#they’re just flawed people who make flawed choices | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

empty-as-the-sky · 1 year

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TLDR: It’s super valid to not consume art that’s potentially super heavy or harmful to you personally for any reason and it’s also valid to just not like it but calling it bad art or thinking it’s less valid than other art because you don’t understand the purpose of art that shows morally questionable people doing morally questionable things - you know, like life - makes me really unreasonably mad.

The sheer amount of people on here and in real life who don’t get that the LITERAL POINT of some media - whether it be TV show, book, or movie - is to present complex, unlikeable characters who do morally questionable things and to show why they might do those things while still not excusing their actions - is making me go absolutely bonkers. Especially when the piece of media is self aware and doesn’t make excuses for characters’ poor choices? It’s called sociological drama, that’s the point, how boring would media be if everything was just super likeable people who always did the right thing? I don’t understand. Human beings make nonsensical, fucked up choices all the time and it makes for really interesting drama. You don’t have to agree with characters’ choices or personalities to understand why the writers did what they did and to understand why it makes good art. I don’t know why people have this bizarre idea that good characters = good art?? If it’s not your cup of tea to consume art that’s going to upset you, or you’re only into consuming light, funny stuff right now, that’s super valid! Sometimes self care is going “I can only do light stuff right now” or “I can only do light stuff forever” and both are equally valid and cool! Take care of your mental and emotional health! And it’s valid to criticize art for being damaging and not self aware, especially to marginalized communities. That’s not what I’m talking about here. But when people are like, “But the characters are terrible people who do terrible things” like it’s new information to everyone when THAT’S LITERALLY THE POINT OF THAT PIECE OF ART I just go bonkers.

Yk like, there’s a difference between saying, “this just isn’t the kind of art I enjoy consuming” and “but this is Not Good Art because the characters make choices that I don’t agree with and they aren’t likeable”. End rant I guess.

#I’m talking very pointedly about tell me lies run #can you tell #tell me lies #the literal point of the show is to show the destructive force of toxic relationships amongst a group of very young people #why are you surprised that they aren’t all likeable lol like what #also I don’t agree #obviously Stephen is a piece of literal garbage narcissistic abuser #as is his mother of course #like that’s very obvious #but everyone else mostly just seems like a flawed traumatized person who is learning how to deal with their shit #sometimes in more effective ways than others #it’s supposed to be nuanced and complicated and yea obviously Lucy’s proximity to Stephen makes her more toxic #that’s the POINT #I’m gonna scream #I haven’t seen all of season 1 yet but still it’s very self aware #I don’t know if we’ll get to see all of it but it’s also spanning a period of like 8 years and we start when these people are 18 or 20 #of course they’re going to make bad choices #besides the abusers I find it really relatable and endearing watching insecure young people make bad choices trying to fit in #this also applies to wuthering heights #and succession #and everyone seems to understand the latter pretty well

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comicaurora · 4 months

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You’ve mentioned a lot your characters run free in your head and take on a life of their own. Do you have any advice on how to learn/practice that skill?

I often feel like with my characters they’re less alive, and more action figures with bad joints I have to force to do things, and their choices me essentially stereotyping their characterisation. Eg. my Druid has a survival of the fittest mentality, so all everything he says and does derives from that rather than an actual personality/character.

Sounds like the missing element is how the characters are feeling!

When I'm not sure what a character is going to do next, I'll sit down and check in on their headspace - what emotional state they're in, what they want, what they're avoiding, etc. This gives me ideas for what they're going to do, or at least try.

A survival-of-the-fittest character can reach that worldview from a lot of emotional angles. Do they believe the strong survive because they themselves were once weak, subjugated by someone strong, and they hate this and strive to be strong to avoid it? If so, then they'll have very strong opinions about strong people hurting others, and weak people who remind them of their former self. Do they have a more zen attitude about the world as a whole, not feeling particularly strongly when things die because it's just the cycle of nature? Then they might choose inaction at odd times, like when a friend needs healing, because they believe nature should take its course even if that means losing someone they care about. Do they think of themselves as "the fittest" and hold pride and confidence in this? If so, anything that makes them feel weak might send them into a full-blown irrational panic, because in their worldview, weakness means death.

Characters aren't automatons that act on a list of motivations and flaws, they're bundles of stimulus-response emotions, and sometimes they surprise you because they unexpectedly feel very strongly about something. If you wanna cultivate that school of character-driven writing, check in on how they're feeling and why!

#asks #writing stuff

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fellshish · 6 months

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I understand that. Michael Sheen is attractive but the more I think about Aziraphale, the more he pisses me off because the worst thing he could have said was turning Crowley back into an angel. Crowley hates heaven and doesn’t wanna be an angel. Why does Aziraphale refuse to admit that both heaven and hell suck and why does he say that Crowley is a bad guy when he isn’t one?

Don’t worry, I didn’t think you were calling Michael Sheen unattractive :))

Ok, a lot to unpack here. But i love thinking about good omens so thank you for asking.

First of all, Aziraphale didn’t say Crowley is a bad guy. Crowley said that they asked him back to hell but he’s “not rejoining their team” and he said no. To that aziraphale replied “obviously you said no to hell, you’re the bad guys”. Not the most diplomatic way to say it, he should have said “they’re the bad guys”, but beneath the words is this: he thinks it’s logical crowley said no because he doesn’t think crowley is a right fit for hell. Because crowley is good.

Does he think crowley is right for heaven, then? Not as is — but perhaps as it could be. They could make it better, together. Crowley would be safe there: no longer hated and hunted by heaven or hell. Under aziraphale’s protection. The metatron made it very clear he knew what him and crowley had been up to for all those years, and there was a veiled threat in that, in my opinion.

Now aziraphale & heaven — it’s complicated. Aziraphale doesn’t like thinking about it. He likes living in blissful ignorance enjoying human delights such as books and theater. The last thing he wants to do is work. And over the past 6,000 years he has learned to see shades of grey but he’s also been unable to make real changes. And overall he considers heaven to be better than hell, still. There’s no real alternative.

His choice at the end of season 2, to me, makes a lot of sense. Let’s put it this way. Let’s say you’ve been working for a big charity for the longest time. There are flaws in the company: not everyone who deserves it, is getting help. The charity is being run really badly.

Then, they offer you a new position. You can run the charity. You can change it, but it’ll be hard and you’ll have to give up your current life. Your best friend says: we should just run off together and be happy together. Could you turn your back on the charity? Knowing you could’ve made a difference — or at least tried? That there are people who need help, that aren’t getting it, because you made a selfish choice?

