#which is why representation being stated explicitly is so important to me

[lesbianslovenamari]

Yoo this is actually so helpful

it came to my realization that 99% of my fandom related headaches would be cured if everyone understood this

[blacknedsoul-blog]

Social climbers and the relationship with power: Ada's tragedy

You buddies don't dimension how much I raised my eyebrows when I saw this scene:

Ada climbing on top of a deer (a very typical symbolic representation of noble masculinity) who is trying to fiercely shake her off while she desperately clings to him with all her might...

And is THAT what makes her have a flashback of her relationship with Tamerline? Buddy, I'm putting on a hat to take it off.

Anyway, this means I have enough material to talk about Ada.

Social climbers and power

Ada is, apparently, a social climber: she longs for a social space to which she feels she is entitled, but to which she considers herself not to belong. This is something that can give us clues about her socio-economic situation in life: social climbers are extremely common in spaces such as, for example, the child of a first generation of professionals or of parents who have been able to provide better economic passages despite not belonging to social elites.

So, one thing to be clear about the way Ada relates to people in general is through this lens: the way she tries to move up socially (i.e. to power) is through her relationships with people, if she is close to a person who has power or belongs to an elite, then she is accessing these spaces. If that person does not have it, then she uses the relationship to reassert the position she wants to have.

Ada's personal tragedy is that this way of relating to the world puts her in an extremely vulnerable position with respect to her interpersonal relationships because, if they were not asymmetrical from the beginning, she makes them asymmetrical. It's as true that Ada gets into complicated relationships willingly as it is that she is a victim of people like Tamerlane. You know, the same logic of tragedies.

So let me do a little review of all the relationships Ada has had in the comic, how they go and what is the pattern they follow.

The triad of discord

There are three things that all of Ada's relationships have in common (except one, but we'll get to that): 1) She seeks to get some sort of validation from the other person. 2) She tends to push the person's boundaries, even if they were explicitly stated. 3) Even if the person has some degree of affection or sympathy for her, Ada will never be her priority over other things. Be these things other people, personal desires, etc, etc.

So let's review this a bit.

Let's start with the bastard of Thomas Tamerline. If anything their interaction during chapter 110 makes clear to us is that the guy is quite explicit with the fact that this relationship is purely sex for him (and he possibly enjoys the degree of control he exerts over her), Ada repeatedly tries to get some validation or affection from him and the guy barely complies with the bare minimum.

That he ends up murdering her indicates that, regardless of motive, he sees her as an inconvenience to his personal desires that must be gotten out of the way and, as the icing on the cake, puts the responsibility on her.

Now on to Prospero. His resemblance to Thomas is obvious enough to understand why Ada would be attracted to him and constantly seeks to touch him or be near him, no matter how much Prospero tells her that he is not interested in her. This is an attitude she has even before Annabel encourages her by saying that “Prospero is just being shy”.

Eventually it happens what it does: Prospero is fed up with her and doesn't hesitate to tell her so to her face. We can argue whether or not he's justified in being this cruel, but by the standards of this argument that's irrelevant: the important thing here is that Prospero doesn't care about Ada's feelings enough to be nicer.

Let's go now to Lenore. Ada is extremely mean to her until Lenore demonstrates that she was able to pass the maze test on her own. This is, in Ada's eyes, a demonstration of power and she, as she is wont to do, will not pass up the opportunity to get on the good side of a person who could be a potential rising star.

This is cut short by her same group, but they reconnect at the mansion trial. Since Lenore is not interested in relating on power terms (for better and for worse), here they have the opportunity to share on more equal terms on both their parts. Yes, Lenore is also doing this for personal reasons, but it doesn't take away from the merit.

Ada ends up overstepping boundaries and betraying Lenore at the end of the trial. And after she learns of her Ada's involvement in Duke's kidnapping, well, all she has to say when Pluto fills her in is says that shitty relationship is strangely appropriate.

Yes, Lenore may have come to have some degree of affection for her, but Ada is no more important than her friends and after getting into something like that, to hell with her.

With Annabel things start to get more interesting. These two have a cocktail of projection and resentment between them: Annabel is all Ada wants, so she treats her like a pretty accessory that gives her status (something that definitely oversteps Annabel's boundaries, even if she hasn't expressed them because it doesn't suit her) and, to Annabel, Ada is little more than an important piece she can take advantage of.

This take it with a grain of salt because there are some “buts.”

On Ada's side, that she seeks help from Annabel when Montresor is being a fucking psycho is an indicator that she felt, at least, protected by Annabel. But as is often the case with her, the plan Annabel is carrying out is no more important than Ada, she just lets it happen.

Twice. Under the circumstances, Annabel chooses to help Prospero over Ada.

However, Ada is not indifferent to Annabel: she is definitely furious with Montresor after what he did (In fact, this is the only scene so far where we have seen Annabel exercising any form of physical aggression)., she is uncomfortable when Prospero is mean to Ada, and there are a few small frames where she looks at her with sincere pity.

But again, that won't make Annabel prioritize her over her own plans.

Finally, we come to the most interesting relationship here.

Ada definitely cares about Morella, but that won't make constantly denigrating her a reaffirmation of the position she believes (or wants) to have: making comments like Morella's food “is poor.” Ada pecks at the boundaries with a stick, yet these things -for some reason- don't seem to bother Morella, who is able to see the good in her despite her bad attitudes. Until she stops doing it because not only participating in Duke's kidnapping, but also trying to play cool by making excuses is out of bounds even for Morella.

But an interesting thing happens here too, remember how Ada is never a priority for anyone? Well, for a moment in her relationship with Morella it looks like this is going to be different. Morella makes a feeble attempt to defend her when Montresor makes her bark and puts a shield in her face when Prospero attacks her in the mansion trial.

Unfortunately for Ada, Morella is someone too lacking in backbone and too concerned with following the rules to stand up for her when it really counts.

After Ada manifests and bursts into tears, she pushes Morella away from her with a shove.

Morella says she wants to help, but all it takes is for Poppet to remind her that she needs to get back the Merits she lost for Morella to finally give in.

The two people Ada considered her friends have left her: Annabel has chosen to help Prospero and Morella has left.

That's when Montresor enters.

And here begins the first break in Ada's toxic pattern of relationships...but not for the better.

Ada and Montresor

Oddly enough, these two are a good match...for horrible reasons. Montresor, like Ada, is a social climber who uses interpersonal relationships to get closer to power, only in a different way: where Ada sticks it to people who hold power, Montresor uses others to reassert himself in a position of power. So, Ada feeds Montresor's ego, while he can pretend to like her enough to keep Ada happy.

Because yes, Ada and Montresor's relationship fulfills most of the bad patterns in relationships that Ada usually has: she seeks validation in this relationship and Montresor definitely doesn't prioritize her (she constantly has to compete with Will for Montresor's attention, for example). But the important thing here is that, for once, Ada isn't the one constantly pecking at the other person's boundaries: it's Montresor who does it.

He pushes her around, teases her, calls her by other women's names, and it's probably only a matter of time before this starts to get worse. What's interesting is that Ada is able to get upset when this happens, unlike what we see in the flashback to her relationship with Thomas.

So there is something changing here.

Conclusion

I'm not sure where this is going to lead, but one thing is for sure: Montresor is a reflection of a toxic pattern of behavior that Ada has in her relationships and if she's starting to get uncomfortable with it, it's not just because the abyss is staring back at her, but because she's getting herself into a situation too similar to her relationship with Thomas to not know how it might end.

Add to that this:

This is the first time in the comic that Ada has had such a selfless gesture for another person. And that selfless gesture is something as big as putting herself in danger to save someone. As if all this wasn't enough, it's been to save Annabel: one of the two friends who turned their backs on her when she needed them.

I don't know if this will be the start of her character development or we should interpret it as deathflags placed over her head, but one thing is for sure: whatever is going to come out of here has quite a bit of potential.

