#but his trauma isn’t an excuse or justification???

[mal3vol3nt]

something i never thought i’d see is the yr fandom deciding that august is now a good person. y’know, the same man who recorded and uploaded a non-consentual sex tape…. of two underaged boys…. as revenge…. on his 16 year old cousin….

#is he complex and interesting and extremely well written? yes 100% #but his trauma isn’t an excuse or justification??? #like i’m sorry but your trauma is not a good enough reason to be a sex offender #is it likely the reason? yes but that doesn’t mean you’re excused and your actions don’t deserve consequences #you can be sympathetic to his experiences without labeling him a good person #it’s called being nuanced #young royals #august horn #yr s3 spoilers #wilmon #prince wilhelm #simon eriksson

[pillowmoment]

“he’s not evil he’s just misunderstood” is the WORST excuse of character behavior in the goddamn book

Ok so let me explain why. I know this is often a joke, but many people use it unironically and it bothers me to hell and back

basically, this explanation is far too vague to combat any point made against a character. It’s not an argument. It sounds very dismissive and comes from a place of denial.

often when characters are considered evil, it is because they commit to actions or words that are directly harming, usually, our protagonist, or other characters.

I only bring it up because wheatley has been floating around in my mind lately, and this excuse is used on him a lot?

i’ve already analyzed him and why: no, he’s not evil, but he’s certainly not innocent. And he’s not morally gray either. He’s on a weird dot that keeps sliding around. But it’s always on the same Y-axis. His character is constant.

i’ll explain as fast as possible here so this doesn’t end up being the whole post. But, in short:

wheatley is a flawed character from the start of the damn game. He’s overly anxious, has low self-esteem, impulsive, and doesn’t think before he acts, but he’s also weirdly cocky and egotistical. He’s also incredibly self-aware. He cares too much about his image and is entirely aware of his flaws, and tries to make up for them. He’s just bad at it. He has some amount of trauma regarding the facility, clearly illustrated in his extreme fear of GLaDOS, and his tendency to lament upon, and get upset with the past. none of this changes when he takes control of the facility. While he seems less anxious in those final moments before.. well, you know what. This is likely because he feels comfortable around Chell, and also has this need to prove himself to GLaDOS, who is insanely critical of him. when he takes control, again, NOTHING changes. He is still as flawed as before. Yet his ego suddenly skyrockets, because he’s in control now! He’s in a respectable position, and a position of power, isn’t he? But he is still criticized by GLaDOS. This literally sends him spiraling. Now that he knows Chell probably hates him too, there’s nothing more to do but try and make himself seem scary, since he thinks that it’s what made people respect GLaDOS. This also doesn’t work. As his mental state gets worse and worse, his bad traits become more and more pronounced. He’s reckless and aggressive. Until eventually it all spills over. His own actions, technically, lead to his own demise. If he hadn’t been so confident in his deeply flawed plan to kill chell and glados, he probably wouldn’t have ended up in space. If he hadn’t been so restless and angry, he would’ve pushed to keep testing, and everyone would’ve probably died in a massive explosion when the place self destructed.

he is not evil. He is not innocent. He is FLAWED. He can’t just be placed on a scale of “good or evil.” That doesn’t take his character into account at all. He’s a really good example of a complex character. He can’t be simplified into “good guy” or “bad guy”

he can be boiled down to an antagonist, but that doesn’t automatically equal evil.

and this can be said about MANY characters people often defend with the empty excuse of “nobody understands them!”

A handful of my favorite characters are often defended this way, and it completely erases anything that makes them unique.

they aren’t misunderstood. They tried to fucking kill people. There’s no justification for that. motivation is such an important thing to consider, and i feel many people skip over it when it comes to commonly debated characters. Why did they do it? Was it because they felt like the needed to defend themselves? Or was it because all that emotion had been sitting in their stomach for so long and now it’s twisted into nothing but a desire to hurt people?

You cannot say you like a character if you ignore their complexity and everything that makes them unique.

It bugs me so much that a lot of Wheatley fans just say he’s innocent.

his villain arc is so IMPORTANT to his character. His bad traits are so fucking important. He wouldn’t be the same without them. Ignoring them means you’re viewing the character like the cover of a book, and completely ignoring it’s interior. All you see of them is a hollow shell. There’s nothing to it. Nothing to enjoy.

For the love of god stop excusing characters actions just because you like them. I adore wheatley, he’s been so important to me for a very long time. But i’m not going to sit here and say he’s not a bad person because i like him. He’s a bad person and i love that for him. It’s what makes me love him.

at the same time, it’s also not good to be overly critical of a character, because you are also missing the entire point of their existence. Like i said, characters can’t be simplified into one or the other.

ok rant over.

#portal 2 #wheatley #Ranting #rant #grrrrr #:3 #feel free to add ur own opinions on this post! #I love reading people’s thoughts on this stuff #Especially in regards to wheatley #He’s so cool…. #You know whenever i see people hate him i always think #Like… god forbid a woman do anything… am i right?

[heavencasteel420]

Okay. I’m gonna be a hater.

I’m not against St4ncy because of the association between their first time and Barb dying. If they were good together and she really wanted to be with him, then I wouldn’t be rooting for her survivor’s guilt to keep that from happening.

I’m also not against St4ncy because of the S1 graffiti, per se. From a writing perspective, I think the show over-egged the pudding by making both Jonathan and Steve do such shitty things to Nancy in S1. I believe the creators were mainly trying to make certain things happen plot-wise (there needs to be a photo of the demogorgon, the teen confrontation needs to be immediate and public so Jonathan and Nancy can end up at the police station) and trying to foreshadow Steve’s heel-face turn by making his objections to the photos more reasonable, and they did a clumsy job of it. And I think it’s basically fine for the creators, having realized that this was all too much, to quietly drop it. Such is the nature of multi-season TV. Realistically, it’s wild that Steve and Nancy would get back together a mere month after all of that, but, unless a shipper actually says stuff like “it’s not that bad that he would do that, because he was understandably upset” or “it was just vandalism,” I’m not going to assume that they’re chill with the graffiti.

That being said, the whole “Steve’s feelings were hurt because he thought he was being cheated on and he’s young and it was all Tommy’s fault anyway and he apologized” vs. “Jonathan had no motivations other than intrinsic badness and his youth is not a factor and his apology doesn’t count and his terrible home life is not only not an excuse but a justification for Steve’s tenuously connected shitty actions” thing has soured me on large swathes of Steve fans across the board. I’ve seen too much of the so-called real-life justice system to find this attitude anything other than disturbing. But this isn’t exclusively a St4ncy shipper problem. If anything, they at least usually like Nancy enough not to act like she’s somehow at fault for the photos because she forgave Jonathan later (???) or put her “cheating” on Steve on the same level as the guys’ worst S1 behavior.

My main reasons for disliking the ship (in an exclusive endgame kind of way; I’m cool with Stoncy most of the time and I think they canonically had some good times together) are way more subjective. The first reason is that Jonathan is my favorite and St4ncy shippers invariably don’t like or get him. This is predictable, although not inevitable; Jancy shippers don’t dislike Steve so uniformly, for example. So obviously that’s not gonna work out.

