#but he shouldve been able to have a choice if he even wanted to be kid at all it shouldnt have been a responsibility pushed upon him

[hayaku14]

kuroba toichi you need to stay dead or im going to fucking kill you myself

[livelaughlaios]

As for Shuro/Toshiro... lemme see if I can put this coherently. The long and short of it is, this is Ryoko Kui doing the thing she does in which she uses the dungeon as a neutral background in which characters with different ideas can clash and come to terms with each other. We're not supposed to side with Toshiro, but we are not supposed to side with Laios, really, mostly because there is no "right" and "wrong" here.

A character who is heavily coded as autistic and comes from a northern europe coded culture (low-context - information is supposed to be conveyed in the most straightforward and clear way possible, even when said way is considered rude) meets another character who is extremely shy and comes from a japan coded culture (high context - info is supposed to be inferred by a mix of behaviour and conversational allusion, maintaining peaceful interpersonal relationships takes precedent over efficiency).

Neither of them are inherently wrong in the way they approach the other. Yes, Toshiro shouldve said something, but he doesn't know how. He was not taught how to handle someone like Laios. Conversely, Laios was not taught how to read between the lines and understand what a person is trying to convey if they are not speaking directly.

Since Laios is the main protagonist and we see most of the story from his POV, and also since most people on this website are American (low context culture), its easy for people to assume we are supposed to side with him. But I don't think that's the author's intention at all. Remember - Kui is Japanese writing for a primarily Japanese audience. From THEIR POV Toshiro's behaviour is perfectly understandable. It's also worth noting that there is a lot of extra material that gives further context to the Toshiro/Laios relationship.

One of the main points, for example, is how Laios gets Toshiro's name wrong. When they first met, Toshiro is immediately an object of curiosity to Laios BECAUSE he is a foreigner from a faraway land. Laios immediately invites himself to become his friend and starts asking question after question. When he finally remembers he's supposed to ask for Toshiro's name, he misunderstands it as Shuro, and Toshiro is too shy to correct him. "Renaming" the foreign side character for the benefit of the Western main character is an extremely loaded symbolic choice from Robinson Crusoe's Friday onward. I am not aware of the particular history of this trope in Japanese literature, but other elements of Toshiro's story suggest that renaming in his culture is something that is often done to slaves. Ryoko Kui is generally very deliberate about details like these. I highly doubt this is a random choice.

Of course Laios does not do it on purpose and Toshiro understands this and decides to let it slide, but its still something hurtful that Laios does to another person without even realising that hes doing it. This is a type of mistake he does often and he will do again across the story.

Again. Not saying Toshiro is perfectly right either, but there is a reason why they finish the meeting on relatively decent terms - because they BOTH recognise how they went wrong.

Toshiro realises that he needs to be more direct and determined about what he wants, but this is a reality check for Laios as well. He has been able to coast by so far in the dungeon without giving much thought to other people's wants and needs, thanks to the help of friends who care for him and are willing to follow him, but the story is changing pace and scale. Soon he might have to make some difficult decisions that involve the life and death of others. He needs to learn to listen.

This is why the Toshiro confrontation happens in the same span where we see Chimera!Falin going on a rampage, and Kabru trying to establish a friendship with Laios to assess what kind of person he is. Several narrative threads are coming to a head - the conflict with Toshiro is the tangible result of the tensions we saw around Laios' uncaring attitude from the beginning.

[lorillee]

Hi how would you accomodate Obito's character to match, as you said, the fake ideal Kakashi has of him in his memory at the beginning of the series (if you want their relationship to go that way, which is 1000% more interesting than what the manga gave us) ? Like, if Kakashi has a fake idea of Obito in his head, Obito must have been at least something remotely heroic in the past, no ? Also, in this configuration do you think Adult Obito should be acknowledged as 100% Creepy in the story to contrast Kakashi's memories, and how ?

i fear that i may have opened a giant can of naruto discourse worms but since i actually have opinions on this i might as well share. its not really changing obito's character in any form its just genuinely how i read this relationship because thats the way it makes the most sense to me.

obito was genuinely just some kid who had a good heart but was a little annoying and wasnt terribly punctual or collected and was more than happy to mildly buck his responsibilities and the expectations people had of him to help people out which isnt inherently bad but also easily lends itself to endangering the mission/task at hand and as a result baby kakashi thought he was annoying and stupid and a spoiled brat who doesnt know what the real world looks like. they were literally not even anywhere close to friends until like the 5 minutes before obito epicly dies by which i mean. and this is like so so so tremendously important to understanding my view of this relationship. kakashi barely knew obito at all, and he didnt know him because up until those last 5 minutes he barely even respected him as a person and therefore had absolutely no vested interest in learning. this, combined with the fact that obito was . again. just some kid who was trying his best but wasnt like outstanding is absolutely crucial because its directly because of kakashi's growing insane survivors guilt complex that his perception of obito goes from "kid with a good heart who did the right thing when i did not" -> "paragon of justice and morality and everything that i am not".

like kakashi as a guy is somebody who very consistently takes far more responsibility for bad things that happen than is deserved - if kakashi and obito had gone to save rin earlier it literally would not have made a difference, but because kakashi knows he made the wrong decision in trying not to save her at first he blames himself for obito's death nonetheless. as rin dies by his own hand (both thereby being "his fault" + violating the deathbed promise he made to the last person he got killed) and then minato kicks the bucket not too long after, kakashi's survivors guilt complex balloons into something genuinely kind of deranged. like seriously kakashi really truly does hate himself so so so much and its a bit dire. he blames solely himself for things that are not entirely or even mostly his fault and at multiple points in the final arc literally talks about how prepared he is to die and when he's saved is caught entirely off-guard and immediately starts talking about how worthless he is (GUY WHO WANTS TO DIE SO BAD ITS CONCERNING) and asking why obito bothered moving kaguya's attack and when anybody ever tries to give him credit for the positive things he did contribute he immediately moves to give it to somebody else and minimize his own impact.

with this in mind you can kind of see what happened with obito - while kakashi is a tremendously skilled ninja on his own, it was the sharigan that ultimately became the centerpoint of his abilities - the sharigan that obito gave him. with this comes the ability to attribute all the good he's done for the village/people in it to obito while bolstering his already preconceived notion that it wasnt obito who shouldve died back then but him because if it were obito he wouldve been able to do everything that kakashi has done except he also has the added bonus of being fundamentally a better person who wouldve made the right choices who wouldve been a good leader who wouldve saved rin who wouldve saved everybody who was the one out of the two of them who truly understood sakumo's will and would have always always always succeeded where kakashi has failed time and time again but because hes dead because kakashi got him killed the best he can do is try. and he cant move on he cant ever move on because this eye of obitos is always always always there and he'll never be able to forgive himself because he's failed in every way he could have and would never deserve it. by the time the main series rolls around obito really isnt a person in kakashis mind but a very prominent focal point to project his insane deranged guilt complex onto and then feel miserable about because he has serious mental issues. like its truly not about obito as the guy he actually was because kakashi barely even knew him at all, its that because so so so many of kakashi's biggest achievements and regrets in life are tied back to obito's death its just entirely inescapable and especially so for somebody as riddled with guilt and self-hatred and responsibility as kakashi.

like people like to pretend this relationship is romantic but if im being honest. that is objectively 1)stupid but also more importantly 2) BORINGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG ITS SO BORING ITS SO BORINGGGGGGGGG when your other option is kakashis deranged mental scape projection bag turning out to be an actual real person who shouldnt have been put on this massive pedastal, causing kakashis entire life and meaning up to this point to come crumbling down because it turns out obito's been spiraling off the path that kakashi has been obsessing over for years except in the end this too is kakashis fault because its always kakashis fault and worse yet its not even him who convinces obito to turn around because no matter how hard kakashi tries he'll never ever ever ever be good enough he'll never be able to fix his mistakes he'll never be able to be forgiven and he'll never be able to forgive himself.

also side note while i find obito's fixation on rin to be insanely annoying and notably weird and definitely in poor taste, intentionally making it creepy is doing nobody ANY favors and i would decidedly not want that in any direction. the contrasts between what kakashi remembers and what obito has turned into have to do with selflessness and maturity and the consistent choice to do the right thing into assisting in the murder of thousands of people for an incredibly childish and selfish pipe dream - imo intentionally focusing on how its frankly a bit weird for a guy pushing 30 to still be hung up on a girl he knew when he was 12 is detracting from the main point and serves no narrative purpose and what id much rather do instead is chop the romantic beat entirely because that would do wonders for his entire character in making him at the very least less annoying.

