#certainly it has impacted the audience | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ohnoitstbskyen · 2 months

Note

I know it would probably bring a lot of hate comments but I am begging you to roast the hazbin character designs because I'd love to have someone properly articulate why they don't work so I could send it to people who won't believe me when I tell them. 🫠 Understandable if you don't want to get into it though.

I don't think there's that much there to roast, honestly?

Those designs are clearly an extremely specific stylistic choice, and because that style is consistent throughout the show, it ultimately feels coherent with itself.

There are trade-offs being made. Because Hazbin's design style is SO stylized and so heavy on decoration and detailing, because it puts a lot of emphasis on costuming, it isn't as good at communicating specific character storytelling as a more grounded style could be (it's kind of the same tradeoff that stuff like Genshin Impact makes).

Like, why does Sir Pentious' hat have an eye and a mouth on it that makes its own expressions? Apparently not for very much reason at all, except that Pentious has a bit of an eyes-motif going on in his design and it was one more place to put an extra eye. And that's a valid criticism of his design, but also the entire show is designed like that, so frankly it would be weirder and more out of place if his design alone didn't have that kind of overelaborate decoration going on.

It does create a situation where I have a hard time "reading" the character designs sometimes. For example, Vox, Alastor and Pentious all wear a similar style of suit with upwards-turned shoulders, butterflies and pinstripes. Now, am I meant to read that as Vox imitating Alastor due to his crippling need to replace and outdo him, and Pentious imitating the style of powerful Overlords because he thinks that possessing their level of power will finally give him relief from his paranoia and self-loathing?

Or is it just a design fixation of the creator who keeps putting their characters in suits because that's just what they like? I can't really be sure, because sometimes design elements are used to intentionally tell stories about how characters relate to themselves, their world and one another, but plenty of other times designs look the way they do Because Of Vibes.

But again, that lack of clarity is clearly an intentional trade-off - and the benefit of that trade-off is a design style that is extremely varied, wild, expressive and memorable. Hazbin Hotel seems like a very easy show to draw fanart of, and a very fun show to draw fanart of. Those designs (especially the hyper-expressive faces) are begging to be the subjects of traumatic headcanons, unbearably cotton-candy soft fluff fantasies and weird, taboo, homoerotic power dynamics. Slaps roof of character design, this bad boy can express so much vicarious emotional intensity.

It's very exuberant, very excited about itself and very self-indulgent, it's a style that prioritizes visual impact and visual interest over readability (something which the animators of the show navigate with real skill, props to them) and individual aesthetics over worldbuilding.

And I don't blame anyone for being turned off by that (I certainly was the first time I started seeing those designs going around), but I would struggle to call the show's designs "bad" when they are clearly achieving exactly what they want to achieve.

I have some criticisms, especially re: how the show treats skinny bodies as an unquestioned, desirable default, and employs fatness as a means of alienating and abjecting the audience. That sucks very badly, and is a serious disappointment, and one of the few places where the show feels like it is being cowardly in its design philosophy. But I don't have it in me to do some kind of Hazbin Hotel Sucks And Here's Why takedown, its problems are not unique or extreme enough to warrant it, at least not as I currently understand them.

#tb answers #hazbin hotel #character design

572 notes · View notes

iamthedukeofurl · 2 months

Text

While what happened to studio ZAUM and the Disco Elysium creators is undeniably tragic, it's honestly the most thematically coherent way that particular story could end. A passionate group of creatives creates a massively successful product, it's weird and innovative and, while it certainly draws a ton of inspiration from various existing works and genres, it synthesizes them into something unique enough that I'd say it would be impossible to predict that there even WOULD be an audience for it until it was released. It's openly political, but not in a way that necessarily makes anybody feel good about their existing beliefs. The entire thing is crafted and driven by deep passion and excellent writing and more than a little bit of insanity. And then, once it became clear that it was a genuine major phenomenon, the investors stole the company and the IP out from under the creatives. Which, yeah, that tracks for the Funny Communism Game. Otherwise, what are the options? The creators make another game, but fail to capture the lightning in the bottle of the original. The ideas that were once so fresh and unique are now expected, meaning that they'll be condemned for failing to reuse them by the people who just want to play Disco Elysium again for the first time, but won't have the same impact on people. Ends with a whimper. "What happened to the Disco Elysium guys" "Oh they made Disco Elysium II: Disco Elysiumer, but it kind of sucked". The creators could make another game, and it's wildly successful again, and they make a ton of money off of it. Capitalism Works and, just this once, people are rewarded for their ingenuity and passion. Eventually you either go back to number 1, or "Makers of Funny Communism Game are rich now". Like, genuinely the best outcome from a "People deserve to be rewarded for putting things people love into the world" standpoint, but thematically a bit eh. Worst case scenario, you get a repeat of Notch. I guess a variant of option 1 has them TRY to catch the lightning in a bottle again but fail to make anything they're satisfied with as the studio breaks up in frustration in an ironic repeat of the in-game story of Fortress Occident.

Instead, they make Funny Communism game, it's wildly successful, but instead of receiving the rewards promised under capitalism, somebody leverages the fact that they have access to capital to steal the studio out from under them and claim the rewards of their passion and labor. Karl Marx would have something to say about that.

#disco elysium

471 notes · View notes

tobi-smp · 5 months

Text

you know, with hindsight now what it is I really do think a more literal reading of c!techno's chat would have helped his characterization a Lot

and mind you, this was originally intended to be the case, and very well may have been intended all along even if it wasn't usually emphasized within the lore

youtube

and don't get me wrong, I Get why it fell out of favor within the fandom. it coincides with a Very storied ableist trope that demonizes DID and disorders adjacent to it, and Can be spoken about in a way that is essentially indistinguishable from it depending on the word choice.

but the thing is ! not only does it not Have to be an allegory for DID, I straight up don't think it is At All.

because we Know what it's an allegory for. It's His Chat. there's technoblade playing the game, and there's the thousands of people watching with expectations and wants that he's compelled to meet (or, at the very least, pacify through Entertainment).

and this makes much Much more sense when conceived of as Supernatural. be that spirits, gods, demons, or anything that could fill that role. separate entities that, for whatever reason, only techno can sense the presence of and be affected by.

and of course, to an extent this is true for all creators. everyone had an audience that they were meant to entertain and the choices they made were influenced by that fact.

but technoblade came in with a Very distinct set of expectations that heavily impacted the choices he was Expected to make and the kinds of stories that he could tell. he was more or less a living legend in real life just as much as he was in roleplay, and these things were inherently connected.

and it's like !

when c!technoblade says he was peer pressured into killing tubbo at the red festival he Is technically talking about what happened within the roleplay. schlatt was demanding it from him, there's a sort of pressure there. but schlatt was also the dictator they were set to kill, and techno has never had any trouble fighting people he considered a dictator before, and certainly not Schlatt of all people.

but he WAS being peer pressured By His Audience. by thousands of people, most of which were demanding blood Because It Was The Expectation, because it'd be Fun.

out of universe technoblade made the decision he thought would be the most Entertaining, and he was right! consistently he made choices that would let him do the most bombastic Spectacles possible. And It's Great. he's Excellent at pulling dramatics and making a compelling scene that give other people room to work off of. in that sense I'd consider techno an Excellent actor, and I have to imagine that he was fun to work with.

the problem is when you then have to justify it from an in character perspective, grounded in those mushy things like Feelings with characters that can be traumatized and sustain lasting damage, Especially Without acknowledging the out of character incentive.

mind you, it's not Impossible to Create a backstory that could justify it. why a character as consistently powerful and feared as technoblade would feel pressured to kill an ally by someone he not only Can kill but Wanted To Kill. why a character as seemingly secure and in control as technoblade would lash out the way that he does to perceived betrayal, and yet consistently puts no weight onto having killed and permanently scarred an ally that trusted him.

what that'd need is tragedy. a storied history of being hurt and having to survive. building up To an untouchable god from a much much more vulnerable position. Long Lasting trauma that's lead to this deep insecurity and paranoia. and that's Possible and that's Compelling.

but it's just not in the text.

not only did we never learn basically Anything that c!technoblade was up to pre-series, we actually know Less by the end than when we started because of the sbi retconning.

it's a Theoretically Possible interpretation that's technically never Contradicted by canon, but would have to be created by scratch. it's a compelling idea for a fan fic (and one I'd like to read) and it's compelling for a theoretical recontextualization of the character, but it's just not In The Text.

meanwhile, we have the video above.

we have the Objective Fact that technoblade's decision making was often subject to the rule of cool (very Very effectively) to entertain his audience.

and most compellingly, these concepts Don't Need To Be Separate. in fact, in my opinion they're Stronger when you put them together.

because the thing is. it's Difficult to imagine techno as ever being in a vulnerable position. he is just Objectively more powerful than everyone else on the server, both in real life And within the lore. How could he have ever been afraid when he was stronger than anyone and everyone combined? when we saw with our own eyes that techno could face nearly the whole server at once and win.

but he Is a tragic character, at least he's meant to be. and that tragedy makes much Much more sense as something Inward.

technoblade as a character who Needs connection, who Needs stability, who Needs security, who Needs friendship and community and Love. but Lashes Out, Obliterates to the core of the earth, because of something that's not only out of his control but that other people Cannot Understand.

how do you explain to a child that you killed their best friend because a chorus of the undead called for his blood and you (in all the glory that he'd idolized) were unable to do anything but comply? how do you explain to that child that you beat him senseless in a pit as the restless dead jeered and laughed?

That's interesting. That's Compelling.

technoblade is idolized like a god, feared like a force of nature, and in an instant cut himself off from nearly everyone who'd considered him an ally. and that seems to be a pattern, over and over and over again. he's left isolated, and in return he faces retaliation, and in return he's always Waiting for retaliation.

and what do you say to someone who wants to kill you for being a monster? that it's Fine Actually because you only did what you did because you have a curse that compels you to? that the supernatural guided you to destroy their homes and kill their people? (rip jack manifold you will be missed)?

That Doesn't Quite Help Your Case.

technoblade as someone who is beholden to this literal cycle of violence and Loses those things that could ground him, community, stability, People, as a result. who Tries to overcome this very fact (to become a better person, in his own words as per the clip above), but is pulled back into it as a consequence of his own actions.

that's a tragedy !! that Makes Sense. that allows him to be Both this force of nature that other characters have to survive And A Person Who Is Hurt By The Same Conflict.

"I'm a person!" that fear of dehumanization makes So So Much More Sense when you see technoblade as someone who Already fears himself. who fears being a monster, who fears losing control, who has faced isolation again and again and again.

and, importantly, it doesn't have to be anyone else's Fault.

by making the source both Internal and Completely External (something that none of the other characters have any awareness or control over), you can Have techno as a tragic character without demonizing anyone else Or erasing the impact that c!techno had on them.

and in that sense, it Can be an allegory for mental illness, but not in that direct "oooooh how scary he hears voices" kind of way that people fear it looks. but in that sometimes people Will do things that can hurt others while not feeling in control. anger and mania and paranoia, things that you can't always Control and yet that impact that you have on other people still Matters.

and the answer to that is, often, vulnerability and accountability.

