#wordy wordy so very wordy

[alikat7]

I read your post for your opinions based upon FATWS…and I completely agree! Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed the show but things could have been better.

However, I have one big complaint and it is one I’ll never be over because it’s so sad.

Why was it ever okay, in the show, to make light of Bucky’s internal struggles and his PTSD. His therapist? Absolutely Horrible. I mean, this woman was HORRIBLE.

Sharon and Sam making jabs at him multiple times about being a killer or his “cyborg” brain. One person….ONE person told him “thank you” and that was it. This guy has dealt with more in his life than any of them, yet he was treated like some sideshow and trash talked because of his past. It made me so angry and it especially made me angry that Sam was one of the main culprits and when Sam told Bucky that the business with the shield “didn’t concern him…” I wanted to fly through the tv and smack him. More than anyone, other than Sam, the business with the shield DID concern Bucky. The writers took a character, with a very good (though traumatic) background and trashed him. It’s really sad.

At one point closer to the show airing I did go over this part too. I think it bothered me more when people other than Sam did it mainly because Sam would pick on him then turn around and ask if he was okay. I got madder about John Walker and Zemo (maybe Karli, I can't remember) who made very cruel comments that implied that he took the serum by choice -

"This is all really easy for you, isn’t it? All that serum runnin’ through your veins" John Walker

"The serum never corrupted Steve." Zemo - bothered me because it didn't corrupt Bucky either. Brainwashing corrupted The Winter Soldier. Bucky never had a chance to prove he couldn't be corrupted. BUT as soon as he escaped the brainwashing he made the choice to be a hero . There are more quotes but those are two that always stuck with me.

I love the MCU but I feel like at times they don't think about what they're saying about real-life emotional and psychological problems using fictional characters. Like the fact that they dig so deeply with trauma with certain characters over and over again - Bucky, Thor, Wanda, etc But then they turn around it make it a joke.

Like Thor's weight problem in Endgame. It would have been funnier if he had just got fat partying, maybe I guess. But he was eating due to extreme depression, grief, and PTSD. And they made jokes and mocked him. What does that say about real life? Depression and mourning are funny? Wanda and Thor are repeatedly losing people and not one person in the Avengers ever sat down and asked are you okay except Vision with Wanda? Or the fact that after Endgame Wanda was left completely alone. Everyone she knew just left her to go to their family or they had died. Someone with that much power should never be left alone and in mourning, because if they have the ability to solve their pain using bad methods - holding a town hostage or killing a girl to get her power - they can do it and no one is there to say 'hey wait, let's talk about this'

They forced Bucky into therapy but yet none of the other Avengers were treated for PTSD. Although his therapist amused me at times - Bucky shouldn't have to make amends unless HE feels like he needs to. I'm sure no matter what he feels a ton of guilt so if he wants to make amends on his own, good for him. But not court-appointed. In Civil War Ross made a special point of showing the Avengers how much damage they had done to the world while saving it. The Hulk almost broke South Africa, and Wanda set Hulk in motion and blew up a building by accident, etc. None of them are required to make atonement. Yes, Bucky killed people one on one as the Winter Solder unlike some of the actions the Avengers did that had bad outcomes. But still - he's the only one forced to make atonement.

In some ways. I agree with Zemo about Super Soldiers and Super Heroes. Too much power is a curse. Think of Tony blowing up things at his birthday party because he was depressed.

Semi-related, me and my sister are very different. But Civil War is a topic we cannot discuss. At all. Ever. We have gotten into screaming matches because she defends Tony, thinks Steve and Sam are hypocrites, and cannot see that what Steve did doesn't make him a bad person. She often brings up how many people probably got hurt in the street chase after Bucky. Steve went after Bucky for 2 reasons. Bucky was like a brother two him and he knew that the Winter Soldier could probably kill anyone else. He thought he was going to Romania to get the Winter Soldier, not Bucky so he was trying to help. Then they went to Siberia to get the other super soldiers. Once again, trying to do the right thing. Yes, they broke tons of laws. They destroyed an airport and anyone could have gotten hurt at the airport. But Tony is not the saint that everyone says he is. He wanted the Sovokia accords because HE felt guilty about Ultron. He demanded Cap turn on his childhood friend to sign the accords even though Steve didn't agree with the accords. Why did Tony think he had the right to make up Steve, Sam, or Wanda's mind? Also, from the beginning of that conversation to the end, Steve was protecting and defending Wanda and all of the Avengers. Not once did Tony defend Wanda's bombing accident. She killed people BUT more people would have died if she did nothing. And it was an accident. So basically Tony's covering his ass and not defending anyone else. Then after that -

