#also can i just say how Fucking Scared i was that they were just retconning the champions out of existence??

[bitchfitch]

MOTHER FUCKER SPOTTED T POSING. GAY SHIT IM GOING TO HAVE TO BANISH THE CHILD FOR TO ENSUE.

[mazzystar24]

I hope I can ask you this because I don't want to ask in the tags, I'm scared 🥹 but I've seen a lot of discourse about why tommy isn't good for buck, he's cold, the relationship is toxic etc and I was wondering why people think that? Is there anything specific that started it?

I fully believe eddie is buck's true love, endgame, whatever we want to call it and I'm sad we don't have that (yet) but I thought bucktommy was kinda fun in the meantime. I just want to understand 🫶🏻

Oh hey darling! you were so sweet and genuine in your response so please know I’m just answering what I’m asked and if you wanna enjoy and have fun with bt that is completely your prerogative but I’m just offering my perspective on it

And i am warning you this is gonna be long because I feel a constant need to go really in depth in my thoughts

Okay so idk how I’m gonna break this down but maybe I’ll do it in like main points?

Also if you’re new here whenever I use bullet points I’m just doing it cos I find it easier to chunk up my thoughts not cos I’m being curt or anything with you

1. The chimney and hen begins episodes

He wasnt just passive in the episodes and letting Gerard get away with his racist and misogynistic behaviour he ACTIVELY participated in it

This includes:

• Asking if they forgot to tip the delivery guy WHILE THEY WERE EATING CHINESE FOOD when chimney first comes up despite the fact that 1. Chimney had a big ass lafd bag 2. They were probably already told a probie would be coming 3. Probably would’ve seen the actual delivery guy 4. I would bet my absolute life that question would not have been asked if buck or bobby had walked up those stairs this wasn’t an innocent comment it WAS RACIST intentionally like the entire point of the episode was to show how bad they had it

• the New York bitchiness comment

• throwing his tools down along for hen to clean up

• going out of his way to treat them like outcasts and hating chimney before he even knew him despite chimneys efforts

• the way each of them had to “earn his respect” in some way before he acted like a normal coworker to them and this was never in the typical ‘oh it’s a new person’ type of way it always had to do with their race or in hen’s case her gender too

A defence I see a lot for this is “oh he was closeted” and honestly to me that is such bullshit because 1. Eli was perfectly capable of not participating in the racism and taking chimney under his wing without getting any shit for it and chimney is quite literally a Korean man (something he literally can’t hide) and he had just got his head above water with Gerard’s racism when hen came and he STILL was a friend to her 2. Again tommy wasn’t passive in it and just letting Gerrard be racist (which would’ve been one thing) no he actively participated in it to be part of the boys club 3. Let’s say that somehow not being a dick would’ve meant that that was a threat to the closet he was in- that is still in my opinion a fucked up sense of preservation if you spare yourself the possibility of bigotry (despite having inherent social capital by being a white man in that job) by inflicting others to bigotry

Now when Tommy was first reintroduced I was like keeping an open mind and saying okay it’s been a lot of time and maybe he has genuinely made amends because I do believe in redemption but imo they have made no attempt to show us that and had him honestly put more of the blame on Gerrard for his behaviour or the writers flat out avoiding mentioning it to retcon tommy a little and hope we forget

Another defence I see is “oh chimney and hen became friends with him so they must’ve forgave him”, hen went no contact the moment he left (something the writers went out of their way to include that line) and chimney didn’t even invite him to his wedding which was quite big after the Buckley parents got involved so it’s not like it was cos it was such a small and intimate wedding and he only called him as far as we know in those years when he needed a favor, which all means that most likely they had kinda just put it behind them and kept up a coworker relationship with him, but no actual friendship or actual forgiveness or redemption had taken place

Oh wow all that was just point one and I can probably talk more on it but I’ll just leave it with saying that Lou’s comments about it being teasing or how Tommy genuinely didn’t know hen or chimney were capable etc just makes for a worse case than saying it’s cos of being in the closet (and that is genuinely a large part of why idk much abt Lou but those comments are enough to make me hate him) and I’ll also say that poc (myself included in that) have these situations so often- situations even as specific as gay men being racist to them to fit in - and we understand the nuance and shit to it but we also understand on a deep level how it feels to be on the other side of that

And getting toxic bt fans try to come up with ways to downplay or minimise racism honestly pisses me off so much cos believe you me we have heard every excuse and downplay under the sun and I for one am sick and tired of it

2. Why he’s viewed as cold and his jokes

• literally from the small parts we saw of him and Eddie hanging out we have seen the man is in fact capable of joking and being light and having fun but around buck in particular he’s like 🧍‍♂️😐 and the occasional 🙂 like it just feels very stiff and just plain in a way

• his humour consistently falls flat and feels passive aggressive more than anything like blunt or sardonic humour DOES work like I personally love it but it’s not being written OR executed right

A. It’s always in response to genuine moments or questions such as buck talking abt the award or the daddy kink joke or henren questioning him

B. It’s the the majority of what we see from him, there is not enough balance for it

C. Lack of rapport, when friends or couples make jokes that can come off the wrong way if said to anyone else it’s cos of the rapport built already, this rapport is not established with the characters OR with the audience for these jokes to come off right

D. I gotta say this one too but the execution just isn’t right from writing to acting, it’s the same reason sardonic humour lines from Sandra oh as Cristina Yang or hugh Laurie as house still lets you like the characters and find them funny but Tommys lines come off as annoying to a lot of people

3. I think fandom discourse probably has something to do with it but not in the way you think

I’m not saying like oh ppl who ship buddie just hate him cos of the ship no I’m saying that like what takes him from an annoying disliked character to a hated character is most likely the fact that his role stirred so much drama and caused so much damage to how the fandom used to be that its turned the dial up

4. A lot of his development, lore or redeemable factors or cute things are just not canon

This may be blunt and I am sorry for that but I think his character has been blown up to such a degree that it’s genuinely shocking

Like I look at posts or get sent hate and I’m like where did any of this happen this is just not canon this is just not a show like at times I’m genuinely convinced it’s a social experiment where different ppl saw a different show like some spiderman multiverse situation

Listen I’m all for headcanons genuinely like if you wanna take extra number three and make a whole backstory and lore and cute stuff abt her I’m all for it but it’s when it’s said as if it’s fact or canon that I’m like hold up a second rewind

I think this is kinda a result of Lou’s cameos (which honestly deserves its own post but you asked why the tommy hate so imma stay on topic) and also this like need to defend the character but not having much material to work with

Like if we look at canon we can literally break down the entirety of Tommys appearances this far in the show and what we learn about him:

• chimney begins- he makes a racist comment and he tries to suck up to Gerard, there is a little hint abt his gayness with the gf comment, Eli says to chimney that’s just how they are and tries to reason it could be fear of losing friends but we see tommy having friends in the firehouse while eli says this, chimney tries to make friends with him and tommy makes no attempt to get to know him and says he’d hate him anyways, chimney saves Tommys life thus earning his respect

• hen begins- she’s met with the same racism chimney is but also met with misogyny (and homophobia but that’s not relevant to the tommy of it all), we find out chimney is still isolated from the rest despite having earnt that respect, chimney befriends hen and again tommy still doesn’t try anything like that until hen proves herself and earns his respect, ppl reported Gerard but it’s never actually stated tommy was one of those ppl so again that’s not canon that’s speculated

• bobby begins- chimney and hen both seem to be like coworker friends with tommy and Sal, Sal throws hissy fit bobby “fires” him tommy says it’s an overreaction bobby reveals it was a transfer, they all seem to make nice, tommy leaves to 217

• chimney calls tommy for help and tommy helps

• we see nothing from tommy,then cruise ship he helps the team but also in this we find out hen cut off all contact since he left

• buck takes tour of harbour, Eddie and tommy have a friendship and we find out some of Tommys interests and that he was in the army, basketball scene and the subsequent apology and kiss

• dinner date, Tommy explains how he was in the closet, Buck has his little awkward moment (which will be elaborated on in my next point) , Tommy says nothing abt it till the Uber arrives and he leaves buck

• buck reaches out and apologises and asks for a second chance inviting tommy to the madney wedding

• bachelor party and the issue of the lack of costume and not just taking the day off for neither wedding nor bachelor party (which you can reason is reasonable but also I feel like this deserves its point for the narrative choices)

• tommy shows up straight outta work they kiss buck has the soot coming out award ceremony - buck being happy abt the reward to which tommy sardonically says enjoy it while it lasts enter bigoted cunt gerard then chimney comes and insults gerard and they walk away

• we don’t see tommy again till the dinner date after Bobby nearly died and when buck tries to explain Bobbys significance to his life tommy throws the your dad is still alive which is just honestly one of his worst moments imo and I made a whole post abt it but can’t find it and then we all know the rest of that convo and I could make a bullet point for it but actually I made a whole post before so I’ll link it: here

AND THATS IT

Like all this comes down to what maybe like 30 mins screentime? If that?

5. The leaving buck on their first date

The defences people use for this are:

• buck was trying to shove him back in the closet

• buck was obviously not ready

• people angry abt this are just babying buck like he can find his own way home it’s not that big of a deal

• buck was at fault there and tommy would’ve been justified in being angry and not giving him a second chance

And honestly every last one of these are bullshit imo and lemme go point by point

• buck panicked, I don’t think that what buck was feeling in that moment can be properly described because unless you’re a queer person and you’ve experienced that like bone deep panic that like brain overload then you won’t get it

Like one it’s his first queer date

Two he doesn’t even understand his own sexuality atp

Three his closest friend just walked in in a situation that’s already putting him on edge

So he’s not only panicking he’s not understanding why he’s panicking he’s trying to make excuses eventhough part of him knows he doesn’t need one but also he doesn’t even understand this side of himself yet so he doesn’t want to have to potentially explain it

Like it’s a million things and a million emotions and no one can claim they would behave rationally or appropriately in that situation and if you say that you would you’re lying simple as that

Also then we find out that Eddie thought tommy was straight anyways

• the reason I love the buddie coming out scene is because of Eddie’s “and what do you think” line because it’s not up to tommy or anyone else whether a person is “ready” enough in their queerness to date. Full stop.

