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lakesbian · 2 months

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i have had like 10 friends rec worm to me but nobody’s given me a good like, gist of its vibe and what its abt because ‘its best blind’, could u please give a like brief summary and vibe check of it 😭 it’s so long i dont wanna try and invest that much time without knowing much abt it

so, worm is a 1.7 million word long webserial written in 2010. 1.7 million words seems like a lot, but it was also written over a relatively short period of time, which means the writing style is very easy to parse--the ideas aren't without complexity, but the language itself isn't intimidatingly dense. you can get through it at a very decent pace. i agree with your friends that there are vast portions of worm that hit best when you're unspoiled, but the thing is that worm is long enough that giving you the basic plot pitch is in no way spoilers for any of the things that i wouldn't want to see spoiled for someone. i'm actually kind of baffled they're not telling you Any Thing, because it is in my estimation one of the best books i've ever read, but it also Needs a briefing before you get into it for like five different reasons. which i will now provide. i swear to god this is brief by my standards it's just that i am very thorough

worm is a story about superheroes and supervillains, set in a world where superpowers are traumagenic--rather than appearing randomly or innately, some people gain powers after a traumatizing event happens to them. the protagonist is taylor hebert, a 15yo girl who has the power to control insects and desperately wants to be a superhero. and then accidentally finds herself scouted by a team of teenage villains instead. who's to say how she's going to react to all that!

one of the most compelling things about worm is that the superpowers in it serve as visceral, hyper-literal metaphors for the trauma and traumatized coping mechanisms of the characters with those powers. each power is incredibly specific and thematically relevant to the person who has it, and it's incredibly interesting and evocative. it feels so natural and well-done that it comes off like how superpowers are just meant to be written.

the fact that superpowers stem from trauma also means that worm is fundamentally a narrative about trauma. specifically, about traumatized teenagers and the relationships they form as they cling together while struggling through growing up traumatized & mutually coping with an increasingly intriguing, intense, and far-reaching escalating plot. worm's depictions of trauma + mental illness--including unpalatable trauma responses, including traumatized characters who are allowed to be complicated and nuanced and messy while still receiving narrative respect--are deeply real-feeling and impactful, and they're placed in the context of a well-spun + engaging story.

i really do have to stress how excellent the character writing is. worm is fully deserving of being as long as it is. over the course of 1.7 million words of character development, the average reader's reaction to the main characters goes from "sorta interesting" to "okay, i want to see where this goes" to "augh...really likable" to "i am now on hands and knees crying and these characters are going to stick around in my brain forever." wildbow has incredible talent for efficiently conveying complicated, real-feeling, and viscerally evocative characterization. many of the interlude chapters (chapters written from the perspective of different characters other than taylor) are so interesting, fleshed-out, and emotionally affecting that they make you wish you could read an entire novel about just the side character being featured. with that level of characterization for just the side cast, it's not surprising that taylor (& co) are genuinely just downright iconic. and i do not say that lightly--taylor is truly one of the best-written protagonists i've seen in anything. ever.

the other main pitch-point for worm is that it's a fascinating deconstruction/reconstruction/examination of the conceits of the superhero genre. it answers the question of--what would the world have to be like, for people with superpowers to act the way they do in classic cape media? and it does this well enough that it's interesting even if you have only a passing familiarity with cape media. i am not a big superhero media fan, but worm addresses virtually every aspect of cape media that was under the sun around 2010 in a way that's so interesting i still find it incredibly engaging. the approach it takes makes the narrative very accessible even to people who aren't usually cape media fans.

and speaking of the narrative: the end of the story is coherent and satisfying and deeply thematically resonant*. the way worm follows through on all of its main mysteries & plot threads is excellent. you don't have to worry about getting thru 1.7 million words and being dissatisfied by the author shitting the bed at the end, or anything like that. he does an amazing job of weaving together plot events in a way that makes each successive one feel rationally, thematically, and emotionally connected to what came before. there's really only one part where i feel the story stumbles a bit, but i think it was the best option he had for the narrative, and it's by no means a dealbreaker. it's in fact really impressive how cohesive and satisfying worm is for such a long webserial released over such a brief period of time.

*this is subjective ive seen some people who didnt love it but ive never seen anyone who downright Hated it who didnt also demonstrate egregious misunderstanding of literally everything worm is about. so thats a good sign

as for the downsides of worm/things that might put you off:

there is a very long list of trigger warnings for it. if you have any trigger warnings you want you should ask your friends to let you know about the relevant parts, because the fact that it's About Trauma (& about typical cape media circumstances presented very seriously) means that traumatic and violent things & their realistic aftermath are constantly happening and/or being discussed. i would not classify worm as needlessly dark or spiteful to the audience by any means, but it is intense and covers a lot of heavy topics. i do assume if your friends are all recommending it to you, they think none of the material would be too much for you, though!

worm was written in 2010 by a white cishet guy from canada. it's typical levels of 2010-era bigoted, it has a deeply lesbophobic stereotype character, it has some atrociously racist stereotype characters, the author really hates addicts, It's Got Blind Spots. i think worm is generally fully worth reading despite these, but very fair warning that it can get bad. i think what exacerbates this is that worm is generally extremely nuanced & sympathetic regarding ideas such as "crime is a result of systematic circumstance vs people just being inherently evil" and "mentally ill people who are traumatized in unpalatable ways are still deserving of fundamental respect as human beings" and so on and so forth, so it's extra noticeable and insufferable when you get to a topic the author has unexamined biases on and all that nuance drops out. the worst part is that a lot of this is most concentrated in the early arcs, so you have to get through them without being super attached to any of the characters yet. it is worth it though.

worm like. Does have a central straight relationship in it. and it's a very well written straight relationship for the most part and i like it quite a lot. but worm also passes the bechdel test with such flying colors that it enters 'unintentionally homoerotic' territory. which means a lot of people were shipping the main character ms taylor hebert with her female friends while the story was being released. which caused the author to get so mad he 1. posted a word of god to a forum loudly insisting that all of the girls are straight and 2. inserted a few deeply awkward and obvious and out of character scenes where he finds an excuse for the girls to more or less turn to the camera and go "i'm not gay, btw. this is platonic." This is fucking insufferable, and will piss you off immensely, but then you will get to any of the number of deeply emotionally affecting scenes between them, and at that point you will be too busy sniffling piteously and perhaps crytyping an analysis post on tumblr to be mad about all that other shit. also they're only a couple tiny portions out of an entire overall fantastic novel

overall: if those points don't sound like dealbreakers (i hope they aren't they're really massively outstripped by the amount of devastatingly good moments in worm, worm still has a thriving fandom over a decade later for a reason), you should absolutely give it a shot and see what you think. my final note is that you have to read up until the end of arc 8 to really see where what makes worm Worm kicks in, so aim for at least there to see how you feel about it if you're just thinking about dipping your toes in vs fully committing. i hope that was helpful and not too long :)

oh and don't go in the comments section on wordpress if you don't want spoilers. or anywhere else in the fandom at all. you will be spoiled. quite possibly for things you could not even have imagined were topics to be spoiled on.

#ask #wormblr #parahumans #ill tag it to save it so i can reference later. and maybe other people will find it helpful

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villiedoom · 10 months

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I have been into studying animals for basically my whole life. Not a day goes by where I don't pour through books and documentaries relating to them, and I am especially in love with their anatomy. Becauseof my knowledge,to me, 3D animals always felt weird for some reason, They never seemed animal. I don't know how to explain it but they always feel off. I pour hours and hours into making up species and trying to figure out how to make them seem animal even if they don't exist. Even Disney with their million dollar budgets couldn't get this. I concluded that it's just impossible to make something cgi feel 100% animal. But you??? Just??? Did it??? I literally have chills. They look like actual creatures. I don't know what you did or how you cracked the code but I am just in awe, I feel like I've stumbled upon some kind of hidden treasure trove. Honestly and genuinely with every animal loving bone in my body your stuff is the most impressive I've seen and I applaud you for it.

Wow, I think it's an honor to hear this! :D I don't consider myself that good, heh, but thank you very much! 💙

As an animal art lover, I think I understand what you mean! I think this because people are less aware of all the details of animals, and tend to be less picky and less attentive to their features and expressions. But if you know animals well, you can notice many small details that make them seem weird or unnatural. This is true for me too - any animal I try to draw or model will most likely be really weird and look a bit like a Vaeraf, because I'm too used to them :D

But speaking of my characters and art, this (as well as many other questions and comments) made me think about my perception of animals and my characters, so I decided to share my thoughts. I hope you don't mind! ^^ The fact that my characters are perceived as animals, with all the nuances of such perception and attitude, is a rather complex topic for me to think about.

I don't know if it matters, but I believe so - I don't see my characters as animals - meaning wildlife, because for me Vaerafes are hardly more wild animals than humans, while Tkhorm is a Varlaf, a kind of fantasy spirit, a mystical creature. I understand why other people perceive them as animals and that's ok, technically we are all animals, but often this leads to a certain impersonal perception of them, seeing them as just cool creatures, "things" to pet or be afraid of, or with a focus on biology and anatomy. But I see my characters as persons, as people in fact, with their own personality, sometimes quite complex thinking, personal dilemmas and philosophy, which simply belong to another species, even if their species is non-human, fictional and fantasy. Their movements, their expressions, their appearance, even their anatomy and species - all this is part of them as persons, of who they are.

Real animals, especially complex and intelligent ones, also have all this in their own way, they aren't just biological objects.

Also, I don't work with characters because I create species, but I learn about species because my characters happen to belong to that species, so I need to learn at least a little about their nature to understand them as persons. I learn, allowing them to live their lives inside my head and tell me their story, their life. It doesn't matter if it's something realistic, fantasy, or crazy and cartoonish chaos - that sometimes happens too. (and now I suddenly realized that I actually never even really wanted my characters to be some kind of fictional species, but it just turned out to be so, because no real animal suits them, heh!)

And knowing my characters as individuals and persons, I can say that I still have a lot of work to do, really a lot, maybe even more than I have already done :D

The problem with Disney movies, if I take the 3D Lion King as an example, is that they were never animals. They were never even meant to be animals. They are slightly stylized - too little to be anthropomorphic and humanly expressive, but enough to seem "wrong" for realistic animals. And since the behavior and expressions of the real animals don't work for their story and the interactions between the characters, they seem weird and even less expressive than real animals. I believe this is not a problem of artists and budget, but of the concept as a whole, including the story that didn't intend for its characters to actually be realistic animals.

