does anyone know what post is that one where someone lists out all the ways that Netflix would fuck up a Tales of Arcadia adaptation?
anxiety is writing the first two chapters to a fic, getting two different people to check on it, getting their okay, and still being so freaked out about publishing that you don't do it for a month.
that is to say, i'm publishing my fic today!
check out the link later!
it's probably a result of child-centric media, but trollhunters is interesting to me when you view the trollhunters parents as well-meaning, but perennially absent. they have boundless love, but it's never meaningful because they're never there to give it on time.
yeah they come back, but it's late in the game and the children have already suffered.
bro, I went to Los Angeles over the summer and I saw an Arcadia Lane, and there was a canal that looked exactly like the one in trollhunters.
I think i just saw trollmarket.
no series has ever managed to fill me with a sense of pity and tragedy more than the series finale of Trollhunters.
#trollhunters#tales of arcadia#jim lake jr#jim lake junior#claire nunez#trollhunters meta#toby domzalski#merlin#i'm sorry but it's the way that jim's life is permanently altered#and how the villains extracted such a great cost for their defeat#and in how defeating the monster forces you to give up your own humanity#so that all that is left is something that is not quite human#it's came back wrong but emotionally and physically#i felt nothing but pity for jim#a lot of these types of series make me want to be them at some point#ever since i finished trollhunters i was grateful to remain as a audience member#being a trollhunter is a living nightmare
i love how much needless sacrifice is such a constant theme within tales of arcadia.
#trollhunters#tales of arcadia#jim lake jr#jim lake junior#wizards#3 below#aja tarron#claire nunez#krel tarron#douxie casperan#i'm sorry but it's draal dying to stop angor rot and failing at that anyway and the group losing merlin's staff#it's aja and krel losing mother and varvatos and zadra to save parents that die in the end anyway#and douxie coming up with the plan that gets merlin killed#all of the death in rise of the titans#tales of arcadia really came out and said that people are going to die for nothing and that's just the way it's going to work
straight ships that are actually really sweet and meaningful and both characters have solid arcs outside of their ship mean everything to me.
#trollhunters#tales of arcadia#jim lake jr#jim lake junior#claire nunez#jlaire#listen i just love jlaire so much#i was rooting for them#my beautiful witch and trollhunter#claire is never just a 'love interest'#from the beginning of her involvement its always been about getting her baby brother back#and she learns and becomes a great fighter to rescue her brother#and she defines herself by the love she has for everyone platonic familial and romantic
trollhunters-eldritch-princess reblogged
trollhunters s3 spoilers below
it's my 5th time rewatching it now, with friends this time. and just... the entire ending of s3 enamors me so heavily. it's just this ultimate culmination of the death of innocence.
and it's not bad AT ALL.
the moment Merlin tells Jim "you get the choice to become stronger and be the foe that your villain fears, or you can take your chances as you are. if you stay like this, it's entirely like you'll be killed. and if you change... a part of you is going to die forever."
you just. you immediately know the stakes. i understand that it's quite literally Jim losing his humanity, he becomes a troll, yes. but i equate it so heavily to the loss of his innocence, of his literal human-nature to love and care. because he becomes so animalistic afterwards, it's like watching someone spiral. it's a walking tragedy, especially after you watch the whole show and you can't help but UNDERSTAND WHY he's spiraled so hard.
not to mention, just... the mastercraft of the bathtub scene. it's a sensory overload of every single reason Jim wants to stay human, but at the same time, it's the EXACT reason needs to turn in order to protect all of those he holds dear.
and not just that, the fucking... the deliberate framing. he's alone, locked himself in a room. there's a phone ringing on the counter, but he can't hear it and he refuses to look. he's just sitting there, quietly, going back and forth constantly to decide what to do. his whole family and friends are beating on the door, trying to get to him, but he just won't listen.
the fact that they bleed Anton Yelchin's lines into Emile Hirsch's at times, as if it's a moment of saying goodbye to the previous voice actor. like a passing of the torch. it's almost symbolic of everything he's going to do going forward: letting his humanity, his entire self, die.
i swear, barely any shows i know these days can evoke emotions like that. where the visual metaphor of someone committing suicide is so powerful that you have to just reach out constantly and beg and hope and pray that he will turn around and open the door instead.
it's hopeless incarnate. it's the death of innocence. it's watching the quiet death of someone who just wants to better for the people around him.
it's so fucking painful, but it's god-tier story-telling and animation. i can't even imagine how they managed to write that all down.