Also tommy knew it was Buck’s first date with a man and was still down so why is he using that as some sort of out

•it’s not about babying buck and it’s not about him finding his own way home it’s the fact that Tommy could’ve done it with much more grace and he could’ve been a lot nicer with it but he wasn’t, and this is again bucks first date with a man even if it doesn’t end with a second date it should at the very least not end up with him feeling like a screw up on the side of the road

• to the ppl who say that- kindly shut up cos again see the first point but also I wanna point out that somehow the ppl saying this are also the same ones saying that Tommy was justified to be RACIST for a prolonged period of time due to being in the closet yet Buck what? Panicking for a few seconds and being a little awkward? is somehow this giant inexcusable thing

5. The narrative choices with him have been reasonably clear and tbh if they had been made with a woman it would not be up for debate:

• tommy leaves buck on their first date then he comes back and gives buck a chance- we as a fandom have been unanimous in saying for years that Buck’s endgame would be the one that doesn’t leave him cos this pattern has been something we saw over and over with him

• tommy not dressing up- again you can rationalise it but it’s a narrative choice and it’s glaring when contrasted with Eddie suggesting the duo costume

And if we had this scene with Taylor so many ppl would be saying that it’s once again showing that her and Buck’s personalities don’t align

• him being on standby for the wedding and bachelor party- again you can say oh buck invited him last minute or oh he couldn’t taken the day off (which lbr he could’ve he’s not the only firefighter pilot in la) - but again narrative choice

If it was Taylor everyone would’ve been like SEE? Again they’re showing the audience that her work is this looming presence in their relationship

Anyway I’m gonna shut up now cos this is A LOT

I’m so sorry it took me so long to respond tho and sending flowers in apology💐💐💐💐💐💐

Love ya for being so genuine when asking and hope all this didn’t come off too strong and that it was idk helpful?🫶🫶

I realise my response is abt to have toxic bt fans scurry to my inbox like rats to send hate and to that I say go fuck yourselves I’m responding to a question here

[sephirthoughts]

Can you do 15 and 32 for Cid in the headcanon ask game please?

I LOVE CID!! Thank you for the excuse to talk and think about him more

Cid Highwind

-15- pets or feelings about animals:

Cid seems like the type of guy who is just naturally adept with animals. You know the type? Where any wild or uncontrollable animal will be sitting and rolling over on command and eating from the palm of his hand within five minutes of meeting him. I also think Cid has a big, tough, super weirdly well-behaved junkyard dog that is so smart you can't believe it's not a person. Like Dogmeat from Fallout or D-Dog from Metal Gear Solid V, like it guards the airfield and knows how to use a combat knife and scope enemy bases and create distractions. And like Cid can say "Rocket" and then just click to it, and the dog will go "boof" and run off and like twenty minutes later it'll come back with groceries.

I think his love for big dangerous animals (and their love for him) comes in especially handy with Vincent because his Cid magic works on the Galian Beast too, so like everyone's scared of it but Cid. I have this HC that sometimes Vincent can't control the transformation, and just goes feral and becomes the Galian Beast, every once in a while. He usually has some lead-up so he can tell when it's going to happen, and they can get him somewhere isolated before he runs amok, but every once in a while it just happens without warning, at which point everyone is like oh shit we're screwed someone get Cid before Shinra sends in troopers and Rufus bills us for all the tanks that get destroyed

Galian: -rampaging tearing shit up throwing cars- citizens: -fleeing in terror- Cid: HEY! YOU PUT THAT BUS DOWN! Galian: *ROOOAAAAARRR* Cid: I SAID DROP. IT. Galian: *roooaarr?* Cid: -raises eyebrows- Galian: -drops bus and comes bounding over to Cid like a puppy acting like it wasn't the one who was just chewing up post boxes and tossing vehicles- Cid: -petting its belly- awww who's a good boy. citizens: …. Cid: uhh...heh. sorry, everyone. he gets a little rowdy if i forget to take him for walkies

NOTE: this applies even if you don't ship Cid and Vincent. i 100% believe they'd be like this either way

-32- toxic traits:

Ok, well there are funny and not-funny answers for this, but I think the not-funny ones have kind of been stealth retconned by this point, with how they've changed his character and just sort of not mentioned anything about it. Which is good because honestly Cid was a….difficult character to enjoy. Back then his toxic traits were literally verbally abusing Shera into the dirt over his misdirected anger about the rocket launch screw-up, and subsequent loss of his career and everything he'd been working toward. She blamed herself and let herself be treated that way in this simpering, self-flagellating, doormat way that made me eye-roll so hard the planet tilted on its axis. I have seen this trope in Japanese media with female characters multiple times, and it's always portrayed as if the female character is somehow doing a noble thing by spending her life as some prick's punching bag and i fucking haaaaaate it. I absolutely *hate* that they made them married in one of the games, too, because that just makes the situation way grosser and more toxic. The whole relationship between Cid and Shera was godawful and terribly written, especially since the other characters just took it in stride and were like "seems normal to me". It also doesn't track with the way they've changed his character in general, in the current iterations of the story. BUT NEVER FEAR! I have personally de-canonized the whole thing, removed the stupid and pointless abusive dynamic, kept Cid and Shera colleagues and friends who had some rough times and fell out and then forgave each other like adults yay character development, and made her a cool lesbian with her own life who doesn't take any shit from anyone. YOU'RE WELCOME SQUEENIX.

Anyway that's the not-funny toxic traits. On to the fun stuff!

MY Cid's toxic traits are as follows:

Smoking way too much and then being all surprised about it when he gets winded during really demanding fights

Acting like his aviator goggles are glasses and putting them on to pretend to squint at restaurant menus, just to mess with the waitress, like his vision isn't flawless (he's a pilot, it has to be)

Dad jokes

Calling Vincent a series of increasingly ridiculous pet names just to see how long he can get away with it (darlin, sugar, sweetheart, babydoll, cinnamon bun, angel pie, sweet potato casserole, nana highwind's famous pineapple upside-down cake). The joke is on him, however, because Vincent knows exactly what he's doing and takes every nickname in stride without objecting to any of them. Actually the joke is on the rest of the crew, who are the innocent bystanders having to hear all of this. NOTE: this also applies even if you don't ship Cid and Vincent. He absolutely behaves this way toward his platonic best friend. Which may explain why Vincent is his only friend.

Buying loaves of processed white bread and pre-sliced american cheese but then acting all fussy and particular about exactly which artisanal stone-ground mustard is used on his sandwiches

Pretending there's heavy turbulence but actually he's shaking the plane around just to amuse himself and annoy everyone

Using his accent to play stupid so no one asks him questions or expects him to come up with plans, even though he's an actual literal rocket scientist

Falling asleep in the theater during any movie or stage production whatsoever. It doesn't matter if it's boring or interesting or if he's into it or not, something about theaters just knocks him out like a light. As a result, he and Vincent have slept through a grand total of 26 movies and 5 productions of Loveless. Everyone knows about it but the general consensus is just let the old men sleep they're happier that way

OH ALSO this is not a toxic trait just a random HC: i think Cid and Reeve would get along really weirdly well. like they're from totally different personalities and backgrounds and have different lifestyles and careers and yes reeve is an executive at Shinra but they just hit it off like crazy. Cid is always nice to Cait Sith maybe that's what makes me think that. i dunno

Thanks for the ask, I hope you enjoyed my ramblings!

[moe-broey]

Kafka here rising from the dead to say I feel you so much on all your Bravefonse stuff. I am so disappointed too!! And it kinda gives me an icky feeling, this almost retconning of Gustav who was clearly so crappy to Alfonse and Sharena as a straight up good dad, no complexity what so ever. This is just more fuel for me to eventually write my Domi dunks on Gustav and helps Alfonse sort out his feelings™️ fic

YEAH.... YEAH............ I have been SO all over the place about it (as you can. Fucking See LMFAOO). On one hand, it Does give you a lot of material to work with, from a writing standpoint. But dear god. Like I cannot get Book 3 Gustav out of my mind. Every fucking line he says to Alfonse legit gobsmacked me and set off my panic response 🧍 Like Jesus Christ......

But again! It is a really interesting creative exercise to try and figure out how to approach Alfonse's feelings with the appropriate amount of care, consideration, restraint, while Gently. So so gently. Trying to open his eyes to it. Trying to tell him that the way his father, who he loves very much, who he sees as this idealized role model to strive for, who he so desperately just wants to feel loved by, too. To do right by him. Trying to tell Alfonse, hey. The way your father spoke to you is Not Normal. That's not what love is supposed to look like.

But trying to communicate something like that, even as I write it here, feels like an oversimplification of the situation... that only serves to paint Gustav as a Bad Person (which. Regardless let's stay focused here), implies that there's a "correct" and "incorrect" way to love, and that people who have abusive behaviors Can't have any real or genuine love and care for whoever is on the receiving end of the mistreatment, and ultimately it invalidates the first person's real and genuine feelings for the other (so in this case, Alfonse's feelings about Gustav).

Another thing I'm always examining is Fear. It is abundantly clear to me that Gustav acts the way he does to Alfonse, because he's scared. Idk idk there's a Million things you can fucking say about it, but it does come back to that "Do as I Say, Not As I Do". And that same sex parent projecting themselves to their child. "My experiences will be Your experiences, because we're The Same". And if the experiences were Bad, there's the Fear. "I don't want you to go through what I've been through. I'm Protecting You".

Gustav... just has an extremely upsetting outright abusive way of going about it. As though, if he can Overpower the problem, it will be Solved.

Sorry in too deep, Gustav Jumpscare (also due to image limits, I'll write down this line I think is important)

Gustav: "If you had miscalculated even slightly, you'd be dead now. Dead, Alfonse."

And. Focal point here

Like this is exactly what I'm talking about, and why I included all of Alfonse's responses (even the small ones. Especially the small ones).

Alfonse made a risky decision that did pay off. But it scared Gustav. It reminded Gustav of himself, of his father, and also genuinely, he does love his son (stay with me. I know. It's the hardest part for me, too). He doesn't want Alfonse to die. As his heir, of course, but as his son, too.

So, how does he express this...? He tries to take full control of the situation. To Overpower the situation. He's King, after all. To do this, he needs to overpower Alfonse. By any means necessary, he needs to beat this out of Alfonse. He needs to eliminate the threat. That way, Alfonse is Safe. That way, Gustav has successfully Protected Alfonse.

