#if theres a second main character its him. so hey whats up with HIS parallel his foil his doppelganger his Kevin | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

gayspock · 2 years

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for the character ask .. mickey dr who … :]

YES YES THANK YOU (DROPS AN ESSAY)

How I feel about this character: i'll defend mickey to the fucking grave. both the show and so much of the fanbase do him a GREAT disservice.... rtd era is, like, my favourite era of doctor who - but it treated its black companions like fucking dirt, and sooo much of the fandom also just follows suit in that sentiment it STINKS -_-. ive seen ppl call him abusive, baselessly- and its like... im sorry, but when and where?

he was a shitty boyfriend at the beginning of the series, that's true. but he was just up his own arse in a way where its like... yah, sucks, but a lot of ppl are at that age. and besides, rose wasnt so great to him either - jesus, i'd insist she never DOES start to treat him with respect onscreen. but, like, in s1 they were both, like, 19... and theres a lot of ppl who havent rlly figured stuff out properly either and arent in totally sparkling relationships. i think its rlly weird how they take his scenes from the beginning of s1e1, and just characterise him as an utter jerk bc of that.

and its also, like- like ALL of that aside i think its why i like him a lot as a character. he does actually go through quite a fucking lot, yknow? and unlike the mainstay companions, its something heclearly did not want at the beginning. like a lot of them CHOSE to live life tangential to the doctor- he was just kinda dragged into it despite being v fucking terrified, which is truthfully quite fair yah.but by the end of his tenure on the show hes completely different!? and like- dont get me wrong, i LOVE all arcs on the show regarding companions, and what they bring but... there's something abt that, that i just really do admire a lot. i feel like changing, like, your very nature- that's so much more? and again this- IM NOT TRYING TO SHIT ON ROSE... I SWEAR I AM NOT. bc i do love rose- i just think the show itself did revere her in this sort of way. which, hey! makes sense for it to do- whilst its not inherently from the doctor's perspective, it was very much their story being told a lot of the time, so it does make a lot of sense... but again like i said before.

i feel like rose never did end up respecting mickey and in turn it feels like she gets a lot more applause for a lot... less? same happened to poor fucking martha. but again uh. thats going back to the thing abt rtd era who kinda disrespecting black companions, and writing them BOTH in positions where they're second fiddle to the main romance and constantly putting them down / comparing them to it in the process.

. and god- backtracking a bit, im so glad they did what they did with him in s2. like thats such a defining moment where its like my little king rlly has changed... where he sat down and CHOSE to stay in the parallel universe to fight like GODDD. (screams and punches the ground) like i eat that shit up like MAD... like are you KIDDING me. (starts ripping shit apart) bc he didnt have anyone... sniff sniff. he didnt have anyone so he just left and he went somewhere where he DID have people.

All the people I ship romantically with this character FUNNILY ENOUGH? i dont rlly ship anyone with him. i mean- i like people entertaining the foursome 9/rose/jack/mickey idea. so true besties- im not trying to be a hater, but they all had so much more chemistry in boom town alone than the fam from chibnalls era ever rlly managed to get to. that being said, i think if you're like.... actually taking that FURTHER-furhter, whilst i thibk their dynamic is sweet and like. it does work in that episode i dont really run with it in, like, seriousness just bc of how it doesnt work so much within the context of the show- its moreso a cute little insight into a different reality...

and then, i know he ends up with martha (ambiguously?) but eh!! im not against it- i just feel like it was an odd, "lets just stick them both together" even though martha already had like a guy they mentioned she was engaged to and whatever... it was really weird??? I MEAN- like i think they have A LOT of similarities when it comes to wht i was saying above with the doctor... but i think thats where their dynamic sort of ends for me, with what they have? which isnt to say they'd suck together- maybe if we got to see them, i could really come to like it (i could see them being cute, and having nice back and forth!) but instead ive always been a little... ambivalent, i suppose, bc the thought of them dating just bc of their odd dynamic witrh the doctor feels... counter to what their own personal journeys were, if that makes sense? yeah<3

what i will say, bc i love to bring it up every time. the fact that rickey, his parallel universe self, was canonically dating jake (who: sorry to insert this, but hiii- that's my uncle's ex, not to brag... smirk) was confirmed in a DELETED SCENE still makes me furious like PUT IT IN. PUT IT BACK IN. that's also why i think mickey is confirmed not straight. <3 (though i dont ship MICKEY-mickey with jake, bc i think that's a little... :( after what happened to rickey like noo but i think he'd be an important person in his life after the fact)

My non-romantic OTP for this character also going back to the 9/rose/jack/mickey dynamic. i think it works really good friendship wise, too. in any sort of combination- both rose and mickey, jack and mickey, 9 and mickey.... i think again its a thing more out of the context of the show. rose and mickey especially- though i suppose they'd definitely work as better friends and closer, post canon.

