#they are morally complex and are neither entirely good nor bad

[dirtytransmasc]

mild rant, cause hotd TikTok is insufferable.

so I saw an edit, with the scene of Viserys on his death bed, calling Rhaenyra his only child...

these were some of the comments...

how dense do people have to be to say this shit, as if the abuse/neglect Aegon, Helaena, Aemond (and Dearon) faced, is the reason they are the way that they are????

aegon turned to his cups so young because he had to face the fact that his father didn't love him, his mother had... complicated feelings towards him (he was her first, born of marital rape that destroyed her life and childhood, and she loved him no doubt, but part of her hated what he represented in her life. all of which is Viserys and Otto's fault). not to mention the abuse he faced from Viserys and Otto (focus on Otto, cause he did what he wanted, since Viserys wasn't around enough to thoroughly abuse his son himself and wouldn't punish Otto for doing so). his drinking and need to self destruct to escape a life he doesn't want, turned him into the destructive, drunken bastard he is.

aemond was permanently maimed, an injury that very well could have killed him or hindered him greatly in life, and was ignored by his father, who then supported such an obvious lie instead of protecting his own son (aka, treating the greens and the blacks as equals and not playing favorites, they're aren't asking for miracles they asking for bare minimum). he suffered so greatly and his father couldn't give less of a shit. so on top of everything else, he had this anger boiling in his chest for years and years, stoked by his father's willing negligence. not to mention the fear it cause his mother (who was being manipulated by Otto) that Rhaenyra truly was a threat to his livelihood, which only targeted his anger.

Helaena, on a direct/surface level, was the best off, in terms of her father, but the ripple effect he caused on her life and those around her caused her to be married to her brother, who she didn't love, who didn't live her, and brought her suffering to some degree. it was the war Viserys practically created (tell me he didn't, I dare you) that sent her to madness (amongst other things *ahem* blood and cheese).

like, this man destroyed his children, directly or not, everything he did broke them down and apart, until he died, leaving them with a war that would end them all. his actions made them (Aegon and Aemond) into the people they were, but of course, that doesn't matter, apparently.

[kujakumai]

Personally, I agree that TKB has every right to feel anger and take action to prevent the tragedy of Kul Elna from happening ever again. But the second he says "I'm going to work with a demon to destroy the entire world" is when I put my foot down, because that makes him no better than what the ruling class did to him; it makes him worse because he's inflicting that to other innocent people. Neither Atem and TKB are completely correct or wrong, but the story siding with only Atem is morally iffy

-TKB isn't a real person independently arriving at moral actions, he is a character in a narrative whose structure and characters are consciously designed by human beings to tell a particular story

-Saying "Well, TKB was still evil because he wanted to destroy the world" is accepting the premise of the narrative and TKB's motivation as if it sprung forth from the ether, ever-extant in its present form and incapable of being written any other way

-The narrative of MW paints a portrait of a world that is visibly and systematically unjust and whose domestic and military power is derived from the literal death and exploitation of the poor; it then has a character, TKB, make very deliberate criticisms of this system, and puts them in direct contrast with Priest Set and Akenhadin's own ongoing corruption.

-Since again, this is a story being crafted with intent, this contrast directly leads audiences to conclude that TKB's criticism is valid, and the author intends us to reach this conclusion and has deliberately set up his commentary. Determining that TKB is right about the monarchy is the logical conclusion of the facts and narrative tools we as the audience are given.

-However, instead of leading us to a satisfying conclusion based on this setup, the story instead tacks on "...but he wants to destroy the world, so we can kill him!" and never meaningfully addresses the questions about good and evil or the nature of the throne, nor does Atem ever have to really face them. It disposes of TKB and quickly sets about putting a heroic coat of paint on a mostly unchanged Set and reducing everything to a quick and tidy good vs. evil shonen fight scene, contradictions be damned.

-The problem with this plot twist isn't fantasy-monarchism. It's that it is actively disorientating. We as readers have been told in loud, bold letters for over two dozen chapters what this story is about and what message it's trying to communicate (a very powerful one, based on how passionate people become about it!) and the story simply...dumps it all, and starts pretending to be a totally different story. Like none of that earlier stuff mattered and we should suddenly be content with power-of-friendshipping the bad guy into dust.

-Tongue-in-cheek declarations that "TKB was right!" aren't moral statements about TKB or Atem's actions, because Thief King and Atem aren't people, they are characters--a narrative tool the author is using to tell a story. And again: the narrative is telling us that TKB is right and the monarchy is troubled and unjust. Vocal declarations that Thief King was right are really an expression of disgust for a clumsy narrative betrayal. "MW told me this excellent story, got me invested, very deliberately set me up to draw these conclusions about the story it was telling and the message it wanted me to get...and then tacked on the ending for a completely different story that had nothing to do with any of that! This is bullshit!"

-If TKB were a mere generic evil, who intended to destroy the world for his own gain and had no compelling criticisms of the hero's world or complex tragedy, he wouldn't be anywhere near as interesting (see: the anime, which did almost exactly this), but I don't think people would be half as worked up about it. It would be neat, at least, because if everything is a fantasy good vs. fantasy evil from the start, then at very least the story would match its ending. No one would feel misled or disorientated.

-But the story did ask moral questions of our characters, and it did so carefully, deliberately, and with fireworks; it is therefore culpable for failing to even attempt to have them answer them.

-At the same time, the trope of the "rebel turned murderous extremist" is well-worn and troublesome. There are ten thousand examples. A villain who challenges the status quo, who takes issue with real problems, revolutionaries and rabble-rousers with righteous fury...but they want to, uh, kill innocent people also! for some reason! which is why our heroes (defenders of the status quo) need to get rid of them and we don't need to listen to what they are saying!

