#her entire personality and character arc is gone

[ominous-horse-noises]

im ab to be annoying ab dimension20 fhjy but im genuinely loving the character arcs for the bad kids this season?

kristen going from self-annihilatingly stupid to trying to build a genuine bridge with the man who not only wielded the religion that traumatised her (bobby dawn), but also was trying to ruin her life, just bc she thought a grieving father ought to be comforted in some way? her genuine distress at being unable to revivify buddy even though the two had only had negative interactions, or her biting her tongue in front of her parents so she could better look after her little siblings? grappling with the fact that she still, on some level, expected practising religion to be easy and convenient for her as a holdover from an entire childhood spent being a Chosen One, and finally putting her nose to the grindstone and committing to working her ass off for a deity that couldn't even benefit her for a hot minute? making an effort to be cordial with tracker's new gf and letting go of that codependency? the kristen applebees from ep20 would NOT do all the same stupid shit as ep1 and i love that.

fabian being humbled by the narrative again and again has been an absolute treat for his character. the whole ivy/mazey situation was great: freshman/sophomore year fabian would've gone for ivy no sweat, i mean her character seemed pretty similar to pre-redemption aelwyn and he had a huge crush on her then. but this time, when he realised he'd hurt a genuinely great person, and intentionally swallowed his pride to make it up to mazey, even though it required him being 'uncool' with the whole twister thing. his general arc of learning that earnestness and humility doesn't make him less of a man felt like a natural extension of fabian defining his own version of masculinity- sure, a 'maximum legend', but also someone deeply involved in the arts, and someone who is less afraid of saying sorry and being vulnerable in front of someone he likes

fig. fig fig fig. what a woman. its been absolutely fascinating watching build her sense of identity over these three seasons. at her core, fig is a character that loves so deeply. in freshman, she was terrified of the depth of her own devotion, so she tried to distance herself emotionally from everyone. in sophomore, she built herself around that love for other people. in junior year, fig's arc has been learning she can do both: that she's defined by her love for others, but not solely by it. ik emily wanted to retire the character before this season but i think fig's paladin arc was the best capstone to her journey possible.

gorgug's arc has been about establishing clear boundaries for himself and i love it. im aware there's been some Discourse ab the mango soda scene but to me that was pretty easily chalked up to teenage insecurity. a big part of gorgug's arc was trying to believe in himself when everyone around him told him he was too dumb to follow his passion- imagine struggling in an area that you have no natural aptitude for, and someone comes along and also trounces you in the one area you thought you were the best in. i'd be petty and reactive too (gorgug follows up calling her a freak with the fact that she beat the shit out of him, so its clearly him just still smarting from a bruised ego and not actual malice). in general, i've really like gorgug learning to put his foot down and say enough is enough without completely losing his gentleness.

adaine hasnt had an obvious arc, but considering she addressed most of her baggage in the first two seasons, i'm not surprised. i would've liked to see the other bad kids address her 'teenage adult' behaviour, but her self-awareness about it and relying on fabian to pull in clutch for the oracool stuff still felt like she'd learned to rely on her friends at least + her reaching out to aelwyn and the two of them healing from their parents together has been rewarding it its own right.

riz is perfect and has learned nothing. his neuroticism is part of his natural swag

[kitsaystransrights]

Spiderverse 2 spoilers, you have been warned.

Everyone who hasn’t seen the movie yet gone? Okay, good. Now then.

Spider-Gwen is a trans woman. Full stop.

No “um actually” here. Literally the only way the filmmakers could have made this more clear is by outright saying it, and even then, I guarantee SOME of you (*cough*, transphobes, *cough*) would still deny it.

Gwen’s room not only has a trans pride flag over the door exterior side of the door, but a “protect trans kids” poster inside. Her dad’s uniform has a trans pride patch on it. A LOT of her shots have trans pride flags in the background. Not to mention her entire dimension has a pink and blue aesthetic (tho that is pulled from the comics so I’d understand if some people dismissed that last point.)

But EVEN outside of that stuff, a lot of Gwen’s story and personal character arc throughout Across the Spiderverse is an allegory for being trans, which is VERY clear to anyone who has experienced being trans in a conservative family.

Gwen gets “outed” to her dad as Spider-Woman right at the beginning of the film, spends most of it avoiding having a conversation with her dad because she fears being rejected, and when she is finally forced to confront him about it, thankfully, she is accepted. Swap being Spider-Woman out for being trans, and it matches up almost perfectly. Not all trans stories have a happy ending like this, sadly, but it matches up with my personal experience of being trans almost exactly.

If you didn’t notice the signs, you’re not the people I’m calling out with this post. I’m talking about the people blatantly arguing “nuh uh!” for people who are celebrating finally having a transgender woman prominently featured in an animated film. And especially nowadays, those kinds of stories in an all-ages film are all the more invaluable.

Don’t try to take this from people. Actually, scratch that, you can’t. The transphobia stops here and now. Gwen Stacy, at least this version of her, is a transgender icon. We love you Gwen 🏳️‍⚧️.

[goldenrulemotherfucker]

Real talk, I came to the Fallout series a total newb, knowing nothing about the lore/games and came away with a new favorite show, easily in my top five. In particular, something it does exceptionally well is narrative payoff. Nothing in this show happens just to happen; every choice the characters make shapes their future arcs. As a SFF writer myself, I'm not only impressed--I'm inspired.

I feel this way about the entire story, but in terms of Lucy and Cooper specifically, we get so many great payoffs from their interactions. When he doesn't share his water, it seems like he's just being a dick until we learn that his canteen is full of dirty water. (Yes, he was still being a dick, but he knew she naively thought he was drinking clean water.) When he forces her to use the knife in the "ass jerky" scene, he's absolutely being cruel, but he's also extremely fatigued to the point of near collapse, which only becomes clear only after she's out of sight at the Super Duper Mart. When he cuts off her finger, it seems like nothing more than him "getting even," when he actually took a much-needed replacement part for his hand (from someone he assumed wouldn't be alive much longer).

These interactions are all brutal, give us new insights into both characters, and also set up a massive payoff in Lucy's "golden rule, motherfucker" moment. Even after everything he put her through and how he treated her as disposable, she does the opposite and shows him empathy and kindness. To put it plainly: Her choice in this scene wouldn't carry half as much weight if he hadn't repeatedly treated her like shit. Coupled with her ability to self-rescue, the scene cements who Lucy is as a person--both for the viewer and for Cooper. (And what happens next? He watches a film clip where his old self looks right at him and delivers the line about a villain being ugly and strong but having no dignity.)

The moment when Lucy gives him the vials could have been enough of a payoff for their arc by itself. But it sets up an even better one: The next time they cross paths, he treats her differently. Having already seen himself in her, and knowing that they both want answers to the same (or very similar) questions, he invites her to accompany him on his journey this time--no longer as a pawn, but as someone he trusts and respects at least a little. As a direct payoff for her memorable act of kindness toward him, this fucking rules. It's surprising while also feeling completely earned. "Golden rule, motherfucker," isn't just a satisfying moment (or my favorite line), it shapes the characters' future.

