#but damsel’s ok!

[darks-arts]

Route where you throw multicolored rocks at the princess

[kettle-flakes]

k so slay the princess is rotting my brain but currently one big thought is chilling in my brain, and like- hear me out (sorry if my wording doesn't convey my thoughts well skskfjdjg)

but I don't think the damsel is entirely as shallow as some may see her as. HEAR ME OUT- compared to the other princesses, yes, she definitely more shallow. and she is also (at least when looking at deconstructed) poking fun at those trying to have an easy and work free romance route where the princess does whatever you like and loves you so, so much. i'm not saying she's supremely deep and that no one understands her but me, but I also don't think she exists solely to mock players with absolutely nothing to say about the nature of human permanence either.

does that make sense? more thoughts below- they're a bit disjointed though so warning ^^;

I personally think the damsel can also represent a very real form love, so to speak.

gimme a min to explain. I think what initially led me to this is a line from the narrator equating the smitten and the damsel to acting like teenagers in love. and that line sorta shifted my perspective a bit on her a little? seeing that kinda made me go "ohhhhhhh makes sense" like it really did remind me of two kids who don't entirely get what dating entails but still want to be together, and given the endgame sequence the damsel's section just kinda cemented this mindset for me.

for clarification the damsel has two(?) bits of dialog depending on whether she's deconstructed or not. If she isn't she says something along the lines of (iirc) "you had a desire and you set that desire free/not caring about what it took or costed you in the process" annnd?? like that's kinda wholesome to me?

like the damsel's love with the player isn't nearly as in depth, complicated, or complete as say the thorn, but it's a passionate love. it's also a naive love. the sort of love you'd find with, well, teenagers having a crush. of course when people get older they see those old crushes as frivolous and flat, but to the people experiencing them in the moment, it's real! it's serious! they were still willing to risk a lot just to be together. and at least at the start, you're willing to be killed by the princess if it means she's safe after having a battle of control against the narrator. it just reads as very human to me. they truly felt that their love could conquer anything.

I feel the thorn is a more 'adult' version of the damsel. it's that passionate love taking on a more mature form. it has more hardships to go through and way more pitfalls and mistakes that one can make compared to the more childish love like the damsel's. there's less theatrics and fanfare, and to me it feels more somber and quiet. it's a contrast between the high stakes emotion filled damsel, and the more intimate, tense, and self-aware thorn. ultimately in the end for both of them, they come to a realization that love is a powerful tool almost in a way that mirror each other.

some of the same occurrences leading up to the route are also shared between the two. like having the princess stab you in the prior route. I also think it's worth noting that in the thorn, the thistles can be seen as/can be referred to a prison of her own making. something she can leave if she was willing to make the effort to do so. it's similar to the damsel's shackles being easily slipped off her wrist. she could free herself.

also by extension, say what you will about the smitten but he loves the princess no matter what form she takes. even when she kills him he still adores her. he is content with being cooked alive by the princess if that's what she wants. i think he's a lot like the damsel in that sense. whatever she wants, she will have. if the damsel is molded to love the player, the smitten is absolutely molded to love the princess in the same way.

[nihildenial]

no offence, but rain looks like he would get seasick

[verosikastrikerstellaexcuser]

Does anyone else think Millie should have been the one who met Blitz first?

Millie can kill like anything and likes doing it. I really can see something like her feeling unfulfilled at home having to repress her violence and farm. When she meets Moxxie she loves him so much she leaves home to go live with him (which would explain her parents animosity to Moxxie even better too). However she struggles to find work and adjust to life away from home. All the jobs she gets she loses her temper and can’t hold them down. Then she gets into a public scrap in front of Blitz. Blitz sees it and is like WOWOW WORK FOR ME WORK FOR ME LOOK AT THAT LOOK AT YOU really insistent on it he NEEDS her for IMP. Millie says yes and they’re quickly both happy. She’s relieved at finally having a job.

Millie looks past Blitz’s antics way more than Moxxie. Obviously a huge part of that is Moxxie’s personality Vs. Millie’s . But if Millie also “owed” Blitz being pulled out of a string of failed jobs I feel like that would explain a lot of her ignoring of his bad behaviors and her having admiration trust and respect for him and his decisions. She also seems to somewhat dislike Loona and her not liking Loona because Loona disrespects Blitz a lot and she thinks Blitz is a smart cool guy from having had him insist she works for him and then hire Moxxie I just feel like would tie all that together so elegantly. And this change would make Millie’s story way more central because outside of Stolas almost everything revolves around Blitz or Moxxie in this show and it’s a problem.

[auxenberg]

You're on a path in the woods..

Slay the Princess YES!! okay I think I've posted the animation everywhere.. so it's time I put it here! Oh, and some doodles of the different vessels (they're all my favs) and ig I like drawing the Tower a lot!

