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charcubed · 6 months

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Look, I personally lose nothing if Lokius doesn’t become explicit canon. And if that were to become the case, I’d also have no regrets for saying for years that that would happen in the show by the end ¯_(ツ)_/¯

I’ve said it before, but by now it would be Disney/Marvel’s loss, NOT mine. Whoever wasted or limited the potential would be the idiot, not me.

I’m simply never gonna feel crazy for noticing what’s happening in a story or silly for daring to hope it’ll be brought to fully satisfying narrative completion. That's just a me thing. Maybe this is because at heart I’m stubborn! But I’d like to think I’m not unreasonable. I can’t control whether writing stays consistent or censorship is overcome... But I just do my best to construct solid arguments, and as long as those arguments remain solid, I stand by them :)

I know not everyone would say the same, or they consider this to be "hope" or "optimism," but I see it as logic based in noticing what the text of a show/story is doing. And personally I also consider blatantly evident subtext to be "canon enough," so if we get my personal minimum, my happiness may still outweigh any potential disappointment for me.

However. Here's what I've come here to say today, in reaction to things I've seen floating around in the fandom:

While I do understand on some level why people worry that Lokius won’t be more explicitly canonically romantic because it could be censored by Disney.... At this point, I don’t understand how people can think Loki/Sylvie will still happen.

As of right now, there’s no way to argue for that in my opinion. (I'd like to see someone try.)

The show has set up a fun but very simple situation from basically the start:

They made romantic love a point of relevance in the show’s story. More specifically, they pointed out Loki's desire for a "real" romantic love, and had him learn the lesson that he doesn't deserve to be alone. They didn't HAVE to do all of those things and tie them together. They CHOSE to make romantic love relevant – and they have actively continued to choose to do that, to the point of including a mirrored dark love triangle in s2 ep3. That narrative thread simply has to be fulfilled.

So if they deliberately established that Loki wants and needs a “real” love, and his relationship with Sylvie was referred to as "fiction" so she cannot be a real love for him.... Who does it have to be?

Obviously it has to be Mobius. And of course, the whole show points to Lokius also, for countless more reasons than just this simple breakdown. But pointing this element out is the simplest argument one can make.

So either...

1. They take Lokius to full narrative completion with explicit canon, as they should and as I expect them to,

2. Loki's desire for a real love is left unfulfilled, open-ended, and/or made clear through subtext that it's Mobius.

Those are the options, if you ask me!

This is aside from how Lokius’ love story is now even at the core of the show’s themes and plot, which is an insanely strong vote in favor for their future canonicity.

But for the purposes of this post, I’m talking about whether we'll get explicit romance specifically, like a love confession or a kiss – and I do actually genuinely think we'll get both of those things. I'm not trying to force you to agree with me, but just to be clear, that's where I'm at with it and have been since 2021 lol.

So in regards to worrying about Loki/Sylvie...

They were never really a romance (yes, even in season 1) and they sure as hell aren't now. I can’t imagine they'll become one even IF Lokius is left subtextual.

So what actually remains to be seen is if the writers got to go all the way with Lokius, or if that central queer love story was censored on some level in the end.

My hot take is no one should be ~worrying~ about Sylki at this stage of the game. Free yourselves, people.

If the story starts abruptly going in a Sylki direction, even with only 3 episodes left, I will certainly be the first to say so lol. But I simply sincerely, truly doubt that'll happen.

(Hot take in the footer: this is not the post to get into this at length, but in case this comes up… In this house we do not use the word "queerbaiting." It is a useless, nearly-meaningless, insufferable term that devalues the legitimacy of subtext and queercoding more often than not; it's rooted in the idea that media must hit arbitrary and inconsistent checklists often set with cishet approval in mind; and it perpetuates a focus on the false and harmful myth that many creators are "cowards" instead of leaving room for nuance and the fact that industry censorship still exists.)

#in theory: either we win or we REALLY fucking win.#felt worth posting this little disclaimer since some people are starting to actually see my meta over here?? which is new. hi #how many times can I remix and expand upon my old words from twitter to make a larger tumblr post? the limit does not exist #loki meta #lokius meta #loki #loki show #loki series #chars loki posts #lokius #meant for this post to be shorter. F #I'm not even done crossposting all my meta from last night yet. sorry to all my tumblr followers

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soleminisanction · 5 months

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The thing I keep coming back to, now that I've wrapped up the first part of "Batgirl, Repentant" and am starting to outline the second, is how much the book's hyper-focus on Steph hamstrings the story I think they're trying to tell.

I say I think because obviously I can't read the writers' minds so for all I know they taped the random lip service about hope and justice and fighting for the little guys onto the Stephanie-love-fest in a half-assed response to criticism, but I'm trying to give them the benefit of the doubt and believe that when the first arc ends with:

And that gets followed up two issues later with Steph telling Damian:

I want to take them at their word that that's what they're going for. But it's not the story they tell at all because, for all the lip service paid, there's not a single plot point that actually backs those themes up. Every single narrative element is instead 100% oriented around Stephanie, her feelings, her desires, and her ambitions, none of which involve helping or protecting other people.

Batgirl's first appearance in issue 1 isn't about bringing hope or protecting anybody, it's about, "Ooooh, who is this mysterious new Batgirl who's such a badass but looked down on by The Man for being a little chaotic? Ta-da, it's Stephanie Brown!!"

When she talks about promises being made to her mom (by which of course I mean lies, she's just lying to her mother) or the supposed "promise" she didn't actually make to Tim Drake, it's all framed as unreasonable expectations that other people are piling onto Steph's shoulders, without so much as a second thought for how the person she supposedly made these promises to might feel.

When Cass leaves her the Batgirl costume, it's not with requests to carry on the legacy or protect Gotham in her absence or even to look out for Barbara, it's all about Cass's relationship with Bruce (as though that was ever her motivation!) and then "Now the fight is yours, Stephanie" while she vanishes into the rain in her underwear. Like Batgirl is a toy she's letting Steph have her fair turn with now that she doesn't want to play anymore.

When Steph thinks about the symbolism of the Bat and of Batgirl, it's not about how it can be a symbol of hope and protection in the darkness of Gotham, it's about how it makes her feel powerful. Even when she worries about messing up it's framed as, "Nothing I do ever ends well" and "It's just a matter of time before I get caught," not concerns about the harm her previous attempts that "didn't end well" wound up doing to other people.

And despite the fact that there's a riot going on in the next few pages, she's not inspired to go out and help with that, but to assist a single dumbass cop who got in over his head.

And then again when Babs shows up to chew her out in the next issue, it's all about Steph and her safety. "You already died" this and "You have a death wish" that. Barbara Gordon, the original Batgirl, only gets to talk about the symbolism of Batgirl as it relates to Stephanie Brown -- "Wearing that Bat on your chest might scare off the smaller thugs, but you're literally asking, no, begging for attention from more dangerous criminals. You're a mark for anyone who wants to make theirs."

Again, even the fact that she fucked up in the past and hurt people is framed around Steph -- "The last time you tried being helpful, you accidentally brought Gotham to its knees." And while Steph pays lip service to "doing this instead of sleeping" because she "thinks it's right," she doesn't ever elaborate on what exactly is "the right thing" she thinks she's doing, and it's not like she's gone out to protect people. You can't even argue, like you maybe could with the street race, that she's doing a flashy display to show ordinary people there's someone on their side -- she's beating up random goons in an isolated chop-shop.

Then of course there's the fact that nothing about Scarecrow's whole Thrill plot makes any sense because he's not being written with any kind of coherent villain motivation, it's all just being done to set up moments for Steph. Why do some of his goons decide to spike the punch at a random college party and then run away at just the right moment to make themselves look as suspicious as possible? Because Stephanie's going to be there and they need to hook her into that plot.

And when Steph argues with Babs later about why they should work together to solve this case, does she express concern about her classmates or her university, or even point out that Barbara isn't working with an on-the-street agent like she has in the past and hey, maybe you'd be a little less stressed if you had someone to share the load?

Nope. It's just "I'm just as much a part of it now as you are!"

To say nothing of my eternal, teeth-grinding frustration over Barbara's characterization. "I'm only being so hard on her because I'm jealous that she's Batgirl and I'm not anymore." Fuck all the way off, Bryan Q. Miller.

This whole thing is so bad that when you get to the climax of this arc -- when they've tracked Scarecrow and his goons to their creepy hospital lair -- the stakes aren't that anyone is in danger, or that there's any chance that Scarecrow might be able to escape in the next five minutes before the police arrive. In fact, if Steph's actual motivation was to make sure Scarecrow saw justice, it would've been a better strategy for her to stay outside watching the exits so she could jump him if he tried to make a run for it.

