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liquidstar · 3 years

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I feel as if many people, myself included, have been having problems with the way “critical thinking” is conducted in fandom circles more and more. Which I’d say is a good thing, because it means we’re thinking critically. But still the issues with the faux-critical mentality and with the way we consume media through that fandom group mentality are incredibly widespread at this point, despite being very flawed, and there are still plenty of people who follow it blindly, ironically.

I sort of felt like I had to examine my personal feelings on it and I ended up writing a whole novel, which I’ll put under the cut, and I do welcome other people’s voices in the matter, because while I’m being as nuanced as I can here I obviously am still writing from personal experience and may overlook some things from my limited perspective. But by and large I think I’ve dissected the phenomena as best I can from what I’ve been seeing going on in fandom circles from a safe but observable distance.

Right off the bat I want to say, I think it's incredibly good and necessary to be critical of media and understand when you should stop consuming it, but that line can be a bit circumstantial sometimes for different people. There are a lot of anime that I used to watch as a teenager that I can’t enjoy anymore, because I got more and more uncomfortable overtime with the sexualization of young characters, partly because as I was getting older I was really starting to realize how big of an issue it was, and I certainly think more critically now than I did when I was 14. Of course I don’t assume everyone who still watches certain series is a pedophile, and I do think there are plenty of fans that understand this. However I still stay away from those circles and that’s a personal choice.

I don’t think a person is morally superior based on where they draw the line and their own boundaries with this type of stuff, what’s more important is your understanding of the problem and response to it. There are series I watch that have a lot of the same issues around sexualization of the young characters in the cast, but they’re relatively toned down and I can still enjoy the aspects of the series I actually like without it feeling as uncomfortable and extreme. Others will not be able to, and their issues with it are legitimate and ones that I still ultimately agree with, but they’re still free to dislike the series for it, after all our stance on the issue itself is the same so why would I resent them for it?

Different people are bound to have different lines they draw for how far certain things can go in media before they’re uncomfortable watching it and it doesn’t make it a moral failing of the person who can put up with more if they’re still capable of understanding why it’s bad to begin with and able to not let it effect them. But I don’t think that sentiment necessarily contradicts the idea that some things really are too far gone for this to apply, the above examples aren’t the same thing as a series centered solely around lolicon ecchi and it doesn’t take a lot of deep analysis to understand why. It’s not about a personal line anymore when it comes to things that are outright propaganda or predatory with harmful ideals woven into the message of the story itself. Critical thinking means knowing the difference between these, and no one can hold your hand through it. And simply slapping “I’m critical of my interests” on your bio isn’t a get out of jail free card, it’s always evident when someone isn’t truly thinking about the impact of the media they consume through the way they consume it.

I think the issue is that when people apply “Critical thinking” they don’t actually analyze the story and its intent, messages, themes, morals, and all that. Instead they approach it completely diegetically, it’s basically the thermian argument, the issue stems from thinking about the story and characters as if they’re real people and judging their actions through that perspective, rather than something from a writer trying to deliver a narrative by using the story and characters as tools. Like how people get upset about characters behaving “problematically” without realizing that it’s an intentional aspect of the story, that the character needs to cause problems for there to be conflict. What they should be looking at instead is what their behavior represents in the real world.

You do not need to apply real-world morals to fictional characters, you need to apply them to the narrative. The story exists in the real world, the characters and events within it do not. Fictional murderers themselves do not hurt anyone, no one is actually dying at their hands, but their actions hold weight in the narrative which itself can harm real people. If the character only murders gay people then it reflects on whatever the themes and messages of the story are, and it’s a major issue if it's framed as if they’re morally justified, or as if this is a noble action. And it’s a huge red flag if people stan this character, even if the story itself actually presents their actions as reprehensible. Or cases where the murderers themselves are some kind of awful stereotype, like Buffalo Bill who presents a violent and dangerous stereotype of trans women, making the character a transmisogynistic caricature (Intentional or otherwise) that has caused a lot of harm to the perception of trans women. When people say “Fiction affects reality” this is what they mean. They do not mean “People will see a pretend bad guy and become bad” they mean “Ideals represented in fiction will be pulled from the real world and reflected back onto it.”

However, stories shouldn’t have to spoon-feed you the lesson as if you’re watching a children’s cartoon, stories often have nuances and you have to actively analyze the themes of it all to understand it’s core messages. Oftentimes it can be intentionally murky and hard to parse especially if the subject matter itself is complicated. But you can’t simply read things on the surface and think you understand everything about them, without understanding the symbolism or subtext you can leave a series like Revolutionary Girl Utena thinking the titular Utena is heterosexual and was only ever in love with her prince. Things won’t always be face-value or clear-cut and you will be forced to come to your own conclusions sometimes too.

That’s why the whole fandom-based groupthink mentality about “critical thinking” doesn’t work, because it’s not critical. It’s simply looking into the crowd, seeing people say a show is problematic, and then dropping it without truly understanding why. It’s performative, consuming the best media isn’t activism and it doesn’t make you a better person. Listening to the voices of people whom the issues directly concerns will help you form an opinion, and to understand the issues from a more knowledgeable perspective beyond your own. All that means nothing if you just sweep it under the rug because you want to look infallible in your morality. That’s not being critical, it’s just being scared to analyze yourself, as well as what you engage with. You just don’t want to think about those things and you’re afraid of being less than perfect so you pretend it never happened.

And though I’m making this post, it’s not mine or anyone else’s job to hold your hand through all this and tell you “Oh this show is okay, but this show isn't, and this book is bad etc etc etc”. Because you actually have to think for yourself, you know, critically. Examples I’ve listed aren’t rules of thumb, they’re just examples and things will vary depending on the story and circumstance. You have to look at shit on a case-by-case basis instead of relying on spotting tropes without thinking about how they’re implemented and what they mean. That’s why it’s analysis, you have to use it to understand what the narrative is communicating to its audience, explicitly or implicitly, intentionally or incidentally, and understand how this reflects the real world and what kind of impact it can have on it.

A big problem with fandom is it has made interests synonymous with personality traits, as if every series we consume is a core part of our being, and everything we see in it reflects our viewpoints as well. So when people are told that a show they watched is problematic, they react very extremely, because they see it as basically the same thing as saying they themselves are problematic (It’s not). Everyone sees themselves as good people, they don’t want to be bad people, so this scares them and they either start hiding any evidence that they ever liked it, or they double down and start defending it despite all its flaws, often providing those aforementioned thermian arguments (“She dresses that way because of her powers!”).

That’s how you get people who call children’s cartoons “irredeemable media” and people who plaster “fiction=/= reality!” all over their blogs, both are basically trying to save face either by denying that they could ever consume anything problematic or denying that the problematic aspects exist all together. And absolutely no one is actually addressing the core issues anymore, save for those affected by them who pointed them out to begin with, only for their original point to become muffled in the discourse. No one is thinking critically because they’re more concerned with us-vs-them group mentality, both sides try to out-perform the other while the actual issue gets ignored or is used as nothing more than a gacha with no true understanding or sympathy behind it.

One of the other issues that comes from this is the fact that pretty much everyone thinks they’re the only person capable of being critical of their interests. That’s how you get those interactions where one person goes “OK [Media] fan” and another person replies “Bro you literally like [Other Media]”, because both parties think they’re the only ones capable of consuming a problematic piece of media and not becoming problematic themselves, anyone else who enjoys it is clearly incapable of being as big brained as them. It’s understandable because we know ourselves and trust ourselves more than strangers, and I’m not saying there can’t be certain fandoms who’s fans you don’t wanna interact with, but when we presume that we know better than everyone else we stop listening to other people all together. It’s good to trust your own judgement, it’s bad to assume no one else has the capacity to think for themselves either though.

The insistence that all media that you personally like is without moral failing and completely pure comes with the belief that all media that you personally dislike has to be morally bad in some way. As if you can’t just dislike a series because you find it annoying or it just doesn’t appeal to you, it has to be problematic, and you have to justify your dislike of it through that perspective. You have to believe that your view on whatever media it is is the objectively correct one, so you’ll likely pick apart all it’s flaws to prove you’re on the right side, but there’s no analysis of context or intent. Keep in mind this doesn’t necessarily mean those critiques are unfounded or invalid, but in cases like this they’re often skewed in one direction based on personal opinion. It’s just as flawed as ignoring all the faults in the stuff you like, it’s biased and subjective analysis that misses a lot of context in both cases, it’s not a good mindset to have about consuming media. It’s just another result of tying media consumption with identity and personal morals. The faux-critical mentality is an attempt to separate the two in a way that implies they’re a packaged deal to begin with, making it sort of impossible to truly do so in any meaningful way.

As far as I know this whole phenomena started with “Steven Universe Critical” in, like, 2016, and that’s where this mentality around “critical thinking” originated. It started out with just a few people correctly pointing out very legitimate issues with the series, but over time it grew into just a trend where people would make cutesy kin blogs with urls like critical-[character] or [character]crit to go with the fad as it divulged into Nostalgia Critic level critique. Of course there was backlash to this and criticism of the criticism, but no actual conversation to be had. Just people trying to out-do each other by acting as the most virtuous one in the room, and soon enough the fad became a huge echo-chamber that encouraged more and more outrageous takes for every little thing. The series itself was a children’s cartoon so it stands to reason that a lot of the fans were young teens, so this behavior isn’t too surprising and I do believe a lot of them did think they were doing the right thing, especially since it was encouraged. But that doesn’t erase the fact that there were actual real issues and concerns brought up about the series that got treated with very little sympathy and were instead drowning out people’s voices. Though those from a few years back may have grown up since and know better (Hopefully), the mentality stuck around and influenced the norm for how fandoms and fandom people conduct any sort of critique on media.

That’s a shame to me, because the pedestal people place fandom onto has completely disrupted our perception on how to engage with media in a normal way. Not everything should be consumed with fandom in mind, not everything is a coffee-shop au with no conflict, not everything is a children’s cartoon with the morals spoon-fed to you. Fandom has grown past the years of uncritical praise of a series, it’s much more mainstream now with a lot more voices in it beyond your small community on some forum, and people are allowed to use those voices. Just because it may not be as pleasant for you now because you don’t get to just turn your brain off and ignore all the flaws doesn’t mean you can put on your rose-tinted nostalgia goggles and pretend that fandom is actually all that is good in the world, to the point where you place it above the comfort and safety of others (Oftentimes children). Being uncritical of fandom itself is just as bad as being uncritical of what you consume to begin with.

At the end of the day it all just boils down to the ability to truly think for yourself but with sympathy and compassion for other people in mind, while also understanding that not everyone will come to the same conclusion as you and people are allowed to resent your interests. That doesn’t necessarily mean they hate you personally, you should be acknowledging the same issues after all. You can’t ignore aspects of it that aren’t convenient to your conclusion, you have to actually be critical and understand the issues to be able to form it.

I think that all we need is to not rely on fandom to tell us what to do, but still listen to the voices of others, take them into account to form our opinion too, boost their voices instead of drowning them out in the minutiae of internet discourse about which character is too much of an asshole to like. Think about what the characters and story represent non-diegetically instead of treating them like real people and events, rather a story with an intent and message to share through its story and characters, and whatever those reflect from the real world. That’s how fiction affects reality, because it exists in reality and reflects reality through its own lens. The story itself is real, with a real impact on you and many others, so think about the impact and why it all matters. Just… Think. Listen to others but think for yourself, that’s all.

#see i told you guys id find that essay and post it for real. i wasnt kidding.#good luck inbox of mine :praying:

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shelobussy · 3 years

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Ohmygod YES Susan Pevensie is awesome please talk to me about Susan i want to know everything you have to say

Literally THANK YOU for asking me this bc Susan Pevensie is a character I never get asked about and I have So Many Opinions.

I'm going to start by saying that Susan used to be my least favorite character in the series. This goes for the books and the movies. Some of it was for personal reasons--she reminds me of a couple of annoying ppl I know irl--but it was also bc I watched Prince Caspian which shoehorned her into a relationship with Caspian which I hated.

HOWEVER. I ended up rethinking this position after interacting with Susan fans and realizing that there are so many wonderful things to love about her!

(putting under the cut bc this got long)

Things Ash Loves About Susan Pevensie

Aight I'm not going to do a formal analysis yet on her, but instead rant about some of the unrelated things I adore about Susan Pevensie.

Susan the Archer

Look we all love archery here. I don't have anything more to say.

Okay, I actually do have more to say. I love the fact that Susan is a complete badass with the bow. You get the general impression that she's one of the royals in charge of public relations, traditions, foreign policy, etc. and yet she's the most competent archer in the series. One of the few things I liked about the movies is how they didn't downplay this. They actually let her be a badass and show off her skills.

Also the part where she kicks Trumpkin's ass was awesome.

Susan the Gentle

Susan being the most passive Pevensie was something I definitely underappreciated as a teenager. I think my non-ability to see past "I'm not like other girls" narrative and the combination of Susan being described as the most traditionally feminine woman in the Narnia series is what initially turned me off from her.

HOWEVER, now it's one of my favorite attributes! I love that Susan is a badass and the most beautiful woman in Narnia. She has hair down to her feet, every man and woman in the kingdom want to fuck her, and she's still a fucking badass who will not hesitate to kick your ass.

Susan the Sister

Most of my thoughts of Susan as an older sister mostly stem from my own personal headcanons, but she is an awesome sister to her siblings. She's Peter's voice of reason, Edmund's sass partner, and Lucy's big sister.

Susan the Mom-Friend

She is a literal mother-figure for Corin.

"[...] the most beautiful lady he had ever seen rose from her place and threw her arms round him and kissed him, saying: "Oh Corin, Corin, how could you? And thou and I such close friends ever since thy mother died. [...]"

-The Horse and His Boy, 33-34

Most everything I have to say about this ventures into headcanon territory, but I love the idea of Susan basically adopting Corin after his mom dies. The way she trusts Cor--who she thinks is Corin in this chapter--is really sweet and I wish we could've seen more of that relationship.

Susan the Flawed

Something I notice from the fandom is a lot of people who hate Susan tend to because of her flaws. On the other hand, most Susan stans like to wave away these flaws and blame C.S. Lewis for being misogynistic or Aslan for being a "cruel god" and ignore the fact that she is a deeply flawed person.

Susan gets something of a "reverse redemption arc" in The Chronicles of Narnia. This makes her not only a fascinating foil to Edmund--as both are analytical, logical people--but an interesting character by herself.

She starts out in TWW as very skeptical of Narnia and it's whole deal and also very condescending to Lucy throughout. She ultimately does admit that Lucy was right and does get on board with the whole prophecy at the same time Peter does, and ends the book being crowned "the Gentle Queen."

In The Horse and His Boy, she has a very interesting dynamic with Edmund and in even more interesting relationship with Rabadash. They don't even interact on-page with each other, but it's highly implied that she was interested in him when he was a guest in Narnia. His behavior obviously changed when she visited him in Tashbaan, but you have to wonder what their dynamic was like before for her to travel all the way to his home when relations between the countries were strained at best.

Prince Caspian is where the cracks start showing through. Susan has lived an entire life as an adult in Narnia, gets thrown back to England with her siblings, and is yet again in Narnia as a child. This book is what really emphasizes her one fatal flaw: convenience.

(Put a pin in that thought, I'll get back to it.)

Susan denies once again that Lucy saw something that the rest of them can't seen. She continues this narrative until every other sibling finally acknowledges Lucy in the right and only then does she apologize.

The last mention of Susan is in The Last Battle, where all of her flaws rise up against her in the worst way possible. I have a lot of controversial opinions on this that I'm going to address later, but I just want to say that Susan's reverse-redemption arc is something I actually like about her.

(There is also evidence that Susan does get a full redemption arc, just as Edmund and Eustace did, but C.S. Lewis was pretty much done with The Chronicles of Narnia at the point and instead encouraged fans to write their own version of how that went down.)

Okay, back to convenience being Susan's fatal flaw. So the one thing that comes up time and time again in the series is that Susan is very focused on material comforts. I believe it's implied that she's vain, and it's canonical that her own personal comfort spurs her to make decisions.

"[...] I really believed it was him — he, I mean — yesterday. When he warned us not to go down to the fir wood. And I really believed it was him tonight, when you woke us up. I mean, deep down inside. Or I could have, if I'd let myself. But I just wanted to get out of the woods and — and — oh, I don't know [...]"

Prince Caspian, 81

Prince Caspian has the strongest examples of Susan doing this, but certainly there's evidence elsewhere. There are a lot of fans who are distressed by this, claiming that Aslan and the others are too hard on her and shouldn't judge.

Honestly, I like that she's written with this flaw. Not only is it very relatable--(my own personal comfort and convenience is something I highly prioritize too)--but it humanizes a character who otherwise is ridiculously op and basically the Helen of Troy of the series. It may sound like I'm using this as an excuse to rant, but I really wouldn't have her any other way.

Susan As Portrayed by Anna Popplewell

Movie!Susan is a fucking delight.

She's sarcastic and badass and awesome and I could spend hours heaping praise on Anna's acting and her portrayal of Susan, but I can already tell that this post is going to be long so, I'll just stop here.

(10/10 want to be stabbed by her tho.)

Personal Headcanons

Let's talk about my fanon thoughts. I have many.

Susan is Aro

There's canonical evidence for this! Susan is a character who is heavily pursued by suitors everywhere, and even lets herself be courted by many of them, but chooses not to settle down. Even when she gets back to England and is described as only having interest in parties and material things, boys aren't mentioned.

I like to think that in The Horse in His Boy Susan was interested in Rabadash at first because he was a brilliant conversationalist. Nothing she says about him implies romantic interest, before and after she realizes the truth of his intentions.

Susan and Edmund Were Best Friends

This might be my love for The Horse and His Boy showing itself, but I think Susan and Edmund were thrown into circumstances where they interacted the most with each other.

