#that was like babys first discourse (that was started by something i did lmfao)

[infizero]

wait this just made me remember my post about shadow rouge and silver being whitewashed that tons of ppl got mad at me for

[chazz-anova]

Tumblr Questions!

tagged by my lovelies @adelaidedrubman @johnsrevelation @rejected-beater and @scungilliwoman thank you dears! 💗💗🌷

1: Why did you choose your url?

it’s the name of an episode of yugioh gx! love my canon url lmao 

2: Any side blogs? if you have them, name them and why you have them. 

i’ve got two but at the moment they’re kind of inactive, but i’d like to revive them lol the first is @farcry-confessions which is a confessions blog ofc, and the second is @yourfave-smokesweed which is exactly what it sounds like lmfaooo

3: How long have you been on tumblr?  

since i was a youngin lol i think i started getting on here when i was 13? 12? something like that. different blogs though. according to that fun postlimit site i started this blog 7 years ago in March of 2014 B)

4: Do you have a queue tag?  

no because i like them to blend in with my normal posts. subterfuge 

5: Why did you start your blog in the first place?

i have no clue but it was probably just to shitpost about yugioh 

6: Why did you choose your icon/pfp?

it is some amazing art of my two babies

7: Why did you choose your header?  

some more amazing art <3

8: What’s your post with the most notes?  

i think it’s either the one about oc playdates or the spirit box porn bots (cant find that one but if someone wants it i will dig lmfao) 

9: How many mutuals do you have?  

i‘m not sure but i know i have like at least.... 20?? i would say that sounds about right. i dont wanna scroll through my follow list and count lol 

10: How many followers do you have?  

i just hit 1300+! 

11: How many people do you follow?  

.....4,997. i never clean out my followers, unless i hit the follow limit (5000) and i have to go through and purge some deactivated blogs. but my attention span is quite short so i can only scroll so far before im just like okay whatever 

12: Have you ever made a shitpost?

absofruitly

13: How often do you use tumblr each day?

pretty often, i’ll at least scroll through on my breaks at work and i try to actively make content a few times a week (brain willing asjhaslfkjsdf)

14: Did you ever have a fight/argument with another blog once? who won?

i can’t recall anything like that, i immediately cut off from discourse i won’t entertain it 

15: How do you feel about “you need to reblog this” posts?

i try to avoid those out of spite and if it’s important i’ll go back to a blank reblog and repost that

16: Do you like tag games?  

i love them!!! 

17: Do you like ask games?  

absolutely!! 

18: Which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?

i have no clue lol

19: Do you have a crush on a mutual?  

all of them <3 

20: Tags

i’ll tag @fadedjacket @chyrstis @dep-yo-tee @spookieloop @desertvvitch @ladypurgatory and anyone else who’d like to do it!

[firelxdykatara]

Do you have advice on how to not let the fandoms new hot takes get in your head and ruin the show for you? Such as Iroh is a war criminal that shouldn’t be glorified, Hamma is a racist depiction of natives, shipping Zuko with a water tribe member glorifies colonization, villainizing the Freedom Fighters also does this. I think I managed to get exposed to all these in less than a week and it’s draining me and I’m worried it’ll not let me enjoy the show because these are pretty heavy accusations.

(ok so I rambled a lot in this one, i stuck a tl;dr at the end there if you don’t wanna read the whole thing lmfao)

Honestly, I think the first step is to be able to take a step back from AtLA and realize two things. One: Avatar: the Last Airbender isn’t perfect, no matter how many people will claim it is the be all and end all for Quality Children’s Media. It isn’t, it has it’s faults, and there are aspects to it that simply haven’t aged as well as others, particularly over the last decade.

The second thing? That it’s ok. AtLA can be imperfect and also be an excellent show that did have a lot of quality writing and aspects, for all that it was, ultimately, a pan-asian fantasy epic helmed by two white men with a largely white (largely male) writing staff. There were going to be issues there regardless, and it is absolutely ok to look at this and think “yes, there are issues, the show isn’t perfect, and I still love it anyway.”

There’s a huge difference between acknowledging something has faults and flaws, even occasionally discussing them, and just writing the whole thing off as irredeemable trash because it has problematic elements.

