#such a waste of a good theme

[romanceyourdemons]

maybe i’m just sleep deprived but that line on the call me by your name (2017) wikipedia about chinese audiences perceiving it as a western bl is the funniest thing to me pacing wise. paragraphs and paragraphs of western audiences debating the Implications for the Queer Community and then like one sentence of “chinese audiences put it on the toxic gays pile with all the rest of it 👍”

[wordgirlstan]

I think sometimes how yall talk about miss powers is weird like the nonstop hate and always calling her a bitch. Rubs me the wrong way, like she is an interesting character who had brought an interesting challenge to wordgirl concerning critical thinking as well as teaching the lesson of how it can be dangerous to blindly trust authority figures or even becoming a follower to someone because they seem skilled/talented

That's one thing that's always bothered me, is how we can acknowledge the misogynistic tropes concerning ships like tobecky, which need to be acknowledged. However misogynistic mindsets continue on in the Fandom concerning a few female characters, I've seen people have unreasonable hate towards Miss Powers, Claire McCalister, and even Violet.

And it makes me sad :(. Instead of playing with the character and their traits, interactions, and function in the story someone people just villianize them and it is so sad.

#LoveWomen2024

[juststayquiete]

[isan0rt]

Hey crazy thought but maybe Kairi wouldn’t seem like such a ‘wasted character’ if this fandom would quit taking everything of narrative and thematic significance about her and assigning it to Riku constantly all the time.

(The evaluation of the ways in which Kairi and Riku are important and vital foils for each other got kind of long so it’s under a read more; to be clear, I love Riku so much, and it makes me super mad to see his narrative also being undermined by this trend, this is not a hate post.)

Kairi and Riku serve opposing but complementary purposes in the narrative. Kairi represents light, but she also represents the stagnation of the light. Many characters who are associated with just light are also associated with stagnation and a resistance to change. Hoder and Eraqus are particularly extreme examples, but Aqua exemplifies this as well. They want a predictable world where things stay as they ‘should’ be and they are threatened by changes to the status quo. Eraqus in particular refuses to change anything about himself for 60 years, only taking on students at the last minute because he’s running out of time. Kairi, like Eraqus and Hoder and Aqua, stands as the bold, sharp light that casts others into shadow.

However, the other side of “resistance to change” means that Kairi represents restoration. She is able to restore Sora in KH1, pull them home in KH2, and hold Sora back from death itself in KH3, because her power is one of restoration. She holds so tightly to their old way of being that she can stop death itself in the interest of not changing too drastically. But she is unable to move forward on her own, because she fears change too much. She wants to chase after the boys when they keep leaving her behind…but she isn’t able to keep up, because what she actually wants is for them not to run at all. 

She wants to go home, and restore their previous status quo. This desire is consistent in her for the entire series; this is also why she is unable to let go of her childhood crush for Sora, even though he’s obviously not the person she wants him to be anymore. For Sora, Kairi is the rock, she is the home that will always be there, he feels that she is the secure dock he can always return to after the storm. He relies on her not changing, which reinforces her fear of change. Lea is similar, and they can bond in KH3 over both their mutual desires to restore a prior, idealized status quo where their friends were reliably there and not at risk of disappearing on them or running away from them or changing.

Riku on the other hand embodies transformation. He represents change to the status quo, growth and development and a new way to be. Too much change is as much of a problem as too little; Kairi in KH1 sees Riku wants change, and it scares her, and he does in fact go too far. At the same time, she’s the catalyst for Riku’s desire to change their circumstances. Kairi’s arrival at the islands in the meteor shower incites Riku to dream of going to the outside world. This too is a tension that creates an anxiety in Kairi - in a way, she can see herself as to blame for Riku’s desire to change. But Riku was always going to change, because that’s who he is. He is radical change, the change that cuts away restrictive dogma so that the world can advance. Riku drives Sora to also want to grow and change, to excel and challenge himself. Sora wants to be like Riku, whose strength and internal drive he admires.

Ultimately Kairi and Riku are in BALANCE with each other. Ironically, while Kairi is themed as ‘the sea,’ her narrative purpose is to be steady as the earth. Riku’s name is ‘the earth,’ but he is changing and dangerous as the sea. They are one another’s reflections in the narrative. Kairi’s arc is about learning to let go and move forward, even though it scares her. Riku’s entire arc is about finding balance, not throwing away the comfort of the past, that inoculates him from falling too far the way Baldr and Xehanort do. Riku can drive Kairi to join them by giving her a Keyblade too. Kairi can pull Riku back from fleeing from them by seeing him even under Ansem’s face. He is able to be in contrast with Kairi in a healthy way, in a way that honors her fears while also refusing stagnation. They have to work TOGETHER to find Sora, because they are one another’s narrative and thematic opposites. Kairi is too stagnant on her own, and Riku too volatile. Sora is the healthy middle between them, the center-point that can bind the light and the dark TOGETHER for one purpose. 

