phatttoons-blog

[madmaddyenby]

/rp /dsmp

ok so- c!tommy. we are all aware he’s traumatized, and experiences ptsd from being in traumatic experiences, this is basically fact.  while i’d like to talk how c!tommy experiences ptsd, i’d like to bring up a thing i haven’t seen mentioned a lot when it comes to c!tommy and his trauma- c-ptsd.  also known as complex-ptsd.   it occurs when someone experiences something traumatizing for a period of time.

[image description: A screenshot of text with the words “CPTSD stands for Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. It is a mental health condition in which a person might experience intense PTSD symptoms that coincide with other mental issues. CPTSD occurs in people who have been subjected to on going traumatizing experiences”. end description]

which, as we know, the exile arc fits the description of “ongoing traumatizing experiences” pretty fucking well.  the exile was basically just two weeks of trauma.  for a lot of reasons too, there was dream abusing tommy, tommy being isolated, tommys own depression/suicidal thoughts/bad mindset in general.   this would all be considered a ongoing traumatizing experience(s).  

ptsd is very similar to c-ptsd in how it develops, but ptsd occurs after one singular traumatizing event . (by the way, the event doesnt have to be life or death, it could be something like witnessing or hearing about a shocking event!!!)

symptoms of c-ptsd overlap with ptsd a good lot of the time, due to them both being trauma disorders.  however, there are a few differences.  here r some symptoms of c-ptsd, alot of which are ptsd symptoms that alot ofpeople with c-ptsd experience as well

reliving the traumatic experience

avoiding certain situations 

changes in beliefs and feelings about yourself and others

hyperarousal (jitteriness, being on alert, etc)

somatic symptoms (physical symptoms with no underlying cause)

lack of emotional regulation 

change in consciousness

negative self-perception

difficulty with relationships

distorted reception of abuser

loss of system of meanings

now, i’ll go over which of these fit our boy c!tommy, and how they fit for some of them atleast.  i will only be talking about the things that are a result from c-ptsd, but also c-ptsd works where it coincides with other mental illnesses a person has so.  its also important to note that within a person these symptoms might not stay the same over time, and not everyone who has c-ptsd or ptsd is going to experience it the same.   (so not talking abt how pain affects him after dying in the prison, though that is a clear sign of ptsd) 

reliving the traumatic experience

tommy’s done this with exile a few times, when revisiting logstedshire, when he saw the craters in logstedshire, when visiting dream in prison, when during the disc finale dream dug the hole and told him to put his armour in, etc etc, he’s even described himself as being trembly in the fingers near plain biomes, while visting logsted he mentioned how shaky it made him to be there, and when he visited logsted one time he had an immediate reaction to seeing a hole in the ground that came off as him reliving it. flashbacks come in from sensations during a traumatic event, like sight, feeling, emotion, etc, etc.  it seems like with these he’s experiencing more of a reliving the emotions kind of thing. 

avoiding certain situations 

i was originally not gonna include this one, but thinking about it, he kind of does in a way.   this symptom also includes keeping yourself preoccupied to avoid thinking about it, which is something c!tommy seems to do alot.  with focusing on building the hotel, and doing tasks, or grinding for supplies instead of actually thinking about it.  

changes in beliefs and feelings about yourself and others

c!tommy uh. does this a lot.  a lot of it stems from how during exile tommy was isolated and made to believe no one cared for him, and even if that wasn’t true c!tommy never really got much closure on that.  hes not really trusting ppl that b4 were really close to him, tubbo n ranboo for example

lack of emotional regulation

this can also be described as uncontrollable feelings.  this is the one i’ve wanted to talk about the most i think- because this is really fits c!tommy.  he tends to lash out alot, for example burning the flower c!ranboo gave him, there are a bunch more examples of this that include him yelling at others, that one time when he spleefed c!jack 

negative self-perception

yeah.  theres a few examples of this one, the one that first comes to mind is that time during the green festival where he was talking about how he was worse than everyone he didn’t wanna be (including his abuser, c!dream...) .  theres now when he was building his tower by the prison when he was saying he couldn’t use the cobble because it was too him, and people didnt like the cobble. alot of this i think comes from c!dream making him feel basically worthless in exile :(

difficulty with relationships

  Yeah. um.  Alot for this one!!! The first to come to mind is c!tubbo.  c!tommy and c!tubbos relationship is very very wonky, especially considering recent events with tommy feeling like he is being replaced with c!ranboo.  (which he isnt by the way! he just feels as though, which is a valid feeling for him to have :]) .  another person that comes to mind is c!ranboo.  he’s even mentioned how his and ranboos relationship goes back and forth quite alot.  its not very surprising to see that he has difficulty with relationships especially considering a lot of the reason that the exile affected him so badly was because he felt so alone and was so isolated from his friends.  another thing that comes to mind, is when he made c!sam sign that contract promising hat he’d be his best friend and protect him.  theres most likely way more that can be said here, but this is the first stuff that comes to mind.  

