what louis did to lestat and what louis did to armand are connected and that's important to the story but also. it is simply not the same. nothing louis did excuses armand's behaviour, that's not how anything works, but he did not "cross a line" or "poke at armand," he weaponized armand's history of abuse to belittle and demean him. nothing armand said to louis came close- the equivalent would have been "oooh, i'm such a stupid bitch that my husband can beat me half to death and i'll keep crawling back for more even when it endangers my daughter!" it's retraumatizing and deeply destabilizing to hear that shit from your partner. and in response armand should have been like "well this man sucks when he's high and he's high all the time, so i'm bouncing" but if he'd done that we wouldn't have a story, would we?
edit: i've come back to give armand credit for "claudia didn't love you like we did/do. ps. u used her to distract from your own hurt feelings" that shit does hit in a similar way. however "the ways someone hurt you have left you contemptible and weak. they scrawled 'dirty and annoying' all over your soul in red ink and it's never coming off" is just outstanding work. timeless
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I don’t need a jealous Syd. What I need is Carmy constantly picking the restaurant (Sydney) over Claire. If they stay together after the fridgecident until Claire realizes that maybe the restaurant (Sydney) is really what he cares about and maybe she forced herself on a person who she thought she knew but really doesn’t know at all. It might be a nasty breakup because Carmy doesn’t realize why giving all of his focus and attention to the restaurant (Sydney) is a problem and he’s just trying to please the both of them and if Claire doesn’t get that then maybe she should leave him alone. Claire is like this is not about the restaurant. It’s never been about the restaurant. It’s always been about Sydney….
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I think in game it's kind of presented that Julie Farkas thinks poorly of, if not outright dislikes, the Great Khans which I guess is fair enough but also reeks of the attitude of the writers viewing drug addicts and raiders as subhuman. And I don't think really it lines up with either the Khan/Follower relationship depicted in game nor does it Follow Julie's reestablished personality. I think she's a little exasperated with them but not enough to warrent the "who? Oh you mean those raiders who used to clash with the vegas tribes 🙄" line that she has about them like cmon girl 1) people are like your only allies outside of Freeside and 2) why are you taking the Three Families side in this??? They're causing just as many if not more issues than the Khans even Arcade has lines about how the Families are exploiting Freeside and I can't think who else she means by "vegas tribes" Anyway. It does make sense for her to be annoyed with how they're causing more drug problems in Freeside but i don't think it makes sense for her to be written in a way that makes it sounds like she's angry with the Khans for *using their precious medical knowledge to make the evil morphine rather than the morally good morphine* when really she should be more angry with House/The Families for causing the poverty in Freeside and the NCR for forcing the Khans into the precarious position they're in while disallowing the Followers from truly helping them. The fact that by the time that Fnv comes around the Followers and NCR's relationship has broken down should be enough for the Followers to revisit relations with the Khans since, as I said, the Khans have been the only truly consistent allies of the Followers and more importantly, the NCR JUST MURDERED ALL THEIR CHILDREN. In this essay I will
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Can I get your thoughts on this post claiming Mai and Toph are very similar (and that Zuko clicked with Toph immediately because she reminded him of Mai)? https://at.tumblr.com/i-was-talking-to-momo/everyone-else-took-a-really-long-time-to/nyh2nz26iuay
whoooo boy, there are a lot of (sometimes just blatantly untrue) assumptions being flung around in that post.
much of what op says about mai reads more like headcanon than anything actually shown to us in the show (when was mai stifled to "the point of being incredibly depressed and borderline self-destructive"? when do we learn in the show that mai taught herself to throw knives out of boredom? how did mai "never learn to interact with people her age" when she's been friends with ty lee for years and seems to have no problem socializing at a fire nation party?) or is barely substantiated within the show (mai's alleged "repression" at the hands of her parents is told to us - not shown - in a single scene in the third season).
on the other hand, there is actual proof for toph being sheltered and repressed by her parents: we see the difference between who she is on her own/with the gaang vs with her parents. the toph who fights in earth rumble tournaments and picks her toes and speaks her mind without hesitation is not the same toph who wears dainty clothes and allows herself to be led around and meekly obeys her parents' wishes despite her own desire for freedom. there is a clear distinction between who toph feels she has to be, and who she really wants to be, and this is made clear from her very first episode.
