#her views and like she’s entitled to them and on the whole she’s a very understanding and accepting person but she is very religious | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

saltywinteradult · 13 days

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Anon needs to understand there’s more than one way to be a bad parent, Viserys and Rhaenyra are proof of this.

Viserys enabled his daughter to extreme measures, all he had to do was send Harwin away the minute Jace was born but he buried his head in the sand instead. Rhaenyra wasn’t exactly discreet either, she was very openly sleeping with Harwin for the whole court to see and was emboldened to have THREE back to back pregnancies because she knew her father wouldn’t stop her. How is this good parenting? A good father would have taught his daughter actions have consequences.

Rhaenyra is no better, through her relationship with Harwin she shows her sons they can do whatever the hell they want with 0 consequence and this has long term repercussions. Luke openly mocks the boy he DISABLED, Jace breaks his betrothal to Baela, they do whatever the hell they want because they know their mother will enable them.

Say it louder for the people in the back, anon!

Viserys set a terrible example of parenthood for Rhaenyra. Considering that, it's not surprising that she would become just as much of an enabler to her own kids. The cycles do be cycling after all. That's a large part of this story. It makes me sad to see that aspect of the story, and of Rhaenyra's character, go ignored by her fans. Then again, the Team Black stans don't acknowledge that Viserys was a terrible father either, so I don't know what I expected.

Slight tangent here, but I would like to add that not only would a good father teach his daughter that actions have consequences, a good king would've taught his heir that actions have consequences.

As entitled as Rhaenyra is, her view of herself as exceptional isn't entirely unfounded. She's a princess. She's a dragonrider. She's the first female heir to the throne. She is exceptional in a lot of ways. But no one has bothered to teach her that that exceptional position 1) does not make her inherently better than anyone else, and 2) comes with responsibility. Viserys's and subsequently Rhaenyra's enabling would've been bad enough if they were just regular people, but they're the ruling family of Westeros. Their family dysfunction and infighting literally have consequences for the entire country. That means it's exponentially more important for them to not make decisions that lead to family dysfunction and infighting. That is so obvious I feel like I shouldn't even have to say it.

Viserys marrying Alicent and then treating her and their children like shit shows he clearly didn't understand this, so it's not surprising to me that Rhaenyra didn't learn this either. Hell, Viserys literally enables and supports Rhaenyra in breaking the law! Rhaenyra knows that advocating for her bastards, who everyone knows are bastards, to inherit over trueborn heirs is treason. Viserys knows this too and he supports her anyway. Why wouldn't Rhaenyra assume that she can do whatever the hell she wants? Why wouldn't she adopt that same mindset for her own children? Of course someone raised on toxic Targaryen exceptionalism and by an extremely enabling parent isn't gonna grow up to be a good person, a good parent, or a good ruler! Again, the cycles are cycling. That's the point. These are all perfectly realistic flaws for Rhaenyra to have and perfectly realistic mistakes for her to make. But they are flaws. They are mistakes. Not acknowledging that does her character and the story a huge disservice.

#anti rhaenyra targaryen #anti viserys i targaryen #anti team black stans #tbh i hate tagging all my rhaenyra critical posts with 'anti rhaenyra' bc i really do not hate her #but apparently any criticism of her is tantamount to hate so anti tag it is i guess #house of the dragon #hotd

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annabrainchase · 8 months

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the greens being snuffed out in the end doesn't matter so much as the damage they did by undermining rhaenyra and female rulers on the iron throne as a whole because what came out of this whole thing isn't that all targaryens are greedy entitled people who are warring for the sake of it and that dany is heir until she isn't. it's that people in westeros are still very much struck by the destructive note of this historical event, both on the smallfolk and on marginalised peoples in the nobility itself, like women and bastards. the dance cements the fact that there must be no straying from westerosi customs, that women should never inherit the iron throne (better the nephews than the daughters), that bastards must forevermore be treated as suspicious and naturally prone to betrayal. because although rhaenyra gets to sit the iron throne, she is traumatized and depressed and paranoid and many of her decisions as queen are the result of this and that is what lasts in the minds of everyone. the reason for all this matters to us as readers, that there was a hateful misogynistic campaign, a bloody war fought just so this one woman doesn't inherit... how much the personal destruction from this fighting affects her to the point that a previously cheerful "realm's delight" transforms into "maegor with teats". the dance matters, because the social and political ramifications from the reasonings behind it matter. because rhaenyra, the king's heir, matters. her line doesn't fix the problems that led to the conflict in the first place because she (or any future heir brought up in a time free of conflict) wasn't left free enough alone to do anything about it and the only decisions we see from her are during a period of intense strife and conflict, which themselves reflect her own views. it doesn't matter though, because the precedent that could have been set, never was, and the greens' greed and meddling led to queens like naerys, and rhaella, who have exactly zero power because the one thing that could have empowered them—dragon—was killed off either in the fighting or on the orders of a king who was reeling from the immense mental trauma of having seen his mother devoured by his uncle's dragon in front of his eyes. this is the result of that war. this is the outcome of a war fought because rhaenyra was a woman. the downward spiral of misery and pain continues, exacerbated and reinforced by the memory of destruction and fear. a woman must not sit the iron throne. a bastard must not inherit.

#asoiaf #house of the dragon #hotd #fire and blood #rhaenyra targaryen #aegon iii targaryen #*v

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infernumequinomin · 10 days

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"Kipperlily hates Riz because she's got a crush on him," this, "Kipperlily hates Riz because he somehow snubbed her," that... First of all, this boy imprinted instantly in a bully throwing him in a trash can thinking they could be friends, Riz wouldn't just forget someone he met in any sort of positive or negative way for zero reason. If they met, even if she didn't make a huge impression, Riz was SO desperate for companionship in Freshman year I don't think he'd have forgotten or ignored her.

I think a lot of people are forgetting the complexity of Riz's story as a poor kid who is of a "monster race" going to somewhere like Augefort through sheer working really fucking hard on the part of both him and his mom, and that they have explicitly in canon faced adversity both for their financial class and race. One of Riz's driving forces to do really well this year is so he can even GO to college. Sklonda EXPLICITLY lost her pension from YEARS of sleepless nights working as a detective and working her way up through the ranks this year (and I don't think it's something to overlook that Kipperlily's mom works as a county clerk and may have had some say there). I think Kipperlily may just be a graden variety privileged bigot who thinks some "gutter scum goblin shouldn't be in classes with normal people." And that a lot of her work with Jawbone has probably been unpacking these internalized biases.

Like, from the outside, the Bad Kids were ressurected by the principal the very first day of school, throwing the whole school into chaos and got DETENTION for it. Riz not only killed, but ATE the vice principal, after they defeated Kalvaxis! They were all on the verge of failing if they didn't complete their Sophmore year spring break project (it was 70% of their grade or some insane shit!), and while most of them may still have passed, Fig and Kristen DEFINITELY needed that credit and that is mentioned in the season, Adaine is insanely stressed about them completing their quest for "school credit".

If Kipperlily grew up rich and entitled, with all the biases about poor people that can grow (especially if her dad's real estate office owns Strong Arm Apts and she thinks of it as a slum, because it's kind of described as low income public housing lbr here) and saw that some lower class goblin was EATING PEOPLE after defeating them (you know, like a monster does, clearly not taking any time to understand his motivation OR culture), and getting preffered treatment because the principal just happened to LIKE HIM and his party (because they took the time to become closer to him over the years and Augefort clearly values students who will absolutely kick his teeth in bc adventurers are "insane violent psychopaths" citation: the Seven), and breezing through his classes without doing ANY of the work (because she doesn't SEE the work or the sleepless nights or all the stress he's taking on for others) it absolutely tracks for her to grow this huge chip on her shoulder about it and for it to reinforce these biases she may have already had about goblins and esp abt POOR goblins like Riz.

I don't think Riz did anything wrong. I think Kipperlily just has shit to fucking work thru in regards to how she views the kinds of people she doesn't know or has had no opportunity to associate with. Even among her party, they're all rich to middle class for the ones we know the class of. She's 17 and has a bunch of internalized biases, likely from her upper middle class upbringing, and major anger management issues. Idk it just makes sense to me. I met all kinds of girls like her in college who were type A to all shit who resented me for seeming to "have it easy" despite how hard my life should have been coming from a poorer background than them.

#fantasy high junior year #fhjy #theories #fantasy racism #riz gukgak #kipperlilly copperkettle

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evelhak · 2 months

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youtube

Aaaaa, this!!! I literally cried, I am so happy to see some actual common sense!! I am so, SO tired of this trend, it's not just Rory either, there's a really unfair pattern going on where the "renaissance" on a piece of media is basically just fans ripping a protagonist to pieces for things that these fans do not hold other characters, particularly beloved antagonists and rivals, accountable for.

