#like as in i dont know what her motivation is beyond some like personal issues with Birdie

[lacktastrophe]

I read BCB recently, but Augustus and Daisy's relationship always struck me as strange. I don't think anyone ever told Daisy that Augustus was just trying to kiss her and nothing more. But it still doesn't seem to be treated that heavily, and Daisy seems to (mostly) move past the manipulation and the forced aspect of after the carnival weirdly well and fast, without any signs of trauma. Do you think there's a reason for this?

The kids do treat it seriously as we've seen in a few pages, but there hasn't really been a need to bring it up as often out of respect for Daisy, because in all honesty it was an awful and miscalculated mistake that she shouldn't be ridiculed over. But I'd assume the main ones were because Daisy rebounded with Abbey and has been largely happy during that period, Augustus had not been seen again until chapters like Pillow Talk and Total Recall, and many of the other kids had been distracted with their own issues. Despite this, it's on their mind as soon as they see Augustus as we've seen from pages like High Expectations and It's All In The Mind and so on.

I'd be pretty sure this news wouldn't have transferred beyond their circle either as we haven't really seen any of the other kids need to talk about it or whatever. None of the other kids would've tried to paint it differently, no one outside of Abbey, Daisy and Tess had interactions with Augustus, so why would they try to suggest Abbey's account was different? Everyone seems to recognise it for what it was; abuse.

Even Lucy, who becomes Augustus' friend much later and possibly knows more about the dealings of that evening doesn't shy away from the seriousness of the situation and cannot find the means to try and explain or defend his actions. The ends dont' justify the means. It was an extremely shitty thing for him to do and he owns it.

There hasn't been a real need to bring up this elephant as Augustus is mostly a no-show for a long period after the chapter that started it all. We revisit that night two times at most, when Lucy needs to talk to Daisy when she finds Augustus trying to talk to her in Pillow Talk and she needs to discern motive, and again in Total recall, ironically on the anniversary of that evening where through Lucy's absence, a lonely Augustus re-enters the picture.

The closest person who would try to paint it as just a kiss was likely Augustus before he realises the jig is up, when Daisy needs a moment before telling him "That IS far", and referring loudly to the more silent parts of the thing Augustus tried to navigate around; the psychological manipulation that preceeded it. But thankfully Augustus realises the jig is up and admits to fucking it all up.

I'm not an expert in emotional trauma — but I'd feel that Daisy might have found a way to navigate around her situation in a way that she can explain the reason for that night so it doesn't bother her as much as back in Pillow Talk; particularly with how Augustus had managed to confide and spill much about his situation to her before hand, she might've found a way to navigate through the experience as it not being him, as we've seen in Pillow Talk. But that isn't to say that there isn't some sort of post-traumatic stress trigger from the evening, as him just appearing does form some unease in her, as in Total Recall. She recognises she's liable to let her feelings allow her to be manipulated. She's got the same desire to care for something Like Lucy, but she can't lower her guard around him because of that fear, which is why she tells him he needs help, but it can't be from her. Whether there are other triggers, we just don't know at this stage, Daisy's been playing it safe.

I think the only chapter which might mitigate the seriousness of the whole situtation involving that night is Witch Hunt if you read it on the surface. But you can find people being initially demotivated from hanging around Lucy and Augustus because the latter was the deterrent, and the negative associations that came with him. You can be sure they sure as hell don't forgive him, but they're willing to tolerate him so long as they can hang out with Lucy.

#bcb #bittersweet candy bowl

[tyrantraveveromega]

it sucks that i am committed to writing kotone as close to her canon characterization as possible, something that is tricky but doable for the others, because she really does not have many consistent characterization moments. they're either player determinant or from pq2, which have their unique issues

if you go by just p3p, assuming all social links were maxed and only aigis was romanced (the others are player determinant and ultimately, you end up with aigis anyway so im assuming platonic relations all around), you have to go by social link dialogue options and very little else. luckily, s. links have objectively correct answers and thus contain things that canonically kotone would and would not say. this at least gives us a little bit; she's kind, a good listener, and willing to show her fierce side if the needs arises (see saori's social link). but everything else?

now what we have left are the choices during s. links or story events that have NO consequences. this is where things go off the rails: depending on what you choose, you can end up with wildly different versions of the same character. for example, at multiple points, you have the choice between attempting to use violent force to solve a problem or trying to get others to help/resolve it peacefully. we see this is yukari's social link where kotone can try to straight up fight three dudes harrassing yukari, and in saori's where she can try to punch a girl who slapped saori over something that wasnt her fault.

depending on what the player chooses, we get two very different results: either someone who can and does fight well, but chooses to talk out her problems, or someone who seems almost eager to start a fight. its important to note that no one else in this entire cast except maybe akihiko displays this much willingness to throw hands. and again the problem with determinant choices: what do the choices you didn't select mean? was it something kotone was thinking about but didn't do or an abstract method of building your own protagonist? we don't know.

i mentioned pq2 earlier, and my main issue with it is despite kotone being a fully written character, we dont get any more information you couldn't get from p3p or just by looking at her. yes, she's pretty and social and bubbly and fun but she's a little sad too! and now shes back to being fun. yes, you can put together that she's pushing her own emotions down to not burden the group (as it her role in p3p to help others shoulder their burdens) but we really don't see any of it past that one scene. meanwhile in p3p, especially with ryoji near the end of the game, she can say some fairly haunting stuff. like when she's asked what lovers talk about, all she can think of a depressing or (and this is the really worrying one) pointless things. what does that mean? what is kotone's definition of a pointless thing to talk about? it could well be she deems her own emotions as "pointless" because beyond these perhaps unintentionally revealing lines, she never ever talks about how she feels. like ever.

this makes it really important to me to have a very strong interpretation of kotone in order to accurately write her (i dont mean to insult anyone, but i am not a fan of works where her personality is not pulled from the text. i once read a fic where for no reason whatsoever she was portrayed as very immature and described as "childish" and it really did not make any sense to me). so here's my take:

i think kotone is a girl who has a very carefully crafted persona of cheerful indifference; not so much "i don't care", more so "i don't mind". she's clearly okay talking with people, but has no motivation to become close until she connects with SEES (whether because of the wild card ability urging her to do so, or if you're like me and writing an alternate timeline, a golden opportunity to make friends for once.) she is genuinely kind, friendly, and a good listener, that is not a mask; rather its the non-existence of negative emotion she seems to display, using her inherent selflessness to keep everyone at arms length, to make sure things are "about her" as little as possible. she shoulders the burdens of others to avoid talking about or dealing with what burdens her.

however, that negative emotion still absolutely exists: we know she was bounced from one foster home to another, signifying neglect or worse from the parents and/or because kotone was (or perceived as) doing something wrong. this rough childhood shows us the cracks in the mask, as she can be standoffish, depressed, angry, or outright violent towards those who wrong her or the ones she loves. she doesn't want to talk to and gives a nosy girl who just wants akihiko's secrets so she can date him attitude, she's more than happy to tell maiko's parents exactly what she thinks of them, makes at least one actively suicidal comment ("i wish i was dead..." when talking to junpei and yukari), and even attempts to kill takaya after defeating him in battle. the only reason she doesn't is because aigis asks her not to.

in short, her cheerful and energetic exterior is just armor to cover up her severe depression, anger issues, and an unwillingness to open up to others (whether because she doesn't want to be vulnerable, because she doesn't trust others with how she feels, or both).

anyway. this was just a very long-winded ramble. feel free to toss in what you think in the tags, comments, whatever. i honestly love talking about characters like this and am happy to discuss

#six.txt #persona 3 #kotone shiomi

[measlyscrapofseafood]

Hello. Found you through your most recent post maintagged to Noir, and personally also Going Through It with a hyperfixation.

I felt the heart of the 2009 run was really on handling 1930s sorts of political issues and was damn heavy with grief/loss/trauma, so the 2020 run felt less deep. May I ask why you personally don't like the 2020 run :0?

I know it makes sense Noir wasn't in ATSV for his own ideological and story-theme reasons being counter to Spider Society shit, but damn do I miss him..

so this is coming from a person who doesn’t rlly read a ton of comics i only read some of my fave spider ppls solo runs and i read the 2020 comics a few months ago so take w a grain of salt

THAT BEING SAID ☝️ the reason i don’t rlly like it is because like i said noir doesn’t spend a lot of it doing any actual spider stuff?? like he’s just traveling around being a detective which is fine part of what makes him unique is the fact that he’s a detective/pi but to me personally it just kinda felt like it might as well not even be a spider person storyline because he didn’t help anyone

this is just a personal nit pick of mine but i couldn’t get invested in the plot which ikkkkk is subjective but i just couldn’t bring myself to gaf abt the evil nazi lady who wants to harness the spider gods powers or w/e i didn’t even know she was evil going in b/c i hadn’t read her intro comic yet

another thing is i wasn’t a huge fan of the way noir was characterized it wasn’t awful he wasn’t badly written but in comparison to 09 and ewaf noir he didn’t feel driven his only motive for being there was to solve the one case but he had no stakes beyond wanting to do that and had a very lax approach to it it felt shallow to me and they didn’t do a ton w that plot anyway imo it was just there so noir would have an excuse to go on his adventure

🤷🤷 it’s not an awful comic but personally i wouldn’t read it again even if i wanted to consume some noir content just b/c i dont like that run LOL

#cii speaks #asks #in terms of tone i wish it had gone w a route more in line w his og comics but w/e #i’m really normal about him #not proof read write this at 1am #noir

[crescentbea02]

I've been seen so many people hating on Wandering Blade from all around the place ever since kung fu panda the dragon knight was released and while I understand where some of those opinions are coming from and while I agree with some, I think we have to look beyond her character dynamic and dig deeper into her.

Again this is pretty much just my view on her character and of course not everyone thinks the same as I do. It's just my perspective.