The second reason is that I just don’t find the things people like about their relationship very romantic or desirable. He’s protective of her, but that mainly seems to involve trying to keep her from doing things she believes she has to do or retaliating against others in ways she finds distasteful. There’s not a lot of awareness of her perspective. He wants to be with her “no matter what,” with no consideration for the obstacles, but those obstacles seem to include “what she wants” and “what they are both like as people.” I’d get it more if he was like “I don’t know what the future will bring, but I’d like to give this a chance in the short term” or “listen, I can figure out what to do with my life in Boston as well as anywhere else,” but instead he just does not seem to know her at all or be thinking about what they would do as a couple in the immediate future. After a point, that’s just being in love with the idea of being in love.

Also—and I am not trying to be catty here—I think it’s kind of silly to compare his romantic dreams with Jonathan having reservations due to trauma, poverty, and family obligations. That’s not so much a testament to Steve loving her more as it is an indication that he is relatively unburdened by material concerns. He may be broke, but he’s not dealing with entrenched multi-generational poverty. I’m not saying these things to suggest that Nancy would be wrong to break up with Jonathan—sometimes love isn’t enough—or that Steve is less deserving of love because his life is easier, but I am saying that Steve was kinda born on third base here.

I am not convinced that Steve would do “anything” for Nancy! Nor do I think that he should! That is not a good or sexy dynamic in an equal romantic partnership to me! They should both have other principles and goals of their own! (Also. Is the guy who wouldn’t revise his college essay in S2 really gonna move to Boston for her? I think he’s changed, sure, but not in that particular way.)

#anti stancy #just dumping this all here #I’m trying to be more positive #but in order to be positive we must sometimes Bitch

[woodchipp]

A CRITIQUE OF OMORI, PART 4: DEPICTION OF MENTAL ILLNESS

NOTE: Reader discretion is advised. By clicking on “Keep reading”, you willingly choose to continue reading the post.

Me referring to Omori as Sunny’s “Evil Mental Illness” in the previous post was supposed to be sarcastic, but it's not even an exaggeration. The game's text actually designates him as “evil” two separate times, and one of the Stranger NPCs you can come across in Black Space's nexus central hub outright calls him "cursed". Again, considering that Omori seemingly represents Sunny's mental issues, the implications are... troubling, to say the least.

Another issue about OMORI’s approach to mental illness is its usage of mental conditions as RPG status effects (called "emotions" in this game for some reason). The “Manic” emotion in particular is notable since it depicts Omori flat-out drooling in his battle portrait. Because tackling this topic with tact includes trivializing a real disorder into a gameplay mechanic and leaning into potentially harmful stereotypes while doing so, right? 

On that note, waking Sunny up to access Faraway Town (and getting out of certain areas in Black Space) requires Omori to stab himself in the stomach, complete with the sound of the knife piercing his flesh. The game forces you to do this repeatedly - in fact, killing yourself is trivialized into a harmless gameplay mechanic that rewards you with progression. Not only is it a grossly irresponsible way of handling the topic of suicide, it nullifies whatever impact the game's bad ending is supposed to have.

Sunny himself doesn't fare much better in this aspect. Since he lacks an actual personality, his introversion comes off as less of an organic character trait and more of a flimsy excuse to have him remain silent until the end of the game for maximum emotional impact (not that it prevents him from shouting "PIZZA DELIVERY!!" in the pizza delivery minigame anyway). The game also implicltly uses his depression and trauma as an explanation why he spends the story being a bland and apathetic husk, creating an unfortunate implication that introverted, depressed or traumatized people can't express genuine emotions (or express them outwardly, for that matter). Now remember that Sunny is treated as the friend group's “baby” and is compared to Mari’s pet cat, and the implications become even more unfortunate.

Basil isn’t spared from such writing either. In a lecture about OMORI and its development process given at Drawfest, Omocat, the game's director and lead writer, notes that Basil’s “loneliness and insecurity” make him dependent on others, “sometimes dangerously so." Again, this reads as a convenient argument to shield him from any criticism regarding his morbid plan to cover up the real reason of Mari's death. "Loneliness and insecurity" aren't excuses for tampering with a dead body. Speaking of said dead body!

Despite Mari’s perfectionism being a crucial fixture of the game's plot twist, it also gets a mention for being a flaw so inconsequential to her character it might as well be an informed one. When it’s not used as a convenient justification for Sunny's aggression, it’s presented as cute and endearing instead. The negative impact her obsession with being flawless had on her, her beloved brother or any of their friends before the argument is neither brought up nor is it explored.

The aforementioned bad ending is a moment I personally consider to be emblematic of the game's sheer insensitivity re. mental illness and the topic of suicide. Choosing not to continue after the final fight will lead to Sunny jumping off the hospital's roof... and falling to his death for the rest of the ending credits while a ridiculously cheery pop song (that wasn’t even written specifically to be used in the game) plays in the background. The sheer tonal dissonance between the content of the scene itself and the pecuilar music choice is too jarring to take it seriously, but that's beside the point here.

By trivializing the act of killing oneself into a vital gameplay mechanic with no tangible drawbacks, OMORI also desensitizes the player to it, and that is why the bad ending just doesn't work. Sunny's suicide has no real impact because the player had already seen and made Omori kill himself countless times by that point.

Of course, the bad ending isn't the only ending with significant problems. The game's true ending also has something for me to address.

#omori #omori game #omori sunny #sunny omori #omori basil #basil omori #omori mari #mari omori

[who-the-fuck-knows-blog]

holy christ. this fandom is fucking exhausting about mental health and mental illness and abuse. i dont want to directly engage with people saying this stuff because i am pretty sure they wont change their minds or really listen to me, but Ed can be mentally ill and abusive/toxic (<-those aren’t necessarily interchangable but I’m going to be using both in this case).

Ed’s actions can be a result of his trauma, he can hate that he does it, it can be within his own justification a result of previous threats or negativity from others, and they can still be not okay or justified.

The majority of people who have been abusive in my life have been struggling with something. Mental illness, addiction, trauma, all of the above. Trauma and trauma reactions can lead to further abusive behavior.

When you have personality disorders or mental health issues that come with extreme cognitive distortions (everyone has cognitive distortions, but mental illnesses and trauma tend to lead to more extreme examples or more cognitive distortions than you would have otherwise), it can lead to you continuing with dangerous/manipulative behavior in a more unaware manner. Many are aware it is manipulative, though. and I suppose that’s where the distinction can be made between whether or not this is a toxic or abusive relationship. One comes with more of an intent to control, the other is more about mutually lashing out/having disproportionate emotional reactions to situations.

This post, to me, isn’t about determining whether Ed was Abusive or Toxic, but moreso about conversations around abusive behavior. The way it has been described, Ed’s behavior towards Izzy in S2 has been deliberately controlling and manipulative, as Ed has been towards the entire crew in that season. Does it matter if he’s doing it because he is spiralling and wants to push everyone to their breaking point to kill himself vs just to be a dick? Yes, to a degree. It means he likely just needs help and is capable of changing. On the other hand, no. The behavior is terrible and not justifiable, and having mental illnesses that caused it doesn’t make it suddenly not his responsibility.

I guess I’m more annoyed at the overjustification and removing Ed from his own autonomy and responsibility for his behavior than anything. There can be reasons behind why someone does something, and those reasons can be very sympathetic and understandable and make a lot of sense, it just gets to a point where people seem to be using that to excuse the behavior and remove Ed’s agency in the harm he himself has caused deliberately (even if the intention wasn’t to make people miserable but to kill himself, the goal and method through which he did it was to cause emotional and physical damage and torture to ensure this would happen, with little to no care for the wellbeing of the others.)

