Detail I Havent Noticed Anyone Talking About

Detail I haven’t noticed anyone talking about

You know something I noticed about six of crows that I don’t see anyone talking about so maybe I’m just overthinking it?

Jan Van Eck is always on about how Wylan is stupid and useless because he can’t read, right? 

But Wylan goes on the Ice Court Heist, considered suicidal and impossible, and he may not be a POV character in SOC or as flashy as Jesper, but he does play an important role. He gives them information on the layout of the Ice Court. He draws maps. He gives us the iconic “just girls?” moment. He saves Jesper’s life by pretending to be drunk. He helps them at the harbor when they’re ambushed before leaving, setting off a flash bomb. He helps get the tank. He voluntarily disguised himself as Kuwei to trick his father--also to, you know, see if his dad would actually kill him, but it was hard to do, knowing he might never get his real face back again.

Nobody notices that Wylan can’t read or write for the ENTIRE novel. There’s a moment where he doesn’t have his map labeled, but I only caught it on a reread, and his explanation that he doesn’t know Fjerdan is honestly convincing. Nobody thinks about how he has trouble reading signs or thinks too hard on why he doesn’t have his map labeled. Wylan gets through a whole ass novel without anyone noticing his inability to read. The book doesn’t have to go into long arguments about how not being able to read or write, or being otherwise unable to do things that others can or exactly the way they can, doesn’t make you stupid or helpless. Because Kaz shows us long before we get deep into his own thoughts regarding his disability. And Wylan showed us way before we even knew he had one.

Anyways, Six of Crows is a gift to humanity, bless Leigh Bardugo :)

I was rewatching Shadow and Bone season 1 and I got to that part where Inej and Jesper are briefly stage performers and like...that would’ve actually been a viable career plan for them?

Like, Inej obviously grew up in a caravan and performing and loves walking tightropes. Jesper can do his sharpshooting them. Kazzle Dazzle would do magic tricks (Jesper trains him not to scare small children with his permanent scowl). Wylan would compose music for the acts and help with special effects and wherever else you can use chemistry and bombs in a performance troupe. Idk what Matthias and Nina would do, though. Maybe Matthias would be some kind of strongman or behind-the-scenes. Nina...idk. Put her all into dancing.

I watched the Greatest Showman and have been singing “rewrite the stars” for four days straight.

(but seriously, why did I not know P.T. Barnum’s actual story until like...this year??? It’s fucked up).

Give the Red Lotus more!

I know I made a post praising the fact that the Red Lotus had diverse personalities, but I think all fans could agree that they could’ve used more to differentiate themselves from Zaheer. Naturally, I have thoughts. The entire prison break scene just proves that P’li and Ming-Hua are ride-or-die besties, so why couldn’t that dynamic have been continued, huh, Bryke? Just a scene with P’li braiding Ming-Hua’s hair for her or teasing each other over something stupid or having a running gag with Ming-Hua, the tiniest of the group, giving the literal giant P’li piggyback rides, just because she can. I mean, if they had more moments like Ghazan’s “really? Right now?” Like, the BROTHER-SISTER DYNAMIC THAT COULD EXIST BETWEEN GHAZAN AND P’LI? I saw a creator talk about a who-can-be-more-destructive-in-battle competition between themn and like...

YES.

Like, hello, the banter during their fight scenes on the bridge getting out of Republic City or in Zaofu? Or even Ghazan gloating as he destroys the air temple with lava because he SO just won with that entire move.

Imagine a throwaway scene with P’li making too-spicy dinner and the others literally dying as she just peacefully eats and goes in for seconds. The badass Zaheer, sobbing in pain and begging Ming-Hua for the water she’s hogging for herself.

Also, I’d play up the bromance between Ghazan and Bolin a bit more, even it’s just Ghazan making a comment during their final fight that he’s sad he’s going to have to kill him.

During the stakeout fight, I’d have Ghazan and Ming-Hua sharing amused glances and snarky comments, make it explicitly obvious they’re just playing with the boys before they pummel them and Ghazan runs off to try and find Korra. They’re supposed to be “able to take down any bender,” and have had nine episodes to get back into bending after 13 years.

An idea that recently surfaced was that the red lotus should cause more conflicts within team avatar. Team Avatar’s been a little all over the place for the first two seasons, so having the red lotus so in sync with each other might motivate them to work on their own unity, and maybe help add to Mako coming back to the group and not being a weirdo about his breakups. That all just kind of disappeared as soon as they left. Hell, give them all internal conflicts surrounding anarchy! Have Korra struggling with her own doubts about the world needing an avatar and being raised by authorities--the white lotus--isolated in a compound. Have Mako struggling with being a cop when he’s reminded of how the authorities failed him and Bolin when they were on the streets, with Bolin coming to similar realizations. Even Asami, who faced discrimination as a nonbender, even if it was better because she’s rich and the Avatar’s bestie/gf. Have the red lotus leave lasting impressions on the characters. Plus, this kind of things would be great for team avatar to develop their friendships more, in a way a lot of LOK fans wish had happened.

