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thejustmaiden · 3 years

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So out of nowhere I was tagged and quoted by a SR shipper for a blog of mine posted in August of last year. Talk about throwback but, hey, gotta appreciate that level of snooping. 😉

Back in the day I actually used to encourage discourse amongst Inuyasha fans- both shippers and antis alike- but I've since realized that it's a lost cause. But for you, @feministmetalgreymon , I'll grant this exception. Just 'cause it's been a while so why the hell not. haha

I want to assure you, however, that nothing you say will ever convince me that Sesshomaru and Rin are meant to be together romantically or that the story intended it so. Nor will you find any validation here. You can ship them for all I care, but please for all that is good and holy while I have your attention try- I mean really try- to understand why it is so many of us Inuyasha fans are so against this pairing in the first place (newsflash: it's not about ship wars), and why we believe a romance between the two of them is completely and utterly out of character.

For those of you interested in reading this, the blog of mine in question that the above shipper mentions in their counter-argument is here for reference. It's titled "Jaken = Rin's Dad?" I'm going to try and keep this short, but I'm also making no such promises. After all, I'm not exactly known for my brevity. haha Now let's get crackin'!

Like you, feministmetalgreymon, did for your recent blog here where you took screenshots of mine to address certain parts, I will be doing the same and dissecting yours accordingly.

[Snippet 1]

I worked with kids for many years as a teacher, and many people in my family have too or still do. Two of them happen to be just over 5 feet which is quite short for the average adult woman living here. I've also worked alongside many a women of short stature, and never did I hear any of them complaining of issues with their students having difficulty differentiating them from their own peers just because they were short as well. I'm sorry but that's just ridiculous. Kids are quite smart and pick up on a lot more than you seem to give them credit for. Height is not the only characteristic they look at to determine who's an adult and who's not, and it's foolish to suggest otherwise. So unless you're a babysitter who's still in their teens and/or who has very childlike features or behavior then I'm afraid what you're getting at is total hogwash. This is just another example of how you shippers offer nothing of real substance to your reasoning, it's only ever cherry-picking or strawmanning from you guys. Stop deflecting from the real issues please, because this certainly isn't one and only winds up being a complete waste of time for all parties involved.

[Snippet 2]

Okay, calm down now. I wasn't insinuating that relationships between parents and children can't change over time in terms of how they get along. Of course that's possible, as all families experience their fair share of estrangement and abuse. What I was speaking about was in reference to the overall dynamic between the two. Because a bad mother or father can still be viewed as a parental figure to their child even if say they're not in said child's life anymore. Since Sesshomaru and Rin share a healthy bond- and just a friendly reminder that in my blog I even said that he doesn't have to necessarily be labeled her father but that a romantic relationship later would still be inappropriate- I didn't deem it necessary to address what you brought up. Plus, it kinda, umm, misses the point?? Please, let's stay on topic. And it's not captured in the screenshot, but stop acting like there isn't a small part of them that idolizes their parents at some point during childhood. Just like you mention later on how it's normal for kids to have innocent crushes on adults that they eventually grow out of? Well, guess what, the same concept applies here. Kids eventually learn that their parents are far from perfect and make mistakes too. Rin is so damn young in the OG series though that we never even get to see her reach that maturity level.

[Snippet 3]

LOL! Alright, okay, so the "unbreakable bond" bit you're mentioning was actually me quoting you sessrinners. Did you not catch that? I literally spelled it out. *sigh* The whole point I was making is that shippers like yourself make hypocritical and contradictory statements all.the.goddamn.time. One moment you guys claim that Sesshomaru and Rin were essentially strangers and meant very little to each other, only to say in the same breath a few seconds later that they were destined to be together and their bond is like no other. I agree, their bond is special, but why must that mean they're going to fall in love?

That is the root of the matter here. Too many animes/mangas have romanticized this older adult man & young girl growing up falling in love trope that it's become way too normalized and widely accepted across the world- and yes, in some cultures more than others. Sadly, you lack the awareness to recognize how this all works. You know how we know that? When we see that you shippers are so desensitized to sexualized images of girls in the media that you share posts like this one below which *subtly* imply a future romance although one half of that pairing is still just a child in the pic and then try and pass it off as cute. That's like super fucking problematic and it scares me that you can't see that (or deny you do). 🤢

After all that's said and done, Sesshomaru leaving Rin in the village with Kaede is to me the strongest indicator more than pretty much anything else he's done for Rin that proves he is her adoptive father. It's so funny to me how you somehow see the exact opposite though. 🤔 What I think is happening is that you got yourself on some squeaky clean ass shipper goggles fresh out of your little echo chamber. Because I hate to tell you, but what you're fantasizing is what you want to see and not what's actually there on screen or was written into the story. I'm strictly talking about Inuyasha and the manga of course. [For the TL; DR version skip to the last paragraph.]

Parents looking after their kids is what parents are supposed to do. A good parent will do anything to keep their child safe and ensure they are cared for, so what he did for her by leaving her there was in her best interests clearly. Besides, as a babysitter, you more than most people should understand that parents aren't always able to be there for their kids so sometimes others gotta step in to help. Haven't you heard of the saying, "it takes a village to raise a child?" Which in Rin's case is literally true! 😂 Sometimes kids are even sent off to stay with grandparents and that's who raises them instead. Or maybe they have to temporarily live with an aunt or uncle because their single parent's job requires they work out of town 4-5 days of the week so they're hardly home. But that doesn't mean that the parents care or love their kids any less, and it's foolish to assume that Sesshomaru must have thought very little of Rin simply due to the fact that he made the decision to leave her in the village. Come on, y'all are acting like he abandoned her there!!

It's just given the circumstances Sesshomaru finally came to learn that Rin traveling with him was no longer safe. I also like to think it's because he wished for her to live a more normal life and to learn how to fully trust humans again. Plus, continuing to travel with him as young as she was would have proven dangerous and unwise. Now for you to know all this and still manage to turn his past actions towards her while she was just a child into a romantic gesture is what boggles my mind. Regardless of how you look at it, from my perspective or your own, Sesshomaru is in the wrong. Either he's a father figure who impregnates his daughter at the young age of approximately 14. OR he's this man she used to travel with who maybe isn't a father to her but who nonetheless basically rapes her since kids her age can't consent to sex with an adult. Idk about you but it sounds to me like nobody here wins with either scenario we're given. In other words, you should be just as mad as we are. If only one side didn't choose to forsake their morals they know we both have in common for the sake of a ship. Welp. 🤷‍♀️

I agree, incest is disgusting but that's not the only problem we have with this pairing. A romantic bond forming between Sesshomaru and Rin would also constitute as grooming.

You realize that over the years he visited her in the village that he brought her gifts too and essentially watched her grow up right before his very eyes, right? I mean, I know you do, but I really shouldn't have to explain further why pursuing a romantic/sexual relationship with each other is plain and simple wrong. And before you say it's not because he didn't have any malintent, please understand that considering their history and power dynamic up to then that yes this is still considered grooming even if Rin supposedly "wanted it" or "made the first move." Whether you consider him her father or not, as the adult who took on a role resembling that of a caretaker in her early life- a critical developmental time for a child- Sesshomaru is obligated to turn down any advances by Rin and most definitely should not initiate any himself. As the first close adult figure she's had in her life since her parents died, it's unfathomable to imagine how Sesshomaru could go through with taking advantage of this young girl who was under his care and supervision since they met. To think he could be capable of betraying that trust sickens me to the core.

This. Now THIS is how a parent/guardian or a similar adult caretaker (babysitter, teacher, etc.) talks to a child. And, in turn, this is how some young children talk to adults. You'd be insane and delusional to deny it! We see it in our everyday lives, do we not? From where else do you think our stories draw most of their inspiration? Yes, obviously these fictional universes have aspects of fantasy that don't exist in the real world, but so how then do you suppose we're able to relate to them? The reason for that being is because these stories are written by people for people, so naturally there are going to be real life aspects embedded throughout. Sure, a little escapism doesn't hurt as we don't need to take everything so seriously, but ultimately we all need to recognize that the messages in the stories we tell matter. Most stories possess a combination of both light and dark themes, but when it specifically comes to the latter we gotta be careful with how we tackle this in children's media since kids are far more impressionable.

So if at the center of a story we have two of the main protagonists whose mom is basically their same age and to top it off she knew their dad when she was just a girl and who just so happened to help raise her, wouldn't you say that's beyond fucked up or at the very least so fucking weird? Like why would we think it's even remotely okay for our children to watch this garbage?? Really think about it. Try and be objective for once and think about how it would sound explaining this storyline to an outsider who's never watched IY or HNY. Well, antis have tried this before many times and we always get the same reaction: Ewww!

Like I said earlier, if you wanna ship it then fine, but 1) please stop seeking our approval or trying to change our minds - your ship wish came true didn't it, so why do you need us to validate it? 2) even though it's not canon, respect that we don't support this sequel portraying pedophilia in a positive light. It's harmful af to not only allow but glorify the continuation of sexualized images of young girls everywhere. And I shouldn't have to say this, but just because this trope is popular as you say does not make it right. Lolicon themes in the media have been an issue forever and it needs to stop. Yes, even some people in Japan or "the East" would agree. Shocker!

We're pissed off and rightfully so because Yashahime's TV rating is 14, not to mention it airs at the prime time kids in Japan watch TV after getting home from school. That's Towa and Setsuna's age, true, but if Rin being the mom when she's like only a year older than them (please don't argue w/ me about the math- antis have so far been right every time with it) is straight-up disgusting and not something we should be supporting or endorsing. Rin's a whole ass child!! Please don't start with the "but times were different then so her having kids at 15 is acceptable" argument either, because we've already debunked that and every other single excuse you guys throw at us. Besides, how or why would you expect young viewers to know these historical "facts" anyway, especially if as you suggest fiction doesn't affect reality so what does it matter? Yet here we are, arguing over a fictional show in real life almost a year and a half into the "Sesshomaru fucks?" sequel being announced. My ass, your ass, hell all our asses fiction doesn't affect reality!

Look, I do apologize if the tone of this blog came off as snippy or condescending at times. I do not wish you any ill will, it's just I'm not really sure what you expected to get out of all this besides maybe getting on my nerves perhaps. haha A lot of you shippers have been desperately scrambling to interact with us, lurking in our tags, jumping onto our posts screaming canon and getting so defensive even though you sought us out first. We've been sticking to our tags, so how about you stay in your lane too. By the way since we're on the topic, have you seen Twitter or Reddit?! SR shippers there are the actual worst and many Inuyasha fans (not just antis) have complained of not feeling welcomed to engage in fandom spaces anymore. Shippers swarm them and scare them off simply because fans don't like your ship and refuse to accept it. It's pathetic, really. No one should ever be bullied or harassed just because they don't like something you might. We're all fans of Inuyasha, aren't we? So let's act like it. Yashahime on the other hand, you guys are welcome to that pungent heap of trash. Fans have a right to criticize it too, but if you like it then good for you, so keep on liking it and don't mind us.

I'm almost done, but real quick back to Jaken! Let's not forget about how the official Yashahime website- which came out after my blog, mind you- described Jaken. This translation isn't the best one available but it's the only version a fellow anti friend could track down. They do recall a better one done by a native Japanese speaker who was also an anti, and that member confirmed that Jaken is indeed called Rin's babysitter. So you see, I was right in my interpretation. In the original post I did compare Jaken to a brother, but after talking to others (some comments can be found under said post) I did acknowledge that he's more of a reluctant babysitter who's not related. And if he's not at least a brother to Rin, then he's definitely not her father.

At the end of the day, the creator Rumiko Takahashi has the final word. Which is guess what? Hogosha. 💖 Probably should've just started out with that and saved us all the trouble, huh? Good day/night to you.

Papamaru bids you adieu now. 🤞

#anti yashahime #anti sessrin #sesshomaru is rin's dad #papamaru #hogosha 💖#the sequel may not be canon but sunrise can still burn in hell

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twst-kumi · 3 years

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Children of secrets Chapter 1

In the great library, Crowley searched for the group's country but couldn’t find anything. They even showed him their ID, student card and currency, so it wasn’t a lie. The problem was, he couldn’t find anything in his book and maps about a country named Japan. It didn’t exist. At least not in this world or planet.

_There is nothing, Japan doesn’t exist here. Then how did the black carriage took you? (Crowley)

_If we knew how we would have left long ago. (Sano)

_Then could you come from another dimension or planet? (Crowley)

‘There that option, yes’ The group looked at each other before looking at the poor director. Truthfully they already knew they were not in their world. But in a world where they didn’t know if they were hostile to Yokai or not, it was better to act clueless and like they were human. Deep in thought, Crowley looked at them, two boys and six girls. He could shelter the two boys but what about the girls? It’s an all-boy school, he can’t let girls stay here. But… he also couldn’t leave them without a place to go.

_This is quite problematic, while the two boys could stay without a problem, you young ladies can’t stay in a school full of males. That's dangerous. (Crowley)

_Ah, I understand. After all, boys are more dangerous than being homeless without anyone to protect or help you. (Aoi)

_What? No, I will make sure you stay somewhere and are taken care of. (Crowley)

_I see, thank you. I suppose putting us in a stranger’s care while separating us is the best option. (Asano)

_Ah… I’m sorry but I rather live on the street than be separated from our group. (Yuuken)

‘Wait! It sounds like I’m heartless and irresponsible.’ Crowley thought while sweating at the situation. Maybe they are more dangerous than the boys in this school. If word of that incident were to get out, that would be bad for the school. And their reputation would be stained forever.

_ Of course, you will stay, until I find a way to send you back! (Crowley)

He hurriedly blurted the word out before seeing the small smile on their face. Ah, so he got tricked. They knew what they were doing when they played with his word. And he couldn’t come back on his word.

_Well since I am a kind teacher, I will provide you with your needs and shelter. Of course, you will have to work to earn your bread. (Crowley)

Turned toward the door and left with them. He continued talking about what they would be doing from now on and a bit about the school. They followed him listening carefully. As their new home came into view, their eyes grew a little bigger. This dorm was practically run down.

_Thankfully we didn’t demolish this old dorm, this is Ramshackle dorm. Students tend to avoid it so you will be safe here. (Crowley)

_Does that mean we can do whatever we want with it? (Asano)

_I… well, yes. I was planning to destroy it so I suppose you can. Although… What are you planning to do with it? (Crowley)

Yuuken laughed when he saw the man growing worried. He patted on his shoulder before reassuring him.

_Don’t worry, we were just planning to renovate it a bit. (Yuuken)

After a quick tour of the dorm and a “warm” welcome from the ghost, the group settled their thing and started to examine every still usable element in the dorm. They still have electricity, clean water and a stove working. Finding a broom and a bucket, they started to divide the chores among them. Yuuken and Kaiba would do the heavy lifting and important repairs like the stair, Sano and Haru would take care of the small repairs and mending the furniture, Asano and Aoi the bedrooms, Alice and Yume the cleaning. Everyone was laughing as they started and soon the place was more livable. They still had more repairs to do but it was far more than enough for a start. After they would finish, if they could completely modify the dorm it would be even better. Thankfully, they had the acknowledge to renovate the dorm themself. This was the perk of being a century-old (or more) yokai, from the most rudimental house to a traditional Japanese house to a slightly more modern house. They had the time to learn and use those skills and their power helped a lot. Putting some buckets out as they heard the rain pouring outside, they were starting to make a list about what was left to repair or change. They could hear the rain leaking from the roof.

They were still chatting when Crowley came back with their meals. First, he was surprised to see the dorm almost fully repaired. Even with his magic, he couldn't be that fast. Hard to believe it was a run-down building. He could also feel something strange. Something was strange here, almost as if something unbeknownst to him was there. He could feel but he couldn't point it out.

_How incredible, you repaired that place fastly. If I leave this place to you then maybe we could open this dorm again. (Crowley)

_ Or not, we prefer keeping your Territory untouched by strangers. (Sano)

_I’m sorry? (Crowley)

_Sano is right, we don’t know if we will be able to return to our world. So we may as well claim this place as our own until we find better or you take care of your mistake. (Yuuken)

Those kids were talking fearlessly or carelessly in their case. This confidence made him question them a bit. They were talking out of habit like they are used to it,he could see that. They weren’t even scared about the situation, rather… they enjoyed it? They were hiding something from him, it was carefully hidden but still there, hiding beneath their smile. Like small predators ready to bare their fangs if provoked.

_Well, you sure know how to work together. Maybe it was destiny that you got here… (Crowley)

_To clean your school? (Asano)

_How humorous! It seems like we have funny students this year!! (Crowley)

Muttering to herself a small “I wasn’t joking tho”, Asano crossed her arm and huffed a bit. She could definitely feel that chore coming their way.

_But yes, I want you to work as a janitor and in exchange, we will provide you with your meal. (Crowley)

_Ugh! No way I rather go to class than clean. (Aoi)

_Unfortunately, only a magician can go. A magicless kid like you can’t. (Crowley)

Before she could even do anything, she was stopped by Sano. But as foolish as the director looked, he was still a powerful magician. And fastly caught on to what was happening. Now he was sure, they were hiding something. Dropping quickly the kind act, he looked at them seriously.

