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tovaicas · 1 year

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@vexatious-knight sure, I can get into it! I know I make it seem like I utterly hated HW in those last few points but I actually don’t, it’s one of my fav expacs. it’s mostly just that I like to bitch abt the weaker parts of things I like bc constructive criticism is love and the finest form of flattery to me.

details under the cut. this is gonna be real long lol I’m sorry

ARR: full warning, I did ARR in a complete state of ‘near mental breakdown from uni stress’ kinda fugue, combined with me being more focused on Learning The Game than paying close attention to the writing (as it goes with the early stages of a new video game), so my initial memories of ARR are a lil’ hazy. regardless I’m in the camp that it Wasn’t That Bad, and knowing the backstory behind its existence makes it easier for me to forgive a lot of it’s flaws. it’s slow and a little poorly paced and very long (and the scions have little character, and the less that’s said abt their voice acting the better, tho I miss some ARR voices like ARR-ysayle, misgardsormr, and merlwyb), but it’s otherwise a fine introduction to the game. I disagree with the fandom optic of ‘skip ARR you don’t need it!’ and how people act like it’s the worst content in the game, bc ARR sets up at least some of the basics for what happens down the line, and again I don’t think it’s that bad. it’s definitely not winning any narrative awards, but it’s serviceable (esp. for smth cooked up quickly after the near-demise of a previous game version).

HW: so far competing w/ ShB for my fav expac. something to note is that I’m a writer, not a game designer, so some of my criticisms are petty just because I theoretically have the time and ability to expand as much as I want on the things I feel could’ve been done better, because I do. I understand that sometimes game design and MMO writing is just Like That bc of time and scope restraints. okay.

I generally really enjoyed HW - though I think it had a couple of missteps, it generally kept a tight narrative and kept sight of its themes. Ishgard is still my favourite setting (bc who doesn’t like rubbernecking a dumpster fire) and I like how it flipped a lot of character genres on their heads (estinien is the broody dark character but he explicitly isn’t an asshole, he’s just traumatized; aymeric is the cool collected golden boy but displays an impulsivity (that gets someone he respects killed) that you’d more expect out of someone like estinien; ysayle is almost sisterly in how much she cares for other people, and instead of being the violent cult leader you initially knew her as she’s literally the matron for a group of outcasts abandoned and harmed by the system). I like how uncertain it initially feels, I enjoy the couple of moments where the wol starts feeling less like a player avatar and more like a realized person by having character reactions and traumas (they’re utterly devastated by haurchefant’s death, and are shown to be explicitly traumatized and worn down), it does a good job of not sugarcoating how much of a hellhole ishgard is, and for the most part it does a fairly good job of having people like aymeric recognize they’re complicit in why their country is this way and making real meaningful steps to change it. I liked the revelations abt what was really going on w/ the dragonsong war.

also i’m native, so seeing a catholic church analogue get thoroughly dunked on, acknowledge, and make actual steps towards reparations (while acknowledging that an apology requires actual action and not just words) for a crime they committed is a little bit more personal to me than it might be for some others.

as for things I think were weaker....I’ve mentioned a few of them before. like I said a few times I think estinien was an exceptionally flat character and that the reveal could’ve been so much better had he been allowed to have a modicum of growth and agency and actually been made to grapple with the reality of the situation and what it means for him and his sense of self. HW has a weird fixation on humbling ysayle (ravana, focusing on how ‘wrong’ she was during its most important scene despite the fact her not knowing makes little sense bc vidofnir) and the reveal + her completely unnecessary death makes it harder to enjoy for me. speaking of, I find the fact that after she dies the heretics are completely forgotten abt to be a particularly big fumble, bc the entire reason they even exist is a huge portion of HW’s message (they’re not all evil fanatic dragonfuckers, many (if not most) of the heretics are otherwise normal people who have been harmed by the system often through no fault of their own, ex. heustienne as shown if you did HW DRG quests, and will be killed if they go back to Ishgard), so it’s a little strange to me that their voices and plights are quietly dropped as soon as they can when they really should be some of the loudest, as should brume residents. another sore spot for me personally (that I’ve mentioned) is that neither aymeric nor the game wants to acknowledge the awkward truth that aymeric, as leader of the temple knights, is directly complicit in their many (not secret at all) crimes and how his failure to control them reflects back on him as lord commander. that he can’t seem to reconcile with this and blames everything on his father is a fun character flaw, but I’d like to see it more acknowledged (both canon and fandomwise) that aymeric fails in some pretty important ways and makes some weird decisions (like restoration-era ishgard still has the inquisitors. aymeric. you kept the fucking heresy police?). I’d like to see his characterization of ‘perfect golden boy’ to be challenged more often, but I’m not gonna hold my breath lol.

StB: oh boy. as you probably know, stb is obviously (so far) the weakest expac in terms of writing - it fails in a lot of ways, sometimes to the point things actually get offensive. what I liked abt it was mostly mechanical. a lot of it’s fights were really fun, and stb is abt the point (other than fights like nidhogg) where the game starts upping the ante on mechanic difficulty across the board and starts taking the training wheels off (just a little), and I think a lot of its maps were nicely designed and are nice to look at. omega was a fun raid storyline, and I also liked little details, like how this expac’s ‘beast tribes’ are treated as equals in contrast to the uld’ahn assertion that eorzean ones are violent savages that need to be monitored and put down when they get too uppity (this is why I have very mixed feelings on the scions as an organization, but that’s for a separate post).

narrative-wise tho.....stb is a mess. it’s the classic case of biting off more than it could chew, bc it tries to do two storylines at once and fails at this hard; the ala mhigan sections are too short and underwritten across the board, and they spend too much time faffing abt just getting to Doma that that section feels too short as well. shinryu is a massive sore spot; a bahamut+ level primal is born, disappears, and just.....is never mentioned again except at the very end, where you had no buildup or way to predict this happening. I spent literally the entire expac wondering when people were gonna worry abt shinryu on the loose potentially causing another dalamud situation at any moment. things that are super interesting and have a lot of implications, like zenos’ (fake! manufactured!) echo, which is hydaelyn’s power, giving him the ability to body hop (which is in all previous appearances something only granted by or exclusive to ascians) is inherently interesting and a good segue into the shb revelations but it’s literally never brought up again.

I also didn’t really enjoy it character-wise; papalymo and lyse have absolutely no depth or development in ARR or HW so his death is utterly wasted and the reveal that yda is a fake persona has literally no punch (haha) to it bc yda had no character beyond comic relief in ARR anyway. lyse unfortunately never gets out from under the shadow of her comic relief designation, and due to pacing issues her arc is anemic as fuck (she never really grows and keeps asking the same questions over and over) and never actually materializes into what the devs wanted it to be; lyse as resistance leader was a point that was never going to work as-written, and that’s before the colourism issue comes into play. I don’t think she’s necessarily an awful character, but she was definitely mishandled.

I’m not going to talk abt hien or gosetsu here. know that I absolutely despise them, hien especially, for a lot of reasons. but if I get into these reasons I’ll write a 5k word essay on just that so I’ll spare you the pain and save it for a different post. but hien makes me angry as a character so. yugiri is the best character here by process of elimination, fight me.

yotsuyu’s arc is unsurprisingly a mess, and the post-patches fail to actually engage with it bc her main deal is that she’s been horrifically mistreated, especially by men, her entire life, and the entirety of the post-patches are hien treating her like an object to traded around and gosetsu making funney ‘jokes’ abt women. it’s awful. note that I’m not excusing her actions - yotsuyu is an awful person who’s done awful shit, and the inherent moral dilemma of how to handle her crimes as tsuyu is an interesting beat - but everything abt her is mishandled and so...egregious that at times it almost feels exploitative. it makes me wonder that as written if she’d been better off literally just being an awful person because she’s an awful person, and not awful bc she’s a sexual assault survivor (which, I want to stress, this is not the first time this game has made the implication that women who are sexually assaulted are just morally broken afterwards (the first was eline roaille) which is quite the stance to take). all in all I think stb is just across the board unsatisfying and is just a complete mess of an expac. fun fights, tho!

ShB: this is as far as I’ve gone and I’ve not started post-patches yet, so I’ll only be talking abt base ShB. like I think I mentioned right after finishing - I liked it! I think it did a good job of keeping to a tight narrative, and one of it’s bigger strengths is that none of its zones overstay their welcome (like. cough cough. ruby sea. cough cough). other than a couple areas I think it did a genuinely good job of telling what it wanted to tell, and it’s competing w/ HW for my favourite of the bunch.

it’s maps are super pretty (lakeland has some of my favourite bgm so far), it’s fights are fun as hell, and the lightwarden narrative is genuinely gripping. I really enjoyed the bleaker, more dark fantasy tone starting out, I enjoyed how it didn’t pull its punches regarding how ever-present and how...inevitable the sin eaters feel as a threat (it reminds me of ishgard somewhat, in that way). after an entire expac of feeling like a weapon and almost background character just here to solve problems through violence, shb’s narrative of the scions actually (finally) coming to care about your wellbeing as a person as you’re literally dying for the world and working as a team and the MMO player tendency to just follow quest objectives being somewhat used against you as it’s your ‘but thou must’ violence that ends up nearly killing you is a nice subtle meta thing. the worldbuilding for the first feels fairly grounded (by final fantasy standards) and I don’t really have any issues with it. I wasn’t expecting to like the emet-selch arc at the end but I actually really did, I feel they delivered on that front.

eulmore is my biggest sore spot for this expac, bc I think that while their viewpoint re: the end of the world is interesting I don’t think they’re used well. I get that their existence is to highlight the forces keeping norvrandt divided, but just...hm. I didn’t find them super compelling or dangerous as a threat. you really get the sense that without ran’jiit these guys are just hilariously incompetent. and though I’m not going to talk abt it, it’s not my place, eulmore is fatphobic as fuck.

speaking of ran’jiit, he’s obviously the weakest part of the whole show. I find him to be an utter waste of a character, especially once you consider his hook is kinda interesting in its own right; he’s the only eulmoran we see to be in it and loyal to vauthry for reasons that don’t appear to be selfish, but we never actually learn what these reasons are. nothing abt him is explained (he has a dragon? how are there dragons on the first when dragons in this universe are space aliens deposited on the source? he can fuse with it? how? the only other time we see draconic transformations is in ishgardians bc of ratatoskr’s latent aether. is this a real dragon or just smth shaped like one? what is it? we never see any other creature that looks even similar (the closest is alte roite in omega raids). how is he so strong?), and what little character he does have is often ignored if it’s in the wol’s favour (this is a man who kicks y’shtola and his own man off the side of a bottomless pit, but for some inexplicable reason fails to do the same to the wol, his greatest enemy, when they’re distracted by it). his unwinnable fight schtick is not only old at this point but it’s infuriating - I can forgive zeno’s scripted fights bc it’s reiterated over and over again that he’s not exactly normal when it comes to his combat prowess, and the first go around is shocking in its own right bc it’s the first time you’ve lost a fight soundly, not through any trickery or magic or anything. He’s legitimately just stronger than you. ran’jiit just shows up. wrecks your shit. the exarch gives a weak ‘oh no, ran’jiit!’ as explanation. nothing else is ever explained. he’s just this inexplicably strong dude following you around as an unnecessary motivator to kill lightwardens faster, that’s it. it’s a disappointment in an otherwise strong expac. ryne is however my baby.

I’m not entirely sure on how to feel abt the exarch/g’raha rn, that will probably depend on how the post-patches handle him. know that I intensely disliked him for much of shb, bc I read his actions as deeply horrifically manipulative and genuinely thought he was going the be the main villain he was so fuckin shady. no I don’t really care he was doing it for a good cause, he still forced the wol into a war he knew could kill them without giving them full information abt the consequences and held their friends as ransom and only told them the barest of information after they were already in the shits (holminster). so we’ll see how it goes.

my other quibbles are pettier, and are more the result of time/mmo constraints. like I said once, I’d have liked the lightwarden corruption to be more obviously present (as the game pointedly goes out of its way right at the start to show you exactly what being mid-change looks like) and for maybe at least one more containment failure scare in the tempest to really hammer home how little time you have left (was genuinely surprised there wasn’t one) but that’s easy as fuck to fix in writing when you have unlimited scope.

tl;dr: it’s not that I hate what happened in HW, it’s that I think that while it’s an overall good scene a lot of it’s potential was wasted by a failure to give certain people (estinien) agency or depth (despite the fact he has massive stakes in them), and focuses on the wrong aspect bc it wants to laugh at a woman being wrong instead of the big picture. I think that all of the expacs have their fumble points, and I think these deserve to be talked abt critically. I otherwise really enjoy and even love HW/ShB.

StB is however an entire trip into a minecraft canyon of an expac. I don’t think it’s irredeemably awful, but you can definitely feel the writing issues. the less I say abt hien the better.

#spoilers #major spoilers #long post #these are kinda just my general thoughts. if you have specific questions on what I thought abt specific areas or plot beats #or characters or whatever feel free to throw them at me #all in all I think each expac has it's ups and downs bc that's kinda just how it goes #I think shb/hw manage to deliver pretty well on their narratives while stb utterly biffs it.#like I said I know I make it seem like I utterly hate the content. that it's deeply flawed bc I just bitch a ton but I *really* don't #I'm just a writer who's love language re:media is ripping it the fuck apart bc I like seeing how it ticks.#when it comes to media made by huge companies at least.#saint.txt

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selcaby · 2 years

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My fanfic, a master post

Now that I’ve posted, oh, more than two different stories on AO3, it’s time for a post that lists them all.

First and longest, there’s

Artificial Shortages

Mirabel finds her Tío Bruno living in the walls. He's in terrible health, is failing at self-care, and says he just wants to be forgotten.

The miracle still needs saving. But Mirabel’s new top priority is saving Tío Bruno.

People have called this a “more realistic” version of Mirabel finding Bruno in the walls. I’m not sure if that’s what it really is, but it’s definitely less Disney and more angst (and spiders).

It’s an AU that’s just like canon until one not-even-all-that-bad accidental injury tips Bruno's physical and mental health into a horrible downward spiral. If only he’d asked for help, he’d be fine. But he’s Bruno and he can’t bring himself to do that. Mirabel’s horrified and makes saving him her top priority, but it’s easier said than done. Expect lots and lots of Bruno sadness, but also a happy ending.

And a rather different multichapter work:

The Seasons Change In Turn

Casita has fallen, but some of its mysteries remain. For one thing, where is Bruno?

A story for Encantober 2023.

This is my attempt at a fast-moving mystery story with a twisty plot, based on the Encantober 2023 prompt list. Is this a stupidly overambitious undertaking for a slow writer like me? We’ll see.

No Use Crying

The Madrigals have a new cat. Unfortunately they didn’t okay this with the local small rodent enthusiast, who’s hiding in the walls. Can Bruno protect his friends without upsetting the children, revealing his presence, or getting ensnared by the cuteness?

