#I do love using red for morally ambiguous characters

[okayplaguerat]

Rick: Just don’t get too big for your loafers, Buster Brown. A cocky Morty could lead to some big problems. Could be a real bad thing for everybody.

I said I’d do it, and I did, finished off my Morty OC design! This is what happens when a Morty takes over as his universes Rick. With access to a smorgasbord or Rick inventions and notes, this Morty has learnt for the best, he may not have the same intelligence as a Rick but due to his different way of thinking a morty this powerful is unpredictable to a Rick making him a dangerous adversary.

Vengeful, aggressive and dangerous, like his predecessor he tends to be consistently drunk, some say he’s just mimicking his Rick’s behaviour while other’s say the death of his Rick dragged him onto this path.

Blaming C-137 for the death of his Rick, Earth Morty T-09 works from the shadows, bribing Rick and Morties alike to bring him information from the citadel in order to track down his prey.

[cycat4077]

Gator's room: foreshadowing & clues

I went back to take a look at the scene of Gator in his room. While the "flag", girly posters, blaring heavy metal and handcuffs were an immediate stand out to all of us, I wanted to have a look to see if there were any other clues to who Gator is.

First up, here's his room:

SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT FOR EPISODES 1-8

Let's look a little closer at the obvious foreshadowing.

Based on the previews and the Instagram post from the makeup artist (along with the subtle nods to Oedipus), it appears Ole Munch is going to torture Gator. We see him holding a knife to his eyes, and in the original trailer, Gator is bloody and blindfolded while being led by a noose.

Gator's own posters, decor, and drawings seem to depict this fate.

#1 The poster immediately behind his shoulder depicts a man with no eyes - potentially gouged out.

#2 The drawing below it has the eyes blocked out in colours that suggest necrotic (dead) tissue.

#3 The animal skull on his wall obviously has no eyes.

The Oedipus parallel and removal of his peepers were foreshadowed right in Gator's room from episode 3.

Linda's fate (mommy issues)

We learned in the last episode that Linda is dead. Roy tells Dot that he can burry Dot right next to Linda. When Dot confronts Gator and tries to win him over via his mother, Gator gets visibly emotional and shaken. We see hope and heartache run through him simultaneously. I think Gator knows instinctively that his mother is dead, but some small part of him hopes she is still out there.

I also think Gator's drawings depict his mother.

#1 This drawing not only depicts a person with eyes blacked out, but the drawing is clearly of a woman - possibly a corpse. She has breasts and long hair but is drawn in purples, reds, and blues; colours that represent bruises, blood, and dying flesh.

#2 The other drawing with missing eyes is also of a woman. This drawing once again has long hair, but she is smiling.

Perhaps Gator accidentally saw his mother's dead body. He has a drawing that represents a scary corpse (reality) and one that represents an almost comical one. Maybe the smile is how he tries to remember Linda - dead but somehow still smiling for him.

Other little things

#1 Robbed of childhood innocence. Gator's room is filled with "tough boy" items: swimsuit model photos, car photos, alcohol, heavy metal posters, etc. But he also has children's toy cars. The hot rod photos are in direct contrast to the toy cars on his shelf. The boy trapped inside the man. A boy robbed of his childhood by abuse and traumatic events.

#2 Jack Skellington. I'm probably one of the only people on the planet who have not yet watched The Nightmare Before Christmas, but the Jack Skellington parallels go beyond just the mask Gator wore. To me, it looks like he also drew Jack - and yet another reference to death. The skull's mouth is sewn shut too, just like Gator is sworn to obey his father and not speak the truths about what Roy has done.

#3 Red or Blue Pill? Again, I have failed to watch yet another classic film: the Matrix. But this poster seems to be a clear reference to it, I think.

According to Google, "The red pill and blue pill represent a choice between the willingness to learn a potentially unsettling or life-changing truth by taking the red pill or remaining in the contented experience of ordinary reality with the blue pill."

And if there's anyone with the last name of Tillman who will be forced to see reality (and potentially change), it is Gator. Gator will likely be forced this "red pill" by Ole Munch, either finally seeing the reality of his father's ways, or by becoming the next sin eater.

Whatever the outcome, the poster must have some sort of meaning!

That's all for now 😊 But I really love all the subtleties in this show! It's fantastically written and acted, and Joe is doing such an exceptional job playing this mutli-layered and morally ambiguous character of Gator!

***EDIT***

A post by @familyfriendlyhoho got me thinking about the drawing on Gator's wall. I was thinking that his drawings represent his dead mother, Linda and that he may have accidentally seen her corpse. The post theorizes that:

"I feel like Gator knew Linda was dead. but worst, I feel like Roy showed it to him."

And I think that this is the most-likely scenario. Roy is sinister enough to do something like that to his own son. I can imaging Roy telling Gator to stop being a loser and become a winner and, to drive the point home, he could have led Gator to Linda's corpse warning "this is what happens to losers".

If so, Gator's drawings would depict the corpse he witnessed. Even here, before Gator gives himself the "I'm a winner" pep talk, we see him glance towards the drawing - a reminder of what happens to losers. He then feels the need to convince himself that he is not one, despite what his father says.

[milk-ducts]

I'm so glad to have encountered a fellow Cecil stan. I freaking love coming up with headcanons for Cecil, platonic or romantic, because he's such an interesting character. For real though feel free to dump any Cecil headcanons (platonic or romantic) on me anytime.

AWAAAA!! YES HAII OTHER CECIL AFICIONADO !!! im so glad theres more of us sprouting out here. my wife is so underappreciated, you have no idea how much he means to me. i'd love to req n swap headcanons anytime !! I have so many thoughts on that morally ambiguous gilf.

[messy, disorganized surface level autism rambling ahead. this will be just random scenes and characteristics i like of him]

BUT YES .. cecil's character is just so interesting to analyze. he does unethical, necessary things. But he doesn't subscribe to idealistic notions of "the greater good" or justifying his actions to make himself sleep better at night. He knows the harsh reality that someone has to make the difficult decisions, no matter how unethical. The psychological toll it takes to calculate how many civilian lives can be spared, and how many are inevitably lost in order to achieve the optimal outcome. He doesn't celebrate after victories like the other heroes do. After the dust settles, his mind is already racing - calculating, strategizing how to prevent future catastrophes. How to minimize casualties next time.

his methods are...questionable,, as ive said,, but there's a hint of nobility to it that just makes you respect him, A SHADY GOVERNMENT CHAR that does the dirty work and takes in all the heat for it so no one else has to? SIGN ME TF UP! i love exploring his character and all the little glimpses of humanity we get to see from him,, especially with debbie, SO SOFT FOR HER, there's so much depth there. that old fuck would MOVE mountains for her if he could,, TRUST. EVEN though he doesnt deserve her .. <<

LETS CONTINUE TO CIRCLE BACK TO S1 with his confrontation w Nolan in the desert, the way he entrusted his survival to the skills of his team operating that teleporter watch (I'm aware he can control it himself, I think this was just my interpretation of it since the employees seemed directly involved here). The margin for error was nonexistent. One miscalculation, one millisecond too slow, and Cecil would have been reduced to a red smear across miles of sand. MY WIFE HAS BALLS ON HIM. (also love walton goggins breathy lil giggles here .. hwaghffhh)

All this, All the whilst Nolan could have ended him with a casual backhand, as easily as swatting a fly. And for what? For humanity's (mostly his) right to know the truth. For Debbie's right to understand what she had truly married because Cecil respects her that fucking much for her to have a part in all of this, and what fate may lay in store for her son.

AND what I particularly liked about that scene is that unlike most SHADY GOV CHARS ™.. Cecil isn't afraid to regularly place himself in life-threatening situations, and for that im just.. FKING obsessed. finally. a hyper competent gov char that gets shit done and occasionally by his own hands instead of always puppeteering in the shadows. Love u .. love u honey snooch, please stop putting yourself in danger for your crazy alien side-hoes .

but ahem ... back to s2.. and some flaws of his that i'm not afraid to point out. the way he's been treating mark is killing me. manipulating my son by comparing him to his dad then keeping him on lock by saying he's not like him??? The breadcrumming definitely didn't work out at all, cuz Mark is too damn stubborn to continue to be swindled by fear tactics he does not give a shit for anymore (homegirl DEBBIE taught him better) hes not gonna listen to a cranky skullet-having side bitch of nolans who clearly has been tryna manipulate him since s1. i HATED how he went "ur broke tyrannical bitch father felt the same way" in the last minute when mark tried to leave earth and yet i still lobve ceci cause ough,,.. my bastard wife knew something was probably up.

Him wanting to keep a short leash on MARKY could be summed up after all that has happened in s1. i'm not going to justify his scummy manipulations or paranoia,, especially after all the shit mark has done and endured to prove himself over and over again that he's not like his father BUT its somewhat understandable for cecil 2 be wary if you look from it in his perspective.

moving on from that, lets dive back into ep 2 ..

Debbie was semi-right in her deduction in s2 ep2, that this is what it's really all about for Cecil - being in control. Not of any situation, but of Mark. To ensure history does not repeat itself in the form of Mark becoming another Nolan. imo He likely doesn’t actually view Mark as his father, Not saying the possibility of it being a part of Cecil's subconsciousness is out of the equation but the way I see it? He was just exploiting that one weakness, that one insecurity Mark has - the fear of becoming like Nolan. And it’s a fear Cecil seemed to prey upon to keep Mark under his thumb and in the fucking GAME.

awaaaa :3 !!!! psychologically damaging teens by comparing them to their abhorrently shitty fathers !! FUCK YOJ STEDMAN (love you snookums..)

,,,,I'd also like to think in my warped deluded perception (aka hcs) that he sees Debbie in Mark, so he can't help but care for the kid too. IVE ALWAYS seen a lot of comparisons between Mark and his dad, plus the whole motif of this new season hasn't helped it allay. But Debbie and Mark share so many similar characteristics as well and i wish that was talked a bit more often &lt; 3 (I will go in depth about it at a later post.)

n umm like ...,,, bck to cici in gen. I guess the safety of earth is one of Cecil's redeeming qualities along with his compassion for side characters like Debbie. His pragmatism and utilitarianism define him. He lacks normal morals but has his own code that cultivates to his character. this ramble could not do justice to him ughfglg..,, what a compelling jezebel.. how can u captivate me so !!

My inbox is always open to discuss this multi-faceted rat man. here's to more cecil content in s2..,... hopefully with more of his dynamic with Debbie because I LIVE for that shit. though its unlikely their interactions could range to anything positive now since they may be hinting to cecil becoming an antagonist and/or taking extreme measures w/ mark. soo.. i dont think debbie's scolding was enough for that slut 2 take in ..

in the mean time i'll be catching up on the comics/re-reading them, look up more of his backstory and hopefully create 10 novels worth of google docs of analysis' of his character < 3 cuz .. he means .. that much 2 me.. and i want to prod at every crevice n brain matter he has inside that megamind head of his .

((hwaghhhhhh << hoping that one day the discord moots ive been keeping in my basement and most invincible fans fall victim to cecil stedman propoganda.. no one should be immune to my girlboss and his awful skullet.))

[good-griief]

Time ; Regret

here's part two of "time"! i'm sure you all don't want me to end it here, so even tho i think it'd be a little cruelly funny to leave it up in the air like this, i promise there will be a part three— tho that will be the last part. this part is pretty dialogue-heavy, so i hope you enjoy the 'voices' i gave the characters<33

note sorry to have to post this again but tumblr posted it at the complete wrong time from my schedule and it wasn’t the right draft :( ( some kind of phone to computer mix up idk what happened</3 )

warnings ambiguous relationship/feelings between abby and reader, reference to romance, implications of unrequited love (it's not), she/her reader, lasting effects of torture to reader, morally grey reader, mention of joel's death/torture, ambiguous/story-teller dependent interpretation of major past event between characters

tags @frogtits1 @sawaagyapong @augieee21 @sunkissedbibi @eden-nox

part one part three

link to chapter 2 on ao3

After that, Abby decided against hugging you again, knowing she’d just get emotional. She didn’t know how you’d react to that anymore, so she played her safest bet and explained what happened from a distance, offering to help you work as she did. You didn’t react, but she could tell how upset you were just because you were so quiet. 

When she offered to come over that night, you agreed immediately, and when she came to your house, you opened the door with puffy red eyes and swollen lips. She gave you a somber smile. “Come on.” She opened her arms for you, holding you for a moment before she came inside. “They wouldn’t want you to cry,” she said, trying to say something comforting you might, and it coming out improperly. It made you chuckle at her attempt, making her sigh as she stepped away from you. “I’m still not the best at comforting people,” she said quietly, shutting your door behind her as she entered with a small smile. She reached out, dragging her knuckle beneath your eye to rid of any stray tears. You smiled at the gesture, gaining one from her, too. 