First off I very much don't agree with the idea that Blade is just a copy of Tigress. I don't see what they have in common besides being hardcore, no nonsense and having a lot of thick skin. Their goals, moviations, trauma and the way they cope with it is completely different. If you want to compare Blade to a character it makes more sense comparing her to Shifu (I have a whole essay on this actually).

Now, Blade was indeed cruel to Po in the series. Because she found Po and his antics to be a bareer to the goal caused by the trauma of watching her brother being killed in front of her AT 8 YEARS OLD and living with the guilt thinking it was her fault. Her motivation ever since her brother was killed has been to avenge his death and to fix the mistake she made. Because it wasn't just watching her brother die in front of her (which by itself is already pretty traumatizing). It was also thinking that if it wasn't for her he would still be alive and living with that guilt since she was 8 years old.

I dont think Blade ever disrespected Po and his abilities in a "I dont like you because I am a respected knight so I am better than you" way. I think it all comes to the fact that Blade is extremely impatient and hyperfocused on fixing the mistake she's made. Her character arc is she learning that there is more in her than fixing things that can't be undone at all costs. She found Po and his antics to be a bareer from her and her goal that would eventually bring her peace (like Shifu *winks*). Thats why she always got so mad, because she had no time to waste and Po's contrasting personality would be, to her, one more obstacle that she had to face, and she had to focus on her mission at all costs. Even after Po proved that he was actually useful.

Blade's cold and high strung personality ends up also being a mask because of her self doubt and her need to prove herself. By saying that she was a knight, she could have the chance of everyone to know her worth and to respect her. And it also reflects what she thinks it is to be a knight "Knights dont relax" "Knights don't have fun" "Knights don't have feelings". She takes what she thinks being a knight is and hides herself in it. But thats not her true self, and we can also see that by the way she opens up with Po way quicker than Tigress (we also have to stop comparing the two relationships considering Po and Tigress know each other for years and Po and Blade for days), has break downs and is very vulnerable

And (taking away the fact that I also have issues with the way her character was developed) she grows in the story. Before abandoning Po she says that if she had ever have to choose between him and her mission she would choose the mission. And as she eventually learns to enjoy Po's company and he gains her trust, when the weasels escaped them and Veruca blackmails her to make Blade say where the whip is by threatening Po with the gauntlet, he tells her to not let another weapon go because of him. And yet, Blade chooses to tell where the whip just in order for Po to be safe. In other words, she ends up choosing him over the mission.

We have to understand that Blade didn't just want to arrest Klaus and Veruca. She was blinded by it, she lived her life for that.

Again this is just my persoal view in this ^^ its okay to disagree. I very much hope in season 2 we see a less impatient and more genuine Blade that doesn't constantly blames herself for his brother's death. And I hope she realizes that she is indeed more than her mission.

#i just have some issues with the way she develops #i think she should have a more in your face development #anyways her theme song is definetely Waiting In The Wings #kung fu panda #kung fu panda the dragon knight #Po #Po Ping #Tigress #Wandering Blade #kfp #kfp discourse #kung fu panda opinions #kung fu panda series

[starry-pierrot]

TF: Rise of the beasts review.

So first off I'm just gonna say this movie didn't vibe with me as much as the last one.

Don't worry ill put a cut off so I dont clog the tag.

So I just got back from watching the new Transformers movie and personally I'll have to give it a 5/10.

It wasn't the actors, they all did fine though personally I feel some scenes were lacking with Noah and Elena. It felt like there was too many people. You got the two new humans, several new autobots and now the maximals.

It was too cluttered with characters that half the time some of them didn't even get any real scenes, mostly the maximals. Sure they were in the scenes but I dont remember their names. I don't know anything about them..beyond general fan knowledge.

I feel like we didn't need 2 humans they could have easily had Noah be in the place of Elena,like he just got his new job and he's finally making his way out of the Bronx when suddenly he's thrusted into a world ending situation! Like he just got his brother Healthcare and he was doing good and now suddenly these alien mother fuckers want to eat the planet?? Would have given him a stronger motive for wanting to destory the key, losing everything when he JUST got on the right track.

I liked Elena.I liked the woman who played her but there was no reason for there to be 2 humans and I get they were sorta trying to have her be the voice of reason about destroying the key but then that goes nowhere.

Who is the plane guy? I love him but God i can't even remember a name.

Wheeljack was fucked over im sorry I hate what they did to him. Can we please stop with the nerdy stereotype of scientists? How hard is it to make a decent Wheeljack?? For fucks sake they gave him glasses!

I did like Mirage. He was fun.

Arcee was great.

And I even liked Scourge a bit.

....Bee did not have to die. Sorry it was a waste of time.

But the one thing that has this movie just out of nowhere to me....is the plot. Like why aren't we fighting Megatron? Megatron is the middle bit of the transformers lore (depending on continuity) and then we're supposed to get the big bad planet eating god! Having Unicron come in so early just seems way out of place and makes the war on cybertron trivial in comparison.

I didn't hate the move. I had fun watching it but by God does it have some issues for me. I think why the last one worked so well was because it was a much smaller story, I wasn't expecting Unicron to show up so its out of place.

Anyway it was fun but I would have overhauled the story.

#transformers rotb #transformers rise of the beasts

[roobylavender]

ive been scouring through your old specifically batman related posts and you mentioned how you were reading batgirl 2000 but havent finished it and i would genuinely love to know your thoughts because personally i feel like it genuinely establishes cass as such an interesting character and i think you would find her fascinating . however i find myself disliking bruce more often than not like i feel like nearly everything he teaches her is unhealthy lol like yes cass you should throw your life away for others and dedicate yourself solely to the mission. he definitely has a fondness for her but i dont know. and i feel like that one issue, #50 or around that, i just dont know how to feel with bruce wanting to physically fight her and i feel crazy for taking a bit of an issue with that considering everyone glosses over it? like yes the end of that is about has cass accepting his love which is nice and him giving it to her in a way she understands but i think some things he does are a bit. idk idk

[in tears] i think it was more than a year ago i picked up the preliminary dc issues part of no man's land to start reading about her and then for some reason i never continued like i think i got busy.. i really need to like sit down properly sometime this summer if i can and start from knightfall and proceed onward so i can get in the right headspace for re-evaluating bruce's progression again. bc i am definitely interested in what i have heard of bruce's more unorthodox parenting methods in batgirl and much as i am loath to portrayals of bruce as an outright hostile parent i am not entirely opposed to him embodying a parenting style that is simply.. very weird and maybe questionable as an extension of how crazy the phenomena of the robins and batgirls is in the first place. like yes it's a reflection of his deep empathy and compassion that he adopts dick and jason and then allows them to use robin as a conduit through which to channel their angers and fears so they don't turn out as emotionally isolated or obsessive as he thinks he did but it's also obv not really a normal thing to do! and you could def argue it's something that sets bruce's relationships with his sidekicks apart from that of his peers and their sidekicks (although i suppose some people might want to compare with arthur/garth or ollie/roy, but my answer to that would be that at least from what little of aquaman canon i have read i don't think arthur had any particular motive in taking on garth as a sidekick beyond it simply being convenient after the adoption; and with ollie i think that's even more true bc it's the lack of motive that leads to his temporary rift with roy bc ollie hasn't put quite enough thought into what he wants roy to be and that is something that hurts roy in turn). no normal parent is going to tell their kid to fight them in order to ascertain if they're truly committed to the cause. but a bruce who has by now had experiences with a handful of children whom he believes he imposed a duty onto rather than allowing them to come to the conclusion of wanting to uphold that duty themselves, may very well think asking his adopted daughter to fight him to prove her intent is logical and a means of ensuring he is not making the same mistakes all over again. doesn't make it any less crazy a thing to do! but it's certainly bruce to the core. interestingly i am curious if that is something barbara calls him out on bc if anyone were to do it i feel like she would. i like that she's the person who gets to poke at him for being a bit of a paranoid weirdo

#outbox

[cadaverousdecay]

hiiii leaf hi helloooo !!!!!! (⁠灬⁠º⁠‿⁠º⁠灬⁠)⁠♡ this is a free space to tell me about your favorite fictional characters from any type of media and/or where you would like to live if you could live anywhere. im bored and you always have interesting things to say <3 (no pressure 2 answer this. its just in case you feel like talking to someone)

hiiiiii nico!!!!! jumping up and down like a kitty cat <33333

well i really like the character spike from buffy the vampire slayer. looooove characters who were meant to show up for a few episodes then die, but instead became a fan favorite and got put on the show as a regular and end up as the most beloved character to a good portion of the audience (see also castiel supernatural and barnabas collins dark shadows)

[spoilers for buffy ahead]

but yeah spike is great, he came onto the show as this badass punk vampire who loves his vampire wife with the most gothic devotion imaginable. cuz at heart what motivates spike and always will is his passionate love. he is self described as “love’s bitch”

anyway, when the fan response gets back as being crazy abt this evil vampire character the creator of the show gets pretty upset cuz he has this thing about good and evil and vampires are supposed to represent evil and be metaphors for problems you face and not supposed to be sexy they already had one sexy vampire and that was more than enough etc etc etc. but he didnt kill spike off. he decided to bring him back to the show

but if he was gonna bring him back and the audience was going to like him, he was gonna have to ‘humanize’ him more. and so he comes back and hes cringefail<3 hes shed his hard shell a little and just becomes this pathetic little guy <3 he even has his traumatic past revealed <3 hes still an antagonist, but then he gets a chip in his head that makes him unable to hurt a living person. and so we have the wonderful arc of “not actually reformed or anything but he’s kinda on our side sometimes i guess?”

