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thermodynamic-comedian · 3 years

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posting some of my random thoughts on the original six avengers. because technically no one can stop me.

iron man / tony stark

love to see actual mental illness representation tbh. also i feel like a lot of characters that have that kinda snarkyness and wit that tony has all have daddy issues, right?? like, call it the jake peralta complex (just because i like brooklyn nine-nine), where a character acts extremely immature and doesn't take anything seriously, but becomes progressively less annoying when they actually start dealing with and working through their issues.

i feel like tony's main issue as an avenger is his guilt. when you have anxiaty, you constantly worry about something that could happen that could possibly be your fault. this is what causes tony to create ultron. and we all know how that turns out. which just gives tony even more guilt.

also, as far as comics come, i haven't read a lot of iron man comics, but i do know that at some point he was heavily implied to be canonically bisexual. so that's cool.

captain america / steve rogers

ok so imma be honest. not the biggest cap fan. i guess his character is just a bit too much of a blatantly perfect patriotric boy kinda character for me. but, then again, that's also a kinda interesting thing. because he's just a good person, end of sentence.

steve has a really, really strong moral code that he follows above all else. which is also why john walker couldn't be captain america; captain america isn't a government puppet, and has no problem going against the rules (or the law) to do the right thing. steve is also extremely against hurting people, and would give his life up to protect someone else. that alone makes him almost superhuman, because not a lot of people can stick to their moral code to that extent.

the hulk / bruce banner

okay. originally i didn't really like bruce. i thought he was boring. but recently i've actually started liking him a lot more. the whole "i am not the enemy" kind of storyline of someone being shunned despite only wanting to help was really kind of popularized by the hulk comics, i think. and y'know what? it is a cool idea for a character.

i think i especially liked him in the first avengers movie, because he really seemed tired of people treating him like a labrat and trying to get him to turn into the hulk ("sorry, kids. i guess you're not gonna get to see my party trick after all" he really sounded irritated and exhausted in that line, which i honestly loved). bruce himself is sick and tired of not being seen as a person because of the hulk, and the hulk is sick and tired of everyone (including bruce) seeing him as nothing but a threat or nuisence.

thor odinson

having a literal god on the team? valid. but i also do love how thor doesn't completely overpower the others; the first film goes out of its way to prove that all of the avengers are almost completely equal in terms of ability; for example, for what characters like black widow and hawkeye lack in terms of physical strength, they more than make up for in cleverness and stragedy. whereas thor, who you'd obviously assume is the strongest avenger, is proven to be an equal match for iron man and captain america.

when it comes to thor himself as a character, i think thor: ragnarok! and avengers: infinity war have probably the best way of characterizing him with little ideas like bringing attention to how much he's lost, how he considers earth under his protection and any harm brought to it is something he sees as a personal failing.

black widow / natasha romanoff

ohh boy. let's talk about nat, huh?

she's, in my humble opinion, the most tragic avenger. an ex-russian super spy who was raised to kill but decided to become a hero instead is already an objectively cool character concept, but when you take into account the fact that her only real family as a child was fake, but that she would still do anything to keep her little sister safe, and how no matter how much good she does she'll always still just see herself as a killer, her character starts making even more sense.

nat's friendship with clint intrigues me specifically, as a frayromantic, because i absolutely love seeing a deep emotional connection that isn't romantic at all in media. especially with the kind of dynamic these two have; you can just tell they consider each other as close as family, and that they've probably saved each other countless times.

hawkeye / clint barton

okay. this is gonna be a long one.

i absolutely love clint barton. especially in the comics. so you're telling me this working class orphan kid who was raised in a circus and is hard of hearing and has a disabled brother and is bad at relationships is in the avengers? hell yeah.

overall, i think clint's status as the Regular Guy (tm) of the avengers is pretty well known and established; he's just a human. just a genuine, kind-hearted, human being trying his best. and that's another thing i love about clint barton's character: he needs to try so much harder than the rest of the avengers just to keep up, and let's be honest, a team where everyone is a god or a supersoldier or super rich is just kinda boring to watch. (also, as a working class kid with adhd, i honestly relate to the feeling of having to try way more just to keep up-)

also, the thing about his relationship struggles in the comics also interests me, because knowing he's also a child abuse survivor makes me feel like the reason he can't properly express love to other people is because he never really received it himself. but the fact that he's trying so hard means he wants to learn how to.

also, idk why, but clint has real drummer vibes. both in the comics and the movies. and i just love his relationship with kate, like, i feel like in the comics clint's kinda her mentor/father figure, but in the comics (especially matt fraction run) kate is more like clint's older sister, honestly.

ok so i really liked just writing out my marvel brainrot so i might have to make another one of these posts with different characters-

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tobi-smp · 3 years

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I was thinking about it while I was in the shower, so here’s another Hot Take on the discussion on whether we can (or should) consider technoblade as abusive

a lot of interactions between technoblade and other characters are difficult to gauge because c!techno obviously isn’t honest about his feelings at all times On Top Of cc!techno Very Rarely If Ever being completely in character, including and especially with very serious lore scenes. so how we’re meant to take anything he does or says is hard to parse, especially with the knowledge that other creators can take scenes seriously and incorporate it into their lore even if it wasn’t the intention at the time (like jack’s death at tommy’s hands during exile).

(technoblade has only recently come out to state that he’s intentionally playing his side of the story lighter to give people a break from the heavy angst in the rest of the server, but that’s hardly new. he broke the tension all the time during his partnership with tommy, namely with the confrontation with dream at the portal and tommy and tubbo’s first reunion, but it was even noticeable with doomsday, his perspective is a Palpably different tone from Anyone on the l’manberg side of things. which can make some Very interesting inconsistencies when it’s directly slammed into tommy’s more serious roleplaying style.)

you can Easily read him as Either a purely opportunistic character who uses the guise of being deeply emotionally wounded as a justification for Horrific Violence when he was never that emotionally invested in the first place Or a character that is rarely if ever honest and open with his feelings, who hurts other people by accident by trying to downplay his own vulnerability who is Nevertheless deeply emotionally invested in and impacted by the people around him. both interpretations can be soundly backed up by what we’ve been given and we can’t really discount the other reading because of the semi-canoncity of whatever technoblade does. we aren’t really gonna know unless technoblade himself decides to address it specifically.

so with that in mind, I want to take a second to take a more charitable reading, not as an argument that technoblade’s relationship with tommy Wasn’t unhealthy (because it objectively was no matter the reading of his intentions) but to ground the overall conversation a little bit here.

this, I think, is where the nuance in the intersection between “technoblade didn’t have the full picture of what happened with dream and tommy” and “technoblade knew enough to know that what he did on doomsday was wrong” Matters.

if we read technoblade as a character that genuinely cares but either chooses not to or doesn’t know How to express those emotions in a healthy productive way (“tsundereblade” ala the scene of ranboo giving techno the axe) Combined With techno’s very dry sense of humor then it Is very possible to read some of the more uh, Unfortunate things that he’s said in a different light. which doesn’t excuse them by any means, people hurting their friends by not being emotionally honest or through jokes that hit harder than intended happens all the time and it’s the responsibility of that friend to apologize and change their behavior. but at the same time, people can’t actually change their behavior if they don’t know that what they’ve done is wrong.

we need to keep in mind that: - both technoblade And tommy express their affection with their friends by ribbing them. making fun of each other Is a sign of affection for them. if we’re meant to read that as part of their characters then it may not be entirely fair to say that technoblade should’ve known that putting tommy down was going to hurt him

- technoblade knows (or assumes) that dream wants to kill tommy and he knows that tommy has trauma. but technoblade Doesn’t know that dream systematically destroyed tommy’s self confidence to the point of being suicidal. he Doesn’t know how fragile tommy is about his own self worth, and he Doesn’t know that that kind of joking would hit tommy differently now than it would’ve back during their pogtopia days.

- technoblade knows that tommy was a child soldier, he knows that he was forced out of his home and isolated by someone that he’d trusted and loved, and he directly relates tommy’s betrayal to his own. he’s more likely to think that tommy’s mental state Now has more to do with l’manberg than dream specifically even if he recognizes dream as a threat to tommy.

none of this makes techno putting down tommy’s self worth Right, it doesn’t mean that we have to look at him charitably when he tells someone to their face that they aren’t equals only to turn around and destroy a country when he thinks he’s being dehumanized. but I also think that we can’t necessarily assume that he 100% devalued tommy both as a person and a friend from that interaction.

moreover, technoblade was For Sure being opportunistic in trying to recruit tommy. I’ve made my own analysis on techno obviously trying to prime tommy for a partnership at the start of tommy’s exile. but at the same time, I don’t think that’s necessarily Solely about taking advantage of what tommy could do for him, especially since he was trying to recruit tommy before he’d had his mind set on actively destroying l’manberg.

assuming that technoblade was as hurt by tommy as he was because he genuinely Cared about tommy, because he and tommy Were friends and he enjoyed his company, then he very well could’ve recognized that tommy being betrayed by the same people he was would open him up to being able to relate to him. techno and tommy have very fun interactions when there’s nothing driving them against each other, but they’re fundamentally incompatible on their morality and philosophies.

so the obvious solution to that would be one showing the other that their way of thinking was wrong, to let their relationship thrive without that barrier between them. and like, obviously technoblade is the extremist of the situation, it’s a little hard to swallow him trying to change tommy when he’s the one that refuses to compromise even when tommy tries to do it for him. but I think it’s worth recognizing when we’re having a conversation about whether or not he Solely saw tommy as an asset to use rather than a companion. if you choose to read techno as someone who refuses to compromise on his ideals but craves that interaction anyways, then the way he scooped tommy up while trying to relate tommy’s situation to his own, trying to convince them that l’manberg was bad for him, etc, can be read in a Much Less overtly malicious light. it’s still not a Healthy one, but at least it’s not Child Labor Meat Shield.

this particular reading Does have the fact that techno didn’t try to recruit anyone else on its side. for the entirety of tommy’s exile up until doomsday he didn’t try to seek out partnerships with anyone, even though there were Several people unaffiliated with l’manberg at the time. he sought tommy out the First Day of his exile, surely the moment he heard of it, and he was Noticeably Eager to partner with him the moment he’d found him in his house. if that was nothing but pure unadulterated ambition and opportunity seeking then you’d think he’d try to make at least One ally in the meantime.

then again, tommy was the most vulnerable person on the server at the time, you don’t have to know about tommy’s abuse to know that. if you choose to read techno as solely opportunistic then it’s easy to dismiss all of that and say that techno went for tommy because he saw it as the safest bet and that he didn’t gun for any other allies before him because he didn’t see it as immediately necessary until he’d been provoked. but on the other hand, it makes a lot of Sense that a character who’d just cut himself off from every ally he could’ve had but One would be kind of desperate for any chance at connection that he could get. that he’d seize the opportunity specifically Because he enjoyed his relationship with tommy before it went south and he wants to have a close partnership like that again.

technoblade’s a highly paranoid character, so you could argue that he’d try to seek out any partnership he could get his hands on if he was truly actively gunning for allies to the point of being willing to overlook his grudge against tommy to scoop him up as soon as possible. but on the other hand, technoblade’s a highly paranoid character, so he might not want to Risk someone ratting him out to the enemy if he can’t trust them or if they aren’t as neutral as they seem to be.

so ! with all that in mind I think that it’s a valid take to argue that technoblade’s actions could’ve been considered abusive whether he realized it or not, but I also think that it’s a valid take to say that it might not’ve been the intention of the roleplayers at the time and that some of the details that can be used to come to the conclusion that technoblade was abusive were tinged by cc!techno’s humor and him not thinking through the implications of tommy’s current arc. both takes make sense within the context of what we’ve been presented, we just need to make the space for both within overall analysis.

#dream smp #technoblade #tommyinnit #technoblade critical #c!technoblade critical #meta #long post #don't neg me about not putting this in the main tag it will not stop me #every time someone pulls that I add the main character tag more confidently

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idreamtofmanderleyagain · 3 years

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Hot takes about Severus Snape are a wierdly decent glimpse into how a person with progressive values analyses things. Literally every time someone talks about Snape, it’s like this tiny window into how one-dimentionally people actually think.

Recently saw a twitter post that was a fantastic example. Here’s how it goes (paraphrasing):

Person A:“Snape is POC and Queer coded, that’s why you guy’s hate him uwu lol.”

Person B: “Actually I hate him because he was mean and abusive to children under his care uwu but go off I guess lol”

Both of these takes are designed to be dramatic and/or reactionary. They each use partial truths to paint very broad strokes. These are get-em-in-one-hit quips. This is virtue signalling, if you’ll excuse that loaded phrase. Nobody had a substantial conversation, but now everyone who sees their statement knows the high ground they took.

At least a hundred other people chimed in to add their own little quippy hot takes into play, none of which add anything significant, but clearly made everyone feel very highly of themselves.

So many layers of nuance and complex analysis is completely lost in this kind of discussion. On tumblr, you get more of this kind of bullshit, but you don’t have a word count limit, so you guys just spew endless mountains of weak overblown evidence backing up your bullshit arguments, none of which was really about engaging in a real conversation anyway.

Here’s the thing about Snape.

He is a childhood domestic abuse victim. His abuser is a muggle.

He becomes a student at a magical school that takes him away from his abuser and immediately instills in him the idea that being a part of this magical world is a badge of self-worth, empowerment, and provides safety and security - provided that he keeps in line.

There is a war is being waged in that world over his right to exist (he is a half blood).

He is a marginalized person within the context of the narrative, forced to constantly be in the same living space as the children of his own oppressors who are being groomed and recruited into a hate group militia (the pureblood slytherins). They are in turn trying to do the same to him.

He is marginalized person bullied by children who are also part of his oppressor group, but who have “more liberal” leanings and aren’t direct about why he’s being targeted (the mauraders are all purebloods, Sirius, who was the worst offender, was raised in a bigoted household, the same one that produced Bellatrix.).

He had a crush on a girl who is a muggleborn, and therefore she is considered even lesser than him and carries a stigma to those who associate with her. That girl was his only real friend. In his entire life.

For both Snape and Lily, allying themselves to a pureblood clique within their own houses would be a great way of shielding themselves from a measure of the bigotry they were probably facing. There would have been obvious pressure from those cliques to disconnect with one and other.

Every other person who associates with Snape in his adulthood carries some sort of sociopolitical or workplace (or hate cult) baggage with their association. Some of them will physically harm and/or kill him if he steps out of line. He hasn’t at any point had the right environment to heal and adjust from these childhood experiences. Even his relationship with Dumbledore is charged with constant baggage, including the purebloods who almost killed him during their bullying getting a slap on the wrist, the werewolf that almost killed him as a child being placed in an authority position over new children, etc. Dumbledore is canonically manipulative no matter his good qualities, and he has literally been manipulating Snape for years in order to cultivate a necessary asset in the war.

He is a person who is not in the stable mental state necessary to be teaching children, whom has been forced to teach children. While also playing the role of double agent against the hate group militia, the one that will literally torture you for mistakes or backtalk or just for fun. The one that will torture and kill him if he makes one wrong move.

