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yvtro · 1 year

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Two questions that I'm genuinely interested in your answer for (bc I love your metas ngl) but I totally get it if you don't answer.

What's your biggest unpopular opinion on Jason, and your least favorite popular/fandom opinion on him?

disclaimer: i’m moving blogs. still here to go through my askbox, but you will find me at @boyfridged most of the time.

i'm very flattered, thank you!! and sorry this took me so long to answer. and it did take me so long 1. because it’s really hard to tell what is actually an unpopular opinion (i did thankfully find myself in a circle of mutuals who mostly share the same intuitions when it comes to his character) and 2. because I mentally put a label on it “asks to get me assassinated.” and I guess the take that i have requires quite careful wording.

so, my unpopular take is that from in-universe point of view, jason shouldn’t be a vigilante, and it would be best for the storytelling around him to focus on this fact. and i’m not saying that in a mean, moralistic nor diminishing way. i just think that jay’s storyline is a story of everything that can go wrong with a sidekick, and of how vigilantism can traumatise people into oblivion, and completely annihilate their ability to function normally. part of it is a result of the fact that imo jason isn’t naturally suited for vigilantism (that is not to talk about his skills nor efficiency in it, i will get back to it shortly), and part of it is a result of the circumstances in which he was introduced into it, and of course the subsequent trauma.

you could say “uhm every superhero story is like that, he’s not special,” but typically, when you think about characters such as bruce wayne or dick grayson etc., the event that comes to mind when you think about their biggest trauma is something that… pushed them into vigilantism? and vigilantism supposedly helped them in some ways? (it can be argued against, but that’s an underlying assumption) (+even without a tragic backstory, characters usually have much more agency in their decision to become vigilantes). and in case of jay, his biggest trauma isn’t anything that came before robin, and his life was awfully fucking sad, so i think that it says something. his biggest trauma is associated with what he went through already as robin and then retraumatising events that followed his resurrection.

it’s really puzzling to me that this distinction is never deliberately written about nor truly brought up in comics…? i think the closest we came to this was, ironically, starlin’s run (when alfred straight up suggests that maybe robin just isn’t good for jason) and countdown (where jay intends to leave the superhero community altogether).

okay, so you can say: vigilantism is kinda shitty for you. breaking news, we’ve known this already.

except there's something, in my opinion, that makes jason’s case special and more nuanced. it seems, at first glance, that with all the love and compassion jason has, he should be great material for a vigilante still. but he clearly isn’t. why is that?

the crushing proportion of other characters have moral systems, coping mechanisms, and understanding of vigilantism that make this life at least possible for them. on the other hand, jason’s personality, his lived experience, and his moral stance makes vigilantism extremely unsustainable. i mentioned it before in my post about eoc, but most (especially 1st gen, but not only, i’d argue that most former teenage superheroes also came to this point as well) vigilantes, even if associated with love and compassion as the core of their actions, have understanding of vigilantism and moral codes that jason doesn’t possess. (for a long while i was on a “jason has a moral code but it’s casually bastardised by most writers” team but since then i have thought about it a lot and my current take is that he was good at following orders as robin, and has some provisional rules as the red hood, but they’re nowhere near an actual code. as i said in the linked post, i think morality is more of an on-going emotional practice for him). and it all makes sense! let's circle back to bruce for a moment. of course, the reason for which he doesn’t kill is grounded within his own beliefs, but he is also very painfully aware of the thin line that vigilantes walk on when it comes to the law and being trusted by the public. i'd argue he is very conscious of the fact that being a vigilante comes with responsibility of cultivating a certain ethos. he had a lot of time to think about it! in many ways, he invented it. and it’s practical. it's what makes this life possible.

jason doesn’t have it. jason’s idea of vigilantism isn’t carefully designed nor sophisticated, jason’s idea of vigilantism is that he is in the field and he has power to do things, so he has to do them. he has to trust his moral intuitions. and in many ways, he’s not wrong – it's not a flawed view to hold, especially not in the ordinary life. but that also means that there are no lines that he won’t cross if he thinks he can help or fix the situation. but in the world that batman introduces us to (a world in which, to quote le guin on an unrelated matter, there’s no ends, but only means), it’s self-destructive. to compare him again to bruce, bruce is self-sacrificial, but his conceptual understanding of vigilantism and his moral code protect him in some ways. jason’s moral judgements and actions are unrestrained and radical (not to say that they’re reckless or inefficient; he’s still a great strategist and can be even overly careful if it’s required). and that is set in a world where evil never stops. we already know that the joker will always come back, for example. what does it mean for jason? he will try to match the energy, of course, and he’s not stopping either. bruce is similar in that aspect, yet he has a whole insurance set that helps him deal with extreme situations. there's an offset. and jason doesn’t have any. he won’t ever hit the breaks. i think you know where i’m going with this metaphor.

so i guess my take is that… bruce’s outlook on vigilantism is, against the popular opinion, very rational. but jason just brings his heart into it and nothing else. and that’s just catastrophic.

this is really me just pushing the “love is his fatal flaw” agenda again tbh, but with additional emphasis on why the same trait isn’t that tragic for other characters who share it. also this is why it’s so crucial to me that he should have a civilian arc…

and as to my least favourite fandom opinion on him, i can't think of anything very specific right now, but my general pet peeve is anything that divorces his characterisation from his 80s personality. i think you can tell that i really dislike painting him as resentful towards dick, and all takes that indicate that he's always been cynical and distrustful toward the world. i think a lot of people want his storyline to be one of someone who has, from day one, been full of rightful anger, but the thing is that it has not been his story to begin with. he had to be pushed really far for this to happen. and this is what makes him so special compared with most anti-heroes – that his story starts from a genuine place of innocent and naive hope and love despite all he suffered.

#dc #this is a mess but it's been in my drafts for a while. and i don't think i have energy to say anything else #btw i think that my *actual* unpopular take is on batman!jason but i already talked about it lots

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evax3 · 9 months

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Heya! I wanted to ask you… do you have any hope that the books will come out and we’ll finally know the real ending? And what do you think Jon and Dany’s endings will be? I keep on being optimistic we will get the real ending. And all I need for it to be perfect is Dany and Arya and Jon (my three favorites) surviving and being able to find peace and happiness after the hells they all suffered. As much as I want Dany and Jon to be King and Queen, I’ll settle for them living. But what do you think?

Hello my friend, thank you for the ask!! :)

regarding the books, I'm sure we’ll get to know the ending some day, one way or another. Whether they'll ever be published, I have little hope, but never say never. At least I assume that after his death there will be a "GRRM – Unpublished Works" collection or something similar in which we can read chapters from Winds and Dream of Spring as well as many other short stories about our faves.

As for Dany and Jon’s ending, I highly recommend @hamliet 's meta’s. I love reading all of them but especially the analysis of Dany as a romantic heroine. It tells us so much about what we should expect for her endgame and why (it all makes so much sense!!).

I assume Dany will set King’s Landing on fire. Not intentionally, but because her father hid the Wildfire under the city and Daenerys will accidentally blow it up with her dragons fighting against f!Aegon. I don't see her killing innocent people as some collateral damage, but I see her fighting her enemies with fire and blood (which imo makes all the difference).

The incident in KL will throw her into a crisis and I think only with Jon's help she’ll get out of it and pick herself up to fight with him against the real enemy aka the Others (I’m sure their decision to form an alliance is one of the last scenes of TWOW and in ADOS they’re already a couple romantically involved with each other).

So I guess Winds will be about Dany conquering Westeros while Jon is a little lost, has to deal with the aftermath of his mutiny and then later his parental reveal, while A Dream of Spring will be more about their relationship and the Battle for the Dawn. I think Dany will be Azor Ahai and save Westeros with Jon by her side, but no one will thank them for that because of what happened before in KL (and also the general prejudice against their family). And that this is one of the essential elements that make the ending so bittersweet (as George has indicated).

She and Jon will be the true heroes, the bastard and the exile, but no one is going to see it or give them credit for that.

GRRM describes himself as a romantic writer and romantic literature is shaped by the fact that it focuses more on the inner conflict than the external conflict. So I assume that all 3 (Arya, Dany and Jon - who are also my favorites) are mainly dealing with their identity crises in the following books. What is their purpose in this world? How do people's expectations fit with their own desires and ambitions? By the end of the story, these questions should be answered.

I think Arya is pretty safe, when it comes to staying alive. I'm not quite so sure about Jonerys/Snowstorm. As much as I want it, because of course I wish for a HEA for my favorite ship, I actually don't see the two of them ruling together. I think they'll fall in love and Dany will get pregnant (because them having a family with each other has been hinted at way too much and unlike D&D, George isn't just doing that only as "clickbait"). But my fear is that only one of them will be able to see their child grow up…

And I'm not even sure what I actually want for their endgame if anything were possible? Probably to pack up their baby, Ghost and the dragons and then emigrate, lol. Maybe to Lys or somewhere warm? But they both have too much of a hero complex to ever pull that off ❤️

#asoiaf speculation #twow speculation #jonerys #snowstorm #valyrianscrolls #daenerys targaryen #jon snow #jon x dany #george rr martin #asoiaf meta #asks and answers

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pearwaldorf · 7 months

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Gaza, Holocaust, genocide

Do you know the other time in my life that I've seen lists of names like this? At the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam. There were so many and the type was so small there was a magnifying glass in the exhibit so you could see Anne and Margot's names.

Yad Vashem put together a life sized Book of Names. 4.8 million known victims, and blank pages for 1.2 million victims who have not been identified. There are two banks of names. Each is six feet tall and 26 feet long.

How the fuck does a country founded partially to ensure something like this never happens again turn away from an atrocity within living memory to do the same thing to another population?

There is a word a Jewish professor of mine used to describe Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath, but I can't remember what it was. It means something like "a grievous sin" or something incredibly shameful*. That is what is going on in Gaza**.

This year has felt like it is intent on shattering every illusion I have ever held about lines in the sand, the hope that there is some inherent threshold where people go "This is too far, and we will push back against it." And I'm sorry to say there isn't one.

I wish I had something comforting to say, I really do. I wish I could tell you that all we have to do is keep working for good things and it will happen. But I don't want to set people up for disappointment.

We live in a society where we don't think something is worth doing unless we think we're going to succeed. That is the wrong way to approach it, imo. There are things that are worth doing, even if they're difficult, because it's the right thing to do. Success is, of course, the end goal, but I don't think it's what you should focus on to the exclusion of other things.

Maybe this is a coping mechanism for me to deal with the possibility a lot of things I work towards won't succeed, I don't know. But at the end of the day, I tried my best, and I have to hope that's enough to help push things forward.

* It wasn't "shande", which to my understanding has implications of people not acting right and thus embarrassing everybody Jewish. This is much much worse.

** I have no opinion on whether a Jewish state should or should not exist, although I understand why people would want one. But I do not think this particular Jewish state should exist if this is what is "required" to maintain it.

#pear text

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klm-zoflorr · 3 years

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Why It Is Bad That We Never See Mai or Ty Lee in the Comics Deal With Their Imperialist Past

How come we never see Mai or Ty Lee deal with their imperialist past in the comics? For yeah comics!Azula is a horrible person and it is implied that Azula was never friends with Mai & Ty Lee, who where coerced subjects trying to keep their mad sovereigns (Azulon, Ozai, & Azula) happy. But I find it odd that neither no one in-universe or the narrative challenges them for their past. Like Zuko, Iroh, Piandao, Jeong Jeong, and Chey all had to confront their imperialist past before redeeming themselves despite having as good an argument, if not better, that they were being coerced or faced life threatening consequences if they didn’t comply. So what makes Mai or Ty Lee different any different? And before people say they went to prison, it was for committing treason against the Fire Nation/attacking their Princess; not for realizing the error of their ways and wanting to change.

Though in Ty Lee’s case she did say she did join the Kyoshi Warriors in order to fix a broken world in the Sisters comic so maybe Ty Lee did confront her past. But I wish we saw her time in prison so we saw her change considering she enthusiastically fought against the Kyoshi Warriors & The Gaang and mocked the Kyoshi Warriors’ style, not knowing or caring for the reason behind their makeup or dress.

However comics!Mai really hasn’t really done anything…in fact she kept from Zuko and The Gaang the fact that her father was leading the New Ozai Society until Zuko almost got killed (and was only saved by PIS and a last minute unexpected heel-face turn) and The Fire Warriors were able to kidnap around a dozen kids, including Mai’s own brother and Azula/Zuko’s half sister. And even more galling, when confronted for her treason, she has the gall tell an understandably angry Zuko that he of all people should understand how hard it is to betray your father. As if there wasn’t a difference between betraying the all powerful ruler of your country who has a cult of personality, has burned you before, can quickly fire off lethal amounts of lighting on command, and has said before he wanted to kill you versus betraying your mentally and physically weak father who rejected being integrated into the new government and seeks to put someone back in power who would likely kill you for committing treason against him.

On a sidenote, isn’t crazy that Zuko then quickly apologized and the story never brought up the topic of Mai’s treason ever again?

