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mystech-master · 1 year

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Why I Defend Ragna the Bloodedge (Part 2)

Based on recent stuff I have seen I need to make a continuation of Part 1

I have seen a lot of Jin defense posts both here and on Reddit and now I feel the need to expand on my points.

Long Post Below

The real reason I am obsessed with Ragna, is this massive level of "Take it in the ass" that the story is enforcing.

Yes, life is hard and kicks your ass but find the little things that make it worth it. But how does Blazblue present that?

A lot of Ragna's friends and allies give him a lot of shit for very understandable reactions as I brought up before. And I doubt the few that are good to him would be enough to any other person. Tao is nice but she isn't really someone you can talk about your problems to. Ragna interacts with Noel a lot less than you'd think, Celica has a similar role to Noel as a "cute girl who smiles when you do good and will cry if you do bad" which is its own thing.

The other characters are assholes and Ragna is supposed to deal with it b/c they are superior and also the cute girl wants him to.

I don't believe that being a girl should be why someone cares about you. We are not all Sanji from One Piece. Being a girl doesn't mean you should be treated any better or worse than anyone else. It doesn't mean people should be coddling you, treating you with kid's gloves, or being worried that you're gonna cry (these people should be in their late teens to early 20s FFS). And before you say "BUT NOEL IS ACTUALLY 5!" No, she is chronologically 5 years old, but that doesn't mean she is literally a diaper baby. She is physically and mentally (or at least should be) around the same age as Makoto and Tsubaki, stop infantilizing her.

And I get it, there are sometimes assholes in life that you have to just deal with. Who hasn't had to deal with an asshole classmate, co-worker, work superior, or customer? But the difference here is that when we have to deal with those people, we have a life outside of that to look forward to. Friends and family who help even out the BS. A lot of these people are both the friends/family AND the BS that makes his life more difficult!!! 1-2 cute girls smiling should not make people being assholes to him okay, and just b/c he isn't responding with being calm, cool, and collected doesn't;t mean his feelings shouldn't;t be ignored.

As for the Jin part, I have been reevaluating what I think of their situation.

I have seen many people defending Jin, from a psychoanalysis someone did on Reddit where they do point out that Ragna did show favoritism towards Saya in their youth and that gave him issues. As well as someone saying that the Church scene in CF wouldn't be where they work out their issues due to complexity.

Let me break down what I know about Jin's development in the series.

Same as Ragna, raised in a lab where he was experimented on, but he had his big bro to protect him, saved by Jubei and brought to the Sister's Church where they were raised in the middle of nowhere. Ragna pays more attention to Saya which breeds resentment.

Terumi tells Saya to give Jin Yukianesa which he uses to break the protective barrier around the land and Yukianesa (also the Power of Order and Terumi's Mind Eater) makes him kill Ragna. I forgive Jin for this because he is a kid with like 3 superpowers forcing him to do this so I don't hold this against him.

He is then adopted by the Kisaragi Clan where he becomes a prodigy but also is hated by his new adoptive family and assassins are sent after him. This barely comes up and I kind of view it the same way I view the whole "Tsubaki being inbred" thing: just edgy background fluff to make the characters sound more tragic. He is nice to some people but again I can't tell how much of this is a lie considering his inner asshole comes in. Tsubaki just makes it seem like he can be nice but he's just being a selective asshole about it (and I have said that it just feels like their ship just exists to give Jin SOME morality, and I have seen some other people have said that their ship feels like 2 homosexuals being forced into a hetero-ship).

He fights in the Ikaruga Civil War and apparently based on the novel he resists Yukianesa's urge to murder everyone (even though Jin at this point in his development has no reason to give a fuck, I feel like they had Jin's CP-CF development in mind when they were writing this and if KAGURA can say he killed people we can believe Jin did), he kills Lord Tenjo but realizes some truth before Terumi mind wipes him. Apparently, him losing this memory and being branded a war hero upsets him, but IDK if he is upset about the past memories b/c "I did something wrong and I care" or f it'd be something more like "Grrrr, my pride". Or maybe I am missing something

He gets the position of Major with Noel as his secretary, and he is kind of shit. Like I said before, skipping meetings and not doing paperwork, as well as treating Saya like ass just because she LOOKS like the little sister that got preferential treatment. And unless he has the anime-6th sense that tells him the plot that everyone but Ragna has, as far as he knows this is just a stranger that LOOKS like Saya.

He gets notice of Ragna the Bloodedge destroying NOL bases and he then goes after him, not out of duty to the NOL, but b/c Yukianesa makes him REALLY want to murder him. Ragna kicks his ass and he is hauled off to be treated when Hazama and Noel find him. He still goes to try to find Ragna while resisting Yukianesa AND the Power of Order (which basically exists to say "You must fight Ragna b/c you are Shonen Rivals") while saying that he must kill Ragna to save him b/c of his suffering, which IDK HOW he'd jump to that conclusion when he's barely talked to him at this point, if AT ALL.

He fights Tsubaki who tries to get him to come back to the NOL, where he then talks about all the corruption and how much they suck, trying to give a moral high ground to him where he was aware of all of it but he never did anything about it, and he basically rejects Tsubaki so hard she becomes a Sith Lord.

He and Ragna fight again with Ragna telling him to not let the sword control him. They put aside their differences and fight Mu-12. Then after Izanami makes her grand entrance, Jin reveals that Saya gave him Izanami after Ragna reveals that THIS is Saya.

He then goes to train with Jubei to master the Power of Order so he can save Tsubaki from the Imperator's Mind Control. He saves Tsubaki by using the Power of Order to resist the Immortal Breaker (even though it feels like that shouldn't matter sense the Immortal Breaker isn't just "So strong it can kill Immortals", it "Makes them Observe their own Death" so it can only kill Observers,, basically it could kill Schrodinger-Alucard from Hellsing. I mean it is still a big ass Pike so him using the PoO to basically pull a Guts and survive would make sense, but needing to use it's IB function isn't necesary.

He then just sticks around, even though he said he was only there for Tsubaki b/c he has nothing better to do. He fights Ragna after he goes berserk in the ending and gets so fucked up that not even Celica can heal him.

CF is hard b/c a LOT of it is exposition and outside of the big shit (everything around fighting Nine to the Church to Izanami to Susanoo) I have a HARD time remembering the finer details of this.

Jin tells Tsubaki about his backstory before the Kisaragi's and that Ragna is his brother, Tsubaki says he shouldn't kill Ragna since he is his brother, and she wants to take up that burden (even though it'll never happen). In the Arcade mode, he defends Noel, saying that "What good is saving the world if we sacrifice the lives in it", while still saying he'll kill Ragna.

Then the Church scene. I believe that this, THIS, is where Ragna and Jin should've dropped the exposition and talked about their situation like actual people. Give us some development and closure for this and not just say "They have been fighting and arguing all this time but it's okay b/c they're brothers". But no, apparently their issues are too complicated to be solved like that.

Then why have I been watching this?

Why give me this plot point and NEVER GO ANYWHERE WITH IT!? Once CP comes around and everyone is being forced to focus on the big plot, none of the interpersonal conflicts come into play. the 3 Power of Order guys wanting to kill Ragna, Ragna and Jin's messed up family situation, Noel being a friend of Ragna and well as being a clone of his sister and how that'll reflect her relationship with Tsubaki, Celica being Ragna's greatest supporter vs Tsubaki hating him for existing. All interesting inter-personal conflicts that either don't exist b/c Rachel/Kagura/Kokonoe have to pull everyone into "Main Plot" mode, or when/if they ARE acknowledged it is just an excuse for every Arcade/Story Mode fight o have some Big Climactic Story Moment but it never actually GOES anywhere.

Jin is the Power of Order meant to kill Ragna, it BARELy comes up b/c once CP comes along they are focusing on the bigger threat and Ragna is erased at the end anyway. Making that whole role seem meaningless and just exists to make them fight for fighting game reasons.

A last-minute hug between them doesn't make all the BS before between Ragna and Jin okay. It just makes it feel like they are saying that "Being family is a get-out-of-jail-Free card for being a total asshole". Yeah, they are probably just expecting us to exaggerate the usual Sibling Drama for this, but with all the other BS in this franchise. When are we supposed to view it literally/seriously, and when are we supposed to see it as "dumb/crazy/quirky/edgy anime BS"?

I am probably missing a LOT of details about Jin and maybe misinterpreting information that I haven't seen in a LONG while here, but I do kind of hyper-focus on Ragna b/c his status of the Butt-Monkey and how HARD it goes is just more compelling than "Jin is an asshole but everyone is cool with it". Just goes to show what parts of the story have stuck with me all these years.

It's not that I don't want there to be internal conflict in the/a story. Conflict from the villains is to be expected (which is why I don't rage at the villains as hard, they are VILLAINS doing what VILLAINS do) but inter-personal conflicts between the cast members I expect to be dealt with via proper development.

EVERYONE will Defend Jin b/c he has the more apparent/obvious tragedy, and Noel b/c she's a cute girl. But Ragna is the "man up and power through it" protagonist so we just expect him to take it in the ass b/c powering through adversity is the way of the protagonist.

But THIS is TOO MUCH!

BlazBlue has made me question a LOT of things in the past 5-6 years:

What people are worth respecting/defending?

How much is "doing good for the sake of doing good" actually worth it?

Is being "Worth it" enough, or should things be better? WHY can't they be better?

Why do we love/care about Family, and how far should familial love go?

Should there ever be such a thing as unconditional love?

Why would anyone want an anime-style friendship where you do nothing but argue/fight/insult each other but then have to wait for some big crisis for them to show they care?

Does caring about someone give you permission to treat them badly?

Where is the line between bad behavior that you just need to accept/deal with, and the behavior that you need to stop?

Do you need to be calm, cool, and collected all the time for your opinions/feelings to matter?

If someone isn't having fun or joining in on the silliness, should you get on their case about it?

and a lot more I can't think of right now

I might just be a stupid westerner/American who doesn't have the collective "respect the status quo/the whole" deal that Japanime land has, and I can see where it comes from. But it just goes way too far in this case.

It has almost ruined other franchises for me b/c I am now judging every relationship between the characters in a similar way I view this..

I have a lot of AUs/Crossover ideas in mind where I just turn Ragna into the most OP guy ever and have him question his bonds with everyone because I want to give this guy the higher ground for once. Yeah, it might go against the point of Ragna's character, but the o.g. point was presented horribly and it sucks ass. But I have been entertaining the idea of it not ending horribly, but I NEED a better understanding of all the other characters and how they can be better as well. B/c as they are now, unless you LIKE seeing everyone argue or having people be annoyed, it is just too much.

#blazblue #ragna the bloodedge #respect ragna #rant #blazblue rant #jin kisaragi

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sailorhyunjinz · 3 years

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~ High on hatred ~

Warnings: SMUT, college!au, stoner!jisung, fem!reader, goodstudent x badstudent, illegal substances, fingering, blowjob, aggressivity(?), choking, hairpulling, penetrative sex (stay safe :c), nicknames (babygirl, slut..), hickies, cuddles!

Word count: 3,134 words (ok cherry slow down ffs)

Requested: yesyes~ thank u anon for requestiiing cc:

Note: ok huge note here! i literally know nothing about drugs/illegal substances (or even legal substances for maybe except my raging caffeine addiction) (where im from most substances are illegal heh) so please understand if this shits written like shit) also bad boys x good girls is my WEAKNESS since i always want some “bad boy” to wreck my good girl agenda hahahsh

Jisung wasn’t the most outstanding student in college but somehow you ended up being partners for a group project. The quiet straight A kid with the failing stoner, you could already imagine how this would go. You sat next to him in the lecture hall after your professor had announced the pairs and dreaded introducting yourself but your parents raised you with the belief that kindness comes first so you took a deep breath and said:

“Hi! I’m y/n” you smiled at him. His gaze met yours, those dark brown eyes were somewhat bloodshot and his aura reeked of smoke.

“Sup, Jisung” he waved with his thumb, pointer- and middle finger lazily towards you as his gaze scanned your body. You felt a bit uncomfortable by his predatory stare so you shifted in your seat, adjusting the white flowy skirt you had on.

“Ehm.. so.. how do you want to structure up the project? I was thinking that we could divide the parts by-” you were stopped by his scoff. You looked at him in confusion. This would be much more difficult than you anticipated.

“Come over to my house tonight babygirl” his corny smirk and raspy voice made you want to punch him. Taken aback you turned your head slightly as you said;

“What? So I can be another one of the girls you fuck?” your blood was boiling. Who does he think he is with his snapback and dangly silver earrings?

“Chill, I was thinking about working on the project but you seem to have other plans in mind with me” he smirked, still observing you.

Your face turned beet red and Jisungs cocky attitude did not help in the slightest.

“I.. I d-didn’t mean that..” you stuttered but you decided to shut up to not make the situation worse. Jisung reached for the post-it notes that were by your side and wrote something down. He teared it off the pad and just as you stood up, hoping to walk away and never see him again you heard him say;

“Babygirl, come at 7″ he stretched out his arm, hand holding the note.

You grabbed it aggressively and stomped off as you heard him yell “Come safely babygirl”

♡

On your way home you crumbled up the note and stuffed it in your pocket. You had no intention of meeting him but when you arrived home you reached for the pink note in your pocket as you took off your backpack and sat down in the kitchen. The pink note had his adress on it. The urge to just scream and rip up the note was strong but something stopped you and that was the fact that you needed to get this project done. You were not going to fail because of some stoner. You unpacked your bag and started studying on some of your other courses but the note always lurked in the corner of your eye.

Hours later you stood infront of your mirror putting different shirts on hangers against your torso, comparing the colors. Being preoccupied with choosing the cutest shirt you didn’t notice the fact that you tried to look your best for Jisung. Eventually you snapped out of your good girl side that always wanted to look presentable. Why do I care about what he thinks of me? You rolled your eyes and put the shirts back into your closet as you took out a sweatshirt and a matching pair of sweatpants. “This will do” you said under your breath as you slipped into the comfortable fabric before you ordered a taxi.

“Shit better be worth it” you sighed as you clicked “proceed” and saw the sum. You packed your bag with the necessary stationary, threw on a fluffy ivory jacket and grabbed the keys with a jingle.

You greeted the taxi driver whose taxi stood infront of the apartment complex. Before you headed out you managed to grab the pink note and now showed it to the driver that nodded whilst the soft radio static played in the background. The town looked so peaceful in the evenings, the artificial lights from the thousands of offices reflected in your glistening eyes as you looked out the window. You noticed that your shoulders were tense signaling that you were nervous which was dumb. Why would you be nervous to meet a dirtbag that has the right to call you ‘babygirl’? A shudder cascaded down your spine at the though of that awful nickname, especially when it echoed in your head in Jisungs voice.

The taxi halted infront of a long block of brick apartment complexes, the nightlife being busy as usual in the big city you resided. A small “thank you” slipped out of your tongue before you opened the car door and were met by the cold breeze. The entrence had grand glas and wood double doors which opened with a loud creek. You looked at the note once again, checking what apartment number the boy lived in. “248″ you muttered as you made your way up the stone staircase. “Found it”, you stood infront of the slightly bashed ivy colored door. Your hesitant fist made it’s way to knock on the door and after 5 nervewracking seconds the tall, slim boy opened the door with a joint between his lips. Smoke was emitting from behind him and the organic scent hit your nostrils.