Now, the corollary to that is, of course, that fandom isn’t always right. Particularly whatever latest hot takes are coming out of the depths of tumblr or twitter. Which isn’t to say you should necessarily just disregard everything that is being said, but it is possible for these discussions to have nuance and many of them.....just don’t.

(I’m beginning to think fandom is allergic.)

Calling Iroh a war criminal is just factually inaccurate. War is ugly and it is brutal and he laid siege to Ba Sing Se for nearly two years, but war crimes are an actual classification of behaviors which are inhuman and inexcusable even in times of war. Simply being a general in wartime is not a war crime, and while it’s not impossible that Iroh did things we may classify as war crimes, he did not do them on screen. (Incidentally, though, Azula did. That bit in The Chase where she pretended to surrender in order to get everyone else’s guard down, and then she tried to murder Iroh? That’s technically a war crime.)

People can, of course, talk about the fact that Iroh was a wartime general who was complicit in the Fire Nation’s attempt at expansion and probably oversaw a lot of death and destruction before his heel-face turn, and that because his redemption happened before the series and entirely off-screen, people talk about him as the wise old uncle who could never do anything wrong while ignoring that dark history--but that doesn’t mean he’s a bad character or even a horrible person. He changed, and his is a story that anyone can. Some may not believe his reasons for changing (his son’s death) sufficient, but that’s on them and you don’t have to share that opinion!

It’s also possible to talk about Hama’s and the Freedom Fighters’ (particularly Jet’s) treatments by the narrative, without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I believe that Hama’s and Jet’s endings were remarkably lacking in empathy, but that doesn’t mean I think the whole story should be thrown out--it is, however, a show that ended twelve years ago, and in that time people in the fandom have created transformative works to fix that narrative. The original show is what it is, flaws and all, and it’s ok to enjoy it while also admitting that there were plot points and characters and even episodes that could have been handled better, or even just written better.

I mean, I’ve talked plenty about how I think the canon romances (except sukka) were terribly handled and ultimately harmful for both Zuko and Katara, and that I wish that if they’d had to be endgame, they’d been written better so at least my favorite characters wouldn’t be treated so badly in follow-up material. But I still love the show, because for all its flaws, there’s still something beautiful in the story that it told, and I can enjoy that while also turning to fandom to fix the things that I didn’t like in the original! And I obviously disagree that shipping zutara or zukka ‘glorifies colonization’, but the people who believe that aren’t gonna want to listen to what I have to say, and I have no obligation to listen to them, either! And neither do you.

TL;DR (i rambled so much i’m sorry): At the end of the day, that’s my advice to you--acknowledge that atla wasn’t perfect and even, in the perspective of over a decade of life passing since it ended, could or should have been handled better, and then turn to the corners of fandom you want to engage in. My happy place is the zutara tag, and the people I follow who have takes with which I agree and which I enjoy seeing. If the takes which have been exhausting you are coming from people you follow, maybe it’s time for an unfollowing spree! Try to find the common tags (because “I recognize this thing has flaws but I don’t want to focus on those, I’d rather focus on the things about it that make me happy” is a valid method of engaging with fandom, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise) that are used for those sorts of opinions (’atla critical’ or ‘anti atla’ for a start) and blacklist them, to cut down on the likelihood of seeing them without warning. Ask the people you still follow if they wouldn’t mind using a tag for salt or discourse if you enjoy most of their other content. For the love of the gods, stay away from twitter, it’s a trashpit and as allergic to nuance as fandom already is, that becomes a thousand times worse when you have a platform with such a tiny character limit. There’s literally no room for nuance on twitter.

I’m sorry that 99% of my advice boils down to ‘curate your experience better so you can stop seeing the sorts of posts that are upsetting you’, but that’s really all I can say, other than accepting that some flaws in the show will be dealbreakers for some people, and if they aren’t for you because you still love the source material, that’s ok.

[lady-plantagenet]

What hasn’t already been said: The Spanish Princess 2

Episode 2: SOdden (or Sod ‘Em depending on your persuasion)

(Dont know how long I’ll be able to keep these puns up)

Catherine, like this woman, does not really fit into this era. But while this woman seems dropdead cool and at least looks the part, Catherine just...

