#I would call them an antagonist but I wouldn't call them a villain or evil. They're just an animal

[barkboat]

I see people calling Hollow evil but they're really not and I think that understanding that is vital to understanding Scavenger's Reign's themes about human influence on the ecosystem. Hollow did not start over-killing or even eating whole animals until Kamen started killing animals without the need to and bringing them to Hollow. He represents humanity's destructive role in our environment; he kills without cause and disrupts the natural order of things just because it initially makes him feel powerful.

Hollow is not an evil mastermind, they are an animal trying to survive who has been majorly influenced and removed from their natural role in the ecosystem by humanity.

[cy-cyborg]

Disability Tropes: The disabling change of heart

When a character in a story becomes disabled, they'll sometimes experience a trope that I like to call "the disabling change of heart". This is when the character goes through a massive change in their outlook, their personality, their goals or even roll in the story, specifically because they became (or are about to become) physically disabled. Sometimes, this will be in relatively small ways: the happy-go-lucky comedic relief character might become bitter, angry and jaded after getting into an accident that caused a spinal injury, or the severally depressed and nihilistic character might suddenly start acting more cheerful and hopeful, stating that loosing their leg has "put things into perspective and showed them what really matters". In other cases though, the impact is much larger, the heroic character you've been hearing about looses an arm thanks to the main character's actions, causing them to become consumed with anger and self-loathing which they take out on everyone else, eventually becoming an antagonist as they seek revenge for what the main character did to them. The morally grey or even villainous character is injured by their own scheme, giving themselves a permanent disability in the process, which prompts a change of heart and leads them to turn their lives around and become better people, maybe even deciding to team up with the heroes.

Now, having a character go through a personality and goal change due to a major life event, such as becoming physically disabled, isn't inherently bad. A lot of writers are told to tie major shifts in your character's development to major life events, because realistically, something like becoming newly disabled will at least impact how you view the world around you. I very frequently talk about how if I didn't loose my legs, I would have become a vastly different person, but the issues with this trope depends on how it's used and the reasons behind these developments, and whether or not the change suits the character in question.

Before we get into things, I would like to specify that in this post, I'm only going to be talking about how this trope is used with physical disabilities and other easily visible forms of disability. It does show up with characters who develop disabilities under the mentally ill and neurodivergent umbrellas, and is actually a bit more common than what I'm talking about today, but the specific ways its utilised are so different that it's more or less a separate trope, and one that deserves much more attention than I could give it here as this is already going to be a pretty long post. So for today, I'm keeping to it's use with physical and visible disabilities, and we'll talk about how this trope is used with neurodivergence and mental illness another day.

The main thing you need to be mindful of is ensuring that you, as an author, are not including your ingrained biases about disability into the reasoning behind the change. Let's look at one of the examples from before, an evil character who, after loosing their arm (because it's almost always loosing an arm for some reason) becomes a villain and wants revenge against the main character. In a story like this example, the character who became an amputee often views this new disability as something that has ruined their life. It's something that has caused them to suffer, and they want to make the main character (or whoever has "wronged" them) suffer like they did. Stories like this example portray disability as something that is not just horrible, but life-destroying, especially with villains who become all-consumed by the misery this disability has brought them. Many stories that utilise this version of the trope also often perpetuate the idea that if you become disabled, you'll have to give up all the things you love and your goals, even when this wouldn't necessarily be true for the character in question.

Let's say your character was a knight, and the main character cut off their arm in a training accident. obviously you can't be a knight with only one arm because you can't fight anymore, so they left their order. Now this character has become a villain and has found power that "makes up" for their disability, perhaps magic or some other force that doesn't exist in the real world, and are back to get revenge on the character for ruining their lives. Here's the thing though, the loss of a limb, or at least, the loss of an arm specifically, often isn't the career ender people think it is, even back then. In fact, there are many historical records of real amputees continuing to serve as knights and other similar military roles after loosing an arm or at the very least, continuing to fight in other ways. One such example was Götz of the Iron Hand, a mercenary knight who lost his arm to a cannon. Götz had fought as part of the Roman empire's military in 1498, but shortly after left to form his own mercenary company. He lost his hand in 1504 and continued his career as a mercenary with the help of an iron prosthetic capable of holding his sword and the reigns of his horse, among many other things such as writing, for another 40 years. Götz wasn't unique in this though, several suits of armour from the same time period have been found with integrated prosthetic hands, though the names of their owners are unknown. There was also Oruç Reis (aka Aruj Barbarossa), A privateer admiral who served the Ottoman Empire in and around the Mediterranean who lost his left hand - earning him one of many nicknames: Silver-Hand, thanks to the colour of his prosthetic. Oruç, like Götz, continued his career for several more years until he was eventually killed in 1518.

My point in bringing this up, is to highlight how important it is to double check that the reason your character's whole motivation for turning to villainy, isn't just based on your ideas about what a disabled person can or can not do. Actually double check it, research it, especially if it's important for your plot.

Even in the cases where the disability in question actually would stop someone from being able to do something, the incorrect assumptions can still occur and cause issues in different ways. For example, a character in a more modern setting who looses their arm due to an accident the main character was responsible for while serving in the military would be discharged, ruining the character's plan to become a general some day. This absolutely would be devastating for a character like that, and they realistically could struggle to adjust, both in terms of getting used to their disability and finding new goals for their life. They may well feel anger at the main character, however, if you are portraying just living with a disability, in the case of this example, living with an amputation as inherently "suffering" for no other reason than they are disabled, it is still perpetuating those really negative ideas about disability. I've said this a few times in other posts, but villains who are evil or even just antagonists purely because they're disabled or are trying to avoid becoming disabled is a trope all its own and one that is best avoided if you yourself aren't disabled, as even outside of spreading these negative ideas about life with a disability, it's just an overdone and overused trope.

But what about when this trope goes in the other direction? when you have an antagonistic or even just morally grey character who becomes disabled and this is the catalyst that turns them into a good guy?

For the longest time, I knew I usually disliked this version of the trope too, but I couldn't put my finger on why. With disability being the reason someone became a villain, the underlying reason it's there is often able to be boiled down to "I, the writer, think being disabled would be terrible and life like that is inherently suffering, so this character is angry about it," which is obviously an issue (the "inherently suffering" bit, not the anger). However, when a character becomes good due to becoming disabled, the reasoning is usually more along the lines of, "this is a big change in a character's life that has caused them to reconsider and revaluate things" (or at least, that's what I thought). This isn't bad, nor is it necessarily unrealistic. Hell, as I already said, I do consider my disability to be a catalyst that made me into who I am today. I also know plenty of people who, after becoming disabled later in life, did have a big change in how they viewed themselves and the world, and who consider themselves better people since becoming disabled. It's far, far from a universal experience, mind you, but it does happen. So why did this version of the trope still not sit right with me?

Well, I think there's a few reasons for it. The first being that there's a tendency for non-disabled people to think real disabled people are just incapable of evil deeds, both in the sense that they aren't physically capable of doing them (which is bad and not even always true for the reasons we already discussed), but also in the sense that there's this idea that disabled people are, for some reason, inherently more "good" and "innocent" - As if breaking your back or loosing a limb causes all evil and impure thoughts to be purged from the body. This is a result of many folks viewing disabled people as child-like, and thus attributing child-like traits (such as innocence) to them, even subconsciously. This is an incredibly common issue and something disability rights organisations are constantly pushing back against, as this mentality can cause a lot of unnecessary barriers for us. With how often I and many other disabled people are subjected to infantilization, I would be honestly shocked if it wasn't at least partially responsible for people thinking becoming disabled is a good reason to kick off a redemption arc.

This infantilization isn't unique to physically disabled people by the way, in fact it's way, way, more commonly directed at people with intellectual and developmental disabilities - or at least, people are more open about it, but as I already mentioned, how that is reflected in tropes like The Disabling Change of Heart is vastly different and deserves a post of it's own.