I think a lot about technoblade isolating himself so near entirely from the rest of the server, and slowly gathering a support system Back by the end. and I Really Do think that framing of it through this lens is a Very impactful way of breaking it down.

tubbo, tommy, wilbur, ranboo, niki, I think they'd All understand not feeling in control. lashing out, maybe even feeling justified in the moment, but hurting people they care about and furthering their own isolation.

There's Something There, and it's already In The Text. it just needs to be expanded on.

and why not do that ourselves now?

#dream smp #dsmp #technoblade #tommyinnit #tubbo #meta #long post #back on my bullshit #I really do think that his character is just outright Stronger under this framing #and I genuinely think everything post doomsday would've been stronger if he'd leaned into this #that said this is probably messier than some of my other techno analysis #because I've been chewing on it for a few days rather than my usual of rehashing the same idea for two years in a row #but I'm rusty so give me a break #also derivakat voices is a straight up banger and you can all pry it from my cold dead hands

421 notes · View notes

taintedbenevolence · 12 days

Note

Hello 𝐀𝐳𝐮𝐫𝐚 !~

A fellow anon here, I was requesting a silly smut~ Neuvillette and A fem reader indulging in the sweetest thing of …

𝐏𝐎𝐂𝐊𝐘

I think it would be a very very cute thing if.. it went south? :3

PLEASE BEGGING FOR HEIGHT DIFFERENCE AND SIZE KINK

- 𝐕 📍📌

a/n: ah, this is certainly interesting. please, do forgive me for the extremely late delivery, writer's block has been destroying me as of late. I like to think that when reader first brings up the idea of the whole pocky thing, it would be up to her to try to convince Neuvi to try it out. There's just no way he's doing this without being convinced of it. But once he's convinced I'm pretty sure he'll happily do it without complaints, and he might even bring it up another time. But please, spare Neuvi; he's being constantly teased. Poor dragon has to put up with so much affection and teasing! Perhaps some love-making is in order, and maybe, just maybe, it's enough to reciprocate the sweetness he's being offered in turn?

MINORS DO NOT INTERACT !!

Warnings!

sexual content, sexual insinuations, size kink, dom!neuvillette, implied sub!reader, implied fem!reader, reader is implied to be married with neuvillette, implied height difference, semi-public sex, office sex, monster fucking(?), dragon neuvillette, double penetration, mature content not suitable for minors or audiences below the age of eighteen.

Character Pairing! Neuvillette x Fem! reader Characters Included! Neuvillette Series! Genshin Impact Classification! Smut THIS IS NOT PROOFREAD !!

Ah, you and your antics at it again.

Pocky.

Of all things in the world. Of course you'd try and tempt the Iudex of Fontaine with Pocky.

Had you not learned your lesson, truly? How many times must he reprimand you for interrupting his important work for such mundane and irregular activities you could engage in at a more proper time and space?

A shame, truly; you'd come dressed so beautifully lascivious when you presented yourself to him. It made him frown, thinking of the Melusines guarding his office who saw you walk by in such a suggestive manner. Could you not have spared them and waited for him to come home?

Unacceptable, he thinks to himself. Devilish, he murmurs, as you walked inside.

To interrupt his highly valued work for a treat? .. How unruly.

Alas, he couldn't complain. Not right now, when you felt so good, gasping, squirming and writhing beneath him, whining with your thighs pressed up to your heaving chest as he slowly penetrated you, making sure you absorbed every tiny, tingling sensation, ensuring you were alright as you sobbed.

Perhaps you should be glad the Hydro Dragon had arranged for the walls of his office to be soundproof a few months ago. You'd pity the Melusines if they were to hear the venereal sounds that were to come out of both you and Neuvillette.

The dragon slowly slid himself inside you, the tip of his other member already with a ring of pre-cum as it rubbed your folds messily. The usually stoic, gentle Iudex now had a lack of regards for propriety and neatness, drinking in your soft mewls and desperate moans as you trembled beneath him.

You were so tiny, so very small in comparison to him. It almost made you look pathetic with how big he was. You still remembered it - being pushed down and only feeling the abnormally large bulge of your husband only slightly grinding down on you, only feeling your heartbeat race as he undressed.

You knew by now how he was usually in bed - gentle, sweet, cautious. A soft-hearted, caring partner who put your needs first before his own. Yet most, if not all of that, seemed to be suppressed in this moment, where you found yourself fully exposed, forced to stare as you watched your beloved stretch your walls to accommodate to only just one of his cocks.

And speaking of the other one, you only kept squirming more because it kept rubbing, creating friction against your folds, causing you to quiver. The motion was slow and painful, yet the movement of him entering you also tingled you with brief flicks of pleasure.

Sliding further deeper inside with greater speed, he earned from you a sudden, sharp whine.

"A-ah!.. 't's, too m-much," you gasp consequentially, shuddering, feeling him slightly twitch inside of you. Yet the Iudex only hushes you, caressing your lips with slender fingers as he only slides in deeper, ensuring you've taken all of his length.

"You'll be alright," he reassures, and you can't help but question just how he remains so stone-faced whilst he adjusts to how tight you're squeezing him, your wetness and arousal all too visible to him as he parted you.

Really, just how needy were you? For archons' sake, you were wet and ready before he had laid a finger on you.

He moves slightly, and he feels your walls tighten around him, causing a slight groan, more akin to a hiss to escape between his lips. Gods, you were so tight. How long has it been since you...-

"S' much," You whine, bringing him out of his thoughts. For crying out loud, he had barely even begun to move, let alone do half the things he had in mind for the evening.

"You'll take it," Neuvillette only huffs in his usual, monotone voice, with a few grunts emitting from him as he slowly begins to thrust, moving in and out, picking up the pace as your moans and cries increase in volume and rapidity, letting him know that you do well enjoy this.

He's pounding in you at a velocity at which you grow to no longer register, wave after wave of pleasure hitting you to the core. Your eyes squeeze shut and open slightly as your lips part, breathy moans leaving your throat.

There is not much sound in the office of the Iudex, save for the nasty noise of wet slapping of skin against skin and a mix of groans and moans. Thrust after thrust, your mind's thoughts slowly become blank, unable to think of anything, exempting how good it felt to be fucked to oblivion by none other than the Hydro Dragon Sovereign.

You could already tell your high was on its way, but as soon as you felt it come, you felt the sudden thrusts come to a stop, and you only slightly blink, gazing at Neuvillette as you see him retract. Yet it's not enough, leaving both of his members still perfectly aligned with your sensitive folds and your hole, leaving you twitching on occasion.

"Neuvi?" you manage to whimper, as you slightly yelp, feeling his large body press onto your smaller frame, his cold gaze firmly fixated onto your flushed body, cold sweat starting to line on your brows, his two members' tips slightly penetrating you.

It earns a soft whine from you, a few tears beginning to prick the corners of your eyes, although not out of agony, as your brain is reduced to mush, your heart beating for a night's pleasure with the Iudex of Fontaine.

"Silence, if you would," hearing your whine, the Iudex replies sternly. "You've already interrupted me enough this evening." And you only hear an irritated sigh, before you meet his lustful gaze.

His fingers grasp your chin, slowly tilting it so that you meet his gaze, his glowing, ocean hues staring down at you. "Let me remind you once more, [Name]. What happens when you interrupt my duties as the Iudex of Fontaine?"

A mouthful, for such an intimate moment.

"I'm quite sure you aren't aware of the consequences you enlist yourself to be subject to by doing these things," The Hydro Dragon rumbles as his grip on your chin tightens.

"Or it could well be that you do not care. It seems I'll have to be the one to personally administer your punishment." His eyes narrow as he speaks.

Your eyes only faintly widen at his words, and the Iudex only smiles at that faintly, chuckling softly as his free hand trails up behind your head, slowly running through your hair, before he grips it tightly, almost in a harsh manner, contrasting the sweetness of his words.

"I do hope you know well that this night is still far from its end, ma bien-aimée. We very well have a long way to go before it culminates."

230 notes · View notes

sv5hive · 15 days

Text

in every universe? | cl16

pairing(s): charles leclerc x fem!reader

content warning(s): use of y/n, pretending the university of monaco has an architecture course shhhh, inaccurate architecture course information bcos i am lazy, ma**ia bin**to mention IM SORRY

word count: 2,580

note: this is my longesttt fic yet and i had so much fun writing it!! i hope you like it just as much 🫶🏻

masterlist!

"so in summary, i want to see how you will finance your project while keeping your budget in mind, any issues you may come across and their solutions, the influence behind it, how it might impact the environment and the population as well as visual aids to guide the audience. these presentations are due next month and remember! it is your responsibility to arrange times to work on the presentation together. i won't be accepting any excuses whatsoever!"

you chewed on the end of your pen at your professor's reminder as you watched everyone filter out the doors from your seat right at the back.

group projects always meant you would have to do all the work yourself just to share equal credit with everyone else in the group who didn't even attempt to contribute. this project was unlikely to be any different. it didn't help that you hadn't yet managed to make any genuine friendships with your classmates. it was understandable though, considering the expected workload at such a renowned university like monaco.

"hi, are you y/n l/n?"

too deep in your own thoughts about the assignment, you didn't realise the room had emptied completely. you also didn't realise other people apart from your professor knew your name. moving your gaze up to the source of the sound, you found a man almost too good looking to be true.

"oh, uh, yeah. yes, i am. sorry, who are you?"

with each word that escaped your mouth, you felt your face heating up. you didn't mean to be rude but you truly had no idea who you were talking to. how had you never noticed this greek god of a man in your class until now?

"i'm charles leclerc. we're in a group together for the assignment and i thought it would be a good idea to get your number so we can talk set up a time to talk about our ideas."

he held out his unlocked phone to you, inviting you to type in your number. if he was offended by your failure to recognise him it certainly didn't show which helped calm your frazzled nerves.

"oh, of course! sorry, i'm not used to someone else taking responsibility in a group project. usually i'm stuck doing everyone's work on top of my own. here you go." you replied while saving your number into his contacts.

he smiled at your admission and reassured you he wouldn't dare leave you to handle the entire project alone.

"i already have everyone else's numbers so i'll make a groupchat too. when are you free?"

as much as you would like to lie and say you had a life outside of studying, you didn't. but you would gladly say yes to any get together if it meant charles would be there too.

"honestly, i'm always free so any time works for me." you explained while packing your bag and standing up from your seat.

he grinned and walked with you towards the exit and out the building.

"yeah? how about now? there's this café i've heard is really good and i've been meaning to try it, i just haven't had the time recently."

you stopped in your tracks.

was he asking you on a date? this was definitely new. obviously you had been in a few relationships before but they had never quite managed to get you flustered like this on the first meeting.

truth be told, he had gone to that café a million times over as it was the closest one to campus that served the best croissants for cheap but you didn't need to know that.

