#but it has done SO much to help me think through my worldview and morals and how i would put them into practice

[the-moogle-of-your-nightmares]

tbh will never forgive radfems for appropriating 'why don't you think about why you feel that way :)' as 'do it until you're Fixed and don't feel that way anymore'--especially when often they use it for conversion therapy in particular 🙃--because as a genuine, good faith, open-ended question to guide a toolset of other questions, it has brought me not only a lot of insight but SO much peace in processing things my brain would eat itself over otherwise

[blackbatcass]

how would you rank bat-children from bruce's least favorite to favorite? also i'd say do the same for ollie's kids but he would kill himself if you made him do that (mia still his fav though)

oh my god you guys do want me dead💀

I'll be honest, i don't think there's much value to be found in 'rank-the-favorites' discussions. like the honest answer is 'it depends' and i just don't think it's productive. I do think that in most cases wrt relationships with bruce, dick is always going to come out on top. as i've said those two are just on a whole other level. they Know Each Other in a way that no one else will even come close to. I don't think it's controversial to posit that actually raising dick from childhood adds a layer to the relationship bruce has with him that really can't be replicated with anyone else. like...jason was with him for 2-3ish years as a tweenager, cass and tim were adopted in their mid teens. meanwhile bruce was effectively dick's parent from age 8 onwards.

I also think the timing is something that would be almost impossible to replicate. dick entered the picture very early into bruce's years as batman. bruce was the one solid thing in dick's life after his parents died. they were literally each other's crutches through all that emotional turmoil and became, for better or for worse, extremely codependent. all that to say, dick and bruce's relationship is just so crazy insane that pretty much nothing compares. he just has the advantage. you can't recreate the mind bogglingly deep connection 25 yo bruce had with 8yo dick grayson it just can't be done.

on the other hand, cass also has something with bruce that can't be replicated by anyone else: she is Exactly Fucking Like Him. she is his carbon copy. they Get each other's rock-solid convictions & moral code sooo deeply. fandom tends to use this as evidence to point towards cass being the favorite child, but like as greta mysterycitrus has eloquently said in the past, she is exactly like him (derogatory). bruce obviously loves cass deeply, that is his daughter, but I don't think having that relationship with her is always easy for him. her existence points out some uncomfortable truths about himself that he doesn't always want to confront. I mean... if you were to meet yourself as a seventeen year old it would probably be weird as FUCK lol. I especially think the fact that cass has killed someone really fucks with his head and forces him to reevaluate his own morals/worldview.

and like...I don't think he always treats cass fairly. we see it over and over again in bg 2000. he thinks he knows what's best for her because he sees himself in her, but the things he thinks are best for himself are Not Healthy to say the least. he intentionally keeps himself at a distance because he initially did not want that close, father-daughter relationship with her: it was strictly batman and batgirl. and he thought that's what she wanted/needed. but being so singlemindedly driven to a cause with no boundaries or normal life is not exactly the best way to go for a teenager. so I think those two had a lot to figure out when the dust settled.

I have much fewer thoughts about jason, tim and damian simply because they are not my blorbos like dick and cass are lmfao. i do think tim deserves a whole lot of credit for stepping in to save bruce and helping when bruce was at his lowest. like. that was obviously NOT easy lol. bruce and tim are interesting because bruce held himself back from being a father to tim for so long, when jack was still in the picture. but when it comes to a head and tim gets adopted, it's just...natural? like there was nothing else that could have happened there? I am honest to god not the biggest tim fan and have not read enough of his comics to talk intelligently on him any more than that lol. but I do know bruce loves him very very much and would be lost without him<3

jason....jason. I mean what is there to say lmfao. if your dead teenager turned up and started mass murdering what would you do. I think it's pretty obvious to say that losing jason was soul-crushing for bruce and permanently changed him as a person; we see those aftereffects in his relationships to people like tim, steph, and cass. jason will never stop being his son, and bruce will never stop loving him. but things will never be the same again. I don't think jason's actions post-resurrection will ever be justifiable or forgivable to bruce. like even if jason woke up one day like 'suddenly i'm cured of being a villain' I don't think he would be welcomed back with open arms or anything. jason is a murderer. he has killed like a fuckton of people in cold blood. that is something that will never be okay with bruce. grappling with loving your son versus your son being a murderer which is antithetical to everything you have spent decades building...that's rough buddy. is that controversial? idk i spend as little time as possible thinking about jason todd

I think it hurts bruce to look at damian sometimes because he just can't stop seeing talia. I think he loves damian deeply but it isn't always easy. that whole timing of final crisis was just so messy that they didn't get off to a super smooth start and had to do a lot of work rebuilding that relationship. I think damian has to reconcile his childhood hero worship of bruce with the actual very flawed man which isn't easy. it has been a LONG ass time since i've read damian's comics so that's about all I got.

IN CONCLUSION! This is very long and I absolutely did not answer your question sorry. but these are kind of my cliffnotes thoughts on each of the wayne kids' relationships with bruce.

and yeah if you tried to get ollie to rank his kids he would knock himself out with a boxing glove arrow

[ckret2]

youve gotten a few asks about billford before, and your plans for ford's relationship with bill in your fic, but im curious if you personally ship it yourself/*like* it. and, just for the hell of it, if you have any opinion on billdip too, since that one's even more controversial.

I'm gonna put most of this under a cut since it's not only long, but also long about two different topics, but the tl;dr is:

Yeah, I'm a fan of billford. I don't think it's canon, inevitable, or necessary to their dynamic, and I'm still on the fence about whether things will tilt toward the romantic in my fic or if it'll stay platonic, but I do enjoy the ship a lot because it has a lot of (obsessive, weird, unhealthy, angsty) elements that interest me to explore in ships. Billdip, on the other hand, does nothing for me. I don't care about how people ship imaginary characters in their fictional fandoms and I'm not gonna block anybody for liking it, so this isn't a moral stance, here—I just don't like it personally.

One of the things that intrigues me most about a ship is the idea of love that's gone so far it isn't even love anymore but punched out the other side into unhealthy obsession, and "I'll spend the next thirty years of my life hunting you to death" versus "What if I turn you into a gold statue and carry you around to stare at you a lot" sure fit right into "unhealthy obsession." On top of that, some of my favorite ship dynamics are:

the worshiper and the person they've picked to revere as their god, either metaphorically or literally—with bonus points if the person they've devoted themself to doesn't deserve that worship and maybe isn't even all that special, and the worship actually reveals more about the mind of the lover than it does about the (un)divine nature of the beloved

the mad scientist and the muse who gives them ideas and inspires their work (one of my all-time OTPs has a line where the mad scientist says to his ex "we were each the muse to the other"), with bonus points if they both get so caught up in "what can we do together? What dreams can we make reality—" that they plunge into full "so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should" territory—and bonus bonus points if they eventually come out of the haze of SCIENCE and one of them is horrified by what they've done... but maybe the other one isn't.

two people who are wildly compatible with each other (similar hobbies, tastes, worldviews! they fill in the gaps in each other's personalities! they each happen to be the other's type! they understand each other like no one else can! whatever, fill in the blank!), but for some reason one betrayed the other, they've tried to kill each other, and now things are vicious and bloody and painful and raw between them; but if they talk to each other and accidentally let their guards down for even a split second, all that history is still there, they still like the same stupid movies and share the same stupid inside jokes no one else will ever understand and have the same stupid complementary life dreams, they could have been good for each other, but there's no road back to where they were before the betrayal. Their chemistry is like two huge magnets strapped to land mines: the attraction is as powerful as ever but heaven help them both if they ever touch.

or, alternatively, two people that have all that chemistry, but are just really toxic and do bad things when they're together and enable all each other's worst tendencies, even if they don't necessarily do bad things to each other; and they've got to navigate the fact that they might adore each other so much but they are objectively worse people when they're together.

I like ships with inhuman things. As a writer I like waxing romantic about the inhuman things and trying to convince the reader that yes, this too is beautiful and lovable when seen through the eyes of a lover. I will make you take the stupidest love interest seriously for five minutes. I've romanticized a sticky pile of goo, I've romanticized a robot spider, I've romanticized the concept of being a disembodied voice, I've romanticized a pteranodon made out of lava, and I'll romanticize a cyclopic gold-plated corn chip too, don't test me. Who better to adore a sentient triangle than a scientist-artist who sees the beauty in precise angles?

Depending on the headcanons and/or AUs you're working with, you can get all of these pretty darn easily out of Billford.

I like writing Ford as the awed naive intellectual, hungry for knowledge, for the secrets of the universe, for more, who was utterly dazzled and starstruck by this divinity who tantalized him with esoteric secrets—and who's been furious at Bill for thirty years for betraying him, hurting him, threatening his home and everyone he loves, but underneath all that also furious at him for not being what he advertised when he could have been that; and Bill, meanwhile, playing it cool, far too comfortable playing the role of faux god, but privately, secretly distraught that his favorite "student"—the one who takes Bill's "teachings" and gets creative and inventive with them, the one who always wanted to know more, not just about the universe but about Bill personally—his favorite student no longer worships him, doesn't even respect him, doesn't even see him as an equal, but looks at him like he's the scum of the universe, and Bill won't even admit that it bothers him but it's killing him that nothing he does can get his favorite to so much as smile at him again.

That's the dynamic in my head when I write them. You could play it as purely professional, a god disappointed to lose a worshiper like a boss disappointed to lose his best employee or a celebrity disappointed to lose the president of his fan club; or you could play it like platonic friendship, maybe a QPR; or you could play it like a romance. I like the zest added when you toss romance into this already nasty mess of emotions. I like capping off all that heartache with, "—and if things had turned out differently, maybe I would have taken your hand and traveled with you to the ends of eternity, if only you weren't [such a brutal heartless backstabbing piece of shit]/[unable to forgive a few white lies and some light torture]."

Billdip, on the other hand, does absolutely nothing for me. Not even just for the age reason—that does squick me out, but even if I try to look at it like "okay pretend he's aged up" or "stick it in an AU where they're both dumb kids having dumb kid crushes" I just, see nothing there. I don't even see anything there platonically. Like, legitimately—for the fic I'm working on, I've been trying to figure out what kind of dynamic/interactions they'd have beyond just "Dipper scowls at Bill a lot" and even on that level I've been struggling to think of something compelling between them. I look back on the fact that for a good few years billdip was the ship in the fandom and I go, "why? where's the meat? what do they do for each other?"

I'm forced to imagine that the ship must have been based on some combination of "fandoms naturally want to ship the everyman main character with the charismatic fun villain," "a bunch of teens with crushes on Bill were using Dipper as their self-insert stand-in," and "people assumed Bill wasn't lying when he said Dipper impressed him and didn't start revising that opinion until we got to see firsthand that he uses lines like that on everybody." It feels really uncharitable of me to the shippers to assume that their OTP is founded entirely on statistically average fandom trends and character misinterpretations rather than, like, y'know, traits actually present in the characters, so I'm taking it on faith that there's probably more to it than that and I just don't see it because it just ain't my jam.

When I do try to speculate harder on "how would I get them to interact with each other in a compelling way, like, just in a platonic sense?" my brain starts going "well, dipper's a nerd who's into the paranormal, he wants to know about mysterious things? maybe he's fascinated with bill as a mysterious thing? and maybe... idk, why would bill give a hoot about dipper—maybe bill takes advantage of that fascination, tempts him with more information, maybe he's amused by Dipper's curiosity about weird things—?" and that's usually about the point where I go "this is just, the way Bill and Ford met. This is the watered-down junior version of Bill and Ford's first few weeks." In trying to figure out what the heck Bill and Dipper would even talk about I keep accidentally recreating a less interesting version of Bill and Ford's dynamic.

I want and need Bill and Dipper to have an interesting character dynamic in this fic so being unable to come up with something that personally compels me has been actively frustrating me lmfao, but it does serve to illustrate my main point here: man, billdip does nothing for me so hard that I can't even see them platonically interacting.

[lovingoverwatchguys]

Random tangent: ‘Soldier 76′ is just as much of an image as ‘Strike Commander Morrison’ was

I think people often do Jack a huge disservice when they ‘analyze’ him by taking his image at face value. Often, to understand his thoughts, you can’t take his word for it, and have to look at what he’s feeling beneath.

Let me explain a bit. (Under a read more because I don’t want to clog up any tags with super long posts)

Why would you be able to take his word? Jack has never been able to express himself fully in his entire adult life. He had to put on the image of ‘Strike Commander Morrison’, the beacon of positivity and strict commander, for decades. Because Jack has a massive martyr complex, and he sacrificed being an authentic person because he thought that was what the world needed. The world wanted ‘Strike Commander’; he thought it couldn’t care less about ‘Jack’.

Most people seem to be aware of that, yet they still take ‘Soldier: 76′ at face value as how he actually feels, and it baffles me. No, it’s a (literal and theoretical) mask, just a different one.

