#i can't rant abt how i hate how it got popular

[okkos-ferrum]

Unorganized helluva boss apology tour rant cuz I think I'm going crazy

Disclaimer, cuz I know helluva fans can get defensive: A lot of this is probably my subjective opinion. I'll state my tldr as my actual objective piece of criticism, but otherwise my gripes throughout this could be based on my tastes and expectations. I genuinely don't want to take away anyone's enjoyment of this show nor hate on anyone involved, so if u just want to enjoy helluva, totally skip this :]

I think I'll actually have to give my hot take here and criticize this episode, because everyone has given way too much praise for an episode I think - in the long run - hurts the show

Im not gonna even bother organizing my thoughts I'm just gonna rant, but to start, i think the decision to start the ep right after full moon chronologically wasn't the best move. The full moon episode cliffhanger was an impactful scene and a dramatic way to start the rift between stolas and blitzo. It's where the dam of two-ish seasons finally breaks, where to me, stolas and blitzo have already said everything needed to be said, at least at the emotional maturity they currently are at. Any changes in said conversation about their relationship would require growth from both separately in order to foster a healthy discussion.

So to undercut that tension by IMMIEDTLY having blitzo somehow wiggle his way back into stolas's private property to have both double down on their stance diminishes the weight new moon's finale had. The conversation, while it does add further clarity, feels repetitive and emotionally taxing to watch, because the show has literally zero scenes of either of them reflecting on the previous night. So it's just them starting up the same fight with the same talking points we already know.

Yeah, maybe it is in character for blitzo to demand a conversation after new moon, but it shouldn't have been the path the show took. It should've allowed the story to stew in the feelings brought out in new moon, both in a narrative and meta sense by taking a break from stolatiz.

Cuz honestly I'm a bit drained of it atm. The show sells itself on the premise of blitzo being a "boss" (a hell of a bos-) and him working with imp. But all of s2 has had this obsession with stolatiz ever since the popularity of ozzie's (for good reason that episode was amazing and one of my personal favs still).

Just abt half the eps in s2 carry an emotional weight around the stolitz relationship. (where s1 has stolitz is make out sessions and the occasional threat to their life, s2 takes it up to actual life or death situations and full backstories) . This increased tension and focus draws away from the intial episodic format to become a more serialized (and imo) melodrama abt the status of the stolitz relationship. Rather than concern itself over any of the imp characters and their emotions, helluva has made all of its emotional beats and stakes throughtout the whole season relate to stoltiz in some way (or it's parallel with fizz and Ozzie in ep 7).

To return back to the ep, I also take issue with its writing of verosika. I will admit that this could be subjective, as my partner, who loves verosika and was worried abt her writing going into the ep, enjoyed how the ep integrated her. But idk, I think it is so lame that an ep like full moon, which is marketed to be abt stolitz, is fine wasting its time writing the cherubs for 90% of the episode, while can't bother making verosika a larger character in her own ep.

Like she's a SINGER, but no she's back up for STOLAS'S SONG this ep. And it's not stolas's hasn't had the chance to sing love ballads before, he's got plenty. But no, the host of the party can't even be a duet to stolas, she's gotta be back up. Like it couldve been a way stronger connection between these two if they sang a duet, rather than the show AGAIN prioritizing verbalizing stolas's emotions again.

We get a full flashback to blitzo's relationship with both fizz and stolas, but nothing on his other significant relationship??? Just a line or two of how it went down and that's it??

Side tangent: It gets on my nerves how so many people are realizing now that verosika is not a bad person. Like it's clear from even in her intro ep in s1 ep 3 she's angry rightfully for how blitzo screwed her over. But now that she actually is being nice and forgiving to stolas and blitzo respectively, now she has earned the fandom's respect??? Like the amt of comments of "Oh wow, verosika isn't a villain, she's an anatognist" drives me insane

Like to me, this ep should've stepped away from stolas directly, and focus on blitzo and verosika. Have blitzo go back to ignoring his feelings by jumping back head first into business, now with the asmodeous crystal. Then bump into verosika somehow. However it may happen, verosika and blitzo, either angrily or calmly, reflect on their own past relationship at the end, which might have blitzo making a realization of how he is repeating his past mistakes. Use the episodic format to slowly allow blitzo to mature so the next time he meets stolas, he won't just double down like he did in the beginning of the ep.

I think, personally, the decision to have verosika host the anti blitzo party diminishes her as a character. It chooses to again define her by how blitzo hurt her, rather than touching on the other underdeveloped parts of her character. She has shown to be very petty yes, but to go through all this effort seems too much, since she is a pop star and should have better things to do.

Maybe explore how she, a succubus, who is meant to have primarily sexual relationships, goes abt on her day to day as a celebrity who went to rehab. Or her relationship with maybe knowing barbie. Or the other ways to explore the set ups for her in ep 3. But no, she plays second fiddle to her second focus ep for the stoltiz drama. But yeah sure, let's have full moon be abt the cherubs.

