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aspoonofsugar · 3 years

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Hello, I would like to know what you think about the discussion that Cinder and Watts had.

It is interesting to note that what Watts tells Cinder is that her suffering doesn't make her strong or special or worthy of anything and by extension Watts tells Cinder that as much as she pretends that her suffering made her strong in reality she is still quite fragile and vulnerable because she hasn't been able to overcome her trauma and still wants to give meaning to her life and suffering.

Hello anons!

These two asks can be answered together.

First of all, I really liked that scene! It is probably my favourite moment of the episode together with the sequence in the underground.

I think there are two ways to see Watts and Cinder’s interaction in the episode.

1) Cinder

Cinder: You’re right. Without you I am nothing. But because of you, I am everything.

As I have written here:

Cinder’s way of thinking is very similar to Mercury’s. Not only have they both endured their parents’ violence, but they have tried to give this violence meaning. It is because of Madame that Cinder has become “everything” and it is because of Marcus that Mercury has become “strong”. They must believe that it was not all for nothing and that the pain they felt made them stronger instead of weaker.

This is why Cinder thinks that deep down her “hunger” is good. It is because it drives her, but she ignores that it blinds her too.

The idea that suffering made her stronger and more deserving than others is Cinder’s main coping mechanism.

She was treated as nothing, so she needs to believe she is secretly worthy of things others are negated. As I have stated here, she deep down wants to be chosen:

I would say that Cinder wants to be chosen. She wants to be special and to be given value. This is probably why she is serving Salem. It is because Salem has chosen her for an important role.

Well, Watts’s speech is about exactly this:

Watts: You think you’re entitled to everything because you’ve suffered, but suffering isn’t enough. You can’t just be strong, you have to be smart. You can’t just be deserving, you need to be worthy.

In a couple of phrases he deconstructs Cinder’s coping mechanism and this is why she is made to feel so vulnerable.

The whole point of Cinder is that she should stop reducing herself to her trauma and pain. By doing so, she both dehumanizes herself and dismisses others.

She dehumanizes herself because she tries to overcome her inferiority complex by looking for power and she does not realize that this is turning her into a monster:

Raven: Aura can’t protect your arm, it’s Grimm. You turned yourself into a monster just for power.

She dismisses others because she is so focused on her own pain that she can’t notice others’.

In short, she must stop pretending everything revolves around her and should start working on herself and her own issues. This is thematically what Watts’s speech is about. It also ties to the teaching of the Fall Maiden about choice. Destiny is not something that is given to you, but something you work towards:

Pyrrha: When I think of destiny, I don’t think of a predetermined fate you can’t escape. But rather… some sort of final goal, something you work towards your entire life.

Cinder is looking for worth outside herself. She wants Salem to recognize her and magical powers to be strong. She misses that self-worth is something only Cinder can grant herself.

However, things are not as simple in-universe because Watts is not referring to this in his speech. What he wants is not for Cinder to overcome her issues and to realize serving Salem is wrong. What Watts wants is for her to become better at her job.

Not only that, but in Watts’s speech there is hidden also this message that @luimnigh and @harostar have discussed here. Their posts are already clear, so I won’t spend much time on it.

The main idea is that Watts is worthy, while Cinder is not and how it goes back to their different upbringings and social status. In short, Watts is an Atlesian elite, while Cinder is a no-one, who was bought as a slave. Cinder keeps feeling this difference and can’t really break free from this kind of mentality.

That said, I think this last point gains more nuance when one looks at what this speech means for Watts himself.

2) Watts

Watts’s allusion is Watson and WoG says that he is Watson if he had connected with Moriarty instead of Sherlock. Personally, I think that as for now another good way to describe his allusion is that he is Watson if he were jealous of Sherlock instead of loyal to him.

As for now, Watts’s defining trait is his jealousy of Pietro Polendina and of his creation:

Watts: She’ll open the vault and she’ll destroy herself...And our little Penny problem would be...

It is not by chance that he wants to blow her up, even if that would not really be necessary. The Little Penny Problem he is talking about is really his problem and not Salem’s, who could not care less about Penny once she has the relic.

Watts wants to destroy Penny because he wants to be better than Pietro. Still, he misses why Pietro is better than him:

Watts: She’s on a set-path now...At least she should be...As much as I hate to admit it there seems to be some part of her capable of resisting...

As we know, the part of Penny who is capable of resisting is her humanity. Penny is a masterpiece not because she is a war machine, but because she is a real girl. This is the core of Pietro’s genius and this is what Watts can’t grasp:

Watts: Our tin soldier's heart has cost him his mind. We need to keep their attention on Mantle for as long as possible.

Watts, just like Ironwood, believes that feelings make you weak and stupid. Of course, this is the anti-thematic statement which has already been proven wrong over and over. Even when it comes to the situation above, Watts is actually being baited by Ironwood and him falling for it results in his arrest. The moment Ironwood is more open about his feelings is also the moment he is acting more logically.

In short, Watts is a brilliant scientist, who bought in Atlas’s ideology that you must pursue success at all costs. You must be strong/clever because only in this way you can be successful. If you let feelings cloud your determination/mind, you are a failure.

However, it is precisely this ideology taken to its extreme that is Watts’s own downfall.

He can’t understand Pietro’s ideal and is overshadowed by him. What is more, the idea of not being the first in his field drives him to disgrace.

His backstory makes so that Inside team WTCH Watts represents Salem’s entitlement.

This makes him similar to Cinder, as well. He is different from her for upbringing and status. Still, they both have the same flaw. They believe they are entitled to things.

Cinder does so because she has suffered. She was no-one, so now she must be the most important person in the world.

Watts does so because he was born an elite and he should stay an elite forever.

Watts is there not only to tell, but to show (both Cinder and the viewers) that the path Cinder is on leads nowhere. Watts had probably everything Cinder ever wanted. He was successful and rich. He did not have to worry about food or poverty. Still, that was not enough for him. He wanted more and this led him to betray his own country and to join a nihilistic witch.

In other words, Cinder will never find what she is looking for in power or success. Watts had both, but he is empty just like her. He is hungry just like her.

This is well conveyed symbolically by Watts being one of the very few characters that never unlocked his semblance. It means he never truly unlocked his full potential. He never truly understood who he wanted to be. He tried to be who his society wanted him to be, but he was not satisfied and decided to destroy it instead.

So, when Watts talks about the need to be smart and the difference between being deserving and worthy, he is actually talking about himself, probably without even realizing it. He is projecting his feelings of failure on Cinder. He was deserving, but not worthy. Pietro was the worthy one.

Other than these two, there is also another level to this confrontation that has been underlined by @misstrashchan here.

It is about the parallel between Cinder and Ironwood when it comes to their reactions to Watts spelling them the truth about themselves:

Ironwood: I will sacrifice... whatever it takes... to stop her.

Watts: Oh, I hope you do, James. I hope you do.

The difference, as the post above explains very well, is that Cinder is able to listen to Watts, while Ironwood ignores his words altogether.

This ties to how Ironwood’s inability to recognize his mistakes and to change his mind (literally what his semblance Mettle is about) is why he is the main villain in an arc where we are having the first redemption arc of one of our original trio of villains:

A redemption, which will probably be followed by other defections among the AceOps themselves.

In order to redeem one-self, a person must accept they were wrong and change their mind. Ironwood is unable to do so and this is why he is dangerous.

In conclusion, I love this confrontation because it is very complex, has many levels and is gray. In terms of complexity it reminds me of Tyrian’s interactions with Emerald and especially Mercury:

Tyrian is seen tormenting the two kids whenever he gets the chance. That said, he ironically ends up spelling out for them truths the two must face:

Tyrian: Do what makes you happy children… please? I’m begging you…

Tyrian: Of course she is! You’re surprised? Salem is destruction incarnate! Our mistress wishes to see the end of it all! There is no ideal more beautiful.

Tyrian is a great evil mentor because he manages to spell out what Emerald and Mercury should do and to make sure through his body language that they are not able to. He tells them the truth and threathens them, so that they can’t pursue what they need.

Here, Watts tells Cinder the truth by lashing out about how she is so worthless, that a machine must do her job.

It is also interesting because both Emerald and Mercury are clearly set-up to have an evil mentor figure:

Emerald and Hazel’s foiling has already paid off, while Mercury and Tyrian’s will probably pay off in the future.

I am not sure if Cinder will have a similar foiling/relationship with Watts. Still, it is an interesting possibility. Especially because one thing I would really like to happen with the original villain trio is for the abuse and the manipulation they are subjected to backfire. I would like for them to break free (with others’ help obviously because they can’t free themselves alone) by taking all these thematic truths they are told, so they can be manipulated, and to change them in teachings they can use against their abusers.

In short, I want Cinder to say...”Yeah, I do not need to be deserving of power because I am already worthy on my own”. And I want Mercury to free himself and to tell Tyrian...”This is what makes me happy”.

I think that this has partly happened with Emerald in the sense that Salem’s tactic to weaken her loyalty to Cinder through fear backfired:

Salem: Emerald... I want you to tell me whose fault this was. Now

Emerald: Cinder! We failed because of Cinder...

