#but like genuinely irredeemable not in that sexy villain way

[failbrothers]

oh so lestat is EVIL evil. got it

[overheaven]

hypmic spoilers

hahah nooo don’t humanize Rei he’s so sexy and unknowable…

no but really i do want him to always be at least a smidge “irredeemable” if you know what i mean. “redemption” is so trite and misused in fannish type stuff these days so i don’t even like using that word but it’s the best i’ve got. i really hope his motivations don’t end up wholly justifying his actions yknow? i don’t think he needs to be a villain (i don’t think there are any villains in hypmic actually, just antagonists. characters with wildly different motives and morals yknow.) but i would be very sad if all of his edges got smoothed.

while i love guys who are just Bad and Gross all the way through, it makes for an interesting character that he was “good” (or at least “honest”) at some point but then he got burned or even just backed into a corner and had to play the villain to get [his loved ones or even himself] out safely. again, Hypmic just doesn’t have many characters who are just evil for the sake of being evil, the main characters DO often have good intentions and multilayered backstories, complex conflicts that they have to deal with and navigate imperfectly. they all get messy. but i do fear Rei’s choices being undermined by a big HAHA IT WAS ALL AN ACT!! AND I’M SORRY!! moment. he’s a lot like Ardyn from FFXV for me, where yeah the guy as we know him was forged in grief and genuine good intent, but that doesn’t absolve him of the dubious things he’s done on the way here. remorse doesn’t mean shit when you’re digging your heels in and continuing to stomp down a path of spite.

i mean he even tells Saburo that one time like “even if i had a good reason for it, i still abandoned you kids.” so he’s aware of the role he’s been given, he’s not biding his time until he can shuck off this slimy facade and reveal a kind sad repentant man uwu— he IS a bit of a scumbag and he knows it. & he doesn’t expect his family to forgive him! (also i personally would love if he’s been kind of like. leaning into it too much and yknow. might as well have fun with it! if you want me to be a suspicious scheming conman, i will be! he’s committed to the bit too much etc etc. his solos are all about hustling and manipulating people and all that… it would be charming if that’s a genuine side of him just as much as his more “noble” ideals are)

ULTIMATELY i don’t want fans to end up with a really shallow take of “aw he was just a wife guy all along 🥺 he made some mistakes but he’s trying to take the world back from these Evil Women 🥺 he loves his sons 🥺 which means he’s Good, actually” UGH. like that’s my worst nightmare lol. but i guess other interpretations don’t have to be my problem even if that comes to pass because yknow he’s subject to my own He Would Not Fucking Say That sense when i come to this fandom & i can always pretend i do not see it i just. (claws at my skull) please let him be gross. just let him be sleazy and mysterious. he can have a heart of gold underneath but please understand that he’s still Like This now and he can’t go back.

THAT ALL SAID i don’t take issue with the most recent events, he’s still not showing us all of his cards and he’s still always cryptic. there’s a lot of potential for him to still be dishonest and stubborn, weaving webs and burning things down, all that. Otome is posed as someone who had good intentions but became “corrupted” so to speak. Rei even says he thinks something of this nature & that’s why he’s trying to destroy what she’s done in order to correct it all. so narratively, Otome is the Big Bad and Rei is “on our side” (i.e., on a team, part of the main cast) but we really shouldn’t forget that he’s a foil for her. whatever ideals he has are not The Solution just because he’s on this side— they’re his ideals, not the story’s ideals. his goals & methods are probably just as Wrong as hers by now. also i love them both a LOT i think they should both get worse.

i don’t have a conclusion to this post lol. just pondering the state of things and admiring the complexity of this character that i love, and how you can’t have his complexity without baggage, and hopefully things will get even MORE complicated as the story goes on… it’s great.

also i hope he pays attention to Jiro soon because i don’t want my baby suffering from too much middle child syndrome please please please let him have a one on one with Jiro too

[m-y-fandoms]

1 Thing I Love & 1 Thing I Hate About EVERY Danganronpa Character Part 1

Part 2

SPOILERS FOR ALL THREE MAIN GAMES

I’d love to hear our opinions as well in the comments or my inbox or DM’s! If you try this trend with DR characters, tag me!

Sayaka Maizono

♡ Her passion for her career and friends.

✘ The way she tries to screw over Makoto when the game had just begun. Like wait and see what happens before screwing over such a great guy? Leon didn’t deserve it either.

Leon Kuwata

♡ His voice actor (English), and how real and human his execution was in that we all would be so scared and irrational. It was just so iconic and sad as it’s our first introduction to the death in this series and we all think: “shit, this is real... they are really killing these kids.” I didn’t think it would be that brutal, just seeing his body limp at the end with the haunting music.

✘ His design is disgusting. I hate how he looks.

Chihiro Fujisaki

♡ So innocent, so kind, so intelligent

✘ Shouldn’t have been killed for such a stupid reason, also they did Mondo dirty with that motive for killing as well. Just a mess. As for the actual character, Chihiro cries right off the bat when you do your introductions and that was kind of annoying to me personally.

Mondo Oowada

♡ He has a lot of respect, understanding and emotions for someone I thought would be a hard-ass douche biker.

✘ The worst motive to kill ever in a game where you know you’re getting executed if you’re found out. Like you’d be extra careful and that’s his reason to kill? Lazy writing.

Celestia Ludenberg

♡ Bad bitch energy and her goth lolita design.

✘ Manipulation and double murder. Bad bitch energy only goes so far. Confidence is different then selfishness. Also, of all the chapter 3 triple murders... the worst motive to kill.

Kiyotaka Ishimaru

♡ Emotions: secure in his masculinity, able to cry, show emotions, and apologize when he’s wrong. He’s funny and likable.

✘ The Ishimondo white hair thing was stupid. Taka was fine on his own.

Hifumi Yamada

♡ Writing takes talent, fan fiction as much as any other style or genre. Also the talent of his voice actor (who also voices Kiibo/K1-B0).

✘ Literally everything else about him.

Sakura Oogami

♡ I love everything about her. I love her wisdom, loyalty, design, voice etc. Just step on me, mother.

✘ Why the hell would she ever agree to be a spy even if it meant the end of her dojo? I just don’t think she would do that rationally because she isn’t selfish. The others would suffer for her spying. She remedies this with redemption in her letter in chapter 4 but still she should’ve said no off the bat. Everyone had something to lose. The dojo wasn’t worth spying for monokuma. Also I just don’t think she would commit suicide. She can’t help the remaining students survive and redeem herself truly if she’s dead.

Kyoko Kirigiri

♡ Bad bitch energy, calm and collected when I could never be.

✘ Especially in future arc of the anime, damn can you show some emotion please? Through your words and expressions not just your actions. Sure she was willing to “die” for Makoto but like I just want more emotion from her sometimes, even in THH.

Makoto Naegi

♡ So pure. I Love Bryce Papenbrook. Makoto reminds me of Sora and I love his design.

✘ In THH I didn’t mind his innocence but in the Danganronpa 3 future arc anime, when people started straight up abusing him and accusing him, he needed to grow a little backbone.

Byakuya Togami

♡ Love my dad, king shit, also love how over the progression of the games and animes he becomes a little more kind to his friends.

✘ Why the fuck did he mess with Chihiro’s body? Just so cruel and disrespectful.

Yasuhiro Hagakure

♡ Funny magic man. Sexy voice.

✘ Please. Please Hiro use your brain just once. Why do we have to prove Kyoko isn’t a ghost?!

Toko Fukawa

♡ Character development in UDG and I love Genocider.

✘ Putting down herself and others constantly gets old in THH.

Aoi Asahina

♡ Love her voice actress and her personality

✘ We really just gonna get everyone killed in chapter 4 huh? Surely you know they don’t all deserve that.

Junko Enoshima

♡ A very memorable villain with great hair and design.

✘ I just can’t stand her. I hate her so much.

Mukuro Ikusaba

♡ Her mercenary background is super cool as a concept.

✘ Too bad it wasn’t explored nearly enough.

Hajime Hinata

♡ Seeing the protagonist be a little less naive, innocent and positive than Makoto was a refreshing change, although I loved Makoto. I liked Hajime’s cynicism and expressions that sometimes just screamed “this shit again, huh?”

✘ I enjoy the way Izuru looks but I hate him as a character. He is sexy to look at but Hajime is just a better character overall

Teruteru Hanamura

♡ His love for his family and mother especially is so cute and heart breaking if you know the full story.

✘ He needs to know when to dial it back and quit with the perversions. And no it’s not just how he looks, Miu needs to chill at times, too.

Twogami

♡ I feel like he genuinely cares about his friends, just hides it well

✘ His death felt like a cop out and poorly written. It just didn’t sit right with me. Also his design is disgusting to me, his outfit and such.

Mahiru Koizumi

♡ Loyal to her close friends.

✘ I just have no interest in her as a character and I find her boring.

Peko Pekoyama

♡ Loyalty. Loyalty is something I value very highly in every form of relationship. Peko is also very hot.

✘ Come on girl... I know how you were raised but you should’ve known Fuyuhiko didn’t think of you as just a tool and you two should’ve expressed your true feelings long ago. Like even in secret. How do you live like this? Also I feel like killing Mahiru could’ve been avoided with a calm talk.

Ibuki Mioda

♡ Cute design, positive vibes.

✘ Cringe sometimes in the way she talks.

Hiyoko Saionji

♡ Beautiful character design and some very good insults and snarky remarks at times.

✘ Just irredeemably mean and annoying. Even when you do her free time events she is just so annoying.

Mikan Tsumiki

♡ I like her design as well as her hair, expressions, sprites and clothing.

✘ I hate her. I just hate her whether she’s in her true psycho form or timid stuttering form. She’s just annoying in my opinion.

Nekomaru Nidai

♡ So supportive, can hold my drink at a party. Respects everyone and wants the best for them.

✘ Bro Mechamaru was a stupid plot point. I just couldn’t stand looking at him and couldn’t take it seriously. Still sad when he died though.

Chiaki Nanami

♡ From chapter 5 of sdr2 on she is impossible not to love if you didn’t already. Just the selflessness, the sadness of the reveal and execution, how she returns to help Hajime at the end???? I love her. I love her hair design, color palette, her personality, everything.

✘ I’m bitter and miserable about her being the only class member to actually die (the despair arc anime) also her falling asleep at random times is kind of odd and she doesn’t seem to be like that later on in the game??? Like it seemed like a cheap joke but not actually who she is? Hard for me to explain.

