#The fandom loves traumatized characters and bastard characters

[shikai-the-storyteller]

Every frickin day of my life I mourn the fact that Luzu wasn't able to consistently log onto the QSMP. I mourn the friendships he could've built with people from Day 1, the changes to the story that would've come from it, and I mourn the fact that most fans don't know how insanely good Luzu is at roleplaying, and creating fascinating yet tragic stories.

#i talk #qsmp talk #emo about Karmaland Luzu and emo about the potential for QSMP Luzu #I am rotating particular Thoughts in my head at 100mph #There's so much potential for what could've happened #the relationships that could've formed #the friendships #I am really glad that Phil still speaks so highly of him #but I'm also [skull emoji] because I know those two would've had each other's backs like NOBODY's business #they were made to be besties #also Luzu is a BEAST at pvp and with a bow #He may be miserable in hardcore but he's cracked on servers #anyways. Cubito Luzu my beloved #The fandom loves traumatized characters and bastard characters #they would've had a FIELD DAY with Luzu #I'm still holding out hope that he and Rubius will come back after Twitchcon Vegas but I refuse to expect anything #He did promise though

[houxe]

Regarding my SBI/DSMP Fics

TW: Abuse, Trauma, and Mentions of Suicide.

With all that has happened, I did want to come out here and make my stance clear. I will always stand with Shelby (Shubble) and all of the victims who are speaking out against Will Gold (Wilbur Soot). If you still support that bastard, unfollow me and leave my blog and whatever small community I made.

I've already stated this is my Discord channel, but I want to put it here too.

For me, c!Wilbur is so far removed from cc!Wilbur that I don't connect the two. The characters are vessels for my own characterizations and stories. It's a bit like writing Supernatural*, Twilight, or Hazbin Hotel fanfics. I don't support the guy, monetarily or otherwise, he does not interact with fanfics, I have plans to be very vocal that I'm on Shelby's side no matter what/make it clear that what Will did is wrong, and I don't use his real life events as plots in my stories. At least, I certainly don't try to. It's why I typically change traits about the characters. (I.e. Tommy is shorter, Phil is taller, Techno is bulky, and Wilbur always has golden/hazel eyes.)

I'm aware that it's a tad different because it's rp and not something like a full on book or an actor in a movie, but DSMP has also been over for over two years and the characterizations I make for SBI are not at all based on the CCs. Real life Techno isn't a literal terrorist, Phil ain't a father married to a goddess, Tommy is not a traumatized child soldier, and Wilbur isn't suicidal and blowing up countries.

I think I'll likely focus more on Techno, Tommy, and Phil for a while, but I'm not gonna let one dude ruin a fandom and things I've made for myself. Nothing I write is ever made for Wilbur, as I've seen people saying. Additionally, Wilbur was not the only writer. Technoblade, Philza, TommyInnit, and so many others made that story what it was. Not him.

However, if any CCs come forward saying they don't want their old characters interacting with his, I will respect that.

Though I do think there is a tendency to take real life events (i.e. Techno's cancer, LJ's music, Tommy's real life parents, etc.) and put them into fiction about DSMP. I, however, don't try to do that and have stated before that I don't feel comfortable doing so. The truth is that we have not gotten any genuine SBI content outside of DSMP for years. The dynamic in real life is very different from what was presented in the DSMP. Did personalities still bleed over? Yes, I'm not going to deny that, but I'm not going to act like they're exactly the same between character and person either. We've had that conversation like in 2021, it's why we have C! and CC!.

The rather sad truth is, SBI is what got me really into writing and it's a comfort for me that nothing can compare to. Obviously, I don't think it's appropriate to be writing certain types of stories right now or to be involving characters made by CCs outside of the DSMP. I think it's up to everyone else to decide on what they want to do, however, rushing it also isn't the way to go either. Give yourself time to heal and think it over first instead of throwing away something that gives you comfort and has not been associated with by the creators for over two years.

Anyways, fuck Will Gold. Fuck the fact that he hurt so many people, and fuck that he lied and manipulated his way around the damn internet. ESPECIALLY fuck the fact that he tried to diminish what he did and not take proper accountability.

Go and support Shelby so so much, she and everyone who spoke out really deserve it. I'm glad silence on these types of issues is not being normalized.

Here is a list of (American) resources for DV help:

TNLR

RAINN

WOAR

Love is respect

The Trevor project

Futures without violence

National domestic violence hotline

Resource on what DV and abuse looks like

*Changed it from Harry Potter to Supernatural because Harry Potter is a significantly worse and more problematic franchise, even just within the content of the books. It'd be better left in the dust. I've talked about it before, but it was the first thing that came to my mind at the time and was a poor comparison on my part, I'm truly sorry for that.

#tw abuse #tw suic mention #dream smp #ao3 #fanfic #shelby support #tw trauma

[viterbofangirllovestheuntamed]

So.

According to @demiace-wen-ning​‘s iconic post, every MXTX novel has:

A red/black, morally ambiguous, all-powerful bastard man

A fan wielder who is much more than meets the eye

And a fucking Jiang Cheng

Now we, as a collective fandom, have decided with our communal braincell that in SVSSS, the “fucking Jiang Cheng”™ character is Liu Qingge. And on the surface, this seems Right and Good:

HOWEVER! I posit that these aspects are only the most superficial and external aspects of the vast and multi-layered Dagwood sandwich that is fundamental “fucking Jiang Cheng”™yness. “fucking Jiang Cheng”™ has LAYERS. And for all that I love Liu Qingge, I love him in the same way I love the Sonic franchise’s Knuckles the Echidna:

This is emphatically NOT how I love Jiang Cheng. Furthermore, this is demonstrably NOT the sort of character that a fandom becomes viciously divisive about. This is the sort of character you either like or dislike and move on with your life because he is not deep and complex enough to Die On This Hill for defending. (This is a Feng Xin or Nie Mingjue sort of character.)

So what makes for a “fucking Jiang Cheng”™ character? What are the quintessential “fucking Jiang Cheng”™ characteristics that result in a complex and divisive character? I propose:

ambiguous/unexplained actions

refusal to explain motives

canon selfless actions missed or negatively interpreted

socially over-conscious while still socially detested

harsh and contemptuous outward behavior

honestly, naturally is an asshole, but holds back just enough to get away with it

hard-working but overshadowed by upstart prodigy

childhood trauma that fundamentally affected behavioral patterns

aggressively focused on their cultivation and consequent social status

secretly heartbroken about a perceived betrayal regarding the protagonist

yay, war crimes!

These attributes all describe Jiang Cheng. All but the last one describe Mu Qing, with the second-to-last applying in a way where HE is perceived as the betrayer. None of these attributes describe Liu Qingge. But you know who they DO describe in SVSSS?

Shen Jiu.

The ORIGINAL Shen Qingqiu.

An undeniable asshole who nevertheless gets punished for every good deed he ever did, who clawed and scraped his way to the top of the cultivation world and ensured he stayed there no matter how many bridges he had to burn or enemies he had to make along the way, who acts like a bitter tsundere to the person who matters most to him because said person broke their promise and never explained why, whose childhood was a never-ending parade of trauma and abuse that molded him into a harsh and suspicious individual, who (though we don’t find out until the extras) shows no sexual interest in anyone, whose own path to cultivation was so difficult and traumatic that they could not stop themselves from jealously lashing out at the heaven-blessed prodigy standing right next to them.

Shen Jiu is the TRUE “fucking Jiang Cheng”™ of SVSSS, and I cordially invite any haters to bring it on because this is My Hill and I am ready to fight for it.

#jiang cheng #liu qingge #mu qing #shen jiu #original shen qingqiu #svsss #mdzs #tgcf #comparisons #parallels #mxtx #meta post #MOD'S STUFF #NOT coincidentally this is exactly why shen jiu is my svsss fave after shen yuan's SQQ who is such a hilariously snarky marshmallow

[oonajaeadira]

I'll Leave a Light On For You

Fandom: Bloodsucking Bastards / Max Phillips

Pairing: Max Phillips x f!reader

Reader: Adult female. No other physical descriptors; no use of y/n. (There is a little description, but it’s still you. Believe me, it will make sense. We’re dealing with the supernatural here.)

Rating: T. 

Warnings: Angst. Character death. Allusions to the atrocities of war and its lasting effects. Max is a vampire. Traumatic soul memory. Me assuming I know anything about French culture of the 1930s.

Summary: Max has reservations when it comes to love, and for very good reasons.

A/N: This is my entry for the @pedrostories Secret Santa event. While I played one selfish card in my hand and wrote something of a companion to Light Only Shows You Where the Shadows Are, this can still be read as a standalone.

To my giftee, the amazing and wonderful @artemiseamoon : First of all, I admire you so much and I was really nervous to write for you. But I looked among your generous prompt choices (omgs thank you for so many good choices) and was surprised to find Max as an option. I wasn’t going to choose him at first but then my eye caught “past lives” and something in me zinged. Soul mates, angsty romance, second chance at love… and I’ve been itching to write an angsty Max. I know you are a fan of soft and whump, so all those elements had a party in my heart and here we are. I really hope you’re having a nice holiday and a good time off. Happy Secret Santa, Arte. <3

What we’ve been told is that when you die, your life flashes before your eyes.

That’s almost correct.

The truth is…it’s not just your current life.

It’s all of them.

Max hardly remembers the fear, the pain, the cold of his draining. Even though he knew what was coming, bought into the cult, the human instinct of fight or flight is hard to dismiss no matter how well they’ve been prepped and it was to be expected. But it was a flash in the pan and once he came around to the undead side of things, those pesky human responses were all quickly forgotten.