ODDLY enough i dont rlly like 10 and mickey being friends bc i feel like their interactions in the show always felt weirdly ... cruel? in a way 9s never were. or maybe thats me. like- 9 was a bit of a dick but that was just him. 10 was, like, specifically more cruel to mickey it always felt like. and eh thats not a vibe for me personally.

My unpopular opinion about this character honestly everything i said about him being disrespected. i still see so much shit about him it sucks.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon

i think (waves hand at above) everything like... regarding just tweaks with scenes with him, all over the place. ultimately i want the show to do right by him, yknow? and thats vague as hell, but yeah. i think you can kinda guess wht i mean abt that from my first ramble. just stuff to round him out bc i do think he is so underrated.

and if it werent for the parallel universe part.... i'd have liked to see him come back, actually. i never liked how moffat hard reset everything and refused to let different companions meet. i get why you might want that as a showrunner (and funnily enough: i dont think chibnall handled jack THAT well in all honesty) but he is a type that i do think, with martha, could have made more returns. AND UHM- ALSO, THAT IS.... I AM TALKING EXCLUSIVELY ABOUT HIS CHARACTER HERE. i dont want him to actually be brought back any more after all the crap that happened with noel- no duh...

and also. hell. i would have loved to have seen him join torchwood, back when it was airing... i think he'd fit in really nicely and couldhave rounded out the team in a fun way.

#egg yells back #traitorslament

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seungnoir · 4 years

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My Current top 10 favorite Miraculous Ladybug Episodes and why (+analysis)

1. timetagger - the amount of possibilities this brings to the plot and insight is so fun. also, it’s one of the few things of writing and planning i appreciate in this series because it was hinted in the very beginning of s1 that alix’s watch was a miraculous, but now we get to see that connection. Seeing things that were hinted long ago end up having substance makes it more interesting. Also, I do thoroughly Alix as a character and loved to see her and see that she will have a bigger role in the future. This episode alone leads to so many theories and things that can be analyzed and makes it so fun - such as the idea that there is someone (besides master fu) that knows about their identities, and even further, about what happens in the future. The idea of a new hawk moth also comes to play. The akumatized villain from the future proves that there is a hawk moth in the future, but that it isn’t gabriel agreste. This brings into question of what happened to Gabriel and the current Hawk Moth? How did someone else of ill-intention end up the miraculous after hawk moth? Who is this new Hawk Moth? This brings so many theories and possibilities to where the show is heading. We also see chat noir and ladybug do still exist in the future as adults. We can only wonder and theorize about how theyve developed between present and future, though. Another small detail at the end that was interesting is i’m pretty sure chat broke the fourth wall?? At the end of the episode, chat is talking to ladybug and about what alix said about the future as they walk away, and started saying “maybe in the future you might even agree to see a movie with me. Hey, what if it was in the very near future? Like, the next show...”

2. sandboy - there are many reasons i enjoy this episode. first, i love the kwamis and i love learning more about them and having some focus on them. We learned more about background and history of the kwamis as well as see more than we had before. In addition, I think it brought good development to character, particularly for adrien/chat noir. Marinette’s and ladybug’s biggest nightmares weren’t too much of a surprise, and neither was adrien and chat noir’s when you think about it but foes bring more insight to him as a character and helps set up ideas for his character and things later. As adrien, his biggest nightmare was being trapped and cornered, obviously a result of how he’s treated by his father. While adrien tends to always seem chill and nice around people and like everything’s always fine, it shows there’s more we don’t see. Then, as chat noir, his biggest nightmare was that ladybug hated him. It was important to show how much chat noir really cares about his relationship with her, and not just romantically. It shows us this not only as a watcher, but so that ladybug sees too. This sets up well for the ny special, where ladybug gets upset with chat and says she can’t trust him. While not exactly like his nightmare where she despises him, it is parallel to his literal biggest nightmare and shows why he reacted the way he did and shows just how much ladybug saying that would affect him. I also very thoroughly enjoy the moment where adrien sees the sock plagg left when he sneaked out and he went “Plagg! who turned you into a sock!” i think i find it funnier than i should.

3. heroes day p2 - not to be a ladynoir stan but that’s a big reason i enjoy this episode. When the other heroes they recruited fall, Ladybug gets worried and begins to lose hope. This isn’t very common for her, but it shows she’s not some perfect hero, she has times where she has doubts. However, chat noir was right there for her. He was able to encourage her and get her back into the spirit. I think this is important to show their relationship without thinking about it in a romantic way. It shows chat noirs full trust in ladybug, and how even if ladybug doesn’t always express it, it shows how she does appreciate and trust chat noir and that he is able to help her when she’s down, it’s a balance. Also, when chat noir is encouraging ladybug, one thing he says “let’s go back to what always worked - you and me against the world, m’lady.” In my eyes, this reinforces the “soulmate” idea and the importance of the two. Don’t get me wrong, I love the other heroes and miraculouses being used, and maybe its just me, but I think it’s important that despite the other heroes being helpful, chat noir and ladybug are the core, and that reinforces that. Also I honestly love that adrien was detransformed at the time of saying that line. In addition to ladynoir, there’s the plot and villain progression of hawk moth and nathalie, which sparks the plot to really start picking up after this event.