-Why does fiction so frequently depict people angry about real societal problems, and who act to change them, as people whose legitimate complaints are inexorably tainted by tacked-on inexplicable violence?

-Who benefits when fiction frequently conflates righteous criticism of injustice with supervillainy? When fiction conflates heroism with stalwart defense of the current system? How do we carry these narratives with us into the real world?

-You are criticizing Thief King as if he were a person. I'm not, and I'm not interested in doing that. I am criticizing the poor formulation of a story.

-anyway. TKB did nothing wrong

[spider-xan]

I'm not going to write a post about this myself, but amidst the fun of the three suitors in today's entry, if you're a first-time reader who may have psychiatric abuse, institutionalization, etc. as mental health or trauma triggers, I recommend checking out this excellent post by @crepuscol last year which marks off which Seward updates involve the asylum and doctor-patient interactions, as that part of the story involving him and Renfield starts tomorrow on May 25; I know someone last year also wrote detailed summaries of those entries for people who might not want or be able to read them directly, but I don't remember who it was - if anyone does, please add a link!

This could be an entire post itself, so I'll try to keep this brief, but Seward is arguably the most complex character in terms of morality in a story where everyone else is either Good or Evil, as he is ultimately capable of both great heroism and great harm, even if he harbours no evil intent; as such, he is a difficult character to discuss on many levels and things will get heated for understandable reasons, but it's important to remember that we should look at his character as a whole - neither sanitizing nor exaggerating his bad actions, neither erasing his good actions nor using them to excuse the bad ones - in good faith when analyzing him, as all aspects of him are important to the narrative and themes.

Also, since we're all doing Dracula Daily for fun, no one is obligated to read those updates if you can't or don't want to, and similarly, be understanding of those people even if you disagree, especially when a lot of the ableism in those entries still happens today, as psychiatric wards are the modern successor to asylums.

[invested-in-your-future]

Can you share your thoughts on Mercury Black and why you think he was mishandled

Honestly I think the entire original villain trio suffered heavily from addition of, like, ten different kind of pointless council of evil Salem flunkies, some of them overlapping "purpose" with Cinder's group.

Redemption or Villainy, they get to do neither of these character arcs.

The issue lies in multiple aspects of how the story is built:

It feels like MilesWBY people genuinely have no idea what they want to do with them beyond, for some awkward reason, trying to turn Cinder into Azula (but instead unwittingly turning her into a Team Rocket member). In MilesWBY writers' minds Cinder, Mercury and Emerald are "package deal".

They don't want to "overshadow" the "new guys" in Salem's Evil Council of Evil, but at the same time they NEED Cinder's group front and center because that's where majority of actual "stakes" for Team RWBY lie. Thus instead nobody gets proper development (seriously, who even cares about Hazel at this point or whatever his weird nonsensical motivations are?).

I am beginning to suspect writers might not quite get the "whole morality thing" and instead are treating it as a game between two , almost biblical, teams. You are either against Salem and thus "good" or you are "morally compromised" and thus are insta-aligned with Salem. They are clearly not interested in the idea of "good" people furthering Salem(or "bad" people working against her for that matter) nor are they interested in the idea of there being more than "two teams, one good, one evil" (case in point the absolute narrative pointlessness of Lionheart or how abrupt and weird the flip to evil was for Ironwood the moment he was on the opposite side of the "heroes that want to stop Salem"). It's why most Salem's flunkies( yes even Cinder's, whose whole character motivation got resolved within that needless flashback and it seems like she joined Salem "just because evil") motivations of working with her don't hold up under scrutiny even for a second within the idea of what Salem is said to want to do in the show. Evil is Salem and thus being Evil makes you on her side. And once you erase the concept of morality, you erase everything that's interesting about those three characters. What's interesting about them? The fact that they are not Salem and have been set up and implied to have their own goals and thoughts and reasons to do this.

The showrunners have a tendency to believe that the actual interesting things that people MIGHT want to see are actually boring and can be done offscreen. Who cares about actually showing Emerald's struggle or adding actual depth and complexity to either of the three? Who cares about doing anything when you can just say it happened already?

Really, I don't think Emerald or Mercury are the situation where one was done worse than the other. Narrative screwed over both, just in different ways. Emerald lost any semblance of interesting arc about her doubts and allegiance (and consequences for her actions whatever they may be) and Mercury had no chance to have any sort of depth or complexity.

Remember when people were theorizing on why Cinder might be doing this or the dynamics within the team? Remember when people were excited at how freaked Emerald looked during Fall of Beacon and were wondering where that will lead? Remember when "Just what did Cinder show to convince Emerald" was a mystery? Remember about all the ideas people had about Mercury's original flashback in V3? Or the weird backstab-y dynamic between the three and where that could lead? Penny situation and Ruby's trauma and the role Emerald played in that? Yang's situation and the implications of what happened in that fight with Mercury? In the eyes of the show all those things ended up being "irrelevant".

Sadly, at this point of MilesWBY, where everything is about gods, talking animals and other nonsense, Cinder's group is kind of pointless. Just another missed opportunity.