1 - He goes to NY to pick up a 15 yr old kid to fight other enhanced people including possibly the Winter Soldier. WHAT? I love Spider Man but come on. Tony considered the WS deadly and through Peter Parker into a fight not knowing what the WS might do to him

2 - When Vision - on his team - hit Rhodey with a blast and Sam tried to help then came to Tony to check on Rhodes, Tony blasted him directly in the face. The bruise was horrible so I'm assuming it could have been worse. So his intense emotions over his bff made him assault a fellow Avenger and Cap is 'off the reservation?? Cap didn't hurt anyone in retaliation for Bucky being hurt.

3 - Then the fight with Bucky/Cap. I get Tony wanting to kill Bucky. I would too if it were my parents because you can't be logical about people you love being murdered. But Tony was willing to kill Cap to get to Bucky. Steve was just trying to stop Tony and Bucky was fighting back and defending himself. So how can Tony be in the right?? My sister claims that Bucky and Steve ganged up on Tony and that Steve took out the thing that powered Tony's suit which was wrong. But really, Bucky and Steve were trying to stop Tony and defend themselves and each other. Neither one of them had any intentions of killing Tony. And cutting off the power to his suit was the best way to shut it all down.

4 - Steve sent a message to Tony, in the end, saying he would always be there for him and Tony didn't want to even call him in Infinity War. He was that childless about it Then he attacked Steve in Endgame for stopping Tony from creating an Ultron-like defense implying Thanos was basically all Steve's fault. He's rarely a selfless leader or hero but he'll criticize Steve for the one time Steve said fuck it, I'm doing the wrong thing to protect my friend. No one else in the world would have defended Bucky while Tony always had lots of people to defend him at any time - including Steve.

Wooowwwww this was so long-winded. I almost deleted most of it but shit, I'll post it lol I should get paid by the letter lol

[cruelsister-moved2]

for real! (from kadji amin)

[Image description: Screenshot of text:

What I've realized is that I believe that the matter of gender is practical and relational. It's not about who you are inside, it's more about how you would feel most comfortable in the world. It's not 'Who are you?' but 'How do you want to live?'

Had that been the discourse when I was coming up, I would have breathed a sigh of relief. I don't have to figure out who I am on the inside, I just have to figure out how I want to live.

end of ID]

[dandelion-roots]

[ID: a digital redraw of the scene where chuuya shoots dazai in the shoulder. on the top of the drawing is chuuya holding a guy to dazai's head in the red and grey hallways of the prison. on the bottom of the drawing is dazai's pained face. the gunshot is shown stylistically as hectic lines behind his bloody shoulder. over the image is half a quote from goncharov that reads 'if we really were in love you wouldn't have missed.' the signature says dandelion-roots. end ID]

This quote from Goncharov (1973) in relation to soukoku has been haunting me from before I even got to that scene in the anime (the full thing is: Katya- Of course we're in love, that's why I tried to shoot you/ Goncharov- If we really were in love you wouldn't have missed). Violence as a tool for communicating emotions, especially love and hatred, especially love and hatred makes me go feral- how could I not think of the iconic quote that says that katya's miss was a sign of a lack of love/a fake love when chuuya didn't miss? Just... losing it over here.

[bisexualfbiagents]

You of all people should realize that sometimes motivations for behavior can be more complex and mysterious than tracing them back to one single childhood experience.

THE X FILES GIF MEME [2/9] SCENES from Oubliette (3.08)

[gloriousmonsters]

the entire vibe of twilight princess is just *touches ground* something terrible happened here

edit: OKAY a few people requested/expressed dismay that so much was just in the tags so I'm taking them from the tags and putting them under a cut here :P i'm happy people like them

