#it feels especially inconsistent and regressive. and i hate it

[my-current-obsession]

I am taking note of every single villager who honestly suggests that Micah's half-monster status might have given his chosen bride cold feet and led to her running away and they are ALL dropping several positions in my internal character ranking.

[edwin-paynes-bowtie]

Another post pointed out yesterday that the Clave was so progressive in the 1800s and (especially) 1900s while being incredibly regressive in the 2000s-2010s. This is inarguably true. It also inarguably is true to real life when it comes to views on homosexuality. While male homosexuality was illegal in the UK during the Victorian/Edwardian eras, many (though not all) people tended to turn a blind eye to it assuming that everyone involved minded their business. (Oscar Wilde, for a relevant example, was pretty widely known as being a man who loved other men. He probably would have been able to carry on as he was if not for suing a powerful and influential public figure. But I digress).

Also, it's important to note that, yeah, the TLH kids' parents were overall loving and accepting people. The one who was not such a person blessedly died before his son came out. On the other hand, Alec's parents were in a literal hate cult. But once again, digression.

Because what I really want to talk about are Shadowhunter's shifting attitudes to technology and innovation. I would like to posit that Christopher Lightwood's death was the beginning of the downfall of innovation in Shadowhunter society.

In TID, Henry contends with mockery and side glances because of his drive to invent and create. This makes sense in what his son will later describe as an "arid warrior culture." However, while generally labeled as an eccentric, the Clave - including the Consul and Inquisitor - generally leave him alone to tinker and build. No one stops him. And when he finally invents the Portal, no one shirks it. By the time TLH rolls around, it's a widely-used, widely-respected part of Shadowhunter society. It's ingrained in the fabric of their people just as steles and seraph blades are, and we still see them widely in use in the modern day.

Now, we get to Christopher, Henry's protigee.

It's important to acknowledge that Christopher may have been left alone in part because Henry's Portal was so successful. With him primarily hanging about in the Fairchild lab, nothing could go wrong. Additionally, Charlotte was Consul, and she knew how brilliant her husband was. This probably contributed to Christopher's success greatly.

Christopher grows up shrouded in this love. He is free to create and innovate as he pleases, and he comes up with the idea for fire-messaging. We see him successfully invent fire-messages by early 1904, at which point he is tragically killed by Belial.

Fire-messages are the final piece of technology that we see invented before the TMI era. All other technologies in the modern TSC canon exist in the historical stories. Thus, we can conclude that Christopher's fire-messages are one of the last creations of Shadowhunter society.

(ADHD side ramble: I'm interested to see what Grace manages to accomplish, but I cannot think of something in the modern TMIverse that she may have created. I imagine that her status as not only a woman but a widely-disliked social pariah held her back. Hate it, but my point stands. I hope she's at least given a small amount of credit for the final touches on the fire-messages.)

Anyway, fast forward to 2012. The TSCverse now has another brilliant neurodivergent mind in Tiberius Nero Blackthorn. Of course, he is extremely different from Henry and Christopher. He is more mentally present, serious-minded, and a lot less spacey. But he also views things in a significantly different way than other Shadowhunters do, finding himself drawn to technology like computers in a way that most Nephilim would shirk.

Ty and his family are forced to keep the fact that they have computers in the Institute a secret. This is likely in part because mundanes invented them, but it also feels inconsistent with previous generations. Shadowhunters of old appreciated art; Jem and Alastair were openly musicians, for example. Matthew is an obvious aesthete with a penchant for the theatre and artistic pursuits. Even when Alastair notes that they aren't supposed to like mundane things like moving pictures, he does not seem worried about facing repercussions for seeing one. Ty and the other Blackthorns seem to think that they will see legal ramifications for having a computer, and this is in a world where Jia Penhallow is Consul.

Could the Blackthorns be wrong? Sure. But it feels to me that the Shadowhunters of old would not shirk a useful technology, and the computer has limitless capacity to assist them in their demon-fighting endeavors.

The Clave closed itself off to progress shortly after TLH, and Christopher's death feels a likely catalyst for that.

[unabashedmoonlight]

Guys, you do know that people can think they want one kind of life but change their mind when they actually experience it, right?

And Lila did not 100% hate it. She just had mixed feelings. I am not a fan of the Five-Lila thing either but I don't get the 'but Lila just needed someone to understand her and she got that with Diego, how could she be unhappy!!!!' thing being said here.

Her unhappiness and the reasons for it could not have been made clearer.

I love Diego/Lila and was definitely rooting for them to work through those things. But Lila is allowed to want something different from her life, especially when she was still fulfilling her responsibilities. Of course there were a lot of issues on her side, they were always there, it wasn't out of character at all. She just didn't completely change as a person the minute she married Diego. She tried though.

It's just quotes and quotes from s2-3 Diego-Lila going around with people saying it's inconsistency; do you genuinely think life works that way? Are people always 100% right about their needs and wants?Is instant progress guaranteed the moment you decide you will put in the work? Do people not regress, especially when in completely unknown waters? Look at the relationships and people around you. This was pretty realistic!

[scalamore]

Was Lari's feeling toward Rupert after chapter 49 until chapter 110 were love and hate or something else? I don't understand her feelings, it's not like you can forgive and start to trust someone just because he was being kind toward you for years. Even if you tried to lie to yourself trying to hate someone, usually you will ended up losing rational reasons to hate that person because you love that person. But that's not what happened in Lari's case, she still believed that Rupert will kill her.

(Scroll to the bottom for the actual TL;DR answer)

The nice thing about this story, is that because it's never explicitly stated, you can make your own conclusion on what her feelings are. Lari is in such denial of her feelings, that you can conclude anything you want. BUT, here are my thoughts on dissecting her characterization, because it's the backbone of the entire series: Lari's hatred and fear Timeline 1- Up until Lari's death: Lari didn't know anything about Rupert at all. Just like all the other girls, she had a superficial crush on him for his glorious appearance; she was doki doki when he kissed her hand during her debutante and when they exchanged a few words, but otherwise did not know him at all. All she knew of him was based on various rumors from society's gossip, as well as the negative things House Belois spoke of. As she knew NOTHING because House Belois kept everything a close secret from her, she ended up making her own conclusion, which was a immature, biased one: Rupert is the enemy. He is a tyrant out for blood, he has no redeeming features, he's just a heartless bastard.

She blamed all the world's wrongs on him, essentially using him as the "big bad" scapegoat as a way to cope with her loneliness and fear especially after the rest of House Belois was executed. To her, there was absolutely no way her friends or family could be wrong, so it was all Raspereich I's fault. In the last few months of her life, as she was rotting away in prison, that's literally all on her mind: how much she hated him, how much he ruined her life, it's all his fault, his fault his fault etc. Hatred of him literally permeated throughout her entire being, and the cherry on top was that rigged trial from the incompetent judge. The last thing she thought before she died was literally how much she hated him.

Regression:

As expected, Laris' thought process/hatred of Rupert continues into TL2. She acknowledges she knows nothing about him, is terrified and hates him so much, but she will swallow that fear and stay strong!!! It doesn't take long for Lari to be utterly confused though... the Rupert she sees... is normal. He may be rude and mean, but there's times he's nice to her and Tori. He isn't overly violent. He's just a kid that minds his own business and keeps out of trouble.

That realization that Rupert is a normal kid really messes with Lari. She had raised her guard, concluding he was a beast in human form, he's fundamentally unreasonable and violent... but she hasn't seen any of that.

She then realizes that.... if Rupert is a normal kid, then where will she put her rage and anger? who can she blame for the pain and suffering of TL1 she endured? She can't just blame an innocent child... but where will her hatred go...?

Chapter 40

Lari's trust and belief in her family is just so so strong that she can't wrap her head around at the inconsistency. She's been raised to believe in them without any doubt, that her father is the most righteous, so she can't cope with the realization that her father and family was wrong. So for a while longer, although she knows it's wrong, she continues to insist to hate TL2, even when she KNOWS he's nothing like TL1 Rupert. Because that's the only way she can cope with her current situation: She consciously CHOOSES to continue to hate him, because she can't deny her family, and the "truth" she knows.

In Season 2, the next big step is that Lari finds out Rupert's past: She learns the "truth", that Rupert hated House Belois because her cowardly father, had condemned Eva and Rupert to live essentially as slaves in the palace. He was the only one who could have saved them, but he ran away, hiding to the South and abandoned her cries for help. Of course Rupert would be resentful of that. She learned at this time, that House Belois's crime was not of "treason", but rather for neglect of the Empress and future Emperor, so it makes sense that Rupert would strike back at the House that abandoned him once he obtained power.

Chapter 59

Again, Lari continues to conclude she WILL continue to hate Rupert.... she can't forgive him...because she's just a bad person... she can't forgive so easily....

A few months later, even in Chapter 60, Lari has trouble accepting the truth. She's been ignoring letters from home, and she can't make a decision. She knows about Rupert's situation now, and she can't blame him... but... she still can't forgive him (because of all that massive trauma she experienced).

After being saved again by Rupert from Grand Duke Ventibolt's mansion, Lari finally made a decision: She's finally accepted that House Belois was in the wrong for abandoning Rupert and Eva. He's obviously shown he cares for her and her well-being, he's not violent, and he's not at all like the TL1 Rupert she projected onto him...

Ch 68

Ch 75

Again, after being saved by him, Lari can no longer deny how TL2 Rupert is different than TL1 Rupert. Soon, she no longer thinks about how much she needs to hate him, how she should hate him... she just... stops thinking about it after this point. Instead, a new feeling pops up and replaces that: her chest tightens, and she feels an ache in her chest whenever she sees him (implied to be her growing feelings for him).

