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bibibbon · 5 months

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What fails in MHA: gags/jokes

As well all know gags and jokes are everywhere in shonen but they are rarely done well in my opinion especially in MHA. There isn't a problem with having a bit of comedy in your manga but when the gag or joke either harms the characters development or just is offensive it tends to just fall flat at best and ruin the story at worst.

There are many common and multiple gags hori uses which I HATE:

Izuku/the midoriya family are crybabies. This is one that was VERY PRESENT during the earlier seasons which in my opinion ruined the show and many peoples view of izuku as a character. It makes sense why izuku would cry more then a regular shonen type of MC considering that he is supposed to be a "normal" teenager and he shows some very clear signs of anxiety. I understand when people get annoyed at how much he cries especially because it's very over exaggerated a lot of the time and just depicts him crying a waterfall when you could of just shown him tearing up. It's a bit more excusable for inko but it really doesn't shine a good look on her especially knowing that she is quite emotionally dependent on her son .

Katsuki being mean towards literally anyone and anything. We know that bakugo is a character who is going through a redemption arc to change and become a better person so we shouldn't see him be so aggressive and angry if he is trying to change especially if it's a joke. A gag like that really ruins his development and to me its the reason why I don't think he really changed his attitude or way of thinking towards izuku as much as people like to believe he has ( CANON BAKUGO AND FANON BAKUGO AREN'T THE SAME )

Perverted characters like mineta or sir nighteye .Yes, this is definitely targeted towards mineta and night eye because Iam still very disgusted by the scene of bubble girl and night eye and mineta just gives me the absolute CREEPS. honestly, idk what it is with hori and giving us these type of stuff it's honestly disturbing and disgusting I don't think I would mind if it were done to criticise or lambast something about hero societies pedophilic undertones and the way it loves to sexualise female characters but it's just there as a horrible gag.

Dumbing down denki and making him seem stupid. This is more of making UA look bad because Denki could of been seriously hurt in the usj because of the whole dumbing him down gag and while it isn't the worst gag in the show it kinda falls flat in my opinion and just makes ua look bad. It's also double standards in my opinion because he would be useless in battle if he were to overuse his quirk just like izuku.

The interview scene with mount lady. I don't understand why izuku was ridiculed for his lack of control when it came to blackwhip and it doesn't help that some of the characters where DEFINITELY ACTING OUT OF CHARACTER when they all had the same reaction.

There are some 50/50 gags that still failed due to horikoshi not letting them go or not handling them well.

Izuku's everlasting fanboyism of heroes especially all might. Look this one isn't that bad but like I just don't like the fact that he never grew out of it. I personally like to think that izuku was a big all might fanboy is because he saw all might as the only person who actually believed in him and gave him words of encouragement even if it was through a screen and even if those words where directed towards anyone not only him. As the story progresses izuku should grow to realise that all might is a flawed individual who has cared for him but harmed him at the same time.

Horikoshis perception of izuku being "too intense". This could of easily been incorporated into Izuku's character as an actual character trait that could be used as a gag from time to time. For example we see izuku over think everything or hyper analyse so many small things like fuyumi's cooking. There are moments where izuku seems to come off as weird to other characters and I feel like that shouldn't happen or it should be handled in a better way. I mean how is it that someone doing something so simple as looking at a video intensely will freak/weird you out compared to someone who has a weird quirk or a passerby doing something weird

There are definitely A LOT MORE THAT IAM PROBABLY FORGETTING.

However, hori does have some good gags/ jokes in my opinion, yes they are rare but they do indeed exist like:

Kirishima's manliness. A lot of the time this actually promotes positive masculinity which is something that is definitely needed and it also helps develop kiris character a whole lot more

This one interaction between jiro and tokoyami. I really liked it, it didn't come out as sexual which is something I really enjoyed and you can clearly tell it's just two classmates vibing and trying not to die

Tokoyami and his whole darkness persona. Idk I guess this is me but I like it, it adds a lot to tokoyami while also not being overused .

This one Iam 50/50 with and it's yuuga and his whole I like cheese and I can't stop twinkling persona. I think it adds more depth to his character and foreshadows his role as the traitor to a certain extent but I also find it a bit stereotypical considering the fact that he is french and yuuga will just end up speaking in basic french words and then Japanese

Hawks favourite food ironically being chicken wings. It's simple but it also makes us closer to hawks and can make him a bit more relatable to people

Izuku, iida and shotos hand crusher joke. That has to be my favourite joke in the series it literally didn't end up mocking anyone and cemented one of the best MHA trios

Overall, hori sucks at making truly enjoyable gags and has a lot that harm characters developments especially surrounding his MC Izuku but he can sometimes actually provide enjoyable ones.

#bnha critical #izuku deserves better #mha critical #horikoshi critical #mha #bhna critical #bnha

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creation-help · 1 year

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Hello! How are you doing? Hope you’re doing well! I’m not entirely sure if you have gotten the same ask before but: I need help on writing character development. I’m not sure where to start and how to start. It’s something that’s been bugging me for a bit as I write lol.

Thank you so much! =]

What a wonderfully polite ask! Haven't had this asked from me yet so it'll be interesting. I had to think for a bit but this is how I'd go about doing it :]

Firstly: Figure out your character. What kinda character is it, and what's their personality? What part do they play in the story? To make a vague example, if your character is extremely self confident and oblivious to their flaws, to the point that it actively sabotages their life, an interesting character development would be to shake up, or shatter that image. See how it would impact the character. What would make this happen? What would need to happen for them to start questioning their capability in themself? And what kind of experience would get them to realize that, no, they're not as infallible as they think? Again, each character to their own but I used that example for the possible thought processes you could go through. The point is to just figure, and map out, where this character would be interesting to take, and what are your options, realistically. For this part it's important to consider the themes of your story, aka, ideas and concepts that show up often in the story, and/or something you want to tell with your story. Like, what's your story about but not literally. This can greatly help in deciding, for example, whether you should develop a villain for redemption, or towards defeat.

Remember, character development doesn't always need to be about said character becoming a better person! Character development just means that the character undergoes a gradual change through the events of the story, and by the end, you can compare the two versions and see how they're the same person who's just been changed by their experiences. Personally I think it's really important to keep the core soul of your character the same, so it's not them basically just transforming into another person. It's about the interest of putting a character in a situation, that would be so major that it makes them reconsider things or have feelings about something so much that they change. And most importantly, how this particular character would react to the situation in their own way! Whether they themself caused the situation that incites this change, or if it's caused by another character, is also something to consider! If the character themself causes their own character developing incidents, it'll be good to get some self reflection from said character. If it's caused by another character, this can help in exploring their opinion perhaps changing about this other character. Or being questioned.

Another big tip I'd have is to remember the pace and subtlety. Obviously there can be one major event that causes a character to undergo change, but it can also be multiple different occurrences that each have an impact on the character over time. Try not to make the change too sudden (unless your point is to show how dramatically this Thing changed your character. Still, I recommend approaching it with a certain layer of finesse). Obviously pacing is important in any aspect of a story, so remember to space out the character development appropriately to what you want to show. Give them some time. Change can take time, and that's okay.

To recap so far: You need to know your character well, so you can know 1. Where you want to take them, and 2. What would cause them to start developing into one direction or the other. Got it? Good! Now..

How??? - Obviously this varies depending on alot, but. Start with having a certain amount of time establishing who your character already is, before their development. If you want to portray them growing (or corrupting) over the course of the story, it's important to know where we started. Helps to really feel the change and difference ykno? Once you feel that your character has been established, and the real adventure starts to pick up (whatever that may mean for your story/character), you can start to chip away at them. Here's some generic examples of how your character might start changing:

They see/experience something that contradicts with something they never thought to question, or they are angered by something so much that it inspires them to do something, or they are traumatized and shocked by something, or they set out to do something but it doesn't go quite as expected, or they meet someone new who really gives them something to think about, or they learn something new about an already familiar person that gives them something to think about, or they find some interesting place or item, or they have relationship conflicts, or something strange happens that starts changing them (physically) so their self perception is challenged. And so on.

Once you've started with what first shakes the foundations of your character, give it a bit of time to simmer. It can be a long time if your character is stubborn and slow to change, or it can be short if the opposite is true. Explore the possible thoughts and feelings, and conflicts this change may cause in your character. You might have intense denial, or confusion. You might have missteps where the character thinks "What am I even doing?". You can have relapses, a sort of "No no, this is how things have always been, it doesn't change anything!" thingy. You can have revelations and realizations. Learning. Trying and failing. Lots of thoughtfulness. Doubt. Baby steps or attempts at doing something differently. Rewarding experiences for doing something differently. Punishing experiences for doing something differently.

Remember to keep feeding new experiences to your character at a consistent pace to help fuel their development. This may be because the character itself now seeks more of whatever might be causing their development, or because they're just thrown into it. For example if a character is spiraling into a corruption where they just get progressively worse, you need to have events that justify this for the character. If you think a certain experience would have the character react in a way that doesn't make sense for the development you're going for, change the approach. I know it can be hard to figure out more specifically for your particular character but I hope any of this helps to start thinking about it.

It's kinda like mixing paint. You start with one color and think what color you need to add, to make it a different colour. It heavily depends on what color you start out with, and you need to know what color you want to end up with. Then just, add accordingly.

Remember to use other characters for help! They can assist in reflection, talking about things, having their change affirmed or denied and how that impacts the characters, and so on. Other characters, props, places, supernatural aspects occurrences, conflicts, relationships..

Additionally, on the How? part. If you want the development to be gradual and nuanced, take your time with it and little by little, show your character taking different actions, or thinking something new, or whatever else to signify their change. Little by little. Maybe for now, they'll try something new but the next time they feel safer leaning on their old self. Perhaps they try too many new things at once, get overwhelmed (or worse) and retreat to reconsider. Maybe this changes what kind of character they end up developing into, if they had different ideas about that. Any number of ways can do, just remember to have something to show for how your character might be changing. Use it to make the story more interesting!

If it's a sudden, dramatic change, still, remember finesse. Mostly I mean try not to get corny or cliche with it, even sudden changes have their own connotations and consequences. For example, show how your character feels about this sudden thing, and just as if not more importantly, how other characters feel about it. How does this change their perception? Does it cause relationship conflict? Dive into it. How does it psychologically affect your character to change so suddenly like this? Does it cause missteps, doubt, or maybe inspire newfound confidence and strength? Remember to have them also think about their previous state of being, if the development is sudden. Have them reflect why and how they ended up here. Compare. You can use the suddenness of the change for some shock, or angst, or to really drive a point home about something. You can use it for positive things too, depending on what the development is and what environment fostered it. Just remember to show how this change happened, what it causes, and how the character could compare now.

Final recap: 1. Who are you developing into what? 2. What causes this development? 3. Show how the development happens 4. Show effects of development

I also hope you're doing well! You're welcome :]

#Ask #Worldbuilding #character development #character building #character exploration #Story building #Writblr #Writing advice #Storytelling #Storytelling advice #character advice #character writing #Uhh I can't think of any other tags lol #Hope this helps! It's certainly a substantial answer

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red-balloon12 · 1 year

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Chloe Boursgois/ Raven Queen AU pitch idea

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So from what I’ve gathered from the Miraculous Bible for S6 is that (ALLEGEDLY) Chloe’s gonna find a miraculous from the (ALLEGED) American Miracle Box in New York and become a hero only for Miss Hound to find out about it and probably take it away from her (probably with Pegasus’s help) and regardless if this is true or not, to that I say: I’m going to use this…..and I’m gonna make a Chloe Redemption Story out of it. So jokes on the ones behind the ML Bible cus y’all just gave me another excuse to redeem Chloe.

So this isn’t gonna be my full thoughts just a few ideas and depending on how people respond, I’ll add more and maybe I’ll create a story (or some one might pick up this idea and make it their own)

This AU takes place after the events of S5 if we were to alter NOTHING from canon. Chloe gets defeated, expelled from school and she moves to New York with her mother. This is basically where canon stops. In New York, she enrolls in the same school Zoe was in, to Chloe’s dismay, and when she tries to “rule the school” she gets humbled REAL quick (cus peeps in NY are a different breed/j)

Chloe does come across a future friend and while they are kind, they also don’t take too kindly to Chloe’s bitterness. But they eventually do became friends due to Chloe EVENTUALLY opening up a little to this person.

When Chloe eventually comes across the raven miraculous, she meets Taara. Taara is (for the most part) a calm, collected and insightful kwami who is able to figure out the characteristics of a person by just meeting them. Taara however is also very blunt so they don’t hesitate on calling out their partner’s mistakes and flaws and they are easily distracted by things that really fascinate them.

The raven miraculous is the miraculous of knowledge and with the power “All Sight” the holder in question can gain knowledge on a particular person place or thing (basically the characteristics of that thing/person) for example, if the holder was fighting a villain, they can use “All Sight” to see how the villain’s powers work and how the villain functions as a person. Are they clumsy when off balance? Do they work well with distractions? When it comes to places or items: How old is a building? What is summary of a closed book? (Note that “All Sight” is kinda like the “Lucky Charm” but it doesn’t give you EXACTLY what you need. It gives you a list of facts about your target and based off on what you learn, you can pick and choose what information you think will help you.) I don’t exactly know if the weapon will be feather shaped daggers or a scythe (cus raven are synonymous with death) but let me know your ideas.

You can imagine that Chloe and Taara don’t hit it off immediately. It will take time for Chloe to get along with Taara but regardless, with the help of Taara, Chloe becomes “Raven Queen” and sets off to fight crime. (I imagine the magic words are “Open your Eyes!” or something idk-) And yes, Chloe’s motives (like in the ml Bible ALLEGEDLY) are selfish at first, but since I actually do care about Chloe and her potential, there’s more underneath and her motives will shift overtime.

And that’s it for now! Yet again, these aren’t my full thoughts. I have much more to plan out but depending on how this goes and the feed back people bring, I may change/add some stuff. And if anyone wants to do something with this, (a story of their own or maybe art) be my guest!

#miraculous tales of ladybug and chat noir #miraculous ladybug #chloe bourgeois #ml au idea #Chloe bourgeois au #ml new york #ml the raven queen au #pro chloé bourgeois #chloe redemption

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sandrockbandit · 2 years

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it's 1am time for assorted logan thoughts. spoilers

• tbh the reveal of his Backstory startled me all sorts because i had taken him to be a more deliberate agent of chaos than he ended up being. i Really was here for Evil Cowboy...