Gundham Tanaka

♡ King shit, couldn’t praise him enough. He’s sexy, loves animals, and is funny as hell sometimes. His voice actor is a saint and a cool dude and I named my guinea pigs after the Dark Devas (yes I know they are hamsters in the games.)

✘ Come on dude. I get that being from Hell and magic and having evil powers is your shtick, but we all know that you and Nekomaru sacrificed yourselves so the others wouldn’t starve. We know you care about your classmates. There comes a time when it’s time to let personas and facades fade and be true to your heart. I just feel like him denying he cared at the end hurt. We all know he cared. I didn’t like how he was haughty until the end. He deserved better. I love him.

Nagito Komaeda

♡ I love him so much. So cunning and intelligent, always a step ahead. And he’s big sexy.

✘ Him killing himself in chapter 5 hurt me so bad I was like in denial for days. Also hate how Bryce Papenbrook gives him a raspy stoner psycho voice in the game then a light airy higher-pitched voice in the despair arc anime. It just bothers me. I love his voice still but the inconsistency just hurts my OCD

Sonia Nevermind

♡ I love that she’s so interested in her passions and love her feelings for Gundham

✘ Her outfit and bow are atrocious. Also why didn’t she start liking and talking to Gundham sooner on? Their romance bloomed late and it would’ve made for a better chapter 4 ending if they were a bit closer.

Kazuichi Souda

♡ Cool design and outfit, love his voice (also voices Kaito in V3) and his backstory is relatable at times. He’s also very human in that he’s scared a lot of the time or insecure or blames others in panicked situations. It’s not always a good thing but it’s human and realistic.

✘ Gosh he can be so annoying. Sometimes flirting or whining too much is well... too much.

Akane Owari

♡ Strong-willed and definitely someone I would be friends with

✘ What the hell is her outfit? Gymnasts and athletes don’t wear that shit. Stop objectifying her when it doesn’t even make the product or plot better. Like there’s absolutely no point to making her dress that way. I was a gymnast for 15 years. Even those who do parkour (which Akane seems to do more often than actual gymnastics in the anime and game) don’t wear what she wears. Also she’s underrated.

Fuyuhiko Kuzuryuu

♡ I love him. He’s the DR character I’m most like out of all the games and anime. Tenko is a close second. I think he’s adorable, love his character arc, development, redemption, and love his voice.

✘ In the anime/despair arc, Fuyuhiko is not done justice. He doesn’t get enough lines, has a different voice actor, just doesn’t give off the same vibes.

Izuru Kamakura

♡ Sexy man long hair good.

✘ Boring character. I wish he were just Hajime.

Kaede Akamatsu

♡ Loyalty and leadership are such attractive qualities in her. Also she faced her death with such class and dignity and I respect her because I could never.

✘ Some of the voice lines Erika does for her are just weird and cringe. Just random moans or grunts... I don’t know it’s like when Ann Takamaki from Persona 5 (also voiced by Erika) makes suggestive noises as well. Just grinds my gears. Also hate her outfit down to the hair pins.

Shuichi Saihara

♡ I love his nasally voice. I love his design and he’s so adorable. I love how emotional and compassionate he can be. He ties with Makoto for favorite protag of mine.

✘ That sprite where he sniffs his hand. And his ugly ass hat.

Rantarou Amami

♡ Sexy man, sexy voice, sexy piercings

✘ Ugly outfit, and wasted potential

Ryoma Hoshi

♡ I respect him and feel bad for his outlook on life and for how poorly he views himself. I love his little hat as well and he’s the first “different styled” character (Hifumi, Bandai, Teruteru) that I liked the design of.

✘ I hate when he says “got a long ways to go,” it’s overused and annoying, and wish he gave himself more credit. Also hate that when you first meet him he warns you that he’s killed people and is dangerous to be around. Come on buddy, you know you wouldn’t hurt your friends. Stop pushing them away.

Kirumi Tojo

♡ Competence, well rounded, skillful

✘ Boring as hell. I wouldn’t waste one free time event on her.

Angie Yonaga

♡ Dark skin, super cute, love her talent as an artist myself.

✘ Gives religious people a bad name and is super manipulative which I hate.

Tenko Chabashira

♡ I relate to her and feel bad when she’s misunderstood. She’s a good person deep down. Also love her sprites.

✘ There’s more cunning, funny and clever ways to write her digs at men.

Korekiyo Shunguuji

♡ I’m in love with this man. Long hair, voice, mystery, mask, intelligence, passion, talent.

✘ He definitely was a victim of abuse and a lot of people refuse to see that and just hate him. Team Danganronpa should’ve given him a redemption arc where he realized his sister abused him and changed.

Gonta Gokuhara

♡ I love his design except for his suit. Also he’s so cute and naive. I cried for his trail.

✘ No need talk like caveman. Better way to do this.

Kokichi Ouma

♡ Like Nagito, I value his intelligence and crazy cunning.

✘ Shouldn't have died. Also shouldn’t have manipulated Gonta. That was just cruel.

Miu Iruma

♡ She has her hilarious moments and her death surprised me and was sad.

✘ Sometimes she lacks basic empathy, i.e. calling Tenko “Tencrotch” when she just fucking died.

Maki Harukawa

♡ Amazing character development. Didn’t see her surviving until the end at the start. Also her love and passion for Kaito.

✘ “Do you wanna die?” gets old.

Kaito Momota

♡ Just the overall best bro you could ever have.

✘ Has some toxic masculinity issues and anger issues.

K1-B0

♡ Pretty much everything about him. His design, his attitude and personality, especially how amazing and cool he is chapter 5 onward, his execution made me so sad. He’s so innocent and funny without trying.

✘ When you do his free time events he’s very arrogant and just talks about himself a lot... it seems odd and not similar to the Kiibo we see throughout the game.

Himiko Yumeno

♡ Super cute design, love her voice and “Nyeh...” and her sprites. Her character development is great as well.

✘ Why did they take so long to make her important and likable?

Tsumugi Shirogane

♡ An excellent and well hidden reveal

✘ I hate her. So annoying, from the voice to the references and her personality.

[constellaj]

Have any of the Phandom ever pointed out how it doesn't look good that a good portion of the human bullies are people of color? Like, I want to think it's unintentional on the writers part, but aside from Tucker and Valerie, who started out as a mean girl, every other not white character is a jerk

ok a) yes and this is a hartman hate club but. b)

-the main bully, like THE singular bully, is dash, who is just a rich white blonde man

-kwan is actively shown to be the ‘nicer’ of the bullies, hes forgiving and kind and gentle a lot (’hey im sure it was an accident’ and ‘the fluffy clouds all look like footballs’)

-star is also one of the popular bullies and shes white

-paulinas portrayal is messed up in every way (shes like an irredeemable shallow bitch, shes the ‘sexy latina’ stereotype, etc...) but at least she is a love interest sometimes instead of a straight up villain (for me personally i think her self-centered ‘bitchy’ attitude is actually perfect and i love her for it although i do understand that the writers were probably not celebrating it)

-the only other casper high characters we see are danny, jazz, sam, val, and tuck. danny and jazz are siblings so if one was white the other ‘had’ to be white (eschewing adoption and mixed race kids). sam is jewish (although a lot of ink could be spilled on the shitty implications of writing a jewish character who is secretly rich). val is written a LOT like an ‘angry black woman’ stereotype before she becomes the huntress, but she does genuinely get am arc and becomes a close friend of danny (for a time anyway). and of course tucker is black. 

yes it seems very disproportionate and i dont want to defend it but i think its worth pointing out that we may be conflating the number of characters in Danny’s friend group with the number of characters in the popular kids. we SEE more popular kids by and large because danny only has sam and tucker; dash, star, kwan, paulina, dale(?), other miscellaneous background bullies, valerie, etc etc (its also worth noting that a lot of unnamed bullies are white). when you take the main trio and the main 4 bullies (and we count sam be jewish as nonwhite), dannys friend group is actually only 30% white while the bullies (dash, star, paulina, kwan) are 50% white; and even in that group, kwan is (as previously mentioned) played as more of a big softie half the time

the QUANTITY of characters of color in the popular kids is higher, yeah, but thats because theres a larger group. a group of 200 people will have more poc than a group of 5 people just because thats how numbers work

of course this doesnt excuse the writers for playing into a lot of shitty stereotypes to pull this off (sexy latina, angry black woman, secretly rich sjw jew) (weird how that only happens with women :thinking emoji:) but i dont necessarily think that the villains are disproportionately poc. and thats only considering students at casper high; when you factor in ghosts the ratio tips hard into all-white 

(vlad, betrand, and spectra have human forms that are definitively white; freakshow is white; sidney poindexter (and HIS bullies) are white (/italian, however you count that); technus’s facial structure is very white; johnny 13 (and potentially kitty) are also p clearly meant to be white; the only times you can say a ghost ISNT white is when it deliberately relates to the backstory ie with desiree (which again, is another stereotype but right now we’re only looking at numbers) or hotep-ra. the ghosts are also always bigger antagonists than the humans bc thats the main point of the draw)

like yeah a good portion of the human bullies ARE poc but thats just because we know more bullies than we know friends of danny (loser nerd has no friends lol). im not trying to defend it and say it isnt problematic at ALL per se but i do think its worth noting that in terms of numbers its not really. THE worst it could be. when i started watching dp for the first time i was actually impressed by how many poc attended casper high; i couldnt believe that the main popular girl love interest wasnt white. theres a lot of representation in the background cast too. no it sure isnt perfect and we can definitely do better now (and we probably could have done better than) but i definitely dont think it was malicious.

again also worth restating: the only main recurring irredeemable asshole at the popular table IS dash. paulina’s just a ditz and dannys allowed to crush on her; kwan is baby (literally); valerie has an entire arc. dash, the white boy, is the singular student whos defining trait is being an asshole; even when you THINK hes having development (pirate radio, micro management) he completely undoes it by the end of the episode. i think making the whitest popular kid also the biggest most irredeemable bully was a sick call (also mr lancer is a strong antagonist oftentimes in casper high and he is also white; principal ishiyama isnt white but shes never an antagonist while lancer is)

all in all i like that dp just has a lot of characters of color and its never really addressed like tucker just Is Black and sam just Is Jewish its never like a thing(TM). again i keep saying it but this doesnt excuse it, i just dont think its like, horrible or anything. u can be critical of media and recognize its flaws while also recognizing its successes and not assuming its automatically doing the worst thing it could

[i-just-want-to-destroy]

what do you think of bakugou and endeavor redemption arcs?