But she doesn't do that. Because the actual stakes for the climax of the first arc are that if she doesn't swing in and beat the shit out of Scarecrow right the fuck now, the police will beat her to it and then Stephanie won't get the credit for saving the day.

They even try to clumsily raise the stakes by implying that Scarecrow works for Black Mask, a plot point that goes absolutely nowhere because -- whoopsie -- Black Mask is dead at this point and has been since before Steph came back to life. He only ever showed up again as a Black Lantern in Blackest Night, at which point Ivy fed him to a plant.

(They did not fix this in the trade paperback version BTW, I checked)

There's some effort to turn Steph's fight with Scarecrow into something more by having him spout some weird nonsense about how he's controlling people with drugs because, "Nobody truly has a choice little girl" while she represents free will fighting back against attempts to take it away, but that's seriously hamstrung by the fact that writing is all over the place.

Like, at the start of Steph's big dramatic speech, she's all but arguing against the concept of free will, echoing an earlier classroom discussion I've bitched about before, saying that people (by which of course she actually means herself) stay when things get tough "Because we don't know how to do anything else."

But on the very next page she poses the question again and answers it with... frankly complete nonsense.

Because the point isn't actually 'control vs. free will', the whole thing -- all of the forced, misunderstood philosophy that fills out this entire arc -- is actually just repeating the same question Babs was asking earlier, this time in metaphor -- why does Stephanie keep throwing herself into danger, why doesn't she just quit?

And her answers, apparently, are, "because this is who I want to be" and "because I don't know how do anything else." Neither of which spare even a passing thought for anyone but herself, which is kind of a problem if you're trying to present Batgirl's mission statement as bringing hope to the people around her.

Then there's the bit about "facing your worst self," which refers to slightly before this, when Scarecrow drugs Steph with Thrill (a move that makes no sense in-universe because again, Scarecrow is only here to set up set pieces for Stephanie and has zero internal logic of his own). What Steph sees during that sequence is her ex-boyfriend and previous identity tearing her down and telling her that she's not good enough to be a superhero, which implies that her 'worst self' is self-doubt, or possibly "letting other people make you doubt yourself." Again -- all about her, with other people framed as nothing but obstacles to her happiness.

And just to remind you-- she has no actual reason to be here. She's not "saving the city," the city is not under threat. She's not doing anything heroic by throwing herself into this fight. She's only doing this because she wanted the credit for saving the day. That's the only stake the story ever establishes.

It's like there's this standing assumption that she must obviously want to be superhero for selfless reasons, therefore they don't need to bring that up ever and can just focus on how much she wants to be one and how noble it is that she's willing to fight through pain and hardship to be one.

But that's just not how it works? Maybe if you were still writing for the Golden Age when the storytelling was simpler and characterization was optional, but not in 2009. Part of the purpose of a solo book's first arc is to establish/re-establish the core hero's motivation and, if it's changed, explain how and why.

Just as a contemporary example -- Red Robin sends Tim Drake off on what's literally a personal quest and spends its first arc establishing how he's darker and more alone than he's ever been before... but it still opens with him rescuing a kidnapping victim, reaffirming that, whatever he's going through and whatever he has to do to accomplish his goal, he's still, at heart, a hero who will put his own needs aside to protect an innocent. That's also the role that Tam Fox essentially plays in the second arc, giving him someone to protect even when he's isolated from the normal push and pull of the DCU.

Whether you're approaching Batgirl (2009) as a new reader who's never met Steph before in your life, or as someone who read her previous material, there is nothing in this first arc, or those that follow, that establishes her motivation beyond, "I want to be Batgirl and I won't let anyone tell me no." She'll occasionally say she's being selfless and heroic, but it's not backed up by her actions or her thoughts.

Perhaps the most blatant self-contained example of this "It's all about Stephanie and obviously she's a perfectly selfless hero so we don't need to bother establishing it," mindset comes in the denouncement of the first arc. They recreate the vow in the dark -- not the most iconic scene in Batman history but still one that's well-known, a moment that goes all the way back to the first appearance of Robin, when Dick and Bruce vowed an "undying oath" to fight together against crime and corruption and never to swerve from the path of righteousness, symbolically committing themselves to act as a light in the darkness and protectors of the innocent.

Batgirl (2009) recreates this scene... by having Barbara vow to support Stephanie Brown and only Stephanie Brown in everything that she does "for as long as she wants it" so she "won't go out alone" and end up in a chair like Babs did. Meanwhile, Steph's response boils down to, "Oh yeah totes me too," because, according to the book, she doesn't need to take an oath, it's just completely self-evident that she's already made her right choice and will obviously continue to do the same forever and ever, no doubt about it.

Two extra little details scattered throughout:

Through the entire series, Steph is constantly doing this obnoxious humble-brag thing of, "I'm Stephanie Brown, and I'm just a normal girl tee-hee" over images of her doing badass Batgirl things that are obviously supposed to be ironic, and she always uses her full name. The trade paperback version is literally called, "Batgirl: Stephanie Brown" because there's nothing else to say about this story. Tim Drake: Robin didn't use his full name this much and it was actually in the title.

And that's not even getting into how often they waste entire pages on splash images of just... Stephanie. Not Stephanie doing anything special, just, Stephanie, and we're supposed to be very awed and impressed by her because she's Stephanie Brown and she's Batgirl now wowie wow wow.

That one tiny little caption box in the upper-left corner of the last page of the storyline? That's literally the first and only time that the concept of "Batgirl makes sure everyone gets home to see tomorrow" is ever mentioned.

This his is all just the first storyline. This same pattern continues on into the rest of the book, only getting worse as they add in other Batfamily member guest-stars for Steph to show up and prove wrong, and stock civilians who do nothing but shower her with praise and adoration. The tiny little sprinkles they offer up of, "Oh yeah I'm doing this to bring hope to the people of Gotham!!" just don't compare to deluge of "Steph gets to be Batgirl because she wants to be Batgirl, that makes her the coolest motherfucker on the planet, and if you disagree you must be sexist."

---

TL;DR (and sorry this got so long) -- Bryan Q. Miller et. al seem to be either under the impression (or want to give the impression) that they're telling the story of Stephanie Brown, the plucky young girl who never gave up on her dream of being a superhero no matter the haters or setbacks she faced, and how seeing her succeed despite being so average and relatable inspires other average people to have hope and fight for a better tomorrow.

But the story they actually tell is of Stephanie Brown, a teenage girl utterly obsessed with becoming a superhero to the exclusion of all else, including her own well-being, future, and relationships with her friends and family, apparently just because she likes the way it makes her feel, has no self-control and can't imagine herself doing anything else, who is applauded and cheered for this by everyone she meets, save for a small handful of haters who are just there to be proven wrong, beaten up, or both.

The first could've been a good-ish story -- ish, because it doesn't actually engage with Steph's previous characterization, but that's a different post -- but it's just not the story they told.

#stephanie brown #batgirl #batgirl 2009 #batgirls #dc comics #dc #batman #meta #comics meta #barbara gordon #cassandra cain #hmmmm I wound up spending all day on this whoops #ah well it was a sick day and I needed to get it out of my head #there are worse reasons not to move for eight hours

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simp999 · 9 months

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*looks at you with my silly little eyes* Heavy with a reader that has trouble managing anger? (Gender neutral preferably)

Ooo!! Thank you for requesting, I liked writing this one!

Heavy With Reader Who Struggles With Managing Their Anger

Wc: 0.7k

Themes: Fluff, comfort

A/N: I personally don't struggle with anger management, so I apologise for anything that's wrong! Please tell me if there's anything I should fix or add^^

Taglist: @moopy-milk

Masterlist

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ──

-Heavy's really sweet when it comes to helping you with managing your anger.

-You discuss and communicate lots of things beforehand, such as whether or not you'd like to be touched/physically reassured or your tells when you're beginning to get into an irritable mood.

-If you are comfortable with physical contact when you're in that type of mood, he'll gladly run gentle circles over your back and/or play with your hair. He'll cuddle/hug you if you're comfortable with the pressure, too

-If he can tell that you're beginning to get irritated, then he'll do his best to subtly take you away from whatever's irritating you. If it's a person that's being rude, he'll try to help you out, but will absolutely have your back if the person is being unreasonable.

-If you have a comfort thing, such as food, a plushie, a sketchbook, a texture, etc. be sure to tell him and Heavy will try to make sure to bring it to you.

-If you're afraid of getting to a point of hurting others physically or verbally, let him know. Pull him aside beforehand and tell him that you don't mean what you say. He'll do his best to de-escalate situations for you, and he knows you don't mean it when you say some things. He'll still love you no matter what. He knows you regret some things you say, and he doesn't hold it against you.