Salem: That's right. I want you to understand that failure. I want you to understand why Cinder must be left to toil in her isolation until she redeems herself.

The whole point of this interaction was to make Emerald submissive. It is clear Emerald is there for Cinder and not for Salem, so Salem frightened her and forced her to symbolically “betray” Cinder.

Still, this did not work for two reasons.

a) Emerald needs to see Cinder for who she is, so that she can break free from her.

b) Fear is among the factors that motivated Emerald to leave:

Yang: You're gonna have to try and summarize it. Why should we trust you?

Ren: Because she's scared. Just like us.

Not only that, but in an inversion of what usually happens with fear in the series, it is specifically because Emerald and JOYR are all scared that they can overcome their conflict and work together (as @echo-from-the-void. noticed). Fear has separated our protagonists from the AceOps, but has brought them Emerald.

These are my main thoughts on the scene, thank you for the asks!

#rwby #rwby meta #cinder fall #arthur watts #emerald sustrai #rwby volume 8 #rwby spoilers #asksfullofsugar #anonymous

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linkspooky · 4 years

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Pls... your top ten nisioisin characters... i love your lists...

I LOVE TO TALK ABOUT HOW MUCH I LOVE MY FAVES. IF YOU EVER ASK WANT TO ASK ME WHO MY FAVES ARE FOR A SERIES FEEL FREE TO SEND ME AN ASK.

My favorite thing about Niosisin’s characters is how genuinely subversive they are. Not in the sense that he’s deconstructing tropes, but rather these are characters who would never get their story told in most other books, because they are not good, or righteous. Nisioisin breathes life into them, and allows those who cannot be forgiven, those who are deviant, those who have dropped out of society to still remain human. He tells their stories the same as everybody else, because their lives are just as fun.

1. Even if I’m hated, Even if I’m Despised - Kumagawa Misogi

He’s only my favorite character of all time so I’ve talked about him on this blog before, but let me find something new to say. Oh Kumagawa, how do I love thee, let me count the ways. Or maybe it’s Oh Kumagawa, how do I despise thee let me count the ways.

Kumagawa’s character is so interesting because it’s written in antithesis of everything a shonen protagonist is. For Kumagawa, his determination just makes him fail worse and worse. His desire to be involved and help people always guarantees the worst result for the people he wants to call his friends. His empathy is extremely painful for him, and is a trait that drives him insane rather than making him a kind and loving person.

A lot of time in manga empathy is like, a magic fix-it-all bandaid that basically makes the main character a saint by being able to emotionally relate to anybody. Kumagawa is the reality of that situation. He is empathic, and by relating so much to the humans around him he shows how ugly, and messy human emotions can really be. Recovery and saving others isn’t necessarily a beautiful thing, it’s complicated and sloppy.

Kumagawa is a character where getting stronger won’t solve any of his problems. Which is what happens in a lot of shonen manga, rather than trying to emotionally mature the main character will just learn a new fighting technique and develop that way. Instead, Kumagawa winning fights means absolutely nothing. The only thing that can free him is to grow up as a person, and the fact that Kumagawa’s arc is given equal weight to both of the main characters shows how accepting of weirdoes and broken off beat characters Nisioisin is as an author.

What I like about him is how genuinely broken he is, but not for monstrous reasons but for entirely human ones. It’s his genuine care for others that breaks him the most. He’s a character written to be insane, but also geniunely human. Kumagawa is not able to live properly, or even act like the main character like Zenkichi and Medaka are but he’s still able to find his own way to live.

2. I don’t feel any reality from you people - Ajimu Najimi

“Genius who is super good at everything, but is secretly sad and lonely on the inside” is a pretty common Nisioisin trope. It tends to be pretty hit and miss with me, but it also resulted in one of my favorite characters of all time. I tend to like these types of characters more when they’re allowed to be… what’s the word… unlikable. When the story isn’t trying to go on about how cool they are.

The reason why I love Ajimu is because she is just like Kumagawa, a subversion of the character you expect her to be. The same way Kumagawa suverts Zenkichi in a way, Ajimu subverts Medaka. The same way that Medaka is all loving, Ajimu is indifferent to absolutely everything. The reason she’s able to be kind to everyone around her is because she genuinely doesn’t care about you. Her real personality when not being apathetic, is to just be downright nasty and look down on absolutely everything.

She’s completely self absorbed because according to Ajimu she’s the only one who exists in the universe. She’s the only one she knows for sure is real. The opposite of Kumagawa, a character entirely lacking in empathy, not even thinking of herself as human in any sense of the word. Ajimu acts like she knows everything in the story like she’s reading off of the script, but that’s because she literally thinks that everything in this world is fiction and she’s literally breaking the fourth wall.

And my favorite part about Ajimu is that the story doesn’t glorify her meta fourth wall shenanigans. She’s not treated as someone who sees through everything in the end. She’s just pathetic, and suicidal, and dragging everybody else along into her trillion year long self pity party. She’s more of a human failure than someone who can’t possibly empathize with humans, and that’s why I love her.

3. There ain’t no meaning, got it? - Ii (Boku)

Ii-chan is the narrator of Nisioisin’s first ever series, Zaregoto (Lit. Nonsense). It’s not really until the second book you get a grasp of his character, but Strangulation Romanticist does such an excellent job of setting up who he is as a person. This is another one of Nisioisin’s character types (narrator who feels ennui, and really, really doesn’t want to be a person).

What’s great about Iichan is that he is special in a way. Just like he’s described in the books, when he’s thrown into situations everything goes a little bit crazy. He always gets dragged into mysteries, and has people die around him even though he tries to stay as uninvolved with people as possible. He’s actually a great look at what a character constantly caught up in murder mysteries like the main character of a detective novel would actually act like. He has this deep rambling narration that sways between nihilism and existentialism that makes him a really unique character to read about.

But at the same time Iichan is also kind of a normal dude. And I don’t mean in the sense that he’s an everyman, or has no personality, but he kind of just feels like one. The great twist of No Longer Human is that Yozo isn’t some inhuman monster, he’s just kind of a normal guy who drowns out his misery by taking advantage of women. Like, it’s not all that uncommon. The same thing with Iichan, as poetic as he gets he’s kind of a very petty person and most of his flaws are very mundane ones.

It’s basically very hard to care about other people in this world. Ii-chan doesn’t want to at all, he just wants to have all of his emotional needs fulfilled by the friend he both infantilizes and puts on a pedestal. He’s just super clingy about the one relationship he has in life, because he’s afraid of losing it, but he’s also afraid of being close to her. Ii-chan is just kind of a normal person reacting badly to trauma, but he presents himself as such a mystery that most people lose sight of that (in story). He’s kind of just petty and annoying, and that’s why I love him.

4. No Longer Human - Hitoshiki Zerozaki

Zerozaki is Iichan’s greatest character foil. Basically the best way to describe it is Zerozaki is Mersault. The flip that is switched on for everyone that prevents them from killing someone when the idea crosses their mind is turned off for Zerozaki, and so he kills. He doesn’t enjoy it, he doesn’t have a particular reason to it, he just can’t overcome his impulse to kill. If Ii-chan is restrained, then Zerozaki never restrains any of his impulses at all and lives following only those.

Once again this is another common Nisioisin character archetype “A murder, but they’re sad and lonely.” What I like about Hitoshiki is how much of a deviant he is to that archetype.

He wants a friend and somebody who understands him, but at the same time he hates himself so he doesn’t want anybody too close. He lives in a family of murderers and he’s somehow the rebellious child of the family. He’s constantly running away and wandering from place to place. What makes Zerozaki interesting is how self aware he is about all of this too. He rambles his thoughts and will just be like “Yeah, so anyway that’s totally fucked up (LOL).”

5. Is your life dramatic - Kaiki Deishuu

Kaiki is a character who I admire for his philosophy above all else. He’s another one of those “deviant” characters like Kumagawa who would just be a villain to be defeated in any other narrative, but in this one he gets fully fleshed out as a character.

What’s interesting about Kaiki is that he chooses exactly the way he lives. He decides to be a villain. Kaiki at some point sees through most of the lies of the people around them, and for how meaningless the things that you are told have value can be. He hates holding onto ideas like those.

But that doesn’t mean that Kaiki rejects everything. He doesn’t claim to see above society, or that he’s not a part of society. Rather, Kaiki just uses that awareness to realize he can give meaning to whatever he personally finds meaningful. Because it’s all meaningless anyway, as a human being he can create his own meaning.

So his want of money is not just simple greed, it’s what he’s decided to live for. Kaiki is an adult who willingly chose to become a conman because he finds that’s his place in society. He just doesn’t trust himself enough to be kind despite feeling the same desire to save others, so he decided to lie to them and trick them instead.

6. “I don’t know anything, you’re the one who knows” Oshino Ougi

Ougi is just interesting conceptually. They are literally Araragi’s own shadow, running away from him and given form and consciousness of their own. While Ougi themselves works as a common Jungian shadow archetype calling characters out for what they are repressing and also revealing the bare faced truth to them, which is why they are so heavily associated with mirrors, lights, and shadows.