For a time. Until he saw your light and–

Anyway. Human instincts. Pffft. Adorable. Trading the constant possibility of fear for that of glee, of rapture, of delight? Human instincts are trash. Not to mention their senses, poor suckers. The things they can’t see can’t hear can’t smell can’t taste? Tragic.

If only the feelings weren’t heightened too. It makes some things–some people–hard to ignore–

Feelings were something he could also have done without in his human life–the latest one anyway–and did whatever he could do to avoid.

It wasn’t until he died that he understood why.

As the life drained out of him and the delirium set in, there was a rushing sound, a pull through his soul like the drag of blood from his body, and he was laying, feeble, wailing, bloody and naked among the limbs of his mother.

But not the mother he so recently remembered, the one that showed her approval only when he provided her with some accomplishment worthy of crowing about to her society friends. No, this one was gentle, kind, held him and sang to him, lived her life for him until she died of fever when he was only five years old.

Max saw it all, from within himself and without, remembered the pull of his heart and watched the tears fall down his little face as they nailed his mother’s body in a pine box and put it in a hole at the top of a hill under a tree.

He always imagined he heard her singing to him in the grasses after that.

The world welcomed a new century, and not long afterward, he was a young man, looking to take over his father’s wine fields. But the chance was stolen when an archduke was shot. Max–Pierre, as he was called then–and all of the close friends and cousins he had were thrust into a great war. 

He was the only one to walk out of the fray. And when he came home, he found his father’s fields had been burned and that nothing remained.

That was a dark time. Ten years of looking back rather than looking forward. Ten years–it went by so fast–while he watched the world around him try to repair itself and find its footing again, not realizing that the roots of evil still grew beneath the soil.

He kept his head down and his hands working wherever he could.

But then he met a woman.

And she was Pierre’s life. Max’s life. Before he was Max.

It happened in the winter, just before Noël. And her name was Yaëlle.

Max remembered that before she even told him as he watched the story of this strange old life.

Yaëlle. It means “beautiful one.”

“It also means ‘goat,’” she’d said. “That seems more fitting.” She never thought of herself pretty, and perhaps she wasn’t fashionable and maybe she was stronger than she was dainty, with a weak chin and curly dark hair she couldn’t control. But the light in her eyes when she laughed–and what a laugh, like a little bird–the sway of her hips and the confidence in her carriage, her air of easy care and comfort caught his heart like a surly bear in the prettiest trap.

She’d simply been passing through the marché de Noēl, looking but not stopping, taking the kerchief off her head so the snow could land in her curls, when a child approached her selling buns in the shape of a cross and she gave the child a franc before sitting down at the statue of some cardinal or other in the center of the square.

She could have sat on any of the other benches, but she chose to plonk down next to Max. Next to Pierre.

“You want this?” she asked, offering the bun. “Not really my thing.”

How could she have known he was hungry? That he was lonely? That he was facing the market rather than the river because he was trying not to succumb to his inclinations, a pull to walk out onto the thin ice and let himself be taken by the stream?

He was instantly entranced by her. He felt himself smiling. Something shifted within. A destiny.

“You sure?” he asked.

She peered at him, scrutinized his whole self like she could see a glow around him and was looking for its source.

She found it in his eyes.

“Absolutely. I already ate three hand pies today. The last thing I need is more bread.”

He laughed for the first time in a long while. They talked. He ate.

On Christmas Eve when everyone was at the evening’s mass, she was there again, sitting alone, and this time it was he who had hot food and came to join her on the bench while the night was silent and cold and the stars were twinkling.

It was then that he learned why she was not in church–her folk did not observe Noēl. And she learned why he was not in church–he had lost his faith, that everyone he had ever loved was taken and there were not enough candles in the sanctuary to light for all of them.

“What if I lit one?” she’d asked.

“Who would you light it for?”

“For you. So you don’t have to sit in the dark.” When he was only silent, she said, “You fought in the Great War, didn’t you.” And when he looked away–when he shut her out–she continued. “My husband fought in that war. And he never could find his heart again. He said he loved me, but I don’t think he ever really did, not all the way. But I loved him all the way and when he put an end to his own life I thought I would have to do it too. Instead, I sat in the dark for a long time. It’s something I can see in a person. I can see you’re sitting in the dark.”

They stayed quiet for a time on the bench under the statue of the cardinal and when the church bells started to toll–signaling the magic of the empty square would soon be disrupted by the mass emptying into its streets–she stood and pulled her coat around her.

“My home is down that street, a little one with a red roof. It’s warm and I’ve plenty of hand pies--I made too many. I’ll leave a candle in the window until I’m asleep. You’re always welcome there, Max.”

And then she smiled and turned down the avenue where she’d pointed.

He blinked. Just before she reached the edge of the square he called out, “My name isn’t Max. It’s Pierre.”

She turned and gave a sly wink. “Good to know. I think once you get a belly full of my pies, you’ll let me call you whatever I want.”

He only sat long enough to watch the churchgoers file out of the holy service, many of them with people they loved, humming, happy, cheeks glowing in that way when one steps into a fresh cold world after being an hour or two soaking in the warmth. And once the square was empty again, he stood, gave only a fleeting look to the river, and then walked resolutely down Yaëlle’s street.

A little house with a red roof and a candle in the window.

He stayed for supper and came back many nights after.

And then one night he never left.

Max recalled the rest of that life with a lurking despair. While he couldn’t quite remember how it went, something in him carried it through to the life he’d just left…and he couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was yet.

A few years of joy, of the greatest love he’d felt since his childhood. Like the mother he’d lost, another woman who was gentle, kind, held him and sang to him, lived her life for him until she couldn’t anymore.

They never celebrated Noël as the others did, but in their own way. For a handful of years they would go sit on the bench in the square and hand out pies to their neighbors and anyone who came to join them where they sat. They would listen to the singing in the church and watch the stars scintillate overhead. They would leave their shoes by the fireplace and wake up to find gifts they’d bought for each other with the little francs that they had. And they would never talk about what they would do in the future, because they knew it would be this and that’s all they aspired to and it would be a happy life.

And Max watched Pierre forget about the rot that still ran its roots through the soil.

And one day soldiers came to town when he was out in the fields and they took Yaëlle and some of the other dark-haired, joyful, bird-laughing folk about town and murdered them. By the time he returned for the evening, the soldiers had gone and left him nothing but a ravaged house and a body to bury.

There’s nothing he could have done, the mourning neighbors told him, the tide was rising. If he had fought them, they would have shot him too.

Pierre said that it would have been better that way.

Pierre stopped working in the fields when he started to hear his mother’s voice singing among the grasses again…now joined by Yaëlle’s sweet alto.

He had one more Noël in that life. He drank as much as he could take without falling over and stumbled out to sit on the bench in the square, weeping once the churchgoers had gone. He didn’t say a word, but Max remembered what Pierre was thinking then.

Love hurts too much. It is always taken. It’s not worth the trouble.

And then Pierre fell asleep on that bench and never woke up again.

There wasn’t much time between that first life and this one, maybe a few decades in the dark. Just long enough for a voice to reach him in the void–a voice he knew well and loved with his whole heart for only a short time–to say,

“That was a good first try, Max. Let’s give it another go, okay? Another place, another time, when it’s not so hard. I’ll leave a light on for you.”

____

Max’s life had been shorter this time. But he’d learned a thing or two and kept love at arm’s length. Sex was good and companionship was fine, but he wouldn’t invest in anything that could drain him in an instant and leave him destitute. 

Now power, that could fill the void. 

So when fortune smiled and he was given the choice, he swallowed hard and put his neck to the teeth, traded in his humanity for power that nobody could take away from him…and a heart that had no need for warmth.

He was wrong about that last point though.

And he didn’t even know it until he saw something that humans couldn’t see.

Heard something they couldn’t hear, a long ago and far away voice singing.

Smelled you on the wind.

Followed it to you–a woman, just another human woman–walking out of a bar along some street in the city.

And he saw a light glowing from within you.

You wore another face, another body, but all he saw was you.

Yaëlle.

Beautiful one.

He followed you that night, and several nights after. He was the reason that car swerved before it hit you, the reason you weren’t approached by that seedy guy at the club. He was the reason you kept looking behind you now and then and when you finally saw him–having dinner at the same restaurant, totally by coincidence, you on a friendly outing, him trying to charm a client into a contract–it broke his heart that you did not know him instantly.

He found he was surprised that he still had a heart to break. He’d been so fucking careful.

Max almost gave into the anger, the disappointment. Replayed the pathetic way Pierre let himself be brought down and tried to remind himself not to let himself be broken again.

But then he heard your voice in a way only those who walk in death can.

Let’s give it another go. I’ll leave a light on for you.

____

Heightened feeling is the one drawback of all this power. It’s one thing to latch onto a target, to fixate on some middle manager or accountant or IT specialist until there’s a good time to finally strike. That is an itch that can be satisfied with a well-timed, fear-seasoned, adrenaline-soaked kill.

But love sinks its fangs in and doesn’t let go. It sucks at something that can’t be drained, has no end, can never get enough. It can drive an immortal--a never-ending being of heightened existence--to madness.

There will come a day in the future when you’ll trust him for no good reason, when you’ll understand the monster he is and whisper under your breath against your better judgment, when you’ll invite him in. For dinner.

And he’ll come around again and again.

And then one day, he’ll stay.

And you’ll yawn ask him on the edge of sleep, “Why me? Of all these humans that you could easily enthrall and have without question, why choose this?”

Max will look at you in the darkness and see nothing but your light.

You won’t understand when he puts on a show of an irritated sigh and tells you, “You gave me another chance, sweetmeats,” but you’ll doze in his cold arms, absolutely confident as he is that nothing will ever hurt you again. Including himself.

