#like 'this child character who never had a good writer is evil because i hated him as a kid' just seems lame

[nerdfighterwhatevernumbers]

the real problem with Scrappy Doo is he was introduced to the franchise when its writing was going downhill in general and he had very few, if any, opportunities to be well written even as a comedic side character

[alicentflorent]

I have had to unfollow so many supposed Alicent fans because of their support for the bastardisation of her character. I didn't mind that they were Rhaenicent shippers but the way they're jumping through hoops to justify Alicent choosing Rhaenyra over her own family is making me want to pull my hair out!

What do they like about Alicent exactly? That she's a pathetic hypocrite who will happily side with the woman who slaughtered her grandson? Don't give me the whole "but Nyra didn't know!" bs. Did she punish Daemon? Did she show any remorse? Did she apologise for what happened? No, instead she demands Alicent accept the deaths of her sons to avenge Luke.

The fact of the matter is show!Alicent doesn't exist for Alicent/Team Green/HotD fans, she exists only for Rhaenicents/Rhaenyra stans who want to see everyone fall at the Dragon Queen's feet in worship of her.

You're absolutely right, she only exists for Rhaenicent and not even in a good way because Rhaenyra (understandably) looks down on her and Alicent's characterisation has to be thrown out and she has to make herself worthy of Rhaenyra by going against herself and what she fought for and they dress it up as her finally "doing something for herself" (which is what giving in to some kind of degradation kink?)

Realistically Alicent should have gone feral the moment Rhaenyra said "a son for a son" those were the words daemon used when instructing two assassins to kill one of the Hightower boys. Those are the words Heleana heard before being forced to point to her son who was then beheaded.

In the books Alicent says something like "how many must die for your thirst for vengeance?" why couldn't the show give her this line? why is Rhaenyra the only one allowed to want revenge? why is she allowed to call out alicent/the greens actions but Alicent isn't allowed to be angry and call out Rhaenyra/the blacks? Why is she going to Rhaenyra and debasing herself by confessing her sins and asking Rhaenyra to come with her? Her priority is helaena so why is she making a deal that isn't well thought out that will kill the father of Helaena's child and then going as far as to invite Rhaenyra knowing that Helaena's son was killed in Rhaenyra's name and Rhaenyra never apologised for it? She isn't liberating herself, she's betraying herself before becoming the queen in chains along with Helaena. As much as they defend it alicent choosing Helaena, this plan does not help Helaena.

Mind you, I've also had to unfollow or block certain "team green" stans who fell for the anti alicent agenda. Stans who will write meta's on how Alicent's sons have been done dirty by the writers while also hating on alicent for being so evil and horrible to her sons. Alicent has been rage bait for both sides of the fandom ever since 2x01, she has been humiliated sexually and politically for daring to choose the wrong side. I hate how she's been written but I can acknowledge that this is a clear attempt by the writers to punish alicent and reduce her to her relationship with Rhaenyra. I can also acknowledge that the most of team green have been treated similarly by the writers. In season one they made it clear that while she wasn't a good mother, she loved her kids fiercely and protected them and what have given her life for them. in season two we are constantly being hit over the head with the alicent is a hypocrite and a bad mother narrative and in almost every episode there is a scene of Alicent's bad mothering paralleling Rhae Rhee's good, loving mothering.

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

Have you noted that no one from Azula's family was shown to express love and affection towards her?

That is mostly true. Ozai's affection is clearly conditional (and full on manipulation at worse, like we see in the finale), Ursa canonically favors Zuko to the point that we never see her spending any alone time with Azula like she did with Zuko, and while Iroh gave her a toy like he did to Zuko the toy in question was so OBVIOUSLY wrong for a kid like Azula that it's comical AND show's he did not really know his niece at all.

But there is a constant exception.

Zuko's relationship with Azula is complicated. He clearly admires her strength and power, but he hates how she uses it. She lied to him many times, was seen apparently cheering Ozai on during the Agni Kai, tried to have him imprisoned and even said she'd celebrate being an only child - and then allows him to come home as a hero after Ba Sing Se, even though SHE had the control of the Dai Li and was not yet aware Aang could have survived, meaning she had nothing to gain from it.

And when she lets him know that if he's caught talking to Iroh people might think he is a traitor too, and explicitly says "Believe it or not, I'm actually looking out for you" Zuko drops his innitial suspicion that she wanted something and that's why she was helping him.

On The Beach, he just follows her when she say their old family home is depressing and they shouldn't waste their time there. When she's asking him who she is angry at, she mentions herself and Zuko explicitly says that is not the case.

He doesn't trust her and know she has a tendency to mock or full on lie to him... yet when he wants to know about Fire Lord Sozin he asks her about it, and lets it slide when she mocks him by saying he should make sure the royal painter got his good side - for a character as quick to anger as Zuko, that is a big deal. In Nightmares and Daydreams he also goes to her to find out if he'll be allowed at the war meeting.

More importantly:

1 - Iroh's infamous "She's crazy and needs to go down" line was only said because ZUKO, without anyone putting that idea in his head before, suddenly went "I know what you're going to say. She's my sister and I should be trying to get along with her"

2 - Zuko only jumped into the fight in Ba Sing Se when Azula was being cornered by Aang and Katara.

3 - Zuko looked genuinely shocked and even distressed when she was falling off that cliff. He just sounded so shaken saying "She's... not gonna make it..."

4 - In the writer's own words, Zuko felt no hate but only pity when seeing her breakdown. Katara tried to comfort him because, canonically, even though Zuko and Azula are enemies, this was never what he wanted because he still sees her as family. That's why the Last Agni Kai's music is not the epic you'd expect from a battle, but a tragic one.

5 - Aaron Ehasz, the lead writter for the show, probably the person with the most influence after Bryke, has REPEATEDLY said that he always felt Azula should have gotten a redemption arc, Zuko being an Iroh figure to give her advice and be the only one still by her side when all else was seemingly lost to her forever.

Even the comics (most of which I HATE, mainly because Azula's storyline checks nearly every box for "the mentally ill are inherently evil/less human, so it's fine if literally every other person on the planet mistreats them") didn't fully abandon their complex dynamic.

Zuko is not a perfect sibling, and for a long chunk of the story he seemed too focused on his own issues for Azula to ever be a factor in his mind (aside from the moments in which she was a potential/explict threat), but he DOES still feel a sense of obligation towards her, to the point that it made him do something no one else in their family had done before or since - actually look at Azula. Not the prodigious daughter/perfect weapon, or the problem child that is difficult to handle, or the pontentially deadly enemy that was in the way, but Azula.

His 14-year-old sister that got on his nerves a lot, was far from the kindest person alive, and that he had a ton of issues with, but that he could never fully hate or even be indifferent to. Because she's family. Because he remembers a happier time in which the gap between them didn't seem so big. Because if things had been slightly different he could have been her. Because he went from wanting to be her to seeing just how miserable her life ended up being - especially compared to the one he now had - and feeling deeply sorry for her.

Now if you guys excuse me, I'm gonna go cry in the corner. Have some wholesome/bittersweet fanart if you wanna cry too.

[gojuo]

As a mom i find it revolting that condam and hess made helaena say « i shouln’t feel sad cuz babies die all the time » wtf it’s not about babes ditng it’s about HER babe diying so if it was a childless person sying that ok but not from a mother who just lost her babe and they are making aegon the bad guy for wanting revange 👌👌👌 chef kiss just chef kiss 🙄 i am thinking that that phrase was just written so they can brush aside the kids deaths so they can justify women againts war narrative but i stil’ jave hope in humanity and that people will see what they are doing and stop sying it’s a good show like bitch if it was my daugther that was killed and i had a dragon i would burn and kill everyone just so they pay. Helaena dosn’t even look depressed like in the books so what will the excuse be that she dosn’t go burn dragonstone on dreamfyre???