On a final and likely my most pettiest point, this ep made me cringe a lot. I'm sorry, this is very subjective of me, but I need to say it. So much of this ep felt like fanfic. Always hammering in how "he's a prince and you're an imp" kind of deal. Stolas getting overly drunk after taking a swig of one drink to have blitzo handle him being drunk. The million puppy dog eyes by blitzo, like it felt too pitying. The rushed pacing felt like a result of this indulgent kind of writing, where it priotizes creating the cute shipping scenes before thinking about the actual plot and its effect later on. Again, just my taste tho

Alright I think I ranted enough but ...

Tl;dr: Apology tour messes up the pacing and focus of the show by continously centering itself around the stolitz drama rather than allowing time to reflect by themselves

[kirbles]

really rambly post regarding bw fics merry christmas

i got into bloodweave when there was only 20ish fics, constantly refreshed the tag for every single new upload cuz there wasn't much so early in the games release. and now that it's in the 800s (including ot3/polyship content which i usually exclude in my own searches) it's nice that i can be picky! cuz i AM very picky!

but also kinda sad that i can't keep up w the constant uploads as much as i was able to abt 3 months ago. i still try to! but its hard ;; cuz i love this ship!! and there is so many new fics that are incredible and high quality.

it's almost w shame that anyone newly getting into this ship will probably only sort the tag by hits/kudos and miss all the other fantastic fics that are likely buried under the absolute mass of uploads, esp if ppl aren't used to excluding other ship tags.

i hate how we equate hits/kudos to how good a fic is because i have tons of bw fic recs that barely even break a couple hundred. the more 'popular' fics are great, sure, but also they were some of the only options at the time with so little uploads, of course they're going to be the reason for a lot of ppl into the ship and be ppls fave fic. but they aren't the only good fics!!!! there are fantastic fics constantly being posted!!!! you just need to keep an eye on them

i really didn't think this would be the most popular origin ship? (it's the most popular on ao3 right after like, 5 variants of astarion/player character LMFAO) i honestly expected more people to like wyllach or shadowzel (which i enjoyed before bloodweave had me in a chokehold)

everyone i've met thanks to bloodweave is so incredibly sweet and talented. skilled artists and writers alike. fantastic friends.

i have been so much more creative in the past few months than i have for years. i got back into writing fanfic after over a decade! i'm getting out of my comfort zone with art! i'm making character and ship playlists again! it's so nice to embrace fandom again

but i think the fics especially matter a lot to me. the writers who i consider great friends now deserve so much recognition that they don't get enough of. i wish i could scream from the rooftops how amazing and skilled and talented and sexy my friends and their writing are

anyway 😃 pointless post im just ranting

[rollercoasterwords]

hi i would like to rant to u if thats okay because i saw ur rant u wrote like 6 days ago and it just kinda made me think so i hope u don't mind.

i love writing. i always have and when im writing i always get excited, except then i started posting on the internet. at first i got some attention which actually pushed me to write more and then i wrote this fanfic that blew up and got a lot of attention which dont get me wrong was GREAT like im proud of it, but it also changed my perception of writing

all of a sudden this silly little thing i wrote was now something people were talking about with their friends and reccomending and that was great but it made me feel different about my own work. it changed how i percieved writing, and more often than not i catch myself writing for them, not for me.

recently i started writing this fic that made me giggle and kick my feet while writing it. i wrote it SO fast because i could not get enough of it, and then i started publishing and it didn't get much attention. i've had other fics that didnt get attention before and it was like meh, but after the work i wrote that blew up, it felt like my fics NEEDED to become popular to be good, which is like,,, shit

and whenever i posted a chapter of my new fic or talked about it, i'd get comments on my fic asking about my popular one, if i'll make a second one ect.

it made me lose interest in my story because i'd gotton hooked on others approval and i didn't want to write something they weren't interested in, because then they wouldn't read it and it would all be for nothing.

i forgot the original reason i started writing. for me. and its been so hard to try and just get back into that headspace of writing for me and not others because of the attention i'd gotton from my previous stories.like how i felt now that i had a fair few followers i owed them stories THEY wanted to read.

i'm not sure how to get back into writing for myself, because i don't want to delete my works or stop posting, because i do enjoy it when people say nice things and help my motivation, but at the same time it also makes me feel like i have to write what they want and not what i want, because if i write it and they dont like it ive failed

anyway thats my little rant, i dont know if u even understand what im talking about but it was nice to get off my chest

thank you <3

no i feel u i can def relate 2 a lot of that experience! it can be a weird experience 2 have a fic go viral & it is definitely not always entirely positive. honestly think the only reason i've escaped a lot of the harassment + hate i've seen directed towards other people who have had fics go viral is that my fic that went viral was a rewrite of someone else's story, so most of the discourse remains centered around the original story + writer which honestly. feels like i managed 2 dodge a bullet lmao