by contrast, mai has the same apathetic, indifferent demeanor almost all the time, no matter whether she is with her parents, her friends, or her boyfriend. even in the rare cases that she does show emotion, usually smiling or smirking around zuko, it is undercut by the lack of true understanding and connection in their relationship, which makes her show of emotion feel meaningless and shallow (the only time that mai does seem to show genuine emotion and vulnerability is around ty lee, but unfortunately these moments are too far and few between for me to consider it real depth and growth for mai, much as i ship mailee). unlike toph, there are no real cracks in the facade with mai, which seem to imply that the way mai acts is who she really is, not who she feels she has to be.
i also have to laugh at this part: "Out of the entire gaang, Toph is the one that Zuko understands and empathizes with the most."
toph is the one zuko understands and empathizes with most, huh? that must be why toph was the first person in the gaang zuko felt a kinship with and reached out to - nope, that was katara. well, that's why he opened up about his deepest conflict and trauma to her and she did the same in return - whoops sorry, katara again. never mind, at least zuko and toph took an intimate field trip together related to their moment of connection over their shared trauma - oh wait.
i don't disagree that toph and zuko would have a strong friendship, or that they wouldn't be able to bond over similarities in their upbringing, but unfortunately the show just didn't expound on their relationship as much as it did with zuko's relationships with aang, sokka, and (especially) katara. it's blatantly false to imply that zuko bonded or clicked with toph the most out of anyone in the gaang, and even more so to say that it was because she reminded him of mai - both because toph is vastly different from mai, and because zuko himself didn't truly understand or click with mai in the first place.
ultimately, much of the problem with mai's character comes down to the fact that she's extremely underdeveloped (and the season that tries to expand on her character is also the one where her arc revolves almost entirely around her boyfriend) so comparing her to toph - a main character who received far more depth and development in a single episode than mai did throughout her whole arc - is a task doomed to fail from the start.
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all this to say that no one is claiming that everything was 100% mapleshade's fault or that characters like oakstar and ravenwing and even frecklewish don't bear responsibility on what happened, but to say that mapleshade is enitrely blameless is just factually incorrect.
"mapleshade is a victim of oakstar + thunderclan's bigotry and should not have been exiled for her half-clan kits. exile put both mapleshade and her kits in indirect danger. it was wrong of oakstar to exile her and wrong of other characters to support this decision." is true
"mapleshade made the active choice to cross the river, with her kits that were easily winded from swimming in calm waters, during a severe rainstorm while the river was severely flooding. this is something that no one made her do and something that directly resulted in the death of her kits." is also true
people are often both victim and aggressor. traumatized / victimized people often make poor decisions that end up hurting people they care about. and you can acknowledge that they have been hurt themselves without pretending they did nothing wrong or that they didn't hurt others
it's not "victim blaming" to say that mapleshade shouldn't have crossed the river with her kits. victim blaming would be to blame the victim for the actions of other people. for example, to say that mapleshade is at fault for her exile because she had a cross-clan relationship would actually be victim blaming, because you're blaming the victim for someone else's actions. but crossing the river was a choice made by mapleshade and mapleshade alone, despite knowledge of the danger to both herself and her kits.
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Can we all agree that Raphie needs a mother figure the most?
Why would he need a mom when there's a perfectly good Leo right there?? Basically the same thing
Jokes aside, yeah most continuities I can agree. The one that needs an extra parental figure most is usually Raph. Though I believe all of them would've had a higher quality life/childhood if they had a mother. Mikey, Donnie, and Raph would be such momma's boys, and I think that would be so sweet.
But context and character dynamics are important, it really only works in theory. So most likely a continuity with a healthy relationship between Yoshi/Tang Shen and they got mutated together or they stay together after only one gets mutated. All things considered a single mom wouldn't fare much better then just Splinter. But a Splinter that falls in love after mutation could work well too. An unhealthy/toxic dynamic wouldn't help in the slightest.
April often "sort of" fills the mom role, mom role adjacent like older sister or loving Aunt, and is usually the best at nurturing Donnie more then anyone else. Casey is often helpful giving Raph a mirror and helping him regulate his temper, but he's not much a parental figure and usually an honorary turtle sibling. Plus the lesson is usually Raph teaching an adult to control themselves which isn't fair to Raph who is always a child. They all need one-on-one time with a parental figure that isn't meant to further their ninjutsu.
2003 Splinter is exempt, he's not perfect but the literal "has always been a rat, never human" Dad is the only one that regularly just hangs out with his kids and watches them play games or just watches movies/tv with them for fun. And if his kiddos are in danger he's absolutely right there trying to protect them.
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