn’t. Not until later.

(I do realize that the writers may not have intended to have Tikki call Marinette out partially for the purpose of removing some of the sting from her negative actions in those cases, but that does seem to be the general effect it’s had on the fandom.)

So like when Adrien’s treated differently by the narrative than other characters, I don’t really hold that against him as a character, since I don’t consider him at fault for it. I understand the stance of the people who do, I just don’t agree with them. My opinion on a character tends to be more independent of how the narrative portrays them (not completely independent, that would be both impossible and unreasonable and I will not claim that) than I’ve seen most other people’s opinions be.

It’s partially because of this difference in philosophy that my whole thinking about Adrien, as well as the other characters in the show (especially Marinette since she’s the main character, but my difference in opinion is most noticeable when it comes to Adrien).

But I have other reasons that I tend to defend Adrien a lot. A lot of the things that I see him lambasted for, I generally don’t consider as bad as portrayed, not in the context of the show.

I will say that I’ve been uncomfortable with the times when Chat’s made advances towards Ladybug that she wasn’t into, like some of the cases in seasons 1 and 2 when he leaned in for a kiss when she wasn’t interested,or when he’s acted like they’re a couple or are definitely going to BECOME a couple. That being said, she appeared more vaguely annoyed in most of those examples than uncomfortable, and usually set him straight pretty quickly. I think there’s also some exaggeration for comedic effect thrown in there, but with this show, it can be kinda hard to tell when and how much to account for that. He does seem to have learned and to have toned it down a lot by season 3 at least.

The biggest example of that this season was in Oblivio when he... lounged around during the original fight I guess? I’m not entirely sure WHAT he was doing in that footage honestly, Ladybug talked about him pulling a “charming kitty act” but I don’t really know what all that entailed. We just see one short segment where Chat is hiding behind Ladybug sitting down while she shields him with from Oblivio’s shots with her yo-yo since she’s the only bit of cover in the area, then it cuts to him jumping around Oblivio and getting hit. I’m not entirely sure how whatever he did interfered with the akuma fight. Ladybug indicated that it did, but I’d like to know details before holding that against him too much. Character interpretations aren’t completely reliable. Plus whenever he HAS let his personal feelings interfere during akuma attacks, like during Glaciator, Syren, and Frozer, it’s only lasted about a minute and when they weren’t in immediate danger. Once one of them was in danger, like in Frozer when Frozer targeted Ladybug, he got over it and went back to doing his job as normal. So I have my doubts as to how much his apparently messing around was actually responsible for the difficulties they faced in the Oblivio fight.

Oh, and later in Oblivio, of course. He was kinda smarmy about the kiss, but that was it. He teased her a bit about it which annoyed her, but that was about it, and it hasn’t been brought up again, at least as of yet. Irritating, but not exactly a major sin.

And as for all the accusations of Adrien being passive... well, he IS passive for the most part. I do think people over-exaggerate it at times though. Like during Chameleon. Except for his terrible advice at the end (though I do see where he’s coming from in that advice, considering his own personal experiences with his father and fans, as well as his belief that Lila is only lying because she’s lonely), I actually thought his actions were pretty good. He didn’t interfere in the initial rearrangement of the seats before Marinette stepped in, but we don’t really know how exactly that happened. Lila was apparently responsible for it, but it also seemed like she was entering the classroom for the first time when we saw her walk in, so that was kinda weird. My best guess? Alya probably has Lila’s number from the first time she was in school, she texted with Lila, and Lila suggested the seat rearrangements. Adrien walks in during the seat rearrangement and Alya informs him of why it’s happening, and he naturally assumes that since Alya is Marinette’s best friend that she got Marinette’s approval before changing her seat.