#no gerudo in the gerudo desert. the twili being the product of ancient magic mass incarceration. zelda's depression and guilt and fuckin#'i don't deserve a bedframe' type room. the triforce of power keeping ganondorf alive - what do the gods want? guess they must be crazy#or maybe we kiiind of fucked up (no gerudo) (arbiter's grounds) (there was a war in ocarina and we don't talk about it)#(and there is an implied war potentially one of attempted extinction hidden between the pages of TP's history)#(hyrule's very good at not talking about its wars) (zelda says 'this is the least i can do' and tries to kill herself to save midna)#(your shade from the past teaches you how to kill and tells you to seek power and teaches you to kill again)#(putting an enemy on the ground isn't enough unless you finish them quick)#(your shade from the past wears armor. the spirits slipped chainmail under your kokiri clothes.)#(the monsters that claw blindly at you are the warped souls of the captured. the benevolent spirits of light insist they're beyond saving.)#(the arbiter's grounds is so so full of the furious dead. in the desert. the gerudo desert)#(the princess sees you not knowing who you are but only seeing that you are a monster and are chained and she apologizes)#(zelda gives her life to save midna and when ganondorf dies she prays in silence)#no esteemed deed is commemorated here etc etc#anyway. ignore all that. i'm obsessively thinking about the idea/theory of link fighting on the side of the gerudo in the past of TP#(hence his appearance on Ganondorf's armor) bc it makes everything Even More Fucked Up#thinking abt this game depresses me so much. i love it

[sokkas-therapist]

Ok so I decided I am going to post that “atla live action hot take” I mentioned

Click below the cut if you’re interested in hearing my take on the whole “taking away sokka’s sexism” thing

1) nobody is glorifying sokka’s sexism by saying it should be kept in the show. It’s quite literally the opposite. The original series did a great job using his sexism as a lesson; any time sokka made a sexist remark in the first 4 episodes it was made abundantly clear that he was wrong, and as soon as Sokka was proven wrong he admitted that he was misguided, apologized, quite literally bowed down on his knees to ask for forgiveness, and even asked to learn from the kiyoshi warriors, and excepted wearing their traditional uniforms, further surrendering his flawed perspective of societal gender roles. A wonderfully executed example of writers using their characters to teach viewers a lesson: which was, in this case, that sexism is wrong. Sokka’s sexism was not left unresolved, so why take away a valuable lesson in the show??

2) if you take away a character’s flaws…then they don’t have development. A character can’t learn and grow from their mistakes if they never make mistakes.

If a charecter starts off perfect and unflawed then they are surface level and lack depth or the ability for an arc.

And no, this is not saying that Sokka didn’t have many other admirable qualities like his intelligence and adaptability etc.. He 100% had those qualities. But one of the coolest things about the original atla series was their ability to flesh out side charecters and give them depth. A charecter who is simply smart then becomes smarter, or adaptable then becomes even more adaptable, lacks depth and internal conflict.

Sokka’s sexism was the starting point for his internal conflict. Sokka wasn’t just sexist to be sexist, or because the entire southern water tribe was misogynistic (and we know for a fact they weren’t, because if they were misogynistic, then Katara wouldn’t have been shocked when the North denied her waterbending training). He was misogynistic because being seen/accepted as a “man” and a strong warrior was all Sokka wanted after his father left him behind. In reality, we know his father was only trying to protect his son from the horrors of war. But to a young and impressionable child, Sokka internalized this as him not being “man” enough, so he dedicated himself to becoming the person he thought would make his father proud. He was always reaching for this unattainable standard he set for himself, which lead to him having a skewed and toxic view of masculinity that he took out on the women around him. He associated being a worthy warrior with being a traditionally masculine man, and leaned way too far into fulfilling the gender roles men and women are told to play in society in hopes of gaining his father’s approval. We see him do this by suppressing his feelings of inferiority as a nonbender, along with all the aspects of himself that he thought could be seen as “weak” or “feminine” (ex: his love for shopping and poetry and art that we see develop up until the literal end of the series).

So clearly, the vast majority of sokka’s charecter development that deals with internal conflict stems from the toxic view of masculinity and gender roles that he adopted after being left behind by his father, which caused him to outwardly lash out toward katara and Suki with misogynist comments. So taking away the sexism we see in the first few episodes eliminates important context that makes sokka’s character development throughout the entire series significant, not just an “iffy unnecessarily bigoted message”, because it was quite literally used to show that sexism was wrong.

I wasn’t going to say anything about this at first but seeing so many people display a fundamental lack of understanding for the premise of character development and the usage of charecter flaws to promote positive messages in media set me off. Just…WTF????

(Also I know I wrote a summarized version of this in the tags for another post but I wanted to expand upon it more and make this a separate post)

[gin-juice-tonic]

Hey Gin! I just wanna say that as a fat trans kid, your trans falls comics have really made me feel affirmed. I'm very lucky to say that this week is my first week I'll be on testosterone, and I am so grateful for your work because they make me feel confident about all this. I'm excited to have shitty facial hair for the first time. I'm excited to not have to hear my voice yet far too high when I'm excited. I'm excited for whatever weird shit gets hurled at me. And for the first time, I'm confident about getting older. I'm far from Stan/Ford's age, but I can actually see a crotchety old version of me in them. I love that thought. So, thank you. I wish you the best.