SEE THE THING IS,

I feel like bnha is always on the precipice of like. Touching on some REAL stuff but it always backs out at the last moment.

First of all im a big hater of both characters so expect a biased opinion here (lol). But i do think they are “good characters” as in they are interesting and pertinent to the plot, complex etc. bleh. bleh bleh. but the way their arcs are written.... lots of things rly dont sit right with me 

**Fair warning i dont have the english skills to phrase this whole thing better.

1. Bkg first. I remember when bkg took the hit for deku i made fun of the whole thing bc OFCC thats how we r going to “redemp” him. Which in one hand ok, it does stay true to bkgs character bc he literally cannot communicate his feelings to save his life, hes more of an action guy. But also i really do think the buildup for that moment can be pushed more. And im not even gonna blame bkgs character entirely here bc he IS an established stubborn ass with the communication skills of a tadpole etc etc. what im gonna blame is the way horikoshi never lets deku even TOUCH on the bullying he’s endured before UA. Its literally never been discussed. Like the only time it IS brought up is the flashback we get right before bkg sacrificed himself. But deku, instead, never got the chance to process any of it. And i think thats my main problem with the whole bkg thing (and ofc there is a vindictive part where i feel like bkg hasnt got enough “repercussions” for it, which may be arguable, but thats a whole different ballpark).

i especially think bkg should apologize outright/address what he’s done to deku, but if horikoshi wants to drag that speech out (and thats if the speech will ever happen in the first place) i can accept that. BUT. to me. It has to be equal... as in deku should be allowed to address that too.

I get that deku is a virtuous main character who will supposedly forgive kacchan no matter what or whatever. And fuck it you know what, thats okay. But im begging let deku at least process it in some way. Bc the thing about deku’s character is whenever he gets angry, its always on behalf of someone else’s and not himself.

Which, again, is a virtue. But i also think the author tapping out on the whole bullying issue is kinda a coward move. Even when deku dukes it out with bkg its always about “im gonna get stronger and be number one kacchan!!111” and not “man you irreparably damaged my entire childhood and told me to [redacted] myself.”

literally the whole bullying nuance is casted out and replaced immediately with some boys will be boys rivalry. Which, really, just looks like the author taking the easy way out to me.

I can see how much both characters have grown, tho, and its clear that they care about each other. but the development is really :/ it leaves much to be desired wtf. 

I’m not satisfied w bkg’s redemption arc thingy but i dont expect anything better either. I think if i were to reread bnha from the beginning i can have a clearer perspective on the whole thing, but i dont really feel the incentive for that bc it simply doesnt compel me enough to do so LOL.

If its worth anything, i dont really hate bkg anymore. only sometimes lmfao

2. End*avor. Ugh.

Ok. I love family drama its like crack to me. the whole dabi thing had me yelling forreal. And todoroki fam has like some of my most favorite characters in the whole series.

I dont even wanna discuss end*avors character... like honestly, the ones that shine the most in end*avor redemption arc are the other family members and not end*avor himself. Which on one hand i appreciate but also i might be biased? But im really <3 over how we get todoroki rei’s character development from this arc. Not only is rei’s arc cathartic as hell but its also very, very encouraging to see a character stands over her ab*ser like that after suffering for so long. I cant express how much i love that. And fuyumi and natsuo? Insanity. I esp love how fuyumi’s efforts get the appreciation they deserve.

And i liked the surprise where dabi rained on end*avor’s parade right after end*avor thought he could actually redeem himself. Ok im not gonna sugarcoat it i just liked to watch dabi fucked him over, it was a standing applause eureka moment for me.

Honestly i think the whole concept is really delicious, like the son of the number 1 hero is a villain thing, heroes arent saints, etc etc etc. like that is so sexi so dramatic so soap opera literal superhero telenovela and i loved it a lot. Like i really enjoyed reading the whole thing. so like. i am entertained.

Do i feel like end*avor has redeemed himself? Mm NO <3. I appreciate the details that he himself thinks that he is unforgivable (blehh) and he DID suffer which was nice to watch, personally. but its not enough and it will never be <3 

im not sure if i think this way bc i just think what he did is irredeemable or bc the storytelling sucked OR BOTH <3. And i still do feel bnha did that thing where it backed out at the last moment with end*avor’s arc.... like it was touching it but it still didnt want to get its hands dirty, you know? Like what stance is it taking, really? It just never goes all out. 

i think some details about this arc also irk me...... like why does the rest family got to shoulder the burden of his fuck ups? <3 die <3 like this part annoys me so much. and seeing how he got to be comforted after everything he’s done.................................................... i cant even say how much that just ... pisses tf out of me <3 haha

like thats the thing. i feel like both characters (bkg n end*avor) are still coddled despite everything.

im fully aware im biased tho. and no i will not change

leaving that clownery aside, i didnt expect bnha to take this direction, so like. ..Applause i suppose :/. The recent arcs have been a pleasant surprise in some part and i will still be following its developments. i do genuinely think both characters are interesting btw i just kinda hate them lmfaooo. 

honestly, what i do. is just to keep low standards 🙌

TLDR I dont rly feel like either characters have redeemed themselves and i feel some disappointments over their respective arcs but i like the development n direction that the story is taking overall.

[clansayeed]

Hey Jack! I wanted to know what your thoughts are on Rheya. Was she really a villain to you? Were her motives justifiable? Was she a good villain? Did you think she deserved to have a redemption arc in chapter 16? What could have been written to make her have a better character story? Any thoughts at all about Rheya!

FOREWARNING: Anon... I accidentally wrote you a 2500 word essay. I shit you not this thing is 2,528 words long. So... I don’t know whether to say you’re welcome or I’m sorry. Just letting you know in advance.

ADD-ON POST-POSTING: I’m fully aware this is an app game. A three book series written with sexying vampires in mind. Where the medium is limited both size and content-wise, where you can’t go into much detail because they can only have so many panels in a chapter, etc. Still thinking what I think though. And if you get paid to create content professionally the least you can do for your own paycheck is go back and double-check your work.

Actually this ask came at a good time since I have to work on some character motivations for her for my series... and I always break down the in-canon versions before working on my own. So anon, let’s talk... are you a mind reader?

Kidding! mostly

So. Rheya.

I actually just finished my first replay of book 2 and at the moment I’ve only ever played book 3 the once. I played it as it was releasing so there were some memory gaps in some places and needed-refreshers in others. But on a whole I have similar thoughts about Rheya as I do Xenocrates, and you can find those thoughts here.

Overall she was a solid setup, good design and potential, and PB pretty much wasted her execution.

I wanna start with a genuine question to the fandom since I’ve never actually been able to ask this... but y’all like... totally saw the Bloodkeeper being related to her coming, right? Like I was so convinced of it that when it was revealed in some big dramatic point at the end I was like “yeah... they told us this...?” and it turns out they fuckin didn’t??? Like I could not understand the people who were like super into her sprite like yes she looks good but here I was thinking she was our ancestor from the get-go so I was... confused to say the least.

Not gonna lie when they started pushing in snippets of Rheya’s past trauma in book 2 (things like her yelling “you know what they did to me/took from me” which is paraphrased but you know what I mean) I really hoped they weren’t gonna do what they did. So of course they did it.

But I wish they’d like... just given her the kid. Just give her Iola and leave the weird suddenly random husband out of it. At this point we know Gaius has an unhealthy idolatry for her, we know Xenocrates adored her in his own way in his youth... but we know fuckall about Demetrius up to and including his existence until literally book 3. Sloppy, IMO. They took something not being mentioned and used it to put in a plot device when the omission should have been strategical.

TBH I thought the whole “you know what they did to me” was gonna get hella dark RE: Rheya and King Kaelisus’ obsession with her. That’s as far as I’ll go there.

But you have a Priestess, a known Priestess, who was definitely faithful enough not to stray even when she thought she was walking to her own death. It’s pretty easy to assume (as I did ngl) that she would be completely devoted to Phampira, including romantically/sexually. It would have been a good setup to explain why she never gave Gaius the goods if anything.

And there’s nothing wrong with having said Priestess have her own family while still being devoted. I just wish PB would have used some fucking forethought and hinted at that earlier on than they did. Because they didn’t hint. They dropped this random fisherman-something husband on us and told us she cared enough about his opinion to make him part of her advisory board but not... to like... mention him in any of her conversations in any of the flashbacks... including those in which he would have been alive.

On that note the whole timeline there is really messy, they obviously threw him and Iola in later on after some things were established/couldn’t be taken back. I’ve studied this shit extensively and it’s really muddled exactly how long Rheya ruled, when shit went down with her family, how much time had passed when Xenocrates staked her, etc.

I would have loved for Iola’s father not to have been there. Give me a strong woman, a strong single mother, who would burn the world for the loss of her daughter. Doesn’t matter who did the deed, Iola was hers and the Sons/Order took that from her and the world would have to pay the price.

If I had been given that I would end all of my complaints right here. I would, genuinely. Because then her descent into madness, her paranoia, her megalomania would all have been explained. And they still technically are but -- maybe it’s just me -- there’s something about her having to factor in Demetrius that just... takes me out of it. IDK.

I didn’t mind the guy... though him being a talking tree of doom was a little much for me... though by that point I had accepted the plot was off the goddamn rails and just kept nodding and going with it. But his presence made the story okay when his absence could have made the story impactful and powerful and emotional. That’s just my thoughts. Which you asked for. You did this.

No takesies-backsies.

Was she a villain? Hells to the yes.

It’s a classic case of obtaining ultimate power and abusing it; of crossing the line between justice and vengeance. Not that she wasn’t justified in her freak-out over the death of her family. But everything after up to and including her fatal feeding schedule was totally unnecessary. For a villain, yes necessary. 

For a vampire goddess who could have easily used Gaius’ influence over the vampires of the modern world to form a cult following around herself with an open dialogue about her big ass appetite and probably would have ended up with swaths of willing adorers ready to lend their blood to her cause thus eliminating the need for secrecy and subsequent feeling of betrayal...

You tell me.

I feel like she was definitely more than a little hyped up though. Not even going into my whole-ass issue with the entire Unchained plot and thus the first like 4-5 chapters of book 3, she was hyped up in myth and kind of a let down in person. She could FLY. Walk in the SUN. Heal the DYING. She’s vampire JESUS.

*ADDED IN LATER: She took out THE ENTIRE ORDER OF THE DAWN, WHO HAVE RAVAGED THE VAMPIRE POPULATION FOR LITERALLY 3000 YEARS since they were around in her time after all IN LIKE A THREE-MOVE COMBO BREAK. ALL THIS SHIT THEY HYPED WITH THE ORDER and their entire ERADICATION isn’t even an ON-SCREEN THING. Unless you pay.

