#and I won't be accepting criticism

[incognito-lionbeast]

Anyway, while I'm sure there are probably more fitting Pokemon, in this AU Luo Binghe is a Magikarp that Shen Yuan met whilst visiting a lake at the bottom of a nearby waterfall-- doing his Disney Princess shtick with the local poke-fauna. He offered the sad, bullied little fish some food, because all Pokemon are good Pokemon. SY figured that the poor thing had been carelessly dumped into the lake, since Magikarp are one of few weak Pokemon humans will touch/keep as pets.... for a little while, anyway.

From that point, he visits regularly, because the lake is a prime spot for all sorts of research & Bingkarp grows very, very attached. Yet, Shen Yuan never invited Binghe to join his team. After all, SY already has a few decent Pokemon companions & he'd grown so accustomed to seeing Binghe at the lake... it really just hadn't occurred to him as an option.

So, Bingkarp grows determined to improve his cultivation & achieve human form so that he could one day be useful to Shen Yuan/properly thank him for his kindness. With words. That SY can understand.

TLDR some time later, Shen Yuan finds a freshly evolved Gyarados in human form, nearly unconscious, who... being so new can only mutter his own name. Gyarados. Assuming, as one might, that his Magikarp friend had evolved & attacked this stranger for being in the wrong place at the wrong time (given Gyarados' general temperament), Shen Yuan feels responsible. So, he takes Binghe back to Cang Qiong for treatment--

And everyone on Cang Qiong assumes that the very obvious Pokemon is one of Shen Yuan's new companions (which happens on occasion; he is a trainer, after all). Therefore, Shen Yuan is shocked that the "human" Binghe is just. Allowed to stay. With little to no effort to convince Yue Qingyuan. Satisfied, he's delighted to have a incredibly handsome new human disciple to help him & they start to bond. Again.

(Binghe is nervous/isn't sure how to correct him... so he's put in a similar position as everyone else. Unsure how to tell Shen Yuan the truth, but at least he seems happy..?)

After trying & failing for weeks to locate his potentially rampaging Magik--Gyarados friend, there is an actual rampaging Gyarados that the sect is forced to deal with (and SY fears the worst). Yet, seeing his chance to make Shizun happy, Binghe covertly assumes his Pokemon form & neutralizes/chases off the other Gyarados. At this point, Shen Yuan recognises THIS Gyarados as his Gyarados [due to a unique mark on his forehead/crest], and finally realizes.... he should have asked this a long time ago... he asks if Binghe wants to join him.

Bingyarados slams his face into the pokeball so eagerly that he nearly knocks Shen Yuan over-- a Shen Yuan who was expecting to at least battle Gyarados first. Y'know, as is proper & respectful. Binghe's pokeball doesn't even wiggle once before it clicks closed, a successful capture.

...now Binghe has to juggle both identities. It's very comical. They'll figure it out eventually.

[partyrockin]

:)

[kucho04]

Rakuzan High

[danwhobrowses]

Prefacing that, again time zones, I've only been able to glean the latest CR episode and that I do not agree with their in-character opinions on the gods, I'd like to remind fans to try and not get super ugly about their criticism of Ashton Greymoore.

I'll be the first to throw my hands up and say they're among my favourite C3 characters so there may be bias, but I've been getting flashes of the Shard Incident from reactions towards their recent and vocal disdain for the gods. Disagree with them all you want, Taliesin knows that the gods can't simply leave since they're the one who said that the Wildmother would die if she left, but understand that it's a character flaw and if you recall the hardships of their backstory, the unanswered prayers, and that their only exchanges with the gods have required them to do something or, with the Dawnfather Angel, have been met with cold disregard, it's understandable how they got to feeling that way. Ashton has lived alone and been told they don't matter for a lot of their life; no gods, no family, no nurturing presence to guide them, they've been abandoned, used, and - with additional influence by the Dominox accusing them of wanting FCG to die - are currently between blaming themselves and the Changebringer for their closest friend's death.

