#if you love subverting tropes so much then subvert the '2 people in the cast get into a relationship' trope by make it it 3.
Text
I don’t usually post for this fandom but let’s just say I’m way too invested and before Vol 2 comes out I really really needed to compile a long list of explanations to why requited Byler being confirmed on Friday would be REVOLUTIONARY. The long-term signifance of this narrative move is just going to be truly amazing and so so meaningful no matter what reaction we get immediately after (and even now it’ll be a big reaction because the gen audience won’t be ready for it).
Stranger Things is a mainstream show, one of the most popular on Netflix, and it’s really rare for us to get a main queer couple on mainstream shows as most of them are fueled by the pure existance and hyping up of straight ships to appeal to a wider audience. It would open up a gateway for more queer representation between main characters on mainstream shows in general because like if a big show like Stranger Things can take such a big step forward, it makes it possible for more shows to do this in the future. It’s like what happened with more lgbtq representation within animation and how it expanded throughout shows as more creators took the initiative.
Byler is such a nuanced queer ship and subverts so many tropes as well as fighting some of those gay stereotypes. Both Mike and Will as characters are different in their journeys to discovering themselves and their sexualities. The show also incorporates a wide range of queer themes and it’s much more than the obvious ones but also ones that we don’t really see portrayed on tv enough like internalised homophobia and comphet.
More on Byler being nuanced as a ship in general! It’s a ship that heavily relies on emotional chemistry between characters and the love they share between them is something so pure and realistic, they aren’t dramatised in any way. The buildup between them would feel so natural: childhood best friends to lovers. They already share a very intimate level of comfort and I think later on in S5 when you’d get to see their relationship dynamic it’ll truly be so heartwarming. I know it may come as a surprise to casual viewers after Vol 2 and we might get some very annoying reactions but I think after it being blatantly confirmed once we get to see their relationship dynamic in S5 a lot more of them will warm up to it because I mean these two are adorable and if you’re really looking you can see it!
The time period is something to note: show set in the 80s having one of their main couples being gay! It’s quite iconic because a lot of people use the time period as an argument against to why the show might not make it canon which is just heteronormative and ugh because gay people did exist in the 80s! Their struggles were quite different then however as society was more heteronormative and less accepting so them just casually normalising depicting gay characters even in a show set in the 80s goes against that problematic idea of why it would be unrealistic for shows set in the past to have lgbtq characters. We also really get some interesting storylines about being lgbtq in the 80s as well. Besides, the existance of Robin Buckley already refutes that idea (I love her she’s amazing and iconic) and having two more confirmed gay characters within the main cast IN A RELATIONSHIP would be so amazing in terms of queer representation. Plus, it wouldn’t be unrealistic at all because as a show that focuses on social outcasts and rebelling against social expectations it would make so much sense for them to be depicting exactly that through their range of characters.
The problematic pattern of gay ships being sunk in the favour of the “ultimate straight ship” would be challenged and subverted. People go in expecting that this one ship would become canon because it makes sense on a surface level and fans are just used to being fed the straight ship they’ve rooted for since day one becoming canon eventually. This has been a pattern that media has created that feeds into fanservice and heteronormativity that’s why majority of the general audience are under the assumption that the they won’t go through with Byler and that Mike and El will have to end up together because it makes sense according to conventional storytelling patterns of the past. However, ST making Byler canon is just a complete subversion of those conventional storytelling patterns and heteronormative expectations, it’ll make media history for sure when the gay ship is given preference and made endgame over the highly hyped up straight ship, it’s just so revolutionary and also breaks so any problematic tropes of gay characters and ships being easily disregarded to favour the straights because so many people right now assume that Will is just going to be rejected and this is just all forced representation because Mike and El are endgame, right?
I think a lot of people would go over and re-watch the show if Mike and Will were made canon to look for signs and hints especially because I’m sure the writers/the cast would do so many interviews explaining how it’s been built up for sometime now. I mean Noah, David Harbour and the Duffers have already said that in regards to Will’s feelings for Mike. And watching the show through “romantic Byler lens” there are a lot of things people will pick up for sure like everything about the crazy together scene, the tragedy of the Byler fight and a lot of queercoding too. Mike’s eccentric behaviour in S3/4 would also be viewed in a much different light if you take him being gay into consideration and people would just really understand his character more. Also, a lot of people would go over the many byler proofs the fanbase has collected over the years and that will definitely gear people in! This would just tell people to look deeper into details that shows place as well instead of what’s surface level obvious. Plus, encouraging stranger things fans to look deeper is a good mindset to have going into S5, I feel like with the last season coming, they want us to find as many Easter eggs as possible! As for concerns about people just being negative and ignorant of everything in relation to Byler, it doesn’t matter, I think S5 would truly build up Byler more blatantly as most of the audience would be in on it at this point and fans who may not want to look into deeper details may change their mind after more blatant depiction of Byler.
Ultimately, the ship being made canon is just so so good for queer fans in general. Queer fans who see two characters of the same sex having as much chemistry as two of the opposite and having great reasons for why they should become canon/them becoming canon being a possibility. We have to compile proofs after proofs, explanations after explanations and people who don’t understand see it as delusional behaviour which is not the case. We live in a world where we’re marginalised and deprived of representation. Characters of the opposite sex can intimately look at each other and that’s enough for the fanbase to be rooting for them and for the show to make them canon because heteronormativity is a drug. However, the same isn’t true for same-sex characters, we have to compile reasons and make lists and constantly try to prove queerness and we never know whether we’re going to get the good end of the bargain or not. We can get so much queercoding at times and at times even get queerbaited with the creators actually having no intention to make our ship canon because staying heteronormative is the safe option but rather feeding off of our support which is so frustrating time and time again. (The biggest reason to why I don’t believe the Duffers are tricking us is because of their decision to not only confirm Will as gay and involve a narrative about it this season but also have it center around him having feelings for Mike which is just crazy to think about how that’s confirmed and directly shown after years and years of subtext).
I do believe based on what we’ve gotten so far from all the narrative evidence, the reactions from the cast, details matching up with Byler so perfectly and them confirming Will as gay after so much queercoding in previous seasons that they are going down the requited Byler route and for all the reasons I’ve stated it will truly be so wonderful and revolutionary and a huge win. If they don’t, I genuinely will be disappointed as it would be so much wasted potential and queerbaiting due to all the promo they’ve done especially this pride month but I am keeping my fingers crossed here and as of now based on all the signs I’m sure we’re heading towards a win!
#stranger things#st4#stranger things 4#mike wheeler#will byers#byler#will byers is gay#mike wheeler is gay#reasons why#mine#sugar analyses#lgbtq#queer representation
157 notes
·
View notes
Note
Hey Red, longtime fan of your channel and as of yesterday Aurora binge-reader
I have a few questions about your comic, answer as many or as few or as none at all as you want, and I apologize in advance for my physics-and-worldbuilding-junkie lizard brain that absolutely adores and wants to grok your awesome fantasy series, Please know this all comes from my own insatiable curiosity and passion for your comic
First of all, the metal caste gets their free will from recieving a spark at puberty, or from being struck by lightning and being "chosen", but could a mage give a spark to an unsparked metal caste by zapping them with lightning? could you be zapped multiple times? what happens if an already sparked metal caste is struck by lightning?
Do certain subgroups of humans that were elementally influenced or evolved show specific proclivities towards respective elements? (like are there a lot of stone mage metal-castes)
What are the crystal caste and where did they come from/were first mentioned either in a post or in the story? Rattle off as many varieties and their general deal as you want
Would the inhabitants of aurora ever have to retool or add new holidays if in the future any significant enough conceptual gods arise?
Is the white dragon real in the sense of as VD's opposite or is she just not real/is just a created god
If so, what's the actual source of the paladin's magic and how does it fit in with the elements?
Can gods channel the elements and be mages?
If so, why didn't VD posses the twins or have a god created for him to channel magic through?
how is VD even able to influence anything if he's stuck inside the adamantine prison?
if the white dragon is real, does she correspond to an eighth element?
is the eighth element soul?
if not what is soul? and is anything in this world not made of "elements" in the "stuff made from a primordial or whatever made them" way?
is adamantine made of the same stuff as soul?
are there more than eight elements?
where do stars come from?
where did the moons come from?
are there more planets besides the world we know?
do they have living things?
does the amalgam star look kind of like the green sun from homestuck (look it up)
do the other 4 promordials (and the 1-2 dragons) have progenitors like life's amalgam star and fire's two mysterious parents?
is or was there a whole society of primordials out in space?
If the promordials happened to develop a different language/alphabet would their great runes look different?
And some fun meta questions and comments:
I love the auroran calender, being that it is far more mathmatically clean and consistent than our own, (I watched your Thoth gambles with the moon video), is this sort of wish fufillment? I also love how you incorporated some chaos back in with the red moon sword and added a three day intercalery period
What are some common tropes you knowingly subverted or played with when writing the story?
It's extremely refreshing that Kendal doesn't have "chosen one" angst, instead he has much more subdued "no one will get hurt because of me" and "am I human?" angst
What's your opinion on tv tropes, (I for one, have wasted so many hours on it)
Did the primordials have a super-fun six man band dynamic?
who was the comic relief?
What's your actual opinion on Erin (I find his character super fun/compelling and I find his hubris hilarious)
The god mechanics have kind of a neil gaiman feel, I love it!
Vash gives off extreme shonen protagonist vibes (like goku + thor + spiderman) Is this on purpose? I love it
Kendal also seems pretty shonen protagonisty
Could you make an entire chapter where Erin just reads one of his magic textbooks and we get an in depth look at the study of magic and everything the people in the story know about it (I'm kidding of course but I also would actually eat that up like chocolate pudding because I'm a total lore junkie)
And sorry this is soooo long, you prob won't respond and I don't want to annoy you, just really curious and excited about your comic!
Holy heck, okay, let's count it down
The lightning that sparks a metal-caste cannot be influenced by another will - so a mage's lightning won't have this effect. If an already-sparked metal-caste is struck by lightning they receive a Second Spark and become a Stormbreaker.
Yep! For instance, almost all Ignans are fire mages.
The Crystal Caste live on the Helm-East continents and were influenced by the increased presence of Stone's bones, which are the source of all natural crystal. They haven't been mentioned in the comic yet, but have been discussed some out here. They're allegedly ruled by the Adamant Caste located on the northern continent, a family descended from the first Adamant King who led a rebellion against the magically dominant Glassfolk that once ruled the region. They possess the unique ability to control and redirect magic other people cast, even more rare among the Crystal-Caste who are very rarely mages of any kind. Under the Adamant Caste on the equatorial continent are three empires in a tense stalemate - the militarily powerful Sapphire Empire, the naturally-protected Ruby Empire shielded by a mountain range and a vast desert, and the weaker Emerald Empire that sprawls on the eastern coast and has only maintained its power at a level comparable to the other two through uniquely cunning tactics and a habit of accepting the talents of non-Crystal-Caste into the court - even some ferin.
Not unless they wanted to. The gods that get festivals are the ones it's easy to theme a party around.
Unknown!
See above!
Nope! The gods control the elements in a completely different way than mortals do. Rather than channeling elemental energy/primordial souls, they seem to impose their own soul on the elements they wish to manipulate, embodying it and reshaping it that way.
See above!
The Void Dragon is a living primordial being. We have no parameters for what abilities we can expect him to have, as all the other primordials we know of are dead. Evidently he can exert a degree of surveillance and physical control outside of his body. Maybe that's something all primordials could do!
Presumably the Light Dragon would correspond to an eighth element.
If soul energy is an element like the other primordials, it doesn't behave the same way any of them do, and it seems to universally permeate everywhere anyone has looked so far.
The nature and origin of soul energy is unknown. The Collector would very much like an answer to the same question!
Adamant is the perfect balanced fusion of the six elemental primordials, and it's a physical substance. Soul energy is a typically invisible energy that permeates everything. They are not the same thing.
Confirmed yes, starmetal is not any of the known elements and is theorized to be literal cooled shards of dead stars. Thus we know there are more elements out there, even if it is just one more element.
The origins of stars are largely unknown, but some observers with very good telescopes claim that new stars sometimes appear in luminous gassy nebulas.
The moons are the destroyed remains of Stone's armaments - a sword and a tower shield. Without him, over time they crumbled and gravity took over. That's why they're called Sword and Shield.
Unknown!
See above!
Pretty dope but no, it's much weirder than that
Yes!
Unknown but possible!
Evidence suggests that the runic language is the writing system of the Primordials, so by definition the runes would look the same.
META QUESTIONS:
Definitely wish fulfillment on my part. I just like it when things evenly divide other things. Is that so wrong?
Oh so many. Chief among them is the Easy Romantic Subplot Between The Male Lead And The First Girl. There was a draft (when I was like eleven) where of course that was going to be a thing, and then I realized I super didn't need to do anything I didn't want to do, and their relationship can just be whatever. Outside of that I don't tend to think of storytelling in terms of what tropes to avoid so much as I let the characters do what makes sense for them, and sometimes that means skipping over more easy stock plots or sources of conflict.
Kendal's flavor of angst is, in my opinion, significantly more relatable than "boohoo having a cosmic destiny and awesome sword is really sad and I wish my life was boring", like even though that's probably what WOULD happen I like this a lot more
love me some TVTropes, I spent like six months in highschool devouring as much of it as I could find and emerged changed - an elevated being, one could say. To this day I like going on TVTropes after I finish a series and just reading through the bite-sized analysis and highlights.
yeup!
definitely Lightning
I love Erin very much. I write a lot of paragons who will always try to do the most morally right thing they can manage - so it's very refreshing to write somebody who literally thinks he's too smart for that. Erin has a moral compass - he even follows it sometimes - but he prides himself on prioritizing real things like knowledge and power. Erin will use any tools he has available to succeed - in theory. In practice he's rigidly principled and it frustrates him immensely. Erin is like a "season 1 villain turned season 2 grumpy ally" except we fully skipped season 1. Erin is also convinced he's the main character, which is very funny to me. Also sometimes it's just fun to write someone being a huge dick to people who deserve it, and since I have a lot of protagonists who either can't or won't stand up for themselves, letting Erin loose on the people hurting them is very cathartic.
Thanks! Neil Gaiman's attitude towards gods definitely influenced me, although I put my own spin on it to make it work in a way I actually fully enjoyed.
Vash's protagonist vibes are absolutely intentional. He is the hero of the wrong story - every brash, powerful, badass protagonist trait I like rolled into one. Literally the most mortifyingly known I've ever felt was when I sent the first chapter to a friend of mine and she saw the first page he talked on and immediately responded "so this dude is based on Inuyasha right?"
