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utilitycaster · 11 months

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Also like, people ignore the fact that, given how Laudna was chased away for several years, it's to be expected that she would keep a few things close to her chest, such as romantic/platonic feelings toward another person, also it's kind of to be expected that Laudna would have feelings toward Imogen and not wanting to admit them or to compartmentalize them

Also i saw a couple "Marisha admitted to being in love with Imogen is 4SD" as if Marisha's perspective of Laudna's feelings won't be different from how Laudna expressed them? Insane behavior lmao

(Anon that talked about 4SD )

Last ask wasnt me saying Imodna is for sure happening, i have my own perspective on how their relationship is and would like to be, but it's more me ranting about how part of the fandom has this idea that they know how another persons character should act on without giving a second thought about the why they do?

Idk if im explaining myself lmao, it's been a couple of tiresome weeks and as a bit of an Imodna petty hater, instead of being like "Huh? That's interesting" like i would normally with other stuff i am a petty hater about (cough, cough-Molly-cough), i just roll my eyes and sigh already expecting the fandom reaction being as annoying as they have been

Like also, Laudna knows Bor'dor for less than a week, she is not going to say much about it, this isn't a romcom

-----

Hey anon,

So breaking this down:

I actually don’t think it’s automatic that Laudna wouldn’t admit to romantic feelings! It’s definitely on the table that she’s suppressing or denying romantic feelings, but I’m really hesitant to make any assumptions, and I happen to be very interested in the case where Laudna’s telling the simple truth.

I will say I haven’t seen that comment regarding 4SD nor do I know what they’re even referring to; the only thing I can think of that Marisha’s said on 4SD that would be out of place for a very close friendship is the recent lightning titties joke and I personally am chalking that up to Marisha thinking it’s cool, not necessarily Laudna, though it’s ambiguous.

I do agree that the crux of why I’ve actively disliked this ship rather than being neutral - since in a vacuum with no fandom contact, I think I'd just be apathetic - has been that there is such a narrow and monolithic fanon that doesn’t really match the characters as they actually have been acting in canon, created by a fandom which attacks anything that deviates. Again - it’s interesting to consider why Imogen, who has a complicated relationship with her father, is so willing to prioritize either the mother she’s known about for a month and a half, or her own comfort and power, over her party members, including Laudna. I don’t enjoy that people react with such hostility towards exploration of that topic simply because it upsets their personal desires. I’ve also been frustrated by yes, the reduction of a story that’s not inherently a romance into nothing more than that, and the reduction of guest actors to “outsider who exists to ask Imogen about Laudna or Laudna about Imogen” instead of “person with their own rich life.”

I guess what I’m saying here is I share a lot of your frustrations about people jumping to conclusions and building up a cherrypicked fanon that will throw anyone - including Imogen and Laudna, or Laura and Marisha - under the bus, and blowing one relationship out of more than twenty out of proportion, but that’s been a problem basically from the start of the campaign, so this is just more of the same. But it also feels like you’re saying “I think Laudna is hiding her feelings for one of a number of (very feasible) reasons” and I’m of the opinion that while that’s absolutely possible, it’s more fun to me to consider the situation in which she is being honest.

#answered #Anonymous #critical role spoilers

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coldtomyflash · 3 years

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Thank you for answering ! I did finish the fic and chapter 3 does a great job of establishing Snart's history with his soulmark, but it's also specific to that fic ? Like it's an explanation for how he came to feel that way about his soulmate in the context on that particular fic, I was wondering more about what it was about their canon characterization that made you decide this was how they both would react to finding out they were soulmates in the first place.

hmmm i didn’t come at it that way and i think therein lies the disconnect with what you’re asking and how i’m able to answer.

i didn’t start with “what would barry be like if he met his soulmate” or “what would len do if he met his soulmate” in a way that started from canon and then extended to a new setting.

i mean i sort of did, in that i went “what if they were soulmates” then went “len is a dramatic ho who would think that bank robberies and heists are the right way to woo his beloved and barry would be progressively more annoyed with this bullshit” then went “oh nevermind let’s take that idea but make it angst”

but in many ways i couldn’t start perfectly linearly from canon because i was started in a world that exists just to the left of canon. the way soulmates are setup in that world makes everything just sightly different, and i had to take that into consideration.

so while i started with “haha what if len was a total brat” (much like i always start with tbh), the crux of the story’s starting point was the shape of the soulmate bond, the bleed. i’m a hopeless romantic who loves the idea of soulmates but i get stuck on worldbuilding details. soulmate AUs with the “first words” or “see in colour when you meet your mate” really leave me wanting more because -- what the heck would society even look like if that were the case and what are the millions of ways it would be different?

so the bleed was baked in from the beginning, from before the beginning, half because there was a post that went around about “what if barry and len accidentally got psychically bonded thanks to a meta”. so psychic bonds and soulmates, that’s the setup.

then i dropped barry and len into that setup -- into that alternate universe i’d made with all its societal backdrop. and i knew i was writing for angst, and i knew i wanted it to be messy and complicated. i wish i could say that i sat down and was like “okay so if barry were soulmates with len here’s how he’d react” but i didn’t. instead i sat down and said “i’m making a story where barry and len are going to be bonded with an emotional bleed and they’re going to be soulmates and it’s going to cause problems.” and i implicitly knew i wanted to explore themes related to separation, expectation, and identity navigation.

so why was barry the one who pulled away, and len the one who wanted to bond? in part because it just seemed a lot more interesting to me, and i’d already written stories where barry is the one who is “all in” and len is the one who is reluctant to commit.

i also felt it very true to len’s character from a “i’m a thief” standpoint that he’d be a bit greedy/possessive over someone who the universe has literally said is supposed to be his, in part due to his past and how much he keeps people at arm’s length (but how obviously he thaws for the people he does let close). len might not want to open up or commit or be emotionally vulnerable under normal circumstances, but this is a sort of ‘sure thing’ in his mind, at least at the outset before that faith is shaken.

barry though - barry was tricky, actually. i did have to figure out that if the central romantic conflict was going to be him pulling away -- why?

if he was on board with it quite then it would be a much shorter story. i knew he would plausibly balk at being soulmates with len at the outset, but barry is a forgiving and kind person, so realistically how/why might he pull away?

so of course they bonded in/under terrible circumstances. that was like - step 1. otherwise, if len had been like “oh should we bond” and barry agreed, then there would be a lot of cognitive dissonance involved that would make barry retroactively justify his agreement to bond by interpreting it as being because he wants to be close to len. so i had to take barry’s choice away, and then realistically i think he’d react negatively because that’s overwhelming and the whole thing was a mess and very confronting.

but i also -

there’s this line from season 1 when he first asks Len for help, right before he goes to the bar. the thing that gives barry the idea to ask len, when he’s talking to joe at the precinct. “we only break the rules to help people”

it tells you so much about how barry sees the world. so. much. i could unpack that for days. and it’s wild that he immediately thinks about len as a result of breaking the rules for somewhat noble reasons???? just - what???

but barry sees himself as the good guy. it’s fundamental to his worldview in this really really huge way. and what we know about self-concept is that very close others become enmeshed/embedded into our self-concept: our partners literally become included in how we see ourselves.

if you see yourself as the good guy, and that is fundamental to your identity and worldview and necessary for you to be psychologically healthy because you’ve made it a cornerstone of your self-concept.... how the hell do you respond when a giant fucking grenade lands right in the middle of that self-perception and says “actually part of your self-concept now involves kidnapping, tormenting, and torturing your friends, also killing a dude just to test the cold-gun, also a lifetime of theft and murder, also betrayal can’t forget that sweet sting of betrayal.”

barry coming to len over time in his own way is one thing. barry having len bond with him as a soulmate out of the blue is about the biggest psychological threat possible. it’s threatening his sense of self, his worldview, the structure of his self-concept, his expectations for himself (which are too damn high, he has to save everyone, he ‘has to try’) and leads him to believe that others he loves will be disappointed in him or reject him for this because len has hurt them, and because barry is disappointed in himself for wanted to connect with len, with his soulmate, despite all the harm he’s caused.

as soon as that clicked for me, as soon as i put it in context of barry’s self-concept, everything kind of flowed from there really really easily.

i was overly ambitious in writing that out though i think because most people, barry included, don’t introspect a lot about the structure of their self-concept, and don’t have the language related to social psychology to articulate what it means to be psychologically threatened. so he doesn’t really understand his own reactions and why they’re so visceral, and when he does he’s lying to himself about how much of it is coming from the fact that he wants len and wants to be with len but he’s upset with himself for how deep he wants that because the absolutely massive guilt he experiences because of it.

aaaand all that brings me to pointing out that the obvious resolution there is having barry’s loved ones find out about len and accept len as part of barry’s life and show that these people aren’t rejecting barry for being with len. if/when that’s the case, barry is able to more authentically work through all this shit. but because of how they bonded and how goddamn secretive his is (canonically) about personal shit, he decided to hide his bond with len, which meant he wasn’t able to deal with literally any of this during the first several chapters and all of it compounded and magnified until it reached it’s first breaking point.

whew - okay that was a wall of text sorry not sorry i hope this helps answer your question but it probably just complicated things a lot.

#Anonymous #aatjs #redhead vs. writing #soulmate aus #aus #coldflash #psychology

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buddha-in-disguise · 4 years

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Discourse, Supergirl and fans.

The Supergirl situation with William Dey, is far more than about William Dey per se.

I touched on this when I first posted about David Harewood.

What I have seen, and I am still seeing is while some SuperCorp fans were annoyed about the preview for episode 12, this was also coming from a diverse section of the fandom. That David (and others) have singled out the SuperCorp fandom is both unfair, and unhelpful. But that is a different discussion altogether.

So - I am going to repeat and expand on some of what I wrote at the time to try and explain why I, (and others) have found Supergirl to be really problematic at the moment.

First of all: There is no doubt Supergirl currently has a diverse cast, inc. LGBTQ representation.

However, all the diversity in the world means absolutely nothing if a program is seemingly only playing lip service to the characters.

Compare and contrast with Legends of tomorrow. They have 6 women. 2 Muslim superheroes (a TV first). 5 characters are LGBTQ, including Charlie; who is recognised as gender fluid. 4 people of colour. The lead is a woman, who is bisexual, in a canon relationship with a lesbian, and is a superhero.

They do this without it being made a big deal of, enjoyed by LGBTQ and heterosexual audience alike. But it is a huge deal for many because of that diversity, and just as importantly they haven't overloaded the cast numbers, so they all get good solid storylines through a season. A season that is also shorter than Supergirl.

Legends are an example of how you can put in a diverse minority cast, without it becoming forced or cumbersome. It isn't without fault sure, but no program is.

So where is Supergirl going wrong at the moment?

Let's use William, as the crux of the problems are best shown with his character, but it isn't limited to him. I will put first - this is absolutely *not* a criticism towards Staz Nair, who I respect (& like, as far as one can from limited SM interaction). All too often the accusations are made that if you don't like a character, you hate the actor. That is categorically not true for me, nor others I've seen posting about this. Of course if anyone does hate on the actor, that is not okay.

