#also like generally if you want a show about cycles of abuse that REALLY knows how people work

[spidermanifested]

from now on i extra wont be able to take any posts seriously that go "fullmetal alchemist was actually doing something revolutionary by having sympathetic war criminals because it teaches viewers the valuable lesson that war criminals are people too" because im 4 seasons deep into a show thats actually doing that but good (hbo's barry)

[wilwheaton]

if you know this secret handshake some of us use today, i see you and i’m so sorry.

I don't celebrate Father's Day (or any other Hallmark holiday) for reasons that will not surprise you if you know anything about my life.

But I do celebrate all the other children of fuckers and pieces of shit who survived like I did, who broke the cycle of generational trauma like I and my sister did, whose mothers forced them to praise and worship their abuser "because it's father's day" like mine did, who fucking hate the endless reminders to celebrate the dad we never had (in my case, because he chose not to be a dad to me like he chose to be a dad for my brother. I guess being a bully was more satisfying to him).

I see you, friends. I see you, and I know you see me, and I am both grateful and sad. We know this secret handshake we wish we didn't know. We know a very specific kind of loss that only we know, a type of lingering pain that never really goes away entirely, that can only be reduced to part of the background noise, but can crank itself up to 11 without warning.

I just want you all to know that I see you, and I love you. I know how tough it is, how much it hurts.

I want to specifically make meaningful eye contact with all of my fellow survivors who are also dads, who show up for our kids in spite of the pain and loss. It's such a challenge, and it means so much. We broke the cycle and that is massive. I'm so proud of us.

[compact-turtle]

How would all three yans react to having children? Good or bad?

This is actually such a fun prompt and ask! Thank you for sending it in. I'd actually love to write a full post sometime instead of a small little drabble about this! It'd be so much fun imaging one of their daily routines and lives with a family.

Atticus:

-Isn't really that interested in kids unless his darling wants them. At first, he'll try to talk his darling out of it. Gives lists of reasons on why he can't be a dad. Eventually, comes around to it if his darling really wants them.

-He's a strict and stoic father. Makes sure the kids go to bed at a certain time, finish their chores and do their homework. The kids have to be punctual.

-Not a fan of extreme harsh punishments at all. No taking away meals, locking in closets or any of the sorts. Especially, hitting if they don't listen. (His parents used to do it to him which has resulted in a traumatized farmer)

-More type of look at the consequences of your actions. You don't do your homework, then you fail your class. You don't collect eggs from the chicken coop, no eggs for breakfast. You don't feed the dogs, look at them go hungry. (The doggies don't actually go hungry since Atticus secretly feeds them, they're just always begging for food)

-Shows he loves them through his actions instead of words. He'll take them special getaway trips, go bird watching, catch bugs, make presents, etc. He wants his kids to know that he loves them despite his strict behavior. He's trying to break the cycle of generational abuse that came from his parents. It's hard ngl but he makes an effort every day to overcome it.

For readers who imagine pregnancy:

-kisses your belly when you're asleep. Reassures the baby that he'll always take care of them. He would never do it when you're awake since he's nervous you'll deem him as less than manly or "strong".

-Does not let you work on the farm at all!! He hires extra farmhands to replace your usual help. Lectures and scolds you when you try to do anything. Don't you know that an accident could happen any time especially somewhere dangerous like this farm??

-Your safety and the baby's safety are top priority at all times.

-Watches films and tv shows about pregnancy and families. He makes sure to remember all the details so he can be the best father just like on the tv!

-No sexy time at all when pregnant! He's afraid it'll injure the baby. Only complies when his darling coaxes him into it but even then, it took a while.

Orion:

-Hella yea. The only one who's willing to jump on board and be excited for them. Takes the kids out on daily foraging and exploration nearby the home. Teaches them how to jot down information.

-Shows them his notes on all different types of plants, creatures and landscapes. Tells them which things to avoid and how to survive if in contact with dangerous creatures.

-Kids grow an immunity to his terrible cooking. Actually, enjoy it and treat is as an odd delicacy to be savored.

-The children are taught both languages. Darling's for communicating with other members of the species but his in case they need to talk, and others are listening in.

-Reminds the kids how much he adores them and their mother every day. Tells them tales about his home world and adventures with their mother.

-However, his favorite story to tell is about how their mother heroically saved him from death and starvation. Sometimes he embellishes details like

"Oh, your mother also fell in love at first sight with me. They were just too shy to admit it, but I could tell."

-The real question though, are human species able to get darling's species pregnant???

For readers who imagine pregnancy:

-Does darling get pregnant like a human? Orion will have to find out. However, I imagine the way of getting pregnant to be similar, but they don't give birth. Instead, an egg like thing forms within their reproductive system and they push out something similar to an egg.

-The egg would hatch within two months after growing to full term.

-Orion has built a nest for the egg and watches it every night. Proudly tells the egg about all the adventures they'll go on as family.

-Darling insists that Orion doesn't need to baby the egg since the shell is quite strong. Still, he doesn't listen and frets over any small movement from it. Makes little hats and scarves and dresses the egg in it.

-Orion makes sure to take so many notes during this period. What color is the egg? How long before it hatches? How many times does it move in an hour?

-He takes notes in case darling and him decide to have another egg baby. He'll be more prepared second round.

-Enjoys setting the mood up for some sexy time. He feeds you the right food, sets up the small hut just right and everything. Ofc he'll makes sure to cover the baby egg with a blanket. He doesn't want your baby egg to see anything inapposite after all.

Ivar:

-He'd want to wait a few years into marriage. The idea of kids is daunting. He's seen the worse of man and how destructive the world can be. Really nervous about letting kids out into that type of environment. Still, he does desire a family that you'll raise together.

-He's a fun goofy dad. Takes all the stress of the kids when he arrives home. Plays with them, teases them and drains all their energy so you can relax. I'd imagine that Ivar insists that you be a stay-at-home mom while he goes to work.

-Listens to his kid's problems from boyfriend issues to " I can't believe they cancelled my show". Actively enjoys listening to his kids talk about anything and everything.

-Signs his kids up for self-defense classes. He's aware that there's so many dangers in the world and he can't always be there to help. They've got to be prepared for anything that could happen.

-Supports his kids in all their activities. Shows up to every single game, recital, spelling bee, etc. Whatever it maybe, he'll be there. Wants them to know he cares about them and their interests.

-Doesn't really enjoy mentioning stories from his time at war to them. He's afraid it'll corrupt their world view and he want them to live a peaceful life :(

For readers who imagine pregancy:

-Ivar reads up on all those mom-blogs and pregnancy books. Puts headphones on your belly so your baby can listen to Mozart. Does it actually do anything? Idk the mom blog says it stimulates baby growth or something like that.

-You have a strong craving at 1 in the morning? He's on the case to get it for you. If he can't find it any stores, then he'll drive over to the next few towns to get it. He's so determined to find it.

-loves decorating the baby's nursery. He'll put up decorations and different decals for the baby. Also enjoys building things for it such as dresser and the crib.

-Also doesn't let you by yourself. You want to talk a walk around the neighborhood by yourself? Nope. He's right there holding your hand or pushing you in a wheelchair.

-loves to initiate sexy time with you. During his mom blog reading, he read that it was a great past time while pregnant. Plus, he loves you no matter what you look like even if you're insecure about your changing body.

[galactic-rhea]

Do you guys ever think about how the generational cycles of abuse slowly crumble in The Simpsons? Do you ever think about it?

I love The Simpsons, and by no means it's supposed to be taken as a show that takes itself seriously, because it doesn't. But yet it handles heavy themes, it does handle strong subjects, particularly first seasons had certain, strong character's driven episodes meant to actually make you take it seriously. Even later seasons, albeit it becomes less and less of a thing (it becomes a bit heartless), has certain episodes like that. And is what makes The Simpsons a bit unique on the adult shows landmine.

Not to say it's completely original on this, because The Simpsons come from an era where sitcoms were everywhere, and sitcoms tend to be 70% comedy and then a few strong, heart-felt moments. This is because to keep you laughing, you need downs, otherwise, joke after joke after joke, you get a monotone story were there's no stakes nor pauses between a punchline and another. Comedy needs a tiny bit of seriousness, so you feel your feet on the ground, and then they will throw at you a joke, that, if is well written, is meant to surprise you, you don't see it coming. In the Simpsons, many of the classic jokes you remember best? You don't see them coming, not really, because the way they wrote the jokes in the simpsons is actually very clever, if I were to graph them, there would be several curves and points because they're jokes within jokes within jokes.

And then is a bit of dark humour, that is meant to reasonate with the audience somehow. So you laugh a bit at the fact that Homer's dad let him drink beer just so he would stop bothering him, but then the show makes you care, sometimes, about Homer being extremely hostile with his very old dad. But then you also laugh at the fact Homer's mom was a hippie, a rebel hippie, at that, that took him to Woodstock and is one of Homer's happiest memories of his childhood, and then you don't expect her literally dying.

And returning, in a way, just because she wants Homer and his family to continue what she started, and the show makes you care, the show makes you feel for the characters. Because Abe is a war veteran, he was awful to Homer and to his wife, but you also know he cared, and you also feel bad because he lives in a retirement home and wants to live with Homer and his family, but Homer will literally start the engine and leave him there, and at his age, he doesn't deserve that, but what does he deserve? Should Homer forgive him for everything? No, not really, you don't have to forgive abusers, but then it gets messy and complex because abusers don't deserve to be abused.