distorted reception of abuser

um... yeah.  this one.  this can also be described as , “ becoming preoccupied with the relationship between you and your abuser. It can also include preoccupation with revenge or giving your abuser complete power over your life. “  which is um.  yeah.  c!tommy.  he’s mentioned how whenever he’s around c!dream he feels like hes conditioned to be his friend (which. yea . he was .).  right after he left logstedshire this was very very prominent, he was the biggest c!dream apologist around (/j), saying things like “dream didnt do anything wrong” and even explaining how he wasnt sure about things when it comes to c!dream, that his mind became flip floppy whenever he thought about him.   right now, hes focused on getting back at c!dream, not fully for revenge, mainly for his friends and how he doesnt want c!dream to go around killing and reviving everyone, but the point still stands.  (this all makes me extra sad because he had gone to the prison the second time in the first place to get closure :(( )

loss of system of meanings

Systems of meaning refer to your religion or beliefs about the world.  This can also refer to getting a strong sense of hopelessness or despair about the world, which as of late mainly c!tommy seems to have.  mainly referencing in his stream where he visited dreams bunker, he was asking what the point was of finding things that made him happy if dream was just going to get out the prison and destroy it.  theres also a few things that also go with this, in one stream while he burnt down ponks lemon tree for sam nook he said  "thats still decaying, but yknow, arent we all." and that one time when he gave that hotel invitation to c!techno he was like “ahahha we could die tomorrow anyway” 

-

its also important to note that, “Any type of long-term trauma, over several months or years, can lead to CPTSD. However, it seems to appear frequently in people who’ve been abused by someone who was supposed to be their caregiver or protector. “ Which is.. fairly accurate in c!tommy’s situation.  c!dream might’ve not been a caregiver or protector necessarily but he was still someone that was looking after him yknow? 

there are most likely more things than what i layed out that show that c!tommy most likely also has cptsd, however this is just the stuff that i thought up :] add to the post if you’d like to!

(also this isn’t saying that c!tommy doesnt have ptsd, he had both ptsd and c-ptsd. also i am not an expert about ptsd, cptsd, or mental health in general, if i got any information wrong let me know)

[mnogorgannik]

2 10 n 11 :)

this is basically an essay im so sorry. watch how hard i can infodump (ill put this under a cut hopefully it works bc sometimes tumblr decimates the keep reading things if theyre in asks)

2. Who’s your favorite of the Bound? What do you think of the different ideologies they have? Which of the factions are you most aligned with?

WE ALREADY KNOW THE ANSWER I AM A PETER LOVER THROUGH AND THROUGH!!!!!! oh baby i love that morally questionable architect. pretty early on in getting into pathologic (it’s coming up on a year now...) i thought about peter stamatin too hard and now i’m here. but really i find him to be such a fascinating character!

the thing about pathologic that i love is how almost every character can be as complex as you want. pathologic does an excellent job of implying a lot of character traits while only exploring some in further detail, which in some games is frustrating but patho does it so well! it consistently hints at traits and lets you fill in the details yourself. peter’s character is extremely interesting to me... and maybe a little more relatable at times than i want to admit lol.

i think i’ll talk about both stamatins though! their dynamic hurts me a lot. i’ll start with andrey bc i’ve been thinking about him lately. although i’ll bounce back and forth between both stamatins.

i’ve said this before but i’ll say it again.... andrey’s role as a protector who inadvertently hurts the people he cares about really gets to me. he is not a shield but, in his own words, a battering ram. and the problem is that battering ram has a recoil.

i have to wonder how that mentality of his came about, anyways. the implication is that it’s always just been him and peter, so did he take on that role because there wasn’t anyone else to do it?

in his efforts to protect peter from... military, i believe, he kills four people. which leads to daniil getting mistaken for andrey, which leads to daniil getting shot. and almost dying. he protects peter but to a smothering extent, peter even says he’s been suffering for ten years bc of andrey which is a LOADED line. he protects on a physical level but he kinda fucks up on the emotional.