Kairi is narratively and thematically important to Kingdom Hearts. She represents something, and trying to take the things that reinforce her narrative importance to the story (her representation of the light, her narrative purpose of ‘disruption’ in her arrival via the meteor shower, her position as the one who grounds Sora in opposition to Riku’s position as the one who drives Sora to push himself and achieve more) not only undermines her story, it undermines Riku’s.

[whencartoonsruletheworld]

i dont talk about nancy drew here a lot bc im a fan of the og books and most people on here are all about the later books/pc games (which is cool and valid!!! i’m not condescending just saying that’s why i dont talk about it as much on here) but as the op of the “nancy and helen are gfs” post that went viral a few years back (as it should), can i say. i really don’t like that the cw show specifically gave nancy a new (white) boyfriend to run around with the SECOND they made ned nickerson black

[petorahs]

me being so set on hating every fontaine character because their designs looked too much and only pulling for the sibs + arlecchino but then navia turned out lovable in the quest. they advertised wrio as a dogboy. neuvy is a dragon AND has elf ears.

ITS JOEVER

[maddy-ferguson]

the thing is i loved stranger things before i thought byler was a possibility but i loved it in a non-fandom way i thought it was good but now i know it's great and if byler somehow wasn't endgame then it just wouldn't be Great anymore...it would still be good. i guess.

[sotogalmo]

7:47

Ranting to myself and holy hell. Never rlly expected myself to say I relate to Charlie-

(read tags if you want. I get more in depth into it, but also my rant will be in depth of it too)

[imissthembutitwasntadisaster]

Remember when agents of shield was like it could have gone differently it could have, in the moment, been easier or better, but ultimately if it had things would have been worse

[ketavinsky]

honestly i thought that joining a writing group would hold me accountable to deadlines and motivate me to write more but instead im so constantly stressed i can barely sleep

[thankyou-taeyeon]

At first, your expectation for the drama is that, some of these main characters will died eventually because of this creature killing them but instead, this drama writer decided to make this one nerd weirdo kid who is obsessed with exam killed all of his friends for their last episode lol

[gibbearish]

oh psa but if you're in an industry that checks IDs and the person in front of you is clearly trans, don't make comments about anything on that ID. for instance saying "OMG your middle name's Danielle? that's my name too!!!" to someone 5 feet tall with a full beard is perhaps not the best choice one could make if one didn't want to put a neon glowing sign above that person's head saying "THIS IS A TRANSGENDER" to everyone they're with

[xviruserrorx]

Okay so the whole theme of this show is pretty much standing on the whole 'finding/bringing back loved ones' and all im saying is Dean has to be doing the same...

[silver-wildfyre]

The only person I will never be disappointed by is Blake Lively

[allysdelta]

This just in I can somehow still play violin. I astonish myself

[todayisafridaynight]

*walks in covered in blood* i finished first penguin. i reaaaaally really loved it oh my goddd all these peepaws being so dramatic and sulking wow grow up.. IWASAKI WAHHHH she was so cool and so awesome and so smart and she helped so much oh my god and she problem solved and and and WAHHHHH i think my fave parts were when she got Very Loud i kept saying damn girl at my screen each time she put her foot down UGH and the conflicts and the solutions and the AUUGHHHHHH. anyways loved it why am i sobbing over the ending though.

BRO MFINISHED IT HELLO ??? ?? IM S GLAD YOU FINISHED IT- AND SO QUICK JESUS CHRIST--

BUT YEAAAASSSSSS YES I LOVE IWASAKI THIS AN IWASAKI STAN CLUB !!!!! i LOVE LOVE LOVE how patient and fair she generally is but she also doesn't allow people to do whatever they want. BUUUTT I ALSO LOVE how on top of correcting people in that passive-aggressive way, she isn't afraid to get ABSOLUTELY irate and really let someone have it- IT'S JUST SO GOOD and i NEVER really see it with lady protags so i was a HUUGE fan whenever it happened

ENDING WAS SO TWISTED THO MAAADDDD UNFAIR TO IWASAKI (;´༎ຶД༎ຶ`)(;´༎ຶД༎ຶ`)(;´༎ຶД༎ຶ`) like i GUESS she did was she was paid to do in the end but..... THATS HER FAM CMON NOW (;´༎ຶx༎ຶ`)

i fuckin. LOVE the fishermen they deadass collectively share exactly ONE (1) brain cell and it's frustrating sometimes but it's also the stupidest and cutest thing i ever seen (╯▽╰ ) THE BIT IN LIKE- EP 3 I THINK WHERE THEY'RE ALL CHASING AFTER IWASAKI TO APOLOGIZE ALWAYS MAKES ME GIGGLE THO i think of it far too often for my own good its so cute... like Goddamn They Really Are A Batch Of Penguins...