It's just... such a terrible thing to watch unfold. Especially in how Alfonse caves in. I mean. What else can you do in that situation. There's nothing else you can do.

Idk idk I'm just always examining it. Reaching out my hand, let's all start a Summoner led Alfonse support group together (Sharena too, because my god she did not get out unscathed either)

[lakesbian]

do u ever think about how heartbreaker sent two ten year olds after cherish and how this was probably the first time these two kids saw the world in an unbiased manner away from their fathers influence (and possible even powers) and how cherish was alike “woah woah woah not cool” and cartwheeled away into the claws of the S9. like I know it isn’t said or anything, and I’m making shit up to make wildbow a better writer than he is, but the concept of heartbreaker weaponizing the only who cherish Might feel some sort of respect and kinship about and show her the world will never love/respect her the way she wants, even with her siblings who might understand her experiences, and then making her enact that same distrust of her family toward Alec is something I chew on when I’m hungry

i will say i do not adhere to the ward retcon that they're 9-10 (meaning they would've been far younger than that while hunting cherie.) like:

“Anyways, it got old real fast, them constantly finding me, constantly making me pack up and run somewhere else. Besides, the freedom to do what I wanted and go where I wished kind of lost its appeal when the boredom set in.  I would’ve done it even if my big brothers weren’t coming for me, but I joined the Nine.”

it makes far more sense, and is far more interesting, that rather than heartbreaker being willing to risk losing his grip on two 9-10yos, he sent two of the kids even older than cherie who he Knows he has a firm grasp on after her. in my head theyre like

nicholas: you know how cherie's power is an exaggerated fawn reflex that sort of mimics her father's power without actually having his same capability for long-term abuse? nicholas's power of Makes You Afraid is an exaggerated "fight back/scare off" reflex--thinks that if he can just be as scary as his dad he'll be able to keep himself safe, will still always be under his father's thumb.

guillaume: to me the power of being able to see thru random ppl after touching them + being able to fuck w those ppls own senses/blind them temporarily absolutely smacks to me of being a trigger from a failed escape attempt, because it's the thing that would be Really Useful if you were heading out thru entire crowds of people while trying to avoid one specific person/group of people, right? i like to imagine that after his little brother jean-paul ran away he eventually tried to as well, failed, and triggered from the despair of being caught/punished. now he uses the same powers to track down his own escaped sibling, thoroughly caught in the cycle of abuse

i also like to imagine that--bc of the WoGs talking about alec's siblings being responsible for a lot of his grooming into hypersexual behavior, and bc of cherie making it very clear that the older siblings participated in general abuse of the younger siblings--they were responsible for a lot of the shit that alec went through. no fond memories there.

[brw]

can you please elaborate on your hate of Peter Parker ?

Honestly it isn't anything particularly to do with Peter as a character. Clearly, a lot of people love him, and while I've never felt the same way or seen what they seen in him, it's usually whatever. I'm happy to let people do their own thing and to not bother with it, because it isn't for me. The problem then is because Spiderman is a massively important character, so even if I don't care and I want to avoid him, I'm always having to read him at some point. He shows up everywhere. He has 1000 different legacies that if he isn't showing up, one of them is. He is, in effect, the Marvel equivalent of Batman in terms of "This is a Wonder Man comic, why is Spider-Man here?" (that's issue 28 of the 90s ongoing), and I unfortunately am someone who doesn't really like it when I am forced to read a guy I don't really care about. Or, more accurately, I don't mind it sometimes, like if it's a one-off team-up with, making a random pairing here, Vision and Morbius, I'll be fine with that. But Peter shows up everywhere. It's impossible to read marvel comics for very long without him popping in at some point. And I know he's their biggest character, and I understand that he's always going to show up to sell more books, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

Other than that, he has one of the most annoying comic book fanbases out there, possibly even worse than the X-Men, because at least X-Men fans as a whole care or pretend to care about women. They'll talk about Jean or Ororo, and it's often annoying, but at least they care. I'm not going to sit here and say Zeb Wells' Amazing Spider-Man is by any means a masterpiece–but I genuinely believe that if Peter and MJ were dating in this book, everyone would be eating it up and calling it great. Because it is very clear Spider-Man fans don't really see MJ as her own character and don't want her to be with anyone but Peter, which is weird, especially considering how many love interests Peter is afforded but not MJ. I've seen people screenshot panels of just, like... Peter, Paul and MJ just hanging out and being friendly adults, and acting like it's the worst thing in the world, because I guess the idea of being a mature adult with your ex and her new boyfriend is unthinkable. And it stands out that Ultimate Spider-Man is as praised as it is, when like.... other than them telling you she's a marketing genius in that one issue, what does MJ in that universe do outside of being a wife and mother? Other than be supportive to a T? And this is expected, because Hickman can't write women, but it's so strange seeing this series be the crème de la crème of Spider-Man when MJ is so devoid of personality other than being playful and being a wife and mother.

A lot of Spider-Man fans also have this weird persecution complex, which is really weird when a character is as heavily promoted and marketed and has as many series as Peter does. Like, I've seen a lot of people post panels of Ultimate Spider-Man with Peter and MJ and the kids with the caption "THIS is what Zeb/the current Spider-Man office is too SCARED to let happen" and it's like, no actually, the conspiracy that Big Marvel is too scared to let a white man and a white woman have their white ginger kids together is just bizarre. At most, they just think that the relationship in 616 is boring and has run it's course, and you can disagree with that but that's just the reality of comics sometimes. I'm not going to say that there was not editorial influence and a desire to have Peter be young... but that retcon is 17 years old. They are not undoing it! Why do you want 17 years of comics undone just because Peter and MJ aren't fucking? Write some fanfiction if it bothers you that much!!! And that retcon, 17 years ago, would not stop a modern writer from making moves for Peter and MJ to get back together (and they are together in various AU comics over the years)... but clearly at the moment people don't want that, and you have to make peace with that, and you have to make peace that maybe that fictional woman will date someone who isn't Peter for a bit. Sorry he doesn't own her, I guess.

Anyway TLDR Peter Parker is probably a perfectly fine character and I respect all my mutuals and followers who are Normal about him, I just cannot stand the larger comic fandom and I also resent how impossible he is to avoid in comic books.

[fireemblems24]

Scarlet Blaze Ch 12

Spoilers below for all Hopes routes up to Ch 12.

MAIN STORY

More backtracking.

I had Shez say we shouldn't return because I'm sick of backtracking. Hubert got mad at me. Ugh.

I also don't get why TWSITD wouldn't want Edelgard do take over. Isn't that like their plan? She does all the hard work then they kill her? Isn't Rhea's death #1 on TWSITD's Christmas list??

SIDE MAPS/CAMP

Ashe is still miserable, but no special words for Annette. I hope Mercedes does.

Marianne is actually motivated to fight this time. She actively dislikes fighting the Kingdom though. (Dimimari still alive)

Lamo, Linhardt doesn't give two shits about Edelgard's war, he just wants to go back to Enbarr and take a nap.

Petra also seems relieved she's fighting rioters and not Kingdom soldiers.

Everyone else - there riots, hung. This one random dude - so there's this dance competition

Mercedes wants to be left alone and pray for Annette. She should've known though that the Empire's actions are sentencing a sizable portion of Faerghus to death, right? I have less sympathy for her than Ashe, who was just following Dimitri's direct orders.

Hubert looks like such a try-hard with this new design. Sometimes I forget.

Hubert doesn't trust Shez. This is such a stark contract to AG, because Hubert thinks Shez will lose control and kill Edelgard and is threatening to kill Shez.

So there's another cut scene where they say TWSITD doesn't want Fodlan unified, but don't they in 3 Houses? Isn't the whole point of the experiments on Edelgard so she's strong enough to kill Rhea and take over Fodlan? Like, I get why they'd be mad that Edelgard kicked them out, but if they were smart they'd let her do all the dirty work and then just take her out and then profit without losing anyone. This whole, "TWSITD doesn't want us to unify!" really smells like bullshit bc of the backlash Edelgard got for siding with them in Houses. Now they're retconning it into "oh, no no, they don't want her to succeed!" Uh, yes, they do, that's what they spent years planning on. Makes no sense.

SHEZ & CASPAR B SUPPORT

They talk about training and how Caspar wants to surpass Shez in fighting ability.

Really the only thing of note is Caspar's persistence.

SHEZ & LINHARDT B SUPPORT

Linhardt is still investigating Shez's power, who has mixed feelings about it.

The problem is the power woke up when Shez was facing death, making it hard to recreate. So Linhardt just commits to studying Shez on the battlefield.

Linhardt is stone cold. After realizing he may not be able to study Shez's power he says he'll need to revaluate the value of their relationship.

SHEZ & BERNADETTA A SUPPORT

Their plans to help Bernadetta is not going well. Everything ends in chaos.

There's moments Bernie's anxiety is treated seriously in this support at the very least.

It ends with Bernie realizing Shez doesn't scare her anymore and that the way not to be nervous around people is spending time with them.

SHEZ & PETRA A SUPPORT

Petra tells Shez he can come to Brigid once it's over.

She hopes to increase trade once the war is over and thinks having Shez around will help.

It's pretty fucked up that Petra thinks the best way for Brigid to stand out is to comply with their oppressors until they "earn" their power or whatever. Recruited Petra is always better.

Shez tells Petra she's "every bit the leader the Fodlan ones are" like fuck off, we know that. Petra just owns it though. She's like, "no, I'm Brigid's queen." We love that for her.

I'm having Shez be as much of a dick as I can though right now (fuck this route for making me kill Annette, Gustave, Rodrigue, and Ingrid - the Black Eagles deserve worse), and this was the first time I felt bad.

HUBERT & MONICA A SUPPORT

The battle of the simps.

I really wonder what the writers were thinking. Oh, I know what the Black Eagles needs, another mage and another character who wants to suck Edelgard's toes! We don't have enough of either yet.

Monica insulted Edelgard's painting without knowing it was Edelgard's. This is probably the hardest trial she's ever faced (yes, it's probably worse than kidnapping and imprisonment for her)

Edelgard got offended. That girl can't take any criticism.

Monica aspires to be Edelgard's servant and is happy that the war she's causing may make that possible. Question is, does Edelgard want to put up with a stalker?

