#defenders spoilers

[themeatiscatfood]

she was just a little silly

[criston-cole]

Let them think what they must. I am at last myself.

[kiisaes]

miss uravity <3

[mobius-m-mobius]

Trying to fix what’s broken is hard. Hope is hard.

[marzipanandminutiae]

quotes by Victorians about the 1920s view of their generation's women

"We are frequently told that the Victorian woman...generally behaved like a pampered and neurotic infant. This is all moonshine. I do not think that I ever saw a woman faint before I came to London in 1869, and not often after then...they enjoyed a hearty laugh, and a good many of them a contest of wits with any man." -Nineteenth Century, a Monthly Review, 1927 (written by a man born in 1850)

"What queer ideas the girl of 1929 has about the Victorian period- they are not a bit true...Marriage was by no means the end and aim of our existence. Oxford and Cambridge claimed quite a few of us after school days were over. We had great ideas about 'life' and what it all might mean to us." -St. Petersburg Times, 1929 (written by a woman born in 1853)

"True, debutantes were chaperoned at balls. But that fact did not prevent them from dancing as frequently as they chose with their favorite partners. The idea that girls in the Victorian era spent their days sewing seams and practicing scales is another fallacy." -Gettysburg Times, July 1, 1927 (quote from the Dowager Lady Raglan, Ethel Jemima Somerset, who lived from 1857 to 1940)

[plastic-pluto]

pavitr prabhakar i love you. hobie brown i love you. gwen stacy i love you. miles morales i love you. peter b parker you're on thin fucking ice but i still love you.

[broadwayfangirl222]

Can we talk more about Carmilla and how she did something that was seen as literally impossible by pretty much BOTH heaven and hell (kill an exorcist angel) in order to make sure her daughters were safe? Like in that moment she probably didn't even think she would be able to hurt the angel, much less kill them, but just went on pure instinct and did anything she could to make sure they could survive the extermination

[mazeyphaedra]

was rewatching fabian’s baron moment on account of it being the most delicious piece of pvp in my recent memory and ally beardsley’s growth as a player just shone through so brightly and with such clarity. after dusting off their shock they immediately asked about the nemesis ward, had enough knowledge about fellow pcs stocked to remember adaine’s ac with such like frustrated confidence and certainty, suggested to siobhan to dimension door out of adaine’s room, like. they came into this making a character with 4 dex. and now the dice deity offered to roll a check to sense if adaine was in danger. making decisions, asking questions, getting invested in the story, trying so hard with the tools they have to save characters from danger; ally beardsley is an incredible d&d player.

[dunmeshistash]

Why did Milsiril adopt Kabru

Milsiril might be one of the most misunderstood characters in dungeon meshi and I see people making assumptions of why she adopted Kabru based only on their races and not in the characterization, so I wanted to think about some of the "theories" I see the most often about what made her take him in and why I don't agree with them

(read more cause as usual I ranted a lot)

1 - Attention (white elf savior)

This is the one I have the hardest time understanding so I'm starting with it, I've seen people compare Milsiril to irl white wealthy women that adopt "exotic" kids to keep an altruistic appearance. Like a white mother adopting a chinese child because of white savior complex and for everyone to compliment them on how good they are but this idea ignores a core aspect of Milsiril: she doesn't like attention of her peers

Her bio reads: "The people around her teased her, calling her Gloomy Milsiril; partly as a result, she hates elves. (...) She secluded herself deep in the mountains and intentionally lives apart from other elves"

Milsiril is the type of person that has trauma related to her own kin, she was ostracized by everyone including her own family that sent her to the canaries, and as a result she herself refuses to engage with them even when they extend a hand as you can see with past Mithrun. The only other elf she's seen speaking to is Mithrun when he's sick and Helki. Her interest in raising short lived kids isn't seen as altruistic by other elves it's seen as another weird side of her so there's no incentive in elf society for her to do that. So she didn't adopt Kabru because of optics, she clearly doesn't care what other elves think of her and she hid herself from their judging eyes as soon as she was able to.

2 - She wants to feel superior to someone

Another one I find baffling but I can understand a little better since she's constantly seen in the caretaker role. But the evidence I see for this is literally the type of people she surrounds herself with.