“You’re right, though.” You blinked away your feelings, taking her hand and leading her to your room so you could sit on the bed together. There was a brief, awkward silence. “What… Uh, what happened? How did it get to this?” You asked as you released her hand, playing with your own to distract yourself. 

Abby swallowed, pursing her lips. She had a feeling you’d judge her for what she did, but she wasn't going to lie. “Joel… The way we— I killed him. Tortured him in front of his brother, and killed him in front of that girl; the one he killed everyone to save. She came after us. Went through all of our friends to get to me, and… let me go.” You couldn’t tell how she felt about being left alive, but you were glad she was, placing your hand back on hers for added comfort. “Don’t.” She went to pull her hand away, but you grabbed it with both of yours. “You can be upset with me—“

“I’m not.” You shook your head, holding her hand gently. “I never should’ve given you that lead. I’m sorry.”

“I would’ve found out eventually.” She shook her head. “And I still would’ve done it…” She grimaced. “And this all would’ve happened anyway.”

“There’s no point in blaming yourself,” you sighed. “You just have to—“

“Let go? Yeah… I’ve heard that,” she scoffed, giving your hand a squeeze before she let go. “Couldn’t do it before either.”

“I wasn’t going to say that, Abby.” You shook your head at her. “You just have to accept it. It probably won’t ‘get better,’ and you’ll probably never let go, but you’ll be able to move on with your life, and not feel guilty for that. Then eventually, you’ll start to remember happier things about them, and… you’ll accept it.”

“Is that what you did? Just accept it?” Her lip sneered when she asked the question, but her brows were bent upward with a contradictory emotion. 

“I wanted to go back—“

“Why didn’t you?” She asked quickly, eyes rimming red just as quickly and making you avert your gaze. 

“I couldn’t…” You shrugged, forcing that same flippancy you gave Mel and Nora. “I mean… I left like a fucking coward, Ab,” you laughed at yourself. “Going back? I’d feel like a complete fool. I couldn’t face you guys— I couldn’t even face you guys four years later. The only thing I could do was keep going and try not to fucking die, I don’t know.”

“Everyone wanted you back,” she muttered, now understanding the brief encounter you had months ago. 

“I didn’t think you did.” Abby frowned, the words sounding like you were singling her out. “I thought, I don’t know, even if everyone else wanted me to be there, you wouldn’t after I suggested something so stupid.”

“It wasn’t stupid,” she said, chuckling lightly at your tone. 

“It was insensitive.” 

She shrugged. “I didn’t care… I didn’t even think of that, I just—“ She shook her head, sighing. “The first thing I thought when you mentioned it was that you were going to leave… I wanted to make it my choice that we wouldn’t see each other again, so I said something stupid— but if I’d just waited, let you talk, then… I would’ve realized you wanted to go together. Everyone just thought you planned on going alone.” She pursed her lips, looking away. “It was my fault everyone responded like that— don’t say it wasn’t,” she said before you could object. “No one would’ve said anything if I didn’t.”

“I didn’t care that much about what everyone else said. I figured they just thought I was going to leave you all, but… I thought you were telling me to leave for bringing it up in the first place.” You lied back on the bed so Abby wouldn’t see your face. “Even still, when I was alone, fucking terrified, the only thing I could think of was whether or not you guys were okay; how, maybe, it was better that I wasn’t there… It seemed like you guys got even closer when I saw you.”

There was a brief pause as Abby looked down at you. Clearly, you both needed to have this conversation, but it was almost impossible to have with how hard it was to sort out either of your feelings. 

“The first thing I wanted to do when I realized you were gone,” she started slowly, “was go and find you; tell you that I don’t care, and if that’s what you wanted we could go. We could go to Los Angeles, or Santa Barbara, or San Francisco, or wherever the fuck you wanted to go, ‘cause I had no fucking idea what I was going to do without you… And I needed you.” The waver in her voice made you shut your eyes, taking in her words with a crease between your brows and a frown tugging at your lips. “I fucking needed you, and I just wanted to be with you, and I was scared, so I snapped at you thinking— I don’t know what I was thinking… Maybe-maybe if you knew we wouldn’t be together, then you wouldn’t go? Fuck, I just wanted you to stay with me,” she was rambling, words quick and spilling out until she caught herself, “and everyone else. Where you were safe. Where we were all safe. Together. I didn't mean to push you away.”

You had no idea what to say, staring up at the ceiling with a frown as your eyes shone beneath the warm light. You were quiet, voice small as if you knew just how wrong you were now. “I just wanted you happy,” you mumbled, hardly confident in what you used to think to yourself to justify your actions. 

“Without you?” She scoffed at you. “Really?”

You shrugged, now thinking of anything that could back you up. “You had Owen.”

There was a moment of pause before Abby laughed, grabbing your pillow and hitting you with it. “Fuck you.”

“What?!” You laughed, pushing the pillow away and covering your face as she threw it at you. “You… loved him, or whatever,” you waved off, unable to hide the disdain in your voice. 

“That’s what. You never liked us together.” You shrugged. “Why?”

You looked over at her, looking her up and down. “I don’t know.” You moved to sit up, huffing as you did and covering it with an exaggerated sigh. “You were my person.” There was a faint upward pull to her lips at that, but it fell quickly when she replayed the sentence in her head. She was your person, and you had stayed hers. After all those years; years of having your picture in her room or pocket, you had stayed close to her heart, but now she was nothing more than an old friend to you. “What?” You asked when you noticed her expression, reaching out and placing a hand on her thigh. 

She swallowed, looking down at your hand. “Did you— Did you ever…” She stumbled over her words as she stared at your hand on her, eventually looking away. “Think about us? Any of us? I mean, you, Mel, and Nora were so close…”

You waited for her to finish, but that seemed to be the end of her sentence, so you stood. You went to your dresser, hand on your lower stomach as you grimaced but made sure to hide it from Abby. You grabbed an old jewelry box, taking it in unsteady hands and carrying it back to the bed where you set it down. Around your neck, there was a leather necklace you untied and pulled from your shirt, taking the key at the end of it and unlocking the box. 

There was an old tape recorder inside. Headphones and car keys too, and a stack of photos among other trinkets.

Abby looked shocked, looking at you before reaching for the box when you nodded. The car keys, from the first time her dad taught you to drive, were tied to an old coin he’d gifted you. They were on top of an old photo of you and him in his greenhouse. 

Her hands went for the other photos, looking through them and seeing how many there were of her or the two of you. You had more of your friends than you did with them; some of these photos she’d never seen before and making her brows pull together as she smiled somberly. 

“When I was in Washington,” you spoke up quietly, looking at the pictures as Abby went through them. “Leah was on patrol when my group was leaving. I didn’t have many pictures of us together, so she gave me most of those… I guess she just had them with her.”

Abby smiled faintly. “She kept pictures of us with her all the time.” Her smile then fell again. “I thought you guys left immediately?” 

You pursed your lips. “I needed a little extra medical attention before we could leave. She found our hiding spot.” You quickly continued before she could question you. “So I told her about how I lost one of my only pictures of us and my other tape recordings, and she just gave them to me.”

“Of us?” She looked up at you and you nodded. Abby went into her pocket, fingers digging for a wrinkled piece of paper. “I don’t have the recording with me; it's in my room, but… ” she muttered, pulling out the photo and smoothing over the water damaged paper before she handed it to you. “It’s a little ruined.”

“You had this?!” You took it, looking down at the picture and feeling your eyes burn before you moved to hug her, arms squeezing around her shoulders. “You don’t know how bad I felt about losing this, Abby.”

Her hands found your hips, awkwardly pulling you into her before her arms went around your waist to comfort you with how emotional you were getting over one picture. “It’s okay,” she tried to soothe, hand running up and down your back. “I’m glad you lost it. I finally got to keep a picture of us,” she laughed awkwardly, leaning back against your bedframe with you still in her arms. She knew you were trying to hide your face from her, so she let you stay as you were. “I actually thought you just left it behind.”

“What?” You laughed, pulling back to frown at her. She smiled at your laugh, hands still resting on your waist in case you hugged her again. 

“I found it by the fire after you left.” She shrugged. “It was with your MP3.”

“So, what? You laughed again. “You thought I was burning pictures?”

“I don’t know, maybe?” She laughed, releasing you as you sat next to her with an eye roll. 

Usually, you’d lean into her, or rest your head on her shoulder when you sat next to her, but now things were so different that you couldn’t just bounce back into old habits.

Every touch, every word, every glance, it was all based on feeling; some feeling that was brought up by the past before that fleeting feeling passed too, and soon, Abby was starting to realize you’d become complete strangers to one another. You hardly understood each other anymore. You weren’t certain how the other would react, or reciprocate, you didn’t even know what could be said at times. Even if you could reminisce for hours, when it came to talking and being present, there was hardly anything you could do. 

It left Abby forgetting your advice and wishing she could go back to do this all over again; forget about finding Joel first and just find you. Or just go with you to California and spend the years like you did. No matter how much she wanted to go find him. No matter how much she would have regretted it. 

At least you wouldn’t be a stranger to her. 

Though, she had no idea how those years were for you. She didn’t know the hell you’d gone through, or the sleepless nights. No matter how much you told her that night, you didn’t tell her how you made yourself sick with guilt to the point that you had to lock all of your keepsakes away. Especially because you thought you’d lost one. She didn’t know how hard you worked to accept everything that happened, how seeing them after four years caused a rift between you and your squad to the point that they were telling you just to stay in Washington, how her showing up completely threw you off guard. 

But maybe that was for the best. 

Because that night, while she was wide awake, thinking of how she could find a way to know you again, you slept soundly. Sleeping through the night for once as you lied with the picture Abby left with you under your pillow.

The next morning, Abby came to the greenhouse. You smiled when you saw her, setting aside your plants to give her your full attention. 

“Hey.” She smiled. “I’m going on my first patrol—“

“Already?” Your worried tone made her chuckle. “Ab, you’re still recovering.“

“I know, but I need to get back out there. I’ll go crazy if I don’t.” You grimaced, crossing your arms. “I was wondering if you’d go with me? It’s just around the island, so no combat.” You narrowed your eyes, wondering why she’d bring that up. “It’ll be quick,” she continued to try and persuade you. 

“I don’t go on patrols anymore,” you told her, replacing your questioning glare with a sympathetic smile. “Sorry.”

“Oh…” She didn't ask why, just nodded before reaching into her pocket. “Okay, well, I brought this with me to give back to you—“

“No, no, no. Keep it.” You took her photo out of your pocket and handed it over. “I’m sure you’ve realized these go together now. You’ve had them for years. Please.”

The way you spoke to her, so cordially it seemed formal, made her feel uncomfortable in a way she couldn’t describe. She gladly kept the items, thankful you hadn’t, but also wishing you at least seemed to want them. 

“Maybe…” You looked around, all of your morning duties done for now. “Maybe I could go with you just this once,” you suggested upon seeing the look on her face. 

But she didn’t want you to placate her. 

“That’s alright.”

“You sure?” You frowned at the sudden change in tune.

“I’m sure there’s a reason you don’t go anymore.” She gave you a smile and you nodded. 

After that day, you didn’t speak much. Lev would come for lessons, and Abby would have to get him sometimes, but slowly, she just faded into another one of your comrades; people you knew but had no relationship with. People who hardly crossed your mind on a day-to-day basis. 

She overheard you with one you were closer to— one of your new friends. 

“So,” she started, “you know that new girl?” She asked as Abby passed by the greenhouse on her way out to patrol. She planned to get a pouch from you, but paused to eavesdrop. “I heard she’s from Salt Lake.”

You’d hummed. “We grew up together… But I don’t really know her anymore,” you’d admitted quietly, solemn. 

Your friend huffed a laugh. “You’re so dramatic. What’s that supposed to mean, huh?”

You chuckled. “I dunno, just… Ya know, when I did know her, she was the best person I ever met. So gentle… kind. She had a way with animals— people, too. I don’t know, she was always so perfect to me when we were younger. I probably had a little crush on her or something.” Your friend cooed at you. “But as we grew up, we were, just, so close. Her dad just took me in like family after mine was… taken.”  She could hear your voice falter. “But when he was killed, things changed… Remember that tip I gave in Washington? ‘Bout Tommy.” Your friend hummed. “His brother, Joel. He was the one to kill him, and Abby… She beat him to death. In front of his brother… In front of his kid.” 

She could hear the way you struggled to get the words out, biting her inner cheek. She wanted to leave, but she also wanted to know what else you’d say, waiting for you to continue. 