That's mostly just speculation on my part though, since that infantilising mindset does show up a lot in media, but not usually as part of this trope specifically.

However, it's not the only reason I wasn't a fan of it. When the disabling change of heart is used to fuel redemption arcs, I think, once again, that the disability itself being credited with causing the change directly is another factor. When this happens, it's usually because "it put things into perspective for me and showed me what really mattered."

This sounds better than our previous example on the surface, but stories that use this logic are often still portraying disability as an inherently bad and tragic thing, something so bad, in fact, that it makes all the other (legitimate) issues they thought were massive before seem so small by comparison. This is a type of inspiration porn: content made to make non-disabled people feel inspired or just better about their own situation. It's the mentality of "well my life is bad, but it could be worse, at least I'm not disabled like that!"

In a fictional story, this might look like an athlete character who dreamed of making it big so they could be famous and get out of poverty. They were a dick to anyone who got in their way but only because they were worried about not being able to make rent if they don't constantly win. One day though, they overworked themselves and got into a car accident on the way home because they were too tired, and now they're in a wheelchair and can no longer walk, which is (supposedly) absolutely tragic and way worse than anything else they were already going through. But they end up becoming a better person because it has put things into perspective for them. Yeah they were struggling to make ends meet, but at least they weren't disabled! Now that they are, they know they shouldn't have cared so much, because money doesn't matter when compared to not being able to walk, right?

As well as portraying disability in a negative light, these kinds of stories dismiss and diminish the other struggles or challenges the character is experiencing, placing the status of "not disabled" above all else.

There's also the fact that, when a lot of real people say their disabilities had positive impacts on their lives, they don't usually mean the disability itself is directly responsible for the change. There's exceptions of course but for myself personally, and most of the people I know who say they are better people because of/since becoming disabled, the disability has been more of a neutral catalyst than the actual cause of positive change. Meaning, it opened the door to allow those changes to happen, but it wasn't the direct cause. For me personally, becoming physically disabled at a young age didn't make me a nice person like people expect, I was still a little judgemental asshole for a lot of my childhood. However, because I was disabled, I had to travel a lot, initially because I needed medical treatment that my local hospital wasn't equip to provide, and later, because I started competing in disability sports. because of both of those things, I met people I never would have otherwise who made me reconsider what I'd been taught on a wide range of subjects, and made me question where those beliefs had come from in the first place. When I say my disability played a part in who I became, it wasn't because my disability itself change me, but it helped me meet people who were positive influences on me and my life. but when creatives make characters who experience arcs like this, they ignore this, again, defaulting to the "this was a bad thing that just put all my other problems into perspective" reasoning.

Some iterations of this trope also use disability as a kind of "karmic punishment" where the disability is portrayed as a rightfully deserved punishment for an evil character's deeds - usually something relating to the disability they acquired but not always. An example might look like an evil tyrant who punishes the rebels they captured by cutting off their hands. Eventually, this catches up with him, maybe the friend or a child of one of the rebels is able to capture the tyrant and cuts his hands off as payback so that he gets a taste of his own medicine, a taste of the suffering he imposed on others. Now facing at least one of the same realities of the people he subjugated, he realises the error of his ways. With some pressure from the main characters, he has a change of heart and surrenders himself, steps down to let someone else take his place, or perhaps he decides to start changing policies to be more in-line with these new morals until some other character usurps him, becoming an even bigger threat than the previous former tyrant.

Once again, stories that use a disability like this are still portraying the disability as an overall inherently bad thing, but there's the added layer at play in this example. The thing is, there are a lot of people in real-life who actually believe disability is a punishment from God. I remember one time when I was over in the US, an older lady came and sat down on the seat beside me on the bus and started asking me about my disability and specifically, how I became disabled. This isn't an unusual interaction, it happens fairly regularly whenever I use public transport, but on this particular day, the conversation suddenly shifted when I told her I became disabled when I was very young. This woman, despite the bus-driver's best efforts to get her to stop, ended up lecturing me for an hour and a half (during which time I couldn't move due to how my wheelchair was held in place) about how my disability was punishment from God for my parent's sins. She then tried to convince me to attend her church, claiming they would be able to heal me. And the thing is, this isn't an uncommon experience.

A lot of disabled people are targeted by cults using this same method: they'll convince people their disabilities are a punishment, make them believe they deserved it, that they just weren't good enough, but don't worry, if you repent and come to our specific church we can heal you. There was even a case in Australia recently that uncovered a cult called Universal Medicine, who taught that disabled people were reincarnations of evil people, and that being disabled in this life was their punishment, as well as that parents who have disabled children were being punished for other sinful behaviours. They were found to be operating a disability care service named Fabic that was being paid for by the NDIS, a subsection of the Australian government funded healthcare system that specifically aids disabled Australians by paying for and subsidising treatments, technologies (such as mobility aids) and other services relating to their disability. Fabic was found to be stealing excessive amounts of funding from their disabled clients under the guise of therapies and carer services, but was not actually helping their clients at all. Whether it's just taking advantage of them to get their money, or actually using this logic as a justification to mistreat them, this mentality of "disability is a punishment" actually gets real disabled people hurt or worse, and so seeing it come up in media, even if there is no ill-intent, can be very distressing and uncomfortable for disabled audiences.

So with all this being said, is the disabling change of heart a trope you should avoid in all it's forms and versions? No, but it does need to be handled with extreme care. I do think it should be avoided as a reason for a character becoming evil for the most part. If that really can't be avoided in your story though, at the very least, ensure that you foreshadow the change. Your happy little ray of sunshine, embodiment of sweetness and innocence type character probably isn't going to turn murderous and want revenge for an accident for example. A character who is likely to be driven to that kind of extreme of wanting revenge for their disability, so much so that they become a villain, probably already had at least a few traits that would predispose them to that line of thinking already, before becoming disabled. As for when it goes in the other direction, and you have a character becoming a good guy, avoid using the reasoning that "the disability put things into perspective for me". Instead, if you must use this version of the trope, use the character's new disability as the reason they encountered other people and situations that challenged their views, things they wouldn't have encountered otherwise. No matter the reason though, be very careful to avoid inspiration porn, and as always, try to find a sensitivity reader to give your story a once-over, just to make sure something didn't slip under your radar.

[Thumbnail ID: An illustrated image showing the same elf character twice. The picture of her on the left shows her laughing evilly, two tiny horns protruding through her brown hair. She is wearing a black dress and red shoes. On the right shows her in a yellow dress, sitting in a bright pink wheelchair with her head held eye and her eyes closed. The horns have been replaced with a glowing halo. In the centre is text that reads: "Disability Tropes: The disabling change of heart." /End ID]

[whiteboardartstudios]

Goodbye, Gendaen

fan art for @mtqcomic

Thoughts and LONG ramble under the cut! (includes spoilers!!!)