Edmund is the ruler in charge of politics. Susan is the ruler in charge of Cair Paravel's public image. I imagine they spent time as ambassadors to other countries and planning royal functions.

They're also the most level-headed and logical out of their siblings, so they probably found a lot in common.

Susan Fancast

I literally just said I loved Anna's potrayal of Susan's (and I love what they gave us of older Susan too in LWW!), but I read the books in 2008 and my parents didn't let me see the movies bc I was like...nine years old and they thought it would be too scary.

So I had to headcanon my own interpretations.

Queen Susan the Gentle:

For some reason Merlin wasn't too scary for me to watch and I fell in love with Katie McGrath in like. Two episodes so. (On an unrelated note, I also fancast Bradley James as Peter at the time.)

Anyway, fanon Susan is basically Morgana Pendragon pre-evil arc. Sassy as hell, hot as fuck, and can kick your ass.

Unpopular Opinions

Yeah, feel free to skip this part if having controversial fandom opinions is a deal breaker for you.

The Problem With Susan Isn't Actually A Problem

I'm about to start so much discourse in the Narnia fandom, but C.S. Lewis's choices with her in The Last Battle weren't misogynistic. Bear in mind, I'm not saying that all of his writing choices in the series were A++ or excusing away certain racist/sexiest bits, but it's honestly baffling to me that people are so up in arms over Susan's exclusion in the final book.

So the part that everyone loses their shit over is as follows:

"My sister Susan," answered Peter shortly and gravely, "is no longer a friend of Narnia."

"Yes," said Eustace, "and whenever you've tried to get her to come and talk about Narnia or do anything about Narnia, she says 'What wonderful memories you have! Fancy your still thinking about all those funny games we used to play when we were children.'"

"Oh Susan!" said Jill, "she's interested in nothing now-a-days except nylons and lipstick and invitations. She always was a jolly sight too keen on being grown-up."

"Grown-up, indeed," said the Lady Polly. "I wish she would grow up. She wasted all her school time wanting to be the age she is now, and she'll waste all the rest of her life trying to stay that age. Her whole idea is to race on to the silliest time of one's life as quick as she can and then stop there as long as she can."

The Last Battle, 83-84

There's a lot to unpack here and I first want to say that everyone's opinion on this part, no matter how different than mine, is valid. I'm going to be quoting some other ppl's opinions on here and by no means am I bashing them. I just want to address my feelings on the matter and the best way to do that is to cite the thoughts of ppl who have opposing ideas.

Here are some arguments on Tumblr I've heard regarding "The Problem of Susan":

"How about we talk about what might have happened if Narnia hadn't deserted Susan? [...] What if we didn't tell Susan she had to go grow up in her own world and then shame and punish her for doing just that? She was told to walk away and she went. She did not try to stay a child all her life, wishing for something she had been told she couldn't have again."

"Narnia is filled with metaphors (often not very subtle ones) that are supposed to teach us how to be, and the most glaring one for any young girl to absorb is that it's okay to be a girl like Lucy, unthreatening and cheerful and valiant and faithful, but to be a girl like Susan gets you punished - in fact, you aren't just punished, you're destroyed."

"why do we call it ‘the problem’ where’s the problem about a young woman dealing with her trauma and choosing her own path, actively making the choice to keep living and to stay and to carve a life out in England when her siblings couldn’t? what is the problem about susan forgetting to somehow cope with what she’s experienced? why is it ‘the problem of susan’ that she recontextualised her faith?"

And then there's JK Rowling who said this:

There comes a point where Susan, who was the older girl, is lost to Narnia because she becomes interested in lipstick. She's become irreligious basically because she found sex. I have a big problem with that.

It's weird how I'm still finding new ways to hate JKR in the year 2021. Again, there is absolutely zero implication that Susan had sex when she came back to England. ZERO. Did she actually read the books? IDK. If someone shares this opinion pls reply with actual canonical evidence.

Back on topic, I'm a firm believer of death of the author and interpreting art via your own experiences. Which is why I'm also going to share my own interpretation by saying y'all are wrong.

Susan Pevensie was not abandoned by Narnia. She was not barred from Narnia because she is traditionally feminine or because she "owned her sexuality" (another opinion I didn't have time to condense down for this post) or because she recontextualized her faith or even because she deserved to be punished.

I also fail to see how Susan recontexualized her faith, as the entire point of it all is that she has none. Bringing this back to Susan's fatal flaw (personal convenience/material comforts), her prioritizing herself over her own faith is the reason she is "no longer a friend of Narnia." Not...whatever fanon y'all are imposing on her character.

Susan is not being punished for liking lipstick and looking pretty. Susan's not even being punished. Y'all read Neil Gaiman's The Problem of Susan and forgot it wasn't canon.

There are many reasons Susan is not in Aslan's Country (one of them being that she's not actually dead yet), but the main one has to do with this:

"[...] But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.”

Voyage of the Dawn Treader, 215-216

Yeah, okay that's why Susan is no longer a friend of Narnia. The implication when the Pevensies are told that they can no longer enter Narnia is that they are to find Aslan in other places. Susan doesn't do this, instead choosing to focus her life on material things. It isn't the lipstick, it's that she only wants the lipstick.

Susan Had Sex In The Books

Oh and not in the context y'all are thinking. (Again, there are no implications that Susan was barred from Narnia for having sex or that she had sex when she came back to England.)

So there's actual canonical evidence that Susan and Rabadash had a sexual relationship. Sort of.

"What think you? We have been in this city fully three weeks. Have you yet settled in your mind whether you will marry this dark-faced lover of yours, this Prince Rabadash, or no?"

-The Horse and His Boy, 35

Edmund calls Rabadash her lover. Not her suitor. I don't know if the word had a different meaning in 1954, but it feels like C.S. Lewis is saying that they're fucking. I'm not really happy with the idea of Susan sleeping with an abuser, but really proud of her for Getting Some as a woman born in a time period where having premarital sex was a big no-no.

This also invalidates the weird opinion going on that Susan was barred from Narnia because she had sex.

Suspian Is The Worst

I haven't really talked about Movie!Susan much, but as long as we're talking unpopular opinions, it's worth noting that I hate Suspian. Some of it is the "Susan is Aro" headcanon screaming inside of me, but it's also the fact that it's written poorly, does nothing interesting for either character and generally comes across as awkward.

I feel like they were trying to make Prince Caspian sexy and relevant to teens. It came across as super heteronormative and unnecessary.

It also gets really really weird bc the next movie then gives Caspian and Edmund mad chemistry and we're all just like........ok.

Final Thoughts

Susan may not be my favorite character in the series, but she's grown on me over the years. I have many issues with fanon interpretations of her--which definately fueled some of my disdain for her initally--and I don't identify as a Susan Apologist.

I do however adore Susan and have many headcanons for her not mentioned here. I love reading fanfic, writing fanfic and meta, and generally having conversations about her and would love to talk more about it.

I welcome criticism (CONSTRUCTIVE) and conversation on all of my opinions and observations. Please drop into my inbox. <3

#susan pevensie #the chronicles of narnia #the problem of susan #narnia #meta #narnia meta #susan meta #ash does fandom #ash does meta

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thelovelyghostwriter · 3 years

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Some of my favourite female characters in fiction

This list is not exhaustive and while I do have other characters that I find charming and that I love, I have noted these characters because in my opinion, they have struggled and/or there is a certain analysis to their personalities.

Please take note that some of the characters are not morally good or have done questionable actions. This is not to discuss or say they are role models, but rather to write up what they represented, their role in the story or simply their personalities. I’m not here to justify the character’s actions.

Remember that a well-written characters do not have to be morally good.

Also, a lot of them are from memory and the analysis aren’t well-structured.

Let’s dive in:

1. Daisy Buchanan from The Great Gatsby

Daisy, in my opinion, is incredibly misunderstood and unjustifiably hated among the readers. Her betrayal to Gatsby is indeed vile and it did upset me, I definitely think that she is materialistic, shallow and hurtful.

“I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”

Daisy did shit on Gatsby [trying to avoid spoilers here].

However, I do like to note that I think part of her materialism and shallowness is because of how women were in the 1920s. They did not have any freedom or agency. To Tom, she seems to be a trophy wife for him to keep; and to Gatsby, he only liked the idea of her, he wasn’t in love with her. To everyone around her, she was an item, a beautiful doll to be possessed, rather than a person. I think that’s why she turned out like that.

She's materialistic because men around her sees her as an object. Nonetheless, Daisy is still “careless” and hurtful; and I think this stemmed from the life she had led that were a compilation of choices that were made for her. Her betrayal towards Gatsby is what makes her character rather disappointing to most readers. The whiteness in her dress as described in her first appearance? It’s not innocence, but rather a void and jadedness.

2. Neon Nostrade from Hunter x Hunter

Yet, another girl in our list that loves to be hated by the fandom. Though honestly, most of her haters are Chrollo and Kurapika stans who gets jealous because Chrollo got to hang out with her and Kurapika works under her. Also her repulsive hobby - although this is actually what makes me like her.

I have addressed this in my other posts before, but let me just copy and paste them (and modify a bit): Her upbringing and exploitation by her dad makes her materialistic and emotionally detached. This materialism and detachment is manifested in the form of her hobby as a dead body parts collector. But other than that, she’s really a normal girl, just sheltered and spoilt. The money she spends are even from her talent Lovely Ghostwriter, her father will be nothing without her. So I don’t see an issue with her spending them on shopping etc.

In fact, I would argue that she bathes in materialism to fill the emptiness that she has. Her father is more concerned with her ability and power, she has no friends and is guarded 24/7 by employees.

All the times she threw tantrums and the way she talks… it’s a different speech pattern altogether when she interacts with Chrollo - which may suggest that the whole spoilt attitude is exaggerated to gain attention from a father who is indulgent in terms of material gifts, but not in terms of affection and time for her.

When Eliza cried, she was willing to forgo bidding the auction physically. Yes she did not care about the bodyguards because she is more focused on the living and the present (Eliza) than the dead.

The reason why she didn’t seem fazed when Dalzollene and the others died is because a) they were her bodyguards, it’s their job to put their life on the line to protect her, b) she mentioned to Chrollo that her fortune-telling is for the living, she likes to live in the present and doesn’t believe in the afterlife.

Neon is more focused on who is alive, rather than the dead (which also represented by her hobby of dead body parts collecting). She focuses on the present, unlike her clients who likes to know their future or people who dwell in the past. Kurapika on the other hand, is the complete opposite. He dwells on the past and likes to focus on his dead clan rather than the present times with his friends (which is completely understandable).

Another significance is that her fortune-telling ability is very useful and helpful, she says that she wanted to make people happy with it; but however, it is commercialized and used as a means of power (knowledge of the future = power) by her father and pretty much everyone around her. Just like how she objectifies dead people by collecting their parts, the people around her sees her as a tool due to her fortune-telling abilities, rather than see her as a person. Even Kurapika chose to get employed under her, for his own agenda (he is bound to meet dead body parts collectors at some point).

She treats people like objects because people see her as one.

Of course, collecting dead body parts is a pretty fucked hobby; but what she represents and her role as a minor character is what makes her an outstanding minor female character in the show.

Yes. She has traits that are not your typical role model, but neither are other hxh characters. She’s not independent, naive, can’t fight, in need of saving, uncaring at times and spoilt. She is far from so-called “strong female character” that we often look up to. She is a character with bad traits which is a result of being a victim. But that’s what makes me love her as a character in hxh. It reminds us that there are girls out there who has lack of freedom and control over their own fate; and their only way out is through materialism and detaching themselves from people.

In fact, she might be even relateable to some people more than other female characters because there is vulnerability in her character.

3. Hua Mulan (Mostly the Chinese 2009 film, though the most well-known is the Disney 1998 animated film)

There has been various adaptations for this character, with the Disney Animated version being the most prominent.

However, my favourite one is definitely the Chinese film Hua Mulan: Rise of A Warrior (2009). It portrays the horrors of war and the suffering it brings, nationalism, camaraderie among the army - all while giving us the admirable Mulan climbing up to the ranks of being a war general.

I highly recommend this adaptation. I know the Disney Live Action 2020 version did not receive good reception, and we honestly did not need one because this 2009 Chinese film does the job well (I like their soundtrack though). It's not really well-known because it's a Chinese film (which is hella ironic because Hua Mulan is a Chinese character? Lmao).

"Today we will stain the battlefield with our blood. Behind us is our homeland. If we have to bleed out our last drop of blood, if we have to become bleached bones in this desert, we must defend it to the death! We must let the Rourans know we Wei warriors will never surrender and will never compromise! Soldiers may rebel against me, generals may leave me for dead, but I, Hua Mulan, will never betray my country!"

Generally, I either have an issue with strong female characters because they are just shallow (meaning they are only physically strong, often viewing rudeness, misandry and independence as strength). I like female characters who are so much more to that.

Mulan, in this film, not only showed her badassery in fighting the war for more than a decade, but we also see how much she struggled. Everytime her comrades die, her heart gets broken. Yet she has to learn how to pick herself up and become the leader that they need. She dislikes war, she dislikes the bloodshed; yet she fights for her country.

To me, a strong female character is not just a feminist icon or someone who can fight. In fact, a female character doesn't need to be someone capable of fighting, what makes her strong is to be able to overcome turbulence with determination.

I think this is something that is lacking in recent "strong female characters" - showing us their strength through perseverance.

As for the Disney's counterpart (talking about the 1998 film here), it is less morbid but we also see her trying her best to make her family proud and protect her country. Like the song Reflection and Loyal, Brave and True, she struggles with finding her purpose and her role in her family.

"The greatest gift of honour, is having you for a daughter."

4. Blanche Dubois from A Streetcar Named Desire

It's been years since I had analysed Blanche, but among all the 6 books that I had to study for English Literature, A Streetcar Named Desire has been my absolute favourite.

I think what struck me in this book is not just the style, but Blanche's vulnerability. Her actions are definitely not morally good: she misrepresents things, she lies, she even had sex with an underage student. She's paranoid, mentally unstable and prissy. Which was why, her polar opposite character, Stanley, is so annoyed with her.

After her husband's suicide, we see Blanche relying on the company of men to fill the void of her loneliness and misery. She is also concerned about her beauty fading with age - I find that highly reliable. It sounds incredibly "vain", but beauty does play a part.

Based on Evolutionary and Mating Theories among humans, appearance in women are especially important (also for men but not as much as women). Of course, there are other factors and traits that people find attractive, but Blanche's concern is valid here. She needs to find a husband to escape from her financial troubles; and her age, beauty and chastity plays a huge factor in her search for getting a man in the setting she was in (which was Mitch in this case). Ironically, these are the very traits that she has "lost" and so desperately tries to hide it.

Her ending is truly a devastating and upsetting one. [Will not talk about it due to spoilers]

"I've always depended on the kindness of strangers."

5. Haibara Ai/Shiho Miyano from Detective Conan

Perhaps one of the girls that is a wasted potential. In a series where the characters are mostly flat, she's arguably the most multi-faceted (but somehow I had heard that she no longer has the same complexity as she used to have - it's been a while since I followed this series).

But I remember absolutely loving this character.

Her background story is really unique in the show and one that is embedded within the Black Organisation plotline (why her character was dropped... Forever frustrating for me).

From the moment she was first introduced, we see Conan taking an immediate distrust towards her. A guy who is a detective who had been catching criminals - yet one ex-syndicate member stands before him. The one that actually helped to develop the APTX4869 that changed his life.

Yet, we see that it wasn't entirely within her control. Both her parents were syndicate members and when her sister tries to get both of them to leave, her sister dies.

Ai starts off as seemingly cold, pessimistic and avoidant. But as her arc goes on, the iceberg around her melts. We see her quirky sarcastic replies, her taste for fashion and she genuinely desires to be happy. Her relationship with Conan developed into a beautiful one - to the point where Conan trusts her with anything and they would risk their lives for one another.

Yet, we also empathies with her impending jealousy and heartache. The boy she has fallen for already has someone else. What's more, the girl is genuinely kind and is a splitting image of her sister. After Ran saved her from Vermouth, she quickly warms up to Ran as well.

She's also the key to developing the antidote for Shinichi to be back with Ran - an almost painful metaphor for her to give him away (he never belonged to her in the first place). Yet, she doesn't really stop them from being together (even though in some cases she appears jealous or phrase ShinRan's reunion as a word of caution).

I definitely think she is the most compelling character in Detective Conan because of her character development and the struggles she faces. It's definitely upsetting that her character has been neglected.

“Don’t judge people from the outside. Like any rose has thorns, the more the person appears nice on the outside, the more you should doubt the inside.”

6. Misato Katsuragi from Neon Genesis Evangelion

Who is the best female character in Eva? Asuka or Rei? My answer will always be Misato, Risato is a close second (I wanted to analyse Risato, but I’m trying to keep it to one person per series). Misato is one of the 90s anime babes. She definitely captivated many people’s heart.

I must say though, I have a soft spot towards female characters who has some sort of daddy issues (why I like Neon Nostrade). It’s been a while since I had watched Eva, but I’m going to try to remember why I like her.

I think the concept of Hedgehog’s Dilemma has been echoed throughout the series, and all the characters seem to struggle with emotional attachment towards people. I actually like to phrase the Hedgehog Dilemma as “Avoidant-Fearful Attachment Style” - wanting connection with people, yet not being able to do so out of fear of being hurt.

For Misato, when I initially first watched Eva, I compared her a little to Blanche Dubois in how they cope with loneliness - their sexuality. I remember being confused with her interactions with Shinji, who was half her age. At times, she serves as his guardian/mother figure; but at some moments (I think it was sometimes after Kaji’s death), she tried to seek comfort with Shinji by attempting to initiate sex (which Shinji rejects). I remember coming across a comment somewhere that Shinji and Misato’s relationship is somewhat like Humbert and Dolores (from Lolita) - can’t comment on this as I only read the first chapter of the book.

