#because they're capable of doing and have done real fucking damage

[russenoire]

that scene in season 1 where teruki hanazawa exorcises ekubo mid-sentence... and shigeo's eyes widen in shock?

i really want to talk about it, specifically the explosion meter accompanying it.

normally, when the teenager's emotions aren't obvious to the audience, that meter relays to us a sense of what he is actually feeling. but we cannot trust the meter here. we see it jump up a few points at teru's 'psycho wave' sending the sleazy ghost to the shadow realms, and remain steady at 50% upon shigeo's recollections of the spirit's unsavory nature. the boy outright tells teru that he isn't bothered. and it's funny!

but shigeo isn't being honest with himself here either.

his face briefly gives his feelings away before resettling into its normal flat affect. (to be fair, what he's really feeling isn't teru's business. this kid is trying to provoke a fight out of him, after all.) after he's basically tortured into exploding, shigeo spends three hours in the pouring rain, searching everywhere for ekubo.

three. hours.

these are not the actions of someone who isn't bothered. letting himself get drenched to the point of sickness,

even though he literally holds the power to shield himself from it,

reads to me like unconscious self-punishment for allowing all this to happen.

after a large chunk of his short life spent denying and fearing them for good reason, shigeo's first impulse is often not to use his psychic powers -- even after his integration at the story's end. i wish this was discussed more, because many watchers cannot fathom why this boy with world-breaking psychic abilities would ever refuse to use them.

also: the explosion meter lying to us / representing shigeo's detachment from his own emotions alexithymia may occur elsewhere in the series as well, especially when he's not close to an explosion; i'm reminded of the tiny dent ritsu's provocation of him makes in it a few episodes later.

[whetstonefires]

Hi, I'm currently writing a fic and would like to ask for advice about the characterization of a slightly darker Lan Xichen. When he is in seclusion, in the midst of despair and grappling with feelings of anger, bitterness and resentment what do you think would be his lesson learned from everything? How would his actions/personality change particularly concerning his decision making as a leader? Would he become more manipulative/ruthless like jgy even while fully disavowing his choices? Thanks!

Okay so I do have a lot of thoughts about this!

Because there's a whole list of issues Lan Xichen has to unpack, and the deepest is in fact not the betrayed anger, or even grief or guilt, but having to reevaluate who he even is.

He's spent 13 years thinking Lan Wangji was the fuckup and he had tried hard and done everything right. Like, not flawlessly, there were all those people and even his sword brother he couldn't save and Lan Wangji he couldn't protect from himself, but still. He'd done it. Complex political and personal reality successfully navigated. Worst errors evaded. Not Like His Father.

He spent about 15 years (that's so much time!!!) having his most intimate personal relationship be with someone who was lying to and using him, and who (because he killed him!) he will never even be able to ask which parts were lies.

His entire decisionmaking system is wrecked. For him to come out of this cruel, with the confidence to do vicious things to others for some goal, he would have to somehow construct a new belief system, a basis for his convictions, that is even more narrow and sharp and coldly implacable than Jin Guangyao's was. Or at any rate more inflexible.

I don't think he's capable of this. He's like 40 years old! He's spent that whole time trying so, so fucking hard to be good, to be fair and kind and just even where these conflict with one another.

And what he has for it is a shattered decisionmaking base.

There's only so far a person can change themselves, even if they try to start over from first principles. And he doesn't have any real motivation to want to be really harsh, even if he doesn't want to be so soft anymore either.

If he had to knit himself back together under these circumstances and go forward and perform desperate feats, the way Jiang Cheng had to after the first time he broke (not as profound a break, not once he got his core 'back' and could resume most of his prior identity elements, but still the permanent damage is visible) I think Lan Xichen could get pretty dark.

If he was being forced to make constant life-or-death calls in a violent atmosphere and he didn't fucking trust himself but he knew his gentleness and his mercy and his desire to believe the best of people had been so utterly weaponized against him and those under his keeping before, I think he'd start making a lot of kill calls. He's capable of that, after all. He was a major war hero, flying from front to front, pulling asses out of fires.

He has killed lots of people! And commanded people he cares about into battle! He has the stomach for that kind of thing, when there's cause.

When Lan Xichen accepted massacres under the period of ascendancy of the Jin, let the Chang and the He and even the Wen remnants be wiped out and then erased without justice or remorse, he was using that same wartime stomach for necessity, and then trying to patch things over and let the world be peaceful, be healed.

Hide it until it stops hurting anymore. That's his basic methodology for things that it's too late to mediate.

And I think because that smoothing and that kindness and that looking-away-from-conflict are the parts of his failures most distinctive to him, as a person, they're the parts he would react against with the most violent distrust. And he'd need to lock down on his uncertainties and suppress them to function, which does not do good things for your judgment. So a Lan Xichen fresh from those traumas who had to fight a war could get pretty brutal. He could ramp his ruthlessness up by pretty rapid degrees.

If he did, he'd be doing it while leaning away from manipulation, going as direct and uncompromising and fierce as possible. (In imitation a bit of Nie Mingjue.)

If he wound up leaning away from ruthlessness hard enough he might accidentally become pretty manipulative, by way of trying to never actually force his will on others since he doesn't trust his own judgment, but I think that's a pretty outside chance. He's not actually a very subtle person and I think he's too old to really learn, and under the circumstances he'd probably be more insecure about hinting than demanding things. If he comes out too early and is overly centered on shame, maybe.

I don't think he could get as bad as Jin Guangyao no matter which direction he went, because he wouldn't be all that sneaky about it, his goals would still be for the sake of groups of people rather than himself alone, and he wouldn't have the confidence to totally refuse to take outside input on his choices. He also just gives a shit about other people, by instinct. All that puts some caps on his scope of villainy that jgy did not have.

Although under the right circumstances, with the ruthless route, he could get pretty volatile about taking advice, reacting unpredictably against attempts to gentle or redirect him as Dangerous Manipulation Again.

You could do a fantastic AU with that actually, with betrayed, hardened, trying-so-fucking-hard unstable Lan Xichen flipping out at a Lan Wangji who's trying to rein in his excessive brutality against like, suspected traitors. Like that's a role reversal you could make work by pulling the right trauma strings and it would hurt so good. Put Nie Huaisang in as a witness to an episode and really layer things up.

But I find it hard to imagine him going that way in seclusion. Taking all the pressures off a person in a mental health crisis is something you do for a reason. He is in there so he won't be forced to make decisions when he doesn't feel qualified anymore, as much as to hide from his shame and wrestle with the grief.

Putting the crisis-haver in solitary confinement is not actually a good idea! That will generally make many parts of the problem worse! Even with the ability to come out if he decides to, and even though privacy sounds like a good idea, isolation is a bit much.

But he's going to break a different way if he's alone with no responsibilities, and only himself to do anything for or to.

The most likely way for his seclusion to go bad, if it does, is self-destruction. That could look a lot of ways, and might or might not kill him, and if it does could do so at basically any speed.

If it doesn't just become an inward spiral of destruction but also is bad, though...let's see. He could still come out paranoid. Yeah. Having lost his faith in the ability and will of people to be good.

The most obvious way for this to turn ugly out the gate is that he reverses his previous arc (that's one of the reasons this doesn't strike me as probable) and instead of leaning toward 'wangji was right and i was wrong; i have to interrogate all my biases harder and reconsider my definition of acceptable sacrifices and listen to him' he looks at wangxian, and his brother's conviction that this notorious villain was always good at heart, that his crimes were mostly under duress, or exaggerations and lies, that he means well and mostly meant well, and wants to be better and to put all that behind him...

And remembers that's the story Jin Guangyao told him.