[canon-notcanon-warriorcats]

"We need more female villains in warrior cats! Ya'll coulnd't handle mapleshade and she was a rather decent villain. Most of the time people just pick two sides: everyone but maple was wrong or everyone was right and maple was wrong. When, in fact, it's a much more deep and complex situation. More like everyone was an asshole expect for like, the kits, Myler and nettlepaw (there are more but like, i don't really remember). The thing with the book is that it is not black and white, most of the characters are morally grey with light or dark tendencies, but still in a grey area. Like, I can understand where Ravenwing is coming from, he's interpreting a sign from starclan and telling his clanmates about it. Oakstar and Frecklewish are deeply wounded due to being lied to about the kit's being Birchface's. However, does that justify the treatment towards Petalkit, Larchkit and Patchkit? Of fucking course not! It's not their fault who their father is. To Mapleshade? Understanble, to literal kids? Never. So much so, that I believe that if the kits got to stay in thunderclan, with Maple being the only one exiled, she would've not turned into revenge. After all, we all know that the thing she loved the most was her kits, and them being taken away from her forcefully, with her having little to no time to properly mourn their deaths, was what led her into the path of murdering those who wronged her *and* her kits. I feel it usually falls flat on the fandom that they were what mattered the most to her, and Appledusk's open denial about the kits was another trigger for her revenge. That and, let's be honest, Appledusk was one of the biggest assholes in the entire book, not only he was cheating on Reedshine with maple (who neither of the two were aware existed), he didn't give two shits about his kit's deaths. And one more thing, people used to shit so much on Reed, when she was right?? I know we are seeing Maple's pov and she sounds like an asshole but, she's not wrong, in the end Appledusk would always stay with her whilst maple was a fling. It sucks and it's bad but she isn't wrong. That sucks for maple but yeaah. As for Maple herself, a liar, a murderer, and a blame shifter. But also a mother, one that due to grief, rage and feeling betrayal over the death of her children, went down a path she would never be forgiven for. She definetly deserved her end, don't get me wrong, She is a very unreliable narrator too, but every narration of her has some truth to it. She's also stubborn and will get what she wants under all costs. But that's what makes her a good villain. I love her slow descent into quite literal madness over the grief and pain, how she feels that each of her kits live's should be paid back with more death and grief. I fucking adore this character ya'll don't understand. But yeah she's not a 100% Sauron evil character nor an "UWU baby girl wronged by the masses". She's a villain, she fucked things up, and she was a mother who loved her kids and her kids only. We will never get a villain like her again and we should be praising this book for how good it actually is. There won't be any other tragic villain stories like this. And if we do get another female villain, let's hope it's at least a decent character and not just a more worse attempt like sleekwhisker 2.0 Please correct me if my assesments are wrong but I'm having Mapleshade feelings and how everyone does her dirty with interpretations.

nah, mapleshade's story is really good and 3-dimensional (or as 3-dimensional as warrior cats has really gotten)

almost everyone in the story does something wrong, the situation is multiple people's faults, every single character (except those you listed) made mistakes, very tragic mistakes, but also very REALISTIC mistakes

mapleshade became a villain because of her society's rules, because of a merciless leader who decided to also punish toddlers for their parents' crimes (whether oakstar was like that throughout his life or if it was out of grief for his son) and because of her own bad choices

mapleshade is (or could have been) one of the most complicated and 3-dimensional villains the series has had because most other villains are "they were just born like that" or "they were bullied" or "daddy issues" i do wanna correct one thing though, i think the implication is that appledusk cheated on mapleshade with reedshine, not cheated on reedshine with mapleshade, since reedshine had been pregnant when mapleshade and her kits were exiled (unless appledusk and reedshine had been mates before he started seeing mapleshade and they just had kits later, i dunno), but that doesn't really matter in the end, appledusk cheated and was an asshole

i think the problem is that sometimes people just don't really... think critically about what they read, or don't have reading comprehension skills, as well as possibly they haven't read the book since they were a kid who did not have reading comprehension skills and they just still go off of what they remember thinking as a kid (part of why i wanna re-read through the series now as an adult to freshen my memory as well as to see how i feel about everything that happens in the series as an adult as opposed to how i felt and what i thought reading through the books as a kid) i also think it would've benefited to have seen mapleshade before she had gotten pregnant or before she had even become mates with appledusk, because we don't really get to see who she was BEFORE all of that tragedy, before she started lying to all her clanmates, we don't get a baseline of who she was before shit hit the fan

also i wanna mention that i do love sleekwhisker and raven as female villains because i DO like them literally just being evil for fun, like they just don't care they're just assholes

but i do want more complicated villains, i want complicated villains with 3-dimensional characters and backstories, and also i would love if we had a villain like that that was female and also the backstory didn't have anything to do with them being a mother

[theggning]

I’ve noticed a pattern in fandom where people flock to stick Popular Characters into two extremes of morality: Popular Character has either never done anything wrong in their entire lives, or they’re a stinky bastard murder man but beloved regardless. People seem much more comfortable with characters who can easily slot into one of these two extremes. It’s the characters who fall somewhere in the middle that tend to freak people out.

There are some circles of fandom where people seem absolutely terrified at the prospect of a character who is good but makes questionable decisions, or who is bad but has a noble or admirable goal. Characters who don’t slot easily into “all good” or “all bad” end up getting their edges filed off so they fit one or the other. One character will have a past of truly dreadful sins ignored and washed clean by fandom at large, but another is villainized and has their actions nitpicked and misinterpreted to turn them irredeemable. Stereotypes and oversimplification turn complex characters into one-dimensional caricatures. This is annoying as shit, not only because it turns nuanced stories into thoughtless Goofus and Gallant-level morality fables, but it eventually devolves into fans judging each other for their opinions on fictional people.

Stories are a lot more interesting when characters are allowed to be multi-faceted; neither all good nor all bad. Even heroic characters have flaws and can have bad opinions, bad ideas, or just plain make mistakes. And even the worst and most despicable villains are more interesting if there is some level of relatability to them, some glimmer of understandable motivation or human emotion in their actions or beliefs.

In conclusion, everyone is entitled to like or dislike characters for their own reasons, but my problematic favs are the best, actually, so there.