FERDINAND & DOROTHEA A SUPPORT

Dorothea has realized that she owes Ferdinand an apology. Finally.

Ferdinand really rides that line between cringe and endearing and right now I don't know what side of the fence he's on right now. He's shouting at Dorothea so he can keep a distance and giving her the chance to laugh at him if she wants.

Dorothea's embarrassed because everyone is overhearing this lamo. And people are assuming they're dating.

Poor Ferdinand is like Dorothea's still annoyed with me. Then Dorothea tells him he doesn't need to apologize, which makes him think she'll never forgive him, but it's actually because she has too.

They both get embarrassed when she tells him what's going on.

Honestly this is a WAY cuter version of the same story and a lesson in how much execution matters. I was all team Petra/Dorothea (and Ferdinand I didn't really ship with anyone), but now I like Ferdie/Doro too.

While I'm kind of bummed we basically got the same conversation, a rewrite really helped in this case so I get why they went that route.

MONICA & DOROTHEA C SUPPORT

Why did they have to do my girl Dorothea like this? Wasting one of her supports on Monica.

Monica is upset she didn't realize Dorothea was the songstress sooner.

So, Monica is a fan of Dorothea too.

Also Dorothea finds Monica unsettling. Same.

But hey at least Monica got through a conversation without saying Edelgard.

LINHARDT & CONSTANCE C

So is this about Constance being mad that Linhardt doesn't care about his noble status or about him investigating her condition?

Linhardt calls her for siding with the church over the Empire for a bit, but it was only for survival.

Man, Constance just makes no sense fighting for Edelgard. She wants to glory of nobility so awkward.

These two aren't having the same conversation. Linhardt is curious about her crest situation and Constance is going off about wanting to revive her house.

He just walks off after getting annoyed by her lol.

JERITZA & EDELGARD A SUPPORT

Jetiza likes the war because without it he'd be killing someone "less deserving" because Fuck You random Faerghus citizen. I guess they "deserve it"

Also, holy shit, dude acts like it's just inevitable that he murders

At least he wants to get arrested. Edelgard doesn't want him to get arrested.

My question is, did Jeritza go around killing willy nilly or just House Bartels? Because he makes it sound like he can't resist killing and just went and ganked whoever was unlucky.

Or was it that Edelgard recruited him right away and made him her personal guard dog?

MAIN BATTLE

Hanneman and Leonie, not who I expected.

I love how we only see mothers crying over their dead kids when it's TWSITD's attack that does it and not Edelgard's.

Edelgard says no more innocent lives lost today, which may actually be true since we're attacking TWSITD and not commoners from Faerghus.

Is there anything you can do about Leonie? She died of poison, but since it's related to Jeralt stuff, I'm guessing it's because I didn't recruit him? If I did, would she have gotten recruited?

Solon retreated. Annoying.

Hubert, who was a dark knight the whole battle, claims he doesn't know the magic TWSITD uses.

I forget how anime magic girl Edelgard's design is in this game. It's kind of weird.

I keep earning reknown, but I don't know what it does.

Duke Aegir and co seized a fortress. Time for Ferdinand to do something cool?

Caspar's brother is a prisoner.

Does this mean I get to put off fighting innocent citizens of Faerghus for another level? Because I prefer SB bored out of my mind than upset that I had to kill Ingrid, Rodrigue, Gustave, and Annette.

Leonie's dead too now. Geeze, SB is a bloodbath.

xxx

[hms-no-fun]

I hope this ask doesn't come off as rude at all-- and I apologize if it does!-- but as an aspiring writer, I'm honestly really confused by some of the early choices in Godfeels, and I'm curious if I'm just not "getting it". I saw some posts about it pop up in the tag (and they WERE very shitty and rude about it :/), but I'd love to hear your explanation/take on June's big character change immediately post-realization, and especially the... "Trickster Arc", I guess it could be called? The former I get to some extent, but I'm really curious about the choice to do all THAT so early in the story with the trickster candy.

Seriously love your work, your narration is honestly a big inspiration to me in terms of how meta it gets and how close it gets to communicating directly with both the main character AND the audience!

no rudeness detected at all! this is a great question, in fact it’s one i’ve been kinda hoping someone would ask because i’ve been thinking about this stuff a lot these last few months. but i get the sense that you’re at least a little new here, so uh, yeah, hello, when people ask me interesting questions i tend to answer at great length. so strap in for that after the break lmao. also as a note, there will be some spoilers for all of godfeels here but please don’t let that scare you away, they’re all contextless and, if anything, might honestly make the rest of the story *more* enjoyable as a result.

as far as "getting it" goes, i've talked at length about the how & why of the violence in godfeels in multiple places so i'll try to avoid rehashing that too much here. but one thing i want to emphasize right off the bat is that i never intended godfeels to be an ongoing thing. you talk about the trickster arc happening “so early in the story” but when i wrote godfeels 1 i didn’t plan on writing more. i didn’t even plan on making john trans! my idea of what the sum total of godfeels 2 would be when i started writing it wound up being completely different from the finished work. i didn’t plan to make this thing so long. i didn’t plan for june to accidentally on purpose kill her friends while drunk and then retcon it. i didn’t plan on turning the whole thing into a space opera. it all just happened to me, man. i kept writing because i kept finding more interesting things to say. and it’s important to specify that when i started gf1 i hadn’t written fiction in years. i think if you jumped ahead to godfeels 3 part 1 chapter 8, no matter how you feel about the content we’d at least be able to agree that in the years since 2019 i’ve become a much much better writer. if you want more insight into how my process has evolved, i’ve written so so so much about it, too much maybe even, in the #sarahposts tag.

anyway, now i want to talk about june's "big character change." the extent to which her trickster arc makes sense or feels in character seems to vary wildly from person to person. what always bugs me about "ooc" as a criticism is that godfeels starts six years and change after the end of homestuck. let's remember that the protagonists of homestuck were sixteen when the comic ended. now i want you to ask yourself if you as you were at 16 would think that you as you are now was "in character." or vice versa! probably not, right? it doesn’t even have to have been six years. i was STILL sixteen when i started to get embarrassed of who i was at sixteen!

that should be all i need to say, but it isn’t. and it doesn't really get to the core of the issue anyway. i am not nor have i ever been interested in writing "a sequel to homestuck,” even though it has kind of just become that anyway. godfeels has always been about the meaty existential drama you can tease out through the complicated character dynamics of these fucked up traumatized gods. godfeels has always been my way of analyzing the themes and ideas of homestuck, the existential ramifications of the mechanics of SBURB and the classpects and retcon (let’s remember that i wrote godfeels around the same time that i took over hosting duties on the perfectly generic podcast). godfeels has also always been about me and my trauma. i even used to joke that june was my self-insert character, though i've seen that line repeated unironically by enough people who haven't read godfeels that i've stopped saying it. because it's not true! june is very, very different from me... i just happen to see my life reflected in her eyes.

to immediately rehash what i said i wouldn't, june eg8ert arose out of my frustration with most versions of the june egbert headcanon particularly in the summer of 2019. let's call her "hairclips june." hairclips june is always smiling, usually with smiling friends, she's wearing hairclips and has nonzero tit and is A Woman Now. as i said in my video, while i don't begrudge anyone their comfort food, this simply was not my experience with coming out as a trans woman. and of all the characters, i’d always identified most with john. also i thought, you know, these kids are SERIOUSLY messed up, every single one of them has died multiple times, they've seen things and done things no one should ever have to. and retcon! god, what a mindfuck retcon is.

those are the primal ingredients of godfeels. what if june came out and everyone wasn't chill about it? some folks say that's out of character and, idk, i guess that's arguably true. but i had friends who were very vocal trans allies who’d been in queer relationships who still stopped talking to me after i came out. let me tell you i spent a lot of time fucked up in the head over how "out of character" that was for them, to the extent that i blamed myself for their reaction because surely they couldn't be so out of character. to which one might respond, well, why do this as a homestuck fic then? why not just do my own original thing instead?

and i guess the answer is that i didn't want to and i still don't, really. it's not just about the characters for me. i like the rules of the homestuck universe. i find it interesting how it mechanically reflects being a fictional narrative. and, you know, maybe it's easier for me to process violent intrusive thoughts through a character who is capable of acting on those thoughts and then immediately undoing them consequence-free. retcon is, in fact, sort of the perfect mechanism for exploring violent intrusive thoughts because it lets us play out the fantasy without lasting diegetic harm, such that we can just focus on the existential and moral questions of the phenomenon itself. and like, yeah, that’s not everyone’s cup of tea. but isn’t it still just as valid a topic to explore in fiction as anything else?

like em or not, people have intrusive thoughts. people have violent impulses. sometimes they even act on them. the unpleasantness of a phenomenon shouldn’t dictate whether it is acceptable to depict in fiction-- if anything, we ought to take our instinctive desire to look away as an urgent invitation to look closer instead. as i’ve been wont to say for years and years now, “problematic” implies a problem to be solved. that which is human is inherently complicated. to pretend it’s all good or bad excises humanity from the equation, or at least flattens the range of acceptable humanity. all of which is my extremely soapboxy way of saying (as i’ve said a million times by now), yes, godfeels june is problematic. that is in fact what godfeels is about.

there's an extent to which i think this can be blamed on how rooted we are IN june's perspective in gf1 and 2. i don't think people really appreciate the fact that godfeels 1 is john threatening to commit suicide and almost going through with it. that's the context in which her friends react poorly to her coming out; i mean, she's literally sleeping on rose's couch because everyone's so worried about her! i think that, by being completely within june's perspective for all of these events, we don't really get a good sense of the interpersonal dynamics at play (probably because i didn't even really understand them myself until later). instead we just see people who should know better acting like dicks.

i think whether or not june’s trickster arc is canonically palatable to you depends very much on whether or not you've had a dear friend disappoint you so much that you're no longer on speaking terms.

but if we want to reel this back from the abstract philosophical, maybe it’s enough to say that we just have different interpretations of these characters? they’re not monoliths, you know. different people see different things in different characters. some folks get a lot out of hairclips june and that’s okay. maybe i was a bitch about other people’s headcanons back in 2019 when redditors were calling me and my friends abusive pedophiles for liking vriska, but i gave up that fight when the redditors got what they wanted (to harass a group of queer creators offline and out of their jobs). if someone wants to woobify gamzee, whatever man, go right ahead. that ain’t my cup of tea and i personally don’t think that’s very in character either, but that’s why i don’t read it. it ain’t for me and that’s fine. i like homestuck BECAUSE these characters can mean so many things to so many people. is this variability not precisely the thing that makes the postcanon era so interesting?