Homer, however, does forgive Abe, sometimes (and because of the nature of the show, it gets retconned, or forgotten, or brushed away, and etc). But more interestingly, he forgives his mom. Homer's mom was a much nicer parent, she was kind and Homer's refuge for happiness, so it's easy to forgive her, despite the fact that leaving Homer with someone like Abe was certainly, not a good choice, and we know that many, MANY of Homer's problems, all come rooted from either trauma or behaviours he learned from his childhood. And he's rightfully angry about it, he acts a bit like a rebellious teenager, because Homer is fairly inmature and this is because a extremely troubled youth.

But he forgives her right when she's literally a corpse in a chair, and then the closure comes from finishing what she started years ago as a radical environmentalist advocate.

So Homer knows, extremely well from first hand, his parents' flaws, and he is, to some degree, aware of how these affected him, which is more than most of the audience he represents realizes. But he's still an awful parent. He is abusive, towards Bart, but he also cares and tries deeply. He does an incredible much better job as a parent and as a partner than his parents.

And that's still not enough. That's not enough because trying doesn't mean sucess. The nature of the show makes it a bit harder, because sometimes it can be uqite inconsistent. There's a whole episode focused on how Homer decided to give up a lot and to stay under the awful working conditions from Mr. Burns because of Maggie, and then there are episodes where he literally forgets he has a third child.

But that's still better, somehow, than his upbringing. The bar was low, quite low, but he doesn't know anything else, and yet tries to be something different. And that's, from a narrative sense, interesting.

The cycle is breaking, is not completely over, is not a good job, but it is an attempt, it is watering down the abuse, it is making it less awful. Is like trying to purify a river, you're starting to remove the trash bags, you blocked the wastes tubes, the water is still contaminated, there's no grass and the ground is infertile. But it's a start, you need to start somewhere.

And then, in the futures episodes with Bart (and Lisa, and Maggie, even) we learn that, he isn't doing that much better either. Bart is divorced, his ex hates him because he's inmature and his children aren't very fond of him. Lisa's marriage is a bit of a mess, and her relationship with her daughter echoes a bit the one she had with Marge and Homer: She can't understand her, there's a lack of cummunication.

But it's still incredible, much better, than what they knew while growing up. Bart tries to be more responsible, he isn't abusive, his problem is that he's inmature and therefore can't connect with his children. But he doesn't quite yell at them, or tries to choke them (at least in the future episodes I remember, there are several). And unsurprisingly, he resents Homer a lot, which is logical, given everything, but he's also baffled that his children love Homer, and as a grandparent, he actually does quite a good job.

And the cycle is almost completely broken. Perhaps you can't absolutely clean it all, at least not in so few years, but it's happening and the change and evolution is logical, despite it being a sitcom, it is quite well written and sadly realistic. Bart and Lisa and Maggie don't have perfect lives as adults, and they struggle and the narrative shows you that a lot of these struggles come from their toxic enviroment.

And they're still doing better, because Homer and Marge chose to do slightly better than their parents. And so the cycle is near to the end.

I could talk about Marge, but sadly, in terms of her upbringing, there isn't much, besides the fact that she grew in a conservative home. We know her mother told her to held back tears and always pretend to be happy and force a smile, which is how she carried out in her life in many facets. And then we see she tries, at first, to teach the same to Lisa, and then decides to break that rule, to break what she forced herself to do and let Lisa be sad and express her emotions fully.

We also know she was quite bullied by her older sisters, and she's the one to always try to stop fights between Lisa and Bart, and the first one to try to stop rivalry between them when Homer tried to make them fight the other for attention.

Marge is flawed in a sense that she internalized a lot of misoginy and conservative ideals and then, sometimes, she tries to spread it, unwillingly, because is what she knows. Despite this, we know she supports Lisa's interests in studying and artistic skills. We know her mother was cold, and a bit detached, but Marge tries to be as warm and supportative as possible.

The Simpsons reasonates, mostly, with a generation that came from similar home enviroments, and, to some degree, some people in the audience could realize of their own flawed origins or how they carried those flaws, because I think the creators and writers had this in mind, the change and the struggle with trauma, the "not being good, but being better than what I remember".

So there's that. Deeply, deeeply flawed people that were raised in awful enviroments, and ultimately fail at being "good" parents, but they tried to change, and they tried to be better, and trying does matter in the end , because it's a start. They didn't end the cycle, but they planted the seeds for it. And to me, that's extremely interesting, and more so because this is the fricking Simpsons, a comedy, but like the context and narrative it generates, reasonates deeply with me despite not being for any of the generations the Simpsons represent, I'm a queer person in their 20s that was raised and still lives with an awful, awful family, but that I know their upbrinding was just so so so so much worse. And I know they try, and is not enough, and I can't quite forgive that, but I can see they try. And I know the cycle ends with me, at the very least.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

I was rooting for Gabriel having a redemption arch, but even I know that what we got in the show was anything BUT.

How would you handle it? If you were to succesfully redeem Gabriel? How would you do it?

I'm not opposed to a Gabriel redemption arc, but it would be very hard to do without some serious and careful character development or serious edits to canon. My preference is option two because option one risks something that is a hard no for me: glorifying the cycle of abuse. We'll still talk about both paths because it's worth discussion and we'll start with the easy one, which is rewriting canon to remove the abuse.

Rewriting Gabriel

The easiest way to give Gabriel a redemption is to make him a good father. Someone who clearly loves Adrien in a healthy, non-possessive way. Someone who is at least trying to have Adrien's best interests at heart. Someone who is willing to let Adrien do things that make Adrien happy.

To make Gabriel into this kind of character, we would need to remove all - or at least most - of the manipulation. Things like when Adrien asked to no longer be a model and Gabriel used that as an excuse to make an AI Adrien and then told Adrien that his options were to either tolerate the AI or go back to being a model:

Adrien: Dad, I'm not really comfortable with having my face on all these rings. That's actually why I didn't want to be a model anymore, to avoid that. Do you understand? Gabriel: Of course, I understand, my son. But that's the point; it's just an image, it's not you! And since this image frees you from your obligations, we, the Agrestes, are able to spend more time together. But if you'd rather everything went back to the way it was before, just say the word.

We'd also need to get rid of every moment when Adrien seemed to fear his father like this scene from Illusion where Adrien spilled spaghetti on Gabriel and then immediately started freaking out like he was afraid of being hit or otherwise punished:

Adrien: Yes, I forgot my school bag. (spills the spaghetti on Gabriel’s clothes, but Gabriel remains calm) Oops! Oh, sorry, Dad! You must be so angry! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!

These moments are easy to write because they allow Gabriel to come across as evil and scary without the audience knowing anything about him. In other words, they work wonderfully with the whole "every episode must stand fully alone" rule. But if we ignore that rule and say that Gabriel is allowed to be nuanced, then we can replace this straightforward writing with more complex writing that requires you to watch multiple episodes in order to understand what's going on in the broader story.

In this new version of canon, we wouldn't have to change much story wise. We could keep the same general story beats. The only big change is that we'd see Gabriel struggle between his grief, his love for his son, and his desperation to restore his wife. This would mean little moments of nuance like Gabriel changing his mind about the day's akuma because his planned akuma would knowingly putting Adrien at risk and Gabriel won't do that, so he has to swap plans on the fly, leading to some of his more wacky akumas. This setup allows for a Gabriel who is still a super villain, but he's now a super villain with principles who refuses to let those he loves be harmed in his quest.

A more minor change is that Adrien's fear of his father would be replaced with a more complex setup. Instead of fear, Adrien is now held back grief because he's a teenage boy who is grieving and who knows that his parent is also grieving, but who doesn't know what to do about any of that. In this setup, the father-son conflict is not abuser and victim but two grief-stricken individuals who no longer know how to connect because a vital element of their relationship has forever changed. You know, the kind of setup you'd expect for a family where the relatively young mother died less than a year ago.

I've talked about this kind of setup leading to a corruption arc, but you could also use it for a redemption arc. If Gabriel never goes against his principles and always puts Adrien first even if it means losing Emilie, then you maintain Gabriel as a complex and nuanced character who would believably stop his quest as soon as he learned Chat Noir's identity or was otherwise put in a position to once and for all choose between his son and his wife. (Which could be how we get our next villain if the story doesn't end with Gabriel's lose.)

While I thought that the movie adaptation was too rushed to make it's ending really work, it does show the template for this path. A path I would have personally loved, but it's not the path we got in the show so let's talk about option two.

Redeeming Canon Gabriel

Whether or not he understands what he's doing, canon Gabriel is an abuser. He controls and manipulates his son without any concern for what Adrien wants because Gabriel seems to view Adrien as a perfect doll and not a real human being with his own wants and needs.

Quick senti rant: This is yet another reason that I hate the sentistuff. Because sentimonsters are so poorly defined, that the sentiplot does kind of validate Gabriel's POV and that's not a good thing. This is extra true since Gabriel's part in that plot ended with Gabriel essentially giving Marinette ownership of Adrien by passing on the rings. I talked about it at length here, but I think the only way to make the sentiplot work in the context of canon is for it to end with Gabriel realizing that he needs to view Adrien as more than a doll and I think the only way to really do that is to have Gabriel use the wish to free his son.

Back to the main discussion in which Adrien is a real boy and we ignore the senti complication!