And that night he’ll stay until you wake.

He won’t have you sit in the darkness alone.

_____

MASTERLIST

CHARACTER MASTERLIST

#pedrostoriesgift23 #pedrostories #bloodsucking bastards #max phillips #max phillips x reader #max phillips x f!reader

[heyhellohihowareyou]

Why “Ball Game Tournament Time” is underrated as hell

BASEBALL EPISODE! BASEBALL EPISODE! Any anime that has a baseball episode in it is bound to get Hailey hooked!

And this one is about her Sugi boy! She’s all for him getting more screentime!

Out of context picture

I’m pretty sure that this was the episode that started the “Jiriki Hongan Revolution” intro (Correct me if I’m wrong) and since it’s tied as my fav AC intro, this episode gets points for starting it!

Baseball fanatic Koro is best Koro!

Anyways, did I mention I love baseball episodes because I love baseball episodes

Found a cute side character with freckles. Appreciate her NOW!

Two very good boys right here!

Kimura gets to do something! We must savor this moment while we still can!

Awww a cute Mimura!

I live for a badass Sugi boy (Even though this one is in Shindo’s head 😅)

Also, start the count for how many times Shindo looks like he’s about the piss himself

Ain’t this such a great episode! 3-E is succeeding and showing the main campus kids what’s what! Boy I sure hope no one ruins-

Bitch. Can you please stay out of my feel good sports episodes and not traumatize people at all? You’re bringing down the vibes man 😕

Well the girlies are back at least! Kind of wish we got to see them play though.

Kayano: “It’s just that the other team had huge jiggly boobs! It made me so made that I couldn’t concentrate!” Kaede sweetie you are not beating the allegations 🩷💜💙

Nothing to say except I like Maehara’s bewildered face

GAKUHOU STOP FUCKING MANIPULATING TEENAGERS FOR FUCK SAKE

I hate the man but those eyes though

Irina: “Aha! I think I get it! So you hit a ball with a stick!” Never change Irina. Never change.

Oh my god EVERYONE SHUT UP RIGHT NOW AND LOOK AT MY BOY!!!

Did I mention that I adore Sugino. Well, I ADORE SUGINO!!!

I swear to god Gakuhou doesn’t have life WHY ARE YOU HERE!?

Also, anyone else felt bad for Shindy this episode? Sure he was sort of a cocky bastard for the first part but man is he put through hell here.

Karmster using his bitch powers to good use (Yes, Karmster is his new name now)

Also this should be a meme template

I saw the glowing red eyes and my first thought was “Baki?”

Nothing to say except that I find Isogai’s little sigh cute

Bewildered Shindy

Gakuhou: “Crack a skull if need be.” Why aren’t you in jail yet?

We love Karmster’s little bitch face

Karmster: “Swing like you’re trying to kill us.” My guy is in distress

Nagisa: “That’s got him pretty shaken up.” Pretty Shaken- MY GUY IS TRAUMATIZED!

Again, poor Shindy. Like seriously get this boy some help.

I’ve caught two bright smiles in one screenshot!

Sugino: “Didn’t mean for things to get so crazy.” Shindy needs to go to therapy

Juuuust Karmster

Hadn’t mention before but I love listening to Sugi’s dubbed voice. For someone who shares a voice actor with the loud mouth that is Katsuki Bakugo his voice is nice to listen to

Sugino: “It was about being proud of my new friends. I wanted to show them off.” Sugino I fucking love you.

Welp that’s it. That was a good ass episode that we as a fandom should talk about more! It’s season 1’s version of leader time to me. In fact it’s part of my top ten favorite episodes of the series (I really need to make a list) I don’t say it that much but Sugino as a character brings me so much serotonin so watching this episode was a joy for me! Combined with the fact that I love baseball this episode was an absolute delight.

I keep forgetting how bad I feel for Shindy boy here. Like, he was just slightly cocky and he ended up getting manipulated left and right. Seriously, I wouldn’t be surprised if he ended up having nightmares about the 3-E students sniping him in his sleep or something.

Anyways, like I said. This is a good episode and we should really discuss it more. We should discuss Sugino more. DISCUSS THE BOY! <—— Barely discusses the boy in question

#This fandom as a habit of adopting obscure characters #So has anyone taken Shindy yet? #If not then I volunteer! #assassination classroom #ansatsu kyoushitsu #assclass #tomohito sugino #gakuhou asano #kazutaka shindo #karma akabane #episode rundown #< That’s what I’ll start calling these things now

[jackoshadows]

There is a section of fandom who think that Eddard Stark not treating Arya like Randyll Tarly treated Sam is favoritism. If they had their way, what Ned should have done is pack Arya off to the silent sisters like Randyll send Sam to the Wall. One would expect such opinions from the denizens of Westeros, not from the so called feminists of the asoiaf fandom. 

Even more mindboggling is that this very same section of fandom are also Jonsa shippers who think that, growing up in Winterfell, Jon Snow had a crush on 10/11 year old Sansa and fell in love with her because she was just so beautiful!!

Imagine reading the books and thinking on the one hand that Ned showed favoritism to Arya and on the other writing about how Jon Snow admired and loved Sansa. Just looking at the numbers alone of Arya/Sansa mentions by Ned Stark and Jon Snow:

Imagine looking at the numbers above and thinking that Ned showed favoritism while Jon lurves Sansa soooo much! Keep in mind that the rare Sansa mentions in Jon’s POV happens when he groups her together with his other siblings or when he groups her with Arya when they are in KL. Jon has never, not once over 42 POV chapters in 5 books mentioned Sansa by herself with any emotional weight.

If they think that Ned showed favoritism to Arya - which is canonically untrue -  then I find it baffling they are shipping Sansa with a character like Jon Snow who does canonically show favoritism towards Arya over all his siblings and thinks that Arya is the pinnacle of femininity. Jon Snow would trample all over Sansa without a second thought if it meant getting to Arya and saving her. That’s how much he favors one sister over the other.

While Jon agonized over Arya’s marriage and has two kings trying to save his sister, canonically he does not even spare a thought, not even one single thought of concern or worry - over Sansa’s marriage, situation and current status.

Jon Snow has canonically showed disdain for girls like Sansa, while comparing every girl he admires, appreciates and loves with Arya.

Lady Catelyn always wanted her to be like Sansa, to sing and dance and sew and mind her courtesies. - Arya, ASoS

Her mother used to say she could be pretty if she would just wash and brush her hair and take more care with her dress, the way her sister did. - The Blind girl, ADwD

Help me, she prayed, send me a friend, a true knight to champion me - Sansa, ACoK

A warrior princess, he decided, not some willowy creature who sits up in a tower, brushing her hair and waiting for some knight to rescue her. - Jon, ADwD

It was all Jon could do to stop himself from walking out. Was he supposed to churn butter and sew doublets like a girl for the rest of his days? "May I go?" he asked stiffly. - Jon, AGoT

Imagine shipping Sansa with a character like Jon Snow and then writing essays about how Sansa was traumatized by Ned’s favoritism towards Arya and that she was bitter about Ned and that Ned groomed Sansa and abused Sansa etc.

If Sansa was so bitter about Ned’s favoritism towards Arya, why in the world would she love or even like the bastard Jon Snow who quite clearly favors her ‘unsatisfactory’ little sister Arya over her? Amirite? There’s clearly some kind of disconnect going on here....

#ASoIaF #Arya Stark #Sansa Stark #Ned Stark #Jon Snow #fandom nonsense #asoiaf fandom wank

[bestworstcase]

Hello and good day. I hope that this isn't too much to ask, but what are your thoughts about Adam? It has always been my belief that Adam and Yang are mirrors to each other. Well, Adam has a lot of things to connect with Team RWBY, moreso with Yang, I think. Just wanted to hear your thoughts about Adam, I guess. Thank you.

i rattle him around in my brain from time to time. a lunar eclipse. he and yang are absolutely character foils; power vs strength, cruelty vs compassion, spite vs love, revenge vs justice. he refuses to control his temper, yang is defined by her meticulous control over her anger. moonslice and burn are almost the exact same semblance, even. a dark mirror.

he’s also doing… something… thematically salient to summer rose. which is what i’m picking over in that linked post. i’m not sure what it is yet but the setup is pretty evident.

tbh i think the narrative is far more sympathetic to him than most of the fandom cares to admit. the triumph and vindication burns bright when adam realizes he’s lost in V5 and runs away—that’s the moment where the narrative framing is like “fuck yeah, the bastard got what he deserved.” but when he dies? there’s just exhaustion, pain, and relief that yang and blake survived. it’s not played as a proud or happy moment. it just sucks so much that they had to go through this ordeal and it’s pitiable that he chose to waste his life on this. blake breaks down crying and all she and yang can do for a moment is cling to each other.

like. -> “there’s no cause to celebrate/another soul consumed by hate and spite/another destroyed life/there’s no pleasure, there’s no joy/it’s just the story of a boy who lost his way/into shadows strayed/he’ll see the light of day/nevermore”

he chose over and over and over again to be cruel, letting his anger rule him. chose to be vindictive, chose to pursue vengeance over justice. chose to hurt people. every time he was offered an out, he refused to take it and brutally punished the people who gave him second chances. sienna, blake, yang. in the end, he left blake and yang with no other choice but to kill him before he killed them. but… the narrative still mourns the person he could have been, if he’d made better choices, if the world had been kinder to him.

there is no question that blake and yang made the right call. they did everything they possibly could to avoid killing him, and they had every right to defend themselves when he refused to stop.