4. reverser - I love marc a lot, i relate to his character a lot so i enjoyed having him and I wish we had more outside of this episode. There are also other fun characters we get to see that we don’t see as much (Alex and nathaniel). I also like the akumartizaion set up, i think it’s a very realistic situation in which misunderstanding takes over and there’s no specific person to blame, and i appreciate the demonstration of that. Not to be a chat noir stan, but him being a “scaredy cat” after getting hit by the reverser was so cute and funny and i enjoyed that. Again, back to the other characters, as i mentioned before i like alix a lot. i enjoyed her mocking chloe in the episode and then not caring when the teacher tried to say she should be nice. and then i liked the moment she scared chat noir. and then i enjoyed seeing her role in helping the duo in defeating reverser. also, there was a moment on the beginning of the episode where adrien teased marinette and any moment where adriens chat noir side comes out is my favorite. in conclusion, i love seeing the characters we see in this episode and chat noir was cute.

5. puppeteer 2 - as much as the wax statue scene gives me the worst second hand embarrassment of my entire life, the episode gave us a clearer insight to adriens perspective on his relation with marinette, which i enjoyed, and made me like him as a character even more. while i love a good “she’s just a friend” joke, it is confirmed in this episode he’s genuinely oblivious - which he shouldn’t be perceived as dumb for. social cues are harder for some people and can cause problems but it’s not smth people can help, we also have to remember he has very limited experience with people. anyway, it gives us that insight and i believe it’s important. he even expressed acknowledgment of how he doesn’t pick these things up sometimes. so he interpreted marinettes reaction wrong, and he believed marinette even didn’t like him. it distressed him so much to think that was the case. this was the insight we needed to see how adrien perceives their relationship and how much it really developed. even if he doesn’t have a crush on her, it introduces the idea that he still genuinely cares about her and having a relationship with her - parallel to us seeing ladybug see that with chat, which i believe is very important for the development of lovesquare and the plot. not to mention the frusturation of dramatic irony at the end when adrien, seemingly for the first time we’ve seen him as adrien, mention to someone else how he DOES love someone. while painful for marinette, i do think it’s interested because i don’t even think he’s mentioned the fact he loves someone to nino, showing how he still considers marinette as someone he can be close too.

6. ikari gozen - I love Kagami and I appreciated this kind of redemption arc. I wasn’t sure how I felt about her at first, but after this episode she’s one of the most relatable characters, personally. In turn, it also helps Marinette learn a good lesson. So yeah, the main reason i enjoy this episode is Kagami’s character development and her character. Ryuko is also so cool.

7. kwamibuster - i mentioned this before but i love the kwamis a lot and i love getting to see them in episodes. in this episode we got to see not only interactions between plagg and tikki, but get a chance to meet other kwamis and see their miraculous jewelry and some of their abilities. we also see that marinette and adrien are not incapable of connecting dots, realizing both plagg and tikki were in the same school. however, plagg and tikki try to reason them out of it and they both did things to throw the other of their track, so they didn’t keep their theories - but it does show they’re not Completely Oblivious.

8. troublemaker - there’s a lot of small things and moments that make me appreciate this episode rather than one big thing. to start, i enjoy penny’s character a lot and this is one the few episodes we really get to see her and the only one where we get focus on her. in addition, she was a good villain and arguably the closest a villain got to taking ladybug’s miraculous, taking an earring. then theres marinettes adrien photo collection being exposed, and adriens facial expressions in reaction to it made me laugh. and then of course, the scene following the fight, adrien talks to marinette. one noticeable thing is that marinette didnt stutter as much as she had and got out full thoughts. good for her ! and it shows that she is slowly beginning to be more comfortable with him. then of course, adrien. he starts by asking if she was okay since the fight happened at her house (even though he was literally there and knows damn well marinette wasn’t even there, kinda anyway). and then, as i mentioned before, my favorite thing ever is adriens chat noir side coming out, which is exactly what happened. he teased marinette for the photos, both asking if she was lying and then the “even in the most unlikely places” line. the thing about this is that this is something we barely see happen with adrien as adrien, yet it happened with marinette, which shows he’s comfortable enough with her to do that. and then of course the sincere moment of him saying he’s glad she’s her fan, he’s just so sweet good for him i love him.