If people are upset about Ed’s behavior and lack of actual personal accountability for what he’s done, that’s fine. The same way that it’s fine for people to be upset about the emotional harm Izzy has done to Ed.

I know a lot of posts are not super nuanced when it comes to Ed and abusive behavior, I’m not gonna say hes iredeemable, and in fact he’s already ahead of other people who display this behavior in that he realizes he needs to change and puts in an effort to do so. He’s still sympathetic to most folks, and I personally still love him.

I also acknowledge I, like everyone else, am not immune to personal biases and lack of insight and emotional reasoning. Many folks have been having trauma reactions based on the events in the show or have had their trauma triggered or have fallen back on (understandably) emotional responses that are due to trauma. Some people have been applying their personal experiences with people that behave similarly to characters on the show to their analysis and impressions of the characters. I’m not gonna say that’s morally good or bad. It just exists and is unavoidable when you have a ton of people with trauma discussing things. But it can skew perceptions, as trauma does. so it’s just something to be aware of, because it doesn’t feel like you’re being skewed it feels either like you’re being attacked or you are more aware of/closer to/have a better understanding of the emotions and responses of the characters you are projecting onto.

I dunno. maybe I’m full of shit! Who knows! I just wanted to ramble more about this stuff bc it’s very upsetting to me (<-could be a trauma response I am not adequately handling or aware of or acknowledging) to see the way ppl have been defensive of Ed via “he’s not doing it because he wants to do it/live like this, he’s traumatized, he’s mentally ill, and Izzy pushed him into it” because those can be explanations of his actions but not justifications of his actions.

#idk. idk. #izcourse #edcourse #lol #ofmd s2 #izzy hands #ed teach #abuse discussions #please dont like. come at me about this i just want to be ranting for a bit #im always like ‘might delete this’ but maybe i will this time. idk #i feel like i got all of my anger and upset i started with out whilst writing it so it was beneficial to me at least #god should i even post this. yikes

[astrababyy]

The difference between an explanation and an excuse

One of the biggest flaws in ACOTAR, in my opinion, is its inability to differentiate between an explanation and an excuse.

Rhysand’s whole monologue in the infamous chapter 54 shouldn’t have been an excuse, except that it was treated like one. He never had to redeem himself. Not once does he ever apologize for his actions against Feyre.

An elaboration on Rhysand’s reasoning for his actions doesn’t change that they happened. Unless Rhysand was forcefully mind controlled into doing it — and even then, an apology couldn’t hurt — there is almost no justification available for his actions Under the Mountain. No matter what he went through, no matter why he did it, it doesn’t change what he did to Feyre.

It’s funny because, during the entirety of the infamous chapter 54, Rhysand doesn’t actually apologize once. The entire thing is about him, about what he went through, about his past. Not once does he apologize to Feyre for his actions against her. Imagine if he was telling this tale to Clare Beddor or something — does he think she’d give af about his trauma? The only reason Feyre doesn’t care either is because this book just pretends that what he did to her Under the Mountain isn’t a really fucking serious issue.

Rhysand is allowed a redemption. He’s gone through horrors very few can speak of in his 500 years of life, but that doesn’t mean he’s automatically redeemed. In his suffering, Rhysand has committed a lot of evil. This chapter not only should’ve been about his past but also about how it affected Feyre. If not this chapter then somewhere in the books, Rhysand and Feyre should’ve sat down to talk about how, in reality, some of the worst horrors Feyre faced Under the Mountain (besides having to kill innocents) is that he debased and humiliated her for months without pause.

An explanation would’ve been Rhysand telling his story and still having him redeem himself afterwards. It would’ve been the simple acknowledgment that, despite all his pain, he still hurt her and humiliated her, and none of his reasoning and justification is going to change that.

Instead, we get an excuse. We get everyone pretending he’s off the hook now, simply because he suffered. What about all the suffering he put other people through? What about them?

#anti sjm #anti rhysand #anti feysand #this isn’t that coherent tbh #astrababyy #it’s just like #rhysand doesn’t actually get a redemption #he’s just forgiven automatically #and for what?

[afloralrib]

Look, I love Alastair, I really do, and I hope he gets everything from life, because that’s what he deserves. However, I’m not fond of the way some people in this fandom use Alastair’s past and traumas as an excuse to bash on Thomas. Because, guess what? Not only does Thomas deserve everything from life too, but he’s also a fucking human being.

I’m sorry if this is going to upset people, because I know it all comes from a genuine place of love and care for Alastair, but it really needs to be said.

People like Alastair and Grace have objectively had the most difficult lives, which makes it easier to sympathize with them. That’s great. But it shouldn’t stop us from considering how their actions affected other people.

In Grace’s case, it’s easy to sympathize while still holding her accountable because her actions were far more severe. In Alastair’s, it’s difficult to hold him accountable for anything - I really don’t - because his actions weren’t meant to have any consequences, and he only intended to protect himself.

He made up and spread some very nasty rumours, sure. But he did what he did to survive the abusive environment he was in, and he didn’t mean for anyone to be hurt.

Plus, it’s not like Matthew and James didn’t do much worse with all the insults and jibes they threw at him, literally for no good reason.

That’s what the whole ordeal at the Academy was about. It’s not what Alastair and Thomas’s relationship is about, though.

What happened in CoI broke me too, especially because we’re used to Thomas being the only person to get Alastair. To have that taken away was honestly heartbreaking. But while Thomas generally gets Alastair, he doesn’t know everything about him. Understanding that Alastair was hurt because his father didn’t show up at the Academy only gives Thomas one part of the picture.

If that isn’t enough, we’re literally talking about an eighteen-years-old who’s just lost his sister. Context shouldn’t act as a justification, but it is important. 

And I mean, how would you react if, on top of everything else, you just found out that the person you love was responsible for something that hurt your family? What if you already thought that you should’ve prevented your sister’s death, and suddenly realized this was yet another thing you couldn’t shield her from?

Cut Thomas some slack.

He still needs to make amends, and I get being worried about that because CC’s track record with this kind of thing is bad. But just like Alastair’s personality, intentions, and feelings aren’t into question, Thomas’s shouldn’t be either.

So, stop holding my son to impossible standards that apply just to him, please and thank you.

#butting in because the lack of positive thomas posts is concerning #i saw someone say this opinion is actually popular #i must be doing smth wrong then because i almost only see complaints #you know you can sympathize with someone while still being critical of them? #right? #alastair carstairs #thomas lightwood #thomastair #personal faves #the last hours #tlh

[heyheydidjaknow]

Hi! First of all I'd like to say that i think u have great writing skills and you've always managed to portray L really accurately <3 I feel like i m addicted to ur fics! Now, i know u're writing a longer fic and u're probably busy as it is, but when u have time, would u mind doing some headcanons or smth about how L would behave if he realised he might be interested in someone? Would he go full research, "imma find out everything i can about them" like? Or would he prefer to learn stuff the old school way, by talking more to the person? Not yandere L btw, just the usual. Thank you so much!

It may be 2 am but I will never not take a bit of time out of my day to talk headcanons. Also, thank you very much for the compliment.

