#these kids are Fucked Up but theyre Trying to make a kinder world

[spacedlexi]

it honestly frustrates me when i see people reduce the ericsons cast down to "just some teens in the woods" acting like theyre no different than any other group of lone teenagers from other existing properties and treating them like an overused trope

it is sooo important to acknowledge the "troubled youth" aspect of the whole equation. theyre not just some random teens in the woods clem stumbles across. these kids were abandoned by their families for their various "difficulties" and fucked up by The System before the outbreak even began. and then once zombies started roaming the streets their familes never came back for them and the adults that were in charge of taking care of them just left them there to rot in that old boarding school (except for ms martin who was like their lee 🥺 the only person who ever saw them as the scared traumatized kids they were and died protecting them)

the whole aspect of them already being fucked up by the adults that controlled their lives is like.....kind of important when discussing the whole "delta is stealing kids to force them to fight in a war they have no real part in and want nothing to do with" aspect of the season. and its important when comparing them to clem and her journey of also suffering at the hands of the adults around her forcing her to become self reliant. AND its important when discussing the "just trying to build a safe home (and future) worth fighting for in this world that wants them dead" aspect of the season as well

these kids were forced to come together to survive. and a Lot of them didnt... theyre the only family they have left and you can tell that even when they argue with each other theyre still a close knit group who looks out for each other. theyre a Real family before clem even gets there (and its why what really happened with the twins and brody and marlon hits them all so especially hard)

all of this is what REALLY makes ericsons such a perfect home for clem. its a Real community of her True peers. theyre not Just teens. they mightve had a layer of safety clem never had by at least having walls to keep them safe. and having the benefit of the school being hard to find. its the only reason theyre still alive when clem shows up. but theyre also some of the only people who can Truly understand where clem and aj are coming from. and its why it hurts so much when they vote to kick them out. but its also partially why she merges back into the fold so easily when she returns. plus the fact that shes Really the only one who has any idea what shes doing. shes their rock and she makes them feel safe because underneath it all theyre still just those scared traumatized kids ("EVERYONE is scared, clem..." vi was Definitely including herself in that 'everyone'), and on some level, so is clem

they saved clementines life. and she saved theirs. "the school was supposed to help them with their trauma, now they help each other" its about the LOVE the COMMUNITY the SUPPORT!!!! and thats the shit that makes good zombie media honestly 👌

#it speaks #twdg #there i go again writing another essay but i will Always defend the ericson cast theyre one of the strongest out of all 4 seasons #complaints ive seen about s4 typically include mentions of the teens as a trope being overused and im like.......did you even pay attention #the fact they were branded “troubled youth” and basically thrown away by everyone who was supposed to take care of them is SO IMPORTANT #these kids are Fucked Up but theyre Trying to make a kinder world #nobody talk to me i fucking love the ericson cast 😭😭😭 theres not a single one of them i dont like im serious #them using poor pilgrim of sorrow in ep3....ericsons is heaven to clem 😭 all the comments she can make about feeling safe there 😭😭 #clem being everyones rock but violet being clems rock back 🥺😭💕 waaaaahhh thats why it was over for me when vi stood up for them in ep 2 #vi having the courage to stand up to her group for aj........... yeah she had me in a vice grip after that. she fought for them so hard #and if it wasnt for her advocating so hard for them to stay they ALL would have been taken or killed #vi cared about clem so much she undoomed them all #and aj loved clem so much he undoomed her :') #s4 is just the perfect ending to clems story truly itll make me happy for the rest of my life im so happy for u clem 🥺 #tfw the media you like gets a good ending and the main characters are respected and it feels like it was made from a place of love #instead of being like...actively hostile to its fanbase and destroying its own characters for the Laughs #and when i say “good” i dont necessarily mean “happy” i just mean “competently written" #i wouldnt call it perfect but it survived both a cancellation AND the financial collapse of a major game studio. its perfect to Me #for what it is (and what it originally almost was with the clems house plot) we truly lucked out so fucking hard #truly a return to form of season 1 but with less despair and more hope which i appreciate :') #all the things ive liked over the years that were destroyed for me by bad or weird writing decisions... clutches onto twdg like a lifeboat #god i love s4 so much nothing has ever been More Specifically Written For Me Personally