• ... but what you end up getting is just kinda sad. not even exclusively tragic? it almost felt pitiful in a way. this character exists as he does because of a dumb rash series of well-intentioned decisions. there was no rhyme or reason to it and no one wanted it, no one is happy with the way things turned out, including him. i really want him to get therapy, man. im fond of him in an irate kinda way

• i think exploring his character re: culpability would be a really fun thing to write. not necessarily redemption - that doesn't quite suit him i think. that may be my personal fatigue with Redemption as a popular concept though it might actually suit him very well

• but bc by all accounts, one of the people left most hurt by what he did is logan himself. howlett was well-respected and liked, but many spoke of him in terms of how mercenary he was; no one was as dependent on howlett or loved him as much as his son. he wounded himself a lot for his fear and desperation, both with the loss of his father and the loss of his place in sandrock

• bc logan is irrationally sentimental! he throws it all away to get to his dad and pins up a child's drawing close to the bed like it means something and puts his all into solving his people's problems and

• .......... hm. prequel anakin...

• he doesn't strike me as. particularly experienced. i don't think he's fully mastered any of his skills quite yet but he's getting there. he really Feels like a young man who's lost his way and is still knocked off-kilter and suppressing grief and who is also really defensive about it

• but he's acting the part as best he can. boy is playing the part of purposeful rogue like his life depends on it

• logan pre-tragedy is described w words like "polite," "kind of ornery," "goodie two-shoes" - honest if a little aloof and an all-around decent man. probably a little harder to see that w the crimes and all but, like, he's still got basic manners. that "good day" before bailing was a little iconic imho

• i make the jokes abt it but definitely he was good enough at what he does to warrant justice offering him the deputy hat! that doesn't mean much though bc justice also gives the player honorary deputy status for, like, no reason. and he promoted a cat.

• i do imagine that logan has a keen eye for logistics and stealth and casing areas. boy keeps slipping into town and causing a ruckus and leaving immediately. he Chooses to be loud but the fact that he knows how to avoid traffic-heavy routes on town speaks to a cleverness on this front. he's well aware of how to be lowkey i just think he does not want to

• also the fact that there were a ton of books in his room - far more than i would imagine being strictly medical texts - speak to him being an avid writer or reader. is the boy an arthur morgan chronicling type or an adventure story aficionado? who knows

• but he is sure willing to take a crack at Anything that matters to him with everything he's got, including medicine

• circling back to Culpability it's so clear that he can't handle shouldering all the blame and he's still trying to take it out on the town like. the thought process. he must be a heck of an unreliable narrator. many thoughts. many thoughts ,

• also only vaguely related but when qi was out here diagnosing logan despite not being That Kind of Doctor in true tiktok fashion that was really funny. what gives qi

• if i ever were to get to the point where i can make an animatic i would want to do one with logan to a stanza or two of The Pantheon (Ain't Gonna Catch You) from bastion. they ain't gonna hear you, son, don't care 'bout what you done indeed. okay bye

#this will make no sense in the morning lol #mtas #mtas logan #mtas spoilers #this whole thing is me trying to express my fascination with this character and failing pfft #yes i care about him yes i think hes a loser yes i feel for him yes i want him rehabilitated yes i would kiss him #and do i also hope he does something completely bananahammocks? also yeah #i continue to be impressed by how subtle i am abt liking logan though good on me

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heloisedaphnebrightmore · 2 years

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i can’t with wine either, which I hate because for me it’s the pinnacle of adulthood, chillin’ in your flat sipping on a glass of wine with a face mask on, yk? So Shonda Rhimes, so Hollywood…. But it makes me bloated and the last time a gave it a go I ended up blurting to my best friend that i’d had a crush on him for the past 4 years and it almost ended our friendship. so there’ll be no wine for me.

Yeah, this laser-focus on just experience it’s strange and it frightens me a bit not gonna lie but the reason I chose to pursue the MA program is because I’ve majored in an area that’s completely unrelated which means I have zero experience in anything books related so I decided to go for the masters in an attempt to learn of course but also to be able to gather volunteering and internship experiences. *fingers crossed to the point they break in half* but also because I’ve been dreaming of moving to the UK since I was about 5 and while all my friends wanted to celebrate their sweet sixteen in Disneyland, I wanted to go to London.

and heck yeah will!!! The other day a video of waterstones account popped on my FYP on TikTok so thanks to the algorithm it’s now the second item on my bucket list. I better start saving up already hehe

Okay, so, right off the bat I’m gonna tell you that there’s zero smut, no filth, no steam. There is romance though – otherwise I don’t think I’d read past the first book. I feel like it’s right up your alley because the main focus of the books is character development and the romance is used the tool for said development, so there’s loads of it. It’s just a gem. Particularly, what I love most about the romance is that there’s no pining, there’s chase which is SOOOOO much sexier. The love interests of both sisters are mysterious and sexy which kinda makes up for the lack of sex scenes.

i get you, I do…… currently, however, I’m leaning more towards irredeemable arcs – that’s definitely not a thing but I didn’t know how to word it. I’m on the search for stories in which the characters become bad instead of becoming good, yk? Specially anti-hero FMCs which is all Wanda Maximoff’s fault. And for me redemption arcs are anticlimactic because most of the ones i’ve i read are poorly written, so they become a big turn-off (such as Snape). I want the bad guy and the good-turned-bad-girl set the world on fire together

Wow this TikToker was an imbecile jeez, you’re right about suggesting them to buy a new personality. I mean why the heck do people need to shove their nose up on people’s business???? They’re reading a book not stabbing people on the subway, go take a nap for goodness sakes.

I’m adding Neon Gods to my Amazon cart right freaking now so that I can jump to Electric Idol (do you hear that?? this is my TBR running down the drain) hahahaha Loved your reviews by the way, no spoilers but giving me the overall vibe of the book and with that it’s easy to decide whether or not I wanna read it.

I mean, in a rational level I get that we’re all unique and that’s truly awesome but I’ve always felt lesser or guilty for wanting that as tough I’m not enough of a woman, not a true feminist or that I’m doomed to be co-dependent because I want that. And also because this voice inside of me keeps nagging me that I’m never gonna find someone I think it’s easier not to tell anybody that I dream of a white-picket fence because when I don’t get that I also don’t get my friend’s pity looks. Probably makes no sense, sorry.

11 months and he threw you this bullcrap???? i can’t believe this!!!! well….. sadly I can, because dating men gets more insufferable by the second, still wanna low key punch him though. but really relationships seem like so much work jeez, it reminds me of those tourist scams where there are 3 cups and a tiny ball inside one of them and the guy keeps shuffling the cups for you to guess where the ball is, after much watching you pick a cup thinking you hit jackpot only to find an empty cup. The ball was under the other one and you just lost 50 euros. I’ve never had a true monogamist long term relationship (I’m 23 for the sake of context) which is mainly because it’s become a herculean task, a side hustle with all the apps and terrible straight men and the blatant sexism that still exists (which doesn’t cease to leave me flabbergasted adding the fact that men refuse to learn basic home skills while also reducing us to pans and spoons gosh it’s pathetic!!!!!) how will we ever even try to find somebody??? And that’s leaving our all emotional trauma and baggage aside.

first thing about the Hungary rant, I’m really sorry. Despite how much my country frustrates me and all the years I’ve wasted trash-talking this place, I now feel like this is my home, the culture, the music, the language, I feel embraced by my country, my people and I can’t imagine how painful it must feel to hate that much to go back to where you came from. and please don’t apologize!!! I totally get that, truly. Politics rile me up like almost no other topic does. I agree with you wholeheartedly, even though I’m not Hungarian but because the time I spent there was unforgettable and it contributed to the person I’ve become what’s happening there gets under my skin every time I check the news. And I guess there’s some sort of implicit complicity between people who live/come from countries led by right-extremists, so imagine me holding your hand. for me it’s simple, really, privatization is almost always stupid, people who follow politicians blindly push countries towards ruination and leaders like Orbán, Bolsonaro and Trump are anything but stupid, if they were, they wouldn’t be so damaging. ~goodreads anon

Nooooo, alcohol is your worst enemy when you have secrets that you never want to tell :D Not always, but most of the time, you just spill the tea without wanting!

I completely get you. London is amazing! People can say whatever they want about all the rubbish, pollution and over-occupancy and what not, but it's beautiful, it's full of different cultures, languages, it's literally a multi-cultural city. I love it! I'm sure you'll do well. If you do what you like, it will feel like a refreshment, because what you study and work is what you also enjoy doing. :)

What's your first item on your bucket-list, if you don't mind me asking. :D I'm curious.

"I feel like it’s right up your alley because the main focus of the books is character development and the romance is used the tool for said development, so there’s loads of it.... there’s no pining, there’s chase which is SOOOOO much sexier. The love interests of both sisters are mysterious and sexy which kinda makes up for the lack of sex scenes."

If you are trying to sell me Caraval to get me to read it earlier than planned then you are doing hell of a good job! Chase, mysterious love interests and loads of romance used as a tool for character development?! Sounds like my kind of book actually. But I learned not to get too excited so I'll try to keep my head cool :D

To be honest I don't necessarily need spice if the romance is well written. I'd say most of the times I read spicy books because writers somehow express the physical and emotional connections better in spicy books, whilst YA generally keeps emotions flat, like nothing intriguing enough. Of course, this is a generalisation, it doesn't mean every YA book is the same.

Not gonna lie, I've never read a "irredeemable arcs" trope before. The closest I got was Cruel Prince, but even in that Jude is already a morally grey character from the beginning-ish so rather than good-girl-turned-bad, she is just morally grey and so is Cardan.

The internet gives people access to platforms where they can express their opinions, which I think is quite a good thing, up until you are hurting others for no reason. These type of people are the ones who say "Oh I'm a nice person" but can't take no for an answer. Like no offence, but if you find it fun to bring down others, you are simply a bully and clearly have a boring life to resort to judging others for literally having fun.

Excuse me, but you are destroying my TBR with Caraval so don't complain about Neon Gods and Electric Idol because I'm simply returning the favour xD

Thanks, but honestly, I always try to write reviews and they never quite feel right. I want to mention tropes, character development, romance, world building, but in a short review. But each time I do that, I end up with a novella. Book reviews are not my strength.

"It reminds me of those tourist scams where there are 3 cups and a tiny ball" "It’s become a herculean task, a side hustle with all the apps and terrible straight men and the blatant sexism that still exists"

Oh my god, that's so accurate xD

To be fair, what I find more and more annoying is that men are still sexist as hell (not all men, yes, we get that), they still come up with stuff like women's place is in the kitchen and their job is to raise the kids and what not. But at the same time, they forget that they don't provide for women anymore, women work just like men now. So according to their ideas they want a mother not a wife which is just lowkey disappointing. Besides, nowadays, men are incapable of such things as changing the lightbulb or drilling a shelf on the wall. I personally don't mind if the men cook and the women drill or the other way around. I really don't care what roles people take up on. What I mind is that men diminish women's worth, but still women has to work just like men, raise their kids, cook for the family, clean the house, etc. whilst men get home from work and have the audacity to say "I'm tired, where's the food?". In the shop man, get your ass up and get it yourself.

Besides, lots of men are manipulative and try to control women all the time. And unfortunately many women are in vulnerable positions or grew up in unhealthy environments and don't even realise the signs. Even I fell into a relationship like that, regardless of how strong I am. The difference is that I realised in time the toxicity and many women don't. And to top it off, even little kids are sexualised for wearing not even revealing clothes. Women are blamed because man can't get their sick minds out of the gutter. Like I'm lowkey sometimes ashamed that I'm heterosexual. Like I wish I could be bi or lesbian because men are disappointing most of the times. Especially with this Andrew Tate guy becoming more popular. He literally says that women over 30 and single mothers are worthless because of their emotional, mental and physical baggage. I just... I... I can't even understand how these people are alive and people pay to listen to him. PAY!

And to be fair I get why you say you don't want to tell someone that you dream of marriage, kids, family and a cute little house, because being vulnerable is like offering a weapon to someone. It's hella scary because more and more people find some absurd enjoyment in bringing others down and hurting them wherever they can. Nowadays you don't even know who you can trust.

Regarding Hungary, sometimes I do feel some sort of homesickness only to remember that I don't actually miss Hungary, only the country itself. It's beautiful, it's stunning, it's full of culture and amazing places, but that's about it. I quickly remember how much I actually hate being there. I envy people who feel at home in the country they were born to. My parents do and they always scold me for not feeling the same way. But it's not like I can control what I feel.

To be honest, at this point I don't think I could name one country, or maybe New Zealand if I recall correctly, that has a good government. Even the UK is a sh*t show now with the new temporary prime minister election. Boris stepped down, but like the new options for PMs are even worse. At this point I believe only selfish b*stards become politicians all around the world. Eastern Europe is a mess, all of it, USA is a joke, UK removed a clown to possibly gain a fraud, France is scared of teenage girls. The world is sh*t show that we have a front row seat to watch it go down.

Ps.: I think I know who you are. I think I know your tumblr name. I might be wrong, but I just have a feeling and last time I did with an anon, I was right :D

#Heloise's inbox #goodreads anon

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yesimwriting · 3 years

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Hi! I have been having an off day I’m kinda exhausted and anxious slightly snappy haha. I was wondering how would the darkling react to an anxious reader that he cares about. 😊

a/n ive been a little MIA but im working i promise!! i felt really apathetic about writing for awhile bc of some personal stuff but ive been trying to get back into it bc im genuinely happier when i write :)

- ok so i think how he reacts to an anxious person that he cares about depends on where you're at in the relationship,, which might be kinda a 'duh' but it needs to be said for how im setting this up lol

- bc if he's kinda just starting to figure out his feelings, i think he'd be so surprised by how much he cares that he has to hold back his immediate reactions, bc he may have his faults but he's def protective once he realizes something is affecting/hurting the person he sees as the sun

- that protectiveness stems from wanting to be what makes you happy, he wants to feel like he's your shelter so that he feels like he's good enough for you. He wants you to be happy so he can feel your warmth but he also really wants the redemptive feeling that comes from knowing that he's your protector in a way.

- he wants to protect and make you happy so bad, sometimes you need to be like 'umm...i really appreciate that you want to torture the person that bumped into me a little too hard on a bad day,, but maybe let's not??' especially if you are still in that phase where he kinda scares/intimidates you bc you know him more as the General

- not only are his more over the top reactions a little scary bc you don't want to offend him by not wanting to talk about it to avoid blowing the situation up,, they're also confusing

- bc you had no idea he cared if you lived or died let alone cared if you were nervous or not?? but sometimes it makes you feel really comforted, bc if someone as hardened as the darkling can care that much about how youre feeling than you can't be as awful as you're feeling

- and it's also comforting bc he's clearly strong and powerful and when he puts a hand on your shoulder and stares at you like you're the only tangible thing in the world and telling you that he's not going to let anything happen to you,, the rational part of your anxiety is appeased to say the least.

- alright but that's at like the first stage of the relationship for him, bc i feel like he def has like twenty stages he goes through before finally being in a committed relationship bc even though he wants an attachment and love so badly bc he hates his eternal loneliness, he has a lot of layers to work through before he feels secure enough in you as a person to risk vulnerability

- so if he's at the point where he's accepted what he feels for you,, but has yet to really act on it, this is where he starts to give himself away a little

- like you'll mention being stressed about training in the Little Palace, or not getting along with someone and he immediately jumps to encouraging you. It's kinda funny bc at first he seems like he's just trying to be a supportive pal bc at this point ur sorta friendly (at least more friendly than anyone else is with the darkling) but then he kinda losses himself in talking about how amazing you are.