[furiosophie]

i cannot stop thinking about your conception of the thranto relationship in postmortem. how you portray them as obsessed with each other, completely enmeshed, fucking lost without each other and yet how they think they're doing the right thing by giving the relationship up. it's really giving me medieval chivalric romance vibes / gothic romance vibes....i would be so curious just to read your meta thoughts on the two of them and the relationship and the character work you're doing in the fic.

okay i have no idea why my brain decided that today was the day it felt capable of answering this but here we go – buckle up this is so much longer than i had planned, i am sorry :’)

first of i think saying i’ve done actual character work would be too high a praise, i mostly have a lot of notes of gibberish with too many exclamation marks haha

that being said i think the best way i can explain how i see them is by is putting them into context with the other ship i’ve written a lot of – dinluke. and bear with me here if that’s not your cup of tea but essentially what it boils down to for me is the fact that at the core of both of these ships is them being something akin to soulmates. it’s that “there is no one who could ever see me as completely as you do” feeling, just that the pace is exactly reversed.

for dinluke it’s an instant, nearly violent “oh it’s you”, an “oh there is someone i want more than this supposed destiny i should be giving my life for”. and then the struggle comes as a “i can not be with you because i have to be sth else” and “i am too damaged to hold you”. they might get together in a week, it might take them years, but it’s always clear, like even when they don’t know, it’s always clear. the forces that keep them apart are mostly external (e.g. their respective destinies and their real, not just perceived, duty to their people).

for thranto on the other hand it’s not instant, it’s a reluctant “guess it has to be you” and then it’s over a decade of gradual slow realizations, like eli going from worrying about thrawn getting them killed at the academy to smiling to himself whenever thrawn makes faro play riddle me with him. 

they’re not falling in love, they're walking into love, slow and gradual, an endurance run until eventually they are so intertwined they end at “oh it’s always been you, it’s always going to be you”. 

they are so comfortable with each other they don’t even realize that there is no one else that can match them like they match each other. and so their struggle only comes once they have to separate and realize that they neither know who they are without the other, nor what they actually mean to each other bc it was all always unspoken and open for interpretation. so while shit happens around them the forces that keep them apart are mostly internal (e.g. things unspoken, the way they see themselves and their purpose and their worth).

[i did ofc dig deeper into this, under the cut]

moreover, both din and luke are very clear on who they are as individuals, or at least who they think they are supposed to be – the last jedi and the rightful mand’alor. that’s the whole point, they are these larger than life characters who carry an immense burden on their shoulders they don’t know what to do with. they are both on very lone individual paths (even within the rebels or covert) and are both used to being alone and fending for themselves. their struggle is not only to accept the roles/legacy thrust upon them but also to learn that it all becomes much easier when you accept help, and that it’s okay to allow the comfort of companionship rather than to run from it in fear they could cause hurt because of who they are. they need each other to grow as individuals.

thrawn and eli are, again, that in reverse. they start out as a unit, from the second they meet they are dependent on each other, thrawn literally tells eli “you hold my words in your hands” and eli remarks multiple times how his career and life are tied to thrawn’s. they spend well over a decade together in the navy, a system well known for stomping the individuality out of you, so all their individuality comes from each other – their habits, their schedule, how they wear their uniforms, the missions they go on and the memories they share. 

and it’s also interesting to note here how they have an obvious power imbalance when they meet – eli was a cadet back then, prob around eighteen or so, thrawn was at least a decade older and a fully fledged officer – but how at the same time they start out on even ground in a way thrawn didn’t with anyone, maybe not even thrass. bc even though thrawn has more experience he needs eli to navigate this new world for him, and even though eli does hold thrawn’s words in his hands he too seems to need him to thrive. they start out at the academy together and then subsequently work their way up the navy side by side.

eli essentially spends all of his adult life with thrawn, and in turn eli is the most stable relationship thrawn ever had in his life, bc yes, he had thrass and ar’alani and later samakro and thalias, but all of them were only ever at his side when time allowed, and with conditions, not 24/7 like eli is.

i think the way i put this in my notes for an unwritten part of postmortem pt3 illustrates all that well actually:

"The inhibitors, the way your bed is made, your schedule, you–" Thrawn hesitates. "You left space for me."

Eli looks away. "I wish I could say it was a conscious effort. But really it wasn't. It's just– It was fifteen years. That doesn't just go away. It's– all of these things, they're part of me." He looks up. "You're part of me."

and i’ve written a small thing for a twt prompt about thrawn having that exact realization when they’re older:

"You don't like tea."

Eli looks up and frowns, cup halfway to his lips. "I'm drinking tea right now, aren't I?"

Thrawn's eyes catch on the droplets of water sticking to Eli's skin, on his hair still damp from where he took a dip in the lake behind the ranch this morning.

"But you don't like it." 

"No," Eli concedes. "But I like drinking it." 

"Why?" 

Eli shrugs. "Because." 

"Because?" 

He huffs out a small laugh. "Because it's been thirty years. I got used to it." He smirks. "You got used to the amount of pillows I sleep with, didn't you?"

"I did," Thrawn admits, begrudgingly. 

"Prefere it even?" 

Thrawn thinks about the way Eli looks on all those pillows in the morning, how his skin contrasts the sheets like strokes of paint. "I do." 

"There you have it then," Eli smiles, looking back down at his questis.

"Does it ever bother you?" Thrawn asks when their cups are dry and Ool's midday sun starts creeping up on the ranch's patio. 

"Hm?" 

"That we're this intertwined." 

Eli looks up. "That I couldn't go anywhere in the galaxy and not be aware of the way you've changed me?" 

"Yes."

even if they wanted to go separate ways, they are irrevocably intertwined. when we finally get an outside pov of them in treason in form of ronan he describes them as “a circle of calm in the middle of the commotion” which i feel should tell you everything you need to know.

where dinluke fight against that instant feeling of being at ease with each other, thranto embrace it pretty quickly. like yeah, eli grumbles in the beginning and makes a big show of being angry that thrawn forced him to stay at his side, but eli is also a very unreliable narrator and all of that stands in juxtaposition to how fascinated he’s with thrawn from second one, and how he claims to want a simple life but is bored every second they’re not in immediate danger. 

it’s a bit hard to see when you’re first reading the books bc of how much of and unreliable a narrator eli is, but once you’re done with the whole series it becomes pretty apparent how perfect they fit with each other from the get go – i have a million examples of this but some small ones would be faro pointing out how eli is the only one who actually understands thrawn’s schemes, and thrawn telling thrass years earlier about how frustrating it is that no one ever does. 

like we meet eli as this entirely ordinary guy only to slowly realize oh wait he is a genius in his own right, and then get hit in the ascendancy books with how much of a missing piece he actually is for thrawn (the amount of annotations i have on those books that just say “eli would have known” or “eli would have done xyz”). 

like there is a reason thrawn only ever compares eli to nightswan, someone he’s obsessed with, and that he absolutely loses his mind the second eli is gone in rebels. as i said – intertwined. dependent. 

and they are not just missing pieces for each other, they are also eerily similar to each other, as we realize in the ascendancy books when we see young thrawn.

like one of my fav comparisons are these two scenes of them intimidating ppl without even raising their voices, like mind you both of them are pretty much the lowest ranking officers in these scenes, eli is an ensign reprimanding a captain:

thrawn ascendancy: chaos rising

thrawn (2017)

and i could make a whole different post for the “eli being an unreliable narrator” thing and how absolutely fascinating he is as a character, but i always keep coming back to wondering about what kind of gifted-kid bullshit happened to him as a kid, like i feel like he and thrawn dealt with a lot of the same issues of being “other” growing up but being unable to put a finger on it. i kinda explore that in postmortem, but it’s most clear in this scene from the borika interlude:

“I grew up near a lake just like this,” Eli says, his eyes fixed firmly on the stars. “I took Thrawn there, once. A long time ago. I spent so much time swimming in those waters growing up, but it never felt the same after that.” He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath that comes out remarkably steady. “I didn’t even know I never really belonged anywhere. Not until I met him.”

as i said, there is no one else who matches them like they match each other, no one else who’s been as much of a constant in their lives as each other.

which is why i think it’s so important that they do, eventually, go separate ways at the end of thrawn (2017) and learn who they are as individuals away from each other. where dinluke needs to allow themselves to be together to grow, thranto needs to allow themselves to be away from each other to do so. 

especially bc for most of their time together in canon they are trapped by the fact that their roles and goals are very clear cut – commander and subordinate in service of the imperial navy – which makes it very hard for them to admit or even acknowledge their feelings for each other. like even if one of them would admit it to themselves their framework does not allow them to act upon it (which is why i think there are so many sex pollen fics around for them), so you get deep devotion with everything being left unsaid. 

that’s where the chivalry aspect comes in i think – they show their love for each other through upholding their duty, that is the most overt form of affection they can show. which is also why “good day lieutenant vanto” hurts so much bc eli defecting is his ultimate show of affection, it’s his ultimate “i pledge to uphold my duty to you, not the empire”. it’s basically a declaration of love, and so ofc is thrawn sending him away to protect him. but still, unsaid, unsure. conflict. 

