#narratively I understand his purpose

[rosehathaways-sidepiece]

Malcolm: "I do know this Vanessa: wherever we walk, we walk together. I will not leave your side."

[varpusvaras]

Fox's position as the scapegoat in fandom is very interesting and something I honestly think the writers kind of made him to be.

The part of the fandom (which is...really large) that doesn't like him always blames him for Order 66, in saying that "if he hadn't killed Fives, then Order 66 wouldn't have happened". Interestingly, they never blame Anakin, who had even more direct power to stop it. Fox had no idea that anything was going on, and did what he had been taught to do from the moment he was created: Followed orders. He didn't shoot Fives because he necessarily wanted to; meaning there were no personal feelings attached to what happened. Anakin, on the other hand, went and voluntarily murdered a lot of people for only personal feelings. But somehow that is not Anakin's fault.

(I've posted about it before, but the same people who blame Fox are always happy to boast about Anakin murdering him. Always happy to bring out Anakin's trauma as a slave, and then be happy about him murdering another slave, someone directly under his power, who had never known anything else than being a slave in his entire life, and who had been indoctrinated from birth to believe that being slave was all that he was, and that he should be proud of it)

Some fics from people who do like Fox also put him in the position of the scapegoat, where they have all the other clones blaming him for everything that had happened, and ostracise him. In some fics I've seen, they continue this even after the war has ended, even in scenarios where Palpatine didn't win, and this feels like the clones, who have been made to believe in the system, cannot make themselves blame said system. No, it's easier to blame one of their own instead, no matter how little power Fox ever had in his entire life.

The writer's also do this, by having Fox mess something up (in the writer's eyes at the very least) almost every single time he is on screen. I think the only time he wasn't positioned to be in the wrong in some capacity was on his first appearance in the movie, where he did a front flip down some stairs and shot at the bad guy of the movie. Almost every single other time he is doing something wrong or messing something up, causing something negative to happen, be it the bombing on Coruscant (not actually his fault, but the fault of the people who wanted to do it and prevent the peace talks from happening; still, Fox is put in the middle of it), or what happened with Ahsoka (from Fox's point of view, there was a dangerous person on the run, who had just killed multiple people in a violent way, and was continuing their rampage, killing his brothers as well). Objectively speaking, Fox is completely in the right with everything he does here, but the writer's still seem to position him to being wrong, because he is against Ahsoka, and Ahsoka is the character the viewer is supposed to be rooting for (no matter how much worse she actively makes her own situation during the arc).

No one ever remembers all the good qualities he had: he was hard-working, capable, brave, and cared for his brothers. No, instead, the fandom is endlessly debating over giving him, a slave who never knew anything else, some shred of dignity, while freely giving the absolution to the fascist who is standing over his still warm corpse.

[clownprince]

alright i was already intrigued by the premise of knight terrors: the joker but i'm SO fucking hyped now you're telling me rosenberg is elaborating on the divorce arc??? also dark workplace comedy is exactly where i hoped they'd go with this

[un-pearable]

the most important zane character trait to me isn’t that he’s a robot, but that he, fundamentally, is new to it. he’s bad at being a robot. he’s constantly finding out new things about himself and what he can do and excitedly showing them off to his friends like a kid with a new toy. he spent the most important part of his life (in his opinion, bc it’s when he met his friends and started pursuing being a protector) not understanding anything about himself and now he’s constantly discovering something new and it’s so important to me that he’s not reduced to just “the robot guy”. pixal is the one who being a robot comes naturally to, zane is the one who is permanently stuck between human and artificial and at this point is thriving there

[munadyke]

ok. sometimes I just want to listen to people talk abt star wars but the youtube results are all men and I refuse to do that to myself. found myself on a reddit thread of good sw youtube accounts/podcasts and it's like....for one dollar name a woman:/

[torgawl]

a bit obsessed with the idea of kusakabe dying as a form of sacrifice to specifically protect/save somebody else. it's consistent enough with the theme of the past generation achieving no meaningful feats against significant threats but it's also ironic enough that someone without a technique and who claims their philosophy is primarily self-sacrificial - although he tends to stay from his own ideals in critical moments, proving he's not only brave when necessary but he does have a sense of responsabilty and guilt - ultimately redeems themselves through death resulting in the achievement of something his colleagues have failed to do. not that i'm wishing for him to die, i hope he doesn't. but it would also make a clear-cut distinction between him and a character like mei mei, who narratively serves a very similar purpose (besides her being a foil to nanami). to have someone be awarded by their selfishness just for it to not be worth much within a world and system that runs and sustains itself due to the sorcerer's labour power, whose only means of subsistence is to sell themselves away. a class of people who is doomed no matter what path they choose to take, as long as they do not break free from their duties and as long as the system doesn't collapse. a death that could serve as a symbol of punishment towards solidarity and altruism but a win for revolution.

[peachpitss]

this is silly and unimportant. but i was checking out this thing on gender in deltarune and the writer tried to argue that kris is an allegory for being the only queer kid in a small town. and i just…but they're not? susie and noelle are right there. monster kid still uses they/them. presumably undyne and alphys are also still queer. multiple times i've seen people try to make kris' narrative about queerphobia and it always gives me the icks for some reason. literally nobody in hometown is homophobic or has a problem with their gender and i don't think we need our fun pixel rpg to have a little homophobia for flavor. now an allegory for neurodivergency?? that i can see. kris' character deals with isolation and ostracization, but not for the reasons that that argument would assert.