Is the math clicking yet? From all of this, it’s not difficult to see how everything shitty about Snape was cultivated for him by his environment. Snape was not given great options. Snape made amazingly awful choices, and also some amazingly difficult, courageous ones. Snape was ultimately a human who had an extremely bad life, in which his options were incredibly grim and limited.

In fact, pretty much every point people make about how shitty Snape is as a person makes 100% logical sense as something that would emerge from how he was treated. Some if it he’s kind of right about, some of it is the inevitable reality of suffering, and some of it is part of the cycle of abuse and harm.

Even Snape’s emotional obsession with Lily makes logical sense when you have the perspective that he literally has no substantial positive experiences with other human beings that we know of, and he has an extreme, soul destroying guilt complex over her death. Calling him an Incel mysoginist nice guy projects a real-world political ideology and behavior that does not really apply to the context of what happened to him and her.

Even Snape’s specific little acts of cruelty to certain students is a reflection of his own life experiences. He identifies with Neville; more specifically, he identifies his own percieved emotional weaknesses in his childhood in Neville. There’s a very sad reason there why he feels the urge to be so harsh.

Snape very clearly hates himself, in a world where everyone else hates him, too. Imagine that, for a second. Imagine total internal and external hatred, an yearning for just a little bit of true connection. For years. Imagine then also trying to save that world, even if it’s motivated by guilt. Even if nobody ever knows you did it and you expect to die a miserable death alone.

There are more elements here to consider, including the way Rowling described his looks (there may be something in there re: ugliness and swarthy stereotyping). These are just the things that stand out the most prominently to me.

J.K. Rowling is clearly also not reliable as an imparter of moral or sociopolitical philosophies. I don’t feel that her grasp of minority experiences is a solid one, considering how she picks and chooses who is acceptable and who is a threat.

All of that said, this is a logically consistent character arc. Within the context of his narrative, Snape is a marginalized person with severe PTSD and emotional instability issues who has absolutely no room available to him for self-improvement or healing, and never really has. And yes, he’s also mean, and caustic, and verbally abusive to the students. He’s also a completey miserable, lonely person.

There are elements in his character arc that mirror real world experiences quite well. If nothing else, Rowling is enough of an emotional adult to recognise these kinds of things and portray something that feels authentic.

In my opinion, it’s not appropriate to whittle all this down by comparing him directly to the real world experiences of marginalized groups - at least if you are not a part of the group you are comparing him to. There have been many individuals who have compared his arc to their own personal experiences of marginalization, and that is valid. But generally speaking, comparing a white straight dude to people who are not that can often be pretty offensive. This is not a valuable way to discuss either subject.

Also, I believe that while it’s perfectly okay to not like Snape as a character, many of the people who act like Person B are carrying Harry’s childhood POV about Snape in their hearts well into their own adulthood. And if nothing else, Rowling was attempting to say something here about how our perspectives (should) grow and change as we emotionally mature. She doesn’t have to be a good person herself to have expressed something true about the world in this instance, and since this story is a part of our popular culture, people have a right to feel whatever way they do about this story and it’s characters.

The complexity of this particular snapshot of fictionalized marginalization, and what it reveals about the human experience, cannot be reduced down to “he’s an abuser so he’s not worth anyone’s time/you are bad for liking him.”

And to be honest, I think that it reveals a lot about many of us in progressive spaces, particularly those of us who less marginalized but very loud about our values, that we refuse to engage with these complexities in leu of totally condemning him. Particularly because a lot of the elements I listed above are indeed reflected in real world examples of people who have experienced marginalization and thus had to deal with the resulting emotional damage, an mental illness, and behavior troubles, and bad decisions. Our inability to address the full scope of this may be a good reflection of how we are handling the complexity of real world examples.

Real people are not perfect angels in their victimhood. They are just humans who are victims, and we all have the capacity to be cruel and abusive in a world where we have been given cruelty and abuse. This is just a part of existing. If you cannot sympathise with that, or at least grasp it and aknowledge it and respect the people who are emotionally drawn to a character who refects that, then you may be telling on yourself to be honest.

To be honest, this is especially true if you hate Snape but just really, really love the Mauraduers. You have a right to those feelings, but if you are moralizing this and judging others for liking Snape, you’ve confessed to something about how you’ve mentally constructed your personal values in a way I don’t think you’ve fully grasped yet.

I have a hard time imagining a mindset where a story like Snape’s does not move one to empathy and vicarious grief, if I’m honest. I feel like some people really just cannot be bothered to imagine themselves in other people’s shoes, feeling what they feel and living like they live. I struggle to trust the social politics of people who show these kinds of colors, tbh.

But maybe that’s just me.

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maxwell-grant · 3 years

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Cass wouldn’t even begrudingly tolerate [the Black Bat], because she’s even less lenient than Bruce on killing and far more willing to throw down.' - THANK YOU for remembering that.

Cass is my favorite Batfam member, the only one really that I have an active interest in reading about. I'd be incredibly ignorant to not bring bring up such a crucial aspect of her characterization. And even if I didn't personally care for her, well, last thing I'd want is to be another source of frustration for Cass fans. Lord knows there's enough of those to go around.

mousebrass also asked: On that note, how do you imagine a meeting between Cass and the Shadow going?

Fair warning: This one took me 6 hours to write, and it became a hell of a lot longer than I imagined. I liked Cass a lot, but I never quite realized I had this many feelings regarding her until I was tasked with writing this, and a lot of things clicked for me regarding my plans for The Shadow thanks to this ask. @mousebrass, thank you. I mean it. I think I may have found something here I've spent years looking for. Hope you enjoy the post.

I'm thankful that this scenario is only really taking place in a hypothetical fanon where both characters can get a fair shot, because I wouldn't trust DC with this premise. I don't trust DC with either of them as is.

There's a lot of ways that this crossover could go on about taking place naturally, initially because Cass is already connected to some of Batman's pulpier elements, due to her connections to Lady Shiva and the League of Assassins, and one could connect Cass to Myra Reldon (who really should just be race swapped if ever brought back so she can stand out as the cool character she is, without the yellowface gimmick holding her back). There's two things I think are crucial to making the most of this idea, and the first of which has to do with the subject of killing. I usually don't like to come up with hypothetical team-ups for The Shadow that focus too much on the fact that he kills, because it's far from the most significant aspect of his character to focus on, much of it is written from a wrong understanding of the character, and it never amounts to anything other than perfunctory. But here, not only is it completely unavoidable to discuss, here there is actually a very, very substantial grounding as to why this has to be such a big part of the story.

The first and foremost thing that's gotta be established to everyone reading that doesn't know already is this: Cassandra Cain, more so than Batman, more so than any other DCU hero, has a tolerance towards murder lower than zero, and this is completely non-negotiable. She will throw herself on the path of an assault rifle to stop men trying to kill her from accidentally killing each other. The defining moment of her incredibly grim backstory is that she was trained from birth to be the world's greatest murderer, and her first kill traumatized her so badly that she has pivoted as far away from that as possible. I stress a lot that the Shadow should not be written as the trigger-happy maniac comics made him into and that the pulp version killed mostly to defend himself and others, generally left criminals to the police if possible, offered plenty of second-chances, had stories dedicated to the rehabilitation of criminals and so on, but none of this would matter to Cass.

Cass has literally chosen suicide over the prospect of living with murder on her hands time and time again, and The Shadow kills. When he kills, he does so without remorse, with unshakeable certainty. He hates death, he doesn't want lives to be at risk in the first place. But people will die if he doesn't do anything, and what he can do, what he exists to do, is turn the tools of evil against evil, and murder is the oldest tool of evil there is. He doesn't kill because a war scarred him, he doesn't kill because he's got a demon in his soul, he doesn't kill because he's mentally off balance, he doesn't kill because he's evil or sadistic or arrogant or anything of the sort. He kills because the men he fights chose death when they sought to harm innocents and fire guns at him. He kills because he is Death itself.

Regardless of how compassionate he is or can be, regardless of the fact that he's motivated by a desire to protect people, regardless of how justified he is, he is still dropping corpses and laughing maniacally doing so. Cass's real arch-enemy isn't Shiva or David Cain, it's Death, it's the thing that she's fundamentally most opposed to. And guess what The Shadow gets compared to often enough? Literally the very first line of the very first book where we get to see him, this is how we are introduced to him:

So the premise here is that we are taking a character who is defined by her fundamental opposition to death with every fiber of her being, who understands death on a level no other human being does, who is traumatized and hard-wired to detest death at all costs and to choose suicide over it, and asking her to team up with The Grim Reaper.

Even if he received the most abject lesson conceivable on the sheer wrongness of murder, even if he does put down the guns around Cass out of respect for her, he cannot protect his agents and others if he cannot shoot or kill those who try to harm them, and the protection of the agents is absolutely non-negotiable and not at all something he's willing to fuck around with by trying out gadget kung fu superhero alternatives. The Shadow has chosen to throw his life away for their sake time and time again, and no matter how appaling or disgusting Cass finds his deeds, even if he concedes that she's right and should be right on all accounts and that he is fundamentally a monster who has no right to judge others, he would not concede on his mission and he would make it very clear she would have to put him down violently to stop him from protecting others this way, and death has not stopped him before.

And to be upfront in case there's anyone who doubts it, Cass would kick The Shadow's ass, if they had to fight. She is the strongest fighter in the DCU, she lives and breathes fighting and combat in a way no one else does. And The Shadow's not one of those characters who is supposed to be invincible and the best at everything all the time always, he can and does lose fights and scrapes to people far less adept at it than Cass. He's a great fighter, obviously, he hauls bigger men than him through doors and was disabling people with Vulcan neck pinches decades before Spock, and he would definitely have an edge in other areas, but he's out of his league here. Frankly, I don't see The Shadow raising a finger against Cass unless she's been brainwashed into killing people by bad writing. Not because she's a woman, that doesn't really stop him from dealing with evil. But because, for one, she's practically a child compared to him age-wise. Two, he'd obviously know beforehand of her capabilities and how futile it would be to fight or even provoke her. And three, the Shadow's whole thing is knowing. The Shadow Knows and all that. Knowing comes with understanding.

He'd understand very quickly that there is no way someone this young could grow so quickly into the world's greatest fighter without horrific treatment that no one should ever be subjected to. He'd see the movements too practiced and quick, the self-control, the strength and speed far beyond even the trained warriors he's seen, the places where she's been scarred and is good at covering it up. Assuming he doesn't already know about her life story, any meeting between the two would lead to him very quickly figuring out that there's something much deeper about her opposition to killing than just moral reservations, something deeper than Bruce's own gun trauma.

Denny O'Neil's 2nd Batman and Shadow story was about The Shadow secretly helping Bruce overcome gun trauma, and Bruce rejecting The Shadow's intentions to hand him a gun. And to make it clear, people tend to assume that The Shadow only helps people for utilitarian reasons, which is not true as I've tried to demonstrate many times now. I don't want to convey that he would want to help Cass overcome her trauma just so she could be more efficient or something, absolutely no, he'd help her because he helps people in any way he can. I think a story with The Shadow and Cass might involve a similar premise, The Shadow understanding that she has been traumatized very deeply by death and refuses to accept it on any terms, trying to help her overcome it, only to learn that she does not want to "learn" anything she doesn't already know, that she has weaponized her trauma into a source of strength, and wishes nothing more than to help others with it.

And here's where we get to the part that allows the two to be on less antagonistic terms, because one thing that also very strongly defines Cass, at least the Cass I like reading most, is her stubborn, almost desperate need to believe in the best of people, that people can and will change for the better. Like The Shadow, her strength too is knowing, it's perception, the things that she knows about people that words cannot convey. Just as there are many things The Shadow would grow to understand about her that others would not, there would be many things that The Shadow would not be able to conceal from her. Things that no one but her would figure out. Things that, despite her age and lack of experience compared to him, he would have to defer to her knowledge on, which reverses the usual dynamic The Shadow has with people. And perhaps one aspect of that reversal, it's that maybe it's she who winds up secretly manipulating The Shadow into overcoming a deeper issue.

Cass's perspective on killing is shaped not just through trauma, but from a painfully intimate understanding of not just what happens to someone at the time of death, but the cost of murder upon the human soul, the ways it warps people into things they never should have been. Killing is a deeply, deeply serious matter, much more so than fiction seems ever willing to go into. Of course we suspend disbelief for fiction, there's nothing wrong with that, but if a story starts asking questions, starts poking holes into fantasies, they should not be disregarded.

And so it begs a question: How has it affected The Shadow? Is he really as remorseless as he appears to be? Is the fact that he's only killing evil people really of that much use? What's the cost of living as someone who has to know so much about so much evil in so many hearts? Knowledge never comes without price, and knowing evil is his tagline. When he enlists Harry Vincent, he makes it very clear that he has lost lives as he has saved them. From when is that regret coming from? What lives did he lose then? Is he saving people by damning his soul or merely prolonging the inevitable by piling corpses on another end of the scale?

If there's a character that could meaningfully start bringing these questions forth, who could ever truly get The Shadow to stop and reveal things to the audience he never would otherwise, maybe Cass could be that character. A girl who was raised to be a monster, who is treated as a monster and an aberration in-universe (and even outside of it), and turned that into a strength she uses to help others, who cares about everyone and refuses to let others be dehumanized as she was. Who better to know what lurks in the Shadow's heart?

Sometimes when I get an ask, I bullshit my way through infodump walls of text until I can structure it into something vaguely resembling a point. And sometimes, and I know it sounds crazy, but sometimes I get a very, very clear word on my mind related to it before I start writing, that almost seems to be a beacon pointing where I need to get to, and I work my way into getting there. Once you sent me an ask about crossing over The Shadow with Cassandra Cain, the word that came to mind the very second was Language.

It's an interesting relation the two have with language. Language is of course a very substantial part of Cass's character, who does not process language and linguistic development the way most people do, and instead reads body language to the point of superpower. Many stories revolve around Cass's relation to the concept of language, the help she may require from others in getting around things beyond her upbringing, and ways in which she has mastered beyond anyone's scope. Though she is mute, language is her power, what makes her what she is, and she is someone that Batman freely admits could kick his ass if she ever felt like it.

For The Shadow, language is also his power. He speaks all languages and connects allies all over the world, he is an expert ventriloquist, he is able to project his voice beyond what's physically possible, he can imitate voices perfectly to the point of being able to conduct group conversations single-handedly well enough to fool even the people whose voices he's imitating, much of his presence and terror and manipulation are done through his voice, arguably the very reason he exists in the first place is entirely because a radio actor's voice performance was so good and captivating that it tricked people into thinking the character was a real star and not just a glorified narrator. The man you cannot see, but only hear, the perfect hero for radio. And then of course the laugh, which I have a whole separate post on and which, in many ways, acts as a substitute for language in the novels. He uses the laugh so often as a substitute for statements or words, even to himself, that it's pretty much his own personal language. And language is at the core of how he deals with people, as he knows the right language to use to manipulate and move and help them. He knows what to promise, what to reveal, what to omit. He knows what to say, how to say it, when to say it. Language is the strings by which he puppeteers the world around him (and he can talk to animals, at least of one kind).

