#also going back to the complex point I know it’s common for people to not comprehend when a character does something bad and is considered b

[yolowritter]

In Defense of Chloe Bourgeois Part 1: Who is Chloe?

Well...shit, here we go again! Hello there everyone, welcome back to the source of my endless exasperation! Before any of you pick a side to the argument, I want to make it perfectly clear that this isn't a post about whether or not Chloe should have had a redemption arc. This is not my point, and any argument for either side have been repeated so many times by now that I can recite most by memory. So, let's begin by establishing why exactly I'm even writing this post!

Chloe Bourgeois is one of my favorite characters in Miraculous Ladybug. The...the fanon version, obviously. Canon can go keel over in an alleyway, it already has more holes in it than the average swiss cheese. I've been a part of this fandom for a good few years now, and at the time of watching Miracle Queen was understandably upset at the...direction, that her character was taken. It left a sour taste in my mouth because I honestly didn't see it coming, but I'll get more into that later. Point is, I was once a defender of Chloe's redemption arc. I am not stating if I am or not still one of those at present, because that's not what the point is. Regardless of what side of the fence you're on, we can all agree that her character was horribly mismanaged in the latter half of this show. Erratic, extreme and oftentimes illogical choices that sound stupider than Lila's average gaslighting scheme, and a character who previously had an arc going for her now being defined only by the sheer inconsistency that writhes every moment she's on-screen. I'll be honest, I no longer particularly care if Chloe "should" have been redeemed or not, because either avenue could have allowed for some brilliant (or at the very least pretty decent) storytelling.

This defense strives not to strip anyone of their arguments, nor to challenge anyone's headcanons, or make a point about what the "correct" way to handle Chloe's character should have been. Again, I lost interest in the debate a long time ago. I'm simply here to examine who Chloe is as a person, what drives her, what her life experiences have been like, and where all this could logically lead from both a writing and human perspective. I care about Chloe as a person, and about a character who if nothing else, at least acts consistently, in a way where the audience can watch them and understand why they're acting like this. I'll be trying to give context to some of her actions and fill in as many plot holes as I can, as well as giving a glimpse as to how a possible Redemption or Corruption Arc could have gone. So without any further ado, let's dive right in!

Firstly, let's start by laying out some common ground. After the Gabriel Agreste post, I think it's necessary to establish some clear lines as to what exactly we're talking about here. So before anything else, let's look at what we learn about Chloe in Season 1, yeah? Without going episode-by-episode, we generally don't get a good impression of her. Chloe is clearly spoiled by her father, used to always getting her way, and has no problem pressuring others into making that happen. She treats her classmates more like annoyances if not outright minions (Sabrina and on occasion Kim), has little consideration for other people's feelings, and likes appearing superior to everyone else. A pretty bad start, all things considered. She bosses Sabrina around, and we're explicitly told that Chloe often bribes her with her second-hand stuff, or whatever she wants to get rid of. Sabrina clearly doesn't know how to stand up for herself, and Chloe seems perfectly willing to take advantage of her doormat status. She also has the roots for a sweet sweet superiority complex firmly planted, considering how she rejects and humiliates Kim when he tries to confess his love to her. I'll be damned if I ever understand such bad taste, considering how Chloe is generally disliked by the rest of the class, but the point stands. She could have just told him no, even rudely if need be, and left it at that. Instead, she actively chose to humiliate the poor guy. Something similar happened with Nathaniel, whose feelings about Marinette she made public to everyone else for what seems to be entertainment value.

All in all, Season 1 Chloe has all the stereotypical makings of a popular girl from a 2010s American high school movie, including the narcissism, bullying, strong-arming school staff into not punishing these behaviors, inflated ego, and the complimentary minion! Except...Chloe isn't popular. With anyone, actually. Most of the class dislikes and barely puts up with her on a good day. They don't laugh along or jeer at whomever she's giving trouble to. Instead we have several instances where people actively try to either push the teachers into doing something or remove her from a situation where Chloe is causing problems. Think about the filming scenes in Horrificator for example. Chloe is acting like her usual self again, and refuses to allow Marinette to be the lead actress because she'll get to kiss Adrien. A tragedy, I know! Therefore, there's a whole plot to get her out of the room long enough for the scene to happen. People actively consider her at the very least a pain in the rear, and probably someone they just don't even want to talk to.

Obviously this isn't an excuse for anything she does. My point here is that from the perspective of the narrative, even while acting the part of a "Queen B", Chloe reaps none of the benefits, and in fact only serves to make people dislike her more with every episode that passes by. Even Adrien, who I'll circle back to in a second, her childhood friend who has a good opinion of her when he first comes to school, eventually stops trying to defend Chloe's behavior. There are, I think, a lot of reasons as to why she acts this way. Precisely none of them are an excuse or a "get out of jail" free card. Chloe still chooses to behave the way she does, regardless of the motivations.

About Adrien, we know that he and Chloe have known each other for a long while now. She was quite possibly his singular friend during his otherwise relatively isolating childhood, and she's very clearly attached to him. Chloe constantly clings to Adrien and drapes herself over him, and while he seems to find it annoying, there's still never a sense of disgust like with Lila in later Seasons. She's being suffocating, but there is never a connotation of romance here. Still, Chloe does everything she can to keep Adrien close to her, and (in Origins) "teach him how things are" in school. She's the one who got him signed up as a student in the first place, mind you, so she very clearly wants him to be around her. And while Chloe does brag about him being a famous model, she could just...do that without ever actually bringing Adrien out of the house? Clearly that's not the reason why she went through all the trouble to actually get him in the class, because bragging about it would probably go worse if she did it in front of him, or in an environment where Adrien could easily hear about and react to it. Chloe is very possessive of her "best friend" (and only friend, discounting Sabrina), and constantly belittles Marinette for trying to get close to him. Mind you, she doesn't find out about her feelings for Adrien until Season 3 I think. We never see Nino get bullied for befriending him, so what gives?

I'll talk about reasoning later down the line. For now, let's move onto Season 2. Amidst the beginnings of Ladybug handing out Miraculous jewels like candy to her best pals, seriously Season 4 overdid it, Chloe also exists. And during Despair Bear, Adrien finally puts his foot down about her behavior. He tells her that he can't be friends with someone who acts like a bully, and Chloe is genuinely hurt by this, to the point where she does her best to put on a good show and convince Adrien that is capable of not being an ass. Which is actually the case, believe it or not. She holds back the snides, does her best to make casual conversation with the people she considers to be inferior to her (I'll get to that, don't worry), and makes a real effort to keep at it for the sake of their friendship. The reason why she blows up here is made very obvious by the episode itself. Chloe is in unfamiliar territory and clearly reining herself in a lot, which Despair Bear pokes fun of in several back-to-back scenes. She doesn't want to do this, clearly has mutual dislike for the people she's forced to put up with every day and has made up her mind about a long time ago, for the sake of the one person she considers a genuine friend. And mind you, Chloe never uses Adrien for something. She brags about his job in Origins, and preens about their friendship often, but she never takes advantage of him like she does Sabrina. I will get to their toxic friendship in a minute, don't worry, but Chloe chooses not to try doing this with him. Adrien is...oblivious, to put it nicely, and she could easily try and play around that to serve her own goals, but she doesn't. Keep this in mind.

Anyway, she blows up because Armand (also c'mon, if you wanted to make the joke that Chloe doesn't know her butler's name, Jean "insert today's last name" was more than enough, Thomas) keeps lugging her teddy bear and playing pretend with her in a room full of people. I'm sorry, but that may be the most relatable Chloe moment in the whole show. Are you kidding me??? Of course she'd be embarrassed by this! I mean sure, her reaction to the situation is wrong, she shouldn't have screamed at him or threatened the man's job, but Chloe has serious anger management issues. That is obvious, because she acts like this every single day! Why would Armand do this??? She's already way out of her comfort zone by even hosting the party in the first place, surely there's easier ways of reminding Chloe not to be a bitch? Just tap her on the shoulder and say "miss, remember Adrien?" because that's the whole reason this is happening! The teddy bear is completely unecessary! Especially the voice acting! It made me laugh so hard when I first watched that episode but can you blame Chloe for being pissed? Again, she reacted poorly because her self control is comparable to Plagg's when there's camambert in his field of vision! So yeah, it's wrong to scream people's ears off like that, but she was also upset. And she's fourteen mind you!

Anyway, my actual point about Season 2 is that we get to see Chloe's character development. Thank Nooroo, finally a proper arc in this damn show! And we also get to see her family life. Side note, Andre Bourgeois is a spineless coward who I'll be bashing momentarily. But Chloe's mother is horrible! Audrey Bourgeois is blatantly neglectful, if not abusive to her daughter! She treats Chloe the same way Chloe treats everyone else! As disposable, expendable things that don't "deserve" her attention because they're not good enough. Like, if this doesn't give a six year old some hefty trauma along with an inferiority complex, what will??? And the situation becomes even worse as Chloe becomes incresingly desperate during Style Queen, trying again and again to please Audrey by copying her behavior (which she's been doing this whole time) even more intensly, and acting like the entitled, self-absorbed narcissist that her mother is! And this is where we see exactly why Chloe does what she does! Again, none of this excuses her actions, but it does help us understand the behavior. Audrey constantly puts Chloe down and belittles her the same way she does to Marinette...only to later pick the kid that Chloe is jealous of (I will explain this in a second!) to come with her to New York, where Audrey had presumably yeeted herself off to years ago and never bothered to come visit! We already know that she pressured her husband into giving up his love for film to stay with her, maybe even during her pregnancy or after Chloe's birth. Only to promptly vanish and leave him (a person who never grew a spine or managed to stand up to what is undoubtebly a toxic relationship) with her miniature copy. It's obvious that Chloe's barely ever seen Audrey, but she idolizes the woman because that's her mother! Heck, Adrien idolizes Emilie even if she was arguably not a great person (see here) and Chloe is always kicked to the curb for just doing the same!

Audrey is a horrible person and an even worse role model, but when you're five years old and she disappears from your life, is it any wonder that there's a steaming hot pile of mommy issues here? If Chloe has been told by Audrey from the moment she was old enough to understand words that she isn't "exceptional" enough to "deserve" her time, then isn't it obvious why Andre tries and fails to make up for this by always coddling his daughter and giving in to her every whim? He's trying to please her and give Chloe a sense of self-importance that Audrey made near-impossible to develop, and also makes up for his own absence by basically bribing his own child! Not that Andre is innocent in this! If anything, he's even more at fault than Audrey! Because while she flew off into the sunset to fire her twenty-seventh unpaid intern of the week, he was still in Paris with Chloe! Who grew up with him, mind you! And sure, he got elected into office and had a busy job as a single parent! You know what else he did? Crime! Almost everything he does in this damn show is completely illegal! Bribery, blackmail, undue termination of Roger's position as a police officer, who Andre doesn't even have juristiction over mind you (because Paris had the National Police until like 2021-ish if I recall correctly), he's just a corrupt, scummy politian whose ideas (see Megaleech) are harmful to the people he's supposed to be serving and outright motivated by greed! And also, we are explicitly told that he taught Chloe to do these same things! Andre Bourgeois is a total idiot who's probably been committing tax evasion for all we know, and Audrey is a self-absorbed diva who bullies her own child constantly, when she even bothers to go see her! Which is never, unless she needs to be in Paris for some other event related to her job!