Make no mistake Ashton is wrong, I think the self-confessed hypocrite with also self-confessed poor morality knows that deep down, or at least knows that they're not the kind of person who should be in charge. Vassalheim is a difficult place for a titan vessel to be in so it is unsure what they will do from here; perhaps investigate the Earth Titan? Commune with the Emperor and Empress? Or maybe be brought to the gods and be able to vent or reconcile with them (and maybe get some closure with FCG, speak with his spirit as like a mediator between the Hells and the Gods)? But it feels like Taliesin is being vocal for a reason, and it's either to invite Matt to challenge it (I've said in other comments but I would love if Ashton found some comfort, not worship or a pact but maybe just a dialogue, in the Everlight: a goddess of healing, temperance and redemption - all of which would help Ashton mentally - as unlikely as it'd be) or find another maybe primordial route to give Ashton a narrative tether towards stopping Predathos.

Let's just, not be cruel about the character, they are more than just their bad trauma and grief-led opinion on gods remember?

[seasononesam]

can we talk about this look? a polo that looks a size too small over another t shirt...bangs in eyes...jelly bracelet...10/10 no notes

[tippertot]

Pye "the supernova won't kill everyone Idaea you're crazy" Gaslight

Poke "unless you're planning on getting anywhere without my warp core yall can shut up" Gatekeep

Clary "hoes on every planet" Girlboss

[stillness-in-green]

sorry, didn't see the answer until today. thank you for that but I mean proving AFO wrong that Tenko is filled with hatred and destroying and no one can accept him. we know thats a lie now but Tenko still dies?

Hey again, anon. So, I went back and tried to fit this follow-up context into your original ask—answered here for anyone who wants to look over it again.  My initial answer was based on you meaning that AFO should have been “proven wrong” in his assertions about human frailty and how, once someone has been rejected by society and become a Villain, there’s no way for them to come back.  Reconsidering your issue (that Deku killing Shigaraki doesn’t prove AFO wrong) with the knowledge that what you meant was him saying Shigaraki is only capable of hating and destroying things…

I guess in the end I don’t think the story believes AFO is wrong about that either? I mean, obviously he was, back when he first told those words to at-the-time-still-Tenko. But now? Not so much, at least in the author's eyes.

Below, if you want to subject yourself to my reasoning again, you can follow along as I talk myself through getting to that quite jaded conclusion.  My apologies if I misunderstand or misrepresent you again anywhere along the way!  Admittedly, based on my experience with the fandom and what names we choose to use in talking about the characters, I suspect we’re coming at them from radically different positions, but my position is the one I’ve got to offer you. Please know that, to whatever extent we might disagree on how much "Shigaraki Tomura" was ever a legitimate persona, we are united in our opinion that Deku should have done more for him if the story was serious about him being the Greatest Hero.

......

So, okay, the biggest issue with asserting that Shigaraki has any kind of moral core or personality independent of his AFO-instilled hatred/destructiveness is that the best arguments for it all revolve around the League and how Shigaraki wants to be their “Hero,” how that’s contiguous with his personality even from when he was “Tenko” because both fit a pattern of reaching out to the outcasts that everyone else around them ignores or mistreats.

I believed that too!  I still do, in fact!  I want to be clear that I think Shigaraki still has legitimate grievances and that his desire to make a world in which Villains will be happier is still, in its own way, noble and true!

But.

But that glorious spread where Tomura says that even if every bit of his hatred is smashed, he’ll still keep going because he has to be a Hero for the Villains that need him?  That spread comes before the montage showing AFO’s involvement in the Shimuras’ lives from before Tenko was even born.  And part of that montage is the absolutely buffoonish reveal that AFO even influenced Tenko’s sense of heroism by leaning on Tomo and Mikkun (the aforementioned outcasts) to encourage him to be a Hero.  I tend to assume that the two of them were from one of Ujiko’s orphanages—I can’t imagine how else AFO would be in a position to give two random children direct orders!—but whatever the case, it means that even Tenko’s draw towards standing up for outcasts is something influenced by All For One.