BUT,

it’s sad that they were forced to do that. it still weighs on blake’s conscience as a terrible ordeal and a choice she never wants to have to make again. because killing another person—no matter the circumstances—is horribly traumatizing. and that’s why the narrative refuses to frame his death as a triumphant moment. (the same thing happens with jacques’ murder in V8: it’s sudden and shocking and unjust and there is zero satisfaction in watching him die. and it’s terribly unfair to weiss, who specifically chose not to leave him to die. rwby is a story where every life matters and every death is sad.)

great character. the final battle between him and blake/yang is done really well and one of my favorite fights in the show mostly bc it brings the foiling between him and yang into really sharp focus. “what does she even see in you?” is such a raw fucking line because the things blake sees in yang are exactly the things she once saw in adam: he’s so consumed by his obsession his vengeance his spiteful rage, he’s strayed so far from the person he was that he can’t even recognize her when she’s staring him in the face.

i do think that when adam was 16-17 at the very start of his character short, he was genuinely a lot like yang. angrier and more aggressive, because his mentor encouraged him to be that way, but i think his ideals were true and his commitment to the cause of his people was genuine.

he was only a kid the first time he killed someone—sixteen, seventeen, about the right age to be enrolling in one of the huntsmen academies. and i truly do not think he meant to kill that man; he saw a dangerous person running towards his already-wounded leader with a gun and reacted. and this?

this is a lot.

no matter the circumstances, killing another person is traumatizing. after this happens, adam slowly straightens up and sheathes his weapon, then just stands there frozen, staring at the body, until the other assailants make noise and he startles. his face falls when ghira says “that wasn’t necessary.” he’s slow to turn around, but he does, and he listens quietly to what ghira has to say to him. he didn’t mean to. he can’t be older than seventeen. he is in shock—he doesn’t know how to react, how to feel, and like any teenager would, he looks to trusted adults for guidance. (much like yang looks to ironwood and qrow after she hurts someone by mistake.) ghira starts to scold him (not ideal), but sienna cuts him off and calls adam a hero, and then everybody starts to fucking cheer; “that was amazing!!”

this moment, while adam was reeling and unsure, this is when adam desperately needed to hear from an adult in the middle. ghira is right that using lethal force wasn’t necessary; sienna is also right that adam likely saved ghira’s life by taking action. what adam really needed to hear was “you were right to take action, but this man was not such a grave threat that he needed to die. why did you react the way you did?”—not to be scolded or lionized, but to be treated like a teenager who made a bad choice for a good reason and given support and understanding so that next time, he would know what to do better.

instead he got swamped with praise and the came away from this experience having learned that Killing Humans is Cool and Awesome and Heroic, Actually.

(i have a secondary thought here that the white fang’s fatal weakness—under both ghira and sienna—is treating children like adults. if adam had been an adult when this happened, he wouldn’t have been so dependent on his mentor and his leader to guide his reaction and an adult would be better equipped to hold “that wasn’t necessary” and “he saved your life” as non-contradictory ideas. similarly, ghira and kali respecting blake’s decision to stay with the now expressly militant white fang when they left sounds great until you remember that she was twelve years old at the time and then they didn’t contact her in any way for the next five years. it is… probably not a coincidence that adam’s splinter group skews young.

not that teens can’t be good activists but good activism does require pragmatism and emotional maturity and an understanding of nuance, and if you throw a teenager into a high-stress organization where they’re involved in often-violent direct action and give them zero guidance beyond “here’s how to fight!” because they’re assumed to have adult-level maturity and critical reasoning, then… yeah, you’re going to end up with an extremism problem. the kids are not going to just magically know the difference between tactical violence and violent revenge.)

anyway, i really like his character short. i think the narrative is very sympathetic to the boy he used to be and the thread of sienna inadvertently enabling and reinforcing his violent tendencies is interesting. my sense is that in the beginning she sort of used adam to score a point against ghira in their clash of opinions over the direction of the white fang, and later made a habit of being overly indulgent with him and turning a blind eye to his excessive violence—like.

during the fight in the SDC building, sienna rips through the AKs just as ruthlessly as he does, but once the human security personnel arrive, her tactics immediately change. she uses her whip to snag a man’s gun and yank it out of his hands, flicks bullets away, disarms, trips, disarms, trips, disarms, trips. the only time she uses the bladed dart, it’s to disable her opponent’s weapon. meanwhile adam is hacking and slashing behind her. she stops him when he moves to kill an man who’s disarmed and on the ground. faced with living opponents, sienna holds back and fights strictly to disarm. adam is not like that, and she knows it and presumably doesn’t approve—she doesn’t kill anyone herself, and intervenes to stop him from killing—but it’s also clear that there were never like. Consequences. she never took him to task for crossing these lines. as his leader she had a responsibility to do so, but she kept letting it slide until it was too late.

(tbh i think the biggest disappointment i feel regarding her death is well never find out why she cut adam so much slack. did she want to believe he was better than that? had she known him for so long that her memories of what he was like as a teenager blinded her to the adult he was becoming? was it that she found him too useful or realized he was too popular to chastise, finding herself in the same trap she once sprung on ghira? did she, like blake, convince herself it was just “accidents” or “getting carried away” and ignore the warning signs that it was a deliberate pattern? was she like the albains, fully aware that he was dangerous and unstable but confident that she could control him? there’s so many possible reasons she might have had and i think it’s unfortunate that her motives and her side of the relationship didn’t get explored at all.)

also this is stupid and doesn’t matter really but he’s not a fucking bull 😭 those are goat horns. he’s a goat. A GOAT!!

[kairiscorner]

I couldn't get the link to copy, so here's my first (and probably terrible) attempt at doing an image ID

A light mode tweet by aphorafterdark[black heart emoji]🔞. It reads: "It's possible to ruin a fictional man's pussy AND do an intellectual deep dive into his character trauma and motivations, and I'm sick of seeing takes implying that us horny bastards aren't also serious scholars of a canon." The tweet has 1,932 retweets, 175 quote retweets, and 5,559 likes. End ID

I hope this helps

OHHHH THANKS !! lmao yeah miggy does have the right to be horrified 😭😭😭 i'm sorry if this isn't what you asked for, but i do hope you enjoy it !!

original ask: "So you know that screenshot of a tweet that complains about horny fans not being taken seriously by the rest of the fandom? So my idea is this: a y/n who's from a universe where Miguel and the like are fiction, and she's scrolling through her dash when Miguel walks past and sees it. He's slightly horrified, and his reaction's absolutely hilarious for y/n who isn't even fazed by the screenshot. IDK if this is completely in your boundaries, but since the iffy stuff is only mentioned, it shouldn't hurt to ask. If you're not comfortable doing it, could you point me in the direction of an author who is?"

(reblogs are greatly appreciated, it helps get my content out there! if you guys like what you see, please reblog it too <:D)

content warnings! mild mentions and suggestions of... not so family-friendly stuff ^^

"what in the–puta madre, what is that?" miguel asks as he squints and asks lyla to fetch his reading glasses for him. the AI summons them immediately on his desk and he scrambles for them as he looks at what you showed him on your phone. you chuckled at miguel's reaction, it was just like yours when you first happened upon tweets of people from all kinds of dimensions that know about the dimension you and the others lived in, it's just that to these netizens, you guys were fiction–imaginary works.

you happened upon them again as you went through your feed, and miguel glanced over at what you were looking at because you chuckled a little at the tweet. he got curious, and because you were such a nice friend, you showed it to him all nonchalantly. "'i want miguel o'hara to blank me in the blank until i memorize every vein, until my uterus is the shape of his blank, until i see different galaxies, and comfort him about his traumas. i can psychoanalyze this motherfucker while giving him the best head ever'–what the fuck is wrong with these... ay, puta." he read aloud as you erupted in peals of laughter.

"man, earth-1218 is crazy. i love how much they love you, miggy." you teased him as miguel tiredly walked over to his desk and muttered to lyla if him finding that tweet and all these forms of suggestive, horny, perverted yet somehow sympathetic, comforting, and rational media out there on the internet of earth-1218 is a canon event, to which she said, "big shock yeah man, it had to happen."

miguel sighed as you found even more interesting things on your feed, and all of it was about miguel's less traumatic, but still very horrifying, canon event of discovering internet people want to fuck with and discuss all about his character. "am i just that, a character on a screen, on a comic book for these... desperate, horny, yet so... insightful people?" he asked underneath his breath as you showed lyla some interesting 18+ art if him. "looks like they tried to get it right, though i know you're... a lot bigger than that." "not another word." he said as he said as he ran a hand across his face and sighed deeply.

looks like he won't be visiting earth-1218 for a while.

tags !! @miguelswifey04 @binibinileonara @fiannee @jrrantss @fictarian @yuridopted0 @luvstarrstruck @maxoloqy

#miguel o'hara #miguel o'hara x reader #miguel o'hara x you #miguel o'hara x y/n #miguel o'hara fanfiction #atsv #atsv miguel #spiderman 2099 #atsv x reader #atsv x you #atsv x y/n #atsv imagines #spiderman across the spiderverse #spiderman across the spiderverse x reader #spiderman across the spiderverse imagines

[chrkrose]

I’m gonna catch heat for this, but I’m gonna say it anyway:

The Velaryions should have stayed white and racebending them was a racist decision disguised as representation.

I can’t expand on this without giving away spoilers, so read more.

As a black latina woman (giving y’all my credentials before anything else), since it was announced the Velaryons wouldn’t be white, I didn’t like it. Which was a conflict for me because hellow, of course I love to see shows where the characters aren’t all two shades of beige.

But the racebending of the Velaryons was made the for the sake of appearances only, and the lack of real representation inside the writer’s room is clear in the ramifications of what this decision brings to the table. To add more salt to the injury, racebending them absolutely undermines the original narrative’s essence.

Valyrians are white, and this plays a significant role in the story.