In order for canon Gabriel to be redeemed, he must acknowledge his abuse and make recompense for what he's done. Adrien must also acknowledge his father's abuse and be allowed to decide what that means for their relationship as Adrien is the victim and, when it comes to reconciliation, the victim should be the one calling the shots, not the abuser. This is a complex and nuanced process that would take an intense amount of screen time to make work. I do think you could do it, but once again, it would require Miraculous to get rid of that whole, "every episode must stand fully alone" rule.

Off the top of my head, if I had to take this route, I'd have season five end with Gabriel losing. I also wouldn't let him die or do his grand plan. Instead, I'd have him lose without a big public reveal by having Felix or Nathalie reveal Gabriel's identity to Ladybug and Chat Noir. This would lead to Gabriel being stopped in an epic battle between our two heroes.

Once Gabriel has been subdued and the full story has been revealed (because it would be so much more satisfying coming from Gabriel and not freaking Felix), Ladybug would contact the guardians to see if Emilie could be saved. This is a path Gabriel never had the chance to take because the Guardians weren't around until quite recently. (I'd probably make it so that Gabriel didn't even know that the Guardians were back.) The Guardian's answer would, of course, be yes, but it would require some special lost item or other BS that the heroes need to get/do first.

At the same time, we'd learn that there is a new bigger, badder villain. I'm thinking Tomoe, but Lila, Felix, and/or Nathalie are also options. No matter which one we pick, Gabriel would have knowledge about the new villain that no one else does. Knowledge that is not easily given. In order to save his wife, Gabriel agrees to help the heroes with the new villain and they agree to help save Emilie (they would have done that anyway, but Gabriel doesn't need to know that).

Over the course of this plot line, Gabriel would become less of a recluse and, as a result, he'd get out of his own head and start to regret his actions as he comes to view the heroes as people, not obstacles. This plot line would really lean into the idea that Gabriel never viewed his actions as real because he'd always planned to reset everything with the wish, so what did it matter if he hurt people? It was all just a bad dream that they'd forget once he'd won and set everything right.

Now that his hope of resetting everything is gone and his actions have actual weight in his mind, he'd be incredibly remorseful about the way he treated Adrien, so he'd pull away from his son. At the same time, he'd be bonding with Chat Noir, whose identity was never revealed. This would eventually lead to a reveal whose time and place was fully chosen by Adrien. A reveal that would only take place once Adrien felt that his father had truly changed and come to regret what he'd done.

Bonus element to this idea: the Gabriel-Adrien reveal would be our new identity shenanigan hook, meaning that the love square could reveal themselves without removing that element of the story. It would just have a new main flavor.

The Cycle of Abuse

I mentioned at the top that you have to be incredibly careful about redeeming abusers because it can glorify the cycle of abuse. I wanted to end by talking about what I meant by that as I think that far too many pieces of media accidentally glorify this cycle because they don't put the necessary effort into their redemption arcs. When it's media aimed at teens and adults, I just kind of sigh and stop consuming it. When it's media aimed at kids, I get legitimately upset because the cycle of abuse is already hard enough to escape without media helping you internalize it at a young age where you don't have the skills to understand fiction vs reality.

There are a lot of in-depth articles and books about the cycle of abuse, so I won't go too deep here. I'll just link one article and go over the basics which is that abuse is often not constant. In many cases, it follows a clear pattern in which there's an incident of abuse, followed by some form of reconciliation, followed by a period of true calm and happiness, but that calm and happiness never lasts. There will eventually be another incident of abuse and the cycle will start all over again. It's an existence of the highest highs and lowest lows where the victim has true hope that things will get better only for that hope to be cruelly dashed to pieces again and again.

This cycle is one of the many things that can make it hard for victims to leave or even identify the abuse depending on what form the abuse takes. After all, no one is perfect and we want to support our loved ones. If a person does something mean and then apologizes, we want to believe that apology. This very normal series of events can be paired with the cycle of abuse to keep a victim trapped because they think that they're a bad person if they give up on their abuser who is, "trying to get better," or some other excuse. But that's not what's actually happening. While the abuser is saying what the victim wants to hear and may even mean it in the moment, if they're not actually doing any work to change, then it's just another reconciliation round in the cycle of abuse.

This is why it's so important to have media that tells you that it's okay to give up on people. That their happiness is not your responsibility. It's also a big reason why I like the idea of redeeming character A while not redeeming character B. That setup lets you have that positive message of redemption while also presenting the idea that redemption is never a sure path. You can only redeem those who want to change (even if it's for a selfish reason) and who are willing to put in the work. A thing that you can really highlight and drive home when you do the A vs B setup.

Before we move on, I will note that there are abusive relationships that don't look like the cycle. The cycle is simply a very common pattern. The thing that makes it "special" when it comes to writing is that it's the type of abuse that's easiest to glorify and/or romanticize if you're not careful in your writing, which brings us back to Miraculous.

Miraculous actually demonstrated the cycle of abuse horrifically well in season five. In this season, we see things like Gabriel giving Adrien apologies and permission to call him "dad." Acts of reconciliation that were followed by blissful happiness for Adrien who desperately wants his father's love. But of course, that happiness never lasted. In the end, Gabriel always destroyed it with a new act of abuse because he is an abuser. An abuser who loves his son, but an abuser none the less because love doesn't stop abuse.

Because of this, if you want to write a realistic redemption, then you cannot give Gabriel a simple redemption where he apologizes and everything is suddenly okay. You have to differentiate his "true" apology from the others. You have to make it clear that this isn't just another round in the cycle of abuse both to tell a good story and so that little kids can hopefully internalize the difference between when you need to run away and when it's safe to stick around.

Another important element in getting this message right is allowing the victim character to be the one who is in charge of the reconciliation. Generally speaking, the victim should be super wary about reconciling because - for this to work - they need to be fully aware that there has been past abuse so that they can make a fully informed choice about what that means for them and their relationship with their abuser. It's not a true reconciliation if the victim is totally oblivious to the fact that they've been wronged.

Because of this, the true reconciliation will usually be a drawn out process wherein the abuser and the victim don't reconcile until the abuser has unequivocally proven themself as changed to really highlight the difference between an actual reconciliation and the kind of temporary reconciliation we see in the cycle. This why my hypothetical solution has a love square reveal and Gabriel avoiding Adrien out of shame.

That route allows Adrien to have full control over the situation as Ladybug can accommodate his needs, allowing Chat Noir to have 0 required interactions with his father. All required interactions are handled by Ladybug or other teammates so that all of the interactions that happen between Gabriel and Chat Noir feel like Chat Noir's freely made choice. This setup also allows Adrien and Gabriel to be on more equal footing in terms of power, an extremely important element of reconciliation. A lot of damaged parent-child relationships don't fully heal until the child is an adult and the parent loses their power.

All of the above is why I'm wary of giving abusers redemption arcs into happy close relationships with their victims (I'm much more liberal with redemption arcs into happiness with people they never hurt and/or where they're redeemed, but not super close with their victims). I'm extra wary in the context of children's media as it can be harder for kids to understand nuance and this is an incredibly important topic to get right.

That doesn't mean it can't be done. It can! It just requires a lot of effort to do it right. Most of the time, stories with this type of redemption feel lackluster and honestly make me a little sick to my stomach because it's so common to go the lazy route where a single apology is all that's required. It's why I'm super wary of the whole "enemies to lovers" thing. I like the concept it in theory, but more often than not, it ends up being abuser-and-victim to lovers, which is a hard pass for me. I don't judge people who enjoy that stuff in fiction or role-play settings, it's just not my cup of tea. Be it fiction or reality, I want couples that feel healthy and families/teams that I'd love to be a part of.

Since this was a serious one, let's end on a topical, but humorous short from ProDZ where he very accurately sums up your standard bad-guy redemption and why I don't like it. I love the redeeming power of love, but like all tropes, part of doing it well is knowing what story setups are suited to it and which ones are not.

[omgthatdress]

Everything I know about the royals comes from Tumblr memes and one bonus episode of a totally unrelated podcast but now I'm morbidly curious, so: what's up with William? And the Middletons? Or if that's a longer story than you want to explain, do you have recommendations for where to read about this that is likely to be fairly accurate?

I don't have any facts I just have pure fucking speculation if that's okay. :)

Like I've been saying for a long-ass time the one thing I absolutely LOVED about The Crown was its portrayal of generational trauma. It very skillfully showed how being a shitty husband who cheats on his wife and treats his kids like garbage was passed down from Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark to Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh to King Charles and then to Prince William. Hell, it probably started long before that but holy shit THE CYCLE OF DYSFUNCTION AND ABUSE BE REPEATING ITSELF.

And if you really want to dig into it, well.... I think he and Harry followed a pattern that a LOT of siblings of bitter and messy divorce fall into, one kid sides with the mom, one with the dad. It's been said a LOT that Harry was Diana's favorite son, so it probably started with that. And OF COURSE William is gonna side with Charles because well... he's the heir. They have that shared trauma.

And then there's the way the whole "heir and spare" thing absolutely perverts any relationship they might have had as brothers. Charles managed to have a decent relationship with his siblings, I think, because first of all, Anne was a girl, and then Andrew and Edward were significantly younger than him and Anne, so there wasn't this unnaturally massive imbalance of power between them. One of the reasons I've come to believe the monarchy should be abolished is because of how badly it damages the structure of a family in a way that no one should have to deal with.

I think Diana might have been able to guide William into being a better person if she'd have lived, but idk. It may be wishful thinking. His relationship with her became kind of strained when he was a teenager and she was going on TV to tell the whole fucking world about her sex life. I think Diana did the right thing exposing the family like she did, but I can also understand how a 13 year old boy would be absolutely humiliated by that.