-That was actually one of the most terrifying moments, the first time your frustration had bubbled up and you weren't able to cool it down, so you ended up lashing out on Heavy. He'd semi-known you at this point, but you two weren't all that close. He'd made you a few sandwiches at times, and congratulated you on some nice kills, but he didn't go out of his way to be physically affectionate.

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ──

One thing after another. This had been going on for days, and you could feel the bubble about to burst. Spilled your drink, the nib of your pencil wouldn't stop breaking, one of your favorite shirts had gotten a rip in it, and so much more.

But what pushed you over the edge was Soldier. He was getting angry at you for seemingly nothing. It started with him wanting you to join in on his excersice, but you knew you were better off not hanging around with someone that loud, as that could just be even more headache and frustration-inducing. When you had attempted to gently explain yourself, he called you lazy. Your two voices only raised from there as the two of you got way to close to eachother, either of you prepared for if the other were to start swinging. Heavy must've heard the two of you, though you hadn't noticed him until he grabbed you and soldier by the back of your shirts like cats.

"Enough."

It wasn't as loud as Soldier was earlier, but it was stern, and immediately shut the two of you up. Soldier finally marched off as soon as he was let go, and that left only you and Heavy in the room.

He sighed out, and attempted to give you a gentle hug. But as soon as his hands touched your sides you flinched and smacked his arms away.

"Don't touch me!"

You then looked up to catch his confused and.. Sad expression. He only wanted to help.

He sat down on the floor next to you and adverted his eyes.

"Sorry. Heavy shouldn't have touched without asking."

Then you regretted hurting him. Though, you're sure a small smack from you did no damage whatsoever to him, but the intent was still there.

You still weren't in the mood to have a conversation, but you needed to calm down; you needed comfort.

You sat down a few inches from Heavy's side. After a moment, you let your weight fall on his side.

A few minutes after that, you wrapped your arms around him- as much as you could.

"I'd... like that hug now, if that's alright."

He wasted no time in gently putting his arms around you and drawing light circles over your back.

Aug.1.23

#tf2 #team fortress 2 #team fortress two #tf2 x reader #tf2 heavy #tf2 heavy x reader #team fortress x reader #team fotress heavy #team fortress heavy x reader #team fortress imagine #team fortress drabble #team fortress headcannons #tf2 headcannons #heavy #fanfic #x reader

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mudefrau · 2 months

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Shell Thropp

1.7K words of me rambling ❤️ Perhaps more since I'm going to pin this and keep editing whenever I want to add something new.

Under the cut because it's long (I won't be tagging spoilers as much since this book is from 2005)

I've avoided mentioning his most problematic part but I reference it; CW for some disturbing and/or sexual themes. Do not blame me, the source material is like that!

OK so when you Ctrl+F “Emperor” with new knowledge and go back into the book, it’s a trip and a half. “The next hollow man, reeking with glory” -> The early text compares him to the scarecrow puppet governor, but at this point we’re not supposed to know who the Emperor is. Yet in retrospect, I’m enjoying the hollow/shell wordplay, it feels like a subtle hint…

His elevation to Emperor happens while Liir is doing military service in Quadling country, I don’t remember if it’s mentioned but by then Liir was over 20 I think wait no he was still a teenager according to Amazon book description?? I'm confused. it’s hard to pinpoint a date. I want to put together a timeline like I did for the first book someday… Nessa died at 34, Liir was 14-ish then (IIRC Nor is a couple years older than him), so Shell must be 34 – 5 = 29? So taking as reference Liir’s age, we can say Shell is that age + 15.

Speaking of ages, the last time Shell ever saw Elphaba he was probably… 9...?

Liir is, understandably, baffled when Trism tells him Shell is the Emperor and that he’s met him and has become very humble and gentle. But I find this radical transformation very interesting. It reminds me of Nessa, who used to hate sorcery and then became the Wicked Witch of the East. Shell, on the contrary, is the filthiest sinner (“a fornicator and a sot”), then acts like the holiest godsent, the Emperor Apostle.

Shell is very indifferent whenever asked about his sisters and their recent deaths, and often cuts to change the topic. Interestingly when Liir asks him “Was your sister a martyr”, he thinks of Nessarose first; just to say he doesn’t care because he does not have a faith.

It’s not unreasonable to think he's seen Nessa more than he's seen Elphaba… and apparently, he could not stand her (“Nessarose had so much faith that no one else in the family could breathe”. Most likely not intentional, but for someone who uses cutesy nicknames for others (Chyde-ey, Cherryvery, Liir-boy), he doesn’t shorten Nessarose to Nessa or Nessie.

I have a few hcs about Shell & Nessa, but I believe he was suave enough to have her believe he likes her and was on her side. Frex and her thought they were getting data from his espionage job. But he probably was trading back insider information about the government of Munchkinland to other parties as well.

He did not even show up to Nessa’s funeral or at least he was there only briefly (since he did send a message to Elphaba about it) but left immediately; and there were rumors he had defected, but IMO he might’ve not been fully on their side to start with.

Shell did tend to Frex after Nessa and Elphaba’s death, and the text indicates he could not even stop having hook ups then (sorry I have to point it out because I’m just amazed how he Never Stops)

In the last exchange between Elphaba and Nessa, Nessa says “I’ve just been clumsy and outspoken. Don’t expect me to remember how to be sisterly in such a short while” to which Elphaba responds “You’ve had Shell to practice on all these years” and Nessa says nothing about it. I think about that a lot and how It might’ve hurt, considering how Shell sees Nessa + the fact Elphie does not know him at all.

At some point in SoaW, after Shell is elevated to Emperor, there are broadsheets on public boards of “a male foot in an open, leather-strapped sandal stepping out of a cloud” of all the places the Emperor has set foot on in Oz. As if he’s trying to make his shoes as iconic as Nessa’s 🤔 (btw, if not metaphorical he might have a mace as well, a bit like in those emperor tarot cards. I drew him with Ozma’s staff because it seemed logical)

Can we, in general, compare Emperor Shell to Eminence Nessa? Maybe he’s an extreme version of her, theocraticness considered. Liir and Glinda actually discuss how Shell is using “piety as the new political aphrodisiac” and how Elphaba would be “outraged”, but Elphie was only slightly upset about Nessa doing similar things. I already analyzed this because that has to do with the previous book, but anyway it’s funny how little Elphaba ever cared about Shell compared to Nessa lmao (I bet this made him rage too)

There is a part in which Liir and Candle find some kind of potentially inflammatory press that says “Pieties of the Apostle. The virtue of the UGLY”. IDK if it's me not being good at English and not really getting what it all meant but I had to look up the word and does this count as a double meaning? hm

Liir explaining to some Birds: “He claims the divine right of the elect—not elected by people, but by the Unnamed God” heh unelected official (possibly not a musical reference since there are more obvious ones, but I can pretend). I feel like he could’ve taken over Colwen Grounds if he wanted (it’s implied in the first book by Elphie saying that if Nessa wanted to abdicate he could be “located to stand in”), but he didn’t, after Nessa’s death.

“He’d had those two powerful sisters; next to them he must always have felt like shredded cabbage” -> Here it is. (even if this is just Trism speculating)

The thing is, as of SoaW, we still don't know if he's pulling an act or that he actually believes God has awakened him. I suppose I’ll know in… 2 books… Also I am still a bit confused as of where he got the dragons from. It is mentioned he likely has a page of the Grimmerie “On the Administration of Dragons”, could that also be the source?

Let’s talk about pre-Emperor Shell now!!

But first let me go back into the book a bit, when Liir is in a coma and these rumors are emerging from the convent:

“The man-child was the Emperor’s confessor. He was a brigand trafficking in the sex trade. He spoke in the voice of a Loon. Except for a single rib, the man-child had broken every bone in his body.”

I would like to post an analysis on the first page of the first book about Elphaba one day, but my point is I find it fascinating that whenever there’s an Ozian rumor there’s always a little bit of basis. Yes, Liir knows Shell’s dirty laundry. Involved in sex trade, well, Shell was (as supply himself? Not sure, we’ll discuss below). Yes Liir was leading a Bird congress later on and flies, hence the Loon association. And Liir has indeed broken a lot in his body atp.

Edit: wait according to A Lion Among Men he frequented "girlie arcades" so fair to assume he also pays and when he said "I'm to be back at the Palace by midnight for fun and frolic if I can pay with the coin they require" prob he also meant that. The wiki article nota bene of "perhaps a sex addict" might be right. His motto is "one does whom one can" according to Southstair's prison undermajor.

Later, the book goes back to the moment Liir (14-16ish years old, I suppose) meets Shell. I enjoy the descriptions from his pov. The very first one is "A handsome younger man with a keen, guarded expression", of course Liir would point out he's handsome as he can appreciate masculine beauty hehe. Later, “sleek where [Elphaba] had been spiky”. He’s also taller than Elphaba, a fop, well-dressed it gets mentioned a few times (I mean look at this, I googled it verbatim. it's sexy).