When Marinette DID walk in and it was evident that that she HADN’T agreed to it and was unhappy with the situation, he offered to move to the back in her stead. He wasn’t there for the lunchroom scene or for Lila threatening Marinette. He still tried to deal with Lila’s lies, but by asking her to stop and attempting to remove what he believed was the reason for her lies (loneliness, a belief that people wouldn’t like her unless she propped herself up) and asking her to stop. It’s not like the aggressive approach had worked, so maybe a gentler, less aggressive approach would. but he didn’t have all the facts about Lila’s actions and motives and so misread her, so it didn’t work. But he did try. His advice to Marinette about leaving Lila be wasn’t very good, but it fit with his life experience of “you make a fuss and nothing will improve for you and you and maybe your friends will be punished worse”. Plus the lies she told and their effects that he knew of weren’t that bad. It was mostly just propping herself up. And... well I’ll agree that he just generally hadn’t thought about the potential far-reaching consequences of letting her lies go. I don’t think it occurred to him.

I’m not sure I’d say that Adrien was portrayed as being in the RIGHT for the advice he gave exactly, though. It’s true that he seemed to have the last word on it in Chameleon, but I think Oni-chan gave him an indictment of that policy, with his witnessing how her lies harmed people and how terrible of a person Lila really is, culminating in his saying that she can count on him, but not when she’s hurting the people he cares about. He wasn’t able to rip into her for what she did to Ladybug because that wasn’t public knowledge, but he still held her accountable for her actions towards other people surrounding him earlier. He didn’t immediately go on the offensive like Marinette was doing, attempting to expose her lies, but he did try to cut her out of his own circle, and did subtly warn her that if her lies proved harmful to the people he cares about (which in this case I’m pretty sure includes most everyone in class) that she’d lose him as an ally, and I think hinted that she might make an enemy of him, though I’ll admit I might be reading that part in a bit. In any case, he no longer seems to believe her lies are harmless. He doesn’t seem to be actively debunking them, but it’s not like that worked before anyway.

This by no means covers my full opinion on Adrien, his actions, and everything around him, but this is quite long enough already. I hope it gives some clarification as to why I have the opinions that I do about both Adrien and Miraculous Ladybug as a whole.

#miraculous ladybug #adrien agreste #my analysis #ml analysis #I... don't think this counts as salt?#I constantly end up defending Adrien because I feel like people exaggerate his faults and minimize his good qualities #So I wanted to explain in depth where I'm coming from #Ended up going really long though

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rosetintedbeanie · 5 years

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My Review on TWDG: The Final Season

Buckle up folks because it’s going to be a bumpy ride with some unpopular opinions added. This is a little overdue.

So before I start, I want to say that I didn’t want to put this into the tags because we all know how this fandom can be.

I’ll start off with the good. The season started off really, really strong, and it was a good way to introduce all the new characters. I didn’t necessarily like Marlon at first, but after looking back, he’s grown on me a little bit. His voice actor did an incredible job. I’ll admit, after two seasons of disappointment and annoyance, I had low expectations for the first episode and the season as a whole, but I was pleasantly surprised. The ending to episode one, atmosphere and all, was one of the best final scenes in the game’s history, and it genuinely gave me chills all the way up until the last minute. THAT was some good shit, and it felt like the writers were finally realizing what they were doing.

The season had likable enough characters, and although there are a few that I’m indifferent with, there wasn’t anyone that I totally didn’t like. The bisexual representation made me incredibly happy, and partially helped me a bit more with my own sexuality. Before anyone asks, I personally went with Louisentine, but Violentine is pretty damn adorable and both ships are totally valid. And I know it wasn’t a shipping option, but in my opinion, Clem would have been cute with Ruby, too.

Minerva’s downfall was really well done. I didn’t necessarily like her, but I did feel sorry for her. She was a victim of brainwashing and bad leadership and she and Sophie didn’t deserve that. You could even see her trying to come out of it at times in the third episode, when she mentions Tenn to one of the guards (Dorian I think her name is?). The scene on the bridge was probably one of the best, if not the best scene of the last episode in my opinion. There was a lot of tension, and Minnie singing to draw walkers to her brother really added to that. If anything I actually forgot about her up until that point and thought she’d just died. Also, can we get a cover of her VA singing the entire song? I have a new need.