The reason why this is annoying the hell out of me is because spoilers suggests that Addam Velaryon (Corlys Velaryon’s bastard) won’t have his Valyrian white-silver hair. So to anyone else’s eyes, he is a black man with no blood of Valyria running through his veins.

Which means that Nettles and her entire arc is severely compromised, because a lot of her story is based on the points that:

she is the only black character with a crucial role to play in The Dance and

she has no Valyrian looks.

Nettles journey lies in her distinctiveness: she is a black woman who lacks typical Valyrian features. The narrative emphasizes her experiences with racism from the white Valyrian families, who consider themselves divine. It is IMPORTANT that this happens to her.

Yet, the showrunners chose to racebend the Velaryons, and by doing that, took away from the experiences and uniqueness of Nettles and her story. And what happened when they changed their race? They treat the Velaryons like shit.

And I can’t help but think it’s because they are, now, black.

The only conclusion I can infer from this is that the choice of changing the Velaryon from white to black was solely for appearance’s sake, because the writers clearly not only don’t know how to write for black characters, they also surely have the biased view that a character once turned black will definitely lack in comparison to a white one. What the Velaryons got in return for being black was their storylines made worse, as if they don’t deserve the same treatment now they are no longer white characters.

An example is Laena Velaryon.

Laena went from being universally acknowledged as the woman Daemon Targaryen truly loved/loved the most by the fandom before the show aired (because funny enough they ignore the existence of Nettles, which is a whole other topic for discussion)… to become “second best”, to be portrayed as a secondary choice, feeling inadequate and as if she would never be enough in comparison to the white thin woman. Her death was changed from a sad bittersweet scene between herself and her husband to a violent traumatic scene where she suffered until the very end.

And now, if Addam Velaryon indeed has absolutely no Valyrian traits whatsoever to his physical appearance, then what this changes will mean is that the sole canonical black dragon rider in the entire lore of ASOIAF, who endured racism and discrimination due to her non-Valyrian looks, will be stripped away from several key aspects of her story. Nettles distinctiveness is minimized, and the absence of Valyrian traits in one of the Velaryons further erodes the significance of her narrative.

Nettles’ importance is already being downplayed in certain discussions across several HoTD boards. Nettles “isn’t that special anymore, is it even necessary to have her in the story” and “you can’t say that rhaenyra is racist because she married Laenor, Addam will be her ally according to several spoilers, it makes no sense. The maesters lied to make Rhaenyra look bad”. In an effort to make the white Targaryen family (and the white Targaryen woman) more appealing and palatable to the public, they stripped away the only canonical black character of important plot points in her story, all to prevent the Targaryens from coming off as antagonists.

Like I said before, the fact that Targaryens and Valyrians in general are white is important to the narrative. Their whiteness encapsulates their sense of racial superiority. Black characters never get to have their own “I’m special” moment, they never get to have a hero journey like white characters often do, and then we have a story where a black character has exactly that, where her story arc mirrors the ones often given to the white heroes, in all of its tropes and awesome achievements… and that gets stripped away from that black character as much as possible just so your show looks diverse? (Although we know the real answer: it’s so your white characters don’t come off as shitty as they are in the original story).

#I’ve been sitting with this for a long long time #but I’m tired of having to be grateful for ‘representation’ that causes more harm than good #and having to pretend I’m happy when in reality I’m seeing one of the only black characters in the entire lore at risk of being fucked over #so yeah #I said what I said

[ignitesthestxrs]

assassin's apprentice by robin hobb (review? thoughts?? experience???)

Sometimes you read a book and are reminded of all the reasons you loved a genre when you were a teenager.

I love an unfolding - a book that is character-focused, but considers a character's place in the world to be a part of that. We learn about the world we're in, the magic and the social structure and the political situation, from the way these things relate to Fitz, and the way Fitz relates to them.

Magic (the Wit) is tucked naturally into the narrative voice, because to Fitz, it is natural - like thinking, like breathing. Any terms he uses relating to it (repelling, questing) are presented like they're terms he came up with himself, rather than a Magic System or Special Abilities - not that I don't also love a magic system, but it can be grating at times, to be asked to memorise the rules of a game before you get to play. Hobb plants Fitz firmly in the middle of his own experience, and the reader there with him.

Any additional information is provided by the voice of an older Fitz, writing the openings of each chapter with both the knowledge of hindsight, and the withholding of that knowledge. We get enough detail to elaborate, without infodumping. The world is allowed to be bigger than young Fitz's experience of it, while still being firmly rooted in the character. The reader grows as Fitz does, and there are enough hooks of interest - Fitz's parentage, the introduction of new characters and new dilemmas, the steadily growing threat that is being a royal bastard - that I'm inclined to let the book take its time winding through the plot. The point is Fitz - we're interested in what's happening, because it's happening to him.

Reading a book written in the 90s in 2023 is a weird kind of time-travel. We can put the book in the context of its contemporaries, and we also have a lot more information about the series (serieses?) that contain it, and the perspective of the author. Was the queer reading of the Wit as slap-in-the-face obvious in 1995 as it is today? I was 3 years old, I couldn't say. Reading it now, it seems obvious, even intentional - but that same Additional Context means that we also have the authorial protests to the contrary. I came to the series curious about this disparity between author and audience - having seen enough excerpts from the books (this one and later entries in the series) to slowly drive me insane (as an outsider!), it was clear that fandom was picking up on some kind of vibe from the text, but also, fandom is fandom. We love a ship.

The thing that struck me about this first book is that the queer reading exists outside of the Fitz/Fool dynamic. I'm aware that this dynamic uh, intensifies in later books, but in this first entry in the series, the queerness comes directly from Fitz alone. A young boy who connects with the world in a way he can't articulate to other people, who gets clocked by someone who knows what his Difference looks like, whose foundational experience with even this small-circle outing is traumatic and horrifying and is not made any less so by the fact that it was done out of an urge to 'protect' him. His Difference, textually, on the page, makes him less of a man, is comparable to bestiality.

Beyond all of that, the thing I found most resonant is the obvious love between Fitz and Burrich, his guardian-figure who wants him to suppress his affinity for the Wit. This particular heartbreak is a familiar queer experience, and the book doesn't pull its punches - again and again and again, Fitz seeks welcome, comfort, safety, acceptance from Burrich, even after (he believes) having unspeakable violence inflicted upon him as a direct result of his 'otherness'. Burrich is clearly shown to love, care for, and protect Fitz - but he cannot get over his fear and disgust of the Wit. He loves Fitz in spite of, not as well as, this difference. There are distinct moments in the book where it seems as though Burrich might be able to see things from Fitz's experience, might be ready to accept Fitz as he is - but he can't.

This experience of being loved as though your difference is something distinct from your person, like it can be excised from you and set aside, is one of the quiet devastations of being queer. The 'hate the sin not the sinner' version of tolerance, articulated via fantasy metaphor. Burrich is horrified to realise that Fitz thought he was capable of killing an animal because of his disgust, only understanding after many years that the kind of fear and digust he has exhibited towards the Wit is personal, does exist on the same level of abject hatred and rejection as murder. And even then, he can't move past it. He stares the consequences of his bigotry in the face, understands that it has made his ward fear him, understands that the lens he has viewed their relationship through all these many years has been clouded, understands that he made a monster of himself in Fitz's eyes, and he still can't change.

I don't think queer readings have to be blessed or even acknowledged by the author, and I don't think they even have to exist in the text for us to take the characters and themes out and play around with them. But there does exist this sweet spot of interpretation where the reading is there. Situations where Death of the Author slides neatly into play, where you take a story and wrap it around yourself and declare 'this one's for me, actually', and it simply doesn't matter what the intent was, because the text is there.

The book is not like, Gay Representation (TM), and I don't think it's something that should get credit or applause for its queer reading. But I also don't think queer readings are about credit or applause. My queer reading is based on me, as a queer person, reading queerness into the text of a work, of encountering art that resonates with my own queer experience. The book builds on this reading, supports it, threads it into the worldbuilding and the plot and the character relationships. Fitz's experience with the Wit is meaningful and fleshed out and a part of who he is, and the resonance with a queer experience improves the experience of the book without leaving me feeling baited, or pandered to, or kind of hollow.

Obviously I don't think this is an experience that everyone can or should have when encountering the book, but for me, it fucking hit. I'm glad I did this book to myself, am looking forward to throwing myself into a 16 book hole.

#the farseer trilogy #han reads #book recs #rote #rote spoilers #realm of the elderlings

[beevean]

🗝️ favorite antagonist?

I'm assuming from AA since we share the fandom :)

I love Dahlia. In a series where most villains are people in power, and we escalated from legendary prosecutors to chiefs of police to TV celebrities that hire assassins to international spies to straight up queens... Dahlia is just a normal woman. A woman so consumed by bitterness against everyone in her life that she spreads misery wherever she goes. A woman so determined to get her way that she cheated death out of spite. A woman who, in her sloppiness to cover up after herself, killed her step-sister, manipulated her "boyfriend" to kill himself on the stand, poisoned another man into a coma, traumatized her cousin, killed her ex to make him shut up, nearly poisoned her new boyfriend out of annoyance, and nearly killed her other cousin in the body of her mother/her own aunt. It's not like Von Karma or Ga'ran whose actions got the biggest consequences due to their reach: Dahlia simply would not stop. And this is not accounting for all the emotional cruelty she displays, like reveling in the idea that Maya might have killed herself because it makes Phoenix suffer. She's not a magnificent bastard the likes of von Karma and Kristoph Gavin, but her sheer hatred makes her a memorable foe.