I would show more foreshadowing to P’li’s backstory before it was revealed in enter the void. One thing I came up with was--and this is kind of reaching--Asami or Mako being reminded of their mothers, both of whom were dark-haired fire nation beauties. Maybe Asami’s mother was taller than average and fairly quiet, as well, and had some similar physical features to P’li, or maybe it was Mako. Let’s explore that trauma and its lasting impact on them! ATLA did it fantastically, and the LOK characters deserved at least some of that treatment. Maybe give one of them a brief moment alone and ask her why she’s doing these things, to which P’li’s only response is “you have no idea what people in power can do,” which we later learn is a reference to her own exploitation at the hands of a warlord. Hell, during her conversation with Zaheer in “enter the void,” maybe even add something about how she never wanted to kidnap an innocent girl, but will do it for the greater good, etc., or something that makes one of the mysteries of season 3 clearer: why would a girl who’d been kidnapped and exploited as a child be willing to do the same to another? I’d actually change the poisoning scene, having Korra knocked unconscious before they administer it, with one of them making a remark to the effect that P’li would only go through with the plan if this part of it were painless--even Zaheer yelling in their final fight that he doesn’t want to hurt her, or SOMETHING like that!

Some kind of will-they-or-won’t-they between Ming-Hua and Ghazan that has the other two rolling their eyes also wouldn’t hurt, fyi.

Red Lotus miniseries when?

So we just got a first look at the characters for the ATLA live action and I feel like this is a good time to remind people that the live action will NOT be an exact retelling of the cartoon.

We have our Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee casted, and they’re supposed to be in season 1, which of course diverges from the original cartoon. I’m thinking it might be because book 1 of the cartoon is considered the slow season? Like...it’s great, but seasons 2 and 3 are definitely better, and most of the show’s top-rated episodes are in seasons 2 and 3.

Like Shadow and Bone, the ATLA live action is probably going to be closer to a high-budget fanfiction made not only to engage fans of the original show, but also to draw in new audiences who don’t watch cartoons, don’t like the animation style, or just haven’t watched ATLA...and hopefully this will also encourage them to watch the masterpiece that is the original cartoon.

But nevertheless, I’m actually interested to find out what the creators of the live action show decide to do and what changes they plan to make (I’m personally fine with not seeing The Great Divide in live action), as long as they keep the most important character arcs, plot points, and underlying themes. And as long as they don’t forget the most important character, the real heart of the show, and the most important line of dialogue in all of television.

I refer, of course, to Momo and 

“SECRET TUNNEL, THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS, SECRET, SECRET, SECRET, SECRET, TUUUUUNEEELLL!”

As long as we have that, we’ll be fine.

P.S.: I can understand some concerns about low-quality costumes, but I’m also cautiously optimistic that they’ll look better in post production, with editing, lighting, etc. Also, at least they’re not wearing f*cking grey potato sacks. Live actions are so much more fun when there’s actual colour in them.

ah, nostalgia

So, when I was in elementary school, my sister had this book series called Spirit Animals by various authors, and I picked up the first book and read it and was obsessed for a year or two, then put them down and never thought about them again.

But it’s always nice to revisit your old books, so if you’re in the, like, 5-person spirit animals fandom, welcome! If you’re not, you should be. It’s fun. We get a new piece of fanart every few years. You’ll also be hopelessly confused by this post without having read the books.

Now, in blood ties we meet what I think is one of the most underrated and underutilized characters of the series: Lishay.

What do we really know about Lishay?

It’s basically canon at this point that she and Tarik were in love. Her brother’s dead soon before she meets our main characters. Her spirit animal dies at the end of the book, widely considered the worst thing that could ever happen to you. She’s a native of Southern Zhong (in the book of Shane). Oh, and she and her brother were twins. She’s around Tarik’s age, so middle-aged, probably in her forties or at most, late thirties. Tarik describes her as “one of [the Greencloaks’] finest.”

And you can do so much with just that information!

I would actually go so far as to have her and Tarik be married. This is how you can tell I typed this at midnight and that I have too much time on my hands, but seriously, it makes them more than two greencloaks who maybe have a thing for each other trying to keep four kids alive in the middle of a war; they have lives that they left behind! It makes Tarik’s eventual death and Lishay’s entire existence in the series even more tragic. And think of the old married couple jokes there could’ve been!

She and her brother were twins, and I feel like he maybe deserved more than a single sentence in passing. Maybe her brother and Tarik were also friends, and now they have to both cope with their grief. Maybe Lishay’s used to always having her brother guard her back, so Tarik notices that she fights less effectively without him--two halves of a whole, as the whole ying-and-yang thing goes. And with her spirit animal dying, we open up room for Meilin to have flashbacks in Fire and Ice about Lishay helping her through the grief of losing her own father right in front of her. Part of what makes Lishay’s character so interesting to me is that she’s probably the character we see go through the most and worst losses in the least amount of time. Her homeland is being attacked, she’s under constant physical and emotional stress, and she loses her twin brother and spirit animal in what, two weeks, AT MOST? And then she still has to fight a war?

Lishay is a native of southern zhong and seems familiar with the jungles of that region, so why not have her explicitly be a native OF THE JUNGLES? Make up a tribe for her to belong to. That makes the fight in the jungles more personal, because this is her home. Show her skills at hunting, climbing trees, swimming in the rivers, and archery, etc., skills that you could only pick up in the jungle. Give us a perspective of Zhong that goes beyond Meilin’s rich girl, general’s daughter life; give us women of the jungle who are trained to hunt and fight alongside their brothers, people who live in treehouses or wooden huts. And Lishay is supposed to be one of the greencloak’s finest warriors! Give us a taste of her swordfighting or archery skills that makes her so remarkable. Give her a more crucial role in the final battle; show her being close to other powerful greencloaks, like Olvan and Lenori. 

And in the book of shane, make it undeniably obvious that the only reason he got away was because of the talismans, not because she couldn’t shoot him out of a tree. 

In short, give her the fucking credit.

Anyways. End rant.