This video perfectly illustrates the dynamic: Rory, who tries her best to both achieve her goals and be a decent human being while doing it, who never was a perfect human if you paid attention, gets held to the standard of an angel, so every time she makes a mistake that mistake is treated as disproportionately horrible and irredeemable. Meanwhile, as a good example, Paris, who consistently treats other people horribly, gets downright babied, and how she deserved better is repeated, her own responsibility over her actions downplayed or completely ignored. Only her good qualities are remembered, and highlighted.

There's an excellent quote in the video:

"The audience loves Paris because she is so over the top that she becomes a non-character. But when you take her as a real person and judge her with the same standards as you would Lorelai and Rory, she is pretty terrible."

This. This happens with so many characters whose traits are so much that they are viewed as inherently comedic or unbelievable, so they don't count in people's eyes. Paris having a fit in her college entrance interview, yelling over the interviewers and defending eugenics, gets brushed off as "poor baby, she's clearly mentally ill, she just deserves better, she should have gotten in", while Rory, who got manipulated into an internship by the BIGGEST journalism figure just so he could tell her "she didn't have it" was JUST weak and entitled for getting upset and discouraged over it.

Paris cheating on her boyfriend for months with a college professor gets pushed under the rug because people are too uncomfortable to even acknowledge the whole thing, meanwhile Rory is THE WORST for sleeping with a married guy after she repeatedly asked him if both him and his wife agreed their marriage was over, suggested they could try counselling, and was lied to by said guy that both he and his wife knew things were over between them.

Yeah, Rory made mistakes, and definitely didn't act perfectly after either of the situations I mentioned. She was emotional and people generally make mistakes when they are. But for some reason certain characters get a free pass all the time, while it feels almost like Rory gets punished for even trying to be a good person. Like "See, I caught her making a mistake, that means she's the worst." As if trying to have morals and be decent is inherently arrogant and hypocritical. Like trying and failing is worse than not even trying. It's like, her mom and grandparents and home town expect her to be perfect, so fans did too, and now they're mad at her for being human because they put her on a pedestal. Meanwhile characters who consistently don't care about their impact on others don't get scrutinized, their actually horrible behaviour is just taken as comedy or proof of their victimhood.

Basically, people are desensitized to horrible things from certain characters, they expect it, so they don't react to it, but when Rory who is "supposed to be good" makes a mistake, it's suddenly the core of her character and all she is. Geez.

And don't get me wrong, I love both Paris and Rory. I love every character in the show. But this double standard drives me nuts. So many characters in the show have done very similar things as Rory gets accused of, some of them while feeling no remorse. Some of them have done a lot worse things that get forgiven easily.

And don't even get me started on what a hot guy with a tragic backstory gets excused for. Yeah, some things are understandable when you know the backstory. That doesn't make those things not wrong.

It's like people are obsessed with the idea that someone who appears good on the surface must be bad, and vice versa. Nuance be damned.

#Youtube #bad media analysis #gilmore girls

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cerastes · 1 year

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Okay, I DO agree that people like Kal'tsit and W have the right to still hate what Doctor did in the past, but the fact that they continue to hold it over their head and not so subtly guilt them over shit they literally have no idea bout in practically every single interaction with them is still pretty shitty. Like, Doctor is Literally Just Sitting Here.

I have to disagree. Kal'tsit and W are very much entitled their bitterness and hatred.

Amnesiac narratives are not particularly mainstream, but neither are they a new thing, and one particular trench they all seem to trip on, even the really good ones, is what I like to call the Point Of View Bias. I define "Point Of View Bias" as the natural bias that we, as readers, players or otherwise members of the audience taking the work in, have in favor of our amnesiac protagonist. The first thing we know about Doctor is that they woke up in a 'sarcophagus' in the middle of a riot and was taken in by people that claim to know them real well and then was immediately thrust, with no memories, into a small case series of skirmishes resulting in a small shadow war against a reactionary movement that, by all means, ideologically speaking, should've been their allies. Then we have all the goofy, endearing aspects of Doctor showcased through other cutscenes, base dialogue, Reels, you name it, such as Vanilla fearing for the life of her metal crab and originium slug pets because there is a very real chance that Doctor might eat them, or even Kal'tsit herself thinking about that time she caught them boiling instant noodles in their mouth. We know of Doctor as the academic that volunteered to teach the younger Operators, like Ifrit and Projekt Red, even giving them homework. This, and much more, constitutes our view of Doctor.

But that's the thing: That's the first thing WE know of. That's the experience WE have had with Doctor, as our partial self-insert vessel, partial character in the setting. We know what's going on with Doctor, in their heart of hearts. We know their thoughts and what dialogue options they can pick, and that feeds into our bias, because we have, simultaneously, more information than the characters (because we know what Doctor thinks and feels) and less information than the characters.

Less? Yes, less, because we started seeing our amnesiac character from the point of their amnesia and on. Kal'tsit and W, the former more so than the latter, know more about the Doctor overall than we do. I want to focus on Kal'tsit here, so I'll immediately address W: I don't think it's shitty of W in the slightest to harbor hatred for Doctor. She survived Doctor. She survived the tactics and strategies that got countless of her kin killed, at the discretion and decision of Doctor. I seriously don't think I need to explain further than that, it's not just an ideological difference, W legit had to survive working under Doctor for what seemed to be a pretty scary period of her life, and had to do so knowing that a lot of her Sarkazian buds would die in each deployment. Keep in mind, if you check W's Files, you'll see how important it is for her that Kazdelian Sarkaz are given their freedom and can abandon the roving mercenary lifestyle. W was sucking up working with the exact antithesis of her ideals because she believed that, ironically, was the quickest, most realistic way to achieve her and Theresa's wishes. I do not think it's shitty at ALL of W to hate Doctor. She is entitled her hatred.

Now, Kal'tsit.

Kal'tsit knows Doctor best. She knows exactly how intelligent and cunning Doctor is. She voices several times that she isn't fully convinced that they aren't lying about the amnesia. At face value, this might seem like a statement made in bad faith. It isn't. She is being fair. She knows Doctor, as a whole, better than the player. The player knows (so far) that Doctor is saying the truth. Kal'tsit knows that the possibility of Doctor acting this well, if they aren't amnesiac at all, is high. It's not that Kal'tsit hates Doctor for no reason and just gives them shit for nothing, that isn't the kind of person that Kal'tsit is, Kal'tsit saw this goofball funny endearing Doctor, in the past, become a well-oiled, invincible war machine, a chess supercomputer that sees not human beings, but pieces. Understand this: Kal'tsit agonizes whenever she sees Doctor being well loved among the Operators not because "grrrr I hate them I must antagonize for no reason", she hates it because this is deja vu. Scout and Ace had nothing but praise for the Doctor, they loved the Doctor, they considered Doctor their biggest weapon in achieving the goals of Babel and Rhodes Island, and yet, especially in Scout's case, they agonized over what had become of this lovable, loving academic, how their metamorphosis into a war machine replaced this person almost entirely.

What's to say Kal'tsit doesn't feel the same, just with far more justified hatred? It's telling, you know, how in the last few chapters of the Reunion Arc, when Kal'tsit and Doctor deploy together, Kal'tsit even jokes around with Doctor for a few seconds before catching herself talking with an old friend and realizing that, no, she can't risk this, she can't risk it again. Kal'tsit makes something clear: Even if Doctor’s memories reawakened, even if Doctor was presented with the chance to reassess their choices, even if they repented, or looking at it the other way, even if Doctor truly forgot everything forever, you cannot change how Kal’tsit sees Doctor. She made clear she won’t let the hate buried deep inside of her bloom, but she has the right to keep it. She has the right to remain angry forever.

And I agree with it. Her emotions matter. Her opinions matter. She knows less than us, but she knows more than us. And regardless of what the truth of the present is, it doesn't erase the past. It doesn't erase her emotions. Kal'tsit has every right to remain skeptical. Kal'tsit has every right to remain hateful and resentful. I do not think it's shitty of Kal'tsit in the slightest to hate Doctor.

That bridge was burned. Again, Kal'tsit is a naturally very loving, very nurturing person. She goes the hell out of her way for others. For Folinic. For the Abyssal Hunters. For Suzuran. For the Sarkaz. For orphans she has absolutely no connection to. Kal'tsit sticks her neck out for everyone she can, whenever she can.

So, let's change our perspective a little: If someone as loving, as truthfully good, as immensely caring and warm as Kal'tsit is, cannot find it within herself to forgive Doctor... Does that say something about Kal'tsit, or does that say something about the old Doctor?