i have my idea of who these characters are based on who they were in the comic and i work very hard to keep them in character, but i also don't want them to be trapped in amber. i want them to grow and change and become different people, because homestuck itself is obsessed with inescapable absolute archetypes (ie the ultimate self, or the captchalogue system) and i enjoy troubling that. i enjoy swimming in a sea of weird problematic dilemmas. that’s what’s fun about fiction for me, you can think about and write about all the most difficult and even fucked up things you like, and it definitionally cannot cause real material nonconsensual harm to another human being. and yet we get so tied up in the question of harm anyway! maybe that makes sense when talking about marvel movies, but this is fanfiction we’re talking about. this is HOMESTUCK fanfiction. if i were to go on twitter right now and post “homestuck is good” i’d end the day with at least five comments saying “lol no it’s not.” SOME OF THOSE PEOPLE WILL HAVE HOMESTUCK AVATARS. there are few things as cringe as liking homestuck even among people who like homestuck, so who cares? i like homestuck, i like the epilogues, i like hs2, and i think a pretty gargantuan majority of this fandom are subliterate babies. that’s why i don’t engage with them or make much of an attempt to bridge the gap. i think godfeels and its cool little fandom is all the better for how much work it requires of the reader to “get it” as it were. i wish more people would give it a chance, or at the very least not immediately throw me and a lot of my friends under the bus at every possible opportunity, but what can you do? i just write. people will react how they will react. what matters to me is that it stays true to itself as a work, and that it grows with me and my audience and my collaborators. trying to backpedal or soften the edges would just ruin the whole thing, likely alienate my current readers and inevitably invite even more bad faith readings. no thanks!

some folks stop reading godfeels after june's trickster arc, and i can respect that. if you get to that part of the story and don't like it, chances are you're not gonna like the rest of it! and in that sense, i guess you could say i “chose” to have june’s trickster arc happen so “early on” as a litmus test for the reader. as annoying as it can be feeling like i’m constantly having to address this exact issue, i vastly prefer it to a bunch of people hate-reading something that wasn’t made for them. but again, i didn’t know this was “early on” when i wrote it, because i didn’t plan it to happen. i didn’t intend for june to go on a killing spree, she just did it and i as writer decided, you know what? this is way more interesting than what i had planned. and then dirk became the antagonist because, oops, june coming out fucked up all the schemes he has that play out in the homestuck epilogues. and i guess in THAT sense, the palatability of godfeels depends on whether or not you liked and/or tolerated the homestuck epilogues and homestuck^2. these, too, are not for everyone. but godfeels is not a replacement for them, as some folks like to claim (god bless them). i’m not interested in rewriting homestuck or fixing its sequels. ok well that’s not entirely true, i think the epilogues did jake REAL dirty and that’s become a big focus of mine going forward. but even then, i don’t pretend the epilogues didn’t happen. in fact if you’ve read all of 3.1, you know just how cosmically important they end up being.

but this is, i guess, kind of the crux of the issue for me. june’s trickster arc happens very early on in the story, yes, and that’s deliberately challenging on a lot of levels. june spends a great deal of time being challenged by it herself! but folks who stop there (if they even make it that far) often act like the whole story is grimdark wish-fulfillment violence or me airing out my irrational hatred of Boys (????), and that's just not true. i don’t give a shit about that. we get to june's trickster arc at around the 25,000 word mark, out of the current grand total of over 400,000 words. her violence is functionally the prologue, and she spends the entire rest of this story suffering the consequences of those actions. so if i am frustrated with this line of questioning, a lot of it comes down to the fact that if you just read the rest of the story you’d see that i have in fact had all of the same thoughts you’ve likely had. i know people who think i did dirk dirty in gf2, and i actually kind of agree! which is why dirk comes back and has a difficult, complicated relationship with his past self. people complain about certain characters being ooc, which i can certainly understand because when i started godfeels i really did not have a great grasp on them! but also, if you kept reading godfeels you’d know that the tension of whether or not someone is cosmically “in character” is a huge running theme of this story. june’s friends react poorly to her coming out in part because it seems out of character for her! hell, phenomenologically how *could* june be in character after coming out when she barely even knows who she is yet? her whole thing in gf1 is that she doesn’t know who she is anymore! just realizing that you’re trans changes you, changes how you see the world, how you relate to other people. or it did for me, anyway. risk, dare, X, angel dirk, and silverbark are all sorts of caught up in this question. and if you’ve gotten to the end of 3.1 you’ll know about the concept of denexustic radiation:

and that’s just the tip of the metaphysical iceberg. all of which is to say that this is a feature, not a bug. so it’s always very funny to me when people drop out so early on only to complain about the very same problematics that i’ve spent three years and 400,000 words exploring.

BUT. but. yeah godfeels 1 and 2 are messy. the gf3 prologue is very messy. it’s a serial narrative that has changed shape multiple times over the years, and barring a bit of polish on gf1 around when i started writing gf3 i generally refuse to go back and rewrite things. there’s a lot i would do differently today, but if i had done it differently then the story as it is today would not exist. and i love this story! i might look back on gf2 and feel like it’s rushed and messy, but i know that it was the best i could do at the time. it’s a reflection of who i was as a writer then. i live with the ramifications of that for the same reason i don’t delete the old videos on my channel from before i came out/learned what communism was: because i don’t like to pretend that the present was always present. i’m a different person now, a different writer. i made mistakes, i learned, and i changed. i will continue this process for the rest of my natural life, as will you.

ultimately i guess my answer here is that godfeels is a flawed work written by a flawed person, and the extent to which readers relate to it seems to have a lot to do with how much their flaws overlap with mine. i get lots of people telling me my characters are in character. i get people telling me they’re more in character than some canon! and it’s not that i weigh those comments as more valuable, i just see it as an indication of who my audience is. i’m not writing for people who want more hiveswap, and i’m certainly not writing for people who dismissed hs^2 out of hand. i’m just writing for myself and my friends, and it just so happens that some people seem to get a lot out of it.

i’m gonna close out here by actually finally directly addressing your question with what i think you were ultimately hoping for: some writing advice.

the rules don’t exist. there are things that can make some art better or some art worse but they are not universal. the rules are fake and if you hold every story you touch to those rules, you’re gonna have a bad time. a story is not static and it is never truly yours. you discover it. sometimes you can expand it or alter it in ways but, at least in my experience, doing so more often than not just kills the whole thing-- or at least demands a complete reconceptualization. all of which takes time, and we live in a world where taking time to get in touch with and hone your craft is considered sort of a bad economic decision. but art is what it is and it does what it does and we can either play with it or we can put it in a cage.

what i like about making art is that i am not entirely in control. i have my plans, my schemes, my ideas, but the fun of writing is just putting a bunch of characters in a room together and seeing what they do. quite often they do things i would never expect, that are far truer to their character than i anticipated. my experience has always been that the more you outline a story before you write it, the harder it is to actually write that story. when i know everything that’s gonna happen on a moment to moment level, the whole thing falls dead on the page. but obviously you need to know SOME things! and i’ll say that from the inception of gf3 back in december 2019 to now, very very few of the broad strokes of my plans have changed. if you’ve read all of 3.1 you know there’s a very specific timeline at play in the backstory of a group of characters we’ll be spending a lot of time with in 3.2. there are no questions or mysteries or whatever else i’ve introduced to this story that i did not have at least the sense of an explanation for. but these are simply bullet points that dictate the endpoint of a path and suggest something of the moral/philosophical/emotional arc that needs to occur in order to get there. the real meat of it comes out in the act of writing itself, and that’s what i’m here for. it’s a gamble that doesn’t always pay off, and it does mean that i have almost 80,000 words of material i ended up rewriting or cutting sitting in a doc somewhere, but that’s worth it for me.

if art is to be relevant, it must have the capacity to make an audience uncomfortable. if art is to be essential, it must have the capacity to demand a strong reaction (positive or negative) from everyone who sees it. if art is to be true, it must have the capacity to reflect the disquiet contradictions of simple existence that we desperately wish to ignore in our daily lives. that doesn’t mean everyone has to or should read difficult art, or like it, or make it. but it has always existed and it will always exist, and i think it is essential for writers and critics alike to learn to stop themselves from mistaking a common storytelling method for THE storytelling method. and frankly, most of the art i love most in this world is art that i didn’t particularly like the first time we crossed paths.

and lastly, never forget the inarguable truth that the audience bears quite a lot of responsibility in this equation. you are never, as a writer, inflicting anything on your reader, because your reader can always opt out at any moment they wish. if something doesn’t work, yeah, that’s a problem you can fix. art is a conversation in that way, or at least ought to be. but at the same time, art has no obligation to be perfect, or smooth, or easy to consume. the rules are fake. they exist to be broken. the pursuit of perfection is a dead end. just make shit

okay this one has gone on QUITE long enough lmao i hope there’s something useful in there for you somewhere and uhhhh i hope you enjoy the rest of godfeels if you haven’t already read it!

