#it compels me!!! grief is messy and ugly and doesn’t make sense and can be unkind

[autisticredhood]

i dunno i kinda like how bruce deals w his grief about jason. like as a jason fan at first i hattteeddd bruce’s reaction but its compelling im not going to lie!! ppl sometimes see it as he doesn’t love jason but i see it as a sign of how MUCH he loves jason. like guys!! That is his little boy!! His child!! his son DIED and he didn’t get there in time to save him. Batman was created to make sure no child loses their parent and Robin is created in relation to Batman, and jason dies in his Robin suit. Becoming Batman to cope w his loss of family doomed him to losing future family. It’s all his fault!!! Don’t you get it??? This little boy who was brilliant and so full of potential and his son!!! His family!!! DIED because of BRUCE. Bruce tried taking Robin from him to prevent this and by doing so he sealed Jason’s fate! He killed jason. He killed his family.

Now how the FUCK is Bruce supposed to go on living with that stone sitting inside his ribs every second of every day?? Your parents die, you become Batman. Your son dies BECAUSE your Batman, what do you fucking do?? another kid forces his way into the mantle how do you live with yourself seeing another child in the suit that will forever be marked by death in your eyes?? you think he can cope w seeing a kid in that suit and not hate himself for it??

Bruce’s love for jason will kill him if he thinks about it. His grief broke him, keeps breaking him. The mind will do anything to find a way to cope, to twist things to make things a bit more bearable. So maybe jason was always destined for tragedy maybe there was nothing Bruce could have done to stop this, jason was too headstrong and brash for Bruce to have prevented it. Like these are just desperate prayers to me!!! To me it’s Bruce screaming PLEASE PLEASE tell me there is nothing I could have done PLEASE if he was too angry maybe it won’t hurt so bad maybe I will be able to sleep maybe I can live with it please please I can make this okay if he was a bad robin I don’t know what I believe anymore I just know I can’t believe in a world where my amazing kid is gone because of me <- he is a little child with his eyes shut and covering his ears refusing to look at what is in front of him because he thinks he’ll die if he does

that being said his coldness in utrh is a bullshit lol. but before hes confronted w his son resurrected i think his grief makes sense

[hamliet]

Never Have I Ever... Expected to Appreciate a Love Triangle

Never Have I Ever’s season two continues to establish itself as the one love triangle I actually think works. Usually I want to light that trope on fire, but it’s so great here because of the unique (and messy) characters in it. 

The season offered clarity on what endgame is (Ben) while also establishing Paxton as the character with the most growth from the beginning of the season to the end. Paxton’s journey with his Ojichan, embracing his heritage, learning that he can actually make things happen when he commits to things (studying, Devi) was really emotionally compelling and satisfying. Even if Ben/Devi is endgame, Paxton doesn’t feel like he’s tacked on, but instead a very integral part of the dynamic between the three characters. (More Ben and Paxton moments, please? I want them to be friends; they really need to grow to be like each other!)

I don’t think Ben/Devi could ever be together if Paxton weren’t a part of the picture. The ending where Dvi and Paxton end up together is earned, and we’re rooting for them, cheering for them as they get their happy ending, even as we know Bendevi are endgame. It’s satisfying to see Ben shocked and heartbroken, because he realizes he has been doing exactly what he accused Paxton of doing. Paxton grew and overcame his pride to be with Devi, which is what she deserves: someone who isn’t ashamed of her. Ben now has his marching orders: if he wants to be with Devi, he has to follow Paxton’s lead. 

Ben also needs to stop dating girls he does not actually like. Aneesa deserves more. Speaking of Aneesa... I loved her character and what she added to the story, but her plotline was the one piece of truly bad writing in NHIE’s repertoire. It was utterly nonsensical. 

No principal gives a damn about who starts rumors unless they are SUPER serious. They aren’t going to suspend someone over it. 

An ED rumor is unlikely to merit a school-wide investigation or to have peers universally react to it with such disgust. 

Devi made an observation from seeing Aneesa not eating; anyone could/would have come to the same conclusion at some point. It was wrong to say it, absolutely, but it just... wasn’t a huge moral failing. 

Please explain to me why "crazy Devi" didn't mitigate consequences but this did. Like, people had been bullying Devi, a girl whose Dad has just died, ALL SEASON, Aneesa participated in it, and even after Aneesa’s subplot was “resolved,” Devi was still being bullied by this so... why did no one give a damn about this? 

