#still think he should have gotten more but considering his character arc it makes sense) - pururu had a whole huge arc on earth -

[queen0fm0nsterz]

Incredibly tempted to write an analysis of each member of the Garuru Platoon both individually, in relation to each other, and in relation to their "counterpart" in the Keroro Platoon

[tizzyizzy]

Why Ed Got Kraken: The Benefits of Being Blackbeard

As the climactic emotional turning point of the season for Ed’s arc, we pay plenty of attention to the confrontation between Ed and Izzy in the captain’s quarters. Here’s my take.

“I should have let the English kill you. This, whatever it is that you’ve become, is a fate worse than death.”

Right out of the gate, Izzy speaks what are actually his harshest words in the conversation. He says he should have let Ed die, that what ever he has become is worse than being dead. Between a different pair of characters, these cruel words would be the point of the scene. Ed would be dealing with his longtime friend and ally thinking so little of him. Wishing he was dead.

But, whatever bond they may have forged over the years, one of the most consistent things we see over the course of the series is how little Ed takes Izzy’s emotions and concerns into account. Sure, Ed listened and bowed to pressure when Izzy and the other crew members had a meeting about Stede being a pet. But Izzy both had back-up and was holding Ed up to his own rules and standards.

In general, Ed doesn’t pay much attention to Izzy’s emotional state, and when he does, he finds Izzy’s anger more amusing than upsetting. That’s not to say that Ed doesn’t care about Izzy at all, or that they aren’t friends. However, as their relationship has strained over the years, Ed seems to have gotten into the habit of tuning out Izzy’s ever growing list of complaints. Makes sense for the emotionally stunted pirate guys. Instead of leaning in to the relationship and dealing with the issue together, Ed leans away to escape Izzy’s pressure, only for Izzy to push even harder, which makes Ed lean away, etc.

And let’s be honest, Izzy can be pretty dramatic when he gets upset; it’s very possible Izzy has made over-the-top statements about how Edward will “rue this day” or whatever in the past in the heat of some fight only for things to cool down and return to normal.

So while Ed seems taken aback by how harsh Izzy is here, he responds more or less the same way we saw him respond in episode 4, where he just looked at Izzy in bafflement while the latter frothed and ranted.

This is just Izzy being Izzy. He’ll get over it.

“Well, I am still Blackbeard, so-”

Ed’s obviously got insecurities, but one thing he is absolutely proud of is being Blackbeard. He enjoys showing off his weather reading genius. He likes sauntering about the Revenge after rescuing Stede and co., basking in the awe of the starstruck crew. Ed worked long and hard and smart to have a reputation so legendary merchant ships surrender at the sight of his flag, and people the world over speak of him in hushed whispers. “I can do anything,” Ed said about running a restaurant. Blackbeard can do anything, and Ed is Blackbeard, so he can do anything.

Yeah, maybe Ed hasn’t been at his best the last few days, but who cares? He’s still, at his core, the infamous, skilled, indomitable Blackbeard. 

Thing is, being Blackbeard comes with a lot of perks. Automatic respect and fear. Spanish Jackie holds her fire because she wouldn’t risk crossing Blackbeard by murdering the Genital Pirate. It may be more boring nowadays when you don’t  have to fight to take a ship, but that’s reliable, safe booty. Dangerous people stay out of your way. Potentially useful ones compete for your favor. Izzy Hands says you’re the most brilliant sailor he’s ever met, and makes you tea and ties bows in your beard and is loyal no matter what.

Most importantly, as long as you’re Blackbeard? You’re somebody. By the time Ed appears in the story, the persona of Blackbeard has started to chafe. The excitement has been replaced by routine, and people see an exaggerated version of him with nine guns instead of his true self. But consider what Ed had before Blackbeard.

He was nothing. S lower class kid with a drunk for a father who wasn’t entitled to the simple pleasures of his aristocratic betters. Being Blackbeard might not be perfect, but it’s brought him so much more than whatever fate his lowly origins would have confined him to.

Back in the day, Ed was probably acutely aware of this. He started his career as nothing. Must have been exhilarating when people began to fear and respect him for the first time in his life, spreading his name far and wide.

But that was a long time ago, and Ed’s gotten complacent. He’s started to look for more out of life. However, he’s paid less attention to what earned him the security to worry about more than day to day survival. Ed didn’t think his slipping mattered, really. Sure, maybe he had made a few questionable decisions as his attention wandered from piracy, but he was still Blackbeard. Nothing’s going to change that.

But then Izzy, old, reliable Izzy, says he isn’t Blackbeard.

“No! This, this is Blackbeard! Not some namby-pamby in a silk robe pining for his boyfriend.”

These are the words that make him go from sedate to violent.

From episode 4 onward, Izzy has been a representative of Ed’s career as Blackbeard when he still had the passion for it. He’s a barometer that tells the audience how the Present Ed compares to Past Ed. In 10, he tells Ed and the audience that ratings are at an all time low. For the first time, Ed believes him.

When Izzy called him a “shell of a man who is merely posing at Blackbeard,” in 4, Ed didn’t bother to acknowledge it. Despite Izzy’s complaints, Ed was still confident that he was Blackbeard. In 4, despite his mistake with the date, Ed managed a brilliant plan with Stede’s help. Izzy apologized at the end of the episode, taking back his words. 

But a lot has changed since 4. 

Ed has fallen in love and had his heart broken. He’s become more open to his softer feelings, willing to express vulnerabilities. He found a friend, and lost him, and saw a different way of running a ship. He gave up his freedom for the love of a man who seemingly didn’t actually care about him. He learned he loved marmalade and wrote a song about his feelings and spent a week hiding in a pillow fort.

Ed has changed.

“Blackbeard is my captain. I serve Blackbeard. Not Edward.”

Know all those benefits I mentioned before? Izzy is one of them. Izzy was drawn to Blackbeard because of his brilliance. He is attracted to Ed as the daring, frightening, cunning pirate captain. Izzy even fell in love with him, and followed him with devout loyalty. Edward’s gotten so used to Izzy being there. It’s as natural as breathing to first reach out to Izzy when he needs something, even something intimate, or to chatter to Izzy about whatever has caught his interest.

Despite their rupture over Stede, their reconciliation wasn’t even worth a scene to itself. They fall back into their dynamic without question, because Izzy’s loyalty is that deep and Ed’s trust is that strong.

But Ed has taken the Blackbeard title for granted. Now, the ever loyal Izzy says he does not deserve it and he will no longer to submit to the authority it represents.

And when Ed is alone, having been abandoned by his most stalwart crewmember, he hears the crew calling him to sing again.

If Izzy doesn’t respect him anymore, no one will. The crew saw his vulnerable side. He has traded the respect of Blackbeard for...possibly nothing. To be treated as a joke. As someone who can be trifled with.

By trying to reach for something more, for real happiness beyond the security of infamy, Ed has risked the Blackbeard name he earned. Stede abandoned him. Izzy’s abandoning him. He’s on a boat with a crew that want to throw a talent show. If he doesn’t act soon, the name of Blackbeard could be dust...or worse, an object of ridicule (Remember how he feared being seen treasure hunting?). Then Ed will be back to the bottom of the barrel, same as the poor, lower class kid he started as, sneered at and looked down upon.

“Edward better watch his fucking step.”

This line is sometimes taken as a coercive threat, Izzy trying to intimidate Ed into bending to his will, but I’d argue that is not what is happening here.

When Izzy says these lines, he isn’t saying, “You’d better do what I want or I’ll make you regret it.” 

He’s saying: “I will obey Blackbeard and submit to the will of Blackbeard. But you aren’t Blackbeard anymore. You don’t get to slam me into a wall or command me like Blackbeard does. If you try it again, there will be consequences.”

It’s not, “Become Blackbeard again or else.” It’s “You’ve changed so much I am no longer loyal to you.”

This is why I disagree with the view that Ed is coerced, bullied, or intimidated by Izzy into becoming the Kraken. This isn’t a scene about Ed buckling  due to the fear of Izzy’s violent retribution, taking desperate measures to protect himself from The World’s Most Pathetic Man. It is about the threat of losing everything he’s built as Blackbeard.

This is why I find arguments about Ed resorting to maiming and forced auto cannibalism as semi-justified by his fear of Izzy, or some form of self-defense, particularly problematic: Ed wasn’t afraid of Izzy hurting him; he was afraid of Izzy leaving. Which is, uh, a very different thing.

Though it only kept Izzy from leaving because he’s loyal to the old Blackbeard, not due to fear.

“Hey Eddie, give us another song!”

(Interesting thing to note: Edward had just told the crew that he wanted to be called “Ed” instead of Blackbeard. He did not give anyone permission to call him by the cutesy, overly familiar diminutive “Eddie”. Perhaps a demonstration of how once he lost the aura of Blackbeard, the crew’s apparent respect for him began to diminish immediately.)

I think it does a disservice to Ed’s character to place the blame for his backslide into krakendom on Izzy. Izzy didn’t trick or manipulate or intimidate Ed. Ed isn’t scared of Izzy, for god’s sake. He isn’t being played. Izzy just exposed Ed to the very real potential consequences of his choices: losing everything he built with Blackbeard. And once Izzy is gone, Ed has hours to decide if he agrees with Izzy. In the end, he does.