_You! What are you and what are you hiding ?? (Crowley)

Looking at each other, they sighed and let the ginger head wrap things up with her skill as they acted guilty. Aoi’s species were known for their skill to deceive the living, she was after all a Kitsune. One of the most famous Yokai species alongside Sano and Kaiba as an Oni and Yuuken who are a Tengu.

_Ah…. I’m sorry, the truth is with actually have magic. (Aoi)

_Nonsense! The mirror said you didn’t have any! (Crowley)

Showing him a part of their actual power and revealing her fox ears, she shed tears crying pitifully. She could see the man calming down before trying to soothe her.

_We hid it because we didn’t know if you guys would be hostile to us or not. You see, the world we come from is quite hostile toward magic and mystical creatures. If found, we could get killed at any moment. I remember that witch who used her power to help someone, and she was burned alive! I’m sorry if it seems like we were deceiving you director (Aoi)

That begin said the witch was burned 200 years ago, but he didn’t need to know that detail. After all, the best lie is when you tell a bit of truth in it.

Not finding any lie, Crowley calmed himself and even felt a bit sorry for them. Because this world wasn’t hostile to magic it didn't mean that was the same for them.

_I see, I’m sorry for forcing you to reveal such a traumatic matter but as your kind educator, I must know what happened. (Crowley)

Crowley smiled at them trying to be as reassuring as possible.

_But if it’s that hostile, why do you wish to return? (Crowley)

_Huh? But we never said we wanted to return, you’re the one who said that we must return. (Yume)

_That true (Alice)

Thinking carefully about it, Crowley felt like he couldn’t let them simply go. They had magic so they could technically enrol in the school. The problem was most of them were girls, and with the incident that happen today, he didn’t know how he was supposed to cover it. They didn’t want to part and that was understandable in an unknown world. Resigned to this fate, the masked director decided to do an exception and let them all enrol in the school.

_Tomorrow come to my office after you guys cleaned the main street. (Crowley)

_Huh? We are still cleaning? (Aoi)

_Of course! I may let you guys be as students but you will still be this school janitor. And until I prepare everything you need plus work you all can along with your studies. (Crowley)

Aoi truly wanted to burn this man to crisp. She didn’t want to do those kinds of works. She hated that to be real but at least they had a place to sleep so she couldn’t complain.

The next as promised, they gathered at the main street with the cleaning tool. They laughed while chatting about what they wanted in their new dormitory and made some jokes. Reaching the alley, they looked surprised and a bit amazed bit the statues. No matter how they looked at it, this was a Disney villain’s alley, right? They started the cleaning not daring to bring the matter out. At some point, it was Yuuken who brought it up.

_I wonder who they are… I mean, they look like Disney characters but that it, right? (Yuuken)

_What you don’t know about the queen of hearts? (Ace)

‘Like in Alice in wonderland?’ Yuuken looked at the redheaded boy behind him. He was soon joined by Haru who wasn’t far from him.

_Queen of hearts? It’s my first time hearing about it. (Haru)

_In the past, she was the queen who lived in the Rose Maze. She was someone who valued rules and discipline above all, strict in all things from the march of the card soldiers to the colour of rose bushes. It was a land of madness where all submit to her rule. (Ace)

_Wow, she was really strict. (Haru)

_Even me, I’m not that strict in the kendo club. (Yuuken)

Ace laughed putting his hand behind his head. He couldn’t help but throw small glances at the petite girl’s skirt. She was truly a girl in an all-boys school.

_Yeah, no one can compare to her in that. Why do you ask? Because it was off with your head! (Ace)

_Who’s the other then? (Haru)

_No you should ask about who he is first, don’t you think? (Yuuken)

Haru pouted as she felt like she begin to be scolded by him.

_Ah… It’s alright! I’m Ace. A fresh-faced first year. Nice to meetcha. (Ace)

_I’m Yuuken, and this is Haru. The other are Kaiba, Yume, Sano, Aoi, Alice and Asano. (Yuuken)

_You….What? (Ace)

_Just call me Yuu. (Yuuken)

_Hey Ace, what about that lion? (Haru)

Haru grabbed his sleeve as her eyes shone with curiosity. The young male blushed, she was so cute. He could die from it. She was almost like a kid, Yuuken noticed Ace's reaction and couldn’t help but laugh silently. The poor first year was a blushing mess.

_S… Sure! This is the king of the beast who rules the savannah. However, he was not born to be king, but he took the throne through effort and elaborate planning. After becoming king, he even allowed the loathed hyenas to live in his kingdom without discrimination. (Ace)

_Well You can’- (Haru)

_Haru! (Yuuken)

_What about the octopus woman? (Haru)

Swallowing her sarcasm, Haru changed the subject by pointing to the next statue.

_That’s the sea witch who lives in a cavern in the deep. Her purpose was to help all unfortunate merfolk. As long as you could pay the price she could transform you, help you find love, anything. If it was within her power there wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do. They say her prices were pretty high though.

Ready for another sarcasm, Haru opened her mouth and looked at Yuuken who shook his head to say “no”. She pouted before turning her attention to the fresh year.

#twisted wonderland #twst #twst x reader #twst oc #leona kingscholar #floyd leech #jade leech #ace trappola #twst yuuken #enma yuuken #ruggie bucchi #malleus draconia #azul ashengrotto #deuce spade #jack howl #silver x reader #Children of secrets

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kingk8art · 4 years

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hetalia rant

pls ignore how I won't use any proper punctuation or capitalization because my arms and fingers all hurt from volleyball :( Edit: My arm’s are better now so I’m actually using proper capitalization and punctuation (special thanks to my friends for proofreading and also Google autocorrect.) Special thanks to my friend for helping me out with writing this.

so i'm one of those people who joined the hetalia fandom like REALLY late, having first watched the anime in like 2017 or 18. Nevertheless, when I heard about how the anime was coming back in 2021 I was really excited!! I’ve been reading world stars lately but there’s just something in the hetalia anime that made me love it so much. the voice acting and how it’s animated and everything, it really brings the characters to life! out of curiosity I searched up hetalia on twitter. keep in mind that i’m pretty new to the fandom so i never really got to see the shipping wars, or really any toxic part of the fandom, since i wasn’t there when hetalia was at its peak.

What i saw was really different from what i expected to see. I kinda expected twitter threads hyping up the new season, or things like that but most of ones I found in the top section were hate comments about hetalia, and things about why it shouldn’t come back. I was reading these and I was like, wait why? Some of them actually made sense, and the others had flawed logic. Here are my rants on why hetalia ISN’T anti-Semitic or problematic (as of now).

Misconceptions About Hetalia

1. Hetalia is About Nazi Germany or the Holocaust

If you’ve actually watched the show/read the manga, it’s quite obvious that although some of the events take place during WW2, it never mentions Hitler, Nazis, the Holocaust, or anything like that. and there’s a good reason for it. In the first place, hetalia isn’t meant to be a serious comic. The manga only focuses on subjects like funny things that happened to historical figures/occurrences during a war, weird inventions; generally those kinds of things. It focuses on the cultural differences between countries, or wholesome moments in history (such as when two enemies stopped fighting on Christmas day to play soccer.) Hetalia itself is antiwar. Consider the main character himself: he absolutely hates fighting. I don’t see how hetalia can be anti-Semitic or pro-war at all. But what I will say is fucked up are those certain cosplayers that did the Nazi salute, posed in front of a Holocaust memorial, etc. But I can still guarantee that the MAJORITY of the fandom is not like this. Every single fandom has its bad apples, some more than others. It’s not right to generalize the entire fandom as anti-Semitic, racist, disrespectful shits.

Do people realize that Germany’s character in Hetalia isn’t Nazi Germany? In the first place the Holocaust wouldn’t be Germany’s responsibility — the depictions of these characters are meant to portray the people as a whole, not their systems of law or government. It’s stated in the series that nations MUST obey orders from their “boss” (which probably refers to the country’s ruler, president, prime minister, or other leaders at the time. Nations can’t choose what their superiors do, or what those under that control do. Saying Germany is humanized Nazi Germany is like putting that label on all German people without considering factors like time period or representation. Hetalia characters are a mere representation of each country’s people, nothing else.

How does mentioning WW2 in a comedy make it offensive? There are PLENTY of movies, novels, and other kinds of media that take place in WW2 and yet are in the comedy genre. Ever watched Jojo Rabbit? If you thought Hetalia was offensive, have you ever watched South Park or looked at CountryHumans? I do get why some people dislike Hetalia, but why does it receive so much hate for something that was never in the series (or generally speaking, for the wrong reasons)? It may have flaws, but there’s a strong definition to what those flaws actually are. It doesn’t revolve around antisemitism or Nazism.

2. Hetalia is Racist and Stereotypes People

Now this is a pretty controversial topic. Being a comedy about personified countries, stereotypes are really something that HAS to be used at some point to make the characters funny. But does that automatically make it racist? No. I saw this on a YouTube video comment section somewhere, but stereotyping (generalizing) that all stereotypes are ‘bad’ (or have negative connotations/associations) is literally stereotyping. Not all of the stereotypes are bad. Like the way Britain acts like a gentleman or likes drinking tea, which in a way, is a British stereotype. That’s not a bad thing, just funny to see in the show — played for comedy purposes, and not necessarily offensive.

Although Hetalia characters are sometimes influenced by stereotypes that revolve around the actual countries and represent the people in general, they DO NOT always represent what those country’s people are actually like. Also, I’m pretty sure the point of comedy about personified countries is to use some of those generalizations. Specifically, stereotypes that the Japanese have about foreigners. France is portrayed as a flirty man because in Japan France is known for being a “romantic country.” But that doesn’t mean that they think all French people are like that — it’s just a lighthearted joke. And now, Hetalia characters have grown to be more of their own character rather than simply a humanized country at its base. Despite being a personification, they’re like their own person, not just used to depict stereotypes. Just because a character has a certain personality trait doesn’t mean Hima believes that everyone from that country has the same trait. It’s not meant to be racist, and isn’t.

What I Think Was/Is Problematic

As much as I love this show, there were DEFINITELY some problematic things that people tend to ignore.

1. Korea Controversy

As a Korean American, I have to say that I was quite disappointed when I learned about how Hima portrayed Korea in the manga. I won’t go that deep into this one since it’s not that relevant to what I'm talking about now, but it was definitely a HUGE problem and I’m glad that he was removed from the series.

2. Iron Cross on Germany

The iron cross that Germany wears in Hetalia (in every time period) is a military decoration that was used since the King of Prussia until the time period of Nazi Germany in WW2. Today, it’s considered a hate symbol, similar to and alongside the swastika. To be fair, it wasn’t just a decoration used purely for the Nazis, unlike several other examples of Nazi symbols and memorabilia, so I suppose it could be up to each person to judge whether it should pass or not, despite the surrounding circumstances — it isn’t up to me as part of the fanbase. But personally, I think it should have been removed/not used in the first place. I mean, it wasn’t that necessary, seeing all of the military uniforms drawn in Hetalia were simplified anyways. Perhaps it would be much less problematic if Hima didn’t draw the iron cross, and the same goes for the other presented issues.

3. Japanese Imperialism

The way Hima portrays Japanese Imperialism was pretty offensive in my opinion. An instance is the presentation of the Japanese invasion of Korea. It wasn’t just like how the colonies were under Great Britain’s rule. It limited much more of Koreans’ rights and was much more gruesome. I don’t know about anyone else and can’t speak for each individual, but as a Korean, portraying all of this as Japan merely patting Korea on the head is fucked up. This ties to the controversy of Korea’s character. From what I’ve seen, Hetalia is pretty close to a rightist (in Japan, not the US) series. I won’t dive too deep into that, but rightist — or in Korean, 우익 — animes are animes that glorify their country’s past/country, or use content to make fun of or criticize other nations. Actually, it’s probably much more complicated than that, but as of now I don’t know much about it. It mostly ties to the tension between Koreans and the Japanese, so if you’re not either, there’s not really much to worry about. But (maybe because I’m Korean) I found it weird that the manga seems to give every single character a bad/negative characteristic except Japan. I guess it’s only natural, since the creator is Japanese. But then again, France was basically drawn as a rapist/pedophile, but I have never seen a French person complain about it. Or maybe they just completely avoid Hetalia? If anyone knows about it, I would be glad to listen. Perhaps it’s just a bias that I have as a Korean. It could also be a cultural difference too, since we tend to be very patriotic.

4. The Title: Axis Powers

Although the main character is Italy, and the story revolved (emphasis on the past tense) around the 3 countries that were part of the Axis, Hima should have been more considerate with the title of the show, thinking about what the Axis Powers actually did during WW2. Just “Hetalia” would have been fine. But it also should be considered that when Hima started drawing the manga, he did not expect it to become a long-term thing or for it to blow up so much. Thankfully, only the first two seasons of the anime were titled as Hetalia: Axis Powers, and later seasons were titled more acceptable things, like World Stars (manga) or The Beautiful World.

5. Seychelles

Personally I don’t find a problem with there not being that many African/South American countries in the show. Africa’s country borders (and all of that related material) were very different from what they are today, and it would be really fucking hard for Hima to keep track of all of those while still writing good characters. And unlike Europe, Africa’s history was not transcribed much, and is a lot less-known. The problem with Seychelles was her skin color, which wasn’t accurate. But that’s since been fixed.

Is Hetalia Really Problematic?

My most straightforward answer for this question would be no, it is not problematic as of now. Something I realized while listing all of the aspects of Hetalia that I personally thought were wrong to put in was that most of them don’t exist anymore. Besides Germany’s iron cross, all of them were removed from the show. Korea was banned from the anime, and he no longer appears in any of the manga strips. The manga strays further and further away from topics like Japanese Imperialism or WW2. Most of the time in the manga, countries do not wear their military uniforms anymore, but stick to more casual clothes. The characters stray further away from stereotypes that Hima used to use as a comedic effect when he first started drawing. My point is: Hima learned his mistakes. Which only makes sense, considering all of the criticism he probably received when the series first started. I think that’s a good thing. Now back to what I was ranting about earlier. I don’t get why people are saying Hetalia shouldn’t come back! The new season is most likely going to be based off the most recent Hetalia manga series, which is Hetalia World Stars. If you’ve ACTUALLY READ THE MANGA AND DIDN’T JUDGE THE ENTIRETY OF HETALIA BASED ON ITS FIRST FEW SEASONS, you would know what World Stars is about. It’s about all sorts of things. My personal favorite strips are the ones about ancient Rome! It’s not just drawn to give readers a laugh but it actually teaches you some history. Other than Rome, the manga is also about the trends of clothes in certain countries/time periods, industrial revolutions, or just the interactions between the characters in general. I really don’t see how animating these would be harmful at all. The subjects don’t revolve around what a lot of opposers say/negatively connotate the series with. If you think bringing Hetalia back is a terrible thing to do because the fandom would return and start doing toxic/weird things, I really don’t know how to respond to that. The fandom already died out around the time the last season was released. Now newer fans will come around, and the former fans would return (hopefully) matured up. It's already been 5 years since the last Hetalia season aired, after all. And like I said earlier, toxic fans never represent the entire fandom. If you really hate the fandom that much, I recommend not getting involved at all.

#hetalia #rant #hetalia 2021

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the-romantic-lady · 3 years

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Surprised to hear you like Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou, given that you're a fan of Richard, Duke of York. Isn't that a conflict of interest or something? Lol. What's your opinion on Elizabeth Woodville and the Woodville clan, Margaret Beaufort, Warwick and the Neville clan, and George, Duke of Clarence? (Basically what's your opinion on the rest of the players of the Wars of the Roses lol.)

Gosh, anon you are encouraging me!! I love that you care about my thoughts <3. Alright then, let's start.

I used to be very anti-Margaret of Anjou. Until I started to look at things from her perspective. York was dangerously popular with a lot of children and a formidable wife. Margaret must have felt insecure. Also, there is this theory that Margaret's mentor and confidant William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk was murdered under the order of the Duke of York. That must have been a tipping point. But I still think that York was the better ruler and person. I will get a lot of hate for this, but women in general were not suitable rulers for the Middle Ages. They were often driven by more personal ideals (Empress Matilda vs. Stephen is a great example and Margaret was no different). Ofc there were men like that too but women seemed to always be like that. As a woman, I understand and the later periods were more suitable for female leadership. York was a much better ruler. He was driven by the stability of the realm rather than his personal issues (he put his own son-in-law in prison and Margaret wouldn't even budge on her failure advisors). And her entitlement was mind-boggling. I love how messed up she was. And Henry...I just feel sorry for him. The Middle Ages also were not a time for artistic and kind kings lol.