[as a side note it’s also very interesting how din and luke both rebel against and have to come to accept their destiny and become comfortable with it, while thrawn and eli are both very comfortable with and set in their convictions, and have to be knocked down forcefully (purrgil, send to an alien military and into an impending civil war) to re-evaluate them.]

and ofc they find back to each other eventually, bc they are quite literally meant for each other, but it has to be bc they want to be at each other's side, not bc they are forced to or dependent on each other (especially bc thrawn did very much take eli’s choice away in the beginning, so it’s important that eli takes that step himself, love the way @amukmuk handles this for example, always with explicit consent and clear boundaries).

i am sure i’m forgetting crucial parts so if you want me to elaborate on anything lmk but yeah, those are my two cents i’d say, hope that answers that question?

[egg-emperor]

Eggman's pollution of countless ecosystems isn't too farfetched since in real life there are many companies that pollute ecosystem, some even cruelly test on animals (not even for medical purposes) , just to make a quick buck. The animals live short miserable lives. Don't get me started on the logging companies that destroy countless amazonian rainforests (and kill the inhabitants both human and animal) all out of greed.

Yeah while Eggman has done a lot of crazy out there things that'd be impossible in real life like awakening giant monsters, blowing up the moon, breaking apart the world, etc- but one of the big things he's been the villain for since the beginning with the damage he does to nature, wildlife, the environment, and the general theme of animal abuse has always been very realistic and makes him a very serious threat.

Every level of the dead and polluted bad future in CD is the best example of the horrible state the world would end up in if Eggman had his way and how even his poor robots will be lay to waste all broken down and sad looking, let alone the fact that poor animals are being used inside

He also owns an ocean of oil and it wouldn't be surprising if an element of his greed was also in there and he sold some for money

He has nature burned and bombed and it likely kills tons of wildlife too

And deforestation with his robots cutting down trees

And of course there's tons and tons more all throughout the series, he's infamous for it. It's the very first thing that tells us he's the bad guy in the series. It's unfortunate how a lot of fans in recent years have tried to find reasons why this actually isn't so bad and harmful or that he has good but misguided intentions in it, it's missing the whole message.

I've also somehow seen claims that he's gotten better and doesn't do that anymore? Lol. The last time he used animals in robots was Lost World, just two games ago,

he also didn't care about damage caused by his machine that sucked life from the world to selfishly use for power in his creations as long as they're was still something left for him to conquer,

it was also literally the whole focus of his Forces propaganda video was him literally advertising a polluted world as beautiful and desired by showing a happy healthy world and saying "why have THIS-"

"when you could have THIS"

Then the rest of it was him promoting a fucked up way for people to survive without clean air, by giving up their free will and becoming mindless robot slaves with his robotomy treatment- which is all he really cares about instead of actually helping people. That's another way he specifically desires to damage and pollute, because of that benefit.

And all the destruction of how everything was set ablaze, the desertification drying up waters, and the operations for deforestation going on in the actual game of Forces too all begs to differ on the claim that he's stopped lol

Credit for that last cool detail

It's still very much a thing in his character. That also gives a very important message against harming the environment and that humans are capable of harming and using it for many greedy reasons and destroying it carelessly for selfish gain. They don't have a good reason, they don't think they're doing the right thing, they're doing it just for profit and gain and don't care.

Eggman does extreme damage to nature, the environment, and wildlife, on a global scale multiple times too- to the point he's broken the entire world itself apart. He represents a dark part of humanity that sees the world as nothing but resources to use up until they're gone in selfishness and greed and are also apathetic towards the damage done in general with pollution and waste.

It is very realistic and terrifying, it's a huge part of what makes Eggman such a dangerous threat and diabolical villain! In that particular area of evil, he is a very real person that could exist- and there are people like him that do exist and cause harm in similar ways. Just because we've become so used to it happening in the world, doesn't mean it isn't bad or should be downplayed or dismissed in fiction!

[epickiya722]

6 and 12 for the ask game

6. Which ship fans are the most annoying?

I just knew this question was coming and I'm glad it was asked because I'm gonna be real with you folks. (This one is about to get long!)

Any kind of ship has those fans that annoy the hell out of me, even the ships I ship.

It's what they do, forget the ship.

Example, people who comment and/or reblog a ship post to comment "cute, but don't ship". Not necessary, no one asked. If you don't ship it, why are you here? It obviously wasn't for you.

Another example, making a ship post about another ship totally unrelated. I hate it when people do that. If I write a Nobamaki post and it's just about Nobamaki, don't bring your ass to the post to mention YutaMaki, ItaKugi, hell, NobaMai... I don't care what ship it is. If the post is about NobaMaki, keep it about NobaMaki. Otherwise, skedaddle.

-phobic shippers. Not just homophobic, I mean any kind of phobic. Here's another scenario. If I say that I headcanon Miruko as bisexual and Burnin as a lesbian and they're my ship, I don't care to see "Miruko can't date Burnin if she's bi, she can only lesbian herself"! Shush, quiet, turn to the exit and go through it and don't return.

Shippers who insist characters of the same sex are like "siblings", even though the context would be so weird to say so. Like... "siblings" doesn't have to be the default. "Friends" exists. It's not a made up word.

Also, if you insist that that these same sex characters have to be "like siblings", then how come for your M/F ship they can't just be friends? Why do you insist they have to be romantic? Even if in canon, the female character genuinely hates the male character or rather not date someone like them?

Oh! One more and I'm done. Shippers who are anti of a ship and yet use the same content that ship they hate and says "they're just friends, they're like siblings" and use it romantically for their own ship.

Like, I shouldn't see someone take a scene of a ship and go "see, they're only friends" and then edit that same scene with their ship and go "relationship goals". No... no...

Okay, I'm done, I'm done.

12. The unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them.

Ooh, for JJK, Miwa. Actually, the Kyoto students in general just get too much slander for me. I actually like the Kyoto students, I don't really see them as annoying or even worth hate like that, such as Miwa who really is just a nice girl who wants to do good as a sorcerer to take care of her younger brothers.

Like, yeah they didn't fare well against Kenjaku and them in Shibuya, but did we forget who the fuck those people are?!

Kenjaku and Uraume are over 1000 years old and probably seen every kind of technique there is! Did we not just see how Kenjaku was moving against CHOSO?! Did we not just see Kenjaku dodge Mahito with their eyes closed and their back to him?!

And Uraume? They're practically besties with the damn King of Curses! Ain't no way Uraume is a weak fighter!

The Kyoto students were matched up unfairly in Shibuya! Hell, not even in Shibuya! Think about last season! Look who they had go against! The Tokyo students are some menaces, okay? You have Toge who was already ranked high in his first year and the one the Kyoto students were cautious of. Maki who is a weapons expert and caught a damn bullet. She is related to and like Toji, who the Zenin clan resented and feared. Then Toji's son who really only gets his ass beat because he holds himself back. Megumi got the Ten Shadows, a technique strong enough to take down a Gojo, and it's not like he can't handle a weapon or throw hands either. Panda, who is not even just a damn Panda. That is a Cursed Corpse with three animal cores and capable of hand to hand combat. You got a Nobara on the team who isn't afraid to get dirty and ruthless in a fight and has a technique that can she doesn't even need to touch you to damage you. And Yuji Itadori. There is a reason he is named "Mr. Left Right Good Night". Kid doesn't rely on Sukuna, just his fists and kicks and was able to stand up after Todo stomped on his head and Todo remarks how he is physically stronger than him.

Also, look at their principal! Gakuganji is a traditional guy who is a member of the Higher-Ups. You cannot tell me that he runs his school in ways only he sees fit instead of adapting to how curses and even curse users are evolving.

So it's not that the Kyoto students are weak. When you really think about it, they're not allowed room to grow. Todo is an outlier in this because his mentor is Yuki Tsukumo.