“You came babygirl” he leaned against the door frame as he drew in the smoke from the joint and blew it towards you. You coughed and waved your hand infront of your nose, clearing the smoke.

“What you standing for? Come in” he snapped his head backwards as a sign for you to step in. You looked down and entered the small smoke-filled apartment. He went to his room and you followed behind with small steps observing the disorganised living space that was cluttered with takeout boxes and photos of friends. His room wasn’t any better. Piles of laundry sat everywhere in the small room and the bed wasn’t made. Did he seriously think that the two of you could do the project when there was a mess wherever you looked? He kicked a pile of clothes away from the carpet and threw a cushion from the bed towards you. He sat down on the carpet as he drew in another breath of smoke into his lungs. Reluctantly you sat down on the cushion opposite to Jisung that was dressed in a boxy white t-shirt and black basketball shorts.

The big bunch of papers that were required for the project came out of your backpack that was sitting beside you. You spread out the papers on the carpet to make sure Jisung could see but he didn’t seem interested. Instead he kept on smoking as he stared at you intentively, that preditory gaze of his returning. As you were about to start talking about the ideas you had he stretched out his hand offering you a puff. You furrowed your eyebrows as a response to his action.

“No thanks, I don’t do... that..” you said whilst shaking your head gently.

That teeth-gritting smirk was plastered on his face as he said:

“You sure babygirl? It will help you relax” he heightened his eyebrows at you.

Normally you would be very stubborn. You never let anyone do something to you that you didn’t like but in that moment you were swooned by his presence. Was it your feelings or the smoke that you had been breathing in? Without thinking twice you grabbed the joint from his hand to which he licked his lips, grinning.

You put it against your lips and puffed deeply, tasting the smoke in your mouth and feeling it spread in your lungs. A loud cough startled Jisung a bit and you passed the joint back to the brown haired boy. Instantly he looked thousands times more attractive. ‘I must be crazy’ you though as you gently shook your head and tried to concentrate at the papers laid out infront of you. In your peripheral view you saw Jisung shift closer to you and you lifted your head up to look at him. There was something intoxicating about him. The way his brown locks hanged over his eyes or how his piercings shined in the light from outside or maybe it was that veiny hand that held the flaming joint. Whatever it was you found yourself leaning closer to him. Just as he hit the joint again, the smoke spreading in his mouth, you attached your light pink lips onto his plump ones. Jisung opened his mouth in the kiss, crashing his tongue on yours which made the smoke enter your mouth. Being to caught up in the moment Jisung put out the joint on the dark wood flooring which probably was a huge fire hazard but did either of you care in the moment? No.

The kiss was passionate coming from the tremendous amount of sexual tension in the air. Jisung veiny hand cupped your blushing cheek for a second before it snaked around the back of your neck, pulling you deeper into the wet sloppy kiss. You broke the kiss for a moment to stand up and Jisung did the same but only for a moment as you were pushed down against the unmade bed. It smelled just like him. The substances he was smoking accentuated his natural smell because of course it wasn’t just weed but tobacco as well. You remembered the countless times he had been smoking a cigarette with his friends outside the college department and the momentary eye contact the two of you made before you hurried off to your other classes. It always seemed like his gaze lingered on you even as you walked away.

You landed with your hands beside your head. As Jisung hovered above you he held both of your hands in his, pinning you to the bed. The wet patch in your panties was growing simply by seeing him on top of you. He leaned down to kiss you once again, biting so hard on your bottom lip that it almost drew blood. The two tongues fought for dominance but the second his hand crept underneath your sweatshirt you lost, a low whine escape your mouth in defeat. Your heads twisted as the makeout session got a slow but steady pace. His hand was warm but more substantial than you though against your boobs which he squeezed harshly through your white bra. Involuntarily your hand grabs a fist of his hair making him smirk against the kiss.

“Desperate babygirl?” he coaxes you.

“Desperate to get this over with so we can work on the project” you answer inbetween kisses.

“I think you have a much bigger problem to worry about” he growled and looked down for a split second.

As if the smoke wasn’t enough this just added fuel to the fire, both to the deep red color your cheeks were stained with and the wetness in your panties. His clothes were off in a blink and before you knew it he was pulling away yours as well, leaving you with nothing but your slightly embarrassing pink panties that were decorated with a small animal print.

“Aren’t you adorable?” he cooed at you as his hand trailed down your torso and plummeted into your panties.

“Shut up-ahh” your attempt of trying to bring his cocky attitude failed once again when he brutally entered two fingers into your sopping cunt. You couldn’t help but to moan as he started to pump his digits inside of you obviously enjoying the sight of the good girl being demolished beneath his touch. When he started to circle your clit with his thumb you held on to his wrist, digging your nails into his skin in order to stop a loud moan. Jisungs fingertips grazed your g-spot and by this point your small whines turned into breathy moans.

“I though you didn’t like me?” he said arrogantly.

“I don’t” you tried to keep your composure even though his fingers felt so good inside of you.

“Judging by your wet cunt you seem to like me very much, babygirl” he said while grabbing a fistful of your hair. You couldn’t argue because if you really hated him why were you so desperate to have his length inside of you?

Jisungs fingers pulled out of you, your juices covered his digits and as his fingers got closer to your face you opened your mouth and sucked them clean. He harshly pulls you up by your hair, now sitting on the edge of the bed as Jisung stands infront of you. His dick had both girth and length which made your mouth water by just the sight. The red tip was decorated with a bead of precum and as he still held your hair he put the tip against your lips. Instantly you started sucking him off. First you kitten licked the tip of his immense dick being a bit afraid of his size but Jisung got impatient and yanked you by your hair once again, making you take him fully in your mouth and choking. Your eyes burned as they teared up but that didn’t stop you from sucking him off, hollowing your cheeks and bobbing your head profusely. He didn’t seem too impressed though.

“I think I found one thing babygirl can’t do. Sucking dick” he grinned as he looked you deep in the eyes for a second before he bucked his hips into your mouth and facefucked you. His length hit the back of your throat everytime he fucked into you but you were to busy looking at his perfect face. Those sinful grunts that came out from his mouth made you rub your thighs in desperation. How could someone you hated look so ethereal with his dick in your mouth? The way sweat beads formed around his temple and coated a couple of those light brown streaks. The way his big hand held your hair tightly and most importantly those sounds. Those lewd sounds that rolled off his tongue.

He rolled his head back and then looked back at you, catching you staring at him.

“No I definitely think babygirl likes me. Those loving eyes don’t lie” he uttered, staring at you and stroking a piece of your hair behind your ear.

As he pulled out you caught your breath and coughed a for bit before you scooted back on the bed, dragging Jisung by his hand which landed him on top of you once again. He seperated your legs with his knee and lined himself up with your entrance before slowly pushing into you. His girth with the slow movement made you roll your eyes back, the feeling of being filled made you content.

“Fuck...you feel so tight” he said, brows furrowed as he started to slowly push in and out of you. You wrapped your arms around his neck pulling him into a kiss to muffle your moans. The pace steadily increased as you bit his bottom lip while kissing, returning the favor from before that contributed to your swollen lips. When the kiss broke a string of spit seperated your lips as the both of you panted from the thrusts that were becoming more aggressive. You moaned as you gripped onto the bedsheets upon which your knuckles whitened. Jisungs noises turned you on crazily but when he snaked his hand around your neck you could only whine in response. He choked you and held you pinned down stopping you from squirming away. The other hand was circling your clit which only heightened the pleasure, eyes rolling back into your skull. A squeak erupted from the bed everytime Jisung pounded into your soaked cunt but that wasn’t the only sound. The both of you moaned in unison which fit the sound of skin slapping that was filling the room. You tightly shut your eyes trying to silence a moan but opened them soon after, meeting Jisungs brown orbs. His lids were low from the blunt smoke but that only gave his arrogant attitude a boost.

You could feel that he was near by the way his dick twitched inside of you. Feeling cocky you decided to clench against his length which also pushed you closer to your own release. He was clearly getting pissed and leaned down to your neck, sucking purple marks onto it which would be impossible to cover up. You whined and squirmed as you needed to go to school tomorrow and couldn’t bear the strange looks from others when your neck was covered in bruises.

“That’s what you get for clenching around me like a little slut” he growled against your neck as you clenched around him once again earning a moan from him. Now he was getting really close and so were you. His thrusts got harder but sloppier, your boobs bouncing with the pace. You clenched around him one last time and that was the trigger for Jisungs release. The vein on his neck popped up to the surface as his jaw hanged open. Your cunt filled with his warm load which made you cum grip tightly on anything beside you. The both of you rode out the orgasm which made your legs shake and spine bend up from the mattress. Eventually Jisung pulled out leaving you feeling empty with his white cum dripping out of your hole. He layed beside you and panted, chest heaving. You layed there in silence for a minute, only the sound of heavy breathing could be heard in the dark evening. Deciding to clean up the mess he had made you stood up causing the cum to leak down your unstable leg but before you could take a step Jisung grabbed your soft hand and pulled you down onto the bed again. You looked at him in confusion.

“You weren’t planning on leaving me without any cuddles?” he said with a slightly whining voice.

You couldn’t believe what you heard. Before another thought could cross your mind you were already snuggled up in his arms, your head against his heaving chest. It was cozy and you felt safe despite that you barely knew him. You stroked his cheek gently as you observed his perfect facial features. Sure, his attitude could use some work but his face had a flawless charm.

“We should study more often” he muttered against your hair as he kissed you on your head.

Even if the caring boy was high off his rockers your heart fluttered at his words. You blushed as you snuggled closer to his chest, falling sound asleep in his grasp.

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plague-of-insomnia · 3 years

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Lol I *hate* that post. Also like, most people don't read classic lit, and classic lit in general can be critized as being made up of primarily cis, white, straight men. Women and queer authors often have their works shuffled into YA. And fanfic?? Primarily made of of women and queer folk (and queer women). Which... is often what the reasoning is why it's targeted.

Also, children's lit and YA lit are some of the best works I've read. They deal with harsh topics. One of my favorite books from when I was a kid is Gossamer by Lois Lowry. My class read it in fifth grade (so like, 10 year olds) and it dealt heavily with abuse and coping with and recovery from trauma. The book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson also deals with very dark themes, and it's YA. (Also both very good books and I highly recommend each. Look up the trigger lists for them. When I say they deal with dark subjects, I mean it.)

Fanfic and YA are such broad categories, and to dismiss them shows a clear lack of true understanding of literature. Typically, when people say they dislike them, it boils down to bias against queer people, women, and romance as a genre (which was spear headed by, you guessed it, queers and women).

Also, there's nothing wrong with liking tropes. I like tropes. Everyone likes specific tropes. We've all just been copying off of one another since the beginning of art creation, and we will continue to do so. Just let people enjoy things ffs. Reading is for fun and creating fanfic is for fun. Just because I read or write something doesn't mean I want to base a master's thesis around it

[In reference to this post: TL;DR - people who only read fan fic/YA aren’t capable of understanding/analyzing complex themes bc they’re obsessed with tropes]

Oof! @gabedemon, this is all a really good point/addition to why that OP’s point was 😬.

Now I’ll confess I do not personally like YA as a general rule, largely for two reasons: 1) I don’t like reading about teens and 2) for a while EVERYONE and their grandparents were writing YA to try and hitch onto the bandwagon of popular novels turned films like Harry Potter and The Hunger Games, et al, and so a lot of people were writing stuff just to try and ride a trend rather than bc that’s what they should have been writing/what their story actually wanted.

However, you are 100% right that there are some amazing novels that fall into that broad category and are worth reading whether you’re 15 or 95 (or somewhere in between).

One of the best novels I read before my headache began (and I stopped reading novels 😞) dealt with some really heavy issues (it was focused on suicide) — and it managed to delve into complex mental illness (like BPD, borderline personality disorder) and suicidality in a really realistic and complex way while not glorifying it in anyway. I highly recommend it, if the topic isn’t too tough for you (general you) to deal with, Suicide Watch:

I definitely think you see queer authors and their stories forced into niche publishers or fan fic (I don’t know if I would say only YA here as I’ve read a ton of non-YA queer published fiction).

I think you have some people who are just “snobs” who think only “serious” “literary fiction” is worth reading and has any depth. Those people have probably never read a really good YA novel (I also recommend Freaks Like Us for one that tackles mental illness in a insightful way) or any fan fic at all. (Or if they have, it’s something like My Immortal.) So they make the assumption that all fan fic must be meaningless drivel (as if there isn’t plenty of that in mainstream, published adult fiction or other media for that matter).

They also forget that people read for different reasons, and like you said, not everyone wants to read something to write a master’s thesis on.

Some “pulp” stories, like the Sherlock Holmes tales, have survived and proliferated across time and languages because people find them entertaining and can identify with the characters in some way. (Ofc some people like to analyze those stories but not everyone does; in fact, most people don’t, and that’s perfectly fine.)

So I think you have the snobs who really aren’t looking at it from a “I must crush queer writers,” though ofc you’re absolutely right about the fact that bias still exists among readers and publishers.

As I mentioned before, trying to publish a novel with a queer MC or romance through one of the big ones is really difficult for the same reason we see plenty of queer baiting in film but very few actual queer stories. Publishers are afraid that those stories won’t sell, will offend and affect sales of other books, etc, etc,

So we see the proliferation of queer stories and writers in fan fic where people are free to write whatever they want. And that’s really wonderful, imo. (But I also hope we finally see more mainstream queer stories and authors/creators as well.)

And as for tropes, honestly that was the dumbest part of the whole argument. Tropes have always and will always exist bc there’s just some things we humans love to see over and over and over again. I’m sure you could label just about any “high” art with a trope of some kind. Just bc something can be distilled into tropes doesn’t mean that’s all it is. I mean, writing programs always talk about things like “the hero’s journey” or whatever and that’s a kind of trope, too.

Anyway, I’m gonna stop before I keep rambling 😅 but yeah I think you make some really great points/additions, and I absolutely think that “all generalizations are bad” 😅😂 and trying to make a sweeping assessment like that is ridiculous.

Kind of reminds me of how much scorn “genre” fiction has gotten (think mystery novels or romance novels or sci fi, etc) because it’s “shallow.” But that has begun to change, and I do think we’re slowly seeing the attitude toward fan fic changing…. Now, if only we could chuck all the antis and their puritanical BS out the door….

#poi answers #gabedemon #literature #fiction tropes #very long post #not kuro

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theonetheycallhannah · 4 years

Text

The Treatment of Capt. Syverson-Chapter One: Evaluation

Pairing: Captain “Sy” Syverson x OFC (Shane Benton)

Shane Benton gets a new patient, veteran “Sy” Syverson. He’s one of the most complex cases she’s had, in more ways than one. She thinks he’s already starting to like her and what’s worse...she feels the same.

Word Count: 2.3k

Warnings: None, really, mentions of war and trauma and some hate on the Chicago Cubs, but like…it’s not MEAN! (I’m a Missouri girl, and for the purposes of this fic, Sy is a Missouri boy, and we will bleed for our sports teams. Lol!)