- and if youre feeling anxiety/bad bc of someone in particular, you better not mention their name unless you're 100 percent sure you're furious at them.

- sometimes it causes some strain bc you don't necessarily want him to get involved, and he's not above lowkey guilting you into telling him the full story, but it's not really intentional. He just starts talking about how much trust he puts in you and you just let the little things go after making him promise to leave things alone.

- if your anxiety is general,, or just bc of a. bunch of little things and he's at a point in which he's accepted how much he cares about you but has not told you yet,, he'll try to hide how soft he feels, but sometimes he slips up.

- honestly, i wouldn't be surprised if a really big relationship milestone came from that.

- like you crying one night and the darkling finding you, and then him taking you back to your room and promising to stay so that you don't have to feel alone and then the next morning you wake up and he's holding you

- at first ur like ?? but he acts so normal you're like maybe that can be platonic? but then it starts happening more and more and neither of you mention it and then when you two finally do get together youre like 'ohh? im stupid'

- and if your anxiety comes from your worry about him?? wow--he'll have to stop himself from kissing you

- this is a man who is so used to being hated/feared that the concept of someone worrying about him so much they physically don't feel well?? that would hit him STRAIGHT in the chest, and he'd be so quick to pull you to him, and then you'd be like--are you ok??

- wouldn't be surprised if that's how you found out he had feelings for you,, like he'd say something like "i didnt know the brightest star in the sky could want to protect the darkness instead of banish it. You're the brightest light I've ever known, it was more than enough for me that you weren't repulsed by my darkness...and now..."

- anyways,, if you were already established together and you were anxious, he would have no need to hold back

- if he notices your hesitant to let him 'help' he might do a thing or two to reduce sources of your stress without telling you...which sometimes leads to you getting a little mad, but depending on how extreme his actions were, he normally smoothes it over quickly

- i mean,, it's just how he shows that he cares, he's never had someone that could snap their fingers and get rid of his adversaries or reschedule a thing or two to make his life easier

- he sees no harm in it,, and even though sometimes other people may give you a bit of a hard time bc of his evident favoritism,, you know it just means he cares

- if he goes really far, you're more willing to be mad at him, but honestly when youre upset all you want is to be near him bc there's nothing more comforting,, so you agree to hold off on arguing lol

- i mean there are always lines that get crossed, so there are times he cant charm himself out of your anger, but the longer youre together the more he tries to hold off on doing things that make you really angry,, unless he feels like the person really hurt you, then nothing can stop his anger

- if youre actually together he's much more quick to comfort you physically if youre feeling really anxious,, he'll kiss you everywhere until he's all you can think about, which works for when your anxious over small things

- if your problem is larger, he cant exactly kiss it away though i cant say that doesnt help but it's still comforting and relaxing bc duh,, so i feel like he's really touchy if youre upset

- kissing sometimes leads to other stuff,, but that should be its own fic/headcanon bc i have a secret head cannon that feeling needed or like the only one his partner has is a turn on for him bc it returns some of the power he feels like he gives up by letting his partner care about him

- might have to write that fic now that im thinking about it....

- if youre so anxious you dont want to be touched, it'll be a little harder for him, but if he reaches for you and you back away he'll try to talk you down and remind you that he's not going to let anything happen and as long as he's breathing he'll make sure you're okay

- if youre officially together and youre anxious about something small, he's actually surprisingly nice to talk to,, before you were close you felt like you were bothering him with small, insignificant things,, but once you know that he cares about you he's a patient listener bc he likes being really present with you when he can bc he's busy so often

- sometimes if youre worried or upset he jumps to anger towards the object of your distress before comfort, but once youre at the dating part, you know that that's just how he is, and anger is how he shows love in a way?? lol, so you just have to clearly tell him that you'd rather him stay with you then rush out and like smite someone, he'll stop and comfort you

- sometimes how much he cares makes him angry at himself bc he begins to question if he'd pick you/your happiness over his goal, if he can't convince himself that you'd never get in the way of that, he gets a little cold until he feels assured in his loyalties or at least assured in the fact that your happiness would never conflict with his goals

- that can happen at any point in your relationship,, i feel like it'd happen more when he's unsure about his feelings bc seeing how much he cares about someone that's nothing to him makes him want to banish his nerves

- overall though,, once he cares about you, whether he's fully accepted it or not, he'd burn the world down to make you feel okay again,, or stay in bed with you for awhile, or both--whatever you want, really

#grishaverse x reader #grishaverse x you #grishaverse imagine #grishaverse #genereal kirigan imagine #general kirigan x reader smut #general kirigan x you #the darkling x you #the darkling x reader #the darkling #general kirigan #shadow and bone #shadow and bone x you #netflix shadow and bone #shadow and bone x reader #ben barnes #ben barnes x reader #aleksander morovoza x reader #aleksander morozova imagine

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starlightshore · 3 years

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barring the no mercy route being an influence in this case, how would you describe chara's personality? I cannot describe them well at all despite them being my favorite character. they're too complex lol. all of the meta i can find at this time as them described at both extremes of innocent & evil but i don't think that's accurate

TW: discussions of canon dark topics such as abuse , death and suicide

i love talking about chara, i've talked about them at length before lmao. thank u for giving me a chance to talk about my beloved child.

you can actually read a character exploration i'm doing in a mini-arc for Askfallenroyalty. actually, if you want one condensed post, this comic sums up chara's motives

My interpretation:

chara is an abused kid and suicidal kid*(1) who ran to mount ebott to die.*(2) upon learning that monsters are made of love and humans aren't*(3), chara began to hate humanity. the deltarune prophecy*(4) makes them to be The Angel despite being a human. Feeling undeserving of this title and obligated to fulfill it, Chara wanted to be a good kid more than anything.

But then the buttercup pie incident happened. They've accidentally*(5) poisoned asgore and came up with a plan to ensure the prophecy could be fulfilled and take a hit against humanity. Two birds with one stone -who cares if it's also a personal win too? then obviously the plan goes up in flames and they and asriel are murdered. then asgore wants to kill of all humanity.

your influence*(6) gets Chara onto a path of redemption or a path of destruction, mirroring the deltarune prophecy's two main interpretations.*(7)

in summery: chara is a scared kid trying to fit into a world that demands violence by the past actions of the previous generations. The war massacred monsters and locked them up with a kill-solution -ensuring that further violence would be needed to be free, thus continuing the cycle of violence.

chara is just a kid. they knit, they make macaroni art, they loved their family and had a best friend forever.* (8) but they're also vengeful, they cared so deeply for monsterkind they were ready to die and had no idea they'd be awake as a soul, they were prepared for death. they're complicated, you can't have one side without the other. while i’ve never wanted to murder anyone, i can still relate deeply to chara and see myself in them a lot. the tragedy of them -the fact they never really got a “happy ending” like everyone else just haunts me and it’s why I spend so much time making AFR. I just... love this character so much, i want this kid to be happy. (not that it could ever be easy to get there, happy endings aren’t free.)

And frankly, seeing this hurt kid get demonized just rubs me the wrong way, and it feels completely against the morals Undertale tries to tell with it’s story. I see it as a cautionary tale against violence and dehumanizing others for the sake of hate and violence. how kids can be influenced by the violence -or kindness around them. you don’t need to forgive the ones who hurt you, but killing them is not always the solution -though sometimes necessary as framed in the Undyne the Undying fight.

People get both Undertale’s themes and chara wrong the most, and for the game that’s meant the world to me it bothers me more than it should lol. It’s a Good Story, and I don’t mean to frame my interpretation of the character or themes as 100% canon and I know Mr.Fox’s brain to confirm it kinda deal, but with all the time I’ve spent analyzing and thinking it over I do think it’s not off in the general direction of it lol. And besides the author’s intent isn’t really the end-all-to-be-all. It’s what you get out of the story and the themes that matter and stick with you. No one can take that away from you.

Sources and evidence:

"* If you're cuter, monsters won't hit you as hard." -faded ribbion flavor text * "The ends of the tools have been filed down to make them safer." -gardening tools in New Home (and iirc Toriel's home as well, too lazy to double check rn) * Where are the knives. -no mercy chara (this and paired with the previous imply there are no sharp objects in reach of chara's home because chara can't be trusted with sharp objects out of self harm. This doesn't necessarily mean abuse but paired with them hating humanity so deeply, being suicidal and a child it paints a picture of abuse.

"* I know why (chara) climbed the mountain.* It wasn't for a very happy reason." -asriel post pacifist epilogue dialogue

"* Love, hope, compassion... * This is what people say monster SOULs are made of. * But the absolute nature of "SOUL" is unknown. * After all, humans have proven their SOULs don't need these things to exist." -Library book on monster souls)

* Legend has it, an 'angel' who has seen the surface will descend from above and bring us freedom. - gerson

"* It takes at least a human soul... * And a monster soul. * ...* If you want to go home... * You'll have to take his soul. * You'll have to kill ASGORE." -Alphys. Because boss monster souls are the exception and can persist after death for a short period of time, Chara could of killed any of the family members to escape the underground. this implies escaping wasn't the goal -it was to die (considering they already attempted suicide to fall underground the first time, this is explicitly suicide.) the plaque doesn't mention or speak like monster/human fusion's consumed soul would be aware. chara had no way of knowing they'd be awake. also the whole thing with the pie is a prank. cups of butter. -> buttercups. putting flowers in a pie is a joke to do, we see Chara is similar to Toriel (they mimic her speech in the no mercy monologue, they say “greetings” as she does like how Asriel says “howdy” like Flowey does. Chara makes puns and jokes in the flavor text all the time.

https://imgur.com/a/zP18P -dog food bag at different LV. "When the protagonist first encounters Mad Dummy, they are given the option to beat it up. Choosing to beat it up prompts one of three responses depending on the protagonist's LOVE." (source: undertale wiki)

If the protagonist’s LV is 1, the response becomes "(You tap the dummy with your fist.) (You feel bad.)"

If the protagonist's LV is between 2 and 4, the response becomes "(You hit the dummy lightly.) (You don't feel like you learned anything.)"

If the protagonist’s LV is between 5 and 7, the response becomes "(You sock the dummy.) (Who cares?)"

If the protagonist’s LV is 8 or higher, the response becomes "(You punch the dummy at full force.) (Feels good.)"" This implies Chara (who is the narrator) will feel different about the dog food -which references the classic phrase of "glass half empty/full" showing your out look in life. Then hitting the dummy show's Frisk's out look on violence depending on LV. Note that by the end of it, it's no longer "you feel..." but "feels good" This is Chara.

7. “* Lately, the people have been taking a bleaker outlook...* Callin' that winged circle the 'Angel of Death.' “ -gerson “* Only the fearless may proceed. * Brave ones, foolish ones. * Both walk not the middle road. “ -the first plaque in the first puzzle room with Toriel. The idea is to walk on both the left and right sides -you can’t go half way in the middle. this mirrors the “true” endings are only accomplished if you stick to no mercy or pacifist only.

8. literally their home in New Home is a treasure trove of pre-game chara characterization.

#personal stuff #ut tag #character analysis #chara analysis #ask to tag #i put the warnings up top tho

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the-ferocious-kittyrose · 3 years

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Rewriting Haggar/Honerva’s redemption arc

One of the many things that bothered me about VLD S8 is Honerva’s redemption arc. While I was never fully against the idea of Honerva getting a redemption arc, I just didn’t want VLD to do it because I knew that they would fuck it up if they tried. And low and behold, I was right!

But yeah, I wasn’t against the idea of her being redeemed. And I don’t mean “redeemed” as in “all is forgiven and she’s just a good guy now,” but more like a Darth Vader, “the things she did were inexcusable and she would never be able to right all her wrongs but she goes out on one good act to show that there was still good in her deep down and she at least had the potential to change.”

I know a lot of people don’t like the whole, “redemption=death” thing, which I understand, but I personally never had a problem with it.

Ok, so why didn’t Honerva’s redemption work? Well there are a few reasons but the one that baffles me the most is that, instead of trying to make her more sympathetic, season 8 seemed to go out of its way to show her being more evil and vile than ever.

And because I have nothing better to do, I’m gonna go through Honerva’s story in VLD and explain what I would change to make her redemption more believable.

(Keep in mind I am not a writer, this is just me ranting about my favorite character and how I personally would’ve written her.)

1. Realizing she’s Altean

I always thought it’s was weird that when Allura said “you’re...Altean!?” In the S2 finale, Haggar didn’t seem to react at all, she just kept attacking. It’s as if she didn’t care or already knew, which doesn’t make sense considering in the S3 finale and S8E2 it’s established that Haggar has no memory of who she was before she died. And in S4E3 she seems shocked by her Altean face (which also doesn’t make sense because her blue skin isn’t camouflage that’s just how she looks after the rift) so it seems like she didn’t know.

Wouldn’t it have made more sence if after Allura said “you’re...Altean!?” Honerva looked confused/shocked? If she became defensive and said Allura was lying/trying to insult her? There’s def anti-Altean propaganda in the empire so it would be considered an insult.

After that she starts questioning Zarkon. And when she looks into his mind, it’s out of genuine curiosity and desire to know the truth, not because, “the empire needs him” or whatever that meant.

And isn’t it a bit odd that she doesn’t seem betrayed at all when she finds out Zarkon has been keeping all this from her? She’s just like, “oh, you’re my husband? Cool.” Wtf???

2. Her past relationship with Zarkon

Okay, I love Zonerva, but if we’re being honest, Zarkon was not the best husband. He enabled the shit out of Honerva, even when it was obvious that the rift was doing serious damage to her physical and mental health. To me, it seems like Zarkon was so blinded by the power the rift gave him that he didn’t realize/ignored the negative effect it was having on Honerva. In the same way he downplayed the negative impact the rift had on the planet.

I think that should’ve been explored more. Maybe Honerva notices that she’s been acting differently and is worried somethings wrong (think S5 Kuron). And Honerva tries to tell Zarkon that she feels strange and Zarkon just brushes it off.

And later, when Alfor visits Diaibazaal years later. Things are pretty much the same except when we sees Honerva, she is very obviously pregnant and Alfor’s there when Honerva falls and goes into labor (instead of a random quintessence seizure). Alfor and many Galran doctors try their best to save her and the baby but she dies in childbirth.

Zarkon goes ballistic. He’s yelling, throwing doctors across the room, and Alfor turns to the doctor holding Lotor and tells them to get the baby to safely, fearing Zarkon will take his grief out on the baby.

Zarkon turns on Alfor, blaming him for Honerva’s death and accusing him of letting her die so that he could get his way and close the rift. He lunges Alfor and roars at him to leave.

