#And I will defend him to the death

[persuedbybear]

In defense of the ending of Ruin & Rising

The presence of grief is not the same as the absence of happiness. You can experience tragedy and loss and heal from it. Hope can come from tragedy.

Keeping their powers would be a tragic end without hope.

Losing them is what allows them to make choices based on their own wants and desires, instead of keeping them beholden to everybody else. It takes the targets off their backs. It means Alina will not have to experience everyone she loves grow old and die, leaving her alone. It stops Alina from being corrupted by her powers, something that she was well on her way to becoming. And that’s all assuming that Mal survives, because using the Merzost requires sacrifice, and if Alina doesn’t lose her powers, it likely would have been Mal’s life. And given that in the moment she loses both, she is grateful to lose her powers, because of the destruction she would be capable of in her grief, I don’t think there is any possibility of happiness or hope in that scenario. It would just continue the cycle, but with Alina as the villain.

They will mourn, like you do with any loss, for the rest of their lives. There will be good days, and bad days. But these are not two people unfamiliar with loss. When they lost their families, they found happiness with each other. They can, and do, find it again.

[loving-elvis]

As an e fan, it's always hard to come to terms with some of the "less savory" of his life choices (the beginning of his relationship with cilla always gets brought up).

As a fan, how do you/we reconcile that?

Good morning, Anon!

It can be tough, because there are some 'less savory' aspects of Elvis's life can be difficult to accept, especially when it comes to his life and relationships. For me, it's important to know those parts, and to remember that he was a human being. He was flawed. He made mistakes, he had a temper and could be impulsive. He was a human being - like you and me.

A human being that did remarkable things. Who changed the face of music and popular culture and society as a whole. As a fan, I think it's good that we know about that, it's a part of him. But to also not let it overshadow everything else he did, his music, or the inspiration he has on you and your life.

And also keep in mind that for those who don't like him, nothing you say is going to change their mind. Accusations and rumor will continue to swirl without him here to defend himself. You could try and explain things until you're blue in the face and they won't want to hear it. So Anon, find your fellow fans, enjoy his music and celebrate his music, his talent, his legacy, the gifts he left behind 💖💖

[blakbonnet]

I don't even understand all these pre season reviews that called Ed "irredeemable" like idk about you I love him a lot more now than I did before, he's so much more well rounded and richer to me s2 than he was in s1?? he's hit absolute rock bottom going around claiming he doesn't care and then he says that broken "finally" that might as well be a swansong for his character and yet his face lights up like an sos signal when he spots stede?? somehow his character just got off the charts insane and tangible to me now and it makes me adore him even more

[beanghostprincess]

We make a lot of fun of Buggy but, honestly, I would be fucking angry at the world all the time too. Imagine growing up as your best friend's shadow, always being seen as the weak and the clown because of course, Shanks is the legacy. He's the strongest. He's the one to wear the straw hat. And you accept that and give up on your dream for him. To follow him because at least that way you'll be able to achieve your dreams, even if you can't call it yours, but his. You give up on your dream and decide to go for an easier path instead, maps and treasure and money and everything a pirate ought to be, but he fucking ruins it. And it's not even his fault, but he's the one to make it happen. Nobody takes you seriously because saying "He made me eat a devil fruit and lost my map" doesn't sound as awful as "He made me lose my independence as a pirate and only way to follow a path of my own and now the sea I love so much hates my guts". And then your father captain dies in front of your god-damned eyes, leaving the youngest generation to continue his legacy. You think "Oh, well, at least Shanks is here. He'll keep the memory of our captain alive", but he hesitates. He shakes under the thought of the future. Falters for a moment. Somebody you —everyone— considers stronger, rougher, smarter and way better as a legacy than you, doubts himself. After so many years of you trusting him despite everything else. After so many years of everyone else trusting him, leaving you behind. So of course it fucking hurts and of course Buggy is rightfully mad. And of course he refuses to go with somebody that doesn't take this as seriously as him. Somebody that made the sea hate him and also hesitates after so many people trusted him doesn't deserve Buggy's love respect. And so Buggy goes away. And now nobody takes him seriously when talking about his past because he has become the clown everyone thought he was. They don't understand how somebody like him shared a room with somebody like Shanks. They don't understand how somebody like him was raised by the king of the pirates himself. But what they'll never know is that Shanks was the one who hesitated. And they'll never know Buggy was the one leaving his dream behind.