But getting back on track, are we being unreasonable in asking that Mai and Ty Lee confront their past or if they already did, that we actually see it on page/screen? Especially since the message sent by them not doing so is that if you turn at almost the last point possible, the people you have wronged repeatedly and the world community will instantly forgive you despite constantly engaging in imperialism (ex. fighting against the rebels in Omashu, jailing and impersonating The Kyoshi Warriors), let alone helping commit one of the biggest acts of imperialism in history (helping Azula take over Ba Sing Se)?

Also on a sidenote, I do have an on-going series where I post my thoughts on the Avatar series (this is where this post came from) so feel free to read the rest of them and comment on them.

-----------

I absolutely agree, Anon. I also think Avatar does have a huge problem with putting people into "boxes", like the Good Guys: Zuko, Aang, Katara, Iroh, Ty Lee, Mai, Ursa, even Azulon somehow who can NEVER do or ever did anything wrong (even tho anyone with even a piece of a critical mind knows they did and are flawed human beings) and the Bad Guys: Azula, Zhao, Ozai who are entirely bad and never did anything right and are basically souless emotionless demons.

"it is implied that Azula was never friends with Mai & Ty Lee"

Tbh I feel like this point was a retcon. In the show we see Azula genuinely likes them (hugging Ty Lee, apologising to her, setting Mai up with Zuko, playing with them as kids, being genuinely hurt when they betray her) and I'd be strongly tempted to say they did too. That might just be my interpretation but I feel like Mai really was awfully bored in Omashu and she was happy Azula came to give her something to do. Same for Ty Lee, she looked happy when Azula came at the circus (before she started threatening her), and when they were playing as kids. And I don't think her constant compliments were 100% genuine, of course, she's smarter than this, but I don't believe she was completely lying to her either.

Imo, they were friends, it was just so much complicated by Azula being their commander, war, and living in an imperialistic nation.

The comics (and the last episode of the show too) don't care about that, of course. The narrative they propose is just "Mai and Ty Lee always hated and feared Azula, they had to do everything she told them and so they never have to face any consequences" even tho we know Zuko, who was actually in that situation, had to face consequences for his.

Also, Mai is a perfect New Ozai Society supporter if I've ever seen one. I'm gonna start headcanoning her as a legit villain who consciously manipulated her way to avoid consequences for her actions thanks to being the Firelord's gf and her "treason", it's fun.

«The message sent is that if you turn at almost the last point possible, the people you have wronged repeatedly will instantly forgive you.»

Preach it! Ironically enough, last-minute traitors are often forgiven injustly in real-life wars even tho they might be objectively terrible people, but I don't think the comics writers were aiming to explore this particular subject xD

#atla #azula #ty lee #mai #avatar the last airbender #submission #atla analysis #analysis #klm-zoflorr #anti mai

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arctic-comet · 3 years

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Osblaine week 2021, Day 2: Lyrics

Over the last several weeks, I have carefully curated a playlist for Osblaine. The final total length of the playlist is 2 hours and 53 minutes.

The playlist can be found HERE

Click "Keep Reading" if you're interested in the introduction, commentary, more graphics and the full tracklist.

For full disclosure, I have to give some of the credit to my amazing fellow Osblaine fangirls @dystopiandramaqueen, @splitscreen and everyone who participated in a certain conversation for the original inspiration and even bringing up some of the songs.

You should look at the playlist in five parts: one section for each season that's aired and one section for the future (because I like to end things on a hopeful note).

The playlist contains a lot of the following:

Music from movie and TV soundtracks

Instrumental music

Remixes

Classics and covers of classics

Country music. I blame Florida. My sincerest apologies.

Some of the songs were chosen because they reminded me of a certain Osblaine scene, and some of them aren't specific to particular scenes but chosen for the general Osblaine vibe. And most of the movie/TV music I chose have been used for couples that remind me of Nick and June.

Part I- Season 1, first 12 songs of the playlist:

Forbidden Love- Abel Korzeniowski, Jasper Randall, The Hollywood Studio Symphony (Romeo & Juliet)

Fireflies- Owl City

Echoes in Rain- Enya

My Ghost- Glass Pear (Bones)

Daring to Hope- Anne Dudley (Poldark)

Everytime We Touch- Cascada

1000 Times- Sara Bareilles

Too Good At Goodbyes- Sam Smith

In Case You Don't Live Forever- Ben Platt

To Find You- Cast of Sing Street, Brenock O’Connor

She- Elvis Costello (Notting Hill)

Miracle- Instrumental- Cö Shu Nie

Hanging By A Moment- Lifehouse

Commentary:

The first instrumental song IMO works as an intro for their entire love story.

The next two songs are more about having the right vibe. It's a little ambiguous and dark because that's how their life is in Gilead.

Leave my door open just a crack

Please take me away from here

'Cause I feel like such an insomniac

Please take me away from here

Why do I tire of counting sheep?

Please take me away from here

When I'm far too tired to fall asleep

***

Wait for the sun

Watching the sky

Black as a crow

Night passes by

Taking the stars

So far away

Everything flows

Here comes another new day

Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah

***

"My Ghost" is June's POV before they sleep together, wondering if she can trust Nick:

Who can you trust, in this place?

And whom can I put my faith?

If you're real, then show me now,

Who you are

The last two songs are for episode 1x10, for both Nick’s reaction to June’s pregnancy and the beginning of her first escape attempt (arranged by Nick).

She may be the face I can't forget The trace of pleasure or regret May be my treasure or the price I have to pay She may be the song that summer sings Maybe the chill that autumn brings Maybe a hundred different things Within the measure of a day

Part II- Season 2, next 10 songs:

Love Will Keep Us Alive- Eagles

So Easy- Phillip Phillips

Incomplete- James Bay

Rewrite the Stars- The Piano Guys (The Greatest Showman)

I’ll Be Your Shelter- Taylor Dayne

Love Never Fails- Brandon Heath

P.S. I Love You- 05:11- John Powell (P.S. I Love You)

It's A Girl- Mychel Danna (The Time Traveler's Wife)

I'll Stand By You- Josh Groban, Helene Fischer

The Miracle of Love- Eurythmics

Commentary:

The first four songs cover June’s escape attempt and the time they share at the Boston Globe.

"Incomplete" is Nick's POV from when she's on the run and he knows she'll be gone from his life soon. He lives in the moment.

I don't wanna look down

I don't want us to break up in the clouds

All I want is to stay us, to stay with you now

"I'll Be Your Shelter" is for when June's mental health is at its lowest point and he goes to Serena to beg for her to get June help.

What you need is a friend to count on

What you got baby you got someone

Who will stay when the rain is fallin'

And won't let it fall on you

P.S. I Love You takes me back to episode 2.09, Nick’s selflessness in the episode and of course the scene where after telling June that Luke loves her, he tells her that he loves her too, despite believing she probably doesn’t feel the same way.

It's A Girl makes me think of the beautiful moment they share during June's false labor when he helps her out of the van and they climb the steps together.

I’ll Stand By You is for 2.10, Nick holding June after she was heartbroken over Hannah and over what the Waterfords did to her and clinging onto him.

Part III- Season 3, next 6 songs:

Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close- Alexandre Desplat (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close)

All I Ask- Adele

Never Enough- Loren Allred (The Greatest Showman)

I Don’t Wanna Live Forever- Taylor Swift, ZAYN (Fifty Shades Darker)

Love is Gone- SLANDER, Dylan Matthew

Constellations- The Oh Hellos

Commentary:

For obvious reasons, it was extremely difficult to pick songs for this season.

The first (instrumental) song is for the beginning of the season with June coming back to the Waterford house and them then saying goodbye to each other on the street.

All I Ask, Never Enough, I Don't Wanna Live Forever and Love Is Gone are for their night together in June’s room at Lawrence’s (the one we didn’t get to see sigh). They know it's possible it's all they'll ever have, and they'll take it, but it'll never be enough.

I will leave my heart at the door I won't say a word They've all been said before, you know So why don't we just play pretend? Like we're not scared of what's coming next Or scared of having nothing left

Look, don't get me wrong I know there is no tomorrow All I ask is

If this is my last night with you Hold me like I'm more than just a friend Give me a memory I can use Take me by the hand while we do what lovers do It matters how this ends 'Cause what if I never love again?

***

All the shine of a thousand spotlights

All the stars we steal from the night sky

Will never be enough

Never be enough

Towers of gold are still too little

These hands could hold the world but it'll

Never be enough

***

I'm sorry, don't leave me, I want you here with me

I know that your love is gone

I can't breathe, I'm so weak, I know this isn't easy

Don't tell me that your love is gone

That your love is gone

"Constellations" is for their long separation and the doubts that I'm sure plagued them both during it. Would they ever see each other again?

Part IV- S4, next 12 songs:

All of Me- John Legend

(Everything I do) I Do It For You- Bryan Adams

Iris- Natalie Taylor (City of Angels)

She Was Like A Bright Light- Hans Zimmer, Rupert Greyson-Williams (Winter’s Tale)

Noah's Last Letter- Aaron Zigman (The Notebook)

What’s In The Middle- the bird and the bee (Bones)

ivy- Taylor Swift

Footprints in the Sand- Leona Lewis

Remember Me (Lullaby)- Gael Garcia Bernal, Gabriella Flores (Coco)

On The Nature Of Daylight- Max Richter

My Heart Will Go On- Basil Jose (Titanic)

The Story- Sara Ramirez (Grey's Anatomy)

Commentary:

There were sooo many songs I wanted to include in part IV, but I controlled myself and ended up with this particular dozen.

"She Was Like A Bright Light" and "Noah’s Last Letter" are an instrumental double punch to the gut for Nick’s time in Gilead during episodes 4.07-4.09. The first one is meant for when he finds out June made it to Canada, and the 2nd for is for when he starts to gather info on Hannah to give to June.

"What’s in the Middle" and "ivy" are June’s POV of episodes 4.07-4.09.

"What's In The Middle" has more of an angry and confused vibe, and June was definitely both in episodes 7 and 8.

Losing your head is such a common theme

All your brains are falling out, falling out the open seams

Where is the heart, is the heart of the matter

I will empty out my skull of all this useless chatter

On the other hand, "ivy" has this haunted vibe, but there's also reverence and acceptance, which she begins to achieve in episode 9.

Oh, goddamn

My pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand

Taking mine, but it's been promised to another

Oh, I can't

Stop you putting roots in my dreamland

My house of stone, your ivy grows

And now I'm covered in you

The next three songs are of course all for their reunion in 4.09, and I couldn’t resist including the song that was actually played in the scene.

"The Story" draws the season to a close nicely, with June understanding that her current needs are different from what they used to be and that there’s someone who understands her completely (and it’s not Luke).

You see the smile that's on my mouth

It's hiding the words that don't come out

And all of my friends who think that I'm blessed

They don't know my head is a mess

No, they don't know who I really am

And they don't know what I've been through like you do

And I was made for you

Part V- Season 5 and Beyond, the last 6 songs

Secret Love Song- Little Mix, Jason Derulo

Burn With You- Lea Michele

The Bones- Maren Morris

Feels Like Home- Auli'i Carvalho, Keegan DeWitt

Love Will Find A Way- Piano Covers (Lion King II)

Like I'll Never Love You Again- Carrie Underwood

“Secret Love Song” is a more angsty tune about a love that’s still kept a secret like June and Nick’s love (as far as most people are concerned). Now that they’ve already made out in front of the man who raped and abused June and made Nick watch him do that, I want to believe they can let go of the secrecy in S5, at least when it comes to a few people.

I'm living for that day Someday Can I hold you in the street? Why can't I kiss you on the dancefloor? I wish that we could be like that Why can't we it be like that? Cause I'm yours, I'm yours Why can't you hold me in the street? Why can't I kiss you on the dancefloor? I wish that it could be like that Why can't it be like that? Cause I'm yours Why can't I say that I'm in love? I wanna shout it from the rooftops I wish that it could be like that Why can't we be like that? Cause I'm yours Why can't we be like that? Wish we could be like that

***

“Bones” is about a relationship with a strong foundation, which IMO they do have. It will carry them in the future, too. They’re more into each other now than ever before and especially June is coming to terms with how strong that love is. They’ll weather any storm.

When the bones are good, the rest don't matter

Yeah, the paint could peel, the glass could shatter

Let it break 'cause you and I remain the same

When there ain't a crack in the foundation

Baby, I know any storm we're facing

Will blow right over while we stay put

The house don't fall when the bones are good

***

“Feels Like Home” is more hopeful. Their home is with each other and I hope that’s something that will be explored more in the future.

Take me, I'm ready

Go slow but go steady

To a place that we can call our own

I wanna know what feels like home

***

“Like I’ll Never Love You Again” is a good conclusion for the playlist. It’s hopeful and a testament to an epic love.

I wanna love you like the rain on a roof

Stronger than a bottle of a hundred ten proof

I wanna take love to places that love has never been

Yeah, I wanna love you like I'll never love you again

And I'll love you again

Oh, and again

#the handmaid’s tale #nick x june #osblaine #osblaineweek2021

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codenamesazanka · 3 years

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Warning: Rant, character bashing, lots of opinions

I'm saying it outright. I hate Deku. He is entirely underwhelming as a character, much less as the main character, the shonen protagonist of the series.