[soapskneebrace]

hi just saw what u said about graves so i wonder, has there been a recent change in your opinion about him or is this more or less how you thought about him from the beginning? u were writing a bit about him last year i guess, i always thought u studied his body language well.. even his mimics and the way he would 'talk' during intimacy.

ironic my favorite graves piece is from your writing when u dislike the guy but it is what it is eheh.. (he's morally grey to me, yet deep)

honestly he always made me a bit uncomfortable. at the time though i couldn't put my finger on why—shocking display of white privilege, i know. i kind of ignored it for the sake of not rocking the boat with the people i was friends with at the time. I don't really have a solid reason as to why i chose to write for him—i had the idea for the fic and was caught up in the euphoria of writing again after years of not having the heart to do so, i guess.

i don't necessarily think people shouldn't like or write for him, i just get this feeling of like...are y'all looking at the same guy i'm looking at? commander backstabber speaking broken spanish as a joke? this is who you're plastering all over your sparkly coquette-themed blogs when gaz is RIGHT THERE?

honestly i disagree with your assessment entirely. he is neither morally grey nor especially deep. any complexity applied to his character is the product of fandom interpretation. we have no proof that his motivations were in any way altruistic, or that he gives a shit about anything other than his own power, or that there is a conflict between good and evil raging deep inside him. the games themselves have provided us with nothing but proof that he is wiling to lie, cheat, steal, and murder his way out of any situation that mildly inconveniences him. i'm sorry but sometimes villainous white men are really just bad people.

[empty-blog-for-lurking]

If youre ok w sharing then i would love to hear your thoughts on lotor........ Hes such a weird guy. Dissecting him like a frog

If i get hate for this, i am blaming you/j but in all honesty i apologize if this kinda messy, as i have said it has beem awhile since i saw any of the episodes about him. Most of it is my personal interpretation and opinions of his character-

First of all i personally hate both "L0tor is evil rapist imperialist who did not have a single redeemable quality" and "L0tor is uwu poor baby who did nothing wrong", because yeah he had good intentions and he seemed to genuinely love Alura and care for Alteans but also he very much did do a lot of things Wrong. I am pretty sure a lot of his actions fall into category of Very Wrong

Lot0r to me is an absolute control freak, he has to be 10 steps ahead of everyone, he needs to be control of the situation no matter what. Whether it be through a silver tongue or by his blade (see N@rti's death, him vs White Lion). This is as much as a ruthless strategy as it is a trauma response. Being raised under Z@rkon, a father who only saw him as inferior half-bred, he had to learn survivor tactics. He will do anything to survive whether it be beg, lie, manipulate, and kill. He is a survivor of some genuinely godawful abuse he suffered for 10,000 years, combined with racism he suffered for being half altean

However this need to be in control extends to his allies and people he cares about. I am sure Lotor may have loved Alura, it doesnt change the fact that he very much abused her trust. Their entire relationship was based on a lie. He knew Alteans were still alive and not only did he not tell Alura about it he leaned into the "last survivors of Altea" for their relationship, which is why it was doomed since the beginning. And if it had not been this, then it would have been something else. Cause lying and manipulation are very much core of his character, that is how we are introduced to him

Like i see people going "Oh Lot0r could have been good if he had therapy and a hug", and i am not really not sure about it, cause like would he? Would he choose to be vulnerable and actually let his feelings out and be truthful in a an unbiased reliable way that will neither serve him in any way nor make him look better nor is a part of some machivilian scheme he cooked up because he doesnt trust the therapist he is paying? No

And thing is he does desire connection. He looks for connection in people who are similar to him. Half galran, altean survivors, Alura these are the people who he chose to get close to. He looks for similarities, people he can relate to, people who he sees as like him, people who he thinks can give him a sense of belonging. He is deeply lonely. However his desperation for control, absolute mistrust in anyone and everyone, and his inability to be actually honest dooms any relationship he'll ever have

Also this is probably just me, but for someone who is this morally complex character he has tendency to see things in black and white? Like it is His dad and empire= bad, alteans=good. He idolizes Altea to the point of seeing it as an Utopia, and this ideal was more important to him than any Alteans who are alive and with him. I also cant remember him ever caring about someone outside of the Dichotomy. Like at most i remember is after he became the emperor Lance pointing out how other planets need to be freed and he just brushed it off

Overall he gives me the "smart people dont always make good decisions, but they are good at justifying their bad ones" vibes. We dont know exactly why he decided to use alteans as batteries but i am choosing to go with my interpretation- "Lottor saw something fucked up in that future showing space whale thingy, decided the only way to solve was altean batteries except in true self fulfilling prophecy greek tragedy way it only made things worse and started a series of event that will cause the thing he saw causing real trouble a few years after his death.

Another thing! I think it should have been him being the focus of Evil Altean episode instead of A//ura. I hate that episode and everything it stands for but like if there Had to be an evil alteans episode then it should be around someone who is you know? Obsessed with Altean culture? Is big on control and manipulation? Is more geared towards big picture and "greater good" over individual? Is worried about turning into just like his galran father and so desperately wants to connect to his idealized version of his altean mother? Yeah

[homoquartz]

i'm currently on some hyperfixation galaxy brain shit for good omens where like of course aziraphale and crowley were in eden.

of course they've always loved humankind and have formed their own moral code that is Good but from neither heaven nor hell. of course the original sin of knowing the difference between good and bad - and that difference continuing to deepen and broaden for millenia until aziraphale, crowley, and the antichrist declare a solution of "neither."

because they have seen how the efforts of heaven and hell often meet in the middle at a draw. so much so they can pretty much play hooky until tensions rise too much. because there isn't so much of a difference between good and evil after all, when taken to extreme. even aziraphale and crowley themselves can't even really explain the difference.

and of course, crowley lover of machines and aziraphale lover of art start to make sense of the plan, on the broad scale, by piecing together its rube goldberg-like workings, and actually they themselves were the experiment. for the sake of humans.

that god knew that placing humans in eden with no understanding of good and evil wasn't sustainable, wasn't ideal for humanity!! humans are complex and rich and neither pure nor evil.