The Shadow and Cassandra Cain have mastered two different types of Language as throughly as anyone can possibly master them. The Shadow can talk a group of hardened criminals into killing themselves, Cassandra can punch a heart into stopping without killing it. The Shadow echoes his voice "through everywhere and nowhere at once" to whip crowds of thugs into frenzies, Cassandra outraces missiles and was tanking bullets as a child. The Shadow can lie and usurp lives so masterfully to fool even the families of those he's passing off as, Cassandra is a living lie detector who gleams inner conversations from miniscule reactions. The Shadow can speak every language known, Cassandra is the greatest master of the world's most universal language other than music. The two are supposedly human, but every now and then, something comes along to call that into question because of the things they can achieve. They cannot hide secrets from each other the way they do to everyone else. They are driven by a deep desire to help others, to make something out of the circumstances of their lives. To weaponize that which dictates they should be evil and monstrous into a relentless force of good.

Language is the root of understanding. And if nothing else, as impossible as a conciliation of their approaches to crimefighting may be, I think there could be an unique understanding between the two. Perhaps, and this is a bit crazier a concept but one that seems to be where I might have been heading towards all along, even Cassandra Cain finding a calling away from the frayed dynamics of the Batfamily, away from the Bat's looming presence, to become The Shadow's successor, swearing to uphold a mission of justice through non-lethal tactics while he stays on the backseat guiding her. If The Shadow could trust the safety of his agents and the protection of the innocent at the hands of someone as capable and selfless and good-natured as Cassandra, I think he'd be all too happy to be able to trust someone in such a manner, to no longer be the Master of Darkness, but instead to serve the next generation that's weaponized darkness without submerging in it. To achieve, and perhaps return, to his strongest, highest self: A disembodied voice heard, but not seen. Once again the narrator, not the star.

It's a concept I've thought about very extensively for the years I've been a Shadow fan, but now it occurs to me that, if I had to appoint a successor of The Shadow, someone who could take up the mission but shine on their own right, even improve it with the right guidance and circumstances, it would be Cassandra Cain. The Orphan, The Shadow of the Batgirl. Daughter of the greatest assassins, meant to be the world's most lethal murderer, instead pivoted to being one of it's greatest heroes, but never allowed to shine as she should. But in the darker, less restrictive and wilder world of pulp heroes, in The Shadow's world, a beacon would shine all the harder. Perfect strengths attached to perfect opposites, joined together for a greater good, unstoppable after together having weaponized that which most take for granted: the power of language to move worlds.

#replies tag #pulp heroes #comic books #the shadow #cassandra cain #batgirl #i always had a feeling that a successor to the shadow should not be modeled on batman but someone within that range #i never quite found a character i would be happy with taking that role or a similar role #aw shit i just talked myself into a new favorite character #that just so happens to be another character brimming with potential that's denied them by corporate overlords #who could have seen that coming

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trulyhumblenarcissist · 4 years

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Abourt Rei Himura and BNHA Chapter 301

Now that I've read the official release of chapter 301 I can finally try to gather my thoughts. I think this time the particular rendition of dialogues and inflections provided by Caleb Cook is more crisp and clear than usual, especially in throwing "shade" upon Endeavor as a father figure. But let's do things in order...

Title: THE WRONG WAY TO PUT OUT A FIRE - a simple, but stark message that doesn't leave space for ambiguity. There was a fire, an imminent tragedy that could and should have been avoided, but whoever tried to fix it, did it all wrong and now we have to deal with a huge arson.

CARLESS HANDLING OF FIRE, on the other hand, doesn't quite cut it for me, because it seems like everything was caused by a foolish mistake. "I was carless and now I'm in a pinch"- type of situation, while it's perfectly clear that Endeavor and Rei decided purposefully which "strategy" to use with Touya. A BAD one to say it lightly. Rei's contribution and complicity is debatable, of course, and I'll touch on this later.

Let me get this clear though: I'm not trying in any way to critique the hard work of unofficial translators. I can't say anything relevant because I'm not a translator in the first place (I can barely understand English and my native language on a good day) and also because I am so grateful for everything they do in order to give us really good material FREE OF CHARGE basically a second after the release in Japan. I'm just interested about the different shades of subtext we can catch if we read the story through multiple filters. Every translation is unique because it carries the personal spin of the author even if the bias should be inexistent or ideally undetectable...

However, back to the chapter

REI'S CAGE

The first scene opens on a luxurious classic Japanese villa, with Enji, Rei and her parents discussing the motivation behind Enji's proposal. Or at least we initially think that's what's going on... Because in reality Rei's family couldn't care less about the motivation. Everything these people see is a wealthy, famous guy the next number one hero ready to take their daughter in marriage. I guess the Himuras are pretty broke, thight on cash, their old prestige is definitely gone and all they can do to save themselves from shame and poverty is "to sell" their only remaining asset.

During the whole ordeal, Rei is standing still, silent, cold as ice. She knows she doesn't really have a choice. How mortifying and sad is this? An adult, capable woman has no agency whatsoever, she is used again and again and she stoically accepts this treatment from every single dominant figure in her life until she can't be stoic anymore. I really hope Horikoshi's going to give her a much more proactive role in saving her family and it seems the narrative wants us to expect this type of character development.

I'd like to point out 2 panels in particular:

First one

In this scene the Todorokis are back from their trip to the doc, who clearly said they shouldn't try to conceive a child with a perfect quirk mix because it is dangerous (and morally questionable too). Rei understands this fact and tries to dissuade Enji, but he doesn't listen, because he's projecting all his pent-up resentment and frustration onto Touya. He knows how it feels to crush against an unbreakable wall, since he can't surpass All might and his son can't too. He had to learn this truth the hard way, so Touya needs to do the same. Enji is purposefully throwing upon his son years of failures, self consciousness and despair, just because the boy has to get it into his thick skull that he is a dud, just like his father. This is not a hopeless dad making a mistake bona fide, this is a broken man trying to destroy his self reflection by proxy, annihilating everything Touya is, swiping the kid's identity under the rug. He describes his son's dreams and sadness as something birthed from stubbornness. He is auto-convincing himself however (because Endeavor is not stupid). A little bit later he's basically saying: "Touya let's play make believe! We can go on like everything I had engulfed in your psyche never existed, you're a failed attempt so you don't exist. Your needs and wants are silly and useless, nothing worth dealing with now that I can't make you my prodigy. Why don't you go play with the other failures so that I don't have to look at myself while taking actually care of you. I don't want to see you, because it's too painful, because you're a remainder of my own inadequacy."

Note: If you want to read an incredibly well done analysis about Endeavor's motives and psyche, you can get it on @thyandrawrites , she's dwelt on everything extensively and way better than me.

I really want to talk about Rei though. In the panel I showed above, her expression is a bit tricky to analyse. At first she is very vocal about her position. She doesn't want to put Touya through useless suffering, especially since they have a scientific reason not to. They have no guarantee of success with other children, besides, they could possibly have to deal with other health related issues. However, all it takes to convince her in the end is Enji's half assed attempt at the "It's for Touya's sake" shtick. Is it really? Why doesn't she question her husband anymore?

Well... I think before Natsuo, she was probably hoping Touya would let go "naturally", with time and growth, maybe by taking interest in his other siblings. Rei said she wanted to have more children because in her mind they would have supported and loved each other. Maybe she was naive enough to think that a big family full of kids few years apart from each other was all Touya needed to distract himself from his purposes... BUT and here is the point I want to get across: She was deluding herself too, much like Enji. The ugly truth, in my opinion, is that Rei is a person prone to protect herself by going with everything other people want, especially if said people are capable of hurting her. Yes, she was hurt time and time again, but what would have happened if she really tried to stop Enji?

What I am trying to say is that Rei is the kind of person who endures to survive. She holds a "captive" mentality in which, by indulging her captor's desires, she can continue living with less possibile damage. If I stay still and silent, if I don't make a scene, I can go on, I can hold onto the few things I have that actually make me happy.

Let's think about it... Enji was so obsessed with his psychotic, power-hungry quest that he would have probably disown Rei. She would have been thrown away for a more compliant woman with an ice quirk, or something similar, this resulting in her probably losing everything, the respect and love of her family (the Himuras) and also her own children. Because we know Endeavor can definitely hold a grudge and is vendicative.

So, clarifying, Rei doesn't put up a fight because she is scared for herself in a way... She is scared to be hurt in the worst possible way (by losing her little bit of serenity), so her strategy is to endure and to keep up a facade of control and purpose.

Rei, ironically just like Touya and other characters in mha, doesn't really get what unconditional love is. Her family loves her until she can be useful to the Himura name and status, her husband loves her for her quirk. Her children, however, love her for who she is and she wants to stay with them... Only to be forced to leave them later anyway.

The few times Rei actually smiles are when she is with her babies. She is a deeply loving mother in her core, but her declining mental health makes her a very lacking caregiver.

This panel, in my opinion, shows the point of no return for Rei. She can't keep the glacial facade forever...

After Natsuo's turn to be deemed a failure, Endeavor is crazier than ever, because All Might is as popular and loved as ever and he hasn't make any progress into his eugenetic games. The last two images of Rei are very telling. She is exhausted, but she knows what her husband wants from her this time too. She looks like a lifeless doll and honestly I can easily see Shouto's conception as... Non consensual and I will stop here.

Then Shouto is born, the last, perfect specimen... And Rei isn't doing much for Touya, we can see she's apparently blind towards her eldest son's distress already after Natsuo's birth... But why?

Because she is actively avoiding to face the Touya's problems too.

If Touya is still suffering, is still feeling stressed and worthless, then everything Rei has endured, everything she pretended not to feel for the sake of her family has been completely useless. What Rei cannot look at is her own parental failure, is the concrete proof that while protecting herself and her peace she did not protect her children too, because the two interests were never really aligned, even if she really believed so. She never had a functional family to preserve in the first place and everything she accepted to do was all for the sake of a false sense of belonging.

However is too easy to say she should've rebelled against Enji and dumped his sorry ass. Abuse traps you and your abuser too in a cage tricky to escape.

What I imagine will happen next chapter is one of two things:

Enji stops Touya by using brute force, probably also saying something really scarring to reinforce the notion that Shouto is the only child he cares about.

Rei stops Touya by using her quirk. This act could be considered by Touya another confirmation that even his mother actually does something by her own accord only when Shouto's safety is at risk

Necessary conclusions

I don't blame Rei for her actions too much. She is a victim turned abuser by circumstances, but more importantly she's actually taken mesures to prevent herself from hurting her children again. She's trying to heal for her family's sake, really this time. Ten years spent dealing with guilt and having actual therapy seem a good plan to me. And now she's the one ready to snap Enji back to reality.

Enji, on the other hand, is trying too. It's too little too late, but if he stops avoiding reality and hardly works on understanding his family's point of view I don't think he is completely unredeemable. I don't see him surviving his last confrontation with Touya, thought... But I could be totally wrong.

Obviously everything I've said it's my personal analysis on Rei's character, as I interpret her actions and words, so feel free to contradict me and/or to add anything you might see fit.

#bnha301 #bnha meta #mha #my hero academia #todoroki enji #endevor #todoroki rei #rei himura #todoroki family #tw abuse

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franniebanana · 3 years

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CQL Rewatch - Ep 21

Note: I will be critical of Jiang Cheng in these posts. If you can’t handle that, please feel free to scroll on.

I really like this hug. I mean, if you've been reading these from the beginning, you know how much I love wangxian, but I'm really glad that Wei Ying's first actual hug after returning from the Burial Mounds is with Jiang Yanli. I'm not counting the hug with Jiang Cheng, because Wei Ying didn't hug him back. That hug was thrust upon him and he did not reciprocate. This reunion is very sweet, and tear-filled, and if I hadn't been up since 3 am, I might be feeling enough to shed a tear, myself. That being said, it's hilarious how they keep showing Jiang Cheng in the middle, looking awkward as he tries to balance joy and sadness. I get what the director had in mind, but it just looks weird lol.

But this part is also super sad, because Wei Ying again makes a promise he can't keep: that the three of them will be together forever. Now, I realize that if you hadn't read the novel or weren't familiar with the story, you should already know from the first two episodes that things do not turn out well for the three of them. However, if you're like me and have the memory of a goldfish, you probably didn't realize who everyone was in the first two episodes and even if you did, you've already forgotten long ago that Jiang Cheng was pissy and angry around Wei Wuxian and that Wei Wuxian's inner monologue reveals to us that JIang Yanli is dead. All that being said, his line about staying together forever hits a lot differently when you're very aware of how the story turns out, because Jiang Yanli dies, Jiang Cheng grows to hate Wei Wuxian more and more every day, and Wei Wuxian, of course, defects to save the Wens from slaughter. I think "let's stay together forever" is something you say and mean, but something that you know can't ever truly be. I think Jiang Yanli is old and wise enough to know that she will eventually marry and leave Lotus Pier, even though she will resist it for a while. The rest is uncertain, but I think at this point, Wei Wuxian really does believe and want to stay with the Yunmeng siblings and to stay at Jiang Cheng's side as he leads the Yunmeng Jiang Sect.

I will never not be heartbroken by this scene--even knowing how everything turns out--by how Lan Wangji looks at Wei Wuxian, how if things had been different in Yiling, he would have gone into that room and greeted him, how Wei Wuxian would have smiled at him and beckoned him inside, how they would have sat and Wei Wuxian would have talked Lan Wangji's ear off, like old friends. It's just so upsetting to me, and I can't ever shake that feeling in the pit of my stomach. I know what happens, but these two episodes, until they reconcile, really get to me. It's a horrible feeling when you want to help someone, but they don't see it as helping, and they only get upset with you. I deal with that on an almost daily basis, and I wouldn't wish that feeling on anyone. I really identify with Lan Wangji here, and I think that's why I get such a visceral reaction to seeing him like this.

I don't know if I've said this, but Lan Wangji is my favorite character in CQL and in every adaptation of this story. He is kind of my perfect character--he checks off all the boxes: one-sided love, pining, standing by the main character no matter what, practically abandoning his own family for the person he loves. I love that he has an almost child-like innocence, but he's still very wise; he's smart; he's strong; he has a strict moral code and he sticks to it without fail, even if it means going against his friends and family; he's a loner, but he loves deeply. When I first started watching the donghua and reading the novel, I liked Wei Wuxian the best, and he's still my second favorite character, but Lan Wangji has stolen my heart.