#trollhunters#tales of arcadia#jim lake jr#jim lake junior#trollhunters meta#god i love the suicide metaphor in trollhunters so much#and the general suicide imagery as a whole#this show was so fucking painful at the end#i remember finishing it and feeling absolutely numb afterward. i couldn't stop thinking about the show and how much i pitied jim.#i never thought of it as a victory. it came at too much of a cost. trollhunters is a tragedy and reading it as a tragedy opens up so many#implications. there's needless death and misery and sacrifice for nothing. it's about dying innocence and losing yourself to the demons#aja and krel go through pain after pain to save their parents and in the end lose them anyway to save the world#i wonder if the characters ever think about how they lost so much to already dead people#douxie is quite literally frozen in time#stuck pleasing a master for 900 years that he hasn't seen#i wonder if he was the one to have buried him in the original timeline#tales of arcadia is a painful franchise if you think about it#god-tier animation and writing though (at least for the first three)#i know that they used the gravesand to change the voice actors but i didn't think about how it's anton yelchin's voice at the end#jim really did say good bye to everything he held dear to save it#wizards undid it but i'm honestly not that bothered by it because it felt like it was how jim was always the trollhunter despite everything#that stood in his way. he made himself worthy of the gifts that he received and it was only fitting that he wielded excalibur as cool as it#would have been to see steve do it
trollhunters-eldritch-princess reblogged
I need to talk about how well the first episode of Trollhunters sets up Jim as a character. Things this episode taught us about him:
- He likes cooking
- He likes experimenting with new things, including new recipes
- He cares about his mom, and takes care of her in a lot of ways
- He loves his friend Toby
- He has a crush on Claire
- He wants more in his life than high school and homework and taking care of his mom
- He’s brave and stands up to bullies. I actually love that he even did this despite seeming to think Eli was saying some very crazy things. That didn’t matter to him. The wrong being done did.
- He likes learning Spanish
- He loves sci-fi movies, Gun Robot specifically
- He’s curious about the amulet
- He wants a cool bike
- He is scared of new things that don’t make any sense to him, but he processes it
- He’s having some trouble with school
- He trusts Strickler as an authority figure and mentor
Look at this list! That is absolutely killer for a first episode.
trollhunters-eldritch-princess reblogged
TALES OF ARCADIA PROTAGONISTS / then and now.
My babies have grown :’)
the most unrealistic thing about trollhunters is that a house in california would ever have a basement.
whenever i remember the ending of trollhunters, i am reminded of the treatment of writers and i struggle to remember the virtue of not strangling studio executives and cutting out their tongues.
trollhunters-eldritch-princess reblogged
I am so tired but I'm thinking of about how the trolls are representative of the faeries in Arthurian legend. And Trollhunter changes a lot of that ofc but one thing is that there's a price and cost to everything. Jim becomes of the Trollhunter but he loses his childhood and sense of stability. Changlings can hide in both worlds but will never belong in both, and for them to thrive their human counterparts must suffer. Claire gains power but use too much and she is lost. You can't have one thing without the other. And ik I mentioned Jim's cost before but its more then that.
Throughout the series he is constantly between two worlds and at first its a bit of a joke, but by the time Merlin comes along Jim is running on empty. And his friends, they think they chose, but they are a part of Jim's world that should have stayed seperate yet bled into the magic world as Jim was dragged further in. Jim in the beginning had a sense of preservation. He doesn't want danger nor the constant violence inherent to that role. But he already is stuck in the deal and there's rarely a way out a deal with the these creatures, no matter how unwilling.
All of it concludes in the bathroom scene. Jim stands before the dark water and evaluates his life and the costs it took to get here and it isn't enough, not for the hungry tendrils of a magic. Either he gives himself to the trolls or both worlds die because he didn't pay a high enough price. And it isn't fair and it isn't kind but he steps in and he sinks and he dies and someone else comes out because staying fully human was never apart of the deal. Barbara watches her son be drawn into the wood and has to watch a different child come out.
#trollhunters#trollhunters meta#jim lake junior#tales of arcadia#thsi show is so complicated when you think about it for more than ten minutes#everything is so costly and no one deserves anything#in any other story the trollhunter mantle would have been blessing and a chance for adventure#in arcadia the mantle only brought its champions pain#it's tragic and heart wrenching and so so complicated#wizards reversed a lot of it and while I love human jim it loses a lot of the impact of the pain of the ending for trollhunters#it's kind of crazy how technically usurna and strickler and merlin were right#jim's kindness and humanity are what doom him to the ultimate choice#good meta op