To all those of you keen enough to have come back for another segment of ‘what hasn’t already been said: TSP’, as opposed to have just been scrolling when you see this - welcome back! (Scrollers you too <3)

To anyone who’s seeing this for the first time: what this is a list of observations, jokes, reactions and criticism which occur to me upon a rewatch. I wait every week until Saturday to do this so that I have had my fill of scrolling through the tag and aggregating what has already been said. I tried doing a whole spoof (here where I gave up 10% in) but tbh a) I don’t know the history well enough b) it’s more time consuming than I thought and c) this series is just not as funny or as crazy as TWQ, so it’s untenable. Having said that: This is not a hatepost. I’m not hatewatching this series and nitpicking on purpose but expressing my honest views and trying to find the good in it as well as the bad.

Without further ado...

First Scenes:

The baby cloth lifting into the ceiling of the chapel had nice ‘myth of the demon countess of Anjou (ancestress of the Plantagenets)’ vibes. I am 100% that was unintentional. I get this impression by the cringiness of the baby’s screams (what’s up with those sound effects? It sounded like a zipper).

Henry gives me such softboi vibes? It’s pleasing to me because it’s making me attracted to him as a viewer, but no good in convincing me this is Henry VIII.

I think Catherine’s exposition about how she feels is pretty ok actually, it’s fitting that she would feel anger.

CHARLES’ FATHER IS NOT MAXIMILIAN, IT’S PHILIP (or rather it was). ~~ A quick wiki search guyz, a quick wiki search. Ughh

Again with the whole everyone acting like Catherine is Queen. Can they cut it out? Also while we’re at it, what was Catherine’s attendance in councils even like?

The music was nice

Post Child announcement phase:

Oof I hate to say it but I lowkey wanted de la Pole back in this mother. Mainly because it would mean more Margaret Pole and by this point I am scared her storyline will fade in prominence now that there’s no longer a Yorkist subplot (showhorned as it was, it was the crowning glory of last season tied with Arthur x Catherine).

More x Maggie Pole and all of it over Seneca and learning :’). I already know this will be the best part of the episode.

‘We certainly know stoicism in our family’ ~ I guess she’s referring to Reggie? Because our boi Clarence was no poster boy for stoicism. Though could she be making an ironic reference to her father~?

Edmund de la Pole Debacle:

Well this convo at least passed the bechdel test.

Maggie and Edmund’s interactions here are touching. I know this plotline was rushed but I think it was just right to bring us back here for 5 min as a mournful throwback to the bygone era to which Maggie Pope belongs to and now continues to do so alone. It is emotionless and you can just feel how the York cause was hanging on by a tired old threat by that point.

Maggie Pole is becoming matronly now and I like this transition.

What bothers me about a lot of fans of Margaret Pole is that what they don’t realise is that she wasn’t all like ‘I want nothing to do with my family I’ll stay low and obscure’. While far more cautious than the likes of her ancestors, she did engage in land disputes with Henry VIII and was an outspoken supporter of Catherine and Catholic. Having her be a woman woth dubious loyalties towards the Tudors is accurate.

Scotland with Meg and Jammes:

LMFAO it’s like they read my mind when I spoke of how much I laughed when Meg was like ‘Alexander Steward you pig!1!!’ last episode.

Nice reference to Aulde Alliance

I like James.

Henry and Catherine on the balcony:

Was she commander of the forces? Was Howard appointed that? Regent she was, ok.

Charlotte Hope’s new hairstyles really suit her!

‘Will you please stop cursing’ agahsjdk ahah

No offence to women (of which I am one) but this comparison between childbirth and war is just... wrong. I know Starz think they are being smart but childbirth is far less impressive than winning or surviving a battle - comparing the two diminishes the bravery of soldiers. YET ,having said that, childbirth is necessary for our society whereas war is almost always futile and by comparing them, it wrongly represents violence as something inherently as natural to us as birth and continuing of civilisation. overall not a smart, respectful or accurate parrallel to make.