but they would have to learn for themselves what middle ground they need, through trial and error. a middle ground that exists eden-like where neither good nor evil wield the power. a middle ground that her angel and her demon have been crafting for more than 6,000 years.

and if i'm wrong and it's something else entirely well at least i had fun

[enden-k]

i dont think that many characters in genshin can be classified as 'good' or 'bad' guys.

childe can be seen as a good guy for protecting his country and family, being loyal to his archon while still having some moral compass.

zhongli can be seen as a bad guy for prematurely ending his contract without notice, abandoning his people and being selfish rather than fulfilling his role as the leader.

if zhongli were so 'good', he would have fought stronger to keep his gnosis away from the 'bad' fatui harbinger.

tl;dr complex and good written characters can be seen as both good and bad and i love them

i simply called him bad boy for fun as a ref to when he called himself "kind of a bad guy", i think everyone knows that hes a morally gray character, prob the most in the game

hes a super complex character which makes him so interesting. unhinged and battlehungry on one side, childlike innocent and caring on the other. striving to become stronger and fight powerful enemies by any means on one side, protecting and providing for his siblings/family on the other. neither entirely good nor purely evil. most ppl in fandom tend to explore/look more at one aspect of his character than another but thats honestly up to everyone, as long as they dont forget how complex, how much more he is than just a "battlecrazed bastard/sweet lil malewife". it can be fun to explore but its just one of many sides/traits/whatever that make up his character

zhongli we dont even need to start, he is pretty much obviously not an entirely good guy; neutral at best. idk where you get that part bc i dont remember anyone here praising and calling him "so good"?

(tho is it right to call him selfish for letting humanity rule and decide for themselves after serving and doing his duties for 3000+ years? he let them go bc he deemed liyue to be grown up enough now to live without him guiding them. he tested them right out of this reason and was ready to step in right away and protect them from osial if they werent ready)

[faroreswinds]

Actually laughing my ass off at you posting an anon going "Fodlan being unified is a good thing because the game says so" right after an ask talking about just how media might portray something bad as a good thing but critical readers should have enough grasp on their morals to still be able to recognize it as a bad nontheless. Other anon if you are reading this - I dont care if the game tells me "unification" is good, "unification" is not good, period.

I cannot say "unification" on its own is bad. It's neither good nor bad by itself. You can be unified as parental figures - that is good! You can unify an entire region by force - that is bad.

It's all about context. If a bunch of leaders got together and agreed to elect a single leader to be in charge, unifying their lands into one nation, that is by no means a bad way to do it. But if you are forcing nations to accept a new leader because its "either me or death", that is bad.

Of course, there is nuance to that too. Many real world empires took land for themselves, and erased those cultures. At the same time, some of those places did see some good come out of that as well.

(I still am not behind conquest, but there were tangible, real boons to some people, like roads, that we need to be honest about).

Needless to say, it's a complex matter. Intent and context matters. And Houses (and Hopes) gives me no reason to feel Edelgard's conquest is worth it at all. Especially since it showed that reforms were happening completely a-ok for 2 fucking years. :/ Who wrote this game?

[otaku-tactician]

bingo: lancer cu, cu alter, enkidu

Thanks for the ask!!! Ayy this is pretty exciting ^^ ...Wow tho this is the first time I've actually talked about Cu on an ask meme so apologies if I type too much here.

Lancer Cu

My feelings for this guy are 100% like a mental illness. I think he is the coolest looking mf, respect his boldness and strong faith in being himself and get regularly fucked up thinking about him and his ideology (sometimes i almost start crying when i think about him. ive gone insane when it comes to lancer cu). There is something about him aspiring to be like a shooting star that makes me go apeshit XD I used to project onto him a lot, and am still very jealous of his personality to this day (lmao).

However he DOES have actions and behaviors both in fate and his original myth that has left me like 'WHAT THE HELL ARE U DOING KING?! WTF!!!' I don't agree with everything he does or represents, but that's okay! It makes things way more spicy.

He is way more complex and nuanced than I originally thought, with a morality that is neither good nor bad. I love Cu's dynamics with other fate characters a lot (that drives me insane too), it is quite nice seeing him take care of others.

Summary: just that i feel pure, extremely feral feelings for this blorbo i guess?!!! past the limits of sanity. It took me a VERY LONG time to understand his character though. I'm still learning every day.

2. Cu Alter

LMAO another character who I am obsessed with XDD Another cool af mf but wow ... I think he has a lot more depth than I originally thought he had. It's been a very very long journey to kinda get this character better but hot damn his identity crisis and low moods are way too relatable for me. I really enjoy his dynamic with others like Medb (medb and cu alter slice of life like moments are hilarious and fun to read), the Emiyas,, other Celts and his contrast to others like Arjuna or even how he is around the FGO master XD

OH DAMNIT IT HE IS COOL 10/10!!!!! TENS ACROSS THE ENTIRE BOARD!

Summary: wow he so cool !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

3. Enkidu

Enkidu is honestly such a brilliant, wonderful character! I can never get enough of them, no amount of screentime will ever be enough for me. I love their dynamic with Gilgamesh and Siduri, the closeness of their relationships are greatly profound and moving. I like how they are both gentle yet deadly in Fate, and I feel really sad whenever they see themselves as merely a tool, because they are so much more. Also I wanna see more of Enkidu's blunt side it's so funny when they just roast people naturally (especially when they roast Gilgamesh)

ENKIDU IS THE BEST, I LOVE THEM! ONE OF THE BIGGEST LOVES IN MY HEART TT-TT

I am also kind of jealous of how close their bond with Gilgamesh is; to connect with someone on such a deep level is really beautiful!

Summary: Nothing but love for the clay. An Enkidu day is the best day.