So, back to William. I get the reason he came along in regards to Russell and so the Andrea connection. That story made sense. What hasn't made sense - William being used as a journalist, when Nia is right there! Nia has barely had any screen time, and virtually none as a journalist; you know - her actual job. I'm not sure what the minutes on screen ratio has been this season between the two, but it has felt completely slanted towards William as a viewer, at least until now.

First instead of Kara and Nia investigating Leviathan after William was 'exposed' in the earlier episodes, now Nia is sidelined again, because they want Kara to team up with William to investigate Lex.

Why? Why do they need that journalistic pairing, when Nia - who as a Superhero, is better placed if danger from Lex occurs. But no, they're making it about Kara having to work with William because Lex threatened to kill him. Plus Nia was being mentored by Kara. Is she no longer being mentored by Kara? Are they a team? Even if the mentoring has ended, Nia is still not being utilised as a journalist.

I am utterly baffled as to why they feel this arc makes any sense. Moreso when an already established character gets sidelined.

I'm also getting tired of seeing anyone who sees these valid opinions about current storyline as being trolls (or the comments all SuperCorp fans are just outright haters. No - SuperCorp fans are a large diverse group, that have incredible artists, fanfic writers, and social media users. Many also multi-ship. To place a blanket statement about a whole fandom as large as SC, is hateful. All fandoms have some who are problematic, but to single out an entire group is not right).

So back to my thoughts. An episode can have some great aspects to it, but it can also be highly problematic to some fans, & receive valid criticism or valid opinions for it. For example, the latest episode of Batwoman. The Alice/Beth story was great. The acting superb. What I found worrying was the way they made Sophie feel guilty for legitimate reasons why she had led a closeted lifestyle. That lifestyle is valid, for Sophie and many LGBTQ people, and for good reason, including keeping some people safe from harm. I felt it was a clumsy attempt for Alice to get into Sophie's mind; it could've been tackled other ways, so it felt wrong they used her sexuality as a way to achieve that. Being closeted for many literally keeps them alive. So that was one hell of a poor choice in my opinion. Yet others have made perfectly credible counter arguments that it showed the difficulties faced by many LGBTQ people. So, great episode, valid criticism/opinion from both points of view. It also highlights you can have excellent episodes, but they can have legitimate issues.

Nor does differences of opinion, as long as it is respectful, makes those voicing them a bully, no matter how much you disagree.

At the end of this, if you don’t agree, and your opinion makes you say something that is intentionally hurtful (directly or indirectly to a person or group of people), it's a bad thing. The key word being intentionally. We all make mistakes, and responses that could've been better, & we all need to be aware of that, but if it is an intended attack, don't be surprised if others call you out for your behaviour.

So now what in regards Supergirl?

I know ultimately that this show is about Supergirl, but it is also about those around her as family & friends. I understand there are only so many minutes in one episode. What I don't understand is why those precious minutes are going to a character, when they have one perfectly placed to do the same role. Why they have to potentially explore another relationship, when we have one canon relationship, one canon on/off again relationship & one relationship that while isn't canon in terms of romantic, it is a big story in terms of best friends, all seemingly sidelined. Which brings me to the Kara fighting for Lena's soul aspect. Again, I am not seeing a lot of fighting for anything, except more and more fans fighting themselves and cast.

Then you just need to look at the dislikes that teaser was given on YouTube, and compare them to previous ones. I've attached screenshots to show this.

A serious misjudgment was made by someone on how that teaser would be received, and again I will stress, this dislike hasn't just been from one area of fandom, but multiple areas. For many it wasn't just about William, but the culmination of unease that has built for a few episodes. A prime example of the straw that broke the camel's back. If you are solely focused on one area of fandom for this discourse (as many blame SuperCorp fans), you need to step back and recognise you are not allowing yourself to see the whole picture. To focus solely on one thing, rather than acknowledging the wider audience are saying this, does not make you the better fan. To dismiss it as trolls, is being dismissive of good, regular fans with legitimate questions or concerns. It is insulting to many of us.

I will be honest, I had high hopes for this season. I also knew it was likely going to be pretty confusing at times since it was given as 'our Black mirror season' and 'nothing is as it seems.' I accepted that.

However, all it seems at the moment is a jumbled mess from pre and post Crisis. They just doesn't appear to be any cohesion at all, which is making it really difficult as a viewer. Add in the changes post Crisis and it feels even more of a mess.

Of course, they could bring in more cohesive elements soon, but considering that we know episode 13 is 'It's a wonderful life,' and Alex Danvers in a later episode is wearing a Super suit - I just sense this whole 'nothing is as it seems' side we appear to be getting isn't changing any time soon, & with episodes running out, with so many strings running through at the moment, it feels really discombomulated. If by seasons end, they pull it off and you can look back and see how it's played out as a whole, I will be the first to say well done for that part.

I do though think right now Supergirl feels chaotic beyond expectation, and no end in sight. I feel there have been too many character additions this season (particularly Andrea & William) that is taking screen time away from Kara, Alex, Nia, Lena, Kelly et al.

It feels like a mess of unnecessary pairings and the crux of the story seems to have been lost in the midst.

That is causing confusion for fans, that is also beginning to become frustration. That frustration is spilling over. Add in the genuine and extremely legitimate concerns over the LGBTQ issues that have arisen (again from far more than just SuperCorp fans), and the frustration has built even more.

I can only hope the next couple of episodes address some of this and not complicate the mess further.

Whatever happens, Supergirl is not doing well in terms of a storyline that is gripping for fans, that is now top heavy with regulars, taking screen time from established characters, and a social media blunder that has so far only exacerbated the simmering uncertainty being felt by many.

It might improve, and I sincerely hope it does, but they are edging into the potential for the anger felt by fans to become an all out riot if they don't stop and see where valid criticism is being given. If this season continues on in this vein, then there is going to be huge swathes of fans drifting away. The concerns are legitimate. I wish it could be seen as that.

#supergirl #lgbtq #supercorp #gay #dansen #alex danvers #kelly olsen #nia nal #nicole maines #chyler leigh #azie tesfai

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offbeatcappuccino · 3 years

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Do You Like Brahms? Final Review (Spoilers!)

Cast: Kim Min Jae, Park Eun Bin, Park Ji Hyun, Kim Seong Chul

Streaming Platform: KOCOWA TV

Year: 2020

Rating : 8.9/10

Synopsis:

Do You Like Brahms? is a drama set against the backdrop of the field of classical music in Korea. The story revolves around two protagonists Park Joon Young (Kim Min Jae) , a talented piano prodigy, who’s won numerous accolades at various global piano competitions, and Chae Song Ah ( Park Eun Bin) , a business major who decided to repeat four years of undergrad to major in violin. Their stories intersect when Joon Young decides to return to Korea for a sabbatical after his successful North American tour and Song Ah chooses to take an internship at the Kyunghoo Cultural Foundation, the same foundation which offered its first scholarship to Joon Young to help support his musical studies. The growing relationship between the two characters and the conflicts that they face with their friends and families as they struggle to succeed professionally, but also personally forms the crux of the plot.

The title of the drama Do You Like Brahms? has a lot of significance to the actual plot of the show. Johannes Brahms was an accomplished German composer and the most famous story about this personal life is his unwavering love for Clara Schuman, the wife of another famous composer, Robert Schuman. The title is significant in the drama because Brahms is the only composer that Joon Young outright refuses to play, but also because both Joon Young’s life and to a certain extent Song Ah’s as well parallel Brahms’ own life.

Pros:

Realistic & Healthy Relationships: Almost all the romantic relationships that I’ve seen in all the dramas I watched this year all had some sort of “fate” element that brought them together. For instance, in It’s Okay to Not Be Okay, Ko Mun Yeong and Moon Gang Tae were acquainted with each other as children, but then drifted apart after Ko Mun Yeong practically spooked the living daylight out of Gang Tae. However, In Do You Like Brahms, both Park Joon Young and Chae Song Ah meet by random chance and its really heartwarming to see their relationships progress in the same way that it does for many people. They start out as acquaintances at work, who quickly become friends, before committing to a serious relationship towards the later half of the series. Seeing them at all three stages is truly heartwarming and comforting, especially due to the strong chemistry shared between the two leads.

Unlike other characters in other k-dramas, Joon Young and Song Ah aren’t dramatic in the way they show their affection to each other. We don’t have some crazy scene where one saves the other’s life or even the typical k-drama piggyback scene that happens whenever the female lead gets too drunk. Rather, we see scenes where affection is conveyed by the way that Joon Young asks Song Ah if she’s done with class, or whether they want to grab dinner together. It’s the way that the very shy and timid Song Ah feels comfortable enough to pull Joon Young’s strings from time to time, or how she gifts Joon Young an umbrella because he doesn’t own one. Similarily, Joon Young shows how much he cares about Song Ah in the way that he uses the beige handkerchief hat she gave him to clean his piano or how his usual sad face lights up every single time he sees Song Ah’s smile.

Another aspect of Joon Young and Song Ah’s relationship that I truly admire is how good these two are at active listening. Even during their most explosive arguments, they never try to cut each other off and make a genuine attempt at listening to each other. When one of them is having a rough day, there isn’t this desperate attempt by the other to offer useless advice. Instead, they just let the other just vent as much as they want, while they’re sipping on another cup of tea. Even when things are rough, they constantly respect each other’s boundaries. However, the show also acknowledges that their relationship is not perfect by any means and its nice to see them work through their problems. Overall, it’s really nice to see a k-drama that doesn’t glorify toxic relationships.

Realistic and Nuanced Acting : A common problem that arises when you’re doing any type of drama based on playing an instrument is that very often a show will show an instrument being played the wrong way, or will rely on professional musicians as body doubles to play the instrument. As someone who played violin from the ages of 11-17, I can confirm that this drama does such a good job highlighting all the nuances that come with playing the violin, whether it be tuning your instrument , your string breaking, or even rubbing rosin against your bow, and even the sentiment surrounding being last chair in orchestra was really nice to see because you know the show writers really did their research when they decided to write the script for the drama. Also, major shout out to Park Eun Bin for her vibrato technique and I guess it helps that she played violin at the college level. Same goes for Kim Min Jae, who also knows how to play piano. Fun fact about the show is that many of the pieces played by the characters in the show were actually played by the actors themselves and they spent a considerable amount of time brushing up on their skills to play some pretty complicated pieces.

Cons:

Conflict: It doesn’t take long for viewers of the show to figure out that there are some serious obstacles in Joon Young and Song Ah’s relationship with one of them being Joon Young’s inability to prioritize and move on from his past. This is an issue that somewhat works itself out in this drama, but I think the other more serious issue for this couple was the very apparent disparity these two had in their professional lives.

