#people like villain redemption arcs!! people like thinking villains can change!! its not that weird they get that kinda angle

[gay-artificer]

I feel like I see much more complaining about innocent sad mom girlboss fandomized Artificer than i actually see innocent sad mom girlboss Artificer. Past like, jokes about them being a girlboss. Which don't count.

[blues824]

okayy, this one is a bit long so bear with me please!

imagine, in a au world where the league of villains get a redemption arc and so they get to go to u.a.; them with a gentle and kindhearted reader who is willing to befriend them while everyone else is still a little wary. im thinking, kind and empathic like tanjiro and is able to make them feel as if they really have a chance at changing.

you dont have to write all of the LOV, it can just be shigaraki, dabi, and toga! i dont want you to have to write too much.

Toga’s scenario sounds exactly like the beginning of Wednesday

Tomura Shigaraki

People were definitely hesitant to give this man a second chance. He was doing his best but no one believed in him. He got a job at U.A. where he could teach the students about how destructive quirks can be and how to limit the amount of damage done to any party. This was arranged so that he could be on close watch.

There was one teacher he had taken a particular interest in. They were an up and coming Hero, as well as Aizawa’s assistant. They always greeted him with a smile and a wave, and they were also the one who showed him around U.A. 

You were his first friend, proof that he turned over a new leaf and left behind a life of crime. You always made him a bento for lunch (he loves your cooking) and always tried to have at least 3 conversations with him.

After a while, he asked why you were so kind to someone like him. He wasn’t wary or anything, he was just curious. You smiled and said ‘to me, being a hero means giving people a second chance. Society turned its back on you first, so you had every right to be angry. I’m just sorry I couldn’t help you sooner.’ This made him blush a little.

Eventually, after being work friends (and just friends in general), Tomura got the courage to ask you out. He was about to go in and hug you when you said yes, but he looked at his hands in disdain. You pulled his gloves off the table and handed them to him, and once he put them on you wrapped your arms around him. You pulled back a little to place a kiss on his cheek and he stiffened but then relaxed and wrapped his arms around you as well.

Dabi 

People were wary of him not just because of his actions but also because of his appearance. The scars he got from his quirk obviously showed and he had staples and stitches. When he got a job at UA, he had to teach the older students about how destructive quirks can be and how not to inflict too much damage to yourself while still pushing yourself past your comfort zone.

You were assigned as his teacher’s assistant, and that caused you both to become close over time. You were the only one who actively tried to befriend him. Before class, as you both set everything up for the day ahead, you would always shake his hand and give him a warm smile before making your way to your corner desk.

He was grateful for you. You made his life that much easier, and he appreciated it a lot. You would spend your lunch breaks at his desk while discussing everything that came to mind. He’s even told you about a few of his villainous journeys.

One day, during one of these lunch breaks, he asked why you were so kind and genuine. You smiled and told him, ‘Well, it would be kind of weird to teach the next generation of heroes without reflecting the virtues a hero should have. Plus I figured that there was more to you than what most see.’

Eventually, after class on a Friday afternoon, he called out your name before you left. You turned and gave him your full attention, and that’s when he asked you out for a date at 7. You suddenly felt shy before nodding. Dabi walked you out before he pressed a kiss to your forehead and headed back to his apartment.

Himiko Toga

Since she was young enough, she was transferred mid-semester as a second-year student. After all, she had gotten nearly perfect scores on the written Entrance Exam and showed great Battle IQ in the practical Entrance Exam.

You were one of her classmates, and your teacher gave you the task of showing her around and bringing her to her dorm. Instead of looking at her in disgust as most of the other students did, you had a friendly grin and shook her hand.

You both instantly became friends. You would have study sessions that ended in laughter because you both were doing impressions of your classmates. You became assignment partners, lunch buddies, basically each other’s ride-or-die.

One day, during one of your study sessions, the conversation got serious for a second. She asked you why you were so nice to her even after learning about her actions and you held her hand in your own. You told her, ‘A hero is supposed to give everyone a second chance. That also means former villains.’

Eventually, once you were packing up after class and getting ready to head to your dorm, Toga pulled you aside and asked you out. Once you said yes, she almost tackled you to the ground in a hug while peppering kisses all over your face.

[uselessheretic]

one thing that i feel like is annoying with villain discourse is this weird insistence that if you like villains then you MUST like then exclusively because they suck and want nothing more than that and for them to be evil. like? not all villains are flat out evil! sometimes villains can have nuances! it's weird when people say they hate when villains are given backstories or made sympathetic because i love it when they are? an evil villain whos evil for no reason can hit p hard esp if they have the cunt aesthetics to back it up, but the ones that stick with me are often the ones with detailed characterization who are sympathetic.

like i love killmonger! i love that he does bad things! i dont think hes evil though. i empathize with his struggles. i can understand how he got to where he is and i feel mournful that he never got to have a happy ending.

i think hisoka hxh is a fun villain, but mereum, when he was given human emotion and changed from pure evil to a person with the capacity for love, that's what made me sob in hxh! is he evil? whos to really say hes just an animal doing what his nature tells him to. thats not an important thing to dwell on for me though when im more impacted by being able to see his character show compassion and receive it in return.

"if youre going to like izzy like him because he sucks dont make him sympathetic" okay but i dont want to. i love that ofmd challenges our perspective, that stede himself is a morally ambiguous character that occupies the role of the villain in another persons story. izzy to me is more interesting and a better written character when hes given complexity. being mean to ed for no reason is dull. trying to hold on to someone you love so hard it hurts you both though? thats the good shit.

i like when villains are given redemption arcs. i like when heroes look at someone that hurt them and can still feel compassion. i love any story where the love for another person compels a person to make bad decisions. its more fun for me this way at least partially bc if i wanted black and white morality at all times i would turn on PBS!

[nonbinarykai]

Why I don’t think the ninja are going anytime soon.

Spoilers for dragons rising obviously

Listen I’ve seen a lot of concerns and rumors going around that ninjago is going to get rid of its main cast. And while I’d understand out of context why people would believe this. I want to list out all my possible reasons for why this WONT happen

This is a bit of a long post so, buckle up

It doesn’t line up with the ending of crystallized

Think about it. Don’t you think it would be a little weird if lego basically forced the writers to make the ending of crystallized return everything to the status quo, only to immediately throw that all away?

Yes I’m aware that the current view of lego as a company is not that great atm. Mostly in due to those fake leaks that basically portrayed lego as the big bad villain behind crystallized poor writing.

But I promise you, lego is not that bad. Sure there has definitely been some conflict between the writers and lego in the past. But if you look through what Tommy said in his post leaving q&a’s, it seems like most of the poor writing decisions were made by the writers themselves.

And example of this: changing oni Lloyd from having a big significance to only having 20 seconds of screentime. We kinda assumed that this was due to lego. However, Tommy claims that the reason oni Lloyd was on a thrown in his set, was because the set was based off of that early draft of the script. Which mean that lego must have been okay with it enough to make a set out of it. Which means it’s more likely oni Lloyd was a result of the writers choices.

However, there was one change that we know lego Forced the writers to include. And that’s reintroducing Nya and bringing her back. This was CONFIRMED by Tommy to be the case.

So then, isn’t it extremely weird that after lego forced the writers to bring Nya back, Their suddenly asking/okay with her leaving again?

And sure you can argue “oh but it looks like Lloyd is training Arin and Sora!” And sure that might explain why they can’t get rid of Lloyd.

But Nya and Kai have only had brief appearances. And as some people would suggest, means they don’t have that much of a role to play.

So couldn’t have nya stayed gone? What’s the point of putting so much effort into killing nya then brining her back when it would have been easier to just, leave her dead.

That is unless, lego does want to keep the original ninja around for the new series!

Same goes for things like garm and harumis redemption arc (atleast I hope that’s what it is). Lloyd still not having control of his oni powers, the ninja losing their own powers, the new ninja, etc. There’s to many loose ends that haven’t been properly tied up, in fact their just beginning.

In fact, if dragons rising really is supposed to retire the ninja. Then why not just make crystallized an actual finale?

A lot of the criticisms for crystallized was that it just returned the status quo. Why would they do that if crystallized was meant to be the last time we see atleast some of the ninja? Wouldn’t it be more impactful to show how the ninja move on from being ninja?