[everythingisamazing]

In light of recent comments regarding Viktors sexuality I want to point out a vital part that imo is missing from this discussion - and that is how Viktors disability and disease, and more specifically his chronic pain play into his sexuality. To get this out of the way, I just want to reiterate what other people have correctly pointed out: 1. Asexual does not mean the same as aromantic, and neither one of those two things mean, that you will never have sex. In fact, you cannot generally assume anything about what a person does and does not do in their relationships, simply from them stating that they are asexual. 2. We are not talking about a human being, but a character. Which to me makes assigning anything to them that is not either explicitly in the text or very heavily implied by it, not count for more or less than a headcanon. Especially if you are the creator and what you have created contradicts your own statement ( I am not saying you can't hc Viktor as ace, but I am not shying away from saying that I believe there are definitive sexual undertones present in his interactions with Jayce either) Now, back to what I feel is completely missing from this conversation: How chronic pain affects sexuality. Because the show provides much better evidence for that being the thing influencing Viktor, than a matter of sexual orientation. This bugs me, because first of all, the potential for meaningful exploration of said topic is huge. Secondly, it matters to me as someone who considers herself to be both on the ace spectrum, (while being in a relationship with someone who isn't) and having experienced several years of chronic pain. I know for a fact, that when my body was hurting a lot it played a massive role in my willingness to engage in any form of physical touch - not just sex. The reason why I can even distinguish between a low sex drive, and not wanting to be touched intimately due to pain, is because I have experienced years with chronic pain and years without it. But during the years I had it, on the bad days, the reason became blurred and ultimately irrelevant. What I am saying is - those two things can become indistinguishable - so to talk about Viktors sexual orientation, without factoring in how he was shown to be suffering and slowly dying for most of the story, is missing out on one of the most important facets of his character and instead focusing on one that was never even halfheartedly suggested by the show. I also think, that if Viktor was truly asexual in the way CL believes asexuality works, showing him without genitals in S2 after fusing with the hexcore would be a bit tasteless, no? Whereas, if it's a matter of losing agency over another aspect of his body, it's tragic, but fitting. I hope you can see that I am not coming from a place of being against headcanoning Viktor as ace, but wanting to criticize the particular way a certain someone does it and the dumb reasoning behind it. (side note, whispering this under my breath: if you wanted to have visible asexual representation, why would you write one of the first things to come to the allegedly asexuals characters mind, be "wait this isn't my bedroom"? Are you okay, bro?)

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Regarding that scene on Werepapas, what a coincidence. My friend just finished watching the series up to season 5. While he agrees that the writing is far from ideal, while discussing Representation, he didn't get that Adrien is a senti! Only Felix. He felt that it was ambigous. He hopes that maybe Adrien was made thanks to the Peacock but without him being exactly a senti (he still can't exactly explain Gabriel's influence).

With Werepapas... I was astonished, and I don't know if my friend's theory might not be as farfetched... we are giving the writers too much credit, right?

(Post that spawned this ask)

I think it's perfectly valid to be on the fence. I wouldn't put money on Adrien being human, but I wouldn't put money on him being a sentimonster either. He probably is, I wouldn't hold hope for him to not be, but it's not explicit canon and that does matter to a certain extent.

There's a rule in story telling that no one is really dead until their body is show and that applies to more than just death. Any twist isn't truly canon until it's explicitly stated in the text and Adrien's status has never been officially stated. It's only strongly hinted at. This was likely done with purpose because this show is aimed at children. You don't go the subtle route with five-year-olds. They don't know enough about story telling for that to work.

Writers use this hints only trick for a variety of reason, but when it comes to writing in long running shows, the most common reason is to keep the story from having to commit to something before the writers are sure about it as they don't know how many seasons they'll have to write and what plot points they want to use. Right now, the writers can backtrack Adrien's status without retconing anything since he was never said to be a senti. Same goes for Kagami. The only canonically confirmed senti is Felix.*

This noncommittal tactic where nothing is confirmed in canon isn't a writing style I love, but it does have its place. Reveals generally should be teased out over time and not given after the first hint. Tease it out too long, though, and it's no longer solid setup and payoff. Instead it's just an annoying stalling tactic. When it passes from good pacing to stalling tactic is highly subjective and depends on how complex the reveal is. Adrien's status isn't remotely complex and was setup all the way back in season four, so I feel comfortable saying this has gone from the story slowly teasing out the reveal to a stalling tactic which is very much in line with the show's writing style. They're dragging the love square identity reveal to death. I will not be shocked if this gets the same treatment just to keep people watching in the desperate hope that they can finally get some clear answers. It's how show's like Miraculous work. There's not enough here to actually tell an eight-season story so we get this instead.

*Do NOT quote Twitter at me. Twitter is not only not canon, but Twitter "canon" has been retconed and contradicted by actual canon on several occasions. In Twitter canon, Luka is two years older than Juleka and that's clearly not true in actual canon. It's why I try to avoid using Twitter as a source. There are times when I feel you basically have to acknowledge it because it's the only source for any sort of explanation for some nonsensical but important thing canon did, but even then I never assume the statement is truly canon. It's just the closest we can get to canon at the given moment. Which is embarrassing because most viewers are not checking Twitter to understand this show for children!!! The text should speak for itself on all major bits of lore. Twitter should be reserved for fun but pointless facts like what Ladybug's suit feels like.

[delinquentluvr]

Knuckle Bine, Hakoware, & The Importance of An Informative Power System.

I think a lot of people would agree with me if I said that Hunter x Hunter is a great manga. I also think a lot of people would agree if I said a large part of that is because of its stellar character writing. Togashi is really intentional with the way his characters speak, the actions they take, and how their personalities/beliefs influence the way they fight. In a manga where so much fighting is happening, it's super necessary. The decisions a character makes leading up to them throwing hands are just as important as who they're throwing hands against, why they're throwing hands, etc. Of course, these things are all portrayed through the way the main cast (Gon, Killua, and Kurapika mostly) develops their nen abilities alongside their continual character development, but my all-time favorite example of this is Knuckle Bine. He's in an arc that is perfectly set-up to portray morality through fighting, and all of his limited screen-time is used to show what he believes and why he believes it. So. Knuckle's entire character is this: He is a heart-of-gold delinquent. He comes off as a brute but is actually very kind behind that (paper thin) mask. He is driven by his emotions, but these emotions are very noble. He leads with his fists, yes, but not with anger.

Knuckle Bine (despite what everything on the surface might tell you... his intimidating looks, his insulting speech, his punch-first-think-latter attitude) is a pacifist and a good guy. He fights because he wants to understand others, and make sure no one gets judged unfairly. He’s explicitly stated his reasoning for being a beast hunter is so he can make sure that creatures that we can’t explain aren’t just destroyd because they’re “dangerous”. He wants a conversation; he wants the most peaceful solution. Hakoware is a really fucking good representation of these beliefs.

A friend of mine said that nen abilities are a manifestation of the restrictions one places on oneself, which is definitely true, but I also want to add that they're also a reflection of what you believe to be true about the world around you. Knuckle believes that everyone deserves a chance to explain themselves. Knuckle believes that fighting with another is a way to understand them. Fighting, to him, is a way to communicate. When he fights and loses to Youpi what saves him, Morel, and Meleoron is the fact that his beliefs were shown to Youpi through his determination.

The fact that Knuckle's goal is communication-- through fighting, yes, but not with the intention to kill (explicitly the exact opposite of that actually)-- is what forms the basis of Hakoware. And it's also what allows Hakoware to be so powerful. Hakoware activates when Knuckle lands a hit on his opponent, initiating his "conversation". It doesn't hurt, because Knuckle is lending his aura to his opponent. Pacifism proven upfront. Now, the opponent will accumulate a 10% "debt" based on the amount of aura Knuckle's lent, adding it every ten seconds. If the debt equals or exceeds the opponent’s total aura capacity (which will naturally go down over the fight as the opponent uses their own nen abilities), they go into "Bankruptcy" and become unable to use Nen for 30 days. Hakoware remains active until the opponent pays off the debt by attacking Knuckle with enough aura. These return punches also won't hurt Knuckle, because they're simply passing back the aura that is owed. Pretty neat, right? I'm sure you can see where I'm going. So, let's go back to the idea of nen abilities being restrictions on the self and reflections of your own worldview. Knuckle's Self-Imposed Restrictions

Hakoware only works if he's confident enough in his own ability to have a conversation. The ability wouldn't be useful if Knuckle couldn't logically think or understand his opponent during his fights.

Knuckle's Worldview

The 30-day nen lockdown is a direct representation of his character. It's an incredibly powerful ability, but it has no limits on who it can be used on in the way Kurapika's nen is. Why? Because Knuckle's conviction, his dedication to peace and understanding, is strong enough that it is baked into his ability.

Knuckle wouldn't use Hakoware on someone if it was not absolutely necessary. He wouldn't strip them of the ability to defend themselves unless the situation absolutely called for it. And even then, if he did win, we know that Knuckle is not the type of man to use that advantage to stamp his enemies down.

It's incredible that the ability can inform so much about his personality. It's incredible that his personality can make you understand the reasoning behind his ability's structure and use-cases. Good fucking manga.

[scarlet--wiccan]

Minorly annoyed that Billy uses the word warlock here as the masculine equivalent to witch as if he hasn't previously used 'witch' as gender neutral AND talked about warlock being a pejorative term for magic users that he personally does not like using... 'wiccan' would be the masculine term for a witch, that's why... he calls himself Wiccan...

Where are you getting the idea that "wiccan" is a masculine term for "witch"? That's not how we use it in the present day, nor is that the reason given in the comic.