Look at how he acts in the Bastet story; he’s willing to crack jokes and have fun with Ana, smiling and saying silly things, to the point that even Ana says he’s “like a child sometimes.”

But that makes sense when you think of his relationship with Ana - as his closest friend, she got to see beneath the mask of ‘Strike Commander Morrison’, and she still can see under this one, too. (Honestly, I think Ana would see right through Jack anyway; he’s not as good at hiding his emotions as he thinks he is)

In fact, image seems to be a theme in Bastet in general - note the way that Ana puts on a new mask to become a protector. It’s the same thing Jack did. He wants to help people, and he thinks this is the best way to do it. Just like before - the world needs ‘Soldier: 76′, and he thinks it couldn’t care less about ‘Jack’.

‘Soldier: 76′ is not a person. He’s a name. An image. (Also, they are so cute. I love them. A cool girl and her gay best friend.)

And to be honest, I think some of the other characters can see through him, to an extent. This interaction has always caught my eye:

What Jack says might sound condescending at first glance, but when you think about the fact that Jack's whole deal is "fighting so other people don't have to"...it makes me think he's concerned for her and doesn't like that she has to fight here. 

I think Mei picks up on that, and that’s why her response is a bit teasing. Tracer does the same with the ‘Okay, dad!’ interaction. The two of them can tell he’s more of a pushover than he lets on, no matter how desperately he tries to hide it.

But I also argue that Soldier: 76 isn’t just an image done out of necessity. I don’t think even Jack himself is aware of this, but it seems very convenient that by donning an aggressive face that shuts other people out, he doesn’t have to let others close to him. 

Some people don’t seem to consider the immense amount of trauma both the fall of Overwatch and the Swiss Base explosion would cause for him. He was surrounded by constant public degradation for months to years. He saw everything he worked for get undone largely because of negative public opinion and betrayal, and was then in a serious disaster that likely had many casualties.

After something like that happens, I doubt he feels safe letting almost anyone close at all. This mask doubly functions to protect him from getting hurt in such a horrible way again. And devoting all of his thoughts and emotion to this moral crusade means he doesn’t have to face all of the real emotional issues he has. It is, as the kids say, a cope.

None of this is to say Jack isn’t bitter or angry. And I’m sure as hell not saying he’s emotionally healthy. He needs more therapy than almost anyone else in the cast.

But so many people only give Jack a surface-level analysis, and I think that’s lame. Ironically, taking the image at face value would in-universe just prove his bad worldview. Life imitates art.

[anonymouslyangsty]

Been seeing a lot of taka lives au which is *chefs kiss* but it really does make me wonder just how difficult taka's physical and mental healing process would be if he survived the hit.

Chefs make out session more like it

But that's a really good question. Like, this boy has a horrible time. He makes his first friend in a death game, only to have said friend brutally murdered in front of him. Then he gets depressed, has a total mental breakdown that ends with him adopting his dead friend's personality, then gets bludgeoned half to death.

Yeah, Kiyotaka is going through it.

And yes, he's the Ultimate Moral Compass. But at that point, you really have to question if his upbeat, kind personality can endure. We already saw him break under the weight of the loss of Mondo, and I don't think he'll ever fully recover from that break.

I don't think he'd snap and break his morals, but I can't see him going back to his normal cheerful demeanor either.

Maybe he'd give up his title of Moral Compass. He failed to keep the students alive, he failed to save Mondo, he lost control and threatened another student, then he broke the rules to try to find an exit. After all that, does he really deserve his Ultimate? He's done nothing but fail the people around him.

Not to mention that Mondo's death in itself shattered his entire worldview. Because how could Mondo, a man he looked up to so much, be a killer? Taka has a very black and white view of the world, and Chihiro's murder utterly shatters that. I don't think he'd be able to pick up the pieces easily.

And honestly? I could see this segwaying into him actually making friends that aren't Mondo. Because to be honest, it's clear that Mondo was his only friend there. Makoto and Hiro were also pretty nice to him, but besides that, he’s kinda disliked or tolerated at best.He's not very popular, and a part of that is because he's so strict.

But if he gives up on his title? Then he doesn't need to be as perfect. He doesn't need to carry the burden of taking care of everyone. And sure, he'll frame it as "I'm not worthy of such a role" rather than "I shouldn't carry the weight of every life here", but the end result of him taking on way less responsibility is there.

Without that strong need to take care of everyone, Taka would feel less obligated to lecture everyone. Plus, he can be less strict with both his classmates and himself. Because let's be honest. Taka deserves a nap and a hobby that isn't studying or working out.

(Dang, now I wish Hifumi was still alive in this situation: I want him to try to show Taka some anime)

Slightly off topic here, but I don't think the title of Ultimate Moral Compass is doing Taka any favors. Yes, morals are important. Yes, working hard is vital. However, Taka is so extreme that he denies himself the ability to relax and also seriously hinders his ability to socialize.

Without the burden of that ultimate, Kiyotaka would have a much richer life. Which is ironic in a way. Kiyotaka thinks that one cannot succeed without hard work, which is true. But can one thrive without a life outside of work? No. And it's only through giving up, something Taka would normally never do, that he can start really bonding with the other students.

Also, if Kiyotaka gives up his Ultimate, then he can be mean to Togami. He doesn't need to take the highroad anymore. Taka gets to punch the hell out of Togami because his bro never got to.

This can all lead to a new Kiyotaka by the end of the game. One that is still trying to help everyone, but is far more open to different points of view. One who is more flexible, and thus more resilient. One who doesn't carry the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Because no, he is not fit to lead them. He's already failed them time and time again. But that doesn't mean he has to give up either. Mondo wouldn't want him to.

So I mainly talked about character evolution, but there's still the physical to consider. He got freaking bludgeoned over the head. And yeah, I hear that head wounds bleed a lot even if they aren't bad, so it may look worse than it is. But still. He's not walking away from that without a concussion.

And I love the idea of that being an excuse for him and Sakura to hang out more. Because of all the group, she and Hina probably have the most experience with injuries, so it'd make sense for those two to take care of while he's healing.

I feel like that situation has so much room for character development! Because let's be honest here, it would've been so cool if Hina and Sakura actually tried helping Taka after Mondo's death. It seems in character for them, because both are very kind people. So this gives the chance to make this happen.

Plus I just think those 3 would have a great dynamic. Both Taka and Hina are loud, expressive, and passionate. With Kiyotaka abandoning his ultimate, he'd have no reason to refuse Hina's indulgent attempts to cheer him up. They can eat doughnuts together <3

Sakura and Taka are both strict, determined, and moral. So I think they could both get along really well! Let them drink tea together, and Sakura can give him some wisdom. She can help him realize that good people can make bad decisions, and that bad decision doesn't immediately make them evil. Good advice given Mondo's death, plus foreshadowing.

Also! I love how this could lead into Sakura's death! Sakura being the traitor would once again fit into that whole "oh no my friend who I see as morally good did something horrible" thing. But now, without the weight of his talent and a more flexible worldview, Kiyotaka can withstand that type of blow.

I can see him and Hina being the ones to vouch for Sakura, to look for solutions rather than attacking her. And when Sakura does die, and Hina has her breakdown, Kiyotaka can be there for her. He knows all too well what it's like to lose a friend to the death game.

Just...let Taka and Hina be friends. Let them be part of the "I made a buff friend in the death game but they became a blackened and died. Also fuck Togami" club together.

So basically: Taka gets a more healthy level of depressed (not comatose) and abandons his talent. That lets him explore more things about life, even if they aren’t related to school. He makes friends with Hina and Sakura, who help him with balancing work and fun (Hina), and having a more flexible view on morality (Sakura).

Then Sakura dies, and Kiyotaka is better equipped to be a comfort to Hina.

[norahastuff]

Another thing about 5x16 that I didn’t mention in the last post, is the romanticisation of Mary. S12 does a lot of work in tearing down the perfect sainted mother image, but the seeds of that are there in this episode. I mean the ideal of Mary hasn’t been torn down yet (though finding out she was a hunter who made a demon deal did put a dent in it) but one thing that is addressed is the myth that John and Mary were this perfect, perpetually happy couple. 

SAM: Dad always said they had the perfect marriage.

DEAN: It wasn’t perfect until after she died

And neither was Mary. The things Dean thinks he knew about her, how much of that was his own unreliable memories and how much was John painting a sanitised picture of the woman that she was? I mean finding Mary’s killer became John’s crusade so it’s no wonder that he turned her into a saint, which she really wasn’t. Believing that was part of what messed up Dean’s perceptions of relationships and what he expected of the people he loved, lest we forget that one leviathan pretending to be Dean’s astute observation that he “doesn't have relationships. No, he has applications for sainthood.”

This was in s7, and was a big part of why the most recent tragedy he’s just gone through, Cas/Godstiel/Leviathans, has shaken him so much. Sure losing Cas hurt, but it’s also the guilt at not being able to see what was really going on with him and not being able to save him that’s eating away at him. And why couldn’t he see that? Because Cas occupied a certain role in his mind. Despite their fighting and feeling like he was being abandoned by Cas throughout s6, ultimately Cas was still the larger than life badass hero who turned his back on heaven and everything he believed in to fight by Dean’s side and help save the world, and when Cas was knocked off that pedestal Dean had him on, it shook his worldview so profoundly but was ultimately a good thing, because it laid the foundation for Dean being able to see Cas a person. A flawed real person who was just trying to do his best, and that was what led to them being able to develop a very different kind of relationship, one that was on much more equal footing than what they’d had before. 

The same is true for Dean and Mary in s12. That’s why Amara brings Mary back to life. In Dean’s eyes Mary has been this sainted figure, this martyr and yet also someone whose death took away his innocence and forced him to give up on his own needs and happiness because he had to step into her role after she died. So there was always this weird dichotomy of “she’s perfect and good and I will never live up to that kind of perfection” as well as “I’m angry at her for leaving me to pick up all the pieces and having to give up my sense of self” which undoubtedly led to even more confusion for Dean, because how do you resent a saint? Honestly Bobo did such a good job writing that Dean and Mary confrontation in 12x22, it was an arc that had to pay off years of character development and managed to do it so well, so kudos to him on that. 

Mary’s real and not perfect, and yet Dean loves her anyway. It means that unattainable goal of perfection Dean always hated himself for not being able to reach...well maybe he didn’t have to. Things weren’t black and white, people weren’t just saints or sinners.

Also the whole “Sam thinking Mary and John had the perfect marriage because of stories he’d heard” thing  brings up the of idea of preserving your kids innocence out of love. Sam has a lot of different stories and ideas about his childhood and history, some told by John and never corrected by Dean, because Dean wanted Sam to be a kid as long as he could and if he could protect Sam in any way, he would. 

It’s something that comes up over and over again, and not just with Sam and Dean. How about in 10x20 when Dean sees how hurt and upset Claire still is with Cas? Dean defends him and tells her because of her father’s sacrifice “Cas was able to save the world. The world.” That’s not the whole truth, Cas definitely helped but Dean made it sound like he did it alone, because that’s how he wanted Claire to see Cas, and to understand him (also the original line was that Cas helped save the world, but Jensen being Jensen knew Dean would talk Cas up more than that.) 

I was going to say Sam does it too with Jack, but that one is a little complicated. When he’s trying to bond with Jack by telling him about his own struggles with morality and demon blood, he talks about how his family, Dean and Cas, were there for him. I mean arguably that’s not true at all if you take s4 in to account, Cas was being brainwashed by heaven into actually encouraging Sam’s addiction and descent, but then he is there for Sam in s5. But Sam’s not about to tell Jack about how Cas was a flawed person with a complicated history. In fact at the start of s13, Cas is essentially in the s1 Mary role. He’s the perfect untouchable martyr, his death broke Dean (and also led to Dean whitewashing a lot of the reasons behind what actually caused Cas’ death) and left a profound hole in Jack’s life. 

But luckily this wasn’t s1. Cas didn’t stay the idealised martyr, he was brought back. 

Oh and Cas has done the “whitewash the truth for your son” thing multiple times the most significant is the one I remember a lot of people were angry about back when 14x02 aired, in which Cas tells Jack about when he was human  “I had Sam and Dean. But I had something else that was extremely helpful. I had myself. Just the basic me, as, uh...as Dean would say, without all the bells and whistles.”

Some people were annoyed that Cas said he had Sam and Dean, because Dean had kicked him out of the bunker and he was left to fend for himself. Thing is there were extenuating circumstances which Dean repeatedly apologised for and which Cas understood and forgave. Besides he did have them. Dean tried to protect him from the angels. He told him to go to the bunker. They saved him from the reaper. Dean saved him from the angel who tried to kill him. So sure, despite all that, Dean did leave him out on his own but again, Cas isn’t going to reveal all that messy hurtful history to Jack. He wants to protect him and for him to see the best in Dean. It’s what parents do.

