Ok, but like I feel like I've never dove in how Jason was probably the youngest in the legion. Probably for a very, very long time. And imagine how it felt to watch as kids played in new Rome, and eventually joined you. And you could never join them as they played in new rome. Imagine all of the kids you know are older than you, and you can't make friends. Imagine having to lead quests of people way older than you that resent you for it because of your parentage. Imagine how happy he was when people his age finally started joining, and I wishing he could he them? Imagine basically being raised by a bunch of teenagers, many of whom dislike you? Would love to hear ur thoughts
honestly, i imagine all of the older members of the legion whispering behind Jason's back about how easy he has it in camp jupiter bc of his dad, about how he isnt "qualified" enough to lead missions, and how he has everything "handed" to him. i feel like he had a LOT to prove and only when his missions started getting successful, people actually accept that he is capable, but even then envious members of the cohort would say that he got lucky or only succeeded bc of jupiter's blessings or smth. could you imagine a baby jason going to the older members of the legion for advice and they just coolly shrug him off? i feel like in a realistic standpoint, they arent outright mean to him bc they are terrified of jupiter's anger but they arent friendly either.
They just let him sit in a corner. i feel like at some point, even when people his age start coming in, he still wouldnt feel loved, because they all would think jason is too scary or intimidating and would avoid him out of fear, also bc he doesnt understand their jokes bc he was brought up too serious. so he would be an outcast. he would be an outcast but not necessarily in a bad way, but like "he's too good for us" type of way which actually hurts jason way more. like when he comes in they all would give him a small bow or something and it gets on his NERVES.
overall i feel like there is too much jealousy surrounding him for him to have any comfortable conversation with people, especially because he is their "leader" even if he was a praetor very late, people still subconsciously saw him as one, even the old praetors consulted him before they came to a decision.
i feel like the moment people even remotely saw him as a human with feelings is when he joined the least reputed legion simply to popularize it. i feel like that was HIS moment where ppl were like "yep this guy is actually a living person with empathy!" but it reverted back to ppl seeing him as an unapproachable artifact
which is why im so upset that frank and hazel didnt have a closer relationship with him, i mean we did see jason and frank talking together on the deck of argo 2 after jason transferred his praetorship to frank, probably filling him in his position, but i wish their relationship ascended beyond just a mentor and his apprentice. because that concept with jason's character gets so old. literally everyone saw him as an advisor and leader that they could learn from, but who really saw something beyond that about him? only leo, nico, reyna, piper and percy tbh.
and in the end, reyna had a subtle fallout with him so they didnt talk, piper broke up with him so they were awkward and tense, leo "died" and never saw him again, the last time nico saw jason was probably during the strawberry field scene when nico told him he's staying at camp, and jason got too busy with his temple project to see anyone else. he was working to keep his promise till the very end, just like a true roman. honestly thanks to you i might actually expand on this in a separate post and tag you in it :)
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If they are so in love then...
Why do they break up so much?!!!!
Because they aren't in love, and the writers did this so Zutara fans would shut up. There was ZERO setup for this pairing. ZERO! And you expect me to just jump on board with this very badly written bad relationship?
HELL NO!
I'll say it again for the people in the back...
This is the most unhealthy relationship I've ever seen on TV!!!
You know, besides Daemon and Rhaenyra, and several others that I can tell you straight up how they are bad/toxic.
Mai is a perfect supporting character for Azula. That's where she works. She's a foil for Ty-Lee, and she doesn't give a damn about Azula's toxic behavior. It works in that way. Mai is that one friend that's going to go with the flow, and you might need her to help you bury a body.
As for her relationship with Zuko...
Mai is apathetic. She doesn't communicate at all about what she wants, and Zuko just wants her to open up. She won't, because that's her character. She is also written with the worst backstory for this character archetype because at the same time Avatar was airing, Teen Titans was wrapping up on its final season, and kids loved the character of Raven.
Mai from what I can tell, was written to be like Raven.
Raven is an insanely popular character within the DC Comics and Media, so it makes sense that Bryke wrote Mai in to bring in some support from Raven fans. Except for the fact that Mai's story isn't compelling enough to fill in those Raven parameters.
Fans call Mai and Zuko the perfect Goth couple when Zuko isn't even Goth. Trust me, he isn't. I was Goth/Punk back in the day... Zuko was far from it. He isn't even Emo. He's actually going to take the role of the Loner.
Now, just because a couple looks cute together doesn't mean the work. Like I said, Mai doesn't like opening up because she's supposed to be Brykes' version of Raven (genuinely surprised people have not caught on to this) and be mysterious, Goth, and apathetic. Zuko is none of these things. He's frustrated and lonely, and none of his friends are actually his friends. They're Azula's. Zuko is also willing to communicate while Mai isn't. That is usually not a good thing in a relationship, fiction or real.
So their breakups make a lot of sense. And as of current comics, they are still not together, Mai having moved on to be with some other guy.