NHIE is the only show I can think of where the story holds its main character to a harsher standard than everyone else, lol. Not that Devi was in the right--she was VERY much in the wrong--but it was framed as being Devi’s lowest moral moment, and it objectively was not, and simply did not make sense with the school’s policies on bullying as had already been established. 

I think the same subplot would have worked much better if Devi had said something like “Aneesa is a slut/has an STD/got pregnant” considering the entire reason for her freak out is that she thinks Aneesa is having sex with Ben, which they weren’t. But those are the kind of rumors that can actually ruin someone’s life. An ED rumor did not merit that kind of reaction. 

I also wish that if they were going to ED route, they’d have actually explored it instead of just patching it onto Aneesa’s character. It felt really, really forced and random, didn’t tie in to any themes, and thus does not work. Don’t include triggering content if you don’t plan on exploring it. At least the above rumors actually tied in with the plot and character issues. 

I enjoy that Devi is allowed to spiral and to make horrific mistakes, though. I’ve seen a lot of reviews complaining about her acting like a jerk, but that’s the point. Grief is at the heart of Devi’s character, and grief is seldom two perfect pearlesque teardrops elegantly dripping onto marble floors. Grief is ugly. Grief is terrifying, grief is disorienting, grief seeks comfort and it seeks destruction. It’s unpredictable. 

I really enjoyed what the writers did with Nalini this season, and with Devi’s grandmother. Pati was wonderful, and Nalini made some great strides herself. I enjoyed seeing her dynamic with Mohan fleshed out more (they weren’t perfect), and Nalini and Dr. Jackson were great. They were adult!Ben and Devi in their dynamic, and like Ben and Devi, the timing just isn’t right for them to be together. Learning to grow and realize she was wrong about Dr. Jackson helps Nalini realize she can be wrong, and that doesn’t make her a terrible person for it; thus Nalini can forgive herself and be a better mother for it. 

I also loved Eleanor’s stepmother, and Fabiola’s mom. Actually, one of the things I like about this show is how the parents are all really human, with failings as parents and strengths, and they keep improving themselves too. 

I feel sad for Kamala and Prashant, and get that she needs someone who encourages her to not be passive, but also felt Prashanth deserved a little more than being straight up stood up the night he planned to propose. That said, I appreciated how their relationship evolved--Prashant is a good man, but it does not work for a very human reason. Prashant was not a jerk like Steve last season, but it just meant that their worldviews and what they need from a relationship were not compatible. (Also Kamala’s workplace environment was entirely accurate to what those environments are like. 100%. It wasn’t hyperbolized at all.) Kamala learning to be more like Devi and Devi more like Kamala was fun to see. 

Fabiola and Eleanor’s plotlines were good, too. I love Fab and Eve, and am intrigued by the notion of Eleanor and Trent. If the latter is to be a thing, I hope Trent gets more development/focus (and I actually hope Eve does as well, in terms of conflict/character flaws; she’s great, and I’d love her to be fleshed out more). 

My favorite part of the season, though, was when Mohan appears to speak to Devi in her dream, and what he says to her. Just because you’ve made mistakes doesn’t mean you deserve any less and I call you perfect girl not because I expect you to be perfect, but because you’re already perfect to me, just because she’s Devi. Instead of her name being synonymous with “mistake” as was the running joke throughout the season, she has power through the love her father gives her (even if he’s no longer alive, because love transcends time) to affirm to worth, to continue to develop who she is, to change her legacy.

I am very excited for a season 3. 

[ladyloveandjustice]

Reflection on Attack on Titan: How the narrative failed its characters

I did a breakdown of how Attack on Titan failed the potential of its premise due to its commitment to being edgy fascist garbage, but I also want to talk about how it failed a bunch of characters who were brimming with potential.

(This is gonna be messy and loooong, because I have a lot of feelings. Someone on the last post noted my “rhetoric blows” and I will freely admit I’m not really trying for coherent “rhetoric” here, I’m just venting my frustration so I can get it all out of me and move on).

Yes, it wasn’t solely the premise that drew me and so many others to Attack on Titan and its potential. There were a lot of unique and exciting elements with the way this shonen manga handled its characters.

I said before that Isayama never cared about his characters, but that was a bit of a exaggeration. I think he did start out caring about some of them...it’s just he quickly got bored with them and started treating them solely as tools to serve the “plot” and the screwed message he wanted to impart.