"are you asking me on a date?" you asked, not hesitating to get straight to the point.

his grin flickered for a split second, almost in surprise at your bluntness, before growing impossibly wider.

"uh, yeah, i'm asking you on a date right now. so? what do you say?"

"hmmm, and what do i get out of it if i say yes?"

you didn't think twice about taking him up on his offer but it was fun to watch him scramble for reasons you should have a coffee with him. you watched him come up with several nonsensical arguments before you decided to put him out of his misery.

"relax, i'll go on a date with you! you should've seen your face!"

he blushed at your antics before joining in your giggles at his own expense. he had a feeling your laughter would become his favourite sound.

"what are you waiting for then? lead the way."

unsurprisingly, you two were the only ones who took part in the group project but you couldn't complain when you had such good company to help you.

"this is charles leclerc, he will be your race engineer starting from next season." your team principal fred vasseur gently pushed you away from your teammate to the new hire fresh out of internship at haas.

after the quick decline of your 2022 season, ferrari had wasted no time in sacking binotto and your less than competent engineer for much more suitably equipped individuals.

"pleasure to meet you, charles. i'm y/n l/n. are you sure you're ready for this?" you outstretch your hand to shake his.

"thank you, it's a pleasure to meet you as well, you are an inspiration to so many. i'm extremely grateful to be given this opportunity to work with such a talented driver like yourself. and yes i'm one hundred percent ready to give my everything so you can bring home some wins and maybe even the championship." he spoke with a conviction almost as if he had been practicing it in the mirror for weeks.

his hand wrapped around yours and you couldn't help but notice how warm they were even in the frigid winter. you grinned at his confidence and faith in not only himself but also the team and you as a driver. it was certainly the energy you needed after the less than impressive season that you had just wrapped up.

"i like him already! so much more positive than my last engineer. where have you been all this time?" you declared patting him on the back while looking at your team principal in approval.

he was so sure you could notice the pink tinge on his cheeks as he nervously smiled at your praise and suddenly found the carpeted floor the most interesting thing in the room to observe.

"i'm glad you two are getting along! now let's get on with this meeting. i would like to get home at a reasonable time today."

as the meeting dragged on, you found yourself staring at charles opposite you out of nothing but pure curiosity and maybe a little bit of humour. it was clear he harboured some feelings towards you that he couldn't hide no matter how hard he tried. that much was evident in the way he refused to even glance in your direction at the risk of making eye contact.

"we don't quite know how the others will perform yet but we definitely expect to be more on pace with red bull next year. this season wasn't our best but it gives us a good foundation to improve on which is better than nothing. any questions?"

even if there were any questions left unanswered everyone was much too tired to articulate them and so the meeting room fell into silence before you all said your goodbyes to each other wishing everyone a restful winter break.

you were headed out the door when you heard your name being called. you turned to see charles jogging to catch up to you and so you decided to wait for him at the exit.

"you excited for the winter break?" you strike up a conversation with him as you dawdled towards the car park together.

"yes, but i'm more excited for the season to start. i've been preparing for this my whole life. what about you? surely you're tired of being in the car?" he questioned with genuine interest.

"no, not really. i mean i've been preparing for this my whole life too. the travelling is a lot to handle but there's nothing more i enjoy than being in the car. don't get me wrong, i do like being at home too. i just love racing so much i wish i could do it all the time."

"really? you don't ever get tired of racing?" he looked over at you in wonder and you smiled at his disbelief.

"really. ever since i was a kid i've always wanted to be racing constantly. what about you? i mean pretty much all of us drivers got into the sport through karting. what made you want to be a race engineer?"

"well actually i did get into karting too. my father took me and my brothers to a local track and it all started there. i liked karting but i was always more interested in the technical side. my younger brother arthur liked it a lot though and he decided to pursue a career. he's actually stepping up to formula 2 next year."

"yeah? he must be pretty good then." you didn't recognise his brother's name because you were too busy with your own preparation every race weekend to watch the support series but you took his word for it.

"yeah, i'm really glad he's made it this far. we didn't have much money for karting when he was just starting out but we managed to make it work."

you were all too familiar with the struggles of funding and putting together enough sponsors just to make it through the season. there were already very few people getting into motorsport and the high costs didn't help. you had seen too many young talents drop out because they just couldn't afford it anymore. you were one of the lucky ones to secure a place in the ferrari driver academy and have their money to fall back on.

realising you were getting closer and closer to your car, you slowed down in hopes you could keep talking to charles for longer.

"so, why ferrari? it's a team with lots of history but we haven't won a championship since 2008." you asked with no ill intentions.

you really were just interested seeing as the team was currently the laughing stock amongst the grid and the fans - which you didn't blame them for. they had thrown away several chances of a championship with some of the most talented drivers, purely due to their own inability to perform when it was needed most.

"that doesn't matter to me. i've supported ferrari since i was little so it wasn't even a question which team i wanted to join. i remember i used to always follow the red car when they raced at monaco even before i knew it was a ferrari. anyone who has the chance to be a part of ferrari, would take that chance, no? i've barely started here but there's something special about being a part of ferrari." he explained with a look in his eyes that you could only imagine was the same wonder that appeared when watching the red ferrari of kimi räikkönen speed around his home track.

"what about you? you're the one who actually drives for ferrari so what made you sign with them?"

you stopped upon reaching your car neatly tucked inside the white lines.

"ah, i would love to tell you but i do have to get home."

charles' smile fell before he agreed, making his own excuses about his neighbours complaining of his late night ruckus he caused. both of you were disappointed at the fact you couldn't just keep talking for hours but you had another idea up your sleeve.

"but i would be happy to have dinner with you tomorrow to continue this conversation if you're free? if you want to join me that is! you don't have to."

"no, no i want to! that would be great! here's my number. i'll pick you up at 7?"

his initial plans of acting casual around you had been thrown out the window and he was already wishing for time to go faster. you couldn't help but smile at his eagerness - it was a change from your usually soulless dates who treated you like arm candy.

"great! thank you, charles, really. i haven't been this optimistic about an upcoming season in a while but you've already made me excited for the future, even though we just met. i have a feeling we're going to enjoy a lot of victories together." you admitted honestly.

you hadn't been completely happy with any of your seasons with the scuderia so far, always hungry for more despite exceeding the expectations of many.

"thank you, that's the biggest compliment i could receive. i have no doubt we can bring the team many wins."

the 2023 season went on to be one of your best performances in a time where red bull dominance was ever growing. although the championship was not quite in your firm grasp just yet, you had come closer than ever with the help of new management and, more importantly, charles. this was simply the beginning for you two.

"hey charles?" you called out looking up from your phone screen to find him pulling on his race suit.

"yes, mon ange?" he replied turning to face you sitting on the tiny bed.

even though you two had been dating for years, him and his pet names never failed to fluster you.

"do you think we're soulmates in every universe?" you asked after seeing the tik tok trend appear on your phone.

you weren't really expecting a serious answer from charles. you knew it was a silly theory but you decided to entertain the thought. however it seemed that charles had a different idea.

"maybe, maybe not. i'd like to think we are but even if we're not, that doesn't matter. what matters is that we're together in this one, no? besides, even if we weren't destined to be together, i'd still find you and choose you in every universe." he voiced casually, placing a soft kiss on your forehead while looking around the room for his racing boots.

his confessions of undying love to you had become a daily occurrence and it was always certain his words would make your heart melt.

"you've seen the trend, haven't you?" you questioned him. there was no way he had just come up with that answer on the spot.

"what trend? mon amour, you know i am not on social media as much as you are."

"the tik tok trend! are you sure you haven't seen it?"

"yes, i am very sure, mon ange. come on, i don't need to see a tik tok to tell you that i will always choose you."

you didn't fully believe him but you also knew that he was a terrible liar, his facial expressions giving him away no matter what with each attempt made.

"come here. one last good luck kiss for me?" he asked with a pleading look you could never deny and pulled you from the bed by your arms.

"of course, my love. i want you back safe in one piece, ok?" you held his face in your hands and placed a delicate kiss on his forehead, nose, each cheek and finally, his lips.

"anything for you."

#f1 x reader #f1 fanfic #f1 fic #f1 x you #f1 imagine #formula 1 imagine #cl16 #charles leclerc x reader #charles leclerc fluff #charles leclerc fic #charles leclerc imagine #charles leclerc fanfic #charles leclerc x you #charles leclerc oneshot #charles leclerc x female reader

174 notes · View notes

likeabxrdinflight · 2 months

Text

I want to talk more about the way the characters have been adapted for the live action adaptation, because character writing is the thing I care about the most and as a psychologist it's probably the aspect of any story that I'm most invested in. I can get around pretty much any plot contrivance or weird maguffin or even shitty pacing if the characters of a story are engaging enough. This is my bread and butter, so to speak.

And I want to start with Iroh, because I think he is by far the best adapted character from the original. But I suspect I think this for different reasons than other people might, because the beloved Saint Iroh from the animated show this man is not.

See the thing with animated Iroh is that he's just...a bit too perfect. We know he's been complicit in the war in the past. We know he laid siege to Ba Sing Se, we know he had a complicated past. But we never really see it, we only barely hear about it, and more often than not there are other aspects of Iroh's past that serve to further deify him. He was a general in the war, but then he goes on to protect the last dragons and learn the true meaning of firebending. He led a 600-day siege and lost his son but he came out of that experience Enlightened, having journeyed to and from the spirit world. He joins up with the White Lotus (at some point) and becomes the wise old sage we know and love.

Except most of that is revealed in later seasons and is inconsistent with his actions alongside Zuko in season one. Season one animated Iroh is kind of a passive character, largely existing for comic relief and as a support to Zuko. But there's very little to suggest he's disloyal to the Fire Nation or their cause. He says it himself- "I'm no traitor, Zhao!" Now you can certainly interpret that line in several different ways, but I suppose that's the point- there's a lot left up to interpretation with animated Iroh. We get a sense of who he is in relation to Zuko, but his own development largely happens off-screen. And because to Zuko he's a wise, caring uncle and mentor, that's largely how we, the audience, see Iroh. We love him because Zuko loves him. And that's fine for what it is, and clearly it was effective- Uncle Iroh is almost universally beloved. But it does leave a lot of questions about him up in the air.

Live action Iroh is a very different character. This Iroh is a deeply broken man who was been profoundly impacted by the war and what he has lost because of it. I do not get the sense that the loss of Lu Ten has led to any spiritual enlightenment for this Iroh- there's no indication that he can see spirits, for example, or that he has ever traveled to the spirit world himself (he does still oppose the killing the moon thing, though.)