And no, I'm not going to go by speculation that they are going to get back together. Unless that comes out in comic form, they are not together.
Sorry... wait, not I'm not.
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Here's the actual analysis as to why El is just as bad of a romantic partner to Mike as Mike is to her (and why they just don’t work romantically in general).
(this is going to include both reasons why El is not a good romantic partner and just general observations as to why Mike and El don’t work romantically)
Relationships work two ways. Mike and El don't work not only because Mike can't love El the way she wants to be loved but also because El hasn't ever proved that Mike can confide in her and be vulnerable with her, which is important for a relationship. We have literally never seen El comfort Mike about anything, or even ask if he’s okay or how he’s doing. We've seen Mike try to comfort El in S4, but we've never seen it the other way, not even in the slightest.
Let's start at the beginning.
This lack of mutual trust and this weariness to be vulnerable with each other stems from the fact that Mike and El never established a proper friendship before getting together. Friendship is where people get to know each other and learn to trust each other. Friendship is the foundation to any good romantic relationship.
Mike has proved that he can be there for El from the beginning. He took her in when they found her, he gave her a place to stay, and he protected her, despite the fact that it was dangerous for him to do any of this.
Mike and El met, knew each other for a week, and then were separated. During that week, Mike did his part to establish the beginning of a friendship. El didn't even know what it was to have friends, so obviously, she was slower in reciprocating the friendship completely.
El was able to establish the beginnings of a true friendship with everyone in the party, so they all considered her their friend, and she considered them her friends, but they never really got to know each other. Mike and El in particular were torn apart before they could get to know each other well enough to develop true romantic feelings, and it didn't help that people such as Lucas and Nancy gave Mike the idea that he should be interested in El romantically. The fact that Mike kissed El was a major setback for their platonic relationship.
Because they were never able to establish a good, strong, platonic relationship first, and since they never really go to know each other, this set up a very shaky foundation for any other relationship they tried to build.
During their year apart, El watched a lot of romance shows and movies, to the point where she could quote the TV. She gained this idea of love that isn't realistic, but since she and Mike kissed, and the people in love on the TV kissed, and she cared for Mike, she probably rationalized that her positive feelings for him must be romantic, just like the people on TV.
Because of this, when they reunited in season 2, El already had it in her mind that their relationship should be romantic. She wasn’t trying to be his friend anymore, not like with the rest of the party. She thought that they should be romantic. Boyfriend and girlfriend. Like the people on TV. This is shown when she tried to kiss him before she left with Hopper to go to the lab in season 2. El made that move, not Mike. Mike didn’t even lean forward. And then the Snowball happened, and Mike kissed El once again, and (presumably) that night, they established their romantic relationship.
(It is important to note that Max and Lucas also got together at the Snowball, and they had the same amount of time to get to know each other (About a week and the one month time skip at the end of season 2). The only difference is that we saw Lucas and Max actually talking about themselves and getting to know each other. We didn’t see that with Mike and El in season 1)
We really start to see the result of that shaky foundation in season 3. In the beginning, we saw Mike and El make out and seemingly have a good time together. Mike left, and then we saw that their make-out session caused Mike to be late to meet up with the rest of the party.
As the season went on, we saw how Mike and El’s relationship affected everyone else. We learn that they’d been ditching their friends (causing Will and Dustin to be noticeably upset), and they’re being disrespectful to Hopper.
We also saw that El didn’t really like Mike’s idea of fun. He tried to be silly and have fun in the first make-out scene, and she stopped him and pulled him back into making out. We learned through Will that they hadn't played DnD in a while, and he implied that they hadn’t really been doing anything fun lately. Mike had essentially given up the things he liked to do in order to hang out with El.
As far as we saw, Mike and El spend most of their time making out and not actually doing anything else that the two of them enjoy together, such as listening to music (to enjoy it, not just as background noise while making out), playing games (like El and Max do later), reading comics (also like El and Max do later), watching TV together, or even just talking. It’s almost like making out is the only thing they both know the other likes to do.
(Also note that a lot of this has to do with their age. For the most part, dating is the stage to get to know someone before making it official, but because Mike and El are so young, they don’t know this. They have a set idea of what dating and relationships means in their minds, and they don’t have the life experience to know that dating means getting to know one another, not just spending all your time together making out (especially El, who was in a lab for almost her whole life and mostly learned about other people and the world through romance TV). Usually, you go on dates, then, if you like each other, you enter a relationship. Dating people who you didn’t know before is basically the “being friends” stage. They seem to skip the dating part entirely, and they go straight into a relationship. For anyone, but especially kids that young, a good relationship needs to be built on a good friendship)
When Mike lied to El, she broke up with him, which was completely fair since he kept on lying. Then, she went on with Max and didn’t think about him too much after that. We saw that the breakup didn’t really affect her.