“And I don’t even blame her. It makes me sick, but I don’t blame her ‘cause if I ever found out who destroyed my family?” Your voice darkened. “I’d do so much worse.” 

“No need to justify to me,” your friend huffed, humming in agreement. “I know exactly what you mean.”

There was a pause before you spoke again “And sometimes, I wish I’d been there to see it through. To know that he’s actually dead… Or, even just to be there for her— ‘cause the girl that I knew? She never could’ve done that. I never would’ve let her get to that point; feel that way? Hurt that much but… I left her.” Your friend tried to speak over you, but you stopped her. “So, I can’t help but feel at fault for what happened to our friends. I don’t know anyone who would still want to care about me after what I did. So, I just feel like I don’t know her anymore. I can’t understand her at all.”

Abby thought of talking to you that night, telling you she overheard the conversation, but she couldn’t bring herself to face you knowing how guilty you felt. 

What if seeing her made you feel worse? Talking to her made you feel sick? She’d spent all these years feeling guilty, only to find out you felt the same— and now even more so because you knew how she ended up here. Like this. 

She could say the same thing about you. She thought you were perfect when you were younger, she wanted to protect you as you got older, and she felt like she failed you now. Like it was her fault you felt this way. She could say the exact same things you did, which was why she kept her distance and waited for you to come to her. 

She waited. 

And waited. 

[tlcartist]

On the matter of Jonathan Joestar

I talked a bit about how JJBA plays around with moral ambiguity with it's protagonists here and briefly mentioned how I'd talk about Jonathan separately and that time has come! There are certain aspects of his personality that I find interesting, but don't often see discussed and I'd like to dig into them a bit. Before we begin I will say that, while I did my best to draw from the source material, this does involve a degree of headcanon so take it with a grain of salt.

Background

The problem with Jonathan is that his character is woefully underdeveloped. This was the result of multiple factors such as, A) Jonathan being the first JoJo and Araki was still developing the story and figuring out what he wanted it to be. B) JoJo pt 1 was a product of it's time and was influenced by works of the period like Fist of the North Star. This was an era of power fantasies and led to stories of big beefy dudes punching things but without much in terms of nuance or broader character development. C) Pt 1 was given a much shorter arc at only 44 chapters and therefore Araki had less time to explore his character than future JoJos. Compare this with Battle Tendency being 69 (nice) chapters and Stardust Crusaders being 152 chapters. Because of all of this we are, unfortunately, limited in what we can glean of his personality from the manga, but there are a couple of things I want to touch on.

Duty vs Concern

While we might not see the type of radical character development from Jonathan that we see in later JoJos, what we do see is a shift in perspective as he matures. This can be seen in his first encounter with Erina.

This is a boy who was motivated less out of an altruistic motive and genuine concern and more out of a sense of duty. This is something he's been taught is the Right Thing for a Gentleman to do. A woman is in danger and a man swoops in and rescues her. It wasn't so much about protecting Erina as it was about being The Hero.

It isn't until he's able to spend time with Erina that he's able to see her as a real person and not just a damsel in distress. While their time together in those early days was cut short, I think it really helped Jonathan to broaden his perspective and sense of empathy. That's not to say that Jonathan was a bad person, he was just a rich kid who spent the majority of his life being a bit coddled, but each new relationship he gained helped him mature.

We see a shift from the young boy playing the role of The Hero because the thought it was expected of him to a man who puts his life on the line because he wants to, because he'll do anything to protect and avenge the people he cares about.

This is a man who has become hardened through the experience of loss and pain, and those experiences helped him to really truly care for others, not out of societal expectations or chivalry, but out of love.

Ironically, it's this growth that leads us to the thing you could argue is simultaneously Jonathan's biggest flaw.

Compassion to a fault

Jonathan is a character whose greatest strength is also his greatest weakness, that being his unyielding optimism. He's the type of person who is always wanting to see the best in those around him and it's this flaw that Dio took advantage of from day 1. Regardless of how much of a little shit Dio proved himself to be in their youth, Jonathan wanted to believe that wasn't beyond the point of redemption. He wanted to believe that there was a small part of Dio that had some goodness, that could experience regret and remorse even when all evidence proved to the contrary. And it was that optimism, that compassion which lead to Jonathan lowering his guard which allowed Dio to seize the opportunity and strike.

This was a quality that we also saw reflected in Jonathan's father, who also had a history of overlooking the glaring red flags in Dario, not because he was oblivious, but because he wanted to believe he'd become a better person. A quality which led to George taking in Dio even though he was under no obligation to do so, and (we can only assume), choosing to overlook any red flags the boy may have shown in his youth.

George's death was the shock Jonathan needed to realize the truth, that Dio was irredeemable and that he'd chosen to strip himself of his humanity long before donning the stone mask.

AND YET

In spite of the loss of his father and countless others during his quest to defeat Dio, there's still a small part of Jonathan that holds a bit of fondness for him, even at the end of all things. Jonathan's strength is that unlike Dio, he chooses to retain his goodness and humanity.

It was the goodness of Jonathan's heart that allowed him to perhaps be the only one who's ever truly known Dio, the only one who's seen beyond his bravado and facade. And it was this goodness that led to their fates being connected forever.

[astro-duck]

DuckTales and Gravity Falls are almost the same show.

They both have:

A set of siblings born at the same time (twins/triplets)

Going to stay with their great uncle

Who seems really boring and old at first but is actually pretty cool, if slightly morally ambiguous, but mostly good.

The great uncle is reluctant to care about the kids at first, but by the end of the series is willing to sacrifice his life for them.

The great uncle loves money

The uncle also has a long lost relative, who he has spent a very long time searching for.

A book smart, hat wearing sibling, who carries around a red book with all the information they could possibly need. This sibling worships the book, and is devastated when they don’t have it.

An insane, hyperactive, adventure hungry sibling who is almost a complete idiot, but usually succeeds through sheer willpower and a little dumb luck.

(Alternately, instead of Dipper and Mabel filling in for Huey and Dewey, you could use Stanley and Stanford as Louie and Huey, because Stanley is a schemey little guy, but Stanford doesn’t fit Huey quite as well.)

An insane hyperactive girl with a group of two friends, one is a stoic nerd girl. (Lena and Grenda don’t line up)

A host of minor villains leading up to a final boss that is seemingly unbeatable.

A surface level idiot who grows to be a better fighter throughout the series. He has a presumably Hispanic background and lives in a house with a woman who is a mother figure to him, and they would do anything for each other.

A random moment that I distinctly remember where a character bangs on their head and it makes a metallic sound. They then say something about how they have a metal plate in their head/their bones are metal.

The final boss likes to possess people. They also appear in dreams sometimes.

A villainous rendition of the intro that plays in an episode(s) centered around them.

A multi-part finale, bringing an untimely end to a kid’s show that is really good. At least it didn’t drag on forever, ruining its own reputation.

Bonus! A voice actor from a show that is also great, but is probably going to/did drag in for too long, that was created by Dan Harmon. (Justin Roiland from Rick and Morty and Jim Rash from Community) Both were immediately recognizable because of their very distinct voices that I recognized from the thing they were in.

[lemonhemlock]

ASOIAF fandom is so hilarious to observe on a sociological level because why are there countless stans who have an almost encyclopedic knowledge of the entire history of Westeros but cannot pick up the most obvious themes and foreshadowing. There are users who can tell me what the Red Keep chimney sweep overheard Maegor saying to one of his 977578 wives on a random Tuesday in 109 A.C. word for word, but does not believe that there is any foreshadowing for Dark Dany, Dany won't burn KL, and even if she does burn KL Martin won't frame it as a bad thing because things like mass casualties happen in war all the time.

I'm sorry but this is insane dfndfndfndfns like it's crazy? It's the most 'cannot see the forest for the trees' fandom I have ever experienced and it's honestly just baffling to witness.

This is a very interesting observation and I think part of the reasoning is certainly rose-coloured glasses & bias for one's favourite character(s). But, IMO, this environment has also festered in the last 12+ years since the publishing of ADWD because people are going nuts with such a large gap between books.

The quandary is that, despite the staunch and sometimes aggressive discourse on the matter, the series has been left in such a spot that really lends itself to various, sometimes contradictory, interpretations (if one is willing to give grace to others and not automatically assume everyone else is shortsighted or peace spoilers). No one likes hearing this because they all have put so much stock into being right by now,* but the truth is that, if you want to mount an argument for Saviour Dany, you can cherry pick some elements from the text, such as Dany's empathy for enslaved people, her emotional thought process, her striving to be kind and just etc - all of which are true enough, because Daenaerys is, thankfully, a well-crafted character and not a two-dimensional white girl pastiche. Likewise, if you're a Dark!Dany belieber (sic) like myself, you're going to be drawn to other recurring motifs in her story, such as her entitlement to a throne that doesn't "belong" to her, her unwillingness to examine her family's problematic past and history with violence, her eagerness to employ that violence in her quest for queenship, her equating social liberation with her simultaneously being at the top of the pyramid, her disinterest in what the people of Westeros actually want, her belief that her decisions are always correct and morally righteous etc.

So, to expand on this example further, could someone really craft a further two books where Daenerys turns into this benevolent queen who comes to be loved by the people of Westeros for selflessly saving them from the ice monsters? Of course someone could, anyone can do anything. Would it be a good story? LOL. Would it be in line with the themes already developed? Double LOL. ASOIAF could also turn out to be a bad story, you know! There's always that possibility. IMO the seeds for her downfall are already there, but the truth is that they're not exceptionally overt for a lot of readers and so they find them hard to accept. If evil why friend-shaped etc.

If everything had gone to plan, these insane debates would not have had time to get so out of hand, because we would have had TWOW published 5-6 years ago and things would have become clearer by now. It's just that GRRM left us off in murky waters, with a text that's ambiguous enough in some places and a fandom that likes to one up each other and is bored enough to seek entertainment in trench wars & endless arguing. And Dany is just one point of contention, you have people out there fighting for their lives about Sansa, about whether Young Gryff is Rhaegar's son or not, about Stannis being the proper ruler for Westeros etc. Something that irks me is how a lot of these fans become so belligerent and can't just accept that sometimes the text we have so far is just vague! Because the story is unfinished! Sometimes it's really not just because everyone else is stupid or racist or misogynist, the text really IS lacking, with two full books missing.

*We also live in rather peculiar times, socially-wise, with the advent of content creators that have literally gone on to make an entire livelihood out of commenting on ASOIAF and presenting theories. Since people are so bored and desperate for some kind of content, they flock to these BNFs and that contributes to the popular interpretations being recycled. When you quit your day job to do this full-time, you kind of become dependent on your audience and feel the need to tell them what they want to hear because otherwise your paycheck is affected. And no one is really eager to forgo paying next month's rent because of something silly like criticising Dany online. This, in turn, influences new fans coming in and searching for information on their favourite characters, so when they encounter the popular talking points for years, of course they're going to take it at face value, because so many people can't be wrong, right?

[horizon-verizon]

Something that bothers me about DotD is that I feel GRRM doesn't help his case much if he means the reader to sympathize with Rhaenyra's cause despite her shortcomings with the nature of the trajectory he chooses for her downfall. Now I'm not at all saying it's wrong to show her as flawed person, with hints of era-typical bigotry. But her acts against Nettles etc. make a reading that she wasn't good enough to support her after all not uneasy, leading to sexist implications considering the theme.

*EDIT (5/31/24):

Doylistically

Rhaenyra suffers from really bad sexist writing on GRRM's, not just the maesters', part and it undermines his own point.* And no, she doesn't need to be necessarily "moral" like Dany to be a deserving ruler.

The point of her story was to highlight how no matter how good or evil or morally ambiguous a person you are, if you are female, you are subject to losing a power men are just granted and subject to "mobilized" male violence. Or usurped. And this is inherently wrong. Rhaenyra chose to go to war rather than give up. This is valuable. Visenya was not thinking "for the realm" or for the benefit of smallfolk or outside of her family, yet she as so many fans bc she was not passive or restricted by "madness". She has less sexist writing. The below is still relevant.

*EDITED POST* (5/4/24)

Found this lovely post by la-pheacienne HERE, explaining how Rhaenyra's tragedy is an ancient Greek on as well, how Rhaenyra became what she was.

It's strange. The Dance is both very very simple, yet it presents interesting questions.

I go back and forth, bc I see GRRM's sexist folly AND some points abt how one evaluates and has discrepancies of the "worth" of a female vs male leader.

ESPECIALLY SINCE WE HAVE TO REMEMBER THIS BOOK, IN-WORLD, WAS WRITTEN WITH THE IDEA THAT FEMALE-RULER=BAD RULER=BAD-FOR-THE-REALM!!!