but i can def relate 2 the sudden pressure of abruptly finding urself in a situation where tons of people are reading something u were just casually writing 4 fun, and suddenly feeling like u need 2 meet certain demands or live up 2 expectations. honestly feeling this pressure to keep up w those expectations led to some burnout 4 me last fall/winter, which is why i stopped posting for a few months. and like obviously i can't say what would be most helpful 4 u--that's something u kinda have 2 figure out 4 urself--but i do know that for myself + for some other writer friends who i've talked to, taking a break from posting can be really helpful in like...reframing ur mindset. i think getting some distance from the constant expectations + demands + feedback can help sort of clear the air and strips away both that pressure + that attention + sort of makes it easier 2 focus on writing just to write for urself. 4 me it helped me figure out that while i do love sharing my writing + getting nice comments + messages + talking 2 people abt it etc, that's just icing on the cake, and writing still brings me a lot of joy even without any attention. and once i was able to like...center that attitude + ground my writing in personal enjoyment rather than the online attention economy, it made me feel steadier abt coming back + posting again, and also helped get rid of some of the anxiety of meeting people's expectations, bc i realized that at the end of the day i genuinely don't really care if someone dislikes my story so much that they need to stop reading it; in fact, i think it's better for everyone involved if someone who feels like they're not getting what they want from my story goes and looks for what they want somewhere else! it's not a failure on my part to sufficiently like...entertain an audience or provide a product, because that's not what i'm trying to do in the first place, y'know? and i think that shift in mindset helped a lot, and continues to help when i start 2 feel that pressure again from posting my writing online. it's counterintuitive at first bc i think we're all sort of conditioned to think there's no point to making art unless you're making it for an audience, but once u realize that The Audience is not the be all end all of creating art, i think it makes the process of creation a lot more freeing + fun.

anyway hope u are able 2 navigate the weirdness that can come with sharing ur writing online + find a way 2 write that brings u the most joy!!

[pmatga]

Just found your blog and I really like it ❤️ so if it's not too much trouble more head cannons about your OC please

you didn't specify which oc you meant so fuck it. you get Multiple

blair spellman

idk if i've ever mentioned it before (i probably have and i just forgot lol) but she has fire powers like her dad! they aren't as strong as his are though bc she's still alive and fleshy and made up of water. she really doesn't use her powers for anything more than lighting a cigarette when she can't find her lighter, however; that's bc she can't control them all that well. like she's not accidentally setting shit on fire left and right (not since puberty at least), but if she has a great emotional outburst (especially an angry outburst), Bad Shit might happen. thankfully blair didn't really inherit their father's temper so Bad Shit doesn't really happen all that often. don't get me wrong, they Do have issues with anger but that's more due to trauma than anything related to bets (plus she deals with her anger issues in a different, yet still unhealthy way)

is the type to wear axe body spray in lieu of Actually showering because "it’s basically the same thing, right?"

prefers nightclubs to house parties.

another thing that i don't remember if i've ever mentioned before: they were on the track team back in high school. their coach once told them that if they worked hard enough, they could really go places (funny how that worked out). she's not nearly as good of a runner than she used to be, but she can still, say, outrun a swarm of ghosts if she tries hard enough (adrenaline is crazy man)

their last name, spellman, is a surname they decided for themself. and even after reconnecting with their mom's side of their bio family, they still keep their last name as spellman. it's Important to them.

has little to no social media presence. like they have accounts but they never post, they mostly just lurk

she accidentally burned down the last place she worked at (a 7/11). an argument between her and a coworker got heated (pun only slightly intended) and…well. i'm sure you can guess. thankfully no else aside from blair & her coworker were there and they got out more or less fine, so she didn't kill or seriously injure anyone (and she's lucky she didn't). and bc they could never really prove it was her---everything pointed to an electrical fire, even if they could never figure out how the fire got started so quickly nor why it didn't spread beyond the store---she never got in trouble for it nor did she have to pay for it. it scared the shit out of her though, and ever since she tends to stay away from the vicinity.

robert jadeite

if he were in the show, there'd be a running joke abt him having Just So Many shitty jobs. does he just quit/get fired a lot, or does he actually have 15+ jobs? we will never know. for example: waiter, late night gas station attendant, cashier at pacmart (walmart), working the drive-thru at pacdonalds (mcdonalds), pacbucks barista (or maybe starpacs? idk), the guy at a water park who tells you when you can go down the slide, etc. he has so many jobs and he hates every single one of them.

has a semi-popular youtube (pactube?) channel. all his videos are either "sitting in my car or on my kitchen/bathroom floor" style rant vids or 1-3 hour long vids on a hyperfixation-induced rabbit hole he'd gone down.

prefers house parties to nightclubs.

has pretty bad insomnia. he's lucky if he gets 4-5 hours of sleep a night.

he's a college dropout (mental health reasons + mid-semester identity crisis) and was majoring in marketing prior to that. he currently doesn't know what he wants to do with his life and doesn't like thinking abt it bc thinking abt the future scares him.

orbitalia spheros

she’s betrayus & stratos’ half-sister and her bio dad is japanese (or pac-japanese? since tokyo is called pac-tokyo). she didn't meet her bio dad until later in life, as rotunda never told him abt orbitalia's existence. things were shaky between the two of them at first (orbie & her dad i mean) but they're more or less alright now

sunny and orbitalia were best friends back in high school. they drifted apart some in college but they were still very close. orbie & zac were Also friends but weren't As close as she and sunny were.

she Does Not have a good relationship with either of her brothers; she's never really been close with either of them tbh. it's mostly why she almost never comes down to pacopolis except to pick up elliptica whenever she visits.