The next time her hatred of him comes up, is much later, in Chapter 92. She admits that yes, she once hated him so much, but not anymore: she truly wants him to be happy.

In Chapter 97, we get the mention of Lari's fear again. Although she doesn't hate him anymore, there's still a bit of fear that Rupert could flip a switch and become Rasperiech I again. It's because she has no knowledge of TL1: What caused him to hunt down all the nobles then? Remember, she has no idea of Eva/Tori's plans to use him to destroy the empire from within, all she knows is they want him to grow up cruel and isolated and absolute power. Even though Lari understands and knows this Rupert very well, be can't just let go of her trauma that easily: she MUST stay on guard for the moment Rupert potentially flips a switch and goes on a murderous rampage... it doesn't seem like he would, but just in case.

That's the thing truly holding Lari back from accepting Rupert: is she has no guarantee he won't change. She's been anticipating him "changing" this whole time, but he's still the same kind person to her this whole time.

This fear of him striking back was triggered in Chapter 109. When Lari found out about her actual origins and that House Belois was actually planning treason, her fears completely manifested. It wasn't that Rupert would flip a switch, it's that he had complete justification in getting rid of them. It's no longer an irrational fear, but rather he was in the right. She didn't think she was THAT precious to him to convince him to spare her and Belois - that's her incorrect belief.

Finally, in Chapter 113, Lari finally gets it. She finally sees Rupert for who he is and no longer hates or even fears him. He got it across to her, in Chapters 110-110 that she's the most precious person to him, he loves her, he'll do anything for her.... but that's not what she wants. She wants time to herself to be free, away from all the political drama. Here's a previous post I wrote on Lari's "heart ache" vs guilt:

Here's a post that summarizes why Lari has issues accepting her own feelings for him:

Here's the post that I think you're making a comment of, when lari realizes she cares for him:

So to actually answer your question: Lari stopped hating him around chapter ~70, and it took her a few more months to actually truly stop hating him. She was SUPER scared of him at the start, but eventually, that decreased a lot to where she forgot about it, but the idea of him flipping a switch and becoming a psychotic murderer was still in the back of her mind, as recent as chapter 109. By Ch 115, she completely no longer hates or fears him. For sure, Lari has developed SOME sort romantic feeling for him, even if it's not as clear-cut to call it "love". She definitely cares for his well-being, looks after him, is always by his side, worries the most for him, and feels happy and comfortable around him. The two of them are almost always seen together, and they're naturally in tune with the other too. Outsiders when they seen RupeLali together, assume they're a couple, and from Louis, Tori, Lehan, House Belois's POV, the two are "very close" and couple-like. Lari gets upset when she thinks he doesn't trust her, when in fact he does. When they're apart, she always thinks about him, sometimes for hours, and it doesn't take much time before she misses him and wonders how he's doing. Even if the story doesn't directly and obviously says it's "love". it's definitely something along those lines. The thing is, for Lari, after she learned that Rupert is not some kind of psychotic murderer, that he's actually a nice and considerate guy, and that her family was in the wrong... she allows herself to take a breather and relax. During this time, she realizes that TL1 was essentially a rose-tinted lie: she lost her bonds with her friends and family one by one, with Riche hating her this whole time, Amelia not caring if she was murdered, her family consistently hiding things and lying to her. On the other hand, Rupert is again, consistently nice to her and tries to cherish her, who saves her over and over again during their adventures, who sticks up for her, retalites if she's hurt, and most importantly is honest and doesn't lie to her. He's a straightforward, good guy. In a situation where betrayal and lies are rampant, where Lari is lonely because she has the burden of memories of TL1, it's just so refreshing to be able to relax around Rupert at least and not put up appearances. It takes her a while, but she has multiple steps towards healing and acceptance:

She recognizes and accepts that TL1 Rupert is different from TL2 Rupert

She actively tries to understand why Rupert would act a certain way in both timelines

She sees him as a person

When she realizes that her misconceptions and bias were wrong (around chapter 60), that allows her to slowly get rid of all her hatred, and most of her fears. This starts when she's age 14, up until she's 17 in the manhwa. This is almost 3 years of healing from her trauma.

For those with trauma, there's a technique called "cognitive behavioral therapy" where those with traumatic experiences learn to take control of their own life by positive reinforcement: In this case, Lari spent 5 years with Rupert, and in those 5 years, consistently saw how nice and considerate he was to her, and with such daily exposure to someone who wouldn't hurt her - this helps tremendously with her healing process, because she feels safe and reassured around him. That's the key: she feels safe around him in TL2.

[ikuzeminna]

Why I love Gundam Wing and hate Frozen Teardrop

With Frozen Teardrop being the first new thing released in the Gundam Wing universe in ages, I feel I should make my stance on it clear, seeing as I’ve read (and by now thankfully forgotten) a large chunk of it.

So, what do I like about Gundam Wing? I can say without lying, almost everything. I like the story, the characters, the themes, the designs and the music. I like its humor, its subtlety, the fact that everyone plays a role and that there's no definite bad guy (nor good one for that matter). I like its dynamics and how you can view it any way you want, e.g. the Gundam pilots being heroes or plain murderers. And I like that you can and even must dig to understand things. The whole composition really works for me.

And what's best is that this entire composition makes Gundam Wing more; it makes it unique. I grew up with classics like Dragonball and Sailor Moon, the forefathers of the 'Idiot Hero' archetype for both males and females. Even to this day you see series featuring these types of main characters. Classic scenario of a naive yet pure kid growing up to become the savior of the world. We've all seen that.

It's why Gundam Wing is so special to me. It has a completely atypical setup and there's absolutely no stereotype I can apply to any character, no matter what TV Tropes may say. Heero is hardly your typical hero, is he? Heck, Heero is hardly a typical anything. What's more, Gundam Wing doesn't follow the 'growing stronger' plotline that, for example, the original MS Gundam or Seed series used. No, Gundam Wing starts out with fully trained soldiers who can kick your butt from episode 1 and will kill you without qualms if the situation requires it. (That's not to say that the characters don't grow, it's the physical growth and capabilities I'm talking about.) What's truly surprising about that is the age of the characters. This is another important point. Gundam Wing and realism. Many times I hear that GW is realistic. I'm sorry but no. Teens fighting against armies isn't realistic. Teens leading said armies isn't either. Neither is bending steel bars, nor surviving jumping off cliffs or blowing up your suit, nor successfully back-flipping from a motorbike onto a clothesline, nor becoming the Queen of the World as a teen, nor stealing a MS carrier plus suit at the age of ten, nor walking around with bazookas at the age of ten nor what have you. It's safe to say that Gundam Wing lacks any sense of realism. But it does not lack logic.

Realism never was Gundam Wing's aim to begin with. The way I see it, it's not just the plot or circumstances that prove this, but also the "inhumanity" of the characters. Would a real person with a similar background as Heero, Duo or Trowa really exhibit such selflessness or noble-mindedness as them and risk his life for strangers by fighting a war that could end in their death? I don't think so. Would anyone as sheltered as Relena give up her lifestyle, have the guts to go against the world's armed rulers with just words and put her life on the line for the sake of others? Hard to believe.

And that's it. One of the things that contributes to Gundam Wing's uniquity and is therefore a, if not the, defining trait of the series, is that it doesn't tell the story about angst-riddled terrorists and princesses, but a tale of heroes. The characters are ridiculously noble, strong, selfless, courageous, determined, make the impossible possible and still retain a certain purity, despite having gone through hell and back. It's what makes them so awesome. It's what makes the series so awesome. Duo isn't badass because he fights in the war. He's badass because he fights "so that no one else will have to" and when you see what he went through, you can only say "wow". Lady Une killed Relena's father and when Relena is given the opportunity to take revenge, she declines, saying there's been enough bloodshed. That's role model material there. Something that is sorely lacking in a lot of shows nowadays. And something that a lot of people seem to miss the point of (I'm referring to those that call the pilots wussies for not killing in EW).

All of this is the reason I hate Frozen Teardrop with a passion. Forget the nonsensical, recycled plot or the billion clones of everyone or the terrible mobile suit names like Snow White or Merciless Fairies. Forget Treize getting French’d by his mom or the Zero System being a digital cat or Relena’s grandfather being a disgusting ephebophile. That stuff is messed up and random and dumb and I have no idea what was wrong with the author at the time to write this.

It’s also that he completely destroys the essence of the original series, making every single characters whine about some drama and the never ending “woe is me” monologue I had to wade through every chapter.

Let’s take Duo, for example. He woke up one morning and decided to become an irresponsible, gold-digging bastard. To get Hilde’s money, he agreed to her terms to cut his braid off and get a “proper” name, just to buy himself a motorbike with their joined assets. Then he inherited a church plus orphanage, which Hilde got stuck with, too, being his wife, and when she asked him how to fund the orphanage, Sumizawa wants me to believe that Duo freaking Maxwell was just “Eh, whatever, leave them to it. I’m out” before taking off? Excuse me, what???

I’ve had discussions with people about this and there were statements that maybe more people just need to learn how actual manic depressives and people with PTSD act in relation to Duo's development in Frozen Teardrop. I've noticed a tendency for people to want to apply realism to Gundam Wing, especially in fanfics, but as I said before, Gundam Wing and realism don't have anything to do with each other. So why should I apply it?

What I expect from anything featuring Gundam Wing's characters is the same "heroic" behavior that was displayed in the series. Sure, the pilots each had a mental burden to carry but it wasn't what defined them. For example, Trowa's insecurity about not having a name or yearning for a home never became the main focus unlike his endless selflessness. And Heero's bitterness about the colonies' betrayal was well hidden under his joining the Treize faction to be able to keep retaliating against OZ. A noble deed to fight on but was it really necessary for him to go for the missions with the lowest chance of survival?