[unlimitedhorsepower]

having some of the worst times of my life ever and im scared things could get worse... how? well you see. they might create more tnb some day even after all of this.

after massacring my boy ryan like that live on screen... smack cam... removing any of ryans narrative worth or meaning just to have him show up and be cringe which i did enjoy but for real guys. my friends. if they had just had everyone do something random and lackluster it wouldve been fine but ryan showed up to drive the plot and continue his character arc from the rising (and then he didnt, as a joke).

karinas lack of real character arc (AGAIN!) so that she can uhhhh talk about crushes... instead of, for example, have her be an equal hero on-screen to the guys who have already been king of heroes and she works arguably harder than anyone else (she is a hero, an idol, and a student). shes so interesting, theres so much to her! but most of her appearances just serve to further some guys character arc (like the whole blue golden episode is mostly about ryan!.. or kotetsu even! cmon)

the character arc that antonio got that wholly ignored that hes friends with nathan and which makes me actually lose my mind when i think that those two have frequently been shown together but they didnt have a single convo together so that nathan and keith can be confined to a cage where theyre only interacting with each other instead of having any real plot relevance despite them both being really interesting!..

and the fact that antonio/agnes made its way into the show bc the director likes him and you know... agnes was her stand-in, and another reason to not let nathan talk with antonio ever because yknow?.. it just tastes like ash in my mouth to feel like the director felt some type of way about nathans and antonios prior relationship...

the buddy hero system was utilized so poorly! it threw so many characters under the bus like ryan seriously got way too much time in blue golden and their prior relationships with each other were ignored so much like man... i just love them all interacting. i dont love whatever the hell was going on with, for example, nobody noticing that thomas is gone. my heroes wouldve noticed immediately btw. instead of subaru and thomas being in a cage where they only interacted with each other, the buddy hero pair curse of 2nd cour that almost everyone suffered from

lets not even get into that even if they say that yuri is actually fine haha! they cant remove that scene where kotetsu and barnaby stared at him and went like “hmm thats rough buddy... anyway”. what the hell... kotetsu is one of the characters i think of the least and it was just so grossly OOC and just plain disgusting... the entire abuse apologism arc with yuri and lara overall as well

what about that fucking scene with jungle where they implied shady shit was going on when subarus communicator didnt go off and he was recruited as a double for thomas anyways and uhhh (checks notes) literally nothing came out of those plot threads btw. jungle CEO was introduced for no reason

and they cant remove what they did to ouroboros (the way they made it all-powerful illuminati-esque organization instead of plain old corruption etc), and the whole NEXT disease ooohhh-thing, and the literal internment camps and the various deeply bigoted implications thereof plus lackluster new character designs (oops! almost all white, pale-haired and blue/green-eyed).

how could they bounce back from this and do i even want to see them try to ignore OR try to grapple with any of the above. oooh when i get my hands on the people who were in the writers room...............

cant they just please retcon that my favourite character fucking exploded to ten thousand small pieces. excited for scraps of my fav characters like usual but then?.. its also like spitting in my face after all the shit they pulled. put me out of my misery

[whatyourusherthinks]

Inside Out 2 Review

Oh god I'm gonna get fucking slaughtered for this one. Oh hello! Inside Out is a pretty good movie right? Well, yeah. I wouldn't put it on my top ten list of animated movies or anything, but I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. The way it personifies aspects of our emotional states is pretty interesting actually, as long as you can swing with the metaphor. But Pixar and an... interesting track record with sequels, so I'd say a second instalment isn't necessarily a guarantee for quality here.

What's the Movie About?

Riley goes through puberty while going to hockey camp, and Headquarters gains some new emotions that kick out the old ones.

What I Like.

A lot of this review could just be a review for the first Inside Out, so the things I like best about this movie are the same as the last. The various ways the movie explains different aspects on human psychology is really interesting. They introduce a mechanic of a self image that gets solidified by sending certain memories to a pool beneath headquarters and that was pretty interesting. The visualization of brainstorming and panic attacks were excellent. The characterization of Envy being really tiny and Embarrassment being the one to first turn against Anxiety was perfect as well. I like that one of Riley's darkest secrets was that she still likes Blue's Clues. (Me too Riley. Me too.) The voice cast is also top notch, just like the first movie. There were a couple moments where Amy Poehler and the animators really got to act as Joy and they were probably the best scenes in the movie. Inside Out (the first one) completely undid all of the negative effects of the plot at the very end, which I thought was annoying. And credit where credit is due, Inside Out 2 does not do that. I also got a dark laugh out of the scene where the thought animators riot against Anxiety, how'd the hell they slip that scene by the Disney Overlords?

What I Didn't Like.

Unfortunately the sequel does not improve my low points of the first. When the metaphor doesn't make sense, it really doesn't make sense. I can deal with the various emotions having their own emotions, but why can different emotions have crushes on each other? Or why does Riley has multigendered emotions with different hair styles when everyone else in the universe has emotions that all look very similar? There's a couple times where stuff jumps out at you or something suddenly makes a loud noise. And maybe I'm officially old, but I did not appreciate the jump scare. I kind of hate that the conflict of these movies is based on irrational behavior. I feel like it's kind of unavoidable based on the premise (even more than most comedies), but at least the first movie it felt understandable that Riley was acting out. She's 11, and her entire life got uprooted. The second movie is she's just trying to impress a clique. And yeah, they take pretty much every single awkward and irrational action every teen sitcom takes with this plotline. It got to the point where I was dreading the sections that flash back to headquarters. Also, this is kind of unavoidable with the personification I guess, but the fact that they portray negative states of mind seems a little shifty, right? As some one with mental illness, how am I supposed to take this movie? It's not my fault I have anxiety disorder and anger issues. Clearly my Joy didn't try hard enough to return to headquarters after being ejected!

My final complaint is certainly unique to the second outing, however. They retcon a lot of new things in the new movie, and the explanation is pretty much, "Oh yeah, we just didn't show you that before." or "It's new. Shut up.". I mentioned that there is a pool beneath Headquarters that they send memories to to create Riley's self image. Well that pool is in the Memory Dump. You know. The massive pit where Bing Bong died. Well now everyone has an elevator down to a nice lake where all the memories can go and sprout into a tree or some shit. And I guess nothing gets forgotten anymore? Also, and I've been saying this since the teaser came out, but the ending of the Inside Out implies that the more complex emotions are just combinations of the emotions we start out with. That's the point of the upgraded console at the end. Just because internet commentators were too stupid to get that and mentioning that "Inside Out ignores a bunch of other emotions humans have" made them feel smart, now the people who made the movies feel like they needed to prove a point and double the cast without a good explanation.

Final Summation.

Do you remember Salt Bae? He got internet famous for like two seconds because he sprinkled salt in a weird way and they used that to make a restaurant or something? Yeah, the restaurant with the gold plated steak. Inside Out 2 is the first bowel movement you take after eating there. It's got little flecks of something valuable in it, but it's mostly just recycled and shit. Jesus Roan that's pretty harsh for a kids movie. Is Inside Out 2 really that bad? Well here's the thing Buggnutz...

Inside Out 2 is Inside Out but worse. Without the context of Inside Out, is it worse than, say, IF? No, I wouldn't say so. I certainly have given worse movies passes. But usually that's because I appreciate the uniqueness of the concept, or it gives me something I can't get anywhere else. Basically, there is no better movie, so I enjoy what I have. But I have a better movie than Inside Out 2. It's the first Inside Out. The sequel doesn't expand on any of the first movie's concepts in ways that makes sense, it's doesn't do any of the beats of the first movie better, and it doesn't make me feel any emotions stronger than the first one did. It's passable kids fair, but when has that stopped me from trashing a movie?

[walks-the-ages]

You said that legends Luke Skywalker is canonically a-spec, so I'd like to see the excerpts. Not in a confrontational "prove it to me" sorta way but a "I'm curious" sorta way.

I don't have the books or ebooks on hand, but it's Barbara Hambly's duology Children of The Jedi / The Planet of Twilight books with Callista.

Yes, I say Duology, not Trilogy, because the piece of shit who wrote the book in the middle of these two is a piece of crap misogynyst dudebro who wrote an entire trilogy about Luke running away from his responsibilites because Leia nagged him too much about babysitting so he went and did a little Overpowered Gary Stu thing of raising an obsidian castle up off the shores of a corscaunt beach and spent weeks just wandering around Vader's old Castle, sitting on the ceiling and Brooding(tm) about how he's so overpowered and meant for more and he's so angsty because he has a greater destiny and he can't connect to normal people and .. yeah. Anyways. Guy who wrote the shitty middle book is also unfortunately very "popular" star wars book author so he has written a lot of the other Legends book and .... It's always very refreshing to see other people rereading then and being horrified at what they thought was amazing writing when they were kids lol.

So yeah, ignore the shitty book in the middle by what might be Kevin J Anderson? My internet isn't cooperating at the moment so that either the authors name or the name of a random unrelated actor but it's something something Anderson. Ignore his book because he tries to retcon everything to make Callista a wilting wallflower who oh so scared of Luke's power and she feels so inadequate next to him and she left out of shame and Luke spends the whole book brooding about "oh I'm so scary and strong in the force I scared poor wittle Callista away boo hoo I am so sad and angsty because I'm so scary and overpowered" and then shitty author man tries to kill Callista off along with his sexist stereotype walking female imperial admiral lady character

and Barbara Hambly took one look at his shitty "sequel" to her book and said "Nope! We are fixing literally all of that and more, what the fuck is wrong with you dude, why the fuck are you treating all of the women this way"

Woops. Rambled a bit. Kevin J Anderson or whatever his name is pisses me off to the extreme, especially because he was allowed to write so many books that butchers the original trilogy characters even more than the "sequel" trilogy did.

anyways , long story short if you want to see Aspec Luke Skywalker, you can read Barbara Hambly's Children of the Jedi and Planet of Twilight, and also whichever book Luke proposes to Mara Jade in.

Because even as a kid I read that book and was absolutely fucking delighted at the hilariously out of left field it was and how platonic it was.

It pretty much boils down to:

Luke and Mara Jade are stuck in a flooding cave or something where they might die.

The conversation pretty much follows as such, from what I can remember reading over 10 years ago so obviously don't quote me:

Luke: "Hey Mara. We're friends, right? "

Mara: " Hmm, I mean, yeah I guess. We interact sometimes, sure. So we're acquaintances. And I'm not trying to kill you anymore so we're not enemies. And I've saved your life a few times so... Yeah. I think we're friends."

Luke, possibly after almost drowning: "Cool, cool, cool. So. Hey....... Do you want to marry me?"

Mara thought about it for a moment. "do you mean you want to get married now as the last thing we do before we die or...?"

Luke: "no, I mean even if we survive this. Do you want to marry me, even if we get out of here alive?"

Mara pondered the question, looking down at Luke where he looked like a pathetic drowned rat. "Sure." She shrugged. "I'll marry you."

Luke: "Awesome! I wasn't sure if you would say 'yes' seeing as we've never ever even in our most private thoughts considered each other as romantic or sexual prospects and we've never dated or expressed interest in each other for the years and years that we've known each other but I just feel like it's meant to be, y'know? And--"

Mara rolled her eyes. "Luke, I already agreed to marry you despite our nonexistent romantic or sexual history together, so just chill. Or don't, I don't need you freezing to death; now that we're engaged you're not allowed to die on me, I'd look awesome in a wedding dress."