Historically, my understanding is that "wiccan"-- or something like it, as these are all anglicizations-- was used either as a verb, meaning "to practice [witchcraft]," or as a plural form of the singular nouns "wicce" (feminine) and "wiċċa" (masculine.) "Warlock," from the Old English "wǣrloga," does in fact translate to "breaker of oaths," as stated in Young Avengers #10, and was taken more broadly to mean "traitor," "betrayer," or "deceiver." The term came to be used as a substitute for "witch" in an explicitly Christian context-- it was used to describe those who'd broken their Christian vows by making deals with devil. It has been used popularly as a masculine alternative for the conventionally feminine "witch" since the 20th century, which is probably more recently than a lot of people realize.

So, for several reasons, the "witch/warlock" gender dichotomy is not historically accurate, and culturally speaking, it's not always appropriate. Pop culture tends to default to this language, and I'd like to move away from that-- and if I were writing a book with multiple Jewish and Romani witch characters, this is exactly the sort of thing I would want to be mindful about. Representation is about more than giving a character brown skin and cramming in a bunch of little cultural/linguistic tidbits. Sensitivity is just as important.

Billy's feelings about "warlock" are inconsistent-- in Young Avengers #7, he actually chooses it over "witch," but three issues later, in #10, he rejects "warlock" and insists on being called a "witch." If you ask me, I think Heinberg himself was just figuring things out as he went along, and I genuinely don't think he knew anything about Wicca when he decided to call the character that. In hindsight, it gives the impression that Billy himself was doing research off-page and changed his mind about "warlock" after learning the etymology. But I do think it's noteworthy that Billy, having negotiated this aspect of his identity twice on-page, lands on the conventionally feminine option of "witch"-- it compliments a lot of the other choices Heinberg made and paints a very specific portrait of what kind of young, gay kid Billy represents.

[tinywalkingheater]

one thing that really irks me about a lot of media (tv shows and movies mostly) is that IF there's a character that is mentioned or shown to be menstruating for the first time, they're usually a teenager.

now why does this annoy me so much? because in real life a lot of afab people start menstruating before they are teenagers, and the ones who do start their first period in their teens are considered "late bloomers." of course I'm not bothered that there's representation of people starting puberty later in media but when I say I can't think of a single character off the top of my head who started puberty before they were 13, I mean it.

the chief example I'm thinking of right now is sansa stark in game of thrones. this is more of an issue in the HBO series because she and most of the other characters were aged up from their book ages by 2 years. at the beginning of the series, she is 13, and it's explicitly stated that she hasn't started menstruating when her wedding to joffrey is being discussed because she can't marry him until she's capable of bearing his children. I can't remember if it's in the 1st or 2nd season when it's mentioned she is having her "first blood," but I do remember it was during the battle of blackwater. if it was in season 2, she would've been 14. as I mentioned before, 13 or older is considered pretty late to have your first period, which is why I think the choice to age her up was overall harmful not only to her character but to people's perception of her character.

this matters to me a lot because I started puberty extremely early. as someone who is afab (a trans man), I had my first period when I was 9 or 10, and I barely knew what it was or what it meant. thankfully, my school district starts teaching sex ed as early as 3rd grade, so I at least knew a little bit.

the reason why I think this is so important is because a lot of what amab people learn about afab people's bodies is (unfortunately) from media. this provides a lot of misconceptions and it can make people think that it's inappropriate to talk about periods and menstrual hygiene with anyone younger than a teenager. those people then grow up to propose bills like the "don't say period" bill in florida that would limit sex education in elementary school and punish people for talking about reproductive health in schools. this is why I think it's harmful to normalize the idea that most people are teenagers when they start puberty, because for a lot of afab people, they're not.

sorry for the rant I just wanted to get that off my chest.

[starfleetisapromise]

Some thoughts on Picard Season 2 and why it's unpopular.

So I had a bit of an epiphany yesterday. I'm rewatching Picard Season 2 in preparation for a discussion about it with a colleague next week and I was constantly reminded that a lot of fans are very visceral in their dislike of this season.

To be honest, there are parts of it that I don't like. I think the whole Soong/Kore story was a totally unnecessary distraction and was only done, once again to shoehorn in Brent Spiner and the Picard/Data relationship - which I never found compelling in the first place. But that's just me.

However, I realized that Picard Season 2 does something that no other season (or show) of Star Trek does, it centers the entire narrative on humanity. By making the protagonists AND the antagonists humans, there is no subtle (or not so subtle) use of alienation to map contemporary adversaries or conflicts onto the Federation's adversaries. This is important, because, as I have argued in a multitude of research papers, Star Trek is very, very guilty of framing future conflicts through the lens of contemporary adversaries. This was done very explicitly in TOS - both Roddenberry and Coon overtly asked for the Klingons to be modeled on an "Asiatic Communist" trope. Communism was again the enemy in TNG, through the medium of the Borg and "assimilation" and loss of individuality. DS9 has its Cardassian "Nazis"; Voyager and Enterprise the chaotic post-Cold War existential threat of non-state actors and by the time we get to Discovery, the Klingons have been recast as Jihadist extremists.

The fundamental problem with this is that no matter how much Star Trek might talk about the Federation being a "future better us"; by casting recognizable real world adversaries as the Federation's foes, it automatically casts the contemporary US as the Federation (that's just how TV works, especially through the manichean lens of US culture).

So, if you don't want to think too hard about the ways in which the US interacts with the world. If you don't want to think too hard about American exceptionalism and Neo-imperialism and the misuse of force (and capital) without and within the US. If you cloak it all in the surface progressiveness of visible diversity - and I'm not claiming that diversity and representation isn't important, of course it is, but diversity does not equal progressive politics - then you can happily watch Star Trek without ever having to grapple with the uglier parts of the American experience. If we are the Federation, and clearly we must be because the Federation's foes are recognizably our foes, then we are already the galaxy's "good guys"; the Federation is just a future extension of the American now.

Season 2 of Picard blows that all apart. The bad guys are the Confederation and, by going back to the 21st century and exposing the roots of the Confederation in all the ugly, racist, greedy, unequal, venal, corrupt layers of 21st century America, the Confederation is a direct consequence of that present (our present) being allowed to play out into the future. We are the enemy in the 21st century and we become the enemy in the 24th century.

And the show pulls absolutely no punches. We get ICE brutalizing detainees and explicit discussions of people being disappeared because they are dehumanized as "non-people". Homeless encampments and immigrant clinics amid glittering towers and sumptuous parties. We get quips about the ridiculousness of pledging allegiance to a flag (thank you Ríos) and monologues about exchanging white hoods for suits (thank you Guinan). Some of the despair is directed to the behaviors of everyone on the planet - climate change - but the vast majority of the political commentary is explicitly about the contemporary US.

Not only that but it's done by a diverse cast that speaks Spanish, and is brown and queer and female and empowered (thank you Queen Agnes) and where the only white men are aging and feeble.

It is (the wandering Soong/Kore storyline notwithstanding) fucking brilliant television and it's the first time that Star Trek is ever explicitly - textually AND subtextually - progressive. There is no ability for the audience to elide the message by hiding in the fiction that we are the Federation and THEY are the bad guys (the Klingons, the Borg, the Romulans, the Breen, the Cardassians).

So no, let's get rid of the bullshit that people don't like Picard Season 2 because of "the writing", the writers room for Seasons 2 and 3 is almost identical (Matalas, Appel, Monfette, Maggs and Okomura) and the writing for both seasons was taking place almost at the same time.

Whether it's subconscious or not, the disproportionate degree of hate leveled at Season 2 (often by the same fans that love season 3 for it's "great writing" and overt nostalgia) exists because the storytelling in Season 2 leaves fans no place to hide. Because for the first time Star Trek really dives into the core of science fiction, which, as many, many sci-fi writers have explained (Margaret Atwood most recently), is not to predict the future but to critique the present.

I may come back and edit or extend this later, but right now I'm going to leave it as is and post.

Edited to clarify that you can hate Season 2 for any reason you want to, personal taste is just that, personal - but the (for the first time) explicit social commentary cannot be divorced from the unusual levels of vitriol hurled at this season by a substantial group of very vocal fans.

[eisforeidolon]

I always see this phenomenon. Do you also find it strange that mentality also trickles down to the actor? Jensen gets treated the same way. Which to me brilliantly highlights how stans are unable to disengage from media and get back to reality. Jensen isn’t actually Dean. He’s not supposed to be dying for Jared. He’s not supposed to be catering to Misha. SPN actually isn’t real life…. To your point, the Misha/Cas stans are actually losing the small territory they thought they owned. There’s so much actual representation in media now that their wails and whines don’t carry any weight (not that they carried much to begin with) I’ve seen people outside of SPN fandom rail on destiel for being total bait and not even good bait.