has made a few attempts to get back into the dating scene over the years, but each and every time these relationships end up dissolving bc her heart's just...not into it (and also bc well. never receiving closure on whatever happened to her husband kinda makes it hard for her to properly grieve which makes it hard to Actually move on). she's still friends with most of her exes though.

akahiro murasaki

was Not A Fan of his in-laws. this is mostly for two reasons: 1.) if there is one thing that both of the spheros brothers are equally good at, it’s at testing the patience of everyone forced by social convention to interact with them, and 2.) orbitalia told akahiro Some Really Concerning Shit abt growing up with rotunda as a mother and stratos & betrayus as brothers. y'know that thing where you're telling someone what you think is a funny story only for them to look at you in horror bc it was actually traumatic? yeah. so while he was willing to be civil for orbitalia's (and later elliptica's) sake, he didn't really go out of his way to be overly friendly to them.

is a transhet man (he/him), he & orbitalia were t4t

liked wearing boots with slight heels (much like his brother-in-laws ironically enough). not really so he'd seem taller (he was 5'9" and was perfectly content with that) but bc they looked good and that's it

was quietly self-confident. he looked good, he was good at what he did, he knew it, and he didn't necessarily feel the need to flaunt it (those kind of ppl annoyed the hell out of him tbh).

that being said he Did have some insecurities, mostly abt whether or not he was actually a good husband and (later on) a good father. as i've said before, he wasn't the most emotionally demonstrative person in the world and he worried abt whether or not orbitalia & elliptica knew that he loved them. orbitalia did (even if she did occasionally have her doubts bc anxiety be like that) and elliptica did too (at the time, at least. nowadays elli's not entirely sure)

gwendolyn hollow

her voiceclaim is sally from the nightmare before christmas

you know how i once mentioned that she uses secret tape recorders to record things? yeah. she does that so 1.) she doesn't have to just rely on her poor memory, 2.) she can decipher anything she doesn't understand later, and 3.) as a sort of audio diary.

is an appreciator of small things, like buttons and strings of ribbon, rocks, animal bones, and such. sometimes she will stare at little things that interest her for so long that griffin or even the good doctor pacenstein himself have to tell her to “move along, girl.”

slightly related to the above hc: pacenstein & griffin call her "girl" a lot. keep in mind she's at least 20 years old.

her middle name, elizabeth, is derived from pacenstein's ex-fiancée elizabeth from way back in the 1800s. and yes it's fucking weird that a.) griffin let his great+ uncle name his first and only child and b.) pacenstein named his grand niece after his ex. like sure it's just her middle name but still. weird shit.

isn't allowed to interact or even show her face to any visitors to pacenstein manor. this is bc the last time she interacted with a visitor (it was literally just to take their coat), they took one look at her, got freaked out, and made an excuse to leave. she was never really told Why but was led to believe it was bc she resembles her great-uncle. it's not.

genuinely doesn't know Jack Shit abt almost anything that's happened outside the castle and what little she Has learned has been history from like...200 years ago, so nothing recent. a whole fucking WAR happened within her lifetime and she's completely unaware of any of it.

griffin hollow

as the caretaker of pacenstein manor and the only one who can/is allowed to leave the castle, he’s usually the one who takes care of dr. pacenstein’s personal affairs---gathering supplies and equipment for them both (yes sometimes this includes Literal Graverobbing), arranging meetings with potential clients, and finding out any recent developments in pacworld (never hurts to keep informed!).

is really fucking cowardly and tends to bend towards dr. pacenstein's will, especially where gwen is concerned. he is Far Too Willing to throw her under the bus if it means getting his great+ uncle's approval.

much like his great-uncle (and much like most of his contemporaries tbh), he believes that his intelligence is far superior to most people’s and that others should be grateful to bask in his presence. unlike his great-uncle (and most of his contemporaries), however, he also knows that this isn’t a stance that endears him to others, so he usually shuts up abt it.

he doesn't express anger in the traditional sense. like he won’t yell (most of the time), get physically violent (again most of the time), or even directly tell someone he’s angry. instead, he chooses to express anger by doing this…passive-aggressive, just downright weird shit whenever he's mad abt something. like "accidentally" locking someone in a room/out of the house, hiding things (usually sentimental possessions or necessary items like keys), turning off the heating/air conditioner with no warning, etc..

[janiedean]

i remember your villain origin story re: robb and i also remember all the associated metas about sansa painting her as this massively intelligent lady when she's 11 saying that she didn't say the truth about joff during the whole wolf incident is because she was aware of the political implications and how joff would behave and she has this whole betrothed role to fulfil and she's actually protecting arya by lying and ned is the one to blame AND arya is also to blame because she was needling the future prince and she is too stupid to realize that is dangerous etc. BUT sansa is also an 11 yr old so she made a mistake by going to cersei in book 1 and telling her about ned's plans like ???? pick a side??? lol.

