#think critically for ONCE

[scootersscooter]

the blatant misunderstanding and vilification of Drayton's character because of one thing he says to Kieran is making me sick

[c-kiddo]

drawing that started out with wanting to draw caduceus how i was imagining him they it she while listening to some episodes again if i just went with whatever my brain wanted on its own. and then jester and many patterns showed up too :- ) 🧄

[notebooks-and-laptops]

"If we use force against our enemies, our allies will remember it": an exploration of the Archon Quest in DAtV.

Not everyone will have gotten this quest, as it's only avaliable if you saved Minrathous over Treviso. So let me start by setting the scene:

Rook has just found a secret list of Venatori plans in a Venatori vault. This includes a list of magisters who have been engaging in 'illegal slavery' and also a list of the backers of said magisters.

Dorian and Mae are arguing over how best to use this information. They have decided that one of them should become the Archon, however, they both have different ways they would go about it:

Dorian wants to 'crush our enemies by any means neccessary' - 'destory them and their networks by any means neccessary'. Maeveas describes this as 'swords and spies and blackmail; the devious means [Dorian] learned in the South'.

Mae wants to 'do this in the open. Show the people of Tevinter that we're here for them'. She wants to make this information public in order to 'inspire'.

Both will support the other, depending on what Rook decides. Both of them want to abolish slavery and get rid of the rule of Altus mages; 'the Soporati deserve a say in their own governance'. They say they have the same aims, but they would go about getting them in different ways.

Except...none of what they say actually makes any sense whatsoever.

Tevinter is Not a Democracy

Tevinter is not a demoracy. People do not 'vote' on who represents them.

Instead, there is a magesterium made up of magisters. These roles are hereditary (although you can have apprentice who take your title instead). You rule, because of your birth, or because you were lucky enough that somebody who rules because of their birth picked you.

There is not an election cycle. The magisters do not have to do anything to remain in power beyond making sure people aren't angry/scared enough to stage a coup.

Political factions exist within the magisterium, but you have to work to gain those who already are in it onto your side, you can't just get people to vote more of your faction in.

So....with this in mind, how is Mae's plan ever going to work.

Mae talks about wanting to do things out in the open. She wants to show Tevinter that politicans can be here for them. But those people...don't have a say. They can't meaningfully change things, or vote, or do anything beyond have a (probably violent) revolution.

And yet, we are led to believe that Mae's option will be the path of least resistence. Mae's option is 'working within the system'. What system? Mae won't be able to do anything, even if the public is on her side. It doesn't matter.

The magisters who are Venatori may die by the end of the game, or they may simply step down and give their titles to their children to avoid public disgrace. Maybe, maybe if people are angry enough, the heirs and apprentaces from other houses and magisters will take their place. But I don't see how Mae publishing this list of people and their backers will get her into power.

Especially in a country where slavery is legal. You know the people who would want Dorian and Maevearis's plans to succeed? Slaves. Because they're the only ones unlikely to be culturally indocronated to believe slavery is a good thing. Those a 'rung above slavery' like Krem, may also want their plans to succeed, but they'd likely have to be convinced, or have something happen to them (e.g. like how Krem's family struggled to remain in business because slaves can do their work for free so the products never cost as much) to push them into seeing all this. I highly doubt most people in this society as is would distinquish much between 'legal' and 'illegal' slavery. What even is illegal slavery? Taking people from other nations into slavery without the consent of said nations? That's most of the nations in thedas then. And if slave imports are continuing then surely everyone already knows that this is taking place and that people are arranging it.

AND EVEN IF THEY DID THERE ISN'T A DEMOCRACY FOR THEM TO VOTE MAE IN. To get Mae in, Mae has to convince the magisterium - and that includes convincing them to let her back in ON TOP OF convincing them to elect her as their ruler OR she has to have a violent overthrow backed by the people. That is the only way that 'inspiring' the people can succeed here.

