「天使」 “Angel”

animator vs animation

Many people have wondered who is in the background, the answer to the question is the personification of all those who worked on ava

And old art!

They're so adorable

Meeeeow :3

She's stimming I'm not polishing this catgle any more i have assignments on track waiting to stab me in the back.

random gap here, it doesn't host anything (if it did, I'm pretty sure it would of hosted a room, but considering both beds being side by side in the big living room upon entering.. yeaah no. They seem to be a low income family. Don't even have main/big lighting but for lampssss.. hmm I'll do a full layout and analysis later when I'm not busy

I like them <3

It's so, so distasteful how the only 2 canonically referred to female characters are there to provide and cater to a family/male partner; nothing more than a counterpart. The entire "I don't want to introduce major female sticks into my writing because I don't want to include romance within my characters" bit is misogynistic. Nothing more, nothing less, and I wished the fandom would say it how it is. I'm tired of people trying to march around eggshells and thorns with the wording. It's okay to criticize your favorite. You need to say it.

the problem with mitsi (or as i like to call it. mitsogyny)

(context: this was written under a youtube video, which i'm sure most of us have at least seen pop up in our recommendeds, in response to many people taking criticism against the new episode. it has been edited a little to be more cohesive as a somewhat-essay)

ok, i wanted to write out a rant/essay/ramble/whatever sort of summarising the criticism against mitsi's plotline because a lot of the people here seem to be misunderstanding the fundamental issue that people have with it, including some of those people themselves.

first off, an analysis that i think tell both sides of the argument very well which i feel should be read before reading the essay: Mitsi: What Makes A Fridged Character (and why y'all are wrong about it) | an AvA essay by InksandPensblog. i will note: i don't care to discuss whether mitsi was fridged or not and that won't be of much importance in this post. the above link gives some insight into some of the fandom's criticism of mitsi and how she was "fridged", defining common tropes for examples. that's what's relevant to this post.

the main issue with mitsi, in my opinion, is less with the fact that mitsi's a girl and moreso the fact that she's one of the only female-coded character in the series, and that her character's main purpose was to further victim's own development. the other arguably female-coded character in the series is pink, who (like navy) only really exists to explain purple's motivations. i don't have much of an issue with that since they're not meant to be important or sympathised with at all. that's not their job in the story.

with mitsi, i've seen people point out that she has more character to her than just victim's love interest and supporter: she invents rocketcorp, she's smart, she's kind, innocent and helpful. narratively speaking, she shows other creations' relationships with their animators, parallels her innocence with victim's trauma, and introduces victim to the outernet (as most fans call the stick realm).

but most of this things imo are either stretches or invalid arguments. she's not really a 2/3-dimensional character in any way; her main character traits boil down to the fact that she likes to be in service of others with no nuance behind why she likes helping people. she hypes up victim for the villagers, she starts a company with him to share his talents with the world, and she helps him overcome his trauma from alan's torture. all of her main plot beats center around victim: and while technically the sticks are genderless and free to be interpreted however the viewer wants, alan and most of his team see all the main characters as male, and that subconciously affects how they're written. mitsi, the first major female-coded character, spends most of her storyline in service of victim, a character not written as female.

there's also the issue of her being victim's canonical love interest. i feel like this statement from alan is important to keep in mind (don't mind the sound effects and edits, this is the only isolated clip i can find at the moment). in particular:

"i just assume that [the ava/m characters] are just a bunch of bros]. i haven't thought of adding any female stick figures but i think it'd be good. i don't want to introduce any romance though, i don't want that to be a theme."

he seems to have changed his mind on that last part, which is fine, but the notable part for me is that he seems to associate female characters with romance from the getgo. before anyone misinterprets this, i'm not trying to call alan sexist or anything. but there's a common issue with women in stories being reduced to just a romantic partner for the male lead, and mitsi falls under this, with her entire character existing to serve victim. (not to mention people will make things about romance whether you like it or not. that's just basic fandom. search up grapeduo or chodark.) even her death is to put victim on the path of vengeance--- it doesn't need to happen to show the extent of tco and tdl's destruction, because that's already made pretty clear in ava s2 the flashback and the earlier scenes showing various characters escaping burning buildings. when you write a female-coded character whose only purpose is to serve a male character, you're contributing to sexist narratives.