Kendal has the outward appearance of the most classic hero I could construct, but on the inside is very different - a lot more melancholy and very laser-focused on his task, caring achingly deeply but slowly learning to let himself be cared for in return. Many hero's journeys focus on the protagonist's personal desires and flaws distracting them from their inevitable quest, but I thought it would be interesting if Kendal had the exact opposite problem - a being driven by a singular heroic purpose learning to let himself do and feel literally anything else.
if we ever get to the Mage Academy this could very well happen and that is a threat
101 notes
·
View notes
Text
Charlie Cox on Treason's big twist and what that means for season 2
"It genuinely was shocking."
BY DAVID OPIE 27 DEC 2022 (X)
Treason finale spoilers follow.
Following that painful cancellation, Daredevil's now been "Born Again" in Marvel's upcoming show, and Charlie Cox's relationship with Netflix has been born again too in Treason, his new spy series that everyone's dad has probably binged by now already over this festive season.
But if you have watched all of Treason by now, you'll know it's so much more than just your bog-standard MI6 caper. Although there's a lot of shady dealings and betrayal too — hey, it's in the title! — Matt Sharman's script is smart enough to subvert these tropes in ways you genuinely wouldn't expect.
Digital Spy caught up with Charlie Cox ahead of Treason's release to discuss the show's unusual love triangle and why that surprise ending is so "bittersweet".
What was it like coming back to Netflix for this after Daredevil ended?
Well, it’s really interesting, because it’s a very different team. None of the people that I worked with previously were on this show. And also, with COVID restrictions, there’s not many producers on set in the way that they were in the past.
But I felt very grateful and thankful that Netflix was still willing to hire me. I had a really, really good experience.
It was really fun to film in London, back where I grew up. I don’t live in London anymore, so it was such a thrill to be on amazing sets and locations all over London, and to be back home where I started acting, near my mum and dad who still live here, and stuff like that. So it was a really wonderful experience, top to bottom, actually.
How did those COVID restrictions impact filming for Treason?
I mean, it’s kind of hard to say. In my experience, it did impact filming a lot. But you kind of get used to that happening now.
I got a call at some point saying I was a close contact, and that was 15 days or something, because I ended up getting it. That was 15 days where they couldn’t shoot one of the lead actors. So what that does from an insurance point of view and a budget point of view, must be an absolute nightmare for the producers.
So, yeah, it did impact us, and we had a number of those shutdowns. It’s just a new landscape that we have to live with, you know?
Treason involves a love triangle of sorts between Adam, his wife, and his ex, who also happens to be a spy, but it's a lot more complicated than that. Can you talk us through that unique dynamic they share?
Matt Charman, the writer and showrunner, is so brilliant. He takes something that you feel like there’s a very obvious, dramatic version of a device. But then he kind of twists it in a way that makes it more – I think – more truthful, and therefore more interesting.
So whereas with a traditional love triangle… The root of that would be a disloyalty; there’s been a form of deception involved, at least emotionally, between the characters.
Whereas actually, with Adam, the situation is more truthful, and therefore more complex. He loves Maddy. He has not been unfaithful to his wife. He wants nothing more than for her to feel safe and loved and looked after and all of those things. But this former colleague of his, an asset of his, who comes into their life, there were also feelings there. It was not a black-and-white situation of using someone emotionally in order to get close to them.
I think they were probably in love, or they certainly had a very romantic affair. And although obviously his loyalty lies with his wife, he’s trying to be understanding and fair to a past relationship that also meant something. I think that’s what makes it a little bit different and unique. It was those little details that drew me to these scripts.
The whole cast is great, but we particularly enjoyed watching you play out that intense confrontation with Ciarán Hinds, who plays Adam's ex-boss, in episode three. Can you talk us through filming that pivotal moment?
So working with Ciaran is just such a delight because he’s so brilliant, but he’s also one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, and he’s such a generous person and actor. It’s just a joy to be on set with him, and on camera with him. He has tremendous gravitas.
My memory of that scene, and also my memory of the story at that point, is: Adam is being accused of something of which he is innocent. But there are smaller facts within that story that are true.
So it’s a bit like when someone accuses you of something you didn’t do, but they did catch you out on one technicality which you have to admit is true, and then it makes you look guilty ubiquitously. So finding a way to perform that – and, also, what you’re learning at that point is that the man that Adam is talking to is a man that he has, at some point, admired, respected, and who has mentored him.
He’s probably loved him like a father, and now that image has crumbled in front of him. What he sees is a corrupt, kind of incredibly Machiavellian-type villain. So the emotions that he’s experiencing in that moment are incredibly varied and confusing and convoluted. And at the same time, he’s the one that’s trying to convince the other of his innocence. It’s a bizarre kind of dynamic. But that’s what makes Matt Charman such a good writer.
Treason's final episode takes a surprise left turn by suddenly killing your character off, even though Adam had been the lead up until that point. What was your reaction to reading that in the scripts?
Well, I knew going in that Adam wasn’t going to survive the first season. So I knew that was coming. But I did think it was handled really beautifully. I did think it was handled in a way where it genuinely was shocking, certainly in reading it.
Anything like that that breaks the mould a bit, I’m excited by. I’ve no concerns about playing a character that doesn’t survive. In many ways, it’s often better. It makes your future a little bit clearer, because when you survive the end of the season, you then have to wait and find out if you’re going to do another one, and blah blah blah.
Whereas if you’re dead, you can kind of crack on with your career [laughs].
But I had such a good time on the job. I enjoyed the people so much, and the story so much, and working and living in London so much. Obviously it’s bittersweet in that regard, that if they do do a second season, I won’t be able to be involved.
More importantly, I just want to make good stories. That was something that I thought was going to be different to a lot of stories in the genre, and if it makes it stand out and people enjoy the show more because of it, I think that’s a positive.
What was it like filming Adam's death scene?
I remember, we started it, and then we got a COVID case, and we had to abandon it and come back to it much, much later. Like a month later or something. So we shot it in kind of two separate parts.
But no, it was fun, because we hadn’t done a huge amount of action on this show. There had been very minor moments where there had been running and panting and jumping and hitting people. There’s almost none of that.
So it was fun to have a little bit of that, with guns and running. That stuff is often… If you do too much of it, it gets really tedious, and you feel like, "I just want to do some acting." But some of it – little glimpses here and there, make it really enjoyable.
You mentioned the possibility of a second season earlier. Do you think there is a chance that Treason could return, even though it's been billed as a limited series?
I don’t know. I’m the wrong person to ask. I’ve got no idea. Maybe there was never any chance, and they don’t want that. I have no idea. I literally have no idea.
~*~
#OH I hadn't heard Charlie had gotten Covid 😳#I'm glad he's alright <3#charlie cox#adam lawrence#treason 2022#treason spoilers#interview#article
41 notes
·
View notes
Text
ALRIGHT IT'S TIME FOR ANOTHER CHAOTIC NON-CHRONOLOGICAL FIRST THOUGHTS POST. AS ALWAYS, SPOILERS AHEAD!
1- not that any of them will see this, but just, once more so much gratitude and admiration for the cast and crew. This show was worked on with so much love and dedication, especially by the performers and it's visible in every scene. I'm in love with pretty much all of them and hope to see them in season 2,3,4,5 and so on, but also in many other projects ❤️
2- Romitri, like I admitted before, was literally my first ever OTP, the ship that got me into fanfic, so most of my posts were screaming about them and the depth and chemistry Sisi and Kieron conveyed, but I just wanted to take a special moment for our Lissa and Christian. Daniela and Andre were and are impeccable, especially considering the emotional roller-coaster they had to work through this season and they did it so so well. His little smile with the "Let's live dangerously."? Perfection. I melted right then and there.
3- Mia and Meredith are the best couple I love them. More of them always please. So happy they didn't fridge the lesbians goddamn. Also?? Meredith alchemist storyline yes please? Tell me more?!
4- the team ups we got to see! Christian and Rose, Romitri, Rose and Janine, all of it was incredible.
5- I would have loved for Romitri to have more significant 1:1 moments and the ending hurt but in such a good way, but ugh the emotions this episode all around were incredible again
6- I love they sort of subverted the trope of "main couple is in love because the writers said so" by dedicating a scene to proving they know each other with that bickering scene.
7- also yes I love the battle couple trope, sue me
8- RIP Andre (round 2)
9- the way my heart DROPPED when our Comrade was bit
10- I love that they make Dimitri have a potentially more interesting role in everything in the second season by making him the 'inside man'. Like yes undercover Comrade go off, protecting the love of your life and your charge the best you can even if it means you can't be together with Rose the way you want to
11- although, does this mean he's gonna have to fake date Tatiana next season? I do love the potential for tension and drama there😏
12- God I would really love a second season. In the end I enjoyed this series so much and seemingly people enjoyed working on it, they deserve another round at this
many more thoughts and fic to come so stay tuned~
#vampire academy#romitri#spoilers#dimitri belikov#rose hathaway#vatv#vampire academy spoilers#vatv show spoilers#lissa dragomir#Vatv finale#Vatv 1x10#christian ozera#reactions
16 notes
·
View notes
Text
Charden is stored in the oy oy oy <3
#i forgot how much i love them#charlie is so completely sincere i feel like it eases the burden of perfection nd dennis doesnt feel the need to perform....#and he is so intuitive that its nearly impossible for dennis to manipulate him which frustrates dennis#but also means their relationship can be one of the most grounded and genuine ones in the show#ill say it. canon macdennis would be a trainwreck. i propose rcg just goes fully insane and makes charmacden canon#like nobody would expect that. u could change the game baby.#plus with charlie in the mix it would ease some of the angst of pure macden and allow for more comedy#it would literally just be mac bangs the waitress but instead of bestfriend 1 it would be boyfriend 1#i started off being ironic but im actually serious now rcg i dare u. it would be very funny and very cute.#it would still be very toxic but in a lighthearted fun way#ok im done rambling now <3#iasip#charden#if you love subverting tropes so much then subvert the '2 people in the cast get into a relationship' trope by make it it 3.#if you really mean it
72 notes
·
View notes
Note
Oh I’m curious, what don’t you like about the into the woods film? I don’t think I ever actually saw it all the way through, but I’ve seen the stage show a couple of times so now I’m wondering what’s different that makes the movie bad
Ahhhh I have a lot of different complaints about it—Into the Woods is one of my all-time favorite musicals, so I have a lot of strong feelings about it. One of the biggest ones is the lack of The Narrator. The Narrator as a character in the stage show is not just like, very fun and delightful and adding to the fairytale energy, they’re a vital part of the thesis of the whole show. The Narrator is outside the story until act 2, when the characters acknowledge the Narrator and bring them into the plot, sacrificing them to the giant. The story has already taken a dark turn, but once the Narrator is dead, the story is completely off the rails with no one sure of whether there Will be a happy ending anymore. It’s a brilliant storytelling device that SO clearly subverts the tropes and expectations from act one to act two which is like, the COOLEST part of the show and a big part of why I love the show so much.
Now, in fairness, I don’t think this Would translate to the screen very well and it IS very much a Live Theater Meta Thing, so I understand why it was cut. But like. Maybe they should have considered that if a major aspect of the show just Doesn’t make sense in a movie…….maybe they’re missing a big part of What the show is doing in the first place, if they’re trying to make it into a movie anyway. Like the show as a whole IS very reliant on being a piece of THEATER, it makes sense in THAT medium it was written FOR that medium for a reason!
Another example of this is that the movie cuts the act one finale “Ever After” from the soundtrack. Now this theoretically makes sense because it’s a movie so there’s not an act break, but like. That act divide is again PIVOTAL to the actual storytelling. The end of act one is Happily Ever After hooray everyone has everything they wished for and the bad guys have been punished! This is usually what you would expect of the end of the entire show, so it coming at the halfway point is very much a red flag for audiences that things are Not actually as rosy as they appear and there’s still a lot of shit to come. It’s once again using the expectations of a conventional class musical and completely upending them with the second act. The movie doesn’t have this song or this clear act break, splitting the story into two halves (the “happily ever” and the “after”), so it loses some of this.
Those are kind of my Biggest qualms, I think those are just really fundamental inherent issues with the movie as a concept and that Most film adaptations of into the woods would struggle with that. As far as the film’s execution itself, I just think it’s like a really visually ugly movie? It’s SO overbearingly reliant on cgi/digital effects in a way that makes it look so just like. Nothing. It’s all bland and muddy and dark and weird I genuinely hate looking at it fjgnrjfndjd idek how to put it into words I just think it’s a hideous looking movie. I also think the casting is all over the place, I don’t think any of it is like insanely egregious but I think very little of it is Strong casting. Chris Pine as Cinderella’s Prince is brilliant and inspired though.
I also have a very petty complaint, which is that they apparently couldn’t be fucked to learn the three part round in the finale, which is one of my FAVORITE pieces of musical theater ever written. I did this show in HIGH SCHOOL and if WE could learn it, these people being paid to make this could learn it. Anyone reading this who’s only heard the movie version, or never heard it at all, do yourself a favor and listen to the absolute banger that is the Into the Woods finale. Holy fuck I just listened to the movie version to confirm that I’m right about them not doing the round and GOD THIS SOUNDS SO SO SO SHIT PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD LISTEN TO THE OBC FINALE. Okay. Okay. Anyway.
94 notes
·
View notes
Text
Why Color Rush is Amazing
I was doing a comp post of the BLs I believe honestly represent the queer experience (for Pride obvs), and the first one I thought of was Color Rush.
And then I thought, no, I have to just talk about Color Rush for a while.
And then I rewatched Color Rush and now... here we are, together, staring down the barrel of yet another super long post from moi.
TA DA!
I’ve been asked why I love this show so much and usually I direct people to the episode by episode post I did where you can watch me go from “this is cute” to “OH it’s an allegory” to “this is blowing my tiny mind.” But I think it deserves more from me. So, here it is a proper pop critique essay on one of my favorite BLs of all time...
All my love for Color Rush
BASICS
Who made it? Korea
Where to find it? Viki
Foundational Romance Trope? Fated mates
Style: High concept, skewed reality, single POV, small cast
PITCH
Despite being a typical Korean-BL short run, Color Rush was given more legs than most with a STRONG core concept and 8 episodes of 15 minutes each. Thus Color Rush (with a total run time of c. 2 hours) works better as a movie than a series and manages to satisfy because it utilizes a cinematic approach that strongly relies on manga filming techniques.
It broke ground in many ways:
It neatly avoided the pacing issues of K-BL with a magical realism component that forced intimacy in the first episode.
It was concept driven, in that it had a strong fantasy component, like Cherry Magic. However, Color Rush used this fantastical as an aspect of visual story telling (Cherry Magic was audio) which allowed it to be less soft, sweet, cute and more tense, sinister, dramatic.
It also used this concept mono/probe to say some really subversive things about the seme/uke dynamic.
The narrative backbone was an insanely perfect allegory for queer first love and the coming out experience.
It’s this last bit that made me love this show with such fervor.
Color Rush Subverting Seme/Uke
What I initially thought Color Rush was focusing on was codifying the seme/uke dynamic with an in-universe supernatural component: mono/probe.