It's a 'different' type of dislike, though. I feel like I could've like his character. There's nothing greatly disagreeable about him, he's as inoffensive as can be, he's an optimistic, considerate, and polite boy, he's as plain as he is said to be, and that's fine.

My issue is that he's not the character he's said to be. I, personally, just don't buy that he "possesses a drive to save others that eclipses all common understanding", or that he's super intelligent with great analytical abilities that he actually applies on the battlefield, or, in general, he's as amazing or heroic or compassionate as he's apparently supposed to be. How can he be inspiring if he barely challenges any aspects of the society he lives in. Deku is a super good example of the terrible use of "Tell, Don't Show". We're told about his amazing traits, but he rarely follows through; when we do see hints of it, it's lauded but frankly I think it's typical behavior and (this though is not quite his fault) written so stiffly and awkwardly I'm not convinced.

(Honestly I might even call him a Canon Mary Sue. He has no interesting or distinguishable flaws, unless having a shit for brains attitude is one but that's not acknowledged by the narrative. Breaking bones is not a personality trait. If he has a Hero Complex, it's not even the interesting ones where he fucks things up even more; or carries crippling guilt about circumstances beyond his control; or focuses completely on saving people to the point of rejecting almost all human connections and keeping deadly secrets - which is All Might's big flaw.) (Well fair, he does this in the most recent chapter but did it need to take 300+ chapters? Plus I sense the way it's framed is that it's the radical, but right course of action.)

Say what you want about Villains and redemption/shouldn't be redeemed/too evil to be saved/justice/etc, but I think this 'Incredible Drive To Save' should've included Villains from the start. Why does Deku want to "Save people with a smile on his face"? Assuming it's empathy, he should have felt some towards everyone he encounters, whether it's sensible or not. "Why are you so angry?", "You shouldn't go about things this way", "What caused them to be like this?", "Why is there evil in the world?" even. I'm still fuming over his Mall Encounter with Shigaraki, where Shigaraki pretty much reveals his damage: "All Might acts like there's no one he can't save"; but ultimately Deku goes "Wow, that sure is an opinion."

What kind of inane response is this??? There's little pushback from the narrative either, so this isn't pointed out as a failing of his (because, again, he has no big flaws). And he's supposed to be smart and caring. Yes, he does ask All Might right after the Mall Encounter, "Was there anyone you can't save?"; but essentially the replies he gets is "Don't worry about it" and Deku immediately largely puts it out of his mind "Oh whew, I was about to do some introspection and reflection". There isn't even the daunting, kinda-existential anxiety that people get when they realize it's impossible to save/help everyone - which is something, like, medical workers have to learn to deal with - that sharp sense of the inevitably of death, of loss, failure, guilt. I'm not asking for him to come to the conclusion that everyone should be saved - he could've decided nah, Shigaraki is too ugly to be saved and I would've been fine with that, it's part of the character role and potential development - just that he should've had a conclusion at all.

There are the latest chapters where Deku decides he wants to try saving Shigaraki first (though killing him is still on the table), true. Him wanting to save Shigaraki after seeing AFO merged with him, after seeing The Crying Child - but see, I don't think it qualifies because I think it's the bare minimum about of consideration, the typical response to seeing the body horror of warped, fused flesh, to seeing a small sad little boy. I think it shouldn't require "You look like you needed saving" for a true Hero to consider saving someone. Not for someone who is supposed to be unique and special in this regard.

I've complained about this before, but the trouble with Deku was evident from the very beginning.

Again, Deku wants to save people with a smile on his face, and again, I’m assuming it’s empathy. We're shown this on the very first page, as he attempts to protect a friend(?) from bullies, but imo like it felt groundless because who was the kid he was protecting? We never see him again. Did Deku's standing up to Bakugou work, and the kid was saved? Or did they both got beaten up; but afterwards, being the kind boy Deku is supposed to be, he still gets to his feet to help the boy, to apologize for failing.

But more significantly, this theme of saving was overshadowed immediately by his focus on superpowers - that he was quirkless. Next page, his focus was on ‘Woah, giant villain and superpowers!’ Instead of like. Helping people. (Though I chalk this up to early installment weirdness)

What should’ve happened if the theme was ‘SAVE PEOPLE’ Is something like: The opening sentence being “People are not born equal. This is the harsh truth I learned when I was four. I knew that... but despite my powerless, I still wanted to help. That was my first and last setback.” And the panels/images themselves (of little Katsuki and his friends) implies that people on the world thinks you need power to help people.

When he saw the villain attack on way to school, Deku can be wow’ed by the spectacle! But then he notices a kid crying and offers to help find his mom. He can be interrupted by a Hero saying he (the hero) will take over, he can find the mom and realize he’s late for school (and so that shows he’s willing to sacrifice something of his to help others! Because of his altruistic nature!). A scene like that, of him helping the lost kid, we would know that he wants to help *anyone*. At school, though, he still gets bullied for not having powers. So he’s mulling over that when he meets All Might, and asks the question.

It proceeds as usual for the next few events: When the sludge monster attacks Katsuki, he can still go gawk at the scene. He can still hesitate. In canon, it's only when he realized the victim was his friend that he jumps into action, which I thinks undermines the theme of 'wanting to save indiscriminately'. IMO, it would've been better that Deku sees it’s his friend, but he still hesitates. “There’s nothing I can do right? All Might himself said so...” But when he sees Katsuki’s *face* of fear, he runs to help. Instead of seeming like he helps only because he realizes it’s his friend, he helps because he feels too deeply about trying to save Katsuki.

Admittedly these are minor, personal critiques; but all in all, the first chapter fails to establish Deku is the willpowered, champion of wanting to save people he's supposed to be.

--Which is fine, if it's acknowledged in the story later, that maybe he wasn't the True Blue Hero he's supposed to be at first, but he can change and still become one. But it's not - Deku is apparently special, without anything special to show for it.

I read the one-shot "My Hero" - the prototype for this series - that Horikoshi published years ago, before My Hero Academia was created. I also found it underwhelming, but that was due to personal tastes (I wanted more explosions and dumb violence); as a story on it's own merit, the logic and progression was solid.

The Villains Heroes fought were 'Aberrations' - true inhuman monsters that showed no sentience that would eat people - so the focus could be solely on saving humans. The main character - Jack Midoriya - his original goal was less 'save people' and more 'become a cool hero', before learning that saving people is what true heroism is about, hero license unneeded. (Moreover, he really did 'save' someone without being a hero - by working hard, he was preventing the company from becoming ruined completely, which the CEO had confessed and thanked him for. )

This version of Midoriya didn't exactly needed deep empathy or compassion for that, just a strong willpower, which he effectively demonstrated by chasing after a childhood dream even as an adult salaryman in a tanking company, even though he had anemia and no training and no license. He insisted on this, to the point of getting hurt by being dumb, of being petty over someone dissing the Hero who inspired him in the first place, of skipping out of work and going vigilante. Not the most upstanding guy, but he came through in the relevant themes of the story, in being the character the story needed him to be.

Jack Midoriya was an unimpressive, weird-looking, weak, pitiful, somewhat selfish, awkward salaryman with no great aspects that 'eclipses all common understanding'. But he was a far stronger character than his incarnation Izuku Midoriya could ever be (so far).

#rant #nalslastworkingbraincell #character bashing #negativity #warning #I hope these tags are enough #:P

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addictedtostorytelling · 3 years

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Hi! I recently came to your blog and I'm loving all the posts! Good work! About the revival, a question: How do you think Gil and Sara's relationship will be approached? I mean, do you think anything will be said about their history since Immortality? Will they bring something new from their relationship?

hi, anon!

welcome to my blog, and thank you for your kind words! i'm glad you enjoy my posts. ❤

aside from confirming that grissom and sara are, from the looks of things, remarried (see here and here), i don't know how much or what kind of information the reboot will provide about what they've been up to since we last saw them sail away into the sunset together six years ago.

on the one hand, the writers have got to be aware that the franchise’s returning fans are going to be intensely interested in what’s gone on with grissom and sara since 2015. on the other hand, if this staff is anything like their predecessors from the original series, their instinct is going to be to play coy.

within the universe of the show, if grissom and sara are married and openly together, there will be no compelling reason why they can’t provide some insight into where they’ve been and what they’ve been up to over the last few years. however, given that they are both private people individually and a private couple together, they also may not be inclined to share much.

it all really depends on how the writers stage things.

maybe the first few scenes of grissom and sara will be of them living wherever it is they’ve been living, doing whatever it is they’ve been doing since “immortality” ended.

maybe we’ll get a peek into their regular life before they’re pulled into whatever exciting plot is happening with the crime lab.

we’ve heard tell that grissom and sara return to vegas after sara receives a phone call from an old friend.

if we see that call play out on her end—i.e., where she is and what she’s doing when the phone rings—then that scene might provide some answers for us.

however, there’s also the possibility that things could be staged the other way: where we’re shown the friend (imo, likely brass) making the call rather than sara receiving it; where maybe the first scene in which grissom and/or sara appear is one where they’re arriving in vegas after the call, where they’ve already been pulled out of their regular life and into the extraordinary case happening at the lab.

from there, they could either tell their story or not, depending on what the circumstances are and what their interactions with the other characters are like.

if brass and hodges have not had much contact with grissom and sara since 2015, then they may ask for an update from them.

however, if they are already aware of what grissom and sara have been up to over the last few years, then they might not have reason to ask the kinds of helpful questions that would allow grissom and sara to fill in backstory, in which case it would fall to the new characters to do so—which is something that the new characters may or may not be disposed to do depending on the circumstances of grissom and sara joining in their investigation and on their perception of them in general.

on the one hand, it’s not uncommon to ask new acquaintances about themselves when one is first getting to know them, so maybe there will be some “so where did you come from? how did you get here? what’s your story?” kinds of questions from them. on the other hand, when one first meets a middle-aged married couple who have (from appearances) been together forever, one may not feel as much of a pressing need to ask them about their love story as one might feel with young (obviously) newlyweds, so even if the new folks do ask grissom and sara where they’ve been living, they might not also ask “and how did you guys get together? when did you get married? oh, you’re remarried you say? how did that happen? tell me everything!”

and of course, even if questions are asked by the old and/or new folks, how much information grissom and sara will provide (if any) is still up to them.

one would hope that they’d fill in at least some blanks from between that final shot of the ishmael and their present return to vegas, but, honestly, knowing them, there’s no guarantee that they will.

they can be cheeky and evasive to the max when they want to be.

in my opinion, it would be difficult for the writers to introduce grissom and sara to this new team and new set of circumstances without providing at least some intel on their post-“immortality” whereabouts. however, i’m also fully prepared for a certain amount of teasing and vagueness—to be given a few tantalizing hints but fewer direct answers (and far less logistical information than i as a meta analyst and fic writer might like).

for as much as i’d die for a play-by-play of how grissom and sara decided to get remarried or a timeline of what they’ve been doing year-by-year between 2015 and 2021, i think it’s fairly unlikely that we’ll be told specifics or at least that we’ll be given very many.

for one thing, doing so would bog down the forward momentum of the new story.

as one of my old creative writing professors once put it, “if you need to start your story with a flashback, you should actually be starting your story earlier.”

for another thing, the csi creative team has just never given us much insight into grissom and sara's relationship in general—and even though csi: vegas is technically a new show and a fresh start, i somehow think they’re unlikely to buck that precedent now.

while i’d love to be proven wrong and have to eat my words here, i think we’ll be lucky to find out where grissom and sara have been living and what kind of work they’ve been doing recently, and i’m honestly not expecting much more information from them than that.

the only way i see us getting more details filled in is if the writers throw in some kind of curveball that necessitates more in-depth explanations—like maybe that grissom and sara have had a kid (per zuiker’s original ideas for their post-finale activities) or they have to be pulled out of some kind of high-stakes situation in order to take part in the investigation (a la grissom nearly being arrested for eco piracy at the start of “immortality”).

as for how gsr will be approached going forward in the show—in terms of how much or little focus will be placed on their romantic relationship and to what extent we’ll have access to their domestic life outside of work—i honestly don’t know.

certainly, we were never given much to begin with in the original series—anthony zuiker and co. always wanted csi to be about the job more than anything else—but then again the reboot is a different project, and what’s the use of resurrecting an old flagship romance if not to give said flagship romance face time?

the production team went through all the trouble to bring billy petersen and jorja fox back, so one would think that they would want to make use of their chemistry and give them plenty of scenes together where grissom and sara are shown as a couple.

however, whether that means that there will be consistent gsr romantic storylines (where they’re actively facing challenges and growing and changing and developing together) or that there will just be occasional cute “look at these old marrieds” moments sprinkled in here and there (without any kind of cohesive or overarching development for them) is impossible to say at this point.

prayer circle that unlike the last several seasons of the original show, the reboot returns to having serialized story arcs and character development just in general, even beyond the gsr of it all.

if they do have actual storylines, i think we have a better chance of learning about what they were up to between 2015 and present (as it would be natural for them to refer to their previous experiences as they negotiate new developments going forward).

anyway, all of this rambling is just a very long way of saying, “it depends.”

i’d like for the writers to give us everything, worry that they could give us nothing, and feel generally convinced that they’ll probably give us something in-between.

it all depends on how much they have grissom and sara play things close to the chest and how they go about integrating their old post-“immortality” life with this new life they’re going to find in vegas.

sorry i can’t give more concrete answers!

thank you for the question! please feel welcome to send another any time.