Of course, Wei Wuxian goes to this awkward dinner party, after spending three months around ghosts (and then killing a shit-ton of Wen soldiers), and all he can think about is that empty seat behind him, the one where Lan Wangji should be sitting. It's interesting how the Yunmeng siblings each react: Jiang Yanli starts to become concerned and commits it to memory. She's probably wondering why Lan Wangji isn't there, and then seeing how Wei Wuxian wistfully stares at the empty seat, she finds it even more unsettling. Jiang Cheng just seems embarrassed by Wei Wuxian here and his motivation is to get Wei Wuxian back on track so he doesn't make fools of the Yunmeng Jiang Sect in front of the other leaders. He obviously knows what happened between Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, and I don't think he's bothered by it at all. He doesn't seem to care whether they're friends or not, and I'd say that even at this point, he'd prefer if Lan Wangji stayed out of Wei Wuxian's life altogether. He knows how close they were, and I think he also knows that Wei Wuxian would choose Lan Wangji over him if given that ultimatum. With Lan Wangji out of the picture, Jiang Cheng gets to maintain more control over Wei Wuxian than he otherwise would. Even later on at Lotus Pier, he wants Wei Wuxian around, helping him, being his right-hand man. He doesn't want him wandering around the city or galavanting off with other cultivators. Granted Wei Wuxian was drinking at the time, but I don't think that invalidates my point that Jiang Cheng wants Wei Wuxian to stay in line and stay at his side where he can control him. You know, because he sees the relationship (as Wei Wuxian suggested) as the same as their two fathers: where Wei Wuxian is in a subservient role to Jiang Cheng. Mind you, that's different from seeing him as a brother, and I think, while there's some of that mixed into his other feelings, it's a very small portion.

No screenshot, but the following scene, after Wei Wuxian leaves the dinner party, Jiang Cheng follows him out. And even here, he asks what's wrong--asks if he's upset because of Lan Wangji--but then scoffs at how that could really be what's bothering him. He says something like, "Why did you come here just to be disliked by him?" I think while he gets that they have a close bond, he doesn't really understand the depth of the relationship. He's jealous of Lan Wangji, but doesn't fully understand why. Ultimately, I think Jiang Cheng, because of his parents and the way he was raised, really doesn't understand what it's like to have a good relationship with anyone. And this ignorance isn't his fault--he's a product of his parents and surroundings, and no one, including himself, has ever tried to fix this. So, without being able to really understand how relationships work, he scoffs at how Wei Wuxian could still be upset over what happened with Lan Wangji. Jiang Cheng essentially gave Wei Wuxian what he wanted in that moment, which was unconditional support to carry out his revenge, and yet Wei Wuxian is hung up on Lan Wangji not being supportive there, and in fact being in opposition to him. Jiang Cheng doesn't even really have friends, so he thinks Wei Wuxian should just get over Lan Wangji and move on with his life, but it's not that simple. Lan Wangji isn't just an acquaintance, he's not just someone that Wei Wuxian partnered up with to fight a battle or carry out a mission--he's a soulmate, a kindred spirit (if you want to go down a less romantic route).

I rarely can say anything bad about Jiang Yanli (except how she's almost always making soup), and here's another example: Chenqing. She's so far the only one who supports Wei Wuxian having a first class spiritual tool. She immediately shows interest in the flute, even encourages him to give it a name. Lan Wangji immediately sees the flute as something bad, while she's completely supportive. And this is really what Wei Wuxian needs right now, and I love her for being there. She's also about the only person he will genuinely smile around. He gives everyone else forced or fake smiles, but not Yanli. At this moment, I think he only wants to be with her, and I can't really blame him when everyone else is either opposing him or just wanting something out of him. She really is coming from a place of sympathy and comfort that's different from how the others are handling things. Lan Wangji wants to help, yes, but he tries to force it.

Imagine being in this room, listening to Jin Zixun (I'm not even sure if that's his name lol) trash talk Wei Wuxian, wanting to say something in his defense, but being unable to, not just because it's not your place to do so, but also because you're not even sure if you can defend him anymore. I think Jiang Cheng is struggling with the same. He stands up to Jin Zixun, finally getting him to shut up by saying that it's a domestic affair for the Jiang Clan and none of his fucking business, but Jiang Cheng also struggles to find excuses for Wei Wuxian. And that would certainly be difficult, because Wei Wuxian is somewhat like a stranger now. He's similar, but he's not the same Wei Wuxian that Jiang Cheng grew up with. He's really a shadow of his former self. But Lan Wangji has the added bonus of not being able to speak on his behalf because he's not even in the same clan--who is he to defend Wei Wuxian? He can't even stand with the others at the table (can't or won't, I'm not sure), so he certainly can't speak to Wei Wuxian's honor in front of all the other leaders. I'm sure the conversation back in Yiling is still running through his mind: this is a Jiang Clan affair--and to have that repeated again to someone else. That very much puts Lan Wangji in the "other" position. He's not in Wei Wuxian's clan, therefore, it's none of his business. He should care about him. He shouldn't try to protect him. He shouldn't try to guide him. But the problem is he still cares deeply about Wei Wuxian, and he wants to help him and protect him and guide him.

These scenes are always hard to watch for me (thank god for the special edition cut). It's really hard to watch the clans doing to the Wens what the Wens have done to the other clans. As if war wasn't already terrible enough, you also have what happens to the prisoners of war. In this case, Wen Qing's sect are all healers and have little to do with the war that the rest of the Wen Clan was waging on the other cultivation clans. However, they are still treated as enemies and imprisoned. It's difficult to watch the other clans, who you want to root for, making the same mistakes and transgressions as the Wens, who we are supposed to look at as the proper enemies in the story.

As we've seen a few times in this episode already, Wei Wuxian is having trouble controlling all the negative energy that's surging through him and the Yin iron, and on some of those occasions, he's touched his old wound. As he does this here, everyone looks at him, but he just looks at Lan Wangji. This is the person he cares most about in this room, the person whose heart his closest to his. I have nothing profound to say--I just like it.

And of course Lan Wangji looks right back at him. He knows Wei Wuxian best, even better than his own "brother", Jiang Cheng. He knows what happened in Xuanwu Cave, he saw the effect the sword had on him. I feel like each time they exchange glances, they are both crying out to each other, but Wei Wuxian is too stubborn to ask for help and Lan Wangji doesn't want to force the issue and strain their relationship further.

The way Lan Wangji hesitates here before saying, "I don't know," kills me. To him, it's just further proof of how Wei Wuxian is getting farther and farther from him, how the chasm between them just keeps growing. He's upset here. He doesn't know what to do. He doesn't want to force Wei Wuxian to do anything--that's against his clan rules, but more importantly, against his own ethics--yet he doesn't want to stand by and do nothing while his friend destroys himself. I think we see Lan Wangji as a character who always knows what to do, someone who always knows the right path, but here we see how that's not true at all. This is a man who is very smart, very clever, but who is also unsure of himself. He's struggling with what's right and wrong. And he consults his brother here, hoping to get a clear answer, so that he'll know what to do next, but he gets nothing of the sort.

It would have been easier for Lan Wangji if his brother has simply said, "Wei Wuxian is wrong and an enemy," but of course he's more wise than that. Nothing is black and whit, and humans cannot be judged for what's on the surface. You have to look deep inside a person, know their intentions, and then you can judge if they are doing what's right or wrong. The problem is Lan Wangji doesn't know Wei Wuxian's intentions. Months ago, he know Wei Wuxian wanted to defend the weak, protect people who couldn't protect themselves, and live by such a just moral code. But now Wei Wuxian seems like a stranger, has murdered many, many people, and has taken cruel revenge upon Wen Chao and Wang Lingjao.

What I've noticed in this episode is that Wei Wuxian will look at Lan Wangji, but he always averts his eyes fairly quickly. It's as if he's afraid if they make eye contact for too long, he'll be letting Lan Wangji in, which he does not want to do under any circumstances. Letting Lan Wangji in means admitting what's going on as well as opening up Lan Wangji to danger. Wei Wuxian does not want anyone else getting hurt or dying because of him, so it's better to reject everyone and focus on his own clan.

Honey, I'd walk away too. It's hard to tell if Lan Wangji is about to cry or about to punch Wei Wuxian in the mouth--either one would have been excellent, but I'm leaning towards the latter. Lan Wangji had to answer Jiang Yanli. She met him by chance, but it was she who initiated the conversation. Of course, angst rules being what they are, we had to have a misunderstanding a la Wei Wuxian walking into the conversation midway and making the asinine assumption that Lan Wangji was just breaking his confidence by telling her EVERYTHING. Of course, anyone who knows Lan Wangji knows he'd never do such a thing. But when Wei Wuxian's shijie comes to him, voicing her concern and asking about him, he has no choice but to empathize with her and tell her what he knows.

I really like this little exchange. Reliving the fight on the rooftop, before they were acquainted, before they were friends--before Lan Wangji fell for him. This time when he attacks, it's not about malice, it's not about breaking the rules and bringing liquor into the Cloud Recesses--it's a man, looking at the one he loves, scared out of his mind, worried that that man is going to destroy his mind and body, using a taboo cultivation method. This fight is a love letter, as far as I'm concerned. It's an act of desperation.

Also I fucking love that around four or five people have asked Wei Wuxian where Suibian is, and each time he makes up a lie: he forgot it, he isn't in the mood, he didn't bother to bring it. But when Lan Wangji asks him, he doesn't respond. He doesn't lie, he doesn't laugh it off--whatever he does, Lan Wangji will know that he's lying, and Wei Wuxian knows that.

Other episodes: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | Or just check out the #CQL Rewatch hashtag

#wangxian #wei wuxian #lan wangji #cql #the untamed #jiang cheng #jiang yanli #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #wwx #lwj #ep 21 #cql rewatch

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2n2n · 2 years

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If you could choose the ending for jshk. How would it be? Happy, sad or bettersweet? What would happen in it?

ohhh if I were to be so indulgent…..I would just want it to be complete and utter joy, really. This is a manga with a general belief system of "you shouldn't settle for less than your dream", so it would be hypocritical for it to require our characters to fall into a bittersweet ending. Everyone should always keep trying, until they finally achieve their ultimate wish. 'Giving up' is against our moral. I would want the entire timeline rerouted, and to fully unpack that original future Tsuchigomori saw. For some reason, that was what was on the books…. so that has to in some way, be the 'authentic' timeline. I like to think it's the timeline composed of the truths of: if Tsukasa never came back, if Kou and Nene never entered the Red House, if Nene never met Amane on Tanabata, etc… just a complete uninterrupted natural timeline. No funny business other than the contained Red House imprisoning Tsukasa forever.

It would be a timeline where Amane is Nene-chan's teacher, and she's sorry for this listless older guy (Amane did not live so long ago that he would not be alive if he hadn't become a ghost.. he would be like, 55, NOW, but he could always meet Nene-chan in middle school too, and be in more like his 40s...)… who lost his twin at a young age…. wishes she could do anything for him. Nene-chan would remind him of Tsukasa, like she always does…. This Amane has also, not made it to the moon, not remotely. His simple Tanabata wish to be an astronaut does not come true-- he doesn't have a plethora of enchanted wishing-stripes given to him by a very special time-hopping girl, so his wish is meaningless, cosmically. He isn't anything close to an astronaut. This living Amane-sensei is seen by many as being some sort of ideal or happy man, some 'good timeline' but I don't think he would be, and I firmly do not believe it is 'the good timeline'… winding up a high school teacher is uhhhh… its not very impressive nor ambitious. He didn't become anything approaching his dreams. He seemingly settled for that which was possible for him to achieve. Kaii or human, I think Amane is a hopeless person, especially without either of his beloveds in his life. It's a piddly, meager life, of only existing for the sake of existing.

It's most charming to me if, somehow, by force of her feelings for Amane-sensei, Nene-chan is actually the root of all the timeline madness-- not Amane, not Tsukasa, but Nene-chan. She's our main character….she has some sort of enchanted quality…. so! I would actually like everything to ultimately be tied to her. I like Amane as this… doomed child…. and Tsukasa as his, equally doomed twin… these two just can't achieve anything on their own.

If I could choose any ending, I wish that we could do it all… that we could see Nene-chan as Amane-sensei's student… but that eventually, the final situation they turn up in is like, ah… Nene-chan becoming the twins, caretaker….? I would like to see Nene-chan living with both of the boys, making sure firsthand that their lives are happy…. I wish she could insist on the importance of Tsukasa being with Amane, too… I worry Tsukasa on his own, would too gladly leave Nene-chan and Amane alone together. I want it to be 'not good enough' for Nene…. we really love 'helped raise you' or 'grew up alongside you' romances in JSHK, lol (Sumire/Hakubo, Yako/Misaki, Akane/Aoi) so I think it'd be in AidaIro's tastes to have situations where everyone gets to kinda 'look after' each other, at some point.

I think my 'worst case scenario' is any ending where Tsukasa willingly churns himself into the soul furnace to power Amane's ideal future; its just not fair, and it would prove him right about needing to stay out of Amane's life, that existence is better without him, always, that he is no essential part of Amane's heart, that he is a burden, only, doomed to be such forever and ever, that the best he can be is DEAD. THAT WOULD CONTRADICT OUR MESSAGE!!! I want Nene-chan to know otherwise, and to fight for Tsukasa's place as much as Amane's. An advocate for these twins…. please, GOD!!! I want her to see what Amane living without Tsukasa was like…. to know that it's not fair for him to be asked to live without Tsukasa. We could return to the themes we visit in Picture Perfect… where we can't be satisfied with what paltry half-measure we have just because it's plausible. We have to dream of better, we have to want more than something just OK. Amane's life… cannot merely be, OK. You want him joyous…. you want him happy.

*picking my nose* man though, despite that I do think a lot about Akane/Aoi and the Minamotos, I think they contribute to the messages well, it's honestly impossible for me to say "where I'd like them to end up". All I really want is to see the Yugi twins and Nene-chan living successfully together. I have no idea how one saves Mitsuba, since his death doesn't even concern anything about Hanako-san >> just some guy who died, you know…. I can understand how/why Tsukasa wants to just completely flip everything asunder, and break every rule, to enable everything and anything to happen… I do not entirely know how you extricate the Minamoto family from their long, long lifetime, generations, of turmoil and self-inflicted abuse. I have no solution there. I simply want Nene-chan to use her sewing and cooking and gardening skills to raise the twins and bake them treats.

To put it simply: I want a very-very saccharine happy ending. In my mind it's a 15 year old Nene with the young boys clutching her Yukata at Tanabata.....

#avvy's JSHK

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onceuponadisembo · 3 years

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Chapters: 1/5 Fandom: 王室教師ハイネ | Oushitsu Kyoushi Haine | The Royal Tutor (Anime) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Viktor von Granzreich & Heine Wittgenstein, Viktor von Granzreich/Heine Wittgenstein Characters: Viktor von Granzreich, Heine Wittgenstein Additional Tags: Drinking, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Bad Humor, Happy Ending, Excessive Hand-Holding, anime movie canon, Staying Up Too Late, viktor just wants to spend more time teasing heine for his height, unamused heine, heine's anime past, a little bit shippy, Queerplatonic Relationships

Summary:

Viktor invites Heine to his study for wine, makes as many bad jokes as he can, and then asks to dance with him. Set after the ball that happens at the end of the anime movie.

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I'm only up to Volume 9 of the manga right now and I don't know Heine's past, so although the manga will have some influence on some parts of the story, this fic is set in the canon of the anime, and will include references to Heine's and Viktor's past based on what was shown in the anime.

