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greensaplinggrace · 3 years

Note

So you mentioned in another post that you have some strong thoughts on Baghra, especially about how the story frames her as one of the good guys. I would love to hear about it.

@youremotionallystablefriend: I would love to hear you rant about Baghra if you feel like it (and haven’t already)! Personally I don’t think she gets enough constructive critique in the fandom for being the one that brought Aleks up and for the way she treated her pupils and especially Alina :/

Anon: Hello! I love your thoughts on the grisha books. I'm actually interested to hear your take on Baghra

@misku-nimfa: If you are up for it, I would love to read your thoughts on Baghra or your full critique of society in the Grishaverse. Your analysis is really well structured and interesting! ^.^

Anon: Hi! I saw your recent post and was wondering if you'd share more of your thoughts on Baghra?

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Hello everyone! I was honestly very surprised to see so many people interested in my thoughts on Baghra? I'll share what I can, but please know that this is by no means a full breakdown of her character! It’s just some Thoughts I’ve had, and they’re mostly centered around show Baghra because that’s how I was first introduced to her character. Although IMO book Baghra might actually be even worse.

I’d like to preface this by saying that many of my issues with the treatment of Baghra as a character in fandom come from the wild double standard there seems to be regarding her and the Darkling. Darkling Antis and a vast majority of the people in this fandom who don’t like his character have a disturbing habit of absolutely ripping into the Darkling for all of his faults and then turning around and treating Baghra as some sort of pristine mother figure for the exact same shit.

They’ll talk about how badass she is, how strong she is, how they sympathize with her past (although they’ll continue to dehumanize the Darkling and refuse to sympathize with his own past) and sympathize with the fact that she has to deal with the Darkling (who’s always referred to as a monster she must corral or control, as if he is inhumane and beastly. These particular comments always take on the very distinct tone of victim blaming as well). They’ll laud her for all of these “powerful girlboss” moments as if they aren’t carbon copies of the Darkling’s own behavior - as if they aren’t things Baghra herself taught him. Which is why this is the wildest double standard of all to me, because every horrible action they praise Baghra for is something she taught the Darkling, and something they cannot stand to see in him as well.

It’s as if there’s a disconnect between their consumption of the literature when it comes to the two characters, and I’m of the opinion that it’s largely because Baghra is a woman and a mother and therefore infantilized in the fandom quite a bit. In fact, Bardugo herself often infantilizes many of her female characters in her writing. This is mostly through the process of excusing their terrible deeds, not allowing them to do anything remotely dark, or brushing any morally grey actions under the rug without ever touching upon them. Which puts me in the strange position of knowing I’m supposed to sympathize with Baghra for having to deal with the monster she’s created, and instead feeling resentful of the fact that this bitter woman is held up as this wise old strict teacher instead of the abusive mentor/mother she should have been.

Now, here’s what I said to make so many of you send me asks:

Last note, in reference to your first line, and also probably a pretty unpopular opinion. I do not like Baghra. And it legit has nothing to do with the Darkling or with Alina, I just don't like her "I'm going to hit you and berate you and emotionally abuse you and manipulate you and act like the good guy at the end of it" vibe she's got going on. At least Aleksander is acknowledged as the villain within the narrative. Idk wtf Baghra is on but it's absolutely wild to me that people aren't more critical of her actions. Which is, rather fortunately for you, another rant I will save for another post if anybody ever wants to hear it lol. (but like kudos to Baghra's actress. I loved the character as a character, I just don't like the way she's framed as a good guy. Weird. Uncomfortable. She literally set bees on the kids she was teaching).

This basically summarizes most of my thoughts on Baghra as a character and how she’s portrayed. I touched on it a bit above, but the way she’s able to get away with so much and not suffer under heavier critique is honestly baffling to me. There should be a lot more criticism of her out there in the fandom. This is the woman who abused her students and neglected her son. Although to be honest I don’t even know how to quite describe the emotionally neglectful yet unhealthily codependent bond she fostered in him from a young age. IMO, Baghra’s behavior around Aleksander is creepy, and I know she has a history that makes it more understandable, but it’s still incredibly disconcerting to witness.

But let’s get back on track! First of all, her students. Whom she physically, emotionally, and mentally abuses. She’s derisive, she’s insulting, she’s belittling. She works hard to strip them of any self confidence they may have. She uses pain as a means of triggering powers. And the strict teacher excuse doesn’t fly. The “it’s only a training method!” excuse is even worse. This is literal abuse she’s heaping on her students and it’s wretched.

The first thing she does to Alina when they first meet is insult her. Then she hits her. Then she kicks her out.

Second time they interact is a montage. Baghra hits Alina multiple times. She shames her. And then when Alina actually calls a light she tells her it’s not nearly enough, effectively wiping the smile off of her face and every sign of self confidence that had been building. Then we see the door to Baghra’s hut shut in Alina’s face. So now she has been bruised, battered, berated, stripped of all self confidence, and then banished again. As training methods go, this is not only entirely ineffective, but it’s also just abusive.

Then we get this interaction between Alina and her friends:

Marie: One time, Baghra released a hive of bees on me. Nadia: Worst part is, it worked. Marie: It really did. I could summon at will after that.

Which is fucking horrifying and not talked about nearly enough. That goes beyond hitting your students. Baghra used a fear tactic on a young girl to activate her powers. She literally tortured Marie to make her powers work.

Alina throughout this conversation is looking very disheartened. She’s lacking in any self confidence and the comment about the bees has clearly affected her. For someone who’s first words to Alina were “Everyone believes that you are the one. Come back when you believe it too,” Baghra doesn’t exactly seem keen on Alina actually believing she’s the one. If she did, she wouldn’t be stripping her of every positive emotion associated with sun summoning.

Let’s not forget that Baghra demeans Alina multiple times for her status as an orphan. How she utilizes what she knows of Alina’s emotional weaknesses to provoke her and discourage her and make her angry.

And then Baghra drugs her without consent. To take advantage of any information Alina gives her in that state. To use the way Alina reacts for her own ends.

Because why else would she say this?:

Alina: We planned to run away together. Baghra: You had plans. Perhaps he never did, because where is he now?

Which is, strangely enough, the same sense of isolation and separation from Mal and her past that Aleksander is attempting to foster. Weird how mother and son are both using the same manipulation tactics.

In fact, why does Baghra never tell Alina about the letters until she’s already engaged with Aleksander? Baghra must have known he was taking them. Alina talks about it enough. Baghra must have known he was isolating her from Mal. How could she not, when it’s revealed later that she has spies in the Little Palace collecting information on him? How could she not, when she knows he’s the villain from the beginning - when she knows he’s manipulating Alina?

Baghra knows, and yet she keeps the same lies Aleksander does and furthermore uses that information to make Alina feel even more isolated and weak. Baghra literally just piggy-backs on Aleksander’s manipulation and then exacerbates it. She wants Alina to feel no attachments to her past because she wants to use Alina as well. But for some reason, because this manipulation and treatment of Alina as some sort of tool is done by the woman who opposes the Darkling, it’s suddenly okay. As if it still isn’t the same terrible shit but with a different perpetrator. I mean damn, at least Aleksander feels something for Alina. Baghra’s just cold.

So, point by point. Baghra mentions how Mal doesn’t care for Alina, she mentions Alina’s failings constantly, she mentions Alina being an orphan, she constantly hits her, she guilts Alina about orphans dying, she works to instill a sense of isolation from her friends and her family.

And when Alina finally comes to Baghra, having decided to abandon her attachments to her past and her attachments to Mal, the words that ring in her head are Baghra's words - “needing anyone else is weak.” Which is honestly just a horrible sentiment in general, but an even worse one when considering how hard these people are working to detach Alina from anybody who can help her or give her an outside perspective.

Strangely, it’s also similar to this line:

The problem with wanting, is that it makes us weak.

...which is spoken by Baghra’s son. You know, the Darkling? Our big bad villain? The one Baghra raised?

Which gives me the impression that Baghra’s teaching methods with her students are really not that far off from the teaching methods she used on him as he was growing up. It’s a horrifying thought, and leads into my problems with her relationship with Aleksander.

First of all, show wise. What the fuck.

Aleksander: They’re punishing us for being Grisha. Baghra: Punishing you. You made him afraid. Now he wants you to fear him. Aleksander: I won a war for him. Baghra: And in doing so, started a war on us.

I get that she’s trying to convey how the king feels here, but it still feels incredibly victim blamey from a narrative standpoint. It isn’t Aleksander’s fault the king fears him when he used his powers under the King’s banner to help him win a war. Aleksander trusted this man who betrayed him and then betrayed his people, and we get a line from his mother, entirely unsympathetic, talking about how it’s his fault all of these people are dying.

Baghra: Where’s the girl, your healer? Aleksander: Dead. She died because of me. Baghra: She died because they always do. They’re not as strong as you and me.

Baghra’s use of the term ‘girl’ and ‘healer' here instead of Luda is pretty telling. She either doesn’t like Luda or doesn’t care for her. Either way, this is the woman her son loves, and Baghra talks about her so dispassionately. Then he comments on Luda’s death and there’s no reaction except to say that they always do.

Like, her son is literally broken up over here. Grieving. Desperate. Run ragged. Caged and hunted. Feeling guilty as hell. Mind running through a million different ways he could possibly save all of these people. And Baghra offers him nothing except a paltry “people die, get over it, we’re better than that, she didn’t matter anyway.”

Honestly, how is Aleksander even still functioning at this point? He has no support system and he’s working against a king and his army to protect a group of civilians he could easily abandon to save himself. The sheer amount of responsibility and mental strain keeping track of a group alone entails is already monstrous, but adding in every other factor? The recent death of Luda, the fact that they’re cornered and they’ve been hunted down while fleeing across the land, the fact that he was just a couple hours ago forced to his knees and entirely at these men’s mercy, begging for Luda’s life. And here his mother is, if anything a negative support system. Offering no other ideas, telling him to give up hope, not even offering the barest smidgeon of emotional support as he grieves, putting everything on his shoulders.

It pisses me the fuck off.

Aleksander: You’re the one who taught me how to kill, mother. Their blood is on your hands as much as mine. Baghra: I taught you so you could protect yourself. Not them.

Once more, Baghra highlights how he needs to protect himself. How he should abandon the people he’s protecting. How he shouldn't help others and only ever himself. Once more, she says it’s my way or the high way. There’s zero effort to work with him. Zero effort to sympathize or compromise. She’s constantly pushing him to take the one option she knows he won’t take. The hell did she think was going to happen?

Also, Baghra taught him how to kill. Not necessarily great parenting, but understandable given the circumstances of his upbringing. But the level to which she takes it is honestly concerning. Like, look no further than this woman to see where Aleksander got it from lol.

Baghra also forbids him from using Merzost. Which is great and all, she gets to claim the moral high ground. But she doesn’t offer a single alternative except to flee and let everybody die. There was legitimately no other option to Merzost except for torture and death. If there was, Baghra sure as hell didn’t help Aleksander come up with one. Aleksander, who - by the way - is in no fit emotional state to be making any kind of decision right now.

So anyways, that’s just my tv show grief regarding Baghra, and it’s not even really all of it. I don’t want to make this an hour long read though lmao. But I’ll go over a few other things.

First of all, Baghra’s whole “We’re the only two that matter. We have to do whatever we can to protect ourselves,” mentality is one that she actively touts to Aleksander on a regular basis when he’s incredibly young. It’s honestly a wonder he grows up to care about other people at all. But the mentality itself is something Aleksander still heavily internalized in regards to protecting himself and those he deems worthy at any cost.

There’s a moment in the books when Aleksander is attacked and nearly drowned by some kids who wanted his bones (one of which was a close friend of his). He uses the cut in self defense and then blames the nearby Otkazat’sya village. Baghra knows he’s lying, and yet she allows an entire village to get slaughtered for harming him. This is a disproportionately violent act that Baghra approves of, and Aleksander as a kid is definitely internalizing that mindset.

Also, Baghra’s behavior around Aleksander has always been weirdly possessive and controlling. Especially when it comes to the people he loves. Her actions often come across as her trying to isolate him in order to keep him by her side, even when the relationships he has are clearly intimate. Which... is especially strange for a mother to be doing to her son.

She was also an extremely emotionally neglectful mother. Based on the show and what I gathered from her actions there, I’m actually half convinced she was physically abusive as well, in that “I think I’m being a stern, good parent figure when in reality I’m actually harming my child” kind of way. She fosters codependence with her son and then refuses to provide for any of his emotional needs. She drives it into his head that everybody dies, that he’ll always be alone, that love is useless and power is everything. She denies him the opportunity to be soft and works to harden him at a young age. She tells him he must never allow people to touch him, except she doesn’t work to supplement those physical needs in any way. She essentially abuses him.

Honestly, I could go on. But in reality the simple fact is that I just don’t like her. I think she’s a hypocrite. I think she’s abusive. I think she’s a terrible mentor and an even worse mother. And I think the fandom and the books are willing to brush aside so many of her faults simply because she opposes the Darkling.

I’m sorry if this isn’t what you guys were looking for! It sounds like a lot of you wanted a more of a sophisticated breakdown, but my thoughts on Baghra come with a heap of emotional baggage lol. It feels weird to say this now, but I actually do like the character as a character, I just,,, don’t like her in every other aspect. My feelings on Baghra are just a bit personal, to be honest. But hopefully this was at least comprehensible??

#shadow and bone #sab #grishaverse #anti leigh bardugo #anti baghra #baghra critical #sab spoilers #demon in the wood spoilers #aleksander morozova #sab meta #the darkling #fandomcourse #myramblings #leigh bardugo critical #mymetas #anti darklina bs #please dont hate me for this #aaahhhh now im worried #Yikes

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likearecordbb · 3 years

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about your post on the recent discourse...

it's honestly so confusing to me because like,, you say that ppl pointing out how members of this fandom will make neil very stereotypically 'feminine' is reinforcing the idea of 'masculinity' as one thing and 'femininity' as another.... and i get that we should get rid of these labels. but at the same time... the content itself that ppl are criticising (the ones that 'feminize' neil) are already doing just that. that's why they're criticising it.

i can't point out how ppl are reinforcing the idea that a relationship should have a 'man' and a 'woman', without... saying that that's what they're doing. the writer themselves already sees relationships this way and 'masculinity' and 'femininity' as two different distinct things. that's exactly *why* they're writing neil this way while keeping andrew close to canon.

there's nothing wrong with neil being stereotypically 'feminine' of course. but to act like it's somehow misogynistic for me to go to these ppl and be like 'hey, u shouldn't view mlm relationships through the lens of a hetero one! it can be very harmful' is weird to me... *especially* considering these stereotypes that ppl are pushing onto neil come from misogyny themselves. (ppl making neil much much more emotional than he is in canon while keeping andrew very stoic)

idk, like... ur simultaneously saying that we shouldn't view relationships as needing a 'man' and a 'woman'... while defending people who are doing just that and creating content which reinforces just that.

it's one thing to say 'we shouldn't view masculinity and femininity as two distinct and different things!'/'we should get rid of these labels all together cause they're meaningless'... but if i look at the content that u make/consume and it's practically, if not entirely, all andreil conforming to heternormative stereotypes... then i can't help but feel like ur not as detached from the idea of 'masculinity' and 'femininity' as u would like to believe... i trust the ppl who say these ideas are meaningless while not changing the canon characters because they seem to be sticking to their words.

people will just say that they prefer writing andreil is this heternormative way... they'll just say it what they like or what they're most comfortable writing without ever questioning *why* they prefer it this way.

and if they're projecting.. well then, *why* this couple? why pick an mlm couple to project what is often the experience of a cis woman in a relationship? why pick this mlm couple when there are others that do fit the stereotypical heternormative dynamic? idk. like,, u can do this ofc, but ppl can also call u out on ur shit.

there's an undeniable reason that neil is exclusively the one that ppl pick to make more stereotypically 'feminine'. and there's a reason this type of content is also so popular. and it's certainly not wrong to point this out.

