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fluffypotatey · 1 year

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I find it deeply aesthetically pleasing, character-wise, that Arthur and Merlin are both very much like their mothers, which is especially meaningful in Arthur's case since he's never known his mother beyond a single painfully brief meeting in "Sins of the Father."

Not only does Arthur look like Ygraine (which adds several layers to the clusterfuck of his and Uther's relationship) but it's clear that he takes after her temperament, too. Yes, he sometimes shows his father's temper, and yes, he does stupid things when he's in a temper, but unlike Uther, who literally took his prejudices to his grave and beyond, Arthur never stays mad at people, and he's overall a far more caring and kind person than his father, which is an interesting case of nature vs nurture.

And then on the other hand, we have Hunith, who told a mounted, armed brigand to go fuck himself, later fought another (also armed) brigand with a twig broom, harboured fugitives on multiple occasions, and raised an illegal magic child out of wedlock, and Merlin "Fuck the Police" Ambrosius, who got in a fistfight, got thrown in jail for the fistfight, called the prince a bitch to his face in a public market square, got in a second, armed fight all within his first 48 hours in Camelot, and then committed treason on a daily basis for the next 10+ years, compared to Balinor, who became a weird antisocial hermit that lived in a cave for twenty years.

couldn't have said it better myself bestie

also, there's a reason hunith and ygraine never met in the show. their dynamic duo would outshine everyone, they'd be unstoppable, untouchable, I FEEL ROBBED

#ahem anyway #yes they do take after their mothers and yes this does provide insight in how merlin and arthur complement one another #and like i just have such a soft heart at the thought of arthur wanting to know about his mother and asking the staff what he can #maybe he asks the older knights who treat him like a nephew they never had and one of the most common thing they'll say is #“ygraine was kind and cared for her people”#“ygraine was not one to abandon the needy when times got tough”#“ygraine saw her role as monarch as one of service and not greed for power”#and mini arthur internalized that shit i accept NO criticism #merlin was a total mama's boy as we all saw and she had him drinking that anarchy juice since he was small #hunith was merlin's first hero and fuck i'm crying #bye i'm too soft for this #bbc merlin #headcanons #arthur pendragon #merlin emrys #hunith #ygraine #hunith & ygraine would have totally wreaked some shit if they ever met i assure you it is a CRIME (to me) THAT SUCH A DUO NEVER *gunshots*

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cringefaecompilation · 4 days

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cannot stand it when i see posts saying orym could/can only ever have concrete conversations about himself and his feelings with either dorian or ashton or that they're the only people that would understand what he's going through. asides from the Women Just Don't Get It-ness of it all, like:

i rest my case

#🍃#critical role #critrole #fearne calloway #orym of the air ashari #they are BESTIES they are FRIENDS they are THE MOMENT #and even besides that i understand that fearne and orym have not gone through the same stuff but like...#are you telling me fearne does not or could not understand loneliness in the same way orym has #fearne. the girl who was left alone with only the hope of her parents being alive/caring through postcards in a time-dilated strange world #the girl who panics whenever anything changes that could take away her friends #the girl who fears being locked away because it reminds her of that loneliness more than being locked up #the girl who tries her damnedest to ensure that everyone she loves is safe and secure from any threat and shatters when she has to hurt the #the girl so desperate for someone to love her and not leave her that when her supervillain dad was ranting at her she was kind of grateful #you're saying she cannot understand orym's own feelings of inadequacy if he cannot protect innocents or his loneliness in a crowd? on god?#i do think that ashton is a good friend to orym and he can relate to him on other levels #and that dorian would also be understanding if he knew #BUT FEARNE IS RIGHT THERE

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psyaurorak · 1 year

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Hades defenders pls understand that just because your man got abused doesn’t mean he isn’t abusive himself.

He ripped out someone’s eyes, constantly shouts at those with a lower status at him for Persephone. It’s supposed to be attractive, but that is abusive behaviour.

He is a slave owner.

Minthe faces racism from his family. Yes she was abusive. But does that mean he can dismiss her feelings constantly? No, it doesn’t.

Demeter is constantly verbally assaulted by him. And this guy will turn around and say ‘why do you not like me 😭🥺’

Hades is abusive. There’s multiple types of abuse. Stop acting like physical abuse is the only type of abuse ever because it is insulting that you’re implying it.