As I said, Gundam Wing is unique because it is atypical. That encompasses pretty much everything; you have bloody murderers in the role of the 'heroes', noble, honorable 'bad guys' who value life and the ever flashy Gundams that can't even begin to compare to non-flashy Relena's influence and importance to the plot. So why on earth should I go along with Duo and Wufei bickering like kids, like characters from five million other series do? I want my uniquity. I'm not saying that it isn't a possible outcome for Duo and Wufei to become bitter and bicker and argue and not be able to stand each other when they become adults. But considering those two could get along splendidly, it's a letdown. Duo and Wufei are very much alike; they both lost people important to them twice, they both fight partly out of revenge and their loss has had the biggest impact on shaping them into what they are in the series, unlike the other pilots. Heck, they both wear their respective culture's colors for mourning. Despite that, their personalities (or ways of dealing) are exact opposites. It's enough to make for a more interesting relationship dynamic between them than what was done in Frozen Teardrop and a lot of Gundam Wing fanfics.

Heero's regression is the same. He was frozen because J said something to the extent of "a guy like him would be needed in the future". How J is even alive is another point of unnecessary addition. But what would a guy like Heero be needed for? Killing, apparently.

Way to ignore the ending of Endless Waltz.

I guess it's partly my wish for Heero and everyone else to live a well-deserved 'happily ever after' which makes me have such a knee jerk reaction to all the drama. That and the fact that there was nowhere near as much drama in Gundam Wing. Nor sap, nor stereotyping, nor "realism". >_>

This grated on my nerves, which was why I dropped Frozen Teardrop like a hot potato and haven’t bothered since. This novel does not only fail on a general level with all the random, messed up crap and terrible pacing, it also fails to satisfy the Gundam Wing fan in me because Sumizawa, the very head writer of the show, also ignored major character traits on top of everything else. Why would Catherine, who stated that she hates war and did everything she could to keep Trowa from fighting, train his clone to become a soldier? Why would Duo become that deadbeat I described above?

Being the sole writer of Frozen Teardrop meant he could take as many creative liberties as he wanted. But in the end, he took too many, which in turn resulted in so many inconsistencies with the series that Frozen Teardrop now takes place in an alternate universe, in which not the series but the manga Glory of Losers takes place. Which is the sole reason I’m not bothered by Frozen Teardrop’s existence anymore.

There were some good passages in the novel, it wasn’t all bad. The battles with the new characters were exciting at times, I’ll be honest, but even those couldn’t be called genuinely good because of the carbon copies deal. There is always some blemish. Like Heero’s proposal to Relena. I’ve seen fans of the pairing rejoice at the scene. Alas, I’m not one of them because frankly, the characters in the novel hardly resemble the original ones. So I don’t care.

As the head writer of the show I had expected him to treat the source material with more care and not run it over with retcons and meaningless additions. Best example being everything surrounding Odin. The world could've definitely done without him being Heero's father. Or freaking Trant being related to him.

But again, alternate universe so who cares.

[dangan-meme-palace]

interesting analysis! I have to admit it was my point when I asked you about him hating his talent with Maki. I dunno if he likes or hates being a detective, cuz between his ch1 Kaede's FTE's/Ryoma FTE's/his UTDP characterization, and his trauma/the Maki training, it's all different. Maki seems consistent with hating being an assassin (which isn't the same as her hating murder) but Shuichi is a bit all over the place, which makes the two bonding over that weird in my opinion.

Chapter 1 was full of him being confident in his detective abilities and deductions, finding the door and not only believing in himself but taking charge of the situation by enacting his own plan. It's easy to forget, but Kaede really relied on Shuichi in Chapter 1 to help her out. She might have done all the people-leading, but Shuichi was the one who came up with the plan to stop the mastermind. Shuichi was the one leading Kaede through the library, not the other way around.

However, by the time Kaede died was when they apparently wanted to fully go through with the "weak detective" characterization and so they had that event (+ some others) to sort of cement it in place that this is how he's going to be from now on. He regressed a lot after Kaede died, which wouldn't be so odd if they had it be a grief thing, but for some reason they did the exact opposite.

If we absolutely had to nerf him and make him weak I would've liked to see him be a "strong detective" (like what we see in Ch1) that loses his strength out of grief and guilt for Kaede's death, much like how Ryoma lost/buried his passion for tennis.

Strong in this case doesn't mean "not awkward" or "leading everyone," it just means that he knows what he's good at and he uses it to help

-> only for him to be discouraged after thinking that his help is what got Kaede hurt, blaming himself

-> until he realizes that he's not responsible for Kaede's choices and he becomes strong/confident again afterwards.

We also just helped him with his trauma because he thought he was helping in that case and he couldn't have known what the culprit was doing, just like with Kaede, so he'll realize that he was shouldering blame for something he shouldn't have been.

What we got instead was Shuichi being a "strong detective" that never needed Kaede's help to try and get shit done (although he did appreciate it) then suddenly, out of nowhere, he's a weak detective and always has been, needing Kaede to encourage him because he hates his job... even though that's not what we saw at all during their time together.

More in general about his character inconsistency if you're interested:

Chapter 1 Shuichi is a completely person from Chapters 2-4 Shuichi who is in turn a lot different from Chapters 5-6 Shuichi.

Chapter 1

Chapter 1's characterization of Shuichi is my personal favorite because he actually got shit done and didn't waste any time angsting. It's not as though he was unbothered by things like Kyoko, but he pushed past that and it really looked like he was trying his best to help everyone. He took on the challenge laid before him and it was really commendable.

Chapters 2-4

Meanwhile Chapters 2-4 Shuichi didn't really do much at all aside from the mandatory investigating. He was "less active" as a detective; not taking charge, only briefly pondering instead of coming up with his own theories, and downplaying his previously shown abilities to the point of not even bothering to try. It really ruined the belief that he was a good, praiseworthy detective. If you're going to have the entire cast hype him up, at least have him be worthy of the hype. I mean seriously, how many people have to die in front of him before he lays another trap for the mastermind or does literally anything?

Chapters 5-6

Chapters 5-6 Shuichi was really fucking weird and out of left field. I suppose it was supposed to be the culmination of his arc, but since we spent so long establishing the fact that he's "weak," going so far as to make him suicidal even, that it's hard for me to see him as "strong" after so little build up, because most of his previous ""build up"" only lasts about 4 seconds before he forgets the encouragement he got and goes back to angsting, never meaningfully developing him so they can keep inserting weak moments.

Chapter 5 is especially bad for him since it starts out with him once again angsting and needing Kaito's support until BAM the whole "we're the hopeful students of Hope's Peak" plot starts up and he becomes super hopeful despite literally wanting to die mere minutes prior. The Hope's Peak, mind you, that had never previously been mentioned in the game (and we later find out is fake anyway.)

He starts out really dependent on Kaito after their little friendship breaks up, trying to make it up to him and blindly following him (after we had just spent the last trial going over how much of an idiot and an asshole Kaito was being, no less) only to become "active" once again (but not as a detective, rather as a hopeful student) and become independent and able to function without Kaito (albeit for Kaito's sake) to stop Kokichi.

Then Chapter 6 is... Chapter 6. Like how Chapter 5 destroyed Shuichi's independence from the Chapter 4 trial and then later gave it back to him on a flimsy excuse, Chapter 6 destroys Shuichi's active-ness from Chapter 5 only to give it back to him on a whim. He goes from only investigating the mastermind because Kiibo forced him to under threat to single-handedly taking down Danganronpa just because... he's the protagonist? His arc never built this up this personality trait, and yet here we are.

Going from suicidal -> hopeful -> suicidal (again) -> being so confident that he can stop Danganronpa that he bet everyones lives and safety on it in the time span of a few days... It's all just a big mess that lacks proper build up and doesn't make sense.

Suffice to say, Shuichi is whatever the narrative needs him to be at any given point in time, getting pushed around by the narrative rather than being a character that pushes the plot/narrative with his own development. He's written like a tool for the narrative rather than a human person and honestly Kiibo's development feels more human than Shuichi's could ever hope to be.

[odanurr87]

Flash Review: What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim?

Park Seo-Joon as Lee Young-Joon, and Park Min-Young as Kim Mi-So.

Release date: June 6 - July 26, 2018

Episodes: 16

Available on: Viki

Summary: Lee Young-Joon is the Vice Chairman of the YumYung Group, a large corporation and the family business. He’s smart, successful, and supremely confident to the point of narcissism. Kim Mi-So has been his secretary for the past nine years, proving herself to be extremely efficient in the execution of her duties and the only person who can keep up with his ego and intellect, anticipating her boss’ will and seeing it carried out. One day, out of the blue, Kim Mi-So announces she has decided to quit her job and start a new chapter in her life, what takes Young-Joon entirely by surprise. This event forces the two to review their relationship, as Young-Joon realises he doesn’t want to let her go, and Mi-So starts seeing other sides of her boss’ personality as she realises he might have feelings for her. As this is a kdrama, the return of Young-Joon’s hated older brother, Lee Seong-Yeon, complicates matters when he suddenly enters Mi-So’s life, turning himself into a rival romantic interest. Meanwhile, Mi-So starts looking into an old kidnapping case connected to the two brothers.