I wrote this short story for Encanto Milk Day in 2022. It’s actually the first completed work of fiction I’ve ever published, and I’m quite proud of it. It’s Bruno in the walls again, because that’s a topic that fascinates me. What can he do when the family’s new pet starts hunting his rat friends? No cats were harmed in the making of this fic; Bruno’s too much of a softie for that.

The next three stories were written for Encantober in 2022; I’m in awe of the people who managed all 31 days when I only managed a few!

The Green-Eyed Rat’s Caterpillar

Luzette bought an old hand-made picture book in a yard sale. Her friend Nita says it’s impossible.

A little one-shot about some modern characters who discover something that Bruno made. The item first came up in Artificial Shortages, but no knowledge of AS is required to enjoy this one.

Endurance

If he said her name, called for help, she would answer. Probably. Possibly. He’s never tested it, because he’s always tried to protect her from needing to worry about him.

A little bit of backstory from Artificial Shortages. In the walls, Bruno is protecting more than one niece, but at great cost to himself. Can he stay strong as his body grows weaker? I’m not entirely happy with this one. I think it lacks some things I would have liked to put in, but on the other hand it was written very quickly, and for me that’s an achievement.

See Something Terrible

When Camilo loses his gift, he is stuck in the most embarrassing shape possible.

This is my third Encantober story, and it’s completely different. A silly scenario involving Camilo and Bruno, or rather, Bruno and the little man who came back with Mirabel and Alma on the horse, and who is unaccountably getting hugs from Camilo’s mother and aunt ...

Señora Grijalva Requests a Book Report

The triplets are 15 and their teacher wants them to write yet another book report. But Julieta is too busy to read, Pepa just rereads books she’s already reported on, and Bruno hates writing about “meh” books yet is too self-conscious to write about his favourites.

Then Bruno has an idea. An idea that makes all three triplets’ homework much more fun.

But he’s reckoned without Señora Grijalva’s ulterior motive.

Something different: teenage triplets, a teacher OC as a main character, and my take on how a much younger Bruno does visions. Also a magical shop.

Two Cats In The Yard

Four days after Casita falls, Bruno tells Mirabel about an intriguing and confusing side to his gift.

A fluffy short story I wrote as a tribute to the Discord server Casa Brainrot and my fellow writers there. To say any more would be to spoil the fun.

Trifles

It’s Noche Buena (Christmas Eve) in the new Casita, and there’s a Christmassy surprise on the dinner table, courtesy of Bruno and Mirabel. But Bruno hasn’t turned up to eat. Alma goes to talk to him.

Written for a Secret Santa in 2023. A bit of fluff, a bit of angst, a bit of (British) Christmas (via one of Bruno’s visions) and a postcanon Alma POV.

Finally, for completeness, shoved right down to the bottom so you won’t notice it, is the very first fic I posted:

Between Frames

With their house in ruins, the Madrigals fall back on their neighbours' hospitality. Osvaldo "Not-Special Special" has room for Mirabel and one of her relatives, but he's not prepared for who Mirabel brings with her.

Wherever Bruno's been for the past ten years, he obviously brought home enough bad luck to topple the Casa Madrigal. Still, the other Madrigals insist someone's got to take him in, and Osvaldo's drawn the short straw.

Sounds promising, right? Unfortunately I didn’t make a proper plan before I posted the first chapter, and I’ve never managed to work out how the rest of it should go. I might continue it one day, but don’t hold your breath. Still, there’s one chapter, and I don’t think it’s terrible.

I’ll try to keep this post updated as I write more.

#my fanfic #encanto fanfic #encanto fic #the seasons change in turn #artificial shortages #bruno madrigal #mirabel madrigal #encanto milk day #encantober

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procrastinatorproject · 2 years

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I made the big mistake of reading Terry Matalas’s interview he gave for some Trek podcast, and now I’m utterly heartbroken again.

Matalas talks about his history with Trek and teases some season 3 things. Among other things, he talks about how Picard is essentially an anthology show, with the only central focus being Jean-Luc Picard.

Season 1 was Michael Chabon’s vision of Trek, season 2 was Akiva Goldsman’s, and season 3 will be Matalas’s. And he talks about how the TNG cast didn’t get a send-off in Nemesis, so they needed to have a Proper Ending. But since the money for actors is limited, when he told the executive producers he wanted to bring back all the legacy characters that clearly meant letting go of all the new ones.

And it just... blows my mind that so very, very few people realize how deeply disrespectful that is? I mean... by all means, have an anthology show centred around Picard, but then that should have been what they set out to do from the start. Instead of telling us we were going to get many adventures with this new cast and how it was an ensemble show.

Not to mention that if you want to take over this show with the deep, layered, interesting new characters and write all of them out so you can make the TNG reunion you always dreamed of, THE LEAST YOU CAN DO IS MAKE IT POSSIBLE FOR THESE CHARACTERS TO COME BACK IN A SPIN-OFF!!!!

If you don’t know what to do with them and you don’t really understand them and you don’t care to give them their own arcs (since Rios doesn’t get any real development this season and Agnes is only there to facilitate the Borg Queen’s arc), fine. Other charcters have had seasons where they were ignored, side-lined, or written poorly. BUT DON’T ESSENTIALLY KILL THEM OFF SO NOBODY WILL EVER BE ABLE TO GIVE THEM NEW STORIES!!!

That just... blows my mind. And now I am very, very sad again. 😔

I’ve had some ideas about starting a re-write of season 2 to make it “You can have your Picard-centric pyschological drama with Q and the Borg Queen, but how about we are respectful to mentally ill people, actually take the characters we have and not some funhouse mirror version of them, and give the people who are ostensibly the heroes of this piece some development and arcs of their own and some base-level competent characterization.” And I was actually starting to get excited about it - but now I just feel very empty again.

I understand that a lot of TNG fans probably felt like this if they disliked season 1 of Picard and thought it wasn’t living up to the character they loved. But then again, season 1 was always extremely clear that it wasn’t going to be TNG season 8, that it would be extremely different from other Trek, that it would shine a critical light on the Federation and Picard as a character. They never made any pretens about that. And that’s what they delivered.

But they gave us zero indication in the run-up to season 2 that this concept had changed and we were suddenly doing a completely unconnected, context-less anthology where not only the story but also the characterization differ wildly between seasons. We had every reason to expect that they would continue the story of these characters they introduced us to in season 1. And then they didn’t.

And it probably wouldn’t hurt so much if they hadn’t written Agnes and Rios into corners where the only way to bring them (and I do mean them, the actual characters that Chabon created, not the strange season 2 funhouse-mirror version, the actual characters with agency and backstory and an inner life who make, you know, decisions that inform their growth!) back into the greater Trek universe is through some very convoluted storytelling.

I mean... if they ever let me write a Star Trek novel (or bully someone into writing it), it’s gonna be “how Agnes finally leaves the collective to actually grow as a person in her own right and then goes to the past to get Rios back to where he belongs: To his friends, to his family, to his ship and his holos. To his home.

But yeah. Man this is so fucking bleak!

#negativity #i'm so sorry #it just hurts so fucking much #star trek picard season 2 #cristobal rios #agnes jurati #to say nothing of soji and elnor #but at least they have a CHANCE to have more adventures in the world they belong in #and have novels and spin-offs and cameos #i hate this so fucking much

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maxwell-grant · 3 years

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Cass wouldn’t even begrudingly tolerate [the Black Bat], because she’s even less lenient than Bruce on killing and far more willing to throw down.' - THANK YOU for remembering that.

Cass is my favorite Batfam member, the only one really that I have an active interest in reading about. I'd be incredibly ignorant to not bring bring up such a crucial aspect of her characterization. And even if I didn't personally care for her, well, last thing I'd want is to be another source of frustration for Cass fans. Lord knows there's enough of those to go around.

mousebrass also asked: On that note, how do you imagine a meeting between Cass and the Shadow going?

Fair warning: This one took me 6 hours to write, and it became a hell of a lot longer than I imagined. I liked Cass a lot, but I never quite realized I had this many feelings regarding her until I was tasked with writing this, and a lot of things clicked for me regarding my plans for The Shadow thanks to this ask. @mousebrass, thank you. I mean it. I think I may have found something here I've spent years looking for. Hope you enjoy the post.

I'm thankful that this scenario is only really taking place in a hypothetical fanon where both characters can get a fair shot, because I wouldn't trust DC with this premise. I don't trust DC with either of them as is.

There's a lot of ways that this crossover could go on about taking place naturally, initially because Cass is already connected to some of Batman's pulpier elements, due to her connections to Lady Shiva and the League of Assassins, and one could connect Cass to Myra Reldon (who really should just be race swapped if ever brought back so she can stand out as the cool character she is, without the yellowface gimmick holding her back). There's two things I think are crucial to making the most of this idea, and the first of which has to do with the subject of killing. I usually don't like to come up with hypothetical team-ups for The Shadow that focus too much on the fact that he kills, because it's far from the most significant aspect of his character to focus on, much of it is written from a wrong understanding of the character, and it never amounts to anything other than perfunctory. But here, not only is it completely unavoidable to discuss, here there is actually a very, very substantial grounding as to why this has to be such a big part of the story.

The first and foremost thing that's gotta be established to everyone reading that doesn't know already is this: Cassandra Cain, more so than Batman, more so than any other DCU hero, has a tolerance towards murder lower than zero, and this is completely non-negotiable. She will throw herself on the path of an assault rifle to stop men trying to kill her from accidentally killing each other. The defining moment of her incredibly grim backstory is that she was trained from birth to be the world's greatest murderer, and her first kill traumatized her so badly that she has pivoted as far away from that as possible. I stress a lot that the Shadow should not be written as the trigger-happy maniac comics made him into and that the pulp version killed mostly to defend himself and others, generally left criminals to the police if possible, offered plenty of second-chances, had stories dedicated to the rehabilitation of criminals and so on, but none of this would matter to Cass.

Cass has literally chosen suicide over the prospect of living with murder on her hands time and time again, and The Shadow kills. When he kills, he does so without remorse, with unshakeable certainty. He hates death, he doesn't want lives to be at risk in the first place. But people will die if he doesn't do anything, and what he can do, what he exists to do, is turn the tools of evil against evil, and murder is the oldest tool of evil there is. He doesn't kill because a war scarred him, he doesn't kill because he's got a demon in his soul, he doesn't kill because he's mentally off balance, he doesn't kill because he's evil or sadistic or arrogant or anything of the sort. He kills because the men he fights chose death when they sought to harm innocents and fire guns at him. He kills because he is Death itself.

Regardless of how compassionate he is or can be, regardless of the fact that he's motivated by a desire to protect people, regardless of how justified he is, he is still dropping corpses and laughing maniacally doing so. Cass's real arch-enemy isn't Shiva or David Cain, it's Death, it's the thing that she's fundamentally most opposed to. And guess what The Shadow gets compared to often enough? Literally the very first line of the very first book where we get to see him, this is how we are introduced to him:

So the premise here is that we are taking a character who is defined by her fundamental opposition to death with every fiber of her being, who understands death on a level no other human being does, who is traumatized and hard-wired to detest death at all costs and to choose suicide over it, and asking her to team up with The Grim Reaper.

Even if he received the most abject lesson conceivable on the sheer wrongness of murder, even if he does put down the guns around Cass out of respect for her, he cannot protect his agents and others if he cannot shoot or kill those who try to harm them, and the protection of the agents is absolutely non-negotiable and not at all something he's willing to fuck around with by trying out gadget kung fu superhero alternatives. The Shadow has chosen to throw his life away for their sake time and time again, and no matter how appaling or disgusting Cass finds his deeds, even if he concedes that she's right and should be right on all accounts and that he is fundamentally a monster who has no right to judge others, he would not concede on his mission and he would make it very clear she would have to put him down violently to stop him from protecting others this way, and death has not stopped him before.

And to be upfront in case there's anyone who doubts it, Cass would kick The Shadow's ass, if they had to fight. She is the strongest fighter in the DCU, she lives and breathes fighting and combat in a way no one else does. And The Shadow's not one of those characters who is supposed to be invincible and the best at everything all the time always, he can and does lose fights and scrapes to people far less adept at it than Cass. He's a great fighter, obviously, he hauls bigger men than him through doors and was disabling people with Vulcan neck pinches decades before Spock, and he would definitely have an edge in other areas, but he's out of his league here. Frankly, I don't see The Shadow raising a finger against Cass unless she's been brainwashed into killing people by bad writing. Not because she's a woman, that doesn't really stop him from dealing with evil. But because, for one, she's practically a child compared to him age-wise. Two, he'd obviously know beforehand of her capabilities and how futile it would be to fight or even provoke her. And three, the Shadow's whole thing is knowing. The Shadow Knows and all that. Knowing comes with understanding.

He'd understand very quickly that there is no way someone this young could grow so quickly into the world's greatest fighter without horrific treatment that no one should ever be subjected to. He'd see the movements too practiced and quick, the self-control, the strength and speed far beyond even the trained warriors he's seen, the places where she's been scarred and is good at covering it up. Assuming he doesn't already know about her life story, any meeting between the two would lead to him very quickly figuring out that there's something much deeper about her opposition to killing than just moral reservations, something deeper than Bruce's own gun trauma.

Denny O'Neil's 2nd Batman and Shadow story was about The Shadow secretly helping Bruce overcome gun trauma, and Bruce rejecting The Shadow's intentions to hand him a gun. And to make it clear, people tend to assume that The Shadow only helps people for utilitarian reasons, which is not true as I've tried to demonstrate many times now. I don't want to convey that he would want to help Cass overcome her trauma just so she could be more efficient or something, absolutely no, he'd help her because he helps people in any way he can. I think a story with The Shadow and Cass might involve a similar premise, The Shadow understanding that she has been traumatized very deeply by death and refuses to accept it on any terms, trying to help her overcome it, only to learn that she does not want to "learn" anything she doesn't already know, that she has weaponized her trauma into a source of strength, and wishes nothing more than to help others with it.

And here's where we get to the part that allows the two to be on less antagonistic terms, because one thing that also very strongly defines Cass, at least the Cass I like reading most, is her stubborn, almost desperate need to believe in the best of people, that people can and will change for the better. Like The Shadow, her strength too is knowing, it's perception, the things that she knows about people that words cannot convey. Just as there are many things The Shadow would grow to understand about her that others would not, there would be many things that The Shadow would not be able to conceal from her. Things that no one but her would figure out. Things that, despite her age and lack of experience compared to him, he would have to defer to her knowledge on, which reverses the usual dynamic The Shadow has with people. And perhaps one aspect of that reversal, it's that maybe it's she who winds up secretly manipulating The Shadow into overcoming a deeper issue.