also also the way this ask is worded is a bit weird imo like its not like obito started out being a terrible person and if he was all along then itd kind of suck and also defeat like 100% of the point. like i would definitely say throwing yourself into a pack of overwhelming enemies to save a friend falls into the heroic category, and, while him giving kakashi the eyeball is absolutely horrifying and appalling and 57 different levels of messed up, from kakashi's pov<- authors note interruption: originally i was typing this up in the tags but then it became too long i have to give my opinion on the eyeball scene. i have to. we're side tangenting here but okay like because the thing about naruto the series and kishimoto and their respective politics is theyre kind of at odds with each other and a solid 50% of the things kishimoto says in naruto i think he like doesnt actually agree with or is alternatively too scared to commit to so im not really sure how exactly we're supposed to interpret obito giving kakashi his eye. and im aware to some extent that the shippers are like omg….. sooooo romantic while throwing on the veneer of omg child soldiers…. so horrible……. <- purely for the ~angst~ factor but. My Opinion. and we're back at it again with the mildly edited "discord messages from when i was watching" copy-pasting:

frankly imo if you make the focus of this scene on literally anything other than how horrifying the system is 1) you kind of suck and 2) youre tremendously dumb. because like there are so many tremendously bad implications going on here between the fact that kakashi who is clearly 13-14 max despite what his voice will have you believe is a JONIN without ANY of the necessary leadership or experience skills was sent with two other twelve year olds on their own with NO adult supervision (!!) on a mission to blow up a bridge in the middle of a war (!!!) and that when one of them got half crushed by a rock his only thought was to get one of the other children to TAKE OUT HIS EYEBALL WHILE HE WAS STILL CONSCIOUS (!!!!!!!) AND STICK IT INTO ANOTHER CHILD’S EYESOCKET (!!!!!!!!!!) WHICH STILL CURRENTLY HAS AN EYEBALL IN IT EVEN IF ITS NO LONGER FUNCTIONING MEANING SHE WILL HAVE TO GRUESOMELY SCOOP OUT THE REMAINS BEFORE SHE CAN PUT THE OTHER GUYS EYEBALL IN IT (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) AND NONE OF THE CHILDREN INVOLVED HAVE ANY PROBLEMS WITH THIS (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) this is NOT romantic this is horrifying the fact that a child had to do an EYEBALL TRANSPLANT on TWO CONSCIOUS PATIENTS in a BATTLE FIELD because konoha lost a sufficient amount of adults that they decided that in order to win the war they were okay with putting CHILDREN in horrifying situations and nobody DID anything about it !!!!!!!!!!!!! and the fact that these children are so completely desensitized to this idea that again obitos first thought is "yeah here let me give you my eyeball so you can fight" IS SERIOUSLY SO BAD LIKE HELLO.HELLO. HELLO?!??!?!?!?!?!?! THE KONOHA WAR MACHINE SITUATION IS DIRE.

^in the whole context of this i was complaining about shippers but the same sort of sentiment still applies to glorifying this in any manner. like as an outsider looking into this fictional world i can very easily go "wow! this is horrifying! this is not heroic this is tremendously messed up and a society that has allowed this to happen needs to kind of be razed to the ground."HOWEVER. this does not mean that kakashi himself does not see this as something indescribably heroic and in fact he would have an incredibly hard time seeing it otherwise given The Mental Illness and also his entire childhood and way of life from birth. like if we're being honest im always thinking about the scene where iruka and kakashi are arguing over whether or not team 7 is prepared to take the chunin exam because iruka rightly points out that theyre very young and inexperienced with the implication that given people older than them have literally actually died in these exams they really should not be doing this and kakashi responds that he was six years younger than naruto when he became a chunin as a justification and its just so insanely illuminating to his perspective on a lot of this because its been so insanely twisted by having literally grown up on the battlefield and then after that joining anbu bc from his perspective theyre twice as old as he was with the added bonus of it being peacetime so its literally fine even though for the viewers it is decidedly not.

and like in some instances he does recognize how badly the ninja system has screwed over everybody personally (see: when sasuke fights all of them after killing danzo and kakashi notes that sasuke is absolutely a product of his environment) but in other cases hes just so completely blinded by having been intrenched in war and child soldiering from birth that its very very hard to be able to take a step back and look at it objectively (and especially for somebody like kakashi who if he genuinely acknowledged this might also have to confront the fact that if child soldiers absolutely 100000% should not exist in any situation ever several of the things he blames himself most for in his past would really not be much of his fault as the adults who put him in those situations in the first place. which he would rather kill himself than do). also real quick id like to take a moment to share this parallel because it SERIOUSLY makes me deranged IM OBSESSED WITH ITTTTTTTT

^ and added commentary from cartoonrival who put anything i couldve said about this into a single line

so while as viewers we ought to think the entire eyeball scene is genuinely horrifying and, in the words of my dear friend goosewhisker, "a commentary on how [the ninja] system feeds on the corpses of the people who protect it", kakashi absolutely views this as something to be aspired to and incredibly heroic because hes messed up in the head a bit as a result of growing up under the konoha war machine and if you were to go "well actually obito sucked all along" it would literally only be undermining the point the story is trying to make imo. anyways this has gotten severely derailed but this is has been my thesis on kakashis relationship with/at obito and if youve stuck around this long.well thank you for reading

[thesupernaturalhouse]

The mroe I think about it the mroe I realize I don't know what exactly I was to do with Adam and the exorcists in the hazbins fallen au

On the one hand, I want to keep it close to canon, on the other hand, I want to show that really nobody is at fault, and it's just a bunch of miscommunication and mistakes

Like, I highly doubt the exorcists had a choice to be exorcists, and it's not like they can just- retire

I just really want to expand on heaven and how it works and is flawed

Cause like I don't think heaven is doing anything out of maliciousness, like, Sera obviously doesn't like doing the exterminations but allows them out of futy and fear of having hell residents destroying heaven and tormenting their victims who amd eit to heaven further

Like, if I was told rapists and murderers were coming to my house, I'd grab a gun to!

The exorcists likely had no choice but to kill, and overtime just, grew into it

Adam.....well, an asshole obviously, but even then, he wouldn't be a real problem if he wasn't put in the position of being the exorcist leader and able to take out his aggression in the dude who stole both his wives. He'd still be a dick but not a threat

Honestly, idk if I want to have him die in the fallen, I feel like there's a lot more that could be done with him. The finale battle is obviously gonna be included I mean- it has to be, but maybe Adam lives in this au

Or, at the very least, comes back as a sinner/fallen angle. That's gonna be difficult to write, though, if I do go with that

Like, I think the biggest reveal in the au is gonna be that heavens rules ARE rigged....but not on purpose, the rules were made when the archangels ruled and it was just left uo to one seraphim to deal with everything

They were written when humanity was starting out, written when they thought humans woukd stay the same- but they don't, they change, they ahve reasons for doing bad things

But the rules are just that, rules. They can't look at someone's past and see that they stole to provide for their family. They just see stole and send them to hell.

The system is rigged, but it's not anybody's fault. It's just a bunch of miscalculations and mistakes

And even though it's not anybodies fault, the actions that have been taken have affected innocent people, intentionally or not, and they need to fix it

So I mean, I'm not sure how ambitious that is of me, but it is what I want to at least TRY to do

I wanna add another more detailed layer rather than just have 'heavens actually bad and hell is actually good'

I mean, maybe the archangels oversaw people's sins and backstorues and stuff and decided where they went, but then they left for some weird reason. Hey, maybe I make them the real villains, and they dip cause the human project wasn't going how they wanted, so I left it to Sera/the rest of heaven and just dipped to go do smth else

Like, nobodies at fault for what your ancestors chose to do. And even then, I mean their angels. They can't really realize their actions caused so much chaos so even then it circles back to no one's really wrong people just fucked uo and made bad mistakes/choices

Cause like, Sera being portrayed as the bad guy rubs me the wrong way nd Emily saying "killing innocent souls" in cnaon also runs me the wrong way. Like, Emily, I love you....but I can guarantee that MOST sinners are not innocent. You might get some who were falsely condemned or have minor crimes and can change, but you also have people like Valentino for fucks sake

Side note I think what she shouldve said was "you are killing, possibly innocent souls" or something similar

I guess the main theme? I wanna go for in my fic/au is 'change' and that people can be wrong without being in the wrong, or being the bad guy

So that is a LONG rant, I honestly didn't mean for it to be this long- it was jsut meant to be like "idk what to do with the murder angles please help me" and turned into a rant.....

Anyways, I'll save the main theme talk for another day

[deceitful-darlings]

Important question cause i dont ever seeing anyone writing this. So ive read plenty yanderes where the reader escapes while being preganct only for they yandere to find them years later.

What if mc escapes the gang bang au while being pregnant? The 1st years find them a couple years later, but notice theres no child with them. What happened to baby that shouldve been born by now? They were put up for adoption, cause lets be real, not everyone would want to keep their rapist/kidnapper child and be reminded of all the bad times. How would they react?

It’s something I think about often for these kind of scenarios, because not only would they need to be a parental person to start with, but also to be able to deal with the trauma of what happened to keep the child, and how many people could say that.

Now, they probably react better to the child having been adopted out rather than terminated, so that’s something Jack is actually thankful for, as the one who’s probably most in his right mind, he does have moments of lucidity. Even when you were with them he could see how concerned you were about the pregnancy, and of course at the concept of parenthood itself. While the human part of him doesn’t want to, the wolf in him is annoyed if you’re in situation where you can provide for yourself and gave the child away. It’s fine, you’re back and he can go back to ignoring reality, they can get the child back one way or another.

Deuce fron the moment of your disappearance went into full on denial. He lives in a delusion about your relationship, and can’t see anything that should’ve upset you or made you want to leave them in the first place. He spends years lying to himself and coming up with various excuses for your absence that don’t put the blame on either party, and his thought process doesn’t change when they find you and discover you gave the baby away. He’ll convince himself you were forced to, that you had no choice in the matter, but it’s all ok, they’re here now! They’ll get your baby back, just you wait and see!

Sebek. Well, is it any shock that he’s angry? I know, huge surprise, right? To disgrace him by not just giving away their his child, but to allow them to be given away to a human family? To be raised by people he doesn’t know, can’t trust, and will inherently be weaker than him by virtue of being human? Have you no standards? No care? No shame for your outrageous actions?! Don’t expect sensitivity from him, because it isn’t going to happen, you must have some documentation about this family you gave their his child away to, yes? Now, he’s going to pay them a visit.

