I have become a Sara defender.
I was so angry with Sara when I first watched Young Royals and had real difficulty trying to understand why she would betray her brother, my beloved Simon, and wondered if and whether her misconduct could or should ever be forgiven. Since then, I have done a full 180 on Sara and am really rooting for her in S3. A big part of my reassessment of the character was when I saw someone (found it! post by @heliza24) discuss how Sara, not Simon, was the secondary protagonist of the show. That realization of how Sara's journey mirrors Wilhelm's gave me a completely different perspective on her.
A person who doesn't quite fit in with their female-led family and exists in the shadow of a "perfect" sibling, has to go to a new school because of turmoil and conflict involving classmates at the old school. The person feels isolated at the new school until they make a connection with someone from the world of the elite that they should have nothing in common with and the two become inseparable after weathering ups and downs. The person falls in love, makes some very questionable decisions, puts their family at risk, betrays loved ones, and then seeks redemption.
I am generalizing greatly of course but at the macro level, that describes both Wille and Sara's story. The characters in Wille's drama have equivalents in Sara's. The sibling whose overprotectiveness and insistence that she tow the family line can feel suffocating. The mother who cares but is also dismissive of her desire to live a different life. The first friend that's pushed away but is eventually reconciled with and that eventually leads to love (Felice and August play the same role as Simon, so I don't think it's coincidence that Felice was the only reason August ever even spoke to and then kissed Sara).
And it may be a anathema to even think it but that means Simon = August in terms of narrative role parallels: a trusted family member who betrays that trust and causes trauma. Now Simon's "crime" isn't legally equivalent to August's actual crime of course. It may even seem trivial. BUT the trauma caused to Sara by what Simon did shouldn't be dismissed as trivial. S3 may give more insight into the Eriksson family and completely blow it apart, but in S1 there are strong implications that Micke was physically abusive as well as causing the emotional abuse that comes from living with an addict and being in a financially precarious situation. That Linda had to choose between staying with an abuser or homelessness also suggests a lack of outside support/assistance. She and Simon swore that they would never contact that "bad person" once they were finally free of him. Sara thought that part of her past had been laid to rest and she and Simon were on the same page having earlier reconfirmed their commitment to no secrets between them.
But then . . . Sara, after all of her trials and tribulations, finally has a moment of pure joy and when she is basking in the afterglow of acceptance and belonging, it all comes crashing down when the bad person from her past suddenly appears in front of her with no warning. And Simon is not only the reason that nightmare happens, he has been lying about it to her all along. Then whatever trauma Sara was feeling about suddenly being faced with her (possible) abuser is dismissed and ignored in the face of Simon's more public trauma. It's like a double hit - her brother caused her pain and she's not even allowed to be mad at him about it because now he is suffering. Instead she is threatened with another trauma: being made to return to the school where she was brutally bullied and is told she's being selfish when she objects, expected to be loyal to the family even when it hurts her.
Hurt, betrayed, unsupported, and desperate, Sara does something that betrays a loved one in order to save herself. The story trajectory really is the same as Wille's, hers is just spread across multiple seasons. Like Wille in S2, S3 will be Sara's redemption arc.
I hope Sara and Simon can reach an understanding if not actual forgiveness. But even more so, I hope Sara learns and matures from her mistakes so she can come to some self-realizations about what is important to her and her heart. And while I actually really liked Sargust and how sweet it was, Sara deserves better than August.
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me: surely there is no character more wildly misinterpreted by fanon than jaskier
me: anyway time to finally watch omfd
popular blorbo izzy hands: hello
me: i’ve heard about you. i’m sure you have many redeeming characteristics and aren’t just straight up terrible. there’s surely no way you’ve been woobified to within an inch of your life
popular blorbo izzy hands: yeah about that
me: oh no
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No amount of character assassination in the later seasons could ever be enough to make me hate Danny Castellano. It will never work because I KNOW that isn’t you, my short king. How could I stop loving the red magnetic reading glasses? The Secret Santa dance? The dorky way he got so excited about the bomber jacket? How nervous he was for his driving test? The strip tease to American Woman? The way his legs dangle when he sits on the countertop with flowers? His sad, lonely piano playing? The way he raised his little brother and supports his entire family? How he apologized for being too harsh about Mindy being late and admitted it was due to his daddy issues? The tailor-made workout plan full of celebrity scenarios? Reading Bridget Jones’s Diary in a terrible British accent? Writing out a list of all his secrets to tell Mindy to prove he trusts her? His fear of the ocean out of respect? His old man rants about not turning on the heat when you could just put on a sweater and do some pushups? The plane kiss??? His exercise addiction as his only mental health coping strategy? The gingerbread houses every Christmas? His love of Ken Burns? His lil beanie when he’s going to the gym? The way he found out about his half-sister and immediately agreed to go to her soccer game? His attempts to make interpersonal chitchat with varying degrees of success? The way he broke his no lying rule to get Mindy out of hot water and did a TERRIBLE job? His nervous sweats? His love of sandwiches, even at parties at other people’s houses? His loyalty to the people he loves? THEY TURNED YOUR GRUMPINESS INTO AN UGLY, BITTER, ABUSIVE THING BUT I SAW ALL THAT GROWTH FOR THREE SEASONS AND I KNOW BETTER, MY BELOVED!!!