Cass's perspective on killing is shaped not just through trauma, but from a painfully intimate understanding of not just what happens to someone at the time of death, but the cost of murder upon the human soul, the ways it warps people into things they never should have been. Killing is a deeply, deeply serious matter, much more so than fiction seems ever willing to go into. Of course we suspend disbelief for fiction, there's nothing wrong with that, but if a story starts asking questions, starts poking holes into fantasies, they should not be disregarded.

And so it begs a question: How has it affected The Shadow? Is he really as remorseless as he appears to be? Is the fact that he's only killing evil people really of that much use? What's the cost of living as someone who has to know so much about so much evil in so many hearts? Knowledge never comes without price, and knowing evil is his tagline. When he enlists Harry Vincent, he makes it very clear that he has lost lives as he has saved them. From when is that regret coming from? What lives did he lose then? Is he saving people by damning his soul or merely prolonging the inevitable by piling corpses on another end of the scale?

If there's a character that could meaningfully start bringing these questions forth, who could ever truly get The Shadow to stop and reveal things to the audience he never would otherwise, maybe Cass could be that character. A girl who was raised to be a monster, who is treated as a monster and an aberration in-universe (and even outside of it), and turned that into a strength she uses to help others, who cares about everyone and refuses to let others be dehumanized as she was. Who better to know what lurks in the Shadow's heart?

Sometimes when I get an ask, I bullshit my way through infodump walls of text until I can structure it into something vaguely resembling a point. And sometimes, and I know it sounds crazy, but sometimes I get a very, very clear word on my mind related to it before I start writing, that almost seems to be a beacon pointing where I need to get to, and I work my way into getting there. Once you sent me an ask about crossing over The Shadow with Cassandra Cain, the word that came to mind the very second was Language.

It's an interesting relation the two have with language. Language is of course a very substantial part of Cass's character, who does not process language and linguistic development the way most people do, and instead reads body language to the point of superpower. Many stories revolve around Cass's relation to the concept of language, the help she may require from others in getting around things beyond her upbringing, and ways in which she has mastered beyond anyone's scope. Though she is mute, language is her power, what makes her what she is, and she is someone that Batman freely admits could kick his ass if she ever felt like it.

For The Shadow, language is also his power. He speaks all languages and connects allies all over the world, he is an expert ventriloquist, he is able to project his voice beyond what's physically possible, he can imitate voices perfectly to the point of being able to conduct group conversations single-handedly well enough to fool even the people whose voices he's imitating, much of his presence and terror and manipulation are done through his voice, arguably the very reason he exists in the first place is entirely because a radio actor's voice performance was so good and captivating that it tricked people into thinking the character was a real star and not just a glorified narrator. The man you cannot see, but only hear, the perfect hero for radio. And then of course the laugh, which I have a whole separate post on and which, in many ways, acts as a substitute for language in the novels. He uses the laugh so often as a substitute for statements or words, even to himself, that it's pretty much his own personal language. And language is at the core of how he deals with people, as he knows the right language to use to manipulate and move and help them. He knows what to promise, what to reveal, what to omit. He knows what to say, how to say it, when to say it. Language is the strings by which he puppeteers the world around him (and he can talk to animals, at least of one kind).

The Shadow and Cassandra Cain have mastered two different types of Language as throughly as anyone can possibly master them. The Shadow can talk a group of hardened criminals into killing themselves, Cassandra can punch a heart into stopping without killing it. The Shadow echoes his voice "through everywhere and nowhere at once" to whip crowds of thugs into frenzies, Cassandra outraces missiles and was tanking bullets as a child. The Shadow can lie and usurp lives so masterfully to fool even the families of those he's passing off as, Cassandra is a living lie detector who gleams inner conversations from miniscule reactions. The Shadow can speak every language known, Cassandra is the greatest master of the world's most universal language other than music. The two are supposedly human, but every now and then, something comes along to call that into question because of the things they can achieve. They cannot hide secrets from each other the way they do to everyone else. They are driven by a deep desire to help others, to make something out of the circumstances of their lives. To weaponize that which dictates they should be evil and monstrous into a relentless force of good.

Language is the root of understanding. And if nothing else, as impossible as a conciliation of their approaches to crimefighting may be, I think there could be an unique understanding between the two. Perhaps, and this is a bit crazier a concept but one that seems to be where I might have been heading towards all along, even Cassandra Cain finding a calling away from the frayed dynamics of the Batfamily, away from the Bat's looming presence, to become The Shadow's successor, swearing to uphold a mission of justice through non-lethal tactics while he stays on the backseat guiding her. If The Shadow could trust the safety of his agents and the protection of the innocent at the hands of someone as capable and selfless and good-natured as Cassandra, I think he'd be all too happy to be able to trust someone in such a manner, to no longer be the Master of Darkness, but instead to serve the next generation that's weaponized darkness without submerging in it. To achieve, and perhaps return, to his strongest, highest self: A disembodied voice heard, but not seen. Once again the narrator, not the star.

It's a concept I've thought about very extensively for the years I've been a Shadow fan, but now it occurs to me that, if I had to appoint a successor of The Shadow, someone who could take up the mission but shine on their own right, even improve it with the right guidance and circumstances, it would be Cassandra Cain. The Orphan, The Shadow of the Batgirl. Daughter of the greatest assassins, meant to be the world's most lethal murderer, instead pivoted to being one of it's greatest heroes, but never allowed to shine as she should. But in the darker, less restrictive and wilder world of pulp heroes, in The Shadow's world, a beacon would shine all the harder. Perfect strengths attached to perfect opposites, joined together for a greater good, unstoppable after together having weaponized that which most take for granted: the power of language to move worlds.

#replies tag #pulp heroes #comic books #the shadow #cassandra cain #batgirl #i always had a feeling that a successor to the shadow should not be modeled on batman but someone within that range #i never quite found a character i would be happy with taking that role or a similar role #aw shit i just talked myself into a new favorite character #that just so happens to be another character brimming with potential that's denied them by corporate overlords #who could have seen that coming

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definitely-not-a-wasp · 3 years

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I'm okay with a bunch of disorganized rambling honestly 😂. But if I had to narrow it down then I guess I want to know about main and side characters and how they compare to the original?

I know that tumblr is the Prime Site for disorganized rambling, but I have perfectionism issues. But that is a great question, nonnie, and I will be happy to ramble is a slightly less disorganized fashion.

When reading Maximum Ride as a somewhat-formed adult who discovered they enjoy English classes about 3.5 years ago, I noticed that JP, when writing, doesn't understand consistency. At all. Which means, in many ways, I have a free sandbox to work with.

Spoilers for my rewrite WIP, because I strongly believe that if a story would no longer be good if one had spoilers, then it wasn’t a good story in the first place.

I'm trying to keep the backstories the same, plus or minus the scientific method and a few characters (RIP my OCs. I want to bring you back so bad but it wouldn't fit with the thematic narrative). I've mostly kept their (starting) abilities the same, too. Without further ado, I'm going to introduce some WorldBuilding. (If I'm good at nothing else, I'm good at world building)

First off. Logically.

How are they getting Cable?

How are they getting internet?

How are they getting money to eat and stuff?

JP's answer: handwave it off. Sometimes you need to ignore logistics for the sake of plot. This is an answer I'd accept from an author that I like, such as Julie Kagawa, that makes amazing worlds, characters, and narratives that I will happily handwave a few things that wouldn't work in the real world. James Patterson, on the other hand, did not make any of that; he made a cool concept, some good rough-draft characters, and nothing else, and therefore this is an unforgivable sin.

Wasp's answer: They are not getting any of that.

Introducing Cottagecore.

The house is off the grid. Solar Panels and a wind turbine create electricity. They have their own well. They grow their own food, raise livestock for eggs, milk, and wool, and trap fish for meat. They get money through dumpster diving and pawning. They still have to steal half of the necessities they can’t make themselves. They do have a TV, but it can access about three channels on a clear day. Internet is only a thing when they go to the public library.

Giving the flock a background that’s heavy in farming and livestock rearing shores up the plot holes mentioned above, but in my opinion, ties the flock more tightly to the environment, thus giving them something tangible to lose when they have to leave the E-shaped house. Because they’re not just leaving a house and a safety net— they’re leaving their entire way of life with no promise of getting it back. It also gives them a tangible connection to the earth in case I want to actually pursue the global warming themes.

Main Characters

Maximum “Max” Ride (Birthname: nonexistent)

First off, I'm letting her be Latina, James Patterson.

In the original, Max was very much the headstrong, independent, action girl. Leaning into Strong Female Character (TM), but overall she had a strong, solid foundation and enough character consistency through the first three books for me to not have to just make an entire new character. However, I felt that she was, in some ways, a bit too Action-Girl and Strong and Capable. Yes, Max is incredible and competent, but she’s also fourteen. She’s a child.

In the rewrite, Max’s character is still headstrong, independent, capable, and sometimes not the best at listening to others. All of that’s the same. But she’s that way not because of girlboss energy, but because there’s no one else to do it. She doesn’t want to lead, necessarily. She wants to get some rest and let someone else handle the problems life keeps throwing at her. But she knows if she did that, the responsibility of leader would fall to Fang and Iggy, and she can’t ask that of them. She doesn’t want to place that burden on anyone else (Look, there’s a reason I chose Ayano’s Theory of Happiness as one of her signifier songs, okay?). Her narrative is very much centered around burden, and also around loss. She lost her cultural heritage when she was taken away from her birth family, she lost her childhood to being a leader, she lost a good deal of her friends to the school (RIP my OCs), she lost Jeb, and then she lost her stability. And she’s going to lose a lot more before the end of the story. So a lot of her character arc deals with learning that there are some things she can’t fix, some things that can’t be recovered. She can’t get the E-shaped house back. She can’t get her Little Baby Angel back, even after they rescue her. She can’t get her friends back from the school. And instead of working so hard to recover those or find something to replace them, she has to learn to live with that sense of loss and move on with her life without feeling guilty for leaving things behind. And she has to learn that asking for help and sharing her burden is selfish or weak.

Other changes I made that don’t necessarily fit into her narrative arc, but you asked for rambling so rambling you shall get:

Max hallucinates, because mental illness is also a prominent theme in the rewrite. She doesn’t have a psychotic disorder, but her C-PTSD causes visual/audio hallucinations, especially when she’s stressed or sleep deprived.

Max ends up having a Gender Discovery throughout the story and goes by He/She pronouns eventually. I don’t know when, but it will happen.

As far as genetic modifications/special quirks go, she can fly faster than the rest of the flock, but not 300 miles per hour. She averages about sixty mph with diving speeds of 240. She cannot breathe underwater or shut down her organs on command. She also has the Super Special Power to predict the weather, but that’s not because of genetics, it’s because she has chronic pain in her right arm that gets worse when weather fronts change.

Her favored weapon is her trusty rebar that she picked up from a condemned building. I think she’s going to name it eventually but I don’t know what yet.

Fang (Birth name: Gabriel Xue)

In canon, Fang is characterized in early books by being the “dark, strong, silent type”. He’s probably the most reserved member of the flock, to the point of falling into the Brooding Mystery Man trope in parts of the book. They care a lot, but they’re not the best at conveying that, especially with the younger members of the flock, and at times their high empathy leads them to making mistakes. Despite the high empathy, he’s often compared to a robot due to his lack of expression and external emotions.

Well, first change is that they’re not a man, so jot that down—

If Max’s narrative is centered around burden and loss, I would probably say that Fang’s is centered around humanity and moving on. None of the flock was treated as human while in the school, but Fang was more often than not treated like a wild animal due to “behavioral issues”, and therefore had and continues to have a difficult time considering themselves real and alive, let alone human. This manifests through a several different ways— where in canon Fang definitely had a ‘fight’ reaction, in the re-write they have a ‘freeze’ or ‘shut down’ instinct. They’re selectively mute for multiple reasons (including derealization, jaw pain, the fact that they didn’t learn how to speak until they were 10, and genuinely forgetting it’s something they’re capable of), a period of Cotard’s syndrome, and a tendancy towards self-loathing and self-sacrifice. In short, Fang is still halfway stuck in the mindset that most of the flock grew out of when they escaped in the school, and doesn’t know how to move past it.

Much of their character arc revolves around not necessarily seeing themselves as human, but learning to treat themselves as human even when they don’t feel like one (or even feel real), and knowing that just because they don’t feel human all the time doesn’t mean anyone else can treat them the same. They never start easily expressing their emotions, and they’re always going to be selectively mute, but they learn to accept that those aspects of themself aren’t character flaws or signs that they’re sub-human.

Other additions to Fang’s character include:

They don’t get their hair cut in New York. It stays long through the entire series. They have the longest hair in the flock by the end of the series, and they can wear it in so many styles.

Fang uses they/it pronouns because themes of reclaiming the weapons used against it and, more importantly, Gender.

They’re actually really good at spelling compared to the rest of the flock, because they and Iggy communicate with Print-On-Palm when they’re nonverbal, and they’re nonverbal for some pretty long stretches of time.

They and Max have... zero romantic tension. At all. There is none. The number of times Max calls them her sibling/little sibling in the first arc alone is staggering, and that will not change.

Igneous “Iggy” (Birthname: Jamsetta “Jamie” Griffiths)

I’ve talked about Iggy before. Canon doesn’t give us much to go off of, but from what’s shown, he’s smart, sarcastic, has sharper edges than Fang and Max, and also has a sizable ruthless streak. So that’s what I have to go off of.

The big difference between Iggy and Fang&Max is that Iggy has a much better memory of the School. Most of the flock have areas (months or years) that they don’t remember, or people that they’ve blocked from their mind, but Iggy... doesn’t. So he’s the one that remembers all of the other AVIAN test subjects that were old enough to have names and identities but died due to complications. Max might have the burden of leadership, but he has the burden of memory. And that has lead to both a massive fucking guilt complex, because why did he survive when they didn’t, and, as mentioned above, a ruthless streak that he doesn’t shy away from.

Which is to say, by the end of the story, Iggy has the highest kill count.

I love, love writing Iggy next to Max and Fang. I love writing Iggy next to Gazzy and Nudge. Because, I say this with all of the love of the world, but Iggy is not a good person. He is loyalty and love incarnate, and the world can burn down if he and his siblings are safe. Max and Fang will always try to save as many people as they can. They will wonder what’s wrong with them the first time they kill and don’t have a mental breakdown about it. They are good in a way that Iggy is not. He’s okay with killing Erasers. He’s okay with killing humans. He’s okay with killing people who might not necessarily deserve it, if they show themselves as a threat or are simply in the blast radius. He knows perfectly well that most of those Erasers he’s murdering are four and five and he is okay with that, because a lot of the AVIANs were that age when they died. (Yeah, in the rewrite it’s not Fang who has an issue with Ari; it’s Iggy who wants the 7-year-old wolf-boy dead.)