I'm also putting together a (very short, somewhat shippy) playlist for this fic so if you're into that sort of thing, here it is.

FFN link.

Read the first part under the cut

In the king's study, the bottle of Niedergranzreich white wine glittered in the lamplight.

There had been drinks at the ball. The usual wine and beer, which Heine had politely declined, but there was also something from Romano – a honeyed concoction with sharp-smelling spices and an even sharper burn as it slipped down his throat. When Viktor proposed a toast with the king of Romano, Heine had found himself with a glass in hand. He was then handed another at more than a few points in the evening – and at least one of them by Viktor himself. Heine did not quite remember how many cries of Prost! to the two kingdoms there had been, and now he sat, still in his evening suit, at his usual spot by the desk, swirling yet another glass with Viktor and feeling the wine more than usual.

It was already getting late.

He was not worried; tomorrow was his rest day. But there are no breaks for a king – although this one did not seem to notice the time at all. Heine had been surprised when Viktor invited him here tonight, thinking that perhaps the king wanted a report so soon after the princes' assignment had been completed. He had been equally surprised when he saw the bottle.

"More wine?" he chided. "Are you sure?"

Viktor was already pouring the first glass. "You can always have something else if you won't join me," he had said, a mischievous gleam in his eye. "I'll send for it. Milk would be much more… age appropriate. Or what do you think?"

Heine harrumphed and took a glass.

It seemed that they were here for no reason at all. Tomorrow – or the day after – they would talk about how the princes had done, and what that could mean for the future of the Granzreich and Romano kingdoms. And although they were no longer young, nor as free with their time as they had been way back then, Heine did not mind indulging the king. Viktor may request the strangest things, but it was never without sound reason. There is always a first time for everything, though, because Heine was now starting to suspect that Viktor, too, had had more than a few at the ball.

-:-

"Eins dropped by, you know," said Viktor not long after they had clinked their glasses. "After the song."

"Oh?" said Heine, pausing as he lifted his glass. "I did not see him."

Chin in hand, Viktor hummed a sigh. "He didn't stay long. You know how children are when they grow up."

They sat in silence for a while. They had both grown up a long time ago, and far too quickly. There was still so much more to be done.

Viktor drained his glass and straightened up with a toss of his head, as if the silence were a blanket he was trying to shrug from his shoulders. "Well!" he chirped, refilling his glass. "I am glad that my sons are growing so well under your care. Shall I…?" He gestured the bottle towards Heine.

The tutor glanced into his glass. "Thank you, but I am barely halfway through."

"Take your time." Viktor settled back in his chair. "Speaking of my sons, I am already in talks with King Romano to arrange a visit to his kingdom. It is my hope that we can continue to strengthen our relationship as allies."

"And mine as well," murmured Heine. It could not be easy, as a young prince of Romano, to shoulder the high expectations of one's position while growing into one's own person. He thought of Prince Ivan, the eldest twin, who could never do enough in his father's eyes as well as his own; and of Prince Eugene, overlooked in favour of his brother and who, like his brother, expressed a disdain for "forever benchwarmer princes" at the start of their visit. The fact that the younger prince had done so even though, if all were to go according to plan, he himself would not be expected to ascend the throne, could explain why Prince Eugene had not seemed to see the point in trying for anything. The Granzreich princes could prove to be a good influence on the Romanos, if only they could spend some more time together.

A chuckle from Viktor interrupted Heine's thoughts. "What is funny?" he asked the king, his sombre musings quickly dissipating.

"I was just wondering if you also taught the princes to dance at the ball."

"Goodness, no."

"Ah. I thought so. Teaching them to sing would have been enough of a handful."

"Yes, but I cannot tell you how much I came to wish that I had blocked out a few hours, at least, to revise the basics together with them. I did not anticipate how insistent they would be." Heine took a fortifying drink from his glass. "Do you know how terrifying it is to be led around the floor by partners who do not quite know what they are doing? I was even lifted once. I was in the air."

Viktor chuckled even more. "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. I did love seeing all of you getting along so well."

"You were watching us?"

"I was watching you."

What a strange way of putting it. Heine was not sure he had heard Viktor correctly. Perhaps he should ask him repeat that, to check that he had not misheard him.

He sipped some more wine and held out his glass. "Could you top me up, please?"

-:-

"There's something I want to show you," said Viktor as he led Heine over to the lounge area. On the low table sat a strange shape, which Heine thought he recognised when Viktor removed the sheet that lay over it.

"My word," murmured Heine, venturing closer to inspect the instrument and the brassy sheen of its parts. "Is this… a phonograph?"

"Do you like it?" smiled Viktor, barely containing his delight. "It was a gift. Go on, give it a try."

"What does it play?"

"Wind it up and see for yourself."

Soon the hazy melody of a waltz undulated about the room and Heine watched Viktor hum along, fingers dancing in time to the music.

"What a tremendous invention," said Heine when the song neared its end. "It seems as if I were right in front of the orchestra."

"Yes, and listen to this." Viktor stopped the machine and switched out the cylinder. When it started up again, it sang out in a long, yearning trill.

Heine put down his wine. "This song!"

"Yes?" said Viktor, a twinkle in his eye.

The melody was haunting and the libretto solemn – far too serious to have been fully-appreciated the first time Heine had heard it. Perched next to Viktor, in oversized borrowed clothes, Heine had been certain they would be spotted among the crowded back seats. Once the show was over and he could finally relax, they spent the evening falling over each other as they butchered the most dramatic of the songs, missing the high notes and substituting their own lyrics.

"Why Viktor, had I not known any better, I would have thought that you had impeccable taste."

Viktor laughed – the same laugh from the alleyway behind the Wienner state opera house nearly thirty years ago.

-:-

Back at the desk, they talked of important things.

The latest in the national opera:

"No, don't tell me. I haven't seen it yet."

The moral discrepancies in classic childhood fables:

"I can't explain that to you, Viktor, I did not write it."

Whether or not it was possible to brew wine from carrots and bell peppers:

"I find it highly worrisome that a child would know so much about winemaking."

The bottle of wine slowly emptied out.

-:-

"And another thing," said Viktor who, at some point in the night, had ended up sprawled out next to Heine. They were down to the last few glasses, and Heine was propping himself up against the cushioned arm of the settee, trying hard to maintain a slight semblance of propriety.

"Why are we always drinking this?" Viktor squinted at his glass of wine, holding it up to the light. "It's the same wine every time ever since God knows when, always wine white- I mean white wine- from Niedergrr- Niederglan-zish."

Heine nearly slipped off the arm. Goodness gracious. Where was this coming from?

"But isn't it… isn't this your favourite?" he faltered, his head foggy. "You don't like it?"

Viktor made a sound that resembled both a hiccough and a splutter. Or perhaps it was a laugh. Heine could not tell at this point. "I do like it, but people get tired of favourites, Herr Professor. Even Lich… Leonhard. Would hesitate at the idea of eating sacher torte for every meal.

"I wouldn't be so sure," muttered Heine. Then, struggling with the plush upholstery, he pulled himself into a slightly less crooked sitting position. "But Viktor, you are being unfair. You were the one who brought this wine. And it was supposed to be my turn."

"Oh, don't worry about that. It's a special occasion."

"You must let me bring the next one." Heine racked his brains for all the good wines he had ever tried or heard of, but the memories seemed to have left him for the moment. "We could try… red wine?"

"Hmm?" Viktor tilted his head.

"From… Obergranzreich?"

"Interesting proposal," said Viktor, "considering their viticulture is not what it used to be."

"Hintergranzreich, then."

Viktor snorted. "You are making things up."

"And you were making a fuss over something that could have been so easily resolved," retorted Heine. "Why didn't you tell me sooner? If I had known, I would have looked around town and found something new, or checked with the chefs for recommendations – anything, if only you had asked."

Viktor leaned back to look at the tutor and smiled fondly. "That's just like you. I know I can always rely on you. You're a good friend, Heine."

Heine took a sip from his glass. "Though you tend to ask for the most reckless things," he said.

That was when Viktor asked him to dance.

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It's been almost exactly one year since I first watched The Royal Tutor, and I'm super excited to get this out. I already have the rest of this written out, but because it’s such a pain to upload fics to Tumblr, I’ll be uploading the rest of the chapters to AO3, and I’ll be putting just the link on Tumblr. I really want to make sure I check each chapter thoroughly, so I might take a few days to upload the next one. In the meantime - comments are appreciated and I'll love you forever.

#the royal tutor #oushitsu kyoushi haine #oushitsu kyoushi heine #heine wittgenstein #haine wittgenstein #viktor von granzreich #viktor von glanzreich #viktor von grannzreich #victor von glanzreich #victor von granzreich #victor von grannzreich #heine x viktor #write by me #fanfiction

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rachelbethhines · 4 years

Text

Tangled Salt Marathon - Secret of the Sun Drop (Part 1)

Were now at the season finale folks and it’s the beginning of the end. This is the series’ highpoint, it’s all downhill afterwards. However, while this episode is good, it’s still got flaws so let's get to it.

Summary: On Rapunzel's nineteenth birthday, Frederic tightens his grip on the Rapunzel and the kingdom, while Varian makes his move to attack.

More Indication of the Timeline

Remember, Varian said that it would be matter of months until the rocks reached the island in QfaD and today is the day that they reach it. Now Raps is saying that Frederic has been lying to her for months. At least since TWoRR, which makes more sense if you remember that that particular episode was meant to slot between QfaD and this episode.

The show has a bad habit of making the passage of time an important plot point but failing to showcase how much time has past. Showing episodes out of order didn’t help, but even more than that the audience shouldn’t have to rely on one line exposition to gain knowledge of what’s going on. The show fails to use actual visual indicators of what’s going on. There’s little visual change in seasons, next to no change in character models, and all we have are made up holidays to go by.

Also yes, Rapunzel has left a fourteen year old alone for three months. This isn’t something that can be excused. Seriously, stop trying to do so people. It just makes you look bad when you do.

Wow, Way to Victim Blame, Raps.

“Unstable”? We’re seriously going to use ableist terms to describe a grieving young teenager who’s been persecuted and neglected for months on in?

And Rapunzel knows he’s been persecuted and abandoned for months at this point. She’s read the note. She’s been attacked by same the guards that attacked him. She’s heard the rumors. She seen his father’s corpse. She has just admitted in this very spiel that Frederic has been lying. She knows how people are unfairly treated by Corona’s legal system and that ‘treason’ is a death sentence to anyone but herself.

Yet, all she can do here is whine about how all of this only affects her. This entire speech is just me, me, me, and I, I, I. Don’t tell me she’s a kind and compassionate person when her hypocrisy is made into a fundamental plot point for the season’s main conflict.

But let's get to the real reason for this little recap. It’s to create bias in the viewer.

The viewer is aware that Varian might be up to something, but Rapunzel logically, should not be. Varian technically hasn’t done anything wrong yet. The worst he’s done is feed people truth serum, which is no different than Xavier drugging folks with the mood potion. Given how Raps didn’t care about Xavier doing that she shouldn’t care about Varian doing it either, especially since it didn’t physically harm anyone. Also Varian very much is in the right to take the flower and she knows the only thing he’s going to use it for is to free his father and possibly stop the rocks. He’s been very upfront about that.

Also don’t you dare bring up the stupid reprise! Intent isn’t action. You can't condemn people for having negative thoughts. You can only condemn people for acting upon their negative impulses, which, once again, has not happened yet.

Furthermore, Rapunzel isn’t privy to Varian’s innermost thoughts and hasn’t been present for those instances where he did voice negative intent. Ergo, him singing a misplaced reprise does not excuse her behaviour.

The characters in the show treat Varian as a villain before he ever actually becomes a villian, and that’s only because the creator wants you to side with his self-insert instead of actually addressing the moral conundrums that he’s written into the show.

Does Anyone Else Besides Me Find the Glorification of Classism In the Show Disturbing?

So supposedly all of these gifts have been given to Rapunzel by the regular citizenry of Corona. There might be a few from a couple of lower nobles or royals from outside of Corona, but for the most part it’s implied that all of theses presents are from poor people.

Rapunzel is a princess. She’s literally the richest person in the whole kingdom and holds people’s lives in her hands. Giving a thoughtful gift because you like her is one thing, paying tribute to her very existence just because she technically owns you is another.

Keep in mind people have been brainwashed for nearly two decades to worship Rapunzel. They’ve made a holiday out of her birthday. Later on we see the townspeople defend the King even when it’s been proven that he’s done them wrong. They follow Rapunzel blindly through out season three. ect.

The people of Corona are dangerously loyal to feudalism, royalty, and authoritarian rule long past sanity, and given the other authoritarian messages in the show, it takes what is meant to be a sweet scene of a girl who grew up with nothing suddenly gaining acceptance and turns it into a creepy endorsement of the class system.

More Evidence that Frederic is the Worst

This scene makes it clear that Frederic is the one who is threatening Cassandra here, not her dad. It was never Cap who held the convent thing over her head. Now you can hold Cap accountable for choosing loyalty to the crown and his job over his daughter’s well being, but that is one of the few things that is actually addressed in the show, in this very episode in fact, so why would you?

Also, why only now? Frederic has known about Cassandra’s involvement since TWoRR when he first read Rapunzel’s diary. It’s strange he’d go out of his way to silence Varian for months on in but waits until the last episode to persecute Rapunzel’s bestie. You could argue that maybe he didn’t wanna risk tipping off Rapunzel but then why didn’t this happen during TAR instead?

Once again the writer is playing favorites in order to create bias. It’d be suddenly a lot harder to excuse Frederic if he was hunting down Cass along side Varian as she’s a main character and you couldn’t keep that as a ‘read between the lines’ scenario. Which, incidentally, is why we never get a Varian focused episode to show his time on the run. You couldn’t get away with having the main character siding with your dictator self-insert if you actually visually showed him persecuting a helpless child.

Don’t Expect This to Go Anywhere

Rapunzel is rightly angry about this clear abuse, but then never brings it up ever again. It’s completely forgotten about after this point. Frederic is never held accountable for his actions.

This is the Point Where Varian Actually Becomes a Villian

Not the flower, not the truth serum, not the damn reprise, but here. This is the point where his actions cross the line. Violence, particularly violence against people who aren’t currently hurting you, is wrong. Varian is a villain, he does do bad things, and I’m not going to ignore that.

However, knowing where, when, how, and why he becomes a villain is extremely important in not only understanding the story but in also navigating the moral minefield that is this show.

Because Varian is still the victim even as he slides into the role the antagonist. There’s been no change in the power dynamics. His life is still under threat from the king. Every action he takes is a step to either free his father and/or defend himself from a corrupt government that would see him hanged just for daring to defy it’s dictator.

People defend Varian to this day, not because he has a tragic backstory, but because he’s been forced into a dangerous situation with little way out. There’s nothing else he could have done that wouldn’t have lead to his eventual untimely death. Because indirect violence is still violence. Frederic is no less evil just because Varian fights against the king’s indirect violence with direct violence.

