Snowflake Challenge #9-11
Challenge #9 - In your own space, celebrate a personal win from the past year.
I mean... It's got to be writing a complete(!) novel-length(!) Quodo fic.
It's true that I have definitely gotten more confident in my writing each year since joining
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getyourwordsout (which is especially true when it comes to Quodo, which for some reason has consistently been easier for me to come up with longer plots for and draft than any other fandom/pairing I've gotten into ¯\_(ツ)_/¯). But... at the same time, it is still a bit difficult for me to believe I pulled this off. First, while my writing skills HAVE gotten stronger since 2019 when I first joined GYWO, it must be said that I joined GYWO because I specifically wanted help finishing off two multichapter WIPs... and noticeably, NEITHER of those fics are finished yet, and both of them are STILL shorter than that Quodo fic (they're at ~27k and ~20k).So basically, I am very aware that writing multichapter fics (especially with a plot) is hard. So I am really surprised and proud of myself for pulling off a finished fic WAY longer than anything I've ever done -- and it is a fic I like a lot too!
(Of course, now that I'm aware I have it in me to write novel-length Quodo fic, I find that I'm eager to write more this year. I have one Quodo idea that could easily be novella-length (20-30k words maybe) and another that will definitely be novel-length if I finish it (it's currently ~24k words and maybe 1/3 done).)
Challenge #10 - In your own space, create a fanwork.
So I decided to make some icons, of Bravely Default (a fandom I was hoping to get some icons for in
fandomtrees but didn't, so need to go make them myself) and also icons from my own art. Oh, also I finished up an old Trials of Mana icon I started.
Feel free to take any of them if they are relevant to your interests! Also, I've finally archived these and a whole bunch of older icons I made for requests at my icon journal:
- 48 drawn art icons (video games, animanga, my fanart)
- 46 live action icons (TV and film, mostly Star Trek)
Challenge #11 - In your own space, Talk about your favorite trope, cliché, kink, motif, or theme.
Okay I swear before I even saw
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hamsterwoman's entry, I was also going to talk about Five-Man Bands.This isn't my favorite trope, but it's just one that has been on my mind. I've just been thinking for a while that I miss the Five-Man Bands of my youth and thought I'd take some time to reminisce about it. They don't make them anymore! When I said this to my partner, though, he was like, "What are you talking about? They're everywhere." He then cited Buffy, A:TLA (which are older but OK), She-Ra, etc. I had to tell him that he and I were operating with different definitions of a Five-Man Band.
For him, a Five-Man Band is any ensemble show featuring a heroic team where you can fit the characters into the archetypes of Leader, Lancer, Big Guy, Smart Guy, Heart, and optional Sixth Ranger and possibly a Mentor/Adviser/Sensei figure (doubling up or shifting them as necessary for small teams and when someone joins/leaves the team).
For me, a Five-Man Band is specifically a sentai-like color-coded team of characters often with a formulaic/repetitive episode-of-the-week type challenges. In particular the team has to have exactly five members (maybe with an occasional Sixth Ranger), each member (/their mecha) has to have a strong dominant color, and the band has to have strong coherence -- while each of them might have their own role/specialization, in some sense, the team members appear practically interchangeable (more on what I mean about this below). While this seems like a pretty restrictive definition of Five-Man Band, a lot of the cartoons and kids shows I grew up with actually fit this formula:
In order from left to right, top to bottom: Captain Planet, Codename: Kids Next Door, Gundam Wing, Power Rangers, Sailor Moon, Scooby Doo, Teen Titans, Voltron Lion Force, Ronin Warriors (AKA Samurai Troopers). With the exception of the last one (which somehow passed me by), I watched all of these shows as a kid/teen.
Edit: OMG, I'm an idiot. So... only today I learned (after many, many years) that Ronin Warriors is NOT Saint Seiya?? Those are two different shows entirely?? Anyway, I originally had Saint Seiya (another color-coded Five-Man Band anime featuring guys in sacred armor) in the above graphic, but I don't think I've ever seen that anime aired on TV, so I decided to remake the graphic with Ronin Warriors/Samurai Troopers instead, which did show on Toonami/Cartoon Network at roughly the same time most of the other examples did. But I guess consider Saint Seiya yet another Five-Man Band example (another one I didn't watch but would have included in the above graphic if it didn't mean I'd have to rearrange the whole graphic to make space for it).
Interchangeable characters?