And this is, of course, juxtaposed with Iggy being really, really good with Nudge and Gazzy (especially in the beginning). Because, again, he actually remembers being a child. He remembers a lot of kids that died and is therefore fiercely protective of the kids that didn’t, as well as fiercely protective of the innocence that he never got. So he’s the one that cooks their favorite foods when they’re having a bad day, always makes time when they want to talk about something, and convinces Max to let them go to that toy store in New York because, yeah, he Max and Fang aren’t kids. They never were. But Nudge, Gazzy, and Angel can be. (And if he has to be a murderer to preserve that, then he’s perfectly okay with that.)

He and Angel don’t get along very well, though. The telepath doesn’t like hanging out with the person with the most clear memories of the school.

Other additions:

Iggy is trans and says trans rights

He also has paranoid episodes, because C-PTSD. Sometimes they’re very helpful. Sometimes they are not.

I actually decided that he’s one of the flock that doesn’t meet their parents. I know in canon he did, but I always found that very clunky because it didn’t add to his character. He was one of the characters who, until it was convenient for the plot, seemed to care the least about his family. I’d much rather give that to a character whose arc would benefit from it.

Iggy! Gets! Older Sibling Rights! Seriously, he’s two months younger than Fang, he is just as capable.

Iggy does not know braille because Jeb decided it wasn’t necessary for him to know. Iggy is also the best speller in the flock, because Print-on-Palm was the only way to talk to Fang for a solid year. Yes he mocks everyone over this.

Iggy is the only member of the flock that enjoys swimming and can take into the air from water. Everyone else in the flock is incredibly jealous.

Nudge (Birthname: Monique Robinson)

If Iggy is defined by his memories, Nudge is his polar opposite. She was seven when she left the School, but she has next to no memories of it. She is missing a lot of time in the first year she escaped. And that causes... a lot of things. It makes her feel disconnected from her older siblings, it gives her the ability to function in society in a way the other’s can’t, it lets her feel less grief over the ones that didn’t make it and she doesn’t remember, it makes her feel guilty that she doesn’t remember what she’s old enough to know.

Basically, in order for me to keep the character of Nudge as I saw her (more extroverted, not afraid of the world, fascinated with humans like her siblings aren’t, desiring to fit in instead of isolate), I had to put a little bit of distance between her and the flock. Of course, she loves them— that will in no way change— but she’s old enough that she should remember the school (and her dead friends) unlike Gazzy and Angel, but she can’t, and she very much fears forgetting the flock if anything happens to them. So she’s trying desperately to keep the flock close and wants desperately to experience the world at the same time, and doesn’t know what to do when she can’t have both. That’s her biggest character conflict throughout the series, along with that in-between area where she’s not quite where her older siblings are but understands so much more than Gazzy and Angel, and where she stands in that.

So yeah. Nudge’s journey is that in looking for belonging in the world, in her family, and in herself.

This is why she’s one of the ones that gets to find her parent, James Patterson.

Other additions include:

She never straightens her hair. Never. Her resources at the E-shaped house aren’t perfect, but she still has learned how to take care of her hair and has a few styles she cycles through.

She becomes the default person Max sics on people when the flock is trying to befriend them. Also their de-facto diplomat around strangers.

As in canon, she does take some time away from the flock to expirience ‘normal life’. This does not last long due to the stress of being separated from her siblings/not being able to help them and [REDACTED]

Nudge is... not the only person in her head. I’m not focusing on it much because she doesn’t actually know and neither does the flock (I don’t know if they ever figure it out during the series, either), but she has dissociative identity disorder. She’s not aware of her alter(s?). Her alter isn’t super aware of her, either.

The alter that I’ve developed is named Oxy and is not super aware of the outside world. In her eyes, she’s still seven and they’re still at the School. She would not recognize the body as her own if she looked in a mirror.

Nudge actually leaves the flock for a while to pursue her dream of living a normal life. She deserves it. She learns how to make muffins and the basics of software development. These things are unrelated.

Gasman (Birthname: No first name, surname “Falk”)

Honestly, writing Gazzy is kind of hard for me. Partially because I’m not great at writing kids, and partially because I feel like he’s a pretty surface-level character in-series that... isn’t super compelling in canon. But even if that’s the case, I try to treat all of my characters with respect, so here we go. In my rewrite, he escaped when he was four, which was half a lifetime ago for him, so his memories are ill-defined. Therefore, he managed to circumvent a lot of the trauma that the rest of the kids have, and not in the way Nudge did, which is by creating an elaborate blockage in her memories.

Which means Gazzy... really doesn’t know how to deal with all of this traumatic stuff happening. So much of his development turns out to be a coming-of-age narrative. Learning how to deal with the horrors of what his siblings grew up with. Learning the fears that they had the entire time. Losing his innocence when everyone around him never had it in the first place, and being so terribly alone because of it. Because, really, how can you explain such a deep loss to people who never had what he had? How can they help in a way that matters?

Also, relationship-wise, I’m slowly deteriorating the relationship between him and Iggy. Slowly. Or, changing it, at least. Gazzy hero-worships Iggy in-series, and for good reason, because Iggy is super cool, especially in the eyes of an eight-year-old, and especially when Iggy has taken care to cultivate parts of his behaviors to be child-friendly. Part of growing up is seeing the flaws in your heroes, and Gazzy has to learn how to deal with it. End of the series Gazzy is much less closer to Iggy than beginning of the series Gazzy, and neither of them are really okay with that, but they learn to live with it, because that’s really all they can do.

Notes:

I’m keeping the mimickry! It plays a bit of a bigger role because that’s how Gazzy learned to talk. I’m debating whether or not he has his own voice or if he just borrows the flock’s as he sees fit. He also uses it to scream really loudly and occaisonally burst the eardrums of Erasers.

At one point he cosplays as Jessica Jones. No you don’t get any more context than this.

He has a horrible sense of fashion.

I’m changing his name eventually because it sucks. He’s either going to change it to Gannet, Garrison, or Ivy Mike temporarily, and permanently to Zephyr. (I never said I was going to make his name GOOD, because he’s eight, but it’s changing. You’re welcome.)

Angel (Birthname: No first name, surname “Falk”)

It’s just... a completely different character, at this point. I’ve changed so many things about her in an attempt to make her consistent and act like a six-year-old and work in the whole “telepath before she has a solid sense of identity”, so it’s a different character. Also, I’m tired of writing coherently or in paragraphs, so have some interesting facts.

She has epilepsy! Super severe epilepsy! I think she might also develop juvenile MS in the future because her brain has so many scars from being a fucking six-year-old telepath. There’s no way she could get out of that unscathed.

She has more memories of the school than Gazzy, but only because she keeps accidentally reading the minds of Max, Fang, and Iggy. On a related note, she interacts with Iggy as little as possible.

The mind reading means that she has a hard time developing as a normal child with a normal sense of identity or reality. She can’t tell how much people are individual people and how much they’re just extensions of her. Conversely, she can’t tell how much of herself is actually her instead of the thoughts/opinions/identities of someone else. It’s... kinda fucked? But also super not-her-fault.

She’s albino because white wings. Also, because I thought it was cool. This also means that her vision sucks, though. Also she has the biggest straw sunhat and the most stylish sunglasses a six-year-old can have.

She’s responsible for Max shaving her hair off.

She has the highest swear count because I think it’s funny. She’s the only person allowed to say the fuck word in writing. Everyone else can only say ‘hell’ and the occasionally ‘damn’ but she can say whatever she wants for dramatic and comedic value.

She is NOT THE FUCKING VOICE, J*MES P*TTERSON.

Honorable Mentions

Jeb

I’m skipping Jeb because of how little I care about him. He’s a little bitch, next character.

Ari

STILL HASN’T BEEN REVEALED AS AN ERASER. I’ve been writing for 50,000 words and he’s over here saying ‘nope nope not yet, not dramatic enough’. He’s had speaking lines but has refused to make himself known to Max. I am so frustrated with this seven-year-old wolf-child that I’ve already considered how I would kill him, if I decide I want to kill yet another child in my writing.

So, my main thoughts for Ari is that he... really just drew the short end of the stick in every possible way. While Jeb didn’t sign him up for Eraser expirimentation, he didn’t do anything to stop it, and pretty much cut his losses when he realized this expiriment made a wreck of his ‘perfect, unflawed’ son, because Jeb doesn’t consider children of any species to actually be humans. So, Ari really hates his dad, which makes things complicated, because he also really loves his dad and really wants his approval.

Which means that he also really hates Max, because she’s the child that always got Jeb’s time and attention, even when Ari was human. I think, on some level, he knows that trying to tear Max down to a less-favored level isn’t actually going to help his situation— infighting for the love of an abusive parent won’t make them any less abusive— but he’s also seven, and his development is already severely stunted due to becoming an Eraser, and he doesn’t see ‘leaving ITEX’ as an option like the Flock does. ITEX is his everything. It’s all he’s ever known, and they tell him he’s doing the right thing, and he wants them to love him. He wants his father to love him. He knows that if he ever questions ITEX, his father will never love him. So it must be his older sister that’s ruining his life and being a horrible child, and once Ari drags her back down to his level, Jeb will realize who the best child is and love him properly again.

Ari, on an even deeper level, does care for Max quite a bit, because she’s his older sister and he wants that to mean something in a way that ‘Jeb being his father’ obviously doesn’t. He wants what she made for herself, and he hates the Flock because she loves them and obviously doesn’t love him.

Ari, if anything, is the product of neglect, and both loves and hates everyone who shows a chance of caring about him. And he’s seven, so he can’t notice these patterns, let alone break them.

So. Notes!

He doesn’t look like an adult. I thought that was gross and unnecessary. He’s seven, but he looks closer to thirteen or fourteen. Still young enough that he looks like every Eraser’s little brother, and the Erasers high-key treat him like it.

On a related note, he’s the only Eraser who can talk. The others don’t have the mental capacity or vocal structure to replicate human speech, but they can understand language (at about the level of a two or three year old) and are very good at nonverbal communication. This is why Ari managed to climb the ranks despite only having three years of “service” and also looking like a tween.

He doesn’t have an expiration date because that is SUCH a stupid plot point.

I’m giving him a chainsaw! I don’t know how, I don’t know when, but he deserves to have a chainsaw and GODDAMN I will give it to him.

Emergency and Gene

The OCs that I love and also killed pre-series. They don’t have any scenes, because they’re dead, but their deaths greatly effected Max, Fang, and Iggy, and they are very commonly referenced. Their voices are probably Max’s most common hallucination, to the point where she sometimes pretends they’re ghosts that she can talk to. They’re not ghosts. They’re dead.

Dr. Valencia Martinez

I’m actually keeping her pretty close to canon— loving, supportive, the type of person to take in a gsw victim with minimal questions. The difference is that rather than kindness fueling her actions, it’s incredible guilt. She has three goals surrounding Max: Give her as much support in any way she can, teach her as much about chicane culture as possible, and never let Max know that she’s her birth parent.

(She’s probably going to fail at AT LEAST two of those, but it’s the thought that counts.)

Notes:

She has a pet fox named Robin Hood that she rescued from an exotic animal salesman that got arrested.

I think I’m going to kill her. I don’t know yet, but it’s on the table.

Anne Walker

Y’know, the fake FBI Agent. Who’s not actually a fake in my story because I hated that plot point. She’s genuinely an FBI agent who put the Flock into pseudo-witness-protection in order to build a case against the Institute of Higher Living, accidentally got attached to her prime witnesses, raised them for a few months, realized a [SPOILER] and promptly had to let them get the hell out dodge.

I really like the Anne Walker that lives in my head. She is a VITAL part of the Flock’s development, their mental/emotional recovery, and adding to their safety net to fall back on. She serves them as their first adult role model, and is the first adult to show them what parent/child are supposed to look like from a healthy perspective. Though she has several fuck ups, she becomes someone that the Flock genuinely trusts and loves, which makes it all the more difficult for them to leave when [REDACTED].

Notes:

She and Max do butt heads initially, because Max is paranoid and also afraid of becoming uneeded. This ends up being incredibly important because Max needs to learn how to live and find meaning in life without being the designated Leader/Parent/Big Sister

Anne, at one point, sits the entire flock down to teach them about consent, which was something no one ever talked about with them before. She goes in talking specifically about consent in a romantic/sexual sense (because they’re fourteen and that’s something they need to know), but quickly turns into a full-fledged no, people are NOT allowed to do that to you, what the FUCK.

She’s responsible for giving the flock a laptop. It’s because Angel is online schooled (bc telepathy makes actually learning difficult) and was therefore provided with a computer.

Anne is also allowed to swear, but only when it’s funny.

Michael “Grey” Rivers

Aka Grey from the Sewers Aka GR3Y H47 Aka Mike from the Bronx Aka Gifted Child Syndrome Incarnate Aka Would-be-in-MIT-if-his-parents-weren’t-horrible. He’s my son, your honour.

Basically, his backstory boils down to him being a genius, getting into MIT at 14, his (horrible) parents wanting a perfect child who could “make it out” of the Bronx and represent his family/neighborhood/borough to the world. When he inevitably failed their expectations due to stress, a schizophrenic-spectrum disorder that completely alienated him from the rest of his support network, and refusing to take his psych meds because the side effects were horrible and they made it harder to think (and therefore pass his classes), they kicked him out. He fully intends to go back to MIT when he turns 18 and has control of his finances/scholarships/medication/therapy.

So that’s how the flock meets him.

Mike ends up in a very prominent support role for the flock both in technological persuits (helping them track their parents, helping them get information from ITEX, trying to disable Max’s chip and failing multiple times until it becomes a matter of personal honour—), in helping the older members of the flock figure out how to deal with hallucinations/delusions (because he’s actually been to therapy, unlike them), and in being one of the only people who talks to them and helps them without any ulterior motive. He’s not trying to build a case against ITEX/The Institute of Higher Learning, he’s not double crossing them, he’s not plagued with guilt. He just genuinely wants to help them, and they genuinely want to help him, and that’s their first introduction to a healthy, non-codependent relationship.

My many disorganized notes on Michael Rivers:

He’s from specifically Morris Heights, Bronx, NYC.

He would say that his last name is actually Rivera, but his grandparents changed it to Rivers so it would sound more English, and his family has been in America for so long that he doesn’t know much about any Latino heritage he may or may not have. He identifies as African American, not Afro-Latino. He’s just bitter that his family felt the need to change their surname to have better opportunities in New York.

Nudge aggressively befriends him pretty much the moment she meets him, bullies him into teaching her how to code, and he very quickly adopts her as his pseudo-little-sister.

His delusions in the book seemed to involve government conspiracies, but as that’s the one delusion that is proved correct in the book, I’ve decided it would be best if his delusions and reality intersected a bit less if I don’t want to write him having a manic/paranoid episode in the second scene he has screen time. So his delusions are more based on “none of this is real”, “someone is recording everything I do and setting me up to fail” and “my ill-wishes on people can and will come true if I dwell on them too long.”. Government conspiracies are one of things he is skeptical about because he thinks most conspiracies are either “CIA admitted to this twenty years ago” or “antisemitism”.