You know, I can see all of these points that you're making. For me, the overall issue of this is very complicated. I am also super uncomfortable with the imposition of heteronormative roles onto...well, onto any relationship, regardless of the identities of the people who constitute it. I was raised smack dab in the middle of the gay community by lesbian moms (together 38 years now, jfc, can you imagine??), so that "man/woman" thing was never something that I grew up internalizing or normalizing. I can recognize that this may give me a bit too much of a sense of objectivity.

However, I'm also like...I've been ruined by grad school. The "feminizing" word makes me really uncomfortable because it starts to stray for me into gender essentialism territory. It also seems to foundationally differentiate between "masculine" behaviors and "feminine" behaviors and I just really hate that? Lesbian moms, trans daughter, bi (and late-in-life trying to see where on the ace spectrum I might fall) self, I've just met so many people with so many expressions of gender and sexuality and I just... Idk, I automatically resist anything that feels like it's upholding "masculinity" and "femininity" as real (as in, not constructed) things. And then I also am like, well, I've known SO MANY gay men who behaved in the ways that the discourse constructs as "feminized" and then I start to feel like, what about these men? Are they less 'men' because of it? How would it feel for that man to read these things saying his identity expression was a problem or a bad stereotype? Do I read *Neil Josten* within that context... no, not really. I think Neil has a 'not enough emotional expression' problem way before he has a 'too much emotional expression' problem.

I'll say here what I often say to my students in complex discussions: I don't have answers. I don't think I'm right and anyone else is wrong. I just have complicated thoughts and feelings and concerns about some of the things that sometimes seem to be left uninterrogated.

So, I do 100% get the need to be vigilant about the imposition of a "man" (dominant, emotionally constipated, sexually driven, stoic) role and "woman" (emotional, needy, teary, dependent) role onto relationships with two (or more!) men or women. I would also argue that we need to get rid of that idea in hetero relationships, too, because it's super damaging. I just wish we could find a way to talk about that that didn't feel like it was accepting this idea of femininity as a given? And I definitely agree that it's problematic when the 'bottom' in a relationship is depicted as the one who's soft and silly and weepy. (Have you read TJ Klune's Tales from Verania series? A VERY fun world that does that not at all and it's great). I'm not saying these things are not worth confronting--I'm just really uncomfortable with the way the conversations are often framed around a concept of femininity/feminizing. It feels like shrapnel, I guess? Like, 'ugh stop feminizing Neil he's not weepy and uwu he's a badass' feels inherently to me like it's making femininity and badassery mutually exclusive? Maybe I'm just looking for a caveat or footnote in the argument that acknowledges that that is constructed *for women too*? And is a part of, like, a larger heteronormative patriarchal structure? And not something that we can just all obviously agree is the way the ladies (should?) behave?

One other question I've been dying to ask, though, is: where are these fics? I don't think I've ever read something where Neil is crying over Jack being mean to him or anything. Maybe if I start to see hints of that characterization, I just close the tab and never end up getting to the 'worst' of it?

Although, if what you said earlier about the "content that u make/consume and it's practically, if not entirely, all andreil conforming to heternormative stereotypes..." was referring to me, then... idk what to say to that. I don't think that's what I do. The heteronormative relationship that you're describing isn't one that I enjoy, desire for myself (or anyone else), or have any interest in reproducing.

Does this clarify what I'm trying to say? I guess it's a really long way of saying, in the old insufferable grad school tradition: well, first we have to define our terms. Because I'm not sure we're all coming up with the same thing when we use the word "feminizing" and that probably has a lot to do with why we keep having this exact same conversation over and over and over again.

If I missed any specific point you'd like to pick at in more detail, please let me know--my very sad platonic life partner (who had to put her beloved 15-year-old poodle to sleep yesterday) and her mom are waiting for me to drive them to the stores for a distraction, so I'm feeling a little time pressure.

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sixeyesgojo · 3 years

Text

Team Gojo as flowers

Summary: Gojo, Yuji, Megumi, Nobara and Sukuna as types of flowers

Characters: stated above

Content warning: mild manga spoilers

Word count: -

A/N: I’d appreciate feedback here (and in general) because I’m not sure whether to do this kind of hc for other JJK characters or not. I am thinking of Toge in particular because I love my salmon boy. Also fyi, this was some time after 135 but before 140 for sure.

Gojo Satoru - Nemophila

I just saw these and immediately thought about how good they would suit him???

another name for them would be baby blue eyes (no, I had no idea beforehand)

they symbolize prosperity, victory, success or triumph over an enemy

flashback to Gojo beating Jogo tf up... but add a nemophila field in the background <3

That being said, his profile literally states that he is perfect in every way (except for his personality but we still love that, right?), so if this isn't success in every way then idk

This flower's essence is also said to be helpful for those who put up a mask over their painful sensitivity

Gojo also displays characteristics of cynism and mistrust towards the higher-ups

Furthermore, I think he is a little anti-social - doesn't have a lot of friends. As someone from the secret Jujutsu World, he's bound to be hidden in a way. This is enforced by the fact that he is the strongest, so a lot of people and curses are out to get his head. I'd think he doesn't keep anyone too close to him so that they do not become a target for anyone. Must be traumatizing to be him.

This flower helps soothen the soul's conflict, healing it slowly, which is exactly what Gojo needs imo

it really is the perfect flower for him

but it's native to North America

Yeah, watch him teleport there to bring back a bouquet of them for his s/o

Itadori Yuji - Protea (orange)

This kind of flower comes in many different shapes, which is why it's a symbol of transformation, which is exactly what Yuji embodies by going from a regular human being to being a Jujutsu sorcerer

Diversity: Yuji is open to anything, Gojo even described him as "having a few screws loose up there". I don't even think he questions how he is being taught by Gojo or anything for that matter?

Yuji also embodies courage and is known to be daring and i don't think i need to explain this one further

I mean, the boy literally jumped right into a curse to rescue Sasaki and Iguchi and help Megumi while not even knowing what a curse is

Orange proteas represent cheerfulness, joy and happiness - if that isn't our sunshine boy, then idk. After what happened to Junpei, he seemed a little down at first but recent episodes have shown that he will not slow down because of that and will keep on being the energetic fluffball of joy that he is.

moreover, they also symbolize unlimited possibilities as his cursed technique so far probably isn't even his final technique yet - compared to Nobara's hammer and Megumi's shikigami. All we know is that Sukuna's techniques are going to be his over time but we don't even know the full extent of the said curse's power yet

If anyone ever mentioned all this to him and showed him the flower, he would think it looks weird at first but will grow to find it interesting (especially the shape). It's not like the flower is native to Japan, so he most likely wouldn't have seen it anywhere.

Gets really excited if you were to give this baby one of these flowers

Fushiguro Megumi - Anemone (purple)

hear me out

The most common symbol for the purple Anemone is 'protection against evil'. While it's Megumi's primary focus in his line of work as a professional, you ought to know he became a sorcerer in the first place because of his sister, Tsukimi.

Fragility: While Megumi shows a lot of potential for growth, it's also said that he will most likely stagnate due to the mental aspect. He's pretty insecure about his own abilities and doesn't think much of himself but that doesn't mean he won't use his powers in order to protect someone.

Anticipation: As previously stated, Megumi shows a lot of potential as a sorcerer, even to the point that Sukuna (mind you, the creature that only cares about himself) has praised him and will not hesitate to make Megumi a pawn to whatever his big, mysterious plans may be. With that being said, if Sukuna himself is interested in our blue-haired boy, we can anticipate great things from Megumi in the foreseeable future.

This specific flower seems to be a double-edged sword in terms of symbolism. In some cultural circles, it is believed to be a symbol of bad luck, whereas in other areas it's seen as a lucky charm (in which we hope this is the one for our boy). I see the same principle applying to Megumi's descent and his mysterious technique - not gonna elaborate further though (feel free to ask though)

a rather dark symbol for this particular flower: "death of a loved one". In this case, I am referring to Tsukimi, his step-sister. She may not be dead but it is indicated that she is in a comatose state due to being cursed. It seems that Megumi does not know when - or rather whether - she will wake up or not. Knowing this boy, he probably has tried anything and everything in his power to wake her up (hell, he probably even consulted Gojo) but nothing worked so far. This poor boy is anxious about it all the time.

he's surprised anyone would even associate him with flowers but wouldn't mind it

Kugisaki Nobara - Orchid (mainly orange)

I had some trouble finding something for her but orchids seem to suit her best

couldn't really pick a particular color though but I am leaning towards orange

orange orchids represent: pride, enthusiasm and boldness

Nobara is very proud of who she is. She strikes me as a person who is not afraid to tell her story, even though she despices the countryside where she is from. She also takes pride in staying true to herself all the time, to the point of admitting that she only enrolled in Jujutsu High so that she could move to Tokyo to Yuji, who was basically a stranger at that time

She is also very enthusiastic about her own future. She knows she won't ever like having to exorcise curses but somehow, being a Jujutsu sorcerer excites her.

plus points for her being enthusiastic about winning in the Kyoto Goodwill Event Arc and just beating up the Kyoto students

I don't need to mention her being enthusiastic about shopping and sightseeing in big cities, do I?

Bold? Oh, she is bold. She has no filter when it comes to speaking her mind and would never hesitate to put anyone in their place. I see her going places in Gojo's revolution... and cussing at the superiors.

Yellow symbolizes new beginnings and friendships. Nobara does not have any problems making new friends, she adapts fairly well in new environments. There's also the way she mourned for Yuji, despite "only knowing him for two weeks" and I don't even doubt for a second that it was her making him hold the black funeral picture frame when he came back lol

Pink: grace, femininity, joy + purple: royalty and admiration

There is no doubt that Nobara tries to enjoy her life to the fullest *cough* moving to Tokyo

Moreover, there is something about her that just screams "queen behavior" to me and I don't even mean that in the slang sense. Have you all seen how graceful this girl moves? (I would like to thank MAPPA at this point)

Nobara shows respect where it's due - I'm just gonna mention Maki here - but is a very admirable girl herself

probably has an orchid plant in her room, ngl

Ryomen Sukuna - Snapdragon

please, the name already sounds a little dangerous

This flower shares a certain character trait with him: being unique

Snapdragons are usually associated with strength due to the way they even grow in rocky areas and if that's not screaming Sukuna's name, who is all about strength, then correct me

Deviousness is practically Sukuna's second name, so this symbol isn't exactly off the track either. Let me remind you about the way Sukuna and Mahito laughed at Yuji??

Graciousness: just like Nobara, he possesses some sort of grace that makes me percept him as a majestic being

but maybe that's just his throne of bones and title as King of Curses contributing

and him owning a shrine???

or maybe that is just the way he majestetically killed that special grade lol

"Only large insects like bumblebees can pollinate snapdragons because the petals are too heavy for smaller insects to push apart." I read this and if you reverse it a little, it somehow reminded me of the fact that Sukuna's fingers need to have a powerful vessel aka small fry won't do because they will simply die away.

Deception: despite being given the minimum amount of information about Sukuna in general, I just don't see him being anything but egoistic and evil. I just cannot picture it. So yeah, put everything evil in a pot, stir a little and don't be surprised if your result is not the Powerpuff girls but a four-eyed multi-talented and deceptive curse that is out to kill you for fun

#gojo satoru #fushiguro megumi #itadori yuji #kugisaki nobara #ryomen sukuna #gojo satoru headcanons #fushiguro megumi headcanons #itadori yuji headcanons #kugisaki nobara headcanons #ryomen sukuna headcanons #jujutsu headcanons #as flowers

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ciceroballtorture · 3 years

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sofiaaaa my bright spark of truth and wisdom, as the resident yennefer expert i wanted to ask what your intellectual opinion is on her various portrayals (books, show and vg) and how well you think each adaptation has served her!

so fhdhdjd the big caveat is that I dont remember the books all *too* well in their finer details

that being said i do think the books are what trumps most other adaptations lmao. they just have The Range when it comes to interesting dynamics for her to cycle through; to name a few: bitter exes with geralt + being somebody's Great Love but also being desperately dysfunctional while being together and hopelessly Not Meant to Last + being ride or die for her adoptive ward + deeply antagonistic professional relationships with esteemed collegues while also being along for the ride in all-female club for political world domination.

And while the short stories have the focus on her relationship with geralt, so she is more love interest than coprotagonist as in the rest of the series, they do allow her complexities and dont recriminate her as most other fantasy would; like in the last wish she wants power and while she cant get it you dont see that dany argument of 'she was wrong to want it'; or when she entertains two relationships (one with geralt, the other with istredd) at the same time and then fucks off bc she got commitment issues lmao it doesnt become a big plot point later on of having to amend when geralt is pretty much a manwhore himself.

what i do have to say is that the more the actual series goes on, around book 3 out of 5, the scope moves from geralt and pals to the fate of the world is in the balance and she gets really de-prioritised in the face of other characters which is :////. tho admittedly i appreciate the series for having her be more a coprotagonist than a love interest in actual page time (she and geralt are together, as in not physically apart, for abt 2 books out of 5) and the rest of the time she has meaningful relationships with other ppl, mostly women too. (ie: ciri tissaia, philippa, fringilla, the rest of the lodge too to a lesser extent) while doing her own thing.

also i personally find the entire 'are they bound by fate and thats why they keep coming back or are they just, naturally, each other's IT regardless of the jinn' subtext the books have very appealing dhdbs

i think the games are second bc they just have problems when it comes to how they developed the trilogy. fhdhd mostly bc of triss tbh. like they dont mention yen AT ALL for two games, so when she does come around in the third, i feel like her standing as 'theeee Great Love of Geralts life' even if they are not together doesnt come across as well.

also, another problem coming from the framing of geralt as the protagonist is that yens role is tied to geralt and ciri and what they decide to do, thus limiting her interactions with other characters as well (not saying i was gunning for yen+philippa but yes). in terms of arc, im just not that much of a fan of the ending :/// i think it tried to be too much that conventional 'lets settle down with a house and occasionally the kids come to visit' that i dont think it suits her (or geralt) all too well. like i get that the world almost ending puts a spin on ones priorities but eh :( why be so conventional abt it

that being said they do get the spirit of the love of my life so they get a certain amount of points, and i do enjoy how they chose to tackle the entire the last wish redux quest bc either solution is actually a pretty interesting way to view the relationship

idk wtf the show is on abt tbh. like its so weird to see scenes i remember from the books but that either miss the punch of them all or seem to just Not Get It. like what is the point of introducing istredd, whose existence is tied to that one short story where he appears, if they do not plan to adapt the short story? especially since they planned on expanding yens role in the story with filler but they also decide to cut the few short stories where she appears? like make it make sense

also im extremely peeved bc the idea of showing her academy phase is good in theory, but in practice it doesnt seem to respect narrative economy. like, in theory, the academy phase could be 1) good setup for the rest of the lodge members (PHILIPPA, margarita, sabrina, sheila etc) and how they impact her as teachers/collegues but ??? the show is like why dont we get more istredd scenes (who is, I repeat, described by yen as a casual relationship, deeper for him than it ever was for her, and doesnt even appear in the main series). 2) good to juxtapose how she was taught and how yen then subverts those teachings when it comes to ciri as an apprentice.

and tbh I feel like s1 seems to focus on goals that, yes, she pursues to some extent but willfully missing how much it impacts her as a character. like yes, she does undergo the magical equivalent of surgery to remove her disability to fit a beauty standard fostered upon her, but tbh? it isnt the be all end all for yen in the books. it just isnt the part of her arc that is most relevant. same for the wanting kids part: she wants a cure for her infertility and it does impact her relationship with ciri but the 'baby fever' crazy is two short stories out of 7 books so :/

i am not one for crazy theories but tbh I feel like the downgrade of yens interactions with other ppl in the show is due to how many of those in the source material are tied to other women but the show cannot conceptualise to expand on them, if not even make them up for the sake of foreshadowing. hence. istredd being such a relatively prominent figure. i dont hate the guy i just think hes boring and he drags yen down with him, which I cant forgive

#.ask #nectargrapes #❤❤❤❤#chdhdhdjd okay i wrote my little meow meow thesis

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chocolate-failure · 3 years

Text

I haven’t written something poignant in a minute. It feels very much like I just have nothing meaningful to say. I surely do since I'm in a constant state of contemplation. I have a deep-seated problem with reconciling myself with myself. I've been interacting with a schizoid youtuber through my YouTube channel... doing vids and the like. He’s said on multiple occasions that I am charming and I feel so utterly the opposite and can't even conceive the notion. I think I'm weird and boring enough without editing but when I'm just talking off the cuff idk... it's hard for me. I feel as though I have no sense of humor or personality. I have an issue masking around others I don't know. I don't necessarily feel uncomfortable but I'm very much endeavoring to avoid it. It's honestly weird af to interact with other schizoids cuz like I feel I'm not entirely on the same wavelength as some. Like we describe uncannily similar experiences and phenomena that affect us but the outcomes seem to be different enough to make a difference. Though it is interesting that while I was doing a vid with him I was able to read something comfortably without thinking and subsequently fucking it up.