Dude if they had kept Xenocrates and the Order and used the two of them against each other; the Order’s long-standing influence on the modern world versus the new world Rheya wanted to create with the human populations not knowing the history behind their hatred, where like the first half of the book is Rheya and MC and gang taking out the Order and Xenocrates only to find out in the middle point that she’s been doing it for selfish reasons and they were on the wrong team the whole time and THEN Rheya becomes the big bad... I would have enjoyed the shit out of that.

Anyway. “She’s vampire JESUS...” and her big evil plan is to... suck face on national television? IDK. It didn’t play the mood right for me. I can see from a writer’s perspective how they kind of played out all of their options and went with a quick and easy solution... but it didn’t work for me. That’s a no from me dawg.

Do I think she deserved a redemption arc? I don’t think anybody deserved a god damn redemption arc, unless they are done with extreme care and attention to detail before/during/after said arc they go horribly, and overall tend to be the plot device pick of lazy writers.

And I take nothing back. No like I think I might have gone into how much I fucking hated Gaius’ “reDEmPtiON aRc” before or at least I have somewhere and to someone. Probably Sofia... no most definitely Sofia. But anyway. They spend TWO GOD DAMN BOOKS hyping Gaius as this ultimately irredeemable bad guy. 

OMG I was literally playing the book 2 finale and got a quote hold on... HERE. Adrian literally says about Gaius in 2.16 “It’s like there’s no humanity left.” And that’s just one actual example of the tons of times they make him out to be devoted to Rheya of his own volition, the ultimate example of the line between believing in something and being blinded to everything by it, etc. Like a huge chunk of Kamilah’s and Adrian’s arcs RE: Gaius are about how he was definitely a monster, he turns the people around him into monsters, and while they have worked their asses off to be good and right their wrongs he has not, will not, and would not ever do such a thing.

Then suddenly he’s brainwashed, tried to turn Rheya down and was made into a loony toon because of it, and everything he made MC’s loved ones do that they blamed themselves for but needed to blame him for is suddenly Rheya’s fault and now we should blame her for.

Mmmmmkay sweetie. I’m good, thanks.

But really -- that was the last straw for me when it came to both Gaius and Rheya. There’s a difference between giving the villain something they see as a just cause (ex. Rheya avenging her family) and giving the villain a cop-out that absolves them of guilt (ex. Gaius and... everything about him). Like yes I know MC didn’t have to forgive him, I know Kamilah didn’t really forgive him, but it’s pretty fuckin obvious from how it was put out into the world story that the writers were trying to lean you towards blaming Rheya and letting Gaius off the hook.

I mean... making him save Lula for real when Rheya saved her for fake earlier on in the book, using Lula as a stand-in metaphor for her own child daughter that she finds out she was the cause of her death for, etc? That symbolism is so transparent I could put it in the asset database.

And I’ll only briefly touch on this since I could write a whole other essay on the matter RE: PB and their fucking constant repetition of this, but “let’s give both bad guys similar moral quandaries but suddenly reveal it was a consent issue and the woman is wholly to blame and now gets the man’s crimes piled on with her own” is super common in fiction and hella. fucking. sexist.

But that isn’t to say all of this is necessarily bad.

When done right, everything I’ve complained about above can be a part of a really good story. What “done right” means is different for everyone, everyone has a different example and different thoughts on it. These are mine. I think the better term would be done well. It was not done WELL.

But given things like PB’s weird obsession with redeeming the attractive (apparently) bad guy, PB’s history with narrowing a woman down to one trait or part of her (ex. Rheya’s power corruption centered around her role as a wife and mother and not... a super all powerful vampire goddess...), their obvious lack of attention to detail and overall lack of vision when it comes to the big picture* and more, I personally don’t think they knew what the fuck they wanted by book 3 and were already well into transitioning into whatever adultery-obsessed lingerie shenanery they’re fixated on now; so much so that it’s almost a disservice to the writing done in earlier book 1 and a decent chunk of book 2 when calling it a whole series.

*I keep bringing this up only because it means I can back up stuff like this with real examples of theirs: these guys did not write the plot of this series as a cohesive story. I get that, as a writer writing a big series myself I get the fuck out of that. But you have to solidify some things early on in the development process in order to avoid writing yourself into a hole or, like with this, having to result in trope-y plot devices that work in theory but on paper don’t give the story the full-circle fulfillment it deserves. 

Their timelines are out of whack, they contradict themselves in quite a few places, constantly wishy-washy their own lore, and definitely didn’t go back and double check if they’d said something already... and that’s not including where they focused on the details of one unimportant thing and left another more important thing to just be “and this is the way it is moving on.”

I literally have no way/idea how to summarize any of this bullshittery going on in this ask. Did I like Rheya? The character personality, design, and overall idea as this big ass badass power/hungry goddess demanding fealty was pretty cool. Did I like Rheya when they narrowed her story down to her grief over her family (which, again, is valid, but just seemed really disjointed and rushed when compared to everything else they had given about her/shown of her by the beginning of book 3)? Not... as much.

I think they wanted her to seem like she could be redeemed. I mean FFS in the “big battle” she literally just stands there and lets you do the thing. 3000 years imprisoned and however many centuries before that spent taking the power that she was denied all because some bad dudes in masks killed the mortal husband and daughter you would have eventually lost to old age anyway...? And she just stands there??? 

Even knowing she was really behind Iola’s death they could have stuck with the “madness consumed” plotline and had her be like well... what’s done is done back to taking over now thank you.

But sometimes a bad guy just has to be a bad guy. Rourke from ES, mister capitalism -- can’t remember them trying to redeem him. If they had I don’t think I would have liked it so much. Who else... UGH. Thomas in NB. Crazy zombie man wants all monsters dead because one killed his family (can we stop using dead families for grief porn please and thanks...) another example of a useless villain. Hence why I removed him from my NB rewrite don’t even get me going...

What’s his face in TCATF! Luther! You join up with him and he still tries to kill you in the end! Now that was fucking classic. Hex, who suddenly is forgiven for the literal enslavement of a race of people and the thoughtless murder of a civilization that didn’t agree with her.. and all because she was ‘like a mother’ to the kid genius? Not so much.

I could go on and on and go search out tons of examples but in the end the one thing you can say PB does well is that they stay consistent in their ideas of redemption, of who deserves it and who isn’t, and just how far they’re willing to stretch the fucking story to forgive a character if 1. the sprite is hot or 2. the sprite had a little sprite family somewhere in there.

legit just talk to me about bb/nb

[atlasira]

okay so i was thinking a tiny bit more on the lucifer scene and i think it all boils down to romance club sometimes blurring the line bt what counts as “sexy” and what counts as harassment

first instance -> mimi:

the first time i noticed it was somewhere near the beginning of season 1. it was the morning after mc’s first night at the academy and mimi wakes her up by flirting. what rubbed me the wrong way about the scene is that mimi wasn’t just flirting but was also touching.

now running her fingers down a sleeping mc’s face isn’t that bad. but it then says mimi begins to go under her clothes and touch her in private, intimate places. all while mc is still asleep and only just waking up. when she jumps and asks mimi wth she’s doing, the response she gets is “don’t be a prude” and the scene continues with mimi getting progressively more touchy. she only stops to wait for consent when her hands are already on mc’s underwear.

waking someone up with intimate touches isn’t that bad if you already know the person and have talked it out with them beforehand. it’s about the boundaries of the relationship you have. this is only the second time mc and mimi have met, the first being while mimi was taking a nap. this is not at all a good way to introduce the wlw character.

and i think the rc writers had a feeling about this bc if you reject mimi’s advances, she tries to “lighten the mood” by saying she wasn’t trying to rape you. the fact she even needed to clarify this already goes to show how controversial the scene is.

second instance -> lucy:

and then the situation with the lucifer scene. it happens after you and him get caught standing too close together in a hallway and he visits your room the morning after to apologize. they talk, mc being mad and reasonably upset throughout the exchange, before lucifer gets turned on by her nightgown and moves in. i linked screenshots of his advancement.

this is another instance of rc toeing the line of “sexy” and harassment, except i honestly think the lucifer scene is much worse. during mimi’s case, mc was moreso confused and just unprepared. it was still uncomfortable, but not too distressing. while the scene with lucifer on the other hand is actually extremely concerning. mc is basically kicking and screaming. she is slapping, punching, and trying to shove him away. he has to grab her face in order to force a kiss bc mc is trying to move away so bad. it’s disturbing.

conclusion:

now i understand that both mimi and lucifer are demons, so they’re evil and chaotic by definition. but this can’t really be used as an excuse bc there are times when they aren’t evil or chaotic. mimi expresses genuine care and concern over others and especially mc, romance or not. she shows her gentle side more than once, like when talking about her enjoyment of earth plays and when worried about her dad. lucifer, while absolutely not as nice, also shows sympathy and goodness too. like when mc breaks down after visiting her father for the last time, and he takes her to his favorite place in entire world to help her calm down.

like these characters aren’t saints, but they’re also not the embodiment of evil, so the defense “theyre demons, they just do things like that” doesn’t work because if they were truly as demonic as demons are culturally supposed to be, they’d be irredeemable villains, not allies and close friends.

i honestly blame this on the fault of the rc writers. there are ways to create a “hot and steamy” romance without controversial harassment. fortunately these so far are the only instances in HS where things like this happen, bc like i said before, lucy and mimi also have very gentle scenes, especially when it comes to their romantic routes (the mountain top kiss is my favorite).

so yeah just wanted to express my thoughts lol

(also i gave a link to both scenes in a separate reblog in case anyone wanted to rewatch them)

[impfamiliar]

5, 6, 12, 17, 19, 21, 37, 44, 49, 61, 62 any or all! for whoever you’d like! 💕

hi thank u so much king.

5. do they follow a higher power? what are their thoughts on divinity?

this first one got really long lmfao. the others are a little shorter bear with me.

skit is funny because for all her "i'm a revolutionary" shtick she has pretty orthodox and also vaguely chauvinistic views on religion. she still believes that the Boar, Sovereign is the last living god which is funny because skit has now very much been to the celestial plane. but in her head she's like, ok, well, those are divine beings, they might be gods but they're not really thee Gods, like, the originals, so. only the Boar, Sovereign is God. and we need to kill that thing btw.