Meg and prep for invasion + Catherine in her weird armour:

So Margaret dreams that her husband is dead and bloody in her bed. Ughh show you neeed to get more creative. But I did like the whole ‘dreams are how our ancestors talk to us’ line from Angus Douglas.

Re: Meg in her beret... Why is Meg dressed like me going to the London shops in October? Digging the aesthetic but not sure about the accuracy.

Rich of Catherine to bring up Edmund.

Why is Ursula Pole crying??? What is all this to her really?

Did Howard just call the guard... sonny?? Is this some WW2 crossover?

Catherine - James and the tent parlay:

Did Catherine just insult Meg’s intelligence??

Also lmao I’m going to miss James.

Re: Howard saying ‘I’m not going to get insulted by a man wearing a dress’ .. UMMM Starz, you do know that just thirty years ago men were prancing about in dresses and leggings (essentially). From around the middle of the 14th century to the beggining of 16th century (if not earlier), Englishmen were also essentially prancing about in ‘skirts’.

Am I getting a weird cooperation-partnership vibe between Meg and James?

The Battle:

Charlotte Hope looks so good with the helmet, she’d really suit an english hood! Such a shame they won’t give her one!

Ewwww he’s eating mud, why?

Just standard battle scene. They are all the same to me no matter which movie.

Aftermath:

Jesus, I find the whole Meg crying over James IV so heartfelt ‘you arrogant bastard’ for some reason just came out so full of emotion. Can someone please explain why the hell I ship them more than Henry x Catherine?? Like how ??

Awwww Linna is sooooo adorable ughhh. Also this whole Catherine going into armour among all the women crooning over the children gives this adorable sense of Catherine boyish and bloodying herself out to protect their peace, idk. All I have to say is that these series is less eager to pitt women against each other than the previous. I think that’s a step forwards.

Also, good to see Catherine being modest about her victory so Henry can save face. Finally starting to seem like the real Catherine.

‘Go on you dog’ arghh ahah he sounds like some public school rugby lad egging his mate on.

Re: Wolsey cock-blocker; the real Catherine would know it was uncatholic to have sex when you were pregnant. Also Catherine is not technically speaking in confinement if she’s wandering about.

It’s nice to see Catherine sticking up for Howard, she at least learned to respect him during the battle.

I foresee Oviedo having enough of this Christian stuff and wanting to return to the berber domains (I suppose Spain is out of the question)

Knighting Ceremony:

Apparently Margaret Pole herself was made Countess of Salisbury during this same ceremony... right? @houseofclarence

Also Maggie Pole being like: “being a rebel is in my blood, or so they tell me”... gahhh what’s with these shows and the Clarence erasure? Can’t they make one bloody reference to her dad or grandad Warwick? Ugh. Especially with lines like this. Actually? You know what? Ignore my previous comment about the stoic remark and it being an ironic reference to Clarence. I put such subtlety above this show’s writers.

Catherine has a habit of going to the coldest places possible to lose her children...

Haha @ Henry asking Bessie Blount (of all people) where Catherine is.

Conclusion:

6/10

What I’m happiest about is that Flodden got dealt with in one episode because warrior xena Catherine is not what interests me most about this show. Having said that, it was a true shame that James IV died because his were some of the best scenes. This whole show is starting to feel so historical fantasy-ish because the aesthetics are so confused. Granted it’s still pretty (not eyesore like Reign) but it doesn’t penetrate.

I am as always invested in the Poles (and More) but am also starting to get attached to Princess Mary whose actress exudes plenty of charm. This show remains confused with its feminist message because while it shows women being proactive there is so much emphasis on babies that what remains with the mind after watching is this womanish birthdrama, as opposed to a show about struggles which affect both genders.

You might tut at me and say I’m being ridiculous and that it is historically accurate to put so much emphasis on women’s babies and I say that’s swell. I would happily watch a show where that element is strong (most pre 1995 historical dramas are like that with traditionally feminine characters and I gulp them up like sustenance), but if a show promises feminism and women-men being partners I want it to deliver that properly. As I said in my previous post, why do we keep trying to make women engage in acts like war as if such an abhorrent act is the only way to take them seriously? I await the day where cunning, rationality and cool-headedness will be the traits portrayed as feminist ones.