I'm convinced he lives in the (now empty, since he and Liir and the only Thropps and Liir doesn't even acknowledge it) family home in Lower Mennipin Street, Emerald City, since he only went back to Munchkinland sporadically and in SOAW not at all, he does most of his business in the EC and he's not giving up a life of luxury. (cap from 1st book)

He is Liir’s guide to Southstairs, the prison. They get through a secret entrance in the Palace (reminder he’s not the Emperor yet) and go down a lot of… stairs, later they take a dory to go through a canal underground, and I get a lot of “hell” vibes here. His name was supposed to be a tribute to Turtle Heart but has “hell” in it, the rhyme even gets made in-universe. I like the imagery

I said I wouldn’t go over detailing the most problematic part, because I feel like most people know and that’s why he’s not a liked character even among those who've read SoaW (especially among those). But IMO approving =/= finding him interesting, plus he’s purely fictional and handsome so I can like him lol? So yeah, he takes advantage of women in vulnerable positions in a very disgusting way. Also if I think too much about it, I end up with quite dark implications that I do not want to think too hard about... (ok I'll say it. Are we SURE he did not give Liir any cousins because seriously- but with the fact corpses from Southstairs are later fed to dragons...oouh it's not looking good)

But I need to add how Tunkle (some prison guard Ape) warns Liir twice not to get too close to him, and how “Liir didn’t have the nerve to follow” (when Shell goes into the first cell) implies to me Shell wouldn’t have stopped him. Creepy… When Chyde suggests whether Nor was one of his “patients”, he said that she’d be too young and he has standards, good to know though 😭

Further description, “sicker than most” (by Tunkle), I’m obsessed. Most men know he's horrible (Tunkle, Chyde, Cherrystone) though they joke about it like it's not a big deal. Women, I think, might not be aware; Glinda would not have directed Liir to him like that in that case, and the family probably does not either (plus her description confirms it: "No friend of mine, but a bereaved member of her family").

Earlier when talking to Commander Cherrystone, he brags about how he got his wool jacket “bartering mostly”, Cherrystone refers to him as having a “prettier penny” to spend, hmm… Listen, the Wicked wiki lists his occupation as “spy and gigolo” but I’m having my doubts here after Southstairs, after he presents his services as some kind of reward he’s giving those (female) prisoners but it’s actually non-consensual.

Coming back to Liir. I want to think Shell has a soft spot for him, but I might be hallucinating. There are moments where he seems defensive of him, even calling him “my boy”. But he flip-flops between almost kind and “ugh, leave me alone and fend for yourself” with him. And in their second meeting (by chance at a tavern) he’s like “lmao I thought you had drowned or something” but also “you and Trism are flirting aren’t you hehe, do you want my ride to get home in a hurry?” (making both of them flustered, but sincerely helpful) so idk what to make out of it.

Anyway, by the end of their first time spent together, Liir absolutely despises him and refuses to shake his hand goodbye (he even considers biting his hand but thinks Shell would even joke about that haha). However, Liir can’t help but compare himself to him at points, “He felt as lithe and full of ginger as that cunning Shell had seemed” and “Was his skin the color of [Elphaba’s] brother Shell’s?”

Nanny goes from being fascinated by Shell’s adventures and retelling them with excitement to “you know what he’s impossible and I never really liked him” lol. I still wonder whether Frex sent him to Shiz like his other 2 children or not. If so, I bet he spent most of his study time at the Philosophy Club lmao

Speaking of Frex, Shell might be a victim of Frex's favoritism for Nessa a bit like Elphaba is- I'm not excusing Shell by any means but I'm saying he got the worst version of Frex (after Turtle Heart AND Melena's death), who must've been super depressed and secluded in religion. Perhaps Shell's libertine behavior is a big "fuck you" to him... not fully, because for sure Shell does the things he does because *he* enjoys it, but could've started as part of juvenile rebellion

I'm intrigued by his portrayal in Elphie, the book about Elphaba's childhood, since the summary refers to him as a little delinquent (“junior felon”) and I'm happy Maguire is keeping this consistent. I've seen him in fics where he's so innocent and... I guess this is also why I'm writing this, so people who don't feel like reading the second book can get a clearer idea of what he's like.

A Lion Among Men addendum: it is confirmed that the men who put the "scarecrow" in power after Glinda were likely conjuring with on the side of Shell, which he very likely burnt. Interesting that I extrapolate from this that he kinda fears Glinda lmao??!

Also apparently he hired Ms Greyling (Shiz sorcery prof) to decipher the page of the Grimmerie. Interestingly he has no inherent witchiness. And this will be backup for my headcanon that he did de facto go to Shiz hence the connection! (and he probably slept with professors because how else would he pass lmao)

OK...the dragons... self-note to talk about the dragons more in the future because trying to figure how they got there makes my head hurt right now. But it's interesting how Shell has friends in places that end up enabling him: Cherrystone, coming up with the attack in Qhoyre so that him as the Emperor has an excuse to unleash his "brand new defensive system" aka dragons. And Chyde the under-mayor of Southstairs supply the dragons with fresh corpses thanks to his "culling campaigns", which are essential to dragons' diet. The men in the Scarecrow cabinet to put him in power after it was mysteriously burned.

Trism and Shell's relationship def seems interesting in the sense that Trism wants to kill Liir for what he's triggered through a chain reaction, ending up in them both being complicit in a killing machine so to speak, but somehow exonerates Shell of everything even though he is the root cause. He praises him and says he was tender. Hmm

#shell thropp #son of a witch #gregory maguire #wicked meta #thropp siblings #long post #i edit this post often please keep checking it. peace and love

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shouts-into-the-void · 5 months

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One of my most hated fanfic trends is where that pre-Despair treatment by his classmates is depicted as totally okay and not them being unreasonable. It's especially noticeable in RP blogs or Hinanami fics. They'll often depict his behavior in the second half of Chapter 4 as his default characterization, and have him spend every waking second going after the Reserve Course students and doing nothing else.

Which not only ignores the context of him having been mindwiped, having his first impression of the Reserve Course being the discovery that they apparently destroyed Hope's Peak, and the real source of his anger and depression being the discovery that the class are all terrorists (while being left in the dark about the brainwashing). But it kind of misses the entire point of the whole "talented vs non-talented" theme to have the locally mentally ill kid be the sole cause of the conflict.

Like I'm not against the idea of going against canon, and depicting the rest of the class trying to give him a fair shake. I think there's plenty of friendship interaction potential between him and a number of the class (e.g. Sonia, Imposter, Mahiru, etc.). But to retroactively pretend like they were being completely fair to him and he just brought the ostracism on himself is bullshit.

I think a lot of people also miss the fact that the reason Nagito is so outright antagonistic to Hajime about being a Reserve Course Student is because he feels betrayed. He feels a kinship with Hajime due to their mutual love of Hopes Peak, the two were the closest before everyone turned on him, and he's canonically in love with him. So to find out that Hajime is actually not only talentless, but responsible for destroying the academy they both love and plunging the world into despair?

That's not to say all the rudeness is only because of anger, Nagito's actual personality is actually kind of just like that because he has a God Complex and is more intelligent than all of his peers. Any time he breaks character or looks down on someone, he is kind of a bitch, but more in a "I'm smarter than you, please stop arguing with me when you have no idea what you're talking about" way.

I really do wish people would lean into the potential relationships he has with the rest of the cast more. I don't think there's any way Chisa would have let them keep mistreating him, and I was annoyed that her attempt to explain his actions to the class (which actually did get through to them!) got glossed over in favor of the "Everybody hates Nagito" gag.

Some thoughts on potential relationships:

I personally hc him as besties with Sonia post-canon. Not only because she's the most forgiving, because I feel like the fandom makes her do a lot of emotional labor, but I think they would have similar tastes in novels and I think Sonia's own eccentricities would mean that she isn't as off-put by his weird behavior.

I don't think he would be close with Mahiru, because as much as she's caring and doesn't want him hurt, she's also just very judgemental and I think her tendency to verbally attack people would negatively impact his recovery. I think they would get along, but until she learns how to get past her trauma with her dad and stop letting her friends commit crimes, I think it's at a respectful distance.

While Mikan and Nagito are MLM/WLW Hostility™ I do also think they're friends. They like to bitch at each other, but if anyone dares insult the other they Will Destroy Them. I have always thought of them as working quite closely together during the tragedy for whatever reason, it just seems right in my brain?

I also feel like people miss the wild potential of Nagito just adopting Monica. Like, he raises her from like 10 years old until she's a teenager (I'm assuming she's like 14-15 in the anime?), Monica finally gets someone to actually take care of her instead of abusing and abandoning her, and I'm supposed to believe that they just never speak again? Also Nagito saving and caring for this child after spending his childhood an orphan who was put into dangerous situations a lot is a really great parallel.