They use mono/probe to highlight the sinister nature of seme/uke by emphasizing the obsession a mono (Yeon Woo) has for his probe but countering that by making the probe character the seme (Yoo Han), and a seme is always obsessed with his uke.
So Color Rush used subversion to explore yaoi archetypes: naturally obsessive seme versus supernaturally obsessive uke.
When Yoo Han pulls down his mask, it is an aggressive sexual act - yeah, I do mean that kind of exposure - and predatory. But all semes have aggressive predatory instincts (its how they spiral when the drama requires it). Yoo Han wants Yeon Woo to be obsessed with him. He enjoys the power that being a probe gives him. He is literally stunning to Yeon Woo.
What seme doesn’t want an uke that faints in his arms just from seeing his face? Only Yoo Han can show Yeon Woo a whole new world. That world is color, but that wold is also a relationship, love, sex.
Throughout the drama, Yoo Han teases Yeon Woo in this highly erotic way using color: the rainbow fan of temptation, the prism and the light, the memorized lists and stories of color’s history Yoo Han is all about the allowance of pleasure, the denial, the boundaries. Color Rush pushed way past standard uke/seme into full on D/s. Along the way saying some interesting things about obsession and addiction.
Cats exist in this liminal space where they are both stupid cute love muffins and threatening alpha predators. I feel like Yoo Han is played exactly the same way. He manages to be a dominating force but also whimsical and yearning, so we get these glimpses and reminders of how young he is. It gives him qualities of etherial godling capriciousness on one side and childish wonder on the other. All from behind a mask.
He’s as caught up in this thing as Yeon Woo, but he also must be in control of it. Or at least pretend to be.
“I wanted to show you a rainbow but it wouldn’t rain.”
Is such a seme thing to say. How annoying of the world not to conform exactly to the way Yoo Han wanted it to be, for the benefit of his mono, of course.
I don’t think it’s an accident of language that Yeon Woo uses the same phrases to describe seeing color that Yoo Han uses to describe seeing Yeon Woo. So it goes also with the nature of desire in this series: Yeon Woo wants the same things from color (to see, to touch, to possess) that Yoo Han wants from Yeon Woo.
Of course then Yeon Woo starts to actually become obsessed and orders Yoo Han around, and a seme can’t have that! Must CONTROL the situation. So Yoo Han barters for what he wants, time to woo Yeon Woo. Sinister, but then of course by the laws of yaoi and of this universe the only way it’s going to work is if the two characters become equally obsessed with each other. It’s the you are my destiny AKA fated mates trope in an urban fantasy BL form.
And so I thought Color Rush was being terribly clever with yaoi archetypes and romance tropes. Cute and smart and fun.
That’s what I thought at first.
And it was, but it turned out Color Rush was going deeper than that.
Color Rush as an Allegory for Queer Awakening
Color Rush is also a narrative of discovering queer identity and self-acceptance, packaged in this clever little magical contrivance: the color rush.
Yeon Woo is trapped in a grey world which is an allegory for the sexually/romantically unawakened innocent. The color rush experience therefore represents both sexual awakening and the epiphany of queerness.
(Rainbow sparkles, anyone?)
The lore of the world is that monos have a history of kidnapping and hurting their probes, because they become obsessed with the only person who allows them to see color. Yeon Woo is terrified of this, terrified of becoming the monster. He is gay/mono growing up in a culture/family/religion that vilifies gays/monos. As a direct result, this boy is terrified of being gay/mono because it is associated with monstrosity. (I’m gonna stop with the gay/mono slash thing. They are basically interchangeable.)
“Love makes monsters of us all.”
We’ll come back around to Yeon Woo in a moment.
Yoo Han
As the confident (seeming) probe Yoo Han represents out gay - comfortable in his own skin, flirtatious and very intersted in Yeon Woo. He is a threat under these circumstances, because he has what Yeon Woo wants, he is what Yeon Woo wants, but he also is what Yeon Woo wants to be. He is the world of color, he is the monster.
The scene where Yoo Han has Yeon Woo caged and is explaining colors to him by whispering in his ear (still masked) while petting his hand is possibly one of the sexiest things to happen in BL since Pharm feed Dean at the swimming pool. It has the same tension and the same interweaving of plot and action.
It is an act of seduction, but of identity seduction.
Yoo Han is temping Yeon Woo to cross into being queer. To accept color into his life is to accept himself.
Initially, Yoo Han capitalizes on this sinister sexy seme dynamic partly because of his mask. It isn’t until much later that we realize the mask is an outward manifestation of Yoo Han’s own struggles with identity, his face blindness. Essentially, the mask is Yoo Han's visual representation of his own challenges with self acceptance and society. AKA A different kind of coming out experience, but no less a queer allegory.
Yeon Woo’s realization of this (in the hotel room after Yoo Han confesses) is his cornerstone to empathy and eventually self-forgiveness and understanding. We are both monsters, we are both unique, we both struggle, and we both love.
Yeon Woo needs to understand that while Yoo Han seems to be in control and have the power in the equation, he is just as caught up as Yeon Woo. They can be monsters together.
For a first timer Heo Hyun Jun (AKA Hwall from The Boyz) as Yoo Han did a great job with a difficult role. Masked he had to do most of his emoting via body language and eye movement, and I think it really helped that he’s a trained dancer.
Yoo Han’s character fit the brief too. The type of arrogant pretty-boy who wants to be a K-pop idol by his very nature wants to be something special. In being Yeon Woo’s probe, Yoo Han gets to be the most special thing in the whole universe to one person. And it’s a boy he already likes. Isn’t that what every seme secretly wants in the end? To be the most special and important person in their uke’s universe. Isn’t that what the whole dynamic is about?
Of course we learn later that this is because Yeon Woo is actually unique to Yoo Han. His is the only face Yoo Han can recognize in a sea of strangers. For Yeon Woo, this discovery represents that moment of being queer and realizing that your crush is queer too, that there are others out there in the world. Not just that love can be reciprocated, but that your kind of love (that is hated by others) can be reciprocated.
Color Rush is exploring the idea that to be so transported by another person is to want to dwell in their skin, see what they see, drift on the sensations only they can provide. It’s highlighting the unmoored nature of new passion.
“I want to be with him, but also, in a strange way, I want to be him.”
This is particularly common to the queer experience.
Which brings us to Yeon Woo.
Yeon Woo
The narrative is told from Yeon Woo’s POV, which is normal for yaoi stories. They usually focus on the uke’s POV. I talked about Yoo Han first because Yeon Woo is realizing who he really is (gay), because of Yoo Han. As happens to many of us queers, it is the act of sexual and/or emotional awakening inspired by meeting another person that makes us realized who we want, and by extension who we are. Our crush is also our first “oh no, what am I?”
What Color Rush does that I have never seen in BL before (and rarely in any other queer narratives) is put Yeon Woo through the 5 stages of grief that result from this queer awakening (in 5 episodes). That grief centers around Yeon Woo finding his probe and loosing greyscale (and mourning the safe quiet world of his past self). But it is a perfect queer first-love allegory as well.
first Yeon Woo tries to deny his probe
then he gets angry at Yoo Han for not avoiding him
then they bargain
then there is depression
and finally acceptance
Incidentally, if you’re queer you often go through grief stages as part of your first love/sexual awakening, especially if you live in a non-accepting culture or family. Unacknowledged, that grief is often the reason youngsters get angry and forceful about their queerness:
Why don’t we get to experience first love without simultaneously mourning other people’s expectations of us?
Why should we have to grieve an identity (straight) that the world forced on us?
When Yeon Woo grieves for his mother, he is also grieving his inability to share the experience of losing his greyscale identity. He is mourning the only other person in his world who could fully understand what he is going through.
From a queer perspective, could I just highlight that is is why found family and queer friendships are so important? Because we all need someone to talk with who has been through a similar experience. And when you are queer and suffering through love and/or sex for the first time, you need someone outside of the new relationship to talk it over with.
First love and queer self discovery are kinds of madness, like the color rush, euphoric and transporting. What form his madness takes rests on Yeon Woo directing it outwards or inwards. It’s inwards for his character (self harm) even as the narrative implies monos direct their madness outwards (murder) but that is, as ever, society’s warped expectations. (Like the perpetuated misconception that gay = pedophile.)
The scene after Yeon Woo’s attempted suicide is so sad because we realize why hi’s aunt was trying so desperately to separate them. Not because she thought it was wrong, but because she knew Yeon Woo’s personality so well she understood what he would do to stop himself from hurting his probe. To stop himself from becoming a monster. (To stop himself from being gay.)
“The colors of my world are also the colors of his world.”
Color Rush is exploring how first love and sexual awakening shifts not only your perception of yourself, but also your feelings about the world around you and what it expects of you.
Yeon Woo hurts because he cannot cope with what he is being told he will become, evil, simply because of how he was born, mono.
Sound familiar?
Simultaneously, the narrative taps into to the idea that reconciliation between the unawakened before-identity (greyscale), and the now-person you’re becoming (colorful) requires empathy for yourself. Yeon Woo has to forgive himself for his desire, but he also forgive Yoo Han for awakening that desire in him, and for forcing him to confront his own identity. An identity that is in part formed by wanting Yoo Han.
IT’S SO GOOD.
It’s about Yeon Woo’s struggle to accept what mono means to him as an identity, contrasted to what mono means when he is with Yoo Han versus when he is alone, contrasted to what the world expects of him as representative of mono. (Seriously, just substitute the word gay for mono…)
Yeon Woo’s character arc is towards a realization that he and his probe are not so different. It’s the first step towards understanding that his desire (what he wants to do to Yoo Han) has been rendered corrupt by societal expectations. He has to learn that it is what he and Yoo Han can be together that is important.
Yoo Han, on the other hand, is open to the world and to being in love, possibly too open to it, because he has never been limited by expectations, but he still makes the effort to understand Yeon Woo and the prison the world has put him in. The judgment Yeon Woo has labored under for being a mono is so much like the judgement for being gay in a homophobic society. Hence the symbolism of Yoo Han breaking Yeon Woo out of the mental institution (I mean COME ON, gay conversion therapy anyone?).
The obvious solution is for them to become equally obsessed with each other, and we see this as Yoo Han reminds Yeon Woo of the risks he is willing to take, sacrifices he’s willing to make, and that he is falling in love too. It’s empathy, but it’s not enough. It’s not until Yoo Han explains his face blindness, proves that Yeon Woo is literally the only person he can see, that Yeon Woo moves beyond mutual obsession into mutual love.
The very act of loving another turns that person glorious and unique. And isn’t that what’s best about love?
Yeon Woo got to accept and realize that he was something special to Yoo Han. That they each correct a flaw in the other (or what the world sees as a flaw). A much gentler message then mutual obsession, but also an explanation for a lessening of that obsession.
At root, obsession is based on fear of loss and lack of trust. When Yoo Han tells Yeon Woo that his is the only face that he can really see (and only when they are together), Yeon Woo finally understands that he is as necessary to Yoo Han as Yoo Han is to him. They are each other’s one-of-a-kind - soulmates.
In the end, Color Rush was a picture perfect execution of the fated mates romance trope but just crazy queer about it.
Even after his realization and willingness to trust, Yeon Woo has questions, but I liked that. It’s the butterflies of new love. Not being able to predict the other person. Yeon Woo’s questions are about discovery, and yes, still about doubt and fear, but at least they indicate his openness to Yoo Han and willingness to try.
“Am I obsessed with you because you’re my probe or am I obsessed with my probe because it’s you? Does my world truly change when our eyes meet or am I just being dragged into yours?”
and then later
“I hate being confused.”
Again these are the manifestations of queer awakening that we all ask ourselves. It’s that first wave of joyful discomfort that same sex attraction almost always forces upon us.
Am I actually gay or is it just this one person?
Do I change the way I think about myself and others because I have met you?
Is it you or your easy acceptance of your own identity that attracts me?
Do I admire you or do I want to be you or do I want to sleep with you - or is it all in the end the same thing?
Where is the line drawn between who I am and who I love?
And if we cannot exist without connection to others, that connection must form part of our identity. How then does passion incorporate what is special?
And the ending! Back in school, together, rooftop assignation trope immanent, like they’ve returned to not just normal life but to the normal BL path. The show resolved both the seme/uke mono/probe conversation it was having with us, and its allegory for queer awakening.
For me Color Rush was pitch perfect. I feel both honored and humbled to have gotten to experience such a multi-faceted gem.
Read my review of Color Rush 2 here.
(source)
#color rush#queer awakening#pride#queer experience#k drama#korean drama#korean romance#k-bl#korean bl#asian bl#queer cinema#gay romance#gay movie#why it's amazing#everyone should watch this
403 notes
·
View notes
Text
This is my 1st time ever actually participating in a tag game! Thank you to @7nessasaryevils for tagging me <3 Will only include explicit BL content here so as much as I love The Untamed, Guardian, etc. I won’t be including them.
1. your all time favorite bl and why
Bad Buddy. I remember when news, promo pics, and trailers 1st dropped for this series in December of 2020. I spent the majority of 2021 WAITING and had begun to think it’d be delayed but then it finally premiered and holy crap it did NOT disappoint! It’s such a refreshing take on a classic story. Our leads have phenomenal chemistry and they’re allowed to be casually intimate in ways that REAL couples are. They’re also the healthiest couple I can recall ever having seen portrayed in media. Their communication is so sexy. The story itself is progressive in how it subverts, actively addresses, and debunks typical and often toxic BL tropes. I could honestly go on forever. Needless to say, this BL has raised the standard for all shows that I watch.
2. that one bl that scarred you for life
Haven’t had any Thai bl scar me yet. That honor primarily goes to Taiwan and 2 come to mind for different reasons.
The 1st is History 4: Close to You. Ye Xing Si and Fu Yong Jie are the most toxic couple I’ve ever had the misfortune of knowing. Watching their entire dynamic made me extremely uncomfortable and angry.
The 2nd is History 3: Make Our Days Count…If any drama should be paying for therapy bills, it’s this one. If you know, you know.
Honorable Mention: Guardian. Know I said I was only gonna include explicit BL content but this one hurt me too much not to acknowledge. I read the nearly 1000 page novel immediately afterwards to heal my bleeding heart.
3. is there any bl that made you feel very single?
Kieta Hatsukoi (aka Vanishing My First Love - aka My Love MixUp!). They were just so sweet and soft and normal. There were no supernatural elements or dramatic setups. Just 2 lovely people getting to know each other and coming to love and respect one another.
4. if you could change one thing from a bl, which one would it be?
“I’m not gay I just like this one guy…” Fuck right off with this bullshit. Being gay is not a sin and bisexuality (& pansexuality) exists!
5. That one bl you detest (don’t hold back):
EDIT - Whoops! Missed this one! THARNTYPE! Actors have great chemistry but the characters and their relationship are toxic as fuck byeeee
6. your top five:
This was hard and honestly subject to perpetual waffling after the 1st 3 that I’ve listed.