On Lucy's side, when she decides to follow him, she has no reasons to trust or respect him (yet); she likely just recognizes that he's currently the only person who will lead her to the truth. But she's only met the Ghoul so far, not Cooper Howard. She doesn't know that his primary motivation has been searching for his family this whole time. She doesn't know that she's seen him before, in those old movies she watched at home. She doesn't know why he shot the billboard.

Now, I'm not making predictions about how their future arc will play out (nor am I asking for them), I'm just along for the ride. But I feel confident that there will be many more great payoffs to come now that they've gone from "hostile forced proximity" to "traveling together by choice." I've rarely been so pumped for a second season. <3

[starlight-bread-blog]

Three Books, Two Characters, One Story

An essay on Zuko and Katara's characters and character arcs

——————

Zuko and Katara, fire and water, red and blue, one rises with the sun, the other rises with the moon. And yet, they are similar, tied together and grew closer than they could have imagined. In this essay I will discuss Zuko and Katara's characters in Avatar: The Last Airbender. I intend to touch on their shared traits and backgrounds, on their development and on their points of convergence in their over overarching story. Now, without further ado, let's begin.

——————

The Common Ground

Zuko and Katara share their core traits and core events in their respective lives. Firstly, their loss of their mothers. Zuko lost his mother, Ursa; and Katara lost her mother, Kya. But if you ask me, it goes deeper than that. For Zuko, the loss was a loss of shelter from the cruelty of his father and the bliss of being a child. In Zuko Alone, we see how Ursa took care of Zuko, played with him, and gave him a proper childhood.

With that gone, he remained almost completely unprotected. But more importantly, he lost his childhood. (It is true that he still had Iroh, but Iroh can help to an extent. He can’t be at the dinner table when Ozai tells Zuko he was lucky to be born).

Similarly, when Katara’s mother died, something in her internalized it. As Sokka says in The Runaway:

We see Katara help fill the void many times in A:TLA. Namely in The Desert, where she takes care of the Gaang in ways ranging from giving her bending water to endangering herself to pull A\ang out of the Avatar State. Katara doesn’t like to be viewed as someone who lost her childhood, as her reaction to Sokka’s speech was to join Toph and go scamming. However, Kya’s death is an integral part of who she became. She wants to cling to her childhood, and she partly succeeds,but that speech was made for a reason. A part of it was gone with Kya.

Another parallel between their similar grief is sacrifice. Zuko’s mother left to save his life from Fire Lord Azulon’s ruthless order. Katara’s mother died when pretending to be the last waterbender of the South Pole when a Fire Nation raid came looking for her. Both of their mothers left because they protected them, saving their lives from the cruelty of the Fire Nation. In these parallel narratives, the themes of sacrifice against them are intertwined.

But beyond their grief, I believe that at their center, they are very similar. Zuko and Katara are filled with righteous anger and empathy even towards strangers. Although clearly everyone in the Gaang is a good person, doing their part in ending the war, it’s not a defining trait as it is for Zuko and Katara. In The Painted Lady, Katara insists on helping a Fire Nation village while Sokka pressures that they’ll leave to make it to the invasion, while Toph and A\ang remain natural. Her compassion clashes with the Gaang. When Sokka scolds her for being impulsive with her attempts to aid the village, Katara angrily responds with this:

Similarly, the thing that kicked off Zuko’s arc was this righteous anger. In The Storm, we learn that Zuko’s scar came from him standing up to a general who suggested sacrificing a division of rookies for an operation.

You can't sacrifice an entire division like that! Those soldiers love and defend our nation! How can you betray them?

It is their shared compassion and anger at the injustices around them that makes them and the way they interact with the world so similar. Iroh described Zuko as “an idealist with a pure heart with unquestionable honor”. How well does this describe Katara?

Moreover, it is not only their anger. They are both incredibly strong willed with how they act on their anger. In The Waterbending Master, when Katara found out master Pakku won’t teach her because she’s a girl, she didn’t give up. She challenged him, a master, to a fight to prove that she can do everything a boy can do. And Zuko’s strong will is almost over talked about. When A\ang escaped his ship, he jumped on his airbender staff. In Zuko Alone, Ursa said to him “That’s who you are, Zuko. Someone who keeps fighting even though it’s hard”.

To sum up, Zuko and Katara’s foundational events and personality traits are parallels to one another. They both lost their mother when they sacrificed themselves for them, and it marked the end of an era for them. They are both driven by compassion and righteous anger and have a strong willed personality. They are guided by their morals first and foremost. They are parallels to one another.

The Development

Zuko and Katara’s character arcs serve as parallels to each other, and bring them closer together. Zuko’s redemption arc is, to put it simply, about unlearning Fire Nation propaganda and coming to realize the horror his country inflicted on the world. In book 2 Zuko sees the harm they caused first hand, and in The Day of Black Sun he fully rejects the Fire Nation.

Zuko: Growing up, we were taught that the Fire Nation was the greatest civilization in history. And somehow, the War was our way of sharing our greatness with the rest of the world. What an amazing lie that was.

He rejects the lie that the Fire Nation is somehow helping the world - that it’s inherently good. His arc was about unlearning Fire Nation supremacy.

Katara’s arc is not as easy to pin down, but it’s nevertheless there. Her arc is about idealism, hope and a change in perspective. Katara started her journey as an idealist, the literal voice of hope in the opening, and with a black and white view of the world - the Fire Nation is evil, and everyone else is good. Throughout the show, Katara encounters both good people from the Fire Nation, and bad people from around the world of Avatar, such as Long Feng, Jet and Hama. In The Puppetmaster in particular she learns that waterbending can be just as destructive as firebending, if not more so. Her arc is about unlearning naivety and Fire Nation inferiority.

The symmetry comes from them learning to lean on the other’s view across the seasons. In book 1, they are rigid in their view. Zuko is still working a full time job tracking the Avatar, while Katara still clings to her black and white view of the world, such as when she had a conversation with a Firebender who told her firebending is inherently destructive. In book 2, Zuko becomes a fugitive and sees the Fire Nation’s horrors for himself, while Katara sees that the one safe haven from the Fire Nation can be evil too. In book 3, Zuko goes back to the Fire Nation to see that it’s not what he’d imagined at all, while Katara goes to the Fire Nation to find people just like her.

Not only are their arcs symmetrical, but they are what allows their bond to flourish. Katara can only forgive Zuko after she’d let go of her ideals, and Zuko can only seek to redeem himself in her eyes after he’d let go of his idealization of the Fire Nation. Their bond is a true testament to their arcs.