My favorite part about Ougi however is not their connection to Araragi. It’s when Ougi starts to become their own character. An oddity with consciousness that begins to deviate from what they were made for, because they were allowed to live on their own.

Ougi did not become a fave of mine until Zoku because that was when they started to self reflect and realize their own strange existence separate to Araragi. The conversation scene with Araragi is one of my favorite in the whole series because it shows how Ougi is just a genuine tease, and a very clever and insightful person. That’s who they are, outside of just being an oddity that exists to criticize others and call out flaws. They’re ridiculous, and a little strange, and they enjoy screwing with other’s heads and messing around a bit too much. But Ougi Oshino is Ougi Oshino.

It’s just an interesting concept, to have to define who you are as a person when you were created out of all of the unwanted qualities, and insecurities of another person.

7. Why are you touching me without permission, you weed - Yasuri Nanami

Nanami is another one of those “I’m a genius and I’m good at everything but I’m secretly sad” characters, and once again what I love about her is how unlikable she’s allowed to be. None of what Nanami is capable of comes off as cool for very long. She’s basically framed and treated as a horror movie monster, always speaking in the same monotone voice. The one story that shows her true nature in chapter four is literally, paced, framed, exactly like a slasher movie with characters being hunted down and killed one by one.

Nanami’s just this horrible wretched existence that doesn’t even want to be alive. She basically acts like frankenstein’s monster, ie, the one in the book. She’s just this corpse that is barely even alive in the first place, constantly sick and in pain, and she’s also at war with herself. The part of her that wants to die and the part of her that’s lonely and wants to find some reason to live, or some connection in life are constantly at war with each other.

And as horrifying as Nanami is she also feels like the most human of Niosisin’s, super-genius characters. She’s riddled with weaknesses and flaws. She lashes out when he’s in pain, she felt bad when her parents told her to die. You get the sense that Nanami’s super genius isn’t what drove her insane at all, it was just how everybody around her treated her as some thing that was not human. Isolation made her this way. She was conditioned to act this way not born inhuman. There are characters that Nisioisin writes that are genuine sociopaths (as in the trope of an unfeeling person unable to feel human emotions), but Nanami is not one of them and so when she starts acting with sociopathic-traits in her personality it makes her all the more painfully human because we see how she’s been driven slowly to act this way.

7. *Yawns* Nezumi

Juuni Taisen is one of those death game stories where every character is defined by their one gimmick and written around their concept. In the original novel each character really only gets one chapter to be fleshed out as a character. I half suspect Nisioisin wrote it as a dare to himself on how much he could accomplish with one chapter.

The interesting part about Nezumi is his concept again. He can redo anything 100 times. You think this would make him amazing at anything in life because of his time loop ability, but physically having to live through all of those time loops exhausts him to the point that he’s too tired to do anything. You would think he could get anything he wanted out of life, but there are times he can ask a girl out one hundred times and get rejected one hundred different ways.

Nezumi is interesting because of how quietly he lives. There’s nothing he really wants out of life, and nothing he wishes for, like a rat he just scurries and survives.

9. I am currently being accused by everyone - Kakushidate Yakusuke

The same as Iichan and Kumagawa, Yakusuke is a guy who is just cursed by constant bad luck. What I like about Yakusuke is that he’s a full fleshed out character, instead of just an unlucky every dude protagonist.

He’s a contract worker who is constantly shifting between jobs. Due to this fact he’s got like 1,000 skills that he gained on his various jobs. He’s not smart, but because he’s experienced so much of life he’s incredibly resourceful. Which is why he makes a perfect counterpart and foil to Okitegami.

Yakusuke’s everyday life is him constantly being accused and blamed, and falling from one bad situation to the next. But, he has so much experiences that it’s what draws Okitegami to him who can only ever experience one day at a time because her memories will reset at the end of the day. He’s exactly my type of man, a total failure at all walks of life.

10. This is your last chance, let me make you happy! - Kugi Kizutaka

He’s so low on the list because his story “Magical Girl Ritsuka” only has one chapter published in english, but he’s so interesting he instantly became a fave. He’s actually a concept i have been looking for for a long time, which is basically what I describe as “Reverse Junko Enoshima.”

Basically someone as smart and manipulative as Junko Enoshima, who can make anybody into their toy, and predict things years in advance and control everything, but instead of using that power to send the world to despair, they use that power to give the world hope instead. Not out of any genuine good will or because they’re a good person, but because they’re obsessed with the idea of giving people happiness the same way Junko is with sending people to despair.

Kugi is a lot like that. He’s a genius ten year old who sees everybody for their potential to be used, and looks down on absolutely everyone around him. He’s made contact with a magical girl, because he’s pretty clearly planning on using her to enslave the world to him, so he can force everybody to be happy. And it’s absolutely adorable. He’s just such a genuine terrible little person while at the same time wanting to make everyone happy.

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eshithepetty · 5 years

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wholesome mp100 things:

(Because I really like to ramble about this show and I just thought I'd compile some things I appreciate about it):

Bottling up feelings? Nuh uh, bad idea, better have realistic and well paced development of you opening up more and learning to accept your emotions, kiddo.

Self!! Respect!! Not just learning it in a 'oh, I love myself, flaws and all' way, but the actual process of trying really hard to actually be proud of oneself, even when it's hard to see yourself as anything but terrible. It's all in the gradual changes and small moments of taking your own feelings into account!!

An actual adult? Actually acknowledging?? How actually fucked up all the shit the kids of the show have to go through is??? And going out of their way to lessen their weight of responsibility, and to protect them and offering them comfort, like,,, yes please!!!

'Huh...? You want? World domination?? What a ridiculous concept. What are you even going to do with that? People need other people, dummy. Honestly, you're acting more childish than the actual children here.'

Everyone!! Is!! Equal!! Yes, you may have god-like powers that could literally fling me into the stratosphere and I might be an actual sewer rat incarnate, but as people?? We all still long for the same validation. We all have the same rights. We're all human.

Not?? Sexualising any of the female/kid characters? Tbh, I don't really feel at my best giving points to a show for this, since it shouldn't be that surprising in the first place, but still, and I think this is easily overshadowed by all the thirst Bones has for Reigen, but that's the thing! They're putting all their (tbh not that creepy really and in character) fanservice into one grown man and that's!! Really great! Thank you Reigen for being our sacrifical lamb

On the subject of not sexualizing kids, Tsubomi, Mob's crush, while being portrayed as very pretty, is not sexualized at all either, and Mob's fantasies about her entirely consist of them just,, doing stuff like holding hands and walking home together?? Not even kissing or anything like that??? It's just so innocent and cute, gosh... also the fact that Tsubomi and the rest of the girls aren't stereotypes, but have their own lives that don't revolve around the boys and interesting personalities that are very distinct from each other, even if they don't get as much screentime as the boys :> (also, Tome being a protagonist in the Reigen spin-off manga!!)

Dealing with anxiety and dependency and manipulation/abuse, when you're an adult?? I honestly can't say I've seen too much of anything concerning this anywhere,,, Serizawa is so good

And all the adults for that matter!! All the villains! Their redemption arcs are all about intergrating into society again and learning to have a realistic worldview and all around getting well rounded as people. That's pretty inspiring, imo!

Also, Reigen, an adult, realising that he was being unfair to Mob, a kid, and specifically saying he was 'caging him in', instead of using excuses like 'trying to protect him" and trying his hardest to fix his life and mistakes before confronting him, and when he does, doesn't expect Mob to accept or forgive him or want to be friends with him again?? And tearing up for the first time on the show just from being a called good person by him,,,? That was honestly so tearjerking and pure and that arc made me feel the full range of human emotion.

Speaking of Reigen, the fact that all of his friends, for the longest time, are a bunch of middle schoolers, and that he has basically fathered them all is such a funny, yet heartwarming and also a bit sad and complicated thing, all at once, to think about.

The body improvement club!!!!! Super supportive and protective jocks, the absolute opposite of toxic masculinity. Thank you ONE for bringing us this gift.

The fact that every one of Mob's friends would likely kill, or at least give a very stern lecture to anyone who ever tries hurting him is amazing and sweet. The same goes for Mob, a big pacifist at heart, putting his strict morals on hold and fighting just for the safety of his friends, and sometimes even strangers or enemies. They're all just so protective and I absolutely love it,,,,

By the way!! Mob!!! I love that he's not a stereotypical cinnamon roll protagonist who is always pure. Like, he has his dark moments. He has hurt people. Sometimes, he's geniunely scary. But the fact that he's so aware of his faults and how much damage he could inflict, and thus tries so hard to better himself every day and to always stay on good morals, and always strives to understand and help people above all else, even through all the suffering he's gone through and all the power he posseses, is what truly makes him so kind and lovable. He's just.... grown so much. I'm immensely proud of him <3

Power of friendship, but done right, because they don't use bonds as some convenient power up, but rather primarily as a tool for character development, that, in turn, helps them become better and more stable and capable people ^^

The fact that the protagonist getting stronger in this show doesn't mean them gaining more power or becoming more book smart, but instead entails them learning to better understand people and to let others understand them as well so that confrontation can be as civilized and nonviolent as possible and become a better tool for helping everyone involved improve themselves is such a direct yet nuanced way of presenting how solutions can be made to real world problems and conflicts, and it's just such a different aproach to the usual shonen aesthetic of power being the defining factor on deciding who wins or loses.