Arknights does a good job at avoiding the Point Of View Bias, and that makes you, the reader, uncomfortable, because the Doctor -- you, to some degree -- are being blamed for things they didn't do. That's good. That's immersive. It's making you feel something. It's that palpable greyness midst black and white, where the most succulent emotions flourish and you can bite into them like a juicy apple. Kal'tsit is a brilliantly written character, and this is no small part of that.

#arknights #kal'tsit #doctor #W

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saintsenara · 2 months

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thoughts on sirius/narcissa

thank you very much for the ask, anon! this has the potential to be an interesting and controversial one...

i've spoken here and there about how - as much as i loathe the character commonly known as fanon!sirius - i'm also not the biggest fan of a version of sirius which has emerged as a reaction to this, who we might call dark!aristocrat!sirius.

this sirius - who appears not to have realised his canon self is being sarcastic when he says his parents considered themselves "practically royal" - is, i'm sorry to say to the aristocracy fans, just as distorted a version of the character as the heavily-tattooed and tiny fanon!sirius. and that's fine, obviously - people are entitled to like and read and write what they want - but it's not going to stop a tear beading in my eye whenever i see it...

[one day i'll hit publish on my the black family are not politically important manifesto and be removed from the fandom...]

which is to say, the sirius who tends to be shipped with one or other of his cousins - although, for exactly the tedious pro-aristocracy, people-belong-with-their-own-kind reasons outlined above, the cousin in question never seems to be andromeda - is this dark aristocrat version, and he's usually written as wanting to fuck either narcissa or bellatrix because the only woman worthy to be with a male scion of the house of black is a female scion of the same house.

and i think it's out-of-character and i think it's dull!

now, if you're looking for the whole twisted-obsession-ruins-the-vibe thing, i can see that there's a plausible case for sirius/bellatrix - they're set up by the canon narrative as extraordinarily similar [and i absolutely read sirius' claim in order of the phoenix that andromeda was his favourite cousin as a lie, covering up the fact that, as a child at least, that role was taken by bellatrix]. i think there's something very interesting which can be done with both of them shattering the expectations of their families in ways which would evidently be quite shocking in a society with such restrictive mores. bellatrix massively defies gendered conventions which require a pureblood woman of her social class to be little more than a wife and mother [although that she does so without being able to leave her family, like sirius, is because - you guessed it! - of those gendered conventions themselves], while sirius shirks his expected social role as the eldest son, upsetting the "natural" order of things in his family's eyes. that can, i think give some interesting flavour to that pairing.

but sirius and narcissa never - in my view - hits in the same way. while they're closer in age than sirius and bellatrix, their personality types are sufficiently divergent [but not in an interestingly conflicting way - their major difference is largely that narcissa doesn't seem to be particularly fun] that the spark is lacking. and this, i think, is the reason why siricissa tends to hang really heavily on the idea that it is hot, glamorous, and aristocratic to have sex with your first cousin.

and look, one of the only bits of "pureblood culture" fanon i accept is the idea that blood-supremacist families practise arranged marriage [i think sirius' comment in order of the phoenix about parents "only letting" their children marry other purebloods essentially confirms it], and that first cousin marriage may well be their cultural practise as well. but arranged marriages [and, indeed, cousin marriages - which are obviously considered much less unusual in some cultures than others] aren't inherently interesting things. they're just things some people do.

but the vast, vast majority of the sirius/bellatrix or sirius/narcissa i've ever seen thinks that the blood-relation element and that alone is enough to justify the ship as hot and exciting and wicked. and it's not.

what i would like to make the case for instead is shipping narcissa with regulus.

my reading of narcissa has always been that she's somebody who - a little like petunia dursley - feels an absolutely enormous pressure to adhere to social convention, owing to the shame she perceives her family as receiving following both andromeda's desertion of them and bellatrix's refusal to conform. she's someone, i think, who really leans into the character of the perfect lady-of-the-manor, the model wife and mother, the pure ideal of wizarding womanhood - and i think you can do a lot with her experience in this gilded prison of her own, and society's, making.

regulus too is someone who canonically conforms - again, as sirius tells us, as a reaction to sirius' own defiance of the behaviour expected of him by his class and blood status. i think the two of them finding themselves in a relationship which is constantly battling against this artifice - whether they end up clinging all the more tightly to the masks they wear in public or they're able to help each other gradually become more open and real - would absolutely slap.

#asks answered #asenora's opinions on ships #siricissa #sirius black #narcissa malfoy #this isn't a safe space for pro-aristocracy takes #it comes from living in a colony

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yaniasogames · 9 months

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lacey’s flash games and the horrors of womanhood: part 1, lacey’s wardrobe!

(trigger warning for discussions and possible depictions of: sexual assault/rape, stalking, abuse, violent misogyny, gore)

so i guess it’s a bit awkward for me of all people - someone who is a girl but not assigned one at birth or passing - to be writing this post, but i just wanted to talk about this aspect of this series cause i think it’s a big part of why it feels so unique and why the horror works for so many people.

the lacey’s series is pretty often praised for it’s great horror and scares, as well as it’s depiction of trauma, but i think more specifically it deserves praise for taking subjects such as stalking and sexual abuse and executing them in a way that’s deeply sympathetic and yet still so shocking and effective.

in the first ever lacey’s video, lacey’s wardrobe, we of course follow the titular lacey in the titular game as she gets dressed for multiple occasions. a picnic, going to the mall, and a date with the “cutest guy.” all that is disrupted, though, by her stalker, a man who follows her in near every area of the game, proclaiming his love for her in a totally not creepy and invasive and wildly inappropriate way.

throughout the video, lacey seems to have no privacy, and no relief from her stalker. besides not even being safe in a public place like this one, some of the most terrifying events in the video bar the finale happen while she’s still at home. she gets threatening phone calls and a grotesque gift from the stalker that make her feel trapped, and there’s whole segments where the stalker is seen peering through her window and is heard knocking furiously on her door. all while she’s in her own bedroom getting dressed.

the videos ending consists of the player dressing up lacey and forcing her to go outside alone at night, even when she breaks the fourth wall and begs and begs and begs them not to. lacey gets cannibalized by her stalker, with audio of her crying and shots briefly flashing by of her dismembered corpse. unless, of course, her stalker kept her alive through all of this torture. said stalker’s reason for doing this?

this video on it’s own already carries a lot of dark subtext with it. it’s not uncommon knowledge that many people in real life experience stalking, with most victims being women. it’s also not uncommon knowledge that in many parts of the world, walking home at night as a woman is very unsafe and carries the risk of your wellbeing being in danger, which is why many women carry pepper spray and why products such as rape whistles exist. lacey is aware of her stalker, and pretty clearly feels unsafe throughout the whole video. her permanently smiling face and the music distort after the first call from the stalker, and she begs at the end not to go outside. she knows how vulnerable she is against this threat, but she has no agency as a video game character simply there to be dressed up and beautified by the player. it’s like watching prey get dropped right into the cage of a predator, despite all the fear it’s showing at the sound of the predators roars.

this feeling extends to how out of all of the ways lacey could’ve ended up at the end of the episode, the specific choice is made to have her be eaten. to be gruesomely consumed by a man who claims to “love” her. consumed so that he can keep a woman who shows zero interest in him all to himself, not even caring that she’s crying and in immense pain as he literally rips her apart. it’s entitled. it’s greedy. it’s horrifying. and everything about this video shows how many stalkers view their victims, and how many men view women in general - as something they consume, they indulge in. as pretty dress up dolls who only serve to fill them up and be the objects of their affection, even when those women don’t want it.

another thing to note (although i am definitely not trying to victim blame poor lacey in any capacity) is the outfit lacey wears at the end. while a common shitty excuse that rapists make to put down their victims is that “they were asking for it!!1” because of the clothes they chose to wear, lacey pretty obviously doesn’t have a choice in this situation, and for her date, the player chooses to put her in a red jacket, choker and daisy dukes, a color and articles of clothing that are often associated with flirtiness and sexuality by society. these would be great choices if lacey wanted to go on this date of her own volition, but it’s made unsettling because, again, she doesn’t have a damn choice. in two of the shots, there’s even deliberate focus on her torso and therefore chest and legs as she meets her demise. could these possibly be from the stalkers POV?