[akechicrimes]

apologies for responding to ur tags in an ask of all things fdsjhfjs and thank you for the comment about the nature of confidants reflecting the kind of city loneliness id never thought of that and its really interesting but i just,,,feel like p5's cast re: their group dynamic doesnt do much to actually further their characters. theres very little main plot conflict besides okumura which is a manufactured one which opens up discussion for a divide or conflict in opinion (1)

[original post here] [my tags here]

omg dont apologize this all incredibly good!!! honestly right back at u because i hadnt really thought about what was so blase about the phantom thieves group dynamics before until you started pointing out the lack of conflict!!

i know i sort of semi-defended the value of p5′s social link system, but i’ve been chewing on the word u used in these asks (”stagnant”) so im just gonna, ramble a bit, and try and fiddle a bit with some of the stuff u brought up

the p5 cast seems to get along mostly without any issues, like some kind of super-happy idealistic-world friend group? and like all the things that you mentioned about all the potential problems they could have with each other--all of those are reasonable and interesting and definitely would be a thing in a real friend group!! theyre breaking the law!!! theyre doing shady and immortal things!!! there was a whole rule where they agreed they had to agree unanimously on whether or not to take a target out, and that rule never ONCE got used as a point of conflict. they never ONCE had a hung jury. everyone just agreed and hopped into the metaverse, despite the fact that the cast is, by nature, a bunch of kids with strong opinions on how justice should work. 

but it’s like, this is a happy group of friends!! isn’t this a good thing? isn’t this the healthy ideal friendship models that we should be seeing in our literature?

the thing that i think is interesting about ur post is that with the way u lined it up, “stagnation” is the opposite of “conflict”? which is a true fact that i hadn’t thought about before, and why it’s a shame that (as u mentioned in ur original post) that tumblr is so conflict-averse. because it’s true!! conflict makes things--and PEOPLE--move and grow. a certain amount of conflict is healthy.

in contrast to p5, there’s a basic general direction of p3 in which the group goes from being a bunch of kids who kind of dislike each other to a bunch of kids who would kill and die and live for each other. and it’s not a happy game? or a happy situation? it’s not a feel-good situation? they’re certainly not an ideal group of friends. mitsuru holy fuck why did you think it would be a good idea to hide that from yukari. shinjiro i know ur protecting ken but also you’re seventeen?? 

and it’s because things are so bad in the friend group, it’s because they’re fighting and making bad decisions and fucking up and doing terrible things and sometimes fucking up and doing terrible things so hard that two characters perma-died in the process, it’s because of these conflicts that they learn and grow and become kinder people. so when they finally achieve friendship at the end of the game, it feels fuckin worth it. 

like, i do think the phantom thieves are friends................ but is it a friendship that’s, uh, worth much? if they didn’t really struggle for it? if they never fought and had meaningful conflict...? is it a happy ending with joker and his friends going on a road trip if everything was peaches and cream with joker and co from the beginning?

i wonder too if that has something to do with the fact that p3 was like, the game that atlus made when they were sure that the persona series was going to be cancelled, so they were like, well, fuck it, we’ll just tell exactly the story that we want to, and stories involve messy conflicts and characters who we wrote for us because we wanted to see these characters struggle and be real humans. where persona 5 seems to have been treated as “we need to do everything possible to make as much money off this thing as we can,” so the characters are less characters and more... marketable dolls. a product shaped like a person to be sold. 

the fact that they’re dolls means that it’s really fun to play dollhouse with them, kind of in the way that people ripped the heads off their barbies and simulated various cultish murder dramas with their barbies. but the fact is that the p5 cast is... just a series of character concepts that never went anywhere because there wasn’t any conflict that could motorize it.