Thomas, what the heck do you mean Chloe is evil? Lila is an accomplice to a domestic terrorist, and a psychopath against whom the only protection is the show's PG rating! If Lila could, she'd burn Marinette's house down for shits and giggles my good man! Audrey is everything I just mentioned, Andrey is a corrupt, spineless politician, Tomoe physically abuses her daughter with fucking katanas on the daily, Gabriel Agreste is that domestic terrorist who almost fired every nuclear warhear in the USA by the way! Because that was stupid of the NYC special to do! But he still did it! Plus the genocide in Shanghai! Accident or not, Hawkmoth is still responsible! And later on he also put his son in a room! A rubber room! Thankfully there weren't any rats, as if he needs another OSHA violation! Are you people insane when you say "I don't know why Chloe acts like this"? Have you lost your marbles??? Do you want me to have an aneurysm? Of course a child is going to act the way Chloe does if this is the shit she's been dealing with since Day 0 of her life! Does that make it okay? Absolutely not! But does it mean that she deserved what happened to her canonically? Also no! I'll talk about how the corruption arc could have worked at the end, because they tried and failed to do that, so let's circle back to the "jealous of Marinette" thing from a minute ago, kay?

Note: We're doing this in part 2 because this is closing in on 3k words already. The whole rant is done, no you don't want to know how long it is, I'm just splitting it because nobody will ever read 7.5k words worth of anything on Tumblr dot com.

< next post >

#miraculous ladybug #marinette dupain cheng #chloe bourgeois #character analysis #in depth #extremely in depth #god help me please #i may have a problem #analysis #that's the problem #chloe bourgeois has reasons for being chloe bourgeois #this took me two weeks #seriously though #writer problems #skill issue #it's solely my issue #anyway yeah #i have to go post the other 2 parts #so... #i'll see myself out

[sammydem0n64]

Constantly thinking about a conversation me and a buddy had about how people in the modern era always end up making or Headcanoning villains as homophobic or just general bigots...

#No bc I think it’s a very interesting phenomenon #our conversation came down to how people are honestly unable to comprehend a person is horrible unless they’re a bigot #the example we were talking about is how so many ppl headcanon William Afton furnaff was homophobic to make him like. worse #when like. he’s already a kiddy murderer. I don’t think he can get any worse than that? he kills kids and is an abusive father #no need for him to also be a bigot but yet it’s a popular headcanon #and my pal said it’s bc a lot of ppl are unable to comprehend villains who are complex and have complex opinions/world views #and tbh YEAH!!! I think it’s really common for us to see villains or just people we don’t like as. unable to be like us #if a person sucks then we cannot have anything in common with them. when that isn’t the case #not everyone person who’s a piece of shit is a bigot. it’s common sure but not every villain is gonna be openly racist or transphobic #if anything a villain who has the same world views as the heroes/protags/audience makes them more complex!! #because it can show that anyone who is considered ‘a good person’ can actually be a pos despite their views or show how a person can fall to #-the dark side lol #and yeah obviously in certain cases a villain being a bigot makes sense and works story wise #I know I have quite a few antagonists who are bigots #but it’s a super common pitfall to just assign an antagonist ‘oh they suck so they also hate autistic people!’ or smth instead of like #just letting their horrible actions show how they’re a horrible person #I promise if a serial killer is a serial killer then like. yeah THEYRE horrible. and if you can only see them as horrible if they’re a bigot #then uh. I don’t know what to say to that!!!!!! #also going back to the complex point I know it’s common for people to not comprehend when a character does something bad and is considered b #-ad in the story unless it is EXPLICITLY spelled out! and I think the bigot stuff ties into that #ppl refuse to be like ‘ohhh this is a villain!’ unless the guy drops a bunch of slurs lol #once again depending on the story a bigoted villain makes sense and I have several bigot Ocs #but sometimes. bad people are progressive. or just aren’t homophobic. sometimes they have the same views as us #and sometimes... that makes them scarier and better written. #IDFK why I shared this rant here I just thought it was interesting and also this is a site where ppl make every villain in media #-homophobic soooo-

[tofixtheshadows]

You guys really need to stop and consider the ways you're talking about Kabru I am dead fucking serious. Like I know that flattening characters is just what fandom does to a certain extent, but Kabru's actual personality is getting lost to the fandom hivemind insisting that he's aggressive/cruel/sociopathic/hateful, and these are particularly concerning takes to see leveled at the only brown character in the main cast day after day. "My poor sweet golden child Laios needs to be protected from this scary brown man" is not a good look! Like, it's very telling that the bulk of the hate and bad faith readings are reserved for Toshiro and Kabru. Everyone else's flaws get to be discussed and validated and forgiven (or erased), meanwhile people are straight making up things to be mad about with Toshiro and Kabru but patting themselves on the back for being smart.

The worst part is how undeserved it all is. I'm trying to lay off anime-onlys because we're still kind of in the red herring stage of getting to know Kabru, but I would still like to gently suggest that even if you think Kabru is up to something, you don't gave to get in the tags of every fan creator's post and bring up how you hate him or You Can Tell he's totally evil. Sometimes I think Kabru's blue eyes give people license to say things about his appearance that they know would sound completely racist otherwise, but referring to his blue eyes acts as a get-out-of-racism free card. The jokes about the dog with brown contacts are getting old, by the way.

For people who have read the manga, it's disappointing. Kabru is one of the most complex and important characters in the story, and if you base your interpretation of him and all your fandom interactions on shallow first impressions you are completely missing out.

I know part of this is because Dungeon Meshi is a comedy, but the story also wants to be taken seriously. For example, it's admittedly really funny when Chilchuck calls Laios "sick in the head", but that doesn't change the fact that the way Chilchuck casually belittles Laios caused him to hide the fact that he was "hallucinating" from his friends for weeks. Those feelings matter.

Like, this

is funny.

But this?

Is not. This is just a very clear example of a brown boy with PTSD. As someone else with PTSD, just looking at this fucking sucks, man.

The only reason why Kabru thinks about killing Laios is because he is in the middle of a flashback. He's struggling through a panic attack. If he truly wanted to kill Laios because he's violent or because he finds Laios inherently annoying, he wouldn't otherwise talk with Laios normally. Notice how he doesn't act this way at any other point in the story- it's just because he's triggered by monsters. Even when he's thinking about his plans to "deal with" Laios later, he's reluctant to actually kill him and only considers it to prevent another tragedy. Despite his deadly skills, Kabru relies far more on "soft" power- insight, persuasion, diplomacy. He's a rare example of a character who absolutely is, or at least can be, manipulative, but seems to use his abilities for good. He's not a pathological liar, he isn't looking down on everyone behind a smile. He's someone who is extremely emotionally intelligent, and he's willing to put aside all his own basic wants and needs to stop the cycle of dungeons devouring humans.

I'm going to cut a potential thesis on his character short and just give some examples of things that fandom should consider about his personality more:

Racism in fandom isn't just about whitewashing in fan art, or using racial slurs. The insidiousness of bad faith readings, reductions to racist tropes, lack of fan content for characters of color, and dismissal of a character's complexity are far more common. You can believe yourself to be completely neutral or even positive about a character and still churn out low-grade bile about them into fandom's collective unconscious. Fandom reflects real life.

And I have been around fandom long enough to see how these behaviors (mostly from my fellow white fans) affect fans of color, how it makes a fandom feel hostile and unwelcome to them. It's fun to make jokes and memes, I'm absolutely not saying that everything needs to be a deeply nuanced take, but we need to be careful that it doesn't veer into toxicity. Please think about how our contributions to fandom come across, and what sort of vibes they cultivate in this communal space.

#Dungeon Meshi #Kabru #Kabru of Utaya #Dungeon Meshi meta #I'm putting it in the tag. I'm making you look at it. #if you come into my inbox to bitch about this just know that people used to send me b*heading videos in there for similar racist reasons #so I will not be impressed #I'm in a fucking time loop someone get me out!!!! #musings with Dea

[comradekatara]

apparently suki got sexy lamped (i didn’t watch the show but that’s what i heard) and that is one of the worst things that could ever happen to me. suki is snarky and passionate and excitable and bad at making jokes and she is way too cool for sokka but that’s why they work.

yeah what they did to every single girl in that thing is unconscionable but what they did to suki and yue especially is crazy because we’re meant to believe that they’re both #StrongWomen but also going crazy stupid for white devil sokka even though he has nothing to offer either of them, and is not attractive, charismatic, or intelligent. suki doesn’t like sokka because he’s a hot guy with a six pack (couldn’t even type that without snorting. sorry) she likes him because he displays humility, open-mindedness, intelligence, humor, and bravery. none of which he actually displays in natla, for the record (although i guess you could call him telling suki that “they should put a bell on her” humor???? if you’re stupid??????), certainly not humility or a willingness to expand his worldview. he doesn’t apologize for doubting her skill, he doesn’t admit he was wrong, he doesn’t let her feminize him (WHO is this cis white boy!!!), and he doesn’t change his mind on anything.

in fact, SHE is the one who thanks HIM for “showing her the world,” which is obviously crazy if you spend even a second thinking about it. SUKI is the one who firsts presents sokka with a reason to expand his worldview. SUKI is the one who disrupts SOKKA’s entrenched paradigms. the whole point is that sokka knows NOTHING of the world and SUKI is the first person who teaches him something. suki is the first person to show him that being a warrior is not a biologically determined fact, but rather a state of mind. suki is the first person to actually train him formally. suki is the first person who helps sokka to realize that people beyond his immediate family can value him outside of his role as protector/martyr. that she can like him because he’s open-minded and makes her laugh (and certainly not because she’s entranced by his shiny muscles). suki is, in fact, the one who shows sokka the world. yes, they’re both isolated and sheltered when the show begins, and suki’s decision to leave kyoshi island is in large part influenced by meeting sokka, and she does kind of go crazy stupid over him and is the first one to initiate their romance, but she’s still the one imparting a valuable lesson onto sokka, not the other way around.

suki works so well with sokka, like natla very unsubtly points out, because they do have a lot in common as kids who are also the designated leaders and warriors of their respective villages. they understand each other on this implicit level, and they’re both very smart and share a (quite dark) sense of humor, so they’re able to banter and spar and hang out as equals. but they’re also different enough to balance each other out. sokka plans while suki reacts. sokka is cerebral whereas suki is kinetic. sokka is tightly wound whereas suki helps him relax. suki is confident in her own skin whereas sokka is deeply insecure and neurotic. she helps him loosen up and get out of his own head, and in turn he supports her and admires her unconditionally. sokka demonstrates to suki that he would do anything to help her, and suki demonstrates to sokka that he can accept her help and doesn’t need to shoulder every single burden alone out of some perverse guilt/martyr complex. they protect each other, have each others backs, make jokes together, hype each other up. they’re each other’s right hand arm man silly rabbit.

the reason suki is able to forgive sokka for his sexist comments is because he immediately apologizes when she proves him wrong. he humbles himself and demonstrates that he knows he has a lot to learn from her. he then also, after like, a couple hours at most of receiving any kind of formal hand to hand training for the first time in his life, manages to beat her. the thing about suki is that she’s also very proud. even prouder than sokka, if you consider that her confidence is 100% real and not a feigned defense mechanism like his is. and so the fact that she loses to him, even just in this one moment, does force her to reevaluate him. like, he’s obviously full of shit when he boasts of his skills (he has no formal training to speak of), we all know that, but he is nonetheless incredibly skilled. and suki has to acknowledge that, because i don’t think anyone who has been learning the form she’s spent her entire life mastering for less than a day has ever gotten the better of her like that before. and it’s certainly not because he’s a boy, or biologically superior; it’s because he’s smart enough to know how to adapt. and that intelligence is demonstrated not only in his skill, but also his willingness to completely upend everything he’s been taught within the span of a few hours.