It contradicts the quest for lost powers entirely.

Seriously, why would the book even need to exist? The whole point of the book is to show the ninja getting their powers back (and in the case of kai) becoming ninja again. Why would that be necessary to show at all if the ninja are going to be out the door anyway? In fact, leaving it at just the ninja losing their powers in crystallized would be a great reason for why they would retire. The book kinda contradicts that.

Obviously, if there powers weren’t important in the next series then their wouldn’t need to be a book. The next series takes place after a time skip and deals with the realms merging together. That is ALOT of new information crammed into like 10 22 minute episodes. It would make sense to make a book explaining how the ninja got their powers back so that the show doesn’t need to explain for us and just get right into the mix.

If they think it significant enough to have to explain why the ninja have their powers back, then I think it’s safe to say that the ninja themselves are significant to this new series.

The book also took steps to try to canonize things like Kailor, implying that those things also needed to be explained before the series came out so that the series doesn’t have to waste time on it. So we might be seeing plot threads relating to the ninja as well.

What about the side characters?

Not only would it be insulting to just, get rid of the main characters that people have loved for over 10 years. But it would be borderline cruel to have the side characters not to have ANY send off.

The side characters are directly tied to the ninja. They don’t have any relation to Sora and Arin. So if the ninja go, there’s a likely chance the side characters go as well.

But the side characters haven’t gotten any send off, not from crystallized, not from the books, nothing.

Would the writers really be bold enough to get rid of all the side characters without giving them a proper send off? I don’t think they would.

Doc has shown alot of love for the fandom and the show. And we know some of the new writers actually like exploring the side characters.

Plus it would really piss of the fans, I’d imagine that lego is smart enough to not do that.

The marketing implies otherwise

Yes I am fully aware that marketing is often misleading and doesn’t always fully represent the series. But I think it’s important to dissect what we do know and how lego chooses to market the new season.

First and For-most: Arin and Sora aren’t really that involved in the sets. Or Atleast not compared to the ninja. The ninja have multiple sets with their names on it. While Arin and Sora seem to just have two, one for each. Also in the leaked Lloyd mech, Arin has a noticeably smaller mech. Implying that he’s not as important as Lloyd.

If the show is trying to have a fully fresh start, it’s a bit weird to have the sets convey the opposite of that is it not?

For those that don’t already know, dragons rising is the name of the whole series. Unfortunately, we’re no longer getting season titles anymore.

So it’s important to note: on all the dragon rising merch we see right now, the ninja are the front and center and the new characters are in the back.

So why in the world would lego promote the ninja as the front of the whole SERIES, only to have them show up in one season and then leave. That doesn’t make much sense.

And while most people brushed off the dreamzzz teasers; I want to mention something that I think is extremely important.

Lego is using the ninja for advertising.

That might not sound weird at first, but really think about it.

Lego is not only ACKNOWLEDGING that yes, the ninja are extremely recognizable and important, but also directly using them confidently to promote other series.

So lego is not only recognizing that the ninja are marketable, their doing so with the confidence that it can be used to boost their new series.

It would be an extremely big risk then, to get rid of that marketability in favor of new characters. Especially right after the friends reboot and before their introducing a new series. Ninjago has kinda always been the “safe show” for lego when their other projects were just picking up. Currently lego is taking a big change in its new themes, they’d obviously want something to relay on.

Next gen does not mean we’re losing the old gen.

I’ve seen a lot of people get concerned that since the Netflix series said that Sora and Arin are next gen. That the ninja are going to leave.

But, next gen does not necessarily mean that the ninja are leaving.

For example, lord and Garmadon are multiple generations before the ninja. Yet they’ve been with the ninja for almost the entire series.

Lloyd is significantly younger then the other ninja. Yet he didn’t replace any of them when he joined. He just became apart of the team.

I think that’s going to happen to Sora and Arin. I think that we’re going to start seeing the ninja have to take up a mentor position and how that changes the team dynamic.

And this isn’t really new, it happened with Lloyd, Nelson, Jake, and plenty of other kid characters. We’ve also gotten plots about wu dying and Lloyd becoming a master since s4.

I THINK what is most likely to happen is that wu and maybe Misako dies. And Lloyd has to step up and run the monastery. This way, the amount of people on the main cast stays the same, so it won’t get to crowded. But the dynamic changes enough to be new.

It doesn’t seem to match Doc’s direction for the series

There’s a reason why I call doc the “anti Tommy”, and that’s because he shows so much respect towards the show and the community.

The ninja aren’t just characters we love and enjoy. Their also characters that he loves and enjoys!

Doc has been on the series for awhile now. He’s probably grown attached to these characters even more then us. I find it hard to imagine he would let that go. Especially now that he has a chance to find a way to make the ninja new and interesting!

Look at these posts, does this really seem like something a person who’s not planning on expanding on the ninja would reblog.

The show is changing but that doesn’t mean it’s losing what made it great.

Yes, I won’t lie. The show is indeed going through a massive change right now. We’re going to get a new ninjago, both in terms of the show itself and the setting.

Doc does want to take the series in a new direction, that’s why he’s introducing these new characters.

But that doesn’t mean we’re getting a fresh new slate.

After all what’s the point if we could get a new direction with the ninja themselves?

The ninja have been the same for 10 years, some characters get lucky and are able to have arcs that impact their character, others (like Kai) are not.

The sad truth is that, the show can’t stay one way forever. Crystallized kinda proved that. Crystallized gave us what we wanted. It gave us the characters, it gave us the villains, it gave us the call backs and the Easter eggs. But when it came out, we still hated it. Why? Because the show was to scared to change. It was scared to keep Nya dead, it was scared to keep Lloyd and oni, it was scared to stray away from llorumi and say it was bad, it was scared to address the ice emperor. It was scared to address Kai’s feelings about his sister dying.

Crystallized stood there and told us that “no matter what happens to the ninja, things will stay the same” and we HATED it for it.

WE, AS A FANDOM, have been basically begging the writers to do something new with the characters, to take the series in a new direction. I feel as though it’s a bit cowardly to back out of that now that things are being changed. If we want the show to be better, we have to first acknowledge it has to change.

And you know what? If the new series sucks. Then it sucks! It’s not like simply changing the setting of the show will change the writing flaws in it.

But we’ve already spent years following this show even though most of us agree its poorly written. Why don't we just stick it out another month or two and give dragon rising a chance, even if there's a very small possibility the ninja might not be in it

who knows, maybe we'll find something we like.

[bridgyrose]

I'm probably kicking a hornets nest, but I do think villains in media should be allowed a chance for redemption more often. Yes, even the ones that kill. Thing is, while I do like to say media doesn't directly alter things in real life, certain portrayals of ideas and actions in media will often time reinforce fears or standards that most people hold. When you have disabilities, sexuality, gender presentation, or even just weird quirks played off as jokes in media, it often times comes off as a joke in real life. And it's the same thing for villains.

Some villains are best left as villains, those that are written with a character arc to continue getting worse, usually dwelling deeply on an ideal they hold that tends to make things worse that they actively choose. But most villains in media aren't like that. Villains in comics are usually made out of choices beyond their control. Bad luck, experiments gone wrong, thrown or tossed away by society and loved ones, created by others and thrown shunned when no longer needed. Some are created by abuse and neglect, some fall on hard times and don't have the right support to get themselves out of whatever hole they're in.

But its not just comics that use this. She-ra and RWBY have a mix of villains that are created from trauma and abuse, some that choose the path on their own, but most seeing it as their only option or the only thing they know. In Steven Universe, the main villains thoroughly see what they're doing as the only way. In ATLA and Korra, fear is a driving factor for a lot of the villains.

But the big thing a lot of people miss with all of these antagonists is that oftentimes, the only separation between them and the heroes are the circumstances that brought them there. Catra was abused by the same person Adora had been praised by. Entrapta was manipulated and lied to, abandoned by most but embraced by the villains for being different. Cinder and Neo were abused and neglected. Neo started acting out while Cinder was given a choice of life or death. Hazel ran on grief, Salem was punished by the gods for not being able to accept loss, Zuko was punished and thrown out by his father, Azula was neglected and treated as a monster by her mother... and of these villains listed, there's only two I can think of that most people didn't want to die.

