#like hes an asshole but i always felt SO BAD FOR HIM sympathetic villain done right | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lanarist · 3 years

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Hii, I really loved your Plug!Dabi headcanon, I was wondering if you can do a mini fic of him dating the reader or something like that.. if not that’s okay!! Also I love your writing 🥰💕

a/n: Absofuckinglutely I can. This got me so excited. Also thank you for your kind words 🥰 I did not expect my first time publishing my writing to get this much attraction but I’m grateful! I hope this is to your liking 💙

Plug! Dabi head cannon right here

Warnings: drug use, drug dealing, slight violence, guns, lil bit of foreplay, intercourse.

we got a lil bit of everything in here. smut, fluff, and angst.

Also, minors DNI✨

Tags: @bakugosbratx

Sunlight poured in through the blinds of your lover’s room as you began waking up from your slumber. Your eyes were still closed but you could hear the soft ruffling of drawers being shut and jingling of car keys.

“Baby, wake up for a sec,” Dabi cooed while rubbing your bare back, “I gotta go make a sell real quick. I’ll be back.”

“Wait,” You whisper, voice still groggy. You raise yourself on your elbows and squint your eyes. “Can I come with you?”

Dabi sighs. It’s not that he doesn’t want you to tag along with him. He loves having you in the car with him to run errands. But, this deal was sketchy to say the least.

He was going to meet the buyer at some abandoned warehouse in the middle of nowhere. The dude was was only wanting $20 worth of doja, which was already odd to Dabi because the minimum he’s ever made was an easy $50. Not to mention the dude wasn’t a good person at all. The whole ordeal was just sketchy all around.

“I don’t know about it, doll..” He tells you with a sympathetic smile, “Maybe next time.”

“Please?” You pout and put on the best puppy dog like eyes you could muster. “I just wanna ride with you. We could get food after, my treat.”

Dabi breathes heavily through and out his nose, pinching the bridge with his thumb and pointer finger. How could he say no to you? Especially when you have that irresistible pout on your face?

“Fine, but you already know I’m not letting you pay for me.” He chuckles, “I wanna get this done so just get dressed. You can put on one of my shirts, I’ll be in the car.”

You grin sheepishly as he closes the door behind him and you get up from his bed. You hum lightly to yourself as you go through his shirts in his closet. You grab one of his plain black shirts and throw it over your body, it falling right in the middle of your thighs. Your hand reaches out to the floor and you grabs your shorts before pulling them on. You slip your shoes on while throwing your hair to an acceptable messy bun and walk out of the door.

————

“Doll, listen.” His tone undeniably nervous, “I need you to be quiet when he comes to the car. This dude sketches me the fuck out.”

“Okay..” You say, unsure of why he’s so spooked.

Dabi’s car comes to a smooth stop at an old abandoned warehouse. He moves one hand from the wheel and places it on the stick shift to put the car in park.

The sound of a phone ringing filled the car as you scan the area. You felt a small amount of fear forming in your stomach as you gathered that you two are in the middle of fucking nowhere.

“Yeah?” Dabi speaks as he holds the phone to his ear and turning his head in every direction, “Yeah I’m here. Where are you?”

“I’m about to pull up on you. Anyone with you?” A rough voice spoke on the other end.

Dabi hums and places his hand on your thigh, giving it a comforting squeeze, “I got my girl with me.”

“Ight, I see your car. I’ll be there in a sec.”

Dabi hangs up the phone with a heavy breath. You place your hand on top of his and caress it with your thumb.

“It’s gonna be okay.” You assure him with a gentle smile. “Just get the money, give him the stuff, then we can leave.”

“Yeah..” He sighs, letting his head fall back onto his headrest. “I just got a bad feeling about this dude, I don’t like him.”

“Then why are you selling to him?” You ask, genuinely curious.

Dabi shrugs his shoulder, “Money.”

The sound of a door being slammed shut made Dabi turn his head in that direction. He removes his hand from your thigh and breathes heavily one more time before rolling his window down.

“What’s up man?” The dude speaks joyfully when he gets to the window.

You don’t dare to look into his direction, but his voice alone made your skin crawl. His tone was full of farce friendliness. In the corner of your eye you could see that Dabi was gripping his steering wheel tightly and his chest was rising up down at a steady pace.

“Sup John.” He greets the man back, “You only wanted a couple grams, right?”

“Yeah man, that’s fine.” John waves his hand sheepishly. “Thanks for meeting me here.”

“No problem.” Dabi tells him before turning to you, “Can you get the bag out of the glove box?”

You nod and lean forward to open the glove box. When you open it you see the manual book that comes with every car, a black smith & wesson pistol, and the bag full of doja. You had to bite your tongue to keep yourself from gasping, you didn’t know he owned a gun.

Then again, why wouldn’t he? He is a drug dealer after all.

You reach into it, carefully grab the bag full of green nugs and take it out before shutting it. You lean your body back against the seat and hand the bag to Dabi.

When you turn to look in Dabi’s direction you gasp and your stomach drops. Fear consumed your body and you start to shake.

Dabi notices the expression on your face and his eyes go dark. He turns to face John again and was met with a gun pointed in his face.

Dabi chuckles darkly, clicking his teeth and laughs like a villain.

“You’re kidding, right?” Dabi taunts John. “You gonna try to rob me?”

“Cut the tough guy act, asshole.” John hisses as he cocks the pistol and has his finger over the trigger. “Give me your shit and you both can leave. I doubt your girl wants to see your head blown off.”

“Hmm, you know people will come after you, right?”

“Your friends? I’ll take my chances.” John laughs, then motions his gun to Dabi’s hand that held the bag. “Come on, get to it.”

It all happened so fast.

Dabi chuckled darkly one last time before he quickly grabbed the gun from his hand and slammed it against his head. John’s unconscious body fell backwards onto the ground as blood trickled down the side of his face.

Dabi throws the gun out of his window and reaches over you to the glove box. He grabs his gun and slams it shut.

Dabi pushes the clip all the way in with the palm of his hand and cocks his pistol before aiming out of his window. The sound of gun shots infiltrate your ears as you place your hands over them.

After the final shot, Dabi throws his gun into his lap after unloading it and speeds off. His tires squeal as he drifts onto the road.

“Did you.. Did you kill him?” You whisper breathlessly, ears still ringing.

“No.” Dabi assures you, keeping his eyes on the road to avoid your shock filled gaze. His knuckles were turning whiter than his pale skin as he gripped the steering wheel tightly.

“But he sure as hell ain’t going no where with fucked up tires.”

————

Not another word was spoken in the car as he drove you both back to his place, food long forgotten. Now back at his place, you laid on his bed finally calmed down as he sat on the side of his bed with his back facing you.

His white hair was an absolute mess from the many times he’s ran his hands through it with a loud sigh. His elbows rested on his knees while his head rested in his hands.

“Baby..” You cooed, hesitantly reaching a hand out to touch him. “Are you mad at me?”

“What?” He turns to face you, his blue eyes glossy and cheeks red. “Why would I be mad at you?”

“Because I begged to go with you..” You pout, letting your gaze fall down to the comforter on his bed. “You haven’t talked to me either..”

“I could never be mad at you.” He assures you before laying his body down next to yours. He takes your hand in his and raises it to his lips to kiss your knuckles.

“I’m mad at myself. I knew better than to have you there with me. I had a bad feeling even before we left. Yet, I still let you come with me..” He whispers.

You felt your heart clench inside of your chest as he spoke. You have never seen him so shaken up like this. He was never one to show anyone his vulnerable side. The way he always carried himself it was surprising to others that he had emotions at all. It was even more of a shock that he had you. According to Keigo, he never gave anyone a second glance, and he definitely didn’t let people smoke his stash like he does with you.

You were different than the rest in his eyes. No one understood him like you do. No one has ever cared or worried about him. That’s why he couldn’t lose you.

“I don’t know what I would if something had happen to you today..” he whispered again, “I can’t lose you, y/n. I love you too much.”

What did he say?

“Pardon?”

“You heard me.” His blue eyes look into yours, full of love and admiration, “I love you, so fucking much.”

Tear brim your eyes as you take his face in your hands, “I love you too, Touya.”

That was the first time ever since you’ve been together, that either of you spoke those three words.

He lets out a small laugh before pressing his lips onto yours, pulling you into a passionate kiss. His hands find purchase on your cheeks as your lips danced against his.

“Can I just say that despite being scared for my life..” You pull away to speak, “Seeing you like that, was hot as fuck.”

“Oh yeah?” He chuckles, moving his hands down to your throat. “Good to know, baby.”

Dabi smashes his lips back on yours and moves his body to hover over yours. Your hands reach down to the hem of his shirt and tug on it. He takes the hint and pulls it off of his body with one arm.

Your hands lay on his biceps as one of his hands traced down your body, starting at your collarbones, through the valley of your breasts, and down to the top of your shorts. His hand pushes pass your shorts and panties, then two of his fingers land on your clit, rubbing soft and smooth circles.

You whimper against his mouth and dig your nails into his arms, causing him to smirk against your lips.

You have one of your hands travel down his body and push it under the band of his boxers. Now it was your turn to smirk as he groaned into your mouth when you took his cock into your hand, pumping gently.

“Fuck doll,” He growled when you let your thumb swipe over his tip, “I need you, right now.”

“You have me.” You purred and bit his lower lip.

Dabi removes his hand from your clit and raises up off of you. As he took the rest of his clothing off, you did the same. Clothes were thrown and long forgotten on the floor of his bedroom.

His body laid back on top of your as he made himself comfortable in between your legs. Soft whimpers emitted from your lips as he started to slide his cock over your wet sex.

You both gasp against each other’s mouths when he slipped all the way into your wet cavern. He could never get over the fact of how he fit into your walls so perfectly. Like it was molded just for him.

His thrusts were much slower than usual. His hands weren’t choking you or pinning your wrist down. He wasn’t attacking your neck or breasts, leaving his mark. No degrading words were being thrown at you.

Instead, he slides his hands into yours and intertwines your fingers as his hips met yours slowly and he breathes heavily into your neck.

He was making love to you.

His name and profanities tumbled out of your lips as he hit that sensitive spot inside of you. You moved your hands out from under his and wrapped them around his neck.

“I love you,” He breathed into your neck before lifting his head to rest his forehead against yours and his hands cup your face. “So, fuckin, much.”

“I love you.” You whimper, placing your lips on his as he continues his slow and smooth thrusts.

You feel yourself clench down on him and your heart rate increases, the coil burning inside your stomach about to break.

“Baby, I’m about to-“

“I know, Doll. Me too.”

Dabi’s pace increases as he takes his final thrusts into you. His lips take yours into a searingly passionate kiss that stole the air right from your lungs.

You both moan one last time before Dabi stills and his hold on your face tightens. Pleasure struck through the both of you as you hit release. His hips move lazily as he fucks you through your orgasm. No high from any drug could compare to the one you reach together in these intimate moments.

One of your hands massage through his hair while the other does the same up and down his back as you both catch your breath. The soft sounds of his breath against your neck making you feel sleepy.

“You wanna go get some food and smoke?” He asks while lifting up to see your adorable fucked out face. That was his favorite part.

“Absolutely.”

#plug dabi #dabi x reader #stoner dabi #dabi smut #bnha dabi #touya todoroki #bnha smut #mha dabi #dabi #touya x reader

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gch1995 · 4 years

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I’m 25 going on 26 now, and I grew up loving the classic Powerpuff Girls cartoon series when I was a kid. Even now when I rewatch it as an adult, it’s still a cute and funny cartoon, especially now that I’m old enough to recognize all of the adult jokes. Like, there’s no way it was a coincidence that Professor Utonium’s despicably dishonest, greedy, lazy, manipulative, selfish, and sleazy former roommate from college was given the name Professor Dick Hardly by accident.

Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup actually are pretty relatable little girls who have believable flaws and insecurities. They make believable bad choices for little girls. Those issues actually get dealt with seriously, rather than just being brushed aside as no big deal with no negative consequences. They are still endearing and sympathetic in spite of their flaws.

While he had a few OOC moments of bad parenting in some bad episodes here and there, generally speaking, Professor Utonium from the classic Powerpuff Girls is actually one of the best dads in cartoons that I’ve ever seen, which is sadly pretty rare in most cartoon sitcoms, even the ones that are actually aimed at a children audience.

Most cartoon dads are abusive, lazy, neglectful, selfish, and stupid oafs. Granted, those type of dads in cartoon sitcoms can actually be entertaining and funny to watch when they are actually being well-written as shitty and slow-witted, but still essentially well-meaning people in regards to their families, such as S1-S8 Homer Simpson from The Simpsons and even S1-S3 Peter Griffin from Family Guy. However, the entertainment quality of those shitty, but well-meaning cartoon dads was mostly lost when the writers flanderdized their negative traits to the point of making Homer and especially Peter downright despicable with little to no redeeming or sympathetic qualities much of the time anymore. They went from being shitty, but essentially well-meaning parents and husbands to downright bratty and spoiled man-children who were much more intentionally abusive, childish, cruel, neglectful, petty, and selfish in regards to their families and others around them with little to no sympathetic or redeeming qualities much of the time anymore, and that’s one of the biggest reasons why The Simpsons went downhill in quality after S8, and why Family Guy went downhill in quality after S3.

Nonetheless, even as they were originally written on their shows pre-flanderdization when they were still well-meaning, but misguided parents and spouses, cartoon dads like Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin, weren’t good dads on the whole. There were still plenty of recurring plot lines and/or gags of them being abusive, lazy, neglectful, reckless, and selfish. Back in early seasons pre-flanderdization, it was more forgivable, though, because they also still had their fair share of kind and selfless moments with their families, and their shittiness as parents wasn’t intentionally abusive, malicious, premeditated, and selfish in nature, which balanced them out enough to still be entertaining and likable characters in spite of their flaws.

Realistically speaking, though, dads like Peter Griffin and Homer Simpson would be better off having their kids taken away from them by CPS. Their good qualities and lack of malicious intent, particularly in earlier seasons pre-flanderdization, would still not hold up as legitimate excuse as to why they should be allowed to keep their kids. Bart would have bruises all over his neck, fractures in his neck, and he could possibly be killed if Homer strangled him hard enough to actually break his neck and/or cut off his air supply long enough in real life just once. Meg, Chris, and even Stewie would not only be injured, but actually outright killed in real life from some of the abuse and neglect that Peter and Lois put them through in later seasons of FG. All of these kids, especially Meg, would have serious self-esteem issues for the rest of their lives because Peter, Lois’, and Homer’s abuse and neglect of their kids went beyond just a pattern of being physical in nature, but emotionally and verbally abusive as well.

So yeah, Peter Griffin and Homer Simpson are really not good fathers who you’d ever want to deal with for a parent in real life, even pre-flanderdization. The major reoccurrence of the abusive, bumbling, idiotic, lazy, drunken, neglectful, and selfish dad trope in cartoon sitcoms is exactly why I really love Professor Utonium from the classic PPG cartoon. I don’t necessarily mind it in absurdist cartoon sitcoms when it’s done well as a trope, but I’m also getting tired of mostly just seeing bad and stupid dads in cartoon sitcoms, and not enough good ones.

For the most part, the OG Professor Utonium is a great dad who goes above and beyond to make sure Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup are happy, healthy, disciplined, and safe. He’s usually the parent most of us wish we could have in real life, if we don’t already. It’s refreshing to actually see a good dad in an animated sitcom for once.

Professor Utonium in the classic PPG cartoon is generally a very kind, loving, selfless, and supportive dad to girls. However, he also knows when he has to discipline them and be strict without ever being mean about it. He gives them good advice. He’s very selfless, and even though the girls are superheroes with superhuman abilities, he’ll still risk and/or sacrifice anything to protect them when they’re unable to protect themselves with their powers, including his own life. He didn’t need to be the stereotypical cartoon sitcom abusive, bumbling, dumb, and neglectful dad in order to be funny either. He was funny because he could sometimes be overprotective of the girls, and he could sometimes embarrass them by calling them sickly sweet terms of endearment and telling embarrassing stories that he shouldn’t have about them in public. He was socially awkward. These are relatable flaws in parents that even the best ones have.

While the girls don’t have a mother, Ms. Bellum and Ms. Keane were very brave, kind, and intelligent strong women who were good role models.

Also, the Professor did many activities with the girls and chores around the house that get gender-coded as “mother’s work.” Some of these things include begrudgingly playing dress up as Bubbles to make her happy when she was playing PowerPuff Girls with Buttercup and Blossom on a rainy day inside of no crime when he saw that she was upset that no one wanted to be her, cooking, cleaning, and actually sitting down to talk with the girls, listen to them, emotionally support them, and give them advice. He’s also not afraid to be openly affectionate, doting, and emotional with the girls. There’s just not enough good dads in cartoon sitcoms, which is why I really like Professor Utonium from the OG PowerPuff Girls cartoon and movie. He mostly defied all the bad dad stereotypes, and was a really great one to the girls more often than not.