I think I have some social anxiety attached to reading aloud but I also have an issue reading in general. I almost certainly had/have a learning disability, I was just extremely adept at hiding it. It invariably made it worse for me because I was developing and moving up in grade levels without getting the help I needed. It's stressful because I love books and reading but it's become so much of a chore and strain on my mental bandwidth that it ceases to be enjoyable.

But I very much feel as though I'm not on the same page as other schizoids especially when it comes to experiencing anger. I just don't feel rage, annoyance yes, frustration of course but unbridled unadulterated rage? I literally have no frame of reference for anger. Like if a person punches a wall or storms off or yells I just don't understand how someone could get that upset and be so thoroughly affected by their emotions. It's even more confusing when someone hurts or kills another person. Like how tf does anyone care enough about fucking anything to hurt someone over it? Humor, however, is another story entirely. I laugh a lot and enjoy it. It's one of the few things I enjoy.

I really don't feel as though I relate to neurotypical people at fucking all but there are a good deal of neurodivergents that I find completely unrelatable. Perhaps I've masked so much I've evolved into this aspy-normie hybrid. I just very much feel as though I don't belong anywhere. Like I'll try to explain certain things to dig and he will look at me like I'm out of my mind. He just doesn't fucking get me and it's exhausting having to meet someone half way when you're rarely afforded the same courtesy. But I get it. He has no access road to the places my mind goes. It'd just be nice to talk to another fucking weirdo like me just to bounce my proverbial thought balls off of y'know.

And while I ultimately believe existence to be fundamentally absurd I don't find any humor or satisfaction in angering or offending others. I'm much more likely to enjoy making someone smile or feel relief. It's a lot more comfortable. I suppose that's my passive/anticonfrontational side. I'm so utterly passive I honestly hate every second of my life because it feels like it's not mine.

I plague myself.

#journal #schizoid #asocial introvert

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yaboyspodcastpalace · 3 years

Note

For the character asks: Jon, Peter Lukas, Annabelle Cane? (giving multiple suggestions so you can pick one in case you get the same character twice in different asks)

very kind of you to assume i get many asks :') THANKS ill do all of them u_u

[Send me a character and i'll tell you...]

(under the cut bc i love talking and this got long lmao)

Jon

First impression

he's a uptight prick with obvious favoritism for sasha and tim and i love him so! much!!!!!!

Impression now

my poor little mew mew hm................I've got a complicated relationship w/ jon bc i love him a lot, but i loved s1 him the most, and literally everything else just makes me really, brutally, sad ;_; The way he tries so desperately to cling to his humanity and how other characters just call him by the title imposed to him makes me wanna cry

...also he just cares so much ;_; i cry

Favorite moment

probably his interactions with georgie at the beginning of season 3!!! From s5 id say when he killed not!sasha, it felt vindictive ù_ú

Idea for a story

Dhfhdh im p basic when it comes to him ngl, either jon/tim/sasha friends to lovers or jon and desolation!tim or *something*!sasha trying to stay as human as possible, together 😔 (or just any of them living and coping together in s4 n s5)

Unpopular opinion

Im just not a fan of monster jon, at all! He's not the type of character that i enjoy seeing having a corruption arc unfortunately!! It just hurts!!! (and this Is from someone that Loves corruption arcs!!!)

Also i really hate moth jon imagery??? For not particular reason, moths are pretty, but i still hate it u_u AND THE ASSOCIATION OF GREEN W/ JON (or the beholding in general!) I CANNOT STAND IT!! i know its bc of the tma logo but guess what! Its wrong! Purple jon rights!!!

ALSO ALSO the so called pining he had for martin just.... didnt felt like that at all! i have Many feelings abt this!

Favorite relationship

either georgie in s3, or sasha!!! i love how he always praises sasha in her research in s1 and even thought he's at his driest & sharp Trying-To-Project-Professionalism-And-Skepticism she still rolls into his office, interrupts him mid statement to banter w/ him abt pronunciation n stuff and its just Normal, like that speaks volumes of how comfortable they felt around each other! they were friends gdi! the moment he realizes she died and then everytime the not!them mocks him w/ her death makes me wanna break smth q_q

im not even gonna mention tim bc even though i love their relationship It 👏 makes me👏 very 👏 sad 👏

non shippy and also staying strictly canon, i love his relationship with melanie!

Favorite headcanon

sometimes i think abt that one hc that hes really good with arcade games bc he lived near the coast and i smile bc thats cute :) also hes a trans man 💙💗🤍💗💙

Peter

First impression

Mystery evil captain man!!! Fog?? I LOVE him :)

Impression now

I STILL LOVE HIM SO MUCH!!!!!!!!! Hes an asshole and has a lovely voice and smile and hes not, hes not Dumb but also he's far from the whooooa evil lonely influence he think he is (played like a cheap fiddle). He also makes me sad in ways i cannot and wont describe, and its a shame that he died cuz he was the best part of season 4 😔 rip you beautiful bastard man i still miss you </3

Favorite moment

"It has blood on it" "thats Leitner's too :D". Also when martin was angry abt idk, breekon? Jon going into the coffin? Cant remember, but peter was like I said id protect the institute, that guys not my problem ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Idea for a story

dfgdfg i have..... a petermart story that dealt with the different flavor of loneliness they both had, half smut half genuine meta of both of them and theorization on the branching of an Entity & how their powers manifested in other people...

basically, peter thinks hes hot shit when it comes to loneliness but gets overwhelmed when martin accidentally projects his feelings abt *fic's plot stuff* on him, its fun stuff!

Unpopular opinion

people either paint him like an absolute devil or an incompetent idiot and hes neither of them! hes an asshole who loves being an asshole but far from the worst monster in the show and he tried to do a clever scheme TWICE on his life and 1. while it was established that any of the rituals wouldnt work singularly the Silence was still a pretty clever attempt if it weren't for gertrude! and 2. well... he tried to manipulate someone petty and formerly supposed to be a web avatar, again not his fault, cant call him stupid for trying dfgdfg

i Do think hes kinda pathetic in some sense considering his backstory, but more out of personal pity than anything else

Favorite relationship

Canonically speaking him and martin! The pull and push of them was The best thing about season 4! Peter being a quite dangerous avatar and martin, beautiful and scared and kinda feisty, confronting him every chance he gets, peter doing his best to manipulate him and martin letting him believe hes succeeding (even thought, he is, partly). They're fascinating characters to have side by side

Favorite headcanon

Partly canonically speaking him and mikaele salesa :) they do bets together! They're lonely sea men! What else could you possibly want?

Also non shippy i like thinking abt peter's and simon's relationship but thats entirely non canon ♡

Diversity wins! The heir of the lonely is a gay man!

Also I think as every rich household(?) the lukases had many paintings and peter as a kid saw the ones w/ sailing ships and imagined sailing far far away from his family. That and seaman aesthetic fucks, which is why he always has the same vibe going on as an adult. He does Not know half of the things he'd need to know to have a ship though but hey he's rich and thats all he needs

Annabelle

First impression

thats a horrible psychological experiment they're making there D:

Impression now

THATS STILL A HORRIBLE EXPERIMENT AND ANNABELLE DESERVED SO MUCH BETTER............. idk! she makes me sad in the same way jon (and to a degree, peter) does! to be a living puppet for the thing that traumatized you as a kid and that later kinda killed you / is the only thing keeping you alive, to be devoted to it scrambling to believe in a higher reason for all of it to happen bc to believe otherwise is............. anyway. i love her, and i feel so so sorry for her

Favorite moment

her "maybe ive never been to the beach" at the end of ehr statement (that i fully believe its bullshit but, yknow, i love that she adds that), most of her convos with martin, her "i told you this might happen" "you did, you did" with mikaele

Idea for a story

i think a lot about her having conversations w/ either mikaele (platonically) or sasha (shippy) and their different points of views and treat with her making her doubt the web a bit

Unpopular opinion

listen, listen, i know it sounds like im woobifying her i Know it but reading the scraps of her story how can i Not feel sorry for her? when the story framed her very similar to jon? the supernatural childhood encounter that gave them arachnophobia and the subsequential joining with an Entity against her will? the fact that both the story and the fans treat her like a spider woman always sat very very bad to me, and the fact that the story itself always framed her like a villain (considering All The Other Characters that get the benefit of the doubt) was extremely disappointing

Favorite relationship

her and mikaele!!!!!!! wish we could have seen more scenes of just the two of them!!!!!! *singing* he is her daaaaaad, hes her dad! boogie boogie boogie! (ok no but like... their offscreen friendship is my favorite thing of season 5 ;_;)

Favorite headcanon

Sigh i dont know...i still think she's scared of spiders which make her current existence harder but thats a sadcanon :/ umm...... i love the idea of mikaele and her cooking together from time to time! Mikaele showing her some plates he used to eat as a kid as he talks stories about his life :) and she listens and sometimes tells a story of her own! its been so long since he had a quasy normal conversation! its weird yet nice!

#i say the same phrase many times but basically best parts of s4 are hands down peter. lonely!mart. peter and martin. melanie's arc. thats it #best parts of s5 are jon killing the not!them. annabelle. mikaele. annabelle & mikaele. annabelle and martin. thats it #dhfjfj sorry half of these are a bummer but you asked me... characters i have a complicated relationship with... i love the three of them s #statement ends #THANKS i love... talking

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questcat44 · 5 years

Text

Thoughts while reading CDTH

Really just what it says on the tin. Some of the thoughts I had while reading CDTH under the cut.

Poor Declan being described as dull. He never struck me as dull, just secretive and trying to hide all those secrets with a facade of normality. His POVs aren’t dull either, so check and mate, Prologue.

Even though the sampler ended on a cliffhanger, I knew that Ronan wouldn’t be able to stay in Cambridge. Still hurts though. And he’s stagnating so badly.

Side note: I wish Ronan would just dream something that would make visiting Adam easier, like a door that opened to whatever room Adam was in or something. But I know, I know, that wouldn’t solve the problem of Ronan stagnating. Still, I’m sure he’d feel a little better if he could visit his bf whenever he wanted while he’s trying to find purpose or whatever.

Even though I want to see more Adam and have him be involved in the plot somehow, that would mean shit going down and disrupting his Harvard life. And I don’t want that bc he’s worked so hard for it and deserves all the happiness. So at the same time, I want Adam to have nothing to do with the plot lol

Love that Declan thinks about Adam as a positive influence and admires his calculating, ambitious nature. Slytherin Adam all the way.

Also, I’m glad Declan’s POV shows he isn’t homophobic when it comes to Adam and Ronan, just worried about what it could mean for Ronan and their family. Just like I thought way back in TDT when he narrowed his eyes at Ronan throwing his legs over Adam in the backseat of the Pig. Feels so good to be validated when others just thought he was a homophobe.

Jordan’s a dream. Interesting POV. I thought she might be a Visionary so that we have a dreamer, a hunter, and a Visionary as main characters, but I like having a dream as a POV character too. But now, I’m worried about Adam as a Visionary again.

Still big mad at how Niall treated Declan. Ronan too, for that matter. Why didn’t he teach Ronan anything about dreaming?!

Ooh I’ve always kinda wondered since TRC if Aurora was based off a real person and it looks like that might be the case

I’m enjoying the Gansey and Blue cameos. Ronan is finally using his phone properly bc he has to to keep in touch with his friends.

Ronan is such an unreliable narrator. Yeah, maybe Declan is disappointed in you about the nightwash. Or maybe he’s WORRIED ABOUT YOU

Oh shit. Is that a dream!Ronan?!?! Did Niall dream him? Or Ronan when he was younger and doesn’t remember? Or maybe Not!Aurora did?

Is it weird that I like Jordan more than Hennessy? Since they started as the same person. Or, I mean, that’s the point—that Jordan is distinctly her own person and deserves to live her life as such.

Adam says I love you. Out loud. To Ronan. Take that, haters who said Adam doesn’t love Ronan as much as Ronan loves him.

The Tamquam alter idem thing is so sweet. I love it and it fits them perfectly.

So, the other Ronan isn’t a Ronan at all but a Niall. Or another kid of Niall’s. There’s too many people running around looking or acting similar to Niall.

I didn’t expect the Jordan/Declan romance going into this book, but I like it.

The more that’s revealed about Visionaries, the more I really hope Adam doesn’t become one.

Adam is driving the motorcycle Ronan dreamed for him!! He came home to surprise Ronan!! To spend time with him for his birthday and help him with Bryde!!!!

I’m glad new readers are gonna see Adam work his magic. Also, Adam and Ronan have intentionally met in dreamspace multiple times. Amazing

I hope that’s the infamous “Adam began to scream” line bc it looked different when MS posted it on Twitter and I don’t want to have to go through this again.

Adam and Ronan are so soft for each other. I love it.

I’m having such Declan feels. He’s had to watch over his brothers since he was a kid himself and he still has to take care of them now and he’s under all this stress, so much so that he dreams of disappearing :(

I like that we get Ronan’s thoughts on events from TRC that were in another person’s POV, like Ronan punching Adam’s father or Ronan dreaming up the stuff to frame Colin Greenmantle.

Declan taking Chainsaw with him to make sure she’d be ok bc he knew Ronan would be sad if anything happened to her is so sweet. See, Ronan, Declan cares about you and is just trying his best.

Ooh Declan finally gets a car scene with his love interest like Ronan/Adam and Gansey/Blue did in TRC lol

I hope part of dreams living without their dreamers doesn’t involve the dreamer dying. I’m getting very suspicious of Bryde.

So that random girl accidentally killing people with sound is a Visionary. I feel like this makes Adam less likely to become a Visionary since we now have her and idk if there can be two newer Visionaries operating in the same-ish area at the same time. Whew

One of my theories while reading TRC for why Declan was the odd brother out was that he had a different mother and it looks like I was right. But poor Declan, feeling like he’s a fake Lynch brother.

So did Not!Aurora dream a dream!Niall?

Lol Ronan’s contact for Adam is Management

Do I sense something going on between Carmen and Liliana? At least in Carmen’s future and Liliana’s past. So confusing.

Why isn’t Adam answering his phone?!?!

Noooo!! The book ends with Adam still not answering his phone and Ronan going on the run, so we might not see Adam for a long time. I know a lot of other things are happening, but I just want more Adam. Yes, Adam is one of my favorite characters of all time. How could you tell? Lol

#call down the hawk #ronan lynch #declan lynch #adam parrish #pynch #jordan hennessy #maybe I'll do some actual analysis/speculating once I get my thoughts in order #I'm so worried about adam #he's fine right?!#just in class or something where he can't answer his phone right?!#maybe it died and he hasn't gotten a chance to charge it #yeah that's it #cdth spoilers #spoilers #trc thoughts

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cards-onthetable · 5 years

Text

A long time coming

Both this episode, and this Discussion about it.

We’ve all been on the internet these last several weeks. We’ve all seen the excessive amounts of promotion for this wedding. We’ve all had to spend half our lives staring at the weird white appliqué on Eddie’s dress that looks like something your mom would have ironed on your Girl Scouts uniform when you were 7. I dreaded the fuck out of this episode y’all. I was so sure it was going to be terrible.

SO WAS IT? 👀 let’s play bingo!

Here’s your warning that this is long af. I do not apologize.

Erin and Eddie and the Lying Liar

The episode opens in Erin’s office/conference room with Erin wearing an area rug tied around her neck with a bow. Why isn’t “Erin wears a ridiculous rug with a giant neck bow” on the bingo card?