But killing off a villain is a disservice to many stories and to how we see justice in real life. People make mistakes, are pushed into situations where getting better isn't easy, accidents can be life changing, and it's easy to shrug them off as never being able to change. The reason we need redemption arcs is so we have a narrative tool to see people getting better. To give a choice that many may not see. A well written redemption for a villain, tailored to the needs of the character in the story, can show us that viewing certain people as monsters or irredeemable is detrimental to how we pursue justice and order. And just like characters in a story, there is no one way to be a good person in real life. For some, it takes effort and rehabilitation, recovery and kindness, a second chance to try to do things differently.

But if all we do is kill off villains in stories, what does that say to all the accidental villains of life? If fictional characters can't be given a simple narrative tool to show things can change, then why give anyone chances in real life? If we're all judged and condemned by forces out of our control, then why try to be better. But seeing fictional characters being able to change, be given the narrative tool of redemption to change, that can make the difference to hear for someone who needs it.

[desultory-novice]

These comments seemed to deviate a bit from my “villainous Magolor” post where I discovered them but they also inspired me, so I’ll go with it and deviate some more on the topic of the “villainous friends”...

Now, personally, I've never seen the Mage Sisters as all that heroic. I mean, I adore them. I don't doubt for a second they're part of the good guys "now" but heroic? They're still wearing their evil cult (cough) "religious" uniforms! I imagine all three of them still lean a little hard on the "murder is okay!" side of things.

They helped because they had a reason to help. But are they still going to have “goat sacrifice Tuesdays” for a while? ...Possibly! (It could just be me, but I do think it's hilarious when the entire Jamba gang continue to be blatant worshippers of a dark god while chilling with the rest of the cast.)

I do think that this topic is nearing the core of why my feelings on Magolor have been in flux since DX. I’m happy for him to have a redemption arc, but I really don’t want to see him de-fanged...? I never did write that translation comparison post, but I’m endlessly thankful to the English translation for the “I just want to hear everyone scream...” :pause: “...with laughter!” exchange because it at least shows that Magolor has an unusually grim sense of humor, as opposed to him being a wholly innocent victim of the Crown. 

(Obviously, he did what he did in RtDL. No one’s questioning that. They wouldn’t name a song “Atone for One’s Misdeeds” otherwise. But I am concerned about the implications that the Crown was manipulating him from the moment he landed on Halcandra. Manager Magolor is fun and all, and while I don’t want to have a “Magolor is still the bad guy lol” Kirby Light Novel situation, I hope the sussy wizard stays somewhat sussy down the line.)

Anyway, the long and short of it is my love of gray morality characters is why I fell in love with so many of them and why I try to write all the former-antagonistic Dream Friends as still being in possession of a few villain traits. I really don't want to see anyone "brainwashed into being good" or must-always-be-on-their-best-behavior now. I want to see these flawed individuals make nice but flawed, characterful decisions.

I want the three Mage Sisters to occasionally each say really messed up things in a blithe way without realizing why said thing is weird. I want Susie to think she can solve most things in life by throwing enough money and science at them. I want Taranza to openly white-knight his beloved tyrant queen and naively blink his eight eyes over the awful things he did in her name. 

I want Magolor to engage in shady business practices with a smile and a wink, walking away while counting his cash. I want Dark Meta Knight to whole-heartedly believe murder is a "reasonable" option to most everyday situations. I want Daroach to casually purloin the cast's possessions when they're not specifically watching him, just because he can. I want Marx to break into loud hysterical laughter when someone trips and falls or breaks a plate.

The Dream Friends might as well be 10 different colored Waddle Dees if we expected them to all act good and peaceful and harmless all the time.

-

I just wanted to say though, @icedragonlizard​, I don’t know what kind of convos are going on outside my own little space on the internet, but I think people really aren’t as upset or /neg about Susie as they used to be.

There are maybe a few holdouts out there - I wouldn’t know as I don’t really go searching - but you’ll most likely never change those peoples’ minds and its best just to ignore them while shoring up a space for yourself where people aren’t attacking your blorbos just to get a reaction out of you or to spew unhappiness everywhere.

Here, have this “Deal With It” Susie w/ shades!

(PS: I recently learned I had been drawing both Susie and Taranza quite off-model! Her helmet actually goes down way longer than I thought, less of a “headband” and more like a metal boudoir cap. And Taranza’s lowest set of hands start at the middle of his body and go up toward his head. I thought I remembered them as starting at his waist and going down instead. Oops!)

[lea-andres]

This almost wound up in an unwitting person's asks, but I decided last second this probably stands better as its own post.

This isn't set off by anyone in particular, not even the person I almost yeeted this rant at unprompted. So I'm not mad at any one individual person, just at the fandom as a whole tbh.

It's no secret I love me a good villain redemption arc. A villain having some sort of moment that makes them want to switch sides and stop being so horrible, and all of the emotional hardships that follow as they struggle both to obtain the forgiveness and trust of the heroes they used to fight so bitterly with but also to find it in themselves to forgive themselves? And those moments of tension where something goes wrong and they slip up and some people point at them and go "See? They haven't changed, they can never change." And the anger, hurt, and feelings of betrayal that follow?

Ooh, that's the good shit. I'm a sucker for it. I've obviously got my thoughts on how it'd go for the Hooligans if we really REALLY wanted to focus on the emotional hardships of a full blown redemption arc (TL;DR: Bark has the easiest time with the transition from bad to good, Bean has "Harley's Holiday" style troubles where he's just a little too weird for the average person to stomach despite his best efforts to be good and nice, and Fang has the hardest time and hits the level I like to call "barely housetrained" where he's still a nasty piece of shit and barely anyone trusts him but at least he's not actively evil anymore? Yay?), but we're not getting into that again today.

No what we're getting into today is how SOME OF YOU like to just skip all the meat and potatoes and jump STRAIGHT TO THE END AND ONLY GO "LOOK AT HOW SOFT AND UWU THIS VILLAIN IS NOW!"

"How did we get here?" I ask eagerly, craving that sweet, sweet content.

"IDK, LOL" comes the response, followed by more soft fluff.

It makes me want to chew my hands off.

Even if you don't really want to focus on that part, even if you're not confident you could tell that story as well as someone else could, you should at least HAVE AN IDEA! You can begin with the end in mind, that's fine, but we need something connecting point A to point B! Even if it's just an awkward rambley SparkNotes summary! I'm crazy enough that It's better than nothing!

I'll spare you guys the same ship rant AGAIN, but some of the ships floating around here have the same problem. Yeah yeah, soft domestic bliss, you can set up Sonic characters on a dartboard, get two at random, and draw them sweetly canoodling. BUT HOW DID WE GET HERE???

Some of you skip over the real good part to get to the point you think is the good part and it drives me fucking bonkers. It's about the journey, not the destination, or something. IDK.

Alright, I'm done for now probably, back to our regularly scheduled bullshit. 😎✌️

[dracudyke]

1, 11, and 16 for newt + 15, 22, 23, and 27 for vince + 30, 31, and 34 for jamie (sorry if this is too many i just see u tag stuff as them a lot and im v curious abt them! u dont have to do them all if ur not up for it)

TY HEHE there's no need to apologize i absolutely LOVE talking about my ocs ^_^

Newt:

1: What’s the maximum amount of time your character can sit still with nothing to do? A long, long time. Newt spent most of her life alone in a swamp so she's used to a lot of downtime.

11: How do they cope with confusion (seek clarification, pretend they understand, etc)? She mostly just stays quiet and hopes/assumes another party member understands. Either that or she'll ask for clarification (usually this is for when i, as her player, is also confused KJFDSS)

16: What makes their stomach turn? Losing or letting her friends down. The thought that something is happening that she doesn't understand [this is currently happening in the campaign shes in lol]. Worrying that her god will abandon her and she won't have the magic she needs to protect her friends anymore.

Vince:

15: How do they speak? Is what they say usually thought of on the spot, or do they rehearse it in their mind first? She usually says what's on her mind unless she feels like its Personal or Compromising. She makes an effort to put off a confident, snarky, mysterious vibe but is pretty guarded when it comes to her own feelings.