Hades can be manipulative, verbally abusive, physically abusive (ripping out someone’s eyes and then being mean to them after again and again is abuse) and manipulative and y’all stans will be like… ‘oh no, anyway’ BUT get mad when he gets criticism for being a piece of shit

Also

If anyone can think of another instance where this guy was abusive please add on

#anti lore olympus #lo critical #lore olympus criticism #Hades fans pls DNI #like fr #just block me #idgaf about y’all #fucking guy has SLAVES #and y’all bend over backwards to defend him #cause he’s tRaUmAtIsEd #guess what #I’m traumatised too and y’all don’t see me owning slaves and being a bitch to everyone #let me know if i missed tags #lore olympus critical #antiloreolympus #hades is the highest order of hypocrisy #people can dislike and criticise him #y’all need to take that shit and stop insulting everyone who does

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sapphic-agent · 20 days

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Me at Horikoshi right now. What a horrible time to be a fan of Izuku, Tomura, Nana, and basically everyone that isn't Bakugou

#mha critical #bnha critical #horikoshi critical #anti bakugou katsuki #this doesn't have much to do with him #except it does #izuku deserves better #justice for izuku #there's something so fucking twisted about taking the power izuku earned when he was previously a victim of being powerless #nana shimura deserves better #the ofa users deserve better #shigaraki deserves better #the only one who's as big of a victim of horikoshi as izuku #and people saying he deserved to die because of the awful things he did #THAT'S NOT THE POINT #more on this later I'm too mad to properly analyze it right now

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o-wild-west-wind · 6 months

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tumblr algorithm stop feeding me takes that this show is just a silly goofy comedy that shouldn’t include death or that Izzy is the token disabled elder queer on the show where an actual disabled elder queer is literally the romantic lead or that Lucius and Pete being called “mateys” is diluting their gayness because it’s not “husbands” or that it’s sexist that Zheng lost her fleet and later prioritized her love for a man or that Ed is Izzy’s abuser because we conveniently forgot all of season 1 or that trauma is never followed through with because sometimes actions are used instead of words or that Ed learned nothing because the inn was apparently a whim as if he hasn’t been obsessing over retirement from day 1 I swear did we even watch the same show?? I literally feel like I’m in backwards land?

I have a really novel concept for y’all complaining about character’s arcs not being fully resolved or healed and that’s called there is supposed to be another season of this show

I also have another really novel concept as to why every single character did not have a one on one trauma apology session and so much time was spent on Ed and Stede and that is because this is literally the Ed and Stede show and also sometimes parallels are meant to be inferred and extrapolated because that is what efficient storytelling does instead of spoonfeeding you

And my most novel concept of all as to why some beloved characters had less screen time is because Max is a massive jerk and cut the budget

Y’all this wasn’t personal and maybe this show was never about Izzy maybe the show called our flag means death is actually about death maybe sad does not equal homophobic letdown maybe the brown gay character introduced as the love interest from day 1 gets to outlive the angry white guy that had a redemption arc after actively bullying and trying to break up every gay couple for a season I don’t know what to tell you just can you please let non-white people have this arc for once without assuming it’s an attack on you I’m BEGGING y’all

#I’m sorry for overusing y’all I grew up country lmao #anyway. critical thinking when #I didn’t want to make more posts about this I’m just tired and seeing people denounce the show as homophobic #for killing the subtextually gay internalized homophobia character #in favor of the canonically gay brown protagonist #makes me feel more and more uncomfortable the more I see it #WHY do you defend him over the actual gay people esp. poc gay people like make it make sense #be sad he died I have a million posts about that but this strawmanning is getting concerning #bc what does this mean of your ability to recognize real homophobia #it’s not about you!!! and if you think his death means something about you PLEASE unpack that #I had a lovely night with friends and am not sober lol so if I seem salty that’s why I’m sorry for being a broken record #this is not anti-Izzy this is anti-baffling takes on Izzy #I’m sorry we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled kiss gif programming soon I don’t like these posts either #I just can’t resist a good hill #ofmd #ofmd season 2 #ofmd spoilers #ofmd s2 spoilers #fandom crit #our flag means death

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tomfrogisblue · 4 months

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Q!Tubbo is q!Cellbit and q!Bagi's little brother.

He is also Ramón's older brother.

I don't make the rules.