#mine #i think it's really interesting that like. when i was first introduced to p3 #my friend explained to me: so everyone has a shadow and without the conflict between shadow and the conscious self #you would cease to exist and fall into a stagnant comatose state #and i was like huh! that's kinda fucked up but ok #and now it's just even more ironic because we seem to have gotten rid of a lot of interpersonal drama in p5 #and behold!! a stagnant plot. #this is why i like takuto #son of a bitch is the only decent conflict we've had around here in ages #clouis-loumentine

[iron-sides]

thots on the way teens kids and young ppl are treated in society irl and online vv (very angry because i am a teenager being treated a way i dislike irl and i know kids n middle school girls and they do not deserve their bad rep)

no u know what im making my own post because i have OPINIONS and i will make u all read them. i get that not wanting kids is normal and acceptable but like. a) as a human- adult or just teenager older than this hypothetical child/younger teen- it IS your responsibility to make things as good as you can for children. sometimes it shouldn't be, sometimes its more than you can handle but you Have Got to do your best. Now there are circumstances more complicated, sure, but smile at kids and make the world safer and kinder for them, is the point. and then, and i cant emphasize this enough LET THEM REMAIN KIDS we have this weird obsession with young people acting like adults or being as responsible as an adult would be. and its fucking weird that will not work??? literally like. oh my god. bestie. bestie. kids and teens will act like kids and teens and its so fucking bad that we (speaking as a teenager here hi) often feel shamed into not doing that. i am a teenage girl and that is a label i feel like i have to reclaim. like.

what the fuck about teenagers specifically also makes so many adults think we a) can/will/should act like adults lol and b) are an acceptable target to make fun of?? like yeah my room is messy. im neurodivergent + i have friends + extra curriculars + homework ?? i dont always have time to clean. I'm sure a lot of teenagers have similar experiences why do ppl think its okay to make fun of teenagers for having messy rooms.

"13 year old girls are scary" thirteen year old girls want to feel confident and good about themselves !!!! thirteen year old girls feel like the world is ending ever day and the rug has been pulled out from under them and they want to be told that theyre going to be okay !!!! "oh are you having your teen rebellion phase" YES !!! my brain is changing and i am learning and growing pretty fast right now and guess what nimrod?? i am waking up to the way ppl my age have little to no autonomy, how we are mocked and laughed at by parents and teachers for. daring to be teenagers. i am realizing that nothing is right with the world and it is up to my generation to fix it because the ones before us either are trying and havent done it yet or dont give a flying fuck !!! so no its not a fucking phase !!! yes teenagers are angry and we are mean and we are still fucking kids?? i dont fuckin know man i am. i get real mad about this cos like. the hating babie/kids jokes are funny until you realize that babies and kids are actual real people and the world is so so scary and i just. idfk this might not be comprehinsible and the words are far from pretty. and every single thing ive described is multiplied by 10 for POC kids im sure. but im right. even if im only right in the context of where i live i am right and i wish i wasnt

#vent #<- just in case #this is good to reblog tho lol i am correct #im just tired of this entire genre of jokes man #oooh im gonna punk a baby el oh el ill kill a child haha guys 8th grade girls are scary bc theyll talk about u meanly #like oh my god i have baby cousins and also have been that age and like #its not fucking funny when you remember how fucking hard being 13 is #youre beginning to be angry at the injustice of the world and at the way youre treated but you havent yet learned how to take #the autonomy (yours #your autonomy) your parents hold in their hands and wrench it bleeding from their unwilling clasp #you havent yet learned how to force adults to respect you to treat you like a person so you try to act older and youre cutting and mean #because if they wont respect you as a child and they wont respect you as a person maybe theyll respect you as a threat #like. idk man 13 year old girls should not scare you #13 year old girls just want to be treated the way you would treat your friends- kindly and with respect for their boundaries #thats literally it #negative #my thots #sorry this post is kind of a downer i myself am the age group im talking about so. i have a lot of feelings u know how it is