Thing is, unlike John, Sam, Dean and Cas didn’t tell any of those somewhat edited truths in order to get Claire or Jack to join their revenge missions or enable their crusades, they did it because that’s what they knew was best for them in that moment and because it’s what they needed to hear. 

Anyway, the point is that Dark Side of the Moon is such a crucial episode for Sam, Dean and Cas and I love how much of the characters’ core traits and struggles it manages to address in such a nuanced way (see also Sam and Dean’s relationship as well as Dean and Cas’ individual relationships with faith as well as their joint relationship with it.)

[tackyink]

The chapter is fighting me. Also probably doesn't help that OP 1044 made me realise that Oda has been laughing behind the scenes for the last 25 years. So instead we'll talk headcanons. Specifically Gojo. Have you got any? Or any JJK thoughts in general :D

Yeah, chapter 1044 has left me reeling too. What a week, my thoughts are all over the place. Speaking of which! (JJK spoilers below for anime-only viewers)

I don’t have headcanons so much as… a boatload of thoughts. I’ve been thinking nonstop about the guy for a week because my favorite thing about JJK is his relationship with Geto and I will never get over it. This guy, who’s treated like a nuisance by 90% of the world that hinges on him, went and found a bastard friend who was able to keep up with him, and seemingly out of the blue he snapped and left him. Gojo’s a selfish person, but back before the betrayal, and especially before the Star Plasma Vessel disaster, he was extremely self-centered, and he wasn’t able to see that while he got better and better at what he did, his best friend couldn’t keep his pace and was going through a deep crisis, and sorcerer is not a job you can do while being unsure about it. I have a feeling that when Geto talks to Tsukumo about how to rid the world of curses, it’s the first time he’s saying his doubts out loud. Because when Riko was killed, Gojo asked him what to do, since Geto was Gojo’s moral compass back then, and Geto told him it was wrong to kill the cultists and left. To Gojo, who had absolute confidence in his friend, this settled the matter. To Geto, the decision he made by going through the motions back then opened a can of worms. He didn’t want to burden his friend – a friend who was thriving after their biggest failure – with his budding depression, so for Gojo his defection came completely from the left field. Geto, this 16 year old boy who regularly came in contact with the worst parts of humanity and hosted them inside himself, always knew the right thing to do. Imagine being the sort of person Gojo was, careless and laidback and inconsiderate (well, he still is but. you get me), and having a best friend who gets you but also is the completely opposite to your worst tendencies. Geto had a strong sense of justice that Gojo trusted would always point him in the right direction, and when that same sense of justice did a 180… what was left of his world? He’s alone again, and he cannot bring himself to hate his friend because he loves him and Geto does have a point: sorcerer society is extremely toxic to its members, who exist solely to protect regular humans (with whom they have little contact by virtue of sorcerer circles being pretty insulated) and to perpetuate sorcerer social structure. Geto is Gojo’s motivation to get rid sorcerer society as they know it and rebuild it from the ground up, because he saw what it did to the best person he knew and realized that this is a system where nobody can be happy. And this is why he keeps everybody at arm’s length, never mind that his literal power is keeping people from touching him, because this is the kind of thing that leaves you with massive trust issues for life.

And you know what gets me about the incident that sparked it all? A year later Tsukumo tells Geto, “Oh yeah, Master Tengen’s stabilized. Don’t worry, it seems another Star Plasma Vessel has been born.” As if what happened the summer before had no relevance. As if Riko’s death and the time they spent with her (a girl they were willing to protect to the point of becoming fugitives despite having just met her, mind you, because they were little shits but always were good people at heart!) didn’t matter anymore. Just forget about it, no harm done. As if what they saw after her death didn’t change Geto’s entire worldview. I wonder what happened to Kuroi.

Uhhh this is probably not what you were looking for but I’m emotional and I could keep word vomiting walls of text about these two for a long time.

[bamf-jaskier]

A long ramble of thoughts about the history of chaos on the continent and why Fringilla’s use of forbidden magics is pretty neat

So one thing not too many people knowing about the Witcher is that magic is called Chaos for a very specific reason: it is the opposite of Order. In Sword of Destiny, Borch tells Geralt that Chaos is the aggressor and Order is endangered and needs protecting. Chaos is what mages/elves/witchers/sources/etc can channel in order to produce magic. 

It's important to note that magic DID NOT EXIST before the conjunction of the spheres so it's pretty strongly implied that before the conjunction Order and Chaos were one and the Conjunction split them apart, leaving Order vulnerable and Chaos in the hands of living beings to manipulate. When the conjunction happened, no race (humans, elves, werebubbs, etc) knew how to use magic but eventually most of them found a way to use chaos. 

What is interesting is that we are told that Witchers/Mages/Elves all see magic differently but we are never told how. It is mentioned briefly that mages "pervert" magic by the Elves but we don't know what perversion of magic looks like to the elves because it is subjective to their own worldview. However, looking at the earliest human tribes on the continent, the Dauk and the Wozgor we can get some idea of the difference between human magic and elf magic. Both groups were very influenced by ritualistic group magic as well as worship of the gods. Many of these gods such as Melitele are still worshipped. 

The Dauk were more into fertility and harvest, think early Beltane Midsummer stuff, while the Wozgor primarily worshipped Lilit with Blood Sacrifices. So we see humans are in a group-mentality when it comes to magic and summoning, they pull power from the earth and pool together their magic to create spells. At this time, elves and humans were not considered enemies so group-magic and more nature-esque magic is accepted by the elves. This is also supported by the dryads and elves seeming to prefer druids who still use magic group-magic today.

So now we start to get into when the philosophical schism on magic happened. Clearly, at some point, humans started working on less "group/nature magic" and on more individualistic magic. By the nature of chaos it is consuming so as more humans began working on individual magic, they became more power hungry. I had a theory that it was human's use of individualized magic that led them to leaving the nomadic tribe mentality and instead moving to more Nordling-Like culture where they live in one place and fight with other tribes, eventually building cities, colonizing, and in general taking the standard course of human history. So now humans have magic. And they have POWER. 

So you get mages who are fighting for their tribes, their groups and eventually kingdoms like Novigrad begin to form. Now the Brotherhood was formed in the 8th century by the Novigrad Union which was a group of druids, mages, and priests who signed a non-agression pact to stop the raids and warfare that were so common for centuries. However, the Union fell apart due to difference in views on magic while the Brotherhood stayed together. 

The Brotherhood is now sort of the ruling party on the continent, it's the only power really left after the Union. It's not its own Kingdom so it can technically be considered neutral. This puts a lot of responsibility on the Brotherhood and the Northern Rulers are overwhelmed by the number of monsters. Previously, humans were so focused on killing each other they couldn't really organize and do anything about the monsters but now that society is developing it's a real problem for trade and travel. so they create the first Witchers in Rissberg. However, once they find out that the Witcher don't have the same magic aptitude as mages, they are discarded as failed experiments.

This is where is gets interesting again for me. Because Witchers actually can cast magic as strong as mages, they elect to use signs but Witchers can pool their magic together in order to cast more powerful spells. So what was the difference between mages and witcher that had the mages deem Witchers as failures? I am theorizing that Witchers channel chaos whereas mages manipulate it. 

The way I describe it in my fic is that Witchers act as a conduit for chaos, think of it like sucking up magic into a straw, the Witcher is the straw, they bring chaos in it's purest form into the world. Then, once the magic is in our realm, they shape it into the spell or form they desire. It's similar to how elves and ancient humans used magic. This is why the elves don't call a Witcher's magic a perversion but a mage's magic is. 

I'm theorizing that Mages on the the other hand bring magic in through almost a mold. When a mage summons chaos, that chaos can only be used for the very specific purpose that they want in that moment. It ties into their philosophy on willpower. What you desire is the magic you have. So a Witcher could begin to cast an Aard and then halfway through change the sign into an Igni and it would work fine. However, a mage can't begin to cast a portal and then change it into a lightning bolt. But this is also the reason mages are so powerful, their magic is specific. It is decided and the willpower behind it makes it a stronger spell.

NOW FINALLY we can begin talking about forbidden magics. So I'm not going to get into the First and Second Ages of the Witchers but just know that Witchers are now off on the continent doing their own thing and monster hunting, creating their own culture, etc. The Brotherhood does NOT care for this. They can see control slipping from their fingers so they and they are worried other mages are going to experiment the same way they experimented to create Witchers but this time they will make something even more powerful. Something that could topple their power. 

The Brotherhood begins to ban magic that could be used to manipulate the natural order. The main three banned magics of the Brotherhood are Goetia (demonology), Necromancy and Ancient Magics. Now demonology was actually practiced by the Wozgor and many think that Lilit was actually a demon they summoned. Necromancy and Ancient Magics both have the potential for abuse but not more so than any other form of magic. However these are all powerful magics. But it's not just BANNING magic that creates censure with the brotherhood. It's the stringent guidelines of how to perform magic even though we KNOW there are multiple ways to channel chaos. The Brotherhood also creates a system with the court that also creates censure because courtly expectations now place an emphasis on respectability and governance and how you should hold yourself, etc. Being a mage becomes a lot more restrictive and a lot less experimental.

So we have to ask ourselves, what does Fringilla do that causes her to be considered abhorrent, In Tissaia's words: "I will defend our way of life, The Brotherhood, The Academies, the order that we have built up over centuries, you've rejected it all Fringilla" 

So here's what we KNOW Fringilla has done: Forced Mages in Servitude until they decide to serve the White Flame (of course Fringilla says it isn't servitude but Triss disagrees), Practice Necromancy, Demonology, and Fire Magics She specifically says the phrase "most of us came from Aretuza and Ban Ard" so here's what we have to consider, how did Fringilla get them there, she can't have kidnapped everyone and as well if u know some spoilers from the book then there are plenty of mages that voluntary work for Nilfgaard. 

Fringilla works with ANYONE who has chaos, not just people deemed worthy by the Brotherhood. In addition, she works will all magic, no limitations. In many ways, Nilfgaardian magic is returning to ancient magic. If you watch the battle at Sodden, the mages perform a lot of life-force spells. I have a theory that those types of spells are MEANT to be performed in groups and since they aren't, the mage withers and dies. 

Also, listen, in another world Nilfgaard could be the hero. If they didn't show Nilfgaard being generally evil like killing everyone and sacrificing mages and stuff they actually have good reasoning? Cintra is objectively terrible. They literally almost killed off an entire race? The Genocide of the Elves is very much brushed over and honestly Cintra should have been overthrown ages ago. Also Nilfgaard has policies of cooperativity and community and honestly if they didn't so morally bereft acts their society has a lot of potential. 

Fringilla is returning magic to how to was pre-brotherhood where it's groups of loosely defined mages doing what they want. She is also trying to break of the individualistic mindset of most mages which I think is interesting because it goes against the very soul of how mages perform magic. It's like Tissaia said, Fringilla is rejecting centuries of tradition. In any other world, Fringilla would be the Katniss to the Brotherhood's Capital. If Nilfgaard wasn't cast as so brutal they would literally be considered a revolutionary force trying to oust a genocidal dictatorial system (Cintra). Granted, many people have compared Nilfgaard to either being a Roman Empire or Soviet Russia analog, both brutal totalitarian or imperial regimes which probably is part of the reason Nilfgaard is so brutal. I am suggesting that in another universe, Nilfgaard could be instead of an imperial-religious-type regime a more revolutionary force. 

Perhaps an AU where Nilfgaard teams up with Cintran Rebels and arrives at the city to help Cintran Freedom Fighters tear it down and then allows Cintra to rebuild on their own terms. Basically, I’m talking about the overthrow of the monarchy system present in most of the continent. 

I would really like to see an AU where Fringilla is a revolutionary figurehead trying to work to establish a democratic system in a monarchal society while going against centuries of magical tradition. I think with the addition of magic and complexity of politics not the continent there’s just so much to think about here. 

[bitch-for-a-rainbow]

Lex Luthor: I actually really like him and Supergirl made me mad

     So, Lex Luthor is a very interesting, sometimes thought provoking, but most of all very enjoyable character.

     Lex is many things, a classic egomaniacal villain, an example of what lies can do to a relationship, a walking, talking red flag, a warning of how hubris and jealously can destroy you, and much, much more. He is not the typical strain of insane— if crazy at all, highly competent, and best of all knows every one of Superman’s buttons and exactly how to press them.

     I love watching Lex in every media I’ve ever seen him in going back to the original Christopher Reeve Superman. Every media, that is, except Supergirl. Why?

     Because she isn’t fucking Superman.