[inkykeiji]

I started dating some1 who in the beginning was rudely sarcastic & talked to me like I was dumb. Getting to know him + having better communication I told him what crossed my boundaries. he was upset with himself & wanted our relationship to work. not saying he shouldnt be held accountable but he had a hard childhood, like talking down to me was something his father did on the daily (I witnessed it at a family event) it makes me think of ur characters and whats 'normal' to some is toxic to others

oh my gosh anon, thank you so much for sharing this with me!!!

first and foremost, i want you to know how proud i am of you for standing up for yourself and setting those clear boundaries. that can take a lot of bravery, and it’s incredible that you’re looking out for yourself and being open and honest with your partner (as you’ve touched on, communication is so important!!!!!)

if that’s how he was raised, and that’s all he knows, it makes sense that he thinks this type of behaviour would be ‘normal’ in a relationship. exactly like you said, this isn’t an excuse to be an asshole and he definitely needs to be held accountable + do better next time, but it does help you understand him better and explains why he was acting the way he was. i absolutely love your last sentence here, where you say that what’s normal to some is toxic to others because it’s so true. if this is all you’ve ever known and if this is all you’ve ever grown up with and been taught, of course it seems ’fine’ to you, you know? but those raised in healthy and loving homes know that this type of behaviour is neither normal nor acceptable.

this is what i mean when i say people are messy. people are inherently flawed; not one human on this earth is perfect. and no, that’s never an excuse to be abusive, obviously, but what it means is that people are going to make mistakes. they’re going to make bad decisions. and a lot of those times, those mistakes and decisions are going to be informed by that persons past and/or emotions. and to expect someone to be perfect all the time is entirely unfair because it is entirely unattainable. relationships with anyone, whether it’s romantic or not, take WORK. hard work put in by both parties. they require communication and compromise. they are not and will never be perfect.

the very important and very good difference between your partner and my characters is that once you brought what was bothering you to his attention, he took responsibility for it and (i hope!) has now vowed to be more conscious of that and work on it/work on bettering himself—presumably because he cares for you, and he cares for the relationship, and he doesn’t intend to or WANT to hurt you. that is a crucial difference. that is growth! this, in my opinion, is so much more important than the mistake itself. the behaviour after, the reaction after + actions taken after the mistake, and whether or not the person has learned from it or is trying their best to learn from it; to me, that is what makes someone a good person. that is what ultimately shows their true and authentic character.

it is these concepts and the sheer complexity of not only each individual human (especially based on traumatic backgrounds) but also of MORALITY as a whole that fascinates me and that i enjoy exploring within my work. thank you so much for sharing this with me, anon <3 i feel very honoured that you chose to share something so personal, and i really enjoyed digging into this because like i said, it is these notions that intrigue me the most. i wish you nothing but the very best, and i hope you and your partner are doing well <3 always sending lots of love your way!!!

[immortalitae]

IS LESTAT THE MONSTROUS VILLAIN LOUIS MAKES HIM OUT TO BE?

no — but it's more complicated than that, too. because neither is lestat the hero-vigilante he likes to paint himself as.

lestat isn’t evil, nor is he some saintly do-gooder who only kills bad men. there is a beast in him that enjoys the violence, the horror, the BLOOD, especially the blood. it is his sustenance, after all, the thing that nourishes and keeps him alive. he both hungers and lusts for it, just like your average, run of the mill vampire. there’s an argument to be had about vampires being unable to be any good.

but morality, regardless of if you’re human or inhuman or alien, is not black & white & clear-cut. no one is entirely one thing. a monster can help a sweet old lady cross a road and rescue children from burning buildings. so can a saint commit heartbreak out of pure selfishness and yell cutting words that they never apologize for. that’s the beauty of being a person, how complex it all is.

lestat, i believe, embodies this complexity extremely well. a shining example of it, even. he’s an unreliable narrator in his story and the victim ( so to speak ) of unreliable narration in someone else’s. aren’t we all, though?

he does delight in the thrill of the kill and will go to great lengths to feed or to just, get revenge on someone he didn’t particularly like. he can be cruel too, even to people he doesn’t kill. sometimes on purpose, sometimes on accident. he’s had a long life to live and a lot of time to learn things and learn to be a better person if he so chooses, he’s had so much time he could’ve bettered himself for one life and gone back to being the villain for another. he’s lived many of those and still has many more to come.

the lestat one meets in 2022 is not the same lestat one meets in 1978, or 1921, or 1789... and it is difficult to hold a man of nearly 300 years of age to certain standards of morality, modern or antiquated or individual. he CAN be the villain to your story, he can be the hero, he can even just be the guy in the background ( though you’ll find it’s particularly difficult to let such a man fall into the background ). in his story he’ll always be the protagonist.

[faelapis]

if i ever make like a big steven universe defense video after all, i feel like i would need to give it a clickbait title like "you hate steven universe because you're american."

and then explain everything from how the hays codes section on not showing "sympathy for criminals" resulted in a moralistic black/white hollywood media landscape for a loooong while even after its death, and how regardless of whether you're actually american, you are influenced by these values and standards thru consumption of american media, or you wouldnt be here.

next to that, i would go into how the "actually, i like redemption arcs as long as they're earned :)" attitude is in many ways an extension of this need to see a focus on punishment, which that section of the hays code on villains was about as much as sympathy itself.

From the wikipedia page on the Hays code / Motion Picture Production Code:

All criminal action had to be punished, and neither the crime nor the criminal could elicit sympathy from the audience, or the audience must at least be aware that such behavior is wrong, usually through "compensating moral value". Authority figures had to be treated with respect, and the clergy could not be portrayed as comic characters or villains. Under some circumstances, politicians, police officers, and judges could be villains, as long as it was clear that those individuals portrayed as villains were the exceptions to the rule.