In fact, a lot of the time there is no clear 'winner' of a fight. Sure, we certainly get to understand which side is stronger physically, but the impact those factors play into the characters' mental states and development is usually very removed from those results. A character technically winning can result in them plunging into a meltdown full of self loathing. A character losing often brings a very positive change in their life. Those experiences change the characters in different ways than just winning - positive or losing - negative.

The message that you don't need to be special! Everyone is fundimentally equal, so you being more or less special than anyone else is just flawed as a mindset. Reaching for the top is alright as long as you remember that the thing that matters the most is just trying to be kind.

Mob being widely recognized as autistic in the fandom!! A lot of characters having the capability to be seen as neurodivergent, actually. But even if it isn't intentional coding from the creator, all the messages about how people expressing themselves differently doesn't make them any less human or valid, how conventional isn't always the best, how being empathetic can manifest in wildly different ways and also the reoccurring theme of dealing with trauma etc. are still very much there and impact the narrative and characters a whole lot.

How the story was even able to become so popular, despite the nature of ONE's art!! Also, how the anime creators decided to stay faithful, even tho they had the opportunity to change the art style to something more conventional and not go as hard as they did, but nope, they admire and respect the source material and clearly have so much passion for this project, putting all kinds of talent and creativity and effort into every episode!!! They seem like they're having a lot of fun with it, and I'm very glad.

(Feel free to add more!!!)

#mob psycho 100 #mp100 #long post #wholesome #list #ramble #kageyama shigeo #reigen arataka #themes #appreciation #messages #my own post #mp100 ramble #it's 4 am but I can't sleep cause my hair is still wet from showering at night so I'm just gonna post this ramble I had in my notes finally #kinda delirious rn so I apologize #yet another mp100 rant i'm sorry

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mbti-notes · 5 years

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Hi! Hope you're doing well. I think I am INFJ but feel free to type me if I am wrong. Recently, I realised I am doing immoral things and I did not realise it causing serious damage to my happiness and life. I have asked before but I feel I had not been honest enough for you to be able to help.I am sixteen years old. My school life ended last week but I can't remember a single person who I was friends with. Before two years ago I was rejected socially and that took a huge toll on me, along with

[con’t: mental illness, and that made me depressed and I seeked refuge in writing. I invested a large amount of time writing poems and stories, and my grades suddenly dropped from excellent to poor, and I broke the trust of my mother that I am responsible without realising it. Next year I dreamt of an ideal work life and invested all of my time fantasizing about a career in science research; I repeatedly got bad grades and ruined an important test of my life. Now my parents have hired tutors for me and I am studying well. Recently, I have been getting very interested in mathematics. Though I enjoy it as a hobby and I don’t think doing it is inherently bad for me, I do feel my motivations behind the activity are somewhat awry. I am proud of liking it, probably thinking of it as validating me being ‘special’. Only recently is it dawning that nothing is useful unless it can be applied to the real world to do good, but I don’t think I’ve uncovered the full reason behind me doing it yet. The education system here is genuinely bad, but I still have to take part in it to be successful, and I do not realise that even though I pretended so for a long time and even disagreed with my math tutor over how I should study. When someone says I do not like math, or I am not good at it, I feel hurt. I don’t know how I came to rely on this thing so much for my self-esteem. I feel annoyed and irritated, and am constantly searching for ‘solutions’. Recently a very big relief to me has been when I stopped using Type Development as ‘life rules’ and rather tools for awareness. But I still feel I rely extremely on external standards to make me fulfilled. I pound other people with my problems and whine about my life, but am never genuinely interested in them; I get angry when I get criticized. This is making people around me fed up of me and I hate myself for doing this but don’t know why I still continue. I have trouble with introspection. I literally can’t think, whenever I think about my myself or my problems I just repeat obvious things or what I ‘should’ do according to external standards. I am not able to imagine a ‘better’ future. Because I have ended school without friends, I have no opportunities to socialise anymore. I am extremely clingy because of this but whenever I start to think why I’m clingy my mind goes blank. Do you have any advice?]

To recap: you experienced some kind of social trauma, withdrew into yourself, and your life has been stuck if not a downhill slide since then? Basically, you’ve failed at Fe development and now you find yourself stuck in Ti loop and Se grip patterns. You’ve encountered a negative experience that could stunt type development for the rest of your life. Instead of processing that experience and getting proper closure on it so that you learn and grow, you ran from it and used it as an excuse to live irresponsibly? Many people in this situation just continue on repeating the same pattern of negativity and withdrawal for life, so what are you going to do to change the pattern? What are you waiting for? What do you expect to happen?

When a repetitive pattern doesn’t work, DO something different. There are always opportunities to improve yourself and there are always opportunities to contribute something positive to the world around you, but you haven’t yet understood that there is more than one way to live a meaningful life (since you keep grasping at external standards to blindly follow). You cannot grasp any opportunities when you are egocentric and blind to everything except your own momentary pains and pleasures.

Ti loop and Se grip equals wasting a lot of time with: 1) Pettiness: egotistical attempts to avenge your emotions which leads to inauthentic, self-sabotaging, and morally harmful behavior, and 2) Stubbornness: fighting to reinvent the wheel because of believing that you “know better” or that you must “do it yourself”, thereby ignoring (even disrespecting) people who actually know better than you and failing to learn from your mistakes.

When some people can’t get validation for being praised as good, they go the opposite direction by rebelling and pretending to fight against fake enemies. Your mindset is still childish and consumed with attempts to get superficial validation, often through pretending to be stronger, better, or smarter than you really are. This is misuse of Ni and Fe (trying to live up to fake ideals for the sake of feeling superior), as well as Ti and Se (living life as a mere slave to negative emotions in terms of always trying to avoid the pain of criticism and running from the helplessness of being a nobody).

When you indulge ego, it gives you momentary pleasure and satisfaction. Momentary. For a second you can feel self-satisfied, for a second you can feel “strong”, for a second you can feel “smart”. Then it’s gone, and the reality of your insecurity, your weakness, and your ignorance creeps back in. The tangible results of not living life well cannot be denied no matter how you pretend. As with most unhealthy INFJs, you probably keep doing it because you don’t want to face up to the reality of what it takes to get your life in order. The more you ignore reality, the louder reality shouts back at you -> Se grip.You cannot “imagine a better future” because you are running from it.

To live a life of authenticity and integrity is HARD FUCKING WORK. Are you up for it? 1) For authenticity, you have to acknowledge the truth of your flaws and shortcomings in order to discover the right strategies to improve yourself, seeking help whenever necessary. 2) Out of self-respect, you have to set tangible long term goals to improve your well-being and realize your potential, always maintaining focus on the bigger picture and being disciplined in continually moving towards it. 3) Out of love and compassion, you have to look for opportunities to put yourself to good use, to humble yourself so that you can learn well and be of service to the world, which would naturally create good interpersonal relationships. 4) For integrity, you have to will decisions that abide by good moral values, especially when your egotistical desires would lead you astray. In other words, you have to stop whining and making excuses and get to work.

It’s easier to run away from responsibility by being stubborn or relying on empty external standards for validation, isn’t it? No, it isn’t. The more you run, the more pressure you feel, because you cannot deny the facts forever: that you haven’t grown, that you have no friends, that you haven’t been respectful and true to your best self, that time is passing and doors are closing as you sit idle. Whether you choose to run from or accept responsibility, you will have to endure pain and suffering - that’s life. However, when you run, the pain never ends and never bears any fruit except constant self-loathing; whereas when you accept the pain of being fully responsible for your life, you get to gradually become a better person and live a meaningful life. One choice is clearly better than the other, but you can’t understand that when you’re really more interested in being petty and stubborn.

#infj #auxiliary fe #ti loop #se grip #meaning of life #petty #stubborn #ask

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yaboylevi · 6 years

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I'm sorry I'm answering like this, but I don't want to get into the ship tag with my non-shippy opinions (please censor the name of the ship in the ask, next time). Also, this answer CONTAINS SPOILERS.

So, first of all, I think every group of shippers is guilty of thinking/hoping, with different degrees of intensity, that their ship will be canon in the future (or is/was canon, it depends). That's not something inherently bad, because it just means we really, really love our ships and we just see how their canon platonic relationship could evolve into something different, something romantic, because their personalities just click the right way in our opinion. Honestly, I think every ship has a chance of becoming canon, however their fates are ultimately in the hands of the original creators and only they can decide which relationship to change into a romantic one. EM shippers may feel more assured about it because, well, it's pretty common for the main protagonist to end up with the main heroine (although it's also common for her to end up with the protagonist's best friend).

Isayama's only implied couple was an f/f ship, though, and that's pretty uncommon. But anyway, honestly speaking, I don't see Shingeki ending with Eren (or even Mikasa) involved in a romantic relationship. Even yumi/hisu's arc wasn't about their love story, it was about the effect they had on each other, which led to mysteries being unveiled (so: it was plot-relevant). EM, imo, is not framed in a way that implies they will become a canon couple in the future; if anything, it's the opposite.