Whereas realistic animals… well, they are difficult to use them for a beautiful movie for a wide audience. Although there are such things as, for example, "Prehistoric Planet". These are dinosaurs, but they are animals too, so I think they can be considered 3D animals being animals, heh! :D Plus, they're just really beautiful and well made. I would recommend watching this to all 3D animal lovers c:

(Sorry for such a long post, but this is a really catchy and interesting topic for me ^^')

#messages #thoughts

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venusssssssssss · 2 months

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My ep 11 impressions (just got off work and drank some wine so bear with me):

Say what you want...New is such a good written character, but most of it all he is played SO WELL (i can’t believe the imense talent this very young dude has). I had my share of “revenge plot” tv shows (The Glory – which disappointed me in S2 but that's for another time) and I really enjoy a LITTLE FREAK. But one that is true to his cause until the end. I don’t want him to be redeemable or regret what he’s done (although the writers maybe have something else in store for this character idk). I don’t want him to be reasonable. He wants to burn the world and he has not time for your ethics, ok? Still, he did not get his hands dirty, he keeps pushing people to do what he wants while he does not do anything directly. The gun was in everyone’s hands but his. It was poetic, really.

New did not trust Phee for a single second. SINCE THE BEGINNING. Already predicted this last week. He is not dumb, he did not lose the plot, he knows what he’s doing. I knew that already – this line was executed SO WELL GOD. . .Do I blame Phee though? No lol. I’ve been saying this for weeks, Phee did not sign up for this.

Tee. Another child failed by the adults around him. This is the leitmotif of the show imo. These were all children when it all started. That is something I never forgot. So it comes as no surprise to me that the audience’s attitude towards him shifted after we got to see his backstory. His crying was really hearbreaking ngl. It's no big surprise you turned out this way – like the lyrics say. (Great acting I might add)

I love how complex and nuanced the characters are. Even the ones you think are irredeemable. Of course Por was the (only) one who pointed out that Non’s situation was without a doubt GROOMING.

WHITE. Who is White really? We have seen the backstory of TeeWhite’s relationship, but not the backstory of White. Is he just a colateral victim? Maybe it is that simple in the end, we’ll have to see. He really seems to have genuine feelings for Tee though (and viceversa). I read all y'all's theories about White (including White = Non) and I love them all. I just don’t know if the writers have it in them to pull them off.

Lastly, the hatred people have towards Jin is tiring at this point & I don’t have the energy to engage with it anymore.

#This is such a good show no matter what #really enjoy it and will enjoy it until the end. The actors are so good!!!#dead friend forever #dff #dead friend forever the series

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gunnerkriggcritical · 5 months

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The ambiguity in Annie's love life has always been really compelling to me. I'm gonna discuss some of the facets of this below.

First off, Annie responds to Mort's supposed romantic "claim" on her (via the blinker stone) with a level of anger that shocks both Mort and Kat. That's such a fascinating scene to me. I think it's the first time in the comic that we really get a taste of Annie's temper, and it's in the context of her not wanting to be claimed by a suitor against her will.

Then there's Jack. Annie doesn't seem to know how to act around him, while the question of whether she genuinely has a crush on him is left unanswered; she veers between acting awkwardly and not seeming to know how to treat him, to deliberately manipulating him to hurt him after hearing about her mother doing the same to Renard (and based on Irial's advice), to - this is my interpretation, anyway - offering him a kiss because she thinks that's what you're supposed to do in such situations, not because she genuinely wants to. The way Jack refuses her kiss and gives her a hug instead always seemed to me like, to a certain level, pity? He's learned over the course of the chapter that Annie is a mess who has no idea what she's doing, least of all romantically, and he doesn't want to take advantage of that. At least, that's how I always interpreted that moment.

"The Torn Sea" really makes a point of emphasizing that Annie has no partner while most of her friends have paired off. I'm still not sure why - and it's possible, I guess, that the chapter only does this for comedic effect. It's also more than possible that we haven't reached the point in Annie's arc that will make all these past moments make sense in retrospect. There's also, of course, the moment in "Dealing With HER" where the Annies briefly discuss having a crush on someone. And the moment in "Annie and the Forest" when Annie is asked if she has a "love back home," misunderstands the question and says "Yes, my friend Kat," and then, when it's clarified, mentally scrolls through the list of boys she knows before settling on Jack with a confused look on her face. And speaking of "Annie in the Forest," there is, of course, her crush on Kamlen, which is also contrasted with a (maybe?) crush on Jones in "Divine," hinting that Annie might be bi.

A lot is going on here, but it all fits into the broader context of who Annie is. This is way more apparent in earlier chapters than later ones, but socially, she's a strange, underdeveloped girl who was raised in isolation and doesn't quite know how to navigate the world of school-age drama. Her awkwardness and lack of experience in romance are part of a broader character arc that highlights her social ineptitude; while her peers pair off, she's left alone, and attention is drawn to this by the narrative, both in terms of friendships and romantic relationships (although she does have a small group of friends other than Kat by the later days of the comic).

She learns how to behave based on mimicry, which, in the romantic context, is especially apparent in "Faraway Morning," when she mimics her mother's behaviour and Irial's advice to manipulate Jack, to disastrous results, before eventually relenting and admitting she regrets it. She does have crushes, but she doesn't know how to act on them properly. In fact, since the question of whether she actually has a crush on Jack or was just trying to manipulate him for revenge is left unanswered, I don't know if we've ever really seen Annie acting on a crush at all.

With all this in mind, I don't really have a concrete opinion or theory on "who Annie will end up with," only my personal opinion that I would rather she didn't end up with anyone at all.

It's very very common for main characters to "end up with" somebody, but the way the comic has treated Annie's love life has, so far, been much more complex and nuanced than that. I don't think she's aromantic (although I totally understand and respect why someone would headcanon that) - I do think she has romantic crushes, that there's canon evidence for her being bisexual, and that the comic wants us to pay attention to everything it's doing in regards to her romantic leanings. I also think, and hope, that Gunnerkrigg intends to subvert the "who will the main character end up with?!" question that every other piece of media in history has asked, by saying: "No one." That answer is, to me, far more in keeping with the nuance the comic has managed towards Annie's romantic leanings than "she ends up with Kat," or any other possible pairing, would be. I would rather the answer be left cryptic instead of made concrete, like many other concepts in the comic have been.

To finish: I have long thought Gunnerkrigg is about the fierce, loyal, powerful platonic love between Annie and Kat. The dyadic friendship that unites forest and Court, technology and magic, fantasy and science fiction. The idea of them being in love with each other is nowhere near as compelling to me as the idea of them caring about each other so deeply they would do anything for the other, without being in romantic love.

(If Annie and Kat do get together, I would also question how quickly and unceremoniously Paz got booted out of the comic to make way for this pairing, but that's neither here nor there, lol.)

#gunnerkrigg #gunnerkrigg court #I hope this makes sense lmao I banged this out in like 15 minutes and now it's way too long

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noveratus · 3 months

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I will be honest, I only have one hope for Hazbin Hotel, one thing I am begging them for and if they do, I will be the happiest person alive even if the whole thing ends up being shit, and that is to make Vaggie a genuinely complex and interesting character.

It is nothing new that A23 tends to have a certain reputation when it comes to female characters, that being that they are either shallow, vilified or get shafted for the sake of other characters, and while I see where people are coming from, I also think that it makes sense that Helluva Boss doesn't focus on its female characters. Helluva Boss is a show about Blitzø first and foremost and Moxie and Millie are mostly just there to act as Blitzø's want. He wants to have a relationship like what they have, even if the rest of Hell finds it to be appalling, but he isn't willing to work for it in the same way that Moxie is, for example. Moxie is a flawed character, there is no denying that, but he always comes around, realizes his mistakes and apologizes for it, while Millie is probably the only stable person in all of hell. She needs to be that pillar that holds not just Moxie and their relationship together. With that in mind, while I do wish Millie would have more development and we at least got to hear from her what she feels like being the one responsible for holding this ship together, I understand why she has not been the main focus. Loona and Octavia are both on the same ship where they are the 'child' characters. They represent the respective best part of their fathers, and while they have their little character arcs, they are mostly there to humamize Stolas and Blitzø. Then there is Stella who is just a bitch, and honestly, good for her. Sometimes it is fun to have characters who are just petty villains, and if there is one place where that works, that is hell.

My main point is, Helluva Boss is, at its core, a show about a relationship between two male characters, so it makes sense why they would get the most screen time, which unfortunately means other characters get shafted.

And then we have Hazbin Hotel, a show where the main character is supposed to be a female lead, Charlie and so far we are four episodes in and the show has been about literally everyone in the hotel other than her. In fact, I would argue that Charlie has been the main antagonist of the show so far since in almost every episode it is her going cartoonishly 'nice' to try and help other characters that leads to the main conflicts/problems, which it sucks since this feels like such a departure from the original pilot where Charlie was an awkward, but well meaning person trying to make the best out of a terrible situation. Now, she just feels like new sponge bob essentially, where she is just annoying everyone with her kindness. When all that the audience is getting from your main character is annoyance, you have a bit of a problem.

And then we have Vaggie and out of all of the characters, Vaggie is a very interesting one. In the original pilot, Vaggie is treated as a punching bag for the majority of it or as a minor source of conflict for Charlie, however, in the show, she has been treated with a lot more nuance so far. Sure, she is still bickering with Angel Dust and she despise Alastor, but you can feel that there is a sense of respect between them, particularly between Alastor and Vaggie. Not only that, but the fact that she seems to be coming from a militaristic background and seems to be the actual voice of reason, albeit a skeptical one makes her the most interesting character to me. I know that Vivzy and A23 can write good, compelling male queer characters, I have seen them do it in Helluva Boss and I will be frank, I still think all the characters and concept in that show are so much better than anything Hazbin has produced, so I don't need another show focusing on male struggles. All that I want to see is one well written queer female character. That is the one thing Helluva Boss has not done that Hazbin Hotel can do better. Make Vaggie an exterminator angel who decided to stay in hell, or a fallen angel or literally anything as long as you make it interesting. Please, make her more than just Charlie's girlfriend, make her an actual character. That is all that I am asking.