A while ago (like last week maybe?) I realized that I've been following this comic for almost a year, and I still haven't drawn Mysta yet! I figured that with the recent end of Chapter 3 and that *huge* lore drop (I was NOT expecting that oh my goodness the theory wheels are turning in the void that is my brain) now would be a pretty good time to draw her! So that's where this came from! :D

I thought that it would be fun to draw Mysta looking sort of like a knight? Partially because it makes for cool posing and composition but also because I think that if she was in D&D she would be a paladin due to the whole "Hero sent by Destiny" thing (I considered sorcerer or warlock as well, but her moveset is mostly melee at the moment so I thought that paladin fits better. Plus this opens up the possibility of Gendaen being an Oathbreaker paladin, depending on how that whole situation with the Crimson went. (also now I kind of want to put the main cast of mtq in D&D even though I don't actually know a lot about D&D ToT. I think Eth would be a ranger maybe multiclassed into something magic-related, because rangers have a favored enemy mechanic that gives them advantages on fighting a certain type of enemy, which could be Crimson enemies for D&D Eth. Yele is (kind of obviously) a druid because of the whole dryad thing, and Zaïl is definitely giving rogue energy to me.)) Anyways, D&D-related sidetrack aside – hello??? End-of-chapter-3 lore drop? (/positive) I have SO many questions. First of all, what happened to convince Gendaen to switch sides? For someone who allegedly spent his entire life trying to cleanse the Crimson, it would've taken one heck of a worldview-upending revelation to get him to join it. With the information we currently have, it seems pretty clear that Gendaen isn't mind-controlled or corrupted or anything – not just because of the reasons Eth gave in page #169, but also because from all the interactions we've had with Nelun Soma'o/Gendaen, he seemed to be pretty chill? I pointed out in my first fan art post that it doesn't seem as if Nelun Soma'o is being built up to be a villain character and is instead more of an antagonist with a slight mentor role, and I think that still kind of holds up now. Gendaen definitely wants Mysta to help him and/or the Crimson with something, and as Yele said in that recent comic, things aren't really adding up. I'm still slightly suspicious of the Order of Learning as well (insert person pointing at conspiracy theory board meme here lol), since you would think that if Gendaen and Eth are really close then Gendaen might have told Eth about the whole Crimson situation, right? On Page #250 (which is marked as 150??? probably a typo but idk) Gendaen says that he didn't want Eth to be roped into this whole situation, which could be a reason for keeping him in the dark – though if he knew Eth really well then he might have suspected that Eth wouldn't just let him disappear and would go searching for him. Another possible reason (in my theory) if the Order is evil or something and Gendaen learned something that he shouldn't have learned, maybe he knew that Eth wouldn't believe him because of his loyalty to the Order? I may just be connecting random dots and calling it a picture here but *something* is going on and until we get more clues on what that may be, I'm sticking with this theory lol :P EDIT, I was rereading Gendaen's character sheet and it says there that he has a strong code of honor and fights for the underdogs (not the exact phrasing but it's close). 👀 does that mean the Crimson is in some sort of underdog position? 👀

Anyways back to the drawing a little, I gave both Gendaen and Mysta a sort of braid-like element in their designs to sort of tie them together a bit visually (Mysta's is on the sides of her head, which is kind of hard to see so I added a little ribbon to show that parts of her hair is tied back, and Gendaen's is in his golden hair accessory thingy). I think that there's definitely some sort of correlation between Gendaen's disappearance/switching to the Crimson and Mysta being sent to Sol Ybberia, and I also think that both of them are going to play an important role in whatever happens in the future, hence the braids (to show that their destinies are kind of intertwined, as the two Heroes of Sol Ybberia). I also thought that it would be fun to put Gendaen in a stained glass window instead of actually physically being present, because up until the Nelun Soma'o reveal, all the things we know about Gendaen are basically all from Eth's recollections of him, which for me definitely paints a bit of a "Character haunting the narrative" kind of vibe. I also think that with the Nelun Soma'o reveal, the somewhat glorified (for a lack of a better word – I think Eth might be a little biased when it comes to Gendaen, considering that Gendaen has been missing for about 5 years, if my math is correct? 5 years feels like a long time to me and I think that if a person important to me has been missing for that long then my impression of them would definitely start warping to how I want to remember them/who I wanted them to be and I might start unintentionally ignoring the things that doesn't quite match that image in my head. Speaking of/case in point, Eth's reaction to the Nelun Soma'o reveal!) image of Gendaen that we had got thrown in a metaphorical blender with our idea of the Crimson at the time, and it just makes things a whole lot more complicated in a very interesting way. (If you look at the bottom right of the image you can see Nelun Soma'o's cloak coming out of stained-glass Gendaen's cloak, which I thought would be a fun little detail to include). Hence, the stained glass is kind of the "perfect Hero who disappeared to advance the plot" Gendaen and we can see Mysta kind of splitting the glass with her Rotted Fork from a composition point of view, referencing that huge lore bomb she dropped a couple of pages ago and how that changes our (or at least my) perception of Gendaen as a character entirely. I really do like the plot twist, as I think it makes Gendaen a more 3-dimensional character with more complicated motivations and narrative significance, as before I mainly knew him as "predecessor to Mysta" and "one of Eth's sources of motivation", but now he my understanding of Gendaen also extends to things about Gendaen himself and not just about his role in relation to other characters (for example, "Gendaen is helping the Crimson for reasons currently unknown" or "Gendaen is planning something that involves Mysta??? and he's in the Void??? And apparently Mysta is supposed to jailbreak him out at some point in the future?" He definitely has something planned behind the scenes, I don't know what it is and I want to find out).

MORE THINGS about Gendaen (can you tell that he's my favorite character at the moment ToT), what's up with those last words? If I'm correct (and I think I am, I scrolled all the way back to the page where the gods were introduced just to check this ToT), Nomù is Compassion? How is compassion related to Gendaen's alliance with the Crimson? I mean, when you think of the Crimson, compassion definitely is NOT the first value that comes to mind. Right now it seems that to me, Gendaen's plan with Mysta and the Crimson and the Void is connected to Nomù somehow? (the "I won't disappoint you" is definitely interesting). I don't have a lot of thoughts or theories on where this might be going, I just thought that it was something interesting to metaphorically chew on for the next while. It definitely seems like it has some sort of narrative significance, at least.

There might be more things that I wanted to talk about, but I can't really think of them off the top of my head right now (it might be due to the fact that it's currently quite late in my time zone ToT I am sleepy) so that's all from me for now :D (Also dropping the version of the drawing with just the lineart here because I think it looks really cool)

I hope you have a really nice day and/or night! :D

*a starry rift in space opens up in front of me and I faceplant into it like it is a mattress* (gotta make that dramatic exit!) [Image ID: The first image is a colored and rendered image of Mysta from the Mysta's Terrarian Quest webcomic standing in front of a stained glass window of Gendaen. She is holding the Rotted Fork spear from Terraria, and she has a determined expression on her face. The stained glass shows Gendaen with his back turned to the audience, and one closed eye is visible. His cloak is flowing to the right of the image, where it emerges out of the stained glass as it fades from green to dark grey. Crimson vines, green trees, and white clouds surrounds Gendaen in the stained glass. Outside of the glass portrait, real crimson vines are creeping along the stone walls that the portrait is on, framing the portrait and Mysta in the middle. A red light source is shining down from the upper right corner of the drawing. End ID.] [Image ID: The second image is a work-in-progress version of the first image without any color and only some minimal shading, with all shades being in monochrome. Mysta's lineart is noticeably darker compared to the line art of the background. End ID.]

EDIT: Forgot to add image ids, they're here now TwT

[mysteriouslover1516]

The Tables have Turned

What happens one day when a normal visit with Barry Allen turns into a confession?

y/n= your name

l/n= your last name

Jitters rings with the typical sound of a crowded coffee shop: voices ringing, coffee beans being ground, the fresh smell of baked pastries, not to mention the pleasant smell of java in general.

"Okay there, Barry?" You look at your best friend quizzically, taking in his rapidly tapping foot.

Barry looks at you with a small smile, "Huh? What do you mean?"

"Your foot," you point out. "Nerves?"

"You could say that," Barry admits in a sheepish tone.

You sit yourself down in front of him, taking a sip of your pumpkin spice latte. "Tell me more."

"Nothing to tell," Barry shrugs you off.

"Maybe it's just a side effect of being struck by lightning," you laugh.

Your ears perk up as you hear a random stranger mention the word "Flash". You fold your hands professionally on the table in front of you. "Mr. Barry Allen, what is your opinion on this new phenomenon called The Flash? Hero or menace? Protagonist or antagonist? Or perhaps a vigilante maybe?"