Meanwhile, We have Dorian. Tarquin acts like Dorians plan will mean another Anders style chantry explosion, with things getting worse before they get better. But Dorians plan is vague to say the least. Blackmail? Okay. Working within his place in the magisterium? Now that makes more sense to me; if he can work within his place that might get him to be archon which would in turn allow him to potentially effect meaningful change from the top down with less tape around what he can and can't do.

But Mae implies Dorian is going to start killing people; 'if we use force against our enemies they will remember it'. But....what? Okay maybe Dorian plans to assassinate some people? But if he does, their kids will just get in. Maybe he just plans to threaten to assassinate people (interesting move as that's what got his father, but I think that COULD be an intersting direction for him) and that's what it means by blackmail etc. But if that's the case, is he really going to get to be Archon for long?

Dorians way looks way more like working within the system or...maybe turning the system into some of kind of dictatorship in order to make it a democracy so that Soporati can vote? Do ex-slaves get the vote in this world?

None of this makes any sense, their plans are so so so vague, and what they pitch and what they want means their pitches should be switched.

Who should be the Archon?

Towards the end of this place, Maevaris and Dorian say that a quater of the magisterium are Venatori. This is the implied quater that we have information on, and who needs to be taken out of the magisterium. But...okay, how?

In DAI, three of our companions (Vivienne, Leliana and Cassandra) are up for the role of Divine. But the reason they're up for the role despite all three of them being in some way a break with the past, is that there is nobody else. Everyone else who was up for the position died in the conclave explosion. All three of them have also gained large leaps forward in their reputation based on their actions in the inquistion.

But in DAtV....even if that quater are all killed in the final fight with the Gods, that means 75% are left over. I can see perhaps Dorian - who has maintained his seat in the Magisterium - being able to elbow himself into that power vaccum, win over the 75% and become the Achon. But Mae has been kicked out of the Magisterium already. She's lost her title. How is she going to get herself back in. As detailed above, it won't be by democracy. The Viper talks about her 'triumphent return' but nobody has actually given me a plan to get her to that triumphent return???

Basically; it makes very little sense that these two people are up for archon, even now we know the current one is dead. The archon is usually an inherrited title, either by blood or by being the apprentace of the previous Archon. The Archon can be voted in by only the magisterium if the archon dies without either of these things, however, so that's what they're going for here. But why would any of these 75% of magisters vote for Mae or Dorian?

And even if you argue that the Venatori list had the illegal dealings of more than just those 25% so Dorian and Mae could blackmail them for the position; firstly, Mae has already said she's not blackmailing anyone. So that leaves only Dorian. But the Magisters can pass their seats onto their children, instead of giving in to Dorians demands. That way even if Dorian exposes them, they're no longer in the Magisterium. Similarly, it surely is well known that the magisterium are dealing in 'illegal slavery' and surely even if it isn't, there are ways those within the Magisterium can use their money and power to pretend that they weren't involved with that. Polticians in the real world get away with these lies all the time!

Violence and Thedas

I'm not planning on making this point at length, but I do think the quote I opened this with also makes no sense for Dragon Age. 'If we use force against our enemies, our allies will remember it'.

In a game. Which is. About fighting enemies.

Like, this is a fighting game. We fight our enemies in this game. We don't sit down for tea with the Gods. We don't invite the red templars over to discuss politics. We don't ask the darkspawn if there's any way they won't do what they want.

We've been killing venatori for the WHOLE GAME by this point. We've ALREADY been using force.

I guess that the writers are trying to make a distinction between political violence vs. the rest of the game but uhhh. That doesn't really work either, especially in a game series which has had political violence pretty much at its core (we start with a game about CIVIL WAR and then move swiftly into a game where one of your companions commits an act of terrorism to inspire an overthrow of an unjust system) but also like. The implication that all groups who are bad are just 'evil' and have no motivations beyond 'power' and 'being evil' is dumb, and dragon age games used to be better than that. The Venatori, the Antam, the Crows, Butcher, Illario, The Grey Wardens, all of these people are playing with politics. Dragon Age games used to know this, they ahve a whole thing about 'the great game'.