I think, if Ed looked back at this moment, he wouldn’t be brooding about Izzy being mean or cruel. He’d think about being left alone in the captain’s quarters, a pit forming in his stomach, realizing that maybe what will give him true happiness and what will keep him safe are incompatible. Looking back on his past behavior in a panic, wondering if people are already beginning to hear tales of the newer, softer Blackbeard, and how that might change how they view him. Wondering, if Izzy is done with him, what does that mean about the rest of his crew? Wondering if he has nearly given up the legend of Blackbeard for an illusion of love. Looking around at all these trinkets left behind from Stede, how he used to long for them, but now they just look like the meaningless baubles of a man so rich he can afford to buy trash like Ed twice over.

“I am the Kraken.”

But it’s not too late. Ed just has to act fast. By the time night falls, he’s made his decision. He throws the member of Stede’s crew that has seen him at his most vulnerable, Lucius, off the boat, along with all his wisdom about relationships and emotions. He proves his commitment to being this version of Blackbeard to Izzy by performing a grotesque act of violence upon him. “The old Blackbeard’s back and he’s worse than ever,” is what he’s saying. “Don’t give up on me yet.”

Then all of Stede’s things have to go. All the baubles Ed was so excited about in 4, the big library, down they go into the drink. Then he maroons the foolish, trusting, ridiculous crew. They’re useless, and they’ve seen to much. Just more of Stede’s toys to play pirate.

He’s going to be okay. He’s still Blackbeard. He slipped, but he clawed his way back up at the last moment. He still hurts, but he can hide in his room to cry. And there’s the alcohol that we see him with, coping with pain like his father did. (Fang’s drinking now too. Bad times are coming again.)

The stabbed heart is sewed in his new flag, as a reminder not to let anyone in again.

He doesn’t have anything else, but he’s still Blackbeard.

[dicktat]

For Dying Light 2 ask

If u can change one the aspect of the story, what would it be?

Ty :3

Sorry this is talking forever but I really wanted to write a personal take on this. So below is my essay of an opinion and why I think Aiden should’ve been Waltz’s biological son

To start off, I think “Mia isn’t even his sister” is a god awful twits on Aiden’s behalf. Imagine spending the entire story finding some family member of yours and she’s not even related to you. I get the concept of found it adopted family but this is…how do it even put it, anticlimactic. It’s a twist but it was at the expense of logic and satisfaction and hence in my humble opinion a very bad decision. Twists made for only shock factors are usually considered bad and frankly this is a case of just that. Some twists should have buildups and foreshadowing and while I acknowledge that “Aiden has memory issues” is somewhat hinting towards him being an unreliable source of info, it was not made explicitly clear that, he would’ve misremembered something this crucial…while family is such an important factor to his character. His entire arc and personality was built on him finding his sister. And Hakon even asked what his plan was after finding his so called sister while Aiden outwardly admitted, he doesn’t know. His goal in life had very little foresight and his sole purpose is no more than just that. I understand Mia was no more than a macguffing and severs little to no purpose as a character, it’s still incredibly dismissive of a player’s effort as they worked towards a goal that perishes within five minutes of meeting.

I think it’s no less than obvious that I hated this ending, but this also ties into my next point of god damn it, a cliche twist doesn’t mean it’s a bad twist. I get the “I’m your father” shit had been done to death, yet when it’s effective, it really is. Imagine the shock we could’ve gotten, this paired with Aiden’s discovery of holy shit the mad scientist isn’t even a bad person would double the dramatic factor.

Also this completely deprived me of a universe where Aiden was raised by Waltz. We could’ve gotten a fucking Dr. Caldwell doing mad science shit but no Techland was a coward for this.

This is something that’s been on my thoughts for a good fucking while and I just can’t shake the idea of a mad scientist Aiden equally as brutal as Waltz but with a little sense of playfulness and sadistic tendencies. Meanwhile I feel so isolated with my evil Aiden ideas besides the few cool people actively supporting it.

And can we talk about how much, Waltz’s facial structure is similar to Aiden’s.

(Image taken from Techland’s website lol)

I’m not sure how to explain it but the bone structure, the nose and lips just…well you know? And I can actually see them being semi related. This is only a small part of fake evidences that supports my argument but nevertheless fun. I know it’s not completely valid but it’s not a bad opinion right.

Also off topic but look at this Waltz art he’s just so

I think Mia and Aiden would make for a fucking cute family and wether Aiden gets poisoned by Waltz and becomes completely evil is up for debate. Either way I think it’s just a concept that could be executed better. And in my personal opinion makes for a good twist. Sorry for the rant, but I just have so much to say around this topic. I think if this was implemented by the fandom it could make things a bit more fun and we have a new variety of au to play with. This is just a theory, a game theory. But if you find even a little entertainment in reading this, we’ll I’m satisfied.

Thank you so much for asking!

[mislamicpearl]

Thoughts on Danny Phantom: A Glitch in Time

If you want the tl;dr of my thoughts on this graphic novel, it's simple: I LOVED IT! And I want moooore!

SPOILERS GALORE BELOW

I'm soooooo happy with all the dialogue and characterization, it is just spot on! I could perfectly hear the original voices of the characters saying these lines, this comic could literally be a new episode of the show and it would fit seamlessly! No 2020's slang or memes, no wokeness that wasn't there before, just pure Danny Phantom. The only few indications of the comic having been written in 2023 is the use of words like "selfie" and "goat", and those are already old enough now that they don't feel that blatant.

Needless to say I'm sooooo glad this story's main premise is on Dark Danny, the fact that that storyline never came back in the show was always a sore spot for me. And not only Dark Danny but Vlad AND Clockwork come back for major parts to play? This is like the most wish fulfilling fanfic ever, except it's CANON!

But yeah, love that Vlad got to come back, it's always funny when he has to work together with Danny, AND the fact that he gets a redemption of sorts at the end fixes one of the many things I disliked about the show's finale - it had always felt like this was a villain character that could have and should have gotten a second chance to do some good.

Ahahaha I had completely forgotten that Tucker was made mayor of Amity Park in Phantom Planet, and ngl it was a great move on the comic's part scrapping that idea immediately, that had always been pretty silly.

I wish we could've seen just a little bit more of Danny interacting with his parents now that they know his identity as a half ghost, but considering they weren't major characters in this plot (and considering how things end up) it kinda makes sense.

The important thing is that we still got lots of cute wholesome hugs between Danny and his friends. :')

Aaaaaah Dark Danny is so cool! The art style was really cute but the author also managed to make Phantom look just as dark and menacing as he was in the show.

The best and most disturbing joke was Danny seeing that Vlad still had a clone of him in stasis, ahahaha! And this actually comes back to play an important part in the plot later!

I'm glad Valerie got some moments to shine in this too, I never liked how her and Danny's whole thing was just kind of rushed and brushed aside in the show's finale. Now we can see, she still doesn't completely trust him!

If there's just one thing I fault this comic with, it's the whole glitching through different timelines thing to make filler action scenes. I felt like they ate up page time for nothing.

"I put you two in the ground before, I can do it again" HOLY FRICK THAT'S DARK, DANNY!

I really love the lore surrounding the ghosts that was added. Given that Butch Hartman has said the ghosts aren't actually deceased spirits of real people, the explanation given here actually makes the fact that we have ghosts like Poindexter, who was a living boy once, make sense without negating what he said. It also very simply explains why we have weird formless or creature-like ghosts, something I'd never even thought to wonder about.

I did think it was a little too easy for Danny to get his powers back after that explanation (and dang, as if he hasn't been compared to Spider-man enough XD), but I love what it did for Vlad's character arc.

I don't know how I'd never thought before about Dark Danny and Vlad interacting but WOW I needed to see that! God what a deliciously complicated relationship - Vlad literally adopted this version of Danny and made him who he was! And again, what a great way to develop Vlad's character making Dark Danny show him exactly what would result from him getting what he'd always wanted in making Danny his protegee!

Clockwork Dark Danny looked so cool~

"Why was I the one who lost everything?" God this part punched me in the gut. 

Clockwork returning Danny and his friends back to the status quo of the show would usually annoy me, but I totally see that this is the author's way of undoing the results of Phantom Planet and leaving the story open to doing the ending over again - and I'm all for that! You know, if in fact we do get more comics after this.

Which it seems like we will because we kinda left Valerie on a cliffhanger there?

And Dark Danny is now a kid again and back with Vlad, heck yeah! Again, I need mooooore! Bring back Dani next!!

5 stars man, this is a continuation done right in every way!

[cissie-queen-jones]

Ok so @elioherondale tagged me in this challenge and here is what I’ve come up with.

We’re going to start off with the Green Arrow on going. The most important thing to me for a Green Arrow run is getting the family all together. Because canon has gotten so weird around the Arrowfam, I’m going to do what I want and say Mia, Connor, and Emi all already live with Ollie. Emi is still pretty new to this, but they’re all an established family. I think a great way to explore and re establish the Arrowfam’s dynamics would be to do it with the perspective of a new Arrowkid joining the family. Enter Cissie! Ollie and Cissie both find out that he is her dad, so Cissie is moving in. We get to see Cissie’s struggles with finding a place in her new family, as well as Ollie’s struggles to be the parent all of his kids need. I think adding Cissie as a new kid would give a good perspective for people who are new to Arrowfam comics to show the dynamics and personalities of the family.

The big thing I want to explore with Ollie specifically is his childhood. We don’t get a lot on Ollie’s childhood or even really anything before he became Green Arrow, so I want to explore more of his formative years. Since most of what we know about Ollie as a kid comes from when he bonding with his own children, I want to do a series of small arcs where he connects with each kid and we get to see flashbacks to Ollie’s childhood to see why he can relate to them (side note: might make this a fic series). I know none of this is centered around a typical superhero plot but Ollie’s at his best when the comics focus on him as a person not as a hero persona.