Barry laughs at your reporter voice, taking on his own formal voice. "Well, Ms. l/n. I find the Flash a seemingly controversial topic for many civilians. Some say he's a mutant, perhaps a normal human being caught and tortured by evil scientists. Others say it's a hoax, some sort of well done CGI in use. But me personally, I think he's a real man. Some sort of meta-human, that's for sure."

"But Mr. Allen, a meta-human in itself is defined as a human with super powers, practically the same thing as a mutant." You smile, slyly.

"Whatever he is," Barry rolls his eyes. "He has certainly preserved the city, especially from all these other meta-humans appearing."

"Very true," you say, dropping your reporter voice. "I find him interesting, in fact I wouldn't mind writing a blog about him, one in which I could record all the sightings of him."

"Iris is doing something of that nature," Barry nods. "She has a lot of viewers."

"Well shucks," you laugh. "Guess I'm once again too late."

"What do you mean once again?" Barry furrows his eyebrows.

"Oh you know, she always had some of the highest grades in school. Killed it in the creative writing classes, reporting classes, literally any class that dealt with writing. And now she once again beat me, not only in snatching a job in the news world, but in starting a blog that is sure to interest every civilian in Central City."

"Hey, you know a key essential part that she lacks in her blog?" Barry sips his coffee.

"What's that?" You say, skeptical.

"She only writes about the Flash, not about the other meta-human sightings. Not about the antagonists or villains of modern life, that's a side door still open for grabs."

You nod thoughtfully, "That's true, Barry. Good idea, I'll beat her yet!"

"You guys could collab together even, send your readers to each other's websites. It'll help you both gain more readers and therefore more views." Barry suggests.

"Oh joy, working with Iris West." You say sarcastically. "Don't get me wrong, Barry. Talented writer? Yes. A person worth befriending and collaborating with? I think not." 

Barry chuckles slightly, "You guys never did like each other, did you? Why is that, y/n?"

"Conflict of interests?" You shrug.

"That's not what I see." Barry leans over the table more, "I see it as too similar of interests, always trying to outdo one another. Always trying to show who's superior, who's the better writer. A typical girl fight." "I beg to differ," you refute.

"I thought you guys would outgrow it once we all graduated from school, got occupations, started life as adults; seems I was wrong."

"Hey, I'm happy where I'm at." You defend, "Like I may not be writing as much as I wanted to, not writing articles like Ms. Iris West over there,  but I still do what I love. I help other aspiring journalists, writers become better. I edit their work, critique it, push them to reach their full potential."

"I can't argue with that, but I still say you two are jealous of each other." Barry says simply.

"Why would she be jealous of me?" You scoff.

"Why wouldn't she be?" Barry counters, "Probably for the same reason you're jealous of her." "I'm not jealous."

"Convincing," Barry smirks.

"I don't know," you say, irritably. "Sounds to me like you already have a guess, so why not share your observations?"

"You were jealous of her once you figured out I liked her, now the tables have turned."

"Wait a minute, how-" Your eyes widen as you comprehend the last part, "What do you mean the tables turned?"

Barry's brown eyes meet yours, "I like you, y/n."

You laugh, "You're joking, right?"

"Iris and I don't meet as often, we've lost the bond we had. After she rejected me, I started to see things in a different light. It just took me awhile to realize what I saw, I saw a future, a future with you."

"So you admit I still am second best," you shake your head angrily. "It took her rejection to realize that you maybe found me attractive, that I could be part of your future."

"That's not what I'm saying," Barry sighs. "You're not making it easy, y/n. I like you, I see something different in you, something that Iris lacks. You have a pure heart, a sweet kindness in your whole being, you're amazingly funny, you're literally beautiful in every way."

By now your anger had been calmed by Barry's soft words. "You actually like me?"

"Yes," Barry laughs. "You're beautiful, gorgeous even. The way you laugh, it's adorable. The way the corner of your eyes crinkle as you smile, the way a simple blush rises to your cheeks every time someone compliments you. The way you cock your eyebrows when you decide to get cocky and show some attitude, it's honestly heart-melting."

You blush at his words, and stare hard at the table in front of you.

"See? You're even doing it right now, blushing madly. You make it hard for a guy not to fall for you."

"Could say the same thing about you," you finally say. "You make girls blush without realizing it, make girls go weak at the knees for your chivalry, charm girls with your good looks and humor, not to mention those dimples you possess." "Awww, y/n." Barry laughs, however you notice how red his cheeks have gotten.

"Kiss me?" you ask with a small smirk.

Barry leans over the table, his cologne filling your nostrils at the closeness between you two.

Your eyes close involuntarily as you feel his lips meet yours, it wasn't a needy or lust-filled kiss, more of a gentle one. "Mmmmm," you say as he pulls away.

"Like it?" Barry struggles to maintain his calm voice.

"Let's do that more often," you giggle and shyly tuck a stray strand of hair behind your ear.

"Bet," Barry laughs as his lips meet yours once more.

[redux-iterum]

Dullard Participates in the Book Club and Actually Intends to Continue? Impossible.

So, first book of Wings of Fire read.

Honestly?

Didn’t hate it. Rather liked it, actually.

I’m just gunna go over what stuck out to me the most, because there is a good deal to talk about with this book and I don’t want to go on a ramble about timelines and worldbuilding and all that. I’ll leave that to Lynx, the fucking nerd that she is.

The dialog is my favorite part, which should surprise nobody who knows about my love of banter. It feels very different from other HC book series like Warriors or Survivors – it’s comedic and witty, more casually spoken than attempting to sound cool. There’s very little in the way of contrived conversation, if you get what I mean; characters interact authentically instead of to move the story forward or backward. Dialog spoken by villains and general antagonists can be pretty cliché, but those characters are pretty cliché in general, so it still feels about right for them.

The worst part, for me, are those aforementioned villains and antagonists. I get that this is a kid’s series, so you have to make who the bad guy is more obvious for the sake of ease of understanding. I just found them cartoony compared to the more organic-feeling protagonists. Granted, the protagonists are also a little tropey, but I would argue their tropes work together very well to create a natural, nuanced character, with the side benefit of mixing beautifully with the other protagonists’ personalities. Clay is the Big Guy, but he’s also sweet-natured and meek, having had his true power emotionally beaten out of him, which gave him a lot of self-worth issues and doubts as to his competence that left him unable to really fulfill the Big Guy role. All of the heroes are like this (Tsunami is fucking amazing, by the way), and the characters we’re supposed to like have similar thought put into them.

Perhaps that’s not the right way to put it. The villains do have thought put into them as well. It’s just that the thoughts all centered around finding the clearest ways to make someone evil. There’s no real nuance to them; if they have multiple traits, it’s to further vilify them. Scarlet is the worst of the bunch, which sucks, because she’s the main villain of this book. I can enjoy a solely-evil, card-carrying villain, but she was just cliché as hell and I didn’t like it. She could have been more interesting, is all.

Slightly related, the names are not the best. Again, kid’s series, so the names are bound to be simpler, but man. Scarlet for an orange dragon? There’s not a lot of cohesion in them either – which, to be fair, illustrates the difference between the tribes of dragons (earthy names for MudWings, for example, and it seems like NightWings like to do two-part names like Morrowseer and Starflight). I don’t think the names overall work, though, either in differences or in cohesion. The main heroes’ names could afford to sound better together, is what I’m saying.

Final thought to close this on: god DAMN are these books violent. Like, I know Warriors is violent, but this book has beheadings and melting faces and burning people to death just mentioned as an aside! I wouldn't go so far as to call this book dark, because this aspect of the story is part of the action and excitement, not there to just pound on how bleak and depressing everything is. It just shocked the hell out of me that this shit got past the editors and higher-ups. They had a lot of faith in this series if they allowed this level of violence.