this episode is in fact crucial for sokka, not because he learns how to fight or because he “stops being sexist” (imo, he’s still sexist, but that’s for another post), but because it demonstrates to the audience how sokka’s mind works, and how fucking impressive he is. i know that it may seem like this episode is just an after school special teaching young boys to be nicer to their sisters (and it is very much that), but it’s also illustrative of how sokka is able to process and synthesize new information and immediately change his mind. i’ve called sokka the personification of the scientific method before, and what i mean by that is that he is constantly absorbing new empirical data into his worldview and updating it accordingly. contrast this mindset with zuko’s, or even katara’s. how many times do they have to have the same lesson drilled into their heads over and over and over again before they actually properly internalize it? i’m not saying that zuko and katara are bad or stupid, to be clear, they’re actually incredibly realistic. sokka is the one who is unrealistically open-minded and intelligent. toph is really the only other character in the gaang who matches his sheer level of brilliance, creativity, and ingenuity.

so the reason this episode is valuable for establishing who sokka is, is just. completely negated by the way he’s portrayed in natla, as just some “hot” guy to ogle over. he doesn’t display his scientific mind, he doesn’t expand his worldview, he doesn’t complicate his own gender identity by wearing traditionally feminine garb, he doesn’t give suki or us, the audience, any reason to actually like him. and when he gets to omashu and starts expressing to the mechanist his aptitude for engineering, it feels completely hollow and unearned because at no point prior has he demonstrated that this mind works in a scientific way. we’re just expected to believe that he’s an engineering prodigy despite being given no prior evidence that even thinks logically.

in fact, everything that is unique and subtle about sokka is completely stripped away by this white devil. he isn’t “the only man” left in the village so he seems absolutely stupid insisting that he shoulders a unique burden. he constantly communicates his deepest emotions so he ends up sounding more like zuko or katara than sokka. he isnt funny, although i think he tries to be but simply lacks any charm. he isnt humble, he isnt depressed, he isnt intelligent, he isnt stupidly loyal and self-sacrificing. he acts more like a jock who magically knows engineering than a nerd who kills people. and suki seems like an absolute fool for being so obsessed with this absolutely worthless white boy, instead of the wonderful, confident girl who knows exactly what she wants and gets it.

meanwhile, yue, on the other hand, IS a girlboss who knows exactly what she wants, and it’s CRAZY. they completely reduce everything that makes her character important by turning her into a liberated woman (despite the nwt still being sexist???) who breaks off her own arranged marriage because she just wasn’t feeling it (even though THIS version of hahn is gorgeous and kind and respectful, so like…… huh??) and is a badass waterbender who talks back to her father. she wears euphoria makeup and a party city wig as she tells us (like she may as well be talking into the camera) that sokka is the hottest guy she’s ever seen (which would make more sense if the guy who played sokka played hahn and VICE VERSA, but i digress) and she loves him for…. reasons??? certainly not because he represents a figure beyond her limited paradigm, and certainly not because he’s charming or kind or makes her laugh or treats her like a person. and certainly not because they both feel restricted by their respective patriarchal duties to their fathers and to their people, because yue doesn’t feel restricted at all, and the extent of sokka’s daddy issues are simply “hakoda was mean to him because he sucks at ice dodging” (which is also crazy, for many reasons). they just feel like two people who were forced together because the narrative demanded it, and not because they have any sort of meaningful thematic connection that deepens both their stories. it’s horrendous.

ultimately, the ways in which these characters (and every character) are reduced are reflective of some incredibly dire patterns in these soulless, corporately produced objects of commerce that barely pass as art. “sokka’s sexism is too problematic so instead we’re going to change every single element of the story so that no one has any sort of objectionable flaws — or depth.” i know i talk a lot about sokka here, but they also massacre aang, and (especially!) katara, and even zuko (even though the guy playing zuko was definitely giving it his all). and azula and iroh and everyone else (except for ken leung and danny pudi who are innocent). they don’t want to create anything nuanced or intricate, but they want to make it marketable, so they advertise it as “appealing to a game of thrones audience.” i’ve always hated game of thrones, but it’s still leagues better than this. in fact, i think it might even be better for women than this. i don’t think it’s that hard to understand a Y-7 nickelodeon cartoon (although the takes ive seen on here do make me wonder…) and yet somehow the writers of this monstrosity managed to get every single facet wrong. distressingly wrong. every time i think about it i get mad all over again. smh

#god. i hate it here #asks #sapphikatara #natla #sokka #suki #yue #analysis #sokkaxsuki #sokkaxyue #also they made suki a nepobaby when like the whole point is that she EARNED her leadership as opposed to sokka #UGH. WHATEVER. #this is already uhhhh. nine paragraphs long #ok bye

[ms-demeanor]

So I love your computer information and advice - but I have never used a password manager because I’ve always figured it’s just putting all my most sensitive information out there to be stolen when someone gets into the password manager. What am I missing here?

The primary thing is that, in the normal course of time and space, given the limitations of computing technology, if you are using a decent password manager, nobody should be able to get into your password manager.

Good password managers (I recommend Bitwarden) are essentially impossible to access through cracking the encryption. It just won't happen. It's not going to happen.

In a decent password manager, your data also will not be available to the company that made the product. They can't get it. They don't have access, and anyone who breaks into their systems doesn't have access.

So there is one way that someone could get into your (decent) password manager: if they know your password.

That's why it's important to create one complex, memorable, unique password for your password manager that you do not share with anyone except in the most dire circumstances with someone you are 100% certain that you can trust (I've used the example in the past of my spouse giving me the password to his password manager when he was being prepped for an emergency bypass surgery - outside of situations like that, my spouse and I don't share passwords with each other).

Now, let's look at the flipside: if you do not use a decent password manager (which will generate nonsense random passwords for you on demand), you are probably creating passwords that are comparatively very easy to crack either through dictionary attacks or effortless to crack with credential stuffing.

Part of the problem here is that our data and security landscape is garbage. You have almost certainly had personal information leaked in a data breach that you had no say in participating in. You have almost certainly had your email address and multiple passwords exposed in breaches over the years. You have almost certainly used the same answers repeatedly for security questions, and there are only so many sites that will allow you to update those questions and answers, and those answers have almost certainly been exposed in previous breaches.

And the thing is, people are predictable. People reuse passwords, which makes credential stuffing extremely easy, because someone just has to find a leak from 2009 to identify your email address and then see if you used your 2009 password on any other accounts that you also registered with that email address. If your email address shows up in multiple leaks, they can compare the kinds of passwords that you used with different accounts.

Did you use the "unique password" hack that so many people do of "[site abbreviation][basic password][birthyear][punctuation]"? FBpassword95! TWTpassword95! TMBLRpassword95! - that's really, really common because passwords are hard to remember and people behave in predictable ways when they're trying to save themselves some labor.

Perhaps you are an XKCD reader and learned the CorrectHorseBatteryStaple trick, but unless you read the follow-up studies after the fact you might not know that those passwords are actually pretty crackable unless you're using words that are more like IndubitablyNematodeErlenmeyerRisome. And if you're using a unique combination of uncommon words it's going to get pretty hard to remember a hundred of them. And you'll start repeating. And then it's back to credential stuffing instead of dictionary attacks.

The point is that you are substantially more at risk of having your accounts accessed if you are repeating or using non-random passwords than you are if you are using a password manager. Some people do actually sit down with dice to roll up random passwords and write them in a book, but the vast majority of people are relying on their predictable human brains to come up with "complex" passwords and we are just not good at that.

Password managers also make it a lot easier to change things after a breach, and they make it a lot easier to generate and store random gibberish for your security questions (which you should be doing; at this point security questions are a liability, not an account recovery tool).

Using a password manager would make most people's passwords significantly more secure AND more accessible than something like writing randomized numbers and characters in a book (because a good password should not only be difficult to remember, it should be unnatural for you to type because there shouldn't be any words in it and it should require a lot of use of the shift key). A properly used password manager can also help to protect you from phishing sites by recognizing the correct site and not allowing an option to fill on a phishing site (which is why using a password manager with a browser plugin or an app can be a better option than one that is stored on your desktop and needs the password copy/pasted instead of filling the field for you).

So yes, if someone gets access to your password, they can get access to your password manager and you now have one point of failure instead of hundreds of accounts. However, because of the way that human brains work and because of how balls-to-the-walls uncrackable a good encrypted password vault is, you are likely to be more secure with that single point of failure than you are using the kinds of passwords that most people make up (we are really, really, really not good at making up nonsense passwords; go look at the top thousand passwords and think about how many of them you've used as a PART of any of your passwords. Most languages have a very small number of words that people use on a regular basis and it isn't that hard to get a computer to scan for a few thousand words if it has unlimited attempts to get into your account - mix that in with the fact that there are SO, SO many breaches out there and it is frighteningly easy to get into a lot of accounts).

However, you can then also make your password manager even MORE secure by setting up 2FA to access it. At which point the only way someone is getting into your password manager is if they know your password and have access to your 2FA account.

Generally I find that what most people are worried about isn't that their horrible ex or an abusive parent will get into their password manager, they're a lot more worried that the contents of their password vault will be exposed in a breach. And that is just not going to happen if you're using a securely encrypted password manager (like bitwarden).

[crossdressingdeath]

I'm thinking about Karlach and in particular her relationship with Gortash, and the more I think about it the more I really wish that she'd known he was a Banite from the start, or at least for a good chunk of her time working for him. I mean, the canon story of "I didn't know what he was, he lied to me and I didn't realize the truth until he stabbed me in the back" doesn't not work? It just feels like a very... safe option. Now, I love Karlach, I really do, she's a joy to be around. But I don't know, the whole "I didn't know what they were doing" method of letting a wonderful person work for the bad guys has been done. It's been done a lot. And it also makes Karlach feel less morally complex than the other origin companions to me! I mean, it's entirely possible she didn't even know Gortash was a criminal; his public persona would require bodyguards too. So if we assume that she didn't even know he was a criminal then her moral complexity is limited to having some friends who are devils and wanting Gortash dead, which... even just by general fantasy standards and especially when compared to characters like Astarion, Shadowheart and Lae'zel (as the most obvious examples, but personally I also find Wyll's pact with Mizora and Gale getting the orb at least as complex if not more and they didn't work for the villain, so that feels like a bit of a problem) is very straightforward. She's good. Maybe she used to be a bit naive and then learned not to be so blindly trusting through betrayal. Sure. Fine. Personally I do not find that particularly compelling, if I just saw her backstory written out without the super hard work of her writer and VA in the rest of the game my reaction to her would basically just be "Eh". And if we assume she did know he was a criminal then it feels kind of weak that the only time that even vaguely comes up is Gortash potentially making one comment about how Karlach knew what he was and shouldn't really have been surprised.

Also, an additional point, the fact that supposedly Gortash was putting enough work into keeping her ignorant that there was a noticeable drop in his ethics after he sold her is... kind of weird, because the only reason we're given for it is "He liked her"? To be clear the fact that he liked her isn't the problem, we know Gortash is perfectly capable of liking people. But... he went out of his way to deceive this one employee? To the point that people noticed a change when he was gone? Or alternately selling her specifically actively made him significantly worse, which... would also be kind of weird. There isn't even any particular reason for him to see himself in her, other than the Lower City upbringing they had very little in common before Gortash sold her (unless baby Enver was way better of a person than his current self would suggest). I feel like if Larian was going to justify Karlach apparently not realizing she was working for an arms dealer and slave trader as his personal bodyguard (so someone who'd logically be around for a lot of shady shit or frankly what is the point of her being on the payroll) with "he lied to her" more needed to be done with it.

But if she knew he was a Banite and knew what he was doing for a good chunk of the time she spent working with him that adds a tasty "I didn't think the leopards would eat my face!" energy to the whole situation! I love the idea of Karlach liking and trusting Gortash despite knowing what he was because he treated her with respect and that was all that mattered! Obviously this is subjective, I will freely admit I like my characters with a bit more moral greyness than Karlach shows, but to me at least her reassessing and improving her morals from a standpoint of "Him liking me and respecting me wasn't enough to save me because other people's lives do not matter to him" would be much more interesting than her being a perfectly lovely person from the start and not knowing what her boss was doing and getting betrayed and then continuing to be a perfectly lovely person. (I'm not going to claim that a person's morals improving when the thing they did to others is done to them is particularly ground-breaking, but I would argue it's no less ground-breaking than "they didn't know and were good all along and their boss was lying to them" and to me at least it's significantly more engaging.) And it would also neatly remove the question of why Gortash cared enough to lie about what he was doing to this one specific employee from day one (so before he could bond with her at all), which. y'know, would be nice.