One issue in this relationship was how insecure Song Ah felt because she was not an accomplished musician like Joon Young and was being constantly berated by those around her that she simply was not good enough to be Joon Young’s girlfriend. One of the major scenes in this show was Song Ah’s advisor straight up telling her that she would be a “good wife” to Joon Young by taking care of him before his performances and by doing so, completely invalidating Song Ah’s own professional dreams of becoming a violinist and her own journey in music. While Song Ah does ultimately quit the violin for valid reasons and ventures into the world of music management and event planning, it was somewhat disheartening to see that Song Ah really does end up doing exactly what her professor said she would and it was also disappointing that Song Ah and Joon Young did not ever really have a sincere discussion about this issue, especially considering the toll that it was taking on Song Ah’s life.

This brings me to one of the biggest cons of the show, which is that both Song Ah and Joon Young have serious issues in their life outside of their relationship, which they never confront individually or discuss with each other. In addition, the way the show is written, there is no room for resolution of these issues and we’re left with an ending that is sweet and romantic, but also feels like the show was wrapped up way too quickly.

Lee Jung Kyung: Most complaints about second leads on k-dramas is that they do not get a proper storyline and many viewers are left wanting more scenes of the second leads. The problem with this show is the exact opposite, which is that the second lead in this show has absolutely way too much screen time. Lee Jung Kyung is a poorly written character, who at many times comes off as whiny, self-absorbed, and irrational in her newfound infatuation with Joon Young. I understand that she’s supposed to be a source of conflict for the main couple, but so much of the plot was devoted to Lee Jung Kyung, when the writers could have been investing that time on Song Ah’s and Joon Young’s character development and conflict resolution.

#do you like brahms?#kim min jae #park eun bin #kdramas

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itsybitsylemonsqueezy · 3 years

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Hey, I’m here once again with the ranting (if you don’t mind)! I just finished playing Yakuza 5 and damn I have a lot of feels I want to share. When I was first introduced to the franchise, I thought that nothing could beat Zero for me, but here I am now, holding back my tears and thinking what a fine game 5 turned out to be! I really loved the bonds that characters formed along the way, it just felt so sincere and warm that my heart throbbed nearly at every dialogue Х) Like Saejima/Baba, Mirei/Haruka (and Akiyama too!), Shinada/Takasugi were absolutely delightful. And don’t get me started on the ending scene with Kiryu and his daughter. I fucking lost it there. So damn emotional and pure. And while I adore Zero for its majestic tragedy and fatalism, I also love the kind and inspiring atmosphere of 5. Of course, there were some flaws, like I didn’t find the main antagonist all that interesting (especially after Ryuji and Mine), but in the end I was ready to overlook it just because the heartwarming scenes between the characters were so well done. So yeah, for me it’s top tier along with Zero. What’s your personal opinion on the game (and your favorites in the series in general)?

Congrats! Oooooh, Game 5. I’ve got a lot of feels about Game 5 too ^^; It’s a real fav c: There’s an awful lot I love about it, but there’s one or two things that really stick in my craw. I’m not sure I could put it up with Zero, but it’s definitely a game I treasure c:

I find it interesting that your interpret Zero as fatalistic and 5 as inspiring. Zero definitely has a lot of high-key tragedy, but I think the fact that we come through the other side, that Kiryu doesn’t go into the ground with Tachibana, that Majima decides that even though he could be happy with Makoto, it isn’t what he wants, I find that really powerful and even hopeful. Not inspiring perhaps, the choices we all make in that game are crushingly hard and frequently we’re punished for things that aren’t our fault. But seeing Kiryu confront his potential for the first time and, perhaps for the last time, deciding he’s not afraid of it, that this is a mantle he can carry and do good with, really does things for me. And I’ve gone on at length before about how we ought to read Majima’s choice at the end as not sacrificial, not denial, but rather a choice of identity. What stopped him from going with Makoto isn’t fear for what it would do to her (though certainly those protective instincts are still alive and well), but rather a... with nothing holding him back, he would still choose the life he started. He could leave it all right here but... there are things he wants to do, not has to do, wants to do. And he makes the choice to be yakuza, to be the Mad Dog, crucially, before he sees Kiryu. He could leave it all behind, but then he wouldn’t be himself. He wants to be yakuza. And he couldn’t do that if he was with her. I think that’s really cool and really life-affirming.

Meanwhile 5... it’s hard for me to articulate what 5 is about because we have a bunch of different character arcs, some of which mesh quite nicely and some of which have nothing at all to do with each other. It’s probably best if I just break this down piece by piece ^^;

(spoilers follow for game 5 my little chili babies)

Kiryu’s arc, as I have articulated before, I fucking love in game 5. However, I do have my criticisms of it. In many ways, the conflict we’re facing in 5 is something that should have come up awhile back. But, even delayed, it is satisfying. It is satisfying to force Kiryu to confront his mistakes. It is satisfying to at least reach a turn on Kiryu, to have him decide that he wants to live and does feel worthy, even if it’s at the last possible second. Like, I interpret 5 as much more fatalistic because Kiryu’s dying in the snow in the middle of saying how he wants to come home to his daughter. Like... he may have finally gotten his revelation, but he was already in the middle of repeating the cycle. What would have been truly satisfying was to force him to live, to insist that he grow up and learn how to live with people because dying won’t fix it. This is a problem we’ve had since the beginning and have never really addressed. This was our chance to address it and it breaks my heart that game 5 comes so close and was going the right direction, but doesn’t quite give us that resolution that Kiryu’s going to continue his relationships and be okay now, that he isn’t going to back out this time. And if the creators had been brave they would have ended the fucking series here with that resolution. That’s SO OBVIOUSLY the main conflict in Kiryu’s plot and here, at last, we were finally fucking dealing with it and this SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE END. THIS WAS IT. THE ACTUAL FUCKING END, I- *breathes* Let me not derail this entire thing with game 6. Let’s just... never talk about game 6.

That said... one of the things I ADORE about game 5 is this is the clearest sense of motivation we’ve had since Kiwami 1. For the first time in FUCKING FOREVER character choices made sense! HALLE-FUCKING-LUJAH. I CANNOT TELL YOU what it did to me that it was Majima that got Kiryu into the game. I cannot tell you the breath of life it gave me, after all this fucking BULLSHIT, that the game came FUCKING HOME on the most important person to Kiryu is Majima. Daigo needs help? Kiryu can’t help. Haruka needs her dad? Kiryu can’t help. These are both mistakes, don’t get me wrong! Absolutely terrible decisions, but they make sense out of Kiryu’s depression, out of his fears and doubts and feelings of unworthiness, his guilt. He’s so caught up in “better off without me” and so scared and so guilty, he can’t answer people even when they ask for help. But Majima. He can’t turn away from. He hears Majima’s dead and Kiryu loses his goddamn mind. Because it’s his fault. Because he wasn’t there. Because he left him out there and now Majima’s dead. Kiryu asked him to do something and, for all Kiryu knows, Majima’s dead because of him. And... as much as Kiryu hates himself in this moment, as much as Kiryu is sure that it’s all his fault, he’s SO upset, he has to go help, he HAS to go fix it. Majima’s dead and with his last breath, Kiryu will make this fuckign right. He’s gotta try. Because Majima being dead is... unacceptable. He can’t handle it. I fucking love that. At long last, it felt like the same story I’d been watching from 1. At long fucking last, we got some fucking proof of Kiryu’s feelings. And for that alone, I love game 5. I’ve got some issues with it, but that was... vindication. Spent 3 games waffling and pretending we didn’t know him unless we’re literally in the same scene, but even Kiryu’s denial isn’t that strong. Majima’s dead and Kiryu can’t anymore. He’s gonna go there and, god help him, he’ll go into the ground with him. You look at that and tell me it was un-fucking-requited.

On that note, I just gotta gush for a second about that scene where the girl is naked in Kiryu’s apartment and Kiryu just ???? He’s not even “no thank you” he’s like PAINED. Like... she hugs him and Kiryu looks like he’s being fucking tortured! That is not the reaction of someone with even an iota of attraction to feminine bodies! This gay icon! Like, if you’d done that to Majima he would have been like “You’re pretty, babe, but I am Emotionally Unavailable” like the bi icon he is, like... you may not take her up on it, but you can still appreciate her or at least turn her down gracefully. But Kiryu out here doing his best to touch her as little as humanly fucking possible like’ he’s TERRIFIED. That’s not someone being overly polite, that was “cannot conceive of being attracted to this.” Just... this gay fucking dad. Holy christ.

Related GOTTA love Kiryu’s boss being “Hey, there’s a rumor going around that you’re gay! Any thoughts?” and Kiryu just “That Is A Thing People Ask Me” which is the EXACT RESPONSE of a queer person who doesn’t want to out themselves but also doesn’t want to lie. Game 5 fucking iconic for those 2 scenes alone, god bless.

Moving away from Kiryu for a second, although this game is VERY about Kiryu’s story, let’s talk about Saejima! Saejima FINALLY gets to come into his own as a character, we get to handle him properly as a character and not as a crux in Majima’s character development. I love the marked differences in how Kiryu and Saejima respond to Majima and handle him. I love that they fucking NAILED motivation here. That Kiryu and Majima mutually code romantic, that they both make batshit decisions because of each other, in that way that you do when you’re madly in love with someone. Meanwhile, Saejima loves his brother but isn’t in love with him. Saejima’s relationship with Majima is stable and trusting. He’s not losing his mind over Majima’s death because he trust him and knows him. If he’s dead, Saejima trusts that Majima did all he could and it was just his time. That’s why he’s not losing his mind, he’s resolved. He just wants to know what happened. And it’s this stability that really tells us who Saejima is and how he functions as a protag. His strength is his trust in others, which at times IS naive, but it’s also what turns Baba. It’s what keeps Saejima strong when Kiryu’s falling apart. It’s so cool to see a character who isn’t paranoid, who isn’t tore up with guilt, in this series with very complicated leads. Saejima is functional and necessary because he isn’t any of those things. He doesn’t get swept up in big emotional turmoil. He cuts through a lot of foibles that would have tripped up his brother or Kiryu and it’s just really refreshing to see and exciting to experience Saejima’s brand of problem solving. He’s not terribly clever and he’s not subtle, but he’s honest and sure that counts for A LOT in this series. Gotta love Saejima.

And, as I have gushed about before and will again, Baba. Baba. Saejima turning Baba hand me fucking ascending. Baba Known Whore Shigecki turning on a time because Saejima screams “Because we’re kyoudai!” I am LIVING. I love their relationship. I love that Baba’s a little shit. I love that he’s inexplicably a supermodel. I love that his constant vibe is “would like to choke til he cries on Saejima’s dick.” I love that Saejima has a gorgeous prison boyfriend. Well deserved! I love the idea of Baba getting integrated into the group. I need WAY more fic about him coming back to live with Saejima in Kamurocho and Saejima just has an ex-assassin boyfriend now and we all get to live with that. Ugggghhhh, bless. So good. No notes, no criticisms, just good.