A note on coherence and interchangeable team members: To me, an important feature of Five-Man Bands is that the characters almost seem like color-shifted clones of each other. Sure, they might have different elemental powers (e.g. Captain Planet, Sailor Moon). They might have extremely different/unique designs (e.g. Scooby-Doo) and possibly unique talent/power sets (e.g. Teen Titans) and personalities (e.g. Kids Next Door, Teen Titans). They might have a character who is the clear leader, protagonist, or noticeably stronger/more clutch than the others (e.g. Kids Next Door, Gundam Wing, Teen Titans). However, nevertheless, they still nevertheless seem like a clear five-part unit. There are many things that establish this:
- Despite having different powers, they are gifted with a largely commensurable power set. The Teen Titans team have different powers, but they are all superheroes. The Gundam Wing pilots look different but they are all the same age and possess special Gundams. The Sailor Senshi are all gifted with near-identical transformation items and sequences, with powers associated with a heavenly body. Etc. etc.
- As mentioned above, there might be well-defined challenges that all members tend to show up to face. The formula of an episode and the tendency of the members to work predictably as a team help establish the team as a single unit where each member has a well-defined role.
- The characters' personalities tend to be fairly flat. Either the characters have almost no personality and thus really are quite interchangeable with each other (e.g. Scooby-Doo) or they tend to have extremely exaggerated/one-note personalities (which often have the tendency to get flanderized over time) (e.g. Kids Next Door, Teen Titans). This acts almost like the personality version of color-coding: each member of the team can be quickly identified by their one (1) personality trait -- the shy one, the tough guy, the bubbly one, the nerdy one, etc. This has the effect of increasing team cohesion as each member is essentially the [personality trait] version of the others.
(Of the above examples, Gundam Wing is probably the show that fits the Five-Man Band formula least, due to its long-running plotline (with no status quo) and the more complicated characters. Still, the show does manage to establish the five pilots' status as a cohesive unit in other ways.)
Where did this trope go?
I'm not sure, but I think this trope peaked in the 90s and has now thoroughly gone out of fashion / is hard to find nowadays. I think this is because shows aimed at children tend to be more sophisticated now, featuring more complicated characters with many facets (not reducible to a single shorthand personality trait), and storylines that tend to be more long-running where the status quo is NOT god and so the team shifts quite significantly and unpredictably. When I look at cartoons I've seen featuring hero teams like A:TLA, Steven Universe, Dragon Prince, the characters certainly have distinctive/exaggerated personalities and skillsets, but they are also just very different people in general. Each character feels like a fleshed-out person, often with their own character arcs, rather than just a color-/personality-shifted version of the rest of the cast.
In comparison, the Five-Man Band I've laid out above tends to have a cheesy aesthetic due to the simplistic, color-/personality-shifted characters and repetitive plots. I think this is the main reason why this trope is harder to find now. Also, maybe there's just only SO many stories you can tell with Five-Man Bands before you start to think "yeah, yeah, I've seen this setup before." That said, I don't watch a lot of modern kids shows and animation, so it's possible Five-Man Band is still alive and well but I just haven't happened to run across examples.
Why do I like this trope?
Given the shortcomings I discussed, why do I like this trope? It's possible it's mainly just nostalgia -- a lot of formative examples imprinted on me. However, I think one part of it is that there is something satisfying in the rainbow aesthetic of each member's look/powers. While individually each character might be one-note, the team together looks distinctive and interesting, with complementary aesthetics and a lot of ground covered in terms of design or personality. Even if members' powers don't revolve around the elements (although they can!) it's often easy to match/associate each team member with some basic element and that feels really satisfying?
Even without a long-running storyline, it's still possible to have interesting dynamics between characters: the tension between the leader and the lancer, for example, or other characters who butt heads initially or don't get each other like the cheerful optimist guy and the grumpy pessimist; romantic plotlines between members, including love triangles or rivalries; comic relief characters, especially ones that get in trouble a lot because they share one brain cell or end up needing to be babysat by the competent character; etc.
Even with repetitive, formulaic plotlines, there can be the challenge of coming up with a new plot/problem/villain that needs to solved in an unpredictable way. The setup often encourages solutions involving teamwork and coordinated plans, which can be satisfying.
The stable team with well-established specialties/niches allows you to get to know, become fond of, and get attached to the characters.
So that's probably why I like color-coded Five-Man Bands, despite the cheesiness of the aesthetic and the flatness of the writing. While it's probably a good thing (in terms of writing quality) that shows nowadays tend to not easily be put into this Five-Man Band setup and do not cling to any formula, I do still miss the cohesion and complementary nature of the traditional Five-Man Band.
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I think this is because shows aimed at children tend to be more sophisticated now, featuring more complicated characters with many facets (not reducible to a single shorthand personality trait),
This was my thought, too, and I didn't think about the no longer being bound to a status quo aspect of it, but I think you're correct about that as well.