What I liked:

The pacing and execution of the romantic relationship. One of my main complaints when I reviewed The Secret Life of my Secretary (TSLS for short) was that I felt that show took too long to develop the relationship between the boss and his secretary, dragging the deception more than it should have, and even when the leads eventually admit they have feelings for each other, 24 episodes in, it didn’t quite feel believable and the wrap up felt a bit rushed. The Vice Chairman and Secretary Kim manage to get there by Episode 8, selling it every step of the way, giving us another eight episodes to see how their relationship progresses and concludes. Romantic misunderstandings, that staple of most romcoms, are thankfully kept to a minimum, something I was extremely grateful for. For instance, when the beginning of one such misunderstanding rears its ugly head at the end of Episode 8, Secretary Kim doesn’t waste a second to clear the air with the Vice Chairman and declare her feelings for him, marking the beginning of their romantic relationship. They still have their disagreements (Secretary Kim is definitely not a pushover) and face their share of obstacles and objections to their relationship; we see how their relationship plays out in the workplace, sometimes with hilarious results (Mi-So can be very protective of her boyfriend!); we’re treated to the expected bouts of jealousy from the two leads, the apparently required drunk scenes, etc. In short, it’s what you’d expect from a good Hollywood romcom but longer.

The absence of the “family member X trying to usurp power from the lead brother” trope. So refreshing to do away with this trope every once in a while. You will find no evil conspiracy here directed at any of the leads, a staple of kdramas where a chaebol’s involved, giving us more time to explore the relationship between the Vice Chairman and Secretary Kim, which is frankly what this show is all about. We still have that jerk relative that shows up to cause trouble, but he’s mostly harmless. I will address this plot in the next section.

The humor. The humor in this show is comprised of four elements, which I’ll proceed to highlight in bold. If you’ve watched the show, perhaps the first thing that comes to mind is Kang Ki-Young, who plays Young-Joon’s best friend, councilor, and president of the Yumyung Group, Park Yoo-Sik, as he does a fantastic job providing comic relief, taking advantage of the fact that he’s the only person who can make fun of Young-Joon and get away with it. I particularly liked his interactions with his clumsy and forgetful secretary, a pairing many viewers shipped. While I was taken aback by how much I liked him in Bring it on, Ghost, I was definitely less surprised to see what a great job he did here. Easily the best supporting character in the show. However, I feel Park Min-Young’s Kim Mi-So gives him a run for his money, not for being a prankster but because of how she reacts in any number of situations (as does Yoo-Sik), from trying to hide her boyfriend from her sisters, through punching a stuffed cow to make room for her virtual boyfriend, to trying to suppress her feelings of jealousy when faced with the prospect of having a rival for Young-Joon’s affection. You could call it situational humor perhaps, but seeing Mi-So’s facial expressions and her demeanor in these situations is priceless. These two are not the only actors/characters who partake in the show’s humor, but I believe they’re the standouts. Next on the list are the show’s well-placed sound effects, from weather effects to animal sounds, which really bring out the humor in certain situations. The sound effects in this show are 100% on point. Last but not least is the inclusion of a certain animated devil who pops up from time to time when Young-Joon or Mi-So are having lewd thoughts. As Young-Joon says at one point, “Fighting!”

Secretary Kim’s many facial expressions. Pity the sound effect wasn’t timed right in this scene.

What I didn’t like:

The older brother and the execution of his storyline. Perhaps I am less inclined to like his character because I initially watched the episodes out of order. During the first few episodes, Young-Joon’s brother, Seong-Yeon, clearly appears as the more likable of the two, returning home after years abroad, ready to make amends, only to find a brother who has nothing but contempt for him and a family who still favours Young-Joon. One should sympathize with him under the circumstances. However, for my part, Seong-Yeon showed his true colors even before he regained his memories. As I mentioned earlier, his return also results in the two brothers holding an undeclared contest for Mi-So’s affections, with Seong-Yeon believing he has the upper hand because of a past connection with her. When Seong-Yeon boasts how he’s going to exploit this connection to get her that was the moment I went, “This dude’s an asshole. He’s really going to exploit a painful memory simply to one up his brother.” Young-Joon, on the other hand, was actually doing his best to protect Mi-So from it, even at the risk of losing her. However, beyond Seong-Yeon’s likeability as a character, from a narrative standpoint, I just can’t believe the two brothers haven’t settled their score after two decades. Further, his transformation from jerk to good brother after he regains his memories seemed a little rushed, a little forced, with some scenes seemingly set up to cast him in a more favourable light. I have my strong doubts that someone who’s experienced that kind of mental trauma would make such a recovery in such a short amount of time (days? weeks?). Ultimately, he came across more as a plot device than a character.

How the parents handled the kidnapping. Letting your kids believe a lie for decades is not the way you handle a traumatic experience! It strikes me as unbelievable, irresponsible, and utterly reproachable, that the parents would rather scar their children for life than send them to therapy, especially when time proved that the lie had not improved the brothers’ relationship and possibly made it worse. There’s also some inconsistency with the character of the mother, who at one point looks to Mi-So to take care of Young-Joon, hinting she knows of their relationship, only for her to later ask Young-Joon not to date Mi-So because that would make Seong-Yeon unhappy. The gall of this woman. Fortunately, Seong-Yeon intervenes (this is the favourable light scene I mentioned earlier), as the mother was about to make yet another parenting mistake. I’m also slightly skeptical she didn’t figure out the truth behind the kidnapping earlier, specifically, the moment Mi-So’s involvement is revealed, a secretary Young-Joon personally selected over more qualified candidates. It’s a relatively minor detail though.

OTP: Damn, these two can kiss! If that’s not chemistry, I don’t know what is. Every moment these two are together is just perfect. I’ll admit I disliked Young-Joon’s unhealthy possessiveness, but I understand this was a conscious choice to show how much his character changes as a result of his love for Mi-So, eventually willing to let her go and choose a new path. I know some people disapproved of Mi-So’s decision to stay as Young-Joon’s secretary, seeing it as a regression and arguing she should try something new, but I disagree. At the end of the day, what’s important is that Mi-So is no longer pressured by circumstance to follow a path but is now finally able to decide for herself knowing she has someone in her life who will support her regardless. I’d question the timing of her decision but not the decision itself. She can always quit later. I also appreciated this show wasn’t afraid of showing the two characters actually tie the knot. Makes for a good change of pace.

Verdict: Initially, I dropped this show like a bomb in the middle of the first episode, as the thought of having a hardcore narcissistic boss as one of the leads did not appeal to me one bit, and having just finished watching the disappointing The Secret Life of my Secretary I really didn’t want to waste much more of my time on a show that promised to be similar. I was utterly wrong, as it turned out. What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim? is a great office romcom, with Park Seo-Joon and Park Min-Young easily delivering on the romance and the comedy, aided by Kang Ki-Young and a solid supporting cast. This is an easy recommendation and definitely worth watching multiple times.

Rewatch meter: High

[weebeestie]

                                                                                                                                Anonymous said:                                                         

Oct 16 · 13 hours ago

Hi, I’m pretty sure I feel the same way about spn right now as you do. I wish very much for a deancas something at the end, but am very doubtful anything will be acknowledged... One of my least favorite things about the later spn seasons has been that there are so few meaningful character interactions or dialogue exchanges... like there’s episodes are filled with plot basically just to keep characters apart? It’s so boring? I live for interesting character interactions/dynamics.

Hey there. I’ve been generally satisfied with the deancas interactions this season (esp. compared to the norm) and was frankly shocked by the amount of focus on their “breakup” and reconciliation given how this show usually goes. That being said...while I want an unambiguously romantic ending for the two of them, I also strongly doubt we’ll get anything close to that. Even if they do bring Cas back in some fashion after his likely departure in 15x18, I think the best we can reasonably hope for is a recognition of their “closeness” with enough left unspoken that there’s plausible deniability. More subtext.

What’s pissed me off is more about Cas specifically rather than his dynamic with Dean. This show has always played notoriously fast and loose with this poor guy’s character, and over the years one of my biggest frustrations with Cas is just how unevenly he is written depending on the writer(s) of the episode. You had writers like the Edlund, who was great about keying in on the perspective of this cosmic being who can’t help his attraction to humanity and all it entails (har har har--but also seriously, not just Dean ‘Humanity’ Winchester--though part of what made that line so maddeningly, frustratingly perfect was that there is that conflation there--and that’s part of what’s so interesting about deancas, that Dean is a representative of all that is beautiful and terrible and perfectly flawed about humanity but he’s also just Dean, and what does that mean for this angel who is new to even the concept of emotion, let alone desire?), and then you have writers who are like “ok well he’s awkward and doesn’t understand things” and play on that for a weak laugh rather than actually demonstrating any real understanding of his deeper character. And it’s inconsistent. Sometimes they’ll show Cas speaking in a way that’s very human and wise and emotionally complex--he can be insightful, he can make jokes, he can be snarky and sarcastic--and sometimes they’ll give him these weakass robotic speeches that they imbue with this weird, flat sincerity that just feels regressive, like they’re reaching for an emotional beat but not even really trying to make it real. And this specific idea that Cas had a purposeless existence and blind faith before Jack came along is just...it’s just so regressive? It makes no sense. He’s a rebel. He defied Heaven, threw away blind faith, a decade-plus worth of seasons ago. And as we learned from Naomi in season 8, it wasn’t just Dean and Sam who made him that way. He always had a “crack in his chassis,” he never obeyed, he had to be reprogrammed who knows how many times. So what about that? Is all that just retconned? And even apart from his “missions,” Cas has consistently demonstrated an appreciation for what Hannah called “human things.” This isn’t some robotic toy soldier with wings and he never has been. I have further issues with the specific emphasis placed on the father-to-Jack theme (not that it exists--I enjoy it--but the specific weight they’re giving to it in terms of character resolution) that I already alluded to. But in general, meh on this jettisoning of Castiel’s character.