22: How does jealousy manifest itself in them (they become possessive, they become aloof, etc)? Badly. Especially early on in the story, he can act pretty impulsively when he feels jealous or threatened and can end up hurting someone either by lashing out verbally or physically injuring or even killing someone. He gets a LOT better at this later though. He's still got issues but he's working on it :)

23: How does envy manifest itself in them (they take what they want, they become resentful, etc)? Similar to prev. It starts out as a villain in the story before it gets redeemed. It takes what it wants without any consideration for the people it hurts in the beginning and it does deal with a lot of resentment in its plot arc. but it gets better at dealing with that and its own emotions. eventually.

27: What causes them to feel dread? Her sire (she's a vamp, her sire is Awful and the main reason she is Like That in the beginning) and the thought of having to feel the guilt over the bad things shes done. It takes her a While to be able to let those emotions back in bc she dreads having to feel the remorse. She also has a lot of dread around losing people she cares about.

Jamie:

30: Who do they most regret meeting? GOD THIS IS A HARD ONE. He has a professor that kinda kicks the whole story off by introducing him to the supernatural world. Even though they are a big mentor figure to Jamie, i think he really regrets meeting them sometimes because it completely changed the trajectory of his life. He is now in infinitely more danger and has horrible, painful visions that drive the story. It's not what he expected his life to be like.

31: Who are they the most glad to have met? Yknow what it may be the same person. He has very complicated feelings about the prof. Otherwise probably Marcos :-) They're a really good friend to him and have stuck with him through it all. Also much later the answer might be Vince! She's kinda the worst to start with but post-redemption they eventually get together and vince eventually kinda becomes a weird wife guy :-) they love each other <3

34: How hard is it for them to shake a sense of guilt? Very, very difficult. He blames himeself for a lot of things, even things that are definitely not his fault. Somebody needs to get this guy a therapist.

If you wanna learn more about my Bite Club ocs and their story u can find my masterpost about them here!! I'd love to answer any more questions u have about them or just talk about them in general :3

You can also find out more about Newt here!

[haleigh-sloth]

I usually don’t share my specific thoughts about bnha but I need to get this thought out there so sorry if this is weird but….

Personally I think the thing most people forget about Shigaraki is that before anything, before afo before killing people Shigaraki was “taught” (abused into thinking) that every time he did something his father viewed as ‘heroic’ he was/would be punished for it cause it would be hurting the ones around him (it would affect his family). Of course this is the worst thing to be taught when you are 5 years old .

But this continued until his family was dead and then he met afo. Afo basically convinced this 5 year old child who was not in a position to tell him (afo) he was wrong and still had the idea of good thing = bad things going to happen, that heroism is bad and that as long as you are mad at the person you’re killing it’s fine (obviously not true but when you are 5 I don’t really think you would actually understand that it was wrong)

And then this way of thinking continued basically for like 15 years..

In simpler terms, afo seemed to convince him that, good thing/good deed = bad things going to happen/ no real benefit and, bad thing/bad deed = bad thing going to happen however you got treated badly therefore it’s ok if you do bad things too

the thing everyone’s needs to understand in my opinion is that people who talk about why villains think this/ that or people who just like the villains of the show, are not justifying that fact that they killed people but merely just explaining their thoughts/opinion of the matter and trying to get you to understand that when you are abused or/and manipulated it changes the way you think (not everyone can dramatically change their life the second they are not next to their abuser anymore)

((And in the end this show is. not. real! The villains did not kill a bunch of real innocent people, some people don’t seem to get that anymore and act as if that’s what happens…))

Sorry if there’s any mistakes in this, I kinda have trouble putting my thoughts into words that others understand heh. . . .

In response to this...

I mean, yes, I agree with everything here.

The reason I didn't dive into all of this is because, and I mean this in....some type of way...actually idk. There's no nice way to say this really.

Anybody who is just stuck on "They did bad things, they're evil because of this and they should die" is not worth arguing/debating/discussing things with for me personally.

I'm serious--I do not have the patience to explain the obvious to people who just don't care about these aspects of the villains. It's too tiring, and ultimately pointless because--they don't care.

If the conclusion someone has come to is "They killed people and they're bad and a sad backstory isn't an excuse and that's that", then I mean, I have nothing to say to counter.

Imo, everything you pointed out is very obvious, so anybody ignoring its importance is doing it intentionally and probably has no intention of changing their minds.

People write essays on tumblr about redeeming characters who do horrible things, why it's done in fiction, how it's done, how to tell when a character is set up for a redemption arc early on, but it doesn't matter. If someone doesn't want to accept a redemption arc in a character, there is nothing to be done.

I really do not mean to sound pretentious or anything....but honestly I don't have the energy or patience to explain old arguments that have been beaten into the ground and things that are just painfully obvious and shouldn't even have to be said (namely that none of these people are real and nobody has killed anybody--like I'm not gonna write an argumentative meta on that).

So yes I agree with everything you've said here, but I tend to intentionally leave these points out because if someone is still held up on the points you've made, I really don't have the patience to discuss with them.

[musashi]

i agree with u very much about azula. shes so popular but like,,, idk man i just cant stand her fans hhhh. people want an azula redemption arc so bad but like not every villain needs to be redeemed

im so torn all the time because on one hand any piece of media about rehabilitation as a way of justice and how you are never too fallen that you cannot be saved is SO important and we need it !!! we NEED stories where there is no such thing as irredeemable because that is the way of thinking that will make a better world. there IS no such thing as irredeemable. literally every person can choose to change, and we should empower them to.

and on the other hand azula's lack of a redemption arc in the show is one of my FAVOURITE things about atla i love it when a piece of media shows you two abused people from the same situation and one chooses to break the cycle while the other chooses to continue it. i feel like that's sooooo powerful. atla ending where it did with her having lost everything due to the shitty choices she made in continuing the cycle was cathartic and felt good! and then in zuko u get the other side of that where it was ALSO cathartic to see him struggle with the bad he's done and choose to rise above it and be better. its just like. here are two people in one situation, and what they choose to do with what they are given. i loved it

but yeah her fans are v irritating though as a rule i really just cannot stand ANY of the 'omg kween step on me' wlw on this website. they go on all day thirsting after mean and sharp women who are angry and traumatized and/or confident and bold in themselves, but they would literally never actually date us. we are constantly cast by the wayside, painted as 'abusive' (literally had someone on twitter the other day say being prone to anger or volatile emotions was inherently abusive), and overall just objects to sexualize. it sucks because most of us are super into the exact kind of normie woman who is on here all day thirsting after that character archetype! but no lmao. they wouldn't even look at us let alone LOVE us.

azula's such a weird one because on every conceivable level i relate to her so heavily but her choice to consistently fall in line with these oppressive systems and step on and abuse everyone and everything around her, being so coldhearted and devoid of any love for anything, just unshakably also makes her patently unrelatable to me as a whole. if any of her anger and perfectionism was backed by love in any form i'm sure she'd be kinbait. but there's just... nothing there.

anyways here's my dissertation on why franziska von aceattorney is azula von thelastairbender but better, in this essay i will--

[fadedneonzzz]

Would redemption ruin Cinder’s character? Or better yet: would it benefit her character if she does get redeemed? I think this is a fair argument to bring up when talking about redemption arcs in general, not just for Cinder, as for some villains it wouldn’t make sense for them to make a complete 180 and all of a sudden become good. For some it does work, but only in cases where we’ve seen at least some traces of good in them no matter how sparse.

For example, while Emerald was far from a good person, she at least showed signs of not wanting to be in Salem’s circle, she was in it for Cinder and Mercury.

On the opposite extreme we have Tyrian, someone who was a serial killer and kidnapper before Salem even found him. He is committed to Salem’s cause and takes extreme pleasure in doing it.

Then we have the 3 villains people want redemption for the most: Cinder, Mercury, and Neopolitan. These 3 have committed heinous acts against not only team RWBY, but the kingdoms as a whole. However since we know their backstories and why they’re evil in the first place, it’s easier to sympathize with them. Despite this, none of them have really shown any remorse or regret for what they have done, in fact they seem to enjoy inflicting pain onto others. Also none of them have expressed any desire to be redeemed either. Mercury and Neo another discussion for another time, but I just wanted to point out that they’re not any more or less deserving of redemption than Cinder, at least from a moral standpoint. From a character standpipe we can argue all day about that.