Elizabeth Woodville and the Woodville Clan:

As I have said, I pretty much like everyone before 1485 lol. But Elizabeth Woodville was annoying af. That made her interesting but I can't get over how incredibly greedy she was. She was the daughter of a minor gentry and widow of a Lancastrian knight. Edward makes her queen and she abuses that power so much. She has problems with everyone. Warwick, George, Richard, any noble who didn't kiss her arse and even Edward. Queens were meant to level the mind of King. Edward III's queen famously saved French clergy by going on her knees to beg the King for mercy. Ofc that was a bit dramatic but many Queens did this. It was called the Queen's mercy or something like that. But boy was she a hell of a woman. Despite being raised in a pretty privileged household, she was shrewd and survived to the end. She could have learned a thing or two from Cecily Neville about how to put that strong personality to better use but regardless. Also, I love how she was shunned fron Henry Tudor's court when Richard welcomed her to his with open arms. I mean...karma. But all in all, I like her. Its as they say "well behaved women seldom make history". She had flaws (so did the everyone else!) but her character is interesting and admirable. And despite that shaved forehead, she is a gorgeous woman. So I get where Edward was coming from XD The other social climbing members Woodville..not so much. The shameless way that they tried to push themselves in and take hold of power when they had literally fought on the losing Lancastrian side is embarrassing and oh so disgusting. Like Warwick secured the throne for Edward and they were given precedence over him. I just...yeah. John Woodville legit married a 65 year old duchess (he was 19) for money and power. They were a hungry bunch and courting them was Edward IV's biggest mistake and towards the end of his life, I think he saw that.

Margaret Beaufort

I will keep this short since I don't know much about her but I dislike her. I understand that she went through a lot. Her father apparently suicided when she was 1 and that is traumatic. And back then suicide was mocked and disgraced. She ofc blamed the Duke of York....cause at this point why not? She ofc went through a really young and traumatic birth at 13. Her husband was gross and that's that. And we know that Edward kept her son exiled so she couldn't see him. But despite all this, I just don't like her? I suppose its the super impressive Plantagenet women who just make me look at the sleezy and dull Margaret with disdain. And she gives me real phony vibes. Like at times, she just seemed to cosplay Cecily Neville lol. When you see women like Cecily Neville and Margaret of Anjou taking charge in the way they did, Margaret and her deceptive ways are just cringe worthy.

The Earl of Warwick

This man. Just this man. The way that England seemed to revolve around his whims is amazing. He was a real Duke of York stan and so I have to appreciate him. But he was so fearless. Henry VI, Edward IV, Margaret of Anjou, you name it. He stood against them. The Duke of York seemed to be someone he admired but other than that, he fought for himself. He helped Edward take the crown and worked hard to keep Edward's throne. He was embarrassed with the whole secret marriage saga but still stuck by. But Edward clearly forgot who he owed his success too. The man escaped an assassination by Henry VI's men and saved his father and uncle from it. He actually took charge in the first Battle of St. Albans in 1455 because his rivals the Percys were mocking him. I just love him. Ngl, sometimes when I read about him, I just blush. A man if there ever was one. There were so many attempts at disgracing him. He was the Captain of Calais and in that role fought Medieval pirates! And he was ruthless at it. People loved him and he carried that popularity well. I should stop fangirling over a dead guy. I think I made it pretty clear that I love him XD.

Neville clan

I like them too. Warwick's father was pretty much York's best friend and I love him for it. They were also social climbers like the Woodvilles but so much better at it. They didn't have the entitlement that the Woodvilles did and managed their powers well. Cecily Neville was ofc a Neville and she is one of my favorites. One of my favorite thing about them is how courageous they were. Like all of them. Unfortunately, Anne and Isabel are both obscure figures. I wish we knew more about them. They were pushed around like prizes. Good on Richard for giving Anne a position to make her own decision. I feel bad for those girls. Although the York brothers were known to be good looking so lucky them?

George, Duke of Clarence

Ah, George. I love this man. If there was one son of York who inherited his father's glamour and charm, it was George. And I love that he stood up to his brother and sister-in-law. He was sometimes too problematic but I still love that! Glamourous and problematic. How can one not love the man? Although his betrayal of Edward is kind of sad considering that Edward really tried to be like a dad to his brothers. George took Edward's love for granted for too long. His breakdown after his wife's death is really sad too. Interestingly, this seems to be a pattern with the Plantagenet men. They all have breakdowns and downfalls after the death of their wives. Their women are so much stronger emotionally.

I know this was long! I hope you enjoyed the post :D. I would love to know your thoughts too and if you agree or disagree. Seriously, thank you for letting me talk about this. Nothing makes me happier than to discuss these people!

#elizabeth woodville #edward iv #george duke of clarence #richard neville #earl of warwick

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gascon-en-exil · 3 years

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The antis thinks edeleth is wrong because one is a student and other is a teacher? But not the fact Edelgard manipulated Byleth who has confirmed mental disability in the form of lack of emotions. Which seems to play into there naivety. Into quitting the job they enjoy. Well manipulating them into hating and murdering there own race. Sure the problem with this ship is Edelgard is three years younger. Not that it’s extremely abusable.

I don't think I've ever seen anyone claim that Byleth is mentally ill before, not when it's much easier to explain why they are the way they are via a Doylist explanation, i.e. that they're a blank player self-insert. Even when the game does get around to an in-universe explanation it's an absurd magical one about them being a stillborn zombie kept alive via draconic heart transplant except in the CF ending because what's continuity? It's not like that's even needed to find other Problematic™ angles to Edeleth; she and the other house leaders are in considerable positions of power over everyone including Byleth come part 2...although to the best of my memory Edelgard is the only one of the three to ever pull rank on them, even as a joke, when she's embarrassed over her drawing. (This coming from a woman in her 20s who's started a continental war that's dragged on for over five years, but still I suppose some people find that cute?)

But more broadly, antis have been opposed to Studentleth since prerelease, with there being quite a few complaints about the teacher/student relationship angle of the game until dataminers discovered that S ranks were unavailable until after the timeskip. This quieted down the discourse for a little while, even if it's the same kind of transparent handwave as Fates uses for all the quasi-incestuous relationships between Corrin and the royals, but there are still the odd holdouts here and there. In many instances, like with some of the Khalidstans and I suspect that Edeleth artist from the other day, the antis in question haven't even played Three Houses and have no familiarity with FE beyond internet osmosis, so they lack any kind of context to know that off-color sexual content has been par for the course in this series for over 20 years. It can be tiresome to see popping up over and over again, but the trade-off is that sometimes the pearl-clutching is its own form of entertainment.

#Fire Emblem #FE16 #Fire Emblem Three Houses #Fandom discourse

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thelazyhermits · 3 years

Text

Stoking the Fire

As I mentioned in this post, I wanted to write a drabble focused on Fortune having a vision about the All Might vs AFO fight since I figured out a way to make it happen so there wouldn’t be any extra wariness among the heroes about the summer camp.

This takes place after TABF chapter 29 but before the Two Heroes fic. I hope y’all enjoy it! ^-^

Your Quirk is very troublesome in many ways.

For starters, you have no control over it when it comes to receiving visions, so they always happen at random which can be really inconvenient at times. Although, there are also times they happen just when you need them, so you suppose you shouldn’t complain too much on that end.

One of the most annoying aspects of your Quirk is the fact that it comes with so many drawbacks. It’s seriously ridiculous how much suffering your Quirk constantly puts you through.

Sure, it somewhat makes sense when you consider how powerful your Quirk is since great powers like foresight normally come with limits, but you think your Quirk has way too many.

It’d be one thing if you only had the drawback that prevented you from revealing the contents of some of your visions, but to also have a drawback that causes you to take the pain someone would have felt if you hadn’t intervened on their behalf and prevented them from getting injured? Truly ridiculous.

Not only that, when you use your Quirk for offensive purposes, you can only use it for a select period of time. Otherwise, you risk overworking your brain, which could result in seizures as well as horrible migraines and nosebleeds.

A truly troublesome Quirk indeed.

And unfortunately for you, there’s one other troublesome aspect of your Quirk that you oftentimes forget about since it doesn’t happen very often.

Sometimes, for reasons unknown to you, your Quirk gives you visions while you’re asleep.

The reason this is problematic is because sometimes it’s difficult for you to tell if you had a vision or if it was just a dream. Not only that, you never can tell when exactly the events of these particular visions occur unlike how you usually can with the visions you get when you’re awake.

While it’s not unusual for you to not be able to tell the exact date and time an event will happen, you can usually tell if it will be a few days or months away, but when it comes to visions that occur while you’re asleep, you can’t tell what the timeline is at all for whatever reason.

That’s why you hate getting those kinds of visions since it drives you crazy knowing that something is going to happen but having no idea when it will occur, especially when the events of said visions are very worrisome.

Like what you see in the vision you get a week before summer break starts.

-------------

As soon as the vision comes to an end, you wake with a loud gasp and quickly pull yourself into a seated position. While you take a moment to calm down, you brush the back of your hand against your forehead to wipe away the sweat clinging to your skin.

Once you’ve steadied your breathing and your heart is no longer pounding frantically in your chest, you mentally go over what you just witnessed while you were asleep.

It was a battle but not just any kind of battle. It was a fight between All Might and All For One himself.

There’s no way that was just a dream. It had to have been my Quirk at work.

That’s what your gut is telling you, so that’s what you’re going to believe since you can’t afford to write off something as important as this.

You drag a hand down your face. Unfortunately, that vision didn’t give me a lot to go on since it didn’t even show me the full battle, just bits and pieces of it. I couldn’t even tell where those two were since I didn’t get a good look at their surroundings. It just looked like a typical battlefield that came to be after a section of a town got torn apart thanks to the fighters’ Quirks.

So, not only do you not know when this battle will happen, you have no idea where it will happen. Great, just great.

To make matters worse, All Might didn’t appear to be looking too good in that battle. Of course, you suppose that’s to be expected, considering he no longer has OFA and is only fighting using the remaining embers of his old Quirk.

However, despite that and All For One’s taunts, the number one hero didn’t look like he had any intention to give up. No, he was still fighting hard for the sake of everyone who was counting on him to win this all important battle.

Unfortunately, All For One had a trick up his sleeve to shake All Might’s resolve.

“Shigaraki Tomura is Shimura Nana’s grandson.”

When All For One dropped that bombshell, you had first thought he was lying, but you quickly realized that that was something the villain would absolutely do. So, you’re sure he was telling the truth no matter how much you don’t want to believe it.

Poor All Might looked absolutely devastated by the news, not that you can blame him. His mentor was someone who was near and dear to him, so of course, it would hurt to hear that All For One was able to find her grandson and use him in his evil schemes.

Fortunately, that news didn’t break All Might like All For One was aiming to do, so even though your vision didn’t show you how the battle ended, you’re sure that All Might continued to fight his nemesis with all his heart and soul.

That’s why you’re not worried about the outcome of the battle, because you know All Might will win. You have complete faith in him. There’s no way he’ll lose.

Still, you do think you should tell him about your vision, so he’ll be prepared for what’s to come. A warning probably won’t do much in the grand scheme of things, especially since there isn’t much you can actually tell him that would be useful to him, but you still think you should let him know what’s in store for his future.

And maybe if you tell him the news about Shigaraki, you can give him the time he needs to come to terms with that information, so All For One can’t use it against All Might in their fated battle.

Just that alone would make telling All Might about your vision worth it since there’s nothing more you’d love to do than to throw a wrench in All For One’s plans.

Your hands clench into tight fists. I won’t allow you to hurt All Might like that and use his suffering for your gain, All For One. I won’t let you do as you please.

That’s a promise.

-----------------

After homeroom, you contact All Might and ask for him to privately meet with you, so the two of you can discuss the vision you had last night.

Briefly, you had considered asking Aizawa and Nedzu to also join the two of you, but you figured you should talk to All Might first and foremost. And you wanted to do that privately because of the matter with Shigaraki since you’re sure that’s what All Might would prefer.

That’s why you later find yourself in a private room, sipping tea with All Might who returned to his true form once the coast was clear.

“To request a meeting like this, you must have seen quite the vision.” Yagi remarks, “Is it pertaining specifically to me, or is it about Young Midoriya?”

“It’s just about you.” You answer before later adding, “And All For One.”

His expression darkens. “I see. In that case, I can only imagine that you’re here to tell me that I will fight against that man again.”

As expected of the number one hero, he’s incredibly perceptive, which is to your benefit since it saves you time explaining things. Although, ironically enough, this is the one occasion where you don’t actually need that kind of help since this vision is apparently one you can talk about without having to worry about your drawback., probably because you don’t actually have any worthwhile information that could result in changing the future.

You nod, “Unfortunately, I had this vision while I was asleep, so I can’t tell you when the two of you will have your fated battle. For some reason, I’m never able to provide a timeline for those particular visions.”

A sigh escapes you. “I also don’t know where that battle will be since my vision didn’t really show me much of your surroundings. It looked like you were in a part of a town that got destroyed by the battle, but it could literally be anywhere.”

“I can’t even tell you how the fight turns out since my vision only showed me certain parts of the battle and didn’t even let me see the end of it.” You frown, “I’m sorry, Yagi-san. I wish I could be more helpful.”

He reaches across the table to pat your shoulder. “You don’t need to apologize, Y/N-kun. It is not your fault that your Quirk picks and chooses what it shows you.”

“Even if I don’t know when or where the battle will happen, I still appreciate the confirmation that such a battle will occur within the next year since I knew it was only a matter of time.” Yagi adds.

The corners of his lips curve upwards. “Your news is actually encouraging since, if you couldn’t tell who the clear winner would be, that means that I will be able to put up a good fight despite no longer possessing OFA.”

Your eyes widen. “I see what you mean. The more time passes, the less likely you’ll be able to continue using OFA since you’re currently just using the remaining embers. So, since you were still able to hold your own against All For One, then…”

“Then, it’s likely the battle won’t be a full year from now.” Yagi picks up where you left off. “While I intend to hold out for as long as I can for the sake of the public, I know it would be foolish of me to truly believe I can continue as I am with mere embers of my former Quirk for a long period of time, even though I would like nothing more than to remain the Symbol of Peace until I can pass along my mantle to Young Midoriya.”

Remembering the state he was in in your vision, you frown, “Unfortunately, I don’t think you’ll be able to continue working as All Might after that battle, Yagi-san. It’ll push you to your very limits - to the point where you won’t even be able to maintain your muscle form.”

The blond sighs, “I can’t say I’m surprised, considering how strong All For One is and how I am not as strong as I was during our last battle.”

His expression turns determined. “But I am alright with that result as long as I can stop All For One once and for all. If my last act as a pro hero is defeating him, I will have no regrets.”

Yagi clenches his hands into fists. “I failed to stop him last time, but I won’t this time. No matter what it takes, I will put an end to his tyranny once and for all.”

For some reason, when you hear him say, “No matter what it takes”, you get an uncomfortable feeling in your chest.

Probably because, to you, it sounds like, “Even if it costs me my life.”

At that moment, you suddenly find yourself thinking back to the vision you had of the events following All Might’s last battle with All For One. You remember seeing his worn out appearance and how Nighteye had tried to get the number one hero to retire.

You recall how Nighteye foresaw All Might’s death, and that painful feeling in your chest grows stronger. What if...What if….?

What if the vision you had is of the future that Nighteye saw?

You give yourself a quick mental shake. No, there should still be some time before the events that Nighteye foresaw happen. Considering Yagi-san will be strong enough to fight All For One, it’s doubtful that a full year will pass before that battle, and Nighteye predicted that the future he saw should happen within one to two years from now. So, there’s no way he’ll die in the battle I saw.

…right?

“Y/N-kun? Are you alright?”

It’s the sound of Yagi’s concerned voice that draws you out of your worrisome thoughts.

Immediately, you lift your gaze to meet his, and as soon as you do, you ask, without thinking, “Does ‘no matter what it takes’ mean that you’re willing to die if necessary?”

Yagi freezes at your words before quickly averting his gaze. Rather than say anything, he just goes quiet as he tightly clasps his hands, but you don’t need a verbal response since that reaction is all you needed to see to know what his answer to your question is.

Of course, you’re not surprised since the number one hero is no stranger to self-sacrifice. Ever since your Quirk started showing you visions about All Might, you’ve witnessed firsthand how many times he has sacrificed his time and wellbeing for the sake of others, because he felt it was his duty as the Symbol of Peace.

It’s a trait of his that you both admire and hate, because, while he only ever has good intentions, it hurts you to see him treat himself with so little regard. Why must he constantly put such burdens on his shoulders? Why can’t he allow himself to get the rest he deserves?

Why does he have to do everything alone?

At that moment, your thoughts suddenly turn toward Midoriya who is sure to follow in his mentor’s footsteps since he’s so much like the number one hero. Honestly, you’d say your student is even worse when it comes to self-sacrifice because of all the years of bullying which led to him having such low self worth.

If Midoriya was in All Might’s shoes right now, you have no doubt that he wouldn’t hesitate to throw away his life if he thought it would be for the “better good”.

And that terrifies you more than words can describe.

That’s why you can’t let this horrible cycle continue. You have to do something for Yagi’s sake and for Midoriya’s.

So, that’s exactly what you do.

“You can’t die, Yagi-san, not when you still have so much to teach Midoriya.”

Briefly, Yagi looks at you in surprise, and then, his expression becomes pained. “The last thing I want is to leave Young Midoriya without a mentor, especially so early in his journey to become a hero, but-”

“But nothing!” You cut him off. “If you want to guide him, then do it! Don’t let anything get in the way, not even death!”