@holding-out-for-hea

Addressing this in a new post because I go on a bit (as per usual).

I have always found fans who treat actors like they're fictional characters rather disturbing. Whether we're talking in the sense of seeing them as actually being their characters (it's a job, ffs) or in the sense of thinking the RPF fans write must be trufax (you don't know these guys, ffs). Or both! It is an indicator of someone who has problems separating fiction and reality and strikes me as just creepily dehumanizing at its core. To be clear, I'm not talking about fans who are genuinely joking around, but I feel like sometimes the line can get so easily blurred between joking and “joking” I personally prefer to avoid even that for the most part.

As to the latter, yeah, that's why I've always scoffed at the assertion SPN's legacy was going to ultimately be heller positive in any significant way.

The first problem is that to believe D/C was ever a thing (or going to be a thing) in the canon pretty fundamentally required a deep dive into the fandom for the ship. Even if you wanted to, it's a lot harder to take meta whose underlying thesis is predicated on the existence of totally real signposts about the obviously intended ending of the show seriously when the ending of the show has aired and was so hilariously Not That. It's a lot harder to fully immerse yourself in an echo chamber of true belief when there's no active and prolific new reinterpretation content to be surrounded by on a weekly basis. It's a lot easier to see how cynically bait-y and baseless Misha's statements about the canon and Castiel's final scene were, given the nothingburger that's actually there. At the heart of it, so much of the necessary credulity relies on there being an active community to bolster it with years of sunk cost investment and ready-made nonsensically elaborate conspiracies to explain why it was totally going to happen but didn't.

The second problem is the hellers remain hung up on insisting D/C was some kind of uniquely important cause that NEEDED to be canon because it was fundamentally more important than not only SPN's actual premise on the strength of platonic love, but better representation than any other show's potential LGBT+ romances … because reasons. Aside from the usual arguments why that's absurd, i.e. it's just their personal obsession speaking and they constantly insist their ship is "proved" through toxic stereotypes which actually underlines the opposite of what they intend? They have also really showed their asses by vocally and obnoxiously crying it's totally unfair and doesn't measure up to what SPN could totes have done if they weren't cowards when other media canonizes popular ships like with Good 0mens. As you say, the more time that passes the more common it's going to be to have genuine, well-written LGBT+ love stories incorporated into new canons to be contrasted against D/C fandom's 'two dudes who were never each other's first priority, often treated each other like shit, and explicitly stated their feelings were familial … but looked at each other + obvious jokes = the greatest love story (n)ever told and the writers owed me!'. Even to someone completely unfamiliar with SPN and therefore unaware they entirely queerbaited themselves despite the show's content? The longer ago the show ended the more irrelevant and unimportant to good representation the ship not being canonized becomes, when it wasn't particularly relevant to begin with. Sure they got some sympathy from the unaware about That Scene followed by an angel-free final two episodes (though a lot of the buzz was just memeing the scnee because it was That Cringe even sans context), but now? Why not go watch something else that actually has representation instead of whining about a show from 2005 that ended in 2020, after all? It's old news, if you hated it that much there's newer better LGBT+ content out there being made every day!

So yeah, not only is there no there there, especially in comparison to any real love story? But the most obnoxious shippers continuing to loudly make genuine real life issues and other canons' legitimate LGBT+ representation about their bestest realest most totally canonest ship ever D/C that they were also totally cheated out of? It can only become even more obviously ludicrous and self-serving - and it was pretty blatant to anyone with a modicum of discernment and familiarity with shipper behavior to begin with.

[the-nosy-neighbor]

About Sally...

In my review of the latest update and the commercials portion in particular, I keep running into Sally. More after the break, spoilers included in this post.

So, a lot of posting about Sally is attaching her to Eddie, because of the door to her house. I posted briefly about the door to her house in my original post about clocks, because her doors greatly resembled the concept clock face, which was connected to Eddie, because of the watch he wears. We have seen that art change quite a bit, at this point. Eddie's watch is black and white now, which still has that light/dark theme, but didn't end up looking like the concept. Also, the post has shown up in town, and it is no longer a clock. In fact, the only place where this kind of art shows up in the actual project is on Sally's doors.

note: the eyelashes on the doors that Clown went with are less like the Eddie types included in this concept art.

This seems important because that dichotomy and coloring exists only in Sally's house and is echoed somewhat in the buttons on her overalls in some of the concept art. She resembles the left part of her door.

Some have mentioned that the right part of the door resembles Eddie. Eddie is associated with purple, and the eye is closed, which we have seen in Eddie a bit more than the other characters, it seems, but I'm not sure that is the answer for this particular part. I feel like with the day/night doors, it has more to do with Sally's personality than anything. Star/sun and moon. Sally talks about what happens at night during the Halloween story, which isn't really echoed by any other character at this point. Is Sally the thing that goes bump in the night? Even if she isn't aware of it? I feel like that split might mean that she might not be aware of it. In the past, I really expected to be introduced to a character that is Sally at night, or an entirely separate character that reflects the moon on her door.

I mentioned (in another post about the most recent update) that I find the concept of Sally being a treetopper/showstopper is very strange. It put me in mind of some kind of panopticon/lookout.

There are some representations of Sally doing this in the update:

No idea why she is upside down in this one. The audio of this is her and Frank getting into a slap fight.

She says this about Eddie at the Homewarming party.

So she is saying she is the decoration, but when I started looking at this a bit more closely, it started to feel a bit weird. Why is she in this tree that can see the post office specifically? And Eddie is right, where is everyone? This isn't a surprise party for Eddie or anything.

SALLY: ALL MORNING? MORE LIKE ALL DAY! I COULD SEE IT ALL FROM MY SPOT UP ON THE TREE! IT’S NOT EASY BEING THE MOST IMPORTANT DECOR OF HOMEWARMING… BUT I DO WHAT I MUST FOR THIS LITTLE NEIGHBORHOOD! 

But when I was looking at framing and storytelling and how this update clarifies who shares what, W mentions a "contributor" and how they are worried if they share the weirdness that is going on, what they would think. Either implied or explicitly stated that they might stop sending material if this were the case.

This made me think of the information we had about how the items originally showed up. Brightly colored envelopes, and I think we all had Eddie in mind at that point.

The update includes this information: "Since this website’s creation and our most recent burst in attention, we have been graciously given more material by our unknown source. We have also begun receiving large boxes smothered in similar substances. They are poorly put together- With tape, with yarn, with more paper- Sometimes the items inside have been smashed, other times they are beautiful and pristine."

This is further information than the brightly colored envelopes. The large boxes here are of poor quality and covered in craft supplies, which is also Eddie's thing on the show. Also, the smashed is either Eddie falling or being knocked down. So, what if we consider this as proof that Eddie is delivering these things? The black stuff will be held for a post about the black stuff, which will be soon.

So, if we know that Eddie is sending this stuff in, the things that happen in the commercials video start to make a little more sense. He wraps presents, freaks out a bit, decides everyone is playing in the snow, freaks out a bit more, looks for a note or something from anyone, and then gets angry about not receiving any mail and sweeps everything off of his desk. He decides to go looking.

Eddie was not invited to join everyone at the party until he left the post office:

EDDIE: MERCY! WHY AIN’T NO ONE TOLD ME ANYTHIN’! [HE SHOVES ITEMS OFF HIS DESK WITH A LOUD CLATTER.] NOT A CALL, A VISIT, A PEEP, OR NOTHIN! HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO DO MY JOB WHEN NO ONE GIVES ME SOMETHIN’ TO DO! WHO’S EVER HEARD OF FOLKS GETTIN’ RECOGNITION FOR NOTHIN? NO ONE, THAT’S WHO! …AT LEAST I DON'T THINK SO ANYWAYS… (HE SIGHS.) MAYBE I OUGHTA JUST GO OUT FOR A WALK.

SALLY: (STRUGGLING TO KEEP HOLD OF THE TREE) FEAR NOT, MAILMAN! IT IS I, YOUR BELOVED STAR OF THE HOMEWARMING TREE! COME TO BESTOW PEACE ONTO YOUR WORRISOME MIND! THE REASON WE DIDN’T ASK YOU TO DELIVER ANY PRESENTS IS QUITE SIMPLE! WE HAVE ALREADY DONE IT!  

EDDIE: REALLY…? WAIT, WHAT ARE YOU DOIN’ UP THERE-  

SALLY: EVERYONE INSISTS YOU WORK SO HARD! ALL OF US WANTED TO GIVE YOU A BREAK SO YOU COULD FINALLY ENJOY IT FOR YOURSELF- SO STUFF AN ENVELOPE IN IT AND ESCORT ME TO WALLY’S HOMEWARMING PARTY! COME ALONG, HURRY, HURRY-  

EDDIE: WELL… MAYBE I DO NEED A BREAK- OH! OKAY, OKAY, I’M COMIN’!  