It makes me think that she uses sex as a way to cope and the only way she can connect with people (and it’s superficial), which doesn’t work for Shinji because she needs to be her guardian (and ultimately fails to be purely his guardian once she crossed that no-no boundary).

Another thing to note was her backstory about her dad. There seems to be a dissonance, given that she resented her dad for not spending time with her due to his work, but he ended up sacrificing her life for her. I do think it’s a bit of guilt (because resenting her dad but he saves her - these two contradicts one another). It’s clear that her issues to connect stems from her backstory regarding her father.

It’s interesting how she compares Kaji to her father. I do think she loves Kaji, but “reminds him too much of her father” (as to put it simply). There is this... stereotype that we find someone similar to our opposite-gender parents, no matter how shitty they were towards us. I believe that it is because we tend to stick to something that is familiar to us, even if those type of people aren’t good for us (I think to break this cycle is to practise self-awareness and know what is good for us).

Anyway, Misato is a character that I really liked (as all the characters in Eva) because they highlight Hedgehog’s Dilemma that stemmed from their parental issues. Maybe I have not watched a lot of anime, but female characters with issues with their fathers are not as explored deeply as male characters and their parental issues. A lot of times, female characters (especially in shounen) serves as a romantic interest and yes they can have really sad backstory, but not issues towards their father and how it affects their relationship with other people. So far, the only ones I had seen is Mukuro (Yu Yu Hakusho), Misato and Neon Nostrade.

7. Disney's Cinderella

First of all, she has been a victim of abuse since she was a child. It's not easy for her to escape her predicament. Where can she go? It's not that easy.

Boy. I hate how much people remember Cinderella wrongly and attack her for being "backwards", which is actually factually wrong.

Cinderella always get flack for using the Prince to "escape" her predicament when "she can do it herself".

I say that's bullshit. I actually came across a youtube video: Cinderella Stop Blaming the Victim [please check it out for more in-depth analysis]

Despite all that, she's doesn't internalize it. She knows she doesn't deserve to be treated this way, and she does to a certain degree stand up to them (whenever the cat makes her tasks harder). She knows when to fight back and restrain herself because it might endanger her life.

After years of suffering in this domestic household, she remains kind, compassionate and hopeful. Which is not an easy feat. The problem is, these traits are often seen as feminine and synonymous with being weak. But it is actually, in fact, signs of strength. The mental fortitude she has to remain kind after all she went through is a sign of strength.

The Fairy Godmother only appeared when she was losing hope - take note that she ends up crying because her stepsisters tore her mother’s dress (which is the most disturbing scene in the film).

Even I had remembered this wrongly - one crucial fact is that... She did not want to go the ball to nab the Prince. That was her stepsisters. Homegirl just wanted to chill. She did not even know she was dancing with the Prince!

When Lady Tremaine locked her up to prevent her from reaching the Prince, it wasn’t the Prince that saved her. She and her animal friends got her out of the room, and proceeded to prove that she was indeed the maiden that had danced with the Prince. Her marrying the Prince was only a fitting end to her because it provides her a home and an escape from an abusive household; however, it was her resilience for holding onto fate and being mentally strong, and her initiatives partially contributed to her happy end. The Prince is more like a passive character.

I highly think that people tend to brush her traits - e.g. compassion, having fate, being kind is listed as feminine. However, it is far from being weak, which most people would deem it as. But that is definitely not true.

“No matter how your heart is grieving, if you keep on believing, the dream that you wish can come true.”

8. Mikasa Ackerman from Attack on Titan

Mikasa is either a hit or miss among AOT fans. Some people like Mikasa because she is physically strong and her loyalty to Eren is admirable. On the other hand, some people think she’s clingy and her being physically strong makes her a Mary Sue.

Whether or not you like Mikasa, there is a fact that she is not a Mary Sue. The definition of a Mary Sue is a female character lacking in weakness and seems perfect.

She is physically strong, yes - I believe that Isayama wanted to distribute traits to the trio. Even Hannes has said it in S1. Armin represents intellect, Eren represents grit and Mikasa represents strength. So her being physically strong makes sense, and Isayama also provided an explanation for it (being an Ackerman).

However, this does not mean she lacks any weakness. Arguably, her loyalty to Eren is both a liability and her strength. This “weakness” has been highlighted by her dilemma between her loyalty towards Eren and her belief that mass genocide is wrong.

[I won’t go into details about the manga parts that have not been animated as of 2021, can’t spoil it too much].

#daisy buchanan #mikasa ackerman #misato katsuragi #evangelion #cinderella #mulan #haibara ai #ai haibara #detective conan #shiho miyano #neon nostrade #hxh #hunterxhunter #blanche dubois #a streetcar named desire

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kachinnate · 3 years

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,,,,okay i know i just said i wasn’t going to talk about the deh movie but actually yeah imma talk about it for just a sec bc y’all actually make me legitimately distressed sajkfndsmjkgds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLQ_A0H1otc i dont have the braincells to do a shot by shot analysis right now but here’s what we’re lookin at

under a readmore because ghhhhhhh

firstly, let me lead with this: yes, from what we know, there’s a lot of things wrong with this movie.

the worst, in my humble opinion, being the bts treatment of the (very few) actors of color, and the lack altogether of any production team members of color. that’s something that should be acknowledged, talked about, and fucking dug into especially at the current fucking period of time we’re living in. it’s unsurprising, but disgusting nonetheless, and it set this movie up for failure from the very beginning. i’m a white person so by no means so i feel inclined or like i have any authority in saying what one should feel wrt all of that, however i will say if there’s to be a boycott in not watching this movie, that should 100% be the reason why. it’s fully poc’s choice whether or not to forgive the production team or give this movie a chance for the irredeemable shit it did in regards to handling the movie’s production. the movie imo definitely doesn’t deserve their forgiveness, but again, that is not for me to say.

there’s some little things too that i can’t fully think of off the top of my head - like, the whole making larry connor’s stepdad thing fucking irks me, for example, but, like...... listen.

if you know me like at all, you know my favorite word is nuance.

so, i’m going to say it outright: the way you people are approaching this three minute trailer shows literally.... none?? no nuance ??? is it no-nuance november over here or ???? like i’m begging you i’m BEGGING YOU to put aside your pre-determined prejudices against this movie and like stop pretending to be a renowned film critic for ten seconds because it’s really not as outright fucking abysmal as you are saying!! and also it’s possible to have opinions that aren’t completely fucking polarized to one side because guess what, the deh movie? a piece of media! what is the shit y’all are constantly preaching about having the ability to consume media critically ? because you’re trying to cancel a fucking trailer based on the contents of the trailer alone !!!!! hello !!!!!!!!

media is bound to be problematic. if y’all were as quick to judge any movie as you did this one, guess what you wouldn’t be watching any movies like ever <3

anyway lets get into the parts that are probably going to get me cancelled lmao

ben platt - listen. LISTEN. listen i know he’s too old to be reprising evan we ALL know he’s too old to be reprising evan i’ve heard this same argument since the announcement was made we get it we all know. haha he’s a grandpa yes bestie ur so right ur so funny wow. i do agree that we should’ve maybe had a not-ben-platt evan moment but here’s some things to keep in mind: the arguments of “oooh ABF is right there !!!!!!” 1. who’s to say he was available? 2. the environment of a movie is so, SO much different than that of a musical -- as much as you wanna pretend you know everything from just a trailer, there’s no way of knowing what scenes were added that might’ve made the movie like.. idk possibly more intense story-wise not even COUNTING the fact that just inherently a movie set is different than a musical one? like yes ben platt might be just being used as a device but that’s probably not the sole and only reason. Also, if i see One (1) more comment about his FUCKING HAIR 😃 first of all it’s not that deep like... if you’re so distracted by an actor having their hair different that’s on you, but going as far as to call it bad or distracting or being like Vehemently a way about it? y’all i know it’s most likely not your intention but that is literally just ben platt’s natural fuckin ETHNICALLY JEWISH hair sajknfgkjds!!!! i’m not the first to make this point, but like dsjnfkjdsg!??! y’all are being so mean about it and for WHAT? again, maybe not intentional, but it reads as like high key Very antisemetic and you should.... maybe not 😳 be that way

connor. the thing about a trailer is that they don’t show you all the scenes because they want you to come see the movie. right? can we agree on that? all the connor scenes in the trailer had SEVERAL hard cuts, omitting a lot of the scene -- like the computer lab scene! we see the beginning of it, there’s a VERY obvious hard cut, and then he’s running out! in my opinion my first watch through of this trailer i had a very like “:// hmm all these actors feel a lil like dry”, but man oh man the comments ive seen about connor. holy shit guys. this boy gets 7 minutes of stage time in the actual musical, and the whole thing is we DON’T KNOW VERY MUCH ABOUT HIM. not to burst your bubble, and i by no means hate connor, i love me some good connor lives fics and stuff, but everything we write with connor being alive? that is !! speculation on our part !!!! those are headcanons and us using the little context we have!! connor doesn’t have any significant development IN THE SOURCE MATERIAL that is being adapted into a movie !!! you 1. can’t fully judge a character with already limited screentime in a 3 minute trailer, 2. can’t really call what connor has canonically in the musical as in depth character development !! what is his arc then !!!! he pushes evan, goes to the computer lab, has an outcast loner kid moment, gets upset, takes the letter, DIES. sorry stans, that’s just how it is !! and, AND, everything in between, all the idiosyncracies, that depends on the actor playing connor! speaking of, you know who the actor is playing connor in the movie? that’s right, colton ryan! so, i don’t know, maybe... have some trust in the process, in an actor who ALREADY has played connor on broadway???? and also trust that you will get more connor content then u are seeing from a 3 minute trailer!! dhgnijsdg and some of the comments on like his appearance specifically? like are you really made that he doesn’t have long hair?? they kept his nails and his rings but nahhh the hair was apparently a MUST HAVE (even though like.. not all connor actors on broadway always had/have long hair but w/e).. REGARDLESS. tldr on THAT , the movie would have to do a pretty shitty job if they want to take something from someone who doesn’t have much to begin with and i think y’all are being extremely harsh on this point

jared. honestly i’m a bit worried too about the like... name change, because it does have the potential to be taking out some representation, but... they did change the name to fit the actor’s ethnicity? it’s a really [hmm] topic because, again, from a trailer and from what we have been told we don’t KNOW a lot of the context, but i think it’s important to remember that uh.. jewish people aren’t just? always white ?? there’s a possibility they changed the last name to fit with the [ethnicity] while keeping him jewish?? ofc there’s the possibility that they Didn’t and ... again hm that’s its own thing altogether but just reiterates the point that you can’t knock a whole movie just based on the trailer. you can’t talk about things you know nothing about.

alana. same thing as before, you can’t.... completely bash a character based on a 3 minute trailer. there was discussion about how she seemed ‘shy’ when talking to evan, which like.. maybe she is but also that scene was them talking in a library like if u actually take notice of what’s happening in the scene jdskngsd though i do share the general consensus with many others that she won’t get a lot of screen-time but that’s neither here nor there 😔 moving on

scenes and the setting. one of the things i was most like.. tentative about in regards to a switch from a musical to a movie was how they were like... going to do certain scenes? naturally, a lot has to be different when we’re going from a minimal stage set to an entire movie with like.. settings. there are going to be new scenes because a movie lends to have like, physical places that aren’t just [evan’s bedroom] and [murphy kitchen] and [implied school]. so new scenes, new conversations, slightly different pacing.. this is all to be expected right like are y’all geneuinely surprised here or ........

there’s a lot we aren’t seeing yet because this is a TRAILER. again i already mentioned this re: connor but like... again, y’all are making some Claims that just... fucking outlandish. there are so many moments in the trailer that are very obvious Hard Cuts. you don’t have all the information yet. you are angry at a tiny fragment of something that is confusing you because you don’t have all the context. is there a chance that some of this shit is just genuinely Bad? yeah but you really cannot 100000% say it with your chest and gauge it without seeing the movie and understanding what that scene is in context. lowkey uhhh saw some jokes about the zoe scene in the car and :’))) ? jesus? christ????

concluding thoughts because my brain hurts but like. you don’t have to like the movie. you don’t have to WATCH the movie. like all media if you choose to consume the movie you should do so with some CRITICAL THOUGHT. but, just like the novel (and i do not want to have any discussions about that i don’t care if you think it’s good Or bad that’s not what this is about) you guys are going in this WANTING to believe it’s bad and completely polarizing your thoughts on what this is going to be. yeah, maybe there shouldn’t be a movie. i genuinely think we could’ve gone without. but it’s just a piece of media, it’s not a progression like all your (musical is good, novel is bad, MOVIE IS WORSE OH NO) posts are suggesting. they are all just. different pieces of media stemming from a source. at the end of the day it’s just a fucking movie. if you already hate it so much, guess what? you don’t have to watch it! you don’t have to put so much needless fucking hate into a 3 MINUTE TRAILER. you can stop being performative and dissing it for its poor treatment of POC while then going on to make fun of ben platt’s hair and just targeting a different group like! please !!!

i’m not trying to be a fuckin’ advocate for this movie because there’s so much opportunity for it to suck, i do Not have high hopes for it, and i’m not even really sure i want to watch it (i bought the novel when it came out and have yet to read it, and i’m sure the movie will like.. elicit very similar vibes from me lsdngjkdsg like im just not uhhh feeling it) but y’know what? watching the trailer did not bring forth the fucking onslaught of hatred in me that apparently has fuckin posessed all of y’all and like djnsgjksdg plagued my dashboard for this whole evening. don’t come into my inbox trying to like.. argue with me about this (preemptively im turning off anon because i like i Can’t lmao) this is just like... a rant i needed to get out of me real quick.

SO. tldr for now: have critical thought about shit you consume, there’s no ethical consumption under [the film industry], you can’t judge a movie entirely on its trailer, and y’all need to calm the fuck down

#garbage.txt #deh movie #ask to tag #irrelevant #bc this is lowkey a vent bc jfc #this isn't @ anyone btw this is just [in general mostly just from my dash] bc.. sighs #anyway im gonna refrain from making any more comment on this its just. frustrating.#edit: ok to rb

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mc-critical · 3 years

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Something I can never bring myself to understand is the MY fandom’s seeming obsession with *proving* Mahidevran or Hürrem as the more morally correct, more noble, more respect-worthy etc sultana. Or measuring whose actions and beliefs were the most justifiable or who suffered the most unfortunate circumstances. It seems to completely ignore the fact that most characters in the franchise, sans a small handful of characters, fall into the category of morally questionable or ambiguous. I feel like both Mahidevran and Hürrem are both victims to the same terrible circumstances and the enviornment in which they both lived and were forced to adapt to was a catalyst to a lot of their deplorable actions and beliefs. They both came to the palace as concubines with no family nor money to their names (I can’t recall if this was held consistent in the TV series for Mahidevran’s case or not but I know this is the case for her historically as well), both of them had their worth and their livelihood tied to their ability to produce princes and please the Sultan (who will take any opportunity to remind these women that they are a mere piece of property to him anytime they attempt to assert themselves in any way.) Then there’s the looming threat of the principle of fratricide that basically haunted them throughout the entirety of their motherhood. I’m in no way saying the immoral decisions they made was justifiable or somehow okay (Mahidevran killing Mehmet, Hürrem killing Mustafa, etc.) I just feel that there’s a lot of black-and-white thinking at play whenever the Mahi/Hürrem discourse comes up. What do you think?

Thank you for bringing this up, because it's probably the thing that bugs me the most about this fandom (outside of Tumblr currently). You voiced my overall thoughts into words so well!

I think these double standarts come from many places that can be both the only reasons for a person or just one of the many. In my experience, this "black or white", "all or nothing" attitude stems from the absolutist belief that people should pick sides and root for only one character (usually the protagonist) in a narrative. They're using the standard, superficial narrative roles of the protagonist and the antagonist in terms of Hürrem, thinking that for some reason the protagonist is always morally right in all she does, simply because she's the protagonist and we're supposed to unconditionally root for her. And if they don't like the protagonist, they choose root for "the other side" instead. They're better than that anyway, so of course, we should root for them!!

To be honest, the earlier seasons of the show make an attempt in justifying this assessment, with them having the narrative voice be rooted in Hürrem's favor, despite of all possible problematic actions that tell a different story altogether. MC Hürrem was given very understandable and sympathetic motivations, thorough character exploration, gradual character development and the privilege of far too obvious Plot Armor (make no mistake, every historical figure in the show has Plot Armor, but with the many attempts at her life, Hürrem's in particular, was way too glaring at points, sometimes to a ridiculous degree.) and the writers making her enemies doom themselves by their own failings, with her seemingly only enduring the "charade". (Valide's flanderization post-E38 is the most egregious example of this.) People I've encountered that are excusing Hürrem's behavior, are citing precisely the first episodes to present their arguments, often refusing to go beyond that. Mahidevran's motivations, while as nuanced as Hürrem's, don't seem as delved into in comparison at first (the origins and backstory of MC Mahidevran are shrouded in ambiguity, and while this is thematically appropriate for her character arc, as I explained here, it definetly doesn't help her case in bringing in more vocal sympathy.) and it could seem that her character is simply antagonistic to Hürrem, doesn't go anywhere and later revels in the depths of her ambition and wounded pride earlier than Hürrem began that similar development of hers. Some Mahi stans could see that probable difference of treatment in narrative and support her simply because of that, as well.

Assessing moral ambiguity isn't all that easy in the grand scheme of things, but it especially falls short when the narrative voice seemingly doesn't support it at first. But many miss that there's a very thin line between the actions and the narrative voice, that only turns into a very deep incongruity as the series progresses. I don't know, perhaps determing the moral ambiguity is indeed so complex, confusing and conflicting, since the whole story could get too complex and many might wonder who they'll root for now when everyone is so problematic. And that's a show that began as a simple soap opera, no less! Why would they even put in the effort in this case?