[breadedsinner]

WIP Wednesday

*

Sebastian ran his hands through his hair, pushing it back so far that a twinge of pain stretched at his scalp, and sighed. “I suppose I feel shame, mostly. After everything… Anders got what he wanted. He carried out his plan, he sparked the uprising, and died a martyr for his cause. Perhaps not now, but ten years, a hundred years… he will be revered. And if I’m to be remembered at all, it would be as an obstacle. A fool who stood idle, waiting for a sign, while the maleficarum plotted and began this war. Even when I tried to stop it, even when I cried for his death, I did more to assist him in his goal.”

“Dearheart,” Hawke’s voice was soft, yet commanding. She gripped his knee as she spoke. Her dark eyes were neatly aligned with his, a firm brow, but a thin film of water. “Listen to me. I told Anders I would kill him. I told him if he lost control again, or if he carried out his plan, I would do it. He did, and I kept that promise. You almost died. Had you not been with me, had it been any other day, I might have lost you. And if that happened, I would have made him suffer for it, tenfold. So, let me be the one to carry that burden.”

[rosesradio]

as far as the disk horse on “this (dark theme you could see on any given tv show) is bad and should not be written in any fanfic ever!!1!” goes, i’m for people writing what they want, and if i think it’s gross i’ll just move past it. what i do wanna see removed from all fanfic ever is when the girl that “gets between” [insert mlm ship here] gets bitch-ified and/or treated like shit

[malewifehenrycooldown]

not interested in stranger things (the first season is perfect as a stand alone story imo), but SBS on Demand has this show called ‘Paraíso’ which has a very strong Stranger Things vibe but it’s set in the late 1980s-early 1990s (at least I think it’s that time period) in SPAIN. I’ve only seen one episode but the ending to that episode is a real cliff hanger and I’m interested to see where it goes.

also the end credits song is a banger, literally once i heard it I had to go looking for it.

[beeapocalypse]

the way the lore wiki talks about aigul as a whole is annoying but the way it talks abt the first mate actually kind of pisses me off. ‘mysterious and indistinct gender’ theyre nonbinary you dick. ‘to the point that the first mate considered wedding him’ their relationship with the wounded captain is an incredibly important aspect of aiguls theme of addiction and devaluing that to just an expression of loyalty (????) rather than love is so goddamn stupid

^ look at this bit from the regret drilling bit instead. during your first orbit you are so bright that you cast a shadow in daytime

[cycle-hit]

uhhhh tier list of how well i think i understand the characters

[chuchayucca]

I don’t understand why people think Draxum would be a struggling father in those parent swap AUs. He never saw the turtles as people, only as war machines. He changed his perspective once he saved humans but he still spent a good sixteen years dehumanizing them.

[jiisoooo]

as much as i like gojo, honestly I’m fine with him staying dead….nobara however needs to be revealed to still be alive or I’m gonna be inside gege’s walls

[tariah23]

They’ve been tearing yuuji apart on twitter for the last 2 days now

[a-deep-ocean-of-secrets]

I don't really understand some people's strong insistence that Buck needs to openly date/play the field now that he's bisexual. Or that it is unlikely/impossible that he could happily settle down with Tommy because he's his first male partner. One, it feels like it's propagating negative stereotypes. And two, it feels like a crucial misunderstanding of Buck's character.

Now, if it was Buck 1.0 who discovered this new facet of his sexuality, sure, he'd probably be hooking up with men and women in equal measure. And hats off to him. The guy's a T-bone steak. But since Abby, he's been in search of a serious, committed relationship. He wants to share a deep and profound connection with someone. More so, he wants to love and be loved in return. So, to me, it isn't surprising at all that even with men added into the equation, he has still zeroed in his attention on a single person (Tommy).

That segues into the other popular talking point that Tommy's only purpose is to serve as a plot device to open Buck's eyes to his bisexuality. If that were the case, then his role in the story would have been accomplished in 7x05. They could have kissed, and gone on their date, have it be crashed by Eddie, Buck putting his foot in his mouth with the 'hot chicks' comment, Tommy stepping back by telling Buck that he isn't ready, and then he could have peaced out of the narrative. ✌️Role fulfilled. Buck could still come out to Maddie and Eddie, accept his new sense of self, and decide that he indeed doesn't desire anything serious at the moment and wants the freedom to explore. His failed date with Tommy could have served as a learning experience and he then could wait for a new guy to catch his interest.

But he doesn't do that. He doubles down on Tommy. He calls him to apologize. He invites him to coffee. He tells him that while this is all new to him, Tommy is the one he wants to explore this with. He invites him to his sister's wedding. He's all in on Tommy. Because he has strong feelings for Tommy. Inviting Tommy to the wedding wasn't just about Buck coming out to his loved ones, it was about introducing them to Tommy as his partner.

Buck is committed to his relationship with Tommy. A relationship that (most likely) is going to continue to grow in the next two episodes and then into the next season. 🤞