Also, back to your point about them being kept apart: yes, this has always been extremely annoying as a viewer, even though I understand it’s a reality of their production schedule and the needs/contracts of the actors that they just have to work around. SPN has always been a spin on the procedural cop show, which I don’t usually care for exactly due to the boring “filled with plot” thing you mention. This was less irritating when it was just Sam and Dean as the core characters because you saw them together every episode. Once they introduced other core characters that we cared about--particularly Cas--routinely not getting to see these core characters interact became extremely dissatisfying, especially considering that the separation is considerably more pronounced in this show compared to most where your core cast are together in most eps. I’m glad that they’ve at least started acknowledging onscreen where Cas is when he’s gone in recent seasons, but even then they often come up with the stupidest reason. I couldn’t believe in 15x14 (which I otherwise really enjoyed!) when they had him off “tracking down his angel contacts.” Excuse me, what? The angels are basically all dead, right? There’s like five angels, and they can’t leave Heaven or the lights go out, right? Did I make that up? So if Cas just needs to go to Heaven, why tf is he gone for like weeks on end “tracking down” angels? It just doesn’t make sense. I hate that kind of shit, it just comes across as sloppy.

Sorry to rant! I should add that I have been mostly enjoying this season. I finally rage-quit after season 13 after several seasons of becoming increasingly annoyed with the show, but was so pleasantly surprised when I checked back in for 15 that I went back and caught up. There’s just nothing I hate more than wasted potential, and it absolutely kills me when I feel like something that so many people care about that has so much potential to be so good is treated in a way that feels sloppy or careless or like they’re scraping the bottom of the barrel rather than swinging for the fences. Five episodes left. After 15 seasons. C’mon, ya’ll can do better than that!

[raptured-night]

As I can read in your bio, you are demisexual (I'm put myself in this spectrum too) I want to ask what do you think about that Snape is ace-/demisexsual? Personally, I think he's demi.

Hi there!

I do believe that –setting aside what we might argue was Rowling’s intentions à la Death of the Author– there is plenty of room in her canon to interpret Snape as being somewhere along the asexual spectrum. Importantly, the only canonical statement of Snape’s relationship to Lily is that of friendship. Whether we might choose to interpret that friendship as one similar to Harry and Hermione’s (i.e. strictly platonic but no less filled with love) or one closer to Hermione and Ron’s (i.e. a childhood friendship that develops into romantic feelings as Hermione and Ron mature) is entirely up to how we interpret the subtext of Rowling’s canon. Ultimately, Snape’s feelings for Lily and Lily’s feelings for Snape are never explicitly stated in the text beyond their platonic expressions of friendship and this vagueness leaves us with room for multiple interpretations of Snape and Lily, all of which can be supported by the text.

(It is at this point where someone who doesn’t care for Death of the Author might chime in to argue, “What about the interviews Rowling gave after the books that more clearly point to the fact she wanted Snape and Lily to have had some kind of romantic tension/interest?” to which I would respond by pointing to the inconsistency of Rowling’s answers about her characters in certain interviews over the years, her own recent issue with ret-conning some of her previous canon for her Fantastic Beasts franchise, and one very particular interview she gave where one could just easy easily conclude Snape “wanted Mulciber and Lily” to make the case for why Death of the Author exists and why interviews may serve as good supplementary or secondary supporting evidence but not as a firm or absolute validation of any single interpretation of canon). 

However, even an interpretation of Snape’s relationship with Lily that allows for the possibility of him maturing into romantic feelings for Lily does not discount any interpretations of Snape as asexual, as I have argued before. Particularly, as you say you headcanon Snape, as someone who is grey-ace/demisexual. It is not at all difficult to argue that, as an alternative to interpretations of Snape’s feelings for Lily being obsessive, one could interpret Snape’s seeming absence of any other significant romantic interest in his life as being a result of his asexuality and/or demisexuality. When you factor in the limitations that the role he assumed from his early twenties into his thirties as a spy would have inevitably placed on his ability to form the kind of intimate connections that a grey-ace/demisexual person, in particular, would require to be able to develop an attraction then it becomes less odd that someone like Snape could go so long without any other significant romantic interests or attractions. 

Indeed, the longest relationship I ever sustained was with my high-school sweetheart (from roughly 15-17) and now into my 30s, I can wholly acknowledge I find dating and forming romantic connections difficult as a grey-ace/demisexual (I could not imagine how herculean an undertaking it would seem if I had to lead a double-life and factor that into any interactions I had with other people). So, I do tend to find it a tad troubling when people use Snape’s seeming absence of any other significant relationship with someone of the opposite sex as evidence of some kind of creepy obsession with Lily and I’ve even written a bit on how such a perspective could be a whole host of problematic things ranging from regressive and anti-feminist, reinforcing heteronormativity, exclusionary, etc. This is also notwithstanding the fact that none of Harry’s professors, with the exception of Remus Lupin, were ever written in such a way their romantic lives or histories were elaborated on. Indeed, for the most part, Snape was not an outlier in the fact that Harry’s perspective of him was as an entirely non-sexual authority figure which, I would argue, had the side-effect of making Rowling’s revelations about Snape’s friendship and love for Lily stand-out more starkly. Suddenly, Snape transitions from being just another “adult” authority figure (albeit a hated one that Harry regards as a foil and adversary) in Harry’s life, not unlike McGonagall or Dumbledore, to a fully real person with an entire life and complex set of feelings outside of his role of Potions Master. Such is the nature of youthful perceptions (and they make sense in a bildungsroman), we tend to view the adults in positions of authority in our lives on the basis of the roles they play in our lives rather than as fully-fledged human-beings with lives of their own. 

However, I digress, the fact is that an absence of anyone in Snape’s life does not necessarily point to an unhealthy obsession (although it could point to survivor’s guilt) as we only have Harry’s limited perspective (i.e. body of knowledge and observations) of Snape to go by (and he pays very little thought or attention to the love lives of any of his professors at Hogwarts) and even if Lily was Snape’s most significant relationship that does not discount the fact that the love Snape had for Lily could have been purely platonic (especially for those who may interpret Snape as ace/aro, gay or bi, etc.), something transcendent to romantic love (this interpretation would be particularly appealing for those who interpret Snape as ace/aro, gay, bi, etc.) or Snape could have loved Lily as a friend and harbored romantic feelings for her as a grey-ace/demisexual that formed a close bond with someone as a child that evolved into a more complicated series of feelings for her and, following the end of their friendship and her subsequent death, he never had the opportunity to form such a close connection with anyone else to develop romantic feelings for another person. Alternatively, we could even interpret Snape as having an experience somewhat similar to my own. I came from a home-life similar to his own, in which my experiences with childhood abuse (also from my father, although it was never sexual rather than verbal and physical) made me question if my complete absence of sexual attraction wasn’t due to the fact that I was somehow too damaged to be able to connect to anyone. I feigned attraction to other people and tried to force attraction where I felt there should be an attraction (even with male friends of mine) because I didn’t want people to think I was abnormal or broken. Similarly, as Snape and Lily matured, he could have assumed the love he felt for Lily as his friend should have been more romantic because of heteronormative expectations about male/female relationships. 

Ultimately, the very fact that canon never explicitly clarifies what Snape and Lily’s relationship was outside of friendship does provide us with room for expanded interpretations of Snape. We can choose to interpret Snape as ace/aro, gay, bi, trans, and all of these readings would be perfectly valid and could be supported by canon. That is what makes the character of Severus Snape so compelling for so many of his fans; he is complex enough for us to interpret him in many different ways and we can all find some bit of him we can relate to or that may represent us. We can go outside of his relationship with Lily to examine what relationships he may have had among the Death Eaters (e.g. Lucius Malfoy or Mulciber, for instance) that might have contributed to his decision to join them. We can examine the events of Spinners’ End in Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince and ask ourselves how Narcissa Malfoy came to be so familiar with where Snape lived. We can look at Snape in so many ways because there is so much of his canon that is subtle and open to interpretation. I personally love grey-ace/demisexual Snape and while I may explore multiple variations of Snape, as a grey-ace/demisexual myself, that is the interpretation of Snape that I most closely relate to and that is the interpretation of Snape that I most love. So, more power to you @season-of-mist you’re not alone in seeing Snape as a fellow grey-ace/demisexual. 