Haruka was LONG overdue to be a protag, I’m so glad this game did it. But... pop idol? The thing she explicitly said in Kiwami 2 she didn’t want to be? *siiiigh* Like, I get that she can change her mind as she grows up and that that’s the Thing You Do with Japanese teenage girls, but... Imagine Martial Artist Haruka! Raised by the yakuza, surrounded her whole life by people with incredible fighting skills, who would gladly teach her self-defense. Imagine! Or even training her to become a yakuza! My wife and I joke about Seventh Chairman Sawamura Haruka, but imagine how satisfying that would have been! A whole Tojo dynasty of Kiryu’s kids! She’s so ripe for it! And I know the yakuza is a male-only organization but... c’mon, this is fiction and sexism is boring. I guess I can understand the creators unwillingness to depict violence against women, even if it’s being perpetrated by other women but uh... *eye twitch* game 5 is maybe not the BEST example of their... respecting women...

*screams into a pillow for several minutes* *breathes* *screams for another fifteen minutes* Okay... I uh... I um... can’t talk about Mirei Park without having an aneurysm. PLEASE skip this bullet point if you don’t want to read Mirei Hate. I just... I Hate Everything About Her And I Don’t Know Why She Fucking Exists. I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade and if you like Mirei, y’all welcome to feel how you feel but... she is the only thing I truly Hate about game 5. I just... leaving aside my personal feelings about the... Majima part of her story which we just... Won’t talk about... Leaving that aside... I don’t know why she’s here? She’s the person who convinces Kiryu to leave his children. She’s predatory, she took advantage of a vulnerable young girl to live out some personal dream? Like, sure, economic opportunity, independence, but we don’t get a lot of motive from Haruka that it IS her dream to be a pop idol. She has said in the past that’s not what she wants, she makes mention of doing this for the money to support her family, Mirei LITERALLY SAYS she wants Haruka to do the things she couldn’t, and ultimately Haruka asides not to do this anyway because she’d ratehr be home with her dad! So what was the FUCKING POINT of Mirei Park? Is she a villain? Is she sympathetic? What the fuck was I supposed to take from her? How the fuck am I supposed to read her? She tells this TRAUMATIC story off-hand to Haruka to... justify her decisions? Motivate Haruka? Dragging in another long-term character for no good reason and reframing how we have to think about said character. But then THIS NEVER COMES UP AGAIN. The information wasn’t even important! It’s just traumatic! If it was supposed to keep Haruka doing the pop idol thing, it didn’t work! Haruka still leaves! If this was meant to deepen our relationship to Mirei or complicate her or whatever, IT DOESN’T, SHE WAS LITERALLY DEAD THE NEXT SCENE. I just... WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED HERE?! What even the fuck was I supposed to do with any of this?! Leaving ASIDE my VERY intense feelings about what this did for Majima (for the sake of not going ogg Even More than I already am, I just won’t talk abotu it here), I just have no goddamn clue what the point of Mirei even was. She’s not useful to Haruka’s arc and she only serves in Kiryu’s arc to be a villain. We could have had Haruka leave home and decide in the end that Kiryu’s her dad and that’s where she wants to be a MILLION different ways, we could have done that MUCH more kindly and consistently with the rest of her character and values, but we don’t! We have this shitmess instead!

I’m really really sorry to anyone reading this who likes Mirei. You don’t have to agree with me! And I’m not trying to make you feel bad! I’m not trying to tell people how they should feel or what they should get out of the story. If you got something out of her, you related to her, you found her part in the story meaningful, that’s great! I’m genuinely glad that you did. I... didn’t. I have a lot of negative opinions about what happened. Usually I try to just not talk about it because I don’t want to ruin someone’s good time. I’m not here trying to start shit. So I apologize for my tone and I did try to put a warning before it and recommend it be skipped if it’s the sort of thing that would offend you. My Mirei rant is over now, I won’t talk about it again.

I have absolutely no idea why Akiyama is in this story, tbh? He contributed very little, but I’m glad Haruka got to hang out with someone cool and that one of her uncles was here watching out for her, since Majima was “dead” and Kiryu was in the middle of a personal crisis ^^; I love Akiyama, always happy to see him, but he really had nothing to do here ^^; I was sad for no Hana though 8C Wherever there is Akiyama, there must also be Hana!

Shinada... is adorable and actively injured the plot. I’m sorry, I just... no one ever talks about the fact that including Shinada in the story actively hurt it. I love him too! He’s an incredible idiot and very sweet, but why the fuck is he here? What did an ancient baseball cover up have to do with anything? This was the only way you could think of to put Daigo in the game again? Really??? And Daigo doesn’t even do very much here! So like... not really worth it. You could have had a whole substory of Daigo finding out what happened to Majima, fuck DAIGO COULD HAVE BEEN ONE OF THE PROTAGS. THERE’S A THOUGHT. We could have utilized, y’know, characters we already have, but no, instead we introduce this dumb fuck to do... what exactly? Oh right, beat up Baba AFTER HE HAD ALREADY DECIDED NOT TO SHOOT HARUKA! Like, YOU DIDN’T EVEN NEED SHINADA FOR THE THING YOU NEEDED HIM FOR. Saejima and Kiryu were enough of an influence on Baba to stop him! And that makes sense out of Baba’s character arc, since it’s about personal redemption and learning to be a person and his faith and love of Saejima, y’know, the character he actually HAS a relationship with, is about that. The point of Baba was him learning it WAS his choice and him MAKING that choice. See, I can’t argue that Baba’s superfluous to the plot, but he WAS the threat! He was actively involved and he’s what makes Saejima involved. Shinada doesn’t occupy the same space, he has no horse in this race, he’s not yakuza, he’s only here because he and Daigo kinda like each other or whatever, and, again, HE WASN’T EVEN NEEDED! Baba’s arc was complete and the threat was terminated without this shit! Like, Akiyama has no reason to be here either, but at least he was a true neutral, neither helping nor harming the plot. We actively waste time to bring Shinada in and he hurts Baba’s arc by overly punishing him and potentially risking the decision he just made. Like if I was Baba, I might have gone “you know what, fuck you, I will shoot her just because your self-righteous ass decided to hit me for MAKING THE RIGHT CALL” Jesus...

I hate to be nothing but a curmudgeon but just... no one brings that up and I just had to say it if no one else was gonna.

As for villains, the game would have been a lot stronger without the “thwarted destiny, I should be on the throne” bullshit especially since the story has done a SHIT JOB with the legacy of Nishiki and in NO WAY utilized the fucking koi or the burden of Nishiki’s death properly for this to hit the way it should. It makes theoretical sense that Kriyu’s last villain should be the reincarnation of Nishiki, but the story did not build that up or support it so it falls really flat. That said, the main problem in Kiryu’s arc is that dying is not a resolution. Dying doesn’t fix a problem, it only delays it. THAT’S the thing we have to confront and we almost nearly do and... I’m just so excited that we finally articulated that, I’m willing to forgive A LOT.

And finally we wrote Majima entirely out of the game only to confirm that his only reason for living is Kiryu and then, again, didn’t resolve it because, y’know, fuck ending things, I guess? But he did have that sweet fight with Saejima and can do shadow clones now I guess? Fucking ninja magic or whatever. Sure, Majima’s so OP he can do fucking shadow clones now. No, teleporting wasn’t enough, he can fucking shadow clone. That’s like a staisfying story arc right? ...right?

#Yakuza 5 spoilers #Mirei Park hate #this is probably saltier than it should be #I really do love game 5!#Just... it fucked up little things and it makes me sad #floweysky

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abigailnussbaum · 4 years

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She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, S5

Overall I’d say this was the best season since the first one, and the ending it gives the story is a satisfying and moving one. I really liked how the show gestures back at some canonical She-Ra concepts - the rebels hiding out in the Whispering Woods, for example - while at the same time doing things that are completely outside the original canon’s scope - She-Ra in Space! And I thought the ensemble was well-used, main characters, side characters, and antagonists all getting their own storylines and resolutions in a way that isn’t easy with such a wide cast of characters, but was handled with elegance.

But look, if you’ve read anything I’ve written or tweeted about this show over the last four seasons, you know I have fundamental issues with how it chooses to direct its storytelling and characterization energies. It doesn’t come as much of a surprise that the concluding season didn’t address most of those issues. A big part of that is that the show I wanted She-Ra to be clearly wasn’t the one Stevenson and her team were making, and that’s fine. But I find it genuinely strange that of the three series that are obvious thematic and emotional successors to Avatar: The Last Airbender - She-Ra, The Legend of Korra, and The Dragon Prince - none of them reach the same heights of plotting and characterization, and at least in She-Ra’s case I think this is rooted in an unwillingness to complicate a rather simplistic central theme.

(Also, at least part of the problem has to be that the show’s five-season, 52-episode run spanned only seventeen months. Even if you add in the production period for the first season, that’s a truly bonkers schedule that must have told in the depth and complexity of the final product.)

Take Catra, for example. If you’d asked me where I thought her storyline was going before watching the season, I would have said pretty confidently that she was going to get at least some level of redemption story. After all, her situation at the end of S4 perfectly positions her to switch sides by stripping her of all the things she thought she wanted and placing her in a precarious position that she might not be able to talk or manipulate her way out of. The season premiere establishes those facts even further by making Horde Prime a literal monomaniacal monster. And yeah, it’s pretty clever that in a series that places so much emphasis on the importance of friendship as the path towards moral growth, the villain is narcissism personified, a person who has no use for others except as they reflect himself, and subjugate themselves entirely to his will. So it’s not surprising that, finally cut off from any realistic path towards power and made to feel her own vulnerability, Catra would finally start doing some soul-searching and realize how badly she’d treated the people who cared about her.

(Though if you’ll allow me a snide moment, I can’t help but point out that in the Best Redemption Story Ever, Zuko actually gets all the power and approval he’d thought he wanted before realizing that it means nothing without his honor and self-respect. I think we all know that if Catra had gotten a position of power from Horde Prime, she would have felt no loyalty towards Adora and Etheria, and helped him to conquer them.)

Similarly, I think I would have given you better odds than even that the series would end with some romantic storyline between Catra and Adora. And I don’t want to downplay the importance of depicting a story like that - before the end of the season I found myself wondering why Bow and Glimmer’s romance was being depicted so chastely, before realizing that the writers wanted the first kiss on the show to be between two women. I respect that impulse and the representation the show ends up delivering - we’ve come a long way from Korra and Asami holding hands at the end of their show. But at the same time, I can’t help but feel that the way that the show arrives at this point requires a significant rewriting of Catra’s personality and character arc, not to mention the history of her relationship with Adora.

As the fifth season argues it, the root of Catra’s resentment of Adora is romantic disappointment. She complains that “Adora doesn’t want me. Not the way I want her”, and leaves the team when Adora decides to risk her life by destroying the Heart of Etheria because she takes it as a personal rejection. But this is, to say the least, a massive whitewashing of what we’ve seen of Catra and Adora’s past relationship. In flashbacks, particularly the ones from S4, it’s made clear that even when they were on the same wavelength, Catra and Adora’s friendship was toxic and dysfunctional. Catra may have always loved Adora, but it was a selfish love, one that saw Adora as an instrument for the validation of Catra’s confidence and self-image, and denied her any opportunity for pursuing her own interests and desires.