Skit is both religious and very sacrilegious in the way that most people from Seapink are. she fears the Boar, Sovereign because she's afraid to die, which i guess is a kind of reverence? but she also fully buys into the whole "time of the gods is over" thing, which kind of grinds reverence under the boot. skit hates the idea of a divine higher power exerting influence on her life. she only wants sexy tyrannical women to do that.

as for amandine, yes she is a cleric yes she is the only "living" devotee of the Boar, Sovereign, but amandine kind of isn’t religious in a traditional sense. she very much views 'religion' as like, comparable to duty to her mom...... (starts coughing). her connection to the divine is very deep and very important to her but also mundane. amandine is mildly to moderately afraid of her God, as she was of her real mother. her relationship with the Divine isn't... completely lateral, but maybe the word is familiar. amandine and her God are a lot closer than if she had been an acolyte of some deity in some church somewhere, mostly because of their closeness and onlyness to one another

but! a crucial thing informing how amandine views God / divinity is the fact that the Boar is not a god that can just take a human form and chat; She’s a manifestation of the Natural, and in many ways, a wild animal. i don’t think She and amandine can ever fully communicate and understand each other. they're both at peace with that, but because of this, i think its unclear to what degree amandine's ideas about the Boar as a God are projections onto this huge unknowable ancient inhuman Being.

for ex, the Boar taught amandine to find people who were near death out there in the forest and do a little rite to commit their bodies back to the earth and their souls to the Boar. but i think it was amandine who started trying to heal the ones  who she felt could be saved. the Boar didn't stop her, which amandine took as a sign of approval, but it just as easily could have been indifference. to a god, especially one as old and weary as the Boar, what do a few years or decades matter? they're going to die eventually :)

i genuinely don't know if the Boar, Sovereign actually cares about merciful death. She might? amandine thinks She does. The Boar definitely isn’t the malevolent bogeyman that She’s painted as in Seapink culture, but i think the value judgement of mercy is in some ways very human. possibly amandine saw that the Boar, Sovereign did not relish in killing or kill gratuitously, but instead took those who were already dying and ended their suffering. and amandine saw in that mercy instead of pragmatism, because that was what she wanted to see. so it’s anyone's guess what part of amandine’s religion is just amandine and what is the Boar, where that line is, if there is one

all that matters is that amandine trusts her God, loves Her and wants to please Her, and feels, maybe, that the Boar, Sovereign, in Her way, cares about amandine. but also... there's this other shoe that’s gonna drop one day.... the matter of coming back to life the Way She Did. meeting altair has planted a ghost of a thought in amandine’s head that she cannot consciously think about yet. the matter of why altair came back 'right' and amandine came back 'wrong'. the matter of why did the Boar did not tell amandine that she was dead. so that’s gonna be fun

6. which party member do they relate to the most?

for skit it was gaerokas, but honorable mention to sena because she and skit came from a sort of similar place and had compatible politics, and sena reminded her of her sister. other honorable mention to nethal for being skit’s intolerable mirror <3

for amandine it's definitely altair. undead bffs. honorable mention to ahe (amandine ahe 🤝quest for closure, devotion to a villainized god), and, interestingly also garo. garo amandine 🤝being lost in the woods for a long time, being the ghost in ghost stories told about them (which amandine doesn’t know about so i guess it doesn’t count) and having a fairly private but profound connection to God/nature. their clash in personalities and loyalties tends to get in the way of amandine seeing the overlap there. but that’s starting to change i think. also we will see how this plays out but i have a feeling that the more amandine remembers about her life before, the more she will relate to n’ethal actually.amandine nethal 🤝growing up privileged, Vhurask and Lady Iris being Like That

12. have they ever been in love?

skit is obviously in love with myev, and i think she was maybe in love with daya too? possibly? but it was complicated. amandine has not. yet.

17. what do they dream about, when their dreams are their own?

amandine doesn’t really dream anymore. she stopped sleeping mostly because of her dreams. amandine used to dream about dying, even if she didn’t realize that that was what it was for a long time. it was all distorted and hazy and amandine is missing huge chunks of memory so her mind free-form fictionalized to fill in what wasn’t there. she couldn’t make sense of it, only relive the sensations :) which were unpleasant :)

skit has two main genres of recurring dreams. one is redacted, and she doesn’t really dream about it that much anymore. in the other, there are two of her and the other skit is psychologically tormenting her. OR she’s tormenting the other skit. it isn’t clear

19. what haunts them? what doesn’t?

skit is obviously haunted by redacted, but she’s also haunted by what happened to vega, but also what she saw starting to happen to sena, who had been so lighthearted and trusting at the beginning :( she’s also haunted by when her sister was conscripted, and the fact that her dad almost died in the war. i don't think failing to prevent the apocalypse really haunts skit that much. she's like. well we ALMOST stopped them.... and WE didn't open those portals. so. but she is haunted by what happened to senele (i think that was its name? ahe's town that burned). but she’s not haunted by leaving Val in the celestial plane 😔

amandine is haunted by the flickers of memory from before her death and the flickers of memory or the dream distortions, whichever they are, of her death. amandine is haunted by her reflection. amandine is occasionally haunted by gaerokas. amandine is, now, also haunted by her mother's face and the memory of how she felt in the company of her mother. she isn’t haunted by the lives she's taken or all the bones and bodily fluids and entrails she's seen. i think the only body that haunts her is her own

21. do they follow their head, their heart, or their body?

skit: head and heart

amandine: body and heart

37. what is their favorite thing to hold?

for skit its uhh myev. for amandine, i feel like she's someone who reaches out for people a lot and likes to take her friend’s shoulders or rest a hand on their back or grab their hands (when they are ok with it). it's kind of a grounding thing and helps her feel less lonely. she is also comforted by holding fauchet, who is soft even if he unnerves her

44. what do they need to learn?

god where do i START.

i think the main thing skit needs to learn is how to look at herself -- who she really is without the smoke and the mirrors and the masks -- with self-compassion and honesty. skit also desperately needs to learn to communicate and be vulnerable with other people, to ask for help when she is afraid and overwhelmed. i think beginning to repair her toxic relationship with herself and letting people see her will massively help her feel more secure in her relationships, treat others with more kindness, and maybe, one day, face her problems instead of running from them. this is my sincere wish for her. skit is so so terrible but she isn’t irredeemable and i very much want to see her grow ;;

amandine needs to learn uhhh that puppy mills are bad. she also needs to learn how to let people in and ask for help. she’s not as bad as skit, but i do think amandine is scared of seeming weak or useless, and she also struggles to verbalize her thoughts so would sometimes rather not try. also, we haven’t seen this play out much yet because it’s mostly internal, but she does have a problem with internalizing blame for things that aren’t her fault, but also blaming others for things that objectively are her fault. maybe most importantly, amandine needs to learn that her life before was not idyllic and she can’t ever go back. i do think unconsciously lurking in her head all this time has been this feeling like 'oh if i learn who i Am and what happened to me i'll be able to reclaim what i lost and come Back" but... uh.... rip.

they both need to learn how to face their pasts and heal, to build a life that’s no longer chained to What Happened to them

49. what makes them smile?

their friends and loved ones! fucking with people and dancing also makes skit smile. what makes amandine smile is giving friends little trinkets and getting pretty things, going to festivals, being victorious, and Getting a Good Grade in Being a Sort of Dead Sort of Alive Girl

61. what kind of flower would they choose to pick from a meadow?

skit would choose uhhh tacca chantrieri. i’m interpreting the word ‘meadow’ expansively. amandine would of course choose an iris!

62. outside of otherworldly forces, what do they believe in?

skit believes in communism. and Love. kind of. amandine believes in growth from decay, that kind of thing. and friendship :)

[tonya-the-chicken]

I wrote this post some time ago as a reply to someone and now I somehow want to post it again with some changes lol

TW: mentions of murder, referenced canon abuse and swearing

Let’s talk about redemption arcs and people’s overwhelming desire to punish fictional characters for what they did... Inspired by Endeavor hate ngl... I mostly speak about fictional charcters in this post so pllease, don’t go dumb and understand that fictional characters and irl people should be treated differently

I think sometimes people don`t understand why punishment exists in our society at all. Like, why couldn`t we just forgive? Why punishment is needed? Oh, I would like to talk about behavioural psychology, but it is kinda creepy so instead let`s remember what my teacher of LAWS said(idk what you call it in your bitchass America)

Punishment basically serves two functions:

Preventative (show others and a person that they can’t just get away with their deeds). Like, if you knew that there are no negative consequences, wouldn`t you do it? Wouldn`t you kill the old lady?

Correction and all work with a person in general (for example, you can be forced to go through some psychological help)

Also, I lied there’s one more: compensation. Like, if you stole something, then bring money back, you little shit. Or pay for therapy for your victim

So when we put it into stories and so popular nowadays redemption arcs (which I fucking adore if they are done correctly) we have 4 points out of this 3 cause the first one can be put into two

Character is punished to show others that this is not something you should do (it’s a kinda societal thing and has nothing to do with character in particular. This point in general is not interesting because it doesn’t drives changes in person by itself)

Character is punished so he himself would think twice before doing this shit again (we can’t know if person’s remorse is genuine so it’s better to simply scare them. But I can allow skipping this point if person’s remorse is clealy shown to be genuine and we as readers understand that. That’s probably the big distinction we, as readers, should see: while irl we never know persons true motives, work of fiction can provide them to us clearly)

Character changes and understands what is wrong in what he has done (the part of redemption we all love and enjoy)

Characters work hard to correct or atone for their mistakes

As we can see first two bullets has nothing to do with character development and serve for the purpose of maintaining order. The third one IS a character development and the last one is what makes people actually forgive horrible actions and not go ape shit I guess. But for some of us nothing is enough, isn`t it?