Right out the gate, we get the sense that this Iroh has lost faith in what the Fire Nation is trying to achieve with the war. He explains to Aang fairly early on what the Fire Nation's goal and perspective is, and can rattle off this dogma quite easily. But when questioned by Aang if these beliefs are also his beliefs, he dodges them rather un-deftly. So you know immediately that this Iroh doesn't really support the war. Later you see him somewhat bluntly telling Zuko that the throne may not be all it's cracked up to be, and he's fairly openly critical of Ozai in other moments. So you know from the jump that Iroh's not really on Team Fire Nation.

And yet this is also not a truly repentant man. When he is captured in Omashu, Iroh gets another brief scene with Aang while they are both imprisoned there (this is before Aang meets with Bumi). And in this scene, Aang tries to convince Iroh to help Zuko stop being The Bad Guy. And Iroh defends Zuko to Aang and stresses the point that it is not Zuko who owes him any great debt, but he who owes Zuko. Later, when he is confronted (and hit several times) by an Earth Kingdom soldier who lost his brother during the siege, Iroh does not apologize. He does not flinch at the man's accusations, nor does he deny them. He defends himself, albeit weakly, by stating he was a soldier, and it was a war. He has the audacity to accuse this soldier (somewhat obliquely) of having been made dishonorable by the effects of war. It's kinda messed up, honestly.

But then this man accuses Iroh of knowing nothing of loss. He leaves the shot, and we saw Iroh's face just crumble, and the scene cuts directly to Lu Ten's funeral, where Zuko chooses to sit with his uncle and support him through what must have been the darkest moment of his life. Back in the present, it is only later, after Zuko has come to rescue Iroh, that he speaks more honestly to the Earth Kingdom soldier- he shows mercy and states that they've all "seen enough death."

So what we have here is an Iroh who is deeply disenchanted by the war and does not support it or the goals of the Fire Nation, but who has continued to stand alongside Zuko and support him in his goals. We have a man who doesn't necessarily regret his actions as a soldier in the war but who very much does regret what those actions have cost. We see a man who is profoundly impacted by loss and grief and has become emotionally reliant on his nephew as a source of support. Not that he's parentifying Zuko or anything, he's very much not, but he is rather obviously channeling all the love he once felt for his son into Zuko instead. Zuko is his lifeline, he needs Zuko and you get the sense that without him, Iroh would truly fall apart. I mean the man is on the verge of tears more often than not when Zuko is in even the slightest bit of danger in a way that animated Iroh was not.

This is what I think is different here. Animated Iroh seemed to turn against the war because it was morally wrong, it had thrown the world out of balance, and imperialism is bad. Live action Iroh seems against the war because it wasn't worth it. It wasn't worth the cost, or the death, or the grief. He couldn't see that until he lost Lu Ten, but now he sees it everywhere. I get the sense that this Iroh just wants it all to stop, and I'm not sure he cares how that happens.

The White Lotus is definitely hinted at, but I suspect that was his motivation for joining it. It's not about restoring balance to the world for this Iroh. It's about restoring peace, so that he won't have to lose Zuko like he lost Lu Ten. So that the death and destruction stops. So he can just live a quiet life and put the past behind him.

It's a different take. And it's not that he doesn't still have a lot of wisdom to him, that he's not still a gentle, caring person. But he's a much sadder person, and he's lost that sense of "enlightenment" that his animated counterpart had. There's a selfishness you can read into to this version of his character that's much more apparent than the animated version.

I think a lot of people are gonna hate this, because it's a darker take on a much loved character. But I love it. This Iroh is human, this Iroh is flawed, and this Iroh has a lot more growing left to do. And that's awesome. If we get to actually see more of a character arc for him too, if we get to see him also growing and changing alongside Zuko? Please. It's not like he needs a total redemption arc, per se, but if in his journey with Zuko throughout the Earth Kingdom we can see Iroh gain some of his fortitude back, we can see when he decides he needs to push Zuko down a certain path, to take a side in the war, to see that it's not just the death and destruction that makes it wrong? God there's so much potential with that.

Now, maybe this isn't what will happen with seasons two and three. Maybe they'll back track and try to make him more similar to the animated version. I don't know. But for now? Live action Iroh is fantastic, and Paul Sun-Hyung Lee is giving a hell of a performance. He's warm and tender when he needs to be, fierce when he has to, and just profoundly sad throughout it all. And I love him so much more for that.

I'll be controversial here and say it. So far, live action Iroh is a better character than animated Iroh.

#I never disliked animated Iroh to be clear but perfect can be boring #this Iroh is not perfect and that is so much more interesting to me #natla spoilers #natla #iroh

187 notes · View notes

steveyockey · 9 months

Text

Some would rebut that “Oppenheimer,” being a Hollywood blockbuster with serious global reach (whether it will play Japanese theaters remains uncertain), will be many audiences’ only exposure to the events in question and thus might “create a limit on public consciousness and concern,” as the poet, writer and professor Brandon Shimoda told The Times. A corollary of this argument: The crimes committed against the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were so unspeakable, so outsized in their impact, that Oppenheimer’s perspective does and should dwindle into insignificance by comparison. For Nolan to focus so exclusively on an American physicist’s story, some insist, ultimately diminishes history and humanity, even as it reinforces the Hollywood hegemony of the great-man biopic and of white men’s narratives in general.

I get those complaints. I also think they betray an inherent disrespect for the audience’s intelligence and curiosity, as well as a fundamental misunderstanding of how movies operate. It’s telling that few of these criticisms of perspective were leveled at “American Prometheus” when it was published in 2005, that no one begrudged Bird and Sherwin for offering a meticulously researched, morally ambivalent portrait of their subject’s life and consigning the destruction of two Japanese cities to a few pages. That’s because books are books, the argument goes, and movies are movies — and this perceived difference, it must be said, reveals a pernicious double standard.

Because they seldom achieve the narrative penetration and richness of detail of, say, a 700-page biography, movies, especially those about history, often are hailed as achievements of breadth over depth, emotion over intellect. They are assumed to be fundamentally shallow experiences, distillations of real life rather than sharply angled explorations of it, propelled by broad brushstrokes and easy expository shortcuts, and beholden to the audience’s presumably voracious appetite for thrilling, traumatizing spectacle. And because movies offer a visual immediacy and narrative immersion that books don’t, they are expected to be sweeping if not omniscient in their narrative scope, to reach for a comprehensive, even definitive vantage.

Movies that attempt something different, that recognize that less can indeed be more, are thus easily taken to task. “It’s so subjective!” and “It omits a crucial P.O.V.!” are assumed to be substantive criticisms rather than essentially value-neutral statements. We are sometimes told, in matters of art and storytelling, that depiction is not endorsement; we are not reminded nearly as often that omission is not erasure. But because viewers of course cannot be trusted to know any history or muster any empathy on their own — and if anything unites those who criticize “Oppenheimer” on representational grounds, it’s their reflexive assumption of the audience’s stupidity — anything that isn’t explicitly shown onscreen is denigrated as a dodge or an oversight, rather than a carefully considered decision.

A film like “Oppenheimer” offers a welcome challenge to these assumptions. Like nearly all Nolan’s movies, from “Memento” to “Dunkirk,” it’s a crafty exercise in radical subjectivity and narrative misdirection, in which the most significant subjects — lost memories, lost time, lost loves — often are invisible and all the more powerful for it. We can certainly imagine a version of “Oppenheimer” that tossed in a few startling but desultory minutes of Japanese destruction footage. Such a version might have flirted with kitsch, but it might well have satisfied the representational completists in the audience. It also would have reduced Hiroshima and Nagasaki to a piddling afterthought; Nolan treats them instead as a profound absence, an indictment by silence.

That’s true even in one of the movie’s most powerful and contested sequences. Not long after news of Hiroshima’s destruction arrives, Oppenheimer gives a would-be-triumphant speech to a euphoric Los Alamos crowd, only for his words to turn to dust in his mouth. For a moment, Nolan abandons realism altogether — but not, crucially, Oppenheimer’s perspective — to embrace a hallucinatory horror-movie expressionism. A piercing scream erupts in the crowd; a woman’s face crumples and flutters, like a paper mask about to disintegrate. The crowd is there and then suddenly, with much sonic rumbling, image blurring and an obliterating flash of white light, it is not.

For “Oppenheimer’s” detractors, this sequence constitutes its most grievous act of erasure: Even in the movie’s one evocation of nuclear disaster, the true victims have been obscured and whitewashed. The absence of Japanese faces and bodies in these visions is indeed striking. It’s also consistent with Nolan’s strict representational parameters, and it produces a tension, even a contradiction, that the movie wants us to recognize and wrestle with. Is Oppenheimer trying (and failing) to imagine the hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians murdered by the weapon he devised? Or is he envisioning some hypothetical doomsday scenario still to come?

I think the answer is a blur of both, and also something more: In this moment, one of the movie’s most abstract, Nolan advances a longer view of his protagonist’s history and his future. Oppenheimer’s blindness to Japanese victims and survivors foreshadows his own stubborn inability to confront the consequences of his actions in years to come. He will speak out against nuclear weaponry, but he will never apologize for the atomic bombings of Japan — not even when he visits Tokyo and Osaka in 1960 and is questioned by a reporter about his perspective now. “I do not think coming to Japan changed my sense of anguish about my part in this whole piece of history,” he will respond. “Nor has it fully made me regret my responsibility for the technical success of the enterprise.”

Talk about compartmentalization. That episode, by the way, doesn’t find its way into “Oppenheimer,” which knows better than to offer itself up as the last word on anything. To the end, Nolan trusts us to seek out and think about history for ourselves. If we elect not to, that’s on us.

#WOE WALL OF TEXT BE UPON YE #I thought this piece was really good 😭#and I thought the Oppenheimer movie was pretty good 😭 embarrassing! oh well #reading #oppenheimer #I just think this writing in particular is making a lot of points generally about film viewing that I’m like yeah! YEAH!#all the ideas around respecting the audience’s reading capabilities like YEAH

495 notes · View notes

punkitt-is-here · 6 months

Note

Yknow i love fo4 and fo76 as games but hate them as Fallout games yknow?

Like theyre nice to play and i love some of the characters but man. They just. Are not Fallout. Its literally like if you took Fallout but made it for a general audience, theres no spice!! Theres no grime!! Why is everything so clean!!!

That's the thing; these games are built with inherently different base goals in mind. Bethesda in the modern day thrives off selling the idea of player empowerment, of being an explorer in a foreign land that you conquer through hard work. You shape the world to your liking by questing and exploring and conquering. And genuinely? I got no problem with that. I think games that gas the player up like crazy and set you loose on a world to make it your own are totally fine conceptually! Like, the fantasy of being able to shape the world the way you see fit is something I think a lot of people can get into, whether you're just looking for control in your life or you just want the experience of feeling like you can have some grand effect on the world at large.