The people we know she interacts with willingly are:

Her adopted short lived children

One of her prisoner partners (Helki)

Mithrun when he's in recovery

Based on these I can see how a very uncharitable view can interpret as "she surrounds herself with people that she's superior to" and it is somewhat true. But she's never shown mistreating or actually acting superior to any of them, if anything Helki is constantly hanging out around her (he was pardoned after Utaya and might be her servant now but their interactions seem very casual), Kabru says she teaches her children everything they want to know and she eventually let him go even if before she was hesitant to (as a overprotective parent) and Mithrun was still a noble with several servants when she cared for him so even if he was sick socially he was still the same. (considering both are noble outcasts)

The evidence both for and against the idea that she adopts children to surround herself with people "inferior" to her are all circumstantial so I guess it depends on how you want to see it. I myself think there's no evidence she thinks of them as inferior considering all we see she seems to treat them either as her babies (would you word your feelings for a baby as them being inferior to you?) or as someone she wants to nurture

3 - She wants to be in control of someone (Kabru is her doll)

Related to the above reason but slightly different, in this interpretation I see people assume she doesn't see Kabru as his own person but as one of her dolls to be controlled. As if she raises her children so she can play house and dress up with human dolls.

Honestly that's pretty cool and an amazing visual for an evil mom but there's zero evidence that that's the case. Starting with her actual dolls themselves they aren't dress up dolls or something she puppeteers in an evil way, they're literally her comfort toys she runs to when she's sad

She's making them by hand while crying cause she feels like she doesn't belong, her bio says the dolls are her only friends so it makes me a little sad when people act like her doll hobby is somehow a creepy aspect that makes her seem evil, since that's exactly how the elves think of her (creepy and gloomy)

Milsiril is clearly someone that enjoys taking care of others we see it both with her children and with Mithrun, but how to know if that's actual altruism or some twisted sense of superiority? How to know if she isn't the toxic nurse that just wants to be in power of someone? How to know she is actually helping the people she cares for?

Easy, she helped them until they didn't need her anymore.

She trained Kabru and taught him everything he knows, he's where he is because he had her help even if at first she wanted to prove he wasn't strong enough to go, he was. She sees Kabru as a small child because of their race differences but she still respected him enough to take the training seriously.

Mithrun actually recovered once she could take the time to help him, I keep reminding it but it was years after he was rescued that she went to help with his recovery (his bio says Utaya was what motivated him to finally come back and she was the one that went to tell him about Utaya and help out) right now Mithrun is able to follow a routine and live by himself, Milsiril isn't even someone he talks about as he is now.

Both people we know she cared for are completely independent of her now and neither of them even thinks about her much. A controlling person that wants to keep you within their grasp and keep you needing them would never actually help you be independent of them.

4 - Then why did she adopt Kabru?

I think it's an easy answer the way I see it: shared trauma.

What Kabru went thru is 100 times worse than what Milsiril went thru during Utaya, especially since he was just a small child back then and he lost everything, But Milsiril is still a war veteran, the things Kabru describes, people turning into monsters eating the others, all the death and destruction, Milsiril was there to witness it all and she failed to save them. her bio reads "After the incident in Utaya, she left the Canaries in disgust. She secluded herself deep in the mountains and intentionally lives apart from other elves" she was so traumatized by the events she both left "in disgust" and became a hikikomori. Earlier in her bio it also says "(...) The people around her teased her (...) partly as a result, she hates elves" I sure wonder what's the other part that makes her hate elves. (Probably is the way they dealt with Utaya)

I think she adopted Kabru because she wanted to give a good life to the only survival of the war she fought, the other destiny Kabru could have has would be the same Rin had, a traumatizing stay with the elves, Milsiril saved him from that fate when she adopted him. He wasn't a random brown kid she picked up, they share a traumatizing experience (once again: even if it was 100 times worse for Kabru).

The reason she adopted the other kids is also pretty obvious to me: she likes caring for people and she wants to feel loved. That's her ulterior motive to raise short lived children, she has elf trauma and she wants a family.

That doesn't make her a perfect mom or a perfect person tho*, she's just as flawed as anyone, I feel like people sometimes forget mothers are also human beings with flaws. Being flawed doesn't make her a monster, being loving doesn't make her an angel, she's just a person doing her best.

*She still has the ingrained elf socialization and clearly thinks of her children as babies, she treats teen Kabru almost like a toddler in some interactions. There's also the thing about her not fully understanding the importance of his cultural background. Struggles that I assume are common in interracial adoptions

Disclaimer cause this is the reading comprehension website: This is my interpretation of the character, some of it is very charitable towards Milsiril and I'm not talking about how Kabru might feel about her. I'm trying to think of their relationship thru her perspective and how she treated him because some interpretations seem to come out of nowhere to me. Kabru has complex feelings about elves and about his elf mom but overall I still think "overprotective foster mom" really summarizes his feelings. I don't think he resents her even with her flaws.