The entire document was written with Catholic undertones, and stated that art must be handled carefully because it could be "morally evil in its effects", and its "deep moral significance" was unquestionable. It was initially decided to keep the Catholic influence on the Code secret. A recurring theme was "that throughout, the audience feels sure that evil is wrong, and good is right".

the focus on punishment is more emotional than rational. it presupposes that punishment is inherently good and produces good results regardless of data or context. i think this bleeds into that attitude indirectly through, for instance, the only "acceptable" redemption arcs being abuse victims who were fucked over by someone "even more evil" (ie zuko, catra, etc) people who were lower in the system and assumed disposable.

that way, even their redemption serves as a "screw you" to the Truly Evil people above them, which is now the standard of how to get your average american audience on board with redemption. punishment is still very much on the table for those "truly evil" emperors and villains above them, placating this strong desire for punishment and violent solutions.

and of course this is alive and well in wider politics too, everything from the prison industrial complex to how elected judges focus on how Tough on Crime they are and the moral outrage of "this one judge didn't give the death sentence every single time, LIB ALERT" in attack ads.

at the end of the day its all very fucking childish. i mentioned it being emotional briefly, the need for punishment and having a Good Guy with a Gun kill the Bad Guy with a Gun is this very ameribrained hyperindividualistic good vs evil conflict, but its also childish in the refusal to engage with the facts of a situation and see whats actually helpful for society outside of your own emotions.

it feels good to watch callout videos and true crime because of their simplistic focus on the evil of the criminals, but there's rarely ever a mention of how recidivism rates go up, not down, with harsher, punishment-focused sentencing. when you forget the humanity of someone and refuse to truly help socially and economically, they tend not to feel much hope for their own future and instead turn to what helped them survive before. all it does is satiate the Proper, Good People in society's demands for blood and hatred.

anyway steven universe is great not only because it says screw all that, but because it has logical reasons why killing the diamonds is a bad idea, such as how their powers are necessary in helping heal corrupted and shattered gems and thus symbolically helping heal society overall, which is something that is crucial for society, not for your emotions.

steven himself represents the emotional counterpoint - that he can't really get over the pain the diamonds caused to himself and others, and for a brief moment considers the alternative where he WAS that vengeful hero who just killed those who "deserve" it... and ends up literally hurting himself in the process. poetic cinema.

some may think i’m missing the point there, that we’re actually supposed to side with steven in that the diamonds are really evil and bad and it would be better to just shatter them, steven is just too much of a cuck to go through with it or whatever - to which i would respond that the whole episode is steven going through a mental breakdown where he’s so stricken with guilt for shattering jasper that he on some level craves the validation that other people are worse than him... only to be met with a procession line of each diamond being helpful to others, healing them emotionally and physically. that actually only makes him angrier because he really, really wanted the validation that he’s not the “monster” in this story and to feel like a better person.

to an extent, i think him running away and ending up there is an instinct to be surrounded by "fellow monsters." its a bit similar to what white diamond claimed was a part of rose's problem in change your mind - surrounding yourself with flawed people so you can feel like the best of the worst.

at the very least, the contrast between steven’s emotions and reality is illustrated very, very clearly and obviously in having him see the diamonds helping others and objectively being good for society vs still wanting to shatter them on a subjective emotional level right after having seen that. like. that’s literally what happens scene for scene, then he hurts himself and runs away trying to be a good little helper boy and suppress his trauma at little homeworld, then he confesses how much of a monster he feels, literally becomes that, to which the diamonds are a part of the group helping to calm him down despite it all. so yeah. its deliberate.

(btw the main reason i stopped with youtube is just that my computer is too weak and would freeze every 5 seconds during editing + there would be some dmca issue with every single video regardless of how relevant the clips i was showing was to the discussion of the media. so yeah this kind of text essay is the closest ur gonna get for the foreseeable future.)

[marellaenthusiast]

Why I Think Gisela is a Bad Neverseen Villain and Fintan Deserves Better

By Finn (marellaenthusiast)

(CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE KOTLC BOOKS)

Okay this is kind of long but bear with me😭

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     The way Shannon completely switched the Neverseen's motive and design halfway through the series always bothered me. It made their objective more fuzzy and complicated the KOTLC books, and really threw me off course. 

      Even in the first book, when we had no idea what the Black Swan was, there was always this idea of a sinister villain group. The Neverseen were finally revealed at the end of the book after a lot of buildup, when they kidnapped Sophie and Dex. After that, they were established as the main villains of the series- a mysterious, evil group. It wasn't clear what their final objective was, but they had a pretty simple motive: overthrowing the Council, getting rid of humans, and changing things about the Lost Cities.

      It can be argued that Fintan's Neverseen was morally gray. Fintan is a very complex character, because at heart he's neither good nor bad. He genuinely believes he's doing the right thing by getting rid of the Council and taking control of the Lost Cities and the humans. He wants change, he wants his ability back, and he wants injustices fixed, and he'll cross some lines to get what he wants (for example, the gnomish plague). But the things Fintan does are bad. They are harmful to elves instead of helpful- for example, burning things down, harming the gnomes, and killing Kenric. In the end, even though he's trying to do the right thing, he has to be stopped.

     It's pretty clear- the Neverseen are the villains, and Sophie and the Black Swan are there to thwart their evil plans. From book one, Fintan is established as the main villain. The entire first book is devoted to finding out about him, and the next two to breaking/healing his mind. Throughout the first three books, the reader is always wondering, What's Fintan going to do next? The first three books are mostly Sophie learning things and not much action, but everything that happens involves Fintan's Neverseen. That's why it threw me so much when Fintan "died" in Oblivimyre. It confused me why Shannon would kill off her main villain, especially since she spent three entire books detailing his character and motives.