A/N: Inspired by this post right here, and hopefully turning into some splendid fluffy and smutty stuff for my lovely Cavillry babes all around including the two that essentially forced me into this. Lol! (I’m thinking I’ll have at least three or four more chapters.

Disclaimer: Unfortunately for me, Henry is not mine, le sigh, and all mention of him, his characters, or his precious doggy, Kal, are strictly for transformative and recreational use. I neither ask for, nor accept payment for the work I post on Tumblr or AO3.

Tags: @onlyhenrys @cavillryarchive

Let me know if you wish to be added to the list! I’m happy to do it!

Shane was working on her morning's notes as she scarfed down her lunch. So many hand's-on patients made for a busy so called "lunch hour." Time which their boss was always reminded them was only half for their personal use, and could be taken away if census demanded. She was pretty sure it wasn't legal to make such threats, but thankfully, the secretaries usually had the therapists backs.

As she typed, she got a notification in her messenger app.

Just a head's up, your 1:30 is such a major babe I could barely look at him while I checked him in, so good luck with that.

Heather, one of her best friends in the office, had warned her, as she always did when there was a potential problem with a patient.

Oh, and his KOOS score is 27.5! Yikes! Shit, she'd seen arthritic grandparents with better scores on that test, which essentially rated your ability with the affected knee. Ideal was 100. She pulled up his chart review to see what she was getting herself into with this guy.

Tricare insurance, so, a vet. And only a year older than she was, so, recent discharge, or even active duty. She pulled up his order…shit. Traumatic tear of the anterior cruciate ligament. With damage to the medial collateral ligament as well. And a patellar dislocation. Repairs had been done, but this guy was in bad shape. He was going to be coming a while.

She replied to Heather.

Damn, that's bad. I'm looking at his order, and I'm already thinking I'm gonna want to try to keep him on my schedule if we can. And three times a week. If not with me, Jordan, if he's got openings. Can you start working on that when you have time?

Sure thing…I think you'll be glad you kept him on your caseload once you get a look at his face…and like all of him. Even on crutches, he's tall as shit!

Heather, come on. I'm a professional. I have a doctorate ffs. Lol

You also have a uterus, to the best of my knowledge, and it's about to explode. Promise.

Haha, okay. I'll be out for Prince Charming in about ten. Lemme pop a breath mint and run a brush through my hair.

Good call.

Shane did just that, but still pulled her dark hair back into her customary functional high ponytail, made sure there was no stray food on her shirt, and headed out of her treatment room for her patient.

As she walked down the hall to the waiting area to get him, she noticed a slumped and bearded figure leaning forward on a set of crutches, a KC Chiefs baseball cap slipping up off of his forehead revealing short cropped dark hair. She smiled at his repping one of her home teams, and stepped up to him, greeting him warmly, but formally.

"Mr. Syverson?"

"Ma'am." he said, as he adjusted his cap and stood immediately at attention, still relying on the crutches, but making himself as tall as possible. He really was a soldier. Despite her proximity to Fort Leonard Wood here in St. Robert, Missouri, she didn't see many military men.

"Hi, My name is Shane. I'm a physical therapist. I'm going to be working with you today."

"Oh, okay. They told me my therapists name was Shane, I figured…"

"Yeah, I get that a lot. Don't worry, I act like one of the guys. You'll hardly notice."

"I doubt that." he muttered, but she ignored it. She didn't know which would be worse. Him being a macho chauvinist who couldn't deal with a female therapist, or having a crush on her and making things weird. She'd had both. And it never ended well for her.

"Well, let's go have a chat in the treatment room."

They walked toward the room she'd just left, and when they arrived, she asked him to set on her plinth mat.

"Could you please verify your date of birth for me? Gotta make sure I got the right patient in here."

"May the 5th, 1983."

"Thanks, and the last four of your social?"

He told her, quietly, and against her will, a shiver ran up her spine at the softness the bear of a man exhibited in his voice when trying to maintain privacy. But she kept her composure.

"Excellent." she began typing her eval note, and asking him questions. He began telling the harrowing story of the mission, the mission that effectively ended his career in the military as he knew it. At lest, what he could tell her. Obviously some of it was classified, but certain details she would need to know in order to know how he it and how to treat him. She could tell he was trying to hold it together. Reliving the trauma was probably triggering to an extent. Her heart went out for the broad-chested, blue-eyed man.

"God, that's incredible. The fact that you're alive is amazing, Mr. Syverson."

"I go by Sy, ma'am. And as aware as I am of that, it's tough to feel good about it when some friends in my squad weren't so lucky." he examined the pattern on the tile floor as he rubbed the heel of his hand against the wide thigh of his injured leg. A nervous habit, she presumed. She had similar quirks.

"That must be difficult for you." she knew she was getting off-track from what she needed for her SOAP note, but after all, he was going to be on her caseload exclusively for the foreseeable future. She'd have time to flesh out the goals and basically finish the eval next visit.

"Yeah, but I know there's a lotta guys' got it worse'n me, ma'am."

"We think that should make it better, but it never does. And if I'm calling you 'Sy,' you have to cut the ma'am business. It's Shane, even to my patients." she smiled.

"Sorry, m--sorry. Habits die hard."

"Just like John McClean." she chuckled, not expecting him to get her ridiculous movie humor. But he laughed.

"Did you just make a Die Hard reference?" he smiled, and the sunshine of it paired with the stunning blue of his eyes nearly sent her flying into the wall. Thankfully, she had something to occupy her gaze in the form of her laptop, where she tried to document on him.

"Did you just get one of my movie references? Because nobody around here appreciates that I'm a total movie nerd. I'm wasted on these people."

"Ya know, maybe you're right about feeling like I'm getting PT from a guy." he chuckled.

"I told ya!" she laughed, but tried not to let her heart sink too far.

The evaluation continued with her doing strength and range of motion measurements on his knee. "Okay, push against my hand…now resist when I push…now bring your foot back against my hand…and resist when I pull." she did this with both sides to compare relative strength. "Great job. Okay, I'm going to see how much range you have in your knee. Lay back on the table for me, please." she thought she saw a flirty glint in his eye, but again, she ignored it. She had a job to do. And it was to hold this goniometer up to his knee and see how many degrees of flexion and extension this man had in the joint while trying not to think any salacious thoughts about the thigh connected to it.

"Okay, now, listen, Sy, I know it goes against your instinct, but I'm looking for pain-free range of motion, here, so don't be a hero. Don't move it farther than you can without hurting it. And let me know if it starts to hurt when I move it."

"Yes, ma'am." he winked.

"I'll let that one slide, I guess." she giggled. She concentrated on the numbers she was getting from the big protractor, and typing them into her eval, and not the man lying before her.

"Okay, I'm gonna get the other knee now to compare for goals."

He nodded.

"Were you pretty active before this happened?" she was more or less making small talk, as she could tell by the condition of the rest of his body that he was incredibly fit.

"Yes, m--yes, I was. We had a gym on base, nothin' like what y'all have here, just some machines and a few free weights."

"No bikes or treadmills or anything?" She herself liked the elliptical, but knew it was a considered more of a girl's machine in the gym world.

"Nah, with electric being spotty where we were stationed, we sorta had to…get creative, I guess you could say, for cardio." she let it slide, apparently there was an inside joke to which she wasn't privy.

"Right, understandable. Well, here, we don't have to get that creative. I'm gonna put you on some equipment gradually, and just warm up the knee, then get to work on joint mobilization and myofascial release. But at this point in Dr. Potter's protocol, he only wants gentle stretching and weight bearing as tolerated. We can start a bit of strengthening after next week."

"So, you think I'll be back to running anytime soon?"

"We can make that a goal, Sy, because I can absolutely get you there. But you're going to have to take it slow. You've got not one, but three major injuries we have to contend with, and there is major trauma in there. But it will heal. With time and effort. And like I said, don't be a hero. The number one rule of therapy is 'if it hurts, don't do it.'"

"I'll hold you to that, m--Shane."

"You're a quick study, Sy. I think you'll be alright. Looks like Heather's put some appointments in for you already. If any of them don't work, call us, and we'll try to get them swapped. I'd like to keep you on my schedule as much as possible, but if there's a conflict in your schedule, any of our therapists will be terrific. And I'll make sure they're looking at your chart and protocol thoroughly before seeing you."

"Sounds like a plan to me."

"Okay, I'm gonna print out your schedule for you, and a few exercise handouts I'd like you to work on, especially on days you don't come here. And I'll know if you don't do them, because you won't have improved…so, you better do them."

"Yes, ma'am." she half expected a salute. She rolled her eyes.

"Okay, maybe I'll give you three strikes on the ma'am thing."

"Baseball fan, too?"

"Not that three strikes is so obscure that I'd have to be to know it, but, yes! Major St. Louis Cardinals fan."

"I knew I was gonna like you from the start. Although, being brought up 'round Kansas City m'self, I'm more of a Royals fan."

"Hey, only time I don't root for KC is when they're playing my Redbirds. And even if my team loses to them, it hurts less than if they lose to, say…the Cubs." they shared a scowl of disdain for the Chicago team. "Although, I was happy for them and their fans when they won the series back in 16."

"Yeah, I guess we could afford to let them win one in a hundred years…I'm hoping their next one comes long after I'm in the ground." he chuckled.

"Can't have them getting a big head, can we?"

"Nope! Sure can't!" they both laughed at their mutual interest in dissing rival sports teams.

"Okay, I'll be right back with those handouts." she ran to the office all in one machine to grab the papers she'd printed for him, making sure they were all his and not another patient's. She put them in one of their folders and headed back to her room where he sat on the mat, waiting for her with a smile under his rather impressive beard.

"Before I let you out of here, what questions can I answer for you about what we did today?"

"Oh, uh, nothing comes to mind. You explained everything really well. Did you look at my schedule? Am I with you all the time?"

"Hmm, let's see here, looks like the next two, yes, but I'm off next week, so Heather put you with Jordan, which is what I asked her to do. You two will work great together and he's got a great instinct for injuries like this. And I'll talk to him before I leave. He's one of the best PTAs I've ever worked with, I promise."

"I guess, if you have to take a vacation. I'll see you next time though."

"I'm looking forward to it. That's when the real work will begin, Sy. And our number is on in this paperwork if you have questions, and I've put my card in here, too." they shook hands, and he grabbed the folder from her.

She saw him out of the room and into the lobby. She'd finished with him a bit early, but her next one was already waiting. She needed a break. To collect herself. To breathe.

"Jason! Hey! Go on and get on the recumbent bike, level two. Ride until I get there. We'll get a lot done today if you're already warmed up. I've got a note to finish. And then I'll be in. I should be 15 or less."

While the 19 year old with a torn meniscus hopped to her instructions, she went back to her computer to attempt to finish Sy's eval and pretend that she didn't already have a serious and intense crush on him. This was going to be a long twelve weeks…at least.

Up Next: Chapter Two-Therapeutic Procedure

#henry cavill #henry cavill fanfic #captain syverson #captain syverson fanfic #captain syverson x ofc #netflix sand castle #sand castle

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silver-wield · 4 years

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I just saw the quote of Nojima in Case of Tifa from OtWtaS said there were things didn’t go well between Cloud and Tifa, and this will be the same even without Geostigma and Sephiroth. Can you explain this and let me know the full interview? Because it seems like out of context from Nojima, and I saw people are twisting it

OTWTAS interview

‘Episode Tifa’ … first off, there’s the premise that things won’t go well between Tifa and Cloud, and that even without Geostigma or Sephiroth this might be the same. I don’t really intend to go on about my views on love or marriage or family (laughs). After ACC, I guess Denzel and Marlene could help them work it out. Maybe things would have gone well with Aerith, but I think there is a great burden from Aerith.

Oh, I remember. I also wanted to write about Cloud through Tifa. It certainly can be difficult to ascertain his feelings. (laughs)”

That's the original paragraph from the interview, along with a translation. It says the premise is it won't go well and might be the same. It's not a definte statement. It's a maybe. Because life and relationships are complicated and take work. Which is a theme of AC.

Basically, Nojima is summarising CoT where Tifa and Cloud have hit a rough patch after being together for nearly two years. Elmyra made Cloud deliver flowers to the forgotten city where Aerith died and that triggered Cloud's guilt that he couldn't save Aerith from Sephiroth. We know Cloud is someone who takes his job and himself too seriously at times. He wallowed in CC when he couldn't protect a scientist and he sulked when he couldn't save Tifa, and he instinctively goes to save a random guy in Wall Market's coliseum at the opening of the Beast Master battle in Remake.

At the same time, he's also found Denzel, who's a survivor of the sector 7 collapse, which is also a guilt trigger for him and Tifa because they believe it's their fault they couldn't stop the collapse. Denzel has geostigma so Cloud throws himself into finding a cure because he believes this is a way to redemption and resolving part of his guilt. He doesn't explain his feelings to Tifa because he's afraid of letting her down.

Which we also see in Nomura's interview about Cloud in AC. People always assume this is about Aerith, but that's a very limited way to look at it. Cloud lost his home, past, mother and best friend.

Several times, Cloud hasn't been able to do anything. Nibelheim twice, he couldn't save that scientist, Zack died for him, sector 7 collapsed and Aerith died. There's more to Cloud than that lake scene.

Nojima goes on to say Marlene and Denzel could help Cloud and Tifa work through their problems, which isn't any different to any other relationship where the couple's kids want to keep their parents together.

From the AC prologue we see that Tifa’s described as an abandoned woman. Definitely not how a friend is described. If they're just friends then why does she feel abandoned and why is this line even there? The description would read that Cloud was living there, then left. Instead it's loaded with romantic implication. Nojima even adds at the end that Tifa has expressed her true feelings to Cloud a lot. She doesn't lecture, she lets Cloud form his own conclusions because she doesn't baby him. Even when she does give him a talking to, she feels bad about it because she's not the type to confront others.

So, pretty much all this goes towards building the relationship between them and explaining why Cloud ran away for a few days. His guilt at letting others die, which isn't even his fault, overwhelms him because he thinks he doesn't have a right to be happy. He only starts thinking this way because Elmyra makes him go to the forgotten city. Before that he was doing okay, although he still felt bad about Denzel being sick. So, this is why Nojima says he and Tifa will struggle. Because Cloud's the type to catastrophise everything and make things into a big deal when they're not. He hides it from Tifa because he doesn't want to worry her because one of her traits is to leap into reckless situations when she's feeling hopeless.

This is awhile before the start of AC, and one of the first things that happens to Tifa while Cloud's gone is she nearly dies in the fight with Loz. His worry for her safety isn't unjustified and we see it again in Remake.

When Tifa feels hopeless she does stupid things, so Cloud would do his best to prevent her getting hurt because he's feeling like he can't be the hero everyone expects. Even though, deep down he knows Tifa never expected him to do anything except try his best.

They have a very complex relationship, so it's not easy to sum up in a couple of sentences. Nojima brings up Aerith to say it would be even more hopeless between her and Cloud because she has a duty to the planet, which is more important than Cloud. The comparison is that Aerith can't help Cloud the way Tifa can. It's why she's not Cloud's heroine. Her role is too big for one man to take precedence, but Tifa's role is to be Cloud's heroine, which is why she can take on all of these complicated moments and help him resolve his personal issues. Because of her own problems to do with guilt and loss it's harder for her than normal relationship issues, which is why they both need a little push.