That’s about all my main takeaways from this first book. I do plan to read the second book, since this one was quite promising. I hope I’ll have more to talk about when the end of December comes and the second book is over.

[sennamybeloved]

marlene's tape recorders and journal added so much depth to her character. without them, she is so easy to misunderstand, so easy to paint as some awful villain who acted carelessly (or even cruelly). the show is flawed in a lot of ways but the fact that it made no effort to give marlene back any of the depth she was robbed, while largely insignificant side characters like bill and frank got an entire full length movie dedicated to them, is fucking criminal. i love bill and frank this is not me saying that episode is bad it is lovely BUT. marlene is the main antagonist, she deserves something like that way more than they did. for a show that allegedly wants to humanize all of it's characters they sure as hell put no effort into humanizing one of the most humanizable characters in the entire fucking franchise.

marlene is not a terrible person by any stretch of the imagination. i wouldn't even call her a villain. joel is objectively worse than her. however, that objective standpoint is NOT what the last of us is about! it's about humanity, and joel's drive to protect ellie is so much more relatable and so much more human than anything that was going on with the fireflies. that is what made the game so impactful. we, the players, are parents, friends, children, lovers, who would do anything to protect those we hold dear, even if that means sacrificing the world. boiling marlene down to a "villain" not only does her character a huge disservice, but completely undercuts the impact of the entire story, primarily joel's arc.

additionally, just because the fireflies as a whole were not super sympathetic or relatable, marlene herself absolutely was. an overworked leader and figurehead with the entire weight of the world on her shoulders being attacked from every angle at a war with her own mortality over protecting her dead best friend's child and saving the society she's been fighting for all these years. do you fuckers actually think she wanted to kill ellie? absolutely not. listen to her first tape recorder, watch the flashback cutscene from tlou2, fucking look at the way jerry fucking pressured her. fucking listen to how distressed she sounded when she was talking about it. if you read her journals she was literally out of her mind convincing herself she had done nothing but fail her people over and over and over again. this was her last shot to do something right. she knew for a fact that joel wouldn't be happy with her, but she hoped that he could sympathize with her, that he could understand how hard this was for both of them, two people who cared so much about ellie and what she represented for them. direct quote from her second tape recorder: "they asked me to kill the smuggler. i'm not about to kill the one man in this facility that might understand the weight of this choice. maybe he can forgive me."

does that not make anyone else feel sad? she spent her last hours hoping and praying and wishing for someone to see her as a person, to meet her eye-to-eye and tell her that they understand all she has done, and that she made the right choice. she's not perfect by my god people, she is not evil. everything she did was with pure intentions. i can fucking guarantee that if any of you were in her position, they would've made a similarly fucked-up choice, if not an even worse one.

it wasn't her fault, at least not entirely; i'd argue the scientists shoulder more blame than her. in that same damn tape recorder, she states that asking her for the go ahead to proceed with the surgery was more of a formality on their part, and that she really didn't have much of a choice. i don't think marlene had power in that hospital to begin with. she had not been there in over 10 years, the scientists had taken up leadership. she was the firefly's figurehead, someone that people could assign blame to. whatever actual control she had was left back in boston. the scientists were not her fucking soldiers or whatever. why would they listen to her? what was she gonna do, yell at them? tell the people she'd dragged across the country that actually she had a change of heart and this had all been for nothing so everyone can just leave now. no!! she would've been eaten alive!!! what else was she supposed to do? literally what else. someone tell me.

there is zero empathy for her in this fandom. it's not just the show fans, it's the game fans, too. i beg of you guys to read her journal and listen to her tape recorders and try to put yourself in her shoes and realize that she was in just as much pain as joel was when things came to a head. i know she's not your ultra hot rugged white man but come on you guys can be a little media literate. as a treat.

[darkstarofchaos]

For the ask thingy... I have a feeling I might know some of the answer to this, but here's a two-fer. Take your pick (or answer both if you're in the mood): - OpStar -OpFire

OpStar: Don't ship it.

Why don’t you ship it?

Well, for starters, there's Optimus laughing at the idea of Megatron doing horrible things to Starscream. Bit off-putting, that.

More generally, Optimus has a... morality thing. Specifically, his own view on morality, which he pushes onto anyone in his vicinity. Which, y'know. Starscream is a villain, you kinda have to redeem him if the ship is actually going to work, right? Or file off his rough edges and make him Secretly A Good Person Actually, or a generally good person/helpless victim who just needs to See The Light.

Two problems with this: first, I prefer corruption arcs. Let Starscream bring people to the Dark Side, darn it. And second, Optimus does not practice what he preaches. One might even call him a hypocrite. Case in point, mind control is Evil when the Bad Guys do it, but he was perfectly happy to try controlling the Constructicons - and through them, Devastator - in The Core. And if mind control is an acceptable approach to turning people to your side, what does that mean for the ex-Decepticon you're looking to bed? I wouldn't trust any canon Optimus to treat Starscream with legitimate kindness, save for Armada Optimus. Because he actually did that. And maybe EarthSpark, but we only have a couple lines of dialogue to go on so far, so I'll reserve judgement there.

(Note of clarification, most of my Optimus Problems apply to G1 versions of the character. I actually kind of like other Optimii. Still don't ship him with Starscream, though).

As for Starscream, he's not going to do a 180 and suddenly be a loyal and obedient follower just because he gets some praise once in a while (if he does, that's incredibly unhealthy and he shouldn't be in a relationship with someone who could very easily take advantage of him). Starscream has opinions and ideas. And when he sees someone doing something stupid, he's going to call them on it. But Optimus does what Optimus thinks best, and if Starscream thinks differently, they are going to fight. And Optimus isn't going to listen to him, because he doesn't listen. Doubly so if Starscream's opinion can be construed as immoral.

Tl;dr: they would be horrible together.

2. What would have made you like it?

I think TFP is the only place where they would have had a chance with me, so... Maybe if Optimus had tried to reach out to Starscream after Arcee chased him off? But the irony is, if Optimus was the kind of person who could be trusted with Starscream's well-being, he would also recognize that his status as a powerful authority figure makes him someone Starscream shouldn't be in a relationship with. So it still wouldn't work.

3. Despite not shipping it, do you have anything positive to say about it?

It's fun when they argue. Which has nothing to do with them as a pairing, I just enjoy when their dynamic is ruthlessly antagonistic.

-

OpFire (just gonna lump Jetfire in with Skyfire): Don't ship it.

Why don’t you ship it?

I ship Skyfire with one (1) person. Irrationally uncomfortable seeing him with someone else. OTP in the purest sense of the term.

Optimus is not that one person.

2. What would have made you like it?

Might need to rewire my brain, tbh. First, I'd need to be comfortable shipping Skyfire with someone else. Second, I would need to like Optimus enough to ship him with anyone. Third, they would need to have enough in common that I could ship them specifically.

Impossible task, I would say.

3. Despite not shipping it, do you have anything positive to say about it?

I had a roommate a few years ago who really liked anime, so I decided Armada would be a good way to introduce them to Transformers. They came away with a few ships, including Optimus/Jetfire. And they decided the ship name was Flying Fish, because of how the pair's combined form looks.

So that's a fun little story.

[chronicbeans]

Idk about you, but personally I like Wally because of his hair. I mean come on! He's clearly put a lot of effort into his appearance and I respect that.(But it was mainly because of fan fiction and fan art I'll be honest...and probably because he's kinda mysterious at the minute)

But in response to the writing for the whole thing, I respect the heck out of that! I love how welcomed I feel here and I honestly hope the best for you in regards to being able to having your writing recognized more, you definitely deserve it :)

Thank you so much for the compliment! I try my best to make people feel comfortable and accepted here! Oh, yeah, it is true that he is mysterious rn! If I had to make an educated guess as to why I like him so much, it is because he seems to either be evi/antagonist or in danger. At least, that's what the fandom seems to believe. I won't get into speculation though, for Clown's sake. I just tend to love characters that are horrible, sympathetic, go through absolute torment, and/or fit a certain aesthetic!