The Encounters

Zuko and Katara’s relationship carries a lot of narrative weight. Their journeys are intertwined on many occasions. For Katara, it’s significant that after Katara masters waterbending, it is Zuko whom she has to defend herself to. It’s significant that she sees humanity in Zuko, despite him being the face of the Fire Nation. It’s meaningful that she goes to find her mother’s killer with Zuko, and even bloodbends before him. And finally, it’s meaningful that she spends the 4 part finale with him.

For Zuko, it’s significant that when he truly connects with someone other than his uncle, it’s with Katara. It’s significant that he learns through Katara that revenge doesn’t always help. It’s significant that Katara is the last member he has to earn forgiveness from. And it’s meaningful that jumping in front of a lightning bolt to save Katara is his last act of redemption.

While Sokka and Zuko for instance never interact in book 1 besides some one liners, Katara and Zuko had a subplot around Katara’s necklace. Although their stories do diverge, such as most of book 2, they always return to spend the season’s finales together. They don’t drive each other’s characters forward as much as they represent milestones in each other’s stories. You cannot remove their scenes together and have the rest of the show make sense.

——————

In conclusion, Zuko and Katara’s characters follow a story of mutual suffering, personal development, and deep friendship. They have a common experience of sacrifice, sorrow, and unflinching compassion. These experiences have narrative weight because they act as development, redemption, and forgiveness catalysts, creating a connection that ultimately serves as a reminder of how far they’ve come.

[meanbossart]

ASK COMPILATION: LORE, CHARACTERIZATION, AND THE ONE IN WHICH I RUIN A BUNCH OF PEOPLE'S FUN

As usual, this is far from all of the asks in my inbox but I'm trying to catch up 😩thank you everyone for your patience!

For the record, if your ask isn't being answered, that most likely means one of three things:

I am saving it as a possible art prompt.

I sincerely don't have a very interesting or good reply for it yet!

It's a question I have been asked multiple times/the answer is in my pinned post.

Glad you like them!!

As much as I don't limit what I draw to canonical events, vampirism is so antithetical to DU drow's character journey that I couldn't really envision it, to be honest, but who knows! Maybe I'll cook up some Ascended Astarion scenario someday that is kind of a role-reversal of the Bhaalist DU Drow AU I have going on in tandem to the story.

I'll be honest, this is one of the rare times where I'm really not sure which aspect of DU drow's weirdness this is in reference to. Do you know something I don't? 😅

His masochism is very... Classic, I guess? He's in it for the pain and for the emotional connection, and the process of being pierced wouldn't cut it whatsoever, it's too subtle. The body modifications he has are an incidental result of it, but they were never really the goal.

Also having stuff dangling off his face or body would just irritate him, he specifically only does rings because all other types of jewellery get in the way too much. Pre-tadpole Bhaalist drow obviously wore them by the ton, but only as a symbol of status and because he had a permanent new-money complex🤷 so yeah not a piercing-type of character at all, sorry!

He's smooth from the eyelashes-down and profoundly weirded out by body hair LOL

I don't personally think that whatever Astarion had for a home before would bear my resemblance to it after 200 years - having probably gone through several owners, remodeled, if not completely lost to the destruction of the end-game. I do HC that he used to visit it whenever he could as an enthralled spawn to read his mail, but he stopped after his father passed.

THANK YOU, I THINK? I can't say that isn't a passionate description at least!

I'm honestly surprised that this comes up as often as it does LOL but it's just an stylistic choice on my end!

The latter - for sure. He figured that them dying at each other's hands at the end was a given and took that assumption entirely for granted (and I'm sure daydreamed about it often while Gortash went on and on about political strategy during their dinner meetings.)

;))) way ahead of you and by "way ahead" I mean "eventually and whenever I can figure out when to do it alongside the other 30 ideas I am currently juggling" (but I really do want to make a little comic out of it!)

He used them! Not immediately, but he grew to trust the guardian after some initial suspicion and happily gobbled up those squirmy little things alongside Astarion. Because I made his character on a whim and without any planned backstory, I didn't really put any thought into his Guardian's appearance either, so she's just a human woman with a Joan of Arc look going on who's of no significance to him or his past.

But DU drow did trust her, again not immediately but eventually. It was honestly a big kick in the gut to him when the Emperor revealed himself and it definitely set their relationship up to fail from the get-go.

This is also why he didn't ascend to the next stage of Ilithid power, he just stomped the thing dead right on the spot LOL

LMAO I think Gortash is too proud to chase a tail he can't catch like that

He was probably very overwhelmed by the sudden realization that OH, THIS IS ALL HAPPENING BECAUSE OF ME which naturally didn't come across whatsoever to anyone present since he immediately bottled it up and tucked it away out of sight. However, as the story progressed and DU drow helped his friends get out of their respective pickles he was probably able to justify it to himself as it having been for the greater good - since it led to Astarion being freed from his master and Shadowheart to defying the Sharrans.

As for all of the rest of the ensued destruction and death that resulted from it? Well you can't make an omelette without cracking some eggs, or whatever is the wizard version of that saying. He has essentially turned the entire situation into a net-positive in his mind and sleeps great at night because of it.

[bluejay757]

Lets talk about Simon and Betty

spoilers for episode 8

So a lot of people are throwing around some strong accusations about their relationship, some I can see where they're coming from, and a lot are really reaching.

As for the ones that I think are reaching, a lot of people are saying that Simon and Betty were a professor/student dynamic, except they weren't. Simon wasn't teaching a class he was a guest lecturer, and Betty, having read his work was interested. She was excited to meet him because she liked his research. Simon was constantly mocked in his field, if you actually read the newspaper clippings from "I remember you" you'll see that even after he found the enchiridion, he was made fun of. People were literally laughing at him and throwing things at him while he was giving his lecture. Betty likely was mocked too, it makes sense she was so excited to meet him, because this was her chance to meet one of the few people that actually shared her interest. She did not yet have a crush on him at that point in time.

I think after she got to know Simon on a personal level her fascination of him changed, as she no longer viewed him as a "celebrity" (I use that term loosely for a lack of a better word, I can't imagine his books sold that many copies, what with him being a laughing stock and him being genuinely surprised that Betty had read his work), but rather a colleague and equal. She even said that after their trip together she had grown to admire him as a person, so it's not like she had any kind of feelings for him prior to that. Now that's not to say her feelings towards him were completely normal, but there definitely wasn't a power imbalance between them.

A lot of people are saying Simon was selfish for making her stay behind, but he didn't make her. She chose to stay behind. She could have still gone on that trip, and continued to write to him and talk to him on the phone, but she chose to stay with him and go on different adventures. You're forgetting that Simon and Betty went on expeditions together all the time, it's not like she gave up her career for him, that would be a whole different story, but she made the decision to continue working in her field alongside him.