And there is one more shit that is often in redemption arcs and that shit is great and I fucking love it

Explanation of the character’s behaviour, their reasoning and motivation

I truly enjoy reading about WHY characters behave a certain way but people, remember, SAD BACKSTORY IS NEVER AN EXCUSE FOR YOUR ACTIONS. Same goes to your mental problems and hard life situation. The fact that behaviour can be explained doesn’t mean shit. Like, behaviour also follows certain laws and despite the fact that it’s sometimes hard to understand all the details we still theoretically can explain ANY BEHAVIOUR. Does this mean we can excuse any behaviour? HELL NO

So remember folks, “They had their reasons to do this” means nothing most of the time. “I wanted to try how it feels” is actually a valid reason to kill someone, you know. Of course, if crimes is not severe, reasoning suddenly can be very important like we won`t punish harshly someone who stole bread cause he is starving or cause he has kleptomania (I mean as a literal disorder). But even in that case you must pay back money cause like stealing is bad but eat the rich

let`s talk examples from bnha cause why not

Endeavour

We have Enji oh my baby you have done so much stupid shit you dumbass. Sad backstory even if will be brought up in the future, currently is not a focus of redemption at all. Like, he even doesn`t explain his behaviour too much. “He want to be the strongest, so he decided that even if his genes will make it to the top it will be enough. As a result,  blinded by his goal,   he abused his family”. Basically, it`s all the explanation we have right now. And if Hori stops at it I will be fine with it. Honestly, as much as I want to learn more about Enji’s past if Horikoshi leaves everything at this I would give him nothing but mad respect cause... This kind of shows that your reasoning doesn’t matter that much if you did horrifying things

So 3 points to redeem someone

Enji didn’t suffer any punishment for his actions (nightmares are considered punishment only if you believe in God. Also, too weak, God, try harder... And same goes for High-End). When I think about him being punished I actually worry about society’s reaction cause, like, he is number 1 hero and the fact that he’s an abuser will be, like, very shocking to simple people.Trust in hero will fall harder than my will to live during 2020. And honestly, media would just turn this into a drama possibly hurting other members of his family, like.... Enji being legally punished for his action would be an interesting plotline but in general I am not a fan

We see his genuine remorse and character growth. We all agree that he even is drawn differently now changed and trying to become a better person, yeah? Clumsily at first, but he genuinely works hard to be a better peron, hero and father. I can respecct that

Compensation… Well, you can exactly “correct” trauma so he should pay up for psychologists for each child he probably should follow the path of atonement and try to give them something he robbed them from. Like, go to family dinners with Fuyumi even though every last one of them is a disaster and nobody is happy to be there. Or make everything possible to provide Rei calm life with her children (like building a new house, yes, this is an amazing thing) or at least become *reducted cause I wanna this post to be serious and SFW*... Tbh I have nothing to say, he himself says multiple times that he seeks nothing but atonment, not even forgiveness

So like you better work bitch to make your family happy bastard... [And tbh they seem so much better then when I first wrote this post, I am so proud of you, my garbage fire man]

Overhaul

In no way is he redeemed but somehow people put Overhaul and Endeavor stans in the same category so here he goes

Kai has something Enji doesn’t: very good and detailed explanation, a plan, a smart reasoning. His wrong deeds were basically for a better good he believed in. But we all collectively hate him for what he done to Eri despite his actions having r E A S o n S. Dude has some MOTIVATION. So like yeah bros. It makes him an interesting character and he is an amazing villain but dude deserves to rot in prisons. He shows no remorse and I am gonna bet he won`t even think about somehow helping others. Dude is a shitty person. And I fucking love him

So let’s go for our 3 bullets again

Punishment. Yes, he is punished, he is in jail with both his hands cut off. Would it make people forgive him? Nah

Personal growth. I would like to see it but as far we saw barely no growth... Though maybe being in jail without quirk will make his brain work

Atonement... Dude has a Messiah complex, I ain’t waiting for that anytime soon

So I asked myself if I had two men: one who spent a sentence in jail for child abuse but is more or less the same person and another who wasn’t punished for his abuse but feel genuine remorse and actively try to make things better who will I choose? Of course, I will choose Pikachu

But is it possible to redeem Overhaul? I wonder if there`s a force in this world strong enough to make him become a better person. Welp... I am a sucker for redemptions, justt letting you know

All for One

Oh, he is irredeemable (and this is sexy). Why is he here? Cause, well

Even if he is punished there`s no punishment severe enough to describe how horrifying his deeds are

Even if he is to feel remorse… he has like 500 years or something??? And he didn`t feel anything killing people??? So why would he change today?

Even if he atone for what he’s done… I am to believe he started at least a civil war. You can`t atone for that bitch. You crossed all fucking lines, all fucking lines

AfO is literally the most evvil man in bnha... I don’t want to see him redeemed cause I love characters that are pure evil and I love the despair of realizing you can’t fix what you have done. Though you are free to have a different opinion! Who knows, maybe Horikoshi will make a classy redemption for him and I will scream out of excitement? Cause I am that kind of bitch??? Who knows! I just love to think Doctor Ujiko is gay for him

Anyway, why do people like to make this characters suffer? Like, Endeavor, Minoru, Overhaul, many others? Is this part of the “punishment” to feel like person paid for their deeds? Or do people just like fictional violence and punishing “bad” characters make them feel good about themselves? Who knows

I have no idea what this post is about I want to sleep and I like Enji though if you dislike him this is fine. I hope it was interesting reading this, love you all bye

Don’t kill me for my controversial takes, I am depressed

[scripttorture]

This is probably too big a question but how do I reasonably do torture when fantasy elements are involved. What things can I say ok let's do this because it's fantasy and I can make up the rules, and what would still be wrong to do because whatever reason.

It’s not too big a question and it’s an important question.

The thing is I don’t believe there are many hard rules in writing and the advice I’d give for writing torture in a fantasy setting is broadly the same as the advice I’d give for writing torture generally.

There’s a post over here that covers the most common torture apologia tropes.

Whatever the genre and story I think we should avoid echoing torture apologia.

But what this essentially boils down to is not creating a story that shows torture as harmless, justified or ‘good’.

Once you’re familiar with the tropes and why they’re wrong avoiding torture apologia becomes a lot easier.

I’m keeping that short (and hoping/assuming you’ll read the Masterpost) because I think it’s worth talking about how this effects fantasy in particular. I’m also focusing on themes related to fantastic worlds or cultures rather then characters.

One of the biggest genre specific things to watch out for is whether you’ve built a justification for torture or abuse into the world itself.

As a common example let me take the truth spell. Torture does not work as a method of interrogation, you can read more about that here. But the idea that it does and that people ‘always talk’ under torture pervades fiction. And fantasy authors sometimes take these same ideas and end up creating a ‘truth spell’ that always works because it causes terrible pain.

Now I want to stress that most authors are not doing this because they personally support torture. They’re doing it because accurate information about torture is really hard to find and these tropes are so common in fiction that a lot of people assume they’re true.

And because those assumptions are so common it can be really easy to build torture apologia into a fantasy world.

This does not mean that I think you should avoid using dark magic, magic that causes pain, mind control or any of the other classic ‘bad’ magic in fantasy stories. It just means taking a bit more time to think about what it does and how it works.

So for instance one of my fantasy stories has magic that can be powered by the bodies of living creatures. One of the decisions I made when I thought about how it functions was that this magic was a lot more powerful when this use is consensual.

This means that there are powerful characters who got to the top by abusing and sacrificing other people. But their magic power is dwarfed by a woman who used consensual non-lethal ‘sacrifices’ to get her power. The world and the magic isn’t providing a ‘good reason’ for the bad guys to abuse people.

And I got to make the genocidal maniacs quake in fear because a middle aged housewife was in their general vicinity and did Not Approve of the mess they’d made.

Think about the way your magic system is structured. Think about the implications involved in it.

And think really carefully about whether any of those implications, those follow-throughs create a situation where torture becomes justified.

That doesn’t mean you can’t have villainous characters, or characters using magic for awful things. It means making sure you haven’t structured the world to encourage them to do so.

As an example; I read the online comic Freakangels several years ago. The titular group are a collection of teenagers who all have psychic powers to varying degrees. Most of them are living in a sort of post-apocalypse London with a small community they protect and help.

One of the characters sets herself up as the police-figure. Part way through the story the other Freakangels find that she’s built a pit where she tortures people. They call her out on this and they also point out it’s ‘unnecessary’ because she can read minds.

She responds by saying that taking specific information from a mind is complicated and it’s easier to ‘see’ the answer if you ask people questions. The torture provides a handy ‘excuse’ for how she inevitably comes to know the answer.

And that’s using a magic system to provide a rational, consistent in-world justification for torture. Even if torture wouldn’t ‘work’ ordinarily.

The other big thing I see in fantasy settings is structuring racial or cultural groups in such a way that makes violence and torture the inevitable and ‘right’ response.

I think there are… issues with the idea of writing groups of people as innately and irredeemably evil. Not all of those issues are to do with torture and I’m not an expert on racism. I know that from a personal perspective stories that characterise any group as automatically evil make me deeply uncomfortable.

From the point of view of this subject area- I accept that we’re stepping into territory where my personal biases are at play. Painting violence as the inevitable and ‘right’ response is a mainstay of a lot of popular fiction and as a pacifist I don’t believe violence is ever right. An enjoyable addition to fiction sometimes yes, but never right. An awful lot of people disagree with that opinion and I’m not here to demand you change that. Which makes it difficult for me to think of a way to express this point.

I suppose that once again it comes down to how the world is built up. It’s all very well to have a character say 'These people only understand violence!’ or 'War is our only option!’ it’s another thing to create a group of people for whom that is literally true.

I’m thinking of orcs, drow, gnolls, trollocs and the like. Creatures that we are told by the narrative behave in more or less human ways, think (although they are usually portrayed as stupid), use tools and language. But also, somehow, are only interested in fighting, take joy in killing or torturing others and…. don’t actually seem to have a culture around anything but violence.

They also don’t seem to devote any time to farming, herding, making shelters, healing each other or making the tools they use. Which raises the issue of how the hell they manage to march anywhere without starving to death, collapsing from exhaustion or having their trousers fall off.

I understand the imagery and at least some of where it comes from. It’s the Mongols appearing suddenly on the horizon. It’s the Vikings bringing their shallow bottomed ships further inland then people thought possible.

But people are not relentless killing machines. We’re pack animals that are geared to bond with each other, to cooperate. We are also, like any self respecting mammal, smart enough to bugger off when there isn’t any food on offer.

I feel like the way fantasy tries to tac on this drive to kill fundamentally can’t fit with a human-like mentality. I also don’t see how it can fit with a pack animal of any kind. Because this particular fictional structure puts the 'killer’ part first, to the detriment of cooperation and basic survival.

Essentially I see these sorts of fantasy races as the author trying to have their cake and eat it too: they want an armed monstrous threat but they can’t be bothered to make them behave in ways that are internally consistent.

They want long term societies and cultures of torturers, standing armies that are always fighting/abusing others. Which on a really basic level is unsustainable. The creatures they describe would not be a long term threat. Because they’d starve to death.