there’s a horrible irony in peter and eva being the people he cares about the most and both attempting suicide. with eva once she’s missing he immediately goes running off trying to look for her, and . ahh i can’t remember right off hand what exactly he thought happened. but ik he was probably expecting a fight. with peter he says that after that he’ll never let peter leave his side, at least “as far as his knife can fly”... it sounds cheesy but the one thing he can’t save anyone from is themself.

and god the way andrey bases his ENTIRE sense of self worth on peter fucking hurts. they’re not peter and andrey, the architects. they’re Peter And Andrey, The Architect. (thinking about “one architect, two brothers” here.) andrey thinks he’s larger than life and all but he’s constantly living in peter’s shadow. their theatre of death positions come to mind here, with peter standing up, looking down at andrey. but andrey is on his knees in front of peter, arms limp to his sides.... separated by a wooden beam...

peter’s side of this dynamic is fascinating too. his dependency on andrey is. ow. leaving all practical matters and decision making to him... there’s this resentment (That’s Fine I’ve Been Suffering For Ten Years Because Of Him) and lack of communication that especially shows through for him.

while in p2 andrey completely crumbles if peter dies, peter doesn’t seem to care...... at all....?? which hopefully is elaborated upon in p2. he’s willing to talk to aspity about worrying if andrey is angry with him but he can’t bring it up with andrey himself. when he asks how andrey is doing he stops and says andrey is a “tough man” and can handle anything. in general, while it’s definitely there for andrey, themes of dependency are really glaringly obvious for peter.

one of my favorite peter things i’ve talked about before is still his ego!!! peter has a gigantic ego!!! he really does think that even though he’s hit the ceiling and can’t go any further he is still “a true architect” and “the rock upon which is built the stairway to tomorrow”. he has a blunt edge to him and he doesn’t ever tell you more than he thinks he needs to which i love. if he doesn’t want to tell you something he isn’t gonna do it. this is a character trait i think ppl miss which is sad because it’s so good and adds another layer of depth to him!

it really does hurt me how he’s valued for his mind alone (AHEM AHEM AHEM. GEORGIY) but it’s the thing nobody understands about him. i’m nowhere near as smart as peter lol but i do know that pain of feeling like none of your ideas can be understood because you just can’t express them the way you’d like, and then feeling like you’ll never be able to make it happen.

also, here’s a little thing  i’ve picked up on. this connection probably doesn’t exist but i’m making it because the stamatins make me lose my mind and start becoming one of those people who looks for connections in everything i guess. peter standing in the theatre of death, andrey below him. peter’s loft being at a high point in the town, the broken heart being underground. peter’s loft is also higher north on the map but the broken heart is lower south. just smth interesting

i have more thoughts on them of course! but this is all getting awfully long. i feel like i’ve only just gotten to the tip of the iceberg  even though i’ve written so much skfjskfjs this just feels quite surface level or. at least what is surface level for me who thinks about the stamatins so hard.

anyways i’ll keep my answers to the other two parts of this question quick! peter and andrey’s more creative vs practical mindsets are rly neat. especially because i would actually argue peter is a little more grounded in reality in certain aspects. not all, but certain ones...... their take on the utopian ideology is interesting. hot take: peter’s version of utopianism leans a tad towards humility. and andrey /does/ feel “straightforward utopian” but i think in certain regards? this man has a bit of a termite streak..... (hi al if you’re reading this). but i won’t get into that right now i’ve already gone on so long. saving that for later.

i think all of the factions kinda suck in their own way sometimes, honestly? although all of them are well written and have their pros and cons. were i in pathologic and i had to choose one i’d probably be a termite but everyone around me seems to think i’m a utopian. is it bc i love peter so much

10. What would you be like as a Pathologic character?

this question is a hard one! i did make a self insert once, mile-a-minute, but they’ve become their own oc by now. i think i’d be very...... very afraid...... probably isolating myself why does every pathologic character break quarantine???? also you could trade beetles with me :) thats about all i’ve got sorry this is real short

11. What is something you would change, writing-wise, about either game?

UGH i’ve been gushing about pathologic because. obviously i love this game so much. but the way it handles racism & such (in both games!) leaves much to be desired :/

i see a lot of the points it’s trying to make but i think the way they’re handled can be very messy. there are moments that work very well but. a lot that don’t. (i am aware that dybowski writes partially from his own experiences)

all too often the game “validates” the kin’s oppression and... at times paints them as oddly antagonistic? i don’t like how often as artemy you’re able to be like “i’m not one of those beasts” and i think there are better ways to touch on his internalized racism. in general the constant comparisons to animals is weird. you get big vlad who is obviously explicitly racist comparing them to animals, but then sometimes it’s like “ACTUALLY calling them animals is fine :)”

i think the herb brides are kind of. Hm. in their portrayal. also using parts of the buryat alphabet to denote an accent is weird. making odongh and herb brides inhuman is weird. connecting the kin to Magic is weird.