But. Whatever. I said I wouldn't labour this point and I won't, but this quote makes no sense in a game where we've already spent the whole time using force.

(and also...isn't trying to abolish slavery perhaps a good thing to use force against? This quote implies that both the enemies (pro-slavery) and the allies (anti-slavery) have a similar moral standing which uhhhh i wouldn't say is true)

Why did this happen; some closing remarks

DAtV is vague enough about Tevinter politics that I feel you could, without knowledge of the previous games lore/the codexes believe the following points

slavery is a fringe practice in Tevinter

tevinter is a democracy

In this set of circumstances, their plans would make a lot more sense. Mae really could hope to get people on her side to vote out magisters who are engaging in 'illegal slavery' and other unmentioned things. She really could try and get elected on the promise of honesty and doing things differently, but still working within the system and eventually being Archon.

But this isn't the case. What's happening here is 21st century Demoractic (American Centric) politics are being placed onto a system which is essentially ancient Rome with absolutely no effort to try and make either confirm.

These days there are serious questions surrounding democracy, truth and lies we tell the people, whether its better to work 'behind the scenes' for a better world or not etc. These are all questions that have becoming increasingly relevant in the rise of the far right since 2016. And those who think the system need to change have MANY MANY arguments about whether we need to burn down the system, or whether we need to work within the system and with the backing of everyone to achieve our aims.

But that doesn't work in Tevinter. It doesn't mean anything.

I think the writers were trying to short hand some contempary politics into this world, were purposely vague about the parts of tevinter that don't fit that mould, tried to act like slavery was some form of modern discrimination that can be easily brushed to one side, and then just...released the game like that, with this choice.

But thinking about it for more than 5 seconds makes it SO STUPID. I literally spent ALL of that cutscene going 'wait what??? huh???' i watched it back three times before I understood what they were doing and why Mae and Dorians views were supposed to make sense before I wrote this post.

Another example of the writers not taking established lore/politics/culture in this game seriously. Another example of this game not taking its setting into account. I just. Yeah. This one really pushes me.

td;lr this storyline about who is the future archon doesn't work because Tevinter is not a democracy and they don't actually take into account the political implications, nor lay out actual political plans on how they'd achieve their aims.

[thatrandombystander]

Ashur's whole Deal in Veilguard is extremely ripe for the sorts of identity shenanigans I love very dearly. I think Tarquin shouldn't know who he is so he can get to have a whole crisis because he's got a crush on both his day job boss (the Pope) AND his extracurricular job masked revolutionary leader (basically Batman)

Throw in a bit of religious imagery and devotion, and we are COOKING

[khruschevshoe]

You know, it's rather interesting to me that Taylor Swift's parasocial relationship with her fans is honestly more akin to a YouTuber than a writer's. When I scroll through her tag on tumblr/Twitter, it's far more regarding the connection to her personal life/relationship developments than the actual metaphors/fictional story she might be telling. Everything comes back to how her songs reflect back on her relationships with Joe/Matty/Travis/Jake/insert ex-boyfriend here. And what fascinates me about it is that even though she complains about it, she leans into that very perception because it strengthens the parasocial bond.

The marketing for TTPD so clearly being about Joe Alwyn and the songs to Matty Healy. The marketing/video for Red TV so CLEARLY being about Jake Gyllenhaal, with so many of the new lines in All Too Well specifically being digs at him (I'll get older but your lovers stay my age, casting an actor that looks like him for the video, specific lines in I Bet You Think About Me). The fact that songs like Getaway Car and Bejeweled and Gorgeous and London Boy and Lavender Haze being picked apart at time of release and long after for signs of relationships crumbling. The way she uses surprise songs in relation to her relationship development with Joe/Matty/Travis. The damn TTPD "stages of grief" playlists where she deliberately undid/changed the meanings of old songs just to keep her audience speculating on her love life.