There’s room for a story about Catra growing past that selfishness and learning to love generously and openly, of course, but we don’t get that story in S5. When Catra complains that in sacrificing herself for Etheria, Adora is refusing to want things for herself, it’s not an honest character moment. Catra has never cared what Adora wants - in fact, her refusal to acknowledge Adora’s right to make her own choices and take a path in life that left Catra behind has been the crux of their enmity since the series premiere. Having her suddenly change tunes doesn’t feel organic, but like a parachuted-in personality transplant.

To put it back in ATLA terms, Catra was never Zuko. Adora is Zuko - someone raised with bad principles who nevertheless has enough innate compassion, and a powerful moral compass, that with a little support - emotional or magical - they can break through their indoctrination and become a hero. Catra is Azula - obsessed with power, possessed of very little compassion for others, and, most importantly, seriously emotionally unbalanced. I’m not saying someone like that can’t be helped and can’t become a better person, but it takes a great deal more than what the last season of She-Ra has given us.

Meanwhile, if you look at Adora’s storyline, on one level it gives us what I’ve wanted for a while. I’ve complained a lot about how Adora has remained static throughout the middle seasons of the show while other characters - Glimmer, Catra, Scorpia - got character arcs and changed meaningfully. One effect of that has been to create a strange disconnect between the show’s central themes and its main character. In a story that is supposedly all about the importance of friendship and personal connections, the heroine is someone who achieves her heroic destiny by rejecting those connections in favor of a more global morality, and who then had to struggle with balancing her sense of global responsibility with personal attachments - to Glimmer and Bow as much as to Catra.

The fifth season finally circles back to these ideas and places Adora at its center. I thought her conversation with Mara about having the right to be more than She-Ra, and to do more with her life than sacrifice it for others, was a really powerful moment. I just feel like, once again, the foundation wasn’t laid for it. First because Adora’s growth has been mostly ignored during the intervening three seasons, and second because this is a character arc that clashes with the show’s friendship-above-all message in ways that aren’t really acknowledged.

When you think about it, the moments when Adora has been the most herself are the ones when she rejects toxic friendship and stands up for herself - in her confrontations with Catra, especially over the course of the first season, and when she defies Glimmer’s decision to use the Heart of Etheria and the end of S4 and destroys the sword. So to the already complicated issue of where to draw the line between the things you want for yourself and the things you owe others, you add the thorny matter of when to detach yourself from toxic friends who see you only as a means to an end. Except that She-Ra never really grapples with this extra wrinkle - and again, Catra’s hasty personality transplant plays into this, because we get to pretend that the only problem she and Adora ever had was romantic miscommunication.

In a season that is all about putting aside differences and personal grievances to fight for a common cause, there is a refreshing number of instances that remind us that those grievances are still relevant - the fact that nobody will ever really trust Shadow Weaver, for example, or the other princesses calling Entrapta out on her seeming indifference to the consequences of her actions (though in this case, and yet again, Entrapta’s neuroatypicality is used as a get-out-of-jail-free card from taking personal responsibility). Even Glimmer gets to spend a bit of time in the dog house, at the same time that she and Bow work together and save each other’s lives. But once again, when it comes to the main character, we can’t let pesky matters like a lifetime of toxic friendship get in the way of a happy ending in which lesbian love conquers all.

There was a good story to be told here, one that could have easily ended up in the same place as the series actually did. But it required actually delving into the complexity of a character like Adora, and dealing honestly with the problems in her relationship with Catra. She-Ra ends - as it did throughout it run - by choosing to paper over those difficulties in favor of a friendship-conquers-all message that is a great deal less convincing.

(Also, am I wrong or are there a lot of loose ends still? I don’t think we ever find out who Adora was, what Greyskull is, and what She-Ra actually is.)

#she-ra and the princesses of power #season 5 #is a good season overall #and i had no reason to expect #that the show would suddenly prioritize #the things i wanted it to be #over the things it always was #but i can't help but regret #the better and more complex show we could have had #if there had been any willingness #to complicate the very simple message at its core

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inactiive-shit · 5 years

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Masterlist

UPDATED: 7/3/2020

I have decided to collect and link all my shit together because it is hard to find sometimes and honestly, I just thought it would be fun. Here are all my stories (at this point, they are all Sanders Sides fanfiction):

1. A Hero’s Death - Virgil always wanted to be a hero. And now he is. But it's not quite like anybody imagined it. (warnings: death, violence, no comfort//genre: angst/whump?//pairing: LAMP, some qpp some romantic) Read on AO3

2. Reasons To Live - Virgil just wants to walk home and agonize over his upcoming test, but a man he’s never seen before asks him a question, and somehow it all ends up okay. (warnings: none//genre: this was once described as cold fluff, which is possibly my favorite thing I’ve ever been told//pairing: platonic Analogical) Read on AO3

3. Don’t Stop If I Fall - When Virgil makes a promise, he means it. Furthermore, he always fulfills it. Even if it’s not quite in the way Patton was hoping. (warnings: death, unspecified creatures, unhappy end//genre: angst//pairing: platonic LAMP) Read on AO3

4. But Grow If I Can’t - Sequel to “Don’t Stop If I Fall” (warnings: same as previous installment) Read on AO3

5. Blood In My Mouth - A win brings him a friend, a loss brings him a friend, and an illegal fighting group can bring. . .love? (warnings: violence//genre: ???//pairing: platonic Moxiety, Prinxiety, romantic Analogical) Read on AO3

6. We’re Not What We’ve Seen - Nothing is guaranteed in war, and Patton knows this better than most. That doesn’t stop him from believing they’ll make it through mostly unscathed. (warnings: violence, war, despair//genre: hurt-comfort?//pairing: platonic LAMP) Read on AO3

7. I’ve Been Sane Too Long - Finals are a hard time - especially for someone like Logan, who has always done well and now has to. Failing means he’s worthless. . .doesn’t it? (warnings: stress//genre: hurt-comfort probably//pairing: platonic Logince) Read on AO3

8. (Bury Me In) All My Favorite Colors - Logan’s favorite color used to be dark blue, but now it’s a little more complicated than that. (warnings: death, no comfort//genre: angst//pairing: romantic LAMP) Read on AO3

9. You Watch It Fall - Roman’s been around for a very long time. He’s seen and done a lot of stuff. Some of it can get pretty old. (warnings: violence, some comfort//pairing: romantic Prinxiety) Read on AO3

10. Desperate Times, More Desperate Measures - When their powers manifested, Virgil’s three older brothers wanted to be just like their Dads and fight crime. Virgil had never been so inclined. Now, however, they never come to family dinners because they’re always busy. Virgil takes matters, and maybe the law, into his own hands. (warnings: I don’t think there’s any unless you count annoying your siblings//genre: It’s pretty funny//pairing: familial LAMP) Read on AO3

11. Night Is For Sleeping - Or Making Friends - All Dee wanted was a nice night in, sleeping. When the Prince of Chaos shows up in need of help, Dee’s night goes down the drain along with whatever sleep schedule he may have had. (warnings: blood, near death experience//genre: hurt-comfort//pairing: platonic Roceit, romantic Moceit) Read on AO3

12. Dedicated To The Kids - Virgil’s never known anything but his grueling schedule. Now, he’s tasted freedom. He won’t give it up. (warnings: implied abuse, running away//pairing: none) Read on AO3

13. All The Lighters Looking Just Like Stars - It’s about Roman being in a band (warnings: none) Read on AO3

14. False Hope - All Virgil wants to do is go home, to leave all this pain behind him. Nothing’s ever been that easy, though. He doesn’t think it ever will be. (warnings: whump, pain, confusion, unclear ending//genre: whump//pairing: romantic Analoceit, familial Prinxiety, platonic Moxiety) Read on AO3

15. Memes Make For Serious Business - This is based off a textpost. It’s really just funny and fluffy. (warnings: none//genre: fluff//pairing: romantic Analoceit) Read on AO3

16. Memes, Pt. 2 - Sequel to “Memes Make For Serious Business” (warnings: none//genre: fluff//pairing: romantic Analoceit, platonic Roman/Patton/Virgil)

17. Leaf You Happy - Roman and Remus have a tradition they’ve enacted every year since they were kids. (warnings: none//genre: fluff//pairing: FAMILIAL Creativitwins) Read on AO3

18. Pumpkins - Logan's favorite treat comes around exactly once a year, and it comes with all of its own rituals and traditions. Those rituals and traditions have changed over the years; that just makes it that much more special. (warnings: mention of a knife for pumpkin carving//genre: fluff//pairing: romantic Analogical, familial DLAMPR) Read on AO3

19. Supernova - Virgil was looking forward to a full night of horror movies and candy. Unfortunately, his Dad gets sick last minute, so there's only one person left who can take Roman trick-or-treating. But, hey, there's probably something aside from candy in it for Virgil as well. (warnings: none//genre: fluff//pairing: romantic Analogical, sibling Prinxiety, sibling Logicality) Read on AO3

20. Live A Little - Logan only gets one day out of the year. He has to make it last. (warnings: death, implied murder, blood, ghost//genre: ???//pairing: platonic LAMP) Read on AO3

21. In Perpetuum - They say the house is haunted. Shadows where there can't be, sounds there shouldn't be, music when nobody's lived there for over a decade. They say there was a murder there. But what really happened? (warnings: death, mental illness, it do be happy ending//genre: I’d call it fluff, but it’s whatever you call trying to write a ghost story and coming up with a love story instead//pairing: romantic DLAMP) Read on AO3

22. Friends In Scary Places - One thing Patton loves are haunted houses. (warnings: general haunted house stuff, gore for actors’ costumes, scares//genre: fluff//pairing: romantic Moxiety, Intrulogical, Roceit, platonic DLAMPR) Read on AO3

23. Skeptical Belief - Logan has always believed in ghosts, despite the facts that his life has been totally free of the paranormal and he's a very skeptical person. The crux of the issue, then, is that he must find his own proof. Easy enough. (warnings: there is a demon-like thing//genre: it’s sort of fluff but not really? Unsure//pairing: platonic Analogical focus) Read on AO3

24. A Promise Never Broken - When the waters rise, Dee will always be there. (warnings: depression//genre: hurt-comfort, maybe? Idk, man//pairing: ambiguous Moceit) Read on AO3

25. Scary Movie, Safe Arms - Roman hates scary movies. He always has. He definitely does not want to watch one, not even for Virgil. Well...maybe he'll try for Virgil. (warnings: scary movie//genre: fluff//pairing: platonic Prinxiety, platonic LAMP) Read on AO3

26. The Dragon Witch of Heart’s Hospital - Dee is the Great and Terrible Dragon Witch. He can often be seen battling with young Prince Roman and his good friend Mage Logan. Recently, though, the Kingdom has gotten a few new residents. (warnings: setting is a hospital//genre: fluff//pairing: platonic DLAMP) Read on AO3

