#i mean this is such wasted potential

[nagitosstolenhand]

i don't like the growing opinion that people are being 'too hard' on deku for his failing to save shigaraki.

i've seen quite a few people complaining that a lot of the bnha-critical crowd are being too mean to deku for getting tomura killed, arguing that it isn't really his fault, and that hes a 16 year old child soldier who's been failed by almost every adult in his life, why should we be putting all of this on his shoulders? hes just a kid after all?

and the truth is, they're right. deku IS a 16 year old boy whos had the fate of the world thrust on his shoulders. but the story itself just plainly refuses to acknowledge this.

the narrative doesn't acknowledge how fucked up having a school that trains literal children how to be combo cop-celebrities is. it only tentatively acknowledges the fact that a universe having combo cop-celebrities is fucked up, and even then the only people who ever point this out are antagonists, who are portrayed and treated in-universe as untrustworthy. the narrative doesn't care how fucked up dekus circumstances are. the narrative treats deku like hes a fucking messiah here to touch the hearts of the evil depressed villains with his magical empathetic heart of gold before they get blown up or just sent to fucking superhell for daring to challenge the status quote.

deku isn't a person. he's barely even a fucking character at this point. he's a plot device, and a mouth piece for the objectively shitty themes bnha is trying to spout. the themes that tell you that if you're mistreated by society and want to do something about it, you're a villain. that disrupting the status quote and refusing to repent to some random teenage boy spouting empty platitudes at you means you deserve to get sent to fucking superhell. the themes that portray people fighting for civil change as mass murdering supervillains. the themes that look the audience dead in the eye and can call deku the greatest hero to ever live.

deku, who barely spared a second thought to lady nagant telling him the truth about the hero commission. who spouts meaningless platitudes about heroism and morality at nagant, and aoyama, and toga and shigaraki, when even the thought that he should question the world around him comes up. who's constantly talked about as this truly kind, empathetic person, but hasn't spared an empathetic thought to literally anyone who is classified as a villain. who listened to every authority figure around him except the ones who asked him to question his worldview. who saw la bravas tears, shigarakis various breakdowns, himikos plead for understanding, chisakis catatonic state, lady nagants truth, and barley batted a fucking eye. deku, who killed tomura shigaraki.

people don't criticize deku for failing shigaraki because they just hate deku. people criticize deku because of what he represents. because hes a mouthpiece for the atrocious morals and themes of this ideologically rotten manga. because any character he had was chopped up to bits in favor of the incomplete husk we have now. people criticize deku because hes the main character of my hero academia. theres nothing more damning then that.

[blueskittlesart]

in the nicest and most non-confrontational way possible. i feel like some of you think that anything that isn't directly openly spelled out for you within a story is "missed potential" or "unexplored." like. sometimes there are implied narratives. sometimes the point is that you as the reader are supposed to think and draw your own conclusions and participate in the story. the writers not directly spelling every little detail out for you doesn't mean that the story is poorly written or missed its own plot details somehow. PLEASE.

[nocofamilyau]

not related to noco at all but what is katie and sadie’s relationship like now?

pretty good all things considered! while they're both married to two sweet guys and have separate families (none of their kids are other td characters, unfortunately...) they're still really close, and still live next to each other at that same beach town they grew up in, now both running that successful 80s themed ice cream business they've been dreaming of! its safe to say they probably suffered the least on Total Drama, only leaving with a couple of minor scars, good god were they lucky..

[plantsjustwannahavefun]

I used to think that the reason I wasn't satisfied with Izzy's death was because I was too attached to his perspective as a character and couldn't focus on the big picture of the season and the main Gentlebeard relationship enough. I mean, I was still convinced that his death and the way it was carried out was a shit writing decision, but everyone else outside the Izzy Canyon circles seemed fine with it, so I was starting to think that maybe they were right.

So I looked back on the rest of the season and rewatched the finale... And realised something that I'd been trying to ignore because it was too painful to admit. A huge part of why Izzy's death hit so hard (in a bad way, not that delicious masochistic pain of having a beloved character die a good, narratively satisfying death) was because throughout this season he was the only character who actually had a satisfying arc and development. Practically no one else did. I didn't actually care for Gentlebeard this season, not the way I cared in S1. From episode 1 to 8 and a half, Izzy's arc was crafted with more care, kindness, subtlety and narrative weight than the main Gentlebeard arc which, in comparison, felt like a string of choppy beads badly tied together in an approximate shape of an arc, but collapsed as soon as you looked at it too closely.