#bg3 #not gonna put this in her character tag i think #i don't have a problem with karlach working for one of the biggest antagonists in the game! that's fun! i love it! #but it feels like a mistake to give her that in her backstory and ALSO have her be The Good One y'know?

[sepublic]

In lieu of my latest reblog about people taking compelling characters and projecting their writing onto some other (usually white) dude, I want to bring up a post I had drafted all the way back from April, but never posted because at the time I still had enough patience not to. But now is different. I do think this analysis is a bit outdated because it doesn’t consider the mediocre white dude angle of Belos that I find paramount, but it’s good enough for my repurposed point.

-

            I find it funny when some people complain that the narrative was unfair to Belos despite his “trauma” and circumstances, like there aren’t multiple characters out there who parallel his issues, and get sympathy AND a redemption, in all but one case! Belos is narratively condemned not for what he has in common with others, but for what sets him apart, particularly his stubborn ego. Cases in point;

         “Belos deserved to have sympathy for having an unhealthy attachment to his more confident sibling that was mixed with resentment over being abandoned for someone else, culminating in guilt over hurting them and regretting it!”

         Lilith exists. She’s motivated by a massive inferiority complex with Eda, Gwen favors her. She’s clearly salty about Eda going off to have fun with Raine, and claims to Luz that she’s Eda’s ‘real’ family. She cursed her sister and felt enormous guilt over it… But in the end, Lilith IS given sympathy by the narrative, and the chance to redeem herself. And she takes just that.

         A lot of the people claiming Belos deserved better theorize that stabbing Caleb was an accident, and you know what? So was the permanence of Eda’s curse, Lilith expected it to only last a day and certainly not transform her sister. But Lilith still owned up. And she learned to make other friends while respecting Eda’s boundaries.

         “Belos was an orphan raised in a culture that encouraged genocide and a hatred of wild magic!”

         Caleb exists, he went through the exact same childhood as Philip, but still chose to change. And while they weren’t orphans at the time, Hunter and the Collector were also raised on genocide, taught to find wild/Titan magic apprehensive. But they loved it instead.

         “But Belos actually lost his brother, his loved one died!”

         So did Hunter’s! And he was shown to be snappy and aggressive, pouring himself into a mission to cope! But he still owned up, apologized to Willow for rebuking her. He lost Flapjack, and instead of making replicas of his lost loved one to keep to himself, discarding anyone that wasn’t close enough, Hunter made a diverse array of palismen for other kids, to give them the loving relationship he lost! Even his own palisman was clearly carved to be different from Flapjack, reminiscent but still their own thing.

         Then there’s Darius, who lost his mentor the previous Golden Guard; His own ‘Caleb’, so to speak! And he was also unpleasant about it, he took his grief out on Hunter, who had nothing to do with this! The canon audio diaries even confirm the apprehension has been going for a while… But Darius realized he was wrong to have projected onto Hunter, made up for this by practically adopting the kid and giving this kid the happy ending his mentor didn’t have; Passing the cycle of kindness the Golden Guard started. And his own grief is pointed out to the audience by Hunter himself.

         “They should’ve shown how having a hero complex and a desire to live out a fantasy can corrupt anyone!”

         Luz and the Collector. Luz herself makes these comparisons for Belos, and there were times where she hurt her friends trying to live out her fantasy, and/or planned to leave them under the impression she was doing the ‘right thing’. Luz makes a legitimate consideration that she could’ve been Belos, if she refused to listen to others and change. But Luz owned up! As did the Collector, whose escapism and wish to play the role of the ‘hero’, in this case Luz, causes them to do some pretty terrible things. But they still change after being called out, and are still given sympathy over the loneliness and trauma that fueled their escapism, as was Luz.

"Philip struggled with getting over a different type of fantasy, one that relied upon him conquering and hurting others!"

As did King! And King got over that, he quickly learned that other people would always be more important than his fantasies, even if the 'sacrifices' were a lot more minor. King started off the same, the difference is that he still grew up and that's why we judge his antics as so much more light-hearted.

         “Well that’s not fair, Philip’s examples were more extreme!”

         How about Eda’s curse? Belos never brings up his other sources of trauma as an excuse for his actions, but you know what he does invoke? His curse, claiming to Hunter and Luz that it forced him to act certain ways. But we see Eda, who got a rawer deal with her curse; She didn’t bring it upon herself, as Belos did. She legitimately loses control when it takes over. She scarred and disabled her father because of it, and you know what?

         Eda never uses her curse as an excuse. She never lets that justify what she’s done to people, and she even befriends the creature at the source of her curse, the Owl Beast. The curse she deals with is objectively worse, objectively more unfair, than Belos’. But it’s only Belos who actually cites his curse as an excuse, and the palismen at the source of it? He kills them.

         “Belos’ cursed form is treated as ugly and evil!”

         The palismen amalgam in his mind looked almost exactly the same, to the point where Hunter, who had seen Belos’ cursed form in person before, thought they were identical. But in the end, the palismen amalgam, despite resembling Belos’ cursed form, is a sympathetic and tragic victim who is murdered. Luz and Hunter mistaking him for Belos is justified, but it’s also still regrettable that they are judged by appearances.

         “It hurts people to sacrifice their morals for the greater good, you know!”

         Raine did that, they felt compelled to drag Darius and Eberwolf (one of whom was a childhood friend) into a murder-suicide, because as far as they knew, they were already going to be caught and executed, so may as well take their oppressors down with them! And they aren’t called out for it, because they couldn’t have known about Darius’ actual intentions…

         Because in the end, sometimes you have to punch a fascist, and sometimes you have to oppose a friend or loved one because they took the fascists’ side. It’s why Lilith is expected to change for Eda, not the other way around. Raine is not the aggressor here, it’s all from the principle of self-defense for themselves and the isles as a whole.

         And in the end, it’s because Raine is approaching from a place of actual good intent and moral concern that there are lines they still refuse to cross; As soon as they learn about Luz and King, they sabotage their own plans because they refuse to orphan these kids they just found out about for the ‘greater good’. When one of those very kids, Luz, makes Raine promise to keep Eda safe, you can see the conflict between their morals and their obligations in their eyes as Eda accepts the Bard sigil, and ultimately Raine powers through the draining spell to save Eda’s life, simply because Luz asked them to.

         I’ve talked since their debut of how Raine has some similarities to Belos, in particular how they both work their whole lives to infiltrate a group from within to topple it, even as they publicly support it as a celebrated leader. They both had to lie and work under the radar, and make effective rhetoric; They each wear their own masks. Raine has to constantly lie to and rebuke Eda about being brainwashed, and we can see the moral agony it gives them!

         But Raine is opposed to a legitimate threat, whereas Belos is completely making one up; Raine has to work under the micro-management of tyrants with control over them, Philip has been free from his colony for centuries, and even after finding out Gravesfield gave up on its witch hunting mission in the present, still traps himself of his own will. Belos feels no guilt for any of his ‘necessary evil’.

         Raine had actual morals unlike Belos that they did sacrifice, for an actual greater good, and they actually hurt over these choices. They dedicated their whole life to stop a dark and twisted parallel, which makes their inclusion in the finale as the only person outside of the core trio to help against Belos all the more deserved; They even help deliver the killing blows. And Raine is rewarded for all of their effort, allowed to see it come to fruition and rest happily afterwards, because they really were sincere, and actually did make sacrifices, something Belos preaches but never follows. Most importantly, Raine knew they couldn’t justify everything even for their morally-justified mission.

         “Belos was still legitimately wronged by Caleb for nothing, he didn’t deserve to be abandoned!”

         Even if we believe Caleb did ‘abandon’ Philip or whatever; The Collector was legitimately wronged by the Titan, imprisoned and isolated for millennia despite being innocent. But while he justifiably calls the Titan a bully, he never takes this out on King, or any other Titan for that matter, remembering the rest with love. Nor is the Collector expected to forgive the Titan; The Titan accepts she made the wrong call. After all, imprisoning the Collector left them in a vulnerable state to be exploited by Belos, and give him the draining spell…

         The Titan and Caleb’s mistakes were very much that, but the Collector matured for others, without needing an apology from the dead person who wronged him. And based on what we see of Belos’ memories, Caleb probably DID get to deliver that apology when he was alive, and Philip still insisted on being bitter!

         “His only childhood friend just ditched him for someone else!”

         That’s what happened to Willow, and that’s how she understood it for most of her life; Amity leaving her behind because she was too weak, and kids like Boscha and Skara were more popular, stronger, etc. But not only does the show say her rage against Amity is totally warranted and that the onus is on Amity to apologize, even if she didn’t choose to leave Willow (keep in mind she still saw Willow as a weak person to protect without input, as we later see in Labyrinth Runners)…

         Willow is still kind. She still opts to be compassionate to Gus, and to Luz, and in general a nurturing person despite her abandonment. And when Willow is given the chance to take revenge on Boscha by stealing her glory in Grudgby, she doesn’t kick the girl while she’s down to do so; But Willow is also allowed to still hold anger towards Boscha, as we see in Season 3. And assuming Caleb wasn’t malicious about leaving Philip behind, we clearly see how he welcomes his brother back and wants things to get better, just as Amity does; He had his own side of the story. And Willow doesn’t kill Amity despite being primed to very easily do so…

"But imagine finding out they CHOSE to leave you, when you thought they didn't!"

Camila?!?! In fact, Camila was THE precedent for this, and people went and applied her tragic scene to Philip to make HIM into some angsty sadboi! And last I checked, Camila didn't exactly murder Luz... Plus, Philip had infinitely more time to see Caleb and Evelyn interact, and thus figure out that Caleb wasn't being kidnapped or brainwashed; Compare that to Camila who is just dunked into that situation out of nowhere, and is barely even adjusting to Vee's existence on top of finding out Luz was someplace else the entire time, and dealing with Jacob.

"A lot of family members at least start off as well-intentioned when hurting loved ones, they could've shown that!"

Bold of you to assume that Belos' selfish entitlement towards Caleb is the same as Camila or Gwen's legitimate concerns for their daughters; They did unconditionally love and they were misguided. But when shown they were causing pain, they actually shifted gears instead of focusing on how they were fight because they knew better. And what they were doing WAS still harmful, even though they DID care.

         “Belos was probably a weirdo himself, and suffered from internalized hatred for his deviancy!”

         Lilith dyed her hair to fit in with the coven, and be taken seriously. Amity suppressed herself to be a stoic perfectionist, constantly trying to justify her own existence as she says; She had to work to be good at magic while others like Gus, Emira, and Edric were naturally talented, and was made to hate those who weren’t successful as witches. Hunter too loathed his own lack of bile magic!

         Most tellingly, Camila herself was taught to hide her weirdness, grew up thinking she was successful for doing that, and even tried to impose the same on Luz because of that misconception! But Camila realized what was done to her was wrong, and the same applied to her daughter; Accepting Luz’s weirdness meant accepting her own.

         “Even if he still chose to double down in villainy, Belos could’ve at least been given a moment where he was sympathetic, where his sadness was shown, before nevertheless deciding his fate!”

         Kikimora had an entire episode where she agonized over her obligations to a mother that seemed low key abusive, given her threat to disown her. We see her hesitate, cry, and be legitimately disappointed when she’s rewarded for staying with Belos by ‘getting to live’, a reward that doesn’t even last by the Day of Unity! Even after Kikimora makes her choice to betray Luz and Amity, we still get a final scene of her looking uncertain and even regretful of her decision, before she commits. Kikimora isn’t redeemed but is still humanized, despite being less human than Belos, so to speak.