That scene really rubbed me the wrong way but I haven't quite been able to put to words exactly why and how .... But @zumurruds explained it quite well here:

I've already said something on the narrative weight of B&C, and it's quite evident to me that the writers have been trying very hard in undervalueing its importance because of what zumurruds said above. If Helaena herself gets over Jaehaerys' death in the span of one day, if Aegon does, if Aemond's reckless actions that led to the assassination are never reckoned with by any character, if all that Alicent says about him is "The child's pain is ended" (to service the writers' attempt at dehumanizing Jaehaerys to make the viewer not care about him), if Otto's PR move is framed as something nefarious instead of the typical funeral procession of a member of the royal family, if we don't even see Jaehaerys' funeral like we did Luke's, then how can the viewer be anything but desensitized to Blood and Cheese? How can the viewer do anything but exonerate Daemon and Rhaenyra of this act? Rhaenyra in the episode literally said, "I would never harm innocents like Helaena!" As if this line isn't a blatant attempt at manipulating the viewer to feel a certain way about Rhaenyra's involvement in B&C by the writers, egregiously using her as a mouthpiece to absolve her of any evil she causes and has caused. Clearly whitewashing her of this act. Daemon too, because "It was a mistake! I only named Aemond!" and then having him have hallucinations in Harrenhal of Jaehaerys. We've actually seen Rhaenyra with Jaehaerys more times than we've seen Helaena with him. Like let that sink in.... And what we get from all this is that Helaena forgives Alicent? ... So basically the narrative is implicating Alicent and Criston in Jaehaerys' murder (already did tbf when the writers changed her being in the room to her not being there), but it washes Daemon and Rhaenyra's hands completely clean.

I know there are people who are trying to rationalize that scene as Helaena dissociating in order to cope with the trauma, but when you factor in Condal openly saying that he views Blood and Cheese as it was written in F&B as propaganda uttered by Alicent, and then him removing her from the event to go have sex with Cole with that being the reason there are no guards protecting Helaena's chambers so as to implicate them both in the murder .... Is that really what we can assume Condal wanted to do with Helaena in this episode?

I hate that scene. I really fucking hate that ep.3 scene.

[six-of-ravens]

FINISHED MY SONG OF THE LIONESS REREAD!!!!

(if this makes no sense please bear with me, it's after midnight)

Overall, some parts of the series didn't hold up as well as I thought they would, but many parts did. Alanna is still my homegirl. The swordfights and sorcery and all that never fail to entertain. There is a bit more sexism than I remember, and some of the parts with the Bazhir didn't age very well, but it remains a classic.

BOOKS RANKED BASED ON HOW MUCH I LIKED THEM:

1. Lioness Rampant - I think this is the book where Pierce really hit her stride as a writer. The world seems fuller, the plot thicker, the characters more established. The pacing is a lot better, too: this book is about 100 pages longer than all the others and Pierce uses those pages well. The final battle against Roger is a little anticlimactic (though it's preceded by like four other battles) but well earned. I hated Liam for the most part, because frankly he's a shit boyfriend to Alanna, but also she dates 3 men over the series and I guess one of them had to suck for real. I did love Thom though - I think he and Raistlin cemented my love for asshole fuckup mildly, ambitiously evil wizards early on.

2. Alanna: The First Adventure - this one is kind of tied for first place. It's a shorter book, but the pacing is decent and we get all that wonderful knight school content. Extremely entertaining, and a very fun start to the series.

3. The Woman who Rides like a Man - a nice breather of a book after the events of the first two, lots of character growth for Alanna, with cool desert sorcery and fighting and all. I think this book is what really set the pattern for The Immortals and the Circle of Magic books - Pierce looooves writing kids learning magic, and she's good at it. That said, there are obviously a lot of Issues with the portrayal Bazhir (clearly based off a combo of Islamic folk and Native Americans) as violent and sexist, and Alanna and Jonathan (especially Jonathan, as the Voice) take on kinda cringe white saviour roles. It's not the most explicitly horrible thing ever but it does grate a bit.

4. In the Hand of the Goddess - well, someone had to be last. This is kind of the weird middle child in the quartet, where Alanna is in the midst of becoming a knight but there's a lot of random events that happen in that time. Most of the book is told in a series of vignettes - mainly incidents where Alanna or Jon narrowly avoid death or injury due to Duke Roger's schemes. However, they're a little too disconnected and Alanna's motivation (or lack thereof) is a little too vague until the final scene to satisfy me. The official explanation is that Roger was veiling Alanna so she just kept forgetting to report him, but we never actually see this in the story. She just builds up all these theories and is 100% certain it's him but doesn't tell anyone but Myles because she's certain no one will believe her (and why would they - at this point he's a respected noble). Idk, I just wanted more like....harmony between the ending and these vignettes I guess. Also, there's the horrible cringe subplot of everyone, including the goddess, treating Alanna like she's some frigid old hateful spinster when she's 15 and doing the normal teenage thing of going "I'll never have a boyfriend!!" I just wish some of the patronizing speech had been cut and Alanna discovered her sexuality without all that BS. Also, George is quite creepy in this one, he's quite a bit older than Alanna and she's still underage by modern terms so I didn't enjoy his attempts at romance as much as in the next book.

ANYWAY. Childhood favourites, like 8/10 will read again, just have to brace myself for the 80s-ness of certain things and remember this was the author's first series and she was still experimenting with style.

[no-where-new-hero]

Chapter Three: A Hop Out of Kin

"He makes a better-looking corpse than I thought he would, what with being so wasted and all. He was always a pretty man, though too thin."

I'm so sorry, this is the FUNNIEST possible thing Ellen Greene could say to an 11 year old girl who just lost her father. Did she have an unrequited crush on her eccentric employer? Or is this just a way that Maud can tell us that Emily has staggeringly good genes, despite all the protestations that she's not pretty?

Emily, with an eloquent glance at Ellen's hands, went and got a dish-towel. "Your hands are fat and pudgy," she said. "The bones don't show at all."

Emily does the dishes at last!

"The fact is, Emily Starr, you're queer, and folks don't care for queer children. You talk queer--and you act queer--and at times you look queer."

It probably doesn't say much that Ellen Greene is the one to call Emily queer but hey! Here's the word!

"Why didn't you scrub the floor when Father was alive?" asked Emily. "He liked things to be clean. You hardly ever scrubbed it then. Why do you do it now?"

Emily begins to learn about the evils of doing things for the sake of societal appearances and not for the sake of personal wishes. And now the charms of Eden (the flowering apple tree, the daffodils, the Wind Woman) can't touch her. The fall has begun.

The introduction to all the Murrays is fantastically written--not only do we get searing portraits of them, but we also get a great portrait of Emily through her little rebellions. The fanciful and somewhat soppy child from the first two chapters is brimming over with spunk now, and here's where things start getting very interesting because we also get to hear thoughts from a new character: Aunt Elizabeth: "Though Elizabeth Murray would never have admitted it, she did not want to be snubbed as Wallace and Ruth had been." Though Aunt Ruth is clearly marked as a villainess and Aunt Laura and Cousin Jimmy jump out as sympathetic, Elizabeth remains ambiguous and presents a sliver of vulnerability that is the hallmark of all provocative characters. (I intend to pay a lot more attention to Aunt Elizabeth this go around.)

I remember very little of the 90s show, but I always hated this scene in it, when it shows Emily performing a ritual for her father or some shit when the Murrays arrive. Like?? What the heck is that supposed to be?? It loses Emily's vulnerability and subversiveness and makes her out to be weird without subtlety or pathos. Also Cousin Jimmy was very very poorly handled in that. It always amazed me how much the producers and writers of that fucked up the series because the book has such cinematic clarity from scene to scene, it shouldn't have been that hard. Anyway. Tangent.