Isayama does have one strength as a character writer- he excels at  showing characters who are messy, flawed and selfish but nevertheless sympathetic. Nobody in Attack on Titan is a classic unselfish “pure” hero, they are all deeply flawed. Isayama’s characters were compelling in the beginning because of that. He allowed his characters to exhibit cowardice, he allowed them to fail spectacularly, and that made Attack on Titan stand out. Despire the melodrama of their situations, actions and personalities, there’s a rawness to (most of) his characters that fits the horror of the setting.

Even the protag Eren, who a lot of people dislike or find easily the most boring character (honestly I found Levi the most boring though), has this ugliness to him that makes him distinct from the billion other teen boy protags in shonen. He is genuinely unstable and honestly a bit disturbing, as this collection of weird murderfaces he makes shows (behold my post popular aot post, ah memories).His obsession with killing Titans was unsettling, it was the classic determination of a shonen hero through a screwed up horror lens, this kid ain’t all right.

Historia especially resonated me because she was TRYING to be that classic pure heroine- but she was selfish like everyone else deep down. She just wanted to be SEEN as an pure-hearted martyr who sacrificed for others, when really all she was doing was giving into her suicidal urges. It was criticism of the very concept of the “immaculate woman”, and that’s pretty cool. So was the fact she was seen through by Ymir, someone who embraces selfishness in all other aspects of her life but is ultimately selfless when it comes to her love for Historia...that’s some good shit. It’s fantastic as a character concept, and Ymir and Historia’s initial character writing and backstory will stick with me because it was genuinely good in all its melodrama. 

Historia and Ymir were nuanced queer characters whose relationships were fleshed out well. I do believe Isayama put care into crafting their initial arcs and developing them.

But then we run into a problem. A problem that eventually we run into with every character in AOT. Isayama stops caring about them. After their initial big arcs or moments in the spotlight or backstory reveals, he just doesn’t know what to do with these characters anymore. So they completely disapppear from the manga or fade into the background only to matter again when he decides to kill them off for some cheap shock moment. Either that, or they just exist to further the narrative of how the military is cool and we have to exterminate all our enemies and blablabla.

 Because he ultimately cares about that narrative far, far more than he does giving these characters the full stories that resonate, make sense and are effectively paced. He's completely willing to undo all the character work he did previously if it means he can be edgy or impress his ideals on the reader.

That’s why Ymir and Historia have this dramatic parting that gets the audience pumped to see what happens to both of them and when they’ll reunite...only for Ymir to just completely disappear from the narrative, then be killed offscreen without even really re-entering the story again. That’s why Historia has this whole big arc about reclaiming her agency, resisting her abusive family and learning to live for herself...only to be intimidated into becoming Queen even though she’s not super into it, because she needs to serve the military and NOT live for herself after all, I guess? And oh, now she’s numbly accepted her duty to endlessly make babies for the sake of the nation! Turns out her real purpose is to be something for the other characters to be sad about. 

Isayama got bored with Historia’s arc and Ymir’s arc and their relationship. He may have fun coming up with characters backstories and the big dramatic moments, but once those are over? He doesn’t care enough to do the work to conclude their stories. He gets distracted by his next plot point, his next action scene. The characters are toys he discards or breaks for the sake of either some edgy ‘anyone can die!’ moment or to push forward whatever new stupid plot point he’s thought up for his fascist narrative. (Links to evidence of Isayama’s views in this post).

Even in the (dumb) sense of “oohhh doesn’t this impress life’s cruelty upon us”, Ymir’s death is a failure. When she’s been gone from the narrative so long, to have it suddenly be like “oh, she died” just makes for a reader feeling confused and cheated, not devastated. It becomes painfully clear she’s an afterthought to the author, a loose end that needed to be cut. Same with Sasha’s recent death, I saw no sign she’d been anything but background in the narrative for a long. looong time before she was killed off.

 Heck, look not further than Annie, who has now been trapped in crystal for what, 800 chapters? It’s been YEARS, both in universe and out. It’s honestly FUNNY at this point that she’s still fuckin’ in there, literally just frozen until Isayama can decide what he wants to do with her.. I hope the manga ends with everyone dead and then 1000 years later Annie emerges like “hey guys I’m back!” Then a meteor hits her or something. The intrigue surrounding her fizzled out a long time ago, yet Isayama still expects the reader to care whenever that hunk of rock shows up?