In regards to Eren, I think he is not interested in relationships, he has other things to focus on. Or maybe he is just super oblivious. He never seemed even aware of other people's romantic feelings, while Mikasa (and to a certain degree everyone else) was keenly aware of them (Ymir's, Hitch's). But I also think Eren might be more interested in men than women. However, this is a matter of perspective and preferences (+ I'm thinking about a hilarious smartpass interview where he was asked about the female cadets in a suggestive way and he just went "???? what about them??").

As far as Mikasa's feelings go, in my opinion, they are something different from purely romantic ones. I think she is just so grateful to Eren, she'd do anything for him. As a teen, I think it's almost obvious she might feel like she's fallen in love with the guy who saved her. Heck, she would have been sold as a prostitute to a brothel or, worse, to a noble as a sex slave. Eren gave her a reason to fight, and saved her life. When she thought Eren was dead, Mikasa decided to keep on living in order to remember him. That's how strong her feelings are. But I don't think they are exclusively romantic. They're so much more, more complex, deeper, stronger. For example, if he ended up with someone else, she wouldn't hold a grudge, she would be happy as long as Eren is happy. I think now that she's older, she understands this, but when she was 15, she was jealous, or at times even completely blind to Eren's feelings (which weren't romantic).

This behavior was mainly used as comic relief, but it was there. Hence the "yandere girlfriend meme" Mikasa has become to some people.

The scene in chapter 50 is beautiful. In a moment of utter desperation, Eren hears Mikasa's words and realizes that he isn't a complete failure, he saved a little girl once. He can do it again, he just needs to...not stop fighting. And so he gets on his feet and fights. Was Mikasa about to kiss him? Probably. Eren didn't realize it or simply thought there was no need for Mikasa to confess her feelings as a result of her giving up, because he could still fight, he could still save her. And so he did. "I'll wrap you up in that scarf again and again. Forever," he says. In my opinion, it's not a declaration of love, but a declaration of his devotion to fight and protect and save Mikasa and his friends. Forever. No matter what. This is who Eren is, the pillar of his character. And in that moment, after having momentarily lost his motivation, he strengthened his resolve, his purpose in life again.

How did this moment change their relationship? I don't think it changed it severely. I think it was more gradual and this was just the pinnacle of Mikasa's romantic feelings and after this, she acknowledged that that's not what it was all about. She cares for Eren a great deal. She wants to see him happy, accomplished and safe. Who wouldn't? But she also realized, she cares deeply for many other people. Her crying desperately for Sasha (a friend not from her childhood) is the peak of this. She's way past the "Choose. Eren or Ymir?" phase. Her heart, once closed off because of trauma, has opened up again, and I can see how she can return to be that happy girl she once was, independently from Eren. I think this has been implied for a while now, since she's been put in the background during the Return to Shiganshina Arc, always a step behind Eren and Armin.

But this has always been the case, apparently. She didn't even know about Eren and Armin's promise/dream of the ocean.

While I understand this was a necessary set-up, seeing how things escalated/paralleled with Levi-Eren-Erwin-Armin, I also believe it was a sort of nudge into the right direction for her, like "Mikasa. You are your own person and you're not bound to what Eren does or say. Be free."

(Although, this could change because I'm not sure what happened in Marley. It's possible her hand, in particular, was forced by Eren...and it seems her love for Eren has made her more miserable than anything else...but anyway, these are conclusions I'll draw once we know for sure what happened then.)

Mikasa has gone from not trusting Eren and constantly reminding him that he was "not enough" and that he needed her (a behavior that superficially irritated him but in fact affected him a lot, imo, maybe because there was a bit of truth there)...

...to respecting his personal space and opinions, and trusting in his abilities. And she tells him exactly that, which is super important. This panel below makes me tear up a bit, if I'm honest.

Mikasa went from being so self-centered about her role in Eren's life to the point that she unintentionally ridiculed him in front of everyone...

...to accepting that Eren's life is independent from hers, and leave him to his own ridiculous shenanigans with Jean.

That's also why I don't like when people disregard Mikasa's initial flaws. Because it cheapens her development and makes it look like she never had one. She's far from a static character. Her character development is just more subtle and stretched throughout the whole manga, it's not condensed in just a bunch of chapters (like Historia's, for example). I understand people want her to be perfect from the start because they love her, but...then they say she never gets development. Not acknowledging flaws is just counterproductive.

I really didn't like their relationship at the beginning of the story, it was frustrating because they were both so stubborn...but as both Mikasa and Eren changed, I've grown really fond of it. I don't see it in a romantic light but I still appreciate it. Of course, there's nothing wrong in seeing it as romantic or wishing in a future romantic development, as long as Mikasa is acknowledged as her own person and not Eren's accessory.

I'm admittedly not very knowledgeable about the EM fandom, and I often see comments such as "Mikasa needs to have Eren's babies" or (serious) jokes like "if you take Eren away from Mikasa, she's nothing", which I strongly disagree with, but I'm sure a lot of shippers don't see it like that. Unfortunately, haters and shippers with bad opinions are also the loudest but they certainly don't represent the true nature of the ship. Chapter 50 felt like the turning point to a better balance between EM, and a main point in Mikasa's development.

#snk #shingeki asks #mine #long post #snk meta #snk 50 #vivimetas

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aryas · 7 years

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Targ Restoration Rant (aka I made the mistake of venturing into the pro -Targaryen tag & discourse)

"You know nothing, Jon Snow. A true man steals a woman from afar, t'strengthen the clan. Women who bed brothers or fathers or clan kin offend the gods, and are cursed with weak and sickly children. Even monsters." --- Ygritte, ASOS

Clearly, GRRM has never painted Cersei x Jaime or Craster x his daughters in a very favourable light. But suddenly, incest between the 2 good and heroic guys (though the jury is still out on Daenerys) of the story is a-ok? Is it because they are a couple of magic übermenschen and are thus above morality and law of nature? Am I supposed to think GRRM now advocates for incest? But only under certain conditions, only when it involves the special and God-like Targaryens? Why do fans suddenly rejoice about this and wish for a Targ restoration? What kind of fresh hell has this fandom turned into?

[Cut for length]

Their main argument seems to be

Jon and Dany are nephew/aunt which is not considered incest in Westeros so it's all good! No one would bat an eye because even outside the Targs, there are cases of avunculate marriages.

And then they bring up the two known cases; Jonnel x Sansa Stark and Edric x Serena Stark. The former was (probably) a purely political union without issue. The latter did yield heirs but Serena was the daughter of Edric's half brother, so they weren't as closely related (same goes for Sansa, who was Serena's sister and Jonnel's half brother's daughter). Both probably happened for political/practical reasons and to solve major succession issues as Rickon Stark & Jeyne Manderly had two daughters but no male heir.

This comparison is not a very pertinent one because a marriage between Jon & Daenerys would be neither purely political nor practical as they are already involved and supposedly in love. Additionally, what kind of political gain would there be for either of them if we assume Jon's true parentage will be revealed publicly, combined with his ostensible betrayal of bending the knee and falling for a "foreign whore woman" (from the Northern lords' viewpoint), resulting in the loss of his already tenuous hold over the North or the election of another KitN or QitN? Over the last few seasons, the show dropped numerous anvil sized hints about how unwelcome foreign leaders are in the North, especially Targaryens. The Northern lords were already ready to unname Jon because they deemed he'd been away too long. It makes little sense that a Jon x Daenerys marriage would placate them post R+L=J unless they inexplicably decide to suddenly support what would essentially be the restoration of a dynasty they despise. It would also mean R+L=J and Jon's actions in season 7 (i.e bending the knee to a Targaryen, consorting with said Targaryen while being a secret Targaryen himself) would have little to no long-lasting effect and any conflict it caused would be resolved by a marriage that would have happened anyway if Jon had remained Ned's natural son.

Jon wouldn't need Daenerys if he decides to pursue the Iron Throne since his claim trumps hers. What's more, the people of Westeros are more likely to accept him as king of the 7 kingdoms over Daenerys given his Stark blood and the fact that he was raised and groomed for leadership in Westeros. He could potentially have the loyalty and allegiance of the Starks and their bannermen, the Wildlings, the Reach (through Sam), the Iron Islands (through Theon), the Vale (through Sansa and Sweetrobin) and possibly the Riverlands (through his Stark cousins' Tully heritage), in contrast to Dany whose sole remaining Westerosi ally is Jon. If they were to support a Targaryen candidate for the Iron Throne, I think they would favour Jon alone (or you know, married to someone who isn't a Targaryen conqueror).

And while Daenerys could absorb Jon's claim (and potential allies- though again, why would they support Jon x Daenerys over Jon on his own?) and make hers stronger by marrying him, she doesn't need him to lay claim to the 7 kingdoms either, what with her dragons and huge armies. Moreover, an "alliance" - if you can call giving up your kingdom as such - already exists with Jon seemingly having pledged himself to her and Daenerys naming him Warden of the North. She would have been better off marrying someone else to extend or strengthen her control over other regions and territories if there weren't so few candidates left on the show. The most logical way to strike an alliance would have been to marry Jon while he was KitN, pre parentage reveal, but for some obscure reason, the show completely bypassed this option.

