Appreciating Things

I MISS HANGE SO MUCH

Zym: Hey! Do you know when season 3 comes out?

A lot of characters in TDP are named for friends, family, and self indulgent OCs of the staff! Here’s a couple: 

Rayla is a real-life friend of the whole writing team!  Callum is the name of writer Iain Hendry’s older brother!  Runaan is writer Devon Giehl’s hunter in World of Warcraft!  Viren is one of creator Aaron Ehasz’s long-time friends! Opeli is another real life friend of the team, and she has a husky named Ava! 

Heck, the head writer on Avatar: The Last Airbender has co-created a show on the same level as ATLA and no one seems to know.

So this is a message to all Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra fans. Aaron Ehasz, the previous head writer on ATLA, is the co-creator of The Dragon Prince (AND co-founder of Wonderstorm, a new animation company), a netflix original that is every bit as genius as ATLA.

The only problem? Netflix never advertises it and it’s constantly carrying around the threat of being cancelled. Not because it’s a bad show, but because no one even knows it exists.

The show has a vibe extremely similar to ATLA, with the opening being accompanied by “previously on...”, a similar style of humor, and one of the main trip being voiced by the same actor who voiced Sokka. Even in the first episode it’s hard not to tell that it’s created by the same person. The characters are extremely diverse, with different races, different disabilities, different sexualities, etc. There’s a blind pirate, a deaf general (whom is our queen and we whorship accordingly), lesbian queens, gay elves, characters working to overcome toxic families, etc.

The main antagonist? I still have no idea. The line between “good” and “evil” is so blurred that even though there’s a war, it’s impossible to choose which side is right and which is wrong. The man who’s originally seen as an antagonist,,,,, we don’t even know if he’s in the wrong or not anymore.

The animation is a little wonky in the first season, sure, but they saw the complaints and changed it accordingly. Heck, even with the animation the way it is every single frame looks like a painting, and you become so engulfed in the story you hardly notice what might’ve bothered you in the first episode.

Fjdkkdkdkf i maybe rambled a little to much, but listen—

I was scrolling through Tumblr and came across a post of KNOWN PEDOPHILES ON TUMBLR (many of which have or want to rape actual children/minors)

THERE ARE ACTUAL PEDOPHILES ON TUMBLR TRYING TO GET IN TOUCH WITH MINORS ON TUMBLR

Three reasons why a hero might not kill:

1. They are not granted by their society a “licence to kill.” Many (not all) people accept that a soldier or a judge might need to kill a wrongdoer in the course of their duties. Those people (should) act under strict rules and processes to determine when a death is just. A society, to be peaceful, usually functions under a guarantee that people won’t on their own judgement decide to off people. Vigilantes don’t usually have state-sanctioned authority, but they do rely on public goodwill to be counted as heroes and not menaces or even villains. A hero, especially an independent, self-proclaimed one, may lack the authority or judgement to serve as executioner. Most just societies require a trial before delivering a sentence.

2. They don’t need to. Paradoxically, or maybe not so much so, the stronger a hero is, the less they need to kill. One of the most common defenses for a murder is “self defense,” the idea that the person making the plea was in so much danger from the deceased that killing them was justifiable. But once you’re a swordsman swift enough to cut bullets or a muscleman strong enough to lift trucks, who’s that big a threat? As your control over your power and your ability to master an opponent both increase (and barring completely wild or uncontrolled abilities, these two are very linked) the easier it becomes to hold back, to subdue with the minimal amount of damage and to render even the worst villains neutralized without going nuclear. 3. The power to kill is bad for their mental health. Not everyone can perform even a “just” killing with a clean conscience. A hero might fear the trauma of killing, and seek to avoid the damage. Or a hero might introspect, and realize that, should they kill today, tomorrow the choice will be easier. Killing an opponent, rather than subduing them, is often the easy way out, and a hero who comes to rely on that solution might find themselves killing more and more, Even if killing isn’t addictive, a hero might still fear that mindset.

His total body count is 6. IIRC Hanako is single-digit as well.

Reasons a hero might ethically kill a villain:

1: The villain is an immediate threat to the safety of another. Most hero-types are willing to risk their own lives. Whether a hero can, in good conscience, risk someone else’s life for their ideals is a different matter. If a villain forces you to weigh their own life against the princess/city/planet/whatever you’re tasked with protecting, try not to lose any sleep if you let them die. A pacifistic ideal should take second precedence to the protection of innocents. Some villains provide an existential threat: they multiply quickly, release toxins or radiation, are the key to a secret weapon, or some other reason why, passively, a villain might be too dangerous to keep alive.

2: There is no/little higher authority to pass the job of judgement over to. Most of the superhero framework assumes that a strong civil system is in place that can hold captured villains, try them in court, and punish/curtail them. However, in many adventure settings (urban fantasy, heroic fantasy, space opera, old west) the central authority is distant or less potent than your enemies. If your villain is too superpowered to keep imprisoned or too tough to drag all the way back to a place where they can be managed, it might be the right decision to execute them rather than allow them to break free and continue their work. Try not to confuse ‘it’s impossible to arrest this villain” with “I don’t want to arrest this villain,” as animosity or laziness can influence this judgement call. 3:The hero is endowed with the authority to make the decision. I mentioned “licence to kill” before. Some heroes have it: the prince who can act on his own authority, the agent tasked with defense of the nation, the crusader with a divine mandate, the chosen one given the defeat of this villain as a task; all of these have a case for the right to pass judgement. Ideally, the right to pass judgement also comes with the training and experience to; a hero who kills should be willing to make a case and justify each stroke of the blade.

4. The enemy killed is of questionable personhood. Zombies are fair game by almost anyone’s standards. Robots come close. What about minotaurs or demons or vampires? This argument is dangerous, as the personhood of some creatures is debatable, like goblins. If a creature walks and talks like a man, but can only perform evil acts, a hero could justifiably call it a monster. Be careful not to apply the monster label to anything that could conceivably be innocent; even dragons sometimes grow up to be kind.

5. The enemy cannot or will not surrender. Sometimes a foe will simply not stop, no matter how much mercy is shown or how much effort is taken to subdue them. These enemies often fall into categories 1 or 2 as well, being too violent and dangerous for the system.