9. origins - a classic. provides us background we needed on how things start and characters meant. there’s so much things to take from origins about their characters and the story in general. for one, marinette not even wanting to be ladybug. i feel this fit her character and was more realistic than if she accepted it right away. and then her being a bit of a mess the first time and not even capturing the akuma. i think that was important; to show ladybug and marinette are not perfect, but that’s what makes her a better and more relatable character. it wouldn’t be fun if she were perfect from the beginning. and then chat noir, who was a lot less reluctant. in contrast to marinette. he had been isolated his whole life and forced to try to fit a perfect mold. this gave him not only physical freedom he always desired but also the personal freedom to be able to be who he wanted. it of course also shows the balance of the two heroes. ladybug was nervous and had no hope at the beginning, but was able to get though with chat noirs encouragement - which is something that comes up every so often, but shows their balance and dynamic. and then of course . the umbrella scene. one of the most iconic moments, and also one thing i’ve noted is that we barely ever seeadrien laugh like he did in that scene, and it makes me treasure that moment more. and despite the whole “she’s just a friend” thing, it was important in that moment and you can see how important it is to him that he has a friend, and probably establishes the trust and appreciation for marinette we see as the show progresses as she was very important to him being kind of his first friend and that it holds a different kind of importance to him.

10. glaciator - an iconic episode of course. while marichat is probably my least favorite in terms of love square ships, i think marichat moments are some of the best. i think it’s where the two are more showing themselves to each other than in any other way. chat gets to see truly marinette in which she isn’t a nervous mess and is actually acting like herself, and marinette gets to see chat has more to him than she saw previously as ladybug. with his constant flirting and joking with her, it seemed that she interpreted this as this is just his personality and it didn’t mean much, that maybe he acted the same with anyone. but with the interactions of this episode, she learns that’s not the case, he genuinely and truly loves and cares and about ladybug, it was more than just joking around. this realization is big for marinette and she even comments that she misjudged him. this episode allows eachother to rlly learn more about eachother. and then it helps ladybug be honest. she’s completely honest with chat after that, saying there’s someone else and she doesn’t want to lead him on, but that sets the stage for them to still grow on their platonic relationship, which is still important. ladybug for the seemingly first time directly tells chat how he’s important to her, and chat admits that his friendship with her is the most important thing to him, showing us more about adrien/chats character, as well as demonstrates despite his love for ladybug the platonic relationship still holds great importance with seems to contrast how marinette views adrien at this moment.

honorable mentions:

reflekdoll - this was almost in the top 10 but i changed it last minute. i appreciate learning more about juleka and hope we get more to grown on that later. and not to be an adrien stan but he looked really pretty with his outfit for marinettes shoot. one thing i feel is also important to notice is how easily he was willing to take off his miraculous for the sake of marinettes shoot. he didn’t even really hesitate? that wasn’t really surprising for marinette to do, but for adrien it again represents a small thing that shows he really appreciates and cares about her (whether it’s romantic or not). the concept of them switching miraculouses were also fun, and seeing a little bit of tikki and plagg interactions again. the reason that it didn’t end up in the top 10 was because i think the execution of their miraculous switch should’ve been done much better. i feel like the writing made chat look dumber than he is and made ladybug look more bossy than she is. while i feel part of this was meant to demonstrate they’re truly made for their own miraculous, it could’ve been demonstrated without making the character look worse.

startrain - i don’t mean to be basic but the adrinette in this episode was super cute. however that’s not the only reason this episode stood out. hawk moth rlly sent his own son into space, u know as one does. and then the irony of him saying “how ironic i have to depend on my enemies (ladybug and chat noir) to save my son” like if you think that’s ironic then… but anyway . i also enjoyed seeing more max in the episode. his transformation is fun and i think we deserved a max based episode where he (or markov) didn’t have to get akumatized. also i feel like in the beginning of the episode, i like how adrien flat out decided to go to london without even asking his dad. i think he’s slowly stopping to care so much about his fathers rules and realizing what he needs for himself and this shows that.

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desolationlovers · 4 years

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oh yall thought i was done x posting? lol. kamui character rant under the cut

the thing about kamui is i dont know that hes a very deep character??atleast not how clamp has written him and esp not in the manga.

he spends a lot of the manga being confused and often manipulated. and hes really just a kid.