There is nothing else to really comment on... the only potentially deeper message in this is the gender discourse. I am unsure about the accuracy so I can’t speak of the historical value of the interpretation. But what I will say is that though I remain excited for each new episode... I’m just not as invested as I was in TWQ (rewatch every year dont @ me) or TWP despite their many flaws. Some characters pull me in eg Maggie Pole (Carmichael is a bae), Thomas More etc but not the whole cast like TWQ. Anyway... would be interesting to see if anything happens with Lina and Oviedo tommorow as their storyline is conspicuously slow.

[problematiq]

@reneetaleenaisnotvicious it’s just a place full of assholes.

in the last couple of weeks, i had to explain to them why you can’t use the n-word when you’re not black, thinking it was common knowledge, only to be met with “well, it’s not universally agreed upon” (like, no shit, of course white people won’t agree that they can’t use it and since when does every single person have to agree that something is wrong in order for it to be wrong?) and “saying i can’t say the n-word is reverse racism”, causing me to dig into 2012 discourse on how reverse racism isn’t real.

people will defend the actions of every single human being billie joe has ever had contact with. the allegations of the former (jewish) employer against kat von d about her writing an antisemitic note to him are dismissed as “just a cry for attention from an unhappy employee” even though experts have concluded that it was 99% her handwriting - but yeah, kat von d never said she wrote it, so it must just be fake, since we all know and trust her??

in the discussion over billie’s collaboration with morrissey, people have defended that dude at every turn so they could feel better about their collaboration and completely dismissed everyone who showed concern or disappointment with it. i’m not gonna list everything morrissey has done and i’m not gonna debate it with anyone anymore since i’ve seriously had it up to here with that topic, but the gist of it is that morrissey is a racist UKIP supporter who said that “chinese people are a subspecies”. people have routinely and adamantly attempted to downplay the racism and rationalize his fucked up behavior, saying “well maybe billie just didn’t know about what he did, why should you research everything your collab partner has done” which turned to “morrissey not a racist, he’s just a dumb idiot with no influence who wants attention” which turned into “he’s not even a ukip supporter” which turned into “well actually ukip / nigel farage aren’t even xenophobic if you think about it”. then, a user on the forum who is half-chinese voiced her disappointment in the forum for defending that scumbag tooth and nail and said she was done with the forum and wouldn’t visit anymore. people backpedaled a bit but still tried to tell her that it’s “not really that bad” and “there are worse forms of racism you should focus on” like lmfao really? so that’s when i said “you know what fuck y’all” and left the forum too and with that, the green day fandom really because i am sick and tired of people worshipping the ground billie walks on like fucking catholics, incapable of criticising him or admitting any flaws or mistakes.

for some reason i decided to join the discord server for the old gdc people who used the chat a lot because i thought, maybe i don’t have to cut contact to everyone and can still enjoy talking to people about my favorite band?? and for a while we had fun and i really liked them.

so on april 1st, they announced that the forum would be shut down forever by the end of the week because it was too much work and too expensive to continue keeping it up or whatever. of course only gullible people believed it and nobody else really took it seriously while the mod team desperately tried to convince everyone that it was not an april fools joke like “omgz i’m so sad” and “i dont understand why everyone would think THIS IS A JOKE wow i am so UPSET” and it was ridiculous really because they tried so hard with the joke and nobody bought it.

so then someone posted the link to the discord server in the forum so more and more people joined and i was like “oh” because suddenly every person i hated on the forum and who was the reason I left gdc in the first place joined the discord server, even the gdc mods (who can all suck a fucking dick). those people don’t like me either so it already felt restricting to post there and i was getting pissed that i joined there first and then they all came and forced me to communicate with them again. and i’m serious, i’m fucking done with that place and i want nothing to do with these people either.

then on april 2nd (AFTER april fools) the site was down but some people still didn’t believe it was gone forever because WHY WOULD THEY? that april fools joke was a fucking pathetic attempt to upset the community who loved the forum, and they were salty nobody gave a shit so they had to take extreme measures. i would’ve been happy to believe it and see the forum fucking rot but other people who had found friends and loved the community were genuinely upset about this (one person even started a gofundme).