#i absolutely make the rules and will take no criticism /j #he's also Chay's egg and q!Philza's son #but half the island is phils kid lets be honest #this post is inspired by Ramón's book - he determined to make me cry on a regular basis #qsmp #qsmp lore #qsmp tubbo #qsmp cellbit #qsmp bagi #qsmp ramon #does this make sense in a canonical story sense? no. but im driving and i get to choose the music (my comfort found family tropes)

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withdenim · 1 year

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Man this house is fucked up!!! Who fucked these kids up!!

#I have so many feelings and headcanons about them #if Brooklyn isn’t cool and bisexual what is even the point #Kenji babygirl to ME #I want to write kenji’s real last name on here so bad but my friend follows this account and hasn’t gotten there yet #Sasha if you’re reading this don’t ask cause I won’t tell you what I mean #if Benjamin Fitzgerald Pincus is gonna blow shit up as much as he does #he should have hearing problems #and I don’t take criticism about it!!#do you ever wonder how Darius took care of his hair on Nublar cause I do. a lot #I imagine him trying more protective hairstyles when he’s older bc of that #curly hairs your Sammy Gutierrez #yaz’ hair is only braided bc Sammy wanted to braid it #anyways the headcanon tags are done you can stop reading :)#jwcc #jurassic world camp cretaceous #jurrasic world #Ben Pincus #Darius bowman #Kenji kon #sammy gutierrez #yasmina fadoula #Brooklyn jwcc #I know I use so many tags I have a lot of thoughts ok 💜

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essektheylyss · 2 years

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One thing that gets lost in ship discourse (or its hyper-positive opposite) is that regardless of your feelings on a ship, in order to tell a story, the character relationships do and should have an impact on a character's story arc, and not all relationships are going to offer the same emotional weight throughout any given character's story.

This is particularly true of actual play, wherein each player character is running a separate story as a protagonist, and therefore you have to consider each of them as an individual thread within one larger narrative, on top of the narrative itself.

That being said, the farther you get into the story and the closer to the end you are, the ways those threads can interweave get culled, simply by circumstances. Relationships (platonic, romantic, familial, etc) change over time, and whether they are narratively compelling changes as well. In contrast, "ship" is generally used to suggest a dynamic an individual audience member finds compelling, which may or may not have anything to do with the narrative, even if the dynamic is interesting for reasons of narrative potential (that isn't ultimately explored within canon). These are distinct concepts in terms of analysis. So as a disclaimer, this post is about character relationships within the narrative as it exists—essentially, what makes the story that exists work as well as it does, in the end.

Now that we've got all that out of the way, let's talk about Caleb.

Caleb's problem for much of the campaign is one of survival and self-preservation. His goal is simply to last long enough to find a way to go back in time. Because that is a very open goal, it doesn't inherently have much to tie him to another character in a relationship sense. He is not looking for that, he does not see himself as worthy of it, and it's really not a necessary narrative question, regardless of what attraction he does have.

But over time (and, I would argue, in a way that is fairly singular among the Nein, but I won't get into that here), his priorities begin to shift. Many of his needs are now met in ways that they previously weren't, allowing him to fully consider what he wants. For instance, between the start of the war and the time they reach Xhorhas, he has changed his mind about becoming involved in this war—because he is not being forced into it by possible conscription. He has significantly more options than he did at the start.

What he ends up realizing, as he finds the opportunity to put an end to the war, is that he cannot trust his own judgment. There is near universal support to end the war—even the nations involved are there because of what they view as existential threats. That opinion is not in question. But everything else is. Caleb is a victim of manipulation and brainwashing, and this is very apparent when he starts pleading with the scourger prisoner of war to give him some kind of proof that people like him can change.

And this is not something that anyone else of the Nein can offer him. They can tell him that they think he is a good person and that they trust him, but because of his history—and because he knows how smart he is, and how far he can fall—this isn't something he can take at face value, especially given that they have not seen or known him at his worst, and have not experienced it either.

Yasha may be able to offer some guidance in that area, but she is working through similar issues at both a different pace and in different ways than he is—she isn't seeking any situation where she would make potentially world-shaping decisions or have influence over others like he would. His goals are singularly risky. Veth comes closest to this, in that she very briefly considers prolonging the war to alleviate her own suffering, but it's not a decision she's ever forced to make.