Your hands clench into fists. “Midoriya still needs you, Yagi-san, not just as his hero but as his mentor. You need to be there for him since there are things that only you can do for him. Your role in his life is irreplaceable.”

“So, please don’t accept dying so easily!” You plead with tears in your eyes. “Not when you have a successor who’s depending on you and so many people who care about you, not because you’re the number one hero but because you’re you! Please treasure yourself more!”

His eyes widen. “Y/N-kun…”

As you’re scrubbing your eyes, Yagi takes a moment to consider your words, and then, his expression softens. “I’m sorry, Y/N-kun. You’re right. Death is not an alternative that I should be so willingly to accept. That’s unfair to you, Young Midoriya, and everyone else who I have been so fortunate to receive love from.”

“I’m no longer just All Might the hero. I’m also All Might the UA teacher and Young Midoriya’s mentor.” He continues, “As Principal Nedzu has told me in the past, I cannot give one job more attention than the rest. I am equally responsible for all of them, so it would be remiss of me to forget that just for the sake of defeating All For One.”

His eyes gain a determined glint as his hands clench into fists. “That’s why, if death tries to sink its claws into me in this upcoming battle, I will fight back with everything I have. I won’t allow Young Midoriya to lose his mentor, especially when I still have so much to teach him, and I won’t cause you, my other students, or anyone else undeserved pain with my death. I’ll keep fighting no matter what.”

Relief washes over you like a tidal wave, causing you to slump back in your seat. Seeing this, Yagi gives you an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, Y/N-kun. I always seem to be causing you a lot of undeserved stress.”

“If you don’t wanna cause me stress, then take care of yourself, so I don’t have to worry about you.” You huff, “And make sure Midoriya learns how important that lesson is too. Honestly, you’re both way too self-sacrificial…”

He sheepishly rubs the back of his neck. “I suppose you make a fair point. I promise to be more careful on that end for both my sake and Young Midoriya’s since the last thing I want is to be a bad influence.”

Considering how Midoriya currently is, you think the damage has already been done, but you don’t say as much since there’s still time for things to change for the better.

Instead, you just reach for your teacup and drink the rest of your tea, which has unsurprisingly gone cold due to you completely forgetting about it during your and Yagi’s discussion.

That’s why Yagi decides to pour a fresh batch of tea for the two of you. As he’s doing this, you remember that there’s still something else that you need to tell him.

“Shigaraki Tomura is Shimura Nana’s grandson.”

You’ve been putting it off since it’s not an easy subject to bring up, and you honestly would rather talk about anything else. However, for Yagi’s sake, you need to do it.

Finding your resolve, you take a deep breath and slowly release it. “As I mentioned before, I didn’t see the whole battle, just bits and pieces, so there wasn’t much to glean from my vision. However, there is one particular moment that stood out to me.”

When Yagi’s curious gaze falls on you, you clench your hands into fists. “All For One revealed something horrible that he did, something that will only cause you pain to know about, but I thought if I told you now that he couldn’t use it against you in the battle like he did in my vision.”

A deep frown forms on his lips. “It must be quite horrible indeed for you to look so upset. Although, I can’t say I am surprised since that sounds just like something All For One would do.”

“It’s worse than anything you could imagine, Yagi-san.” You bite your lip. “All For One really hit where he knew you would be hurt the most.”

After the number one hero gestures for you to continue, you take another deep breath before quietly revealing, “Shigaraki is your mentor’s grandson.”

Just like in your vision, Yagi completely freezes as horror slowly dawns his features. “No...it can’t be…”

“I wanted to believe it was a lie just as much as you, Yagi-san,” You sadly reply, “but we both know this is just the kind of thing All For One wouldn’t hesitate to do. That’s why I think he was telling the truth.”

Yagi lets his face fall into his hands. “Yes, you’re right. That’s just the kind of diabolical thing he would do.”

“Master had hidden her son away specifically to avoid this from happening, but it would seem her efforts were for naught.” Yagi trembles. “I’m so sorry, Master. If only I had known…”

Your expression softens. “It’s not your fault, Yagi-san, and I’m sure your mentor would agree. After all, she was the one who asked you and Gran Torino not to go looking for her son, right? You were just respecting her wishes.”

“Even so, I deeply regret that decision.” He sighs, “I should have considered the possibility of All For One finding a way to track down her family and made arrangements so that they would always be protected from him. I should’ve known better than to assume that All For One wouldn’t be able to find them.”

Unfortunately, it looks like you won’t be able to absolve Yagi of this guilt despite how much you want to. No doubt this will be something that will remain with him for the rest of his life.

As you frown at that thought, Yagi pulls his hands away from his face. “Thank you for telling me about Shigaraki, Y/N-kun. I’m sure it was a subject you would have preferred to not discuss, but you did it for my sake, which I am very grateful for. Like you said, it’s far better that I learn this horrid truth here rather than on the battlefield. ”

You frown worriedly. “Will you be alright?”

He forces a smile. “Yes, you don’t need to worry about me. It’s true that this news was a horrible blow, but I won’t let myself give in, especially not after I just promised to overcome everything that’s thrown my way.”

His smile falls. “Dealing with Shigaraki from here on out will not be easy, but for my master’s sake, I won’t fold. I won’t allow him to continue down the path All For One set him on. I will do everything I can to ensure he cannot commit any more crimes.”

Hopefully, things won’t come to that since you know fighting Shigaraki would be incredibly painful for Yagi. That’s why you think it would be better if another hero was in charge of stopping Shigaraki, especially considering how much the villain hates the number one hero.

Of course, you don’t say as much. Instead, you just keep those thoughts to yourself and enjoy the fresh batch of tea that Yagi later pours for you once it’s ready.

As you’re both enjoying the tea, you provide as many details about your vision as you can that you think could be helpful, which mostly entails talking about All For One’s Quirks in hopes that that’ll help Yagi in the long run.

Once that discussion concludes, you decide to take advantage of this private time with Yagi to ask a question that’s been on your mind for a while now. “Yagi-san, do you ever intend to tell Midoriya about the future Nighteye foresaw?”

Yagi quickly averts his gaze. “I didn’t think that would be necessary….”

A sigh escapes you. “As I thought. Honestly, you keep way too many secrets from him. It’ll come back to bite you one day, you know.”

You wag your finger at him. “As your successor, Midoriya has a right to know about those secrets, especially the ones about your predicted death and Togata Mirio. Those are not the kinds of things he should be learning from anyone but you.”

He awkwardly rubs the back of his neck. “I suppose you make a good point, but if we can avoid him finding out at all…”

“Fat chance of that happening.” You huff, “He’ll find out everything eventually, Yagi-san. It’s only a matter of time.”

When he remains unconvinced, you add, “Just give what I said some thought. I’m not saying you have to talk to him right now, but at least, consider doing it in the near future.”

The blond reluctantly nods, “Very well. It is true that you make an excellent point, so I should, at least, try to give the matter some more thought.”

Once that matter is addressed and Yagi returns to his muscle form, the two of you decide to leave the room, so you both return to your regular duties.

As the two of you are walking, you remember one last thing you need to say to the number one hero. “All Might.”

When he turns to look at you, you smile, “I believe in you with all my heart. I know there’s nothing you can’t do if you set your mind to it, so if you say you’ll win, I know that’s exactly what will happen.” “That’s why I couldn’t bring myself to feel as worried as I should have when I saw that vision.” You add, “Because I could tell just from looking at you that you had no intention to lose despite everything All For One was putting you through.”

Your smile grows. “Someone like you could never lose to someone like him. No matter what he says, he’s no match for you. I’ve always believed that and always will.”

Surprise briefly dawns his features before that trademark grin of his that you love appears. “Thank you. I promise I will live up to those high expectations of yours.”

“I know you will.” You fondly reply, “You always do.”

#TABF #TABF missing scene #my writing #yagi toshinori #all might #it felt good to properly address this fight #in a way that wouldn't ruin the chances of the summer camp attack happening #plus it gave all might the encouragement he would need #and fortune got to give AFO a big screw you by ruining one of his plans lol #I also wanted to have fortune talk about nighteye and mirio #to reference the changes I made to chapter 41 #also I went back and edited TABF #to show fortune recognizing mirio as a previous candidate for OFA #in the chapter when fortune looks at his profile #and the chapter when tamaki brings him up while he's eating lunch with fortune #they're minor changes #but I wanted to show that fortune did know who he was #I just didn't do it when I first wrote the fic #cause that would mean including what would have been spoilers at the time #I've also edited chapter 34 to show references to this convo #they're minor but definitely there

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lunammoon · 4 years

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The Problem With Hetalia (As told by someone who actually in the fandom until like, 2016)

I'm hoping this post will explain to people who are still into Hetalia why a lot of people have an issue with from the perspective of someone who knows a lot about the show.

TL;DR: By making the WW2 axis powers come across as a lovable idiot, his serious friend, and the stoic voice of reason, it downplays the serious nature of what the Axis did and seeing as the real-life Axis harmed real-life people, many people have a justifiable huge issue with this.

I will go more into depth about this under the cut.

A lot of people are talking about how Hetalia is coming back after 5 years and a lot of people are rightfully annoyed at the show. But what I'm seeing is that a lot of the people who are upset are people who clearly haven't watched the show and therefore are unable to explain to people who have watched it why it’s bad. The most that you hear is:

"it glorifies the Axis Powers" (which isn't 100% accurate although the assessment that they are portrayed in a way that makes them seem less bad is accurate)

"Hetalia Cosplayers wore Nazi uniforms in front of a Holocaust memorial" (which I'd say is more of an issue with fans than the show).

That is not to say that there isn't an issue with the show, because there really is. But these observations are unlikely to mean much to someone who watches Hetalia. So, in this thread, I'm going to explain why Hetalia is Problematic with the added context perspective of someone who was into the show during most of middle school and until Freshman year of high school.

I knew the human names, used to jam to "Always With You" and "Pub and Go" and “It’ll Settle Itself Somehow” and “Light my Heart” and “Absolute British Gentleman” and “Mein Gott” and “World Rondo” and “Excuse Me, I’m Sorry” and so, so many more.

I lost my shit with everyone else when the season 6 ep dropped and Italy danced like he was possessed by a demon. When I hear “ACE” family, I don’t think of Youtubers. I actually took a side on the FruUK vs UsUk debate and if you look in my archive, you can probably find some Hetalia posts that I’m too lazy to delete.

The point here being, I’ve actually seen the show so I know what I’m talking about. This isn’t an outsiders perspective is what I’m saying.

So, let’s get right into it. While technically only seasons 1-2 are officially actually called "Axis Powers" (Seasons 3-4 are called "World Series" Season 5 is "Beautiful World" and Season 6 is called "World Twinkle") WW2 and things relating to the Axis Powers are an important part of every season and appear prominently.

While Hetalia has covered many things from all different time periods, the two most common periods covered are the modern-day and of course, the second World War. The show is Japanese and (I assume) because Japan was on the Axis side, these portions focus more on the Axis Powers of Italy, Japan, and Germany. The Allies do come into play. And while the Allies aren't directly like, evil, which would've been FAR WORSE they've got a kind of Team Rocket-esque thing going on? They're not exactly mustache-twirling villains but they're clear antagonists. Make no mistakes.

I think the deserted Island arc is the best example of the problems many people have with the show.

Take for example, that beach fight. If you've watched Hetalia, you'll know the one I'm talking about. The one that they reused like, 50 times. The Allies are clearly shown as the antagonists/aggressors while the Axis are literally just vibing on a (kinda) deserted island and defending themselves.

Now, if this was three dudes chilling on the beach and they suddenly got attacked by another five dudes also on the beach who they then fought off until the five attackers ran away that’s be one thing.

The issue is that this is supposed to be a representation of WW2. It's basically saying "oh, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy were literally just vibing, not bothering anyone when suddenly, the Allies attacked for no reason. Luckily, they (the Allies) retreated because the Allies are Cowardly but they keep coming back and bothering them,". Do you see the issue there? Most of the beach arc seems to be the writer forgetting that these are supposed to be Nations, not a random Italian dude, a German dude, and a Japanese dude.

“Oh, but they don’t glorify Nazi Germany. They don’t really even talk about what Germany was doing! Look at this pic of Germany in a lab coat holding a dandelion :)“

That’s not the defense that you think it is and it’s actually a main part of the issue that I, and many other people have with Hetalia.

I think the scene where this issue is the most obvious is the one where they are gathering around a campfire and talking and one of them comes up with the name "the Axis". The whole scene has the same energy characters in a moe anime coming up with a band name.

They’re sitting on a beach at night. I think there might’ve been a campfire, the stars are out, and the three of them talk about their dream of making a world that revolved around them. One of them comes up with the name “the axis” and then they all talk about how you would translate "axis" in their language. It’s all very found family-esque. The way the scene is framed is to encourage you to route for them to reach their goal. It’s the same kind of tone you’d see in a shoujo with a girl telling her friends about how she wants to win the singing competition no matter what or in Sword Art Online when Kirito talks about saving Asuna.

The issue is that their goal isn’t to win some competition or to save someone they care about. It’s to spread facism, imperialism, and bring about genocide.

There of course don’t SAY that that’s their goal, and outside of a one off line in the English dub that’s been since censored, they don’t really bring up what Germany was up to during WW2 vis-a-vie the Holocaust and if they did bring it up, I either wasn’t paying attention, it was in the manga, or it was in one of Germany’s character songs.

The issue is that during WW2 the show seems to at best forget and at worst, gloss over it that the main trio that they're focusing on are the villains. And not like, fantasy villains. Actual real-life villains that hurt real people in the real world. Imagine if instead of Ludwig Beilschmidt and Feliciano Vargas, it was Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.

Are you seeing the problem yet?

I get why people like to watch the show. Ignoring the WW2 bits, it’s actually pretty good. I, as an American, really like Alfred F. Jones and the way he’s portrayed.

If Hetalia had stuck to non-WW2 related things such as that episode where the nations all talk about how horror movies differ in their nations, or they talked about their Christmas traditions. Or the ones where America and Japan are roommates. Or when they showed that time when America airdropped XL condoms on Russia labeling them as "small" for intimidation reasons. Or that series of episodes where they talked about Micronations. Or that time they all had to come together to fight aliens. Or the bit where they talked about the WW1 Christmas Armistice. Then it would be fine.

The issue is that they didn’t.

If they kept WW2 stuff for SOME reason. They had two options.

Make the axis as proper villains

Be explicit in showing that the nations will doesn't reflect what their leader wants.

The first option wouldn’t be ideal if they wanted to cover any time period other than World War 2. The axis would be too unlikable and I doubt that an anime where Japan is the villain would appeal much to Japanese audiences.

But what about the second option. Have a bit where Ludwig is passing out White Rose pamphlets or smuggling people to safety.

Have Kiku (Japan for people who don’t watch Hetalia) purposefully looking the other way as Sugihara writes visas to get people to safety and covering for him against his boss. SOMETHING!

But instead of doing either of those, they took the bad third option which was, their choice to instead make the axis seem like likable individuals who are a group of three good friends who work together will in contrast with the “bumbling Allies” who are barely cohesive and constantly fight and argue. At best, makes it seem like both sides had a point and at worst, makes it seem like the Axis was a better than the Allies.

All of this is to say that liking Hetalia does not make you inherently a bad person, but you need to be more critical of what you watch and understand that there is a reason that some people have a genuine issue with it and they have a very good reason for that. You can still watch it the show, but do keep this information in the back of your brain as you do

#hetalia #hetalia discourse #hetalia 2021 #aph hetalia #discourse #long post #post under the cut #i hope that i explained myself well

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littleabriel-blog · 3 years

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My Problem with Loki

Loki is a character beloved by many people. He has been for a decade now, although some people who read comics before the Marvel Cinematic Universe was a thing were fans of him long before the first Thor came out. Over the years since his appearance in that movie the character has gone through a lot of changes, evolving from a villain to an anti-hero both in the MCU and in the comics, the latter even killing off his original incarnation to reincarnate him in a younger body resembling Tom Hiddleston in the hopes that the comics could capitalize on his popularity in order to sell more books. That move, unfortunately, did not bear fruit, with Loki’s solo series being canceled after only five issues. However, Loki remained popular in the movies, so much so that when he was killed off in Infinity War, people were pissed.

As a result of his enduring popularity, Kevin Feige and company decided to give Loki his own solo series on Disney+ when the decision was made to create a string of MCU tie-in shows to supplement the movies, and boost subscription numbers to Disney’s new streaming service. Fans of the character rejoiced. Finally, our favorite character was going to be in the spotlight, and not be merely a supporting character for Thor and hopefully not a butt monkey for the Avengers like he was in the third act of the movie of the same name. WandaVision and The Falcon and The Winter Soldier had previously had well-received and successful debuts on that same platform, and it was hoped that Loki would do the same. Loki turned out to be the most successful of the Disney+ MCU shows that have come out so far, scoring highest in the ratings. As of this writing, it holds a 93% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an 8.5 on IMDb.

Those numbers, however, don’t reflect the entire audience and there were a lot of people who were not altogether happy with the product we received. Many people who had been hardcore fans of Loki since Tom Hiddleston first put on the horned helmet were not pleased, myself included.