The fantasy stories surrounding these cultures generally use some form of torture apologia. Backstories explaining these creatures sometimes say they started off as people 'corrupted’ or 'broken’ by torture, which is essentially another way of saying that torture survivors are dangerous.

I won’t stand here and say that torturers are never torture survivors themselves but my instinct is that this is a lot lot rarer then fiction would have us believe. Survivors are no more or less dangerous then everybody else.

And I personally feel that using monsters as the only torturers in the story is a disappointing cop-out to many of the philosophical questions torture raises in a narrative.

We are all interesting in why people behave in monstrous ways. Answering this with ‘they’re just monsters’ feels dismissive and it sidesteps any attempt at genuine self examination.

Some of these fantasy races use slavery. But their slavery is 100% effective because captives 'break’ under torture and become absolutely obedient to their masters. Which is another false, problematic fiction surrounding torture.

The use of slavery in fantasy stories generally bears little resemblance to slavery in reality.

There’s no- fear of uprisings or attacks, which characterised slavery-based society in the New World. There’s no culture or comradery among the enslaved peoples. There are no small acts of resistance. These people wait patiently in suffering for someone to come and rescue them.

I feel like fantasy often treats enslaved people as if they lose their personhood. Their personalities, beliefs, hopes, fears no longer seem to effect their actions.

In much the same way that badly written female characters could be replaced by a ‘sexy lamp’ with little difference to a plot; enslaved characters in fantasy can often be replaced by- well anything that acts as a cheap sympathy grab.

They’re characters who are more defined by their over-the-top suffering in the story then by any sort of humanity.

I suppose if monstrous fantasy races are ‘torture survivors as dangerous threats’ then slaves in fantasy are ‘torture survivors as passive objects’.

Conversely fantasy is also one of the few genres where I still see the idea of ‘happy slaves’.

Fantasy has a tendency to present atrocities without having much real investment in the fallout or even an acknowledgement of what it’s describing.

The clearing of hundreds of villages is ethnic cleansing. The mass enslavement of a population is a war crime.

Perhaps one of the most ubiquitous mistakes in fantasy is presenting someone else’s lived reality as if it’s purely a fictional or historical thing.

Villages are being wiped out and cleared today in Myanmar.

Religious minorities are being subjected to mass incarceration in China.

Slavery is alive in every country in the world. And so is torture.

I think the most jarring thing I regularly see in fantasy stories is authors (especially Western authors) treating these topics as if they’re just fictional tropes.

There are probably more tropes and cliches particular to fantasy then I’ve listed here. These seem to me like the main ones.

In the end though, whatever the genre, it boils down to something simple: is the story set up in a way that respects survivors’ experiences or a way that belittles them?

Edit: To clarify I am not in any way against authors writing torture scenes. If a detailed description; fits your story, serves the narrative, treats victims as people and treats torture as a serious crime, then your story might benefit from that description. 

To paraphrase TV tropes: sometimes the anvil needs to be dropped.

But don’t think you are obliged to write these sorts of scenes. Instead consider whether they benefit your story or whether the story is more powerful without them. 

Availableon Wordpress.

Disclaimer

[arofili]

for the character ask meme: sauron?? >:3c

How I feel about this character: evil twink. terrible. i love him. for real tho i think fandom has woobified sauron to angband and back, and while i get people who are frustrated by us forgetting he’s a villain....like....he’s just so FUN, you know? he’s done so many things, he’s so complicated, why wouldn’t you want to play with what’s going on in his head? i know i do! there are days i want to just sit down and rewrite the entire legendarium from sauron’s POV, because he was there for all of it, causing trouble the whole time. my version of sauron is Evil And Loving It almost the whole way through - but he did it out of love, for melkor at first and then for himself, and while that’s no excuse for evil it’s a fascinating motivation.

All the people I ship romantically with this character: i mean, melkor, obvs. angbang’s probably the second biggest ship in the fandom after russingon, and it’s a GOOD ship. my particular flavor of angbang isn’t the abusive/controlling melkor kind, i like it when it’s reciprocated and sincere - though there’s still absolutely room for evil and possessiveness. idk, healthy(ish) angbang is just more interesting to me? like there’s gonna be a power dynamic there, but i’m so much more interested in mairon having almost equal footing in his relationship than him being some pawn of melkor - i think that makes the times where he has the harsh realization that he’s not equal, just almost equal, even more impactful. like, he can tell melkor “no” and melkor will listen - except when he doesnt. idk, i like that more than him being afraid of saying no at all. (though i certainly do enjoy other versions of angbang! this is just my favorite) Like, i think Sauron carries his love for Melkor through everything he does after the first age. At first he’s doing it all for Melkor, thinking about when he breaks his master out of the void, and then slowly starts to realize that wait, that might not happen. but he keeps going anyway, with melkor as his grounding for what he’s doing, as he becomes more invested in his own future.

THAT BEING SAID i also love silvergifting because im PREDICTABLE. again, my flavor of sauron is one that’s in love with melkor first and foremost and always intentionally planning to fuck celebrimbor over, but the trope of sauron being like “i’ll seduce Tyelpe into evil, it worked when Melkor did it to me” “didn’t Melkor fall in love with you though?” “SHUT UP” becomes Annatar in a way that he almost forgets who he used to be, which is also interesting, but i’m the kinda person who wants Sauron always consciously aware of every thing he does to Tyelpe-  I want him feeling guilty about it by the end, but, importantly, doing it anyway.

[cw rape] Sauron/Maedhros is also really fascinating to me, especially since it’s (almost) always nonconsensual... it’s a good reminder that sauron is at the end of everything evil and practically irredeemable. and i’m more interested in mae’s feelings on this ship than i am sauron’s, considering sauron is abusing him because melkor wants him to (and he probably wants to toy with maedhros too) and isn’t particularly apologetic about it. ALTHOUGH. sauron maybe fucking with Maedhros to the extent of actually pretending he cares, that he’s genuinely here for Mae - that is also some really fucked up interesting shit especially as foreshadowing for Silvergifting.... [that being said! i linked a fic up there that has consensual sauron/maedhros and oohhh boy is it good! heed the warnings, and it’s a modern AU ft. abusive!melkor, but definitely check it out if you’re interested in these two!]

I can get down on other Sauron ships (like him and the Nazgul, him and Ar-Pharazon) but most of those are Sauron playing a game of chess - but, critically, not making the same mistakes he made with Tyelpe. he keeps himself detached and distant, not actually falling in love.

My non-romantic OTP for this character: Eonwe!! I looooove headcanons about him and Eonwe having been bros in the past! makes everything at the end of the war of wrath so much more tragic :)

Sauron and Aule are also great, I think Aule was fatherly toward him and heartbroken to lose him. Which leads me to: Sauron and Curumo/Saruman, considering they were both disciples of Aule - and perhaps Curumo tried to replace Mairon after everything went down, but never quite could... Them having been friends puts their collaboration in LOTR into a different perspective, too. it’s sooo juicy to think of Saruman coming to Middle-earth determined to be Better than Sauron was, to prove to Aule that he’s the superior Maia, maybe even hoping that he can convince Sauron to repent...and then falling into the same trap of evil, being outsmarted by the friend he always wanted to impress, being cast aside and defeated. 

AND i’ll also throw in that he and Thuringwethil were definitely best buds in Angband, sorry I don’t make the rules. she’s an exasperated lesbian vampire who has to put up with his disaster gay stunts all the time, less of his lieutenant and more of the friend who tries to keep him out of trouble!

My unpopular opinion about this character: idk, he’s evil? like unrepentantly evil. we woobify him, and i’ve done a lot of that in this post already, but it’s worth really making it clear that he IS very evil. [cw rape] and i definitely think he raped maedhros, and probably tyelpe and a lot of other people too. which is just awful awful awful no matter what way you slice it. so like yeah, i feel for the dude, and it’s hard for me to wrestle with how fun and sexy i think sauron is but at the same time be a huge maedhros stan. it’s strange how we as fandom can excuse murder and war crimes and torture and shit but we draw the line at sexual abuse (which!!!! is bad and shouldn't be excused!!!). like all of the other things are horrifying and terrible and aren’t condoned irl, but in fiction i guess it’s like “meh, violence is fine, i stan a villain” but then this other violent thing is Not Remotely Ok because it’s also sexual. (again!!! not saying that we should be ok with sexual violence!!!!! more like...questioning why we’re ok with other kinds of violence, why sexual things in any form is more taboo. tho im saying this as a person who enjoys a good gory fic, so. yeah. im ramlbling at this point)

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: frankly i dont KNOW, he did SO MUCH in canon already?? i want a more fleshed out, detailed version of everything he did (remember when i said i daydream about rewriting the legendarium from his POV??) but i think events wise he’s done EVERYTHING he could do lmao.

[emperorren]

Why do you think H*x is so popular and the focal point of K/H fandom? He seems to be the main focus of it, and Kylo seems like a mostly fanon character. Like there’s so little about Kylo’s story as it’s happening in canon and more about a version of Kylo that’s definitely irredeemable/was only using Rey/has no meaningful relationship to Rey? And it’s surprising because they say it’s canon, or that they know canon better than the dumb Reylos.

I think H/ux works excellently because he embodies a certain type of male character (handsome in a vaguely androgynous way, blond or fair of hair / eyes / complexion, ice-cold, lethal, aristocratic, elitist, snobbish, obsessed with cleanness / purity, seemingly alien to normal human things like physical contact / affection / tenderness etc.) that the slash shipdom seems to be particularly fond of and that can be inserted in virtually any narrative---see: the draco in leather pants trope---and is otherwise a complete blank slate, so you can write him in whatever way you like, give him whatever backstory you like, and so on.

Kylo, on the other hand, is much harder to handle because he’s genuinely a mess and not necessarily in a standard *sexy cool villain* way. He’s pathetic, goofy, wildly emotional, chaotic. His backstory is much more detailed than H/ux’s in canon so you gotta take that into account if you wanna stay vaguely true to his personality, and once you do that you inevitably stumble on his canon dynamic with Rey, which needs to be avoided at all costs. It’s thorny.

So the average K*luxer takes only Kylo’s most superficial traits and either reduces him to the beast to H/ux’s little aristocratic ass (which in itself can be an interesting inversion, since Kylo is actually the princeling and H/ux the proletarian social climber, lol, it just... gets easily old), or, best case scenario, develops him in another direction and gives him conflicts and issues that can be mirrored or resolved by H/ux. This transformative approach is only beneficial to H/ux, who in canon is a pretty bland marginal character and can only be improved via fanon, and he does: he gets developed and becomes tridimensional. Kylo gets the shorter end of the stick because his canon personality, backstory, core conflict are shaped around the key role he needs to fulfill in the sequel trilogy---a role that cannot be ignored or decontextualized from the larger than life, intrinsically romantic dynamic he has with Rey. He becomes something else---but also something less. 