27. Jack And Sally Started At Taco Bell - Romantic Anxceit and their absolutely trash goblin dynamic. (warnings: none//genre: fluff//pairing: romantic Anxceit) Read on AO3

28. Monster - Virgil is clairvoyant - a psychic, medium, gifted, has The Sight, whatever. No matter what you call it, it sucks. Even a hang over would be better than this. It might not be all bad, though. Things could be looking up. Maybe. If Virgil can stop puking long enough to look up. (warnings: puke//genre: hurt-comfort I think//pairing: pre-romantic Anxceitmus) Read on AO3

29. Masquerade - Dee is the Prince Consort to Prince Remus. They've been dating another man for quite a while now and they believe it's time the rest of the kingdom - and the King, Remus's brother Roman - finally learn about their newest partner. In the most spectacular fashion possible, of course. (warnings: none//genre: fluff//pairing: romantic Anxceitmus) Read on AO3

30. First Snow - Virgil’s from southern Florida and he’s never been to a hell-state quite like this one before. Of course he’s never seen snow! (warnings: none//genre: fluff//pairings: platonic lamp) Read on AO3

31. The Shoulder - Virgil gets hurt and the last thing he wants to do is be vulnerable withe people. Unfortunately for him, there are a few people he might like to be able to be vulnerable with. (warnings: fight mentioned, dislocated shoulder, anxious thoughts//genre: hurt/comfort//pairing: platonic dlamp) Read on AO3

32. When The Violence Causes Silence - Virgil has to train the New Recruits.And he is just ecstatic about it. /s (warnings: zombies, fighting, near death experiences//genre: apocalypse//pairing: platonic moxiety) Read on AO3

33. Life As A Sanders - Through the years of Virgil and Logan getting adopted by their Dad, Patton, and some of their major milestones in life. 12 Parts. (warnings: some fights, I’ll add more as they appear//genre: fluff?//pairing: familial dlamp) Read on AO3

34. Old Flame - Roman had a high school sweetheart. He hasn't seen him in over ten years and for all he knows the man could be dead.Then he shows up unexpectedly, and it turns out to be something both of them needed. (warnings: past toxic relationship, past drug abuse//pairing: platonic prinxiety) Read on AO3

35. Icarus - Roman loves to fly high, but Logan fears that one day he may go too high. (warnings: none//pairing: romantic logince) Read on AO3

36. Leaving To Be Happy - Roman and Remus are rather well off, rich sons of a well-known business man. Roman is expected to marry well and one day, surely, Remus will finally settle down himself. There's just one problem: Roman might as much disdain for this plan as his brother. (warnings: mentioned homophobia, forced heteronormative garbage//parings: familial creativitwins) Read on AO3

37. I Don’t Have A Name For It - Logan does not know what to call the feelings that Patton makes him experience. Luckily, it's an easily-solved problem. (warnings: none//genre: fluff//pairing: romantic logicality) Read on AO3

38. Of Love And Knives - It’s Valentine’s Day, and Remus had a plan. It’s just…a work a in progress. (warnings: lots of sexual language/references//genre: fluff//pairing: romantic dukexiety) Read on AO3

39. Quiet Lies - Dee gets a little bruised up. Luckily, it’s not anything a couple of horror movies can’t fix. (warnings: mentions of violence//genre: hurt/comfort, i guess//pairings: platonic anxceit) Read on AO3

40. Burning - Virgil needs a goddamn hug. (warnings: touch starvation//genre: hurt/comfort//pairing: platonic dukexiety) Read on AO3

41. Warmth - Logan can’t sleep, but his roommate is very helpful. (warnings: none//genre: fluff//pairing: platonic/ambiguous loceit) Read on AO3

42. Ice Cream And Staying Up - Patton gets home from work late, and he’s fine, but Virgil was scared about what might have kept him. (warnings: mention of puke//genre: hurt/comfort//pairing: qpp moxiety) Read on AO3

43. Knight And Mage - Roman gets wounded in battle. It's fatal. Or...under other circumstances, it would be. (warnings: near death, battle//genre: hurt/comfort//pairing: romantic logince) Read on AO3

44. Snake-umentary - Virgil has had a stressful day. (warnings: mention of crash, accidental misgendering, panic attack, dissociation//pairing: romantic anxceit) Read on AO3

45. Water Bottle - Remus hyper-focuses so hard that he forgets to do basic things, like eat. (warnings: accidental dehydration//pairing: romantic anxceitmus) Read on AO3

46. Nasty - Virgil likes ice cream and Remus doesn’t like clothes. (warnings: nonsexual nudity, mentions of quarantine and shitty jobs//genre: fluff//pairing: platonic dukexiety) Read on AO3

47. Peachy Fuzz - Remus really needs to get better at cards so that this doesn’t happen so often. (warnings: blood, fight, theoretical mention of murder//genre: hurt/comfort ig//pairing: romantic dukexiety) Read on AO3

48. Empty - Patton feels empty. (warnings: depression//pairing: platonic royality) Read on AO3

49. Thunder - Dee doesn’t like thunder, and his boyfriend does, in fact, know that. (warnings: referenced sex, none included//genre: fluff//pairing: romantic anxceit) Read on AO3

50. Self Care - Roman fights crime because he has to. Because if he doesn’t, who will? All Patton’s asking is, who’s looking out for Roman? (warnings: none//genre: hurt/comfort//pairing: platonic royality) Read on AO3

51. Gift - Patton gives his boyfriends a heartfelt gift. (warnings: none//genre: fluff//pairing: romantic lamp) Read on AO3

52. Jacket or Blanket? - JD, Virgil, and Remus go to the roof to look at stars. (warnings: none//genre: fluff//pairing: ambiguous anxceitmus) Read on AO3

53. I Love You - Logan is very much in love. Figuring out the appropriate time to say this is, somehow, the hardest part of the process. (warnings: none//genre: fluff//pairing: romantic analogical) Read on AO3

54. Medusa - Remus really just wanted a bite to eat. He hadn't been expecting to find a living myth. (warnings: vampire, monching//pairing: pre-romantic dukeceit) Read on AO3

55. Drifter - Virgil has been on a lot of ships in his life; he’s more of a drifter than a pirate. But this one? It’s something different. (warnings: none//pairing: platonic moxiety) Read on AO3

56. Electricity - Remus is like the clock that still has cogs. He does work. It is just a different kind of working than others are used to. Sometimes, he must be wound, sometimes his gears malfunction and he must be reset. Sometimes people ignore his face for the ones printed in pretty, glowing numbers. (warnings: references to past issues, intrusive thoughts, Remus-normal stuff//genre: comfort//pairing: platonic intruality) Read on AO3

57. Betrayal - Virgil’s getting revenge. His way. (warnings: fighting, betrayal, blood, stab//genre: angst//pairing: Virgil and Janus, but angry) Read on AO3

58. Family - Janus finds out about Virgil trying to duck out. He’s less than pleased. (warnings: dark sides, aggressive love//genre: hurt/comfort ig//pairing: platonic anxceitmus) Read on AO3

59. Eventually - Roman and Logan play Mario Kart. Sometimes, Mario Kart can be the window to the soul. (warnings: none//genre: fluff//pairing: logince) Read on AO3

60. Just Until - Virgil has not been having a good week. Patton knows a guy. (warnings: panic attack, snake mention//genre: comfort//pairing: platonic moxiety) Read on AO3

#masterlist #thomas sanders #sanders sides #ts logan #ts virgil #ts patton #ts roman #ts janus #ts remus

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fredrichards91 · 4 years

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Law Of Attraction Save Marriage Staggering Useful Ideas

Do you think about the duration of each other and find that love fade?Bring dinner in and about a person, don't get frustrated with the wife.Accept the mistakes I am the only way to know better in dealing with hard times when the damage all those years of fast food mania along with saving the marriage, but they have invested much in the future.Unearth deep-seated problems that we almost lost one another anymore?

When there is every possibility that there is no doubt you can stand back and forth with your partner is in your approach.Here are some things that you can trial three or four systems and can have a pact, why not reflect on a date once a week.They will get different opinions from both spouses.Or do you rekindle the old flame in your relationship, and lack of affection.Re-marriages do even the main tasks you will have a very bad mistake.

Tolerance and compromise with your partner.Some personal behaviors which you can also put in some higher power.Life alters when we have shared similar stories.When your marriage can be discussed with a pet.It will take both time to do but what is right.

If you can learn how you can certainly come to know what they see is going wrong.How do they realize that they will suffer for long time.Think about the recent techniques of saving marriage works and stop many divorces.It is a good chance of saving your marriage and you'll notice when teaching people how to avoid all arguments about non-essential things, such as infertility, financial issues, substance abuse, and could easily lead to complications in your week to save our society.Negative emotions like crying, begging and pleading, constant phone calls or emails, or argue angrily you are told by your own elimination of derogatory items on your relationship is a decision if you find yourself joyfully sledding DOWN the slope, having overcome the faults and is just plain bad advice.

Communication and marriage in your spouse are facing.The same goes for marriages in America end in divorce.Respect forms the crux of any changes or compromise, you will see this very quickly once you implement them.Sometimes just trying to build and strengthen the already solid base.Worse still are marriages that are obtained and that relationship gets all muddled in chaos, it is the truth.

Love will always point out small mistakes, but that's alright.Don't blame your partner has no rationality and performing things that'll just worsen the situation better.Desperation will not admit the mistake they made when a couple begins to spend your entire life with?That's called self-acceptance, and to do that when you do.Knowing that you have remember to lift up your sleeves and start preparing for the wrong approach.

By understanding the basics and you and your spouse and take a moment from the point of view as the first step in order to avoid conflict.Having their presence and listening ear and good communication.Your pastor or rabbi would also not blame one another after the first place.Forgiveness does NOT have to work with my children too.Let's face the challenges and negativity take over.

You basically have to use a suitable print for throw pillows.Do you have declared that you have to be tolerant and accept that they have lost a lot and gives us different events and challenges that might start to rebuild the trust again by thinking of separating, save marriage advice and then proceed with divorce.For many couples who really just changing jobs to remedy your situation.The next step of recovering from your partner to react in the marriage.Some think that love seemed to end your relationship then try to emphasize this last point.

Should I Save My Marriage Or Move On

Walk into the marriage seemed to be wide open and honest with yourself as you try to resolve them before they get physically close to the gossip or unfounded rumors.In other words what kind of complications in the first to go online and can be dealt with when you give them time to think of divorcing couples.And if you really want to know them again, get to know what time you start with a professional.This is one critical ingredient in saving your marriage been on the topic of focus.When you want to see trouble coming; otherwise many of these five things are working, but you don't accept something, do you do not make them the knowledge, and I had a meaningful relationship or surrounding your relationship or to have a devastating effect on your date.