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I love how Karlach is written in this game. Her being a veteran of war, how she copes differently from the others is interesting. And she doesn't need to show it all the time. You catch subtle glimpses of her trauma through her happy go lucky facade she puts on.
She copes as much as she could and even through your romance, you get glimpses of her pain. As Minthara says she lives in the moment and even she finds that beautiful.
And after Gortash dies, that all comes out and God, is it done well.
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not keeping up with award shows is so valid tbh
RIGHT?? and also pls the toxicity it causes between fandoms these days,,,, not worth it tbh
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Have not stopped thinking about the parallels between Flower and the tarot card The Fool since I started watching Ghosts so I finally drew it (based on the classic Pamela Colman Smith deck):
The card so often gets interpreted to mean naive or foolish, which is also true of Flower’s character…I think even the other ghosts tend to write her off as just this naive spacey hippie who can’t hold on to a thought. At its core though, the card is about a sense of wonder and joyful openness to the world, a willingness to experience things and open oneself up to the possible, something I think is wonderfully embodied by Flower, especially as we’ve gotten to see more of her backstory and character arc this season.
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had to briefly mention you as an example of a new player who likes ARR content in our XIV discord, when the "game only starts at x hours/xpac" meme came up. (mostly because most of us don't know anyone who started so recently though)
did you hear about them increasing the amount of vesper bay aetheryte tickets from msq this patch?
Lmao I diiiid see that! I'm in a few discord servers for the game myself that told me about it, and I was like "NO! How could I miss this by such a small margin aaaa" But then I remembered I never even really used my Vesper Bay tickets, and ended up with 17 left by the end of ARR anyway, so. It didn't affect me all that much. But I'm happy that other new players will have pretty much free unrestrained access to teleports there! I think it's a funny decision, but a good one.
Also I'm really happy to hear that that's the impression I leave, when the subject of "game only starts at x hours" comes up, that people think of me as a counterexample to that. Because I've been loving the game since hour one, and I'm glad that that's clear. 😅
I'm sure that it does get even better! And all that means is that I'm excited to see where it goes, then. Because if "It gets better" from what I'm already going this insane over, then it must be pretty great!
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one thing that does bother me a lot about contemporary marvel discussions on hank pym and by extension mental health is how it is almost always framed as "well Hank had too much pride, he was too self centered and self absorbed to admit he needed help and rejected Janet and the Avengers' help". absolutely of course Hank clearly has a "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" mentality that clearly severely hurt him in the end, and that's a valid thing to discuss, but all of the avengers clearly ignored very obvious signs of hank's mental health. like he was literally severely hallucinating and experiencing psychosis at the time of his marriage to janet and everyone seemingly forgot about that after they signed papers. there are various stages throughout the avengers where something clearly isn't psychologically right with hank, and they ignore it immediately once he starts acting "normal", including Janet. there is literally zero times in the 70s or 80s i can name where a character genuinely tries to figure out what's up with hank behind "janet says he's just a little insecure and he'll get over it, no need to ask further". but writers do not want to admit that the avengers severely failed in looking after their own, that they repeatedly ignored and sidelined obvious signs of worsening mental health under the guise of allowing one privacy. it's more comforting to think that the avengers DID try to help hank and he said no, rather than them ignoring what is clearly a mentally ill man who no longer knows who he is hallucinating severely just because someone else spoke for him and said he was fine.
and they do this to janet too. after her divorce, she is clearly struggling with that and the newfound responsibility of running the team, and repeatedly the avengers will notice and then... not reach out, with the exception of jennifer, who is new to the team. people think about how hard it's been for janet, and yet very rarely does anyone ACTUALLY reach out, and again, it feels like a failure on their part to actively look after their teammates or at the very least refer them to someone who can help.
And they do this with Tony and his issues with alcoholism, they do this with Wanda and her mental health, etc, like the Avengers categorically cannot be trusted with people's mental health and yet for Hank specifically it's very often framed as if it was his own fault for being too prideful, and yes, that's definitely a part, but we really shouldn't ignore the fact that the Avengers allowed a clearly unwell man get worse while having their membership and did nothing to offer support or resources, and they have done this before and they will likely do this again. And I don't expect this to be a big thing where they improve from it, because it's ultimately more interesting to write a character not get help and get worse before they get better, but I think it should be called out more by the characters who directly suffered as an effect of this, because beyond Claremont giving that to Carol that hasn't really happened.
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