THEN there's the whole way he was a MASSIVE heartthrob as a teenager, and was intensely sexualized for it. Like it will absolutely mess with you when you have girls screaming and throwing themselves at you when you're still trying to figure your own sexuality out. It will also massively inflate your ego and convince you that the whole world loves you and there's nothing you can do wrong.

SOOOOOO

as for his relationship with Kate. She's much harder to pin down because she hasn't spent her entire fucking life in the spotlight, and the Middletons are sill granted a certain degree of privacy that the Windsors aren't. I don't think they're as absolutely fucked up as Diana's family was but I still definitely think her mom was a major driving force behind her staying with William.

I think there actually was some initial mutual attraction and that they may have even actually been in love. Buuuut then he waited ten years to propose to her, during which he cheated and they broke up and got back together. Honestly, I don't know what Kate's damage was with all of that, whether or not she was able to convince herself that William wouldn't be another shitty husband, or if she was willing to put up with his bullshit if it meant she would be queen.

Diana was more or less picked out as a bride for Charles because it was assumed that she would be a meek and beautiful wifey who never caused any problems. I mean, she was 19 and he was 32 for fuck's sake. She very much wanted to be queen. BUT what everyone wasn't counting on was that Diana would *gasp* have some serious emotional needs. She was deeply traumatized by her own parents' incredibly bitter divorce, overwhelmed and deeply lonely in her position as princess, and on top of that, suffering from bulimia and then post-natal depression. She needed love and support and Charles spent the whole marriage balls deep in Camilla.

Kate had a much more stable upbringing and had more than a few months to get to know both William and what her role as a princess would be. Ultimately, the vibe I get from her is that she's willing to be the perfect meek beautiful wifey who puts up with William's bullshit if it means she can be royal, which is exactly what Diana was supposed to be.

And I don't mean that to knock or belittle her. She's good at it. She looks incredibly happy when she's doing that. It's her career. It's an exchange I can actually really understand making, especially when your only other prospects involved working for your parents' party company.

But I could be extremely wrong about all of this Maybe she's absolutely miserable but she feels like she has no other options and worried about losing her kids and is terrified of what happened to Diana. It's hard to know, and I wish The Crown would have at least committed to *something* rather than just brushing all of this off.

[doubledyke]

Eddy's feelings towards his friends are complicated. Although theres no doubt he loves them, could you describes them in details? With your own words?

yeah so im not sure that 12 year old eddy knows what love is. "love" is weird and complicated, and i'm not gonna pretend like i'm an expert on complex emotions. but it doesn't seem like "i love you" is a phrase that's thrown around very often in his household. his mom is probably the best example of someone (non-ed) who might actively show some form of love for him, and honestly that's mainly bc i headcanon her (somewhat groundlessly) as being generally very sweet and well-meaning. at the very least i believe that she cares about eddy - enough to clean his room for him, hire a babysitter out of an abundance of caution, and to care about having a good school photo of him, etc.

dads in general are notoriously averse to expressing emotions, and i get the vibe from eddy's behavior that his dad is no different. in fact he's probably even worse than your-run-of-the-mill aloof patriarch. his toxic masculinity prevents him from accepting or offering much in the way of affection. im sure he loves eddy in his own weird way, but that "love" is definitely conditional.

now, eddy's interaction with bro when they meet up at the end of bps is pretty notable because its the most affectionate eddy's ever been with anyone in the entire series up to that point. he hugs him, nuzzles up to him and calls him his hero, etc. it's really weird to watch. if you asked bro if he "loves" eddy he'd probably say "sure" and evidently he's protective of eddy against outside forces.... then turns around and commits horrific abuse against him himself. it's no wonder eddy essentially has stockholm syndrome lmao. the cycle of abuse is confusing and distressing for anyone, but especially for a kid.

anyway, all that to say that eddy's feelings for bro come as close to "love" as they can for a kid who really gets shit on from just about every direction. and though i don't see bro as someone who'd say "i love you" either, his behavior in the eye of the storm probably makes eddy think he at least cares about him. he grew up with bro, presumably knows his patterns and probably thinks that being related to someone automatically equals loving them. "blood is thicker than water" as they say.

eddy's shown to be very distrusting of others, including the other eds, which to me explains why he has the vibe of keeping even them at arm's length sometimes. and why he's uncomfortable being vulnerable around them. he's no doubt more comfortable around them than he is any of the other kids, but he never completely drops the Big Act™ around them. until he gets the shit kicked out of him in front of everyone and has no choice but to do so.

when people are nice to eddy, he thinks he's being primed for a walloping (cycle of abuse), or at the very least a prank. it's hard for him to believe that people could like him and want to be around him without bro's influence.

eddy obviously cares about ed and edd but his idea of what that looks like is extremely warped and to the average person doesn't remotely resemble love. given the context of what we know about eddy's fucked up existence though, ed and eddy are clearly very important people to him and he shows it as best as he can with the tools he's been given by the people responsible for raising him.

some of my favorite moments are when he very reluctantly gives in to edd's or ed's wishes. little ed blue and thick as an ed come to mind, but there are other examples. he's also pretty generous with the fanciful fame and fortune he believes to be in his future. he usually includes his friends in these fantasies, telling them to hire secretaries (one of my favorite eddy lines) and whatnot. there's also the time he tried really hard to break ed out of his basement when he was grounded, and of course he let edd sleep in his bed, spoon fed him warm milk and even read him a bed time story.

and other times he's a shitty friend. i don't need to list all the less than loving things he's done to his pals cuz that'd take all day.

he'll get there though. maybe? personally i don't ever see him being someone who's overly mushy, it's just too weird. but if you catch him at the right moment he's probably very sweet and maybe even vulnerable on occasion. but mostly i see him showing his affection for people in non-verbal ways. which is pretty much what he does in the show, so there ya go.

[bitethedevil]

Writer game!

What recurring themes/topics in your writing do you have?

TW: Talk of Abuse and Trauma

Also: beware of spoilers if you haven't yet read Living with The Devil You Know and want to.

I think in general there’s a big theme of trauma and abusive and toxic behavior in my writing. This is also why I prefer writing Dark!Raphael. It’s almost hard not to include those subjects with him, which might be why I’m enjoying writing him so much. I’ve directed plays in the past, and for some reason the major theme in those plays have always ended up being trauma.

It’s an interesting concept to explore I think, and perhaps also, on a more personal note, because I find it therapeutic to explore it through art. Also, before I keep yapping, I also just want to say that there is no wrong way to experience trauma, and that the things I write about are mainly from my own perspective and things I have learned about myself through dealing with my past and by talking to others with similar experiences (Nothing to worry about at all btw, I am better than I have ever been. Therapy is a godsend).

I try to make it as realistic as I can. Such as small things and reactions from my characters that I don’t blatantly point out is due to trauma, but it makes sense in that context.

My best example is Tav in ‘Living with The Devil You Know’ (Spoilers). She’s grown up with a cruel father who beat her, and it’s hinted at that he also verbally abused her. Her trauma presents itself both mentally and physically in the form of the burn scars on her face that she had chosen to hide for years.

Ironically, it’s Raphael who reveals them, even though he is the same kind of man as her father was. She shows it to him without knowing if he accepts her for it or he simply does it to ‘pour salt in the wound’, so to speak. Tav also learns that just ignoring her scars of the past, metaphorically and literally, does not mean that they have gone away.

On the other hand, she also continues the cycle of abuse in a way. She’s cold, selfish and overly practical at times towards other people, because that is how she has learned to survive. She begins to see herself as evil instead of trying to understand where it is all coming from, which I think unfortunately is very realistic for many survivors of abuse. It’s much easier to simply demonize oneself than to start dealing with the past and explore where those survival mechanisms are coming from.

I also think their relationship is depressingly representative of a lot of abusive and toxic relationships. I think that very few people figure out immediately that ‘Oh shit. My partner is cruel and abusive towards me, and they are actually not a good person’. It’s more ‘Oh they did manipulate me that one time, and they did do that other horrible thing too, but other times they are really nice and loving! They’re human too and makes mistakes!”.

Tav rationalizes the shit out of everything that man does A LOT. I love writing characters like that. With Tav specifically, her tragic flaw is that she has been abused in the past. She knows how it works. She is aware of what’s going on. And still: a part of her thinks she deserves it, because she sees herself as ‘evil’ too.

(Spoilerspoilerspoiler if you haven’t read the latest chapter. Though it is pretty obvious that it would happen eventually) Even after she is freed, as she has longed for, she goes right back to him, though she knows exactly what kind of person he is. Because the depressing truth about a lot of untreated trauma is that abuse and evil starts feeling safer and more like home, than a functional relationship ever could, because such a relationship is unknown.

I find Raphael interesting for many reasons, but the themes of abuse and toxicity are so interesting for me to work with when it comes to him, because it just makes sense. An abusive relationship with an abusive person on paper sounds horrible and one might not understand how those things even happen. Like why would a person ever “”accept”” being abused?

But then you see someone like Raphael, who we all know is an evil little shit, and we still love him. We still want to be with him, and we are still attracted to him. He has his redeeming qualities and it’s very possible that he has been through some shit himself, sure, but that’s the point: such is the case with most abusers. They don’t appear as monsters or devils (though Raphael quite literally does), they appear as nuanced human beings. Doesn’t make them less abusive or dangerous though.