The main villains from the classic PowerPuff Girls cartoon are incredibly entertaining, especially MoJo JoJo. Him was always the creepiest to me because he was the most devious, insidious, and manipulative one. All of the psychological abuse and manipulation he put the girls and Townsville through was always the scariest to me when I was a kid because out of all the villains on the show, the torment that he wreaked upon the girls and Townsville by brainwashing them, gaslighting them, and/or exploiting their fears and insecurities often was played as dead serious with really scary results, especially in early seasons of classic PPG. While Him had a few human moments here and there, for the most part, he was pretty consistently played off as being seriously scary and dangerous.

MoJo JoJo was an egomaniacal asshole hellbent on destroying the PowerPuff Girls and world domination, and on a few occasions, he actually came close to succeeding. On a few occasions, he genuinely was more scary than camp evil. But he still had a lot of humorous, human, fallible, and relatable moments, too. My favorite MoJo moments are the ones where he is making jokes, irritably going grocery shopping to get eggs, getting too frustrated by the girls antics and childish behaviors and reactions to actually go through with his plans to destroy them at certain points, and getting angry and jealous enough to actually destroy the alien/robot invader from another planet who was destroying Townsville in all the evil ways that he always wanted to himself. He was highly intelligent at coming up with clever schemes and inventions with all his science and technology to take over the world, destroy Townsville, and/or destroy the PowerPuff Girls. However, his arrogance, impatience, and impulsivity always doomed him to fail to succeed in the end, though he did come pretty close on a few occasions, especially in the 2002 prequel origin story movie, and he did actually get to rule the world in “The PowerPuff Girls Rule the World!” Surprisingly, he actually was a kindhearted ruler who did good things, but then he gave it all up and went back to being evil because he got bored.

Originally, MoJo was a well-intentioned extremist who wanted to create a utopia ruled by primates where they would never be controlled or rejected by humans again. As much as Professor Utonium’s irritation with JoJo for being a destructive chimp lab assistant was completely justified, it’s also hard not to feel kind of sorry for Mojo Jojo and understand where he’s coming from in his motivations to become evil, particularly in the 2002 prequel movie because originally all he really wanted was to be loved by his owner, too. He understandably felt rejected when Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup became the center of his universe instead. Of course, that doesn’t excuse him for choosing to respond to the Professor’s rejection by becoming an arrogant, evil, cruel, hateful, hypocritical, domineering, manipulative, petty, selfish, and vengeful villain going on a quest for world domination, attempting to commit homicide several times, probably committing voluntary manslaughter of citizens several times that we didn’t see on screen when destroying Townsville all those times, turning the rest of the world into dogs to try to take over the world, and trying to destroy the girls. However, you understand why Mojo became the villain he did with his backstory. He’s relatable. Occasionally, he does have some genuinely sympathetic moments where he’s actually willing to be friendly with the girls, team up with them, and do the right thing.

HIM was just the personification of evil for no other reason than the fact that he was satan. While MoJo was a complex, human, and relatable anti-villain with his origin story as the Professor’s lab chimp, who gained genius-level human intellect from having Chemical X splashed on his brain, and then chose to become evil after feeling rejected by the Professor when he saw how he pretty much forget about him once the girls became the center of his universe instead, HIM was evil, manipulative, and hateful for no other reason than the fact that those traits were a part of his nature as the very embodiment of evil. Many times, a fictional villain being portrayed as one-dimensional with no sympathetic qualities or relatable motivations will annoy me, but with HIM being evil just because that’s who he is, it actually works because he is literally Satan. There doesn’t need to be a deeper sympathetic story behind why he is evil. Committing crimes, wreaking havoc, corrupting people, manipulating people, turning people against others, exploiting the fears of others, and deceiving others for his own amusement is just who he is, and in the early seasons of classic PPG in particular, that made him really scary to me when I was a six year old little girl watching the cartoon on TV.

You get the idea...The classic PowerPuff Girls was a fantastic cartoon, particularly the first four seasons. Granted, there was some series seasonal rot going on in the writing in S5 and S6 after the 2002 prequel movie, and Craig Mcracken and Gennedy Tartakovsky’s departure from the crew. Like, the characterizations of the characters and/or storylines in S5 and S6 felt comparably flanderdized, ooc, immature, inconsistent, pointless, shallow, and underwhelming at certain times to fit the plot, such as in the episodes “Keen on Keane,” “Pee Pee G’s,” “Seed No Evil,” “Reeking Havoc,” “Toast of the Town,” “Say Uncle,” “City of Clipsville,” “”Bubble Boy,” A Made Up Story,” “Mo’linguish,” and “Simian Says.” Even the good episodes of S5-S6 still didn’t ever reach the same level of greatness of the ones from S1-S4. However, the seasonal rot in the classic PPG cartoon of S5-S6 after Craig McCracken and Gennedy Tartakovsky’s departure still wasn’t nearly as bad as the seasonal rot on The Simpsons after S8, Family Guy after S3, and SpongeBob SquarePants post S3–S4 ish, so I’m still willing to consider most of S5-S6 of classic PPG legit canon.

However, it sounds like the 2016 PPG reboot fucked up everything that was originally good about it to go for a more slapstick comedic feel without substance without consistency, depth, and intelligence. Now, I hear that the CW is making a live-action TV show spin-off of the PowerPuff Girls being jaded and resentful young women who’ve given up crime fighting as result! No, no, no! Why? Why does the CW keep making dark, nitty, and gritty live action teen soap operas out of beloved childhood cartoons?

Yeah, the original PowerPuff Girls cartoon and movie had dark moments. The girls could be bratty and make bad choices sometimes. However, it was still very much a fun show about normal little girls born with superpowers, which they chose to use to defend their father, their city, and on some occasions, the whole world, from crime. No one ultimately forced them to be superheroes for everyone in the classic PPG cartoon and movie. They chose to do it because they had brave and selfless hearts. There was ultimately no obligation for them to be superheroes in the classic PPG cartoon and movie. Sure, they got tired of fighting crime at times, but they still ultimately enjoyed doing it when push came to shove. They weren’t weighed down by the darkness of the world, hatred, and resentment. They still were relatively normal little girls with happy, peaceful, and normal lives of little girls whenever they weren’t fighting crime after the events of the prequel movie about their origins. That’s what made the PowerPuff Girls classic cartoon so special.

By turning Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup into jaded young women, who have given up on being superheroes because they’ve grown resentful of “losing the normal childhood to crime fighting” that they basically are shown to have in the original series for the most part in their spare time aside from having superpowers that they chose to use to fight crime to defend their dad and Townsville from, anyway, where is the fun in that?

#ppg classic #ppg #PowerPuff girls classic was an amazing cartoon!#there was some seasonal rot bad writing in classic PPG after S4 and Craig McCracken and Gennedy Tartovsky’s departure from the show #also looking back at even some of the early seasons of classic PPG Buttercup tended to get treated as a butt-monkey in her few centric Ed #but the seasonal rot moments of bad writing in S5-S6 of classic PPG wasn’t THAT bad so for the most part I’m willing to give it a pass #mojo jojo #him #professor utonium #blossom utonium #bubbles utonium #buttercup utonium #sara bellum #mayor #ms. keane #anti the cw live action PowerPuff girls!#is nothing from the childhoods of those of us who grew up in the early to mid 2000s sacred anymore?#what’s next a CW live action spin off of SpongeBob Squarepants in which SpongeBob works as a drug dealer for mob boss Mr. Krabs?#a CW live action spin off of Johnny Bravo where fool JD is actually rewarded for hitting on women who are strangers?#a cw live action reboot of dexter’s laboratory in which dexter grows up to run a crystal meth lab?#a CW live action spin-off of Courage the Cowardly Dog in which Muriel is a terrible pet owner too?#a CW live action of Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends in which Mac is diagnosed as a schizophrenic who hallucinated in the OG series?#omg! just let these beloved cartoons RIP please!#Come up with something new! Stop ruining good cartoons from the past by reviving them into something they were never meant to be!

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the-ferocious-kittyrose · 3 years

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What I would’ve done w/ Lotor’s character

It’s not exactly a secret to anyone who’s been following me for a while that I’m not the biggest fan of canon Lotor. I had high hopes for the character from his 80s counterpart and intro in season 3 but I was really let down by the direction the writers went with him in canon.

When he was introduced, I was so hoping for him to be this cocky manipulative asshole that’s only out for himself. I love that character archetype so goddamn much.

But in canon he was just kinda boring to me. His personality was bland and his motivations never really made sense. He’s introduced using empty promises of peace and comradery to manipulate people, then its revealed that he actually does want peace and comradery and wants to lead a peaceful empire, then that turns into draining Alteans and wanting to kill all Galra...

I also didn’t like how the writers decide to tack on this whole child abuse plot to explain why he was the way he was. As if that’s the only way to make a villain sympathetic. Yeah other versions of Voltron have touched on Lotor’s childhood before and it was never pleasant, but VLD really leaned into that shit, to the point where it felt like the writers were just shoving angst down our throats thinking that equals good writing.

It takes more than a tragic backstory to make a character compelling. It takes an interesting personally and motivations that make sense. And you can make a character tragic/sympathetic in more subtle ways.

For me personally, I wanted Lotor to be a sorta fusion of Loki and Littlefinger in space.

Loki is a sly trickster who grew up feeling like an outcast, unaware of his true heritage. He grew up believing he could be king but when his shity father handed it to his perfect brother he felt he had been robbed and decided to take the throne by force.

Littlefinger is a small man from a small house with no power, and after getting the shit beat out of him trying to win the hand of the girl he loved, he decided he would use his intelligence and skills in manipulation to screw over all these noble lords and weasel his way into the throne. And when he did he would finally get vengeance on all those who had looked down on him.

I feel like this fits Lotor well. Lotor is a prince, so he isn’t small in that regard, but he is not respected in the way a prince should be.

He is a lot smaller than the average Galra. And even though Lotor is still quite strong, developing a fighting style that suits his small form and uses his opponents size against them, in a society so heavily based on physical strength that’s still a big blow to your rep.

He employs half breeds, which we know are looked down on in the empire. And there are definitely rumors about Lotor himself being a half breed. I think after 10,000 years Zarkon would’ve done a pretty good job at hiding Lotor’s heritage from the public but just looking at him compared to the average Galra there’s going to be some suspicion there. On that note Lotor is probably considered butt ugly by the Galra.

And Lotor works in the shadows and achieves his goals through lies and trickery, which Lotor himself says are things the empire looks down on.

So yeah, the people in the empire hate Lotor. Even Sendak who’s all ‘Gung ho empire’ has no respect for Lotor. And because of this it would probably be up in the air whether or not Lotor would even be allowed to take the throne if his father were to pass, even though it’s his birthright.

And in the face of all this rampant disrespect, Lotor decides that he is going to overthrow his father and take the throne. And when he does he will take vengeance on everyone who had ever undermined him and expand the empire beyond anything his father could’ve dreamed of.

And don’t try telling me, “oh that’s so out of character! Lotor would never take pleasure in the pain of others!” Because he does.

Remember Throk? Remember how Lotor sent him away to the worst station in the empire and joked about letting him, “rot with the ice worms?” Remember how Lotor later invaded his station then watched with a grin as he was tortured by Haggar?

Lotor 100% takes pleasure in hurting those who would hurt him, because it makes him feel powerful.

Now let’s talk about Lotor’s planet. The one given to him and destroyed by Zarkon. I always felt weird about this plot. Obviously it’s a very sad thing to have happen, but I always liked the idea of Lotor’s promises of peace to be empty, a means of manipulating people. So this whole situation being genuine feels weird to me.

In my version, Lotor didn’t get banished for being too kind. He got banished because Zarkon caught him in a plot to betray him.

When Lotor was put in charge of the planet, he seduced and married the princess Ventar. He filled her head with promises that her people would be free and they would rule the universe together and convinced her to secretly round up her armies and send word to her ally planets to do the same, so they could start planning a way to overthrow Zarkon.

It’s left ambiguous whether or not he was being genuine and whether he really loved Ventar and intended to keep his promises to her or if she was just a tool to get the throne. But either way, it ends the same. Zarkon finds out, destroys the planet, kills Ventar, and exiles Lotor.

Still sad/humiliating thing for Lotor, and definitely a story that could gain sympathy from Allura.

Speaking of Allura and Ventar, let’s talk about Lotor’s relationship with the women in his life.

(Trigger Warning: Brief mention of of a rape scene in GoLion)

In the 80s Lotor was incredibly misogynistic. He walked around with a harem of half naked women, tried repeatedly to kidnap and marry Allura against her will, and in GoLion it’s heavily implied that he raped Romelle because she looked like Allura.

It’s a common joke in the fandom that he went from this to drinking respect women juice in VLD but I don’t know if I’d go that far.

He’s definitely better in VLD than he was in the 80s, but even in VLD he manipulates, uses, and hurts most of the women in his life.

Allura is the obvious example, but you also have his generals. Acxa talks to the paladins, Allura in particular, about how persuasive Lotor could be. Implying that she and the other general were manipulated the same way Allura was.

Well not EXACTLY the same way Allura was, romantically I mean. Though there are people who believe that Acxa was also in love with Lotor and he used that to his advantage, which I can see.

But I feel like it was more about giving them a place in an empire that didn’t care about or accept them.

I hate The Last Jedi but I really feel like the line, “you’re nothing, but not to me,” fits really well. They were outsiders with no place to go until Lotor swooped in and gave them a purpose.

Do I think that there was a part of Lotor that genuinely wanted to help them because he saw a kindred spirit in them? Yeah. But I also think that at the end of the day, they were more tools than real friends. And he had no qualms about killing them if they betrayed him.

The situation with Narti proves that. As well as the fact that Ezor and Zethrid seemed very scared of the prospect of Lotor being alive and coming for them.

And then you have Allura. Lotor’s lust for Allura has always been a very important part of his character. In the 80s the reason behind his obsession with her was that he had a lot of baggage about his mother and had a thing for women that looked like her. Also the fact that he just didn’t like not getting something he wanted.

There was never any love. He didn’t want to be with her, he wanted to own her.

In VLD, his want for Allura seems to stem more from the fact that she’s Altean than an Oedipus complex. As well as the fact that she’s powerful and skilled in Altean alchemy, which makes her rather useful.

I don’t personally believe that Lotor ever really Loved Allura. I think he liked the idea of her and what she could do for him, but the end of the day she was more a means to an end than anything else.

Allura’s been trough a lot. Zarkon betrayed her family and destroyed her entire planet only about a year ago from her point of view, and she appears to have a pretty bad case of survivors guilt and PTSD. And to make matters worse, while Lotor was on the ship she was fighting with Shiro, someone she clearly cared about. The idea of loosing him after already losing so much must’ve been really painful.

She was hurting, conflicted, and lonely. Which made her all the more vulnerable to Lotor’s manipulation.

He took advantage of her loneliness and insecurities, making her believe she had found someone who understood her and could help her avenge her family and planet. She trusted him, let herself be vulnerable around him, which made it hurt even more when it was revealed to all be a ruse.

And then you have his relationship with his mother Honerva/Haggar.

I talked a lot about this in my whole rewrite/rant about Honerva, but I’m not a fan of how they made their relationship 100% negative. I feel like it robs the show of a lot of interesting character interaction.

It’s sad. The whole relationship is really tragic. Shit like this is literally my worst nightmare. The thought of looking my mom in the face and have her not recognize me as her daughter keeps me up at night.

But the thing is, in canon the relationship kinda falls flat because Lotor and Haggar/Honerva have no connection. Haggar was awful to Lotor and Lotor hates Haggar. What reason do I have to be invested in their relationship?

So If you haven’t read my Honerva rant, here’s how I would’ve done the Honerva Lotor relationship.

10,000 years ago, when Alfor came to Dibazzal to convince Zarkon to close the rift, Honerva went into labor. Alfor and many Galran doctors tried there best to save her and the baby, but the quintessence had damaged her body so much that she couldn’t be saved and died in childbirth.

Zarkon went ballistic and Alfor had the doctors take baby Lotor somewhere safe, fearing Zarkon would take his grief and anger out on the child.

After Honerva was resurrected as Haggar and throughout Lotor’s childhood, they had a strange sort of relationship. Lotor was an inquisitive child and was always curious about Haggar and her work, making a habit of following her around like a little shadow and watching as she worked. And there was also the fact that, while his father was never friendly, he was calmer when she was around.

Haggar had no idea what to make of this weird child following her around all the time. All these big strong Galra were terrified of her but this tiny child showed no fear as he tugged on her robes and excitedly asked questions about her work. And she never minded. She didn’t know why or how to explain it, but she cared for the child. As much as a soulless undead witch could care for something anyway.

But as time went on there relationship became more and more strained. Lotor was a smart kid he was gonna find out about his mother and deduce what happened to her.

He resented Haggar. Resented her for not remembering him. Resented her for the fact that he had to go through life without a mother while she was right there. And he resented her for being loyal to Zarkon, who had been making his life hell for thousands of years.

Every time she showed him something resembling kindness he’s conflicted. He knows he should feel happy that she cares, but at the same time, why does she care? It’s not like she sees him as her son.

He turned to denial, insisting that Haggar couldn’t possibly be his mother, even though he new the truth deep down, and a part of him always secretly longed for her to remember who she was, who he was, and embrace him as her son. He hates that part of himself.