So I think Buggy is rightfully angry at everything and everyone and especially Shanks, even if he hasn't actually done anything. Buggy's anger and resentment is one of the things I'll always defend.

[kedreeva]

Lost count of how many times I've been told that peafowl don't eat/don't like fish. oh yeah? Tell that to the all-out warfare that breaks out when I bring home feeder fish.

I asked the guy at Petsmart today to grab the biggest fish in the feeder tank, since I saw some real chonkers in there somehow. I wasn't sure the peafowl would go for it, they usually get small ones, but I figured what the hell. I'll get a few, see how it goes. How it went was the fish were too big to be snatched and eaten in one motion, so there was screaming and running away with their prizes and fish being stolen from one beak by another and straight up warfare among babies who have no manners being defended by their moms who have no shame. Aris, who initially turned her nose up at fish, stealing them from her own children as well as from her wife, who was trying to call the babies over to get the fish she found for them, because Aris wanted them so badly, herself.

I can freely admit that it took a couple of tries to get them to try it out, and I had to use the darker grey/black normal "fish colored" fish to start with, and the barn pen birds still aren't sure about it, but it ALWAYS takes a time or two of offering a treat before the peafowl will try something new, and there's always some birds that don't like certain foods. But they are criminally social birds, they are puffin-level social birds, if one bird tries a treat and approves of it, the rest will start agreeing it's a Good Food even if they previously refused to eat it or touch it at all. If the first bird to the treat starts shaking their head and acting like it's bad, they'll all start doing that, usually without even trying it themselves, even if it's something they previously liked. So the trick is just repeatedly offering it until someone goes oh wait, this is delicious, and going from there.

[rottentiger-art]

Peeta antis (yea, they exist) love to call him a stalker and stuff, but they forget they were BOTH looking at each other from afar and keeping track.

Let's not pretend they're not both co dependant and weird about the other thru the series, Peeta just fell first

[lierenprotectionsquad]

“We want more morally grey female characters” motherfucker you couldn’t even handle Teresa

[utilitycaster]

I think Orym's position here is such a great one to depict, because the reality of any form of political organizing you will find someone who will not budge. This is fundamentally neutral, though someone like this can certainly have a position you find repugnant. It doesn't matter. This is the reality of dealing with that person. If someone will under no circumstances change their position - especially if it's informed by personal experience - that doesn't mean they are a good or bad person or their position is justified or not, but it does mean that to get them on your side, either you will have to find a way to appeal to them, not the other way around, or you will have to move forward without their support.

When encountering someone like this, you can bang your head against the brick wall and tell them about the superiority of your position for as long as you want, but unless you dip into threats and coercion or worse, you really cannot make them do anything they don't want to, no matter how eloquently you speak. There's considerable power in being that person.

(For what it's worth, I think he's perhaps the truest foil to Ludinus in this respect; I believe Ludinus's beliefs to be just as deeply ingrained and immutable. The key difference is that Orym is not in any way responsible for the death of Ludinus's family, or like, Molaesmyr, so when they move into the moral part of the argument instead of simply the blunt reality of unmoving objects, he does have a significant advantage.)

[shootingthe-stars]

with every god awful take about james potter on the internet an angel loses its wings.

what do you mean he didn’t care about the dark arts and death eaters until it affected him personally. what. you mean the famously blood traitor potter family? you mean one of the only actual canon things we have about james being that he hated the dark arts? you mean the james that yelled at snape for calling lily a mudblood?? you mean the james that went on the front lines of a war he had the privilege to not fight in????

please anti blood supremacy is literally ingrained in his core beliefs can we just keep this ONE THING about him 😭

[katsco]

Rejecting heaven to spend eternity with the ‘most important person’ you know, take notes aziraphel.

[just-null]

are you oka- oh.

[atlasdoe]

IF I HAVE TO SEE ONE MORE "DUMBLEDORE WHERE HAVE YOU BURRIED ALL YOUR CHILDREN" TIKTOK WITH A BUNCH OF CHARACTERS WHOS DEATHS DUMBLEDORE HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH I AM GOING TO LOSE MY GODDAMN MIND

[afsosville]

Ever After High, but make it a PIDW AU.