I like to think he and Akane do a lot of their recovery at the same time because they're both pretty wasted away by the time they wake up, and they bond little by little. They celebrate when one of them moves up a weight class, but Akane recovers faster so by the end Nagito has to remind her not to break his ribs when she hugs him in joy.

Nekomaru is very helpful in coaching him through his physical recovery due to understanding the limitations of a severe health condition and his experience as a team manager. There's definitely a lot of encouragement on Nekomaru's end because a lot of physical therapy can be embarrassing when things that theoretically should be easy aren't. Basically: Akane, Nekomaru, and Nagito all end up as unlikely gym buddies?

Those are just some of my thoughts and headcanons, absolutely take or leave any of that.

#danganronpa #nagito komaeda #danganronpa 2 #asks and replies #ask

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1x20 · 1 year

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Why are you a deanbenny hater? 👀

askfasdfljk honestly hater is kind of a strong word (i know i'm the one who said it first but it's mostly hyperbole). however i AM a deanbenny disliker.

mostly this is because i think they deleted benny's most interesting scene: right before dean kills him in 8x19, benny admits that he's drank human blood since coming back from purgatory.

now as you can see even the top comment on that video is "I'm glad they didn't put the part where Benny basically admitted he fed on humans in the show. I'd hate to have to have had Dean deal with that." which is EXACTLY why deleting that scene bothers me so much.

s8 is essentially just one big contest for dean's affection between sam, cas, and benny. cas and benny don't really like each other (see, like, all the purgatory scene), sam and benny don't like each other (sam doesn't like)

now another theme in s8 is that dean actually has... kind of impossible standards? and he WILL do awful things to/for the people he loves. when dean comes back in 8x01, he blames sam for not looking for him even though sam thought he was dead:

DEAN After you looked for me. [SAM says nothing.] Did you look for me, Sam? [SAM looks away.] Good. That's good. Now, we – we... always told each other not to look for each other. That's smart. Good for you. Of course, we always ignored that because of our deep, abiding love for each another, but not this time, right, Sammy?

and then he IMMEDIATELY starts blaming sam for not continuing to hunt (even though this is something dean has also expressed interest in doing multiple times, see 2x20's "why do we have to sacrifice everything, dad? it's [not fair]", for example)

DEAN So you just turned tail on the family business. SAM Nothing says "family" quite like the whole family being dead. DEAN I wasn't dead [He stands up and walks around SAM.] In fact, I was knee-deep in God's armpit killing monsters, which, I thought is what we actually do.

DEAN He was our responsibility. [He tosses the phone at SAM’s chest.] And you couldn't answer the damn phone.

etc etc. this actually feeds into a theme for the rest of carver era which carries over into dabb era, which is that dean expects complete and full devotion to him and his ideals. BUT we're getting ahead of ourselves.

now dean's relationship to benny is actually kind of idealized. in fact in 8x05, dean & sam have this fight:

SAM Listen, Dean, we came here on a dead body. You asked for some time, and now there's another dead body. Are we just going on trust here? DEAN Yes. SAM Okay. Because we've killed for a lot less, and you know how these things turn out for us. DEAN Yes, I do - too well. In fact, every relationship I have ever had has gone to crap at some point. But the one thing I can say about Benny - he has never let me down. SAM Huh. Well, good on you, Dean. Must feel great finally finding someone you can trust after all these years.

this IS in fact a load of crap. benny is barely even around for him & dean to have disagreements. the only extended period of time they spend around each other is in purgatory, but crucially dean enjoys purgatory because there are no consequences. purgatory is an obligation & consequence free place: he can be as violent (or gay) as he wants without it mattering. and that's why benny HAS to leave as soon as they hit the ground running in 8x01, because benny can't even stick around to have consequences.

as such, dean and benny BARELY spend any real time together anyway: dean could've said the EXACT same thing about cas in s5 to sam, but he was forced to confront that cas was a real person in s6 and that's when his relationship with cas immediately started breaking down.

so when people take "benny has never let me down" as a sort of romantic statement about benny, that kinda bothers me. to me that line indicates the total devotion dean needs to consider you a good person & the unreasonable standards he sets. PLUS it plays into sam's monsterhood as expressed in this gifset: people who are monsters are NOT monsters to dean as long as he loves them - but as soon as they do something he doesn't like or that love runs out? they become monsters again.

now benny ends up winning the battle for dean's affection because he is, in essence, the perfect dean companion. thinks he's cool, listens to whatever he says, is totally devoted to him to the point of letting dean kill him. this is INTENSELY boring to me. why bring up these issues dean's having if you're just gonna play into them and not do anything with it?

and by deleting the scene where benny admits to drinking human blood, you reframe the whole deanbenny relationship. instead of the point of deanbenny being "dean has control issues, dean expects total devotion from his friends & family, dean's relationships are all intensely dysfunctional," it turns into "sam & cas should simply do whatever dean says all the time and dean would like them more."

and even though i'm a deangirl, i REALLY hate that.

#ice.txt #dean

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thesovereignsring-if · 8 months

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You're welcome to play however you like.

Yeh? You can play evil MC but the ending won't be really satisfying: "Bah, you were killed. The end! " Play good MC and maybe you will be rewarded.

A subtle manipulation authors sometimes use if they want to steer readers towards a specific route. I've seen this before in some games....

And whos the say I won't do the same for those play moral and good characters? I've said it before, I'll punish you for being too good, I'll punish you for being too bad. I'll even punish you for liking one brother over the other. People have asked what happens to MC that are too naive, merciful or trusting and I say- "well, people(your allies) will probably kill those you spared behind your back." or "They're gonna use you for their own agendas."

This is game, at the end of the day, is a story with a narrative with an ongoing theme. I've talked at length before how I will punish both good acts and bad. I've said countless of times that these characters have their own morals and agenda that go beyond their relationship with the MC.

I'm telling you right now, that if your MC is too corrupt to the point that it makes makes your rivals look like the good guy- it would be a disservice to my own character's backstory and convictions if they allow that to exist. They will not accept it. They've suffered under the status quo for too long to tolerate a leader that is significantly worse. It doesn't matter if you're their best friend, sibling or lover, they will put down the dog if it's too feral. You're one person, but the people being affected are in the thousands.

If you want to play the extreme option, I welcome it, it continues the narrative about leadership and change and sovereignty that I am trying to weave, and I enjoy seeing characters pushed beyond their limits- but you have to understand extreme choices come with extreme consequences. Its not so much about you being killed and that's the end- it's you were so fucking unreasonable and cruel, it made your lover strangle you in your sleep because they couldn't live with the guilt that you slaughtered someone they cared about unjustifiably. It's the people rising up against a tyrant to freedom. It's the ambition of power tainting your MC's body and mind and paying the price. It's more nuanced than you think.

If I didn't want to explore it, I wouldn't have made it an option. It would be easier to write a book. But I instead I do, because I still think there is narrative value in exploring a corrupted narrative in the MC and how the characters in the story will react to it.

This isn't going to be some evil wank fest- nobody is going to glaze you off for being so evil. I'm not interested in entertaining that narrative in my story. It has no place for it. The world as I have crafted it, will not tolerate it.

All interactive fiction is a lie by your standards then. As all choices only exist within the breadth of choice that the Author allows. And we authors are all manipulative as fuck. If we want you to engage in the narrative a certain way, we'll make sure it happens the way we want it to. That's the difference between a shitty sandbox an a story of choice that explores a evolving narrative theme.

As authors, we write stories to make you feel exactly how we want you to feel- unreliable narrators exists for the sole reason to lie to readers and gaslight them into believing that some false is true. Hell, I have character lie to your face because I want you to believe in something that might not actually be true, cause the real truth will hurt much more later in the story. I have a fucking fake love interest hiding in the crowd right now as we speak.

If you want to play the villain, you get the villain ending. Sorry anon.

#answered asks #tsr #At this rate i'm going to commit to Kingslayer Finny #not a power fantasy boo hoo #do you slap and not expect to get slapped back?

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sokkastyles · 9 months

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Hi,

Hope you are doing well. Thank you for the response on my previous query regarding Katara.

I was thinking about the episode 'The Storm', where an old man accuses Aang explaining about his running away to Katara, and she reassures him. I was thinking, considering the instances of running away he showed later on, do you think at some point, someone should have told him that he can't keep running forever and it hurts his friends, especially in the second episode of book 3 where Katara was upset that he ran away.

Second, also from 'The Storm', the fisher man who accused Aang, I wounder there must have been others who were angry at Aang because according to them he abandoned his duty, we may not have seen them, do you think if Aang came across more people like those, he should have an arc of understanding their anger? I am not sure if this is sort of atoning for him, because he had no intention of getting stuck in the iceberg.