He’s taking online free college classes that don’t actually give him any college credit, but they have good information and help him feel like he’s working towards something. He plans to double major in computer sciences and electrical engineering, minor in marine biology. He’s wanted to join NOAA since he was twelve and he is nothing if not stubborn.

There you go. These are my characters, now. I have custody.

#maximum ride on main #Maximum Ride rewrite

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stitch1830 · 3 years

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Ahhh but then if we go with Taang once again the issue arises where I don’t really ship Sokka with anyone but Toph. Maybe I’d like him with Suki more if we fleshed out her character a little and gave her relationship with Sokka more depth and development? But again I just really don’t like the idea of the first person you date as a teenager being the person you spend the rest of your life with, especially if you totally rushed into a relationship with that person and ultimately don’t know them very well on a personal level beyond that initial spark of attraction. It’s cute and all but I just don’t care for it nor do I find it realistic as an endgame ship.

That's definitely valid! I'm always torn about it, too, because I think in general it's unrealistic and even silly when we pair off characters in a friend group so perfectly that everyone ends up with someone and is happy lmao. But then I'm like, it's fanon! We can do whatever we want, doesn't have to be realistic. I literally fight myself on this idea all the time so I feel ya lol. But I do know quite a few high school sweethearts that ended up getting married so I'm a little biased when it comes to the idea that people can spend their whole life together and can sort of see it happening to ships haha (it definitely isn't as interesting as other fics, but sometimes simple is good. Only sometimes).

And if we can create a character story based off a name, I think we can do some good damage with Suki's backstory ;) This is one Sukka HC I've had in the back of my mind, and it's definitely not as cool or crazy as some of my other HC's, but I think it's a start!

So maybe Sokka and Suki don't end up together after the finale. I like the idea that the whole Gaang go their separate ways and find projects to help rebuild. Sokka would immediately go back home, and I think Suki would either go back to Kyoshi Island or travel with her warriors. Maybe they spent a few days together and preparing for their own missions, and Suki suddenly feels a great deal of dread. She was imprisoned for months (I think), maybe even tortured or interrogated for information because she's the leader of the warriors and has abandonment issues now. The thought that Sokka leaving her scares her, and instead of talking about her fears, she breaks it off with him and says that they should focus on themselves and their projects. No distractions. And Sokka is super upset because all the people he's loved and cared about seem to leave him. That makes him mad that she would just break it off like that, and he agrees that they should break up.

Years pass and they're in their twenties now. The Gaang decides to reunite and Katara invited Suki, even though he requested she not be there since "she wasn't technically part of the original Gaang!"//"She saved your life, Sokka, get over it." So he swallows his pride and strikes up a conversation with her, because everyone else is paired up and in a conversation for him to butt in. And Sokka and Suki hit it off again. They literally talk about everything, and they both admire how much change and work the other has done. At the end of the night, they are about to go their separate ways, and Suki suggests that he come to Kyoshi Island to help with a project. They could use his inventive mind... He hesitates, but ultimately agrees because he mentally set up boundaries for their relationship.

And after a few weeks he ignores the rules he made up and they fall into a FWB situation, maybe? Super casual situation, and they spend a lot of time working together. When he leaves, they're both sad, but agree that this was nothing. No relationship.

But then they miss each other and start writing to each other to pass up their solitary free time. They both come up with silly projects that require each other's skills and for them to visit. Suki's in the SWT with Sokka, and she's noticing all these women coming up to Sokka and chatting, even flirting with them, and she finds herself jealous... Sokka confronts her about it in the most Sokka and sarcastic way possible and she responds angrily, "Fine! I like you! I don't want you flirting with anyone but me." He wiggles his eyebrows and is like "Wow, Wonder Warrior's got a crush on me."

Cue long-distance relationship... it's definitely hard and they don't love it, but they're trying their best. And then boom. After a very long stay at Kyoshi, Suki finds out she's pregnant.

Definitely not what they had in mind, they've only started dating again for a couple months and the idea that Sokka is gonna leave her with this baby is making her mind spiral into the absolute worse case scenario because that's how she thinks now. Sokka grabs her by the shoulders hard and promises her that he's not going anywhere. He's with her 100% of the way.

And he is. They navigate their relationship and this big change together and it's not easy, but they work through it. Sokka slowly realizes that he's always been in love with Suki one way or the other, and her becoming the mother of his child further solidifies this thought. It's a quiet and simple confession he gives her one lazy afternoon, and she reciprocates the feeling.

They learn how to live with each other, travel for projects, and raise their kid together. Time still moves on, and one day Sokka just asks her to marry him. Simple and a little off the cuff like most of their relationship at this point. But he still can't help but smile when she says yes.

Sorry for going a little overboard, haha! But I too want our boy Sokka to be happy! We just gotta find one or two more possible people for him besides Toph for our semi-multishipping needs lol.

#sukka #atla #sokka #suki #sokka and suki #headcanons #my asks #thanks for the ask!#mudbend #they've got that rom com stuff #maybe romantic drama lol #on/off again #breakup to friends to FWB to dating to PARENTS to marriage?#it could work #we just need some more depth for suki!

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floreleine · 3 years

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I would love to hear more about the ScarletMay part of the story where Madeleine jumps between Florence and Scarlet! Doesn't have to be a full story, i know you're not doing longfics at the moment, but maybe just a few headcanons?

Ohh, I thought about doing the same thing and just writing down some backstory ideas as headcanons, but - once I started writing, this just happened! So, thanks very much for the prompt, anon, thx to you this turned into an entire Thing xD I'll probably post at least two more Floreleine and ScarletMay parts, possibly a Killercule epilogue, we'll see!

Prequel Fic Part 1

Part two starts exactly where part 1 left off, just with a POV change from Madeleine to Anna May!

1k, G, no warnings

"Scarlet?" Anna May asks in shock when she sees the woman in the library foyer.

She had heard loud voices and expected needing to break up a skirmish or help Madeleine and Florence shoot some people - and indeed, Madeleine has a gun aimed at the visitor, but instead of some rogue robber, this woman is no-one Anna May would ever want to kill.

Not even after she left her for a man who didn't even let her be together with Anna May at the same time, after she had already said that she wouldn't mind sharing.

And look where that had gotten her. All alone back in the library, probably having been left by the guy who hadn't wanted to share her...

As Anna May steps into the room and slowly walks up to the others, waving for Madeleine to put her weapon down (she does lower it, but not by much), Anna May is half of a mind to tell Scarlet 'I told you so'. But she looks like enough of a mess, and - bloody hell, she's carrying an infant in her arms.

"Anna," Scarlet says weakly when Anna May is standing next to Madeleine at the side of the desk. "I - sorry -" she sways the child in her arms a little when it starts to cry again. "I'm sorry for just showing up, but I've nowhere else to go - I'm not asking for you to take me back! I'd never expect, after what I've done..."

Next to her, Anna May rather feels than sees Florence and Madeleine share a look at that new bit of information. Anna May had never told them about Scarlet, at least not in so many words - they had noticed that she had been seeing someone, but only when the relationship had already been breaking apart again, and Anna May had called it 'nothing but a fling gone wrong', saying that this was only renewed proof that she wasn't a person made for the dating world, no matter that Florence and Madeleine had made it work, ruining her 'cant date in our line of work' excuse.

"But - can you let me stay? Just for a while, just until I've found my footing again - until I'm sure they aren't also after me and Samantha..."

Anna May freezes. She had expected that Scarlet's relationship had just turned sour, but -

"He's dead? The guy you've been seeing?"

Scarlet shivers a little. "Yes. Killed."

Anna May doesn't know whether to feel sorry for her or to be frustrated in the knowledge that if he'd still be alive, Scarlet would have probably never come to see her again, would have stayed together with her happy little family. She doesn't know what to say.

"This is Samamtha, then?" Madeleine asks in her stead, finally putting her gun back into its holster and stepping forward to get a look at the baby. "Oh, she's cute! It's been a while since I've been around any children, but aren't they usually... wrinklier when they're this little? This one looks like a fully formed human!"

"...that's only when they've just been born," Scarlet explains. "Samantha's over three months old."

Anna May can't even stop herself from doing the mental math, her mind too systematic, too used to analysing everything around her.

Four months - nine months over a year total -

"You were already..."

Scarlet winces, clearly following Anna May's train of thought. "Yes... You knew I was seeing him, it was supposed to just be casual sex... But Samantha happened, and... I wanted her to know her father. And he -"

Anna May is a little frightened when she sees tears in Scarlet's eyes. But right, her boyfriend - husband? - the father of her child has just died.

"he was a good man," Scarlet sniffs. "I really do love him. I would have stayed with the both of you if I had been able to, but he wasn't someone used to sharing, and - and with Samantha - that just made my decision for me, I'm so sorry -"

"No," Anna May interrupts her, surprised about herself, surprised how much she means her next words. "That actually makes it better. To know why you... Fuck. And yes, sure you can stay."

"You will have to get used to cursing less, if you are going to be around a child a lot now," Madeleine says, staring at said baby like it is a particularly interesting, rare and precious artefact. For her, who always liked children and never had the chance to be around them much, it probably is just that. At least they won't have to worry about looking for another babysitter...

Anna May flinches a little when she notices how far she has been planning ahead. Scarlet might not even stay that long - just to get her affairs in order - and would she even want her to stay?

Snap.

All three of them flinch a little, but it is just Florence who is closing the latches and locks on the library doors. "Figured if she's staying, we'll take today off to get her settled."

Madeleine nods and smiles brightly first at Florence, then at Scarlet and the baby.

Scarlet gives Florence an awkward half-smile as well before turning back to look at Anna May, waiting for her decision.

"Yes, sure," Anna May says, having to force herself to meet her eyes. "Like I said. You can stay."

Scarlet's answering smile is so soft, Anna May instantly knows that now that she has her back in her life, there is no way she will want her to leave again.

Part 3

Still taking prompts!

Might not be so quick in answering all of them anymore now as I've got other things going on as well, but I'd still enjoy you guys giving me some inspo!

Also lmk if anyone wants to be tagged when this updates! I won't tag my entire usual GM taglist for each little ficlet, espesh not follow up parts, so you'd have to let me know individually

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asoulofstars · 2 years

Note

☀️ OH talk to me about how riona's backstory has changed over the years

Okay, so this might get long. XD

Riona started as a self-insert, so she’s physically changed over the years. She used to wear glasses and had not-green eyes (grey, maybe, idk how I described them; my eyes are a disaster to describe).

Riona also did not have Soll until about 2-3 years after I made her. He came from a crack fic that my friends and I wrote in high school. He was one of my friend’s OCs and they were long-lost siblings. I, of course, made Soll the light of her life and ripped him away.

I think that her relationships with her parents have also changed over the years. Her father started off pretty distant anyways, but I made them have their own special bond over time with things like dancing or in her human AUs watching Star Trek together. Which makes it worse when he turns on her as harshly as he does. Riona’s mother always had specific Ideas (TM) about how she should be, and Riona never was that, so while Riona learned a lot from her mother, she doesn’t remember her as fondly.

Riona’s human AU backstory also has changed a lot. Integrating @divineduet’s Luke into her backstory gives her another rock during her college years, which I think helps propel her into getting the therapy she needs.

Also, in faerie verses, Aidan is no longer her first relationship, and I made a faerie version of her human AU college girlfriend, Brooklyn—faerie name Blair—who plays a large part in why Riona has a hard time trusting romantic relationships.

Also just. Figuring out Riona’s mental health has been a journey. You know I did not start with saying she has depression and PTSD. You watched me go “wait, why are you doing that?” and diagnosing her. I’ve also since added ADHD, insomnia, anxiety, to her list.

The finer details, especially for her faerie world, I am constantly needing to work out/edit/tweak. From things like faerie biology to just…if they wear shoes.

So, yeah. Riona is constantly evolving as I write more and more!

#stardust (ooc)#you have stardust in your veins (about)#a little bit of stardust (headcanons)#paradisecost

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prompt-master · 3 years

Text

THIS BITCH FUCKING DYING XD XD X'D

This is a lighthearted comedy fic, but I’m going to give a warning for mention/talks of suicide and death.

Now this may be a shocking sentiment to share; but being in a killing game fucking sucked, even if you were Momota Kaito. As ludicrous as that statement appears, heroes had a tough time in tragedy too. Kaito found himself feeling disappointed more often than he would like at the sight of his companions distrusting each other. How were they supposed to work together and escape if people were “scared” that they would be “murdered”?! Kaito believed in trust to the bitter end and he would see that philosophy through. To point the finger at others and accuse them of murder is simply what the mastermind wanted him to do, and if Kaito was anything he was not a loser.

But that’s part of what made his sidekick so incredible! No hero was complete without his supporting role! Of course, Shuichi was much more than a supporting role. In many ways he was the protagonist of his own world (Kaito is still the hero of this story, make no mistake). Even though Shuichi relied on the motivation of others to see himself through, he was probably one of the most capable men he’d ever met. His intinution and detective skills were essential to each trial when his thoughts weren’t fogged up by mental recoil. And despite his reclusive demeanor, he was a good friend to have that everyone wanted the best for. Shuichi was Kaito’s sidekick and it showed! For his sidekick had to stand on his own as one of the best!

...Well, maybe sometimes Shuichi didn’t have a leg to stand on because he didn’t look so dependable laying face-down on the ground.

“Shuichi! Are you- what are you doing?”

Shuichi was down on the ground in front of his Ultimate Lab with his foot stuck propping the door open. He didn’t lift his head up when Kaito called out his name, instead opting for a string of gibberish and raising one hand off the ground.

“No, seriously. What are you doing?” Kaito propped the dizzy detective up against the wall, catching him as he nearly swayed back down to the floor in response. Kaito took note of his flushed face and unfocused demeanor. There wasn’t...booze in this killing game right? That would suck. A killing game and booze wouldn’t mix well. Although some may disagree and say a pint is just the pick me up after watching one of your friends be slaughtered.

“M-Momota-kun…” it seemed Shuichi was gathering his bearings again. He braced himself against Kaito by gripping his sleeves.

“Alright, c’mon Shuichi. Let’s get you to the others. I’m sure they can help us out somehow!”

“Ah but...first things first…” Shuichi looked up at Kaito with a determined resolve in his eyes typically reserved for class trials.

“If I die, it’s a suicide.”

Huh?

HUH?!

WHAT?!

“Shuichi?!” Kaito shook Shuichi by the shoulders until he looked ready to pass out and keel over for good, “Why would you do that?! You have so much to live for!”

And Shuichi had the damn nerve to look exasperated by the panic, “Ack- Momota-kun please calm down it was an accident!”