Erin’s glasses on/off as a tic of Concern count: 36

EDDIE’S IN ERIN’S OFFICE. EVERYTHING IS GROSS. LET’S BEGIN.

Erin takes a fairly accusatory tone with Eddie from the beginning.

Eddie gets OfFeNdEd all “you’re taking the word of a complete stranger over mine?”

GOD WRITERS, can you PLEASE write Eddie as a capable, intelligent professional for once in your lives? Real Eddie/Cop Eddie/Normal Person Eddie wouldn’t play the ~personal relationship~ card like that. I mean sure, Danny and Jamie do that shit all the time, and that’s dumb af too. But the way Eddie does it feels less like a family member asking for a Favor and more like a naive scared little girl expecting Special Treatment. Ew.

“I onLy HaVe oNe SiDe: ThE TrUtH” 🙄

Erin saying the witness was “very convincing” is gross. Everything about this scene is grossss gross gross

So apparently, Erin didn’t know/realize during the initial witness interview that Eddie was the officer in question. I wonder how that conversation (with Eddie) would’ve gone if any other cop walked into her office. Like the whole thing felt so unprofessional on both sides, but especially Erin. Wouldn’t she give any other cop the benefit of the doubt? Question them, sure, but not go into the conversation like she assumes they’re lying. Witnesses change their stories all the time. Ugh this whole storyline is gross

Not to mention why is this happening in EDDIE’S WEDDING EPISODE?! Look I don’t need Eddie’s entire life this week to be dedicated to wedding shit. But ew @ a Work Conflict with a future in-law 9 minutes before her damn wedding.

JAMIE AND EDDIE ARE SITTING ON THE FLOOR AT JAMIE’S COFFEE TABLE for the second week in a row. Nice.

THE LIGHTING IS TERRIBLE ON JAMIE REAGAN’S FACE. Mark it.

Jamie is such a dumbass. “I understand you’re upset, I’m just clarifying she didn’t ACTUALLY call you a liar...” shut up lawyer boy, hasn’t anyone taught you that those technicalities are NOT the way to go?

“I don’t think there’s any upside to splitting hairs about this.” WHO’S SPLITTING HAIRS, MR. CLARIFICATION?

“THIS IS GREAT, WE’RE ABOUT TO GET MARRIED AND I’M JUST NOW FINDING OUT YOU’VE GOT A PROBLEM WITH MY SISTER.” I think this is about where @ontherockswithsalt and I literally keeled over laughing. Mark it.

On the one hand I get what Eddie’s saying about Erin being every woman’s basic nightmare. On the other hand Old Eddie was a boss ass bitch who never would’ve been intimidated/shaken/irritated by the conversation in Erin’s office.

What the fuck is this sweater situation? Eddie it looks like you took some scissors to it and the result was tragic.

Smooth move Jamie. Lol I’m sure most people loved that line “as far as I’m concerned you just described yourself” but 😂😂😂 @ everything.

Jamie and Erin on the courthouse steps. This should be good (read: gross someone get me a puke bucket)

Lol @ this running theme that Frank is nervous af about giving a toast/speech at the damn rehearsal dinner.

Why is Jamie bringing this Eddie thing up to Erin? Eddie vented to him - he’s her fiancé, it’s his sister they’re talking about, of course she’s going to Discuss it with him. But would it ever occur to him that maybe he should just listen and ~support her~ and he doesn’t need to go off and try to Solve Her Problems? 🙄

MAYBE SHE SHOULD FIND A SOFTER LINE OF WORK? Oh fuck me how is that called for, Erin? Eddie’s been a successful cop for years now. She only started having Trouble with her confidence and competence when your idiot dumbass brother fucked her up at a golf course on a Sunday morning.

DON’T BRING ME INTO YOUR FIANCEE’S DRAMAS.... oh my god Erin you started it so like step off.

I LIKE HER JUST FINE. Aren’t the Reagans all about Candor and Honesty? Shouldn’t Erin be having this conversation with Eddie herself if she apparently feels so strongly about it? Dude I’m so mad this is happening in the wedding episode. Or at all.

AND I’LL LIKE HER A HELL OF A LOT MORE WHEN SHE STARTS FIGHTING HER OWN BATTLES ?????? Eddie didn’t ask Jamie to ~fight this battle~ for her and everything is grosssss gross gross.

JAMIE SLEPT ON THE COUCH LAST NIGHT. AYE SOMEONE’S IN THE DOGHOUSE. Also this is about the closest thing we’ve gotten to Actual Confirmation that Jamko lives together/has spent the night together. I’m still convinced he’s never gotten her off in his life though.

Jamie has framed pics of his mom (his Harvard graduation) and Joe on his table. Does he have any pictures of Eddie framed anywhere? 👀🤔

“YoU’Re sTiLL PiSsEd” the Harvard graduate, y’all.

Side note: Jamie’s wearing sweatpants but THE LIGHTING IS TERRIBLE AND THE SWEATPANTS AND SHIRT ARE BOTH DARK COLORED. NO CONTRAST. NOTHING VISIBLE. 0/10 TOTAL WASTE.

Completely on Eddie’s side on this one. Idk about the whole making-Jamie-sleep-on-the-couch thing, but I’d be pissed af too if my fiancé took a private conversation between us as an invitation to go off and ~fight my battles~ without permission and/or without being explicitly asked to do so.

He might be closer to his family than most people are. But Eddie’s about to be his wife (ugh don’t remind me) and she needs to come first now. It’s not his job or his place to take her issues to his family members like that.

“It’s my job to look after you” GOD EW GROSS JAMIE REAGAN. That may be ~true~ but it’s not your job to make decisions for Eddie or treat her like someone who needs to be ~looked after~. It’s your job to treat her as your equal and consult her on (basically everything but especially) matters that directly affect her. It’s your mutual job to look after each other. Just don’t re: this weird paternalistic bullshit mmkay?

There are vegetables all over Jamie’s kitchen. Carrots in one shot, celery and onions and shit in another. RUN, EDDIE. RUN FROM THIS FUTURE OF RABBIT FOOD AND MISERY.

OH MY GOD LOL 4EVER. EDDIE’S IN HER PORSCHE (welcome back bro! Where’ve you been all these years? No, really... where’ve you been?) and she has BINOCULARS like that’s a normal and reasonable thing to do in New York City on a Thursday afternoon.

Anthony’s here? It’s a party!

WITH SNACKS! ANTHONY’S EATING! Mark it.

It’s 4 minutes before her wedding and Eddie’s all “I didn’t know Reagans were Like That!” Oh my god where’s the bingo square for me sinking into ontherockswithsalt’s super soft new couch and dying in misery forever? Mark it.

A SPEECH ABOUT WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A REAGAN? Mark it.

ANTHONY BEING THE ONE TO DELIVER SAID SPEECH? Shocking. Unexpected. Creative. Why is he so important that he gets this job in this episode by the way?

“Open your eyes a little. Know what you’re getting yourself into.”

WHY IS THIS A LINE THAT ANYBODY IS SAYING TO HER 26 SECONDS BEFORE SHE WALKS DOWN THE AISLE? OH MY GOD EVERYTHING WITH THIS RELATIONSHIP IS SO WRONG IT’S UNBELIEVABLE. HOW CAN ANYONE LEGITIMATELY THINK IT’S A GOOD IDEA FOR THEM TO GET MARRIED?!

Oh imagine that, the dummy lied. Eddie didn’t. Who’s surprised?!

Eddie’s back in Erin’s office. She’s wearing a mustard yellow sweater from Kohl’s (I know because I have the same one yo) and a.... prairie skirt? Interesting choice.

“It turns out I owe you an apology..” A REAGAN? APOLOGIZING? OMG

Aaaaand Eddie’s cutting her off. Fucking typical.

EDDIE’S WHOLE THING HERE IS BULLSHIT.

A few scenes ago she (rightfully, more or less) complained that Erin accused her of lying, now she’s all “oh, not really”

She’s bringing Jamie into it, saying she wouldn’t have whined to him if she didn’t secretly want him to go solve her problems for her. UM WHAT? They’re saying she wouldn’t have a conversation with her fiancé just for the sake of the conversation - there has to be a Goal? Dude I just can’t. This is the icing on the cake of Eddie’s shitty writing all damn season.

Humans are allowed to talk about - even COMPLAIN ABOUT - these things to their significant others. They should be able to do so without fear of outside repercussion or concern that their partner will go off and try to Fix Things in an unwarranted way. But if Eddie only brings her Family Problems to Jamie with the secret agenda that he’ll fix them for her, that’s gross and a huge red flag and blah blah blah. RUN EDDIE WHY ARE YOU MARRYING HIM.

Also gross in general @ Eddie apologizing. Eddie shouldn’t have ~taken things personally~ (but Old Eddie wouldn’t have - this is New Eddie and I don’t blame her for her puppetmaster’s bullshit) but Erin is the one really at fault here.

Minute 51 of a one hour episode meant to feature Eddie’s wedding, and she’s just now wrapping up this ridiculous Conflict with her fiancé’s sister. Sweet. ThE BeSt iS YeT tO CoMe

Danny and Baez

SOMEBODY DIES? Mark it.

BAEZ IS TOO GOOD FOR THIS TRASHCAN SHOW? Mark it. Baez pretending to be Erin is hilarious.

Fuck me I’m only 11 minutes into this thing so far.

Baez pretending to be Erin messing with her glasses is GENIUS HOW DID I MISS THAT THE FIRST TIME I WATCHED. 😂😂😍😍

Can we please get a guest actor on this show who can actually produce tears when they’re supposed to be crying? All this dry eye blubbering is gross. They could get better actors from any high school drama department.

“We’re SoULmAtEs” this girl is like that over-attached girlfriend meme omg.

Baez is the best person left on this ridiculous show. Her thing with the palm print security doors? Genius.

Side note: HOW’S THIS DUMB CONTRAST where Erin is on one set repeating over and over that Eddie is Just A Cop when she’s in Erin’s office. Meanwhile Danny’s over here acting like his sister is the only lawyer in all of New York who can get him the warrants/subpoenas he needs for his investigation. 🤔

They’re arresting her. I don’t care about this storyline anymore but I feel like I should mark the time.

We’re in Erin’s office and like.... did Erin forget to put clothes on today or something? What?

WE DON’T GET SHIRTLESS JAMIE FOR THE LAST 39 YEARS, BUT WE GET TO SEE ERIN’S ENTIRE BARE THIGH? WHERE DO I SUBMIT MY COMPLAINT @ THIS BULLSHITTERY

Now Danny suddenly can’t remember how to talk to express his concerns. What is it about Erin’s office that makes all these ~professionals~ turn into blubbery babies who need their mommy to order their happy meal so they don’t have to talk to the cashier themselves?

Another unbelievably clear surveillance video to just clean this messy case right up. How convenient. I’m bored.

The Best Friends Club

Garrett and Sid walking down the hall, arguing the difference between piece and peace. Bros, it’s “object to this marriage or forever hold your peace” which, can I just raise my hand here and say this better be some damn good foreshadowing

Garrett and Sid are rude af marching in (interrupting) while Frank and Baker are in the middle of a conversation, and can I say there’s no Good Way this whole thing could have started?

It’s gross for the boys to get all huffy @ the female member of their team having a discussion with Frank, but if it were one of the boys in there, it would be gross for Baker to get all offended and interrupty and seen as Rude and Irrational or whatever. Can we all just act like adults here? Thx.

Now we’re in Garrett’s office and Baker is going to Explain? Oh boy this’ll be terrible.

They’re pulling rank?! I’m a lieutenant, you’re a detective, you’re a civilian. Actually I’m Commissioner Moore.

Listen dudes, I’m sure your dicks are both huge. Shut the fuck up.

Why are Sid and Garrett throwing a fit like this at all? Frank asked to see the presentation and Baker showed it to him. God this is such a dumb contrived conflict why are we here?

“You know what? I don’t think this has anything to do with chain of command. I think this is bruised egos and stepped-on toes.” SAY IT BAKER. Call these clowns on their bullshit.

I need a margarita. @ontherockswithsalt please.

Garrett is in Frank’s office now, with a weird ass smile on his face as he says “it’s TIME for a VICTORY LAP!” Wtf.

“So you’re saying I have to get Gormley and Baker’s sign off before I can set this in motion?” How’s that for ChAiN oF CoMmAnD, Mr. Biggest Dick In The PC’s Office?

And now Garrett’s leaving through the conference room so he doesn’t have to walk past Baker. These dummies are literally so childish it’s ridiculous.

Now the BFFs club is in front of Frank for a Stern Talking To. Oh my god it’s like a parent dealing with a bunch of 6-year-olds. Remember when this show was actually good?

They’re all going to switch jobs for a day. Frank made a diagram. Clearly put lots of thought into it. A+.

Garrett’s complaining that it’s a lot to ask. A lot to ask that these dummies act like professional adults? Agreed.

Gormley doesn’t know what the word “quote” means and/or is not familiar with the New.York.Times. Garrett doesn’t know how to answer phones or log into a computer but he does a damn good Gormley impression, apparently. Baker doesn’t know how to read investigative files? Omg are we all learning something today, kiddos?!

Jamie and Frank have a Heart To Heart.

Oh boy, the Best Friends are together again.

“Our behavior this week, it was embarrassing.” YOU THINK?

The BFFs just had a more emotional, moving Heart To Heart than Jamie and Eddie have had in their lives, so that’s chill.

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

Jamie and Frank have a Heart To Heart

Jamie’s In Frank’s office after a quick chat with Disgruntled Garrett.

Frank’s joke is ridiculous.

JAMIE’S WEARING KHAKIS. Mark it.

“I have never seen you so unwaveringly certain about what you want.” Well unwavering is right. Jamie’s facial expression hasn’t changed since 2017.

Did Frank just compare Jamie’s feelings towards Eddie to his feelings about the Chevelle? Nice, that’s totally reasonable and not at all gross. Just kidding, it’s gross.

“She doesn’t want to lose herself.”

“Well that makes sense.”

“It does?!”

Omg seriously? Fucking seriously. There’s too much to even delve into here like I could write a whole damn essay about this exchange. But Jamie. For real. It surprises you that Eddie doesn’t want to throw herself headfirst into Being A Reagan? It surprises you that she wants to keep her own identity within your marriage? It surprises you that she doesn’t plan to melt herself into your back pocket and hang out there like a fun toy who parrots back all your opinions and dedicates herself to The Reagan Name above all else? Oh. My god. EDDIE RUN.

Well her brother’s dead....

Eddie has a brother? Oh that’s some nice cool chill information to drop on us randomly 6 years later.

I have Thoughts (maybe he committed suicide or accidentally OD’d back when shit hit the fan with Armin?) but I hate how this is a random throwaway line with such important implications. Have they ever truly talked about Eddie’s dead brother? Does Eddie feel minimized in her grief because her brother didn’t Die A Hero like Joe? EDDIE RUN.

“Don’t make her do all the work adjusting to us. Find ways for us to adjust to her” this is excellent and important advice, truly. Would’ve been nice to have this conversation, idk, 9 months ago?

THE MOMENT WE’VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR

FIRST: THE REHEARSAL DINNER.

Lena’s saying some shit. Cool. Y’all by this point I’m so exhausted @ everything in this shitshow episode, I don’t even care.

“Edit and myself - who have both suffered from my husband’s glaring insufficiency...” oh my god Lena way to read the room.

“THANK YOU FOR LOVING MY DAUGHTER AS MUCH AS I DO.” LOL NEITHER ONE OF THEM SEEMS TO LOVE HER THAT MUCH THOUGH. RUN FOR THE HILLLLLSSSSS EDDIE.

TO JAMM-KO. Oh, my, god, why are we here.

This is some really ridiculous pandering to the fans y’all. Like over the top gross. This show is a just whole ass joke at this point.

But actually LOL @ Erin scolding Danny for telling Sean “would you learn something, numbnuts?”

FRANK’S SPEECH

UGLY FLOOR LAMPS. TWO OF THEM. Mark it. Twice.

Where’s the joke Frank?