[usernamesuggestionsarefunny]

My avatar tla hot take ACTUALLY UNPOPULAR and not just minority opinion is that Azula is a terrible addition to the series. On her own? Oh, her character was great, complex, etc. She is a queen, a great diva, wonderful villain, interesting, deserved a great redemption too (She is 14! A baby!) etc. She just would have suited a magic girl show, a horror movie (in the typical scary, powerful little girl fashion), or a darker, more mature show with more characters like her, meaning child prodigies, better.

Combined with the rest of the atlab story? Kinda makes me laugh. She is such a ridiculous addition that makes it obvious this is a kids’ show. When I first watched the show, Zuko's father and the fact he had branded him was such a serious “oh shit” moment. Like, that is a father whose expectations are truly ridiculously high. It was scary. I mean who could meet them?

Zuko, whether a villain or an anti-hero, was a special, unique character the first few episodes because he was intimately acquainted with the scary main villain in a way no one was.

Then comes Azula. Come at me to debunk me (I may not even try to argue because this is such a weird opinion in the fandom, for real I haven't heard it) but she feels like a writer self-insert. Not a little kid’s writer self-insert, mind you, she feels like a well-written, dark, and complex self-insert or oc written by a talented fic writer in her 30s with years of experience that may become an original writer someday, but an oc nonetheless.

Azula feels like “oh, Zuko could never live up to his evil father’s ideals? Oh here comes my oc Azula, despite being 2 years younger she is soo much better at firebending and does everything better, even being evil, she is the main villain’s golden child and sidekick! And the sister of the main antagonist who interacts with him constantly!” (oh isn't that so cool?) “oh shit wait she needs flaws otherwise she is a villain Sue, let's see.… perfectionism! Perfect flaw! and at the very end after needing a 2 against 1 setting to be defeated she has a mental breakdown, perfect!”

“But gifted children and prodigies exist!!” you may say. Yesss I knowww. She is both too dark of a concept and too corny for atla. I see the flaws and contradictions in the ~vibes~ Azula gives me, thank you anyway. But regardless of rationally being aware of this, the reveal that this powerful character that comes to replace Zuko in causing the gaang trouble (Because let's face it, the beginning of Zuko's redemption arc and needing an even bigger bad to replace him and shock the viewers by how much more dangerous/powerful they are is the whole reason for Azula’s existence) is his 14-year-old LITTLE sister is so… dorky and laughable for me personally. And not only because of her gender in case you come to attack me from that angle. Zuko's prodigy little brother would perhaps have been an even worse and more ridiculous big bad replacement (Girls being shorter is understandable, but with a little brother we would visually see how much Zuko would be able to beat him if this weren't a kids’ show with magic, it would be even harder to suspend my disbelief to). Like, I am sure the reasons I hate the concept are the very same reasons some others love it, but you are telling me that the one capable of fulfilling the evil child burner father's expectations is… simply some rando younger child? It is not that Ozai was a freak who wanted the impossible, it is just that Zuko wasn't it. It is corny, it is dumb. It is so obviously meant for kids. Thanks, I hate it.

Azula also combines in a very weird and bizarre way with Zuko's tragic origin story (Also it is just another source of angst that is completely unnecessary, that distracts from what his father did to him and never living up to his expectations or being too compassionate for his own good, now there is a little sibling in the way being better than him at everything). Call me crazy, but Zuko as an only child, or at least a child without crazy op YOUNGER siblings would have had a MUCH more interesting relationship with his father. Perhaps an even ANGSTIER and more complex relationship where his approval is just within reach but also not quite there. Where it seems conceivable and yet out of reach. Where Ozai is the type of abuser who gives him praise when he does something right just to tear him down mercilessly when he doesn't.

What Zuko has in canon with Ozai and Azula is also interesting, painful, and angsty, but it is “never be able to be this other random younger child who happens to be a prodigy so what is even the point of trying when dad always reminds me of how meh I am compared to her” instead of “never be able to be like my father who is putting all his hopes and that of his empire on me, who at times seems to care so much”. That last one is much more compelling for me personally for a character that ends up being the opposite of his father and learns being like him is not a good thing, it also gives Zuko a good, believable reason to keep trying to please his father: there is actually a chance, there is no one there who has already won the race. Oh my, his search for the Avatar would have made so much more sense without Azula why does Azuka exist in this universe whyy 😭

Don't get me wrong, the sibling rivalry and abusers putting children against each other, having a golden child and a scapegoat, is realistic in many families, but from a storytelling perspective I find it VERY whatever, MEH. Like, the moment Ozai burns Zuko would have been a much greater instance of utter betrayal and shock if Ozai actually acted at times like he had some hope in his son instead of being constantly comparing him to his sister. Now everytime I am made aware of what Ozai did to Zuko I am like “duh” what were you expecting, Zuko, baby? It is still evil as fuck, but no longer shocking or a wtf moment, it is just the boring, edgy and predictable culmination of Ozai already having a “better” child he prefers to succeed him, a total overkill, and in fact, knowing Ozai, he should have done so earlier or straight up had Zuko killed, it makes no sense he is still alive when Azula is a much better successor from his perspective. It means nothing and Zuko should of fing course be traumatized and emotionally and physically distraught by the damage done to him by his own father, but he should not longer logically be that shocked or struck dumb. From a fictional, storytelling perspective, for me personally, the moment loses a tiny bit of its power, at least from the betrayal-someone-who-should-care-for-you—hurting-you—instead aspect.

If I had been there to write the ~big worse bad before Ozai~ meant to replace Zuko as he begins his journey of redemption, I would have chosen something much more serious (I get “abused child soldier” is serious, duh, I just mean serious in a way that makes me fear for the gaang being faced not with a peer but with someone bigger and much more experienced, and not just distract myself with how horrible it is that a “father” makes a 14-year-old girl into a soldier for an invading army). I would have chosen an equally or even more powerful, ADULT, right-hand man (or woman) of Ozai. If it really had to be a sibling of Zuko, it would have been a brother or sister 5 years OLDER, and that is AT THE VERY LEAST, perhaps the son or daughter of a minor wife or concubine (To fix the issue of why they are not the heir and why Zuko could be jealous of their much better skills while at the same time still having a good reason to keep trying to earn their father's approval, which is that there is still time to learn and improve as the younger party, this could have also made Ursa more sympathetic since the “evil” sibling is no longer a child of hers that she emotionally neglected). This could also give the character depth in the sense that they hate the fact they have no claim to the throne despite being older and “better”. They could still care for Zuko while having a love hate relationship with them, a sibling rivalry, Ozai turning them against each other, same as Azula, without taking away from Zuko's interesting relationship with Ozai (I just want his urge to overpower his better sibling to come from a place of his father actually expecting him to do it and be mad he doesn't instead of just Ozai putting all his hopes on the other sibling and Zuko for some plot related reasons still wanting his father's impossible approval despite never being able to earn it because Azula is there, better at a younger age, is that too much to ask? Like at this point Zuko should be smart enough to see that firebending skills are inborn and related to ~fantasy-version-of-genetics~, he should logically have seen it is not his fault and stopped trying to be Ozai or Azula MUCH earlier).

So in summary, believe it or not, I like Azula. I like the whole child prodigy golden child psychologically groomed and abused by evil father angle and I would love a redemption arc for her. I just don't like her AS an atla character. I feel like she does a disservice to Zuko by even existing due to how complex and interesting yet overpowered she is, actually. She ruins his motivations imo. Ironically enough, Zuko does not do a disservice to her, he makes her more interesting because he is a warning of what could happen to her if she is not perfect, he makes her vulnerable. But here is the deal, this would work better if she was the protagonist.