As for Roy’s run, he’s definitely going to be Red Arrow and he’s getting Lian back. I’m ignoring everything they’ve doing with “Shoes” because it’s stupid, it makes no sense with Jade’s character, and they also made Lian like 10-ish years younger than Roy in current canon. It’s bad. So instead, we’re going back to young Lian and Roy and Jade are working out co parenting. I also want to get Roy to bond with his siblings. We haven’t really gotten a lot of Roy interacting with his younger siblings so I think it would be fun. Also I want to do a storyline where Tim North comes back, possibly as a “villain” who is pretending to be Roy as Speedy.

For the third character, this will be very predictable for me. I want an Eddie Fyers mini. He just disappeared after Ollie came back from the dead, so I want to explore what happened with him. I think this would be really fun because over the span of GA 1988, we watch Eddie go from a little rat with no morals to actually considering why Ollie does the things he does and starting to think about his own actions, plus he spent a lot of time helping out Connor. I think it would be really fun to see what happens to my favorite CIA hit man after he quit and took care of his homoerotic rival’s kid for a while. I also think it could be fun to narrate the whole thing as letters to Connor in a parody of that period where Roy wrote letters to Lian in his head.

If the third one needs to be an ongoing, it should go to Shado or Jade. They both deserve their own ongoing that respects them and gives them more good characterization.

As for an event to tie it all together, all I can come up with is Hard Traveling Heroes but with Ollie and the kids instead of just Ollie and Hal (Hal will still have a part in it). There’s a lot you could do with a modern version of this story as long as Ollie is written in character, and I think it could be a really great bonding moment for the whole family. I also think it could be a good way for Cissie to discover that she can be a hero without living up to her mother’s expectations and would be a good way for her to take up the Arrowette mantle again, since she definitely will if she’s in comics again.

People are more than welcome to add on if you have ideas.

[pseudo-apollo]

A Sinfully Good Book (Review)

I read The Sacred Sins of Father Black by @stjohnstarling (available here on Amazon) over the course of about a day and a half (and it would've been less if I hadn't been procrastinating).

For those unfamiliar, I'll begin with a short summary:

FBI Agent Quentin Day is investigating a forgery ring that is flooding the market with incredibly good counterfeit wines. Quentin finds himself assigned to the picturesque oasis of a town called Hopewell. There he meets Father Sebastian Black, and the two immediately hit it off. The more time Agent Day spends in the town, the closer he grows to Father Black, and the more conflicted he feels. He feels a strong tie to his sense of duty and justice, but is the tie he feels to Father Black stronger?

(Review below the cut -- Spoiler-free)

I'll start with my brief thoughts and then go more into detail. Overall? I liked the book, in fact I really liked it. I'd give it 4/5 stars, a very solid 8/10.

I'm not going to lie, though, I struggled a bit getting through (approximately) the first half of the book. It was a slow start, and I couldn't figure out the pacing. However, once I hit that halfway point, everything picked up and fell into place. From that point on, I couldn't put the book down.

It felt like the mixed pace in the beginning came from the heavy lifting of needing to do a lot of set-up. I can definitely relate, I've been there. You have to get all your characters in the right places, introduce them, etc etc. The good news is, it paid off, more than I ever expected. It kind of felt like climbing a hill, and then falling down the other side (in the best way possible). In a way, it was very fitting as it aligned very closely with our main characters' own experiences of finally experiencing a significant release (haha get it?).

Really, I found the book very compelling. The entire time there is a sense of many moving pieces, along with an undercurrent that never quite gets resolved. Toward the end, it started to remind me of the movie Midsommar, a movie I've only seen pieces of, mind you. It was the vibrant intensity of it, the sense of strength that a small community has, and the way it can fundamentally change people.

This was definitely not a horror book, but the intensity it held was very much disarming, bordering on overwhelming (again, in a good way). I began to feel more and more connected with the experience of our Agent Day, and wow how vivid of a picture we were painted.

Now, this does bring me to another small gripe I have, but I will keep it vague, since, as promised, there will be no spoilers here. There is a major event very near the end of the book, which gets nothing more than a passing glance. It is significant, and I would argue, the ultimate turning point for our main character (the main character himself asserts this turning point was earlier, but this was the event I felt most marked his firm departure from the character he began the book as).

I think this difference of opinion is why it frustrated me, though. Considering our main character from the end of his character arc, it makes sense that this would be naught but a passing event, but as a character in the final stage of transition from one identity to another, I feel it should have gotten more attention as the event that really quite truly marks the ultimate point of no return.

I think that alone made the ending feel a tad rushed to me, but it wrapped up so nicely that I really couldn't complain. There was still an undercurrent of something more that went largely unexplained, but I honestly felt that made the book and characters all the more compelling. To have one final, tiny mystery still unresolved, but the feeling that it needn't be. The sense of total acceptance of things as they are, and that they are as they are meant to be.

This review has gone on much longer than I expected, so I'll end it with a final:

tl;dr This book wrecked me. It was intense, and beautiful, and captivating. It's a quick, but memorable read, and I highly recommend it. If you're impatient like me, just be prepared, and remember: when it gets good, it gets good.

[artofzz]

Swordsmith village arc review P2

Muichiro:

Again, I do not like that there is a constant need to present characters as terrible. I watched a lot of reactions and most people disliked Muichiro at first, which I could not get behind.

A character that is not nice is not a bad character at all, neither do I believe that he was meant to be seen in a negative light. It’s just the short amount of time spent on them that makes it harder to sympathize with them.

It is a little hard to understand his issue and the importance of him regaining his memories. But that is again a problem of not taking the time to present us the characters properly. Since his issue and his fight against Gyokko are not connected in any way.

I found it a little odd that he went to Tanjiro to ask about Kanamori, seems more like a plot convenience. Since Tanjiro is triggering his memories. I don’t feel that is necessary that Tanjiro keeps having such a strong affect on people, this is my personal preference, but I feel like you can spread out this role onto multiple characters.

Furthermore, Yuichiro’s death caused his memory issue, so would it not make more sense that something in that matter would trigger his memories? Maybe we could have him still unconsciously thinking of his father’s words while considering leaving Kotetsu behind, and then Kotetsu’s act of saving him is triggering the memories. I know the situation is different, but he is still trying to risk his own life to save him.

I mean even without Tanjiro’s influence on him I feel like he would become good friends with him later. I in general do not like the approach of an overly influential protagonist. But that is personal preference.

Furthermore, it is clear as day that there was not many efforts put into Gyokko since most time is wasted on Hantengu since he is Tanjiro’s opponent

Which is such a shame. Defeating an upper-rank demon is a big feat and doing that alone is an even bigger one. Again, I don’t know the reason behind the insane pacing of this manga but that is the main reason why there was not much room to focus more in-depth on other characters and give a lot more depth to Muichiro’s battle.

A big Spoiler warning here!!

In my opinion, he is relatively wasted as a character and that stands very true to the end of this series. Since he is my favorite character in this series. I love the idea that went into him, I always love twin concepts in fiction and all the symbolism that goes into Muichiro.

I am definitely salty over his death since I do not agree with this decision. Muichiro is the only one to have someone he loved sacrifice his life for him. (In the backstory) furthermore, during his part in the swordsmith village arc, the topic of surviving is a big one. And that everything will be fine afterward. We also find out that Yuichiro in his dying moments prayed for him to survive and live a long and happy life. Muichiro already went through lots of tragedies. From his parents dying without being able to help them at all and then losing his brother to a demon with nothing he could do for him other than holding his hand while he passed away. Then being an amnesiac for 2-3 years after that and ending up dying only 2-3 months after that. There was definitely much more that could have been done with him but was wasted in the end.

Since he took only 2 months of training to raise up to hashira ranks, that means he is subjected to the greatest progress comparatively to all the other characters. What I mean he would make the most progress in 2 months unlike the others, like Tanjiro, Zenisu, and Insosuke. Or even the other Hashira. His growth in strength should be exponentially much larger than the others. Just saying.

I highly doubt that he would slow down in his training at any point in time and since the Infinity Castle arc is 2-3 months later (I could be wrong about that) he must have gotten a lot stronger than in the

In the end, it is very unfortunate that the manga was so fast-paced and not taking its time. It could have been a lot better without feeling like it's being dragged out too much.

At least for me.

The next part will discuss bost Mitsuri and Genya.

[minthe-lover]

Imo lo would be much better if it only had one villian or focus more time on them. Apollo and Demeter (I, for one, do not think Demeter is a villian but she is portrayed as one) are the main villians. Zues, Minthe, Leto, and Kronos are secondary villians. It all feels too much and none really gets the time they need to feel like full fleshed villians. The most fleshed out is Minthe with her arc but as she is in the mortal realm I doubt she will do much to get in the way of Hades and Persephone. (She better still be in it as she was one of the best things about lo)

I wouldn't talk much about Persephone's sa by Apollo as others have spoken about it better than I could ever. So I will speak about him wanting to overthrow Zues. We are given hints that he wants to be king or at least gain a shit load of power. We see the Apollo for president (that doesn't makes sense as Olympus seems to be an absolute monarchy so why do they need a president), that dream thing is not the best evidence but it does show Apollo as king and Persephone as his wife so hint ig, and the fates saying something about overthrowing Zues with a picture of Apollo underneath.(I tried looking for this example but couldn't find it so I might have made it up in my mind) Considering the in Greek myths Apollo along side Poseidon, Hera, and Athena tried to overthrow Zues doing something with him wanting to do that is fairly close to myths.(don't get my words twisted Lo is in no way shape or form close to the myths) However, it will take a lot of effort to make compelling as Kronos was defeated in like 5 episodes. If it's so easy to stop Kronos from overthrow everything then why should I care about Apollo wanting to overthrow Zues? And it's not like we know he has powerful allies. Hera hates him so she wouldn't work with him. And we are not given a reason to why Poseidon and Athena would want to overthrow Zues. And in that panel that I might have made up only shows Apollo and not anyone else. The only person we know that would help him even just morally is Leto.