And when he does meet Honerva for the first time, it’s... tense... to say the least. Having his mother reach out to him and acknowledge him as her son is something he thought would bring him joy, but in that moment all the pain he went through rises back to the surface and he lashes out. He draws his sword and is about to cut her down but he hesitates. He’s trembling with tears in his eyes. He can’t forgive her, but he also can’t bring himself to kill her.

Then you have his relationship with his father.

It’s no secret that Zarkon is an awful man and a shity father, always has been.

The explanation as to why is kinda shaky. All we get is Zarkon saying Lotor is his greatest shame because he’s Altean but I don’t know about that. Zarkon may hate Alteans but he loved Honerva and I don’t think he would be ashamed of his relationship with her.

He definitely did his best Lotor’s heritage from the public. But I don’t think that’s the reason he hates him.

In my version of the story, Zarkon hates Lotor because Honerva died giving birth to him and Zarkon blames him for her death. He lost his beloved wife and was forced to watch the son that killed her waltz around wearing her face.

It didn’t help that Lotor was a snarky rebellious kid that liked to show off. He did things his own way, didn’t care much for rules, and had a real knack for finding loopholes. All things that made his strict father very angry. He was an embarrassment. Small and rebellious. That’s why Zarkon began training Sendak.

I personally believe the reason Zarkon was so trusting of Sendak and had so much faith in him was because Zarkon had been grooming him to be his “true heir.” Sendak is the epitome of what a Galra should be. Strong, loyal, and brave. He would be the son Zarkon wished he had. The favorite child.

Lotor obviously hates Zarkon, and rightfully so. Zarkon hates him for something he had no control over and constantly disrespects him.

Lotor may not follow the rules, but he passes every trial. He excels at everything he does but Zarkon refuses to see that all because he blames him for Honerva’s death.

Lotor sees Zarkon as an old fool. He knows that he could do a far better job at running the empire.

Lotor dedicated thousands of years of his life to overthrowing Zarkon. His hatred for his father was his motivation, what got him out of bed every morning, so when the deed is done and Zarkon was finally defeated, in the moments after he felt empty.

But he didn’t have time to dwell on that feeling for long. He still had to deal with his father’s men and take the throne that was rightfully his.

Then you have his plan.

Lotor’s plan in VLD is really weird and over complicated. There was no real reason for the whole draining Alteans thing. Just a lazy way of making him 100% evil.

The plot could’ve been a lot simpler. He gains the paladins trust, gets them to help him build his ships and overthrow Zarkon, and then once he has the throne he pulls an Uno reverse card and is like, “yeah, nothing personal but this was all a trick and imma lock you and your lions up now.”

Obviously more complicated than that but that’s the basic idea.

One of my main problems with VLD is that they had a bad habit of over complicating the plot. People don’t care about VLD because of the plot, they care about the characters and their relationships, the actual plot doesn’t have to be anything spectacular.

It’s strange to say but I feel like the writes tried too hard with Lotor. He had the potential to be an amazing villain but the writers were too focused on tricking the audience and making him angsty that they forgot to make him compelling.

#Voltron #vld #voltron legendary defender #prince lotor #Lotor #emperor zarkon #zarkon #haggar #honerva #princess allura #Allura #acxa #ezor #Zethrid #narti #galra #vld critical #discourse #sincline

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wandaposting · 4 years

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wandavision: the criticisms post

tl;dr: i liked the show, but there were aspects that were annoying and dumbfounding to me and here’s the post that covers That ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

this was gonna be my comprehensive wandavision review post that had both cons and pros, but the cons kind of ran away from me lsdfjs SO YOU’RE GETTING THIS FIRST. if you find my views diverging from yours in either direction, you’re valid, please don’t shiv me. this is just how i Feel in a somewhat shitposty (as per usual) format. 😔

the big con list:

the way wanda’s actual villainy gets brushed away by the narrative: or specifically the way wanda strolls past the people she mentally tortured and traumatized for a week to apologize to monica, who then goes “gg girl i would’ve done the same :)” and then wanda leaves that entire mess—that she caused—behind her and bails lol. that scene is a microcosm of my problems with this show’s attempt at portraying what the creators have described as her ““complexity””. they want us to feel sorry for her, but not in the way that we can sympathize with walter white while still acknowledging he’s broken bad. rather, this show seemed to want to paint her as more of a victim than the people she victimized. they still want her to come out looking heroic and triumphant and rewarded from her journey with new powers, a new superhero outfit, a new superhero moniker. and that falls flat when you realize she’s basically been a self-absorbed asshole throughout the course of this show. she was confronted no less than four times, and told point blank that a few thousand people were suffering under her control. that is not something we can excuse with depression and denial. that means that at multiple times she is making at least the subconscious choice that her happiness matters more than the wellbeing of her meat puppets, which includes children, across the span of a week. i don’t see monica rambeau “doing the same thing.” the fact that they made her say it while the townspeople glared on in miserable silence just rubbed me the wrong way. if they really wanted to make her responsible for westview, while also wanting her to come out looking remotely good, they needed to invest in a much more substantial redemption arc for her than “i didn’t mean to, gonna go self-exile now.” or even holding everything else constant, they could’ve delivered a more nuanced take where westview was in dire straits before her arrival. the westview she initially drove through already looked economically depressed, so i don’t know why they didn’t just follow through with this. but they could’ve made it so that by granting herself happiness and prosperity, she could’ve spread that genuinely throughout the citizens. instead of hex vision waking norm up in horror, you could’ve had him begging to be put back under. that way, her decision to accept and face reality head on could also be reflected by the people of westview. where everyone, perhaps aided through wanda’s mind link, decides they shouldn’t let fantasy consume themselves at the expense of improving their actual reality. there’s still moral ambiguity, there’s still mistakes being made, we can still side-eye wanda for doing the equivalent of drugging people, but at least these npc’s would've gained something from wanda blundering into their lives. but no she made 3 thousand people suffer through the literal plot of Get Out, giving them life-long ptsd and trauma with nothing good, and i think that’s bad. if she has more haters after this series, i can’t even blame them. but apparently she has a shit-ton more fans after this series, so... OH WELL, IT IS WHAT IT IS sdkfjkls

TYLER: which brings me to the thought that, if this show had hayward acting like a three dimensional human person with the bare minimum intellect required to run SWORD ... instead of an incompetent jackass scooby doo villain ... a lot of us would be spamming #HaywardWasRight. tyler hayward might legitimately be the worst villain mcu has ever produced, like edging past malekith. is he supposed to be an analogue to real world tr*mp appointed deputies? unlike agatha, he’s not even entertaining to watch. he’s the ted cruz of the mcu, which is bizarre when he was introduced as the strict but not particularly vexing or unreasonable successor to maria rambeau in episode 4. it ended up feeling extremely contrived how the show attempted to aggressively signal us with “hayward bad” and “wanda good, actually” through the lens of monica, darcy, and jimmy. it’s like they had to make hayward come across as Extremely Dumb in order to make wanda come across as the more sympathetic party, when she was the one doing [gestures vaguely at wall of text above].

and SPEAKING of agatha: she also ended up being the exact kind of simplified reductive cackling “gimme ur powers wanda” evil super witch that i didn’t want her to be. that’s all.

the theorybaiting: i didn’t care about the lack of mutants/doctor strange cameo (lol what happened, charles murphy)/multiverse/blue marvel/reed richards/mephisto/nightmare/chthon (altho we did get the darkhold wink wonk) so much that it ruined my experience. ralph bohner was disappointing, but i got over it. my issue here is more that they deliberately baited a more interesting story than they delivered, and i think they shot themselves in the foot with that. the first 7, even 8 episodes had set up this atmosphere of mystery and intrigue, only for them to wrap up all these questions with the most boring, uninspired answers possible. question: what does hayward want and what is he up to? answer: hayward is simply a stupid dingus. question: who is agatha harkness and what is she up to? answer: an evil witch who just wants to steal yo powers. question: who is fietro? answer: lol boner. question: was it wanda all along? answer: yes, but no it was actually agatha, but actually yes, but she didn’t mean to and is kind of sorry and now she’s gonna fly away so have fun with your ptsd, westview. ????????? yeah they could have ... done some of that better.

the pacing in the end: i remember when they said it was gonna be “around 6 hours,” and we got 4 and a half hours of actual content instead... they should have given us that extra 1 and a half hour to flesh out the finale. the sitcom portion was fun, it feels like the sitcom portion was prioritized in the writing room, and that the overarching narrative beyond the sitcom suffered to accommodate it. when it came time to break away from the format, they stumbled. so in the beginning, there were segments that felt authentic to the era but were fairly critiqued as “dragging on” ... and in the final episode, we had... the final episode. monica and wanda’s ending conversation felt unsatisfying, both wanda’s apology and monica’s acceptance of it rang particularly hollow [also gestures vaguely to wall of text above]. the appearance of white vision should have had much more of an impact on ... everyone, especially wanda. except the dude just dips and no one mentions him ever again. i feel like hex vision being revealed as the the vision that had always been ~part of her should have also had more ... fleshing out. darcy and jimmy basically ended up having no arcs in this show. they served as stand-ins for the audience, and because they were written to feel sorry for wanda (in a situation where she was absolutely deserving of more scrutiny), the audience too gets manipulated toward doing so.

there’s probably more to add but i’m running out of brain juice BUT THOSE WERE THE BIG ONES STORY-WISE

#wandavision #wandavision spoilers #i will do Things I Liked... later #I TOLD YOU MANY THOUGHTS HEAD FULL #all i can say is that i can't wait to consume fatw in a much more lowkey easy breezy way sdklfjdsl

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stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale · 3 years

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I personally think Marlon is more interesting of a villain than both Lily and Minerva

Hmmmmm.... I both agree and disagree with you, mostly because I don’t personally consider Marlon to be a “villain,” more so an antagonistic character.... which might sound like the same thing, but for me, the difference is Marlon could’ve been redeemed, but Lilly and Minerva were too far gone for that... y’know?

So I agree that Marlon’s role was more interesting than "dingus lady is evil” and “brainwashed beyond repair” because he was presented as someone we could trust who ultimately betrayed us, but in the end showed genuine remorse for his actions before his death. Lotta complex layers to Marlon, which I covered in my character study of him.

But then fucking Lilly.... I don’t know what happened to Lilly. I don’t understand what they were trying to do with her. Like.... okay, here’s Lilly, you remember her? Well, she’s leading the delta, the central villains of the story. She’s trying to manipulate you into joining her fight because she believes she’s on the “right” side.... but then she attacks the school and kills Mitch.

Which yeah, I’ve talked at length about why Mitch’s dead is shitty in its execution... but did ya see Lilly after she killed him? She actually looked a little shocked, maybe a tiny bit remorseful? before getting angry and yelling for them to take and kill whoever they have to.... and then the damn scene where she has Clementine at gunpoint. It was like they were trying to set her up to be sympathetic like she wasn’t actually this evil lady who wanted to kidnap and kill kids, but was desperate because her home was being threatened and this was all she could do to save them....

....and then they threw that away in ep3 by making her completely unredeemable. Sorry, but if you’re someone who can just cut out someone’s tongue for talking, then you’re too far gone and I have nothing for you. She’s just a mustache-twirling villain now who gets off on the sound of her own voice, praises her asshole father, and seems to take joy in forcing Minerva to relive her trauma by telling the story of the twins.

Oh, and she wants to cut off Louis/Violet’s finger, spits on James and calls him “it,” she’s two seconds away from murdering Tenn, and then she nearly kills Clementine, like..... then they want you to feel bad for her when she’s begging for her life? Sorry, but no. Most people aren’t considering Lilly in that choice of whether or not to to kill her, they’re thinking about AJ, and the people who DO consider her, want her fucking dead.

AND if you do spare her, she murders James with the most punchable smug face.

Then they try to get you to see things her way in ep4? she tries to act like “let bygones be bygones, Clem!” like...?? You’re trying to make her complex but all you did was make her inconsistent because you didn’t know what you wanted her to be.... and that kinda made her annoying and unthreatening, sorry.

Oh, and then we got Minerva. Been having some discussions about her recently, both on here and in the discord, and why everyone loves her so much and why they felt she should’ve had a kinda redemption arc and all this. I’ve heard the defense side.... which I don’t necessarily disagree with? but like.... I guess unpopular opinion time. I’ve come to my own conclusion about Minerva and her role in the canon story. This is what I got- it was pretty clear from the moment we meet her that she was never gonna get that.

She was never plopped in to be a story of redemption and “hey, so she’s a little brainwashed? we can totally fix that! Tenn, come over here and snap her outta it!” like no.... she’s too far gone from the beginning. She’s given up and accepted the delta as her people. She’s a story of tragedy, of what would happen to everyone else if the delta wins. Nothin’ in the text promises that we’ll get to sway her to our side.

Hell, Clementine can be like, “Not too late to come home” and Minerva just... nope, delta’s her home now. Like, I’m not saying she doesn’t care about Tenn and the others, because she clearly does.... but she just wanted them all to give up and come to the delta. Don’t fight, just surrender... and that makes sense given what these people have done to her.

Then she does a fake-out where she betrays on the boat, and that solidifies that she’s never going to help us. Or, well okay, she believes she’s helping us by forcing us to get caught and telling everyone to just do what they say, or else.

And then ep4 she’s just.... crazy now, I guess? She lost everything, she gets bit, and loses her fucking mind. She follows us to the bridge so that she can murder her own brother.

She was always gonna be a tragedy. There was never going to be a happy ending for her, and I can see why that would piss the Minnie crowd off. They heard all about her from ep1&2, and then they showed two seconds of her in the trailer for ep3 and they clung onto her... but then all this happened. I get it, I get why there are a lot of Minnie lives/redeemed Minnie au’s.

But personally, within the context of the canon, I think she works better as a tragedy than someone redeemed and “fixed.” I know that steps on some toes, but that’s how I feel. Doesn’t mean I think the au’s are bad-- in fact, I encourage you to create as many au’s where Minerva gets the treatment you believe she deserves it if makes you happy.

Would I say Marlon is a better antagonist though...? Hmmm, I dunno. I like Marlon more than I like Minerva, but they’re both tragic in their own ways and serve the story just fine. They’re both better than Lilly, for sure. I think I agree that Marlon’s the most interesting of the three because there were hints that there was room for better change in his character. But, AJ took away, and now we’ll never know. Marlon’s death was necessary for the story to progress, though, sooo....hmm.

I dunno, it’s an interesting discussion though, anon.

#asks #twdg marlon #twdg minerva #twdg lilly #twdg clementine #twdg aj #twdg louis #twdg violet #twdg sophie #twdg tenn

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yaboigamerghost · 4 years

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Imperfection Is Beautiful: An Analysis of Hordak From Netflix’s She-Ra

Before I start I’d like to preface this by saying that I’m normally not the kind of person who really becomes attached to the villains in the media I consume (Zuko from ATLA being an obvious exception). However, leading into She-Ra’s final season I found myself asking one question “Why do I care about what happens to Hordak?” In the back of my head while watching the final I was constantly wondering where he currently was, and was even more invested than I already was during scenes featuring him, during his reunion with Entrapta, and later when he turned on Horde Prime to save her I was cheering the whole time. While I still completely agree with those takes I had while watching, this made me decide to try and take a deep dive into why I and many other fans felt that way. Specifically, what did lead writer Josie Campbell, her team, and the rest of the staff do to turn a character once presented as likely being the shows final boss into a sympathetic and understandable one, and how did they turn Entrapdak, which was once and still partly is viewed as a crackship into one of the stronger presentations of the shows themes of love, and the power of friendship. My hope is that by the end of this essay people who are fans of Hordak’s character can understand better the possible reasons as to WHY they feel that way, and maybe try to explain to those who really don’t like him why so many people do. Now without further ado, let’s get analyzing.

To begin, let me talk about how he’s used in the first season, and how the writers chose to position him in the viewers’ heads. For those who haven’t taken a marketing class before, positioning typically refers to how companies try to position their brand in comparison to other brands in the minds of consumers, and the same concept can be somewhat applied to how storytellers position their characters in regards to each other in the minds of their audience.With that out of the way how is Hordak positioned in the audience’s head during season 1? By the first time he appears on screen Adora has been established as the show's protagonist, her and Catra were friends who have went their separate ways in a tragic scene where Adora pleads for Catra to join her, and Shadow Weaver has been established as a uh… well a giant asshole. So by the time Shadow Weaver brings Catra to Hordak for judgement on not bringing Adora back we are already inclined to sympathize with Catra and likely already dislike Shadow Weaver, Hordak himself has been mentioned in passing but never really anything specific about him, so when we see him for the first time drenched in shadows with red eyes and teeth we’re likely expecting the worst for Catra, a character we probably are sympathetic to at this point in the story. However something interesting happens here, Hordak essentially sides with Catra in this scene. He makes Shadow Weaver promote her, and tells her to stop focusing on finding Adora. So while the show had to this point presented the idea that the endgame for the show is defeating the Horde, and Hordak being the assumed leader of the Horde… he’s still not presented as the character that’s the most hated based on his interactions with other characters. Throughout season 1 the basis of his screen time is telling Shadow Weaver to stop wasting resources trying to bring Adora back, and then at the end of the season assisting Catra’s plan to use the Black Garnet. Essentially every time Shadow Weaver tries to make a move against Adora and Catra; the characters we’re sympathetic towards; he tells her off on it and when she makes an open act of defiance against Catra's plan he throws her in prison. What all of these acts do to the audience is kind of present him as not being as bad as Shadow Weaver. Let me frame it this way. The character who at this point is thought to eventually be the final boss is not the most hated of the antagonists. To me that seems fairly telling, and retrospectively to kind of foreshadow the direction his character would eventually go.