and, listen, i’d really like to not be playing Artemy Burakh Experiences a Microaggression Simulator every time i’m playing the haruspex route. hate that you either can’t call ppl out on their shit or if you can it ends the conversation/bars you from getting necessary information. glad you at least get to drag the vlads, i guess?

i also was talking about this but wrt peter specifically, and this issue is present throughout the game but it’s especially visible with peter, i don’t like how often you can mock him for his addiction.

he’s obviously in an extremely rough patch! being able to be just so plain cruel to him about the dependency on alcohol (and iirc in p1 hallucinogens, bc aglaya mentions it) he’s formed to cope with his mental illness & trauma just feels bad. especially because yes it is not a healthy coping mechanism at all but... it still is a coping mechanism, if that makes sense?

the way you’re able to constantly rub it in his face feels awful. peter is fully aware that it isn’t good for him and shows a desire to quit. even if he didn’t it would still be awful to say because. it’s just insensitive. like you don’t just go up to someone and keep being like HEY YOU DRINK A LOT YOU SHOULD STOP DOING THAT DO YOU KNOW WHAT WATER IS? feels really bad to keep harping on something that causes him pain and that he struggles with every single day.

however peter does have moments where he tells you Not to say that, or if you pry into why he drinks he’ll outright say he doesn’t remember you being his friend, which is better than nothing.

in p1 moreso than p2 i hate how you can be like oh he’s craaaazy he’s off his rocker he’s delusional!!!! that “why, i never... an architect of schizophrenia!” comment sticks in my mind because it’s just... so genuinely mean. especially because if i remember correctly that line is from when he’s planning on LITERALLY FUCKING BURNING HIMSELF ALIVE

i think if they were going to have all of this they should have gone more in depth on how it’s really. not good that he’s treated so poorly. and i do believe that’s what they were going for, a la the art book w/ the whole “not to be made into a drunken clown, this is a tragic character”, etc. but it just doesn’t land. i’m holding out for the bachelor and changeling routes in p2 to see if they expand upon any of it but i highly doubt i’ll be satisfied in this regard.

i stand by the One time it was really fucking funny to clown on peter being the time you can tell him little girls eat raspberries and earthworms and he just believes you

[yenneferw]

Can you please rant about jk Rowling she’s fucking awful with her queerbaiting, racism, and transphobia. Like I need someone else to validate me for not liking her

absolutely i hate her!!!!! this is a REALLY long post but she’s written so much and she’s been in the spotlight since her books got famous so like… there’s a lot to talk about i guess. anyway @ jk rowling get ready to be called out 

racism

first of all on this valid bitch of an i hate jk rowling post, the ilvermorny houses. it’s like…. Big cultural appropriation of native american ideas and stories, twisting them to fit her narrative for harry potter and completely disrespecting their history and origins. the history she creates for north american wizards is shit too, saying that native americans would “primitively” practice magic until europeans civilized them with wands (even tho…. it’s like really impressive to do magic without wands in her universe??? like sounds like the native americans were way ahead of europeans, but ofc she twists her own narrative to make the natives primitive). her whole history or north american wizardry also apparently just follows white wizards immigrating to north america and shit…… 

this video is……. a really good poem on the stereotypes and fetishization of cho chang and there’s no way i can reword what the speaker says bc she says it too good so,,, watch it

jk rowling is also really good at speaking out about racism when she wants to on twitter and yet all of her canonical poc characters in the books are background characters. i know hermione is black in the cursed child play, but that feels a bit like the dumbledore thing to me, like they never actually talk abotu it in the books? and if she wanted hermione to be black why didn’t she have any protests about emma watson being cast? if she wanted harry to be brown why didn’t she have any protests about daniel radcliffe being cast? i don’t know if she had any say in that, but i guess she had a say in insisting that the actors had to be british, so if she cared about making a main character poc, why did she not have any qualms about the cast, even in retrospect, even respectful ones like “i love daniel and emma to death but in retrospect i wrote them as characters of color”?

like she didn’t have to push dean and cho and the very small characters of color to the side but she did. she didn’t have to stereotype cho but she did. there are no poc in fbawtft, or there aren’t in the movie at least – and if she’s so happy about johnny depp and can speak out about that relentlessly, but she wanted there to be characters of color in fantastic beasts, why can’t she speak out about that? 