This is literally right after AC finishes, so Cloud is back with his family and they're going home.

Then a couple of days later we have reminiscence of FF where we hear Cloud asking Tifa on a date. And we see a year later in DC that he's still with Tifa and much more playful. There's some cute back and forth between him and Tifa while they're in the middle of a battle, so it's clear he's past things. The group also no longer wear the memorial ribbons for Aerith.

So, taken as a whole and using all of the information about both Cloud and Tifa's characters we can conclude from this earlier interview about AC that Nojima's describing the complex relationship between them and not saying anything negative. The thing people overlook is that when the devs talk about the game and characters they're speaking from a place where they know everything. They know every facet of each character and situation. Nojima knows more about the scenario than anyone because he wrote it. Nomura understands Cloud because he created him, so any background is mostly his insight with some from Nojima's story development.

The fact they know the characters means their comments sometimes don't take into account that the audience isn't aware of the compilation as a whole. We can't look at comments like this and understand exactly what's meant at first glance because we don't know everything. It's why players misinterpret things and then blame the devs for poor translation. It's not a poor translation. It's just different perspectives.

#final fantasy 7 remake #cloud strife #ff7r #ffviir #cloti #tifa lockheart #final fantasy 7r #final fantasy viir #Final fantasy 7 advent children #OTWTAS #Final fantasy 7 #FF7 #Ffvii #Reminiscence of final fantasy 7 #Compilation of FF7

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franksavesthewhales · 4 years

Text

an immediacy of thoughts post midnight in salem

which i finally got to play! yes i waited until getting a physical copy was reasonable. so after binge playing it tonight ....

the good

>the character models

>that tea shop was really, *really* pretty, overall i liked the environments

>liked the UI; the simplicity of the inventory, the neatly cornered settings, good font size

>being able to rotate items in your inventory was cool

>generally, i like the new movement settings + ability to look around

>nancy’s new voice really grew on me! she beings a lot of energy to it, and you understand deidre’s commentary on your excess pep more

>that indie instrumental BOP they kept playing ... yeah i’m vibing yes i want to download it

>the CCTV clippy guy. hah.

>P A N C A K E S I N T E N S I F I E S

>the hardy boys were lots of fun, i love joe’s ghost hunting

>and i like that carson had so much to do as a phone contact! and that you can call dr hirst for advice on a lot of stuff without it being necessary. i like when there are those ‘side’ options

>i loved nancy just tearing into judge danforth at the end

>the ability to choose two big endgame choices was really really cool -- i got teegan off the hook but kept the book of apologies secret (i’m sure it’ll look nice on nancy’s kleptomaniac shrine in her bedroom) ... i feel like you haven’t had something like that since thorton hall

>an endgame party is a nice touch

>I LOVED THE PUMPKINS!!!

>carson still being a golfball......classic

the bad

>characters talking in front of you along their voice mail is a hilarious bug but a bug all the same

>npcs mouths not moving while talking

>the mapping wrt movement wasn’t always intuitive, namely the town square, which i found ridiculously difficult to navigate at times ...

>... not helped by how any partner you have with you (hardy boys, joe, deidre) LOVE to hover directly in front of your FOV and make it near impossible to --> forward

>the voice direction wasn’t very even -- more than a few lines sound flubbed in the middle, for example, which might be down to poor patchwork editing, idk

>and the sound mixing on the dialogue can vary wildly

>mei is DYING deidre i don’t have time to listen to your guilty conscience

>nancy drew games are best told in an isolated location with limited space ... half of downtown salem just being blocked off by a sinkhole was pretty LOL, and like with say silent spy, being a city that doesn’t feel big is a little offputting

>especially when nancy keeps saying “i’ve talked to EVERYONE” after you’ve talked to 2 people

>or how you just ... have to stop moving in a direction despite no evident obstacle in your way. why wouldn’t nancy want to explore the hathorne house from the back?

>joe stealing the letter from nancy for lulz was funny, but an IMMENSELY lazy way to justify that

>no explanation for lauren not being in the tea shop the first day, and it being ‘too late’ makes no sense since per clock it’s not even noon

>that one book in the museum about kids also being victims was really poorly written lol

>”what’s the secret exhibition” “witch street art” oh you mean exactly like ... what the banner advertised?

the ugly

>the character animations veered from ‘awkward’ into ‘pure jank’ more often than not

>the judge’s rigging was atrocious he was melting into himself

>the visual quality was pretty Ehhhhhh, lots of blocky/floating textures esp. in the forest

>the game crashed on me twice (for clicking too much) which is pretty unstable for such a light game

>deidre sure loves to teleport like watson, deeply unsettling, did not like

>that one tourist in the square who sounds like she was recording her lines inside a tin can with the volume at 150% ... what was with that. who allowed that.

>you can clip directly into the tea shop at night lol

>making me talk to ned when i was doing my best to ignore him smh

>WHO PUTS THEIR GOTDAMN TO-DO LIST IN A BOX IN A CIPHER HIDDEN IN THE FUCKING GRAVEYARD FFS

the future

>in a lot of ways this felt like a potential ‘final game’, or at least the epilogue for the ‘old era’ ... nancy is on the cusp of adult professionalism -- will she join the hardy boys in their agency (please!) -- will she and ned finally be able to spend more than 5 minutes in each other’s presence (hopefully not!) -- everything awaits!

>i hope the divergent endings based on how much information nancy chooses to reveal/how she chooses to frame things continues to be a thing ... it’s a really interesting technique you see in more and more mystery games of late and it will introduce more complexity to nancy’s character

#jason sells drugs of that i am sure #but were he and alicia....you know?#midnight in salem #*#long post /

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flying-elliska · 4 years

Text

S5 Review pt.1 : the Good

Arthur season is over, time to analyze it as a finished story ! This meta in 3 parts will go over the good, the bad and the mindboggling. My general impression of the season : excellent beginning, very meh middle, interesting ending. In short : flawed but I feel people calling it a total disaster really are not making any effort to see it objectively. So ; let's dig into the why and how.

What I liked about this season :

A story made with and for Deaf people : It’s pretty evident when watching the interviews that Winona and Lucas really really enjoyed making the season and that it offered them an unprecedented level of representation. The creators obviously did their research, working with the people of the IVT. Personally I feel like I learned so much and the clips showing aspects of Deaf culture were among my favorites. It felt like a nuanced, rich, in-depth perspective, with details like choosing to get a cochlear implant or not, the testimony evening, the sign language class, Noee’s sign dance, the different ways to enjoy music, how to speak to someone who is Deaf, etc...showing that not everyone within that community has the same story or opinion, that they’re just people with their unique challenges but shared needs, as well as the really awesome culture that is part of being Deaf. It felt really respectful and a thousand miles away from the usual miserabilistic clichés - it brought up some concern about how difficult it is to be rejected/invisible in today’s society, but it was balanced with emotions like curiosity, admiration, and awe. I came to SKAM for the representation but I absolutely love getting educated about groups I’m not part of and I feel this is truly where the season shines. Learning from Deaf fans was also hella interesting.

A complex discussion about disability : A central plot point, and one of my favorites, was Arthur learning to overcome his (now internalized) ableism. We see that Arthur is an overachiever and this change in his life upsets this idea of the perfect life he has in mind. He repeadedly lashes out at the other Deaf people he meets, makes fun of sign language, underlines how he is ‘not like them’ at the beginning because he is still clinging to his own self image. We can understand where this comes from when we see how condescending towards any sort of weakness, and focused on performance over empathy his father is. But as he learns to meet actual Deaf people and see the diversity and beauty of the community, he learns there is no shame in that sort of difference and learns to stand up for himself and that was amazing to see. Another important part was Laura and Melchior’s inclusion and beyond being very funny, they highlighted the idea that although disabled people have different, sometimes competing needs, they also have things in common, and that deep wish of not being discounted/othered/excluded. All the disabled characters this season were complex, real people, not there just to teach others a lesson or inspire them or be pitied or the butt of a joke, and that is so sadly rare nowadays. Even though some bits did feel a bit like a PSA, I feel like overall it was very well done.

The politics of desirability : A theme running through the season is the idea that who we are attracted to is socially constructed and can really be biased by our prejudices. Alexia expressed this idea (albeit clumsily) in the bar scene early on, and this came back when she talked about her insecurities. This was also present in Laura’s insistence that disabled people have certain needs like everybody else. And finally, it’s present in Arthur’s own struggles - his fear of not being able to sleep with his girlfriend with his hearing aids, and his own difficulties in seeing what is happening with Noee and him saying ‘she’s deaf’ to the question ‘is she beautiful’ even as he is obviously into her. Our society gives us this incredibly narrow set of criteria for who is considered attractive - thin, white, able bodied, etc - but people’s actual real patterns of attraction and finding beauty are, when you set those prejudices aside, and see the beauty of people for who they are and not how well they fit a box, so much more broad and generous and diverse and I loved how this season highlighted that.

Technical excellence : God, the cinematography this season was absolutely off the charts, it makes me wish they could redo previous seasons with this amount of style. Shots like Arthur under the shower, or that party at the Asso with the blurry dancing, the shots in the pool, or the ones from the farm episode...INCREDIBLE. The sound editing was used sooooo well to put us in Arthur’s shoes, it was a wonder and I really felt how intense the change must have been for him because of that. And the acting is impeccable. You can really feel how well these actors know their characters by now, they have total mastery of their portrayal. Robin did an awesome job with tough scenes, but just...everyone was on their best game really.

A nuanced portrayal of abuse : Arthur’s relationship with his father was thouroughly heartbreaking, and it felt very real. I am very grateful that they didn’t try to redeem him - it’s important to show that even if you are trying your best, some people are toxic abusers and the best thing you can do is take your distance. I felt it right away, in the subtle way he was dismissing and belittling his wife and son, in the ways he was asserting his control over them, and I wasn’t surprised at all when more came out. It surprised me in the beginning that so many people were arguing that the father was caring, just strict - I feel like the signs were so obvious but I guess that’s the point. Abuse is a pattern that becomes visible over time and abusers can be perfectly charming and reasonable to people who don’t know what it’s like. Growing up with that is isolating and terrifying and it does awful things to your self esteem and your capacity to be in tune with your feelings. We can see that when Arthur basically defends his father’s actions because he is still so eager to have his love and placate him. Arthur’s behavior did not come from nowhere and it was inspiring to see him grow past that and realize he did not have to perpetuate the pattern and make his own choices. Also, his relationship with his mom was very sweet, supportive (her smoking weed with him was awesome) but complex - the way he was mean to her sometimes, condescending bc of her lack of studies ; the way she blamed herself for not seeing sooner - she must have been subjected to Patrick’s more emotional abuse, and so she will probably feel like she should have reacted sooner or known and that’s like...painful ugh. This whole thing was so raw and real. And it was incredibly important to see the nurse and her Jerome - adults, with medical knowledge - see Arthur’s situation and tell him that sometimes you just have to leave.

Highs and lows of friendship : Basile !!!! I was not a fan in s3 but the great aspect of POV shift is allowing us to see some characters through a different angle - even though I think Basile went through a lot of growth too. In Lucas’s season he was meant to be the annoying gross overly straight guy as a contrast - but for Arthur he is this devoted friend that is so open and sincere in his affection that his awkwardness comes off as endearing instead. You really understand why those two are friends : Arthur is smart, sarcastic, he can help Basile with social awareness and hype him up, but he’s also so painfully guarded and finds it hard to express emotion, I think, and it makes sense he loves Basile’s spontaneity and big heart. Meeting his grandfather was also so funny and endearing, as were all the marks of more physical affection he wasn’t afraid to show Arthur. I think having a friend like that is part of what allows Arthur to finally stand up on his own - whether against his father or deciding he needs to be single to figure himself out. As for the Gang in general, I loved the moments where they were all happy together (the early graffiti clip is truly one of the shining moments of the season for me) but their later spat is also quite understandable to me. I find it very realistic that although they are trying their best to accomodate their new friend’s disability, they’re going to mess up, that’s part of the process. The most important thing, I think, when faced with someone who is different from you, is to engage with it (respectfully) - ask questions, not assume. And communicate ffs. I also really liked those moments where the Crew and Gang came together, it gave this big end of high school vibe where all the squads merge and there is this feeling of having gone through an ordeal together that makes everyone closer. There were also so many funny moments that were absolute gold (the wheelbarrow ! the dinosaur balloons ! Imane getting attacked by chickens ! Emma and her horse! ).

Arthur on his own : I liked the more introspective moments we got this season. The successive alarms while he was angsting about his hearing coming back were such a clever way to put us in his perspective - there is already a lot of stress linked to a morning alarm, isn’t there ? We all know that moment in the morning where we don’t want to get out of bed and face the world, and taking that emotion and adding Arthur’s absolute stress at realizing that this change is lasting, it was really effective. Arthur’s link to water, as a symbol of another world where sound is much more diffuse, is quite interesting too. And the moment in last episode where he puts his glasses back on, too, as a more obvious sign of a disability that is very socially accepted and that is just part of who he is, just as his hearing loss is. We also got a moment with the bench of loneliness that was an interesting parallel with s3. (I love how the Buttes-Chaumont parc has become this double symbol in Skam France of both loneliness/alienation/putting on a mask and growth/return to authenticity.) And I like that he ended up the season single and deciding to figure himself out. It’s a big aspect of his character that he has spent too much time trying to conform to expectations and that he was super walled off as a result, that he hurt others without realizing, that he found himself boring, that he didn’t seem to open up to his friends, etc...and in the end he is a lot more open but he also knows there is a part of growth that being in a relationship cannot bring him. He can’t use women the way his father did. I respect that a lot, honestly, it’s what saved the end of the season for me, that they didn’t end up putting one girl above the other and made it about Arthur being lost and needing to find his way on his own.

The tornado and the sunshine : The new characters were awesome. Her role in the plot set aside, I really liked Noée as a character concept. I think Winona was awesome, and I liked Noée’s mix of warmth and feistiness. I like that they let her be angry at the way the world treated her, and compassionate at the same time. Also her headbutting that guy in the club that didn’t want to listen to her was !!! iconic. I loved her style, too, and that dance was so beautiful. Camille was a great addition to the team too, Arthur was lucky to find someone that patient and his dry humor but sunny disposition were great too. It was cute to see him with Mika as a couple of gurus - that we did get a Deaf/hearing couple was a good addition to the season, I think - and I hope we’ll see both of those new characters next season, too.

Queen Alexia : She was definitely one of the characters I had the most emotions for this season. She’s just so cool and her perspective on life is just so mature and interesting, her acceptance of herself and others so inspiring - a lot of the early clips with her were adorable. I loved how supportive she was in such a creative, playful way - that game she made for Arthur, the boards she brought, etc. The moments she talked about her insecurities, if bittersweet because of what happened later, remains one of my faves from the season. She was so beautiful framed by rainbows (also apparently that’s her sign name ? Amazing.) And the moment where she sings was just...oof. She was really brave and strong to be able to do that, to express her emotions and hurt in such a public, dignified and creative way. It was a moment of reckoning for Arthur, putting him on the spot and recognizing how much he hurt her, but it was done in such a graceful way - the way she signed to signal her acceptance of his Deafness, the reminder that she loves him and won’t be able to forget that immediately, and a rejoinder to recognize his feelings towards Noee, etc. She wasn’t perfect (organizing that meeting without asking really pushed it a bit too far - you can’t rush someone else’s self acceptance) but she was just ...really good.

