heard abt StF colourless holiday sketch requests hehehehe can we get our favourite Mystic Isles fairy Chrysta celebrating Wassailia with the rest of her fellow Protector buddies? 🤑 Maybe like a Wassailia feast kinda thing but you can do whatever u want with it I just wanna see bbg Chrysta teehee
So sorry for the delay, this one took a while hahaha
btw that picture never fails to make me laugh and was basically me encouragement to finish this!
Happy holidays and here are the protectors having a Wassalia Party featuring some familiar faces :3
Holiday colorless sketches are open from dec to jan. STF/EOA only
My first rant was shared prematurely. I hadn't even finished the episode that got me all fired up (heheh Crackle reference). Now that I have, I hate the idea of Protectors even more. I'm awful at conveying tone through text, so just know I'm not angry in saying all this and I don't hate STF. I just have my gay little gripes is all and I love a good rant. The fact that my main issue is that they could've done more says wonders about great this show is.
⚠️ GENERAL & HEAVY SPOILERS for Sofia The First Season 4 and Forever Royal - Season 4 Episode 26
From the beginning this season four storyline felt like they copied the Merry Band or even the Buttercups homework and just brought it to a more fantastical setting. Admittedly, it's incredibly fun to watch Sofia go on these fantastical adventures. Especially in this final episode! It was fantastically done! It helps that I absolutely adore the only Protector that matters (besides the one and only Sofia of course). However, when I think about what they add to Sofia's story, I draw a blank.
What hurts the Protectors is that STF already has a strong cast of characters. The ones that matter got their times to shine and in my opinion, they did it very well. It was imperative that some of the cast outside of the main ones got their time in the spotlight. They could've very well trapped characters like Amber and Hilde to their roles as stereotypical mean girls. If they did that would you as a viewer be able to tell them apart beyond their designs? Probably not, because their personalities are very similar until we are shown their differences. Had those differences not been explicitly shown to us we'd solely have to rely on headcanons to bring these wonderful characters to life.
What other Protectors, aside from Chrysta, do we get to truly see shine? Not a one! We learn their names, we learn a few tidbits about them, but their personalities, their mannerisms, their motivations for being a Protector are all a mystery. They're just there to show up when they need to show up. They have no presence. Yet it's clear that they're supposed to be important. I'd be happy with ONE episode that focuses on them. Even as a collective at least it'd be something. Instead we get Chrysta Chrysta Chrysta. I love the woman but goodness could we get to learn more about Orion? Who the hell is this dude? I wanted to make sure this wasn't a me-problem (though clearly it isn't because some people who reblogged my premature rant agreed) so I checked the wiki. THEIR BIOS ARE COMICALLY BARREN!
With that said, I think it was really weird how Sofia became a Protector. She didn't even know they existed until she met Orion. Then by the end of the same episode she met him, she was being propositioned. Sofia, at her small age, shouldn't be asked to make decisions like this. Doing work for an entirely different realm so a bunch of grown idiots can leech off her smarts? Oh! And don't tell your parents, little girl. We'll give you a unicorn~ ;)
The fact that they didn't tell her to ask her parents first or give her something for them to sign…something! Just screams predatory! Which is something I love to explore, don't get me wrong. But this is not appropriate for a children's show. They've been hammering in the lesson of putting others before yourself - a lesson Sofia has always known. So it's not even necessary to shoehorn a plot where Sofia is thrust into a role where she HAS to help people because the whole world is at stake. She's already happy to help and doesn't need the added pressure. I feel that those lessons hit harder when there's not an adult barking orders - likely orders that are going to get her nearly killed - in her ear, and Sofia just does things out of the kindness of her heart. A good lesson is twisted into something that can easily be taken advantage of. Always put others before yourself, even if it always puts you in danger, because other people's needs matter more than yours. Sofia The First? Nah, more like Sofia The Soldier.
I know that wasn't their intention though. Obviously Orion, Chrysta, and the rest of the Protectors are meant to be good hearted people and creatures. But they're also so incompetent and they have to have the awareness to know that their duties are extremely dangerous. Especially for a little child, an exceptional one, but still a little child. It'd be different if Sofia always had some sort of connection to the Protectors. She doesn't though. Again, she didn't know they existed until the same day she was propositioned.
What could improve the Protectors?
As they were introduced, as adult figures, supposedly guardians of the Mystic Isles, they fell flat. They were cardboard cut-outs of one another who were never shown to be particularly helpful so their existence doesn't make much sense. If I could change things, I'd have the main trio of Protectors, especially Orion, the one responsible for Sofia even being a Protector, keeping a very watchful eye on Sofia. When Sofia fell off that cliff during her training in that one episode, Chrysta shouldn't have been the one to catch her, Orion should've flew in and caught her mid-air. I think he should have been regretful! What if he was only a protector because he himself was propositioned as a child? What if he was indoctrinated into thinking that this role was the best thing he could offer Sofia? What if we got to see him learn that maybe this wasn't a good decision? Instead of him just letting her in and never checking up on her…like wow, no wonder Chrysta is so damn lonely. Orion is in his own world.
Another idea is, why not make all the Protector's small children? So that the proposition doesn't come off as creepy as hell and we can see Sofia having fun with them! Just like Sofia did when she was with the Merry Band or in the Buttercups. She was still helping people then, more humbly so, and she didn't have to be urged by adults to do those kind acts. It'd be a unique spin on those groups and it'd make sense why they'd want to keep it a secret - so they wouldn't get in any trouble with their parents. It'd also make sense why they'd jump at the chance to have her join. A small boyish Orion wouldn't want his new friend to be gone forever…oh! Oh! If she's a protector she can come back! Those behind STF write child characters perfectly. Little Tyke Protectors could fit in seamlessly with everyone else.
The Storykeeper and Protector storylines, despite having their gems and introducing phenomenal characters, seemed to have hijacked the hell out of STF. Sofia is hardly ever actually in Enchancia. It's easy to forget she's even a princess at all the way she gets thrown around by everyone. When you actively consider Sofia being princess it makes me wonder even more why the Protectors didn't care about telling her parents they were recruiting her. Like, were they not scared of putting a royal child in the line of fire? They don't know they're in a kids show lol, only the audience does. They should've known to be more careful with her. But they've proven time and time again to be incompetent idiots, especially in the final episode.
You have a safe full of things holding an evil power that can easily be harnessed using a spell along with a dangerous criminal running loose with a magical key that can let her get into nearly any place. You're telling me the fairies at Sofia's school are smart enough to have a protection spell on their wall - with only ONE of the wicked nine behind - to prevent people from using a necessi-key to enter. But the PROTECTORS holding EVERY SINGLE ONE can't!? Instead they plant ONE guy to guard it. How stupid!?!? Isn't this the place where all magic is!? Do they not know that spell!? In the place with ALL magic!? It's so convoluted that I wonder how they can even be beaten by any one creature when there are so many protectors in so many different places with so many different abilities with so much magic to use!
Then when that damn locket is broken in their scuffle with Prisma, the idiots (including Chrysta now) just shrug their shoulders and assume that the danger is gone without any evidence. They even had the gall to let Sofia go home alone without being completely sure that this very dangerous being wasn't on the loose. You know they saw that green smoke leave the broken locket. But they're so ignorant they probably just chalked it up to being the wind.