And I think K/yluxers are aware of this on some level, at least, hence their progressively latching on H/ux over the years. Tbh, I think some k/yluxers also vaguely resent the fact that Kylo is redeemable and a heroic protagonist in his own right in canon, while H/ux isn’t. As this other anon said:

Hux is basically what a lot of Kylo haters think Kylo is: a completely evil, replaceable villain who’s just in the plot to provide an obstacle for the heroes, and who could die partway through the story and not be missed. However, because this take applied to Kylo has been so popular, some K/H shippers seem to be under the impression these characters are on the same narrative footing. The sheer amount of sincere “Kylo and Hux die in mutual understanding as the FO burns” predictions I’ve seen...

...the bold is a huge misunderstanding that imho shaped the entire k/h fandom as we know it, and is partly responsible for their inability to incorporate the most recent canon developments in their writing. It really didn’t help that the larger fandom enabled this misconception by saying that K/H and Reylo were BOTH crackships with exactly the same chances of “happening” in canon.

[time-to-write-and-suffer]

I'm curious, why are you anti Sarah J. Maas? If you don't want to answer, feel free to ignore. I'm genuinely curious since I like to see where readers from each side come from. (Also, I read through her Court of (insert thing here) series, and I personally do like it, but I found the latest book was a bit repetitive, anti-climactic and lazily written, maybe rushed?)

Her books are the epitome of white feminism. She glorifies toxic masculinity with the way she’s written her Fae “cultures”. She’s killed off characters of color (indeed, entire countries coded as predominanty non-white) for the sake of her white characters’ angst. She writes possessive, disgusting, abusive men but paints them as attractive and desirable. 

She creates misogynistic societies just so she can call male characters “feminist” when they descend from their thrones and put women on equal ground (*ahem* Rhysand *ahem*). 

Her queer rep, whenever she manages to shoehorn some in, is restricted to “whore bisexual” or “sad closted gay” or “soulless asexual”. She wrote a homophobic society and made a lesbian character suffer for hundreds of years because she can’t come out of the closet and another male character wants her but she can’t tell him to fuck off in fear of hurting his feelings. (And the fandom thinks it’s super tragic. FOR HIM. Poor thing, he’ll be so heartbroken when he finds out she’s a Gay!)

She portrays abusive men as redeemable while every female villain is portrayed as irredeemable slutty whores. Every woman in power who didn’t get that power from men is a villain.

And frankly, she’s just a terrible writer. Her prose is repetitive and boring, she constantly tries to be deep and dramatic like she wants every other sentence to fit a glittery Tumblr aesthetic post. And someone needs to take the em dash away from her, seriously.

She also writes terrible, laughable porn and sells it to children and tweens. Her characters constantly make gross, unecessary references to sex because she thinks it makes them more edgy and mature. She seems to think that the only way couples can express love is to have hilariously overdramatic sex whenever they get the chance.

She tries to be GRRM with her LE EPIC FANTASY WORLDS and SEXY DRAMA but can’t be assed to actually worldbuild beyond whatever shit she thinks would be cool for her characters. 

So yeah. 

I wrote a dissection of Throne of Glass on my book blog and am working on Crown of Midnight right now. A friend is also writing an ACOTRASH snark. 

[the-desolated-quill]

Dinosaurs On A Spaceship - Doctor Who blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

I’m sure most of you are aware by now that I really don’t like Chris Chibnall very much. He has yet to write a single good episode since he first joined the Doctor Who team. 42 was a cliched load of bollocks, The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood was an incompetent retread of the original and far superior Silurian story from the Jon Pertwee era, and the less said about his work on the god awful Torchwood, the better, Why the fuck he would be chosen to be the next showrunner, I don’t know. Frankly I’d rather see Tommy Wiseau take the helm over Chibnall. Based on his previous track record, putting Chris Chibnall in charge of Doctor Who would be the equivalent of hiring a cowboy builder to redecorate your front room.

So you can probably imagine my reaction at the time when I discovered that Steven Moffat was subjecting us to not one, but TWO Chris Chibnall stories this series. Oh joy-bunnies! What orgy of bullshit has Chibnall concocted for us this time?

Dinosaurs On A Spaceship is about as silly as you’d expect it to be. A spaceship full of dinosaurs is about collide with the Earth and the Doctor has to steer it away before the Indian Space Agency blows it out of the sky. To be fair, it’s not the worst thing Chibnall has ever written. In fact there were moments where I found the episode to be, dare I say, entertaining (Yeah! That’s a first for a Chibnall episode!). Though I imagine the kids will probably get more out of this than us cynical grownups will. They’ll be the ones getting excited about the pterodactyls chasing the Doctor, Rory and his dad while us adults will be questioning why the pterodactyls are chasing them when pterodactyls were supposed to be fish eaters. And while the kids are laughing at the Doctor’s hijinks with the triceratops, the adults will be the wondering how the Silurians are capable of things like spaceflight and teleports and artificial beaches when there has been nothing in the past to indicate that the Silurians were ever that technologically advanced (also why do they keep casting the same actors to play Silurians? They’re not clones). But hey ho. It’s dinosaurs. Everyone loves dinosaurs, right? Just go with it.

There are some things that I thought were genuinely good. The biggest gem of all is David Bradley as the villain Solomon. While the character is about as one dimensionally evil as you can get, it’s the performance that sells it. In the hands of a lesser actor, Solomon’s irredeemable sadism and malevolent speeches about profits and ownership of animals and people would have become grating, but Bradley manages to inject a lot of nuance into the part. While the character itself is about as complex and interesting as a pantomime villain, it’s David Bradley that makes Solomon come across like an actual human being, thus making him a more credible threat.

I also really liked Rory’s dad, played by Arthur Weasley from the Harry Potter movies (or Lister’s friend Peterson from Red Dwarf depending on your geek levels). Again, not a particularly interesting character. He’s basically every stereotypical, old fashioned, middle aged British dad you’ve ever seen (he even carries a trowel and a flask of tea around with him), but it’s Mark Williams’ performance that makes it work. He’s a very pleasant and charming character, I like his relationship with Rory a lot, and you can’t help but find the final scene of him looking at the Earth from the TARDIS whilst drinking a cup of tea incredibly endearing.

I must confess I do also have a slight fondness for the two robots played by David Mitchell and Robert Webb. Two squabbling robots could have been annoying, but in Mitchell and Webb’s hands, they’re actually quite funny. In fact you may be noticing a pattern emerging here. Everything I’ve liked so far is more to do with the acting, rather than the writing. That’s because Dinosaurs On A Spaceship has the same problem as all of Chris Chibnall’s other Doctor Who stories. The script is fucking rubbish.

I mean take a look at the other characters. You have Riddell, a big game hunter and sexist arsehole. God knows why he’s there. Outside from being a misogynistic dickhead, he doesn’t actually have a character and contributes nothing to the plot. Maybe Rupert Graves walked onto the set by mistake. And then there’s Queen Nefertiti. A famous Egyptian Queen who also has no reason to be there and is the latest character to be Pompadoured (that’s the term I’m using to refer to any famous woman in history who’s reduced to a one dimensional sex object and sass machine by Steven Moffat, like he did with Madame de Pompadour in The Girl In the Fireplace. Do you like it? I think it’s quite catchy, don’t you?). Her dialogue is pretty much interchangeable with Amy’s (who’s still her obnoxious self) and she’s yet another example of a ‘strong female character’ in inverted commas. It’s like Moffat and co are stamping them out with cookie cutters. Every single female character in the Moffat era pretty much behaves in the same way. They’re feisty, dismissive of the men around them and flirt with anyone they come across. After Amy, River Song and Oswin, it’s just boring more than anything else.

And then there’s the question of sex. Chris Chibnall clearly thinks he’s making a strong feminist statement by presenting Nefertiti as being sexually liberated, but the trouble is over the course of the episode it begins to backfire spectacularly. Solomon at one point wishes to swap the dinosaurs for Nefertiti, which leads into this whole criticism of ownership and objectification. The problem is the script objectifies Nefertiti just as much as Solomon does. When we first see her, she throws herself lustfully after the Doctor and then she starts flirting with Riddell who does nothing but objectify her. At one point he even says he wants to bend Nefertiti over his knee and spank her, which I think is supposed to be Chibnall’s idea of sexy banter, but is instead just incredibly skin crawling. Riddell is a colossal sexist jerk and yet Nefertiti still flirts with him and ends up in a relationship with him at the end. Chris Chibnall effectively wants to have his cake and eat it too. He wants to condemn the objectification of women whilst he’s objectifying them.

But by far the biggest problem with this episode is its tone. It’s incredibly uneven and clunky. I’m not saying you can’t have some light and shade. The problem is Chris Chibnall does it really, really badly. It feels as though a child and a psychopath have taken turns writing the script. One minute you’re enjoying the scenes with the Doctor and co riding a triceratops and laughing at the comedy robots, then in the next scene the comedy robots suddenly gun down the triceratops in cold blood. Yes it’s shocking, but not in the right way. It feels incredibly jarring. Also who is Dinosaurs In A Spaceship geared toward? You’d assume it’s children, and yet there’s a whole lot of crass sex references and penis jokes. And don’t get me started on the bit where Solomon implies he wants to rape Nefertiti. That is beyond inappropriate. (And do you know what makes this sexist bullshit all the more uncomfortable to watch? When you remember that Chris Chibnall is the one who is going to be writing the first female Doctor. Be afraid people. Be VERY afraid).

I suspect this is the reason why people have a problem with the way the Doctor resolves the situation. I personally didn’t see anything wrong with what the Doctor does. Let’s face it, he’s done a lot worse in the past and Solomon is clearly irredeemably evil, so I was more than happy to see him get his comeuppance. I think the reason why it stuck out like a sore thumb for a lot of people was because of how blundering the rest of the episode was. What should have been a fun adventure with dinosaurs has been hijacked by explicitly dark material that really shouldn’t be there.

As I say, not the worst thing Chibnall has ever written, but that’s hardly a glowing recommendation. Anything that’s even remotely enjoyable about Dinosaurs On A Spaceship comes from the actors rather than the writing. Plus it’s dinosaurs, which nobody can possibly hate. Other than that, it’s yet another failure from Doctor Who’s future showrunner.