Bad Buddy - My #1 <3
I Told Sunset About You - I mean the TENSION. You could cut it with a knife. Great storytelling, directing, cinematography, acting. It drags you through the emotional ringer and it’s worth it.
Sotus - Look. Quality wise…I know it’s not necessarily amazing but those characters hooked their claws in me and I still love them to pieces.
We Best Love (season 1) - As I’m writing this I’m just now having the revelation that I am apparently obsessed with “rivals to lovers” storylines lol It just makes for such a fun dynamic. This drama is short and sweet and such a comfort watch for me.
My Engineer - Absolutely hilarious with such a great cast of characters.
7. that trashy bl that you lowkey like
In direct contradiction to my previous answer about History 4: Close To You scarring me…Xiao Li Cheng and Teng Mu Ren were super likable and had great chemistry. No idea how the same writers who created this delightful couple ALSO created the aforementioned toxic couple from hell.
8. your favorite korean bl (it’s important we know)
Where Your Eyes Linger. It was the 1st Korean bl I saw and I believe among the 1st made. The chemistry between the two leads was just too good. The way Kang Gook quietly yearns in silence for years while Tae Joo immediately starts toeing the line (much to Kang Gook’s torment) as soon as he realizes his own feelings. The way Tae Joo is technically in a position of power since Kang Gook is essentially his body guard but how their years of friendship muddy those waters. Tae Joo’s emotional vulnerability in contrast to Kang Gook’s surface level stoicism. Ugh. Fucking love it.
9. but also your top 3 for kbls
Where Your Eyes Linger
Light On Me - 10 out of 10. So sweet. Perpetually on the verge of edging WYEL out of the #1 spot.
Color Rush - I didn’t love the execution but I loved the concept and the leads were great.
10. season 2? which one?
My Engineer!!! I need more RamKing and also Thara and Frong. I’m still reeling from Thara’s oblivious “brother” bullshit. You know Frong be listening to Nanon’s “Just Friends” on repeat after that lol The sheer ridiculousness of this show brings me so much joy. I can’t wait for more.
11. a bunch of dramas will air soon. which ones are you the most excited for?
KinnPorchse - The development hell this drama got stuck in has had me stressed! Thankfully it seems to be coming along now.
Check Out - Just from the promo pics, the chemistry between these leads already looks great.
12. tag them!
@gguklita @jemmo @actually-yikes @yukikinns @asliceofoceanmist @ilove-gaycouples @that-bl-bitch @gracethegriffin @vaipou @gguklita @topcatnikki
#ohmnomnom#tag game#bad buddy#bad buddy brain rot#bad buddy fandom#where your eyes linger#wyel#i told sunset about you#itsay#sotus#kieta hatsukoi#vanishing my first love#my love mix up
41 notes
·
View notes
Text
Volume 8 is eerily similar to Sleeping Beauty
So I was reading @magicaltimelady44‘s wonderful post about How Volume 8 is following Mulan and I got to thinking about Nora (like you do) and I came to realization that Volume 8 is eerily similar to sleeping beauty. (also please note that this is just an observation so if i get things wrong I'm sorry)
Here me out:
First, I want to get this out of the way: Nora’s outfits correspond with Sleeping beauty’s dresses. to any of you who have never have watched sleeping beauty or it’s been a long time since you’ve watched it: don't know, In the Disney movie Sleeping Beauty, there’s a running gag where 2 of the 3 fairies that watch over Sleeping Beauty cant decide whether or not to make Sleeping Beauty’s Dress pink or blue. One wants it to be pink, the other wants it to be blue. Its a constant gag in the movie right up until the end. I bring this up because Nora is the only one in the cast that has this flip-flopping color scheme. In volumes 1-3, her outfit is mostly baby pink with a small midsection of Icy blue. In volumes 4-6, her outfit is mostly bright hot pink--hardly any trace of blue in sight.(except for her eyes). Now in volumes 7-8, its that warm baby pink again with that icy blue. Also if you notice, there’s blue underneath the pink (like the undercoat part is dyed blue, which could mean that if Nora wanted to, she could just turn her outfit inside out and have blue on the outside and pink on the little coller flap-things, which is a cleaver nod to “make it pink-make it blue”. )
Another thing that I’ve noticed is that when Nora becomes unconscious. I know this could be chocked up to just the writing in that the entire volume takes place over 1-2 days, but in Sleeping Beauty there’s a very iconic line said by the villian: “Before the Sun sets on her Sixteenth Birthday, she will prick her finger on the spindle of the spinning wheel and fall into a deep sleep.” Now I know that in this case there is no spindle or spinning wheel, but we all know that CRWBY loves to subvert the tropes and items used in their fairy tales. If Cinder’s glass slipper can be a sword than I’m sure Sleeping Beauty Spinning Wheel can be a fully-connected electric door that gives you electrical scars.
Now am I saying that it’s Nora sixteenth birthday when all of this is taking place? (no). Nora’s sixteenth birthday has already been passed. But the “before the sun sets” part is interesting. Mostly because of the whole “Volume 8 takes place in 1-2 days” part. Need I remind you that Nora became unconscious a little before the sun began to fully set on day one.
and when Team RNBW arrived at the Schnee Manor, You can tell that by the time that they got there, the sun had just began to set and the sky was turning that nice Ombre pinkish-purply-yellow color that it does just before the sun fully dips below the horizon.
Another thing that I’ve noticed is that the characters that are surrounding Nora very much connect with Sleeping Beauty’s 3 fairies: Flora, Fauna, and Merriweather.
Flora (flower) wears Red. Flora is the name of the general classification of plants and flowers. She shares similarities to Ruby mostly due to her being the leader and coming up with ideas that very much help the situation.
Fauna wears Green. Her name is usually given to the general classification of animals. The two characters that pertain to this are Penny and Blake. Penny is mostly seen wearing green and is very happy-go-lucky, and while Blake mostly wears monochrome/purple colors, she is generally classified as a “Faunus”.
And Merriweather wears Blue. Weiss now wears very deep rich blue colors. SHe’s the one who’s very outspoken and usually tells it how it is. and is not afaid to call people out on their bullshit. I also point that who’s the one character (besides Nora) that’s commonly associated with a certain type of weather? Weiss Schnee (her last name literally means Snow and her emblem is literally a snowflake)
All 3 of them guard and watch Sleeping Beauty as she sleeps.
Now, you may be thinking: what does this have to do with Atlas and Mantle? I’m glad you asked. As we know, Atlas and Mantle are currently being over-run by Grimm (thanks Salem) and now the entire kingdom is in mortal peril and fear because of it. And now the big question right now is “How are we going to protect people now that both Mantle and Atlas are over-run with Grimm.
Well, you pull a Brunswick farms and put everyone within the Kingdom to sleep. think about it: If everyone was asleep, the Grimm would think that both Mantle and Atlas are abandoned, and would possibly try to wander off. Or would most likely (after a few hours of destruction) think that they’ve killed everyone in the kingdom and then try to move on somewhere else.(or Salem would think that she had won and try to retrieve the relic from the rumble of a destroyed Atlas)
But how the hell are you going to do that? There’s no one in Remnant (currently) that has a semblance that can put people to sleep. We could use the Staff of Creation but then Atlas would fall right out of the sky, smashing the crater down below.
Well, luckily for you my friend, you don't need to because there is already someone who can give you that same outcome with less sleepy-time goodness.
And who has a very similar semblance that can mask an entire group of people and hide them from the Grimm???
This angsty bitch right here.
And need I remind you all that he literally shrouds people in grey when using his semblance, just like how the fairies literally shroud people in that deep seaweed green color when they’re putting people to sleep in the movie.
ALSO: In order for Sleeping Beauty to be rescued, her brave prince needed to fight against the forces of evil to get to her bedside.
Where’s Nora’s Prince? Outside of the kingdom, willing and able to brave the incoming Grimm to get to her.
And where’s Nora? In the castle, waiting for her (estranged) Prince to rescue her.
#rwby#rwby volume 8#rwby volume 8 spoilers#Nora Valkyrie#Lie Ren#Ruby Rose#Blake Belladonna#yang xiao long#penny polendina#Weiss Schnee
384 notes
·
View notes
Note
How has this happened? How did Skam Italia - the remake that deprived a Muslim actress of playing Sana - arguably released the best Sana season? I remember when it seemed like a no-brainer to predict that druck would provide the best version by far and Italia would be fighting to be the worst.
Hi anon 🐞 Lol I mean, how are we defining "best" here? Because tbh (and I'm hardly an Amira M season stan) I thought the way Druck combined the alcohol and fight scenes from Skam into one episode, to make a lot more sense, be more relevant to Amira M than Isak fighting Mikael or Martino fighting Luai (which is second hand drama for Sana at best), develop Essam beyond the super flat portrayals of the Elias Bakkoush characters, and doesn't invoke "homophobic Muslims" tropes.
Seriously, why is Sana A's season the "best" Sana season when off the top of my head, it has: Christian-style exorcisms performed on gay Muslims, a hijabi taking off her hijab at the insistence of two male friends, a close friend admitting to Sana she started the bullying that causes her trauma to this day and not being further touched upon after that clip, a whole bunch of time being dedicated to a side storyline about the gay couple breaking up in which Sana is a spectator to the drama rather than being involved (like I full on watched a scene where she went into the school counselor's office and stood and watched as people recounted this drama), and a Det Beste Fra Islam clip full of explicit Catholic imagery (because it happens during a Catholic ritual gsgvhvs)? And that's without getting into the politics of the fandom claiming that they hired a Muslim writer, when she's only ever credited as a consultant -- and not because Skam Italia never credits co-writers.
In my opinion, the Italian Sana season gets so much praise because of these two factors:
1) People who disagree with the casting of Beatrice Bruschi as Sana aren't big voices in Skam Italia fandom. Their voices aren't amplified, liked and reblogged among the Skam Italia fandom, for obvious reasons. So if these people watched the season and didn't like it, their posts weren't going to get reblogged because they wouldn't agree with Skam Italia fandom's position that "yeah ok they fucked up with the casting, but our season is the best!!!!" The reason critical voices were far more prevalent in other Sana seasons like Druck, Skam France, Skam España, even Wtfock, is because all these critical voices were already established in the actual fandoms. People in these fandoms already looked to them for meta, rather than sidelining their voices for being critical of the casting.
2) Sana Allagui's season was never, ever subjected to the same scrutiny as every other Sana season, because it never dropped in real time. It dropped all at once; therefore, viewers were never made to sit for hours with uncomfortable clips. (Like a number of the clips I mentioned above.)
Anyway, to me this is, idk, like making a bunch of humanities students take the final exam in a college-level Math course. One of them got a 4/10 instead of 1/10 or 2/10 or 3/10 like the others. Wow!! She is "arguably" the best! When you know all these seasons have engaged in harmful stereotyping that hasn't gotten subverted, have prioritized white characters and viewers over Muslim characters/viewers and characters/viewers of color, and have not pushed against the idea that Muslim people should integrate and all be cultural experts if they want to be accepted.
For me, the best "Sana" seasons are Zehra's season in blank, and Aisha's season in the 17-verse. They both treated centered their mains' experiences over those of white people's, both introduced a range of different male and female characters of color, both handled familial relationships in more interesting ways, both developed the love pairing well. I honestly think the only network that took the feedback NRK got after Sana's season seriously and worked to address it in meaningful ways was... NRK.
84 notes
·
View notes
Note
I'm loving all your ILY posts! I've also seen your comments on reddit and I enjoy reading your insightful analysis there, too. I would like to know your thoughts on Kousuke and Alyssa. Do you think they will become narrative foils? I noticed they were acting awkwardly around each other too (it kind of reminds me of how annoyed Soushi reacts around Maya) and she seems to have a crush on him 👀 I think she'll be used to contrast how he's still capable of redemption. 1/?
I mean Yui groomed them both successfully. They have shown to emulate her behavior, value their reputation over other people's feelings, and refuse to take accountability for their actions against Shin Ae and Nol. But unlike Kousuke, Alyssa has shown no hint of remorse or even guilt. 2/?
Waaahh thank you so much, anon! Isn't it silly that I still go :O when I realize people actually enjoy what I have to say? I started yelling into the void on tumblr because I got worried I was too active on reddit and I was possibly annoying people lmaooooo so I'm actually really glad you're able to find me on both platforms! It means a lot that I'm not just yelling into a total void.
If you don't mind, I'm breaking your ask down into two parts, because I might leave somethin off/this will get too long if I keep it all in one lol. BUT you bring up things I love to think about!!!!! So!!!!!
I think we are deliberately kept in the dark about Alyssa - whether it's to subvert the scheming girl trope, I'm not sure, but there's a lot of things we don't know about her and that's definitely on purpose. She's a character who probably won't be revealed more to us for a while yet, too, which is frustrating if only because I want to know everything NOW, but it does serve to make her more interesting.
Alyssa's interest in Kousuke is so obvious I can't believe I never noticed it in my original reads. I've seen this brushed off as "She just admires him" and I'm just like... she actually sulked for a moment about Kousuke leaving! Meanwhile she was straight up all but telling Nol she'll help him pack his bags lmao.
I feel like the cast of her shadow is deliberate, too, but look at that face. Sulking.
Compare with
There's room to argue that we can't see Alyssa's face when she first tells him she won't stop him, but she kind of makes it abundantly clear that Nol being away doesn't really affect her. And, I mean, look at how their relationship is conducted. She's bragged to Meg that she and Nol are so casual and cool and easy breezy.
(I guess that means there ALSO is room to argue that Alyssa is putting on a front and just saying this to make sure people think her relationship is great, but the only People who know is Meg. And as a people pleaser, if Alyssa felt uncomfortable with the casual nature of her relationship with Nol, wouldn't she actually do more to make the relationship more of what she wants? Notably during the conversation on the balcony, she basically tells Nol this isn't really her dream relationship, which leads to the admission that they are together not for each other but for the benefits they each get so......)
Kousuke is the one who confuses me the most, because it strikes me as really weird that Yui has used Alyssa as leverage before against Kousuke. "You should bring a date, Kousuke, Alyssa will be there." What does this mean? What does it have to do with him and why would it entice him to bring anyone, anyway? I'm still really baffled on this one, tbh. Something that really stood out to me was during the dinner when Nol finally revealed he was planning to attend Oxford, Kousuke was distracted by his own news that the CFO position would be opening. In fact, when Nol mentions attending Oxford later, Kousuke seems to act like this is his first time hearing it.
Nol takes note of Kousuke's state of distraction before he finally starts talking about his plan.
The way quim does the dialogue and suddenly Kousuke's interest returning is.... interesting isn't it? From the moment Nol notes Kousuke's disinterest, we don't see his face again until Rand brings up Alyssa. Quim doesn't do anything without reason - in a movie, you wouldn't waste film on Kousuke's interesting returning at the mention of Alysa unless it meant anything, right?
There's so many little moments that make me go what the heck is going on here, too.