NARRATOR: AND SO SALLY STARLET AND EDDIE DEAR MADE THEIR WAY TO HOME TO GATHER WITH THE REST OF THEIR FRIENDS! WHEN THEY ENTERED THE DOORWAY, THE NEIGHBORS CHEERED. FINALLY, EVERYONE WAS HERE! 

But everyone is not there:

We have Julie, Frank, Wally, Howdy, and Barnaby in this picture. Sally and Eddie have just walked in. They are all inside home. Where is Poppy? Poppy doesn't have any lines in this scene.

But Poppy did have a scene with Eddie on Homewarming Eve. He helps Poppy put the ham in the tree, and there was some gravy pouring on ornaments.

EDDIE: I LOVE A GOOD HOMEWARMIN’! WRAPPIN’ PRESENTS, DECKIN’ THE TREE WITH DISHES, AND GOIN’ OUT SINGIN’ CAROLS! I'M JUST PEACHY ABOUT HELPIN’ YOU PUT UP YOUR TREE TOO, POPPY! WHAT’S A HOMEWARMIN’S EVE WITHOUT A HOMEWARMIN’ HAM IN THE TREE, AFTER ALL!

POPPY: AND I DO SO APPRECIATE YOUR HELP, EDDIE! IT SOUNDS LIKE YOUR SCHEDULE MUST BE FILLED TO THE BRIM WITH ALL SORTS OF WORK! WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO GIVE YOURSELF SOME TIME TO ENJOY THE HOLIDAYS? EVEN I DON’T KNIT EVERY DAY… MY WINGS HURT JUST THINKING ABOUT IT!

Once again, we have someone pushing the idea that Eddie needs to take the day off, but it is just Sally and Poppy who we have seen saying it. After all that, Eddie starts having his freakout, and there are several images that pass through, but pouring gravy on an ornament is part of it.

This is during his conversation with Poppy, and during his freakout, the image of the gravy dripping off the ornament plays.

[solar-plant-princess]

Some people seem to think they aren’t canon, but I will simply state that they’re missing the point that they don’t need to explicitly say it.

“”The themes speak for themselves, and make it clear what the intent is. In this actual mini-essay I will actually talk a bit about why focusing on ships being “canon” is wasting the potential of queer representation, in particular reference to Lycoris Recoil.

Lycoris flowers represent a lot of different things, most famous is that red variants symbolize death and final goodbyes. However, of that same species are also a pink variant which symbolize love, passion, and … ahem “feminine beauty”.

There are also yellow and blue variants in other species of Lycoris plants. Yellow represents cheerfulness, courage, and cherishing what you have. While blue represents being calm and dependable, but also freedom.

It hardly gets more on the nose and it’s clear how these apply to the characters and the themes of their arcs. And how the story overall is at the intersection between love and death.

Plus there are literally multiple homages to pieces of media where the characters have been thought of as gay in the story or by audiences. In particular the scene in Stand By Me where the characters kick each other, which the animators made the deliberate choice of copying the overall mannerisms of to draw a direct parallel.

The story is about a hell of a lot more than just a romance, and that is a good thing! I don’t need every piece of representation to be about just romance. And you’d also have to be joking me if you don’t see them using the term “partner” even after retiring from being Lycorises to describe their relationship, as being tongue in cheek about how there is so much media where the characters are obviously but not explicitly queer. Throughout the show they are constantly making references to other ambiguously queer media, and using common language that is unclear about the exact nature of their relationship. Like, everyone wants their confirmed representation I get it, but could we also not call the show doing the most on the nose and tongue-in-cheek queer coding of their main characters “queer baiting”.

The creators have clearly purposefully evoked when not just directly referencing other media where the characters have been queer coded, or queer audiences have resonated with the experiences of the characters. This isn’t subtext that went nowhere, this is a deliberate choice to code the leads as queer by reclaiming things and phrases that have been used as subtext. And then, this is the important part, actually reframing the context to emphasize when they are doing it. See no further than the picture below this. “Partner” has a long and storied history of being used ambiguously, because how we use it slots between purely romantic and purely platonic, and can mean either depending on ... that’s right the context. Now let’s imagine you’re a restaurant employee, two women come in and order drinks. When one of them gets up to pick up their drinks and brags about the other woman being her “partner”, and reiterates the point. Now what sort of meaning can we imply from that context? Because if it was a straight couple, nobody would for a moment doubt that partner is in a romantic context.

Like c’mon people, they aren’t hiding it, but they don’t have to look directly into the camera saying they’re a couple for it to be obvious they aren’t “just besties”. Also I don’t even have time for going to go over how all the official art that’s come out since, and the fan art by the creators hasn’t been at all shy about showing them being more intimate than you’d expect from “just friends”.

Or that the season ended with them vacationing in Hawaii of all places. Or that the whole show had a rather open ending clearly hoping for more seasons, and this probably isn’t the end of their story together. Or that one of the original writers who was behind the entire idea for the show, and was a lead writer for the screen play has publicly stated on twitter he’d love to make them official, and told fans asking if the show would end up being a yuri show to “stay tuned for future stories“

Update: and behold, literally new art and products just got released of them literally in wedding dresses together. It’s more than obvious what exactly their intentions are with these characters. So please, please, understand that queer baiting is not just when a relationship you wanted doesn’t happen on screen. Queer people don’t only start existing once they’re in a fully intimate relationship. And queer people not ending up together at the end of what will probably be the first of multiple seasons is not the same as queer baiting. Especially not when the creators have clearly taken a lot of time and effort to consistently code them both as queer, in high effort and direct references to other media. (In a country like Japan where acceptance of queer people is certainly rising, but is also let’s be frank, far from in a good place and there are clear pressures to not show genuinely good representation for fear of upsetting a bunch of weirdos from the publisher’s perspective) (Yes I know the new Gundam show has lesbians in it, that’s also one of the biggest, most profitable, and longest enduring cross-media franchises in Japan, which is in a lot safer position to risk alienating bigots in their audience than a fully original animated show that didn’t get manga or light-novel deals until after the show was already being released and doing well. And an update since this was posted: the publishers of Gundam literally tried to retcon their queerness. This is my point, if you are expecting a country that hasn’t even legalized gay marriage yet to give you explicit queerness consistently you are barking up the wrong tree. They’ll literally try to walk it back if they think they can make more money off of retconning an explicit gay marriage out, you can’t rely on profit-driven corporations to actually care about making and keeping explicit queer relationships in their media just because it’s the right thing to do)

[overheard-at-camp-half-blood]

Common Arguments I Hear From People Who Believe Percy & Annabeth *MUST* Be Cast as White and My Rebuttal

“Well you wouldn’t cast a white person to play Hazel!”

Yeah, because Hazel is explicitly stated to be black, while Percy isn’t and her race plays a big role in her backstory, and who she is as a character- same with almost every other POC in the story. Percy and Annabeth’s race doesn’t play an important role in their arcs or backstories. Also, white people have plenty of representation, BIPOC don’t. Whitewashing one of the few black characters we have is not the same as making a character who’s white or racially ambiguous BIPOC.

“Annabeth is blonde!”

Have you not heard of hair dye? You do realize that many people of color have blonde hair, right? But for real, a lot of you people act like it would be the worst thing in the world if Annabeth wasn’t cast as blonde, which leads me to my next point.

“Annabeth being blonde plays a large role in her struggle, as she wasn’t taken seriously because of it!”

Not even going to comment on that actual part of the story, because there were alot of issues people had with it, but it wasn’t even a large part of her story- it was briefly mentioned in one book in the second. A lot more things contributed to Annabeth’s struggle than her being blonde, like the neglect she experienced as a child, her hubris, and her abandonment issues.

Also, you don’t think WOC don’t experience the same exact thing? The same struggles Annabeth has because she is blonde, WOC feel because they aren’t white! To a much larger degree! It wouldn’t be that hard to change and adapt her story, and it really wouldn’t change much about it.

“But the official art!”

You guys already know my rebuttal for this, but I’ll say it again for anyone who is new- official art isn’t canon. It is basically fanart (fan interpretations) that Rick paid to have on his wall. Fans are still allowed to interpret the story however they want, and they can still cast anyone for the series. Official art doesn’t necessarily make something canon.

“The cast of characters is so diverse, why take away more white characters?”

Yes, Heroes of Olympus is diverse, but that’s still five seasons away, and there is no guarantee that we’ll even get Heroes of Olympus. What’s the harm of making a character in PJO non-white in the meantime, when white people already have so much representation?

Anyways, I don’t care if you don’t headcanon them as POC, but please stop insisting they have to be white.