Okay, that got long, I am so sorry.

Choose Violence Ask Game

[rappaccini]

k owl house prefinale thoughts:

beautiful art and designs. love the goopiness of belos.

ironically the show having to haul ass to cram in montages of what we would've gotten if disney hadn't cancelled this reveals that they absolutely were capable of efficient storytelling all along

and as before, the montages get the job done. i like the glimpses of eda and lilith on the run, king and the collector bonding, the hexside ya dystopia novel subplot

i especially like that the collector's and for that matter even boscha) being characterized as a lonely kid in need of empathy. just like amity and hunter were.

and the way belos remains the principal antagonist, as he still finds a way to worm into another vulnerable kid's head and puppet them into turning away sympathetic figures and relying only on him

the caleb hauntings are fucking cool.

boscha's fucking great.

love when kids shows depict parent child relationships with the kind of depth luz and her mom get. mom's inability to understand her daughter coming from wanting her to be safe and accepted, and having her own nerd side? fuckin love that.

as usual i'm happy that lumity is able to exist but thoroughly underwhelmed by it in practice. amity is fully just there to be The Girlfriend at this point and i'm still disappointed. girl got post-atla katara'd hard and it's horribly ironic that both are voiced by mae whitman.

well hunlow happened. saw it coming, still don't want it.

it still feels so emperor's new clothes. like, the fandom desperately shouting about how badly they want hunter and willow to be joined at the hip because they're insecure that them being single would potentially threaten the absolute canon and fandom dominance of the lumity ship got absorbed by the writers.

the whole willow scene, i was just like.... *scratches out hunter, scribbles amity in her place.*

i truly think it's just far more thematically resonant and satisfying if the person responsible for making willow feel small and useless in the first place is the one to snap her out of her breakdown.

not to mention that it would've given amity the capoff to her evolution into a kinder person, and to her relationship evolution with willow that still feels underbaked. these girls were once best friends, then amity turned on her and relentlessly bullied her into becoming the timid girl luz first meets, and they've only just gotten back on good terms. it still feels like an extended scene or story where amity and willow talk through the impact of that bullying is missing. this would've been it and we didn't get it.

or even Just Gus would've been better. hearing that affirmation coming from someone who's been your best friend for years and stuck by you through all the bullying that made you feel small would hit much harder from a friend you've known for a couple months.

i love predicting that luz's central motivation is wanting to be understood, and her desire to be a witch stems from that, over a year ago, and being right.

tbh i am Whelmed by the palisman reveal. it being a shapeshifter feels so.... fanficcy? but in the worst way possible?

i like that luz carved an egg and let it choose its own form. i like that it wasn't a conventional animal. it being a hybrid feels true to the way luz combines different magic tracks to create new ones that suit her. i do not like that her palisman literally can just shapeshift into whatever it wants to be at any moment. it feels like the writers couldn't commit to her palisman at the end of the day and went 'all of them at once!'

like. it being a little chimera would've done the job just fine. all they had to say was 'snake hybrid' and it would've been good. the word 'shifter' fucks it up.

also i still stand by the conceit that luz surrendering her palistrom wood, and by extension her chance to be a Real Witch, to heal hunter after he catches serious damage, would have been far better.

and i guess since i haven't mentioned it yet i guess now's the point where i gripe about how bad the pacing of hunter's arc is.

it's so clear that the owl house writers desperately wanted their own zuko, but completely failed to understand how important pacing was to the success of zuko's arc.

so does literally everyone btw, guess i shouldn't be too surprised.

.... you guys do remember that of the 60 episodes of atla, zuko is only redeemed in the last 10, right? and that he's only friends with the gaang for the last 5 or 6?

the audience has to see the antagonist be the fucking antagonist (meaning: doing shitty things, butting heads with the protagonist, and having the protagonist not like them) for a significant portion of the story's run before you redeem them. otherwise there ain't much for them to be redeemed for.

it's like if atla decided to introduce zuko in season 2 with no mention of him in s1, but tried to make it seem like he was hunting the avatar all along, and established him with two episodes of him being his ponytail self, before immediately slamming us into his exile arc.... then skipping the ba sing se backslide, his growth into total disillusionment with the fire lord during black sun, and the gaang learning to trust him in favor of moving immediately to the zuko's field trip shenanigans of the last episodes before the finale.

like. it's so bad. when people refer to hunter in the same breath as zuko i wince. the comparison is apt, bc the writers desperately want him to be ~gen z zuko~ but the execution falls so fucking flat because they're emulating the fandom's memories of zuko instead of the actual arc itself.

rant over. anyway, solid special! i am looking forward to the ending.

[whaleofatjme1920]

Can you give your opinion on EARLY 2010 creepypasta Fandom. When it was fannon > cannon and Toby loved waffles and Jeff was an uwu emo boy

Of course I can. Had to switch over to my laptop for this one. Two ways I view, one for the nostalgia aspect and the second as an actual adult looking back. It gets a lil long lol.

When I was younger, I absolutely loved it. I had a relatively turbulent childhood growing up, was always considered weird and into niche things that let to bullying. I wasn't entirely an outcast, as I had friends in the grade below me, but being a minority in an all White space and into things that weren't considered "cool" just yet definitely othered me from people exactly my age and older. So, when creepypasta came along, and it was "uwu angsty jeff" and "fatherly slender" and "toby waffles, cheesecake, little Lazari" essentially found family, I gripped onto that and I gripped hard. This was what I needed growing up, feeling that I belonged somewhere and that someone would love and accept me for who I was when I didn't feel that in my waking life. I ate everything the fandom had to offer because it felt like home, and I wanted the sense of family. Early creepypasta allowed me to feel that, and the fandom fueled it. It lives fondly within my memories and no where else.

As a near 21 year old adult, I don't like it. I think it sensationalizes murder and trivializes mental health while also downplaying what creepypasta legitimately is. As an adult, I enjoy the more harsh, realistic aspects and this is reflected within my writing. I just find it nicer, and more realistic. I do have "problems" with parts of the fandom that still are and that lean into the whole "uwu mansion happy times fight song on the rooftop" but that's why I curate my own space where I can be as mean as I want in my writing.

I don't necessarily view it as a bad thing, but it definitely led to bad things. I live about an hour from Waukesha depending on traffic, where the two girls attempted to murder their friend to become proxies and that's kinda when my whole creepypasta phase weaned off entirely. I knew the fandom was fucking around when it shouldn't, my mom asked me to stop talking about creepypasta, and that was that. I think that the nostalgia side was largely blind faith and again, sensationalism that led to people forgetting the true atrocities these horror stories are supposed to be. That doesn't make anyone who likes found family creepypasta wrong, but they should remember "what they're capable of." Early 2010s creepypasta was good, but a lot of us grew up and are either out of the fandom, separated from it but keep in contact (lol, me) or are still in it and ended up becoming more realistic with more adult views on it.

There's nothing wrong with the old way we viewed it, but it has done real harm - kinda like yassifying serial killers??? I don't think that type of view in the fandom really has a place anymore, as we recognize the damage it has. However, there are children getting into it just like we did going through the same things we once did. Same cycle, new generation. I think we were all a bunch of kids living in turbulent houses looking for some respite, and we've simply grown up. That's it.

[ninebaalart]

Random question because you post a lot of art and tumblr is ….yeah….

Do you use Glaze/Nightshade/some other AI protection for your art? You post so much that you seem like a big target if you aren’t

i did look into nightshade, and unfortunately I did not realize that it was a far more taxing process than they have let on. I already find putting up art to be rather tedious as a process and often queue up a couple days ahead (and with three blogs this is even more of a juggling act) so I haven't even done anything currently with Nightshade at the moment. I'm looking into converting future art with it but at the moment I feel like it's a lot of extra work.

I've opted out all my blogs currently but I am still trying to figure out the path forward. My feelings on AI are complicated- I am against it but I also do not think it's the threat that OpenAI and it's more fervent detractors would make it out to be. They deal entirely with hypothetical futures that are not possible with this technology and the real danger is transferring over a lot of infrastructure to a bubble that will clearly burst extremely soon. Tumblr should not have the right to sell our data but the long term effect is basically two grifters grifting each other with data and money.