It's a story of two very flawed factions (one still, I think, in the actual wrong) vying for power, but it essentially is the bloody catalyst for the need of sets up the death of the dragons and Daenerys'/Rhaegar's existence in Westeros--Dany's being Azor Ahai!

Rhaenyra unequivocally relied much on on her posiiton and class privilege to carry her through, as many female rulers and nobles would because without it they cannot hope to have the power they often are denied. But bc this privilege comes with the price of some level of compliance with the status quo AND can make one develop forgo looking at things apart from one's survival or dignity, it can also lead us into hurting others like Nettles who would have actually helped us succeed.

"Nature" vs Nurture--Doylist 'nature' vs Watsonian 'nurture'.

What makes a person who they are? Their environment and history (the parameters and foundations for their decision-making), or just their decisions? Where is the line between showing a woman affected by her lack of political training (but still having to self-determine red/black dress moment and her drawing strength from her Valyrian heritage) AND showing her fairly as a person in her own right with many flaws? OR where do we realize that we ourselves are subject to making arguments based on principles we haven't learned are sexist in themselves?

And I am not a mother, so I don't know what it's like to lose not one but two kids in quick succession and under a year. There was a clear choice on GRRM/probably really Gyldayn/the story-teller's, part in making Rhaenyra seemingly "incapacitated" to be involved with politics after KL until Daemon left and she was left with the envious Mysaria (our Iago-figure) to have her fears played on.

We have to remember that this account is the least well-documented in F&B and the one with the most deliberately unreliable narrators with agendas in presenting some characters, esp Rhaenyra, a certain way. Septon Eustace writes Rhaenyra stuffed her face with pies AND that she cut her hand on the throne so the throne must have rejected her after landing in KL. This is most likely a retrospective exaggeration of the real situation out of spite AND plain slander, because:

even if she were eating a lot, it'd most likely be depression/grief/stress-eating and she had a lot to be worried about, her 2 sons died, PLUS she'd maybe eat her fav foods to feel more at the home that always should have been hers

we already heard the writers fat shame her for not putting off her pregnancy weight -- sexist patriarchal body standards ignoring real health & anatomy/medicine to affirm itself -- meanwhile Helaena & Aegon the Elder both were plump-fat, and we hear of no insults or repetitive notes about them?!

Eustace really hated her probably for not using him as he wanted her to or what he was used to as Viserys, Viserys' courtiers, & Alicent most often did PLUS Rhaenyra was ultra-femme, but was not demure nor pretended to be -- again, sexist standards of feminine behavior or presentation

Aegon IV was as unworthy a leader as anything we ever see in Westeros...yet we hear nothing of the throne cutting him...Aenys I? Maegor, and not in his death!; it's a chair made of literal swords...people are going to get cut; OR it never happened bc Rhaenyra was wearing armor at the time -- basically superstition needs to be logically analyzed before we go "that's symbolism!"

A) GRRM Othellos Rhaenyra...Kinda. I just See some Things that Remind Me of the Play

Here, we know Rhaenyra definitely ordered Nettles' death, this isn't a Gyldayn invention or misunderstanding for the "Othello-ing" I name. It is narratively important that Rhaenyra become a tyrant not bc she was an evil person or stupid from the jump, but because she is an example of one who didn't manage to work through her own fear, grief, and paranoia (caused by the system's constant failures against her) to do as Dany did and rely on compassion instead of fear to assure her survival.

1.

Without as much proper or as-much-political/military training as Jaehaerys I's and Baelon and Aemon had--Rhaenyra was that much more vulnerable. BUT she also could have gained a lot of experience in ruling Dragonstone in all thsoe years (15-16, or 20?) alone.

Let's take the first scenario: To not be fully ready or developed enough to put up much of a necessary fight against those that would oppose her and dissolve further than the already shaky bonds between Targ family members that existed since (honestly) either the generation of Aenys' and Maegor or Jaehaerys I.

After adopting much of Andal/Westerosi noble customs and especially male primogeniture, the Targs began betraying its female members and underdeveloping them almost since its dynasty's inception.

So GRRM makes Rhaenyra's flaws a direct result of her generational deprivation and gender discrimination, coming from Maegor and Aenys, but at the same time, it seems he went too hard in the paint to make Rhaenyra a woman without some necessary sense to accentuate her victimhood by making most of the bigger strategic decisions the blacks make come from the men around her BUT he also made sure to clue us in on how Rhaenyra is not like Dany in that she ultimately chooses her class privilege instead of measured compassion to maybe save herself.

A question some may have: Why make your female character so flawed instead of making her more of a great & strategic or very compassionate foe to reckon with, which would further hammer in how unfair it was that she was usurped? We can extrapolate that GRRM not making her active enough (w/o her being a warrior necessarily, at least a strategist or bring one startegy up!) was just sexist of GRRM. this plus the sex abuse agianst her, We didn't need all that.

I mentioned how Rhaenyra serves as a way to re-contextualize Daenerys and the importance of ingenuity & compassion that will really carry one one into both personal and collective success/survival. (HERE is a Tweet by former brideoffires explaining).

Also, they both refuse to bow down to the oppressive standards of their time in their own ways. Even with Rhaenyra fighting for her claim and to protect her kids, she defying patriarchal restrictions of female leadership by refusing to just give up the crown despite the greens' usurpation and crowning Aegon. There is value in that, even with it going to war. Rhaenyra is an aspect of Dany's own struggles. She is where a woman in either position could falter. They share a pride needed to resist against those sociopoilitical circumstances and assert themselves.

Basically, Rhaenyra's most critical mistake and error and moment of self destruction was to accuse Nettles & use her own class privilege against a vulnerable. She relied on a thing that ultimately was set against her (you can't really separate the misogyny of the aristocratic class) to use against her "enemy", in order to feel powerful, even with her having been driven to that state from mainly others' desire for her throne.

After all, male claimants and rulers who are insane, predatory, or just weak are pushed towards the throne (Aegon the Elder, prime example for this story) all the time, so why not have a flawed or "mediocre" woman be the center of this story to accentuate the double standard held against her? To show how people like Cersei get...that, and what Dany as a woman could & has gone up against? Rhaenyra being as she was rather highlights how Misogyny doesn't care if you are a genuinely good person leader, one bad move, you're done. And Rhaenyra--to go back to the scenario abt "training" or if she did obtain "enough" experience, and even then we should wonder how much or if GRRM just wanted her to be that way for plot-sake--wasn't the most strategic, much of it due to her class entitlement. Which the greens share.

Men like Robert Baratheon, Stannis, Ramsay Snow/Bolton, or any of the current male Greyjoys who grew up in the Iron Islands? Even Canon!Jon Snow is better than most men of his time, but he is cruel when he thinks he has to be and has himself executed a child for disobedience and treachery. He also makes emotion-based/involved/inspired decisions (not often, but they exist), and he also makes mistakes. They get to hold positions of power without any added troubles (as Rhaenyra had) to the regular ones of greedy challengers or those resisting their plunder and reaping.

Why should we hold Rhaenyra to a much higher standard than these men, as much censure, as the fandom and canon society does? Especially since it's not really her story (overall), it's Dany's? None of the autonomously ruling female leaders of the story receive half as much censure for character or leadership skills (true or false) as those men I listed. Rhaenyra and Daenerys "Stormborn" Targaryen are usually the subjects, with some other Westerosi women as well, sometimes Catelyn even. All that is obviously due to misogyny, to this idea that because you are not the typical candidate or desired one for the position of power, you need to "prove" yourself to specifically those who get that power without having to fight that hard or experience the doubt of leadership similar to a woman.

In other words, trying to actually 100% buy into what the Westerosi male lords or what we think they'd want in a leader was never going to work for Rhaenyra. She kinda already did, and look where that got her?

2.

How much of her paranoia (actually her breakdown) is understandable and consequential, as GRRM wants us to consider?

Gyldayn would say or think she should have been better, but considering what she was up against as a woman, does he really think he could do better? Or rather, how much do we excuse her for in lieu of her victimhood in the face of lifelong concentrated abuse and misogyny at almost every front?

Even if she had somehow quickly overcome her own grief in less than a year after both of her oldest sons died before she took KL, why are we so expectant of that? That's inhumane to me. Or I could be over emotionalizing it, idk & I don't think so.

And with the green having taken the royal coffers before they left, what would someone else have done under the immediate pressures of the lack of money, fear from smallfolk around the executions whose observations are charged and hate against the taxes raised bc of said lost moneys, and then the worst rioting exacerbated/caused by a crazy man most likely sent by the Citadel to turn everyone not just against her but all the Targs and destroy the dragons....

It's a lot all at once and something that not even Jaehaerys had to deal with, since:

Maegor at least was very dead by the time he actually got to KL.

The royal treasury was always intact AND he had Rego Draz (a Pentoshi man) help him develop his strategy of taxation, which encouraged the nobles to spend more....again in totoal PEACETIME.

since he was male, he never had to face widespread and local disfavor or contempt for his abilities (subtle or unsubtle) on account for things he cannot change or of beliefs against his gender, right to occupy a space, etc. as a woman does, esp a woman slotted to rule over other men -- people doubted him for his age/lack of experience, but they gave him more grace than they did Rhaena, his older sister

Finally, Jaehaerys may have lost two brothers (Viserys and Aegon) and a father, but Aenys didn't die by cold murder. His brothers we: A) don't even know he was close to or not, there were big age differences b/t him and them B) they were siblings, not one's children

Even without the losses of her kids, after a lifetime of having to decide how and even if one should try to legitimize oneself as one deserving of the same sort of respect and claims to power that another demographic just gets w/o trying--what does that do to the mind of a person, and under the pressures listed?

For Othello, it was using illusions and misunderstandings of adultery to put his sense of his masculinity in danger (as black masculinity is always put into question as being too "bestial" and inhuman, oversexualized--undeserving of the white chaste woman/high prize/object of white male power/public and political respect or "trust").

For Rhaenyra, it was her gender held against her AND then the betrayals, and she defaulted to feudal classism and misgynoir. Her conformity to that white female chastity of body and mind: what right did she think she had to claim power or herself without doing it in the name of a living "true" male heir/authority? And like Othello, she endured it her entire life, beginning with Alicent. At the same time, enjoying the trappings of a royal dragonrider who grew up believing that Targaryens were awesome beings who quite literally built Westeros the way it is?

That, I think, is what GRRM tries to create, this state of ethical "ambiguity".

It is true that compared to his other female Targ characters, the ambiguity is lacking because Rhaenyra is made too vulnerable to circumstances before her birth without her having quite enough substantial pushback or strategic will.

But Gyladyn wrote this book and we need to be careful with how he frames things or describes them.

B)

This will read back and forth, because I think there are other merits in some criticisms of Rhaenyra's character and her characterization.

1. Maybe you can skip this if you have repetition

I think that GRRM does try to write her from that Shakespearean aspect of psychological ambiguity from Othello, but I kinda agree that the symbol of the hysterical woman unfit to decide important matters of community and state fits Rhaenyra too well, whereas Othello actively resisted Iago more than Rhaenyra did Mysaria or her other councilors OR better yet, why not subvert Shakespeare a bit and have Rhaenyra do it better than Othello and last longer?

But that could be bc its' a maester, GYLDAYN, writing this book as propaganda!

And comparing her to Dany, again, "really quick", for a reminder:

Even with Dany still existing and Rhaenyra losing, I'd prefer to see her still be more creative and active--just more engaged before more principal players in her camp betrayed her without her provocation, rather than just two dragonseeds when she had other dragonseeds with her and a full council (even if Celtigar had to go). Again, why not have her make one plan or get inspired once and have others refine that plan/beginnings of a plan? Perhaps make Celtigar the betrayer, so that she is faced with relying more on less conservative mindsets in her council? IDK.

(disagreement w/anon) But then this story would be so much less obviously confrontational, as I have already said above, 7 people are dumb:

the hate against her tells us much about other readers and ourselves as to what expectations we have towards men vs women put into situations like Rhaenyra's, where she's usurped on account of societal sexism AND one of her ancestors (Jaehaerys) making it that much harder for women to be considered fit rulers/inheritors of power.

2.

Aside from her other mistakes:

not keeping close tabs on the greens while at Dragonstone so she'll be alerted to Viserys' worst days so she can travel back to KL and make sure the greens couldn't do anything w/o resistance -> 12/2/23 EDIT: Alicent wasn't planning the gathering the green council so much as improving immediately after Viserys died: her imprisoning Rhaenyra's supporters at court, her gathering the lords for the council, and her keeping it a secret Viserys died were all quieted events that she likely did not share with many people, maybe Otto and that's it. Not even Criston. These movements were what "saved" her the necessary few hours to get the jump on Rhaenyra; she would not have been very vocal or repetitive even if she did share her "plans" that could have been more wishes-turned-into action-in-the-moment than real, detailed, and prepared plans. So it's not that out of possibility to believe that even if Rhaenyra or Mysaria sent spies they'd pick up on this.