Now before I dive into what I didn’t like and my unpopular opinions, a disclaimer: These are just my personal opinions. I tend to be nitpicky at these things, and I didn’t hate the season at all whatsoever.

I...couldn’t get attached to AJ in any episode. I tried to, I really did. I didn’t hate him by any means, and I even defended him when people were wishing death and hating him for killing Marlon. But there were times that I felt that he was just too much, even for a hardened survivor. I get that he was born into an apocalyptic world, but I didn’t exactly like how he turned into the same temperamental, edgy kid no matter what Clem taught him. I wasn’t a huge fan of the many parallels, either. Some were fine, but after a while they started to get a bit old.

Alright, here’s the biggie that y’all probably expected: the way they handled Lilly this season. If you’ve been following me for a while then you’re probably aware that I love Lilly and have defended her for years now. So naturally I was extremely excited to see that she was returning after years of being right about her fate (because come on, there’s no way she just died). And I just want to say that as much as I wanted a redemption arc for her, I wouldn’t have minded her being a villain so much had she gotten more screen time, a better explanation, and a more meaningful way to go out on both parts. I really didn’t like how she still appeared to have humanity in her first appearance, totally hesitating to kill Clementine and damn near CRYING if she’s told that you were family once, and then pretty much tossing all that out the window when she (determinately) orders a kid’s tongue cut out. Then in the finale she gets two minutes tops of screen time and can suddenly feel remorseful again? Ooookay. We also got pretty much no explanation on why she’s this way except for “my dad melted my ice cream so I kidnap kids now lol.” I just feel like we were robbed of something more involving Lilly, and no matter how you feel about her, she deserved better than to become what she did, better than to be handled the way she was. I’ll always stand by my word that she was not bad from day one, and no one can convince me otherwise.

Something else that felt weird to me was that there was no mention of Kenny outside of a determinant choice in the first episode??? Like no matter how you felt about him, he was important in Clem’s life and it’s especially strange how he wasn’t even talked about during Clem and Lilly’s chat. You’d think Lilly would bring up the guy who killed her dad.

The way that the deaths were handled in the finale bothered me. Like, really bothered me. There’s maybe a couple minutes of grief (which I get that in the moment you had to get away, but there was time for that later), and basically no other mention. Louis was the one who died in my game, but I’ve seen playthroughs and I couldn’t stand how Violet can pretty much justify Tenn’s death if it happens. The way she said, “He was always getting into trouble and messing up,” brought me back to Season 2 and the way Sarah was treated, and it was even worse because Tenn reminded me a little of her and to hear that again made me feel ill. Like girl...did Jane possess you there for a minute???

I uhhh might be in quite the minority here, but I was unsatisfied with the overall ending. The big thing was Clem getting bit and her leg amputated; okay, yeah, sure. But let’s look at what happened before: her foot was cut pretty badly, and I’ll even give that the infection could have taken the spread of the bite out of her. But people really seem to ignore that she still lost a lot of blood on the way to the barn??? Like, I’m not a doctor or anything, but losing blood even after a short period of time can still be very dangerous. Even with the explanation given by one of the writers, there’s no realistic way that Clem would have survived that amputation with the amount of blood already gone. I’m sorry, but it really felt like plot armor. I would have been happy with her being determinant, with the ending we got being the “alive” ending. But I feel like there should have been multiple endings, considering the last two seasons were known for that. I don’t know, I just wasn’t feeling it like most everyone else was. There was a lot I just wasn’t feeling.

One last quick thing about the ending: we never did see the Delta. The Delta’s leader, who is NOT Lilly as confirmed by Kent Mudle, would wonder why their people didn’t come back. They’d probably send out to find whoever was responsible, especially if they knew about the school beforehand. You’d think the school would prepare itself for future attacks, because it’s kind of a new potential threat. It’s something I figured out kind of recently, and it’s weird that no one would question it.