like the cultural appropriation is enough to see that she’s clearly a racist asshole who doesn’t care about the cultures of people who aren’t white, but it’s also clear to see in the background of her writing that she doesn’t care about research for shit if it’ll help to respect people of color in her stories, and she certainly doesn’t care to ensure that there are important characters of color for people to look up to when they read her books or watch the movies about them 

transphobia 

i guess she liked a terf’s article on twitter? like i dont’ knwo how reputable my sources on that were or if she meant to, but if she did, yikes

and from what i saw of the article it was Deep Terf Rhetoric, and tbqh i wouldn’t put it past her to have meant to have done that

i’ve seen ppl saying harry potter has transphobic aspects to it as well but i couldn’t find anything under all the times she’s “defended” trans ppl on twitter like idk i can’t take anythign she says on twitter by heart bc everything she does feels performative and fake af, and i haven’t read the books in like four years so i can’t say for sure based on my own memory 

also she wrote a trans woman in a more recent novel and she’s apparently totally impulsively violent like wow great way to conform to nasty stereotypes about trans women lmfao

like esp bc of this i wouldn’t put it past her to be a terf

homophobia & queerbaiting

saying! dumbledore! is gay! after! the fucking! book series! is not! representation!!!!!

even if she HAD make him gay during the series, he’s not good rep??? he was a manipulative asshole who let a child stay in an abusive home becuase he was too big of a dumbass to think about a way around the issue so that a little boy could live in a home full of people who treated him fairly. so uhh?? the cishets can fucking have him, i don’t WANT him in the goddamn community. 

but she thinks that she’s not homophobic bc he’s the only gay character who never even got to talk about being gay, who we never see in a relationship with a man. like throwing gay ppl scraps isn’t?? rep??? it’s queerbaiting you dumb bitch @ jk rowling…. 

she specifically said herself that werewolves are meant to represent diseases like AIDS, and characters like fenrir greyback are predatory werewolves who want tos pread around the AIDS-like disease, conforming to 1980s homophobic stereotypes against gay people for “wanting” to spread around AIDS like how can you in one breath say you want to bring light to diseases like AIDS and in the next make a character who literally models homophobic stereotypes with the same disease?? 

also, remus was supposed to be gay apparently, but he “changed and fell in love with tonks” like ok first of all bi people exist, second of all why would you write a straight person who’s supposed to basically have AIDS when that sounds a hell of a lot like “predatory gay man infects poor straight kid” like there’s SO MUCH wrong with that, and yeah you kind of have to dig into it a little bit to get there, but when you’re writing about risky topics and you literally admit to it, you need to be WELL-VERSED on what you’re writing about!! and to say you’re writing about AIDS is deeply mixed with gay history! and to say that the main character who is a werewolf was SUPPOSED to be gay and then pretend you’re NOT associating it with gay people is just… such cognitive dissonance, or maybe really ridiculous ignorance

also, dumbledore is dead. so even if he was good rep, and it was within the books, he’s fucking dead. another buried gay, fuckos! pile em up! 

and i’ve heard there’s a shit ton of queerbaiting between harry’s son and draco’s son in cursed child? which like…. may just be subtext, but there’s a huge section of the fandom who’s all about harry x draco (i have not good feelings about that ship personally but to say it’s not popular is to never have seen anything in the fandom), and she must know that? like she’s not oblivious is she? so why would she like…. put subject between their sons? ?? it feels like it’s a bone to “hey i never gave you harry x draco, so here are their sons, who i’m also never going to give you” 

also? if grindelwald WAS dumbledore’s bf at some point, what does that say about what she thinks about queer men? he’s deeply predatory and preys on credence in a very creepy way that plays on stereotypes about older gay men preying on younger gay boys, and he’s also a disgusting villain played by johnny fucking depp, an abuser (who SHE SUPPORTS) of all people. what does that say about what her mind goes to when she thinks about gay men????? 

i don’t actually know her role in those films, but she has said she loves depp, what he’s done with the character, and where the darkness of grindelwald is going in the first movie and its sequels, so even if her role is very little, she supports what is being done. 

also…. um apparently newt scamander created a werewolf registry…. a little honest to god werewolf registry in the fucking 40s….. ??????????? what r we supposed to think here, about a registry of discriminated ppl in the FORTIES…….????? and that’s the protag of fantastic beasts… cool it’s fine it’s fine

ableism

when talking about irredeemable characters like voldemort, she literally said that “whether it’s a personality disorder or illness” they’re not redeemable…. !!!?? here is a post on that subject with links to the sources of the interviews she said this in. 