[sanyu-thewitch05]

We love a final girl who burns it to the ground, is proficient with a sword, and has a fire-breathing dragon as friend that screws ish up with her.

[michyeosseo]

I am always indebted to you.   – It will cost quite a lot.

Honey Lee and Yoon Sa Bong as JO YEO-HWA & JANG SO-WOON

KNIGHT FLOWER (2024)

[oceanwithouthermoon]

me yapping about aus literally nobody in the world but me would care about again

ok i think its like universally accepted that link and saiki are very similar, and saiki would be link in any given tdlosk zelda au.. BUTTT skyward sword kubosai au..... saiki being zelda and kuboyasu being link....... LIKE UGH yasu being the hero with an unbreakable spirit who would do literally anything for saiki, a god reborn whose being sought after for his power...... UGH.

the wing ceremony??? THE "i used you.." SCENE???? oh my fuckkkk dudee..

[shrunkenbrat]

that one scene of kaito/shinichi carrying ran out of the burning museum in movie 19 lowkey pissed me off 😭 like ran has fully flipped a car over using her knees but yeah! let's have her strong protective personality completely dissappear because we need some ugly ass guy to have a strong scene/provoke tension between him and conan... smh she should've carried *him* out instead ☹️

[sleepytownez]

Fate is playing a cruel joke on us.

[skrunksthatwunk]

sorry but expanding on the kuwabara damsel thing even when yusuke is captured and kuwabara and co. are coming to save him in the mansion kuwabara's the one who gets captured and made into the second hostage. girl come on

[eru-iru]

makoto getting his shadow taken by nyarly and then nyarly proceeds to possess his body so ryoji and the wild cards coming to save his dearest ;;w;; love it

[everykonan]

ch. 446

[comas-are-for-sleeping]

stop the difference level impossible

[tantive404]

Recently, I came across these tweets, and I kind of can’t stop thinking about this.

I adore villain x heroine ships and dynamics, and frequently find myself pondering what it is I love so much about them. One thing I’ve come to notice is this very idea: the importance of the male villain’s desire for her… his near-obsession and the fact that he is threatened by her. And, as mentioned in those tweets, part of what makes that so special is the rarity of seeing men or male characters treat women as being so important, as being valid or worthy of consideration as a threat. To me, it can be almost empowering to explore such dynamics through fiction.

One of my favorite movies, of course, is Star Wars: A New Hope, and primarily because I’ve always been absolutely obsessed with whatever is going on with Leia and Vader and Tarkin there. It always draws me right in… the powerful Dark Lord near-obsessively chasing down this tiny defiant young princess, slaying so many soldiers and going through such effort, so adamant that she be brought to him alive.

And from there, she’s treated as a high-class prisoner, heavily guarded and locked up tight, interrogated ruthlessly… but resisting with all the strength and pride of a leader in an underdog rebel movement. She’s essentially the one who is the key to the entire story.

As for Tarkin, he spends much of his screen time dealing with Leia… focused on how best to break the rebel prisoner who holds such key information in this galaxy-spanning war. Most famously, of course, this is illustrated with the destruction of Alderaan… an entire planet wiped away as an act of spite and a means to manipulate the girl he regards as a critical enemy. He is rather creepy and demeaning to her, too, but this only serves to add to a complex power dynamic worth exploring….

Moreover, I imagine it is rare to see a powerful military man treating a nineteen-year-old young woman as a credible threat to his Empire, but in ANH, it’s very much the case. And with the villain/heroine subtext I rather enjoy envisioning from their little scenes together, it can be quite captivating and unique.

There are a lot of similarly enjoyable pairings in many mahou shoujo series— Usagi and Dimande in Sailor Moon, Ichigo and Kisshu in Tokyo Mew Mew, and all manner of Pretty Cure rarepairs— where young girls simply trying their best are the ultimate key to defeating evil and have an ongoing rivalry/love-hate relationship with the worst of monsters. The subtext in such dynamics is fun to explore just as it popular in fandom to do with many popular male superheroes and their archenemies— Batman and the Joker, for instance.

In fact, even when it comes to the most cliche and stereotypical damsel-in-distress stories, the inciting incident, the villain’s capture of the innocent girl, always comes from his inherent desire for her— whether it be her beauty or status, or some form of obstacle which she presents to his evil plan.

It’s so strange and fascinating to think that these sorts of dynamics, particularly when it comes to ship discourse in fandom, are often decried as “toxic” and “abusive”. It’s not as if there aren’t some very dangerous power dynamics at play— which only makes these relationships that much more fun to explore in fiction— but so too can they truly serve as a power fantasy for women and girls, who are so often told made to feel as if we aren’t important.

Sometimes I just need a villain to chase me across the galaxy and regard me as his “worthy foe”, you know? 🥺🥰

[t4tails]

jaune has some serious toxic masculinity issues