Not many people are used to ambiguous and questionable character development and are still trying to prove that there is one main positive characters in the show, which is why they try to make Mahidevran or Hürrem more morally right and justifiable than they actually are. They are so passionate about the debates they engage in, because this time period and MC is truly so ripe in analysis and it could be very fun to figure out where these characters come from and go through their 4-seasons long evolution in one chosen context, but by doing this, they so often miss the depth and nuance of the subject at hand and it all turns into a one-sided discourse that drives me nuts.

There is a historical context of the issue is also important to note, in my opinion. Both Mahidevran and Hürrem are historical figures and quite a bit of facts and deeds of theirs are now widely known. Most people in the fandom have opinions of them in advance or could've gained opinions of them a while after they began to watch the show. (There are also numerous fictional interpretations of the events during Süleiman's reign and the players in it, which may also play a part in the overall judgement.) Either way, the known historical facts about them (and other fictional interpretations one could've read, of course) could influence their points of view by a certain amount and use these general impressions to present them while analyzing the characters in the show. I've heard numerous arguments that this Hürrem isn't like the Hürrem the history knows about, that she isn't "their" Hürrem and what they read about her isn't depicted all that much in the show, which takes a lot away, according to them. I especially hate when they call MC Hürrem a one-dimensional "evil" caricature that only has vileness and smug about her, no conscience, no complexity whatsoever. (no, MC Hürrem isn't as simplistic and is much deeper and more nuanced. As far as fictional interpretations go, what they're describing is Hürrem in "The Sultan's Harem" from Colin Falconer, not MC Hürrem! In the MC/K franchise's terms, all they're doing is reducing her to the level of MCK Turhan Sultan, which is disrespectful to this character, to say the least. Turhan is the exact thematic contrast to Hürrem smh while Falconer's Hürrem is the most absurdly evil caricature imaginable, at least IMO, please and thank you!) Or even more unbelievably and outright hilariously, considering Hürrem's actions and the Sultanate of Women overall the downfall of the Ottoman Empire o.o and that's why Hürrem is so ruthless, so cruel, always intentionally, of course. This is plain ridiculous. Mahidevran, on the other hand, is presented by this clique as her "victim", as a completely innocent victim that had everything taken away from her. That Hürrem had stood between her and Süleiman and "ruined" their family. This take ignores every other factor of this falling out (Süleiman, that is) and a part of the nuance of Mahidevran's character. Reducing her to a simple "victim" doesn't cut it at all. Conversely, we have fans that simplify MC Mahidevran's character beyond every belief, loving the historical figure, but claiming they made her an "evil" and "stupid" bitch that cries and whines all the time. It's limiting and one-sided and even if it appears so, there are way far more layers to her character, that develop consistently throughout the narrative. The historical context of the time period itself is usually brought up in the debates, too, justifying whoever they want to justify by "It's a war, only the strongest ones survive!" or "You eat or get eaten! We should understand their time period, not judge by our contemporary times !", which is understandable and valid, but the only thing they end up doing is applying this logic only to their preferred characters when it should be applied to everyone. They try their best efforts to make one more morally right than the other, but they continually fail in the process, because the metric they judge them from is plagued by double standarts.

I wholeheartedly agree with you that excusing one of them, but not the other for most situations is wrong, because Mahidevran and Hürrem.... aren't all that different. What most people seem to miss, is that their character arcs are so contrastingly paralleling, because both of their endings were far from victorious and they got it for the exact same character reason, gained in a different way and in a different time. The persistent insistence of the fandom wanting a main character necessarily having a triumphant grand finale fails flat immediately, because there is no true victory in the franchise. They also miss the negative character development of both of them, them having to do the exact same stuff in many instances, both of them letting go of their pasts and/or former attachments, becoming vicious and ruthless in order to adapt to the circumstances, both of them had to make moves out of desperation because they felt threatened and they both protected their lives and the ones of their children at the end of the day. Heck, they're way more alike than they're different in my book. There is no morally right, no more noble here. Both of them had no qualms to do whatever it took to secure their own future and as you said, the narrative presented very neat motivations for them to do so as a whole. There is always a shade of grey and yes, who has the lighter shade of gray could be up for debate due to differing sympathies and perceptions, but that mustn't stop people to at least try looking at the "bigger picture" and try to view their characters with a bit more criticality, depth and respect.

Rooting for both conflicting sides is still seen as questionable and contradictory by some, but there really is nothing wrong with exploring their motivations without justifying them, no matter where your sympathies extend. I think it creates a more unbiased outlook on the both these characters and the themes around them and it's always awesome to see people doing that in any fandom, really.

And both Sultanas are worthy of respect, I said what I said.

#magnificent century #mahidevran sultan #hurrem sultan #ask #stuffandthangs #again this is all in my experience #there could be many other reasons for the double standarts #but they're all equally wrong and one-sided and one-dimensional and transparent

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ashtonq247 · 4 years

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Kaminari Denki headcannons!!

Bc it’s his bday and I love him (this will not cover his fam bc I switch between backstories with him so much that I just have no clue)

Buckle up bc this is a very long post I did not mean to get this deep lol

Let’s start with the most obvious- he makes friends easily, but I’m not just talking other students, I’m also talking the staff. This boy makes friends with the janitors and the lunch ladies and even the teachers!! He also makes friends with the security bots and pranks them a lot

This stems from him wanting ppl to like him. I think this bc of the fact that his character sheet says he likes all things “trendy” - I think he rlly wants to be known as the cool guy bc he is rlly insecure of himself

And as much as I think he is very trendy, I also think he is a big literature nerd! I believe he is more likely to listen to audio books tho, but I’m not entirely 100% sure though. He tries to keep this underwrap, but eventually he does join momo’s book club and brings completely different analysis to the table :D

He is just generally into the arts (we see this in cannon- he plays guitar, is seen drawing Aizawa, references Hemingway) so I see him as a more creative guy rather than a logically minded dude

This boy has adhd, anxiety, and dyslexia and dyscalcula (he was able to work through dyslexia bc he read so much, but still has problems with his dyscalcula) and this causes issues for him in school. He also a HUGE procrastinator. He often feels stupid and dumb bc if it (also doesn’t help that even his friends joke abt it too, but as long as it’s just a joke he shouldn’t make a big deal abt it right??)

I say he has anxiety because of the way he reacts to when he is training- always panicking and frying his brain. I think what stans between him and being rlly op is his anxiety and view of himself

Speaking of him frying his brain, I headcannon he has litchenburg figures, which if u don’t know r these rlly cool scars that look kinda like branches with what kinda looks like flowers so cool tbh, and BEFORE u say “he obviously doesn’t have them cannonly” let me just say that his quirk affects his brain cannonly!! It’s not weird for it to also affect his skin!!! I think he might have had litchenburg figures if they were more commonly known as it is a very cool thing tbh

I also think that bc his brain gets impacted by his quirk, sometimes his nerves get impacted too. This means he sometimes can’t taste food (and he doesn’t eat it when he can’t taste it, which pisses Bakugo off) and he also can’t feel things as well (I believe the class figures this out after Denki went to poor himself some tea but didn’t know the kettle was still rlly hot and so he grabbed it not knowing he was burning himself until he handed it over to someone who then dropped the pot bc it was so hot- needles to say he had to go to recovery girl that day)

He has never been to the aquarium bc as a child he had terrible control over his quirk and that made ppl nervous to put him near water (he goes as a teen with the bakusquad and is absolutely floored- his favorite creatures are of course all the sting rays, jelly fish, and electric eel- cue bakusquad comparing him to the brainless jellyfish)

He also doesn’t know how to swim till he was in middle school (once he was in better control of his quirk he went out and learned to swim on his own bc he had to learn how if he wanted to be a hero u know? He never quit got the hang of it tho)

Storms make him very energized and his already low ability to focus worsens. Prone to accidentally zapping ppl. He mostly stays in his room when storms happen bc he doesn’t want to hurt ppl/ wreck electronics on accident. He doesn’t even get to chat with friends on the phone bc he would wreck it so storms get rlly lonely :(

Also is basically a lightning rod. It hurts bc of how forceful it is, but it’s also not that big of a deal to him

Is prtty forgetful unfortunately due to all the times he fried his brain. It’s something he really tries not to think about

He probs can’t sleep very easily due to all his energy

He hates frying his brain bc it’s very hard to understand what’s going on when he does. Everything is a lot more sluggish and things are simultaneously way too much and he gets hyper sensitive and at the same time his senses are also very groggy and weird. It’s over all a bad time, but he got used to it

Whenever he fried his brain instead of being all wheyyy and thumbs upy he use to act more vegetative which rlly freaked ppl out so he eventually learned to get to where he is now when he fries his brain

Kids use to take advantage of his whey mode and do pranks on him which often got him hurt, but he never rlly felt it at first so he didn’t mind to bad. As long it was just joking and they were having fun right??

Time for happy ones!! His favorite foods (besides burgers, those r his favorite cannonly) all have some coralation with memes (speggeti tacos, mac n cheese, “chonky” milk, chicken nuggy, etc)

He is a meme lord yes

Stans pikachu (obvi)

U cannot convince me that he doesn’t paint his nails black, maybe with a little lightning bolt on his middle finger. This boy cannonly wears a choker common

He does face masks with Mina!! I believe he cares abt his looks greatly, and does beauty routines with Mina all the time. I’m constantly switching btween wether or not he owns it, or is a bit insecure and tries not to show this side to much to the boys

Why does this show not give him skinny jeans?? I mean common his entire style calls for skinny jeans. Maybe it’s Japan fashion or smth bc if it was in America he’d have skinny jeans bc it’s the trendy thing u know

Cannot cook. Can barely work the microwave. Claims unmarked food and eats it at midnight

Has a lot of weird info stored in his brain- how weather works, psychology stuff, weird facts abt bees, etc- that he learns randomly, never rlly trying to learn them but it sort of just happens u know. This frustrates Bakugo and jirou to no end bc he knows all these useless facts about how 1,200,000 mosquitos is all it takes for them to all at once drain a human of all their blood in a second, but not about how to work the pathagorean theorem

Idk why I think this (and it’s a popular headcannon too), but he knows at least 3/4 languages. It just suits him?? Bc he is a ppl person??? I don’t know??

Gets major test anxiety

Teachers either love him or hate him no in between. A lot of his elementary teachers absolutely hated him and would tear him down by calling him stupid and annoying. In middle school when he learns to control his quirk better, teachers rlly liked him- in the way that class clown trouble makers are liked by teachers. He may not excel in his class but he is a pretty funny dude.

He is constantly either underestimated or overestimated. Kaminari himself does this as well. It’s part of the issue with his hero training

Cats do not like him. They may like being petted bc if the static electricity, but when Kami pets cats he just absorbs the static- no pleasure :(((- or he accidentally has too much static electricity. If so then only tge rlly fluffy cats like him. Either case, shinsou finds a cat that likes kaminari as well and it is very cute :33

THE class prankster. Even on the teachers! The death glare Aizawa gave him on the one time prancing him worked is one kaminari will never forget (he still tries to prank him despite this lol)

Constantly teasing Bakugo as a way to press his buttons. It’s debatable on wether or not this helps bakugo’s anger issues

He is the wingman between Bakugo and Kirishima change my mind!!

Also mandatory kaminari is bisexual headcannon bc he rlly gives me those vibes. I think he doesn’t know yet that he’s bisexual, and when he thinks a fellow bro is hot he thinks he’s just admiring his bro u know. Maybe even thinks he is jealous. He does flirt with all genders tho mostly as a joke. He draws dicks as jokes but he always puts a little too much detail in them for him to rlly be straight

Can be used as a defibrillator as long as he can focus

Honestly there’s so much stuff kaminari has the potential to do with his quirk it’s a shame the manga/anime doesn’t use it

Like I rlly want to see him use his quirk in training to blow out all the lights in a building so he can use it for his advantage

That’d be badass

Also his quirk makes him very hard to be caught when their training. He can slip out of ppls grasp easily with a shock, and he also just has good reflexes in genral (I think this is cannon). Cue class 1-a running around trying and failing to catch him lol. Their best bet is to get him to fry his brain :(

He was popular in school before UA bc of his quirk and bc of how charming and easy to get a long with he is. This lead a lot of his friends to be very shallow. He didn’t rlly think about wether or not someone was trying to be his friend or not, he just liked being liked. This lead him to his whole liking trendy things, and he often felt that if he wasn’t seen as cool or funny his friends would all leave him. His whole rlly liking to talk thing caused a lot of ppl to think he was annoying at times, but he was never rlly able to lose that trait

The bakusquad was the first friend group he got rlly close too. He felt he can be himself around them and be the crackhead he was always meant to be. He still always concerned about wether they might leave him if he’s too annoying bc of anxiety but he’s getting better :)

He is a bringer of chaos and that’s part of his charm! Never dull with Denki around. He’s always doing the weirdest stuff, and ever since Mina, Kiri, and Sero, this has only doubled!

He is always calling Momo a genius (bc she is) and they are rlly good friends

Is an unofficial emo squad member (just look at his hero costume)

A sinnamon roll I’m srry but he ain’t a cinnamon roll. He has a dirty mind lol

Peepee jokes

Probably does tik tok dances I’m sorry

Nintendo fan for life

Xbox or PlayStation?- “Nintendo wut u mean”

Abbreviates so much it’s kinda hard to read,. Like if u thought I was bad this boy is soo much worse

It’s kinda ironic bc he has a very large vocabulary lol

He only uses it when he’s being sassy or very passionate

Mixes his gen z lingo with his big brain vicab to create atrocities of sentences

”bro the rise of the proletariat is lit tbh”

He is the worst to text with. He gives Bakugo aneurysms

Yeet yote to be yoted

3am shower thoughts

Unpopular opinion: i don’t think he likes weed. It probs reminds him too much of his whey mode

He’s a good strategist, but let’s the other team members think of the plans bc of insecurity, and otherwise his anxiety causes his smartness to shut down

Very good at zoning out. Sometimes he accidentally zones out so hard during class he misses the entire lesson and is only brought out bc of the school bell. Aizawa is best at snapping him out of it

Tbh I don’t think UA would be good with mental health. You’d think they’d hire a professional therapist or smth, but maybe it’s bc hero’s are so glorified ppl don’t ever think about these issues

I doubt the teachers had very good teacher training u know

We’ve mostly seen young heroes. I bet that’s bc they die so often, and if they don’t die in battle the mental health issues that stem from trauma and the media’s pressure are such an issue that it’s not uncommon for hero work to have high suicide rates

Anyway I’m starting to lose track of things thanks for coming to my ted talk I think I’ll stop here

#bnha denki #bnha kaminari #denki #denki headcanons #kaminari #mha #denki kaminari #kaminari stan #kaminari denki #kaminari analysis #accidently turned into analysis #not gonna lie #happy birthday kaminari

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im-justso-bored · 4 years

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Week 3 of clown theories and analysis

S3E03 - Meetings Have Biscuits

OH BOY. what a lot to unpack here. so im gonna save that Scene™ for last because i’ll never get to everything else if i don’t. i’m actually having to rewatch while writing this review because honestly what even happened other than The Bus Scene™??

The Tuning Fork Kills - i’m not a big fan of these kills, they were so unrealistic lol everything else about this scene was gold though. V going back and forth between the maid and the baby was hilarious. im disappointed we couldn’t actually see V steal the baby. does V even know how to properly hold a baby lol

I Have All My Best Thoughts In The Bath - Such a Carolyn thing to do here lol idk about anyone else but when Eve came into the bathroom, i got so excited, you can just tell when she walks through the door that she’s back to her old self. also this might be an unpopular opinion but i like Mo. i saw some posts about how unusual it is that Eve trusts the Bitter Pill team so quickly but i think it’s less a matter of trust and more a matter of resources. both Bitter Pill and MI6 need something from the other and Eve surely can’t do it all herself. Also each group is invested with Kenny working at Bitter Pill and then of course, Carolyn being invested as his mother. i dont think either group is really happy about the arrangement but they’re working with it to achieve a common goal

I’m Not Ready - i love how Dasha just casually puts the baby in the trash and literally no one notices lol. I’m actually really surprised that V didn’t hop on the next flight to London after processing that Eve is alive. i guess that really shows just how much V actually feels when it comes to Eve that she LITERALLY HAS TO SORT OUT HER FEELINGS BEFORE SEEING EVE, she’s such a gay mess and im here for it

6 Million Euros - so im a little confused by how willing Konstantin was to loan Charles 6 million euro that he doesn’t have. it seems that they’re old friends based on their conversation about their families but it sill seems a bit strange to me how Konstantin agreed to give him the money. Also if V was tasked with killing Charles, wouldn’t Konstantin know this if he’s supposedly still working for The Twelve? so why go through the trouble of looking for the money if he was just going to die anyway? This makes me believe that Konstantin is working for someone else entirely. what do you guys think?

Roman Centurion - can we talk about how V is literally everyone who has ever gotten their heartbroken? she gets to London fully expecting to see Eve and instead of putting on La Villanelle, she decides to go for a “powerful” scent to show Eve just how much she’s moving up in the world and has “moved on”. she’s so dramatic 😂

Poland - Niko is moving further and further out of Eve’s life and as much as i want it to be Eve who is done with him, i’ll take it at this point because finally.

Who Doesn’t Answer Their Phone On A Stakeout?! - what a GREAT scene. Other than The Bus Scene™, i think this is my favorite scene of season 3 so far. This scene really brought me back to season 1 with the music, the tension, the coldness and calm with how V carried out the kill. 10/10. this is also my favorite kill of season 3 so far. everything about this scene was perfect. This scene was also a great tribute to Killing Eve: No Tomorrow! the tension was sooooo good, this scene actually gave me chills. like i was pretty confident that Carolyn wasn’t going to die but they had me second guessing myself. also the way Mo reached out for Carolyn and was so relieved when she opened her eyes! Both of their performances here was incredible. Especially when Carolyn went home. We’re seeing so many different sides of Carolyn this season and Fiona is nailing all of them!