i know sansa got a lot of hate for the wolf + cersei thingy but really it's not that deep. she had a huge crush on joff+ had a huge dream of being this storybook princess + got scared about the whole wolf incident and didnt wanna be hated by joff and cersei whom she adored + idealized, wasn't on the best of terms with arya. and hence she did a dumb 11 yr old mistake. which we also view primarily from arya's pov who really didn't do anything wrong in that one incident so ofcourse readers judge sansa for it. it's not that deep. but you cant go both ways and claim she is some mastermind at 11 while arya is dumb and ned irresponsible for letting arya play around dangerously while at the same time argue that sansa was 11 and made a mistake at the end. that's deliberately misreading EVERY OTHER character to prop up your fave - robb, arya, ned, theon, jon. (not to mention sansa also continuously blames arya and nymeria for the incident in the later book iirc but she has a thing about misremembering stressful periods so).

this has honestly been going on for a looong while. i used to stan sansa and it's true that she got a lot of misogynistic hate in the earlier seasons but the way some stans *cough*yourvillainoriginlady*cough* would behave towards every other character was just ugh. also the latter crop of j*onsa shippers from s6 onwards had a tendency to play down arya and jon's bond too. (the show can be blamed for that partially given that we didn't get jeyne!arya and jon forsaking his vows to rescue arya + giving sansa the "lone wolf dies but the pack survives" line which is literally arya's theme line but yeah). and i'm not even getting into reducing brienne and arya to qween sansa's swords like they're only there to serve sansa lmfao and shipping her with every character that's supposed to be good looking even if it makes 0 sense (jaime, jon, gendry) while ignoring canonical love interests (sandor and tyrion) as if the same problems of age + power + incest don't exist in their ships lol.

good thing I'm not the only one who remembers her and her absurd takes on just about everything not counting that one time she wrote that letter to EW because sansa showed cleavage in her cover and then called ramsay psychotic in it, had to emend because that's not how it works and then apologized for having been offensive but sure af she didn't apologize to me when she called me psychotic for telling her that her robb opinions were literally made up but GREAT TIMES X°DDD and I mean there was the amazing 'robb obv doesn't care about his sister or he'd have known she was being manipulated when he got her letter' and like I'm the least person to blame sansa for falling for it bc she was eleven and cersei is cersei and ofc she had no idea what she was doing but... how was robb supposed to know that X°DDDDDDD also no one is a political genius at 11 and it's all right like that but go and tell her that...

also agreed re the wolf incident but honestly like sansa getting hate for it or for anything she did during agot is stupid bc you don't hate an eleven year old for being an eleven year old we all were like that at some point??? but at the same time bashing on arya for that is like... bruh what the fucking fuck did she ever do to you???

that's deliberately misreading EVERY OTHER character to prop up your fave - robb, arya, ned, theon, jon.

I mean again robb was painfully obvious but the thing is that like... usually putting down other chars to prop up your fave means you like your fave for the wrong reasons since it means you never talk about the actual good things abt your fave (I mean these people live assuming that sansa's kindness isn't what actually propels her/is making sure she survives/is what will eventually be what gives her the upper hand in the end but no I have to read it was ic that she gave ramsay to the dogs in the show ffff) and you don't have to prop down everyone else or their bonds with other chars to like.. make your point? anyway sansa used to be in my asoiaf top ten now she's more top fifteen bc the show soured me but like I love booksansa and I 100% stan her, I was done with the show version by the end of S6 so I'm not even going there and the thing about showtruthing but then saying the books will be like that... needs to stop. also I'mma not going to touch the arya and brienne can only be in her qg arguments to make sense of their being gnc/into swords because honestly I have no force of will nor strength to get into why that discussion is not as progressive as ppl think it is but I think for me that was the straw breaking the camel's back if I wasn't already fed up with the casual ableism at sandor and tyrion and whatever else *raises hands*

[greensaplinggrace]

honestly THANK YOU for saying all that abt baghra bc i thought i was going crazy from not liking her??? bc i haven't read the books and only summaries of them on wiki and like. i dunno why ppl like her actually even in the show bc this guy, her son, is like "i wanna make the world better for us grisha" and she's just like "no." even tho he sees that she's MAKING HERSELF SICK from suppressing her powers! she's literally like in bed coughing in the flashback yet seem much healthier at the little palace. also like after everything, after her disapproval, after the fold, after centuries of waiting for the sun summoner.. he never abandons her. he makes sure she's cares for. he doesn't harm her. and i have to wonder if baghra has ever thanks him for that, for just not leaving her alone. like i dunno how im suppose ro believe aleks is a heartless villain when he still cares for his abusive mom like this. like has baghra even told her she loved him (honestly she reminds me of a classic emotionally unavailable asian parent but maybe that's just me). also im wondering if baghra ever told aleks that he had an aunt.. bc like.. now that u bring up her isolating him it's like hmmmm...

not at me being like alina... why do u trust the bitter old woman who literally beats u with a stick and verbally abuses u every chance she gets.. just bc she showed a bad painting... like.. pls use two braincells to see that who u figured out as his mother... is also using his protection..

like baghra could've upped and left with alina. but no. she stayed bc she knew she was safe under aleks's protection.

alsoim just impressed that after his first friend tried to drown him and harvest his bones... he didn't go into hiding???? he still wanted to make a safe heaven for grisha!!! HE STILL WANTED TO PROTECT GRISHA EVEN AFTER HIS GRISHA FRIEND TRIED TO KILL HIM FOR HIS FUCKEN BONES. like... this is the guy im suppose to believe is the villain???

honestly i feel like part of the reason why LB's plotlines seem so bad and disconnected (and sometimes outright racist but that's another rant) and why darkles is disproportionately more violent and villainous in the later books is bc she didn't expect the darkling to be so popular and wanted to stick with her guns of making him the villain. but also wanted the money from aleks's popularity. but like you can't have ur cake and eat it too.