I would like your thoughts on this.

People do tell him that he can't keep running away, right up until the finale. He just gets rewarded for it so of course he doesn't learn that lesson.

Katara: Aang, don't walk away from this. [Walks toward Aang.]

And the scene you mentioned in early book three, the show makes an explicit parallel between Aang running away "to redeem his honor" and Ozai telling Zuko he'd redeemed himself after sending him away. Katara calls Aang selfish and stupid for running when there are people there to help him who need him. This is juxtaposed with Zuko meeting Ozai because the lesson is supposed to be that Aang should not have to do things on his own. He doesn't need to prove anything to the people he loves and who love him, just like Zuko should have never been forced into that situation by his own father. And Aang feeling like he does need to prove something, especially to those who want him safe, is just letting them down, especially Katara, who wants him to be near her and to help him because she cares about him.

I feel like this is one of those places where the show was building towards a theme that is dropped in the third act. You can see the theme emerging, particularly with the parallels between Aang and Zuko, of focusing on love and working together. Aang seems to be poised to learn that he should not feel like he needs to run away and that he should let other people help him. That's dropped in the finale in favor of Aang having to figure things out for himself, which I'm not necessarily opposed to, except "figuring it out for himself" really means "be given the answer by a magical lion turtle." Rather than learning anything about trusting the people he loves, Aang is rewarded and the ways that he hurt Katara especially by leaving without a word are never addressed because he's the hero now so it's all good.

Like you, I agree that it's not his fault that people are angry at him for being stuck in an iceberg, but the thing that frustrates me about that plot line is that they set up Aang's feelings of guilt over it, which is also a motivating factor in him leaving without a word once he learns everyone thinks he's dead in book three. This whole idea of redeeming himself that Aang has originates in feeling guilty over the fact that he wasn't there when the hundred year war happened, that he wasn't there when his people were destroyed.

None of this is Aang's fault, just like it was never Zuko's fault that his father put unreasonable expectations on him. But Aang's guilt and running away problem that developed as a result of that guilt should have been addressed by the show the same way that Zuko had to face his shame and stop hurting other people. Again, it goes back to what Iroh says: pride is not the opposite of shame, but its source. That's why Katara calls Aang selfish and stupid for trying to be brave, because she recognizes that Aang is trying to sooth his wounded pride, and that this is something that needs to be resolved for him to truly become the hero he needs to be. It seems like that was the intention of the show until they decide to just solve the problem by giving Aang the solution to his problems via lion turtle instead.

This is also what people mean when they say the lion turtle is a deus ex machina, it doesn't weave into the thematics of the character conflicts set up by the show the same way that Zuko's finale and Katara's finale does. It doesn't tell us anything about Aang as a character that we didn't already know or develop him in any way, and actually seems to renege on his previous character development.

#atla critical #atla meta #zuko and aang parallels

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spicedfink · 6 months

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Break down of Lumpy Space Princess (or something? Idk)

LSP is one of the few characters we know the age of being listed as 15 when Finn was 12/13 so we know by the finale she's 19 or 20 years old

The basic time line is that she lived in lumpy space and only visited Ooo every now and then before getting into an arguments with her parents and running away to prove she can make it on her own

LSP then spends a good chunk of her teenaged years living out in the woods

LSP has complained about her parents through out the series and even gone as far as to compare them to monsters in her Fionna and Cake fanfic - the show frames these complaints as unreasonable. The problem with this is that children rarely act out for no reason and she continues to resent them even when she's had time and distance away from them

Her parents think she acts out on purpose - this sort of mentality made LSP feel like they saw her as a villain and was extremely frustrating since she didn't actually understand what she was doing wrong

Her parents are at the very least don't know how to meet her needs at worse are intentionally abusive towards her (there isn't really enough shown of them to determine a solid placement)

LSP has a hard time understanding how her actions effect others and is easily upset when people express displeasure with her - either from the delay between her actions and their reactions or she has a knee jerk stress from past experiences (probably from authority figures)

LSP is deeply insecure. Her insecurities can be seen in cases like risking life and limb for a plump lip potion, punching herself smooth for "the nice king" and when she asked Finn and Jake to preform plastic surgery on her to make her hot

Her confidents isn't faked however, her desire to change isn't based on how she actually feels about her body but instead based on wanting to be liked by others - a theme in LSP's story is wanting to be liked by others (especially romantically) Even though they don't really change how they draw the characters much it could also be implied that LSP's insecurities came from the changes her body had during puberty

But also Brad messed her up. They had an on again off again relationship where Brad would date her friends to make her jealous and ignore her boundaries and yet LSP spends years focusing on their relationship. He's a creep who tore LSP down and made her think she was somehow underserving of anything better

When LSP got with Johnnie it showed her as really supportive and loving, the second she was flirting with someone who actually liked her back it went smoothly things only went wrong when Johnnie said she couldn't go to the dinner because it's a private business dinner with PB. She immediately thinks PB is trying to steal him from her, this is a clear reflection of her trauma from having Brad betray her trust and playing with her feelings so much

Side note on "Bad Timing" PB threaten to go to war with lumpy space because LSP was being rude despite knowing full well LSP has very little if anything to do with lumpy space's politics at this point (girl is homeless and PB is treating her as if she's a spoiled brat with a sliver spoon in her mouth)

I'm going to have to mention "Breezy", I know we want to collectively ignore it but I want to make a point about what this suggest about LSP's character. Her actions are a reflection of her own boundaries having been crossed repeatedly through out her life and she was told by the people crossing them that they weren't doing anything wrong which leads to her thinking that's what normal people do. It doesn't make it right but it's insight towards her world view where she rather see it as normal behavior then accept that people she cared for didn't care about hurting her

On how LSP communicates with others, she knows that other people don't say what they mean and that she is suppose to read between the lines but she doesn't know how so that leads to misunderstandings as she fills in the blanks (alt she's filling in the blanks based on lumpy space's social norms and can't wrap her head around Ooo having different ones) I think the best example is in "Gatcha" when she assumes Finn is in love with her because he's being nice to her and ignoring the part where she's flirting with him (he isn't taking her too seriously and doesn't know what she's talking about) The problem is others don't try to talk to her in a way she can understand: they get annoyed, frustrated or feel it's pointless so they ignore her. They yell and lecture at her for doing things wrong (she can't understand what people are trying to tell her when they lecture). Or they walk on eggshells and treat her like she'll go off at any random little thing, they just go along with what she says to keep her happy or go out of their way to make sure she doesn't get frustrated because they don't want to deal with her

The exception is Marceline. In "Princess Day" Marceline compliment LSP showing an appreciation for her bad girl behavior, she doesn't tell her she was in the wrong and supports her actions. This leads to them taking things too far but at no point does Marceline shame LSP for it, Marceline also owns up to her own part in the escalation. When LSP expresses concern about if these actions mean they're bad people Marceline doesn't dismiss LSP's feelings on this, she instead explains her own view saying she doesn't think there's such a thing as a "bad person" and that people just make mistakes. This was the first time LSP was able to explore her own guilt without being shamed or told she hadn't done anything wrong. Marceline supported and validated LSP's feelings through out the episode. This was the kind of support LSP needed the entire time but this is the first time she actually got it

LSP wouldn't have been able to grow as a person without that connection. Up until that point LSP had been become more and more detached from others, lashing out with emotional fits. After becoming friends with Marceline however she seemed to regulate and truly mature

One thing that reflects her growth is in her date with Lemongrab, when he gets up to leave she says he's afraid of intimacy, which while this shows she's still putting words in other people's mouths at this point there is a key difference in the words she using and even the tone of voice she says them. She says it as if she feels genuine concern for him, it's not indigent or aggressive it's soft. And she isn't talking about how his actions reflect on her looks but instead she thinks it's an insecurity he's feeling. She wants him to be able to face this supposed fear not because she feels cheated out of her date but because she doesn't want him being personally held back by it (Lemongrab doesn't actually have this issue)

You can also see growth in the Elementals episodes where she's the calmest she's ever been towards Finn. She's still hitting on him (I'm assuming it's a reflection of the fact she thinks everyone else is stuck in these changed forms and is seeking comfort via romantic escapism)

The finale shows her growth the most. She went to war to aid PB compare that to when LSP barely helped Finn cure Jake and treated it like a huge inconvenience that she isn't responsible for (despite them needing a cure because she accidently bit Jake)

Marceline is LSP's closest friend but Turtle Princess is LSP's BFF Turtle Princess and LSP can talk for hours, they listen to the other info dump and love trashy books, romance and gossip. They have trouble talking about other things and both become uncomfortable if they try. Turtle Princess thinks LSP is really hot and cool and looks up to her a lot. LSP thinks Turtle Princess is also hot and cool and will hype Turtle Princess up all the time

In summary, I think she has a lot of trauma and made a lot of bad decisions but is able to grow once she has a support system with friends who actually care about her

#I don't know how to organize my thoughts and a lot happens in the series #If I mixed things up or misremembered the timeline it's because it's all mushed together #I'm not looking at the comics or games just the show #Finn and LSP are two sides of the same coin in some ways #I have a lot of mix feelings on LSP cause when I was a kid my dad would compare me to her cause I didn't like her/she made me uncomfortable #and I still really don't like some of her actions #right now it's a toss up on if I still dislike her as a character or now like her #these toss ups usually land on me loving the character in question #I just love underdogs/characters that are unjustifiably picked on #adventure time #lsp #lumpy space princess #lumpygrab

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bigskydreaming · 1 year

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A person not liking deliberately unlikable or amoral characters or the things they do does NOT inherently translate to ‘this person needs all characters to be likable/moral’ or ‘this person doesn’t get that sometimes people can do bad things and still not be terrible people or that even terrible people can be compelling characters.’