Zues was the villian during the great divide saga. Zues wants to make an example of Persephone and Demeter but why? We see mortal women so Pandora lived. It would be logical to think then Prometheus stole fire. If he did then an eagle would be eating his liver the trial would be happening. So why go so hard on them if he as an example? Sure it could be another but as far as we know is rule is going good. Blocking realms would give people a reason to go against him. If this was a bit more fleshed out sides that was not Persephone than maybe we would have a answer. And Kronos was the villian for a bit.(or still is at the time of writing which is when 220 is the newest free chapter) But he was taken out pretty quick.

There is not enough villians to be character vs society as there are too many characters on Hades and Persephone's side or don't care. But too many villians to be that compelling and fleshed out. Lo is a romance so it doesn't need any villians just some obstacle. There needs to be less villians or more time focused on them. Almost everything I said was from memory so I might have gotten something wrong.

P.s your my favorite lo critique blog and you recently reblog one of my post so thanks for that.

^^^^

all your points are great! and I honestly don't have much to add!

and I'm so honored that you enjoy it!

[loregoddess]

For the send a game title ask, Legend of Dragoon

Dragoon, my beloved...

Favorite thing about that game: Wait, just one? Honestly it's a toss up between the story, which is incredibly written even with all the wacky localization hiccups, and the mechanics which are surprisingly balanced considering the game was published in 1999/2000.

Least favorite thing about that game: Hmm, probably that Kongol gets kinda shelved by the writers, I felt he had a lot of narrative potential that we never see realized. Also I feel like running all the way back to Lohan to pick up his dragoon spirit (or waiting till the end of the game) is tedious, esp. if I'm going to use him in my main party, and I feel like he should have just gotten it after saving Dart and Co. after the battle with Gerich, since it'd kinda make sense that the gang had stolen the spirit or it was just chilling in the ruins of the Home of Gigantos. Aside from that, I think Meru should not fall into the "woman who is older than she looks, and she looks 16" trope, it's not a good trope for her.

Favorite character in that game: Hmmm, all of...them? Technically Meru bc I love her character arc and personality, and she's fun to play as, but I have a lot of love for Albert, Kongol, Lavitz, and Miranda too.

Would I recommend it? Why? YES YES, aside from being a classic JRPG that got left in the dust due to niche popularity, it is surprisingly balanced mechanically and isn't as janky as some games from that era tend to be. Also the story is fascinating, and it's one of the most creative takes on dragons I've ever come across (I mean, there's a giant praying mantis dragon, and that's just the tip of the dragon design iceberg). Actually there's a lot of things in LoD that I simply do not see in a lot of fantasy stories that I feel could be used more often, but like, everything from the visual design to the music to the narrative to the mechanics is really well-made and makes the entire game a sort of forgotten gem of the JRPG world.

Free space to go off about something! Something that continues to amaze me is, voice acting aside, all the CG cutscenes still hold up even by the standards of today's 3D animated cutscenes. Like, LoD feels like it was really ahead of it's time in a lot of aspects, but all the cutscenes are gorgeous, and the game has some of the best CGI for character and prop models for early 2000s games that I know of. It makes me kind of sad that finding high-res renders of the characters is so hit or miss, but regardless I always enjoy watching the cutscenes if only to gawk at how pretty they are.

Rating out of 10: 100/10, one of my all-time favorite games, I replay it almost yearly and I rarely replay games that often.

[problemswithbooks]

Seeing this translation, I sort of think that it’s likely (at least if Hori actually wants Enji’s arc to not be wasted pages) that we’ll get some sort of flashback where we see Endeavor and Shoto talk about this plan. See that Shoto agreed or even asked to face Touya alone. 

At least I hope we get something like that because if we don’t and AfO is presented as correct here, that’s kind of strange. Pacing wise this is like the third time we’ve seen people call out Enji for stagnating. From a character perspective, it feels weird because AfO is a worse child abuser then Enji. It doesn’t show AfO as more morally correct then Enji (a Villain being better then a Hero) nor should this really upset Enji, whose already heard this from Shoto whose opinion he actually cares about. So, AfO mocking Enji here shouldn’t really be the thing that has him change his mind and go to Shoto and Touya.

So, it’d make more sense if it turns out they had a talk we never saw. A talk where they decided Shoto would go face Touya alone. Considering one of Enji’s problems has been not listening to Shoto, it’d make even more sense if Shoto asks to do this as a Hero and a brother--for Enji to trust him and this is Enji giving him what he wants, and respecting his wishes. 

I’m sure I’ll be wrong and that Hori will have Enji not learning anything (for the third time), but to me this is the only way this makes sense given what we’ve seen so far. Plus, if Hori is still trying to complete Enji’s arc, doing this helps it feel more organic. It’ll be so stupid if Endeavor has learned nothing and is still ignoring Touya up until the last moment and then comes running in to help save him, only after being berated by AfO. 

Like the dude listens to the worst villain in the series but not to Shoto or Rei who have both gotten on his case for the same thing, twice? That would be ridiculous. 

[deadmunds-ghostbee]

A NUMBERED LIST OF INTERESTING CRUMBS/DETAILS THAT WERE  IN THE ARTICLE IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

(Commentary on stills  in another post)

1. ALL Bridgertons included in Pall Mall. Daphne confirmed, and Simone said she was there with ‘all of the cast.’ Jonny said something like “All of the Bridgertons.” If this means Greg and Hyacinth content, then I’m all over it.

2. Newton gets an arc!!! Pls let it be known that, in terms of things I am excited about, priority goes Kathony kiss, mr finch cheese content, then Newton arc. Fight me!!! 

3. Kate is “outside the ton and deliberately put herself in there.” EW author also called her a ‘spinster,’ which should be taken with a grain of salt would def explain her non-dance card laden wrists. I am very excited about this prospect, an improvement from canon for me.

4. The sharmas grew up in India (No comment).

5. Queen uses Edwina AS A PAWN to unmask whistledown??? Will she tell Edwina to cause more drama/advise her poorly on situations to lure LW into spotlight so Charlotte can nail to her to a time/place/person?? Eloise wants to find LW too but is protective over her. Will Edwina and Eloise be rivals in that? Will they team up and be friends like in the book? Will they and Pen have a little nerd girl squad??? This crum can only lead to great shit imo.

6. Jonny’s comment about Anthony being most “honest, fatigued and exhausted” in quiet moments in his study and in women’s beds. I wanna see him fuck someone else and then be emo about it, hope this confirms this.

7. KATE IS IN TOUCH WITH HER DESIRES !!! She’s been to a farm for sure lol, has maybe gotten herself off and potential for raunchy dreams from her AND him. They should splice the dreams together in editing, just for me to enjoy.

8. Colin is a biscuit king. Love the physical comedy and cartoonish aspect when it’s put in the show. Sibling stuff and fun moments were best part of S1. Lets hope we get a lot of this.

9. Daphne is considered ‘the rock’ of the siblings now, ‘the adult’ and someone to guide Anthony on his journey to love lol, but also she ‘lets her hair down’ at Aubrey hall and is v competitive at Pall Mall. This was the only thing they could really do with her, so I just hope the shift seems natural for her character. 

10. Simone said that Kathony “TEACH EACH OTHER HOW TO LOVE, TO LET LOVE IN, GIVE LOVE, AND ACCEPT THE SCARY PARTS” this. THIS. is why I don’t think they’ll fuck up the romance or even that much of the backstory (or at least Anthony’s :/)

11. Polin wrote while he was away?? Cute. 

12. Kate and Anthony are ‘anti-gossipers’ in Simone’s words. Makes sense for Anthony, and for both after marriage, but Kate not being into whistledown is a deviation from the book. Not mad at it, not a big deal to me either?

13. Edwina is ‘optimistic to a fault’ and looking for a LOVE match. But has a ‘wild streak’. She wants to be sensible but her true nature is to be starry-eyed idealist. it also said “She lets others speak for her bc she can’t express herself.” While i personally hope she makes out with some girls and also think she will have a classism subplot thing along with queen stuff, we know she will get a happy ending. we just don’t know what it is. What we do know is that ppl will hurt her/take advantage of her along the way, and she will hurt in return. 

14. They still won’t admit Jack is the featherington heir. Which fine, I guess but I see no other way. Maybe he’s a solicitor. But he’s involved with the featheringtons for sure and idk i want him to fuck portia there i said it.

15. Pen has money she could use to help her family but doesn’t. That deviated from canon a bit but it’s interesting for sure. I think we’ll see her make as poor of decisions as last season but also show remorse. Her arc is a little too big to nail down.

16. Colin’s “not focused on romance” but “other pursuits and ventures” that dont end in heartbreak. So what you’re saying is that he’s a whore. Good. Maybe he’ll gain his interest in writing. 

17. Kate’s “outside the rules” but also has “a lot to work out” this alludes to her backstory, i think. And it’s confirmed her and Ed are half sisters so we have that too.