The show wasn’t all bad. It did set up the multiverse, introduced Kang, introduced Mobius. The special effects were outstanding, a lot of the gags were hilarious, and we did get some character development from Loki before the spotlight fell away from him and he became all about panting after the real main character...more on that in a few.

So many things, however, were wrong.

If you liked the show, thought it was perfect, and were a fan of the romance, that’s perfectly fine. There is no such thing as a wrong opinion on a work of fiction. Everyone has their interpretations, everyone has their likes and dislikes, and there is nothing wrong with liking the show. There is also nothing wrong with not liking the show. This is a concept that people on both sides of the debate fail to understand, and I have witnessed flame wars, harassment from individuals on both sides, harassment of creators on social media from both sides, and various bits of biphobia, homophobia, transphobia, and other assorted types of phobias on display. I have seen people accuse people who have different opinions on the show than them of “not being a true Loki fan” and stating that people who have certain interpretations of the character don’t “truly know Loki”.

I’m not here to do that, and I assure you, if you liked the show, that’s fine. You’re allowed to. I’m allowed to not like it, and I’m allowed to explained why I didn’t like it just as you’re allowed to explain why you did. As long as both of us are being respectful, expressing an opinion is good. There is expressing an opinion and offering constructive criticism, however, and then there is namecalling, trolling, and having a tantrum and accusing someone of being “aggressive” when they don’t share the same opinion you do.

There is a huge difference between saying “I find the character of Sylvie to be problematic, and here is why” and “I think fans of Sylvie are sick and need therapy”, and people need to learn the difference between the two. Unfortunately, you have people who have become very protective of their favorite characters and tend to take any criticism leveled at said characters personally. It’s basically “You don’t like them? Well then you don’t like me, and since you don’t like me, I don’t like you.” Which is, frankly, a dangerous mentality to have. We are talking about fictional characters, not real people, and there is no need to jump to the defense of someone who does not exist. It is those people who tend to demonstrate that they have unstable personalities and immaturity, and they are the ones I have started blocking on Twitter because, being an adult woman, I don’t have the patience to deal with immature nonsense like that.

So, if you read this and then decide you want to hunt me down to give me a piece of your mind, tell me that I’m not a “true” fan of Loki, and accuse me of whatever, don’t bother. This piece isn’t here for that. It’s here because I wanted to compile my thoughts and feelings in a way that would better for me to articulate. It’s more or less a venting mechanism, purely for my benefit. If someone else gets something out of it, fine. If the creators of the show happen to see it, which is very unlikely because A) I’m not exactly going to push it onto them on their social media to get them to read it and B) they already get bombarded with tons of opinions on the show on a daily basis and aren’t going to care about one more voice added to the mix, even one who has basically compiled a novel, then alright.

And it is a novel, because I have a lot to say about Loki. I have been a huge fan of the character since long before Tom Hiddleston began playing him. My first encounter with Marvel’s Loki came in the form of the X-Men comics, specifically The Asgardian Wars run. It’s available in trade, and you should check it out. I read that run when I was around 10 years old, and I enjoyed Loki as the bad guy in the two stories that make up the collection. The first has him creating a special wish fountain that has a monkey’s paw effect in that it imbues mortals with special gifts and powers, and has the potential to make Earth a better place, but at the cost of killing every magical person and being on Earth. The X-Men and Alpha Flight find out about this after a plane piloted by the wife of one of the X-Men happens to crash in the general location the fountain is located. The two teams go to investigate, Shaman and Snowbird who are both magical beings begin dying, it’s discovered Loki created the fountain in order to score brownie points with The Ones Who Sit Above In Shadow (a pantheon of deities who are basically the Gods to the Asgardians), and after a lengthy battle Loki is defeated, he shuts down the fountain under pressure from The Ones, and slinks back to Asgard with tail between his legs.

In the second story, set after the heroes of Earth had helped Asgard defeat Surtur, Loki’s attention is caught by Storm, who at the time was depowered. He kidnaps her and brings her to Asgard intending to use her to replace Thor as the Goddess of the Storm, and use her as a pawn to, what else, conquer Asgard and seize the throne.

I really enjoyed Loki then, and felt sorry that he never appeared in any other X-Men story, not even in an issue of the New Mutants, and that team boasted an actual Valkyrie (Danielle Moonstar) as one of its members. I was a kid at the time and read pretty much exclusively X-Men since those were the books my father purchased for me. I never felt right about asking him for other books since we were a family with money struggles and I didn’t want to be more of a burden by requesting Thor or Avengers comics--that, and I just didn’t find Thor or the Avengers all that interesting at the time, a sentiment shared by a lot of people until the first Iron Man made us actually care about Tony Stark. I wouldn’t have an opportunity to start reading more comics featuring Loki until I was an adult and able to visit comic book stores on my own. I read several runs that featured him as a character, including Ragnarok, the Broxton, OK run where Loki first appeared as a woman, Dark Reign, and finally Siege. I also went back and read Walt Simonson’s legendary run on The Mighty Thor, which I highly recommend.

Suffice it to say, I’ve been a fan of the character for a long time, and in fact when Tom Hiddleston was cast in the role for Thor, I remember thinking that he was too young. But then I figured it was Hollywood, of course they’re going to deage Loki so that he appears closer in age to his adopted brother in contrast to the comics pre-Siege where Loki was often drawn to look like he was as old as Odin and therefore could be Thor’s uncle or even father as opposed to brother.

Over the years I grew to enjoy the MCU’s version of the character, enjoy Tom Hiddleston in the role, and like most other people was greatly saddened by his death in Infinity War. Like other fans, I looked forward to his solo series and had high hopes for it. Hopes that were, unfortunately, dashed.

It Was Rushed

In the MCU, it took Loki years to go from troubled young god, to villain, to ambivalent ally, to anti-hero, to hero. Literally, years. Months had passed between the end of Thor and the beginning of Avengers during which Loki endured who-knows-what at the hands of Thanos. We don’t know exactly what still. The Loki series didn’t answer that, I guess because they didn’t want to devote precious screentime to an interesting backstory for what was supposed to be the main character when they could focus on something else instead. That something else will be elaborated on.

In Episode 1, Loki is still the villain from Avengers, something he would have remained as into The Dark World. It would take him being in Asgard’s prisons for a year and then him accidentally getting his adopted mother Frigga killed in order for him to begin to do a heel-face turn. From this, we can clearly see that a transition from ax-crazy bad guy to anti-hero is not going to happen overnight. For this person I shall call Ragnarok Loki, it was a process that took time. He suffered a complete mental breakdown while in Asgard’s prison, a fragile emotional state that was compounded by the anger and massive guilt he felt at Frigga’s death.

Even after that, he still hadn’t completely abandoned his villainous ways. At the end of The Dark World we find out that after faking his supposed death earlier in the movie, Loki has assumed Odin’s form and taken his place on Asgard’s throne. In Ragnarok, Loki is still sitting on the throne in Odin’s form, and shows no indication at all that he feels any remorse for giving his adopted father amnesia, stripping away his magic, and abandoning him on Earth to whatever fate he might meet. Loki remains a selfish bastard throughout Ragnarok until the third act, after Thor had treated him to a taste of his own medicine by sticking a taser on him and then giving him a speech about becoming predictable and complacent.

Loki’s arc was one that spanned four movies and six years, since in-universe there were a couple of years between The Dark World and Ragnarok. That meant that his character development took actual time and was realistic. It was one of the things that drew people to the character, the fact that he had a very relatable and believable redemption arc.

Compare that to Episode 1. In less than a day he goes from being the Loki that we saw in Avengers, batshit crazy, selfish, callous, and untrusting, to making personal confessions to a man he had just met only a couple hours previously and agreeing to help the organization that had arrested, stripped, imprisoned, tried, and almost executed him.

What?

I will give the show this: In Episode 2, he shows that he’s still up to his old tricks when he feeds Mobius and the agents all that horsecrap about how a Loki works in the Ren Faire tent, and then revealing that he plans to take over the TVA when he confronts his variant in the futuristic Wal-Mart. The weeping confession to Mobius, that I can’t really get over. How do you go from haughty, arrogant, and “trust is for children and dogs”, to “I don’t enjoy hurting people” in just a couple of hours? The show never indicated that it was a manipulation tactic on Loki’s part. Instead, we were basically told to believe that they became friends just that fast. That emotionally stunted and closed-off Loki made a connection with another person in a matter of hours. Makes sense. Don’t get me wrong, I like Mobius and feel he makes a good foil for Loki. I hope to see more of him in the future. I just have a tough time finding their friendship all that believable.

This would not be the only relationship in the show that happened too fast that we were forced to just buy, which leads me to Sylvie.

She’s the variant that the TVA had been hunting, that Mobius recruited Loki to help capture. And while I normally hate it when people ascribe a certain label onto a new female character because reasons (ones that are usually misogynistic), I think it fits rather well in Sylvie’s case.

Enter The Mary Sue

Mary Sue is a term that gets thrown around a lot. To sum up the meaning in very simple terms, it refers to a character who is too perfect to be believable. Mary Sues are often author-self inserts in fiction, they’re usually the love interest for at least one male hero and it’s usually the male hero the author will admit to having a crush on, their scenes usually are presented much more descriptively than those of the other characters, the story will revolve around them often at the expense of the development and plots for the other characters of the story, and they’re presented as beautiful, powerful, intelligent, beautiful, special, strong, beautiful, and desirable. Yes, beautiful is on the list more than once, and it’s deliberate.

The term comes from an old Star Trek parody fanfic, and while it is usually applied to original characters in fan fiction, the term has been used to describe characters in canon media as well. Some examples of characters who have been described as Mary Sues would include Bella from the Twilight books, Felicity from the show Arrow, Jaenelle Angelline from Anne Bishop’s The Black Jewel novels, Sookie Stackhouse from True Blood, Rey from the last Star Wars trilogy, and Jean Grey from the X-Men comics. Note I do not necessarily agree that those characters are Mary Sues, I have merely heard these characters referred to as Mary Sues, and when I look at them objectively I can kind of see where the accusations come from. Some other terms that can apply are Creator’s Pet and of course Author Self-Insert. Not all Mary Sues are Author Self-Inserts, but a lot of them are. Also, not all characters who can be labeled Mary Sues are female, though they often are. The male version of a Mary Sue is called a Marty Stu, and a couple of characters I’ve seen get ascribed that label include Harry Potter, Daemon Sadi from Anne Bishop’s The Black Jewel novels, Edward from Twilight, and Red Hulk from Marvel Comics. Even Batman and Wolverine haven’t been immune from the Marty Stu stamp, although you can argue that it does apply in their cases especially depending on who’s writing them. Sometimes it is painfully obvious they are author self-inserts...the aforementioned Bella is a good example. Others, you can only speculate on. And while there are theories going around that Sylvie is someone’s self-insert, we don’t have definitive proof of that.

There are good arguments, however, for her being labeled a Mary Sue and Creator’s Pet.

First are her powers. In the show we are told that Sylvie taught herself magic, especially her ability to “enchant”, the power to get into the minds of others and manipulate them. The fact that she taught herself would indicate that her education and skill in using magic should be lacking, right? She should not be as good as, say, someone who learned magic from his foster mother who herself was taught by Asgardian witches?

Yet in the show, Sylvie not only runs circles around Loki magically wise, she even teaches him a few tricks. This is startlingly in contrast to the comics. Loki’s Sylvie is partially based on the character Sylvie Lushton from the Young Avengers, a bad guy who was once a normal girl whom Loki imbued with powers before his death at the hands of the Sentry during the events of 2010’s Siege storyline. In the comics, Loki not only gave Sylvie her powers, but he was the one who taught her how to use them. Now, of course things in the MCU are not going to follow the way things are in the comics. MCU Loki is nowhere near as old as comics Loki and has so far not demonstrated the ability to give other beings powers. And MCU Sylvie is a composite of Sylvie Lushton and Lady Loki, which is also problematic, but we’ll get to that.

But the point is that Sylvie had no training. Her magic is some improvised slapped-together stuff that at best she picked up here and there and at worst she just pulled out of her ass. Now, knowing that, we’re supposed to buy that she can mop the floor magically wise with someone who was formally trained by a sorceress? And that furthermore, she can school him as well?

To make up for her lack of experience and knowledge, Loki is nerfed. Power wise and intellectually wise, he is nerfed. In Thor and Avengers Loki is smart, well-spoken, and a master manipulator. At one point he is able to turn all of the Avengers against one another, and while his magic has never been anywhere near the level it was at in the comics pre-Siege (after his resurrection, he was powered down and is currently nowhere near the powerhouse he had been prior to 2011) he was able to pull off some impressive displays of skill nonetheless. Shape shifting, illusion casting, it was a good repertoire.

In Episode 3, however...well, he does use teleportation to some impressive affect during his fight with Sylvie, but he still doesn’t get the upperhand. And he should. Loki is a better trained fighter, better trained in sorcery, and realistically should have at the least managed to incapacitate his variant. He doesn’t however, because the moment he meets Sylvie his IQ drops about 20 points. He falls easily for her tricks, makes laughable plans, gets drunk and draws too much attention when he knows that is a bad idea, and manages to get them both stuck on a moon that will soon be dust courtesy of the rogue planet about to crash into it. Loki has made some blunders in the various MCU movies he’s been in, mostly due to his own arrogance and tendency to underestimate his foes, but he’s not that stupid. In fact, in The Dark World he screams at Thor and calls him an idiot for drawing attention to themselves by hijacking an elven ship and crashing into every column and statue within a fifty-foot radius.

Where exactly is that smart, calculating, more careful Loki we know from the films? He’s been transformed and dumbed down, in an attempt to prop Sylvie up. It’s a tired trope, making the male character a dumbass in order to make the female character look good. Well, I should say male-presenting and female-presenting characters in this case, but their supposed gender fluidity really is not represented well and it’s completely contradicted later on, but we’ll get to that.

Anyway, making the male character stupid in order to make the female character look better by comparison is not empowering. It’s insulting. It implies that women are not smart or capable enough to meet men on equal footing, that the only way we can shine is not by virtue of our own strengths, but merely by making us look better than the men.

She doesn’t just outshine Loki intellectually and power wise, she outshines him period. The show from Episode 3 on becomes about Sylvie. She is the show’s main focus, and Loki? He’s relegated to the role of supporting character in the series that’s named after him. Supporting character, and love interest. From Episode 3 on, the show might as well be called Sylvie.

Now, some people will say that since Sylvie is a Loki, the show was indeed focusing on Loki. The problem is, the show is very inconsistent as to whether or not Sylvie really is a Loki or a different person entirely. I will explain more later, but the writers seem to change Sylvie’s identity to suit whatever narrative they want to present to the audience, including the pre-Pixar Disney romance they foist upon us.

The Romance, and why some find it gross

One major characteristic of the Mary Sue is that she always draws the romantic and sexual interest of the main male character, who may or may not be a Marty Stu himself. Oftentimes he’s not, and Loki does not fit the criteria of a Marty Stu by any stretch of the imagination. These romances always happen fast with little to no buildup. There is no what writers of romance call “slow burn”, it’s just throw Mary at the male character, hook them up, and get the audience to buy it. Basically, it’s reminiscent of the romance stories in the Classical Era Disney animated films. Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella all fall madly in love with their princes within minutes of meeting them. There’s no getting to know each other, there is no preamble, there is no slow courtship, no real drama to speak of. It’s basically Love At First Sight or True Love. This trend continues even into the Disney Renaissance. In The Little Mermaid, Ariel is willing to make a deal with a witch to give up her fins for a prince she hasn’t even spoken to yet. He doesn’t even know she exists, and she leaves her home and family behind, gives up her voice, all for a mere shot at hooking up with him.

That’s not love, that’s lust. That’s hormones overruling your brain, and it’s an insulting trope, one that feminists have railed against for years. Disney has made a little progress. The movie Frozen took the mickey out of the Love At First Sight/True Love trope with the song “Love Is An Open Door” and the prince Anna wanting to marry turning out to be a major sleazebag who just wants to use her, but we still only have three Disney princesses (Elsa, Moana, and Merida) who have never had love interests and two (Anna and Rapunzel) whose love stories come close to being slow burns, out of 12 official Princesses. There’s still a long way to go, and boy is there a major step backwards in Loki.

In Episode 3, Loki fights Sylvie and they end up on Lamentis 1. Sylvie spends a good portion of the time insulting and trying to kill Loki, and Loki finds himself having to defend himself from her. That changes once they get on the train going to the Arc. After sneaking aboard the train using a disguise and a flimsy story, the two Lokis sit in a booth, where Loki proceeds to drink champagne. It is then that, out of nowhere, the conversation shifts from how Sylvie learned her powers to the topic of love.

Why? Why would you bring that up in conversation with someone who was doing her best to kill you a couple hours prior?

Then Loki makes things worse by asking Sylvie if she has a beau waiting for her. Why? It doesn’t make sense. The two of you are at each other’s throats, she’s done her best to kill you, neither of you trusts the other, and, completely out of left field, you decide to basically ask “So...are you single?”