Aziraphale and crowley both have their own flaws in their reasoning, their own motivations. I don’t think aziraphale is more wrong for choosing heaven than crowley is wrong for wanting to be cut off from everything.

The truth is this: the second coming is being put into motion. Aziraphale and crowley are humanity’s only hope.

Aziraphale thinks he can make a difference by influencing heaven. I don’t think he’s mean, or out of character, for that choice.

I do think he should tell crowley he loves him though.

#my asks #good omens #aziraphale #justice for aziraphale

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alphajocklover · 26 days

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hey there. My name is Derek. Im your average, slightly overweight gay guy from Chicago. I work as a pretty decent graphic designer downtown. And honestly, my life has gotten boring. I’ve been with the same guy for far too long. And I sometimes wish I could be one of those loud, obnoxious straight dudes you see at bars. You know the ones I’m talking about. Total jerks who make rude and crude comments to women. Muscles so big. Obnoxious loud clothing. Yeah. Is it weird that I want to be the most hated straight douchebag in the world? Haha it’d be so different

Hey Derek! I’m glad you reached out. You’re asking a question a lot of gay men have asked throughout history: Is it weird that you want to be a straight, buff, misogynist douchebag? Are you a freak because a part of you wants to be the kind of guy you’ve always hated? You’ve always believed in being proud of your sexuality, in treating everyone, especially women, with respect, in common decency, equality, and respect. Usually you’d find those straight, cocky jerks as obnoxious as anyone else. But just like a lot of men (and sometimes women), both in and outside of the LGBTQ community, there are times where, even though you know you shouldn’t, you wish you were one of those guys. It’s hard to say why people get this strange desire. It could be that you’re jealous of their bodies, how they’re so muscular, beefy, and powerful. It could be that you admire their confidence, the way they cockily smirk like they rule the world. It could be that you long to be like them because, despite their flaws, they’re the manly men that society has always told men we should all be.

Or it could be that you know, deep down, that they’re what you were meant to be. That they’re what you could have been, should have been, and would have been… if you hadn’t been turned gay.

Before we continue I wanna make a few things clear. Being gay isn’t a choice, you can’t cure gayness with dumbass abusive therapy, gay people do not turn other people gay, and homosexuality is a perfectly natural thing that some people just are. But… not all people. There are some people in this world, like you Derek, who have been turned gay. You were supposed to be straight. In fact you were supposed to be a straight, beefy, misogynistic, douchebag. But someone changed you, derailed your fate so that you’d be different. They saw you, didn’t approve, and so they went back in time and changed you. It’s not just you either. There are thousands of supposedly gay men who are really straight douchebags who got turned.

The group of people responsible for these changes are mysterious and covered in shadow. Those who know of them call them the SAD, the Society Against Douchebags. Not much is known about them, just that they come from the far future and use a strange machine to go back in time and change the lives of certain straight douchebags through manipulation and futuristic technology. The reason you were always so unathletic and heavy? You had nano machines working against you, keeping on the weight and taking down your endurance. The reason you could never seem to say the right thing and always embarrassed yourself around cool guys? They’d use those same machines to make you feel awkward and uncomfortable so you’d say the wrong thing. The reason you’re gay? They altered your brain chemistry.

But I know someone who can help you turn back.

A group like the SAD, one that so recklessly changes the timeline, doesn’t go unnoticed forever. Eventually another group formed, one that fought back against them. They call themselves the Douchebag Revolution. They’re exactly what they sound like. Straight, buff douchebags who either didn’t get targeted for one reason or another or were saved from their false lives and wanna take down the people who tried to destroy them. They go around, liberating guys like your from their fake fag lives, fighting the SAD and living that douchebag lifestyle.

Personally I try to keep out of their whole time war thing. I don't think what the SAD does is good, but time travel is so fucking complicated I’d like to avoid anyone who uses it all together. Plus the Douchebag Revolution is pretty homophobic, so they wouldn’t accept an actual gay guy like me in their ranks. But I do have a few contacts in the Douchebag Revolution who tolerate me. I could get you in touch. They have a way to reverse what the SAD did to you. A serum. It’ll make you exactly what you always should have been: a straight, beefy, asshole. If you don’t want to, you don’t have to take it. You can stay this way, always wondering who you would have been. But I don’t think that’s what you want. I can see it in your eyes. You know what you are.

You’re a douchebag. Welcome to the Revolution.

Don’t worry about your boyfriend. Either he’s an agent of the SAD or he’s a fellow turned Douchebag. Either way your new friends will help you take care of it.

**another G2S story. I know they’re controversial but they’re so much fun. Definitely going to revisit the douchebag Revolution idea sometime.**

#muscle growth tf #jock tf #jock transformation #jockification #muscle tf #nerd to jock #time travel tf #douchebag revolution #gay to straight

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saltywinteradult · 2 months

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“there is no way in hell Alicent is going to abandon her children” why not?

Aegon’s a rapist and Aemond’s a sociopathic kinslayer, why should Alicent be forced to stay loyal to them?

I understand Rhaenyra why loves Jace, Luke and Joffrey because what’s not to love, they’re perfect. But I cannot see Alicent genuinely loving Aegon and Aemond after everything they’ve done.

It would be 100x more radical and feminist for Alicent to choose Rhaenyra, to put herself first, to stop letting men control her.

Goodness me, I hardly know where to start with this.

I don’t know how you think parental love works, nonny dearest, but it sure as hell isn’t "I won't love my children if they're not perfect people". That’s generally not how parenthood works. And Alicent loves her children. She was sold as a child bride and endured years of rape for the sake of producing those children. Raising and protecting them has been the main purpose of Alicent’s life for twenty years. How could she not love them?

In case you need proof, Alicent physically attacked Rhaenyra, arguably the big love of her life, because she was that angry (and rightfully so) about her son being maimed. Alicent went along with usurping Rhaenyra's throne, despite knowing it would lead to war and ruin what little chance she had left of mending things with Rhaenyra, because she loves her children and is desperate to keep them safe, and she believes that Rhaenyra would kill them to secure her claim to the throne. (Whether that is true is a different discussion - what matters here is that Alicent believes it.) Alicent stepped in front of a dragon to protect Aegon, for crying out loud. Aegon being a rapist clearly tarnished him in her eyes, and yet she still stepped in front of that dragon to protect him. If that doesn't tell you everything you need to know about Alicent's love for her children, I don't know what will. So I don't know that this is a case of Alicent being "forced" to stay loyal to her children, as much as it is Alicent choosing to stay loyal to the people she loves most in the world.