and in that time where he cant be his bad old self and is working with (sorta) the main gang, he develops feelings (his biggest weakness) for his mortal enemy, the slayer, buffy. he tries to push them down, then just. deals with them in the most fucked up ways. hes just a fucked up little guy who doesnt know how to deal with his fucked up feelings, hes just like me for real,,,, if tumblr existed when the show took place he would be reblogging “the enormity of my desire disgusts me” and cannibalism-as-a-metaphor-for-desire shit probably. anyway

vampires in the buffyverse dont have souls (there are some exceptions) but spike, even without one, decides to better himself for buffy. and eventually not even to be with her, but just for her. he protects her when she doesnt know it and he doesnt get anything out of it. he protects people she loves because he knows it would hurt her if they got hurt.

he may not be human but his humanity is astounding. anyway, there are definitely slip ups, and writing choices i dont really like, but eventually he decides to make himself something buffy could really love, he decides to go through the excruciating process of getting a soul

and he comes back with his soul suffering bouts of guilt-ridden male hysteria. love to see it. (hes also being haunted kinda) he delivers this one monologue in a church about his soul and guilt and forgiveness which ends with him embracing a cross that seers his flesh. most iconic scene, i memorized it also. for funsies.

then theres this whole sleeper agent murder thing and he thinks hes beyond saving but buffy wont give up on him and her faith in him helps him make it through. in the end, they have moments of reconciliation and spike never believes that she actually loves him but her caring for him at all is good enough

anyway. hes just a really fun guy. theres a lot to him. his characterization can be comedic, passionate, heart wrenching. he contains multitudes. he contains soooo many issues too, i want to study him under a microscope <3 but yeah. i love this weird little vampire from my shows

#hehe #thanks for the ask ilyyyy <33333

[toytulini]

the cycle of me realizing over and over i dont know how to make Ellie a good villain

#toy txt post #ocs #like as in i dont know what her motivation is beyond some like personal issues with Birdie #i dont knkw what she says her motivation is. but she is supposed to be birdies big antagonist but its a STRUGGLE bc everything is hollow and #empty rn bc i dont have a good motivation for her! and briefly i thought i had something in like. her being anti-science anti-hybrid magic #but i dont know how to make that WORK exactly w the magic systems i have so far #and i also dont know to what extant that would be like how far do i take that? #does she believe in medicine? is she an anti-vaxxer? does she still believe in miasma theory? fucking humoral?? that doesnt work for me #esp bc i kinda want the witch community to he Ahead of humans at least a little in figuring out like. germ theory etc. we took way too long #with that yknow? i want Birdie already doing Genetic Modification Mad Science Magic in her basement in the victorian era at the latest #i was joking awhile ago in the group chat the Ellie would technically be anti vax for her personally. but if you put her near anti vaxxers #she'll destroy them in seconds. and 2020 shouldve made this EASIER bc like we've all seen now. the bullshit that ppl will believe despite it #making no sense despite it being contradictory to their other beliefs despite it being hypocritical like it should be easier than ever to #make a villain who believes hypocritical contradictory dumb shit and yet. i cant. im struggling #what does Ellie want? she wants to politically take over the witch council. for one #why does she want that? to change things. (BUT WHAT THINGS??) frustration with how slow it is? and to specifically usurp Birdie. #turn them all against Birdie. have birdie exiled and put to death (well. she'll try. shes just making a deadly escape room) #why does she want to turn them against Birdie? she feels wronged by Birdie and is definitely projecting a whole lot of shit onto Birdie #for Birdie refusing to continue to teach her after finding out her views on Something. she Scared Birdie. Birdie had already been reluctant #to take on any pupils and she took a chance on Ellie after Ellie kept begging her to mentor her. and she regrets it #and at some point Ellie starts revealing ideologies that disturb Birdie. originally this was going tk be her extremist puritanical views on #magic. a vehement hatred for hybrid magic which she doesnt know/understand yet that birdie practices hybrid magic a lot #and Birdie gives up on her. she cannot keep teaching her. she hates the hybrid magic. and so she essentially abandons Ellie #and then Ellie latches onto that and projects a whole lot of shit onto Birdie. she hates birdie so much and wants to defeat her and destroy #her. but theres still a part of Ellie that wants Birdie's approval. which only makes her angrier and more unhinged when she tries to make a #creature like birdies creatures. and birdie is horrified by it. bc siiyr was not made well. she is created of suffering and pain and its bad #and i just. theres so much missing from ellie. there's so much there with her passion and feelings and shit. but #in terms of motivation. she feels Empty. not even like a proper fake motivation. bc i want her to have that too. it was originally her real #thing. that Birdie rejected her for. and then after birdie rejected her she Uses whatever that ideology is to get ppl to follow her. #and then at the end the world is in shambles bc of Ellie. whatever she does. its catastrophic. and she didnt predict it. she wasnt prepared

[antiloreolympus]

5 Anti LO Asks

1. I get why they wouldn't do it but Webtoons should put a cap on how many episodes a comic can have, because Rachel is obvs going to drag LO in the 300s and beyond at this point, which is just not good writing when so little has actually moved along. If they said she was only allowed at most 150 episodes then she'd be forced to cut the excess and really put focus on what needs to be told/developed, not letting her shove in what seems like 12 different comic ideas into one.

2. The character design is so lazy that people act like it's "pushing the boundaries" that Leto has black eyes. Like what?? That's just Hera with different eyes? Then there's Daphne being a Persephone rip off, Athena is just Hades in gray, Thanatos is Hades in white, like?? How lazy can you be with this? At least give them some interesting clothes?

3. i know this would verge right into "woman dies for man pain" territory but there is some debate leuce was originally hades' first wife and when she died thats why he went so long without finding another one because he was so upset over her passing. then again she's a nymph and rachel has some weird hard on against "lower class" women so she'd never allow that

4. I feel like LO ran right into the same issue of other series do where the wrtier thinks they're smart for making the series Mature™️ by trying to bring up real world issues (classism, capitalism, slavery, etc) but because they also want a rich person fantasy who benefits from these injustices they end up in a dumb middle ground of trying to justify their rich asshole characters and how the injustices are actually a good thing. Rachel your talent isnt in writing please dont overcomplicate it more

5. Yknow, I think I’d like Persephone a lot more if she was a bitch. Imagine if she took advantage of Hades’ special treatment of her, and flaunted the fact that he was in love with her—all for her own gain. She could still be naive, but not in the childlike way she is, rather she doesn’t understand the dangerous game she’s playing by taking advantage of the literal king of the Underworld. I just think something like that would be way more interesting than her current personality & motives. 

#anti lo #anti lore olympus #lore olympus critical #lo critical

[ethernetchord]

lets talk: popular iwwv criticism

(disclaimer: i know criticism is subjective and thats why im doing this, i wanna look at some common points made against iwwv and dissect them just a little bit in the opposite direction. also none of this is directed at any individual- it’s all based on the general talking points i’ve seen surrounding the book.)

SPOILER WARNING !!

lack of exploration into james and oliver (+ gay characters feel performative)

i’ve seen loads of people say that oliver and james’ relationship felt very performative, a way of including the queer romnce which clearly is very important to the plot but not actually giving it any space in the novel, nor developing it to the same extent which meredith/oliver was.

oliver and meredith had a very strictly physical relationship and while he did love her, he wasn’t in love with her the way he was with james. the juxtaposition in the way that oliver/james is delivered and the way meredith/oliver is delivered is, i believe, far too repetitive to not be intentional. i actually realised upon re-reading how much focus there really is on meredith’s sexuality, even in subtleties in the book. meredith and oliver get more blatant sex scenes, get more physical parts because oliver was (to an extent) using his attraction to meredith to distract himself from his infatuation with james.

we also have to remember that oliver and james didn’t get their real moment of honesty about their relationship till extremely late into the book. i’d honestly see it as more ‘performative’ to then after or in the middle of kind lear throwing in some wild sex scene between the two. it wouldn't have fit.

“why didn’t james and oliver get together earlier then >:(((“ because the slow burn between them, the subtext, the subtle-ness, the yearning, they were all crucial to the decision which oliver made at the end. the fact that they burned so bright for each other but (oliver particularly) were so desperately repressed, that was what made this such a tragic romance. yes its tiring to read stories about queer people being repressed, yes its tiring to see the bury your gays trope. but like oliver says, it goes beyond gender.

if oliver’s second love interest was a girl, and treated this way, we’d be a lot more on board with these tropes- but the fact that james is a man, and this therefor becomes a queer relationship, makes it feel performative. i can’t convince you of anything- but i like to believe that their relationship being treated like this not only makes it so much more “heart wrenching because why! why couldn’t it work out, why couldn’t it be better!” - not because its a queer relationship but because they were soulmates.

alexander wasn’t performative. not in the slightest, rio just didn’t make being gay his entire identity. same goes for colin. just because they’re queer doesn’t mean it needs to be the only thing about them. this isn’t a lgbt novel- characters dont have to be gay just for plot. they can just be gay.

i’ve also seen people complain about not just making oliver bisexual. guys. did you read the book? he was bisexual. he was emotionally and physically attracted to both meredith and james. guys that’s literally what bisexual means.

i'm totally on board with the coming out scenes! and realisation of feelings and all that stuff- but again, not an lgbt centric novel and also- these were things oliver probably did and realised far before this book. remember that its set in 4th year, at an art school. he knew he was fruity ok. not every queer character in every queer book have to have these grandious coming out scenes or realisations. the lack there of doesn’t equal performance.

the ending was rushed and bad

believe what you will, but i don’t think james is dead. there’s a little too much ambiguity in that ending, in the extract he leaves oliver, in the “his body was never found.” so if your main quarrel with the ending is that “bury your gays” situation- please know there’s a chance- and that giving it that chance opens up so much more discussion and reader response.

yes, the ending is sad. but it’s not rushed. “but that is how a tragedy like ours or king lears breaks your heart- by making you believe the ending might still be happy until the very last second.” doing king lear, doing macbeth, doing romeo and juliet, the plays are chosen not only for reader convenience (they’re plays readers will most likely be familiar with) but also because they all, so very deeply, foreshadow a “bad” ending. killing james, makes sense. as much as people don’t want to hear it, from an authorial perspective- from the reader’s perspective and as a human being it makes sense. why do keep arguing that he “should’ve stayed alive for oliver” or that “if he really loved oliver he wouldn’t have done it” - why are we limiting a character’s entire existence down to their love interest. yes, they were best friends, yes they were set up as lovers but that doesn’t mean that that would be enough to keep james around. james was a fragile character- he was always checking with oliver if he had upset him, he was always worried, overthinking, james wasn’t strong minded- and he was suffering. the only person he had left to depend on was in prison, he was plagued with the guilt of causing the death of a classmate and letting oliver take the blame, if he did kill himself, it sure as hell doesn’t have any reason to sound forced.