Epel is actually heartbroken about it, but as with most things he hides it behind frustration and lashing out. While there is a small part of it that is down to it feeling like an insult, for Epel there’s actually something more behind it. Family. He’s used to being close to family, being able to rely on each other for anything and giving things up for one another, it doesn’t matter what they have to go through they do it together. You’ve gone against everything his upbringing was, and what it taught him. He can’t forgive you for that, you might just notice the tears in his eyes if you can get past the yelling.

As always, the one that eludes me most is Ace, while I don’t think Ace was thrilled to be a parent, I definitely think there’s a part of him that isn’t going to feel pleasant when he finds out you’ve gotten rid of the kid. There was a chance it could’ve been his, which means that in giving them away it means you had no problem getting rid of him, cutting ties and moving on. Rejecting him. He doesn’t take kindly to that at all. He doesn’t get angry, and in a way that might be even scarier than Sebek and Epel yelling, he’s just kind of emotionless, maybe raising an eyebrow or shaking his head, but he’s not his normal self laughing and jabbing at you, and what’s scarier than someone acting as the opposite to what you remember?

[toastess-with-the-mostess]

Let's Rewind! Toast Watches Voltron: Defender of The Universe (1984)

Season 1, Episode 39: The Captive Comet Season 1, Episode 40: The Little Prince

Episode 39: The Captive Comet OH BOY IS THIS THE EPISODE I THINK IT IS, THIS IS GONNA BE FUN

Opening with Haggar dishing out some lore, yes please universe started with a big bang and that apparently created a comet that acted like a black hole that at some point Voltron banished to a far corner of the universe inch resting

this was a fairy tale for drule children? i wonder how that story would've gone

ROMELLE WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN IVE MISSED YOU SO MUCH

"take it easy zarkon, eaaaasy" Haggar smokes weed for sure

she sacrificed a star fleet to be able to control the comet, another thing that feels so similar to a plot point in vf

did they just pull Romelle out of her cell just to let her freak out about the omega comet heading to arus 😭 what a petty move lotor

smart cookie, she found a way to contact the team before getting found out

"human on arus" so is arus like a colony of earths that slowly became its own governing body? Inch resting, they will still be aliens to me though

how does Coran know about the secret plan that happened before voltron split into lions if he only found out voltron after it was split into 5?? I'm gonna make this lore make sense by the end of the episode I swear

early voltron formation, shits about to get real

oh man they already got to the comet? also why did Allura look so young in that scene?

Keith: maybe your right Lance: I know im right! get his ass lance

the secret plan is to go 4 sector power setting?? oh this is so a trap YEAH ITS A TRAP THEY'RE GETTING SUCKED INTO THE COMET AND LOTOR USED ROMELLE TO GET VOLTRON TO DO IT WHAT THAT WAS SUCH A GOOD PLAN

oh man voltron is trapped trapped for realises this time, he can't even get out of the comet's gravity

ofc they contacted the alliance for help, and they'd rather let Voltron die instead of giving any help "ill see what i can do" literally i want the alliance broken

PRINCE BANDOR COMING IN TO HELP THE TEAM LETS GOO again i need to make this lore make sense and by the end of this show i fucking will

YES I WAS RIGHT THEY'RE DEAD THE TEAM ACTUALLY DIED OH MY GOD YESS THIS IS SUCH A GOOD EPISODE

and now an entire fleet of doom (lol) is heading towards Arus IS THAT THE END OF THE EPISODE HOLY SHIT

/episode end

Episode 40: The Little Prince TWO PART EPISODE LETS GO

recaap time since this was a weekly premiering show

literally starting off with an invasion of Arus now that Voltron is gone, this is wild especially because it's not even the season finale

"Coran made the situation worse by calling Prince Bandor for help" I HATE THE GARRISON I HATE THE GARRISON I HATE THE GARRISON BARK BITE SNARL

"little fella" bandor you're only taller than pidge by a head shut up LMAO

Coran actually doing work for once and helping out, he's becoming a dependable person slowly but surely

Lotor is yelling about this next robeast being the most powerful there is,, my guy you say this every time just pick one of them to back and stick with it

"sorry we shouldve helped you when you asked earlier but now we're fucked and we genuinely can't do anything now <3" FUCK THE GARRISON I HATE THE GARRISON RAAA

GOD IS THAT YOU?? WHAT IS THIS

THEY'RE LITERALLY MEETING GOD AND SHE'S GIVING THEM A CHOICE, GO TO HEAVEN OR KEEP LIVING AND GO TO HELL WHEN THEY REALLY DIE

what heroes, they chose to end up going to hell if it meant being able to save the universe IMMEDIATELY NOTING THIS DOWN FOR FUTURE ANGST EVEN THOUGH I ALREADY KNEW ABOUT IT

VOLTRON LITERALLY HAS THE POWER OF GOD AND ANIME ON THEIR SIDE LMAOO

back to romelle and now she's chained up, what did they do to you bestie

ITS BANDOR COMING FOR HIS SISTER HE'S SO REAL FOR THAT

there he is! voltron to save the day and destroy that robeast with blazing sword!

i'm sorry couldn't follow lotor to planet doom? what bullshit

IS GOD TALKING TO ROMELLE? OH MY GOD, SHE GOT SHOT INTO THE PIT OF SKULLS NOT PUSHED

THIS IS A THREE PARTER HELLO???

/episode end

[maliciousindungeon]

incoming autism moment

can i talk abt the master from fallout 1? because i want to talk abt the master from fallout 1. he is genuinely, with my whole heart, my favorite antagonist in any piece of media ive ever consumed.

hes driven towards, in his mind, the most righteous goal of anyone in the wasteland: humanity will survive by any means necessary, even if they are all changed into something completely unhuman. even if many humans end up being killed in the process, hes trying to make sure people are suited to the world that they never shouldve had to live in. he wants humanity to not just survive, but be able to florish, even if that means that they are no longer human.

he is, of course, wrong. he sees a way to make humans stronger, but is ignorant to how strong and resilient humans already are. the only way to beat him is to deconstruct his entire worldview, make him look at and analyze every choice hes made, the effect those choices had on the people forced into those decisions HE made.

you force him to realize hes wrong, that humanity dies with his choices if he doesnt stop because none of the mutants hes creating will ever have a next generation. you make him understand that he never LISTENED, just pushed his ideology while he ignored the actual affects of what he was doing.

after you convince him that everything hes doing is wrong, make him listen to his own people, he says one of my favorite quotes from any villain ive ever heard:

"i dont think that i can continue... to have done the things that i have done. in the name of progress, of... healing. it was madness. madness, i can see that now. there is no hope. leave, leave now while you still have... hope."

and then he kills himself. because never once up to this point did he think of himself as anything but the hero. when he knows that hes the villain, when he realized that no matter what, the human genocide would end with a supermutant genocide as well and that all of this was for nothing, he kills the main boss for you.

he shows the player in that moment no, hes not a bad person. hes just a traumatized mutant who was doing everything he could to make society whole again. but he failed. and he will never succeed. and he knows he deserves to die for what hes done.

theres something so tangible about his sorrow that i havent been able to get out of my head for months. it makes me feel bad for him. he wanted to be right so badly, and in a way, after that final conversation, he made me wish he couldve been right too.

[away-ward]

Did you notice the conversation that the horsemen had in that Lolita class in high school perfectky describe their characterisation.

Michael thought the teacher, Lumbert loved Lolita, when in fact, Lumbert groomed Lolita. Now what have Michael been doing to Rika since she was born? Grooming her as a show of his "love"! Especially after that snippet in Corrupt's epilogue. (Michael grew up always being denied what he wants, and he felt restricted with his options, so he always made sure to go against everything he thought was "rules" to him.)

Kai thought its was abuse and it wasnt on the fault on the girl to be responsible of the situation. And how did he responded to Banks' love with Damon? Yep, he called them out because their co-dependency was borderline abusive and weird as fuck. (Kai grew up to a good home but his father was strict with him, from his choice of friends, manners, education, etc. and Katsu didnt like Gabriel and Damon. AT ALL lmao.)

Damon said "abuse felt like love" because of his relationship with Natalya and Gabriel. Gabriel grape Natalya and Natalya grape Damon. It's a cycle. So Damon's response was like how he felt being Lolita instead of looking at the situation in a birds eye view. The difference between Lolita and Damon though, Damon kept on excusing his problematic behaviour and inflict those similar pain towards innocents, especially the ones he loved most like Banks, Will and Winter.

Will said something like "why did Lolita still went back to hop on Lumbert's dick and not speak up then" and this solidifies Will's characterisation of making things about himself (because he always felt like nobody would choose him) instead of putting himself in Lolita's shoes. And look at the way he responded to Emmy's abuse, it was always "why did she never told me about anything", "you couldve told me and my parents wouldve yada yada yada", instead of just being there for her after he found out something weird about her situation. He was insensitive about the whole situation, not because he was naive or thought the world was good, but because his character was selfish and unkind first before he was anything else. At that age of 17, only a person who's so unkind and selfish would ever say something like that. Mind you, i never went through what lolita, emmy and damon went through, but i cannot ever imagine go so far as being insesitive like that to people, even at the age of 14. It was too much. Will's response, even at worst, shouldve been like Kai. There was no excuse for him here.