But because of that, I think the core of what makes Fallout so interesting has to be put on the backburner. I don't play Fallout to feel powerful necessarily, and I certainly don't play it for the fuckin' gunplay. I play it because it has such a fun dedication to weird stories that feel like they have something to say, a staff of writers dedicating their time and effort to being a proto-DM at a table, trying to provide interesting and thought-provoking or at least real damn fun stories in front of you, because ultimately, the West Coast Fallout games are about people. They're about characters! And when you focus less on the idea of telling stories in a world and more on empowering the player as a fourth-wall observer, those priorities clash and in the East Coast Fallout's cases, it makes for a game with no spice or edge. Having something to say about, say, the US Military or American Expansionism and Exceptionalism or the nature of clinging to the past kind of fundamentally clashes with the player empowerment fantasy that Bethesda Fallout games want to sell you. You can't have these philosophy-based, morally-interesting factional conflicts that want the player to look inward when the very concept of your game is built around collecting loot and shooting guys instead of learning about that loot and learning about those guys you're shooting and why you're shooting at each other. Having radiant quest loot loop gameplay just doesn't mesh well with a world where choices are meant to have far-reaching impact, because if it did, it'd be impossible to program under a normal development timeframe, and it would likely make the player look inward and go "what the fuck am I doing with my time?" at the endless meaningless quests to go on.

I don't think the "Lone Wanderer Comes Across A Microcosm Of Adventure" format is bad, not at all, but you have to put a lot of work to make that feel cohesive with the larger character and faction-based narratives that 1, 2, and NV are built on, so instead those Bethesda-style games opt more for a toybox, playground approach to the post apocalypse. And when your primary goal is showing the player how cool of a sandcastle they can build, it'll never be structurally sound enough to sustain even a wave of nuance.

#my posts #asks #i-am-loco #fallout

315 notes · View notes

freevoidman · 2 months

Text

Well, I think the writing's been on the wall for a while, but it's a very odd, bittersweet feeling seeing RT getting shuttered. I've grown to hate the company due to the YEARS of exploitative actions towards employees and their racist + sexist behavior, not to mention their transphobia and other bigotry that I am bound to be forgetting. I'm glad that the corporate level of this is being most likely closed.

However, a sudden closing like this means a lot of people's lives and homes are now in jeopardy, and my heart goes out to the employees. I hope that they're able to find jobs quickly, and that their new positions will treat them better than RT ever has. RT has taken many great talents and chewed them out, but that doesn't mean their talents and skills can't be appreciated in new environments, and that doesn't mean that this is fair to anyone who was working under them. I hope the best for them going forward.

As for RWBY... well, I've had mixed feelings about the show for a long damn time. I saw immense potential in the show, otherwise I would've never watched it, which I personally have felt has been squandered with poor writing over the years. I feel like that can absolutely be linked to the general treatment of employees--writers and animators alike--and though the future of RT's IPs and continuing shows is currently murky, I do hope that, if the shows return, they come back better and brighter despite years of fumbling.

When #GreenlightVolume10 started trending, I made the general statement that this would be ineffective. While fan presence can certainly be a factor in renewing a show, the guarantee of an audience is not often not enough to get a show budgeted. I doubt this post will reach many people but, if it does, I would implore people to take the time to look up who worked on which of your favorite episodes from RWBY and see if they're looking for work. Try to support them in this time, either by RT-ing resumes or through other means. RWBY would not exist without its animators, its story boarders, its technical lighting crew, literally any part of the actual crew. Use that same energy you did tweeting that hashtag and put it into supporting employees who learned today, just like the rest of us, that they're out of a job.

This is a sad thing, but RT had a hell of a run. I can only hope things get better moving forward for everyone impacted.

#rwde #rwby #rt #rooster teeth

114 notes · View notes

smokestarrules · 1 year

Text

Why Caleb & Evelyn’s Absence is Good Writing

So if you don’t know me, I’m a big fan of Caleb and Evelyn (Clawthorne. Because I’m sure). I’m fascinated with their story -- I wrote an entire fic about them in 2022 before we even knew Evelyn’s name -- and I find them both incredibly interesting considering what is both shown about them and not. Despite that, I had a feeling that neither of them would make an appearance in Watching and Dreaming, and I was right.

Understandably so, some people were disappointed with that decision, that they were hoping for an entire flashback scene or something close to it. But while that also appeals to me -- oh my god does it appeal to me -- I also really enjoy the intangibility of it all.

So, I have three reasons as to why I like that Caleb and Evelyn didn’t show up again, which I’ll go through in no particular order. The rest of this post will be under a cut because it’ll probably get pretty lengthy.

1) Haunting The Narrative

Half of Caleb and Evelyn’s intrigue comes from the fact that in the end, we really don’t know all that much about them. Everything that we do know is from second-hand accounts at best and the rest of their story is up to your own singular interpretation; we only know the bare bones of their tale, but at the same time, they’re both extremely monumental to the main plot of the show.

They’re hardly ever shown centered on-screen (in Evelyn’s case, never), and again, despite their huge impact on the characters and world even 400 years later, it’s part of their charm that... they’re mysterious. You’re not meant to know much about them, not meant to perceive them as normal characters. Caleb never speaks in the show, Evelyn hardly even appears, and in the end, they’re not meant to be understood.

Caleb seems to have undergone some semblance of a redemption, but that’s only alluded to considering how he ends up dead; the implied is everything, and getting a concrete answer would, in my opinion, ruin part of what makes this story so fascinating.

Of course, the biggest argument I’ve seen against this idea is that casual viewers of the show, the ones who don’t care about combing the background of Hollow Mind for lore about Emperor Belos’ big brother, will be confused without the lack of context. And... I disagree.

Sure, maybe some people haven’t seen the portraits from Hollow Mind, but they’ve certainly seen Caleb when Gus went through Philip’s mind in King’s Tide. Maybe they missed the book about Grimwalkers in Labyrinth Runners, but they definitely caught Caleb in Philip’s diary during Elsewhere and Elsewhen. Then, in Thanks to Them, there’s an entire scene in which Masha very kindly gives an entire summary on the topic, tipping off both the main characters and anyone else in the audience who may be confused.

The story’s all there, both in the background and in the forefront of the show, and it’s weaved in so beautifully that it’s hard for me to believe that anyone would see Caleb in For the Future (of which is a scene I will be talking about soon) and have absolutely no idea who he is.

So in the end, I think having a more clear understanding of the going-ons that set everything into motion would be almost doing a disservice to the fans who have spent their time piecing things together and it’s also not really necessary in the first place. It’d be nice, and I’m sure I would have gone even more insane with more to analyze, but with the way this show has always portrayed Caleb and Evelyn, them fading into obscurity in the final episode just seems... fitting.

2) Philip Doesn’t Really Deserve Closure

It’s a simple fact: Philip Wittebane is kind of a fucked-up guy.

Besides a flashback scene, another idea for a potential Caleb and Evelyn appearance that I saw tossed around most was this: it’s the end, Philip’s about to be defeated, and in the interim, he sees his brother one last time.

Either he’s given forgiveness or not, Caleb being present at his lowest moment would undoubtedly mean something to Philip; over the centuries he’s spent a significant amount of time trying to remake his brother -- to make him better -- and no matter how you feel about him, Philip is a tortured soul. Perhaps Caleb could help him accept his inevitable death, perhaps he could have one last chance for Philip to have a moment of genuine vulnerability.

He’d die with the ghost of his brother and the ghost of his brother’s wife looking over him, and he’d die content... maybe.

Or you can go the other route:

On the other hand, maybe Philip goes to his death kicking and screaming the whole way, with Caleb and Evelyn staring him down as he’s ultimately annihilated for good. The tale of two brothers is over, and while Caleb is the one who perished first, centuries ago now, it’s Philip who is undoubtedly the one who loses in the end.

The last thing Philip sees is his brother’s hateful, tired face, and he dies with that image.

Of course, that’s the one that sounds better to me; Philip is not a villain you could ever redeem (a cruel upbringing will not excuse everything) and to even make an attempt at it would feel cheap and be completely unaligned with ToH’s core values, which actively (and correctly) condemn people like him.

The problem with both of these ideas, different as they are, is that both of them give Philip a sense of closure that he simply does not deserve to have been rewarded with. Either way, he knows for sure how his brother would feel about him -- or, at the very least, how he believes his brother should feel about him -- and it’s just that, the knowing, that rubs me the wrong way.

In the end, the last time Philip sees his brother is in this scene in For the Future, and it’s safe to say that there’s no actual closure or anything close to it here. Whether or not you believe this is actually Caleb or just Philip hallucinating him (personally I subscribe to the latter), it doesn’t really matter because the idea stays the same.

Philip spends this scene snarling curses at his unyielding brother -- who seems to be, notably, his younger self, given his hair length -- while also actively melting away in front of his eyes. Philip is the one who’s alive, Philip is the one who (he believes) is on the right side of history, and yet Philip is also the one on his knees, his entire body disintegrating slowly due to his own choices.

As the episode continues, it’s shown that Philip is seeing Caleb and the other Grimwalkers that he’s likely killed as well, and they’re clearly more of a taunt to his already-collapsing mental state than anything else. Again I reassert my opinion that they’re not actually there, that they’re simply Philip hallucinating in one of his weakest moments yet, and because of that, there is no answer given.

They stare; he tells them to “Shut up” and they don’t react in the slightest. They watch and they stare and they dare him to care about them in any way and the entire scene is just... a precipice. Eventually they disappear for good, and Philip moves on without even trying to process this phenomenon.

Basically what I'm saying is that Caleb appearing in Philip’s last moments would give him too much credit. And that actually leads us right into the final point I want to make, which is this:

3) Caleb Wasn’t Actually That Important To Philip

In the long run, at the very least.

Now hear me out. When I say ‘important’, I don’t mean that what happened with Caleb didn’t have long-lasting effects on Philip, because that’s simply not true; otherwise, my entire last point would be meaningless. Obviously, it’s Caleb (and to a lesser extent, Evelyn) who can be credited with initially setting Philip down this path; Caleb was probably the most stable thing in Philip’s early life, and losing him in a way that felt like abandonment -- and then killing him -- is undoubtedly something that would stick with you for a lifetime, 400 years or not.

But Caleb’s death is also largely an excuse.

Much in the same way that “saving humanity” is an excuse for Philip to commit the atrocities he does, Caleb’s betrayal pushing him towards that path and his subsequent attempts at bringing him back are also an excuse.

Here’s the thing: if Philip was genuinely passionate about remaking his brother -- but better -- then he’d care about the Grimwalkers more than he does. If Philip actually considered every Grimwalker a potential Caleb that he could just fix, then he would not have been able to dispose of them so coldly. There’s dozens of their corpses piled under the Skull, yet he only even commits to memory a rare few. Even Hunter, the closest to Caleb a Grimwalker’s ever gotten, was given a Sigil! A Sigil, which tells me that no matter what, no matter how perfect Hunter may have turned out, Philip was never going to let him survive the Day of Unity.