Now Cinder is both mercilessly evil and selfish, yet has shown multiple times that this stems from her underlying pain and sadness. It’s understandable why people see her in a more sympathetic light, especially when you realize the world turned its back on Cinder and it really felt like she never had a chance to be a good person. On the other hand she has shown no desire to be helped or saved by anyone. Some may argue her best moments are when she cold, calculating, and ruthless. And I agree, V3 and V8 had some of Cinder’s best moments and it was when she went 100% boss ass bitch. Some prefer this to the more sad and afraid Cinder, and that’s a fair stance to take.

Now from a character standpoint, she’s a great character and villain as of V8, for her to have a sudden change of heart would be very out of character for her. The key word there being sudden. In my opinion, the people who think Cinder redemption would ruin her character think that redemption would mean she’d suddenly become a better person in the span of a few episodes (if not feel free to correct me). For a character like Cinder where the best kind of redemption I can see for her is “she’s still an asshole….but at least she’s not working for Salem anymore”. Or simply giving her the choice to be something other than be Salem’s slave, like give her the chance to try to make up for what she has done. Honestly, I think it would only really ruin her character if Cinder became buddy buddy with everyone she previously tried to kill on multiple occasions. And it would make everyone who did forgive her look just as bad in the process.

In conclusion I think it’s very interesting that people want different things for Cinder as a character. It really speaks volumes of how deep and complex of a character she really is if people still want redemption for her. Me personally, I just want an ending for her other than death because she only really became evil because no one was willing to help her. I just don’t get the pure blooded “I’d rather die than be saved” villain vibe from Cinder, that seems to fit Tyrian, Watts, and Salem the most. Yet at the same she doesn’t seem to be the person who makes her issues known to everyone. It’s really weird, but interesting because it could really go either way.

[deleteddewewted]

Incel!Shinsou Oneshot: "Why are you acting like that?”

To keep busy I just thought that a oneshot of Shinsou getting self conscious/needy would be cute since we already have his redemption arc rolling in. The next part of the Incel!Shinsou series (Part 3) will have him proving his worth at the Sports Festival. So in thinking of how he will prove himself to you I thought of how will all of those people affect him, especially you. ( This oneshot takes place pre changes, so Shinsou is still his disgusting self but he's figuring out how to woo a woman, especially of your caliber.)

Incel!Shinsou Series:

Part 1: Incel! Shinsou x F!Reader

Part 2: Incel! Shinsou x F!Reader

Incel!Shinsou Headcanons

"I know what you're doin' here. Made your intentions clear. Oh you, you terrible thing, you. Terrible thing, you. Terrible thing, you. Beautiful thing"

TW: Strong Language, Mild Sexism

People were never an obstacle when it came to the things Shinsou wanted. He’s aware that others would do anything for him if he played his cards right. The right words with the right question did wonders for him. So why the fuck couldn’t he have what he wanted when it came to you? You drove him up the wall with the kindness you showed him. He didn’t deserve it and you’re existence almost felt like a punishment from whatever deity that existed out there to make him suffer. You guys were suppose to be studying for your upcoming project that required a poster, a slide show, and one influential person that would help prove your projects point. You left him running circles within his own mind as to how you were so willing to challenge him. He wanted you to obey him not see through his bullshit. It wasn’t like you didn’t listen to him vent, or didn't give him attention, but he wanted to hold you under his control. To be the person you listened to.

In class you where both seated on the extreme ends of the room on opposite sides. You never realized this (you do), but his head would periodically turn towards your direction to look at you, to figure you out (liar). This time, you managed to catch him do it.

“What are you doing?” You asked plainly. You honestly didn’t care that he was staring, everyone does when you dress like you're attending an MCR concert in the middle of autumn.

“You look different....today.”

“Nice.” It was difficult to care. Shinsou was just some guy in your class that you had to deal with. Nothing special really....ok, maybe it wasn’t fully true. You didn’t really know him all that well or anything (Unless it was mocking and belittling everything you did, that was normal behavior for him so it wasn’t surprising to find out he was like that outside of campus.) but he wasn’t all that bad? If he cared for himself a bit more, hygiene wise he would be considered handsome or at least a competent human being (you weren't going to call him a man, men don't act this childish. At least the ones you knew.) Maybe then you would take his opinion seriously, but for now you’ll ignore his...interesting comments he's been throwing towards you today.

“It’s rude to ignore someone when their talking to you, you know?” The neutral face he had now possessed a frown and a furrow to his brows. You still couldn’t process how he took the time to make sure his hair stayed purple but didn’t care for his body odor. (This man dyes his hair purple yet cant bother to shower or use deodorant for once in his life.)

“I’m not ignoring you, I’m just not interested in anything you have to say.” With that you get up and take your things and leave. There was no point in wasting time on someone who couldn’t even look at you directly and had to also sneak glances at you. "Do I really look that unbearable?" you thought to yourself. In the end you didn’t care anymore, everyone was entitled to an opinion and the last thing you need is feeling self conscious because of your out of place classmate.

Shinsou was fuming. How the fuck did you just get up and leave his ass while he was trying to complement you. You should have been more appreciative that he was giving you his attention for once. A bitch like you wasn't even worth it so he doesn't understand why he even tried with you.

He never goes directly home after school but instead to the local theater. It was one of the few places where he could be around others and could genuinely be himself. It was weird, he didn't feel like himself when he was speaking with his "friends", friends that he's never spoken to verbally, never seen, and never would meet. He knew that he didn't deserve this, to have a safe haven when he acts like an ass, yet here he was.

"Good morning Shinsou! How are you? Are you ready for rehearsals? You did remember to read your lines, right?" Shinsou rolls his eyes at his theater mates antics. Monoma never seems to stop but he does know when to tone it down and when it comes to Shinsou he tones it down a bit. (Because Monoma is canonically considerate of others, look back the Sports Festival and the Joint Training Arc.)

"Im good man, yes i did read and memorized the script, dont worry about it." What an odd friendship, the most chaotic gentleman like man out the bunch with the quietist incel in the group. Shinsou should have seen it coming when he was adopted by Monoma but he's running on 2 to 4 hours of sleep so he doesn't really care.

Believe it or not Shinsou does take showers (only for theater) but very quickly and with no care (no shampoo or soap, fucking why man.) Theater means more to him and so making his character look the best they possible can was his first and foremost priority. He puts on his costume, gets to makeup (the minimum, because it's "gay" for him to wear makeup and since the world is unfair and cruel he has perfect skin for a greasy headed asshole.)

"Everyone get a move on! Kodai, Tsuburaba, and Awase! Go to stage left! Light techs, how's it up there?" One of the tech heads shouted out. Shinsou and Monoma got to their positions on the stage and the rehearsals began.

Love, the play was about love. Love that wasn't rejected but also not accepted. He didn't understand the concept fully. Was it romantic? Platonic? Familiar? Admiration? He loved his dad, but he mostly admired him. He worked long hours and middle resents him for not being there for him, yet he realizes that his dad works to give him the world, a home with all the things he wanted. He never had a mother so he never had parental or familiar, again his dad was there but he wanted a parent that would hold him when he came back from school everyday. He didn't have a girlfriend, so he doesn't know romantic. So far all of his characters where villains, or evil in some way. He was starting to get sick of them. Shinsou wanted something more, wanted to play a character that wasn't how everyone saw him as on his day to day life. He wanted a challenge, he wanted....affection. Just to show it. He wanted attraction. Just to abuse it. He wanted...love. To just...maybe...feel...enjoy...understand it.

"You terrible thing you. My love, you're so cold. You've left me hanging on every one of your words. You've made me loose my self, lose my self-control because of you!" He pours everything into his performance, his loneliness, his regrets, his experience. He's been told by his co-performers and directors that he has a great future in the arts, in theater. If he just took care of himself more he would be an amazing actor, not only incredibly talented but also attractive. He would have the world kneeling, bowing to him just from his words alone. He could have anything he wanted just because of his existence.

" You've made me do things i don't want to do...for you." Kodai stands there looking horrified. He's covered in blood, the blood of her lover, the one she left him for.

"No, i-i didn't-"

"YOU MADE ME-MADE DO THIS FOR YOU! You terrible, terrible, terrible thing! You beautiful thing, I've done this for you!...and you still cant and won't love me." He doesn't see Kodai anymore. It's not her face he sees, nor her voice that he hears.