18. The video said EW released like an hour or two ago said shit about fooling around “in the library. you never know who could be in the stacks.” Who. WHO. WHOO.

19. “And if you can’t risk temptation, watch out for bees” in regard to keeping lips to oneself. I mean if they didnt include this, it’d be ridiculous. But also maybe Kathony are already making out when the bee comes. Wouldnt be a crazy deviation. 

sO many crumbs today it was so hard to keep track of that I took notes, which is super lame. All info can be found in like the four EW posts from today.

[quirkwizard]

With the manga coming towards its close, which five students from 1-A do you think should have gotten more scenes (especially action scenes) or a more important role in the plot than they got, based on either their characterization and/or their quirks? Conversely, which five students do you think got too much attention?

As far as character attention goes, I don't really have a lot of complaints. Could the students of 1-A use more development? Probably and there are ways that could have happened, but I'm not going to say that someone like Sato deserved a more important role. He was a minor background character, and he filled that role well. The same goes with a lot of the other characters. So I could only come up with two students and an honorable mention for each.

More Focus- Uraraka and Iida: While these are major characters in Class 1-A, it doesn't exactly feel like they get that much attention for the roles they are supposed to have. For being the best friends of the main character, it feels like they disappear for a lot of the plot. They started out pretty strong with their own focus, but started to peter out in favor of certain other characters. While Uraraka has gotten more focus, both as being a love interest for Izuku and through her plot connection with Toga, Iida has gotten it especially bad. After Bakugou was rescued, I started getting the sense that Hori just didn't know what to do with him. They have been getting more attention as of late, but it's still a pretty big gap.

Honorable Mention- Shoji: As much as I like Shoji and would want his power showed off more, I don't think he was nessacarily wasted. However, considering the sudden and massive turn the story took with the mutation storyline, it feels like a missed opportunity to not give greater focus to Shoji. Maybe it would have been less of a mess, but that's another story.

Less Focus- Shoto and Bakugou: I get why these two are focused on. They both have a pretty big role in the plot, with Shoto connecting to the Todoroki storyline and Bakugou being Izuku's main rival. They are both insanely popular characters who have powers that are a lot more interesting to watch and show off. But it doesn't change the fact that I think these two get way too much attention in the story. They just take up so much oxygen whenever they are involved in an arc. Especially since the story keeps putting them together as a trio with Izuku, making it seem as though the two replaced Iida and Uraraka as his friends. It's honestly exhausting to me just how much we get to see of these two.

Honorable Mention- Denki: While I never found his shtick funny, I don't mind how much attention he got. That being said, I do think he's gotten too much focus after the Joint Training Arc. I felt like his fight with 1-B a natural conclusion to his personal arc, so it seems odd to focus on him. There was his role as a frightened kid in the middle of a massive fight, but I feel like that could have gone to another student and it would work fine.

[heretherebedork]

Some people don't follow you, they see you in the show's tag and thus feel the need to share some context to the scenes presented. Don't take it like people are not respecting your preference to not want spoilers or book info. Obviously, people who don't follow you can't know if you'd want the context/"spoilers", considering some people don't care to be spoiled or are anxious to know what comes next 🤷🏼‍♀️

Dude, really?

Everyone knows what spoilers are.

And when I specifically post off what has happened in a show (particularly the post I made where I said I couldn't predict what would happen to Chay because I hadn't read the book and someone felt the need to send an ask explaining everything that happened to him leading to the answer to other anon's question is over the top) I expect answers from the show.

I should not have to put 'no book spoilers' on every single post I make about the first episode of a show.

I understand that people don't follow me and I fully respect people commenting on my off the tags. I like talking to people around tumblr that randomly find me.

But it should be common sense not to include large book spoilers in a post I made about my impression of a character in a first episode of a show where I also specified that I'm open to him growing on me. Tel me you love him, sure! Tell me you think he's great! Tell me he'll make sense later! Sure, do it all.

But explaining his entire family dynamic? With characters we haven't even met yet? None of that is something that needs to be said on a post about the first episode of a drama and my first impressions of a character.

I get that most people are much more deeply involved and invested in this than I am. But seriously? Seriously? We're one episode in, I dislike one character but am open to him growing on me and I just have to accept that everyone is going to jump into the comments and spoil the entire character arc for me?

Look. I respect that Kinn is a popular character. I get it. I just don't like him so far. I fully expect him to grow on me as I learn about him.

I just really feel like the idea of spoilers is still a common enough cultural phenomena that I am allowed to be annoyed that multiple people are coming to my posts and trying to tell me to like characters based on things that haven't happened yet.

I am not the strictest on spoilers. I look forward to discussing changes once we've gotten farther in the show! I can't wait to see difference and similarities through other people's eyes and to hear about the inner thoughts we don't get.

But it's one episode.

[dreamteamspace]

They really went there huh

/rp (good lord I rly hyperfixated on this essay huh)

torture tw, abuse tw, manipulation tw, gaslighting tw

So the Dream SMP built a character, once maybe morally gray, who slipped straight into villany with little to no desire to change, and willing to cause a LOT of pain to get his way. Despite this, he doesn’t question what he does enough to stop, justifying his actions with a good intent that doesn’t come close to justifying what he’s done.

C!Dream is unremorseful of what he’s done, he’s quite literally manipulated and gaslit (like actually, not in the way everyone keeps throwing the word around) c!Tommy, almost drove him to take his last life- like, jesus christ. That’s not even to mention blowing up L’Manburg three times, encouraging c!Wilbur, wanting the discs JUST to have power over c!Tommy, etc.

SO, he gets thrown in a box for it so he doesn’t hurt anybody anymore, making his own hubris his downfall (narrative consequence my beloved). This leads us to a good finale - the bad guy, the person who’s caused objectively the most pain and destruction, is now unable to do so anymore, taken down by the person whom he tried to weaken. It is also revealed he was planning on blackmailing and threatening pretty much everyone, but now everyone gets their stuff back.

Good, right?

Especially for the finale, yeah! The message of the finale is good, c!Tommy manages to escape his abuser with nothing more but his clothes on his back and fights his way back to c!Tubbo and his home.

He doesn’t let his trauma (which is still very present!) let him become a terrible person (arguably the way that c!Dream DID let his frustrations make him a terrible person, c!Tommy, despite bearing quite a heavy weight, recognizes when he begins to turn that way and actively works against it).

It shows that while alone, c!Tubbo and c!Tommy were outfought by Dream, but because c!Tommy went the length to ask for help (which he didn’t even really seem to be relying on actually showing up), he wins! It truly is a good message.

C!Tommy escapes his abuser and manipulator, refuses and fights his trauma to not become someone he doesn’t want to be, and defeats his abuser by asking for help and receiving it, even more than he thought he’d get. He refuses to play c!Dream’s “game”, refuses till the very last moment to let c!Tubbo die, to surrender and say goodbye to him.

So, great! Good finale! C!Dream The Villain is boxed like a fish in a prison of, quite literally, his own making. It sent a good message to people. C!Tommy wasn’t expected to forgive him and did, in fact, axe him down twice, causing c!Dream to finally fall from his high horse.

Most media would stop at this point, say the villain is now defeated and never show them again, or have them come back another one or two seasons later, escaped and seemingly unharmed and worse than ever.

Alternatively, there’s a throwaway line, (or, in good media, a genuine, reasonable backstory, complete with remorse and bad role models and complicated situations), that allows the villain to be redeemed.

In GOOD redemption arcs (See: Zuko from avatar tbh), the villain was already never quite as heartless, or stressed their good intent, or felt remorse for what they felt they “had to do”. Then, ideally, the villain takes a looooong time adjusting their habits, regretting their actions and changing until they’re considered redeemed.

Not on the Dream SMP, though.

They don’t stop at c!Dream’s defeat.

He doesn’t dissapear off-screen and is never spoken of again. His life continues on, everyone’s does, just like it would in reality. He doesn’t magically want to become a better person, far from it. So no redemption. But he doesn’t dissapear, either.

They go on to, slowly, stress how awful the conditions in Pandora’s Vault are. c!Bad says c!Dream should be imprisoned, but at least at slightly better conditions. We’re in very VERY morally gray territorry here. Nobody says c!Dream is a good person, of course not, but even c!Bad - who knows Dream was planning on keeping c!Skeppy in a cage to control him with - goes, “yeah, he should stay boxed, but does he really need to like... suffer suffer?”

Still, c!Dream seems to be kindof inconsistent in his behavior. Is he faking his pain? Is he not? His actions don’t fully make sense for either take. He acts differently to each person, but at the same time some things he does don’t make sense if he were just fishing for pity.

Then c!Sam admits to trying (and thinking he succeeded) to “break Dream’s will”, to quite literally starving him for weeks.

Okay, so now we’re a step further. C!Dream is now suffering even more, although already boxed and unable to hurt anyone. Pandora’s Vault is one thing, but now c!Sam just seems to be out for revenge and nothing more. Instead of spending his time with c!Tommy, he spends his time pickaxing(?) c!Dream.

C!Sam isn’t an angel, and we should all know that by now. He does what he thinks is right, but he’s deeper than that, all characters on the DSMP are.

He cares deeply for the Badlands, and would always choose them above anybody else. He’s a capitalist. He built the prison because it would benefit the Badlands resource-wise, despite knowing Dream would probably use it on his enemies, and it was no secret that ALL members of L’Manburg, especially c!Tommy, are his enemies. C!Sam, undoubtedly, knew that. He still built it.

Arguably, he didn’t know about c!Dream’s attachment obsession at the time, but the point still stands.