his first big character arc is debastardization basically. when hes introduced hes a TOTAL asshole (the anime added scenes to make him more of a dick at the start but also has a bit of an explaination? ill get to it). hes shown as very rude to everyone around him, yelling at people to get out of his way or get lost, including his previous friends. hes also shown to have absolutely no care for his surrondings and regularly fights and uses his powers in places where bystanders could be injured and leaving roads bridges or nearby buildings in ruins. when confronted about the latter by hinotos knight (his name is saiki) he straight up says he doesnt care if anyone gets hurt. which i mean ok nothing wrong with a character being an asshole. the extreme in your face way kotori and fuuma describe kamui as a kid being very shy and Very quiet and gentle makes this characterization confusing but hey people can change i guess. the confusing part is that as kamui slowly beings to let his guard down he says that the big reason he was so standoffish especially wrt kotori and fuuma was because he wanted to keep them at a distance so they wouldnt get involved with all the end of the world stuff. which makes sense obviously! kamui was absolutely aware of how dangerous it might get. his entire plan was to get the shinken (the sacred sword) and bail because he didnt want any part of any of it. what i dont get is why he was totally cool with bystanders being injured or killed. during his fight with saiki they were in a neighborhood! on people roofs and shit!! saiki is the one to lead them to an abandoned construction site so no one gets caught in the crossfire. and kamui almost kills saiki!!! which i will let slide a bit because kamui was being followed and had been attacked by spells literally that morning. but later on he apologizes to saiki but never explained his reasoning why he didnt care about destroying peoples houses??? and its never brought up again?????? also theres a scene added to the anime where he kicks the shit out of kotori and fuumas dad??? because he wouldnt give kamui the sword?? bro thats ur best friends dad you jackass!!!!!

in the anime they added flashbacks for the time after he moved away from tokyo which i think make his whole character make much more sense. when he first moves and goes to a new school he accidentally uses his powers and makes everyone afraid of him. fast forward past elementary school to high? school? its unclear. at school hes a lazy slacker that never goes to class and never talks to anyone, big ol loner. he sees that a local gang has been stealing kids money and beating them up. so he decides to put on a tough guy persona and confront the gang telling them to knock it off and scaring them shitless with some fun ass kicking psychokenesis. now i am SO on board with this addition. kamui being ostrisized for being weird and scary when hes already a super shy kid, so he embraces this scary intimidating image and tries using it for good because hes still ultimately kind hearted. he gets too absorbed in this tough guy persona that he loses touch with the original purpose of it and just uses it as a shield because he himself is afraid and confused. and maybe even hiding behind it because hes so afraid of having this huge destiny that he doesnt know if he can live up to and how can someone who decides the fate of the world be just some quiet oversensitive guy.

except all of that is my own speculation and analysis because they really do not go into ANY detail about this. i wouldnt say its to the point where it feels like they just flipped a switch and hes nice now but it def feels like that. and it annoys me because after he kind of apologizes for being a dick it doesnt really get brought up again?? i think he broods over it once or twice. but i would have really liked to see flashes of it coming back in high stress situations or something? he has a lot of points of grief and depression but its always meloncholic rather than angry and it really makes him feel like two different characters i wish it was way more of a mix.

anger would also be good with the whole overarching theme of trying to break out of the path destined for you. its constantly said that theres only one future by the dreamgazers although hinoto wants to change it. its supposed destined that kamui will lose and earth will be destroyed. anger but more importantly PASSION is whats needed break out of what has been preordained and to carve your own path. passion is also whats needed for the main part of the second half of kamuis character arc, figuring out what it is he REALLY wants. what his true wish is.

i also think anger could have been a good inverse to the deliberate mirroring of kamuis character and subarus character. subaru really represents despair and being completely swallowed by grief. his story is that the man he fell in love with (named seishiro) was just manipulating him for fun and is actually an emotionless assassian. subaru is so destroyed by this realization he goes into a depression and because of this is unable to save his sister being killed by seishiro. his goal is literally to be enough of a nusance to seishiro that hell kill him. literally he wants to be acknowledged as important enough to bother killing. its pointed out often how subaru and kamui are so similar, with how fuuma killed kotori, and how theyre both kindhearted ro a fault. its an intentional reflection. subaru even pulls kamui out of a similar depressive state after kotori dies. he and kamui have a whole heart to heart about how some peoples happiness can look pitiful to others and how hes going to fufill his goals even when other people are worried for him. and most importantly about how not everyone can be happy with an outcome. i think it would have been really good for subaru to represent someone overcome with depression about how awful the world is and paralyzed with that sadness and kamui would be the rightous anger and compassion needed to actually change the world. “lets this radicalize you rather than lead you to despair” you know? it would have been a really good parallel considering part of x’s themes are literally about having compassion for humanity. but that reading possibly shoots itself in the foot because the language used wrt the two possible futures are things to stay as they are or for a “revolution” to occur, meaning killing everyone to let the earth heal. so ideas of change are insinuated to be connected with the seven angels and genocide. which uh. not going to get into that.

i do like when he starts going to the clamp school he goes back to being shy and quiet and kind of gets pushed around by people with more force of personality. very fun uncomfortably relatable. its ok man im extremely passive too.

anyway final thoughts kamui needs more passion. clamp give me the rights. also let subaru and kamui hang out and have a brotherly bond. no creepy shit. just subaru being an akward older brother that knows what kamuis going thru and gives bad advice bc he has god awful coping mechanisms.

side note we arent ever told about his likes/dislikes hobby or anything of that nature. the blankest of slates. so my city now. i think hes into obscure indie music and has thousands of hours in various life sim games like animal crossing and stardew valley.