Now, enemies to lovers is a trope that can work when done right. Typically, it’s a very subtle, slow progression that the audience witnesses over time in a novel, movie or television series. Weeks and even months will go by in the narrative during which the two people go from wanting each other dead to developing feelings for one another. There’s usually a “will they, won’t they period” that lasts for some time that’s full of teases and flirting before the couple does hook up and gives the audience the resolution. Done in this way, enemies to lovers can work.

This...this is not the right way to do enemies to lovers. Within a couple of hours Loki and Sylvie go from hatred and doing their damnedest to stabbing one another in the backs, to having a connection that causes a nexus event?

By the way, that nexus event makes no sense. In Episode 2, it is established that it is impossible to create a nexus event in an apocalypse. It is why Sylvie was able to avoid capture by the TVA for so long. In fact, just minutes prior to the two of them almost dying in Episode 4, Sylvie flat-out says that she figured out that she needed to hide in apocalypses because she discovered she didn’t create a nexus event when she hid in them.

Now the two of them are able to create a nexus event in the midst of an apocalypse? Why? Their “connection” isn’t going to lead to any consequences...they were about to die. No one else need never have known about the “moment” the two of them shared. It’s very confusing and the only purpose it really serves is to paint Loki and Sylvie as soulmates, which doesn’t make sense in the context of the show. The concept of soulmates is that for every person, there is someone out there they are predestined to be with. Loki is a show that, at the core of it, is about rejecting predestination and embracing free will. In that context, the idea of soulmates is ludicrous and contradictory to the message that we make our own destiny. This is why True Love is unrealistic, and I hate to break it to you romantics out there, but Love At First sight does not exist.

Infatuation At First Sight exists, but that is not Love, no matter what your hormones are telling you. Love takes time to evolve, and it takes work to maintain. It sure as hell doesn’t happen after less than 12 hours of knowing each other, during which a huge chunk of time was devoted to trying to manipulate, outsmart, and murder the person you’re supposedly in love with. No one falls in love in less than 12 hours, period, unless it’s a Classical Era Disney animated movie. They basically turned Loki into a big Disney Romance trope. I have a very hard time buying that Loki, who we have established is emotionally stunted and closed off, would form a love connection in just a few hours, especially with someone who was doing her best to murder him in that timespan.

That is not the only reason this relationship is problematic. The term “Selfcest” has been thrown around, and a lot of defenders of this particular ship claim that the term was very recently made up in social media for the sole purpose of badmouthing this particular romance. That is not the case. Selfcest is a term that has existed among fiction writers for years, it’s just that more people have recently become aware of it thanks to this show. The trope has been used and referred to in various works of fiction, especially in fantasy and science fiction where cloning, alternative universes, and magic occur. A lot of the insults I get from people who can’t stand that I don’t like the romance basically go along the lines of saying selfcest doesn’t exist. No, it doesn’t...in reality. But this isn’t reality, is it? It’s fiction. It’s a fictional world where such a thing could be possible, and even in works where it’s not possible it’s often alluded to.

In A Song Of Ice And Fire, we have the infamous twincest relationship going on between Cersei and Jamie Lannister, and it is heavily implied that sleeping with her brother is the closest that Cersei can get to banging herself and that is why she does it. Jamie is basically everything she feels she should have been and was denied due to being born a woman. In fact, in later books when he reunites with her after having been away from King’s Landing for over a year, during which time he’s grown a beard and shaved his head, Cersei no longer finds him as attractive since they no longer look as much alike.

And with advances in cloning, selfcest might be possible in the future. We already have sex robots, and people with money are capable of making those robots look like themselves. There is nothing stopping them from doing it.

Knowing all of this, the argument of “selfcest doesn’t exist!” falls flat. And it especially falls flat when you’re referring to a fictional universe where a large purple man once killed off half the population of said universe with a snap of his fingers, where scientists turn into giant green monsters, the Norse gods not only exist but regularly interact with people on Earth, and there’s such a thing as a Sorcerer Supreme.

As I have said, the show has been rather inconsistent in stating what exactly Sylvie’s identity is. One moment, we are told Sylvie is a Loki and that she and Loki are the same person. Mobius says it, Kang says it multiple times, Judge Renslayer says it, the director and the writers state it in interviews. But then in the next breath, they contradict it by saying that she’s not a Loki, she’s Sylvie and a different person.

You can’t have it both ways. Which is it? Either she’s a Loki, or she’s not. The narrative is very confusing and it changes depending on how they want us to see Sylvie, especially in relation to her romance with Loki. It’s so much easier to avoid the selfcest/incest accusations when you can say they are different people. But then they say they’re the same person. Make up your minds!

Since the show first established that Sylvie is a Loki, I’m going with that. Especially since we saw a bit of her backstory. She grew up in Asgard as a member of the royal family, which means she had Odin as a father, Frigga as mother, and Thor as brother. She may or may not have the same DNA as Loki. We never got confirmation either way, and there are people who argue that they don’t to which I have to ask: How do you know? The show never tells us! “Oh, well, there’s Alligator Loki, are you going to say he has the same DNA as well?” Well, we are never told how exactly Alligator Loki came to be. Is he actually an alligator, or is he Loki who somehow got permanently stuck when he shapeshifted? People tend to forget that he can do that. Ragnarok established that he can turn into a snake, and a deleted scene actually had the childhood story go that Loki turned into a rug to cover a hole in the ground and then dumped Thor into it. There is the scene where Doctor Strange drops Loki through a portal, and Thor is left poking at a business card, and it is clear that for a moment he thinks that Loki turned into that. We know Loki can shapeshift, so Alligator Loki can very well have the same DNA. We just don’t know, because the show never explains it for the same reason the show cut out the scenes with Throg fighting Loki...to devote more screentime to Sylki.

Even if they don’t have the same DNA, it’s still established that they are the same person, they have the same family, they’re both the God/dess of Mischief, and even Sylvie herself acknowledges that she is a Loki despite the fact that she changed her name. So selfcest very much applies here, and a good argument can be made that selfcest is the ultimate in incest...after all, there isn’t anyone else you’re more related to than yourself. It is very understandable, therefore, that a lot of people would be very, very uncomfortable with such a relationship. Having the same DNA would merely be the icing on the very gross cake.

Furthermore, just because selfcest does not exist in reality does not mean someone can’t find the concept distasteful. “It’s not real!” “It’s just fiction!” Yes, and people are allowed to have their own feelings and opinions on fiction. If they find the idea of selfcest hard to stomach, that’s their prerogative and you really have no right to tell them they are wrong for feeling that way. They should not have to justify to anyone why they feel that way either. No one owes you an explanation for why they find real world incest or cannibalism distasteful, so they don’t owe you an explanation for this.

“Well, of course Loki would fall for himself...he’s a narcissist!” Is he though? Is he really? Having dealt with my fair share of narcissists in my life, I have to wonder if the fans who say that, along with the writers, know what a narcissist really is.

Is Loki a narcissist?

Bringing up Cersei Lannister again, the novels she appears in establishes that she is an extreme narcissist. She sleeps with her twin brother because it’s the closest she can come to sleeping with herself, and she desires to do that because she is a narcissist. A narcissist is someone whose personality is defined by an inflated sense of self-importance, troubled relationships, lack of empathy for others, and an excessive deep-seated need for attention and admiration. It’s a very simplistic definition, and there are plenty of YouTube videos devoted to delving into narcissists into more depth, as well as videos on how to cope with the aftermath of abuse at the hands of narcissists. Narcissists are so devoted to themselves that they ignore the needs and the feelings of those in their lives, which often results in abusive behavior. There are entire support groups that exist for victims of narcissists.

At first glance, one can see why some might consider Loki a narcissist. He does engage in some pretty selfish behavior, he goes to great lengths to get attention, his relationships to his family are indeed fraught with drama, and he seems to have a pretty overinflated ego. He even goes so far as to write a play featuring himself as the central character, and build a giant golden statue of himself after taking over Asgard in the guise of Odin. But really, is his ego truly that big? Or he is overcompensating for his self-hatred and self-disgust?

Loki suffered quite the emotional blow when he found out his true heritage, a revelation that shook him to his very core. Of course, his relationship with his father suffered as a result...the man lied to him for his entire life. Their relationship really was not that great even before that since Odin found it easier to relate to Thor, who was more like him in personality, than to Loki, who was more cerebral and quieter. Loki’s relationship to Frigga fared much better. He’s quick to forgive her involvement in covering up the truth about his parentage, and it is obvious that they are close. Even his relationship with Thor prior to the events of the movie is not all that bad, the two brothers are affectionate and playful, and when Loki interrupts Thor’s coronation, it’s not just for the sake of creating trouble, but to postpone Thor taking the crown for another little while because he is not fit to rule. At the time Thor had yet to go through his character development arc on Earth and he was still an overly arrogant, bloodthirsty, elitist douchebag, so Loki really had a good point.

A true narcissist would have done what Loki did just for the sake of making life difficult for Thor. Also, he would have done it because he wanted the throne. Loki states repeatedly that he never wanted to rule. A true narcissist would have been all smiles about taking the throne instead of being reluctant about it as Loki was when Frigga handed him Gungnir.

Throughout the films, and in the first episode of the series, we see that Loki does indeed love his family and is capable of feeling guilt over the things that he does to them, intentionally or not. Narcissists typically don’t feel remorse. As far as they are concerned, they are perfect and can do no wrong, so they have nothing to feel bad about. If they hurt you, it’s because you deserved it. You shouldn’t have provoked their ire.

Loki feels bad for getting Frigga killed, and then later on Odin. Then he is in tears when Odin dies, and later at the mere thought of never seeing Thor again when the two brothers talk in an elevator on Sakaar. Those are not the actions of someone who is incapable of loving anyone but himself, as I’ve seen so many people claim about him. And the fact that he sacrificed himself to save his brother also kind of kills the whole “narcissist” narrative.

In Episode 1, Loki breaks down and confesses to Mobius that he doesn’t like hurting people. He does it because it’s part of the façade, and admits that he sees himself as weak. A few episodes later, he admits to a memory illusion Sif that he craves attention “because I’m a narcissist” and admits to being afraid of being alone. That is far more self-reflection than a typical narcissist is capable of in my experience. As I said, narcissists tend to think they are perfect. A true narcissist would never admit to having any flaws, and sure as hell would never admit that they are a narcissist. As far as the true narcissist is concerned, if you find them flawed in any way, that’s on you. The narcissist has no need for self-reflection because they honestly see nothing wrong with themselves, and believe that they don’t need to change...it’s everyone else who does.

A good real-life example from my past is a former friend I’ll call D. D was a self-proclaimed brat who was quite proud of the fact that she could be difficult to be in a relationship with and tended to go through men like tissue paper. She was demanding, self-centered, extremely jealous, manipulative, and prone to wild mood swings. She could and did go from zero to insane at the drop of a hat. In the time I knew her, she left a string of burnt guys behind, and according to her it was because they just weren’t man enough to handle her. She also left behind a string of broken former friends, to the point where there really needed to be a support group for former friends of D who suddenly had her turn them into Public Enemy Number 1 when they either started taking attention away from D, or...well, that was it really. As I said, she was a very jealous person and had a chronic need to be the center of attention, especially if there were men around. Anyway, instead of working on herself to become less self-involved, self-absorbed, and more empathetic, she double downed on her abrasiveness and constant need for attention until she finally wore the poor man down and he either ghosted her or outright dumped her. She never broke up with them, preferring to keep them around for as long as they were willing in order to toy with them as a cat does with a mouse. I tried to talk to her about her horrible behavior, but instead of taking my constructive criticism and maybe using it to make some needed changes, she completely turned on me and did her best to make my life hell until I finally cut her out of it. I learned two things: Narcissists don’t want help because they don’t feel they need it and they are never going to change as a result, and never, ever try to confront a narcissist. It’ll only end badly.

A more famous example? Former US President Donald Trump. I won’t get into that, because really all you need to do is perform a quick Google search to see what all he’s done and witness his narcissism on full display. But really, place him side by side with Loki. Do you see any similarities at all? Maybe on the surface, but when you go deeper...no. Loki is not a narcissist. He’s capable of deep self-reflection, owns his faults, is capable of loving others, and feels remorse. I would argue that anyone who says he is a narcissist, either does not know the character, or hasn’t ever actually dealt with a narcissist in real life, to which I can only say: Lucky you.

I honestly would argue that calling Loki a narcissist is actually doing a disservice to victims of abuse from actual narcissists.

What about Sylvie? Well, in contrast to Loki who does show remorse while Mobius is playing that “This Is Your Life” reel for him, Sylvie shows no remorse or regret. She knows that the TVA agents she kills are as much victims as she is. They are innocent variants who were kidnapped from Earth and forced to work for the TVA after having their memories wiped. She knows this, yet the first time we see her she burns a bunch of TVA agents alive, and she just stands there watching as they scream in agony. In the next episode she says right out that she’s “having some fun” while possessing the body of C-90 and murdering more agents. She is not at all sorry about doing what she did, and we’re supposed to be understanding since she was kidnapped as a child. Okay, but the entire TVA didn’t do that. The agents she kills didn’t personally kidnap her. The only one we see who was directly involved in that is Renslayer. Sylvie “did what she had to do”, fine. But she doesn’t feel bad about it, at all. The flashback to her as a child takes great pains to try to show us what a good person she is when she cries out “Help him!” as another prisoner is being beaten, but I guess she grew out of it.

We don’t know if Sylvie has any other narcissistic traits besides lack of remorse because, well, the show really doesn’t do much to show her personality. Other than killing people, trying to kill Loki, and then flirting with Loki, we just don’t really see much to her. It’s another trait of a Mary Sue. Mary Sues often have bland, one-dimensional personalities. After all, their only purpose is usually to serve as love interests for one or more male characters. Mary Sues break the “show, don’t tell” rule by having the other characters verbally inform us about their traits, usually while singing their praises, but we don’t actually see those traits in the Mary Sue herself.

Loki calls Sylvie “amazing”, but how amazing is she, really? She kills people she knows are victims, she endangers the timeline just to sneak into the TVA, and then she kills Kang despite knowing that there is a very good chance that doing so could unleash something far, far worse than him. Then again, it doesn’t have to make sense when you’re pushing an unwanted and unasked for romance on an audience who was expecting a scifi show, not a romance.

I have spoken in a few places about this. Romance is fine, but in a show that blatantly places itself in the scifi genre, it really should only be the background, not center stage. When I expressed this opinion, I got accused of being dismissive of an essential part of the human experience. Well, first of all, congratulations: You just invalidated the existence of people on the asexual and aromantic spectrums, not to mention people who are celibate by choice. Second, that is why we have the romance genre. To tell stories centered around romance. I like romance, I read romance novels, and I sometimes write romantic fiction. But there are some places where it just is not appropriate.

There are people who say that adding romance makes things more interesting. Nope, in those cases it’s just a smokescreen, something used to hide plot holes and distract us from just how empty the story really is. Writers like to say that if you need a romance to make things more interesting, then you really don’t have much of a story in the first place. And sadly, Loki does have some plot holes. The nexus event on Lamentis is a good example, and the romance is definitely used to distract us from that. People were so focused on “oh wow, they’re having a moment, they’re soulmates!” that they didn’t think “waitaminute...didn’t they say that nexus events can’t occur in apocalypses?”

We really did not need a romance in Loki. Period. It was unnecessary, it was distracting, a lot of people found it disturbing, and it actively hurt a marginalized group.

Loki Is A Queer Icon!...maybe

I am not going to say that the relationship between Loki and Sylvie is not a bisexual one. A bisexual relationship is a bisexual relationship regardless of whether or not the person the bisexual person is with is the opposite sex. Saying otherwise is biphobic. Biphobic people in both the straight and the queer communities have been excluding bisexual people who happen to be in opposite sex relationships for years because apparently one stops being bisexual once they get into a relationship with someone of the opposite sex. This is horseshit. I’ve been in relationships with CIS men, did I stop being attracted to other men, women, nonbinary, genderfluid, agender, and other genderqueer people? No. No, I didn’t, because while I was entangled, I was not dead. Heterosexual people don’t stop being attracted to other members of the opposite sex when they are in relationships, it’s no different with queer people.

So, stop saying that Loki and Sylvie are not a bisexual relationship. You’re not doing us any favors at all, and in fact you’re only helping the biphobes who want to kick us out of Pride and other queer spaces for daring to date members of the opposite sex.

I will address the “Bit of both” line however. In Episode 3, Loki has that response to Sylvie’s questioning about whether there had been any would-be princesses or princes in his life. Again, a conversation that comes out of nowhere. She stated outright that she didn’t trust him, clearly wanted him dead, and now she’s asking if he’s single. Whatever.

Anyway, people went nuts when Loki answered “A bit of both”. It was confirmation that Loki was bisexual, it was celebrated on social media...and it is really biphobic and Kate Herron, who is bisexual herself, really should have known better.