a counter i see many people point out with the idea that she has no character is that she does have character traits, it's just that they're generic ones like "kind" and "innocent". the issue is that she has no flaws to counterpoint this; it's not that she didn't have enough screentime. in ava4 for example, we see tsc's flaws pretty clearly; they can be very mean when they want to, they're petty (albeit for a fair reason), they're a little impulsive. this is shown in 11 minutes (from the moment they come alive to the end of the video).

with mitsi meanwhile… she doesn't seem to have any flaws? she helps victim whenever she can. she's nice to all the villagers. her customers all like her and she's a great leader at rocket corp (to note, specifically as part of a pair with victim. they're a power couple, she's barely given credit for her work alone). she has 13 minutes of screentime, or 10 if you count from her waking up in the outernet. there's plenty of opportunities to show her having flaws; maybe she acts a little selfish during tdl and tco's attack, only wanting to help herself and agent smith, or maybe she overworks herself, or feels awkward at having too much attention (and that could also be why she redirects so much attention to victim, she's shy). you could argue that the episode needs to develop victim and agent smith too, but ava4 shows that's easy to do too: just a few seconds dedicated to showing rgyb fighting over who leaves first shows that they can be selfish and childish. it's very easy to insert a moment like that for mitsi.

it's a little disappointing when the first major female-coded character in ava is completely flawless, with no personality outside of being nice and helpful for others.

also, slightly unrelated, check out this quote from mitsi's plushie website: "her white featureless face seems to ooze mystery and feminine power all at the same time." her main character trait, as a woman, is being feminine. it's irritating as someone who's been raised a woman to see her reduced to just her gender. she feels more plastic than a person, like the concept of what a woman should be (perfect, kind, useful) and not an actual character/person.

i would expect more from the writing in the series seeing as it's not just an independent passion project anymore, and has multiple writers that all could've worked to flesh out mitsi, or at least get a sensitivity reader of sorts to point these issues out. it's extremely disappointing and i can understand why people were upset.

tldr: the problem isn't just that mitsi's a girl, or that she's nice or dating victim, it's that she's written in a misogynistic way.

They make me so sick I swear. Holy shit this brought on an idea, Ourps' quinceanera uhhuyg era sick im sick. El Vals pero no Baile de Mama AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I havent had the motivation to work on this in a while so may as well share it

Im going to be honest I dont like drawing the stick figures with anime eyes I just didnt know how else Id be able to render this :'3

ALSO THIS IS NOT SHIP ART!!! THIS IS ART SPECIFICALLY FROM A SOURCE DIVERGENT FICTIVE'S MEMORIES!! its just a bonding moment its not meant to be romantic in any way please dont be weird or accusatory.

that being said

Oh, ohhh my poor vv...

Something I noticed in Showdown

There's one tiny scene in Showdown that always facinates me. After RGBY were all killed in front of TSC's eyes, his reaction was very interesting.

He did not charge at TDL blindly in grief and rage, he did not break down crying for his friends, he did not dwell on his friends' deaths at all. Instead, he turned to TCO immediately.

When he saw Chosen was surrounded by the swarm of Virabots, he still reached out a hand towards Chosen, then promptly got pierced in the back by Dark's virablades.

For me, this tiny detail made Second different from those typical fearless, hotheaded anime protagonists. This scene alone made Second a fleshed out, realistic character more than anything else in the entire season.

Yes, of course he grieved for his friends' death, but at that very moment, the fear for his own life surpassed everything else. He saw that powerful monster brutally murdered all his friends, and he knew he's going to be next. So he reached out to the only person he knew that could save him, and made a desperate plea:

"Please, help me. I don't wanna die."

Second was many things. He was a talented animator, an insatiable learner, a brave leader, a seasoned warrior. But at that very moment, on the brink of real, permanent death, he was just a scared child calling someone, anyone, for help.

And that made his conscious decision to protect Chosen all the more powerful, because it shows how brave Second really is. He knew his chance against Dark was minimal, he was scared, terrified even, but he still chose to put himself between Chosen and Dark, just because it was the right thing to do.

And that is true bravery. Bravery doesn't mean the absence of fear, it means feeling the fear, but choose to do it anyway.

yo bro just seen ur pfp

ya watch tv girl?

- i luv tv girl

You get it vroski (watch?)

The topic of Navy's abandonment and that head turn really haunting and sticking to Purple and constantly replaying in his mind is a topic I HATEEEE. It always makes my gut feel itchy.

Navy just couldn't find it in himself to be that parent that Purple needs, he left not only himself but also for the betterment of Purple and Orchid, and Purple refuses to acknowledge that whatever he does—it won't make him change his mind and man that hurts.