a piece of media that this all reminds me of is silent hill 3, an (actually real) horror game that also taps into the many fears women commonly face, and how it feels to be a girl in a world that largely sees you as nothing but a target, an object, a tool. while not directly tying into the main plot of that game, in the area of the brookhaven hospital, you can find letters directed to main character heather from an unseen man named stanley. these letters are very… purposefully uncomfortable. the whole vibe of this part is made even worse by the fact that 1) the sound design, way the letters are written and the fact that earlier letters disappear when you go back to them support the idea that stanley is actually in the hospital watching heather from afar, and 2) heather is still a teenager, only being 17 years old throughout this whole game. not even her young age protects her from these circumstances. hell, many girls that age are already thought of as being “woman” enough.

stanley, similar to lacey’s stalker, is convinced that himself and the girl he’s stalking are meant to be together, and he objectifies heather through his writing and the way he sends her a doll as a gift.

stanley is shown as well to be a physical threat to others. you can find out he stabbed another patient at the hospital completely unprompted, and in one of his final letters, the doll that was a gift to heather? it’s broken into pieces.

the parallels to lacey’s stalker are apparent, as he both shows signs of violence against others before harming lacey (yells and demands her to come outside over the phone and sends her a gift of blood and guts), and is shown to have broken lacey into pieces when he eats her. just like children with their dolls, violent and dangerously misogynistic men often decide to rip apart and carelessly destroy the women they view as their playthings when they aren’t getting what they want. they desire control and for women to feel like their tools, and their victims are often left feeling like they have nowhere to go that’s safe. not a picnic with friends, not the shopping mall, not their own house, nowhere at all. it’s profoundly isolating and calls to mind how many abusers function, with the typical victims of both domestic violence and stalking usually being - you guessed it - women.

while all of this is heavy stuff for one video, as the lore of the series expands in the following videos and you learn more of lacey’s situation, the themes of the abuse, objectification and unwanted sexualization women face are strengthened, and become even more integral to why the lacey’s games are the way they are.

as rocio, the in-universe creator of the series states, these are the real girl’s games.

#🐻💖#lacey’s flash games #lacey’s wardrobe #lacey’s games #lacey’s games spoilers #horror analysis #tws in post because idk what tumblr is doing with my damn tags #feminist analysis

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thisisntreaver · 1 month

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okay so first of all I want to say that I have absolutely no intention of starting any kind of fight and everyone is fully entitled to their own opinions.

and second of all let me comment on the state of things in fandom spaces that make me feel like that disclaimer was necessary before actually sharing my opinion

but I never really saw Theresa as evil or 100% selfish or anything? I do feel like she actually means well? we know she can see the future, but it's never really explicit how detailed it is and what she does and doesn't see? unless I missed that somewhere.

the way I thought about the whole logan and hobw thing was that she knew that there were only so many ways it was possible for Albion to survive, and she told logan this, but he reacted to the information by becoming the tyrant he did. so then you step up to tske his place, and you're faced with some of the same choices he is. kind of like she can see the different paths there are, and tries to steer people in a certain direction, but she can't force anyone to make a specific decision.

it's like 2 am for me so this might not be all that coherent but the whole thing boils down to this; I think Theresa does know shit about the future, but she doesn't know or forsee everything. so she tries to make certain things come to pass and to prevent others, but sometimes there are still outcomes she couldn't have predicted.

sidenote, which I think is also why she wants the spire, because then she can have greater control and accuracy in her visions

I didn't take this as you wanting to fight, but I do love a good discussion so thats why this reply is kind lengthy. You're also fully entitled to your own opinion on this but this is why I view Theresa the way I do.

So the thing is you are right in your last paragraph. Thats why she wants the spire, she all but says it to us in the see the future dlc, for her visions to be more accurate and have more of a reach.

That is an inherently selfish want though, as much as she tries to justify it, it wasn't a necessity. In order to get it she takes Luciens grief for his wife and child and twists it whispering to him to push him over the edge to be willing to do anything to get them back.

Then she goes and manipulates Rose into buying the music box so that she and sparrow get called to the castle. Rose is very realistic, she says that they could eat for a week, which would be monumental for them, and Theresa fires back with "and at the end of that week you won't be any closer to your dream of being in the castle." She uses Roses childish fantasies against her and it gets her killed.

In only two actions shes absolutely decimated Lucien as a person by taking advantage of his mental state at the lowest point in his life, and pushes Rose to her death by putting it in her head that this music box can change her life.

With Logan and by extension HOBW I do think its a bit more complicated. At that point she could see all the possibilities. She told Logan flat out that the darkness was coming to Albion, immediately after he watched al his men die by the Crawler. It makes him paranoid, and he goes down the tyrant path because he doesn't know what to do, and she isn't really helping him. Then with HOBW she over corrects and doesn't tell them anything, gives them not even the smallest bit of information about the darkness so that they focus all their feelings on Logan, and think hes just evil for no reason, then drops a bomb on them about the darkness. When the hobw is upset about that she tells them "I told you what you needed to know" or in the case you choose to execute Logan and HOBW upset about that she says "well that was your choice."

She is steering people in certain directions. The ones she deems correct with very little thought in how it effects them or what they would do without her input.

Theresas not evil, but she is selfish. She doesn't tell anything she thinks could harm her cause, she manipulates others for her own needs, and she justifys it by saying its fo the good of Albion. But Fable 2 wouldn't have gone the way it does without her initial inferences, and Fable 3 wouldn't have happened at all if she hadn't made the decision that she wanted the spire and that Albion needed it.

#fable #fable 2 #fable 3 #lord lucien #fable theresa #logan fable #fable rose #hero of brightwall

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sideprince · 8 months

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What’s your general thoughts and opinions on James?

I don't know how general my thoughts and opinions of him are, but here goes... (under the cut because long post)

To me, James was the kind of kid who was made to feel special by his parents and didn't realize, as he grew up, that the rest of the world wasn't duty-bound to share this view of him. I think the backstory Rowling gave was that his parents struggled to have a child and had him when they were older, so he was very valued and spoiled, in a family that had money and lived comfortably. There are people who will come out of an upbringing like this with a strong sense of self and security and feel empathy for those who struggle, and there are people who will come out of it feeling entitled and affronted that the rest of the world doesn't understand how special they are. I think James was the latter. He has the vibe of a kid whose parents never taught him to share. When he got to Hogwarts and was thrust into a world where he didn't get the constant positive reinforcement he did at home, his response was to feel insecure in its absence and I'm not sure he ever outgrew that.

His first interaction with both Snape, Lily, and Sirius on the Hogwarts Express says a lot about him. When Snape says he wants to be in Slytherin, James scoffs, but when Sirius says his whole family have been in that house, James is surprised, because he's already formed an opinion of Sirius and has started to like him. James and Sirius met on the train, which had probably just left London, since Snape and Lily were picking up their conversation from the platform, Snape having just changed into his school robes, which he presumably did as soon as he got on the train. In that short time, because James made a connection with him, he can excuse Sirius' association with the house because he already likes him, but he doesn't know Snape so it's easier to dismiss him for the same house preference. Young James shows a lot of bias and we see through his Hogwarts years that he doesn't grow out of it. The fact that he judges people with such certainty based on their house or house preference shows this too.

Though Snape and Lily are clearly friends when he meets them, James seems only interested in targeting Snape. Lily, with her face pressed against the window, doesn't seem interested in interacting with the other boys in the compartment before Snape enters, but they also seem to have put little effort into cheering up this girl who's unhappy and alone. While it might be that James is nicer to Lily because she's a girl (whether because he's immediately interested in her or just because he feels it unchivalrous to bully girls), I think that both James and Sirius immediately pick up on Snape's otherness.

The first description of James we see is, “slight, black-haired like Snape, with that indefinable air of having been well cared for, even adored, that Snape so conspicuously lacked.” A clear differentiation is drawn between the two of them in this scene, and I think the implication is that James perceived this difference too, and it drove him to dismiss Snape and treat him with contempt all the more. I wonder sometimes if James didn't look at Lily and worry that someone like her (cared for, middle class) was friends with someone like Snape (neglected, poor), and whether his interest in her wasn't borne out of a sort of savior complex where he imagined himself as some kind of knight saving the princess from the terrible monster. Perhaps that image comes to mind because of this moment:

James lifted an invisible sword. ‘ “Gryffindor, where dwell the brave at heart!” Like my dad.’

In any case, I think that James' contempt for Snape was driven by his visible poverty and neglect as much, if not more so, than his feelings for Lily, especially in their first few years at school.

Most of what we know of James' Hogwarts years comes from Sirius and Lupin, Snape's memories, and the detention cards Harry has to sort after nearly killing Malfoy with Sectumsempra. Sirius and Lupin remember James as having been popular, but I think they're biased, given they were good friends. In Snape's Worst Memory we see a James who's arrogant, wants attention, and bullies Snape. It's Sirius who says he's bored, but James is the one who points out Snape and leads the bullying. A few minutes before they round on Snape, we see this moment, as James is playing with the snitch while Wormtail marvels sycophantically:

Harry noticed that his father had a habit of rumpling up his hair as though to keep it from getting too tidy, and he also kept looking over at the girls by the water’s edge.