I would also like to point out that Rhaenyra's children are very much not perfect. Jace and Luke both participated in bullying Aemond. In case you forgot, it was Luke who literally mutilated and permanently disabled Aemond. It doesn't matter if Aemond was in the wrong for claiming Vhagar or calling the Strong boys bastards. He wasn't, but even if he was, cutting out someone's eye is not a thing that good people do. So I don't know where you got the idea that Jace and Luke are "perfect", nonny dearest, but it sure as hell wasn't from HotD.

I'm not going to argue over whether Luke maiming Aemond is more or less bad than Aegon raping Dyana or Aemond killing Luke (which is his fault, even if in this version of the story he didn't intend for it to happen). That's not the point. And please note, I am not making a single excuse for Aegon raping Dyana or Aemond killing Luke. I'm simply pointing out that it is extremely hypocritical to claim that Aemond and Aegon are unloveable because of the terrible things they do, but Jace and Luke are loveable when they both do terrible things as well.

And here's the thing. Rhaenyra clearly loves Jace and Luke anyway. Why wouldn't she? They're her kids and she loves them flaws and all. So why is it any less believable that Alicent would love Aegon and Aemond? Why are Jace and Luke loveable despite their terrible deeds, but Aegon and Aemond aren't? And if Alicent choosing Rhaenyra, whom she loves, would be a feminist storytelling choice, why would it be any less feminist for her to choose to stay with her family whom she loves just as much? Why are Alicent's choices only Feminist and Radical when they benefit Rhaenyra?

Even if it were true that Alicent abandoning her family and becoming lifetime president of the Rhaenyra Fan Club would make for a more feminist story - which, to be clear, it isn't - my first priority is not for the story to be The Most Radical And Feminist™. I want the story to be good. And I do not think that making Alicent abandon her family for Rhaenyra would make for a good story. It goes completely against Alicent's characterisation to have her abandon the family we're shown time and time again that she loves more than anything else. Not only would that be a betrayal of her character, it would undermine the narrative as a whole.

For better or worse, these two women and their relationship have been made central to this story. They are foils and they've each been made into the figurehead of their respective teams in every way, down to the marketing of the show. It would simply be bad storytelling to throw off that narrative balance by having them team up. It would completely upend the story being told. The point of making Rhaenyra and Alicent's relationship so central to the show is that despite their love for each other they were still driven apart and forced to become enemies. Having them reconcile would undermine the point that this story is a tragedy.

#alicent hightower #pro alicent hightower #rhaenicent #rhaenyra x alicent #rhaenyra targaryen #aegon ii targaryen #aemond targaryen #jacaerys velaryon #anti lucerys velaryon #house of the dragon #hotd

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acoraxia · 7 months

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What are your thoughts on shadowpeach?

Fandom wise? I do not care for it.

Canon wise? I believe in men committing crimes while forming the most toxic, unhealthy attachments to one person could lead to such a dysfunctional relationship that it, eventually, turns into a functional one. And also they’re trans and aspec.

Disclaimer: this is all my opinion and people can do whatever they want, i simply have my gripes with some of the fandom stuff. this is just me explaining what i like and dislike about shadowpeach.

I think the most common thing people fall into when it comes to ships—or shipping in general—is how to domesticate these two characters without fully addressing their flaws, personalities, behavior, and their overall choices throughout the original media/show they come from.

Macaque and SWK both suffer equally through this mischaracterization: Macaque is often painted as this shy or “edgy” character with little to no ties to his actual character in canon and, more often than not, he is perceived as this “dad” type of character when, in fact, he should not be allowed near children for I fear he will bully them nonstop until they sit there in the corner feeling disheartened and miserable about themselves; Sun Wukong is often portrayed as this dumb himbo with little-to-no means of understanding social cues, not understanding emotions in a way that’s very frustrating, and be this yearning, pining idiot who’s still longing for his childhood crush when he did not hesitate to punch this guy in the face multiple times throughout the show. So when they are paired up together it’s this weird mash of people believing Macaque is the better dad with more understanding of human behavior and Wukong is his dumb, doting husband who’s doing his best and cannot stand up for himself when confronted about things.

The amount of times people choose to make Macaque sympathetic by having Sun Wukong’s family side with Macaque when it comes to Wukong’s actions/choices is so vast I could not count them all on one hand. The common trope of having Princess Iron Fan (Sun Wukong’s sister-in-law) become Macaque’s sworn sister is so disheartening to see for someone who read through Journey To The West and thought of how silly the overall family dynamic of the Demon Bull Family and Sun Wukong’s troops was. Removing Iron Fan as Sun Wukong’s literal sister just to have someone backup Macaque and sympathize with him is funny and a bit silly.

That being said… the canon version of Shadowpeach and its possibilities are, in fact, very delicious.

Canon wise this is what we know about Sun Wukong and Macaque’s history together:

Sun Wukong and Macaque meet

The brotherhood is formed after Azure meets Sun Wukong, Macaque tags along with Wukong (note: Macaque is not addressed as “brother” by the characters, only Wukong is)

Macaque tries to warn Wukong about how dealing with Heaven might be a bad idea

They share a peach under a tree; Wukong reassures Macaque this plan will work

Wukong carries on with Azure’s plan anyway (yes, azure lion’s plan, not wukong’s)

The brotherhood is defeated and Wukong gets trapped under a mountain

Presumably no one comes to visit Wukong, only Macaque

During his final visit, Wukong is angry that Macaque is free and can’t see the fact that Wukong was trying to do everything for them and his kingdom

Macaque snaps back at Wukong and calls him an obsessive demon before leaving

They have another fallout and fight

Wukong ends up killing Macaque in the aftermath

500~ years later, Macaque and Wukong fight again with Wukong being more apathetic towards their reunion than Macaque is

Macaque obsesses over Wukong continuously (coughs)

Macaque is biased in his retellings of his and Wukong’s relationship (see: all of shadowplay and the scrolls memories)

They fight (again) throughout S3

They somewhat reconcile by the end of S4

We will address the fact Sun Wukong was groomed into going to war by this former celestial warrior instead of having it be because of his own want to protect his family and friends after Heaven refused to pay him the respect he wanted when he first joined their ranks later. Right now we focus on the fact that Sun Wukong is canonically a person people easily fall in love with (platonically) and have a tendency to want to stay close to regardless of what his future actions will be like and Macaque is sequentially obsessed with him throughout the show.

“The hero and the warrior were like the Sun and the Moon. Their light, a protective glow, shining upon the world. Together, there was nothing that could stop the two of them. Either in the Celestial Realms or on Earth. As time went on, the hero attained power beyond comprehension. As the hero's light grew, so too did his shadow. And soon, the warrior was cast in that shadow. In the darkness, the warrior was forgotten by the hero.”