But R+L=J turns everything upside down and Jon, once revealed as a trueborn Targaryen, would need to marry into a Northern house if he wants to keep/take back his kingship of the North. Marrying Daenerys would only strengthen his ties to the South and house Targaryen, which would be counterproductive and work against the desired outcome- uniting North & South or two major Houses.

In short, neither party would truly benefit politically from a marriage if Jon's parentage is made public and/or he ultimately loses the North, which is very likely. This is particularly true for Jon. Only Daenerys could somewhat profit from a political union but it would be at the risk of becoming Jon's queen consort in practice if not on paper (something I doubt she would accept) and, more importantly, it would be opening a whole can of worms given the stigma of Targaryen x Targaryen unions.

Because no matter of how (un)common and (un)acceptable avunculate marriages are in the universe of Westeros, Targ restoration fans usually ignore the fact that it wouldn't be just any nephew/aunt, it would be a full Targaryen union, which would have wholly different connotations for the people of Westeros given the fairly recent trauma of their reign. A reign that ended with a mad king whose madness is believed to be hereditary and blamed on generations of close interbreeding. I doubt the people of Westeros would readily accept a Targ power couple back at the helm if they have any say in it.

Plus, Daenerys' first impression didn't exactly help matters: a Targaryen conqueror with huge armies and grown dragons in tow who roasted a father and a son of a prominent House alive and destroyed the last harvest of the Reach in the beginning of winter and unwittingly handed over the greatest weapon of all times to their greatest enemy of all times and indirectly caused the Wall to fall and wants to marry her only other living Targaryen relative, of all people? The sense of déjà vu would be pretty disconcerting, to say the least.

These Pro-Targ fans also tend to dismiss the fact Jon & Daenerys are genetically closer to full siblings than aunts/nephews by claiming modern notions such as DNA conveniently have no bearing in a medieval-fantasy setting such as ASOIAF. In other words, people in-universe wouldn't realise or be bothered that Jon & Daenerys are more closely related (44-47%) than typical nephew/aunt (25%). I think they must have an inkling of the notion and dangers of consanguinity, however basic it may be, if cousin marriages are considered quite normal for the highborn while anything involving more closely related people is frowned upon or downright forbidden. As mentioned previously, even the two known cases of avunculate unions were between uncles and their half nieces, their degree of consanguinity being thus less than that of full uncle/niece and comparable to first cousins (12,5%). So people could at least vaguely understand that Jon & Daenerys share a higher degree of consanguinity than their relatedness would suggest.

All this begs the question; if GRRM wants the restoration of this dynasty and wants us to perceive this as a positive development, wouldn't he aim to improve it and stop the perpetuation of the very proclivity that precipitated their downfall and was at the root of so much suffering in Westeros? Would he "reward" an incestuous and destructive house by having it win out while others are extinct/on the brink of extinction?

If there is supposed to be a Targaryen reinstatement, there has to be a clean break from this dynasty's nefarious characteristics and habits i.e. imperialism, tyranny and incest. What would otherwise be the narrative point of Robert's (very justifiable) Rebellion and everything that unfolded in its aftermath? There should be some kind of progress. Jon & Daenerys, if they decide to take back the IT and get married after the R+L=J reveal, would mean regression. It would be synonymous with more incest, more super inbred and possibly cray-cray Targ heirs and more political (and genetic) isolationism. And with 2 grown dragons/WoMD (if they survive), their reign would equal more subjugation, intimidation and fear for the people of Westeros, even if Jon & Daenerys' initial intentions would be to create a new and better world. In other words, a repeat of everything that was toxic and problematic about the Targaryen dynasty. This scenario seems particularly unlikely when you take the author's personal anti-war/WoMD stance into account.

And lastly, this is what GRRM said about Targcest:

"The Targaryens have heavily interbred, like the Ptolemys of Egypt. As any horse or dog breeder can tell you, interbreeding accentuates both flaws and virtues, and pushes a lineage toward the extremes."

ASOIAF is a meditation on war, power and corruption but it's also a story about extremes --- wights/WW/Ice vs Fire/Daenerys/dragons, the inevitable clash and destruction they bring about and the importance of seeking balance, moderation and finding a middle ground in all things: justice instead of vengeance, sovereignty instead of oppression etc. Even Jon himself is the embodiment of the metaphorical balance between ice and fire. As such, the Targaryens/Targcest can be viewed as another extreme to be avoided. It's the antithesis of "balanced". What he says about accentuating both flaws and virtues is evocative of this famous passage:

"King Jaehaerys once told me that madness and greatness are two sides of the same coin. Every time a new Targaryen is born, he said, the gods toss the coin in the air and the world holds its breath to see how it will land."

Some Targaryen fans like to think what the coin metaphor refers to is nothing but a myth but I would think the fact the author alludes to it in the above quote kind of refutes this theory. I also happen to think Jon & Daenerys each represent one facet of the coin. This analogy also effectively illustrates how unstable and inconsistent Targaryen rule truly was and could be again. Even if Jon & Daenerys end up being fair and progressive monarchs, what of their inbred children? On which side will the coin land for them? If there is anything Westeros needs after years of war waging, power struggles, political instability and the probably disastrous aftermath of the battle against the Others, it's consistency and stability.

Furthermore, the fact GRRM compares them to the Ptolemaic dynasty is not exactly a ringing endorsement. The Ptolemys were originally from Macedonia/Greece and ruled for close to 300 years over Egypt. Because they never deigned to mix their blood with outsiders and only wed brother/sister and occasionally uncle/niece and cousins, they never actually became Egyptian. Even Cleopatra was genetically Greek. They didn't assimilate with the local people, culture or language (Cleopatra being the only one who bothered to learn the language) and justified their incest by drawing comparison to Greek mythology and thus perceived themselves as Gods. The intermarriages also exacerbated feelings of jealousy and rivalry. Complot and murder within the family were a common occurrence. Aside from a couple of exceptions, they were quite inept rulers and the last +/- 200 years of their reign kind of sucked.

Sounds familiar? In broad strokes, this is pretty much a copy/paste of the history of the Targaryens. Does this sound like something we're supposed to root for? Their reign ended when Egypt submitted to Roman rule. And no, there was no Ptolemaic restoration.

#anti targaryen #anti targaryen restoration #aegony #anti jonerys #incest in asoiaf #anti targcest #fandom wank #jon snow #daenerys targaryen #an aegony political marriage #pre parentage reveal? sure. post parentage reveal? nope #got politics #got meta #parallels with irl history #*mine

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crosbysierra95 · 4 years

Text

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linkspooky · 5 years

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Thanks for the tags @jeanandthedreamofhorses

Rules:

Name your top 10 favorite characters from 10 different fandoms and then tag 10 people.

I’m gonna tag @kenkamishiro @inumaqi @bloodycarnations @kaibutsushidousha @desmondneedshisscalpel @harostar @cirrocumulus-cloud @coromoor @sir-argues-a-lot (list your top 10 buff dudes conspic)

Hello my name is link and my faves for each series can be divided into two strict categories, white haired bastards, and black haired bastards. Blonde is just white haired bastard LITE. Herre are ten of my favorite bastards.

1. Kumagawa Misogi - Medaka Box

My favorite character of all time, Kumagawa Misogi is a fantastic character because he embodies every bad victim stereotype. He’s aggressive, he lashes out, he blames other people for his problems, he has a bad attitude, he’s pessimistic, he’s ugly, he’s mean. He has every single character trait that people traditionally consider bad, and yet underneath it all he’s still a good guy. By playing the bad victim (which is intentional act on his part because Kumagawa is very self aware especially of his own flaws and weaknesses), he makes the point that all victims even the ugliest ones are still human underneath.

Like the reason Kumagawa is a bad person isn’t because he’s selfish, or because he doesn’t care about other people’s pain. He cares. He cares way too much, to the point where his emotions are so deeply ingrained in him and so illogical that he almost always acts on those feelings above everything else. At his heart he’s a person who wants to save others, especially those who are weaker and those who have been abused, but it always manifests in the most negative ways and his good intentions always go wrong.

Yet through all of that we see Kumagawa continues living, and that’s the most important part of his character, even as the worst person ever, even completely useless, even as a disaster for everyone around you, you have to keep living and keep struggling to be better. Kumagawa finds identity in being a loser, and he comes to accept himself the way he is because that’s the only way for him to move forward. Not only that but Kumagawa is clever and genuinely subversive, not only is he capable of outwitting people because he’s so good at bluffs, lies, and he’s just so used to surviving every situation that his brain is stuck in permanent survival mode, but he also subverts the whole ‘weak character has to become stronger to protect the people around them’ trope. Because, Kumagawa is still weak but that never stops him from helping others. He never thinks becoming strong is the solution, and his character development is him leaving the mindset that it would be better if he was the one hurting others rather than being hurt by them.