Season 2 I would say is the most he’s ever played as a straight up villain. He’s patronizing to his subordinates and he uses intimidation tactics and light forms of torture on Catra which I think might be the biggest reasons as to why some fans of the show despise him even now. However, this is also the season where the most important relationship he has throughout the show starts to form. One of the scenes Entrapdak fans bring up a lot is when he catches her in his Sanctum (classy) working on the portal machine and he yells “Get out!” in what is pretty obviously somewhat a callback to Beauty and the Beast when you think about it. It’s what I’d call being subtle by throwing subtlety out the window. Sure it is a line from BatB but it’s also just something an angry person says to someone trespassing and considering at this point we know nothing about their relationship and we likely aren’t thinking that these two characters would have an arc together. What I’m basically saying is that while on multiple viewings this scene pretty obviously foreshadows them as part of a beauty/beast narrative, someone watching the show for the first time may not notice that during this scene. At the end of the day however season 2 Hordak is the most purely villainous he ever is during the show, he suffocates Catra in one of his contraptions as intimidation, he starts off disparaging all of Etheria to Entrapta in their initial conversation about portals, he plans to send Shadow Weaver to Beast Island (although the viewer may not care about this one), and if not for Entrapta convincing him otherwise he probably would have had Catra executed. Again, this season is him at his worst and at his most high and mighty. The way the insecure clone of Horde Prime WANTS to be seen, a façade that gets broken down in front of the audience for the rest of the series, in fact it partly gets broken down in this season during the scenes of him without his armor.

The way Season 3 chooses to frame Hordak actually starts in an episode in which he’s not present. During the season’s first episode Adora has a conversation with Bow and Glimmer after Shadow Weaver is found in Bright Moon. During this conversation she talks about how she changed for the better after having been in the Horde all her life, and she says she chooses to believe that if she can then maybe everyone can, even Shadow Weaver. Subconsciously many of us probably thought during this scene “Even Hordak?”. Essentially what this scene does is have the show’s protagonist make a case for not demonizing the show’s current antagonist like many would, it plants the idea that in the viewer’s head that maybe he isn’t too far gone. The previous season showed him growing to trust Entrapta enough to spare Catra because of her advising, which could be enough to show that to be true. While always rough around the edges and teeming with anger he’s never presented as someone incapable of seeing reason, and with Adora’s monologue about believing in the ability of anyone to change that makes us think that maybe he could be given reason to turn away from his presumed history of villainy. Additionally, when Shadow Weaver talked about her motivations for defecting she said “I want to destroy Hordak”, Shadow Weaver being a character that most viewers of the show likely already hate from seeing how abusive and power hungry she behaves seemingly on instinct. The fact that she’s the one bringing up the concept of killing him coinciding with Adora’s monologue may make the viewer sit back and try to reframe how they view Hordak as a character. This idea is what gets played with in his screen time for the rest of the season.

The very next episode is the big one (the holy grail for Entrapdak shippers). During this episode he blocks Entrapta from the blast of a failed portal experiment, she discovers his physical condition, he tells her about his past with Horde Prime and why he’s doing what he’s doing, she builds him new armor while saying one of the most inspirational quotes of all time (Imperfection is beautiful), and he awkwardly tries to properly thank her while getting help from his clone son Imp… Okay so let me just get to the biggest thing I want to talk about for this particular episode. The reveal of Horde Prime as the leader of a Galactic Horde has a huge impact on how Hordak himself is presented as a character. Firstly it presents the idea that Hordak himself won’t be the final boss of the series, thus opening up the audience to be more inclined to sympathize with him going forward. Secondly him literally being a clone brings forth the idea that he never really had a choice in how he turned out, and in a show that to this point has largely been about characters feeling trapped in terms of who they’re supposed to be by their familial figures in itself is likely to make the audience start to sympathize with him in realizing that war and being part of dictatorship is all he knows. Finally, we have him calling himself a failure and a defect in this scene. I feel as though this was done to draw forth parallels between Hordak’s relationship to Prime and Catra’s to Shadow Weaver. Prime called Hordak defective, Shadow Weaver called Catra worthless. Most people watching the show to this point will sympathize with Catra in one way or another and by having another villain in your show be paralleled to her is a way to invoke the audience to sympathize with them as well.

Now, for his interactions with Entrapta this particular episode. First we see him; a man with what seems to be muscular deterioration; using his body to shield her from an explosion. This would seem to show him as someone capable of putting others before himself, which as we learn in season 5 is something completely separating him from being like Horde Prime. After this we have him opening up to her about being a clone, having a defect, his feelings of being a failure, and him awkwardly trying to thank her. This whole sequence of scenes in part reveals a deeper truth about his character, namely the fact that he was for the most part programmed. All of his awfulness of season 2 and from presumed acts from before the show was pretty much what he was made for. He is someone who was literally engineered by an intergalactic dictator and essentially was born into a cult environment. When the only way he can thank her is by awkwardly saying “I acknowledge your work here, it’s very… technologically sound” and after some coaxing from Imp continuing with “No matter what you say, you are not a failure. And any who underestimate you are utter fools” we can gather one kind of tragic fact. Hordak before this point had never felt a positive emotion from anything not related to conquering and technological advancement, in all his time he had never before this felt love or companionship. While the line itself is funny and kind of endearing, it also reveals the underlying tragedy of his backstory. That tragedy being that realistically there was no alternative way for him to turn out up to this point, the fact that this comes from being born in the Horde and the indoctrination and abuse from a familial figure adds another parallel to Catra, and how the abuse cycle of what Prime did to Hordak set him in a place to start up his own empire, bring Shadow Weaver into it, and then she does the same thing to Catra that Prime did to Hordak. Essentially the source of Hordak’s stress and likely trauma is the first domino to fall in causing the events of the show to happen, Prime’s own ego and perfectionism is what eventually caused his downfall.

But I’m getting ahead of myself here, as I still have more to say about this episode. I haven’t even really gotten into specifics on his defect, or his physical disability. Hordak would seem to have extreme muscular deterioration, he seems to have no tissue on his forearms leaving the bone exposed. The reveal is that his armor and technology are holding his physical body together. Most of the time a reveal like this regarding our presumed main villain would be a “The villain is more machine than man” type of trope like Darth Vader in A New Hope, however that’s not what’s done here. The armor and later pseudo-cybernetics aren’t so much to make him truly powerful and intimidate others as they are to cover up a vulnerability, and vulnerability is a very humanizing trait. The way this show chooses to completely subvert a trope here is interesting to me and says something about the series as a whole that I’ll probably extrapolate on later. What this decision says to me is that this show is one that cares about its characters, all of them, even in its villains they will ask you to look at and consider any vulnerability or redeemable quality in your judgement of them.

The next major scene involving him is the conversation between him and Entrapta having the portal machine almost ready. During the conversation they both seem sad about the prospect of being separated when Hordak rejoins Prime and they ultimately decide that they’ll wait to try it until the portal is absolutely perfect. This plan being ended by Catra coming back with the sword of protection. The reason for all he had done up to this point was rejoin with Horde Prime and he was now willing to slow down with trying to return to his brother, perhaps at this point if Catra hadn’t returned he might have scaled back the war efforts and settled for just continuing scientific pursuits with Entrapta, this isn’t guaranteed but it’s something that left open enough in the text of the show to where it can read as an aspect of his character.

The next major scene is when Catra lies about Entrapta betraying him and letting the princesses into the Fright Zone. This scene sets forth where his emotional state is during season 4, he falls to believe that; in spite of their work together and her telling him to not worry so much about being a failure and telling him that imperfection is beautiful; she never really cared about him and was just using him for his own destruction. The end of this season is probably Catra at her absolute worst. Entrapta outright told her that the portal would destroy the planet and then sent her to Beast Island after she used the words “Adora was right”. Having Hordak be another character hurt by some of Catra’s actions at a time when he may or may not have been on a trajectory to become a better person is an interesting interpretation of this scene to me (especially in light of her continuing by pulling the lever of the portal machine) because I feel like it was a great way to show Catra’s continued fall deeper and deeper into desperation and lashing out in anger and her potentially having at this point outgrown Hordak in terms of villainy (expressed in her Azula moment early in season 4). This idea kind of more puts Hordak on a similar level as the other characters, he’s no longer the untouchable ruler of the Etherian Horde if this bad kitty can come in and cause him to have what boils down to a broken heart. This scene is the final piece that to the audience completely breaks down the façade he had been putting on for so long.

Season 4 Hordak is a bit hard to explain. This season is when we see him committing the most on-screen villainous acts of the entire series, however largely he was being manipulated by Catra into actually setting foot on the battlefield. While this season has him being his most morally wrong, we also see this at a time when we’re somewhat newly aware of his vulnerabilities and insecurities and while he’s doing this we also see characters like Catra and Glimmer also falling further and further into behaving immorally or unethically. This kind of puts the audience in a really unique seat where we’re seeing the characters that we’ve grown to care about since the beginning of the series start to fall into something resembling tyrannical behavior like we’ve assumed from Hordak for so long. So while he’s at his worst at this time so is everyone else and in his case many of his actions here stem from believing that Entrapta betrayed him so there’s an extra layer of folly to what’s going on since it all stems from a lie. When Catra is trying to get him to step up the war effort to conquer all of Etheria she succeeds by pulling out the crystal that powers his armor that Entrapta gave him. When it’s removed he essentially collapses powerless. The crystal says LUVD (not that he or Entrapta knew, but the audience can learn it). Essentially this says that he is weak without love, when Entrapta was there, and she made him the armor he was made strong, when she’s gone and the crystal is removed he’s weak.

There’s a scene where Hordak is talking to Catra about how their success would mean that he’d return to Prime’s side triumphant and worthy. When she hears him talk about this she kind of gives a look that shows just how much she actually understands the motivations. The audience knows this as well, we all saw the times when Shadow Weaver called her unworthy. This scene is the show itself basically telling us that any similarities between Hordak and Catra we gleaned from the reveal of his backstory wasn’t just us seeing something that wasn’t there. This scene essentially asks the audience to look at these two characters through similar lenses. It doesn’t tell you exactly HOW to view them, but asks for you to take a step back and measure any hypocrisy regarding how you view their various actions and then leave it at the door. The show asks you to sympathize with Hordak based on similarities with Catra;a character whom the audience probably sympathizes with from the very beginning; and having them both commit similar actions for similar motivations.

Skipping ahead we have this sequence late in the season where Double Trouble cleverly tells Hordak that Catra sent Entrapta to Beast Island and the subsequent battle he has with the cat. The absolute rage and sadness in his eyes as the background completely fades out and we’re just focused on his face with tears starting to come out of his big red eyes while drenched in blackness, and then he just fires off his arm cannon around the room in anger. There’s just… so much to be said about this little sequence right here, it was beautifully done. What this scene expressed more than anything is that even if he didn’t know it, he was totally in love with Entrapta. He heard she was sent to beast Island, a place where he has sent people to DIE. He likely thinks she’s dead, and his first reaction was tears and to destroy part of his lab and then try to kill his second in command in revenge. I don’t know about you but this is something one would pretty much only do if they were in love with someone. Additionally I think the stylization of having the whole background fade to black during this scene is an interesting one. I think one meaning that could be taken from it is that with him believing she was dead he was sinking deeper into the darkness, that his ability to see the lighter side of the world was gone, the one person who could understand him was gone forever and he had spent all that time angry with her while working with her killer. A man who already was prone to self loathing and feeling like a failure now had nothing to lose. I think this is probably why early in season 5 after seeing Catra he goes to get his mind wiped again. Seeing Catra and her calling him by his name brought back some memories, memories that at this point only bring him pain.

Speaking of Hordak and mindwipes though, the next major scene in my reading is the first time we truly see Horde Prime in his full glory. I’m going to focus less on Hordak saying that he did all his conquering for Prime, but more how Prime winds up seeing through him, and the horror that being part of the cultish Galactic Horde actually is. Prime is able to see into Hordak’s thoughts, he brushes his hands against the slot where the LUVD crystal once was and says “There was a time when you wished I wouldn’t come for you” confirming what everyone knew about his feelings towards Entrapta. After that Hordak seems to get basically reset to factory settings so to speak. Horde Prime immediately turns to Glimmer and apologises for his defective brother, she asks if this means he’d leave them alone to which he expresses that he’d have to destroy the planet to cover up the failures, he would have done it if Catra hadn’t brought up knowledge of the Heart of Etheria. What Horde Prime’s introduction does most of all is tell the audience that if they thought Hordak was evil then they really hadn’t seen anything yet. Hordak was but a child lashing out compared to the insane cult of planetary destruction and forced hegemony that is Horde Prime. If the brutality of the mindwipe of Hordak was anything to go off of it probably isn’t pleasant to be a clone either, but it’s their purpose for creation. “All beings must suffer to become pure” after all.

This helps me segue into talking more about the rest of season 5 and get into detail about the Galactic Horde itself. Based on everything from the language used by Horde Prime and his clones, the fanaticism of most of said clones, the obsession with the color white, and the ideology it would seem as though the Galactic Horde is one thing. A cult. Horde Prime is a souped-up version of Shoko Asahara. He presents himself very charismatically and uses that as a way to mask the constant manipulation he does to everyone from his own clones, to any “Honored guests” he may have, and even his adversaries. He does all of this in a self serving effort to further his own perceived greatness. He is something that no other antagonist in this series ever was, a being of pure ego. Shadow Weaver, Hordak, and Catra even at their very worst were always shown to be affected by the histories and relationships they formed with other people. Even when they committed evil acts there was something recognizable about it, you still knew that this was a PERSON. Horde Prime, while being in the body of a man is surprisingly more reminiscent of something Lovecraftian than your typical supervillain. He’s ancient, his origin is never even hinted at, as though he’s been around forever and no one really knows. He can transfer his consciousness into any being within his hivemind, he has presumably hundreds or even thousands of his former bodies around for him to be able to check their memories, that means he has entire parts of his life he doesn’t remember. Horde Prime may have a humanoid figure, but as a character he’s much more like Cthulhu than Palpatine…. This is the being that created and essentially raised Hordak. A Lovecraftian style cult leader who either conquers planets, assimilates them into his hivemind, or destroys them all for shits and giggles. Hordak never stood a chance of being a good, well rounded person out of that environment. It all puts the Hordak of seasons 1-4 in a different context, shows just how deeply rooted indoctrination was for him.

After the second “purification” he undergoes one might wonder one thing regarding Hordak. Where could he possibly go from here? He’s had his mind wiped twice, he’s on Horde Prime’s ship, even if he did have his memories he believes that the one being who ever cared about him is dead, it really seems like he has nowhere to go… and then he sees the LUVD crystal lying on the floor near some rubble after Entrapta helped with rescuing Catra. He picks it up and looks into it for a second before letting out a somewhat surprised “Entrapta?” he may not fully remember who that is at the moment but they definitely mean something to him. There may be hope for Hordak after all. The audience knows this, especially since earlier in this same episode it’s revealed that Entrapta is keeping a list of clones that could be Hordak, she’s still looking for him.

Later he has another few scenes where he starts to remember some of his past. The cloning tanks with Prime’s former vessels reminding him of Entrapta and when he revealed who he was to her, he doesn’t have it all yet but the pieces are coming back slowly. They come back faster during Failsafe. When he finally sees Entrapta again he’s confused. “Why do I know your face?” She knows that it’s him. He’s not entirely sure he wants to remember, he considers his memories imperfections. As Swift Wind drags her away from the encounter like an idiot she reminds him “Your imperfections are beautiful”. Later in the episode we see her looking him up in the chip network and show a sweet smile on knowing that it really was him. At the beginning of the season the LUVD Crystal was tiny, but now it covers almost the entirety of the palm of his large clawed hands. His love has grown, and grown him as a person, this sets what happens next.

During the two part finale he makes the most important decision of his life. Entrapta gets teleported up to Prime’s ship, directly in front of Hordak. As the rebels start making ground in the battle she starts making noise, telling Prime how he can’t win, he doesn’t know what makes them strong. Prime orders Hordak to kill her. He has a blank, confused, scared expression as he points the arm cannon at her at his brother’s command, tears start to form in her eyes. Is this because she’s afraid to die or because possibly the only person to truly understand her was lost and would be the one to make it happen? Hordak makes a split second decision to turn on his brother. He’s finally able to break through the abuse and indoctrination of Prime’s borderline Lovecraftian cult, throwing Prime’s body down a pit in the ship… Until Prime takes over Hordak’s body temporarily to once again try to intimidate the Etherians.

There is one final scene involving Hordak that is important, that happens right after Adora purges out Horde Prime. We’re given a flashback of Hordak out in a meadow where he’s holding a baby Adora. He likely detected portal activity thinking perhaps Prime had come for him. Instead it was this helpless child, lost from her home and now on this strange world. Perhaps in a quick decision this man starting his own empire saw a piece of himself within her and would take her in. A small piece he forgot about in the many years later, but in this moment of her purging his creator from his mind now remembers. Adora looks at him with no derision or spite, but a soft smile, as though after all these years she finally is starting to understand who he is on a deeper level.