Fun fact: Macaque is never going to be on par with Sun Wukong’s power and he works best as support than he does a duo-attacker along side Wukong. Wukong is on his own power level and Macaque, while being able of holding his own against enemies, could be stomped to death by Xiaoijiao is he crossed the line.

Macaque’s obsession with Sun Wukong comes from the inability to move on from the past; Macaque wanting things to go back as they were is a subtle theme going through the show — he keeps latching on to biased memories and avoiding the actual problems that caused their relationship to fall apart and it isn’t until Season 3’s big confrontation with Long Xiaojiao’s Samadhi Fire ritual. He realizes he abandoned Wukong during a time of need and proceeds to flee, abandoning him again.

Macaque has issues. More often than not people call out on Sun Wukong for abandoning Xiaotian or the Monkie Kid Crew all while ignoring the fact Sun Wukong does not purposefully leave Qi Xiaotian, he tries his hardest to make it back in time and is visibly scared/horrified when LBD attacks in his absence. Sun Wukong tries his hardest to comfort Xiaotian while Macaque tries to torment him.

Regardless, Sun Wukong and Macaque’s relationship is unique to most media’s portrayal of friends turned enemies. Because Wukong does not see Macaque as a threat up until he teams up with Lady Bone Demon — he is only scary by association, not by anything he has done up until that point. You can tell with the way Wukong mocks him and calls him something akin to a puppet during their interaction in Season 3 when Macaque trapped him and Nezha in the ice.

And even then Macaque doesn’t even bother trying to engage with Wukong in a friendly manner because kindness is for losers HA i’m not apologizing for anything, bye Sun Wukong, you big old LOSER [proceeds to possibly live on the streets and stay homeless until wukong allows him to return to ffm under certain house rules]

You’ll notice that Sun Wukong barely has any opinions on Macaque.

This is because Macaque is favored by the narrative more than Sun Wukong is so we have very little context as to how Sun Wukong genuinely feels towards Macaque.

Sun Wukong sees Macaque as an annoyance, a bother, a threat, a coward, an imposter and then, finally, an ally.

But all we get from that is Wukong handing Macaque a peach-flavored ice cream pop as a parallel to him sharing a peach with his old friend back when they were young monkeys before he was trapped under a mountain for 500 years as a result of his abuser’s power hold on him that forced him to fight heaven as a way to “make the world a better place”.

We love to see it.

Macaque and Wukong’s relationship goes from mutual interest and a supportive friendship established years prior to the original building of the brotherhood to a very weird, uncategorized type of dynamic. The only way to characterize Sun Wukong’s “affection” towards Macaque is, possibly, the same way most people would characterize Macaque to be towards Wukong. Y’know the slightly judgmental actions and eye rolls and scoffs of affection most people write about Macaque when Wukong does something stupid? Yeah.

“But Macaque said “this guy” when Wukong was presenting his plan to defeat Azure—“ yeah have you considered Wukong does a lot of masking in the presence of the entire Monkie Kid Crew and Macaque has a tendency to present himself as this cool persona when in fact he’s just a homeless monkey who’s been crashing on his ex’s couch for the past weeks since the ending of Season 3?

“OK…. but why QPR Shadowpeach?”

Sun Wukong throughout the course of Journey to the West and all its past and future iterations have always had him be uninterested in both men and women. There are multiple instances where he’s capable of courting women and he instead backs away or does not pay it any mind; aside from this he’s heavily implied to only care about familial love and friendships. He does not see his pilgrim brothers as anything more than family and he views Tripitaka as a mentor rather than someone whom he was chained to. And Azure was his idol and he was groomed by him, and everyone else was viewed to him as a troop — or, y’know, a family.

This and the fact that— both Sun Wukong and Macaque are over a thousand years old. Why on earth would they have a normal type of relationship? Giving them a checklist of what passes on as romantic and platonic when to them the line is so blurred it’s barely existent to them is amusing.

Sun Wukong and Macaque having their own weird relationship where it changes from frustrated best friends to partners to angry middle aged demons to the tired traumatized immortals who sometimes cuddle while still beating each other up is so deliciously interesting and unhealthy to the point where it is healthy.

Also Celestial bodies are not the same as mortal bodies; canonically Sun Wukong has transformed into women before and people have addressed him with female-leaning pronouns before. my personal headcanon of sun wukong being genderfluid lves on and now we can have sapphic shadowpeach with transfem macaque.

also im still feverish so if this doesnt make sense then too bad damn im sorry

#analysis #lego monkie kid #monkie kid #six eared macaque #lmk six eared macaque #lmk sun wukong #sun wukong #shadowpeach #qpr shadowpeach #ok im tired #goodbye forever now im going to get a haircut #and then maybe go to the movies ig #lmao

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verosikastrikerexcuser · 7 days

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Vivizepop hates women so much to where she have a woman who suffered a position that many women did in history as a total bitch just because she needs drama to have her precious yaoi ship to happen

Literally… and seeing the misogyny has St*las stan clowns crying that you must just be homophobic. As if so many of us who are critical of how Stella was portrayed don’t also like characters like Angel Dust and don’t love ships like Bl*tzfizz and Bl*tziker, non canon m/m ships. There is nothing wrong with media that portrays and yes even focuses heavily on m/m. The problem arises when the writing is misogynistic and actively hostile to female characters for no good reason. You can’t just make female characters one dimensional devices that only exist for the male characters’ pain, drama etc and expect people not to see that for what it is. Just don’t write a load of misogynistic tropes straight out of a yaoi fanfic in which women are mindlessly villainized for things male characters wouldn’t be everywhere in your work. It’s that simple. Female characters in HB either act as support or angst devices (Octavia is a big one in that latter category) if they’re on our protagonist male character’s side, or they’re one note as fuck if they at all oppose the male characters. They exist for the male characters stories not their own. It sucks.

There is plenty of other media I’ve liked personally where there are male abuse victims and female abusers and I had no issues with them portraying it because men absolutely can be abuse victims of women. The Alador/Odalia relationship in TOH is a great example. Odalia actually had a choice in marrying for starters. And she wouldn’t be fucked over by an unfair divorce that leaves her with no home. She has clear motivations related to her business but they don’t change that she’s a POS.

The problem with Stella is that she didn’t choose to marry St*las. She’s in a horrific situation with so many reasons to justifiably be upset - but they ignore all of those and try to sneakily hide them and say “don’t think about it too hard” and “no she was just born a POS anyway so those horrors don’t matter”. Wasn’t the point of these shows supposed to be that people who are messy and fucked up can be so for understandable reasons and their flaws don’t mean they’re entirely worthless, even if the flaws are still bad? Why are you giving grace to all these male characters including fucking immortal overlords with vast wealth that they directly own, but a woman in an arranged marriage forced by her own family to get pregnant as soon as she hit 18, she isn’t given that same grace? She doesn’t get to be messy? Like what the actual fuck. I love Ozzie but the fact he’s allowed to be a straight up lovable good guy while Stella isn’t allowed to even just be grey says it all really.