2. Enoshima Junko - Dangan Ronpa my favorite Junko is not actually her appearance at the end of DR1, or in DR3, or in DR2 as alter ego though all three of those are fanastic and fun to watch. My favorite reading of Junko is how she’s represented in Dangan Ronpa Zero, as this like, girl who has this incredibly overactive brain who literally makes a plan where she lobotomizes herself because the only way to stop herself from getting bored is to erase her own memory so she constantly forgets everything, and even THAT DOESN’T WORK.

I’m not saying Junko is a tragic character in any way, but the fact that she can never escape her own head no matter how desperately she tries is what makes her interesting. Even her obsession with despair fails her in the end, because she was getting too bored of a world that was exactly what she wanted, pure chaos. If you read her that way there’s a lot of interesting subtext with her character and her actions.

The best part about Junko is she’s not what is considered a fictional psychopath in a traditional sense, she actually has the ability to make connections with people and genuinely care about them. However, with Junko that just means you’re going to be worse off then if she did not care about you at all. Junko’s motivations are so simple, she really is just trying to enjoy the life everybody else does, but she can’t because her brain is a supercomputer. And she’s trying to feel something about the world, or create some meaning about the world, some reason to continue living in it and she’s willing to break the world and all her toys to accomplish that.

3. Dazai Osamu - Bungou Stray Dogs No Longer Human, and The Rising Sun two of Dazai’s works are in my top ten favorite books of all time. Bungou Stray Dogs understands the writings of Dazai when they personify him in this character.

What makes Dazai so fantastic a character is that he’s genuinely mentally ill and traumatized, especially from the way he acts he’s been suicidal since he was a teen and a person is not born that way. Yet, at the same time he’s also a bad person. Which is a fantastic bit of nuance. He’s not bad because he’s mentally ill, he’s bad because he runs away from responsibility, he abused Akutagawa as a way of venting his feelings for the port mafia then completely abandoned him, he doesn’t trust people and goes out of his way to manipulate and control his own allies.

Dazai struggles the most with seeing people as people, and part of this is for what I call Junko Reasons when a character is smarter than everybody around them and therefore, can read them to a certain extent that they become predictable and boring and cannot relate to them in any way. Part of this however is also Dazai’s own fear of loss, which makes him want to control everything.

Rather than an adult, he’s more like a child that’s far too smart for his own good. He is smart enough to predict and control situations far in advance, and yet he’s so emotionally vulnerable that just the idea of experiencing loss itself makes him scared to ever be emotionally invested in anybody. And Dazai will spout philosophy all day to make it seem like he’s simply too smart to have friends, but his one sincere friend was just an average person that became his friend because he treated Dazai like a normal human which is what Dazai wants ultimately. The human failure wants to be human and his story is his slow journey to that state.

4. Shigaraki Tomura - My Hero Academia Horrible. Terrible. Baby. Infant. Shigaraki Tomura is a character I have loved since his introduction. Just like Kumagawa he’s a character always violently lashing out at the society around him. Also like Kumagawa, he’s always taking in victims of trauma around him who aren’t ‘acceptable’ or ‘good’ victims and giving them an outlet and genuine friends.

Shigaraki Tomura has scars that reach deep under his skin all the way to his bones. One of the most interesting things about his character is how much of a subversion he is from the way he’s originally presented. All Might reacts to Shigaraki like he’s a psychopathic manchild who does not care about a thing and destroys things for no reason. That is also what All for One raised him to be, someone who exists to be a symbol of destruction and fear and nothing else.

Yet, we eventually learn why he is this way and how little sympathy the hero system has for a victim like Shigaraki. He’s a man-child because he was literally raised in All for One’s basement, only for the purpose of becoming a villain and nothing else. He’s deeply angry at heroes because he knows deep down none of them would save him, he’s a bad victim, and only the good looking victims get saved.

Despite having every reason to turn into a heartless symbol of destruction, Shigaraki is very, obviously, not. He’s trying desperately to be All for One, but he can’t be that person, because Shigaraki cares about people too much. He wants validation, he wants freedom, and he wants the same for the people under his protection and that keeps him human and stops him from turning into the monster he was raised to be.

5. Norman - The Promised Neverland so the exact opposite of a villain who cannot help but be good, we have Norman an undeniably good person who chose to become a villain instead because otherwise he was powerless and that was the only means of accomplishing his high ideals.

Norman is the smartest of the gracefield children, and admired by both Ray and Emma and yet in spite of all of this, his self esteem is incredibly low. He has always put Emma on a pedestal and declared her a good person, and himself the bad person. Due to that he has almost no dreams of his own, and desires almost nothing for himself, putting absolutely everything into making the ideal world that Emma envisioned come true.

Norman regularly denies that he is a human being, a common trend on this list, because to be human is to be fallable and make mistakes. He puts far too much pressure on his shoulders, and that turns sensitive, kindly Norman, into a card carrying manipulator that plays high risks games with people’s lives in order to get the best result. He is at the same time, an angel someone wanting to martyr himself for heavenly ideals, and a devil someone who wants to commit evil so Emma’s hands can stay clean and Norman is so complex because he’s simultaneously both at once.

6. Orihara Izaya - Durarara!! Sometimes you just grow up and become an Izaya stan, and you reflect back and regret every single choice you made in life. Orihara Izaya is interesting not because he’s a card carrying mastermind, but because he pretends to be.

Izaya’s image as someone who can manipulate all of Ikebukuro is something that far outstrips who he is as a person, which is just a very sensitive and lonely child. Izaya is basically too sensitive to love anybody as an individual, or even be an individual himself, so he denies the personhood of all of humanity and instead decides to love humanity. Because accepting everything about humanity and being happy no matter what the result is easier for him than having to deal with individual hardships. He basically wants to become an observer to everybody, and wants to no longer have a body, or be a person, or have to have feelings that aren’t a bemused smirk.

Izaya is however, extremely transparent in his actions to the point where several characters can see through him. It’s interesting to have a mastermind-type character whose actually not that much of a mastermind, but still because everybody sees them as one things generally go their way. Izaya is great at lying, bluffing, and playing speed chess but he never really has the city in his palms as much as he claims.

Another interesting quality about him is how complex he thinks and all these little rules he sets up for himself. Basically his only friend is Shinra because, Shinra is guaranteed never to love Izaya because he already has Celty, and yet at the same time Izaya also gets mad that 1) Shinra will always choose Celty over him and 2) Shinra is too detached to love anyone as a person. Even though, he also envies that detachment because Izaya is too sensitive basically to live. In short Izaya is petty. Petty, petty, petty, petty, petty, and he has to follow his own petty little rules to the letter.

7. Takizawa Seidou - Tokyo Ghoul: Re he starts as a lovable, but repressed bastard who has all this resentment for his life, and the people around them, and constantly blames them and takes it out on them. Overall though, he’s someone you can see turning into a better person if he just grew up a little.

Then instead of getting better, he gets way worse and hits absolute rock bottom. All of the ugly emotions that Seidou was repressing come to the surface and he turns into a monster who makes other people suffer to take out his long held resentments about the world. Not only that but all of the flaws he shows as a ghoul were there to begin with, he always had an inferiority complex, he always resented others, he always lashed out, it was just they were brought to the surface instead of being repressed.

Seidou however after hitting rock bottom gains awareness, and also the realization that even after he’s crossed the point of no return a long time ago, he can still continue to live and do improve himself. Not only that but it’s his resposnbility to improve himself for the sake of the others around him.

One of my favorite parts about his character is he used to be an example of how great Ishida was at not playing Good Victim Bad Victim because Seidou is introduced to us as this monster who went insane because he was ‘weaker’ than Amon who stayed righteous despite being ghoulified. Until we learn that actually, Seidou went insane because he took a chainsaw to the face, and Amon was just saved by other people and never endured the same, and therefore never even attempted to come to terms with himself as a ghoul either.

One of my reasons for liking bastards is because they are all objectively terrible, but most of them also have such a deep sense of self understanding so that the ones who have positive arcs, actually feel like they’re very honest about who they are as a person and grow from there. They just genuinely accept who they are and live as who they are not in denial about anything. Rather than following a narrative blindly laid out for them they break free and create their own.

8. Kiryu Yoshiya - The World Ends With You If there is a death game for some reason I always end up liking the mastermind the most. Kiryu Joshua is this child, who is just, too smart, too creative, too much for the world. When he’s pretending to be human that just turns him into a pretentious tool. When he’s the demigod of Shibuya, that means he might destroy the entire city because the people aren’t growing in the way he wants them too.

Joshua is very unique because he’s basically the closest to what I call a “Junko Enoshima for Hope” he places people in terrible death game like circumstances, and shows little empathy at all for the ones who lose, but at the same time his intention is to give a second chance for people who have died, and also to steer people in the right direction.

In a meta sense Joshua will basically force you to have character development. The fact that he sees himself as the author in other people’s stories means he has to control everything. It’s a unique character trait to have a god complex when you are a literal god.

Despite his good intentions, he’s also very flawed especially in the way he treats people around him, even the ones he likes like Neku and Sanae. He enjoys pushing their buttons, and pushing them to their limits far too much, and makes attempts to control them like any other piece on the board. Joshua is also, suicidally depressed and a lot of his musings about the world in general are some of the most tragic but insightful thoughts I’ve ever read. The fact that Joshua changes his mind at the end, is basically just as impactful as watching someone give life another chance when they wanted to die, because for Joshua, Shibuya is his life.