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Leverage I've only seen one episode of, so I don't have a good feel for the dynamics, but from fandom osmosis I gather that there's a Big Guy (Eliot, right? he's the hitter?) and a Smart Guy (the hacker - Hardison?) at least?
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Though I've seen other takes.
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I have barely heard of Ronin Warriors. Saint Seiya is to me is famous for being the fujo juggernaut that was the first significant case of bishes in shounen bringing in crazy female fanbases. (I watched some old clips a while back and they were ahead of the femboy curve - had some very androgynous sounding, very pretty men in that show before CLAMP and FF became big names.) Apparently it's also huge in south america as it got licensed there but the anglosphere missed out for ages - presumably it was too weird and huge to bother licensing and it has the awkward mix of violence plus extreme femboys which isn't easy to market.
The five man band has a brilliance in terms of narrative potential - if you need to split into two teams you can have 2:3 or 4:1 which make for great balance issues. There's also the issue in that three characters can be too few, four too even, six too many and seven requires more work than most writers can manage. I have a very soft spot for the trio dynamic but it works best for sibling sets or ragtag friend groups having smaller adventures; if you want a grander scale conflict then five people allows you to have characters specialise and feels more like an organised unit. It is interesting how odd numbers tend to prove more popular than even numbers (aside from duos - I don't really think you get many quartets or groups of 6 or 8) and I think that boils down to how there's always a need for an imbalance whether it's 4 supporting 1 or the team splitting so 2 deal with one problem and 3 deal with another. OG Ducktales I suppose was a 4 person group most of the time but sometimes could be as much as a 5-7 person group depending on the situation but that had the advantage in that it typically defaulted to 1 old man and 3 children so there wasn't much man power between them and the skillsets were restricted, plus when you had additional characters it was either an adult for muscle/a tech gimmick or another child. EDIT: Forgot Ninja Turtles though they sometimes get a sort of fifth person involved if you count Splinter, April, Casey etc.
"I'm not sure, but I think this trope peaked in the 90s and has now thoroughly gone out of fashion / is hard to find nowadays. I think this is because shows aimed at children tend to be more sophisticated now"
I'd say it's a merchandising change in that this was huge when toy companies sponsored most of these shows (or were considered when the shows were produced) and now that's not really so much the case on the western side. Anime is a bit trickier as Gundam and Sailor Moon definitely were about the merch, Pretty Cure franchise also, but they're no longer relying on this method as hard as they used to. The European cartoons did trios or 5 man bands for a while in the 00s with Totally Spies, W.i.t.c.h. and Winx Club (though Winx Club kept adding new members so I think it was something like 7 at the end) but I'm not sure if that's still being pursued, again merchandise was part of the goal. I didn't pay much attention to MLP Friendship is Magic but I think that was the last big western animation I remember using that sort of dynamic. Given that western animation is in such a bad shape, I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a return to a trio or 5 man band with the intent of a large merchandise campaign.
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I like your analysis of the dynamics in different-sized and even-/odd-sized teams. I think you're right -- five is a good number for starting to have a well-rounded team (while not having the cast get too unwieldy) and keeping the tension inherent in imbalanced sub-teams. And it is kind of interesting that there aren't really any prominent examples of 4-man bands in this style other than TMNT. Kind of makes me wonder why that one managed to work / why it departs from the formula. And yeah, Ducktales is technically 4 but does seem to have an imbalanced 1:3 split dynamic kind of built in. I'm a big fan of the trio dynamic as well -- some great trios out there.
The merchandising is also a great point! I definitely agree, that the Five-Man Band formula with its stable casts and distinctive-yet-also-quite-similar/interchangeable characters does lend itself to pushing toys/merch. I think you're right that, if a show was designed to be primarily a vehicle for toys, we might see a comeback in the Five-Man Band formula.
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I wonder if Gargoyles would qualify as a five man band. They fit a lot of the qualifiers I think.
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I haven't watched a lot of Gargoyles, but it does seem quite close -- the stable team, with each character having a niche/distinctive character trait, and then the team members fit the member archetypes pretty well. They're kind of lacking the color-coding/cookie-cutter similarity, though. I was also considering if ThunderCats counted too. In that case, WilyKit and WilyKat would need to be considered a single character and Snarf would need to be a mascot, but it otherwise mostly fits.
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Your icons are amazing, and congratulations so much on your writing accomplishment! ♥ Writing novel-length stories is no small feat. :) I know you'll do great with your writing endeavors in the future too. ♥
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And thank you! 😊