“She’s doing the bravest thing I’ve ever seen a cop do... she’s marrying Jamie... and walking down the aisle bY HeRsELf.” 🙄🙄🙄🙄

Can we not commoditize that choice? It shouldn’t need to be a Big Deal.

Eddie is Her Own Woman

And a Lifeforce

But y’all

Lifeforce is a disgusting euphemism for semen, in case you’re unfamiliar with certain Top Quality Fanfics we have available to us in this fandom

So I’m caught somewhere between dying laughing and like, crying forever

Seeing her in action as Jamie’s Life partner

And hopefully as a mother! EW! GROSS! THIS IS NOT THE TIME OR PLACE TO EXPRESS YOUR WISHES FOR SOME NEW GRANDKIDS, FRANCES

That’s a thing that will never not gross me out. Public (or even uninvited private, tbh) expressions of Opinion about someone else’s family planning choices

Y’all this is Eddie’s future father in law telling her “I hope you go have lots of unprotected sex with my son, and potentially shelve your own career goals temporarily or permanently, and go through lots of painful unfortunate Body Changes, because here’s my public request for some more grandkids”

Let it be known if my future in-laws said that at my rehearsal dinner, they’d have a real actual Hurricane to deal with so

MOVING ON THOUGH, UGH. TIME FOR THIS WEDDING.

“SuRe YoU wAnT To gO ThRoUgH wiTh tHiS?!” One, gross, not a funny joke. Two, CAN SOMEONE ASK THAT TO EDDIE A FEW TIMES BECAUSE

“In over two thousand weddings, I’ve only lost three to divorce...” 👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀

LOL @ all the waving from the altar to the poor dishonored Reagans who have to sit in the pews like some kind of peasants. Is this my first grader’s spring fling school concert?

Side note: does Eddie have any bridesmaids? No? So she’ll just be up there by herself looking like she’s marrying 4 Reagan men? Nice.

I mean if they pulled some throwaway bridesmaids out of their asses I’d be mad, and if Erin and Nicky were her bridesmaids I’d be mad, so really this is a no-win situation here but still, gross.

Oh hey, we’ve solved the mystery of the missing Frank.

Eddie’s had nightmares about tripping while walking down the aisle. That’s her compelling argument for asking Frank to escort her?

WHICH BY THE WAY I AM SO MAD ABOUT. THIS FUCKING REAGAN AFFAIR SHOW. DIDN’T HE JUST TALK ABOUT HOW THE REAGANS NEED TO JOIN EDDIE’S WORLD TOO, NOT JUST SUCK HER INTO THEIRS? OR SOMETHING. I’M IRRITATED.

Here comes the bride. On the organ! Appropriate, to go with the Reagan men’s 1836 morning suit choice. LOL IT’S ALL SO GROSS I CAN’T EVEN DEAL.

Here we go, she’s walking in. We see Jamie’s face. He looks... bored?

Lena crying.

Erin and Nicky looking all happy.

Eddie again. She keeps looking up at Frank and it’s distracting af. Has she looked down the aisle to see her groom even once?

Henry looks 100000 million times more excited than Jamie to be here.

Oh, a nice long shot of Jamie’s weird chin and stoic face. That’s certainly the look of a man who’s about to marry the love of his life.

The LOOK OF LOVE

FADE TO BLACK

AMAZING. I COULD NOT HAVE SCRIPTED IT BETTER MYSELF. OMG BEST TV WEDDING EVER. THANK YOU, BLUE BLOODS, FOR DOING ONE THING RIGHT FOR ONCE AND PUTTING ME OUT OF MY MISERY.

12/10. Beautiful. Moving. Ridiculous. I’m so impressed and in awe. Such a great episode.

WhO’S ReAdY fOr SeAsOn TeN?! See you in September folks.

#sandy hates it all #blue bloods #9x22 something blue #best tv wedding episode of all time!!!!!#😍😍😍😍😍😍😍

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sundayswiththeilluminati · 5 years

Text

I have a bunch of thoughts about the War of the Spark novel but I JUST DISCOVERED THERE ARE JAPANESE ANIME VERSIONS OF ALL THE PLANESWALKERS IN THIS SET AND I NEED TO RATE THEM ALL LET’S GO

First off, all images are from here, and credit to their respective artists (listed on the card). In color order, we have:

Karn, the Great Creator: Looks pretty much the same. Like the warping effect of the scenery around him though, and he looks really mad. Minus points for forgetting he wears pants now, but the English artist forgot too so I can’t ding them too hard. 6/10.

Ugin, the Ineffable: All of Ugin’s cards kinda look like this, but there’s not much else you can do with him. Like the more aggressive action pose than his English art. 6/10 did not need the crotch shot though.

Gideon Blackblade: The English art is actually way more anime than this one. This Gideon just looks bored. 3/10.

Teyo, the Shieldmage: Now this is what I’m talking about. Clearly an anime take on the same model as the photorealistic English art, but jazzed up with a super-cool action pose as befits someone in the middle of a massive war. 10/10.

The Wanderer: The Wanderer already had a super-anime look and this art brings it home. Love the slash extending over the text box. Looks like the scene that comes right before the English art, like this is the freeze-frame ninja slash and the English one is the walking away while your enemy slowly falls down dead. 9/10.

Jace, Wielder of Mysteries: IT’S JOJO’S JACE. JOJACE. Jace never gets to have cool action poses and this one is long overdue. He is definitely about to wield a mystery into an Eternal’s face. 10/10 go get ‘em Jace.

Kasmina, Enigmatic Mentor: Hard to pin down the exact difference, but I like this art way less than the English version. I had to double-check to make sure it was the same character; it’s so generic and has none of the same vibe. Then again the English version was done by Villeneuve so maybe it’s not a fair competition. 2/10.

Narset, Parter of Veils: This is a beautiful portrait of Narset back when she was 12. Anime has a major problem drawing any woman between the age of 18 and 65 and Narset is just the first victim in this list. Everything else looks amazing; it’s especially a shame here because Narset has that flowing kung-fu silks look that’s right in the anime wheelhouse. 5/10 what could have been.

Davriel, Rogue Shadowmage: He MAD. Almost too mad. Davriel looks so much bigger and scarier in this art that I had to make sure it wasn’t Ob Nixilis. Super-cool final boss style but maybe too super-cool for someone who’s actually a skinny Innistrad shut-in. Kinda generic pose too. 6/10.

Liliana, Dreadhorde General: They brought in Yoshitaka Amano for the mythic, huh? I know I dinged Narset for looking 12 and this Lili looks even younger (if possible) but Amano does have this weird abstracted style and the rest of her looks real spooky. She looks more like a yokai than a person - like this is something you’d get killed by at the finale of a really spooky Japanese horror game. Normally that’d be a good look for Lili but this is the one set where she’s supposed to be at least a little human, so 8/10.

Ob Nixilis, the Hate-Twisted: Big mad demon lad. Not a lot you can do with Ob Nixilis, really. 5/10 did their best with generic material.

Chandra, Fire Artisan: Chandra in the English art always looks like she’s about to throw a fireball, but never does. Now she finally gets to. It’s a generic anime action pose but not one we’ve gotten with Chandra so I’m for it, and she doesn’t look toooooo twelve. Maybe 15. Good colors. 9/10 nice Kirby hand.

Jaya, Venerated Firemage: Was worried about this one because anime doesn’t handle older women well in art, but it’s not too bad. Clearly different from Chandra’s art, which is always gonna be a problem when they’re in the same set. Like her neat twirly staff trick. Something is weird about her face though. Like it was painted on after the rest of it. IDK. 6/10.

Sarkhan, the Masterless: This is the only time I’ve actually been intimidated by Sarkhan. 9/10 doesn’t have a dragon in the art.

Tibalt, Rakish Instigator: Similar to the above, this is the only time I’ve been interested in Tibalt as a character. A way better rendition of the epithet “Rakish Instigator.” Absolutely your friend’s Problematic Fave from an anime they describe as “Hellsing but with more magical girls.” 10/10 would make an excellent Bloodborne NPC.

Arlinn, Voice of the Pack: Same as Narset, this is great art of Arlinn like thirty years ago. Love the dynamic pose (though I can’t figure out what her hand is doing with that hammer), but real Arlinn is a battle-scarred Sigourney Weaver and there aren’t even any wolves. 4/10 needs more wolves.

Jiang Yanggu, Wildcrafter: This one is kinda cheating since Jiang was developed specifically for the Chinese market and is basically an anime character already, but still. Look how pumped he is. Look at Mowu. Look how good of a boy he is. If this were the English art people would be getting mad that he doesn’t look Chinese but that’s a whole stew of identity issues I’m not getting anywhere near. 8/10 adorable good boyes.

Nissa, Who Shakes The World: I’m not...No. I’m not going anywhere near this. Gross. 0/10 keep it on your deviantart page.

Vivien, Champion of the Wilds: What did I just say about Nissa? What did I just say. The action lines swooping out of the art across the frame & text box are cool and that’s the only reason it gets a point. 1/10.

Ajani, the Greathearted: He is a big pretty kitty but honestly this art is kind of a letdown. Given anime’s love of cat-people, this is the place where I’d expect the fanservice, but it’s just basically a model-sheet pose of Ajani. Looks like a bad alter of Brimaz, King of Oreskos. Honestly I’d have expected the English version of this card to be the Japanese one, and vice versa. 3/10 he still a big fluffy kitty.

Domri, Anarch of Bolas: This is RAD. If Domri had to bow out (spoilers) this is the kind of card art to do it on. Beautiful colors, furious pose, avoids the “young boy or butch lesbian” look that most of his other art falls into (that’s not a joke; I’ve fielded multiple questions about his gender from confused new players). Any feral teenager would be thrilled to look this badass. Gruul SMASH. 10/10.

Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God: Is this another artist like Amano who has a kinda stylized look? Because otherwise this is just...bad. Not at all befitting of a dragon-god. You’d think with all of Ravnica before him he’d be able to do better. 2/10.

Ral, Storm Conduit: Honestly can’t decide how I feel about this art. The detail is amazing and the lightning is killer but there’s just something weird about Ral. Maybe he’s not smirking enough. Maybe his legs are too big. I want to like this more than I do, but I don’t. 7/10.

Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord: I’m so mad about this art because it makes Sorin look way cooler than he has any right to. The sword, the coat, the swirling ribbons of blood. But anime’s always had a way with vampires, so Sorin is the undeserving beneficiary of a skilled Jojo’s upgrade. 8/10 it was ME ALL ALONG yeah you know the joke.

Tamiyo, Collector of Tales: Tamtam’s another character whose East Asian origin makes her very well-suited to the anime look. In fact I’d say her white skin and complicated ears/headdress look turns out better in an anime style than a photorealistic one. Her skeptical look and halo of floating scrolls are just the icing on the cake. 9/10 dinged a point because the happy Ravnica skyline behind her is a weird choice and ill-suited to the mood.

Teferi, Time Raveler: Anime seems to do a lot better with middle-aged men than middle-aged women. A perfectly serviceable, if bland, Teferi. 5/10.

Angrath, Captain of Chaos: He EXTREMELY MAD. Angrath’s signature red-hot chains are perfect for a swirling anime post and the artist took good advantage of them. If anything he’s almost too bestial, though - Angrath is actually a loving family man and blacksmith who’s so furious because he was trapped on Ixalan for decades away from his home and loved ones. 7/10 somehow too mad.

Ashiok, Dream Render: Now that’s how you draw an inscrutable dream-creature who wields your deepest nighmares. 10/10 love the way they seem to be looking the player in the eye, as if they’re about to conjure your specific personal fears.

Dovin, Hand of Control: Perfectly serviceable Dovin art but I don’t like the thopters and that is unforgiveable. 0/10 because fuck this guy, seriously, and 0/10 on the English art for also having bad thopters while we’re at it.

Huatli, the Sun’s Heart: Huatli also suffering a little de-aging here but I’ll let it slide because she absolutely looks like the main character of a cult 90s anime and I would watch the hell out of it. Major Nausicaa vibe here, but with dinosaurs. Sign me up. 9/10 bad riding posture though.

Kaya, Bane of the Dead: Kaya with the straight-up Ghibli treatment here. There’s nothing technically wrong here but it’s totally the wrong mood and pose for her. I’d watch that Ghibli movie though. 4/10.

Kiora, Behemoth-Beckoner: A pretty literal interpretation of the epithet but who cares, it’s badass and way more tasteful than I feared we might get for the one planeswalker who could plausibly be drawn with tentacles. Love the attention paid to the water and the details of it splashing off her fins. 8/10 is that a walrus? but like with tusks on the bottom jaw? upside down walrus?

Nahiri, Storm of Stone: Repeat after me: NAHIRI IS LITERALLY THOUSANDS OF YEARS OLD. SHE DOES NOT LOOK LIKE SHE’S FOURTEEN. She looks in her twenties at the youngest. Reminds me of Mara Sov from Destiny, who is also thousands of years old, looks in her twenties, and gets drawn like she’s 12. Even apart from the de-aging this is just awkward art. The pose is bizarre, the background is weirdly photorealistic, and Nahiri has no expression. 3/10 at least it isn’t a boobs & butt pose.

Saheeli, Sublime Artificer: I...do not know what is going on here with Saheeli’s face. Or her body proportions, really. I guess it’s supposed to be foreshortened but her gormless expression and the weird Lisa Frank colors make me think of a Disney Channel cartoon about planeswalkers. The beautiful detail on the flowing metal is nice but the rest is just strange. 4/10 nice metal dragon though.

Samut. Tyrant-Smasher: I really like this art but it makes me think a lot of people are going to make jokes about Samut “looking like a man” or “barely being a woman,” especially since her name isn’t very clearly gendered, and that just makes me sad. The art itself is nice and totally on-model for her, though her shoulders are kind of weirdly broad and it’s a shame they didn’t take advantage of the anime style to do some cool speed lines like her haste-powers need. 8/10 good righteous avenger look.

Vraska, Swarm’s Eminence: Oh maaaaaan, I want to complain about the cartoonishly-young look and the weirdly-realistic background that makes her look composited in, but the artist really nailed that regal pose and took full advantage of her swirling snake-hair. This is definitely a Vraska both large and in charge. 7/10 you still get dinged for de-aging and also is she sitting or standing, it’s hard to tell.

#Magic: the Gathering #War of the Spark #planeswalker art #Japanese card art!#I judge people who have way more talent than me #Magic: the Where Did All My Money Go

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darrowsrising · 5 years

Text

Virginia and Consequences

I think it’s great that you are doing posts about all the women of Red Rising and I don’t mean to come in and rain all over everything, but your post about Virginia’s flaws really got me fired up.

I think it’s great that you made a post all about Virginia’s flaws and I agree with most of your points. However, it’s very hard to give the character of Virginia credit for these flaws when they do not significantly impact her in the narrative.

Let me explain what I mean. And, at least for the first few points, I’m going to focus on the original trilogy. I think Iron Gold is a paints Virginia a little differently.

To your first point. Her plan of using Cassius caused her pain. Well, honestly being “in pain” because of something you did doesn’t make what you did a flaw or a mistake. Her relationship with her father was pretty bad even before the whole Cassius affair so does this really change anything? She is still given a lot of responsibility in her father’s campaign so it’s not as if he hates her so much that he won’t let her back into the fold. He’s even approving when she puts Pliny into his place. So, her affair with Cassius does not really change her relationship to her family. Does it bother her that her father thinks poorly of her? Well, I’m not really sure. She says once in GS that she wants to protect her family even though she knows they don’t deserve it, but that’s the only time she really brings up her dad. You could assume that his disapproval bothers her, but you could assume a lot of things. I never see her morning the loss of her dad in MS. Based strictly on what we get in the text, I don’t have a sense of how much she was bothered by her father’s opinion.

Her relationship with Cassius hurts Darrow, but it never makes Darrow question whether he wants to be with her (not saying it should). Her relationship with Cassius doesn’t make any of her other allies doubt her. Sevro, the Telemanus family, Roque; none of them have any problem with what she did. Again, not saying they should. She knows she used Cassius’s pain against him and was able to completely manipulate him and she says she felt cruel doing it; however, this does not cause her to change anything about the way she acts. She still uses her wiles and charm to win people over. She’s 100% cold to Cassius.