*not going to Jeyne Arryn after fleeing KL (this was a very understandable move to make, as she needed dragons & there was nothing left or safe for her back in KL)

Rosby and Stokeworth: for all that we say she was grieving, that Corlys/advisors pressured her, that she felt that the need for supporters around KL for the present dangers outweighed far-reaching ones for her rule later, she was still Queen and it was still a mistake because she needed to shore up female claims for herself and her descendants (two things can be true at once); this I see as Rhaenyra bowing to a real, concerning pressure that you may not think is heavy but is, and one can choose to "forgive" her for it or not and deal with the implications for either scenario because she was b/t having some crownlands close lords on her side while still in KL. Her ability to maintain herself on the throne depended on convincing men like Corlys/as many men as possible on her side. That's just the lot for female rulers of ancient, medieval, early-mod period patriarchal societies.

the dragonseeds & Nettles (nail in the coffin, the actual undisputed wrong)

I think that I can say that Rhaenyra was not the ideal leader in case of temperament or intelligence. She wasn't 100% dumb as hell by "nature" (whatever that is in ASoIaF), indicated by her making fewer mistakes before her sons died, but she still made a pretty dumb one before they died (#3 in the list above). She was purposefully made a bit more shortsighted than Alicent.

And here's another thing. She only started to be hated in KL after the taxes (that needed to be raised after Aegon/Tyland Lannister/the greens stole all the treasury money, even when he himself organized a feast celebrating Aemond and himself for Lucerys' murder and Aemond burned down one of the major suppliers of food in Westeros' "south" regions: the Riverlands and esp their farmer's villages and fields) AND when Larys purposefully spread rumors about her before the Shepherd came along and worsened it with his own misogynist rhetoric. Because all these beleaguered people wanted was to get out of danger and starvation, & when she couldn't immediately provide it, they understandably got riotous.

However, it is also true that with what she dealt with after taking KL--riots incited by Larys and the Shepherd, accusing her of killing Helaena; Larys taking out Maelor in the first place when he was perfectly safe in the Keep; being unsure of how long her followers would follow if she didn't at least comply with the Stokeworth and Rosby incidents.

And her moving to Dragonstone, to me, was not an absolute mistake or at least something she could avoid without losing another valuable thing. She and her family needed their own base, which is psychologically and politically true. But, again...not monitoring her father and waiting for the aftermath of his death at all, if that is in fact what she did? smh.

Why isn't it enough to know that she was unfairly usurped? Why do we look for the ideal leader in the woman during her own disempowerment, and not at how there is a difference in expectation for her versus her male rival in terms of competency?

3.

Let's play a little here. Even if Nettles and Daemon did sleep with each other, it is very clear that the better strategic decision would have been to question her after all her true enemies were defeated and make use of her until then.

But, once more and as I say in this Twitter thread, the deal with Nettles was accompanied and carried by the already existing Targ-Andal sexist paradigm of legitimizing one's rule through blood-purist/sexist principles. In that way, canon!Rhaenyra was not that much more exceptional than other Westerosi women under the condition of pressure looking to shore up their own claims.

AND again, it's a maester, GYLDAYN, writing this book as propaganda against female rulership/autonomy!

The Dance, more than any other account in F&B, is the most unreliably told tale because its sources (Mushroom, Orwyle/Munkun, and Septon Eustace) all seek to besmirch or objectify Rhaenyra for their own ends and are the only ones that provide the "clearest" narrations for Gyldayn, another master, to narrate. And GRRM does it on purpose:

We only get specific events that are told through a hateful gaze; what other traits and behaviors Rhaenyra could have done or said, we do not have access to and sometimes must use context to conclude our best guess. Thus, Rhaenyra also feels, to the reader, as if she could be something more than what's presented. Unlike its male characters, the Dance account gives one-note descriptions of its adult female participants because women already do not occupy or perform the same public activities as their male counterparts and thus are given less attention, unless they are Rhaenys, Alicent, and Rhaenyra. And we aren't privy to their most vulnerable moments (unless they are likely made up to disparage them OR so public as to be noticed). Emphasis on it feeling that way. It is Mushroom who says that Rhaenyra was angry that Daemon disobeyed her about Nettles: "By evenfall, Rhaenyra Targaryen found herself sore beset on every side, her reign in ruins. “The queen wept when they told her how Ser Lorent died,” Mushroom testifies, “but she raged when she learned that Maidenpool had gone over to the foe, that the girl Nettles had escaped, that her own beloved consort had betrayed her ("Rhaenyra Overthrown")". Which I can believe, since it follows her need for backup that she lost in Ser Lorent and the lack of such backup due to Daemon's refusal to follow orders or allow her orders followed. I can see Rhaenyra being angry and feeling betrayed by that. But Mushroom, as ever, also injects himself where it is impossible that he'd even be seriously considered as her companion and confidante: "At dawn, a hundred men attended her in the throne room, but one by one they slipped away or were dismissed, until only her sons and I remained with her. ‘My faithful Mushroom,’ Her Grace called me, ‘would that all men were true as you. I should make you my Hand.’ When I replied that I would sooner be her consort, she laughed. No sound was ever sweeter. It was good to hear her laugh" ("Rhaenyra Overthrown")". So is Mushroom using the hypothetical event where Rhaenyra was angry with Daemon and raged at the defiance, or did he make it all up to aggrandize himself and establish an intimate relationship with Rhaenyra for the audience, what we the readers are faced with? I tend to think the former because my idea of Rhaenyra and her tyranny coming from grief-misogyny follows such.

this is the event (the civil war/the Dance) where the women, the center, the moment of Targ history where the dragons and life-supporting magic were lost and started to die without its matriarch, occurs when the would-be autonomous female heir loses her power? Not a coincidence -> context and ratcheting up the stakes for Dany, bc what would the reception to her be like?

And again, without a closer look at her upbringing, with all these people telling her story in their way and with their own agendas and misogyny....well it's hard for me, the reader, to totally devote myself to writing Rhaenyra's comparative simpleness to just her being her and it not her developing herself to what was available to her.

5.

Another theory is not a theory, it's obvious. Rhaenyra is a character developed after Daenerys was created and Rhaenyra is not meant to surpass Daenerys in military leadership acumen or potential (because she grew up in a context where Targ women lose much power and go untrained) AND he is mean to be her "sword", her "Visenya". Again, GRRM might have gone a bit overboard...but he's not terribly wrong.

Also, once again, they both refuse to bow down to the oppressive standards of their time in their own ways. Even with Rhaenyra fighting for her claim and to protect her kids, she defying patriarchal restrictions of female leadership by refusing to just give up the crown despite the greens' usurpation and crowning Aegon. There is value in that, even with it going to war. Rhaenyra is an aspect of Dany's own struggles. They share a pride needed to resist against those sociopoilitical circumstances and assert themselves.

If Dany didn't exist, I would have preferred to see a more non-motherhood sense of responsibility, a more altruistic side of Rhaenyra (that still doesn't outperform Dany).

6. (inspired by & courtesy of brideoffires's post HERE)

It's not a coincidence that more female Targs display the most pleasure and affinity for dragonriding:

Rhaena (Alyssa's daughter), who after bonding with Dreamfyre came more into herself and bestowed her siblings with dragon eggs so that they themselves would bond with their dragons sooner and thus would be one self-possessed early on to even become rulers

Alysanne, who cried when she couldn't ride Silverwing anymore

Saera, who would have tried to bond with a dragon and ride to freedom

Aerea, who claimed Balerion and also rode to escape her damaged mother

Daenerys Stormborn, who restored dragons to the dynasty with fire and blood (blood magic & bravery)

Rhaenyra, who became a dragonrider at 7 years old

Rhaena (Laena's daughter), who also managed to have her egg hatched when no other dragon existed

Rhaenys (Jocelyn Baratheon's daughter) protested in favor of her unborn child and died with her dragon

Baela, who fight a usurper on behalf of her stepmother and lost her dragon but made sure to give Aegon the Elder much more injuries that turned him inside out enough to be so contemptible to be put down by his own followers

and Rhaenys the Queen, who loved dragon-riding the most of her siblings despite not being a warrior like her sister, yet being the literal mother/direct ancestor of the entire dynasty

Yes, you have male dragonriders but looking at Targ history, who usually has a closer metaphorical relationships with the Targ dragons? And after who, chosen by right, was usurped because she was a woman, and whose kids then continue the line?

Notice how a running theme is motherhood as well? In ASoIaF (all of it, not just the novels) GRRM is fixated on motherhood and a woman bringing forth new/restored things. Or when she's stifled from doing so. Daenerys is a prime example. She brought dragons back when Aegon V tried and failed, when Aegon III tried and failed and when Aegon IV did a mockery of it by trying to take Dorne. Rhaenyra gave birth to accomplished people (Jace, and Viserys II) and became a mother to two more (Baela and Rhaena). Again, it is through her that the Targs can even continue. Yes, Daemon is the father, but he wasn't made heir--Rhaenyra was--and Jace would have been a good king. And she was fertile, having birthed five kids and safely. Unlike Alysanne, who had many miscarriages and stillbirths and infants dying before they got to 3.

Conclusions

Again, I go back and forth, bc I see GRRM's sexist folly AND some points abt how one evaluates and has discrepancies of the "worth" of a female vs male leader.

Rhaenyra is a good example of a victim who wasn't necessarily a good person or an ideal ruler and neither was she a horrible ruler or an evil person (until Nettles).

GYLDAYN is writing this book as propaganda against female rulers/women having power that men traditionally are granted and have. But GRRM still puts Rhaenyra through a lot of abuse without coming up with more than 1 or 2 ways to avoid or resist them (red-black dress; moving to Dragonstone, we don't see her try to manipulate Viserys..etc.).

Some come away with the feeling that Rhaenyra has less depth because she relies on her heritage and the fact Viserys bestows her: What else, other than her Valyrian heritage and her kids, keeps Rhaenyra going, they may ask? Similar to Dany, Rhaenyra uses the fact that she does come from Valyrian dragonriders and conquering Targs to validate to herself that she deserves to fight for the throne. Differently from Dany, she does this with the fact that her father clearly named her heir and would have given it with his own hands.

This is what rhaenin-time says in this reblog:

It just rings so familiar to real-world politics and conversations. How many people with reactionary/conservative politics have we all encountered who, instead of arguing about why their stance is better, start to nit-pick inconsistencies and hypocrisy in liberal and leftist stances, even though what they offer is far worse? Because they're not saying their side does not have the same problems. They're saying those problems are natural, those problems cannot be resisted, that anyone who tries and does so imperfectly is a hypocrite, so you're a bad person for trying at all.

At the same time, I've also felt the frustration with the negligence of some more personal depth that is similar to women like Visenya or Rhaena (the Queen Dowager).

Again, to repeat myself (from point #4), it all comes from the desire for the alternative leader to the conservative type to be morally better than them for the greatest possible change. But we already have that in Dany and Rhaenyra is only mean to serve as to re-contextualize Dany & hammer in how she is so important.

Rhaenyra's one main "flaw" (shaped by society/history) is that she was blinded by her need to self-assert herself above all else in the face of her dissenters...since childhood and never developed past that crutch partly bc that was where she was.

*EDIT* (8/21/23):

THIS is a great post by @mononijikayu about medieval queens, female rulers, the history of how women in leadership positions were made and seen as threats to the very structure of social "order", and contextualizing Rhaenyra thru Empress Matilda. I didn't even know about Matilda's husband being comparable to Rhaneyra's Daemon! PLZ READ!!!!

Excerpt:

just as much, along with these fictitious portrayals, more lies are depicted. these women are considered vixens that cause havoc to men by shifting them into desires and danger. through the written word, we see how women are cast in roles of villains in men’s lives. it is because by their conclusive thoughts, women are the only creatures that are able to turn ‘good honorable men’ into despicable creatures who do shameful, deplorable acts for the sake of women’s pleasures.  [...] it is within this narrative that ancient chroniclers declare that women were in fact the doom of men. if they were not able to control the dangers posed by the wiles of women, then the foundations of the mighty society they had built would be up in flames.  [...] as i mentioned, these factors of community are written down and preserved. and with that, the example of the ancients were the foundations by which medieval society built itself. the same concepts continued to cause the same issue within society and that was the exclusion of women from participating in the bigger picture of community and state, much so with governing states in their own right—without judgment or disapproval. 