“its not nearly as good as the secret history!!!!”

to be honest here buds, why the fuck do we keep comparing them so insistently. they are not the same book. iwwv wasn’t trying to be tsh 2.0, yes there are similarities because hey! guess what! books in similar genres tend to do that! always comparing it tsh when they have different motives, different plots and vastly different execution makes no sense. the only reason that they are compared is because tumblrtm dark academics like to group the two together. and yea- makes sense, but stop trying to belittle iwwv because it isn't as grandiose as tsh, because it’s a little more literal, because it’s not as intertextual as tsh. half the people saying iwwv isn’t as good as tsh are practically just subtly going “shakespeare isn’t as complicated as ancient greek huehue” stop forcing the two together and let them be separately appreciated.

the characters were flat/archetypes/etc

sigh. okay.

these characters are actors. this book shows us their transition from themselves entirely into a conjunction of the roles they’ve played and the stereotypes they’ve portrayed.

“we were so easily manipulated - confusion made a masterpiece of us.”

“for us, everything was a performance”

“imagine having all your own thoughts and feelings tangled up with all the thoughts and feelings of a whole other person. it can be hard, sometimes, to sort out which is which.”

“far too many times i had asked myself whether art was imitating life or if it was the other way around”

“it’s easier now to be romeo, or macbeth, or brutus, or edmund. someone else.”

are you seeing it now? this focus on their archetypes, this focus on the character they are; the way they see themselves not merely as human but as a walking concoction of every character they have turned into and out of. they depend on their archetypes to give them meaning. rio uses these archetypes to remind us of the submersion of her characters. they weren’t flat, their intentional lack of dimension due to their pasts is what makes them so intricate. furthermore, there's an evident subversion- the tyrant becomes a victim, the hero becomes a villain (they all become villains really), the ingenue becomes corrupted. like mentioned before, i think we forget ourselves easily reading this book but there is a great deal of emphasis on this being their last year- which is so important. the damage has been done and a lot of the issues people have with the content (or lack thereof) in this book has to do with the fact that it’s all things that would have occurred in books focusing on previous years at delletcher.

“it didn't live up to expectation” (also leading on from read tsh to this and being ‘disappointed’)

i cant argue this because its entirely subjective. whatever expectation was created for you, i cannot know that and appropriately respond however- if you liked the secret history and understood the secret history then there's a good chance you also liked and understood this book- even if not to the same extent but you must be able to recognize the authorial approach and its significance. i think a lot of ppl read iwwv (and a lot of “dark academia” texts and films) and hope to be able to romanticize the aesthetic or the concepts and then are disappointed when they are presented with mildly unlikeable and overwhelmingly human characters who aren’t easy to romanticize.

a great majority of these books are criticisms of the very culture you’re trying to romanticize, and the only time you’re willing to admit that is when boasting about the ‘self-awareness’ of the people indulging in them, and then a moment later complain about those same qualities because they don’t serve this idealized expectation.

bad rep for arts/liberal arts/ humanities students as being pretentious/cultish

as a humanities student with a great love for eng lit- all of these things are indeed pretentious and cultish. not all the time and not always and not every person- but it is a common theme. academia is overwhelmingly obsessive and extremely white-washed. people become so fast to believe that they are indulging in finer arts and are therefore a higher standard of person. academia is problematic. and the recent influx of people interested in it is good, very good because hopefully, we’ll be more diverse, more open-minded, more accepting. that's what i hope at least. if you know, as an individual, that you’re not a pretentious academic who places themselves above non-academics then that's wonderful- but there are dangers and negative sides to academia that need to be understood so that we can see to not perpetuating them.

i cant refute all points, mostly because there's a lot of good and well-explained criticism because no book is perfect. and my intentions are not to belittle anyone's opinion. these are merely opposing arguments, food for thought and to be fair- a critical look into why not everything is always going to be what we expect of it and why every ‘problem’ can be assessed.

#iwwv #if we were villains #iwwv critism #book review #tsh #dark academia #fanart

[larrythefloridaman]

Y'all like your deities with or without the shell?

Under the readmore is aaaaaaaaall color god observations and musings based on them, because I am studying to become the world's Premiere Chromatheologian and RGB Understander so under the cut is pretty much Oops! All Spoilers! up to the most recent episode of season 3.

Apparently Universal Color God Attributes:

Damage to their domain hurts them, but fixing the issue, or lashing out by using their powers destructively, can help them to repair the damage.

If they sustain enough damage, it can temporarily paralyze them and send them into a strengthened but 'exposed' state (chartreuse's spirit activation in the last fight of 19) and further damage after that will activate a failsafe, which is unique by domain but seemingly designed to give them the chance to balance things, but can get… very out of hand or backfire depending on circumstances. (see: cobalt’s failsafe sending mark's universe into a never-ending apocalyptic war because word of the cure for death became too widespread for the killing urge failsafe to affectively balance anything because every side could simply revive their fallen.)

Chartreuse's failsafe is something of a stopped time bubble quarantine where processes that require the passing of time cannot complete, allowing her the time to wear down the offending party to beat them to death or plan around finishing them.

Cobalt's is inciting war, the casualties serving to balance the scale. I'm not sure we know Crimson's yet- he's never taken enough direct damage without doing damage to compensate in order to trigger it, although i dont remember season one well enough to recall if any of the universe stuff in it tracks with the pattern bc season one is a bit fucky

Connected in a fashion that allows them to simply Sense the overall status of the others to some extent, although they don't know Why theyre in the state theyre in without asking (chartreuse [and by extension, folk, presumably on her information] confronting crimson via crimsonaut for pretending to be dead, Cobalt confronting both his siblings about how they are handling their duties improperly but not knowing about Folk. He knew about the constants deaths because hes a death god, duh, but he didnt use their names like crimson did, possibly implying they're erased upon death so thoroughly that only crimson and the constants can really recall a shattered constants' existence, not even the other guardians.)

Abilities of the guardians can be replicated by mortals through three apparent methods- through machines (dimensional bus, the time machine, presumably J0hn's part in Sephiroth's resurrection,) simply through advanced enough individual skill (Home MD curing death, potentially Dantoinette's universe portal travel, maybe Genwun's sped up time bubble that evolved them into Genfour? although that could very well have just been an illusion and theyre just like, a fuckin theater kid that was doing pretend character development for the Bit or something given GenFive turned out to be a zoroark) or through stealing some of the power of the relevant god (Dr. Order stealing Chartreuse's power, Dani maybe having stolen some of Crimson's when she beat his ass. Dani's one woman universal travel is like, wicked ambiguous)

Cobalt:

Can seemingly perceive or act through any living material. (The Tree. Cobalt instructed Larry to slap his hand on that tree, that shit glowed and he had a new deal tattoo without Cobalt ever having been physically present)

Can influence the resurrected by giving them a killing urge. Represented by an aberrant brainwave and a ringing in the undead's heads. This doesnt appear to be direct control- as the Grunk could clearly restrain himself from killing people that genuinely didn't deserve it (like nightly and cha cha, who WERE grunk event targets but not fatally so. Nagito was a crimson thing so it really doesn't count here. God poor grunk his life really is just a constant plaything in the hands of the gods huh) and Sephiroth very much had personal motivation to want to kill Folk. failsafe activates this ability on the scale of war.

Deals. The extent of what Cobalt can do with these is unclear but Iggy's god powers were taken from him as his part in the deal so what he can take isn't limited to physical things or things obviously related to his domain.

Weaknesses:

Deals. While this ability is impressive his preference for making deals for those that offend against his domain is potentially very exploitable- Larry's knowledge of the cure for death is, if word of it were to ever get out beyond Larry, wildly dangerous for this dimension, so technically the safest thing for the iron-fisted cobalt to do would be to nip the problem in the bud and get rid of him. But, fascinatingly, that wasn't even put on the table, the first thing Cobalt does is threaten J0hn, prompting Larry to make a deal. While Cobalt enforces death, he also doesn't like unnecessary death, and Larry demonstrably knows how to keep a secret for the good of the world even at great cost to himself and Cobalt is aware of this- easily clarifying to Larry the aberrant thing endangering the universe wasn't his timeloop business. So while he's clearly not letting his resurrection fuckery go unpunished, he's being pretty merciful when he doesn't have to be and from a strictly, brutally pragmatic perspective probably shouldn't be.

His control over the undead manifests as a ringing and an aberrant brainwave trackable by J0hn's equipment, and could probably therefore be accounted for and circumvented? J0hn has, wisely, largely sworn off fucking with people's brains after the sephiroth fiasco went So Wrong, So Very Wrong, Oh God Oh Fuck Someone Cool Almost Died, but if he hadn't, and if J0hn let his dislike for authority and keeping Larry safe outweigh reason like he let safety, spite and comedic value outweigh good ethical sense when reprogramming sephiroth, in theory Mr. 'hacked a time machine for breakfast?' could. y'know. probably do it. what is a god's authority to an anarchist, what better to challenge life and death than the cold and eternal machine, you get the point its a fun scenario

Olive Garden Breadsticks and Small Cute Dogs, apparently

Chartreuse's:

Time Clones: taps into parallel timelines to retrieve alternate versions of herself to utilize.