#answered #anon #asks: csi #**#my meta #csi vegas #speculation csi #csiverse

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in-the-whisper · 3 years

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I'm sorry if this is a common/stupid ask but I fundamentally don't understand religion and I couldn't imagine believing so strongly in anything, but it seems very nice(?) and possibly even optimistic to have a constant like that in your life. so in the sense I think I have an idea of what religion is, what makes you decide(?) to follow it or believe in it? genuine apologies if this comes across as patronizing or condescending, it's not my intention and sometimes I'm just bad with words ':]

dude you are always welcome here and i will never assume that you are being mean you are very sweet <3 i am very happy to talk to you!

ok so i come from a super different background so it’s hard for me to even imagine like not knowing a ton of people who are religious so i will try to explain and then if it doesn’t make sense feel free to poke me and i will try again. also it makes me happy so dont be scared i will say oh! someone asked me about God! yay! and then i will write a silly tumblr post while making this face -> c:

okay so one of your confusions seems to be why i would believe in something so strongly. in a way everyone believes things strongly, some even more than me (i mean look at politics and thanksgiving dinner). i think the reason that my relationship with God in particular is something i feel strongly about is because i derived my faith from my natural understanding of the value of my friends and from my understanding of morality.

i love my friends very much (most people do) and the idea of them getting hurt or mistreated makes me very angry (i think people would agree). and you could make the argument that the reason that i care so deeply about people and justice is because of all the stuff ive been through but i did think this before anything bad happened to me really.

there is a difference between atheist (philosophical) morality and Christian morality. for someone who doesn’t believe in God, there isn’t anybody who is more important than humanity who can tell them what to do. if one person does something, and i don’t like it, all i can say is, “i don’t like that,” and not “you shouldn’t do that.” because im not in charge of them. i’m just another person, who am i to go around establishing moral laws for other people?

but what that /also/ means is that there isn’t any “grounding” or like /reason/ for morality or the value of life other than personal preference. this Really bothered me about my philosophy class, every atheist philosopher did this. they all wanted to say that you could make morality for yourself (looking at you nietzsche). But then what happens? What about when someone is killed? or raped? I want to be able to say, “Rape is horrible.” and not just “Rape is horrible in my opinion.” Anything that doesn’t allow for these like absolute, unquestionable, overarching standards of how people /should/ or /shouldn’t/ live just doesn’t add up imo.

Atheist professor of law at Yale, Dr. Arthur Leff, wrote an article on this exact topic called “Unspeakable ethics Unnatural Law.” The entire thing is amazing and I recommend it, but here is the conclusion:

All I can say is this: it looks as if we are all we have. Given what we know about ourselves and each other, this is an extraordinarily unappetizing prospect; looking around the world, it appears that if all men are brothers, the ruling model is Cain and Abel. Neither reason, nor love, nor even terror, seems to have worked to make us "good," and worse than that, there is no reason why anything should. Only if ethics were something unspeakable by us, could law be unnatural, and therefore unchallengeable. As things now stand, everything is up for grabs.

Nevertheless: Napalming babies is bad. Starving the poor is wicked. Buying and selling each other is depraved. Those who stood up to and died resisting Hitler, Stalin, Amin, and Pol Pot-and General Custer too-have earned salvation. Those who acquiesced deserve to be damned. There is in the world such a thing as evil. [All together now:] Sez who? God help us.

So if I think this is true, if I really believe that death is evil, that rape is horrible, that there are some universally binding and unchallengeable truths about how people ought to live, I have to believe in a God. or i can live in a state of constant existential dread hahahahaha, , I joke but I actually did do that for a while it was pretty miserable.

i think the next question was kind of what made me believe in it? and that is kind of a difficult question because i think in a way Christianity just encapsulates a bunch of things that i already believed, and i just found like a label for them i guess. i also grew up Christian, so for me my experience questioning my religious identity was more like, three people you love are dead why do you still believe in a loving God? Rather than which religion or philosophy do i like the best?

idk maybe they come out to be the same but it doesnt feel entirely the same. i’m still a christian because of sunsets and sunrises and because the world feels beautiful and intentional, and because i’ve been in a lot of pain and it was real. it really happened. it wasn’t in my head (looking at you stoicism). it wasn’t unimportant. there is not if buts ands ors it was just awful and that’s that. so what can explain it? what can explain meaning? only God can.

Christianity is specifically the religion im interested in because it’s the only one i’ve come across that is as internally consistent, historically accurate, scientifically accurate, coherent understandings of the universe.

No other philosophy allows you to grieve. That’s why I believe in God. No other philosophy validates grief that a belief in a loving God, a belief that death isn’t meant to happen, that people are violently ripped from you without purpose and that you are meant to live together forever. It allows for a belief in the value of humanity and grace while also allowing you to believe that things that happen to you that might last with you forever are wrong and not just in your opinion. They were violently wrong, they violated ancient laws of the universe, they were an act of aggression toward God himself.

Ok im rambling now but I will leave you with this, which is what i wrote after finally deciding to remain a christian:

“There are several questions I asked that stopped me from rejecting Christianity.

Where did the universe come from and why does it exist?

Why does our experience involve morality?

Why is there love? (deep love between brothers, self sacrificial love, to die for another love)

Why is there goodness?

There are, of course, answers to these questions under ideologies other than Christianity, but I found their answers to be unsatisfying because to me, the existence of these things screams that there is something more to the universe than an unfortunate accident in a vacuum of uncaring nothingness.

When I listened to music encouraging its audience to live, when I listened to people fight for the lives of those they love, when i watched the sun set, or cried at the end of a deeply touching movie, I would think, “In light of this how can you say there is no God?”

In Christianity I found answers that profoundly satisfied my deepest questions.

There is a universe because God in his wisdom fashioned it to be a beautiful gift. There is morality because we stand in the midst of a cosmic battle between good and evil. There is love because God’s nature is perfectly loving and the fabric of the knowable universe was woven in his loving kindness. There is beauty and goodness because life wasn’t created to be a void and an unknowable miserable darkness.

The true issue with atheism is that while intellectually and technically feasible, it gives empty answers to facets of life that do not have empty realities.

It forced me to ask myself this question: How can such a beautiful, meaningful, tragic world exist from nothing and for nothing?”

#rape tw #rape #griefjourney #grief tw #long post #i specify philosophical morality because atheists by and large dont actually think like this but at an academic level this is how the logic #ends up working out

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kung-fu-headcanons · 3 years

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ykw? I'm in the mood to get my heart ripped out. any HC's for depressed/suicidal Po? ik, it's really dark, and I'm really sorry, but I have a headcanon where Po is actually really depressed deep down ("I eat when I'm upset" *eats all the time*) any thought's or headcanons on that?

EXCUSE ME? I LOVE ANGST. YOU'RE SO DARN VALID btw that's a great headcanon 👀👌

Also, don't ever be sorry! You're completely fine :D

I know you asked for headcanons but imo headcanons aren't enough to rip people's heart's out so *puts on sunglasses and takes out a briefcase labeled "Angst" that's stuffed with papers* it's writing time

I deeply apologize if I got anything wrong about the characters because I haven't seen KFP in a really long time, therefore my memory is sketchy. BUT I have been able to download all Legends of Awesomeness episodes from KimCartoon (I don't have Netflix and for some reason only Paws of Destiny is the only KFP film avaliable to watch for free on Amazon Video Prime) so I just need to upload all those my my [backup] Google Drive account and I'll hopefully be able to get to watching that soon!