“How do you accidentally kill yourself?!”

“Well it happens all the time really but-”

“That’s not reassuring coming from you! Just-” Kaito took a deep breath to steady his frustrations, “why the hell are you dying?”

“It’s- haha, well uhm, it’s a bit of a funny story you see-” Shuichi stopped his ramblings at Kaito’s unimpressed glare, Shuichi sighed and slumped over with a sense of shame and embarrassment, “I was in my lab familiarizing myself with the various poisons in case anyone tried to use one, but ended up dropping a bottle of powder on the floor and inhaling quite a bit.”

“T-that sounds pretty serious…” Kaito mumbled. “How do you treat a toxic inhalant?...How do I help you..? Just say the word and I’ll be there, sidekick!”

Shuichi closed his eyes and rested against the door. After a moment he said “At this rate, people will assume you killed me since you were with me all this time. So, to prove that it was a suicide-”

“Shuichi I asked how to save you not how to solve your murder.”

Shuichi tilted his head with a fog of puzzlement in his eyes, “...but solving murders is what I do?”

“Well don’t do it right now! I’m trying to prevent your death!”

“Hm.” Shuichi seemed to have to rethink his evaluation, but the situation hadn’t changed. “This is a killing game, Momota-kun. I don’t think surviving or saving is on par with the course of action the mastermind planned out.”

“W-well if there’s a poison, there’s an antidote right?”

Shuichi shook his head, “No, there’s probably enough materials to make one, but... I’m not a chemist.”

“Let’s ask Iruma to make one then!”

“She’s not a chemist either.” Not to mention Shuichi didn’t trust any sort of edible concoction Miu put together. He wasn’t sure what she would create, but he did know it would make him want to die even faster.

“Ok then, let’s ask Harumaki!”

“Wh- Momota-kun, Harukawa-san kills people!”

“Yeah, so maybe she knows how to unkill people too! I’m pretty sure she can do basically anything.”

Shuichi, with his head now in his hands, decided that it would be easier to simply go along with Kaito’s antics. His body felt weak and gross and his head was splitting, which was a shame because in all honesty that powder had smelt nice. If only it didn’t leave his lab in need of a quarantine. It could’ve been a good candle scent. Or perhaps Shuichi was just veering into delirium. Dying will do that to you.

He was definitely veering into delirium because one moment he was staring down at his hands and the next he was being carried by Kaito. The worst part of it all was that it didn’t match his daydreams of being romantically carried bridal style by his crush. Instead he was a heavy sack of dead weight plopped against Kaito’s back trying to keep his nausea down as Kaito descended a set of stairs.

“Wh-what’re you doing?” Shuichi mumbled upon realizing that he couldn’t remember Kaito’s plan. If he had one.

“We’re going to get you help!” Shuichi thought it was a pretty bad idea. It would just make the trial even more confusing and he wouldn’t be able to clarify since corpses don’t make for good witnesses. Even if he wanted to voice that though, he ended up in a nasty coughing fit that left him gasping for air.

“Dammit!” Kaito hissed out, “If only Tojo was still here!”

That Shuichi agreed with. If Kirumi was here she would somehow manage to create a cure even though that was absolutely not in the job description of a maid. Her backstory concerned Shuichi quite a bit.

“There he is!” Kaito yelled out, picking up his pace from a light jog to a full run.

“We’re...w-w’re going to ask him for help...?” Shuichi mumbled, before letting out a loud groan, “no, that’s okay...j-just let me die then.”

“Oi Monokuma!” If it weren’t for the imminent danger that would result from it, Kaito would be throttling Monokuma until something broke. “You have to help Shuichi, dammit! Give him a cure or some shit!”

Monokuma tilted his head, looking up at Kaito with pseudo-innocence, “are you stupid or something?”

“Wh-” Kaito nearly lost his anger in confusion, only for it to come back tenfold, “you have to help him!”

“No I don’t, lol.” Monokuma shrugged, “I think the bastard dropping dead would be great! Honestly any of you mistakes would do, he’s not special or anything.”

“He’s our detective!”

“Yeah, you lot are screwed without him, huh?” Monokuma let out a cackle, curled in on his stomach like Shuichi dying was the highlight of his day. “Sounds so beary hopeless to be without a protag, huh! Man we’ve lost two protags in one show, that’s a new record! Someone write that down, I want a medal!”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about…” Kaito shifted Shuichi higher up on his back, ignoring the mumbles in his ear of what evidence to use in the trial, “but don’t start planning yet! Shuichi isn’t dying on my watch!”

Monokuma nodded, “yeah, you are stupid.”

“Fine then I’m going to Harumaki! She was my first plan anyway since you’re so useless!”

“Useless?” Monokuma’s voice wobbled, his head tilted down like a child being told to apologize for wrong doing, “and after all I’ve done for you too...I don’t have to provide you lot with food and shelter, you know.”

“Ahh shut up! We don’t have time for your weird feelings!”

The world became another dizzying blur as Kaito ran off yet again. “Don’t worry Shuichi! I’m taking you to Harumaki! She’ll have everything figured out!”

---

“You inhaled a toxic powder from your lab?”

Shuichi nodded.

“And you’ve gotten no treatment this entire time?”

Shuichi nodded.

“How are you not dead already?”

Shuichi shrugged.

Maki sighed and pinched her nose, wondering how the hell these two idiots got themselves into such a mess, “Saihara, I always thought if you were going to die it would be from murder and not from some bullshit like this.”

Which was a fair assumption really. Being the detective among them, the group learned to rely on Shuichi’s deductions to solve the murders. Without him, there would be a lot of chaos that the killer could use to trick everyone. Wait. Why has no one tried to kill Shuichi again? Shuchi couldn’t tell if he was a lucky man or not, but considering he was currently dying on his crush’s back it’s safe to say he leaned towards unlucky.

Maki turned to Kaito, glaring at him in a way that said she wanted to help but the situation sucked to do anything, “what exactly do you want me to do about this?”

“Save him, of course!” “I’m not a doctor. I’m the opposite. I kill people.”

Shuichi wished desperately that he could say “I told you so”

“Look Harumaki, we can’t just let him die like this! We’re his friends so we have to do whatever we can to help him! Not just for us, but for Akamatsu too! She wanted him to live!”

Harukawa’s steel glare seemed to melt a little at that.

“So we need a plan!” Kaito said, “and the plan is to save Shuichi!”

“That’s not a plan, that’s a goal. And it’s a stupidly impossible goal too.”

“Nothing is impossible!”

Shuichi wondered if he could just close his eyes and die to avoid all the yelling he’s had to endure today.

Another voice joined the conversation with a loud cry of “what’s impossible!?” It was none other than Iruma Miu, confidently placing herself into the scene when no one asked her to. Kiibo was with her, following at a much slower pace with an expression that screamed second-hand embarrassment. With her hands on her hips and a smirk on her face, she ensured all parties had their eyes on her before speaking again.

“Because this hard-headed freak is right! Nothing is impossible with my beautiful plump brain around! What is it you’re looking for? A new way to pull off a fictional r18 move? I knew you three were depraved, but don’t worry Mama Miu has got it covered-”

“No, you idiot.” Maki cut her off without a drop of sympathy. Shuichi didn’t have any sympathy either though, so really it was just relatable. “Saihara is dying.”

“Eh? What?” Miu’s voice fell into a submissive whimper. She curled in on herself and fiddled her hands together. “That doesn’t sound good…”

“Yes dying is usually not good.”

Kiibo worriedly hovered near Kaito, trying to get a good look at Shuichi, “is he ok?”

“No. Because he is dying.”

Miu seemed to have panic in her eyes, “he can’t die! Not yet anyway! Who killed him huh?! Who’s trying to escape?!”

“Iruma!” Kaito ignored her questions, “you can save him, right?! He was poisoned, and you always say that you can do anything!”

“I-I mean yeah I can but… but I don’t know anything about biocompatibility... I honestly just put things in the body and hope it works…I would need more time...”

“Then what about you Kiibo?! Maybe you can...I don’t know- analyze the poison and come up with a cure!”

“My algorithm doesn’t do that...I could do a Google search if we were given WIFI access though...”

“Dammit does anyone have an idea to save Shuichi?!”

“Oh! Oh!” Miu raised her hand, “I’ve seen people induce vomiting in movies to stop poison! That’ll work, yeah?!”

Maki, realizing that this conversation was going to draw out far longer than to her liking, pulled out a chair and sat in it, “first of all: do not do that. Second of all it was an inhalant. I don’t think that will stop his lungs from shutting down any time soon.”

“I know!” Kiibo turned to Miu with a determined look, “Iruma-san! Repurpose my wiring so that my hands function as a defibrillator!”

“Did you not hear what I just said?” Maki asked.

“Well it might stop Saihara-kun from dying if his heart stopped!”

“There’s nothing we can do.” Maki stressed, “we just have to lay him down, monitor him,, and hope he lives”

“Harumaki that’s the same as giving up!”

“Hey hey!” No. God dammit. Sure, let’s keep complicating the dialogue. Shuichi was having a very bad day. Could this poison just finish him off already instead of leaving him on death’s doorstep? Fucking rude. Ouma Kokichi, hearing the glorious sounds of frantic arguing, skipped over to the group with a peachy look on his face.

“What’s wrong with you all? You’re acting like somebody died.” Kokichi did a dramatic gasp, covering his mouth with his hands, “did someone die?! Did someone finally kill Keeboy?!”

Kiibo stopped debating with Miu to give Kokichi an unimpressed look, “seriously?”

“Nishishi- yeah, I guess that would be too lucky.”

“Can you take something seriously for once in your life?” Maki glared, “because somebody will die if we can’t figure this out. Saihara inhaled a toxic powder and we aren’t sure how much time we have left to save him.”

“Ehh?” Kokichi’s face turned from confusion to worry. He’d clearly thought Maki was messing with him until he saw Shuichi’s half conscious body draped over Kaito looking very much like a victim of poison. Just as quickly as his expression changed it turned into an over exaggerated ploy they’d all seen a million times. His eyes filled with tears, his lip quivered, his nose started to sniffle. With a hiccup in his voice he began to whimper, “one of you guys is trying to kill my Saihara-chan?! I thought you all were preaching about friendship and trust and ending the killing game!”

Kokichi tilted his head back as he fell into a full on sob. A loud childish ear-breaking wail resounded as tears poured from his eyes with practiced ease. “You guys are so awful!” he yelled in between his sobs, “how could you do this?! Saihara-chan can’t die!”

“Would you shut the fuck up, flat ass!’ Miu yelled.

And just like that Kokichi’s sobs had turned off. A complete 180 from his previous demeanor. It was like he hadn’t cried at all. His eyes weren’t red and puffy, his nose was dry, and his body was relaxed and poised. He stared camly down at his fingernails, examining them as though this situation was nothing more than a slight inconvenience to his day. “I’m serious, you know. I would never joke or lie. Saihara-chan can’t die, this game wouldn’t be the same without him.”

Kaito nearly asked Kokichi what he meant. Did he care about Shuichi? Did he care about their survival? Was he finally coming around?

“Oi Monokuma!” Kokichi yelled. Monokuma bounced into the scene as though he was on Kokichi’s beck and call. “Hey did you know that Saihara-chan is dying? Like right now? And we’re all just watching that?”

Okay. Maybe he wasn’t starting his redemption arc then. Maybe he’s still the same piece of shit Kokichi.

“Ouma, what are-”

“Of course I know! It’s pretty funny, huh Ouma-kun?”

Kokichi laughed along with Monokuma, as though they were cut from the same tree. But then suddenly he was back to that semi-disappointed demeanor. “Yeah. Saihara-chan is dying. And doesn’t that really suck? This game is going to sooo be terrible without him. In his trial I bet we’re all going to die because these morons can’t think without him. You know that too, don’t you, Monokuma? WIthout Saihara-chan your show is going to be cut off in this most annoying and unentertaining way. Ahhh I can’t believe this is how the game ends. After all that build up too. I don’t think I even want to be a part of this any more honestly. I’d much rather pig breath die.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh.”

Monokuma seemed taken aback by Kokichi’s analysis. He pondered it for a moment, nervously looking around and imagining all the lovely executions that would go to waste if Shuichi died right now. With a sigh he pulled out a very suspicious bottle from-...actually where did he pull that bottle from? Not important. What was important was that there was finally a cure in front of them, the one they’d been asking for all this time.

“Give him this and the brat should be good as new!” and with that Monokuma popped away.

Kokichi, holding the vial, smiled brightly at the others, “Here you go! Don’t let Saihara-chan die again okay! I don’t care if any of you others do but Saihara-chan is very special m’kay?”

…

...

“So you mean…I really could have asked Monokuma for a cure?! The bastard was just lying to me!?”

#danganronpa #drv3 #ndrv3 #drv3 spoilers #ndrv3 spoilers #shuichi saihara #kaito momota #fanfic #fan fic

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littleabriel-blog · 3 years

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My Problem with Loki

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

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

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

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

So many things, however, were wrong.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It Was Rushed

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

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

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

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

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

What?

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

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

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

Enter The Mary Sue

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Romance, and why some find it gross

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is Loki a narcissist?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Loki Is A Queer Icon!...maybe

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I will touch on a couple of things.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s his way of learning self-love!

That is not how you learn self-love.

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

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

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

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

TL:DR, is there hope for Season 2?

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

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

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

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

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

Both sides need to chill.

Anyway.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#loki series negativity #anti sylki

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sadselfhelp · 3 years

Text

Who I Am, And Why I Created This Blog.

TRIGGER WARNINGS - Mental Illness, Self-Harm, Child Abuse, Domestic Abuse, Violence, Drug Overdose, Suicide, Psychotic Breaks.

Take a walk with me, let me show you around the mind of The Sad Hatter.

There's a lot going on in my head right now, and I feel like I'm on the precipice of something. I'm standing on a cliff's edge and I'm either going to plummet or I'm going to fly. It's been building inside me for a long time, and I can't contain it anymore. So here it is, here's me laid bare, because I need to say this, I need to put it into words. I need to purge it all. To try and make sense of all of this shit in my brain, I think it's time I organize it. I don't know where to begin, but I guess I start at the beginning and make use of the ability to edit.

Before you read this, please be aware of the trigger warnings. And please understand that this is the most honest and open I have been, I really am stripped bare in this piece of writing. It’s not at all pretty, and am I not guiltless in parts. This may well alter whatever opinion you have of me.

I guess the beginning is birth, right? But I don't want to rehash all that trauma, so let me speed through it. Twenty-Eight years ago I was born, violently. I'm serious, I ripped my way out of the womb, and tore that thing apart. I guess I can sort of understand why my mother couldn't love me after that was my first act, collapsing her womb. So let me speedrun this part of the story. Mum didn't want me, gave me to my dad who raised me as a single parent with the help of his parents, until he met my stepmother. Shockingly, she didn't want me either, but because she couldn't get rid of me she decided to physical and psychological torture was the next best thing.