Elu as an established couple : One of my biggest reproaches to s3 is that they didn’t give us enough fluff after all the drama (time constraints, I know, etc.) But this season they really delivered. And listen I know some fans love to blather about fanservice but fuck it, I just love seeing a healthy domestic queer couple on screen !!!! It’s just so bloody healing, because they feel real and in love like nothing I have ever seen on screen before. Maybe because so often straight actors are so awkward at playing queer intimacy and they’re really not. Seeing them in their new appartment was like a pure shot of serotonin - morning croissants ! fairylights everywhere ! but I also liked that it wasn’t too fluffy one note. We can still see that Eliott struggles with MI, that Lucas has some insecurities, but yet their devotion to each other is still as strong, as in “he’s my boyfriend and I love him.” It was a hopeful note throughout the season, Lucas being persistent and devoted all through the challenges of being with someone who is mentally ill. Also, I really liked Eliott’s role this season, as a sort of...provider for the Gang ? Getting them a van, bringing them to the cool graffiti place, making this fresque for them...you can feel he’s not 100% part of the gang because he’s older, already in college, etc, but at the same time he has sort of an observer role that can give them things no one else can. I feel like Lucas confided in him about the troubles they were going through and Eliott can empathize with being treated different, the fear of losing your friends...so Eliott helped them in his unique way, through art. And him having this new secret place he can bring more people to, and so full of color and sharing his art with people and !!!! God I’m emo he’s just my fave character ever really.

The pressure of the future : Listen the last year of high school in France is horrible, there is the pressure from the BAC + half the people are passing entrance exams and doing interviews for the stuff you want to do later and it’s so stressful and I’m glad they touched on that at least a little. Emma really embodied this theme this season, of the pressure of not wanting to know what you want to do later. It’s really when you realize that they’re all so young and being asked to make such big decisions for their entire lives is really sort of fucked up, and I think her being there is a way to dedramatize not knowing, and gives Arthur the freedom to see he doesn’t want to be a doctor ; I liked the apt comparison with Imane’s passion for medecine. I wish we’d seen more of Arthur figuring out his real passion (did he make that painting or what ?) but I appreciated this storyline.

Overall, I think this season was full of excellent moments - either funny, heartwarming, heartbreaking, or edifying - and it provided some much needed quality representation for the Deaf community. In that, and having educated a lot of people, it is at least somewhat a success. However, as a whole, it did not quite come together for me, which is what I will analyze in my next post.

#skam france #skamfr s5 #skam france meta #my meta #arthur broussard

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extasiswings · 4 years

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Eddie-speaking-Spanish nonnie here with a long vent lol. I don't think even well-intended writers understand that it isn't just about getting the translation right. Eddie only rarely speaks Spanish! Occasionally to his grandmother & auntie. And, if memory serves, only once on the job, in the course of rescuing a Latinx family. Never EVER to a white person. When he has spoken Spanish, it's been short greetings or phrases. It is quite possible that his Spanish is not very good! (1of5)

And it is maybe a source of pain and shame for him! Because maybe he was deprived of deep connections to his Latinx roots growing up, which is a thing that happens! I have a whole head canon about the multiple roots of Eddie's intensely repressed nature, one of which is that his father is very much an assimilationist-capitalist and would only allow English to be spoken in the home. (2 of 5)

Maybe Eddie only got the chance to speak it with his grandmother and Aunt Pepa, but they lived in CA, so he wasn't around them much. Also, in the brief interaction we got after Shannon's funeral, Pepa clearly has zero time for her brother Ramon, and I love it. This is of course just my head canon, but regardless, how, when and to whom Eddie speaks Spanish is actually a nuanced thing and not just a way to sex up your story because you think Ryan Guzman sounds hot speaking it ffs. (3 of 5)

Eddie's relationship with his Mexican heritage and with his own whiteness and white supremacy culture is important and interesting! His mother, Shannon and Buck are all white ffs! (I am fully trapped in the Buddie clown car, but I am actually interested to see if we get to learn anything more about Eddie's relationship with is Latinx roots via his interactions with Ms. Flores.) (4 of 5)

Ok, whew, I have been in quarantine for 2 months and I clearly needed to vent. Anyway, you are smart, and I appreciate your POV in this fandom, and for letting drop my vent in your ask. Thank you! (5 of 5)

Asdfgfljhafs nonny, I answered that last ask before getting these and YES! EXACTLY MY POINT! THANK YOU! I mentioned being Latinx, but what I am is, like Eddie, mixed-race. And maybe I’m projecting from my own experiences and struggles onto him, but like you said, there is a lot of evidence that he has a complicated relationship with his heritage! The fact that he is white-passing matters! The fact that his mother is white and his father wasn’t around a lot and most of his father’s side of the family lived elsewhere matters! It means that there is a good likelihood that he is largely disconnected from his heritage and stuck in an awkward, uncomfortable place where he is neither fully white nor fully Mexican-American and Feels Some Kinda Way about that! There are a lot of things about Eddie that are complex and interesting and difficult, and running roughshod over them does a disservice to the character and those of us who see him as a specific type of representation we don’t get!

#chapel writes #eddie anon #long post #Anonymous

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canonicallysoulmates · 5 years

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Supernatural 14.20 (Season Finale)

After watching this episode, and if I’m being honest for the last couple of episodes, I can fully understand why j2 decided to end this show and while it’s still painful and I’m still not ready to let Sam and Dean go, sometimes letting go of the things we love is for the best and I think this is one of those cases. The love and thought and quality is not there anymore from the EPs/writers, so I’m thankful j2 decided to end Supernatural. I’m sure it wasn’t an easy decision because I have no doubt in my my mind that they love this show but it was the right thing to do. It’s time to say goodbye to this show, I’m just sorry we have to say goodbye to it with Dabb at the helm.

I don’t know where to begin and I have a lot to say so this isn’t going to be very linear, in fact, it’s going to be the opposite and I apologize in advance for that but hopefully, I will be able to express what I feel and my points in a way that is understandable.

I’m going to start this opinion post off talking about Chuck being turned into a villain and what I feel is a very unpopular opinion cause I didn’t like that, I know for a lot of y’all Chuck has always been the villain of this story that’s fine and dandy, I’ve never subscribed to that, and I can understand why some would be excited or find it interesting that God is the last big bad, go big or go home and all that, but I take issue with it cause to me this character has never been a villain and making him one is changing who he is, now I’ve never hidden that I like this character just as I’ve never hidden the fact that my views of this character are slightly influenced by my own personal beliefs nonetheless I am going to try my best to explain why I’d never seen him as a villain without getting into those beliefs.

There are two ways I see this character: as a character and as a representation of Kripke/the showrunner. In neither of these views have I ever seen Chuck as anything other than flawed but loving his creation.

Looking at him as a character only, I completely understand the argument some might make that Chuck has played Sam and Dean like puppets, but I’ve never seen it that way, to me he’s never been this master puppeteer who has controlled every aspect of Sam and Dean. I’ve always viewed him as a flawed but complex character that regardless of whether or not he put things in the boys path or how many those things were, which is not an argument I’m going to get into in this post, he’s rooted for them, he wants them to make the right choices and win - cause he’s always given them free will, even in this episode when they don’t play along and do what he wants he still didn’t take away their free will even though he easily could have, and in Swan Song the whole point of it the beautiful aspect about it is that the boys chose each other, that Sam and Dean’s life was theirs, that they playing or not playing along with heaven and hell’s plan was up to them and they chose not to play along-, and in a way he loves them like to put it in the most basic of terms before this episode where he’s turned into a villain I would have said Sam and Dean were his favorite creation.

So, I’m not just not ok with the implication that this whole time Chuck has been controlling everything, that everything that has happened has been because Chuck wanted it that way, or that Sam and Dean never actually had free will, I’m just not ok with any of those things. I don’t like it.

If I look at him as the representation of Kripke and stop looking at him as a character, I can understand even more why he is the way he is and be more...forgiving I guess; he was an accurate representation cause Kripke did write Sam and Dean to be in those situations but at the same time he loved his creation.

I feel like I made no sense so to put in hopefully more understandable terms:

As a character: I have put you in or let you to some of these situations but I have given you the free will to choose how you handle them and I’m rooting for you to make the right ones and win.

As the representation of a writer talking to their creation: I have put you in these situations but I did it because I love you and I needed you to grow and take a life of your own.

Not sure that’s any more understandable, my thoughts on this character are very difficult to explain but the gist of it is, I’ve never seen Chuck as the bad guy.

[And, as to the argument of why hasn’t he stepped up more to help the boys, if he did there’d be no show. He’s an all knowing all powerful character if he appeared to help every time the boys had a problem there would be no show cause he could solve the problem with a snap of his fingers so I can understand and forgive the writers for not...using him?]

Anyways, to me, his personality in this episode doesn’t make any sense and Dabb changed him to make him into a villain [Note: I do not believe for even one second that he was always intended to be a villain, Chuck was introduced by Kripke back in s4, Kripke had no plans for this show to go past s5 and nobody expected it to reach s14 so saying him being a villain was always the plan makes no goddamm sense to me so save your breath]. I will say however it’s fitting that Dabb would turn Chuck, a representation of the show creator/showrunner, from flawed but loving, into a villain who throws a temper tantrum and undoes all of Sam and Dean’s hard work, I didn’t know Dabb was so self-aware!

I don’t know, maybe if this character had never been introduced, or if he had been written differently or if I didn’t see him as a representation of the show creator/showrunner, maybe then I could get behind the idea of him being a villain but as it is I got issues with it.

From a story POV I’m also not the biggest fan of God being the last big bad, I actually don’t find it that creative. I think it would have been a lot more interesting and creative if they had actually killed him and they either had to deal with the repercussions of that or even more fun if Sam had been the one to kill him and turned into God. Which I actually thought was going to happen for like 3mins after Sam shot Chuck (I watched this epi live and there was a commercial break in between I can be given some leeway for this), well to be honest, I thought he was either going to become God or King of Hell or return of his powers, either way, any one of those three would have been 100% more fun than what we actually got, but I guess I should have known better than to expect Dabb to ever give Sam a storyline, it was probably torture for him to write Sam doing something as badass as shooting God in the first place.

Now, to be fair, we might still get Sam with powers or King of Hell!Sam, the shows not over yet but I’m not going to hold my breath for it. And maybe something cool will be done and I’ll warm up to the idea of Chuck being the villain but as of right now that’s not the case and I don’t see my view changing anytime soon.

That being said, it was great to see Rob Benedict again! He’s looking good!

Moving on from all that, this episode could have been so much more. It should have been so much more, this is the last season finale ffs! But this didn’t even feel like a season finale, the only time it did was at the very end during the last, I’d say, 5mins. the rest felt more fitting for a pre-season finale; take the last couple of minutes away and this would have been more fitting as 14.19. Or even as a standalone episode it would have been better, cause there’s a concept used at the beginning of this episode, that imo would have been good for a standalone, and it’s that Jack made it so people can’t lie, I think that could’ve made for a fun standalone and it’s a pity that instead it was thrown in here cause it didn’t contribute to the plot if anything it actually played a large part in making this feel like less of a season finale.

I’m not gonna lie to you guys the ending with all the monsters and the zombies appearing did make my jaw-drop and for a minute I felt something akin to excitement for s15, but as the scene continued that excitement started dying down and something about it started bugging me. It wasn’t until the episode finished and I started thinking about it and what that ending could possibly mean that I realized why that was and it’s because that little spark of excitement I felt when the woman in white appeared was because of nostalgia.

It’s because I saw her and the creepy af clown and bloody Mary and I didn’t imagine current Sam and Dean fighting them, my mind saw them and immediately went to s1 and s2, that little spark was because I was reminded of the show I love so much, the show that is now coming to an official end and never coming back, and again I won’t lie, for that minute my mind considered the possibility that s15 would be a throwback an homage to the beginning but as the scene continued on I realized that while s15 does have that potential to be something beautiful that pays tribute to the early seasons there’s a way bigger opportunity for it to be a destruction of the legacy j2 have built. And now that the opportunity is there, there’s a big chance that s15 will be a revolving door of secondary characters instead of being about Sam and Dean.

I’m worried that instead of Dabb doing something beautiful that pays tribute to the early seasons it’s just going to be a lazy retelling full of retconning. And it frustrates me that he undid everything Sam and Dean have done, that instead of original new stories we’re bound to get a retelling of the ones that we know and love and are already perfect.

Also, I fucking hate that feathers is gonna be around for the last season especially if the last season is meant to be an homage to s1-s2 cause that useless prick wasn’t introduced till s4...maybe they can start with s4, work their way backward and kill him off.

I won’t deny that there were good moments cause there were! When Dean was about to shoot Jack that was legitimately tense, Sam shooting Chuck was badass, I loved Sam standing up to Dean and telling him that he couldn’t lose him and Jack, I liked the conversation between Sam and Chuck in the Bunker, I loved Dean making weapons for him and Sam at the end, so there were legitimate good moments scattered throughout but for me in the overall scheme of things those moments, as much as I enjoyed/loved them, are not enough for me to consider this a good episode and sure as hell, not enough for me to consider this a good season finale. Especially considering this is the last season finale and even more, if I compare it some past season finales like my beloved AHBL.

If you liked this episode, that’s wonderful I’m happy for you, but...I don’t like the way it left me feeling. It left me feeling hollow, and frustrated, and angry and conflicted and worried about s15.

I wish j2 the best of luck in making s15 a good one, they have an uphill battle ahead of them.

As for me, I’m happy this season is finally fucking over and I’m looking forward to the break before the last season begins.

#spn negative #anti andrew dabb #anti castiel #anti dabb #anti dabbernatural #Opinion on Supernatural #spn 14.20 #spns14 finale #mine

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assholemurphy · 5 years

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Casual reminder Clorke is one of the main reasons Monty and Harper had to stay behind and not live out their lives with the rest of the family. Another casual reminder that Bellamy is still the heart about his found family, and that Raven, Murphy, Emori are petty and bitter little shits who don't mind doing shady shit for whatever reason they think is valid and also don't give a flying fig about taking the higher road. The only person who would've been mad but eventually forgiving is Harper.

I was gonna say that Echo would be understanding, but she probably just thinks Clorke is a dumb bitch with a bunch of complexes. Not that Echo doesn't understand what her motives were, she just thinks Clorke and her plans and her Wanheda nickname and her constant need to be in charge of someone's lives are fcking stupid. And if anyone says Monty-"Then die"-Green forgave her, they need to rewatch both s5 and s2.

Oh, and everyone being like "Bellamy and the spacekru lived by Clorke's words blah blah". Echo taught Bellamy to remain calculated and strategic in situations that are difficult for him. The 100 taught Bellamy patience and how to be in charge of a group that's so vastly different and motivate them when things get tough. Monty didn't need Clorke to tell him how to feed everyone. The man knew how to do his own damn job. They remembered her, but it's not like she made them better, ffs.