Putting a read more because I think I started ranting about the types of characters I love. Also, SPOILERS FOR A COUPLE OF GAMES/SHOWS I AM SORRY AHH-

Wally is just so out of left field in comparison to a lot of the other characters. Like... imagine going from uh... I think it was either Victor Frankenstein or Dr. Takuto Maruki, to a small little muppet man. (OH WAIT NO I JUST CHECKED. I actually went from Sunny's dad from Omori. I just lived my Smol bean interpretation of him. Everyone thinks he's evil or cruel but I don't really believe it, personally).

I also tend to love the characters that are not well liked (Like Sunny's dad omfg I love him-). An example is Dr. Daniel Dickens from Angels of Death. Everybody thinks he's really weird and creepy, which he is, but I find his character to be extremely intriguing and, as such, loveable! Same with Reverend Gray from Angels of Death. They both fit the villain/antagonist role, as well as fitting a certain aesthetic (mad doctor/scientist and evil priest).

Takuto Maruki fits the more sympathetic part, but he is also considered an antagonist. I wouldn't consider him evil, due to his plans being to try to make the world a place of eternal happiness in response to his own grief (kinda like "if I can't be happy, I'll make sure everybody else is"). I also don't believe I love him the exact same way everybody else does. Like, you either love him or hate him, but I haven't seen many people be like "I have a HUGE CRUSH on this man" besides the characters in the game.

Maison Talo, the character I mentioned in my post, is also kind of (not that much) in the same boat as Maruki, but in a more disturbing way. He isn't trying to help the world, he is just trying to survive, and it seems like he might've been on the brink of dying when you got there from the way I interpret some of his dialogue. He's GOTTA eat people, and depending on your choices/ending he seems to feel genuinely bad for having to eat you. So, at least for me, I can't help but feel a little bad. Kind of like when you see a lot of people calling a vampire or something a monster for trying to drink blood, but then you think to yourself "wait... Don't they HAVE to drink blood? They kind of have no choice."

OMG AND I ALSO LOVE THE OBSESSIVE CHARACTERS! I have never really been into romance, but I LOVE yanderes. I don't condone their actions, of course, and needless to say I would PROBABLY be horrified if I ever met one in real life. It is more like... the psychology of what would make a character a yandere that I like. Then, I can't help but get just as obsessed with them as much as they are with their love! I even kind of try to imagine what would make the other, non-yandere characters I love become a yandere, or if it might just be impossible.

The last kind I can think of right now are characters I relate to. I have a crush on Lewis Finch, from What Remains of Edith Finch, because I can relate in a small way to getting dragged into your daydreams. I have seen others interpret him as hallucinating, but I got more of a daydream vibe from him. It was the first time I saw a character that I can relate to in that aspect, so I really liked him! Then, like turned to a crush, overtime, as I investigated his room more in an attempt to figure out more about his personality.

I am so sorry this is so long! I just like to explain why I love certain character types! I kind of have a passion for it, maybe because I love writing characters, myself. It was a lot of fun to write this, too! YIPPEE!

If anybody got this far and want to talk about the types of characters they tend to like I will be more than happy to read the comments. I am very passionate about this sorta thing (ofc, not in a "YOU HAVE TO AGREE WITH ME ON THIS" but more of a "I love to talk about this" sorta way)!

[bythenineshards]

i think the reason which makes me angry about acotar & its fandom as a whole is the double standard that exists in the fanbase. rhysand sexually assaulted feyre? 'it's a dark romance so you should go read your vanilla stories & also he did it for her own good'. but when someone says 'well, if it's a dark romance, surely we can have a tamlin redemption arc 'cause he & rhys are the same 'cause he was also protecting feyre 'for her own good'', they'll come at you with pitchforks about how feyre needs someone who is 'feminist' to have a 'healthy relationship' with. like WHICH ONE IS IT??

i am in the hannibal, killing eve & interview with the vampire fandoms. i do like me some mutually toxic relationships that makes you look through characters psyches & pick apart motives & themes.

but acotar goes for this weird stance in its own morality that it doesn't make an ounce of sense. it would've made sense if feyre had left tamlin even if they had a healthy relationship to go join rhysand & then the story could've had a darker turn there. that could've been the basis of a dark romance. or feyre & tamlin's relationship being built on the same lines of toxicity & feyre betraying/hurting tamlin to join rhysand because she wants more power. & tamlin be an equal adversary for them (not antagonist). then the story be continued from there. give me moral ambiguity so that i don't know who to root for. these kinds of things happen in adult high fantasies all the time.

but sjm chooses to compare two equally bad (or 'morally gray', as the stans love to call it) characters and be like 'see, this one is better!!' but if someone points out that they're equally bad you have to watch them do all kinds of unnecessary mental gymnastics & say 'b-but it is a dark romance with dark themes & it's adult!! and rhysand is MORALLY GREY!!! if you can't handle it don't read it!' or the argument of 'it's fiction & they're fae!! you can't apply real world morals to it!!' like sure but where is the CONSISTENCY???

Hey Anon! I could've sworn I answered this. But apparently I didn't.

I can't stand the justifying of Rhys' deeds. Dark Romance books don't feel the need to do that. The guy doesn't need the justifications and hero framing. The books are thrown around as feminist or empowering. The point is that the relationship is a toxic dynamic. Maas has said in interviews that she writes healthy romances. She views this as a healthy relationship.

You know what's funny? The road to hell is paved with what? Good. Intentions. The best villains are people who meant well but had evil methods to achieve that goal. Rhys did x______ because it was for....? Doesn't matter, still did it. Thanos (in the movies) killed half the universe because it would create more resources for those left. Good intention. Horrible idea considering he had the power to create more resources.

You're right that there were so many other angles this could've gone to make it better. Personally I believe the best idea would've been to just have them grow apart. Cuz that happens and it wouldn't have taken Tamlin being abusive to do. Feyre could've fallen for Rhys knowing what he did was wrong. I'm sorry but there was no excuse or justification for working for Amarantha. Rhys should've been punished. However that would mean more work than comparing a retconned Tamlin to Rhys and made Feyre actually flawed.

Ugh... this series... so glad I'm not buying anymore of her books. You know, it's so weird how easily impressed I am with books that do the bare minimum effort to be decent after reading these.

[let-us-cultivate-our-garden]

I don't know if you've ever seen Star Trek Discovery (spoilers if you haven't) but what TOH did with Belos reminds me of what Discovery did with their season 1 antagonist Lorca. Lorca was set up as a complex, morally ambiguous cautionary tale for the main protagonist Burnham. Both were traumatized by the same enemy and had become somewhat ruthless and single minded because of it. It seemed like they were building to a point where Burnham learned to heal and forgive and she would have to confront Lorca (and thus metaphorically her worst self) as he became consumed by the desire for revenge instead. But then they revealed that Lorca was actually just from a mirror universe where literally everyone is inherently evil and that's why he did everything he did. No need to worry if we could go down the same path after all, because he was just a lying liar who lies from the evil universe of evil. Because that's such bold storytelling. 🙄

I haven't seen this show but that setup sounds legitimately awful; I can (kinda) excuse a kid's show doing this but not a show theoretically aimed at adults. Bad writing knows no bounds I guess.

It sounds like from your description and what TOH eventually became, both shows wanted the angst of a protagonist worrying about becoming like the villain only for the show to reveal that "don't worry, you could never be bad because you are pure of heart!" Which is just the worst message and I wouldn't put that in any show, much less one aimed at children.