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cubeapples · 16 days

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I saw your anti-Jegulus post, and wanted to offer my two cents. I actually don’t personally mind Jegulus as a ship itself (I wouldn’t call myself a fan or anything, but I’m not too bothered by it), but I actually do think a lot of the fanon portrayals of Jegulus have constant hints of misogyny. For example, I’ve seen a lot of Jegulus fics/headcanons about Lily having a baby and essentially abandoning her family in order to leave room for Jegulus raising Harry. It’s a very tired cliche of fans of MLM ships trying to get women out of the way any way they can, as long as they can get use out of them first (in this scenario, Lily giving birth to Harry).

Another common thing I see is the criticism/opinion that Jily is boring (which is absolutely fair, everyone is entitled to their opinion) but then project a lot of Jily’s tropes onto Jegulus (some that I’ve seen are matching patronuses, James being extremely infatuated and pining over Regulus, or making Regulus’ personality identical to canon Lily’s and then turning Lily into a bland, one dimensional character). I think where people are coming from is that because of this, it genuinely feels like these people would in fact like Jily, and the only issue they have with it is that Lily is a woman. I also find myself genuinely wondering if Regulus would be as popular as he is now if he were a female character.

I don’t think people who like Jegulus are individually being misogynistic, I think it’s more of the general concept of Jegulus becoming popular and the treatment of all characters involved has strong undertones of misogyny.

This isn’t meant to be hateful or combative btw, so I hope it didn’t come off that way. I just saw your post and wanted to offer my perspective on it.

oh no worries anon, your message is clear. and you are right, the jegulus fandom is misogynistic in the way that you say that they are, and i dislike that.

but the point of my post is that you can't exactly be mysogynistic towards lily evans, because the author herself is already misogynistic towards her. my point was that jily is no better than jegulus.

think of it this way, lily evans, the mother of the protagonist of the series, whose love saved the protag’s life should have a more prominent role in the series. but instead, her whole life is portrayed to revolve around male characters. her role in ths story is reduced to being a mother. [i'm not saying motherhood is a bad thing, i just wish it was explored with more complexity and nuance.]

jily is also the most basic, misogynistic heterosexual pairing ever imo. james is immature, lily is mature, and james changed for her because he wanted her to like him.

that's it, that's literally it. the fact that james 'changed' himself is the more important part of their dynamic. lily herself is not shown having any feelings for james, and how she went through the process of forgiving him. james is this manchild, with atrocious behaviour and he's expected to change for lily. it's like lily isn't even her own person anymore!

i don't like the jily dynamics as well because james was lowkey blackmailing lily into dating him and the way that their romance is pprtrayed, it feels like she just eventually accepted it, after he 'changed.'

at this point, even though it was lily's love that saved harry's life, she is such a non-entity in the series. harry is portrayed to be more interested in learning about james, and lily is depicted as having NO concrete friends in canon! the mary detail in canon hardly counts because that scene was more focused on snape! another man. seriously! every aspect of her life revolves around some GUY.

not to mention, after she graduates, guess what. she stays at home to take care of the baby while james becomes a strong auror! are you seeing this?! she's a trad wife. she's literally a stay-at-home mum because she decided she wanted to get knocked up in the middle of the war. the only counter-point to this is if voldemort wasn't after harry, she might have gone to work, but it is iffy, too, because who decides it's a good idea to have a baby in the middle of a war? she could have fought alongside james but nooo she has to watch while james puts his invisibility cloak on to goof around with sirius while her baby's life is in danger.

"it genuinely feels like these people would in fact like Jily, and the only issue they have with it is that Lily is a woman." <- you're right anon, but this doesn't matter to me as i feel that both the ships are equally bad.

tl;dr: jily is also a lowkey misogynistic in my opinion. jegulus is just as bad, and you are right, some of its fans are misogynistic as well.

#anti jily #anti jegulus #anon.ask

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roseofcards90 · 1 year

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It honestly baffles me how people are dunking on Sada and Turo for being shitty parents much more than I saw when Sun and Moon first came and Lusamine was first revealed to be the villain like huh 😭 where was that energy before??? Because I feel there’s more nuance with Sada and Turo’s characters and their motivations than there were with Lusamine’s (I’m talking about her in the games of course, not the anime. I will also leave discussion for what happens in Ultra Sun and Moon for another post, so I’m only talking about the plot of the original Sun and Moon here). I’m honestly just tired of all the bashing on the Professors and them being watered down to “typical shitty parent in Pokemon” when the game clearly states and implies the exact opposite.

Lusamine is very much shown to have abandoned her kids, openly berating them and saying she has no children right in front of her daughter’s face because they “abandoned her love” and going forth with her plan to open the wormholes and summon the ultra beasts with no consideration for anything else. She doesn’t have the headspace to care about her children anymore in her plan, in huge contrast to Sada/Turo’s plan where despite how extreme it was, was at the core still centered around their son and their family. I think chalking it down to just “well they’re still both bad parents anyway” takes away some of the complexity surrounding their characters in the first place. Also I’m only bringing Lusamine as a comparison mostly because Ghetsis and Giovanni do not have any other depth to their characters in the core games lmao, and I feel Lusamine is a great example of a parent who used to care but had lost that love after her husband’s “death” and along the way of achieving her goal, while Sada and Turo are examples of the complete opposite: parents who still held onto that love and care throughout their goal, but took it so far that they hurt the one person it was for the most out of everything. It really feels like people are portraying the professors’ flaws in the completely wrong way. The problem was never “they never loved their son at all and intentionally abandoned him” it was “they became so invested and deluded in their plan they ended up neglecting the treasure it was supposed to be for.” which is exactly what distinguishes them from all the other parent antagonists we’ve seen so far. There’s a certain tragedy present in seeing a broken family that used to be so happy together that I feel was also in Sun and Moon’s story, but was muddled due to the story focusing on other aspects.

And I’m going to address this right now because I know people are going to say something because they lack reading comprehension: I am not excusing Sada and Turo’s actions in the game and how their neglect had affected Arven. Explanations are not Excuses. You can acknowledge that they loved their son while still hurting him in the end, both ideas can coexist. I merely just want to analyze wtf even happened here for the professor to go down this path. And it’s also worth nothing that we don’t have much answers in the game itself as of right now, since well—the original is dead and we’re dealing with an AI version of them for the entirety of the game. Most of this is coming from the original’s journals in the lab, but I think the game makes a clear distinction that they still loved Arven even after everything. Despite their delusion taking over them, I think they genuinely believed what they were doing was the best for them and their family despite otherwise. The whole point at the end was to highlight how they didn’t need to create that paradise. They had that loving family already, and it was too late for them to realize that Arven only needed them and nothing else.

I don’t know if it’s just me, but I want the DLC to address Arven’s other parent and what exactly happened to them (or better yet, meet them in the story which would honestly be an interesting parallel where the professor of the opposite version is the one you get to know more than the original in game one). I know the in game Professor’s journal entry says they “walked out” but what does that even mean in hindsight? Keep in mind this is from the point of view of someone who’s continuously being deluded into their own idea of paradise, who most likely felt grief after their partner left them that they built an entire AI of themselves to help complete the project.

And yet they still say they’re going to build a paradise for “the three of them.” Does that mean the in game professor was also trying in some way to bring the other parent back? What if it was an accident? What if they were sent through the time machine and couldn’t go back, and the in game professor was so distraught their delusion out of sheer desperation made it so they processed it as “(s)he walked out on me, and now I’m all alone.” Of course this all a lot of speculation, but it just doesn’t make sense to me how Arven’s other parent would “leave” like that. Maybe I’m being an optimist about it, but it really does feel like it was unwillingly in some way, where the in game professor’s increasing delusion was the reason why they “left” so to speak.

And that’s not even addressing the 3rd legendary of the game and its role in all of this is. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was meant to parallel the snake/the devil in Genesis, as the sin of temptation since the professor and Area Zero have a lot of similarities with the Garden of Eden and this idea of “paradise” for their family. Where the 3rd legendary gave them the opportunity to create their paradise by giving them access to the paradox pokemon and terastalizing, and thus influenced them so much, it eventually led them down to a path of their own destruction consumed by the delusion that they could create a paradise for their family, but failed to recognize they ended up hurting the one person they treasured most in the end. If the other professor did indeed return in the DLC, maybe it would give the chance to separate themselves from their spouse and make things right with both the region and Arven. Having them be the antithesis to the other Professor’s motivation and making the choice to stay with Arven in the present would be a really cool way to wrap up the story ngl.

Anyways people who portray them as apathetic and uncaring to Arven in fan art and fics I wish you a very “play the fucking game again please”. Even their character design sheets say otherwise, especially with Sada like I cannot imagine the woman described as “not being able to hide her emotions well” would be a cold and uncaring mother like come on 💀 I played Violet for crying out loud and I’m still able to recognize that.

#and also like idk everyone seems to have shitty parents in this game?? with the exception of the mc and their mom #if we're going by what Nemona and Penny say in the area zero dialogue #I think people are just solely focusing on Arven and his parents because they tie so much into the main story #that and I think a lot of people were not expecting the twist with the professors being the real “antagonists” of the story #the professors are very interesting characters to me and it’s surprising how I haven’t seen them be analyzed as much as other characters #where they’re immediately labeled as “abusive parents with no depth” like the other parent characters in past games #when imo they share much more nuance and character than the others had before #I feel like I’m still going to get hate from this somehow 😭#I can say one thing though and it’s that the disc pokemon is very suspicious #that legendary played a role in something that’s for sure #pokemon scarlet and violet spoilers #pokemon #pokemon scarlet and violet #professor turo #professor sada #arven pokemon #lusamine pokemon #my posts #long post

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gregrulzok · 1 month

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What are your top 10 favorite media, like from books, anime/manga, movies, tv series, etc (if you feel like listing multiple) of all time? Feel free if you want to write the reasons or not of why you love them....

Now THIIIIS is way different from asking me my favourite characters.

When it comes to characters, I tend to be heavily analytical and critical. When it comes to media... Well, you'll see. Whatever the case please note that these pieces of media being my favourite doesn't mean I necessarily recommend them. There's things I love with my whole heart that I wouldn't inflict upon my mortal enemy. You've been warned.

I'm also purposefully omitting some of my favourite pieces of media to shine a spotlight on ones I don't really get to talk about, or just want more people to know about (sorry, Berserk)

I'll try and keep these ones spoiler free, since I'm thinking of them more as recommendations! NSFW media will be marked with a *, but I won't go into anything explicit here. Please look up media mindfully and with discression, some of these may be triggering.

Thank you for the ask and I'm sorry for the ridiculous lengths of information you're about to witness !