She-Ra and The Princesses of Power is a show that started airing on Netflix in 2018 and finished its run in 2020, and it is a show that is ostensibly about the connections we form with other people and how those affect us moving forward. On top of that it goes out of its way to say that in the end those connections are a positive that we’re better off for experiencing. Horde Prime is the show’s main antagonist and he is a being of pure ego, he views the connections the Etherians form with each other to be a weakness. Meanwhile, time and time again in season 5 those are exactly why he gets defeated. Adora can get through to Catra to break her from the chip, Netossa does the same with Spinnerella, Seahawk and Perfuma slightly do that with Mermista and Scorpia respectively… But where does Hordak fit into this? In s5e3 Corridors Hordak goes to Prime to be “Purified'' after seeing Catra and she calls him by his name, a name being something clones of Lord Prime shouldn’t have. After the painful ritual Prime refers to him as “The purest among you” to the other clones surrounding the ritual. But in the end the connection he had formed with Entrapta led to even him turning on Prime anyway, that purity meant nothing because the bonds we form with other people supersedes all of that. If Hordak doesn’t turn on Prime like he did, for the reason he did then the messaging and themes of the show would have a place where they didn’t follow through as strongly. We’d have a victim of abuse that wasn’t able to get past their abuser, and a flawed person who didn’t wind up doing the right thing because they wanted to do right by the person they love. Without a positive ending for Hordak it makes the rest of the show’s positive endings weaker because it has a blatant exception to those victories, and while that could be poignant in some shows, I don’t think SPOP is that kind of show. So you might be wondering… Why write all this? What made me think that writing a wall of text about Hordak of all fictional characters would be worth it? Part of it is because I wanted to explore why I care so much about this character and look into how his arc worked from a storytelling standpoint. I think the other part of it is simply seeing a lot of people not really seem to understand him as a character. There seems to be a very vocal group of people who hate him, or the Entrapdak ship for one reason or another and use that to kind of call those of us who do enjoy it bad people, so part of writing this is to maybe help some of those people who just flat out don’t understand how we could possibly be fans of the character get to know a bit of the reasoning behind it, and maybe show that the show specifically wrote him to be sympathetic. And maybe if you can see how it would be possible for us to love this character, maybe you can learn to appreciate him too. I can't force you to, but hopefully I can at least help you see where I’m coming from, and if you made it this far all I can say is thank you for reading.

TLDR; Hordak is a very deeply complicated character who’s arc is more important to the themes of SPOP than you might think.

#hordak #entrapdak #spop #essay #character analysis #catra #adora #shadow weaver #horde prime

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comingoutofthecauldron · 4 years

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Sometimes I'm like broooo how did leigh make such good books with soc and ck with such good characters and plots and wordbuilding but she had made a (very entertaining) trilogy but with so many grating 2D characters and sometimes the plot was just ... not it

Like soc and ck obviously have their flaws too but not to the same extent as the trilogy

Like did you feel leigh was very unnecessarily sympathetic to the darkling and treated Nikolai as a mostly good character in the text even though he did sooooo many shitty things

And that zoya was treated (unknowingly) with a lot of misogyny in the narrative which has caused many people in the fandom to hate her

And alarking and nikolina were romanticised in the books and in the fandom far too much

???

YES OKAY so this is a Big Thing for me. very controversially, i prefer tgt to soc solely because i find it much more enjoyable to read. HOWEVER, there's no denying that leigh's writing definitely improved from tgt to soc, i agree.

while i think that leigh clearly portrayed the darkling as a villain (she didn't tamper down his crimes or make them seem less horrific), i agree that the narrative was definitely (arguably too) sympathetic towards him. i could use a lot of examples for this, but none work quite so well as:

“Once more,” he said. “Speak my name once more.” He was ancient, I knew that. But in this moment he was just a boy – brilliant, blessed with too much power, burdened by eternity.

“Aleksander.”

His eyes fluttered shut. “Don’t let me be alone,” he murmured. And then he was gone.

leigh's choice to have alina, one of the people who suffered most at the darkling's hands, sympathise with him and even grant him his last wish, was a bad one. this man is a thousand year old p*dophilic mass murdering sex trafficker and she had the nerve to describe him as "just a boy" and "brilliant [...] blessed [...] burdened". of course you can argue that this is the residue of his grooming of alina, but i just think that after all the shit he'd done by this point, after a whole book of alina talking about how manipulated she felt and how much she hated him, these few words offer him clemency from the narrative that he does not deserve. all he did to earn alina's kindness (not forgiveness, to be fair to leigh) was die.

and yes, nikolai was hero worshipped by the text for absolutely no reason. even though we see both alina and mal put up a lot of resistance to him + the shit he pulls (punching him, criticizing him etc), the narrative basically shoves their eventual "pity" and "admiration" for nikolai down the readers' throats.

“[...] Nikolai might never have made it out of the Grand Palace.” It hurt me to say it, but I forced myself to speak the words. “He could be dead.”

and

The too-clever fox. Even once he’d abandoned his disguise as Sturmhond, that’s who Nikolai had been to me, always thinking, always scheming.

and

[to nikolai] “I’m just happy you’re alive,” I said, hastily blinking my eyes clear.

imo this sympathy + romanticisation is much worse and much more prominent throughout the latter half of s&s and the whole of r&r than the sympathy with the darkling, purely because the bad things nikolai does are essentially never acknowledged. there is (unsurprisingly ig) no talk of his imperialism, no talk of his pursuing alina when she's a minor, no talk of his racist remarks and generally very little talk of him being an asshole (particularly to mal).

moreover, i agree that nikolina + darklina were too romanticized by the text. i have a very complicated relationship with leigh's portrayal of alarkling, because a lot of alina's earlier feelings and sympathy for the darkling stem from his grooming and manipulation of her, which i think this quote from the start of r&r shows pretty well:

Even now, after everything he’d done, I wanted to believe the Darkling, to find some way to forgive him.

but then we get the whole mental house call thing that alina + the darkling do, in which they can visit each other and no one else can see the other. that was a mistake narratively. the ability to do this implies a sort of deeper bond, and even though the darkling then uses this bond to show alina the corpse of the only mother figure she'd ever known, it still carries almost romantic connotations with it throughout the rest of the book(s) for some reason. this dynamic is similar to a lot of "soulmate bonds" in mainstream ya (namely sjm's mating bonds), which helps to explain why so many people ship darklina; it is written & coded the same as the majority of (abusive) ya relationships, so readers pick up on this as a sign of romance rather than some attempt at narrative foils or something (bc in reality zoya is alina's foil). this isn't even mentioning the repetition of alina's desire to forgive the darkling and her confusion over her "feelings" for him, which once again just reinforces darklina as a viable ship in a lot of readers' minds.

as for nikolina, as a less prevalent ship in the series it gets less attention in the fandom. most often, i see people turn to nikolina because they don't like malina or the darkling, or because they wanted alina to become queen (to which i remind everyone that alina never wanted to be queen). at first i was alright with leigh's portrayal of them because alina punches nikolai + is angry with him for kissing her non-consensually etc, which is the closest the narrative ever comes to condemning him for his actions. but later on alina seems to forget all this and considers marrying nikolai, even joking with him a little when he proposes:

[during nikolai's marriage proposal]

“Stop that,” I said, still grinning.

“What?”

“Saying the right thing.”

there is zero acknowledgement of how predatory nikolai is, and instead the narrative goes on to sympathise with nikolai and have alina feel guilty for rejecting him. imo alina's characterization (her initial disdain for nikolai, which was much more in character) was sacrificed to raise up nikolai, and also show him to be a plausible and "likable" love interest for zoyalai, which is where leigh obviously intended for nikolai to end up (zoya is even mentioned during nikolai's proposal).

finally - yes, zoya in tgt is basically a manifestation of leigh's internalised misogyny. from alina's initial slut-shamey disdain for her, to leigh weaponising her against malina (repeated sexual encounters with mal), to zoya being seen as evil & a bitch by the other female characters just because she's powerful + isn't "nice", zoya's character was assassinated before it even had chance to materialize. even though zoya was also a victim of the darkling and is, as i mentioned before, alina's narrative foil, alina has very little sympathy for her and assumes that she's an evil bitch. tbf, this gets better with each book, but even in r&r there's a lot of tension between zoya and the other characters because she's seen as unlikable and difficult. i can't speak to her characterization in kos or soc, because i haven't read one and don't really remember the other, but i have heard that it improved from tgt to kos.

anyways this has been a long ass rant and i'm very sorry to anyone who scrolls past it on their dash. fuck the darkling, fuck nikolai lantsov, and stan malyen oretsev

#cauldron rants #cauldron asks #tgt #anti nikolai #anti nikolina #anti darkling #anti darklina #anti alarkling #alina starkov #the darkling #nikolai lantsov #zoya nazyalensky #long post

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anime-alyssa · 3 years

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my ghost - dabi x hawks

Not a day passed by where Keigo Takami didn’t think of Toya Todoroki - his best friend that he fell in love with. One day, he swears he’s seeing a ghost - but it's not a ghost at all.

i posted this on ao3 last night but forgot to cross post here cause it was late - my bad.

smut below the cut - if you enjoyed consider a lil tippy tip

He remembered it like it was yesterday.

The teacher coming in with a somber look on her face, eyes slightly glazed over as she told his class that one of their classmates had passed away. She had looked to Keigo sympathetically as he sat in shock - the news not quite hitting him until much later in the day, when the P.E teacher found him in the locker room crying.

Not a day passed when Keigo Takami didn’t think of Toya Todoroki - his best friend that he fell in love with. At the time of his death they were only teenagers, new to the idea of love and romance and not even sure what they liked. As the years went on and more people tried to advance on him, Keigo couldn’t help but let his mind wander back to Toya - making him realize that he was in love with his deceased best friend.

The publicists at his agency thought it would be best if he kept his sexuality a secret. Part of his attraction as Hawks was his looks, he knew that - imagine how much his attractiveness as a hero would go down if society found out he was gay. He always fought with them and told them that they could shove it - but he knew that they were right. There would always be one asshole who would try to tank him for it.

Everything he did to become the number two hero, he had done with Toya in mind. They had always said they would become heroes together, run their own agency to protect the world from villains. But now here he was, standing on the stage next to the new number one, the person who could no doubtedly be blamed for the death of his best friend - Endeavor.

Toya hadn’t said much to Keigo about his father - but the scars and bruises were enough to prove to him that the hero wasn’t all he was cracked up to be. But even now, what could he do about it? He had to just smile and put on the show for the cameras - something he was good at. He had been hiding his sexuality all these years, he could pretend to like Endeavor.

Keigo couldn’t get out of there fast enough - answering the absolute bare minimum of questions that would get the publicists off his back before flying out to his patrol post. The sun was setting by now - the ranking announcement taking way longer than it should have. As much as he wanted to fly back to his penthouse and drink away some of his feelings, he had a job to do - the job that he and Toya always said they’d do together. He wondered how much things would be different if Toya was here - would they be heroes together? Would they be together? Keigo ached to know, even though he would never find out.

Shouts of commotion from below got his attention as he sighed, standing up and flying downwards. There was a group of thugs confronting a singular villain - trying to go after him. One of them looked up wide eyed, dropping his weapon and dashing away.

“Oh shit - it’s Hawks!” With a snap of his fingers, Keigo let his feathers fly free, injuring the thugs and letting them fall to the ground. Hawks pressed the police button on his costume to alert the police of the incident before turning his attention to the villain. He landed himself in the middle of them before turning around to face the villain that was causing all the trouble in the first place.

“Well, well - if it isn’t the number two hero himself. Hawks, right?” he asked. Keigo turned around and his eyes grew wide, meeting the gaze of the villain. No, it can’t be - “What’s the matter, number two? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” the patch work cremator said with a smirk. Keigo knew the blue of those eyes anywhere - the snarky attitude, that face, despite all the staples and burns - he dreamt about it for years. Police sirens started to get closer and closer to the duo before he sighed. “Good talk. I’m gonna take my leave now - thanks for disposing of these worthless thugs for me. Using my quirk is a real pain.” with that, he turned on his heel and started walking away.

“Toya!” Keigo shouted before he could stop himself. He saw the man stop for the briefest of seconds, turning back towards him. Keigo felt his breath get stuck in his throat - it couldn’t be him, could it? Icy blue eyes locked back on his, a small smile turning his cheeks upwards.

It was him.

“The name is Dabi now, Keigo. I’ll be seeing you real soon.” Dabi rose his hand and within seconds, Keigo was up in the air avoiding the blue flames. The screams of the captured thugs echoed off the walls as the police arrived on the scene, calling in for back up. By the time some of the smoke and flames cleared, there was absolutely no sign of him.

Toya’s alive. After all this time, Toya’s alive -

“Hawks, thank you for calling this in. Where did the flames come from?” a police officer asked the number two. Snapping out of his trance, Keigo turned around to face the police officers, seeing the medical team retrieving the charred bodies of the thugs behind them. With a sigh, he answered.

“Dabi, from the League. Unfortunately, he got away this time. Flames were too quick.” He said back. The police officers looked at him with unease - Hawks was the quickest one around, too fast for his own good, but they didn’t question his answer. For whatever reason, today Hawks wasn’t quick enough to get Dabi.

After cooperating with the police, he decided he was done for the day. He sent his sidekicks out to patrol some areas while he flew back to his penthouse, landing on the balcony outside the living room and strolling in. He shrugged off his jacket and threw it over a chair before walking over to his bar and pouring himself a drink.

Keigo had spent the better part of his life trying to deal with Toya being gone - trying to deal with being in love with him - but he had been alive all along? To make matters worse - he was with the League? What the hell had actually happened that night? To his knowledge, Toya had gone up to the mountains to practice using his quirk, and just never came back - burning to death. There hadn’t even been a body found - so how in the hell was he here now?

“You should really have better security up here. Anyone could just… walk in.” Keigo’s feathers acted quicker than he did, several flying out and landing just inches before Dabi’s - Toya’s body. He let out a laugh as Keigo turned around to meet his gaze.

“How?” Keigo asked, voice cracking. He inwardly cringed at himself - if only the public could see him now. Hawks, the number two hero, a bloody mess because his best friend and love was back from the dead.

“I lived. Clearly - but look at you! Number two hero, all buddy-buddy with Endeavor today. It made me sick.” Dabi said, walking over to Keigo and helping himself to his own drink at the bar. Keigo let out a snort as he refilled his own cup.

“I meant how did you live. See your attitude is still the same.” Keigo said back to him, turning around to face him sideways.

“Well, God didn’t want me and Hell didn’t either, so here I am.” Dabi retorted, drinking while eyeing the number two. “So? Are you now best of buds with dear ‘ol dad?” he asked him.

“I’d rather tell him to go kick rocks - but unfortunately, I need to pretend to like him. For the public’s sake.” Keigo admitted to Dabi, who hummed in acknowledgment. He watched the scar tissue on his neck bulge as he drank, clearing his throat as he put the glass down after drinking.

“Yeah, that’d look real fuckin’ bad, right? I hear you’re great at pretending, anyway. If you can pretend to be straight, then I guess you can pretend to like my shithead dad.” Keigo almost spat out his drink at the comment, earning a raised eyebrow from the villain. “Something I said, Kei?” he asked, the two of them putting their glasses down and now looking at each other.

“How did you find that out?” Keigo asked through gritted teeth.

“Come on, like it wasn’t already obvious when we were teenagers. Every stupid 13 year old girl in our class threw themselves at you and you could have given a shit.” Dabi said to him smuggly, taking a step closer to the winged hero. “You know, back then - I knew I was too, you know. At first, it was going to just be spite to my old man - imagine him knowing his oldest son was not only a failed experiment, but also gay.” he said with a chuckle.

“Oh really? Just spite?” Keigo asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“Well at first - until after I ‘died’, when I started watching you from the shadows. Saw how bent out of shape you were, really, you were a mess. It actually hurt my heart a little, not gonna lie.” Dabi was walking closer and closer to Keigo slowly but surely, almost on top of him. Keigo made no sign that he was going to move, or was displeased, so he kept going.

“Huh, so you still have a heart.” he said back with a smirk. Keigo tried to mask how Dabi’s close proximity was affecting him - his heart racing a mile a minute. “What do I have to do with this little story of yours? What, took one look at me and realized you liked men more?” he asked, keeping up the smirk.

“And if I did? What would you do then?” he asked, voice gravelly as their chests were nearly touching. He could feel the heat coming off of him - body warm from his quirk, that’s how close Dabi was to Keigo. The tension could be cut with a knife, the air thick with it and surrounding the two men.

“I’d tell you that you were my reason too.” Keigo said honestly, quietly.

“Well, ain’t that a relief.” Dabi said back to him. Without a second thought, Keigo grabbed Dabi by the shoulders and closed the gap between them, the villain letting out a grunt as their lips met each other. Keigo’s hand went around the back of Dabi’s neck, pushing their mouths impossibly closer together as Dabi’s went around Keigo’s back to crash their bodies together. They both moaned into the mouth of the other as their hips met, each of their bulges harshly pushing against the other. “Where the fuck’s the bedroom, Kei?” Dabi hissed out in Keigo’s mouth.