i don’t know where to put this bc this could be any number of things but i just thought about this so i’ll put it here: the thing that’s created in fantastic beasts, where it’s like basically a personification of anguish from suppressing magic – that’s quite blatantly a reference to any number of minorities, like gay people suppressing their sexuality, trans people suppressing their gender, the mentally ill and disabled pushing themselves too hard or trying to ignore/hide it… and credence was vilified and killed and the protags weren’t even… really sad about it?? and the ministry of magic never really THOUGHT About that they just killed him….. and that’s okay…. that’s fine… they’re just going around killing a bunch of KIDS who are inconvenient to them and who basically symbolize a whole number of oppressed groups. cool, it’s fine

you could also make a point that werewolves also represent the mentally ill, and all the same fucked up shit basically applies here

she also said that everything that muggles can get can be cured by magic, thereby effectively giving some bullshit reason for not actually having any disabled or mentally ill characters, also assuming that it’s not totally ableist to just…. “cure” all that? she didn’t say it specifically about mental illnesses and disabilities, but it’s clear to see that with her attitude on “irredeemable” mentally ill people, she would 

fatphobia

most fat characters in harry potter are shitty people. the dursleys, pettigrew, and umbridge – all characters we’re supposed to find deeply wrong, the ones we’re supposed to hate the most other than, like, voldemort. like…..? a lot of the other fat characters are all “matronly” like molly weasley or stubborn and “lazy” like cornelius fudge who allowed voldemort to rise to power. like what’s that supposed to say about what she thinks the extent of fat people is? stubborn, evil, or motherly? 

she actually has a character grow fatter and fatter based on how shitty she acts towards harry because of a magic mishap. she also usually describes the nice fat people as “plump” and “pleasant,” while she describes dudley as “so much like a pig” that he couldn’t even be turned furhter into a pig when it was attempted, or as a “killer whale,” or vernon dursley as “having no neck”

her fascination with abusers

exhibit a: she loves johnny depp, she loves him for the part of grindelwald, she praises what he’s done for the character, she praises his casting. he’s abused his wife..................

exhibit b: she loves dumbledore. he is constantly manipulating harry and not actually helping him get out of difficult situations at home or at school, putting him and the other kids in danger multiple times, not talking about important information to keep them safe, like?? 

exhibit c: snape. a fucking nasty ass creep to lily. neville’s GREATEST FEAR. like i dont’ even need to talk about this, we all know snape, dumbledore, and johnny depp are shitty lmfao

and yet she named harry’s kids after dumbledore and snape, like they didn’t fuck harry’s life up, especially snape, who terrorized him and his friends. 

in conclusion fuckos

she’s nasty!!!!! i was going to do a section on sexism but i can’t find anything – i think she’s too much of a White Feminist to be sexist, probably. likely she cares more about researching feminist issues than she does about researching native myths before she steals them for her own gain lmfao. there is the fact that she supports an abuser like johnny depp, tho! 

she is constantly like… going against all this on twitter too lmfao, like it’s hard to find good articles on her shittiness on the first page of google bc most of it is “jk rowling defends trans people against transphobic tweet, jk rowling defends muslims against islamophobic tweet, jk rowling defends [this group or that group]” and yet she includes so much bigotry hidden in the details of her books and what she says about her books. like i know some of this isn’t quite on the surface, but ultimately when you write a book with subjects you don’t really know about, your inherent biases are going to be apparent under the surface, and since she’s such a famous author with so many books and so much spotlight on her, if you dig in a little you can make easy conclusions/clearly see what she thinsk about minorities. so it’s really fucking annoying that she’s so “good and progressive” on twitter because it’s obviously performative so she can get the progressive points required for more people to buy her shit. like that’s the best word i can think of to describe her: performative. 

[kendrixtermina]

Baby Reacts to: “Voltron Legendary Defender”

I’m not familiar with either of the show’s previous incarnations but from what I’ve heard they completely overhauled the characters anyways - supposedly Pidge was once an annoying tagalong kid (and a boy), Keith was a standard issue “hot-blooded mecha pilot”, Shiro was not there, or killed of in the first storyarc, and Allura was a completely different character with a wholly different design, more of a ‘princess classic’ with the looks & personality to macth, supposedly they redesigned her to make her more alien & then threw in the skintone as a hommage to her voice actress. In any case only the name is the same. 