It doesn't take long until:

Snape let out a stream of mixed swear words and hexes, but with his wand ten feet away nothing happened. ‘Wash out your mouth,’ said James coldly. ‘Scourgify!’ Pink soap bubbles streamed from Snape’s mouth at once; the froth was covering his lips, making him gag, choking him - ‘Leave him ALONE!’ James and Sirius looked round. James’s free hand immediately jumped to his hair. It was one of the girls from the lake edge. She had thick, dark red hair that fell to her shoulders, and startlingly green almond-shaped eyes - Harry’s eyes. Harry’s mother.

There are a few things to unpack here. One, it's clear that James is bullying Snape to get Lily's attention, as shown by the hand in his hair and his self-consciousness as he looks over at the girls by the lake and again when Lily comes over. His choice to get her attention through Snape says a lot about his personality and his values. He's 15, a bit too old to flirt through bullying, whether directly or indirectly. He's like a five year old pulling a girl's pigtails on the playground because he likes her. It shows immaturity, but then if you think about Harry at the same age and his own immaturity, it manifested in his inability to understand Cho and his liking her because she was pretty even though they weren't well-suited to each other. It never occurred to Harry to get Cho's attention by bullying someone, not only because Harry wasn't a bully, but because despite being a Quidditch player who played the same position as his father had, he never felt compelled to flex in front of the girl he liked. That, however, seems to be James' go-to move. He doesn't really care what damage he does to Snape, because he objectifies him - Snape is just something he uses to get Lily's attention.

The other thing that sticks out to me about that passage is James' viciousness the second he feels disrespected. It's reminiscent of an abuser's behavior in the way he lashes out disproportionately the moment Snape challenges his sense of authority. Snape uses words, but James responds with physical violence, specifically to silence Snape. It's not just that James' actions show a complete disregard for his victim's well-being (after all, we see Harry and Malfoy butt heads several times but neither hits the other in such a disproportionate way, but then Harry and Malfoy aren't really a parallel for Snape and James because they're rivals and James and Snape have a bully/victim relationship). James seems to feel perfectly entitled to his treatment of Snape as if his response was proportionate. I think the cartoonish imagery of a bubbling bar of soap distracts some readers, but in essence this exchange is as if Snape said "go fuck yourself" and James responded by wrapping his hands around Snape's throat and throttling him. What I find disturbing is the ease with which James does it. When, only moments later, Lily asks what Snape ever did to him, James' casual reply is, “it’s more the fact that he exists, if you know what I mean …” He doesn't see Snape as a person capable of feeling and reacting on the same level he sees himself, and frankly, I find that chilling.

I have a hard time reading James in this moment as anything but abusive. His goal with his actions towards Snape is to exert control through violence, which is what abusers do (I'm including emotional abuse in this statement too, given that emotional violence is still violence). To add to this, this incident happens after the werewolf incident, so James is treating Snape this way after Sirius almost got him killed/maimed/turned by Lupin deliberately. He doesn't seem to have grown or changed after that experience at all when it comes to understanding the impact and influence of his bullying. In fact, he uses Sirius' boredom as an excuse to target Snape, which doesn't seem likely to discourage the same behavior that nearly got Snape killed only a few months earlier.

I think James had a strong relationship with Sirius, but his intervening to prevent Snape getting to the Shrieking Shack shows a difference between the two of them. The incident in SWM seems to indicate that James, who so reflexively attacks Snape with viciousness, was probably acting on behalf of his friends and not Snape when savinghim. My personal meta is that he, unlike Sirius, understood what it would do to Lupin psychologically if he attacked Snape while transformed, and that's why he intervened. I like to think James' view of Sirius changed a bit after that, and his trust in him faltered somewhat, in a way that they never quite fixed, which is why James could be convinced to switch from Sirius to Peter as their secret keeper. That sense of, "when is this friend going to make me vulnerable through his carelessness when he gets lost in his antagonism of someone else."

His empathy for Lupin didn't affect his contempt for someone like Snape, though. We know from Harry's sorting of old detention cards and Lily's accusation in SWM that James would hex people in the halls just because he could. Again, he's using violence to assert himself and doesn't care how it affects people. His friends, though, remember him with fondness. Lily eventually started dating him and liked, presumably loved, him enough to marry him soon after they finished school. We see through Voldemort's memory of the night he killed them that James was affectionate with Harry and that he was willing to put himself between Voldemort and his son and wife to protect the latter (though he was ineffectual given he carelessly left his wand on the couch and bought them no more than a few seconds, which to me shows hubris). So we know that James could be a loving person, but it seems he was selective about who deserved his humanity and affection. He could show contempt just as strongly to others, whether someone he knew casually or someone he actively disliked. It reminds me a bit of the loving letters home from Nazi concentration camp officers who showed that they did have humanity, they just treated their prisoners as undeserving of it in deeply chilling ways. This isn't to say that James was a Nazi by any means (so please don't try to come at me in the comments thx), but rather to illustrate that he, too, displays the ability to be both deeply human and then turn around and dehumanize others when it suits him.

This dischord makes sense when you realize how much of JK Rowling's first husband, Jorge Arantes, is in James, down to his dark hair and round glasses, and especially the dichotomy of how lovable he is meant to be yet how controlling and violent his behavior is. I think James is a character who is often hinted at more than described because of Rowling's own difficulty in processing that relationship and dealing with Arantes as a character on the page. We hear about James more than we see him, but when we do it's:

when Harry sees him and Lily in the Mirror of Erised (which isn't the real James but Harry's idealized version of him)

in moments of grave peril facing his family, ie. when his echo comes out of Voldemort's wand at the end of GoF and when Voldemort recalls the night he killed the Potters

in Snape's memories where he acts violent, entitled, and controlling

What's interesting to me is that in the moments where we see James (ie. pseudo-Arantes) being protective of his family, he's either already dead and an echo, or he is immediately killed. The bulk of the moments in which we see James in his normal, everyday life, he's controlling, violent, arrogant, and insecure. Put in the context of him being an avatar for Arantes, there's enough to unpack there for a trained therapist, but my tl;dr is that Rowling either deliberately or subconsciously has chosen to put him on a pedestal and let his own actions knock him off it. It's unclear to me whether she's struggling to identify her own feelings as she projects them onto the page, or if she's making a considered statement about how even the affectionately thought of father figure can have a dangerously ugly side. The fact that so many Marauders stans look past this behavior, let alone justify it, makes me skeptical of their intentions because I have difficulty seeing James outside the context of the clear parallels between him and Rowling's actual, real-life abuser.

While Lupin and Sirius say that James changed and that's why Lily started dating him, we see signs that he didn't. The fact he kept sneaking out under the invisibility cloak after the Fidelius Charm was put on his house shows that he still put himself and his whims first, implying his entitlement and the difficulty he continued to have putting responsibilities ahead of his own wants. It's indicated he didn't stop bullying at school once he started dating Lily, he just learned to hide it from her better.

Many others have written at length about this, so I'll just touch on it briefly, but I think James justified his behavior on the basis that he felt he was on the right side and against the dark side. Lupin and Sirius talk about Snape and his fascination with dark magic when they were at school, but we see James using innocuous charms like scourgify to enact violence, which mostly just makes me question the distinction between light and dark magic (ie. what matters is how a spell is used, not what category it falls into). James, as a Gryffindor, sees himself to be on the side of righteousness and valor, and though his actions contradict this, he doesn't question himself because he sees himself through the lens of being a Gryffindor, not an individual defined by his choices. His bullying of Snape certainly helped push the latter towards becoming a Death Eater, a cult-like group that preyed on the kind of vulnerability that James exarcebated in Snape. While that is ultimately Snape's journey and part of his character and choices, it's undeniable that, in some way (great or small), James was complicit in that process, and in ways that can be drawn back to his own perception of light vs. dark, his inability to empathize, the viciousness of his bullying, and his judgmental delineation between who deserves to be treated with humanity and who doesn't.

All in all I see James as a spoiled, privileged child who grew up to be an insecure, entitled bully. I think being thrust into the world of Hogwarts, where he had no parents to reinforce the idea that he's a precious angel, brought out his insecurities and instead of outgrowing them he dealt with them by exerting control over everyone around him as much as he could (or as much as he could get away with). I think if he had lived past his early 20s he might have grown more as a person, but as we see him when he dies, he seems to have retained many traits of the boy on the Hogwarts Express who judged others and reflexively bullied the kid he perceived as an outsider. I hope that what people take away from his character is that bullies and abusers can also be fathers and father figures, people capable of affection. Their dangerous side just shows that people like this are complex and their actions nuanced, they aren't just two dimensional villains.