So my question is this; what negative consequences does Virginia face because of her decision to use Cassius? Her father insults her. Which is horrible, don’t get me wrong, but does it really make their relationship worse? Does it change Virginia’s relationship with anybody else? Does Virginia lose any power because of it? Does it change the way Virginia thinks of herself in any way that we can actually see in the text? I’d argue “no” to all these points. Because of this, the “flaw” of using Cassius feels more like something we as readers noticed, not something that was intended to be a flaw in the text.

Your second point — I’m confused. She’s logical but she would have sacrificed herself for her family. Are you saying that would have been a mistake? Not being a jerk I’m genuinely confused. Because the way it’s written it just sounds like you’re describing something noble Virginia was trying to do.

Your third point is my favorite. Virginia keeps her emotions (and thoughts, I’d argue) to herself and she’s afraid of being vulnerable. YES!!!! This is 1000% true.

But.

What are the consequences?!!!

Does Virginia lose any friends because she keeps herself closed off? Does Darrow ever ask her to be more direct with him? No and no. It’s actually something that really bothers me about Darrow and Virginia’s relationship. The novel pushes this idea that they are so in tune with each other that they never have to speak and…that’s bull. I’m sorry. It is. In any relationship you still have to talk about the big emotions and the big things that are bothering you. The fact that Virginia has this weird unspoken “test” she’s putting Darrow through throughout all of MS will never not bother me. Why couldn’t she have just said to him, hey, I need to make sure I my people can live in your world. If you can’t be honest and upfront with your partner that’s a huge problem. It would have been so much more interesting to me to see them struggle and hash out their issues rather than seeing them kind of dance around each other all through MS.

But I’m getting away from my main point. Which is, yes, Virginia keeps her emotions to herself and she’s afraid of being vulnerable. But does she ever lose anything because of these flaws? Does she lose friends? No. Does she ever have to be vulnerable? No. So if she never faces any negative consequences for these flaws — how can I really consider them to be flaws?

To your point about Victra. Oh boy are you right here. She’s jealous of Victra, and then later she is a little slut shamey when she says scornfully that Victra flirts with everybody. But this doesn’t seem to impact her relationship with Victra at all. They have some friendly banter before one of the battles, Virginia goes to the wedding, and there never seems to be any real tension between them. Darrow doesn’t care. Sevro doesn’t care. So while I think it was messed up for Virginia to say these things, it’s not a real source of tension in the narrative so it’s hard to feel like the book wants me to see this as a flaw. Which annoys me, because it is a flaw. (Side note, it’s unfortunately that Virginia doesn’t have any important relationships with women in the original trilogy).

The fact that Virginia’s willing to kill and torture Cassius makes me think she doesn’t really feel that bad about using him. She says she does feel bad in GS, but actions speak louder than words. Whatever. I don’t care if she feels bad or not, I’m just mad we never get more firm evidence in the text of how she feels. I’m not sure what you mean here: They needed Cassius to cooperate…maybe their discussion helped the process a bit. Do you think when they talked Virginia did set the record straight on their relationship? Man I really want to know what those two talked about lol.

Your last points refer more to things that happen in Iron Gold, and in that book I do think Virginia faces more negative consequences that are directly related to her actions. However, I still think the book frames it a little more like, Virginia is good and everyone else is a monster, rather than, Virginia made a mistake. I won’t be happy until a character says, Virginia, you made a mistake! And she says, I know.

Again I hope this doesn’t come off as too negative. I think it’s a great idea to talk about the women of Red Rising and I don’t hate Virginia. I just look at her character and see a lot of missed opportunities for character development. I think if people do write her off as one dimensional (I honestly never see people with this opinion) I think it could be because of the lack of consequences she faces. I think it’s fun and important to analyze character and plots using what we’re given in the text, but I’ll understand if you don’t post this because I rambled on forever lol.

BTW, I’m the same person who sent you an ask and a long post a while back about the Cassius/Virginia plot point. I always meant to write back again but life got in the way and I never had time. Anyway, I do enjoy your blog and I am looking forward to other posts about the women of RR.

Astrea:Hi! Thank you for your input! I’ll try to be as unbiased as possible as I answer each of your points. I don’t want to try to change your mind of anything, I just want to give you my side of things. I do respect your opinion 100%.

First of all, I don’t agree with this:“a character doesn’t have flaws/their flaws aren’t significant if they don’t impact their narrative”. Unfortunately (I love Darrow, so I don’t see it as an unfortune), the Red Rising Trilogy focuses on Darrow the most, so of course we’ll have a lot of characters who develop or address their issues off screen.

What I wanted to say about my first point - Virginia’s plan and how her plan put her through pain - was: she is a genius, she chose to play by her father’s rules (manipulate, win at all costs etc.) and she intetionally put herself through the ringer (wringer? - that shite people used to use to get out moisture from clothes). I consider that a mistake on her part. Why? Because she sacrificed herself in a way. It caused her pain - she did what Adrius or Nero would have done and it was painful for her. She bend her own morals to protect her family and she is the kind of person who has a lot of respect and love for her moral compass. I guess that for you, this doesn’t mean much, as you think Virginia manipulates everyone in the same way, but I’m just trying to show her how I see her. Her plan, although effective, put her in a position where she had to be someone she never really wanted to be. Idk, to me it seemed a misake, because she was even disposed to go through with a loveless relationship to ensure the safety of her family. The sacrifice isn’t worth it to me. I saw it as a mistake because of that.

Her relationship with her father and brother is pretty bad before this whole fake relationship thing. I wasn’t citing that as a reason why I considered her plan a mistake. I was citing that because she was willing to do everything for them, but Nero wasn’t bothered in the slightest about it. He did care about her physical well-being and ackowledges that she’s a capable person, but other than that, nada. When she doesn’t act the way he wants, she’s a whore. I put emphasis on her morals, because it was a big part of her character in Red Rising. Her morals are the reason why she humiliated Adrius at the Institute, to teach him a lesson (it was well deserved in my opinion, as death would have been too easy on him, but it did fueled him to go even ore against Darrow and she).

I do think she felt bad about using Cassius, but it wasn’t as impactful to her as it was to be something she wasn’t.

In my opinion, VIrginia always seemed to have this silent battle between her morals - what is right - and her loyalty. Loyalty to family, to house, to her ideologies, you name it.

In Morning Star there is a big emphasis on the fact that she chose to save Orion and the rest of the fleet and even let Orion have the fleet. It was because she chose to do the right thing. Even Kavax - he taught all his children, VIrginia included, about the heroes who fought to protect the weak. In Morning Star, her development to this - to choosing to do the right has a lot to do with her becoming a mother to a half Red half Gold child and all that happened between the Triumph and the meeting with Darrow.

It is off screen, but that doesn’t make her wasted potential.

I do feel that her trust in her family was a flaw too: she was really willing to trust Nero that he’ll give the Reformers a chance - he was going to kill them and let Darrow lick her wounds. That was really naive of her.

I wasn’t trying to make it sound noble - the part about her biggest flaw being her wanting to sacrifice for her loved ones. Honestly, her brand of sacrifice isn’t worth it to me. I meant it for Adrius and Nero, but she also wanted to make peace with Octavia for Pax’s sake (not her brightest idea, but she was desperate).

To be honest, everyone’s flaws in the Red Rising Trilogy (ok, maybe almost everyone…) are a thing of interpretation. Look at Darrow’s thing with forgiving everyone (well, almost everyone, but he does see the good in people a tad too often).

The vibes I get from what you said is that you wish for Virginia to suffer consequences for her flaws. But, thing is, not everyone has to suffer for them. Not everyone’s flaws impact them on page.

Virginia’s hatred for showing vulnerability affects her relationship with Darrow in Morning Star. The Rising isn’t too pleased with having her as an ally - see Dancer. Her relationship with Victra doesn’t go smoothly - Victra was the first to insinuate that Virginia only joined them for power, because she couldn’t explain it otherwise.

As for Virginia manipulating people…sure, I agree with that to some degree. Deanna doesn’t shy away from calling out bullshite when she sees it. So I highly doubt that Mustang would have even managed to try that on her.

As for Virginia testing Darrow? It was a trust test. Because they lost that trust they had. And it needed rebuilding. It was rebuilt on the ice. But what she really wanted to see was - what kind of world does Darrow want for the Colors? Can this world include their son? Is Darrow just warlord? Because that is what the Sons of Ares are considered - especally after what Harmony did. Mustang knew Darrow au Andromedus: a highly skilled Peerless Scarred, so skilled he was saw almost as an Iron Gold, an orphan with many ambitions and a quest for glory, she saw a good friend to his mates, she saw someone who broke paradigms to suit himself or his moral compass, she saw someone who never used Pinks, never abused Browns and respected other Colors, she saw someone who murmured an off-Color name in his feverish sleep, she saw much of Darrow. But she never expected him to be a Red. SHe felt as if she never knew him at all. And it’s not a great thing, but it is understandable.

In Iron Gold, we see the consequences of her actions more than the consequences of her flaws: Julia helps her fall into the PitVipers’ pit with no qualms and calls her Usurper (which has more meaning than anyone wants to admit in this fandom, imo), Dancer has no qualms about defying her either and in case I’ve missed something, I am pretty sure every POV character minus Darrow has something against her. Another mistake I think she made was severing so much of her power - she’s partly at fault for the rise of the Red Hand and the Syndicate. And she’s partly responsible for the fact that the Republic is divived so much: her string of pardons pissed a lot of people off and rightly so, but on the other hand it isn’t like she had much choice - too many executiosn and they’d have called her Octavia 2.0. Besides,I think she does indeed acknowledges her mistakes (it doesn;t have to always be outrightly spoken, you know), when she realises the Syndicate isn’t scared of her, when she has her hands tied behind her back and can’t do jack shite to save her kid? Not her greatest moment, because she put herself in the position where she has so little power in the first place. And I doubt she doesn’t regret some of her decisions or actions - political or otherwise. But, the actual being sorry and stuff might be a thing we’ll see in Dark Age, because I doubt this glimpse we get from Lyria satisfies you.

I think that Virginia’s flaws are very valid even though they don’t impact her narrative directly on page. In the trilogy that is very normal in my opinion. The focus is Darrow and we don’t see other characters dealing with their flaws on page either - look a Victra: her narrative isn’t directly impacted - it’s more implied than anything and there is nothing wrong with that. Many people feel that her off page development - done because she suddenly realised that Sevro could die (or she could die) and she didn’t want to waste time was rushed, but honestly that’s another post alltogether.

The most on-page development in the trilogy is Darrow’s and that is totally valid - it’s his pov, his story, his views. All the other characters that get any development get on and off-page development - Sevro being the most proeminent, but we can also include Ragnar. Cassius’ development is mostly done off-page.

My point is, with all due respect to your opinions, Virginia’s potential isn’t wasted, in my opinion. I do feel that you’ll get more “flaws that directly impacted the narrative” from her in Dark Age - as we have seen in Iron Gold. Maybe that will give you some satisfaction about her character.

Don’t get me wrong, I know she’s far from perfect. I do wish there were more interactions between her and other females, in Golden Son, especially. I wish there was more exploration of her reformist views, her pregnancy, her relationship with Niobe, Thraxa, Xana, the Arcos women (who remained her allies). I feel that Pierce Brown couldn’t write Darrow fucking up shite too much with Virginia there and as stupid or random this sounds, that’s my only explanation for why we don’t have much info about those things.

I think that, if Darrow wasn’t the only pov character in the first three books we might have got that, but it’s not over yet as we’ll even have Mustang as a pov character. Though I have read some opinion on Hic Sunt Leones about her pov and sweet Reaper in the Vale, if people are like that now, I don’t want to know what they’ll think when they actually get the book.

So if you’re willing to really give Virginia a chance, I do believe you won’t be dissapointed. But if you’re not…well, we can always agree to disagree. As I have seen you’re pretty cool. I get it that you did not intended to rain on my parade and I thank you for trying to be as respectful as possible. I really do appreciate it and I have tried to do likewise.

I did stop doing stuff about the women of Red Rising because I tried to answer this thing as accurately, unbiased and respectful as possible, because it scratched my brain a lot. But it is what it is…I just couldn’t go on without putting things in order here. Also, my laptop let me down big time and I had to get my sister’s (from the other side of town), so that was the delay, I’m really sorry for that. I didn’t see the submission until someone sent me an ask and then I had to wait for the laptop to answer it properly. I didn;t ignore yo intetionlly or something, hope you can understand!

Howl on!

#red rising trilogy #iron gold trilogy #virginia au augustus #submission

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gurguliare · 6 years

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Anyway I finally finally finished the TM post-mortem so have one last rundown

Really loved: Signet’s stupid relics runway show, Ali describing the Mirage/Splice resolution as “the most amazing Gift of the Magi fuckup,” and, oddly, Keith’s reflections on anarchism, though idk if enough of that made it legibly into the season---which is one of the ways Gig was underserved, I guess.

I also enjoyed and appreciated the discussion of TM’s utopianism as monumental artistic challenge. I obviously have criticisms wrt execution and I disagree with some of their analysis of TM’s failures and shortcomings, but I thought everyone was refreshingly honest about the sheer scale of the task, in a way that I often missed during the series proper---when the tone sometimes tended more toward “we’ve set ‘depicting a utopia’ as our goal, and of course we share a coherent (static) vision of what that entails, and know exactly how to get from here to there.”

I was dissatisfied at best with the conversation about redemption vs rehabilitation. I might be more convinced by the distinction if Austin had ever stopped saying “sin”... which, among other things, helps to selectively blur together abuse and other forms of violence. (I’ve given up on even dreaming of a world in which FATT covers its ass better in re: Christian-centric, frankly Catholic-centric readings of both morality and faith, and maybe it’s for the best that they lack the wherewithal to mask that.) That said, I think it’s very striking that Even Gardner’s violence and militarism seems dealt with in-story almost exclusively as a form of trauma and a thing that happens to Even Gardner, while Fourteen’s history with Castlerose is discussed (up to the time of the finale) almost exclusively in terms of Sins Fourteen Committed. I’m not saying those framings are ~flipped, but the ratio does seem off. Even has a fuckton of choices at every step of the way and experiences basically no material repercussions or visible change of heart, other than “once there are no Advent people left I’ll stop targeting Advent.” He’s also, notably, “brought back from the edge” by a played-straight romantic relationship, for some reason. Fourteen has like... half of a narrative about turning bad habits and even obsolete ideas to constructive ends, and half a narrative about reclaiming agency once safely away from your abuser, even at the cost of losing access to huge swathes of your life... but it’s an arc that goes so unacknowledged or unseen by the other characters that it never connects back up to the idea that, well, bound up in the problem of rehabilitation is the problem of forgiveness---or if we don’t like that language, then acceptance. It’s never clear on what terms Fourteen is judged and reintegrated into their community, and how and where their self-image aligns with others’ view of them.

Which is very, very lonely, and raises huge questions for me about the whole issue of Fourteen as ~disability representation and specifically as a test case for what terminal illness might look like in a utopia. It is just not clear what anyone’s goals were, as far as showing Fourteen supported in a systemic way and not just on the level of relationships. It’s very odd. I’m still puzzled by Jack and Austin’s remarks on this, especially the focus on what Jack had or hadn’t done with Fourteen in play. Literally every NPC (who has a stance on the issue at all) responds to Fourteen with undisguised horror at their memory dysfunction---the most sympathetic version of this is a lecture about integrating assistive technology into their daily routine! and the least sympathetic is the point-blank statement that Fourteen not remembering who they’ve killed is worse than killing those people in the first place. Like, what the hell? That’s a vision of morality that is entirely premised on repentance, and on the idea that expiation for a crime only comes with appropriate helpings of guilt. And it never really receives an in-universe challenge.

It was also weird to me that Grand didn’t come up at all in that part of the discussion. But then again it seemed like no one wanted to comment seriously on Grand’s arc in general; maybe Art was making really sad faces on the call or something. It’s a shame though, since you’d think it would be a good opportunity to go on some bullshit about “salvation NOT through good works,” or rather, salvation definitely through good works but everyone feels a little weird about it. Three bombs? Three bombs?