[bunnidid-reviews]

hi! i hope you're doing alright :) i just wanted to ask if there was any piece of advice you would give to someone trying to write a did system as a character. things to be considerate about, misconceptions to avoid, stereotypes to stray away from. anything really. i would like to approach this character in a way that is respectful, responsible and as educated as possible.

Hi, I’m doing well, thank you! I hope you are too ^^ thank you for sending this ask!

Please note: my reply might include things you don’t want to hear right now, so if you’re in a sensitive mindset, take some time away and take good care of yourself. (I know its not my responsibility to warn you, but I want to be a bit thoughtful anyway)

I would like to have a list of all the Bad Tropes for characters with DID, but I simply don’t. I come from a neutral perspective that bad tropes can be done well, and good facts can be portrayed badly. (Marc specter in Moon Knight does kill people, but the accuracy of which they portrayed DID is very good, for example. Tara from united states of tara, has all the correct things that someone with DID would have, but there are aspects that are portrayed poorly.)

I am someone who portrays DID in my own stories, so I’m going to give you the things I think about when giving DID to a character of mine.

First question: Do you have lived experience with DID?

There are many, many subtle nuances to living life with DID, as there are for many other mental disorders and disabilities( I consider my DID to be disabling whereas other people may not) that couldn’t be portrayed correctly unless you have lived experience of having DID, are a clinician who works closely with DID patients, or maybe live with someone very closely and intimately with someone who has DID(like my fiance) But I’d be very wary of the last section because even then, there comes assumptions and biases, like think of the ~Autism Moms~ version of autism.

There are so many tiny things you wouldn’t consider part of DID unless you had lived experience with it, and it shows in the media thats produced. Many of the things I praised in Waking Madison and United States if Tara being due to someone with a dissociative disorder worked on. Unfortunately, if you don’t have this experience, or someone on your team with experience, well.. I believe extensive research can only go so far.

If you condider yourself to have enough know-how with DID, like me, who has a dissociative disorder herself and many friends as well, I would consider this next question;

Does this character really need to have DID?

This is a hard criticism to accept I know, and probably very deterring. But think about it seriously: can the character have similar traits you want to portray due to something magical? What exactly do you want to portray with this character? Is it for the sake of diverse representation? Can you split apart the aspects of DID you want to portray and give another reason to it? (Many symptoms of DID are not exclusive to DID) if the trauma they experienced is really so great that it would create a DID situation, ask yourself again: why do i need to portray this? What aspect do I want to portray? Is there any other explanation?

I ask this to myself all the time to dissect what it is I want out of my DID-coded characters. For the key reasons I came up with, I ended up divided up my reasons amongst characters and created: a magical world that explores aspects of multiplicity. A magical explanation for a protector and protected dynamic. A character with extreme flight or fight responses. A character who dissociates. Several characters that portray parts of myself in their own stories.

Of the two characters I do have with DID, I still don’t diagnose them explicitly as having DID. For one, I don’t have a diagnosis myself. For two: its not obvious to anyone who doesn’t have lived experience with the disorder, but it still gets the point across to the people I want it to (the people who Know)

Intention is extremely important with this, as dissociative disorders tend to have a lot of stigma attached to them, as well as to be little-known about in general media. Your story could potentially be what people first see about DID, do you honestly think you could portray it in such a way that wouldnt give the viewer a weird conception about DID? (Like the typical dangerous crazy person, or ‘cant take care of themselves bean’, or other weird stereotypes people tend to have about disabilities)

If you’ve come out the other end of this and are still considering writing DID, my advice is this:

Look up how to write people with mental disorders and disabilities in a non-stigmatizing way. I personally don’t have enough knowledge on the subject, but there are tons of resources out there.

Do lots and lots and lots of research. My own knowing this much about DID has come from nearly 5 years of looking shit up and honestly? I learned the most making and relating to DID friends

There is nothing random about DID. Consider this carefully while making your character, that everything in each case of DID has layers and layers and layers of subtext that all relates back to one thing: Trauma

Make sure your research goes beyond online. Books are incredibly useful and I’ll be recommending some in coming posts! Please stay away from the overall ~plural~ community for facts about DID, because a lot of people get things very wrong.

Using the ‘correct words’ isnt as important as people think they are. (My fiance and I call my parts the Personas) its really not a big deal, esp if you’re not explicitly diagnosing your character(which id personally avoid anyway)

I’m sorry I don’t have an easy list of misconceptions about DID I could give you :< I know it’s what you asked for, but I only have my own experience and what I understand about my friends to go off for the most part, and aspects I say are wrong, could be another person’s lived experience. I’m still learning things all the time!

I wish you luck on your journey!

If you have more specific questions about my personal experience with a dissociative disorder, I wouldnt mind answering here or on @sundropglass

[tumblingxelian]

So, I am going to try and address this in good faith but I think there's a lot of misunderstanding or inaccurate readings of the shows canon.

Off the cuff, thw main cast spends most of their time either around explicitly disarmed civilians (Mantle) places so secure that having soldiers stationed everywhere would be pointless (Atlas, Vale) or cut off from the main bastions of society (Travelling Remnant).

In essence. its integral to remember RWBY is not a show with an obscene budget, and showing all the defenses, all the defenders, all the everything is not a good use of time unless it directly serves the story.

What's more, basically all the additional material serves to reinforce that there are more defenses than what we see or hear about in the show.

The Grimm Campaign we're shown that Mistral has anti aircraft guns, supersonic fighter/bomber aircraft and standard issue Lotus Tanks even in remote cities like Kuchinashi. RWBY Grimm Eclipse shows us just some of the defenses outside the walls with massive gun turrets. World of Remnant Between Kingdoms reinforces this as well. Plus we know that bombs & other unseen weapons were deployed on Monstra in V8 based on dialogue.

But again, RWBY doesn't have an infinite budget, if its not directly relevant or of lesser relevance than other factors we aren't going to see it .

This isn't putting no thought in, this is the writers trusting in their audience to put the pieces together without hand holding.

Moving on from that, I do feel its worth noting that we don't explicitly know if there's zero military in other nations. Though it wouldn't bother me given I think it makes a lot of sense actually for the following reasons.

1: Armies are controlled by the state or generals, both of whom can and will use soldiers for their own personal goals.

2: Military training evidently doesn't allow one to make highly skilled and powerful Aura users and get rank & file soldiers. Which is why entire platoons are needed just to bother moderately large Grimm that students can kill easily.

3: The Great War was a nightmarish borderline apocalyptic loss of life that likely fucked every nation over population wise for a generation and all for nothing. Armies are tools of conquest, not a worthwhile means of fighting the Grimm, something that was also demonstrated in Atlas when the Fleets bombing the Grimm failed to do real damage. Soldiers can support elite fighters, they cannot replace them.

4: The King who instituted the policies could easily have made himself world dictator for life, he had the power to do this.

5: Pretty sure the White Fang qualifies as the Kuo Kuana military given they are allowed to operate there and have representation and connection with the local government.

However, this all assumes you two are even correct, as matter stand this is what has been said on the matter of Remnants military:

While most kingdoms only call on its citizens to serve when needed, others find it important to be... prepared. He would teach the world to fight, so long as we promised to fight for ourselves and never against ourselves. Ironwood: How about the world's strongest military power?

This is all that's been officially said about it and only the first one really indicates Atlas as being exclusively military having. Even then there's more than enough nuance in language to assume that this just means the other kingdoms don't utilize armies. It likely just means that they utilize an army reserves system as opposed to Atlas's Standing Army system.

A system I might add which is bloated, the only thing the government cared about spending money on, left Mantle a barely defended and dilapidated and consistently proved to not be half as useful as the people trumpeting it claimed it to be. All of which aligns with the fact Atlas is explicitly, by the creators own words, based on the USAs.

Outside of that first statement, the second only emphasizes the fact that armies are tools of state conflict, hence a shift towards a system less reliant on what politicians wants. While Ironwoood's statement emphasizes only that Atlas has the "strongest" military, not that it is the only military.

Long story short, I think you're both being more than a little unfair.

I try not to think too hard about RWBY's worldbuilding (bcs frankly I'm not sure even CRWBY thought too much about it outside of the bare minimum) but one thing that'll never sit right with me is how... disarmed, the nations are. In a world where monsters roam the countryside freely and are a constant danger, relying on a small class of specialists to deal with everything is frankly kinda stupid. Atlas being the only Kingdom with a large standing army doesn't make sense no matter how much suspend your disbelief.

[x-imy23]

Tim Drake is Bi

I don’t usually post my personal thoughts on this account but I really need to get this off my chest. 

So...Tim Drake, the third Robin, came out as bi in Batman: Urban Legends #6 (UL). Technically, he has not assigned any labels to himself yet but both the writer and her creative team as well as DC official accounts have confirmed he’s queer.