Edit: I just realized it is not just Azula who does a disservice to Zuko's story, it is the whole “Ozai straight up hated the little fucker since birth and tried to kill him before as a child therefore what he did to him was not a consequence of Zuko being compassionate as fuck, Ozai might as well have been looking for an excuse”. It just cheapens it immensely.

Zuko caring for those soldiers still counts just as much (of fucking course), but it would have been more poignant story-wise for his suffering to have also be a direct consequence of his first signs of goodness + his father being an abuser pshyco and not just the latter + Ozai always hated him because Zuko is the good guy and his father’s empire is evil so we need a way to make the children see Zuko is good and not like the rest from the beginning in a painfully simple way by making Ozai inherently hate him or smt because abusers “loving” their children in fucked up ways is too complicated

[hyperactivewhore]

Hi! I just like binge read all of your tvd post and I adore them, I feel like you talk about the Mikaelson the way I feel about them, like I love the characters but they ARE awful and it causes this very push and pull with the way I view them and I'm ngl the fandom doesn't help when I'm trying to acknowledge the pit falls of the characters. that and I can't articulate the way I view characters well and I just really appreciate how multi dimensionally you view them because it really refreshing to see some one put it into words in a way I can't.

I don't know if this is the kind of thing you do or anything but I was wondering if I could ask you your opinion on Kai Parker? I feel like I view him the way I do Klaus and kol in sense. Like obviously he's a bad person but I feel like the level of fucked up he is and why hes that level of fucked up makes him a really interesting and enjoyable character for me, and it's kinda hard for me to say this because I Adore Bonnie Bennett. I personally don't believe liking one character cancels out the liking another but seeing how the fandom acts about it especially how many people will stand by Kia entirely and make Bonnie out to be this monster (because they're racist weirdos point blank.) makes it harder for me to feel comfortable voicing my intrestest in him as a character. Now I do think a lot of factors played into Kai becoming who he is and I can understand why people would empathize with him but I don't think it justifys how weird they are to Bonnie, yk? Idk this wasn't about Bonnie I got carried away but yeah I'd love your option about Kia Parker if you have one. I also understand entirely if you don't like him obviously everyone's entitled to there opinion and he did kill his siblings and stuff, but I'd love to hear your opinion on him regardless if your interested,that is. have a good day/night :)

Hello, love! I'm really glad you do, and I definitely agree. This fandom is very, very strict in which characters you can like and which ones you cannot. It's exhausting, to be honest.

I definitely like Kai, he was the only thing that kept my attention glued to the screen after the Originals left and he made the plot more entertaining. He was funny, downright evil and enjoyable to watch, but he was, at least for me, a very obvious mix between all the main villains/antagonists (Klaus, Damon, Kol, Katherine), and the writers clearly intended for their audience to see him as irredeemable, and this is of course tied to the fact there were no available white women to beacon him into "becoming a better person". Bonnie was around, but for obvious reasons she could never be that woman, though the writers certainly played around bonkai, having Kai have a clear interest in her even after she wasn't the key to make him escape his prison world.

I definitely think Kai had a rough childhood and did not deserve to be isolated, though that obviously doesn't excuse what he did to his siblings, but that's what makes him a good character in my eyes. He was a good antagonist but an awful evil person, the circumstances surrounding why he became that person are tragic and sad, and that's okay, because that's in my opinion exactly what a character like Kai should be. And no, that doesn't excuse what he did to his family either, before anyone thinks that's what I was implying.

Though I do not understand why Kai gets so much hate over the whole "killing children" as if the Mikaelson or the Salvatore had gone through centuries of their lives without harming a single child (Klaus ordered to have his unborn daughter killed, for god's sake), and it's really funny how bonkai is portrayed as this top awful abusive couple when every single ship in tvd is. I definitely get the appeal of Bonnie and Kai, the only thing that prevents me from shipping them is the fact she nearly killed herself because of him, there are a few lines I won't cross when it comes to shipping, sa/rape and suicide are on that list, but people need to stop acting like they're worse than the other more popular couples.

To summarize it, I like Kai a lot, I understand why some other people don't (I do, really!), but nothing justifies what he put his family and Bonnie through.

Thanks for the ask, darling. You have a good day/night too!

[uptoolateart]

Having now seen the finale three times, details have popped out. I still hate hate hate that Adrien was not there in the final battle...but I think I see what the writers were trying to do.

As we know, there is so much fairytale imagery / allusion in the show, like Rapunzel, Bluebeard, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Pinocchio in a way, Cinderella, etc.

At the start of Conformation, Adrien has been removed from Paris and the mansion - effectively, his kingdom.

He's locked in that room, plagued with his own worst thoughts. He only has his painful unconscious to keep him company. This mirrors Snow White being cast into the woods, running in terror from shadows, the woods and shadows being a classic symbol for parts of our unconscious we are afraid to acknowledge.

He is then tempted with the Alliance and eventually gives in, in mimicry of Snow White accepting the poisoned apple offered by the witch. The apple puts her to sleep. The ring seems to hypnotise Adrien, dulling his senses like sleep.

The action then happens without him, just as in Snow White and Sleeping Beauty the action is all done by the prince.

I said in a previous post (non-ml, just looking at fairytales) that there have been psychoanalytical studies of fairytales to show that they work like dreams - every character is an aspect of one person, so the prince is another part of the princess taking over, to help her break free and mature beyond the child stage. The witch is also the princess, but the part tentative about growing up - and also represents all the adults in her life, afraid to let go of their child.

In Miraculous, though, it really is just Marinette being the prince saving the unconscious princess, and this is what irks me. We will come back to this.

After the Wish, we see Adrien asleep. Marinette leans over to kiss him and he wakes up. It's an odd little moment at a noisy pool party, which is what made it stand out to me. It's the kiss of true love waking him from the spell after the witch / dragon has been defeated. And really, this is where it becomes more like Sleeping Beauty, because that involved a real battle.

And if that's Emilie by the pool, she too is a Sleeping Beauty figure who's just been brought back.

The implication is supposed to be that Adrien has grown up a lot through this, and the demons in his life and mind have been vanquished..although I guess time will tell if this is true.

There was also a lot in the finale about nightmares, like think of this as a nightmare and the Alliance will free you from it, etc etc. When Adrien wakes, it's like everything before it was a bad dream.

But, as my husband commented, all that bad dream stuff is what MADE Ladybug and Cat Noir's relationship. It's what led to them being chosen. It's what changed their lives and helped them grow, so arguably it's what brought them together as Adrien and Marinette.

These bad experiences shape us. We can use them to become better people. Without them, we change.

Adrien cannot be the same person, if his mother is alive...especially if they all believe she's been there the whole time. I guess we will see about that, too. His mother's absence was the initial catalyst for all his growth as a person. He actually needed the dragons. He needs to KNOW about those dragons.

I said ages back that we had a classic Bluebeard scenario, where we were waiting for the princess to open the forbidden door and find all the skeletons in the evil husband's closet. By keeping Adrien out of the basement, he never opened that door.

In some way, he needs to be the prince who vanquishes the monster. Otherwise, he hasn't truly woken up. I don't care how good Marinette's kisses are. He is stuck in an infantile state and unable to grow.

Okay, I...managed to talk myself back round to finding his absence in the battle seriously irritating. But listen - maybe it's frustrating on purpose because they are using this as a plot point for the next stage of the story. I have no idea. But this is why it is so frustrating and doesn't hit the emotional mark. This is what needs to be addressed.