then, some minor mod joined the discord and complained about us “talking shit” about the mods because it was all the admin’s fault and he gave us some bullshit story about how he was angry with him too, that the admin had given the mods a chance to back up their shit before they closed or even gave them an opportunity to take over the forum but nobody wanted to blah blah blah and some shit about green day’s management wanting to restrict the forum because people were talking about their private lives or that they had planned a dookie tour but it was cancelled because of trés baby or some shit??? whatever. and i believed it because he was convincing and not someone who usually lies and trolls people but who put in a lot of work into the media section and would have been upset if it were gone, so i was actually sorta understanding towards him.

then a couple of hours later the site was back online, the admin made some stupid joke about “lololool i’m a mastermind you can go fuck yourselves i’m so happy with myself!111!!”, they made a social media post about it having just been an april fools joke while directly quoting something i said on the discord server, and that one unimportant mod who lied to us and some other dumbass mod i’ve always hated posted on the discord that they “had a lot of fun lying to us” and how fucking hilarious our reactions were or whatever and how good it was to see how many people cared about gdc like???

and i was fucking mad because I HAD LEFT THAT PLACE!!!!! i had literally left that place and they come to the place i kinda found refuge hin after leaving that shithole (a place i actually liked being on and where i had fun to communicate with the other members and could actually see myself staying and maybe not leaving the fandom entirely), infiltrate it with their fucking presence and make it my fucking business what happened to GDC, lie to me and everyone and laugh to themselves about the things i said or how they had fooled us. so they ruined everything for me again just so they could have a laugh and i’m not kidding when i say i hate every single fucking person who keeps this dumpsterfire running with a passion. and what’s almost more frustrating is how every single person who was mad at them for the joke now runs back to them like “oh wow that was a mean joke but now i’m just happy i can be back, i’m ready to put this behind me” lmfao.

i don’t give a shit about the forum, I. LEFT. i want nothing to do with them, i don’t want them around me, i don’t want them to talk to me or about me. i want them to ignore my fucking existence and leave me THE FUCK alone. and now i can’t even visit the discord anymore because they don’t even have the fucking decency to leave the server after their bullshit stunt. so thanks for fucking nothing you absolute dumbass fucking dick-eating pieces of horseshit.

[sage-nebula]

theyugiohtrashcan replied to your post “The Lion King is one of my favorite Disney movies (and one of my...”

OMF TLK2—I wholeheartedly agree on Zira??? There was always something that bothered me about her, but I could never figure out what; you just put it into words—she freaking popped out of nowhere... also I was always slightly bothered by like?? Simba's HUGE personality shift? Like, don't get me wrong, I think it was interesting to see how becoming a father made him overprotective and super cautious (especially because of his younger years), but the change felt so *jarring* from the simba we knew from 1 who was at first a daring adventurer who went to the elephant graveyard without permission and then raised on a philosophy that was literally "no worries". His own parents were never *that* protective over him, and to me, it never felt right that he got *so protective* over her because I don't remember there ever being a "threaten your daughter" scene. At the very least, TLM2 had this to explain why Ariel suddenly started doing *exactly* what her father did in the first one, because it literally started with a scene that showed Melody was in serious danger if she ever tried to go to the sea while the second sea witch (I'm blanking on her name) was around. I get that Zira and the others who defected were definitely a threat, but there was no evidence in the first one (like you said) to even make us think they existed, which makes Simba's reactions seem all the more extreme because like... really how much of a threat were they? When we finally DO see them threaten her, it's bad of course, but idk... ANYWAYS wow I've rambled long enough, basically I agree, idk why I'm adding my Discourse-inducing™ opinion on a Disney sequel post....

Hahaha, well, I basically just dropped a Discourse™-flavored post before I swanned off to bed, so don’t worry about adding Discourse™ to the Discourse™. =P Although, the idea that there could be Disney sequel Discourse™ at all is a funny one, though I don’t know how legitimate it is for me to say that when my coworkers (especially K) and I have had discussions about animated movies at work that are so serious they nearly rival the “is Hilary Swank hot” discussion that the employees of Dunder-Mifflin Scranton had, so.