Biphobic people have long tried to sow division between the bi and trans communities (unsurprisingly, biphobia and transphobia tend to go hand-in-hand) by saying that the concept of being bisexual is transphobic. “Bi” means two, ergo bisexual people are only attracted to two genders, specifically CIS men and CIS women. It never occurs to anyone that the “two genders” a bisexual person could be attracted to could be, say, women (and yes, I include trans women in that, since they are in fact women, get over it) and non-binary people, or agender and gender-fluid people, it’s always CIS men and CIS women. This despite the fact that the definition of bisexual has been “attraction to more than one gender” since long before the Bisexual Manifesto was put out in 1990.

Some people have tried to remedy this by adopting the moniker of “pansexual” instead, which A) is basically reinforcing what biphobes are saying about bisexuals and creating even more division and B) doesn’t just mean “attraction to trans people as well, I’m not transphobic, I promise!” “Pansexual” is not interchangeable with “bisexual”. Pansexual is attraction to all genders. Bisexual means attraction to more than one gender, but not necessarily to all genders. You can have a bisexual person, for instance, who is attracted to all genders except for men. If you are attracted to more than one gender, but not to all genders, you are bisexual, and labeling yourself pansexual is lying and basically caving in to the biphobes.

I’m not trying to police what people call themselves...if you want to use the two terms interchangeably, if you want to call yourself bisexual, or pansexual, it’s fine. But just evaluate the reasons why. Are you calling yourself pansexual because you really think you can be, or are you just calling yourself that out of fear of being labeled transphobic? The latter, in my opinion, is not a really good reason, and it only helps deliver the biphobic message that bisexual people are transphobic.

So, by saying “a bit of both”, Loki is really helping to reinforce that biphobic assertion that bisexual people are attracted just to CIS men and CIS women. It’s disappointing, but it is Disney so I suppose that is the best we can expect for now. It just shows that Disney really has a long way to go.

What’s more problematic is the supposed genderfluid representation. Now, I am a CIS woman. As such, I feel unqualified to really say that the representation is shitty and fluidphobic. However, if I’m not qualified to say that it is, then Kate Herron and the writers are unqualified to say that it isn’t. Rule of thumb: If members of a marginalized group are telling you that you did a poor job of representing them and that you are being transphobic or fluidphobic, instead of ignoring and dismissing their concerns like a good portion of the population already does, it’s a really good idea to listen to what they are saying and learn how you can do better.

There have been some genderfluid and trans people who expressed that they liked the show, and good for them. But I have seen a lot of very valid criticisms and concerns from genderfluid and trans people about the representation on the show, and I think they really should be listened to. Kate, you and I are queer, but we are still CIS women. Ergo, we have no say in whether or not the way you attempted to present Loki’s gender fluidity is transphobic. If genderfluid people say it’s fluidphobic or trans people say it’s transphobic, then it is indeed fluidphobic/transphobic. To say otherwise is gaslighting a marginalized community who already faces gaslighting on a daily basis.

I will touch on a couple of things.

First, in Episode 5, Loki asks a bunch of his variants if they have ever encountered a female version of themselves, a question that is met with varying levels of incredulousness and even disgust. If Loki was truly genderfluid, this question wouldn’t have been asked. Genderfluid means the person shifts genders along the spectrum. Loki does this in the comics. Comicbook Loki switches between masculine and feminine presenting on the drop of a dime, especially in his current incarnation. Loki in the MCU we are told is also genderfluid, and should also be able to hop along the gender spectrum on a whim. There should not be a “female variant” therefore, since they are all the same gender. There could be a female presenting variant, but that is not the same thing. They would still be all genderfluid in that case. Also, Sylvie’s nexus event would not have been “being born the Goddess of Mischief”. Okay, the show never actually says that is the nexus event that led to her being arrested, but it heavily implies it. If Sylvie is a Loki, and as a Loki is genderfluid, her being the “Goddess” of Mischief should never have been an issue since they can change genders anyway.

Second, making Lady Loki a separate person is problematic. A lot of genderfluid people felt that this move invalidated their identity by basically showing that the same person cannot indeed be different genders along the spectrum. I don’t feel I’m totally qualified to really get into this. I will just say that if you’re going to write a genderfluid character, maybe at least get an actual genderfluid person to advise in the writing room.

Third, there is a transphobic movement called trans exclusionary radical feminism. You might have heard of it. Unfortunately, it is a very widespread movement that has done a lot of harm to the trans community, successfully blocking funding to organizations that help trans people, blocking laws that would benefit trans people, and the movement includes celebrities like Graham Linehan and JK Rowling.

One of the weapons they like to use against trans women is the concept of “autogynephilia”. It is basically the sexual fetish of becoming aroused from thinking of oneself as a woman. Many, many of these transphobic “feminists” love to say that trans women are merely men who have this particular sexual fetish.

It’s bullshit of course. Maybe there is a small segment of the male population that has that fetish, but trans women are not included in that. For trans women, things like dressing as women, changing their names, having state and federal issued IDs that say they are female, and being able to use the restrooms and change rooms that match the gender they actually are as opposed to the one they were assigned at birth is not a matter of sexual arousal. It’s a matter of making their external realities match their internal ones. It’s a matter of validation of their identities as women. Sexual gratification has nothing to do with it.

Now, Loki is not trans, but genderfluid people do tend to fall under the trans umbrella. We have Loki, a supposedly genderfluid individual and masculine presenting, falling head over heels in love with a feminine presenting version of himself. Maybe it’s just me, but it just seems like a form of autogynephilia to me.

Way to go, Kate...you just gave the TERFs more ammo.

One more note: At one point, Kate tweeted a list of the different Loki emojis, and “jokingly” included #FiretruckLoki with an emoji of a firetruck. Kate, you do realize that a “joke” transphobes love to harp on is that they can identify as an attack helicopter, right?

It’s his way of learning self-love!

That is not how you learn self-love.

First, the people who are making this argument often contradict themselves by then saying that Sylvie is a different person. Again, make up your minds. Either Sylvie is the same person as Loki, or she’s not. You can’t have it both ways, and you can’t continue to change the narrative to fit whatever it is you want to shove down the audience’s throats.

Second, romantic love and self-love are two different things entirely. Loki isn’t feeling self-love with Sylvie, he’s feeling romantic love. That’s not learning self-love. That's narcissism, and it’s character regression in his case. He’s supposed to be evolving past being a self-centered, egotistical shitweasel, and falling in love with a variant of himself makes him, as Mobius put it, “a seismic narcissist”. It’s not character development.

Third, this argument tends to come in the same breath as saying that Loki is a narcissist so of course he would fall for a variant of himself. If Loki is a narcissist though, why would he need to learn self-love? Narcissists already love themselves, that is the very definition of the word. If Loki needs to learn self-love, that would imply that he actually hates himself, which is the opposite of narcissism. Again, the writers and the fans who make these arguments when they feel the need to defend this relationship need to make up their minds. Either he’s a narcissist and therefore already loves himself too much, or he hates himself and needs to learn to love himself. It’s once again changing the narrative to fill a plothole.

Fourth, the whole learning self-love and trust narrative is completely thrown out the window in Episode 6 when Sylvie decides to toy with Loki’s emotions, using his feelings for her against him by kissing him as a distraction so she could grab Kang’s temp pad and toss Loki back to the TVA. To Sylvie, her revenge was more important than the bond she had with him. The move basically set Loki’s progress back several steps. What little progress he made anyway.

TL:DR, is there hope for Season 2?

Whew, this went on for a while, didn’t it? Told you I had a lot to say.

As I have said, if you liked the first season of Loki and think I am completely full of shit, that’s fine and it’s your prerogative. More power to you.

But, and this is a huge but, that does not give you the right to harass and bully people who did not like it.

I have witnessed horrible things from both sides of the now split Loki fandom on social media. Harassment and even death threats towards the creators. Telling people who don’t like the Loki and Sylvie relationship that they need to drink bleach. Homophobic attacks. Gatekeeping.

There’s constructive criticism and sharing your opinions, and then there is...this.

Both sides need to chill.

Anyway.

Even though Kate Herron has left the show, Michael Waldron is still the showrunner and as such I am not altogether optimistic for Season 2. I would like to see more emphasis on Loki himself for that season. Yes, it’s a novel thought, wanting a show that is called Loki to actually be about Loki, but here we are.

I would like to see actual character development in Loki rather than the old “true love transforms bad boy and conquers all” trope. There is a reason Disney has started to abandon that trope in their animated movies. They’ve been getting dragged about it for decades.

If Sylvie must return, there needs to be some actual consistency surrounding her character. The show needs to decide if she is a Loki or not and stick with whichever one they decide. And seriously, no more romance. Frankly, after what she pulled in Episode 6, I will be severely disappointed if the writers have Loki crawling back to her. That would make him pathetic, and Loki deserves better.

Really, Loki does not need a romance, period. He’s too emotionally immature, he has a lot of character growth to go through, and a romance would do nothing but be a distraction and an impediment to that growth. Anyone who got married too young can confirm that it is important to learn more about yourself and figure yourself out before you even think of getting involved with another person, who should not be your whole world. The Loki and Sylvie romance was reminding me of Classic Disney in another not-good way in that the two of them, especially on Loki’s side, were starting to revolve around one another and that does not make for a healthy relationship. Again, turning Loki into a Disney Prince (or, seeing as how he’s supposed to be genderfluid, Princess). Stop it.

Again, the romance was a smokescreen. It was a distraction from just how thin the plot was. Please, for the love of G-d, give more focus to the actual plot.

Do some research and talk to some psychologists for healthy ways Loki can “learn self-love" and develop as a character. If Ragnarok Loki can do it without relying on a romance with a variant with himself, then surely TVA Loki can pull it off.

Speaking of talking to people, listen to the concerns of the trans and genderfluid fans. Listen, talk to them, maybe get a couple in the writer’s room. CIS people should not write genderfluid people, and this season is a good example of why.

Please remember that Loki is not an idiot. Yes, he has pulled some fast ones and hasn’t been the greatest planner, but he is not downright stupid like he was in season 1.

And...really that’s all I have. As I have said, this thesis really wasn’t about making suggestions to the creators because I seriously doubt they will ever even see this. This was more less me screaming into the void, venting because I was that upset about what I saw as character assassination happening to one of my favorite characters. Keeping all of this in was proving to be bad for my blood pressure.

I am attached to the character, have been for years. Loki is just one character in the MCU who I love, who I want to see done right. I had been looking forward to his solo series for a very long time, and the disappointment I felt was something that I just couldn’t keep in. I kept my mouth shut when they killed off Tony Stark for no reason other than that Ronnie Downey, Jr. didn't want to renew his contract. I didn’t say anything at the Russo Brothers’ “happy ending” for Steve Rogers, even though I feel it made no sense and is a massive plot hole.

What they did to Loki, however...I couldn’t keep silent.

#loki series negativity #anti sylki

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nothisis-ridiculous · 3 years

Text

Take Me Home Now

Chapter Two: The Violence Causes Silence

Set after the events of ME3.

A rewrite. Ao3.

FemShepxKaidan

"I never thought I'd see the mighty M-77 in the flesh, let alone hold one," the graveled voice silique over Mary's bedside, pointing the weapon harmlessly at the wall miming the clicking of the trigger with a soft pew. The corner of his wrinkled smile pulled tightly, white teeth freed in a short chortle.

"The damned thing almost killed me too!" The tenor of his voice booming across the room drawing momentary attention to himself.

Amber eyes returned to the woman that breathed gently beneath the single sheet covering her, "if only the shot were better. It's a shame to see a beautiful weapon mishandled."

The Commander's eyes shot open, "it's not a toy."

"A toy it is not," he countered softly in direct contrast to her gruffness, "it's a very serious weapon. Hard to get a hold of unless you have the right channels."

"Or the wrong ones."

"You've got me there," he murmured gently, "but I don't have you pegged for that type."

"What do you know about me?" The statement a test.

"Next to nothing, besides your bad aim."

The relaxed manner of his statement regulated the growl in her throat into a gentle rumble. The man at her bedside was a strange sort of familiar but annoyingly endearing. Probably the sole reason he wasn't knocked aside and that she was not halfway out the door. Well, if not for the half dozen other figures and said man possessing her weapon. It would have been easier to continue her ruse, eyes fluttering closed at the thought.

The figure chuckled, "your acting is as terrible as your aim. If you think that can fool me."

He gave her the time to shuffle upright, allowing her the space needed to feel out her scalp. Fingertips gently touching the tender ring left inches about her right ear, pale lips turning into a nearly imperceptible frown. He resisted the urge to clap on comforting hand on her shoulder and to pull her in. While he would never ask a woman's age, he guessed her to be in the same group as his son. The same burden rested in her eyes as had his son's: one among many he mourned for. Among the many, each around him mourned for. The war well over, but not without a hearty cost. This strange camaraderie drew him to this stranger.

"Military brat?" The guess was easy enough; she held herself uptightly. Besides, only a trained soldier could walk out of that hideout with barely a scar.

"No, but enlisted at eighteen. Parents were colonists, the Alliance-"

The awkwardly heavy tube vibrated in her weak arms, adrenaline crashing as the reality of her situation caught up with the teenager. She was fucked. Not fun fucked, but her life was about to end fucked. It hadn't even moved the Batarian she had struck with all of her might. The ill-placed blow barely skittered against his pauldrons.

The alien turned slowly, a sick smirk crossing his strangely wrinkled skin.

The creature yanked the metal tube from her grasp, Mary by some miracle, was fast enough to avoid the arc of his wild swing. Her mother and father went down with a thud. Mary somehow undaunted rushed forward without thought; just inches from the alien, she was yanked backward, a knee cruelly pushing her into the tile floor of her kitchen. Unseen hands pulling her hair and head upwards.

"You'll remember this, human," the voice hummed, twirling the pipe around the elbowed end pointed at the ground. Nudging the groaning male at his feet.

The first motion was a blur of blood covering the kid's face, running and spraying into her screaming mouth. The splitting of the second skull started and ended in silence.

The intrusive memory required a shake of her head to stave off; she had not thought of that event in years.

"I joined the Marines, did a few tours. Ended up here for the final conflict," Mary gulped down, trying to finish off with a change of subject, "you?"

Whether or not he noticed her foray into another realm, he didn't act as if he had. "I had retired years ago, but with the Reapers coming to Earth, it was my duty to return to service."

There the conversation ended. A long minute of silence passing between the two parties.

"So, what encouraged you to take out a raider encampment alone," he pressed with misplaced joviality.

The Commander stumbled, balked, "I wasn't alone."

You're fucking pathetic.

Pain seared across her cheek, requiring her hand to assuage it.

"Oh," he winced behind the soft utterance, "you did something good, recruit. They were an absolute menace-" He stopped, sensing the words fell on an empty mind.

But he was determined not to let this conversation continue in such complete disarray, "I'm sorry for not introducing myself earlier; I'm Roy."

"Roy?"

"I hesitate to go by a formal chain of command, and I'm not entirely sure if," he paused, attempting to clear this without sounding like a power-mad dictator, "communication since the Reaper threat has been sparse at best. My men have, and I have been operating by the seat of our pants for months. We heard London was the final push, by little more than rumor mind you; upon arriving we had failed to connect with head brass before the threat had mysteriously been defeated. Obviously, order has yet to be restored."

"What's the status report?"

The old man gave her a slow grin, "Comms are down, and with so many grounded on Earth, supplies are hoarded. Some Alliance and Council Forces are trying to keep the peace, but that is problematic when food, shelter, and ammunition aren't exactly plentiful. Some are... preferring to act selfishly."

"I suppose it doesn't take much to stir up old grudges," she remarked wryly, "where does that leave you?"

"We're interested in peace, rebuilding. We won't survive if we squabble now, the Reapers may have well defeated us."

Shepard shook her head, "let's hope some of the others share your integrity."

Some legacy she left behind, bringing together most of the galaxy just to have it crumble moments after the greatest threat was over. They were meant to be the best the galaxy had to offer.

"Who are you?"

A failure if the first snappy comment in her mind was to be believed. She didn't want to be Shepard at this moment. Mary didn't feel up to the name, to the adorning praise she had received, the lofty and quite impossible accomplishments she had earned. Shepard had saved the galaxy, but she couldn't save a mother and child. She was the part that had killed 304,942 Batarians. The countless others caught in the crossfire and the ones that she had failed impress with the gravitas of the impending culling. Selfishly, the loss of her crew weighed heaviest; what were a few souls compared to a few hundred thousand others?

Shepard was too heavy of a name.

Shepard didn't deserve this pathetic fate.

Shepard should be dead.

"Jane."

"Jane?" the man mocked impetuously.

The joke was on him. Mary was hardly any less generic. Instead of a response, it earned the old man a slow eye roll. One practiced from years of reacting to the impressed way most reacted to her first name, with the legacy "Shepard" held a boring name wasn't expected.

With a sigh, 'Roy' propelled himself upright, first glancing over the men huddled in the far corner, then to the door. He stalked away without a word, leaving Jane in his wake. Weaponless and quite confused.

"Well, aren't you getting up? I have something to show you."

Catching her before her mouth could form the words, with a frown, she pushed from the cot. Throwing a tentative glance at the men as she picked a path around them. They seemed to pay her no mind but nodded at the older gentleman as he walked by. The group had a couple of guns between them, but they were left against the wall. Close but in no obvious state of threat.