Dungeon Meshi

Lets start with a safe one. A simple one. An expected one.

Yes, Dungeon Meshi IS that good.

Dungeon Meshi is a beautifully drawn manga that starts out slow, whimsical and almost slice-of-life-y, and then descents into utter madness so slowly and skillfully that by the time you blink you're in another dimension.

The world building in this series is second to none - everything makes sense and nothing is handwaved. The genuine and honest passion in the way the world feels alive is palpable, and despite its realism it never loses its magical feeling.

The characters are charming, lovable, realistic, and complex. Each of them have an inner world to tap into, each of them feels like a real person you could hold a conversation with and would WANT to hold a conversation with. Here I'll also proudly announce that we get zero (0) gratuitous fanservice, zero (0) characters who exist as a punchline, and guaranteed Sexy-Lamp Free !

The plot... Fuck, man. The plot is the most honest and bare faced look at some of the most nuanced subjects in the world (desire, ambition, love, death, survival, trauma, neurodivergence) wrapped up in a way that feels simple, grounded and real.

It also sincerely began to heal my relationship with food. I don't think I've ever seen the subjects of cooking, eating, health, weight and body diversity portrayed so well in such an empathetic, understanding and caring way in any piece of media. Body positivity is not so much a focus, but rather an undercurrent in the whole manga.

Whew ! With one objectively good piece of media out of the way, let's move on to something more unhinged, such as ...

Honestly I can't begin to imagine what kind of person WOULDN'T enjoy Dungeon Meshi. Do yourself a favour and read it.

Cats (1998)

Cats. The Broadway musical cats. One of the longest running musicals in the world, award winning, famously bashed and hated, recently revorked into a horrible film that was even more bashed and hated, the beautiful, glorious wonderful disaster of my heart - Cats.

Specifically, the 1998 film version.

...It's so hard for me to explain this one.

At some point, while watching Cats for the second time (for a reason I cannot explain), some neurons fired the wrong direction in my brain and now I have a pathological obsession, to the point where I can name each and every single Godforsaken cat in this show, including the ones that don't even appear in the credits.

Cats. What am I even supposed to say here, like, genuinely. It's cats.

Well, here's the thing - the choreography and acting direction in this fucking musical is genuinely breathtaking. It takes a few watches for it to fully click, but once it does, I sincerely believe that Cats is one of the most endlessly fascinating pieces of media to analyze. What you have to understand about Cats is that every single character (with very few exceptions) is on screen basically for the entire show. And so while you're watching the dancing in the foreground (which is beautiful on its own), every single cat in the background is just ... There. Moving, interacting, portraying characteristics that are never stated, never so much as focused on - but you can see them. You can see the kittens playing with each-other, you can see the elders gossiping, you can see small bits and gags you won't catch your first time, or second, or fifth. You can see how rowdy Tumblebrutus and Pouncival are, you can see how excitable Electra is, you can see the quiet dignity of Coricopat and Tantomile, the friendship between Jellylorum and Jennyanydots. There's always new little bits of background characterisation you can catch, pretty much regardless of how many times you've seen it.

In that way, Cats is feels the most alive, the most ever changing and evolving. I'm completely enraptured by it and if you do want to watch it, I recommend watching it as many times as you can stomach, because your first time through it'll glide right off you like water off a duck.

Chainsaw Man (Public Safety Arc)*

The first time I finished reading Chainsaw Man, I stared at my phone for a straight minute, then started sobbing. The next morning, I drank alcohol for the first time.

I wish that was a joke.

I'll admit I'm not up to date on the second arc of Chainsaw Man - it honestly got away from me a little and I'm not entirely sure I'll be finishing it.

But that doesn't take away from the fact that the first arc is one of the most tightly written, beautiful, emotional stories I've ever read.

Sure, it's fun and funny. Sure, it's cool in it's action scenes. Sure, the art direction is absolutely breathtaking. Sure, the character design and worldbuilding are interesting and detailed.

But at its heart the core appeal of CSM, to me, is the way it speaks about trauma, abuse, assault, isolation, fear, and desire. Chainsaw Man is painfully down to earth in a gritty, real way, and while it is extremely dark, it's also uplifting and hopefull in a way a lot of dark media isn't.

Chainsaw Man makes you feel tiny, helpless in a massive world. Chainsaw Man puts you up against horrors both tangible and fantastical, and then it looks you in the eyes and says "Hey. You aren't weak. You aren't useless. The world is scary, the world is cruel, the world is harsh, but that doesn't mean you can't fight it. That doesn't mean there isn't hope".

I really don't know how else to describe it without going into spoilers. It's genuinely moving.

Arcane

Arcane is a beautiful tragedy that has no right being as impactful as it is for being a goddamn League of Legends adaptation, of all things.

The art direction in Arcane is absolutely insane - Taking a page from Into the SpiderVerse (which is another favourite of mine), it blends 3D animation with a 2D-esque art style and fully 2D effects to bring what I genuinely believe to be one of the best looking shows in the world to life. And that's not all !

Arcane is infinitely nuanced. Between it's multiple plots it introduces many, many characters, all of whom have their own wants, needs, goals, ambitions, fears, flaws and trauma, and it clashes them together beautifully. Nothing in Arcane feels like an afterthought to me, I think the most fantastic thing about it is how expertly it weaves all these different storylines together. Everything ties into something else, everything affects something else, the story changes based on every little movement of our main characters and by the time it unfolds you realize that there's nothing that could really be done to change it because EVERYTHING lead to this.

It's a tragedy in the best way possible.

Attack on Titan

I don't care what anyone says - Attack on Titan is one of the best Anime ever put on screen.

I am a person that grew up in a colonized, war-torn country. Part of our land is still occupied, and our occupants are currently seeking refuge in our city and acting like this is their vacation resort. My people have been marginalized, demonized, dismissed, our culture has been erased and we have been fed more propaganda than I can count.

And I say this because I think being in this situation lends me a pretty good perspective of what AoT is:

Propaganda. The first two seasons of Attack on Titan are literally an extended propaganda film, meant to trick and decieve the viewer into siding with the protagonists, and dismissing their enemies as mere monsters.

If I go any deeper into that statement, there will inevitably be spoilers, so I'll cap it off with this:

There are no easy answers in war. There are no heroes and no villains, there are no good guys and bad guys, and there are no winners. There is only deception, control, and death.

I've never seen a piece of fiction capture the true, real horror of war quite as well as Attack on Titan does.

Death Parade

Everybodyyyyyyy put your hands upppppp

Death Parade is the show I go to rewatch when I have nothing else to rewatch.

It is a soft, yet painful look at human nature. It's an exploration of what makes a person good or bad, and whether such things even exist. It brings into question the very nature of humanity, whether there's such a thing as being good or bad, whether our character is formed by our circumstances or our behaviour, and how those things should be judged. It asks what it means to have emotions, to have feelings, and how your own personal emotions and biased factor into how you assess other people - whether it's more unfair to judge someone objectively without empathy, or subjectively with your own narrow, biased worldview.

All of that wrapped in a beautiful aesthetic, and a somber, subtle love story. Not even necessarily a romantic one - just pure love.

Highly, highly recommend.

Oyasumi Punpun*

Oyasumi Punpun is the most direct, honest, unfiltered, unbiased look at a human being's psyche I've ever seen.

It's also one of the most triggering bits of media on here, so proceed with caution.

Oyasumi Punpun follows the life of a single boy from his childhood, through his adulthood. Every single hardship, every single setback, every victory, every memorable experience, is shown to us through the lense of his own eyes. His childhood innocence, his teenage cynicism, his adolescent hopelessness, his own naivete, his own trauma, his own biased colour the way we view the world around him.

It genuinely makes you feel like you are wearing his skin and living his life through him.

Its disturbing, uncomfortable, dark, scary, and it's funny, hopeful, and just plain bizarre.

Great Pretender

Alright, back to light-hearted things !!!

Great Pretender might be the funniest show I've ever seen, to me, personally. Its bright, saturated, expressive animation compliments the absolute insanity of this show perfectly.

The most basic premise is that Great Pretender is about two con artists desperately trying to out-con each-other, and then it all goes downhill from there. It sets up so much of its payoff in such tiny little ways that by the time I got to the end I'd be beating myself up for missing a completely innocuous detail like a characters fucking watch, because it was actually a hint towards the overall plotline.

Its clever, it's funny, it keeps you on your toes, and it can be genuinely heartfelt and delightfully homoerotic to boot !!

It's absolutely worth the watch. Please give us season two. Please. PLEASE.

Dark Heaven*

Dark Heaven is what I'd recommend to someone if they told me they liked reading BL.

As a gay man in an interracial relationship, I've yet to find a piece of media that is quite so open direct, brutal and honest about the kids of issues that gay people, people of color, and people in interracial relationships can face.

To that end - it's extremely triggering if you're sensitive to those particular topics, as well as some other things. I'd very much recommend looking up a list of triggers first if you want to read it because it does get very, very dark. (And very NSFW). (Right from chapter one)?

But yeah - Dark Heaven is a beautiful, engaging, and at times very fluffy and humorous romance between two men, that is heavily overlaid with real actual issues people face every day (and some people don't face every day, but are nonetheless very real). It's honest, soft, and uplifting where it needs to be, despite not sugarcoating absolutely anything. It also does us the wonderful favour of not fetishizing gay men, not playing into weird creepy stereotypes, and not turning their relationship into something to gawk at.

And now, the one, the only, the piece of media that captured my heart and soul and will never ever let go:

Warrior Cats

Fucking Warrior Cats.

I have read every single book in the series. The series with over 100 books (depending on how you count them). Every official piece of media, I have consumed.

I've been reading this book series since I was 11. I've loved, cherished, lived and breathed it. I keep up with them to this day. I recently completed a chronological re-read. I've made OCs. I've roleplayed it in person and online - in fact I've been a mod in a DeviantArt roleplay group.

I HAVE A GODDAMN EXCELL SPREADSHEET WHERE I ANALYZE THE STATISTICS OF THE WARRIOR CATS NAMING SYSTEM

"Oh wow, sounds like the series is really good" WRONG

Warrior Cats is one of the worst written series I've ever read. It's poorly paced, it's full of plotholes, most characters are pieces of cardboard with a furry coat. It's dumb, nonsensical, inconsistent, and infuriating. It preaches the worst lessons I've ever heard, it's full of nothing but wasted potential, and I could honestly count the number of books I'd consider to be genuinely good on both of my hands.