But yeah, Zira’s existence made absolutely no sense given what was set up in TLK 1, especially since the hyenas were apparently just gone (at least, I don’t remember them at all in TLK 2). It isn’t like the lions defeated the hyenas in TLK 1; rather, while some of the lionesses did engage in combat with the hyenas, most of the hyenas followed Simba and Scar, and when Scar said that it was all the hyenas’ doing, that they were really at fault et cetera, the hyenas turned on Scar and ended up killing him. I mean, we don’t see every gruesome detail, but we can tell from the shadows that’s what happened. We aren’t explicitly told what became of the hyenas after that, but I would assume that they would be the ones banished to the Outlands, not some lionesses who---for some wildly inexplicable reason---supported Scar. Of course, I guess they figured having a hyena/lion romance wouldn’t really work, and they really wanted to create Romeo & Juliet, but still. They didn’t have to break canon to do it. (Though again, it’s still not broken as badly as The Lion Guard breaks it, and TLK 1.5 was also godawful with the way they did things like trying to ruin “The Circle of Life” with a frigging joke. That’s one of your most majestic musical numbers and you want to ruin it with a joke, Disney? Really?)

As far as Simba being overprotective of Kiara, I would argue that Mufasa and Sarabi were similarly overprotective, actually. Like, I feel like more emphasis was placed on Simba simply because he kept warning Kiara not to leave Pride Rock et cetera, but remember, Sarabi would only let Simba go to the watering hole if he had Zazu there to supervise. Simba at least told Timon and Pumbaa to follow from a distance, so that Kiara wouldn’t feel like she was constantly under supervision even though she was. So I do think there’s some precedent there, and I think that for Simba it might even be less because of example, and more because of what he got up to when he was a cub. When he was a kid, he staged a musical number to ditch Zazu, ended up in the elephant graveyard, and was nearly killed by hyenas until his father showed up. Then he decided to show off in the gorge (under Scar’s encouragement, but still), and Mufasa was killed. And even though Simba now knows that Scar set that up, I think it’s reasonable to think that he still blames himself for some extent, like, “If I hadn’t listened to Scar and showed off that day, that wouldn’t have happened.” Even though Timon and Pumbaa raised him on hakuna mattata, I think Simba used that more as a deflection for the guilt and trauma that was still clearly bothering him even as an adult (and is the reason why he fights with Nala at first when she wants him to return to Pride Rock). He carried that with him, and perhaps still does even as an adult, and he doesn’t want Kiara to end up in a similar situation that he did. So he’s protective, especially since he knows that (thanks to the retcon) there are lionesses out there that are just like Scar, and he wants to shield his child (rightly or wrongly) from that.

That said, I do agree that there was never enough of a threat toward Kiara shown in the movie. Even in the confrontation over her and Kovu meeting when they’re cubs, Zira only makes a move after Simba pounces at Kovu first. And I think that that was pretty out of character for Simba, for him to act that aggressively toward a baby, because this is the same guy who refused to kill Scar because, “I’m not like you.” If he wouldn’t even kill the person who murdered his father and destroyed his home, is he really going to act aggressively toward a child? Are we really supposed to believe that he only holds back when Zira reminds him that Kovu is a child and offers up said boy for the slaying? That doesn’t feel right to me, no matter how protective Simba is over Kiara. That’s where I feel like they went too far, but again, we didn’t even see a real threat to Kiara in that scene, especially since I don’t think Zira ever considered her worth much of anything. I think she only ever saw Kiara as a way to hurt Simba. (Her villain song, “My Lullaby” illustrates this quite nicely, I think, with how much focus is put on Simba and how little is put on Kiara. Namely: “The sound of Simba’s dying gasp / his daughter squealing in my grasp / his lionesses’ mournful cries / that’s my lullaby.” Simba is referenced by name, whereas Kiara is just “his daughter,” and I think that does a good job of showing how little Kiara matters to Zira.)

. . . anyway, I didn’t think I’d be writing meta for The Lion King today, but here we are lmfao. Also, I can say this: For as little as Zira’s character makes sense, I do love her villain song. It’s probably one of the best ones that Disney has ever produced. So while TLK 2 was, by and large, terrible, it did at least give us that gem. That is something.