I like writing about conflicted people who does things against their best interests, because they have been somehow wired or indirectly forced to do so. I like making my characters take decisions that are objectively ‘stupid’, but still make myself (and the reader, hopefully) think about if I really would have done much differently given the same circumstances?

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk.

(And thank you so much for letting me participate and giving the opportunity to yap about my writing <3<3)

[thefrogdalorian]

Going to be very off-topic for just a sec, but given how that campaign is all over my dash, I feel like I can't go on ignoring the emotions it provokes in me. Plus, since this is such a common struggle, I hope that maybe some of you can relate and I want you to know that you aren't alone at all.

If you're also struggling with your emotions over this and you need someone to talk to in confidence, I'm here for you. I understand.

Anyway, warning for mentions of alcohol abuse below the cut:

It's always fascinating to me how alcohol is marketed as this positive thing which brings you happiness and a great social life. When in reality, it often destroys relationships and lives and is, by definition, a depressant. It is a substance which often leaves you unhappier, fatter, lonelier, weaker, sicker, poorer...

And also, do you ever notice how it's never marketed around the taste (because it's literally poisonous and due to social pressure, we have to trick our brains by drinking it enough times that we eventually convince ourselves we actually like the taste of poison)?

It's always about sharing a beer with friends at the beach or enjoying a glass of wine with a meal. Never about how delicious it tastes...

While you may crave the feeling of being drunk, do most people really enjoy the taste and that's the primary reason why they drink? Is that the main reason given at AA meetings/rehab clinics? Do you ever hear alcoholics say: "I couldn't stop drinking that beer because it was just so crisp and refreshing!"

No, of course not. Alcohol is primarily used as a social crutch, or as an escape from one's problems. Dutch courage, social drinking where you feel giggly, giddy and tipsy... until one day you realise you can't socialise without it and it transforms from enjoyment to dependency, hopefully before you permanently damaged your organs...

Anyway, this isn't me being puritanical. I'm not mad at these campaigns or those who star in them, because at the end of the day, celebrities will always take cash from questionable sources. Money talks. Always has, always will.

It's merely an observation on the life this campaign 'sells,' as someone who has decided to break the generational cycle of alcoholism in my family and has been sober for 18 months now.

And a way for me to sort through my feelings and vent my own emotions around these kinds of campaigns. I don't miss alcohol and I don't feel tempted to drink whatsoever, but it's everywhere and there will remain a danger for the rest of my life that I could forget everything I've learned about alcohol. I don't want to lose sight of why I walked away from this destructive drug which is so widely accepted. When the truth is it is far more harmful to you than many illegal drugs.

If you enjoy alcohol, I truly hope you have fun with it in moderation. But I hope you can also stop and recognise the risks involved each time you reach for the bottle. The slippery slope you may be on which there is a danger you don't realise you've been sliding down until you're at the bottom, looking back up. And I hope you realise that what these advertising campaigns show are never rooted in the reality of what this substance can do to you.

If you start drinking that beer, it's far more likely you'll end up with kidney damage than you will ever get to share a cold bottle of it on the beach with that actor you love so much...

[batsplat]

the anon who sent the biopic ask here. afsfdfhhjkk I did in fact sent it to get you to talk about the movie version of sete/vale rivalry! I am also the sete anon after all.

anyways.

the vale selling his would to curse sete stuff had me screaming bc you see…….a while ago there was this gif set going around where 2020 or 2021 valentino’s leathers are unzipped and you could see how concave his chest is. and my first thought upon seeing it was “haha it’s actually concave bc valentino made a deal w the demon and gave him his heart in order to become the god of motogp, and also to curse sete:)))”

love the casey stuff, I think if we get the minds that worked on revolutionary girl utena in on this they could make it work. mainly bc rgu had really great visuals, lots of surrealist stuff and all that while having a pretty low budget. (yes rgu is also very complex and deals with stuff like csa, escaping the cycles of abuse etc but we’re not getting into that.) so, in some far far away alternative universe that studio makes a casey stoner inspired animated film (with huge budged) and it a cult classic. alternatively, satoshi kon could have also worked some magic w that set up I know. lots of great imagery there.

dovi biopic could actually work, if we use his story to make into a movie about the man vs corporate machine, how futile that struggle is, disillusionment and ultimately choosing to walk away. so, actually it won’t be a dovi biopic in the sense most ppl think of what biopics are? it would end up more grim than general audiences realize bc the movie will show that in the end ducati succeeded and have won world titles etc and dovi was a cog in that machine, and had his imput being downplayed etc. but also like dovi has his family, his inner circle, his self of self to fall back onto and the audience is obviously ends up on his side so it’s not downright depressing. (I wrote this w a specific director in mind even afdgghjk)

w dani&jorge………ok I’m gonna sound insane for this but. we need to maybe fully fictionalize this. have original characters, who are totally not heavily inspired by jorge&dani *wink wink*. get pedro almodovar to direct or something. this movie is now about jorge-inspired-character dealing with his closeted homosexuality, his fraught relationship w his father….like I am in no way trying to suggest that real life jorge lorenzo might be gay here! but his story does land itself to these themes if you think about it. the rivalry is underlined by homoerotic tension the two characters cannot acknowledge (even to themselves) within the setting of competitive motorcycle racing. buttt after their retirement? they discover that there’s a life outside of it all and maybe mayyybe the movie implies they could get together or something.

also love the sepang 2015 movie framing but yeah it would be considered the worst racing movie of all time, like 5.4 out of 10 on imdb, tge director wouldn’t be able to make another feature film for another 10 years after that. but good news it gets some reappraisal and a small but dedicated cult following like 15 to 20 years later.

wow, did not mean to type all of this out actually! but I do want to say that your answers never disappoint and it’s always a good read. have a nice day!

(follow up to this post) omg pls I love long asks, I'm gonna not take this in order because I NEED to skip to the casey/valentino rgu vision because?? yes? casey is like... such a magical girl... (magical girl transformation into leathers, is this anything) the rose imagery!! I want to rose imagery casey!! obviously again yes the thematic overlap between these two things is only,, loose at best, we are very much ignoring many of the things utena is actually About,, but. disparity between idealised roles and how those roles actually function, having those images interrogated/torn down... growing up!! casey realising his parents' dream was imposed on him rather than chosen... even just kind of. the aesthetic make up of utena, the core components of how it actually tells its story. the focus on duels and being challenged... formalised process of DEMANDING to fight the current 'champion'... the shadow plays...

this to me is casey and valentino

anyway if u squint it is like. kind of the same energy as paddock gossip. the skits are also.... yeah hm. hm

moving away a bit from utena and its very specific themes, I think what you really can also do with this vision is like... play up the culture clash vibes for casey? I've been meaning to make the post on this forever, but there's a specific theme that comes through in a lot of the stuff casey's said and written over the years that's really concerned with... well, the trip from australia to europe, the hardship associated at various stages with that, never quite feeling at home in this new environment, zero paddock friends, never learning italian and being sick with the concept of italy by the end of his ducati tenure, saying that europeans weren't as straight talking and honest as the anglos (valentino did also help turn him off the concept of the british, mind you), saying the europeans were more partisan, bad sports fans, really kinda... wrestling with a lot of his loneliness and feelings of isolation by attributing a lot of this stuff to this different european mindset. where some of his competitors were nasty in part because that's what they're all like in big bad europe. and idk, that's something that you can really dig into with these abstractions, when you're isolating casey and then making him accept this Challenge of facing the god - through motorcycle racing but also through ritualistic sacrifice - and eventually he takes on this task that he's supposed to, that's supposed to be his duty, but for some reason everyone still hates him for it... and you play up how it's not necessarily his individual agency that even brought him there. he's there to win, and yet they hate him for winning. everyone wants competition, nobody likes the competition when it's actually there

also like. sleeping beauty him. pricked by the thorn of a rose and he's taken out of competition and has to recover and everyone criticises him for 'just' having his finger pricked with the tiniest drop of blood. idk a lot of his quite specific baggage and struggles are really made for abstraction. he's also got this... look. just a very specific vibe that I think you can magical girl-ify. vibrant red, a little bit delicate, as the shadows creep in on him

where it's kinda... he's unique, he's special, he's got All That Talent that allows him to take on a task nobody else has managed... but that's also part of what isolates him, that x factor of his raw natural ability that allows him to make it at the top of the sport In Spite Of All The Odds but also means he CAN'T get a quiet peaceful existence

and the rivalry with valentino, which, first of all they both make for great animated characters because they're incredibly distinctive (I would make utena!valentino so very very tall), but also that slight... element of menace. valentino constantly in the spotlight, and the brighter casey shines the more he's in danger - even if he rather wouldn't be the centre of attention. he still is.... even if he shies away from it, the world is still watching. valentino is still watching. and the gaze itself has consequences

literal glare of the camera lens, exposing casey in a way that makes him uncomfortable. unnerving and too bright and trapping him

casey looking at valentino and the changes in what he sees over time. the gradual adjustment of perception when he comes to learn of a different version of valentino (who is in turn still separate from Valentino The Person)

and that kind of animation style for the motorcycles and everything... thinking about specifically casey's phillip island 2009 which is his very first race win after his illness-induced absence and I've never personally been THAT big on white liveries (he still loves it though) but like. symbolism-inspired colour change for key step back into the fray, to a new moment of hope

his leathers also have like. a very specific vibe here. as do his interactions with valentino. the specific way they grasp hands idk I've got a vision