      Obviously, I love Supergirl— I run a blog with her in my icon— but there are certain things she is not and was never meant to be. Nemesis to Lex Luthor is right up there with a mass-murdering nazi (which is why the multiverse exists-- so that you can make her the first super on earth, Lex Luthor’s ex-friend, and not completely ignore the foundation of who they are as characters)

     Lex is fun because he’s so smart, but also because of the personal stake he has with Superman. Lex felt jealous. In many cases, he felt betrayed. He let that fester into mania and then he built an evil radioactive robo-suit and committed mass murder. You know, like reasonable people do.

     Lex was Superman’s friend and that gives his hatred of Kryptonians not only purpose, but emotional weight. Their relationship has that itching tension of painful history. In addition, Lex is extremely prideful. To him, Supergirl would be second class, she’s backup. And there is a story there: a story when Lex has a breakdown when backup knocks him into the sun, or the (in my opinion, less entertaining) version where Superman shows up to save her, reaffirming Lex’s worldview that he’s everything and defeating Superman means that Lex is the greatest and smartest, and even more stories beyond those that still adhere to its core principles— Kara and Lex as characters.

     But Supergirl chose neither. Instead they chose another recycle Superman plot. And then another. And another.    

     I should make time to say that I like Jon Cryer; I think he’s doing a great job with what he’s been given. He’s got the charisma. He’s got the smarmy self-congratulating swagger down perfectly. The scenes where the real Lex pokes its ugly head through his facade are just great. I think in anything else he would have made an excellent Lex Luthor, but not here.

     I was… disappointed with season 4. I liked 4x20– Kara and Lena investigating was fun at worst and at best had some really good edge of my seat moments. I thought that 4x16 “The House of L” was one of the best episodes of supergirl in a very long time and it still holds its place at least in my top 10, probably my top 5. But you will notice Lex wasn’t even in 4x20 and his places in 4x16 I actually enjoyed could easily have been occupied by any other intelligent villainous character. From a very basic point of view Col. Haley would have fit the mold of the manipulator training the compassionate but confused alien to kill— Wouldn’t have been her first time.

     The later usages of Lex in Supergirl are also attempting a common Superman plot. Lex “redeems” himself, tricks the public into trusting him again by framing Superman for something, and eventually is once again revealed to be evil. It sounds like a repetitive, boring plot that would lose the audience suspension if belief after a few tries— “Seriously, this again. How are they not expecting this by now?” And that complaint works for Supergirl. Because Supergirl isn’t Superman.

     Clark Kent was Lex Luthor’s best friend. Clark Kent ignored every warning sign and red flag waved in his face because Lex Luthor was his best friend. Clark Kent harbors a deep, abiding hurt and resentment from Lex’s betrayal. He has no trust for Lex, just like any hero would, but he also has the built up anger from repeated clashes with Lex and the initial betrayal. So when Lex returns, once again proclaiming he’s changed his ways, Superman’s response is a very public, very obviously bitter “yeah, right.” When Lex lays one of his traps for Superman, Clark is a little too rash. Lex Luthor knows how to push all of Clark’s buttons, even if he doesn’t know that they’re Clark’s. Lex can play him like a fiddle, and as for the general populace— would you be so steadfast in your trust of the invulnerable alien that could laser you in half in the blink of an eye and seems to be getting a little too comfortable in his role as peacekeeper? Would you, when even the slightest chance could slaughter your entire planet and you would have nothing and no one would could stop him— except, of course, Lex Luthor?

     We’ve been shown through many media that when Lex can’t manipulate his opponent, when villain comes that is simply too big for him to work on, he is at incredible risk. There are several stories I can think of of the top of my head where Lex becomes a temporary ally of the heroes simply because he realizes he can’t manipulate this new, powerful player and that therefore they are a risk to him (I actually really like those stories because the dynamics between him and the heroes are incredibly fun and interesting— you start to get an idea of who Lex is underneath all of the wit and ego).

     This is Supergirl’s great failure with Lex. The show understands that he is a genius— makes a great fuss about it. They understand that he is a manipulator— it’s his entire plot line with Lena. But they fail to understand that Lex’s ploys don’t work because he’s just so smart like the smartest ever. They work because he knows Superman and he knows that people are afraid of him— even the ones who trust and love him live with the knowledge that if he gets mind controlled or goes crazy, he could kill them all with ease, and that it’s happened before.

     Supergirl wasn’t around for Lex’s turn. This Supergirl wasn’t even in that steady of contact with Clark. She has no stinging betrayal, no anger and bitter history to make her rash and predictable. Certainly by now, two seasons into Lex’s placement in the show, she is angry— but by all the evidence we’ve been given, Kara’s anger just makes her more volatile, unpredictable and sometimes genuinely down for murder, which is definitely not something Lex needs. We have seen her both let Lex “fall to his death” (when she wasn’t all that angry— she just accepted his suicide without trying to force him into prison) and nearly shoot him with laser vision (this time she was angry and emotionally unstable after the death of Argo and the more Lex centered anger that he revealed her identity and destroyed her relationship with Lena. There is no question that she would have killed-- or at the very least maimed-- him if The Monitor hadn’t intervened). If Superman just murdered Lex when he got angry, he would have died a dozen times over.

     Lex doesn’t even have a basic understanding of Kara’s mindset. He can’t. Superman was raised by American humans in Kansas— he has a worldview that Lex could easily pick up on because it is at least based on watching most of the same events unfold as they grew up— and that’s if they had never met before they started fighting. Sure, he could assume Superman had some quirks from being an alien, but the base Americanized cultural standpoint was already affecting Lex’s machinations because he was an American. He’s familiar with the culture and values Superman follows— not so with Kara. I don’t even know if it was possible for him to obtain information on her religion, let alone the cultural views on justice. His research on her past fights would have been choppy at best, given that there are so many things that only Kara or the other Superfriends were there for. He can’t have the information about that fight on Mars where Kara literally disintegrated at least 3 white martians. He can’t know what happened with Reign beyond “she’s not going to be a problem anymore”. He might have more information about the Daxamite invasion through government records and his mother but the information is still limited. As for Non and Myriad, we don’t even know what happened to Non, and did they report to the DEO that J’onn literally tore Indigo in half (very graphically I might add). Or did they just say “They won’t be a problem anymore.” Lex may have been spying on Kara since Season 2, but how much is watching her civilian life going to help him understand her, when Kara’s civilian life was constructed to hide? Kara Danvers doesn’t say a lot of what she thinks to avoid notice, and even Supergirl keeps her mouth shut a lot of the time to try and maintain human-alien relations. The episodes where she squabbles with the Col. Haley and President Baker are full of her smiling and gritting her teeth through statements that clearly make her very angry.

     Lex “falling to his death” and then getting shot at the end of season 4 was a great moment— it fit with the characters motivations, but it also unfortunately illustrated the problem with Supergirl characters interacting with Lex. J’onn was a soldier who kills people. Kara has killed people. Alex has killed people. This scene was not the first time we watched Lena try to murder someone with that gun. They are not restricted by the moral code Superman uses, which makes it both more difficult and more dangerous for Lex to try manipulating them— so he doesn’t and instead they skip the intermediary and rely wholly on him being able to manipulate the public. This works to an extent with Red Daughter, but only because anti-alien sentiment was at an all time high with the Children of Liberty, and because Lex lucked into an amnesiac supergirl clone. So little of the heavy lifting was actually done by Lex it feels less like his accomplishment and more like he cheated off of 3 different people and then bragged about his math skills. I said it before and I’ll say it again. The season 4 villain could have been anyone with moderate intelligence and resources. After crisis, the excuses just get weaker and weaker. I mean come on, he confessed to trying to mind control the whole world in front of the jury while screaming vile things at his sister who’s sitting there visibly flinching at his words and they unanimously voted not-guilty? Are you kidding? (Also after watching all the courtroom scenes in Supergirl... do they know how courtrooms work? I mean, I laughed as hard as anyone at the “I plead the 5th” line, but seriously. Do they?)

    And Crisis was… a choice. I personally hated that they brought Lex back to life— more so because the in-universe reasoning was so weak. Lex Luthor does not face a whole lot of consequences, it’s true, but that’s because he has the genius, guile, and money to avoid them. To give him such an unearned out— especially after all the damage he’d done by dying— really hurt the both the stakes and the character. Lex is a human, and he fights Superman by taking advantage of very human things: corruption, anger, and fear as well as ingenuity and resourcefulness. He loads the deck in his favor— he doesn’t win on luck. And Lex in the CW Supergirl, seems to only win on luck. First he finds Red Daughter right when anti-alien sentiment is blowing up, then he is resurrected, then he finds out the crisis world loves him. He has had exactly 1 major victory based on his own work— manipulating Brainy. A manipulation which was really hard to believe when Brainy was, in canon, much, much smarter than Lex, familiar with his tactics, lying to the superfriends for no reason, and had no emotional reaction to cloud his judgement. 

      And even so, this one plot line was one of the more interesting ones in season 5 and the most Lex Luthor-like plot line the show has had. Even when I felt my suspension of disbelief slipping, it wasn’t entirely in tatters. Lex’s win felt somewhat earned. 

     He has been in the show for 2 1/2 seasons and he has had 1 major victory that felt at all earned. 2 and 1/2 seasons. That’s currently around 45% of the show’s run time.

     All in all, we have 4 deeply related problems that plague the CW Supergirl Lex Luthor:

Lex Luthor’s plans rely as much on effective manipulation of Superman as they do on his own genius. Without that manipulation, his victories rely much more on happenstance and luck, making them feel less earned.

Lex Luthor cannot effectively manipulate Supergirl— at the very least, not in the beginning of their relationship, which CW Supergirl focuses on— nor does he try to manipulate her or much of the cast beyond Lena and once with Brainy.

Supergirl kills people. Supergirl has killed Lex. Superman doesn’t kill people.

Lex fighting Supergirl does not have the kind of inherent emotional weight that Lex fighting Superman does.

     There are some other issues I have with the CW supergirl version of Lex, but I think if it was a Superman show I wouldn’t have minded. The large amount of screen time dedicated to him would make sense there, and the fact that he’s a cockroach seemingly impervious to any plot consequences would also fit more in line with Superman’s increasing frustration and make his manipulations more effective.

     The only problem I have that wouldn’t been solved purely by making it about Superman is the crowding problem. In season 1, Non and the DEO were highly connected and fed each other as villains. Season 2 also fit that same block of alien vs. anti alien. Both of those secondary villains (the army/DEO in s1 and Cadmus in s2) were very much not as big a villain as the main. Season 3 sort of had a secondary villain with Morgan Edge, but he was mostly just a Lena problem. All of these seasons had a good balance between the villains screen time and also between the villains and heroes. It got a little more complicated with the extra world killers in s3, but still functioned fairly smoothly with focus on Reign. This is one of the main reasons that seasons 1 and 3 are my favorites. S4, however, got more cluttered. A lot more cluttered. Manchester Black, the Children of Liberty, Lex Luthor, Red Daughter, and Eve Tessmacher were all villains with multi-episode arcs handled directly by Supergirl herself. There was too much to cover, not enough connection, and not enough time— plus 2 new main cast members (Look, I love Nia and Brainy but that season had way too much going on). Season 5 had Leviathan, Lena Luthor, Lex Luthor and 2 new mains. Each of those villain arcs had their own distinct plot from one another and screen time started to become more choppy and spread out. Season 6 now has so far Lex Luthor, the phantom zone, and Nyxly, as well as the Zor-El mini-arc, and while I’ll give them some leeway for Melissa Beniost’s maternity leave, there is again too much in too little time. Villains are underdeveloped or not given weighty closures, each main gets less and less personal screentime, and every shot that doesn’t serve a good or entertaining purpose feels like pouring out water from a canteen in the desert, especially now in the last season. Lex has greatly suffered for this both in the rage at how much screen time he gets compared to other characters, Kara in particular, and because of how his arcs are still hobbled by the lack of it.

    I just find myself wishing they’d restricted Lex to a 3 or 4 episode mini-arc, or just season 4 and saved him for the Superman and Lois show. They could have played the crisis resurrection as just an unfortunate coincidence of fate and had it be Superman’s problem from there on. 

    To Jon Cryer, may you never see this. It’s so very not your fault.

If anyone actually reads this whole thing and I got something wrong let me know. I’d love to discuss it. Today, I’m just trying to isolate the main issues I have with Lex in Supergirl. 

[thanksjro]

More Than Meets the Eye #28- I Sure Hope Y’all Like Megatron

“Dark Cybertron” is finally over! Woohoo!

Who’s ready for a return to hijinks and mild peril?

I know this guy is!

Hold on a second-

We start our foray into Season 2 of MTMTE with a little meta-humor-

-and then it’s right into the swing of things, as Brainstorm uses the thin, fragile wine glass of faction-based morality to hold his personal need to make instruments of violence. Nautica disapproves, but then why wouldn’t she? She’s not been steeped in the militant ideologies of the Autobots for millions of years.