Finally, it is important that I dissect all remarks on shipping. I was a little perturbed by the discussion of Fourteen/Tender; I thought Ali’s IC reasons were perfectly valid but I found Jack’s slightly suspect, because I don’t think, uh, “this person flirts all the time but is too busy dying to pursue new romantic projects” really jives---either with Fourteen’s profound, active engagement with others (more active and deeper engagement the longer the season went on) or with Jack’s stated goal of presenting a dying person who, without being embroiled in regret or bitterness in the face of death, still loves their life. Obviously I don’t think romantic relationships are a requirement for that, but the blanket statement that Fourteen is Not That Person gave me trouble. Also, I just don’t think you can drop the “platonic relationship representation is so important” line in there without a LOT more unpacking of the pros and cons of that---who are the characters involved in that relationship, and are they people for whom nonsexual relationships are a top-of-the-line representation deficit? Also, is nonsexual vs sexual really the paradigm you want to cleave to here, in a discussion of the chemistry between an internet goddess and a hunk of data?

I’m a hypocrite though bc when they got to echogrand and went on about how it was important that Echo’s arc not center on romance I was like RIGHT ON

...

Okay. One more thing. Janine shooting down Signet/Blueberry; I was fond of this, though I obviously do not care about her opinion and will continue to do what I want---I don’t like “parental” as the trajectory for a dynamic whose foundational moment is the younger weaker party saving the older, that doesn’t do it for me. Of course children can save their parents, but they shouldn’t have to, and that certainly shouldn’t be the pattern that defines the relationship. And for Signet and Blueberry I think it really is; Signet offers Blueberry apologies, Blueberry offers Signet things Signet actually needs. That’s not parental. Nevertheless, I was fond bc it made me think about what a wealth of fun mentorship dynamics this season offered otherwise---with Tender and Morning’s Observation, and Fourteen and Sho, there are these really precious internal movements, or moments of slippage, from distrust to empathy and from faith to disillusionment, that I treasured as real, organic, slippery pieces of character writing and of writing about growth... My favorite example of this is when Morning’s Observation is FURIOUS with Tender after the fucking... rooftop debacle early on in the Wind’s Poem arc. And then again, more seriously, later, after he’s been essentially abandoned and has to save the day by drawing on parts of himself he wanted to give up. That feels like a moment of roleswap between “guardian” and “child” that is presented as appropriately bittersweet, pivotal, and rupturing, and which therefore preserves the logic of the original relationship even as it expands it. And I also love Grand’s awkward interference there, haha... esp in the context of Grand managing to disappoint Morning separately later on, when by that point it’s lost most of its oomph just because Morning has learned not to have expectations of these fucking geniuses. Which is its own mixed result.

(I wish there had been a bit more followup with Morning in the finale, actually, I don’t think he really got resolution on some stuff and I think “happy at the Brink with his moms” is more avoidant copout than anything, though not implausible or unreasonable avoidance from a character perspective. But like, the fucking... part in the Feast of Patina where it becomes increasingly apparent, throughout Morning’s glad monologue, that he did, in fact, do many of the same things as Grand? He betrayed former allies for an enemy faction in the name of convenience! That’s not all Grand did, but it’s not nothing. And everyone has to fall back on “but the Advent Group are fascists! Morning didn’t turn coat and join fascists!” when it’s like, well, would he have, if they had offered him spaghetti?

Not that I think Morning’s and Grand’s choices are remotely equivalent. But it was a very funny parallel for them to try to wriggle out of on the fly, and I wish they hadn’t---I wish they’d leaned into Morning’s lingering doubts, which would if anything have served to highlight that he does have good reason to stay. It’s just that those reasons don’t cancel out the doubts.)

#friends at the table #twilight mirage #ok i said last but i already feel another post boiling up in me about some comparisons austin made between c/w and tm but #i think i'll save that #for another time.

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aroworlds · 6 years

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Could you talk a bit about amatonormativity and how it related to you? I know the 101 (aka the definition), but I have trouble identifying it in real life, discussing how it permeates in fiction, etc. and this is kinda weird but I think an informed discussion about it would help? IDK feel free to ignore it if you don't have the spoons for it, but if you want to it would be a huge help!

Anon, I told you this was going to be long, but … well, it’s long!

The problem is that amatonormativity is a wall I keep hurling myself against, as an aro and as an aro creative, and there isn’t much conversational space where I am permitted to go all out in talking about it. I fear discussing this with too much vehemence, to go beyond the hand-holding 101 conversations about being aro, in case I alienate the alloromantic folks who do support me. Alloromantic people aren’t interested in conversations that undermine their sense of the world, and aro-spec spaces are small; both things together result in silence.

Because of this, I think it’s reasonable that this is something hard to grasp, for aro-spec and alloromantic folks alike: the educative conversations are hard to find or don’t exist. When you add to the fact that for the last two years a-spec people have been fighting targeted hate, that our conversations have fallen back to claws-out defence or the shield of validation, how the hell are we supposed to understand our own experiences, especially something as-yet-unquestioned as the practical impact of amatonormativity?

I hope you don’t mind, but because this is so long, I’m going to concentrate on amatonormativity in media and its impact on me as a creative.

In terms of fictional media, I think amatonormativity shows itself most obviously in the concept of a happy ending–that two people in a romantic relationship is by far the most common variant. No, not all stories end witha romantic happy ending, but so many do, even if it’s only a romantically-happy-for-now ending. Think Disney films; think action films shoving in an unnecessary romantic side-plot because the hero gets the girl once the explosions are over; think every story where the guy got the girl for reasons we the audience are expected to accept without question.

Likewise, a film with a tragic or unhappy ending is often shown by a protagonist not falling in romantic love or the dissolution of a romantic relationship. While there are other forms of indicating tragedy, the lack of a romantic paring for a character expected to be in one is common. There’s a reason Romeo and Juliet has long been framed as a tragic romance even though the tragedy, I’d argue, lies more in the impact of feuding families on the next generation, not the death of two young people in a “star-crossed” romance.

Even genres that aren’t romantic in the sense that romance isn’t the focus of the plot will still include sexual and romantic tension between characters: many of the crime and thriller novels I’ve read, supposedly less romantic because they target a cishet male audience, devote a great many pages to depicting romantic relationships nonetheless. The majority of YA novels depict the development of romantic relationships (which is why I kept reading middle-grade books even when I was too old for them) and even low-romance adult fiction still has the protagonists having had or desiring a romantic relationship at some point. So many literary works deal with the breakdown of romantic relationships, affairs, being single, unrequited love, or the way dangerous or alien environments, or the tyranny of distance, places stresses on romantic partnerships. These often won’t have purely happy endings–often tragic or complicated–because they’re Literary, but they’re just as obsessed with romantic love as any romance novel. In constantly going on about romance’s failure without ever making the point that someone can be happy and self-fulfilled without it, literary works are as amatonormative as anything else.

Romantic love and relationships don’t have to be successful: we just have to show a character desiring these or struggling with these, just so the audience knows that the protagonist is human. Characters who are shown as disdaining romance, or being uninterested in it, are usually antagonistic characters who are beyond redemption, are aliens or robots, or are coded as robotic–characters who are literally inhuman or portrayed as such. There’s a reason that The Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon Cooper becomes a kinder, more “normal”, less-autistic-coded man the more he falls in romantic love with Amy, despite being introduced as extremely aroace-coded, and it’s called amatonormativity.

This is the point in the post where we aro-specs are giving the world that long, pained stare, and for good reason.

Romantic love as a marker of human worth is the most succinct way I can describe the impact of amatonormativity. It’s not a flawless summary, but so often romance is treated as a universal concept, relevant to all, because Western society uses the possession of or desire for romantic love as an indicator of a person’s humanity. Romantic love makes us human, and so romantic love is everywhere, unquestioned and unassailable.

Elements of a more expanded sense of amatonormativity include:

- The idea that romantic attraction, love and relationships are universal to the human experience (predominantly a relationship encompassing, exclusively, one perisex heterosexual-and-heteromantic cis man and one perisex heterosexual-and-heteromanticcis woman).

- The idea that romantic love is the primary form of love and all other forms, once one gains a certain level of socially-acceptable maturity or adulthood, are naturally secondary.

- The idea that romantic love and relationships are relatable to and attainable by all, and any failure to relate to it or attain it is a personal or moral failing.

- The idea that people who do not experience, attain or desire a romantic partnership are, after a certain age, childish or childlike, immature, robotic, alien, inhuman.

- The idea that sex (especially non-heterosexual or non-vanilla sex) is only acceptable, for a person of high moral character, when it comes paired with romantic love. (Characters who have sex without romantic love are often coded as grasping, hateful, calculating, predatory.)

- The idea that the attainment of romantic love and relationships is a marker of character development, growth, adulthood or redemption.

- The idea that because romantic love and relationships are universal, to not depict them in media is to render one’s work childish or uninteresting. (Every aro-spec creator of narrative media knows the impact of this one.)

- The idea that the lack of romantic love or relationships, or the desire for these, is an indicator of a person of low moral character.

- The unquestioned idea that romance sells, accompanied with the assumption that the inclusion of romance in a work (or the story-arc of a protagonist) is a necessary part of making that work (or character) appealing to all audiences.

- No comprehension that romantic attraction can be felt and experienced in a diversity of ways and strengths, particularly with regards to fluctuation, intensity and circumstance.

- Very little comprehension of the difference between romantic attraction and romantic behaviours.

- An assumption that there is a certain set of behaviours that are only or best experienced with romantic attraction. (Engaging in these behaviours without romantic attraction is also often coded as predatory.)

Please note that all these discussions of romance are based on an alloromantic model: romance in and of itself is not inherently amatonormative. Aro-spec people’s experiences of romantic love and relationships do not fit the above because they do not and cannot assume that everyone fits this assumption of romantic attraction being a universal, unquestioned human. If your depiction of romance doesn’t assume that romance makes us a worthy human and everyone experiences it, it’s probably not amatonormative.

There’s heavy overlap with ableism, misogyny, heterosexism, whoremisia, etc, and this must be acknowledged. Amatonormativity hits hard on its own, but it seldom hits alone. More often it’s paired up with another form of oppression, which means people who better fit its norms can deny its existence by claiming the problem is due only to amatonormativity’s current partner.

Additionally, most mainstream amatonormative works are going to be about cishet romances (the romantic relationship between a cis heterosexual man and a cis heterosexual woman, presumed to be perisex and both alloromantic and allosexual). Women are far more subject to the need to be shown in romantic relationships than men; men are more often allowed to travel through the narrative without being subject to a romance, although most are shown as at least desiring it. Each experience of marginalisation is going to shape in different ways how amatonormativity impacts us, and this needs to be discussed (especially because if we don’t, antagonists deny the existence of amatonormativity altogether).

(I will say that amatonormativity and misogyny have a strange relationship in that excessive romance is treated as feminine and emotional, and denigrated because of it. We all know how literature is valued and respected over fanworks and genre romance. Cishet men, meanwhile, have a long history of treating the having of a romantic partner as a trap–phrases like “ball and chain” with regards to a wife, for example. Despite this, there’s still an unquestioned social expectation that men experience romance attraction and have, will have or want a romantic partner.)

I’ll use my experience as a trans aro to give an example of this kind of overlap.

Amatonormativity in LGBTQIA+ media is coloured by the fact that LGBTQIA+ folks have been denied romantically-happy-endings until recently; the rise of fandom and LGBTQIA+ genre media has done much to change this. Yet both are, predominantly, romance narratives, to the extent that there is little space for anything else. This history leaves me in an awkward position. The need for love stories featuring trans characters and trans bodies as worthy of romantic interest and desire is profound. In a world where romantic love is seen as the only kind of love worth talking about, powerful and primary, it’s natural many trans/NB stories are about just that.

I feel like I’m walking on thin ice if I talk about how depicting romance as the only acceptable trans happy ending defines my experience of gender by romantic experiences--and yet that is exactly what I feel. Furthermore, this is a narrative many alloromantic trans people need and deserve. In trying to tell stories about me, an aro trans person, who isn’t a target of romantic love, my stories are seen by alloromantic trans folks as mirroring the narratives that have long harmed trans people, treating us as unlovable. My work cannot provide the validation–that they are desired and loved romantically–alloromantic trans folks are looking for.

The amatonormativity isn’t in the existence of trans romance stories, but the fact there are fewer publishing options, and smaller audiences, for non-romantic/aromantic/gen stories about trans love and identity. The amatonormativity lies in the fact that romantic love for trans characters is the love on which trans genre media centres.

As a reader, I need stories that talk about different kinds of love, love for myself and my own body, a radical self-acceptance that isn’t tied to someone else’s romantic interest in me. Instead, I get stories telling me that I am accepted, as a trans person, if my identity is tied up in experiences I don’t have and don’t desire.

The intersection of amatonormativity and cissexism results in its own peculiar oppression for me as a trans aro, one that I find impossible to navigate in a world where it isn’t understood that romance doesn’t have to be the primary form of expressing love and acceptance for trans characters and even trans bodies. I’ve seen so many posts on my dash about people proclaiming a want for trans storytelling while getting no benefit from this movement because I’m writing about aro trans characters. That’s more than a little disheartening.

This kind of intersection does a lot of damage to aro-spec creators who are otherwise marginalised (so many marginalised experiences come with a heavy dose of we are lovable, our love is important, we deserve the right for our love to be accepted and protected and acknowledged, much of this conversation centred on romantic love) but just being an aro-spec creator who creates aro-spec narrative media comes with an inherent disadvantage that is difficult to surmount.

I’ve got some numbers for this disadvantage, actually. My latest work, The Wind and the Stars, has had fifty downloads in its first month, and I’m actually excited by that, because everything else I’ve posted with the tag “aromantic” has gotten approximately twenty downloads in their first months. A couple of works didn’t break the fifty mark until three or four months in! By contrast, with the same amount of promotion but published under a brand new name with no back catalogue to help (unlike my other works), my explicitly queer paranormal romance story got three hundred downloads in its first month. How am I supposed to provide representation for my community when I don’t have enough interest in my work to justify the work of its production?

The tag aromantic helps guide aro-spec readers, but it actively discourages most alloromantic readers (who exist in far greater number) from reading, and most of them won’t have any comprehension of why. They just see romance as normal and interesting, and anything that subverts this, be it specifically aromantic or just gen, undermines this worldview. It happens so subconsciously it’s near impossible to challenge.

In a way, one of the most damaging aspects of amatonormativity is its lack of recognition. Most people have some understanding, now, on what misogyny is and what harm it might cause, even if one disagrees with it or has a 101 understanding at best. There’s a social model for beginning to understand this. Amatonormativity, on the other hand, has no such basis. It’s so unquestioned that few people who aren’t aro-spec recognise it or need to, and it’s often seen as a lesser problem. As someone who is struggling as a creator because of amatonormativity, to the extent that I don’t know how I can possibly survive as a writer, it angers me to see this treated as less important than other forms of normativity. No, nobody will beat me up on the street as an aro, but if I can’t keep a roof over my head because only a small number of people are reading my free books and I have no belief they’ll buy my next book, how does this distinction matter?

Amatonormativity silences, erases and oppresses aro-spec people. It substantially disadvantages us in how we are seen by others and how we interact with the world around us. And almost nobody outside aro-spec spaces wants to acknowledge it.

Sorry for the rant at the end there, anon. Does this give you some idea on how amatonormativity is demonstrated through media and how it impacts aro-spec creatives?