He spends the rest of the night grieving at Honerva’s bedside, when Kova jumps on the bed and starts gnawing on her finger trying to wake her up. This is what gives him the idea to bring her back with quintessence.

3. Her current relationship with Zarkon

I think it’s pretty safe to say that they’re relationship didn’t get better after the war began. Zarkon hid her identity and her child from her for 10,000 years and essentially used her as a tool of war. It’s pretty fucked up.

I know it’s pretty well established that Zarkon treats Haggar with more respect than his other underlings, but I feel like it would be interesting to see that change overtime. We see that after Voltron comes back, Zarkon becomes very obsessed with Voltron/Black, and he and Haggar start disagreeing more and more.

Remember the moment where one of Haggar’s druids told Zarkon Haggar said he needed to rest and Zarkon hit them with his bayard and told them, “remember who your master is”? What if, instead of a random druid, it was Haggar who he hit?

I feel like that would be a good way to show Haggar and the audience just how much Zarkon’s obsession with Voltron is affecting him, and make the audience feel a tiny bit bad for her.

Then later in season 4, when Zarkon wakes up from his coma and finds out Haggar brought Lotor back to take his place he gets pissed. He puts a price on Lotor’s head and has Haggar arrested for treason. She steals a ship, escapes, and later on meets up with Lotor’s generals.

Her and Zarkon are officially broken up and her quest to reclaim her identity and get her son back begins.

4. Oriande

I never liked the concept of chosen/sacred Alteans. The idea that some Alteans are just born more powerful than others just feels iffy. My idea of Oriande is that it’s an Altean holly land, any Altean can enter it just depends on whether or not you can pass the White Lion’s trial. Passing the trial proves that your intentions are pure and and the White Lion will bless you with power.

I didn’t like how Honerva seemed to force her way into Oriande, I think it would be more effective if she had gone through normally because, at this point, her intentions were pure. She was going there to purge herself of the dark magic corrupting her and reclaim her memories so she could go get her son back.

I also like the idea that Oriande is a sorta link to the Altean after life, and you can speak with people you’ve lost. Allura gets to speak with Alfor, and Honerva speaks with her mother.

You could also have her be confronted by the spirits of the Alteans she helped destroy. Have the weight of her past actions bear down on her. An important part of any redemption arc is acknowledging the terrible shit you’ve done in the past, and that was severely lacking in Honerva’s arc.

Another interesting thing you could do is have Honerva talk to her younger self. The one that died 10,000 years ago. This kinda thing actually happened in 80s Voltron, young Haggar appearing in Haggar’s head trying to convince her to be good again.

5. Her relationship with Lotor

Now this is where the redemption arc really falls apart. I forget who, but one of the writers said after S5 that Haggar/Honerva was motivated purely by love for her son, but man did they do a bad job of showing that.

And it would’ve been so easy to fix that problem, just have her not be horrible to him. Have them have actual civil conversations, have her protect and defend him. Don’t have her reject him as a fucking baby!

Imagine if, after Zarkon destroys Lotor’s planet, instead of immediately deciding to

exile him, Zarkon says that this is the final straw and he’s going to have Lotor executed. But Haggar speaks up to defend Him. There’s actually a scene in DOTU where Zarkon tries to kill Lotor and Haggar gets on her knees and begs for him to be spared. (Though the scene was mostly played for laughs.)

she asks for mercy and justifies it by saying it would be unwise to kill his only heir. It’s a weak argument, Lotor’s a half breed and couldn’t realistically take the throne, but Zarkon does concede, he still loves her after all, and has Lotor exiled.

And Haggar isn’t spying on him because she doesn’t trust him, but because she’s concerned for him. When Lotor confronts Haggar about sending her cronies after him, she says she knows he’s hiding something. Lotor asks if she’s threatening him, thinking she’s going to rat him out, but she says no, she’s not threatening him, she’s just trying to warn him against doing anything stupid because, with Zarkon seemingly on his death bed, the empire needs Lotor’s leadership.

At this point in the story, Haggar is questioning her loyalty to Zarkon, so I feel like it would make sense for her to be silently supporting Lotor from the shadows.

Then at the Kral Zera in season 5, It was weird to me how she was helping Lotor through Kuron while also telling him he couldn’t be emperor and trying to put Sendak on the throne. I feel like it would’ve made more sense for Sendak to just show up on his own without Haggar.

Haggar wouldn’t even be at the Kral Zera, she would just watch through Kuron.

And then we get to S6 when she actually reveals to Lotor that she’s his mom. This scene was just so poorly done. She never actually apologizes to him, she’s just like “yeah I forgot you were my kid and I never loved you, but were cool now right?” I remember when I saw S8E2 and it shows her after Lotor rejects her and she looks like she’s about to cry, I was just thinking, “this would be very emotional and sad IF she had actually apologized and made it clear that she genuinely loved him.” But she didn’t and I don’t know why!

And then we get to season 8, and of course everything in S8 is bad but Honerva’s story is particularly bad. She’s supposed to be motivated by love for Lotor yet she doesn’t act like she actually cares about him at all.

She manipulates his corpse and when she sees his gross melted body, she doesn’t even react that much. When a mother sees her child’s mutilated corpse, how do you think she reacts? Screaming? Crying?? Hurling??? But no. She’s just like, “...”

And then when she goes to the alternate reality and meets baby Lotor and he rejects her, her reaction isn’t disappointment or sadness, it’s anger and entitlement. She immediately decides, “ok, fuck this kid. Let’s destroy this reality.”

It just doesn’t make sense! This is the season you’re trying to REDEEM her! Why are you going out of your way to make her so vile?

6. Her S7-S8 plan

(Keep in mind I haven’t watched S7/S8 since they came out and barely even watched S8 to begin with, so I don’t remember some things and I can’t be bothered to rewatch them.)

Okay, starting with S7, she’s not in this season at all but in “The Ruins” the druid dude says that her final order was to hunt and destroy the Blade of Marmora. I guess it makes a certain amount of sense because she saw that it was Keith who brought Lotor’s actions to light, but that whole plot was really pointless in my opinion. (Was anybody really hoping for a rematch between Keith and that one random druid?)

If you want us to forgive Honerva for her crimes, you really shouldn’t keep adding more unnecessary crimes. It’s established that there were a lot of Galra war lords vying for power and pirates looking for money, just have it be that Kolivan got kidnapped by one of them.

Then you have her season 8 plan and I’m gonna be real with y’all, I have no idea how to fix this mess.

I feel like the basics of her plan could work. She tries to get Lotor and Sincline out of the rift but when she gets him he’s a melted corpse so the plan then becomes to use sincline to go to another reality to find a living Lotor, but opening all these rifts causes problems and the paladins have to stop her.

But all the shit with manipulating the colony Alteans, killing the White Lion, desecrating Oriande, and destroying Olkarion and entire realities, it was all so unnecessary.

Personally I would cut the colony Alteans from the story all together, there are other ways for Lotor to betray the team. It was a lazy way of making Lotor 100% evil and having Honerva manipulate them is unnecessarily cruel, especially in the season you’re trying to redeem her.

Here’s a very basic outline of how I would do this plot.

If we’re going by season 8’s logic that she needs a sacrifice to bring back Sincline, I would’ve had the Galra she killed at the Kral Zera be the sacrifice, not the White Lion. She stands on the pyramid and talks about how the empire stole her life from her and she wants revenge as she absorbs their quintessence into herself and then uses that to bring back Sincline.

Then when she finds Lotor dead she takes Sincline and uses it to go to another reality where she can be with her family.

The danger comes when she opens rifts to the other realities and rift creatures start coming out and causing damage. The paladins fight them and follow her into the rift to stop whatever evil plan she may have. Because the paladins don’t know that Haggar is now Honerva and all this is just to get Lotor back. They think this is all some plan for multiverse domination or some shit.

Meanwhile Honerva has just been rejected by little Lotor and seeing Voltron show up pushes her over the edge and they fight.

But when they find out the real reason she’s doing all this they start trying to appeal to her and convince her to give up and close the rift peacefully. And similarly to how the paladins had to sacrifice the castle to close the rifts created by the fight with Lotor, Honerva has to sacrifice herself to close the rifts.

In the end, I feel like a Honerva redemption arc could’ve worked if the writers were actually competent and actually made an effort to have her be sympathetic, but In canon, her reasoning, “If I can’t indulge in the simple joys of life, why should anybody else?” just doesn’t cut it.

It’s disappointing. VLD had so much potential. I’m thinking of just rewriting the entire series from the beginning. Hopefully putting all my thoughts out into the universe will help me move on.

#voltron #voltron legendary discourse #haggar #honerva #Lotor #prince lotor #Allura #princess allura #vld #vld critical #Altean #voltron season 8 #zarkon #emperor Zarkon #zonerva #Galra #redemption arc

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originalwinnercheesecake · 3 years

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First Impressions and predictions based on the coven Leaders

After a full first season their fame adorning the banners and walls, who they are being hailed, yet they themselves being kept in the shadows we now get first looks (and throughout 2a will meet) the emperors top dogs: The coven leaders. I will not lie as a group... these guys dissappoint me. Making the majority of them very human in appearance for me is a big no. Compare this group to the many colorful and fantastical creatures that are shown teaching at hexside and the hexside teachers are far more creative, unique, and fun. Maybe the artists decided to make the coven leaders look more like normal people so the audience would have an easier time understanding their expressions and body language. Maybe the more humanoid whitches are a higher class and have a easier time climbing higher than the more beast and demon like residence.? We will have to wait and see.

Seperate this group into individuals (like how we will hopefully meet them) and most of them become far more interesting, So below lets take a look at each coven leader individually, where the artists may have taken inspriation, and what What kind of characters they could maybe turn out to be.

The Beast keeping coven Leader: One of the only two that are not humanoids. What type of animal is he? At first I was sure he was a hedgehog, but maybe he could also be like a chipmunk or a squirrel. I get the feeling he might be partially inspired by Sonic from Sega. I was really into Sonic back in middle school. I liked the cartoons and read through the archie’s old comic series. But I kinda out grew him since then. I know from helping to take care of kids though that he is still popular with the younger generation. That’s kinda how I thin the Beast Keeping Coven leader will be: less interesting for older viewers, but a real fun charcter for kids.

The Healing coven leader: Now this guy looks like fun villain all around. Is some kind of witch docotor? a Dark Priest? The size the purple Grin, he looks like the phantom boss from those horror films where you get trapped in nightmares. Tell me he has scary theme song music and talks in a very high pitched voice. I’ve heard some people wonder if he could be Selena (oracle girl from hexside)’s dad. I don’t thinks so, the macaroni crescent shape n his head looks more like a fancy cowl than part of his actual head. Also him having a daughter in Luz’s class could be used as a reason for him to change sides, I want this guy to stay as a villian/antagonist. We all know that with this size group some will stay with the emperor and some will defect to Luz’s side (possibility a couple will die, we haven’t seen yet just how dark Dana is willing to go). Personally my view with redemption arcs and if a character “deserves them” is it depends on what it will do for the story/character afterwards? IF redeeming them opens more doors for the characters and directions the story can take, do it. IF it closes doors leave them as they are. I absolutely hate when clever and well written bad guys get “redeemed” in to boring, plot useless, weebs. The only reason I could see having this guy change sides is for him to “cure” Eda and Lilith’s curse, and I would much rather see the two of them gain control over their forms than be “cured” of them.

The Illusion coven leader: Another fun looking antagonist. My third favorite of these nine. If the healer guy is horror movie based. This guy is Disney based all around. Looks like one of those Vegas suave showmen styled character. Love it. I guarantee you he does not actually look that young or slicked back, but is using illusion magic to make himself more pretty. Not sure if he will stay with the emperor or not. Illusion is Gus’s track and I could see Dana having the leaders of Luz’s friends tracks be the ones to stand by them. If so I am fine with that (in the case of the abomination leader I will beg for it). Gaining the respect of someone as high up as a coven leader could be really great for Gus’s character. Just as long as I get plenty of laughs from Gus and this guy both along the way.

The Potion coven leader: My second favorite and in my opinion the most creative idea of the whole bunch. A mosquito that works in potions! Does he suck them up with his nose and carry them in.. whatever it is mosquitos store blood in. Also he looks angry. Like everyone else is either amused or board. This guy is fed up and ready to do something about it. Not sure if it is the Emperor, the other leaders, or the owl gang he is mad at, but it should be a worthwhile show down.

The Abomination coven leader: Yes this is my favorite design. Yes it is because he is such a beautiful man. Would never have expected someone who creates mucks (the pokemon) with legs would be so fine. Its more than that though. He looks the most kind. Their is no malice or guise in his smile and his green eyes are bright and relaxed. I wondered what the purpose of the Abomination track was and why it had “more opportunity” all last season. Well slight spoilers if you haven’t seen episode 2x02 it is the industrialist field. When you learn about Industrialization usually the idea is that it is done to help the human race reach its full potential, and it is up to each individual to decide what to do with that potential. Whether you call that the passion of a creative mind or the carelessness of a fool would also be up to you. But I really don’t want this guy to be all bad. If for no other reason that more spoilers for episode 2 * with the interest/caution the emperor is showing the blights I expect this guy to show up to their house, probably meet Amity, and we really do not need another not so nice adult in her life. She has had enough.

The Oracle coven leader: What is this? He’s got nails/caws at the ends of dread thingys like Kikimore, so is this her father? Does he have anything to do with her being in the Emporor’s coven? But this is my least favorite. Like what was the inspiration behind this guy? With so many legendary oracles in mythology and we get this guy who mostly looks saggy, washed out, tierd, and just Blah. Hope thier is more to him, but here is one who I am not holding my breath for an episode on.

The Plant coven leader: based on her banner I was expecting something like the Swamp Giant from ALTA. Instead they went in the direction of a very traditional witch desgine: An old women with a wrinkled face and really messy hair, who probably lives alone in the woods, with maybe the exception of a cat, and dances around a fire at night. Okay. She is definitely going to become an ally of the owl gang. This is the only female of the group,and it is neither in Dana’s message nor would it be popular with her target audience to make a villain or even an antagonist out of a women who managed to climb the later into a male dominated success level. I am actually looking forward to seeing her, because it will probably be in a Willow based episode, and after 2x02 (which I personally feel should not have been a luminaty episode but rather a Willow and Amity one finishing up their reconciliation arc), Willow deserves an episode with potential centered around her. An episode where she goes against the Plant track Leader would be that. This witches Grin isn’t exactly friendly, but its more mischievous than wicked. She gives off vibes as one of those people who like to test the mains, and if you pass her tests than you earn her respect. I have no doubt Willow could win at her little games, and doing so would be a huge boost the confidence she has spent the show building.