         She’s even a dark parallel to Lilith, having jealousy towards the Golden Guard, an emotionally abusive mother, and an inferiority complex towards other members of the coven despite working directly with Belos! And she is given many chances to escape Belos, a few months where she is legitimately free from him, and chooses to remain in her ways because Kikimora’s difference with Lilith isn’t that life was more unfair to her, it’s that she refused to change.

         Now this is a bit out there, but there’s also the other Coven Heads! Mason, Vitimir, Hettie, and Osran! The show was shortened, so who knows what they could’ve provided for the story… Mason, Hettie, and Osran especially, since they’re not included amongst the coven head loyalists who still cling to power, even after Belos’ death. The show could’ve easily set up sympathetic moments to indicate a possibility of change, paying off in the epilogue; But because of Disney, you can’t blame the writers for not delivering everything they could’ve.

         “How about a character who was just… an asshole, no outside reason given?”

         Boscha, who was popular and privileged. While she does allude to some pressures that motivate her, as far as we know, there wasn’t really anyone or anything that made her be so cruel towards those she perceives as lesser. But despite this, Willow doesn’t see any point in trying to take Boscha’s spotlight as a Grudgby captain, when offered by her teammates; She doesn’t kick Boscha when she’s down. And Boscha is ultimately still recognized as unhappy with the loss of her friends, so even if she does do egregious things during the Collector’s reign, Amity offers Boscha the chance to become better and improve, as she did. And she takes it!

         “Well, none of these characters had to grapple with having done things nearly as bad as Belos!”

         And why do you think that is? Why are Belos’ sins so monumental in comparison, how did they get so bad? Because he kept refusing to change, kept refusing each opportunity, and got worse because of that. His first confirmed murder was Caleb, who right beforehand embraced his brother during what appeared to be a manifestation of the curse. But Philip still chose to commit his first sin despite receiving such unconditional sympathy, because he wanted control, not happiness. He didn’t start off as a genocidal dictator, he worked his way up to that over centuries.

         “They make it seem like Belos was born evil!”

         Our earliest chronological appearances of Philip are as a happy, carefree child who plays games with the brother he loves and looks up to; That isn’t the portrayal of someone ‘born’ evil. This is the portrayal of someone who became that way, over time, because he refused to concede anything to anyone, and wore away what decency he had across centuries, until we see the Emperor that Belos is when the show starts.

         An evil dictator who ravaged an entire world for hundreds of years came from an innocent little kid, and Luz becomes self-aware of how this can apply to her, even as she’s reminded that she also ISN’T like Belos because of this critical reflection and willingness to listen. Belos, on the other hand, consciously cultivated an echo chamber for centuries, killing any Grimwalker he felt disagreed with him, despite their unconditional love and support. He deliberately shut himself off from the isles and ignored the kindness of others.

         Bump reminds Faust that it’s disingenuous to project malice onto children who often simply don’t know any better, and just need to be given a chance to be taught and educated. But kids also have to take initiative to mature when they get older, hence why we hold adults more responsible; The established logic is that Belos wasn’t an evil child, he was simply a child who never grew up and that’s where his evil came from, rather than being some pre-existing source.

         To be honest, I think the narrative doesn’t bother showing sympathy to Belos over his trauma because he’s already HAD more than enough sympathy, across centuries, from his brother, the Grimwalkers, his followers, even Luz and the Collector! So the story doesn’t feel the need to waste tears on someone who already got them, and instead focuses sympathy to characters who haven’t received as much, if any; People like Lilith, Amity, Hunter, etc.

         Belos is the culmination of other characters’ traumas (who prove you can still choose to be better and happier despite these things), and was practically coddled by the people in his life for it. But he still chose to be bitter, never opened up to accept help, and his rejection brought even more pain that he could only blame on himself. Belos’ only tragedy is his refusal to change for the better; Even the narrative has made it clear he had chances, tears wept for him by people he knew.

He is a mirror to so many characters, what could’ve happened if they looked at their own pain and used it as justification to continue lashing out, because clearly they are the underdog heroes who have been wronged and are fighting against an injustice, right? The hero of their own story, if you will. Hell, we still also get that with Kikimora, as I just said! What I’ve listed is not a double standard, but rather proof that Belos was not uniquely condemned by his circumstances, for he is alike many characters as I mentioned. And Belos does not need to be portrayed “sympathetically” in order for the audience to understand the relevance of these parallels; Namely, that Belos has no excuse to still be like this when those similar nevertheless choose not to be cruel, and will accept others’ compassion.

         And besides, with how the show was shortened… Who’s to say the writers didn’t plan to throw Belos a sympathetic moment of genuine loneliness, before doubling down? Not that they really would’ve needed to. But if they planned it, the writers had to leave it out to prioritize the weirdos this show is actually about, due to the shortening.

#the owl house #emperor belos #philip wittebane #lilith clawthorne #caleb wittebane #the owl house hunter #darius deamonne #Luz Noceda #the owl house collector #king clawthorne #Eda clawthorne #edalyn clawthorne #raine whispers #camila noceda #the owl house boscha #fandom salt #white favoritism

[storm-driver]

hi, i have feelings about cartoon nostalgia and the audience perception of them 20 years on

this is gonna read hyper-specific, but bear with me

i refuse to credit butch hartman for the way danny phantom came out during it's first two seasons, at least outside of the initial pitch and the idea of the protagonist having white hair. i know the majority of enthusiasts for this show are more than aware of hartman's antics at this point. these anctics, i won't get into. other people are far more suited to explain that stuff vs me, a random guy on the internet. but there's very specific topics that i don't often see get brought up in detail, like the production and staff behind this show.

i'll get into it below the cut so as not to clutter your dashboard. but if you're not familiar with the actual production history of danny phantom, this might be interesting to read.

it's common knowledge these days that stephen silver is the one who developed the design for danny based on hartman's original rough sketches. the similarity between each drawing is apparent, but you can see clear as day which design was gonna be more apt for animation and overall audience allure back in 2003.

he also did character designs for hartman's other poster child, Fairly Oddparents. the trend is similar, though far from a huge concern. character design overhauls happen all the time in media production. designs might be too complicated for animation, so they get stripped down. or maybe things aren't complex enough and more nuance needs to be added. that's normal stuff, and i am not dunking on hartman for not nailing danny's design right out the gate. i'm pointing this out in case you've ever looked at butch hartman's recent work and wondered "how are these done by the same artist?"

the answer is they weren't. hartman had to adapt to stephen silver's conceptual designs in order to work on the storyboards. take from that what you will.

onto the actual writing.

butch barely wrote a single episode for this show's first two seasons.

steve marmel helped write at least 28 episodes of the original two seasons, with writers like sib ventress and marty isenberg bringing a good amount of episodes to the table, as well.

butch hartman is credited primarily for directing and storyboarding this show. the episode pitch and writing was by other people almost entirely. the ONLY episodes in the first two seasons that hartman is credited with having written are mystery meat, one of a kind and splitting images. and he's credited with co-writing these episodes alongside steve marmel and mark banker. ie, he did not write these episodes on his own. and allegedly, butch hartman had a tendency to be credited as a writer for an episode, even if he only wrote a few lines of dialogue. again, take from that what you will.

past that in season 3, he wrote infinite realms, torrent of terror, forever phantom, urban jungle, and ofc, phantom planet. which a lot of people know, these episodes in particular weren't the most enjoyable, nor was the overall direction of them very good.

a director's job is to make sure that the overall tone, feel, and message of the show is being kept consistent with intent. that means meeting with producers, who are the ones managing the, y'know, producing part of the whole project. it may sound like the director is the one heading the project if it's their job to keep things in check. which, i will not deny, hartman must've put in a good deal of work to make the show come out as well as it did.

but pile that with some of the off things per episode. the mean-spirited way that characters tend to be taught lessons, the voice direction getting a drastic change in season 3 (you can hear it explicitly with david kaufman suddenly going for higher pitches instead of the usual one he's done so far). there's really only one consistent motif in the entire show's OST. which isn't a bash against the music producer. it's a concern that the director of the show never asked him to change things up, and ONLY stuck to this one motif.

to briefly touch on the mean-spirited thing. there's multiple instances in the show where danny or someone else is seen fighting back against whatever has given them trouble, or they're taking matters into their own hands to ensure they won't be hurt ahead of time. and repeatedly, the show likes to kick these characters back down for trying to stand up. it's a trend in all of butch hartman's shows, and it's treated more like comedy than anything else. it's up to audience perception on how to view it. but for me personally, it starts to feel like an overused gag and turns into something more malevolent after seeing it overused almost every single episode.

okay besides that, i actually wanna look at specific examples of episodes that steve marmel wrote for. again, this is the guy who's more or less responsible for the show's serialization.

the complete list of episodes is as follows:

Mystery Meat, Parental Bonding, One of a Kind, Attack of the Killer Garage Sale, Splitting Images, What You Want, Bitter Reunions, Prisoners of Love, My Brother's Keeper, Shades of Gray, Fanning the Flames, Teacher of the Year, Fright Night, 13(Thirteen), Public Enemies, Memory Blank, Reign Storm, The Ultimate Enemy, The Fright Before Christmas, Secret Weapons, Flirting with Disaster, Micro Management , Kindred Spirits, and Reality Trip.

multiple episodes listed here are from the first season, which a lot of people consider the show's best. and of the handful listed for season 2, he wrote all of the hour-long specials.

i would be here for hours talking about how steve marmel tackles all of these characters and concepts significantly better than hartman does in season 3. but that's a topic best praised elsewhere. point is, if you watched any of these episodes and thought to yourself "wow, that was actually kinda clever," steve marmel is more or less the guy responsible.

butch hartman was in charge of direction, but that does not give him exclusive credit for every single line of dialogue or plot beat. there could be a LOT we just don't know because people on production staff don't want to comment. but the writing consistency taking a dive off the board by season 3, which is the same season that steve marmel departed from the project due to conflicting direction in the story? you might deduce that butch hartman was not the prized writer and artist behind this otherwise beloved cartoon.

to dredge up an easier-to-tackle target, season 3.

my criticisms are 18-year old echoes at this point, you've heard them all. from otherwise pointless episodes that don't develop the characters or world, to completely out-of-touch writing (looking at you, phantom planet) that juxtaposes the characters with everything we've been told about them so far. it became a slog of a season that didn't have any build-up to it's finale. the occasional gem of an episode like frightmare helped in some aspects. or the promise for something later with d-stabilized. but it all gets swept under the rug thanks to a rushed finale with poor build-up, bad writing direction for the characters, and most importantly, an unlasting effect on the viewer. (or a negative lasting effect, which is arguably worse)

for a season that knew it was on its last leg before inevitably needing to give up, there's seldom few episodes dedicated to advancing an overall narrative, and thus give a slimmer of hope for a satisfying conclusion. instead, the show goes all in with villain-of-the-week stories, and even the returning villains are hardly taken seriously or given more to do besides just being there.

of course, we know the reason steve marmel had left the project was because hartman wanted the show not to taken a more story-focused drive. it almost starts to feel like spite that kept the show so horribly grounded, letting it become stagnant before eventually being forgettable.

all this is in service of letting people know, it really wasn't butch hartman that made the show, not alone. death of the author and all that nonsense aside, he pitched the concept. and it takes a lot of love and dedication to make a concept something you can physically see and adore. don't let him swath in all the credit. recognize the others who made the work you can still enjoy.