Also Simon couldn't have gone on that trip if he did want to because he wasn't offered to go, who ever it was that gave Betty that opportunity, wasn't anticipating on her bringing a friend, he also didn't have anything with him but like his wallet and keys you can't seriously expect him to go to another country with no luggage, no plane ticket, no money, no nothing. A whole part of Fionna's character arc is realizing that life's not a fairy tale, she was expecting something out of a romance novel and got a story straight from reality. Realistically the two options were for Betty to stay or to leave Simon. And I don't think her giving up her trip to Australia was a sacrifice, because there were other trips and opportunities after that, she traded that one trip for an entire lifetime of them, (or at least it would have been if war didn't break out)

And if you're gonna call Betty impulsive, call her impulsive because she went on a trip around the world with a man she had never met, not because she walked through a creek barefoot lmfao.

I'm not saying that Simon and Betty were perfect but there are other reasons to criticize them.

As for the actual problems with there relationship, none of them are their fault. Betty going literally crazy trying to bring Simon back was because of Magic Man and Patience fucking with her brain, a human being cannot handle the amount of magic she was given and it drove her to insanity. And Simon now, with risking everything to bring her back, she's literally fused with a chaos god and is going to live for eternity in that state, did you ever think maybe he wants to get her out of that for her sake? That maybe he wants closure and to say goodbye? Since he never got that chance. No it's not healthy for Simon to drive himself as far as he did to bring her back, but Jesus fucking Christ can you blame him for not wanting his fiance to suffer for literal eternity? They don't need to break up, they need therapy. I don't think their relationship pre-mushroom war was unhealthy, and I don't think it ever would have been unhealthy without Betty becoming Magic Betty.

Their relationship flaws are more so their own individual flaws that have bled into their relationship as opposed to ones caused by the relationship itself, that's an important distinction you have to see.

[samasmith23]

How Goro Akechi effectively serves as a dark foil to the Phantom Thieves' brand of rehabilitative justice

So... I understand that Goro Akechi is a pretty divisive character within the Persona 5 fanbase (especially his pre-Royal incarnation), but I have to admit that I honestly found his backstory and role as a sinister foil to the Phantom Thieves to be legitimately intriguing. Elements which are revealed during his boss fight in the game’s “Cruiser of Pride” arc!

When the Phantom Thieves infiltrate the Meta-Verse to confront the Shadow of the corrupt ultra-nationalist politician, Masayoshi Shido, who’s palace takes the form of a gigantic yacht sailing through the ruins of a sunken Japan, they are suddenly confronted by Akechi in the ship’s engine room. Having just betrayed the team during the previous arc, Akechi is revealed to not only be the true culprit behind the mysterious wave of mental shutdowns & psychotic breakdowns (which included the deaths of two Phantom Thieves’ member’s parents, Futaba Sakura’s mother Wakaba Isshiki & Haru Okumura’s father Kunikazu Okumura respectively…) that have occurred throughout the game’s narrative as part of Shido’s conspiracy to get elected as Prime Minister, but that he is also Shido’s illegitimate child. Essentially, Akechi was the product of a dubious affair between Shido and a sex worker whom the former later discarded when he discovered that she was pregnant, driving her to depression and suicide shortly after Akechi's birth. Akechi spent his entire childhood being passed around as a “problem child” between various foster homes (highlighting Japan’s problems with how the country treats its orphaned children) before later being granted the power of a "wildcard" persona-user, as well as knowledge about the existence of the Meta-Verse by the false god of control, Yaldabaoth.

While Akechi was a societal outcast similar to the members of the Phantom Thieves, he took the wrong message from his experiences. Akechi misguidedly believes that the only way to truly oppose the status quo that looked down upon him is to not only become a part of it (i.e. caring only about his good grades & celebrity status) but to destroy everything that he hates by reducing himself to Shido's right-hand assassin in the Meta-Verse, perpetuating mental shutdowns & psychotic breakdowns on Shido’s political enemies simply to get some semblance of recognition & validation from his abusive father before exacting revenge on him (whilst exploiting his "ace-detective" celebrity status to "solve" the crimes that he himself committed).

Essentially, once Shido finally became prime minister Akechi planned to whisper the truth about being the former’s illegitimate child, telling Shido that he was only able to get where he was due to the son he abandoned and labeled as a potential “political scandal” before murdering him.

Despite Akechi and the Phantom Thieves' mutual dislike of Shido, the former is so fixated on vengeance that he does not care about the innocent lives he ruins and destroys in the crossfire to satisfy his own personal bloodlust. Instead of legitimately trying to reform society like the Phantom Thieves do, Akechi becomes a pawn of the very same systemic corruption that was responsible for his initial suffering. Akechi cares only about his own hatred & jealousy instead of empathizing with others who were also victimized by society’s ills. This contrast is visually reflected through the juxtaposition between Akechi and the Phantom Thieves’ leader, Joker, when they confront each other in the engine room of Shido’s yacht. While Joker is portrayed as standing strong alongside his teammates & friends, Akechi stands alone in the opposite end of the room, confused & angry. While there is a part of Akechi that regrets his horrible actions and even recognizes the potential for him & Joker to be friends due to their similar backgrounds, he's too far gone into his obsessive vendetta against Shido that he refuses to turn back and now desires to kill the Phantom Thieves in a misguided attempt to ease his internal conflict.

During the boss fight with Akechi in Shido's Palace, the detective prince repeatedly dismisses the Phantom Thieves' efforts to appeal to his common senses, believing that concepts like friendship and teamwork are foolish "cliched bullish*t... in this eat or be eaten world."

While this attitude of Akechi's might seem unrealistically cartoonish on the surface, it actually makes sense when considering his background of being unfairly labeled as a "throw-away child" by Japan's foster care institutions. YouTuber LadyVirgilia goes into far greater detail about this in her excellent The Truth About Goro Akechi analysis video. There, she states that an overwhelming number of Japanese orphans are incapable of being legally adopted due to impoverished parents voluntarily relinquishing them from their care while still maintaining legal guardianship over them. Additionally, LadyVirgilia discusses how violent hierarchical power structures often form among the children within these foster homes, with younger orphans sadly being subject to bullying & abuse by their older peers.

While these facts are not explicitly stated about Akechi's backstory within P5 Royal itself, they can easily be heavily inferred due to the game's heavy emphasis on exploring themes related to Japanese sociocultural issues. It’s implied that the institutional failings of Japan's foster care system (combined with Shido's abandonment of his son while he was still in the womb), ultimately contributed to the development of Akechi's warped perception of the rest of the world. Due to being dismissed as a "throw-away child" and being forced to grow up in an institution that is unfortunately subject to high rates of systemic abuse & neglect, Akechi spent his entire life feeling unwanted & loved. Ideals such as friendship & companionship became foreign and unrealistic concepts to him due to having experienced nothing but society's cold & uncaring apathy.