If you take that away, what else is left?  I could pick a few little traits here and there, but ultimately, what Shigaraki comes back to in the end, in that very last conversation with Deku in the shared mindspace, is destruction.  He pursued it to the end, his last expressed regret is that he couldn’t carry it out, and his final messages to ally and enemy alike revolve around the destruction he sought—telling Spinner he died fighting for it and telling Deku that it’s up to him and his whether any of what he destroyed actually stays destroyed.

To me, that suggests that the manga does believe that Shigaraki Tomura was, ultimately, an existence that could only destroy, and the fact that some of what he targeted deserved to be destroyed doesn’t negate the fact that he was still ultimately defined by the destructiveness that AFO meticulously crafted him to embody.  Even Deku seems to think that, in the end!

Like, really working through the timeline here?  Deku did want to believe that the Crying Child indicated that Shigaraki had some drive other than destructiveness at his core.  One of the (vanishingly rare) times he actually spoke to Shigaraki during their fight was his refutation of Shigaraki’s claims that he’d successfully devoured The Crying Child and thus transcended his humanity.

Running on the desperate certainty that Shigaraki was wrong/lying, Deku smashes his way into Shigaraki’s core and metaphorically uproots his hatred and psychically holds his hands, and Shigaraki still says that even so, the Villains still need him…  And if it ended there, maybe we could say that AFO was “wrong” in the sense you describe—that while the method Shigaraki uses to Be A Hero For Villains is warped by AFO’s influence, his desire to be that Hero is genuinely his own.  But then we get That Reveal, and even the parts of Tenko that seemed to predate AFO are revealed to be just another aspect of AFO’s machinations—Tenko’s heroism, his sense of injustice, even his very existence, all are indelibly stamped with AFO’s mark.

After that reveal, Deku never again pushes back against claims that Shigaraki can only destroy.  He never pushes back on AFO’s claims of authorship of Shigaraki’s life; he never tries to encourage Shigaraki by insisting that his bonds to the League are real regardless of how AFO raised him.  Heck, he never even suggests Shigaraki still has the chance to figure out who Tenko could be as long as he can break AFO's hold and reject his teaching. No, Deku just…accepts AFO's premise, apparently.

And so I come back to the same conclusion I did before: Deku is angry at All For One, but he does not disagree with All For One.

I genuinely think that, as far as the narrative is concerned, the tragedy of Shigaraki’s ending is thus:

Anyone Shimura Tenko was or could have been was overwritten by All For One’s grooming long ago.  Maybe this could have been prevented if things had gone differently—if Nana had beaten AFO, if someone like Deku had been there to intervene the day of the tragedy, if someone on the street had reached out to him before AFO—but as it stands, Shigaraki Tomura is too far gone to save.[See Note]  Deku can end the monster that was behind it all and try to honor the victims that Shigaraki’s actions brought to light by changing the world that created them for the better, but he cannot save Shimura Tenko because Shimura Tenko was lost long before he and Midoriya Izuku ever met.

(Note: One of those "Maybe If..."s the story dangles is Spinner taking some ill-defined step to help his friend, but my opinions are that disingenuous suggestion are just a long string of profanity. Suffice to say, if Shigaraki could still have been "saved" all the way up to the start of the second war, then the Heroes bear way more responsibility for failing to do so than Spinner ever could, and Deku is even more of a fuckwit for not arguing with AFO's assertions that Tomura is nothing but what AFO made of him.)

Of course we wanted more than that.  Of course we wanted Deku to do more than that!  We spent all that time watching Shigaraki grow and bond with the League—why, if the only reason for that growth and those bonds was to prepare him as a vessel for AFO?  We watched Deku resolve to try to save and/or understand Shigaraki’s heart no matter what—why, if everything in that heart was written in someone else’s hand?