I’m Wearing Power - I love Villanelle and Konstantin’s relationship so much, i totally thought V was going to say something about how Eve kissed her and Konstantin would be the disapproving best friend who has told her countless times to stay away from her “ex”. im really curious to see where Villanelle’s interest in finding her family stems from. she said that in order to have power, you need knowledge and that’s why she wants to find her family which i believe is partly true but i also think there’s another reason. we’ve seen her having more feelings this season like when she was empathizing with Felix and then when watching the news with the father and the baby. Maybe she wants to know what that feels like? To have someone so happy to see you again after thinking you were gone? maybe she saw herself as the baby? Her family thinks she’s dead and maybe she’s thinking she’ll get that same reaction when returning to them. if that’s the case, that will reunion will end badly for her. im excited to see how much episode 4 dives into this storyline.

Admit it, Eve. You Wish I Was Here - okay so this scene was just as gay as The Bus Scene™, if not more so. Eve went through so many emotions here. Confusion as to where the voice was coming from, realization when finding the bear, anger at the thought of V toying with her again, and then ending with just pure fucking longing and acceptance as she replayed the voice over and over again. she’s so gay and i’m so glad she’s finally giving into it

The Bus Scene™ - it’s been 18 hours and i still haven’t processed that this actually happened. we were all satisfied with them beating the shit out of each other but they really went above and beyond with this scene. everything about this scene was perfect. the way Villanelle walked up Eve just radiated confidence and big dyke energy and i think i speak for all of us when i say, Jodie could step on me and call me a piece of shit and i would thank her. Eve was ON SIGHT and I STAN. Eve’s reaction was absolutely perfect. I love just how completely she caught V off guard and got a couple of hits in before V regained her composure and ABSOLUTELY TOOK CONTROL OF EVE AND MANEUVERED HER AROUND THAT BUS WHILE SMILING. Like godDAMN, that was sexy, the power struggle between the two of them is just perfect. and the wAY V FUCKING HOPPED OVER THE SEATS AND SO EFFORTLESSLY STRADDLED EVE. i don’t think i’ve ever been more attracted to anything else. and in the midst of all of this, V had the audacity to say “Smell me, Eve”, i love how unpredictable she is because that sure as hell caught me off guard but at the same time, sexy as hell, only V could make something so outrageous sound so sexy. and the fact that Eve kissed her is sooo important. V was never going to do it first, not after Eve stabbed her and i’m so glad the decision was made to have Eve initiate the kiss. it wouldn’t mean as much to us as fans and to V if V were to do it first. I love how all of V’s confidence and “power” just evaporated when Eve kissed her, we stan a soft Villanelle! and the way they paused to look at each other before EVE HEADBUTTS HER WHICH IS JUST PERFECT. Everything about this scene is so in character for both of them. As outrageous as this scene may seem for anyone from the outside looking in, it was fucking perfect for these characters and everything we needed for a first kiss from them. i’m really excited to see them together again later in the season. i’m really curious to see how or if this changes the dynamic for them. look out for a fanfic about this soon, i think that’s the only way im going to be able to fully process this

OVERALL - i really enjoyed this episode, the tension was just perfect, the plot is picking up and really seems to be going somewhere which im really looking forward to. as of right now, this season could really go anywhere and im really excited to see how it all plays out. i cant believe that after next week we’ll be halfway through season 3, it’s all going by so fast! thanks for letting me rant!

#killing eve #killing eve spoilers #villaneve #villanelle #eve polastri #eve #killing eve season 3 #killing eve season 3 spoilers #eve x villanelle #jodie comer #sandra oh #fiona shaw #carolyn martens #killing eve 3x03 #the bus scene

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elixir448 · 4 years

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Good Girls 3x06 Thoughts (Will I ever get these up after the episode? Nope)

Good Girls 3x04 and 3x05 Thoughts Here

So lemme tell you.This post was basically finished and then I accidentally deleted it and have spent the last few hours typing it all out again. I’m just...yeah.

Dean and Au Jus

I know that a lot of people feel that Dean talking about cancer and chemotherapy costs would have been the perfect moment for Beth to scathingly bring up his lie about having cancer. While I acknowledge that it could have worked and all of us have been wanting to see this since he blurted out that he had cancer in season 1, there are a few reasons why I wouldn’t have wanted the issue raised in this scene:

1. I think it would have trivialised the depth of such a betrayal.

2. This scene was about Beth’s reaction to Lucy’s death and having to dig up her body, clean her face with baby wipes and then take a photo of it in order to unlock her phone and convince her kind-hearted boyfriend, who she loved, that she is still alive and wants nothing to do with him. This has nothing to do with Dean or his lies and it has everything to do with Lucy and the weight of her death on Beth’s shoulders. Why should it be about Dean? Despite the fact that he is in the scene, it actually has nothing to do with him.

3. I do wonder if the cancer lie will ever be addressed, mainly because I think Beth felt so guilty over Dean being shot by Rio that she essentially let it slide. Even in 2x05, when she finds out that Dean had multiple affairs rather than just one, she pointedly does not raise it. Perhaps it’s because she only found out about it in the lead up to her confrontation with Rio and Dean in 1x10, so bringing it up would essentially force her to think about Dean being shot before she even had a chance to confront him about it personally. I do think that Beth and Dean are going to go their separate ways this season, romantically I mean. There was some unconfirmed information floating about that the show was looking to cast an actor as young Dean and I think, if that’s true, any flashbacks probably would have been as a prelude to these two ending their romantic relationship for good. If it is true, I’m even more annoyed that the last few episodes couldn’t be filmed. Anyway, the way I see it, when Beth and Dean’s romantic relationship ends as a storyline, I think it will be a decision borne of weariness rather than resentment.

Also, I just need to say that I kind of love that Dean is getting so many scenes with Au Jus and kind of love seeing him with the bird. He seems like such a proud father. I’m more invested in this storyline than I am in the four star hot tubs storyline and Gayle tbh. For now anyway.

The Hills

I’m really starting to understand what Manny meant when he said that he was most interested in what the writers are doing with Stan in this season.

As soon as Stan told Ruby that he might be able to become a cop again, I knew that he wouldn’t return. At least not immediately. There are probably two main reasons that will stop Stan from returning to the police force:

1. Disillusionment with law enforcement. In season 2, we saw Stan being confronted by a federal agent (Turner) who was threatening and absolutely willing to use underhanded tactics, such as false testimonies, to get Stan to do what he wanted.

2. Stan views himself as morally compromised and unfit to protect and serve. He knows that he’ll abuse his position and help Ruby if she needs it again.

Beth actually says to Ruby in this episode that Stan can’t be a cop again. Even though he obviously doesn’t know about this, I can really see the entire situation, and everything that has happened since they robbed Fine and Frugal, lead to a pretty tense conversation between Beth and Stan in the next episode:

Lemme tell you, I gasped when I saw this promo image for 3x07, especially given the fact that Reno has said that we’ll get to see a little of Beth and Stan interacting in this season. It’s actually one of my hiatus wishes and I feel like we’re all anticipating their scenes together. I mean, Beth and Ruby have been best friends since they were teens. Stan and Beth have probably known each other for ages and we saw some tension in the last season, stemming from Ruby’s betrayal of Beth to save Stan. Correct me if I’m wrong but I think the last time we saw these two interact was in season 1, so it’s about time we see them talk face to face.

Of course, it’s been a few episodes since we saw Stan as a security guard in the strip club, so I’m really excited to see what happens there, the introduction of Onyx and more scenes with Krystal. I think Onyx may be introduced in the upcoming episode?

It was also so good to see more of Harry again. Danny Boyd Jr is such a talented and cute little actor. Like, he’s so small!

I LOVED the scene where Ruby points out the reasons why Stan is a cop (protect and serve) at his core. He doesn’t want to be involved with their shady stuff but he always gets dragged in. I would give anything to see a scene where Stan defends Ruby so staunchly to someone because I have no doubt that he would and I need it. Grabby hands.

Mick

Give the guy a hot tub!!!!!!!

I’m telling you. I screamed when Beth blurted out “I have herpes!” Oh my god. I died. Yeah, your husband won’t be happy about it. Nor will your crime husband.

I’m also just going to reiterate that I don’t view any of what Mick’s doing as a betrayal of Rio. What Beth was trying to do in this episode was in an attempt to get the cops off their collective backs and, if he gets a free hot tub out of it, good for him.

I guess we’ll have to see where it all goes but I’m not convinced that Mick is going to betray Rio in some profound way. Hell, I’m not even convinved that Rio doesn’t know about all this.

Beth’s character progression

God, Beth did so much in this episode. She really got down in the dirt herself and dug the dirt away from the Lucy’s body, asked for some wet wipes to clean her face, while trying her best not to be sick, and then took a picture of Lucy’s face. Even thought she has gotten her hands dirty, with regards to her role in the crime world, this is the first scene where she physically gets her hand dirty when she’s not gardening.

@captainallthingspurpleme wrote a great short post summarising the girls’ actions in this scene and absolutely nailed it! I don’t want to reiterate because I think it’s worded a thousand times better than I could articulate it.

I think Beth’s breakdown in this episode was so earned. We so rarely see her emotionally lose it, especially not in front of other people. The fact that she’s breaking down in front of Dean of all people, from whom she has been repeatedly proven to be emotionally and intimately removed from, shows how torn up she is over everything that has happened.

Despite this, she somehow manages to process it and file it away and is back to business in her next scene with the girls, where she texts Max, takes charge and tells him to come over in a moment of decisiveness and then deals with him. In the Good Girls 3x02 thoughts post I wrote, I talked a little bit about how ruthlessly pragmatic Beth can be, her ability to process horrible things and compartmentalise and how we see this happen with everyone in her life except for Rio. We’ve seen it after she processed that Dean had cheated on her, when she processed that fact that Mary Pat was extorting them and accepting how similar they were, when she found out about Dean faking cancer and when she processes Turner’s death. She always gets back to business. I think we’ve seen it again in this episode, with regards to Lucy’s death. While I don’t think she’s dealt Lucy’s death mentally, not even a little bit, I do think she has compartmentalised it which is just so Beth, as I point it in that previous post, but it’s underscored as being even more chilling in this episode, particularly with the last shot where she appears to blend into the pitch black behind her:

I’m sure everyone has read it already but @foxmagpie wrote a fab post about the lighting of Beth and Rio throughout the episode and how it relates to Beth’s character development so, instead of reiterating her analysis, I’ll just leave a link to it here.

Beth and Rio

I’ve seen that people are displeased with the screentime that Rio has had, which is a totally valid opinion. I’m personally really happy with what’s been happening with his screentime. @pynkhues wrote an amazing post during hiatus about why she thought Rio would become a POV character and have more scenes in season 3. She hit the nail on the head! I think the writers have really delivered on this front because Rio does have his own POV now, we’ve seen him interact with his family, we’ve seen him operate outwith the girls, his boys have returned and we’ve had a glimpse into how many people he seems to ‘employ’ and, if Manny is to be believed, we are also going to find out more about the people to whome Rio answers / owes debts to. I’ve been wondering who these people are since he mentioned it. Are they larger scale crime bosses or are they corrupt big wigs in political or federal circles? Does he owe them a debt of money, potentially due to his absence while he was under Turner’s thumb, or have people in the crime world put two and two together and realised who was feeding names to the FBI? I don’t imagine that giving such information to law enforcement goes over well amongst criminals.

I’m going to start by discussing the first scene between these two, which is really weighted. It reminded me so much of 2x07, where Beth and Rio’s feelings, both generally and for each other, bubbled to the surface in a rare moment of emotional honesty.

This scene starts with Rio’s car drawing up and Mick approaching Beth. It’s hilarious to me that Rio decided to wait in the car instead of dealing with her drama (petty AF) but also really emphasises the fact that Rio’s doing his best not to give Beth an inch. He’s trying to maintain the faux gulf that has developed between them. He’s also failing because, let’s be honest, Rio didn’t have to come at all; he could have sent Mick or one of his guys just like he did in the last episode but he didn’t and there are potentially a few reasons for this:

1. It’s possible that Rio anticipated that there might be problems and that he would have to step in to handle it because...well, Beth is his problem to deal with. His rotten egg. Not Mick’s.

2. He definitely knew that Beth would be feeling the weight of Lucy’s death on her shoulders, which I’ll discuss later in this section.

3. Maybe he just wanted to see her, even if he didn’t want to / couldn’t justify speaking with her. There’s something so tragic about the fact that, even if the drop had gone smoothly, Rio would have sat in his car and just taken her in because he can’t help himself.

Also, side note here, but I honestly love that Rio was watching from his car as Beth mouthed off to Mick. It’s so funny!

It was only upon rewatching the episode that I realised it’s actually raining in this scene. When Rio approaches Beth to sit down, at the picnic bench and under the tree, they are both protected from the rain and it kind of makes it seem as though they exist in their own personal bubble, even though Mick is stanidng less than a few feet away from them. Rio clearly brought Mick in an attempt to exert a level of control over his interaction with Beth and also to non-verbally remind her, and himself, that this is just business.

I’d also like to take a minute to discuss the significance of the setting, which is a picnic bench that is not Beth’s backyard but in a separate, meaningless location.

This is the last time Beth and Rio were at a picnic bench:

Compared to this:

God, these two messes are such a mess.

The difference between the two scenes is so stark, including the obvious differences in lighting and their comfort levels with one another. Not to mention the fact that in the image from 2x08, Rio sits on the tabletop in a higher position (which makes sense because Rio retained much of the power throughout season 2, even after Beth took the pills and strong-armed him into a 50/50 deal) but they look at each other directly, unafraid, comfortable and happy. In this scene, Beth and Rio sit on more equal footing but look away from one another in opposite directions, sobered, worn and quiet.

It really highlights the fact that, in season 2, the distance between these two was being abolished but now they’re back to trying to hold one another at arm’s length. It’s clear that they’ve been through too much at each other’s hands.

When Rio sits down, there is a long, weighted silence. Rio adjusts himself on the bench and stares at his lap and waits. This is so important. When Beth eventually breaks the silence by saying (about Lucy) “She was a good person” and sniffling quietly, Rio seems completely unsurprised. He knew she was going to bring up Lucy and her death. He knew and he still let her take the lead. He repeatedly says in this scene that it’s just business and yet his actons suggest otherwise. Why sit next to her, why let her bring up Lucy when you knew she was going to? And perhaps more importantly, why not immediately discuss business? He responds by saying “she seemed like a really sweet girl”. Even though he views ordering Mick to shoot Lucy as business, he doesn’t invalidate how Beth feels about it. In fact, he’s almost gentle with her. He’s been gentle with her in this season but always as a manipulation tactic, always to make her more fearful. But in this scene, he’s honestly gentle and patient with her.

He knows she’s crying in this scene. Her voice breaks, she sniffles, she wipes at her face and he can’t look at her. I think, despite everything, Rio struggles and doesn’t know what to do when Beth is in pain.

In fact, he doesn’t look at her at all until he says “I got my own debts to pay aight” and then “Oh, you still think you get a say in this huh? Nah, see that ship sailed when you put three slugs in me”. It’s so clear that, in this scene, Rio has to summon enough anger to be able to look at the tear tracks on Beth’s face. This is followed by Rio saying “You, me, we” while still looking at her but then his eyes deviate downwards before he says “It’s just business” because it’s dishonest. It’s such a callback to the scene in Rio’s car in 2x12. This statement also seems pretty out of place in this scene, almost as though Rio’s been thinking too long and hard about it and had to say it in order to convince himself.

Beth seems genuinely hurt (I need to write a separate post all about this) and her eyes flicker over to Mick, absorbing Rio’s non-verbal reminder of their relationship being a business one. She then looks at Rio again and we have a shot of him looking away from her again, rocking his jaw and he almost seems angrier than when he was raising his voice, probably because he knows that he slipped again, despite everything he was saying.

When the sneak peek came out before the episode aired and Rio said, “so who’s the boyfriend?”, I was really confused. I was momentarily transported to fanfic land where Beth meets someone new and Rio is jealous haha. Seriously though, the word sounds so foreign coming out of Rio’s mouth, as the words boyfriend/girlfriend have never been thrown around in conversations between these two. It made me think, and probably made a lot of other people think, about how these two compare to a conventional romantic relationship.

The music is also incredibly weighted in this scene. Loving all the piano they’re using!

Moving on to their final scene in the episode, I love that Beth knows that Rio’s going to be his usual pissy self and want an invoive and then the way he scrutinises it. Omg, it was so cute.

Also excuse me sir but did you just compare your relationship with Beth to that of a boyfriend and a girlfriend? Again, the word boyfriend sounds so foreign and new coming out of Rio’s mouth. When Beth replied by saying, in a very feminine tone might I add, “he got over it”, I just about died. God, these two messes are using another couple’s relationship to address their own relationship. You bloody messes. I’m shaking my head. And the fact that Rio replies “they always do”, I am shaking my head again. Hahaha. Lol. Imagine these two ever being over each other. They really can’t be compared to other romantic relationships because they’re too stupid.

Also, Beth and Rio are dressed so similarly, all black, in their scenes together but particularly in this last scene.

I think that the way they are positioned is, again, so significant and obviously different to their first scene in the episode. In this final scene, Rio is once again positioned above Beth, standing while she is sitting. In the first scene, he sat down next to her, waited for her to speak and listened but he also lost control, even though Mick was there, and seemed to internally berate himself afterwards for it. Now, Mick is still there but Rio is taking extra precautions by avoiding even sitting down and keeping the interaction as short as possible.

They are also finally facing one another and Beth has regained the power and confidence she didn’t seem to have in the first scene, even thought she isn’t delivering the full amount of money. Like I said, I think she has processed and compartmentalised Lucy’s death and that possibly has something to do with it, as well as the fact that she probably feels powerful knowing that she’s deceiving Rio.

By having Beth and Rio face one another in this scene, while wearing such similar clothing, it really depicts them as two sides of the same coin, as almost but not quite mirror images of each other, as counterparts.