Sam Altmann is a conman who is completely unethical and comes from the same school of thought that has influenced the likes of Sam Bankman Fried, Elon Musk, and pretty much every major name from the late 2010s/2020s - LessWrong. Which is a rationalist tech cult that spawned from a Harry Potter fanfic, which should tell you everything about how serious their ideas are and how seriously we should have been taking them in turn.

The general public has been turning on AI for a while and I can't imagine the turnaround is going to reverse on the attitude since they still pitch it as a future doomsday weapon that should be regulated in their particular way. This is all bullshit and the capitalistic system we currently exist in does not have the capacity for a technology that they claim to want to make. They don't have the capability to make the machine they're claiming this is, they will never be able to do so, and like... look, I'm not saying it's not a concern but the things AI will do is mostly going to replace entry level jobs at the moment if that. I am not really concerned if my stuff is accidentally part of their training set and I'm looking into Nightshade mostly to damage it going forward.

This was a much longer post than I wanted to write but believe me, I have done a lot of thinking on AI and Tumblr pushing it's current content silo into a data set is bad but it's not the end of the world. That being said, the way forward is kind of hazy and while the modus operation around here may not necessarily seem to change immediately as a result, I am currently looking into longterm changes in how I share my art and in general everything else to do with it. I would like, if nothing else, to damage the fuck out of the data set.

[realhankmccoy]

I guess the fundamentally tragicomic thing about the Trump 4 is that they crave power but never realised how to grow their own, so they never got out of the playpen.

They, as cucks of straight whiteness, crave power. They think power is something you identify and pluck like a berry from a plant. Then they hold it up and declare themselves extremely powerful winners.

Basically... they're gatherers... sort of toddlers who accompanies the women along on the mission of gathering berries, and are still proud of themselves for being able to pluck a berry at all, which is why they have to hold it up in triumph and make a big scene and talk about how their berry makes them the strongest toughest most special royalty and brilliance.

They kept executing this behaviour pattern hopelessly, like toddlers, in the face of adults telling them they're children because they think merely plucking the berry they saw shining could make them a superadult.

They have no idea though how the women identify the berry plants, or how the farmer grows them.

They just don't know how any of that is done -- the adult world is forever closed off to the improvisational, cucked child.

There's always been the makers and the copycats, but a good copycat at least knows how to sort of make the copy its own and reformulate it and ... they don't know any of that. It's just pluck and jump 'i'm the best, i'm onto something here!' in toddler mode.

I've lost interest in analysing all of them. There's just nothing to em is part of it. Plus I can't top that thing i saw the other day where Christina got hysterical and wedded herself to clutching at Nazi legs for succour stability safety -- the fear and childish demand for a safe space even at the cost of genoicde, I mean jesus that was truly the most embarrassing moment and it just goes to show that I had overestimated her even as a toddler, how weak she truly is and how that -- Paglia called it 'a bath of approbation' but it's more like a totally weak need for a massive security state of guarantees from adults at all times -- I cannot even really comprehend how weak these people are because I've just never been too afraid to get away from the parents or too afraid to need a Trump.

Certainly there's no need to sit around while Christina licks her wounds and finds the strength to sass off and say 'I'm not afraid' when everything she writes is about succour and security and the massive damage my attacks on her do and how it's just like permanent damage that some faggot stood up to her baby raspberries on the internet -- i had no clue that she was so weak that she things me standing up for myself is permanent psychological damage to her -- and everything she writes is about succour and security and safety within whiteness, so fearful or unable to handle anything now that in the symbolic real she's literally writing about safety and security needs -- just a totally embarrassing state of terror and a babyish ability to want to pick fights and then cry that her mind imploded and will never function again because she lost the fight.

I mean, who can even with those baby states of weakness? That's weaker than a 6 yr old child, seriously. It's like 3 layers weaker than the weakest emo band's histrionic lyrics about MY FEELINGS IM THE BOSS I JUST WANT TO BE A DICK BUT YOU SAID NO AND IT HUUUUUUUUUUURT IM NOW DAMAGEED FOREVER PERMANENT DAMAGE

i mean for fuck's sake i can't help it that she's that fragile all the time and that unable to grow up -- I already gave her up for adoption and don't want to hear about how she's plotting her revenge from her daddy's house with a Nazi big brother to back her up cuz I'm sick of the whole thing, there's nothing to her and no reason to continue the parenting obligation in her case.

Seriously, what a massive crybully, just like all the rightists these days, and everything she says is such a white straight male victimhood identity complex that she is only capable of making others as feeble and whiteness-oriented as herself is... no wonder the Nazi finds succour and she finds succour in the couch potato safety of stasis and NOT TOO MANY THOUGHTS AT ONCE CUZ THOSE HURT N A FRAGILE WHITE DADDY'S GIRL CANNOT HANDLE EM wheeze gasp gasp please help me Nazi you make me feel so stable and safe Nazi blah blah blah -- she could go on forever like this so I'm cutting her off. She'll have to get used to living under her father's roof instead of still writing me letters and trying to act adult in em, something she ridiculously fails at.

[nadohunter]

Alright, you want to go this ham on this insane kind of reaching? Alright, lets go, since anons love being this bold and thinking they're doing something.

I'm incredibly confused where this is coming from, you are doing some MAJOR jumping and putting words in my mouth.

In my most recent post which I'm assuming this is what its about, I'm wondering if your reading comprehension is literally in the toilet??? I only said shipping adults x minors is bad? Because I expressed that since I was LITERALLY 13 fucking years old in this goddamned fandom i've been harassed by people, often grown ass adults for DARING to say I didn't like it??? That to me it felt morally wrong? Because I voiced my reasoning for leaving kuroshitsuji as a fandom because its been damaging to my health so I'm making the PERSONAL CHOICE TO STEP AWAY FROM IT.

Also in all of my posts where I've ever talked about any of my opinions on this stuff I've always said weather you think someone is doing something bad or not explicitly to NOT bug them or send them messages? Especially not ones that threaten them because I LITERALLY SAID, I HAVE BEEN TOLD TO KMS FROM THIS DAMN FANDOM BECAUSE I DARED SAY I'M NOT COMFORTABLE WITH SOMETHING? Because I know people who have been hurt by it??? And I've said many many many fucking times that if someone IS dangerous it is STILL in your best interests not to harass them because you do not want to put yourself in the path of someone dangerous?

And what the fuck is this line about me saying 'yaoi is fetishization' is terf rehtoric? I'm guessing your talking about a post where I gently disagreed with someone... not shipping a m|m ship "because they're both tops". What the fuck are you on? Me saying 'it seems degrading to boil down gay relationships to this' is me being a terf now?

This is so much reaching. Do I agree with everything anti-proships do? No, I feel like me defending sebawill because someone called it 'inherently abusive' should say that much. However seriously defending p*dophillia because you like getting your rocks off to that, to people who have been traumatized due to it using a dumbass anology that Hitler drank water??? No fucking shit we don't stop drinking water because water is a normal thing we drink to survive?? What do you fucking drink p*dophillia to survive??? If you think you need to consume p*dophillic content to survive I think that's a you problem. Believe it or not people are capable of complex thought? I can make the personal choice to block people who make certain types of content. I am well within my right to do so. I am allowed to say "I don't like this" and frankly the amount of people, CHILDREN that have been hurt by this bullshit, is too many.

Your immediate response to someone coming forward saying they've been groomed by this bullshit should be compassion, not LET PEOPLE SHIP WHAT THEY WANNNTTT. Your immediate reaction should always be fucking compassion. But its not, and then you wonder why people think this kind of B.S. is so morally reprehensible. Normalizing p*dophillia is bad. Telling children, they should be okay with it because its 'not real'. is bad. Fantasizing... about p*dophillia should be a sign that you need to go get help, because that is not healthy, even if you never act on it with a real person.

If you want to invoke... fucking Hitler I guess, no, you know what this is like? This is like telling a jewish person they should be okay with someone drawing fetish art of fucking n*zis. That they should be okay with writing a fic that downplays and romanticizes the h*locost.

Sorry I care more about real people than fucking fiction I guess?