Soos spent all night bending those

Congrats on the start of a new journey!

[pinkeoni]

What Exactly Do I Mean When I Say "Will is Jesus Christ?"

(or Why Will is the Chosen One)

Do I mean that Will is actually the second coming of Christ? Well, no, at least not in a literal sense. All I mean to say by this is that—

Will is the chosen one, and he is the hero of the story who is meant to save the world from the apocalypse.

Apocalypse imagery and references to Revelations is all over the place in season 4. The four victims representing the four horsemen of the apocalypse, Henry "One" effectively being a God-like figure, references to Revelations 1:8 regarding Henry, hell I'll go as far to say that Robin playing the trumpet at the beginning of the season is a nod to the sound of trumpets that is meant to signal the beginning of the apocalypse.

The important thing about Revelations being that at the end of the day, the second coming of Jesus Christ, the chosen one, saves the day.

This really robust old post that I made, which was also one of my first theory posts, goes into detail on how Will fits the criteria of a Christ-figure, or a figure in literature or media that is allegorical to Jesus Christ. Will's biggest piece of evidence being his full on burial and resurrection in the first season.

If I'm talking about Christ-figures in the show then I should probably talk about El, who admittedly has much more in your face Christ-coding than Will does. Walking on water, performance of miracles, the mother who got pregnant out of strange circumstances, along with her own resurrection and so-on.

So then, if El clearly has more Christ-coding than Will, why am I placing the title of Jesus onto Will? Is it just because I like him more than El? Is it because I see Will as a more important character than El?

Just as a general disclaimer, I will admit that I do have a major Will bias, anyone who follows me knows that. He's been my favorite character since I first watched the show. Although, my labeling of him as the chosen one has nothing to do a dislike of El or a belief that she is not an important character. I love El, and it's plain to everyone that watches the show how important she is. However, I just don't believe that the chosen one who saves the day is what her arc is building towards.

They've been building up El's chosen one status while also quietly breaking it down in the background, in the same way that they've quietly been leaving bread crumbs pointing toward Will's Christ status while also seemingly suggesting that he isn't that important of a character. Why have a character tell El that she's "the cure," then make a point that she loses against Henry at the end of the season? Why sideline Will for the past two seasons, but throw in lines of dialogue pointing toward his involvement with the Upside Down?

What I believe they are going for is a classic bait-and-switch to subvert expectations in the final season. Lead the audience to believe one thing, while still leaving clues to suggest the other so that when the twist is revealed it doesn't come out of nowhere.

So what is El's arc actually about? I won't deny El's role in the final battle of the show, it's not like she's going to be completely sidelined, but I don't think that her saving the world on her own while everyone else watches is what her arc is building towards. The real core of her arc is El discovering who she is as a girl, rather than becoming a superhero.

I actually made a post awhile ago talking about El’s monster/superhero dichotomy, and it’s actually incredibly important to my argument. The post itself is more in depth, but tl:dr: El believes that she can either be a superhero or a monster, and bases her worth on her ability to save the world and others, an unfair expectation to place onto one girl.

If at the end of the season, El single-handedly saves the entire world, wouldn’t it feel counterintuitive to her arc? She needs to learn that her self worth doesn’t rely on her ability to save the world, and if she ends the show this way, it wouldn’t create a solution for her cyclical train of thought.

Furthermore, wouldn’t this ending be a bit expected, and even boring? This is what El has been doing for the past four seasons of the show. Continuing that pattern would only feel anticlimactic. From a writer’s pov, if you wanted the ending of you show to be dynamic and interesting, you would want to do something new.

So why do I think that Will is the chosen one?

It’s not like I’m pulling the chosen-one-Jesus-Christ label out of my ass just because I like Will. I actually do have many reasons to believe this.

The first one is the confirmation that Will is going to be a big part and focus for next season. It’s been theorized that this means Will is going to become a villian, and while I do love a good Will villian AU, there are many reasons I could list off as to why he wouldn’t become a villian. Without going into it all right now, let’s just say that it would not only go against what Will stands for, but also what the show itself stands for.

Even in show, we have signs pointing toward Will’s chosen status. Let’s start with the fact that Will is the one who kicks the entire show off in the first place, when he is taken by who we later learn to be Henry. Now, this could have just been wrong-place-wrong-time kind of thing, but given how much has been revealed has actually been part of a larger plan constructed by Henry, I highly doubt that mere coincidence is the case.