When I was eleven years old I snapped and didn't want to put up with it anymore, so I wrote a goodbye note and then snuck into the medicine cabinet and took a bunch of pills. Spoiler alert, I didn't die. I did however end up in a children's home, cue more abuse, little bit of bullying and sexual assault etc.... I snapped again, but instead of turning my anger inwards, I became an absolute bastard. Ok, I still turned it inwards a bit, I had a lot of anger, and now I have a few hundred scars to prove it. But, it turns out that violence can beget violence, and I acted out in every possible way. Racked up a horrifying rap sheet, assault, vandalism, arson, and finally... GBH. I was supposed to get put in a secure unit (child prison – Scottish Edition) but I was always able to talk myself out of trouble.

See, I was this tiny little white girl with big sad eyes and a hell of a sob story, even at the bottom of the food chain I still had privilege. So instead of getting locked up, I just got sent to a different home. And here's the really messed up part, this home was better. The staff were nicer, and nobody hurt me. My behavior literally changed overnight. I went from being charged by the police on a weekly basis, to never getting so much as a pocket money sanction. I will never excuse my actions, nor condone them, but after years of guilt I finally realized that the bad things I did were in retaliation to a bad situation, and though I wasn’t acting like a good person, I’m not a bad person, just a messed up one.

I still refused to go to school though, because though I didn't yet know it at the time, I had severe social anxiety. I was smart, a little too smart to be honest, and I found myself thriving with a private tutor. When the time came to sit my exams, someone fucked up, and despite having record breaking test scores on the pre-exams, I never actually got to sit my standard grades (think SAT's – Scottish Edition). I'm still bitter about that. So by this point in the story, I'm 16, and legally an adult, too old for a children's home. I got turfed to a hostel, and the next few parts of the story are pretty fuzzy to me.

This is where my mental health really started to deteriorate. I bounced between homeless hostels and B&B's for a year or so, until I got a my first flat/apartment. By that point, I was utterly fucked in the head. I was blacking out frequently, for anywhere between a couple of minutes to three days. I would come back to myself in sometimes compromising positions, and once there was blood. A lot of blood, splashed all over the walls. Then there was the time I suddenly found myself standing in the kitchen, about to plunge a knife into my own chest.

Nobody ever did tell me what the hell that was about. Or maybe they did and I just... forgot? But because I was extremely suicidal, a doctor finally decided to do something, and the police and the paramedics came to my door to take me to the psychiatric hospital. I spent ten months there while I cycled through various anti-psychotics and anti-depressants, and was 'rehabilitated into society'. The second I was out, I made the worst decision I have ever made in my life. If I can give you one piece of advice, one lesson to take from my shitshow of a life, it's this: Don't move hundreds of miles away to be with the guy you met online while you were having a psychotic break.

I've never really thought of myself as a victim, but I guess I'm the only one who saw it that way. Ben, that was his name, Ben was a monster, and I didn't know it until it was too late. He never hit me, never lifted a hand to me, he never had to. He could put a knife in my hand and make me hurt myself for his entertainment. I had told him everything, so he knew exactly how to break me down, how to make me want to bleed. He locked me in a house and used me up. And when I had enough, and tried to break free of him, he would just tell the police I was mentally ill and they would smile sympathetically and give me back to him.

But then my dad had a breakdown. My dad, who when he found out what my stepmother was doing to me, buried his head in the sand and packed my little suitcase for me. I hadn't spoken to him in a while until he reached out from the same psychiatric ward I had not long vacated. He had cracked under the realization that I had never lied about her, and the guilt broke him apart. I could have hated him, if it had happened a few years earlier then I would have. But I had experienced enough of the world to learn a few things, like how easily it is to fuck up, and that no matter how strong you are, you aren't immune to monsters. The truth was he was as much a victim of her evil as I was. She had manipulated him, played with his head, used his insecurities against him. So I helped him through his issues, the way I wished someone had helped me. That doesn't really make me a good person, it just makes me human.

But my dad got better, and found his footing. And when he did, he realized something wasn't right with me, and I told him the truth about Ben. My dad had left me to suffer at the hands of an abuser once before, and he wasn't going to allow it to happen again. He came and got me, and he took me home. He moved me in with him, gave me his bed and slept on the couch. After a couple of months, he helped me get my own place.

And that's the happy ending, right? All the trauma was over, I was safe, that's where the story should end. Right? I bet you're not naive enough to believe that, but I sure as hell was. I thought I would recover and that everything would be ok. I thought that with safety, there would come the chance to heal. I thought my wounds would scab over, and I would have my scars but at least I would be able to move without bleeding out. But that's not how trauma works. I had two decades worth of trauma, abuse, and hell.

I just... faded. I didn't crack, I didn't crumble, I didn't break, I just stopped. For five years I sat in one room of my home, drowning inside myself. Last year I got handed a lifeline, and now I live somewhere better. I'm not really allowed to live independently so I actually live in kind of retirement village of all places. I have my own house, but it's got intercoms and emergency cords everywhere, I get checked on daily by on on-site worker. And I'm trying to get better, I really am. It's just not that easy.

There's more to the whole story that I maybe should have put in, like the fact that my mother was a drug addict when she was pregnant with me, and that may have been the reason some of my organs didn't properly form and/or formed wrong. My lung split in half when I was a baby, and parts of my stomach are missing. Or that my mother is full on batshit insane. I could have had a perfect childhood and I still would have been mentally ill. Hell, I was seeing psychologists at five years old. Take my sketchy genetics, add twenty years of severe traumas, and well... I'm a little fucked up. Because a lot of medical conditions use acronyms, my full list of diagnosis looks like I'm collecting the fucking alphabet.

I have Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and Agoraphobia. I also have a Pulmonary Sequestration, Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia, the stomach and lung issues. Immune Hemolytic Anemia, I'm basically allergic to my own blood. Plus, ya know, my liver recently decided to just fucking nope out, the pissy lil bitch is failing. I also may or may not have cancer, I don't know because I pussied out of the tests. At this point I am a walking, decaying corpse that is held together by glitter glue and bitterness.

So... why exactly am I writing this? And why am I even considering posting this? I mean, my problems aren't as bad as some other people's. We've all got shit to deal with, especially in 2020. The whole world is falling apart, so what right do I have to sit here pouting and pouring my problems out? Well, for a start, I guess this is my blog, I can post whatever, and it's up to everyone else if they read it.

So here it is, you have the backstory, so here's what it's all been leading up to.

I'm struggling. Like, really struggling. I'm stuck on this cliff, and I want off, any way I can. Whether I fall or fly, I just want free. I can't live like this anymore, because I can't breathe.

The fucking agonizing duality of being socially anxious and too easily overstimulated, and yet feeling fucking empty inside if you're not surrounded by action and noise. The world is too noisy for my brain, but my brain is too noisy for the world. I get antsy if I'm not doing at least a thousand different tasks, but I get overwhelmed if I try to do anything at all. It leads to short bursts of mania, followed by weeks of depression. But underneath all of that, under all the dramatic showboating, and the dark humor, under all the bravado... I'm really just sad.

Years ago, when I first came up with the moniker "The Sad Hatter", I said it was because I may be mad, but my madness was born of sadness. I'm just sad. I carry it with me where my heart should be. So I named myself Sad, and I put on the hat, and I wore my sadness like armor, turned it into an act, and made a spectacle of it. "I'm The Sad Hatter, and I'm mentally ill but that's alright, I'm going to be just fine!" I told you all I had my issues, and I'll come close to opening up about how bad those issues are, I'll give little chunks of information at intermittent intervals, and then two hours later I'll act like it never happened. I'll admit I was close to killing myself, and then two days later I'll post dog photo's and act like I'm all better.

I'm writing this because I'm sad. And tomorrow, I'll act like I'm not. But when I waver again, I'll come back here and I'll open up again. And along the way, maybe you're reading this and realizing you aren't alone in feeling overwhelmed. Maybe you're realizing you're not the only one who isn't healing neatly and in a timely manner. Maybe you're reading this and gaining some insight into the struggles someone you care about is facing. Maybe my opening up is can help somebody else, I really hope so, but I know it's helping one person. It's helping me.

This blog, it's about living with myself. It's about living with The Sad Hatter.

#trigger warnings #mental health #anxiety #borderline personality disorder #adhd #domestic abuse #child abuse #self harm #violence #just all the trigger warnings

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kitsune-kira · 3 years

Text

Investigation Team as Phantom Thieves AU

Been giving it some serious thought on how it would actually work because a straight swap jkdfasjkl honestly uh lmao

They’re not super rebellious. So I thought.... Maybe more of a blend of the games instead of a straight swap? Like just some stuff I’ve thought of while daydreaming-

obviously some backstories would probably need to be shuffled a bit probably? just bc.... hhhh.... persona reasons-

thinking instead of a resolve to rebel a resolve to see and seek the truth? bc jkfasdljka they’re taking their truthseeker themes WITh them into new AU land bc i don’t see how else this could work

Which made me think in the persona awakening instead of a mask appearing, glasses (like the TV glasses) could appear but uhhh honestly ripping them off doesn’t make sense to me because they’re a lens to pierce through lies and falsehoods (the fog)

AND INSTEAD OF MASK BLOODINESS IT’S JUST THEIR EYES BLEEDING (they’re fine dw if the thieves can be okay after ripping off half their face, the team can be fine after their eyes start bleeding)

Something something about lies being purged from their eyeballs

Probably the resolve to see the truth is tied to either backstory, their canon shadow issues, or both!

like for yu/souji specifically it’d probably be idk him being in denial that his parents kinda suck lmao i have no idea how that would translate to an in-palace awakening-

i’m honestly kind of torn on what to do with adachi, personality-wise it would make the most sense to give him an akechi-like role but at the same time it just seems so..... dry...... to me..... maybe bc akechi was kind of like adachi (at least supposed to be i think) as in he was supposed to not seem to be a threat Until He Was so i’m actually tempted??? to make adachi the first palace the team tackle???

honestly we’re kind of fusing the persona 5 and persona 4 plots together here a little probably-

Also corrupt police detective seems like a good first step for the team to me, kind of similar to Kamoshida bc uh lmao adachi was.... not on the same level as shido.....

Probably more focused on chasing the perp behind the mental shutdowns rather than just getting adults

Is Teddie still a shadow?? Probably ??? I don’t know how this works but I love Teddie too much help

RIP Margaret in this AU. I kind of figure her splits have a calm, mysterious slightly playful twin and then a easily irritated duty-bound one not too too different from Justine and Caroline but y’know more Margaret-y.... Also ngl bc Margaret looks older than Lavenza, Margaret’s twin splits probably also look older-

lmao Yu/Souji’s velvet room is a prison van maybe.... Take the limo and the prison and merge it into one-

IMAGINE just keeping some persona 5 cast for Plot Reasons like Shido and Akechi

Detective Prince vs Detective Prince

Instead of a second coming of the detective prince it’s just the media fighting over who deserves the title more, the latest in the Shirogane detectives or this New Guy Who Has a Very Nice Smile And He’s Pretty and Actually Doing Interviews-

I actually uh don’t entirely know what to do with everyone’s backstories, other than everyone is in Tokyo for Plot Reasons

idk it’s easy enough for yu/souji, he just came back to tokyo

yosuke never left tokyo

naoto and rise are easy enough to place in tokyo too

teddie is just.... from the metaverse so yeah

Not too hard for Chie too ig her parents just moved to the city and she’s probably not jazzed about it

Yukiko and Kanji tho.... Their families are well-established in Inaba hhhhhhh

I MEAN could just have....

...... we could literally steal akira’s backstory and give it to kanji

i can see it kjladkljafjkldsa

yukiko still is an issue hmmm

(if you can’t tell im literally brainstorming more as im writing this-)

Honestly best I got is she followed Chie, and there’s better schooling in Tokyo, and she wants a path that ISN’T the inn

.... oh. actually that kinda works akjdfjklad

.... me thinking about how this is just a lot of pre-Inaba IT huh and the IT being more miserable for reasons

Yosuke probably has ehhh fake friends

Kanji’s delinquent record is going strong except he got fucked over worse than usual

Chie probably isn’t that happy in the city

Yu/Souji is..... Yeah

Rise is probably just getting hit with the hardcore burnout

Naoto just carries the stress with him (i hc he/him naoto)

OKAY BUT THE IDEA OF THEM HAVING TO LEARN TO BE SNEAKY ALL ON THEIR OWN SOUNDS HILARIOUS TO ME

BECAUSE NONE OF THEM ARE ALL THAT NATURALLY GOOD AT THIEVING

AND IT’S FUNNIER TO ME IF TEDDIE UNLIKE MORGANA LIKE CANON P4 ONLY HAS KNOWLEDGE OF THE METAVERSE BUT NO THIEVING SKILLS

so yu/souji and yosuke hit the books on how to be sneaky

Yukiko, Naoto, and Rise are probably the best asides from them to pick up on it

The rest uh lmao less so

but then again ryuji isn’t really that stealthy from the start so im sure it’ll be fine

i haven’t really considered other team swaps but im sure i will somedaaaay

for now i just think the eye bleed persona awakening sounds really cool hhhhhhhh even if it’s roughly as edgy as canon p5 awakenings lmao

They probably just summon their personas with Willpower(tm) in the metaverse, no taking off the glasses necessary bc again it.... doesn’t make sense to take them off.........................

i have no idea what change of heart adachi would look like

ALSO I JUST REALIZED IDK HOW TO SQUEEZE DOJIMA AND NANAKO IN HERE

unless we just move them to tokyo but mmm

ngl i kind of like the idea of sending a less shitty adachi to go hang with them lol

can we waffle between inaba and tokyo

that sounds fun honestly ngl

anyway the team sweating as they actually have to break into a real place in order to resolve a cognitive barrier in a palace

Naoto has to break the law in order to catch a criminal h e l p

forcing the neutral good squad to learn some chaotic gremlin tendencies

they probably would still call themselves the investigation team but them canonically calling themselves the investigation thieves sounds hilarious so maybe lol

#investigation thieves au #yu narukami #souji seta #chie satonaka #yosuke hanamura #rise kujikawa #yukiko amagi #teddie #kanji tatsumi #tohru adachi #persona 4 #persona 4 au #persona 5 #p4 #p5 #au

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danganronpasurvivoraskblog · 3 years

Note

Mod, who are your top 10 favorite characters and top 10 least favorite?

//I have actually been wanting to discuss something like this, so I’m glad someone brought it up to me.