It's not sexist to point out that her wielding her love life is a marketing tool and that the strongest connection to her audience isn't the strength of her writing/the composition of her music- it's her deliberate crafting of a connection between her music and her personal life, leaving the audience invested in her music as an extension of Taylor the Person/Girlfriend rather than Taylor the Artist.

[saintmelangell]

i think its important to acknowledge that at least part of the reason why hollywood was reluctant to pick up david lynch's projects is because he told a story about a girl abused and murdered by her father in a way that was not exploitative of victims and quite openly showed the cultural facades of normalcy abusers rely on to get away with abuse as absurd even in being comfortable and familiar. and in doing so lynch shed light on an uncomfortable truth about the world that is a reality for people that oppressors generally dont want to have voices. and david lynch gave those people voices without titillating or portraying them merely as victims, and deep down that's the reason why he hasnt had a movie produced since 2006

[benevolenterrancy]

("Always. Continuously. With increasing apprehension, and decreasing hope. I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday. I will love you as a corpse loves the beak of the vulture. I will love you no matter what happens to you, and no matter how I discover what happens to you, and no matter what happens to me as I discover this." -- paraphrased from The Beatrice Letters, Lemony Snicket)

[anghraine]

TMP is honestly this wild trip despite the glacial pacing at times, because it's like—

Vulcan woman: Spock, you've worked hard to purge yourself of all emotion, but your mind is picking up signals from some human and I guess some logic thing in space. my conclusion: you aren't racially pure enough to find your answers here

Spock: time to track down the pure logic thing and find the answers and meaning in my existence as a Vulcan that I've been searching for all my life and definitely never found in the past before all my previous character development got reset

[Meanwhile]

Kirk: so this unknown cosmic force is going to wipe out all life on Earth, and I've been placed in charge because I have a lot of experience dealing with bizarre dangerous cosmic shit as commander of this specific ship, in addition to my missing being in space because I was pushed into the admiralty at, like, age 39

Decker: *throws a series of tantrums about the prioritization of all of Earth above his ego for almost the entire mission*

Ilia: I have taken an oath of celibacy

Kirk: ... not super relevant. please just do your job

[Also, the transporter painfully melts some people we don't know into unrecognizable lumps of flesh. This is completely disconnected from the rest of the movie; it has no relevance to anything else, is immediately forgotten and never acknowledged again, and everyone acts like Bones is silly and paranoid for being nervous about going through the transporter]

Uhura: I think Admiral Kirk is obviously the person most qualified to command our incredibly dangerous and important mission, and we're damned lucky he got put in charge. if anyone cares

[everyone else]: *doesn't care*

McCoy: Jim, maybe you shouldn't make your mid-life crisis everyone else's problem

Decker: yeah! I should still be in charge! my solution is "don't take risks" when encountering the unknown and wait until systems are 100% safe before we do anything

Kirk: again let me reiterate that we need to act decisively even if it's risky or billions of people will die. we have to at least try, so waiting is not an option here

Spock: *shows up and, despite being icy and dismissive, immediately fixes all their most pressing technical problems*

McCoy: maybe we shouldn't trust him. he has his own agenda now

Kirk: wtf of course we can trust him he's Spock how dare

[Kirk quickly figures out the changes to the bridge, and from then on, his judgment and decisions are pretty much continually vindicated by the plot. Decker's advice goes from temporarily useful to unprofessional constant jabs with little sense of the real stakes and no better ideas. It becomes extremely apparent that Kirk really is far better equipped in temperament and experience to deal with the potential slaughter of Earth than Decker, especially when assisted by Spock—even this arctic version of Spock.]