I think the Lolita class conversation was very interesting, but it was never really brought up much. It perfectly shows us how, even if the horsemen would help emmy then if she asked, they most likely wont halp her the way she needed to be help, patiently, kindly, and sincerely. They just werent ready for this conversation yet, if not, Damon wouldnt have kept his problem to himself and thought nobody woukd help him with everything, no? Thats why this story was never as easy as just "opening uo to people". The people that they open up to, should be on the same wavelength as them, because then, they would be like Corrupt Michael who just shouted at Rika when they found out about Miles Anderson. Even if Damon who had spent his youth wth the horsemen cant ever fully open up to his friends about his home situation, why would Emmy, a stranger to them was able to open up to the horsemen too.

And as much as Emmy knew about Banks, and even though we never git much Emory Banks in the past or presence, i was glad that this story didnt took the ridiculous route of an 18 year old girl suddenly manage to defy patriarchy and high profile men and criminals to save a girl her age in a well restricted mansion. Like think about the security, their financial situation, Banks education... the logistics of having another live in your life after saving them... crazy. I like that PD didnt do some Wonder Woman shit with their storyline, because i dont think its possible.

What do you think about these?

I did notice that! But I haven’t been able to put it into words like this. Thank you!!!

I wouldn’t say Will was selfish and unkind in his response though. Not to disregard your opinion, but the way I see it, he wasn’t intending to be insensitive. He was just privileged enough to be ignorant of what abuse can look like and how it can make a person feel. He needed to have his eyes opened to reality. But Will’s always had autonomy, so it makes sense to me that he wouldn’t necessarily understand how someone who appears to have free will would choose to stay in a bad situation. The key word being “appears.”

If he understood the reality of how abuse can make a person feel, how autonomy can be stripped away from a person even though it doesn’t appear that way, and he still called them weak and blamed them for their situation, that would be a different situation for me. I’d be more inclined to agree with you. And this isn’t to say that I think Will handled everything in the correct or right way, but people grow and mature at different rates and a big part of Will’s story is how he resisted growing up and accepting reality for so long. Understanding and sympathizing with an abuse victim takes maturity, which he really didn't have at the time.

Whether his ignorance was intentionally turning a blind eye to the obvious, or a byproduct of his privilege is up to the individual, I guess. I choose to think it was a byproduct.

I haven’t thought about why they were discussing Lolita, other than it was a quick way to bring up abuse and for Damon to get in that quotable line. But what I took from it was that none of these kids, save for Damon, were really thinking something like that could be happening to in their midst.

I still think Damon would have kept everything to himself. I don’t know if it’s pride, or shame, or him just being messed up, but I have no doubt that even if he were sure that his friends could and would help him and not judge him, he would have kept that to himself as long as he could.

The horsemen get mad when they see what they perceive to be injustice. They don’t think about why they think that way, just that they feel angry because they saw or heard something they didn’t like. And that’s part of the problem throughout the series: they reaction to things, and not always with thoughtfulness. And we can disagree with how they react – their actions – but not always why they’re upset.

Of course, they’re mad about Anderson. They think he’s scum to begin with, and now they know he’s attacking women. They don’t like men attacking women, so now they’re mad. It’s as simple as that for them. As a reader, removed from the narrative, we know it’s stupid that they yelled at Rika. But their reason for being mad is valid.

And it goes on like that. They learn of a situation, they react, and then they think. So, I don’t think Damon was worried about their reaction – even if they didn’t understand, they would have been of his side. I truly think this was a pride thing. Or Damon being Damon. He likes his secrets.

With Emmy, obviously it makes sense to us that she wouldn’t open up to them. She has no reason to rely on them for anything. She’s been so alone for years, and they certainly aren’t her friends. But from their perspective, obviously they wouldn’t have let the abuse continue if they’d known about it. Does she think they’re heathens????

easy answer: “yes, you idiots, because you haven’t shown anything different,” but they don’t know that.

Oh yeah, when Damon told Emory about Banks my first reaction was “why? What is she gonna do? You already know that Emory is barely handling her own situation, why are you trying to add to it?” And didn’t Banks have people in the house and a mom she can turn to in truly desperate situations? Like, I know she never went to high school, but she’s been doing his homework and we know she isn’t dumb. But Damon is Damon and like the rest of them, his reactions aren’t usually the most logical.  

Thank you for sharing your thoughts! I really enjoyed reading them.

[flockofdoves]

my day was like . awful stuff sandwiching a really nice time with friends

this was also after the frustration with medical care and trying to be able to hear normally again this morning

got in a car accident. id never done anything beyond bumping a car while parking before so that was really scary and i think will be shaking up me while im driving for a while. both me and the other person are totally fine and so does their car and mine just had my license plate have a bolt fall off so its crooked and bent a bit

but i just feel really awful and was so shakey earlier. my car has a bad transmission so sometimes if it gets stuck in a low gear when im merging onto a road or getting to speed after being stopped i have to really push on the gas for a second so i can make sure that cars behind me wont be at risk of hitting me

so i did that while turning right from my apartments driveway onto the one lane highway its right off of. but like 500 ft ahead of that there was a car and by the time i realized it was stopped and really pressed down on the breaks i still ended up hitting it (i also dont think my ABS started? which is a bit concerning i should look into that. but maybe my memory is being weird) and after getting out of the car i was like ‘oh my god im so sorry this is all my fault’ and also admitted fault when the cop came and gave the person my info but they didnt give me theirs.

and like. it definitely was the vast majority my fault i should have paid better attention and reacted quicker

but also the more i think about it like. this person said to the cop ‘i had my warning lights on to pick up food from the restaurant across the street’. in the moment hearing that i was like. oh my god how did i not see their warning lights and just think they were a moving car im so stupid’ but now i wonder like. maybe they didnt even have them on? literally no way to know and regardless i shouldve been more aware of my surroundings. but also like. regardless of if warning lights were on and that im responsible for the accident after the fact thinking about it im like. why the hell would you stop with your warning lights on in a one lane each direction road with a high speed limit just to pick up food when the restaurant to the left literally has a parking lot. wild choice to make.

also freaked out for a bit bc i didnt have my up to date insurance policy but ig its still the same i just had a print out from before it was renewed a couple months ago but nonetheless panicked in the moment

and then the cop said to go online to find the accident report so i did that right when i got home but it said it required a nonrefundable $20 fee to just search for a report with whatever info you filled out and no opportunity to give multiple options for what to search. and then after i promptly did that assuming hopefully since he told me to do it right after i got home its 90 day meant that it would update me over the next few months. but no lmao i got this email right after. feeling like the joker

ig time to either continually pay $20 to do this promptly or call the police departments office which is closed til tuesday and i bet has hours similar to when ill be in work

oh also after id eased a bit at driving by being with friends in the car on me and my gfs way back from dropping off a friend at night then a cop in a nearby town pulled me over on an empty road like ‘your plate is crooked also your license plate light on the back is burnt out’ and the second part is likw. literally im from out of state as you can see on my license plates can you even enforce that here i didnt think that was a thing in every state and no ones ever pulled me over for it before

i was planning on going to drive 2.5 hours to rhide island tonight and then 2.5 back tomorrow to go see family since i have a long weekend at work and my brother and mom just got back to rhode island but obvs not doing that tonight now. i wanted to sleep on it to feel less shaken up about everything. but now after i got pulled over im not even sure about tomorrow. i guess that was my warning so i might get a ticket or whatever if i dont find out how to fix all that stuff asap :(

[sonic-thoughts]

Ive been seeing a lot of people dislike the way amy was written in frontiers saying that she no longer feels like amy or that shes too bland and boring and doesnt retain any of her old charm which included being spunky energetic and optimistic. While I do see where they are coming from i dont necessarily think amys characterization in frontiers is bad either. I do think Sega wanted to be safe with her direction in this game. I dont necessarily think the lines she spoke were bad or her story. I think maybe it was just the way they were delivered that changed the way amy felt. It they had been spoken a bit more cheery at times then amy probably wouldve felt a bit more like amy but still amy in frontiers was not bad either. I feel like it was a choice taken by sega to reset the audience attitude towards amy. To clean her slate a bit so that they can then again reintroduce her normal spunky personality in the next game. I really dont think this melancholic more serious amy is meant to stay. It was meant to show a different side of her. And yes ive also heard people say ooohh but knuckles and tails were able to still joke and be themselves in this game and amy was a heck of a lot more cheerful when the entire WoRld! was falling apart why is she so sad and bland in this game. Well I dont think its necessary for her to always be cheery either. Someone who is always happy, optimistic and always sees the brighter things can also feel more sad and serious at times. Plus it was stated that each character had a different feeling while being in cyber space. It could be that what amy was experiencing was vastly different from what knuckles and tails were. Something that maybe she resonated with more thus affecting her mood more than the others i.e. the koco she was helping find her true love. Knuckles still even that sad moment when he realized the koco he was helping were a lot like him. I think maybe the only thing they could've added to enhance Amy's character was possible one small line where she said something like "Don't worry we'll never give up trying to help you" in a happy cheery tone but other than that I'm excited to see what stories they have in store for Amy! If they don't add her cheery energetic side in the next game then yeah then I would probably start to complain but as of right now I'm ok. Plus she was still optimistic and happy through alot of frontiers. She stood up for sonic, she was lowkey being funny when she said "her amore" which I thought was cringey 😂 she right away wanted to look for tails, and she joked at sonic too when she said hurry up and free me then! Grant it she was being a bit depresso expresso right before that line but she was still ok. You know maybe it was the spreading the love scene that kind of stole from her story a bit. That scene shouldve had a different message and I feel everything else wouldve been just fine.