Time Travel: what it says on the tin. Travel to the past creates painful splits in the prime timeline, but through careful action and traveling back into the past, these can be weaved into a time loop. A split from the timeline is a wound, and a successful timeloop is the surgical scar it can become with attentive care, to use a medical metaphor. Carefully closed and healing. Keeping Folk here is essentially akin to chartreuse pulling out her stitches on the initial incision.

Time Stopping: creates a space wherein things that take time to complete cannot complete, where things can move, but everything within is in a perfect unchanging stasis until the bubble drops. This is the form her failsafe takes.

Timeline Creation: can create timelines from scratch.

Can fuse alternate timeline versions of the same individual to allow them to coexist. (Ryan's confirmed in the discord that Dantoinette experienced both failures in 20, because Chartreuse fused the two instances of her to save the post-raid instance from fading. Could... theoretically do this to Folk and save herself the pain, but while Folk and Therapuppy are the same person, there's seven years and untold amounts of difference deriving from the time and circumstance between them and the inherent cognitive dissonances that would result from attempting that would be wicked fucked up to inflict, and that's assuming there isn't some reason that it wouldn't be possible anyway. while the two Danis had like. A day or so's difference between them, so she could be safely fused with the only dissonant thing being that she remembers both being too slow to prevent order's time escape and beginning to dissipate post-raid, AND losing that fight to her pre-raid. RIP Dani, that perfectionism must be kicking her ass)

Weaknesses:

Unwilling to use her powers destructively in her pursuit of domain repair and thereby much easier to damage to the point of paralyzing her, making her particularly vulnerable to Power Theft

Morally Optimistic. At one point in 19, she briefly justifies Crimson's shitty evil actions to herself after experiencing for herself how Wack the kerfuffleverse is firsthand, ("and all he did was kill a couple people!" Chartreuse. Honey.) and when she fights Crimsonaut she seems to actually believe for a second that he's actually worried about her when Crimson asks if she's okay after he beats her. Additionally, as D+, she concerns herself with trying to understand doctor order's motive, and after Larry defeats Order, he makes a point of confirming she feels no remorse before making his request for what Chartreuse does with her, and appeals to the idea of letting Order fulfill her desire to be a god in a way which isn't a problem for anyone and Chartreuse is more than happy to oblige under these conditions after what Larry's done for everybody. Then immediately threatens to evaporate him for playfully teasing her about having a crush on folk. Fucked up a little bit

Crimson's:

Universe Shifting: Travel between universes.

Universe Correction: appears to replace an aberrant individual with the 'correct' version of themselves for that universe, presumably sending them back to their own. (Mario from super mario was universe corrected, but still seemingly exists in wario form as evidenced by smashup kerfuffle, and was simply temporarily replaced with his corrected universe counterpart. But like. The dimensional bus system is still active crimbo doing the Put That Thing Back Where It Came From Or So Help Me routine aint gonna work if they can come back with a shrug and bus fare. you're fighting the symptoms without treating the problem)

Universal Constants:

Three individuals per universe that serve as the pillars which stabilize said universe, created by absorbing red orbs Crimson creates. Becoming a constant grants power, but also makes the constant fragile, and death wipes them from the face of the multiverse, only crimson, those he's possessed and the other constants seemingly able to recall they ever existed, although some physical evidence is still left behind (Larry's record of Nagito's death, which is just as redacted as everything else relating to him but still is very much something Larry has. Kind of a Voidfish adventurezone type beat ironically enough? Taako really has seen all this shit before no wonder he peaced tf out)

To counterbalance the weaknesses the constants have, they have a sort of spidey-sense to alert them to danger, and an intrinsic bonded connection to their fellow constants, and additionally, Crimson apparently doesn't suffer any pain from the death of constants or the structural instability of a universe.

Possession: what it says on the tin! Seemingly can only be done with permission to living things- none of crimson's direct hosts seem to have entered that agreement unwillingly, Valentine lost a bet, Hamburger and Crimsonaut have been by all evidence intentional allies to Crimson- but electronics are fair game, as seen with The Guy's suit. Kinda curious how that rule applies to bitches that are half and half, like J0hn or the clonebot gang, as its unclear whether The Guy's suit was yoinkable without permission because it was mechanical or because its not sentient. could go either way but if it's the former that's potentially very frightening

Fusion: Two individuals from alternate universes can be fused into one shared body which can take on aspects of either depending on which is currently in control. (possibly allows someone who traveled into a given universe to become a fixed resident there without it being an issue for Crimson, whose job is to prevent interdimensional travel?) Monday Mark and possibly T.O.M. are our main examples.

Corruption:

Unpleasant As Hell and can even kill you instead of changing you if you cant handle it.

turns the corrupted individual into a twisted exaggeration of themself, allows them supernatural control over their shape, and makes them very difficult- if not impossible by traditional means- to kill, based on Garfield.

Subjects them to control by Crimson, but can be exorcised of this influence just like crimson's direct hosts can, although the supernatural changes to their physiology are seemingly permanent, judging from Shantae.

Notable Weaknesses:

Exorcism can be performed to free a possessed or corrupted individual of Crimson's influence. Its unclear how exorcism works/is learned in CPUK, but confirmed exorcists: dantoinette and yung papaya's snake dad, confirmed non-exorcists: folk

The universal constant orbs are physical objects so they are Very Stealable and they grant a power boost so theres literally an Incentive to beat his ass for anybody who wants to be strong and either doesnt know or doesn't care about the whole 'getting erased when you die' part

Crimson has lots of tools to create pawns, but all of them have drawbacks. Corruption could kill a potential pawn, possession generally seems to require permission, and he has no control over the constants' choices and actions

Manipulative bitch's highest stat is charisma and it shows. This motherfucker is selling snake oil. If he was mortal rather than a Whole Entire God he'd make an excellent ineffectual saturday morning cartoon supervillain and i think everyone, including him, would be happier for it, ngl

Something interesting ive realized that likely wasnt fully intentional, is that a lot of Dr. Order's creations, considering her motive, can kind of be sorted by a color god it appears to be a crude attempt at mimicking the abilities of. My Grunk is a poorly executed resurrection, the clonebot gang vs chartreuse's timeclones (this one deserves special mention because Chartreuse used this shitty attempted mimicry to her advantage with D+, very smart and ironic play, excellent job Treusy,) spirits are somewhat similar to universal constant orbs (orbs which can be absorbed to grant power, but which have physical repercussions- key differences being that spirits require activation and grow stronger while attuning to a user without being used, and having far less severe drawbacks, taking a heavy toll on the body, but only once they've worn off and without the risk of wiping yourself from the face of existence,) and she also augmented Perfect Spriteman and Larry, which kind of track as crude imitations of Crimson's corruption!

Garfield was an acerbic cat who loved food and hated mondays, now its an actively malicious ever-hungry amorphous entity whose only weakness is monday and whose only consistency in form is 'cat-like.'

Shantae was (to my extremely limited understanding of shantae,) a friendly heroic type who had to introduce herself often, and she became something akin to a biblically accurate angel that can *only* introduce herself.

The Grunks a tough but sweet and supportive single dad with stage presence and a tendency to fly off the handle when he or his family are slighted, and now he gets so hype in the audience when his son does well that he bursts into flames and ascends and we get random grunk events along with the associated murder charges when he gets mad and the target sucks enough that he doesn't hold himself back from killing them.

Perfect Spriteman and Larry fit the trend of exaggeration of already present traits- Spriteman fucking loves sprite and became something that only thinks about sprite, and Larry the Florida Man, characterized from minute one by unpredictability and who spent his first matches in the series pre-shapeshifter transformation staying alive keeping stocks for Shockingly Long even despite getting seventh, became literally physically random as well as developing the ability to regenerate, albeit with the ability to feel pain normally very much intact, unlike Garfield just... Soaking up damage like its nothing in his pursuit of Jon. The fact that Arbuckle legit defeated Garfield, even temporarily, is terrifyingly impressive honestly that dude is fucking built different for being so chronically bland

i dont think they're actually corrupted in any meaningful way we have to worry about, to be fully clear, Spriteman was cured with fucking antacids, i simply think they could be a fucked up attempt at making something that kind of seems like it from a functional standpoint, from the wannabe god doctor that brought us green clones whose only fundamental association with time was accelerated aging and who thought an actively rotting corpse thats just reanimated enough that it can throw hands was as good as curing death

#cpu kerfuffle #cpuk cobalt #cpuk chartreuse #cpuk crimson #im like. 80% all this info is correct but im not feeling up to rewatching matches to doublecheck rn ngl asdsfgfghgfhfgsdf #will probably edit with fixes if im misremembering smthn later

[raveneira]

Warning: Anti KawaSumi post, if you dont wanna see it then keep scrolling, I cannot make it anymore clear. If you read it anyway thats your own fault so dont complain to me about it, you’ve been warned.

Honestly? if you hate KawaSara because of what he possibly does in the future, thats valid, its perfectly fine to feel that way, some ppl dont like chaotic ships and prefers something vanilla which is perfectly fine, the friends to enemies to lovers trope is not for you.

But if you ship KawaSumi and make excuses for why suddenly what he does in the future is ok, thats when you lose all validity. That is not valid, thats blatant hypocrisy.

Last I checked Sumire lives in Konoha too, and her dream is to support the village, the very village and dream Kawaki potentially destroys in the future, which is a HUGE and MAIN reason yall say you hate KawaSara and find it disgusting but with Sumire its ok? so Kawaki potentially killing Sarada’s friends and family is a huge no-no unforgiveable and irredeemable and would ruin her character but him potentially killing Sumire’s friends is perfectly ok and forgivable and doesnt ruin her character? gtf outta here.