Yes, we all know this season suffered for being 2 episodes too short, but I don't think that's all there is to it. This is starting to feel like GoT season 8 all over again. Would it have been better if it wasn't so rushed? Maybe. Or maybe it would have been even worse because this season just didn't seem to know what to do with itself or the characters. The themes and symbolism are all over the place and completely inconsistent. Ed and Stede's characters are practically back at the same place they left in S1. All they did was bounce off the walls back and forth with no real growth. As soon as they took a step towards fixing their relationship or growing as people, they either tool three steps back or it just got dropped. Stede letting fame get to his head? Interesting and realistic development. And how was it resolved? It wasn't. Stede and Ed being whim prone? I'm glad they brought it up. And then they just fell for another whim and it was presented as a satisfying ending.

Ed went from the Kraken, to taking the first steps towards being Ed, then suddenly all the way to being Ed by way of a Night of Magical Healing Sex that he he didn't actually want to happen because he wasn't ready. And then all of a sudden he pivoted to abandoning Stede and piracy and becoming a fisherman... for 5 min. And then back to Blackbeard again because two fishermen were mean to him for 5 minutes. And then abandoning it again to open an inn. How was any of this even remotely coherent or satisfying? They didn't even have a single conversation about any of it. Ed had more proper closure and communication with Izzy during his dying scene than with Stede and the rest of the crew put together. Izzy's arc got sacrificed to do the heavy lifting for Ed's arc and became nothing more than a shortcut to speed run his character growth. Except it didn't even lead anywhere. "Ed, they're your family, they love you" no they don't, he didn't even have a single positive conversation with any of them except Fang. Of course this could have been the point, and Ed could have seen Izzy's death, his own discovery of found family and his dying words as a pretext to repair his relationship with the crew. But he just left them and stayed with Stede instead.

Sure, you could say this was only the second act of the story, and S3 will resolve everything. But the second act is still meant to move the story and the characters forward in some way. Yes, of course if we get S3, I imagine Stede and Ed's life as innkeepers won't exactly be idyllic. But the problem is that the conflicts they'd have will only be a rehash and repeat of the same conflicts they've already have, or were supposed to have, this season. Multiple times, even. We already know that Ed is simply unable to live with himself no matter what life he chooses. The title of S1 was literally "wherever you go, there you are". We already know Stede's love isn't enough to fix him. We already know their goals in life are completely opposite. Maybe they could have shown Stede realising, after his humiliating in S7, that piracy wasn't all it was cracked up to be or he isn't suited for it, and that's why he chose to leave it behind and open an inn, but that's not the explanation we were given. It was just another whim. They literally didn't learn anything this season. They had two baby conversations in E4 and E5 and didn't take anything from it, just kept doing the complete opposite of anything. "We're both prone to whims, let's take things slow" became "let's take things extremely fast by moving in together permanently and becoming entrepreneurs". They never talked about the actual, deepseated, longstanding trauma issues they needed to resolve before they could even begin to have a proper relationship. They literally got a heavy-handed glimpse in what their life would become if they just stuck together without addressing their own personal issues, and chose to do that very thing. It that's what S3 is going to address, then why were Anne and Mary part of this season instead of the next one?

I remember everyone saying they wanted Ed and Stede to reunite as quickly as possible in S2, and I get why. They have great chemistry together. The season is about them. But for it to work, spending more time apart is exactly what they needed. They needed to learn how to live with themselves and others, first. Romantic love alone can't fix you as a person. You have to fix yourself first. Community can help (as with Izzy's case), but you still have to put in the work. In retrospect, I'm glad that Izzy didn't get a love interest this season - because he wasn't ready yet, and had to learn how to have normal relationships and friendships with other people before attempting an intimate romantic relationship, lest he ended up falling head first unit another toxic mutually dependent relationship. That's what Stede and Ed should have tried too. Instead the show just ended up using Izzy's death as a quick surgical fix, robbing Ed of his agency and having to do the hard work repairing himself and his relationships with other people. There's a sad irony in getting exactly one character's arc just this, and then using it as a sacrificial lamb to patch over the main character's arc.

[bigttsgoodheart]

was it casual when you called me your "god-given solace"???

[al-luviec]

juvie buddies

[kaasiand]

ballpoint splatling

[dungeons-and-dragon-age]

my favourite part about inquisition is when you go around claiming land and then everyone makes a surprised pikachu face when the locals don't greet you with open arms. inquisitor obviously they've got the wrong idea, we got to show them that they should be grateful for our presence here!!

[steverogerscanyounot]

Captain Carter concept art from The Art of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

[detentiontrack]

We constantly hear about burnt out gifted kids, and their experiences are completely valid, but what about the people that DIDN’T burn out? The people who were considered exceptionally smart at a young age and continued to be considered exceptionally smart with the constant fear and anxiety that with every new challenge they take on, their abilities and luck are going to run out and they might disappoint everyone?