[isaacathom]

ds9 time :) s2e6

'i havent seen one of these in 300 years' i- okay hang on. there was a character IN tng who used a wheelchair. the old guy. the one in the absolutely horrifically bad 'old man' prosthetics who took some fucking drug so he'd regain his youth. i remember this episode. he HAD a fucking wheelchair. you HAVE them. theyre IN THE SETTING. what are you talking about Dax. ? i hate scifi when its like 'oh yea we wont need wheelchairs in the future' bullshit man. anyway

'once her basic needs are met she refuses all special assistance' i would not say 'being able to get around' is special assistance but like. ugh. UGH. we're doing this then are we. we're doing this?

the way everyones reacting to meloras stubbornness doesnt sit quite right with me, especially considering that bashir moments prior spoke glowingly of that stubborness. but also why the fuck did you modify the design? without telling her? like dude what the fuck. she sent you a design, you shouldve just made that, and then maybe as the chief medical officer suggested alterations and improvements and so on once it saw on-the-ground action in its intended environment BY its intended user, which is not you. euggggh.

im not sure i like where i feel like this is going to go? i dont know what i think that is but my vibe is poor.

okay so plot a) melora tries to just do her fucking job and b) quark gets murdered. i understand (i do not)

my problem isn't with melora as a character, i think its with a sort of exhaustion with the fact that scifi tends to erase disabilities because ~in the future we can "fix" them~ and then their rare disabled characters tend to be a very specific way. an aspirational disabled person, i suppose. one who doesnt ask for help, who doesnt "let their handicap stop them", you know the vibe. so its not that she's a bad character, per se, but that shes part of a trope thats just sorta annoying. this all comes with the caveat that im not disabled though so ? basically dont listen to anything i say

"its like slipping into a bathtub at the end of a long day" "really... im a shower man myself" bashir buddy what

BASHIR BUDDY WHAT ARE YOU DOING. what the fuck is this. oh i hate this. like to be clear its a significant improvement from bashir being cringe flirty back in s1 with dax (something that seems to have been dropped like a hot rock) but JESUS. BASHIR.

okay yea sure (skips scene) ill just read the transcript man im good. good for bashir making friends i guess.

yknow again melora has a point, who the fuck puts raised rims everywhere like this. its a trip hazard for anybody!

do not make out on your peril do not make out okay wait okay so she realises hes hesitating, goes 'oh dont worry thats my brother' and then they immediately make out, god thats a fucking awkward chain. that said, lol. the shot of them drifting up was fun.

i am not invested in this relationship at all but i guess its nice to see Dax interacting with other people and sharing some of her knowledge. i like her a bit more than s1.

well thats not exactly where i thought her plot was going but of course, mago-scientifically curing her of her disability, a fucking hallmark. god i hate scifi sometimes. like yea whatever it makes sense in the isolated incident that its the sort of thing she WOULD want, because her bullish independence is very important to her, and whatever, but as part of a trend you just. groan.

"you people sell pieces of yourself after you die, don't you? i'll buy one" odo and quark remain exceptional

"you let me fly, i let you walk, we're even" disability politics aside, cute sentiment.

bashir's complete forgetting that she has a family back home, incredible fucking work sir, truly the empath

this episode is not especially well written, is it

wow these plots collide like a sledgehammer

oh thank GOD she doesn't actually commit oto the treatment, thank GOD!!! THANK GOD!!! oh thank god. genuinely a good choice, like im so glad, from the meta perspective, that she decided being able to see her family and all that was more important. does that make sense? i just like that she made the choice, was empowered to make it, and knows whats up. that rules. thats a good ending for her i think.

that said that episode kinda sucks? its fine i guess.

[wormstar]

i was going thru ur blog and u have good posts about ableist aus and i was wondering - what if in the aus the requirements for warriors were different? Like instead of having to fight jay only hunts? Would the muddling of roles still be ableist? In a Tree-like situation?If its not presented in a "work super hard to get what you want" and more in a "yeah they can decide what he wants to do". This is mostly for jay (and cinder) specifically because they had desires to be warriors yet were forced to be medicine cats because of ableism (ig this can apply to briar but i just truly cant remember oots that well and i havent read her death). I am asking because i am still trying to unlearn the ableist mindset that i grew up with. Feel free to ignore this ask and thnx!

hey yeah thank you for asking! took the opportunity to write up more general thoughts on rewrites as a whole and i went over why exactly theyre ableist hopefully that provides a better perspective

i think the major thing to keep in mind is that the structure of the clans is very abled centric and overly ignorant of inner community work (for example dens are only solidified or altered when either the area takes damage/the clans grows wrt population) theres a fixation on marking territory and starting fights and whatever with other clans which is whats expected of most warriors to partake in. to fix those implications in any fanwork youve really gotta knead into them and understand the nature of their ableism....its not just a problem with cats being barred from being warriors its the whole occupation and the standard its held to, so to speak (+ that fits into general clan society being flawed but eh thats another thing and also its easy to branch out into thought about)

going to stress other disabled people might have other solutions to how disabled cats are received this is just how i like to think of things

first i think its kind of interesting to examine discrepancies between disabled cats in canon as somewhat of an indicator of clan attitudes and leaders and whatnot. like i think you could get something interesting by regarding lets say deadfoot in windclan and cinderpelt in thunderclan who both have bad legs yet had different experiences with them in clan life. if you wanna go a step further comparing generations like lilywhisker and deadfoot or cinderpelt and jayfeather (+ the consideration of how congenital disabilities are regarded) can also make things interesting and just give you an idea of what to do. having the clan systems stray from a clear-cut common attitude both gives you more freedom for different approaches + adds to worldbuilding anyway. imo boiling down clan society to perfect utopia just gets boring but you can have imperfections in the system that depict the disabled experience just fine. just be careful with them and the way they come across yeah?

(real quick as an in between. god just dont refer to cats/their injuries as crippled. it still happens somehow)

im a little ambivalent on the idea of creating a ‘special role’ for disabled cats to be thrown into. cause then thats a repeat of canon medicine den really. its like ‘oh youre disabled youre instantly discarded into the x role pit’ i think just adding substantial in-universe changes to the warrior rank itself (vagueness is fun actually) or expanding on ‘warrior types’ rectifies the othering angle. ‘othering’ as a whole is just as bad as the ‘exception’ archetype people run for most warrior aus i want to state that clearly. effectively if youre gonna introduce roles that dont depend on fighting or hunting or both make sure theres abled cats who have them too. like say you want a camp-based role where a cats job is to fix dens or one where they help in the nursery, its far easier for a cat who cant run to manage those but also have some cats who are physically capable of doing other ‘tasks’ do the same thing for personal reasons

the tree comparison is interesting honestly cause i guess you could just give a cat a particular thing to do as a nonfixed position. and roles accordingly being made for a cat to fill until they cant and the positions done away with afterward. but youve gotta do it carefully so you dont fall into othering as ive said. id avoid something like that personally i just dont like the quality of ‘well theyre not a warrior (the most noble/useful concept in cat society) theyre actually some other thing’

in general giving disabled cats agency and choice is the best thing you can do. whether this means them deciding on tasks they can do themselves or picking a certain kind of warrior to be or asking for an assistant to help them out when they do stuff. the way you wanna pull it off again depends on my first question of “how does the relevant part of your warrior cat world treat disabled cats already”

very important point, the majority of the ableism also comes in the form of character narratives and not just the structure of the world itself. like think for a bit why the writers decided jayfeather shouldve been forced to be a medic or why briarlight got killed off early etc etc. characters ‘wanting’ to be like the abled ideal and still being bitter about not fulfilling that years down the line are just part of the ableist storylines. if youre abled id literally say just do away with those sadstuck ‘i wanted to be a warrior!’ moments. if you really want to id say pull a cinderpelt or a shadowsight where a cats time in the medicine den started their fascination with medicine and they switched to that path due to personal intrigue. id say a more interesting and realistic angle to it is having a disabled cat who found fulfilment in doing something else besides being a warrior becoming bitter about their entire clan ‘mourning’ how theyll never fight again or giving them the pretence of being a warrior being the best thing you can do.... it depends on the character really

this is just a very basic disability thing but stray from the whole ‘useless/dead weight’ way of regarding disabled characters. like dont place their worth on how well they service a clan or not theyre still deserving of shelter and whatnot. you dont need to justify a cats existence or usefulness by going ‘well they may be blind but their sense of smell is excellent so we keep them around’ or whatever its just no good

last thing i can think of is like. dont disregard how a cats disability affects them. like its fine that briarlight cant fight (or even hunt major types of prey) she doesnt need some convoluted method that lets her do that. there are like a dozen other warriors hunting and fighting and theres present value and enjoyment in the stuff she does around camp. she doesnt have to be brightheart 2 its ok

[artreider]

Let's try to get this final live blog on my station 19 rewatch done. I'm currently laid up on my couch in mild pain but unable to do anything else.

I don't really like flashback episodes but i want one for the premiere since we are jumping so far ahead. I hate that this episode starts with a fight. But damn knowing what the fight is over, i love how loyal andy is to maya in this episode. Something ive wanted for her and the team. Qnd also jaina looks gorgeous.

The fire scene yay another fire on the fire show lmao. Feel like we missed some last year which im sure was covid related.

The marina scene ugh chefs kiss. I love how happy and giddy they are. I do wish we couldve gotten to see some of their month apart communication and their quarantining apart those two weeks when carina got back. I wrote a little something related to that and i may share before the premiere of season 5.