#nbc good girls #beth x rio #gg season 3 #annie marks #ruby hill #stan hill #ruby x stan #dean boland #au jus

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sometimesrosy · 4 years

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omg I cannot believe the anon hate you got. I follow your blog for years, you have excellent and on point analysis, overall you are one of the pillars of bellarke fandom and many of us appreciate you! anyways, just a small note, absolutelly not important - Gabriel said he had a crush on Becca right. the show seems to put Raven somehow on the similar level to Becca. Maybe that could be the sign of new romance couple? or I am just matchmaking again, why I do that I dont know :)

You are not the only one who has thought about that connection that Raven and Becca are paralleled and Gabriel had a crush on Becca. Also, it has been mentioned that that mindview of Becca had her much younger, with more casual hair so that she looks even MORE like Raven.

I’ll be honest I’ve been looking for someone to ship Gabriel with. He needs someone FAR better than that sociopath Josephine. I’ve thought Diyoza, Octavia and now yeah I could see Raven. Especially now that I’ve started shipping Diyoza and Octavia a bit. And maybe even Echo and Hope a bit though I’d need to see how they are in canon for five years on sky ring to do so. Raven and Gabriel are both STEM folk, different aspects of the sciences, both adventurers, both ravenclaw/griffindors, both rebellious and trouble makers, but with a deep sense of morality, both against the primes. It could work is what I’m saying. And he’s nothing like any of the yahoos she was with before. (sorry, Shaw wasn’t a yahoo.)

Yeah so maybe it’s a small note but I’m with you. And I find it a very exciting ship possibility. I have to wait until I see them together to see how they interact, because they’ve NEVER met! It’s exciting. OH and for him, it will be five years since he’d lost Josephine. Mourning period OVER.

As for the anon hate... i think it’s so weird. i’ve talked to a few people about it, just wondering, because it seems like no one else is getting this level of hate, and most of it is coming SIMPLY from shipping Bellarke at this point, and not shipping things that would block Bellarke. Like I used to get called all sorts of names branding me whatever is evil in the world, but they’ve run out of those, because, well, they weren’t happening in the first place but it was an excuse, and I’m neither being racist nor lesbophobic (and never was, it was just shipping and stanning.) Now they say i’m a clown or want to whore myself to jr.

I would just like to say that if I were a clown, that is a valid life choice. Rock on Bozo. You clown your way to happiness. And if I did want to whore myself to jr, whether for real or fantasy, that is none of anybody’s business and has no relation to moral superiority.

But I’m neither a clown nor do I have any interest in JR, in the slightest. Like at all. Zero. Zippo. Zilch.

I just like the show, the ship, the characters, and the story. That doesn’t mean I think it is flawless, it means I like it. It hits my buttons. And I enjoy watching it.

A lot of people are saying this is why the antis come after me. Because I am positive and use evidence to back up my theories and don’t back down or runaway. And this offends them.

I don’t really understand why people HATE people just because they like something they don’t. This doesn’t make sense to me. But it does seem to be a common theme in fandom. I mean if people like to hate something together, I guess that can be a bonding experience, but what does it matter if we like bellarke or The 100 and they think it’s shit?

Who cares?

But it really does to them. It so weird.

Like why not just let that crazy lady who believes in bellarke and loves The 100 even in s7 (me) fade off into oblivion as you move off into your anti bubbles? I mean, it’s not like my posts are reblogged all that much. I don’t have THAT much of a reach. I don’t go viral. I talk too much and have long posts and they’re all words and boring academics. SO easy to ignore me and brush me off.

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itsclydebitches · 4 years

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Let me start by saying that I love all of your meta and analysis soooo much especially the ones about Ozpin. I was curious to hear what what do you think are some legit motally grey things/mistakes he did, not the garbage the haters love to throw around. The only things I can think of are either in an impossible situation with only shitty options (where I don't really consider the decisions as immoral since morality needs agency and the chance of a better choice) like with Pyrrha and Oscar (1/2)

Thank you, anon! And honestly? I couldn’t agree more. I often say that Ozpin has made mistakes partly so that people don’t blow off the points I’m trying to make with, “Oh an Ozpin stan. Ignore her, she thinks he can do no wrong and thus can’t provide an objective opinion.” But honestly? Not all mistakes are created equal. There are mistakes one makes because they’re selfish, foolish, didn’t bother to take precautions---things that are preventable and therefore invite heavy criticism and an acknowledgment of responsibility. However, there are also mistakes that, as you say, are simply outside of your control. You don’t have the information available to make an informed and therefore better choice, or you simply just have bad choices from the get-go. For me, the vast majority of Ozpin’s mistakes are the latter.

Overall, I think the largest mistake he bears responsibility for is prioritizing his love for Salem over basic ethics. AKA, choosing to become a wannabe god with her and encouraging this mentality that they are intrinsically superior to everyone else in Remnant. Granted, there are many other factors involved in this, including Salem’s status as a creature now consumed by darkness (she was heading down this road no matter what Ozpin may have done differently) as well as her abuse towards Ozpin, her manipulation, and the sheer overwhelming terror of the goal Light set him. Which just reinforces that all Ozpin’s mistakes are understandable to one extent or another. He’s human and his mistakes resonate because, if people are honest with themselves, they’d probably admit, “Yeah. If I found the love of my life again I’d be tempted to ignore Light’s warning about her too. If I was offered a life of luxury and power under the guise of protecting the people, I might cave and go along with that as well...” We get how Ozpin got to that point, we may admit we couldn’t have done better, but we likewise understand that the man he became, regardless of how he got there---from natural human desires to abuse---isn’t okay. As Oz and his host ask themselves, “What are we doing?” And we see how he comes back from that edge. How he rejects that sort of power later when it’s offered to him after the Kingdoms were reunited. Ozpin learned from his mistakes.

Which adds further complications to his choices in the present day. Just as Ozpin learned that the world doesn’t need him as an all-powerful figurehead, he likewise learned that sharing secrets leads to nothing but the worst kind of consequences. The first time he reveals what he’s hiding? His wife announces that she’s going to take over the world, then murders their children, then him. A more recent time he reveals information? A very close friend betrays him to said wife. Tries to kill him. Nearly kills his allies. Is eventually killed himself. The latest time he was forced to reveal information? People are shouting, grieving, he’s punched into a tree, the one friend still at his side completely rejects him.

The fandom points to Ozpin’s lies and secret keeping among the group as his greatest mistakes and yes, objectively I agree. Without context I can say no, he shouldn’t have made a promise if he didn’t intend to keep it. He should have just told them that there were questions left, or that the relic attracted grimm. But the thing is that context is there and it always matters. I’ve spoken before about how I think Ozpin made that promise with precisely zero expectation that he’d ever be put into a situation where he might conceivably break it, that I’d also hesitate to tell a group that there were invaluable questions left when they were clearly eager to use them recklessly (which they then did), and that keeping the grimm aspect secret was the only logical course of action because telling them would just attract more. But even ignoring all of the potential justifications attached to each choice, I simply don’t believe we can ignore Ozpin’s trauma. I might not have lied to people like that, but I haven’t been horrifically traumatized for a thousand years whenever I do tell someone information. Ozpin has been conditioned not to tell people and though yes, everyone technically has free will, trauma like that will “force” you to take what you perceive as the only safe option. It fucks with your perception and your understanding of what even is an option in this situation. Ozpin simply no longer has the ability to go, “I’ll trust them!” like the others around him do and their reactions certainly didn’t help teach him otherwise. Imagine that for a thousand years you’re punched every time someone lifts their hand. Then someone you’ve just met demands that you stop flinching whenever they raise theirs. No matter how much you may want to stop, you can’t. Not immediately on someone else’s order. The human experience doesn’t work that way.

(As a side note, the reason why I emphasize a thousand years so much is because I believe the extent of the trauma and its implied consistency is really relevant here. As is the close tie between that trauma and Ozpin’s choices. There are many other characters out there who I don’t believe “But they had a hard life!” excuses their actions: Snape, Bakugo, recently what I’ve read of Yennefer---among others. It’s notable to me that Ozpin didn’t endure traumatic events by revealing information and then, say, go abuse his students for years. Or tell someone to kill themselves. Or take over someone else’s mind. Not only is his trauma more extensive than the vast majority of characters we meet, but he hasn’t used that trauma as an excuse to get away with horrific---and unrelated---choices. The love of my life rejected me and then died... so I’m going to abuse eleven-year olds under my care. My mom is demanding and people cater to me too much... so I’m going to gleefully beat up my weakest classmate. I dealt with being ugly for a good chunk of my life and now can’t have kids... so I’m going to take away someone’s autonomy and endanger a whole town. Unlike most other characters with tragic backstories, Ozpin has a one-to-one correlation between that hard life and the mistakes he’s made: people hurt me when I tell them things... so I just won’t tell them things. By keeping that strong connection it eliminates the possibility that Ozpin is just using his trauma as an excuse (knowingly or otherwise) and he is, notably, still a good person beyond those very specific choices. We see his horror at the decisions he has to make. We see his endless attempts to be as kind towards others as possible. We see how much he’s fought not to allow his trauma to warp him into a person he’d despise. A person like Salem. Just like not all mistakes are created equal, for me not all people making mistakes are equal either. I’m less likely to forgive your mistakes if you’re an all around horrible person. You’re clearly a good person trying your best? Your mistakes are easier to stomach and, as discussed above, I’m more inclined to assume that these mistakes stem from things outside of your control. If someone who has been nothing but cruel to me lied I’d automatically be pissed. If someone who has been nothing but kind to me lied, I’m inclined to ask them why they did that, expecting that there’s a good reason attached to that decision.)

So did Ozpin make mistakes? Technically yes, but I think they were mistakes largely outside of his control. Either he only had shit options available to him or he was in a position where the group demanded something of him that his mental health simply wouldn’t allow. People have to remember that we’re not Ozpin (insert obligatory, “He’s fictional” here). We have more options available to us when it comes to our choices, simply by means of not having gone through what he has. His choices are always limited, both by outside factors and his own experiences, and they likewise always have inevitable downsides. Ozpin doesn’t get the luxury of choosing anything that turns out well.

As a final note, with Volume 7 underway I’d say that another potential mistake has been introduced: making Pyrrha the Fall Maiden. Meaning, unless the story reveals that Winter actually can’t become the next Winter Maiden due to her age (unlikely given that others have said the non-canonical age limit is 30), it raises the question of why he’d choose a 17 year old over a 20-some graduate. However, to me this is pretty clearly a writing issue. The creators were more concerned with keeping the story revolved around RWBYJNR than they were the implications of having Ozpin choose Pyrrha over a more suitable adult. So though yes, I’d technically consider that another mistake.... obviously not much Ozpin could do against his own creators lol.

Which finally leads to me saying that although Rooster Teeth seems to want us to believe that Ozpin is a morally gray character, they haven’t succeeded in writing one well. That characterization requires a fair balance between what most would consider “good” and “bad” traits. Not a good person presented with only bad choices. Or a character so horrifically conditioned that his ability to make a better decision is almost impossible. We wouldn’t call a person who was manipulated or forced into doing bad things a morally gray character, nor would we use that term if, somehow, they were sick and that led to those choices. That’s how I view Ozpin, mentally as opposed to physically sick. After a thousand years he needs evidence that trusting people and giving them his secrets won’t result in him being hurt. Until he’s shown that, expecting him to trust people just because they insist they are trustworthy is like asking someone with a broken leg to run you a race. They can try, but good look expecting them to succeed.

#rwby #rwby volume 7 #rwby volume 7 spoilers #long post #mymetas #Anonymous

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queenofthefaces · 5 years

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kyle for the character thing!!!!

Buckle up bc I’m extra af and love talking abt characters. Be aware this is like, entirely personal opinion and personal interpretation and also it’s almost 2am so LETS GO

1) sexuality hc: I’ve always really liked bi Kyle ahsjdkfk and tbh I’ve always found the idea of his attraction to other ppl really interesting

The way I characterize him is that he’s someone who’s like, typically very passive with his attraction. He’ll kind of glance at someone and think they’re attractive but he doesn’t necessarily have any strong feelings towards them or desire/drive to want to pursue anything with them. If he does want to pursue them it’s usually out of a sense of obligation or expectation—like a “well I might as well” or “this is what I’m supposed to do” kinda thing

Except Kyle DOES have exceptions—when he finds someone he feels passionately about, someone he’s emotionally and mentally invested in, it’s like 0-100 in terms of difference, bc suddenly he can’t stop thinking abt that person, how much he wants to be with them, etc. and a lot of that characterization, for me, falls in line w the specific ship I have for Kyle (which is obvious if you’ve followed me for a few but I’ll get Into That in the next section)

2) OTP: KYMAN by far my fave Kyle ship and one of my all time fave sp ships overall. I’ve always LOVED rivals/enemies to lovers ships that specifically have 1) characters who are equals 2) characters who are incredibly intimate and close w one another even if (or because of) it’s in the context of the rivalry 3) the characters have either some level of co-dependence or a need for the dynamic or one another in some way bc the relationship is fulfilling to them and bonus if 4) they’re the only ones that really understand each other

And I jus. Love that. Esp w kyman it’s so much fun taking that dynamic, the codependency and obsession, and just. Playing with it, on a storytelling/character analysis level. And then making it healthy, having them work through issues, bc the idea that “we’re both in way too deep with each other, we can either destroy each other or learn to get along” is jus 👌👌👌

And w kyman I love having Eric be Kyle’s exception. Kyle feels basically nothing towards his other s/o’s in contrast to how deeply he feels about Eric, and for Eric to have just as much depth of emotion in return. It’s fascinating and really fun esp when written from a kind of duo-redemptive story—they both start out toxic towards each other, and their relationship is toxic to other people, but they can’t bring themselves to put an end to it so they finally make it to that middle ground and come out as better peoole, together

This applies to a lot of my rivals/enemies to lovers ships but w kyman in particular there’s the added Funkiness of the childhood friends dynamic which is TASTEY like some nice sprinkles to jus add that extra Flavour. I love the concept of Kyle and Eric forming parts of their entire identities around each other from the time they were in diapers and everyone accepts that they’re always gonna he crazy for each other bc no one has the bond they do it’s so much fun

4) brotp: I should think more abt Kyle friendships tbh I don’t give those as much attention ahsjdkfkfk—tho I definitely have a soft spot for the super best friends kyle + Stan, I just have to work some development into it.

I love exploring their friendship as smth that deteriorates bc they grow apart as people, but then they realize they don’t WANT to grow apart and have to work to stay friends bc being friends isn’t as easy as it was when you were 8. It brings this really cool development that confronts Stan’s passivity towards his friends/his nihilism and Kyle’s entitlement and lack of emotional sensitivity and how they both need to make some compromises (but esp Kyle, bc I can see Stan as someone who tries very hard to not get much feedback).

In terms of Kyle being friends w other people I’m thinking it would be pretty situational. I can see Kyle getting some really eye opening perspectives from other ppl if he opens himself up to their views but that requires knocking Kyle down a few pegs lol, it’s fun to have him learn to recognize his own assumptions abt ppl and learning to value them as individuals yanno?

3) notp: honestly? Any other kyle ship. I can personally only see Kyle w Eric ahsjdkfk kyman endgame all the way. For me, a lot of other Kyle ships like, don’t make any sense, a lot in part bc I see Kyle as someone who has a lot of issues w socialization, entitlement, and selfishness along with his UNENDING OBSESSION w Eric Cartman (which also somewhat stems from those issues bc of Kyle’s sense of self identity vis a vis the rivalry)

Like, I can’t see Kyle sitting down and forming a meaningful romantic relationship w anyone else bc like, no one can provide the fulfillment, engagement, drive, and push/pull of Kyle’s relationship w Eric. Kyle would leave at the drop of a hat to confront smth Eric was doing and I don’t think he’d ever compromise with that. And someone who does compromise on that probably isn’t someone Kyle would want to be with in the long run.

I think the only ship I can see would be like, poly m4 bc that draws on pre-existing dynamics and doesn’t break or try to divy up Kyle’s attention. (Even tho like I said I don’t like Kyle w anyone else romantically)

5) 1st hc that pops in my head: my Kyle is autistic as fuck. Characterizing him as autistic gives a lot of insight into how his mind works and why he acts the way he does—a lot of his thought processes are just. What makes the most logical sense to him. It’s just that those trains of thought are on KYLES logic and that’s when he struggles to realize when he’s crossed a line or overstepped a boundary. Or how his brain is usually always “self-centered”—not in a morally negative way, just in that it’s not a natural reflect for him to remember other people.

And a ton of other things as well( including a fun hc of Kyle trying to use his autism as an excuse for being a dick, until Also Autistic Craig steps up like, no dude you’re just an asshole bc you’re not trying to do better). And bc as an autistic person, I really relate hard to Kyle to the point where if he were real I’d probably hate him bc we’d be too similar lmao; I think esp when I was a kid I acted a lot like Kyle—the self righteousness, the bossiness, the belief that my way was the only way that made sense and everyone else was just Wrong, the anger issues, etc.

It’s why I’m tough on Kyle a lot of the time, but it’s also why I love thinking abt his development, bc I know firsthand that he can mellow out, change, become a better, more wellrounded and emotionally aware person, and how he can make an effort into doing so

6) oh shit I didn’t even mean for this but obviously one way I relate to Kyle is the Above autistic hc and how I characterize him. Like I said, I acted a LOT like Kyle when I was a kid, so I know he’s an irritating little shit, but also brilliant and too thoughtful for his own good sometimes.