AA uses the "sweet woman is secretly a bitch" trope a lot, ever since April May. But Dahlia goes above and beyond because she is genuinely scary. Yeah her spirit form is one of the creepiest moments in the OG trilogy, but this sprite alone

gives me chills. You know she is seething, but you don't see a thing, she's standing there, unmoving. It's worse than her white death glare, or her sneer.

And she has some badass lines too, like "And my profession? Permanently retired". (she apparently died a painful death, too...) Or man, how her first testimony in 3-5 after she revealed herself has her theme! And speaking of which, Distant Traces of Beauty is a beautiful piece that conveys so many emotions depending on the context! It sounds both sweet and empty. How do you do that?

Her design is 10/10 too. Her giant moe eyes look almost uncanny with how big and black they are (going by her original sprite, not the HD one). She's so pink and frilly, but her sash is floating, which is both unnatural and makes her look like a butterfly (I think they used this concept again for Nahyuta, but they could make it flutter for him lol). The red hair is... admittedly a bit of a tired trope to indicate an evil character lol, but considering that her entire family is made of black-haired people and some brunettes, it makes you wonder if she deliberately dyed her hair to distance herself from her mother's clan, that person who deemed her worthless...

also I just love this animation. it's neat. T&T has some great spritework.

Ah, I could go on. I love her. Fucked up evil woman with a tragic past that doesn't even begin to excuse all the awful things she has done 🥰 she deserved being roasted into oblivion 🥰

oh yeah simon keyes is also a fave of mine for similar reasons as to dahlia, except he didn't even personally hurt anyone. a king

#ace attorney #dahlia hawthorne #trials and tribulations #i know you don't like many of the aa antagonists and that's fair #but i need to gush about dahlia lol one of my fave unrepentant female villains #even her name is brilliant #both in japanese and in english

[psychewritesbs]

Chapter 219: Bath, part 4—Inner evil

Cursed JJK Sunday. There’s only two types of JJK Sundays--cursed or happy. Today is a cursed JJK Sunday and this has been the week from hell.

Let’s taco about it under the cut.

Anyways. Here comes a tangent!

Megumi this chapter.

Man, I was wondering how Gege was going to move the plot along back into tragedy and deep angst territory, and there you have it. I have to admit that, while some in fandom haven’t liked how he’s been manipulating the mood, I’ve quite enjoyed it. 

It’s just that, in retrospect, what’s happened and the absurdly comical way it’s been executed so that it culminated with one of JJKs Top Depresing AF Moments, is something that I vibed with a lot.

The journey of utter ridiculousness, as per usual, served a purpose for my brain. After all, what’s more depressing than unnecessary tragedy?

So it hit really hard to see Megumi in a state of shock and in the fetal position. I literally shed tears when I saw the panels.

I may be totally projecting here but ever since chapter 216, Megumi has been shown as increasingly infantile. Almost as if his ego is regressing to early stages of emotional development or as though certain emotions experienced in his early life have been triggered.

So when I see Megumi curled up in a fetal position, I can’t help but think of Megumi metaphorically going into a womb-like space, the mother in all of her unconscious glory.

Learned helplessness

And this is such a relevant pose for a character like Megumi who already had to overcome his own limiting idea of himself.

I don’t know how to put it into words without turning this into a conversation about how emotional trauma gets stored in the body (the unconscious) and how it severely limits our sense of self without our conscious knowledge of the fact.

But anyways, watch me overpsychologize the whole thing by saying that learned helplessness is an insidious emotion that directs our thinking and behavior in the form of self-fulfilling prophecy.

So, again, to see Megumi like this, it almost feels like he’s being held back by his own sense of self and that he’s given up on himself.

In other words, he’s not even trying to win by dying, but rather gave up fighting by metaphorically dying.

What’s interesting is the idea that “after taking his sister Tsumiki’s life, Fushiguro’s soul sinks into the abyss”. Perhaps it really just comes back to seeing his body act without his conscious will in ways that are harming others, more specifically the one person he wanted to protect most.

But I much prefer the idea that Megumi can’t tell the difference between Sukuna as evil, and the evil within--Megumi as evil. Whatever that looks like and however Gege executes, if he indeed executes like this.

Anyways, Spooky wrote about it and I wanted to add some thoughts to their post because there’s so much symbolism and Jungian shadow metaphors at play with Megumi right now... Spooks, I promise I am on it.

But all of this brings me full circle to...

The Gospel of Sukuna

Sukuna continues to appall me with his inhumanity and his cruelty. 

And this is so weird to say as the weirdo who infamously published an ode to Sukunaism and the gospel of Sukuna, and then went ahead and hailed it as the way of the highway.

It’s just that, from my perspective, this whole battle sequence against Yorozu has been nothing but an attempt at traumatizing Megumi. Like, yes, it’s obvious because he said he was after Tsumiki’s life in order to sink Megumi. 

What I mean more specifically is that the latest chapters showed us the lengths Sukuna will go to in order to achieve his goal and I wonder whether Sukuna could have killed Yorozu from the start but instead delayed doing so because he knows Megumi is watching. So he toyed with Yorozu to hurt Megumi and like... I love Sukuna but he’s such a selfish and cruel bastard.

And this is the thing... I want to reject Sukuna’s evil so bad ever since he took  Megumi and left Yuji behind in shambles. 

I hate it. 

He’s just an awful, inconsiderate and right out evil being. That’s the whole point of Sukuna, right?

So I want to denounce his selfishness and say “no, fuck him, I’m leaving the church of Sukuna, he can find another social media manager! I will not stand by his cruelty”

But I can’t because to denounce Sukuna is to denounce a part of me. There is, after all, a little bit of Sukuna in everyone. Every single human being has a propensity for evil inside of them and I am, of course, not the exception.

Sukuna is the kind of mind free from reason to the point that it is divorced from personal responsibility to the collective. True evil. The completely pathological and utter lack of empathy for another living being and their suffering in favor of self-gratification.

Recently I watched a documentary about a girl who would have grown up to be a serial killer as a result of the abuse she experienced as a child. The abuse, the documentary argued, resulted in her inability to develop empathy for others, which in turn translated in anti-social behavior like hurting her brother and defenseless animals.

But I think it’s also easy to think of evil in grandiose terms such as something we encounter in extreme cases like the example I mention above, or even hell or something that other people do. Not us, never us. 

It is far easier to look at evil as some distant trait that is foreign to our sense of self than it is to accept that the many micro-aggressions we commit on an everyday basis can also be considered evil. Micro-aggressions that are pure instinct devoid from reason.

Like, for those of you who play around in twitter, how many hateful posts are you exposed to on a daily basis? Name calling, putting other people down, hating... how is that any different from Sukuna? 

Oh, of course, most people aren’t mass murderers.

To denounce Sukuna is to denounce the totality of your Self. It means to repress inner evil so deep into your shadow where all it can do is fester until it takes a mind of its own and seeks an outlet--like harassing others on twitter over a disagreement of opinion.

So anyways, Gege’s brand of hurt and self-hate is something else entirely.

He’s worse than those women from CLAMP if I’m honest.

For those who’ve read CLAMP, then you know their stories can be very depressing and that Okawa Nanase, the group’s writer, hurts her characters with calculated abandon.

It’s fascinating to say the least.

But not Gege. 

Gege is cruel and perhaps no one reflects that quite as well as Sukuna does.

Anyways...

To anyone who reads, thank you as always and looking forward to your thoughts and comments if you have any that you’d like to share. 

If you’ve sent me an ask I promise I am working on answering you and thank you as always for your patience.

#jjk ch 219 #god I love jujutsu kaisen

[windsweptinred]

10 Characters/10 Fandoms /10 Tags

Thank you for the tag @two-hands-toward-the-sun, this took me on a deep delve of my fandom past! Time to roll out my gaggle of glorious bastards again...

1. Ken Ichijouji - Digimon 02

Babies first blorbo. Puppy kicking, whip weilding antagonist who giveth not a shiteth. With a soul as black as his gloriously groomed locks. Who, by the power of love is transformed into the soggiest little puddle of twink you ever did see. Tragic backstory ✔️ A smorgasbord of issues ✔️ A realtionship with their rival/best friend so obbsessive, you're going to have a harder time proving this ship isn't a thing than it is. ✔️ Ken Ichijouji came with everything a young, naive millennial needed to make their first glorious steps into the world of fandom.

2. Ryou Bakura/Yami Bakura/Theif King Bakura - (Same body, they count as one!) Yu-Gi-Oh

Ryou Bakura - Adorable British cupcake with the soul of a traumatised lovecraftian cultist. Staring into the abyss while having afternoon tea. Gothic horror in a cream knit.

Yami Bakura - Actual murder floof, the walking personification of a horror podcast. In his wake trails body gore, supernatural mystery and gay subtext. Part demon, part Egyptian theif, 100% bringing sexy back. (bonus points: Florence)

Thief King Bakura - Traumatic back story maketh homicidal rogue. Wears red, has a social circle made up of ghosts and snake monsters... Is this not prime husband material?

3. Starscream - Transformers

Darling little duplicitous second in command of the Decepticons. Not just any 'Little Shit', THE 'Little Shit'. Simulatiously the dumbest and cleverest bot in any room. And that, my friends, takes a particular breed of talent. Negative traits, scheming, petty, fabulous. Postive traits, scheming, petty, fabulous. Repetitive attempts to off Megatron, play of either the power or fore variety. Not sure which, could be both.

4. Darth Maul/ General Armitage Hux- Star Wars

I will not and cannot choose a favourite between them. Instead, watch with wonder and awe as I neatly compress them into the same blurb...

Sad meow meow with self-worth issues does galactic war crimes to prove 'daddy' wrong. What do you mean my fixation with thwarting my archnemeis can't be classed as a hobby/career goal/life ambition? My voice can launch a thousand ships... Different circumstances, same truth. Such a pathetic little sausage, you'll want to sit them down and feed them soup. But they know atleast 101 ways to kill you with the spoon... So best not risk it.