TW: dark themes that include depression, suicide, and self harm

~~~

Pain. Pain was all he felt.

He just didn't understand. He was the Dragon Warrior! It was great! He had a high, well respected title, and had achieved his dream of being able to do kung fu one day. And meeting the Furious Five and being at the Jade Palace was a great thing, too. He, quite literally, had everything he could ask for. He was already living a more privileged life than the average villager.

...so why did he feel this way? Po didn't understand, either. It was strange, really. It was unbelievable to think that the lively, optimistic, always-looking-at-the-bright-side-of-things Po was actually depressed, suicidal, and hated himself down to the guts Po. It was just... unrealistic. So he kept quiet about it, knowing that if he told anyone else, they would think that he was lying, and probably laugh about it.

You? Depressed? No, you're not. You're just down in the dumps. Don't make a big deal out of something so small.

He didn't even let his dad, Mr. Ping, know about his depression, and that's who Po was the closest to. But his dad would probably freak out, and while that was good, Po strangely didn't want that. He could deal with it on his own. Right? After all, that's he'd been doing this whole time. Besides, his dad had other things to worry about, and while Po knew that he had every right to worry about his son, his son wasn't home. His son was at the Jade Palace.

But how much longer before he snapped, before it all came crashing down? Would he even be able to bear it?

Food and sleep were his therapists. He wanted to stopped eating, he was fat, overweight, it didn't help that his weight was the first thing Master Shifu had commented about when Oogway had selected him as the Dragon Warrior. And speaking of which, what had Oogway seen in Po? A fat, stupid, naive, panda? It had to be a mistake, Po was sure of it. Everyone else thought the same. Tigress was the true Dragon Warrior. She was capable, fit enough, and everyone liked her. Okay... maybe being liked isn't the key thing, but you can tell that the others secretly despise you, it really wrecks you from the inside out.

Either way, he would eat when he was upset. It made him feel better, but overtime, even food didn't interest him anymore. It was unhealthy; he would go days without eating, and then binge eat within the span of a couple of hours to catch up on the calories that he had lost.

And then there was the aspect of sleep. Sleep was so good to him. It was where he could truly be alone, have a true escape. Just a black void of nothing. That's what he liked. It was calming to him. No one to insult him, no one to critize him, it was just Po and Po only. It was bliss; it was paradise.

He wondered why he kept going. Wouldn't it be better if he was dead? Yes, of course, that's when everyone else would get what they wanted. People wanted Po gone, why couldn't he see that? No, he saw it as clear as day, but he kept pushing, giving himself the empty hope that one day, he will be enough, he will fit their standards. He had accomplished a lot ever since he became the Dragon Warrior, but it just wasn't enough. But everytime Po would stand at the edge of the cliff, looking down and thinking about how nice it would be just jump and be free, something would hold him back. He hated it. He was frustrated that he was a coward and couldn't do what the world desired; for him to die. Besides, the Spirit Realm wasn't anywhere bad. It was amazing! He had been there before when he had been on the road to defeat Kai. And Oogway was there. Po felt that Oogway was the only one who undeerstood him. At least, he hoped. Did he secretly think Po was what everyone thought, a fat, useless, overweight, idiotic panda?

Come on, Po. Have you heard of a slim panda before? No. You're fine. Stop acting like this, you're getting yourself worked up over nothing.

But the others are right... I'm too heavy...

Po was certain he would have turned to alcohol by now had he not been for the strict code of honor each Kung Fu master is permitted to follow. It said the same thing for self harm, but Po found ways to work around that. He started out small, lied that he had accidentally cut himself making dinner for the others, or he had tripped and hit something. But eventually it got too much, and he had to hide his scars. He cut under his feet, where his shoes would obscure the wounds, and his hips, where his pants would hide those scars. One time they had accidentally showed, and Po had came up with a flimsy excuse saying that he had done something stupid in the bamboo forest and got nastily cut. It was such a paper thin excuse, but everyone accepted it. It was still pretty believable, Po was clumsy after all. The cuts hurt, but Po liked it. What he didn't like was that he hardly wore any clothes. Cutting himself was how he relieved his pain. It felt good to bleed. One time he had cut so much he ended up fainting, and when he recovered he had quietly came up with a fake story of how he had gotten attacked by a group of crocodile bandits. Nobody had asked any questions, no one thought it was suspicious. After that, Po had been too scared to cut too much, even though that's what he wanted.

He was surprised at how good he was at hiding things. Someone made an insult? Just laugh it off, no problem! It wasn't hard to bring out his carefreeness at all. Pretending was so natural now. Trying to be someone that he wasn't. It was wedged into his daily routine. It was who he was. Nobody noticed the broken smile on his face or the look in his eyes that cried for help. Because who cares?

He wanted help- no, he needed it, he knew he did, but suffering in silence was the better option. Who would want to waste their time trying to comfort someone that wasn't worth wasting time on? He was being sad over ridiculous things, anyway. Why should anyone care? They all have much better things to worry about. No, Po could do this. He could push through this alone. He had to prove that he was strong. And what better way to prove that than this?

He was scared to live, but he was scared to die. So there he lived, paralyzed, as his inner demons consumed him.

#kung fu panda #kung fu panda po #kfp #kfp po

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ourladylennon · 3 years

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1/2) About Fraser, a couple of quotes that caught my eye:

"Robert represented to me freedom, freedom of speech, of view"

"The most formative influence for me was Robert Fraser. Obviously the other Beatles were very important but the most formative art influence was Robert. I expect people to die so I don’t feel a loss but there’s a vacuum where he used to be"

"The way Robert lived, which became the way I lived for a couple of years and which I now figure for a rather aristocratic way of life, would be that he’d ring early in the day and say, ‘What are we doing for dinner tonight?’

'Once I got to know Robert, a nice thing would be going to the gallery and helping install an exhibition. Just sit around and smoke a bit of pot while somebody else was installing the exhibition. Helping. Play a little music for him.’

"There were many good times in Robert’s flat. Through my Beatle connections I’d hire a 16mm projector for the evening […] and I started off with Wizard of Oz. Robert got into this, wow, and he’d get some art movies. We got a lot of Bruce Connors, showed a lot of that. It was a very exciting period."

The boy sounded smitten, didn't he? Maybe nothing physical happened, (Robert was allegedly into darker men) but it looks like Paul liked the idea of being "romanced" by this handsome and sophisticated guy. There was an undertone of cozy, easy intimacy between them. You can tell by the way Bob would call to plan what they'd do for dinner. How Paul would sit there playing music for his eyes only while someone else was installing the exhibition. It speaks volumes that someone as image oriented as Paul went to Paris with an openly gay man without caring what others would say. It suggests a deep connection. The story about their "netflix and chill" encounters in Robert's flat is so suggestive as well. Paul could've been anywhere and yet there he was watching Wizard of Oz with this dude. I'd say those encounters were not about Paul's love of cinema. He just wanted to be around Bob. They most likely drank, did drugs and in my opinion, fooled around a bit, for the fun of it. It sounds like a fantastic way to spend the time, 10/10 recommended.

Paul also had a strong relationship with Tara for the short time they knew each other. The fact he did LSD with him before the other Beatles implies a lot of trust. Tara was very responsible and sweet in that occasion, staying sober to look after Paul in case he had a bad trip. I loved that about him. He was really concerned about keeping Paul safe and giving him a good time. They always hung out when they had the chance and John really disliked the guy. Then there is Tara's Christmas trip to Liverpool. I'm aware he knew Paul's brother Mike first and they were friendly but there was such an air of "meet the parents" about this situation. I'm not entirely convinced they were physical but I could sense a romantic crush. Tara was married but as a beautiful society swan in the Rolling Stones' circle, I think he was quite open to experimentation.

part 2 and my answer below read line :)

2/2) Again, I would never call Paul bisexual but I do think he was more attracted to men in a romantic/platonical sense than people realize. He enjoyed immensely the attention and the company of some guys. He would open up emotionally with them, learn their craft and incorporate their habits in a way he rarely did with his women, not even Linda. It looks like Paul wouldn't unlock certain corners of his mind unless a man he was drawn to gave him that permission. This is probably why he associated Fraser with freedom.

John was the most important of all because in a way, Paul would've never discovered and accepted himself without him. He used to kill frogs and engage in unruly behavior as a child to repress that soft, romantic persona he would become so famous for. Meeting a charismatic, brilliant boy who appreciated that vulnerable side of him must've been exhilarating. As they became a songwriting team, they both started seeing creation as sex, a view they'd carry for the rest of their lives. It's telling that once Paul lost John permanently, he went looking for the next man to fall in love with. But not even Elvis Costello, Stevie Wonder or Michael Jackson were enough to fill that gap.

Which convinces me of the eroticism of his relationship with John. It was the one connection he didn't have with all the others (with the possible exception of Fraser) and this is why the collaborations would often end up somewhat unfulfilled. He might've loved them intellectually but the erotic element wasn't there and it made a difference in the results.

About McLennon, few people dispute they were in love with each other these days. But what are the odds that two people who felt so strongly about each other and had plenty of chances to consummate their feelings in a physical way not doing it? They would crash and burn within six months. It's all speculation because Paul won't tell us but I don't think it's that much of a radical idea. I think a lot of stuff will come out once Yoko passes away and Paul faces his own mortality.

P.S: juicy bit about Heather, I'm bummed that we don't get enough info about this period because of that divorce NDA.

Anon, you are a well-researched individual and I’m impressed. This was the first thing I read this morning it was like a morning newspaper lol, thanks.

I entirely see what you mean about intimate undertones. "Cozy” seems like a good word to describe the general feel. I *tried* reading up some more on their relationship and I get a sense that Paul in general had a great admiration for Robert and your right- has that element of creation which is so essential to Paul’s being and probably his attraction. Robert seems to have given him a different side of creating than John did: art. That clearly created a bond for them and had some impact. Like with the movies and projectors, yeah cool and all, but “an exciting period” goes a bit deeper than that for sure. He clearly learned a lot from him about art, but whose to say about what else? The way Paul talks seems like he really admired, respected and trusted the man at the very least (I am even reading this quote that seems to imply Paul and Robert did hallucinogenic drugs together unless I’m misreading? That’d be a big leap of trust just like with Tara which still boggles me).

It’s not too big of a stretch to think Paul did enjoy being romanced, in exactly the way you put it, by some guy who was “handsome and sophisticated” who he found to be interesting, different, above average, with a new exciting form of expression. And not romanced in the obvious sense; more so unassuming things like having an intimate understanding of art with one another, who felt his equal in terms of that area of art, who was putting in the effort of engaging with him, showing him something others hadn’t, being so willing to share with Paul and to open his mind. You can definitely be romanced in friendships too though so I’m not saying this is exclusively any one thing in particular, though I myself do sense an undercurrent of more-than-standard interest after reading some more. In a nutshell, pretty much what you said:

I do think he was more attracted to men in a romantic/platonical sense than people realize. He enjoyed immensely the attention and the company of some guys. He would open up emotionally with them, learn their craft and incorporate their habits in a way he rarely did with his women

I still don’t think he would ever connect the dots of what that meant or what it could mean. I think to him, it just was what it was.

With John specifically, yeah there’s just no question for me. To me, they are every bit of the lore and legend of what soul mates are made of. Fire & passion on all levels. No disrespect to any of their longterm relationships outside of each other, because they clearly had deep feelings for their other partners, but I sincerely don’t think it that it connected on every level like it did with John/Paul. But of course, I still fall on the side of thinking nothing sexual ever happened (for more reasons than one I could see why they wouldn’t have fooled around imo). With 67/68 being that turning point where they *did* crash and burn because perhaps someone tried something- words or other- or perhaps nothing happened and that could have precisely been the cracking point.

I do find it interesting that Paul’s hanging around with Robert was right around this tumultuous period of John and Paul’s relationship...kind of makes you think doesn’t it? Like does this have any influence on what happened in India sort of thing; John seeing Paul being good, close friends with a gay man. Could it have stirred something up for John? Made him see a possibility where he hadn’t before? Interesting to think about and which I hadn’t thought about before....

I genuinely hope that Paul shares anything important with us before he passes. He doesn’t owe us anything, but my god would I die to know everything that happened between them and everything they felt.

#TW drugs mention #long post #ty anon #you got my gears going #asks #<3 #paul mccartney #john lennon #robert fraser #paul x robert #tara browne

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makeste · 4 years

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Who is the bitch in the first year hero courses most down for murder, do you think? Surprisingly, despite being the only one to actually MAKE death threats, I'm mot sure Bakugou is all that high up there? When you've got Todo freezing people from the inside out, Mushroom Girl choking people, Honenuki drowning people and dropping industrial chimneys on them etc etc... What would your rankings be?

what better way to spend a Sunday evening than by ranking all of U.A.’s first-year students by murder.

disclaimer: I am doing this for fun and this entire post is ridiculous so please do not take it too seriously. also just a heads up, this post contains some recent manga spoilers as well as a couple of spoilers for Heroes Rising. now then, let’s quantify these bloodthirsty little savages.

okay so despite being entirely too plus ultra for their own good, approximately 99% of these kids would never dream of doing any kind of permanent harm to another living being. so I’m just listing the first thirty in no particular order, and then we’ll get to ranking the top ten.

Aoyama

despite having that brief moment in chapter 167 where virtually everyone thought he was a serial killer, Aoyama is actually a good boy. a bit stalkerish, maybe.

Mina

Mina did dream up that one attack where Ochako floats her up in the air so that she can rain acid down on people, which is slightly homicidal. but she’s not a killer. honestly if she was we’d all be dead already. see: thicc Girl Noumu.

Tsuyu

if Tsuyu had ever killed someone she would have already told everyone all about it because she is open about these things so safe to say she is not a killer.

Ochako

all Ochako wants to do is help and support people. she can be pretty hardcore from time to time but my baby girl would never. not to say that villain wouldn’t be a good look on her. I still get a shiver up my spine remembering that one time Toga turned into her and demonstrated exactly how deadly her quirk could be.

Ojiro

nah. the worst thing Ojiro has ever done was throwing his empty plain yogurt cup into the wrong recycling bin by accident, and he felt terrible about it afterward.

Kaminari

real talk, Kaminari could very easily kill a ton of people with his quirk if he actually tried. but he hasn’t, because he is only two and is too busy learning his shapes and colors and leaving his lego duplo blocks all over the carpet for other people to trip on.