Let’s look at some more evidence within the fourth season. Let’s talk about the fact that, despite not even being present in Hawkins and gone for much of the supernatural action, Will is still being brought up by name and even implicated in the strangeness of the Upside Down.

Do I think Will is gonna solo-kill Vecna in the climax of the show? Chosen one doesn’t mean only one. No, despite all my rambling about El not being the hero, I’m not gonna deny her importance to the supernatural plot. I think something else the show keeps building upon is the importance of support from friends and family— saving the world is likely gonna be a group effort. I do think, however, that Will possesses some kind of unique ability that is going to be crucial to winning.

What would being the hero mean for Will’s arc? Well, it would give him a sense of control that he hasn’t had before. Will has had a lot of agency and autonomy ripped from him in past seasons, and this would be his way of reclaiming that. It would be the perfect subversion of expectations as well. The character that everyone expects to be just the helpless victim, or hell even the villian, is the one who rises to become the hero who saves the day in his own way.

[iris-drawing-stuff]

Just Shidou

[lpsotd]

i believe this has been asked before, and im not sure how to look for it if so, but what are generally some good/reliable sites for buying LPS from in your opinion?

i believe i answered a similar ask a few months back, i don’t mind answering it again though !!

i’ve talked about the littlest pet shop stop at least a billion times already, but they really are a great place to shop for lps :o) they’ve been my go-to store for at least a year now. they ship very quickly and are always responsive when help is needed. do give them a try if you haven’t already

littlest kinz is another go-to of mine, though she’s taking a mental health break(?) last time i checked, and so her website isn’t useable at the moment. but she said a while ago she’ll be returning soon, so when she does i do encourage you to shop with her. she’s absolutely lovely, easy to talk to, and 100% trustworthy/reliable !!

lpsqueen is another !! i get most of my accessories and replacement pieces from them, and i haven’t had a bad experience yet (really i haven’t had any bad experiences with any of the folks i’ve mentioned!!) - i don’t have much else to say, but i do recommend them !!

i’ve only just started shopping with littlest brainrot, so i don’t have a lot to say. i’ve only done with order with them, but it came without any hiccups and i was very pleased !!

[ccatgiri]

Not to mix together two hyperfixations of mine that have literally nothing to do with one another but to me Sparrow is a very good character to analyze through the "without love, the truth cannot be seen" framework that Umineko presents. Your understanding of his actions and words is framed entirely by whether you feel love for his character or not, which might sound obvious but what I mean is that to understand his relationship with his children, especially Normal, it is necessary to keep the circumstances of Sparrow's own childhood in mind - only then can you see the full picture. This, however, implies a level of care and nuance that is probably only granted by those who already have an attachment to the character, and that's why some listeners have fallen into the belief that Sparrow didn't love Normal (at least, not as unconditionally as he could've) despite canon evidence pointing to the contrary. Without >taking the time to analyze Sparrow in-depth< (Love), >his real feelings for his children< (The Truth) cannot be seen.

And, ultimately, I think this is why Sparrow and Normal's relationship is unfixable from an in-universe perspective. Still (validly) stuck with the image of his father telling him he's not proud of him, Normal sees Sparrow's support of him as limited and conditional, which biases his perspective against him - in other words, Normal does not truly feel loved by him. In turn, and whether it's subconscious or not, this makes Normal perpetuate the vicious cycle by being unable to view his father through a lens of Love due to his resentment. He interprets Sparrow's words and actions in unfavorable manners because he, himself, is depriving them of nuance and context. Because of this, he will never be able to reach The Truth.

Umineko also proposes the idea that if someone believes in a lie too fervently, it stops being a lie and becomes The Truth. Sparrow and Normal cannot find connection because they now fundamentally exist in two different realities, each one with a different Truth. And The Truth for Normal now is, unfortunately, that it took risking his life multiple times and losing people important to him for his father to be proud.

[kaseyskat]

hi it's nyx here once again to talk about lark vs henry and what that meant for sparrow because i swear every episode that shows even a Little bit of sparrow's actual personality is controversial.