5. Crowley - Supernatural

The diabolical king of cunt serving. Me and my athletic calves are doing this right thing for all wrong reasons...And you can't prove other wise! Alignment: Risk it for a biscuit. Four step program to deal with all life's problems: 1: flirt at it, 2: shout at it, 3: throw (please pick your chosen Winchester or, if pushed, tailor) at it. 4:... Yell bollocks and follow with a whiskey chaser.

6. Desire/Destiny of the Endless - The Sandman

Again, not picking. Desire, my darling little hell kitten. Destiny, my inglorious bastard in brown...

This is my world, you MFs all just live in it!

My emotions... Which I do not have, are the route cause of everyone else's problems.

Ah humanity, the dust bunnies upon which I sneeze.

Even in a glorified bathrobe, I'm still better then you, and you know it.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that Dream of the Endless is a f*cking dumb ass.

7. Remy Lebeau (Gambit) - Xmen, Marvel Comics

Marvel looked at their collection of motley mutant misfits. And realised they had a morally dubious, disaster bi shaped hole to fill... And there Remy Lebeau has been for for 30 slutty, slutty years and counting. Sex in fushia pink spandex. Single handily keeping thievery in Americas top 50 kinks. Slowly exhausting the world's supply of playing cards... Must be considered a traitor to the cause atleast once a decade to keep his street cred. Must be considered a secret Summers brother atleast once a decade to keep his ego in check.

8. Jonathan Crane (Scarecrow) - Batman (DC)

Scythe wielding, reigning and defending Trick or treat world champion since 1941. The physical attributes of a Giacometti sculpture with the rustic aesthetic of the folk horror genre. Grumpy old man syndrome dialed up to eleven. Pets: Craw the crow, Nightmare the raven... Edward Nygma. Built a life manifesto based on a gothic novel... Oh captain, my captain.

9. Alfie Solomons - Peaky Blinders

All hail the great arisen god of Margate. Who looked upon Tommy Shelby and called him smol. Weilds tomfuckery like a pepper spray straight up the jacksie. Views betrayal as a bonding exercise. Somewhere in his words are the the meaning of life. Still awaiting the lab results as to whether this man is the anthropomorphic personification of chaotic neutral. Not even part of the egg and spoon race. Will still manage to win with a watermelon and a novelty spork.

10. Elias Bouchard - The Magnus Archives

(art by @felix-krain and @caligosatchel)

Cluedo character brought to life by malevolent eldritch entity for sexy end of the world shinnanigans. I suspect either Proffesor Plum or Reverend Green, professional opinions vary. Maintains the inability to move more than one square at a time when enacting nefarious schemes. Still has a preference for homicide by kitchenware. Comes with all the British, arch dilf energy of an Agatha Cristie villain. Taking the horrors from the hands of privileged elite and unleashing them on unsuspecting white collar workers. Eye, chin and tits first.

Whelp, that's my ten fictional characters/fandoms. Men folk (and Desire) addition. When I say I like them on the morally grey dulux colour chart. I'm not exaggerating. 😅

I'm tagging, at your pleasure @mashumaru @aisalynn @bobbole @tickldpnk8 @writing-for-life @marvagon @missingrache @rriavian @jazzy-a and @ibrithir-was-here

#ken ichijouji #digimon #ryou bakura #yami bakura #theif king bakura #yugioh #starscream #transformers #crowley supernatural #supernatural #desire of the endless #destiny of the endless #The sandman #remy lebeau #xmen #marvel comics #jonathan crane #the scarecrow #batman #dc comics #elias bouchard #the magnus archives #alfie solomons #peaky blinders

[loosesodamarble]

Erika you’re so brave for that salty ask game! Let’s hear 5, 6, 9 and 27 please?

Alright, time for me to give some salt back (in a loving manner of course)~!

5) Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?

The MHA fandom largely ruined shipping in general for that series. Like, the one triangle I mentioned before is something I really don't get emotionally. But overall, I've become meh about shipping for that series. Fandoms are truly a force to be reckoned with (derogatory).

6) Has fandom ever made you enjoy a pairing you previously hated?

I've said it before and I'll say it again but I've never had the experience of a fandom getting me to enjoy a pairing I once hated.

However, so I don't bore you with the same answer twice, I'll share an example of how the source material of a series made me enjoy a ship. Impey x Cardia from Code Realize was pretty meh for me in the original game. It took me months to bring myself to finish Impey's route and I forgot how the romance developed there. But then in the fan discs! Ooooh! Cardia and Impey are just so cute together. Cardia supports Impey and he lovingly teases her and they work together. AND THEIR WEDDING! GAH! I'm gonna replay CR eventually and hopefully I'll better appreciate Impey's route and his romance with Cardia this time.

9) Most disliked character(s)? Why?

I already said the Zogratis family and Alecdora... Lemme pull from my other fandoms~!

Hero Aca: Tomura Shigaraki. His full time hater status has gotten on my last nerve. I've given up on MHA successfully redeeming him even though I'm pretty sure that's where it'll end up. I only really keep up with MHA to know how it ends.

Demon Slayer: Just imagine me stabbing a bag of milk, if you would. Also Muzan and his victim complex. Cringe, dude, so glad you're gone.

Fairy Tail: All the demons of the Tartaros Guild for being unsufferable, sadistic bastards. Now I know that's the point as demons with no humanity made for the purpose of killing Zeref (and they couldn't even manage that). Brain/Zero and the talking stick from the Oracion Seis also get my seal of disapproval for 1) preying on some traumatized children (that's Brain) and 2) being incredibly annoying (the stick).

Shadows House: Mia. That kid needs to stop being a menace for a freaking minute and give Sara some time to think some independent thoughts. And Edward, I'm not going to forgive him for the shit he pulled against Maryrose/Rosemary and Barbara.

Dishonorable mentions: Yuri Briar from SxF. Gretel from Taisho x Alice (I freaking wish he burned to death in that house). I also generally have a disdain for locked, "true route" dudes in dating sims (except Misyr, he's hot and funny and cool and a monster hubby after my own heart) but Adolphe from Virche Evermore has multiple other offenses against him so he is the worst of the annoyances.

27) Least shippable character?

I dunno what it is but Dorothy has a "single and thriving" vibe. So it's not out of dislike or disinterest that I don't ship Dorothy. It's just her energy is so independent and free that I have trouble picturing her with a romantic partner.

#questions from the ask box #fully bloomed acacia #ask game #soda asides #sorry to suddenly throw out that i play dating sims #i posted a bit about dating sims a long whiles back #but maybe i'll bring back dating sim talk on this blog

[the-music-maniac]

I'm relatively new to ORV, I got into it a while back and then ran out of time to continue (the novel is long AF lol) but as I'm getting back into it, I've realized that ORV is one of the most main character centric fandoms I have ever encountered before.

And tbh I think that's why I've been having so many issues getting invested in ORV fanworks. Specifically shipping ones. It's super rare for me because usually I love reading fanfics.

Before I start talking about my thoughts I just wanna make a disclaimer that I'm not trying to attack anyone. You should interact with media and create stuff however you wish to! Lord knows that I'm not exactly unbiased about my blorbos (I would die for them and you can tell from my posts) but I just kinda wanna talk about this because it's such a unique experience. Never before have I encountered a fandom that is so centered on one character.

Like I hope y'all know what I'm talking about and that I'm not just talking out of my ass. Everything in the ORV fandom is super Kim Dokja centric. On one hand, I really do get it, he's a great character. He's not my favourite character but he's a lil rat bastard and I think he's so fucking neat. And how centred the storyline and moreover the people in the story are on Kim Dokja is to a certain extent, canon. He's their leader and also the person keeping them safe. He's the one who reached out in their darkest moments and pulled them to the light. And he's a traumatized little bitch. Oof. A certain amount of hero worship and protectiveness is valid.

What I can't really wrap my head around though, is the lack of development between other members of the group in a lot of fanworks. This is specifically fandom interpretations of the characters btw, I haven't finished the story fully, so I can't speak on how they are canonically but I have seen people's stories and thoughts. And this isn't always the case of course, I have read fics before where our protagonists all appear to have relations with each other outside of their care for Dokja but it... wasn't as much as I was expecting. Which is weird to me because ORV is super good at writing like. Well written and thought out characters that would be super fun to play with in writing. In developing connections and care for each other - creating a found family. At the beginning they're all tied in by the need for survival and circumstance, they don't even necessarily like each other, and so of course they all gravitate to Dokja, that's to be expected, that's who they're familiar with. But eventually I expect they would learn to care about each other too, y'know? It's difficult to not get to know each other when you're living together daily, fighting alongside each other to survive. I don't believe that they wouldn't develop care for the other members of the group, and people who care about each other don't tend to genuinely threaten each other anytime Dokja gets hurt, especially when it's not anyone's fault - like usually it's in response to one of them "not doing enough to protect him" which makes no sense to me. You don't guilt trip people you care about for things outside their control. Moreover, Dokja is his own person - he will do what he will do and you can try and prevent it because you care about him, sure, but it's also unreasonable for others to expect anyone to be his keeper enough that they get angry when Dokja gets hurt due to his own actions or to situations outside of their control. People in general also don't have their entire character and world centered on loving one person. There are fics I've read where all the characters don't even seem to have any hobbies outside of spending time with Dokja, and I say this because they all literally fight, tooth and nail, over Dokja's time. It feels out of character to me. And yet this characterization is also so common???