Because right now...Marinette has taken over the Bluebeard story. She is the one with the locked secret room containing all the skeletons of HIS past. We NEED him to open this door and have a genuine awakening. She is taking the Guardian thing too far, watching over rather than simply supporting. She is doing to Adrien what he accuses her of as Ladybug - forgetting he's her partner and leaving him out of vital information.

[misrepresentedmorallygrey]

PROPAGANDA

Jason Todd

Jason is as someone else put it succinctly "a mass-murdering terrorist and tax-evader". He does evil, the story constantly condemns him as evil and sinful and thuggish and stupid and uneducated and overemotional. He does have a lower and more selective kill count than Luke Skywalker, John Wick, Disney Mulan, etc. So you got part of the fandom writing an annoying flood of fan fiction about him being a warm soft nice guy skipping through the daisies with his fam (hey have fun, guys). Then you got another side picking out the worst ex-canon comics for him (while they ignore the worst ex-canon comics for their own fave characters i.e. "my fave only did evil because of a mind-control potion, but Jason always chooses to be evil even though the story and the writer himself said he was crazy and broken and suffering from magic insanity")... and accuse him of being a cop (he is a cop-hating cop-killing terrorist murderer criminal thuggy thug thug constantly being hunted by law enforcement in a world bursting to the brim with actual copaganda while the heroes regularly cooperate with police—so many anti-fans are misusing the term copaganda because they hate this fictional character to the point they want to train people to be blind to actual copaganda). Jason is absolutely a villain—and he returned to his hometown when it was a battlefield with hundreds killed in the latest conflict, ruled over by a child-killing torture-enthusiast. War is always wrong and evil, and Jason was raised to be a soldier in that war—and when the promises of justice and safety never came true, he decided to seize power through murder. Jason is evil. He is inarguably a lesser evil than what usually plagues the town. Innocent people are alive because he got his hands dirty. He is such an asshole. People like him should not exist. He shot a 10-year-old in the chest, and nobody not even the 10-year-old cared the next day because it really wasn't a big deal. He was kidnapped by a billionaire with a taste for young boys, and it's literally not a big deal. His crimesagainst fashion are unforgivable tho.

Batman's adopted son and second Robin that got killed by the Joker and came bag to enact a revenge plan by becoming a Gotham drug lord. He had a duffel bag of 8 decapitated heads at some point and planted a bomb on the Batmobile and then got his throat slit by Batman to save the Joker. He stole his older adoptive brother's (first Robin) identity and blew up a high school but he forbade Gotham's drug rings from selling to children and actually became an anti-hero in Gotham and killed the people Batman wouldn't (rapists, drug lords, etc.). He attacked his little adoptive brother (third Robin) and beat him to a bloody pulp. He also slept with Batman's baby mama. He raised a fucked up Superman clone with kindness. He has lead teams of Outlaws on multiple occasions that love him. He's on good terms with many (not all) of Gotham's vigilantes.

Listen. I love the guy, I love him dearly, but I feel like people these days are trying to make him like completely justified in everything he did?? And like you can see where he’s coming from, sure, but my man did absolutely beat Tim Drake, a teen, half to death for the crime of being Robin. He’s morally gray! He had decapitated heads in duffle bags! Let my guy be morally gray please stop woobifying him

Jason Todd is regularly stripped of his autonomy in fandom to make him more palatable and “redeemable”. They attribute his legitimate trauma, annger, and pain driven actions to “pit madness” a side effect of the way he was resurrected. Not only that but so many people don’t even know what he actually does when he comes back, it’s like a shitty game of telephone where each person tells the next a slightly altered version of his return and at the end everyone thinks that Jason hates the kid who took up the Robin mantle after him and wants to kill him and that he is mad at Bruce for no reason and all Bruce needs to do is tell Jason that he is loved (despite Jason having a lot of evidence to the contrary) and everything will be all better. His values and beliefs and convictions are treated as invalid and his trauma is something he needs to just get over because it’s inconvenient and harmful to everyone else and doesn’t he know that everyone else was also traumatized by his death?

vigilante who kills people • traumatized as hell • has trouble differentiating between good deeds and selfishness • shot his little brother on the spine • tried to kill his other two brothers • operates under the belief that controlling evil is the only way to help innocents • has an immesurable love for the people of Gotham and really wants them to be happy and safe!! • please for the love of god fandom stop talking about him as if the bad things hes done are forgiveable AND as if the good things he's done don't matter

Gonna be honest even canon misinterprets him. There's no winning. All you need to know about DC universe is that multiple different writers have had a go at writing him and every time he is wildly different which is maybe why people interpret him very differently?? Canon interprets him in a he did everything wrong way a lot of times and fanon interprets him in a he did nothing wrong way because he is blorbo to many, when he is very much someone who did a lot of shit wrong but also had a lot going on, while thats still not an excuse for like, a lot of maiming and murder, and (usually) later in the timeline he is less trigger happy and has evened out from villain to morally grey, his whole "redemption" to being morally grey is usually up to fan interpretation whether or not they're chill with letting him keep murdering bad people or they say no murder in general, and whether or not bats is chill with the whole he keeps murdering people thing since he has a staunch no murder stance. Also!! a lot of people in fanon write in the whole pit insanity thing as a way to excuse a lot of the things he did while in his full on villain era, and like,,, i don't think that was canon??? like i straight up think the whole pit madness thing was made up but a lot of DC canon is wibbly wobbly already so its hard to say. hope this wasn't too word salady but i hope you understand that whenever you are consuming any piece of media, canon or fanon, with this man in it you have literally no idea what you are stumbling into you, you are playing fucking spin the wheel, which flavour of Jason Todd are we reading about today. I will say though, canon does objectively treat him like dogshit and only really brings him back every now and then as a punching bag for Batsy whenever they want to have edgy emo abusive dad bruce wayne because comic writers think found family is for chumps and so is being a good parent and actively resist it with every ounce of their soul :/ so I understand why fanon strays so far away, it's just that fanon also can't seem to agree on the degree of morally grey he is?? idk someone save Jason it's the worst custody battle of the century between canon and fanon.

Miguel O'Hara

he is dj internalized homophobia. he is so so sick in the head

[bonefall]

Oooh, can you talk about the meta reason you rewrote the blizzard holly relationship and blackstar's backstory?

HOKAY

But I'm gonna preface this one; I hate Blackfoot's Reckoning. I think it's one of the most "solid" written books in the series and I still fucking hate it. I talk about authoritarianism on this blog a lot, and I think BFR was the one time that the series actually tried to textually address what they'd put on the page.

So TW for fascism, including discussion of an incredibly unfortunate quote from the book that is either an accidental or purposeful invocation of the Nuremberg Defense.

Blackfoot's Reckoning is a book that's supposed to delve into Blackfoot's backstory, what made him the cat he was during TPB. Throughout the book they're questioning, "what made him act the way he did?" And trying to drive home that Blackfoot needs to learn from his mistakes so that he doesn't repeat them

But, at the same time, they cling to their slimy Good and Evil dichotomy. So the book decides that Blackstar wasn't an Evil cat, no, he was just a Good Mislead Boy Who Loved His Clan. He's constantly lied to, mislead, people are murdered and he's duped into believing whoever gets framed, suppressing critical thought about his actions. They're trying to both write a "reckoning," but also make his motivations more sympathetic.

So in between questions of, "Is Blackstar really a Bad Boy?" and happy rewards for Blackstar when he goes through a memory, they've decided to shove in replays of Blackstar's most gruesome moments but this time he frowns :( and feels Guilty when he does them. In the eyes of the writers, if you feel sad doing hate crimes, that means there's a goodness inside of you actually.

And just like Clear Sky, all Blackstar "needed" was divine intervention. You can simply retcon in a "reckoning," even if it was never in the main series for the 10+ years the character was alive and active.