(they do also hug pretty warmly in parc fermé and there's a bit more to this race given it was a massive W for valentino as far as his title bid was concerned but he'd also been informed of a personal tragedy the day before - but we're gonna ignore all that here)

also OBVIOUSLY

the assen 2007 fight was SUPPOSED to be animated

it also lets you dig into kinda likeeee the weird elements of that rivalry where it switches from being a primarily on-track one to being a completely off-track one. like idk it feels you can play with that switch of them being real duels to just being. casey stabbing him while valentino taunts him. this disconnect where casey is now on top of the world in all the Actual Motorcycle Racing but the whole picture isn't quite as simple as that.... the ways in which casey can't entirely win....

other random fun bits of imagery/vibes:

again, you can have random animals running around in animation... tortoise turtle and the hare laguna '08 I will keep saying it

speaking of laguna '08, the most memorable move happens at the corkscrew... I think you can do something with concept of a corkscrew

laguna '08 overall is just a top ten anime battle isn't it, the fact that the whole thing depends on this. reversal. where rather than valentino always stalking his victims (inherently evocative) but is committing to obstructing casey from ahead (btw today's their anniversary!!! <3)

you have GOT to do something funky with pressers, like casey's relationship to the media is so fundamental to his entire story... essentially treat it as another form of combat imo. like give it the exact same visual lead in as the actual on-track battles, so that you have this collapse between the on-track and off-track

collapse between the identity of the rider and the bike. common thing anyway in the weird way these blokes talk about their bikes, obviously valentino is like. a number one offender for this. and obviously you can easily exploit this in animation!! and also if we're sticking with the yellow = infection stuff, then casey is constantly being at risk of overwhelmed by the yellow.... and once he's stepped away from that bike to go to honda instead, he has to see this thing that's separate from him but still somehow a part of him be infected

playing with how casey was inspired by valentino... you know the utena kinda. prologue of utena being inspired to become a prince... basically that vibe. stepping up to become a deity and being presented the blade to challenge a god. But Was That Really Such A Good Idea

you can do something with chequered flags I reckon. idk what but you do something with them

casey's obsessed with fishing. a symbol of childhood innocence and one of the things he would have loved to do when he was essentially being forced into making motorcycle racing his dream, something that caused controversy back in 2009 because he got backlash for going fishing during his injury absence (yeah I don't know what they were on back then too) and something he references when he retires on his pitboard 'going fishing'. it's innocence, it's his individual dream, it's peace away from the track... you can work with that

obviously valentino himself makes all this symbolism shit very easy given he did canonically give himself an eyeball helmet during one of his ducati races. like we get it buddy. that would SLAP in animation

okay I just need to say it. you know how in catalunya 2009 casey is just like. two seconds away from fainting on the podium and valentino/jorge are having their whole intense thing going on and are just. ignoring it. gets me every time, it's just such a bizarre discrepancy of vibes. like two different narratives are going on during that podium and they're just pretending like the other one isn't happening, except in casey's case that's extremely understandable and in the others' case?? idk I'd check on him?? power of animation I'm having casey literally faint and everyone ignoring it. maybe several times. sorry casey this is social critique on your behalf

if you have an equivalent utena walking up the stairs pre-race build up, it is so important to me to remember that casey crashed during the valencia 2009 warm up lap

something something valentino catalunya 2008 special italian football team leathers something casey's issues towards italy something them actually having a duel in that race while casey is just about trying to wrestle his italian manufacturer into making themselves useful for once... this is the first... second? turning point of the season. okay look there's several turning points. but crucially that's one of the big ones, when casey is starting to get the ducati situation sorted and they have a post-race test at catalunya and then casey goes on his little win streak that leads you to laguna. I think you can do something with the concept of italy here

something something taking on the number one plate symbolism

thinking of the utena stopwatch thing and how casey's mum was always making the notes for casey's races as a kid and they're included in his autobiography... like you've got this little kid with essentially performance reviews... idk something about constantly recording what he's doing. I can SEE that scene of animated kid!casey going around the dirt track while his mother is recording his progress with a stopwatch and notebook in my mind...

two-faced valentino... make it literal. Valentino The Racer and Valentino The Character and Valentino The Person as entities that casey meets separately

something about valentino's fucked up little fingers as his one vulnerability

valentino reeling in casey like a fish, is this anything

anyways. I love the dovi description... I still get like. nebulously sad about his 2020 where it's both kinda I get how this fell apart but it's so unsatisfying? which is the fun of it! narratively speaking. and the fact that he was such a big influence on the development of that bike, how possessive he got over that project and really saw it as his, how he ended up being unceremoniously dumped and he's seen them win again and again... again he does have the whole 'being well adjusted' thing working against him BUT idk there's a satisfying suitably cinematic story in there somewhere

and yeah I do see the jorge/dani vision!! I think that one's the one where I'm like. the least attached to the literal details and am quite happy to fictionalise it!! especially because lbr his path to his first title just Does Not Work narratively. like 2010 only works as a good conclusion of that arc if valentino is actually THERE to be defeated, or if jorge and dani actually have more of a title fight. and he does have an extremely queer-coded narrative!! you kinda have the actual family right, then the way he kinda... cycles through a few versions of what are essentially all found families, like he's got the whole manager situation which obviously in itself ends up a nightmare, then the coach turned manager he also split from then ?? it's kinda... that dimension of athletes where they're CHOOSING the people close to them (not that he's fully in a position to make a lot of these choices!!) and then has to cut ties when he becomes more aware of how those people are attempting to exploit him.... the whole number switching thing is explicitly framed as a form of liberation. his tendency to get Obsessed and a little Weird about all his major rivals (dani, valentino and dovi get the worst of this) like it's just a fun vibe to play with... the way the rivalry with dani is also a little Imposed from Above and also jorge doesn't get why dani keeps him at such a distance and is constantly trying to like. bug him into paying attention to jorge. he just makes for such a good coming of age story protagonist, like he's so vibrant and awkward and cocky and kind of ridiculous,,, prone to way too intense introspection and just overthinking EVERYTHING and he's trying to play a character while also wanting to find his authentic self or whatever... he's just such a Young Guy and his story with dani is full of that energy... yes

anyway. on to sete. you and me anon

valentino!!!! cuts!!!! his heart out!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE THAT omg.... I love the idea that he'd just. be motivated to destroy sete enough that he's willing to take the final step.... the one that ensures his rule over the sport will never be challenged in any meaningful way but he also cannot return from, a line that he can't un-cross.... AND y'know I've banged on enough about this idea that valentino really DID change his approach to his rivals after that, acquired a bit of distance which would be!! fantastic, it's also that element of not just him Losing something but also him not wanting to go through those kinds of complicated emotions at the hands of someone who had been a friend again... removes his heart!! exorcises his softness!!

I kinda love the idea of making it... the natural conclusion of where that particular journey was taking him. like the idea that that's kinda always where he was headed... it's why I think the sachsenring/brno 2003 thing is so neat, like the fact brno is the site of both the big comeback win against sete but ALSO where he agreed to ride for yamaha in the middle of the night. that you're drawing the line between 'he wanted to be his own man' (seemingly a harmless motive, even admirable) with what 'being his own man' involves, aka psychologically torturing his rivals (possibly a little questionable). another thing I adore here is his phillip island 2004 celebrations when he seals the title..... what a spectacle!!!! in retrospect it's just kinda,, oh look what a fun celebration! he's having fun!! it's all a show!! because sete has been erased from that celebration. and that race is the culmination of BOTH those arcs set in motion at brno 2003, it's his great yamaha victory while also being deeply cruel... and before that the sepang celebrations... I just like the idea that what people tend to see as Good valentino traits (joyous, fun celebrations) and Bad valentino traits (working to destroy his rivals) are fundamentally impossible to detach from each other, and the only way you get rid of them both is by suppressing who he is as a person... now I'm not saying that the devil tempted him to join yamaha but I'm not not saying that? works with the ibiza trip between sachsenring and brno too, like you can parallel that to sete contemplating honda the previous year (this did Not canonically happen but narrative efficiency). it's all their choice!! but they were also Twisted By Circumstances.... valentino's corruption arc why does nobody see this is valentino's corruption arc....

[carcassontheshore]

Another thing i noticed about Rei: It's in his nature to try to care for things even if he can't take care of himself

We all know about his tendency to adopt stray cats (and kazuki telling him not to because he felt like he wasn’t made for affection. But thats another can of worms, unrelated to this post mostly). But in one episode, we see him watering plants which surprised me a bit? Because that man can barely take care of himself or do the chores (he didnt even try) and i was sure kazuki didnt make him water the plants (he didnt exactly rely on rei in household chores). Then i realised its in his nature to care for things...apart from himself. The whole building had plants all over, so its okay to assume his apartment also came with those. He didn’t water those plants because he HAD to, i mean, he also had to clean his apartment but didnt (if he was supposed to  take care of the plants due to rules, then it would probably also be required to clean the flat as well). His apartment looked like shit hole until kazuki came. Anyways, even tho the plants look alive and well, in the first episode it was showed that even tho rei wanted to take of care of a cat, he didnt know how to; that probably was also the same for the plants. Maybe kazuki helped him keep those alive, who knows. But the main point is, he was okay with not caring for himself, probably because he didnt think it was necessary for the way he was raised. Despite all that, like that one post that says "Rei suwa really did say the generational cycle of abuse ends with me", he REALLY was trying to commit to that. Maybe not with humans at first, but he was trying to do so with other things, animals and plants, by caring for them as much as he could; this tendency of him was fully acted on when miri came into his life. Again, rei also says to kazuki " you have never died for me, have you?" which did mean he also immensely cared for kazuki too.( In a previous post, i said, how rei didnt use kazuki in anyway, kazuki helped him is all). He could have let kazuki die anytime anyway, since he didnt understand how much kazuki was needed in his life for him to survive until that episode where kazuki momentarily leaves him and miri all alone. Rei also called kazuki a couch crasher in the first ep, he probably did think of kazuki that way considering how blunt he is, just not in a mean way (and in a moment of anger ofc). He just didnt care kazuki was a couch crasher. He cared for kazuki in his own ways too. Like the stray cat, he also took the "stray" kazuki in (albeit its the other way around too). He gave kazuki a shelter (and he even wanted to leave the apartment to kazuki when he decided he was going back to his father.) In short: Rei really does care a lot, and wants to show it too (unlike most other dark haired guys in animes in the sun-moon trope). He was always meant to be a good father. PERSONALLY, BIG FAN OF REI "i am more than my past" SUWA.