#meta #long post #asks

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takerfoxx · 26 days

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Okay, about halfway through my Evangelion rewatch, and I swear to God this show has taken over my life. Like, even though I've seen it before and recently watched the Rebuild films, it's just clicked with me in a way that hasn't happened in a very long time, and I am loving it.

Anyway.

One thing that I noticed is that while the show gets off on a very depressing note that shines a spotlight on Shinji's problems, from the agony he experiences while piloting the Eva to his crippling depression and everything, once he makes the decision to stay, the tone shifts. Like, all those issues don't really go away fully, but for a little bit, the show gets a lot more lighthearted, becoming almost a traditional giant robots fighting aliens-type show. Shinji's mental health improves exponentially, he forms several healthy relationships, he actually does rather well as a pilot, and things seem to be on the upswing for him.

And then Asuka shows up and...actually, things sort of get better?

Okay, let me explain. The first time I watched this show like fifteen years ago, I couldn't stand Asuka. I thought that she was an entitled, insecure brat, and her treatment of Shinji and Rei was totally uncalled for. However, now that I've experienced this story in both of its entireties, processed all the characters and the complexities of their portrayals, and experienced various interpretations of them through various fanfics, doujins, spin-offs, etc., revisiting the original Asuka that spawned all of these reactions is...honestly, it's not nearly as bad as I remember. Yeah, she's still an insecure brat, but I get it now. And her beef with Shinji and Rei comes from her literally being groomed to be the best Eva pilot imaginable while being traumatized by her mother's suicide, leading her to see the other two pilots as both a threat to her position as well as disappointments for not living up to her standards, hence her hostile treatment of them. Even still, we see that facade crack and she does display moments of genuine kindness and comradery with them.

Also, later events have caused people to view Shinji as something of the most extreme of doormats, but for now, he actually isn't? Like, okay, he's still kind of a pushover, but he does get frustrated, he does push back against Asuka, he does snap and start arguing. At the same time, you can also seem them trying to connect in their highly damaged, kind of awkward ways. It's not working, but you see the attempt, and overall, their dynamic does get played more for laughs and slapstick, at least in the early stages.

Of course, all of that goes out the window later on when everyone gets SOOOO much worse, but for now, it's nice to see these kids' relationship in it's healthiest stage. That scene where they all sit on the hill watching the stars together was honestly adorable, as well as Asuka deliberately eschewing a fancy steak dinner in favor of a trip to a ramen shack so Rei could participate.

As for me being ride or die for a poly ending for this trio, was it at all changed by revisiting the source material? Haha, NOPE! If anything, it was strengthened, given that all three have their unique dynamics with each other instead of the tired cliche of two people fighting over a third and it's all like, "Oh, who will they choose?" Y'ALL HAVE TWO HANDS APIECE!

Though on a more deeply personal side, I think that's why I've had Evangelion infest my mind like it has as of late. I just sort of relate to Shinji, Rei, and Asuka a whole bunch and see aspects of myself in all three, and I just kind of want them to be happy together, but, in this timeline at least, I know that that's not meant to be.

Speaking of complicated characters, Touji and Kensuke certainly are that, because on the one hand, they are kind of best boys in how ride or die they are for Shinji, basically becoming the close friends that he definitely needed and going out of their way to check in on him and support him and stick up for him.

On the other hand, they are also selling creep shots of Asuka and their other female classmates. Like, okay, 90's Japan culture and how that gets played for laughs back then, I get it. Still, not cool, guys. But I guess it just goes with the theme of how these are all messy individuals kind of stumbling their way through their messy lives, and everyone has their good and bad qualities.

Another observations. The virus takeover episode was one of the series' finest, as the whole bottle episode thing where the adults have to solve a unique problem while the pilots were otherwise out of the picture made for a great change of pace and was tense as hell. The dancing episode is a fan favorite for a reason and must've made the AsuShin ship explode early on.

Also, I know that we're supposed to hate the JSSDF because their rep was kind of a jerk to Misato and put down NERV and all (plus the later massacre in the movie), but to be honest, now knowing what we know about NERV and the Evangelions, he was kind of right in everything he was criticizing them about? And the fact that Jet Alone was deliberately sabotaged by NERV in a sort of petty dick-waving contest only puts them in a worse light. Honestly, if the two organizations had actually behaved like adults and cooperated, things might've gone so much better.

But then again, Gendo's got to Gendo, what with SEELE and their whole agenda and everything.

And on a more critical side!

Okay, I've said my piece about all of the weird creep shots in the Rebuild movies and how distracting and, well, uncomfortable they were. Like, okay, I know this whole series is low-key horny, and using Misato for some cheesecake shots, that's fine. But, like I said about Toji and Kensuke's creepy photo business...yeah. It's not as bad as it was in the Rebuild movies, which really took things way over the top, but it's still there.

And honestly, some of it you can get away with. Like, I don't have an issue with the scene between Shinji and Rei in the apartment, or Shinji ogling the girls in their swimsuits, or overhearing Asuka and Misato in the hotspring and having a reaction, because he's a repressed kid full of hormones in a very stressful situation. It makes sense that he would be like that. Same with Asuka's flirty side and how she hangs off of Kaji in a very inappropriate manner. Or Rei's lack of inhibitions. All of these make sense for their characters. I don't even have a problem with how Misato teases Shinji, because she's portrayed as somewhat of an emotionally stunted womanchild.

But when it's not from his or anyone else's point of view and you're just showing fanservice shots of your explicitly underaged characters, it gets kind of, well...

Okay, the point I'm making is...was there like a specific reason for the nude sync test? At all? Did it serve the plot in any way? Yeah, you need them in the plugs to get them out of the way so that the grown-ups could have an episode, but c'mon. Was it really necessary other than to get shots of them naked in their cockpits? Even from a character standpoint, I think Asuka at the very least would have protested more!

I dunno, I know it's a rampant problem in anime and always has been and you kind of need some level of tolerance, but that scene in particular did stand out as a great big, "Why is this happening?" Maybe if it had actually led to something it'd be better, but it didn't.

But Evangelion has always been messy and complicated, and that little bug aside, it's easy to see why it captured so many people's attention when it first came out and still does to this day. Hell, it's definitely consumed my every waking moment as of late.

However, Rei's little existential crisis is any indication, I'm approaching the part where things get really weird, so, that'll be...interesting.

#neon genesis evangelion #shinji ikari #asuka langley soryu #rei ayanami #misato katsuragi #analysis #eva spoilers

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oh-katsuki · 6 months

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i hold the INCREDIBLY strong opinion that hellfire is the best disney villain theme song. the orchestra, the composition, the animation sequence.... the LYRICS?? all of it is so fucking haunting. the hunchback of notre dame was kind of outside of the scope of things disney makes and it was sort of a gamble on whether or not audiences would react well to it. it paid off with story and animation nerds, but actually fell relatively "flat" for a disney film with general audiences.

hunchback didn't have any of the magic that is characteristic of disney movies. there were no spells or witches or magic solutions to problems, save for the gargoyles. it's a film about natural born evil and human reactions to those problems. it's very heavy handed talking about cultural problems that disney films rarely ever touch on so directly, as well as a critique of catholic hypocrisy present in the church. which is arguably... not disney.

hellfire, as a villain song, is so poignant and so outside of the scope of what disney usually creates. it's definitely one of the darkest disney songs, dealing with the concept of sexual desire in conflict with oppressive and hypocritical religious morals. in the movie, frollo is a judge instead of the archdeacon of the church (like he is in the book), though i think it's pretty clear to the audience that frollo is meant to be a religious authoritative figure regardless of his actual title.

the song builds this horrifying sense of dread and entitlement, particularly surrounding frollo's desire to own esmeralda, as well as the deadly blame he places on her for his own sexual desire. it's a song that shifts the fault for his own feelings onto a woman who is already part of an oppressed demographic and one whose narrative renders her powerless in the face of frollo's desired punishment. he's a "pure" character, but his claims to purity are grounded purely in his superiority over others, specifically the cultural group that esmeralda descends from.

it's a desperate rationalization of his feelings and a miserable display of his relinquishment of responsibility in the situation. a prayer sent from a hypocritical man to his hypocritical god. and in his desperation to absolve himself of his sins, he falls deeper into his own.