//I’ll go through with this, but I won’t be discussing my least favorites, since I don’t want to bring any negativity, and to be honest, I enjoy writing pretty much everyone in this blog. I also fear if I share who my least favorites are in the main series, said characters won’t get as many asks, and I don’t want any unfair bias. I can definitely admit to hating Haiji though, because...well...he obviously won't be receiving any questions anymore. Besides, I doubt many people will disagree with me.

Honorable Mentions:

Makoto Naegi

Mahiru Koizumi

Kirumi Tojo

Kaede Akamatsu

Tsumugi Shirogane

Shuichi Saihara

Iroha Nijiue

Mikihiko Koyasunaga

Yoruko Kabuya

Tsurugi Kinjo

Uchui Porosen

Kibin Hatsudoki

//Though to be honest, everyone may as well be an honorable mention because I love writing every single one of these guys. Also, like I just said, don’t let this top 10 affect your asks. I love every character in this blog and I’m happy to make asks for each and every one of them. It was really hard to narrow it down to 10

#10: Tenko Chabashira

This might seem a little surprising, given that Tenko hasn't had a whole lot of screen time and story relevance so far. She's only been prominent in two arcs, Deadly Harmony and Novoselic Revolution, both of which she didn't have as much screen time as most of the other characters. However, not to spoil anything major, I have big plans for her, and what I've pulled out of her so far is something I'm proud of. My main goal is mainly to give her a bit of development, and tone down on the sexism element of her character. Not remove it entirely, mind you, because let's be real, Tenko unfortunately isn't Tenko without it, but basically to not do what the DR dev team did and make it the forefront of her character, while her other exceedingly good traits are just at the back until later on in the story.

#09: Kokichi Ouma

Kokichi is one of, if not, my favorite character in the original DR series. My main goal of him in this series is trying to grapple with his constantly changing attitude, mainly towards the DRV3 cast besides himself. At first he's glad to see them, then he turns spiteful towards Shuichi and Kaede when they try to fight him, then he straight up just abandons them and attempts to cut off contact. As he is right now, he's conflicted about how to feel about everyone. Sure, they all still hate him, but during Cabaret Kyojin's they came to his defense when he most needed it. That whole arc might've seemed pretty pointless and acted as needless filler, but my true intention of it was to flesh out the characters involved, mainly Kokichi and Kuripa. Speaking of which, that's another plot point that I'm looking forward to branching upon: the little companionship those two have going on right now.

#08: Monaca Towa

Monaca is a character I actually tend to struggle with in the grand scheme of things. The reason being that, arguably, she in canon is the second biggest antagonist in the series behind Junko. What I tried to do with Survivor though, is not make her an antagonist, but make her slowly become more and more redeemable, despite her actions. The reason why I went with this approach is mainly due to Monaca's last appearance in the series, where she states to Toko and Komaru that she's kind of just done with everything to do with Junko and Despair. I don't think it would be easy to bring her back as an antagonist because of THAT fiasco, and that is legitimately one of favorite scenes of her...which is funny because it's from DR3 and I kinda hate the anime. Her whole presence in Survivor is based around the idea of trying to seek redemption, but she doesn't outwardly want to admit this, nor does she really think she's worthy or deserving of said redemption. She's an adult now, and she grew a conscience. A guilty one that weighs her down and makes her come back to earth to basically settle things and make peace, and though it's been difficult, I love how she's turned out so far.

#07: Akira Tsuchiya

I understand many have their reservations about Akira after what he did this arc, but he's still legitimately one of my favorite villains in this blog because despite the fact that he's a psychopath who kills and ruins people all just for causing Despair, he's just kinda super relatable. He constantly lives with the attitude of just being done with everyone's shit, and I know a lot of DR fans can relate to that. He's also the kind of guy who marches to the beat of his own drum, which is obviously a very slow beat. He rarely ever does what Tsumugi tells him to do, unless the plan interests him or gives him something to do, and his character in general is based around the idea of "Shut-in NEET who just so happens to have a power complex." Overall, what makes him unique to me is just how normal he is, especially when he's compared to the chaotic sea that is the Danganronpa Villains.

#06: Mikan Tsumiki

Novoselic Revolution had the very important role in the story of mending Mikan. Without her efforts and the sacrifices she made in that arc, there's a high chance that the group would have failed to retake the kingdom from Angie and Mikihiko. It goes without saying that the screentime Mikan got in this arc was some of my absolute favorite moments on this blog from a writers perspective. A lot of people in DR dislike Mikan for her actions and character change in the third case of the second game, which I really don't think is fair. Mikan was just the character chosen to be afflicted with the Despair Disease. Nothing else would have been changed had it been a different character, so her role early on in Survivor is mainly her trying to come to terms with her actions, as well as things like making things right with Hiyoko (and Ibuki by extrension) and reevaluating whether or not she's a good person. Mikan is an emotionally and mentally broken child, and it's my full intent in my writing of her to heal her wounds like she does for so many other people.

#05: Narumi Osone

Easily my favorite Zetsubou villain in the blog. During Novoselic Revolution, I really buttered up how much I enjoyed writing Mikihiko, but in reality, I was just waiting for the Rebirth Duo (her and Akira) to burst onto the scene. She didn't make for as great a twist villain in Life and Lies of Akeru Yozora as I would've liked her to be, but even now, I still feel like she left an impact. I mean, she committed quite the number of atrocities. The main reason why I like Narumi though, is how she diverges from the rest of the Zetsubou group. While most of them are doing their evil things for reasons that constitute to causing as much Despair as possible, she does it for almost the complete opposite reason. She absolutely despises Despair, and the only reason she's with Organization Zetsubou, is so that she can patiently await and watch as the Hope that stems from the people fighting back. It's also plays into her ideal. Narumi is so obsessed with Hope that she believes that anyone and everyone who is without hope, and gives into Despair, doesn't deserve to live (and ideal that also allows her to easily hit it off with Nagito). To name the best example: The UUV. Their revenge fantasy is based around the Despair they feel post Ayumu and Marin's deaths, and not around the Hope of their goal of reforming society, even if by force. When Narumi notices this, is angers her so much she murders all of them in cold blood, believing them to be beyond redemption. As a final note, Narumi's violent nature and lust for bloodshed (and lest not forget her weird obsession with Makoto) is also made all the more tragic when you remember she's literally just a 14 year old kid with not a lot of life experience. For someone to be this far gone at such a young age is pretty depressing, but it also provides me with a lot of great writing opportunities, and god damn it she isn't a fun character to write.

#04: Mukuro Ikusaba.

I could pretty much just copy/paste the basic things I said about Monaca's personal conflict for Mukuro, but on a much more extreme level. This is something that I plan on actually branching on later down the line, but Mukuro's backstory and reason why she has a presence here is briefly mentioned by Sayaka in one post. To sum up what she said, when the Foundation were first starting to use the machines to bring back the victims of the first killing game, Makoto was the one who suggested possibly bringing Mukuro back, something that understandably, his classmates initially were against. However, at the time, Kyoko was still new to being the Foundation Chairwoman, and Makoto very much pressed the issue with her. Kyoko eventually agreed to the resurrection, but in exchange, any and all actions committed by the soldier, most notably any treacherous or bad ones, would subsequently be Makoto's responsibility. Of course, as you can imagine, Makoto accepted these terms, and Mukuro was resurrected. For a while afterwards, many were very wary of her presence, and most didn't outright accept her as a member of the Foundation, even when the Remnants of Despair officially signed up. What you have to remember is that Mukuro wasn't really brainwashed into helping Junko, at least not in the same way that the Remnants were. Most of what she did for Junko is what she did willingly, but Makoto felt that in reality, Mukuro was just another one of Junko's victims and she'd never known Hope in her life, which is why she turned out so chaotic, so his whole intention of reviving her was to redeem her honor, of which he was pretty much successful. The main trait of Mukuro's though that I tend to focus on, is arguably her most serious: her PTSD. Of all the characters who could have been hit hard with PTSD, it makes the most sense for it to be a soldier, and since the beginning of her revival, Mukuro has been cursed by the lingering ghost of her dead Despair sister. Junko's presence in her mind less drives Mukuro insane though, and simply makes her doubt herself and her presence, wondering if it was worth being revived, or whether or not she truly deserves to live. But regardless of how she feels, she's duty bound to the end, and still supports everyone unquestionably, especially towards those in her own branch being Makoto, her boss, the man who saved her, and of course her undeniable love interest, and Kuripa to whom she disciplines, but also acts as a mother/big sister figure to.

#03: Hajime Hinata.

It might just be me, but I feel like Hajime in particular is the fan fav in this blog. I feel he's shown up in more posts than any other character, which is fine by me given he's also one of my personal favorite characters, and is probably my favorite protagonist (it really changes depending on my mood, honestly, I think they're all as great as each other). The remnants of Despair's conflict is an obvious one that you commonly see in post-game fics such as this one, and in Survivor, and my personal opinion, Hajime is undoubtedly the one who has it the hardest. However, out of all of the characters in the series who HAVE trauma (and let's be real, that's undoubtedly a LOT of characters in both DR canon, and this blog) he's also undoubtedly the one who handles it the best. However, there is a limit to how much pressure he can take, and that causes him to lash out (like he did with Mahiru during Misfortune's Revenge, which I know we don't like to talk about but its the most notable example). He's been through a whole load of shit and the pressure is constantly crushing him like a gigantic boulder, yet he still forces himself to carry it. Outside of my own writing, Hajime has so many conflicting thoughts and trauma in other fics, and in Survivor, I don't intend to flat out copy them, but I do desire to live up to them. The reason why Hajime has so many burdens placed upon him, and as of Misfortune's Revenge now has double as many, yet is still able to keep going strong, is because he's no longer allowing himself to be weighed down by events that are in the past and out of his control. What makes his ideal unique, is that he has power, almost limitless amounts of it, but instead of focusing on what he can do with it, he's more conflicted and focused on what he CAN'T do, and changing the past is one thing he can't, and as of such doesn't focus on it. He only ever focuses on the present, and the future, and worries about that. And you've got to hand it to the guy, while it's definitely been better, his life is actually super good right now. He has at least 15 really great friends/found family members, a home on an island resort, an AI companion in his phone who will always help him out and support him, a smoking-hot red-haired girlfriend, a pretty good job and a lot more. For him, it's not simply a matter of abiding by the Foundation and fixing the chaos that he indirectly caused. It's also about the fear of losing what he has, and wanting to protect it.

#02: Ayumu Fujimori.

I've said this one or two times before, but I think Ayumu turned out spectacular, and when I eventually had to kill him off, I felt really bad about doing so. The main reason why I removed him, and why I currently don't have any plans to bring him back, is due to my future plans, having him around would make little to no sense. He serves mainly as a catalyst for the new phase of the story, a much darker one, and with his death, we enter that phase. I know many people are worried about it, but it's not just Ayumu's reason for being in the story that makes him great. While it isn't obvious right away, the main character that I was trying to portray with him, is that he's basically the darker side of Hajime. The two of them share very similar traits in character, personality and backstory. Some notable points would be

Both of them are incredibly self-doubtful, and that self-doubt caused them to become Ultimate Hopes.

Both of them once held huge admiration for a powerful group of people. For Hajime it was Hope's Peak and for Ayumu it was the Japanese Government

Said power called them useless, which led to their transformation

Both have pretty sad backstories, which involve two different types of cruel parents and family's.

They both have a best friend who likes to sleep.

Said best friend ended up dying horribly right in front of them, with them both unable to do anything about it, which eventually leads them both to go insane and make some bad decisions.

Though their methods differ, ultimately, they both want the same thing: a brighter future for their friends and the people they love

Ayumu might be a threat, and an antagonist, but he doesn't really count as a "villain" per se. At the core, he's basically just a misguided young man, who the world treated like shit, so he just wants to get back at it. He's also an influential figure, pulling many people into his fight, and gaining many supporters outside of his friends in the UUV. For the short time he was on the blog, he was an absolute BLAST to write, and you can damn sure bet I'm going to miss him.

#01: Kuripa Kurafto.

This is undoubtedly the riskiest part of this list, especially since we're talking about an OC here, but I also think a lot of you guys saw this coming. I can understand why some of you might disagree with me on this placement, but I'll tell you now, if you're unimpressed, trust me, I am barely scratching the surface of Kuripa's character. As of such, I have to go on this based off of what's already known about him. His whole character I feel comes full circle at the end of the Ultra Despair Gang arc, in which the first monumental event in the blog actually happens: him killing Haiji Towa by stabbing him in the gut and sending him falling to his death. This is then followed by a speech to Makoto, Komaru, Toko and Byakuya, which basically lays out the key part of Kuripa's character, being his ideals. Every protagonist in Danganronpa goes by a certain ideal that contrasts that of their enemies. For Makoto, it's Hope, for Hajime, it's Future, and for Shuichi it's truth. Kuripa is the complete reverse, being a protagonist that represents Despair. He's not outright a villain, or even a generally bad guy, but he definitely has some apparent darkness to him, and is also incredibly violent when at the peak of rage. Of course, it all stems from a huge event in his life, the murder of his little sister Kotoko by the hands of Matta Gyalusetsu, which has led to his over-arcing conflict: his desire to find Matta and kill him as revenge. I tend to hate characters in stories who have the "My Sister is Dead" archetype or trope, but the main reason is because most characters who have that JUST have that, and for Kuripa that's something I'm trying to avoid. One of the most important parts of Kuripa's character is the contrast between his dark, almost psychopathic side that believes murder is a suitable way to indefinitely solve a problem, and his regular self, who to put simply, is a complete and total clown. He's like a walking meme, and makes a total fool out of himself, either through just being a mindless tomfool, a playful perv, or a loveable idiotic otaku. Still, his presence is indeed important to everyone around him, especially seen through his interactions with Makoto, Kibin, Mukuro, Uchui, Kokichi, The Kyojin's and the High Roller staff. This is another thing in regards to Kuripa's conflict that is quite saddening to. Similar to Hajime, as things currently stand, Kuripa has an excellent life. He's a successful animator who makes a lot of money from his work, he enjoys his time at the Future Foundation and really looks up to both Makoto and Mukuro who both treat him with a reciprocated amount of respect, he gets to work in tangent with his best friend, he has many pals, some of which are part of an anime club, and on top of it all, he has a cute girlfriend who playfully flirts back and forth with him all the time. He has everything a guy could possibly ever want, but due to his one track mind, he can never be satisfied knowing Kotoko's killer is still out there, and he will do whatever it takes to avenge her...even if he needs to cut a few people down to get it...

//Doing this kind of self-reflective character analysis is pretty refreshing and fun to be honest, although, doing it makes it sound like I have a big head, and am complementary of my own writing where I know many might disagree with my techniques and opinions. You're free to, believe me, but please keep any criticism constructive.

-Mod

#tenko chabashira #kokichi ouma #monaca towa #akira tsuchiya #mikan tsumiki #narumi osone #mukuro ikusaba #hajime hinata #ayumu fujimori #kuripa kurafto #self reflection

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