“Hold on to me.” Keigo said back, using both his hands to slightly lift Dabi off the ground and fly across the penthouse and into the bedroom. Their lips met once more after Dabi’s back hit the mattress, Keigo moaning as Dabi’s hips bucked upwards to meet his. Dabi used all the force in his body to turn Keigo over, flipping him on his back and panting for breath. His pupils were blown out, barely any blue left to his eyes as they stared down at Keigo’s, in a similar state.

“Looks like you have a problem there, number two.” Dabi said, voice low and deep as his hand cupped the tent in Keigo’s pants. He let out a pitiful moan as the villain chuckled above him. “Allow me.”

With that, Dabi unbuckled Keigo’s belt and started to unzip his pants. Once he had those shrugged down enough, his hand went under the waistband of Keigo’s boxers and pulled out his hard cock. Keigo let out a moan as he squeezed it gently, thumb gliding over the slit at the head and spreading the precum that had leaked out. Keigo tried to keep his eyes on Dabi, before they rolled back into his head as the villain’s tongue licked up the underside of his shaft.

“Fuck…” Keigo moaned, feeling Dabi’s smirk as he took his cock in his mouth. Warmth encased his member as Dabi began to suck his cock, taking as much of his lengthy member into his mouth as he could before his staples started to pain him. What he couldn’t fit in his mouth he wrapped a hand around, starting to pump him. His tongue flicked over Keigo’s head with every bob as his hand pumped him and let out gentle squeezes to his balls, sending jolts of pleasure up his body. Every muscle in Keigo’s body simultaneously tensed up as he felt his cock harden more in Dabi’s mouth. “T - Toya - ” he stuttered as he started to twitch in Dabi’s mouth.

“Cum, Keigo.” the villain said from below. Keigo let out a guttural moan as he felt himself release inside of Dabi’s mouth. The villain swallowed all of it as Keigo panted and moaned his way through his release, death gripping onto the sheets below him as he felt himself relax. When Dabi stood back up, he shrugged his jacket off and let it fall to the floor, bringing his lips back up to meet Keigo’s. They kissed with a sense of urgency, Dabi’s rock hard erection pressing into Keigo’s still hard cock. “Need you.” Dabi panted as their lips parted, the two men pulling each other’s shirts over their heads.

“Then come and get me.” Keigo said back as he now tried to unbuckle Dabi’s belt, managing to get it completely undone and pushing his pants down and off. Dabi let out a moan at the actions as he pulled Keigo’s pants the rest of the way off as well and shoved him backward against the mattress once more. Their lips met again as the two were now naked, bodies pressed together and sweating as Keigo felt Dabi’s cock prod at his hole. Dabi guided himself in, pressing into Keigo gently as the latter hissed at the sensation.

“Relax, Kei - fuck…” Dabi breathed as he continued to settle in. Dabi was losing himself in the feeling - Keigo was so deliciously tight around him and he had been waiting for so long to finally be able to fuck him right. He was inserting himself slowly, savoring the moment as he finally bottomed out.

“I’m not made of glass Toya, so how about you start - fucking shit - ” Keigo was cut short as Dabi started to thrust, a moan falling off his lips as the villain’s pace started out quick and deep. Dabi let out a chuckle as he pounded into him.

“What were you saying?” he asked, a moan of his own falling out of his mouth as Keigo squeezed down on him. “Shit Kei - you do that again and I’ll - ” Dabi moaned again as he felt himself harden inside Keigo, the other man’s cock twitching between their bodies. Keigo was still sensitive from his last orgasm, a moaning and desperate mess for the man above him. Dabi’s pace increased once more as he thrust into Keigo so deeply the hero was seeing stars above him, feeling his second orgasm starting to come up and almost at the bursting point.

“Toya - I’m gonna - gonna cum - ” Keigo said. Dabi let out a loud moan as his hips kept slapping against Keigo’s ass, the sound of his name coming off the hero’s lips like music to his ears. Dabi’s cock started to twitch inside him and he knew that he was not far behind.

“Cum - cum with me, Kei - fuck!” Dabi cursed, bringing his lips down to meet Keigo’s. Keigo let out a loud moan into the villain’s mouth as he came over his stomach, Dabi moaning back as his hips stuttered into Keigo once more before releasing inside him. They moaned into each other as their releases continued, eventually kissing as Dabi slipped out of Keigo. After a few minutes, they laid next to each other in the bed, Keigo finally speaking up to cut the silence.

“So, now you gonna disappear on me until you need a fuck again?” he asked the villain. Dabi scoffed as he rolled to face him, eyes narrowing.

“You want the world to know you just fucked a villain?” Dabi asked back. Keigo humed in agreement as Dabi pressed a kiss to his lips again. He did have a point - obviously, no one could know.

But even if it was just for a night, for that moment, everything felt… right to Keigo.

#dabi x hawks #keigo takami #dabi x hawks x reader #toya todoroki #dabihawks #myshit

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calliecat93 · 3 years

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ST: TNG S5 Watchthrough Episodes 18-21

Cause and Effect: Who’s ready for the ST equivalent of Groundhog Day? Yep, we have a time loop episode. This is actually my mom’s favorite episode so I’ve been waiting for this one XD.So the episode opens with the Enterprise blown up… and after the titles we have a poker game as though nothing happened. But Crusher begins to have deja vu and as the loops continue, so do the others. So... If you’ve seen time loop stories you more or less know how this goes. Though unlike most of the oens I’ve seen where just one person becomes aware of it, while Crusheris the first the others also begin to take notice. The don’t remember everything, but they start picking up on it and figuring out that something’s up. Again, I appreciate the cast being written as competent and not stupid cause it’s very easy to do with this kind of plot. Not sure I at all understand Data’s explanation on how he figured out how to end the loop... but hey, it ended. So it was good. Nothing mind-blowing but very much enjoyable. Any time that Crusher gets prominent screentime I’m happy, but again I just appreciate the cast being intelligent. Also the Kelsey Grammer cameo at the end, Hell yes~! 3.5/5.

The First Duty: Okay Wesley, second guest star appearance. Let’s see how it goes. Which, haha... it’s not a happy episode for him. There’s been an accident at the Academy and while thankfully Wesley is alright aside from an injured arm, one of his classmates has died. Well… that’s sad. That n and of itself could fuel a story all its own. But as a hearing is held, it becomes clear that something more is going on. As it turns out, Wesley’s teammate died because the entire squadron not only performed an illegal flight procedure… but lied about it. First that it was an accident, then that the accident and his own demise was his own fault. Why? To save their own skins. Now to be fair it’s clear that they’re scared, but it doesn’t change the fact that they’re essentially lying/disgracing a dead person to save themselves. Even the kid’s own father gets convinced of this, which only adds to Wesley’s guilt. I actually felt really bad for Wesley and I kinda feel like Picard, upon confronting him, was… pretty harsh. Wesley’s actions were wrong, but again he was clearly scared and felt guilty for it. Thankfully he does ultimately do the right thing, accepting the consequences. Hopefully, Wesley can push through it and grow from it if he shows up again. My mom doesn’t like this episode I guess because of how it portrayed Wesley, but honestly? I like it for that exact reason. Welsey isn’t portrayed necessarily as bad, he’s reacting like… well… a scared nineteen-year-old. He made a major mistake, and he paid the price for it, though it certainly wasn’t the worst punishment that he could have received. While Picard was rather harsh when confronting him, it was the push that Wesley needed to do the right thing. I think that this was the kind of episode that Wesley needed, where he commits a huge screw-up and unlike when he was a regular, pays the consequences for it… it’s just a shame that they did it after he stopped being a regular. I can see why some may dislike this one because of Wesley’s portrayal, but I think it was good and was long overdue for the character without villainizing him. He’s intelligent and capable of greatness, but he’s got a lot to learn, especially after this. Let’s hope that he does. 3.5/5.

Cost of Living: It’s another Lwaxana episode folks… yay. Okay despite my complaints about her episodes, the last one’s issues I had was more due to the subject matter than the character. If anything, she was the best part of it. So maybe this time things will be better. So this time, Worf is having parenting problems with Troi trying to help him and Alexander make it work. Lwaxana is on the Enterprise as she’s getting married, to Troi’s exasperation and Picard’s utter relief, and ends up butting in. Oh and the ship malfunctions because it’s Star Trek. So… it was okay I guess? The Holodeck scene was just utterly bizzare and I’m still trying to wrap my brain around WTF just happened. To be honest, Troi is the best part of this episode. She’s trying to reasonable help Worf with his parenting issues, Alexander with his lack of discepline/responsibility, her mother marrying a guy she never met and bending agains the Betazoid traditions that she usually follows, and she’s clearly just fed up with everyone especially her mother. It makes her such a joy to watch, haha! Lwaxana was… alrigh. On the one hand, it ws not at all her place to butt into the whole Alexander situation especially since Troi was handling it. On the other hand, the episode does go more into how lonely Lwaxana is and make her manhunting/desire tog et married more sympathetic. Te previous episodes always played it mainly as a joke/a condition of her species at her age, but it never allowed her to actually delve into why she’s so desperate. How she’s fears rowing older and being all alone without someone to love her… and gosh I’ve absoluteley seen this before and it’s just sad. Consideirng that this came out the same year that Gene Roddenberry, majel Barret’s husband and of course as we know the franchise creator, has passed… I can only imagine how rough this had to be for the poor woman. But if she wad channeling that into her performance, she did a fantastic job. Also Lwaxana’s fiance? He was played by freakin’ Tony Jay. The man is a freakin’ legend the voice acting world (probably best known as Frollo in Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, by far his darkest performance yet probably his best) and it’s the first time I’ve seen him in a live aciton role. He plays a snobish asshole and obviousy the marriage falls through in the end, but he made the episode worth it! So yeah, I’m still not a big Lwaxana fan but they are trying to add more to her and overall it was fine. It’s not great, for example the Enterprise’s plot felt tacked on to fill in the runtime, the pacing was rouh, and the storylines were not at all balanced out well. But it was overall fine, though i think Half a Life did her better. Troi, some legit Lwaxana development, and getting an appearance by Tony Jay made it worth it XD 2/5.

The Perfect Mate: While preparing for a peace treaty, the Enterprise picks up two Ferengi, one of which messes with the cargo, and releases a young woman named Kamala, a mutant amongst her kind whose abilities let her become the perfect mate for any man, from suspended animation. She was meant to stay that way until the ceremony... and was meant to be a ‘gift’ to one of the sides. Yeah... that’s not at all messed up. Due to the Prime Directive, the crew can’t interfere... and we find out that there was a more complicated reason as to why Kamala was as she was. This is pretty much the TNG version of Elaan of Troyius from TOS. Kamala is completely different from Elaan, more composed and well-mannered while Elaan was more aggressive and upfront. Looking back I do feel I was too harsh in calling Elaan a brat considering the conditions she was under, but the episode certainly didn’t give he much sympathy from anyone (aside from Kirk) while they do better calling out the arrangement here. Then again it’s been months since I watched the episode so I may be remembering wrong. But it does ultimately end with Kamala entering an unhappy marriage, but she bonds with Picard and ends up acting as his perfect mate, so... hope that goes well. The whole empath/metamorph thing felt necessary as well, you didn’t need a reason to make men attracted to her for this episode to work. Which yes it only works on men, remember this is the 90’s folks. I’m kind of baffled as to why Troi wasn’t in this one considering we have another empath, that could have added a more interesting layer and justified that part. But I shall repeat what I said in Elaan when they put Kirk under that tear-induced love spell: you don’t need those elements to keep a plot spicy. The Ferengi we're also utterly pointless. While I feel that the subject is better done than in TOS and it felt more evenly paced... I’m still not a fan of it. It has more of the nuanced debate on the arranged marriage plot that I was annoyed that Elaan didn’t have... but I’m still pretty meh about it overall. it’s alright, but just that: alright. 2.5/5.

Okay folks, we’re five episodes away from finishing S5. So far... it’s only been alright. There’s been a couple of strong episodes, but overall it’s remained firmly in the average range. Maybe S4 hyped me up too much, IDK. I’m still having fun, but maybe I’m just starting to get fatigued from TNG. But we don’t have much more to go, and there’s still plenty of time for S6 to change my mind, so we’ll see how things go from here.

#st watchthrough

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commanderawkward · 5 years

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Heartache (Dabi x reader/ Bakugou x reader)

This is for @savnofilter, I saw the post about wanting an angst fic based on the song slow dancing in the dark by JOJI and I decided to give it a shot. This is my first time trying to write this sort of stuff and it was written on my phone so my apologies in advance 😅

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Don't want a friend (just me)

I want my life in two (my life in two)

Just one more night

Waiting to get there

Waiting for you (all night)

I'm done fighting all night (waiting for you)

Glancing at your watch for the 4th time that night you sighed, avoiding the sympathetic glance the waiter had given you. Paying the bill for the bottle of wine you had downed you grabbed what was left and stubbled out the door of the restaurant. Glancing around the busy street you caught your reflection in the restaurant window, the makeup you had spent a lot of time doing was now ruined as tears littered your cheeks, your perfectly curled hair had now lost their curl and your body ached in the tight fitting dress and heels Dabi once adored on you. Taking another swig from the bottle of wine in your hand you stubbled down the street in search of the nearest pub hoping to drown your sorrows.

When I'm around slow dancing in the dark

Don't follow me, you'll end up in my arms

You have made up your mind

I don't need no more signs

Can you?

"(Y/N)? Is that you? What are you doing here?"

Turning around from your place on the barstool you came face to face with your dark haired boyfriend. Glancing behind him you noticed he was accompanied by his league of villain friends. Frowning you grabbed your purse and made a beeline for the door.

"(Y/N)! Where the fuck are you going?" You heard him hiss as he grabbed your wrist and turned you to look at him. It was only under the light of the street lamps that he noticed your smudged mascara and red puffy eyes. "Hey, what happened? Did some asshole hurt you? Why the fuck are you crying?" He spoke as he grabbed you by the shoulders and leaned down to your level, eyebrows furrowed.

"You forgot about me" you said choking back tears, you were never good at keeping your emotions at bay when drunk. Suddenly Dabi felt a pang of guilt as he remembered about the date you had been planning for the past week. "Fuck! Was that tonight? I'm sorry I got caught up with all this shit happening with the league and-"

"I don't want your fucking excuses Dabi! This is the third time this month, I'm sick of being stood up, I'm sick of not seeing for days on end without any type of contact, I'm sick of being the only one trying to make this work!" You sobbed, breaking out of his grip you wiped your tears away. "I was so fucking stupid, I should have noticed the signs earlier. It's over Dabi..."

Give me reasons we should be complete

You should be with him, I can't compete

You looked at me like I was someone else, oh well

It had been two weeks since you last saw Dabi. Two weeks since you stumbled into a cab and watched his shocked face as you drove away. In two weeks he hadn't tried contacting you and you knew it was over for good.

"All I'm saying is that guy is a total asshole! He didn't deserve you! Look, I know you don't want to think about it right now but I really think you should put yourself back out there. I have a friend I can set you up with! He's a bit of a hothead but he'll warm up to you quickly I'm sure of it!" Mina exclaimed hugging a pillow to her chest. She was spending the night at your apartment for your regular girls night. You let out a deep sigh "Mina... I really don't know if I'm ready-" " Too bad, I may or may not have already set up a date for the two of you tomorrow." She said with a cheeky grin, cutting you off mid sentence.

"I-... You know what? Fuck it, when's the date and what's his name?" You responded. Dabi had made it clear he didn't want anything to do with you, screw him! You deserved to find someone who actually appreciated you. Mina squealed and shoved her phone in your face "his name is Bakugou Katsuki, I went to school with him. I'll text him and let you know you said yes!". Glancing at the man in the picture you had to admit, this Bakugou guy was pretty attractive but a part of you couldn't help the sinking feeling as the thought of Dabi still lingered in the back of your mind.

Looking in the mirror you admired your outfit, today was your date with Bakugou and you had opted for a simple white sundress and tan sandals. Mina had insisted she did your makeup and straightened your hair. "You look smoking girl! Bakugou is going to love you!" Mina told you admiring her work, "shit- you should get going or you'll be late, I'll lock up". Looking at your watch you gasped, grabbing your keys and your purse before you ran out the door while shouting a quick thank you to Mina.

Stepping out of your car you looked at the cafe nervously, it had been awhile since you had been on a real date. Walking inside you glanced around the room looking for your date. A sudden hand on your shoulder made you jump as you let out a squeak in surprise. "(Y/N) right? Mina's friend?" You heard a deep voice ask you. Turning around you came face to face with the blonde boy you recognised as Bakugou. "Uh- yes that's me, im sorry if Mina forced you into this" you said followed by an awkward laugh. "Tsk... she's been trying to set me up with extras since highschool but I've never seen her as determined about it until she mentioned you" he grumbled, taking his hand off your shoulder and shoving it in his pocket. You studied his face and noticed the faint blush that covered his cheeks and noticed the tips of his ears had turned red. "Should we grab a booth and order?" You said offering him a small smile.