#anon #ask #text #amatonormativity #amatonormativity in creativity #I will essay at you #long post #very long post #extremely long post #mod k.a.#romance mention #discussion post #romance discussion #creativity discussion posts #aromanticism and intersectionality #not media #support our aro spec creatives if you can

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ritarants · 7 years

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this is weird Ne-leads have a vast "knowledge" base but it barely scrapes the surface... they usually have a hard time finishing books/shows/movies 90% of it is extrapolation. it's precisely because they have to fall back on that mechanism so frequently that they're able to look at a person and make an educated guess on their character using a few fragmented details in order to create a mental framework - based on a loose framework that existed long before they even interacted with you - which expands/shifts the more information they gather. it's just that the framework they started out with is sort of the foundation that keeps it all together that's like, why they get bored halfway through everything, they know how the story goes, so why finish the book liek I've fucking read this before Ne is knowing that if you don't know something then it's easier to be vague and elusive and make the other person's imagination do all the work sometimes Ne is just "I bet the movie was about two unlikely teens falling in love but people and circumstances were like NO but they do it anyway and memories are created but then BAM they can't see each other anymore but oh wait now they can, the end, happily ever after" but it's very different from Ni, I feel like ILIs are some of the best at picking out "vibes", the few times I've heard ILIs describing people, it's never with static words really... it's like "I notice that you're usually moving in this direction but then sometimes it changes and you do this but underneath that there's a lot of this" and it's very much about describing how you vibe on a wavelength and it's like that flat-line machine before people die and if you talk to an intuitive about their partner you'll notice that they're usually with them for more shallow reasons but they won't say that, they'll probably frame it more like yeah they're [x, y, z positive traits] because the thing about intuitives is that they're usually good at appearing how they should in order to get what they want, whereas sensors are actually more likely to get together with someone for more personality-related reasons, intellect, humor, etc I don't know man, I just remember watching a video someone here posted of an ILE-SEI couple and if you listen closely you'll notice that most of what the ILE praises the SEI for is caring and loving her, doing things for her, having a lot of interests which she then shares with him, being attractive and fashionable, it's not shallow per se. it's just that it's a lot about... doing, physical manifestations of love in a way. whereas the SEI went into a lovely list about how clever, compassionate, idea-driven she was... idk personality shit IDK I feel like SLEs can be really YEHh fuck bitches get money pew pew pew on the surface but I think even when they're saying something potentially offensive about their partner it's like, I don't know, concealing something deeper, I really do think they love them in their own stupid jock way in fact I think they're more capable of love than IEIs, most of the ones I've known have been sort of BPD energy vampires (sorry that's totally rude and it's not all of them but like I odn't know man, I try to avoid the females with a ten foot pole because they've got serious mental issues and not the excusable kind, the kind where they know they're being a huge pile of emotionally manipulative shit but they think it's ok because they're hot but there'll come a day where they won't be anymore and everything will catch up to them soz not soz work on your personality, not on your fake victim-esque backstory Idk i think it has something to do with intuitives being confident in their interestingness and cleverness and whatever else, like they are confident in their ideas about the world, which is not to say that sensors can't be, just that they might be a little more skeptical that they may be those things, for intuitives, especially Ne-egos, the highest of compliments is someone being with you despite the fact that you don't really take care of your appearance I don't know, it's hard to explain. it's just like if you're an intuitive then you'll most likely find the fact that someone likes you despite the fact that you look how you do, you'll find that extremely touching, like it will warm your heart sorta, and feed your ego, sensors might want more appreciation for their brains though. whereas sensors aren't ALWAYS confident in this, it's just that compliments to this area aren't exactly perceived the same way no offense but I feel like some people don't actually apply this socionics knowledge to real life... like you'll see a thread titled "EIIs and [insert idiosyncrasy here that ISN'T mentioned in type descriptions but something about it seems vaguely true even if not directly written in a description] someone fucking swoops in like a wrecking ball and what do they post *direct quote to a socionics article* "Well, it is not mentioned here. Therefore it does not exist. I'm an intuitive, by the way." which is totally bullshit because if you actually were then you'd be able to look beyond the words themselves and dig a little deeper sort of points to you being a sensor, but that's not an insult, the insult here is that you're a dumb sensor like holy shit man congratulations that's actually the equivalent of plagiarizing when you're asked to answer in your own words thoo.... idk man I feel like I'm only doing this because it provides me with a vocabulary where I can better explain things that I've observed myself but then someone takes the theory super fucking seriously like they really do not understand that this is just a loose framework - one of millions of frameworks btw - and that there were probably a lot of thoughts and revelations that preceded the descriptions, so if someone says hey are IEEs cold then the answer should be HMM Ne is literally detached by nature, they're labeled psychologists which should further reinforce the fact that they're detached since psychiatric evaluations even if not administered by a professional will still require a detached standpoint, they're usually spacey and head in the clouds... until they're not, and Fi is slightly more detached in the sense that there are fewer emotional displays and Fi-creative, as stated literally everywhere.... can even just up and forget people they've spoken to before, which can even be correlated to the Ep temperament, very much driven by irrational whims idk I seriously don't think it's healthy to glorify intuitiveness like it's so awesome to have a huge brain because half the problems self-proclaimed intuitives on here claim to have don't match up AT ALL with the ones I know elsewhere, Ne-leads in particular have literally such a hard time finding the motivation to do anything because Ne = everything is insignificant essentially, and they are actually deatched from their bodies, I think my ILE ex ended up in the hospital for having such terrible health, and I know my friend's ILE does a shit bunch of drugs because he is literally totally unaware of how much he can do before it's too much, just totally loses himself in it, and if they don't have Si-caregiving type bizzness in childhood then it's extremely hard for them to get anywhere in life beause they just fall in a pit of their own... idk....... but my ILE ex was extremely depressed it was just kept a secret mostly and he had to take meds for it because boredom to him was literally equivalent to death, it's hard to explain, but I really had to go over to his palce and pull him out of bed alll cute-like else he'd stay there for days just wasting away because ILEs absolutely require emotional encouragement and they need it consistently, and comfort and familiarity as well, or else they just lose their way I don't really feel bad for Ni-leads tho, I kind of think they're mooches, really annoying and don't actually do anything for humanity

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nostalgic-blood · 7 years

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THAT MOVIE THO.

spoilers under the cut of course

Yeah yeah yeah pacing issues, too much cool stuff crammed into a movie with too little time to spare for many characters including AJ and Flutts who unfortunately made no friends and thus, had they not been in the movie nothing would really have affected the plot. They were there for MORAL support okay. Also my favourite gag wouldn’t have worked without Fluttershy. I wish I could watch it again to refresh my memory, but basically they were stowaways on an airship full of pirates, and the pirates find them and threaten them, like eating them or scarring them or SCARRING THEM EMOTIONALLY, and each threat is tailored to a specific pony, and the emotional one focused on Fluttershy. That was great. I loved that gag.

Also the plot was like, simple. EXTREMELY SIMPLE. bad guys show up. Run away from bad guys. search for macguffin that can defeat the bad guys. Bad guys capture good guys anyway. FRIENDSHIP IS POWER THAT CAN DEFEAT--well no, not in the giant rainbow beam smashes into bad guy kind of defeat. The bad guy actually died, and there was a lot of fighting in the climax. Huh.

Well anyway the world building was very good which I normally would never even comment on because when it comes to MLP I usually don’t give two shits about the lore. For instance in season seven they’re introducing a whole bunch of mythical legends that while might be interesting on their own, are presented in a such a way that the episode tends to be a complete bore. What do I learn about Rarity or AJ in an episode where all they do is tell campfire stories? There is no focus on a conflict or any moral lesson (except the small ones in the stories themselves) and little interaction between the main characters. I was so bored by that episode. The Daring Do episode fared even worse and somehow they shoehorned it as Pinkie’s legend (??!!?) despite Pinkie having not read any Daring Do books and having little reason to be on this adventure. (This doesn’t even begin to describe how much Daring Do being real is one of the weakest aspects of the show itself, but I digress)

The only episode that was an interesting way to depict a legend was the Fluttershy episode because figuring out who this historical healer was, was important to curing and preventing the spread of a horrible deadly illness, so that one had great and suspenseful setup with a lot of development for Fluttershy. And frankly I think in terms of legends themselves Fluttershy’s was the least interesting, but because it was framed by a really good episode about Flutters it was the best one.

Oh right I was supposed to talk about the movie.

But yeah, one thing I REALLY like and thought was a possibility in the MLP universe were sky pirates or at least sky sailors or whatever, and HERE THEY ARE, EXISTING! And BEING PIRATES! AIRSHIPS ARE A THING! They even had one in the newest MLP episode. I knew they existed for a long while (one appeared in a small moment during Rarity’s song in Sweet and Elite back in season two) but they were never really utilized until this movie. I don’t know how i feel about tons of all anthro-looking creatures though. I always assumed the world of MLP was all these quadrupedal creatures and if they did stand on two legs it was because they were hybrids with human-like pieces such as minotaurs. Or dragons, but let’s not talk about them.

But here it’s this anthro-cat, and some anthro-fishmen, and then anthro birds, and the big bad is okay because he looks like a primate of some sort, so it makes sense, but the rest of em... ehhhh. I guess since they went OUTSIDE Equestria it makes sense there are a much larger variety of creatures/races, and maybe Equestria is the just the one with the most four-legged equines, but...

Also I think we almost had enough screentime with these new characters to like them. Almost. I was starting to like them, but it wasn’t to the point that if these characters suddenly decided to help the mane six that it’d be 100% believable. Since there wasn’t much time devoted to each of them, the fact that catman decided to side with them just because Rarity in those few precious seconds fixed the hem of his shirt was a little less realistic or believable as it could have been. I get what they were trying to do, but if more time was devoted to it, it would have had much more impact. The pirates especially I thought maybe they would blame the Mane Six for leading to the destruction of their ship, but they were actually really reasonable for pirates that when we first saw them were about to eat them. They realized straight away that the real reason their ship exploded was because their boss sucked.

I could totally believe the Princess Seapony!Hippogriff thing siding with them though. She was just lonely and wanted friends. There were no ethical issues to get in the way at all like murderous pirates or conmen. The fact that the queen did not join them made sense though, since Twilight royally fucked up.

Speaking of Twilight I see a lot of people complaining she was not very Twilight in this movie, doing things that opposed the message of friendship. It made sense to me that she fell back to her more logical, rational way of life though. As they were journeying to find the Queen of the Hippogriffs, normal singing happy friendship methods to solve problems wasn’t really working. They befriended this cat man but he actually just wanted to sell them and was using them. Then they changed the ways of the pirates, but in doing so led the enemy straight towards them. I can see how Twilight thought this wasn’t like Equestria, the land of the colourful happy pastel ponies and their usual modus operandi wasn’t gonna work here. She was desperate! But due to the amount of time they had they could not spend a lot of time emphasizing this, so it may have come off to some people that Twilight was acting a lot more malicious than she is.

Another thing is this movie is clearly not for some random person to walk into a theatre, sit down, and just start watching like they’d understand the movie if it were just a standalone thing. There isn’t much time used up at all to introduce our characters and to make a blind audience care about them. It only really works if you’re already attached to the characters and know who they are, so it really wasn’t a good movie to attract casual moviegoers or anything like that.

I think another comment complaint is how helpless the ponies are especially when they are outside Equestria. This I thought was odd because we have Twilight who still had her magic which could basically solve anything and do anything if the plot demands in the show. Or Rainbow Dash who is supposedly faster than mach 3 or whatever, but neither of these two used their overpowered abilities effectively throughout the movie, almost like the movie forgot that Twilight could teleport or Rainbow Dash could escape.

But anyway all of that is moot. Why is all the above moot? Because we had a movie with a clear beginning, middle, and end. There were decent songs and a pretty good score. It’d otherwise just be a normal run of the mill 6-7/10.

BUT THAT IS MOOT BECAUSE PINKIE PIE WAS AMAZING IN THIS MOVIE. AND I WATCH MLP FOR PINKIE PIE. SHE IS THE NUMBER ONE REASON I AM INVESTED IN THIS FANDOM AT ALL. AND SHE HAD THE MOST FOCUS OF THE MANE SIX AFTER TWILIGHT.

The biggest issue I always had with adventure episodes which were usually the season premieres and finales of the show was that it was always heavily Twilight focused with the other five on the wayside. I did not want to watch a movie where Twilight solves the problem herself and her friends are hostages, or out of commission, nor not themselves, or otherwise not doing anything that affected the plot. They were just along for the ride. Yes unfortunately this ended up being the case for two of the Mane Six, but that’s just another side-effect of them not making this movie longer or utilizing what time they had effectively. (We could have had less new supporting characters or something, idk)

But luckily for my biased-self it was Pinkie they chose to focus on. When they don’t focus on Pinkie and she isn’t important she’s usually just the mindless comedic relief, which was always a depiction I hated of Pinkie. Equestria Girls Pinkie is exactly this, and that’s why she’s my least favourite in the EG Universe. This is fine if Pinkie’s comedy was actually good, but usually they aim for lolrandom humour when that happens. Pinkie’s comedic moments in the movie were much more often hit than miss. I didn’t really dislike any scene with Pinkie at all! At no point did she seem overly obnoxious. Maybe the time when she was trying to play I Spy, but the rest of the Mane Six were audibly exasperated with her so they were self-aware how obnoxious she can be at times, lol.

Also yes, she did ruin some moments too like a few others. And by ruin I mean, the Mane Six are trying to do something and have a perfectly good plan to do so, but one of the characters do the thing they’d always do and it’d ruin the plan. For Pinkie that was just yelling out loud in the marketplace trying to find help, this led them to being conned by the cat man and almost being captured. Then Rainbow ruined everything when she went overboard trying to turn the pirates by showing off her Sonic Rainboom, which is a very loud and flashy technique catching the bad guys’ attention and ruining their plans. Finally Twilight ruined everything when she straight up tried to steal the pearl. So at least it wasn’t ONLY Pinkie... and all of them to me seemed perfectly in-character or made sense for that specific context anyway.

A good example of an adventure episode where Pinkie isn’t very important but has great comedic moments is the season five premiere. She’s the first to notice the odd smiles and has great expressions and reaction faces to the weird town they’re in, and when the Mane Six are being brainwashed she has some great dry humour as well. Still funny when not even trying to be funny! A good example of an episode where Pinkie is not effective whatsoever at being comedic relief is the season three premiere. Pinkie’s just being really loud and screechy. Even if I did like the flugelhorn bit where she yells “FLUGELHORN” into a flugelhorn while trying to play the flugelhorn.

I think the reason why this movie gave such focus to Pinkie over the other five instead of someone else is that Pinkie is the most popular character among the target audience. All the little girls adore her. She’s definitely not the most popular among the brony community, but I’m glad the little girls have great taste! Also Twilight messes up and SHE gets captured, not all her friends at once! It is her friends who she alienated and ostracized that came to the rescue instead. I like this because even though Twilight is the Princess of Friendship now, it doesn’t mean she’s some flawless individual who is the end-all and be-all to friendship. She is the princess because she has many great friends, and they all complete her. It doesn’t make sense for a princess of friendship to not be doing things with her friends. That’s like Luna with no moon, or Cadance without a husband.

Also while Tempest whatever has a much better backstory than Starlight, I still find it a little annoying that MLP has a habit of infodumping a villain’s (that is meant to be redeemed) backstory blatantly in our face, and now we have to feel sorry for them and completely understand their motivations. I thought her villain song started out strong but fell apart when it just jumped into her backstory like that. Again, if the movie had more runtime we could have explored her backstory and motivations in either much more subtle ways, or with more depth, or not all at once. Still despite her edginess she was one of the more fleshed out new characters, so I’ll give her that.

The movie actually reminds of two fanfics I’ve read that have sky pirates and a world outside Equestria. In one, the villain is trying to find and kidnap the protagonist for their dastardly deeds, just like in the movie trying to kidnap Twilight for power, and the cast runs across faraway lands to escape. The other just has a bunch of sky pirates. I love those sky pirates. I made a sky pirate AU for ponies once that if I weren’t so invested in my RWBY AU powered by 1000% salt I might actually attempt to write. SKY PIRATES!!1!11!!!

It’s like the movie was pandered directly to me. Good Pinkie content and sky pirates. Yay! So, with all that bias included I’d give the movie a solid 8.5/10. But that’s just me personally. If Pinkie ISN’T your favourite character or you enjoy more complicated plots with more unpredictability you might rate it a more objective 6 or 7 out of 10.

8.5 tho. Just for Pinkie. PINKIEEEEE!!

#here i am ranting again ~#i thoroughly enjoyed the movie tho #gr8 movie would r8 again #text!post #rant!post #mlp!shit #spoilers

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