[mueritos]

I find it funny you post things about the wrong people becoming therapists yet you want to be a social worker and actively defend rapists and abusers 💀

CW: mentions of SA/cycles of abuse.

you must think you're really clever. the therapy industry has a huge amount of problems (like any other industry built on service to other humans, like the medical industry), and i think even the people who want to work within the therapy field (whether as a psychiatrist, a counselor, a therapist, a social worker, a sex therapist, etc) can still critique the many issues within it, mainly the racism, eurocentrinism, and the individualistic values that much of talk therapy promotes. I don't know where you got the second part of your statement, because not only is it widely inaccurate of what I was thinking of doing in social work, it also is just not a great idea to hold about people who work with people who do harm.

there are therapists/social workers who work exclusively with cops/law enforcement, and ethically those people CANNOT work with people who are victims of law enforcement or people who "break the law" (incarcerated folks). It just doesn't work, because if you work with both, it can create a conflict of interest. this is the same with people who work with victims of assault (SA or not). these therapists/etc who work with victims of assault/abuse CANNOT work with abusers. The same is vice versa, as in people who work with those who do serious harm cannot work with their victims.

I think your self righteousness is misplaced. You clearly have a lot of work to do in regards to removing your own feelings and judgement from the work that many therapists and social workers do. I don't know if you know this, but everyone (yes, even people who do serious harm) are deserving of basic human necessities, like oh i don't know. Housing, healthcare, or therapy. It is not my job as a future social worker to judge people, that is wickedly different from holding someone accountable. Judging is like sending someone to prison for 25 years, further removing them from the communities and resources that could generate accountability. Further, no one can hold anyone accountable unless said person consents to being held accountable. There are different procedures for whether they do or not. My job, as a future social worker, is to help people, because I believe all people deserve to ask for help and receive the help that they need.

Not sure if you know, but I'm against incarceration/punishment. I believe we hold punishment as the way to "teach people a lesson", but if you do not work with people and actively step in and disrupt cycles of trauma (housing crisis, hunger, substance abuse, interpersonal abuse, racism, ableism, etc), you will only find that people re-offend unless they are given the resources they need to be better. Yes, there are people who genuinely want to do harm, but harm does not exist in a vacuum, and if you are unwilling to acknowledge that, then I genuinely wish compassion to anyone who slips up around you and shows you that anyone is capable of any level of harm.

People who do serious harm are victims of the same cycle abuse as everyone else. You white knuckling your self righteous black and white morality is the reason why you cannot understand that even the worst kinds of people deserve the same access to care as victims of harm. You think that people who work with individuals who do harm as them defending them, when the reality is many of us with the brains built to do this kind of work want to stop this harm and correct abusive behavior. Unfortunately for you, people are capable of change. No one is asking you to like anyone or their actions (because I don't have to like the people I work with either, freak), but what people like me are asking you is to accept the fact that all people do harm, and when people are given the community and resources to, they can change for the better and recognize the serious harm they have caused.

Not everyone who goes into this work wants to aim their energy into the "socially acceptable" work. I think social justice morality and the sanitization of revolutionary politics has rotted our brains into believing that we must do and be the most "woke" person ever, channeling our energy into victims of harm. But what we fail to recognize through that is that some people would rather divest their energy into de-radicalization of fascists, or others want to put their energy into theory, others want to learn how to connect with the land and be sustainable, and others want to learn how to help others. And just like them, there are people who are willing enough to use their skills and compassion for conflict/resolution, accountability practices, and to help those who have harmed. Because, unfortunate for you, activists should NOT be juggling being the theorist, farmer, therapist, spiritualist, leader, mediator, protestor, rioter, etc and etc. Some people are simply built to put their energy into what they are good at. This doesn't mean that the farmer does not encourage the theorist to continue thinking and writing their theory. And I am sure the theorist, one who cannot farm and till, is grateful for the skills the farmer brings once dinner comes around.

it's funny really because I still am not sure about what I want my focus to be in social work, and for you to assume that I am "defending" abusers/rapists by thinking about working in extremely hostile, tense, and exhausting environments in the attempt to disrupt cycles of violence is me "defending" these individuals...it just reveals more about you than myself, anon. Many people already work with abusers/rapists (many of those therapists being victims of abuse/SA as well), so you may as well call the ones who are actually doing the work rn "defenders" of abuse. see how that bodes for you.

that's all I have to say.

[minsarasarahair]

My thoughts about Devil Venerable also Wants to Know by Cyan Wings after finally finishing it. It took a while for me to finish this because I'm obsessing over You Yao donghua...

Well, it was fun and very insightful read. I believe the message of the book are:

Be a critique to what you read and don't consume everything you read as if its the only truth available. Perspective matter. Look at the bigger picture. (God of Annihilation vs Abusive Romance)

Difference between a hater vs critique (Commenters vs Wenren E questioning the plot holes)

The balance between good and evil is important for the cycle and order of the world. World is not Black and White. (Baili Qingmiao character development)

Roles matter in relationship. You should know what your partner wants, strength and what role they are comfortable with if you want the relationship to work. (Yin Hanjiang & Yin Hanjiang story)

Real love is not abuse nor about social order. Its about equality and healthy communication. (Wenren E, Yin Hanjiang, He Wenzhao & Baili Qingmiao story)

I know there's a lot and it varies depend on what the reader noticed but that's what I remember that are the most important for me. I really love it when danmei point out some issues I barely see in straight romance. For example, this story shows the difference between fiction media for male and female. Male demographic care about the strength and power of MC while the female demographic are either annoyed to the naïve heroine or protective of her. Its really interesting to see that different media have different types of people. This is why its important to consume different genre to improve your media literacy, people!

As for the characters, I really love Wenren E as the protagonist. He's very aroace-coded and levelheaded so its easy for me to relate to his thoughts. Even if he's the leader of a demonic sect and chose a path that is harmful to him, he's very rational. His character explore what I wish MDZS Wei Wuxian should care. Demonic cultivation is not the issue here but MDZS Wei Wuxian dismissing the fact its harmful to him so it got worse to the point where there's no turning back. Wenren E on the other hand, know the stake very well so he focus in cultivating his mind seriously. But well, MDZS WWX is younger so it make sense he's more reckless and Wenren E is already jaded by his past experience. Anyway, I love both characters okay? Tbh Wenren E reminds me of SPL's Gu Yun more than WWX because they are both generals. I'm also thankful that Wenren E is very knowledgeable about the cultivation world and explained to the readers how it works while adding his own input about it such as heavenly tribulation is a thing, dual cultivating, bonded weapon etc. I don't really have a problem with him aside from the fact he use the ABUSIVE romance book to try to understand love in the beginning LOL That's like the worse book choice to understand what real love it.

Yin Hanjiang's journey in accepting what he desire is very compelling to me. I love that he was never submissive or yes man originally but he's more like playing the role that don't fit his personality at all. Thanks to that, the result is he became mediocre or he can't progress. All this time he's suppressing the real him with the thought of being afraid it won't fit to Wenren E's standard. I like that their whole fighting dynamic was changed in the ending. He used to just assist Wenren E like a typical righthand man or side kick but later we found out he shines more if he's the one who charge first or be in offensive. I like that in the final battle he become the star of the show while Wenren E became his support.

Baili Qingmiao is the heroine of Abusive Romance. I admit I'm annoyed to her in the beginning because I hate naïve mary sue heroines with romance-driven mindset. It turns out she just need Shu Yanyan, Zhongli Qian, Qiu Congxue and Wenren E's guidance to realize what she's doing is wrong. Revolving your life to just one person especially if this person is not even worth your sacrifice is not the way. Life is not all about Romance. Its about love that comes in different shapes. That's why platonic relationship also exists. Self-caring and caring about the world are also love. I also love her realization that the world is not black and white. Even the righteous sect has bad apples in it and it don't mean righteous sect is entirely bad just like how Xuanyuan demonic sect is not pure evil either. They have demonic cultivators and ruthless, yes but that don't mean they are guilty to every bad thing happened in their world. But that don't entirely excuse them that their sect is still one of the most cruel sect when it comes to brutality. At least they have rules that they only harm cultivators and not commoners lol

There are so many interesting characters to talk about. We have Shu Yanyan the right protector who was always seen scheming against Wenren E but always failed, the scholar-like handsome gentleman cultivator Zhongli Qian as the most reliable supporting character ever, the insufferable He Wenzhao who treat women as his stepping stone to advance his cultivation, etc. But I'm afraid this post will never end if if I talk about it more so I only chose these 3 because I think they are the most important to the story. Just read it if you want to find out more.