What the heck is up with THIS? Why does Kousuke deliberate SO LONG before he calls Alyssa? Like, do I think he's really so weirded out about calling his younger brother's girlfriend, considering he has one of his younger brother's own friends reporting on him and at his beck and call? You can't convince me that he's hesitant only because Alyssa is the sister of Meg. It just seems too wary.
And yes, this moment here?
It really does have the same tone as Soushi's wariness of Maya, except is Kousuke wary of Alyssa in the same way? Is he wary of her intentions? This one is so hard for me to read, because frankly, at this point it's hard to tell if Kousuke even cares about Nol as a brother or because he was forced to and he feels deep-buried remorse for the way he treated him and doesn't know how to handle it. Is he just aware of Alyssa's keen interest in him and that puts him on edge? Would he even care about Alyssa's keen interest unless she starts to get pushy?
I HONESTLY HAVE NO IDEA and frankly, it drives me nuts, so I love to discuss this and see what other people have to say. I'd never even noticed how long he deliberates before finally calling her until someone on reddit pointed that out.
lmao this so much preamble to get to the point but anyway YES they are absolutely parallels and I do wonder if they would become foils. Again, it's hard to know with Alyssa because we've been deliberately shielded so much of her personality right now and it's hard to tell what's real and what's not with her. The way that she worries about Shinae telling Nol what she did absolutely reads to me as a lack of remorse, but maybe I'm just projecting because we haven't been given much reason to like her lol. Shinae definitely makes it seem like Alyssa never actually apologized and the way Shinae just brushes it off makes me feel like there was never actual, proper closure. What Alyssa did is worse than just causing her injury: it was why she did it and how she reacted like Shinae was something dirty and how dare she even talk to her even though Shinae probably just wanted to know why Alyssa stopped being friends with her. Maybe she was even seeking closure at the time.
In the same way that Nol and Shinae are mirrors, Kousuke and Alyssa are their parallel abusers, grooming victims of Yui, those who care more about their image and reputation than anything else and have hurt others (Nol and Shinae) in their quest to fill the role. We still don't know if Alyssa dated Nol because she genuinely had a crush (doubtful so far) or because she figured out the family he's from and wanted to get closer. I try so hard to give her the benefit of the doubt but narratively we aren't privy to that yet. Also, have you noticed that Nol and Shinae both have a relationship of some kind with each others' abuser? This mirror and their parallel abusers thing is INTRICATELY woven.
That's what makes it so difficult to tell if she'll become a foil or merely a parallel that highlights what Nol and Shinae have been through. We know Kousuke will receive a redemption arc, because he's a main character, and also because I think part of subverting his trope is that he has to take responsibility for his past actions, rather than being loved in spite of the things he's done or whatever. In order for Kousuke to proper and develop further, he has to be held accountable and he has to break free of his family. Can we trust the same for Alyssa? At this point, she doesn't want to lose Nol because she knows if she loses him, she can just as easily lose her career and access to the world she's only just gained access to (and if she were to lose it all right now, it would be worse for her because she'd have all those trainee fees to pay back).
I think both Kousuke and Alyssa are likely in for a very public airing of their sins; for Kousuke it may come in the form of the expose YuJing is working on, collateral damage in the quest to take down Yui. I also think the only way to nudge Kousuke to change is that his image has to take a hit in some form. Is it that Rand isn't his father? Is it a reveal that he abused his brother? Is it whatever happened in the past that Nol got in trouble for was caused by Kousuke and he let Nol take the blame? Likewise, I think the fact that people knew Alyssa in middle school means she's not so safe, either; what if one of the girls from after school duty reveals what happened? Surely there were rumors going around school about what happened - Shinae is out of school, Alyssa is pulled from school, kids talk. Frankly, a scandal like that could ruin her career, and worse, if Nol knew what she had done, would he be able to remain shackled to her?
While I know Kousuke won't immediately take responsibility for his actions, I've always believed that such a catalyst would at least make him start thinking about it and force him to admit it. It wouldn't happen over night, but in time it will. But will Alyssa? Would she deny the allegations? Would she just shift blame, insist that it was all an accident, that it wasn't bullying like you think? (Cos look, I do believe it was an accident, but there's a way to call it an accident and still admit fault and blame; but just as easily you can call it an accident and try to shirk responsibility.)
I do love the idea of her being a foil for Kousuke, an Aesop's fable, if you will, of what happens when you barter with the devil (Yui). I'm not opposed to the scheming female character type, but I do oppose it when they take down others to raise themselves up, and if that's the way Alyssa will end up doing it, then I'll be happy to watch her fall. If she can scheme and use her connections without hurting people then hey power to ya. Unlike Alyssa, Kousuke never had a chance to evade Yui, and being able to walk away from her as an adult will be a choice he can make. Alyssa loses... so much if she breaks her deal.
I guess that's the thing about where she and Nol are in their relationship now - it's been made clear he's hanging in here because he's forced to and as a sort of act of self-sabotage, full well knowing she's here because she's taking advantage of the opportunities that "dating" him brings so... if they're in an agreement, is it okay to watch her climb right now? She leaves me conflicted and I know it's largely because she's one of the characters we know just enough to hate but so little to justify. Could it be that it all just got out of hand for her? At first she just wanted friends, was trying to find a place to belong, something good in a life that deprived her of social connections. And then comes along Yui, seducing her with ideas of fame and fortune? Was the desire to be loved and admired so strong it powered over the need to fit in with friends and she readily cast them off? Did she not anticipate what it would actually mean, thought she could have her cake and eat it, too? The way she responds to Nol's texts, and the fact that Dieter and Soushi ask him about her, means she probably isn't even in touch with them at all anymore. Idk, I really look forward to seeing their dynamic pre-idol Alyssa, because I want to know how she fit with them, what was it like?
And then, because this was supposed to be about foils lmao you have the fact that Shinae basically foils both Alyssa and Kousuke in regard to Nol, both as a person who cares about him and also as "a good friend" vs "the person I'm currently seeing" lmao like, everyone is literally set to juxtapose each other and man, I'll never get over how well this has been done lmao. Compared to Kousuke and Alyssa, Shinae is the one who accepts responsibility even when it's difficult, who knows when and how to swallow her pride (even if she's not the one who should) and I think it's why she is the one seen a the champion at Nol's side - they are the ones who care little for their images and who know how to apologize (even when they aren't the ones who should be) and that's why they are at each other's sides.
So yes, this is a very long essay response lol to essentially say: I'm still undecided if I think Alyssa will become a foil or merely remain a parallel. I would love to see her redeem herself but something tells me not all characters in this story will be redeeamable. Maybe one day we'll understand her motivation, even if we don't agree with it. I hope at the very least she makes peace with Shinae, but I get the feeling she'll be forced into it (as in, her secret gets ousted) and that's not as satisfying, but hey, if it helps Shinae then I'm for it.
A friend of mine has mused that maybe Alyssa will be the one to oust the secret herself and I'm ngl, I like that idea though it does feel kind of vindictive towards her character. Maybe accidentally spilling it to Nol would be the segue to a couple episodes from her POV though!
Gosh this was so long I'm so sorry lmao but please follow up with your thoughts and feelings, too, or if this made you think of anything or what! I think at this point in the story we've been given a lot of information but we just don't have enough of it to totally piece together what we're supposed to be seeing. I think Kousuke and Alyssa's weirdness around each other is very deliberate, though, and I'm not sure "She's Meg's sister" is enough to warrant so many panels of Kou being SO WEIRD about her, you know? Am I missing thing? Is there more to be revealed? Are we just blind? lmao Aaaahhhhhhhhhhh
#I Love Yoo#ILY Brainrot#Alyssa Cho#Kousuke Hirahara#at this point always anticipate a read more cos whew i can't shut up!#BUT I'VE BEEN FIXATED ON THIS FOR A WHILE NOW AND I STILL HAVEN'T COME TO A CONCLUSION I LIKE#AND I'VE BEEN DYING TO TALK A LITTLE ABOUT ALYSSA AND KOUSUKE AS UNREPENTENT PARALLELS AND YUI PUPPETS#the way that Nol and Shinae are mirrors and they each have their own version of Kousuke/Alyssa#and conveniently they each have a relationship of some sort with each others abusers does not escape me#what will Shinae think when she finds out how Kousuke has treated Nol?#What will Nol think when he finds out who Alyssa was during her brief stint at public school#I'm dying for flashbacks with Alyssa because I JUST! WANT! TO UNDERSTAND!!!!!!!#so far it's so easy to villify her because we don't know otherwise#we've been given no reason to justify or forgive her#and you know what i am okay with villifying a character like her in a story with some pretty dimensional female characters#Maya is one such character who was easy for readers to hate but redeemed herself by being mature and honest with Shinae#do I trust Alyssa to be mature and honest?#only if she ever becomes okay with the idea of losing her image#i think that's a big thing for Kousuke and Alyssa?#at some point Kousuke will realize his image is a fraud#something he was manipulated into despite what he likes to believe#and once he comes to that realization after he breaks down and crumbles and rebuilds he will find a new path and build his own image#one of his own making#but Alyssa....? Who or what would she be if she lost her image?#if she couldn't control the narrative?#AAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
15 notes
·
View notes
Text
So, after reading @hawkinsschoolcounselor latest post, I went into the comments and, boy- they were, well. They were not great. I mean I guess I laid this onto myself but, anyways, I’m going to be answering this comment right here:
This is ALL for fun! It’s all a bunch of light hearted love, but this comment REALLY ticked me the wrong way.
For starters: There’s always been this trope in media of “one is enough.” Or “we have enough representation!” And it’s VERY prevelant in tv shows. The theory that “oh! There’s already one gay character, that’s enough for you, right?” Is sh!tty. It’s horrible.
Think of it this way: if there are 200 white sheep in a room, and then the shepherd brings in one black sheep, do you think that would suffice the other black sheep from the other herds? Do you think that would ‘hold them over’? I mean imagine being a black sheep in a crowd of 200 other white sheep, you’d feel alone. Okay, so now pretend there is a tv show, and this black sheep is watching that tv show, and of course, all the actors in the tv show are WHITE SHEEP. So then, in season 3 of Sheeper Things, they FINALLY introduce a black sheep, and of course the black sheep is happy, but still, they can’t help but realize that all of the white sheep are still there and overcome that small black sheep by a LOT!
I’m assuming that comment was made by someone straight, as they clearly don’t grip representation. Also, I’m assuming that person is slightly homophobic, just by the way they phrased it. It seems odd, I mean, what’s the issue with having one more gay character?
Well apparently, in their minds, Will being able to overcome his childhood is much more effective then Will being gay- so.
Let me lay it out for you:
Surprise! You can be gay AND want to hold onto your childhood! And, there are already so many other characters that could have a lovely arc of learning to accept themselves and learning to be their true selves away from societies norms *cough* mike *cough* Lucas *cough* but of course, they want to make WILL the one who gets this arc because if Will was gay that means he has a better chance of getting with Mike! (This was under a Mileven video btw) so they want him to be canonically straight so there is no chance Mike and Will can be endgame!
Now second: 90% of the comments under this video are people saying they think he’s asexual.
1. You can be gay AND asexual
2. Asexuality is the feeling of not being sexually attracted to anyone. YOU CAN BE ROMANTICALLY ATTRACTED TO PEOPLE IF YOURE ASEXUAL.
3. Will is fourteen! And if we’re using the logic of “oh he hasn’t wanted to kiss anyone so he’s asexual!” Then shouldn’t Dustin be asexual too?-
4. WILL IS FOURTEEN! Just because he doesn’t want to get down and dirty at that (very young age!) DOESNT mean that he doesn’t like sexual attraction at all. It’s kind of insane how people are seriously making these assumptions over a 14 year old child, some people like to wait, and that’s fine!
5. If the people in the comments meant aromantic, there really isn’t anything in the show that proves that he doesn’t like anyone, period. I think partially it’s heteronormativity and people not wanting to see the fact that Will clearly has a crush on mike, or had one in the past. The script even went as far as saying “But his eyes aren’t on the cute girl, they’re on - - Mike.”
Why do you think the script would put that in if there wasn’t something there, unrequited or not? Personally, I think that a lot of people don’t want to accept the fact that Will could have a crush on Mike as that would destruct their heteronormative bubble. They don’t want the main boy in the show to be gay because it disrupts the balance in their life. And it makes the chances of mike and Will ending up together being strong.
6. Saying “you have one gay character, that’s enough representation!” Is BULL. SH!T. There will NEVER be enough representation in the media for the lgbtq+ community. Ever. Even when we keep trying, there will always be something. Whether the show being cancelled or the one gay character dying, representation in the media for minorities are slim, but ESPECIALLY for the lgbtq+ community.
We are all VERY proud of Maya and Robin. We love Robin, but that doesn’t mean the Duffers just get to sit back and be like “oh, we already have one gay character, we don’t need more.” Like, what? That’s not how this works. Representation doesn’t just get to stop after the heterosexuals deem us to have “enough gay characters” or “if you add too many gay characters it’d get unrealistic” no. We’ve (me being a bisexual) have went through YEARS AND YEARS of ZERO representation. ZERO. While the hets always got their happily ever after love story, we WAITED.
We love Robin, but that doesn’t mean they can just halt Will’s arc since season one because you deem the representation to be enough.
This isn’t apples and oranges. Will can be gay AND not want to grow up. It isn’t always just black and white.
Maybe it’s the people who refuse to see the way Will looks at Mike, and just takes that as “2 bros looking at bros”, but there is very clearly something under the surface there.
since season ONE they have built Will up to be gay. Since the first episode.
Put it this way. Joyce used the term “f*g” in episode one. Why do you think they would use a slur like that If it weren’t going to go somewhere. What was the point of using a slur to describe Will in season one, or to Troy and James literally tormenting the Party for Will being gay almost all of season one. What was the point of that if that wasn’t going to go anywhere?
I can GUARANTEE that If Mike promised El that he’d go crazy together with HER instead of Will, the milevens would eat that up and call it “romantic!” However, because it’s just two boys, it’s totally platonic, right? It’s totally just two bros being bros.
If Mike held el’s hand like that and said “we won’t let him.” To el instead of Will, milevens would EAT THAT UP. They’d say that was the most romantic sh!t in the show.
If Mike told El that meeting her was the best thing he’d ever done, MILEVENS WOULD EAT THAT UP. They’d call it the most romantic thing of the century. It’d be on ever fan accounts Instagram pages. It’d be in all of the bios. But of course, because it’s two boys, it HAS to be platonic.
A lot of times milevens excuses for things are “well mike said he loved her so it’s end game”
Stancy, anyone?
Or Mike said “you’re the most important thing in the world to me.”
In the most DRY way possible. If Mike said that to Will in that way, EVEN I WOULDNT BELIEVE HE WAS TELLING THE TRUTH.
I mean the way Mike said that line clearly shows that el isn’t the most important thing in the world to him. There’s something underlying there. Like I said, that line was DRY. There was no emotion behind it. He was just saying that to get El to shut up, to get El to forgive him, so they could move on.