It’s six months after the convoluted events of “Dark Cybertron”, and our beloved ship, the Lost Light, is back on track for the Knight Quest. Nautica’s joined the crew, which is neat, but there are far more interesting things going on.

Like Rung actually doing his fucking job for once.

Wow, look at that little creamsicle man go.

It would seem that in the last half-year (by Earth standards) Megatron’s somehow gotten himself into the esteemed position of Captain of the Lost Light. This likely means that Rodimus has been defeated in battle, or perhaps fucked off on yet another space yacht to run away from his responsibilities. I suppose the narrative will have to fill us in on just what exactly happened.

Or, at least, I hope it does. Wouldn’t be a terribly good story if I had to guess on how exactly this dude’s in charge of a whole-ass Autobot crew.

Yes, yes, I know he switched sides, but goddammit, it takes a little more than saying sorry and changing your wardrobe to excuse the murder of half of NYC.

I mean, we can do both. Both is an option. I’ll break out The Communist Manifesto right now, let’s fuckin’ gooooooooo-

Six months prior to Megatron’s therapy appointment, Rodimus is ready to high-tail it off of Cybertron yet again. This is because, as established in previous posts, Cybertron kinda sucks butt. He bursts into the meeting Optimus Prime called- even though he’s really not leader of anything anymore, Starscream is- bids everyone farewell, and is about to run back out of the room when he’s stopped.

Turns out that the populace of Cybertron want Megatron to stand trial. That makes sense, given what all he’s done. Of course, the Autobot pals we’ve got in the room want to skip due process and go straight to the part where Megatron pays through the nose for the last four million years.

Which doesn’t feel terribly heroic or good guy-ish, but I think by this point you’ve probably caught on to the fact that everyone in IDW Transformers is morally gray at BEST.

Because Megatron’s had a rough time the last few years, in relation to his bodily integrity, spark extraction- that thing that High Command lied about in relation to Overlord- isn’t an option. It would just kill him dead.

Uh, excuse me? Optimus Prime, sir? Monsieur Premier?

Guess Optimus hasn’t been keeping up with exRiD.

Anyway, yeah, since Tyrest fucked off in “The Sound of Breaking Glass” and also tried to commit a genocide, we’re gonna need someone to cast judgement.

Course, a military trial isn’t exactly ideal, but as long as it’s open to the public, it should be fine.

Probably.

Anyway, Prowl’s also going to help. Ultra Magnus has been assigned the task of representing Megatron in court, a job which he’s positively delighted to have, if his face is any indication.

The gang breaks for lunch, and Rodimus and Optimus touch base on how the Knight Quest is going.

Because Rodimus’ half of the Matrix had the map for finding the Knights of Cybertron in it, they’re gonna have to go with Plan B.

Oh fuck yes, I love Plan B!

Unfortunately, finding the ideal romantic partner for all Cybertronians is going to have to wait until after the trial, because Optimus really wants Rodimus here for this. Though perhaps there’s a way to make things move a little faster…

Back in the present, Megatron’s had just about enough of Rung being a psychiatry joke, and is about to walk out of his appointment. Ravage is here, which is neat. Rung asks Megatron about the three most important people in his life, and how he met them. One of these people is, funnily enough, Rung.

Rung, if you’ll recall, was thrown into Megatron and Impactor’s table at Maccadams waaaaaay back in The Transformers #22, the first issue of the IDW run that Roberts wrote solo. It would seem that getting arrested and subjected to police brutality ruined his once-idealistic worldview. This is just a lightning-round recap of the events of the “Chaos Theory” storyline.

Being reminded of how hard he got dunked on makes Rung break out his copy of Megatron’s autobiography, Towards Peace. Of course, Megatron has to be “that guy”, and makes it out to be far more than it actually is. My dude, you used your writing to tell all your proto-Decepticon buddies to go beat up Whirl in prison. Let’s not make things sound more grandiose than they are.

Anyway, it turns out that Rung is actually just as much a nerd as he looks, as he reveals that he’s in possession of one of the only few copies of the original version of Towards Peace. And then he takes off his glasses and the fans go bonkers, even though he’s just got that Milne Same-Face going on, just like everyone else.

There you are, you animals.

Rung discusses Revisionism, I’m reminded that the first publication of Eugenesis had a dedication to Roberts’ son of all people, and we get the question of who Terminus is to Megatron.

But alas! The X-ray vision’s been turned on, and it’s time to see… nude robots? An in-depth anatomy lesson?

Robots are confusing sometimes. Anyways, major props to Milne for drawing all that detail. Dude does the technical stuff with a ferocity that must be awe-inspiring to behold.

Megatron’s decided that it’s time for lunch, and then he’s going to do captain stuff.

Because he’s captain of the Lost Light.

I’m convinced Rodimus is dead. That’s the only way this is happening.

Six months ago, Swerve was being awful Swerve-like, with his new buddy Crosscut- guess he finally learned the guy’s name- and Riptide, who we’ll get to a little later on. These three wonderful lads are holding a sort of “crew try-outs”, and it looks like the requirements needed for entry on Megatron’s Lost Light are stiff.

Still, maybe our new friend Nautica will make the cut.

Oh, you are simply delightful!

Despite Nautica having interest in nearly every topic in the universe, on top of having impeccable taste in booze, she just misses the cut. It’s at this point that Nightbeat bursts into the room to stop this farce from going any further. The fact that nobody mentioned anything prior to this is surprising, given that portmanteaus don’t really seem the type of thing Ultra Magnus would approve of.

Back six months ago, we see what Optimus Prime’s super great idea was to expedite the judicial process- Chromedome. It’s always Chromedome. He’s gonna do that thing he promised his late husband he’d stop doing. I suppose it’s a good thing- for Rewind, anyway- that Megatron is wholly against the idea of having his memories torn out of his head. Guess we’re gonna have to do the trial the normal, non brain-pokey way.

Optimus leaves the cell, because I suppose he’s remembered that there’s a conflict of interests here, but Rodimus stays behind to let Megatron know he deserves everything that’s coming his way.

Then Megatron breaks out the puzzle-box from Hellraiser.

In the present, Chromedome isn’t so much spiraling in his depression as he is circling the drain. Nightbeat doesn’t give a shit about that though- he’s more concerned with the fact that one of the numbers on the door to Chromedome’s room is missing. But I’m sure it’s fine.

It’s fiiiiiiiiiiine.

While Nightbeat’s busy being insensitive to his fellow man’s distress, Megatron’s arrived to his room to find his door’s been vandalized by a bunch of idiots who must have just discovered what a thesaurus is. Then he gets shot in the fucking hand with an arrow.

As you do.

Whirl’s gotten ahold of a bow, and he fully intends to use it for Megatron-directed violence. And also his fists. His very pointy fists. He punches Megatron through the fucking floor into the fuel furnace, and they fall what’s probably a good 200 feet to the ground below. Whirl yells about evening the score between the two of them, and then knees Megatron in the dick.

Turns out, Megatron remembers Whirl even better than originally thought, having gone so far as to order his forces to not kill Whirl, because, in a way, he was grateful for the lesson he learned back before the war in Rodion.

Oh man, I hope Rung’s somehow listening in on this. Like, eavesdropping is obviously bad medicine, but we’ve already established that he sucks as a professional, and he needs what few advantages he can get.

Whirl, enraged by the implication that he’s been fighting fixed battles for the last four million years, punches Megatron in the gut… and his arm gets swallowed up by an errant portal leftover from all of Shockwave’s tampering. Since you can’t really fight with only one arm, Megatron wanders off to do captainy things.

Walking back the timeline slightly, we revisit Megatron leaving Rung’s office, and the idea of personal revisionism, the conversation becoming parallel with the strange happenings going on within the ship, as Rewind’s final message is altered so as not to end with “I love you” but instead a blood-curdling scream. Chromedome is, understandably, upset by this turn of events.

Over with Whirl, it’s revealed that the little fight we saw was intentionally set up. For what purpose, or by whom, is left a mystery.

Please see a doctor.

One last flashback to the trial, as Prowl lists off everything that’s standing in the way of our Sympathetic Megatron Redemption Arc.

Good fuckin’ luck, James.

Back in the present, Megatron’s slapped a bandaid on the hole in his torso, as he checks to see what’s happening on the bridge. It would appear there’s a coffin floating around in space.

Pretty fucked up.

[ryuichirou]

I saw one very stupid post on my dash about how snk is OBVIOUSLY nazi propaganda and trying to convert all of us into imperialists and white supremacists. tbh it’s not the first time I’ve seen that kind of stuff and probably won't be the last, but for some reason this time it gave me a lot of anxiety (I got wordy, I'mma need to send another ask, sorry)

(part 2) It's been more than half and hour and I still feel this awful sensation in my chest. It's just overall pretty fucked how to have something you hold dear being misinterpreted in the worst way possible, and I was just wondering what are your thoughts on this situation or how you deal with people claiming all sorts of awful shit.

(part 3) I imagine that as an artist some people probably direct their issues with snk towards you, 'cause I don't even post that much fanart and I've gotten anons "trying to educate me" on why this series is so wrong, after posting drawings. Of course, you don't have to reply, maybe the topic makes you anxious too and I don't want to bother you, so sorry for the depressing topic (｡•́︿•̀｡)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Tiiish, I want to hug you, I’m really sorry that this happened to you. I hope you’re feeling a little bit better now.

Like we already mentioned a while ago, when we were talking about that darn article, after we read through it and did a little fact checking (and I mean it when I say a little, because there weren’t many facts to check), we stopped caring about it. It’s not research at all, just a manipulatively written speculation on Yam’s motives and worldview, but sadly, people easily believe these accusations because they hate SnK and want to find a valid reason to hate it and shit on its fanbase. Because “I hate it because it’s nazi propaganda” sounds much cooler than “I hate it because it’s popular”, doesn’t it?

It’s easier to ignore the article itself though, and it’s much harder not to think about tumblr posts or those Twitter threads that get very popular (although there are a lot of bots on twitter, trust me…), and it’s especially difficult to ignore it when it’s specifically directed at you. But the only thing that these people deserve is a good ol’ block and (if they’re getting too offensive and abusive) a report for harassment. The thing is, their opinion doesn’t matter: it won’t change SnK’s story, it won’t affect its success and popularity, it doesn’t affect anything other than our mood (temporarily lol). Because they aren’t critics who actually give a flying fuck about the subject matter, they’re just random assholes with a hateboner for SnK, who sit in their echochamber and discuss the same shit over and over again. And if they’re “fans” of the SnK, it’s just them “consuming it critically” 🙄 such a convenient phrase and so easy to abuse.

If we think about these accusations again… they’re so damn nonsensical, it’s almost amazing. I’m not going to reread it or to make a proper counterpoint article out of this ask, so this is just based on how we remember these accusations.

Like, what part of SnK approves and pushes the idea of imperialism in any way? When the entire idea of the story is that war is bad? When people like Onyankopon, whose homeland was invaded by Marley, exist? And it’s never portrayed as a good thing? Having only one country dominating the world’s situation is literally the main reason why everyone’s suffering??

And come to think of it, Isayama is one of the few manga artists to kind of sort of openly critique Japan: he literally drew Kiyomi losing her cool and drooling while thinking about all the profit and wealth she would get from the deal with Paradis. Why do people never talk about that? What is it, if not a critique of greedy and two-faced nature of people from Azumabito clan, who are heavily implied to represent Japan? I don’t read a lot of manga in general, but do you know how many mangakas I’ve seen who directly talked shit about Japan while being Japanese? Two. Excluding Isayama.

Isayama is clearly invested in the Western culture and he understands the World’s History. He understands that political relationships are complex and that there are no “bad” or “good” countries. I don’t want to make assumptions about how much perspective of the world’s relationships the average person from Japan has, but I still feel like Yams has a pretty good understanding of it. He did his research for the subject matter, and while it’s obviously not perfect, it’s clearly there.

These people also claim that SnK is anti-Korean and anti-Semitic, but if Hetalia had taught me anything, it is that if the story has or used to have any anti-Korean undertones, the Korean readers wouldn’t want to have anything to do with it. They would be the first people to ditch the manga, they would be the first people to critique SnK, and rightfully so. They burnt Uniqlo clothes, their overall domestic policy is pretty anti-Japanese, so there’re literally zero reasons for them not to destroy SnK if they see it as anti-Korean. But the size of the Korean SnK fandom suggests otherwise, doesn’t it.

And the “big noses = Jewish caricature” argument, seriously? How anti-Semitic can you get? Who the fuck looks at people and goes “oh, those have big noses, bet they’re caricature of Jews”?? Sorry I’m getting heated lol The argument about “Asian artists portray Westerners with prominent noses because that’s what we look like to them” has been done a lot of times, I’m not going to go over than again.