Spock: *knocks out a crewman, steals a spacesuit, and tries to make contact with the cosmic acid trip/space vagina by traveling through what he unenthusiastically describes as its "orifices"*

Kirk: I ... guess maybe Bones was - no, it can't be - wait a moment, I -

Spock: *starts transmitting all the data he's gathering to Kirk*

Kirk: hah, I knew he would never betray me! Okay, everyone, you all stay here, I'm going to jump into space to catch him

[Spock melds with the cosmic space vagina and it violently ejects him through various orifices, as he might describe them, until he's thrown right into Kirk's arms, signifying nothing]

Bones and Chapel: melding with the cosmic logic vagina seems to have fried his brain :(

Spock, laughing: I should have known ...

Kirk: *seizes his shoulders* known WHAT Spock what are you talking about. please tell me your mind is intact. sweetheart it's okay what are you full of shame about this time *tries to shake the brain damage loose*

Spock: Jim ... I melded with the supreme logic being and discovered that there's no beauty or art or meaning in raw information or logic ... only a barren STEM hellscape without the humanities

[Spock slides his hand down Kirk's arm until their fingers wrap around each other, and their joined hands tightly cling together. unrelatedly, we have definitely seen Vulcans and Romulans use finger stroking as kissing and/or foreplay]

Spock: it was awful and empty and not at all what I've been searching for this whole time. and finally I understood that the real meaning in life comes from the simple feeling between you and me. The mechanized space vagina couldn't understand our love

[Kirk wraps his other hand tightly around his and Spock's clasped fingers. God knows what degree of obscenity they would be committing on Vulcan, but in any case, McCoy (as ever) politely pretends he's not seeing this happen right in front of him, since Kirk and Spock obviously have forgotten, yet again, that other people exist]

Kirk: 🥹🥰

[They stare tenderly at each other without speaking for a few seconds, but are definitely communicating on some level; after a moment's hesitation, Kirk nods slightly, then Spock nods in response, and it feels like we're missing half the conversation. Then Spock explains V'ger's existential angst in terms that obviously apply equally to his own past self, and by past I mean "for most of this movie until a few minutes ago"]

It turns out that V'ger, in addition to being a cosmic acid trip/space vagina/mass murderer, is also an annoying teenager, maturity-wise. I do appreciate Kirk and Spock having their "this is just adolescent angst and we are too middle-aged for this nonsense" reaction, and noping out to provoke V'ger into some measure of cooperation until they all figure out that it's trying to communicate with NASA.

In the course of all this, there's a point where Decker manages to be mildly helpful via the Ilia probe sort of remembering their old relationship, and he proves his value at last by welcoming the chance to orgasmically fuse with Ilia/V'ger, while Kirk is horrified and baffled at why Decker would find this remotely appealing. (ngl Kirk in this movie feels like the most purely gay-coded iteration of him; from the film itself, I could easily believe he has lost all attraction to women at this point.)

So thankfully, we're finally free of the weird and underwhelming Decker/Ilia duo via multiple cosmic acid orgasms, and the Earth is saved, etc. In aesthetics, it's all powerfully 70s, even in the awesome strange bits before V'ger looked quite so, uh, yonic. Somehow even the new bland sleepwear version of Starfleet uniforms seem very 70s; apparently Spock's kickass robes and the muscle-revealing quasi-polo top that Kirk promptly switches into consumed all available stylishness.]

Scott: everything's fine now, so I guess we can drop you off at Vulcan, Mr. Spock

Spock: my experiences today have, uh, resolved my need to stay on Vulcan, so there's no reason to detour for me. I'll just tag along to Earth for >_> no reason

Kirk: [deeply vindicated for about the twelfth time that day, but this time also managing to exude Spock is getting laid tonight without saying a word about him] Mr. Sulu, ahead, warp one.

[aprito]

what a coincidence anon, me too!!