[laniemae]

for ask game: 1, 3, 5 for Es and 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 for Amane~

This took a lot longer than I would’ve liked it to be I think I just turned this into a massive analysis rather than a simple ask game lmao.

Es 1: definitely this line.

“Ravaging, brawling, losers please exit left

Even with accusations full of faults and mistakes

You will for sure, with a smile for sure 

Be pleased and satisfied”

This is clearly talking about the audience and it’s really interesting. I know the chorus does as well but how this appears in the scene where all the prisoners cover their mouths while their images are projected onto the rooms, then lift their hands down and smile is especially haunting. 

The idea of “ravaging, brawling, losers please exit left” has a lot of interpretations. It could be the prisoners fighting amongst themselves, or in my opinion the audience fighting among themselves over the prisoners verdicts and stuff. I still don’t really understand what “losers please exit left” means as it’s so ambiguous, it’s like I’ve got tiny little ideas of what it could mean but I have no clue how to say, or even properly think about it.

“Even with accusations full of faults and mistakes.” Is a lot easier to understand. It’s talking about how us, as the audience, can be heavily biased by stuff and make dire mistakes on the characters and how heavily that can impact the verdict. Like with trial 1 kazui the main idea is that he was cheating and that’s how the stuff happened, although we were wrong and it had nothing to do with his situation. Lots of verdicts on prisoners aren’t based off factual evidence but just “I think statements”. If I remember correctly alot of people were voting yuno guilty in the first trial not because of what she actually did, but because they thought her attitude was strange and that she was secretly evil or whatever. And the opposite happening saying the at she was completely clueless and innocent. So this line fits perfectly for everything going on.

“You will for sure, with a smile for sure 

Be pleased and satisfied.” This is probably the most chilling line to me. It straight up says how in the end, milgram is a piece of media meant to entertain people. You will be satisfied engaging in the media, even if you didn’t get your intended verdict. But this poses the question, is this ethical to the characters? Having fun judging them, theorising every little bit of their mind that was extracted through their MVs. The secrets they don’t want us to know, they’re online for millions to theorise about, and may make false accusations and mistakes in their judgment. Fuuta directly calls on this saying that es is the same as him, having fun analysing this prisoners and judging their morality, just like what he did online. 

These few sentences are easily overlooked and only appear for a little while but they are so packed with meaning and meta commentary it’s amazing.

Also side note I find it interesting how es speaks in “you” instead of “I” like the other prisoners, like they’re directly talking to us. It’s like the whole mv is directed at us, because it is. But does es know?

Es 3: ooh this is hard I’d have to say a tie between these 2.

This is one of the commissioned fanart of the characters I think, and I love how menacing es looks here. If you’ve never seen milgram you’d probably assume that es is the main villain or whatever. And although es is technically the protagonist, it’d be really interesting for es to be a villain. A mysterious character who has no memory of their past and entire identity is being the guard of this mysterious prison. And their judgments aren’t even really their own, it’s the will of thousands of people who know the characters deepest secrets. This makes me wonder if we’re ever gonna have to cast a vote on es…

Ok rambling aside I really love the red circle and greenish background and mist (?) it just really gives off that iconic vibe that I love about the series.

The other one I really like is this one from the app. It feels both peaceful and surreal of es asleep, with jackalope sitting on their cape and a water ripple which really shouldn’t be there. It gives a unique vibe to this piece and a side of es we don’t really see, and the full colours here fit really well. 

Es 5: ooh this is also pretty hard as es has alot of voice drama moments so it’s really hard to pick a favorite moment or line or whatever.

Definitely a longer scene but probably my favorite is near the end of baptism of fire when es expresses sympathy for fuuta and the other prisoners. Saying that since they’ve been by their side for a while and looked into their hearts they’re no longer strangers to them and seeing fuuta in pain makes them begin to regret their actions. Es says how they’re starting to think of the prisoners more as comrades than suspicious strangers. They say that it’s a pity, but the bell rings and their attitude completely changes. Es finishes off the sentence with “that I’m the warden” and says no matter how much pain fuuta’s been going through, he can’t escape justice. Acting a lot more “logical” (if that’s the right word) and saying that they don’t care about fuuta apologising. Fuuta gets extremely upset at this, as es, who was showing him compassion and sympathy earlier, suddenly changed and started putting him down, which lead fuuta to have a panic attack In probably one of my favorite scenes in all the voice dramas.

This is a really interesting scene for es’ character because we start to see a side of them we haven’t before. A more human side, as opposed to the cold, logical minded warden they were conditioned to be. But when the bell rings, everything changes and they go back to that state. Making me think that the bell could have some affect on es, as it reminds me of times when es starts breaking down when asked about the nature of their identity and the prison itself. This is such great characterisation I can’t.

Amane 5: “Furthermore, isn't it condescending of you to assume that just because I happen to be a child, I am incapable of hating someone enough to kill them?”

This line in Apostle and Death is really interesting, as despite how much Amane says but murder was purely of faith, she basically revealed part of her motive here. @purgemarchlockdown did a really good analysis on this line saying she’s presenting it as a hypothetical, but it’s what actually happened.

Amane’s murder likely has multiple reasons, yes faith is a big part in her motive but I think the main point that drove her to murder was pure hate. She’s trying to cover it up for whatever reason but the truth is revealing itself. She’s said a lot in the VDs and the interrogation questions that it was just a punishment in line with faith, but the purge march contradicts it with much more emotion heavy lyrics.

A honourable mention would be “You know, I’m aware that I’m out of the ordinary.” From of blessedness and punishment. I don’t know why but I think about that line a lot.

Amane 6: I already answered this question in a previous ask but to sum it up it’s Amane and fuuta because their characters have so many parallels to each other, and it looks like they’re gonna become friends in canon because they’ve been interacting a lot lately. And it appears fuuta is taking religious ideas from Amane which would be a really interesting plot point and would reveal alot about his mindset.

Amane 8: Amane’s crime is probably one of the hardest to grasp for me, like have general consensus on what happened but there’s a bunch of little tidbits and oddities that feel really important but I have no idea where they go in the timeline. I think it started with the cat getting injured, but magic makes it confusing as that cat didn’t have a collar, got injured on the head and was injured by a falling light (likely representative of the happy facade of the cult breaking, so I think how the cat got injured is very important). Amane seemed to always to go the place where the cat was, and she was spotted fixing up the cat’s leg. It’s very likely that this was her breaking the “'Tis ordained, thou shall follow thine destiny” rule. But what’s confusing that in the purge march is that in that scene she fails the flag throw for “'Tis ordained, thou shall discard vulgarity” and gets promptly punished for it. This happens before the scene with the cat, which ends with electrical torture, which would fit with the first rule as we see in magic. But we have no idea how she broke that 2nd rule, and it’s very likely that’s where she started building up hate. Magic also implies she broke all the rules but we only really know about the one with the cat.

It definitely seems from interrogation question trial 2 no 17 she killed her mother, as she said “my mother should have kept her faith until the very end.” This could imply that Amane’s mother disobeyed the cult in one way or another? I’ve seen speculation as that killing the cat is again also interfering with destiny, that could be what amane means. But the way she worded it implies that her mom was actively trying to leave the cult somehow. 

Another thing I think is interesting is what amane said in interrogation question t2 no 17 

Q: what do the people you respect think about your sin?

A: I just followed what I’ve been taught, so obviously they’ll praise me and tell me I did well.

I’ve already stayed that I think amanes murder is mostly emotion driven, but also has aspects of her religion in it. I’m not sure if she’s trying to convince herself that’s the case or something like that actually happened. But it’s interesting to think that she’s lying about it and trying to say that she did it for he faith to not beat herself up over it.

Amane 9: personally I’ll forgive her crime on its own. She’s only 12, and had a clear motive that stems from abuse even if some themes of her “needing to do it” were involved, but I suggested that could be a coping mechanism. Amane’s had a very hard life and we know that she can lash out at people in rage, as seen in the second voice drama in which she got so angry she attempted to attack es with scissors she bought in earlier. I’m not gonna talk about that because it’s somewhat off topic, but the environment that lead up to Amane killing is understandable. She’s not malicious in her intent at all, she’s broken by the people around her, and this is her lashing out at one of her abusers. Punishing her for what she did is only going to make things worse, so id forgive her murder on her own.

Amane 10: it’s kinda confusing. In trial 2 I’d still forgive her, both with the reasoning I gave in the previous post and how subjecting her to more mental torment will completely break her to no return. 

In trial 1 it’s a lot more difficult because even though I was not there, the choice is really hard. I’d still say forgive, as looking back on it we’ve uncovered how bad it was to Amane’s mental state and our hypocrisies in voting. But if I was there back then I probably would’ve voted her guilty. When I was watching milgram for the first time in chronological order, I somewhat agreed with that because she was so expecting that she’d be forgiven and it’s just another trial to get through, and we assumed at that point it was purely due to religious motives.

Again looking back on it now after the purge march, I would forgive her back then but it’s still a difficult choice.

[fishfishfruit]

with twitter self imploding i thinking about shifting back here so i am cautiously starting with Some Thoughts on film red under the cut

yes!! i love the confirmation that usopp is the crew's stylist and makes their clothes. actually, i think oda might have mentioned something about usopp making t-shirts but i've also been re-reading saint young men so my wires are getting crossed, probably.

audience surrogate jinbe is great and helpful ngl. he's the only one asking the right questions and i love him for it. also?? they did just a fantastic job seamlessly adding him to the crew here. he had so many cool scenes i am so happy for him. 😭

i wanna say the most out of focus character in the movie was,,, zoro? he was. there. like he did a lot of cool things, but he didn't do a whole lot. which is fine bc i think characters like brook and usopp have been out of focus in the manga so giving them some time to shine isn't a bad thing. i honestly think the only thing zoro got out of the movie was free booze, he's happy. i'm happy.

we'll get to sanji. also zosan so do not fret i will be on brand for this.

im a dumbass who paid $25 US dollary doos for dolby digital (imax though, makes me nauseous) but holy fucking hell that was worth it, the music combined with the visuals looked so fucking Good on screen, i can't really imagine watching it on my laptop screen or even a tv. this is definitely the reason why we need theaters yet ngl.

uta gaslights the entire movie and we love her for it. i love oda's "were gonna make cute, morally ambiguous girlbosses" era

"oh no not another movie about a new character from a main character's childhood who we never met until now" actually i felt like uta's addition to the movie was a lot less contrived than sabo surviving a ship explosion, and tbf luffy is not really one to talk about his past all that much so it works for me.

most of the side characters were well intergrated into the movie with the exception of kalifa, i wish she'd done more but i guess there were already a lot of characters to organize.

im so happy they were like "brulee has such a fantastic devil fruit power we're gonna add her in here and also katakuri, sure, the people LOVE katakuri i love brulee she's so funny and my favorite charlotte sibling WEEPS

ok now we'll talk about the Boy.

sanji was a good boy

i love when sanji keeps his shit together, smooth operator sanji is such a Mood.

YES i did cry at him flirting with brulee omg that was such an adorable scene, i wish he was more flirty with older ladies like that. it feels so on brand for him to do that.

ok back in may i made a joke about sanji and zoro taking edibles in context of this movie and i didn't think there would be drugs in the film because of japan's views on illicit substances. and then uta slips sanji a shroom and i'm fuckin losing my shit. apollo pegging me with the dodgeball here.

music, violence, drugs, Woodstock 99 the anime. Anyway

i'll finish off this ramble with Zosan of course.

the pandering was so explicit i cannot believe toei made them sleep next to each other like a chaste 1950s couple with separate beds.

ok i said zoro did nothing earlier. 90 per cent of zoro's lines in the film were just him flirting with sanji and 45% of sanji's lines was him reciprocating. toei knows exactly what they are doing and its killing me.

the shoulder scene? fucking Shameless zoro. whore behavior.

imagine being anime only and watching zoro knock out a bunch of dudes with out even looking at them and sanji's leg turning into blue fire for 5 seconds. have fun wondering what that's all about.

and that 5 seconds where luffy does gear 5?? knocked my fuckin socks off

final thoughts: if i had the time i'd go watch it in theaters again. this movie?? this movie was made for me!! im sure there are a lot of flaws but personally it worked for what it was lol. 10/10.

[transhawks]

My comment was not directed entirely at you sorry for the confusion it was mostly about horis wording and how he handled act 3 I completely understand your analysis on it it just that the fandom and other hawks fans love to minimize what he has done while bringing excuses or babyfying him instead of doing proper analysis on his character sorry for the confusion

Then please go talk to those Hawks stans. You're preaching to the choir here.