Like, SOMETIMES that may be the case, yes, but if you’re going around assuming that people are judging you for liking ‘bad’ characters, you might want to keep in mind that you’re making huge leaps of your own if you jump to assuming someone feels the aforementioned way every time someone’s like “I hate Deathstroke/Kylo Ren/random-villain-of-choice, I think they suck” or something like that, y’know?

If you’re willing to go off about ‘its okay to just dislike a character or thing they do, you don’t need a whole moral argument about why,’ please consider if you’re at the same time discounting the possibility that people just dislike a character or thing they do because its MEANT to be unlikable/amoral and sometimes its literally just that deep and not an inch deeper because this is a NORMAL REACTION TO HAVE TO THINGS THAT ARE DELIBERATELY UNLIKABLE AND IT DOESN’T MEAN THAT A PERSON IS SO ‘UNSOPHISTICATED’ THEY DON’T GET THAT BAD CHARACTERS WHO DO BAD THINGS ARE IMPORTANT TO SHOW IN FICTION TOO.

Sometimes it just means.....hey all of that can be true and yet watch me still not like this character who did this awful thing purely on the grounds that I don’t fuck with this awful thing they did AND THAT’S A COMPLETELY REASONABLE RESPONSE TO THEM DOING THAT AWFUL THING.

Like yeah yeah purity culture this and purity culture that but have you considered what the hell’s up with a culture that judges people for being like "I dislike this Star Wars character on the grounds ‘being genocidal does not endear a character to me”?

THAT SHOULD NOT BE CONSIDERED AN UNREASONABLE REASON FOR HATING A CHARACTER HAILKHFKLAHLHFA.

How absolutely wild is it that people are literally out here being judgmental about the mere fact that some people are disgusted by characters who are genocidal or torturers or rapists or what have you? Like, you want to get into it about how various fans treat or react to fans of ‘bad characters’ on a case by case basis, go nuts (though I’ll always lol at anyone who insists that’s a one way street and fans of dark themes/characters are neeeeeeeever the ones going around harassing people, like lmao okay sure, hey self-awareness, party of one, your table’s BEEN ready, please come sit down).

But if our societal perception/reception of fiction so completely waters down our viewpoints on anything and EVERYTHING it depicts, to such a degree that there’s NOTHING that can be written where people won’t be like “why are you having such a strong negative reaction to that/you’re unreasonable for having such a strong negative reaction to that, its just fiction”.....

Then at what point have you completely devalued the point of fiction itself? What use is fiction if a creative medium MEANT to evoke emotion and explore themes has been so thoroughly hollowed out that ALL themes are treated as being banally equivalent and ALL emotional responses are supposed to fit within certain lukewarm parameters lest they be considered unreasonably puritanical or moralistic or judgmental?

Just throwing that out there.

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anti-katsuki-lounge · 1 year

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I find it odd that how it is normalized to hate Endeavor but not Bakugo.

Don't get me wrong, Endeavor deserves to be hated by readers because he isn't doing all that much to be forgiven by his family and when people learn about his abuse, they don't react accordingly. But at least the majority of the audience points the blatant downplay of abuse and has criticisms for Endeavor's redemption arc. Which is wonderful and should be the expected reaction.

But when it's about Bakugo, why is it so unreasonable to hate his redemption arc? Why do people ask us if we even actually read the manga as if they possessed reading skills superior to ours? Is it because he's a minor and therefore gets a slap on the wrist? I never found Bakugo's character charming or interesting to say the least. I really do want to understand, but the more I see his Stan's brush off the bullying, I go back to disliking him as a character. (I know that there are people who do like Bakugo but still hold him accountable for his bullying, which I'm happy to see). I would go as far to say that the real reason why I begun to dislike Bakugo is the blatant favoritism almost everyone seems to have for him. Before I really began to immerse myself into the fandom, I sort just thought everyone didn't like him. I couldn't be more wrong.

Because from my perspective, abuse and bullying are both horrible things to do. While, bullying is less serious in comparison to abuse, I don't understand how it's easily brushed aside. Maybe other people just don't find bullying that serious of a problem, but I do and I will never not bring it up if someone were to ask me why I don't like Bakugo. I'm not going to forget it just because it happened in the past (chapter 1 as some like to say). Which is incorrect because Bakugo had continued bullying Izuku even after they entered U.A. Before someone tries to bring up how in the first few chapters, Izuku mentions Bakugo stopped bullying him, I think it's necessary to mention that Izuku is an unreliable narrator. Furthermore, bullying does not only include physical bullying, it also includes verbal bullying, which Bakugo still does by yelling at Izuku for the most pettiest reasons. The severity of Bakugo's actions are masked by the fact that these interactions are depicted as gag scenes, which does not make me laugh in the slightest. Imagine the gag scenes were depicted in a serious tone. Would it be funny then? I think not.

Also, I do believe that one of MHA's theme is that past actions have consequences. Which is what Endeavor and Bakugo are supposed to represent. But do you really expect me to be satisfied with this. While Endeavor's abuse is revealed by Dabi, he only faces disgust from their society for little bit of time. It wouldn't have been more effective if Endeavor had been the one to reveal his past, rather than his son forcing him to confront it. But at least the society he lives in knows of his horrible abuse. Bakugou on the other hand apologizes in front of his classmates, whom know nothing of his past and have this misconception that his relationship with Izuku is sour is due to the fact both of cannot make up due to their differences. And the cherry on top is that Izuku doesn't say anything against him. I just can't look at his scene and still take Bakugo Stan's seriously. How could they look at this scene and think that Bakugo's redemption arc is great. Clearly both Bakugo and Endeavor's redemption arcs are horribly written, yet calling out Endeavor's is the only acceptable thing. Wish I could understand why Bakugo is so beloved in this fandom, but it seems that I can't do that.

But, hey, at least found a community in which I can share these thoughts.

I really do think it’s cause he’s a minor and the narrative sympathizes with him. I personally agree with what you’ve said about Endeavor and I feel his story should’ve been done better, but the narrative at least tells you he was wrong to treat his family the way he did. Yeah, there’s some backpedaling, and yeah, the reactions from others are relatively tame compared to what they should be like, but the narrative does tell us that Endeavor was a bad person and now he’s making up for his sins. With Katsuki, after the USJ, they narrative is constantly sucking him off and trying to hammer that he has good traits and that he is “redeeming” himself but his actions show otherwise. When watching something for fun, it’s easy to let the narrative influence your thoughts on the series, but once you take a step back and analyze things, you might notice some inconsistencies. That’s pretty much the case with Katsuki.

#anti katsuki bakugou #anti bakugo katsuki #anti bakugo #anti bakugou #mha critical

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mth-emma · 9 months

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Were you the person in the secret annex online rip?

For obvious reasons I don't want to be drawing attention to this video, so I will not be tagging this post with my usual tags for Q&A stuff, but it turns out I do have a lot to say.

Content warning for nazi stuff.

Yes, this was me! Let me tell you the full story of how this rip came to be:

At the time, backroom was trying to think of what to do for 4/20 the second time around, since we already celebrated weed the first time. 2017 was kind of the height of SiIva backroom considering "edgy" humour really really funny so it was quickly decided that we would be celebrating Adolf Hitler's birthday. The twist, however, was that only a small number of rips uploaded would be relevant at all, and that they would all be implicit references. AKA, you wouldn't think that these rips are connected to Hitler if not for the fact that they were all uploaded on his birthday. The only exception to this was to be the planned finale rip, a character-dedicated Snow halation rip featuring the tyrannical dictator himself. This ended up going up on Flustered Fernando, I believe, under the title "Mein Theme - World War II".