Out of a 100. I've read a fucking hundred of these. Send help.

Why do I do this to myself? Why do I read them?

Because I'm autistic and my brain is holding me hostage.

Against my better judgement, I have such a deep and genuine love for this series, for the characters, for the content mostly created by the fans, for the world building.

And every single time one of these fucking cats dies, I end up tearing up.

I love Warrior Cats and you can pry it from my cold, dead hands.

...

And that's IT !!!

Thank you again for the ask, and thanks if you read it this far !! You can really tell which ones of these I'm currently hyperfixated on haha.

Again please practice discression in looking these up - I have absolutely no triggers, and so don't think twice about consuming really dark and heavy pieces of media. This is also why I didn't just opt to put in my own trigger warnings - because I don't know everything that could be potentially triggering, and I don't want to give off the impression that you know everything you need to, in case i missed anything.

Be careful and be safe !

#dungeon meshi #cats 1998 #chainsaw man #arcane #attack on titan #death parade #oyasumi punpun #great pretender #dark heaven #warrior cats #warriors

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i-heart-hxh · 7 months

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Hi,.....if you don't mind me asking, can I ask your top 5 (or top 3) favorite characters from Hunter x Hunter? And why you loved them? And your top 5 favorite moments from the series? Sorry if you've answered this question before....Thanks....

I'm happy to answer, thank you very much for asking! I'm indecisive and overflowing with love for HxH, so doing rankings is a challenge for me, but I put some thought into it and here are my answers for now!

Top 5 Characters:

5. Biscuit Krueger -- It's fun how Bisky isn't at all what you'd assume when we meet her character (in a few different ways), and I love her sassy attitude! She has a lot of different sides to her, and I find her very entertaining. Her strong personality makes how she plays off other characters especially amusing. I like that she can be somewhat cranky, self-serving, and rude at times, but she also has a softer and caring side to her. I look forward to seeing more of her role in the current arc!

4. Neferpitou -- I adore Pitou's design, and the combination of how sinister and also cute they are simultaneously, which is fitting of a very powerful cat (ant). I enjoy their mischievous and playful side as well! Their growth as a character throughout Chimera Ant Arc is so moving to me, and such a vital part of the arc and the message of the series as a whole.

3. Kurapika -- He's a great second protagonist for the series! The dichotomy of the brutality and darkness of his revenge/recovery mission and what succeeding at that requires from him, and his underlying gentle and polite demeanor are interesting to watch play out. I'm both excited and nervous to see what Togashi has in store for the rest of his arc...

2. Gon Freecss -- He's only very, very narrowly in second place, I adore him deeply and he and Killua are undoubtedly my two favorite characters of all time (from anything). I love how he initially seems to be a normal, cheerful, and strong-willed shounen protagonist, but as you go further in the story and look deeper into his character it becomes increasingly clear how unique and well-written he is. There's so much nuance to him and he's such a fulfilling character to explore and think about, I never get tired of it. Plus, of course he's adorable!

1. Killua Zoldyck -- I mean, who doesn't love him? He's such an incredibly multidimensional, fun, heartwrenching, fantastic character. His emotional growth throughout the series is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen in a piece of fiction. His character design is so simple and yet so precious and iconic. There are tons of little touches to his character that contribute to making him feel so well-rounded and genuine. He and Gon utterly captured my heart my first time through the series and haven't let go even slightly.

Honorable mentions: Leorio, Alluka, Senritsu, I could go on and on... Togashi is a master at writing characters!

Top 5 Series Moments:

5. Gon and Killua on Whale Island -- I absolutely love the Whale Island episodes/chapters, they're such a reprieve from the many harrowing things going in the series otherwise, and it's wonderful to see Gon and Killua becoming closer. Their talk under the stars is such an important moment for them, setting the tone for their relationship going forward. I love thinking about all the fun they must have had that we don't see when they're on Whale Island, because they were there for a while and we only see a bit of it. These episodes/chapters are something I come back to a lot for comfort, and in the future I'm hoping we'll get another scene that echoes the scene under the stars...

4. "It has to be Killua." (From the dodgeball match.) -- There are so many layers to this scene, I love the complexity of it. From Gon's romantic-coded words towards Killua, Killua's very non-platonic response, and the contrast with Killua getting hurt on Gon's behalf, but it's because of Gon's respect for Killua's desire to help him at all costs... It's difficult to even summarize all the layers of what's going on without going deep into meta, it's a great microcosm of both the love and trust between the two, and some of the issues between them beginning to pop up, too.

3. The initial confrontation between Gon and Pitou/"It has nothing to do with you." -- The intensity of this scene is off the charts, both in the manga's incredible inked portrayal and the 2011 anime (with some of the absolute best voice acting I've ever seen in the hundreds of anime I've watched). Watching Gon lose control the way he does is chilling, and meanwhile we witness Pitou's growth as a character and the deep pain and conflict Killua faces. It's a difficult read/watch for sure, but an absolute turning point in the series and for the characters involved, and it's brilliantly executed and tragic.

2. Meruem and Komugi's lover's suicide -- This scene has made me cry hard so many times, it's beautiful and iconic and the absolute perfect climax to the Chimera Ant arc. One of the best and most heartwarming/heartbreaking scenes simultaneously I've ever seen.

1. "Gon, you are light." -- This scene was a major turning point for me when I watched the series the first time, and I still think it's an incredibly amazing and painful scene that says so much with so little. It's not just about Killua's increasingly hard to deny love for Gon, but also his self-esteem issues and how he sees himself in comparison to Gon, Killua's guilt over what happened to Kite, his denial of the cruel reality of what's happening because he deeply wants to see the optimistic way Gon does... And then of course with the scene going straight to Pitou holding Kite's decapitated head, it's really a gut punch.

This was difficult for me because there are SO many fantastic moments in HxH, I could easily make a top 20 or 30 and still not run out of scenes I adore. Of course, loving Gon and Killua's dynamic as much as I do, I go back to their scenes over and over again, and so that's what I'm focusing on here in my ranking. But there are tons of scenes not centered around them at all or only centered on one or the other that I also deeply love, and it's hard to leave all those out!

Thank you for asking my opinion! As hard as it is deciding on rankings, it was fun to think this over and write out some of my reasons why.

#hxh #hunter x hunter #gon #killua #killugon #bisky #pitou #kurapika #meruem #komugi #asks #my posts #elaine2895

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andro-dino · 10 months

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I think this is a good one, if you like to rant a little, what are the (in your opinion) the 5 mfb characters that get misunderstood/mischaracterized the most, by the fandom?

oh my! surprise 5 things? in my inbox? more likely than you’d think

also this is such a good one I have so much to say on this

5. Kira’s frequent mistreatment makes me sad because he’s a very interesting and complex character with SO much to explore in regards to his upbringing and trauma and how that affects his character in the present and going forward, but a lot of people tend to portray him as a very one note crAaAaAzy villain and sexualize him to some of the worst degrees just because of his character design. It’s really unfortunate because there’s so much to love about him but it is a minefield trying to find anything for him

4. I’m not gonna blame people for misunderstanding and mistreating the garcias bc the show doesn’t even respect them but I’m still gonna be upset about it. I could go on and on about why the garcias were so poorly handled but like, when you think about their characters a little harder, you can really easily understand them from a more sympathetic view and how not only their environment but the way they were treated and used by the adults around them shaped how they behave throughout the series and like. Again, not blaming anyone for disliking them or seeing them solely as static villains bc they are not well written at all but I do wish people would give them a little more nuance, yk? I’ve taken the liberty of taking sole custody over them bc I could treat them so much better than the show, so I might be on of the only people who really sees this perspective just bc of how much I’ve diluted myself with my own noncanon analysis but yk.

3. I’m gonna go ahead and lump kyomado together because while I do think people don’t treat them with the nuance they deserve on their own, it is 10x worse when it comes to people shipping them specifically. And that makes me especially mad because kyomado was one of my first ships in any fandom and I still really like them together, but Jesus Christ people take them in the worst direction possible. It’s always so stereotypical with Kyoya being the cool hot closed off and aggressive one and Madoka being sweet and kind and submissive to him and it’s like. No!!! NO‼️‼️💥💥💥💥💥 They’re characters are so interesting together in my eyes because they’re relationship is built on mutual respect and ability to stand up to each other. Yes Madoka can be sweet and caring to him, but she is in no way submissive and is readily able to challenge him and call out his bullshit. Yes Kyoya can be cold and aggressive but he is not some abusive shitty YA male lead, he’s an angsty teen who genuinely recognizes Madoka’s abilities and respects her. I think you could make a similar argument for how people treat him with Hikaru as well but I personally find it far worse with Madoka, which makes me so sad bc I love this ship but hate a lot of the shippers and content for it :(

2. Gingka i dont think is as prevalent today, but I have seen the horrors and my god are they rough. The woobification of Gingka Hagane is an actual crime and should be treated as such. Im not even that big a Gingka stan or anything but I become fucking enraged whenever I see him portrayed as some soft and submissive uwu boy because there is so much more complexity and depth to his character and yaoifying him does that such a disservice. Idfk what show they were watching because in no universe is Gingka some sweet and innocent soft boy.

1. Damian. DAMIAN 100% IS THE WORST AND IT MAKES ME SO MAD. IDK WHAT IT IS ABOUT HIM THAT ATTRACTS FREAKS BUT 99% OF DAMIAN STANS ARE ABSOLUTELY VILEEEEE AND I HAVE NO RESERVATIONS IN SAYING THAT. It genuinely makes me so viscerally upset because I love Damian, he’s one of my favorite characters and I go absolutely rabid every time I think about him but OH MY GOD the way this fandom treats him is so awful. I mean it when I say it disgusts me how much people oversexualize him and mischaracterize him as some dominant and cool sex god or whatever because it is just so far from what he actually is and HES LIKE 13 ALSO????? LIKE YOU CANT EVEN KID YOURSELF INTO THINKING HE MIGHT BE ON THE OLDER END HE IS GENUINELY PINT SIZED AND ACTS LIKE A SPOILED CHILD THAT IS A FUCKING KID. Damian is an incredibly complex and interesting character with so much depth and lore. He is a deeply traumatized child with a godcomplex who screams when he gets dirty or his worldview is challenged, he is not some sexy flirtatious guy who’s got everything together. It’s one thing to focus solely on the power scaling side of him and disregard his character, but it’s a whole nother thing to sexualize him and remove him so far from the context of his story for the sake of whatever these freaks are on about.