Your telling me Sumire will be ok with Kawaki destroying her dream?

Your telling me Sumire will be ok with Kawaki possibly killing her friends she was so grateful to have? Fun fact, Sumire never had friends prior to coming to Konoha.

Sumire is now back in Konoha doing work with Katasuke, you telling me she’ll be ok with Kawaki destroying the village shes currently living in?

You telling me Sumire will be ok with Kawaki fighting Boruto? the one she loves? the one who saved her and gave her hope that she could change and be a better person as well as have friends? the only one who saw through her facade and knew who she truly was? and protected her despite what she was trying to do? hell no.

You think just because Sumire also tried to destroy the village that means she’ll automatically be ok with it if Kawaki does? their reasoning behind their attempts are entirely different. Sumire didnt WANT to destroy the village it was her fathers will and she just went along with it because of her own resentments for how the village treated her and her family. Kawaki actually WANTS this to happen and is trying to end the age of shinobi, which Sumire is still considered to be.

Tell me why would Sumire empathize with that? HOW can she empathize with that? shes never harbored any anger towards Shinobi or its system, she was just bitter towards the village because of her own personal family situation. Kawakis motives from what we know go way beyond just family issues, Kawaki is trying to take down an entire system possibly for ideological reasons, Sumire was just after revenge, the two couldnt be more different.

Even if you overlook that, Sumire attempted to destroy the village for revenge, but she has REGRETTED it ever since coming to her senses and has gone above and beyond to atone and better herself and went from wanting destroy the village, to wanting to support the village.

Why do yall think Sumire, who regrets her past mistakes, would suddenly just side with Kawaki and understand him? BORUTO doesnt even understand him at that point based on what he says, he never saw Kawaki going this far coming, but somehow Sumire will just be super understanding of all this? gtf outta here man.

You cant have it both ways, if you think Sumire can/will forgive him despite what he does then so can Sarada, if you think Sarada could never forgive him for what he does than neither can Sumire.

PICK. A. SIDE. AND. STICK. TO. IT.

#boruto #boruto anime #boruto next generations #to clarify this isnt me defending ksu #just pointing out the hypocrisy of all the arguments of why sarada couldnt and shouldnt forgive him #but its A-okay and totally possible for Sumire too and absolutely does no harm to her character whatsoever #like pick a side and stick to it #hes either irredeemable and unforgiveable or not #stop trying to have it both ways #if sumire can forgive him and still love him than so can sarada #stop trying to make this different when it isnt

[siswritesyanderes]

This is a series of asks bc, while I do LIKE all the charas of Fantastic Beasts individually, much of the romantic pairings dont sit well with me. By that mean the messy love polygon w Newt & I think I finally figured out why & I'd like another's opinion on it. For starters, Newt's attraction with Tina is too fast for me considering he was friends w Leta, got expelled out of Hogwarts for Leta, carried Leta's photo in his case, & basically loved her for YEARS. But this is all undone by a [1]

jaunt in NY having met a woman, who he admittedly went on a huge adventure w, over the course of maybe a few weeks. He's so taken w her she replaces Leta's photo w her own &, after refusing to go to Paris for Dumbledore, leaves immediately once he finds out she's there. I just find this unbelievable. I can rationalize it from Newt's perspective where Tina is a fresh breeze sweeping into his life on (percieved) unrequited pining, but this is my conjecture based on my understanding of Newt. [2]

The audience shouldnt be left to rationalize endgame couple of the mc on their own. & the whole thing w Leta is so messily handled I dont think they can save it even if they bring her back in FB3. How she feels for Newt vs Theseus & unresolved lingering affection, etc. She & Newt were SO important to each other & we SEE that & they dont HAVE to get together, but they need proper resolution bc they have actual history between them. God Leta in general deserved so much better. [3]

But my main gripe is that this love polygon serves no purpose to what I believe is the main selling point of FB: the world. HP having love stories makes sense bc we're following the story of a boy as he goes through adolescence & his journey through that via school is part of that, which is why the romance feels fitting. It's a very personal story. FB on the otherhand is the best peak we have at the wider wizarding world beyond school. HP introduces the world of magic, but FB rlly expands it [4]

To that end Jakob & Queenie's relationship is the only one I find myself liking, bc it's deeply tied to the world setting, the series' biggest selling point (in my opinion, should have said this earlier). It underscores the attitudes of the period & the conflict they face feels suitably substantial & not like filler. There's a moral question between them of are they worth it? And how far should they go to be together?

Imma be real hear & say FB2 was rlly Queenie's movie & they should have been ballsy & just make Queenie the mc for FB2, bc her story was actually considerably more important to the overall development of the story than Newt's, which mostly came off as a rushed & a tad clichè soap drama. & making it about Queenie I think builds more room for good conflict & independent narrative for Tina that would serve her chara better. [5? 6?]

If I bad to be REAL ballsy, I'd say my big issue w/ the relationships in the FB series & how it enhances or impedes the main story & what I believe to be it's biggest attracter (the setting) could have been solved if they made Newt's romantic interest a muggle. It attaches a deeper meaning & relevance to them & the story so it felt more deeply that they truly moved WITH the narrative rather than beside it but I guess Im just picky. Thx for putting up w this! [Final]

(My response below the cut.)

Yeah, pretty much all of this is right.

Regarding the Tina thing, it was definitely rushed, especially since there was literally nothing romantic between them in the whole first movie, except maybe the end part where they're stumbling over their words. Despite knowing how movies work and knowing that they were the male and female lead, I still found that completely out of left field, because they don't really share any interests and I didn't feel like they felt anything in particular for each other before that. She really wants to be an auror and feels really intensely about it; he just wants to travel the world and write about magical creatures and take care of them. I don't see a lot of compatibility there, and the movie didn't really do anything to reconcile that gap.

Jacob and Queenie made sense, because they actually sowed some seeds for it. It's not even about the fact that they both like to cook; they showed an interest in each other throughout. They noticeably like each other. Newt and Tina never really had that, to me, so it was bizarre for her to become his primary motivation in the second movie.

Queenie's trajectory in movie 2 overall bothers me, so while I agree it would have been better if they'd centered it more around her, I definitely think they needed to drastically rewrite pretty much everything she did. Enchanting Jacob at the beginning never sat well with me; I usually only have to say this in the Descendants fandom, but if one half of the ship is magical and the other half isn't, we can't have the magical one enchanting the non-magical one for romantic reasons without addressing what a violation of trust that is. Like, Jacob would be justified for never trusting her again, over that. Also, the fact that she apparently holds it against people if they think bad things about her is not something I would expect from someone who has been a Legilimens as long as she has, and not a detail I like, at all. Especially since it was used to give her justification to be mad at Jacob after she enchanted him in the first place. I find it sad, because Queenie was definitely my favorite character in the first movie. (Also, joining Grindelwald was a nonsensical thing to do. I can only assume she's there to spy on him or something, because it makes literally no sense.)

As for Leta, I really don't like how that was approached. First of all, I don't like how their mention of her in the first movie was "She was a taker; you need a giver," because once we actually met the character, that only made me resent Queenie for representing her that way. Leta deserved better in pretty much every way, and they definitely shouldn't have killed her off like that. I find the whole situation really iffy from a racial standpoint. The first black character to be written three-dimensionally in all of HP lore, and they make sure to preemptively tell the audience that she's a "taker", kill her in the same movie we meet her, and manage to trivialize her death by turning it into a little "Who was she saying 'I love you' to?" mystery. I like her relationship with Newt and Theseus, and I'd definitely want to see more of it.

Yes, it definitely would have been better, thematically, if they'd made the love interest a Muggle. (I'd honestly say they should've paired Newt with Jacob, but I know they're unwilling to do that. That would be kind of cool, though, to see the movie shaping up with two male characters and two female characters and have the men end up with each other and the women just live their lives as humans.)

With the story they ended up telling, though, I don't think that is needed; since Queenie is already dealing with the wizard/Muggle storyline, Newt could have a different conflict. Maybe his love interest should be a werewolf or something, to tie in the wizarding world's unresolved dislike for "half-breeds". And if he were in a relationship with someone already regarded as a creature, the wider wizarding world might take a different view to his studies and look down on him a lot more. Idk, a thought.

And then, with Leta/Theseus and Grindelwald/Dumbledore (if they were willing to actually deal with that), they'd pretty much hit every controversial beat they've got: wizard/Muggle, wizard/"half-breed", interracial, homosexual. Credence and Nagini are both creatures, kind of, but I still like them together, so their relationship doesn't have to tie into any theme; it just has to be developed way more.

On the whole, Crimes of Grindelwald felt like they skipped a movie. It feels like they needed a middle installment to make these relationships happen, instead of jumping from "Do Newt and Tina maybe have feelings for each other?" to "Newt loves Tina and Tina is possessive enough of Newt to be outwardly upset with him when she thinks he's engaged to someone else," and creating a whole relationship between Credence and Nagini that we see none of.

The fact that Queenie and Jacob were done well in the first movie gives me a fair amount of goodwill for them, but that goodwill only offers enough cushioning from the botching that movie 2 did that I'm near-indifferent to the ship, now, instead of actively opposed. I'd like to see things improved, but as it currently stands, I'd be just as happy seeing them end up not together as together. The fact that Leta's relationships with Newt and Theseus were more interesting than any of the aforementioned makes it that much more ridiculous that they killed her. What ship am I supposed to care about how? If I can't go into the next movie delusionally hoping Newt and Leta will get some moments, or enjoying the Theseus and Leta content, then I'll just be sitting there waiting for Credence and Nagini to share a screen, and who knows when that'll happen?