#lees posts #forgot to post this last night #clamp posting

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bigskydreaming · 6 years

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A lot of the discussions about AoX and the stuff said about the X-Tremists has altered my view of some elements of all that, I’m not gonna lie. The X-Tremists definitely isn’t what I initially thought it was, and in the context of all the X-Men being heavily brainwashed and operating based on a selectively altered sense of self and reality, even if I still don’t agree with it, I GET the intention behind picking gay and bi characters to be the cast of this particular book.

Like, I can understand how when focused on the end goal rather than the set up, there’s a satisfying payoff to it being gay and bi characters pissed at being shoved back into the closet who are the ones best positioned to figure out what’s really going on and fight back against it once they do. I can connect those dots, see how that story choice makes sense and has the sense of catharsis Williams talked about getting from writing it. From the angle of gay/bi characters fuck shit up because they’re not gonna take society or some higher authority determining who they can and can’t love, that fits.

In a lot of ways, its the compulsory sexuality story I’ve ranted for months about wanting to see in regards to Bobby’s situation and the fact that Jean’s actions are ultimately the reason he spent so long in the closet.

BUT. At the same time....that’s kinda the problem?

Because that story I talked about wanting to see with Bobby, it didn’t come from nowhere, I didn’t just go ‘oh hey what if.’ It came from just putting together the pieces that were already there. Everything needed to tell this particular story about being pissed at someone overriding your own sense of self and telling you who you needed to be for the sake of society, the timeline, whatever....it was already there. In the main universe. Already written. Every single element needed to tell that specific narrative was already in place.

Completely unacknowledged.

And I think that’s a big part of where my cynicism comes from, beyond just not trusting Marvel as a whole. Because the fact that this specific narrative was already laid out, already in play, hell, already the fallout of a Grey’s choices and mucking around with Bobby’s head.....without it ever being addressed, its hard to see how a five issue mini (that needs at least an issue or two to set up the revelations to the characters) can do for that narrative spread out among three gay/bi characters what nobody bothered to do with just one character in three years worth of opportunities.

(And if in the end it turns out by the time all of this is over NOBODY in-story has drawn the parallel between this and Bobby’s own narrative even before all this, like.....that’s gonna bug.)

But anyway. When you look at it from that perspective, as essentially the same narrative that was already set up and put in place and then completely overlooked for Bobby already.....then its hard to see this as anything other than gratuitous. Because that was already this same narrative, WITHOUT the fascist imagery and associations. Bobby already had every reason to be pissed - just needed those reasons to be raised and acknowledged - WITHOUT needing the trauma of being made unwillingly complicit in storm trooper actions heaped on top of how much he would already be fucked up from just the forced closeting. The painful catharsis of watching a gay hero push back against forces trying to make him something other than he is and wants to be, it was already locked and loaded ready to go - WITHOUT the trauma part of that narrative needing to be added to two other characters’ narratives additionally.

It just feels...unnecessary.

Like, I can’t stop fixating on that damn armband, is one of the things. I understand the in-story logic, that its ultimately one of the clues that makes them wake up to the realization something is very wrong, for Bobby to be wearing that. I understand that the intention there is for it to be a motivating factor for Bobby’s anger, making him intensely furious that this was done to him, put on him. But the thing I can’t understand is what makes the armband necessary to do all that?

Its not needed in order to leave bread crumbs for them to see how things are messed up and where. There are other options available, other ways to portray how things are different or wrong. I’ll never agree its necessary for THAT to be the thing that makes Bobby enraged. Like look at everything I was saying about his main universe storyline. Why not just use this to allow Bobby to have a different perspective on his lack of agency in all that and the how and why of his staying repressed for so long, have this second instance of telepathic meddling with his sense of self make the first more clearly obvious to him. Isn’t that already more than enough to make Bobby furious and intent on beating the fucking shit out of Nate Grey because he’s sick of not knowing how much of his sense of self is actually HIM and how much of it is the result of telepaths sticking their nose where they don’t belong, without any hint of remorse?

When its your perspective that the more offensive elements of this story aren’t necessary, its all but impossible to look at anything else. They’re the elephant in the room. The things your eye can’t stray from in those ‘what in this picture doesn’t belong’ games once you find them, because its so painfully obvious then that they don’t belong.