And god forbid Isayama to use Germany and Europe to draw a story where his characters are (approximately) Germans and Europeans! Let’s go fetch our pitchforks to punish Isayama for using their aesthetic to make his story look more believable and authentic, right? “Oh, those areas where they hold Eldians resemble places from real life”, like no shit???? Ofc they would??? That’s what references for making the story more grounded are used for??? If I were to write a story about a fictional place based on a real one that I don’t live in, I’d use some visual references to help me to make it more believable??? Why do I even need to explain that?

In my previous post I talked about the armbands and ghetto and stuff, but I’ll reiterate: even if there are thematic similarities, it doesn’t mean that the story mirrors our history. And it doesn’t mean that there is an analogy, since Eldian’s situation is quiiiite different than what Jewish people had to go through. It’s just thematic similarities. And it still doesn’t plant any specific idea in the reader’s head, other than “having people shoved into ghettos with 0 civil rights is a horrible thing”, and I can’t comprehend what’s anti-Semitic or imperialistic about it. Also I’m sorry, but nazis are not the only people who genocided a bunch of people, breaking news. Nor did they invent armbands. Same goes for Japan in WWII.

And now for my favourite argument: Erwin is nazi because his name is Erwin and he was born on the same day than some nazi guy died… I won’t even talk about why this idea is hilariously stupid, I just want to appreciate the level of nitpicking that’s going on here.

So… yeah. People who have nothing else to do but to complain about the show they hate don’t matter. And people who consider themselves a part of the SnK fandom and still say this bs (yep, there are people who do that) are huge hypocrites. The heck are they doing in this fandom then?? Of course, any story is up to interpretation, but this is so backwards?

Sorry for rambling so much… anyways. We’re happy enough not to encounter any hate related to this topic, but we think it’s because we ship Ereri and people already hate us for that, so the majority of shit we get is related to that, I guess we’re a lost cause for them. We’ll see if anything happens after this post though.

But once again, I’m very sorry that you had to go through this. Please remember that this isn’t personal at all, and people who harass strangers on the internet just want to flex their high moral ground while acting like complete assholes. You don’t have to explain anything to them, you don’t have to talk to them, you don’t have to listen to them or give them any attention. I hope you’ll never stumble upon anything like this; but if you ever do, please block them, don’t even bother reading their attempts at “educate” you. Isn’t worth it.

Please have a good day, Tish. And everyone who’s reading this reply.

[wisteria-lodge]

Hey, Exploded Bird/Lion Sec anon here! Thank you so, so much for sorting me. It’s helped a LOT.

I was having a shite time with understanding myself, trying to get why kid!me and current!me seem like such different people. The part about a Lion system changing to a (Burnt) Badger one? That explains So Much.

You know, I was filled with so much joy when I read this though, looking back at my life and seeing it through the lens of my Sorting, and suddenly everything’s so clear. I love the feeling of understanding after months of frustration.

And IDK why I didn’t consider Exploded Bird earlier, I went back and read the description and damn if it doesn’t fit me to a T. I think, the first time I read it I was too repulsed by the other type of Exploded Bird (conspiracy theorist) and just, having a mini crisis as I parsed through all my decisions and convictions to confirm that I wasn’t one. They make me super uncomfortable.

Lion Sec is obvious in hindsight, but they’ve always seemed too powerful and confident for me. I really do feel stifled in my current situation, unable to be truthful without the atmosphere at home becoming unbearable. Being bullied in the past hasn’t exactly helped either, I hate keeping my head down but there are times when I feel like it’s the only choice. I am trying to become bolder so that I may, one day, live unapologetically.

After I sent that Sort Me post, I had started changing my values to more Lion ones. But I really do like Badger morals, so I think I’ll instead focus on unburning that. And after that’s done, try to find a way to mend that exploded Bird Pri.

Also, sidenote, I read about Bird Lions becoming temporarily catatonic after their entire worldview being shaken, and damn if that wasn’t me after my sister told me about the Brain in a Vat theory. Bit extreme, but I spent  m o n t h s  trying to recover. Currently, I have a love/hate relationship with Philosophy.

Thanks for the lovely note, Bird Lion. It helps putting words to this stuff, and I love that I could help with that a little. I like your plan. It’s a good plan. And you’re right, Exploded Birds *are* tricky. Exploded Lions have a very distinct *look* to them, and so do Exploded Badgers etc. But Exploded Birds can make themselves nuts taking in all the information - or none of the information - and that looks very different from the conspiracy theorist type who has picked only *one* source to trust.

So good luck, good luck with everything.

[skinfeeler]

you may notice so-called progressive members of religions (including those which are minority religions in ‘the west’) spend much more time on critics of religion than conservatives in their own circles. sentiments such as “X discussion belongs within the community” might clue us in as on why, but allow me to proffer a red thread that i believe i have identified throughout all of this.

it is, obviously, true that critique of religion often constitutes or is a vehicle for assorted bigotries. a certain vigilance can be understandable and i advocate among my peers to not let us become callous of the very real dangers that members of certain ethnic and cultural groups (however one might understand these) face, even people marginalised in and by such religious communities. this is then, in fact, the crux of my project: the acknowledgment that say, ex-muslims aren’t really helped by islamophobia given the fact that it’s not like they’re going to get support from those people peddling it, which is exactly why it’s so tragic that many of them feel there’s no place for them on the left, because so many people on the left refuse to acknowledge that even though islamophobia is well, extant, it’s not like people stuck in certain spheres (among which gay and trans people, women, and all children) are impervious from being harmed just because larger society might not be accepting of those who level that harm unto them. this much then is important: to do right by everyone who must be done right by in whatever way and to leave people’s dignity intact, and to do so in such a way that cannot be co-opted by white supremacists and the like— the most important way to do this is to attack the concept of parental authority, which (culturally) christian conservatives will never accept but will resolve basically all problems that result from the shape of religion as a non-elective membership propagated through the family (as structured by clergy etc etc, whatever).

inoffensive as this clause should be to anyone who claims to be part of the left — which must fundamentally oppose the family for either marxist reasons per engels or for other reasons — even anti-theism which very clearly takes this form is mistaken, usually on purpose, by many religious apologists, to be something it’s not. one of those things that get invoked is the very real white supremacism and imperialist thought that is too endemic in our circles. i’ll admit to tendencies herein appearing from time to time — including in myself, at times, regrettably — but i also insist that a large part of this is simply the fact that while religious people enjoy the benefits of community and avenues for discussion and review, many of us do not: all we have at this stage, sadly, is the diatribes of new atheists who consider christendom an important ‘bulwark’ to protect the ‘occident’ who are useless to anything but an insipid culture war. mistakes are going to be made, and i think some small leeway should be allowed those most ambitious of us who still have a clear and provable dedication to justice and equity (and this is in fact the point of any useful notion of freedom of speech), especially since what we currently have works for nobody except those who want first and foremost to remain comfortable— which is exactly what i believe describes so many anti-anti-theists, but we do in fact need an alternative.

it’s not easy to be leftist and religious and my heart goes out to those who try, even if i don’t ultimately think that where they are heading will allow them to keep their principles coherent and intact: members of one’s congregation and one’s spiritual leaders may tacitly condone or endorse ethnic cleansing in the levant, assorted infant genital maiming rituals, reifications of gender that only those least abject to it can find peace with (consider the humble theyfab), the imperative and exaltation of procreation, to name a few possibilities, which one then is implicitly required to respect in order to remain part of such communities, and i understand the struggle of wanting to be or remain part of those and to have to tangle with that. what i don’t understand then, though, is the abhorrence of people outside such circles who perform critique of the like: i simply do not agree with the fact that certain discussions should stay within the community and they should be well left alone in literally every way with no demands made given the fact that certain members in those communities who this harm is visited upon and whose membership isn’t elective (including all children) do not have voice or agency in those discussions — they deserve support and solidarity across cultural lines, especially as it’s apostates from so many religions who helped me survive and i will owe this to them forever — let alone those in the outgroup who fall victim to the real geopolitical consequences of the substance of certain positions that proliferate in some of these communities, as is now more relevant than ever. this latter aspect is obvious to even the progressive religious apologist, however… at least those conservatives, both inside the congregation and in much more conservative movements don’t threaten what they perceive to be the faith.

an instantiation of this which i will see even most progressive religious people abhor is the notion that any religion is tied, inherently, to not just a nation, but a state. and so they can quibble with their zionist peers and spiritual leaders on this, because both of them have one thing in common: the idea that even if one’s religion/culture is not most meaningfully embodied through state, it is through family, and the criticism of the conservative that the progressive has is not that they are wrong, but merely inauthentic and clinging to something unnecessary, but they are not. i vehemently disagree: the nature of most organised religions has changed through both necessity and acknowledged moral imperative. why can a religion which doesn’t transmit through the family (one of only adult converts perhaps) be envisioned— which in turn wouldn’t depend so heavily on the reification of bodies and family immanent in the aforementioned (a conclusion worth stressing on its own)? if you ask me, it’s a matter of a lack of courage borne from a lack of understanding of history— one may want to read doubt: a history by jennifer michael hecht who is considered jewish according to halakha (for however much that fucking means) who speaks on what the german jews in the 19th century, understanding that they could either stay stuck in the present (and thus have their worldview eventually become as farcical as those who believed that recreating the temple era of judaism was either viable or desirable in any histiographical or theological sense as a result of you know, history historying) or establish those principles which they believed were actually important that could be passed on regardless of how judaism was envisioned before. their work, however hegelian in nature, produced some of the greatest minds even among their apostates, including theodor adorno. turns out that even when people become philosophers rather than rabbis (or ministers, or imams, or gurus), they have plenty to offer, there is wisdom and value in exalting sagehood above the pulpit and how the pulpit must always lay down the law for the mechanisms of familial transmission.

consider second, the ancient greeks: the ancient greeks no longer possess the structures required to exercise their worldviews and theodicies as a bloc (in diaspora or otherwise). regardless, many of their concepts and wisdoms persist in various cultures literally all across the worlds, including mine: their strands of cultural dna have germinated in a larger cosmopolitan phenotype, and i believe this is beautiful and worthwhile in its own right, and in no way whatsoever a loss. sure, their influence might not be recognisable as an enduring culture, but does that make it any less valuable? no, not in the slightest. the fact is, once you are on the other side this is the most normal thing in the world, nobody will mourn it, and everyone who wishes to return will be easily dismissed as entertaining a fantasy. the only way to forestall this is in fact a tautological clinging to the present which will necessarily through the course of history become an immanence of reaction, after all, the prime fallacy of reactionary thought is that it is in fact possible to recreate the past, which is plainly not true except perhaps for aesthetic but which will regardless necessarily be rooted in the current conditions of the world. all that forestalling this progression constitutes is the insistence on the completely artificial. much like the workings of the state are one that imposes a false reality, a phantasm, a reification onto the world, so with family, and literally the moment you stop propping it up it will be superceded. let me repeat that: supercession is inevitable, and the most sophisticated elements of any culture acknowledge this and have for literal centuries (although some cultures are ahead of others in this regard by-and-large). for every generation of a culture persisting as itself, apostates and deviants emerge and at this rate they have done more for the progress within any cultural body than will ever happen within such cultural bodies, which must begrudgingly acknowledge that they are dependent on modernity in order to make any progress at all (and as such, will wither away together with modernity), although of course they will deny this at any front— the adaptation of any covenant is desperately contingent on integration and naturalisation of the apostate and the ‘modern’, or at least her wisdom , which the embodied religious individual will then, of course, pretend to practisee more ‘maturely’ than the apostate because they insist on integrating it in a neutered fashion where it is stripped of future potential of development until the next steal comes along, which is better than fully embodied anti-atheism as the ever-sublating struggle against entropy, for some fucking reason.

this is the promise of ‘externality’ that foucault dreamt of: that there is a way of thinking ‘outside the box’ that allows us to once and for all dispel and move on from the ways of thinking that we cannot think outside of. derrida then disputed him by arguing that there is no outside context. derrida is right— regardless, i remain optimistic: perhaps this cosmopolitan neotenous emergence is a culture in itself, but it is as divergent from what came before as christianity is to judaism, and islam to both christianity and judaism. all it takes is courage, and once the leap of faith has been made, this state of affairs will be the most normal thing in the world. in light of this, the claim that anticlericalism is simply an outwash of christendom becomes obviously farcical and a clear double standard when one considers in juxtaposition their insistence that christianity is divergent from what came before, even though in both cases (christendom versus judaism, anticlericalism versus christendom) perhaps some commonality in language exists and perhaps some people exist who have not managed to estrange themselves from the trappings of christian thought— not to mention the worldwide history of anticlericalism that is yet to be integrated which exists exactly because clericalism necessarily has the same structure and function across all religions. join me in this supercessionist bliss, reject the idea that chronology of thought implies that successors are one and the same as what they draw upon or co-opt, and help usher in the only future world worth conceiving of, resting easy and comfortable in the truthful rejection of the notion that any culture needs to cling to the notion of familial transmission to have any worth at all or that its existence as such is inevitable. the complete and utter nullification of familial logic will happen regardless of whether you want it or not anyway, because it is as artificial as the logic of nation and state and likewise unsustainable and on its death march— this is the one and final eschatology of this world which is not a threat, but a promise, since it will (and can) not be the result so much of repression but of religion collapsing under its own weight, and this much is only uncomfortable to those who are disciples to the family regardless of whether they admit it to themselves or not.