The story told us that the best heroes always manage to both win and save, and that we were reading the story of how Deku becomes the best hero—why, if the story was only going to conclude that Shigaraki’s death at Deku’s hand was inevitable because the harm All For One did was impossible for either of them to overcome?

And to me, at least, that’s why Shigaraki’s death and Deku’s role in it feel so wrong: not for the in-universe reason that Deku and Shigaraki don’t disprove/disavow AFO’s claims, but for the meta reason that My Hero Academia lied to us and wasted our goddamn time.  It spent over two hundred chapters building up Shigaraki Tomura—as a villain, yes, but also as a victim, a friend, an enemy, an ally, someone who existed in the world he was rebelling against—only to then turn around and spend its remaining two hundred chapters tearing him back down to nothing and then telling us that’s all he ever was anyway.

All For One killed that crying child a long time ago, and all Deku can do is wipe away his tears and then wave him goodbye. 

By punching him to death.

It’s hard to imagine a bleaker outcome for the “Tenko” that started Horikoshi’s whole career as a mangaka, but I guess that’s what happens when your chosen career brutalizes you so badly that you come to define a Hero as someone who helps people endure their suffering instead of saving them from it.

...…

...Uh.  So, this got pretty bleak itself in the end.  Sorry, anon, everyone.  I write that way to get my point across, and I’m no little bit bitter about the whole thing myself, but ultimately, I just want to remind everyone that the story is over.  I’m not going to try to turn this whole thing into a positivity post all the way at the end, but just embrace that much: your obligation to care about the things Horikoshi wrote—to the extent that that obligation ever existed—is fulfilled.  If you hate the ending, well, so do I.  But now and forever, we and everyone else can go and do what-the-hell-ever we want to do with the characters and world that Horikoshi left us.

I hope we do.  I’ll be rooting for us!

[comingyourlugubriousness]

My hot take.

Bonus Pic, Leona calling bc he thought he would remember what MC said but didn't and Ruggie is clowning him for it.

[astralleywright]

the best part of Critical Role is when Imogen says "it's mogen time" and mogs all over the bad guys

[castieldelamancha]

"Well?" Dean asks as soon as Castiel leans back against the side of the impala next to where he is standing, "Got anything from the kids?"

Castiel actually nods and Dean feels a surge of pride, he is getting so good at the whole hunting thing and maybe Dean as bad of a teacher as he believed himself to be, "here, have a look." And right then is when the pride he was feeling is replaced by confusion, as Castiel moves back the sleeve of his trench coat and shows him a bracelet. Made out of a string of colorful green wool and decorated with mismatched beads, that aren't enough to cover the whole string and come in different sizes. "Are you familiar with the concept of friendship bracelets? Because I wasn't."

"I meant about the case, Cas."

Castiel shakes his head, lowering his arm, "nothing but a children's version of the local legends we have been hearing since we arrived. They didn't see or hear anything that night."

"Great," Dean huffs, "I've nothing either, let's hope Sam has had more luck." He side-eyes Cas, he is back to staring at the bracelet, Dean smiles amused and bumps their shoulders together, reaching to touch one of the beads, "at least you got something out of all this, sweetheart." Castiel smiles at him, a small thing that doesn't ease the clear worry in his features, he reassures him with a hand on his shoulder, they will do all they can to make sure this town doesn't lose another one of its children, "I didn't have any friends back then, apart from Sammy but that little brat never made one of these for me, so I never had one, but I knew of them." He didn't spend much time at one place to attend school regularly, but the days he spent there, and wasn't avoiding going to class, he could see the popular girls wearing them, he thought it was kind of stupid but, well, he never got the chance to be a stupid teenager himself, so maybe that's why he didn't see the point of them or many other things the other kids did.

Castiel's face seems to light up at that, which okay, weird, especially because anytime Dean refers to his childhood all he can see in his blue eyes is sadness, anger sometimes, a boundless empathy, he reaches into one of his pockets and fishes out another bracelet, "I can change that, unless you think it's too late."