Essentially, Akechi became deeply jealous & hateful toward the rest of the world, misguidedly compelling him to want to prove his superiority over the rest of society by manufacturing his status as "the celebrity ace-detective and honors student who ultimately brought down Shido." But when Akechi encounters the Phantom Thieves and befriends their leader Joker, he begins to experience his first genuine bond of companionship. Despite developing a legitimate appreciation towards Joker, Akechi is simultaneously confused & unable to fully process these newfound feelings. Akechi becomes envious of Joker's ability to rise above his similar status as a societal outcast by befriending & protecting others like himself. Consequently, Akechi projects his own failings & inability to legitimately rise above his tragic upbringing beyond his false celebrity status onto Joker & the Phantom Thieves, cruely dismissing them as "the trash of society" and blaming them for interfering with his revenge plot against Shido. This empty & hollow existence that Akechi chooses to live is further reflected by the sole two personas that he utilizes during his boss fight: Robin Hood, who represents Akechi's false celebrity & justice-abiding gentleman facade, and Loki, who embodies Akechi’s true personality as a deceitful trickster & psychotic murderer.

I personally couldn’t help but find all of these elements to be rather interesting & insightful about Akechi’s role as an antagonist/rival to the Phantom Thieves. It honestly highlights the tragic nature of Akechi's situation, since while he had the potential to utilize his deductive knowledge & skills as a "wildcard" Persona-user similar to Joker, he instead allowed himself to be consumed by his own hatred & madness.

The parallels between Akechi & Joker are further evident through the latter also being a victim of Shido’s abuse. Specifically, the corrupt politician wrongfully sued Joker for “assault” when he tried to stop Shido from drunkenly forcing himself upon a woman. In contrast to Akechi however, Joker is motivated by his negative experiences to fight against the unjust status quo that figures like Shido represent to prevent similar abuses of power from ever occurring again to others. Additionally, we also see dualistic parallels between Akechi and other members of the Phantom Thieves, such as Makoto Nijima who similarly previously upheld the misconception that “good grades and following orders are all that truly matters to be a worthwhile member of society.” Whereas Makoto outgrows this mentality by instead choosing to utilize her status as student council president to help her suffering peers rather than for her own academic career, Akechi conversely exploits his intellect as an “ace-detective” to perpetuate societal injustices for his self-centered vendetta against Shido.

In essence, if the Phantom Thieves embody the potential benefits of rehabilitative justice then Goro Akechi embodies the dangers of retributive justice (aka, revenge). To reference two of my favorite movies, Batman Begins and Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, not only is there a strong difference between justice and revenge (one is about altruistic harmony whereas the other is about personal satisfaction), but the most surefire way to victory is by fighting to protect what you love rather than fighting to destroy what you hate...

The distinction between justice & revenge is made abundantly clear at the end of Akechi's storyline in the baseline game (i.e. before the Royal exclusive Third Semester new content), where following his defeat at the hands of the Phantom Thieves Akechi is suddenly approached by a cognitive duplicate of himself that dwells within Shido's palace. In addition to the Cognitive Akechi emphasizing the futility of Akechi's quest for acknowledgment & vengeance against Shido by revealing that the latter always intended to dispose of his right-hand assassin once he was elected prime minister, the cognitive duplicate also reveals the true depths of Shido's depravity when he states that he only ever viewed Akechi as a puppet to fulfill his own ambitions. While it is true that Akechi was so obsessed with revenge that he allowed himself to become a pawn of the corrupt status quo, it is exceptionally cruel to learn that this is how Shido has always viewed his own son (which is further punctuated by Shido later revealing to the Phantom Thieves that he secretly always suspected that Akechi was his illegitimate child due to how much he reminded him of his mother). It is this revelation in particular that allows the Phantom Thieves to better empathize with Akechi's tragic upbringing & circumstances. Even though they still seek to hold Akechi accountable for the murders that he committed at Shido's behest, the Phantom Thieves simultaneously recognize that in a sense, Akechi was also a victim of both Shido's cruelty and the systemic injustices of larger Japanese society.

This effectively culminates in the bittersweet resolution to Akechi's storyline in the base Persona 5 game. When the Cognitive Akechi duplicate offers his real-world counterpart one last chance to "redeem" himself in Shido's eyes by killing the Phantom Thieves in his stead, Akechi for the first time in his life decides to be his own person instead of being defined by the labels Shido and society had imposed upon him since birth. Choosing to no longer be a puppet of Shido's corrupt machinations, Akechi rejects his cognitive duplicate's hollow offer by instead turning his gun on the duplicate and his Shadow minions before sealing the engine room's watertight doors between himself and the Phantom Thieves. At the very end, Akechi was finally able to acknowledge that his desire for false appreciation from both his abusive father and larger society was ultimately worthless. Akechi ultimately sacrifices himself to allow the Phantom Thieves to escape, recognizing their true justice while entrusting them to do what he was incapable of by holding Shido accountable for his crimes & reforming society.

From a certain point of view, one could argue that the Phantom Thieves indirectly inspired a change of heart in Akechi by proving to him the validity of their sense of justice.

Overall, while I was initially indifferent towards Goro Akechi at the start of my playthrough of Persona 5 (and even outright skeptical & suspicious of his motives given his vocal opposition to the Phantom Thieves), by the time I got to his boss battle in Shido's palace I ended gained a deeper understanding and appreciation for what the developers at Atlus were attempting to convey with his character. Akechi effectively functions as both a cautionary tale about the dangers of allowing oneself to be consumed with thoughts of revenge, as well as a dark parallel to the Phantom Thieves who seek to legitimately reform society for altruistic rather than self-centered reasons. It was these elements that ultimately elevated Akechi into becoming one of my personal favorite members of P5's cast (right behind Makoto, Futaba & Ann...) from both a narrative and character writing perspective (especially with the Royal edition's overhauled confidant line for Akechi, which better fleshes out the latter's rivalry with Joker, and the player now has to progress manually instead of it being automatic)! And I am definitely curious to see how Royal's exclusive "Third Semester" content further fleshes out Akechi's character since I'm aware that he plays a major role in the new story content.

[perpetualprocrastinationisme]

Unfortunately, I think TWP is going to see Ty Blackthorn going to some really dark places. I think that he and Kit will slowly mend their relationship in the first book all for it to fall apart even worse at the end of book one because a problem arises where they need to release Livvy (maybe she’s becoming corrupted in this state) and he refuses to release her. He’s convinced that there’s another way and Ty and Kit viciously split before book two starts (like, I think Ty will run away).

For Kit’s point of view I think he’ll have that same anger we see in SOBH and at the end of QOAAD but amplified. However, there will always be this desperate need to save and protect Ty because that’s how the Herondales love. So I think he’ll constantly have this intense inner struggle in the last two books.

I was saying that Kit feels this need to save Ty but the thing is that the only person that can save Ty is Ty himself in this instance. I think his entire arc in TWP will be refusing to let go of Livvy in the first half of the series to finally finding the inner strength to let her go. To save the world but also to save Livvy because she never would have wanted to become this and he knows it. If we think about this scenario I think it would be perfect for his overall TSC character growth because he’ll finally show the world that he doesn’t need saving or to be protected, that Ty is more than capable of doing that for himself and others.