People have already latched onto the untold story happening between c!Dream and c!Sam, and frankly, we barely know enough about it. Does c!Sam torture him regularly? Do they talk? Does c!Dream try to verbally fight back? CAN he fight back? We don’t know! We’ve gotten proof for both, between c!Sam saying that c!Dream is terrifying even in prison and c!Dream going silent to go on strike. We don’t have enough of an idea how bad or how good it truly is.

So the people who prefer to humanize c!Dream and explore morality imagine c!Sam to downright torture him, people that prefer to see c!Dream as nothing but evil due to his actions imagine prison on the DSMP to not be equivalent to real life prison, and thus nowhere near as torturous as people are making it out to be.

Now all that is thrown out the window as c!Quackity quite literally tortures him.

So now the internet is faced with a question that, judging by some of the impulsive reactions *cough cough* celebrating torture *cough*, it didn’t turn out to be ready for.

Tell me.

How far do we go?

C!Dream hurt a LOT of people. He did a lot of things that caused irreparable damage. Now what? Do we torture him forever? Why? Because he deserves it? How do we determine that without comparing one kind of pain to another?

It’s custom and kindof generally respectful not to compare people’s pain too accurately, because different things vary greatly in severity depending on the person that experiences them.

At what point do we say he’s suffered enough without comparing exile to the prison?

And if we DO compare, does that even make the question easier to answer?

And if he’s never suffered enough ever, killing them would be a mercy...

At what point has a person done enough damage that they “deserve” to die? What if someone only did half of the things c!Dream did. But if c!Dream gets infinite punishment, and half of infinity is still infinity, do they ALSO deserve endless suffering?

Do you think every person that did something you can’t emphasize with deserves to suffer for eternity and die?

I’m not saying we SHOULD emphasize with c!Dream. He did things we cannot justify, that NOTHING can justify. He did things that were, by their nature, unjustified.

I’m also not saying anybody should forgive him. I think it’s a GOOD thing that c!Tommy doesn’t want nor is narratively pushed to forgive c!Dream.

But c!Dream doesn’t need c!Tommy’s forgiveness to be... a person.

There’s a saying that I’m sure you know, that goes “I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.”, because there’s things you wouldn’t want any human being to experience. Not because you like them, not cause you think they’re right, but because they’re human.

And perhaps this is my personal opinion, but I don’t think c!Dream being a bad person justifies dehumanizing him, because then we get into an area where someone needs to meet criteria just to be human.

-

I met someone once, whom, because of outside circumstances I knew I probably wouldn’t meet again. We’d been getting along just fine for people who just met, and were both getting into an interesting discussion about morality. They kept insisting upon something I kept refuting, so they said they needed to get something off their chest.

They proceeded to tell me that they had, years ago, while a teen, manipulated someone in a relationship, pushed boundaries and tried to convince them to do things they didn’t really want to do to get what they wanted.

They cried, while telling me, too terrified to tell anybody they know, terrified nobody would ever speak to them again, insanely regretful of their actions. They didn’t know whether to go back and apologize or just stay as far away as humanly possible, didn’t know which one the right thing to do is.

It had been years, by then, and I talked them through it. I said that what they did was bad, and there’s no going around that. But I also said what I saw, which is someone who would never do something like that ever again. I saw a human being. Someone who regrets a mistake they did and now, after enough time has passed, would do anything to make it undone.

Someone who is too terrified to be close to anybody in fear that they would do it again. I don’t remember if they already went to therapy or not, but it was definitly on the table, or in the near future.

They asked me how I could possibly even keep talking to them after they told me all that. They implied they felt like some kind of monster despite literally chocking back tears, firmly convinced they don’t deserve to be close to anybody in their life ever again.

I never swerved from the fact that what they did was wrong, and harmful. But I also told them they’re human. The universe isn’t keeping score. They want to be a better person now, and they were never going to learn how if they never let themselves be close to anybody.

I told them to seek therapy, and to slowly, carefully, try. Assured them that the fact that they regret it so strongly will at least help them in not falling back into the same pattern, and if they do, they can learn to recognize that.

They thanked me after the conversation, genuinely, especially for the fact that I didn’t sugarcoat what happened, because I know otherwise it would’ve felt like I was lying, like I was just sparing their feelings. I wasn’t. I was thinking about how to make sure they get to live without hurting anybody.

As per the circumstances, we didn’t speak again after that, which we knew basicly from the very start.

-

I still think about that conversation a lot.

Do you think they should’ve been locked up for life after it happened, instead?

Do you think this real human being, that I spoke to, that took years to realize their mistake - and never would have realized it if they hadn’t had the time to, if they’d been killed right afterwards - deserves to suffer forever?

Let me tell you something, from someone who’s been in more than one abusive situation: People that hurt you are human.

That doesn’t mean you have to forgive them. That doesn’t mean you have to like them. That doesn’t mean you have to make an effort to understand them. That doesn’t mean you need to go anywhere near them ever again.

You can hate them. You can be angry at them. You can (and should) go as far away from them as possible, and/or defend yourself.

But that doesn’t mean you have to dehumanize them.

You’re allowed to hate and dislike people that are human, because you’re human, especially if they hurt you. That’s how life is.

And to go back to my original point - c!Quackity torturing c!Dream is not something that should be celebrated.

There’s a difference between necessary measures (locking c!Dream up so he doesn’t hurt anyone), and torturing people for fun.

It’s not right. It’s never going to be right, and do not justify literal torture on human beings, and do not make someone lower-than-human to justify torturing them.

Taking revenge on someone for what they did tenfold is romanticized, I know, but I promise you it’s not actually as cool as it sounds.

[iamanartichoke]

I wasn't sure if I was going to post this, but I may as well.

I keep starting to reply to things and then stopping bc the words just aren't there, and I suppose I figured out the core of what bothers me so much (and is making me have such a rollercoaster of a fan experience) about the show.

(cut for length)

It's not well-written. My opinion is my opinion, so I'm saying this subjectively, take it or leave it, but ... I feel that it's not well-written. The overall story is fine, and the plot is fine, but I don't know if it's because of the limited number of episodes not being enough to house the story, or because of the relative inexperience of the writer/showrunner+director, or both, or something else, but -

In an earlier reaction post to episode 4, I mentioned really wanting to sink my teeth into all of the subtext I picked up on. That was what made me initially enjoy the episode so much - there were a lot of little moments that I initially felt revealed so much about the characters and about Loki, and I wanted to analyze them. But at some point, as I gathered more information, my perspective changed and now I no longer want to analyze the subtext bc ... subtext = good. Subtext w/out payoff = not as good.

I'll go into more detail in a moment, but I think the tl;dr of it is that I feel like the narrative requires the audience to work way too hard to put together all of the moving pieces here and, like, I kinda just don't want to do that work? Not so much of it, and not in vain. A lot of the enjoyment of Loki's characterization is coming from fans who are rationalizing why he's behaving as he is, but the narrative never actually confirms those rationalizations. It's asking us to figure it out and maybe our conclusions will be correct but maybe they won't, though. At some point, subtext isn't enough without explicit follow-through.

I thought my issue was with the lack of character development - that is, not having enough narrative space to really earn the big things that are happening now, like Loki/Sylvie or Mobius turning against the TVA. And that's still true, to an extent; I still feel like the pacing is all very off and it seems like most of these things kinda came out of nowhere (but are not unbelievable - just undeveloped).

But, yknow, it is what it is, it's a limited series, and I can excuse some things. Ultimately, my issue isn't a problem with what the narrative isn't doing, it's a problem with what the narrative already failed to do and probably cannot recover from at this point.

The narrative has left out significant details that should at least help us do some of the work here. If a person turned on Loki and started episode 1 and had no background knowledge of the character besides that he tried to take over New York - how would that person interpret Loki? Would that person say, oh, well, he's been through X, Y, and Z, and plus A happened, not to mention B, C, and D, so really, it makes sense that he seems off-the-rails, or that he'd want to get ridiculously drunk at the worst time ever.

Maybe we'd like to believe they would, but how would they be getting to that conclusion? The narrative hasn't led them in that direction so, no, they would not say well we have to consider this, this, and that. It would be impossible to really understand Loki as a character from just what we've gotten in the series. The general audience would probably interpret Loki as being out of his element and so it becomes, I wonder how this character is going to get the upper hand here. And, while that's not wrong, it's just so limited.

The narrative at face value does not address Loki's identity crisis from Thor 2011. It does not address his hurt and devastation at being lied to, nor does it address how complicated his self-image is (bc it sucked to begin with and that was before he found out he was part of a race of "monsters," as he'd been taught his entire life). It does not reference Loki being so broken at the end of Thor 2011 that he deliberately let himself fall into the void of space (aka tried to kill himself). It does not reference that he was tortured by Thanos or even that he went through a seriously dark time in between Thor and Avengers, and it absolutely does not reference or address any influence or control of the mind stone.

These are all things that we, the fan audience, know because we've already invested our time into this character's story. But tons of people, the general audience, wouldn't know these things. Or if they did, bc they saw Thor and Avengers, they wouldn't be thinking about them as deeply as we would, nor contextualizing them with how Loki is behaving now, or why it would make sense that he needed to get drunk, or why it's understandable that he needs to keep going-going-going in order to not have a spare second to think or feel.