I don't usually mind fics that so clearly have a bias towards one character because it's valid to write what you wanna see, but I think it's how saturated the fandom is with those types of works that makes me feel weird. It makes me stop seeing all the characters as individuals in their own right. Having no wants or needs or hobbies outside of Dokja makes it seem like they're just accessories to the story of Dokja's life. The story itself becomes less compelling to me, because it becomes less of a narrative of how Dokja has helped these people and their responses, and more of a world that bends over backwards to worship this one character, using all the other characters as tools to do so. Because if this is meant to convey gratitude and love, its illogical to how it usually works. Specifically in that, you don't lose your own identity or your connections to other people because of it. And I find it hard to interact with this level of saturation of those tropes because at a certain point, I start losing sight of the canonical writing of these individual characters as their own people. I start losing the idea I have in my mind of their canonical personalities. And I don't like that feeling. And because Dokja also isn't my favourite character in this story - I still like him, don't get me wrong - I start feeling indignant on the behalf of all the other characters that are not getting development BC of the concentration on Dokja.

I also don't like it when the banter goes away. Like you can care about people and still enjoy messing with them, I'm not sure why caring about dokja translates to hero worship??? I annoy my friends all the time, and they do it back. It's fun. Like that thing the group does where they can't see Dokja's face and just unanimously decide to tell him he looks bad when he asks about it? That's peak friendship. Peak messing with your sibling energy. As far as I've seen Dokja isn't self conscious about that either (then again I haven't read the entire story yet), so like. What gives? It's canonical that they mess with Dokja - but a lot of fics just get rid of that element.

I also find it especially hard when it comes to shipping, specifically Joonghyuk and Dokja. The reason why I love Joonghyuk and Dokja's dynamic so much in the first place is because they view each other as equals. It would be very easy to place either Joonghyuk or Dokja onto a pedestal - but they don't do that to each other. They know each other pretty damn well and they care about each other even though they're so in denial about it. And you know that thing they do where they act like the other is the worst person in existence and then negates it all by repeatedly devoting themselves to saving them? That's my shit. That whole "you're so fucking annoying but if you died I would kill everything in this room and then myself." The whole "what was that?" "Affection." "Disgusting. Do it again." THAT SHIT. I love that about them. And like the platonic relationships, a lot of shipping works get rid of that type of banter when they shift to a romantic relationship. Like yeah, sweet talk and honesty is important. You should let your partner know you love them. But that's not gonna be all there is. I don't see a need to get rid of the banter because as the story goes on, it's clear that even in canon, eventually the harsh words they say to each other stop being genuine because their actions negate the words. They don't mean them in the first place, so why would that banter change once their care shifts from a platonic to a romantic one? And I could perhaps be okay with that shift from banter to sweet talk if it was MUTUAL, but too often I see a situation where Dokja continues to insult Joonghyuk but he doesn't return it in kind. Joonghyuk is very blunt about his love for Dokja - which is good - but Dokja doesn't do the same back, and for some reason that's fine, and then Joonghyuk also no longer has those very human moments of annoyance when Dokja does some stupid shit. Like I guess I could understand the characterization of Dokja being emotionally constipated cause he's kind of a traumatized control freak and I can see how getting him to talk about his feelings is like trying to get a cat into a bathtub, but it's not like Joonghyuk isn't also like that? It's not really as much of a compelling relationship if one person is telling the other everything, giving care in words of affection and the other person isn't returning it. And you could depict that returned care in other ways, absolutely, but again I don't see it in other ways either, because those stories are still so Dokja centric.

Another factor is that I find that I can't really like a ship in a work where one of the characters is elevated to a point where they can't do anything wrong. Where their own needs are always at the forefront and their partner is always catering to it. Like a relationship is a give and take. We focus a lot on Dokja's trauma - which I love, that man needs sO MUCH THERAPY and it's an interesting topic to explore - but we don't focus on the amount of shit Joonghyuk has had to go through. I very rarely see a shipping fic where Dokja tries to address Joonghyuk's trauma or his hurt. Physical hurt sure, maybe, but that other shit that Joonghyuk bottles up?? Never talked about. My man has had to keep living lives over and over again. Has had to see people he love die, make hard choices. There is no way he's not traumatized to shit, and I'd like that to be a focus some of the time, y'know? Moreover, of all people, Dokja would be the one to understand him the most? One, he's the only one who really knows the whole truth about Joonghyuk, or as much of it as you can, and two, they both have taken on very burdensome leadership roles in a situation where few would be able to understand their position - it makes sense for them to lean on each other mutually, and so far there's a very prominent skew, only an exploration on one side.

And I pretty much haven't seen a shipping fic with Dokja and Joonghyuk where Joonghyuk has recieved any form of platonic comfort from the other characters. I've seen plenty for Dokja. Where he gets comforted/helped by both Joonghyuk and all the other characters. But not for Joonghyuk. If y'all have any recs where Joonghyuk has that, PLEASE recommend it because I need. And sure, it can be argued that Joonghyuk is a hard man to know considering his prickliness but regardless, he DOES have canonical platonic relationships. People who care for him. Who would be protective over him if he were to get hurt. That is not something only Dokja has, and yet it's something I only ever see written for Dokja. Y'all need to remember that technically Dokja doesn't act like any less of an asshole sometimes than Joonghyuk. He's more outwardly approachable sure, but he's not necessarily sweet 100% of the time - he has grit and he's a rat bastard and that's my FAVOURITE FUCKING PART ABOUT HIM. The fact that he's a rat bastard and the fact that not everyone likes him. His interactions in a world where he does have to make hard choices or say things that put people at odds, or hurts others when he didn't mean to. I love that about Joonghyuk too. They suck and they both have so much capacity to be kind despite all the shit they've gone through, but they're not able to see that in themselves and they do bad things because they have to, and I think they're so fascinating.

Y'know out of all of this, I think what cracks me up is, knowing Dokja's character, he would be absolutely appalled at how centred all of it is on him only. Like. Like that's literally the opposite of what he wants 🤣🤣. Like I get that makes people want to do it more because he deserves it and whatnot which is valid but like. He would be quite disgruntled 🤣🤣🤣

#omniscient reader's viewpoint #omniscient reader #joongdok #dokjoong #kim dokja #yoo joonghyuk #shipping analysis #fandom analysis #minor spoilers for omniscient reader

[not-too-many-eyes]

CW: Mentions of Self-Harm, Child Abuse and Suicide, not discussed in depth just mentioned.

Something Really Irritating about how Shuuji was received is something I've said a lot, people want sanitized versions of trauma they can baby and infantilize and make aesthetic, so immediately once characters get out of that circle of "good ways to process trauma" people get angry. I've seem people look at this obviously traumatized child projecting onto someone and go "He's an irredeemable bastard who deserves to die" and you can see how this manifests with Lopmon too, Lopmon is someone that people can coddle and is cute and sweet and can be easily infantilized, people talk about how they wish they could save Lopmon and not Shuuji.

But Lopmon and Shuuji are explicitly, two halves of a soul, all the characters and there partners are two halves of one soul, it's not subtext is told to you right after Part 5...it's almost like the game wants you to make the connection and realize what happened with Shuuji and Lopmon.

The really upsetting thing about this is how Obvious it is, the game isn't hiding this, Part 5 starts with a nightmare with Shuuji remembering how his father abandoned him, Shuuji, says things like "When will I be good enough" and "Let me prove that I'm not worthless/useless" and so on...which echo things Shuuji says to Lopmon and what Lopmon thinks about themselves, him kicking Lopmon (who is established RIGHT AFTER to be the second half of his soul) and him dark evolving is a metaphor for how Shuuji's has been treated/treating himself and how that's hurting Shuuji, you can even read it as self-harm. Right before this Shuuji did offer himself up as a sacrifice because he didn't think his life was worth "that much" and again, Lopmon is a part of him.

But no, since Shuuji's way of expressing trauma is ugly (and it is, it's perfectly understandable why you would dislike him) people just decided, to not read into his character even though the game is pushing you understand Shuuji and his character, and this is troubling cause Shuuji's is a very real portrayal of someone with trauma, I relate to Shuuji on multiple levels, he's a well written depiction of what trauma can do to someone, and to see all of that disregarded because the way he acts isn't sanitized or aesthetically pleasing really sucks and hurts both Lopmon and Shuuji's characters.

Your not supposed to think Shuuji is justified! He DIES because he wasn't able to improve, the way he gets snapped out is Ryo punching him in the goddamn face and telling him what he's Doing, no sugarcoating, just the Truth, and I love that Digimon Survive does this.

Digimon Survive went "Yeah your doing terrible things, and yes you have to take responsibility for your actions, but you can still Become Better, you are not a Lost Cause" that's why they extend the same hand towards Aoi and Kaito later on, there doing something terrible but we can't just abandon them and I love Digimon Survive for that.

So it's infuriating that people are using a black and white lens of morality when reading into it, it's not a black and white story, heck the original Adventure isn't a black and white story, most Digimon series aren't black and white actually, there's usually some layer of complexity to them. There's a reason why there's hundreds of posts dedicated to analyzing this franchise in detail.

And on less, Digimon focused things, the trend of having a Good Victim and Bad Victim in fiction is harmful for many reasons and I'm really happy Digimon is shooting that concept in the foot, but it really sucks that people are trying to make Shuuji into a "Bad Victim" or Lopmon into a "Good Victim" when at the end of the day there both...Victims, the moral categorization of people who've suffered trauma and if there "justified" or not in there actions is a troubling trend in fandom spaces, and the overemphasis on morals in character analysis and how bad or good a character is, not great. That's a bigger issue but I thought I'd mention it.

#digimon #digimon survive #digimon survive spoilers #shuuji kayama #lopmon #PLEASE USE READING COMPREHENSION