#long post #fantastic beasts and where to find them #crimes of grindelwald #newt scamander #leta lestrange #theseus scamander #jacob kowalski #queenie goldstein #tina goldstein #credence barebone #nagini

[uncloseted]

there's a part of me that still thinksa bortion is murder. i act like i support it to fit in but deep down i dont. please just listen. i think forcing someone to go through a pregnagncy they don't want is inhuman but it also feels inhuman to kill a baby and i dont like thsi idea that if youre 4 weeks pregnant and you want it its a baby but if youre 4 week pregnant and dont want it then its just a clump of cells thats just not how scence works. so theres this woman who was forced to get an .

Anonymous asked:

abortion and she was 6 months pregnant and apparently th baby waws born alive but it died shortly after from ashpyxia and i just dont know what to think. i know forcing smeone to get an abortion is just as bad as forcing them to give birth and that theres no such thing as a six month abortion and at least wher e i live abortions are only available until week 14 but like wwhat if someone is 15 or 16 weeks or 7 months, do they not have a choice anymore? please dont think im a bigot im not im so

Anonymous asked:

sorry i just dont want to be brainwashed by ANYONE, pro life or pro choice and im just so easily influenceable i just want to support whats right you know

No worries at all! I don't think you're a bigot and I'm glad that you want to engage with this issue critically. I'm happy to give you the facts as they stand and offer you my perspective on the issue. Apologies in advance that this is a bit long, but please try to stick with me until the end! All of this is important in understanding the different sides of this discussion.

There are a few main categories I want to talk about in this answer: legal, science, politics, and culture. For now, I'm going to avoid delving into any religious or metaphysical questions about what is and isn't considered "a person", since while those conversations are interesting, I don't think they're particularly useful in the context of discussions about abortion. As Harry Blackmun wrote in the court opinion for Roe v. Wade, "we need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate."

Legality

Starting with legal issues, there are a few points I think it's important to make in order to get a sense of how we relate to abortion. Abortions are legal in 98% of countries. 34% of countries, including the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand most European countries, and China, allow abortions on the basis of a the pregnant person's request, without needing to prove that there is risk to life, risk to health, risk to the fetus, economic or social reasons that abortion is a necessity, or extenuating circumstances (such as the pregnancy being a product of rape or incest). The vast majority (93%) of countries with highly restrictive abortion laws, such as outlawing abortion except in cases where the pregnant person is endangered, are in developing regions. There are five countries that completely outlaw abortion. These are: Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Malta, Nicaragua, and the Vatican City, all countries where the Catholic church has significant influence.

Of the countries that do allow abortion, there is always a limit on how far into a pregnancy a person can be when they choose to terminate. Beyond that limit, the person doesn't have a choice anymore, and must carry the pregnancy to term (except in extenuating circumstances). The most common limit is 12 weeks (3 months), although some countries allow abortion up to the point of "viability", where the fetus can live outside the mother's womb with artificial aid. Typically, the point of viability is around 24 weeks (6 months). In the US, 87% of abortions are performed before 12 weeks, and 92.2% were performed at 13 weeks or fewer. For reference, pregnancies are typically around 40 weeks long.

Forced abortion is illegal in almost every country, including the US and the UK, and it is considered an act of violence against women. It is just as bad as forcing someone to give birth, which is why all countries do their best to prevent it from happening. While forced abortions can and do happen, particularly to victims of sex trafficking, I think the solution to this issue is to put policies into place that protect vulnerable women, instead of trying to ban abortion entirely.

Science

So, most countries allow abortions up to 12 weeks. What does that actually look like in terms of the fetus? Here's a timeline of fetal stages of growth:

Weeks 1-4: at this stage, the "baby" is actually an embryo. It starts out as just a fertilized egg. The amniotic sac forms around it, and the placenta develops. The eyes, mouth, lower jaw, and throat are in very early development. Blood cells are taking shape. By the end of week 4, the embryo is smaller than a grain of rice. It is very literally "just a clump of cells" at this point.

Weeks 5-9: the "baby" is still an embryo. Its facial features begin to develop, folds of skin that will eventually become ears grow, tiny buds that will eventually grow into arms and legs form, the neural tube, digestive tract, and sensory organs all begin to develop. Bone starts to replace cartilage. At about 6 weeks, a heart beat can be detected. After week 8, the baby is considered a fetus instead of an embryo, at which point the fetus is about one inch long.

Weeks 9-12: the fetus' arms, hands, fingers, feet, and toes are fully formed. It may be able to open and close its fists and mouth. Ears are formed, and its reproductive organs begin to develop. By the end of week 12, the fetus has all of their organs and limbs, and their circulatory and urinary systems are working, but everything needs to continue to develop in order to become functional. At the end of week 12, the fetus is about 4 inches long.

It is important to know that the miscarriage rate is highest in the first trimester (before week 12). Among women who know they're pregnant (typically further along than 6 or 7 weeks), 10-20% will miscarry. 30%-50% of all fertilized eggs miscarry.

Other important developmental markers include:

During month 4 (weeks 16-20), you can see the sex of the fetus.

During month 5 (weeks 20-24), the fetus starts moving around.

Between week 22 and week 24, brain waves appear in the cerebral cortex.

At week 24, the fetus may be able to survive if it is born prematurely, provided it has intensive care.

Somewhere between week 26 and week 30, the fetus may be able to feel pain, although we don't know that for sure.

A fetus is not capable of thinking, communicating, reasoning, self-motivation, feeling emotions, or consciousness. They don't have a concept of the self, and they don't know that they exist. They are essentially sedated for the entirety of the pregnancy. Since we use "brain death" as the primary criteria for death, it makes sense to me that we might consider "brain life" (the point where a fetus exhibits brain activity) as the point at which a fetus becomes a person.

While some people will refer to an embryo as a "baby" from the time they discover they're pregnant, scientifically, it is a clump of cells, whether that clump is allowed to continue to grow or not. It's not something we would recognize as a baby, or be able to interact with as if it were a baby. An embryo is a precursor to a baby, kind of like how a seed is a precursor to a plant.

Some other arguments

I want to quickly touch on some other arguments for abortion rights that people make. I'm not going to delve deeply into them, but it didn't feel right to leave them out entirely. These are arguments that don't depend on whether or not a fetus can be considered a person.

Bodily Rights

There are many situations in which we prioritize individual bodily rights over the right of someone else to live. For example, we don't force people to donate organs to people who are dying, even though a donated organ would save their life. Advocates for abortion rights argue that those same bodily rights should be extended to a pregnant person.

Deprivation

This argument usually looks something like, "but what if that fetus was going to cure cancer when it grew up!" Basically, it's saying that abortion is morally wrong because it deprives the fetus (and the world) of a valuable future. To me, this completely ignores the deprivation that already exists by forcing a person to carry and birth a baby they don't want, and potentially the deprivation that comes with raising that child. People who make this argument never seem to ask, "what if the pregnant person was going to cure cancer?"

Slippery Slope

Some people argue that normalizing and legalizing abortion may lead to people also accepting euthanasia. I am unconvinced by this for two reasons. 1. Slippery slope is a logical fallacy and 2. I absolutely do think we should legalize euthanasia for certain situations.

Religion

I don't want to dig too far into this one, but what I will say is that the US is a country that (at least nominally) has a separation of church and state, and the religious beliefs that other people hold should not infringe on a person's rights to make choices about their own life.

History and Politics

The practice of abortion itself is incredibly old. The Sanskrit epic Ramayana, which dates to the 7th century BCE, describes abortion being practiced by surgeons and barbers. In the Assyrian Code of Assura, circa 1075 BCE, a woman is allowed to procure an abortion except when it's against her husband's wishes. The first recorded evidence of induced abortion is from the Egyptian Ebers Papyrus in 1550 BCE. Japanese documents show records of induced abortion from as early as the 12th century, and it became more prevalent during the Edo period. It is considered to be unlikely that abortion was punished in Ancient Greece or ancient Rome. All major Jewish religious movements allow abortion in order to save the life or health of a pregnant woman, and often support abortion for other reasons as well. Christianity has a more complicated relationship to abortion, for reasons that I'll go into in a bit, but for now let's just note that there very much were ancient Christians who believed abortion was morally permissible at least some of the time. Before the 19th century CE, first-trimester abortion was widely practiced and was legal under common law throughout the English speaking world, including the US and UK.

The reason I bring all of this up is because the political debate over abortion isn't really that old, and the debate tends not to actually be about the morality of abortion as an act so much as it is a proxy for other issues. The first backlash against abortion in the English Speaking world was in the 19th century, and was a direct reaction to the women's rights movement, which was starting during that time. In the US, anti-abortion laws began to appear as early as the 1820s, but picked up in earnest by the late 1860s. These laws were introduced for many reasons, including the fact that abortions were being provided by untrained people who were not members of medical societies and concerns about the safety of abortifacients. By 1900, abortion was a felony in every US state, but they continued to become increasingly available. By the 1930s, licensed physicians performed an estimated 800,000 abortions a year.

Jumping forward a little bit, let's talk about the history of abortion in the US just before Roe v. Wade. It's estimated that in the 50s and 60s, between 200,000 to 1.2 million abortions were being performed per year, even though they were illegal. Throughout that same time, the second wave feminist movement was growing, and was increasingly advocating for birth control and liberalized abortion laws. As a reaction to second wave feminism, a number of anti-abortion organizations, primarily led by Catholic institutions, cropped up to mobilize against the legalization of abortion. It should be noted that, at the time, abortion was not an issue for evangelical Christian groups. In the 1960s, 17 states legalized abortion for a variety of different circumstances. Then in 1973, Roe v. Wade happens, ruling that a pregnant woman has the right to choose to have an abortion without excessive government restriction. The ruling was 7-2 in favor of legalizing abortion. Even after Roe v. Wade, Christian Evangelicals were neutral to positive on the ruling. It's only after 1980 that Evangelical Christians started to organize around abortion as a political issue and joined the Catholics to form what we now think of as the Christian Right. There's a lot to say about that and why that switch happened, but for the sake of brevity, just know that the evangelical backlash against legalized abortion in the US started not as a moral crusade, but as a way of convincing people to vote for Ronald Regan instead of Jimmy Carter (who wanted to de-segregate schools). No political debate happens in a vacuum, and it's important to understand what other factors might have been at play when looking at where these debates come from and how the sides formed.