Kirishima

do I even have to justify this at all. duh Kirishima doesn’t murder people sorry to anyone who came into this post all excited to read a big paragraph going off about Kiri’s raw bloodlust. I don’t know what you expected.

Kouda

Kouda is probably deadlier than everyone thinks. imagine him commanding, say, a mob of giant hornets to swarm and kill someone. it’s a good thing he wouldn’t actually hurt a fly.

Satou

I sat here for a while thinking about what I could say about Satou. but just. can you picture him killing a guy? nah, me neither.

Shouji

one of the things I like about Shouji is that he looks older than he is, and kind of creepy, what with the masked face and the freaky tentacle arms and all the like. and so he very likely experienced some of that good old fashioned quirk racism growing up, and people were afraid of him and/or thought he would become a villain. but instead he decided to become a hero. and I think that says so much about Shouji’s character. it reminds me a lot of Shinsou; his desire to become a hero was so strong that he overcame prejudice and circumstances which could just have easily have led to him becoming a villain (and in fact, it’s not all that different from some of the actual villain backstories). anyway so yeah no murder for him.

Jirou

I think she would consider killing anyone who ever hurt Momo or Kami, but aside from that NO because she is a good pure girl who loves music and rocking out and putting smiles on people’s faces.

Sero

poor Sero is so not-murdery that when he does get pitted against someone with more murdery energy such as Todoroki, he basically gets immediately overwhelmed and everyone is just kind of wincing and then timidly applauding him and saying “good try.” that’s Sero’s life. he would just sit there and get murdered rather than going in for the kill. he’s a good bro.

Mineta

needs several restraining orders filed against him, but wouldn’t actually kill someone.

Momo

well one time she did explode a grenade in Aizawa’s face. but no.

Awase

now we have come to the 1-B kids. I will give brief descriptions in case you, like me, sometimes have trouble remembering their names. so, Awase! the welding, Momo-rescuing one. he is not murdery.

Sen

the rotating limbs one. one of the least murdery kids in the fairly murderous 1-B on account of his quirk is just too ridiculous. sorry Sen.

Kuroiro

the Tokoyami one. more likely to bore you to tears talking about death than actually kill someone. which is too bad because he honestly would make a pretty bitching assassin.

Kendou

would say she’s probably in the top fifteen. god I love her quirk so much. just want her to slap some bitches to death. but she probably wouldn’t.

Shishida

the growly monster one. he does get some bonus points for tending to lose control once he goes full beastmode and werewolfs out. and he is fairly deadly.

Shouda

the roly poly double smashy one. it’s actually only a matter of time before Shouda kills someone, most likely. his quirk is way too dangerous, and the thing is, it’s probably hard for him to tell how dangerous a particular impact is going to be beforehand. one of these days it’s gonna be way stronger than he intends and somebody’s neck is gonna get snapped.

Pony

never forget that time Pony stabbed Ojiro and Shouji like a dozen times and everybody was just cool with it.

Tsuburaba

the air platform one. he did try to suffocate Kouda that one time.

Tetsutetsu

only if he’s fighting Shouto. or teamed up with Shouto. then all bets are off as to whether or not he’s going to drill his superheated steel fist right through somebody’s face.

Tokage

the severed limbs one. she just has kind of a murdery vibe to her. stalking everyone with her various body parts. yuuugh. I bet if she did kill someone nobody would ever be able to prove it was her.

Manga

the speech bubble head one. is going to destroy so much public and private property once he’s set loose on the streets. but no deaths.

Bondo

the glue one. and nah, Bondo is cool.

Koudai

the Ant-Man one. doesn’t strike me as particularly murderous, I even went and reread her part of the joint training arc to confirm it. she’s fine.

Rin

the kung fu dragon one. not especially murdery. overall probably one of the least bloodthirsty in class 1-B in fact.

Shiozaki

the vines one. she’s extremely murdery. I can’t be the only one who thinks that, can I? Shiozaki scares the shit out of me. if I were Kaminari I would have nightmares about her.

Monoma

would murder every single member of class 1-A if he could. would be the criminal in a Detective Conan two-parter. would give a long monologue about always being the side character and never in the starring role until one day he finally couldn’t take it anymore and snapped. why does his hero costume make it look as though he’s going to steal a bunch of famous jewels out from under everyone’s noses. nah but I’m just kidding and Monoma would never actually kill someone. but one day he’s probably going to be framed for murder by a villain and Kendou and Shinsou will have to team up to defend him and catch the real culprit.

10. Yanagi

the creepy pale ghost-girl-looking one. contrary to what you are probably all thinking, her high ranking isn’t just because of her general horror film vibe, but also because she attempted to bludgeon Mina to death during the joint battle arc. but also yes it is because of her general horror film vibe.

9. Kamakiri

the stabby one. he’s up here because I’m pretty sure he tried to kill Jirou that one time. like what was he even gonna do if Bakugou hadn’t stepped in. though to be fair I don’t think he actually had his knives out at the time so maybe he was just gonna elbow her in the face or something idk.

8. Bakugou

I agree with you that Bakugou is much more bark than bite, anon. and not only is he remarkably careful and precise with his quirk and good at avoiding any collateral damage (and even better IMO ever since his supplementary training), I think that due to his various struggles with being perceived as a villain and also trying to find his own understanding of what being a hero means, he’s probably more self-aware than most of the other kids at this point when it comes to matters of “is this morally okay.” so in spite of his generally violent demeanor, I very much doubt he ever would or could actually kill someone. but he’s in the top ten because his high shounen protagonist levels do place him in the “would potentially go apeshit if and when something happened to someone he cares about” category, though. and also because he and Deku did basically attempt to disintegrate Nine, and then when Nine just dropped off the face of the earth afterwards, no one even bothered to wonder what had happened to him. which leads me to wonder if Deku and Katsuki straight up assume they did in fact kill him and just dgaf.

7. Deku

see above re: Nine. and also he may have to kill AFO one day. so while he probably wouldn’t be happy about it, I think he could still potentially do it. and also because he absolutely does lose his gotdamn mind every time someone hurts one of his friends, and especially Kacchan, and I could picture him just snapping if something really awful ever actually did happen. I don’t think it would in canon because it’s just way too dark, but I don’t think it’d be out of character if he did.

6. Iida

literally tracked down the villain who attacked his brother with the full intent of personally killing said villain once he got his hands on him. true, Shouto and Deku talked him out of it in the end, but still. that was some real motherfucking killing intent. also I will never forget the image of this kid sitting his ass down in middle of the woods and mutilating his own goddamn body without any anesthesia. listen, everyone. just please, for your own safety, do not fuck with Iida.

5. Shouto

and now we reach the top five. listen, feel free to disagree, but I stand firm in my belief that out of all the non-traitor and non-demon-possessed children in class 1-A, Todoroki Shouto is absolutely the most likely to straight up just kill a bitch one day. this boy froze a man from the inside out until a tower of fucking ice was jutting out of his fucking throat, and was all “go ahead and hibernate for a while” like excuse me, THE FUCK. and the thing is, this wasn’t just a one-time occurrence either; he literally pulls this kind of shit ALL THE TIME. froze an entire fucking building with his classmates in it and was all “feel free to bring it on but fighting without the soles of your feet will be painful.” heh. what the fuck. and do you all remember when he fought Sero and was in a bad mood so he iced half the fucking stadium. nearly killed a few people right then and there. “I got carried away.” whaaaaaaat. and I could go on and on; he nearly burned poor Shindou alive, and basically the entirety of chapter 205 could have been submitted as evidence in a court of law had that training battle against Tetsutetsu gone only slightly differently. basically Shouto is an entirely too realistic portrayal of a very sweet but marginally unstable boy with a completely broken power and a shitload of unresolved personal trauma which he is still working through.

4. Honenuki

somehow more murdery than Todoroki “HIBERNATE!!” Shouto. this is entirely because of chapter 205, formerly the most murdery chapter of the entire series, and dethroned only by the recent chapter 266 for obvious reasons. anyway so during the joint training battle, Honenuki bludgeoned Todoroki in the back of the head and would probably have let his unconscious body slump into the softened ground to drown had Iida not saved him. he then proceeded to drop a water tower on top of the both of them. a whole-ass water tower. this was a fucking training exercise. and Honenuki was the only one who kept his calm throughout the entirely of said exercise. and he was praised for his calm murdering skills afterward. because he was fucking awesome tbh. anyway but the point is this is supposed to be a hero school not an assassin school but I’m not really sure anymore you guys.

3. Tokoyami

my man would have straight up killed Moonfish in that forest and sure did try his best. he’s got the same issue as Todoroki in that his quirk is as powerful as it is unstable. and while he himself is not murdery, when Dark Shadow loses control, though… hooooh boy. I was gonna add something about him also interning under Takami “literally stabbed my friend in the neck for the greater good” Keigo, but I think that makes them both come off as more sinister than they actually are. I do think a big part of Tokoyami’s story is him overcoming his inner darkness and wresting control of it and mastering it, so I don’t think it’s very likely that he actually will kill someone in the story. but he’s got a murdery side, no two ways about it.

2. Toadette

straight up filled Tokoyami’s windpipe with mushrooms during a training exercise. he uses that to breathe, fyi. she then offered him a lozenge afterward. do not fuck with Toadette. do not. just don’t.

1. Hagakure

last but not least! Hagakure “hasn’t killed anyone officially but is also definitely the traitor” Tooru! y’all know how it is! I’m committed to this theory! I’d even be willing to put money on a reveal scene where she does just straight up kill someone, and that’s our cliffhanger establishing that the traitor is none other than! and this is coming up sooner than you might think too, guys. Horikoshi brought up the traitor again relatively recently during the Christmas Eve chapter, and that kind of foreshadowing isn’t for nothing. anyways I’m here for it though so bring on that body count you funky little turncoat.

so there you have it. my not-that-definitive definitive ranking of classes 1-A and 1-B by murderous inclination. there’s really not that much rhyme or reason to it tbh but this was fun, thank you anon!

#bnha #boku no hero academia #class 1-a #class 1-b #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #heroes rising spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha #asks #anon asks #bnha meta #bnha ranking

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arrtemisia · 3 years

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Hey so... If you could redo cannon Makoto what would you do? How would she change? I'm curious cause out of the main cast she was the only one that I just couldn't get a solid interest in (aside from Ann but that's just cause the idea of her being a fashion model confuses me more than anything I think)

God. So much stuff.

There's a couple big things about her that bug me, and none of them really change at all in her canon vs fanon portrayal, which means it's hard for me to enjoy her even in fanworks. In my opinion, I think her biggest flaw is that she's simply miscast, and her character would have worked much better as a confidant instead of a thief, which would've given her a place of her own to shine and avoid the weird dissonance between different aspects of her character (and this was actually their original plan, so Hifumi would have taken her place which. She would've fit in much better imo bc she's actually suffered under another's will like every single one of the others and she's an actual strategist instead of just """smart,""' but that's a topic for another post), but since we're talking about how I'd personally fix Makoto in the role she currently fills, I'm going to list some of the issues I take with her and potential solutions.

First of all, just to get it out of the way, she needs an actual reason to be here. She doesn't have one, full stop.

The big thing tying the thieves together is that they're all victims of abuse and oppression who rebel against their tormentors and want to prevent anyone else from suffering like they did. I'm not saying Makoto has never struggled, because she has, but it's really, really not the same type of struggle.

This leads to weird moments where everything about Makoto's personality and characterization, such as being a stickler for the rules, idolizing the police, etc mean that she has no in-character reason to stick with the thieves after kaneshiro is dealt with and should maybe even be opposing the thieves' way of doing things, but the plot drags her along anyway because the game really wants her to be a party member. And really, what's up with her awakening? She gets threatened once and then bang-boom-kapow she has a persona? It's weak.

Also before anyone says "well all those things about her personality change when she awakens and she sheds her good girl personality and yada yada," no she doesn't, actually, and I'm getting there I promise

The easiest solution here is also the most drastic. Swap when Makoto and Akechi join. This kills two birds with one stone; Makoto gets an actual reason to awaken through Sae, and Akechi's betrayal hits harder because he's pretending to be with you for longer (although admittedly this is much less needed on Akechi's part ever since royal).

Not only does this give Makoto a much stronger reason to awaken and join in the first place (Sae starts twisting into something horrible and Makoto wants to help both stop and save her), but it also gives her an internally consistent reason to stick around. Before, unlike the others (who all at least have "I want to stop others from feeling like I did," or in Futaba's case, "I wanna find the ppl who killed my mom."), once Kaneshiro is done with, Makoto has no real big personal reason to stick around other than "I'm a thief now and the plot says so ig." Now, of COURSE she'd want to go after Shido because he's the one that was manipulating her sister, and after that of COURSE she'd want to help take down mr divine sippy cup in order to get Shido tried and jailed.

However, if we're not going to shuffle around the order of party members bc that'd nuke the canon plot a little, then we need to rework the entire Kaneshiro arc and/or Makoto's backstory and values as a whole. Yeah this is why the first solution was the easy one.

I'm going to go in-depth about how I feel Makoto's personality and values should be reworked later I'M GETTING THERE, so I'll talk about that then. As for reworking Kaneshiro, I... don't have a whole lot of ideas. The palace itself is fine, it has one of the coolest atmospheres in the game (c'mon, there's got to be a fun bank heist in a game like this), but Makoto's connection with him is very weak. Maybe have it be that he was extorting her for years in secret and she never said anything? Maybe have him be the one that ordered the hit on her father? I'm not sure what would be strong enough to match to the other palace leaders, without feeling forced. I'll have to come up with more ideas for this one.

The second big issue I have with her is less of one specific thing and more of a collection of smaller problems that all come from the same source. She waltzes in, takes over, and starts acting like she's the boss of things. She then names herself the "strategist" and yet only ever states the obvious and, to use a word I hate, mansplains things to you that you already learned two palaces ago. She's constantly condescending and passive agressive to the other team members, especially Ann and Ryuji, berates everyone for not being as naturally book smart as her when all the other characters are smart in their own ways and just not good at academia, all the while everyone around her, even characters that normally wouldn't take that (ryuji, ann) or are too prideful to admit to anyone bring better (mona), are constantly like "You're so cool, Makoto!"

It's a classic case of show don't tell, and rhe game is obsessed with telling you that Makoto is "smart" and "cool." Once she joins the team, all the characters that were originally shown to be smart in their own ways are never allowed to say anything meaningful ever again bc Makoto is the "smart" one. She never does anything particularly different compared to the other party members, but the game is constantly insisting she's special.