Varian’s Life was Forfeit the Moment He was Turned Away During the Storm and This is the Show Confirming That

This is a grown man, with all the power in the world, threatening a child. A child who he has cannonly persecuted for three months before this incident. A child that was neglected by Rapunzel despite him being her responsibility.

Any excuse you give to defend either Frederic or Rapunzel is already made invalid by the simple fact that they are both adults and Varian is not. They are both in charge here, not the fourteen year old.

We do not hold people under legal voting age to the same standards as adults for two simple reasons. One, they are powerless in making the laws that they are accused of breaking, and two, they haven’t reached the point of development where they can take care of themselves and be expected to make rational decisions within a functioning society. Now we could have an argument all day long about the pros and cons of when the rights and responsibilities of adulthood should be granted to people (16?18?21?), but at fourteen/fifteen, Varian isn’t there yet regardless.

You can not in any good moral consciousness hold people lacking rights to the same responsibilities as those with rights.

That isn’t to say that kids can’t do bad things. They obviously can and have before. But when enacting judgement and the punishment that goes along with that, you have to keep their lack of rights in mind and make the sentence proportional to both their age, circumstances, and their crime. This is why courts that try teens as adults are absolutely vile. I do not care what crime they commited, you don’t do that.

I’m not criticizing Rapunzel and Frederic here because I personally dislike them or something. I’m criticizing them because I’m opposed to the messages that they become mouthpieces for. When you defend these two characters you defend their stance to persecute and abuse a child. Ergo, you spout the same authoritarian beliefs that are currently tearing my country apart and I will hold you accountable for it.

Like them all you want, but liking a character does not mean blindly going along with their bullshit.

This Still Abuse

In fact it’s the same abuse that Gothel did to her. It was wrong then and it’s wrong now and there’s no excuse for that.

What a lot of people don’t seem to understand is that you can be both a victim and a bully at the same time. What differentiates Rapunzel, Frederic, and Varian from one other is their level of respective power in the situation and how their trauma actually impacts the rationale behind their actions.

Frederic is the most accountable in this whole conflict because he’s the one with the most power and because his personal trauma isn’t grounds for what he does. They’re a reason that’s been given, but past trauma isn’t an excuse to hurt others who had nothing to do with that trauma. He is, ultimately the instigator of all of the conflicts in season one.

Rapunzel is not as accountable, but she’s not entirely blameless either. As both an adult and a princess, Rapunzel held the power to save Varian and stop things from getting this far and she choose not to do so. Rapunzel’s trauma is a reason for why she fails in her responsibility but it’s still not an excuse as Varian has nothing to do with her personal insecurities. He’s not responsible for getting her to fix her shit and had he done nothing she would have continued on ignoring both his and her own problems. Frederic’s abuse would have still been there with or without the black rocks or Varian’s involvement. She’s not deserving of how her father treats her, but neither is Varian deserving of how she treats him.

Varian is the least accountable. Sure there are somethings that he does wrong, but as a child he holds no power in the situation. His only means of fighting back is his own intelligence, but being the smartest person in the room isn’t necessarily a power imbalance. Also his trauma is currently ongoing and his actions are directly tied into making his abusers stop. Because yeah, both Frederic and Rapunzel are abusive to Varian. Neglect is a form of abuse.

Eugene is the Only Person in this Situation with the Right Response, Shame It Won’t Amount to Anything

After all this, Eugene has no reason to ever trust Frederic again. Neither does Rapunzel, nor the rest of kingdom. He should have been shunned from here on after. This isn’t promoting ‘cancel culture’ or whatever, this is acknowledging that ‘forgiveness’ isn’t and shouldn’t be a shield from the personal consequences for your actions.

But Frederic is the Creator’s Self-Insert and Therein Lies the Problem

I keep calling Frederic the creator’s self-insert not because I’m making assumptions or accusations but because this is something that Chris has admitted to publicly on numerous occasions. If you want a reference than just check out his interview during D23.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ECeflBTS58

There’s also more confirmation on his twitter and in other interviews. Though I’d personally recommend that younger fans stay away from him and his twitter, given his past behavior. (more on this later)

Chris has also publicly made excuses whenever criticism of Frederic has reached him. The same excuses that he then puts into the show itself. That’s why he and the show is so desperate for Varian to be the hated villain instead and goes out of its way to create a bias in how characters and conflicts are presented.

Look, having a self-insert or a character you relate to isn’t in of itself a bad thing. Nor does having such a character mean that you personally avocate all that they do. I mean Varian is my favorite character in the show, partly because I’m a political activist, but that doesn’t mean that I approve of attacking government officials in their homes or something. Yet, if you want to make your self-insert likable to the audience then why on earth would make them an abusive dictator and then never hold them accountable to that?

I cannot say what goes through Chris’s mind nor what his actual beliefs are, but the very fact that show won’t acknowledge corruption for what it is and constantly excuses abusers is worrisome enough on its own. It either means that Chris is woefully incompetent, actually encourages authoritarian thought, or some combination of both. Add in his bullying of younger fans, to the point where his was kicked off the Tangled discord, and what is left is not a flattering picture of the man.

The Show Completely Assassinates Arianna’s Character Here

You’re telling me that the Queen has no power? You’re telling me that the only mother in the show is going to stand aside and do nothing while her only daughter, who has been missing for 18 years, is abused? You’re telling me that Arianna only exists in the story to excuse her husband’s actions? You’re telling me that this ‘strong, independent, badass’ woman you co-opted from the movie is only here to be subservient to a man and you’re going to act like this is a good and noble thing, that it’s ‘true love’? You’re telling me that if she’s not only willing to do this, right now, then she apparently has done it before in his 18 long years reign of terror and oppression?

Fuck whoever wrote this! This is an insulting to women everywhere and a slap in the face to people who were actually victims of abuse.

This is Enabling Abuse, Don’t Do This!

BULLSHIT!!!

This is the line abusers feed their victims all the damn time!!!

The movie smartly made the decision to keep Gothel’s personal feelings towards Rapunzel ambiguous. That’s why she is one of the best villains in Disney history. If we only look at the movie than she may have ‘loved’ Rapunzel too. Who knows? It doesn’t matter.

Abuse Is Abuse Regardless of the Abuser’s Reasons or Personal Feelings Towards Their Victim

Many abusers think that they love their victims. It’s a lie that they sell to both themselves and their victims. But it’s a twisted, toxic, and possessive ‘love’ that doesn’t actually care for and respect it’s recipient. Ergo, not love at all.

There’s not enough words to express my disgust with this exchange. There are children watching this. It’s directed right at them and sadly, yes, there are undoubtedly some watching who are trapped in abusive homes. The show just reinforced the beliefs of those abusers and helped to keep those children trapped in that situation by confirming what they’ve already been taught.

This is beyond irresponsible, and someone higher up should have stepped in before this. It’s clear that this show lacked any sort of real oversight. You have a million dollar series being showrunned by two newbie producers with zero writing credit and no one thought that there should maybe be a senior executive and editor involved?

That’s Not Enough

Admitting that something is wrong, right after excusing it, isn’t enough. You need to show the characters taking action and changing their ways. If Arianna truly believes that this ‘isn’t right’ then why does she not do anything about it after this conversation?

So What Did the King Do to Monty?

He runs off the tell the king the very thing that said king has gone to great lengths to hide and has yet to admit his involvement in. Also Monty doesn’t re-appear until after Varian blows Frederic’s cover. So what happened in between now and then? Did Frederic persecute Monty as well, lie to him, or did Monty not ever reach the King before the scandal was revealed, because any one of those answers would conflict with Monty’s actions later in the story.

Watch as Cass Forgets Her Motivation

We’re at the end of the first season and the audience is only just now getting this important insight into the deuteragonist, a reveal that’ll only be walked back on in later seasons.

If Cassandra’s whole motivation and reasoning is just to earn her father’s approval, which she does gain by the way, then how come she gives a crap about what other people besides him thinks? If being a guard is her true goal then why is she after praise from strangers constantly? You don't get praise from being a guard. It’s a thankless job and she should know that from see what her dad has to do all the time to stay in Frederic’s good graces. Also why not make her dad more central to her arc and resolution, then?

What I’m getting at is that Cassandra isn’t consistent. What she wants changes conveniently to suit the story’s needs rather than being based in any actual logical progression of events. Often flip flopping from one supposed ill-defined goal to another and back again; till in the end she winds up with no goal at all.

Set Yourself Free is the Only Point Where Rapunzel’s Arc Works

This is the only lesson that Rapunzel actually learns. How to be assertive. This is set up, is build up to throughout the season, and then culminates into this climax/reveal. For once there’s an actual resolution here to a previously established problem. A resolution that isn’t then walked back on. Rapunzel remains assertive throughout the narrative and grows no further past this point. There’s nothing else learned, even as she takes this lesson and runs it into the ground by overstepping her bounds and going into full on bully mode in later seasons.

Undermining Tension

I talked about this in What the Hair, but Cassandra conveniently ignoring orders without consequence, or even any real effort on her part, showcases that the convent was never really all that much of a threat as it was built up to be. It goes from being a ‘threat to her safety’, a basic need, to a ‘threat to her sense of belonging’, a psychological need. One is less of an immediate threat to her physical being and ergo holds less tension.

Even Hookfoot Admits He’s Useless to the Story

Look, pointing out the flaws in your story doesn’t make them any less of a flaw. I like Hoofoot, but he adds literally nothing to the series. There’s was no need to include him if you weren’t actually going to tie him to the plot. Just like Monty, Friedborg, Willow, and Axel; Hoofoot is a character who could have been exercised from the show and it wouldn’t have changed much of anything other than to give more screen time to the actual plot and main characters.

And for those who want to come at me for saying they should get rid of the tokenistic disabled rep, just remember there was no reason why Lance couldn’t have served both functions in the story. He could have been both disabled and black, while carrying all of Hookfoot’s episodes and being part of the ongoing plot. Much in the same way that Xavier and Monty should have been streamlined; combining both Lance and Hookfoot into one person would have left us with a more rounded character and a more focused show overall.

Varian Isn’t Lying Here

Look, just cause he’s the villain doesn’t mean he’s exaggerating the truth. Someone on tv tropes tried to claim that Varian was being unreasonable in accusing Frederic of ‘villfing’ him, but uh, no, that’s exactly what the king did. We got the on screen evidence for it back in Quest for Varain. It’s also true that he’s been keeping the rocks secret, lying to the populous, and has thereby endangered many of his citizens.

Cap is the Only Parent on this Show to Get Called Out, Recognize his Failings, and Actively Change His Ways....and the Show Still Messes this up by Having Cass Apologize to Him?

Cap is the best parent in the show, hands down, but that’s a very low bar to clear. What makes him the best parent is that he admits his faults and goes to great lengths to fix them. He never goes back or reverts to old ways and doesn’t offer excuses for his behavior.

But the show seems to think that you should forgive dad’s just because they’re dad’s, not because they’ve actually done anything to earn that forgiveness. That’s why Cass interrupting Cap’s apology to apologize herself doesn’t work here. She, and no other other child on this show, owes him (or any parent) such an apology and Chris can go stick a rusty nail up his butt for ever suggesting otherwise.

Oh, Look, Cassandra Getting What She Wants, Again

What is this? The fifth or sixth time now that Cass has been rewarded by the narrative? Gee, it’s almost like she doesn't really have anything to complain about in seasons two and three.

Varian isn’t Harming ‘Innocents’ Here

Remember when I said that Varian is both the victim and the villian? That’s reflected in who he actually attacks. Arianna, the guards, Cass, Eugene, ect. are all enablers for his abusers. They’ve knowingly chosen to side with a dictator who has repeatedly done unacceptable things. The guards and the main cast at least are very well aware of the truth. As to whether or not Arianna knew of the full details behind Varian’s treatment, she does know about Frederic’s past actions and has excused them for years.

That doesn’t make Varian treatment of her, or others like her, right, but Arianna isn’t blamess either.

If you’re a person with power who is attached to a system of government who goes on to uphold corruption, and remain silent in the face of that corruption, you become a part of the problem. You become the oppressor even if you’re not directly involved in the more violent events yourself or even personally hold the views of the person committing those violent acts.

A queen is responsible for a her people and she abandons that responsibility by staying with Frederic and supporting him.

Turning his Pet into a Mutant Monster is the Only Time Varian Hurts Someone Who Isn’t Involved

As I said, Varian is a villian. I’m not going to act like he doesn’t do bad things or that all of his actions are justifiable. The reason I’ve gone into great detail about Varian’s reasonings into what he does isn’t to excuse his actions; it’s to point out that ‘heroes’ are every bit as much to blame as he is.

Everyone is at fault here; not just Varian, not just the King, not just Rapunzel ect. But the show forces Varian to carry all of the blame regardless. Which is why the show fails. You can’t set up a morally complex situation like this and not follow through on it completely. Failing to do so winds up reflecting poorly upon the writers and those that try to excuse them.

Conclusion

Dang, this took forever. This is why I’m following Disney’s lead and splitting the review into two parts. Come back tomorrow, where hopefully part two will be up.

#Varian #tangled #anti-tangled #anti-rapunzel #tangled the series #rapunzel's tangled adventure #king frederic #queen arianna #cassandra

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jeanandthedreamofhorses · 4 years

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Of Gods, Monsters, and Men

“Man is by nature a social animal [...] Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society, is either a beast or a god.” - Aristotle

This diagram will make sense, I swear.

Part 1 - Humans, Gods, and Beasts

Aristotle’s tripartite system is profoundly embedded in the world of SNK.

Humans, the social animals, are the ordinary people who do not seek to make an individual mark on history, but instead live communal existences as cogs in a machine. The most important thing to them is usually the well-being of themselves and their loved ones.

They are considered weak as they do not struggle against the flow, but these very attributes are what make them human.

The vast majority of the human race fit into Aristotle’s definition of ‘social animals’, as that is the only way in which society can function. The existence of those ordinary humans, then, is worth preserving.

Those who are not social animals, but rather lead highly individual existences with the power to leave their own unique mark on the world, are Gods when viewed positively and Beasts when viewed negatively. Because they go against the flow and disrupt the status quo, they are demonised by those happy with that status quo and lionised by those who are not. In either scenario, they stand out from the crowd.

Gods are considered to be strong and special.

The apex of this specialness is symbolised in the series through its pseudo-Gods, like Ymir Fritz, and those with godlike powers like the Ackermans and titan shifters, especially Zeke and Eren.

The entirety of the Eldian race, by virtue of the power to turn into titans, can also be considered special and so are lionised as gods by the Eldian nationalists.

However, they are considered Beasts by the rest of the world because of that same uniqueness. The apex of beastliness in the series is in the titans themselves, the ultimate ‘Other’. Nothing can be as estranged from the human social community as they are, as uniquely disgusting, uniquely powerful creatures.

With this tripartite system established, however, the series deliberately complicates all three of its boundaries. To begin with, let us examine the disintegration of the boundary between Beasts and Gods.