There isn’t a straightforward answer to this one. It’s very dependent on circumstance and on who you are and your relation to him. The general consensus is that, if he ever stops to consider his feelings for you, whatever conclusion he personally draws will be filed away right next to all the trauma as “things to deal with later”. This is not for lack of sense awareness— he can and will admit that he had feelings for you pretty easily— but for a general understanding that being in a relationship with him would he insufferable. He would feel bad because he would barely have time for you and any time the two of you spend together would probably be uncomfortable for you, and even if you were interested in him there isn’t much of a point if you’re just going to drop him once you figure out he literally cannot settle down. As such, any and all romantic feelings will be promptly and aggressively ignored unless you make an effort to make a move.

But that doesn’t mean he just stops thinking about you; if you could just shelf emotions his job would be much easier. He wouldn’t stalk you or anything and he certainly wouldn’t make an effort to go look up your information, but you best believe that he is going to profile you. Sure, maybe you will never meet him again, and sure, maybe you two will never be in a relationship, but in a hypothetical scenario where that is on the table, how compatible would you two be? What sort of food would you like? What about music? What was your upbringing like and how did that affect your personality and if he met your parents— if he suspects you have parents— how would be the most effective way to impress them? Would he need to impress them or would you rather he not interact with them at all? What sort of career should you consider? He may only have a few data points, but he isn’t about to just not connect those dots. The justification is that this is an exercise in character profiling; after all, it’s important to make sure your skills are still sharp. Of course, the reality is just that he wants an excuse to think about you, but he doesn’t need to think about that.

But if we’re talking in terms of someone in an active relationship, he does try to do things the old fashioned way. Intentional extreme analyzation is for work. This is leisure, and if he can help it— he can’t but he tries— he wants that separation to be as distinct as possible. This whole relationship is odd enough; no need to strain it any more than he’ll have to by virtue of being himself.

#death note #death note lawliet #death note x reader #death note x you #death note x y/n #dn lawliet #l lawliet #l x reader #lawliet x reader #l headcanon #ryuzaki lawliet #death note headcanons #headcanon

[aimmyarrowshigh]

Hi! That is an impressive and intriguing list of WIPs! Can I ask for more details about Five People Wanda Slept With And One She? Hope you're having an amazing day!

Thanks, friend!

I would really like to finish this one eventually, but smut takes me SO long to write, so I really shot myself in the foot by choosing to write a 5+1 smut fic, haha. I was inspired by WandaVision for it, particularly "Previously On," and Wanda's method of dealing with trauma/grief being avoidance and pretending to be happy. Also, Elizabeth Olsen pretty and so many Marvel people hot.

(It's also kind of a "fuck you, purity culture" fic inspired by the ye olde days of LiveJournal fandom, where people wrote a lot more "wait, are those siblings fucking each other?" fic than they do now, because, like, Wanda/Pietro.)

But it starts the night after AOU ends with Wanda/Steve, and then has Wanda/Winter Soldier, Wanda/Natasha, Wanda/Vision, and then after Endgame and before Westview, Wanda/Bucky. And the +1 "And One She -- " that's unclear whether it actually ever happened is, obviously, Pietro, and the reader can draw their own conclusions.

Snippet! (TW for grief/mourning, sibling death, Hydra ideology, and mentions of unwanted sterilization.)

“America needs its captain,” Wanda says. “Sokovia is gone. It is my fault, I think. There is nothing left that needs Wanda Maximoff.”

“Hey.” Captain Rogers puts his big hands over Wanda’s where she’s picking at the bedspread. Loose threads already, and it’s brand new. “The Avengers need Wanda Maximoff, okay? I need her. Clint needs her. The Vision needs her. Natasha. Bruce. Even Tony needs you, Wanda. I know—I don’t expect you to agree or to get it or to accept it from all of us, but I’m a good judge of character, Wanda, and you’re gonna be a helluva something.” He lifts one hand and gently tucks a lock of hair behind Wanda’s ear. “All I can do is throw a big metal discus around and punch people. You can change their minds. That’s pretty special.”

“I am sorry, again,” Wanda whispers. Captain Rogers still has one hand over hers, and his skin is warm. He radiates heat, and Wanda is so used to being cold. “I hope the nightmares do not plague you too long. I… I have no excuses. Only Hydra’s justifications.”

“Hey.” Steve squeezes her hand. “You didn’t give me a tenth of the nightmares I usually see. I mean, don’t do it again, but it’s okay, Wanda. You’re forgiven.”

Wanda squeezes Steve’s hand back, and she doesn’t let go. She keeps her hand tucked around his for long, silent minutes, until finally Steve turns his hand so that she can lace her fingers between his. It’s a show of trust: Wanda spins her magic with these hands, and Steve is willingly allowing her to stroke her thumb along the length of his index finger in slow, sweeping passes. They hold hands so long that Steve’s palm starts to get a little sweaty against Wanda’s, and he says—

“Wanda…”

Wanda presses her lips together. “Please.” She squeezes his hand again. “I do not want to be alone.”

Steve extricates his hand from her grip, but only moves far enough away to tuck the stubborn lock of her dark hair behind her ear again. Wanda knows that she isn’t beautiful—she’s too thin, a thinness that spells a life of pain and hardship and denial, and her eyes stand out from her face like lamplights in a dark mine. But her hair is clean, and her eyes are dry now even if they are still rimmed in red beneath the layers of half-gone black kohl, and Steve is only a man.

“Kinda tired of being alone, myself,” Steve admits, very quietly, with a look on his face like he didn’t quite mean to say anything at all. His fingertips touch the soft skin behind Wanda’s ear.

“Then do not be alone, just for tonight.” Wanda slides her hand up the length of his thigh, denim rough under her palm. His muscle has hardly any soft humanness. It isn’t what Wanda is used to feeling, but that’s good. She doesn’t want what she knows. If she has that, she will cry and never stop. “Please, I cannot—I can’t--”

Steve presses his mouth against hers. It isn’t a kiss, really. But it is what Wanda wants.

“If Pepper stocked your room like mine, then you have, uh—” Steve goes red. “Thins. Condoms. In the, uh, in the bedside table.”

Wanda nods and doesn’t say that Hydra sterilized her years ago. Undesirable. “Okay.”

#five people wanda slept with and one she #fandom #fanfiction #fanfiction ask meme #my fic

[idolbound]

I may have talked about this briefly before, but Meredith and Anders are direct foils to one another; they are representative of the extremism of both ‘sides’* in the mage/templar divide. 

Orsino plays the role of the moderate, even though as First Enchanter, her is positioned opposite to the Knight-Commander as a representative for the Circle mages. His view is that Circles can be beneficial for mages, provided they are not living under abusive, iron-fist rule, whereas Anders represents the total destruction of the Circles and elimination of the Templar Order.

Thus, Meredith is positioned as the utmost extreme example of Templar we have in the context of the games (although, Ser Alrik’s push for the ‘Tranquil Solution’, which Meredith and the Divine rejected outright, is arguably even worse, somehow, but he isn’t the one running the Gallows, thankfully). She rules with an iron fist because she believes that rigid law & order and schedules will keep mages in line, and anything out of the ordinary will be easy to spot. This of course further oppresses mages from being able to live their lives; instead, they are locked up and forced to pass trials to show a control of their magic, and should they not pass, they can die for it or be made into tranquil mages and lose all sense of themselves to be controlled. 