Dean reaches out for it and Castiel gives it to him, he observes it, for a moment, this one looks properly done, blue and green beads intercalating along a brown string, two of the beads are different than the rest, they are white, one has a D and the other one a C, both black. He clears his throat, closing his fist around the bracelet, "thanks, Cas."

Castiel simply leans in and kisses his cheek, walking away to go sit inside the impala.

.

Sam is going to ask about the bracelet hanging from the rearview mirror, but one look from Dean is enough to let him know such questions aren't welcome.

[lightdancer1]

LOL LMAO at people who think hating on Iroh is actually describing the character:

The real Iroh was the Shoigu of the Fire Nation who happily conducted a genocidal war of aggression and was BFF with the genocidal Rough Rhinos and presumably the people who did rape, butcher, and burn in the Water Tribes. He pulled a Gaza/Mariupol on Ba Sing Se, and fundamentally is the kind of slimy cowardly hypocrite to be unwilling to face his own brother in a fight but perfectly happy to tell Zuko to put his rabid sister down when he, who has the power to stop the omnicidal maniac who wanted the entire world to burn did not see that as a sufficient problem.

The only reason he 'liberated' Ba Sing Se in methods right out of the Second Indochina War to a point you expected to see him squatting there saying "I love the smell of napalm in the morning" was butthurt that his niece did at 14 what he couldn't for 693 days with a huge-ass army.

Cartoon Iroh was also a perv who molested a woman, at a purely petty level, and given what people like him got up to in real life General-Prince Iroh, Dragon of the West, was probably much worse than that when his every whim was law.

The problem the canon has it tells you this man who spent 90% of his life as daddy's golden boy hatchetman putting nations to the sword changed when he spends the end of the First Season arranging for the murder of the Moon and never accepts his responsibility in that at multiple levels, and ultimately is again the same cowardly little fuck who demanded the next generation do what he was unwilling to do.

Mako dying was a tragedy and at a Watsonian level it means the fandom is blighted with Saint Iroh, who is so much less interesting than the actual character described here, because he's a bland boring magic grandpa who casually kicks 14 year olds off boats neck-first.

[mvickym]

Call me a Ray apologist or whatever, but I think that from what we've seen from the past 6 episodes is Ray's just absolute tragic story. The reason why? Ray's character is literally of a person who has never experienced love, nor appreciation. The only thing that he has is money and those 'friends' of his. It's no wonder that he's in love and so attached to Mew - the only person who has ever shown at least a little care (attention even) towards him. Ray's problems at this point are not only the addiction that he has, but his mental state as well - possible depression, past suicide attempt, self-image and self-worth issues. All of this has built up from his childhood trauma of his mother never loving him, to him witnessing her death, towards him taking in the same path as her in addition to him having those people around him that, it seems, don't really care about him- Mew acting like a scolding parent or a 'why do I have to deal with this' type of guy, Boston who is literally the worst manipilator of all that doesn't care about anyone's feelings, Cheum who's always adding fuel to the fire with the relationship questions and statements, so in that context, the scene from that episode was his breaking point, literally. The 'if I'm going down, I'm taking everyone with me' mentality is a clear indicator that Ray had already reached his limit and was in the state where he knew what he was doing and that he was ending it all by going in to that car.. Were the things he said painful (especially to Sand)? Yes! But do you know what is ever more painful? Them knowing all about Ray's problems (especially Mew) and still not caring. Ray's 'friends' literally witnessing this brutal display of someone just breaking down in front of their eyes while being aware of all about his state..

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

Saw you were going through Tillie Walden books in preparation for Book Three, got to commend you for putting in more legwork than most fans. Your review of Book One was actually what got me into reading her stuff and opening my perspective!