During the rest of the season, we saw Mike in danger multiple times. We saw Mike get concerned for El, but we never once saw El ask Mike how he was doing. We never saw El check up on Mike. Not like how Jonathan checked up on Nancy after she was attacked by the Mind Flayer, despite him having been injured to the point that he almost passed out only a few minutes prior. Not like how Joyce was concerned about and took care of Hopper after he was beat up by the Russian soldier.
At the end of season 3, El told Mike that she loved him and it was heavily implied that she said this because she overheard Mike say it in the other room earlier in the season, but Mike didn’t say it back.
Mike never told El he loved her to her face. She was the first (and only) one to say it face-to-face.
Remember that.
In season 4, we learn from El’s letter that she was lying to Mike. She was completely lying, not just leaving out the bad parts of her life in California. When Mike arrived in California, we saw that El was a bit upset with Mike for writing “From Mike” on the flowers instead of “Love Mike,” but she brushed it off. Then, the roller rink happened, and El’s lies were exposed. Instead of coming clean, she even tried to convince Angela to play it off as a joke. Then, later that night, she retreated, and she isolated herself.
The next day, we saw Mike try to comfort El. He didn’t get upset about the fact that she had lied to him. He simply asked for an explanation. He tried to help her feel more comfortable telling the truth by reminding her that he’s been bullied his whole life. He told her he understood, and he opened up to her and reminded her about his own traumatic memories, only for her to tell him that he didn’t understand. She disregarded his experiences and said that he didn't understand, even though she literally watched him almost kill himself because of a bully.
And still, even after she dismissed his experiences with bullying, he didn’t get mad. He asked for her to explain. Then, she opened up about her own insecurities, and she said that she thought everyone, including him, looked at her like she’s a monster. When Mike tried to reassure her, when he told her he cared for her, El decided to move the conversation off of herself and onto Mike.
Mike is understandably taken off guard by this. El then proceeds to insist that, just because Mike didn’t write the word “love” in his letters, that meant he didn’t love her, despite his reassurances.
Now, obviously, Mike is also in the wrong in this conversation. He lied and said that he did say that he loved her when he didn’t, and he really didn’t handle the situation well after they moved onto the topic of him loving her (ex: saying she was being ridiculous, etc.), but that doesn’t change the fact that El continued pushing this topic that he clearly wasn’t comfortable with. She never considered that maybe he wasn’t ready to say it yet. Again, remember, Mike hadn’t actually said he loved her to her face yet, so really, there should not be any expectation that he should be saying it to her face, or even writing it, right now.
All in all, so far, we’ve seen El lie to Mike, not apologize for lying for months, invalidate his bullying experiences, and get upset with him for not saying something that really shouldn’t have been an expectation yet.
None of this got resolved.
El got arrested. Then, when they reunited, there was no time to really talk about the fight until they made it to Surfer Boy’s Pizza. That little talk they had before Argyle came with the pizza would have been the perfect time for El to apologize for lying and for what she said about his bullying during the fight, but that didn’t happen. So, El never apologized for lying, even after Mike apologized for not saying he loved her more.
None of this means that El is a bad person. El and Mike just don't work romantically because they aren't able to be vulnerable around each other. The one time they talk about how they feel with each other, they end up with a fight that never truly gets resolved. It wasn't resolved with the monologue, not only because Mike’s truthfulness in the monologue was questionable, but also because the argument started with the fact that El lied to Mike, not the issue of Mike not saying he loved her, and that never got resolved.
El hasn’t once shown Mike that he can confide in her, and that, along with many other factors, is why their relationship isn’t going to work out. They needed to establish that platonic bond first. They needed to establish a friendship to fall back on when things in the romantic aspect of their relationship got shaky. If they had established that friendship first, they would be more comfortable going to each other and opening up about their troubles.
With a more solid friendship, they would have been able to go to each other for comfort or reassurance, the same way Mike was able to go to Will, his best friend first and foremost, and talk to him when he was upset and feeling insecure. Also, the same way Max went to Dustin, her friend, when she was worried about the Eddie/Chrissy situation instead of trying to go to Lucas.
Max and Lucas had the same amount of friendship time as Mike and El, and even though they had a better pre-romance friendship, it ultimately wasn't enough to save their relationship. The difference is that Max and Lucas spent season 4 building their friendship back up and solidifying that foundation so that when they do get back together, they’ll be stronger than ever. Mike and El (well, mostly Mike) spent season 4 trying to save their romantic relationship, which is why it still isn’t very strong, even at the end of the season.
Again, this doesn’t make either of them awful people. This all just shows that they are not good for each other romantically, and they never really have been.
So, to conclude my long rambling, as much as Mike idolizes El and her powers, as much as Mike can’t tell El he loves her to her face or without being prompted, as much as Mike can’t show El that he loves her and make her feel loved, El also is completely uninterested in the things that make Mike happy, El never apologized for lying to Mike for months, El invalidated Mike’s traumatic experiences with bullying, and El has never shown Mike that he can go to her for comfort and reassurance.
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