Only certain characters are allowed to be complex and messy despite having the exact same circumstances as other ones like St*las Vs. Stella and to me that’s bad writing. Stella so obviously exists not to be a character but only to be drama for St*las’ story and turning a victim of an arranged marriage into just that, into a Val tier character, yeah sorry lie and call me homophobic then because that kind of writing leaves a horrible taste in my mouth.

#helluva boss critical #helluva boss criticism #helluva boss critique #vivziepop critical #hb critical #anti stolas #stolas critical #stolas hate #anti stolitz #stolitz critical #Stolitz hate #critical stuff

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anim-ttrpgs · 1 month

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Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy, and Themes of Disability, Mental Illness, and Criminality.

Back Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy on kickstarter before May 10th if you want to help a disabled person with limited ability to work pay his bills.

Verisimilitude, What Would a Person Do?

To understand Eureka’s themes regarding disability, mental illness, and criminality, you first have to understand its verisimilitude.

“Verisimilitude” is defined as “the appearance of being true or real,” and it is a big part of the core design ethos behind Eureka. It is a very realistic game.

We aren’t necessarily of the opinion that “realism” is a better design choice than stylization overall for RPGs, but it is a better design choice for Eureka, because we want the PCs to be very normal, believable people who make believable, organic decisions in extraordinary situations. No matter what anyone says, the mechanics of a TTRPG strongly influence what kind of stories are told with it, and what characters do in those stories. So if we want characters to make realistic decisions, the world they inhabit and interact with must be constructed of realistic rules.

Even though there is a small chance that they may be a supernatural creature, PCs in Eureka are still not fearless action heroes, chosen ones, or anything of the sort. They’re normal people with jobs, friends, and families who get mixed up in mysterious and/or dangerous situations, often against their will. They are fragile, vulnerable, imperfect, and they, largely, know it.

“Composure” is a mechanic that helps you know it too. I’ve given a deeper explanation of the Composure mechanic in the post linked here, but I’ll give a very very very condensed version in this post. Composure can sort of be thought of as “emotional/fatigue HP,” (and no, it is NOT “sanity”) it acts as a guideline for how well your character is handling the situation, and when it gets low enough, it starts to have serious mechanical effects as well, because a character’s stat modifier can never be higher than their current Composure level. Fear, hunger, and fatigue all lower Composure, and eating, sleeping, and bonding with one’s fellow investigators can all restore it, at least for normal people. More on that further down. All you really need to know for now is that when Composure gets below zero it starts eating into HP, so characters can even pass out or die from loss of Composure, and also one single bullet is enough to permanently cripple a character, and the rate of Composure loss during combat reflects how serious that is for the characters.

Grievous Wounds

It isn’t too uncommon for RPGs to have some sort of “flaw” system, whereby in character creation you can give your PC “flaws” or some kind of penalty, and usually get that balanced out by being able to add extra bonuses elsewhere, and these “flaws” may take the form of disabilities.

Critical Role’s Candela Obscura, the whole document of which is one of the most egregious examples of liberalism and toxic positivity I’ve ever seen in the TTRPG space, takes this beyond just character creation, and makes it so that if a PC receives a “scar” in combat that reduces their physical stats, their mental stats automatically go up by an equivalent amount, and proudly asserts that to make any mechanic which functions otherwise is ableist. I think you can probably tell what I think of that from this sentence alone and I don’t need to elaborate. Getting bogged down in all the failures, mechanical and moral, of Candela Obscura would make this post three times as long.

I actually do think that as long as you aren’t moralizing and patting yourself on the back this hard about it, “flaw” systems in character creation are a pretty good idea in most cases, it allows for more varied options during character creation, while preserving game balance between the PCs.

But in real life, people aren’t balanced. The events that left me injured and disabled didn’t make me smarter or better at anything—if anything, they probably made me stupider, considering the severity of the concussion! Some things happened to me, and now I’m worse. There’s no upside, I just have to keep going by trying harder with a less efficient body, and rely more on others in situations where I am no longer capable of perfect self-sufficiency.

Denying that a disabled person is, by definition, less capable of doing important tasks than the average person is to deny that they need help, and to deny that they need help is to enable a refusal to help.

This is the perspective from which Eureka’s Grievous Wounds mechanic was written.

When a character is reduced to 1 HP, which by design can result from a single hit from most weapons, they may become incapacitated, or they may take a Grievous Wound, which is a permanent injury with no stat benefits. Think twice before getting into a shootout.

Grievous Wounds don’t have to result from combat, they can also be given to a character during character creation, but not as a trade-off for an extra bonus.

“But then doesn’t my character just have worse stats than the rest of the party?” Yes, didn’t you read the above section? There is no benefit, except for the opportunity to play a disabled character in an TTRPG, and this character will probably have to be more reliant on the rest of the party to get by in various situations. Is that a bad thing?

Monsters

Just like mundane people in Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy, monsters are playable, because they are regular people. I’ve gone over this in other posts and also you can just read about it in Chapter 8 of the Eureka rulebook, but the setting of Eureka doesn’t have a conspiracy or “masquerade” hiding or separating supernatural people from normal society. They exist within normal society, and a lot of them eat people.

Most RPGs consider monsters to just be evil, they do evil for evil’s sake. RPGs that seek to subvert this expectation often instead make monsters misunderstood and wrongfully persecuted, but harmless. Eureka takes a wholly different approach.

There are five playable types of monsters in the rulebook right now, and it’ll be seven if we hit all the stretch goals, but for simplicity’s sake this post will just focus on the vampire. Despite them applying in different ways, the same overall themes apply to nearly every monster, so if you get the themes for the vampire, you’ll get the gist of what Eureka is doing with monsters in general.

I mentioned Composure above, and how it can normally be restored by eating food and sleeping. Well, vampires can not restore their Composure this way. They don’t sleep, and normal people food might be tasty as long as it isn’t too heavily seasoned for them, but it doesn’t do anything for them nutritionally. Their main way to restore Composure is fresh living human blood, straight from the source. To do what mundane PCs do normally by just eating and sleeping, vampires have to take from another, whether they’re happy with this arrangement or not. They do not, of course, literally have to, and a player is not forced to make their vampire PC drink blood, just like you don’t literally have to eat food, but they do and you do if you want to live in any degree of comfort or happiness, or else they’d eventually just sit at 0 Composure and not be able to effectively do anything.