If Mike had said “you’re the most important thing in the world to me” to WILL like that instead of El, I wouldn’t have believed it either. And I bet that If that was the case the milevens would say “Mike doesn’t really love Will! That line was so dry!” But because it’s El and Mike, they say that’s the cutest thing since sliced bread.
Again, I have zero issues with Milevens, it’s only the toxic ones like the comment above that get to me.
Will has been set up to be gay from DAY ONE. The duffers have studied film for YEARS. Do you seriously think they’d let these all be coincidences? Do you seriously think that after writing season two NOBODY said, “hey, that’s a little gay.”
One scene is fine. If we only had gotten crazy together, yeah, I don’t think I would have thought it to be canon. But it’s the fact that they wrote in OVER 10 QUEER CODED ROMANTIC SCENES BETWEEN MIKE IN WILL, JUST IN SEASON TWO.
You can’t make that up! That cannot be an accident!
They’ve said over and over that everything they do, every song they play, every outfit the characters wear, is intentional. It’s all there for a reason.
Finn and Noah had to read these scripts, rehearse them, and then spent hours filming them. Do you seriously think it wouldn’t have cross their minds that “Hey! That’s a little weird Mr Duffer.”
That’s mostly because Finn and Noah probably already know where the show is headed.
If your only source of Mileven evidence is that Millie has said that they should get married and that they kissed in the end, then, I have some news to break.
Obviously, if anything were to happen in season 4 with Mileven not being end game, Millie couldn’t just say that. Finn couldn’t just say that. It’s their jobs to keep the fans intrigued and on their toes.
David knew he wasn’t really dead but he still had to pretend in interview after interview that Hopper was indeed dead. And he played it off pretty well.
Millie knew El wasn’t really dead after the season one finale yet she still had to play it off like El was.
So obviously, they can’t just outright say “Mileven isn’t end game!”
I mean,,, I’m sure they’d get fired for it.
So, we really shouldn’t pay attention to what the cast says in interviews, and we shouldn’t take that as canon, either. Their job is to subvert our expectations for the show, and they’re doing it well.
TL;DR:
Will can be gay and also have an arc where he doesn’t want to grow up and where he can learn to be his authentic self. The interviews the ST cast do should not be taken as canon as their jobs as actors are to keep us on our toes and subvert our expectations. Byler has a lot of proof and has a large chance of being canon, and most milevens don’t want to believe Will is gay because that means Will would have a larger chance of getting with Mike. The lgbtq+ community still need representation regardless of Robin and just because we got one lesbian does not mean the duffers can sit back and go back to their only heterosexual couples and ideas.
Byler is end game :)
@kaypeace21 @strangertheory @stranger-analysis @willthecleric (opinions?)
128 notes
·
View notes
Text
Why you should watch RWBY
TL;DR:
Summary: RWBY is an epic fantasy with themes like found family, the struggle to remain hopeful, the younger generation growing up, villain redemption, and systemic evils.
Strengths: RWBY has unique and memorable characters. The show is smart. It has excellent cinematography and animation. It has representation. It tackles hard topics. It’s got incredible music and it’s free on RT’s website.
Weaknesses: RWBY has some early growing pains, specifically volume 2’s finale, as well as budget and polish. Later on, volume 4 is weaker than the rest. Volume 8's finale is extremely distressing for a lot of viewers (and we haven't seen the follow up to those events yet). The fandom can be bad at times.
Misinformation: The early volumes being bad, the racism plot line, and the animation (not the same as “budget and polish”) are not as bad as you may have heard from YouTube.
Suggested viewing order
Red Trailer, White Trailer, Black Trailer, Yellow Trailer
Volume 1
Volume 2
Volume 3
Volume 4 Character Short
Volume 4
Volume 5 Weiss Character Short, Volume 5 Blake Character Short, Volume 5 Yang Character Short
Volume 5
Volume 6 Adam Character Short
Volume 6
Volume 7
Volume 8
(I did my best to make this spoiler-free. When there are spoilers, they’re worded ambiguously enough that someone new to the show would never guess what’s going to happen just by reading this.)
What to expect
The world of Remnant is filled with monsters called the creatures of Grimm. Warriors called Huntsmen and Huntresses defend humanity. Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang go to school to become the next generation of heroes. Together they make Team RWBY (pronounced, “Ruby”)! Joining them is team JNPR (“Juniper”), made up of Jaune, Nora, Pyrrha, and Ren. But evils even more dangerous than the Grimm are ready to make their move, and school quickly becomes an afterthought…
(I mention these next two topics specifically bc they can immediately turn someone away based on bad expectations.) There is a fantasy school setting, but RWBY is not a show about school. School topics are not a dominant idea: it seems to resemble a setting like Harry Potter, but the actual focus of the show rarely touches on things like classes or homework or tests, and we quickly move on. There is romance and it has a role in the plot, but RWBY is not a romance show. On the scale of romance in FMAB to She-Ra, RWBY falls somewhere in the middle.
What is RWBY about, then? RWBY is like an epic fantasy or high fantasy, despite first appearances. Perhaps not every genre convention is followed, but at its core, RWBY is about an epic struggle of good and evil.
RWBY contains themes such as found family, the struggle to remain hopeful, the younger generation growing up, villain redemption, and systemic evils.
Strengths of the show
The characters are unique and memorable. One of the cool things is that they all draw inspiration from a real life fairy tale, myth, or something else. They designs are all top notch. One character who died with extremely little screen time even got so much fandom love, they included the character in a mid-hiatus short later. The characters have unique weapons, too; in the world of Remnant, a weapon is an extension of ones’ soul, and they reflect the variety of their owners. They’re also just plain cool; Monty was famous for following the “Rule of Cool.” And their individual stories are all compelling and interesting.
The show is smart. As a fandom, we generally pick up on the narrative hints the creators are dropping. And our predictions usually come true, but not in a way that makes the show predictable and boring. We very rarely guess exactly what will happen, but we have some similar idea of it. It’s just excellent foreshadowing.
RWBY also likes to play with tropes, as an extension of this. Often it will challenge them, or subvert expectations. In other cases, RWBY uses tropes to avoid showing us what we already know will happen. This occurs in both characters and plot. For example…
SLIGHT SPOILERS FOR VOLUME ONE FOR THE REST OF THIS PARAGRAPH: Jaune’s entire character arc is about trying to be the anime protagonist, and learning that he doesn’t have to do things alone, and it’s ok to be a support main. The show sets up the narrative in a way that looks like, oh of course the direction it will go is him becoming the main character, but then it destroys toxic masculinity instead.
Our characters are smart, too. Plot-induced stupidity generally doesn’t happen. (A few big mistakes or errors in this regard aren’t actually the fault of the narrative, either, but animation and miscommunication and failure to execute. And those aren’t common.) It goes beyond just “not being dumb,” however. The villains’ plans are incredibly clever, and our heroes sometimes even guess at the usual “plot twists.”
The cinematography is just incredible. There are numerous freeze frames with extreme attention to detail that reveal character motivations or arcs or foreshadowing, there are many effective cuts and moving parts, there are soooo many parallels and callbacks, and visual cues such as lighting and color all are used appropriately to convey emotion and assist the narrative. It is one of the biggest overlooked strengths of the show, imo, simply because a lot of people in the fandom don’t notice these things as much for whatever reason, or else don’t give as much praise about them.
The animation is extremely good as well. Budget issues and technology issues aside (which means a lack of polish), the actual animation? The fight choreography, and all the other parts of animation that aren’t just “expensive CGI” are all wonderful. You can have very shiny, polished turds after all, and RWBY is like the opposite: not very polished, especially early on, but very well animated. All the trailers, volume 1 episode 8, the volume 1 finale, the volume 2 penultimate episode, and basically everything else hold up extremely well even today. If anything, the worst fight animation was in volumes 4 and 5 because of Maya growing pains, and those are an example of being more polished, but not necessarily better animated. Animation of faces has always been good, animation of characters has always felt lively. Aside from a few small actual hiccups (that one person running across rooftops for instance), it’s well done.
There are LGBTQ+ characters. The treatment of one of the recent trans characters, in volume 8, was nothing short of amazing. They worked with a VA who was trans. The moment of canon confirmation was important to the character for backstory, because of course that affects the character’s life, but not the only important thing about the character. The representation is not in-your-face or pandering. And there is a split of representation among the main cast and the minor characters, with promises of more to come (notably they’ve said they’re working on more mlm for future volumes, too).
RWBY is not afraid to tackle hard topics. It deals with things like mental illness, systematic racism, and cycles of abuse. It’s not because the show is trying to earn “gritty and dark” points, it’s because those are some of the topics that real people have to struggle with as well. And the show handles most or all of them very well, in a way that shows respect and an honest attempt to depict these things as best they can. (NOTE ABOUT VOLUME 8: THERE IS A VERY DIFFUCLT CONVERSATION CURRENTLY HAPPENING. I am on the side of, let’s wait and see what happens next because the story isn’t over, so we haven’t really seen the fall out. But I understand why this paragraph feels really difficult to agree with if you've seen the volume 8 finale. I trust the track record of the rest of the show, personally.)
As an example, the show has a theme that villains are rarely evil just because. A lot of villains choose to do bad things because they were hurt in some way. Some lived in poverty; some were hurt by racism; many of them are victims of abuse. But the show doesn’t make excuses for them. It’s possible to be both sympathetic and still choose evil over and over again (that’s called tragic). The ones who eventually do try to do good again are not always forgiven, either.
The music is amazing. I can probably count on my hands the number of times I’ve heard someone say otherwise, which is astonishing when you consider this fandom.
It’s also free on RT’s website. (A paid, “FIRST” subscription removes ads and lets you see new episodes one week early, but they all eventually release for free.)
Weaknesses of the show
Early volumes’ growing pains exist, much like most or all other shows. (Even some of the greatest were not immune to this, like ATLA.) In this case, however, it’s a little bit rougher. A large reason why is that this was kind of the first big thing from RT to ever come out. If you remember back almost a decade ago, their only other big thing at the time was RvB, which was machinima. They pretty much started from scratch with everything, from assets to VAs to animation to writing. Imagine if a random twitch streamer, like Ninja (idk who’s popular these days) said one day, “OK let me just direct something that’s intended to be the next great movie series of all time, like Star Wars, with a $4 bill and an iPhone camera.” Then went out and actually made something. Of course it would be rough…but then it turns out the movie is actually really good. And then you get to watch over the next several years as everything gets better and better until it’s honest-to-god comparable to the MCU. That’s kind of what happened with RWBY.
One specific growing pain was the volume 2 finale. Pretty much everything else up until that point, I love about the show. But the finale just fails to deliver on the build up of tension from other episodes. Some of it is because of later plot developments that we didn’t know at the time; some of it is because of just not great writing; some of it is because of just not great animation; and yes, some of it is budget. Regardless, it’s a low point for the show.
Speaking of, the budget for the early volumes is super small. The infamous volume one shadow people, the infamous person jumping across the rooftops in volume two, and just production quality isn’t high compared to a major release from some established studio. These are real weaknesses of the show that for some people, make it unwatchable, and if that’s you, that’s ok.
One last weakness of the show, the screen time per episode, especially early on, is NOT a full 20 minutes like you may expect of an anime (or anime-inspired-western-media, for those of you who will die on the “RWBY is not an anime” hill). This is a trend that has stuck with the show, a shorter run time per episode, for generally the entire lifetime. On one hand, it means it’s a little less daunting to catch up or rewatch than the number of episodes might imply. On the other, early on, some episodes have a little weird pacing. It also means the writing had to adjust for this, so while RWBY got really good at telling a story within a shorter amount of time, there’s also challenges with that too. Perhaps one of the notable ones is the pacing, with slower moments sometimes feeling like it takes up too much screen time, or not enough. Volume 4 was a particular struggle for the crew, both because they switched animation engines and also for the story.
Common complaints that I don’t agree with
I don’t agree that the early volumes were actually bad overall. Growing pains, yes, but not bad. I attribute that complaint to overly focusing on one character’s storyline, back when it wasn’t clear there was so much more to come and before people realized the show would challenge the tropes instead of falling into them. It’s pretty much just volume 1 when people say this anyway, most of them I’ve heard admit that volume 2 was a lot better (except the finale) and almost everyone loves volume 3. And looking back on it, I do think volume 1 holds up.
Tying into this, the racism plot line is another common complaint. I don’t think it’s actually executed quite that badly. I think it makes sense for there to be regional differences in the amount of racism we see, it just so happened that we only saw a very small and isolated environment, Beacon, for much of the early volumes. (Incidentally, that’s actually similar the environment I myself grew up in.) It’s not perfect, though. But there’s no doubt that the later volumes do a better job portraying this. Again, I attribute it mostly to people not knowing how long the show would run for at the time, so of course if that’s all we saw, it would’ve been bad. But it’s not. I have a lot of respect for Miles and Kerry for even attempting to handle the racism topic in the first place. And for the faults that DO exist in this plot line, I credit them for learning and growing past that too, and doing better in later volumes.
The animation is not bad. I’ve already touched on that earlier, but people confuse “budget and polish” with “animation.” Give me RWBY any day over Michael Bay’s Transformers: no matter how much polish those robots have, they’re still a confusing mess to try and follow. And the polish isn’t even an issue once we get past the growing pains of Maya and get a bigger budget, because wow does this show look good now.
Between these three complaints I hear about often, I think those are the biggest ones. And they’re all generally done in bad faith, based not on just those but on other more provocative statements people also make with them. That’s part of my issue with the fandom, specifically the vocal but small parts of the fandom, because they’re just repeating these things from early days that aren’t true. But YouTubers gotta get those rage and hate clicks somehow, right? Unfortunately it discredits the show a lot and influences other people’s opinions into not giving it a fair chance, because it’s become a narrative of “RWBY IS BAD” when they all won’t shut up about it. So yeah, fandom can be bad, join at your own discretion. (Of course, all fandoms have annoying parts, and my interactions with the fandom have been good overall, otherwise.)
Onto other complaints, some say the cast is bloated. I don’t agree, but I don’t think this one is in bad faith. I think we get the important characters as much screen time as we can, and the minor characters don’t actually detract from that; one of the differences between good minor characters and bad ones, is that bad ones take up too much time. RWBY has a ton of characters but many of the minor ones don’t actually take up too much time. So it appears bloated, but actually I don’t think it is.
Finally, a small word on the no-no topics. Adam, and Monty. Adam is like the champion of the Monty topic. Which essentially boils down to “Miles and Kerry are ruining Monty’s vision for the show.” Toxic fandom is truly awful and I have no respect for anyone who says anything like that. Shame on all of you. This isn’t really anything negative about the show, but the fandom, and tbf all fandoms have toxic parts. But toxic fandom can be a real and valid reason to not watch a show. Thankfully they seem fewer in number these days, but I think they’ve evolved into hiding behind other characters or topics, so you know. Beware. Again, it's not too hard to avoid them or block them, and my interactions otherwise with most fans have been good.