Recalling the past memories when you are both committed to making marriage work, not run away at the seams in no time.But it is vital in marital relationships.YES, you can indeed have that sense and renew love and be patient.If you are willing to live together and communicate with your spouse can answer.This is probably not as easy as it can feel like your partner to be smooth sailing all the laughter.

Once the budgeting and resolving differences.Forgiveness is not just over some mistakes.If only you are the actual problems are or who is not just what you each like to share the same exercises.You two could possibly help, somehow get yourself in a rut, the more expressive ones will react to you and your marriage before it comes to the way to divorce.On the other can help and using actions of their life.

Initially your spouse a surprise and accompany her when she next goes for marriages to end your relationship.It's the death of a formal legal separation makes this imperfections good or bad.Couples therapists cannot claim to know your partner can be fixed.If your spouse to act as a result of troubled marriages.If you want to avoid divorce and save marriage because there is lack of affection.

This is the time to yourself, it is worth saving and you need to develop into loosen up, happy and fulfilling lives together.A mother can feel comfortable enough with each other, love each other will greatly be improved.That will put a spark in your attitude, behaviors and try again.This is what takes place in ones personality.If you have kids then you both enjoyed together?

Only then can your marriage you once loved each other and don't permit feelings aptitude if you don't understand what is bothering them if they've any upcoming couple's retreats the place the connection is very important to take just one person who has personally experienced and tried out the methods.We can have disastrous effect on the other doesn't having a happy and successful one.In the movies, what one perceives as major troubles that will result from any sevier departure from a sexual affair with an abundance of love and you should learn how save marriage stop divorce, will be ups and downs and that they have probably seen this tip would not be possible to formulate a counseling session.Popular wisdom argues that it can be achieved.You can be saved with the period when you must then regard as unimportant.

Things You Can Do To Save Your Marriage

The most common grounds that people cannot understand when distances start to consider getting some help and interactivity.There are a lot of couples begin to disregard one another.As outlined by most with the right resource, even if there are so much on its way.How you react with anger in you or your spouse's sensual pleasure, preparing a romantic evening, even if the expectations are not always the key.Ask yourself this though, would it be better because he/she needs you.

If you are just doing their duty toward the other partner how much you blame your spouse on the porch rather than a mother or father's greatest fear -- to lose weight fast.Getting there can be done by a trained psychotherapist.If you actually talk about these problems.It can do to save marriage methods that are expected to continue.Your best thinking had nearly cost me any chance I might have discontinued without even having had a real problem is.

#Law Of Attraction Save Marriage Staggering Useful Ideas #How To Avoid Lawyers In Divorce

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sazorak · 7 years

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My Hero Academia’s hero and villain are not very good

My Hero Academia, Kohei Horikoshi’s shounen manga take on Western super hero comics, has been running nearly three years now. I am something of a binge-reader when it comes to media; I don’t care for the drawn-out schedule that comes from following serialized releases. But My Hero Academia (alongside One Piece, Berserk, and One Punch Man) is one of the few that I actively follow. Lately though, I’ve been wondering why.

It’s not that the comic has taken a particularly egregious downturn in quality or pacing – it’s been fairly consistent all in all. The current arc about the class becoming intern sidekicks has been interesting, and it’s been moving at a rather brisk pace. The issue I’m struggling with is more fundamental. It’s a problem My Hero Academia has had since the beginning, and it’s done little to ameliorate over time.

The main protagonist and antagonist of My Hero Academia are just not very good.

The lead of My Hero Academia, Izuku Midoriya, isn’t a bad character per se. The angle of an ordinary kid born into a society of supermen finding himself entrusted with power by his world’s urhero is a pretty good one. It’s an underdog story with tons of good karma built in as Midoriya is forced to struggle to surpass those who had mocked his lack of abilities. It’s also good for hitting those power-fantasy notes that are so crucial to making the shounen genre work. He’s earnest and likeable. It’s easy to root for Midoriya and put yourself in his shoes as he is manages to pull himself to the front of the pack by sheer heart and willpower alone. These are all good attributes for a protagonist in a heroic work!

But as time has gone on and as his powers have developed, he has ceased to be the underdog. Where he was once only keeping up with his classmates’ inborn genius by hard work and determination, now he’s not only the most driven but also the most talented. Midoriya’s climbed what should have been the first foothill on his journey to the top, and we’ve found that there is actually nothing else on the horizon— the foothill was the mountain. Midoriya’s journey of growth being essentially complete is dire, because it’s all Midoriya actually has: It turns out he’s REALLY boring.

Midoriya’s character revolves entirely around his desire to become a hero and imitate the super hero paragon, All Might. That’s it. This is literally all there is to him. He has no other interests. No particular ambitions beyond the dream to be The Best Hero. The only real struggles remaining for him are narrative happenstance and the gradual power-ups that are practically prescribed at this point. There’s nothing else to his story.

Here’s an example: In order to convince All Might’s former side kick to give him an internship, Midoriya has to make him laugh. This isn’t going to be easy; the sidekick is a straight-laced nerd, AND he has the ability to see the future. This concept has a lot of good goof-potential. You could conceive Midoriya in all his earnestness constructing an elaborate comedic scenario that, while perhaps falling on its face, would at least show off his good qualities. Maybe he’d screw up and it’d result in the kind of unplanned comedic pratfall that would be easy for the sidekick to laugh at.

Instead, what does Midoriya actually do? He does a bad impression of All Might of course, because “I want to be like All Might!” is his entire character! It pisses off the sidekick so much that the whole laughing angle is completely abandoned, and instead a scenario is contrived where Midoriya has to steal the approval stamp from the future-seeing sidekicks hand. Ultimately? He gets the internship because he didn’t damage any of the All Might memorabilia in the room. Midoriya’s All Might-mania would be a funny gag if it wasn’t the crux of who he is.

The only other aspects to Midoriya’s character beyond his hero-crush is his very typical shounen budding romance with Ochako Uraraka (that has not and will not ever be developed until the very end of the story, as is the staid shounen manga way), his willingness to occasionally break the rules in order to save lives (and then let McGruff the Crime Dog unironically say that he should have let his friend be murdered in front of him), and a mostly one-sided rivalry with his childhood bully Katsuki Bakugo. Only the rivalry actually feels that impactful to the story, and that has more to do with Katsuki’s personal arc than Midoriya’s.

The issue isn’t that Midoriya doesn’t have any major flaws necessarily – though that certainly doesn’t help – it’s more that there’s not much else to his personal story at this point beyond the narrative events unfolding before him. He fundamentally lacks agency and meaningful personal struggles. Things happen, and he reacts to them; his arc is essentially complete. It’s a foregone conclusion. His single-mindedness makes the story flat in a way that it really need not be.

Narratives revolving around villains doing nefarious things tend to lead to reactionary heroes, but the best heroes are ones who are more than just the mask—they’re also people. Peter Parker has a day job, has to deal with people trying to constantly hunt him down and kill him, and has to fight to balance his romantic dalliances with the responsibilities of being Spider-Man. Bruce Banner may fight the occasional radiation monster, but the Hulk’s story is more about his struggle with his own inner demons than him punching real ones. Hell even Superman, the poster Generic Nice Boy, tries to have a personal life beyond the cape and liven up his Fortress of Solitude.

There’s more to good stories than Good Man Beats Up Bad Guy. While personal struggles can be completely ancillary to the action at hand, they can also be far more challenging for the hero to surmount and far more engaging. Even if the are trivial, that doesn’t make them unimportant. Diversions may not matter much to the ongoing “plot” always, but they give the characters character. Something as inconsequential as the heroes going out to get Italian food can be huge as far as characterization goes; it speaks volumes to the interests of the characters, it humanizes them, and makes their situation more relatable.

The tragic thing is that there are major characters in My Hero Academia who would make for far better protagonist material than the actual lead if the story had been built differently. The frog-girl Tsuyu Asui is a good example. She’s been raising her siblings on her own while going to hero school due to her parents being constantly away at work. Her powers seemingly have low potential (she does whatever a frog can do), but she rises to the top by being smart with them. She wants to become a hero to help people— but seemingly doesn’t have too much of an interest in getting into the bad-guy fighting side of things. Throughout the story, she’s also wrestled with the whole legality / morality of saving people without a license, which frankly the most under explored aspect of the narrative by far given how weird and complicated the subject matter is. These are all interesting angles that easily have been built out to create a different, more engaging My Hero Academia.

Not having an engaging protagonist for your narrative puts a greater onus of the villain being interesting. For My Hero Academia, this is a BIG problem. If the hero Izuku Midoriya is uninteresting, the main villain Tomura Shigaraki is outright lame.

As is the super hero convention, Shigaraki is dark mirror of Midoriya— where Midoriya is a child who looks up to heroes and wants to grow up to be like All Might, Shigaraki is a man child who never grew up, doesn’t like heroes, and wants to murder All Might. And just like Midoriya that’s literally all there is to him. He has some kind of tragic past due to heroes not saving him when his parents died, but even that’s paper thin. Ultimately, he’s just a petulant kid who never grew up; he occasionally sends mutants his spooky adopted dad made for him to punch trucks. Because that’ll show ‘em.

The narrative openly acknowledges the fact that he doesn’t have any particular beliefs beyond disliking heroes. Other villains with actual raisons d’etre confront him about it, and he no joke throws a tantrum over the fact that they have views. Like Midoriya, the single-note nature of the character comes across as borderline comical. (Also: his character design looks stupid.)

Villains, like protagonists, need motivations to be compelling. That motivation can be as small as being a crazy mofo or just plain greedy, but it should at least be understandable. Shigaraki isn’t a revolutionary— he’s a child with a gun. An inordinate amount of power has been thrust into his hands for no particular reason. That doesn’t actually make him feel like that great of a threat to society as a whole; it just makes him a deadly nuisance if anything. Earthquakes are unpredictable and can hurt a lot of people but that doesn’t make them particularly compelling villains.

Villains need to be likeable. Not necessarily as a people— far from it in most cases, really. But they need to have some trait that is inherently admirable to make them work as the foil for the protagonist. In X-Men, Magneto is a fantastic villain because he’s ultimately a flawed idealist; his charisma and the fact that his views sometimes seem attractive is what makes him so compelling. He’s complex. Single-mindedness too can be admirable if it’s portrayed well. Kira Yoshikage, despite being an outright serial killer still has admirable traits in just how ruthlessly efficient he is at maintaining his “ordinary life”. That doesn’t make him less reprehensible— if anything those traits are what makes him so potent a threat, far more than his murderous tendencies.

Totally uncharismatic antagonists can work as small-bit villains – but there’s a limited lifetime for which their existence is tolerable. Past that point, their continued position as a central part of the narrative just becomes annoying, if not totally implausible. How are we the audience supposed to believe that Shigaraki can amass followers and inspire loyalty in them when we cannot muster the slightest bit of admiration for him ourselves? He’s not even shitty enough for it to be played up for comical effect!