"That worried about little old me?" she mused in the three quick steps to catch her guide.

"We did find you in a raider base," his grin drew across his wrinkled face slowly, "but it was the supplies I was worried about. We hold a tentative peace."

"Peace, with who?"

If Jane had waited another moment, the noise from beyond the balcony would have answered a now pointless question. She strode to the ledge, overlooking the huddled masses. The number was easily under fifty souls, comprised mostly of humans -omitting a few asari, one salarian, and two turians in the mix. They huddled in small groups in the large courtyard provided by the open-air mall. A circular fountain, now placid, took up the center of the space, but only the Salarian lingered by the stagnant water running their hands over the clear surface of the water.

"How long ago were the Reapers destroyed?"

"A week."

"How long have I been here?"

"A day and some change."

Jane nodded, gripping the railing, "you're lucky this place wasn't destroyed."

"That's a word for it, damned lucky; the place has an atrium," he settled beside Jane, "beside our luck, we need to figure out how to feed everyone quickly."

"Although the Turians will still find a way to complain about their grub," she remarked cooly," then I brought a Quarian onboard, and I never heard the end of it."

Roy regarded her throughly, his curiosity was piqued, but he wouldn't push it. The woman had things she wanted to hide, and he would have to accept that for the time being. For now, he let her contemplate, allowing her the moment to hold something resembling a smile. Let the hardships of the situation come back slowly; neither of them needed the reminder of the losses they had endured. It would only get more difficult with time.

"Just don't leave out the east end. It makes this paradise just a little less idyllic."

Jane looked at him curiously but dropped it, "did you bring these people together?"

"As I said," he stated with a nod, pushing away from the balcony and beckoning her with a wave of his hands, "we arrived as what I could guess was the final push. There were a few wandering, dumbstruck. Others, like you, needing help."

He clipped down the frozen escalator, "I lost a lot of men getting to London. My unit of fifty quickly turned to fifteen, and we were lucky. Rather than join the intense fighting, we rounded up who we could. We've held out here since. It's becoming necessary to leave more often, but it's also getting more dangerous."

He rounded into the large chamber, with Jane on his heels.

"Lieutenant."

The sentiment echoed around the room, and the dulled faces brighten considerably. The other races with practiced coolness played at aloofness, though he had their rapt attention. The woman with him was a nobody, a newcomer, but he was important to each body in the room.

"LT?" Jane murmured, catching a moment of his ire.

A small figure streaked for the man, immediately whirled into the air with a fluidity she hadn't believed the man capable of. The girl squealed, clinging tightly to his thick neck. Her giddy laughter feeling out of place in the dower mood that stagnated around them. Jane looked away from the exchange, uncomfortable with the child. She wasn't exactly the kid sort... or one that should be left unsupervised with one.

Finally tired of being thrown about, the child put her hands on his cheeks, growing deathly serious, "I'm hungry, do you have food?"

Her parental figure admonished her from afar.

"Remember, we only eat when it is mealtime," he spoke gently to the mousy girl, setting her down promptly, "you'll grow too fast if you eat all the time. This old man can hardly lift you as is!"

"Fine," the child puffed, "only because I like playing with you."

The girl's eyes bored into Jane, giving the woman a cross look before returning to her disappointed Father.

"Why bring me here?"

Jane finally spat out, angry that she had been played. Angrier that it was working.

"I'm not above a little manipulation to get you to stay," his gaze remained on the girl, only slowly returning to the blue-eyed woman behind him.

"You can't know I won't fuck this up," she returned solemnly, "or be sure of who I am."

Roy's face hardened, "be practical. What will you do once your gun runs out of clips? You don't have armor. You don't have food."

Jane glared at him sharply, but was it being told no or being presented with logical advice that bothered her more?

"Go, if you like. I won't stop you," he shoved the gun into her hand, "I really won't. But neither can you come back."

"I-"

"Or you can try it out for a bit, get your bearing here. It's better than rotting or ending up with a bad crowd," he breathed out sharply," and don't start with that bullshit all over again. If you have that gun, you obviously know how to use it... and I could use, need, someone that can handle a gun. The rest can wait."

His change of tactics was noted, if she had tried to guess what sent his words reelings she would bet on regret. It was the first concrete sign of pain she had read from the man. It clouded his judgment of her, of whatever he thought she could do to help him. To help the community he was building. It was a noble pursuit; for that reason alone she had to take herself from it. Those around the Commander had the habit of getting killed.

"I'm not-"

"Cut that shit too, Recruit! What you've done previous to this point isn't important to me. Nobody gives a shit about your record- what you can do now matters. Being alive later for whoever claims your sorry ass is what matters."

#mass effect fanfiction #femshep x kaidan #shenko #mass effect #mass effect spoilers #take me home #fanfic #kaidan alenko #commander shepard

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the-kazoo-kid · 5 years

Text

The Two Types of Goblincore

I’ll begin by saying that I’m a Jewish archaeologist, and one of my main areas of study is the pogroms of Eastern Europe during the beginning of the 20th century. This affects the way I think of goblincore in two major ways:

Goblins were used as a negative caricature of Jews to tother them and incite negative feelings and violence among non-news

I have been accused of only wanting to be an archaeologist so that I can dig up and hoard shiny things

I spend a lot of my time looking at images like this one. It’s an antisemetic political cartoon from 1898.

Look at the crown, the long, hooked nose, and most importantly the clawed, webbed hands. His hands envelope the world, symbolizing the perceived universal greed of the Jew.

This stereotype of the greedy Jew didn’t originate in the 19th century either. It goes all the way back to the Middle Ages when Jews in Europe were banned from occupations other than banking.

So now let’s talk about goblins in popular culture. First and foremost in my mind are J.K Rowling’s goblins who are portrayed as greedy, hoarding and-- you guessed it-- in charge of the money and treasure.

There are even physical similarities between J.K. Rowling’s goblins and the political cartoon above. Note the hooked nose and the hands.

I was about eight when I read the first Harry Potter book. I remember bringing it to a synagogue event where one of the adults remarked about how uncomfortable the goblins made them. Before I was allowed to watch the movie my mother sat me down and explained what was problematic with those goblins and why.

Next up: LOTR

He has the crown and the hands, although not the nose, and while he bares less direct resemblance to that cartoon, this is still an example of antisemitism. This is a placeholder character for a Jew that is disgusting, hoarding wealth, and a direct antagonist to the main characters.

Everquest 2:

(I found another image where this character was specifically labeled The Goblin Banker but tumblr wouldn’t allow me to upload it for whatever reason.) This goblin is so other that it’s not even recognizable as a person, and in fact in the game they’re classed as a Mob Race. Yikes. Additionally, Wikipedia describes them as “attempting to - unsuccessfully - forge gold coins, and yet they have no intention spending any of this money, they simply wish to 'have' it.” This goes along with a lot of the greed aspect of goblins and their obsession with hoarding.

So what do we do?

First, I want to say that just because these pieces of media (or any others) have these problematic aspects doesn’t mean that you have to stop consuming and enjoying them. If we never read books or watched movies or played games that were problematic we would back ourselves into a corner where nothing was permitted.

The important thing is to educate yourself to the point where you can recognize the negative caricature/stereotype in something that you come across, and to not create any new media containing the stereotype.

But what if you really like goblins?

The good news is that this is the first, older kind of goblincore, but it’s not the only one out there. There’s a new wave happening that emphasizes the positive things without including the negative ones. These next examples are technically called trolls in their respective universes, but they really get the vibe that I’m going for.

Boxtrolls:

See? Shiny treasure thing, delight, and no malice. Admittedly the trolls in this movie are some funny looking creatures, but they don’t come across as perpetuating the negative Jewish stereotype to me.

Frozen:

Cute little guys made of stone and moss. They live peacefully, and when they encounter the protagonists they have a nice musical number and then dispense some wise advice. No greed, no bad intentions. Good for them.

(Again, these examples are both technically trolls but I think the idea comes through, especially since they’re so far from the large, lumbering brutes that are trolls in say... Harry Potter or LOTR.)

Now I’m going to hand this conversation over to @goblinblogging who is a Jew working on reclaiming and reworking the idea of what a goblin is and what a goblin does.

-Reid

Now, I know learning that something you’re doing could be problematic is scary! I also know that a ton of people have abandoned goblincore just because they learned of these stereotypes.

However, you don’t have to abandon something you love! What you need to do is educate yourself and learn about why these things are harmful and learn what you can do to make sure you aren’t doing something harmful yourself!

Let's start off with how this stereotype came around (Or at least, one way it originated.) In the book Knockers, Knackers, and Ghosts: Immigrant Folklore in the Western Mines, the author goes into detail about how European origins say the goblins of the mines were the ghosts of dead Jews, sentenced (in properly medieval anti-Jewish fashion) to perpetual restlessness for their supposed role in the crucifixion of Jesus. Which is where the “Goblins live in caves and mines” came from!

So this explains that the ghosts of Jews became goblins because they were being punished for killing jesus. Already a pretty rough start! Now for common goblin appearances that are nothing but antisemitism in disguise. First, and most obvious, large, hooked, warted noses. I don’t really feel like I have to go into much detail about this one. Anyone who took history class in middle and high school should know about Hitler’s propaganda against jews and the depictions of their bulbous noses, often covered in warts. This caricature directly translates over to goblins having their predominant warted noses. Second, Let’s have a look at green skin. Hitler in particular loved to depict jews with green skin, or at the very least, in very green light so it turned their skin green.

Image source

Notice the green tint, the evil sneer, hooked nose, and pointed ears in this one! All very reminiscent of traits we commonly see in goblins.

Image source

This last one is a movie poster “Suss the Jew” produced by Terra Film at the behest of propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, and considered one of the most antisemitic films of all time. Notice the green skin!

Next is horns and teeth. Hitler in particular would depict jews with devil’s horns hidden under their Kippah (also referred to in Yiddish as a yarmulke, or less frequently as a koppel.) He’d also just depict them outright as demons.

Image source

This one is Ukranian. Translated means “Satan has taken off his mask” Notice how “satan” has huge teeth and horns, red skin, with the star of David carved into his forehead. Also notice how his jewish mask has a large nose.

Image source

This one is from Russia (1919), a caricature of Leon Trotsky, who was viewed as a symbol of Jewish Bolshevism. Notice the red skin and pointed ears. Also notice how he’s sitting above the people down below (who are sitting on skeletons and bones) symbolizing the Jew’s greed, which we’ll get into later.

And then there’s this one, where you can see (white) people inside of the Jew’s mouth, you can also see horrendously sharp teeth crushing them. Also pay attention to the large nose and pointed ears. I just remembered that I forgot to cover another very important anti-jewish facial feature, which is that many jews in propaganda have dark beady eyes and drooping eyelids. These are things you can see for yourself in the images above!

Next, we’re moving on to greed. This one in particular hits me close to home. I’ve heard the phrase “Jewing me out of my money” too many times to count. Or alternately, “Don’t be a Jew” when the other person doesn’t think that I’m giving them enough of what they want. (Could be money, could even be sweets. The first time I heard this phrase I was a little kid and I had a bag of skittles. I wanted to share with everyone but I still wanted to have enough for me to eat myself. I was passing out handfuls when my friend’s older brother (he was a teen) didn’t like how much I gave him. He said to me, “Come on, don’t be a Jew, give me some more skittles”. I didn’t understand and when I asked my mom what it meant later she was horrified.) Jews, and their caricatures, have almost always been viewed as greedy and power hungry. As @whalefromwales said above me, Jews in Europe used to be banned from any job besides banking.

We also have images like this from WWII:

Image source

Anyone who has taken any class where the Holocaust was talked about should be able to recognize this image, The Eternal Jew. He has money in one hand, which is reached out to demand more - he’s also looking at the money, and a whip in his other hand. In his arm, he holds the whole country of Germany.

Image source

There is also this one. A jew, tinged with red, weighs a man’s life against a large pile of money. Notice also how he’s looking at the money - not the man.

And this one should also be easy to recognize. It reads “The Jews - A People of Contagion!” A city burns in the background as a jewish man sits atop a pile of bones counting his money. Notice the bulbous, hooked, nose, black eyes with drooping eyelids, and large hands! Hitler depicted jews this way (and as goblins) in order to segregate us. “Us VS Them”. “We are the Good Human Beings and Jews are monsters!” in order to make it easy for him to begin committing the atrocities that he did! It never happened overnight, there were key stepping stones that built up to concentration camps. One of those was “Jews aren’t really people, so it’s okay that we’re doing this to them. We’re doing it to save us, the Good Christian Germans.”

So what does all of this mean? Well, first and foremost, it means that you have to be careful how you depict your goblins. How? When drawing your goblinsonas or goblin ocs, stay away from drawing them with huge, hooked, and warted noses, don’t make their skin green or red (personally, I prefer grey skin for goblins.) If your goblin has sharp teeth, don’t make them huge and obvious. Because modern goblins are fair folk, it’s difficult to depict them without pointed ears, but try not to exaggerate the proportions.

Behavior: Stop with the “greedy little goblin” thing. That DIRECTLY comes from jewish stereotypes. Your Goblins are allowed to collect shiny things they find, but don’t make them greedy about it! Have your goblin share what they collect, make it a community effort. Sharing the things you love is way better than being miserly anyhow, and sharing more represents what we as goblins should want in our community! Also, be careful with your goblins being terrors. Yes, there are usually evil beings in every single race (whether mythological or real) but just be really really careful. Hitler loved to depict jews eating the Good Germans(™) or terrorizing communities. So even if your goblin is an evil one, be really really careful and be sure to educate yourself first so you’re not just perpetuating the same tired shit that Hitler did.Collecting coins.

Now, this has been a huge topic of discourse lately. Coins are shiney! I understand why people would want to collect them. Hell, I have some awesome 50 cent pieces and gold dollars in my collection. You just can't depict yourself or your goblin character collecting only coins and being very greedy with them. That’s literally doing nothing but echoing the same propaganda that Hitler used against us. Collect them all you want, but if I see “Greedy little goblin hoarding coins all for themselves” I swear I’m gonna hit the fan. To clarify, you can absolutely show off you coin collection in the goblin tags, just be careful how you frame it. “I’m really interested in history, so I collect old coins because I think they’re neat” is waaaaaay different then “Horrible littel crecher is greedy for shiney monies” (That last quote is something I’ve SEEN in the tags, luckily op was just completely unaware of why that was so wrong and they removed the caption after they were educated.)

So please, enjoy being into goblincore. Enjoy the culture and the fantasy. Goblincore is about appreciating the things about us that may be depicted as “weird” or “ugly”. Goblincore is a safe haven for neurodivergent people (I’m Autistic!) and also Trans and other LGBTQIA+ people! It’s a culture for appreciating nature, collecting things that may not be seen as normal, and sharing these things with other people. It’s a culture where you shouldn’t be ashamed to be who you are or afraid to get dirty. Goblincore is a support network for the weirder folks where we strive to uplift one another. Goblincore is wonderful and I’ve been so impressed at how welcoming everyone is! Especially on tumblr! Before the discourse happened, I was sure that goblincore was one of the kindest communities on tumblr. However, I understand why the discourse happened, and goyim in the goblincore tag really did need to be educated, but that doesn’t mean you have to leave! So be sure to educate yourself and be aware of how your actions could negatively affect folks. Listen to other Jewish people and be mindful of what they say. Some Jews are very uncomfortable with goblincore, and for very good reason! And I do not claim to speak for all Jews with this post.

I am trying to reclaim the word goblin for use by any person who wants the label. I no longer want these fantasy creatures associated with such a beautiful and vibrant culture of people. Goblins are very interesting as a fantasy race, but the negative stereotypes do nothing but hurt real life Jewish people. Which is why I’m hoping that folks will read this post and realize what behaviors and depictions of goblins are wrong and harmful. Also, tag your goblincore appropriately! Again, many Jewish people are uncomfortable with goblincore because of antisemitism that has happened in their past. I’ve been compared to a goblin many times! So keep your goblincore in just the goblincore tags. There are many overlaps between goblincore and other micro communities on tumblr (Such as crowcore, cottagecore, naturecore, and vulture culture) but be mindful of what you’re putting in those tags. Most vulture culture people hate us goblins cuz we put pictures of dirt or “I’m just a smol crecher” in their tags, and I don’t blame them! Vulture culture is only for the remains of dead animals, and dead animal remains should be the only things added to those tags. So fellow goblins, I’m going to end this post with a sincere thank you for reading, be mindful of your actions, and most of all, HAVE FUN with goblincore!

Here is where you should be able to read Knockers, Knackers, and Ghosts for free if you want.

TLDR: This is what we, as Jewish people, mean when we say that goblins are based off of negative stereotypes of jews. This is also why some jews get really upset at goblincore, however, there are many ways to participate in goblincore without using harmful stereotypes! So please, use this post to educate yourself so you can both be good goblins and good Jewish allies.

- @goblinblogging

#goblin core #goblincore #goblins #political cartoon #antisemitism #tw antisemitism #antisemitism in the middle ages #harry potter goblins #gringotts #lotr goblins #lotr goblin king #everquest 2 goblins #boxtrolls #frozen #disney frozen

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