27 notes
·
View notes
Note
2, 3, 4, and 11?
Put a number in my askbox and I’ll tell you my thoughts on the trope you’ve asked me about and if I’ve written it myself, or if I ever would
2. Bodyswap
This is a very fun way to play with character interactions. I haven't seen it around as much as I used to (unless you count one character-- usually an SI but sometimes a time traveler-- waking up one day in the body for another character), but I used to really like fics where the main cast just woke up one day mysteriously bodyswapped. I'm also a suck for the related "powerswap" trope.
I have written anything very long in this trope, but SI Is An Icha Icha Villain starts as a bodyswap. u.u I'd be interested writing this trope.
3. Drunk!fic
I am assuming this is a fic about characters getting drunk, and not a drunk writer attempting fic. In which case: yes, I like them and I've written them, but also it's usually painfully obvious when the writer has little or no experience with alcohol and these seem to be the majority of drunk fics. u.u
I like reading about characters getting hammered and having fun and maybe making some bad decisions they'll regret in the morning. It's a fun way to get characters to do things they want to but wouldn't under normal circumstances.
4. Huddling together for warmth
This is one fo those tropes that I think is silly and very transparent and I fall for it every time. This is just such a fun trope. "Oh no, we've somehow become trapped in a snowstorm..... guess we have to cuddle now!"
I haven't written it but I would. u.u
5. Forced to share a bed/fake relationship
Fake relationship YES, forced to share a bed NOT REALLY
I think fake dating is a fun premise, and I like it as an excuse to make characters interact in new and increasingly ridiculous settings. It doesn't even have to be for the purpose of the two characters eventually falling in love. It's just fun, and I have a particular soft spot for "I need a date for this horrible family event, but I would like to weaponize this date against my horrible family." Unfortunately I don't think I've ever written this myself....? I think it's been in some of my bulletpoint fics, though.
I don't really like "and there was only one bed...!" Like it never makes sense to me to the context of "oh no, now we are FORCED TO SHARE!" No? You can just ask for a different room if it really bothers you? Sleep on the floor? In a chair? Be the weird kid at the sleepover who wants to sleep in the bathtub? There are solutions. Also I've shared beds with lots of people and it's not..... inherently sexual? Why are you making a big deal of it? Although it can be sort of funny/cute if it's two characters who clearly wanted to share a bed to begin with going through some Intricate Rituals to make an excuse. I guess I'm also not really annoyed by it in terms of "pining for my best friend (oh no now I have to SHARE A BED WITH THEM and pretend I'm not in love)" but I also don't really like that type of fic in general, so. SHRUG.
I've never written "and there was one bed...!" straight but I've subverted/played with it a couple times.
7 notes
·
View notes
Text
Denki Kaminari is the traitor and I can prove this through his character design
I actually wanted to analyze all of the character designs of class 1-A, but this theory has been burning in the back of my head for weeks, so now I’m doing the shortened version with just looking at Denki’s part. Hey-ho let’s go.
1. Lists
First off, we have to create an analytical basis. In my opinion, the students of class 1-A can be separated into 4 different categories in regard to their overall “importance” to the story (I know that sounds rude and I personally hold all the kids very close and dear to my heart, but from a storytelling perspective you got to admit that there are some characters given less screen time or story beats than others and as a result tend to be less important than characters who have lots of flashbacks etc.). The categorization is based on an objective view of the series and I will try to explain why I put certain characters in certain categories along with naming the categories.
1) prime primary characters (100% not the traitor)
Deku, Bakugou, Shouto
These three are the main focus of the series, the protagonists if you will. They get the most screen time, the most flashbacks, and the most backstory information and are untouchable pillars of the story’s groundwork. All two (or three) of them have their own personal character arcs that span longer than just one story arc (see Bakugou slowly learning not to be an absolute gremlin, Deku’s long journey of becoming the hero he wants to be, Shouto learning to deal with his father’s abuse and family situation). Even if you’d say that i.e. Shouto is not important enough to be counted as one of the protagonists, he is still one of the most recognizable characters of the series and definitely on the forefront when it comes to fleshed out characterization.
2) primary characters (70% not the traitor)
Ochako, Tsuyu, Iida, Kirishima
These four characters are the main group surrounding the protagonists and are fundamental as the supporting cast. These include the first two real friends Deku made at UA, Ochako and Iida, as well as Tsuyu and Kirishima. Ochako is here because of her connection with two characters from the prime primary category: she is one of Deku’s closest friends in addition to being clearly framed as his main love interest, as well as being in one of the more important fights from the Sports Festival against Bakugou. Iida is connected to two characters from prime primary as well: like Ochako he’s close friends with Deku, but also shared a lot of spotlight with Shouto during the Stain storyline. Kirishima seems to be only connected to Bakugou at first (being the first one to try to befriend him, reaching out to him during Kamino, being reminded of his strength through Bakugou during his own backstory flashback), but with the recently finished Overhaul arc in the anime he also had his time to shine alongside Deku during that arc. Tsuyu was a bit of a tough case to categorize as she did not have any flashbacks or bigger story arcs for her own (yet), but she is also one of those closest to Deku and did share an emotional moment with him and Shouto after the Bakugou rescue mission. She is also a very recognizable face for the series (so much that my friends who have never touched a piece of BNHA media named her as one of the characters they think are in the series “there’s the protagonist, then this boy with the split hair colours and...That weird frog girl, right?”). Characters in this category have backstory and flashbacks like those from the prime primary category, though these are dealt with and then accepted as a staple in the story, and not ongoing plot structures. Examples for this are the mention of Ochako’s motive for becoming a hero, Iida’s revenge plot and Kirishima’s backstory during the Overhaul arc. These are important story beats that flesh out their characters, but once the arc reaches its end the character growth for the character in question slows down a lot or comes to a halt entirely. Counter example is Bakugou’s ongoing character growth throughout the series, which will remain as an arc throughout the whole thing because of his status as prime primary character. If one of these characters were to be the traitor it would not be a series destroying move, though in my opinion it’s still very unlikely, since these all have proven themselves to be close friends with the prime primary characters, shared emotional moments with them and gave us all a look into their motivations and backstory to a point, where I just think it’d be highly unlikely for one of them to do a 180 and turn out to be ‘evil’. For those already typing that that’s the point, that we should think the traitor is not this close to the protagonists to then be surprised by the reveal, I have to tell you that that is not how story-telling works. If you put a character in a story, make them best or very good friends with the protagonists, make them save and/or help them during tough situations, make them have flashbacks to their own childhood or develop backstory with the prime primary characters by their side, and then reveal them to have betrayed them the entire time without setting it up beforehand, you are not a good writer. Neither Iida nor Ochako nor Kirishima nor Tsuyu have had a situation in which they did or said questionable things or acted in a way that would make one stop for a moment and think about what just happened. They also all have a very high recognisability for the series and turning one of them ‘bad’ would be way too ground breaking for BNHA. (I know that Hori likes to subvert shounen tropes and such, and I admit that he manages to surprise me a lot, but he still largely follows the main story beats, plot structures and character functions other shounen writers before him did, so I assume that he won’t pull the reverse Uno card and make for example Tsuyu the traitor, because that simply goes too much against the current of shounen and other media of the type).
3) secondary/support characters (very likely to be the traitor)
Mina, Kaminari, Aoyama, Tokoyami, Jirou, Momo, Sero
These characters are sort of there to fill the classroom, but are designed and set up in a way to potentially have backstory and character growth. These are characters that have had small arcs mostly connected to the prime primary and primary characters that weren’t really that in depth or emotional, but are a great set up for more growth. One of them is most likely to be the traitor in my opinion because they kind of stand in the middle: they are recognizable for the series (see for example Mina, Tokoyami, Jirou) and have had short touches with backstory (see Aoyama talking with Deku about him not being compatible with his quirk, Mina having a small part in Kirishima’s backstory), or character development (see Momo showcasing her skills during Joint Training, the current small arc in the anime of Jirou learning to save people through music), but are ultimately kept in the background. To sum it up, they are very clearly meant and designed to be secondary to the main cast of prime and primary characters.
4) full-picture characters (too unimportant to be the traitor)
Hagakure, Koda, Shouji, Ojiro, Sato, Mineta
These are characters which are in my opinion very clearly designed to “just” be background characters, or as I call them “full-picture” characters (in the sense of them filling empty spaces in a class picture). This does not mean they will never get any development, though they are very likely to stay in the background and act as very minor supporting characters to prime and secondary characters. These characters are designed to be very simple and often have a constant joke that goes with them (see Mineta being a pervert, Ojiro being plain) and are meant to create a basis for interactions between prime and secondary characters. They are literally too unimportant to be the traitor, meaning if it was suddenly revealed to be one of them, there’d be no screen time, no real dialogue and no backstory to back it up (up to now). Characters can move from this category to the secondary character category, though this is currently still unlikely.
Possible spoilers from here on out!
2. Look at these characters and tell me their personality
Ok, now that I’ve categorized all my precious hero kids into their story-level importance, I think it’s time to point out something that hit me yesterday at 1 AM: I noticed that the more important a character is for the series, the more ‘human’ their character design is. I’ll try to explain: in the world of BNHA it’s very common to have a sort of ‘mutated’ body, most times to accommodate for a quirk, though sometimes the mutation seems a bit random. However, the series is filled with people who have multiple body parts, highly deformed body parts or otherwise bodies that deviate from the to us normal human form. Now let’s look at our kids and their importance levels: all the prime primary characters have completely ‘normal’ human bodies (btw, single-colour colourful hair will not be counted as deviating from the normal human form, this is still an anime we’re talking about). They are all average heights for boys their age, no extra body parts, no deviation from an average anime boy face. Yes, there’s Shouto with his two-coloured hair and two-coloured eyes, but the split only applying to his hair and eyes makes him still look very much like an average human, as opposed to i.e. if his skin was also two-coloured and split in the middle. I think it’s not that surprising for the three main characters of a shounen to look like normal teenage boys, since it’s still a series meant to appeal to a widespread audience and I don’t think that could have been achieved if Deku and his two prime buddies were all heavily mutated. For now, let’s look at the primary characters: Ochako is very humanly designed, no weird mutations or crazy design elements aside from the pads on her finger tips. Iida is also very human, no deviation from the norm in face or body aside from his engine pipes in his calves. Kirishima also looks like the average anime boy, the only time he looks rather ‘inhuman’ is when he fully activates his quirk and goes into Red Riot Unbreakable. Tsuyu is the only one out of the primary characters whose body and face deviate more heavily from the normal human form (though the deviation is also not that crass or remarkable). And what did I say while categorizing her? She is tough to categorize because she hasn’t played that big of a role in the story yet, that she had a few emotional moments with the prime primary and primary here and there, but ultimately she does not have a backstory or major story elements yet. This stands in contrast to Ochako, Iida and Kirishima, who have all had major story beats, flashbacks and important interactions with the prime primary up to now, and are all very much humanly designed, aside from minor deviations that don’t affect their overall picture. Compare Tsuyu constantly standing a bit hunched over, her big feet and hands, her comically large eyes, her large and uniquely drawn mouth and her tongue sticking out to Ochako, who looks like an average anime girl except for the small pink pads on her finger tips.
Hold on. From the 7 characters in the prime primary and primary category, only one deviates a bit more from the human form and coincidentally that one is also the one character out of the 7 who has not have major character growth, backstory, flashbacks and/or the kind of specific interactions with the other characters from the categories yet? Now I’m intrigued. To me it seems the more important a character is for the series, the more human is his character design.
And now, to ask the question we’re all here for: if Hori did not scrap the traitor plotline, wouldn’t it make sense to make the traitor as human as possible? Since the possibility of a traitor was treated very serious during and after the UJ incident, as it posed a threat to the security and well-being of UA, I figured that whoever the traitor is shouldn’t look too, or be connotated with the words ‘joke’, ‘inhuman’ or ‘silly’. Not only would it make the most sense for an average, human looking student to be the least suspected, but it would also make the story-wise hit and drama from a traitor reveal that much more captivating, both for main characters and audience, since then the traitor is not someone they are completely detached from look wise, but someone who looks very close to them or someone they know. If the traitor were to be a student with blue skin, a trunk and six legs, I think it would just take away from the impact of a reveal and make you wonder why nobody noticed the questionable actions of the literal alien.
Since I think we can all agree that the kids in the prime primary category are 100% not the traitor, and the kids from the primary category are also very much not likely to be the traitor because of their major involvement with the protagonists (and the absolute bullshit it would be to make the characters who were established since page 1 to be nice and helpful turn to the bad side without beforehand character development in that direction), that leaves us with the kids from the secondary category and the kids from the full-picture category. The latter I described as being designed for the background; characters who could potentially rise in category once given character development, but who are without backstory or character growth up to now. Let’s look at them: Mineta, Sato, Ojiro, Shouji and Koda all deviate heavily from the standard human form set by the prime primary characters, either by their body size, mutated body parts or facial deviation. As much as it pains me to say this, they are all designed either too far from being ‘normal human’ to be the traitor, and/or have a joke attached to them and their character that would make a possible reveal come off as too comedic or inappropriate. Hagakure is a special case. She has deviations from the human form (having no visible body) but this is a minor deviation compared to the other five in the category. Still she has a joke attached to her (not being visible) and is also kept in the background of the series without having major story beats on her own and, like the other five, acts more as a supporting character to the secondary characters. Overall, the 6 kids in this category all have heavy deviations from the standard human form and a joke attached to their character, which makes them very unlikely traitor material.