Tim is my favorite character, I grew up reading his comics and I think him being bi fits his character very well. Personally, I've always considered him queer (like many others) and I find Tim's exploration in UL very realistic, it reminds me of my bi awakening. However, I have seen a lot of people hating on this news and being very toxic about it. This is very sad and also frustrating since most of their arguments are pretty weak in my opinion so I’m going to address the points that bother me the most.

1. Tim has only dated girls before and never showed any signs of liking boys in the 30yrs that his character has been around.

Let me make it clear: even though Tim has only dated girls in the past, it was never explicitly stated that he was straight, people just assumed and times weren't as progressive when Tim's character was created so writers wouldn't have been able to write him as queer even if they wanted to. Furthermore, as hinted before, a lot of people already believed he was queer and it can be argued that there’s a lot of subtext in previous comics making Tim a queer-coded character. His relationship with Conner (Superboy) is the most talked about in regards to the queer subtext. When Conner died, Tim took his death very hard to the point that he tried cloning him 99 times (Teen Titans Vol 3 #34). At the time, Tim had also lost his father, Bart, his girlfriend Stephanie and Bruce. Out of all of those deaths, he really seems to have taken Conner’s the hardest even over his girlfriend's. Tim even changed the colours of his costume as a tribute to Conner. 

Another iconic scene can be found in Graduation Day #5 (2003) where Tim and Conner are in a closet which was seen as ambiguous by many readers to the extent that even the writer Judd Winnick replied to a Tweet saying that he saw it as the opportunity for them to come out of the closet. 

Even in the New 52 reboot where their past relationship was erased, there are quite a few instances that can be read through the queer subtext. Most notoriously, in the 2015 Teen Titans run in the annual #1 and Teen Titans #12. In the latter, Tim is basically having a breakdown trying to stop Conner going back to the villain Harvest. It’s very emotional.

And let’s not forget when Tim joined a pride parade in Teen Titans #24 (2015). 

One of my favourite instances is the one in Batman Detective Comics #967 when Tim is the only one remembering Conner. 

 2. Why can’t they create new characters or use a character already established as part of the LGBT community?

I think him being a well established character and one of the Robins is a massive deal for representation. Side characters or even new ones often don't receive any spotlight or the right recognition but DC are making a stronger statement with such an important IP like Robin.  Also, bi men usually get less representation compared to bi women and while DC already has bi characters like Constantite or the recently introduced Ghost Maker, it can’t be denied that they don’t have the same popularity as Robin. 

Furthermore, Robin is also an already loved and well-rounded character with many stories behind him and I feel this could help readers identify with him more easily. I really think Tim is a perfect choice, not only because of the instances mentioned in the previous point, but also because he’s been seen questioning his place as well as his identity as a superhero a lot in recent comics which can also be seen as a hint foreshadowing the exploration of his sexuality.  

 3. This coming out is forced. They are changing a character’s sexuality to appease the Twitter crowd. Why do they have to talk about a character's sexuality?

As I established in point 1, nowhere in 32ish years was confirmed that Tim was straight. Even if readers have enjoyed Tim’s stories for decades, he's still canonically a teenager and traditionally this is the age when people start exploring their sexuality so questioning himself is not unrealistic at all. Personally, I think it was done very well in UL and I’m sure that many readers have had a similar experience. It also doesn't mean that Tim’s sexuality was "changed". Sexuality is a complex thing and people can take years to discover themselves. Tim being bi doesn't change what is great about the character nor does it erase his past relationships and experiences. 

The people complaining forget that being straight is also a sexuality so why it is okay for a character to allude to a straight relationship but not to a queer one unless those people are being hyprocrits? And the hypocrisy doesn’t end there if we think about the bi women characters those same people are okay with (e.g.  Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn, and Catwoman). And for straight people who say it's forced, think: how long have we had heteronormativity forced down our throat? In this particular case, you don’t have to go that far, just think about the Batman and Robin relationship. This relationship was considered queer-coded very early on when the characters where created to the point that DC intruduced the first incarnation of Batwoman as a potential love interest for Batman and later pushed for the the first Robin, Dick Grayson, to have a playboy persona on par with his father figure to try and placate conservative readers.

4. Tim Drake and Stephanie Brown. Why did they break up off panel? Why break them up at all? They only broke them up to make Tim queer.

Stephanie Brown aka Spoiler aka Robin aka Batgirl has been Tim Drake’s main love interest for many years. Many people love this relationship, me included. However, I can’t deny that there are some things that make me think that maybe they are not that good for each other like the power imbalance that comes through in some comics, especially the earlier ones. Sometimes it also feels like her character only exists to give meaning to the men around her which is sad since her character has a lot of potential but it is often left aside. 

That said, Tim has not denied his love for Stephanie in UL and him being bi does not invalidate what they had in the past or can still have in the future. In regards to their break up, a lot of people feel that it was out of the blue or that there was no need for it since he’s bi. I admit that they could have handled it a little bit better BUT it’s also true that Tim’s been going through some personal discoveries. This can be very overwhelming and some people may prefer dealing with that on their own first and even turn away from the people who love you the most. 

In UL #6, Tim even admits that he broke up with Stephanie for no reason but it’s also true that Tim has always put others’ needs before his own (see how he became Robin in the first place) so I don’t think it’s far-fetched that he now wants to deal with figuring himself out on his own. It was long overdue in my opinion. This doesn't mean that Tim and Stephanie’s relationship won’t be addressed later on. Let’s consider the fact that Urban Legends #6 is not the last we’ll see of Tim but this chapter of his story has just begun so there’s still a lot to be explored and even though many people considered this move by DC to be a form of money grub (let's be real, what isn't these days), it can still be good for representation if done right. We’ll just have to wait and see.

I want to end by saying that whatever your opinion is on the matter, there is no excuse for hate. You can still be respectful of other people’s opinions and if not, just move on with your life. Trust me, you’ll live longer if you don’t poison yourself with hate and there are things far more important than a comic character coming out on which you can spend your energy on. 

Thank you.

[hamliet]

Dabi’s Missing Heart

So I’ve been seeing two main responses to Dabi’s character as portrayed in BNHA 292, both of which I feel touch on a very surface understanding of his character and role in the story despite seeming like opposite takes.  

Take #1: 

Dabi is an unfeeling monster created to show the redeemability of Shigaraki and Enji in contrast with his true eeeevil villainy! He will never be redeemed! 

Take #2: 

Dabi is a sweet softy who did nothing wrong! He will never be redeemed because of this chapter which is so out-of-character! 

Note how they both have the same endpoint. I’m not actually gonna address the redemption question much because I can’t fathom what this panel foreshadows if not Touya’s salvation (alive): 

I’m not looking to debate this either; I’m just putting it here because I know it’ll come up if I don’t.

Instead, I wanna address Dabi’s character. He’s my favorite, and I’ve been asked a few different times whether I enjoy him as a villain or as an uwu poor baby, and my answer is always both. 

Dabi is a villain. This chapter’s rampage is, in my opinion, not remotely out of character for him. But neither is it the summation of his character, and he surely is not meant to make Enji look good by comparison. 

So, who is Dabi? 

Dabi is kind of a flaming jerk, and that’s why I like him. He’s an abuse victim who gets to be angry and crass and sharp. He pushes people away because he doesn’t want to open up to them and get burned (heh). He’s just like Shouto in that, except with a dose of murder. 

Believe it or not, this is a very realistic response to abuse, and very common too. It’s good to see that representation. If the writing was indeed just “he’s bad get rid of him,” well, that would of course be a terrible representation. But seeing a mean victim get redeemed? Now that’s some good sh*t I’m here for. 

If you want a sweethearted, misunderstood soft victim, there is one in MHA, and that’s Shigaraki. Dabi is not these things, but that does not mean he’s not a victim or that he’s somehow an unfeeling monster.

You see, Shigaraki is a heart character. Dabi’s the mind. (Heart and mind characters are a literary pattern that is utilized in literature across the globe; it’s not an eastern/western cultural thing. It has its roots in alchemy.) The problem is that you can’t have a heart without a mind nor a mind without a heart. If you lack one, you’re missing half the picture, and you won’t accomplish anything. 

We see this with Shigaraki in his quest to look for ideals, something to believe in, purpose to justify/enable acting on his feelings/emotions. 

Dabi, in contrast, has conviction and ideals, but eschews any kind of personal connection and care. 

So, both Shigaraki and Dabi struggle to unite heart and mind--but they need to do precisely this. 

It’s not a coincidence that Shigaraki expressly envisions both Dabi and Himiko when musing on what his purpose is. 

Yet Shigaraki is able to unite more easily with Himiko as opposed to Dabi because Himiko is also a heart character. She claims to be motivated by extreme empathy that warps around to become a lack thereof (wanting to be who she loves).