Part 2 - The ‘Other’

Beasts and Gods are ultimately the same thing - they are an ‘Other’, defined by their lack of dependence on their community and, consequently, their status outside of it. This separate status makes them an unsocial animal, and therefore, not human. Whether this inhumanity is a good thing or a bad thing - godly or beastly - is only a matter of perspective.

There is no better proof of this than the personage of Eren Jaeger.

From the start, Eren has had no desire to be a ‘social animal’. He never catered to the opinion of the populace, and held them in outright contempt.

He wanted to accomplish everything on his own, without relying on others.

He stuck to his dream of joining the Survey Corps no matter what anyone said, and won people round to his views instead of struggling to fit theirs.

Acting this way gained Eren a reputation as either a total idiot, as in Jean’s eyes, or as an example to be followed, as Connie, Sasha and the others saw him. When Eren’s titan power was unveiled, this dichotomy escalated: where Erwin saw humanity’s greatest hope, the Military Police saw an enormous threat to peace inside the walls.

He is seen as a beast or a god, but even before his titan powers were revealed, he would never let himself be considered a nobody. The values he nurtured - independence and the strength to go against the present flow - were part of his desire to become inhuman.

It is therefore thematically appropriate that someone so fixated on the inhuman should become a titan. In his efforts to become a god, he becomes the beast he sought to vanquish. For they are one and the same - and this goes for the titans, too. Their status as an Other, not merely as a beast, is what makes them the natural enemy of humanity.

Moral doctrines that try to sort beasts from gods and drive a hard wedge between them only serve to obscure the truth.

The Church of the Walls is the best example of this exercise in futility. It reviles the titans as beasts and worships the Walls as gods for protecting them against such beasts - but the Walls themselves are titans too. The distinction between beasts and gods is thereby revealed as nothing more than a sham by the authors of public morality to keep the public in line. Indeed, how often is it the case that the devil of the new religion is the god of the old?

Like the Church of the Walls, both those who respect and revile Eren in the Final Arc observe the same truth about him in different lights: he is an Other. And they fight to the death to decide what kind of Other - a god, or a devil:

A murderer, or a messiah:

Gentle, or savage:

The fandom is no less divided over him than the characters are, each side assured of their rightness. He is either an incorrigible child or an enlightened superhuman, the most free or the most enslaved, unchanged or the most changed of all, a pit to be avoid or a height to which we might aspire. Eren is the circle that completes itself, both the best and the worst, a beast and a god. But whatever he is, he is nothing in between, nothing mediocre. He occupies extremes alone: that is what makes him special.

Eren is fundamental proof of the failure of our value systems. He is a thought experiment who manages to sit at both ends of the spectrum while neglecting the middle altogether. At this point, we may return to our diagram.

A horseshoe works much better than a straight line for our purposes. Eren sits between god and beast, good and evil, special and titan, but a world away from the multitude of humans at the centre of the horseshoe.

However, he was not always this way. His compulsion to move away from the herd is the same as ever, and that is likely what he means when he tells people he has never changed: but there was once a time when for all his efforts, he could not quite escape being a social animal.

The significance of this fact is monumental. Eren proves that the special and the human are not distinguished from birth, but that there is in fact a pathway between them. This leads us to our third part: the disintegration of the boundary between the Human and the Other.

Part 3 - The Philosopher

Like love, specialness is something you find when you’re not looking for it. Eren’s journey towards the special first began with his acceptance of his own normality.

Beforehand, behind his play at independence he longed for recognition and approval from others.

He was tired of never being taken seriously - by his neighbourhood bullies, by Mikasa, by Jean. They all dismissed him as either crazy or weak and in need of protection. He was so prone to flying out in a rage at this because they touched on his greatest insecurities - that he was really a nobody after all, and that he’d never amount to anything.

In this regard Eren had a great deal in common with Keith, who wanted above all else to prove that he was better than the rest and worthy of being admired.

This was why Keith’s story had such a big impact on Eren, and why it was placed at the end of the arc where he learns to accept being only human. One cannot become special for the sake of the approval of others. So long as you have that objective in mind, you will never be anything more than a social animal and therefore human.

It was only once Keith abandoned any hopes of being seen as special that he actually became so, when he committed the ultimate sacrifice away from the eyes of anyone living. He acted with his own conviction in his heart, and not the approval of anyone else.

So he can finally receive the title of hero - one he clearly did not expect to hear. And it is a compliment he extends to Magath, no longer feeling the need to raise himself above anyone else.

In Eren’s case, he first learned the true virtue of self-sufficiency in the crystal cave, where he saved his friends’ lives by choosing to trust in his judgement and power over everyone else’s.

Eren is shocked after his success, and the lesson does not fully sink in at first. But such sentiments as the one below...

...quickly evaporate in Eren’s next moral trial, the Serumbowl. He can no longer accept peaceful co-existence between people with different beliefs because their decisions directly threaten the lives of the people he loves. This is the moment he redirects his focus to the protection of his and his own, and in doing so renounces his care for the wider world. The revelation that he will crush that outside world into ashes reinforces his belief in this conviction as the only solution.

Thereon out, Eren embraces self-sufficiency. He chooses not to trust in his comrades and builds his power to the point that he no longer needs to take orders from anyone else. Any help he does employ - from the SC or from Zeke and his followers - is achieved through manipulation, where he is firmly in control.

He becomes self-sufficient to the extent that he even moulds the conditions of his own upbringing. It cannot be said that he is a social animal any longer. His independence allows him to surpass his humanity and become both beast and god - walking on heavenly planes in the one moment and rampaging as a skeletal monstrosity the next.

Eren passes from ordinary into special through his self-sufficiency and self-orientation. This rigid self-discipline, this self-transformation, is a practice which we might call - philosophy.

Eren?

A philosopher???

Yet this is the only way a human might become a beast or god. The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, whose works synchronise beautifully with SNK, added one crucial modification to Aristotle’s equation:

“To live alone one must be a beast or a god, says Aristotle. Leaving out the third case: one must be both - a philosopher.”

And when one really thinks about it, is the idea of Eren as philosopher so ridiculous? Summarising a philosopher as ‘one who seeks the truth’ - who has accessed more of the truth of the world than Eren? The Attack and Founding Titans give him access to literal worlds of understanding beyond the scope of any other. And although Eren is dense at the start, he grows increasingly introverted and soul-searching as the series progresses. I think it is by no means a stretch to claim that Eren has come into his own jaded sort of wisdom.

Furthermore, Eren’s restless striving for freedom, his ‘Will to Power’ in Nietzsche’s words, is so powerful that he became stronger than Mikasa could ever hope to be and hatched a plan that even Armin couldn’t predict. It is his force of will that has always allowed Eren to overcome his weaknesses. So too psychologically - his wanderlust has taken him beyond the pale of morality and so made him the series’ only real philosopher in Nietzsche’s sense of the word, as a creator of new values.

It is the drive for freedom, then, that can turn a human into a philosopher and by that means become special. The divide is that simple, that fragile. And so the monstrous Other is simply human: all too human.

Eren’s words to Ymir Fritz are the definitive illustration of this theme. Ymir, who possesses the heights of power as a pseudo-divinity, who lacks a shred of power as a slave, manages to still be human. What unites all three aspects, what allows them to co-exist, is that freedom to choose. The drive for freedom that turned Eren philosopher is what allows humans to roam into the territory of beasts and gods.

So, rather than a horseshoe, this process is best represented as a fishhook, where a pathway exists between the opposite ends of Human and Other. Through philosophy, through the discarding and creation of values, through the drive for freedom and the Will to Power, this gap can be bridged.

It is at this point we come back to the words of Eren Kruger, and consider the full weight of their meaning:

Whether an Other is a god or a beast is merely a matter of perspective - but so is the ability to become an Other in the first place. The titans of history, its movers and shakers, were not a species above and beyond. They were anyone, as human as you and me, only ones who embraced their freedom and made a courageous choice.

This is the purpose of the titans being revealed as humans. This is the purpose of the whole concept of titan shifting, where even such social animals as Reiner and Annie are elevated to the level of the special. This is the reason why mere humans are able to successfully combat the titan Others through their own skill and ingenuity. This is why our heroes possess such manifold weaknesses and flaws, to remind us that even people as average as Eren, as scrawny as Armin, and as cowardly as Jean were able to become special by choosing the Survey Corps - that is to say, by choosing freedom.

The world we inhabit is a sordid one. It’s sickening seeing the levels of cowardice people exhibit in all aspects of their lives. “I would help you, but...I would stand up to them, but...I would do something about it, but...” etc, etc, and people make excuses to run away from their problems every time. It’s enough to hate the world and everyone in it.

The message SNK delivers is able to restore this dwindling faith. Because no matter how disgusting human behaviour can be sometimes, in others and in ourselves, within every single human is the potential to become as beautiful as the characters we admire - to become someone special. A little bit of courage is all it takes.

That, to me, is what makes humanity worth something. Because it is through that metamorphosis into the special that we fulfil our function as human beings: creatures which have the choice to remain within their humanity or transcend it. Just possessing that potential is enough to make humanity a gorgeous species - and so, before accomplishing anything, Carla could value Eren simply for being born into this world. He doesn’t have to be better than anyone else, because it is a power we all possess.

This human potential to become both god and beast is what prevents the world from boring us to death. The beasts make it cruel, and the gods make it beautiful. And with gods and beasts being one and the same, there can be no world that is beautiful without cruelty, or cruel without beauty.

#shingeki no kyojin #snk meta #eren jaeger #eren yeager #friedrich nietzsche #aristotle #keith shadis #carla jaeger #reiner braun #annie leonhart #eren kruger

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decayandfanfics · 3 years

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The great book of sayings

PAIRINGS: Tomura Shigaraki x FemReader

SUMMARY: He looks at you, his scarlet eyes fixed on yours, burning a hole through your head, every bit the predator he is, but you are as tough as it gets, so, against your better judgment and any well-founded logic, you answer his silent threat, the animalistic look he gives you with nothing less than a fearless smirk, irises burrowing into his pupils.A clever girl. He thinks, finally labeling you inside his head, cursing himself in the very moment he allows his brain to think of you as more than an asset. He is sure (he knows himself enough to know) he’ll think of this moment many times from now on.A clever pretty girl.

Reader is a typical college student until she gets herself tangled with the league of villains.

WARNINGS: Unhealthy/complicated relationships, violence, Tomura being Tomura, mentions of murder, heroes’ abuse of power, smut later.

A/N: I’m trying so hard to write crusty boy here really in character. At least after AfO is taken. Any misspelled words, english is not my native language so i’m trying Helen.

__________________________________________________________

Chapter 5 / Chapter 6

Honesty is the best policy.

She’s odd.

And that’s rich coming from him.

She’s weird in a soft homely way. In the way she speaks kindly but firm, always minding her own business, but pretty aware of everything is happening inside her little apartment.

He watches her taking notes, reading something in her laptop, fully concentrated. A bunch of colored highlights and sticky notes spreading in the study her study space, in a corner of her room.

It’s funny how after an hour or so she melts in the chair and begins to cry quietly hiding her face on her hands.

Five minutes later the alarm goes off, she stands up, washes her face and resumes her task.

What the fuck?

It’s not like he cares for her or what she feels, but that little display is so fucking weird, it caught his attention, so he asks.

“why are you crying?”

“I’m not crying.” She says with a serene smile painted in her face.

“Liar. you were crying like...five minutes ago.”

I don’t appreciate liars. He thinks briefly.

“oh, that…I always cry when I study.”

“…why?” he’s completely confused at her explanation because it doesn’t match her tranquil face.

“because I’m stressed and I’m finding difficult to understand this topic, I grow desperate. So, I cry.”

He looks at her like she grew another head.

“…you cry when you are stressed?”

“When I’m college stressed, yes. I mean…college does that to you, to everybody. Half of my class is on anxiolytics.”

“are you on anxiolytics?” he asks more and more confused.

She laughs lighthearted.

“no, I don’t have the money to pay for a psychiatrist. But I manage…Tons of coffee and programed crying while I study does it good for me.”

Tomura looks at her puzzled. He rarely thought about what it is to be twenty something and have a normal life. This is not what he had in mind.

She keeps taking notes in complete silence, a picture of a nasty fracture with some screws attached on her screen, but she seems pretty okay with the gory part of her task.

“Why did you want to become a doctor?” he interrupts her again.

“hmmm…I guess I wanted to save people.”

“like a hero?” He asks, snarling the word.

“maybe, I think my concept of heroes might be different from yours.” She states keeping her eyes glued to the screen.

“how so?” he eyes her, suspicious.

“I think that hero es a very big word, like doctor. People call physicians doctors, but the true meaning is someone who has a PHD.”

“and…?”

“and you have these “heroes” who go saving the day because is their profession, but the true meaning of the word doesn’t have anything to do with agencies and schools. A hero is someone who helps others but does it by incarnating important traits for the ones he saves.”

“Traits?”

“yes, traits. Like…I can be saved for a so-called hero, but if he’s not kind in the meanwhile, I wouldn’t think of it as much as heroic. That’s why anyone can be a hero to someone else, and at the same time not all heroes are heroes for everybody. It’s the same for villains.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, it depends on your own morals and needs. You could kill a man tomorrow and people would say you are a monster, and then find out he was violent to his wife and children, and somehow now you are a little boy’s hero because you freed him from his monstrous father.”

“You think evil is in the eye of the beholder?”

“Not evil perse, there are things that are just wrong, but I think villainy and heroics are a matter of perspective.”

He waits before asking the next.

“and what’s your perspective?”

She brushes off the answer like is nothing. Like his heart is not pounding heavily inside his cage, fixed in her expression trying to grasp any lie in her statement.

“It has to do with politics, to be honest. I think right now, a very specific part of heroes is being super idolized. The ones who fight are treated like royalty by the government, paying them with our taxes, when that money could be used for rehab, hospitals or mental illness treatment. You see, thieves and murderers are not a factor, but a product of lack of opportunities. Monsters are made, not born. Of course, there are evil people, psychopaths and all that, but they are a minority. So, we pay Endeavor tons of money for him to fight with some random criminal every week, meanwhile children are starving in the streets, then those same children turn to violence and crime and who’s fault is that? But it’s okay, we can always pay some random dude in a leotard to beat the shit out of them. I mean, I had the opportunity of an education that will allow me to live pretty well-off tomorrow, but how many people has that? I cannot ask a person who grew up in a violent environment, poverty or homeless to be well adjusted, because morals are a luxury when you are hungry, and there are so many ways to starve a child. Not only food, but guidance, care, and love, but you cannot measure it in numbers, so no one cares.”

He looks at her aghast. Something warm feeling the hole in his chest.

She looks so pretty when she talks like this. Full of resolve, her brilliance shining through her clear opinions.

“do you hate heroes?” he asks full of something akin to hope.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Shigaraki, but no. I don’t hate them. If anything, I feel sorry for them, because they have this massive impossible task of trying to save everyone, which is simply not accomplishable, meanwhile society keeps rolling over everything wrong like it’s not everybody’s business. I mean, it’s not Hawks or Endeavor, even All might’s obligation to care for the poor, the ill and the abandoned. That’s what’s the government is for.”