#stormy weather #danny phantom #hey guess what i found in my drafts!!! #this is an INCREDIBLY old post #this is dating back to like almost 2016!!! #anyways i rewrote most of it because the og was a lil rough lol #but all of these feelings remain the same to this day #it's kinda wack #a younger me knew what he was feeling #and an older me knows how to say it

[confusedblakex]

Words

Pairing: Eijiro Kirishima X Deaf Reader (GN)

Summary: Kirishima always wondered why he had no words on his wrist, but when he meets you it all makes sense

AU: Soulmate AU - Soulmates have tattoos of the first words their soulmates say to them

Wordcount: ~1430

Warnings: Self consciousness (inferiority complex)

Requested by: Me stressing about finals

Notes: As a hearing person, please let me know if I offend anyone with the way I've written the reader (or if you have any constructive criticism)

Last edited: 24th May 2023

Kirishima was self-conscious about many things. His looks, his personality, his quirk. And the fact that he had no soulmate.

The first words a person’s soulmate said to them would be written as a tattoo-like mark on the inside of their wrist. Everyone found their soulmate at some point in their life, whether intentionally or not, they would end up as friends or lovers or something in between.

Not everyone wanted to find their soulmate, but having no soulmate at all was even rarer than being quirkless. And on Kirishima’s wrist, there was nothing.

His love of sweatbands and nice watches wasn’t because of their usefulness and functionality, but because it meant he never had any questions about his soulmark. Though that didn’t mean he completely avoided the subject, and he always felt a sting in his heart whenever his friends brought it up.

But UA would be different - he told himself - at UA, he wouldn’t fear judgement because of it. And so for his first day of hero school, he didn’t cover his wrist, the empty space looking so abnormal to him.

Yet on the first day, quite a few people found their soulmates. He may have felt his heart ache, but reminded himself of the new person he was. He wouldn’t let this get him down. So when the topic of soulmates was brought up, he didn’t shy away - though he was nervous - and told his class about his lack of soulmark. No one made a fuss, and no one made him feel bad. Bakugo even called him lucky for not having destiny be the one to decide his partner.

So manly.

And though he still wished he had a soulmate, he didn’t let himself feel upset that he didn’t have a soulmark. Well, that was until he met you.

You were a transfer student who joined midyear, and apparently you knew Uraraka since she greeted you with a hug the moment she saw you. And then once Aizawa walked in,  you introduced yourself to the class.

Notebook in hand, you took a deep breath and stood in front of the class. Kirishima watched as you flipped open the first page of the notebook and gasps and whispers filled the room.

“Hello, my name is (y/n), and I’m deaf” 

And you flipped the page again.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you all”

You were nervous, he could tell you were nervous, but you smiled through it regardless. You were shown to your seat by Aizawa, and the moment he tried to go back to sleep the class erupted into chatter. Uraraka ran over to you and started making quick hand movements to you, which Kirishima realised was sign language.

The rest of the class followed suit, all rushing over trying to talk to you and asking Uraraka to translate. You took out your notebook with some pre-written answers for common questions. Things like:

“I do have hearing aids, but that doesn’t mean I can hear fully”

“If you want to talk to me, please make sure I’m able to see your face so I can better understand what you’re saying”

Once the fuss all died down, Uraraka ended up convincing you and a bunch of others to start a club to teach people sign language so you could communicate with them more easily. Which was then followed by Bakugo, of all people, going up to you and challenging you (and probably also insulting your quirk) in fluent sign language.

But Kirishima never took his eyes off you. You were gorgeous. The way you interacted with the class as they asked you questions, and how cute you were when you were focusing on listening to someone. Your smile and the positive aura you had.

He had fallen hard.

---

He walked up to you one day with the intention of asking about joining the sign language club, but he couldn’t seem to think clearly. He had never spoken to you before, so once he had your attention his mind blanked.

Instead he said the first thing that popped into his brain.

“Hey, I uh… just wanted to say I think you’re really pretty…”

Your eyes went wide as your wrist started to tingle and then gently burn. It only lasted a moment, but you knew exactly what it meant. You pulled your sleeve down just enough to see the words glowing, and then turned to furiously sign to Uraraka, who was already understanding what was going on.

“Oh my gosh, (y/n)’s your soulmate!” She exclaimed, probably a little louder than she intended as you winced at the noise.

“What?” Kiri asked, not because he didn’t figure it out, but because it simply wasn’t possible. And yet it made so much sense.

The silence that followed rang loud, and yet your bright smile made everything alright. Kiri couldn’t help but pull you into a gentle hug, one that you quickly reciprocated.

From that moment on, Kirishima felt complete, felt as though his heart was whole. As though all those years spent feeling insecure about his lack of soulmark, and all those nights he spent wishing he’d have a soulmate were nothing.

And your friendship quickly became something more. Kiri didn’t want to feel like he was pushing you into a relationship, but it just felt so natural. His love for you was unlike anything he had ever felt, and it only grew greater each day.

Kirishima wanted to confess his feelings for you, but he wasn’t sure how. Not once had to two of you spoken about your feelings regarding the realtionship, and he wanted it to be special. 

He finally convinced Bakugo to teach him sign language - even though Bkakugo wouldn’t tell Kiri why he knew it - and planned the perfect way to tell you. On his birthday.

Unbeknownst to him, you wanted to do something special too. With the help of Uraraka, Momo and Jiro, you all came up with a plan. The three of them were the best friends you could ask for and were so supportive of your feelings for Kirishima. Together, they helped you learn over the months, and for Kiri’s birthday you were going to tell him you loved him. With words.

It wasn’t as though you couldn’t speak, you could, you were just so self-conscious about how you sounded - and of course it wasn’t easy. But it was something you were willing to do for Eijiro. He was so uplifting to be around, and encouraged you endlessly. For years you were worried that your soulmate wouldn’t be interested in you romantically because of your disability, but Kiri didn’t care. He loved you regardless, and you couldn’t be happier.

But when the day finally rolled around, you suddenly didn’t trust yourself. What if you sounded weird? What if he didn’t like your voice? You knew it was just your thoughts bringing you down, but they were so difficult to ignore.

A tap on your shoulder brought you back from your thoughts, and your turned to face Bakugo and Kirishima. You smiled at Kiri, but Bakugo had something to say.

“Stupid hair had something important to say, so you better pay attention” he signed, “I’ll kill you if you don’t treat him well”

His face softened, and he patted you on the back before leaving, which took you off guard. It leaft you and Kiri alone together, but you were still confused.

He looked nervous, but before you could ask any questions, he bagan signing.

“It’s my birthday today, and I wanted to do something special”

“And I really don’t want to come off as weird, but it’s not manly for me to keep my feelings hidden from you”

He signed to you fluently and confidently, making a few mistakes here and there, but you could tell he was really trying. And it was wonderful.

“I love you (y/n)”

This was not how you expected it to go, but it was perfect nonetheless. He confessed to you! It was practically the perefct setup.

“I love you to-o, Kiri-shima” You said, making sure you carefully sounded out the words so you didn’t say anything wrong.

Kiri didn’t even have time to process that you just spoke. You loved him too!

“Really?! Ow-” He felt his wrist burn, and he hadn’t even noticed until it hurt. He tugged his sleeve down to see what had happened, but paused when he saw there was no wound. Instead, his wrist was glowing with words appearing on his skin.

‘I love you too, Kirishima’

#x reader #x male reader #x gender neutral reader #x gn reader #kirishima eijiro #eijirou kirishima #kirishima x reader #bnha #mha #bnha x reader #mha x reader #reader insert #soulmate au #soulmates

[monster-gender]

This was originally going to be a more general post about how people have bad takes about Sylvester and Florencia, but it kinda got away from me because I started realizing that the Rozemyne/Wilfried engagement is probably the thing that's caused the most misunderstandings about him.

First of all, it was literally Ferdinand's idea originally. Seriously, look at the "Year One: Complete" chapter in p4v3. Such a simple detail, but it seems like a lot of people forget it.

Second, it did not happen because Sylvester favors Wilfried. In fact, Wilfried is basically just a means to an end in all of this. It happened because Sylvester prioritizes *Florencia*. Sylvester doesn't care if "commoner blood" or Ferdinand or whoever else becomes the next archduke. He cares about cementing Florencia's place as the mother of the next archduke. And on top of that, Sylvester was trying to grant Rozemyne's wish of staying in Ehrenfest. Mostly because obviously she benefits the duchy, but also he literally says that he still felt bad about tearing her away from her loving family and wants to at least grant her wish of staying near them.

Wilfried in particular benefiting from the engagement was just an extra little bonus in all of this. If Charlotte was a man, or Melchior was older, the engagement would've been with them instead. How do we know this? Because Sylvester and Florencia already gave up on the guaranteed Aub thing after the Ivory Tower incident, and if Charlotte or Melchior were an option then they'd be much more secure candidates than Wilfried (even completely disregarding skills and whatnot, Charlotte and Mechior not being criminals would give the Leisegang's much less leverage).

Which brings us to the final piece of this: "Sylvester is such a bad father! He didn't let Wilfried step down even though he wanted to!!" Let's remember the situation here: Wilfried picked quite literally the worst possible moment to start backing out, which Sylvester points out. Sylvester even said that he would've let Wilfried step down and take responsibility for Rozemyne himself, but Wilfried didn't change his mind until it was too late. Remember, he wasn't suffering silently wanting to step down the whole engagement: he changed his mind *after* his conversation with Ortwin, which was *after* the FVF purge.

Don't get me wrong, Sylvester has a lot to be criticized for, but this the way people try to erase the complexity of layers that Kazuki-sensei weaves into her characters is so maddening.

#ascendance of a bookworm #bunnee.txt

[theemporium]

idk if this counts as a little blurb or not-

4. “This doesn’t change anything between us.” (but it really does)6th year..? with muggleborn gryffindor reader x sirius.

she cant stand james and sirius and peter(Even remus sometimes) shes not a quiet person and stands up for everyone including herself. and maybe she gets attacked by Slytherins (Snape & the gang) after defending some kids in a different house.

or if you have a better idea write whatever you feel like writing<3

thank you for requesting!🖤

.

You did not like the marauders. 

You didn’t care what people said about them, you didn’t care about the praises they sang. You didn’t care how charming James Potter was. You didn’t care how pretty Sirius Black was. You didn’t care how Peter Pettigrew was a sweet boy. You didn’t fucking care if Remus Lupin was the best of the bunch. 

You did not like the marauders and being in the same house as them—the same year as well, to add to the pain—only solidified your feelings for them. You didn’t like them in first year and you certainly don't like them now.

And despite the little fan base they accumulated over the years, you didn’t keep your distaste about them silent.

“I just don’t get it,” a friend of yours had once said to you, a witch from Ravenclaw who you shared a few classes with over the years. “How can you sit in the common room and not just swoon over Sirius Black?”

You flashed her a look. “Because unlike some people, I can see past looks.” 

“But he’s so dreamy!” she had insisted as if many people hadn’t said the exact same thing to you before.

“He’s an arrogant pig who thinks he’s a fucking comedian,” you grumbled with a shake of your head, already done with the conversation topic. 

“Pigs are quite a beloved species, sweetheart,” a voice had sounded from behind you and you didn’t need to turn around to know exactly who it was. If anything, you were hoping that as long you didn’t turn around, he would disappear. 

But that was never the case with Sirius.

“They are also beloved to the slaughterhouses,” you deadpanned. “You wanna take a visit, Black?” 

His eyes glittered with amusement. “Only if you’re there with me.”

And it was never a mystery to the boys themselves just how you felt about them. However, whilst James and Peter and Remus tended to either keep out of your way or try be kind to you on the off chance you would change your mind about them, Sirius went out of his way to poke the bear.

It only fuelled the hatred you held for him. 

Maybe that’s why it was a shock to you, to see Sirius Black—of all fucking people to have found you, to have stumbled onto the situation you were currently in—to see him defend you when you had so openly hated him for years. 

You had been returning from a late night visit at the library, your book bag holding the heaves of herbology textbooks you planned to use for the essay you were going to start during the weekend. You were feeling restless, not quite ready to head back to the chaos of the Gryffindor common room and had decided to take a longer route to the tower. 