And then they survived and announced their engagement to Han and Leia who came to rescue them and were met with confusion ("wait, Leia, did they even ever date!? How did I miss that!?"" / "No, shhh han, just be happy for them.") But they did go on to get married (I think they showed the wedding in one of the comics).

[uniquezombiedestiny]

looks at ur silly tags.

can you tell me about your litteguys more

siiiiigh <- im gonna fucking murder tumblr for deleting my ask (it didnt have much but just. HOW have they not fixed posts just consuming whatever else you were doing every time you reopen tumblr)

anyways message lost by ferry reminds me of sun. theres some specific lyrics of it i like :)

-

dawn can’t break when the sun has burned to a crisp - damn i wonder who this is about (the old sun is gone. no more day!)

there must have been some supernova i missed

my ultimate snapshot - “sky overcast”

go out with a whimper, not with a blast - didnt she literally do this. like 3 times (disappearing from her universe, then dying after her anon messages [seph-a got retconned so. no more amogus. rip], then less literally but her old personality/manager sun being replaced by arbiter sun)

-

to settle for naught and settle the grudge - settled for losing herself to kill 'binah', so she could escape unreality to kill angela (and then all evil people [aka everyone else])

when there was no jury, i was the judge - she killed angela (in her own universe just to clarify) and 'binah' on her own, since she was kinda completely alone there. also about judgement, she did take time to decide on those decisions and think about them

open up my eyes, open up my arms, open up everything - look cool as hell. also break reality in l corp, basically opening it up

lend me your dying vows and undying charms, i can still hear you sing - even if shes dead 'binah's pretty much still there in unreality itself. sun literally follows in her footsteps, killing her to do so. since she loses her voice, unreality speaks for her

-

also more on sun! i feel like her killing 'binah' and then doing what she did seems like. contradictory. and yeah it kinda is. she does hate (and is terrified of) 'binah' but also agrees with her and feels somewhat confident that she could win against her in a fight.

also she loses her voice after killing 'binah', bc unreality is sillay (i cant remember the actual reason :( but like. something something staying so long you become it and inheriting 'binah's power/self in some way)

shes so silly (GIRL GET THERAPY‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️)

oh also i think i already said this. but i was thinking about bleach by friendxp and gem (it is just. his song now). and when yui just obliterates him (killing him a ton of times) as revenge and how he just loses it afterward (oh he also lost his eye too - the purple one specifically*. rip)

*fun design thing - i made up profiles for these guys, but as i devloped/rped them they became outdated. however gems purple and yellow eyes stayed! theres a note with it saying every time you look at him it keeps switching colors (he loses his right eye though. like. HIS right not our right)

-

cry at the feet of hatred, pure white’s what you’re thinking of - its me boy im the ps5 ditch your sense of self we dont need her

i’d spill everything inside to fill it with your love

“isn’t this a bit sad?” questions asked upon uncaring ears - "isnt this a bit sad?" "no i deserve it/i had it coming"

ignore the pain! before it’s too late, pour it down the drain! - something something irony. he pretty much ignored others pain and now hes ignoring his own <3 but also hes just falling even harder into ignoring his pain - hes been doing it since the beginning

-

and just for once in your gray stained eyes i finally want to do what’s right - bless :)

ominous description aside here hes like. "damn! i finally want to be a good person" after getting killed a zillion times. also in an imaged amv hed hug plague doc, and at "do what's right" everything would be black except for bless behind his silhouette. hes so silly <3

i have no idea what hes gonna be like after this but he will be So Scareds

him 🤝 kiminsung

THE HORRORS

gem is so silly (BOY GET THERAPY‼️‼️‼️) im gonna go finish the other asks i had with him. love this guy

[sillyandquiteawkward]

Idk if this is relatable but do you ever finding yourself overwhelmed or sometimes guilt ridden with ideas for your fallout ocs or like,deciding whats their canon/story bc theres so much you can do?I find myself scared to branch out or a little hesitant to do stuff

Also from experience I find it funny when I talk to my friend about our sole survivor oc's becausr we both (I'm back and forth on it as I love yet hate Shaun) stay with the idea that Sole is Shauns parent,like,whos actually Shauns dad or mom lmao but either way I always smile and really enjoy seeing you on my page.Your art and ocs are always so nice to see and I like how you approach them,they're just lil guys,hope you're well! :^]

i think originally i was like worried like, oh the story has to be Solid and exact and i cant fuck with the holiest of fallout and oc canon. but as the time goes by, i think its much more fun to just explore ideas with ocs. i call everything an au, im making up new shit, im retconning. the cool thing about ocs is that you are the boss and no ones gonna get mad at you for branching paths and fucking around with story ideas.

you arent getting a grade on silly little fandom ocs, and ive seen a lot of people embrace and enjoy the wacky and wild and New Takes on fallout protagonist stories. its super refreshing when people break the rules set up by canon. what the point of having little oc dolls when you cant make up random shit for them to deal with in new ways.

i too love to see how people deal with shaun and his whole deal with being the soles kid. i really like when people look at that story and say actually no. fuck this guy. and make something else up they like better, saying shuans adopted, shauns illegitimate, they were just holding him for a friend, etc. ideal. sometimes fallout drops the ball and its our job to fuck around and write a million more funner ways the story couldve gone.

im gripping fallout with my bare hands and squeezing it like an orange. this is the correct way to indulge in fallout oc fandom

:') and im really glad you like my funny lil guys i hope i can continue to entertain!

[impy10]

rant about fnaf dream theory

Dream theory is bad.

Not in terms of today, because of course its wrong today. I mean back in 2015 when the fnaf world thing came out and everyone lost there fucking minds (not in a good way).

And yeah, I get it. Just hearing about dream theory makes me angry. But this was considered ACTUAL canon by the maker of fnaf himself for some reason despite the fact it made (and makes) no sense.

First point; the flatline.

As you probably know, when you beat night 6 in fnaf 4 you get this sad cutscene of the crying child dying. His brother apologises to him and Fredbear tells him he’ll put him back together yeah yeah yeah, but then, guess what?

The child dies. Surprise. A flatline is heard.

What am I getting at with this, you ask (maybe). Well, phone guy talks about the ‘bite of ‘87’. If we are going off dream theory, this is a reference to his incident (which was retconned BY SCOTT in the game files but whatever). But that doesn’t make sense if he died, because then he wouldn’t be alive to dream about this. SPEAKING OF WHIC-

Point 2; phone guy

Why is he here? How does the child know about him? How does he know exactly what his voice sounds like? And don’t say “The toy phone in his dreams!” because there is no phone in his room in the minigames, which I thought were supposed to be the waking world (CHICA-). It would make more sense for it to be mike in the actual gameplay of fnaf 4 but thats not what we are talking about shhhh

Point 3; frontal lobe

There are many problems with this. On one hand, the hand that thinks that CC died after his little incident, this is really dumb cause how does this 8-10 year old child know about frontal lobes without the internet. And on the other hand, the CC is fine actually after having his skull crushed actually (scott I presume), then I get the whole knowing about it (because the doctors probably talked about it) but what about the line of “You’re broken” and “I will put you back together” sorry fredbear the doctors already did that. And also, if by the time scott decided “yes these minigames take place in 1983” then why did the phone guy say “Its amazing the human body can live without the frontal lobe” in relation to ‘87??? like???? It probably wouldn’t be as amazing if it has already happened before

Forth Point; don’t you fuccking dare say “its a dream!”

I highly doubt that this theory has any defenders nowadays, but if their are any I will strawman the fuck out of them. If it is just a dream, and all of my previous points don’t matter, then why is it that the main reason behind this theory was the chica doll loosing her beak (WE WILL GET BACK TO HER LATER)? Why put so much stake into that when there is quite a bit of evidence supporting otherwise, trying to find ways that it fits? In that case too, why isn’t there a foxy variant with no head? Why does the bonnie plush in CC’s room have a face? Is it because its fnaf 1 bonnie? That just brings me back to the foxy thing. If CC is so scared of fredbear, why doesn’t he appear in more of his nightmares other than just fnaf 4? Why is his hat and bowtie swapped from purple to black? To all 3 of dream theorys defenders, I would like to hear from you in 3-5 business days, no more.

5th point; MCI

There is no reason to dream about murdered kids or possessed animatronics. I have scary dreams, but thats because of the internet and this story (and theory) takes place in 1983. Lets go through a couple of ways dream theory tries to justify itself.

The MCI takes place in 1982/1983!

The way this works is either one, It was reported on or two, the crying child somehow knows about it and is the only one who does. The first one doesn’t make sense because if it was a similar situation with the whole stinking up the place stuff, they were found out pretty soon after being stuffed (because… yeah.), so I don’t know why it would be different if not WORSE for the killer in the real world. The second point is also bad, because it is shown that he has no friends. You could say that its because they are dead, but if thats true why is everyone so mean to him? Why aren’t they talking about his friends and/or NOT making fun of him because he’s crying for a reasonable reason? I would be crying too if all my friends died (if I had any offline ones). 

The MCI come from the plushies (+him)

I could see this with foxy’s head being ripped off, but it doesn’t appear that the rest of them are damaged beyond general plushie use. And if this is true, then why isn’t the killer depicted as the brother (foxy)? Because he is the most likely to do this to CC. Why is the killer in his dream related to bonnie and not freddy if thats the angle we’re going, because even if he is also scared of spring bonnie, we only see him being scared by fredbear. Why does he associate spring bonnie with child murder? I get associating him with springlocks because thats probably why he’s so scared of fredbears in the first place, but then why are the MCI children? Why are they hostile to employees? just-

The MCI are the bullies

This is so fucking dumb. WHY would he depict his tormentors as victims? If this is a ‘getting back at the bullies in your mind’ why is he imagining them crying and grey? Don’t fucking come at me with the chara ‘evil child’ shit, it doesn’t work there and it doesn’t work here.

666; TOY CHICA

This mf will haunt my dreams for the rest of my days because of this theory. This theory has made toy chica 10 times scarier because its so dumb it terrifies me that people ended up (albeit reluctantly) agreeing that it was canon. Toy chica losing her beak and the other toy toys are dumb. You know what it probably was? An easter egg.