(Honestly, thinking about this, an arc in which Veth does take that deal with Isharnai is a fascinating alternative universe to consider—it would certainly give her the opportunity to relate to Caleb in this way, but it would probably take another fifty episodes before Caleb could even bring himself to consider forgiving her, given it would be in direct conflict to the one thing he's been working at for a third of the campaign up until then. Still, a fascinating consideration!)

So between Caleb attempting to sway the scourger and going to Astrid's house in secret, this is the point at which it seems like the Nein cannot help him do the rest of the work. They have done a lot to get him here and considering what else he wants! But they can't offer him what that is, which is essentially tangible corroboration of what they've already offered.

And at this point in the campaign when taken as a whole, there's only one character who can actually offer that. Because to have real emotional weight, what Caleb is looking for is someone who is as smart as he has, who has made a similarly horrific decision even in spite of that intelligence, and who has now committed to actual change.

It's the commitment to actual change that is difficult, because it requires a support structure—and in hindsight, there's not enough time left to build that up for someone like Astrid or Eadwulf, but it's already partially in place for Essek.

(We can debate all day long about what could've been different if the hiatus never happened, or the campaign had lasted longer, but this is specifically about the campaign that we have. I think there is also an argument to be made that Astrid or Eadwulf would've required a much longer and more intensive timeframe to reach that point even if the campaign had continued than the format really offered, because they have preconceived notions about Caleb that complicates their ability to take what he says at face value even if they care about him succeeding in his goals—but that's also not relevant to this point.)

But I do think this is why Essek progresses very quickly, and is largely committed to aiding them by 124—he already has been aiding them, and has expressed loyalty to them above anyone else.

This is not as much of a leap as it may appear to some, because even by 91 and 97, he had done significant introspection on his own time. This is only a continuation of how he has been characterized thus far. He's expressed doubt from a very early point, whereas Astrid does not begin to express doubt (regardless of whether she feels it, because this is about capacity for willing admittance) until after the dinner with Trent.

What ends up happening is that Essek's the one who actually calls Caleb on things. He gives him an ultimatum with the conversation about Trent when the Nein won't. He offers reason and perspective in the paper room when the rest of the Nein get impatient. He checks off all of the boxes of what Caleb is looking for (which is essentially a narrative mirror), and very early into the Nein's trip through Aeor, Caleb seems to have forgiven him, and his fears and misgivings erode from there.

Only this corroboration, because his opinion of Essek is specifically about his opinion of his own capacity for change, allows him to recognize that returning to the past would simply make him the same person he had been at 17, and finally put that plan, the person that he was, and his parents to rest. If he is not able to be anything other than that boy, then he has no reason to not remain as such, and return to the past; but if he believes himself capable of change, then the question of going back in time is one of leaving behind the person he is now in favor of the boy who made that choice. He is asked, if he believes himself capable of change, to acknowledge that he was that person once, but can now be more than that and move beyond it.

And the proof that he needs in order to affirm that when he is given the opportunity to do so is standing next to him.

Fundamentally, this is not related to Caleb's long-term relationship with Essek at all. This could have been the end of it—they could've parted ways and the story would've still been told and completed.

But I think it is important that a) Essek does get to have some happiness, and b) part of that is with Caleb (though this still doesn't have any bearing on platonic vs romantic, only that they have some kind of close mutual relationship in the long run). On a very basic level, because he is now in this position of being corroborating evidence for Caleb himself, Essek becomes a stand-in for how the narrative sees Caleb, and how Caleb views himself.

If the narrative condemns him and leaves him out to dry, it is an implicit reflection on Caleb—and directly conflicts with the narrative implication that Caleb is not solely worth condemnation. And however much it has nothing to do with romance or a relationship of that kind, Caleb's choice to care about him in the long run is an acknowledgement of being willing to care for and forgive himself.

#critical role #caleb widogast #cr meta #fun way to die: take a shot every time i use the word 'narrative' while reading this #this has been a long time coming and everyone is very lucky it was only 1500 words.#there's literally so much more to say about this and how fascinating it is within the narrative structure but #that's an argument for a WAY longer paper #tbh i didn't even have space here to go into it and I'm not going to but #this also does mean that essek is not *in canon* a protagonist in the same sense the PCs are and he simply can't be #he has other purposes on a narrative level and that's really important! but as much as he has an arc that arc is For Caleb narratively

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