On the day itself, I happened to be on my way home from school, and we had some balloons there, I think leftover from someone's birthday the day before. It was then that I got the idea to make this video, since the Anne Frank house was pretty easy to reach. After checking whether there was some possible viable metadata I could upload it under, I wrote "HBD 4/20" on the balloon, walked next to the Anne Frank house and put it down on the ground, filming all of it. When I got home I quickly edited it all together and posted the video.

At the time, I don't think I was very worried about the way this video would be seen. I considered it to be pretty tame even for an offensive joke, because noone had even seen it happen. Nobody but me would know what was on that balloon or what it even meant, and I didn't take it very seriously, because in my eyes it wasn't.

But when it's uploaded to a YouTube channel with (at the time) 156 thousand subscribers, it sends a different message. A message saying "yes, we're okay with celebrating someone who represents the murder of 6 million jews," and "we're willing to take our jokes offline," which is a VERY dangerous message to send. I consider us lucky the video mostly went under the radar and didn't attract the kind of people who would be down with that to our community.

And that's where the video stayed for the next 3 years; under the radar. After I stopped caring about impressing my "edgy" friends, I wasn't very happy about the video staying up, but I didn't exactly want to draw attention to it by taking it down. A bit unreasonable, I really should have just taken it down at that point, even if that meant it would have turned into one of those notorious SiIva lost media cases. Anyway, I removed the video in 2020, and that's the end of the story.

While the contents of the video may have been fairly tame, only depicting minor criminal activity (at least, I don't think littering counts as a hate crime??), it was a lot more about the message it sent than the events it depicted, and I'm happy it's gone. I've been speaking pretty objectively and retrospectively about it up until now, but I feel it would be remiss of me not to say how I feel about it now: I'm sorry to anyone who saw this video, recognized the message it was sending, and felt any degree of uncomfortable. If this video or any of the culture surrounding it put you off SiIvaGunner or made you feel like you wouldn't belong in the community around the channel, I'm really sorry. I hope you'll give it a second chance. If you saw this video and wish SiIva would go back to its former "edgy" glory, kindly fuck off.

Lastly, a few closing remarks. You may be wondering why I even bothered answering this ask instead of just ignoring it and letting the video rest in obscurity. Well, I don't like shying away from or hiding parts of my past. I much prefer to acknowledge that it happened, what I learned from it and how I improved. However, please don't take this as an invitation to highlight this as one of my contributions on the SiIvaGunner Wiki. I'd rather not see my name in the little infobox on the article, so I guess consider the video disowned.

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hannahssimblr · 8 months

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I've noticed a lack of empathy in comments on my work, too. In America especially, people are SO used to cancelling what they don't agree with and writers jumping to appease their (quite frankly, unreasonable) demands. It's made me really careful about what I write - to the point I daren't come off anon for this post! My day job is in academia so I'm always really worried people will find my fiction and cancel me - but I'm heavily inspired by kitchen sink realism, so it's tough!

Yes yes yes - I'm so glad I asked others how they felt because I was silently thinking about all of this for a long time. Perhaps it's that real life is so divided and unpleasant at times that people just want pure escapism in the media they consume, and that's fine to an extent, but I dunno. We can't police characters behavior and expect them to be moral and perfect at all times. And we also can't be expected to sacrifice our creative vision so that everyone is kept happy all of the time. I struggle with that a bit, knowing that I'm set on a path with my story, and to step off the path would ruin the entire thing, but I worry that I won't give everyone the ending that they expect.

I work in kids content (generally) and I've noticed these themes in the scripts we get too. Notes like, 'character must never look sad, make sure they are always smiling' and episodes where all 'conflict' is resolved incredibly easy and everyone is friends again at the end. It makes me kind of mad because it hasn't always been like this. Pain and anger isn't always bad.

I'm sorry that's been your experience. The fear is real - but I feel as though creative people just have to create. I hope you can find a way to keep doing it without the stress of being "found out" (for doing absolutely nothing wrong)

I feel like I could write a paper about this honestly, and if someone else has I'd love to read it haha

#nonsims

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yuri-is-online · 1 day

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Hello, TD theory anon back again haha... I was browsing the tag on twt and I saw someone uploaded a fuzzy picture of the group of chibis from Obscuary!

I'm assuming the one lying down is "Ed" and he does indeed have the same hair color as the Janitor, but not the hairstyle - however I did notice the two had the exact same ahoge so ig it could still be the same person and he changed his style to be undercover or smth, or they're related...? If Ed has a habit of changing his looks and he generally gives the vibe of someone elusive, I can still see Alan not really being familiar with him. But yeah Dante being in a wheelchair still puts a wrench in the whole thing, unless it happened after the clash or smth?

Meanwhile the third character kinda gives exactly the vibe of a werewolf boy while Ed lying down looks like a Vampire (with a drop of blood coming from his mouth) so Obscuary looking to be a really interesting dorm! Unfortunately I can't share images or links as anon but it's posted by someone with the @ une_tokyo so you can check it out if you want!

Link

(No worries babes I got you~ the person seems to be asking if anyone knows the name of not Ed.)

Rip to this brave soldier o7 on of their last tweets was saying they were off to bed since the story hadn't updated. I've been thinking that the dorms are also sort of based off of myths/fairy tales... so if Ed is a vampire, Rui is a reaper, and third guy... well I get where you're coming from with the werewolf vibes. I just don't want to get ahead of myself because this feels like a Dracula themed dorm which would make me unreasonably happy.

Now as for Ed vs the Janitor and the chibis. They do seem to have the same hairstyle to me, the chibi's hair is just much less detailed. Kind of like he's brushed it? Especially if he's in his fancy suit. But I have no real clue at this point. And i agree the wheelchair seems like a more key clue here, that's a big detail to miss... and this might also be just me being. Biased. But Dante also has a very nice pair of glasses and Ed does not >:c so he's much less handsome.

Alan is a bit... dumb. So I don't think it's too far off to assume that he could mistake someone for someone else, especially if it's a weirdo like Ed, but I don't think he would mix him up with Dante. You know who could really clear this up? Tohma. Not that i like Leo but if he decides to start asking him some questions i wont complain. Too much anyway.

#<3 asks #tokyo debunker #tdb #tdb Obscuary #tdb theory anon

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dumbledore-and-grindelwald · 2 years

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This is an absolutely amazing scene because of the way it establishes part of Albus and Gellert’s conflict.

We know that Albus is in favor of using as little force as possible in any situation? But what is force? To Albus, using force is pushing the boundaries of one’s power in service of a goal. To Gellert force is power and power is force. He deeply believes that wizards are meant to use their gift at its fullest. There is an almost religious zealotry in his conviction.

In essence, Albus and Gellert have different definitions of sin. To Albus sin is succumbing to temptation and embracing one’s poisons: The kind of love that requires blinding oneself, arrogance, naiveté, but most of all, tring to escape one’s humanity. Albus does not believe in defying nature, as much as he sometimes wishes it was possible, and he does not believe in invulnerability. He tries to stay away from this version of sin and failing to do so is what leads to his death.

On the other hand, Gellert himself believes the opposite. He believes that wizards were given superior gifts for a reason, He thinks they are the top of the food chain and of civilization. Muggles are suvages; unreasonable creatures who destroy in their attempt to smother what they don’t understand and to make up for their natural inferiority. Wizards suppressing their powers and hiding goes against the natural order of things. If wizards can beat death, that’s part of nature too; otherwise it wouldn’t be within their capabilities. Turning one’s back on that and not fighting for their kind’s dominance is what he considers the greatest sin.

Of course, it feels that Albus’ idea of sin is shaped with the logic of a man doing penance, while Gellert’s comes from the perspective of someone who considers himself an avenging angel.

Interestingly enough, we are introduced to reanimation before the Global Wizarding War even begins. Albus mentions in the book that he pretended not to know that Gellert wanted to use the resurrection stone to raise an army of Inferi. Naturally, Gellert never got his hands on the stone, but we see him having already touched upon reanimation and there is time for him to develop the ability.

Albus does not believe that death itself is the worst that can happen to a person. Nevertheless, I think that an army of Inferi will touch a nerve; especially if a character from their group is among the dead, which would make the effect even more chilling and heartbreaking. To Albus ‘to hurt is as human as to breath’, and he knows the hurt that comes from yearning for dead loved ones to the marrow of his bones. We also know that he wanted to use the resurrection stone to see his dead family. Gellert resurrecting bodies to use them as puppets, as weapons, would be a blow to Albus; it would be a mockery of his humanity and a depravation of one of his most fundamental desires that mark him for the entirety of his life.

I genuinely believe that these themes will haunt as in the upcoming movies and will lead to a breaking point for both characters, but especially for Albus.

#Albus Dumbledore #gellert grindelwald #grindeldore #fantastic beasts #the secrets of dumbledore #grindeldore meta

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