[julykings]

kind of in my hermit era lately and trying not to feel bad about it im just such a homebody these days

[kittenfangirl20]

I really saw someone try to claim that they don’t want Adam to come back because they think he doesn’t deserve redemption. What makes Adam less deserving of redemption than any of the other Sinners in Hell? This is a common misconception about redemption, some people think that redemption is about if you deserve redemption or not, that isn’t redemption. Redemption is about realizing you did something bad and working to make things right even if you don’t get forgiveness from the person you wronged. If we go by the logic of people who say that Adam doesn’t deserve redemption, then that basically says that no one deserves redemption. If someone refuses to change for the better then that is another story, but you can’t say that redemption is about deserving it because in order to need redemption the person would have to have done something bad to need redemption in the first place.

[ginrise]

I think Old Xian deserves an award for the most successful edge-r in human history lol. The potential 19 Days had that disappeared into thin air as soon as she made the side characters the main ones is so disappointing.

Have been following the Manhua since 2015, TWO THOUSAND AND FIFTEEN, that's nine years ago. No development whatsoever for the sweet ol' main couple. I thought she'd eventually get back on track oh I don't know after a year or two or three or four or five, I was gravely mistaken. It started out so well now it's just a ???? Wrapped around some ¿¿¿¿.

Here is a message to Old Xian, please give me some closure before my fiftieth birthday. I beg you. We were all rooting for you I swear lol. I have very very little rooting left to give but please, get it together.

PS: my 50s are still a bit far but not sure I'll make it with all the smoking.

[rowanoftheunknown]

Okay listen it's been 4 days I'm over it but I hate that everyone is like "that's where Izzy's arc was meant to end, he accepted his death" yeah no when I developed my support system and dismantled my toxic habits and moved on from my trauma my psych took me out the back and said you're free and shot me like a lame horse

[bibibbon]

I feel like Kenjaku as a villain was wasted tbh especially when I think of the dynamic we could have got between them, Choso and Yuuji.

Hi @doodlegirl1998 👋

OMG YES!!! I have been in the process of making a post about kenjaku and how I hate how the narrative treated him especially with the lack of kenjaku and yuji/ choso content we have.

Gege introduces kenjaku as this weird maniac who literally does stuff because he is bored and why not. Like the guy was like won't it be interesting if I just created the culling games to almost pass time before going ahead finding tengen and killing them. He also just wants to merge humanity for fun and giggles. Heck the narrative itself says that kenjaku just wants to commit acts of sorcery terrorism because why not.

Also it's such a shame that we never got to see kenjakus relationship with itadori and choso to a full extent especially when its never fully tackled by the story. Strangely enough there seems to be something quite interesting when it comes to how kenjaku views yuji, maybe something akin to care for him (even a tiny bit maybe) which could be heavily explored if gege chose that kenjaku would be the one to take over gojos body in jjk 261.

Also I think kenjakus whole existence and how it effects jjk society needs to be talked about and explored heavily within the narrative. Kenjaku seemed to have a friendship with tengen until something happend and they stopped being friends. Gege could of taken this and fully ran and expanded with this idea especially because there are some similarities with kenjaku and tengen and how they both use human bodies as vessels.

There's also kenjakus last fight which was a great way to add humour into the story while giving both him and tsuaba development. Kenjakus hunger for something new seems to parallel ishigori and sukuna but with kenjaku he has went through multiple journeys and has supposedly seen many views and beliefs of others. Yet one thing that he hasn't experienced is grief and love which could be a great arc for him to go through.

I think kenjaku seemingly becoming the mastermind in the series could of been a great twist and there are so many more things for his character that haven't been explored.

[batw1nggg]

i know the dr2 survivors having zero chemistry couldve easily been fixed by like. If The Writers Had Taken The Time To Write The Chemistry instead of just last minute throwing in one or two lines literally at the very end. the combo of characters does have lots of potential for chemistry but also i think one thing that wouldve really helped is LETTING HIYOKO SURVIVE 😭😭😭😭😭😭 if dr2 had just had 6 survivors like dr1 their survivor dynamic during chapters 5 and 6 couldve been so much better 😭😭

hiyoko just slots with them perfectly. theyre missing the energy that she’s able to bring if that makes sense like dr1 has hina as its more upbeat survivor and v3 has himiko but dr2’s most upbeat survivor is. like. Akane. am i making sense here. and also hiyoko bonding with any of the dr2 survivors theyre the last people youd expect her to bond with and it can be representative of her character arc and i also wish theyd been able to play more with fuyuhiko’s arc spurring on hiyoko’s because they had that kinda going on too. idk i know we’ve had this conversation as a fandom already but i just get angrier every day that she didnt live. of course adding hiyoko in isnt a Fix All Solution to the issue of the survivors not having been given chemistry but it couldve elevated the dynamic a lot i think :( i wanted to see her fight with and bond with everyone