Yours,

Raptured Night

[wodrueckts]

i think i’m probably pretty alone in this, but i don’t HATE hanna’s development and i don’t think that she has really been regressing. 

of course there are many things i would’ve done differently, but i think she also kinda suffered because i feel like her story wasn’t really planned out and then the different writers for the seasons maybe had different ideas of what to do with her, so things feel kind of inconsistent (being mostly over jonas in s2 and just worrying about him, to then being jealous of him being with other girls and seeming very much not over him in s3, and then suddenly having a completely new boyfriend out of nowhere in s4.)

and yeah, when i first heard what she said about stefan in the latest clip i was like “what the hell?”, because it kind of makes it sound like being an attentive, kind and caring boyfriend like stefan is somehow bad, while being a bit of a jerk like jonas was in s1 is good, which... is not a message that should be sent tbh. 

but i thought a bit more about it, and maybe this was actually supposed to show hanna’s growth. 

when she got together with stefan and it seemed like they only spend time together, many people have said that hanna regressed and that now she was back to square one. and i think that’s also true to an extend, but tbh it also makes sense. jonas was probably her first boyfriend so when it comes to relationships, that’s the only experience she can look back on, so i think it’s not too unreasonable that she would fall back into old patterns, because she doesn’t really know how else to be in a relationship(, yet). and then i also think that stefan definitely enabled or even encouraged this kind of behaviour (not consciously or deliberately but just by the way he is).

but now for a while we’ve seen that hanna doesn’t actually seem that happy with how things are, that she feels a little “smothered” by her relationship. and i think that might actually have to do with her not fitting her old patterns anymore. that she actually grew out of them. 

in season 1 she was extremely insecure and not only because jonas wasn’t always the best boyfriend to her, but also and especially because of what happened before/when they got together that prevented them from building any real trust between them. hanna was always afraid that jonas might do the same thing he did to leonie to her, even if there wasn’t a real reason to believe that. so she tried to counteract that by being extra clingy. add to that that she didn’t have any friends and even her relationship to her dad was kind of distant, so jonas was the only person she was really close to, which only heigthened her abandonment issues.

but now she’s past that. she isn’t as insecure anymore, she has a lot of strong relationships with her friends and her life doesn’t need to be defined by her boyfriend anymore. 

and i think that is what she’s realizing right now. 

and stefan isn’t really doing anything wrong (though we don’t know exactly what he’s actually like and if he’s not maybe a bit (too?) clingy after all) but it might just not be what hanna wants right now. she probably wants to spend more time with her friends and be ‘her own woman’ (which doesn’t necessarily mean ‘single woman’ bc i think you can be your own woman and still be in a relationship) so to speak, but maybe with stefan she doesn’t feel like she can quite do that (and i don’t mean bc stefan doesn’t let her or anything bc he’s actually been very understanding in that regard but hanna might still feel like she can’t really let herself.)

so she might just have to learn how to stay independent (as much as that’s possible when seeing someone) and not fall back into her old patterns when she’s in a relationship.

and another aspect of course might be that her feelings for stefan aren’t actually that strong, so she might simply tire of him more easily. someone can be the most perfect boyfriend but if the feelings aren’t quite there that doesn’t really matter. 

so, yeah, i think hanna actually has developed but it just kinda got lost between the inconsistencies between the seasons. and if there was just one thing i could change about her ‘arc’ then i would probably scrap the ‘pining over jonas during s3′ part and instead show her deal with things that have nothing to do with guys, like her fear of the future.

buuuuuuut, well, maybe i’m giving the writers too much credit and am just seeing things that aren’t really there lol. but i guess we can only really judge her arc once it’s done.

[dmny25]

Daenerys was never a well-written character

This is going stir controversy, but whatever.

I was never Daenerys’ biggest fan, the whole dragon thing never moved me, I usually wasn't taken in by her set pieces besides shock and awe. However, I never hated her (and I still don't). I was rooting for her to win the throne up until season 6.

The point of watching and investing in any character's arc is growth and development (or sometimes lack thereof as is the case with Cersei but she still evolves). Daenerys grows in seasons 1 - 5 from a meek princess to a khalessi to a conqueror to a queen. That is all good stuff. Season 5, which some people don't like, I loved at the time. It was so important for her growth, but now it's meaningless and I feel like I wasted my time. Going into season 6 and 7, so much of that character work was just thrown away and I don't understand why because it was good.

Dany was learning diplomacy, learning the intricacies of ruling, the grey areas that exist in morality, when mercy is necessary and so many other lessons that were thrown to the wayside. She regressed from a queen to a khalessi in season 6, which, fine, parallels and symmetry and coming full circle. But season 7? Their writing of her and the choices made for her storyline was atrocious.

The writers failed her and they failed her hard. Her character progression and development went so backward that it honestly makes me angry. They shafted her storyline in Westeros and her growth as queen for her stupid forced romance with Jon and has her going back on her words and her values. She's being a conqueror, not a queen despite her claims that she was going to be a queen who ruled and not a conqueror.

I feel like they've given her no endgame beyond the iron throne. She takes it, but then what? What is her tax plan? How will she harvest food for winter? What is she going to do to support infrastructure in the city? Is anyone going to fix the damn sewer system? How is she going to rid the city of corruption? Is she going to burn all the goldcloaks and replace them with Unsullied? I'm sure that'll go over well. She never actually got control of Drogon, he just came back to help her out and she never addressed the whole burning-a-three-year-old thing, what if he accidentally or purposefully kills another kid? Not hard to do in a city as densely populated as King's Landing. What about food? You can't have a dragon cutting through precious livestock in the middle of winter. People will starve and it won't matter how much money she gives them because there will be no food. What about religion? The Lord of Light doesn't have as much of a foothold in Westeros as in Essos, but if there's a fire queen, they're going to flock over. Considering how volatile and insular the Seven can be and how attached to it the smallfolk are, will that cause religious unrest or possible holy wars? What are her policies going to be? What laws will she change or enforce? These are not things she shouldn't worry about until later, they will be relevant when/if they all survive and need more allies. Westeros is not Essos, she doesn't know anything about the people, the geography, the history beyond the Rebellion, even the weather as evidenced by the fact that she thought it was a good idea to burn the harvest from the Reach right at the start of winter instead of just taking it to feed people as if they could just grow more.

If the writers had been given more time and we didn't have to shoehorn R+L=J in for reasons unknown, season 7 could've focused on Dany and what she actually claimed she wanted to do, which is break the wheel. She's done nothing towards that end. She landed on Dragonstone and immediately got wrapped up in the hoopla of highborn politics and nobility. She hasn't been going for the queen of the people angle anymore, for some reason. She should've. If the show had been more cohesive with her storyline, wanted to make a point that makes sense and ties together even further with Cersei's storyline, then Daenerys should've turned the people, the smallfolk, to her side the same as she did with the slaves in Essos. Different political landscape, but it comes down to the same principle. The people don't care who is ruling them really, they care about eating, having a roof over their heads, being safe with their families, making enough money to survive. Cersei blowing up the sept set Daenerys up to come in as the savior of the people, but she didn't take advantage of the opportunity. A part of that is Tyrion's influence. He's too caught up in the web of scheming and nobility as well but Varys, Mr. I-serve-the-realm-and-the-people, was there too. They had a whole argument about serving the people and nothing came of it.

It's just bad writing in a show that has some amazing storylines and arcs. Cersei and Sansa's writing is so complex and intricate and every story beat makes me feel what the writers intended. Jon's story is a lot more black and white, but I still feel for his character and care what happens to him. Even minor characters like Gilly and Sam or Missandei and Grey Worm, the writers got me invested in them. Every story has its inconsistencies but Dany's feel more egregious because (if this ends the way I think it will) Dany is going to be sitting on the iron throne. As a viewer, I need to feel like she earned it, just like she earned hatching the dragons and earned the Unsullied's loyalty and earned her title as queen of Meereen.

This is not anti-Dany or a knock against Emilia Clarke, who I see some people criticize for her acting and blame her for the turn in Dany's character arc. It's not Emilia's fault. I think she's doing exactly what the script called for her to do. She can convey so much with body language and little subtle expression changes. I don’t think she gets enough credit for that. And if she was supposed to be doing something different, the onus is on the writers and directors to correct her acting choices, not just leave it be. It comes down to the fact that she just could be written so much better.

Season 7 would've been more interesting if Daenerys and Jon didn't even meet. Let their storylines play out separately. Let Daenerys use diplomacy, her natural charisma and the presence (not the might) of the dragons to win the iron throne that season. She should've treated with the other noble houses in the Crownlands (especially the Velaryons) and other houses as well. They could’ve briefly introduced the Hightowers. She could’ve gotten control of Oldtown, are you kidding me? She could’ve met with whoever the hell is ruling the Stormlands nowadays. The Lannisters helped destroy House Baratheon, leaving the Stormlands in a state of unrest. You’re telling me they don’t want revenge? What about the Riverlands? Not mentioned literally at all after Arya killed the Freys, what is even happening there? She could’ve also directly addressed the people like she did in Essos. She would've gained the confidence of the realm on her own merits. She could've had the throne by the end of season 7 and Cersei would be dead, no problem. 

Jon should've stayed in Winterfell. We should've seen more of what they were doing to sure up the Wall and defend the North. Let the siblings all reunite and deal with Baelish together, the four of them. Bring forth the question of the Riverlands (where the hell is Edmure? Is he still in the Frey's dungeon?), get more into the lore of the White Walkers and explore Bran vs the Night King. Let Jon deal with his paternity before meeting Dany. The Starks knowing about R+L=J makes more sense as being the cause of a rift between the siblings than Sansa and Arya being upset with each other because... reasons? They didn't get along as kids and now the writers decided, let's forget all the intuition we had our girls learn over the seasons so they can be mad because shock value when Baelish is killed? Come on man. It's so disappointing.

[fleimkepakosskairipa]

I hate s6 mostly cos it’s all about Clarke and as much as I hate her I could deal with her cos at least the other characters were there. And I feel like Eliza’s acting isn’t as good as everyone makes it to be. If they let Lindsey Richard and the supporting cast be more prominent, the show would be MUCH better (sorry for ranting)

You never have to be sorry for ranting to me, especially if it’s complaining about Clarke or Eliza!

I definitely agree. I can’t stand Clarke, but I can bear her if the other characters get some screentime and a storyline of their own. But, they don’t, so I end up hating it and not wanting to watch it. The 100 is at it’s best when it’s an ensemble show, like Season One and Five, and it’s at it’s worst when it’s only focused on one character, like Season Six or, to a lesser extent, the beginning of Three. It’s boring and annoying.

If Lindsey and Richard had more scenes, or Tasya and Sachin and Marie, or really anyone, it would be so much better. Just one character being the focus and everyone else revolving around her, even though it makes no sense, is just stupid and is making people not want to watch it. Multiple character’s shouldn’t have to regress and be inconsistent in order to make one character look good.