The Construction coven leader: Oh joy here’s the other one I am unimpressed with. Unlike with the Oracle guy I know where they got his design. To everyone saying that we first saw him at the convention, your not backing far enough up. If you have ever seen any cartoon ever where the main character wanders past or onto a construction sight you have seen this man. Every trio of workers sitting on a iron frame eating from a lunchbox. Every pig that makes a catcall at a disgusted women. Every exhausted worker who watches as your slapstick mains chase each other past at quitting time... they all looked EXACTLY like this guy. This is really the character leading the track Dana herself has said she would pick to join? They could have done a Golem made of brick an stone that resembles a palace. They could have done some kind of humanoid ant with super strength. They could have done a wizard with shapes and mathematics on his robe who carried a scroll everywhere that he compulsively scribbled blueprints onto. But instead we get Mr. Generic here.

The Bard coven Leader: This is R, Eda’s old friend from her hexside days. Did I save R for last because of this connection? Partially. I am also unsure what R’s pronouns are. To me R looks physically male. I have seen other posters use “she” when posting about R. One person posted that Dana had confirmed R uses “they” and if so awesome, I would really like to see that tweet. What ever R’s pronouns though their appearance in the show will be tied with Eda, er past, and what she had to give up in order to live free. I look forward to this new insight onto her character

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the-redeemed-anon · 3 years

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Villains vs Antagonists, what each word means because this fandom uses them as synonyms when they are not

Oh boi, who would’ve thought that this was my debut analysis post on Tumblr for this fandom? Hi, it is I, Redemption Anon from @kateis-cakeis’ blog. This isn’t the post I promised to post first, but this topic has bugged me, especially in the current events. It is time to talk about villains and antagonists, DSMPblr.

Disclaimer before I get into it: I am what would be considered an old dog in this fandom, I’ve watched in a weird way Season 1 while it was still going down, and I officially started lurking on Tumblr through anons on a couple of blogs right at the start of Season 2. It’s just that now I felt the need to make a blog where I analyse stuff. So, I feel like I have some knowledge, albeit imperfect, of characters and events, across the story. Also, I am talking about the characters here, not the CCs. If I mention a CC, their name will be labeled accordingly.

With that out of the way, let’s jump into it.

Now, you may see the words “villain” and “antagonist” being used a lot when discussing the DSMP and other media in general, but the thing is, they are not synonyms, and I feel like a lot of people fail to grasp that, because oftentimes, we have characters that are both at the same time, making the line blurry. Well, let me try to explain my take on these terms.

An antagonist is a person who opposes the protagonist, it’s the rival of the main character, the anchor of the POV that is followed in the story. This usually means that an antagonist can be paired up with the villain role, and the protagonist with the hero role, but it’s not always the case. There are stories where the protagonist is the villain, and the antagonist is the hero (for example, the Genocide Run of Undertale). And even then, there are antagonists that aren’t the villain in the grand scheme of things (for example, you wouldn’t call Gary from Pokemon a villain, would you?) Basically, antagonists are very much POV-centric. In the DSMP, the best example I can give is the BA versus Techno. From Techno’s POV, the BA was his antagonists, while from the BA POV, Techno was the antagonist. Bear in mind, neither party was a villain, or a hero.

A villain is very much a person that serves an evil purpose, the opposing force to the hero of the story, whose actions point to a good purpose. While the hero is the person you are supposed to root for, the villain is the one who is supposed to lose, to not cause a bad ending to your story. The villain and the hero depend a lot on morality. Villains can have downright evil goals, like say, destroying the planet or something repulsive enough to make most people root against them, or morally-grey goals, where they intend to do evil for what they think is the greater good. The last one works well with sympathetic villains or protagonist villains, because you get to see them from another angle. In the DSMP I think it’s safe to say we have two true villains, that being Dream and the Egg, because almost everyone agrees that if these two got their way, it would be bad. I am going to talk just about one of them, however.

Okay, now that we made those two terms clear, let me repeat: antagonists depend on the POV that is observed, while villains depend on morality. On the DSMP these two factors make saying the categories characters belong to tricky, especially when some self-assign or are assigned by other characters or even the fandom into archetypes. In this analysis I want to analyse Wilbur, Puffy (the characters that self-assigned themselves as villains at one point in their arcs) Tommy (who I saw people assigning him as a villain recently) and Dream (one of the true villains of this story, and not only that, he fits the classic combo of antagonist and villain).

The Self-Appointed

Welp, time to talk about my favorite character, Wilbur, and sympathise with Puffy fans, because they’re going right through what we, Wilbur fans, went through since “Then let’s be the bad guys” was uttered.

So, Wilbur and Puffy self-appointed themselves as villains. That makes them villains, right? Not quite. See, the thing with villains is that they are dependant on morals. The audience isn’t the only one that has a moral code, characters have one too. And, in my opinion, in this case we have to talk about the moral codes of these two.

Both Wilbur and Puffy have, or, had, moral codes that revolved around peace, not killing, and the like. Moral codes that you would generally label under “morally good”. What happened to these two, then, for them to go and call themselves villains? Well, it’s quite simple actually.

They broke their own moral codes. I’ll start with Wilbur because I am more familiar with him, and I can use the quotes provided by kateis-cakeis here (thank you my dude for your hard work collecting these!).

So, we all know that at the beginning, Wilbur had a very peace-oriented mindset, wanting to use words over weapons in conflict [“We don’t win wars with battles and with armour. We win wars with our words, Tommy. We’re starting a revolution, not a war.” - (Wilbur’s The Wall: 4:54, 29th July)], and, as such, he saw himself as a good guy [“It was Dream, he’s kinda the bad guy. Yeah, we’re the good guys, we’re the good guys here.” - (Wilbur’s Niki joins L'Manberg: 22:28, 6th Aug)]. What changed? Well, for starters, Wilbur underwent a spiral from paranoia that started from the Independence war. We can see his opinions change thanks to the flashback to the Election era [“And power isn’t gaining from diplomacy, and bureaucracy, and giant courthouses suspended in the sky, blah blah blah. It’s gained from swords, Quackity. It’s gained from blades, it’s gained from steel, iron.” - (Quackity’s Killing My Enemies: 1:06:19, 12th Apr)]. Of course, his spiral worsened after the Election, but we can assume he still thought of himself as a good guy.

That is, until the infamous scene. You know the one: [“Tommy, I’ve got a question for you, right. Because this festival, this is a good idea, this doesn’t seem like a bad like, this doesn’t seem evil. You know? This seems like a nice friendly thing Schlatt’s doing. Tommy, are we the bad guys?” - (Wilbur’s who are you go away: 1:08:14, 8th Oct)]. Oh yes, here, after about two weeks of being in a high stress situation, high paranoia and Schlatt seemingly doing a good thing for his nation, Wilbur starts to question himself. He starts to question if this is the moral thing to do, the right thing to do. And, logically, if you’re not in the right, you’re in the wrong, so the conclusion he reaches, is this: [“Tommy, am I, am I a bad, am I a villain of this story. Am I the villain in your history?” - (Wilbur’s who are you go away: 1:08:59, 8th Oct)]. He self-appoints himself as a villain, and then embraces the role, as well know. As Season 1 progresses, Wilbur doubles down more and more on this idea that he is the villain, and his story ends tragically. Even his ghost thinks of him as a villain, and compares Phil to Saint George, a hero, for killing him (I will get back to this).

So, was Wilbur an antagonist? Yes, definitely, especially from his POV, I would argue, because if he thought he was in the right, he would have never uttered the infamous “Then let’s be the bad guys.” Hell, other Wilbur analysts have pointed out that Wilbur may have wanted to be stopped from pressing the button. Even from his POV, you could argue he’s against the protagonists of the arc. The fact he had some potent self-hatred just helps cement that he was an antagonist, someone who must be stopped.

Was he a villain? I would say no. Look, I don’t see Wilbur as a villain, even if he tried to place himself into this archetype. In Season 1, I think the villain was Schlatt, followed by Dream, starting at the end of the Season. Wilbur strikes me more as a fallen hero, as a man who was okay, who would be cherished and loved and looked up to by others, but at one point took a wrong turn, didn’t find his way back, and continued down the path that doomed him, while his loved ones turned away from him, because they didn’t know how to help and he distanced himself from them by lashing out. It’s a tragic story arc.

“But Redemption Anon!” I hear you say, “CC!Wilbur’s DnD Alignment Chart classifies him as Neutral Evil, bordering on Chaotic Evil!” The DnD Alignment Chart is a chart that while it helps to get the vibe of a character, it can be often arbitrary or can be blurred because characters fit in with characteristics of more than one alignment (see the debate from around that time surrounding Techno’s assigned alignment). Plus, if we look at Wilbur from the POV of most, if not all, characters, without reading into his reasonings, yeah, he looked evil. Even to himself, we see it from quotes like these: [“Here’s the thing, I genuinely think, if it weren’t for me and you dying right, the server would be in shambles. I know for a fact that if I come back, or if I’m brought back to life in some way it’s definitely gonna just go [shit again]” - (Tommy’s am i dead?: 10:10, 4th March)], [“I know what I’m like, that’s the issue.” - (Tommy’s am i dead?: 10:29, 4th March)]. Was he evil, though? I would say not, more misguided than anything. That doesn’t mean he was a saint, nor was he the devil. Of course, he did some wrongs, and me denying that would be weird, because that’s why I say he should get a redemption arc, if he had a clean record, he wouldn’t be in need of one. He’s hurt people, intentionally or not, and he has to make up for those actions, if he is to be redeemed, but that doesn’t make him evil or a villain.

“But Redemption Anon!” I hear you say again, “Ghostbur considers him a villain and the quote from Ghostbur says he was a villain that wasn’t convinced to be a hero!” Yes, true, but we’re forgetting here two things:

1. Ghostbur is biased against Alivebur because he remembers his death as a good thing, and people don’t like him, therefore he rationalises it as Alivebur being the villain of the story and Phil being the hero, pulling out a Christian story that blatantly, hard-line shows us who is the villain and who is the hero: [“I- I- I’ve read the history books, Phil. I’ve read the history books. You- You- You slayed the dragon, you slayed Alivebur. You were the- You- You are the St George of the Dream SMP. We understand, everyone understands that, Phil.” - Wilbur’s First Time Ghostbur Live: 17:58, 6th Jan)]. Honestly, if I was in his shoes and I was everyone hating my past self and I didn’t remember my actions, I would assume I was evil too, because that is easier to comprehend than the fact that they are hating a mentally ill person that didn’t get the help, support and guidance they needed while they had a paranoia-fueled spiral.

2. Ghostbur, when he said: [“But a villain is just a- Sometimes the line’s a little blurry, you could say, a little blurry. It’s a tiny bit. It’s like, a villain, a villain is just a hero you haven’t convinced yet.” - (Tommy’s The Plan To Kill Dream: 1:01:31, 14th Mar)] he was talking to people who considered Wilbur a villain, and he tried to make them consider another side. This context matters, if he dismissed that Wilbur was a villain, there was a risk of his point being dismissed completely. Tommy and Tubbo, while they knew Alivebur from the beginning, his later actions tainted their view of him, and he has caused them hurt, and Ranboo has never met him, only knows of him from word of mouth. It’s hard to make these three consider him from the angle that he was not a villain. The line is still very good, but, again, context matters.

“But Redemption Anon!” I hear you yet again, “Wilbur is even worse in the Void and Dream will be killed to prevent him from being ressurected!” Okay so I don’t think we can speak about the Void here, in this context. You see, all we got out of the Void was a 5 minute conversation that sounded more like snippets out of a longer conversation, or even multiple conversations, that took place over what Tommy perceived as 2 months. From that conversation, all we got is that Wilbur’s self-loathing worsened, he thinks he, and by projection, Tommy, are better off dead for the good of the server, he knows when the Universe will end and he plays solitaire. The rest of the information we got about him was from Tommy, who is, sadly, an unreliable source, because he is not disclosing what Wilbur told him he’d do, beside a general “it will be bad and we have to stop it”. Tommy was also dealing with the trauma of being brought back, and let’s not forget that the Void didn’t give him peace, he was essentially tortured constantly for what he felt were 2 months. To me, it feels like it’s an intentional lack of detail and information, with a lot of discrepancies (like, if Wilbur scared Tommy so much, it’s interesting he refused to talk to MD when offered the chance, and Schlatt mentioned both Wilbur and Tommy being together at the gym) to throw us off. For all we know, Wilbur could be planning the end of the world if he is resurrected, or, he could’ve been making empty threats, or, he was rambling with no thought of it being taken seriously, or, he intentionally scared Tommy into not bringing him back, because he wants to stay dead. All of those could be what happened, and we may not know until he gets resurrected. Until then, I can’t call him a villain, or evil, even if he thinks of himself as a hazard to others, or Tommy’s motive to kill Dream.

Also, don’t be surprised Wilbur’s mental health seemingly went downhill ever since he’s been there. It’s possible the feeling of being constantly pulled apart isn’t just a Tommy thing, Wilbur may feel it too, and he’s been in there for what he may feel as being 10 to 15 years. Add the fact he’s been in Schlatt’s presence for that time, don’t act surprised he’s gotten worse. He didn’t have the conditions to plateau, let’s not even talk about getting better.

I think I defended Wilbur’s honor long enough lol, now onto Puffy.

I am not as familiar with Puffy as I am with Wilbur, but I will try to present her side as best as I can. We all know that post-Doomsday, Puffy took on the knightly goal of protecting people, especially the minors of the server. Puffy had the misfortune, however, that her closest friends and allies turned to be at least antagonists and at most villains, their actions leaving her feeling hurt and betrayed.

If she tried her best to try to help Bad and Ant, her friends, with the Egg problem, the Banquet shattered the remaining trust she had in them because they killed Foolish, and whether her belief that they killed him first to hurt her is true or not, they did hurt her. She felt betrayed, and accusing her of being the reason her son was dead didn’t help.

The moment she got the axe from Quackity Ant’s fate was sealed, because in that moment of grief and anger, Puffy sought out a retribution, a revenge that went against her moral code. We can see this clearly affect her, because once she leaves the Banquet’s hall, she mourns the death of Foolish and the fact that she killed her best friend, when she swore to protect lives. The Banquet, overall, is a highly traumatic event for her.

No wonder that the next day, her outlook on things changed. She branded herself a villain. She started making vague references to what she can do as a villain, because no one would expect it from her, even name-dropping Doomsday, one of the worst events she witnessed, and the one that turned her to her knightly arc. For me it’s clear that what she said was out of trauma, out of shock and out of desperation.

If you think about it, the world of the DSMP is very bleak, canonical minors have heavy trauma and continue to pay for wrongs they did long ago or suffer because people think they need to learn something or because they are used by others. Puffy noted it herself, Doomsday came and went and the perpetrators were never punished for it. While Techno and Phil aren’t villains per se, they are antagonists in this situation, aiding the villain, Dream, neither of them has suffered any consequence for destroying L’Manberg. No, getting locked into Pandora does not count, because Dream was imprisoned just because he had the Revive Book and he was too dangerous to let loose. It would seem that you can perform evil acts without care or consequence half the time, so why not turn to what you perceive as villainy to exact your justice on those who wronged you?