That was your mistake.

You had never really bothered with the likes of Severus Snape and the group he surrounded himself with. They were never on your radar, maybe because you had bigger concerns than whatever superiority complex they liked to push onto themselves—and maybe that was exactly why you were the best target for their anger. 

You had stumbled onto the scene when you rounded a corner on the fifth floor, finding Snape and his goonies pointing their wands at a kid who was years younger than them—maybe even a first year. 

You saw red.

You don’t remember dropping your book bag or rushing over until your wand was in your hand and you were standing in front of the young Hufflepuff boy who looked like he was doing his best to hold back his tears.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” you sneered at the leader of the pack, eyebrows scrunched in disgust. 

“Get out of our way,” Snape snapped at you, not lowering his wand as it was less than an inch from your face. 

“Or what? You can’t handle someone your own size, Snape?” you taunted, standing your ground in front of the young boy. “Need to fight someone younger to have a fighting chance?” 

“Shut up, you filthy mudblood,” Snape sneered, the young boy behind you gasping as the slur rolled off his tongue. “You don’t know shit.” 

“I know your big words are overcompensating for something,” you snided before you turned to the boy. “Go on, they won’t bother you again,” you told him and he didn’t need to hear another word before he was scrambling to get away. 

However, what you weren’t expecting was for the spell to hit you from behind. 

Snape always was a dirty fighter. 

Your ears were still ringing as you lifted your head up, your body feeling achy and sore from where you had hit the wall but you remained mostly okay. You blinked a few times, gaining your bearings before you noticed a body standing in front of you. 

“You’re a no-good cheat, Snape,” the angry voice hissed. “You don’t even have the bloody honour of duelling properly!” 

“What do you know, Black? You’re just a blood traitor, kissing up to every mudblood ass you can—”

CRACK!

“Get the fuck out of here before I decide to break more than just your nose, you prick.” 

Your vision was still a little blurry when a figure kneeled in front of you, cold palms touching your cheeks as Sirius lifted your head to meet his gaze. 

“What?” you mumbled out because it was all you could say.

“Easy there, sweetheart,” he murmured with a soft frown on his face, eyes glancing all over you to make sure you were okay. “He got a good hit on you.” 

“What are you doing here?” you managed to get out, trying not to focus on the way his thumb felt gently caressing your cheek.

“Midnight stroll,” he said before snorting. “I was setting something up for Slughorn’s class tomorrow when that wee Hufflepuff ran into me. Told me what was going on.”

“Oh,” you murmured. 

“Oh indeed,” Sirius grinned.

“This doesn’t change anything between us,” you blurted out as he stood up, offering his hand to you. And you took it, stumbling towards him from the sudden movement but his hands gripped you and kept you right.

“I would never think something so preposterous,” Sirius nodded with a grim smile before it melted into his usual smirk. “Let’s get you to bed before you decide to play hero to anyone else, sweetheart.” 

“Thank you,” you murmured after a few moments, quiet enough that he almost missed it.

Sirius grinned widely in response. “Anytime, sweetheart, anytime.”

.

#sirius black #marauders #harry potter #hp #sirius black x reader #sirius black x you #sirius black x y/n #sirius black fic #sirius black one shot #marauders x reader #marauders x you #marauders x y/n #marauders fic #marauders one shot #harry potter x reader #harry potter x you #harry potter x y/n #harry potter fic #harry potter one shot #hp x reader #hp x you #hp x y/n #hp fic #hp one shot

[mutfruit-salad]

i find the way fans are already shipping cooper with lucy over her black love interest very telling of the clueless white supremacy and media illiteracy in the fandom. coop and lucy are obviously being setup as a father-daughter duo who need to learn caution/kindness from each other to survive, but these weirdos can’t have their white-man fave without a self-insert stand-in for 1 season. and the way people are glorifying cooper’s character is a load of bs - a morally greg white guy who realises he endorsed and was sympathetic to a massive war crime/political injustice… so he goes on to indiscriminately kill/hurt more people who have no idea of, nor say in the bigger picture that he was complicit in… is sooo boring and nothing new. also, giving him a biracial daughter as an accessory to show he’s Not Racist isn’t something we’ve seen half of a million fuckin times before 🤪 the way the show back-tracked on fallout’s message of blind american nationalism and militarism being a problem to It’s All Capitalism’s Fault, seemingly in reaction to the US currently endorsing and aiding in foreign war crimes, and past ones becoming common-knowledge, is horseshit on a platter.

I find the complete lack of a character for his daughter really horrifying- how she only exists to die dramatically for the sake of his sadness. It's odd because his wife is a well-established important character, yet their daughter is not allowed to be a person.

Fallout, in general, has had a habit of completely ignoring racism- presenting the prewar world as some fully integrated post racism utopia. Which is weird when the games regularly display overt anti Chinese (and broader anti Asian) sentiments in prewar logs and ads. This is a problem both the classic games AND the bethesda games have- racism has always been a touchy subject to the devs of the series and it seems like every game they've been content to ignore it, occasionally invoking it for horror or stumbling headlong into depicting it without realizing.

The way Ghoulgins regrets his past and just takes it out on everyone around him is absurd and plays into a lot of very hostile ideas the character peddles.

People shipping Ghoulgins with Lucy is baffling to me also considering he spends the entire series physically abusing her. People just don't want to acknowledge Max's existence, I have noticed. I know her and Ghoulgins get closer by the end, but it's after he's done just unspeakably cruel things to her- and you're right that it is absolutely framed as a father/daughter relationship.

I would also like to point out that the series has always criticized capitalism as well- but would generally frame it as sort of tangled up in American imperial ambition- with one feeding into the other. They were two halves of the same coin.

Vault Tec's entire existence in the classic games was selling smoke- profiting off of the extreme tension and stress of US military buildup- a process which would always inevitably end in disaster: either with Vault Tec going under or brinksmanship coming to its inevitable end.

Vault Tec (and the entire idea of luxury bunkers as a whole) WAS a critique of capitalism, and how it goes hand-in-hand with the American military industrial complex. It was selling the fear of annihilation to the populace. They didn't need to be some secretive controlling force to achieve any of this.

Making Vault Tec the sole antagonist, and the driving force of the apocalypse, is both deeply conspiratorial AND undermines the Cold War roots the series has always had- replacing the fear of American military buildup with a sort of hateful simplicity.

#fallout #fallout new vegas #fallout show

[parachutingkitten]

Jay = High Intelligence, Low Wisdom

Kai = Low Intelligence, High Wisdom

Essay about this concept below the cut

Now these are all just my interpretations of the characters, I don't necessarily have hard evidence on hand to back all this up, but here we go:

I've been trying to put my finger on the Kai smart/dumb duality, and I think I can finally somewhat make out my thoughts. Kai is not smart. Book smarts don't come easily to him, he's not great at math, he's not great at overly complex stratagizing- but he's got a LOT of great knowledge in him.

Take the dragon healing in DR. He might not intuitively know how different medicines work or why, but he's got injured enough that he knows that type of information is important to know, and so he's forced it into his head. He couldn't tell you why the blue goop helpped the dragon, but he knew that it would, and that it would be important to remember that it would.

He's pretty good at navigating complex social situations, because he's good at reading people. Having had a history with extreme emotions, he knows how to take them into account, and knows how important it is to do so, even if it's not necessarily logical. I hate to say this, but he's very emotionally intelligent, which sounds kinda like an insult but is actually insanely valuable, because humans are inherently emotional creatures.

He's got a solid basis of common sense, and is constantly looking at the bigger picture. That's why he can come up with the best outline for a plan, because he can not think through the details. Now, if he tries to implement a plan of his without consulting others, he's probably going to miss some very important details, and screw himself over. But, he's most likely to have the best basic premise for an effective plan. This is why his intuition is usually correct. He's not logically thinking through the most likely scenario given all available factors, he's looking at every problem from the birds eye view, and is easily able to fill in the blanks, because he sees the whole picture. You can not tell me this kid knew Lloyd was the Green Ninja because he used logical deduction to eliminate all other possibilities, he had a gut feeling based on realizing the value of human life.

Now, sometimes you need details. And Kai is not good at those. He sucks at those. Big time. But he's self aware enough to know when those times are (most of the time, sometimes he wastes all his lives in a video game before talking to anyone else).

The thing all of these points have in common is that he's lived a very full life while making very many mistakes, and he's learned from all of them. He learns from his dumb mistakes, and is wise enough to know which lessons are worth holding on to.

Jay on the other hand... does not learn from his mistakes. He's got a real thick skull.

Inside that skull is a really smart guy who intuitively latches on to engineering and science concepts. He's got a whole heck of a lot of information that his brain is holding onto simply because it can. This man is all about the details. He gets hyperfixated on details to the point where it's a problem. He's the most likely to solve the intricate problem facing the team, forget that they need to stay hidden, and yell "I did it!". Good at details, bad at big picture. This is also why he usually gives up hope so easily compared to the rest of the team. He can not think long term, he can not see the bigger picture like Kai can, so road blocks in the current plan seem insurmountable.

Sure, he might have rigged an old sailing ship with rocket boosters, but he couldn't unscramble "darnagom" his logical problem solving skills are not what's carrying him.

My standby for the Jay dumb/smart duality is that he should have a significant amount of William Osman energy to him. He's very smart, and can work out how to solve intricate problems and make insane builds, but if making said things is a dangerous or dumb idea has never once crossed his mind, and if it has, he has actively chosen to ignore it. Jay's intelligence is much more creativity based than I think a lot of people like to think. Engineering is about slapping crazy ideas together which barely hold together at first- and that's Jay's brand of smarts.

If you compare this to Zane, that's the vital component that his intelligence is missing- the creativity. He is VERY good at assessing options, but not so great at coming up with new solutions himself. He's running on pure logic and tested successes. He's also missing that social intelligence that Kai has. I'd venture to say that Zane is, by far the most gullible member of the team. If there is not a solid logical reason to doubt something, he is absolutely going to take it at face value. Point being, all the ninja have different smarts, and stupidities, let's not try to conflate them too much.

#ninjago #dragons rising #long post #parachuterants #jay walker #kai smith #zane julien #jay ninjago #kai ninjago #I'm sure someone has mapped out them all as D&D characters by now #that's what I'm leaning towards #cole is the dumbest for the record #a lot of his points are in strength

[theweeklydiscourse]

The Darkling decided early on how much he would disclose to Alina about his plans for the coup based on a conversation they had on the way to the palace.

I like to look back at this scene from Shadow and Bone that takes place after Alina was seconds away from being killed by a Fjerdan assassin. She denies that she is Grisha, pointing to her plain and scrawny appearance for proof of her certainty and Aleksander responds with a remark about how Alina doesn’t understand what being Grisha even means.

It’s a telling scene because it shows just how surface-level Alina’s view of Grisha is. To her, Grisha are shiny, beautiful and strong and they are prioritized over the common folk soldiers she once belonged with. Of course, Aleksander knows that there is so much more to being Grisha than just beauty, but realizes that there’s so much to unpack with Alina’s statement he doesn’t even know where to start.

This exchange explains one of the reasons why he didn’t disclose his true plans to Alina, much less his ultimate secret. If Alina has such a shallow understanding of Grisha identity, she will also have a shallow understanding of just how much is at stake in this conflict. Alina is no ordinary Grisha, so it hasn’t quite sunk in that she has skin in the game and is more significant than she realizes. Her denial of her Grisha identity (despite obvious evidence proving otherwise) Alina is staunch in her assertion that she is just a normal girl. It is that same denial that tells Aleksander that Alina cannot be viewed as reliable just yet, time needs to be taken to teach her a better understanding of the Grisha first.