the chorus in the background chants the confiteor, which is a gregorian confession of sins, but paired with frollo's message, it's not quite a confession of frollo's sins. rather, the implication is that frollo is confessing what he views to be esmeralda's sins, which in turn are having an affect on his own. he absolves himself of guilt by confessing them, but in turn does nothing to actually seek the root of the problem, which is his own objectification of esmeralda and the dehumanization of the cultural group that she's a part of.

the gregorian chant also condemns frollo, showing the audience that despite his backwards confession, he will continue to sin. he confesses to them, but the chorus and the "eyes of notre dame" will damn him anyway because he fails to take responsibility for his own actions.

truthfully, the whole song is a chilling display of the hypocrisy of the church, as well as one of the hypocrisy of man in regards to their views of women. and it's complimented by the music and the swelling orchestra, which highlight claude frollo's anguish and violent internal struggle.

the animation is dark as well, particularly with the way the chorus or "saints" judge frollo as he tries to justify his own feelings, pleading for his eternal soul from his predestined position of "condemned", all the while condemning esmeralda. then, we have the sequence of her dancing in the flames, in which it's revealed that frollo not only hates esmeralda, but desires her sexually and hates her because of it, and that the root of this problem can be found in frollo's sexual desire and not his religious disagreement. the entire tone of the song shifts when frollo says "or else let her be mine and mine alone" and it becomes a chilling representation of claude frollo's misguided blame for his sexual desire. it becomes a song of subjugation rather than religious conflict because the moral is no longer "what she does is impure and a sin" and transforms into "what she does is a sin only if she does it for anyone but me".

in this, frollo reveals his desire to consume esmeralda and take her, as an object, for his own. finally, the animation of her in the flame moving from dance to burning on a pyre is a direct representation of what frollo intends to do with her should she not choose to be with him. it's a violent threat rooted in sexuality and misogyny. frollo does not love esmeralda, but lusts after her, and is willing to kill her in order to avoid the shame in rejection and taking responsibility for his own sins.

anyway yeah, i feel very strongly about this song and i feel very strongly about the overall message it delivers. as far as villain songs go, it is one of the most desperate and miserable displays of true villainy and the absence of magic only serves to make it more haunting. people like this exist. they have for centuries. even with no magic to corrupt or make them greedy, frollo continues to become greedy and drunk with power. and yeah. it's good. i feel strongly.

#i had to speak about it im sorry #it's really just.#idk i love it #and i probably missed a lot here #because the song is PACKED with religious symbolism #and cultural commentary #that can be read in bOTH directions #but MAAAAN it's GOOD #it's the BEST #i feel very strongly about this #sorry if this doesnt make sense #i typed it out in 10 seconds because i became so consumed listening to the song. it's important to me

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evermoredeluxe · 4 months

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It's not asking a lot if I was shocked to see her date a man whose views are all kinds of wrong. I've been struggling with being her fan since Matty happened, to me it feels like everything i thought about her was wrong (ik it's not black and white, but I can't go back to how I loved her before).

If she supports women, diversity etc, she would never date a guy who is so publicly full of hate for everyone other than white men.

and if that’s caused you to take a step back and not be a fan, that’s your prerogative and it’s okay! sometimes we love people and then sometimes we stop.

a conversation about matty healy and his views and the way he goes about them is a whole other can of worms (idek him that well to facilitate it). anyway, for the sake of a different opinion, i’ve learned to trust taylor over the years of being her fan. im not justifying her association to him, but she was in a very bad place during that time and i can see how/why she wasn’t thinking things through. they were together (if you can even call it that; he was there and they hooked up) for like 3 weeks and then she was like “okay actually. let me put a stop to this.” i know her character and i gave her the benefit of the doubt, and also, sometimes human beings just make mistakes (small and big). unrelated to your ask, but that time showed me that a lot of fans don’t trust her (which is wild to me personally because if i felt that way, i couldn’t be this big a fan), but still feel entitled to her life and choices; she’s gonna do what she wants and learn on her own.

#arshia takes #anonymous #replies

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tawaifeddiediaz · 11 months

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tbf some of us are complaining about this feeling like eddieana/bucktaylor again because it feels like an unoriginal rehashing of those storylines, not just because of love interests per se

but is it? is it really?

before i say anything, i want to preface by saying that everyone is entitled to their own opinion about things, and that being disappointed with how the season ends is a valid feeling to have. except the way that this has spiraled through fandom with all these comparisons indicates that no one's really understanding the use of these storylines to begin with. that no one's taking it with any amount of grace, between the constant negativity, review bombing, etc etc and that's why it's frankly annoying.

yes, there was the whole thing about this potentially being the series finale, and if that had happened, it would've sucked, but it didn't. there are still many stories to tell about this whole thing, why not focus on that?

back to your ask:

eddie, this whole season, has spent time fretting and spiraling about not wanting to be alone, now that he's actually in a place to move on from shannon - who, as we've found out this season, has potentially been his only partner before ana.

think about the way that it is only this season that pepa starts to set him up, and that it's only this season that he even considers it, even if it's for his aunt's sake and he wasn't initially happy with it. think about the way he's been going to frank to unravel some of these feelings, that he and chris are talking more openly about shannon, that eddie is allowing himself to feel his grief so he can carry the weight of it better.

marisol, regardless of how anyone feels about her, comes in front of him and he feels a spark of connection with her at the hardware store. and this time, christopher himself encourages eddie to call her, ending the conflict we saw at the beginning of the episode where he was trying to text her.

eddieana and eddiemarisol are very different just on the basis of how he reaches out to her. it remains to be seen how they intend to continue it, but for the purpose of his arc this season, he's taken the step, his son is on board, and he's moving towards a relationship where he feels less of the grief of losing shannon. those are three securities that eddieana did not have, because eddieana was how eddie was trying to move on from shannon's loss, while eddiemarisol is what he's doing now that he already has.

as for bucktaylor - natalia, whether we like it or not, gives buck something that no other character on the show gives, just by virtue of not knowing him. him dying isn't a tragedy to her the way it is to everyone else, and for buck, who's still grappling with the loss of his life and all, that is a big thing for him to find somewhere.

it's easy for us to sit here and say "eddie sees him" or "how does someone who's known him for 3 seconds know him better than all his friends" or "she sounds too fascinated" but buck does not get afforded the same view that we do. he is an unreliable narrator, going through the things that we see from a bird's eye view, almost.

yes, there are multiple parallels between bucktaylor and bucknatalia but again, those are things we see, as viewers. they're not things that buck is going to notice right off the bat.

that ending scene with the couch - if we absolutely must with this specific interpretation of the theory - ali and taylor both came with couches. this is one where he's taking an active role in purchasing it for his apartment, an active role in pursuing something that'll make him happy. will it pan out? who knows. but where his story stands right now, it's miles different from where buck and taylor where at the end of s4.

and if it's buddie goggles that we're trying to view this through, then i absolutely do understand the disappointment, but with s7 coming up, and so much more for them to flesh out (because 911 does sometimes spread storylines across multiple seasons), there's going to be a lot more to come.

anyway this got very long, but my point basically is that i don't understand how this feels like they're rehashing storylines because when i take a look at the path towards the decision they made with ana and taylor vs marisol and natalia, it couldn't be more different.

#zee answers #eddie diaz #evan buckley #911 spoilers #911 meta #i have so much more to say but i actually don't have the english for any of it

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hello-nichya-here · 8 months

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Why did Zuko feel compassion towards victims of war (Song, that couple's unborn baby) but Azula hasn't? Because she didn't have her own "Iroh" or because she wasn't as much exposed to the other environment?

Before we even discuss Azula, let's remember that despite Zuko's compassion towards others being very real, we cannot forget a few important aspects of these moments of pre-redemption kindness.

After bonding with Song, who had just helped him and his uncle, he stole her ostrige-horse (which Iroh went along with, though showing much more remorse than Zuko - aka any remorse at all).

Even though he didn't steal from that couple because he saw that the woman was pregnant, he still said "the people should be giving stuff to us" because that's what he was used to as a prince adn robbed plenty of people in the Earth Kingdom, taking both food and money, but also stuff he absolutely did not need to survive - to the point that Iroh tried to make him see that this was wrong, to which Zuko said that they would no longer gain anything by travelling together, as a very clear "I'll do whatever I think I should/am entitled to do."

And, of course, even though Zuko DID eventually feel compassion for all of Earth Kingdom in general (we see proof of it when turns his back on his father and joins the Gaang) we cannot forget that, even after that, he did go back to the very nation that was oppressing and killing them, even when Iroh had made it very clear "It's time for you to choose. It's time for you to choose good" clearly meaning "It's time to leave your old life behind and help stop your father", and only left when he was forced to think of the consequences of his actions as Ozai planned to burn everything to the ground, and Zuko was disgusted at himself for not speaking out against it.