Well thank you for sending this ask! It's very sweet and very passionate. I'm glad you liked my post! I didn't put as much thought into it as some of my others lol. I kind of just talked. But it was nice to be able to finally talk about some of the problems I have with both her character and the fandom/author's perception of her.

HERE is the post this is referring to, in case anyone's wondering.

👀👀 You've hit the nail on the head for so many things, here!

Baghra is extremely emotionally unavailable, basically to the point of neglect. She's also verbally and physically abusive, traits which I doubt were only reserved for her students and not her son. Baghra claims she would do anything to protect him, but I've known a lot of parents who have that mindset and yet still harm their children because they think it's "good for them".

Aleksander stays at Baghra's side for years, and even when they're opposing each other she's never too far away from him. Idk if you've read the books but he does eventually hurt her. And as much as I don't like Baghra, I think his actions were horrid. But I'm also honestly kind of surprised it took him so long lmao.

Yeah I mean, in terms of isolation, let's not forget that she never wanted to introduce him to his father, either. Baghra's sense of eternity clouds a lot of her judgments on relationships, which means she views most people as dust and therefore teaches her son to as well. The problem with that is that he's a growing child, and he needs those social and emotional attachments for healthy development.

I would bet quite a bit of money that Baghra has either never told him she loves him or she has told him so few times it's practically forgettable.

And everything becomes more complicated because so many of Baghra's actions are understandable because of her life and her history, but the impacts they have on the people around her, especially Aleksander, are permanently damaging. And the fact that that's never gone over in critical depth in the books or how it's glossed over in fandom is just very disconcerting. Like, acknowledging Baghra's failings doesn't mean we're excusing Aleksander's actions, it just means we're holding Baghra liable for her own. Which the fandom should be doing, considering she's the epitome of an abusive parental figure.

And Alina trusting Baghra over Aleksander is even more confusing! Especially in the show!! This is the woman who beat her and abused her and tortured her friends when they tiny little children (and who probably still does so now that they're adults). This is the woman who mocks you and harasses you and insults you on a regular basis. Why does Baghra revealing she's Aleksander's mother make Alina change her mind?! Like fuck, I'd just feel bad for Aleksander. No wonder he kept it a secret, I would too! And that painting is enough evidence?! Really?! A random painting shown to you by this abusive mentor that's been making your life hell. That's what you're going to betray your new lover over?

The friends trying to harvest his bones thing is a good point, too. I think Aleksander, especially show Aleksander, is incredibly idealistic. I think he cares too much for others - those he's deemed worth his care (a sentiment given to him by Baghra). Despite everything she's tried to teach him about hiding and abandoning others and never caring and never doing anything to help or reach out or connect with people, Aleksander still continues to do so. It's likely because he never got it from Baghra growing up, and so is desperate for those emotional needs to be fulfilled elsewhere.

His turning point, when Baghra tells him it was understandable that those kids tried to kill him because the world is such a hard place for them - that's crucial. And the reason it's possible as a motivating factor is because of that idealism and that desire to help and that desire to be everything his mother isn't. Baghra tells him this trauma he just experienced was because of the oppression of his people, and instead of following her lead and accepting that, going into hiding and abandoning everybody to their misery, he goes I can do something about that. I can make it so this never happens again. Which is usually how trauma like that combines with one's core personality traits at a young age, especially when there's none of the essential support systems in place to aid in recovery (ie, the role Baghra should have been filling but wasn't, because she decided to exacerbate the problem instead).

And yeah, one of my biggest problems with the ham-fisted "beating you over the head with a sledgehammer of evil deeds" look-how-bad-this-character-is! portrayal of the Darkling in the later books comes from the impression I get that Bardugo doesn't trust her readers. She's so desperate to have us hate this character and think him an irredeemable villain, not trusting any of her readers to engage critically with a morally gray character, that it feels quite a bit like condescending fucking bullshit. Which ew, I know how to engage with literature, thanks.

She really does seem to look down on a large part of her fandom, and imo, the infantilization of the female characters in her books seems to carry over to her impression of most of her female readers as well. Which is why the Darkling's character arc gets fucking destroyed. But he's still a good cash grab, of course, so she'll shake his dead corpse in front of the fandom for money every time she wants something from it.

Also! Another reason I think her plotlines feel disconnected (I'm sorry Bardugo I respect you as a person, but shit-) is because the writing in SaB is just bad. I mean, nevermind the absolutely nauseating implications of the way she portrays the Grisha as a persecuted group who's situation is never actually fully addressed as it should be, considering Grisha rights is what her main villain is fighting for (imo for a series called the Grishaverse, LB seems to be pretty anti Grisha), but her characters and story alone are just wrong for each other. They don't fit together.