[groundramon]

Homph I finished tri and I wrote down my thoughts as I was watching because I had too many funny shitposts and nobody to share them with bc charlie hasn’t watched tri yet

PS i wont be reblogging tri spoilers (besides MINOR stuff like, digivolutions of already confirmed digivolution lines or non-spoilery shitposts, but I’ll try to tag shitposts as #tri spoilers anyways [digivolutions specific to tri ill tag as well but not ones that were already basically confirmed]) for a while so ur safe here!  I’m just gonna like everything/most things because then I can rb em to hisyaryumon lmao (also u should check out hisyaryumon....its me n charlie’s digimon blog)

EP 1:

- ok. alright. ok. good. they’re dealing with kari’s emotions now instead of just. nothing.  ok. alright. cool.  Still dont like how obscure/”artsy” they’re being with it, this is digimon not kagerou project, but ok.

- Also. I stand by tk and kari being one of the few good straight ships in digimon.  just saying.

- kari: this is my fault... me: god damn it shut up you little brat also me: god relatable ALSO me: ill take whatever display of emotions i can get

- I love how nobody believes tai is dead like.  They’re upset and worried but they’re also like “nah. he cant be. that fucking asshole just left us in our time of need” (actually only matt is the last one)

- Gabumon i would die for you also im crying and I think that’s the first time tri managed to make me fucking CRY

EP 2:

- I had thoughts but then the 02 kids happened and I entered another plane of reality.  I don’t feel real right now

- the only one I can remember is evil!gennai being a dumbass and being like “SUFFER AND SQUIRM YOU PATHETIC HUMANS AS YOU FIGHT OVER THE LAST SEAT” 1. humans are KNOWN for their ability to care for others you dumb obvious fuck and 2. is. is the entire tube going? because that tube can fit too people if they squish.  This isn’t a joke I’m serious it can.

- oh yeah also when i saw whomstever the fuck his name is (adult guy who i love but fuck names) and he was all bloodied i was like “its a cold day in hell when i see blood in digimon” (I think there was blood in an earlier ep but shh idc)

EP 3:

- didn’t nishijima start off as a fucking life coach to these kids.  What the fuck he was supposed to help them find a career not emotionally scar them by bloodily dying in front of one of them

- im realizing that the reason hackmon was always in his cloak, in the shadows, standing still is that they cannot animate him in any normal position for the life of him.  I drew him with better anatomy when i was 14 and didn’t have a tablet.  No seriously, look:

I didn’t say it wasn’t bad, you guys are just underestimating how bad the anatomy on this poor creature is.  Why cant ppl draw dracomon or hackmon correctly imma cry

- ordinemon has the best reaction faces

the best part about these two screenshots is that they literally cut one to the other, first the first one to the second one and then it cuts back to the first one.  They were really proud of these stupid ass expressions.

- I started overcoming my dissociation shock from the second episode and my hypercritical mind was analyzing the shit out of everything that happened (it is Not happy) but then evil!gennai called kari and evil goddess and idk if he’s exaggerating to make her feel bad or if she’s literally a fucking god of chaos and destruction and either way im like

she did kinda like.  Watch wizardmon die, watch tai die, watch gatomon get absorbed.  The dark ocean is just a metaphor for depression and honestly if 02 wasn’t all over the fucking place I think Kari would’ve had some pretty decent development in it.  Actually you know what, I’m using that as an angle to approach Tri at now, wish me luck bc i might actually give it more leeway now

EP 4:

- I’m not dissociating but I forgot to say anything again and I already forgot what happened

- Cant believe mei is fucking dead

EP 5:

- I like to imagine that Tai got there like a few minutes ago, but he was like “well damn guess yall figured it out without me.  alright ill just. see if I need to do anything” and then meicoomon was Still Bad so he waited for when she struck just to make the most badass entrance possible.  Fucking extra ass bitch

