no but like. spy x family shows time and again that you need not just the larger picture but also to take into account what's closer to home
[redacted]'s dad pointing out that ostanians aren't monsters, but still slapping his own son and making [redacted] terrified to even consider lying to him.
donovan desmond. regardless of whether his role in government is "in the right", he still prioritises his aims over his family. both damian and demetrius have estranged relationships with him and I don't even know where to start with whatever is going on with melinda.
handler. lost her own family and this forms part of her current motivation towards heading off war. but it's shown that her personal life is in tatters. that she's only living for her job with nothing at home for her anymore. it's unhealthy for her, but the connection with her new dog is a start.
twilight. increasingly at odds between "his mission" and his family. and yet, the whole reason for his mission is to protect the smiles of children. to make it so that they don't have to experience what he did. if he completes his mission and then leaves, he's still inflicting that same heartache onto his family.
at the same time. twilight's mantra that "ignorance is sin" comes from the right place. if tensions are ignored. if people aren't actively leveraging the information they can obtain. that's how war happens.
all the adult characters have experienced war in some capacity and they recognise the pain and suffering it can cause. that's why they work so hard to avert it. but they have to be careful that they don't echo that conflict down onto their own personal lives and younger generations. that they aren't so held back by the spectre of war that they forget to live for themselves.
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day 5 of meandering about endeavor (and briefly hawks)--(taking a more meta-look at the fandom with this one):
i find it fascinating and honestly sorta cool that the fandom is so divided on endeavor in a way that lines up well with how people are divided on his character within the text itself.
the responses are certainly not black-and-white or binary, but it's easiest for me to give the examples of hawks and natsuo as sorta opposite ends of the spectrum. many endeavor fans are similar to hawks--enjoying his cooler moments while also greatly appreciating how much he puts himself through in his efforts to change for the better (as an aside, i do find it hilarious how many endeavor fans enjoy seeing that man beat the shit out of and actively suffering. kinky lol). endeavor haters, on the other hand, generally want nothing to do with his character (while some even say that they want him to die, when it comes to fictional people in a story, that's basically the equivalent of "keep this guy far away from me"). the need for unequivocal and complete separation from his character is similar to what natsuo wants and sticks with in the story (although he does have his moments of sensitivity regarding his father, in spite of this).
i think that the reasoning behind irl fans and the characters also often align. for hawks, it's incredibly inspiring and gratifying to see that someone is willing to put in the work to change, even if doing so will be difficult and often unrewarding. the worse the actions are, the more painful the upward climb becomes, but also the more crazy it is that the person in question is willing to make that climb in the first place. i've noticed a lot of endhawks fans in particular really finding a lot of personal healing through exploring these ideas, whether they want to change for the better themselves, or they wish those in their life who'd hurt them would be willing to grow as people the way endeavor's character does. sure, there are some people who gloss over the terrible things that he's done, but many seem to enjoy actively engaging with what he's done and working through what it means for them.
for natsuo, it's not just about it being "too little, too late", though that's definitely a big part--but also that he as a person cannot have a relationship with his father while keeping himself safe and healthy. a lot of real-life relationships end up this way, especially between parent and child once the child reaches adulthood, and it's a very healthy boundary to set. for irl people engaging with fiction that triggers similar emotions, this looks more like ignoring, not engaging with, or wishing for the removal of the character activating them---and if that "boundary"-esque wall can't be drawn, if they repeatedly are unable to avoid the character's presence, this often wells up as anger and turns into venting, which is only natural if you're being bombarded with a stimulus that you feel unable to control. (sure, blocking and filtering tags is available, but algorithms can be incredibly confounding/unavoidable, not everyone remembers to tag their stuff perfectly every time, and in this case, the maligned character plays an incredibly crucial and central role in the canon material itself--so if you want to consume, y'know, mha, you have to grapple with a text that at best isn't always for you, or at worst occasionally betrays you.)
i don't mean to overstate my case--a lotta ppl like stuff or hate stuff without questioning it--but i think in the case of this one particular character, a lot of nuance tends to emerge, and there's a lot of potential there for analysis/learning. I also think that some conflict and friction becomes inevitable between disagreeing fans regarding endeavor's character. naturally, your average person getting crushed in the gears of day-to-day life is going to feel hurt when they're accused of not engaging with the thing that brings them much-needed comfort in the "correct" way, especially if they have indeed been putting a lot of work into thoughtfully engaging with it behind-the-scenes. it's also difficult to give people you disagree with the benefit of the doubt, bc honestly there are plenty of wild takes or arguments made in bad faith out there--and very few ppl want to wade through a bunch of cortisol-spiking statements just to find one that is reasonable enough but that still might be disagreeable to them.