And the ending is one of the main pieces of evidence in that regard! You can’t say the ending where Alina isn’t Grisha anymore is her “going back to where she started” when she’s always been Grisha. She just didn’t know she was Grisha because she denied that part of herself that she was born with.

Alina is reluctant to move forward or change, she struggles with adapting, and she’s very set on the things she’s grown attached to throughout her life. She also has some latent prejudices against the Grisha, and so denies the possibility of being Grisha for those reasons as well.

Alina’s lack of powers in the beginning of her life because she willfully doesn’t learn about them to avoid change versus her lack of powers at the end of the book when she’s accepted them and then they’re stripped away from her by outer forces are two entirely separate circumstances. You can’t make a parallel about lost powers and lack of Grisha status bringing her back to the start when she was always Grisha and she always had powers and she simply refused to come to terms with it because of personal reasons.

The first situation is an internal conflict that indicates a story about growth and a journey of self acceptance. Denying herself the opportunity to learn about her heritage and to find acceptance with a group of people like her because she’s tied to the past and because of the way she was raised is the setup for a narrative that tackles unlearning prejudice and learning how to connect with a part of her identity that was denied her and learning how to grow independent and self assured. It’s the setup for a different story entirely. The second situation is an external conflict that centers around the ‘corrupting influence of power’... for some reason.

In a world where Grisha do not have social, political, or economic power and they are hunted, centering your heroine’s journey of self acceptance and growth around an external conflict about... the corrupting influence of power (in a group of people that don’t actually have any power?!) just doesn’t work. It is literally impossible to connect the two stories Bardugo is trying to push in Shadow and Bone without seriously damaging the main character’s developmental arc.

The only way a narrative like this would work, claiming that she has gone back to where she started, is either a) if the Grisha weren’t actually a persecuted group and instead were apart of the upper class, or b) if the one bad connection between the two instances is acknowledged - that Alina denied a part of herself crucial to self acceptance and growing up, and that losing her powers at the end has also denied her. It is a tragedy, not a happy ending.

Alina suffered because she didn’t use her powers. She grew sick. It was bad for her. This was not a resistance to 'the corruption of power and the burden of greed', it was her suffering because she couldn’t fully accept herself.

Framing the ending as a return to the beginning can’t be done if you don’t address how bad the beginning was for your main character. You brought her back to a bad point in her life. You regressed her. This should be a low point in her arc. It should be a problem that’s solved so she can finish developing organically or it should be something that is acknowledged as a tragedy in it’s own right, for the future the world (the writing) denied her.

This is a ramble and it makes no sense and I’m really sorry, but my point is that Bardugo put the wrong characters in the wrong story. The character arc required for organic development doesn’t match the story and intended message at all. The narrative doesn’t fit the cast. She's got two clashing stories attempting to work in tandem and she ends up with both conflicting messages that fans still can’t comprehend in her writing and an ending that doesn’t suit her main character to such an impossible degree that it’s almost laughable.

So yeah, there's a few reasons why I think the story and the plot feels so bad and disconnected. I hope you don't mind me making this answer so long! 😅 I was not expecting to write this much.

[busaned-blog]

dude your tags on tht post abt hobi+jin not having any lines (+ the discrepancy in ppl's reaction to those awful distributions) is WHEW coldblooded but accurate. ive also seen it happen, ppl leaving bc they can't GET WORK in their own group, and beyond hating awful distributions for wht they are, theyre bad for group longevity esp w/jin whos getting his college degree, who i cld see walking away frm bts w/work+network options even outside of ent. industry. like, bight cherish wht u got rn, dang

Hello anon, thank you so much for your message! It’s nice to know some people actually read my tags I guess haha. I’m not gonna lie, at first when I read your message I was thinking of not replying… simply because we all know tumblr tags are messed up (especially on mobile) and I did not feel like people interpreting my response as hate towards Bangtan or to any of the members. But then I realized that for me in my heart I know my feelings about this whole situation are not based on hate towards either of those so I decided to respond anyways and I just hope that I will word everything correctly so that people reallize I am not a hater. It will be a long response, because as I said in my tags I have a lot of feelings about this, so I’m putting it under a read more :)

When I reblogged that post we’re talking about and put all those tags in, I was extremely angry. I can’t lie about that right now, because I was. Maybe it’s a petty response, but in a song that is 4 minutes and 34 seconds long you just cannot convince me there was no room for Hobi at all. That there was no room for him to get like four lines on his own or for Jin to have more than the two he did? Especially when some members take up like half the song? I just refuse to believe that I’m sorry… And especially to realize, if you look objectively, that the difference in ‘talent’, to put it as such, in Bangtan is not that big let’s be real. They are all extremely talented and no one is 1000 steps above the rest at all in my opinion.

I’ve been a fan since about July 2015, a little after the Dope era, so I have been around for four comebacks now (and a hell of a lot of other groups’ members leaving/groups disbanding) and I’ve said this before on twitter: I feel like the line distribution is getting worse in stead of better with Bangtan. Run was sort of okay for me, especially if you keep in mind the idea of main/lead vocals and sub-vocals, but after that it just got worse and worse imo. And apparently, judging by the response to Hobi having no lines in Spring Day and Jin having barely any solo lines in BST, people really don’t give a shit and want to disguise it under the ‘I love ot7 so let me reblog some posts complaining about the awful line distribution and be done with it’.