There’s a reason that this is a numerical mechanic and not simply a rule that says something like “this character is a vampire and therefore they must drink blood once every session,” and that is to emphasize and demonstrate that the circumstances a person faces drive their behavior. In America, there is a tendency to think of criminality and harmfulness as resulting from something of an intrinsic evil, but in my experience and observation, people do not just wake up at like age 16 and decide “I think I’ll go down the criminal life path.” Through their life circumstances they have been barred from the opportunities that would have given them other options. People need food, food costs money, money requires work, work requires getting hired, but getting hired requires a nearby job opening, an education, an impressive resume, nice clean clothes, a charismatic attitude, consistent transportation, and so on. For people without, criminality is something they are funneled into, which becomes harder to avoid the longer they go without consistent access to their basic needs. The choice will be between taking money from others by force or trickery, or running completely out of money.

As the Composure counter ticks down, a vampire, or other playable monster, is going to encounter much the same dilemma. There is little to no “legal” or “harmless” way for them to get their needs met, even if they do have some money. Society just isn’t set up for that. And no your kink is not the solution to this, trying to suggest every vampire get into sex work is like one step removed from telling every girl she should just get an OnlyFans the minute she turns 18, or that women should just marry a man and be a housewife that gets taken care of if they want their needs met.

Playable monsters in Eureka are dangerous, harmful people. They were set up to be.

“Oh well then the vampire should just eat bad people!” You mean those same bad people i just described above? See this post for answers to all the other arguments people are going to make to try and absolve vampires of causing harm.

Society not being set up for that brings me to next reading/theme: Monstrousness as disability, and monsters as takers.

Mundane human characters restore 2 points of Composure per day just by eating food and sleeping, but vampires do not, they can’t. To restore their Composure they have to take from others a valuable resource that everyone needs to live and the extraction of which is excruciatingly painful and debilitating (blood). No one knows what happens to blood after a vampire drinks it, it’s just gone. Vampires are open wounds through which blood pours out of the universe.

This is a special need, something they have to take but cannot give back. Their special needs make them literally a drain on society and the world.

Even in so-called “progressive” spaces, there is a tendency to consider takers, people who take much more than they give back, such as disabled people, as something that needs to be pruned, with the mask over this being the aforementioned total denial of the fact that disabled people take more than they can give.

In this way, vampires and other playable monsters are, inarguably, “takers,” but in positioning them as protagonists right beside mundane protagonists, Eureka puts you in their shoes, and forces you to at least reckon with the circumstances that make them this way, as well as acknowledge their inner lives. You have to acknowledge two things: That they are dangerous, harmful people who take more than they can give, and that they are people. Because they are people, Eureka asserts that they have inherent value, a right to exist, and a right to do what they need to do to exist.

One final point is that of monstrousness as mental illness. Mental illness is a disability, one pretty comparable to physical disability in a lot of ways, so all of the above about disability can apply to this metaphor as well, but there are a few unique comparisons to make here.

It’s not the most efficient, but there are a couple of loopholes deliberately left in the rules that allow vampires to restore Composure without drinking blood. Eureka! moments can restore Composure, and Comfort checks from fellow investigators can restore Composure.

When I was writing the rules for how monsters regain Composure in accordance to these themes, I came to a dilemma where I wasn’t sure if it was thematically appropriate for them to be able to regain Composure in these ways, but ultimately I decided that yes, they can. It works with themes of mental illness, which is mental disability.

People with mental illnesses may have the potential to be harmful and dangerous, but study after study, including my own observation, has shown that mentally ill people with robust support structures and agency allowed to them to handle tasks are much less likely to enact harm, be that physical violence, relational violence, or violence against the self. So that’s why I kept that rule in for playable monsters. Being able to accomplish goals, and having friends who are there for them, makes the harmful person less likely to cause unnecessary harm.

I couldn’t really figure out where to fit this paragraph in so I’m sticking it here right before the conclusion: Vampires are especially great for this because they’re immortal, and because they always come back when “killed.” They can’t be exterminated, they aren’t going away, there will always be problem people in society, no matter how utopian or “progressive.” They’re a never-ending curse, who will always be a problem. The question is how you will handle them, not how you will get rid of them.

In conclusion,

Eureka is as much a study of the characters themselves as it is the mystery being solved by the characters. It is a harsh, but compassionate game, that argues through its own gameplay that yes, people do have needs which drive their behavior, many people do have special needs that are beyond their ability to reciprocate, and failure to meet the needs of even a small number of people in a society has high potential to harm the entire society, not just those individuals whose needs are unmet.

And Candela Obscura sucks.

Back Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy on kickstarter before May 10th if you want to help a disabled person with limited ability to work pay his bills.

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r-2-peepoo · 7 months

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Coriolanus Snow and Anakin Skywalker are perfect examples of really interesting characters who had every chance to do the right thing but repeatedly chose wrong even though they were surrounded by good people, all because they had one person whispering in their ear and convincing them to be selfish and to hurt people instead. There is no point where they have to do what they do, it’s their choices that make them compelling.

They’re also both incredibly controlling over the women they claim to love but are quick to try and physically harm them when they realise that they’re actually human beings who will not blindly follow them. It’s very clear they were possessive, not actually in love. To sincerely love is to respect someone’s agency and neither of them were capable of that.

Another trait they both share is that, despite being layered and well written but fundamentally flawed characters who turn to evil by their own free will, if you cast an attractive actor to play them, there are always going to be people who blindly ignore the entire plot just to defend them and justify their actions. Being a victim of abuse or oppression does not excuse you from being a perpetrator.

#‘anakin and vader are different-‘#i am under your bed #the entire original trilogy is rendered utterly pointless if that is the case (which is most certainly is not)#cant even blame george lucas for this one bc it’s still so obvious #anakin CHOOSES to return to the light bc of luke. it was always him and this was always about his choices.#whereas snow is just committed to evil lmao #tired of anakin’s pretty privilege #notice how they both had a best friend and a love interest trying to convince them to be better?#snow had sejanus and lucy gray and anakin had obi wan and padmé #anakin skywalker #coriolanus snow #star wars #the hunger games #tbosas

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bonefall · 6 months

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I’m rereading Po3 and despite its flaws I really enjoyed the introduction to the three. Jaykit isn’t mentioned to be blind in the first few chapters and instead they chose to show how much MORE capable he is compared to his littermates; until at the end of chapter 3, he brings up his blindness on his own. It makes forcing him to be a medicine cat SO much more frustrating because it really feels like they’re setting him up to be a warrior and choose his own fate (note i haven’t finished the reread this is just my first impression)

I like how you seem to take that path in BB regardless! It makes his arc so much more enjoyable

His arc in canon is super frustrating because he's such an independent character who clearly wants to make his own decisions in life, but then he just gets shoved into the medcat den. I LIKE that he ultimately goes there and that he enjoys it; but it was still really fucked up that they stripped away his autonomy in the process.