As Bakugou went to order for the both of you, you sat patiently, peering out the window of the cafe. Suddenly you felt your heart drop to your stomach as your eyes met a familiar pair of turquoise ones. It was the first time you had seen Dabi since your fight. Your thoughts were interrupted as Bakugou returned with two milkshakes and you offered him a smile trying to shake of the feeling in your gut.

From the outside Dabi stood there frozen as he observed you with another man. He hadn't expected you to move on so quickly and the thought of you with another man left a sour taste in his mouth. The way you looked at him made his stomach drop, it was as though he was a stranger to you. It was probably for the best, he told himself. He was a villain and you deserved so much more than him. He would never be able to give you the life you always wanted and he had to accept you were no longer his. He glanced at your small frame through the cafe window before catching up with Twice and Toga with a strong pang in his chest.

When you gotta run

Just hear my voice in you (my voice in you)

Shutting me out of you (shutting me out of you)

Doing so great (so great, so great)

You

Looking at your shopping list you pushed your trolley around the small grocery store. It had been 3 months since you started dating Bakugou and things were going surprisingly well. Chewing on your lower lip in thought you scanned through the aisles trying to locate the hot sauce Bakugou had asked you to pick up for him. Finally after an almost shameful amount of time searching for it you were able to find it. "(Y/N)...?" You heard a painfully familiar voice question. Turning around, you locked eyes with your ex as his attention turned to the bottle of hot sauce in your hand. "Interesting pick, I thought you always hated spicy food" Dabi mumbled, eyes flicking back to your face. "I- well it's not for me it's for my boyfriend" you stuttered, it felt like your heart was in your throat as shock run through your veins at the sight of him. Dabi's eyes suddenly seemed dull as his expression darkened at the use of the word 'boyfriend'. "Must be doing great then I take it Doll?" Dabi hummed. Your heart tightened at his nickname for you. "Yeah things are good, great I mean... Well I should get going but it was good seeing you Dabi, I hope you're doing well too" you muttered, glancing at him one last time before scurrying off to the checkouts without bothering to grab the rest of your list.

Used to be the one (used to be the one)

To hold you when you fall

Yeah, yeah, yeah (when you fall, when you fall)

I don't fuck with your tone (I don't fuck with your tone)

I don't wanna go home (I don't wanna go home)

Can it be one night?

Can you?

"Ready to order babe?"

Peering over the menu, your gaze met Bakugou's. Tonight was your two year anniversary and he had taken you out to dinner at one of the most expensive restaurants in town. Smiling sheepishly your eyes raked the menu again "If I'm being completely honest I'm not even sure what half this stuff is" you said a little embarrassed. Picking a dish you recognised on the menu you both chatted as you waited for your meal. "I was going to wait until after dinner but fuck it" Bakugou said and he stood up and kneeled beside your seat. "(Y/N) I know we've only been dating two years but they've been the best two years of my life. I- fuck, you know I'm bad at expressing my feeling but what I'm trying to say is will you marry me?" Bakugou stuttered, cheeks as red as his best friends hair as he looked up at you nervously. Too shocked to answer him with words, you nodded, letting him slide the diamond ring on your finger as you jumped from your seat to embrace him.

Dabi stood there in shock as he watched the love of his life become engaged to another man at the same restaurant he had meant to have met her all those nights ago. Kicking over a nearby trash can he screamed, letting his emotions out in the empty street. Dabi had spent countless nights unable to dream of anything else but your beautiful face, it haunted him. Seeing you now engaged filled him with rage and sorrow knowing he drove you into another man's arms. Not wanting to go home he dragged himself to a bar and ordered a few shots of whatever would make him forget tonight. Feeling the burning sensation run down his throat he finally broke down at the realisation that soon you would be slow dancing at your wedding while he danced in the dark wishing it was him.

Give me reasons we should be complete

You should be with him, I can't compete

Dark

You looked at me like I was someone else, oh well

Can't you see?

I don't wanna slow dance (I don't want to slow dance)

In the dark

Dark

In the dark

Dark

#dabi x reader #dabi x you #Dabi #bakugou x reader #mha bakugou #bakugou katsuki #my hero academy fanfiction #my hero academia #poor attempt at angst #songfic

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redroseredemption · 4 years

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Kamen Rider Ex-Aid Review

Since I’m getting closer to the ending of Ghost, I’d thought I’d post my review of Ex-Aid. I know it’s been a while since I finished the show but it took me a while to digest it and get all my thoughts together without raging. This is gonna be a controversial one. I know a lot of people love Ex-Aid, but if you’ve been watching my liveblogs, you probably know how this review is gonna end

Still trying to find a suitable review style so I hope you like the one I came up with. Without further ado, let’s get this over with… What I Liked: -The Opening: I freakin’ love Excite! It’s one of the best toku theme songs. Every time I’d watch an episode of Ex-Aid, I would sit through the opening just to listen to this song. It’s that good. Too bad for like 10-12 episodes it was more like an ending song but I didn’t mind it too much.

-Kiriya: Kiriya was, without a doubt, the best character in this show. Loved his lying ass personality. Loved his Hawaiian shirts. Had a pretty heartbreaking backstory and every time he was on screen he was a joy to watch. Also his actor’s hot

- The Game Driver and the Gasthats: At first I wasn’t sure about them. They’re so campy looking with their design and the neon bright colors, but over time I grew to really like them. They’re so different compared to other Rider belts. An odd one but I find when the belt says “GASHATO” very satisfying. -Kuroto and Masamune Actors: I love how much fun they’re having playing their characters. I’ve heard Kuroto’s actor is the one that gave him the crazy personality and Masamune’s actor is a famous musician and carries his gashat to his shows. I think that’s really sweet.

-Brave and Para-DX design: All his forms are great. He’s the best looking rider in my opinion in this show next to Para-DX who designs is just gorgeous. I’m still not a fan of the eyes on the visor, but they work better on them than the other suits.

-Taiga and Nico: Taiga by himself is an emo asshole who withheld the “treatment” of a patient because he wanted a gashat, but when he’s with Nico he’s tolerable. They’re dynamic made me kind of like him as the show went on. I’ve heard what the brave and snipe movie does to him, however I’m only basing his personality on the show, not the movies. In the show, he did get better. He was still an asshole, but less so in later episodes. And Nico, while annoying and bratty, I enjoyed her overall. Together, they had some of the more memorable moments in the show for me. -The Saki Revival Scene: That one scene when Masamune releases Saki and she keeps saying “Become the world's best doctor” is amazingly well done. How there’s no music when Saki keeps repeating her line and her face is glitching out. The tone of that scene was phenomenal. What I Didn’t Like: -Emu: Despite the fact that I put him in the “Didn’t Like” section, I don’t think Emu is a bad character. It’s his characterization I hae a problem with. He’s super inconsistent. Generally, he’s an empathetic person, but sometimes he uses that empathy in the wrong ways. Both Taiga and Hiiro hate him for a good 3/4ths of the show and multiple times Emu considers them his friends. Then there’s the scene with Kuroto where Emu says “he’s a good person.” That whole speech made me good “What the fuck is wrong with you, Emu?!” considering Kuroto killed Kiriya, Emu’s friend! The whole “M” personality part of him was not handled well. There are times throughout the show where I wasn’t even sure who was who. When you can tell who is who, like the one time Parad possesses Emu, he doesn’t know how Emu talks...even though he’s supposed to be “M” and should know how Emu speaks… I don’t know if that’s Emu’s actor, Hiroki Iijima, not being able to act as “M” or Yuya Takahashi not knowing how to write a character with a split personality. Whatever it was, the split personality part was very hard to follow. There’s also times where Takahashi tries to make Emu a badass and it comes off very awkward and out of character. One scene I wanna bring up is the one where Emu straight-up murders Parad. There’s no build-up to it, no foreshadowing, no indication whatsoever. He brutally beats up Parad and “kills him.” All to teach him a lesson about humanity and death. It’s so out of character and cruel for a character that’s supposed to be empathetic and caring. And all because we needed another “shock death.” It felt like Takahashi wanted to do this scene and he was going to do it no matter how little sense it made.

Hiiro: The hot embarrassing himbo.There’s being tsundere and then there’s being a dick and Hiiro is a massive dick. I got where Takahashi wanted to go with him. Hiiro is a man who lost someone he loved and he is still suffering from it, however, in my opinion it wasn’t executed well. The only scenes we see of Hiiro and his girlfriend, Saki, together before she “dies” are when he’s being a total dick to her and when she succumbs to the virus. That’s it. If we had scenes where they were a loving couple, I could be more sympathetic to Hiiro but he’s no different before Saki died and after. He’s just an asshole and yes, I get that some people are simply assholes, but if you want me to care about your character then don’t make them assholes without subsistence! This whole subplot could have been half the length with how long they dragged it out too. Speaking of which… Saki: Who is Saki? What did she like to do? What dreams did she have that didn’t center around her boyfriend? Saki was a McGuffin. A McGuffin for Hiiro to obtain. Hell, I think even Masamune describes Saki as a princess trapped in a castle at one point. She was an object. I really hate saying that but there’s no better way to describe it. She’s an object in human form for our heroes to obtain. If Saki was given a character at all, I wouldn’t be as pissed as I am with her treatment. Taiga: What is better than a character that’s an asshole for no reason? How about TWO characters that are assholes for no reason! Taiga wasn’t interesting by himself. I didn’t care about him or his “struggles” (which barely got to see in the show proper anyway) The only times he was was when he’s with Nico, but other than that I really didn’t care for him.

Kuroto: The villain of the first half of the show that becomes a meme. I don’t have too much to say about Kuroto, just that it’s clear Takahashi had a set plan for Kuroto that got thrown away once he came back. His character was done better in Build with Gentoku and from what I’m hearing about Zero-One, Gai as well.

Parad: Creepy gremlin that should not have been "M" “ I didn’t understand life that couldn’t continue.” No you understood, you lying sack a shit. In all seriousness, Parad never felt like he was a “full character” to me. He always felt like nothing more than a lackey like Graphite. Speaking of Graphite…

Graphite: If there was an award for the most wasted character in toku, he’d be it. He was the bugster created from Saki’s death. He was Hiiro’s and Taiga’s antagonist and what did they do with him? Throw him under the bus for half the show, force his ass back and then he dies a few episodes later… what a character The Tone: This was the worst aspect of this show for me. One moment, there will be a serious scene and then a second later, wack zany shinanigines happenes. Like the whole scene where Hiiro and Emu are talking about Kiriya’s death and Emu trips over himself. Or when a character dies and the voice pops in with cheery fanfair and says “GAME CLEAR” It’s like this show wants to tell this deep dramatic, story but you got clowns running aorund in the background honking.

Overall Thoughts: This show wasn’t for me. I couldn’t take it as seriously as it wanted me to. I could go on and on about Ex-Aid but I think this sums up my feelings fairly well. I have a lot of Rider shows to get to. Who knows maybe there will be a season worst than this one but for right now Kamen Rider Ex-Aid is the worst season I’ve seen yet. It goes in the “trash” tier.

(I have watched Kamen Rider Black and Gaim, but it’s been YEARS since I’ve seen them and I don’t feel confident to rank them with how long ago I’ve watched them. Also I’m ranking Amazons season 1. Haven’t watched season 2 yet)

#kamen rider ex aid #kamen rider ex-aid #kamen rider build #kamen rider amazons #kamen rider #redrosereviews #tier list #ex aid negativity

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abbybubbls · 5 years

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A Character Study of Actor Mark (and others)

This is something I’ve had in my mind for quite a while. Since everybody’s going on a late Actor Mark craze lately, I’ve noticed that some people have been forgetting that Actor Mark is... well... an asshole. I won’t name any names, just know that I have no ill will towards people who view him differently, they can do whatever they want with their favorite characters, I just wanna go on a bit of a tangent, so... here we go.

Also, you’re gonna have to create a “flaw” counter because I use the word a LOT here.

Let’s get this out of the way; Actor Mark is flawed. Seriously flawed. He’s egotistical, he’s selfish, he only cares about notoriety, he’s a megalomaniac at best. And some people would assume that the Actor has been innocent before the Mansion messed him up after Celine left him, but... not really.

The Mansion pointed out the Actor’s flaws for a long time, and made those flaws more apparent when he was at his highest and lowest points in his life, making him more of an asshole within these moments. It wasn’t towards JUST the Actor though. It’d be towards William (eccentric, being too much of a hopeless romantic), Celine (using people, overprotective, short temper) and yes, even our innocent angel baby Damien himself (confusion, mostly). Almost every character in this series has flaws, but of course, the Actor is most apparent, even when we don’t see him that much.

Then again, the Actor is that kind of character you can guess what he’s like RIGHT when you look at him at first glance. Rich, has a big ego, arrogant, keeps secrets, etc.

I mean... the Actor was ALWAYS like this, it’s just that it’s more pointed out and apparent when there are defining moments in his life. He’s an asshole!

I’m not saying that the Actor is an asshole ALL the time, though. I’m pretty sure he’s had his moments of doing good, but... not a whole lot has been seen of him doing any good at all. We only hear that he’s helped Damien become a mayor, he gave up everything (maybe a bit too much) for Celine when they were married, “reaching out” to William while hiding his spite... and that’s really it. I mean... he gave Abe a job, too... I guess... 4 good deeds the Actor has done! Yaaaayyy...?

Anyway, what I’m getting at is that Mark (not Actor Mark, our boy the man of the hour Mark Fischbach himself) said that he doesn’t believe in 100% good flawless people. Almost every character he’s played and created have things wrong with them.

Let’s use our boy Wilford Warfstache as an example.

Wilford is playful, colorful, excited, curious, and is in constant need of looking for adventure and fun. But he is also very trigger-happy, easily distracted, violent, VERY forgetful, he selfishly runs away from his responsibilities (hence him blowing “BUBBLES!” in the GIF above), and he’s so traumatized and out of touch with reality that he just makes his own as he goes with no worries whatsoever.

Now, Wilford has been my most favorite Ego for a LONG time, and as much as I love portraying him as a cute soft playful idiot, I never forget that he does have a lot of things wrong with him, so I don’t make him too innocent and naive. He’s too far gone to even try and turn back to the way he was, and I absolutely LOVE that concept, and I think it fits very well with somebody like Wilford. His backstory and his problems and are what make me love him so much because he’s such a fun but complex character.

There is a degree as to how many problems that the character has and to see if that character really is a good person or not. There is always this middle ground between the black and white, there’s the morally gray area. You can create a grid of white, gray, and black, and list every Ego with ALL of the flaws that each of them have, and you can put them in whatever area depending on which one has the most problems. And of course, Actor Mark has a lot of them.

The Actor does have every right to be upset that Celine left him for William, but never to the point where he wants revenge on them. The Actor is too prideful and so up his own ass that the Mansion made his flaws more apparent than ever for YEARS, and he’s so spiteful and CONVINCED that he deserves to be more happy than anybody else that (justifiably?) did him wrong.

This is when some people assume that the Actor is the victim, and I don’t agree with them at all, but I can see where they’re coming from. The Actor became depressed that Celine left him, he was all by himself in the Mansion losing his mind, and he can be a very sympathetic character. And yes, when you look through his perspective, you can see why he’s so upset to the point of taking revenge on William for “stealing” Celine away from him, when really Celine probably had every right to leave the Actor for William anyway. She did say that she was never comfortable in the Mansion, and she was probably used by the Actor just for attention.

I’m not saying that it was a great decision for Celine to leave without saying anything. I mean, she could have just said she wanted a divorce because she felt uncomfortable with her surroundings and liked William much more, and if the Actor wouldn’t be so spiteful, he’d let her go. But of course, that doesn’t happen, so all my hopes and dreams for a nicer ending are crushed (I’m just kidding, I ADORE the ending we’ve gotten).

Where was I? Oh yeah, people thinking that the Actor is the victim... The more that I think about it... he’s really not. He brought it upon himself to be spiteful and brought misery to his friends instead of trying to move on from it. Sure, he doesn’t have to forgive them, but he should have at least tried to move on.

There is this VERY important statement that Mark has mentioned during his DAMIEN Explanation stream that most people seem to forget: The Actor never apologized for his actions once.

Let’s go back to our boy Warfy for a sec.

In Wilford ‘MOTHERLOVING’ Warfstache, even though Wilford may not remember a whole lot of Abe, he knows that he might have done something wrong to him, and apologizes wholeheartedly (with a squeak hug and everything)! He admits that he’s done some bad things even though he doesn’t remember them, or even know that he’s done them at all. He apologizes and is willing to move on from his previous mistakes, though of course he might know he’ll make more down the road.

In DAMIEN, the Actor is so far up his own ass that he doesn’t think all the horrible things he’s done to Damien, Celine, and Will are even that horrible. He’s thinking that his actions are somehow justifiable because of his tragic backstory, thinking he’s the hero. “My humble upbringing, my tragic backstory... There’s no other role for me to play!”

The Actor SAYS he’s come to Damien to apologize, but he doesn’t say sorry once. He never says “I’m sorry for what you had to go through” or “Yeah I might have gone a bit too far with you” or anything that would even remotely count as an apology. He only says “Things weren’t according to plan, some mistakes were made, it was supposed to go like this but then I found another way around it”.