[sylvancastor]

Jaecaerys continues to be the only person with any sort of common sense. Obviously I'm not excusing what he says about people from the lower classes, but he makes a good point about his legitimacy being endangered by clear proof Targaryen bastards can claim dragons. Which is why the book makes SO much more sense bc the entire dragonseed idea is his idea, not Mysaria/Rhaenyra's. We can't know for sure bc of how F&B is written, but with it being Jace's idea it's implied at the very least that he's weighed the benefits versus the consequences to his own legitimacy and their dire need to win the war and decided in favor of having the dragonseeds claim dragons. Taking that idea from him though and having it basically be Mysaria's is a complete insult to him and a politically damaging decision he didn't agree to. And not only does he have to deal with that but also in this version he has to be the one consistently wrangling Rhaenyra's council because she's literally NEVER there. I sympathize more with Jacaerys every week bc I'm frustrated, so I can't imagine being him.

[elodieunderglass]

The post about the informal shanty-choir earlier has reminded me of an anecdote of my dad's

He used to work in a pub, run by a landlord with an astonishing bass speaking voice. They had a few live music acts who'd pass through the pub on a regular basis, including a Welsh male voice choir who every single year would try to pressgang the landlord despite his protestations that he couldn't sing ("We can teach you to sing, we can't teach that pitch!").

Accordingly I'm imagining Charlie and Ken enthusiastically chatting up the deepest voices that come down the Kennet and Avon, and probably even managing to recruit them (I bet they've got an amazing chill-cop/un-chill-cop routine)

(In reference to OC Charlie and his boater friend Ken, who sing in pubs if you can’t get away fast enough)

POV you go to the wrong pub (any boater pub is the wrong pub but this isn’t your fault) in the middle in the southwest of England in the mid-2010s and gradually become aware of a sixth sense of being watched…. No……. Not watched….. overheard??

You answer a phone call, and when you hang up

it’s

suddenly

No listen the bass just has to go “aaaaaaah” - you don’t even have to say ANY words

[viktortittiforov]

breaks my heart how often i see people posting yoi fanart/fanfic after a long time of not engaging w the fandom say that they "know the fandom is pretty much dead". like babes i get why you'd think that but we are very much still here alive and kickin!! sure there's less of us now but i see new fanfics being posted on AO3 almost every day. not even just oneshots either, there's super elaborate multichapter fics too! people are still writing meta and drawing amazing fanart and translating interviews and doing art collabs etc etc. there's even an active discord server (maybe even more than one but i don't know about the others). that's not what a dead fandom looks like. we're LOYAL

[mamayura]

Adrien not knowing what he wants

Hot take about Werepapas, I guess:

I actually like that Adrien said "I don't know" when asked what he wants/ who he wants to go with at the end of "Werepapas"

Cause the people who had to learn and come around in this episode's conflict were the ADULTS, not Adrien.

Adrien has already said that he isn't alone, he's living with Nathalie,

and Milly, too, acknowledged right away that Adrien has known her for most of his life so for Adrien she should count as more much than just an employee by now.

And he has not been trying to hide it whatsoever from Nathalie how much she means to him and that he wants to keep living with her. Literally the first thing we see in the episode's present time is Adrien running to Nathalie for comfort when hes crying over his dead mom, but she's pulling back so he does too eventually.

Marinette as pretty much unrelated main character doesnt know about this when she enters the conflict. Hence why she can effectively bring about development in Nathalie by challenging her long-established mind set and dynamic with Adrien due to Marinette's perspective adding a new angle and shacking things up:

Nathalie's inner conflict is one of my favourite things about the episode (and needs its own post if I get around to it), but for the context of this post, yes, she was the one who needed to come around. Not Adrien. He was already there from the get-go as we can see by him repeating the hug he started the episode with. Just now, Nathalie hugged back:

It was nice seeing Marinette help Nathalie take on her role in the end because Nathalie did the same thing Marinette did in Illustrhater for example. Acting like and saying things that eventually made Adrien accept that they don't want to be with him because, duh, that's now interactions work.