You’re absolutely right, Nonnie!

While Monty, who is very forgiving, not because he should be, but because he doesn’t like conflict, and Harper, who is a literal angel and would eventually forgive Clarke, not because she deserves it, but out of the goodness of her heart, none of the others would ever forgive Clarke for putting their family in danger. In fact, I’m not even sure Monty would, because he’d already lost Jasper and part of that is on Clarke for her alliance with Lexa and he knows that.

Raven, Murphy, and Emori would be willing to tear Clarke to shreds for any little thing she does wrong (and lbr, she makes a lot of mistakes) because of what she did. They’d never let her forget it. They’re incredibly petty and incredibly loyal to those they love, so they’d have no problem calling Clarke on her shit constantly.

Echo may understand, but she doesn’t approve. Like, I’m sure she can understand doing anything to save the person you love, but Clarke doing that (even though the Flame wasn’t really going to put Madi in danger) put Echo’s family in danger, so Echo isn’t going to let that go easily. She probably thinks Clarke’s a shitty leader and she’s right. Echo is extremely brilliant and she knows bad leadership when she sees it, and Clarke is a prime example of bad leadership. So not only will Echo not forgive her, she most likely won’t respect her for a very long time, if she ever does.

Now, Bellamy might forgive her one day, but Bob said at Unity Days that he hadn’t forgiven her yet, which means that they’re really giving him the character development he deserv es. Clarke has done nothing but manipulate and hurt him since S1 and it’s high time he gets to be angry with her for her choices. Bellamy is such a great leader, unlike Clarke, he actually does what’s best for his people, even at his own expense, and when he makes a mistake, he holds himself accountable. That’s why he’s such a great leader. Because if he fucks up, he recognizes it, makes amends, and strives not to do it again. Clarke has never once done that, and Bellamy has already noticed this (’People die when you’re in charge!’). He’s not about to forgive her, not only for endangering his family and leaving him for dead, but for endangering all of the human race, allowing the Earth to be ruint, and causing Monty and Harper to have to find a solution that ultimately lead to their deaths (though they may have been happy, they weren’t with their full family).

No one is going to forgive Clarke easily, especially not Spacekru. And that’s exactly what she deserves.

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cosmiciaria · 5 years

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World of Final Fantasy Review! (Spoiler free)

I know the game is pretty old by now. It was released in October, 2016, before Final Fantasy XV wrecked the fandom. I've always wanted to give it a shot, but the apparent light-hearted approach didn't suit me well – so I waited for a decent discount in PSN, and I finally managed to get it in my hands! Disclaimer: this is a review of the vanilla version of the game. Saw there's a big expansion adding quite a a lot of stuff, including gameplay mechanics, so… either way, the game is quite enjoyable as it is, I don't deem an expansion necessary in my case to make me like the game more.

So yes, this is a GUD game. Even GUDER than I'd thought it would be. Like REALLY. Real good.

I'm not explaining myself. You see, this game seems made for younger generations. It was the result of the 30th Square Enix Anniversary, and it's the cocktail boiling in the cauldron every Final Fantasy fan wanted to have. It's a crossover, it's the perfect fanfiction across all the universes we've learned to love and care in this franchise. It's a love letter to fans, and I want to stress this idea, because… this game is great, is awesome, is moving, but only if you're an FF fan.

I mean, you'll still enjoy it for what it is, but… there are a thousand nods and references to the previous FF games that you won't get if you at least are not familiar with their premises. I, for instance, haven't played many of the mainline FF, including I, II, V and XI. I knew about their characters and some of its most characteristic thingies (like Gilgamesh being from FFV), so I still could get some of the references, but it's not the same.

It's not the same, because, like I said, this game is a love letter to fans. And it shows.

But – wait, are those chibis? Is this a children's game? What are you talking about? I know it's hard to take chibis seriously, but hear me out – this game is more serious than it seems at first sight. I expected nothing but RPG tropes and I did get many of those, but DUDE (pun intended) did I had a great (TRAGIC) time with those twists and turns!

So we follow Lann, a fifteen year old ginger boy who goes to work at his usual café. He doesn't seem to notice the Pokémon – I mean, the Mirage on his head, a cute white little fox that seems to defy the laws of gravity by gripping to his hair. In the café, Lann meets Enna Kros, a mysterious woman who asks for a very sugary coffee. Minutes later, we meet our other protagonist, Reynn, Lann's twin sister, who crashes into the place to tell her brother that there's nobody anywhere. Lann is like, hey, there's this woman over here, but truth be told… the neighborhood is empty.

So this woman, Enna Kros, introduces herself and tells them that she's a goddess of some sort (her nature is, eh, well, never fully explained and that's fine). She reveals they are in a place called Nine Wood Hills, a land that looks like it's stuck in time and space. Lann and Reynn had forgotten what the hell they're doing there, or who their parents were, or anything, so Enna Kros gives them (or more like, reminds them of) the Prismariums: the ability to imprism Mirages, like the little fox I mentioned, and bend them to their will. The purpose, she says, is to catch as many Mirages as they can, across Grymoire, the world she's the goddess of, and collect memories about their past. Then the little fox is introduced as Tama, a very important Mirage that is going to accompany the twins for the rest of the journey.

Off they go to Grymoire, and this is where the crossover starts: here people are tiny (chibis) called Lilikins; Reynn and Lann remain normally proportioned (Jiants), but they can turn into Lilikins whenever they want. Jiants had disappeared from this world a hundred years prior, so the twins kind of attract everyone's attention. This only feeds the mystery that shrouds this pair.

Grymoire is full of towns, regions and dungeons. Across all these places, the twins will irremediably come across the chibis we all know and love: the FF characters. Their storylines are so well intertwined that you forget that they belong to an original game, for their personalities and backgrounds fit this story very well. We have a Bahamutian Federation who's conquering everything in its stride, except for a few kingdoms that still fight against it. The League of S, the resistance group, wants to recruit as many people as they can, and it's up to the twins to help this insurgence grow. But this is not everything: it seems that in the Federation there's a prophecy, a Crimson Prophecy, that foretells the arrival of two Jiants twins who are Mirage Keepers…

The story gets more and more complex, until it reaches a point where I couldn't believe my eyes. And this was a game for "children"! But I won't spoil it for you. Instead, let's talk about the gameplay first!

I said Pokémon earlier – It's the closest approximation and I'm not lying. If you wanna be the very best, you gotta catch 'em all. Mirages will appear as your ordinary enemies in dungeons, and every first time you encounter one, Enna Kros will give you a new prismarium to imprism them in it. But to do this, you first have to create a prismunity: a chance that leaves the Mirage vulnerable to the imprism. This prisminuty is quite easy to achieve in the early levels, but they get more and more difficult and specific to attain as you progress. Each Mirage has an ability tree to develop, in which you'll spend SP points, and most Mirages have also evolutions (is it Pokémon enough yet??) that you'll be unlocking once the requirements are met.

Catching Mirages is not everything, though. Mirages are actually useful: you can equip them. Since we don't have equipment or ability tree for the twins, the Mirages are our only source of power, so their stats and their abilities become our own when we fight. Each twin in Jiant form can 'stack' on their heads a Medium and Small size Mirage, and in Lilikin form, they can stack on a Large Mirage and still have one Small Mirage on their heads. The stack becomes your shield in battle, and at first it looks ridiculous, but once you understand how it works, you can create MAGIC out of its mechanics. Careful because the tower you form can topple and your Mirages can fall from your character's head in a quite funny animation.

Twins don't have ability trees, I said. Well, that's partially true. You see, in the ability trees of the Mirages, every now and then you can come across a Mirajewel: this is the equivalent of a skill card in the Persona franchise – meaning that you can equip that Mirajewel into Lann or Reynn as you please. The Mirajewel doesn't lock to just one character, you can switch it between the twins as you like. The slots for these Mirajewels take a while to unlock, though, and it's related to the twins's levels.

Battles are your good old friend turn base combat. And it's great. IT'S GREAT. Like really. They can STILL do this and it's still loved, I don't know why people say that turn base combat is outdated and old fashioned. It's pretty slow paced, but fear not, because there's an ACCELERATOR button that lets you fast forward battles. Isn't it convenient? In fact, everything in this game is so convenient it makes me wanna cry: you wanna leave the dungeon? No prob, just use this unlimited teleport stone; wanna change your Mirages for others? Never fear, you have a save point every half hour. You wanna fast travel to this place? Nine Wood Hills got it covered for you. You're not enjoying this minigame? You can skip it and still advance in the main story! You kinda not dig this new menu we created for this game? Try the old style FF menu and play like you did in the old FF titles!

Really. Everything is there for you, at your disposal. The option to choose how and when you play is available, and it's kind of heart-warming they did this. I just wish every new FF could work like this one, on terms of gameplay! This game is SO Final Fantasy that I wanna cry a river.

Alright! Too much gameplay. What about characters?

Lann and Reynn are just hilarious. Their interactions are natural and casual: they truly make us believe they're twin brother and sister who deeply care for each other. Each of them has their own quirks, like Lann being quite slow, always saying "dude!" and protecting his sister at all costs; and Reynn being determined, direct and fearless, but also hiding her nervousness behind blurting trivia into the void whenever things seem to get nasty. There's one particular funny scene in the game where Reynn is angry with a Cactuar and she wants to, basically, punch it to death, which she can't, because Cactuars have their agility skyrocketed to high heaven more or less, and her hysteria is so relatable that you want to get yourself inside the screen and pat her on the head.

On that note, voice actors for the main protagonists were a delight. I was kind of surprised to discover that the guy who voices Lann also voices Shiro from Voltron: I couldn't recognize my favorite gay spaceship leader anywhere in this upbeat character, but there were moments where Lann became serious and angry, and damn, did that Shirogane emerge! All the other FF characters that we know have their original actors returning –not only that, but also we hear some characters from the older FF games that had never ever had, in any other media, voices. I swear my control almost fell to the floor when I heard Vivi f*cking SPEAK.

The FF characters remain in their personalities and they're never out of character. They bring about a thousand references from their original games, that are not forced at all. The script is clever enough to blend these moments inside the main story in such a way that you never see them coming, and more than once I was at the verge of tears, specially with Tidus and Yuna who belong to, I may very well say it now, my favorite Final Fantasy game (Oh I never wrote a review for FFX, even though I played like six times). I won't tell you, just play the game and discover these scenes for yourself. They make the game ten times more loveable. There are also instances of 4th wall breaking so beware yourself for a good laughter. Read the Mirage's Manual, I fully recommend it.

The game has all the RPG tropes you can ask for: the mandatory ice, fire and water levels, the really really bad guy you can tell he's bad because of his demoniac appearance bad villain bad oh bad he's bad because reasons, treasure chests, chocobos, cactuars, tomberris, flans, malboro menaces and anything you can expect from an FF game. But this isn't a copycat of previous installments. Towards the second half the game shows its true colors and we're faced with an original story, with huge twists that left me open mouthed, and you forget about the first few hours of the game that seemed taken straight out of any other FF, because, you know it, honk's got real. (Oh, btw, Lann used 'honk' every time he should've used the f-word, it was so funny, once he says 'shut the honk up' I'm cryinggG)

On the music department, I just couldn't really get into it. There were some boss fights that caught my attention but that's all there is to it. Nine Wood Hills background music gets under your skin after a while of continually listening to it, and sometimes it plays during important sequences, so I guess it's the most memorable piece of music. On the other hand, we have remixes of all those FF's themes we liked so much that play during certain characters' arcs and they may bring more than one tear to players' eyes (I did NOT cry when Suteki Da Ne started playing I did NOT). Visuals are nice and all – you can tell it had less production than, let's say, FFXV, its contemporary companion in release dates, but damn, some places were vivid and realistic! And lighting and shadows were real enough! And who cares about an anime appearance or chibi characters when everything SHINES and the story is good either way!

This game made me for some reason ship Cloud with absolutely everyone? What the honk?

All in all, this is a Final Fantasy game in all its glory, and it shines bright in many aspects I believe it was done even better than most of the newest games in the mainline. I just wished it had a more 'independent' story, in the sense of what I first mentioned: that this is a game for fans, that the experience would be very different if you haven't played the majority of the FF titles (and even some spin offs!). Still, the main story holds up well and at the end of the day, the main characters are the twins, not Cloud or Squall.

I do have one or two tiny complaints: there are some FF titles vanished to oblivion in this vanilla version. Firion from FFII only appears in the expansion and Balthier from FFXII, although he is a free dlc, he's not part of the story and he doesn't even have a page in the people's compendium, his appearance being the only silent presence of that title in the game. Also there's something spoilerish I wasn't really fond of – I'm just gonna say, without revealing anything, that I don't like how certain character was handled. And no, I'm not speaking about the masked woman. Anyway, that's all I can complain about, actually.

I think credit must be given where credit is due. And this game is due a lot of credit. For its amazing gameplay, giving us a taste of what we've been asking for years, and for the good use of the Extrauniverse to weave this story for us. Interactions between characters are a delight because of how well written they are. And there's a lot of post game content so, here I go, the route to platinum!

If you enjoy FF, then you'll love this game.

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theroastedpoosqueery-blog · 6 years

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On johann and tenma dynamic or something

((@jyuanka so yea i wanted to bounce back on what you were saying but its so long i figured i should make a new post lmao ))

There are so many interesting characters in monster (eva being maybe the first one), but the dynamic between tenma and johann is really whats does the deal for me. Their relationship is what builds the plot, like two poles of a battery that supports the entire story ! and they only met four times !! i love that its so unclear why both of them are so intent on having the other in their line of sight, like their obsession with each other is never really explained and we can only have so many speculations. Since its monster, it cant be something like ‘good tenma absolutely want to destroy johann for world peace”/ “evil johann absolutely want to destroy tenma because hes…evil”.

(you said you wanted to yell about monster so uh im taking advantage of it lol)

For tenma, we first think that all of this it is to prove his innocence. But the narrative voice shows us several times that this is not the case (grimmer who tells him that he should not go so far just to get his name cleared -> close-up on tenma’s face that darkens and tenma who doesnt answer = tenma does not do that to prove his innocence, theres something else). And frankly who would go that far just for that? Tenma realizes very quickly that destroying johan is,,,more than complicated and that he could lost his life at any point. He could go to a remote part of another continent and rebuild a career as a doctor there, under a new identity, if he wanted to (maybe johann wouldnt let him, but the obsession johann has for tenma is something that the latter understood at the end so he wouldnt know that at the beginning of the series). Nor is it because he has a savior syndrome and he absolutely wants to protect people (orrr well a little lol), because tenma doesnt seem to be interested in politics or in social justice at the beginning of the series. What i mean is that, like everyone, he knows that the world is unfair and that folks are dying because of horrible situations and horrible people (idk like because of the mafia, because of capitalists, because of fascists, because of human trafficking, etc). Like, everyone knows that, and some of us react and actually do things like direct actions, lobbies, associations, politics, or even just talk about it. But Tenma really doesnt seem to be that moved or concerned, hes more the type to be like “whatever. Dont see ? hasnt happened”. Yet when he realizes that its johan who does these things, suddenly it becomes his personal business. Like people always say tenma is the “absolute good” and i really, really disagree.