They'd probably look at Loki, again, as a character who was a villain and is now getting his comeuppance in a place where he has no power or control, and no literal powers, and even when he manages to escape and catch up to the variant, he proceeds to fuck up their plan for seemingly no real reason except that he wanted to get drunk bc he's hedonistic. Which Sylvie even berates him for! I mean. This is not exactly a complex character breakdown, nor a very flattering one, but that's what the narrative has given us.

(If the narrative has addressed Loki's mind control, his torture, his mental breakdown, his suicide attempt, and his general shitty self-esteem as a result of his upbringing, please point it out to me. If the narrative has explicitly acknowledged and referenced these things anywhere and I am missing it, please show me where. Please explain to me how the casual viewer would know any of these things that they need to know in order to actually understand what's happening in this story.)

So I mean, okay, we have a narrative that doesn't paint a full, accurate picture of Loki. Fine, sure. But because the general audience starts out on the wrong footing, they're not going to get out of the overall story what the writers probably intended them to. For example, in episode 3, a lot of us theorized that Loki had some kind of plan - that he broke the timepad on purpose, for some reason, bc otherwise it wasn't believable that he'd be such a failure. But episode 4 revealed that no, there was no bigger plan, Loki just plain old messed up. Which is fine if, again, one is only considering the surface-level portrayal here, but it's not true to Loki's actual characterization.

I mean. Loki is not perfect and Loki actually fails a lot, this is true. He fails for a lot of reasons, but incompetence has never been one of them. Usually it's that either things grew beyond his control, or there ended up being too many moving parts, or he had to change his plan at the last minute due to some roadblock or another being thrown his way, or even that he got in his own way - whatever the case may be for his plans' failures, he was always at least shown to know what he was doing.

That wasn't the case here. The "plan" to fix the Timepad failed as a direct result of Loki's actions, which were careless and made him seem incompetent, like he couldn't even handle this mission. "You had one job," etc. And there were pretty big consequences for this; they were not able to get off-world in time and would have been killed had the TVA not shown up at the last second.

And maybe none of these things matter bc the writers never intended any of this to be a reflection on Loki's character, positive or negative. The situation exists solely because the writers needed to put Loki and Sylvie together in some kind of hopeless scenario so that they could get closer, and thus the narrative could set up their romance. I get that - but, there were other ways to do it that didn't require Loki to look foolish.

Furthermore, the whole reason they needed to set up the romance is to show Loki eventually learning to love himself (like, figuratively but also literally). The audience is supposed to gather that Loki and Sylvie fell for one another, possibly due to the high emotional aspect of, yknow, being about to die (in addition to the variant-bond). The intent is clear: Loki and Sylvie almost die but get rescued at the last minute, having now created an emotional bond --> Loki and Sylvie team up and the narrative further establishes that Loki, at least, has caught feelings --> Loki might confess them but is pruned before he gets the chance --> he somehow survives, he and Sylvie are reunited and don't want to lose one another again, and the combined power of their love is enough to break the sacred timeline and spawn the multiverse, and the reason that the power of their love is so, well, powerful is because it's about self-love and self-acceptance as much as it is about having the capacity to love someone else. The end.

I get all that. The writers more or less said all that. And, I mean, it's certainly not the way I would have chosen to go about it, but it's a fair enough arc to explore. I don't really have an issue with the intent - but my question, however, is this: if the narrative has so far not addressed Loki's background issues (as outlined above), and has furthermore kinda gone out of its way to portray Loki as hedonistic and narcissistic, among other things (like kinda incompetent), and the context the audience starts with is that Loki's this villain who deserves what he gets -

- my question is 1, why should the audience care whether or not Loki gets to a point of loving and accepting himself (thus to make the theme of self-love, via the romance, hold weight) if they don't know that he hates himself to begin with and 2, why should the audience root for Loki to reach that point when so far the perception of him is that he's "kind of an asshole"? if he's a hedonistic narcissist, he probably already has a pretty inflated sense of himself, right? A misplaced inflated sense of himself, at that, because, again, the narrative has made him out to be not that capable of much of anything. (And it didn't start out that way! It seemed to start out with Loki being capable and intelligent but it's like episode 3, in trying to set up the romance, just jumbled it all up somewhere. I think this is why I'm harping on the Loki/Sylvie aspect so much - it's frustrating bc it kinda messes up the whole story and can't even accomplish what it's supposed to anyway.)

Anyway, that's beside the point. What I'm ultimately getting at is, at what point is the audience supposed to get invested in Loki's personal growth journey?

They can't, not really. Without understanding and having the context of everything Loki has been through up until now, and why he hates himself, and why it's so important that he learn to love himself, then the "payoff" becomes kinda pointless bc the significance of it is lost in translation. So suddenly we're left with this romance that comes off as either "Loki loves Sylvie bc of Reasons" (best-case scenario) or "Loki loves Sylvie bc he's vain, narcissistic, and kinda twisted" (worst-case scenario). Neither of these conclusions are what the writers intended or were going for, I'm positive, but there we are, regardless.

In order for the writers' intent in these storylines to land, they need to address the context of what makes these particular stakes high for Loki. So far, they haven't done that. They're asking the audience to pick up on all of these things, and they're showing things that subtextually make sense and are relatively in-character - but only if you realize there's subtext in the first place.

But you can't expect the audience to do all of the work for you. If you don't want the audience to think that Loki is a narcissistic asshole and instead you are trying to convey that, worst-case scenario, he thinks he's a narcissist but is an unreliable narrator, then you have to address that. If you need the audience to understand why you're going the selfcest route and why it's important to explore Loki's capacity to love himself and others, you have to address where that exploration is starting from and why it matters. Etc etc etc.

The narrative isn't doing any of that. And it isn't like it'd be that hard to do it. They don't need to reinvent the wheel here; a lot of the pieces are already there. A few lines of dialogue for context, a brief scene here or there addressing the issues, a little more care and consistency in how Loki handles things - these are all little things that could go a long fucking way in making the narrative stronger.

I'm rambling. My basic point is that my rollercoaster of emotions with this show is because

- as a part of the fan audience, not the general one, I can contextualize and analyze the subtext and come to the conclusions the show wants me to, and thus find the story and the characters more or less enjoyable,

- but I am also going to be using the subtext to come to conclusions that aren't there but probably should be (I think it would be a better story, for example, for Loki to confuse platonic love with romantic love bc it would pave the way to explore just how fucked up Loki's understanding of love - whether of other people or of himself, and the different forms it can take - actually is)

- and when they're ultimately not there, then I think, okay why am I bothering doing all this work just to ultimately feel very unfulfilled? They don't even have to write it the way I would, I'm not saying that, but they do have to do something to make the story feel rewarding.

If we don't get some confirmation of what Loki's been through, and where his headspace is, and why it matters for him to love himself, then the story remains pretty shallow and, for me, it's not fulfilling enough. It's not engaging enough. There isn't actually anything to sink my teeth into, so it becomes kind of boring. Maybe it's rewarding to other people, and that's great for them, but like - I need more than whatever this is.

So I'm just like - well, I had a lot of worries about this show, but my being bored wasn't one of them and now there's only two episodes left and am I really not going to get anything out of this, in the long run? No new canons, no new depths or layers, no new information on Loki's experiences? This is it?

I don't dislike it. I didn't start out disliking it, and I probably wont end up disliking it. I mean, there are a lot of good moments, and good things, and fan service-y things that I appreciate. As far as inspiration for fic goes, it's a goldmine, both plot-wise as well as aesthetic-wise. All of that is great. I don't dislike this show.

But I am disappointed in it, and I feel like I'll be watching the next two episodes lacking the sense of anticipation that would make it exciting. I'll still enjoy them, probably, if for nothing else just the sheer Loki content, but whatever it was I felt watching episodes 1 and 2 is gone and I'm sad about that, too. Because I really wanted to feel fulfilled by this series; I wanted it to fill up the void that Loki's death in IW created three years ago. And I just ... don't feel it. Maybe, maybe that'll change over the course of episodes 5 and 6. I don't know.

Everything that I end up enjoying long-term, I think, will come about as a result of my own interpretations and analysis and while theoretically there's nothing wrong with that, if I had known all I'd get out of this series was more headcanons or support for my current headcanons then, well - that's fine, I suppose, but I'll definitely a little bit robbed.

[spockandawe]

Well, this is interesting! So, in that post yesterday, there was one line that really baffled me, a thing about people brushing off a character as an asshole “because he shows literally zero growth.” I kind of set that aside because it was such a weird non-sequitur, and guessed that it was just someone’s sentences not quite keeping up with their train of thought, which has happened to me many times. Apparently I was wrong! I already spent long enough on that one post, I’m tired of talking about that, but this is new and interesting. 

Okay. I kind of wanted to see if I could talk about this purely in terms of abstracts and not characters, but I don’t think it’ll work. It would be frustrating to write and confusing to read. It’s about Jiang Cheng. Right up front: This isn’t about whether or not he’s an abuser. Frankly, I don’t think it’s relevant. This also isn’t about telling people they should like him. I don't care whether anyone else likes him or not. But I do like him, and I am always fascinated by dissecting the reasons that people disagree with me. And the process of Telling Stories is my oldest hyperfixation I remember, which will become relevant in a minute.

I thought I had a good grasp on this one, you know? Jiang Cheng makes it pretty obvious why people would dislike Jiang Cheng. But then the posts I keep stumbling over were making weird points, culminating in that “literally zero growth” line.