The quiet moment between carina saying her morning was better than those 6 weeks and then asking about mayas folks was a beautiful and real moment and i love it. So brief it could be overlooked but great choice for team.

The little bit of danielle and stefania that was them and adlibbed in this episode was so great also.

I love that rhey addressed how everyone was able to attend maskless and how safe the wedding was keeping the real world element in. Also vic love you and your chicken dance comment makes me sad that we didnt get it.

Vics parents trying to talk to her about theo is so cute.

Poor lawyer she'd be good for dean.

I understand some people dont come out until late in life but that is hard to hear that you havent loved the person youve been with for decades like you do this new person. That would hurt me so much to hear, like i couldve been with someone who is my great love if youd told me sooner. I love/hate this storyline for travis family.

Ugh if this fire had gone on any longer those poor kids and elderly couple.

Haha andy you should wait until someone answers the door for you when visiting almost newlyweds or people who've been seperated for 6 weeks lmao.

Also maya's excuse and none wet (shower) sex hair i love it.

Ugh sullivan trying to defend himself makes me so upset.

Bailey giving ben hell about second and third opinions is funny, like i figure shed be all for it.

Inara and marcus leaving jack is sad. I hope we still get to see marsha in season 5. Also if they do pair jack and jo itd be a bit ironic. I mean jo too had an abusive ex like inara.

Also jack and his marsha have similar eyes, itd be something if it came out she really was his mom.

I dont understand how maya hadnt settled on what to wear she's queen of the clipboard lmao. Just goes to show how some things throw us off course. Also i totally get her saying her outfit choice will define her forever. I judge my look in my wedding photos all the time and feel like other people do as well.

Why do i feel like this exchange between maya and carina was mostly adlibbed? It just feels so fun.

This poor family and ugh i couldnt imagine having to make the tough calls of firefighters/fire captains.

Love that all the fire crew helped put the wedding on.

I understand travis emotion here.

How'd this conversation about maya's folks get started with andy???

I love that maya and andy's friendship is restored. Also famous last words maya, dont speak the bad juju into existence.

Dean you shouldve spoken up there.

Why the chief there? I live in a city and the chief aint showing up for a house call that needs a few units. At least not until fire is out of they for some reason cant get it out.

Lmao maya freaking out about wearing the same thing as carina. Andy therapizing maya is funny.

That poor boy.

The dad comments to ben are beautiful. Also love that so many of the team know how dean feels about vic.

So why is travis getting dressed separately than the rest of his team. I mean i know its because he doesnt know about Dean's feelings and pushes vic to give theo a chance as well as allow theo and travis to talk but come on. He wouldnt get ready separately.

Also what was the point of theo going to that room if not to get ready. Sorry just annoying.

I wish carina had had someone mention andrew to her. Whether ben, bailey, maya or even any of the fire team who worked on the call with him during the crossover awhile back. Her grief during this day of happiness should've been acknowledged, even with just a remembrance table for him amd other family she lost to covid.

I do love this beautiful moment with vic though saying this isnt all just for maya.

Oh my how i love the maya confronting her father. She is the brave i want to be. Also what she says to her mom, yes chefs kiss. However when her mom shows up at the wedding, really the woman couldnt grab a nice shirt or dress to wear on her way out or on her way to the wedding.

I also love the look of pride on maya's moms face both at the house and the wedding.

Im sad we probably wont get any moments of her living with marina due to the time jump.

Ugh the choice that cost maya her promotion but ahouldnt have.

Also with all maya's options for clothes, couldnt they had dressed her mama in something borrowed from maya. Lol im sorry it bothers me so.

Vic's song for the intro is beautiful. Barrett has a beautiful voice.

Maya is so happy her mom is there and i love it. Also in my head at least one person videoing is doing it for the greys family who couldnt make it to the wedding for carina.

I also love maya singing along with vic to carina.

Queen of the clipboard forgetting to write her vows is special and funny. I love carina talking her down from a panic attack. Also her simple vow is beautiful and how carina who probably did write her vows saying we're good instead of reading them after seeing maya's mom in attendance and the look shared is everything.

I truly believe that was the moment she 100% knew maya had changed from end of season 3, was definitely all the way in. She knew what it meant for maya's mom to be there.

Love the dance montage and improved marina kiss.

Another healing theo and travis talk.

Sullivan just cant let it go and ugh trying to justify it. I just cant, still not over it. Even if he isnt captain in season 5 it still isnt right.

Sullivan you cant say you have the teams back then saying you can control them and throwing maya under the bus. Those are contradictory.

This jack and andy conversation is interesting.

This marina conversation is funny but sad when you know the end of the episode.

Its so funny that so few people know about Miller's feelings at this point.

It'll be interesting to see the travis, vic and theo in season 5.

Ben and bailey are so cute.

Wish we couldve had conversations at the wedding with maya and her mom or carina and maya's mom or the 3 of them.

Inara is so wise. I hate this for all 4 of them.

Gotta love the ole grab em and pull em back to kiss them and let them know how you really feel tremmett moment.

Too late dean, they tried to tell you.

I love marina dancing in the background ugh sullivan and the surrera rehashing.

Time for the horrible news ugh.

Everyone just looking at marina and knowing is horrible.

Great season, great episode and im looking forward to whats next.

Thank you to everyone thats been following my rewatch blogging, and for all the kind comments. I appreciate it so much, made the summer so fun.

[lunatic-fandom-space]

Ranting about Jaune killing Penny and also rambling about VRAINS a bit

Greetings ladies, gents and other friends! I just had A Thought and now Im unreasonably angry and need to rant. Unlike in previous posts, I wont really explain anything because I just need to get this out of my system as fast as possible, so if you need me to elaborate just ask, I would be happy to explain some shit. Also apologies in advance for probably being a bit incoherent.

Oh god there are so many issues I have with Pennys death but the biggest one was definitely that Jaune just had to be the one to kill her! Like, Im not gonna say Jaune is a self-insert even though he is because thats not a legitimate critisism because SIs are not inherently bad. But jesus f u c k the writers are far too attached to this stupid bitchboy!! I dont even understand why!

Like, I get that the typical Heroes Journey is easier to write but if its just that then why not Oscar? Hes not the main character either obviously, but hes actually somewhat interesting simply by virtue of having Oz around.

Hey, you know that tweet where Miles Luna was like "hehehehehe this volume is truly ending in a darling massacre!"?

Uh, yeah, where the fuck is it? Jaune is arguably the biggest writer-darling and hes not only alive and well, but GOING WITH THE ACTUAL PROTAGONISTS TO A COMPLETELY ISOLATED MAGIC BEACH LAND

The only thing that got massacred this volume was Pennys arc tbh

This was like, the big defining moment of the volume where A Beloved Character is killed off by one of our protagonists for Tragedys Sake, and literally all I felt was annoyence because it was Jaune instead of, oh i dunno, THE ACTUAL TITULAR PROTAGONIST RUBY ROSE???

And for the love of god, if I have to hear that stupid defense thats like "oH iT wOuLd Be OuT oF cHaRaCtEr" I will literally burst into flames out of anger. Luckily I havent heard it in a while because everyone seems to have gotten mostly over it, and honestly, me even bringing this up is kinda beating a dead horse at this point but fuck it. This dead meat deserves to be beat! Like

Like

Hey, heyheyheyheyheyheyheyh ey hey.

Hey

You know who else has a kinda goofy AI friend that they would usually never ever hurt because they mean so much to them, but is then forced to do so anyway?

Yusaku "The fucking Playmaker" Fujiki

Like, dude, thats literally part of what makes the final duel so incredibly heartwrenchinh!! The fact that Yusaku still loved Ai, still saw him as his Friend and Partner (HIS PARTNER) but had no choice but to defeat him anyway. Why would you not want this?!? Why would you rather have Vomitboy, who had NO interactions with Penny, to kill her instead?

I literally blacked out for more than half of VRAINS when I first watched it and I still havent rewatched it, and I have felt infinitely more during those final episodes than the entirety of V8, because it wasnt just that Yusaku and Ai dueled and Ai basically died; it was that Ai turned to villainy during the last part, it was that Yusaku still seemed somewhat hesitant in some ways, despite the fact that losing meant certain death, it was the fact that Ai set up this messed up suicide trap to begin with, it was Ai asking Yusaku to merge conciousnesses with him because he still wanted to exist in some form, it was the fact once Ai was defeated, Yusaku still got to hold him and tell him that his name means 'love' and cry and Ai got to say that he loved Yusaku and also cry and ugh.

Man its just. Much sad. Very feelings. Would not recommend, but will watch again. Twice, atleast, if everything goes according to plan.

But anyway, the point I was trying to make here was, you cant just kill a beloved character and expect that alone to make an impact. The context is just as, if not more more, important as the death itself. Even more so in a series like YGO or RWBY, where (permanent) deaths are very rare.

If a character dies and Im meant to feel sad because a characters dead but Im too busy being annoyed at the writing afound the scene, you failed as a writer. Hell, if I, as an audience member, am even conciously thinking about the writers during the series AT ALL, thats a failure.

Like, jesus fuck, imagine writing what I assume to be a YA-series only to have less good writing than one of the fucking card game anime, all of which are aimed at like, twelve year olds.