He licks his lips absentminded, thinking about her words for a moment. The great difference between them plainly obvious to him now.

She’s partial, compassionated and well adjusted to the model despite everything she knows. So, she works with what she has. Meanwhile he is an absolutist, he knows that. He doesn’t have in him the nerve to do anything in half. That’s why he hates and craves destruction as the only meaning to achieve his goal. As an outcast, he knows he’s every bit the monster society make him be and they all will pay for the life he didn’t got the chance to have.

Still, he takes what she offers as he always does. Her knowledge now saved like some advice, a confirmation of everything he wants to destroy.

A smile stretches across his face, his ruby eyes memorizing the curve or her cheeks.

Pretty when she smiles. He thinks, a self-indulgent thought he will allow for now.

“what?” she asks suddenly nervous, color rising to her ears out of the blue.

“you know what? You could be a wonderful villain.” He tells her smiling truly amused.

“oh” she smiles back “you have no idea.”

Chapter 7

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eternalthenas · 5 years

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what bothers me the most about tros and what i’m most unable to accept is how jj managed to destroy and disrespect EVERY single character. even the ones who technically had “happy endings”🤡

ben - i feel like this one doesn’t even need to be said, but i’ll say it anyways. after years of emotional abuse from palpatine, it’s disheartening to see that jj gave no explanation as to why palpatine wanted ben (personal vendetta against the skywalkers i guess??) when it semed like he only needed rey AND that ben never really triumphed over palpatine in any way. it hurts to know that leia straight up had a vision about her son’s death but that she still seemingly gave up on him despite knowing that he was struggling and that she sent him off to train to be jedi with a luke, when apparently she could’ve done that herself. it’s disheartening that luke who believed even vader could be turned back to the light also gave up on his nephew, when he was just a boy no less. it’s disheartening that although he was the last skywalker (a fact only palpatine acknowledged!), none of his family nor his namesake reached out to help him. instead of telling the last skywalker to rise, they ignored him (as they had apparently done his whole life) in favor of a palpatine. ok. even though as the last skywalker, he really should’ve been the one to have the final kill against palpatine since it was HIS family that palpatine destroyed, he doesn’t. he’s motionless in a pit for the whole final battle. ok. that will never not leave a bad taste in my mouth. his whole family (except for han apparently i love him) gave up on him and clearly so did the writers. as a fan of the skywalkers and their story, this isn’t the ending i wanted for them. especially when luke and leia and han had given their lives to see him turn to the light. and for what? so he could be used as a plot device to conveniently bring rey back to life and then promptly die (even though they’re a force dryad and, according to jj’s own fucking canon, supposedly one) without any fanfare, emotional reaction whatsoever, or later mention? wtf? it’s disrespectful not only to ben solo, who is easily the best character in the sequel trilogy and one of the best characters in ALL of star wars, but it’s disrespectful to the entire skywalker line!! (and to adam driver, who deserved so much better than this shit. go get that oscar)

rey - by making her a palpatine, jj completely disregarded her arc. whatever your opinions about rey nobody, once they went with it, they never should’ve retconned it and turned her into a legacy character in the final film. it felt cheap. in my theater, there was no cheering about this reveal. because jj had never properly set it up and he didn’t even bother to reveal it an impactful way. but what’s most annoying about rey suddenly being a legacy character is that it completely disregards the fact that she was powerful on her OWN, without any famous blood making her that way. furthermore, by turning her into the chosen one and giving her the entire skywalker legacy (which felt like a slap in the face to the skywalkers imo), she did turn into a mary sue, one of the biggest complaints about her since day 1. she was overpowered, morally perfect, and never faced any failure. i struggled to root for her as the “hero” because i felt everything was handed to her on a silver platter. so not only did jj turn her into a mary sue and take her power away from her by turning her into a legacy, but he also destroyed the fact that her whole arc had been “seeking belonging” and a family. rather than having her final scenes be with her new found family, she ends the movie with her canon soulmate dead and no one but a droid by her side on a desert planet of all places. to add further insult to injury, she also disregards her family name even though they supposedly loved her and sacrificed themselves for her (despite the fact that they sold her but whatever) in favor of a last name of a guy she had barely known. she had more emotional connection to han or leia, but she didn’t take their last name. she took luke’s, the guy who had refused to teach her and who she had come to view in a more negative light towards the end of tlj. in this house i will not EVER be calling her rey sky- i can’t even say it🤢

finn - in all honestly, they screwed finn’s character arc in episode 1 when jj turned him into a lovesick sidekick who served as comedic relief. as a deserted stormtrooper, he could’ve had the most interesting storylines. and he should have. but apparently the writers forgot about him. although they mention his past BRIEFLY, it’s paid no real weight or attention. instead, he spends the whole movie once again trying to (possibly) confess his feeling for rey. and for what? probably just to bait finnrey fans and prove the character’s heterosexuality bc it goes absolutely nowhere. although we find out he’s force sensitive, that too is glossed over and has no lasting effect. he’s also made co general, which okay cool, but then he does nothing?? so while finn could have and should have been a main character with an interesting storyline, they turn him into your average run of the mill action hero with an occasional quip. john boyega, sweetie, i’m so sorry (but i guess that’s kind of what he wanted since he hated tlj, the only movie where he actually had a main role with any character growth?? idk)

poe - it’s once again evident that they originally intended to kill off poe bc he has no arc whatsoever. he gets a little backstory as a drug smuggler now ig, which really came out of left field considering the already established canon with his past as a pilot. he’s more of the same in this movie, except more unlikable than usual (imo). he’s still stubborn, occasionally funny, but mostly he just bickers with rey, which isn’t funny, at all necessary, and doesn’t add anything to the “trio’s” dynamic. he’s at his best when he’s with finn but then, of course, jj has to remind us of how straight he is every single scene so. another character like finn who could have been great, but with the lazy writing, he has no arc, no backstory, no character growth, so he’s just mediocrity personified and just kind of there.

zorii & jannah - both could’ve been awesome. both are just there for a brief introduction and to help the heroes with maybe one thing and that’s it. both deserved better.

the skywalkers - yeah jj really said a big fuck you to luke, leia, and anakin most of all. the WORST part of tros is the fact that it basically makes the previous six episodes useless. anakin’s redemption arc? what does it matter now? he didn’t successfully bring balance to the force. he didn’t successfully kill palpatine. and now his entire bloodline is dead. ok cool😎 thank you jj!!!! what a hopeful end to the skywalker saga!!!! i love seeing that anakin failed and wasn’t REALLY the chosen one. i love that luke and leia gave their legacy to a descendant of the guy who tried to tear apart and terrorized their family. that’s really nice. i love that anakin NEVER reached out to help his grandson who struggled with the dark just like he did. but that he came in just in time to tell palp’s granddaughter to rise😍 really hopeful, lovely ending. thanks again jj! thanks for making leia seem like a bad mother who sees visions about her son but just throws in the towel and doesn’t really try to help him?? wtf??? not my princess leia. also tros luke? truly the worst luke. i really have no other words, i’m just disappointed. jj let me down in every single way possible and ones i didn’t even realize he could.

palpatine - jj also managed to ruin the best star wars villain, a feat i didn’t even think possible. palpatine had always seemed scary to me because of his inhuman qualities. but in this one, he’s back with no explanation whatsoever. he just is. he somehow managed to survive (ok🙄) and furthermore he had a kid. what in the fuck? jj clearly read harry potter and the cursed child, but he clearly also forgot to read the reviews. NOBODY LIKES IT WHEN THE PREVIOUSLY UNTOUCHABLE/SCARY VILLAIN HAS A KID OUT OF NOWHERE. NOBODY. i seriously spent the entire movie wondering who the heck would sleep with him? that’s it. he didn’t seem menacing or at all like a threat. this movie genuinely had no stakes whatsoever (that’s why ben’s death feels so out of left field bc literally for what?! but i digress) also the final “fight” where rey kills him??? very lame. he supposedly survived all those years to be taken out like that?? no thank you, i’d like a refund.

in conclusion, thank you to jj for ruining my favorite franchise by killing off every last one of my favorite characters, destroying the skywalker legacy (& killing them off), ruining seriously every character, and leaving me with despair!!! while i’ll continue to watch star wars without including episode 9, it sucks that some of my joy is zapped from my favorite series. because this is how future generations will know star wars. with this shitty ending. and any future movies will have this canon. and that really fricking sucks. thanks, i hate it.

anyways feel free to message if you’re also in the depths of despair about how this all ended!! bc the more i think about it, the sadder/angrier i get.

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musical-chick-13 · 4 years

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Cersei Lannister for the character ask thing :)

YAY MY ALL-TIME FAVE

• Did they live up to their potential? / In what ways was their potential unachieved?

-Um...YES. I’m going to focus on show here because...the books...aren’t finished...SO. Although I do wish the end of the show had focused more on the fallout of her history with Sansa and I do wish she had been afforded a more direct confrontation with Dany, I don’t think I could have ever asked for a better villain. I started watching the show because I was told there was a hot evil lady, and I could never have imagined the utter humanity Lena brought to her or the nuance and clearly-motivated yet realistic complexities afforded to Cersei’s character. I had waited my whole life for some female character any female character to be allowed to be fucked up. To do stupid things and make mistakes and feel ugly/extreme emotions and experience internalized misogyny and have terrible coping mechanisms and be mentally ill in an ugly (as in, not cute/romanticized) way. To keep going out of spite even though she thought there was nothing to keep going for. I saw little glimmers of that early season 1, and those only got better and better as Cersei only got more and more formidable as time went on. I truly am winning the most I love her so much.

• How they negatively and positively affected the story.

-The thing here is that without Cersei, there really is no overarching story. Her relationship with Jaime is what drives the entire plot and Ned’s uncovering of the court’s corruption. Her refusal to have Robert’s child on the throne (or give birth to his child in the first place) is what causes the succession crisis that even makes everyone else’s power plays a possibility. She spurs Sansa’s development from idealistic child to jaded young adult, which is lynchpin of the whole Northern Independence arc that ultimately ends in her being crowned there. And through all of this, she is both ruthless and sympathetic. She has understandable motivations: she is tired of being treated as less-than for being a woman. She feels like her life is meaningless in such a world if she cannot have power. Power is the only way to truly be safe. She wants to protect her children. She wants her father to understand her. She wants to break herself away from her womanhood but she can’t escape it. All of these things enrich the story because they make the watcher/reader ask, “What truly makes someone evil. Is what she’s doing that much worse than what anyone else in this show does? What course of defense does she have by not being an athletic woman who can physically fight? If love makes you do terrible things, is it always a force of good? What do we allow people to get by with in the name of protecting their family? At what point does self-preservation become irredeemably villainous? How do we talk about abuse of power when the people abused are also terrible people who do terrible things?” All of these questions deal with deconstructing the idea of black and white morality, which is, I would argue, the entire point of the series. So she serves that end quite nicely. :)

• What my favorite arc for them is.

Oooh, this is a tricky one. I’m a sucker for anything that allows Cersei to go absolutely feral and I love pain, so probably her fight against the Faith Militant. They try to take absolutely everything from her. She is so blinded by the threat Margaery poses to her family’s and her stability, that she makes a not-too-well-thought-out decision. (You know, like a real person.) She loses her reputation, she gets thrown in prison, her main ally turns on her, and she goes through the Walk of Atonement, which is honestly probably the most painful thing I’ve ever fucking seen. She spends an entire season trying to pick up the pieces and it culminates in the most badass death-to-my-enemies scene I think I’ve ever seen. And to see a character pull themselves back up from the brink of complete ruin? Especially one who is severely depressed and “hysterical”? We love to see it.

• What I think of their ending.

PERFECT BEAUTIFUL AMAZING 10/10 MY GIRL DIED THE LAST QUEEN TO EVER SIT ON THE IRON THRONE DIDN’T GET BRUTALLY MURDERED AND DIED IN THE ARMS OF THE ONLY MAN SHE EVER TRULY WANTED WHO LOVED HER UNCONDITIONALLY GOD FUCKING BLESS

Personal bias aside, Jaime and Cersei were always going to die together. Jaime was never truly “redeemed,” he just became more understood. (Feeling ashamed of being ostracized and generally agreeing some of your actions were bad =/= becoming a good person who breaks ties with every unhealthy or immoral behavior you engage in.) Jaime came back to Cersei because they understand each other. And Cersei recognizes that she is about to truly lose everything. Her family, her power, her empire, her life. But in the end, she realizes that there was one glimmer of good and that she doesn’t have to lose all of those things alone. It’s a humbling, miserable death, but in very many ways it comes the way she always knew it would: at the hands of another woman, and by the side of the man who is such a part of herself that that other woman in question ceases to matter. Her last moments might be because of Daenerys, but they aren’t about her, they’re about Jaime and Cersei. The only two people. Together. Just as they’d always predicted. And then the person responsible for her death doesn’t even get to enjoy it because it came at the price of a complete loss of conscience. My fave not brutally murdered onscreen via betrayal and whose demise is because of someone who ultimately doesn’t even gain that much from her death? Beautiful, I want 500.

Cersei is terrified (which. yeah of course she is.) but she went out knowing that everything she did in her life wasn’t completely meaningless, that her pursuit of safety and security at all costs ultimately ended in someone she loved trying to comfort her. She gains that sense of comfort and self-awareness she always wanted in chasing after power, but not in the way she had ever envisioned. Not because of any specific thing she did or any specific enemy she defeated, not because of a particularly intelligent power play or who her father was or which house she aligned herself with, but simply because she loved someone who loved her and that alone was enough. In her final moments, in a way completely at odds with everything she has ever tried to do, she finally finds acceptance. The tragedy is that she can’t enjoy it longer. What a poetically sad, cathartic, fitting end to her quest for self-preservation.

• When I wish they had died. / If I think they should’ve died.

She almost, almost makes it to the end. She outlasts the White Walkers (which I think is valid because she was nowhere near the battle, and, ultimately, her primary enemy is her own penchant for self-destruction, in a way most of the other characters’ aren’t). For years she hangs on out of spite, and no human can kill her though many have tried or wanted to. Ultimately, she can’t compete with dragon WMD’s and a crumbling city. She did sort of achieve her objective. No specific person killed her. It took nonhuman entities to succeed at that. Fits in nicely with the “So you got what you wanted but not quite” theme of the series. Obviously I wish that she and Jaime could escape to Pentos with their child and live peacefully forever, but a) they would be hiding forever to prevent the people they’ve harmed (so like...the whole realm) from coming after them which I just don’t think they’d have much patience for, and b) I really don’t think Cersei would ever give up her quest for power and ruling the world because she would never feel safe or like her existence was meaningful otherwise. In order for the story to have anything remotely resembling a peaceful or happy ending for Westeros at large, she has to die. Which makes me very sad because I LOVE HER, but narrative cohesion is also a thing.

#cersei lannister #meta #(is this meta?? idk)#jaime x cersei #got #light of the west and my life #cersei meta

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