True, there’s definitely a part of Philip that hates the Grimwalkers because they can’t be Caleb, at least not in the way he thinks he needs (which is impossible, but I digress) there’s also a part that I think is just... carrying on because this is what he’s done for the past few centuries. It’d feel like giving up on himself to give up on the prospect of having Caleb beside him again, but there’s no passion anymore.

In the end, I think Papa Titan said it best:

“...That man doesn’t care about anything but his need to be the hero in his own delusion.”

That’s exactly it. Philip believes himself as the hero of the story, as someone who’s been suffering for centuries but will one day finally get the ending that he deserves. He goes through all of this not because he wants to go home and not because he wishes he could return to the life he and his brother once had, but because he so desperately wants to believe in the delusion that he is a person doing all the things he does for good.

You don’t live for over 400 years working towards a singular moment without at least having the thought that maybe what you’re doing is incorrect. But Philip has never let those supposed doubts stop him, and by the time the series is ending, nothing matters except his goal -- to see the destruction of every last witch and demon on the Boiling Isles.

Which is why, in this final scene of his, there’s not a single mention of his brother. His brother, who he’s spent the last 400 years trying to save; his brother, who, by learning to be better, essentially kickstarted Philip’s entire goal, but it became so twisted so quickly as Philip subconsciously decided that he was the only one who could ever fix things.

To put it simply: Philip’s only ever been concerned with himself. His idea of morality, his vision of the Boiling Isles, his opinions on the witches that live there. Nothing else matters; Caleb is a crutch to fall back on and so is the idea that Philip’s saving anyone, it’s all just more vindication to feed into his hero complex, because he’s the only one that really matters. He’s human and Luz is human and so they’re redeemable, but he stopped seeing Caleb as human the moment he saw him with Evelyn.

In the end, I feel as if it’s almost safe to say that Caleb and Evelyn as constructs are more important to the all-encompassing plot than they are to Philip specifically; they set him on his path, sure, but his descent into madness almost feels inevitable, death of his brother or not. He blames his own misfortune on them, and the fact that they're never quite seen makes Philip’s villainous qualities that much more emphasized, I think.

Overall, I loved Watching and Dreaming and I loved ToH and I think the characters of Caleb and Evelyn are some of the most haunting I’ve ever encountered, literally and metaphorically.

Their story is largely up in the air, but it still gets told, you just have to look for it. That's their charm, that’s why they’re interesting to me, and that’s why I am content with getting the amount we got of them.

#lmfao me jokingly putting this through a word counter like. 400 words or smth right???#[2095]......#thats probably fine #toh #toh spoilers #the owl house #the owl house spoilers #philip wittebane #emperor belos #caleb wittebane #evelyn clawthorne #luz noceda #smokey speaks #500

503 notes · View notes

louisupdates · 2 days

Text

FULL ARTICLE ON EUPHORIAZINE

By Saskia Postema 26.4.2024

Mere days after winning “Artist of the Year” at the inaugural Northern Music Awards, Louis Tomlinson is celebrating the only way he knows how – by giving back. Tomlinson just dropped a surprise album, which includes a curated list of live performances over the past years. It’s a risky move, as live albums are notoriously difficult to make worthwhile. But there’s no doubt about it: Tomlinson is deserving of that award, and the recordings on Louis Tomlinson: LIVE deserve to live forever.

After an initial stop-start to his solo career, Tomlinson has certainly flourished since finally getting to hit the stage. He’s been touring extensively over the past few years, performing a mix of tracks from his first two albums. Both were solid records that heavily referenced anthemic, rich sonic soundscapes. In fact, Tomlinson previously admitted that he wrote certain tracks with a live show in mind. Indeed, songs like “Face The Music,” “Out Of My System” and “The Greatest,” from his No. 1 selling album Faith in the Future, absolutely benefit from the live instrumentals compared to their studio versions.

It isn’t often that live performances consistently seem to not only live up to but objectively improve the perfectly engineered studio recordings. Perhaps it’s the love that the album so clearly captures for live music that does it. The singer-songwriter is an avid fan of his own fans and gets to share a collective experience of joy with them. Just listen to the crowds serenading Tomlinson in return during “Chicago,” recorded live in – you guessed it, Chicago. From Tomlinson’s perspective, audiences across the world have always been part of breathing life into these live recordings. Now, people get to live that same experience with him by listening to this record that is woven together with impeccably mixed joyful screaming in the background.

Tomlinson’s storytelling isn’t hindered by the crowd’s reaction. Rather, it is bolstered by it. In both power ballads like “Common People” as well as raucous tracks like “Silver Tongues.” The live setting seems to function almost akin to a prism – each song shining brighter, richer, fuller. Perhaps the only track that is tighter in the original version, is the seductive “Written All Over Your Face.” Nonetheless, the instrumental break and palpable, wild excitement make for an enjoyable listen.

Similarly, right in the middle of the highly addictive “All This Time/We Are Beauty” mash-up, a fan can be heard screaming “I love you” if you listen closely. The sheer adulation of the crowd is decidedly earned. Tomlinson has worked hard to prove himself, despite never having lacked the talent. Perhaps merely the confidence that he could do it, would do it, has done it. Nevertheless, he’s been open about the tension between his own love for music, and his at times debilitating need for perfection. As he’s settled into his career, a quiet undertone of determination and grit, of relief and fulfillment – of gratitude remains in every single show.

On “Saturdays,” you can actually hear Tomlinson mumble that the view’s never been better from where he’s stood on stage. It’s a high-maintenance track with all the right ingredients for a Tomlinson classic. There’s confessional lyricism, emotive delivery, and a gradual yet powerful crescendo in musical arrangement. It needs to be sung with conviction, and it’s clear that Tomlinson pulls power from the audience to deliver.

Notably, none of the covers that Tomlinson frequently incorporates in his concerts made it onto this live album. With that in mind, perhaps this release signals that Tomlinson has finally embraced his own artistry. Because if anything, Louis Tomlinson: LIVE is a reckless celebration record. An ode to joy, the synergy between artist and audience, and the impact of well-timed, flawlessly executed live guitar solos.

#louis press #louis tomlinson #louis tomlinson live #26.4.2024 #album review

65 notes · View notes

noneorother · 7 months

Text

The grand unified theory of Good Omens S2 hangs on - you guessed it - a double meaning (and art). *Part 2*

Part 1 l Part 2 l Part 3 l Part 4 l Part 5 l The End?

This is major spoilers for season 3 territory. You have been warned. I'm also going to split this into parts because wow, I have so many ✨Clues✨! Come with me on a long and magical journey through time, and trust that I will bring you back to the double meaning of it all very soon.

The second thing that Oofs and Ouches my Bones specifically about the art direction in S2 are the time/place cards. You know, the good old rope and stick cards we all know and love are back in S2E1! - wait a minute...

Oh. Okay. I guess we're going with a huge organ swell happening in the music at the same time as a gothic font. Seems... awfully religious of them. Let's try again. S2E2?

Oh shit. 1950s classic Hollywood biblical epic title cards? Really? Okay. But we've already been to London in 1941 in S1 so surely they would just use the same exact title card as last season because it's the SAME SCENE in S2E4 and-

OH GOD it's a black and white classic horror flick! Be afraid! Cower in fear from the zombies that eat brains. So...I think we're getting a feeling this season that they massively changed up the art direction for the all the Minisode title cards. Except did they? Wait, how did the Resurectionists Minisode start?

That seems... very normal. No crazy "Hollywood" title cards here. And they just punted all the classic rope and stick cards that tell us when and where everything takes place in the whole season?

They did not. Y'all there are TWO competing ways of showing the audience Time/Place going on in the same episodes. One is canonically familiar, and the other is new, and very *hack-esque*. If only there was another reference to classic cinema somewhere in the title sequence of each episode to explain what was going on with these things AHHHHHHH-

(If you haven't watched till the end of the opening credits) There's a dude with a big stick waving something in front of the projector in the booth each episode, and presumably this has an impact on what we see on the literal movie screen projecting bits of the story in front of us. So what do we see in front of us from the projector each episode, exactly?

Well for one, we can certainly see that Neil Gaiman found a really interesting place to put his name in the openings... right over a lot of the fishy things in each minisode is a FUN WAY TO DO LAMPSHADING, NEIL. At this point you're screaming at me "But what does this have to do with the gangsters, and Maggie, and everything else?" My friend, I am here to tell you that I'm starting to get the feeling The Metatron has been adding bits and pieces (not very well, mind you, he's a hack writer) to change the outcome of season 2.

Would you like to see more clues, and the prestige reveal of what the double meaning is? Part 3 right here!

#good omens prime #go season 2 #good omens season 2 #go3 #good omens s3 #good omens 2 #go meta #good omens meta #good omens spoilers #good omens season two #art director talks good omens

166 notes · View notes

deirdra-hearts-nadia · 7 months

Text

I've been thinking about the fandom for The Arcana, and I have come to the conclusion that it's weird as hell. In my 20+ years participating in online fandom spaces, I've never seen a fandom quite like this one. I've seen drama, sure, but the core of most fandoms is a large community of people who love the same media and come together to celebrate it.

The Arcana fandom is not like that. From the very beginning we're more fractured, more factional, more fragile than most. You just have to look around at all the posts lamenting the death of the fandom every 2 weeks to see that something is really wrong here.

And I think a lot of it has to do with the nature of the canon. I am not saying this to criticize The Arcana, the devs, Dorian, or my fellow fans. I have just noticed that, as a piece of media, this game occupies a very unique space that is reflected in the way its fans interact with canon and with each other.

Welcome to the TED talk ain't none of y'all asked for.

Part of what makes this fandom unique is the evolution of fandom as a whole in the face of new types of media. As gaming becomes more mainstream and games themselves become more complex, the way we engage has necessarily changed in response.

Books/ movies/ shows are slightly more static in terms of canon than video games; canon is what it is and how you interact with what is there is largely to do with who you are. Everyone has the same base material to engage with, and that results in a certain amount of constancy. You can't interact with The Princess Bride in a way that changes the movie, only in ways that change your own perception. There isn't a whole lot of room for OCs without rewriting canon, so fans tend to consume OC-based fiction and art with the assumption that it's likely to be self-insert wish fulfillment fantasy time. That isn't always true, but there is a reason the term Mary Sue was coined.

Otome games and other choice-based video games make a very different fan environment, because the way you interact with canon is completely different. You have to build a character in order to interact with the story, and your choices directly impact your experience of canon.

But most western choice-based games are in the context of a larger RPG universe, e.g. Fallout or Dragon Age. There is a lot more to the story than the romance plot and so there's a lot more world to experience, contextualize, and build upon. There's certainly plenty of unhinged ShepxGarrus erotica, but there's also an abundance of fanworks that engage with the plot, the worldbuilding, and the canon characters with relatively little of the player's character needing to be on the page at all.

By contrast, most otome games that make it to English-speaking fandom spaces are Japanese. The romance is the point, but we also start from a place of wariness of our fellow fans. Because there's a huge difference between "harmless weeb" and "orientalist fetishizing creepo," and you know going in that both ends of the spectrum are possible, there is an amount of caution. We curate our space, looking for the creators who align with our expectations and values before we ever begin to interact.