Anders’ solution, of destroying the entire institution in Kirkwall is not without its issues either - in this sense, the Chantry itself was destroyed, killing the Grand Cleric, but also potentially injuring and killing innocent civilians in the name of freedom and justice, destroying parts of the city in the fallout, AND forcing Meredith’s hand - and yes, it IS unfair that Meredith, in her crazed, paranoid red-lyrium idol state, went ahead and invoked the Rite of Annulment** in the name of justice and retribution for the people of Kirkwall - but it is a direct consequence of Anders’ actions, no matter how justified he or others believe him to be.

As such, these two are foils to one another, demonstrating how the extremists of either faction are not without consequences (ultimately, Meredith is defeated, and the Circles begin their wide-spread rebellion against their Templar jailers, but her entire justification for her course of action, political power-grabbing aside, was to protect mages from themselves as well as the non-mage civilians, influenced entirely from her early childhood trauma of watching her mage sister turn into a demon and kill their parents and 70 other people). 

* (BioWare’s representation of ‘morally grey’ areas is actually heavily skewed and the Templar Order and the Chantry are an oppressive force upon the mages, no matter which angle it is considered, so I use ‘sides’ loosely here).

** (Also yes, Meredith DID preemptively write a letter to Val Royeaux asking to invoke the Rite of Annulment at the start of Act 3 and was rejected by the Divine, likely to avoid political issues and strife, but at that point, she was looking for an excuse, and was perfectly justified in her own mind to do so).

#HEADCANON. #ANDERS. #[ remembering the time there was an anders rper who blocked me back in the day because i pointed this out SDKFJSDF ] #[ like.... there are complexities and anders is also a very complex character!!! ] #[ but you can't ignore that blowing up the chantry didnt have consequences!!! the whole game is THIS ACTION WILL HAVE CONSEQUENCES. PROCEED?

[stargirlfeyre]

Listen no one is saying Tamlin isn’t traumatized. People are saying that his trauma shouldn’t really be brought up as a way to defend him in conversations about him domestically abusing Feyre. I have yet to see someone say that Tamlin isn’t traumatized.

The issue is y’all are bringing up his trauma as some sort of justification for his actions. Y’all think saying he was traumatized in an argument about what he did to Feyre is somehow the end all. Like that’s somehow supposed to end the conversation then and there. I don’t think y’all realize that when it comes to abusers they usually have some built up trauma especially from when they were young however that’s not an excuse or justification for what they do. It’s not even a good enough explanation.

The abuse you go through as a child does not excuse the abuse you put others through as an adult. Translation, fuck Tamlin and I could care less about the shit he went through.

#feyre archeron #tamlin

[drunkengodsofslaughter]

I think the justification that the show uses is that her trauma resurfaced because there was a mention of Barb and she abandoned Fred and he died so she's somewhat responsible for his death. The issue is that she doesn't really show any emotion at all for Fred's death, like more of it is frustration with the police. I think it's because the narrative dooms Fred to die while Barb could have lived had she stayed with Nancy or left Steve's house, so the narrative can absolve Nancy of that guilt.

But there was no reason to rehash Nancy's trauma with Barb. We know she feels guilty. We know that she has to live with that guilt. There isn't new emotion there. We already know this. There is no narrative reason to bring that up except to keep it fresh in viewers heads. Like I have a theory that they're going to time travel and that's why they're doing this but in reality, it's probably just bad writing combined with no new ideas.

Yeah like you said that’s the justification and it does sort of parallel in a way but i think when people use this justification/parallel they forget that the reason nancy is so affected by it is because she’s barb’s best friend. they’ve had years together and the narrative does show that they are pretty close. meanwhile with fred they aren’t close at all and aren’t genuine friends - they’re just on the school newspaper. that doesn’t mean she isn’t traumatized because it is an awful thing to happen - it’s just that anyone is going to jump at the parallels while also forgetting that the situations are different. anyway lol like you said the issue is that she doesn’t really show any emotion besides the initial reaction to Fred going missing/dying. after that she sort of forgets completely about fred - which is why i have a problem with people also using this excuse as to why nancy is nippy with robin at the library because after the shock fred doesn’t seem to cross nancy’s mind at all. YES EXACTLY ABOUT THE NARRATIVE DOOMING FRED!!!

yeah like there was no reason to re-hash this out and honestly it got soo boring if that makes sense. like they already did it once and now they can’t fix how she reacted because it was already filmed and etc so it’s like : why did we need to do this again? they can’t fix the plot line and if they wanted to show how barb’s death affected her throughout all seasons well they failed that too because season 3 doesn’t bring this up again. but also like why rehash? we could’ve had sooo many amazing opportunities to look at other characters and even some more dynamics. which also like high key why did they even do this at all? meaning of having vecna show nancy? because she legit wasn’t the person to always to be in his way if that’s what people theorize. and like people also theorize about her guilt with barb that she’s taken which vecna does show her but it’s literally been years in canon! so idk why they even did that honestly i also just think it was so stupid of that plot line because it makes zero sense why vecna would take nancy because honestly robin and steve would be more of the annoyance to him as in this season THEY ARE THE ONES TO CONSTANTLY FIGURE OUT HIS PLANS AND HOW TO EVADE HIM!! THEYRE THE ONES THAT SAVE THE GANG AND THEY SHOULD BE THE PAIN IN HIS SIDE BECAUSE THEY DONT FUNCTION LIKE THE REST OF THE GANG SO THEY FIGURE OUT HIS SHIT AND HELP FIGURE OUT HOW TO STOP HIM MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE! lol got side tracked there

#answered asks #stranger things

[tobi-smp]

I was thinking about it while I was in the shower, so here’s another Hot Take on the discussion on whether we can (or should) consider technoblade as abusive

a lot of interactions between technoblade and other characters are difficult to gauge because c!techno obviously isn’t honest about his feelings at all times On Top Of cc!techno Very Rarely If Ever being completely in character, including and especially with very serious lore scenes. so how we’re meant to take anything he does or says is hard to parse, especially with the knowledge that other creators can take scenes seriously and incorporate it into their lore even if it wasn’t the intention at the time (like jack’s death at tommy’s hands during exile).

(technoblade has only recently come out to state that he’s intentionally playing his side of the story lighter to give people a break from the heavy angst in the rest of the server, but that’s hardly new. he broke the tension all the time during his partnership with tommy, namely with the confrontation with dream at the portal and tommy and tubbo’s first reunion, but it was even noticeable with doomsday, his perspective is a Palpably different tone from Anyone on the l’manberg side of things. which can make some Very interesting inconsistencies when it’s directly slammed into tommy’s more serious roleplaying style.)

you can Easily read him as Either a purely opportunistic character who uses the guise of being deeply emotionally wounded as a justification for Horrific Violence when he was never that emotionally invested in the first place Or a character that is rarely if ever honest and open with his feelings, who hurts other people by accident by trying to downplay his own vulnerability who is Nevertheless deeply emotionally invested in and impacted by the people around him. both interpretations can be soundly backed up by what we’ve been given and we can’t really discount the other reading because of the semi-canoncity of whatever technoblade does. we aren’t really gonna know unless technoblade himself decides to address it specifically.

so with that in mind, I want to take a second to take a more charitable reading, not as an argument that technoblade’s relationship with tommy Wasn’t unhealthy (because it objectively was no matter the reading of his intentions) but to ground the overall conversation a little bit here.