This next exchange is the second reason why Aleksander doesn’t tell her. Though Alina herself may not have said that superstition out loud, it still demonstrates how Alina was exposed to those views during her formative years. It raises his suspicion that Alina may hold some remnants of the Serf’s ideas and perhaps compels him to think ahead to assess if this could grow into a potential threat. He ABSOLUTELY cannot tell her the truth anytime soon if there is even the slightest possibility that she believes that he’s soulless and “truly evil”. If Alina snitched on him, his entire operation could be shut down for good and set the Grisha back decades. Not to mention the fact that it could get a lot of Grisha killed.

“You didn’t hurt his feelings.” Dear Reader, this was only the beginning of Alina denying Aleksander’s humanity in order to avoid taking responsibility for her prejudice and to avoid the complex reality of the situation. You can almost hear the incorrect answer buzzer go off in Aleksander’s mind as Alina tells him her answer, I can almost feel his pure disappointment through the page.

Because Aleksander poses an important question that reveals one of Alina’s central conflicts that will continue throughout the trilogy. Alina is still deeply uncomfortable with the idea of Grisha powers after spending her life among people who call them unnatural and strange. To the point that it wasn’t just the fact that the assassin was sliced in two that bothered her, but because of the magic that sliced him. Why on earth would he trust her with his greatest secret when she reacts with such hesitation? He was testing her to gauge how long it would be before Alina could be trusted as an ally to Grisha and received an answer that told him it might take a while. If Alina can’t handle her the idea of her own powers, she cannot be trusted with a secret that could determine the future of Ravka.

I don’t know about you, but I fully believe that Aleksander had every intention of telling Alina the truth, it’s just that prioritizing his personal relationship with her over the safety of his people was a risk he couldn’t take. This gets a bit muddled later on because Alina’s narration seems to care more about her personal feelings of betrayal than the consequences this plan could have on the country. She never takes a moment to look at the bigger picture and consider the consequences of her reckless actions.

I know that I’m just breaking the scene down and explaining what’s happening in it, but it truly is such an informative scene that hints at a potentially fascinating storyline.

#shadow and bone #lb critical #s&b critical #alina starkov #s&b netflix #s&b salt #the darkling #darklina #aleksander morovoza #pro darkling #grishaverse meta #ruin and rising #shadow and bone season 2 #aleksander morozova #anti leigh bardugo #anti shadow and bone #close reading

[latent-thoughts]

The Jews weren't the first natives in that region. The Canaanites were there before the Jews showed up to violently erase them from existence for the terrible crime of not being of Yahweh's choosen people. All Jews know this. It is literally in the fucking book. You know this.

Don't lie in order to defend the idea that Israel is a thing that absolutely must exist. It's fine that you believe that idea, but what's getting irksome is this underlying insistence that "Israel must exist" is an obvious conclusion to the region's problems and anyone who has a modicum of moral fiber in their soul can clearly see that. Your religion isn't true to the people who aren't you. I do not recognize the Jews as a chosen, special sort of people and I shouldn't be expected to. And, yes, I can tell when it's expected because they'll get annoyed when I mention the Canaanites. Yeah, I've seen the eye-rolls, the "history's a complex mess so I'm justified in picking and choosing what events humanity should give a shit about based on how recent they are and how much the directly affect MY culture" bullshit, the accusations of antisemitism despite the fact that I would be completely fine with the existence of Israel if the people who made it didn't, well, slaughter the families of Canaanites in order to do so. Also, Israel isn't a person or a type of person, it's a state, it's completely fine to hate and isn't synonymous with hating Jews. If you think that it is, I'm going to remind you that people who aren't Jewish exist and they don't need to necessarily have the values Jews want them to in order to good people.

If the foundation of your state is built on moving into land that isn't yours and erasing the people that your god doesn't want there, it's completely reasonable to expect that other states might just return that favor in kind. After all, you set the precedent, right? And then constantly referred to it in your holy texts like it was the best, most necessary thing that ever needed to happen. That kind of zeal certainly won't spread.

Oh boy, I'm going to say it. I think that all of the states that have ever engaged in and justified (I'm going to say it) genocidal behavior aren't really... y'know worth defending? Worth giving a shit about? And yeah, saying "God needed us to do it! We are the chosen people! HOLY LAND!" is a shitty justification. Objectively shitty. Jewish people aren't the chosen people to anyone else besides other Jewish people. Nothing really wrong with that, but... nothing really that right with it either. It kinda cancels itself out.

Long ask, I know. Whatever. Stop lying. The Canaanites were there before the Jews. The Jews killed them all then called the land they stole from them "Israel". See? There are perfectly good reasons to hate Israel that have nothing to do with Palestine.

C'mon, the Americas had fucking slavery. England tried to take over the world. Hell, Germany tried to kill all of you! Israel is another shitty place. It isn't special.

I vow to ignore Israel from now on, achieving everlasting peace and making the entire Middle East envious of me.

Oh, and to be absolutely clear in the most awkward manner possible, I don't hate the Jews. I just find their bullshit to be really fucking annoying.

If the Jews killed them all, how is it that their DNA is still dominant in modern day Jews (plus Palestinians and other populations of Levant)?

The truth is that both Jews and Palestinians were part of the same people at some point in time, who also mixed with Canaanites and settled in the region that is modern day Israel+Levant. And Canaanites' ancestors had actually arrived in that region from further East.

So by your logic, then, even the Canaanites weren't the natives of that land.

(There may have been tribal wars, as was common in that era, but it's pretty clear that no one wiped out anyone.)

We can keep going back in time to disprove the indigeneity of people till we arrive in Africa. Which is kind of moronic, TBH.

Personally, I'm not denying the indigeneity of either Jews or Palestinians. Only you are trying to justify your hatred for Jews and denying that they have a right to live in their homeland. Just by saying that you don't hate Jews doesn't veil your anti-semitism.

Both Jews and Palestinians deserve to live there. A two state solution is one way for it. Terrorism by Hamas isn't.

Furthermore, if you know your history (which I'm having doubts about), you know that Jews were persecuted and driven out of almost all the countries and kingdoms they had moved to over the centuries. There were Jews in the Middle Eastern countries, African countries, Europe, etc.. Tell me what happened to them. If you can't, you don't understand why Jews wanted a country of their own, in their native homeland.

With the exception of India, they were either killed, forcefully converted, or driven out of these countries at some point in time. The Holocaust is just one such instance over the centuries, and it was a big deal. The present day rising anti-semitism only strengthens their belief that they're never fully accepted in other places. Hence their need for self determination and separate state of their own (which they already have, btw).

Also, I know you didn't bother to check before coming in my inbox to spew venom, but I'm not Jewish. I'm not even from that region. But I understand what it means to have a history that's full of massacres and genocide of my people.

Plus, I'm someone who likes to stay informed, someone who's against anti-semitism. I don't need to be a Jew to understand where they're coming from.

#antisemitism #jews #jewish #jewish history #Israel #anon ask #troll anons #istg these anons are so annoying

[antianakin]

So I recently rewatched Clone Wars, and season 7 was complex for me (mostly because it felt like too much Ahsoka away from the actual Clone Wars). The "Jedi don't care about the common people idea" coming from the sisters wasn't a bad worldbuilding thing since we know canonically Palpatine was trying to build dislike of the Jedi.

But the Mandalore arc where Ahsoka throws a fit because Obi-Wan and Anakin don't have time to go on a side quest for a planet that's not even part of the Republic when the literal Capital and Head Of State are being attacked? "This is why people don't trust the Jedi you only care about the core worlds." Girl took that to heart in the worst way possible.

Yeah, I think my feelings on the season 7 underlying theme is that it went too far in the direction of "the Jedi have lost their way, but Ahsoka realizes that instead of just abandoning the Jedi ways, she should re-discover the TRUE meaning of being a Jedi, unlike those OTHER Jedi who are being too political."

We all know that Filoni likes to try to promote Ahsoka as "better than the other Jedi," it's a reoccurring theme at this point and one that shows up for the first time in season 7 (chronologically at least, it would've shown up first in Rebels actually but it was slightly more subtle then. Slightly). So when Trace and Rafa bring out their sob story and then seem to blame the Jedi for what happened to their family more than, you know, the CRIMINAL WHO BROKE OUT OF PRISON IN THE FIRST PLACE, and the moral of the story at the end of both this arc and continuing into the Siege of Mandalore seems to be that the Jedi have "lost their way" because they no longer really care about the little people in the face of the war.

I think you're right that there's a germ of a good storyline here about how Palpatine's manipulations are working on the regular citizens, but the issue with this is that in order for that to be the story, the story needs to reinforce that what Trace and Rafa feel about the Jedi is WRONG, that the information they think they have is WRONG. But what we really get by the end of the arc is that they're RIGHT, the Jedi HAVE lost their way, and it's ONLY Ahsoka who realizes that and understands the true meaning of being a Jedi.

This continues into the Siege of Mandalore arc when she accuses Obi-Wan (and the Council and the rest of the Order through him) of being too political when they refuse to supply her with an army on a whim. She claims she's "not being fair" which should be an indictment against her entire argument, but it doesn't really feel like it is. It feels like we're supposed to be cheering her on, like "yeah, that's right, Ahsoka, you don't HAVE to be fair because the Jedi aren't being fair!" The Jedi no longer care about the little people and THAT'S why they won't help Bo-Katan take back Mandalore, they ONLY care about the elite in the Core and THAT'S why they prioritize Coruscant.

The issue with this entire theme is how contradictory it is across all of season 7. They claim that the Jedi only care about the elite of Coruscant when they choose to prioritize it except that the entire last arc was about the little people of Coruscant being abandoned by the Jedi in favor of going out to help other planets affected by the war. And the claim is also made in this episode that the Jedi SPECIFICALLY only care about the Chancellor's life, but then Ahsoka advocates for prioritizing Palpatine later because he's Anakin's friend or something like that. So what are we supposed to understand? That protecting Coruscant is only about helping the little people who live there when it's Ahsoka doing it? That defending and protecting Palpatine is only righteous and not about politics when it's Ahsoka doing it?

And THIS is where we get back to Filoni lifting Ahsoka up as better than all of the other Jedi. Ahsoka gets to get away with shit that no other Jedi is ever allowed to get away with. Ahsoka can be contradictory and hypocritical because she has to be right all the time no matter what the situation is because she's Ahsoka and better than everyone else. Specifically, obviously, better than all those other dumb Jedi in the Prequels Jedi Order.

I've seen people try to give benefit of the doubt to this season and claim that Ahsoka being contradictory and hypocritical is the point, that Ahsoka is still young and struggling with her feelings about the Wrong Jedi arc and figuring out who to trust, how to trust herself, and so she's being unfair on purpose and making mistakes, etc etc. And I understand that theory, but I just can't share it because at no point in either arc does it feel like I'm supposed to understand that Ahsoka is WRONG. I'd love for that to have been the story, because honestly I think there's a lot of merit to finally giving Ahsoka flaws again via the Wrong Jedi arc, showing how it's really impacted her and how much she still struggles with it and how it makes her unfair and unkind and lacking in compassion and understanding sometimes when it comes to the Jedi. That it's not necessarily the JEDI who've lost their way, but AHSOKA. If we stayed with the path that the Wrong Jedi left us on of Ahsoka saying that the person she no longer trusts is actually HERSELF, not the Jedi, that could've been great! But season 7 turns around and says "actually no, she just straight-up no longer trusts the Jedi completely but totally trusts herself just fine."

I don't HATE season 7, there's plenty I like about it, and I honestly do like Trace and Rafa and their arc (which seems to be a minority position), but it's also got a lot of things I dislike about it and it'll NEVER be within my most favorite seasons of TCW, honestly.

#tcw #the clone wars #star wars #sw tcw #ahsoka tano #ahsoka critical #ahsoka tano critical #pro jedi #jedi #jedi order #jedi council #pro jedi order #pro jedi council