But it's not enough that Blackstar himself was getting a stupid retcondemption. No, see, they have to remind you that he was following evil people. The dichotomy inherently crunches away the nuance-- Good and Evil are inherent qualities. Tigerstar and Brokenstar are Evil People. Blackstar asks, "If I was following Evil People, what does that make me?"

The narrative concludes, "A Good Person, but mislead."

And because they can't have nuance with their Good and Evil dichotomy (or couldn't at the time), they failed to address the authoritarianism spectacularly. Think I'm reaching?

They literally wrote the Nuremberg Defense into their book. I'm not doing hyperbole, Blackstar word-for-word thinks the Nuremberg Defense, "I Was Just Following Orders," but then they bury it in a barrage of scenes showing he's Actually A Nice Guy who is Sad to do Bad Things. Either they attempted and failed to do something more meaningful with this book, OR they are so fucking stupid they accidentally included the famous Nazi officer legal defense for a character who DOES A HATE CRIME for a racist dictator.

What was IN TPB was a Blackstar who supported a massacre and expulsion against another group, was complicit in the use of child soldiers, and rehearsed a public execution for a mixed-race character. Like it or not, this is a really heavy subject... and what they decided to do was downplay every one of his actions, because he was good deep down.

And I just find that disgusting. This was ABSOLUTELY the wrong conclusion. They can't show Blackstar ACTUALLY being bigoted. They can't delve into REAL hate, or the idea that maybe he LIKED the power he had over people. Those are Evil People Things. He has to "know," deep down, that what he's doing is wrong.

He cannot have a real change, in spite of the title of the shitty book being Blackfoot's "RECKONING," because he is not bad to begin with.

So, Hollyflower and Blizzardwing.

To recap for everyone who didn't read BFR; Hollyflower is raising her three kits alone because Blizzardwing cheated on Featherstorm with her. Black only learns that he is an accident because he stayed up late one night and overheard an argument. By day, he gets bullied by Clawpaw specifically that he might be mixed-Clan and has to seethe over the truth he knows.

it's dumb. I'm sorry. This is dumb and boring, which is even worse

The war criminal was bullied as a child and that's why he did bad things :( He was good all along he was just sad :( shut up shut up shut up

The "bad environment" he was raised into was... having a single mom and being suspected of maybe being half-clan, but then learning that he isn't half-clan, and being indignant that he can't just share the information he knows about because it would make things complicated or something idk

None of this particularly contributes to his mindset as an adult because he does not HAVE a unique mindset as an adult.

He was just nebulously Sad and followed whatever strongman leader came along, constantly being tricked and bamboozled by outright lies.

"Omg WindClan killed Raggedstar >:0 ??? Oughhhhh that butters my biscuits... was it wrong that Brokenstar sent my baby nephew to battle? No, nevermind that thought that makes me uncomfortable :("

He never has any particular bigotries that were exploited, he was just tricked and mislead the entire time, while also being sad, because God Forbid Blackstar ever have been an 'evil cat'

He gets THANKED by his dead parents for keeping the secret??????????????????? girl ok.....

as usual the bully itself never really gets addressed

It was cheap and easy to just make Blackfoot's backstory the same shitty 'bullying' they write for most villains. This bullying is how he ends up bonding with Brokenkit, a villainous 5-year-old who says, "other cats don't matter" because he's eeeeeevil.

They're supposed to have a commonality connection, Blackstar who is Good Deep Down and Brokenstar who is Evil Deep Down, and that is supposed to serve as the reason why Blackstar willingly blinds himself to the incredibly obviously evil things that his superiors do.

His flaw isn't that he had bad intentions, it's that he didn't think.

FUCK that. FUCK this book. FUCK the Erins for trying to say that there are fundamentally good and bad people. That with the death of Tigerstar, of Brokenstar, of whoever, the society gets to return to 'peace' because now there's no Evil Tyrant to lead everyone astray.

The Erin's depictions of hard childhoods are sauceless. Dry, unbuttered, burnt bread. You want to see a BAD home environment? I'll SHOW you a bad home environment, not just a single teenager being rude. You wanna see the sorts of conditions that prime young people to joining radical causes for a sense of belonging? I'll GIVE you those conditions. Let's TALK about what bounces around in the head of people who aid and abet tyrants.

It's not this dumb ass sadboy shit I'll tell you that much

[theerurishipper]

What Marinette did at the end of season 5 is dangerous lesson to internalize to young children because if people are dissecting and going deeply in depth with s5 episodes like Derision and the final two parter episode and mind you these are adults or at least pass the age intended for this show demographic how are young kids living similar lives to adrian or chloe going to be affected? Kids brats or not react differently the whole good victim mentality narrative in this show is disgusting when it comes to the topic of akumas and how it relates to mental health. Like if there is a chloe or adrien child watching this show I feel horrible for them because what hope or closure do they really get from this show what lesson imparted in this show is actually being taught in goodwill like did the producers or whoever behind it not see how bad the messaging with their abuse apologist is how are parents not complaining or at the very least concerned?

I was whirl-winded by the finale in of itself and what I got was Marinette essentially following through with the villains plan and keeping it from her love interest while simultaneously gaslighting about his father decisions and making the parent abuser a hero and his victim Adrien in awe.

If adults are trying to rationalize or do whatever they can to scrap whatever integrity left in Marinette character decisions making theories to salvage the wreckage done in the finale two-parter how are children or middle-schoolers rationalizing this because I deeply sincerely hope they don't ever internalize anything from this show the message they impart especially in one of the episodes revolving from Chloe Father especially and the leak episodes they eventually had to scrap because of the backlash is so damn bad.

Like forget the potential what if or canons or annoyance the fandom didn't get their wants with this show because ultimately the show is for kids not them what lesson do we learn here?

I am actually worried. This is a magical girl cartoon aren't the lesson they're supposed to invoke about to teach love and their is hope to change like Digimon for instance they had a character named Ken and Daiki encouraging him and his belief in the mc made him changed so much into a better person. But no, instead Marinette being like Chloe can never change there is no hope from her mouth makes me want to wrangle the writers and people behind it I hope they aren't parents because wtf? Who behind the decisions there for children to consume this sort of trash messaging in forgiving abuse apologist like Gabe.

She's supposed to be a role model but no instead Astruc uses her as a tool to spout whatever grievances he has with the fandom onto the show and characters inside it especially Chloe. I really don't recommend a show like MLB to anyone honestly unless they are aware of this show dumb messaging and people buying into it.

Exactly. It's so obvious that Marinette just ended up becoming a mouthpiece for the writers to spout their own opinions towards the end, like having her go on numerous anti-Chloe tirades. And I'm not saying that Chloe doesn't deserve to be called out, but it's done so unnaturally, and it feels like the writers are just desperate to get us to hate her without acknowledging any of the character depth they gave her.

And I'm not a Chloe stan or anything, and I do think that it's okay to show that sometimes, people can't change and that victims of abuse can become abusers themselves. But we didn't get that. We got the show telling us, in no uncertain terms, that Chloe is bad because she's evil inside and not because of abuse that we see on screen, and that her father who enabled her and taught her how to be this way is a victim and is more redeemable than her. The fuck is this???

And it just gets worse, because Chloe is evil inside and irredeemable and deserves more abuse as her comeuppance, but the magical terrorist/child abuser gets off scott-free? Gabriel Agreste gets what he wanted and dies happy and content while leaving behind a favorable legacy? What the fuck?

So yeah. I feel bad for the abused children who are watching this show, who are being told that their abuse doesn't matter, that they are just being overly sensitive/are evil inside, and only deserve more abuse. What a wonderfully horrible message.

Thank you for your ask!

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

I hate how She-Ra tries so hard to demonize the heroes/main characters of the show to make the villains looks better.