[bhaalble]

Alright I think is gonna be the last post I do on this for a bit, for a variety of reasons. Mostly because it's unproductive. But I wanted to make a last point.

I normally really don't like slinging accusations of internalized misogyny because unless you're a literal Stepford wife it's one of those things that’s extremely hard to verify. I can't prove you have internal biases that are making you be unfair to a character. And its important to note, accusations of internal misogyny can be turned into a weapon to shut women up. 

So, to make my position clear: criticizing a female character does not mean that you are a misogynist. A good example of this is Captain Marvel. However empowering it may be for young girls that Marvel finally has a female superhero with her own movie, this doesn’t negate the fact that it functions as military propaganda, both by virtue of its content and its financial backing. So people who critique Captain Marvel for these things are not misogynistic inherently, especially if they also consistently critique other Marvel films for their relationship to the military industrial complex.

Hell, it doesn’t always have to be for real life important reasons. Sometimes you just don’t like a female characters, because they don’t do anything for you personally, or because they evidence writing that is not inherently problematic but isn’t your cup of tea. And that’s actually fine. To give you an example from my personal life: I’m not super into Katara from ATLA. I could give you a few writing examples for this (I don’t tend to like people in general who take on the “designated parent” role and then self-martyr about it, etc.) but what it ultimately comes down to is that she’s just not my type of character. I don’t hate her. I don’t even strongly dislike her. But I could do without her. She’s not my cup of tea. And that’s fine! People shouldn’t be forced to like characters they don’t, and I’ve never advocated otherwise.

So, whether for real life problematic implications, or just for personal taste, there are plenty of valid reasons to dislike female characters. However, where this becomes a problem is when people use valid criticism as a shield for misogyny. A good example of this phenomena in action (and I’m stealing very blatantly from Dan Olsen and Lindsay Ellis here) was the backlash to both Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey. There were many, many, many valid reasons to critique both those franchises, both in reference to in-fiction bad writing and real-world problematic implications. But this doesn’t take away from the fact that there was a large chunk of the Twilight hate that came from people who weren’t actually looking for a literary discussion, but to be absolutely vicious to teenage girls. Similarly, (now quoting Dan Olsen directly), “it needs to be acknowledged that a good chunk of the backlash from Fifty Shades stemmed from and manifested as rampant misogyny and an assault on the public visibility of female sexuality and sexual agency, with many, many people using legitimate criticism as a springboard to mock ‘mommy porn’ and the very idea of women finding anything erotic if it didn’t conform to strict, male-centric ideas of feminine sexuality”.

This can become even more complex when its women who are performing this bad faith criticism, because it can often become an exercise in empowerment via degradation. I think most of us go through this phase as baby feminists, where we feel the need to distance ourselves from anything overtly feminine in order to prove we “deserve” respect from men. This usually manifests as something those 8 billion thinkpieces about how “if you think about it the disney princesses are actually pretty regressive” and outright hatred of anything that doesn’t immediately qualify as a “good feminist role model”. I definitely went through this phase in high school and I sometimes still catch this attitude in myself even today. 

So the question becomes, how to distinguish good faith criticism from bad faith criticism. And I’ll be honest: there’s not a hard and fast line. Its like distinguishing “good writing” from “bad writing”, its not necessarily something you can create a scientific definition for. But a big indicator is how the critic comports themself in reference to the thing they’re criticizing. So I’ll circle back to my above example, my dislike for Katara.

I do not like the character Katara. As a result, I do not seek out content for her, and if asked by people, I will explain to them why I don’t like her. The person will either agree that these are good reasons or disagree, and either way is fine. This is, broadly speaking, what valid criticism looks like: stating an opinion, backing it up, and allowing for disagreement even if it doesn’t ultimately convince you.

What would make it invalid would be if:

-I obsessively stalked Katara’s tag to get myself even angrier at her

-I vague posted about people who liked Katara despite having never interacted with them (ESPECIALLY if the people I was vaguing were minors). Like I said before, its very easy to win arguments if you don’t invite your opponents to come.

-I wrote people who liked Katara off as being either blinded by their physical attraction to the character or just being desperate for female representation (because nothing says feminism like re-affirming anti-feminist talking points of “the matriarchy just doesn’t think women can do anything wrong”)

-I was inconsistent in my criticisms between Katara and other characters (for instance, if I was hard on Katara for constantly agonizing over the right thing to do but gave it a pass in Aang)

-If I just straight up chose to ignore parts of the text to fit my own hatred for the character (e.g. saying Katara never learned a lesson about being too over-bearing, which would be ignoring “The Runaway” where she apologizes for it and makes an effort to be better). This one isn’t necessarily a symptom of misogyny but it is a sign of lazy criticism. 

And to make sure people don’t twist these, none of these individually are an immediate indicator of “WOMAN-HATER”. But they do all constitute red flags, and once they build on each other, I’d say it definitely merits at least some serious side-eye

So, to those who are asking: no, there is not a “quota” on male criticism vs female criticism and the feminazi brigade isn’t coming to make you swear fealty to any and all female characters. But maybe its worth examining why you see attempts by strangers to defend a fictional character (who doesn’t stand in for any real world shittiness) as a personal attack on you. 

Ceci n’est pas une deep bro

[mostlytiredoffs]

I feel like some people are so quick to dismiss yuzu saying that he's getting old and that he won't be able to keep up with the "new generation". But I can't help but look at that 3A gif you posted today and think "this kid isn't going to stop until he gets a 4A and when he gets that he's going to be unbeatable"

I don’t know how much you’ve been around anon, but according to the internet (and especially NA fans) Yuzuru’s career has ended about 93024903 times before now. He’s too old, he’s too young, he’s too inconsistent, he has too little quads, he has too many quads; all of these narratives have been used before. The point is, some people love him, but some people hate him, to the point in which they can’t wait for the day he will retire and in the meantime they have been dismissing his accomplishments for years.

I don’t think Yuzuru is going to be unbeatable (he’s human and he takes so many risks with his jumps and crazy entries), but there’s so much more to him than how many medals he’s won and how many records he’s broken (and we are talking about a guy who hasn’t finished lower than second since NHK 2014, when he was skating just two weeks after the CoC crash). Yuzuru’s career as a skater goes way beyond his medals and records: it’s how he won the Olympics with Japanese music, from a Japanese movie, while portraying a Japanese character, in a sport in which Asian skaters often have to skate to Western warhorses to have cultural programs. It’s how he keeps challenging the rules and himself, even though he could do less and still win. It’s how his skating has become a beacon of hope for so many people and how he has inspired so many through it.

I don’t know how many medals he will win or how many records he’ll set from now on, or when he’ll land the 4A. All I know is that he’s finally free to pursue his childhood dream and to skate for himself, and I couldn’t be happier to see that :)

That said if you see people say he can’t keep up with the new generation, always feel free to laugh in their face and tell them how he won an OGM while skating on an injured ankle and two weeks of practice xoxo

alright so let’s hear it. Which Alena K do you prefer watching? Alena Kanysheva or Alena Kostornaia? :D

I like Kostornaya more as a skater in general (there are few skaters I like more than Kostornaya lol) but at the moment I prefer watching Kanysheva. Kostornaya’s programs this year are about as horrifying as they could be and this does affect how much I enjoy her skating. Especially the free program; god the other day was the first time I actually didn’t love watching her, thanks Daniil! 

Wait where are videos from Moscow open? I need to seeee

Here’s Kamila Valieva’s SP:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3eE2Fq51Is&feature=youtu.be

Currently leading with 75.81 points (with 3 Bs so bonus points on spins). Recently switched to Eteri. Usacheva, another new Sambo member, scored 70, while Kostyuk scores 67+

In terms of size/height/ice coverage, in which competition has Yuzu jumped his biggest 3A yet? I’m inclined to say the SP @GPF2016, that one was HUGE and explosive….

Would need actual data to tell xD I was there at GPF16 but it would be hard to tell. Pretty sure his 3A is even bigger now, considering the footage I recently giffed. XD

Have to say I was verrrry impressed with Kamila V’s SP (some of it was just that she had okay music compared to some of her rink mates, but I thought she did a great job of selling the choreo). Def will keep an eye on her, hope she gets more chances in that crowded field. Alyona is still my fave in that cohort but like you I basically have to watch her on mute right now.

Valieva is actually not junior eligible yet (like Usacheva, Frolova and Shabotova) but she has had a lot of fans since she was like 8 years old. She was the cutest baby swan as a kid (you can find videos on YouTube, just type her name and there’s lots of baby Kamila videos) and she was very hyped from the start, because of her SS and IN at such a young age. She regressed a bit last year, really struggled with flip and lutz and then switched to Sambo 70. She will probably get her chance, her year isn’t super crowded :)

Yeah I am quite mad/worried for Kosto.

TSL (blah I know but this is worth the watch :)) uploaded some footage of Rika training at CO!! Her 3a looks so easy wtf she takes such a short set up in to it w so much speed. In the video she falls on a 3a-3t but anyways she’s looking really good!!

Thanks for pointing that out to me yesterday! I wish they had a longer video, cause I can’t wait to see how they changed the rest of the program!

The entry and exit of the 3S look real good, I am so so excited *-* and yeah her 3A set up is shorter than it used to be, they have tried to make it so in the last year. She and Tom sure had some fun working on this program ;P

Ksenia!! My fave Panover!! She really was wonderful today TwT. Everything is so smooth and dynamic. GREAT skating skills. GREAT jumps and spins. My fave of the day by far…. She was underscored. Sasha’s PCS were very high imo.30? really? Sasha is a jump prodigy but her pcs arent better than Ksenia or either Alena K. Or am I missing something?