this, I think, is where the nuance in the intersection between “technoblade didn’t have the full picture of what happened with dream and tommy” and “technoblade knew enough to know that what he did on doomsday was wrong” Matters. 

if we read technoblade as a character that genuinely cares but either chooses not to or doesn’t know How to express those emotions in a healthy productive way (“tsundereblade” ala the scene of ranboo giving techno the axe) Combined With techno’s very dry sense of humor then it Is very possible to read some of the more uh, Unfortunate things that he’s said in a different light. which doesn’t excuse them by any means, people hurting their friends by not being emotionally honest or through jokes that hit harder than intended happens all the time and it’s the responsibility of that friend to apologize and change their behavior. but at the same time, people can’t actually change their behavior if they don’t know that what they’ve done is wrong.

we need to keep in mind that: - both technoblade And tommy express their affection with their friends by ribbing them. making fun of each other Is a sign of affection for them. if we’re meant to read that as part of their characters then it may not be entirely fair to say that technoblade should’ve known that putting tommy down was going to hurt him

- technoblade knows (or assumes) that dream wants to kill tommy and he knows that tommy has trauma. but technoblade Doesn’t know that dream systematically destroyed tommy’s self confidence to the point of being suicidal. he Doesn’t know how fragile tommy is about his own self worth, and he Doesn’t know that that kind of joking would hit tommy differently now than it would’ve back during their pogtopia days.

- technoblade knows that tommy was a child soldier, he knows that he was forced out of his home and isolated by someone that he’d trusted and loved, and he directly relates tommy’s betrayal to his own. he’s more likely to think that tommy’s mental state Now has more to do with l’manberg than dream specifically even if he recognizes dream as a threat to tommy.

none of this makes techno putting down tommy’s self worth Right, it doesn’t mean that we have to look at him charitably when he tells someone to their face that they aren’t equals only to turn around and destroy a country when he thinks he’s being dehumanized. but I also think that we can’t necessarily assume that he 100% devalued tommy both as a person and a friend from that interaction.

moreover, technoblade was For Sure being opportunistic in trying to recruit tommy. I’ve made my own analysis on techno obviously trying to prime tommy for a partnership at the start of tommy’s exile. but at the same time, I don’t think that’s necessarily Solely about taking advantage of what tommy could do for him, especially since he was trying to recruit tommy before he’d had his mind set on actively destroying l’manberg.

assuming that technoblade was as hurt by tommy as he was because he genuinely Cared about tommy, because he and tommy Were friends and he enjoyed his company, then he very well could’ve recognized that tommy being betrayed by the same people he was would open him up to being able to relate to him. techno and tommy have very fun interactions when there’s nothing driving them against each other, but they’re fundamentally incompatible on their morality and philosophies.

so the obvious solution to that would be one showing the other that their way of thinking was wrong, to let their relationship thrive without that barrier between them. and like, obviously technoblade is the extremist of the situation, it’s a little hard to swallow him trying to change tommy when he’s the one that refuses to compromise even when tommy tries to do it for him. but I think it’s worth recognizing when we’re having a conversation about whether or not he Solely saw tommy as an asset to use rather than a companion. if you choose to read techno as someone who refuses to compromise on his ideals but craves that interaction anyways, then the way he scooped tommy up while trying to relate tommy’s situation to his own, trying to convince them that l’manberg was bad for him, etc, can be read in a Much Less overtly malicious light. it’s still not a Healthy one, but at least it’s not Child Labor Meat Shield.

this particular reading Does have the fact that techno didn’t try to recruit anyone else on its side. for the entirety of tommy’s exile up until doomsday he didn’t try to seek out partnerships with anyone, even though there were Several people unaffiliated with l’manberg at the time. he sought tommy out the First Day of his exile, surely the moment he heard of it, and he was Noticeably Eager to partner with him the moment he’d found him in his house. if that was nothing but pure unadulterated ambition and opportunity seeking then you’d think he’d try to make at least One ally in the meantime.

then again, tommy was the most vulnerable person on the server at the time, you don’t have to know about tommy’s abuse to know that. if you choose to read techno as solely opportunistic then it’s easy to dismiss all of that and say that techno went for tommy because he saw it as the safest bet and that he didn’t gun for any other allies before him because he didn’t see it as immediately necessary until he’d been provoked. but on the other hand, it makes a lot of Sense that a character who’d just cut himself off from every ally he could’ve had but One would be kind of desperate for any chance at connection that he could get. that he’d seize the opportunity specifically Because he enjoyed his relationship with tommy before it went south and he wants to have a close partnership like that again.

technoblade’s a highly paranoid character, so you could argue that he’d try to seek out any partnership he could get his hands on if he was truly actively gunning for allies to the point of being willing to overlook his grudge against tommy to scoop him up as soon as possible. but on the other hand, technoblade’s a highly paranoid character, so he might not want to Risk someone ratting him out to the enemy if he can’t trust them or if they aren’t as neutral as they seem to be.

so ! with all that in mind I think that it’s a valid take to argue that technoblade’s actions could’ve been considered abusive whether he realized it or not, but I also think that it’s a valid take to say that it might not’ve been the intention of the roleplayers at the time and that some of the details that can be used to come to the conclusion that technoblade was abusive were tinged by cc!techno’s humor and him not thinking through the implications of tommy’s current arc. both takes make sense within the context of what we’ve been presented, we just need to make the space for both within overall analysis.

#dream smp #technoblade #tommyinnit #technoblade critical #c!technoblade critical #meta #long post #don't neg me about not putting this in the main tag it will not stop me #every time someone pulls that I add the main character tag more confidently

[oh-hush-its-perfect]

Alex Fierro's Introduction Full Breakdown

Okokok so. This is going to go full English-professor mode, where I'm drawing conclusions that are gonna seem a little far-fetched. That's what's fun about media analysis! I can say something is a symbol, and even if I don't have enough faith in RR's competency to know if he meant for it to be a symbol, it's still true! That being said, a lot of these choices I'm sure are intentional, either at a literal or subliminal level. Page numbers are going to be used not to assert a kind of authority or whatever— this is a Tumblr post, not an essay— but to help readers find the pages I'm referencing in case they'd like to do some digging of their own. Also, this is going to be really long. Really sorry to anyone with ADHD; I might make an audiofile of this so you can get the information without having to read the whole thing. With all that, let's get into it!

To kick off, let's talk about Alex being in the form of a cheetah when she first meets Magnus. Of course, there's the obvious impact of him seeing her but only so breifly, as well as introducing the conflict between her and the rest of Hall 19. But that could have easily been accomplished by almost any animal. The choice of a cheetah being implicated implies two qualities of Alex that will be recurrent throughout the two books she's in: 1. She has a tendency to run away, as we'll later learn when she describes how she became homeless, and 2. To Magnus, she's elusive. She can't be caught or held down. The event that shows this so transparently is how Alex refuses to define their relationship at the end of the series, despite it clearly surpassing the normal bounds of friendship.

But the cheetah isn't the animal Alex is in the form of when Magnus first gets a good look at her; she's a weasel. Weasel's bring up all kinds of connotations: ferocity, slickness, a lack of charm. When we want to describe someone as an untrustworthy person, we call them a weasel. RR had Alex take this form to play up her comrades' feeling of distrust towards her. She could be a double-crosser. But paradoxically, the up-front and vicious mannerisms of a weasel also have a transperency. She does not try appealing to her Hallmate's sense of goodwill because she doesn't have anything to gain from it. So even though there is the implication that she might be an antagonist, there's also evidence from her actions and mannerisms that she isn't. The weasel's long and skinny frame also allow for a smooth transition into Alex's actual body, which is convenient.