He’s more focused on his own plan more than what happened to his friends DURING the plan. The Actor is SO convinced that he is the hero of his story that he NEVER admits that he is in the wrong of what he’s done to Damien and Celine, but he says he’s willing to move on from the past... when he’s really not.

He loses his temper very quickly whenever he mentions the past and he keeps snapping at Damien. When he “casts” Damien as the main villain of his story (even though Damien has done absolutely NOTHING against him besides not agreeing that he was good enough for Celine), Damien refuses and wants to live in peace, and then the Actor gets pissed off more, practically forcing Damien into the role of a villain.

You know who admitted that they’re wrong?

A LOT of people have had mixed feelings about Celine ever since her debut. Even I wasn’t so sure if I liked her when I first saw her. Nothing like some decent writing and character development can’t fix!

Mark has stated that in Who Killed Markiplier?, Celine had no real clear motivation than just “controlling people” and “doing seer things”, so he wanted to do more with her in DAMIEN.

Here’s some stuff we now know more about Celine;

1. She is overprotective towards Damien, and wants him to be safe within the body they both are forced to share.

2. She is Damien’s twin sister (ten minutes older)!

3. She REALLY wants the Actor dead after what he’s done to her and Damien.

4. She is a badass queen and has GREAT aim with her ax.

5. Her survival skills are to the max.

6. Her kickassery cannot be contained.

7. She has used people to protect herself and her brother... and admits it.

I am not saying that manipulation is a good thing, I myself am very gullible and I don’t like being used just to feel idiotic in the end. But of course, when you look into Celine’s perspective, you can see that she has controlled people for a very good reason, even though Damien is literally the same age as her and can take care of himself... but she wants to keep him safe anyway. Celine admits this in her lowest point, Damien lets her sleep after all that she’s done for him.

Here is the way I see it; If you don’t honestly and truly admit that you are in the wrong and don’t take responsibility for your actions, then you are not ready to move on from your past mistakes.

Just like everybody, we all make mistakes, and it’s our responsibility to make sure we can evolve from these mistakes instead of ignoring them or focusing too much on them at the same time.

Wilford is ignoring his mistakes entirely, but he still apologizes anyway without taking full responsibility for his actions and lets somebody else do it for him.

Celine does a good mix of both ignoring and focusing a lot on her mistakes, admitting that she is wrong and tries to take responsibility for it by letting Damien take the wheel.

Actor Mark, as well as Wilford, is ignoring his mistakes like mad, but doesn’t apologize at all.

And this is why I love the Actor as a character. I know, right? I’ve talked in SO MUCH detail about how and why the Actor is a horrible person and I just said I love him as a character! Well, much like Wilford, I have a strong adoration for characters that are ridiculously flawed, and we go deep into their pasts to find out why they’re the way they are.

Actor Mark really is the embodiment of a vengeful tragedy, and his entire character is so complex and interesting to look into...

and now people are treating him like an uwu soft angel boy, but this trend is gonna end soon, I’m sure. Not the love of the Actor, but the uwu soft angel boy part of the trend because... he’s not that at all.

Anyway, Actor Mark is not the hero, he’s an irredeemable douche bag, and I love him anyway. Let me know if there’s any more details about him that I’ve missed!

Buh-bye~

- Abby

#markiplier #who killed markiplier #actor mark #wilford warfstache #seer celine #character study #abby chats #long post

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the-slut-verses · 4 years

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tct final thoughts

oh boy this is gonna be a long one,,, i’m gonna begin with the things that i liked so that 1) it doesn’t feel like i just wasted my time when i could’ve been listening to literally to any of the hundreds of other podcasts im subscribed to and 2) this show did so many things right, i wouldn’t be as emotionally invested and fired up about it as i am if it was just a purely garbage show

everyone in the cast gave just stellar performances especially adam and caleb’s actors,,, gosh that final confrontation in ep 19 where they had that big long talk about their feelings and it was so raw and real and genuine,,, how having mental baggage really just can fuck with a good healthy relationship no matter how much the people love each other and mean well

going into this show, i wasn’t looking forward to hearing about adam and caleb having been broken up cuz that just seemed, so out of character from where we last saw them in the original series,,, but i was pleasantly surprised with just how enjoyable their new dynamic as awkward exes that are still just completely in love with each other,,, i love this drama,, i love seeing these disasters inadvertently hurt each other (honestly it kinda worked too well cuz,,, more on that in the negative section)

CAITLIN! I love caitlin so much!!! and i just love her dynamic with adam,, i mean like, fried rice nights, shared google calendars, stressing out over essays that aren’t due for months,, i love these two!! also it’s so fresh cuz like,, usually it’s just the one nerdy loner character,, but here we get two and they’re just lovely for each other,,, lol i can totally see these dudes just moving in together and just getting married if they’re still both single by age 40 for the tax benefits

she was only in a couple of episodes,,, but i love love hearing joan again, especially that bit where caleb just infodumps at her all the shit he’s going through and she’s just 0_o that was such a fun throwback

minor thing, but the confirmation that the bryants are asian (when mark got oliver to take off his shoes when entering his house)

the soundscape and music was phenomenal! one of the most well done soundscapes i’ve ever had the pleasure of listening to,,, and the theme was stuck in my head all week

now,, all the things that i hated:

super mixed feelings about the bu crew,,,, im a fan of ride or die friendships, like what they were trying to go for here,, but like,,, the characters here aren’t very likable,,,

frankie’s flirting at caitlin came across as creepy rather than charming and it frustrates me so much that they got paired off by the end

i don’t get what ben’s deal is,,, i didn’t get much of their character outside of them being kidnapped and being a powerful atypical as plot device

and sadie’s just,,, she’s such a dick to adam and caitlin, constantly belittling and invalidating their feelings,,that line about her getting to be angry at adam and caleb but adam not being allowed to,,, just made my blood boil

also the characters act like she has just Very Good Takes:tm: on life and the human condition when they’re very much Not

honestly overall i don’t get what their deal is,, like what they’ve been through as friends, why they care for each other, how they got that way,,, and i don’t really have much reason to care for them

the adam caleb drama was so fun and like,,, honestly i was rooting for them to stay fucking apart by the end of the series,,, the weird pacing this show was going for made their ending feel super fucking rushed,, and they have way more fucking shit to deal with and talk about,,, and we’ll never get to see that cuz the show thought a tacked on ancient atypical cult conspiracy was more interesting,, which is a real fucking shame cuz what appealed so much about the original show is all the talking about feelings,,,

everything about the time fucking book and the atypical cult was not very compelling and felt forced and rushed and tacked on and there are so many plotholes,,, like,,, what are a bunch of fucking college kids gonna do about a conspiracy that’s been going on for generations,, and apparently even people like the am or the order can’t deal with them,, cuz they’re super hidden or whatever,,, but ppl just randomly hanging out in the library can fucking overhear all their bullshit

i was never given any believable explanation about why they can’t just ask the am to deal with this nonsense,,, when two very powerful people in the am care very deeply about the characters in the midst of this dangerous plot,,, and they already knew about it but did fucking nothing,,, and they keep fucking lampshading it but not actually address it. this whole nonsense felt like a ploy to get adam and caleb to talk to each other again when they seriously didn’t need it

blackwell was such a bad villain,, he was so melodramatic but not even in a fun way,,, and uggh,,, i can’t help but compare the new villains, this blackwell and hellen(?i can’t even remember her name) with the ones in the original series, wadsworth, agent green, damien,,, and the new ones feel like cartoon caricactures compared to how much nuance and depth and humanity the old antagonists were written with

also like,, the more information about the wider atypical world that’s laid out, the less fun and the less sense it makes,,, atypical secret societies are a thing??? and it’s also possible to find atypical communities online??? that just cheapens all of damien’s angst about being alone and not even knowing the word atypical until he met joan,, as well as how the order and the am value keeping knowledge of atypicals top secret, it doesn’t add up

it bothered me how they mentioned it should be impossible to turn a normal person into an atypical when like,, hello??? frank’s right there???

fuck oliver,,, there’s nothing fucking likable about this asshole,,he’s selfish, manipulative, a coward, smug,,, and not even in any charming or sympathetic ways,, he feels super tacked on,,, like he’s only there cuz the bullshit ancienty conspiracy plot demands it and i do not for one second believe any of the characters care about him

mark was just,,, so fucking under utilized,,, the characters always talk up caleb and mark’s brotherly bond, about how much they care for each other and how much he’s helped him out,, that’s really interesting i would actually like to fucking see it please,,, overall mark feels like his main point in this series is to just be an accessory to oliver

what the fuck do you mean that mark considers him his bestfriend?!?!? ano po?? tangina,, sam’s right fucking there,, and oliver has never shown in any genuine that he cares about mark and i don’t fucking see what mark sees in this guy

you know,,, all that fucking forced ship tease between these is literally the final nail in the coffin of my enjoyment of this universe,,, like you’re telling me that these two are actually gonna get together?? fuck that noise good fucking bye i want nothign to do with this series anymore

conclusion: i am just,, completely fucking done with this universe,,, honestly,, normally im not one to hate listen,, if i don’t like something,, i’ll just drop it and say it’s not my thing and move on..and im not one to just angrily yell about it into the void. but i can’t with this show,,, the original show really just meant the world to me,,, it was with me at some of the darkest points in my life and was one of the things that got me through em (cuz hey i can’t afford therapy and this show made a p good substitute at times asdkfljsad)..

i felt so betrayed,,, i really opened up myself to this one for all that. i should’ve learned my lesson after the disaster that was tama,,, the needless killing agent green was an indication of things to come,,, but i was cautiously optimistic for this show,, cuz it seemed they were going back to their roots by doing a story that’s more on just characters learning how to person and talk about their feelings,,, but oh god how badly was i mistaken,, they shoehorned another bs thriller action plotline when the characters by themselves were enough,,, and it seems that this is the direction this universe is taking,,, i want absolutely nothing more to do with,, im gonna unsub to the original feed and just block out all the tags and pretend i never interacted with this franchise in the first place

#podcast blogging #i get very very salty again be warned #this is very messy and incoherent but i spent mroe than a fucking hour just letting all the salt out i cannot be bothered to make it all nic #promise this is the last you'll hear from me about it i got it all out of my system i think #liveblogging

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gffa · 6 years

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I HAVE SOME FEELINGS ABOUT PADME AMIDALA and why, despite that I get a lot of people hated her ending and I can’t entirely disagree that it was because her character wasn’t written for her own sake, but for Anakin’s sake, that I still have a lot of feelings about this and why it’s intensely important to me personally. I’ve been giving Padme’s character a lot of thought lately, as I’ve been digesting Queen’s Shadow and how it’s made me really have to untangle a lot of the feelings I have about her character. One of the things you need to know about me is that I love complicated, messy female characters, that they are so very much my jam. My main blog is dedicated to female characters and one of the things I often look for when wanting to reblog stuff is, “Is this woman kind of a jerk sometimes? But still unequestionably a hero of the story? OMG, MY LOVE, MARRY ME.” Or “Is this woman kind of failing at something, but I never question that she’s a worthwhile person to tell her story? OMG, I LOVE HER, TELL ME MORE.” So much of this comes from my frustration with how women are portrayed in media, that in order to be “good” characters, they had to be all things to all women, which meant they had to be perfect. Which, itself, was also a limitation on the characters, it was a reaction to the limitations of them, rather than just letting the characters be. In order for them not to be torn to shreds, they had to have absolutely no flaws, they had to be able to do everything just as well and still were only considered half as good as the male characters by a lot of people. Male characters get to run the gamut and we never have to justify that character type, whether they’re the best person ever or the worst person ever or somewhere in between. They can just be. Women, on the other hand, if they have a flaw, it gets magnified a thousandfold and then they’re just a worthless bitch. I want to reject that idea so hard. No! Give me snotty, not always nice, but whole-heartedly good women! Give me smug, arrogant, asshole but whole-heartedly good women! Give me messy, complicated, depressed, mean but whole-heartedly good women! I wanttttt themmmmm allllll and I AM GOING TO MARRY THEM ALL. This is why I do really love Star Wars, I can get an absolute array of those characters, from the softest, kindest, “weakest” character, to the nastiest, meanest, but sympathetic character, to the full on villain who isn’t redeemable at all but can still be cool. Yeah, SW still has a long ways to go (especially in terms of diversity–we’re inching forward, please give me more, LF! I’m so ready!!) but there are so many women I love. So, for me, I really, really like the complicated, messy Padme of Revenge of the Sith. I get that a lot of people see her differently and feel like she was written only for the sake of Anakin’s manpain, that a lot of people hate that she died of a broken heart, and I can’t say I disagree that she probably got really shafted in terms of it being her story. But I really want to find meaning in her story and look at it from her point of view, and, for me, Padme has always been someone who is a GIANT BALL OF FEELINGS, so much so that she cares intensely about people she just barely met and remembers them for years afterwards, but also that she can be blinded to the suffering of others because the other person she cares about is right in front of her. Padme’s willingness to ignore the murder of the indigenous children on Tatooine, her willingness to ignore the murder of the Jedi children and go raise their baby together with Anakin, for me those things are about a Padme who is utterly relatable to me in that her feelings are so intense they burned the candle at both ends, and eventually that consumed her. The fall of the Republic, the fall of democracy, the fall of Anakin, the increasing isolation we see of her during AOTC and ROTS, where her fire is steadily snuffing itself out because it’s using up all her oxygen, is part of what draws me to her character. Not because Padme is lesser or more of an asshole for this, but because she’s relatable to me, because I love her and feel for her and cry for her, what she goes through and how it tears at her. Padme being so strong that she can sway entire governments to her plans and being so weak that she dies of a broken heart when she loses the Republic and Anakin? THAT’S MY GIRL, THAT’S IT, THAT’S HER, THAT’S THE ONE I LOVE AND WANT TO INTERNET MARRY. In the struggle to come to this understanding of how I feel about this character, I realized something that I’d never quite connected to before--I strongly identify with Padme’s giving up on life. I’ve had suicidal thoughts for almost my entire life, that if there had been a way for me to just give up on life, to just lay down and not exist anymore, I don’t think I would still be here today. The only thing that stopped me was that I wasn’t actively aggressive enough about it. I didn’t precisely want to die, I just didn’t want to live, either. It took me a very long time to get to a better place, but I can still look back on that time of my life and intensely remember how I felt--I know my family and friends love me, but I’m such a burden on them, I’m failing them, yes, they’d be sad when I was gone, but they’d heal, they wouldn’t have this weight dragging them down, they would be better off without me, because this world is so painful for me to live in, that I wish I wasn’t in it anymore. When I look at Padme Amidala, I see someone who burned so brightly, but that she crumbled bit by bit. I see someone who had no one to turn to when she was crying alone in her apartment as the Republic was falling, as the Jedi Temple burned, and Anakin was falling off the cliff. I see someone who, instead of continuing to push for something she felt strongly about, dropped it when Anakin was was upset about it and said, “Hold me, like you did by the lake on Naboo.” I see someone who knew how badly Anakin’s dreams upset him and what he was capable of when the worst happened, like on Tatooine, and said, “They’re just dreams.” because she was trying to hold all of this together. I see someone who had no time to address the underlying problems in the Republic because of the 20 tire fires going on, who had no time to address the underlying problems in her marriage because there were 20 more tire fires going on, and I see someone who lost them both. I see someone who pleaded on Mustafar, ignoring more murder of children, to come away with her and raise their child together. I see someone who passionately believed that love would save them all and it didn’t, Anakin still became Darth Vader, the Republic still fell, the Jedi still died, and she felt like everything she’d done was nothing, she’d failed them all. I can all too easily imagine myself in Padme’s place, feeling like I’d failed at everything, like I wasn’t enough, no matter how brightly I burned, no matter how much I poured myself into my efforts to help people and change the world around me, that I cannot live in it anymore, that even if they’ll be sad without me for awhile, I would only fail them again. That there were some things about myself that it took me a very, very long time to be able to face and deal with. So many of the arguments against Padme’s death often come around to, “She wouldn’t just give up!” like Padme’s too good to be depressed and suicidal, like she’s better than that. Which then implies that the people who struggle with this are somehow lesser or worthless, that because I have felt this way before, because I would be dead now if I could die in a fairy tale way of just giving up on life, that I’m lesser and worthless, too. That my struggle with this makes me bad. Which is not my favorite feeling in the world, no. I don’t demand that anyone agree with me, nor do I necessarily think this was the narrative intent. But I see a woman who cried alone in her apartment, I see a woman who couldn’t face some things that she couldn’t deal with, I see a woman who tried and tried and tried and failed (in her eyes), I see a woman who was capable of great things but was crushed under the weight of loss and quite possibly her own thoughts. And I see a lot of myself there. So, Padme Amidala dying of a broken heart, losing the will to live, being unable to live even for the people she has left, that struck a hard resonating note with me. In the same way that Anakin’s anxieties and fears consumed him has meaning for me (as someone who suffers through a shitload of anxiety), so too does Padme’s depression and willingness to give up.

#padme amidala #meta #suicide ideation #long post #this was definitely a rather personal post #but it's okay to reblog if you want

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