- I forgot to write anything again but uhhh I wasn’t satisfied so anyways lets just get into the Juicy Details

Originally I was actually planning to be kinder to Tri than I expected.  Was very invested during it.  ‘Round the end of the last ep I realized hmmm no this isn’t working out.  Where are the 02 kids.  You should’ve brought them in to save the day.  That would’ve been SO cool and SO fun.  Fucking cowards.

god I’m kinda tired so I’m going to address a couple things I still had problems with, note that this isn’t everything it’s just everything I felt comfortable yelling about without rewatching past eps.  Like I forgot nishijima was all bloodied and presumably died in the last part until they brought it up and I was like “????” ALSO DID THE LADY WHO WAS HIS PARTNER OR W/E KILL HERSELF WITH THE GUN SHE FOUND, I JUST REALIZED LITERALLY AS I WAS TYPING THIS THAT SHE FOUND A GUN AND THEN I THINK IT CUT TO BLACK AND I’M

DID SHE FUCKING KILL HERSELF WHAT THE FUCK

anyways my problems:

1. They did joe. really dirty.  I’ll write a more proper rant on this sometime later (mostly bc charlie is MUCH better at talking about joe than I am) but basically I can tell you that his character development in the movies squandered his OG character development.  He’s basically an entirely different person.  Like Tri joe isn’t bad, besides being largely neglected (yes he has a whole half a movie to himself, no that doesn’t make up for it all), its just...not OG joe.  He’s a fine character just not the same character, and its NOT fine when you put the two together.

2. THEY DID THE 02 KIDS EVEN DIRTIER IM SO BITTER sorry you nostalgia-blind, money-hungry fucks at bandai, but the 02 cast is PART OF THE ADVENTURES UNIVERSE.  The only people who hate 02 are ones who like the characters but hate the mess of the storyline at the end, or are completely irrational and elitist about their love of the digimon series and would greatly re-evaluate their opinions if they watched the original series and 02 back to back.  They couldn’t even show them in some kind of group montage at the end??? Standing in the background when they call Mei???  Why couldn’t they call mei from a home phone also, but that’s a less important problem idc that much.  It was a cute scene besides the lack of 02 characters.  Whatever.  AND THE PROBLEM IS LIKE kari and tk?  This entire time???  Were like “oh they disappeared. oops” instead of being frantically searching for their lost friends???  Like i get tk and kari probably have fucking ptsd and can’t express any emotions because they watched important people die in front of their eyes at an incredibly young age but also 1. they didn’t address the ramifications of ptsd, so fuck that theory/excuse and 2. THAT??? WOULD ONLY MAKE THEM LOOK HARDER??? and put on a brave face as they look, but inside they’re so scared and so worried.  Not just “oh sweet, they were found/saved, theyre in the hospital but that’s fine” like WHAT theyre fucking assholes if that’s what they’d canonically do lmao.  God I am SO bitter over the ENTIRE thing with the 02 kids, it would’ve been BETTER if they were deleted from the fucking canon entirely.  Would I have still been bitter?  Yes.  But at least I wouldn’t be madder at TK and Kari too.

3. I stand 100% by the notion that Digimon is not and will never be cut out to be an adults’ franchise.  It wasn’t designed for adults, and it can’t be skewered towards adults.  These particular characters were designed for kids to relate to and find entertaining.  They do not work when placed into an adult setting.  Like, can you imagine a character like Ed from FMA going to the Digimon world?  I guess in a way that’s just Marcus but like.  Just imagine the FMA cast in Digimon Adventure.  It doesn’t work.  Digimon Tri is basically that except real.  Also Data Squad was darker than Adventure so my joke doesn’t even work.