He has spent his life obeying orders from despotic leaders without ever questioning himself once. He was going to marry a girl who told him that all lives are not equal, ffs! yea she says this when tenma began to think that maybe, maybe, theres something wrong with all this so this sentence shocked him. But you cant tell me that the highly horrible personality of eva is something he wasnt aware of before ! and he was alright with that, because then by marrying her he would secure a brilliant career. He saves a rich person instead of a poor turkish husband, and he have to see his crying widow who tries to punch him to realize that maybe what he did wasnt really okay. And he was past his thirties, so its not a question of “the poor baby didnt knew there was inequality in the world and what he was doing was not nice ! “. He knew, and he chose again and again, for most of his life, to please a corrupt man to promote his career and have a good and safe life. So for me tenma is so, so problematic ! Because Tenma is the sort of man who sees what is wrong, but who chooses not to do anything against it. isnt this kind of people the worst ?? and thats why i love him ! and thats why his radical evolution caused by johann (when he saves the boy, then when he chooses to kill him), is so intriguing.

So yea tenma dont want to destroy johann just so people will be safe or for world peace or wtv BS -because he spent most of his life not caring about that, or caring but not to the point of getting personally involved. I think little johann is what triggers tenma to do something for the first time of his life. He goes from the guy who sees what is wrong but who doesnt feel like he can react so he just goes with the flow and become as horrible as everyone else, making him worse because he knows thats wrong -> to the guy who chooses, to the guy with an agency who decides to react. Little johan makes tenma becoming a person, its his trigger to personhood. And thats why, after his first encounter with johann, tenma become so different. Imo, the real monster is tenma in the beginning of the series - and johann makes him someone who uses his agency, he renders him human !

So 9 years later, when tenma finds out that the trigger of his humanity is actually the very negation of what is human, it goes ‘bam’ in his brain. We can understand why ! During this 9 years, he had the time to inhabit his new role of “a person with an agency” - he seems so calm, so confident and happy. Hes not the guy who knew that everything was wrong but just followed orders and closed his eyes anymore, he has a personhood and uses his newfound humanity to make the world a better place. He has a sense of purpose and realizes what it is that life is worth living (okay im projecting here lmao). Above all, he thinks that the choice he made (to become a person) is ultimately absolutely good. But then he meet johan for a second time, and actually realizes -wait, so me becoming a person can causes bad things ? was i wrong ? should i have stayed how i was before ?

And then we enter what is the core of Monster : we just follow someone who struggles to define what is being human. Before, like i said, tenma wasnt using his personhood. After johann triggers him to become a person, he basically lives a morally ideal life -save people, be a good person, no headaches of ‘what should i do’. The people who could have forced him to make actual difficult choices (his corrupt chief ) were conveniently dead. Then he met adult-johan, and bam ! so many contradictions. suddenly the answer is not that clear anymore. Then he realizes than with personhood comes the obligation to make dubious moral choices. Because for each choice we make, there are negatives consequences and positives ones, and we have to judge when the positives outcomes prevails on the negatives ones without ever being sure. And i think tenma chasing johan is him refusing this existing situation, is him trying to run away from the negatives consequences of becoming a person. Its him on a quest to know if getting access to personhood is absolutely good, a quest to know if his reason of living is legitimate. He cant think that there are not absolutely good choice, that sometimes the good choice can be to kill someone - or to save them, depending on the situation. There isnt absolute anymore : no real monsters, no real good person. We’re just human who struggles to do what we can. Once you have an agency, you have to take decisions. So for tenma, who basically have never taken decisions to construct himself as a person, his johann-hunting is basically that : hes chasing after his own definition of humanity. Whether he would have choose to kill johan or not, at the end, the manga completed the mission : theres no good choice, only choice you think are the best at one point. If he had chosen to kill johan, he would have chosen to kill someone ; if he had chosen to not kill him, he would have chosen to let someone else die. Whats better ? I am not sure. Personally, i think that if i could kill certain people i would do it, while knowing that this people are humans like me, just raised in different circumstances, because my ideas and my buddies’ lives are worth more than the life of the ones who threatens us : thats my answer of humanity. We alas dont get to see tenma’s answer… but anw. Thats my personal interpretation of what johann makes tenma do lol.

For Johann, the reason for his obsession with tenma is even less clear for me. Why johann wants tenma to understand him, to see him, so badly ? What makes tenma so special ? Johan seems to have a daddy complex, because tenma not the first middle-age man to have the dubious pleasure to be the object of johan desire to show “his” world to someone else. General wolf and schuwald both had to loose everything that was dear to them until they only have johann who then betray them deeply. But these two dont seem to catch the “scenery of the doomsday” so dear to johann ; and yet johann appears to be convinced that tenma can (and so that tenma is the one who should kill him). Why is that ? Why tenma is so different than wolfe and schuwald ?

I have numerous ideas but not one that convinced me too much. The first one would be how their first encounter resonates with them both and had the same effect of ‘triggering their humanity’. I already explained why i think johann is tenma’s personhood trigger. I also think tenma is johann’ trigger to humanity. Its kind of simple : tenma is the first one to show him that human could be good. Tenma saves him and risk his career without ulterior motives (or at least material motives, because like i said there were many philosophical and psychological stakes for tenma). For johann, who never knew that humans could be like that because his childhood environment was kind of,,not good, and who is still young enough to be impressionable, it could be enough to be interested in what tenma has to offer if he were to play with him. That plus the fact that he has deep parental issues and tenma is, like he said, a “second father” to him, so maybe he acts like a child would with his dad (in his twisted way), or rather with his god -tenma who creates him, tenma who destroys him. But i think its too emotional for johann.

Other idea : johann, being this prodigy, understand exactly what is tenma situation while saving him and his philosophical questions -lets keep in mind that tenma talks to johan often whil the boy is in a coma. He understands that tenma chooses ultimately *personhood* over everything that could make his life easy. And tenma’s answer is exactly the opposite of johann's way of seeing life, since johann chooses again and again to negate humanity. So he wants to destroy tenma’s philosophy, destroy tenma sense of what is being human : he creates the perfect life for tenma, wait for tenma to be really at ease with his situation, then slowly destroy everything until tenma would be forced to recognize the superiority of johann’ response. I really think johann is prepared to die just to win his mind game with tenma lmao, he’s that much of a sore loser.

Other theory, who dont necessarily conflicts with the others ones, its that johann didnt plan to make tenma this important in his life. He at first intended to do to tenma the same thing he had done to schuwald and wolfe, with maybe more sentiments knowing tenma was his second father and everything. But what changed his plan was tenma reactions. I dont think johann thought that tenma will go all lone ranger in the arizona forest to train to become a killer spy lmao, and when he saw that, he was like ‘oh funny’ (lets keep in mind that during the first half of the series, while he still thinks he was the one in the red rose mansion, johann is basically just playing a nihilistic game and dont put that much valor into anything). Maybe he became attached to him (whatever sort of attachment you headcanon), which was kind of a novelty to him since he didnt have any feelings toward anyone until then -his sister was himself and he was his sister, i dont think johann ever understand that nina was her own person until the end so feelings toward his sister doesnt count- and he was unsettled enough to want to keep tenma at hand. Like each time i see the schuwald arc im lmfao, when johan is all like little devilish smiles and sidelong glances each time he knows (how? no idea, he must have super powers at this point really) tenma is watching him like how much of an act it is ?? theres no reason for johann to do this ‘hihi cant catch me hellooo ;D ;D’ except being a drama queen. Which he is. so yea i cant help but wonder why he is acting this funny towards tenma lol

Or maybe johann never succeeded in negating his own humanity and ultimately couldnt bear to truly erase his own existence at the end, so he wanted someone to remember him to have a chance to live at least once -because johann understood that what makes us be is to make other people witness your existence. Tenma was the ideal candidate he stumbled upon -his sister being out of play since she was himself so not a true external witness and everyone else being too,, afraid of him or too under his charm to do anything.

AAAh so many ideas !! what is sure is that tenma is johann most important person and conversely. And since they met so infrequently the fandom has a highway to imagine other interactions. please people imagine other johan/tenma interactions. please im dying i dont understand these russian fics at all

So anyway sorry for this loooong ass post that nobody is going to read !! i just,,,,,,,,,,love monster,,,,,,,,,so much

#naoki urasawa's monster #johan liebert #kenzou tenma #naoki urasawa's monster meta #johan liebheart

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gch1995 · 6 years

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Captain Swan was like the cheap rip-off of Rumbelle. So how did they make their cheap, gross, and shallow pretty boy rip-off of Rumbelle look better than the far superior, deeply beautiful, and complex original couple? Systematically destroying every element of both halves of the deeply beautiful, emotionally complex, and unique original Rumbelle and kill off Neal to vilify Rumple to make their cheap, shallow, and gross rip-off look better by comparison, which they failed to do, anyway…It’s a sure fire way to win tons of viewers, and not piss off a huge portion of your original GA! It’s not like most of them weren’t majorly emotionally invested in Rumple’s story with Belle and Neal…*I’m being sarcastic, btw, in case that wasn’t already obvious...*

Ffs…I really came to hate this show, I’m glad I quit watching after S5 because I read spoilers that it only got worse for Rumbelle with the OOC toxic clusterfuck of the utter systematic character destruction of both Rumple and Belle as individual characters and a couple, which they used the Rumbaby to create for “fun” for A&E and these writers to make CS look better after they made them a romanticized abusive relationship in 5A, and lost half their audience by making Hook the Gary Stu of the show who everyone else got screwed over for at the last minute.

I was worried they would screw over Rumbelle in a way that finally went too far for people to just realistically reconcile after what they did to CS in 5A, and it looks like I was right from the spoilers I read for 6A…Because it’s not like A&E and these writers weren’t already systematically destroying both halves of Rumbelle enough as it already was to prop up Hook/CS when they killed off Neal. It’s not like it wasn’t already bad enough when they started all the Rumbelle drama with the fake dagger proposal, the magic hat, the lies, and the banishment that never was apologized for because it was framed as “girl power” for Belle to “put the beast in his place.” It’s not like it wasn’t already bad enough with Belle’s bizarre OOC newcharacterization of being back-and-forth with Rumple, being cowardly, hypocritical, stupid, unnecessarily cruel, controlling, insensitive, and lacking in empathy with Rumple, refusing to let him get a word in edgewise, even when he tried to reach out to her gently and honestly for her understanding and compassion, and even when he did nothing wrong, while she let Hook, Regina, and Zelena get away with using her to hurt Rumple and trusted and forgave all of them for hurting her and her true love because the narrative “needed” to vilify Rumple. It’s not like it wasn’t already bad enough when Rumple took back the curse because he claimed that “It’s the man that he was,” and “I like the darkness.”

This shit in 6A, though. This shit was just too fucking stupid and OOC to believe.

The unborn Rumbaby being a full grown adult God of Dreams with a fully formed personality and opinions in Belle’s subconscious, who she actually believes immediately without question for no damn reason when he tells her that “Rumple will destroy the family?”

BULLSHIT!

Belle talking about how she’d rather stay in a sleeping curse with her unborn child to avoid Rumple forever based off of what a dream said for no fucking reason, even before Rumple starts screwing up?

BULLSHIT!!

Belle staying on Hook’s ship, and talking to him and Snow about how she spent too long trying to make things work with Rumple, even before Rumple starts doing anything wrong in the arc, even though the writers have conveniently ignored the fact that Belle has an apartment above the library that Rumple gave her, even though she’s perfectly a-ok forgiving and trusting the man who tried to kill her four times to piss off Rumple, even though Hook’s “apology” for attempting to murder her has come too late in the series and he openly admits to letting her stay on his ship is something that he openly admits to doing to piss off Rumple when the worst that Rumple has done to her at this point in the series was keep her in the dark about his shady schemes in S4?

BULLSHIT!!!

Rumple having a Dark One 2.0 2007 Britney Spears style mental breakdown mid-life crisis when he cuts his hair because he doesn’t like the man he sees in the mirror, so he starts acting like a controlling, and potentially dangerous blindly insane dick to Bellle of nowhere?

BULLSHIT!!!!

Like, I could understand it if this bizzarely problematic shift in Rumple’s attitude had an organic lead up without all the stupid magical plot contrivances and twists that come out of the blue, and the breaking of preestablished rules used to force him to that extreme. I could understand it if Belle didn’t “have” to be made uncharacteristically, unnecessarily, and overdramatically cruel, cowardly, stupid, and hypocritical to push him over the edge. I could understand if these writers understood realistic human psychology, trauma, mental illnesses, consistent characterization, and they didn’t destroy or sideline other characters/ships to prop up their faves.

But on this show where I had barely survived through the pain that was S4 and S5 of Rumple’s being framed as an OOC one note stereotypical villain badly enough as it already was to prop up Hook/CS, Regina, and Zelena onto pedestals that they didn’t deserve by ignoring all of the trauma, loss, and grief he had endured, and the near erasure of his fantastic character development and selfless sacrifice from S1-3A? I didn’t want to see them try to portray Rumple’s self-destructive addict tendencies a third time around because he was a “difficult man to love” because A&E and these writers did not want, and/or did not know how to portray mental illness and trauma in Rumple’s character consistently, organically, sympathetically, and realistically.

They usually just ignored all that complexity in his character to frame him as a one note villain to the other characters and the audience, and refused to let them be sympathetic or understanding of him until he had finally come to the brink when it was finally convenient for Belle to actually hear him out, listen, understand why after she had refused to do so for most of the arc to push him over the edge, and he responded with some variation of “Who could ever love me,” which was always tragic with Bobby’s acting. But it was getting repetitive now because Belle should have understood this fact about Rumple after 4A in 6A, Rumple should have known that trying to fix things with magic without Belle’s consent would only make things worse in 6A after 4A, and both of them should have been smart enough to sit back and think about how ridiculous this shit with the dream zygote was. So I did not want to see a third round of character assassination one more time around at all an all time low where both he and Belle were being pitted against each other at incredibly OOC, illogical, and gross low point as enemies in this stupid magical custody battle clusterfuck over an unborn baby who somehow had the power to be the God of Dreams, orchestrate his own kidnapping, and dupe both of his intelligent parents after getting duped by the Black Fairy before he was even fucking born, especially when I knew I had seen a variation of this same plot done before in 4A. While that didn’t make total sense either, it didn’t feel so incredibly cheap, contrived, painful, unbelievable, and stupid as this shit in 6A did with all of the trauma that Rumple had been through in the context in 3B, even if it wasn’t that well written, or sympathetic in the narrative from his POV, either

Golden Queen “romance?”

BULLSHIT!!!!!