So yeah, in conclusion: Jaune Arc? More like Jaune Shouldve Died During The Fall Of Beacon With Or Instead Of Phyrrah And Ren's Semblence Being Able To Mask So Many People All Of A Sudden Should've Been Handwaved With A Line That Implies Ren Having Trained His Semblence A Lot Recently

Thank you for coming to my rant, I am much less angry now and will probably have a fine day

[justalitlecreacher]

I’m here to prove that Andrew Garfield’s portrayal of Spider-man/peter parker in The Amazing Spider-Man is objectively the best love action adaptation of the character. In this essay I will....(yes this is really happening)

Edit: 10/20/20- i want to indulge myself in spiderman content but finding non mcu spiderman content is exhausting so imma update this instead

TL;DR

Andrew Garfield is my favorite of the 3 Spider-Man actors. TAS’s Peter is more fun and dynamic than the cookie cutter “shy introverted nerd that has a crush on a girl who’s way out of his league” Peter in Tobey Maguire’s movies. I enjoy Tom Holland’s portrayal of the character, but hate the way Disney has written the movies.  I enjoy the characters, plot, and humor of The Amazing Spider-Man far more than the other 2, and i deeply wish we had gotten the third movie with the canon BIder-Man of Andrew’s (and my) dreams.

[DISCLAIMER: I HAVE NOT SEEN THE AMAZING SPIDERMAN 2 OR ANY MCU SPIDERMAN MOVIES OUTSIDE OF CLIPS AND REVIEWS ITS ALSO BEEN A VERY HOT MINUTE SINCE IVE SEEN A TOBEY MAGUIRE MOVIE]

Characterization

  Most arguments against Andrew Garfield’s Spidey( AG’s from now on) begin and ends with “he was a good Spider-Man but a bad Peter Parker”. This references an outdated post comparing all three Spidey actors.(Id attach the image here but i dont want the post to be too long(thats a lie this is so long what am i doing with my life)) The post also claims that Tobey played a good Peter and a poor Spidey; and that Tom is good at both “roles”.(Honestly I think it seems silly that this seems obey the “third time’s the charm” rule but thats just me).  Most people using this seem to be Tobey stans who have forgotten or ignored the rest of the post funnily enough, but the ones that go further into the WHY AG is a poor Peter are also incorrect. This argument also ignores the idea that there can be more than one version of Peter Parker which is blatantly incorrect.  Just look at Into the Spiderverse or the PS4 game; these provide 4(5 if you count the pig) versions of Peter themselves, and that doesnt even include the comics. 

 Arguments that go further in depth claim that the AS Peter is too cool or well liked by his peer to be a “true” Peter Parker. The evidence for this seems to be that Peter has a skateboard.(which what? didnt realize that having a skateboard would instantly make you cool brb guys). Adding to that i dont really see where people get the idea that Peter is popular or well liked. While looking for complaints i found this qutoe from reddit(theyve since deleted it looks like but i’ll add a link in the notes) “He's angsty, pretty socially awkward, has an aptitude for science, and is kind of an outsider. He gets bullied by Flash and he gets his ass kicked after trying to stand up to Flash. He isn't a "cool" person in any way (until the ending, in which he's best buds with Flash, so I'll give you that). While Maguire is more accurate to the 60s comics where Peter in high school is just a fucking loser with basically no friends, in the ultimate comics, Peter is more of the kid who has a small amount of friends, but isn't popular.”. Honesty i fully agree with this because once again, other versions of a character are allowed to exist. You can dislike one version, but its silly to dislike something for not being exactly like another thing.

Ive also heard that Peter isnt “nerdy enough” in this movie which really doesnt make any sense considering the entire plot happens because Peter was looking into some of his parents’ research. If he wasn't interested in looking further into his father’s work what reason would he have to go to Oscorp where he’s bitten by the spider? Why would he have become Dr. Conner’s assistant? If he wasn’t intelligent how did he develop the web shooters?(something that Tobey!Peter doesn't have to do out of plot convenience might i add).  

 Another complaint i see is that the quips he uses in the movie(the first one specifically it seems) makes him seem like an asshole. Honestly thats a fair complaint, but i think its a good bit of characterization; espcially if he does get better about it in the second movie like the internet suggests.The Peter in this movie is a rightfully angsty teen; of course he acts a bit of an ass to criminals(also i feel like its important to mention that he’s like that to criminals? its not like hes being a dick for no reason).

  Compare this with the Tobey Maguire(TM) movies. Like i said i haven’t seen these in awhile but as far as i’m aware TM’s Peter doesn't really do anything particularly nerdy in the film? I may have forgotten something( ok in the scene before he gets bitten he knows a cool spider fact) but he doesn’t have to invent the web-shooters because they came with his powers and he’s only at Oscorp in the first place because it’s a school field trip that he appears to be taking photos for. This Peter does fit the definition of outcast(friendless and bullied for it), but honestly i just dont like him. He’s weird and something about the character makes me feel like i should be a little grossed out every time he looks at MJ at the beginning of the movie.  

   I honestly don’t have any complaints for Tom Holland’s(TH’s)Spidey. Tom is a great actor and from what ive seen i enjoy his portrayal of the character.( He made me cry when i character i actively dislike died).  

Story

  I cant really say much for TAS story. It’s interesting but nothing special really. However, there is one scene that i don’t think i’ve seen anything like since( the closest would probably be the train scene in the original trilogy). 

 The crane scene. Early in the film Peter saves a boy from a car that has fallen off of a bridge, and at the end of the movie this becomes relevant again when it is uncertain that Peter will be able to get to the lizard to stop him in time.(as Peter is already injured and pretty far from the lizard’s location). The boy’s father is then revealed to be a construction worker who recognizes that Spider-man is going to need help to get to the lizard; he remembers how Spider-Man saved his son and organizes the rest of the construction workers to build a path out of crane arms for SM to swing from. All of them are putting themselves in danger by not evacuating, but SM’s actions in the first act of the film motivate them to do what’s right. 

  I love this scene primarily because it highlights something that i think is a really important part of Spider-Man’s character; his connection to the people he saves. SM is often shown interacting with and chatting with the people he has saved after the fact. One comic shows Peter accidentally scaring some bullies and then taking the time to ride the bus to school with them to continue their conversation and educate the students on bullying.( There’s definitely more but this is off the top of my head).

  Another scene in TAS that i love is shortly before the crane scene when Peter is originally attempting to make his way across the city to stop the lizard, and he is shot down by the police. They manage to unmask him before Peter comes to his senses( he had just been shot and fallen pretty far out of the sky in his defense). From there Peter is able to deal with the police while keeping any of them from getting a good look at his face. The one cop he cant take out happens to be Gwen Stacey’s father who had previously had an argument with Peter about Spider-Man(Peter obviously on SM’s side and Mr. Stacey against SM). Peter turns and allows Captain(?) Stacey to see his face. I believe that this is an example of an unwilling identity reveal done right. i really enjoyed this moment because Peter had just shown that he likely could have gotten out of this encounter with his identity in tact as he had just taken down however many men. This implies that it was an active choice on Peter’s end to trust that Captain Stacey would ultimately do the right thing and allow Peter to go fight the Lizard, rather than a final desperate attempt to get away unscathed. Whether or not this interpretation of the scene is correct or not it still gives the character a bit more agency than some versions have done with their identity reveals.

  In Spider-Man 2 Peter starts to lose his powers because he’s having internal conflict about wether or not he should be Spider-Man. Honestly thats kinda neat and i might want to give that a rewatch. As for the one i have seen i don’t have any complaints. I do however prefer the way that Peter was bitten in TAS because it was a result of him poking around where he shouldn’t’ve been rather than him just happening to be standing in the right place for a spider to land on him. 

  Onto TH’s movies; the way Disney has treated Spidey in the MCU is why TH’s is my least favorite version of the character. I feel like too much of the story revolves around Iron Man; Iron Man made Peter’s suit and equipment, Iron Man introduces Peter to the MCU(via blackmail but thats another rant for another annoyingly long post), its Iron Man that “makes” Spidey in this universe rather than Spidey being self-made. In Homecoming(which remember i havent seen outside of clips so bear with me) most of the conflict is cause directly or indirectly by Tony’s refusal or inabilty to communicate with the teenager he’s meant to be mentoring

 For one the entire incident with the ferry could have very easily been avoided had Tony bothered to communicate with Peter enough to tell him that the situation was being taken care of. On top of that at the moive’s climax Peter is shown trying to get in contact with Happy(from what ive picked up isnt he a chauffeur? like idk his deal i just know he’s someone Peter got pawned off onto after Civil War). Peter even goes as far as to somehow hack into Happy’s phone(i think thats what happened it was a weird tech thing that shouldve been a red flag that the call was important though) but instead of listening; Peter is ignored. If this was a different kind of movie Peter literally could have died and itd be the fault of Happy and Tony like..... A large portion of conflict comes from characters being incompetent and not communicating and thats just poor storytelling.

Before this turns too much into an anti mcu rant id also like to say that the way they did Civil War was really dumb considering that Peter defects to Cap’s side in the comics, but whatever.

 Also i loathe the way they handled the identity reveal at the end of Far From Home. With MCU movies most people know to expect an end credits scene by now, but typically that scene is not important to understand what’s happening in the films; they just aren’t important. Putting an identity reveal here makes it seem significantly less important than it is. On top of that i dislike their use of J Jonah Jameson for this scene.