I’ve seen some clips and it seems they had a much more outwardly fantasy-aesthetic going on with carriages & period costume, sort of more like Star Wars or Sailor Moon,  whereas the newest version seems roughly Star Craft esque in terms of their particular blend of Magitek. 

Otherwise it’s pretty straighforward: Evil Empire, Ancient Artifacts, Giant Robots, Space Fights, timefrozen hightech city left behind by the precursors etc. 

The evil empire has a renegate splinter faction but that too isn’t so exceptional (though welcome), the BoM reminded me somewhat of the Tok’Ra from Stargate in their reclusive, slow-to-act approach in that they have tons of futuristic tech but limited ressources & had to be won over first & there still being a lot of mutual distrust on both sides, at least at first.  

Rare in this day and age (and very refreshingly IMHO) the show unapologetically sticks to the basic genre & tropes without falling over its own feet trying to be clever  & meta - sure, they evened out the gender ratio a bit & made the structure of the battles less monotonous but we’re not beaten over the head with any of these things/fit them in naturally & the show never seems like it has something to prove & just lets its story be a straightforward giant robots & explosions kinda thing.

It helps that the artwork is great. 

The best summary of my general impression is that I’ll pobably tune in for season 3. My favorite character so far would be Keith closely followed by Pidge, and Shiro, but AFAIK everyone likes Shiro? I’m prolly b/c I’ve heard it’s terrible (The Umbridge effect is probably in full force...) also I’ve been told there’s a trailer out and I’d rather see season 3 unspoiled. 

Clearly there needs to be some payoff for Shiro grooming Keith as a potential sucessor but I’m hoping that after a few drama-filled episodes, they all go rescue Shiro from wherever he’s gotten to, Keith hands him back his helmet and they all go home together. I mean, he just got his own Bayard. It’s unclear what happened to him in any case, perhaps he was absorben Evangelion style. 

That said one of the show’s strenghts is the clear aversion of the “annoying comedic sidekick” even though it has many characters that has could theoritically fit that description - They try their best to give each of the characters something to do & various skills & likeable traits - Like you get why each of them is there and why they’re our heroes - they also took the time to make sure everyone got a few character establishing moment in the first episode (Shiro’s arrival, Pidge & Keith were already on their own quests by their own means, Hunk & Lance served as the PoV characters etc) and throughout the show they try to bring out everyone’s personalities through reaction shots etc. Like, ALL of them are awesome.

Also apparently this fandom has brutal shipping wars? Some ppl I was sitting next to kept cracking jokes about how [random yaoi pair] was obvliously into each other and after a while it got annoying through sheer persistence. 

I don’t think the show as a whole is going for that like if there was going to be a decent/central romantic subplot they’d have introduced it by now they seem to be content to simply be an action show & there’s not much content like that at all except for the occassional teasing for the sake of humor & Lance’s flirting (which is really more there to exposition his being a bit of a showoff) - the most that will come out of it is that when we see some epilogue telling us what became of everyone, Lance will be shown to have found a girlfriend after returning home to his mom & impressing his siblings with his heroic stories. 

To begin with they seem to be going for a different vibe with the main characters, with how all of them (including Allura) refer to each other as “family” or “brothers” all the time like I get the impression we’re supposed to interpret them more as simply comerades or quasi-siblings with Shiro as the big brother and Coran as the kooky uncle.  

Like I hate it when ppl dismiss already existing romantic subplots as “uneccesary”, “silly” or “pandering” but at the same time it’s not like every show needs to have one or like it immediately needs an explanation when one character doesn’t get a love interest(that they must be gay, ace etc... nothing wrong with those type of characters, or headcanon, but “we’re not doing romance genre RN/ the characters are busy fighting a war” should be a sufficient explanation in and of itself whatever the characters’ orientations are.) 

General Character Impressions:

Their secret seems to be rolling with the basic tropes but connecting them into an interesting structre, so it comes off neither overly in your face nor one dimensional.

Lance - ‘Average Joe Relatable PoV character’ except they made him not-boring by making him the snarky/funny one & giving (he’s got ice powers & is the designated long range fighter, both very cool powers, pun not intended but retroactively appreciated) as well as drawing logical consequences (He’s the most attached to earth because of his relatively ‘normal’ background & wants to prove himself because it seems he was the midle child among numerous siblings, hence the rivalry with the local ace pilot.) Sorta calls to mind the likes of Kyon from Haruhi or Sokka from Avatar.  