I know this probably won’t be a popular theory because it would cause SO much tension between Ty and Kit and would also make Ty a sort of villain for part of the series but I think it would be a much more satisfying end to TSC because the stakes are so much higher. If Ty and Kit fix all their problems in the first book what’s left for their relationship progression in books 2 and 3? If all their flaws are gone by the end of book one what’s left for books 2 and 3?

What do you think of this theory?

[some-pers0n]

Arc 2 is so unhinged, especially from the perspective of the DoD. It's just great and I love it so dearly.

Like imagine an underground middle school full of traumatized child soldiers from all of the continent that have just gotten over a twenty-year war. There's some kids as young as five here and for some reason they also let a thirty-five-year-old woman in as well. In the first week a classroom exploded, two are dead, many are injured, and now nobody's really paying attention or listening. It's all gone to hell. One of the groups just kinda left and is now going around the continent doing main character stuff as if the school year isn't still happening.

Then when they finally come back they bring a two millennia-old genocidal maniac of a teenager who's triple the size of a normal person and also has god-like powers. Some MCR fan tries killing the school's local depressed hermit and then the wannabe dictator of the continent convinces a nine-year-old girl to kill her entire family. Oh, and remember that middle-aged woman from earlier? Now she's kidnapped that child and is holding them hostage. All of a sudden now there's a massive conflict and said teenager with god powers has sent a plague after some people he wants to completely wipe out because of his daddy issues. Then right when there's a massive battle over the school, everyone just kinda...stops, disappears, and then everything goes back to normal.

[captainuranium543]

Thing I've noticed about the Fairy tail fandom misogyny problem (I'm about to sound like such a nerd)

Not to be the loser of the year but the easiest way to see the bad treatment of women in the ft fandom is by imagining what would happen if you swapped the genders of gray and erza.

As we all know gray has a running gag of taking off his clothes, however while people clown on him for this it's also well known and obvious that he is more than that. He has depth and character beyond just that gag. In the more recent 100 year quest he really hasn't done that much by comparison to natsu Lucy erza or even Wendy. This has been (reasonably) upsetting to some fans arguing that he deserves better. I agree with this but I need you to imagine what the reaction would be if he was a women because it would be a completely different story.

If gray was a character who didn't get a lot of development and was always taking off his clothes as a women people would not be saying he deserves better then would be absolutely dog piling this dude calling him useless and fanservice only completely ignoring all his previous development.

How do I know this? Because that is literally what happened to Lucy. Back in the 2010s people WOULD NOT GET OFF HER ASS. people were constantly calling her useless (completely ignoring the fact that she's a brand new wizard being compared to guys who've been doing this since before puberty and NO SHIT SHES NOT THAT GOOD YET. THATS WHERE THE DEVELOPMENT COMES IN). It made sense for Lucy to be weaker than the others she was brand new to this and that was literally the point of her entire story to watch her grow as a wizard and become more independent and powerful. In some instances Lucy was written to be a damsel in distress character but rather then looking at her as an obvious victim of bad writing it was treated like it was somehow her fault. Gray and Lucy are very similar characters but gray is treated far more favorably right now than Lucy ever was back in the early days.

As for erza, people cannot stop calling her a plot armor character. All I see online is none stop hating, some people even claiming it's worse than natsu. The things is, to a degree they are right erza does have plot armor, the issue is that so does literally everyone else. As much as you don't want to accept it erza fights more so it's more noticeable with her but every single fairy tail fight outside of a few will have an element of plot armor ESPECIALLY for natsu.

The issue I have isn't that people are wrong it's that they completely ignore the fact erza is literally only being treated the same way male anime characters have been since the dawn of time but now suddenly it's a problem. Being overpowered and winning by punching things harder is fine as long as you're a dude ig.

It's even worse when people argue she's a Mary Sue because she objectively isn't. She not only has so many flaws that come to mind easily, she had probably one of the strongest character arcs I've ever seen. She's gone through more character development then 99% of the cast the only problem is that it happened very early and afterward Hiro didn't really know what to do with her.

That being said, even if she had no character arc at all I STILL WOULDN'T SAY SHES A MARY SUE. BECAUSE A MARY SUE IS A CHARACTER WITH NO FLAWS. AND NOBODY IN THIS SHOW IS MORE FLAWED THEN ERZA IS. I've heard people argue that all her flaws are comedic and, ignoring the fact this is just not true she has plenty of flaws that are genuine problems she needs to grow from (ie galuna island, tower of heaven and edolas), who cares if they are comedic? Natsu is also a very flawed person and has not had to change even a fraction of the amount Erza has and does that make him a Mary Sue? No. Do I still love him? Absolutely, he's funny as hell.

This post was not made to complain about gray or natsu btw Its not that I think they're useless or Mary sues I just don't think any of these characters are at all and I think people who do think that should all explode. Anyway this is just what I think feel free to disagree but don't try to argue with me because nobody is changing my mind on this one.

[tessarionbestgirl]

Viserys was a chunk of shit, but men rooted for him because he was likeable, and he was likeable because he was very human.

He loved his wife a lot but he wanted a legacy, her death hunted him. Lost is one of the primary emotions that make him such a likeable character, as well as his love for his daughter and brother.

Meanwhile in the process of making the "women strong" in the show Ryan took that away from them. Helaena, Alicent Rhaenyra, are not haunted by the losses of those they loved.

Rhaenyra quest does not feel personal. Her failed birth and murder of her son are barely a concern to her, all she cares about now is a prophecy.

Alicent Very human motivation of protecting her kids is gone and she is destroyed and character that now feels like a empty shell that only cared about power.

Helaena entire arc of getting acceptance and understanding her prophecies happens off-screen. She nor fight properly to save her son.

Because for Ryan emotions are weekness ( like very much was for D&D). Without realizing that IS what make them compeling.

[roll-for-gaslight]

I'm not sure exactly how to put my thoughts into words so pardon my rambling but I'm thinking about how Kristen, Adaine, and Fig's character growth all stems from growing into a person they always could have been in a better situation. Also, it's interesting the way the bad kids seem to bring out these parts of each other because they're healing!

Like I know it was a kind of jokey moment but Adaine's little "Fabian hit me!!!!!" versus her insistence on being independent to the point of endangering her mental and physical wellbeing! She grew up so independent, unable to ask for help because of the risk of being ridiculed. She never asks for help and holds herself to an incredibly high standard. But that's not how her childhood should have ideally gone! She was supposed to have a big sister to tattle on and fight with, she was supposed to be taken care of! The BKs make her feel safe and cared for in a way her family never did, so her character development very much means slipping into the "little sister" position she was always supposed to occupy.