As of me writing this, all Puffy has done so far is say that she will be a villain, yet I have seen some takes that treat her as if she has been pulling the strings all along. I have seen people claim she has the Nuke, that she, for some reason, controls Ranboo’s enderwalk and even that she will break out Dream. I think this is ridiculous, not only because some of those things happened before she even considered calling herself a villain, but also because she has yet to take action. This is another “Then let’s be the bad guys” situation, because we have a character, that, after getting their moral code flipped on them, in a moment of vulnerability, they see themselves as a villain, and being the villain is the way to resolve their problems.

With that said, is Puffy an antagonist? Surprisingly, I say she was one already. If you look at the story from the Eggpire’s perspective, she is an antagonist, because she wants to stop the Egg. From other POVs, she’s not, and she hasn’t done anything to cement her as an antagonist with bad intentions so far.

Is she a villain? No, and I think that call is too soon to make, regardless of what she says. Remember, she feels herself as a villain, she is an unreliable narrator for herself in this situation. All she did was make a promise, with no action or plan. She also doesn’t seem to want to cause mass harm on the server, rather concentrating on the Eggpire. Another thing to note, she sees her killing Ant still something bad she did, even if she doesn’t regret it, because she is open to receiving consequences for the kill.

Truly it’s a matter of time to see where Puffy will go with this promise, and I hope she doesn’t go down the same path Wilbur went, not only because of story purposes, but also meta purposes.

The Fandom-Appointed

Ah, Tommy, one of the most misunderstood characters on the DSMP. So, why am I discussing Tommy here? Because I saw an influx of people calling him a villain after the last lore stream, and I want to set the record straight, because, just like how the reaction to Puffy’s “I’m a villain now” moment are ridiculous, so are the reaction to Tommy’s… especially because Tommy didn’t have an “I’m a villain now” moment.

I have to say, since Season 2 started the parallels between Tommy and Wilbur and Tubbo and Schlatt, people, at the beginning of Exile, were rooting for “VillainInnit”. People seemingly wanted him to follow Wilbur’s path, but he didn’t. He saved himself and went to Techno’s. While at Techno’s, while he was attempting to heal from Exile, due to wanting to feel accepted and gain Techno’s friendship, he started making actions of violence, that painted him in an antagonistic light. He even quoted Wilbur, which, as I remember, sent the fandom in a panic, because people found this as confirmation for Tommy turning to villainy, history repeating itself.

… But it never happened, because Tommy realised at the Green Festival that what he’s doing is wrong, and set off to make up for his actions. Yet since then people have been dogpilling him and calling him a villain, for following his moral compass, finding his way back and trying to make things better. Every mistake he makes or flaw he has is highly scrutinized to a ridiculous level. At this point blaming Tommy for all the wars is a meme.

It’s funny, actually, that Tommy gets pushed into the hero archetype by the people on the server, and the moment he makes a wrong step, by accident or because he was messing around, he’s at best an antagonist and at worse a villain, proving a point I always make when talking about the archetype of the hero, in any media: the title of hero puts the character on a tiny pedestal, and if they make the smallest misstep, they will fall into the pit of being branded evil and a villain. And that pit, story-wise, is hard to climb, because characters forget easy the good someone does, and often remember the bad they did, because it’s easier to see someone in a black-and-white perspective. They did bad? Then, they must have always been bad. Tommy doesn’t even want to be a hero or a villain, he just wants to vibe, but external forces do not let him have peace, forcing him to act, for his and the server’s sake.

Now, I have seen people condemn Tommy and already trying to push the narrative that he’s bad for wanting to kill Dream. Let’s look at Tommy’s morals: he, before he visited Dream for a second time, told Sam that he believes no one deserves to die, not even Dream. We can say that this is a core part of his moral code, not killing people.

This belief, as far as I remember, has been contradicted twice, once when he was killing Dream in the Season 2 Finale, and now, as he plans to kill Dream. Tommy himself recognises that this isn’t the right thing to do, but it’s the only thing to do. Why isn’t he a villain or an antagonist then? Because the context of why he did and does this is important.

Dream was planning to kill his best friend right in front of him, lock him up in Pandora and use the attachments of everyone on the server to control them. Tommy, and everyone on the server, realised Dream was a serious threat then, someone too dangerous to wonder around. Tommy took to killing Dream as a necessity to protect himself and everyone else. The only reason Dream was put in Pandora is because he revealed he knows how to revive the dead, thus they can’t kill him without dooming everyone to being dead, forever. Pandora was the only solution they found to keep Dream alive while keeping him powerless.

Second, Dream killed him, and brought him back, telling him he can send him back and declaring himself a God. Whatever Tommy and Wilbur spoke about in the Void clearly marked him, because he was willing to forgive Dream, if he is to not bring Wilbur back. Dream refused, and Tommy realised Dream is too dangerous for everyone on the server to be kept alive, especially to the people that came to the Vault, thus, for everyone’s safety, he must kill him.

This is not an evil, villainous or antagonistic goal, it is quite stereotypically good, protagonistic and heroic (ironically it’s what Aang was advised to do in ATLA, kill Ozai for the good of the world, even if he betrays his pacifist beliefs). Tommy has been pushed in the role of a reluctant hero, and even if he fails his goal and Dream escapes, that will not make him a villain or evil.

At the same time, as I said, antagonists are POV-centric, so, of course, Tommy is an antagonist in certain POVs. The Egg dislikes him, Jack wants him dead, Dream and Tommy at the point are sworn enemies and Techno doesn’t like him. He is an antagonist with good intentions, and that is the final nail in the coffin that I do not see him as a villain. He never saw himself as in the right doing bad things, never tried to justify them as being the right thing, and has apologised for his actions. He’s not a saint, but he’s not the devil either, and neither is he evil or a villain.

The True One (Story-Appointed)

Okay, now we are talking business. Dream, flat out, is a both an antagonist and a villain. The classic combo people think of when they think of a bad guy in a story. I’ll be honest I like him as a villain. You know you wrote and acted a good villain when you cheer as they hit rock bottom, and you love to hate them. That’s exactly what Dream is.

What in my mind separates Dream from the rest of the characters I have discussed in this analysis so far is intent and moral code. Make no mistake, all the characters I mentioned up until now know they’ve done something bad, whether they doubled down, plan to, or made up for their actions. And all of them, Dream included, started out from the same slate: characters with intentions and goals that are neutral to good on the general morality scale. Yeah, that’s right, I don’t consider Dream to have been evil from the start. At the beginning and middle of Season 1, I would have put him in the trickster category because he seemed to vibe with whoever he wanted, as long as he came on top, but without too much malice. He fanned the flames (like lavacasting Sapnap’s Eiffel Tower and giving Tommy Mars) but nothing big enough to make him a definite villain.

It was at the end of Season 1 that I could see him slowly shaping up as the definite villain we will witness from Season 2 to possibly the end of the DSMP. Allying with Schlatt over the Revive Book, telling Eret he plans to bring every faction under him, the traitor deal and him cheering for L’Manberg’s death all pointed to him becoming the next big threat. Then Season 2 happened, Exile happened, and this cemented him as the villain of the DSMP.

Doomsday came and we finally got a window to see why Dream did what he did: “You’re too fun”. People may wonder why I don’t consider Techno and Phil as villains for participating in Doomsday. This is why. While Techno and Phil had reasons that, while controversial, could be understood as valid motives to do what they did, Phil saying they were sending a message when talking to Ghostbur, Dream did all of that, all of that destruction, because he found it fun. He found it fun to torment and tear down a nation, because it was standing in his way, and it was something Tommy cared about.

The Vault scene also shows that Dream was planning to backstab everyone, by stealing their pets or their valuable items, or, in Bad’s case, cage an entire sentient being, Skeppy, in a cell smaller than an animal’s pen. Not even Techno, a guy that owes him a favor, was going to be spared. Let’s not even talk about him wanting to kill Tubbo just so he can make Tommy a hero by giving him a tragic backstory. All of these, plus killing Tommy and threatening to send him back to the Void for more info and declaring himself a God, point to Dream being a villain.

And then we have the morality side. In the last visit, Dream told Tommy that everyone thinks they are in the right from their perspective, which Tommy immediately denied. Both Dream’s line and the reply he got are very important. Dream’s line establishes that, as far as we know, Dream sees himself as in the right. Everything he did, Exile, abusing Tommy to the point of the latter considering ending his life, Doomsday, the Vault, almost killing Tubbo? All of that seems to have been not bad or evil actions in his mind. He sees himself as in the right, and that makes him a great villain. Tommy’s reply, well, him denying it, I always saw it with double meaning. On a surface level, Tommy’s obviously talking about himself, he has said time and time again that he’s done wrong and he needs to right it. On a deeper level, however, I saw him referring to Wilbur with this line, too. Because, as established before, Wilbur chose to do bad, even if he knew it was bad. He wouldn’t have said “Then let’s be the bad guys” if he thought they were in the right, and that is the fundamental difference between Wilbur, Puffy, Tommy and Dream. The former three, as shown in the previous sections, know that they did bad things, even from their moral perspectives, while Dream thinks he is in the right.

This is why Dream is the villain, while the others are antagonists at best and conflicted, broken and forced to walk a certain path, at worst.

#dream smp #dsmp #wilbur soot #dsmp wilbur #captain puffy #dsmp puffy #tommyinnit #dsmp tommy #dreamwastaken #dsmp dream #dream smp analysis #dsmp analysis

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nightimeconfessions · 3 years

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My thoughts and theories for this episode!

I really like this Qrow and Robyn dynamic! I really like how she and Qrow had a moment where she told him how difficult it has been for her to form a connection with someone. I think they’re gonna be a powerful team when taking down Ironwood.

I also really liked how Robyn immediately told Qrow it wasn’t his fault. Although Qrow did play a part, Clover didn’t have to fight. Not to mention, I’ve rewatched the fight with Tyrian, Qrow, and Clover after they crashed in the airship multiple times. Im still confused as to why Clover was so adamant about fighting. Either way, they both had an opportunity to stop, Qrow was just reacting IMO. Maybe Clover chose to focus on Qrow instead of Tyrian during the fight because he thought of him as the more dangerous opponent? I’d love to hear some theories cause I really can’t understand.

So this here is starting to make me think that the Ace Ops are going to play a role with helping Robyn and Qrow take out Ironwood. Harriet is starting to question Ironwoods authority, what he says, and wether it’s all true. Marrow has been doing the same since Volume 7. I think that the Ace Ops at the very least are going to be the ones to provide Robyn and Qrow an escape from their cells. I think the confrontation part is where they will differ in how to handle Ironwood, depending on how the rest of the season and his choices play out.

I’m really enjoying how the sister dynamic is working with Ruby and Yang. They’re sisters. They love each other. This isn’t their first fight. Keep in mind too, I think this has barely been a day story wise. It’s not like it’s been a week. And already, Ruby had called Yang. She’s rightfully worried because she knows that Yang wouldn’t answer for no reason. I think Ruby knows it has nothing to do with their fight IMO. Also, it’s very cute that Blake is so worried and trying so hard to resolve the fight Yang and Ruby had. I definitely think that her worry is misplaced. Although I’m sure she is worried about Ruby and Yangs relationship, it’s not in jeopardy. I believe she is worried as all hell about Yang and wants to call her, but doesn’t know how to go about that, or if she should, with what went down with Ruby and Yang.

I’m glad that Yang was the one to kinda check and push Ren. I think someone needed to call him out on his bullshit. Ren is going through some shit. It’s never healthy to keep it bottled up. Yang knows this, has gone through this, and has grown from it. Ren is obviously going to need to deal with his trauma. But whether or not it’s gonna be time is another question.

I’m pretty sure this beating will somehow speed up the process of making Oscar and Ozpin into one mind. Either that or maybe Ozpin will take hold of Oscar when he’s getting beaten to keep Oscar sane.

I love Neo, she’s like “NOPE. Hot demon queen told you no, so it’s a no for me cause I wanna live.” Emerald coming in to save the day for Cinder. Can’t wait to see their dynamic again. I really hope Cinder treats her just as well as before now that they will put some distance between them and Salem. I hope Emerald can maybe change the tide for Cinder because I love a good redemption arc, but I don’t think that’s gonna happen.

Buzz buzz bitch and oblivious Jaune. Everything I didn’t know I wanted lol

On a more serious note though, I love how complicated all these characters are. Even though Yang has grown and evolved as a person, she is still very worried that Blake isn’t going to like her anymore. She still has these insecurities and abandonment issues. It will be interesting to see how the growth of her character handles her and Blake’s relationship within the next few episodes. Secretly hoping for an angsty phone call between them lol. I think her growth will show with a talk between Yang and Ren. Ren is loosing it, and I’m afraid that it’s going to cost him his life.

It’s most definitely probably some Grimm coming from underneath this. But I’m also an optimist and I really hope it’s somehow someone coming to rescue them. Like maybe the Happy Huntresses they left behind while helping Mantle and someone’s Mole Uncle? Haha probably too hopeful, but I’m excited either way!

#blake belladonna #bumbleby #ruby rose #rwby8 spoilers #rwby #weiss schnee #whiterose #yang xiao long #rwby 8 #rwby weiss #rwby blake #rwby ruby #rwby yang #spoilers

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felikatze · 3 years

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SIGIHSBISBS IM SORRY FOR RAMBLING AGAIN

I think that the reason why "redemption through death" works for A **IS** because his redemption is not just him yeeting himself at the very end but rather also his own redemption is already the entire process of lobcorp where both him and the Sephirah cycling through their own personal self made hell and to be "punished for their sins in the past" which they try to redeem themself from trying to improve/become better than they are now and the his death at the end is hmm it kinda morbid but kinda a "reward". Like exactly how you said about the ghostness of the sephirah and like everything inside the facility including both the employee and the manager honestly. Throughout a lot of lob we have the sephirah talking to A about this process of how they are not allowed to die but simply cycling over and over again through a repetitive loop, unable to move on since certain someone does not refuse to let go therefore they cannot move on even in death so by "freeing himself" from that in the end he in turn also finally be able to free everyone else who is trapped in the cycle which is also what other Ssphirah were expecting from him I.e the most evidence being Hokma at the end of suppression prefer for the end that would finally come for all of them saying "give a proper end to everyone in herein, and for yourself". I would like to add in like, in Angela's case it is bad for her since she is the being that has never been allowed to live her life or would ever actually benefit from the result of the thing that she has to suffer for or would earn the freedom like everyone else but talking about Lobotomy Corporation's meaning to Angela is another whole can of worm but tldr I think I tend to see lob a little differently since I does not use really Angela as a base to think of a personal value of lob as a whole since that journey to her is something entirely different than everyone else in game and Angela's own definition is very different.