If pr*shippers supposedly 'just want to be left alone' then fucking leave other people alone too? I'm literally changing my focus because this fandom and pr*shipper types have not: left me the fuck alone, despite ignoring them when they bombared me with messages calling me a bitch, calling my art ugly, threatening to 'expose' me for being a horrible person? But you have the gall to get up on your high horse and talk to me like that when clearly you haven't properly read a goddamned thing i've ever said and are just dead set on defending what again I can only assume to be p*dophillia because that's what I was saying in the context of being honest about the harassment I got from adults as a minor for just saying i was uncomfortable with it.

And honestly??? Thank you anon. You proved my fucking point. You just proved why I am so sick and done with this fandom and have made the personal choice to move on. I made a post explaining to a someone why I have made the personal choice to leave and no longer post anything outside of the comic for it. You know what I haven't done? What you just fucking did. If your so high and mighty, you know what you could have done "Ugh, I don't agree with her, I won't interact!" You know... unlike the giant hypocrite and whoever else has been leaving a ton of lovely messages for me over the past few months.

I have not left any nasty or even accusatory messages in anyone's inbox because unlike what you seem to want to accuse me of? I chose to say my piece and remove myself from the situation, because after two fucking months of this exact kind of bullshit that I chose to ignore rather than go send people shitty messages, I'm done. I'm moving on.

[diloph]

Diloph, I don't mean to bring SU discourse to your blog, and I haven't actually watched in a long time, but I was wondering what you think of how the Diamonds have been handled. I'm not against evil people being redeemed, but everyone just being a-ok with them feels off. They're the reason Pink was such a horrible person, they mutilated their own people into forced fusions, and implied genocide. Meanwhile Jasper had to go through hell, even though she was just following the diamonds orders.

It's... a difficult question to answer, really.

I don't think they're irredeemable, though before Pink's “death” (and her subsequent, literal death), it might have proven impossible to find a chink in their self-absorbed way of thinking. I've seen far worse villains being offered redemption with angst and sympathy about them not taking it or what they could be if they did, as well as worse villains actually taking the redemption and making it stick.

Part of me thinks that people struggle to reconcile the idea of the Diamonds being redeemed because of who they are. The Diamonds are the absolute highest authority when it comes to Gem society and all the things that Homeworld has done. Every move they've made that's hurt somebody, unless it was based in individual biases, accidents or coincidence and so on, has come from orders from the Diamonds, or Gems looking to please the Diamonds by fulfilling a function.

They aren't soldiers, or henchmen or superweapons given sentience, they're the top dogs. So far as we're aware, there's nobody above them. They are accountable for everything.

I kinda look back at what Pearl said in an earlier episode, that humans like to rationalise that all the evils of the worlds can be taken to some higher place, some ne'er do-well who can be confronted and defeated, allowing us to live in a place where everything is good forever, or at least until the next one chances their arm.

The Diamonds, particularly White, are those figureheads.

While the specifics are blurry (how many worlds and lifeforms, let alone sentient lifeforms for example) and we don't know how far reaching the consequences are in full, it's clear to me that the Diamonds have done some pretty terrible things. Just their treatment of Pink and their own subjects alone is plenty evidence for them to be marked as evil. In turn, their evil acts inspired or instructed others to do evil acts, with all the consequences that followed.

Enter Steven.

Steven Universe is a show based in optimism and hope; acknowledging that everybody makes mistakes and can be a good person, if they're willing to put the effort in. However, I don't think it pulls any punches when it comes to the fact that it acknowledges that evil and cruelty etcetera are things to be confronted and fought against.

In that sense, the Diamonds are certainly given a lot of leeway. They've perpetuated a system that has caused rampant destruction and suffering, even amongst their own subjects, even amongst themselves and the show believes that they can be redeemed. How? How can they possibly ever account for all the suffering they've caused?

I think the answer to that lies in the fact that Steven, as Pink's son, has the leverage over the Diamonds that Pink never had. He has given them hope after they spent millennia in mourning, hatred and stagnation. Even the mighty White Diamond, arguably the most powerful being in the universe, will bend over backwards to please Steven, even in the slightest way, just if it keeps him around, just if he can fill the void that Pink left behind.

That in mind, we're faced with another question. What happens when Steven dies? 100 years after that? 1000? 10000? Even longer than that? What's to stop them from shrugging their shoulders and just starting up the colonies again?

The answer, is of course, we don't know. We don't know if the Diamonds are simply biding their time, smiling through their teeth, until Steven carks it and then it's back to razing civilisations they go, but given the general tone of the series, I doubt that Steven Universe is as cynical as that.

It's certainly not realistic. People do that all the time. But equally people do monstrous things, realise that they have done monstrous things and then try to account for them. Whether they can or not is subjective, but equally it's just as unrealistic to believe that absolutely nobody would ever do the right thing because they've done the wrong thing, or have remorse and regret over their actions.

Steven Universe is an escapist fantasy series about a magical boy and his magical rock mothers and their cool adventures. It's not to say that the issues can't be addressed ever, but people are far, far too cynical about it; I think that we're meant to it, to believe that such a world could come to pass if we tried hard enough. Wouldn't it be great if we could get through to everybody with a smile, a song and a speech? That people who have done great misdeeds can make up for them?

Ultimately, the Diamonds have made the first step. They want to interact with Steven and as a result, they are capable of feeling empathy (though whether they lacked it before or had simply repressed it or were even simply ignorant to the suffering of “lesser” beings because of how they were made) and the test will come as life goes on. We may never see that effort in full, hell, Steven may never see that in his lifetime, but he hopes that they can change.

It's not without evidence. Blue speaks at length about it before White Diamond assumes direct control of her. White gives up when Pink Steven knocks her down and unites with Flesh Steven to make good ol' Regular Steven, beyond throwing a tantrum for a bit. They go to Earth and help to uncorrupt some of the many Gems that they're responsible for harming. By the movie, even their Pearls, who are meant to be sycophantic slaves, programmed for that even, have enough freedom of speech to snort and sneer at their former god-empress.

A lot of willpower has went into them making changes, prompted by Steven or not and things are looking bright so far. If they really wanted to, the Diamonds could answer to absolutely nobody. For the longest time, they believed that they were all-powerful, immortal and invulnerable. Prior to the war on Earth, it was believed that Diamonds couldn't be shattered. Now that we know the circumstances behind it, for all we know, they can't be shattered at all.

Even making them retreat into their Gem is hard enough; Yellow couldn't poof Blue (though, again, whether she was trying to and not capable remains to be seen) and Pink needed to be “shattered” with a specialised weapon to poof her.

Oh, sure, people are quick to rally around the Breaking Point, but they forget that it was never used against anybody, let alone the Diamonds. We don't even know how practical it would've been to use in battle, after all, the only person using it and knew how it worked intimately was defeated by a child with a sword while he was trying to run away.

Whether the Breaking Point or indeed anything could kill a Diamond, so far, the only weapon that has even came close to inhibiting a Diamond's Gem was Spinel's Rejuvenator, but I'd argue that's a moot point. Even if the Diamonds could be fought, defeated and contained through struggle or the efforts of some Super Fusion, it might not be possible for them to account for their crimes in a way that deprives them of their lives.

Incarceration or bubbling might work, but they could always be freed. How long do bubbles last, how long would it be until a mistake frees one of them or loyalists free these immortal and unkillable beings?

Conventional methods of “dealing” with the Diamonds are entirely speculative and until Rebecca introduces something like “Diamond Smasher” missile platforms, invented by Peridot and Bismuth collaborating, I would hazard that Steven's method of influencing these Gem matriarchs is probably the best in the long run.

The effort he's going to isn't to destroy the Diamonds, it's to save them and in turn, the people they could hurt if they were allowed to continue on. The people that they have hurt, to allow them to recover. To make them into better people that will feel guilt and remorse for their actions, try to account for them by protecting all life they come across for the rest of time, to the fullest of their abilities. If they are immortal then they require an immortal solution.

It doesn't mean that those they hurt (and are alive and are still capable of thought, because man the things that people can do to others in real life are fucked up enough, let alone in magic sci-fi land) are going to forgive them. Why should they? They are the victims, they have been hurt. Turning the Diamonds into better people is to stymie more people getting hurt, to account for that damage they caused. It may never be enough, it can never be enough, but it's better than nothing and it's certainly better than the opposite.