The Arcana falls in a very unique and odd space because it is an otome, but made by Americans, with an attempt at a diverse fantasy cast. It's intended to be for American/ English-speaking audiences and is marketed as such. But making a romance game in America is challenging. Our way of approaching online media, especially smartphone-accessible media, is super fucked up, right? We are constantly trapped between the dichotomies of moral duty (Must Protect The Children) versus appealing to the customer base (Boom Anime Babes with Tig Ol Bitties). Because this is a mobile game, the developers can't make money if the game is removed from the app store, so they want it to be rated teen at the most. But the enticing bit, the thing that captures a potential fan's attention, is the flirtation and sexy implications. So from the jump they're in a weird space purely because they chose to make a mobile game instead of an indie video game released on Steam or similar.

So now you have an inherently split audience: mature adults who know they're getting into a potentially explicit romance game, and young adults/teens who have grown up in a more insulated internet culture where normal words are replaced with Orwellian doublespeak, like "unalive" and "spicy time".

THEN you add in the fact that the developers tried to build a diverse fantasy world, which is a fantastic idea both from an inclusionary standpoint and a broader audience standpoint. But because they didn't employ any actual sensitivity readers (did they think they didn't need them because fantasy can't have racism? Did they justify it as not being in the budget? Would love to know what's going on there) they fell right into a lot of the classic traps. We've been over these time and again, so I won't get into them here. Suffice to say, there has been Discourse. The presence of those issues means that more experienced fans will see those things and call them out, and that criticism causes even more of a split: the zealous apologists versus the critics. And critics can fall into two further categories: those who love the canon and want to see it do better, and the bitches who just love having something to bitch about.

Unfortunately, this combination means that there are inherently factions to this fandom, with staunchly opposed approaches to the media. So even before you enter a fandom space, it's already wildly fractured simply because of the nature of base canon.

THEN add to that the fact that this game is a dating sim. And to engage with a dating sim, you have to build a character and make choices based on that character. Some people will approach this work as storytelling, and some will approach it as an escapist expression of self. Neither of these ways of engaging with canon is wrong. Enjoying a dating sim as Me But Better is fun and completely valid! Engaging with a dating sim as a storyteller collaborating with the developers is fun and completely valid! But the two approaches are opposed in purpose, and that can make it difficult for the two types of fans to engage with one another's work.

Storytellers will well and truly invest in building a character. They may even build out communities, countries, cultures, and languages to make their world all the richer. They are investing hours of blood, sweat, and tears into Their Craft, pouring themselves into an opus of quality fanwork. Unfortunately, this can sometimes lead to big feelings. Fan artists and writers may feel underappreciated if all they get out of their hard work is 2 likes and a gif of a wolf making AWOOGA eyes. They may feel that critique of their work is unwarranted, or that there's no point creating if no one will engage.

The romantics will engage with canon and fanwork from the perspective that "this is my fantasy romance time". Their OC isn't so much Original Character as Optimized Characteristics--that is, their perfect self. They are here for wish fulfillment fun times in the relative privacy and anonymity of the internet, and good for them! But that may mean that criticism of canon or their fan work feels excessively personal--it is very hard to detach the ego from the OC when that OC is a projection of your best self. They may view any critique as a personal attack as opposed to a good-faith attempt at engagement or conversation. This can lead to defensiveness, or to leaving the fandom outright if it feels too hostile.

Unfortunately all of these factions cause rifts in the community. This sometimes turns into fandom vigilantism, where people begin to see any fan who doesn't wholeheartedly agree with them as an enemy. I've seen friends experience bullying and cruelty over their OCs and their art. I've seen predators use the isolated nature of the fandom to further isolate and prey upon already vulnerable individuals. I've seen some really shitty stuff.

But I have also seen beautiful community flourish. I've made friends who feel more like family than my actual relatives. I've seen people work through struggles and overcome deliberate attempts to tear us apart, finding forgiveness and friendship along the way. I've seen myself and others grow because of the community and inspiration we found here. And I saw all of that because I found my people. And I hope, Arcana fandom, that the rest of you can find your people too.

#the arcana #oops i did a ted talk #fandom discourse #the arcana fandom

152 notes · View notes

wixhing0nastar · 1 year

Text

Abuse Narratives in RWBY: Yang Xiao Long Edition (Feat. Ruby Rose)

We've all witnessed and talked about Blake and Weiss being abuse survivors for years. Blake escaping from Adam and Weiss escaping from her father were both huge, impactful events that have shaped the narrative of the story in many ways.

Yang on the other hand has managed to fly mostly under the radar with the abuse she's suffered up to this point. Her jokey, happy-go-lucky facade tricking the audience just as well as it has her friends and family for years.

(Note: this is going to be a long post, so strap in. Also this is your warning I am not going to be holding back in my criticism of Tai, so if you don't want to see me go into detail about how exactly he abused Yang, I highly suggest turning back now).

TL:DR: Yang was neglected and parentified (aka: abused) as a child and that’s the root of a lot of the issues that she’s currently struggling with in Volume 9 and a large part of her healing is going to be centered around her relationship with Blake going forward.

Let's start by establishing what exactly I'm referring to when I say that Yang has been abused. Because while I'm certainly referring to her being neglected after Summer's death, I'm more so referring to the years of Parentification that was caused by said neglect (in addition to the verbal and emotional abuse hurled her way).

Let's start by defining what exactly Parentification is since it's where most of Yang's current problems stem from.

[Parentification is] a disturbance in the generational boundaries, such that evidence indicates a functional and/or emotional role reversal in which the child sacrifices his or her own needs for attention, comfort, and guidance in order to accommodate and care for the logistical and emotional needs of a parent and/or sibling. (Hooper, 2007b, p. 323)

Ruby establishes in Volume 9, Chapter 1 that Yang was the one who raised her. It's important to note that in the context of her saying that, she's telling Yang that Yang was the one responsible for her moral development as a kid.

Research has shown that the building blocks for morality are generally in place by the age of 4. However, "children need adults to help them at every stage of childhood to nurture these seeds into full development." (Harvard, Raising Caring, Respectful, Ethical Children, p. 1) With "childhood" commonly considered infancy to age 12.

Using this we can reasonably assume that Yang was Ruby's primary caretaker or at the very least co-parenting with Tai from the time of Summer's death to at least age 14 (when Ruby was 12)... which mind you, is already over a decade total and only three years before the show starts.

Now that we've got some of the science out of the way, let's start looking at the show itself to see just how bad the situation was.

Burning the Candle

This iconic scene actually paints a fairly horrifying picture of Yang and Ruby's early childhood when you start to break it down.

I waited for dad to leave the house.

Meaning that by that point, probably only a few months after Summer's death based on the timeline Yang establishes, Yang already knows Tai will reliably leave her and Ruby alone without supervision for extended periods of time in order to pull this off.

I must have walked for hours.

Meaning that it likely took several hours for someone to even notice they were missing in the first place. The fact Qrow knew exactly where they were indicates that Yang either left a note or clue about where they were headed and I'm willing to bet the only reason it took Yang that long to walk was because she was like two feet tall at the time (since Patch is like... a tiny island... which brings me to the next line...

A toddler asleep in the back of a wagon

Again, to clarify, Ruby was a toddler. Toddlers are between 1-3 years old... meaning this all happened when Yang was a maximum of (and likely, based on their physical appearances) 5 years old.

So to summarize, Tai was regularly leaving Yang, his five-year-old, home alone and in charge of her three-year-old sister... which would be horrifying to think about on its own but this is Remnant.

Which means that Tai was regularly leaving his grieving five-year-old at home alone when they didn't live inside a kingdom's border and there were known wild Grimm in the area... who are attracted to negative emotions.

Wow... I wonder why Yang felt the need to try to diffuse the tension with humor and keep everyone in high spirits all the time. It’s almost like it was a life or death situation growing up. (/s)

Anger, Fear, and Burn

Before jumping into the next big narrative piece, let’s talk a little bit about Yang’s semblance, Burn, and how it works. Because it’s important to establish before starting to dig into Volume 4.

Let’s start with how Ruby describes it:

Don't worry! With each hit she gets stronger, and she uses that energy to fight back! That's what makes her special.

Notice how Ruby doesn't mention anything about Yang needing to be angry to use her Semblance? In fact, while it’s unclear if this is entirely true, it has been stated previously that Yang’s powers come in part from her hair and no one has refuted that claim in like 8 years so it holds some weight.

Moreover, recent volumes have actually been hinting that Yang likely doesn't even need to use her anger to activate/maintain burn. And that she just does so out of habit more than anything.

Now, why exactly would someone intentionally limit themselves by tying their semblance into in emotion like that? Well, first let’s answer the question, why anger?

And well... anger is a secondary emotion.

A secondary emotion is an emotion fueled by other emotions... masking your feelings of sadness, hurt or grief with anger can be easier than experiencing the primary emotion.

And moreover,

The feelings that anger commonly masks include fear, anxiety, guilt, shame, embarrassment, betrayal, jealousy, sadness, hurt, and worry. (Alta Loma, Understanding Anger as a Secondary Emotion, Web, emphasis added).

Fear is, of course, a bit of a running theme in RWBY, there was a whole speech and song about it at the end of Volume 7, after all.

But more than that, there've been two people on two separate occasions who've called Yang out for being scared when she's posturing: Ren and Raven.

And while Ren was pointing out that she uses humor to try to deflect when she’s scared, when Raven said this to Yang she was absolutely outwardly angry... and Yang admits to being scared in the moment yet still standing there.

Also note that humor = friends/winning, anger = enemies/losing.

Which makes you wonder, what was happening growing up that made Yang instinctively react to fear of danger with anger and planting her feet instead of running away? For that let's go back to what we learned from Burning the Candle and the V5 short real quick.

We know there are living Grimm on Patch. Maybe not as many as elsewhere, but both times we are given glimpses into Yang and Ruby's childhood on Patch they are attacked by Grimm, which isn't a great sign.

How old do you think Yang was the first time she or Ruby had a bad day and attracted one of them on accident and she had to fight it off on her own (because she couldn't run, she had to protect Ruby)?

How many nights do you think Yang would spend reading Ruby stories and telling her dumb jokes to get her to laugh to try to make sure they weren't attacked? How often did Ruby have to force herself to be okay? For both their sake?

Volume 4

Now let's talk about Volume 4, aka: when Tai had the chance to step up and didn't.

Now right off the bat he's okay. There's nothing inherently wrong with him bringing her the arm and being excited at the thought because he doesn't know how she's going to react to it though it is a little weird he opened her mail without permission.

The rest of Yang's first V4 episode, however, makes it very clear both to us as the audience and Tai that Yang isn't doing okay... but Tai doesn't do anything to attempt to help her.