Hunk - For once the “all around nice heart of the group with the more intuitive, roundabout type of reasoning” isn’t the token girl but I’m glad that role’s still there because niceness & group cohesion is a valid attribute. The “nice person” is typically the healer or magic user but making them the defensive fighter makes just as much sense, especially with his personality as the more cautions common sense-y one who becomes committed to the mission through the desire to protect innocents. 

Pidge - The “secretly a girl” thing is kinda trite but it makes sense as a reference to the original and they still eschewed the tropes by how she was badass well before & doesn’t get treated any different afterwards - The plot twist is more that she’s related to the scientists from the prologue. Otherwise another potential spirit animal of mine, VERY relatable in ways I can’t count, fro the nerdy reactions all the way to the short stubby arms XD I’m also grateful that they didn’t give us that trite old “nature vs science” contrast but instead portrayed these as connected.  It’s like Kensuke from Evangelion, except as a girl & she actually got to be a pilot. 

Keith - The Rival Character. Second-best fighter  of the paladins, sort of a ‘larger-than-life’ superhumanly good ace pilot, to Lance’s ongoing chagrin (and indeed he turns out to be part warrior alien), also, predictably, the local cynic. Seems to have the least ties to earth/ have been looking for a purpose in life anyways.    Not quite a ‘stoic number two’ though - He’d probably like to be but he absolutely doesn’t really know when to shelf it, hence his being highly suceptible to Lance’s provocations & flunking out because of a “discipline issue” despite his aparent talent. 

Shiro - Former Ace Pilot & personal hero for both Lance & Keith. Got alien abducted & subjected to the full repertoire (gladiator fights, experimented on, augmented etc.) & is understandeably still rather shook from it. Serious disciplined military type & natural leader, hence ends up taking over almost immediately wheen stranded with a bunch of ragtag space cadet rejects and, as a result, becomes everyone’s beloved big brother figure./mentor. Supposedly just as loved by the fandom?  Actually still pretty young, he just looks mature in comparison to the others but he’s not above getting in a snowfight. 

Allura - There’s the “sweet princess classic”, the “fierce alien warrior princess” and the “glittery plot magic princess” and in Allura’s case they seem to have been thrown in a blender & put together in such a fashion as to make a more complicated character - She’s certainly fierce, somewhat agressive, suspicious & hellbent on her mission but she also has the diplomatic grace one would expect of a royal & ultimately she does have a sweet side (hinted at early on with her adorable animal companions) - The basic gist of it is that she’s a regular teenage girl somewhere, but has been trained for asskicking & diplomacy all her life, & now she’s the last survivor & feels the pressure to carry on her father’s torch & stop the evil empire so she affects a comanding presence most of the time. 

Also there seems to be some meme about calling her a racist (Ugh tumblr) ? This seems to me as one of this stuations where people want complex characters but cannot handle it if they’re not perfect or fitting into easy boxes. 

The whole point of her is that she comes from a different time & culture with it’s conlicts outside of the human character’s PoVs. Like point me at any angry alien princess who is NOT suspicious. Both being unfrozen and heck, even Zarkon’s betrayal are still relatively recent for her, and in the end she was just kinda avoiding Keith (granted, in what must’ve been a confusing uncertain time for him) more than actively being mean and she came through on her own & apologized. Like, it was just like Hunk said: She just needed processing time, something she’s been afforded preciously little of at any point ever, I mean she goes straight from realizing everyone she ever knew (except Coran) is dead to launching an offensive.  

Bonus: I shall attempt to MBTI the bunch

(In Order of certainty)

Hunk - most obvious ISFJ to ever SiFe 

Allura - ESTJ

Pidge - INTP

Keith - ISTP or possibly ISFP, certainly Se-aux tho. One the one hand he uses Fi-ish language in places (”If I don’t do this, I’ll never find out who I am...”) on the other hand he tends to prioritize the mission & is the most cynical/pragmatic of the bunch & tends to be stoic & objective unless provoked (”The rest of the universe has families too.” “Yeah but can we afford to rescue the princess?”) - His relative reactiveness when provoked is sufficiently accounted for by Se. 

Zarkon - ESTJ 

Shiro - ISTJ (though his instant commanding presence makes me doubt the I somewhat that said politician/leader ISTJs do happen. He seems to have been serious & dilligent even before all the trauma tho.)

Lance - ESFJ or possibly Se-dom, ESxx for sure tho. 

Coran - Clearly has Si and Ne but not sure in which order. If I had to guess I’d say he’s either a very dutiful ENFP or a very quirky ISTJ.