Culture

Lastly, let's talk a little bit about the cultural impacts of banning or legalizing abortion. The right to have or not have a child is necessary in order for women to achieve equality with men. Countries with high gender equality, such as Iceland, Finland, Norway, New Zealand, and Sweden, also have easily accessible abortion options. Criminalization of abortion disproportionately impacts poor women and women of color, and does nothing to address the systemic issues that may cause them to require abortions in the first place.

Researchers from the WHO and University of Massachusetts found that banning abortion is an inefficient way to reduce abortion rates; in countries where abortions were restricted, the number of unintended pregnancies actually increased, and the proportion of unintended pregnancies ending in abortion also increased. When abortion is banned, women aren't not having abortions; they're having illegal abortions that are done unsafely.

There is also some evidence to suggest that legalized abortion actually decreases crime rates. 20 years after the legalization of abortion in the US, there was an unprecedented nationwide decline of the crime rate (including murders, incidentally). The drop in crime is thought by some to be a result of the fact that individuals who had a higher statistical probability of committing crimes (people who grew up as unwanted children in poverty) were not being born.

Which brings me to my next point- the majority of people who are "pro-life" (at least in the US) aren't really pro-life. They're pro-birth. If they were truly pro-life, they would be interested in making sure that all of those babies had their needs met after they're born. They would be interested in making sure those babies can lead long, healthy, safe, and productive lives. They would be for universal healthcare, expanded social safety nets, parental leave from jobs, universal basic income, raising the minimum wage, mandated vacation time, increasing funding for public schools, decriminalizing drugs, abolishing prisons or at least reforming the police. They would be against the death penalty (ironically, some of them are actually for the death penalty for women who have had abortions), and for increased access to birth control, comprehensive sex-ed in schools, increased gun legislation, against war and nuclear weapons, for enforced mask wearing to prevent people from needlessly dying from a global pandemic... but those issues don't factor into their "pro-life" stance. They're for "the baby gets born and then has to pull itself up by its bootstraps like the rest of us."

Closing Thoughts

Look. I'm not super jazzed about abortions. I understand how they can feel like an ethical issue. I think we should do what we can to reduce the number of abortions that are performed- teaching comprehensive sex-ed in schools, making birth control and emergency contraceptive options widely accessible, letting men know that reversible vasectomies are an option. I think we should make abortion easier to access, so those who do need it can make the decision early in the pregnancy. But I also think that it's a very personal decision, one that's irreversibly life altering, and the person who's going to experience the life altering event should be the one who decides what happens. 65 year old conservative, Christian white men who will never be pregnant (and frequently don't really know how the female body works) shouldn't get to make that decision for them. As someone for whom pregnancy would be life threatening, I want to know that I have options should that situation present itself someday.

[inorganicone2230]

okay so im sorry this is weird but i honestly really like that you wrote kai as wanting the reader to weigh a bit more. Ive never really been under or over weight, but (and this may just be because i work/study in the fashion industry and there's lots of unhealthy ideals i see adhered to) i feel like no matter what weight a person is, there's always some societal push to get people to lose weight. And its so prevalent in daily life that no matter what kind of media you're exposed to (newspaper, social media, tv/radio) there's always advertisements or celebrity endorsements that try to get people to believe that-even if they are perfectly healthy- they should strive to lose weight. I dont know quite how to explain it but i feel that conversations like these are what make dark content so interesting to explore and read about? Like obviously in reality it'd be beyond awful to have someone be as controlling as kai is with the reader's body. But at the same time, the idea of someone actively going against modern beauty standards (that are usually pro- weight loss),and still being perceived as beautiful- i dont know how to totally put it to words, but it's a detail that has kept me attached to this story since it first came up.

I am very sorry for the late reply on this, and thank you so much for this wonderful commentary! Besides my friend @talpup you are the first person to actually tell me that you were perfectly fine with this detail! ❤️

I totally understand where some people are coming from in regards to the way I’ve handled describing the Reader’s body, because I probably could have portrayed it in a better fashion. But I honestly can’t seem to think of a way to describe her as both skinny AND plus-sized at the same time in order to appeal to all variety of readers while still maintaining the fact that, regardless of her size, Kai would still find her to be very small and delicate, not without it constantly breaking up the momentum of the story anyway.

And as much as I know it’s going to piss some people off, the fact of the matter is that I’m not going to stop describing my Fem!Reader’s as small because, as I’ve stated in the past, I write these stories primarily for myself because I couldn’t find the content I wanted to read and I personally have a weirdly specific kink for this sort of thing. I appreciate all the love and support I get for them and it definitely is what motivates me to keep writing and posting, but the reality is that if people are going to choose to continue to read my stories, then they’re just going to have to deal with the way I choose to write them. I will always go back and change little things, like if I were to accidentally type that the Reader had pale skin, I would change it to (s/c), and so on so forth, but those are the only kinds of descriptive details I’m willing to go back and fix.

All I can say about the body type issue is that, from here on out, I will try to do my best to find a way to make it more inclusive while still continuing to detail it the way that I want to detail it and hopefully everyone can be respectful and understanding of that. 🥰

#ask response #anonymous #Purity #yandere!overhaul #fem!reader #yandere!overhaul x reader #body image #body posititivity #my personal preference #yandere bnha

[meg-noel-art]

I just had a thought regarding she ras ending and now I'm mad. Sorry fam need to rant for a sec. Also if ive sent you a similar ask before I'm very sorry I have bad memory.

So (and I could be remembering this wrong idk I refuse to watch s5 again) when Micah finally comes back from beast island and hes too late to see glimmer before she's beamed up by Horde Prime - is we get this weird like arc (sorta) with him and frosta trying to connect and I get it - Micah is trying to grapple with the fact that his daughter is now grown up / his wife is dead? (Or in an inescapable alternate dimension?) And frosta doesn't have an adult / parent figure in her life. And I get thematically what their trying to do and why but imagine how much more touching it would be if we actually got to see some interaction between glimmer and Micah before he was chipped.

Like their first interaction after x amount of years is when Micah is brainwashed (what a copout for drama + tension).

On Top Of THAT at the ending scene of the series we have like a 20 second "Hi I'm your dad!" Moment and then glimmer goes to hang out with the BFS and be all like "we're going to bring magic back to the universe!"

Meanwhile I'm sitting over here like "you just got your dad back??? You dont want to, oh I dont know, Spend Time With Him??? Before going off world?? Maybe you want to work out that grief over losing Angella?

We were robbed of that good father / daughter content is all I'm saying.

Yeah, I agree. I mean I'd say Micah, and the relationship between Micah and Glimmer, got about as mistreated as every other character and relationship in S5.

Was Angella even mentioned once in S5? If she was I can't remember, and that probably says enough about that.

Micah getting chipped, along with Scorpia and Mermista was really lazy as a writing choice because they were all characters that:

A.) Had personal conflict to work out with Catra

B.) Unresolved plot lines (Micah)

I don't think he and Glimmer should have been cool right off the bat (that's why I don't like their reunion scene either) -- they absolutely should have gotten the weird arc they gave Micah and Frosta, to Micah and Glimmer.

For what little we know of the show's own lore (which is a whole other issue but whatever) Micah "died" when Glimmer was very young. She could have hardly known him, and even if they were close -- she's obviously not the same person she was as a child.

Beyond that, I would have been very excited to see a conflicted relationship between them. Glimmer has been afflicted her whole life by the loss of her father. It influenced her disdain for the Horde, her will to fight in the war, and her tension with Angella.

It would have been fascinating seeing her struggle with the concept of having a long lost parent back, but maybe resenting him for 'leaving' in the first place, or the struggle of WANTING to be close to him, but not even KNOWING who he is.

Micah was also implied to have been 'losing it' a little on Beast Island, not knowing how to behave correctly around Adora and Bow -- extending that to how he behaved around Glimmer -- just... NOT knowing how to BE would have been great to see.

Really, there was no chance of this though.

S5 had very little breathing room for ANY characters. SPOP s5 suffered from a bunch of the same issues TRoS did. Which is, mainly, that the plot just happens because the writers need it to. Not because any of the character motivations lead it there. Or lead it there believably. A character may make a bit of plot happen even if it makes no sense for them to influence it that way. That's still a writer bending the story to make the plot what they want. A to Z and skip all the other letters, as it were.

Which is bad writing, plain and simple.

Glimmer and Micah were never going to get a nuanced character study like this, although I wish sincerely that they had.

Father/daughter relationships arent often explored with the nuance I think they should be in media. Especially considering many young kids HAVE a lot of struggles with fucked up father figures (and I speak from my own experience.)

Idk, ultimately spops issue was using the backdrop and drama and trauma of a war to tell a story with ultimately no relation TO that issue and it shows when a lot of these complex ideas and potential dynamics get dropped or get a band aid solution or just aren't approached at all.

This is definitely a frustrating aspect of the show.

Ultimately, I think, the worst thing a series can do is make you feel dumb for ever being excited for it. And I often do feel like a fool for expecting a lot of things that I saw as a natural resolution....or just, how WRITING works. 🤷‍♀️

#yeah #long winded response for 'i agree' #it's just another victim of spops tone issue #salt #spop salt #asks #micah #glimmer #s5 #spop critical #strawberrypincushion #i hate that i liked this show man