[spontaneousmusicalnumber]

For some reason I decided to pick up 7 currently airing anime this season, so here’s my thoughts and ratings just as the season is nearing finale time:

Majo no Tabitabi: 4/10. This is the only one I dropped (after 8 episodes). You can get a better experience by muting Kino’s Journey and playing the audio from Little Witch Academia over it. Don’t bother.

The general concept is similar to Kino’s Journey: After a couple episodes of witch training, Elaina goes from country to isolated country experiencing the unique culture of each. Unlike Kino’s Journey, Elaina is a self-important busybody with enough magical power and social privelege that she barely ever faces an inconvenience, let alone a consequence or moral dilemma. There is no development for a character who believes she’s the most perfect person in the world, and nobody is powerful enough to threaten that worldview.

Every episode of Kino’s Journey leaves you wondering who, if anyone, was in the right in any situation. Every episode of Majo no Tabitabi says “Elaina was right, of course, because she’s right all the time”. The casual sexism, the single lesbian character portrayed as a clingy boundary-pushing annoyance, and the constant undertone of horniness don’t help either.

Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle: 7/10 Surprisingly fun!

I wasn’t planning on watching this on my own, but my friends were interested and I sat through it. Originally I thought it was repetitive and wished it were a short anime instead. Now ten episodes in, I’m enjoying it a lot more than I ever thought possible. It keeps a solid comedic strength, and adds just enough backbone to really let you care about everyone. I can really tell the same creative minds behind Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-Kun headed this project, and it’s the best sweet funny turn-your-brain-off show this season has to offer.

Yuukoku no Moriarty: 8/10 Cathartic, and a very well-done perspective flip

Usually a Sherlock show is about Sherlock, and hint at a sinister presence behind the shadows tying together threads that otherwise seem unrelated. This show doesn’t even show Sherlock until episode 6. Instead it shows how Moriarty, presented as a hero, is trying to topple the corrupt British empire by assassinating nobles one by one and letting their working-class victims get the final revenge.

It’s the reverse of a murder mystery: We’re shown an evil noble, and spend the episode setting up how to kill them and get away with it. The villains of the week are, admittedly, pretty ham-fisted. There’s a lot of yelling about how DARE these filthy commoners think their lives matter than MY NOBLE BLOOD, they are but livestock born to serve us, etc. The show doesn’t give you any reason not to want them dead, and seeing Moriarty arrange for these common folk to commit the perfect murder against their oppressors would have been enough brain candy to carry me through the season.

The introduction of Sherlock is quite interesting- because he’s not shown as the hero, he’s allowed to be a character you really don’t want to root for. He’s not evil by any means, and he has strong morals he won’t compromise, but he’s irresponsible and impulsive and has a big ego and is just kinda annoying. If he were our hero, the show would be almost as bad as BBC. But it keeps the central character intact while allowing us to root heartily for the supervillain.

Jujutsu Kaisen: 8/10 If everyone hasn’t convinced you yet I probably won’t

Judging it against other shonen series: I appreciate it setting up a power ceiling and difficult but reachable goals for the characters, I like the main trio, and the power system is somewhat like HxH’s nen: solid but has a lot of potential for fun twists and combinations. I wish it treated its female characters a little better, but nothing stands out as egregious. The animation and soundtrack are superb. Give it a go.

Magatsu Wahrheit: Zuerst: 9/10 Holy shit??? How is this based off a mobile game??? Why isn’t anyone else talking about it???

Realistic fantasy done exceedingly well. While it’s set in a world with a generic Anime Fantasy vibe (mixed with some 1930′s tech and fashion), it’s filled with people. Characters are realistic yet diverse and recognizable, government power is complex and messy and everyone’s got their own motives, fights between swords and pistols and magic staffs are balanced and feel like everyone has equal weight to throw around.

It’s dark enough to hurt, but not gratuitous enough to numb and keeps you hopeful that they could succeed. Enough people die that you really wonder if people will make it through the danger, but they’re not killed so thoughtlessly that you avoid getting attached. You hate the villains, but they’re realistic: not flat caricatures of a person. They throw you in without establishing worldbuilding, making you piece together what’s going on just as the main characters are thrown against each other.

It’s got a tight plot and characterization as well: they throw out a lot of threads, but they tie them together and keep them moving. Characters develop and change without changing the core of who they are. At this point, all it has to do is stick the landing to get a 10/10.

Haikyuu: 9/10 It’s still Haikyuu.

Still damn good. I almost cried over a receive that went really high up.

Talentless Nana: 9/10

This is a thriller that has kept me on the edge of my seat, wondering how it’s going to play out. I can’t get into it much without spoiling the base concept much, but if you like My Hero Academia, Among Us, and The Promised Neverland then DEFINITELY watch Talentless Nana.

The tension stays high, you don’t know who’s pulling all the strings, and they do an excellent job of giving you enough hints and foreshadowing to try and guess at some of the twists before they reveal them but still keep the action almost unpredictable. I’ve been seeing it week-by-week but I feel like this will be a show meant to be binged in one rollercoaster of a day. Again, I’m waiting to see if it sticks the landing but forsee a 10/10.

[arlingtonpark]

SNK 134 Review

Thank you. Thank you so much. This means so much to me.

(Ofc this chapter is called “In the Depths of Despair.”)

Sigh.

So, I guess I have to have an opinion on this chapter now.

For a while there, it looked like SNK had made the right choice.

Eren was the asshole. He was insubordinate, ungrateful, uncooperative, and above all else, a fucking sociopath. Cool, got it. One and done.

But then his friends started talking about how it was really their fault he’s doing this.

Ok, that’s fine. They’re desperate to stop him, so they’re just saying whatever they think will ingratiate themselves with Eren and help talk him down. Dynamics like that are very common in abusive relationships.

Now we arrive at this chapter, where even random people are saying Eren is a victim *as he is murdering them!*

It is patently absurd that Eren is having a warranted or natural or reasonable reaction to what he’s been through.

If Eren were a better person, he would have known that mass murder against the Eldians was wrong because mass murder is wrong. Unfortunately, Eren is a fundamentally amoral person. The only moral compass he has to guide him is a childish belief in “you hit me, so I get to hit you.”

He’s said as much on multiple occasions. He has said, “If someone tries to take my freedom away, I will take their freedom away.”

Instead of being the better man and ending the killing, his solution was to kill more people than them, faster and on a larger scale.

I think the clearest picture of Eren’s worldview was given when he spoke to Historia. He said the only way to end the cycle of violence was to destroy the whole world.

That is Eren’s deeply felt belief: there can be no peace or coexistence; the only way to win is to be the last man standing.

This mindset is so natural to him that he will even kill his friends for opposing him.

He told them that they were free to oppose him, and he was free to fight back. That’s how he justifies killing them to himself. They have the choice to oppose him, so if he fights back and kills them, it’s their fault they died, not his, because they could have made the choice to flee and live, but decided to stand and die.

In reality, the alliance is fulfilling a moral duty to protect life, while Eren is an asshole who has killed billions.

The series wasn’t kind to Eren about that. He was depicted as a cheering child as he murdered everyone. The Rumbling was not white washed either. The take away was obviously that Eren’s decision was not the product of a sound mind.

And yet.

Now I have to wonder if the series is seriously trying to say the Rumbling embodies some form of justice.

There are multiple layers to this issue, so let’s start at the surface level.

So in what is obviously a ham-fisted attempt by Isayama to lecture the audience about morality, a Random Commander Guy filibusters about the ills cast by the Marleyans on the Eldians and how this has rebounded back at them.

It is generally considered good writing for characters to get their just desserts. If someone sells drugs to kids, you expect something bad to happen to them. If someone helps a kid cross the street, you expect something good to happen to them.

What’s different between a generic case of just desserts in a story and this chapter in SNK is that the dessert is typically delivered through some nebulous, karmic force, rather than a vengeful twerp with God-like powers.

When the drug dealer’s car blows up, it’s karmic fate, not revenge.

The car doesn’t blow up because one of the kids devoted his life to exacting revenge, it’s because the car just blows up for no reason, or because something completely unrelated to the dealer causes a bomb to be planted in the car, or the dealer brought it on themselves by getting caught up with terrorists.

People may or may not deserve to suffer, but it’s fine to show people suffering if you’re just trying to make a point about how people should act.

Eren’s a different case. For several reasons.

To help untangle why, let’s think about the death penalty.

The death penalty is an example of retributive justice. Put simply, it’s the idea that retribution can be morally just.

The Rumbling is immoral precisely because it is something a supporter of retributive justice would emphatically NOT support.

Most supporters of the death penalty would justify it as an act by a legitimate societal authority. Eren is not that.

Eren is not an authority figure. He does not speak for the Eldian people and has no right to exact this genocide on their behalf. No one made him King of the Eldians. It’s not his place to decide what’s in the Eldian’s best interest.

Also, killing people because “it’s what the scumbag deserves” is usually justified because it’s a sentence for a crime handed down in a legal process.

Rights can be taken away, but not arbitrarily. Transparency is an important part of this. Acts that are a crime are public knowledge, as well as the prescribed punishments. The criminal law is also supposed to apply to everyone equally, not selectively. To say nothing of the law itself being duly enacted by a legitimate governmental authority.

The same principles apply to the process by which a right is taken away. The process must be laid out in a law that was duly enacted by a legitimate government authority, applies to everyone, and is publicly known.

Eren’s process, of *fucking* course, is nothing like this. Eren has no legitimate authority. He’s a Guy With an Opinion who bumbled into attaining absolute power, and now he’s acting on that Opinion.

He not the government punishing a convict. He’s a guy with a gun shooting people he doesn’t like. The Rumbling is not just retribution, it’s just murder.

Commander Guy says that if they knew this would happen, they would have acted differently.

That’s a good point.

Why the fuck do they deserve to die, then?

To some extent, everyone’s worse impulses are kept in check by the knowledge that there will be consequences if they act rashly.

But it’s not just that.

Laws are public knowledge for a reason: it’s fair. If you know your act is a crime and that performing said act will result in a certain punishment, then by committing the act anyway you have tacitly accepted whatever punishment will be meted out.

The moral onus is placed on you.

This is why knowledge that you are committing a crime is necessary to be convicted of a crime.

In principle, the case with the Marleyans is the same. Is it fair to punish someone for an act they did not know would carry that punishment? No.

They may know the act was immoral, but that is not the same thing as knowing it will lead directly to their death.

And needless to say, but you only deserve to be punished for an act if you deserve to be punished for that act. The Marleyans do not deserve to be punished for that act.

There are multiple ways a wrong can be righted. There are punitive ways, in which the perpetrator is harmed outright. There are also restorative ways, in which the victim is compensated for the harm done to them, usually at the expense of the perpetrator.

I have already explained why Eren lacks the authority to pass judgement on the world, and that the process by which he made his decision was completely illegitimate, but it needs to be said that this punishment is totally improper in itself.

Wiping out humanity is purely punitive. To use the obvious analogy, I don’t think any sane person would argue white people deserve to be punished for racism. Supporters of racial justice usually talk about restorative, rather than punitive, forms of justice, like reparations.

The Rumbling does not make the Eldians whole again. It does not restore their trampled dignity. It is purely an act of vengeance.

Casting it as some kind of deserving retribution is crazy.

Oh, and, you know, suffering is bad, so retributive justice is wrong even disregarding everything I just said.

You could theoretically believe life is a miracle, but that people forfeit that right if they act wrongly…it’s not something many people would support.

If Dino!Eren had been depicted as a random force of nature that visited ruination upon humanity, we could have potentially gotten a good story about how hatred leads to no good outcomes. Like how Godzilla is a metaphor for the ills of nuclear weapons.

Instead we get a nihilistic tale about two sides punching each other until one keels over dead. And somehow the one that keels over deserved it.

What makes it nihilistic is that you could easily reverse it. What if right before Eren destroys Fort Salta, aliens invade the Earth and help the Marleyans.

Now the Eldians are on the verge of annihilation and *Eldian* Commander Guy gets his turn to say “Woe is us who surrendered to hate. We deserve this.”