My overall opinion of the season was that it was good, but not great. In terms of writing, it blows A New Frontier and the last half of Season 2 out of the water. The story itself is an interesting idea, but there are a few directions that I wish had been taken differently. The season, as I said, started out strong, and there were moments in every episode that I genuinely liked. I just wish there had been multiple ways to conclude Clementine’s story. The ending we got just felt...a bit off. To conclude this essay-length review, I in no way disliked this season and I have to give credit to the writers for putting more of an effort since A House Divided. If you’ve read this far down, thanks! This was fun to write.

**MIC DROP**

#So yeaaaah I wanted to get this out #I know not everyone will agree with me but I hope it puts something into perspective #Ask to tag

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feijuan · 5 years

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Fist of the Blue Sky: Regenesis, Am I Right?

This review contains a lot of spoilers -- I do not know how much of the anime is congruent with the manga, and as such there may be manga spoilers in this review as well.

Click here to read on Wordpress!

On one hand, as we all ought to know very well,

But on the other hand, I think I liked season 2 of Fist of the North Star: Regenesis more than the first, somehow. I also hate to admit there were parts of season 2 I liked completely unironically, as ridiculous and contrived as most of it was. Such is often my experience with every Fist of the North Star anime, game, etc, that I watch -- though I expected it much less from this, on account of it being maligned by pretty much everyone I know who knows anything about Fist of the North Star, for

Being made entirely in CGI (though I still think it’s the designs that are awful, and not necessarily the fact that it’s CGI, but to each their own I suppose when it comes to visuals)

Apparently not following canon much at all, but that doesn’t matter to me because I don’t know anything about Fist of the Blue Sky canon anyway, which makes my viewing experience… interesting… because I just had to accept whatever nutso bonkers lunacy I saw on the screen as truth.

I berated the first season quite a lot, not just for issues in adaptation, but for issues that are almost certainly in the source material as well. I thought the setting was a ridiculously contrary backdrop for the kind of martial arts antics happening on screen, in a literary and in a visual sense. The martial arts themselves, while always ludicrous in the franchise as a whole, were especially so in Fist of the Blue Sky - and in Regenesis their visual presentation was frankly awful, managing to be both tacky beyond imagining and super underwhelming. The writing had serious problems that required -- I'm not kidding and wish I was -- a Magical Jewel That Showed The Antagonist The Truth to resolve the finale, and the backstory we saw through this Plot Orb was complete and utter nonsense, the likes of which I haven't quite seen in a very long time. This really doesn't even cover all of the issues in the first season of Fist of the Blue Sky: Regenesis alone, because the majority of the characters aren't great either, including the protagonist whose value largely seems reliant on being an allusion to the already beloved Kenshiro, and the abundance of small contrivances throughout to fuel completely unnecessary conflicts.

As objectively bad as Regenesis was though, there were some things I enjoyed about it, namely a few of the characters. I loved Fei Yan and Erika, and as much as I hated Yasaka at first, he grew on me – though that was born from the absurdity of his redemption that made it impossible for me to take any of his crimes seriously. On that line of thought though, what I often enjoyed about season 1 was the spectacle of it, and I think that’s pretty clearly evidenced by my liveblog where I was either losing my mind and frantically posting screencaps to try and even begin to understand what I was looking at and how it was possible, or posting about Fei Yan Being Great. And sometimes complaining when I had the energy to think about the awful writing, instead of laugh it off…

So that was season 1. But what did season 2 have to offer, and could it redeem the anime, even a little bit? Well, short answers: A bit more, and not particularly. So let's get to the list making:

Things I decidedly didn’t like at all about Season 2

Need I even say anything about how the CG model proportions are still awful... looking Yu Ling's model makes me ache all over. But not only are the models in general still grotesque, but there were a few too many instances of flashbacks where characters were supposed to be teens, but they either had a kid model, or an adult model. There's no inbetween. It's extremely weird and jarring when in one flashback Simeon looks like a 12 year old with similarly young looking Himuka, and then "a few years later" Simeon still has the 12 year old boy model, while Himuka has evolved into a 30 year old buff martial artist.

Fei Yan is Still Dead and Yasaka is good but he's not that good. This is admittedly a petty complaint but try to understand... Fei Yan was really good. And I miss him. Thank you for listening.