Imagine how fucked up it would be if Shen Jiu is up there doing the book signing ceremony that seals his destiny of becoming the next 'Shen Qingqiu', and the mirrors display him getting thrown away by his martial siblings at the trial, and his limbs being torn off and other despicable tortures, and being brought down so low that your humanity is stripped away from you, all for an audience to see. And they cheer. The crowd is ecstatic, perhaps even more so than when his father, Shen Qingqiu, was put on trial.

[l1li4n]

MY BABY

I'm raising my point again, how could ANYONE, EVER. EVER HURT HIM???????????????????????

[bulbabutt]

ok i wanna talk about tmnt 2007 and the way i think this is the best version of a leo and raph conflict, and also leo as a character

for context i've been talking about tmnt things kinda chronologically, so i'm gonna mention an unconditional understanding in 03 i bring that up in a previous post about that show and the family dynamics in it here if u want context for what i mean

i think this movie can really be appreciated for the place it has between adaptations, and the way character-wise everyone is more or less the same as they've always been but with a more interpersonal relationship as the focus. the main villain of this movie doesn't really matter, the conflict, the fights, that's not where the strength is (although, it is reflected in the conflict and ill get into that)

so tmnt 07 is one movie that kind of combines the 90s movies, 03, and mirage all in one place, and tonally is is similar to the show that will come after it, 12. if the 90s movies give us conflict between leo and raph, and 03 gives us the unconditional understanding between the two, 07 takes these two aspects and creates a story out of it. (debate in your own mind if this movie is a literal sequel to the 90s ones or not, its not that important)

the set up of this movie is we are in a post killing the shredder world. leo has been told by splinter to go get training elsewhere, there isn't much context for what happened to cause this, but i would bet its a similar cause to 03, where he had ptsd and lashed out at his father to which splinter sends him to his grandfather to get better advice than he thinks he can give him. the difference here is there is no grandfather hes sent to, he's sent on a journey of self discovery around the world to learn about it and himself.

the thing about leo as a character, and this goes for all leos, he's has a very black and white way of thinking. leo thinks he's been sent away because he's failing his family, that he's not a good enough leader. so he stays away for longer because he doesn't feel good enough. he finds a place where he can help and he does that. leo always needs a bad guy to fight, or else he's fighting his own demons. so he stays there for a long time. finding a place he can help quietly, never letting anyone see him, and becoming a legend to the locals because no one knows what's really going down.

april manages to track him down and tell him about whats going on with his brothers, how they're holding up without him and without being a team, and i think thats a good reminder for him that they miss him. he doesn't tell april but he finds a way home only after hearing about this. when he arrives and speaks to splinter, he says "i was so caught up in my own world i forgot about everyone else, i'm sorry i failed" he still doesn't feel like he's done anything of worth.

i'm gonna jump in here and say, you know how we all love rise raph? cuz hes the big brother and some traits that come from that are like being overprotective and taking on everyone else's problems and trying to handle emotions alone? well that's a trait thats usually leo's. but the difference with leo is sometimes that concept doesn't make you as likeable. sometimes it means you come off like a nagging mother hen who thinks they know best but in an arrogant way. sometimes it makes you mirror being a parent when no one asked you to be. leo's less of a passionate character than raph, hes more analytical and full of himself. he takes splinters lessons more seriously, and hes always trying to do whats best for everyone so they don't have to worry. this is something evident with 03 and 12, but its so specifically noticeable here because these traits make up the main conflict. i just want to bring that up so we start seeing leo as no different than some of our other favourite iterations.

splinter responds to his apology by saying "you owe me no apology, but perhaps you should talk to raphael, your absence has been particularly difficult for him, though he'll never admit it" but when leo greets him raph is brushing him off.

on raph's end, this is him being angry that leo left, and angry that hes back and everyone wants to pretend that he wasn't gone at all. as if the time he was gone didn't happen. hes lashing out because he too cant handle talking about these emotions. and hes lashing out by becoming a vigilante in his own right.