I'm barely considered a Hawks stan, we all know this. I don't go a week without finding someone random who I have never seen in my life has me blocked because I'm mean to my blorbo and like being honest about Hawks being fucked up, even appreciate and stan him for the worst of him. Like if you're trying to convince someone, the person who used to scream all 2020 that hawks stans were cop apologists (not that I should have tbh) is not the person you need to convince about what Hawks did being wrong.

And finally, again, I disagree about Hori. I would have agreed two years ago but we've gotten:

Keigo yelling his fucking head off while looking deranged that they need to "kill them all (twice)":

Keigo outright telling us he likely had Twice's body destroyed right after the raid like that shit is fucking normal.

Horikoshi illustrating that Keigo's "tells" in mental illness are connected to his eye size which made the Hawks "optimist" comment clearly delusional in retrospect since the panel shows his voice as shaky and his eyes as uneven, and the anime doubles down on how insincere he is on this.

The anime choosing to portray Keigo's discussion on Jin and desire to help Endeavor as ominous and menacing when the scene was at most ambiguous in the manga. There's no reason it was animated like that unless someone directly told the composer and staff it was not meant to be a hopeful scene for him.

Horikoshi's deliberate pitting of All For One and Hawks against each other - All For One who complains he's amoral when he's actually extremely immoral and a liar. And Keigo who commits immoral acts for what he believes are moral reasons. Both characters are shown to have fairly delusional and warped perceptions of reality.

Horikoshi deciding to consistently have Keigo and now Inasa wounded in the exact same area. Keigo was wounded in the middle of his forehead twice. Both characters are now "literally seeing red" after being struck in the place of the Ajna/Daisanome/Third Eye which deals with perception.

I'm just saying, there's such an eagerness to think Horikoshi isn't slowly leading into something with Keigo when if you look back, it's clear he's leading us somewhere. If you expect to be disappointed by Horikoshi, you will be.

[hamliet]

Warning: Untamed spoilers!

Okay so, I finished the Untamed drama a couple of weeks ago, and I haven’t been able to think of much since. I loved it, but I also have issues with it (it’s probably because I tend to take this stuff wayyy too seriously, which I am sure you can tell by this very long message, lol). I want to read the novel, but I’m worried I will have the same issues and will be frustrated all over again. I came across your Tumblr and I wondered if you might have some insight?

The thing that worries me is the whole moral ambiguity theme and feeling conflicted about Wei Wuxian as a character. I’m kind of embarrassed to say this cause usually I’m the one arguing for more complex, multi-dimensional characters. Irl I’m always telling people to try to see things from someone else’s perspective, to think about the other side. So… I ought to like this… But I guess I was just really enjoying WWX as an uncomplicated hero/underdog, fighting against the man. I loved how self-sacrificing he was, how committed to doing the right thing no matter the cost. That kind of trope really gets me. It made me want to go protest in front of an oil company or something. I really had no clue that he was anything other than a simple good guy, except for Lan Zhan repeatedly warning him about using the black magic—which admittedly was kind of a red flag… (Whenever anyone says “I can control it! This extremely powerful weapon definitely won’t be used for evil!” that’s never a good sign.)

But, black magic aside, when his sister and Jin Zixuan died, I was really thrown off-balance. It really seemed like it was his fault (at least in part). I know the drama tried to blame everything on Jin Guangyao, but I’ve been told in the novel he’s more directly responsible, which honestly didn’t really surprise me, because blaming Jin Guangyao did seem kind of like an afterthought. It didn’t really fit the tone or theme of the story.

The thing is, having him (directly or indirectly) cause the deaths of two important main characters seems to imply that he had made some mistake—that we should be critical of him in some way. Or else, why would that have to happen? I know Chinese authors love angst, but if main characters have to die for the sake of drama, why not have them die at the hands of an obvious villain? The fact that WWX was involved in their deaths makes it seem like he did something wrong. But I didn’t really understand what. What exactly was his tragic flaw? That he was trying too hard to play hero? That he messed around with the dark magic and couldn’t control it? He was too proud, too overconfident? For me, the takeaway wasn’t really clear.  

As I said, I am okay with moral ambiguity. But WWX is different in that what is attractive about him IS his goodness, his selflessness, his willingness to sacrifice everything to do what is right. That’s why I loved him so much. But, by making him morally ambiguous, it kind of takes away from that. It almost seems like the author is criticizing those traits? Are those traits bad? I mean, I guess sometimes they can be. In my own life there are times I have tried to play hero, and as a result have screwed things up. But that seems like a surprising message for a drama like this. Or is it just that life is messy and even when you try to do the right thing sometimes it doesn’t work out? I didn't get the message.

And it was kind of painfully disappointing because I loved WWX so much! For his goodness. I almost feel more ready to forgive Jin Guangyao and Xue Yang for their crimes because, in some way, I don’t hold them to the same moral standard. Their goodness wasn’t what appealed to me about them. I feel like it’s very confusing to have a story all about moral ambiguity in a character who seems to be trying so hard to be good.

And then, when I talked to other Untamed/MDZS fans about this, and asked if the novel is more clear about this stuff than the drama, they were all like: “Oh, WWX is not morally ambiguous! He was just forced into a bad situation by the REAL bad guys! Only people who didn’t know him thought that he was morally ambiguous.”

Which just made me more confused. It’s like, if we are just supposed to love WWX and not feel conflicted at all about his actions, then why have him kill two main characters? And why keep hammering home the theme of moral ambiguity, which the drama did A LOT. (I mean they talked about it many times. It’s even in the lyrics to the song!)

And I was conflicted about WWX after the deaths. I felt like, after Jin Zixuan died, WWX should have realized his mistake for cultivating the black magic and have tried to get rid of it or something. But instead, he just goes back to argue with everyone and defend himself, starting the fight that eventually killed his sister. In the drama, he doesn’t really express regret about any of that, just sadness for what happened. He apologizes to Jin Ling for his comments about him lacking “maternal education,” but he doesn’t apologize for indirectly killing his father. It seems like the creators of the drama don’t really blame him either, and we are just supposed to blame the Jin clan and Jin Guangyao. But again, if we’re not supposed to blame him, why have him seem even partially responsible for those deaths? And why keep mentioning the theme of moral ambiguity?

I’m okay with redemption, but part of redemption is acknowledging that someone did something wrong. It seems like Untamed wants to have a story about redemption without actually recognizing his part in everything. Anyways, I know the drama really fell short in explaining a lot of things that were part of the novel. I wonder if you think the novel will explain everything clearly and all my concerns will turn out to be nothing? Or if the novel is similar enough that I might have the same reaction? I know I should just read it for myself, but it’s really long and I’m scared of disappointment 😅. I also told myself I would wait to read the novel until I deal with some things in real life, because I know that once I start reading I will not be able to think about anything else. As you can see, I am already not thinking about anything else and I should probably just read it, sighhh.

Anyways, thank you so much for kindly reading this very long rant. It is greatly appreciated. ❤❤

Hi! No worries about spoilers, I watched it long ago :D

In short: I think you would like the novel.

See, apparently protagonists aren't really allowed to be that morally complex or gray in the same way they can be in a novel, leading to all sorts of mishandlings and even fumblings of different elements of the adaptation. It comes across as contradictory in the drama because it is contradictory; they're telling you WWX is morally perfect, but he is demonstrably not, and fans of the drama kind of gobbled that up at the expense of the novel's characterization. Which is a shame, because the novel is so much more thematically rich. I mean, I think The Untamed adaptors did the best they could with the circumstances they had, but the novel is so much more complete and thematically tight, if that makes sense. (It's actually one of the few novels in existence that I can say truly milks every drop of potential from every possible character, situation, and theme.)

To kind of demonstrate what's different about the novel, I'll answer some more specific questions below:

why not have them die at the hands of an obvious villain?

So the funny thing is that the premise of the novel is that they are searching for a villain (because society is always searching for a villain), only to realize there is no villain at all. WWX is one of the few characters who truly realizes this in the end and has compassion for JGY. WWX is a good boy.

As I said, I am okay with moral ambiguity. But WWX is different in that what is attractive about him IS his goodness, his selflessness, his willingness to sacrifice everything to do what is right. That’s why I loved him so much

Alas, so this is where I'm going to try to explain that while it might sound like I'm saying the novel might be less appealing to you, I actually don't think it would be!

WWX is a complex character, and admittedly no one in the novel is black or white, good or bad. Yet, the traits of his commitment to doing what he thinks is right, as shown in the show, are still very present. WWX is very pure of heart in the novel; he just also is very human.

Honestly, I'd say that WWX is a perfect idealist in the novel. His ideals are good, too. There just sometimes are not good or right options to choose from because their world is so messed up (society is the real villain, so the villain is simultaneously everyone and no one); sometimes it's levels of wrong to choose from. Also, as an idealist, when his loved ones die because of him (which does happen even more directly in the novel than in the show), he sinks into despair and gives up on everything, even goodness, briefly, which is what leads to the massacre he's known for committing and also his own death. But when he wakes up resurrected as Mo Xuanyu and gets another chance, he's still idealistic and hopeful enough to take it; he's just a little wiser about his limits this time.

His goodness and his love with LWJ (a societally scandalous relationship) offer society a glimmer of hope to change the entire world from monster to human--that's the point of the novel! So if you think of him as a beacon of light, you're in luck.

“Oh, WWX is not morally ambiguous! He was just forced into a bad situation by the REAL bad guys! Only people who didn’t know him thought that he was morally ambiguous.” Which just made me more confused. It’s like, if we are just supposed to love WWX and not feel conflicted at all about his actions, then why have him kill two main characters?

Ex-frickin-actly. You can blame censorship for this!

It seems like Untamed wants to have a story about redemption without actually recognizing his part in everything.

Again, I applaud your point because this is exactly the thematic contradiction that the censorship created. Said contradiction doesn't exist in the novel.

Anyways, if you do end up reading it, I'd love to hear from you!

[cyraniadebergerac]

One thing about the DC canon that can be fun is how Jason Todd becomes the Red Hood, seeking to clean up the streets as a gang lord that protects children especially. And yet, it also kinda sucks...

Jason is more than his Crime Alley past after all. That shouldn't be the end all be all of his character. Yet it is compelling to have him take on a more morally ambiguous approach to fighting crime than Batman's style in order to show how he's more willing to get his hands dirty in order to do what is worth it for more impactful change. So what else is there...?

Well, what are the most common stereotypes of lawyers and politicians?

Batman as Bruce Wayne takes an active role in Gotham, offering jobs to ex-felons and being on the board for Arkham Asylum for instance, but he never does seek to enter politics. The '60s Batman may have also been a lawyer but typically he also stays away from that role too. His primary concern is being a detective and crime fighter, stopping crime from happening in the first place and seeking justice for the crimes he didn't stop while also helping the victims and those that served their lawful sentence. Being on the lawyer side of that would be a potential conflict of interest along with being on the political side actually making laws.

Jason though could decide to pursue it, with his love of drama and of literature working well with both pursuits. After coming back to life and reconciling enough with Bruce to he declared alive again, he could decide the better way to change things is in the law itself, pursuing law school and doing pro bono work for those that can't afford the help they need with his vigilante persona being one of his lead ways of getting information that he can find ways to use in court. Then after he has some cases, he can try to run for offices such as as the mayor to even as a congressman, senator, and/or president. In those positions, he can seek to overhaul laws that he knows don't work like getting the legal definition of insanity altered (I refuse to believe that Joker is actually insane but instead fakes insanity in order to end up in Arkham instead of where he actually belongs.) It wouldn't always be pretty on his end, but it's an ending that fits more of him than being a moral crime boss does.

[liloinkoink]

hey if you need an excuse to talk more about the movie 6 treebark au, consider this that. i'd love to hear more >:D

of course of course thank you for enabling me. hey guys here’s the fucking directors cut of this fic i posted two hours ago

this is going to be long and all over the place we’re just going to have to live with that. i just thought about this so much

here’s some details abt the fic vs the actual movie (and movie stuff i couldn’t include), details from alternate plot for this au, and some little details i want to call attention to with actual content and word/formatting choices

so, first of all, this is based off my favorite One Piece movie. the villain is a former pirate captain who lost his entire crew in a shipwreck 20 years prior, and now sustains plantlike doubles/fakes through luring other pirate crews to his island and feeding the crews to the Lily Carnation. the movie’s ambiguous on a lot of stuff, such as how exactly she works, or if the crew is aware they’re not real or if they know of what their captain is doing (though it seems no). the captain, known simply as the Baron, takes a special glee in leaving only the captain of each crew alive, so that they too can understand the despair of being “completely alone in the vast [ocean]” before asking them if they’d like to die. every single captain, apparently, says yes

i obviously didn’t go with that route, tho i do have an outline for if i went for the true movie plot. if i did, i’d have approached this differently, though there are pieces of that version in this one—the tall crown to hide the sprout on Ren’s head and Martyn’s magic flowers in his hair were meant to mislead anyone who might know the movie to assume the Baron’s stand-in is Ren, as Ren is the leader/‘captain,’ rather than Martyn

i picked Martyn for the Baron instead of Ren because, honestly, i wasn’t sure if Ren would have the stomach for killing so many innocents to bring his kingdom back. Ren has bloodlust, sure, especially on red, but he tends to have a strong moral backing about it. especially in third life. Martyn is… not always so ethically rigid

all the actual movie plot aside, for this i went more for the days after ‘revival,’ from the pov of one of the ‘revived’—which reminds me, actually!

my personal favorite fact abt this fic is Ren isn’t actually in it. the only third life character actually in this is martyn. ren is dead. the character called Ren in this is a double. he’s not real. he doesn’t know that, but he’s literally just a plant. like, legit—once the baron is beat in the movie, his entire crew turns into human-height saplings. they’re fake. ship of theseus’d rendog.