I think I recommend this to people who read MDZS, and TGCF if you want to know how cultivation world works because it covers the immortals, gods and cultivators. I also recommend it to You Yao and SVSSS fans because it has the comedy that make fun of story stereotypes. And yeah, to Tian Ya Ke fans because of antiheroes couple with healthy relationship. I will read the Governor is Sick next because I'm thirsty for this dynamic.

[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.

[transmutationisms]

Love ur takes on the bio/body politics of Succession and I thought 4x09 delivered so much to unpack there!!! Found it so tragic/interesting the way Shiv was talking about her unborn child throughout the episode so resentfully, like a parasite/leech that she’d be prepared to neglect to pursue the company just like her father did…. The cycles of abuse are cycling lol. What do you make of shiv’s relationship to her motherhood and her awareness of her body’s utility to logan’s empire/under capitalism generally? I do really feel like her characterization this season is an interesting summation of the “having it all” discourse of neoliberal feminism (from catherine rottenberg’s Rise of Neoliberal Feminism, dk if you’ve read but I highly reccomend!) Just watching her last ditch attempts to cling to any remaining vestige of power within the company while so brutally reckoning with/abdicating her future motherhood that was hoisted upon her in part due to tom’s striving and ambition…. WHEW.

Also, do you have any insights on why roman was so shaken by seeing his father’s coffin/“is he in there?” I’m still trying to fully unpack that line with regard to what we know about his fear of death/aging and implied abuse he suffered but maybe I’ve got my tinfoil hat on lol.

yeah shiv's position is quite interesting right now. as my bf pointed out, she basically kept her position with matsson by promising not to love her baby. motherhood can be part of 'having it all' as long as there's a huge behind-the-scenes network of domestic workers, assistants, &c to support you. her lines in 4x04 about how she wishes logan could have held his grandkids are also telling; although she hasn't said anything explicitly about producing an heir, we know that's something logan wanted from her because his racism and ableism prevented him from seeing sophie and iverson as filling that role. shiv's earlier reluctance to have children was partly about her relationship with tom, but was also suggested to be partly a reaction to her fear that if she got pregnant, she would basically be relegated to the domestic sphere forever ('mommed') and would no longer be able to even try to become logan's successor. so, having a baby is useful to the company in terms of the long-term line of succession, but also has the potential to basically exclude shiv herself from the game. it converts her body into something that serves logan's interests in a very different way: she's no longer an employee but a mother.

as to roman, this was the culmination of a long fixation with his father's body. way back at the beginning of the show, roman was the one who denied logan was "an elderly patient" in the hospital; he saw logan as basically invincible, except of course for when the worry would break through ("i heard you tried to kill our dad with the sun"). he asked for one of logan's sweaters to sniff, which is later inverted by roman leaving his suit jacket with logan's body on the plane, then echoed by roman wearing logan's sweater around in 4x05. roman was also seen a few times taking logan's advil, a kind of logan relic and a way for roman to metaphorically consume him, which is resonant given how physically unaffectionate and actually violent logan was with him.

roman also has a fraught relationship with his own body, as shown by the body-checking, his restrictive eating, and his inability to fuck or even take his cock out in front of matsson. roman was disturbed when connor sent the funeral home photo of logan's body, and again when connor was talking about going to visit the body. for roman, bodies in general are a site of violence and shame, and logan's body specifically is something that logan always tried to deny existed or to transcend, yet also the way he physically inflicted pain upon roman. so, roman has this fixation on the physicality of logan's dead body, which both is and isn't logan, and which both disgusts and compels roman. seeing the coffin was disturbing because the body was both hidden and displayed, and roman almost couldn't force himself to believe that logan really was dead or even had a physical body that could be killed. and in the "can we get him out of there" line, roman was sort of hysterically trying to 'free' logan, both from death and from the constricting box, as well as trying to get physically closer to the father he misses greatly and has always both loved and feared.

[black-rose-writings]

I've had this idea about how the show would have been massively improved by making one little change.

The show, especially it's second season, feels boring, pointless. The only driving point of the whole season 2 is to yell "Darkling Bad". They obviously don't care about established characters, the worldbuilding or lore. Definitelly not about Grisha oppression.

So, what small change would give even the slightest hint of a point and theme to it all, a theme that transcends the creators' need to shit on their most popular character?

Make Alina Aleksander's daughter.

Narratives about cycles of abuse and generational trauma are really popular these days, so instead of making it a story about shitting on the Darkling, make it a story about how Ilya being a shitty father and a mad scientist literally fucked over the rest of the world. Instead of making the show a story about destruction of Morozova's legacy, make it a story about it's redemption.

(Again, my ideal version of the story would be one that works with the themes, characters and plots of the original books and expands on them in a way LB was too much of an american lib to do, but this is "how to make the show better with as few changes as possible")

First, some tweaks to Alina's backstory to account for this change (well, giving her a backstory pre-Keramzin):

There was a more open conflict with Shu Han like 25 years ago, that required Aleksander's presence. During his stay, he spent a few nights with a local woman (possibly anonymously initially, but she did end up finding out who he was, this is important) of Shu descent (though she considered herself Ravkan). The conflict ends and much of the Dva Stolba valley falls under Shu control, giving more explanation for the tension and racism Alina experiences later. Alina's mother stays in Ravkan territory, because, again, despite her ethnicity, she considers herself to be Ravkan, and a few months after the end of that conflict, she gives birth to Alina. She does attempt to contact Aleksander, wanting him to claim the child, but he initially doesn't, both because it's impractical and because he doesn't really believe he is her father, though he does arrange for her to recieve some money.

A few years pass and Alina starts showing signs of Grisha powers, and her mother attempts to contact Aleksander again, telling him of this. She is unable to explain Alina's powers, because she knows relatively little about Grisha and has no idea how Sun Summoning would present. Aleksander does respond this time and urges Alina's mother to take her to be tested and that it would be safest for Alina to keep her parentage a secret (he still doesn't fully believe Alina is his daughter). Before Alina can be tested, however, the family gets caught in the middle of a Shu raid and Alina's mother (and maybe stepfather) are killed, and she ends up in Keramzin, now having an extra trauma reason to hide her powers (taking some inspiration from Alina's cut pre-Keramzin backstory from season 1).

Now, for the changes in season 1, those would be largely in the form of Aleksander's flashbacks and slow realisation of who Alina is. You can still keep the make-out scene/"romance" bits if you really want, because GSI (genetic sexual attraction, a syndrome/phenomenon where closely related people who have been separated for the vast majority of their life, like through adoption, deadbeat/cheating parents etc. upon meeting as adults develop an attraction to each other) is a real thing, incest in media is also unfortunately popular, of course this fucking family would do it, and antis will enjoy getting even more reason to hate Aleksander.

If we go the non-ew route, there would be some changes to the tent scene (to account for Alina being a living amplifier) and perhaps expanding/adding scenes to the journey to Os Alta, giving room to vocalize some of these differences (like explaining the living amplifier thing earlier). Maybe having Alina saying something that prompts Aleksander to be reminded of her mother, and being confused as to why at first.

Their interractions in season 1 would need to be reframed through the father-daughter lens, but it wouldn't be all that dificult, because it already has mentor-mentee undertones. Ideally, there would be a point somewhere before the Winter Fete, possibly as a catalyst for Alina's breakthrough with her powers, when he tells her who she is. It would give Alina a personal stake in the story, because she clearly doesn't give a fuck about her duties/responsibilities as a Sun Summoner in either version. She doesn't have to destroy the Fold because she's a Sun Summoner, but because she's the descendant of the Black Heretic. She's not just the savior of a country she doesn't give two shits about, but the redemption of her family.

If we want to go the "shit on Aleksander" route, nothing about his interractions with Alina would change all that much and the reveal of her parentage, at least to Alina, would come through Baghra, giving Alina more obvious emotional reason to run away and feel betrayed (especially if the almost-sex-on-the-big-map still happens, because "ew, I almost fucked my dad, who know we're related" would be infinitely more understandable of a reason to run away than what Baghra actually tells her).

Either way, the information that she isn't just a distant descendant of the Black Heretic, but his actual child, that she has a grandmother he didn't bother telling her about, that he told her they were going to redeem their family, when he only planned on continuing his work and using her for it, hits Alina like a truck. Alina going though StuffTM emotionally makes her decision to run away make a lot more sense.

Anyway, there would be very little change plotwise, just some dialogue adjustments, maybe mentioning how the Stag is her legacy, her heritage.

It would reframe Alina's fear of becoming like Aleksander, that permeates the second season, have some basis. It would give a reason for the "fuck Ilya and everything he touched and made" narrative Baghra is spinning. Baghra telling both Mal and Alina the story of her family, of why she believes now that it all much be destroyed, how her father's greed drove him to create abominations, to twist the world in unnatural ways, and she looks pointedly at the two as she says it.

Make Alina's stand against Aleksander her way of saying "the cycle of abuse in this family ends with me. I will make our family better.". Make her and Nikolai's political marriage a symbol of a new begining for Ravka in more ways than one - redemption of the Morozov(a) and Lantsov families. And bonding over "I can't tell anyone who my real dad is because it would cause trouble."

But of course, at the end, it fails, because both of them misunderstood the fundamental reason why things became as bad as they did.

IDK, I just think that changing Alina to Aleksander's daughter would improve their dynamic and a lot of the surrounding narratives massively. Even in variations other than the show.