"nyx what do you mean by this" well it's a very blatant fact that sparrow does not get much nuance in the fandom: this is especially prevalent when examining hero's conversation with normal where she explicitly calls out lark and rebecca alongside sparrow and yet sparrow is solely blamed. because of this, every time we do see sparrow be his genuine self in the show - from talking to scary and shielding her from violence to taking charge of grant and lark and wanting to help the teens to the most recent episode's case of him not believing in animal captivity - i've noticed people quickly jumping on him for being hypocritical but nobody asking why he would be hypocritical, or why he's made choices that clearly do not reflect his actual beliefs.

so let's talk about that, shall we?

i know i've talked about this before but it bears repeating: sparrow is complacent. he has consistently made decisions that go against his own beliefs, bottling up his actual thoughts on the matter in order to "keep the peace". we know this, this is a canon fact, he said as much about lark and rebecca's affair!

why does he do this? well to me, what makes the most logical sense is that this stems all the way to lark and henry's conflict. if the rogue card is only predicting anger and not enforcing it, that means there is more to lark's anger than just what happened with walter. part of that is his fear of being unable to protect the people he cares about, being helpless in situations where he could've done something, yes, but i do believe there's another root cause to his anger, one that would fuel him for decades: sparrow.

...well, more specifically, how henry changed sparrow.

we know that lark wasn't the happiest about the lovewolf split. after the lord of chaos arc, sparrow starts very slowly developing a separate personality, enough so that he and lark aren't necessarily the same kid, one unit, the same person twice. sparrow tried to teach lark his new philosophy, it was ultimately rejected. lark doesn't understand it! but he loves sparrow regardless. that disappointment, that resentment of how sparrow had changed... it goes back to henry, to henry giving sparrow that speech and reinforcing those beliefs!

we also know that originally, sparrow didn't want to pick a side. he wanted them both to get along! to reconcile! and we know that lark didn't tell him about what he saw on the throne, which has me believing that there were, perhaps, other things that lark didn't tell sparrow in crucial moments: such as his decision to release the doodler, since we really don't know if sparrow knew. sparrow would've been happy to reconcile the two, and it makes sense if this was something he didn't know but something that shakes his perspective: aka, what happens if lark doesn't confide in him. to get lark back on his side, he has to be on lark's side irrevocably, which means abandoning his peacekeeping and mediation to choose lark wholeheartedly.

so by the time the ep23 flashback happens... sparrow has lost that bit of personality he had started to form in s1. he's lark's other half again, helping him with plans, sharing his ideas. he has... you could say, lost his confidence in being a lovewolf, because despite his best efforts, it only brought more strife to his family and he doesn't want to lose lark. we know this! he doesn't want to lose lark!

and then, they find out the prophecy, that one of the twins will have a kid who will save the world. think about everything we know about lark, how stubbornly persistent he was on fixing things Himself since he puts the weight of the world on his shoulders alone. lark doesn't blame sparrow or henry, he only blames himself. would he jump at having a family to fix his mistakes? no.

but sparrow would.

so sparrow takes that burden from him. sparrow has hero when he is twenty, and lark gets to be the cool uncle who helps around the house and hero blames both twins equally so we know they did this together. sparrow doesn't want to lose lark again, he doesn't want to be himself, he adapts to rebecca's views because it's easier than admitting that maybe he shares some of the same- definitely makes him marrying a vegan centrist make sense, right? he can use rebecca as a scapegoat and it Works. his own personality gets shafted in favor of being the same man twice with lark, he bottles everything up, he disapproves but never says as much.

and he fucked up with hero. clearly, he knows that. hero has a regular life now at a private school with a job and an internship and she's a massive dweeb and i don't think any one of you could look me in the eye and say that lark approved that. it was sparrow's decision! and we know what lark thinks about sparrow's parenting: i need every one of yall who truly believes that lark would be a better father to normal to go and relisten to normal's introduction scene in ep1 and then to the end of ep24 again where lark explicitly tells normal that being the mascot is a waste of his time when he could be learning "actually useful" skills (like hunting and survival- and yall still think sparrow was the one having hero kill deer?) and that he's too soft-hearted and naive and that is sparrow's fault for being too nice. normal would not be the same kid if lark was raising him and that is NOT a good thing lmao

all of this to say. i am so tired of people understanding lark's nuance and understanding grant's nuance and understanding the s1 dads and their nuance and how their trauma fucked up their relationships with their kids and yet sparrow is the one yall bash every other week repeatedly without ever wondering like. huh. maybe it is strange that his actions now don't hold up against his actions in the past. maybe there's something else going on that is consistent with literally every other aspect of his character. it is so tiring to go into his tag and see the same things over and over and over again repeated on loop every time we see sparrow's actual personality slip out beyond him perpetuating the "same man twice" persona. he's nuanced! they're all nuanced! and that's a good thing!