Like calling out Glimmer for her actions depite her being the only one with an actual plan (i mean, she was being a little shit but at least she accomplished more than Adora), making Adora looks like the villain for leaving Catra, the heroes attacking Scorpia depite her not oposing any treat, Bow and Adora going after Entrapta only so she could help them (like, for real they only think about Entrapta when is convinient for them) and the constant remarks about them leaving her behind.

I like when heroes have flaws they have to overcome, but the princesses um She-Ra always act so unfriendly sometimes that it makes the show looks way more cynical then it should be, which is weird since is supose to be a show about friendship, but none of these characters seem to have any reason to be friends other than necessity

i totally agree! i'm a sucker for flawed heroes, but the thing with she-ra is that their characters are just not well-written at all. they've clearly not done any prior planning to the story so it all seems like muddy water.

for example, some mistakes that the princesses make are considered worse than the others. glimmer lashing out at adora was given the narrative weight it needed, and she had to apologize later. but perfuma and the others being ableist towards entrapta is never mentioned. instead entrapta has to prove herself to them, when she had no reason to.

and yeah, entrapta was really just a tool for the princesses (and for catra too ofc). they only needed her because she was useful. like you said, the "friendship" between the princesses make no sense because half of the time they're fighting and the other half they're begrudgingly working together. they seem more like coworkers than anything. and there's nothing wrong with that, but the show wants us to believe that these characters are close friends while not bothering to write them that way.

remember when the S1 finale had that whole "power of friendship" trope? i swear it was so painful to sit through. the only real friendship i could see was between adora, glimmer and bow. the rest of the princesses always had trouble working together and even seemed to hate each other sometimes. but then out of the blue, they're suddenly the closest of friends and defeat the evil villain with the power of believing in each other or whatever.

i went off on a tangent, but i think the reason the princesses were so unlikeable is because the writers wanted to make them “different” (they're not your standard princesses, they're cynical or aggressive or whatever) but didn't want to give them enough depth to make us like or relate to them. if you want to look at well-written flawed characters, there's korra from the legend of korra, wirt from otgw, literally all the protags from infinity train. this is because these characters have depth, we see enough sides to them to understand why they are the way they are. not to mention, each of these characters explored their issues and got good character development by the end of the series.

for example, korra is arrogant and reckless because she was the prodigy raised almost in isolation, and she didn't know enough about the real world to navigate it. tulip was cynical and quick to anger because her parents got divorced and she had been secretly blaming herself for it. lake was aggressive and rebellious because she lived in a system where she would be killed for not fitting the norm. all of these characters are relatable in some sense, because we get enough character exploration.

meanwhile, why is mermista so cynical and sardonic? who knows. why is perfuma impatient and prone to anger and ableist? couldn't tell you. frosta had something of a character arc but it still didn't go anywhere, besides stripping her of any unique personality she had, and turning her into the typical chaos child. these princesses are so 2d that they're not relevant to the plot at all. take them out of the show and i'm pretty sure there would be no difference.

[sorcerous-caress]

I had two thoughts that I can't stop thinking

First was like the obvious like girl dad male drow and Minthara. Cute, Intense TM couple and their warrior daughters. But the second thought was like would it get angsty if Minthara had a son?

Dude i literally had this exact same thought when i answered the ask.

Minthara in-depth Character study + Media literacy 101 below cut.

[Tw: themes of abuse discussed]

First of all

Characters are tools.

All characters are not real, Minthara is not a real person. She is pixels, Minthara can't abuse or be abused because she isn't real.

What she can do, is be a tool or a puppet to tell a story about abuse.

Second of all

Evil characters are not bad characters. Morally wrong characters are not bad writing.

A character doesn't have to be good, moral or have a redemption arc. A character only needs to be compelling, interesting and dynamic.

Third of all

The writers aren't horrible people or freaks for putting a character through trauma or shitty events. Their job is to make an interesting story and not a life guidance manual for newborns.

These shitty events happen to real-life people. Go direct your energy to helping them instead of fictional characters depictions that allow safe exploration of dark themes where no real people are getting harmed.

I'm so proud of you for understanding this. Here is your complimentary media literacy degree. 🎊

Minthara was written to be a typical drow, she was never meant to be the good drow that stands out or rejects the brutality of drow culture.

The drow twins in sharess caress are the unique good drows that completely opted out of drow culture.

Minthara was never meant to be that, no matter how much you twist her or try to look for a deeper meaning. At her core, even after abandoning Lolth, she still abids by drow culture rules for her own personal life.

She is aware of how cruel it is, she accepts and likes it.

Sure, some aspects she hates, she isn't really a huge enthusiastic fan of it. But she likes it enough to still apply it even when she is outside of the underdark, it shows in how she treats Gale or the other people who aren't companions.

Now a final thing to keep in mind.

Minthara adores us the most, as in us the player, not Tav, not Durge, not anyone. Doesn't matter who you end up picking or if you even pick an origin character, as long as you follow her questline, she admits to you being the person she admires the most.

That child is ours too, the player.

Because of that, we can never truly see Minthara as she really is. All of our view of her are wrapped and biased Because she is literally being her nicest self around us. We can only get glimpses of how cruel she is to strangers in stray conversations or throw away lines. Even if you have low approval with her, she still admires you the most.

She is a lawful evil character.

As in evil evil and not Astarion grey evil.

Astarion approves of bullying a child, Minthara approves of killing a child.

And that to me makes her a very compelling and interesting character, I love her dynamic and personality. Much like how I think Cazador is an amazing character because of how good he is at being a tool in a story about cycles of abuse. He more than fulfilled his role which makes him a great addition that shouldn't be changed, redeemed or watered down.

So about the child.

In Minthara's datamined lines, it is clear that she plans to enforce drow culture rules on her child no matter what.

They are abusive by nature, yes.

While some might think a son would have a much worse time than a daughter, I disagree.

While Minthara would resent having a son for how useless she deems males, at the end of the day he will meet her expectations of being a complete waste of space and pregnancy. Kept there for breeding for the bloodline.

But if a daughter doesn't meet her expectations? Do you realise the implications of that. Minthara a previous Baerne princess birthing a weakling of a female drow that can't even yell at someone without crying? Minthara would rain hellfire upon her.

It's more than a shame, a complete disgrace.

Her daughter is supposed to grow to be strong enough to kill her and take her place, that is the cycle of life.

Also about the child itself, you would still be the other parent.

The relationship with Minthara in the game can be controlling and possessive at times. And to remind you, that is the toned down version of her flaws because again, she adores us.

But i don't think it's far fetched for her to do most of the work when it comes to actually raising the kid, she likes to be in control.

Also side note, i have been only talking about her evil side and flaws so far and I wanted to remind you that she isn't just that. Her personality has so much more and there is depth and genuine love in her, it's something that we are also her first ever romantic love. And let's not forget on how she even encourages Gale in act 3 to leave Mystra. Minthara isn't a black or white character, she is a fully flushed out and filled with many complex concept tool.

She doesn't want to break the cycle of abuse, that's her major flaw. It's not something she seeks or even attempts to do. It's not even a debate to her, she simply acknowledges it and lets it be.

Her good ending is starting a new noble drow house with durge for fucks sake.

She cherry picks which areas she "breaks" from. Lolth worshipping for example, and she only extends respect and love to her companions. While the rest of the world gets the same treatment from her that they'd get from a typical drow Matron.

Okay note over, so proud of you for still reading btw, you're an excellent student. Have this imaginary star sticker on your brain.

I have so much to say about her that this post barely even scrapes the surface of what I think about her.

As long as you, the player, intervene and show her that parenting is both of your responsibilities, then I think you can really smooth down a lot of her sharp edges.