That's why he initially didn't say that he wants to stay with Nathalie in Paris when asked in the end. Nathalie too made him feel like he has to accept that that won't be an option, so he knew he had to decide between his grandparents:

The same Grandparents who had to come around in the end, too, and allow for Adrien to stay with Nathalie in Paris, even though both pairs of Grandparents are still the ones to officially hold the legal custody of Adrien (which I'm glad about that they did it like this and didn't bullshit some reason for Nathalie to get custody cause the episode is right, Nathalie has NO right to Adrien's custody whatsoever. They went with a very reasonable way to resolve this)

Its the ADULTS who had to come around. Not Adrien. Adrien already made it clear all episode what he wanted. But because all involved adults declared the outcome he wanted as a non-option, well, he honestly says that he doesn't know what else he wants (who he wants to go with).

And I- I just really like that Adrien was taking the situation serious enough to say "I don't know". That was very mature of him. To not just go with SOMETHING or go on about how unfair the situation is. Cause it definitely was, but this is a very serious legal matter that COULDN'T stay unresolved. He's an orphaned minor currently living alone with a person who's said to neither be an option as his guardian nor does she herself treat it like an option. This day COULDN'T end without at least some kind of temporary solution where he would stay now. It just couldn't.

I LIKE that he didn't repeat his denied desire that was already known to everyone around and instead seriously thought about the options he had.

I like that he loves and respects Nathalie enough to be the one person amongst Emilie, Gabriel, and now Marinette, too, who left the decision to HER if she wants to take on the position of his new mother:

As much as he wants to be with her, Adrien was characterized to understand that this is a massive thing to ask of Nathalie. He knows he means alot to her too but Nathalie was, by all accounts, objectively forced into this:

But especially by Emilie (look, I know she was literally dying slowly and painfully, I'm not judging her for wanting Adrien to be loved and taken care of. But I gotta ackowlegde that Emilie put alot on Nathalie without giving her a choice first):

In that regard I can't fault Nathalie for not having acted on her motherly feelings for Adrien and Emilie's last wish earlier than s5 (but God DAMN Nathalie, there is a difference between not doing it and actively making everything so much fucking worse!).

Adrien is the one person in this who respected how much was asked of Nathalie, so when she continuously acted like she didn't wanted to take on the role, he respected that. But this also means that the person who's responsible for Adrien coming to this "wrong" conclusion was Nathalie. Not Adrien. He's only acting accordingly to her actions and words:

So I like that Marinette got to help her in the end, because this is passive development that's very relevant to Marinette's character too. Even if I wished the show would hold Marinette to the same standards since both in Adrinette and especially Ladynoir Adrien gets mostly blamed for coming to the logical conclusions that Maribug doesn't like him or being with him in any way doesn't mean much to her because that's how she constantly acts like in almost every conflict ever. Over and over again. So I like that it was done properly this time around even if it's obvious that that was only possible because it was Nathalie and not Marinette.

And yes, I totally get not liking that Marinette is taking over the whole moment again. I'm not much of a fan of it either, to put it nicely. But it is wrong to say that Marinette is the one making the decision here and Adrien had no agency in deciding who he's staying with. Marinette is merely repeating old news she knows are true because that's what Adrien has been saying and acting like the whole episode and even already since season 5.

The decision was long made by Adrien. It were the adults who had to come around.

And beyond that,

I LIKE that Adrien said "I don't know" to the question which grandparents he wants to go with instead of the show having him make it all about his friends, girlfriend, or Ladybug. He only brings that up when he gets to stay:

Cause the question of where he would feel more at home and what is best for his future, when he has to completely start anew, is not just about his current friends, girlfriend, or his secret hero partner (who has made every precaution and decision possible to not actually have or need him in her life and job and he was made to accept that fully because that's her "rightful professionalism" same as killing your bf Ig)

I like that it was "I don't know" instead of "but my friends!", "but my girlfriend!", or "but I can't leave!".