#axel’s silly little thoughts #sorry I got heated with that last one but. it’s still a prevalent issue and continues to make me mad every day #also chalk idk if you realized I never reblogged the 5 things post but regardless I enjoyed this #I wanted to tbh but didn’t bc I have a hard time placing things on an ordered hierarchy #but I like ranting and talking about things and this was fun

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o-wild-west-wind · 7 months

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A Biracial Reading of OFMD, ft. Iggy’s Revenge Izcourse

a.k.a. I typed out a sentence that turned into an accidental essay of meta, whoops!

Y’all…I love this fandom to pieces, but I don’t think some of you realize why not all of us love Izzy/may be critiquing him. And major disclaimer—I am in NO WAY telling anyone to stop enjoying him as a character. This is NOT an anti-Izzy post (I will go into more detail on why I in fact encourage you to keep doing so later, and to the people who are sending unsolicited hate mail to Izzy fans & haters alike: please don’t!)—I’m just tired of seeing vitriolic hate against the people writing about him as an antagonist, or critiquing his actions based on canon, or post after post of “why don’t people love Izzy like I do!!” and then aggression when people explain their honest opinions. Look: we all have our skrungly little bad guys. I get it!! I’ve got my own collection!! I too have become a consumer and enjoyer of the Izzy fanon!!! PLEASE don’t take this as an attack—I just want to provide some personal, potentially fresh context from at least one (obviously non-exhaustive) perspective for those who want to know why Izzy isn’t universally adored, and also to make a plea for a safer fandom space where we can talk about our perspectives on these fictional characters without escalating to unnecessary vitriol, especially as s2 be upon ye (bc holy shit fandom is supposed to be fun, we’re having fun and that’s an order 😤)

(Oh, and I know I’m potentially stirring the pot with this post, but this should go without saying: don’t send each other death threats. What the fuck. Nobody do this?!)

So now that the legalize is out of the way: I want to share that the reason I initially imprinted on this show—and on Ed specifically—was because I’d never seen an explicitly biracial character treated with such complexity, nuance, and grace. While our ethnic makeups are vastly different, I too am half-white & half-brown—which means we’re absolutely nothing culturally alike, but our worlds view and treat us as pretty much the same regardless. And like Ed, my dad resents my mom and my racial makeup, and is prone to what I like to call “white violence.” Not going to overshare on the internet, but let’s just say that all this compounded makes Ed feel highly relatable to me (although for legal purposes I promise I have not krakened my dad 🙃).

When I first watched the show (and honestly also until my 3rd or 4th rewatch), Izzy IMMEDIATELY made me think of my dad. He also immediately made me think of Ed’s dad. Their mannerisms, word choices, and tones of voice; the obsessive need for control; the default of violence; the gradual dehumanization until an ultimate kraken-ifying breaking point—it all read to me like an intentional parallel. A shadow of white violence following Ed around that he hasn’t been able to shake, and mirroring to him the things he fears the most, including the things he fears within himself and feels forced to become (he is half-white after all, and this is a whole other post, but tl;dr there can be a lot of baggage that comes with being half-white/half-poc in regards to grappling with your toxic relationship to that white side of yourself, and especially if your white parent was racist and/or violent). And you can claim a different reading of all of this if you want (I genuinely mean that, like I’m in favor of meta & I think it’s great to analyze these things) BUT. that does not change the fact that I felt what I felt as a result of what was portrayed on screen and combined with my lived experience. Because fictional characters are just that—fictional—and are vessels by which you can process the world; we will always bring our personal lived experiences to anything we consume, and that’s okay—that can be the point, even. Art imitates life imitates art. Interpretation is the name of the game!

(more under the cut)

So when I watch this show, it’s a helpful tool for me to process my own feelings of being victimized by the white violence that’s followed me around my whole life, as well as the ways in which I’ve rebelled against it/tried to make peace with a non-toxic version of whiteness (in parallel to the more overt theme of masculinity, which is—ding ding—inexplicably tied to whiteness and western colonialism) via chaos, love, hurt, and sometimes giving up and giving in—and in this process, Izzy is a safe target. And you know why that is? Because he’s FICTIONAL. I can feel rage towards him because he’s NOT REAL. I can better understand and process the pain I’ve felt and rarely seen societally acknowledged by watching it paralleled on screen via actors and writers who have likely also grappled with similar feelings (I mean, I genuinely have made more progress with my personal biracial trauma via this show vs. years of therapy), and if I want to assume the worst of Izzy based on my interpretation of canon to help me through this? That’s fine! Because I can’t hurt his feelings and he can’t hurt mine!! Because he’s not real!!!

And here’s why I still support the Izzy-enjoyment: I am sure that many of the people who love Izzy and defend him to the ends of the earth probably feel a similar way that I do about Ed. It’s why we get all riled up and protective of these characters, why we might take attacks on them as attacks on ourselves; recognition of the self in the form of the other, and all that. Izzy is a vessel by which to safely work through the dark feelings and the pain you’ve bottled up—and he’s a safe way to do that because he’s FICTIONAL. And that’s a beautiful thing imo!! That’s truly the beauty of art—it is what we make of it, and what we make of it helps make ourselves better. It’s good to be open to interpretation.

HOWEVER: that does not give you permission to discount my relationship to this show (as I will not discount yours), and more importantly: that does NOT give you permission to reject the notion that canonically in s1, Izzy is literally and thematically (emphasis on thematically) an antagonist who is purposefully written to cause harm that can be interpreted as a hate crime, especially to those with lived experience of homophobia/racism/ableism/bullying/etc.—and you cannot harass people about this when conversing about theories of canon. If someone sees Izzy’s dialogue as cutting, degrading, and even triggering, that’s extremely fair of them to do so—clearly Ed was written to feel it that way! Con himself has paralleled Izzy with Judas! And can interpret it all differently? Sure! But you CANNOT assume that everyone else will, and then get upset when people don’t. I can’t believe I need to spell this out about an angry white guy in a show about toxic masculinity, but if someone does not like Izzy, it is likely due to a personal history of harassment (or worse) that he is reminiscent of; by making a point to defend him to someone—even if you are well-intentioned—you are very much putting salt in a wound.

I want to take this opportunity to further emphasize some tenets of fandom in general:

you can like characters who do horrible things without needing to jump hoops to argue their morals as pure 👏

conversely, you can critique their actions and still like them (encouraged, even) 👏

you can like characters who do horrible things simply because they’re cool and hot and interesting—don’t worry, we know it’s not the same as liking people like them irl 👏

your liking a villain archetype says nothing about your own moral virtue 👏

you can like horrible characters and see reasons for why they are the way they are/view them as tragic/note sympathetic dimensions of their personality/root for them to have redemption arcs while acknowledging that said redemption arc may not have happened in canon yet and that these are implicit, not explicit, readings of canon 👏

and you can also reimagine canon and change their contexts in fan works so that they ARE morally virtuous 👏 but PLEASE just be mindful and accountable when you do this in a context where not everyone will see a character the same way as you, and where multiple of people of marginalized identities have spoken out about the harm not doing so can cause. Just be honest, sincere, and kind, listen and learn, and don’t harass people for understandably needing space from a character that symbolizes something different to them than it does to you.

Also: blocking tags or people just because they have character opinions different than yours is totally okay and does not mean anything other than “I am curating my online space to have a better time,” it’s NOT personal

And most importantly: FANDOM IS FOR FUN! This isn’t our day job! We come to fandom to decompress. Don’t ruin people’s safe spaces!!!

Like I said, I’ve grown to enjoy Izzy over time thanks to fandom and fanon, and I think it’s fantastic that fandom can have such diversity in the way it interprets canon. I can’t wait for his probable redemption arc (it will likely be a healing thing to witness for many of us) and I’m truly glad that we can all have different relationships to the same characters. But please—when some of us need Izzy to be a punching bag, just let him be a punching bag. No, it’s not homophobic and DEFINTELY not misogynistic to view him as an obstacle in Ed and Stede’s relationship (baffled by the amount of times I’ve seen this take—it’s a funny joke but if you actually think Izzy is treated the way female characters related to other mlm ships have been treated, the point is very much going whoosh). You don’t have to engage; it’s not personal. It’s not about YOUR relationship with him—it’s about MINE. Please let me feel and even discuss rage towards him when I think about episode 10. Please let me throw as many sandwiches at his head as I need to. Because I PROMISE, it won’t hurt him—because he, and none of these characters, are real; and yet we, the fans, very much are.

#woof #did I add enough disclaimers?#this was longer than intended so if you read all the way through I’m giving you a kiss #I wasn’t going to engage but I keep seeing vitriol in the tag when all I want to do is decompress and I just…#I just came here to see gay ppl kiss sir this is a Wendy’s #fandom should be a safe space and I hate getting an ick from tumblr when it’s what I’m trying to use to escape the bad shit #life is hard enough lmao #anyway #please be kind to each other #I could go into the whole other topic of what the trauma of Covid did to our virtual affect and interpersonal skills but #alas that’s a thesis within itself #and on that note I have my actual thesis to work on so i won’t be closely monitoring this post just needed to get this all off my chest #and for what it’s worth I’ve been trying to avoid s2 spoilers so I haven’t seen the Izzy clip yet but that’s honestly irrelevant to this #bc this is in relation to s1 and I hope we can all just have a good time again this season #ofmd #our flag means death #the izcourse #ofmd meta #trauma #racism

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leogichidaa · 1 year

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Omg reblogging that post of James and Sirius brought renewed passion of the idea that Sirius gives off either this James dean poser vibe or a heartthrob vibe in the eyes of everyone in the school (opinion varies), and how the bottom line is he’s misunderstood by the Hogwarts populace…by everyone except James. Even Remus and Peter misunderstood him sometimes and I bet it was out of jealousy of his status in the school.

And at first Sirius didn’t care that he was misunderstood because it got people to keep a distance (while admiring lol). But when Lily and James started dating and entered that honeymoon phase of their relationship I can see the loneliness hit Sirius for the first time in awhile.

Ironically (or perhaps coincidentally) I can see Regulus as also feeling isolated and lonely? Like even though he thought Sirius was a twit he was still his blood brother and they’ve been through certain things by default in their family, but perhaps Regulus felt that Sirius threw it away and abandoned him for James. Cue rage.