But another thing: I characterize Kyle as someone who is a natural leader, but hates being in official leadership positions. And this is also smth I’ve kinda written due to personal experience. But also from the way kyles often portrayed in canon—in the games, he’s always a support role, always a healer, ranged fighter, or someone who boosts and buffs allies

I see Kyle as the type of person who can easily take control in, for example, a group project situation, or when he’s hanging out with Stan and they’re only doing what Kyle wants to do bc Kyle comes up with all the ideas and Stan just goes along with them

But I can’t see Kyle as someone who’d want to be, like, student counsel president. (That’s more Wendy’s wheelhouse) Mostly bc there’s too much responsibility that it’s just exhausting, and more than that, those official positions are STIFLING. They run on someone else’s schedule and they’re creatively constructive. You can’t fully do your own thing bc you have to be constantly aware of how the group works and what the group wants. I can’t see Kyle as being happy in that position bc he’d get sick of having to conform his ideas to what other ppl want—he just wants to do his own thing.

So instead, Kyle would be more comfortable in a supporting role. Bc in a position like, for example, secretary or VP, he can still have a lot of influence, power, and knowledge, but he’s free from those restrictions that come from being the face of a group. And he’s also free from the social obligations of being a leader, esp in having to deal w other groups in like a business sort of way. AND if the group falls, Kyle won’t take as much of the blame, bc it’s probably not his fault anyways so why should everyone point fingers at him. It’s much less pressure.

(And it’s also kinda inspired by his role in the CBAA??—Cartman’s perfect in the CEO/face of the company position bc Cartman is comfortable with and relishes in the attention and social aspect of being the face/leader of a company, and Kyle can reap all the benefits of being a part of that company, including being an integral pillar of the company, w/o the deficits. If Eric and Kyle ran a company they’d work together, sure, but Eric would crumble without Kyle’s support, and Kyle would hate the stifling pressure of the head position, which makes them a perfect pair.)

(And again this is based on personal experience—I’m a natural leader. People listen to me, I can organize groups, and I’m a good mediator, but I hate when it becomes Official bc I can’t just. Do my own thing as I want to and it’s far too much to keep track of and most of it doesn’t interest me. It always irritated me when my parents tried to push me into like running for student president bc I just kept thinking abt all the work I’d have to do that I wouldn’t care abt)

7) what gives me secondhand embarrassment about Kyle? Well. Just......how much he reminds me of when I was a stupid kid. He’s such a little shit oh my god Kyle shut the fuck up YOURE NOT GHANDI. When Kyle’s being entitled and stuck up, when he thinks he’s better than other ppl, and when his own big mouth and pride are what fucks him over I’m just oh my god. Oh my GODDDDDD SHUT UPPPPP.

Mostly it’s secondhand embarrassment bc I’m jus oh my god ur an idiot—but again bc I know he has the ability to grow out of that and look back on himself with a grimace at how dumb he was ahsjdkfkfk

8) cinnamon roll or problematic fave? Definitely the latter, I love Kyle and I love when he’s happy and contented but him as a cinnamon roll kinda character feels so flat to me. I love him as a problematic fave he’s so much fun as a disaster. He’s complex—he’s tough and caring and angry and compassionate and an absolute fireball of EMOTIONS but he tries to act like he’s a logical rational person and I jus? He’s so much more fun and dynamic when he’s allowed to be messy

(Of course this is long why wouldn’t it be AHSJDKDKKFKGLGLH)

#long post #kyman #south park #kyle broflovski #fl5k #creo talks

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lillabelle · 4 years

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BNHA World Analysis ?

A bit of a world/character analysis on how much value BNHA society puts on Quirks, to quite some toxic degrees. You see this very prominently in Midoriya and Bakugou’s relationship, as well in Kirishima’s insecurities about his quirk. While Bakugou treated Midoriya horribly and there’s no excuse, it’s not often address the reasoning and how enabled he was to behave that way.

Flashy quirks>”boring” quirks>quirkless. Your quirk is your worth in this society.

Putting under a read more since this will likely get kind of long

While it’s always easy to say, “Well, I wouldn’t have ever treated Midoriya badly,” since you’re from an outside POV, I think it’s safe to say that Class A wouldn’t have treated Midoriya the same way had they known him while he was quirkless. Not saying they’d bully him, but differently for sure.

For starters, notice how Midoriya hasn’t been shown to have ANY friends from middle school beyond Bakugou. I doubt that everyone in his school bullied him, but it was clear he was all alone. Midoriya is a sweet and friendly boy and we see how quickly he makes friends at UA, so it’s safe to assume this happened purely because he had no quirk. Maybe they thought he was weird for being quirkless, maybe they feared getting bullied for hanging out with him, who knows. But in the end, he had no friends.

Now look at Bakugou, someone who was rather nasty and put others down (not just Midoriya). The series even starts off with him insulting his classmates and bullying another kid (in the very opening scene). So despite all this, he has friends, people that hang around him. Why though? Because he has a cool quirk ofc!

The show doesn’t hide how these two are on different ends of the spectrum. When Bakugou discovers his quirk, he’s surrounded by his teachers and classmates, all of them praising him on the sole basis that he has a cool quirk. He hadn’t done a single damn thing to earn it, but he got it. Midoriya on the other hand was shown to be sitting all alone. He was clearly devastated. But you don’t see his classmates or teachers trying to comfort him.

From the moment he was declared quirkless, society deemed him worthless. You see this time and time again.

You see their middle school teacher, who knows Midoriya is quirkless, go “haha you’re all going to become heroes with your quirks, so this aptitude test is pointless!” and then proceed to do nothing while Midoriya is being bullied by Bakugou and the rest of the class. He doesn’t say a word about it, he doesn’t address their nasty behavior. An adult in a position of power lets it happen. And I doubt it’s at all of a stretch to say likely most adults in Midoriya’s life acted similarly. He’s worthless in their eyes.

Now, let’s take another look at Kirishima. The moment he talks about his quirk, he’s putting himself down about it not being “flashy.” With S4 (I’ll try to be light on spoilers) we see his anxiety over it even more promptly. He puts a lot of his self worth in his quirk.

We see this with other characters’s too. Mirio’s classmates not being all that nice about him not being able to use his quirk is a brief example. The UA entry exam also shows how much the value flashy quirks, Shinsou--who has a very powerful and useful quirk--is shunted off to the side and had to rely on the written portion of the test just to get in. It’s not flashy, not something he can show off. I’m sure there’s more examples of this, but these are the ones I most strongly remember.

People in this society are so strongly judged based on their quirk alone. Their worth, how useful they are, whether or not they are a hero or a villain.

With that in mind, let’s go back to Bakugou. Imagine, people think you’re the greatest thing ever and they treat you like you are. And then this person who is a nobody, worthless and useless, doesn’t treat you like that??? In your 5 year old little mind, who wouldn’t take offense to that. Of course Bakugou would be offended by Midoriya trying to help him, by treating him like just another person. At that point, society had already swelled Bakugou’s pride and ego and had told him that Midoriya was nothing. While the other kids thought Bakugou was fine and could handle himself, Midoriya still ran down to ask him if he was okay. Hence Bakugou feeling looked down upon.

None of that was Midoriya’s fault, of course, but I think it’s important to understand why Bakugou acts the way he does, and that there’s honestly no guarantee anyone in Class A would’ve defended Izuku or been his friend if they were put into the same situation.

I’ve never watched the Two Heroes movie, so I can’t use that as a frame of reference concerning Melissa, but we’ve never seen how quirkless people beyond Midoriya are treated. We don’t know if all these characters we love had shut down their quirkless classmate’s dream, if they avoided being friends with someone quirkless or stood by and didn’t help them.

All Might, someone who was quirkless himself, had told Midoriya to not pursue his dreams. And maybe he had some right to say that (maybe it stems from his own self doubts to become a hero if he had never met Nana), but he had still told a quirkless child “yeah, no, your dreams are not achievable.”

Stain wasn’t really wrong about how fucked hero society is.

And I’m so glad we see Bakugou constantly overcoming his over inflated self-worth concerning his quirk. The one that society gave him. How much he has to learn to stop looking down on people he thinks are weaker. He’s great, stan Bakugou Katsuki, pls and thank u.

I don’t really have a conclusion to all this, but this whole ramble has been on my mind for literally 2 years and it’s taken me THIS long to type it out lmao.

#bakugou katsuki #midoriya izuku #bnha #my hero academia #boku no hero headcanons #kirishima eijirou

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charismastaticarchive · 5 years

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fang & vanille meta/hc

an analysis on co-dependent relationships & mental illness [ note: i absolutely ship fanille, i ship fanille largely because of this meta and because i stan complicated relationships between women, but it could be triggering for those of us who have experienced toxic relationships with mentally ill people as people who are mentally ill themselves in the past. i do not mean to blame either fang or vanille for their co-dependency also. this is something so engrained in their relationship there is no true party at ‘fault’---and it’s so much more complicated than placing blame, as neither of them wants to blame the other at all, and in fact, blames themself.]

firstly. i want to define a co-dependent relationship. co-dependent relationships are relationships in which one person takes the role of a ‘caretaker’ and the other takes the role of an ‘enabler.’ the caretaker sacrifices their own needs, sense of self, morality, relationships with others, boundaries, and sense of intimacy/vulnerability-----in order to ‘people please’ the enabler. the enabler lets them sacricie and do this, letting the caretaker ride their whole sense of self on the enabler.

but the enabler, in fact, does not have to be some sort of monsterous abuser. sometimes, and definitely in the case of vanille & fang, the enabler simply does not know what to do about their partner’s co-dependent tendencies---and genuinely loves and feels they need the caretaker, despite relying on their affection and ‘caretaking’ for self-worth themself. in this definition of a co-dependent relationship, fang is the ‘caretaker’ and vanille is the ‘enabler.’

while obviously co-dependent relationships at first glance would look like an abuser (the enabler) that cruelly uses the obviously mentally ill dependent party (the caretaker), i believe 13 aims to show a more complicated&loving view on how relationships work.

fang, is, by her own admission---not a good person, that is willing to let the world burn to keep vanille safe. but vanille herself is not the perfect innocent angel fang sees her as----she lies constantly to others, she runs away from her problems and responsibilities, she lets fang take the blame for ragnorak, she quite literally enables others, such as the 13 family and fang, to see her as weak and innocent through her lies about her own competency. she lets fang become ragnorak despite her not wanting to, and while vanille will never be directly at fault for fang’s actions (you can only control yourself), she refuses to talk to fang about anything (which is part of the reason she ran away) and when she does bring up ragnorak later in the game when fang eventaully finds her---she lets herself be soothed/cared for by fang (literally hugged as fang as she cries) instead of delving into the deeper issues of their co-dependency at play.

regardless of who you think is at fault for this largely unequal relationship, both girls blame themselves for it. fang decides that she is simply not a good person---she dives deeper within the role of caretaker, saying that she will tear down the sky for her, giving up her sense of self as her echalion shows that she really does not want to give up their friends to save vanille. vanille, on the other hand, blames herself so much for their co-dependency (shown in its ultimate stages pre-game by fang becoming ragnorak WITHOUT her, literally turning into a monster with many arms, symbolic of taking/giving), that she runs away from the relationship to what she assumes is her OWN DEATH (as she does not want to fulfill her purpose).

in showing fang’s struggle to be her own person/a good person, and vanille’s suicidality, the game shows us that often times, BOTH an enabler and a caretaker are mentally ill, and sometimes, these two parties are drawn to each other because of their mental illness and inability to take care of themselves on their own merits.

from here, i would like to discuss HOW vanille and fang entered their co-dependency, by discussing the ways people beome co-dependent.

co-dependent people often stem from emotionally immature or even abusive parents that WANT things from their children and make their children ‘serve’ their needs and expectations, and who are punished if they do not meet their lofty and often confusing and not specified or objective/normal expectations.

fang&vanille do not have any parents. its implied, at least by them, that gran pulse was kind of a paradise of love&affection. but it did have a drawback---the church (featured in the novel), which both fang&vanille were shown to be strongly against, probably due to many hunters they knew dying bc of being chosen to be l’cie.

the fal’cie are shown to be false gods---but we can also think of the fal’cie as the parents of humanity, like gods are often seen as fathers/mothers, etc. the fal’cie quite literally ask their ‘children’ to serve them---especially in the case of gran pulse where the fal’cie are worshipped---and the way their children are meant to serve them LITERALLY are not told to them in any way. they have to guess their whole lives why the fal’cie are here, and what the fal’cie want, or they will be ‘punished’ by turning into monsters.

this is a perfect metaphor for emotionally toxic parents.

we especially see, as fang & vanille come together to go AGAINST the church (that the rest of gran pulse does not and looks down at them for), that they are isolated from the rest of gran pulse and pushed into their toxic parent’s reach.

this isolation, when compounded with the fact that fang has ALWAYS cared for vanille as a ‘crybaby’, their own mental illness, and fang&vanille having the ‘toxic’ emotional figures, meant that the co-dependency was always bound to happen, no matter how equally they loved each other. (and despite their co-dependency, it’s clear that they really do love each other, just in a way that is harmful to both of them.)

but their relationship is not just co-dependent. the course of the game shows fang&vanille reuniting and growing as people. the game shows that by fang letting other people into their lives (the 13 family), they can BOTH grow out of the co-dependency. fang can start to forge other relationships and her own sense of self and morals that show that she really IS a good person deep down that cares about people other than vanille. vanille can start forging HONESTY with others, including fang, about how she feels about EVERYTHING, and learn to communicate in healthy ways that don’t involve the enabling and people-pleasing/self-sabotaging behaviors.

fang&vanille show that if there is a real, true love beneath the co-dependency, the relationship can grow and become healthy again with the help of others, and by putting in the work with ur mental illness to develop a support system of family and friends who love you.

you can’t just have one person in your life. you can’t just GIVE to one person, or just TAKE from one person. you need a balance, u need to be ur own person, and u need help from ur friends to get out of the emotionally toxic/suicide inducing mindsets your ‘parents’ gave you.

#fanille #{ ooc: hc }#{ ch: lady luck | fang }#{ ch: sunshine and rainbows | vanille }#{ hc: sunshine and rainbows | vanille }#{ hc: lady luck | fang }#suicide tw

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princesssarcastia · 5 years

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Cassandra Cillian: Hitter

this is titled “you don’t have to be a ghost here amongst the living” because I was going through a F+TM phase when I started writing it.

remember like, a year and a half ago when I planned out a librarians-leverage fusion (and also a leverage-librarians fusion?) because I do! And I finished the first bit.

here’s 3k of not!fic about how Cassandra Cillian starts down the road to being a legend.

________________________________________________________

my first concrete though when I started daydreaming about this was “oh my god Cassandra is the hitter”

no, really

I blame the apple of discord episode. her analysis of force needed to kick ass and take names and initiate a nuclear meltdown makes her perfect. utterly ruthless, just hiding under a cutesy facade instead of Eliot’s dumb-hick one

with the tumor in her head ticking down, down, down to zero, her self-preservation is pretty low. not necessarily in a death wish way, not yet. but when she fights there’s no holding back, and no fear of what the other person can dole out. what could they possibly do to her that she isn’t already doing to herself? death looks like Cassandra Cillian staring in the mirror.

I’m willing to negotiate about anything else you find here but this. in this house we stan Cassandra as the hitter in the leverage fusion au.

all this begs the question, of course: how does sweet cinnamon roll math geek Cassandra Cillian become a mean lean recently reformed killing machine? and this is where our story begins.

Cassandra Cillian is a teenager who’s just been told she’ll never see the other side of 35. there’s a tumor sitting in her brain sending her senses haywire, giving her visions that break down every aspect of the world around her to the smallest components. math isn’t just like breathing, anymore: it’s her heartbeat. even though its killing her, she can’t help but enjoy it a little. and it’s not just math. everything around her is worth noticing, studying, learning. the doctors are calling it hyper-vigilance, like her new fascination with her surroundings is just a way to channel all her rage and grief into something she can control; like since she can't cut her death out of her brain she’s going to make damn sure that nothing else gets to get near her without her consent.

they’re probably right, but she’s not going to admit that. all she knows is that the way her senses are linked to each other and her visions, there’s not a goddamn thing going on around her she doesn’t notice and catalogue immediately.

the next step, of course, is her shitty parents. when they hear the news it’s like Cassandra’s already dead. they take away her trophies, all those shiny pieces of proof that she was worth something, that mom and dad were proud of her sometimes, gone. the pair of them loved their dreams for their daughter more than the person she was, and those dreams had just been crushed. they pull her out of school, because her visions were “a disruption to the other students”

no one needs the crazy dying chick breaking down in the middle of calculus crying with a nosebleed, apparently.

maybe she could have lived with this. maybe, in another life, another world, she could have buried all of her hopes and dreams deep inside herself and forgotten about it, until a man and a woman burst into the hospital looking to save her life (oh, the irony). this is not that world.

instead Cassandra gets furious.

how dare they decide her whole life is over just because this tumor is going to cut it short. how dare they take away everything they said made her special: her grades, her stem fairs, her college applications. no; no, they don’t get to do this.

so she runs away. seventeen years old and in the wind. fine. if they won’t help her live her life, she’ll do it on her own.

she lands in Boston eventually. crossing state lines helps confuse jurisdiction over her missing persons case, if her parents even decide to file a police report. hiding in a larger city decreases her odds of being found, because cities are big places. easy to get lost in, to find a job in, and everyone seems to have a rule about asking questions.

where in Boston, you might ask, does Cassandra end up staying? where does she work?

well, funny story, actually

She ends up working at John McRory’s Place

god this is so long I'm sorry

it turns out mob bars don’t ask too many questions about why a just-18 young woman with no emergency contact needs a job. Cassandra just gives them her bright, fake smile and says she's applying for classes at the local college and means to pay her own way. they respect her secrets and her work ethic, and voila! a job busing tables and occasionally manning the bar when the owner has special customers to see to in the back room

her bright red hair and Irish heritage don’t hurt, either

it’s not an Ivy League school, nothing like what she imagined her future would be a year ago, but it’s something, which is more than she’d be getting at home. all it took was a request for records from her old high school, some placement exams to confirm her genius level intellect, and the college was giving her a spot in their line of incoming freshmen.

even with merit scholarships, tuition is a bitch to pay for. it gets worse once she has another attack and needs some of her funds to go to the hospital bills, and the drugs the doctors there prescribe her.