I guess my primary point is that Tri isn’t mature enough of a setup for an adult audience.  It puts a focus on being “complex” and “philosophical” instead of working within Digimon’s constraints and making something good and adult out of that.  Like!  Digimon is a fucking TOY COMMERCIAL.  Don’t give me messages about the futility of human life.  I want bad puns and emotional characters.  That’s what Digimon has ALWAYS been, and ideally always will be.  Tri could’ve made itself more mature by dealing with the ramifications of the Digital World’s events, how it affected the kids psychologically and dealing with healing old scars.  It would’ve been a more mature take on a story we loved and would use things we loved about the story already - the fact that it took so much time exploring characters’ emotions and was surprisingly mature for the time - to make itself better.  You need to take the aspects that drew adults to the show and amplify them, not just slap on a complex story and unfunny dialogue and be like “oh this is fine, right?”

It’s not that Digimon can’t exist as an adult property, its just that if it repeats what Tri did, it’s got no merit and in my eyes the franchise is dead.  If it survives I guess I’ll be happy that people can still enjoy it but I find it unsustainable and unsatisfying to fans of the older series.  Tri is just a fuckfest of highly specific nostalgia that tries too hard to appeal to old fans without capturing what made the original series so magical, and in part thats because the original series WASN’T FOR ADULTS.  I don’t know about the Digimon Story games, bc they’re T-rated so perhaps they’re a better take on an adult Digimon story than Tri?  But you either need to make your own characters and lore specifically for an adult-oriented Digimon season, or perish.  Also, please make it a series and not a group of movies.  Getting four eps every 6-9 months was hell.

I stand by saying Appmon is a more faithful Digimon season than Tri to Digimon’s original spirit.  I believe it holds more potential for success than Tri and better embodies the spirit of the older Digimon seasons.  It’s dumb, its corny, it has horrible puns, but I LOVE it because it also has a deep dark story and emotional moments.  If you dislike Tri and you agree with things I said that make it unlikeable, I highly recommend giving Appmon a chance - if you watch a few episodes and think “oh yeah, I guess this is decent” you’re going to like it.  It’s everything Digimon has always been and hopefully always will be, just with a different concept.  And hopefully the end of the series doesn’t leave a sour taste in my mouth and I have to redact this statement haha since I’m not done with it yet, but I’ve heard good things about it so I’m hoping not so.

Overall, if you watch Tri, don’t get your hopes up.  It resolves everything okay-ish but it’s a pretty forgettable anime on its own and simply doesn’t work as part of the Digimon franchise.

I am, however, pretty interested in what evil!gennai said at the end about Diaboromon and Daemon.  It raises interesting questions about the timeline too.  We know Daemon is in the dark ocean, so perhaps that’s a hint at a future project?  (They did confirm a future project btw, in conjunction with tri being over)  But what about Diaboromon?  I dont believe that Our War Game (I think thats what its called?) took place after Tri, based on the outfits and ages and stuff, but I also don’t remember the movies that well.  Could Diaboromon still be out there too?  It’s interesting.

However, because of the lackluster performance of Tri, I don’t have my hopes up and I really hope that this “next project” goes in a different direction.  Although I guess if they include the 02 kids, I’ll be somewhat less salty...

Side note, did they ever explain why the gennais went evil?  Like ?  That’s a pretty important thing.  The gennais helped SAVE the human world in 02.  And I get that apparently Tri is ignoring 02′s ending but still.  It’s shitty, because Gennai was still a good guy in the original too (and also they cant just keep is younger look and act like 02 never happened)  MAYBE its something I missed but I dont think so.  God there’s just.  So much wrong with Tri.  I’m very displeased and very bitter and I wanna get back to Appmon asap.

It’s got good moments, its got bad moments, I dont know, I don’t care.  There’s nothing wrong with you if you like it, there’s nothing wrong with you if you don’t, and there’s nothing wrong with you if you flip flop and are split like me.  I just wish Tri fulfilled its potential instead of becoming a boring mess.

#stormy speaks #digimon