I would not say this action is perputating the cycle since its final is actually very different from Carmen's despairing death imo and lor doesnt really prove that A's ending is something that is I guess, a wrong solution for himself either? As lor Binah has when talking about A's journey she said that "the cycle has been broken once" but at the same time I understand if this solution and conclusion would unvibe some people since on the surface it kinda just "man beat depression and canon ball himself into the sun" yeah

(0) (1) (2) (4)

OH YEAH IT'S. PURGATORY. that's it.

maybe if everyone is already dead, that includes A and we can also see him as a ghost. Since, "I was the first witness to his death and one of the culprits to his murder" (paraphrasing angela). so in a way it's like also his own ghost story.

problem is in his case death is mainly metaphorical and not actually physical lmao

in a weird way you can also apply a very like... buddhist? reading to it, i.e the cycle of reincarnation ending once you reach nirvana, even if the main symbolism is rooted in judaism

angela's personal feelings do taint a lot of how we perceive A because she's just the most outspoken abt him post lobcorp so a lot of readings, including my own, change a lot depending on whether or not you include angela!

so like, to A and the Sephirah, the cycle of suffering was broken, but to Angela, it was perputated, since she wasn't a participant in the sins being atoned for and she like you said wasn't allowed to live.

Thank you for rambling actually because now i see that a lot of the ambiguity does come from Angela's reading of the story.

Since lor puts so much focus on her and her feelings about this, and since that leads to "what happened to angela was wrong and fucked up and shouldn't have happened" but that doesn't exactly mean that to the other characters it was wrong and fucked up, since vry often the patron librarians do agree that they were actually also looking forward to uh being dead and this changes because now they have to live and like might as well have a good time am i right.

also their whole lives' work got destroyed so they're still kicking as long as that's not fixed

it's the right solution to the characters involved but the wrong solution to outsiders, is what i'd sum it up as. that also gets reinforced by roland as an outsider supporting angela's view of "hey isn't that kinda fucked" because yeah it was.

honestly i do not mind when people ramble at me about stuff i care abt at all!! it's so nice to see different takes and feelings on this stuff.

#feli gets asked #lobotomy corporation #library of ruina #THANK U FELLOW AYIN ENJOYER #every one of my followers gets to read all the ayin takes <3 love yall

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fangirl-erdariel · 3 years

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So earlier today I saw a post about how not every villain should get a redemption arc, not necessarily even if the character is good enough or sympathetic enough to technically be redeemable. There's a few of that kinda posts floating around on tumblr, so if villains and heroes and writing redemption arcs for characters and stuff interests you, you've probably seen one or two of those before, so I won't repeat it in depth now. You know the deal; not every villain is going to get redeemed or should get redeemed, sometimes they've done something so evil that the audience would find it hard to accept them being redeemed and other times a redemption arc might just not make sense for that particular character or that particular story.

And that got me into thinking, and here's an interesting little thing that occurred to me: sometimes it's not just that circumstances that might lead another character to redemption might not make another character want to change their ways for the better. Sometimes, those same circumstances that could redeem one might actually push another character further into villainy, make them become more evil rather than less. It really depends on the character's personality.

Like, for example there's one character in one show I like that's pretty much the sympathetic underdog of the regular villains. Although he occasionally does stuff on his own because he wants to, too, he mostly acts as a henchman to another villain, and generally ends up being the scapegoat when things inevitably go wrong. He's the one that actually physically fights the heroes on a regular basis, always ending with him getting his ass kicked and probably being humiliated on top of that. If something goes wrong, he gets the blame, whether it was his fault or not; if something goes right, his boss snatches the glory, no matter which of them actually earned it. He even gets a tragic backstory, although that's only revealed a bit into the final season (and is not framed as the thing that made him evil so much as just a thing that happened to him) so it probably doesn't really affect your interpretation of the character all that much.

All in all, that makes for a fairly sympathetic villain, and when you add in the fact that he's not entirely bad-looking (although not my type and in my opinion somewhat babyfaced), it's no surprise that he's something of a fan-favourite villain. The audience by and large would probably have had no problem accepting a redemption arc if he had gotten one. And with a lot of characters, you'd think that being constantly abused and berated and used as a scapegoat by the more powerful villain could well drive them into reflecting on whether or not the thing they're fighting for is really worth all the crap they get from their boss, eventually leading them to realize they're in the wrong, rebelling against their old boss and switching to the heroes' side, right?

Well, in this story, for this character, it doesn't really make sense for him to ever consider that the heroes would be doing the right thing and he the wrong. Not with the way the setting fits together, the way he fits into the setting, and the personality he has. Also, to be honest the heroes have kinda been huge dicks to him and have often enough made their victories over him pretty intentionally humiliating (which, to be fair, is because he's been a huge asshole to them even before he had reason to, and would kill all of them without a second thought if he got the chance, and is opposed to the whole thing the heroes fight for, so it's not like he doesn't at least kinda deserve it) so that's another reason it's not exactly likely he'd ever team up with the heroes tbh.

That doesn't mean he doesn't get fed up with his frankly pretty shitty situation, though. It doesn't mean he'd keep his head down and meekly take all their boss does to them without protest.

What it does mean is that when he rebels, he jumps to other villains' camps or just goes off on his own to do villain stuff, instead. Sometimes, the other villains he serves are about the same level of evil as his usual boss (or in other words, not evil-dark-lord level evil, but still easily bad enough to cause plenty of suffering to a lot of people they hold power over). Sometimes, a lot of times really, the villains he tries following instead are far, far worse than the usual one. When he's acting on his own, he's not necessarily doing anything more evil than usual, but what he's trying to do would often have much more widespread and catastrophic results for various reasons anyway. But really, one way or another, he really just falls further and further into evil, gets more cruel, kinda overall escalates in his villainy as his boss continues to treat him poorly. Because that's what makes sense for his character.

So, yeah, idk how to end this, except by repeating what I already said: different characters react differently to the same circumstances, so where one character might respond to certain circumstances by becoming a better person and starting to seek redemption, another could respond by becoming an even worse person than they already are. It's all up to what that particular character is like. And idk that's just sort of fascinating to me.

#fiction #writing #writing villains #writing redemption arcs #redemption arc #redemption arcs #storytelling #writing characters

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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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Hello again! Im the tinfoil hat anon with the long ass asks and I finally had the time to read your response. Thank you, it makes my day reading your answers. I honestly just enjoyed them over a cup of coffee like a good book.

Now, the gun pointing scene I mentioned was in fact the one from the droid fight facility like the other anon suggested. But I really liked that you covered the boat scene too, I haven’t thought of it much myself and now I definitely have!

I also would like to mention I love your “candy bar” choice analogy and I 100% agree Hunter’s “invitation” to join back wasn’t welcoming in the slightest. It is very likely just an obligation as you said. Sort of “you gave us a chance, we owe you a chance too”.

And the problem with it is now I am struggling to figure out how the batch members might change their attitude toward Crosshair going forward, especially Hunter. As of right now Crosshair’s best relationship is not with his brothers but with Omega(as surprising as this is). And I think he does realize now she cared about him the most out of all of them during the short time they interacted(both 1st and last episodes). Even between themselves(not counting Omega) I find most of the bad batch members to be cold and distant to each other. They feel less like a family than Rebels for example. And they aren’t even a “found family”(a trope everyone loves) but an actual one! And I get that they’re soldiers and supposed to be tough, I don’t expect them to share all “the feels”. I just can’t put my finger on it but something feels off. I agree with your previous post, the show doesn’t do a very good job showing or even telling they love each other.

Will Hunter and co only start caring about their brother again only after he leaves the empire?(assuming he does at some point). What about Disney’s prevailing theme and message that “family always love and care for each other no matter what”? I guess it’s “family always love and care for each other but only if you’re good guys making right choices”. There is no room for mistakes or wrong decisions. In the last episode everyone form the batch seemed to have given up on Crosshair(besides Omega). For now their attitude seems to be just “you’re not our enemy” and that’s that.

I realize Crosshair is a “bad guy” and consciously made his choice(and we know it’s the wrong one) but to me it felt like he thought he didn’t even had a choice or rather became so lost and confused he actually thought he chose the empire as “the lesser evil”(as in the less shitty choice out of all the other bad ones). We as audience have the benefit to know exactly how atrocious the empire really is but maybe Crosshair still doesn’t realize that.

So what exactly must Crosshair do to get back “in their good graces” as you say? Start saving “the good guys”? Save the bad batch multiple times? There is a popular opinion on how Crosshair can redeem himself. That he eventually heroically sacrifices himself to save them. I personally REALLY hope it’s NOT what’s going to happen but I heard so many people speculating his story is set up to be redemption=death. I know you mentioned you don’t want “Vader style redemption” either. Personally I think it would be a waste of a character who has a lot of potential. And I just think that the batch kind of don’t really deserve his sacrifice(maybe save for Omega) after how they never tried to save him themselves and how they treated him overall. Maybe he will risk his life to save Omega at some point and that will “prove” to Hunter he cares? Although he has already shown he cares by saving her(even if in Crosshair’s own words it’s just so they’re “even”). And the thing is, he doesn’t need to prove that he loves them, he already did that in episode 15 and made it clear he does care. He actually went to extreme by shooting his squad to prove his loyalty. What were the moments the batch demonstrated they care about him? Hunter saying “you never were our enemy” and taking his unconscious body to safety? To me Hunter “not leaving him behind” during bombardment felt more like guilt about the last time it happened and an obligation to Crosshair for helping them with droids, rather than them showing care. And I kinda of think if that was any random civilian(or anyone other than an enemy or a threat) they would carry them out too just because that’s what good guys do and not because it’s their brother. You also mentioned that minutes later Hunter snaps at him with “if you want to stay here and die, that’s your choice” which I agree can be interpreted in different ways. And I think it’s one more point to it being an obligation that in Hunter’s eyes is fulfilled now. He corrected his mistake of leaving a brother behind and saved him this time, now his guilt won’t burden him any longer.

Anyway, I can’t wait for season 2 and I appreciate you and all the anons sharing the tinfoil hat, interacting and speculating together. Those discussions have been a lot of fun!

TLDR: How do your think the relationship between the brothers will mend or evolve in the next season? Do you think S2 will improve in portraying the batch more as a family rather than a group of mercs doing missions together? What are your thoughts on the popular idea of Crosshair’s redemption by ultimate sacrifice? As in, how likely do you think this scenario is?

Anon, that is just wonderfully hilarious to me. Ah yes, the sunrise, a good cup o' joe, and the overly long character analysis of a snarky, fictional sniper. Exactly what everyone needs in the morning! 😆

You know, TBB is far from the first show I've watched where there's an obvious, emotional conclusion the creator wants the audience to come to—the squad all love each other Very Much—yet that conclusion isn't always well supported by the text. It creates this horribly awkward situation where you're going, "Yes, I'm fully aware of what the show wanted to do, but this reading, arguably, did not end up in the story itself. So what are we talking about here? The intention, or the execution?" It's like Schrödinger's Bad Batch where the group is simultaneously Very Loving and Very Distant depending on how much meta-aspects are influencing your reading: those authorial intentions, understanding of how found family tropes should work, fluff focused fics/fan art that color our understanding of the characters, etc. And, of course, whether someone saw TCW before they watched TBB. I personally wouldn't go quite so far as to say they're "cold" towards one another—with Crosshair as an exception now—but there wasn't the level of bonding among the squad that I expected of a show called The Bad Batch. Especially compared to their arc in TCW. The other night I re-watched the season seven premiere and was struck not just by how much more the squad interacted with each other back then, but how those interactions added depth to their characters too. For example, Crosshair is the mean one, right? He's the one picking fights with the Regs? Well yeah... but it's also Wrecker. While they're trying to decide what to do with Cody injured, Jesse calls out Crosshair on his attitude—"You can't talk to Captain Rex like that!"—and Wrecker's immediate response is, "Says who?" and he hefts Jesse into the air. And then he just holds him there, clearly using his superior strength to do as he pleases, until Hunter (sounding pretty angry) tells him to put Jesse down. If Wrecker had put him into a more classically understood bullying position, like pinning him to the ground, it would probably read as less funny—less "Haha strong clone lifts Jesse up in the air!" and more "Oh shit, strong clone can do whatever the hell he wants to the Regs and few are able to stop him." It's such a quick moment, but it tells us a ton about Wrecker. That he's going to stick up for his brothers, no matter the context (Crosshair deserves to be called out). That he will gleefully assist Crosshair in bothering the Regs (something that is reinforced when he later throws the trays in the mess hall, after Hunter has already deescalated the situation). That he's likely been hurt by awful treatment from the Regs too. That he'll only listen to Hunter when it comes to backing off. Little of this work—that interplay among the squad that shows us new sides to them other than basic things like "Wrecker is the nice, happy brother"—exists in TBB.

Or, at least, little exists after Omega becomes an official member of the squad.

Because, as said previously, she becomes the focus. I don't mean that as a total criticism. As established, I love Omega. But if we're talking about why the squad can feel so distant from each other, I think she's the root cause, simply because the story became all about her relationships with the Batch, rather than the Batch's relationships with each other. Having dived headfirst into reading and writing fic, it occurred to me just how many of the bonding moments we love, the sort of stuff we'll see repeated in fics because we understand that this is where the story's emotional center is, are given to Omega in canon:

Someone is hurt and in need of comfort. Omega's emotional state is the focus + moments like her being worried over Hunter getting shot.

Someone needs to learn a new skill. Echo teaches Omega how to use her bow.

Someone reveals a skill they never knew they had before. Omega is a strategic genius and plays her last game with Hunter.

Someone is in serious danger and in need of rescue. Omega rescues the group from the slavers + is the most vocal about rescuing Hunter. (Which, again, is a pretty sharp contrast to the whole Crosshair situation.) Omega, in turn, needs rescuing from things like the decommission conveyor belt.

Similarly, someone is kidnapped and in need of rescue. Omega is kidnapped twice by bounty hunters and the Batch goes after her.

Someone saves another's life. Omega saves Crosshair from drowning.

Someone does something super sweet for another. Wrecker gives Omega her room. Omega gives Wrecker Lula.

A cute tradition is established between characters. Wrecker has his popcorn-esque candy sharing with Omega.

Someone hurts someone else and has to ask forgiveness. Wrecker is upset about nearly shooting Omega and they have that sweet moment together.

Note that most of these examples could have occurred between other Batch members, but didn't. Someone could have created a space for Echo on the ship too. Wrecker also could have apologized to Tech for choking him, etc. It's not that those moments shouldn't happen with Omega, just that there should be more of a balance across the whole season, especially for a show supposedly focused on the original squad. Additionally, it's not that cute bonding moments between the rest of the Batch don't exist. I love Hunter selling Echo off as a droid. I love Wrecker and Tech bickering while fixing the ship. I love the tug-of-war to save Wrecker from the sea monster. Yes, we do have moments... it's just that comparatively it feels pretty skewed in Omega's direction.