Re: they are not real, they are writing choices. Taking away the choices a disabled character can make over their own life, forcing them into a celibate nun role, and then going "awwwww dont worry see? he likes it! This was the best thing for him :)" was fucked up.

And imo it didn't have to be that way! You wouldn't have to go the FULL route I did with big changes, he could just be more involved in the descision to stop being a warrior apprentice and it would be fine. Minor change that would make a world of difference.

I do also have to interject to say though... blindness should really not be an extremely severe impairment for a ThunderClan cat.

I'm dead serious.

Whiskers are built-in sensors that tell you the exact position of everything within several inches of your head, ears swerve to pick up sound, and the jacobson's organ provides a sense of smell so keen that I have an entire Clanmew expansion draft because I needed to make WORDS describing the power of this sense that humans do not have. I cannot stress enough how delicate their other senses are, felines do not rely on their sight like primates do

ThunderClan lives in a mixed-oak woodland, where sight is already often obscured by foliage, objects are close together (for whiskers to feel), and nearly every movement makes noise against the leaf litter. RiverClan and (moor-running) WindClan cats would have a harder time with this disability than Thunder or Shadow.

Cat sight SUCKS to begin with. It sucks BADDD. They don't have color vision, they're significantly nearsighted, and they can't track up-and-down movements well. WC doesn't write realistic cats (more like small fuzzy people really) and I also work with more humanesque eyesight, but the only thing Jay should really lose is an ability to rapidly track a small animal swerving fast. Blind cats are often still excellent hunters in spite of that!

So it's an extra big waste that they railroaded him into a position he didn't choose, saying he couldn't be a warrior. This is the perfect disability to write, if you want to explore how ableism can impact the characters in this society who ARE legitimately still capable of nearly full independence, but still need to find accommodations for what they can't do.

In the same arc they're doing the dumb Cinder Reincarnation Plotline, no less!! Where SHE is also feeling like she has no choice over her "destiny," and gets a conflict over a potentially disabling injury

"Oh nooo if cinderpaw breaks her leg she wont be a warrior!"

"What the f-- Im Jaypaw and im reporting live from the scene where a Category 1 Idiot Moment is taking place. Woman breaks leg, suddenly everyone believes she is a horse, more at 11."

One of these days I should really make "herb guides" just covering how various sensory disabilities impact the lives of Clan cats and some tips for writing them as warriors, especially between Clans. Stuff you wouldn't usually consider, like how much noise deaf cats tend to make, how RiverClan would get a ton of sinus infections and lose their sense of smell, being blind in Sky vs Thunder, etc.

#I once saw someone say offhandedly 'well what if someone snuck up on jay from behind and attacked him. No whiskers there'#NEWSFLASH! YOU ALSO DONT HAVE EYES IN THE BACK OF YOUR HEAD #He doesn't have short whiskers either they're normally sized #Something like 4 - 5 inches on a cat like him. About double the size of the head foward and sideways #Once you're talking about close combat like the cats usually do there's no way that you can stay back far enough to avoid them #I want to rewrite owl and jay's fight or make a rematch where jay realizes owl is being a coward #Hanging just out of his range and jabbing at him #But once he realizes it's just a coward's strategy it clicks that the counter is to be aggressive #And not let his opponent out of his 'range'#Also give him a neat little scene where they're grappling next to Black's dam project where it's super muddy #And Jay is like 'YOU WANT TO PLAY DIRTY? LETS GET FILTHY' and dunks Owl's face down into the mud #Because Jay can fight without his sight but Owl doesn't know how to continue while there's stinging gunk in his eyes and nose #I like thinking about what I'm going to do for BB!Jay's matches because his fighting style is really fun to write #1. Be aggressive and proactive 2. Don't let them out of range 3. SCARE THEM #From the Mud Match he learns that the best way to end a fight quickly is to absolutely terrify them #Because they're usually not expecting the fight to be difficult nor are they expecting to feel like theyre in danger #So if you surprise them it breaks their willpower real fast #And as he gains a reputation for brutality he faces less opponents until he's practically known as the Cleric Without Mercy #Bone babble

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hacash · 1 year

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No you don’t understand I’m actually frothing at the mouth at the choice to make Colin take that position during the nudes discussion

because you can’t really claim he was doing it just to posture and fit in with the other guys; Isaac, Dani, Sam and Jamie were all firmly on the side of ‘delete, don’t look, do the right thing’ and he didn’t join in. Even if we know he wouldn’t actually have watched the videos as a gay man, he’s still perpetuating the idea that watching the videos of women leaked against their will is okay. And surely Colin of all people would understand that leaking private stuff like this hurts people? Given his status, I’d put money on Colin never sharing nudes with boyfriends, for obvious reasons. So is his view ‘well I’m always super careful; these women should have been careful too it’s their own fault’? Would Colin consider a woman’s nudes being leaked to be less traumatic than, say, a queer man being outed against his will? And we can guess Colin dates a lot of out guys, but what about the nudes of closeted gay men that he might date? Men who also wouldn’t like those spread around? Isn’t Colin as careful with those as Sam is with his ex-gfs pics? And come on dude what was with the whole ‘they’re my property’ thing? How much of this is garden variety casual obtained sexism and stupidity and how much is the entitlement and slight self-centredness that comes naturally to a guy who would have entered the Premier League as a teenager?

now this may sound like I’m getting at Colin but again you don’t understand, because the Ted Lasso writers could have given me an unproblematic gay baby and instead they’ve given me flaws and nuance and complications all played by the prettiest face this side of Cardiff, I’m fucking delighted with Colin’s character right now.