Fig pushed down her natural and newly-forming personality when the very foundation of her identity changed. She threw herself so wholly and entirely into her new aesthetic and vibe and vehemently denied the version of her that came before. Now she's growing to accept herself at all stages of her life, to a version of herself that brings in the parts of both her childhood and post-tiefling personalities that she likes and forms something new that makes her comfortable.

For Kristen, losing her religion made her lose a sense of identity. Without her parents to take care of her or her brothers for her to take care of, she was suddenly accountable to absolutely no one. She has Jawbone and Sandralynn, technically, but from what we've seen neither of them actually parent her a lot. So, she leaned hard into doing whatever she wanted, living wildly, engaging in all the things she never got to before, living a life as far away from her childhood as possible, and that's reflected in her clerical work. She loves Cassandra and wants her to thrive, but hates that what that means has a lot of overlap with what it meant to be Helio's Chosen. Like the daily prayer, the proselytizing, it reminds her too much of the things she was raised to do for Helio, and the fact that Cassandra needs Kristen to take care of her makes her accountable to someone in a way that she really wasn't for a while. Now that she's in the back half of her character arc, trying to bring Cassandra back and working hard for it, she's growing a little more responsible. There have been a lot of good moments this season where she's tried to help other people outside of combat-necessary healing, such as giving Lydia Barkrock the help action and the way she reacts after Fabian attacks Adaine (which I know is technically "combat-necessary healing" but how it happened came across as very Big Sister, like pulling the crayon out of her brother's nose in the first episode, especially with how it was immediately followed not with a bit like everyone else but with "oh no fabian got possessed I hope he's okay!!!! poor fabian!!!!!"

[asidian]

Color symbolism in Dead Boy Detectives continues with:

BLACK

Black is emotional rock bottom.

After the events of the Devlin House and the incident with the Night Nurse, Charles is fighting feelings of inadequacy and helplessness. He's struggling to think of himself as a decent person. During this time, his outfit fades from red entirely to black. Symbolically, he's lost his self-confidence. He's at his darkest point here.

Jenny wears black for the entire show. And take a look at her baseline. She thinks that people only look out for themselves. She doesn't want to be romantically entangled because she's sure she'll be disappointed. She runs a family butcher shop but doesn't seem to have any family around. She never mentions any friends. Emotional rock bottom is Jenny's status quo.

Pay attention to how much black Jenny wears, and when. In the episodes where she's more hopeful, she sometimes wears shorter sleeves. In several instances, some white even creeps in among all the black when she opens herself up to a bit of vulnerability. She wears the most black immediately after the date gone wrong, in a high collar and long sleeves, completely enclosing herself in the color.

Black is also the color of the charm Crystal uses to rid herself of David's influence. "It protects you from the repercussions of toxic entanglements," Mick tells her, and it seems a fitting color for it, given the emotional state David has left her in.

When the Cat King dies and comes back in his next life, he returns as a black cat, and all of his outfits are black. He, too, has been reduced to his lowest point. Edwin has slipped through his fingers. He has literally been murdered. He's afraid to act for fear that Esther will do it again. He's truly hit rock bottom.

And finally, Crystal is entirely in black and white for the episode where she's lost her powers. This is the emotional low point of her character arc; here, all of her fears have come to fruition. She's terrified that she's not important to anyone, and she thinks the boys only want her there because of her powers. It isn’t until she puts a brown jacket on over all that black and white that she opens up to the boys about her powers being gone and starts to realize that they care about more than what she can do for them.

red | blue | pink | green | green (alt) | purple | orange | brown | black |white

[antianakin]

Number 9 for the ask game! For both disneycanon and legends :)

9. worst part of canon

Man, this is a hard question to answer, mostly because there's so many things I could answer.

So I am assuming here that when you say "Legends" you actually just mean Lucas canon that existed pre Disney canon since "Legends" has never been and will never be canon in and of itself. If you were hoping to hear me speak about something that was ACTUALLY from Legends, I'm very sorry, but I'm not familiar enough with it and I don't think it works for the prompt anyway, so all of my answers are going to be from Disney Canon or Lucas Canon.

Some of these will land more in the realm of "the concept is fine/good, the execution was bad" and some will be more "the concept in and of itself is awful regardless of whether it was executed well or not."

In the Ahsoka show, the concept of Ahsoka facing her past with Anakin and how that's impacted who she's become is a great idea and it's really the only way to move her character forward, but the execution of it was so badly done that I wish it had never happened and we'd just never seen Ahsoka again or ever learned what she felt about Anakin. I've spoken enough about this show for anyone more familiar with me to know why I feel that way. If you haven't read my posts about it and want to hear more of them, you can search under the tags "ahsoka show" and "anti ahsoka show."

Turning the Darksaber into Mandalorian Excalibur is, perhaps controversially, a bad concept. It's introduced in the hands of a Mandalorian, sure, but it's also introduced specifically as a stolen Jedi relic. And between those two things, somehow the fact that it was in the hands of a Mandalorian got considered the more important part of it rather than the fact that it was a JEDI relic that got stolen from them.

And unfortunately turning the Darksaber into Mandalorian Excalibur has made the Mandos even more boring than they already were. It forces everything that was established about them in TCW to be basically erased and ignored. The whole aspect of them having a government of any kind, having a Council and a Prime Minister, is gone, and leaders are chosen by who can wield a stolen relic real good (or, more accurately, who can wield a DIFFERENT WEAPON well enough to defeat the person who IS wielding the stolen relic) rather than chosen more democratically by the people themselves.

The Darksaber also just isn't even being used very well in the narrative. It got handed to Sabine and we went through an entire lovely arc for her to earn it both the Jedi way and the Mandalorian way only for her to hand it off the very next season to someone who hadn't earned it at all. Then that person loses it and it somehow ends up in the hands of Din Djarin who seems to START an arc about earning it only for that to just get completely dropped so he can hand it right back to the same person Sabine handed it to last time and then it gets destroyed a few episodes later. There's not been any point to the Darksaber at all since it first showed up in Pre Viszla's hands in TCW. It should've stayed a fancy-looking stolen Jedi relic (and arguably should've just been handed back to the Jedi) if they weren't going to do a single interesting thing with any of the Mandos who ended up with it.

Moving on from the Darksaber, and looking at the Sequels, I think killing off all of Luke's Jedi students and destroying Leia's New Republic was a terrible terrible idea as a concept. I understand the idea of like... "Darkness always comes back, the fight is never completely over" but destroying ALL OF THE PROGRESS made in the last trilogy by the main characters just to force the new characters to do the exact same thing all over again is stupid. There are ways to do "darkness always comes back" as a theme without making Luke, Leia, and Han's arcs completely irrelevant. It doesn't feel hopeful by the end anymore, it just feels a little pointless because if everything is always going to be destroyed over and over again then why try to build anything at all? What's the fucking point of it all if none of the triumphs last long enough to mean anything?