Its you...its your voice. You. You looking back at him while he slowly lowered himself to kneel and crawl towards you. It's you who backs away from him as he starts to cry and hiccup.

"You wreck me, you made me. You leave me in your wake, please let me go!" He sees you and feels you grabbing his wrists back, pushing him into himself.

"Don't you ever let me go...."

You terrible beautiful thing, you.

And here we are again. This was a lot fun to write since it feels more concrete when it comes towards his personality and his full thought process. In many cases people like Shinsou just want attention or some sense of validation, which there is nothing wrong with wanting those things but it's more about the manner you go about it. You shouldn't pressure or force others to spend time with you, but there is always someone out there that will like to give you those things.

Tag list: @blossominglark

[cinearia]

The "Morally Grey" in ACOTAR

I decided to write something I have been thinking about since I saw some people saying this when pointing out the wrong attitude of some characters in ACOTAR (aka Rhysand and company), but I think this can apply in general. In another specific story, but I will focus on ACOTAR.

And please, if you disagree, that's fine. This is an opinion of mine that I decided to write and post, because I find it an interesting subject that does not necessarily apply only in ACOTAR, but that is in the saga and I have seen people commenting on it. I don't want to fight with anyone, okay? I put in the tags that fit in.

So...

I love morally gray characters, but just to make it clear right now, I don't think that EVERY story has to have ambiguous characters. It's okay if the story is to follow a line more heroes versus villains line. But one of the things I saw here on tumblr and twitter about the attitudes of IC, Rhysand and Feyre was using that same argument, that they are not perfect, that they have their flaws. I definitely agree with that.

But history itself does not recognize this (and some fans too). Because nobody seems to call their shit out.

Starting from a general view that can include all of the IC. Like, how not to worry about your image while protecting your city? Okay, i get it, we had to be the tHe BaD gUyS, but y'all will suffering the consequences for this, especially if its to protect your own city. Some other people are protecting their citys too. Doesn't mean that you are wrong, but everything has consequences.

Or, how they constantly abuse their power; how Rhysand threatening and using his powers even at a political meeting sound good? How Feyre ended up hurting someone during that same meeting, even if unintentionally, was just fine? No one will call their shit about using their powers? Do you really seek to make allies and friends in the middle of a war by showing abuse of power and threatening others (and not just feysand doing this)? Or saying that they should step over the others so that there is only one king and queen in Prythian (that was right for you, Amren).

And that is partly the fault of writing. Now, more specific:

They lie and steals a valuable artifact from a possible ally and political leader of an entire court? Ah, but it is for a greater good. It will not jeopardize the confidence of a HIGH LORD OF A COURT who was supposed to be his ally in the midst of a war.

Did Feyre decimate an court? Ah, but the leader was abusive to her, she felt trapped in the place that was rebuilding because of a curse of hundreds of years, even though there are innocent people. And, of course, you will have the consequences for this.

(this one more personal and less political) Elain, perhaps the least worst of all, neglected Feyre as much as Nesta did, and also do nothing when she went hunting? Ah, but Elain is Elain.

Did Rhysand hide information from Feyre's pregnancy that she and the baby could die in childbirth? Ah, but he didn't want to worry her, he was scared to lose her and her son. And the whole IC agreed not to tell her anything? Ah, they also care about her, the High Lady.

(And this is the worst and yes, I’ve seen someone say that) Rhysand did it all with Feyre UTM, drugged her, put her in a dress that didn’t cover anything, made her dance all night on his lap? But because he wanted to protect her, we need to hear both sides of the story.

And that's fine because they are the good guys in the story. But it is nothing more than pure hypocrisy, and no consequence falls on them. If it happens, it will be unfair, is just to move the plot.

Do you want us to believe in the heroes of history, do you want us to side with them? Great, we can do that. We could have liked Feyre and Rhysand and the whole IC more, as a group that doesn't always do the right things, except that would have to change literally EVERYTHING (a little bit of charisma would be good).

Instead, for me, it became an egocentric boring FoUnD FaMiLy group that only cares about their own city - and it's not necessarily wrong to be concerned only with Velaris, it's part of their history. But forcing an image on them that doesn't match their actions makes me believe the opposite, especially cause started in ACOSF, again from AMREN, about a King and Queen in Prythian.

So, I came to believe that it was a POV issue. For IC, they are the heroes of history, and think they are better than the rest.

It would be curious, in fact, if the whole point was that Feyre's POV would incapacitate us from seeing the flaws that she doesn't see. And totally proposital. That is why we have to see her as a saint, but at the same time so badass. Wow, no one, i repeat, NO ONE, suspect of me while i pretend to be innocent.

Or how we see her mate so perfect, to the point that history doesn't allow us to stop and think 'wait, this is kind of ...weird'. Or that, as much as there is an error there, but not leat the reader question the characters themselves. Rhysand, for Feyre, is perfect.

We have to see Rhysand as that altruistic, laid-back person who does everything for others, mostly because he did it for Feyre, and that can't be denied. He saved her, took her to her city, her family. What made me stop to think is how Feyre may be reproducing their behavior. How he seems to want her to be part of it so badly. I don't know how to put it into words, but that's more or less what I wrote in another rant I did.

Everything she does is justified by the other characters. At the same time that she, Rhysand and everyone in the IC have hypocritical and very wrong attitudes that history itself does not recognize. And, worst of that, the story seems glorify her POV.

Seriously, when she disobeys the instructions given to her (what she does the most) she has no one to say 'girl, please stop. Just STOP)

And with this said, i add:

We don't have to agree with everything that the characters and the protagonist do. We can love them and still disagree with them, because they are people, or fae, like any other, and there will always be something in them that we will disagree with. It makes them real. They can be heroes and still have their dark side.

The reasons may be as noble as possible, but that will not exclude the consequences, it will not exclude them from being wrong. They do not necessarily need to take a spur or a lesson in morals, but just do not miss out on what every action can bring, especially political leaders in the midst of a war.

Whenever the IC does something, it is for a "bigger" reason, but without giving us the chance to even question it. We don't see them paying for their words, without necessarily moving the plot of the story, in a story that focuses so much on the development of the characters themselves and putting the war in the background (or how should been). Without us being able to question the motivations of the good guys and always doubt the villains.

And this is where I’m going to focus on a more specific point; funny like any character who is "MoRaLlY GrAy" and who "have YOUR rEaSoNs" are men or with history of abuser. Thats funny, right? The new one now is Eris, who was part of Mor's trauma and one of Lucien's nasty brothers, that one who already attacked Lucien, the one who was going to kill Feyre. Who did all that to Mor.

But having Eris saying that she, the victim, didn't tell the whole truth, and the history is now showing that we will see his side...

It just makes me ask, how, in ALL the process of creating and writing these books, passing for her editors, in the books that she wants to pass the message of feminism so much, SJM didn't stop to think, or didn't have a friend to put their hand on your conscience, how wrong does it sound for the abuser to say that the victim is lying?

Why are the men in this saga constantly gaining the gift of doubt?

I can no longer see Rhysand as being morally gray precisely because of what SJM wants us to believe as he is and justifies his actions. What could have been in ACOTAR stopped being completely from ACOMAF, probably because SJM wanted that in her story, the girl would stay with the """villain"""

For from then on, every action of Rhysand is justified and without future consequences, since we are supposed to root for him. Now he is the protagonist's new love interest. So we don't blame him for what he does. So, everything is fine. He's not the bad guy.

And meanwhile, Tamlin comes down to being the bad, abusive guy and... That's it. And no, I don't think he's a good person, he doesn't have to have an arc of redemption, what he did with Feyre is still wrong. The difference now is that Tamlin is just that, those are his only attributes now, while Rhysand has attitudes as bad as, perhaps more, than he had. One is being extremely vilanized while the other is the hero of history, when they are only two sides of the same coin.

I can share this hatred as ALL characters feel for Tamlin, if I didn't see how everyone else did such bad things. Let's remember too, one has the job of torturing people, another has decimated an entire village. They really do what they want and... It's okay.

Doesn't work say that the story has a morally grey area with the characters if the consequences balance it does not lean towards the protagonists.