Let’s look at the secondary characters in more detail: without revealing too much, the characters in this category are design-wise on the same level as those of the primary characters with very minor bodily deviations from the human form and only some of them have a joke attached to their character. Mina and Tokoyami have the most prominent bodily deviations with having pink skin/horns and a bird head, but let’s take a look at their role in the overall story: Mina is very much a Genki Girl, an enthusiastic bouncy girl, and acts as a support especially to Ochako and Tsuyu. She also played a semi-important role in Kirishima’s backstory, which let us have a look at her childhood/middle school self. That, plus her deviating human form makes it clear: a character like her is very unlikely to be the traitor. Tokoyami has a more severe deviation from the human form, plus he has a semi-joke attached to his character (constantly being serious or dramatic, holding speeches about darkness in archaic language). He also got captured during the Training Camp incident and is friends with Deku since the Sports Festival. Deviating human form, constant joke connotated with character, taken advantage of by the villains: in my opinion, very unlikely to be the traitor. Two characters in this category with very little deviation from the human norm are Jirou and Sero. Jirou has her earphone earlobes as the only deviation, while Sero has his elbows and almost constant big-toothed smile as his bodily and facial deviations. Jirou is one of the counterparts to Mina’s Genki Girl type and also acts as a supporting character for the rest of the girls. While Ochako, Mina and Hagakure can be characterized as enthusiastic, bouncy and happy, Momo and Tsuyu are more of the intellectual and tactical types, with slight tendencies to get bouncy when excited. Jirou is a middle part among the girls, being cool and reserved and not as bouncy as Mina, but also being slightly more brash and offensive than Momo or Tsuyu. She has no real joke attached to her character, but the fact that we have seen her parents and the recent arc in the anime is all about her realizing she can save people through her music (overall being a more light-hearted arc) add to my opinion that she is very unlikely to be the traitor. Sero has his elbows and smile as his deviations from the standard human form and as a member of the unofficial ‘Bakusquad’ he serves as a supporting character to Bakugou, Kirishima and Kaminari. There is no joke attached to his character, but sadly there is also not much more to his character up to now. He’s had minor roles in the Sports Festival and Training Camp Arcs, and often acts with Kaminari as a duo, but compared to him, Sero has had very little overall screen time, very little meaningful dialogue and almost slides off into the full-picture category. The only reason I did not put him in that category is because of his only minor human deviations, but overall he just is not prominent enough in the story to be considered for the role of the traitor. That leaves us with two characters with absolutely no deviations from the human form and one with slight facial deviations, the latter of which is Aoyama who has a very unique facial design among the class. He also has constant jokes attached to his character, one being always looking into the “camera” and breaking the fourth wall, the other being often talking about his fabulous self and acting out in bizarre ways. Another point that paints him very unlikely traitor material is his recent small arc in the anime: starting out with ominous signs towards Deku and acting more weird than usual brought many to the conclusion of Aoyama being the traitor, but as it turns out he was used as bait. The real background for his weird behaviour was him telling Deku about his own quirk, Navel Laser, not being compatible with his body, which is why he needs his support belt. Him and Deku form an emotional bond after this and Deku considers Aoyama his friend from that point forward, and after this incident, Aoyama returns to his usual (though still bizarre) behaviour. If Aoyama would be the traitor character, all the character clues, small flashbacks and emotional development that led up to his scene with Deku would have to be repeated and changed to form the basis for the traitor characteristic. As this is very unlikely to be the case, and Aoyama has had his small brush with character growth, also not forgetting the jokes attached to his character, I think it’s overall given that he will not turn out to be the traitor. That leaves us with Momo and Kaminari.
Momo has no human derivation to herself, as well as no joke attached to her character. She has had small encounters with character growth during all the exam arcs as well as in Kamino, which also sort of is the breaking point for traitor theorists with her: During the attack on the training camp she created a small signal device and got Awase from 1-B to attach it to the villains. This signalling device would later help the Bakugou Rescue Team she was also a part of help to succeed on their mission. There was no need for her to create that device and/or join the rescue team if she was the traitor. I mentioned that there are no jokes attached to her character, though that is not entirely true. There is actually one joke that is sometimes applied to Momo, though it is not constant or particularly deprecating: it is her upbringing as a rich girl, which sometimes makes her detached from the monetary struggles her classmates go through, though this is more treated as a quirky characteristic than a joke. In regard to her being rich, she also invited some of her classmates to her house to study in Season 2, which gave us a look into her home. All the above mentioned facts speak against her having traitorous tendencies, despite being the only complete standard human girl.
3. The Case for Denki Kaminari
That leaves us with Kaminari Denki, the only boy in 1-A other than some of those from the prime primary and primary categories who 1) has absolutely no deviation from the standard human form, 2) has no constant joke to his character (we’ll talk about his whey in a second) and 3) has enough interaction with characters from both prime primary and primary to almost be considered a primary character. He really looks just like the standard human boy looks in BNHA; the only thing making him stand out look-wise is his hair, which is styled slightly spiky and has the black lightning bolt on his bangs (which is btw not dyed but there since his birth). His trait of ‘being flirty’ is as minor as Momo’s rich girl tendencies and also treated more as a characteristic and not as a joke. Now, I know you’re all pointing to his whey right now. Whenever Denki overuses his quirk and releases too much electricity it fries his brain and he goes dumb for about an hour, sticking up his thumbs, making a dunce face and only being able to talk very slurred. But is this really a joke? Is it not more a supposed additional characteristic of his quirk? Because if you think his whey-phase is a joke, then Tsuyu hibernating when it gets cold is also meant to be laughed at and Momo going tired after creating big things as well. Not to mention that, as many have mentioned before, his whey is something very easily fake able. But let’s jump back to his hair for a second. I know, it’s the most minor thing one can talk about, but isn’t it strange that Jirou and Denki are the only ones out of 1-A other than Shouto who have two-coloured hair? And people have been brushing this off, but the two-coloured hair is like, a major character trait for Shouto and not only represents his two sides and his two quirks, but is also symbolic for the split he feels inside of himself and the colours are representative not only of his parents’ hair, but also of the quirk each side can handle. So why can’t it be symbolic for the other two? Putting Jirou aside, what does the black lightning bolt-like strand in Denki’s hair represent? His quirk? Very plausible, since his quirk is based on electricity. But why is it black? You see, Jirou has a small ECG line in her hair, which is also representative of her quirk (and maybe of her hidden emotional and passionate side), but its colour does not deviate much from her original hair colour (her normal hair is dark purple, the line is light purple). Denki could have had a lightning bolt-like shape in any colour in his hair; he could have even had his hair completely black and the shape in yellow to emphasize it, but he doesn’t. He could have had a completely different hair style, with his hair being styled wildly in all directions away from his head to be symbolic of having an electric shock for example, or his hair having multiple small lightning bolts in it, but he doesn’t. Why is his hair completely blonde, except for the small shape symbolic of his powers in pitch black, almost lying like a dark shadow on the bangs slightly obstructing his face?
Moving away from the hair: if he is really meant to be a rather jokey secondary character with no important backstory, character development or role in the series, why is he designed so humanly and close to the protagonists? He could have had the constant whey-look on his face, be very tall and lanky to resemble a lightning rod, have the before mentioned ‘shocked’ hair-style, have lightning shaped markings on his skin, have antennas on his head that act like TV antennas; he could have had a very wild and from the norm deviating design and it would have fit perfectly for a minor full-picture character. But Denki looks the way he looks and I can’t help but point out that there has to be a reason he looks like that, because character designs have meaning in a story. Why did Hori make Denki such a pretty boy, without any bodily or facial oddities, and have it not matter up to this point? Because let’s face it: out of all the boys without any immediately noticeable deviations from the human norm (Bakugou, Deku, Shouto, Kirishima, Aoyama, Iida, Ojiro, Sero, Denki), Denki is the only one that
1) doesn’t turn out to have major deviations and/or several constant jokes attached to his character (leaving Bakugou, Deku, Shouto, Kirishima, Iida, Sero, Denki)
2) wasn’t pushed into complete irrelevancy due to his role in the class (leaving Bakugou, Deku, Shouto, Kirishima, Iida, Denki)
3) isn’t considered the main protagonists (leaving Kirishima, Iida, Denki)
4) hasn’t contributed majorly to the storyline already plus clearly showing his antipathy for anything villainous and/or helping the main characters in a major situation against said villains
If you take all the above mentioned into consideration and add it to the major points of the Denki-Traitor-Theorists, it all comes together. His ‘initial’ character design for example? Too villainous, too obvious, he needed to look more human to take on the role of someone infiltrating a school and leaking its secrets. Why is Denki designed the way he is? Why is he prominently featured in a lot of promotional art despite seemingly being such a minor secondary support character? Because the groundwork for the revelation of his character is already rooted in his design and his actions.
I’m too tired to talk about all the Traitor!Kaminari points, you gotta look those up yourself if you’re interested.
This is my take on it for now, if y’all want I’ll talk about his hero costume and brand of character some more (which only adds to him being the traitor), but now I just want to get this theory out.
#bnha#bnha shitpost#bnha theory#traitor kaminari#bnha traitor theory#shut up amy#character design#i did it#boku no hero academia#i did research for this#now i'm tired#i dare someone to prove me wrong#just kidding#pls tell me if i'm going crazy or not
268 notes
·
View notes
Note
in the spirit of the other anon: what are some of your favorite pnf songs?? 👀
AHHH MADDY PLS YOU KNOW I LOVE MUSIC AND PHINEAS AND FERB THANK YOUUUU FOR THIS ASK.
ok so! favorite songs! I’ve got a ton so let’s just jump right to it (see what i did there? lol)
What Might Have Been
This is my FAVORITE Phineas and Ferb song, I remember when whispers about a “Phinbella duet” first started circulating mid-2012 and being SO HYPED (I was so hyped I wrote my own Phinbella duet, lollllll. maybe I’ll post it sometime). I waited literal YEARS for this song and it was VERY WORTH THE WAIT. I love the instrumentation (the strings? the guitar? the drums? the hint of Isabella’s theme at the beginning of the third verse? a A H), the lyrics are just so heartfelt and sweet and poignant (with just a hint of trademark PnF humor thrown in, lol), and the vOCALS GOOD LORD, ALYSON AND VINCENT KILLED IT. And the harmonies at the end. Bless. AYA isn’t perfect but I ADORE “What Might Have Been.” Like, they really gave us a 3 1/2 minute long song of Isabella and Phineas singing about being in love. They did that for us. Sometimes, I listen to it on a loop when I need to focus...or just because I want to listen to it. It’s truly just. The best. Ah. My heart. This song deserves more mainstream attention dANG IT.
Summer Belongs To You
This song is so uplifting and positive and the beginning is a Phinabella duet of COURSE I love it (i deeefinitely made a lil’ reference to it in a certain simile in chapter 9 of CHFIL, not sure if anyone caught that but writing it made me smile!). It always puts me in a good mood and makes me feel like I can accomplish anything. And it gets bonus points because it features Candace singing about loving her brothers!! SBTY is also one of the episodes that got me interested in the show, so this song holds a special place in my heart.
City of Love
This song ALSO holds a special place in my heart. Like, it’s so sad but it’s so good. I love Isabella, and I feel for her (and when I first heard this song I could 100% relate to her plight, LOL). This is also the first PnF song I ever downloaded! So it’s very nostalgic and special to me.
Us Against the Universe
I ADORE THIS SONGGG I ADORE IT SO MUCH OK IT’S JUST EVERYTHINGGG. It makes me feel ALL THE THINGS. It’s very similar to “Summer Belongs To You,” but rather than being rooted in nostalgia, it’s like a reminder that the characters are still as present and united as ever. A couple years ago, I never would’ve thought we’d get to hear the entire cast sing together ever again, so like....this song means the world to me. It’s a great song for 2020.
The Universe is Against Me
This is ALSO the perfect song for 2020, but in a venting way as opposed to an uplifting way like the previous song. I love the imagery in the lyrics (and like...they’re surprisingly real and raw for Phineas and Ferb) Singing along to it is so cathartic, I could listen to this one on a loop and not get tired of it.
Happy New Year
THIS SONG DESERVES TO BE ON AN ALBUM. I listen to it every new year; it really captures the feeling of New Year’s Eve and the celebration of starting over (and also. uh. I will forever associate it with Phinabella and lovely Phinabella vibes because of that scene of them dancing together).
Busted
Busted is iconic. Plain and simple. I adore it. Love the harmonies, love the vibe, I’m pretty sure this was the most listened to song on my old iPod, lol.
Somebody Gimme a Grade
I was (and am...lol) 100% the kid who had to have the best grades they could, so this song speaks to me on an emotional level. I also love the clever wordplay--like, “you wasted all my time learning how to rhyme then left me hangin’ from a treble clef!” is sUCH A GOOD LINE LIKE WHO THOUGHT OF THAT IT’S BRILLIANT. I also love getting to see Baljeet come out of his shell a bit and express himself!
Happy Evil Love Song
This is one of my go-to songs to play on the ukulele! It’s just so funny and sweet (as long as you don’t think about what happens after it, lol).
I Really Don’t Hate Christmas
THIS SONG. I LOVE IT. I love that it pokes fun at the “villains hating Christmas” trope while also subverting it! It’s just, so soooooo so great. I have a great time trying to sing it each Christmas season, LOLLLL. (because those are some FAST lyrics. how did Dan do it????)
That Christmas Feelin’
This is one of my favorite Christmas songs ever!!! It really captures the vibe and joy of the season, and I always go out of my way to play it when hanging out with people who might not know it’s from Phineas and Ferb! lol
In The Empire
One of my biggest flexes is being able to sing the entire “It’s sO NOT FAIR....” section of this song, LOLLLL. It’s just such a fun one to sing!!! (or attempt to sing....hah. Ashley has SKILLS.)
Ferb Latin
Ok, this one might seem a little random, but as a musician, I am OBSESSED with how the three melodies intersect and blend together at the end of the song!!! It sounds SO GOOD. (Plus. Phinabella duet. Yes. Are y’all detecting a pattern?)
Aerial Area Rug
So I’ll just go ahead and say PHINABELLA first because this song has MASSIVE Phinabella vibes (I mean it begins with a homage to the “do you trust me?” scene with Phineas and Isabella, that’s like pure-seratonin right there). And this song is also genuinely just so beautiful. It’s sung so well and the instrumentation is gorgeous and the lyrics are so literal but like, they work very well. (and that key change baby, I love a good key change!)
Gitchee Gitchee Goo
Gitchee Gitchee Goo means that I love you! It’s a classic, and super catchy, and totally reminds me of Phinabella even though in the context of canon that isn’t what it’s about at all😅. Also! Candace and Phineas singing and having fun together will always make me smile. I crave wholesome sibling interactions.
Thank You For Coming Along
THIS SONG MAKES ME FEEL THINGS....I really can’t think of a better send off the show could’ve had. I love how genuine it is, like a love letter to the fans, with all the references and such (I’m a sucker for fourth wall breaks, lol)! And I mean, that Phinabella moment near the end is just MAGNIFIQUE, YES, FOURTH WALL BREAK, PHINABELLA KISS REFERENCES, AND PHINEAS FLIRTING WITH ISABELLA??? WE LOVE TO SEE IT.
We’re Back
and THIS SONG. THIS SONG RIGHT HERE. I can’t think of a better re-introduction to these characters after saying goodbye to them years ago. This song really feels like a warm hug, a welcome home. The music video Disney released for it is especially wonderful because it incorporates scenes from the show!!! I always rock out to this one whenever it comes on. It’s a gift, truly. I love it. I needed this song this year!!!
Ok I could go on and on and on but this post is getting really long so I think I’d better just post it, LOL. Maybe I can make a pt. 2 sometime, LOL. Because there are plenty of other songs I love!!!
THANKS FOR THE ASK MADDY I HAD SO MUCH FUN WITH THIS!!!!!!
#sorry this post is so long#typed it out on my computer😅#long post#phineas and ferb#phineas and ferb music#cadence rambles
13 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
asksaria-blog
Ask Saria
zarthiarose
Rosie Posie
shaoftransmogrification-blog
Sha of Transmogrification
whattheendoftheworldlookedlike
What the End of the World Looked Like
hayakawashousewife
Aki lemme smash