And adding onto that, making the New Republic completely incompetent and also so horrible that they're basically the Empire in all but name feels equally frustrating as a concept because now not only were they destroyed before anything meaningful could be done with them, but it's not even a bad thing that they were destroyed because Leia failed long before Starkiller blew up those five planets. The New Republic was a failure from the moment of its inception because it's just filled with and run by cowards and greedy assholes who won't help anyone or do anything useful at all apparently.

I won't touch on R*ylo much because plenty of other people have, but everything about that was awful and it never should've been made canon.

While we're on romantic failures, I don't think Obi-Wan has ever needed a romantic interest, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be done well. But Obitine just wasn't it. Obitine was executed so incredibly poorly that it just made both characters radically less interesting and if I didn't already enjoy Obi-Wan as a character, his relationship with Satine would probably turn me off of Obi-Wan entirely given that he's literally a sexist asshole to her. Obitine never should've happened and if they HAD to do it, they should've gotten better writers to handle it so that it didn't ruin a beloved character as a result.

I'm sure there's more I could complain about, but that's what's coming to mind right now.

[fraudulent-cheese]

Actually no, i want to expand on my relative dislike of WT. Because when people talk about this season's faults, i BARELY see people mentionning the complete flatterning of like half it's cast!

Oh sure, people are super willing to throw shit at TDA and especially TDAS for it's flanderisation of characters, but outside of some rogue posts by mutuals, i don't see ANY OF YOU pointing the finger at World Tour when i'd argue it's especially eggregious.

Owen's the easiest example of this, and while it didn't start this season it got so much during it. Nearly all of his lines revolve around food, his aerophobia, or Izzy for a single episode. His relationship with Alejandro is also super indicative of this; im willing to accept the HC that he was aware of Alejandro's dislike of him and just wanted to win him over, but that's absolutely not what the writters intended, no way in hell. He's just completely oblivious to his shitty behavior when he seemed at least somewhat aware of Heather's shifty behavior back on Island, or at least able to stand up for himself (shoutouts to that one Action episode). It's not fun to watch, either.

Bridgette too had her personality reduced to one or two traits, for either comedy reasons (because apparently people making out 24/7 is funny) or story reasons (establishing Alejandro as a threat who uses flirting and his general attractiveness to advance his strategy) and it suckssssss because she was! an actual character! and World Tour especially benefits from having a 'straight man' type character that can look at the other's weirdness and react to it like a normal-ish person! That and she could be an interesting presence to have on Team Victory, with her friendships with Leshawna and Courtney for instance.

DJ too is a BIG victim of the flanderisation thing; his personality is dumbed down to just being a huge scaredy cat, and his character is just The Curse. That's all he does and that's all he is, all he talks about. And that sucks because he too, was an actual person in Island and even Action! Sure, he was sometimes a pushover and had an accident-prone bunny, but he was also kind and could actually go out of his way to play pranks on people! But all of that is just gone in WT.

There's also the characters that weren't flanderised, and more just. Written entirely out of character. Outside of the entire Love Triangle (which i will get to) the biggest example of this is Leshawna to me. The writters straight forget the episode in Action where she's entirely dsitrustful of the Pizza they were offered (which did turn out to be tampered with) due to Chef being uncharasterically nice to them. Guess what Alejandro was doing. Being overly nice to her out of nowhere. Frankly she fell victim to the same thing Bridgette did; needing to be sacked for Alejandro's villany to be better established.

Ok fuck i need to mention the Love Triangle too because while people complain about it alot i don't think they complain about the correct stuff. i'll go rapid fire because it's been talked to death however; Gwen's liking of Duncan is a retcon, her acting like this is out of character for her frankly, Duncan's out of character by trying to emotionally manipulate his ex and the lore established to justify it makes it worse (remember the "At least im straight with people" line?), Courtney is villanised from even before this point which while her anger might've been targetted at the wrong person she was justified in being upset imo, Courtney's entire character is thrown out of a window in general this season, blah blah blah.

I'll end on the whole "the writters forgetting entire character traits/arcs" Cody still hitting on Gwen this season makes no goddamn sense and is super uncomfortable to watch. He's really such a nothing character man. Sierra deserved better than being a manic pixie stalker girl.

[osspial]

thinking a lot about fullmetal alchemist and due to the power of my adhd being medicated i have a lot to say about it

(i finally started reading the manga after having watched FMA:B a few times)

(spoilers below cut)

i didn't really pick up on this before, it's really hitting hard how the core theme of FMA is Hiromu Arakawa trying to process the trauma of growing up in post-war Japan, thinking as a child that their country is just and right and good, and then slowly discovering the extent of Japan's war crimes and the depravity and evil that the country sunk to during the war. (there are MANY. Unit 731 seems particularly relevant to Marcoh's philospher's stone research). and discovering how, at the end of the war, Japan's leadership was fully willing to sacrifice the civilian lives of the entire country to maintain their own personal glory (lots of similarities to The Father's plan to destroy all of Amestris in order to achieve godhood).

and like, in that context, Edward/Alphonse and Roy Mustang/Riza Hawkeye are such brilliant foils for eachother. both Edward and Roy Mustang are incredibly driven people with no fear of personal pain that are willing to do absolutely anything to achieve their own goals and better Amestris. but Edward is young, and hot-blooded, and a loose cannon, and (at the start) unaware of the evils committed in Amestris's name. and he gets angry when he discovers those. meanwhile, Mustang is older, and more measured and much more constrained by the military hierarchy he's operating in, and he directly helped commit many of the war crimes that Amestris perpetrated. but he's racked with guilt over the innocent lives he's taken, and rather than drifting through Amestris solving problems as they come up (like Edward), he's fully committed to working within Amestris's evil fascist dictatorship and pulling wires behind the scene in order to become the supreme leader of Amestris and make the government more righteous with the full power of an entire country behind him.

I've got less to say about Alphonse and Riza Hawkeye, but they both are committed to Edward/Mustang to the point of death. both Alphonse and Riza are more level-headed than their partners, will do anything to protect them, and have gone through a lot of personal pain in order to help them achieve their ultimate goals. Neither Edward nor Roy would be where they are without Alphonse or Riza's help. Both Alphonse and Riza were active partners in the sins their respective duos committed (human transmutation and war crimes). and, even separated from their partners, both Alphone and Riza are incredibly capable individuals that are more than able to hold their own.

this extends to the character design. look at how Edward and Mustang mirror eachother in their hair (bangs in particular) and angry expression

and look at how Alphonse and Riza mirror eachother -- also in their hair and their large, expressive eyes

what an incredible piece of art. love seeing the amount of love and care that went into this.

(P.S. Royai is like peak relationship goals. i want what they have)

(P.P.S. there's a lot of depictions of common people as honest, good, hardworking, and faithful people that are trapped in horrible machines beyond their control, esp. in the first few chapters (the Leto arc, the mining town arc). i really like how Arakawa goes out of her way to absolve the common people of the sins of their circumstances. it's good stuff)