sparrow's biggest issues are his complacency, the way he upholds decisions that might not really be the best decisions because it's easier. his love for lark and his desire to fix things clouds his judgement and yeah, that means he goes against his own morals frequently; or at least, he did. so far in the season though, with how he's treated normal being in the line of fire and getting into his mess, he's definitely already realized this and is putting in the work to ensure that normal doesn't go through what hero did- something that lark is not doing. sparrow's also been the best towards the other teens consistently, the most willing to listen and change his perspective (as demonstrated again in ep24- really i just think people need to relisten to ep24!) and he's definitely not the best dad but that can be said not just about all the kiddads but also about literally every dad in this podcast, because that's what this podcast is about. thank you for reading and i hope i don't have to make this post again in a few weeks <3

[skitskatdacat63]

“Amore et Timore” - King Fernando I “El Animoso”

[jtl-fics]

Hey, no need to respond to this, truly, but I just had to say something. Feel free to ignore and I won’t bother you about this again, but it makes me uncomfortable how you portray Riko as this traumatized kid who just needs love&attention in your writing when he is canonically an abuser. He nearly beat Jean to death and ordered other Ravens to rape him. He broke Kevin’s hand and tried to emotionally abuse him into returning to him. He helped Drake cross state borders while he was being investigated for child sexual assault and pointed him at Andrew. He paid Proust to assault Andrew. He tied Neil to a bed and tortured him. He killed Seth. Yes, his backstory is tragic but he is an abuser. And it’s uncomfortable reading about how his victims should feel sorry for him bc now they’re older and more mature and Riko “was a kid”. I recognize you have the right to write what you want, I just wanted to tell you how it reads. I’m not trying to be mean or harass you & I won’t send anything else other than this. And do not post this to the public if you don’t want to! Seriously, I’m not trying to be mean or hurt your feelings, you’re a great writer and I don’t believe you meant anything malicious or were trying to communicate what I took from how you wrote Riko, just that that’s how it comes off.

Hey, I am going to respond to this just because I want to be clear that I am writing Riko very very aware of the fact that he has done things in the books that make me really dislike / hate him as a person. Still, as a character there are things I want to explore with him y’know?

Especially from people who he really has no power over at this point. Especially from people who he did use to have power over at one point.

Some of this might be coming across a certain way just due to the fact that I had some ideas earlier on in the writing of these that I've discard. Such is the nature of a WIP. The other part is that a lot of the snippets are missing broader context. Such is the nature of a Snippet.

Either way you're fine to be uncomfortable with that and to not like how I'm writing it but I do just want to cover generally how I'm approaching Riko in the 2 AUs I'm really treating him differently than canon.

In the Math Nerd AU I want to explore a Neil who is a lot older and who still, honestly, hates Riko. He hates him and would love to watch him sink into the pits of hell once again.... but he's also a Neil who has grown a lot since he was 18-19 and dealing with Riko the first time around. He's a Neil who not only benefited from but now truly and absolutely believes in the power of giving someone a chance. Wymack has had that level of influence on his thinking.

He was a Captain and stayed close with the Foxes and Wymack over the years. He has seen all of the kids that Wymack gave 2nd chances to.

Some of them deserved that second chance and they utilize it.

Some of them deserved that second chance and failed to utilize it.

Some of them didn't deserve those second chances and did utilize it.

Some of them didn't deserve that second chance and proved that they didn't deserve it.

Wymack still offered it to all of them and he didn't always like those kids but Wymack still did his best to help them. Neil thinks Wymack died with his only regret being that he didn't have a chance to drink the pricey bourbon they'd gotten him and that he wouldn't get to call Kevin after his games.

Neil WANTS / NEEDS / CRAVES that peace of mind for reasons I'm not going to touch on here because it doesn't involve Riko.

I have decided on a few things that are different from the initial description, such is the nature of a WIP.

Its not quite clear in the snippets because hey they’re snippets and not the full story and honestly I’ve avoided doing these snippets from Neil’s POV. All Neil is doing right now? He’s offering Riko a chance and that's it.

What Riko does with that chance I haven’t touched on at all. Neil is offering a Riko an opportunity to stop before he sinks his own ship and Neil won't even toss a life preserver because watching him drown was immensely personally satisfying to Neil last time. What he wants is the certainty that there was no redeeming Riko, that there was no excuse, and that he's totally normal for thinking about how Riko looked the night he died with warmth. If Riko proves him wrong? If all Riko really did need was someone he had no power over to treat him like a person and not a commodity?

It'd be the ultimate proof that anyone can benefit from a second chance, that Wymack was always right to offer it. He'd be okay with that too.