Let’s bring it around back to Eren. There were a lot of interesting directions he could have actually gone as a character, had he been forced to actually, y’know, deal with the fact he was channeling his grief in an unhealthy way or his worldview had ultimately been challenged at all. But Isayama actually agrees with Eren for the most part, he does think enemies should be exterminated without fail and genocide is cool and stuff. So Eren’s development throughout 800 chapters was just to ultimately get more and more obsessed with killing enemies, to the point where he doesn’t even enjoy seeing the ocean for long before deciding that was more important. Only his targets are definitely people now, and he doesn’t care about children or civilian casualties anymore, and yeah he’s screwed up, but doesn’t he have a point???? You can almost hear Isayama say this.

 Eren exemplifies how Isayama approaches character development. He allows his characters to get more ruthless, more calculating, more fucked up, more comfortable with killing and torture as time goes on, but they can’t develop in a positive way ever- if they start going in that direction, it’s time for them to either die or regress. Nobody’s allowed to find any sort of lasting happiness, nobody’s allowed to become softer or kinder. “Cowards” (like Armin or Sasha) can become “brave”, but they’ll eventually lose most of their softness and empathy too. But that will be excused at every turn, because that’s apparently the price, the sacrifice of being a soldier. It’s “necessary” and it’s something Isayama very obviously admires. “Bravery” trumps compassion, soldiers must be ruthless to win and in the end, any growth is meaningless.

To be clear, a lot of negative character development isn’t a bad thing and “anyone can die” narratives aren’t either (though both are very tricky to pull off without losing audience investment- if you know it’s all just gonna be suffering, why keep reading?). But even when your story has those elements, you, as an author, have to have some respect and perspective in regards to your characters and Isayama has neither. He AGREES that his characters terrible actions (like torture) are necessary, because he thinks what Japanese soldiers did to Korean civilians was A-OK too...so it all just comes off as sickening.

And in a story, even if you’re trying to impress that death is random and arbitrary, that your story’s world is dangerous for everyone, those deaths should still mean something to you. the author. Otherwise the reader can’t feel their impact. It shouldn’t be easy to kill off a character. It shouldn’t be simply because you’re bored, or don’t know what to do with them- yet Isayama has openly admitted what he does. A character ceasing to matter, and then dying, has no impact. A character must matter up until the moment they cease for their death to matter.

( And lbr, if “anyone” could really die in AOT, the four main characters wouldn’t have gotten a million miracle reprieves by now).

It’s not surprising it ended up this way, though. It’s not surprising a man who has no sympathy or compassion for victims of war crimes has no sympathy or compassion for his characters and slowly drains them of their humanity as the story goes on. His love of war and domination is more important to him than human beings, and that comes through in his narrative, where characterization takes a backseat to his love of depicting war and violence, of impressing its necessity on the reader.

The characters of Attack on Titan deserve better than to be embedded in this cynical, cheap, fascist narrative. Fortunately, there are a ton of stories out there, and you can find similar characters with authors who actually care about them and aren’t openly fascist. For instance, while thinking about Historia’s arc and how good it started out, I remembered that one of my favorite narratives has a very similar main character. If you like Historia and wish she had a better narrative, I encourage you to check out the anime or light novels for The Twelve Kingdoms.

Similar to Historia, Youko is raised in an oppressive environment and constructs this entire personality around the idea of being an ideal good girl who lives for others, even though deep down she didn’t really care much for the people she was pleasing. When she’s stranded in an unfamiliar world, she slowly finds who she really is- and she’s pretty hardcore. She comes into a royal position of power too, but needless to say, it’s handled much better than Historia’s arc in AOT. 

True, she’s not explicitly queer, but there’s no explicit love interest either (the anime does add a “crush”, but he disappears pretty quickly and she gets over him amazingly fast), and ton of strong female relationships in the story too, that don’t end with one party dying and the other becoming a baby machine. And it’s written by a woman who’s never openly supported war crimes, so. 

So yeah, there are so many better options than Attack on Titan, and so many better ways these character concepts can be used. If you’re as disappointed as I am, it’s important to remember that. These character were failed, but characters like them can still be given the narratives they deserve.

Here’s the final part of this series:

The final reflection on Attack on Titan: How the narrative failed its potential in regard to gender and queer themes.