There is no right side or wrong side. No deserving side or innocent side. The Eldians were cheering for genocide the same as the Marleyans. The difference is the Eldians had a God on their side.

The morality of this series is just all over the place.

The Alliance and Eren are equally sinful, but now Eren is an agent of karmic destiny and his victims “deserve it.”

There isn’t much to talk about this chapter besides that.

Armin still hopes to take Eren alive, but good luck with that.

Eren can manifest other titans from his body, which is cool I guess, though it’s pretty clear this power only exists to give the Alliance things to fight.

There were a lot of allusions to parenthood this chapter. The baby and the cliff. Reiner’s mom realizing how shitty she’s been. Historia’s pregnancy. The Commander Guy saying it’s the fault of “us adults.” The numerous shots emphasizing the kids at Fort Salta.

Child abuse is a common theme of SNK. And not just parental abuse, but societal abuse, too. Children are the victims of individual foibles and broader social ills, like racism and police brutality.

The cycle of violence at the heart of the series’ conflict is bad for everyone, but the story emphasizes that it is bad for children in particular. It harms them, and leads to a world that is worse off for them.

If there’s one takeaway from SNK, it’s that we should think of the children. Adults shouldn’t just take care of their kids, they should fix broader social issues, if not for themselves then for the children’s sake.

It’s a fucking insult.

Historia’s pregnancy is all but confirmed here. There’s no way it’s fake. There may have been motive to fake being pregnant, but there is no fucking way she’d have a reason to fake *birth*.

I always leaned towards the pregnancy being real, so that didn’t get to me. What gets me is that Historia is just…there. On Paradis. On the sidelines.

Not only was Historia, who is the only likable female character in this show now, impregnated, she’s also been MIA most the last two story arcs.

I had thought Isayama was saving her for the finale. Surely, Isayama understands that if you sideline a major character for no reason, they have to come into play at some point, I thought. Surely.

Characters are tools; they exist to be used. So use them.

But no, it seems Historia is legit not going to be a thing in this final battle. My dreams of the domineering boss saving the day are dashed.

But what really messes with me is how shafted Historia has been since basically the end of the Uprising Arc.

Historia’s only contribution to the plot after Uprising, but before the pregnancy was making the disastrous decision to make the truth of the world public, which paved the way for Paradis society to become radicalized and back Eren’s coup.

She has done nothing other than that.

Obviously her pregnancy will have thematic importance, but at this point the best Historia stans can hope for is that she’s the main character in the epilogue.

I’ve always assumed the pregnancy was the product of a loving relationship. For all his incompetence with Historia, I was willing to assume Isayama would not force her to carry a forcibly impregnated child to term.

And you know that even if the child is the product of rape, Historia will still have to say she loves and accepts them as her child and will raise them lovingly, with no regard or acknowledgement of the trauma of having to raise a child born out of her being raped.

Because the theme of the story.

All life is a miracle.

All children deserve to be loved.

Even if it was rape.

Except it’s more complicated than that, and I’m terrified to think that Isayama may not understand that.

So for now, I choose to presume that Historia is pregnant because she loves someone, decided to have a family with them, and we’re being led to believe she was raped for shock value.

But arguably more important is what this means for the queer audience.

Historia’s first love interest was another woman.

She’s queer. A lesbian. A dyke. What have you.

Now you’re telling me she either loves a man, or was not only raped, but has to love and accept the child that results from that trauma?

And for what?

So we can end the manga on a speech by Historia moralizing about the value of posterity?

Historia stands at the nexus of two subjects in this manga: the value of posterity and the denigration of queer people.

It is very homophobic of this series to pair a queer character with a dude to affirm a message about the value of children and motherhood.

As if queer people can’t have children.

We seem to be headed down that path.

It didn’t have to be like this.

Queer people can have children through artificial insemination. And artificial insemination is conceivable with Paradis’ current level of technological development.

Isayama is choosing to do this because queer people are not a part of his vision of a world where people, especially children, are able to live free.

That’s very sad, because it shows how empty SNK’s morals are.

So who’s the slave here?

Who here is truly free?

The ones who are free are the ones who aren’t reading Attack on Titan anymore.

[bbq-hawks-wings]

Really long ask - Part 1: Hi, sorry for this long rant, but I just wanted to vent since I saw this latest story posted on AO3 and I am restraining myself on commenting on their story so I'm just letting my anger out here about it and other issues regarding fan-depiction of Hawks. It's vaguely related to your post on how DabiHawks or Dabi+Hawks stories make it all about Dabi and always made Hawks out to be the one who starts the problems in their relationship or is the one trying to get Dabi's

Content warning: passing mention of r*pe in a fanfiction.

LOOOONG post under the cut.

(Cont.)

Dabi's attentions when it's canon that it's the complete opposite. This latest story that came up in my feed was about Hawks "harassing" Dabi (who apparently has a backstory of r*pe) and Twice helps Dabi works out his feelings. Among the hoards of tags condemning Hawks, they decided to use "Hawks is very uncool in this fic heads up" so that's another one to add to my filters. I think I also have to block the "Dabi Needs a Hug" tags too bc he's always woobified like heck. 

I really want to read stories where Hawks interacts with Twice since they have a bond/drama with each other, but people have been adding Dabi and either making it seem like Hawks has been gaslighting Dabi in their "relationship" or with Twice. I can acknowledge stories where Hawks feels guilty for what he had to do or Twice being anger/betrayed over Hawks' actions since that is actually what happened; but I will not stand for Dabi claiming Hawks took advantage of Twice or Twice and Dabi having feelings for each other with Hawks in the way bc Dabi is a) the one who let Hawks in b) knew Twice is gullible and c) used Twice as bait. Even in the stories that are cute/causal+funny, Hawks is always the one who gets threatened with fire, harsh insults, or guilted into compliance but the seriousness of the first 2 are always brushed off and the third kinda makes me want it that Hawks doesn't have friends bc most people write him as a bad friend who only cares about his own problems (especially the ones that write Hawks like a celebrity/night club person). 

On writing Dabi, his issues always take priority over everything else, his family loves him, and the lov is always chill with him. He's usually written as the fun asshole/caretaker (bc of his big brother status or ablity to cook). Those factors aren't bad by itself, but it's extremely irritating when the writers/artists can give that level of care to Dabi, but just reduce Hawks to a meme who is a workaholic for the government/scared of punishment & not bc he really cares about the people he saves/helps. It's not like I hate the DabiHawks pairing, but the majority of the content (esp the recent ones), are frustrating to read & Hawks' character is usually written in bad out of character extremes. I am really mystified that I'm praying for canon content rather than fanmade most of the time.

Phew! After the back and forth it looks like we got to the end of that! (Or did we?! *Dun dun DUUUUN*) If not, though, feel free to keep the asks rolling. Lol Foxy and I are usually pretty happy to receive as many asks as people want to send even if it takes us a while, individually, to get to it. Now to finally address what you sent.

I find myself in a weird place when it comes to OOC fanfic because on the one hand people can write whatever they want, and I don’t really have a place to criticize them; but also when they blatantly and willingly misinterpret a character so they have grounds to bash on them it also leaves me acutely uncomfortable. I don’t think I’d call it “problematic” as much as a squick? Like, if they’re willing to blow past all the obvious proof to the contrary about their claims of a fictional character just because they hate them, then are they willing to do the same thing to a real person? Usually, those kinds of thoughts are pointlessly extreme, but we know those who unironically and/or unapologeticly call fans of the heroes “bootlickers” so... It’s like, ooc vent fics are also fine; and if you want to rewrite a character to fit the narrative scheme you’ve set up that’s cool as long as its tagged (“ooc [character]” or something) and/or just mention in the a/n that they knowingly and willingly mischaracterized them for the sake of the fic. Just. Don’t. Claim. It’s. Canon.

And speaking of canon, as much as I’m sure Horikoshi knew Hawks and Dabi were going to end up shipped I think it’s obvious that he never was going to canonically write them ending up together, yet here comes the “canon must validate my headcanon” crowd calling him a bad writer because the author had some bigger narrative goal in mind than having two pretty anime boys kissing.

And the worst part to me is, I feel there’s a distinct slice of the DabiHawks crowd missing out on some of the possibilities of this ship by intentionally mischaracterizing them. Like, the aesthetic equal/opposite draw of the ship is phenomenal as it is and I don’t even ship them, but I can see a wide range of possible fics based solely on the principle that they are canonically incompatible!

At the end of the day, Dabi is a dime-a-dozen edgelord - that pain in the butt OC that so many newbie D&D players make that they think is so deep and dark and mature, but is about as cookie-cutter as they come. It’s not that this kind of character is unsalvageable or a hopeless Gary Stu character, just that they don’t often come across as compelling in and of themselves or that they need more than just selfish hatred to carry them through a series. Two kinds of edgelords that can be done well are the “Out of the Ashes” edgelord and “I’ll Pull You Into Hell With Me” edgelord. The first kind recognizes there’s more to life than their sad backstory and getting even and thus choose to aspire to more noble causes - think Joel from The Last of Us. The second recognizes they’re actively doing wrong and come to embrace it - being more concerned with getting what they want than taking the moral high ground - think Frank Castle, aka the Punisher - and even these darker, “unsaveable” kinds of edgelord antiheroes can have redeeming qualities such as meeting and helping a young hopeful and telling them, “I know I’m on the road to hell, so if you want to save yourself you’d better not follow me.”

Dabi actually has what he needs to become the second type right now (assuming he’s Touya) and could even evolve into the first not unlike Kratos from God of War, but that potential can’t be fully recognized until you admit that he’s fundamentally self-centered and a bad person as-is. He may have the tragic backstory complete with justifiable hate at his genuinely abusive father, but rather than using that as fuel to see that never happen to anyone else like it did him - he just wants to get even. He burns people alive, knowing well he’s participating in the same destruction that his father committed to make him what he is now. He doesn’t recognize any of the merits of hero society and is only concerned with burning it to ash. He could use what happened to his family to incite compassion in his heart and take others under his wing, but instead he uses people as a mean to his own ends. He isn’t even proper grimdark - he’s just your run of the mill egotistical megalomaniac with a punk aesthetic.

And that’s still a good character in the grand scheme of things, maybe just not alone! Moreso, it’s a good villain and EVEN BETTER when you put him next to Hawks who is at his core:

Fundamentally Hopepunk!

Hopepunk is about being good and kind as an act of rebellion against a cruel and unfair world no matter how bleak it gets or how badly you’re beaten down. Despite his own cruel past, Hawks still has a heart to help others for no other reason than to help them, he constantly changes the odds to save as many people as he can when he’d be given a pass for letting the cards fall where they will, and not only is his aim to “help others” but to make sure that there’ll never be need for heroes again. He’s an active rebel against the system fighting with kindness and goodness, fervently looking and listening for the next opportunity to do good.

In agreement with you, Hawks and Twice are interesting to explore because while Twice is an optimist looking to make the world a better place, he’s still a step or two removed from Hawks’ worldview because Twice refuses to let go of the “family” he found for himself while Hawks is willing to sacrifice himself for others. That dynamic is so interesting, and it’s what made them so initially compatible and subsequently heartbreaking in canon.

And it’s such a disappointment to see this unwaveringly earnest character reduced to “shitty fratboy” so often. For a lot of people newer to his character I can understand the confusion, but there really isn’t an excuse if you’ve been reading the series, and the possibilities for fics with this canon personality are just so much more interesting to explore, especially with Dabi as his sort-of opposite.

For DabiHawks to work well, you have to recognize that something has to give in either of them. Some of the juiciest, most angsty content is when you have two characters grow close together over commonalities only to be reminded that despite everything else they share, that One Thing will always keep them from truly being able to see eye-to-eye. Either Dabi has to grow past his hatred and relearn compassion and empathy, or Hawks has to lose grip of that hopeful vision he has and fall into despair. Both options are good to explore, but both require the acknowledgement that Dabi’s view of the world is fundamentally bleak and selfish, especially compared to Hawks’. For a supposed revolutionary out to change the world for the better whose a diamond in the rough with a heart of gold, that’s not exactly on-brand; and at the end of the day the issue is that some are unwilling to admit that what they wanted Dabi to be is likely not going to happen and they love that fake version Dabi more than they love what Hawks actually stands for which is why Hawks always gets the shaft in the end.

I still personally hold a bit of a grudge against the DaiHawks ship as a whole purely because, as you said, Dabi always seems to take priority over Hawks instead of letting the two build a dynamic together. Hawks is always the one who has to give, and the torture porn some have made him go through to “make the ship work” is downright disturbing to me. Even at its height DabiHawks content completely flooded the Hawks character tags on Tumblr with some of the same problems that have persisted to this day such as emphasizing their aesthetic as opposed to their dynamic and rampant mischaracterization.

Anyway, that’s my long-winded response. What do you think, @autumn-foxfire?