Cassandra expects her boss to kick up a fuss at all that time missed, but he waves her off with a kind smile and says she can take all the time she needs to get back on her feet, because he’s never had someone so smart working for him before (she helps out with the accounts for the bar, sometimes)

one night after she starts back to work, it’s late, and the bar is empty of everyone except the Irish. they’ve taken over the pub and the territory surrounding it. Cassandra is cleaning up, closing down the unused tables and being as unnoticeable as she can

because let’s face it, she is not stupid. by now, she knows exactly what’s going on here. and maybe before it would have bothered her more, maybe her principles and respect for the rules would have had her out the door. but she needs this job so she can continue her classes and pay rent on the space above the bar (which she’s getting at a discounted rate), and pay for her pills and the occasional overnight in the hospital. besides, the owner is kind, even if his friends aren’t quite so nice, and his little girl is adorable.

anyway. the Irish are here, letting off steam and worried, because their “accountant” just got put in jail. everyone in the Family is prepared to play patsy, but losing an enforcer is nothing compared to losing the guy who keeps track of their money, their lifeblood. those people aren't a dime a dozen, and pretty soon the Irish won’t have two nickels to rub together if they don't find someone new fast.

and cassandra just. pauses. just for a moment. glances up to meet old McRory’s eyes behind the bar, just for a minute. because.... she could do that. Cassandra started balancing her father’s accounts for him when she was twelve, and they were hardly middle class: the Cillian’s had money in savings, but also tied up in investments and stock, and assets, too. but that was nothing to her mind. she could do it in her sleep near the end. hell, she’s been helping John with the bar’s funds for two months now, and not all of their revenue was clean , but she kept her mouth shut then and made the numbers work.

John wasn’t exactly a member of the Family, but he was a, a Friend of the Family. so when she nods at him, I can do it, I need the money, just give me a chance, he casually picks up a glass to clean and mentions that she’s got a head for numbers, if they’re really that desperate

they are.

they take her to Callaghan, and he might be a little charmed by her bubbly smile and her red hair, but what really gets him is the way it takes her thirty minutes to decipher the codes the old accountant used for the ledgers, balance them out, shift funds between businesses and make sure to account for the statistical probability of amounts of cash-paying customers they can make up for car washes, bars, laundry mats, mattress firms, and movie theaters.

that’s how she becomes the numbers guy for the Irish mob.

Cassandra was never going to be Eliot, running away to the military with god in her heart and a flag on her shoulder and becoming disillusioned with doing dirty work for her country. she needed to get slowly pulled into the criminal underworld. I figured Irish mob was a good way as any to start, and what better way to pull her into that then math?

she spends some time doing that. becoming more and more involved. and she’s cute, like a little puppy, so the others like her. enough to maybe give her a few self-defense lessons, because this is a dangerous life she’s leading now.

they go...okay?? taking care of her body is one of the first things the doctors recommended to her when she started getting sick, so she’s already in pretty good shape. It’s just the basics at first; keep your thumb outside your fist, always go for the throat first—Cassandra calculates that three fingers-width above the hollow in a person’s throat would be the best place to strike, because then their voice box gets damaged, too.

None of the lessons ever go much further than that, because these are brawlers who prefer to use a gun to send a message. Sometimes the way they move when they show her something tickles the back of her brain, like there’s more to uncover there, but she can’t figure it out until the first time a brawl breaks out in the bar

Two of their patrons start throwing punches right in front of her and suddenly their movements are all angles: she catalogues their weight and height and how drunk they are and how much force they’re putting behind their swings and just…neatly steps out of the way, perfectly avoiding getting elbowed in the face. This…this has never happened before. But, like everyone always says: there’s math in everything. Even fighting—especially fighting.

When it looks like the two men are going to start breaking chairs, she hesitates for a moment, but…the knee is a hinge joint. Thirty pounds of pressure pushing it the wrong way will snap it; twenty-five will seriously damage the attached ligament. She blinks. Steps up to the closest one.

He’s on the floor before John can make the corner of the bar, screaming his head off, and the other guy is backing away with wide eyes, shocked sober by fear. Cassandra pulls back, letting her right foot settle behind her and point away from them, and balances on the balls of her feet for a moment.

John gives her a startled look, because she’s never done something like that before. Someone calls the guy’s friends to pull him up off the floor and drive him to the hospital

She grabs a rag to wipe up the mess they made of the counter and thinks. Because that felt…good. Really good. Using her hallucinations to dosomething, to affect the real world, gave her a rush of adrenaline and satisfaction. Not just theory, like in her classes, but real application of the way she sees the world.

Like any good academic, she does her research (in her mind, this is ostensibly still for self-defense—just in case something like that bar fight happens again. She ignores the giddy little voice in her head talking about how much fun this will be). Her upper-body strength isn’t great, so something that uses joints and core muscles would be best. Her size is a disadvantage, too: she can’t afford to go to the ground grappling with someone twice her height and weight. She’s not looking to compete in a tournament, and she can’t afford to buy any equipment. The best technique for her will probably be Krav Maga. (For now, the excited voice in her head whispers)

Her search turns up a little studio on the west side of town that teaches Krav Maga to women for self-defense. Perfect. The instructor, Miriam Epstein, was a course instructor for the IDF for twenty years before she immigrated to America and got certification from the KMAA.

Cassandra goes to observe a class before she signs up, and the moment she steps through the door her brain is set alight: everything she sees goes a deep, brilliant hue of scarlet, finding the angles of their feet and arms and their centers of mass based on weight and height; herfoot is seven centimeters too far to the right and that strike would give hermore leverage if she moved three centimeters up from the elbow. She has to stop for a moment to breathe and process all the information her brain displays in front of her.

That becomes the hardest part: not the constant exhaustion, or the bruises everywhere, or her aching muscles, but the overwhelming flow of information about body movements and the correct place to strike.

She is tired, though; working at the bar takes time, if not mental energy, and her classes take both. Add in balancing the ledgers for Callaghan and now these lessons twice a week, and the exercise she does on her own to keep up, and her schedule is completely full.

The Irish start letting Cassandra layer their funds, obscuring where the extra profits in their businesses came from. Turns out she’s pretty good at that, too, though it’s not like it’s hard given they own a bank in Boston. Loans are a great way to integrate funds, and their interest rates are always better than the next three competitors. She tries not to think about the other differences, how the people she’s working for go to collect that debt.

Construction is another great way to hide their funds, and from what Cassandra can tell from watching the stock market (which is considerably more than most people) real estate is on the rise. When she carefully suggests that Callaghan try investing more money in that area, he actually listens to her. Puts her theories and calculations into practice because he trusts her to be right.

It feels almost as good as tearing that man’s quadriceps tendon. Practical applications, she muses. Sometimes she lets herself wonder how it would feel to take her theories all the way down the rabbit hole

Meanwhile, it only takes her four months to move to P2 in Krav Maga. The average time spent practicing moves for each level is six months; she’s learning 33% faster than that. Her muscles are adjusting better than she expected, and her skin stops bruising as easily, but she suspects she’ll always tire quicker than everyone else.

Miriam pulls her aside after class one day and asks why she hesitates so much when they practice moves on each other. Nothing but the lightest sparring, of course, and nothing dangerous. But Cassandra can’t turn her brain off, and now that she’s starting to learn the more painful moves, she can’t help but see them every time she stands across from someone. (thirteen pounds of pressure at 125 degrees from her back to hyperextend her arm; plant your foot six inches from her spine and pull to dislocate her shoulder; 3,300 newtons of pressure delivered at 1.5 seconds would have a 25% chance of cracking her rib and sending a fragment into her lungs. All this would take less than thirty seconds)

None of this makes it past her lips, but she thinks maybe Miriam can see it in her eyes. We’re moving on to fighting armed opponents next week, she says, maybe you’ll feel more comfortable with that than basic strikes and take-downs. She taps the side of her head in farewell and Cassandra tastes copper and sees the spot on her temple where the cranial bone is weakest; a quick jab with the second knuckle of her index finger extended could put her on the ground. Shaking her head, she dislodges the scarlet diagram and shoves down the curious voice of, but you could do it, you could actually do it.

In another four months she’s at P3, and Callahan is actively seeking out her opinion about investments because she’s been right every time.

Another four months and she’s almost 20 years old. She’s almost gotten her degree in mathematics, somehow, even though she can’t qualify as a full-time student. Part of it is the half-ton of college credit built up during high school, part of it is testing out of a third of their program when they wanted to place her, and the rest is just her ruthless pursuit of academia.

Her attacks don’t become less frequent, or less powerful, but Cassandra still feels better. Maybe it’s because she’s actually living her life on her own, even if it isn’t what she thought it would be; even if what she’s doing is wrong. Because not only is she learning more, but she’s usingit. She’s using her brain to dothings and affecting the world around her instead of just living in it. No matter what happens, no matter how much she changes in the years to come, she’ll treasure that.

Enter Lamia, stage right

See, Dulaque is Damian Moroe; boogeyman and semi-god of the criminal underworld. You can’t spend more than six months involved with dirty money without hearing about the man who bankrolls terrorists and buys countries to launder his money through. He’s a legend, untouchable.

Almost as infamous is his right-hand woman, Lamia. A trained killer with no hint of a past before she showed up as Dulaque’s chief…well, he’s too classy for the word enforcer, and so is she. But if they were anyone else, that’s what she’d be. As it is, just a whisper of her name will send some grown men running to give up whatever she wants in exchange for safe passage.

And see, Dulaque has caught wind of the irish mob’s sudden financial success and wants to know how it’s happening. Take advantage of it if it’s luck, invest in it if it’s skill, and perhaps recruit whatever or whoever is responsible into his own enterprise.

Lamia doesn’t always like to trade on her name, though, so she comes to Boston quietly, and investigates how the Irish are doing so well—not just in the American markets anymore

(Callahan called his friends in the old country and told them about the redheaded accountant with a genius-level intellect who could analyze the stock markets to a T; suddenly Cassandra had a whole lot more to balance than a few local business and investments. Suddenly, she’s the lodestone to an entire financial criminal empire that’s only growing. And that little voice in the back of her head sighs in contentment as her reach extends, her area of effect getting bigger and bigger. Whenever the air in front of her lights up blue and smells like oranges, she smiles a little and hums, because this feels right. Follow the money and see where it leads, all the way down)

It doesn’t take long before she finds John McRory’s place, where a petite little redhead still waits tables and occasionally mans the bar; locks up more often than not, now, because her place is right upstairs.

There are a couple ways she can do this. She can go from the top down, approach Callahan and demand to speak with the girl. She can have her brought directly to Dulaque, where he can make an intimidatingly persuasive offer the girl won’t be able to refuse. Or…

Her eyes are rather striking, in the warm light of the bar.

After Lamia finds Cassandra Cillian, she spends another week watching her, and the girl is interesting. Balancing all that money, layering and incorporating it in three different countries and seven different cities, would be too much for any one person. And yet she seems to slot all that work neatly into her afternoon, after her classes at the local college and before her shift starts at the bar. What really draws her attention, though, is that little studio she visits twice a week for “defense lessons.”

Krav Maga is brutal and straightforward, a beautiful Frankenstein of a martial art that takes the easiest parts of a handful of the others and sharpens them into something dangerous.

Lamia sits in on one of the sessions. The instructor she immediately pegs as former military, that’s a very distinctive stance, but the way the girl holds herself…now that, that’s something to watch out for.

P3 after less than a year of training is impressive, but not unusual enough to matter. What matters is the way the girl locks her eyes onto the instructor while she demonstrates a move, all cold and calculating; the way her gaze flickers over her sparing partner’s feet, hands, arms, shoulders, hips, like she’s finding every angle and weak spot there is to be found.

Finally, Lamia smiles as she hesitates just before moving into action. Oh, that look. Not fear of her opponent; fear of herself. And buried beneath it, a bone-deep desire and curiosity. Ah, she thinks. Gotcha.

Cassandra is smarter than probably everyone Lamia has ever met, so there won’t be any straight-up conning her into what she wants, and that visit to the hospital had been unfortunately enlightening, because threatening probably won’t work either.

Dulaque, she knows, will want the girl’s head for numbers. And he’ll get it. But perhaps if Lamia asks very nicely, he’ll let her keep Cassandra to herself for a little bit and show her what she could really be capable of. A little push, someone to tell her it’s okay to crave that violence, and Lamia can have danger thrumming under her skin right next to those numbers in her brain.

She waits until the class is over, nods to the instructor, and walks up to her. Cassandra squints at her face for a moment, but it isn’t long before a bright and surprisingly genuine smile breaks out. “Hi! You know, you look really familiar.”

Lamia smiles; it’s more of a smirk, really. Lying is a bad idea, so, “I think you work at that bar I was in the other night. What was it…”

“McRory’s?”

“Oh, yes, that’s it. I was kind of surprised to see you here, actually, you don’t really seem the type.”

“Well, knowing how to defend yourself is important!” God, everything about her is bright and bubbly, isn’t it? It begs the question how much of that is real, and how much is a front, a persona.

“Anyway.” Lamia holds out her hand. “Lamia.”

“Cassandra.” The girl takes it, and she makes sure to grip her hand warmly.

“Cassandra,” she rubs her thumb over the back of her hand and curls her lips. When she leans forward, Cassandra does, too. Neither of them lets go. “Have a drink with me.” Not a question, not a demand.

Her eyes focus intently on Lamia’s, something like real happiness lingering around her mouth. “Yes.”

And so it goes.

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argellastarkiller · 5 years

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(Please finish reading this post before you react)

All the hate toward Sansa from Daenerys stans is both hilarious and sad. First off, you guys push that Dany going mad is ooc, bad writing, rushed, a product of a badly written season overall. (I personally agree that it was rushed) And yet at the same time hate on Sansa for the actions that she did in the (badly written and ooc) story? Which means that you're considering the story valid in the first place? Therefore you also fully acknowledge her descent to madness? Pick a side.

Also, why does the hate seem to be concentrated on Sansa alone? Where is the hate towards Tyrion, who vowed loyalty but broke it? JON, who let his honor and Ned-ness tell his sisters in the first place, when Dany made it very clear that Sansa will tell everybody, when Jon knew himself that Sansa would spread it? When the most important thing to him was not keeping secrets to family, keeping his honor, despite it getting in the way of his interests? But no. Sansa is the bitch, right? Sansa, whose whole whole arc depended on learning from people like Cersei and Littlefinger? And she's suddenly the BITCH!!!! for using what she learned to her best interests, who she made very clear from the start was the preservation of her house? Who she made VERY clear to Daenerys in the first place? I laugh at people saying that Sansa is Littlefinger and Cersei, as if the writers could ever be capable of recreating this subtle writing, because if Sansa would have copied everything from Cersei and Littlefinger, then she would have been chummy with Dany in the first place, who was willing to be allies with her, and then betray her at the last second.

I see posts saying that they're angry at Sansa because she's a bitch towards Daenerys when she haven't done anything but help them, but guys, THAT'S THE POINT. DO YOU GET IT NOW? SANSA WAS WRITTEN AS A BITCH TOWARDS DAENERYS BECAUSE THE WRITER'S THOUGHT THAT WOULD BE THE CLUE TO DAENERYS GOING MAD. THEY FOLLOWED THE "SAY IT DON'T SHOW IT" IN A SENSE THAT THEY KEEP SAYING THAT DAENERYS WAS GOING MAD, BUT THEY WOULDN'T SHOW US ACTUAL PROOF OF IT. POOR WRITING. POOR WRITING.

You guys act like Sansa keeping Jon's heritage a secret was going to keep Dany from going mad, but at the same time, insist that she shouldn't have gone mad in the first place because no past events was leading up to it in the first place?

I personally don't agree with Dany's RUSHED descent into madness. But I do believe that it is what George initially planned for her in the books. Not even "madness", per se, but pragmatic violence, and overarching ambitions. I don't even think that he plans to have her murder innocent civilians. The only difference is that if George ever releases his books, he'll dedicate atleast two books into events that will trigger Dany, atleast 30 chapters of her pov showing her thought process.

So please, lmao. Pick a side. Hate on Sansa, Tyrion, Varys, and Jon, if you think that Dany's descent into madness was logical. You're angry at these characters for triggering her. You think Dany's madness was in character. I actually see people with this opinion. I just hope then that you're anger isn't concentrated towards Sansa alone, because that's stupid, unfair, and plain malicious.

But if you think in the first place that Dany SHOULDN'T have gone mad, if you think that it was ooc, or rushed, then concentrate your hate no further than to D and D? Or even George RR. Martin himself?

Hating on Sansa, Tyrion, Varys, and Jon, while at the same time saying that the writing was ooc, is contradictory. You believe these other characters were written poorly as well, and written for the purpose of the out of character descent into madness of Dany, but at the same time you blame them for their actions who followed the same poor writing?

What they did to Daenerys was disgusting, and not fitting of such a legendary and powerful character. I will forever hold D and D in contempt over it. But please try to form your opinions properly and make sure they're not contradictory. We owe Daenerys Targaryen that much. Don't let her character analysis dissolve into a messy and contradictory void which a logical analysis in reddit will someday destroy, leading a ripple to bandwagon fanboys scoffing at anyone who says they think Dany shouldn't have gone mad.

However, i do acknowledge that all the Sansa vs Dany animosity might stem from Jonerys vs Jonsa, which, well, i don't want to get into that lmao. You guys have issues of your own which doesn't delve into logic anymore. Jonerys, don't mind Jonsas?? Lmaoo they aint canon, you guys are.

#daenerys targaryen #sansa stark #jon snow #tryion lannister #game of thrones #varys #anti sansa stark #anti daenerys targaryen #anti daenerys #anti jon snow #anti d and d #anti game of thrones #anti tyrion lannister #anti varys

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