It costs me less to believe that they are what they are every time SJM reinforces in Feyre's POV how selfless Rhysand is and how much Feyre talks about how badass she is and the two of them such a powerful couple. Literally, I start to think the opposite.

(I did a second part of this rant, but I think it can get a little more personal cause focus in Nesta and Feyre that I decided to split it in two)

[kitkatopinions]

So let me get this straight: Hazel after killing all the huntsmen in Mistral and brutalising Oscar for most of v8 (and people dont come with "Ozpin took most of it" its still Oscars body???? Hello????) gets an redemption via death but Ironwood who we know since v2 and was always an ally and a really cool character till v8 dies as a iredemable villain???? How? Why? Its just so dumb... love you blog btw

You know, this reminds me of seeing posts that were like ‘RWDE posters are mad about Ironwood not getting redeemed and yet they don’t like Hazel or Emerald being redeemed???’ And just... Yes, Kathy, the two are incredibly different.

Ironwood has been a hero for seasons who has displayed flaws and made mistakes but was not ever treated as a possible future villain by the narrative, and he was treated as pure evil before he tried to do anything more evil than ‘saving the people he can since he can’t save everyone,’ but then started getting pushed into the maniacal heartless abuser villain role at lightspeed within one season + one episode of the show and (I cannot stress this enough) two or three days of in show time. Our main characters treated him like a monster without knowing about the more villainous actions for the better part of the season, without any of them wondering if there was some mistake, no sympathy given to the fact that Ironwood had his back against the wall or was suffering from mental strain or a horrible injury, no recognition of anything that the mains did badly that maybe contributed to the situation they were in. His ‘fall to villainy’ was outlandish, over the top, out of character, and lacking in any real emotional depth, they blamed him for all of Mantle’s problems despite him having done his very best to ‘go for both’ and Jacques Schnee and Watts being the actual ones responsible for the state of Mantle - as well as huge systemic issues that Jacques was purposefully trying to preserve. He then was (most likely) killed off by the writers who then laugh at how it was ‘always planned’ while no single person in the group of protagonists gives a care.

And on the flipside, you have Emerald and Hazel! Both of them spent seasons being three times worse than James at his worst (seriously, he at least had good intentions.) Emerald and Ironwood’s direct kill count is the same (one,) and Emerald contributed to the deaths of hundreds more at the Fall of Beacon, knowing what it would lead to, and only gives small, rare indications that she feels remorse for it (it’s almost sad.) And Hazel is hinted at being responsible for many of the deaths in Haven and spent his time blaming Ozpin for the fact he was actively trying to murder children. Both of them continued their villainy right up until the very season they got redeemed as they both continued working with Salem to bring down yet another kingdom and while Hazel was beating a fifteen year old, Emerald was eagerly volunteering to help Cinder try and murder Penny yet again. And then when it was revealed that Salem wanted to destroy everything including them, they turned out of self preservation without apologizing for their terrible, harmful, murderous actions. And then the narrative acts like Hazel was some martyr who taught Oscar a valuable lesson about not letting anyone else die and isn’t it sad he died before he could do the bare minimum to earn any sort of redemption. And Emerald winds up having friendly laughs and getting endearingly teased by the people she’s arguably hurt the most, with the girl she’d murdered right there laughing with them. And now she can get away with now being part of the group without any indication she’s changed, no apology, anyone that protests her involvement being scolded for their lack of trust...

One of these things is an incredibly badly handled hero-to-villain story, where they failed to get the beats of emotional depth for a fallen hero arc and rushed it instead without care, leaving it feeling out of character and out of the blue despite the small bit of groundwork that they had in place for the narrative.

The other two are incredibly badly handled villain-to-hero stories, where they failed to get the beats of emotional depth for good redemption arcs and rushed them instead without care, leaving them feeling very insincere and out of the blue despite the small bit of groundwork that they had in place for the narratives (mostly on Emerald’s side, Hazel gave less indication.) 

Also we weren’t playing Yankee Swap, we didn’t trade in James as a hero for Emerald or Hazel, we just had three characters who were all handled badly.

But yeah, it’s really weird that the same volume where the writers were trying to force us to sympathize with Hazel was also trying to force Ironwood into an irredeemable category. The thing is, if I didn’t know about James’ never-mentioned-in-show semblance, I’d not be down for a post volume 8 redemption because I think trying to kill children and actively wanting to torture people as a full grown adult is kind of hard to get redeemed from. But Hazel did that, Hazel is just as if not MUCH MORE evil than Ironwood, so why on earth did the series treat Hazel as redeemable and kind of right and just needing a hand of mercy extended to him? Why was James ‘keep soldiers off the battlefield, turn my gun around because I don’t want to hurt Qrow even though I think he’s trying to murder me, look away from the Grimm while I shoot it’ Ironwood treated as the 100% deserving of pain and death and treated as totally irredeemable villain no one could sympathize with?

When you factor in his semblance it really just makes even less sense. I literally cannot comprehend why the RWBY writers do what they do. Also, thank you so much for the compliment on my bog! Sorry to kind of rant there haha. XD 

[frenchphobic]

long fucking post on why a c!dream is a shitty person and probably should not have a redemption because it is unpog

honestly i just want to refute dream apologists thats why im making this post. i think that dream as a villain is interesting but i think that trying to make him out to be secretly a good guy is just bad ngl. also /roleplay and all

tw for abuse and mentions of suicide

dream as a villain

dream is a villain. he is chaotic evil according to wilbur, deliberately does not stream to appear less sympathetic (and yet), and is set up as an antagonist to tommy who bears the title ‘hero’. dream is not a good person, no matter how you look at it or try to justify his actions.

‘but he wants to unite everyone to be a big family :((’ the ends dont justify the means believe it or not. having a vaguely positive goal does not excuse the actions you’ve done. it also goes hand and hand with saying dream is correct for punishing tommy the way he did because he acted up. if i socked you across the face and then suddenly said ‘sorry there was a roach on ur face’ does that make it okay? probably not i still punched you, enacting an unnecessary amount of violence. thats a very simple analogy i will admit and there are more complex comparisons. another example off the top of my head is say a child just scribbled all over you walls with crayons. would hitting them be a justified answer? if u said hes thats really fucked of u go seek help u loon. violence as a punishment is very toxic, just because it gets the job done does not mean it is okay. at the end of the day, you still committed this act and the harm you caused is real, having a good motive doesnt suddenly make it okay.

‘but tommy causes all of the conflict’ the disk war wasnt even caused by tommy, it was sapnap and then tommy got involved. and the reason why tommy even caused conflict was because of the discs, because he wanted them back. and most of the time there was a level of antagonism from another party, such as schlatt exiling him, dream taking the disks in the first place, dream threatening l’manberg. and if dream wanted to end the conflict so badly, why didnt he just give tommy back his disks? tommy upfront said everything started with the disks, so he wants them back so he could end the conflict. notice how after tommy got his disks back he has been staying out of conflict, apologizing to everyone, and the only bad thing hes done is try to scam people but everyone does that. this would have been the most peaceful option, yet dream chose the path that would further antagonize tommy which then draws everyone else into conflict. why did dream need to have leverage over tommy so badly? why did he want to hold power over tommy so badly? its because of control, and that’s ultimately dreams end goal. sure he wants a big server family, but would said family have a free will?

‘but dream is sad’ the thing is dream is completely at fault for everything that happened to him. he pushed away sapnap (and george ig). he tried to take control over the server and their possessions. literally everything that happened to tommy. literally everything involving ranboo. villains can be sympathetic, i am not arguing against that. but it does not mean that they should be left off the hook. that doesnt mean u should ignore the shit theyve done because ‘oh no theyre sad’ because it doesnt make anything better. dream had this shit coming for him.

now people also skirt around calling dream an abuser. which is fair ig, its a very loaded word. its much easier to say manipulated. that being said, dream can classify as abusive. and no, tommy is not abusive. abuse is about control and a power imbalance. dream has power over tommy, but tommy does not have power over dream, at least not in the way dream does. he’s taking back power to stand up for himself, dream uses power to control.

the reasons i listed for why dream is from the Domestic Abuse Intervention Project so if u want a source on that, there you go.

using coercion or threats: dream often threatened tommy, such as the pit thing and often employed violence on him. while normally this could be attributed to Normal Minecraft Player Go Smack. minecraft mechanics cannot always translate to real world since violence is pretty normal in minecraft however we also need to consider the context of the scene. dream gave an order, tommy refused, dream applies violence, tommy submitted. thats why its a threat, it has tangible effects that can correlate to real life.

using intimidation: dream blew up logsteadshire as a punishment. dream also destroyed tommys items anytime he visited. dream also hit tommy with his axe i believe. he killed mushroom henry, one of tommys pets.