So, as a VERY long-winded way of answering your question, I think we need to fix the above in order to tackle Crosshair's redemption in season two. Now that we've had a full season focused on Omega, we need to strike a better balance among the rest of the squad moving forward. We need to re-established the "obvious" conclusion that the rest of the Batch loves Crosshair and that's done (in part) by establishing their love for one another too. To my mind, both goals go hand-in-hand, especially since you can develop their relationship with Crosshair and their relationships with each other simultaneously. Imagine if instead of just having Wrecker somewhat comically admit that he misses Crosshair (like he's dead and they can't go get him??), he and Tech had a serious conversation about why they can't get him back yet, despite very much wanting to. Imagine if Echo, the one who was rescued against all odds, got to scream at Hunter to go get Crosshair like Omega screamed at them to go back for Hunter. Imagine if we'd gotten more than a tiny arc in TCW to establish the Batch's dynamic with each other, providing a foundation for how they would each react to Crosshair's absence. Instead, what little we've got in TBB about Crosshair's relationship with his brothers is filtered through Omega: Omega's embarrassment that she knocked over Crosshair's case, Omega treating Crosshair's comm link like a toy, Omega's quest to save Hunter that just happened to involve Crosshair along the way.

Obviously, at this point we can't fix how the first season did things, but I think we can start patching over these issues in season two. It would be jarring—we'd still be 100% correct to ask where this "Brothers love you, support you, and will endlessly fight for you" theme was for Crosshair's entire time under the Empire's thumb... but I'd take an about-face into something better than not getting any improvement at all. It is frustrating though, especially for a show that I otherwise really, really enjoyed. For me, the issue isn't so much that the show made a mistake (since no show is perfect), but that the mistake is attached to such a foundational part of the franchise. Not just in terms of "SW is about hope and forgiveness" but the specific relationship most clones have with each other: a willingness to go above and beyond for their brothers. The focus on Omega aside, it's hard to believe in the family dynamic when one member of the family was so quickly and easily dismissed. I couldn't get invested in Hunter's rescue as much as I should have because rather than going, "Yes!! Save your brother!!!" my brain just kept going, "Lol where was this energy for Crosshair?" It messes with your reading of the whole story, so in order to fix that mistake going forward, we need to start seeing the bonds that only sometimes exist in season one. Show the guys expressing love for one another more consistently (in whatever way that might be—as you say, soldiers don't have to be all touchy-feely. Give us more moments like Wrecker supporting his brothers' bad habits) and then extend that to Crosshair. Which brother is going to demand that they fight for him? Which brother is going to acknowledge that they never tried to save him? Which brother is going to question this iffy statement about the chip? In order to buy into the family theme, Omega can't be the only one doing that emotional work.

Ideally, I wouldn't want Crosshair to go out of his way to prove that he's a good guy now. I mean, I obviously want him to stop helping the Empire and such, duh lol, but I'm personally not looking for a bunch of Extra Good Things directed at the Batch as a requirement for forgiveness. Simply because that would reinforce the idea that they're 100% Crosshair's victims, Crosshair is 100% the bad guy, and he's the only one who needs to do any work to fix this situation. Crosshair needs to stop doing bad things (working for Empire). But the Batch needs to start doing good things too (reaching out to him). Especially since Crosshair made a good play already, only to be met with glares and distrust. He saved Omega! And AZI! And none of them cared. So am I (is Crosshair) supposed to believe that saving one of their lives again will result in a different reaction? That doesn't make much sense. And no, his own life wasn't at risk when he did that, but does every antagonist need to die/nearly die to prove they're worth fighting for? As you say, he's already shown that he loves them, far more than they've shown the reverse. Every time Crosshair hurt them (attacking) it was while he was under the chip's influence. In contrast, the group has no "I was being controlled" excuse for when they hurt him (abandonment). Season two needs to acknowledge the Batch's responsibility in all this—and acknowledge that they're all victims of the Empire—in order to figure out an appropriate arc for Crosshair's redemption.

Right now, the issue is not Crosshair loving his brothers, the issue is how Crosshair chooses to express that love: trying to keep them safe and giving them a purpose in life by joining the organization that's clearly going to dominate the galaxy. The only way to fix that, now that his offer has been rejected, is for him to realize that a life on the run from the Empire, together, is a better option for everyone. And the only way for that to happen is for the Batch to seriously offer him a place with them again. They need to make the first move here. They need to fight for him. And yeah, I totally get that a lot of people don't like that because it's not "fair." He's the bad guy. He's with the fascist allegory. He's killed people and has therefore lost any right to compassion and effort from the good guys... but if that's the case, then we just have to accept that (within the story-world, not from a writing perspective) Crosshair is unlikely to ever come back from this. When people reach that kind of low, they rarely pull themselves out on their own. They need other people to help them do that. Help them a lot. But with the exception of Omega's reminder—which Crosshair can't believe due to how everyone else has treated him—they leave him alone and seem to expect him to fix himself first, then he gets their support. It needs to be the other way around. Support is what would allow him to become a good guy again, not "Well, you'll get our love when you're good again, not before." That's unlikely to occur and, as discussed, it doesn't take into account things like this bad guy life being forced on Crosshair at the start. If the story really wanted this to be a matter of ideological differences... then make it about ideological differences. Let Crosshair leave of his own free will, right at the start. Don't enslave him for half the season, have him realize he was abandoned, imply all that brainwashing, give him no realistic way out, and then punish him for not doing the right thing. This isn't a situation where someone went bad for the hell of it—the story isn't asking us to feel compassion for, say, the Admiral—it's a situation where Crosshair was controlled and now can't see a way out. That context allows for the Batch, the good guys, to fight for him without the audience thinking the show is just excusing that behavior. They should have been fighting from the start, but since they didn't, I hope we at least start seeing that in season two.

Ultimately though... I don't really expect all of the above. The more balanced dynamics and having the Batch fight for Crosshair rather than Crosshair going it alone... I wouldn't want to bet any money on us getting it, just because these are things that should have been established in season one and would have been more easy to pull off in season one. (If the Batch wouldn't fight for Crosshair while he was literally under the Empire's control, why would they fight now when he's supposedly acting of his own free will? It's backwards in terms of the emotional effort involved.) But again, it could happen! I'd be very pleased if it did happen, despite the jarring change. I don't want to make it sound like I think they're going to write off Crosshair entirely. Far from it, I think there are too many details like his sad looks for that, to say nothing of Omega's compassion. But the execution of getting him on Team Good Guys again might be preeeetty bumpy. I expect it to revolve around Crosshair's sins and Crosshair's redemption, even if what I would like is balancing that with Crosshair's loss of agency, the Batch's mistakes, and their own redemption towards him.

Honestly though, I just hope that whatever happens happens soon. It's a personal preference, absolutely, but after a season of Crosshair as the antagonist, I'm ready for him to be back with the group, making the Empire (and bounty hunters) the primary enemy. Whether his return happens through a mutual acknowledgement of mistakes, or through Crosshair being depicted as the only one in the wrong who has to do something big to be forgiven... just get him back with the squad lol. Because if the writing isn't going to delve into that nuance, then the longer he remains unforgiven, the longer some of us have to watch a series while going, "Wait, wait, wait, I really don't agree with how you're painting this picture."

#TBB #The Bad Batch #SW #Star Wars #mymetas #long post

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arkannis · 3 years

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Hello,

I just recently got into the Old Republic Fandom, and the Eternal Empire is my favorite arc. I do wish there was more story content to give more development to the characters, particularly in Arcann's case. While I love his romance scenes, I wish there were more scenes about his redemption and relationship with the Outlander or a dark side ending where the Outlander or Arcann takes the throne with the other as a consort. I found your blog while trying to find content further developing his character. Thank you so much for posting all your headcanons and musings!

With that being said, what are your headcanons for Zakuul culture? And could you post a masterpost compilation of your Arcann headcanons? I am trying to find the post where the romance novels headcanon originated in the tags and not having much luck.

Hope you have a nice day!

Hi anon!! Sorry for a late reply. First I’ll answer the second part of your message. The romance holonovels headcanon originated from the this post ; the post doesn’t outright say it, but some people in the tags (when they reblogged it) mentioned that Arcann probably seemed like the type to read romance in his free time. As of what I can remember the tags were from this reblog and this other reblog and both say that Arcann reads romance holonovels. The continuation of this headcanon were in replies or tags, so it’s hard to track them all down! Secondly, my Arcann tag is a mess, and I probably threw in multiple headcanons in reblogs or tags so it would be hard to find them all... I’ll think about making a masterpost, but I don’t think I have time for something like that right now. Ok, now that’s over with... I 100% agree with you, anon! I HAVE so many things to say about the possibility about that dark side ending. I don’t think devs were planning to make Arcann a possible romance option in the beginning, so it wouldn’t have been possible to be his LI and rule as emperor/empress. I also agree with the development of the characters... however, Arcann’s redemption and relationship with the Outlander was definitely rushed, because the plans to make a third expansion was apparently cancelled due to the backlash from fans who wanted pub vs. imp back. I made a whole post complaining about that... Otherwise, I definitely think they would have had more time to flesh out his characters and the other Zakuulan characters as well (Vaylin, Senya, Koth, etc.). I’m like pretty much sure content was cut out from KOTFE/KOTET to make them shorter. Due to such lost content, I have to create my headcanons from extrapolation based on the Sacrifice trailer, available codex entries, existing dialogue, and implications of existing issues. As well as other people’s hcs and commentary!! WARNING: SUPER LONG BULLET POINTS for Zakuulan culture headcanons.

The reason why I don’t have that many Zakuulan culture headcanons is because.... I feel like it’s so weirdly explored in the expansions.

I think the arts is a big thing in Zakuul! The Dragon’s Maw chapter gave me that kind of vibe. I also discussed this mildly (not) with Arcann. Most specifically THEATRE, PERFORMANCE AND SINGING.

Evidence: Senya sings and composes and there’s the famous Zakuulan holoperformer, Malita Tal. No, I don’t have evidence for theatre, but honestly? Zakuulans are so goddamn dramatic, they most definitely have reality TV series or drama series...

arcann be like oh you listen to malita tal? name all of her albums in alphabetical order or you get exiled

Zakuulan culture most definitely has idol culture, based on Malita Tal (and reportedly her performances were watched by millions). And those fans apparently also protested against Arcann’s rule. personally i think if they had twitter the u.s. gov*rnment would be wiped out.

I just think singing is a big thing in Zakuulan culture. I mean, even Valkorion sings (if you decide to kill Senya, his force ghost appears. They both have an exchange and it’s actually sweet for like 0.1 second).

I also think there would be typical Zakuulan fairytales embedded in the culture. Hear me out. Most specifically those type of royal fairytales with the princes and princesses. This can be heavily contributed to the fact that a royal family is essentially in power.

You cannot expect me to believe not a single person in Zakuul has written a Prince Arcann x reader holofic. You just can’t. Or Prince Thexan. Actually, I think Thexan would be more common, I think he was perceived to be more compassionate and kind compared to Arcann by the common folk? Since I know there’s that NPC dialogue where one of them goes how different it would be if Thexan took the throne instead.

The fairytales would probably involve a lot of references to the Old Gods. I kinda imagine that the enemy would be some sort of serpent, that is, Zildrog, because apparently he’s just a bedtime story to scare children away.

I think these Zakuulan fairy tales would contribute to the theatre and performance, acting culture that Zakuul has.

Furthermore, I just think the Tirall kids probably read these fairytales as well. francis dont talk about arcann reading again

I want to talk about the Old Gods and that religion, which is one of my favorite things ever... probably because the Gods are machines. Superweapon machines... ok ill shut up

Even if Valkorion basically got rid of the religion, it’s clear that the religion is still incorporated into heavy talk in Zakuulan culture (e.g. eyes of Esne, heart of Scyva).

My headcanon is that there are sanctuaries or small secret churches (?) for those who want to worship the Old Gods. Obviously the Herald of Zildrogs who believe in the Old Way are a cult, so I think people would look for an alternative.

I think there would be great effort to hide these places, as it can get you exiled. Thus these would probably be located in the Old World, rather than in a more obvious position like the Spire.

The beliefs of the Old Ways isn’t exactly clear, they aren’t exactly touched upon, which is a shame. I think people would ask for help from each of these gods depending on what they want.

Those who ask for Izax’ guidance want to seek success, accomplishments, power, and glory.

Those who ask for Scyva’s guidance ask for her to guide souls peacefully to death (she is described as someone who weeps beside Zakuulans as they march towards Izax - basically death) , or ask for help/compassion from her. Maybe maternity as well? Or parental love?

Those who ask for Aivela (goddess of passion) want her to guide them with her passion (Aivela accompanies Tyth, who is kind of a god of war/warrior). I think there would also be romance related stuff as well. If someone asked for help regarding their love related issues, it would probably be from Aivela!

I’m not sure about Esne - but maybe in a similar sense, if someone is suffering with jealousy - in any situation, they would ask guidance from her. I don’t know where I read this but I think the “eyes of Esne” expression meant like having eyes of jealousy.

Nahut? I don’t think he was worshipped. “Nahut was considered to be gray, formless and cold, and was denied worship by all except his mother Scyva.” But regardless, I think he still had a role to play.

After the Outlander takes the throne, and Zakuul renounces their membership from the Eternal Alliance, I think people would be allowed to openly express their religious beliefs, that is, the Old Ways. Oh, personally I headcanon that they would build beautiful places of worship in the Spire with similar geometrical pyramid designs...!!

Yeah...I think that’s all I got! I’ll need to see how I can somehow make this post easily found, lol. This is quite a long list, and I have to emphasize that these are my headcanons! They are based on what I see and I just kind of fill in the gaps to fit my own stories. This took a while to write because I KNEW I had these headcanons, but they just didn’t appear at the time I saw this anon ask. Anyways, I’ll probably create more headcanons in the future. Also:

a dark side ending where the Outlander or Arcann takes the throne with the other as a consort

I have so many things to say about this. I know the game won’t permit it, because if you think about it, both the light side choice (Eternal Alliance) and the dark side choice (Eternal Empire) are happy endings for your characters anyways. They can continue as the “hero” or the “protagonist”, so I don’t think this route could ever be implemented. However, I think it would be absolutely interesting if throughout the gameplay, players are given a choice to flirt with Arcann. The Outlander and Arcann agree to get rid of Valkorion, but thats if the Outlander decides to betray the Alliance and joins Arcann instead. And should they join him, they have the choice to romance him... and I guess it’s a happy ending for you both :P Obviously this won’t happen, but maybe it will. I wouldn’t mind being the prince consort of Arcann lol idk! me and vaylin are gonna be besties and we’ll paint each others nails or something Oh and have a nice day too anon...!!

#Anonymous #THIS IS A SUPER LONG POST AAAAAAAAAAAA #swtor #arcann #zakuul #kotfe #kotet #i need a special tag for this #zakuul hc

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