it's likewise interesting to see the reactions of people either calling hawks a murderer and hating on his character, or claiming he did nothing wrong and that twice shouldn't have fought/deserved to die (and while i can understand wanting to defend silly bbygirl birdman, man oh man would hawks not be happy with the latter take if he were a Real Boy). i don't believe either group comprises the majority of mha fans by a longshot, but there's still enough that i've noticed these little trends in one pocket of the internet or amother. i got nothin prescriptive here, i just find it all interesting to talk about.
lastly, i wanna say that, while telling stories from the POV of an abuser and trying to give them sympathy at the same time is so often a gross and very Bad Move, crazily enough i think mha is one of the best executions of this that i've seen. aside from the nuanced way endeavor gets treated by other characters (some supportive, some rightfully angry, some rightfully hateful), what stands out to me is that, by having us see through his pov, the story actually shows what anyone could realistically expect as a best-case-scenario of an abuser starting to atone. we don't have to question if he's sorry, don't have to question if he understands what he did as wrong, don't have to question that he's doing actionable things to make progress, etc., because we spend so much time with his thoughts. and it's not perfectly linear and it does come way too late, but it is kind of wild to see this kind of best-case evolution unfold bit by bit. of course, the flipside to this is that real life doesn't work this way and you can never have absolute certainty that an abuser genuinely understands/won't go on to abuse again. still, being able to see a direct model for what accountability and working towards atonement looks like is refreshing, when by comparison so many other character arcs in other stories 1) end in redemption through death, 2) have the character barely do any internal work/stay an absolute asshole, or 3) resolve a past "sin" that actually wasn't that bad to begin with. when all three tropes are avoided, when someone did something unforgivable but is veritably changing for the better but is still alive, what the heck happens next? what the hell do you do? what does anyone do? some options are explored in mha in a pretty neat way--natsuo never wants to see enji, and enji agrees. touya wants to see enji every day (at least implicitly so) and enji makes that his vow. so many flawed parents irl are unable to respect their childrens' wishes when it comes to letting them completely go so they can live their lives, or when it comes to staying ever-present and showing them genuine care, and yet enji becomes a parent capable of doing both opposite-seeming things at once, finally willing to do and become what his children ask of him. the todoroki saga is certainly not perfect---i for one have *thoughts* about how the very end of rei's arc has been handled---but i think it's unique for how it benefits from providing so much of endeavor's pov, whereas other stories from an abuser's pov might have slapped on shitty apologia or only provided an "explanation" for why that character is so nasty without going too much further than that. while this choice may force some fans to have a level of closeness with a character whose presence begets feelings of hurt and hopelessness, it also makes sense why this choice has captivated other fans and provided, oddly enough, a sense of inspiration and hope.
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SPOILERS!!
WHAT IF I SOB VIOLENTLY
YOU GUYSSSSSS UGHHHHHH
I wanna say it’s like each time Megumi gained hope for himself. Like, with Gojo, he was living on the streets with Tsumiki and had no parents and Gojo took him in, made him strong and gave him and his sister a home and parental figure. Here with Yuji? He’s saying he’ll be sad without Megumi here, but still gives Megumi the choice to live or stay in the sadness he’s in. Directly after though, sukuna’s leg gets caught in the ground due to the shadows from Megumi’s technique, meaning Megumi is fighting back, BECAUSE OF YUJI ITADORI.
ALSO??? HIS DREAM WORLD CONTAINS BEING WITH SOMEONE LIKE YUJI :((( YOU CANT TELL ME THEYRE NOT IN LOVE :(((
(you can, I’d just be sad)
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Tagged by @camelliagwerm for this - I know that there's another poll in my queue that will post after work but. These are fun haha
rules: make a poll with your top 5 favourite antagonists and ask your followers to vote for their favourite.
EDIT: the poll was SUPPOSED to say affectionate I just got distracted :')
It was hard to pick five and as usual I don't really know if these are a "true" top 5, haha. Just five guys I can think of right now. Although it feels. Kinda like there's. A bit of a pattern here when I look at it.
Tagging @bearvanhelsing, @dmagedgoods, and @lizrich, if you're interested...?
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Look, I could scream about how the latest episode was amazing and the animation was fire and how Kunikida's scene was so well portrayed and all the characterisations....
But I'm just gonna scream about the way the conversation Atsushi had with Fitzgerald about how Fyodor is playing them all like pieces in a chessboard reminds me about the book.
It's just....I can't get a clear coherent thought on it, but something about the book being used to write the ADA's doom. The way they are literally being doomed by a narrative and how that doom is actually and very literally being written in a book, even if it's a page from it.
And how in spite of being doomed by the narrative inside the universe, Atsushi and the members of the ADA are fighting against it. The way that they're all glaring at the narrative and saying, "Actually we can find you and rewrite you" instead of taking it lying down. Something about the characters inside a narrative fighting against and unknown author that's writing fanfic mischaracterising them. Something about the way (manga spoilers) Ranpo exhorts the readers later as represented by the public to stand with the characters rather than the plot....
Just the ADA fighting against a narrative that's dooming them as represented both by the book and by the endless loop and cycle of time of fukuchi's time/space sword.
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