I have a huge soft spot for Ksenia as well haaha I really love all of them truly, but the Kanysheva, Sinitsyna, Kostyuk trio own my heart. Ksenia is so so versatile, her IN/PE were the best today imo.

I think it’s normal that Sasha had high PCS, but she shouldn’t get higher PCS than Kostornaya for sure. She had great jumps yesterday, but the GOE for her spins and her PCS are indeed quite high imho. I think Ksenia could have gotten more, considering that Yelim (who I love, but wasn’t really great at all yesterday :(((() got more than she did.

[dayxdayaly]

July 16, 2020

Sometimes... most times I tell myself I'm fine. I tell myself that I am strong enough, smart enough, positive enough... whatever enough to get me through the day. How many times do you fake something until whatever you really are fades away? It's a weird realization knowing that I would rather be joyful, funny, energetic for everyone around me rather than being sad or honest with my true feelings. The feelings I suppress so deeply that I can hardly recognize them at times. I accepted recently that it's ok not to be okay.. that sometimes too much positivity can be toxic too. I go on with my days just trying to "get through it" or make the best of it when maybe I'm just doing whatever I can to make it as pleasant for me as possible. And I think that at this point, I've done it for too long and got too good at it, because it is really difficult for me to get in touch with myself and to feel vulnerable and just honest with my real desires. There's so many things I am sure/aware of... What I want in life, what I stand for, who I stand for, my strengths, my shortcomings. I have come a long way... But when it comes to being really present/there for myself, I can say that that area needs a lot of heart-work. My intolerances and inconsistencies have been bleeding into this relationship and so before I go into that same dark hole or negative/angry train of thought that I always go on, I am going to give this opening up/vulnerability thing a try. I owe it to you if not for us.

I was certain that you were IT back in 2018 after we found each other again that summer. You were so sweet, forgiving, and so vulnerable that all my anger/remorse for you (80% of why I cheated on you besides our failing communication) wore off and I felt true love for you again. And since then I've tried my best to be committed and really give our relationship whatever I had. And I know I really have. I do whatever I can for you and our relationship. But needless to say, the past few months have especially been hard because I can see/feel you getting shorter and angrier at me, and it's very discouraging. I don't want to, but when you're like that it brings back all the old trauma/bad memories and makes me want to regress into the "old me" (the very angry, impatient, verbally mean one) really makes me want to care less, only I know that it won't do us any good and so I just try my best to understand, and if I can't I just tolerate it

Well no my patience/ability to tolerate your anger/shortness is wearing thin and I don't really know what else to do. I hate getting into yelling matches. I hate storming off. I hate sleeping angry/upset. And with you being on bad terms/hating my dad and me making the commute to your place to spend time together for the past 7 months, my spirit and energy are really burning out. And I start doing things like telling you less because I want to avoid a fight. Or just making love because maybe if we have a real conversation we'll fight. And so now it's just foreign for me to feel vulnerable/open with you because I keep stressing out about you and how you feel you've "outgrown" this relationship/me. I mean for fuck's sake I haven't even been back from vacation a whole day and I'm stressed out already.

And I'm not trying to sound spoiled or ungrateful, because that isn't so. I'm very thankful and I know how lucky I must be to be shown the finer things in life. But I would rather have a good foundation of us just enjoying each other's company, or more like you enjoying mine, without all of the distractions. Simplicity over luxury. And if I'm being 100% honest it has really opened this door of you and your demands/expectations that you continuously remind me I don't make. Either because I can't or personally won't because it's not within me or I lose being true to myself in the process. I need to do/be who I am, and the desire/motivation to meet your demands/expectations should be something I initiate because I want to for you/us, rather than you telling me so - it makes me think your love is conditional and even makes me rebel out of anger/spite because why would you want to change me so much if you loved me for who I am? I won't know what to do anymore so I just take your shit until I can't anymore, and while I'm looking for way to try to understand you or hear you out better, you telling me I'm a bitch or that I'm a child or that "you're done with me" is distracting and overwhelming and makes me want to give up altogether because the fight just isn't worth it.

Are you still that sweet, forgiving, and vulnerable guy? There are times that I can still see myself with you forever. Getting married. Raising a family. Taking care of you. But when we fight now, it gets really bad and the shit you say is starting to really fuck with me and despite how good of a place we are at times, I still get confused and question many things. Would you blame me for not being confident in your love and respect for me?

I am just trying my luck at this honesty/vulnerability thing without feeling bad about the repercussions. I know it in my heart that you love me and want us to work out. But no matter how much I try to understand you, reason with you or just take different approaches I keep getting the same results or worse (your anger/impatience)... and trust me when I say you are getting more intimidating/unenjoyable to be around in those times (which is exactly why I left last night) and that doesn't help your cause if you really mean that all you want is to be understood.

I really want to work this out. I do. But I don't feel safe anymore. I don't feel "fine" about this any more. I feel like my every move/word choice gets picked apart. And I constantly feel like I am not enough. And if that is really the case then maybe I am just trying to force a square peg in a round hole.

[notimeliketoday]

If yoy don't mind me asking, what made you hate Hinata (just genuinely curious)?

I already reblogged the reasons for that anon. Those reblogs stated what I want to say but if you like, I can still elaborate on it a bit.

But if you were roaming around asking this question to anti hinata fans, I’m sure you can already predict what my answer would be.

Warning: Long rant

I actually didn’t mind Hinata at first. I remember back when I was just a kid of 8-10 years of age and got a glimpse of Naruto back in the day that I was indifferent to her because I was more concerned about Team 7.

I continued to be indifferent about her in Naruto Shippuden and I only watched the canon episodes with my siblings a few months ago to catch up (because we hate fillers - it’s such a drag) so I didn’t get to see the blatant favoritism that much.

Then here comes the issue of Neji’s death. Gosh, that one really broke my heart. I may not have minded Hinata prior to that point, but Neji’s death literally made me change my views. Don’t misunderstand, I still don’t hate her for that.

What made me hate her is what happened afterwards.

It really got me annoyed that she got the time to think about Naruto’s hand in the midst of Neji’s corpse. I mean, I get it anon. She is just trying to be strong for Naruto’s sake so he won’t falter. But if she had no problem thinking about her crush’s hand, she should have no problem mourning him for longer than 1-3 minutes, yes?

Another blow would be: she actually want Neji to save him? What about her? Is she just going to trip on rocks? I thought she’s a medic-nin? Oops, that’s SP’s BS and one I’ll tackle later.

But really, what could Neji do? Girl, he’s dead and unlike other anime which showed dead people aiding a dying fellow, Naruto clearly demonstrated that only those of the living can actually make a difference to save lives; except for Naruto with his parents, but that’s because of the residual chakra inside the seal to make it happen.

Okay, I forgive the girl because she is powerless and not capable of saving him because she doesn’t have the necessary skill. She’s still not out of the woods yet though.

Then here comes SP’s BS.

Of course, I already stated that I didn’t watch fillers. It just so happen that the ones I did have still ended up having a glaring favoritism at times - not as plenty as that of fillers - but still very obvious.

I actually had to watch SP making omakes out of praising Hinata. What really pissed me off is they have to shat on Sakura. I love Sakura’s character and I’m pissed off by the treatment she gets especially when they go so far as to actually want Hinata to have the heroine title and making Sakura jealous that someone would steal her spotlight as the actual heroine. Like, wtf!

It pissed me off that a side character with no feats under her name and no actual character development interacting with other characters outside Neji and of course, Naruto-kun in her name is hailed by the bias, disgusting studio to be a better heroine that a main character who did have those things as well as a really good development that never got regressed (no matter what fandumb wants you to believe). Annoying.

And then here I come to the comparisons. Thanks to the grossly unprofessional studio, there’s a lot of inconsistencies regarding fillers versus actual canon. It’s too bad that anime fans tend to look at fillers as justification why Hinata is a better character like:

It didn’t help that when I went to read the manga I noticed how much of a bad character she is.

She prioritized Naruto over her teammates hardwork.

That’s just one of them anon.

There’s also the issue of her actual strength versus that of Sakura’s (as her wankers would love to undermine).

Thanks to the BS SP added with the Hamura BS in The Last, many actually believe she stand a chance against Sakura? Then why did she still need Naruto’s help? Why didn’t she become a jounin? Why is she still a chunin? Why didn’t she help when the Otsutsuki headaches attacked Konoha? She even became a burden by getting herself injured, lol.

Can you believe she destroyed the show by her overexposure? What happened to Naruto’s dream and finally achieving it? Why didn’t they show that to us instead? Why did it suddenly turn into a shoujo show when I started watching a shounen? Where is Team 7? Shouldn’t they be the focus as the main characters?

What the hell is up with The Last? You mean to tell me that Naruto needed a genjutsu to fall in love with her? What happened about knowing other people’s feelings?

I can’t believe Naruhina fans are content with that, lol.

Her fandom: why can’t they praise her without dragging Sakura down? Are they really that insecure? She had her own development and as a true fan, they should be content with it. But they actually had the gall to steal many of Sakura’s traits (no thanks to SP) and toned down her appearance, then they have the nerve to make twisted comparisons.

Dear Hinawankers, your fave is crap who just lived on copying everybody else’s achievement.

Just look at her backstory via SP: bullied

A backstory copied from Sakura.

Her having Hamura’s chakra: hello Naruto and Sasuke.

And many more.

So yeah anon, to summarize my hate: thank SP and her fandom wankers.