As Alex transforms into her usual human form, Magnus describes her as "a regular human teen, long and lanky, with a swirl of dyed green hair, black at the roots, like a plug of weeds pulled out of a lawn" (pg. 50). That simile at the end is of particular interest. Let's compare it to another time Magnus describes Alex's hair, in Ship of the Dead: "Her hair had started to grow out, the black roots making her look even more imposing, like a lion with a healthy mane" (pg. 136). By contrasting these two different examples, we can see the development of Magnus and Alex's relationship. The first time he sees her, he thinks of her hair as something nasty— note the word choice "weeds." Later on, though, he becomes more affectionate towards her, more complentary. The immedient negative reaction is less his actual impression, though, and more the reaction he expected to have based on everyone else's reaction to Alex.

Her clothes are equally as interesting; as Magnus describes it, Alex wears "battered rose high-tops, skinny lime green corduroy pants, a pink-and-green argyle sweater-vest over a white tee, and another pink cashmere sweather wrapped around the waist like a kilt" (pg. 50). Aside from the obvious fact that this outfit is a) bizzare, b) fire, and c) Alex's signature colors, which add a layer of style to what can otherwise be a somewhat boring series fashion-wise (excuse me, Blitz), the outfit reveals a crucial facet of Alex's backstory in a kind of subtle way. These are expensive clothes, like the Stella McCartney dress in Alex's room. Note the mention of fabrics (corduroy, cashmere) and patterns (argyle). These indicate wealth and status. Even the high-tops; shoes like that don't come cheap. But I'd like to return to the very first word of the section: "battered." Alex's wardrobe show-cases a proximity to wealth, but also shows that that proximity has been strained and lengthened, maybe for an extended period of time. Alex dresses like a rich person, but she isn't one. Least, not anymore.

The last word of that outfit-introduction is also of interest: "kilt." At the current moment, Magnus thinks that Alex is male. No one has indicated otherwise to him. Everyone has been referring to Alex with he/him pronouns. Samirah called Alex her "brother" (pg. 29). His first thought in seeing what he at first perceives as a guy with a jacket wrapped around the waist is That looks like a kilt. This thought tells us about Magnus: despite being open and accepting, he still has some lingering notions of gender conformity from his years in wider American society.

Magnus also indicates that the outfit "reminded me of a jester's motley, or the coloration of a venomous animal warning the whole world" (pg. 50). This is rather self-explanatory, but it's still worth noting that Magnus sees the outfit as something bizzare, strange, and even perhaps comical. This places Alex at odds with the other people Magnus has met. It also reveals that Magnus has zero fashion sense. But we already knew that.

After finishing up staring at the ensemble, Magnus finally gets around to actually looking Alex in the face. First Magnus says that he "forgot how to breathe" (pg. 50), which, yeah, relatable. This is justifed by saying that Alex has the same face as Loki, but the very same sentence that asserts that that's the case also suggests an alternative reason: Alex has "the same unearthly beauty" as her father. Here we can see the beginnings of Magnus's attraction to Alex, though at this point, he still has a lot of internalized homophobia. Though there's certainly some truth in that Magnus was unnerved by Alex's resemblance to Loki, the idea that Magnus pointed out that Alex was pretty without elaborating on that thought until about a chapter later— after he was informed that Alex was presently a girl— can tell us a lot about how Magnus perceives sex and beauty.

Of course, Alex's eyes are given special attention. She has cool eyes; what can I say? But I'd like to focus in on how Magnus here depicts Alex's heterochromia as "completely unnerving" (pg. 50). Again, let's contrast this with how he describes them after getting to know Alex a little better in Ship of the Dead. In Chapter 3, Magnus describes "[Alex's] dark brown eye and his amber eye like mismatched moons cresting the horizon" (pg. 25). Once again, this shows the development of their relationship— but this time, it's in a much more personal way. Eyes are the windows to the soul; they are culturally important and biologically important in inter-personal connections. In you look into someone's eyes, you're giving them your full attention, and you're implying a kind of closeness. The way that Magnus describes Alex's eyes in the second passage is downright intimate. At this point, he is in love with Alex, and it is clear when contrasting the two descriptions.

As my last point, I'd like to discuss Alex's first words on page: "'Point that rifle somewhere else, or I will wrap it around your neck like a bow tie'" (pg. 51). First of all, Alex saying this with a "perfect white smile" (pg. 51) on his face implies that she is used to being threatened. She is not afraid of being shot; she counters the promise of an attack with a promise of her own. This pleads the question: why is Alex accustomed to violence? What events of her past or qualities of her life have brought her to this point? The threat itself reveals Alex's trauma from being genderfluid in a society with rigid gender norms, as well as her antagonistic relationship with her father. Magnus makes a comment that Alex "might actually know how to tie a bow tie, which was kind scary arcane knowledge" (pg. 51). Like Alex's wardrobe, the idea that she may have experience in high-class fashion also implies her former status as a rich kid.

I could go on. I could break apart Alex saying "'Pleased to meet you all, I guess'" (pg. 51). There is a wealth of information in this short page span that tells us things about Alex Fierro in the present moment, quietly demonstrates things about her past, and characterizes the narrator Magnus Chase. This passage is also effective in hindsight in marking the progress of Magnus and Alex's relationship.

But I'd like to take a step back and look at not the pieces, but the whole picture. Alex Fierro gets a full page of pure description— her outfit, her face— and about a chapter of introduction. This comes after several chapters of build-up. Alex Fierro is an important character you need to keep your eyes on. Alex Fierro is emotionally significant to the main character, Magnus Chase. Alex Fierro is one of the most developed and well-rounded characters that Rick Riordan has ever written— heck, she's one of the best characters in middle-grade books period. The extended emphasis on her and her alone tells us exactly what role she's going to play in this story: she's the star.

#she IS the moment #I'm sure I missed a few things too #alex fierro #mcga #magnus chase #magnus chase and the gods of asgard #fierrochase #magnus chase/alex fierro #mcatgoa

[malopeach]

Squid Game Spoilers 👇🏾

Absolutely no one asked my opinion but prepare for it anywaaaaaaaay I feel like a lot of the people who just absolutely DESPISE Sang-woo and think of him as the antagonist are kind of missing like. The Point of his character arc.

And, to preface, i DO NOT say this as a Sang-Woo Defender, he’s not even my fave character in the show, but i just felt like his story was IMPORTANT

Because, he did start off as a nice person. It’s easy to forget that at the end, after all the most monstrous decisions have been made, but he was a regular, run of the mill Generally Good Person. Not a Mother Theresa, not a saint, just a person who, when presented with the opportunity, would do a good thing with no personal gain attached.

He gave Ali bus fair and let him use his phone even knowing he was broke too. He didn’t gain anything from it, Ali didn’t even Ask for the bus fair. He shares the corn Ali tries to give him. He did it because, in general, when they can be, most people prefer to be nice. Most people want to be generous when presented the opportunity. Most people want to be good.

His development as a character isn’t that he was always an evil cold hearted jerk, but that Capitalism and the struggle it causes can turn most average good people into complete monsters in order to survive. Capitalism chokes out the good in you. Struggling to pay rent and feed yourself can make you cold and hard if you are not a particular kind of resilient spirit. Fighting for your life, day in and day out, WEARS YOU DOWN.