      Then Gisela was revealed as part of the Neverseen at the end of Everblaze. That confused me even more. She only had one scene up until then, and aside from her shitty treatment of Keefe, she didn't seem that nefarious. Even Cassius made more sense as a villain. I assumed that Fintan was kind of a red herring, and she was the real villain. But that made no sense. Gisela doesn't have a motive to be evil. She has no reason to want to kill anyone. Except for her awful marriage, she has no problems. She isn't even a developed character.

      Then Shannon brought Fintan back. Not that I'm not happy he's alive, but I think that was a bad decision on her part. She has too many players on the field- Fintan, Gisela, Vespera, Dimitar. The main characters have too many people they're trying to stop, and the Neverseen is getting more and more confusing by the minute. First Fintan is the leader, then Vespera, then Gisela, then Gisela is helping the main characters, then she's a villain again??? It's just so complex. In my opinion, if she wanted to switch Fintan out with Gisela, she should have kept Fintan dead so she could focus more on Gisela's plans specifically and not Fintan, and gotten rid of the Dimitar thing altogether.

      It's also confusing why she's the villain in the first place. Why did she join the Neverseen? Why does she want to take over the world? She doesn't have anything backing her evilness. No past trauma, even no dramatic villain speeches like Fintan's about why change is so necessary. Heck, I don't even think she wants change. She wants to be in charge and, unlike Fintan, make the Lost Cities even worse. Or does she want to destroy the Lost Cities? Who knows? It's pretty weird that Shannon hasn't even given her an objective after 8.5 books. Anyway, Gisela has no drive- no reason to be villainous except for how power-hungry she is. She's flat and empty, evil because Shannon needs her to be evil.

      That's why I have such a huge issue with Gisela. Her plans are poorly structured, full of holes, and at the same time too elaborate for the reader to begin to comprehend. There are way too many facets of her plans, involving light and shadows and all sorts of crazy things. She's incredibly two-dimensional, almost cartoonish in her villainy, popping up every few chapters to laugh maniacally and cause chaos while the main characters sit around and do nothing in between, or worry about what she's going to do next.

     With Fintan as the main villain, something new and exciting would happen every few chapters, with the main characters racing to find evidence to stop him. But now that Gisela's the main villain, her plans are so complicated the main characters are so busy trying to figure out shadowflux and quintessence that they just sit around doing literally nothing for chapters at a time. It's kind of boring, and her repeated debilitating attacks with stretches of silence in between are both pointless and becoming a boring pattern.

     Here's the structure of a Keeper book with Gisela as the main villain:

Sophie and her friends do something unrelated to the Neverseen.

Sophie and her friends find a clue relating to Gisela's plans and waste chapters trying to figure out stuff like magisidian while nothing else happens.

Fintan is mentioned maybe once.

Sophie and her friends worry and puzzle out Gisela's nonsensical plans some more.

The Neverseen attack.

Sophie and her friends freak out.

Cliffhanger.

I think Gisela could work well as a main villain- I really do. But her plans are too multifaceted and too complicated, she has no real motive besides power, which makes her uninteresting and hard to care about. Fintan had a drive, he had a reason to want change. Now he's sitting in an ice prison while Gisela… I don't know, throws ethertine at her son for some reason and kidnaps Tam only to immediately let him go?? It's a complete waste of a great character, and it irks me how Shannon just tossed Fintan aside.

There wasn't even any segue into Gisela becoming the villain. There were no clues that she was important until the end of book 3. We all thought Fintan was the main villain until the end of Nightfall, when suddenly the Neverseen all joined Gisela and their plans completely changed. You can't just change the villain six books into the series, especially when you make the old villain irrelevant. It would make more sense if Fintan had secretly been executing Gisela's plans the whole time, but he doesn't even know what stellarlune is. (Neither do we, but that doesn't matter).

And I don't even want to start on Vespera. The entire Nightfall book was devoted to figuring out stuff about her when I could not give less of a shit about her. There weren't even any clues she existed before Lodestar! I will say that even with her late introduction Vespera had potential to be an awesome villain- she has a complicated backstory and she's literally a Forgotten Secret. That's so cool. But that kind of gets ruined because she has no page time whatsoever, and she acts like a sinister cartoon character whenever she does.

The Neverseen are unique because they actually have a motive that makes sense. Every member of the Neverseen has either been exiled, shunned because of their talent, treated badly, and been fucked over by elvin society in some way. The Neverseen work really well as villains, to illustrate what's wrong with elvin society. Ofc they've done awful things, but you can't make them too sympathetic because people would root for them too much.

Gisela is just power-hungry and her evil plans are WAY too intricate- I had to reread Legacy like ten times to even begin to grasp the context of all this quintessence and shadowflux stuff. It's too complicated, and she doesn't work as a villain. It's too late now to bring Fintan back or change anything, but he was a way better villain. Gisela just doesn't work like, at all. She's interesting to read about sometimes, but when I read her scenes I'm mostly waiting for her evil monologues to be over.

Making her the main villain would have worked better if Shannon clearly outlined her plans and backstory, but she filled in the gaps in Keefe's past with unclear recovered memories and bits and pieces of information, so the reader doesn't fully understand Gisela's character. I understand that it's all going to come together in the end before the final battle or whatever, but that's not a good strategy for KOTLC specifically because its boring and confusing to read about in the meantime.

Honestly, if I can't have Fintan, I'd rather have a better developed Vespera than Gisela. She does have some interesting traits and plans, but not nearly as much as any other villainous character in the books.

Also, I would love to understand what she actually wants to achieve, I know Shannon likes giving information to us in cryptic bits and pieces but I'm sick and tired of trying to put together her vague evil plans so I can understand the story.

I miss Fintan😭he was so fun to read about

This turned into more of a rant than an essay sorry