i see a lot of people misunderstand what raph is doing here, that "this is what the turtles always do" or "this is the same as what leo was doing how could he be mad" when that is not true. that's what casey does. its true that both leo and raph have been fighting bad guys on their own (as a way of dealing with their issues) but raphael has made himself a costume to disguise himself which means hes prepared to be seen. hes riding a motorcycle around, which is loud. this isn't stealthy, this is aggressive. his vigilante name is in the news. the turtles are ninjas, they silently help where they can and fade into the night and, very specifically, they work as a team. these turtles live in a dangerous world, what if something happened to him while no one else was around? they would never know because he never told anyone.

so raph is lashing out, and leo doesn't have a good way of dealing with it. he tries to slide back into being leader, doing what splinter says but he forgets how his brothers are, and with raph egging them on they get into fights they shouldn't. which leo specifically gets in trouble for, as the oldest brother, and as their leader. leo tries to be this better leader hes supposed to have learned to be, but it doesn't work and raph ends up back out there in his vigilante get up. leo tracks down said vigilante, and in his peak "leo knows best" moment, lectures him, not knowing its his brother. there's a scuffle, and the mask comes off. let me point out that casey knew this vigilante was raph but his own brother didn't, because leo has been gone that long.

so lets get into what this fight is really about. on the surface, its "wow you've been going out at night alone putting yourself in dangerous situations with no backup" and "so what you're just mad that i can do it without you" which leo would be right about. and this is the analytical leo, he really thinks that's all that's going on here. what hes missing is that raphael has missed him as a brother, and hes hurt that leonardo left and just came back no big deal. that he wants everything to be normal. raphael is always a character with big emotions and the only outlet he knows to express them is violence.

leo, who as we've established, went away to learn to be better for his family is angry that raph doesn't see that. he's mad raph doesn't appreciate the effort he went to, and he thinks he's just angry because he's not in charge. each brother sees the other as being arrogant.

this leads them to the big fight. no one can disagree that this is the best part of the movie (seriously watch the movie for this scene if you haven't seen it before) , but the real best part of it is that raphael wins. raph proves hes just as capable of a fighter as his brother, if not more-so. he uses those sais as they're supposed to be used, catching leo's swords and in a fit of rage he fucking breaks them, leaving leo defenceless and completely vulnerable to attack. you'd think he'd be smug that leo lost but he pauses, going through a lot of emotions in a moment, questioning what he's doing, why hes doing it. and leo finally looks his brother in the eye and sees raph going through something he didn't before, realizing raph hasn't been angry that he's back, but that he's angry that he ever left. they don't have a conversation, because raph cant handle all these emotions and he runs away, crying as he does. leo just watches him, taking it all in and realizing the error of his ways.

hearing leo scream turns raph around, but he's too late to help him, and this is where raph regrets his own actions because right then, leo is also proven right in his argument. because he gets kidnapped. if leo hadn't chased raph down, there is a very good chance that would have been raph being kidnapped. with no backup, with no one knowing what happened to him. that's why its important that the turtles are a team.

raph goes home full of guilt, and there's a good moment of showing how he cannot open up emotionally here, because he grunts, punches the wall, knocks over some weights and forces splinter to ask him what happened, because that's how raphael is. he laments to his father that he finally understands why leo is the better son, proving that to raph none of this was about their team, but about their family. conflating the two ideas in his head. splinter gives him a talk that mirrors what he said to leo when he returned earlier in the movie, encouraging him that he is a good son and brother. this shows that these brothers have very similar insecurities about their value to their family.

the rest of the movie plays out as you expect, they go save leo, they stop the bad guy, they reconcile and behave as the team they're supposed to be. but i just want to point out that the villains plot is mirrored in leo and raph's conflict. the 'villain' here is a brother who has been cursed to be immortal without his own siblings. for 3000 years he lived to regret his actions and decided to undo his curse, but he used the cursed stone versions of his siblings to do so. no communication, just thinking he knew better (which maybe he did) and lying about it. that caused them to lie to him right back, and try to overthrow him and destroy the world. this is just one family whose inner turmoil could have destroyed the world. you might say, oh that's not a very interesting turtles villain, but its not supposed to be. its not the focus.