  JJJ is a character who has been repeatedly shown to have a genuinely good heart. All of his anger comes from a place of love for his city(he even says this hemself in the ps4 game when May writes in to tell him that he needs help). He hates Spider-Man because SM reminds him of the masked man who killed his wife; JJJ has never been able to get past that( and Peter’s antagonism of him definitely doesnt help) However, JJJ has been shown to care for people; he has a son who he often brags about, and one comic shows that JJJ is paying Peter for “amateur” quality photos because he knows that Peter is having a hard time and “just need some help”. JJJ has even learned Peter’s identity before and kept his secret for him(seriously though i cant remember the name of the comic but its defiantly worth the read), and in the original trilogy when Goblin threatens JJJ he claims that he doesn’t know who sends in the photos of Spidey because he does it via email( this is a lie). The MCU will have a very difficult time convincing me that JJJ would ever out a teenager’s identity and put him in danger like that. It goes too far against his character.(this could be hypocritical of me to say considering how i just insisted that multiple versions of a character can exist but whatever ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) 

This is accidentally turning into an MCU rant but id also like to say that i hate the lack of a TH!Spidey origin movie because it gives you no motivaion for Peter becoming SM or explanation of his powers; most people will know these things but if youre unfamiliar with the character its bound to be confusing(and im a sucker for origin movies)

[ordinaryfander]

The new video sure was something, uh

So, as usual I'm here to brag about the newest video. This time, I'm going to analyze "Dealing with INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS", and it's a long analysis/theory, so be patient with me.

This will majorly center around Remus and "the Others", so beware! (I'm so happy I don't have to call them Dark Sides anymore, it was never fair)

I wrote many points to consider, and each one will take quite a bit. With that, let's begin!

1) So:

[ 1) Remus: Who he is, what he does, why he's there ]

I think we can all agree that his debut was a surprise, especially because most of us were expecting the "Green Side" to be associated with something like Envy, or Greed, since dark green is sometimes associated with money.

However, we got Remus, aka Intrusive Thoughts, which I think is, in my opinion, the best option they could face.

So: he is Thomas' nasty thoughts, the evil, twisted fantasies, and he keeps Thomas' awake at night with dark ideas, he gives him the worst thoughts to deal with, things Thomas is deeply troubled to think of, because as Logan said, his catholic beliefs instilled in him that thought is the precursor of action.

Remus is there, and why is he there?

The fun thing is: I don't think he's there to be "useful". Later I'll explain where I think his Character Arc is going to go, but Remus really doesn't have any reason to be there except that intrusive thoughts are something absolutely everyone deals with. You all have to consider that, even if those are Thomas' Sides, they're also everyone's Sides. We all have Logic, Creativity, Morality, Anxiety, and we all lie (I'll return to that).

And this traits help us live with eveyday life?

But intrusive thoughts? They just majorly upset us, and worsen our view of ourselves, but we all still have them.

However, I'm really happy with this choice, because Thomas is starting to really show what I've been screaming since Deceit's debut: things are not black and white, and he is NOT a completely good person, because NO ONE is, not 100%. We can act like good people and sincerely mean to do good, but we're still gonna have dark, horrible thoughts. And, as Thomas' said, that's ok. Those thoughts don't make you a bad person if you don't act on them, but you should consider a therapist/psychiatrist if they bother you too much. There's no shame in that, too: please, reach out for help, if needed.

[ 2) Remus' relationships with: Roman, Deceit, and Virgil ]

- Remus' relationship with Roman

At 35:50, it's officially and definitely confirmed that Remus and Roman are brothers, probably even twins.

A moment after the Duke disappears, Roman says "I don't like him".

Thomas goes, at Roman: "So, you have a brother?"

And Roman clearly is uncomfortable with it: "Yeah... It's a little like looking into a fun-house mirror. But instead of a giant head, or, like, long legs or a tiny torso... It shows you everything you don't want to be."

Thomas answers: "That doesn't sound like a very funny house"

And Roman: "Yeah... Uhh, whatever, y'know-? (...)"

Roman and Remus obviously don't get along, but we understood that the moment Remus knocked out Roman with that weapon I don't know the name of (sorry rip, don't focus on this :'))

Roman considers himself a dashing Disney Prince, a knight in shining armor, an example of bravery and justice, while Remus is pure chaotic evil. He doesn't care what other people think and his idea of fun and fantasy is twisted, and he isn't afraid of Roman and his sword in the slightest. They're opposites.

Unluckily we didn't get much brotherly interactions or interactions at all, so there's no much to say, but those two have a whole damn lot to work through.

The question that many have been asking is: do Roman and Remus share a room?

The answer is: I honestly don't know. It would be a complete and utter mess that Roman would hate to have to share. Time will tell.

- Remus' relationship with Deceit

We haven't even seen them interacting on screen, but we already know so damn much about it.

WAY BACK in "Can LYING Be Good?", this was said about Deceit:

Roman: "If you really don't want to know something, he (Deceit) can keep our moutjs shut."

And Logan immediately goes "You don't want to believe it. That's where his (Deceit's) power comes from. Things that you want to believe. Things that you wish were true. And things that you wish weren't."

And later:

Deceit is able to shut up the Sides, but he's also able to hide them. That's what he did with Remus, he kept him locked away.

I've always been rooting for morally gray/sympathetic Deceit, but I'll try to stay neutral on this: though, I really believe that Deceit was trying to protect Thomas.

Remus is... A lot, to say the least. He's pure chaos, and isn't useful or helpful (for now) and doesn't even care to be. Deceit, on the other side, really cares about Thomas, and he showed that in many ways: he just cares about Thomas in his own way. Missing the callback of SVS still hurts Thomas after all this time, and I already explained why Deceit tried his best to do what was good for Thomas in court (https://ordinaryfander.tumblr.com/post/183871155711/thomas-shouldve-gone-to-do-the-callback-he).

I also said, tho, that in SVS Deceit was frustrated to no end because the other Sides weren't listening to him.

Look how confused he is at Patton's words.

You know why? Because Thomas thinks what he says. Thomas lies, and Deceit is there to prove it.

But they didn't listen to Deceit, but Deceit isn't like Virgil: Virgil waited lots of episodes to be listened to until he finally ducked out.

Deceit straight up released Thomas' worst thoughts because Thomas had to face in the most hard way that he is n o t a completely honest person. Deceit just got really pissed and went: "You know what? I'm useful, you need me and I'll prove it."

And he just did that. He straight up released Remus, Thomas' worst thoughts, on them. Deceit is the only one who could do that, and you know why he did?

Remus: "Thomas, speaking of knowledge; recently a snake offered me a morsel from the tree of knowledge. He said you're wanting to be more honest and be direct dealing with your issues, no longer will you deceive yourself about the ugliness within you, me!"

Deceit smacked in the face Thomas with Remus, so Thomas could get the point. I think he did. "If you don't want to lie to yourself, at least face who you really are"

About Remus and Deceit alone...

I don't think Deceit really likes Remus. Deceit is kinda goofy, but he's also sophisticated, charming, a silver-tongue. Remus is a stinky garbage man.

Deceit wants to protect Thomas' reputation, Remus would destroy it. Probably Remus likes Deceit (I think he likes everyone, he doesn't care), but Deceit doesn't really reciprocate the feeling. I could surely be proven wrong, those are just my points.

- Remus' relationship with Virgil

Boy oh boy.

Well, the video already said what I could'be said: Virgil dislikes Remus, he doesn't trust him, but he's also not as scared of him anymore like he used to be.

Virgil, at Remus (32:27): "I thought you were some... Horrible illness. Now I can see that you're just a common cold, a mild inconvenience that's gone before you know it."

And Remus looks at him like this:

That's not a evil look. He's soft, almost proud.

He isn't even offended. He just goes "Eheh, you tickle me, emo."

And Virgil has one blink-and-you-miss-it-moment when he genuinely smiles.

I think he did somehow used to like (platonically y'all) Remus, even if he was scared of him. They were still... Friends, maybe, at some point. Deceit and Virgil never had such a kind-of-sweet moment, even if just a few seconds long, and even if the Duke and Virgil still are not likely to get along in general and for the time being. The Duke's phrase about Old Times wasn't a welcomed one by Virgil.

I don't wanna dig in too much else, we already know that Virgil doesn't still trust the Duke. That was just some looks I noticed that stuck with me.

Also, I won't ignore the fragment revelead his name and said: "Of course (I told you, Thomas), I would never hide anything to you." And it cuts right off to Virgil. Eh. Busted.

- How Will His Character Arc Go?

That one is the most important question.

Everyone is gonna believe what they will, but I don't think he'll get... Sympathetic, even? He's just pure chaos.

Maybe his Arc will entangle with a Roman new one, maybe his Arc will entangle with Deceit's. I do hope that Thomas and co. will now value Deceit better, he really isn't that bad... At least, not compared to Remus.

Deceit shut up Logan guys, but Remus straight up murdered him. Even if they can't literally die, y'all really can't close a whole eye on that.

So I just think he's gonna stay around and do mischief, but will surely get some sort of development related to other characters. I'm almost sure he won't get a Solo Arc, surely not for now. However, I'm pretty sure they'll get back to talk how to manage him, and how he can become more useful.

- Conclusions and predictions for the next video

Honestly, sorry this was messier than my normal analysis/theory posts, but I don't fully know how to take Remus yet.

Y'all see, the moment I knew Deceit I made my mind up: he's morally gray, he has a purpose, he has to get credit for it.

Remus confused me in every possible way. He's chaos. I'm sure we won't see him in the next video, but I predict maybe Deceit will be in it, just to look how good of a job he's done.

And that's pretty much it. I hope you all have a good time :>