Fei He was wildly under-utilized, under-developed, and usually just a woman for male characters to make fun of or infantalize -- which is a crying shame (and unfortunately par the course for the franchise, ahem) because she was a link back to Fei Yan and his legacy. Having been partially brought up by him and idolizing him in her youth, she arrives near the end of season 1 to track down Kasumi, who she is pointlessly misled into believing killed Fei Yan for a few episodes. Later in season 2 when she does discover it was Yasaka who killed Fei Yan, nothing… happens, because by that time she has already come to respect Kasumi, so it’s trivially easy for Kasumi to convince her to forgive Yasaka just like he did. Once her initial motivation is snuffed out, she just becomes a detached ally of our secondary protagonist group, which consists of Yu Ling, minor members of the Green Gang, and the worst characters of the entire show!

The comedy duo. Far and away the worst aspect of both seasons of the whole show. The CG? The ugly art style in general? The casual misogyny? The non-canon mismatched cult planning world domination with nuclear weapons? That all pales in comparison to the damage these freaks wreck on every episode they are in.

Their horrendous “bits” are where like 80% of the misogyny this show displays actually occurs. Their boorish fantasies are used as vehicles for the only fanservice scenes in the entire run, and they make up ridiculous plans for Fei He to carry out that degrade her and make her a joke.Their bits are tone-shatteringly out of place and usually shoehorned into every episode since their introduction in the middle of season 1 at the worst time possible. I’m still seething about their prolonged scene in the finale where Yu Ling inexplicably rubs the metal-haired one’s head while her fiancee fights for his doomed life, and he pretty much c*ms and his metal wig falls off to reveal a single disgusting hair on his head -- we literally cut away from the final fight in the whole series so we can see THAT. LIKE WHAT? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

This show is already so far-fetched and often unintentionally hilarious that it doesn’t benefit in any way from having gag characters in the first place. It’s a net loss in entertainment value, really, because all the gag characters did was ruin serious scenes and interrupt outrageous scenes that were actually funny.

Fei Yan died, Yasaka died, Kasumi died, but THESE CHUCKLEFUCKS LIVED? #JUSTICEFORFEIYAN #GOTHRIGHTS

The whole thing with the vampire cyborg mad scientist soldier making pseudo-zombies. That was a lot even for Fist of the Blue Sky: Regenesis.

Oh, and another quick note about Fei He being poorly utilized: I also didn't like at all how she is revealed to have fallen in love with Kasumi in the finale... like c'mon. Was that necessary? They barely ever spoke! A woman can care about a man dying without being A Thing, Fist of the North Star...

Things I unexpectedly didn’t hate and even sort of liked to varying degrees about Season 2

Speaking of Kasumi, he was a lot more likable in this season and I don't know if it's because we naturally got to know him better as we spent more time with him, or if it's because he just Did More Good Stuff than before, but I'm leaning towards the latter. I really liked his tender moments with Erika going up to the finale and his fight with Himuka was leagues above any of his fights previously in terms of giving us some actual meaningful insight into his personality and beliefs. It's a shame these moments happened in the last two episodes of the series... But I am willing to concede that they were fairly successful in making me like him just in time for him to honourably wander off into the desert and die. Thanks.

As much as I heckled the literally religious cult composed of men in black, mysterious worshippers with pointed hoods sitting around a table plotting world domination, mad scientist soldiers, and assorted martial artists, I ended up kind of liking where the story went with it and the themes that were developed in the last stretch. The second arc had a very on the nose stance on war and weapons of mass destruction as the worst of humanity's creations, and we see it in a lot of places in the story. The narrative unfolding at a time when World War II was on the horizon, the nuclear bomb schematics that had been causing all of the strife in the story being erased from Erika's (a little Jewish girl, as well) mind in the end, and how Himuka was driven to villainy by war and became convinced the only way to create a future without it, was to hit the Hard Reset Button on the earth's population. For all its shortcomings with dealing with the -isms, Fist of the North Star has at least always had anti-war themes, but I especially liked how they were more focused and rooted in history in this season of Regenesis.