#ted lasso #ted lasso spoilers #colin hughes

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bestworstcase · 2 months

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the perennial Tai Discourse is really interesting to track bc, speaking broadly, the two major camps are just:

those who focus primarily on ruby’s recollection of her childhood and relationship with her dad (and filter what yang says through that lens such that “i had to pick up the pieces and keep things together when i was five” gets diluted into “yang had responsibilities as a child”)

those who focus primarily on yang’s memories and her arc in v4 (and tend to just ignore or minimize the things ruby says that suggest a positive relationship with tai, in particular often just flat out disregarding how excited ruby is to spend time with or receive care packages from him)

when it’s like. yeah that’s. literally the point. that ruby and yang had profoundly different childhoods.

they’re half-sisters in a story about fairytales and only one of them had a decent dad. rwby is unsubtly interrogating the fairytale archetype of the Evil Stepmother/Dead Mother with raven (not dead, but absent) and summer (villain, presumed dead) and that archetype quite literally requires its counterpart archetype of the Neglectful Father who remarries and tacitly participates in the Evil Stepmother’s abuse of his child from his first wife

tai is as much an exploration of the fairytale Neglectful Father as raven is the Dead Mom and summer is the Evil Stepmother. that’s. a core aspect of the narrative surrounding the rose xiao long family.

the Dead Mom often reincarnates as a bird or tree or similar spirit to watch over her child; rwby turns this on its head by reimagining the Dead Mom as an absent one. raven watches over yang in her bird form because she is too afraid to be meaningfully present; she isn’t dead, but her absence in yang’s life is so complete that she might as well have been, and the fairytale tension between the Dead Mom’s death and her lingering presence is explored through these cramped and inadequate half-measures raven takes in trying to have it both ways.

the Evil Stepmother is a vehicle for making the fairytale heroine miserable; she has no identity nor any reason for her monstrous treatment of the child who is not her own. rwby, again, flips this over with the mystery of summer rose. who was she, really? did anyone know? she was a good stepmom—she loved yang like her own daughter—but now she’s gone. she left. she never came back. she lied. she joined salem. why? what expectations did she feel on her shoulders? what broke her? why did she do the things she did?

lastly, the Neglectful Father must either be a love-blind fool or a weak, contemptible man with no love or loyalty to his own blood; he forgets his motherless child at the behest of his new love. rwby turns this on its head too by rendering tai as a human being—messy, flawed, fully-realized. wicked stepsisters exist for the purpose of being spoiled by the Evil Stepmother in juxtaposition with her cruelty to the first child, who is kind and good because she remembers her mother’s lessons. the fairytale children of these archetypes function as repetitions of their mothers. rwby makes that the central conceit of its spin on the Neglectful Father: what if he loved both the Dead Mom and the Evil Stepmother so much and then both of them broke his heart in mirrored ways, leaving him a single father to both of their children? if he sees raven in yang and summer in ruby, how does that color his relationships with both girls? if you take away the Evil Stepmother but not her daughter, does the Neglectful Father remember his first child? or are people more complicated than that?

and with all three, the narrative engages with these one-dimensional archetypes by constructing complicated, multi-faceted characters on top of them; by tossing the simplistic moral didacticism of a fairytale and presuming, first, that everyone is trying their best, that bad choices can be made from good intentions, and that no one gets it right all the time, or even most of the time. love and profound dysfunction can coexist.

ruby and yang had very different childhoods. that’s the narrative foundation the whole rose xiao long family is built on, because they’re a deconstruction of the archetypal fairytale blended family.

#this is also why every permutation of ''tai isnt rubys Real Dad'' is nonsense btw. ruby being yang’s half-sister instead of step-sister is #on purpose. the condemnation of the archetypal fairytale Neglectful Father is he mistreats his own blood in favor of another man’s children #and rwby uses his blood relation to both his daughters to question that framing;#the dynamic doesn’t become any Less dysfunctional if the favored child is equally the father’s by blood

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barrenclan · 3 months

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just binge read the entire thing up till the recent update (up till 6 am. Don’t do this) and went nuts looking at things for asphodelpaw bc MM MM I love a well crafted narrative. She reminds me of a character I have as well, whose been affected by generations of trauma, but he deals w it in such an immature, teenager-y way bc well. He is. And so was she. She lashed out at Pinepaw bc she desperately wanted approval, some kind of warm reception from an authority figure, and bc her mother has been so distant, she didn’t seek it from her, instead she looked to her mentor Plumstripe (who, admittedly in very nature of being a mentor, had assumed not just an authority role, but a familiar one, one that was supposed to be close, like family.) and Plumstripe, having internalized the cruelty and generations long self inflicted torture Barrenclan does, began to pass down not just that, but the feelings dredged by a splintered relationship w her sister and family. Plumstripe, who validated her own feelings by passing them down and seeing them repeated. And Asphodelpaw so desperate to be close, to be useful, to feel valuable, gave her everything. And yet none of it was enough. (I noticed that while she didn’t try pursuing Cormorantpaw like Daffodilpaw did, she seemed to try and make up for that by needling her brother, something that Plumstripe, from her constant fights w her sister amd the laugh she gave upon actually being there for some of the sniping, clearly liked. At least to try and catch up w Beenose, who was seen being smug abt Daffodilpaw trying to get Cornorantoaw to open up.) And as time went on, the burden of loneliness, frustration, and despair cracked the walls and mask she had built. And the biggest crack came from Slugpelt trying to reconcile w her children, and Pinepaw coming out and trusting his family w that vulnerable secret. Something that shook her enough that she couldn’t help but look inward, to see that she was unhappy, to look outward, and see that the place and people she had looked up to so blindly were hurting her. And she made the right choice, something that speaks so much abt her character. She didn’t withdraw deeper into herself or double down on this performance for the clan she’d been doing, she said “wait, this is wrong. It shouldn’t be like this. And I have the power to change that.” And she HAULED ASS. She went to Egrettail for advice on her feelings of isolation from the culture and pressure the clans have toward she-cats, and finding her footing in her identity that she had grasped for but never realized she could reach until now. She went to Pinepaw and apologized, something that’s surprisingly hard to do, ESPECIALLY for a kid. Her character arc had hit a new track, and she was building a new, authentic confidence. And then all at once she died. And now she’ll be frozen there, never completing her journey, haunting the world she was ripped from. It’s AWFUL (<- said w a smile) I love deeply flawed characters, they’re just so real. Kind hearted and well-meaning characters like Pinepaw are great too, but to me there’s something so visceral abt characters that do the immature things, the selfish things, etc.

You’ve crafted a very interesting story here, with lots of little lore tidbits that make the world feel so much more real, and you’ve backed it up w characters and narrative w so much passion and thought. You care, not just about the story and characters you are writing, but the narrative it presents, the reaches it has. Thoughtfulness is one of the marks of a good writer, and you’ve got lots of it here. Thanks for making such a cool story. If you ever finish the human version, I think you’d have a solid chance at getting it published as an actual book. But if that’s not something you want, please be proud of your hard work and remember to sit back and admire it sometimes.

Thank you both for your very kind words on completely opposite ends of the spectrum.

#ask #anon #op 1 i love your huge well thought out massively touching analysis of asphodelpaw and the comic that is so kind :'D i'm very flattered #op 2 the comic is kissing you back with tongue #analysis #asphodelpaw

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