And the other thing, the big thing that I’m really upset at seeing so many other white LGBTQ+ readers dismiss or just trivialize....personally, I find it impossible to find empowerment in three white gay/bi characters who are used to police the romantic and sexual relationships of characters of color and especially LGBTQ+ characters of color. I get that this isn’t on Williams, that it wasn’t her choice to have the X-Tremists arrest Bishop and Bling specifically, that those happened in other books. But this is an area where editorial oversight - used properly - would not only be useful, but I honestly believe was NECESSARY. If you’re gonna tell a story like this, do an event like this, play with these themes specifically and talk about how its meant to explore intersectionality, about how intersections of power affect how an individual interacts with society and its institutions....you need to bring your fucking A game, and this event just didn’t. At all.

You need to be conscious of the fact that Marvel has given its readers, particularly its most marginalized ones, NO reason to have any faith in them, give them any benefit of the doubt, after they’ve spent the better part of 20 years deliberately driving this franchise into the ground because they didn’t get any of the X-Men movie profits. Editorial absolutely NEEDED to be aware of the nuances of this story and be prepared to step in where necessary to prevent things like what happened with Bishop and Bling interfering with the intended point of the X-Tremists mini and costing it more readers. There should have been someone watching all the pieces, someone whose JOB it was to look at the script for NextGen and hand it back and say no, Ed, you can’t have the X-Tremists arrest Bling, you need to pick someone else, pick a straight white character. We’re not having three white gay/bi cops arrest a black lesbian teen for impure thoughts. Nuh uh, no way. Not happening. Same with Bishop. If he absolutely had to be imprisoned in order for the events of Prisoner X to unfold, there should have been a different reason, rather than a random out of the blue pairing with Jean Grey that gets him locked up and her a slap on the wrist. Like, how about the fact that Nate Grey - being from the Age of Apocalypse - is aware that Bishop being a time traveler enabled him to know the AoA wasn’t how events were supposed to happen, and preemptively locked him away because he was afraid Bishop would be similarly able to see through this altered reality and warn people?

Like, when you have a character LITERALLY playing God, as in that’s the entire narrative....deus ex machina isn’t a problem. It’s your actual story engine. You can set the stage however the hell you want and Bishop can be wherever the hell you need him to be with the only reason being Nate Grey arranged for him to be there because that’s where he wanted him to be, fearing he could be a threat.

But seriously, white LGBTQ+ fans need to shut the absolute fuck up about the instances with Bishop and Bling and stop talking over fans of color when they bring them up. Stop trying to minimize it or handwave it away as no big deal, like, that is ugly. That is just, plain UGLY. Stop telling fans of color and LGBTQ+ fans of color any issues they have with white characters arresting black characters for ‘impure’ and ‘barbaric’ thoughts and relationships...like, stop acting like these things are no big deal or that they’re not big ENOUGH of a deal to take away from the empowerment you get from three white gay/bi characters’ narratives. Stop saying the latter is what they should be focusing on, as if its the only variable here that matters, and that they’re just blowing things out of proportion. Some readers developing a dislike for Bobby because they have to read and see him being depicted the way he is at the expense of characters of color - even if its not ‘his fault’ - like, some readers not wanting to read or see Bobby in stories for awhile or ever because they just can’t get that image out of their head, that’s a valid and understandable reaction to what’s on the page, what they can’t avoid if they want to take in this story on any level at all. Its a reaction EARNED by the narrative choices made overall, and if its not a reaction the narrative wanted to earn, different narrative choices needed to be made.

Honestly, the more I think about it, if this event was going to happen like it or not, if writers had to just make the best of it as much as they could, knowing editorial wasn’t going to be interfering on their behalf when other writers used their characters in ways detrimental to the first writer’s intentions....Bobby, Jean-Paul and Betsy should have been in the cast of Prisoner X, I think. Like, they shouldn’t have been the secret police, the guilty parties motivated by outrage at being used to hurt others like them, they should have been part of the ones who already had plenty of motivational outrage based entirely on experience with being told their love was impure and wrong.

LGBTQ+ characters IMO were already a natural fit for seeing through Nate Grey’s changes to reality, to be arrested for engaging in romantic and sexual relationships in defiance of society’s laws and arbitrary morals. It could have easily been built into the event itself that Nate Grey (who has never identified as anything other than straight) viewed the world through a heteronormative lens. And thus when ‘eliminating’ love and memories of it and things like that, he did so according to a straight person’s perception of what that looked like...and thus potentially overlooked where LGBTQ+ peoples’ experiences had taught them how to keep a secret part of themselves hidden away at the core of their being, their mind, where no one would stumble across any truths they weren’t ready to reveal. LGBTQ+ characters were already a natural fit to be caught breaking the rules of this society instead of keeping it to themselves and staying safe if they started to suspect something was wrong with the way things were....because they were the ones who had already defiantly pushed back against unjust rules and restrictions the first time they realized something wasn’t right with the way society told them they should feel.