this movie is all about the complicated relationship between a family, and i see so many people talk about it by trying to ask who's right and who's wrong. that's not how it works. life is more complicated than that, people are more complicated than that. its boring to look at this movie and just say "leo is wrong and raph is right" because that's not even how the characters see it. this movie is about leo and raph being mirrors of each other in their arrogance, in their insecurities, and in their stubborn pig-headed refusal to let the other know how they feel. splinter says as much at the start of the movie. this whole movie shows that without each other, they need to be fighting something so they don't get swept up by their own emotions, which they are both bad at processing. they are SUCH brothers. they are so similar emotionally, yet they have such a hard time understanding each other.

personally 07 leo is my favourite leo for his complexity, his flaws his strength, his growth. its sad we never got those sequel movies to get into the other brothers heads as much as we got into leo and raphs heads.

also nolan north and james arnold taylor gave the best vocal performances in this movie and they deserve all the credit for it.

[ghostingcrows]

I used to talk about this a lot but 

IDW Prowl is probably one of the most complex characters in the comics and I absolutely hate it when hes reduced down to “the asshole character”

Cause like

Yeah sure hes got a bit of a stick up his ass

But I feel like people just end there analysis of him there

Has he committed a lot of war crimes and done unethical stuff

Yes

But so has literally EVERYONE else in this universe

Starscream is literally the pinnacle of war crimes

The comics make a point calling out even Optimus for his questionable actions and orders during the war with the Dinobots saying he makes them do the dirty work for him

Megatron literally commits genocide and yet his story ends with an alternate version of him going free and exploring the universe with the LL

The literal war lord was treated better and is looked upon more positively than Prowl and I think it just came down to how fucked Prowl got by the writers

Because while Megatrons redemption was all in your face and you got a shit ton of flashbacks that try to justify the eventual atrocities he would commit you don’t get that with Prowl

Even when Prowl is absolutely in the right you constantly have it disregarded by characters making jokes about him overreacting (being mad OP is sending the space tyrant away with free reign of his own ship isn’t overreacting btw-) and as such you start to think of him as a genuinely irrational character when hes not

Prowl is bad at keeping the relationships he forms yes 

But he is not always at fault for that

While his relationship with CD ended poorly Chromedome is also shown to be kinda of a dick sometimes and commits his fair share of fucked up things such as when he literally ATTACKS PROWL AND FORCES HIS WAY INTO HIS MIND TO PROTECT HIMSELF FROM THE CONSEQUENCE OF HIS ACTIONS WHEN PROWL THREATENS TO TELL REWIND ABOUT THE SHITTY STUFF HE DID IN HIS PAST

This leads to Prowls inevitable snowball out of control when this attack leads to an opening for Bombshell (I think its been a while since I read the comics) to use his tech to mind control him forcing him into combining with the contructicons

Something we learn is an immensely intimate thing with their minds being kinda melded 

This was something Prowl did not want 

And when all was said and done and he was calmed down he still had to live with that gesalt he was forced into with them following him around like fanboys

Nobody ever even really stopped to check in on him 

And as such he understandable went a little bit insane

He had just faced an immensely traumatic invasion of his body and mind and on top of stress form feeling like everything was out of his control and like he couldn’t stop the bad things from happening alongside bitter emotions being brought back up with a return visit to Earth and reunion with spike AND the fact that he feels like Optimus doesn’t trust him and like hes just letting Starscream do whatever he want (something that understandably freaks him out seeing as how he spent 4 million years fighting Starscream) he just kinda snaps

He trys to destroy the space bridge so that no one else can leave or get through and so he can regain some semblance of control

Is it wrong

Yes

But he was not in a good state of mind and no one was helping him at all 

And immediately following his arrest afterward Prowl is confronted by OP who is supposed to be his friend and when Prowl doesn’t say the right things to him to placate him Optimus’ response is to punch him out a window and beat the shit out of him

And not being given any room to breath this is immediately follow up my him getting kidnapped by Tarantulas who is very obviously an impactful and negative part of his past

Prowl just has bad event, one after the other, happen to him over and over again and not only does no one check up on him afterwards to see if hes okay but everyone actively makes fun of him for being understandable unstable

Prowl is a fucking tragedy and not many people seem to be able to see beyond what characters in the comics think of him