Using Emotional Abuse: dream guiltripped the shit out of tommy for just hiding things and pinning the blame on tommy for just wanting his own private items. he definitely played mind games on tommy, pretending to be his friend. honestly i probably dont even need to go as in depth because it was so obvious.

Using Isolation: putting him in exile in the first place. destroying the bether portal so no one could visit tommy anymore. i really dont think i need to expand upon that.

Minimizing, Denying, and Blaming: dream in tommys stream when he got trapped said that exile wasnt that bad. he does shift the blame onto tommy for logsteadshire being blown up, even though dreams reaction was entirely unjustified for not listening and hiding.

Using Economic Abuse: see this is where i attempt to parallel minecraft mechanics to real life. obviously, there is no monetary system in place, so when i mean economic, i will use valuables such as armor, food, etc in place of currency. the idea behind economic abuse is to limit the victim’s resources so that they are dependent on the abuser and cannot escape. dream only really allowed tommy to have the armor he gave him while not giving access to armor so he does not regain a sense of power, and in the prison stream, dream holds all the potatoes which puts him in a position of power over tommy. this argument is more ambiguous i feel cause the whole minecraft mechanics thing is kinda weird so u don’t necessarily have to take this part in.

i feel like i need to emphasize this very strongly because dream is not a good person. abuse cannot and should not be a response to someone. its an awful mentality to have. i just want to prove the point that dream is not a good person, his reasons absolutely do not justify his actions.

what makes a good redemption

redemption arcs are tricky. when done right they are great. when done poorly, its a slap in the face. rn im going to establish a formula to what makes a good redemption with an example.

the most well known example of a good redemption is zuko from atla. first, its the magnitude of what theyve done and why. zuko did commit some shitty actions, since he was in a position of power in the fire nation but its because he is a child being abused and wanted to regain honor. zukos real awful acts was season 1 and the whole betrayal thing. thats not to say that zukos actions suddenly are okay, he did shitty things. but its something that can be traced to a higher entity or seem less malicious then the other villains. the thing also about the magnitude of actions is that there is a certain point of atrocities that there is no redemption. some people simply cannot be redeemed because the actions they commit are so ingrained in their character or the action itself has serious moral issues that it would just be wrong.

the next is acknowleding what they did was wrong. a genuine reflection on the self and analyzing what they did and why it was not okay. zuko realized what he did to uncle iroh was bad for example. he turned his back on his father, realizing he didnt and shouldnt seek acknowledgment from someone as heinous as him. its pointing out your actions and going ‘hey, this wasnt right i should not have done this’ and not even excusing ur actions. its also going straight for the root of the problem and figuring out to stamp it from the source. just because a character is sad does not mean they are reflecting, sometimes they are attempting to garner pity. it has to be direct and clear acknowledgement of the injustice.

and finally, an important part about redemption arcs is the actual redemption part. its when you make amends. zuko made amends with katara by trying to help her get revenge, he fought against the fire nation and tried to make things more peaceful in his rule. he apologized to iroh. an important part of the amends section is that it does have to be a genuine desire to change and become a better person, not to change a person’s perception of you. the thing is u cant expect a person youve hurt to forgive you. you cant expect people to be sympathetic towards you nor should u attempt to make urself sympathetic. u shouldnt be expecting a pat on the back or an award. redemption is about internal and character change.

why dream should not be redeemed

ive already established the key points to a good redemption (imo) but heres where dream falls short. his actions are extremely heavy so redemption may not even really be possible. abuse is not something you can wave off so it does cross to the point of fucked up. acknowledgement of what he did was wrong? all he said was that he changed, yet never explained why he changed or was too vague. he needed to label specifically what he did and bring it up. attempting to make amends? he’s been doing the exact opposite in fact he continues to manipulate tommy and ranboo. its not a genuine change. he is still repeating the cycle and has given no indication of ceasing. at the moment he does not have any signs of redemption.

and the thing is most of the attention around a dream redemption comes from either justifying his motives (which i do want to emphasize does not make anything suddenly okay) and because he is sad in prison sad face. these are not good reasons. its gonna pain me severely to bring this up but snape from harry potter does have some form of sad character ig yet he very much abused his authority to bully children as old as 11 just because he said ‘aight gonna die’ doesnt suddenly make his general bigotry and abuse suddenly okay there is a threshold. again im so sorry for using harry potter as an example none were coming to mind and i needed a popular one i do not like harry potter please dont say i do i would pass away.

and the last thing to consider is the audience. keep in mind that the audience is composed of minors and while yes there are adults, minors are the main component of the fandom. keep in mind that there are quite a few people who can relate to tommys character because they might be in the same position or have gone through his experiences. tell me what kind of message does it send to that audience that abusers can be redeemed. this is not a narrative u should push to this audience in these situations and the writers are seemingly aware of it. remember how in exile tommy spiraled into a suicidal mentality? consider how fucked of a message it would be if he just committed suicide instead of escaping abuse and attempting to recover from his experiences. tommy did an excellent job in not going that route and having a message of ‘it will not get better’. its the same thing here. victims are not obligated to care for or forgive their abuser, and portraying an abuser as sympathetic might fuck with the message a lot, even change their perception in that ‘oh, maybe my abuser was right, maybe they had a reason for treating me the way they did’. this is not to say that every victim watching this will internalize this message, but people also look up to these characters. there can be a degree of influence from the story onto oneself and thats the dangerous part.

conclusion

all in all dream is a shitbag asshole and probably shouldnt get a redemption because it would not be pog thanks for coming to my ted talk.

[paragonrobits]

a long, long time ago i was doing a mega-crossover fic where Azula was the protégé and beloved top agent of the villain lady who was the apparent big villain of the entire work (or at least the intent was that her big plan to build a mega empire with eldritch monsters was obfuscation, and eventually they would be unable to control their monsters as the true antagonist would reveal itself as a cosmic horror beyond mortal control)

at the time, part of it was that the idea was Azula had a mother-daughter dynamic with the villain lady. they genuiinely cared for each other in their own way, at one point i was later going to have Ozai reintroduced as another agent, having had his limbs removed with cyborg super-limbs keyed to the Elemental Plane of Fire to substitute firebending, done as a favor for Azula.

like i leaned WAY in on the ‘do ho ho Azula is super EEEEEEEVIL’ that was a really common thread in the fandom, to the point that I think an Azula redemption arc-focused fanfic or redemptive romance sort of angle would have been extremely novel and unusual specifically because no one ever really did anything like that at the time. So Azula was at the top of pecking order in the antagonists threat level, so here’s the kicker:

at one point she was supposed to wind up finding a way into the setting of Exalted.

That, on its own, isn’t the funny bit, though it may be interesting to note how Bending can come off as a nerfed equivalent to being one of the Dragon-Blooded/Terrestial Exalted.

The funny bit is that I absolutely SHOULD HAVE, if i ever got around to it, playing Mnemon and Azula off one another. The reason that’s funny (and tragic that i both never got around to that, and that I didn’t actually know about this bit of fandom joke) is that Mnemon acts almost exactly like Azula, to the point that a lot of people just call her Exalted Azula, I think. just, with Earth (crystals, specifically) instead of fire, and the big twist is that none of her character is really changed that much, its just that in the more morally gray world of Exalted, where political intrigue and the cost of power and heavy story emphasis on what the consequences are of using force as a solution to everything, Mnemon is NOT the antagonistic character like Azula is used as, but instead the heroine of her own story.

(It’s a dark story with a lot of child sacrifice and demon consorting, but the latter is not morally iffy since demons are more like weird aliens, but the point is that due to differing tones, Mnemon is significantly more gray. Also if you think the child sacrifice is screwed up you should see what her mom got up to. Actually, maybe not, it ties to the first few chapters of the Infernal Exalted splatbook and the fandom as a whole disowned it for a reason.

You don’t want to know. NO SERIOUSLY YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW.)