Who knows how the Diamond's saga will end? Actually, no, stupid question; Rebecca Sugar, probably, but as for the rest of us, we're in the dark. Will the Diamonds step down as leaders, even as figureheads, of Homeworld? Will they leave their species in order to make a fresh start in some new quadrant of the universe where they can help others and those that they've hurt don't have to look at them? Will they depart unannounced one day and sit on a ship, gathering dust, for all eternity? Would they even try to kill themselves if the guilt got too strong?

To sum it up, I don't know. I want to believe the best in people, that everybody can account for their actions to some degree because I'm a bit of an optimist, but I realise that there are some things that can't be forgiven or absolved or made up for or whatever. But, maybe, in that universe, they can. Maybe they can heal the Cluster? Maybe they can help every single shard? Rebuild every ruined life? Its nature as a lighter shade of a complicated universe means that there is potential and there is hope to do so.

And now that we're in Steven Universe Future, it's clear that the Diamonds aren't being absolved of all sin. Pearl assumes that White Diamond was the one behind Volleyball's (no, sorry, can't do it) Pink Pearl's damage and she's furious. When she realises it was Pink, she's shocked and disturbed, but is still supportive of her older counterpart. She doesn't hesitate to comfort her or when Steven snaps, defend Pink Pearl against her own son. She recognises that the person she'd loved did a terribly fucked up thing, intentional or not and moves to comfort the victim.

Steven finds their attentions exhaustive in the movie, though that is probably down to spending so much time with them and investing so much effort in getting them to change, leading him to leave them abruptly despite their pleas to stay (and resume his post so to speak, but probably just as much for the company). When they appear at the end, Steven, who has had a rough day, doesn't particularly sweet-talk them into going so much as flat out telling White that he wasn't crazy about them living on Earth, even as White tries the dramatic grandma act.

It's probably why I'm a lot more kind on the ending of the film having Spinel leave with the Diamonds. They both need somebody to help them with their problems and they sort of fill the niche that they each want from the other, while acknowledging that it isn't going to be as it was before and that they aren't the person who they are replacing. They will try.

(And for the record, if things go to hell, Spinel can take care of herself. In fact, I'd worry more about the Diamonds pissing off her than the other way around, she's a smart cookie.)

Honestly, it's the layers of complexity that Steven Universe has that makes a simple question like the one posited kinda difficult to answer. Referring back to that, Jasper for example, why does it seem like she's having to work super hard for a redemption? The answer is that she's pretty complex too.

From what I've read and seen about Jasper, her biggest failing is that she's Gem Vegeta meant to be this perfect super soldier, indestructible and unbeatable. She was built to fight and relishes battle, loves any opportunity to prove that. She takes pride in her abilities because she was literally the best type of gem to do them and was born as a flawless being in Gem eyes. She fulfils her function and she's equipped to do so with maximum efficiency.

Naturally, to quote the saying, pride goeth before the fall. Jasper's hangup is that she does not cope with failure well; she acknowledges that it happens, but constantly rails against it. New strategies, new tactics... new excuses for her failure. New people to blame.

Jasper's biggest failing is that she believes that, despite being the perfect Quartz soldier, she was also born a failure. The colony failed and their leader, a Diamond, was destroyed by the rebels that she went toe-to-toe with and could not beat. She failed in protecting the being that she was most loyal to... and that failure haunts her.

When it came time to bail and nuke Earth from orbit, Jasper was left without a chance to avenge Pink, settle the score and find closure. No matter what she did and was that she failed Pink Diamond and everything else from thereon in was a failure as a result.

But failure was something that imperfect, flawed Gems did. Failure was something that you'd expect from some know-it-all Peridot, getting too big for her boots. Not her. Not the perfect Quartz. The perfect Quartz won any and every battle it was deployed in, shattered every enemy it faced. And, wasn't she the perfect Quartz? Didn't Homeworld call her a war hero? Didn't Yellow Diamond herself take her into her court while all the others of her Kindergarten get relegated to some dusty relic in space?

In a way, Jasper fell into her own legend. She had an idealised version of herself that she knew, subconsciously, that she could never truly be. This self-hatred drove out all of her positive traits, save for determination and reinforced her negative ones. It overshadowed her when Steven tried to help her, because accepting the help would make her weak and she despised being weak.

It's also the character niche that she fills too. Jasper was the first enemy that the Crystal Gems faced that didn't appear sympathetic on the surface. She was more directly involved in the plot than the Diamonds were for a long time, they were distant figures who had orchestrated the war. Now, here was an antagonist that worked on a more personal level by targeting “Rose” and “her” fellows directly.

Jasper despised weakness and when faced with the Crystal Gems in person, all she saw was weakness. A random Pearl that got it into her head that she was free to do whatever she liked while Jasper and everybody else followed orders. Some fusion between two Gems of completely different classes, outright heretical. This... malformed, tiny Quartz that came from the same place as her, could have been a functioning soldier like Jasper or worse, Jasper like her.

Even then she could shrug that off. They were clearly some rag-tag band of survivors from Homeworld's attack, they just got lucky. Have Peridot annihilate them with the ship and be done with it. But hey, at least Rose Quartz is dead, even if she didn't get the satisfaction of shattering her. Killing the last of the rebels was still closure, of a sort.

But as events unfolded, to Jasper, it seemed like Rose Quartz wasn't dead at all. Her greatest enemy, Homeworld's Most Wanted, Rose Quartz... was hiding behind her soldiers, in the body of and mimicking the simpering attitude of a human child.

Rose who she respected the tactics of. Rose who found a way to kill a perfect being. Now a weakling. These were the people that defeated Homeworld. Shattered a Diamond, her Diamond. These were the people that defeated her. But if they were so weak, wouldn't that make her even weaker?

No. That was impossible. She would prove it by taking them down, making them account for their crimes.

So, Jasper became obsessed with taking down the Crystal Gems by any means necessary. Anything she could justify to prove that she was the strongest, that she could think on her feet, that she was successful and everything that she was made to be.

Had you told the Jasper in “The Return” that she would be out in the Earth wilderness, trying to put together a motley crew of corrupted Gems in “Earthlings”, she'd have laughed you out of the room or killed you for even implying she could fall so low, fail so hard. But she could reason with herself that if her enemy was going to “cheat”, why shouldn't she?

Fusion went from a “Cheap tactic” to a viable weapon; Malachite gave her all the power in the world, if she could only use it. Rose Quartz had her misfit army, so Jasper forged her own, giving these lost individuals purpose again, just like she did. If it were her in the same situation, she would be grateful... except she wouldn't be in that situation because she was perfect.

Except she wasn't perfect. Jasper kept failing. In fact, that's all she ever seemed to do on the planet of her birth: fail. So, her loathing grew. She couldn't fail, so she would just try something else. Whatever it took.

And all those failings kept coming. Starting off by going against the orders to check on the Cluster in favour of carting Rose back to civilisation despite protests only got her ship destroyed and both her and Peridot marooned on a hostile planet. Garnet matched her and defeated her. Lapis trapped her in a fusion. Alexandrite defeated Malachite, Lapis refused her, she lost against Stevonnie despite having “backup” and trouncing Amethyst. Then, against Smoky Quartz, she met her downfall by fusing with one of the corrupted Gems, infecting her as well.

Jasper's hell was that most of it was a result of her failure to back down. She might not have deserved to be held by Lapis in Malachite, but she didn't exactly have many other people to blame for forming the massive Fusion when her sole objective was to murder the Crystal Gems. When she got control of Malachite, she went straight to murder. When they were separated, she went to Lapis so that she could get the power back that eliminated her weakness so that she could murder. She built an army to lead against the Crystal Gems because she wanted to murder them. She poofed Amethyst with the intent to shatter her. She fused with a corrupted monster because she wanted to murder Smoky Quartz.

Jasper had a spectacular talent of getting herself into messes because she can't let go of hatred and the need to cause harm. Granted, that is as a result of her attempt to heal her own wounds, prove to herself that she isn't a failure, but she's still trying to kill our protagonists and a lot of the time, laughing as she does it.