The thing is that Luz and Philip have a lot of similarities and a little narrative tweaking could have made them even stronger parallels; just make Luz's outsider status in the human realm more obvious instead of just having her do dangerous pranks that makes the adults justifiably upset. Make Philip an outsider in his community as well (especially since it was confirmed that the Wittebanes became witch-hunters to fit in) and show how dependent he was on his brother, which is his main motivation for going to the Demon Realm in the first place. Make Luz more of a flawed character that other characters call out on and give Philip more sympathetic traits so we can see how these two could have gone down very different paths if the circumstances were different.

As it stands, the show has all of these fascinating parallels between the two characters but it does nothing to expand on them or to provide commentary on either character.

Instead of a cautionary tale about how clinging onto your beliefs is ultimately self-destructive, Belos is painted with an overly broad brush that he's simply delusional and can't stand things he can't control, thereby absolving Luz of any guilt about worrying about their seemingly similar goals.

[mysticonsheadcanons]

Making a Male Villain

I realized that other than Malvaron and Doug, Mysticons no longer has many male major supporting characters (Yes, I know Kasey, Gandobi, Malachite, Gawayne, and Darius, but none of them are super important to the plot) now that Dreadbane sacrificed himself and «Nov-=[=] Terron left to travel with Aunt Yaga. I also realized that Dreadbane was the only male main antagonist. There are two other male villains who weren't main antagonists, but as I don't think they really belong as main villains, I'll be making my own.

First, I'll explain why the male villains I was thinking abut, Lance and Captain Kaos, would not be suitable main villains. Lance simply isn't interesting enough in my opinion. While he may have motivation, wanting power and fame, I don't see him being a major threat when compared to the Queen of the Undead. And Captain Kaos is interesting enough, I think he's too focused on Zarya and the Pink Skulls to be a main villain. A main villain should see all the Mysticons as enemies equally, and his preoccupation with Zarya and the Pink Skulls would be in the way. I know Proxima was more focused on Arkayna, but due to the mask influencing her, she did feel like she would want to take on the realm to. Captain Kaos seems like he would just want to force people to be his crew again, which while evil, is not main villain material.

With who wouldn't work as a main villain out of the way, it's time to work on a main villain. He would have to be very threatening, as he has to be stronger than the Spectral Hand. My first thought was to look at my first fan season, as perhaps the villain could be from the Maurader's dimension, which is featured in the fan season, but that's not the case. The main villains of that fan season are Gandobi and the Ringleader, someone who was an enemy of Piper's circus. Given my rule about not having a main villain focus on one Mysticon, that rules the Ringleader out. And we've done the evil astromancer thing with Proxima, and Gandobi's kinda silly, so he wouldn't work.

Perhaps he would be a firblog from a different dimension (basically, firblog's are giants with unnatural skin colour). I chose a firblog because that's a species that's referenced in the chapter book (firblog's bluff) but isn't seen in show. Also, they are tall, making them more inimidating. We'll call him Farlonak. He came from a different dimension who lost magic. He wants Gemina's magic for himself in order to become powerful by having complete control over who has magic. However, he realizes that he can control who has magic on Gemina as well, if he steals all of it. He would be a cunning and calculated businessman.

This would also give the ability for other characters to become henchmen. He would need someone to help ensure only people he chooses/pays enough gets magic in Gemina, so he will need someone to help steal magic, in return for being head of the Gemina Division of his company. Two people who would be interesting are cat merchant and Tazma. Cat Merchant is a busineesman and it would be cool to develop him into more of a villanous role, Tazma craves power. Both would make excellent choices. The Vexicons might work, but without Eartha, they lose a bit of their "evil version of Mysticons" as they're missing Em's Vexicon (and Sharise's vexicon, if this was in my fanon so she exists).

In short, the new villain is a firblog businessman named Farlonak who wants Gemina's magic to control all magic on Gemina and his world.

[nevermore-ocs]

oooooh ok i know you’ve talked about the high expectations on Mao to live up to the last Macaque descendant but i don’t think you’ve talked about how he handles that pressure? 👀 does he use it to further motivate his efforts? does it ever break him? does he not care about meeting expectations at all?

So the last Macaque descendant is his father, and his father was quite literally the most perfect example of him, which means, he's an, AWFUL FUCKIN PERSON-

Mao was the result of a fling that his father never thought would really turn into anything, because of this Mao never met his mom and he has no idea who she is or if she's even alive anymore, and because his father was losing the power that he was incredibly gifted with, he pretty much made it his duty to bring out this horrid personality that he "knew" was in Mao-

Mao strives to make a better name behind the title of Macaque since all of that shining light is on Sun Wukong, I wouldn't even really label Mao a villain? I'd definitely call him an antagonist, for sure, but he's more on the lines of neutral then straight up a bad guy, he only has that moniker of bad guy because he's the Macaque to Bojin's Sun Wukong (they're literally some of the most perfect examples of it THEY LOOK ALMOST IDENTICAL) He doesn't wanna be his dad, and he doesn't want the name of Macaque to immediately gain this assumption that he's evil, he saved people in China, put his body and life on the line when he was growing used to these new powers when no one wanted him to, and it still wasn't seen as a good thing, just a charade to mask away a plot he had brewing, if anything those expectations his dad has on him motivates him to just stray from them and never be this monster his father claims to know he is--

[purplekoop]

Each time I look at Necro I think they have a crow on top of their hand. It takes me a minute to register it’s actually their fingers. It’s just the shape and all the evil sorcerer motifs. This isn’t a dig at your art, just a funny mistake I keep making. Evil-looking robots are always a favorite of mine.

Huh... no no, I see it, you have a point. Probably doesn't help that I was lazy and made that the only shaded part of the entire sketch aside from the eye, so I can see how it'd stick out as a separate being. No offense taken though, I totally get that kind of visual mixup even for art that does have more effort put into it.

Also a random tidbit about Necro (or Nekross, not totally certain on that yet but it's plausible) I wanna bring up now that you mention it is that I don't actually consider them to be necessarily "evil". Not necessarily "good" or "moral" either, but I definitely wouldn't call them a villain. Both in a functional sense, since I want there to be at least a reasonable explanation for any character to work with the rest of the cast in canon, even if they don't necessarily like each other.

Necro's morality is unique due to a lore detail I've yet to share: while making new bots obviously requires metal, it's taboo and illegal to take any material from a dead bot unless they consented to it in life. This definitely makes sense for bots who've died since the reawakening, who've had a consciousness and since lost it, but this is a more contentious rule in-universe for the millions of lifeless husks who never were "alive" in the same way as the ones who reawakened to begin with. That's a lot of material left unused, especially for a society who needs it to rebuild and repopulate on a planet where those materials are relatively scarce after humanity used what was readily accessible.

Necro, as you might expect, rejects this whole notion of "respecting the dead". They're a survivalist, their philosophy is "do whatever it takes for the greater good". They think that taking any lifeless bot body is justifiable for any ends, since when the consciousness is gone, they think the metal should be used by someone who actually can use it. Of course, the rest of the cast thinks this is morbid at best and actively despicable at worst. Easy comparison is like Moira, except for a character with similarly dubious methods for "the greater good" but a much less aggressively antagonistic demeanor and with more justifiable circumstances.

This dissonance with the other characters, even the similarly menacing Velenna, is very much deliberate. I wanted somebody who stuck out from the rest of the crowd, both in design and in narrative. I wanted them to look alien and inhuman more than the rest of the cast, with the inscrutable face and uniquely non-human anatomy. But I also want them to still read as "intelligent", mostly with the cape and the pose. Off-putting, but they're still a person just as much as the more pleasant-looking bots are. And that's not too far off from their relation with the others narratively: strikingly off-putting, but still recognizable as more than just a monster or a supervillain.