Shigaraki’s motivations are basically revenge for hero society not saving him--which encompasses both a deep internal and external (societal) need for empathy and a need for better ideals. Shigaraki needs Himiko and Dabi. They’re a trio, and all of them need each other to grow. But Himiko, being similarly driven expressly by emotions, is easier for Shigaraki to understand and work with. 

The irony is that Dabi is actually a very, very emotional character as well. But what he does (as is typical for a mind character) is repress them, compartmentalize, dissociate. He constantly pushes people away, yet admits privately, to himself, that he’s primarily (and paradoxically) motivated by family. This is emotional, yet Dabi claims he “overthought” and, according to other translations, “snapped” can be actually be read as “went crazy” as a result over overthinking (note: both are mind allusions). 

Dabi repressing who he is--Todoroki Touya--is symbolic of him repressing his emotional side, because again, family and emotions are tied together for his character. Now his identity is acknowledged, and Dabi claims to be losing his mind (again), claims that he can’t feel, and yet is completely consumed by emotions. Like, does anyone think he’s being methodical and calculating this chapter? 

It’s not just negative emotions (rage, hate) that drive Dabi in response to his family. His seeking belonging and emotional connection is present even in a chapter where he tries to murder two members of his family and laughs off the risk to the life of another. 

See, Dabi first asked Shouto to validate his pain:

But like, given the circumstances, of course Shouto doesn’t really respond well. How Shouto responds is this: 

Shouto’s words are triggering. And keep in mind I am not blaming Shouto: he’s in shock and he’s a kid. I’m merely trying to explain how it likely comes across to Dabi. 

You’re crazy. Your feelings don’t matter. You don’t really care about Natsuo! You’re a villain and that’s ALL you are. Not a brother or abuse survivor. Just a villain. 

So, uh, yeah, Dabi then retreats back to being unable to feel, dissociating as has always been his coping mechanism. But that’s not all: Dabi’s been repressing for so long that of course he’s gonna go a little insane in response to the dismissal of everything he’s trying to point out. Why wouldn’t he? His family dismissed his pain back then and now again, and so, without that heart, without those emotions, principle is all Dabi has. This has been present since long before Stain’s ideology came into his life: 

Now, he answers this question of existence through Stain’s ideology.  Purpose is all he has, and to him, Shouto and Best Jeanist are dismissing that too. Why are they dismissing it? Best Jeanist dismisses him for an ideal: the overall good of hero society. Shouto has a mixture of this ideal and also like, genuine shock and pain. 

Back to Dabi. Dabi’s summation of himself and his purpose is incorrect and harmful to himself and others. I’m not excusing him or justifying, just explaining. It’s a tragic reflection of what Endeavor raised both Touya and Shouto to be (and thereby ironic that BJ uses an ideal to dismiss him): 

Instead of being raised to be the symbol of hero society--as Endeavor intended--he exists to destroy it. The root is the same: Dabi assumes he exists for hero society, as a tool. He dehumanizes himself, hence why his quirk physically harms him (which also fits his almost religious zeal for Stain’s ideology). But it is not all Dabi is. He’s not a tool, he’s a person, but to acknowledge he’s a person involves acknowledging his heart/emotional desires, and that gets to my next point.

Dabi’s not a reliable narrator about himself. At all. I’ve written about Dabi and dissociation before. So let’s look at Dabi’s devotion to his ideals, the ideals he puts above people and claims he only cares about... because there are moments where Dabi goes against those ideals. 

For one example, Dabi’s gone against those ideals when he’s allowed his personal need for revenge (an emotional/heart motivation) to overcome his longterm plan. Like, he was fully about to get himself killed here, even though that would likely mean no one would know the corruption of the Todoroki family and hero society, just for the chance to prove to his father that he hurt him. 

In addition, I’ve talked before about how Dabi’s the only character in the entire damn manga to comment that maybe using child soldiers is not okay. While it’s not explicitly stated, it’s reasonable to conclude that Dabi considers the abuse of children in hero training a sin of hero society that ought to be purged (hence, part of his ideals). 

That said, I have also pointed out that Dabi has gone after children in the past when it benefits his mission (Bakugou would like a word). So let’s look at four examples of Dabi and his principles concerning kids--since, after all, he claims to be motivated by heroes who hurt kids. 

Firstly, Dabi’s “save the cat” when he spared Aoyama. 

Why did he spare Aoyama? We can only speculate, but it seems quite likely there are two reasons: 1) hurting Aoyama would not add anything to his overall goal of downing hero society, and 2) a terrified, cowering kid might just have been a teeny bit familiar to Dabi. Here, his ideals--destroying hero society--either take a backseat to a reflection of his personal pain (and)/or his ideal of not abusing kids directly contradicted his ideal of bringing down hero society. But the important part is that in this instance, Dabi chose mercy and the goal of bringing down hero society was jeopardized as a result. 

So then why did he attack Tokoyami, Nejire, and Shouto this arc? Well, Dabi does things he knows are wrong for the sake of accomplishing his overall purpose. He does things he knows hurt himself for this purpose. This isn’t new. If he can’t be acknowledged, can’t exist as a person with emotions, then he at least will ensure he still has a purpose.  

In addition, let’s look at what sets Dabi off in all of these instances. (Again, this isn’t me saying “well actually Dabi’s justified.” He’s not. I’m just pointing to what’s in the text to explain the machinations beyond “bad guy do bad.”)

Dabi tries to reason with Tokoyami, pointing out that Twice was doing essentially what Tokoyami is doing: trying to save his friend(s), but Tokoyami doesn’t listen (also again: not me saying Tokoyami should have listened--realistically, in this situation, it makes sense Tokoyami trusted his mentor!)

Only after his reasoning was rejected did Dabi go to flames mode. He could have just let Tokoyami save Hawks, but instead he really wanted to kill Hawks and that overrode his other principles. Was this just because of his furthering his goal--killing the #2 hero would help destroy hero society--or because of a sense of personal revenge for Twice? That’s open for interpretation (in my opinion, it’s likely a mixture, because again, it tends to intertwine more than Dabi likes to think it does). His principles and/or emotions are brushed aside, and Dabi Does Not Like That. 

Dabi does this again with Shouto this chapter, asking him where he stands on their family issues, and gets brushed aside, and then Shouto goes into his rage mode and Dabi responds. Again, not saying Shouto is rational here or that he should side with Dabi’s murderous plan, but like, his words really don’t come across well to Dabi. 

Dabi going after Shouto after explaining things, asking Shouto for help, and then having his pain dismissed is pretty much a repeat of Tokoyami. When Dabi’s pain is dismissed, he says fine, let’s aim for the highest principle possible: making Stain’s will a reality, and damn any emotional ties. 

Dabi’s obsession with ideals, you might say, is a smokescreen to cover his own pain. Far from feeling nothing, he feels very deeply. (I promise I’m getting to Nejire.) 

So what does this indicate? Well, that Dabi does have a heart and a conscience. But when he lets his heart act, when his heart reaches out, he gets burned. His heart jeopardizes his overall purpose, so he most often dissociates himself from it. But by pretending he doesn’t have a heart, he dehumanizes himself, and he projects that dehumanization onto others (see: seeing Shouto as an extension of Endeavor, when that’s actually the precise image Shouto is trying to shed). 

It’s not a coincidence that Shigaraki has been unconscious during the entire confrontation with Endeavor, nor is it a coincidence that Himiko has been MIA. But, Shigaraki wakes up a bit this chapter not only when hearing Dabi spout about how hero society needs to burn, an ideal/the thing Shigaraki lacks, and through a less important but still-ideal-driven character in Spinner asking him to accomplish his supposed ideal of destruction, but when Dabi saves Shigaraki and Spinner. 

Dabi doesn’t burn Nejire for lols (not that this makes it better because it doesn’t) or even for ideals. He burns her to save Shigaraki and Spinner, because they are his links to full humanity right now. 

(Again, this is also dissociation and projection: Endeavor did this! No, Dabi, you did. You’re perpetuating violence against kids rather than stopping it.)

But anyways, when Dabi calls upon heart, Shigaraki wakes. He lends Gigantomachia and thereby Dabi and the league power. 

Dabi can only grow and actually accomplish anything related to his ideals (fixing hero society) through accepting a heart--even though that will likely mean some painful surgery to shift his ideals to accommodate said heart, because pure ideals don’t leave much room for humanity. He needs to feel to actually change anything, because right now he’s just making things worse (hence, the need for saving and redemption).

I know the League aren’t the protagonists of the serIes, but their complaints aren’t exactly incorrect either (if anything they’re almost a little too valid). But through growing together, Dabi, Shigaraki, and Himiko might actually be able to accomplish something, and get themselves in a place where they can be reached and saved by Shouto, Deku, and Ochaco. Because to be saved, the kids will have to acknowledge the villains’ pain and complaints, and do something about it.