9. Jack Vessalius - Pandora Hearts it’s another mastermind yay. The fun thing about Jack is unlike most of these characters who are like, halfway broken, Jack is just this extremely broken person whose far beyond the point of no return. Not only that but he’s not interested in living as a person anymore anyway, even if he were given the chance to come back.

Jack has worn masks his entire life, to the point where it’s made him an incredibly selfish person who is never genuine in any situation. A child who has told lies all of his life. At the same time Jack is not the one who got himself started on this path, he’s a victim to the cruel and uncaring ways of the nobility, as a bastard being raised with his mother destroying any sense of identity he had by only seeing his father in him. Jack is in a way for them, a reckoning.

Except Jack does not care about any of that, because his entire goal is to go to extremes, and make the most convoluted plan in history, because he wants to find a reason for himself to keep living. When the person he was using as a reason to live dies, he decides to destroy the world for basically no reason at all, because the act of trying to destroy the world gives him something to do and a reason to keep on living.

Jack needs to find identity in something, otherwise he’s entirely empty on the inside and he’s exactly the tool the nobility raised him to be. Which is why he ends up doing all of these things for basically no reason, because that is his reason. He wants to feel things like a person. He wants to desire things like a person. He wants to know who he is, and what he wants. And yet, he’s also so terribly afraid of being a person that he does not let anybody get close to being able to understand him.

In the end one person accepting Jack as a person in spite of all of his lies, and saying they were happy to meet him is enough for Jack to give up all of his plans and instead offer his body up to others.

10. Accelerator - A Certain Magical Index Accelerator is such a fave for me that I will literally go out of my way to read a series that I’m not even a fan of because Accelerator is in it.

What I like about accelerator is he is pretty much past the point of no return, and he knows he’s never going to be forgiven for what he’s done and yet that doesn’t stop him. He’s not doing this for atonement. He killed 10,000 sisters and he’s going to save the other 10,000 that are remaining. And he knows he should have done that from the start, but it’s too late to take back a single thing he did.

Accelerator is just this fantastically messy character. He plays the villain, but secretly nobody desires more for heroes and justice to exist in this world than Accelerator himself. We see him finally motivated to help others, because even if he’s a bastard, and will always be a bad person marked for what he’s done, that’s no excuse not to do something when somebody innocent needs help in front of you.

He’s also, genuinely traumatized, and also genuinely disabled. He goes from this untouachable character to like, someone who is very desperate, with a very fragile sense of ego whose constantly reliving his trauma and having flashbacks in the middle of fights. Accelerator is so genuinely plagued with guilt for what he’s done it almost destroys him several times. And he’s never going to stop feeling that way. He’s never going to stop being broken. And still he fights.

11. Jacopo Bearzatti - House in Fata Morgana I know this is cheating but sssh, I wanted to talk about Jacopo. He’s the best bastard on this list because he’s not even a bastard.

Jacopo is someone who breaks himself into fragments because he’s not good enough. He’s always born in an incredibly low position in life, and is always trying to make something worthwhile of himself. He views himself as a person lower than dirt, whose only good quality is how hard he can work. One of them is going to break, either the world, or Jacopo himself.

Jacopo’s heart is either made of stone or glass and it’s impossible to tell from an outsider’s perspective, because he’s able to commit himself to doing incredibly heartless things, but at the same time Jacopo is far too kind and emotional and it’s something that destroys him over and over again. Jacopo is someone who always takes far too much responsibility, which means he will forgive other people who have betrayed him, see the humanity in his friends when they turn knives against him, but because of that he ends up being hurt over and over again. Jacopo kills his own heart not because he’s unkind, but because he’s too kind and empathic, and it’s something that will literally get him killed unchecked.

However, the amount of responsibility that Jacopo takes is ultimately what turns his character from a tragic downfall to a redeeming one, because reincarnation Jacopo is willing to take responsibility for two lifetimes worth of mistakes that were not even his. Ultimately Jacopo does genuinely want to do right by the people around him, which means if they do not want him he would force himself to let go because it’s not just about his atonement but the victim’s feelings as well, but if they wanted him he would spend the rest of his life working for the sake of both of them. Jacopo’s realization at the end of this story, because I want to see it too. Is one of the most touching things I’ve read in all of literature.

Honorable Mentions: Reiner - Attack on Titan, Akechi Goro - Persona Five, Subaru Natsuki - Re: Zero, Emiya Shirou - Fate Stay Night, Kaworu Nagisa - Neon Genesis Evangelion, Ryoji Mochizuki - Persona 3, ii-chan -Zaregoto, Squall Leonhar - (FF8)

#spooky speaks #kumagawa misogi #enoshima junko #osamu dazai #takizawa seidou #shigaraki tomura #orihara izaya #norman tpn #accelerator #jack vessalius #joshua kiryu #top ten list

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funkymbtifiction · 7 years

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Advice on how an ISFJ can get over past trauma/bad experiences? Like, the bad things in my past has set up this expectation that things will repeat and I'm always waiting for things to fall apart again. Or that something is fundamentally wrong with me, and the only way for people to love me is to always give and never take. In therapy, but an MBTI perspective would be interesting.

It seems like you’re really trying to address two things in this ask – one, how to overcome the past, and two, whether you have value as a human being. I’m not a psychologist (yet) but here’s my thoughts from reading / MBTI knowledge.

First, there’s nothing wrong with you. Life is hard on some people, and if you happen to fall in the line of fire, it doesn’t mean you have no value. If it’s not your fault, you still have value. And if it IS your fault, guess what: you still have value. As a human being, you deserve to be treated with compassion and respect and you have every right to demand that from the people around you.

You train people how to interact with you. If you put yourself down all the time, they may think it’s okay to put you down too. If you expect them to put you down, they’ll keep doing it. If you invite personal criticism, they’ll give it to you. If you constantly defer to them to keep the peace, they know they can bully you a little bit and make you cave. If you lay down boundaries and others test them, and you back down, they know all they have to do is push you a little bit to get what they want. People learn from repeated exposure to you.

And you learn from repeated exposure to them.

Unless people have a reason to change, don’t expect them to. If the people in you life have a history of treating you like shit, odds are they’re going to keep treating you like shit unless you a) abandon them for good or b) lay down some ground rules and enforce them through actual action – like not taking their call if they cross that line, or getting up and leaving the table. Obviously, you can only really do this with people on your level – your friends. (If your parent is abusive, this is not the best tactic, because it may get you walloped.)

Because you are a Fe, a lot of your self-worth is going to come from other people and how they see and interact with you – so if you can, surround yourself with people who love you, who affirm you, who can talk you up instead of down, who accept you, flaws and all, because you’re awesome. Stay away from toxic people. You do not need that, and their opinions are worthless. They are a black sucking hole in humanity and they’re not gonna drag you down with their trash talk.

Second, you are in control of your own life. You are not helpless in the face of your feelings, your past, your trauma, or what happened to you, unless you give them that power over you by allowing them to control you from the past. Each time you expect life to be horrible, you are giving a past incident control over your future. Picture yourself chained to a post, with a monster lurking over your shoulder. It cannot get to you, because it’s dead. Someone killed it. But because it hurt you once, you are tied to its ghost. You can feed the ghost, and stare in terror at the ghost, or you can realize the links are… broken. You could be free if you would just turn your back on the ghost and walk away.

Each time you see your mind deviating into negativity, realize you are feeding the ghost. Stop whatever you are doing, say NO out loud, and then CHOOSE to turn your thoughts in another direction. Say, “this happened last time, but I did not make the same decision this time, this is with different people, this will not end like last time.” And use your Ne to create an alternative positive scenario. For example, if you think, “I am worthless because of what happened to me, and I will never succeed at anything I ever do,” shake your head and say, “No, I will NOT allow the past to shape my future. I am stronger than that. I have worth. I have intelligence. I can do this. I refuse defeat.” Self-talk.

Because you are a Si-dom, the past DOES shape you in strong ways; but it does not have to ensure your future is horrible, because you can learn to look outside your own experience through Ne. Find people with higher Ne, who can help you see the positive in situations, who can help you discover your own potential, who can see how you can escape negative mental cycles. Read books by people who have been through similar trials and come out of it strong, to see you are not alone, life can change, you can work past days gone by, and one day look back with pride and shout, “Look how far I’ve come!!”

You have Si, which believes in archetypes. Which one do you want to be? The Knight? The Warrior? The Princess? How did they triumph over adversity? What did they tell themselves? If it helps you to fantasize, to think, “Oh, damn, that evil dragon just tried to lock me in this castle tower again…” and then to imagine yourself in your own mind as someone stronger than yourself, as a warrior version of yourself, do it.

If you keep doing the same things and expecting different results, you’ll never get them. You can expect negative things if you are doing things that got negative responses in the past. Or you can choose to change something. If you do that, the formula shifts. The future becomes unknown… and it may be that a pot of gold waits for you right around the bed.

You can do this.

- ENFP Mod

#question #isfj #mbti #abuse #self help #psychology

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