I'm very hesitant to call her a mary sue, because I don't think she is one, and also I disagree with the use of that term at all as these days it's just meant to devalue powerful characters that happen to be girls, but I definitely think she's emblematic of a common writing flaw that can lead to mary sues. The problem with making a character the "smart" one as a personality trait instead of something that just comes naturally is that you have to dumb down everyone else's characterization to make them look smarter or cooler by comparison. It means that the character you're trying to prop up bends everyone else around them, making them act in ways they normally wouldn't in order to make the one character you're trying to look cool seem better by comparison.

This has an easy solution: cut that shit out. Have her slowly find her place on the team naturally instead of forcing her way in as a pseudo-leader. Don't give every single "well, duh" line to her, and cut the scenes where she stands around explaining obvious things you already know in a condescending manner so she looks smarter. Let the other characters actually act like themselves when they're in the same room as her instead of bending around her to prop her up. Have her treat those characters with respect in turn, bc for all intents and purposes when it comes to thief stuff they are her senpai, instead of just having her act like she's better than them, or boss them around, or be passive agressive about the fact that their grades are bad. Show that other characters are smart in other ways instead of acting like Makoto's book smarts are the end-all be-all. And for fuck's sake, stop acting like "smart" and "punches stuff real good" are personality traits, which leads me into my last big point.

Makoto and Queen don't really feel like the same character. Okay, so to explain this, let's walk through her awakening again.

Makoto is a good girl who's a stickler for the rules, sucks up to authority, idolizes the police, is obsessed with her grades and academic performance, and looks down on others who don't do the same. A couple people call her useless and then she gets threatened by a mob boss, after which she decides to live her life for herself and completely shed her good girl lifestyle and rebel against everyone pressuring her.

That is, except for the teensy tiny detail where she doesn't.

Nothing significant about her personality changes all post her awakening and joining the thieves, aside from the part where she sucks up to authority maybe a little less. She's still uptight, her grades (and the grades of those on her team) are still her top priority, she still idolizes the law and those enforcing it.

Y'see, persona has a bit of a common problem with saying one thing about a character, be it making a reveal or saying they're gonna change in some big way, but not fully committing to it. You can see it most in p4 (party members saying they're gonna quit/stop/do whatever and then backtracking in the last two ranks of their social link), but it's rarely so severe that it completely ruins their personality and character arc as a whole. Makoto, I feel, is the main exception.

The writers want Makoto to become this tough, rebellious biker queen who oozes badassery in every move and will never follow anyone's wishes for her ever again, but they also want to keep her old personality of the uptight naive rule-following law-abiding academic. So, instead of altering one to better fit the other, they try to do both... badly.

Instead of integrating the two parts of her personality, it just feels like she swaps between them whenever the plot calls for it which is really, really jarring. She'll be stuttering about following the rules and getting to know her generation one second, and then the next she'll be yelling about mowing down shadows with her motorcyle the next. It feels like Queen and Makoto are two separate uninteresting half-characters, with only a couple personality traits each, instead of one whole well-rounded character.

Either rework Makoto's thief aesthetic to better suit her personality as a whole and give her something other than "I'm totally not a good girl anymore" to make her compelling, or actually commit to Makoto shedding her past life everyone around her had forced on her and change her personality. Have her grades start to slip, have her talk back to Sae, change the way she dresses so it's rougher and less perfect, hell, maybe even have her quit student council. Just, anything to make her more well-rounded as a character.

I have some other nitpicks with her here and there, like the fact that her confidant is actually just Eiko's confidant and doesn't give Makoto herself any development, or the way the game keeps trying to set her up as Joker's waifu or whatever, but those are just that; nitpicks. The three big things I mentioned earlier - her not having a compelling personal reason to be a part of the thieves, the way the writers shove her into the spotlight by putting down everyone around her, and the fact that her characterization is just one badass half and one smart half that don't mesh and have little else in between - are the problems I feel are what's actually holding her character back.

Again, I do think that all of this stems from the fact that she's miscast, but it's too late to fix that now. While I personally really dislike Makoto, I do kind of understand her appeal for others when she's written well, and she's a totally valid character to like. I just wish she was portrayed better.

(Also, if anyone wants to reblog this, feel free I ask that you please don't put this in Makoto's main character tag. I know how much it sucks to get a bunch of negativity in a character's main tags as I am an Edelgard fe3h fan)

#mod answers stuff #long post #really really long post #defiant-firefly #yeah so i know u were probably wanting just. a quick sum up #but i might have just. written an essay. whoops #sorry lol #there's just so much abt her that drives me up the wall

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whelvenwings · 4 years

Note

So I just saw that post on laziness that you reblogged and I was wondering what your thoughts are on laziness vs procrastination? Because I'm going through a particularly bad round of procrastination, but I don't feel like it's borne out of laziness (which to me, is more of "I don't feel like doing this immediately but I will do it soon"). Whereas procrastination is constantly postponing something but never being able to convince my brain to actually do the task (also any tips on tackling this?)

Hello anon!! Yes hello good hi. first of all, ugh, I’m so sorry you’ve been having a hard time with procrastination lately. it’s rough and I hope it eases up for you.

hmmmm yes, so, laziness and procrastination. WELL. hmm. OKAY. these thoughts might be a bit all over the place, so I hope you’ll bear with me as I ramble on a bit. or a lot. probably a lot! I have a lot of thoughts about it all.

so I think I’d start off by saying that I kind of don’t believe in laziness.

it’s like... for me, laziness is... chronically choosing not to do something that you know you should do, even though that thing is entirely doable for you. that is to say, you have the time for a task, the skills for it, and the ability to motivate yourself to do it - but you regularly choose not to do it.

the key element here is choice. for me, laziness implies not just that a task isn’t done - it implies you could’ve done it, and then you chose not to. but to be able to choose not to do something, that thing has to be completely possible in the first place, right? we wouldn’t say we choose not to fly, we say that we can’t do it, it’s not possible for us. every day that I walk around instead of flying, I’m not being lazy, I’m just not doing something that’s outside my capability. very often (I’d argue always) when we regularly don’t do something, it’s because we cannot do it. it’s not a choice not to do it, because there’s something going on that makes the task impossible in our status quo. I think our ideas about what we can and can’t do, and how serious a barrier it is to not be able to motivate ourselves, are often really skewed by comparison with others. if I lived in a world populated only by birds, maybe I’d think I was procrastinating on flying.

the thing that briefly breaks me out of a procrastination loop is usually panic at the promise of Bad Consequences, i.e. my brain is finally convinced of the importance of the task, but this is a quick one-off fix that doesn’t help the chronic issue, so next time I have to do the same task I’ll follow the same pattern of putting it off until Total Panic Time. and at a certain point, even the Bad Consequences just aren’t enough motivation, and I simply can’t do the task. often I am in distress at not being able to do the task. just as often, the distress is a contributing factor in the task not getting done for longer.

the issue that makes the task not doable for me tends to vary a lot depending on the situation. and I think a lot of people have it the same way, where different issues crop up with different tasks.

- so like sometimes it’s a Success Elsewhere issue. you just can’t believe you can actually decently do the thing you have to do, so you go work at something else that you think you can succeed at. “lazy” to me implies a lack of effort, right? and yet with this one, the things that you do instead of homework or chores or whatever, they often take plenty of effort. like you’re kicking ass at video games, pouring hours into it, because the game makes you feel like you really could be the best!! it’s worth the effort because you get rewards! you’re working, just not at the thing you Should be doing, because you can’t believe working on that thing will lead to any reward/success.

- sometimes it’s a Why Does It Matter issue. sometimes you just aren’t convinced enough that the reward of doing a task is worth the work it’ll take, because you can clearly see that the world is in crisis and it’s exceptionally hard to believe that, say, homework matters when everything feels like it’s on fire.

- sometimes it’s a Fuck You Anyway issue. a lot of people feel alienated by the society we live in, the same society that says hey, you have to do homework, you have to succeed at university, you have to get these grades, you have to be polite, you can’t get angry, you have to respond to emails, you have to do this specific kind of job to make good money or else you won’t have enough. when an authority you don’t trust/a system that is clearly broken tries to shove you into doing something, sometimes you don’t want to bloody do it, you know? sometimes you don’t want to do the small tasks that build up into following a path you don’t believe in.

- sometimes it’s a The World Has Swept Me This Far, What, Are You Saying I Have to Do Things for Myself Now issue. between parents and teachers and societal expectations, a person can go surprisingly far in this world just kind of keeping to the course that other people decide for them. but the map always has edges, right? eventually people stop having a plan for you and you’re quite suddenly expected to know exactly what to do with yourself, and just become a success with the opportunities you’ve been given, but you have no clue whatsoever how to do that. doing nothing in this instance isn’t laziness, it’s not that you want to sit and stagnate - it’s just that you’re doing exactly what you’ve always done: what you’re being guided to do. the only difference is that now you’re not being guided to do anything, so you don’t do anything. you have no idea how to flex the muscles of personal choice; you don’t even know if you have them.

- sometimes it’s a Distraction issue. again, for a huge amount of people, the world is pretty garbage right now. and sometimes you’re clinging on via the happy hormone hit you get when you do something fun, so doing something hard/boring feels like it would push you too far. or sometimes the hard/boring task doesn’t absorb enough of your attention, leaving way too much space for your brain to talk to itself and spiral out of control with bad thoughts and feelings, which it won’t do if you’re watching videos or scrolling on your phone or hanging out with friends etc. given how tailored our brain hormones naturally are to finding the shortest path to happiness, and how relatively easy it is in our culture to find short-term happiness via the internet, I don’t find it surprising that a lot of people just literally cannot engage with doing difficult, boring tasks when there’s a small burst of happiness just one tap away.

- sometimes it’s an Energy issue. bad mental health is a motivation killer. battling depression or anxiety or another mental health issue just leeches away your reserves for other things. you don’t have the spoons for doing a task, but people with more spoons will look at you not doing it and call you lazy - because for them, the task is doable, and they don’t get that for you it is not.

UGH MAN there’s so much more to it than just these separate scenarios, they all interweave and there are loads more of them, and I want to talk about how being neurodivergent affects these things and how being queer affects it too imo, but I feel like I could go on and on forever so I’ll leave it at that. my point is, I think both procrastination and so-called laziness start when for some reason, a task isn’t doable for you. so the key is figuring out why the task isn’t doable, and changing something, and then hopefully being able to chug away at it!

some things that have helped me are:

- getting little bits of help - when my mum and I hang out, she’ll sometimes just sit and chat to me while I clean around her because it’s doable for me while she’s there. collaboration can ease a lot of procrastination woes for me.

- instead of telling myself “I have to do this”, I tell myself “I deserve to have this done”. so like, instead of “I have to clean the bathroom”, it’s “I deserve to live in a clean house”. instead of “I have to do this essay for homework”, it should have been “I deserve to be able to show the skills I have, and get help from my teachers in the places where I have holes in my understanding”. it’s just like, less focus on the dumb task and more focus on the goal that I’ll achieve by doing the task, with a healthy dose of self-validation on the side.

- if the problem’s really chronic and affecting your life in a pretty major way, maybe it’s time to look into whether there’s an underlying issue with the way your brain focuses? I’m autistic, and I have friends with ADHD, and the way our brains focus/don’t focus on things can be hard to manage at times - but understanding what’s going on inside the old brainspace and reading about how other people handle the same things can be a really good way to start breaking the cycle of procrastination.

#anon #... and that's that on that?#anon asudasidh I'm so sorry what an essay #I hope any of that was helpful to you #or at least vaguely interesting to read/relevant to what was on your mind #I wish you all the best against the demons of procrastination #onwards we battle!

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ghostmeep · 4 years

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are you going to make a post on why you think sonic isn't to blame for letting metal go? i'm curious on your thoughts on it

Ah, I’m guessing you are referring to my little side note I made in my Sonic feels guilt post

Well, tbh that sentence was less of a ‘I’ve got a lot of important things to say about this matter’ and more of a ‘I’m trying to not get off topic’ - but I’m up for expanding my thoughts on it. Don’t expect ground breaking points tho haha

Disclaimer, this is way less fact driven than my other post about Sonic feeling guilty in the Zombot arc. It’s more speculation with not as much direct support from canon. But if you are cool with that, read on

Anyways, so to first clarify what I want to try and express in this post:

I do think that the current arc is a direct result of Sonic’s actions and I’m not trying to disprove that Sonic is to blame here. He is to blame when all is said and done, but it isn’t like he single-handedly caused the Zombots to spread? I just think people are shitting on Sonic just a bitttt too much

But, I do think that Sonic’s actions were in character enough to forgive. A bit of a stretch here and there, but enough to let it pass imo

———–

I’m going to first talk about Sonic letting Eggman free even though you only asked about Metal because the two kind of goes hand in hand.

And here I ask everyone to let go of their beyond the fourth wall knowledge. Forget about how you know the franchise as Eggman and Metal Sonic are antagonist and there is no way Sega would change them.

Try thinking about it from Sonic’s perspective and think of Eggman as a real person - meaning someone who can change and grow, because all people can - I’m not saying all people do, but it is possible

So we look at Eggman’s situation. At first Sonic was super suspicious and wasn’t willing to trust Eggman and thought it was an act.

But the more time he was with Mr. Tinker the more he had to accept that Eggman really did have memory loss - and guess what? He was right about that part at least.

In that moment of time, Eggman was truly different and didn’t remember any of his past doings.

In that situation, wouldn’t it have been a little harsh to imprison him? Or kill him? I dunno, if Eggman never remembered and could live the rest of his life peacefully as Mr. Tinker, wouldn’t it be okay to let him? – Forget about what we know happened later on and just think about it from that situation in time.