But in the lore, heres how I see it. The toys were originally made by another company and sold as bootlegs. They were poorly made and bad but were popular enough for freddys to buy the animatronics out. There. Another reason they are there you all can latch onto that doesn’t cheapen the entire story and makes sense. Her and her fucking beak are not a reason to look back on the entire story fnaf had told so far and say “seems fishy”. Green spring bonnie is not a reason to springtrap. Why would he be scared of the doll and associate it with the (most likely) reason why he’s sad all the time? Actually I know why because of her fucking remark. BUT ACTUALLY if that does have a sway over how he preserves these things, why does he dream about them only attacking employees and not children at all? Pigtails girl said, to a 8-10 year old, that the animatronics come out at night to kill you, so why are they only lashing out at adults in fnaf 2? Is it only at night? if , in the ‘CC lives actually’ thing, why would he see fredbear biting him result in him coming to the conclusion that they only attack employees? The way this COULD work is by the him witnessing a springlock failure, but that doesn’t mean he magically knows about an event similar to his death, phone guy, the MCI or other really important plot points

I’m getting really tired of ranting so I will update this with more dream theory bashing in a reblog or something idk

[5-7-9]

saw the poll about least liked Batfam but decided to make my own post.

Dick Grayson was the first robin. After learning more about him the less I know why he exists. He’s childish and funny. Probably so Batman wasn’t lonely but couldn’t influence Batman in any way. But then he stopped being that so idk. Batman copycat? But slightly likable but only because his friends make him better.

Jason Todd was hated on for being a kid so he got all these “unlikable” qualities (poverty, drug addiction) and became an unlikable person. He’s alright.

Tim Drake was made to be relatable to a certain audience and it shows.He only perpetuates the Batman industry that should’ve ended years ago.

Damian was created to perpetuate the bloodline to cater to nepotism. But i think they chose Talia so Batman could take him away from her. But it backfired. If we focus on caring about Talia we can expand the conversation about a non white woman again.

Barbara Gordon was created to be a FUCKING love interest. Then to cater to feminists but (mostly) the only the way sexists know how to. But after getting fridged; A wonderful writer made her into an advocate for disabled (handicap). Intersectionality got more supporters to care about her, which is deserved. (Sidenote: Babs reminds me of my very cool competent older sister. So she also unerves me but like in a good way if I wasn’t a younger sib)

Duke Thomas is pretty relatable for a black teen; and he also joined a movement for children taking back their rights (self defense). And introduced the WAR characters which is nice to focus on minority stories again.

Cass is THE asian american diaspora. And her rewritten stereotypes is such a cool way to humanize caricatures AMAZING.

Stephanie Brown was a love interest. Taken down to boost up Tim. Too impulsive to be Robin and left out of stories. Those are the bad stuff. The good stuff is that she’s like Jason ( positive). Stands up against her abusive father. Still sorta close with her mother. Cass’s friend. Okay i lied. There’s one more bad thing about Steph. She’s also like Jason (negative). (And it makes me scared to talk about it because i think there’s some kind of internet thingy about r*df*ms which I don’t agree with because of it’s white superiority centric stuff 😓).

So it’s between Dick, Tim, Steph, and Jason. Downsizing to Tim, Steph and Jason because Dick and the Teen Titans are great. Downsizing to Steph and Jason because Tim came out as bisexual which is ironic but also serves the same reason why Kate was retconned to be lesbian, because it’s a fuck you to the homophobes from the Batman controversies of the past :)

I genuinely believe Steph and Jason could be better, but it’s tough. It’s really tough. I’m downsizing to just Steph because Jason’s relationship with Bizzaro was sweet, and he could have friends like with Rose and Artemis (is she allowed to use that name? Lol) and sorta is already.

Steph isn’t really- i mean, idk. She doesn’t pull in new characters or dynamics, she doesn’t have a narrative relating to Gotham besides her resolved daddy issues which were resolved. The issue could be solved if she joined her own team? Like why is she so lonely bro. She could easily be a good character.

Coming back around to say Dick becoming the new Batman copycat or just whatever self insert writers wanna say, it’s a huge issue. Honestly, the amount of vagueness he is, is annoying. Genuinely goes back to the root core issue, Batman. Dick is barely his own person. All the changes isn’t even because of him anymore. He was taken away from his own backstory just to be for Batman. How dehumanizing is that? He’s just your spokes person supporter cheerleader for whatever you wanna say, and the DC writers sure had a lot of shit to say.

It’s tough. In conclusion, I gotta stop interacting with Batman man. I only joined because of the rouges honestly, but I get it with child rights so of course I’d get to know the batfam, but everything about the batfam fandom has really irritated me. No one here seems to care about children which is ironic

I guess it’s a tie between Dick Tim Jason Steph. Or Dick Tim. They’re boring.

[haleigh-sloth]

Do you think hori got more and more vague with endeavor’s physical abuse as the story went on? Like I think an anon said, the most graphic abusive scene we got from him was that one page with todoroki puking and a smack sound effect indicating that endeavor slapped rei off page.

Much later on in chapter 302, I think, when he realized dabi was still training in secret, we see rei on the ground cradling her face and todoroki crying and shouting at endeavor to not “bully mom”. Some endeavor stans say he didn’t hit her but rather that she and shouto were napping and endeavor just came in and started verbally bashing her and rei was just hiding her face because she was scared or something.

The thing is, hori had no problem with explicitly showing shigaraki’s dad slapping and beating the shit out of tomura with a gardening tool, in the face at that, so why is he so vague with endeavor? And especially with rei. We also have yet to see what was going down in todoroki’s private training sessions. What happened that made him puke when he was five? We saw once endeavor holding a kendo bamboo blade, what did he do with it? Attack his son?

I might be exaggerating, but if his physical abuse was more clearly shown, some endeavor delulus wounds exist. Cause, for example, if we hadn’t seen tomura’s dad hitting him in the face with full force, and it was only hinted at, I bet there would be some fans saying that tomura’s abuse wasn’t that bad and his dad kept trying to dissuade him form his hero dream cause at that point it seemed as he most likely didn’t have a quirk.

*sweats nervously*

Ha

Well, yes. But also not really?

CW: Abuse

So—here’s one thing we all need to understand and begrudgingly accept:

Endeavor was retconned.

He was retconned in the sense that his M.O. was backpedaled. When he’s first introduced we are shown that he’s this physically abusive piece of shit who beats his wife and his kids, and has almost no redeeming qualities. And we're led to believe that the entire. fucking. series, but at the same time it's becoming obvious that he's going to be this redeemable person, and that he's slowly coming to terms with what he did and that he is going to have to face his past actions. Which honestly could have worked fine----until the Todofam chapters threw a wrench into that shit. THEN we're suddenly shown that Endeavor actually wasn't this violent, physically abusive piece of shit, but in fact only escalated to get that bad because of his spiraling son and him not being able to face the damage he'd already caused. Basically, the author went back and made it to where his violent actions toward his wife and kid were a reaction to a stressor (Touya's mental health), instead of just leaving him as this abusive piece of shit that he was originally introduced as, making him shoulder less blame--making him less guilty. We were still shown that he was an abusive person toward his oldest son, but it was kind of a big shock to see that he actually managed to have a strong bond with one of his kids in the first place, because as I said--most of the series we're shown Shouto and Natsuo hating him, Rei being terrified of him visiting the hospital, and Fuyumi acknowledging the tension in the house when he was incredibly angry after AM's retirement. All things that happen when you're an abusive POS to your family and they're scared of you or blame you. So seeing him have a son who craved his attention so much to the point that it killed him was kind of a shock. ALTHOUGH, I have to agree with this anon here and say that making it this way does add a certain element of sheer sadness to it. But I digress.

The thing about the retcon is that no amount of backpedaling can erase this

And because THIS ^^^ is canon and undeniably HAPPENED, we are only able to assume that it started here ⬇️⬇️

Endeavor was violent and physically abusive toward his wife. It wasn’t like that from the beginning, but it has to start somewhere. This is the starting point ^^^. This was the breaking point, Touya kept getting burned, and Endeavor lost it on Rei. And I am tired of explaining E-stans away. You don't draw two small children covering their ears and hiding in a different room while listening to the horror of your parents and baby sibling screaming at each other unless you're trying to convey the horror of that situation to readers. I don't consume bad takes so I just recommend that you stay away from them as well. Saves a lot of stress.

People can say what they want, but Endeavor's abuse was not vague. I wouldn't consider the physical aspect of it to be vague either. I think that's just the beauty of the retcon. He wasn't physically abusive from the START, but that doesn't erase the fact that he became physically abusive. But we DO know that from the time Touya's potential disappeared, Endeavor started abusing his family.

Emotionally at first, then it became physical.

The thing you gotta ask yourself is, what is the purpose of this retcon? In my opinion, Hori could have still redeemed Endeavor without retconning him. Not everybody would have liked it, but you can't please everybody. That's just a fact. The retcon wasn't necessary to redeem Endeavor. So in my opinion, and I say this with caution, I think Hori retconned Endeavor to make it more acceptable to integrate him back into the family. Or at least imply it. I think that's the ending Horikoshi is going toward. Not a fan of it, but.....look at the writing. It's got wish fulfillment written all over it. It's not gonna make people happy, but at the end of the day, it's not anybody's story but Horikoshi's. He can do what he wants with it. But no amount of retconning can erase the cold, hard truth:

Now as for Shigaraki's situation being so cut and dry without any vagueness--

Look, I would bet money that Horikoshi has had Shigaraki's story planned out for years. His entire arc is central to everything that BNHA is about. All of BNHA's themes, messages, conflicts, and answers lie in Shigaraki's story. Shigaraki is the best written character in this story for a reason. There's no retconning, and he has been carefully written with, in my opinion, no flaws in his story.

The reason he didn't have a problem showing how horrible it got with Shigaraki is because of those reasons I listed above. His story is the heart of BNHA and Horikoshi isn't gonna sugar coat or hide the tragedy in the story's central arc. Otherwise....the entire story just starts to fall apart and not make sense. You don't know what to believe. It becomes too hard to follow and unenjoyable.

Basically what I'm saying (assuming) is: Shigaraki's story is something Hori has never questioned himself about. He knew where he was going with it, and how. That's why there's none of this vagueness or sugar coating in his arc.

His arc is delivering everything BNHA is about to the readers.