[sagegreenfrogs]

the celestial order are a bunch of abelist FUCKS and i am not accepting criticism at this time

[trinketdrawer]

jrwi prime defenders characters react to you coming out to them

dakota: oh cool! you're like my friend william! that's so awesome man

william: oh nice I'm bisexual *he goes for a fist bump and misses

vyncent: that's cool. hey do you know how to cancel an online package order I think I just bought 125 decks of cards on accident

ashe: haha gay *is wearing 5 different pride pins

LeFrog: honhonhon.... le frog is also.... how do you say.... elgebeteque.... truly we are destined to be nemesees....

tide: I'm so glad you trust me enough to come out to me! I'm so proud of you. You should always be true to yourself.

wavelength/mark: what? you're gay? yeah who isn't its 2144. now help me hide this guy im not fucking going back to jail

[somewhatsentientspellbook]

Also adore the fact that Pelor is a cleric of Sarenrae as a mortal

And once the Divine Gate was put up, they coexisted in Elysium together

Just this protective brother constantly supporting his sister through their shared struggles

[curapicas]

does anyone have thoughts on the focus switching to Kabru, like.

At this point we and Kabru both see Laios begin to put together a plan to take down the mad magician, and Marcille is essential in this. But perceptive as Kabru is, he's got to know that this is also for Marcille' sake.

Sure she'll be an advisor together with him in the future, but here, all he saw from her was a spell backfiring into a monster and her begging people to not hurt someone who's murdering-a-ton. He doesn't have a high opinion of her priorities, even if he doesn't wish ill on her. My first thought was that Laios defense of her would be a bit frustrating for Kabru, even. Though he has an equally low opinion of the canaries' methods, and Shuro's report would force their involvement

But honestly, his past disgust with Marcille doesn't factor in this at all. This might be the first time Kabru is seeing how seriously Laios takes both defending his plans and a friend. Against someone Laios respects, no less! Considering what Kabru's own objectives are (a mission, but not progressing enough to formulate well-thought plans), as well as his most selfish desire is (companionship), I wonder if seeing this didn't affect him, a little. Maybe as an inspiration? Or as kinship?

After all, isn't “this person is both an important part of this plan and important to ME, and I won't let you kill them” reminiscent of another dynamic? Even if in this moment, he's not there yet.

[bitter-ishsweet]

A lot of 2.07 analysis have been about how stede was getting too cocky and needed to "be humbled", and while there may be something to that, i haven't seen mentioned that stede cracked when ed left, but he only broke when he saw zheng recruiting his crew.

This is a guy who hasn't been particularly well liked or respected by his crew (which often is fair), and has been pushed to the side in favor of pirates such as calico jack or zheng herself. Real Pirates.

Well, stede is now a real pirate himself, and ed still left him, just like Ned Low said he would. Stede is a real pirate, and his crew still wants to leave. He saved them from zheng after they killed the love of his life, and they still want to leave to join the very person they had to be saved from, no fucking less.

And say what you will, but the guy chugging alcohol and screaming "i'm a sea god" is not the one that draws the sword.

The guy that draws the sword has tears in his eyes.

[tweedfrog]

HOTD Twitter perhaps I judged you too harshly

[nobigsecrets]

God. I hope so.

This whole scene between Buck and Tommy is the most authentic depiction of a mlm relationship I've seen in a while (on mainstream television that is). They're adult men. They're very masculine adult men. Yes, they can be emotional. They can be vulnerable with each other. And they were in this scene. But likely they will be over it quickly. Way more quickly than the average fangirl wants them to. They won't have a lengthy heart-to-heart about their emotions when everything important has already been said. They won't cry over feelings like they do in every other fanfiction. They will quickly seek for a distraction from dealing with the heavy emotional stuff and because they're two grown-ups, two adult men, who are also still in the honeymoon phase of their relationship that distraction is very likely to be sexual. Like it or not, it's realistic.

Calling it problematic (or worse) that Buck and Tommy talk about Daddy Kink after this conversation and that they're into it? That's just showing how little life experience a huge part of fandom has and how little they actually know about men in general and gay men and gay life in particular. For all that mlm ships are the biggest part of fandom and fans crying for their mlm ships to become canon for years or even decades, the moment you're getting an authentic representation of a grown-up gay relationship you run away screaming because it doesn't match with your lovey-dovey vanilla expectations? That's nothing but bigotry talking.