I mean, the retcons in the flashbacks were incredibly OOC for both Rumple and Regina. In the present day storyline context, it was wildly OOC for the EQ to sexually assault Rumple twice, and have a crush on him that she never seemed to before. As for Rumple giving into her advances, playing along with her, and using her to kill Zelena for him after those two kisses that she forced on him in the present day storyline? I mean, he flinched back from those two kisses, and we know he was sexually abused by Zelena for a whole year, so I could buy that he would emotionally manipulate the EQ to kill Zelena for him with his sexuality because he wanted the shears, and because he didn’t want to be seen as weak through their whole deal, so he used the darkness to cover up his vulnerabilities. I could see if it really “meant nothing,” and he had absolutely no intention of honoring his end of that indirectly implied deal he made with EQ to bang her in return for killing Zelena for him that he offered, he had absolutely no genuine romantic or sexual interest or intentions with her either way, and this was all just a horribly self-destructive, gross, and unethical way to survive his PTSD for as long he “needed” to do it in their deal. And that’s definitely my headcanon.

Unfortunately, A&E and these writers tried to do everything in their power to demonize Rumple throughout that whole thing with the EQ by shrouding his POV. Rumple’s PTSD being triggered by the EQ and Zelena isn’t an excuse for playing her, of course, but the writers literally forgot about the fact that she sexually assaulted him twice first, and then deliberately cut that scene where he ran into Zelena at Granny’s right before that scene in 6x07 where she walked in on them making out, which would have implied that Rumple had been planning on doing this whole time since the end of 6x04 when she forced that kiss on him, and was very likely expecting her to walk in on him and the EQ when they were making out in 6x07. But Bobby looked highly uncomfortable and dead inside when he was making out with Lana in those scenes, he fought Eddy against the whole GQ storyline, and he knows Rumple’s character better than A&E and their team of hacks do, so I took his interpretation in his acting as Rumple in those scenes to heart way more than whatever the fuck A&E and these writers were trying to imply in their piss poor excuse for writing on a dying show that should have ended three-and-a-half seasons before it ever had the chance to make it to this tragically pitiful and nearly laughable hollowed out shell of the fantastic show with well-written complex characters that it used to be once upon a time (pun intended).

Like I said, I hate this show, or at least the show that it became after “Going Home,” and Nealfire’s death…

I also don’t respect A&E and these writers anymore for how abruptly, cruelly, and deliberately they mistreated Rumple, Belle, Rumbelle, Neal, Emma, and Henry’s characters, stories, relationships, and fans in the writing after “Going Home,” so that Eddy Kitsis and these writers could have their love affair with Hook/CS and Zelena!

I still ship Rumbelle from S1-S3, and I still ship them in fanon where the writing for them, whether it be angsty, romantic, tragic, or bittersweet, is always sympathetically in-character, consistent, emotionally complex, organic, realistic, healthy, well-written, and well-earned.

But I’m glad I quit watching this show after S5 because it became clear that they were systematically destroying both halves of Rumbelle out of spite to prop up Hook/CS, and I didn’t need to see that shit anymore. It wasn’t good for my mental health, and I’m honestly regretting that I ever even read the recaps and spoilers for 6A on tumblr.

As far as I’m concerned, the real show ended with “Going Home” because that was the last time I fully recognized my favorite characters/otp, the last time I was mostly satisfied with everyone from season one’s character development, and the last time that any of the writing on this show made any sort of consistent, meaningful, and realistic sense before becoming a cheesy, stupid, and toxic romantic magical soap opera Drama™️ fanfic rewrite centered around Hook/CS as the lead character/couple with no continuity, no depth, no organic original growth, and no character or storytelling integrity.

Belle being needlessly cruel by telling Rumple that he is “worse than evil,” and “being too weak to be good” for being afraid to fail their son as a father when she knows Neal died not that long ago?

BULLSHIT!!!!!! She had every right to be angry at him for not telling her right away about plotting to use the shears on their son without her consent, and for handing off dark magical macguffins to the EQ, but twisting his words, and using his fears against him by being mean? That’s not Belle.

Belle attempting to kidnap the unborn baby with Zelena’s help, and gloating over to Rumple angrily about how she and his abuser and the murderer of his first son were “alike,” while mocking him about how she was almost “free” when he caught her, and stopped her in 6x08?

BULLSHIT!!!!!!!!

And yes, it would have been attempted kidnapping in this instance in real life that she would have been arrested for in this episode because the only evidence she had that Rumple was a serious “danger” to their unborn child with the shears at this point, and that he was having an “affair” with the EQ was all hearsay from Zelena. Zelena was not a reliable source to Rumple’s motives with the shears, or Rumple’s true intentions with the EQ. She didn’t actually know whether Rumple actually was planning to bang her or not, and I really don’t think he ever was because he told Belle that it meant nothing, anyway, and swatted away the EQ like a fly as soon as she broke their deal by hurting Belle, and didn’t kill Zelena for him.

Rumple threatening to speed up Belle’s pregnancy recklessly in a dissociative panic when she already had that fucking cuff on her wrist, and wasn’t going anywhere because he was so obsessed with these stupid shears?

BULLSHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I know a lot of people who watched said that it was strongly implied that Rumple was, even subconsciously, trying to deescalate himself by warning Belle to come back to him before doing it ahead of time, and showing her the aging dust in that little bottle in his hand when he terrorized her in the library with the threat to do it before calling him out, and talking him down. I do believe that the writer of this episode was trying to imply to the audience that Rumple was looking for a “no” from Belle, even subconsciously, because he didn’t know how else to descalate himself, and I do believe that. However, it still was a wildly OOC nearly unforgivable extreme that they forced him to, so they could bring this story to the unnecessary brink of past the point of no return for Rumple and Belle ever reconciling again for absolutely no reason, other than to give Belle a reason to genuinely be afraid and distrustful enough of him to give up their baby to the Black Fairy (in disguise as Blue) to give him his “best chance.”

It’s just like how Belle didn’t actually “need” to attempt to kidnap their unborn child in the episode before this, or how Belle didn’t “need” to banish Rumple across the town line with nothing. It’s just like how it didn’t make any sense for Rumple to try to give Belle the dagger at all, considering how terrified he was of being controlled again. I could see if his heart had started blackening before he left for New York, and the dagger was his veiled plea for her to help him fight the darkness because he couldn’t tell her the truth with his heart being consumed by the curse, but they never made that explicitly clear in the narrative and they ruined most credibility in that when they had him take the curse back because “it was the man that he was.” It’s just like how Belle’s back-and-forthedness with Rumple in S5 made no sense. It’s just like how Belle agreeing to take Rumple’s car and go see the world in a middle of a crisis in town after proclaiming “A hero never runs away” two episodes a day earlier in the timeline before, just because she was having relationship doubts. These writers forced their characters into OOC directions and extremes that weren’t actually necessary, just so they could fulfill their (oftentimes character assassinating and disappointing) plot twists, especially with Rumple and Belle post 3A, and I was finally fed up with it by 6A, even though I didn’t watch any of that clusterfuck.

The Rumbaby being the villain of the week under the hood after being duped by the Black Fairy to dupe his parents to turn against each other, so that he could orchestrate his kidnapping from them at birth before he was even fucking born because Rumple using the shears on him would have prevented this shit from happening?

BULLSHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Adam and Eddy claiming that all this systematic character destruction of every element in Rumple and Belle’s individual characters and relationship together was “fun” and “hopeful,” and that they had been planning this storyline with the Black Fairy for a long time now, even though we all knew by now that they had no sense of self-awareness or ability to learn from their bad writing choices, every Dearie/Rumbelle fanfic writer was writing stories for the characters and relationship that they created a billion times better than they ever could imagine for free on ao3 and ff.net than the vile garbage these piss poor excuses for professional writers and show-runners were still getting paid to spew after they ran out of ideas on their after 3A and shit on Rumbelle deliberately to prop up their faves, and most people planned ahead more thoughtfully for their graduation speeches, what to wear on a date, and school projects than these hacks spent on their now dead trash show?

BULLSHIT!!!!!!!!! At this point, I was just laughing bitterly at them still taking themselves as such “genius” storytellers. I wasn’t even blaming the characters for being this wildly OOC and badly written anymore because it wasn’t really even worth it anymore when A&E and these writers fucked them up for their stupid sensationalist plots, CS pandering, and inability to stick to any sort of consistent realistic characterization, development, timeline, rules, or storytelling integrity, let alone even trying to tell any story with any sort of deeper purpose or meaning at all at this point, anyway. This show was just a cash grab for them at this point for Disney product placement, and Hook/CS.

#rumbelle #anti cs #anti golden queen #anti hook #anti ouat #anti kitsowitz #anti ouat writers

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autisticmrfantastic · 6 years

Text

Excerpts from Zak-Site

Chris of zak-site (http://zak-site.com/Great-American-Novel/index.html) has basically written a whole dissertation on the early years of the Fantastic Four which is worth reading.

However for our purposes I will just be quoting his entries about Reed’s autism:

Issue 182: Reed's autism - the evidence

[Image depicts two comic panels, on the left Sue Richards is crying and says “ Franklin-- He’s been kidnapped!” On the right, the text box says “Reed Richards struggles to find the right words. What would his counterpart say? How would Susan Richard’s real husband react? So many questions, and by the time the answers are formulated-- the game is up!” We see Reed facing away from Sue with a scowl, Sue looks at him with a similar expression and says “now I know you!”]

This issue gives perhaps more evidence that Reed may be autistic. Maybe it's time to summarize the case:

Reed is highly intelligent, but only when he focuses on a narrow area. In other areas he seems less intelligent than his peers (see later examples)

In FF182 we see that he has difficulty with neuro-typical emotional responses. The parallel world Reed provides a useful experimental control for comparison with "our" Reed. As a parallel world Reed, we should assume he's the same in every way unless stated. Notice what happens here: Sue tells him that Franklin has been kidnapped, and this Reed struggles to find the right thing to say. This is classic autistic behavior. Note that a small delay is normal: we should expect a second or so of shock. After that, any fake actor would know what to say. It's not difficult to come up with a look of shock. But for this fake Reed it's very difficult. He stands here struggling to think of the appropriate response. The Real Reed of course has had years of experience in Franklin getting hurt, so he would know what to say. This is why it's so difficult to diagnose adults with autism: adults learn the right thing to say, even if they find it difficult. But this adult does not have a son, so he never learned, so it's really hard for him to fake the emotion.

Reed is obsessively narrowly focused. He will happily spend days in his lab and even forget to eat. This goes beyond a normal obsession or interest.

Reed lacks social awareness. He does not see how his put downs affect the others emotionally. He genuinely cares for Ben, and cannot see how his criticisms (especially in acts 1 and 2) have driven Ben to depression. He loves Sue, and cannot see how his actions almost led to divorce. he cares for Johnny, but cannot see how Johnny feels so trapped.

Reed prefers solitude, and if he has to deal with others he wants to make all the decisions: his world seems to be filled with himself. (The word "autism" comes from the same root as "automatic" and comes from the prefix "auto" meaning "alone".)

He avoids eye contact. We often see him, as in the sequence above, looking way from the person he's talking to. FF51 is another classic example, when Sue stumbles on his secret work and he says "how did you find out?" without looking at her. In FF271 it's a big deal that he can't remember his mother's eyes. Possibly she was he only person he would look in the eye. Of course, adults eventually learn what's appropriate, so he will look into eyes when he remembers to, but it doesn't come naturally.

He gets angry and frustrated or depressed when things don't go his way. FF9 is a good example of this. This leads to his need to be in control. In FF184 he's depressed that he cannot stretch, even though as Sue points out that is not his main power so rationally it doesn't matter.

His speech patterns show he isn't really aware of how he comes across; he's very verbose even though others ask him not to be.

He takes things very literally. This is most clearly seen in John Byrne's run where Reed is at his most socially withdrawn.

He is more paranoid than the others, seeing danger everywhere. Johnny has more fun, Ben is more relaxed about beating foes, and Sue likes to sometimes leave a danger alone (e.g. the first time they saw the creature from the black lagoon) but Reed is constantly on edge.

He doesn't like to change routine, though his lifestyle forces him to. Franklin would interfere with his routine some he likes to send the boy away to Agatha Harkness, and won't change that routine even when it's obvious that Agatha's house is not safe. Reed is also the only one who has never deliberately changed his uniform. Sue has tried skirts, Ben occasionally has an all over suit and even a helmet, and Johnny tried a red suit for a while, but Reed is happy with the same uniform every single time.

he seems to hate social complexity: how else do we explain why he did so well in FF181 in the negative zone? He was superb! Such a simple situation, just Reed on a rock against Annihilus. No powers, no other people, no stress. This shows that losing his powers is not the cause of his stress: it's the fact that losing his powers makes his life complicated that he can't cope with.

And so on and so on. None of this is proof of course, but the circumstantial evidence is very high.

Issue 200:

[Image description: Three panels depicting a struggle between Dr.Doom and Mr.Fantastic. Dialogue:

Reed: Don’t you realise you can never succeed? All your life you’ve been seeking vengeance on a world you believe has despised you...There’s still time, Doom--work with us! Your genius can benefit the very people you think hate you!

Doom: Insufferable idiot! You believe Doom is so petty that he seeks mere vengeance? Ignorant poltroon! I seek power because it is rightfully mine! It is a birthright I inherited from my mother--a woman who was murdered by a suspicious, frightened pack of cloddish morons who were too stupid to see the truth! I have ever sought to claim that with is already mine!

Doom freezes Reed in a block of ice

Doom: When we first met, Richards, I thought you a somewhat intelligent student with some promise. Perhaps your scientific intellect grew, but your understanding of human motivation is astonishingly limited! Vengeance? Bah! Doom is above such petty things ]

Reed' doesn't get it This issue contains possible evidence for Reed's autism, in not appreciating Doom's motivation. At the very least, it shows Doom's depth. It is easy to pretend that Doom as a two dimensional villain who simply wishes power for its own sake, or who just wants revenge. No, such a shallow motivation is an insult. Doom simply wants what anyone wants: what he sees as justice. Reed's remark about working with others to help mankind was especially naive: from Doom's point of view everything he does is to help mankind: Doom sees himself as a superior ruler, able to bring the order and plenty that mankind needs. There is some logic to this, as we shall see in later issues when Zorba gains power.

Reed's diplomacy (or lack of it) Further evidence of Reed's autism is the flashback: when Reed told Doom about the error in his calculation he was incredibly insensitive. Doom was trying to rescue his dead mother. He was breaking all the rules in the most dangerous way possible, all to save his mother. Imagine how Doom was feeling! Doom was not good at handling emotion at the best of times, and here he was on a knife edge, emotionally laid bare and vulnerable. All he asked of others was privacy. And Reed just burst in and said "you got the sums wrong." Does Reed have no appreciation for feelings? Yes, Reed was right, but being right is not enough: you have to think of the other persons feelings. Knowing what Reed did about Doom, there is absolutely no way Doom could have accepted Reed's advice. So why bother? Instead, Reed could have said something diplomatic, like "somebody may have tampered with your sums", and give Doom a way to save face. Literally: because Doom, unable to "save face", literally lost his face.

Great writing The passage on revenge is another example of this being The Great American Novel. What might appears to be a childish revenge story is in fact a discussion of justice and what is best for humanity. The fact that we can sympathize with Doom and share his frustration, even at the same time that we side with Reed, is a testament to the quality of the writing.

Source: http://zak-site.com/Great-American-Novel/ff-act4-FF176.html

#autism #autistic #reed richards #mr.fantastic #fantastic four #marvel #aspergers #asd

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