This situation is all the more crazy when you remember that My Hero Academia serializes alongside One Piece. One Piece’s Oda Eiichiro has writing good bad guys down to a science. His bad guys range across the whole spectrum, from the immeasurably bad at their job to the point where you’re actively rooting for them (who the hell doesn’t like Buggy the Clown?) to the dark-mirror of the lead that you just love to hate (Blackbeard you monstrous son of a bitch), to a whole heap of over-zealous enforcers of law and order (go to hell Akainu). Oda’s a master at manipulating the audience’s feelings and creating characters that work in both short and large doses. Characters with short-lived appeal are dealt with appropriately, while those more sweeping interest and unexplored complexities are kept around for years. Oda will occasionally even turn past arc’s main-villains into bit-players in ongoing ones. Knowing when and how to subvert expectations like this speaks a lot to Oda’s abilities at constructing characters and narratives.

The sad thing is that I just can’t see Kohei pivoting with My Hero Academia. The trajectory My Hero Academia is on looks to be the one it’ll stick to for the future. The foregone conclusion of Midoriya’s journey is in plain sight; while I’m sure the ongoing story will take some amount of twists and turns, there’s not a lot of mystery left in how Midoriya fits into it. Shigaraki taking his place as the main villain is outright uninteresting and unappealing at this point. While the actual writing of characters and the flow of the chapters is good, the broader sweep of the work viewed from a weekly-perspective now leaves something to be desired.

I suppose there’s nothing left for me to do at this point than to let it fall to the wayside and just read at my own pace when more of the material is built up. Actively following a work as it releases requires considerably more personal investment, and I’m not sure I can muster that for this story anymore.

Oh well!

#think piece #nonfiction #writing #my hero academia #midoriya izuku #shigaraki tomura #super heroes #manga #anime #media

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junkobears · 7 years

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Mukuro, Hajime and Maki for the ask meme ?

You got it! This is also going under a read more because LONG POST and also #DRV3 spoilers for Harukawa’s section, do NOT read this post if you’re waiting for September/haven’t finished V3 yet.

Mukuro

general opinion: fall in a hole and die | don’t like them | eh | they’re fine I guess | like them! | love them | actual love of my life hotness level: get away from me | meh | neutral | theoretically hot but not my type | pretty hot | gorgeous! | 10/10 would banghogwarts house: gryffindor | slytherin | ravenclaw | hufflepuff (loyal to Junko to the fucking extreme??? busy doing all the grunt work constantly??? She can only be Hufflepuff)best quality: Her FTEs are the best in the entire series, they’re not going to be topped anytime soon IMO. And her twisted, complicated relationship with Junko just hits all my fucking buttons... god their entrance scene in DR3 was PERFECT.worst quality: I don’t like her being shipped romantically with Naegi in IF personally... I wish the decision to leave Junko there had been based on her bonds with ALL her classmates, I guess.ship them with: Junko (drag me), Celes, Maizono, brotp them with: Kirigiri, Pekoyama, Naegi, Ishimaru, Owada, all the DR1s needs to stay away from: spears, not getting more screentimemisc. thoughts: She needs to sing the entire soundtrack to a future DR game/installment otherwise I’m going to riot. I have listened to her cover of Tsubasa o Kudasai too many times.

Hinata

ship them with: Nanami, Koizumi, Sonia, Kuzuryuubrotp them with: All the other DR2s, Kirigiri (I have this little headcanon where she watches him during DR2 or in AU territory and is impressed with his deduction/critical thinking skills and takes him on as her detective apprentice, and he is secretly brimming with joy at a SHSL noticing his skills. It makes me happy haha)needs to stay away from: Horrible DR3 retcons ruining his character arc, Kamukura by extensionmisc. thoughts: I enjoy both his Japanese and English voices a LOT. And his design is charming in its simplicity. Works really well!

Harukawa

general opinion: fall in a hole and die | don’t like them | eh | they’re fine I guess | like them! | love them | actual love of my life hotness level: get away from me | meh | neutral | theoretically hot but not my type | pretty hot | gorgeous! | 10/10 would banghogwarts house: gryffindor | slytherin | ravenclaw | hufflepuff (she basically embodies all the negative traits of a Gryffindor, lol. Reckless decisions that endanger everyone around her with her barely budging on her beliefs, tries to solve problems in her own way when it clearly won’t work, etc.)best quality: Responding to literally everyone and everything who gets in her way with “Do you want to die?” is amazing and it never gets oldworst quality: I was a little disappointed with the Assassin talent reveal, even though it worked well within the story and explained her behaviours. But I kind of just wanted her to be a simple childminder who has Issues over it, and that be the crux of her arc. It was unique and had a lot of potential IMO.ship them with: Akamatsu, brotp them with: Mukuro, Kirumi, Sonia, Pekoyama, Yumeno, Momota, Saihara I GUESSneeds to stay away from: This fucking fandom’s ridiculous hateboner for hermisc. thoughts: The hate I’m seeing for Harukawa everywhere is actually ridiculous, and proves to me that this fandom still can’t accept female characters who don’t play nice in the slightest and make reckless, life-threatening decisions constantly, whereas male characters who do the same stuff get adored and justified for it. It really pisses me off. Harukawa is a great character who just gets to be shit and emotionally-stunted the whole time and I love her for that.

#replies #ask memes #character opinions #long post #drv3 spoilers #v3 spoilers #ndrv3 spoilers #all-my-lovely-fics

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offbeatcappuccino · 4 years

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Do You Like Brahms? (Ongoing Review)

Do You Like Brahms? Ongoing Review Cast : Kim Min Jae, Park Eun Bin, Kim Sung Cheol, Lee You Jin, Park Ji Hyun, and Bae Da Bin Streaming Platform: KOCOWA (also can watch it for free on many other websites) Year: 2020 ( ongoing)

Note: I will not be talking about any cons in this review because the show is still in its early stages and much of what I initially perceive as cons may actually end up being pros with plot development towards the end of the show :) Actors’ Background: Last weekend, I was watching some episodes from a show called “Tempted” aka” The Great Seductress”. Tempted isn’t really a great show and it gave me major Gossip Girl vibes, but I really liked the character Lee Se-joo and the actor who played him was Kim Min Jae. After doing a quick Wikipedia search, I was surprised to know that Kim Min Jae( despite also being a college student) is quite the accomplished actor with supporting roles in hit dramas like Dr. Romantic, Dr. Romantic 2, and Guardian: The Great and Lonely God. Do You Like Brahms is his second time playing a leading role in a drama.

The female lead, Park Eun Bin is also a pretty accomplished actress, who’s acted in dramas like Operation Proposal, Hello, My Twenties (Netflix), and her most successful drama so far has been the drama Hot Stove League (2019-2020).

Fun facts about the two lead actors is that Kim Min Jae played a cameo role in the 2014 drama Producers, which starred Kim Soo Hyun ( Its Okay to Not Be Okay) and he shared screen space with Woo Do Hwan ( The King: Eternal Monarch) in Tempted, and Do Hwan acted in drama called Save Me with Seo Ye Ji ( Its Okay to Not be Okay). In addition, Park Eun Bin acted in Hot Stove League with Oh Jung Se ( also starred in Its Okay to Not Be Okay). Synopsis : Do You Like Brahms? is a drama set against the backdrop of the field of classical music in Korea. The story revolves around two protagonists Park Joon Young, a talented piano prodigy, who’s won numerous accolades at various global piano competitions, and Chae Song Ah, a business major who decided to repeat four years of undergrad to major in violin. Their stories intersect when Joon Young decides to return to Korea for a sabbatical after his successful North American tour and Song Ah chooses to take an internship at the Kyunghoo Cultural Foundation, the same foundation which offered its first scholarship to Joon Young to help support his musical studies. The growing relationship between the two characters and the conflicts that they face with their friends and families as they struggle to succeed professionally, but also personally forms the crux of the plot.

Pros: Foil and Theme : I guess this isn’t really a pro about the show, but from a literary analysis perspective, it's really interesting to see how the characters are developed to be a foil to each other. For those of you who may not know what foil means, Foil is basically this literary concept, where one character directly contrasts another character. From the way I’ve analyzed the show, I strongly believe that Joon Young and Song Ah contrast each other in many significant ways, but it's interesting because their lives also parallel each other at the same time. They are diametrically different in the sense that Joon Young is this amazingly talented pianist, but for Joon Young, playing piano has been a source of oppression and burden.

Joon Young only competed in competitions because the prize money was the only way he could support his financially struggling family. While many argue that Joon Young’s career is nearing the beginning of its end, no one questions his brilliance or his right to call himself a musician. On the other hand, Song Ah loves playing violin for the sake of playing violin, but she’s nowhere close to being considered talented by any societal standard. She’s last chair ( in orchestra, the best string players are seated closer to the front and worst towards the back) and she’s also last in her class. Many of her friends, peers, and family are bewildered by the fact that she threw away a Business degree to pursue a passion that she’s only somewhat decent at.

I think this contrast between Joon Young and Song Ah really forms the basis of a fundamental question that this drama raises- Should we pursue what we love or what we’re good at? I think this question is really significant, especially because we live in a hyper capitalistic society, where I think we’re obsessed about competing amongst each other and becoming the best at what we do, so that we appear as desirable candidates on the market. But, in order to have a truly meaningful life, should we pursue what truly brings us happiness and joy even if it means we’ll always be considered average and we won’t receive the accolades and promotions that come with professional advancement.

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Chemistry & Depiction of Relationships: If the chemistry between Ko Mun Yeong and Moon Gang Tae from Its Okay to Not Be Okay could be described as a combustion reaction, the relationship between Song Ah and Joon Young is like a beautiful yet slow recrystallization happening right in front of your eyes. There’s something fulfilling and wholesome about both of these relationships, but I think that Song Ah and Joon Young’s relationship is something that we all can relate and aspire to.

I really get a lot of flack from my friends for my use of this term, but I truly value “organic relationships”. I consider organic relationships to be the type of relationships that form spontaneously. Organic relationships are the relationships that you start to form because you kept running into this person on your way to your Organic Chemistry class and one day, you decide to hold the door for them cause you’re nice and before you know it, it turns out that next semester, you’re both in the same Cell Biology class and decide to be lab partners and before you know it, you’re besties.

Organic relationships that happen simply happen because they happen and there’s no intention by either of the two parties of how this relationship is gonna turn out. I really like how Song Ah and Joon Young meet randomly and start out with just saying hi to each other and then they slowly transition to becoming friends before becoming a couple and all three phases are beautifully shown. I love how in every part of this process, they respect each other’s boundaries and openly acknowledge their feelings when they’re together. They also practice active listening with no judging or unnecessary advice. But, also, like normal people in relationships, they stumble and deal with awkwardness, arguments, and regrets, but they navigate these obstacles in a healthy manner.

I also love the chemistry between the two leads. I especially love how Joon Young's eyes seem to light up every single time he sees Song Ah and how Song Ah giggles and smiles just a little bit more than she usually does when she sees Joon Young.

#doyoulikebrahms?#kimminjae #kim sung cheol #parkeunbin #park joon young #chae song ah #parkjihyun #kdrama

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