It wears down your generosity, your patience, your kindness. It wears down your ability to care about the people struggling next to you, because how can you help save a drowning person when you yourself are barely treading water? Sang-woo is as much a victim as every person in the game, they are ALL victims.

Being poor can make you mean. Trauma can make you lash out. Not having enough food, or a roof over your head, it can make you cold and hard and unkind. It is not you at your best self when you are living under poverty and i say this as someone who has gone hungry, who has been homeless, and who has not always been my kindest self in that state. Anyone who understands that abuse can manifest itself as troubles with emotional regulation and anger management problems later on in life should be able to get this. It is idealic to think that we would all be Gi-hun. Many of us would be Sang-woos, not because we’re evil, but because of the desperate need to Survive.

It’s a decent into madness of sorts. A quiet, desperate thing that struggles harder and harder to survive in this cage built up around it. Internally, we know that Sang-woo is scared, scared like everyone else there, and we see everyone elses fear take different forms as well. Some people rise above and remain kind, like Ali and Gi-hun. Some people crumble under pressure and resort to an ‘anything to survive’ attitude like Deok-Su and Sang-woo. The glass-maker doesn’t reveal that he knows a trick to beat the game, because he’s not in a state where he can care about the survival of others and as a result everyone ahead of him dies unnecessarily. All of them, ALL of them, are still victims of the game and of the host.

Sang-woo’s death is what showed his true colors in my opinion. He refused to let his friend give up and lose everything they’d all struggled for. Does that make up for the harm he did? No, of course not! But it shows that, in the end, he was able to put his friend above his own life because he knew that the two of them had nothing to go back too, and Gi-hun would not condemn his friend to death willingly. He chose to let Gi-hun not only survive, but have the chance at a better life outside of that place. And it was a tough road to get there, but thats character development babey!

Idk, these are just my thoughts and again its not like im defending his actions or like i love this character or anything. But I appreciate what his storyline has to say about people struggling in poverty; sometimes its fucking hard to not just be nice, but to even be Decent when your base needs are not met. Sometimes, trauma turns you cruel. Sometimes suffering makes you mean. And thats not excuse, thats not justification, but its what can happen to a lot of people in a system that is designed to be unfair like this.

#basically capitalism and the ultra rich are the real villians and lets not LITERALLY play into their hand by gettin’ sidetracked babes! #thats the whole thing about the game. every1 thinks they’re fighting each other but Really they are struggling against the wealthy host(s) #the squid game #sang woo #kdrama #it speaks

[ruby-whistler]

a complete list of my writing and analysis

[ updated: 29/08/2021 ]

PSA's and the like:

- therapy vs. emotional support - on excusing c!tommy's actions because of ptsd - static vs. dynamic characters on the dream smp (outdated) - important things to keep in mind during analysis and discussions - characters aren't synonymous with their past actions - the dehumanization of c!dream in the dsmp fandom - tag your positive posts! / tag your crit! - welcome to dreblr - the unofficial guide

memes and joke posts:

- what freaks out the dream smp fandom - c!karl & c!dream my beloveds <3 - dream apologist vibes - scratch that no vibes send help - the "i'm you" c!ranboo bit is beginning to make a lot more sense - "fighting with words" and "talking with violence" on the smp - the fandom's both biased and hypocritical apparently - *casually hates on l'manberg again* - "why are you a dream apologist?" - "c!dream and techno are imminent threats" yeah sure- - the five stages of grief ft. ruby (3rd life smp ending) - hermits' vibes by ruby; the only trustworthy source of information /j - l'manberg weren't pacifists nor the victims in the war - ...so c!wilbur said c!dream apologists are partially right - it's "l'manberg" and i take no criticism - why are we here, just to suffer - why friend isn't in wilbur's limbo - look, i don't excuse c!dream's actions. ok maybe some of them- - c!everyone apologists are the best at analysis - apparently we have the most angst and hurt/comfort fanfic. Why - meme through the pain i want him back pls - dream apologists are an unstoppable force of nature - this is how endersmile happened, right - the only valid dsmp citizen meme - oh look i still follow booktubers - i want you all to suffer as much as i suffer dealing with you - i like c!dream for being horrible. fight me. // genuinely love him too - the l'manberg anti salt post - healing fics that remove a character's core trait are not good

creative essays and objective analysis:

- on villains, heroes, and the metanarrative of the dream smp - my perception of the dream smp story and the characters in it - putting ghostbur's death into context - an analysis of c!dream's motivation during the l'manberg war - on l'manberg and c!wilbur's "death of the author" - dehumanization and victim blaming of c!dream part one - please let people have feelings about minecraft rp - dehumanization and victim blaming of c!dream part two - the reasons for the dehumanization of c!dream - c!wilbur was sure as hell gonna be ambitious - c!dream cares about people so much he won't let them care back - why c!dream should (and probably will be) redeemed: an essay - short semi-factual analysis of the prison death scene - there's no redemption before healing - what happened to c!techno wasn't "peer pressure" (best post!) - a scene-by-scene analysis of the original disc war - on blaming characters for c!dream's neglect and abandonment - add-on to the previous point by me and @/simplepotatofarmer - l’manberg was nothing but something to sacrifice for [v. 2.0!] - metaphor on the nature of redemption in narratives - statement on c!dream, justification and sympathy - c!dream's actions aren't based on beliefs; they stem from mindsets - c!tommy didn't deserve exile and c!dream didn't deserve the prison - (c!)dream is afraid of death; a speculative essay - c!dream isn't selfish - c!dream cares even if it hurts him - saying c!dream / c!techno should've left l'manberg alone is naive - with c!techno, c!dream is allowed to be a person, above all else - c!dream isn't the "main villain" and he hasn't "hurt everyone" - saying c!dream never cared is a mischaracterization (by anon) - c!dream isn't manipulating c!ranboo, actually (collab post) - c!dream is very clearly hurt - his trauma isn't loud, but it's there - l'manberg was, without question, built on xenophobia - please listen to the writers of the story about the characters - roleplay is supposed to be collaborative, not pre-written - the dream smp also doesn't need a "lead writer" - the common misinterpretations of c!dream and why no one is right - final disc war analysis and why it makes no sense (by anon) - why i am so attached the c!dream's character - on healing, redemption, and forgiveness - c!dream killed c!tommy to prove he was worth keeping alive - the duel is an example of actions that speak louder than words - the themes of the story line up with c!techno's narrative - c!sam hurts c!dream out of hatred stemming from fear - c!dream in season one was an anti-hero - c!sapnap is a bad friend // and acts like a bad person // + el rapids - yes, morality is a sliding scale! ...they're still all in the grey area! - a c!dream redemption'd fit incredibly well with the story's themes - a pretty long list of loose ends in the dream smp's story - c!dream wasn't owed being cared about, but he was still alone - i love c!dream. he's important to me. and that's okay. - scar is so funny and entertaining and amazing i love watching him - there's a difference between "unrealiable narrator" and "liar" - don't cut the sharp edges off of characters - people have a "minecraft persona", which c!dream used to be - on c!dream's alleged obsession with c!tommy - colour coding in dsmp analysis - by coffee anon!

#1/2 #continued in reblog! #don't rb this one! #this took hours