Adrien saying "I don't know" means he thought of himself first and foremost and not everyone else:

I even like that "I don't know" means that he took the Graham de Vanilys into consideration despite how awful Emil was. Cause when the outcome Adrien WANTED (keeping his life in Paris by living with Nathalie) isn't an option, then he's perfectly in his right to not write off the possibilities he has with the Graham de Vanilys in London (and good heavens, I'm glad nothing ever brought up "but Chloé is in London! YIKES!").

I like that Adrien didnt write anything off when the decision was possibly about to change his whole future. Yes, saying "I dont know what I want" is a perfectly valid and even mature answer for a 14 year old orphan to give when they were JUST this day confronted with this situation that denied him the option he actually wanted:

And I also like that Marinette in the end didn't wasnt made to make Adrien's answer about herself in an usual moment of panic (in general, I truly LOVED how supportive Marinette was in Werepapas, even if the akuma battle incident is forever burnt in my love square heart in a very negative way. Yes, I think being willing to kill your boyfriend without trying any other solution first is bad, sue me ig. if that's what I'll be judged for, then I can live with it).

It is a far cry from Marinette in Representation for example being mostly written to make not getting to have her boyfriend near her out to be the biggest tragedy of Adrien being send to another country for good. I'm glad she got to be the supportive girlfriend for once instead of the show forcibly trying to falsely make her out to be the most important person affected by Adrien's tragic life. It was so refreshing and wonderful to watch Marinette getting to be in the lovingly supporting role of the relationship for a change, and it does WONDERS for her characterization.

While, of course, Marinette was motivated all episode to help Adrien not having to leave, when Adrien said "I don't know" Marinette knew that he's only taking the other options this seriously now because he can't have the option he actually wants.

She wasn't written to go into panic mode the second she heard Adrien NOT saying that staying in Paris is the most important thing on his mind. She knew the problem was laying elsewhere, even if I wished she hadnt made it abuut the Grandparents, but Adrien's right to CHOOSE (and yes, I'm fully aware that people will write this whole post off as salt because I didnt ignore or handwave away Marinette's consistent CANON characterization, even though that's not how salt works. I stand to what I said. More of Marinette as supportive girlfriend please, then we wouldnt have these problems)

I don't know how to end this with a nice little bow to wrap it up. I just REALLY like that Adrien said "I don't know", and how the episode treated the custody conflict for 95% of the plot which is very good for Miraculous.

[varpusvaras]

Of course Jason was doing all of that shit to get Bruce's attention. He had to make sure he had the attention, since he had already been wiped off the face of the Earth, in both body and proper memory. A lot of fix-its fall into the "if Jason had just accepted the status quo things would be good and they could be a happy family" but that's not the point. The point is that the status quo leads to others getting hurt, just like Jason did. And if Jason's death was not enough to get Bruce's attention and to make things change, well. Someone has to make him pay attention, and what better way to do that, than to do things outside of the status quo?

[emo-nova]

Something that always clued me in that Anakin was always a bit fucked up was in episode two, before the Massacre of the Sand People. He said he liked a dictatorship as a method of leadership. Which if you look at the Council of the Jedi Order, is extremely concerning.

Anakin Skywalker, at the time Padawan, said that to Padmé Amidala with his whole chest. And she looked spooked by it.

I have no idea how the fuck this kid could have thought that was a good idea to say to a Senator. And Padmé later marrying him shows her moral decay in my opinion. Like yes, amazing character but her romance with Anakin is something that is notably the fall from her own grace.

Her entanglement with Anakin leads to her ignoring the rights of the Sand People and their murder. Later, she continues to marry Anakin, who is underage in the eyes of Jedi law as he is a Padawan, and lie about said marriage.

Anakin is a character with his flaws and hard past, but autonomy is still present in all three prequel films until he becomes the suit that is Darth Vader. I will pity him, but I will never share the sympathy of a man who is of the disposition that would call for dictatorship.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Market based mistakes.

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