Which is why what happens in the next episode is kinda messed up.

Yang wakes up from a nightmare about losing her arm in a seriously traumatizing event and goes downstairs when she realizes there's a distraction people are over.

Then we get the fight and despite Yang laughing it off in the end... honestly Tai is being very condescending towards her, which Yang even points out. Like, someone made a slightly adult joke in front of her and he flies off the handle and starts a fight with her and starts making digs about her not being a real adult ready for the real world and let's just break that down before dealing with the actual problems in this episode.

Yang, as established, has been fulfilling the role of parent (while barely getting any parenting herself) for years. She's been fulfilling the role of an adult since she was 5! And at this point in the show she's also legally an adult. So not only is it condescending, it's also untrue.

Then we get this line.

I guess you lost some brain cells along with that arm.

Not only is this beyond callus, Yang is clearly actually upset by this.

And notably, she only treats it as a joke after Oobleck dropped his cup. AKA: after being reminded that they aren’t alone in the room.

(And remember, Yang uses humor as a coping mechanism).

And both Oobleck and Port can clearly tell that this wasn’t appropriate at all and immediately following that, they pointedly step in to ask Yang how she is doing with everything.

Which Tai has not done.

And Yang opens up to them! And she tells them that she’s still struggling and coming to terms with what happened to her. Which in turn causes Tai to finally talk to her about it, but he’s being pushy about her getting back out and “being her new normal” and even refers to her PTSD as moping when she just got done saying she’s still trying to process and recover.

And it’s again Port specifically who steps in and gives her some genuine advice without trying to push her her into anything she’s not ready for and then Oobleck joins in and they go out if their way to ham it up to make her laugh.

So overall, Tai’s being extremely dismissive of the trauma that she’s gone through and minimizing her feelings at every turn.

Which then leads to this scene...

Which is when Tai’s dismissiveness starts to make sense (and I’ll come back to this when I’m analyzing the last episode).

Let’s break it down. To start, Tai knows that Yang is going up to her room, they pointedly have her call out goodnight from upstairs so Tai knows where she is physically and what her intentions are.

Secondly, there’s no way that Tai doesn't know you can hear people talking from the front door from Yang’s room. He’s owned this house for like two decades minimum at this point.

So when Oobleck and Port ask after Ruby, there’s no way he should assume Yang won’t be able to hear everything he says. And he very much lays the burden of Ruby’s safety at Yang’s feet. He’s not going after her because he has to “look after some things.”

AKA: Yang.

And then she comes to him literally the next day wearing the new arm and wanting to train and he doesn't question her at all, even though 12 hours earlier Yang was very much not ready?

We then don’t see her at all for five episodes until we get the scene where she’s training with Tai and honestly, his advice is kinda horrible.

To start, even he says his advice is based on watching her Vytal Festival fights, meaning that everything is based on watching three matches.

He points out she uses her semblance to win every fight after the qualifiers (which is true), and Yang rightly points out that everyone uses their semblances to help them win. Then Tai says this:

Because not everyone else’s is basically a temper tantrum.

Not only is this very unlikely to be true, but even if Yang does need to rely on her anger to activate her semblance, calling it a temper tantrum isn’t accurate at all.

In fact, the way Yang uses her semblance takes a great deal of emotional regulation to pull off. She not only is able to make herself angry enough to use it at will, she’s also able to stop using it at will. Meaning Yang is capable of instantaneously switching from one emotion to another.

That’s not a temper tantrum, that’s someone with superb emotional control choosing what emotion to feel when it’s most appropriate.

Furthermore, the “what happens if you miss” comment is so ridiculous I don’t even know how to start other than saying we literally saw exactly what happens when Yang misses her first attempt in Volume 2! When her semblance is being revealed! And the answer is... she gets another shot.

And if they’re stronger... like not using the thing that makes her ridiculously powerful is certainly not going to help.

And honestly... Yang doesn’t do what Tai says. He says it’s useful in a bind but Yang doesn’t use her semblance only in emergencies from here on end. In fact, what she actually does is pick up some tricks from Pyrrha and she starts hiding her semblance from people!

And noticeably, Tai isn’t the one who tells Yang to fight smarter. That’s a line of thinking she develops on her own between the first and second times she faced Adam.

And then Tai takes credit for her “suddenly” getting better like she hadn’t successfully hit him so hard he needed to take a pause and the fight he did win was only because he attacked her when she was being vulnerable with him... her father who she’s of course not going to assume is going to attack her while she’s opening up to him... because she wouldn’t do that to Ruby.

And then we get to Yang’s last (real) episode of the volume when she’s setting out to get Ruby. Remember when I said Tai’s dismissiveness started to make sense and we’d come back to it? Well we’re back to it.

Note how Yang pointedly doesn’t tell Tai that she’s leaving, despite him having indicated to Port and Oobleck that the only reason he wasn’t also going after Ruby was because he was staying with Yang?

And how in the end he doesn’t leave with Yang to go find Ruby even though supposedly the only reason he hadn’t was because he wanted to make sure Yang was okay? And now Yang’s going after Ruby? Alone?

Paired with how pushy and condescending he was acting towards her in the other two Volume 4 episodes he was in, on top of having neglected and parentified her for at least a decade, this really reads as him wanting Yang to get better so he can shove her out the door to go after Ruby, and not him caring at all about her as a person.

(Which is why I really struggle to feel bad for him in his V8 scene... if he was so worried he could have been there).

Yang’s Actual Temper Tantrums

Let’s address these really quick before moving on to the final section. We’ve actually seen/heard of four different instances where Yang actually was having something resembling a temper tantrum while using her semblance.

I’m going to start with the Neon fight because it’s the easiest. But Neon as a character relies on knocking her opponents off balance by getting under their skin in a fight. She tries to make them angry and yes, it does work on Yang in this instance. But that’s Neon’s whole thing, in any other match up Yang would have been fine.

The other three times all had to do with her hair (namely, when Junior gets her hair in her trailer, when the ursa gets her hair in the Emerald Forest and... in V4 when Tai refers to her having a rough first haircut).

Going back to the bit about how Yang’s powers, in part, come from her hair and this actually makes a lot of sense in the context of Yang’s childhood. If she was regularly in charge of protecting Ruby and some of the finite power she did have as a kid was because of her hair, of course she gets freaked out by losing some... and we’ve already talked about Yang using anger as a mask for fear.

Bumbleby and Volume 9

So let’s talk about where we’re going now, because of all three of the abuse survivors in this show, Yang is the only one who hasn’t really been confronted with and forced to deal with it yet.

Because at the end of the day, being parentified and neglected for years has left Yang scared to open up emotionally and more than that, uncertain of her identity outside of being Ruby’s parent.

Because up to going to Beacon, that was basically Yang’s entire life. It’s entirely possible the only reason she went to Signal was to learn how to protect Ruby better all things considered.

Which is why the development between her and Blake is so important this volume. Yang desperately needs to be valued as something other a caretaker and protector and so far they’ve been emphasizing the fact that Blake loves Yang because she’s a goofy dork who makes her smile, not because she’s strong enough to level a mountain.

And while Blake’s relationship with Adam was abusive, unlike Yang, Blake does have a framework for health relationships thanks to Ghira and Kali and she’s worked through her own trauma from being abused romantically enough that she’s in a place emotionally to help Yang start working though hers. Starting by giving Yang a person she can trust not to leave who also isn’t and has never been dependent on her to muck up Yang’s healing process.

Because there’s a difference between someone choosing to stay and someone not having any other choice because they were/are dependent on you. And (absolutely no shade to Ruby here) she’s already had someone in the latter position choose to leave her anyways.

In Conclusion

Yang was abused as a child and into her late teens and is in desperate need of some type of unconditional love and affection that she doesn’t feel there are strings attached to in order to finally begin healing...

And therapy, but they’re a little low on that for the foreseeable future.

#RWBY #RWBY Spoilers #RWBY Analysis #Yang Xiao Long #Bumbleby #When I say long I’m not joking #This is more than 3k words

552 notes · View notes

yomawari · 2 months

Text

Sketches from the President/Vice President Jefferson era of my modern Jamilton AU, featuring John Adams and my attempts to give Alexander a modern hairstyle without just copying LMM.

I spent some time thinking about Jamilton and Adams while sketching, which I put under the cut because I tend to be very long-winded and my mind went to some odd places.

I find Hamilton's portrayal of Thomas Jefferson's friendship with John Adams interesting when it is examined purely in the confines of the musical and outside any historical context.

I think there are only two references to Thomas Jefferson and John Adams' personal relationship in the entirety of Hamilton:

In the cut version of the The Adams Administration, Hamilton tells Adams to "Say, 'Hi', to the Jeffersons!"

In the Election of 1800, which was historically near the height of the Jefferson-Adams feud, Jefferson says that, "John Adams shat the bed. I love the guy, but he's in traction."

Both lines imply a close, positive relationship between the two characters (and the latter line also informs the audience that Adam's will not be running for re-election because his political career crashed and burned). That's it. There is no clear evidence of the historic Jefferson-Adams feud and broken friendship within the musical, which makes sense since Hamilton is telling the story of Alexander Hamilton but has an interesting consequence: in Hamilton cannon, given the positive statements in the two songs, one can argue that Thomas and John's friendship survives the Washington and Adams administrations.

I mean this was clearly not intended, and I am definitely reading too much into things, but I find the idea really interesting--especially how it impacts any romantic relationship between Alexander and Thomas.

Alexander and John are the two leaders of the Federalist Party; yet, Thomas likes John in spite of their differences while initially being antagonistic towards Alexander. I absolutely believe that Alexander would be jealous of John and his friendship with Thomas. Especially during the early stages of his and Thomas' romantic relationship, Alexander's inferiority complex would arguably give him yet another reason to hate John Adams and cause some unnecessary relationship drama. Meanwhile, Thomas' friendship with John would help Thomas move past his political differences with Alexander in order to pursue a relationship and cause some tension given the John-Alexander feud.

The possibilities for conflict are further fed in a modern political Jamilton AU. It's been a long time since I studied the era, but I remember that one reason why Adams' vice presidency went so poorly is that Adams was not part of Washington's inner circle and the Vice President's authority was pretty limited at the time, so it certainly seemed like Adams didn't "have a real job anyway."

In a modern AU, however, that is not the case. George would have chosen John as his running mate. The Vice President is a vital part of the Presidential administration and has far more authority than in the late 1700s. The Vice President is now constitutionally part of the Cabinet and, in fact, presides over the Cabinet in the President's absence. George couldn't sideline John as much as he historically did, even if he (or Alexander) tried. Given the Thomas-John friendship and John-Alexander enmity, I think John's increased authority and participation in the Washington Administration would have very interesting consequences on the Jamilton rivalry/relationship.

#fanart #jamilton #alexander hamilton #thomas jefferson #hamilton musical #hamilton #john adams #modern!au #musings #hamilton fanart #poli #political!au

69 notes · View notes