I actually... liked?! The villains?!

Simeon had a motivation that was irrational and pathetic, but made sense because of his background. Instead of the story trying to redeem or sympathize with him, he is simply pitied by Himuka who usurps him and puts him out of his misery, which is very rare for Fist of the North Star as a whole. It shouldn't be as rare as it is.

While I liked the anti-war themes, Himuka's motivation felt a lot less organic than Simeon's in my opinion and required a whole episode to be dedicated to explaining it to us, which I'm not a huge fan of unless it's really compelling -- and I don't think it was. Nevertheless I did enjoy his final fight with Kasumi and the philosophy of it, which made it harder than usual not to bend to the narrative's will and mourn him.

They weren’t glorified misogynists or cartoonishly evil goons! 👍

Himuka betraying Simeon and becoming The Real Big Bad was also rather fresh for Fist of the North Star, and it's a shame that it was spoiled in the opening, because if it wasn't I think I might have been surprised. Regardless, shifting gears like that was a good move in my opinion -- even though, yeah, The Villain Is Your Brother, Again.

When Kasumi wins his final battle against Himuka, and Himuka says "I have always been a vessel of nothingness. There is nothing to spill from inside of me" and he like, turns to stone in the rising sun, instead of dying from his wounds? Did it make any sense? No. Was it was raw as fuck and did I love it? Yes.

Erika... her arc in season 2 is very bittersweet, but it is undeniable that I was relieved when Kasumi erased her memories. It's probably not kosher, but when I was watching it I agreed with the narrative's claim that her only way to be free of her immense suffering and live like a little girl should was to clean the slate, and months later when I think back to it, I'm still okay with it. A little girl watching her parents die and being burdened with knowledge that can destroy the world, and everything that happens to her and her guardians because of wicked men trying to get that knowledge from her... I can't really fault the idea of taking that away from her and letting her finally rest. Go play in a sandbox dearest Erika... run along...

Every episode felt like 5 minutes long!

So that's the final impressions of Fist of the Blue Sky: Regenesis -- I ended up having more to say about it than I thought I would, considering how I was speechless most of the time I was watching it... with a list of Positive Points that long, you might be tricked into thinking it's unexpectedly good; but despite everything I liked about it, I can say with confidence that Fist of the Blue Sky: Regenesis is not good. All of the issues from the first season do carry over into this one -- the contrived story-telling and egregious tonal dissonance, lackluster characterization and poor handling of character drama, and just plain absurdity of most things happening on the screen remain intact. Had it not been for a small hand full of likable characters and some good themes trying to pierce through the hideous hide of this story, it would be thoroughly unremarkable, perhaps not even worth touting as a hilarious spectacle of out of context screenshots.

I can't be too sour though, because then I would be dishonest. It's clear as day that while understanding why it is so maligned, I enjoyed many parts of it far more than expected, and the experience of watching it with my partner was fun and at times even emotional. And as much as I can say with confidence that Fist of the Blue Sky: Regensis isn't a good anime, I can also say with confidence, that Fist of the Blue Sky: Regenesis was not even remotely the Worst Anime Of 2018. I think it's very telling that in the anime community, being completely mediocre with bad aesthetics and bad story adaptation are worse sins than that of, say, The Master of Ragnarok & Blesser of Einherjar and Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody which are both "escapism" series that aired in 2018 and were rampant with pedophilia and slave fetishization that were popular on Crunchyroll when they were airing. Front Page Popular.

Needless to say, watching lots of airing anime every season gives me a sense of perspective and I use it, and so I am content with admitting that I happily watched Fist of the Blue Sky: Regenesis every Monday that it aired and often had a great time, oftentimes because it was an absolute riot to see, and sometimes because despite everything, it could be... decent!

[Happy very belated New Years everyone! I finally finished writing something, so hopefully this bodes well for my productivity in 2019! Enjoy and thanks for sticking with the blog!]

#fotns #fotbs #fist of the north star #fist of the blue sky #Someone Had To Watch It And That Someone Was Me.

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