…my dumbest/funniest minor detail i used to imply the fact this isn’t ren: the lilies in Martyn’s hair don’t bother Ren despite the fact he mentions them being toxic to dogs / he’s “allergic” to lilies bc he’s not a dog anymore. he’s a plant

anyway/related, we don’t know much about the Baron’s OG crew, but the fakes seem to be pretty accurate. they help the Baron play games that separate visiting crews, and while they can be tricky or underhanded, they’re not outright evil the way the Baron is. they’re pirates, so they’re not kind, but i don’t get the impression they’re, like, supernaturally evil under the Lily’s influence. they also have a genuine love for the Baron, which he returns, however twisted it’s become. they go with whatever scheme the Baron concocts to defeat the pirates who arrive here bc they’re deeply loyal to him, but there’s none of his sadism. they’re also not involved in the direct killing/feeding, and i sort of get the impression the Baron doesn’t tell them about it, but that’s a bit headcanon territory

all this to say: while this isn’t Ren, the Lily hasn’t changed him. he’s preserved exactly as the original was.

this is, relatedly, the reason Martyn’s little magical mood flowers never change from the white lilies—it’s got nothing to do with the Lily at all. he’s grieving, his king/partner is dead, and he’s not addressing it. he’s constantly looking at ‘Ren’ and seeing what he knows he’s lost. this whole fic Martyn is refusing to address or process or heal from his grief, and thus, the funerary flowers stay

speaking of Martyn’s lilies, i want everyone to know the Lily Carnation looks like this:

she’s not even a lily. she’s adorable. she’s got a little bib for eating people. i love her

(she also has two other forms which i will lightly call ‘kind of uncanny’ and ‘deeply disgusting’ but we won’t worry about those, esp bc there was no way to easily fit either in this fic) (more on that in a minute tho)

related, if you noticed, i did specify that Martyn, in the Ren ‘revival’ scene, had not only white lilies, but yellow and red lilies as well to match her! also bc yellow and red lilies mean loyalty/new beginnings and love/passion, respectively (if i remember right), which was fun.

there’s also a few more little details that you might notice if you know the movie which i had a lot of fun including but couldn’t bring up.

the simplest is the big “life after life after life” paragraph is a loose reference to the really repetitive first line of the movie, the Baron’s call for “if you are a pirate among pirates among pirates amount pirates…” as a way to ask for the best of the best to come take on his island challenges (and be torn apart).

it also visually mimics (and, i hope, emotionally evokes) one of my favroite visuals of the movie, the reveal of the Dozens of graves hidden on the island. which is a fact i didn’t even notice till Haunted pointed it out lmfao. couldn’t find an image of that online, but here’s two screenshots of a scene taking place in and showing a very small section of the graveyard

(we don’t get to know if these graves are for the crew or the baron’s victims, though considering how large it spans in every direction from this point, i would imagine the latter. which is… as fascinating as it is horrifying. who is making them? the baron? why? i love this graveyard)

another example: the fakes can’t directly think about the fact they’re dead or else they start to wither rapidly. like, within seconds they dry out and collapse if made to think about their death by an outside force (and can only be brought back to full health by the Lily being fed). i couldn’t have Ren do this on screen in a scene in his own POV, so i compromised by having him start feeling sick if he poked at that particular mental wound too much. Martyn can tell he’s dwelling on it bc he starts literally wilting and steers him away

(the crew members don’t have death wounds in the movie but i think they’re cool so. now they have them)

it didn’t get to come up at all, but the Lily on Martyn’s shoulder isn’t her main body, and the actual thing is this… massive black tube with a flat face. (gonna include some images, so and i’m gonna say maybe? trypo warning for the second image)

here’s the Actual Lily from far away and an image of a few people stuck in her… mouth? people drop on the face and are absorbed alive. just so you can get a sense of how big she is and what she does

or, here’s the Lily form i called “kind of uncanny”

unauthorized fucking thing.

didn’t have any way to include that in Ren pov tho, uh, this is what happens to everyone Martyn leads away. i was going to have something about Martyn disappearing to some barren hill off to the side of the island on occasion, to go to the Lily’s true body, but i thought it would be too confusing to add this without explaining why it was there. sometimes you have to cut accuracy for coherency, it happens. besides, it’s not like the Lily can’t eat from her little body… but for that, i’ll just. say that the little bits of body horror i included were on par for the movie

hmm. one last thing i want known if my favorite line of the fic was this:

this was originally written to go in the first scene, but i moved it to the last one to delay immediate blame on Martyn (lingering desire from the ‘full movie’ plan). the Hand severed from his heart was threefold—Martyn loses the person he loves most, yes, but a literal hand cannot function or exist if the heart of its body is destroyed. also, Martyn loses his heart in that he loses the part of him that would care what he’s doing is wrong

also, the second to last paragraph:

the ‘terrible terrible thing’ is a Ren quote from the execution, in which he tells Martyn he’s going to ask him to do ‘a terrible terrible thing.’ so obviously i had to twist his words here for something he would never ask of Martyn

my final note about this fic is The Real Actual Person Martyn keeps up with One Piece, and he’s tweeted abt watching other One Piece movies, which means there’s a nonzero chance this man could read this and understand it, which horrifies me

[nokingsonlyfooles]

Art Week Hangover! And Here's Milo!

More tarot card designs/illustrations for my various characters. These folks are in a story, which is free to read, and everything is licensed under Creative Commons, BY-NC-SA, so it's yours to play with as long as you share. More description and various notes under the cut.

Poor Milo. Feeling sorry for him is kinda like feeling sorry for myself, but I just can't help it. It's not his fault I didn't know how to define my deal when I gave him my trauma and anxiety, but now he's all complicated and problematic and shit. At the moment (because the language does tend to drift a bit) Milo is autistic, trans, nonbinary (he doesn't know that part yet), and he either exists as two people or is sharing his body with a friend - depends on what "Ann" is and what he did to his brain when he made her. He does have access to magic, so that may or may not be involved. (Sorry to any systems who may trip over this, I know you don't need magic to exist as a multiple, but the ambiguity is necessary to Ann's character and I really thought they two of them would be a lot simpler when I made them.)

Among my few fans, he seems to be a favourite. We're not quite at sexyman levels of moral ambiguity (yet) but he certainly is willing to maim and kill to protect his loved ones and he could use someone willing to take him home and fix him. (He has a girlfriend and a kid and a big family by the end of it, but not at the point of this illustration!)

I screwed up his original card and I'd merged some layers I needed to have separate, so I could only kinda fix it.

...It's easiest to see in the glow on the lightning. I'm happier with the redraw, but it's a little harder to tell you're seeing his scars where his sleeve's pushed up. It's not super important you realize at first glance, anyway. You know he's messed up, that's all you need to know.

Milo and Ann's cards have a nonstandard design, because they're both reversed and upright at the same time. Here's Ann again, for reference.

Ann's got a triangular cutout at her feet (representing a red carpet) and Milo's got one coming from the top down (a lightning bolt), so you can sorta pretend you really did flip the card.

Milo really swung for the fences when he learned to mask his weird brain! An advantage of this method is the ease with which you can turn it off when you're tired and you just want to be you. Also, if your mask is a discreet individual, you can negotiate with it and make friends.

Ann and Milo are very good friends, but a little codependent and overprotective at times. They have occasional fights, but it's usually when one of them wants to do something scary, or stupid, and the other one doesn't.

If I ever develop a fandom, I foresee Ann and Calliope dying a lot of silly deaths so people can box Milo up and take him home like a lost kitten. I'm cool with that! I've got the original version and he's got his own things going on, but you can torment your version to your heart's content. I know he's adorable when he's suffering.

And, finally, here's the first, crummy version of Milo's introductory illustration, because you've been a good listener and read to the end!

[einsteinsugly]

Comparing the lazily made gang from That 90s Show to the kids in my verse...

That I worked so hard on, and variations of these characters have existed for over a decade, so there are a lot of nuances and intricacies that That 90s Show notably lacks.

Leia (Eric): Leah…well, if Leia was the true Eric/Donna combo I hoped for. Like, I know kids can largely take after one parent, but Leia being 90% Eric is a result of laziness on the writers' part. No doubt in my mind.

Anywho, Leah is a nerdy tomboy. She's snarky and temperamental. She's awkward and willful. She can be self-destructive like her mother, and struggles to fit in at school. She's far from a goody two shoes, though. That's Kate's thing.

Gwen (Hyde): James, for the most part. Gwen seems to be more dynamic/extroverted than Hyde, but that's the only notable tweak I can see (@thatseventiesbitch, Hyde was into punk and politically minded too, and was occasionally written as a feminist, if the writers felt like it). Since she's more dynamic/extroverted, James admittedly fits more into the Gwen mold than the Hyde mold. But he's willful and rebellious in the "sneak into the system" kind of way, and everybody calls him Mr. Krabs because he likes money so much (but he's principled, at least). That's the Jackie in him, no doubt.

Nikki (Jackie): Kate, but Kate would never date a Kelso type (and Leah wouldn't, either). Kate's a perfectionist overachiever of the Rory Gilmore variety, and Kate's personality is Kitty and Donna awkwardly mashed together. She's outgoing and friendly, and more stereotypically feminine. She's more bohemian, and more willful and politically minded. And she's a melodramatic idealist like her father, with some hidden insecurities bundled underneath. These traits sort of manifest into her being a Jackie type…sort of.

Becca (NA): She's far from the token LGBTQ+ character, like Ozzie is. If I ever get to writing it, she and Kate are the main characters in The Kids Are Alright, a 98/99 story where the kids go to Pop and Ani's (Red and Kitty's) for a couple of weeks instead of going to summer camp. Becca really discovers her sexuality then, but is far too hesitant to truly reveal her bisexuality until As The World Burns.

Anywho, I used an introverted Hyde as a base, then went wild. Becca's quiet and rebellious, with a passion for grunge and alternative fashion (and sewing and cooking, too). She definitely values monogamy more than her father in his youth, dates two of her brother's guy friends, and has this "how do I stand out without looking like a freak" dilemma that Jackie often has.

Adrian (NA): Kind of a Red/Eric combo, or Red if he was a millennial. He's a massive STEM nerd, an avid gamer, and builds computers for fun. He's really close to Red, but the generation gap is obvious. He resents his father, Fez, for being so stereotypically feminine, and equates his bisexuality with femininity. Which sucks, but it's the early 00s, and the term "metrosexual" was unfortunately a thing (a straight man who likes more feminine things).

Author's Note: Jay has turned out to be more of a Kelso, unfortunately. Instead of an Eric with a camera. And Adrian's a Red/Eric combo, so I awkwardly equated him to Jay. No way in hell, not anymore.

Hallie (NA): A Hyde/Laurie combo, kind of. She's loud, mechanically inclined, sexually charged, and rebellious. And she's willing to do a lot to get her way, so she can be morally ambiguous. She's a lesbian, too.

And of course...

-There are no Kelsos out of the main six in my verse (aka Jay and Nate), but Betsy comes the closest to it, since she's infamous for making wild schemes. And Danny is Becca's Kelso/Hyde combo on-off boyfriend that Hyde hates. A reckless, rebellious skater who's kind of a dick.

-There are no Fezs (Ozzie) out of the main six, either. The closest is Ashley, who is effortlessly extroverted like her mom Rhonda (and not creepy like Fez), but is otherwise a lot like Fez. She's hyper-feminine and emotional, a serial monogamist (until she finds Will), and loves dance, theater, and cheerleading. She's far more popular than her father would ever be, partially because of the effortlessly extroverted aspect of her personality, and partially because of the fact that Fez's traits are far more socially acceptable on a girl (instead of a boy).