Yes! I kind of feel like the marauder fandom at large is proof positive of this - Sirius is so frequently misunderstood in fanon. For such a complex and nuanced character he is alarmingly easy to put into a box because he has the trappings of a) hot bad boy everyone had a lil crush on and b) that cool kid who either bullied you or ignored you completely in grade school. Oh and c) tormented rich kid with a dysfunctional family. His surface presentation pulls out strong emotions - anger, envy, infatuation - and then folks define him based on those initial strong reactions.

James is such an important person for him because James is totally nonplussed by Sirius' status. He doesn't seem to be all that bothered by Sirius' family background in the train scene and he's not going to be jealous or blinded by Sirius being smart and pretty and whatnot because James is also smart and pretty and the like. So James can look past all that and see Sirius for who he is.

And, oh, my heart! Sirius didn't mind keeping everyone at arm's length when it was him and James against the world but then things shift when James starts dating Lily and shift again when they get married and have a child. James is expanding the love in his life while Sirius is getting less genuine intimacy.

I think @artemisia-black does a really good job depicting Sirius' loneliness and longing in Dog and Deer Detective Agency. He loves the Potters and they love having him around but he's a little bit on the outside of the family unit. There's a recurrent theme around tea and no one making Sirius' tea the way he likes it that speaks to this idea of not being truly understood and seen.

I definitely see Regulus as a lonely child as well. I think he is very adaptive, good at presenting the way he thinks is expected, and so no one really gets a chance to understand him. He keeps everyone at arm's length pretty intentionally, imo. And yeah, he and Sirius may not get along, but I think he's counting on Sirius to always be there and always be his brother. And I imagine that he could be more himself around Sirius than perhaps most people because Sirius is family but less...mm, I want to say less judgmental but I'm not sure if that's really true. Less punitive, perhaps.

But then things shift when Sirius goes off and attaches himself to James and makes new friends. Sirius is expanding the love in his life while Regulus is getting less genuine intimacy. Bah. But while Sirius is able to integrate Lily and Harry into his life and appreciate them, both for what they mean to James and as people themselves, Regulus cannot do that with James (imo).

I explore Regulus' anger at James for "stealing" Sirius a lot in my writing, but since we're making this parallel, I will add that I always thought that Sirius would be angry and a bit bitter towards Lily when she and James first started dating. Prior to the release of DH, which messed with my whole timeline, my hc was that Sirius told Snape about the Whomping Willow shortly after Lily and James started dating because Sirius was feeling left out and lonely, and he wanted to pull James into another great Snivellus prank so that he and James could bond in a way that Lily did not approve of. And he went and told James and James was like "wtf, no" and ran off to stop it and Sirius was just standing there bewildered and sad because James wasn't his James anymore...

#sirius black #regulus black #house of black #james & sirius #sirius & regulus #ask #freezedive

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maxwell-grant · 2 years

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Jojo bingo: Father Pucci

And that brings us our second bingo

If Jonathan and Dio are my favorite characters sharing a kind of number one position together, Pucci is in a bloody contest with Jolyne and Jotaro for number two. I would even argue that he's the best JoJo villain. Even with his significantly more nuanced and calmer personality compared to them, he’s just as gloriously over-the-top and ridiculously funny at points as the other main JoJo baddies. He has two of my absolute favorite Stands in the series (Whitesnake alone deserves a separate post for how much it’s personality and powers add to Pucci, who is already complex and fascinating and horrifying even without a Stand that has an entirely separate personality), he’s pro-active and vicious as a main villain to an extent the series hadn't seen since Phantom Blood Dio, he grows in power and scope and personality over the part, he’s psychologically disturbing and fucked up to an extent I'd argue surpasses Kira (y’know, the fetish-based serial killer), he adds a ton to Dio's character and his story culminates in him growing into a bigger, badder and better villain than DIO and, just, Pucci is incredible. There couldn't be a better villain to wrap up the original JoJo saga. One of the greatest villains of all time ever.

I feel like out of all the main JoJo villains, Pucci is the only one who does pull off being morally grey (Valentine really isn’t, he’s a silver-tongued imperialist torturer and J.Geil-tier disgusting creep who’s just good enough at appropriating heroic imagery that he’s convinced himself and a good chunk of the readership (and the Eyes of Heaven writers apparently) that his deeply selfish and unfathomably monstrous plan is noble and selfless and patriotic. He’s a good and layered villain, but morally grey he isn’t). Having significantly lesser crimes compared to the others, more human reasons and more concrete goals, all of which doesn’t do that much to make him sympathetic, quite the opposite. Pucci is horrifying for a myriad of reasons, some of which have to do with the fact that we’re allowed to understand him and his backstory and his goals, and get in his headspace in a way that’s only really reserved for protagonists. Pucci is one of the best examples of how audience sympathy can be used to make villains more resonating and even more horrifying. Pucci is horrible, awful, even described as “the evil that doesn’t know that it’s evil, the worst evil there is”. And we walk through his journey every step of the way.

Sometimes this moral greyness gives way to people arguing Pucci wasn’t so bad or that he was the only JoJo villain not motivated by selfishness, which I kinda disagree with. Because while it’s true Pucci doesn’t think of himself as selfish and genuinely believes he’s doing everyone a favor, Pucci’s plan is monstrous, and to pull it off he commits the most unfathomably selfish deed in the entire series. He quite literally breaks the universe and rebuilds it again in order to strip agency from everyone, HIMSELF INCLUDED (even if he does have more power over it than everyone else), so that everyone will accept the fate that’s decided for them and never try to defy fate. This, he argues, is born of “resolution eradicating despair”, which further cements Pucci as a Joestar-gone-wrong, in that he quite literally turns the driving ethos of the series against itself, against the universe and the Joestars. And he wins.

No one has any agency, no one's decisions matter, no one’s at fault for anything. Pucci rewrote the universe so that he’d fundamentally never be responsible for his sister's death, by making it so that she not only never really existed to begin with (since the dead do not carry over with their souls and personalities intact), but even if she did, she would have just learned it’s inevitability ahead of schedule and accepted it and be happy for it, just like everyone else, nothing anyone (certainly not him) could have ever done about it. And this? I find this to be a level of ghastly selfishness somehow scarier than anything DIO did, because it’s so much more human, so much more tragic, and so much more fucked up existentially.

(People have argued a bit over whether or not this goal fits DIO’s character and there’s room to argue both ways, but even putting aside Eyes of Heaven (which is thankfully non-canon, but it’s take on Heaven DIO was designed with input from Araki himself, which counts for something), the plan outlined in DIO’s Diary was always meant to be fulfilled by a friend and not DIO himself)

And I think this is part of why I’m so strongly in that “Everyone is wrong about them” camp because, people consistently mischaracterize Pucci as only a couple of steps above the average DIO flunky, or someone motivated by a romantic love towards DIO (putting aside the age thing, DIO’s Diary quite literally states that Pucci would have been the wrong person if this was the case), or even non-canon spin-offs that depict Pucci as someone who’d immediately abandon Heaven if DIO was still around to boss him. I fundamentaly disagree with this because Pucci adheres to the same theme of legacy that defines Jolyne. And much like Jolyne, who has to battle for the sake of her lineage and the universe, needs to be better than Jotaro, needs to succeed where Jotaro failed (which she does through rescuing Emporio), Pucci has to be better than DIO. Stone Ocean is the glorious apocalyptic book-end to Phantom Blood, with Jolyne, at the end of the world, forcing herself into becoming the final Ultimate JoJo and wrangling along whatever reality-warping weirdos she can, as she desperately tries to catch up to the new Ultimate Evil who's running away with the plot so fast nobody can catch him until the end.

Pucci surpasses DIO, in terms of power (he attains a Stand that surpasses all other time-based Stands, including the one that defeated The World), scope and accomplishment (he single-handedly disabilitates DIO’s arch-enemy with relative ease and then kills him by turning his time stopping power against him, as well as the current JoJo and the entire supporting cast that accompanied her, and recreates the world into one where the Joestars cannot do anything against him, and only loses because he, like Dio, goes too far and targets an outsider ally to the Joestars). Pucci isn’t DIO’s 2nd in command or partner or flunky, or DIO-lite, Pucci is superior to DIO, he’s DIO’s ultimate accomplishment, the supreme power he attains over Destiny and the Joestars, within the text. When they do JoJo mega crossovers like Jorge Joestar and Eyes of Heaven, they downplay Pucci’s agency and beef up DIO’s powers to be some multiversal world-challenging menace, just so he won’t be lagging behind Pucci, who already is that in-canon.

Pucci is horrible because he makes use of every resource at his disposal, everything that the protagonists have, everything that the Joestar bloodline has used over the centuries, Pucci turns against them. Enrico Pucci’s endgame is to rewrite the history and ethos of JJBA itself so he may wrench defeat from the jaws of victory forever, and he succeeds, and I love that this is not at all an exaggeration of what he does.

Pucci is horrible because everything he does stem from his complete inability to analze himself and admit wrongdoing, to even recognize his cruelty and malice as such, he has such a gargantuan moral and personal blind spot that even his Stand, the rageful melting spectre he bosses around to corrupt and kill people and strip away their memories or give them dangerous powers, is shown to be more introspective and reflective and humorous than the human who wields it, who has to yell at it occasionally to get things done.

He compartmentalizes everything that comes his way and interprets everything so that he never has to have his worldview challenged, never has to question himself, never has to regret anything that ever happened to him or that he ever did. Everything was fated to be. Everything is a test that everyone, including him, must pass, ergo, he’s on even odds with everyone else. If he fails or fucks up, he’s being tested, ergo, he will eventually succeed. If others fail or fuck up, they’re to be disposed of, such is the order of things. If he succeeds or something goes his way, it was fated to be. If others get the upperhand, he’s being tested by fate, and since fate demands him to survive and complete his mission, he’s got permission to destroy and kill whoever’s holding him back.

If he does horrible things, well, what’s a few corpses, or a hundred thousand, for the good of the entire world? Would you make their sacrifices meaningless by stopping him? Everything is fated to be, and fate is on his side, not yours. He’s DIO’s God’s chosen. If The Lord wanted him to stop, he’d have chosen someone else, he’d have died by now, but he didn’t, so it falls on him to drag mankind kicking and screaming into the better tomorrow his friend showed him. He barrels through the story with this mindset and even dies screaming it, screaming at Emporio and the vengeful power of the brother he murdered that they just don’t understand anything.