I mean the same argument could be said for Laeze, isn't training a child to fight at 12 also a form of abuse?

Not a single one of the companions is equipped to be a parent, not at their current states. Maybe Halsin tho, he has the best potential to be a parent stand in. Tho he has a major flaw of not realising that having too many kids means your attention will be spreadthin and that is a form of neglect abuse. Goodmeaning or not, he won't be a very good parent because he underestimates his capabilities in favour for naive optimism.

I've side tracked a lot ngl.

But yeah that's the jest of it, Minthara would be a shitty mom. Like it or hate it, it doesn't matter because she isn't real and she isn't a mom. She is a tool to tell a story about a shitty mom and she is succeeding at it.

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

Well about the perception of Volo vs Kamado thing, and why more people don’t hate Volo, I have my own reflections (pretty privilege is absolutely a factor tho let’s be real 😂)

Everyone growing up has at least one story of an adult being super unfair to you, even though you were doing everything right. Their own biases and experiences could be understood later once you were older and calmer reflecting back on the incident, like a teacher who snapped at you maybe had a super long day of wrangling hundreds of children. But we never forget how it feels in that moment to have those who should be guiding us be unfair and seemingly unreasonable. So naturally that’s gonna hurt when you get kamado being paranoid.

Volo on the other hand is just absolutely delightful I’m sorry maybe if Kamado put on a silly outfit and hair for his boss battle instead of plate mail he’d have more art. Like you said Volos betrayal is one and done really, he acts like a theater kid and then dips. You have to keep seeing kamado being in charge in the game after his blunders for a while which can rub people the wrong way. (Also this is maybe just me but I never trusted Volo just like I never trusted Cynthia as a kid, and finding out he was evil was a great moment of vindication I CANT be the only one who experienced this)

TLDR we see unfairness way more than we see someone betray us while making their hair like a god horse

well, you heard them, kamado. time to go get the jester outfit. cmon chop chop it's to redeem your image

yeah, the point abt getting burned by adults in authority is also very fair. most of us were not scarred for life by theater kid antics lol. the other thing abt it is that often those same adults never really face any consequences. you were always just expected to move on, suck it up etc. cause that's life as a kid right. sometimes ppl will use their power over you just to flex their limited authority, or to vent whatever's going on in their home life, and this doesn't really stop when you grow up it's just that when you're a kid basically every adult has that authority position. so it's just expected that there's nothing you can do. i mean unless you decide to be the karmic force of justice in your own life by being the most stubborn bitch of a child to walk the earth. not that i would know anything about that cough

uh anyway. the thing is the thing btwn you and kamado isn't about about child vs adult. you're more or less considered an adult yourself by jubilife, albeit a rather young and more importantly low ranking one. like we've said (a million times already lol) kamado's not doing it just to grasp at a sense of control, he's reacting to what he perceives as a very real threat to his village (and also because the writers clocked him in the face with the idiot ball for plot advancement reasons lbr).

and the thing is kamado DOES, kind of, face consequences and own up to his mistakes by the end of the game. also after the red sky event he's like, REALLY nice to you lol. not just briefly either! imo you can tell that he sincerely respects you and regrets his actions in the red sky. go look at his late game quotes-

"Perhaps you are a divine being yourself, sent to bring us gifts from above... "I know I've no right to say this... But we are truly fortunate to have been able to count you among the Survey Corps' ranks. If you had not joined us, we would have fallen on Mount Coronet. We would have lost our home. We would have lost our future." "I'm grateful to you for showing me what a heartening presence Pokémon can be. We must spar again sometime!" "<player>, forgive me for taking so much of your time [telling you about the Galaxy name.] Please accept this as a sort of apology."

like he's trying to make up for the way they were treated earlier and give them the proper treatment they're owed for all their help.

idk i don't have a good way to conclude this i guess. i just think he's a cool character

[theflavorofmyautismisspicy]

Why I like Vanessa/Natasha

Here’s some incoherent thoughts about why I think they have a lot of potential together (and also some thoughts about their characters in general I kinda just went off with this at times)

They share the same struggle since both of them get judged for their hobby because it’s not something that’s seen as “traditionally female”, with Nessie being into soccer and Nata being into skateboarding. Something I also find very interesting is that due to this Vanessa hates pink high heels as she feels like they represent what the world is expecting her to be just because she’s a girl and Natasha hates pink ballet shoes for the same reason. Maybe pink shoes were just the only thing that the writers could think of to represent a thing girls are expected to be interested in, but I still think them both having hate for such a specific thing really just shows similar their struggle is. They also have similarities in their personalities, they’re both shown to be stubborn, moody, sarcastic, have hard time accepting help from others, passionate about sports and they both also have a softer side to them.

Speaking of which, I know a few people have already talked about this but it was honestly just such a missed opportunity from the show to not have these two become friends😭 Like they could’ve bonded over the struggle they share, it would’ve been great for Vanessa to get a female friend (maybe a controversial opinion but I’ve actually always interpreted Vanessa being able to let go of her internalized misogyny at the end of s1e4. Like that episode is painful with its “strong female character is when a girl hates other girls and is more like one of the boys”, even as a child it left a bad taste in my mouth. It’s very much this clip from Sonic Boom https://youtu.be/dWBn0nS8s0A?si=HxN5Xq90vPPQrLE0 expect the writers stopped listening before Knuckles started speaking. However I don’t think internalized misogyny was really a problem that Vanessa had through the series, I don’t really think she acts like that way in the other episodes, but maybe that’s just wishful thinking on my part. However the writers could have made the internalized misogyny not being a thing she deals with anymore more clear, if that was their intention like I hope it was, by giving her a female friend). I think it would’ve also been great for Natasha’s character and especially her redemption arc if she bonded with Vanessa and even made amends to her since that’s who she caused most problems for. It has always bothered me how that was just never acknowledged so having them fix things between them would’ve been so good. Have them skate and play soccer together !!

Okay now it’s time for me to sound a bit delusional and say that these two had some very gay enemies tension in some scenes. Like the “hey Adora” sort of tension.

I couldn’t stop thinking about this scene after I first saw it when I was like 8 but I couldn’t understand why. Peak antagonist flirting with the hero

Yeah that’s the look everyone gives to their enemy

Natasha, did you really just go to hang out next to Teufelstopf on your free time just in case Vanessa would ride by and you could yell a few mean words at her? Man you’re obsessed🤨

Can’t believe toxic yuri was invented by a kids show about soccer.

And lastly to tie it all together, I just think these two have a dynamic you could use in a lot of different ways in fanworks. There’s the whole enemies with gay tension and evil flirting I just talked about. The whole “hey Adora” dynamic is always interesting. There’s the possibility to give these two what the writers didn’t dare to do and have them bond with each others and realize they’re actually quite similar. Enemies to friends to lovers with Natasha facing the fact that her dislike toward Vanessa was probably born from her jealousy towards her (like her thinking “she’s a girl yet she’s allowed to play soccer but I’m also a girl and I’m not allowed to skate? If I can’t have that neither can she!”) and then having a redemption arc and becoming friends with Vanessa and then falling for her. If you think internalized misogyny was still a thing Vanessa struggled even after her introduction episode (all though I personally don’t agree with that, I’m not surprised people read it that way, the show fell really flat with its “feminist” message) have her unlearn it thanks to her friendship with Natasha and then realize “wow I’ve been suppressing my true feelings and I actually want to kiss girls, especially Natasha”. They could light pink shoes on fire together and call it a date. Maybe make them date in secret because their friend groups don’t get along and create a Romeo and Juliet like situation for them to deal with. Or have them be sporty girlfriends in an established relationship that watch each other play and then flirt.

So yeah in conclusion, girls should kiss girls👍👍