Anyways uh. Yeah that was a bit of a tangent, but it felt topical and I wasn't sure where else to put it. I really should make proper character story stuff sooner than later, but that's gonna take some effort. Slowly but surely though, as I feel like it's important to define this world along with the stories of its individual characters. Necro is an instance of one where I get to do both at the same time, defining how this society would have unique views on death due to their unique circumstances, and how this character interacts with those views. Admittedly it's something that should be lower priority than... coding I guess, but right now I don't have a computer that can safely run a programming software, so I have an excuse now! yay?

[spacevixenmusic]

Like... redemption arcs on a fundamental level challenge viewers on the baseline assumption that XYZ antagonist will always be trouble no matter what. Hell, I remember when the Diamond discourse for SU started to take root with "What's The Use In Feeling Blue?"

The episode's music number of Yellow and Blue mourning ruffled a few feathers by way of humanizing whom Steven Universe viewers considered to be the Big Bads. A uniform authority that would be a physical threat down the line, one Steven couldn't engage with in words.

What the song did was send the message that it won't be as simple as "punch evil until it dies" and some felt that it was, by proxy, sympathizing with fascist tyrants in a whitewash-y way.

I hate talking about this stuff in a vacuum, like the universal idea of a "redemption arc" is supposedly doomed to failure just because people aren't thinking critically about media anymore. Talking about media exclusively in TvTropes terminology helps no one.

The redemption arc in Steven Universe is based on the show's main theme: healing through empathy. It's a fantasy story, not a political commentary. The show is not built around presenting a realistic solution to real-world fascism, it's a fantasy story about a boy who is thrust into an ancient conflict between aliens and the worlds they've invaded or colonized, and the show's main gimmick is having Steven use his natural inclination toward empathy and understanding to resolve his conflicts. That's the THEME of the show! It's just a fucking fantasy cartoon!

Redemption arcs are fun because they are designed to force you to think about your so-called enemy as a fellow human being. How did they end up where they are? What makes them think that what they're doing is right? Do you know anyone like that in your own life? Would you be able to convert them like this villain got converted, or do you think it wouldn't work like that? There are no wrong answers, because art is all about thinking critically and coming to YOUR OWN CONCLUSION.

I'm begging people to stop treating the media they consume like it's supposed to be some kind of religion or dogma. It's just art. You don't have to agree with it if you don't agree with it, and you can't just generalize everything based on tropes and patterns. You have to apply things on an individual scale.

Anyway, thanks for reading. Here is a gif of a jiggly girl jumping rope in her underwear as a reward.

[mtdthoughts]

Inner Demons Pt. 1 (Migi & Dali Analysis)

Keep in mind that *spoilers* for the whole story are discussed before you continue reading.

Part 2

If I were to ask you who the antagonist of Migi & Dali was, you might say Reiko. It's a good answer, since Reiko was the one most responsible for the twins' plight and was the one who the twins must defeat to go home and live happily. Plus, toward the end of the story we see that she adopts a horrifying, almost inhuman or demonic appearance.

Why "demonic"? Well, Reiko did call Metry a demon/devil woman.

Obviously, Metry isn't anything like a demon, but since she did say she wanted to be like Reiko, this might have caused Reiko to project her own insecurities and her own "inner demon" onto Metry.

Anyway, back to the question of the antagonist. Reiko is a good answer, but in my opinion it's a bit more complicated than that. Sure, Reiko was mentally ill and arguably evil, but it's not like her actions in the second half of the story were inevitable. In another post of mine titled "A Happier Ending?", I argued that if the twins hadn't sought after revenge in Origon Village, Reiko likely wouldn't have done anything, as she just wanted to live quietly (*cough* Kira) in her perfect life. Maybe she would have noticed them, but I doubt she would have cared if they didn't pose an actual threat to her perfect life. Similar to how Metry became a demon in Reiko's eyes, Dali's ruthless pursuit of revenge and attempt to kill Eiji caused Reiko to turn into the demon we witnessed in Episode 9, almost as if a manifestation of Dali's darkness. This makes even more sense since when one considers Reiko to be an analogy for Dali, and vice versa.

Therefore, one could view Dali as largely responsible for the series of events that occurred in the story, which had significant consequences (e.g. Micchan's death, Eiji's imprisonment, etc.), making him somewhat of a greater-scope villain that was getting in the way of Migi's as well as his own happiness. Dali likely became aware of this view of himself, causing him to resent himself and reject his own identity until the end of the story.

But this still doesn't paint the whole picture either, as Dali didn't truly want to be unhappy and was constantly in a struggle with himself, whether it was pursuing revenge or accepting his own happiness. Furthermore, based on Reiko's flashback, it seems she was facing a similar struggle with herself in maintaining her perfect image. Both Dali and Reiko (as well as Eiji) struggled with inner demons that drove them away from true happiness and away from those that loved them, and forced themselves to act in a certain way, even if it hurt others, because they believed that it would help them maintain their own meaning and validation. Thus, one could view the "inner demon" as the true greater-scope antagonist of the story. While Dali was able to fight off and overcome these inner demons thanks to Migi, Reiko was unable to and instead succumbed to them, turning into the horrifying Reiko we know and fear.

However, what exactly are these inner demons, and why illustrate them through Dali and Reiko (and Eiji)? This will be addressed in the next part of this discussion.

[leatherbookmark]

that being said, and i'm sorry for being a cunt, but

it's... very irritating to read mxtx gushing about how utterly likeable wwx is, how cute lwj is when he's got wwx on his brain, how xy is "trash yang" (this is not from the interview but from the chapter comments), or... whatever she said about jgy... is the interview in japanese or chinese? i've seen chinese terms brought up by the translators and i just ???

it's just like. girl? are we all stupid for reading like, moral greyness, unreliable narrators, Layers into your work? her answers can sound so... idk, shallow? at times. the part abt her "feeling bad for jgy, but please go die now" stayed in my mind for obvious reasons, and now the 狡猾, because: no, wait, hold up, why? i want to hear more! you wrote this character, this antagonist who isn't even working against the protagonist, who's similar but different, whose circumstances are tragic and understandable as such, and you just go... cool motive, still villain, go die? like, seriously?

on top of that, i always wince when people describe jgy as cunning, crafty, plotting, treacherous, manipulative great actor etcetc, because it paints him as this... confident grey eminence who's got everything under control, rather than a guy who just... tries to survive... there was a post abt wwx's manipulation -- literally pissing people off into doing what he wants them to do -- but he's never called manipulative. but someone who doesn't know jgy would think his moustache is a thing straight out of uzumaki. it's like boiling xy down to an insane psycho who's so craaaazy and evil! 100% deranged! it's just incorrect. it's not even "well yes, but it's actually deeper than you think", it's just wrong.

...and then i see the author doing the same. AM I INSANE.

similarly, it's kinda strange to read her gushing about wwx and lwj, because while i understand on a technical level that People Are Different, most of the fic writers i know/have read are drawn to characters because they're fucked up, complex, tragic; they're a puzzle, a fascinating mechanism. not a great guy who's so great and amazing, seriously, who wouldn't like him. have i mentioned that he and his boyfriend are in love that's stronger than everything else in the world? like. did you... write wwx being supremely obnoxious as a teen while thinking he's the coolest guy imaginable?

there was a time when i, still in the clutches of cql wgxn, saw a couple of novel excerpts and decided i hated them. wwx was so annoying! lwj was so different and unappealing! i'm not gonna read this book, it's going to ruin the characters for me! and i mean. it kind of did, but also it didn't. and i sort of... feel this way about the word of god. like, yeah, some of that stuff is interesting, although it's not anything i'd consider invaluable or even particularly enlightening -- but mostly. it's just annoying