The same is true of characters of color of any sexual orientation, given past laws against interracial relationships - I’m not expanding on that not to exclude them, but just because imprisonment narratives have a different context and history with characters of color and that’s not my lane.

But like, if the event was structured to remove the variable of mutant oppression and thus explore intersections of power when everyone was on the same field in that respect, its disingenuous to make up forms of oppression to highlight the flaws in a dystopian society when existing marginalizations already exist once the mutant metaphor is removed. Those already marginalized in our society should be the ones marginalized in that society, else you end up with a ‘what if straight white people were the oppressed and sympathetic’ narrative that nobody asked for. And I do suspect that part of the way AoX is structured IS intended to reflect that, to have LGBTQ+ characters like the X-Tremists and characters of color like Bishop play key roles in toppling Nate Grey’s dystopian vision....I just don’t believe making any of them the secret police works in FAVOR of that rather than against. If your marginalized characters are united by common experiences of being oppressed by straight white mutants once they in turn are no longer oppressed by humans, then you also eliminate the stuff I was talking about earlier, the issue of having an oppressed group fight to put things back to where they were more oppressed. Instead of SPLITTING your characters’ identities along different axes, with the world according to Nate Grey being better for them in the sense that they’re no longer persecuted for being mutants but worse for them because it tries to restrain their sexualities...they don’t need to prioritize between their marginalizations at all. These characters don’t have to ‘sacrifice’ a world in which they aren’t oppressed for one where they are, if they’re still oppressed by that society as gay and bi individuals even though they’re no longer persecuted for being mutants. That’s still messy as hell for a variety of reasons this long fucking post doesn’t need to see their unpacking added to it, but like....

Sigh. Thing is, I know I have a tendency to go off and running in some AU direction like “this is what I would do if I were writing this story” every time I’m critical of shit. Its honestly not because I think I’m the greatest writer ever or oh my ideas are so much better than everything else.

Its just....I don’t know how else to say it, even though it fails to sink in every damn time I have a variation of this argument...I’m not critical so I can hate things, I’m critical cuz I want them to be better. I don’t come up with different ideas for how else to tell a story BECAUSE I’m critical of it and hate it as is. Its the reverse. I’m critical of stuff BECAUSE I can’t turn off my writer brain and I can see where things could be better or at least fail in new and different ways than the same old repeated mistakes (and thus at least get us closer to better, by eliminating more of what doesn’t work).

Like, I’m just so fucking tired of being talked about like I’m this bitter angry dude who just hates everything and is never happy with any content ever. I’m not angry and loud when I criticize shit because I’m thinking like “This thing you like offended these three people and thus its fucking terrible and you should feel bad!” I’m angry and loud when I criticize shit because I’m thinking “This thing you like offended these three people AND IT DIDN’T FUCKING HAVE TO. THAT CAN BE AVOIDED.”

I don’t posit all these alternative scenarios when I criticize shit because I’m thinking that doing it any way other than my way is bad, and I’m just an egotistical jackass who will never be satisfied with any work other than his own. (LMAO, hell no, I’m insecure as hellllllll about my work, like lolol. How critical I am of other shit is nothing compared to how critical I am of my own).

Point is, when I do that, I’m only doing it to say like....see, look. Here are alternatives. If I can find some, other writers can too.

But other writers have to LOOK for alternatives in order to find them. They have to have a REASON to write things differently than what they already wrote. THAT’S WHAT CRITICISM IS FOR. TO GIVE THEM THAT REASON. TO TELL THEM THIS DOESN’T WORK THE WAY IT IS, BUT IT COULD WORK IF YOU DO SOME OF THESE THINGS DIFFERENTLY.

And when people say “lmao some of you just need to go the fuck outside, like calm down and let people enjoy shit for a change,” what that ACTUALLY sounds like to some of us is “well this thing works for me as is, and thus I see no reason to care about it being better for the people it doesn’t work for or actively offends.”

It’s honestly depressing as hell how many people on this site smugly reblog that “I don’t know how to explain to you that you should care about other people” post, only to turn around and five posts later complain about criticisms of a show they like and are perfectly comfortable with as is.

Its not about telling you that you should never enjoy anything ever. Its not about saying well this thing offends us, and if we can’t enjoy it, nobody should.

Its just like.....its great that you enjoy this thing but wouldn’t it be better if you could still enjoy it and all these people who AREN’T able to enjoy it because of these reasons could now enjoy it more too?

People shutting up about the ways content offends or hurts them or people just settling for sucking it up and dealing with the microaggressions in a creative work, like those things shouldn’t be necessary in order for you to enjoy content or be comfortable with what you’re reading or watching.

And if it is, that’s a you problem and if you could PLEASE stop projecting it on to people who just want things to be better and more enjoyable across the board - like that’d be great kthxbai.

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