So! What happened is that someone wrote up a post about how Jiang Cheng’s character arc isn’t an arc, it’s stagnation. It’s a pretty interesting read, and I broadly agree with the larger point! The points where I would quibble are like... the idea that it’s absolute stagnation, as opposed to very subtle shifts that still make a material difference. But still, cool! The post was also offered up as a reason why OP was uninterested in writing any more Jiang Cheng meta, which I totally get. I’m not tired of him yet, but I definitely understand why someone who isn’t a fan of his would get tired about writing about a character with a very static arc. Okay!

Now, internet forensics are hard. I desperately wish I had more information about this evolution, because I find this stuff fascinating, but I have no good way to find things said in untagged posts, reblogs, or private/external venues. But as far as I can tell, that “literally zero growth” wasn’t just a slip of the tongue, it’s become fashionable for people to say that Jiang Cheng is an abusive asshole (that it’s fucked up to like) because he doesn’t have a character arc.

Asshole? Yes. Abusive? This post still isn’t about that. This is about it being fucked up to like this character because he did bad things and had a static character arc.

At first, that point of view was still deeply confusing to me. But I think I figured out the idea at the core of it, and now I’m only baffled. I’m not super interested in confirming this directly, because the people making the most noise about this have not inspired confidence in their ability to hold a civil conversation and I’m a socially anxious binch, but I think the idea is: ‘This character did Bad Things, and then did not improve himself.’

Which is alarmingly adjacent to that old favorite standard of ‘This piece of fiction is glorifying Bad Thing.’ I haven’t seen anyone accusing mxtx of something something jiang cheng, only the people who read/watched/heard the story and became invested in the Jiang Cheng character, but things kind of add up, you know?

Like I said, I don’t want to arbitrate anyone’s right to like/dislike Jiang Cheng. That’s such a fucking waste of time. But this is fascinating to me, because it’s like..... so obviously new and sudden, with such a clear originating point. I can’t speak to the Chinese fans, obviously, but exiledrebels started translating in... what, 2017? And only now, in 2021, do people start putting forth Jiang Cheng’s flat character arc as a “reason” that he’s bad? I’m not going to argue if he pings you in the abuse place, I’m not a dick. I’m not going to argue if you just dislike his vibes. I’m just over here on my blog and in the tag enjoying myself, feel free to detour around me. But oh my god, it’s so silly to try to tell other people that they shouldn’t like him because he has a static character arc.

I want to talk about stories. I don’t know how much I’ll be able to say, because it’s impossible to make broad, sweeping statements, because there are stories about change, there are stories about lack of change, there are all kinds of media that can be used to tell stories, and standards for how stories are told and what they emphasize vary across cultures and over time. But I think that what I can say is that telling a story requires... compromise. It requires streamlining. Trying to capture all the detail of life would slow down most stories to an unbearable degree. Consider organically telling someone ‘I made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich’ versus the computer science exercise of having students describe, step by step, how to make one (spread peanut butter? but you never said you opened the lid)

Hell, I’ve got an example in mdzs itself. The largely-faceless masses of the common people. If someone asks you to think about it critically like, yes, obviously these are people, living their own lives, with their own desires, sometimes suffering and dying in the wake of the novel plot. But does the story give weight to those deaths? Or does it just gloss by? Yes, it references their suffering occasionally, but it is not the focus, and it would slow the story unbearably to give equal weight to each dead person mentioned. 

Does Wei Wuxian’s massacre get given the same slow, careful consideration as Su She’s, or Jin Guangyao’s? No, because taking the time to weigh our protagonist with ‘well, this one was a mother, and her youngest son had just started walking, but now he’s going to grow up without remembering her face. that one only became an adult a few months ago, he still hasn’t been on many night-hunts yet, but he finds it so rewarding to protect the common people. oh, and this one had just gotten engaged, but don’t worry, his fiancee won’t mourn him, because she died here as well.’ And continuing on that way to some large number under 3000? No! Unless your goal is to make the reader feel bad for cheering for a morally grey hero, that would be a bad authorial decision! The book doesn’t ignore the issue, it comes up, Wei Wuxian gets called out about all the deaths he’s responsible for, but that’s not the same as them being given equal emotional weight to one (1) secondary character, and I don’t love this new thing where people are pretending that’s equivalent.

When Wei Wuxian brutally kills every person at the Wen supervisory office, are you like ‘holy shit... so many grieving families D:’ or are you somewhere between vindicated satisfaction and an ‘ooh, yikes’ wince? Odds are good you’re somewhere in the satisfaction/wince camp, because that’s what the story sets you up to feel, because the story has to emphasize its priorities (priorities vary, but ‘plot’ and ‘protagonist’ are common ones, especially for a casual novel read like this)

Now, characters. If you want to write a story with a sweeping, epic scale, or if you want to tightly constrain the number of people your story is about, I guess it’s possible to give everyone involved a meaningful character arc. Now.... is it always necessary? Is it always possible? Does it always make sense? No, of course not. If you want to do that, you have to devote real estate to it, and depending on the story you want to tell, it could very possibly be a distraction from your main point, like the idea of mxtx tenderly eulogizing every single character who dies even incidentally. Lan Qiren doesn’t get a loving examination of his feelings re: his nephews and wei wuxian and political turnover in the cultivation world because it’s not relevant, and also, because his position is pretty static until right near the end of the story. Lan Xichen is arguably one of the most static characters within the book, he seems like the same nice young between Gusu and the present, right up until... just before the end of the story.

You may see where I’m heading with this.

Like, just imagine trying to demand that every important character needs to go through a major life change before the end of your book or else it didn’t count. This just in, Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg go through multiple novels without experiencing radical shifts in who they are, stop liking them immediately. I do get that the idea is that Jiang Cheng was a ~bad person~ who didn’t change, but asdgfsd I thought we were over the handwringing over people being allowed to like ““bad”” fictional characters. The man isn’t even a canonical serial killer, he’s not my most problematic fave even within this novel.

And here is where it’s a little more relevant that I would quibble with that original post about Jiang Cheng’s arc. He’s consistently a mean girl, but he goes from stressed, sharp-edged teenager, to grief-stricken, almost-destroyed teen, to grim, cold young adult (and then detours into grim, cold, and grief-stricken until grief dulls with time). He does become an attentive uncle tho. He..... doesn’t experience a radical change in his sense of self, which... it’s...... not all that strange for an adult. And bam, then he DOES experience a radical change, but the needs of the plot dictate that it’s right near the end. And he’s not the focus of the story, baby, wangxian is. He has the last few lines of the story, which nicely communicate his changes to me, but also asdfafas we’re out of story. He was never the main character, it’s not surprising we don’t linger! The extras aren’t beholden to the needs of plot, but they’re also about whatever mxtx wanted to write, and I guess she didn’t feel like writing about Jiang Cheng ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But also. Taking a step backward. Stable characters can fill a perfectly logical place in a story. Like, look at Leia Organa. I’m not saying she has no arc, but I am saying that she’s a solid point of reference as Luke is becoming a jedi and Han is adjusting his perspective. I wouldn’t call her stagnant, the vibes are wrong, but she also isn’t miserable in her sadness swamp, the way Jiang Cheng is.

Or, hell, look at tgcf. The stagnant, frozen nature of the big bad is a central feature of the story. The bwx of now is the bwx of 800 years ago is the bwx of 1500+ years ago. This is not the place for a meta on how that was bad for those around him and for him himself, but I have Thoughts about how being defeated at the end is both a thing that hurts him and relieves him. Mei Nianqing is a sympathetic character who’s also pretty darn static. Does Ling Wen have a character arc, or do we just learn more about who she already is and what her priorities always were? I’m going to cut myself off here, but a character’s delta between the beginning of a story and the end of a story is a reasonable way to judge how interesting writing character meta is, and is a very silly metric to judge their worth, and even if I guessed at what the basic logic is, for this character, I am still baffled that it’s being put forth as a real talking point.

(also, has it jumped ship to any other characters yet? have people started applying it in other fandoms as well? please let me know if this is the case, I am wildly curious)

(no, but really, if anyone is arguing that bwx is gross specifically because he had centuries to self-reflect and didn’t fix himself, i am desperate to know)

And finally. The thing I thought was most self-evident. Did I post about this sometime recently? If a non-central character experiences a life-altering paradigm shift right near the end of the story (without it being lingered over, because non-central character), oh my god. As a fic writer? IT’S FREE REAL ESTATE. This is the most fertile possible ground. If I want to write post-canon canon-compliant material, adsgasfasd that’s where I’m going to be looking. Okay, yeah, the main couple is happy, that’s good. Who isn’t happy, and what can I do about that? Happy families are all alike, while every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, etc.

It’s not everyone’s favorite playground, but come on, these are not uncommon feelings. And frankly, it’s starting to feel a little disingenuous when people act like fan authors pick out the most blameless angel from the cast and lavish good things upon them. I’m not the only one who goes looking for a good dumpster fire and says I Live Here Now. If I write post-canon tgcf fic, it’s very likely to focus on beef and/or leaf. I have written more than one au focusing on tianlang-jun.

And, hilariously. If the problem with Jiang Cheng. Is that he is a toxic man fictional character who failed to grow on his own, and is either unsafe or unhealthy to be around. If the problem is that he did not experience a character arc. If these people would be totally fine with other people liking him, if he improved himself as a person. And then, if authors want to put in the (free! time-consuming!) work of writing that character development themselves. You would think that they would be lauded for putting the character through healthier sorts of personal growth than he experienced in canon. Instead, I am still here writing this because first, I was bothered by these authors being named as “freaks” who are obsessed with their ‘uwu precious tsundere baby’ with a “love language of violence,” and then I was graciously informed that people hate Jiang Cheng because he experiences no character growth.