These are important things to keep in mind because they show us that:

1 - Even when one is removed from the environment they grew up in, it still affects their world-view in the long term (Zuko had been banished for three years after all).

2 - Selective compassion is a thing, and it can be a result of "desperate times, desperate measures" (see Iroh stealing the ostrige-horse even he clearly didn't want to do that), of literal indoctrination and pleasant lies to excuse your bad actions (see Sozin starting the war to "share the Fire Nation's great way of life with others", regardless of them wanting it or not), of the classic "This thing I'm doing WOULD be bad in normal circumstances, but it's totally okay right now because it's a war and they are not on my side" justification, and of just thinking your life is way more important than anyone else's so screwing them over without necessity is fine.

3 - Changing one's whole mentality is a long, difficult process, in which is very common for the person to constantly take one step forwards then two steps back for quite some time before fully moving on.

4 - Having a mentor/support system is nice, but at the end of the day people make their own choices, and it doesn't matter if you tell them (gently or sternly) "You're making a huge mistake" because if they don't see it that way, there's nothing you can do to force them to understand where you're coming from.

Now, let's finally discuss Azula. Much like Zuko, she was raised in a deeply dysfunctional family that gave her all the wrong lessons about how relationships are supposed to work, AND said family was also royalty of an imperialist nation that had normalized war and genocide nearly a whole century before she was born. And unlike Zuko, she did not have someone to even try to guide her towards the right path.

To make matters worse, she's also "Ozai's right hand" and his favorite child for most of the show - which in this context means she's the child soldier that has been brainwashed the most AND the kid that is the least likely to recognize she's being taken advantage of because every unfair thing Ozai demans of her (and that often has very serious consequences for others) is framed as her duty both as his daughter and heir, and as a potential way to gain some of the love and validation the bastard is well aware his children crave.

EVEN WORSE, all the stress Azula was put under psychologically destroyed her - and has made her paranoid. Meaning that even if someone were to try and step up to help her now, she would be convinced that they are either secretly ploting to harm her, or at the very least that they are trying to fool her because they need something from her.

For Azula to ever be able to see the error of her ways, she'd need:

1 - To recover from her breakdown and have a support system of people she trusts.

2 - These people would need to push her to see that the war hurt her, the people she loves, the people of the Fire Nation, and the people of the other nations (yes, in that order). They'd also need to be ready to deal with her taking one step forward, two steps back, just like Zuko did, because as I've already explained this is a long, complicated process.

3 - Recovered and willing to admit that the war was a terrible thing that never should have happened, she'd spend sometime with amongst some of the people it affected the most (that can mean anything from "lots of conversations with Aang and the rest of the group when they visit Zuko" all the way to "life-changing field trip with Zuzu to help rebuild the Earth Kingdom/Air Temples/Water Tribe(s), it really just depends on what you'd like to see in a story)

#asks #azula meta #azula deserved better

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condomatsu · 5 months

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LOTS OF HOMESTUCK FANDOM RAMBLING AND COMPLAINS

[this is my view, this is my opinion, idc if you disagree, idc if you agree, i just wanna talk about it and hopefully never touch the subject ever again] [english is not my first language, pardon my errors]

"Kanaya and Rose are lesbians!!!" that's a cool and valid headcanon, but you recognize and treat it as what it is - a headcanon - right?

You recognize that people who ships Kanaya and Karkat are not 'homophobes' nor are 'trying to erease Kanaya's sexuality', right?

I like rosemary, I really do, but I'm TIRED to see people writing "DNI IF YOU SHIP KANAYA/ROSE WITH BOYS". You're entitled to do that, sure, that's not even the biggest problem. THE problem is when 'fans' see the ship and not the characters and don't go over that. They see rosemary as "the lesbians uwu" and nothing else.

Rose and Kanaya used to be very complex and unique characters. Sure, Act6 ruined them, but Act6 ruined EVERYONE, so what's the difference? Why so many people headcanons Karkat as 'gay' but still recognize him as his own character? Why it's not the same with Rose and Kanaya?

They basically don't exist outside of their relationship anymore, they exist as a whole that consist in just "the sapphics, the lovers, the wives" and that's it.

Mind you, I would still say this even if their canon sexuallity was lesbian, but the fact they're not and people are so aggressive about it makes it so much worse.

Rose has shown interest in men, Kanaya - as EVERY troll - doesn't even know wtf 'sexuality' means. Basically, if we HAVE to give the a sexuality, Rose is more bisexual and Kanaya pansexual - maybe omni since Hussie said Kanaya's interest in women is "a fetish"; something horrorific that I seriously don't know how fans (indireclty) accepted (by making Kanaya as "the lesbian uwu").

I feel like repeating myself, but YOU CAN HEADCANON THEM AS THE FUCK YOU WANT TO! You can even feel uncomfortable if people ships them with the opposite gender! You can post/talk/reblog/etc about them only when they're paired together, I do it too! But don't go after people who sees them differently; don't go after people who doesn't buy the 'canon rosemary bullshit' (remember they interacted very less and very less romantically than other famous ships like grimdorks after all); don't geniunly think about them as "the lesbians" and nothing else. This is why wlw ships and woman characters are so less relevant and seen in fandom spaces. Yeah, they're in every Beta kids/troll draw, but them ALONE as themselves, without making their sexulity/relationships the centre of the thing? How many character analysis there are about homestuck boys - sometimes even without mentioning their relationships at all? How many there are about girls character? And I used rosemary as an example but Jade suffers a lot of this too.

Have you seen Jade outside of the "best girl" or "autistic girl" or "cute girl who can beat your ass" context? Much less, right? The last one - "cute girl who can beat your ass" - is even less present then the others somehow. Jade in general is very less present in the fandom in general.

"It always has been this way" I disagree. VRISKA is the perfect example for this. If you go further back into the fandom, you'll see tons and tons of Vriska-solo content, lots of analysis, fanarts, fanfics, etc. But since she became the "Terezi's moirail uwu" she stopped existing so much outside of her relationship with Terezi. Even Vriska's relationship with Tavros didn't do that. Gosh, not even Vriska's PAST relationship with Kanaya did that! I'm not even sure this people even KNOW Vriska and Kanaya were moirails and that Rose was supposed to 'replace Vriska' and become Kanaya's moirail herself.

But times have changed and now Vriska too is the "butch lesbian" and nothing else. Well, in her case, she still have lots of solo-moments in the fandom, but I think that's because of her HUGE part in Homestuck, were you simply cannot talk about it without mentioning her and the stuff she does. "That's valid for Rose and Kanaya too", yeah, but significantly less, you understand that? You *can* summorize Homestuck without mentioning Rose's role in the Beta SBURB session and so it's for Kanaya, but it's more difficoult to do so without mentioning Vriska's numerous interventions and fucked ups. Also, Vriska is a much more controversial character, of course people are going to discuss her more outside of her relationships.

I'm happy that this fandom considers characters as Nepeta and Feferi, even if they have such a short screentime. Still there are plenty of problems with how they're portaied in the fandom.

Nepeta's "cat-girl >w<" moments are more or less stopped; old fandom already saw this and contrasted this. The same can't be said for Feferi.

I'll say this once here and only once and (hopefully) nowhere else: Feferi is not a good person, and she's not a bitch either.

"But she stopped Eridan from committing genocide!" she still wanted to keep lowbloods as pets.

"But she used Eridan and broke up with him!" she forced herself in a relation with him to keep his morderous intentions down.

Do you see what's the problem here? It's not the ships, it's not the screentime, it's not the misscharacterization, the problem is the white-black mentality people have in fandoms; the belief that one character can exist in one context and nothing else (one ship, one way of thinking, one characteristic, ...). Characters can and should be more complex than one characteristic they have which is a little fraction of themselves. AND this is especially true for girls/women characters, who are STILL viewed less and less complexly than boys/men characters, and THAT'S what kills complete girls characters and kills variations and fertilize misscharacterizations.

—sincerelly, a solkat lover who berally can see them outside of their relationship and doesn't like other ships with them

EDIT: some people have read the incipit as lesbophic, I'm very sorry for that! here are two posts (post n1), (post n2), where I clarify it. Feel free to send an ask too if there's some doubts about my statements or if you disagree on something (and explain why of course).

#homestuck #homestuck fandom #fandoms #in general cuz it's still true for other fandoms #women characters #rosemary #Rose Lalonde #Kanaya Maryam #Jade Harley #Vriska Serket #Nepeta Leijon #Feferi Peixes #long post #ramblings #complaining

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