If Sonic just threw Eggman to prison at this point, I feel like that would have been more out of character for him. More harsh than I would have expected him to be. Because, for all his cool guy attitude, Sonic is a nice, caring guy.

And it wasn’t like Sonic was the only one who wanted to give this chance to Mr. Tinker. Shadow was the only one he had to really convince.

Everyone else was on-board more or less?

They all deferred to Sonic’s decision, but if they had a problem with it they would have spoken up. Or tried to persuade Sonic against letting Mr. Tinker free. It’s because they agreed, at least on some level, that they just went with what Sonic decided to do. Espio took some convincing, but again, not all that much. Barley any at all.

And then the town mayor put in his two cents - so everyone pretty much came to a mutual agreement, no? it’s a bit much to say it’s all on Sonic for letting Eggman stay as Mr. Tinker

( That is to say, I’m not saying that it was wrong of the characters to blame Sonic. The characters did trust Sonic to make the right decision, so when it proved to be the wrong one, and with all that is going on and everyone running on emotion, it makes sense they would turn on Sonic. Because Sonic did have the final say, and as the ‘hero’ who everyone looked to for guidance he did let everyone down in that sense. It was his responsibility to bear. Fair or not. ) Us as readers shitting on Sonic though is a bit different. We can absolutely say it was a stupid decision and I’m sure all of us called it that Eggman would return, but in universe, there is enough to support Sonic’s decision. So I wouldn’t call this Sonic grabbing the idiot ball, since it does adhere to parts of Sonic’s personality as we know it.

Anyways, back to the Mayor being up for letting Eggman stay. We can see that Sonic still has some doubts and is unsure what to do at this point.

He’s still thinking about it, and while it’s likely he would have reached the conclusion of letting Eggman stay anyways, there is something that pushes him to make that decision. That cements in his mind that Eggman is gone for good.

Because when the Badniks invade the town and Sonic rushes to confront Eggman he sees –

Eggman trying to protect the children

This is the moment that convinces Sonic the most, I think. Because when the going gets tough is when people’s true colours start to emerge. And Mr. Tinker did what he can to protect the children, despite being scared. There is no way Sonic can throw him to rot in a cell after that

I also want to point out that even Rouge, who doesn’t have the hero persona like Sonic does, even she thought it would be for the best to let Eggman free as Mr. Tinker? Why else would she even bother giving a tip to the Chaotix knowing that Sonic would likely come to this decision?

And it isn’t like Sonic just made the decision to let Eggman roam free and washed his hands of the matter. We see his doubts when Eggman Land is mentioned and he says himself how he’ll definitely be stopping by

So Sonic is aware of the dangers, and he is also planning to stop by and check up on Eggman himself. Sounds kinda fair to me.

So hopefully it’s clearer from this that letting Eggman free isn’t really the most unbelievable thing to do, it made enough sense for people other than Sonic to be on board of it at least.

And Sonic even managed to convince Shadow. Yeah, Sonic is dumb stubborn so trying to change his mind would have been difficult, but the same goes for Shadow, right? But Sonic managed because what he said made sense at the time. There is logical thought to letting Eggman free and that is why he was able to convince everyone.

Of course, now everyone regrets it because it led to this disaster, but point still stands that at the time it didn’t seem like a bad idea.

I’ve got no good counter for why Sonic and co. didn’t leave someone to look after Eggman just in case tho.

The best I can think of is because to them, Eggman was the ‘big bad’. After all, how many disasters didn’t start because of Eggman in some way? Not really any.

So since they deemed Eggman was a non-threat maybe they just assumed it would be safe to leave him here? Because without Eggman, who would they have to worry about? Any new villain that would pop up would be a threat to the world sure, but no threat in having Eggman restore his memories. It’s hard to imagine a situation where a new villain takes the time to help Eggman regain his old self in-between destroying the world…

Because, let’s be honest, I don’t think anyone would have ever thought that there was an Eggman fanboy on the loose.

So they likely deemed that there was no need for a bodyguard when they thought there was nothing to guard from.

Now for Metal Sonic.

Okay, so this is a little harder to defend because, well, oof Sonic you really dropped the ball here. But I can still say it’s kinda in-character?? It’s pushing it, but I don’t think it’s so out of nowhere to the point where I think Sonic’s characterization was ruined from this moment.

After all, we’ve seen Sonic show compassion to previous enemies, right? He’s pretty much known for making friends out of enemies, honestly.

So Sonic’s forgiveness definitely doesn’t come from nowhere, at least. We’ve seen Sonic’s willingness to give people multiple chances before

Seriously, which of Sonics friends didn’t start out as the antagonist?

We have Knuckles, Shadow, Silver, Blaze, all who I won’t talk about much since I’m assuming everyone knows their stories.

But we also have other games showing Sonic’s forgiving side.

In Sonic and the Black Knight, we saw Merlina pulling Sonic from his own world, just to trick him, and then attempt to make her world never changing (thus killing innocent souls). And at the end, all Sonic did was give her a flower and tell her to live life to the fullest in the time we have.

And yes, you can make the argument that the people who Sonic forgave weren’t inherently bad people, just people led astray, but that’s also the point? Sonic believes that everyone has good in them – that no one is inherently all bad – even Eggman and Metal Sonic.

You can make the argument that Metal is programmed to be evil by Eggman, but hey, weren’t Gamma and Emerl too? And yet they turned out good.

So we do have proof that Eggman’s sentient robots are capable of changing sides. And with Eggman out of the picture and not able to influence Metal negatively, Sonic probably saw this as the perfect chance to let Metal find the good in himself.

And yes, Metal is at a bit of a disadvantage because he is programmed to be forever loyal to Eggman, but 1) Eggman is no more as far as Sonic is concerned. So that ‘loyalty’ is a moot point. Because Metal is basically loyal to a person who doesn’t exist anymore. 2) just because you are loyal to someone doesn’t mean you can’t come to disagree with their actions.

Metal can still learn about what is good or not even if he is programmed to be loyal to Eggman. And I think that is what Sonic was going for.

Look at Metal Sonic’s situation

They let him go, but it’s clear that he wouldn’t have been any danger to anyone. It doesn’t seem like he was fixed enough to even get close to Sonic’s speed like he normally could, and he had all his weapons removed by Tails.

So the only one who could have made him dangerous again would be Tails (which wasn’t going to happen) and Eggman (who, as far as Sonic knows, is still Mr. Tinker)

Metal Sonic really wasn’t a danger to anyone.

Yeah, Sonic could have at the very least done a quick check on Eggman to make sure that everything was fine and he was still Mr. Tinker, but Sonic just left Eggman - what, a day or so ago? What are the odds that something happened in just that amount of time? And what are the odds that the village looked for Sonic for help at the moment he was at Angel Island?

And again, to Sonic, Eggman was the ‘big bad.’ With him gone, Sonic probably got lulled to a false sense of security.

So it makes sense to me that Sonic is willing to give these risky second chances because he is pretty confident that Eggman, and thus evil geniuses that could rebuild Metal, are not a problem anymore.

So, Metal is not dangerous, and as far as Sonic knows, won’t be able to become dangerous. The world is rebuilding itself and it seems like they’ve finally come at peace.

It’s the ideal situation for Metal to change. Because remember, it is possible for Eggman’s robots to be good.

So from that line of thinking, letting Metal go isn’t all thattttt bad? Hindsight is 20/20 so it’s easy to say Sonic was wrong to letting Metal go, but at the time Sonic had at least some reason to risk it.

Sure, Sonic could have taken a bit more precaution, like maybe follow Metal to keep an eye on him, but being Mr. Free-As-The-Wind, he probably thought letting Metal go to do his own searching would eventually lead to triggering a good change – and it would all end well. After all, it is unlikely that Metal would change in the presence of people he deems as ‘enemies’ – so Sonic was likely hoping Metal would run into a more neutral party who would nudge him in the right direction.

Also, with Sonic running around as much as he does, he probably figured that he would run into Metal sooner or later and be able to check on his progress.

Too bad Metal tracked down Eggman instead.

So yeah, still rather stupid – and careless, but I can see some reasoning behind it.

It’s not too hard to imagine Sonic being over-eager to have all the danger behind him, and he wanted to wrap things up in a nice neat bow asap, so he rushed things too much.

He seemed really ready to get to the whole ‘relax with no worries’ stage at least.

So Sonic jumped the gun. Not exactly hard to accept for the fastest thing alive.

I’m going to add this point in too — but let’s not forget that this takes place after Sonic Forces. Even without the English version’s unnecessary add-in of saying Sonic was tortured for six months, Sonic was still at the very least held in captivity for six months. And then immediately had to go and take up the mantle of being people’s hope ( in Tails’s words ) and win a war for everyone that has been going on for far too long. I don’t think you can really blame a guy for wanting peace so badly after all that.

And just going to insert one more point about whether Zombot arc is all Sonic’s fault or not that people are going to hate me making, but Imma do it anyways. This isn’t my main argument, at all, but I just want to include it anyways.

Because if you want to be super super technical. If you will allow me to be nit picky here…

It’s not really his fault.

Yeah, he let Eggman free, and thus he was easy to kidnap. Yes he let Metal free, and thus was able to help Eggman recover his memory. Yes and yes.

But, my girl Tangle made valid points too.

And I get it. This is kinda a dumb argument, because the point is is that Sonic should have taken measures to prevent Starline from being able to restore Eggman and Sonic should have prevented Metal from even being able to reach Eggman to get re-weaponized. Yes. But still.

Are we really going to hate the fact that our Hero character tried to make the best out of a situation? Sonic wanted the best possible outcome to come true (For Eggman and Metal to find purpose in life that was good) and when he saw an opportunity for it to happen, just within his reach, he took it.

Yes it was reckless. Yes it was stupid and idealistic. Yes, it was naive, but Sonic, with all his good heart, just wanted a happy ending for everyone.

It just sucks that there are people like Starline and Eggman who chooses to be bad, even when given the opportunity to be otherwise. But bad people existing, who choose to bring chaos and destruction, isn’t Sonic’s fault.

Because Sonic is responsible for his actions, yes. But Starline, Eggman, and Metal are responsible for their own actions too.

Well, I guess I already made my points that I wanted, but because this post is obviously not long enough, I’m going to keep going. (I just can’t stop once I’ve started, so bear with me as I go on semi-tangents from the original question)

I’ve seen some people say how if Sonic didn’t let Metal Sonic go Eggman wouldn’t have remembered his old self — but we don’t know that???????

Sure, Metal Sonic was the last straw that allowed Eggman to remember – but it’s not guaranteed that Eggman wouldn’t have remembered without Metal.

It’s obvious that Starline wouldn’t have given up on Eggman, at least. Who knows what measures Starline would have taken to get Eggman back to all his glory. And well, he was making progress in restoring Eggman. Super slow progress, but progress nevertheless.

And this point I’m about to make is a bit of a stretch, but I want to make it anyways because I think it’s interesting to think about

But look at what the badnik makes with the bush? It’s pretty much Sonic’s head. And, while sure it doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but it could also mean that Eggman’s subconscious is at least starting to get hung up on Sonic again? Because out of all the things the badnik could have made, it’s Sonic’s head.

And we saw when the town’s doctor tried to see if Eggman really lost his memory, we see him using a blob that looks awfully familiar

Again, it doesn’t really prove my point in any way, but I just found it a kinda cool connection. Because we’re shown that a hint that Eggman is returning evil again is showing signs about his obsession with Sonic, and that obsession is peaking in here, if ever so slightly.

So we could say that it was only a matter of time for Eggman to return to his old self, and the trigger could have been anything if not Metal. It probably wouldn’t have happened as quick, but it likely would have happened eventually.

One more thing I want to about Sonic’s decision to let Metal go. – I don’t think Sonic made that decision behind anyone’s back.

I’m not going to go into the whole ‘no one disagreed with Sonic’s decision so it’s not like Sonic is the only one at fault’ point I made with Eggman here, because it doesn’t hold the same truth to it for this. Because I do think in this instance letting Metal go was 100% Sonic’s decision, and 100% Sonic’s responsibility to shoulder, but saying Sonic did this behind everyone’s back is a bit much.

When he meets with Knuckles again, Knuckles says how Metal is trashed

At this point I think I’m the only one who thought this, but I took Kunckles’s words as ‘Metal is in trash condition and not a threat’ not a ‘Metal is in the trash and offline’

Because otherwise it seems a bit weird for that line to be included but have no reaction from Sonic? Not even a side eyed glance of guilt or a sweatdrop or a small ellipsis bubble from Sonic indicating his silence on the topic under Knuckles’s first speech bubble. Absolutely nothing is given.

And I guess I wouldn’t put it past Sonic to omit details from his friends if he thinks it’s for the best, but it is just strange how we didn’t get any indication of Sonic choosing to omit details here when it very easily could have been shown.

Then when Silver and Sonic faced Metal, there is no surprise from Silver. No indication that Silver wasn’t already aware that Metal was out there somewhere.

And I doubt that absolutely no one thought ‘huh where did Metal’s body end up’ If everyone wasn’t aware about Sonic’s plans. It seems like it would have been an odd thing to overlook, since Metal is known to be resilient. You would think someone would have wondered what happened to it if they were being kept in the dark.

And my very last point in all this huge mass of words – the biggest reason I am okay with Sonic letting Eggman roam free without supervision and Sonic letting Metal Sonic go, is because Sonic is showing signs of learning from his mistakes

(yes, I’m reusing the same screencap in the same post shh)

Sonic says how believing that everyone has good in them came to bite him in the end and he regrets it

It’s why I can’t really get mad at Sonic chasing that idealistic happy ending for everyone. Because in order for someone to be less naive, they need to face reality first. And oh boy, has Sonic been facing really harsh reality one after another since this arc began.

Now, it’s too early to tell if IDW will let this lesson stick, but here’s hoping. The fact that Sonic has been so hung up about his mistakes makes it seem like he’ll learn from this whole thing.

And isn’t that nice to have? A character making mistakes and then learning from it. I feel like it’s so rare to have that I’m willing to forgive idiotic decisions if it leads to character growth and the promise of this similar situation not happening again. All IDW needs to do is not brush everything that has happened and Sonic’s guilt under a rug to be forgotten and things will be fine.

I’m not saying I want Sonic to never give second chances ever again, but showing a bit of hesitance next time would be cool. And definitely never showing Eggman and Metal such leniency after all this.

And with this being my second post supporting Sonic’s actions now, I just want to clarify that it’s not like I think this arc is without flaws. I’m not trying to hype up this comic to be this amazing and perfect thing. There are a lot of issues I have with this arc, and the fact that at least half of my points I made in this post was from speculation means that there were too many holes in the storytelling.

But, while I do see plenty of flaws with the comic, I just don’t think it fun to constantly negatively criticize something I’m reading. If I’m reading something it’s because I’m enjoying doing so, so I don’t want to be bogged down by focusing on all the holes in it. I’ll just recognize the flaws for what it is, maybe come up with a theory or two to make things easier to swallow, and move on. It’s how I enjoy reading, but I know it’s not how everyone likes to go about things and that’s fine too.

#idw sonic #sonic the hedgehog #sonic #idw sonic spoilers #Anonymous #I wish I knew how to condense things this is looong #my stuff

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