His backstory is so fucked up because we see how he was wronged by fate and circumstance time and time again, how he was just confused and looking for answers, but for all intents and purposes he was a good kid trying to do what was best for everyone. He went to a seminary to find answers, to alleviate his guilt over his (at the time) dead twin brother, to learn about how to find happiness for himself and others. A horrid situation was thrust into his lap by no fault of his own, and he tried to handle it with the least amount of harm to all parties, and he fucked up catastrophically. And that moment, that awful moment, where he finds Pearla’s body and has a moment of self-realization, where he briefly understands he is to blame and, is on the cusp of kickstarting the path that should have lead him to becoming a better person, a morally responsible person, and then

fucking

DIO

who immediately provides Pucci with the escape hatch out of the Painful Moral Growth path, who fills his head with poison and stunts his growth by giving Pucci absolution on the terms that Pucci wanted, not the terms that Pucci needed. What started as seemingly the most benign thing DIO had ever done for anyone (healed a young priest’s malformed foot and left him some parting words) spiraled into the actual end of the universe as said priest, well, no longer needed God, once he figured that DIO could play the part for him, could provide him the answers the church wasn’t giving him, could alleviate his guilt and teach him what brings people together and alleviate his guilt and teach what makes someone happy and alleviate his guilt and alleviate his guilt and alleviate his guilt and alleviate his guilt and

As much as I stand by the idea that Pucci is DIO’s superior and his ultimate legacy, because this is DIO we’re talking about and all evil in-universe springs from him (Araki said as much in the post-scriptum for Vento Aureo that DIO embodies Destiny and Fate), Pucci is also, to an extent, a victim of DIO. This is also part why I fundamentally disagree with the idea that Stone Ocean softened DIO. I don’t agree with the idea that his pursuit of Heaven was out of character either (it was essentially what he’d always been looking for, trying to attain happiness by taking control over his destiny in increasing bids for power and self-transformation), and I don’t agree with the idea that this was out-of-character. I’d argue DIO’s much-vaunted manipulative charisma, while always present, had never once been depicted as horrifyingly thoroughly as it is here, when he truly lives up to the dark messiah image his followers in Part 3 described and when we see how thoroughly he was able to corrupt Pucci, even while doing seemingly nothing but being the priest’s friend at a time of need. Stone Ocean, I’d argue, makes DIO scarier and more godlike in a way no other part (and certainly not those crossovers that did push Dio into actual godhood) did.

I think Pucci is one of the few religious villains I’ve seen that I like because he’s much more interesting than just a condemnation of particular priests or the church as an institution, and he doesn’t go the obvious route of being an old white bigot (quite the opposite, since those types killed his family to begin with). Rather, he embodies so many kinds of thinking you see within religious circles or mindsets. “He works in mysterious ways”, “He saves all of us in the end”, “only His will matters”, “humans cannot possibly claim to understand His design”, “there is a point to the suffering”, “the suffering will be worth it if you trust Him”, “look out for His signs even if you don’t understand what they are for”, “your suffering on Earth will be nothing compared to how much better your life will be in Heaven”, “trust those that He sends your way to guide you”, “trust not those who fall into the path of evil, the path that is not His”, “your enemies deserve salvation as well even if they don’t know it”, there’s just, so much you could dissect here, in terms of how Pucci speaks to the experience of religious thinking, or even just believing in the existence of God even if you’re not specifically christian or religious (...see why I put up there why I’m a little scared to admit I relate to, or at least kind of get, Pucci? Sometimes I think of Pucci as almost a big Mr.Hyde to the collective experience of everyone who grew up religious and had that shape their worldview whether they wanted or not.).

Pucci, a man every bit driven by the same unsatiable black hole that DIO has (just replace “ambition” with “guilt”), takes all of these, and drives them to an unfathomably horrifying, yet entirely plausible, conclusion. Spearheaded by tangible proof that yes, Fate is real, Heaven is real, and he can make it happen, no, he’s the one assigned by higher powers to make it happen, so long as he just does this and that and gets rid of some vile enemies of his that would rather have all of mankind suffer before letting him win. But, no matter, the sinners always get their due, in the end.

I hate that Netflix’s release schedule killed the Stone Ocean hype but, no matter, nothing can take away from how great it is and how great Pucci is. Not quite my favorite but one I’d easily argue is the best villain in the series, the perfect apocalyptic pilgrim JoJo needed to bring the end of all things and the birth of countless new ones.

Also, I always read Stone Ocean and applied DIO’s OVA theme to Pucci’s scenes. I love his anime theme, but I will always think of this as Pucci’s theme first and foremost.

#replies tag #character opinion bingo #jjba #jjba part 6 #stone ocean #jojo's bizarre adventure #enrico pucci #dio brando #whitesnake #made in heaven #that scene where he finds the body is so fucked up man #he comes SO CLOSE to getting the epiphany he needed #he was just a lost and confused 15 year old #Dio ruins everything even when he doesn't really do anything #I love Pucci but he fucks me up

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kattahj · 3 months

Text

Me bitching about Last Twilight again

Trying to verbalise why Last Twilight is losing me, beyond what I said last week, because when it started, I could barely stand to wait to watch until I had stopped working, and now it takes me days to finish an episode. At this point, the main reason I intend to watch the rest of the show is that there are only two episodes left.

The first phrase that came to mind is, "This show is lying to me." Which is ridiculous. Of course it is! That's what fiction does! And there's fiction that cheerfully and deliberately feeds you the most outrageous nonsense and makes you go along with it.

But there's also fiction that tells you, "This is a genuine human emotion." And even though you KNOW you're watching actors, you believe it.

Last Twilight is telling me "This is a genuine human emotion," but I DON'T believe it, particularly because it's terrified of actually giving me any complexity.

The introduction of Day's dad last week (or, well, technically the week before) was a particularly blatant example. Nothing about those interactions felt real. It wasn't even really about Day's dad at all; it was a way for Day to sort out his feelings about Night. And now they're all sorted out and Day forgives Night, who doesn't get to verbalize his own feelings about the accident in the slightest (though Mark Pakin does his best with a minute of facial journey), because this part of the storyline is over now.

Mhok was always more of a boy scout with an image problem than an actual bad boy, but by now, all of his issues are sorted out or brushed aside, because obviously he can't get to be the one to need support, ever. Everything is about Day, which is unfortunate, because Sea isn't a strong enough actor to carry the show. Especially not since the only thing about Day is his blindness, and of course the romance.

Which, I'm sorry, but the romance lost me on that mountain top. I know a lot of people liked it, but it was such contrived sentimental tripe for Day to lose the last of his vision at the most romantically meaningful moment. Plus, like I said before, I don't buy these two as lovers.

(Sidenote: Even though Moonlight Chicken was a better show, I wasn't entirely happy about how Heart only existed when Li Ming was there. So shouldn't I be happy that Day gets more scenes with several people? But I guess what I'm looking for is balance, and reciprocity, each of the characters in the romantic couple being there for the other. I think, though it isn't my favourite in other ways, A Tale of Thousand Stars actually dealt with that better. And both ATOTS and MLC let their disabled characters have more facets to their characterisation.)

(Though really, when it comes to disability exploration in the QLs I've seen, Sleep With Me is where it's at.)

Originally, I was happy about Aon's inclusion as a blind guy who has his shit together, but as it turns out, that's ALL he is. His entire job in this show is to happily show "cool things you can still do while blind". That's not characterisation, it's a rehabilitation pep talk in human form.

Day's mom got to break out of her frown for five minutes. Really, for most of the show, you could just have stapled a picture of her on the wall with the words "Don't do that!" written on it, and cut to it intermittently, and it would have accomplished the same thing. I guess it's good she got to vary her routine a little, but I wouldn't exactly call it nuanced, yet.

Porjai… I don't want to be too harsh on Porjai. She's okay. But she's a side character, and as such, gets tugged along into whatever she needs to be for the other characters.

The final couple of episodes will determine how I feel about the whole thing. Especially now that we're getting the transplant. If the surgery fails, or is only partially successful, and depending on how that is handled, I'll probably still give the show a passing grade. But if we get last-minute healing, I'm done.

At least that disgusting rumour about Mhok dying and leaving his eyes to Day can finally be put to rest.

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emilywhere · 2 years

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i think what’s most stunning to me about a league of their own is that i’ve never seen these stories - my story, our beautiful queer stories - in media like this before. it’s an indictment of our media ecosystem (and yes, a consequence of choices i make in what i read or watch or listen to) and something that has absolutely rocked me to my core.

i turn 30 this year, and i’ve never seen characters more closely capture my own lived experience with gender and sexuality. the pressures of the world the wishes we didn’t exist. the joy of being a part of a team and a part of a community that understands you. the pain of being rejected by family and society. the challenges of not having a “possibility model” and needing to chart my own path with little to no guidance from those who came before me because they were forced into invisibility, or worse. the incredible reality that just 80 years after these people were living their lives, the “entirely different world” greta mentions is here -- i’m queer, genderqueer, and have an almost 2 year old -- but still so far away -- my family was heckled and called “fucking f*****s” by a group of angry men down the street from our home in this alleged bucolic gay haven of suburban vermont just a few months ago.

i heard an interview where co-creator will graham talked about this show holding up mirrors (plural) for us to see elements of our own story in, and it could not be a more accurate description. while no one character matches my story, i think it’s better because of that. because pieces of our story are universal, but there is no single truth of what it means to be queer. i am amazed that a show about an era so far away can feel so true to my life today, but it is also so clear to me how it’s possible. not because it was made with the benefit of modernity and hindsight, but because to be queer is to grow in more beautiful ways because of and despite the pressure we face at every turn when we try to be a more true version of ourselves. and every time you think the show is done introducing queer people, queer lives, queer stories, queer spaces -- they drop another incredible set of nuanced, complex, beautiful, pure queerness, not just in the gender or sexuality way but in the post-modern queer theory kind of way. it’s genuinely stunning to bear witness to.

and then there is the absolute resistance to let this be a story of white saviorship. because white women and queer folks absolutely did not show up for Black women and queer folks then, and rarely do now. certainly not in the kind of genuinely impactful systemic ways that we need to. and i am glad that the writers never took the easy path when creating this show, instead pushing white viewers to reflect on what allyship actually means, and how often we fail communities of color and Black communities especially.

i am so grateful for this show. i have so many thoughts that i cannot begin to capture. but those are some thoughts for tonight.

#aloto #aloto 2022 #a league of their own #a league of their own series #a league of their own 2022

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