I also want to explore what Neil can gain by delaying the satisfaction he got the first time around by outright telling Riko to just fuck off. How playing it a bit nicer / smarter with Riko means that the Foxes are safer and also gives him the opportunity to protect other people he has had a hand in saving. Andrew was the first person that Neil saved when he went back in time, but he wasn't the last. Neil also wasn't always successful in saving some people despite his foreknowledge.

Again, nature of the WIP and nature of the Snippet were not everything is here since I sure as hell am not writing this in order with the snippets but I am going to touch on it in a WIP Wednesday ask pretty soon, probably once I finish this beast / make myself dinner.

For New Kings it's a lot easier since mostly I'm treating Riko as a joke. Someone who wants to be a threat, who remembers being terrifying to these Foxes. Except now he...just kind of isn't. He has no power over any of them. Like Nicky said, he's seen home loans scarier than Riko is at this point.

It really is them just seeing someone they remember being so huge and threatening and scary and…..its just this sad sack 20 something playing at being God because he’s good at a sport. Honestly, in comparison to what some of them got up to later? He's not even that good.

They won’t take him seriously because why the fuck should they? That would just feed into his already insane ego. In my experience there’s nothing that upsets an abuser more than his once victims just won’t give him any power over them. (Again its the nature of the snippet in that its not the full picture and I haven’t even covered Riko’s reaction to the Fox’s dismissal of him as a threat in all its unhinged glory nor Renee's grand theft Moreau.)

STILL, if that isn’t something you want to read then please just add the tags #Math Nerd AU and #New Kings AU or ME (jtl-fics & justthislazy) to a block list. I'm religious about tagging so if you still want to read other stuff then just blacklisting those tags will keep you safe.

I can add Riko Moriyama as a tag on the parts that involve / mention him if you still want to read the snippets that don't include him.

I’m not out here to make someone uncomfortable but I do want to explore these things in my writing. It might change the further I go but it might not so please proceed at your comfort level.

Thank you for writing to me with your concern and I’m more than happy to accommodate with tags if you wanna message me.

Still, like you said, I'm going to write what I want.

[victimized-martyr]

to what degree do you think Cartman will grow to be a better person?

According to Trey’s commentary in Tsst, it doesn’t take much: Discipline, a firm male figure in his life. And now, implied by the end of Pandemic Special and towards the end of P.C, time away from friends who enable him are the ingredients for a better Cartman.

As little as it takes for him to be grow, it’s also just as easy for him to regress. Liane giving in on one occasion reverted what was months of firm parenting. A stagnant Kyle in P.C spurred Cartman’s paranoia, and reverted him back to his scheming 10 year old ways. He thinks he’s being talked down to and self sabotages out of spite at the end of Future Me. I think also a contributor to his Cartman-ness is how South Park itself doesn’t let him stay good for long, meager as his attempts may be on occasion. He’s the adults’s scapegoat (Bass to Mouth) as well as the Kids’s (Good Times With Weapons). the kids encourage Cartman to retaliate against Pc principal instead of letting him accept detention, and they smash his things while he was sincerely attempting to be PC.

Anyways, Cartman’s demonstrated he can be good in PC— he’s the father he never had, a loving (perhaps overzealous) husband, embracing the religion he’s constantly belittled.

While it was one off gag in Future Me, Cartman was inspired by end of the episode to study and work at his appearance. His future-self was proof that if he really wanted to, he can turn his life around.

He has the capacity to come to to right conclusions, (“should I just apologize to my friends and ask them to take me back, and tell them I was being a selfish jerk? Admit I was wrong and ask for forgiveness?”) He just… doesn’t have the discipline nor the humility to do so. (“Nah, screw that! I’m just gonna keep being a fucking dick!”)

At this point, we’ve experienced both extremes of the spectrum of goodness Cartman lies— his worst as a homeless drunk, the bastard boob-job narcissist he is now, and his best as a self made millionaire, or a family man devoted to his faith, or the obedient little boy who does his homework before school and eats a gay ass grapefruit for breakfast.

It isn’t a question to what degree Cartman can be good, because he’s shown to be good in various ways. The question is whether Mattrey/ the town of South Park will allow him to realize his potential. Given the very recent circumstances of The Hot Dog… well, it remains to be seen.

[bigcryptiddies]

It might just be that I’m a little dumb but I feel like jjk has the most convoluted ability system to the point where the creator can have their characters explain what’s happening every single time and yet I don’t understand it even once