The outrage on my dash with the Hobi situation was pitiful, because (and maybe I follow the wrong people who knows) the only ones actually being mad were Hobi stans and some Jin/ot7 stans. The outrage for Jin was basically non existent and it still pisses me off till this day. And the biggest discourse was that people needed to just basically shut up and support Bangtan because otherwise, and wow guilt tripping much?, they would hurt Hobi in the process too. And I get that we all have our favorites, we all have our ranking of the members whatever, but how can you look at this situation and just not realize how damaging it could be in the long run? How damaging it could be for ot7. You don’t have to love and cry and yell about Hobi and Jin as much as you do your bias, but to stay mostly silent cause it doesn’t concern your fave? I just can’t relate…

I’m a Jimin stan, but that means to me I am realistic enough to realize I have nothing to worry about with him. That he will get his lines and his screentime and the attention from his fans. So why should I be blind towards the mistreatment of some of the others? Because I’m settled? Because Jimin is my bias so I have no worries? And I’m not trying to say people who don’t stan Hobi or Jin feel like this, but this is really how it comes across to me. And then everyone, and this annoys me the most, wants to hide behind one of two defenses, a) Bangtan love each other more than anything and they want to stay together forever so awul line distribution won’t break them up and b) Bangtan have a lot of creative control so they probably decided this was best for the song…

Which is funny, because in the same breath they want to oppose haters, which they should don’t get me wrong, by saying ‘don’t hate on *insert their bias here* because it’s not their fault, Big Hit makes the decisions not them’. Excuse me? But that is not how this works. You can’t want to claim they have full creative control and make the decisions themselves and then turn around and say it’s actually Big Hit. It’s either they make the decisions themselves and they are basically assholes for ignoring Hobi, and more specifically Jin in like every song, or they are all subjected to what Big Hit wants.

But to come to the actual point: whether people want to close their eyes to this situation or not, in the end this could be damaging for Bangtan. Do you really think Minzy from 2ne1 didn’t love her group and her members? Do you really believe that guy from Teen Top that wants to leave doesn’t love his group and his members? Do you really believe that someone like Minzy, to take her as an example, who was in one of the biggest girl groups in kpop, just casually decided to leave? Do you not think that she didn’t realize that if she left she will probably never have the income she had with 2ne1 again or that she most likely will never ever be as popular as she was when in the group? Yet she freaking decided to leave anyways, because as you said she got no work! And ofcourse she wanted some, even if that meant not living the live she did with 2ne1, but it would be at least some sort of a life. And this happens to idols all the time, and then they, shocking I know, leave… Awful line distribution, and awful equal promotion, will be the death of any group no matter how much they love each other and the fans or how successful they are.

And I just wish as a fandom we could collectively come together on these subjects a bit more. You don’t have to be a Hobi or Jin stan to be critical of Bangtan’s efforts and in this case their line distribution. And there is also nothing wrong with being a critical fan and trying to let them and Big Hit know that no fan is going to leave if they make everything a little bit more fair. I just don’t want it to come to Bangtan’s contract renewals in a few years and having one or two of them even contemplating leaving. As you said, Jin is graduating soon and many people in the industry have already said that he is a lovely person, easy to work with, funny, clever, hard working and on top of that a lot more multi-talented then people want to give him credit for. You really believe he has no chance of a career outside of Bangtan?

Let me say something positive though for once. If we move beyond the line distribution and take a look at the promo, Big Hit gives me a little bit of hope. 2016 has been a rather good year for all of them in my opinion. Yoongi had his mixtape, Jin had Law of the Jungle and some other variety shows, Tae had his acting, the Taejin OST (where they both proved even more that Bangtan’s line distribution is shit), some MC jobs for all of them on music shows, etc. I think that if you would write it down then their promotion seems to definitely be sort of equal, which gives me great hope that Big Hit will at least always try to promote them equally in that area. But it also seems to me they want them stuck in certain positions: Hobi being the dancer, Jin being the visual, Jungkook being the main vocalist etc. When they are so much more then that!

So what I’m trying to say is that I’m not trying to convince anyone that Hobi or Jin are going to want to leave over this whole thing, but please can we all for once as a fandom acknowledge Bangtan’s shortcomings and realize that if nothing changes (because this is not a one time thing with them), and if we don’t try to voice our concerns, it could come to a Minzy situation (or any other group member that has ever left their group due to disrespect basically). I just don’t want them in the future to break up or have some members leaving, and then have everyone cry their eyes out for a day when we could have done something about it now…

This became so much longer then I wanted to, and I probably didn’t even say everything I wanted to say, so I’m really sorry. And I mostly ranted about nothing you were talking about in your ask, but I needed to get this all of my chest. I always say this and I will say it again: I love Bangtan with all my heart, and I don’t plan on abandoning them anytime soon, but these comebacks just slowly become a little less enjoyable and I will keep hoping that next time will be better. That next time I won’t have to sit through the music video waiting for a glimpse of Hobi or Jin or anyone. I just want Bangtan to reach their full potential, because I really feel they haven’t yet, because I think they are 7 wonderful individuals who deserve nothing less.