Ah! That makes some sense. Still, Ardata's comment was aimed at the readers, not the characters, and as I said, we already have a character who did drugs while pre-teen. "Short and immature" is not my only argument on that front either. Children are proportioned differently from adults, with larger heads in proportion to their bodies. Diemen's waistband is visible in his shirtless sprites, so we can see from that his head is about the size of his entire torso. The older characters aren't proportioned like that, and Wanshi and Tirona are. It's obviously exaggerated, but the same artist drew other characters with heads smaller in proportion who act older. The whole hotdog kiss thing was probably supposed to be cute, too, and it becomes a lot less so if you assume he's old enough to grasp the implications fully. It's unsettling anyway, but it can at least be read as "kid imitating adults" rather than "adult being creepy", plus I don't think an adult would expect that to work. (ETA: I'd also like it noted for the record that I made the same observation about Amisia, was told "adults can be short and immature" then too, and was proven right. They certainly CAN, but the combination of those traits makes people immediately think "child", and since they're not actual people and are being designed by human artists who would know that, I think it's a fairly easy reading of them to make.)
I finally caught up with Critical Role and got to watch "live" tonight (it's a pre-recorded ep cos of Covid but still) for the first time in like a year and I instantly remembered why the CritRole fandom makes me sad and angry and frustrated and angry I wish I had some people to enjoy the show with but the live chat and the official Discord are both judgement hells that argue and bitch about every single decision every cast member ever makes so I just get to enjoy it alone forever I g u e s s
I'm uneasy with the idea some people have come up with of "trans-blood" trolls. That veers uncomfortably close to the whole wasps' nest of transracialism, plus the issue of legitimate magical powers and near-eternal life being involved for some castes feels iffy when involved with that, though I can't really put into words why.
I mean, yes, but also... the blood colors are also a caste system, and people having ambitions outside their caste is... just a thing that's gonna happen.
Kind of, yeah. I didn't wanna say that because it would make it sound like I didn't know how being trans worked. Like, trans folks spend a lot of energy explaining that being a trans man isn't just trying to opt out of misogyny, right? I could potentially buy the idea of a troll having a quirk in their brain's body map which means they feel dysphoria about their caste-specific traits, but it's very likely to read when written as a desire for higher standing or cooler powers. I'm probably not putting this right, but you get my meaning, yeah?
an update on Critical Role ship drama: a canon lesbian character appears to have decided not to act on her crush on a woman who has only ever expressed interest in men, and instead is engaged in mutual flirtation with another canon lesbian, and this constitutes queerbaiting and also gaslighting.
Also, weirdly, this is the fault of the men in the group, and not the women who play these characters and decide their every action. Because the hot women we love from this show we like are incapable of doing any wrong but for surrounding themselves with icky dudes who press-gang them into making "bad" "homophobic" decisions.
Man, I don't even go CR, but I remembered the shitstorm over a character death that was just the luck of the roll being treated as a bury your gays, as well. Horrified and fascinated over how progressive media keeps drawing in ridiculously trigger-happy and reactionary fanbases instead of being happy with the canon they have
having been around since c1, it's been a trip watching the bad fandom takes go from "everything Marisha does is bad" to "Marisha can do no wrong and anything i dislike is probably Liam's fault somehow" the former was mostly sexist d&d dudes while the latter is the young fandom gays but still.
Critical Role fandom is So Bad. The Beauyasha vs Beaujester ship wars are honestly turning me off both ships...
Admittedly I'm a Ship Hipster who has trouble sticking with juggernaut ships anyway, so I'll be happy over here in my corner with Beau/Veth lol
yeah, and there's a similar sorta weird transformation from "Taryon having to deal with comphet is homophobic" to "Jester dealing with comphet would be so meaningful i can't believe Liam wants to rob us of it by having his character have a crush that he doesn't plan to act on!!!" I get that the fanbases from campaign to campaign are different, but. It's still a bit of a trip, yunno?
Zuko this Zuko that, this redemption arc was shit and we're comparing it to Zuko Its annoying lol different redemption narratives exist man
It's killed his redemption arc for me, honestly. FMA fans can be similarly irritating with this kind of thing. "FMA is the only good manga" chat has made me never want to reread it.
I generally assume that those people grew up with Avatar and it was their earliest memorable exposure to a redemption arc. Sometimes it’s great to experience the wonder of an important idea again through the eyes of someone who’s still just beginning to understand it, and other times you’d really like to please move on now finally.
It also drives me crazy because it's so clear they're looking at it from the end and retroactively going "Zuko Deserved(TM) redemption from the beginning!" And I'm like. Be honest. If Season 1 of Avatar was airing right now and you didn't know any of what was going to happen, would you still be going to bat for the exiled prince of the genocidal empire as definitely going to be a better and more deserving person than whichever character he's being used as a bludgeon against this week?
Also also drives me crazy because I'm a pedantic overanalytical pain in the ass and I would actually enjoy meta about why Zuko struck a chord with so many people, but nobody ever seems to actually be interested in dissecting it and talking about what anyone can learn from it, just in repeating over and over that it's the BESTEST REDEMPTION ARC EVAR!!!1!!
Yeah that's one of the things that drives me up the wall when people bring up something I like to use it to disparage something I also like without really, like. Explaining in any way why they're making the comparison and why the narrative beats work in one and supposedly not in the other. That, and me just being real dubious on the value of using two different works of art to make a critique of only one of them instead of using them as contrasting elements to discuss a theme.