When, finally, Jasper is at her lowest, corrupting and abandoned by her feral army of monsters, she rejects Steven's help. Why should she accept it when she sees the truth of it all; that Rose Quartz manipulates the weak and abandoned Gems, giving them purpose again. Makes them all into bodies to put between her and the forces of Homeworld under the guise of love and caring.

To accept help is weak. She refuses to believe that she is weak, but at the same time, knows that she is. Jasper has struggled with that dichotomy for all of her existence and it kills her. She's trapped in her own logic. If she accepts help, then she proves herself to be a weakling. But if she fights against it, then that proves that she is strong. Strong enough not to break down or corrupt.

Ultimately, this attitude gets the character put on hiatus, poofed and bubbled. When we see her cured in Rose's Fountain at the end of the original series' run, she still hasn't learned the lesson. She has a moment of confusion at where she is, then she sees Steven. Crash Helmet activated, Jasper moves in to fight... then spots Yellow Diamond glancing at her out of the side of her eye. Sees Blue and even the mighty White Diamond sitting there in the water.

All around them, Gems she knew, Gems she didn't, Homeworld and Crystal Gems all talking and laughing and hugging and healing from this corruption. Even the Crystal Gem that she'd went out of her way to rile up the most, Amethyst, gently reassures her as the truth hits her.

Jasper was made for fighting and the fighting is over. It shakes her a lot. Suddenly, everything she's hated herself for is moot. She's left without a purpose.

When we see her in Future, time has passed and it's clear she's still struggling with the hatred, because all she has known through most of her existence was that hatred. It is a part of her. She's beginning to recover slowly, make a change, but she's not there yet.

In the time that's passed, we know things have changed a lot. Given how dismissive Amethyst is towards the concept of Jasper joining Little Homeschool, any attempt to connect with her fellow Quartz has been unsuccessful at best. Jasper is still turning down help.

When Steven wanders over, she begrudgingly explains that she's listless. The fighting is over, so all she has is to prepare for the next war, if there even is one. She still sees herself as something to be proud of, something to be held above others, so she removes herself from the other Gems and lives in solitude. Any organic life on her territory is eradicated with no mercy, even if it's a frustrating inconvenience.

And as Steven isn't Pink, she doesn't have to treat him like a Diamond, even if the others do (out of misunderstanding or genuine gratitude for saving them or simply making him synonymous with a Diamond). I get the view that she finds him insufferable or at the very least annoying, because now she's getting the “peace and love” speech in person every so often and can't really do anything about it.

After she bemoans that nobody is willing to fight her anymore, Steven calls her out on the fact that she has done this to herself. She keeps refusing help because she's too mired in her ways, too proud to let herself be “weak” again. Hence why she's living in a cave in the woods, only marginally better than when she was trying to recruit corrupted Gems to take down Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl.

Of course, Jasper blows this off and ignores him until Steven agrees to do the one thing she wants, just so he can get through to her. He'll fight her. It's like switch is flicked. Jasper expresses genuine happiness and anticipation. She can do what she's good at again! She can relive the glory days for this one moment! Prove to herself that she wasn't weak for losing in a fair fight for once!

And she loses. The fight is fair, it's really one on one as she'd requested, but she loses. That's because she slips into her old habits of dissecting what she sees as weakness and once again, it costs her the battle.

To her, Steven always had backup to take her down, so even now, with all his powers, he's still no match for the orange Gem. However, when Steven gets mad and goes pink he completely flattens her.

But the biggest difference in all of this is that even though she doesn't win the fight, like she believed she might have, Jasper succeeds in getting what she wanted and getting something else out of Steven. She wanted a good fight and got one. Even though he beats her, he's showing physical strength now, anger and annoyance... he's just as flawed as everybody else is. He challenged her to a fair fight and she lost that fair fight because he was the stronger opponent. No “tricks”, just brawling. How it was meant to work.

She even scolds him for apologising for knocking her around because she got to live again. When Steven asks Jasper to tutor him, to show him how to harness his aggressive feelings, good... gooooood, young Skywalker new powers, she does what the earlier Jasper would never do. She gets on his level and gently lets him down.

That's a huge step. She recognises that she can respect Steven, even slightly. Sure, she might not be into what he's selling most of the time, but she realised that there is some common ground for the two, just enough to engage with him for a moment. She's progressing.

So, in conclusion, what's the difference between their arcs? The Diamonds committed terrible crimes, but unlike Jasper, they seem to be taking steps to change and become better people by recognising that they've done wrong. When called out on how they treated Pink and the other Gems, they turned within the (admittedly hour long) episode. Blue Diamond tried to reason with Yellow, then both of them with White and finally, White. They had the will to change because they realised their actions had consequences and will, hopefully, be able to account in some way for the things they have done.

Jasper, on the other hand, doesn't have such grave crimes to account for, but for her, everything was much more personal, much more cerebral. She refused to give in because not only was she determined, but she was actively trying to thwart her own self-hatred by succeeding. Jasper didn't see what she did was wrong, I'm still unsure if she does now, but she's finally started on the path to healing now because she's finally found something of worth from a Crystal Gem, even if said Crystal Gem isn't in the healthiest place right now.

Speaking of, her remarks about Steven were pretty on point as we see later in Future. Steven is worried about everybody not needing him any more and he lashes out as a result. Maybe part or indeed a large chunk of Jasper's redemption will be seeing the same self-loathing she experienced grow in Steven and empathising with him and trying to help him, given that the seeds of respect were beginning to form between them. And hey, given her ability to diagnose psychological issues in a heartbeat, she might have a career in that later on, as unlikely as it sounds. Little Homeschool is always recruiting.

The fact is that while I believe that both the Diamonds and Jasper have a long way to go when it comes to redemption, either to account for the magnitude of their crimes for the former or to finally accept help from others, putting one's own demons to rest in the case of the latter, they've started off the whole process with Steven's help. It may be slow and difficult for them, but they have a chance to make themselves and by extension, their whole world, better.

And isn't that what Steven Universe is about?

[pokefanbri]

U can tell me what everyone else has, you can tell me he doesn't deserve me...that I deserve more than how I've been treated. But that's the thing, I'm stubborn..I don't care most the time cause the fact of the matter is you don't know what we had, we had a good story even if its a bit bumpy. U don't know what we've been through. Don't tell me who I should & shouldn't love or care about, my heart already hurts, constantly mending & healing from my whole life breaking it. I'm already broken, im numb from all the fucking pain! & theres nothing anyone can do to make it worse, only room to build it back up & help me put back the pieces.

It takes someone so damn strong nomatter how broken, real & genuine to run toward love, fight for it, & try to hold onto it. They're the kinds that don't give up easy, because everyone else has taken them for granted & given up on them. They're the kinds that when they find someone they love with a full heart more than anyone, they don't care if it destroys them. And honestly been there done that...it destroyed me pretty badly yet im doing wonderfully now. God doesn't give you more than you can't handle, & when you can't handle it...its only the beginning of whatever he has next for u. Im not one to give up on anyone especially those closest to my heart, though plenty have on me & hurt without a care but I soak it in & keep going.

If you're special to me, if you're my friend, if you help direct my life somehow...you're my lightning rod, keep me grounded & safe, so that I don't have to worry. Help me & bring me a lil more comfort away from all the evils I've had to endure, I need salvation, I need to be loved & respected, that im cared about that I'm important because I don't realize it, im not told enough that I matter...Because so few have shown me just that & would rather hurt me to look out for themeselves. Wheres the assurance I need to not give up on myself because on the inside I just want to fucking die & escape the hell I was put into, & all the years wasted just trying to survive it! I shouldn't even be here death is a personal friend to me now too even. When will I actually start my life cause I've been ready for ages. I dont want to hurt anymore, I hate being hurt by people I care about cause that's how u damage & break someone. I'm broken sure..& dead inside cause of it all & take it in stride...but im the strongest, bravest, kindest, friendliest, smartest, more than capable, unique genuine & graceful sexy ass warrrior Queen you will ever fucking know. Broken but I can't be broke 💪. Im a giver I try to do right & Im good to others but not really to myself..im lost, just do me right or right by me, be fair. We equals & all in this together. We cool then we cool. Im okay just be okay with me too thats all I ask