Idk if you've read Spinning yet so I don't want to spoil it, but there's a experience Tillie recounts from her life in it that really makes all of the accusations of Tillie being a groomer more disgusting. I'm not looking forward to fan discussion when Book Three starts to get marketed and releases, but I'm looking forward to whatever you'll have to say on it ^^

I've read Spinning and I think I know what part you're talking about. There are a handful of moments in Spinning that made me raise my brows and go, "....Oh. Oh no." And yeah, that scene is one I'm going to talk about a lot in my analysis.

Like... without giving too much away, my thought process in this is I believe that when a creator creates, whatever the medium, a piece of their soul is weaved in. Think about every artist you follow, writers and authors you read, video essayists you watch, etc. and you'll find connections and themes throughout their work that helps you piece together a small part of who they are, what they're passionate about, what bothers them, the pains they've suffered, etc. Sure, you'll never know the whole person, but you'll learn a little.

When I look at the Clementine comics, I always ask, "Why are you like this? Why are you the way that you are?? Why did Tillie write it like this??" and I believe a lot of questions are answered when looking at her previous works.

For example, everyone gets pissy about the reasons why Clementine left Ericson, and for good reason. But when you read more of Tillie's work, "I'm not happy"/"They thought I was a liability but I think the real issue was that I couldn't talk to any of them about it" actually starts to make some sense. It's still not good, but I can see why specifically Tillie Walden took that road... this isn't the first time she's written something like this.

The thing about Spinning is it's autobiographical, so we get to actually know a lot more about Tillie and her time as a competitive figure skater... because did y'all know that? She was a competitive figure and synchronized skater for twelve years, and she hated it. She dealt with bullying and all the pressures that come with being a skater. She was scared of being gay and living in Texas. One scene that I still think about [aside from that scene] is when she came out to her brother and his response was, "Oh. I mean, it's just sorta... wrong, I think."

I've read Spinning, On a Sunbeam, and a few stories from the Alone in Space collection, and I still have more to get to... though to be real honest, I'm totally procrastinating Are You Listening? because @pi-creates has read that one, so we've talked about it and I know the trigger warnings behind it and I'm just... I need to be in the right headspace, I'll get to it eventually.

But y'know what really sucks? I honestly believe that a lot of people in the twdg fandom would love Tillie's other works. Y'all are always going off about wanting more female characters who are complex, interesting, flawed and gay and like.... Tillie Walden! That's Tillie Walden's works! But opinions of her are soured by the Clementine comics! So they're not going to give her another chance! And that sucks!

Ugh, anyway... I guess you could say that my motivations behind this are my own frustrations with the fandom being so shitty with their bad faith takes, like listen.... I've discovered that bad faith takes really get under my skin- reddit makes me want to walk into the ocean.

I know that my one essay isn't going to change anything, and I'm not going to post it on reddit, but I'm doing it anyway in hopes that some people will read it and develop a more nuanced opinion of all this. Or give Tillie's other works a chance. But mostly, this is for me and if other people get something out of it, then even better.

Boat God help us all when Book Three drops, though... people were fucking shitty about Book Two, like people went out of their way to be intentionally deceptive with lying about what happens, blowing things out of proportion, and making fake wiki screenshots and shit. DomTheBomb's review on youtube was half-assed, furthered the harmful self-insert narrative, AND got basic facts about the story wrong. People attacked Tillie's insta with grooming accusations, and there were people telling her they hoped her newborn baby was taken away from her.

When I say I've never been more disappointed in this fandom, I fucking mean it. My only hope is that people won't be as pissy since it's the final book in the trilogy but y'know.

I don't know when my post on it will be out, but I'm shooting for before Book Three releases. I'm mostly working on my clouis and violentine essay while I read through Tillie's books. Thanks for the message💚

[radioactive-cloud]

nace jordan is good old-fashioned lover boy and jan peteh is killer queen

[saga-jihen]

[taurielofmirkwood77777]

If Crowley was to go at a Halloween party, he'd dress as a vampire. End of discussion.