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inbarfink · 7 months

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Okay, so I already wrote a bunch of stuff about how that scene, although it is really sweet, is also kind of a Bad Sign for Simon - how he refuses to learn the Obvious Lesson from the Winterworld adventure (that being the Ice King again is probably a really really bad idea). But I want to talk about it also a little more about what it means for Fionna’s character as well.

Because while sitting around and wallowing in self-loathing is probably bad for Fionna, especially after being told that she shouldn't be allowed to exist, and Simon is right to try and get her out of her funk. It's also still worthwhile for Fionna to have some introspection about the Consequences of Her Actions. Because she and Cake really did not consider them at all at first. They have a sense of morality and an instinct towards heroism, but they also tend to kinda forget the fantastical worlds they visit don’t exist entirely for their fantasy and have kind of a Protagonist-Centered-Morality fallacy.

Most obviously you can see it in the market in Ooo. How Cake, in her excitement, damaged and hurt and even killed

A bunch of innocent marketgoers without even noticing. And then Fionna immediately jumped to Cake’s defense against these ‘weirdos’, who were actually just normal kinda-righteously-angry Oooian citizens.

It’s actually very similar to the whole Winterworld situation. Fionna’s assumption that she’s automatically the hero and protagonist of the story and black-and-white view of the situation and her tendency to kick ass first and ask questions later meant that she just recklessly injured a lot of innocent people.

(It might’ve been worse actually cause at least in Winterworld she was at least manipulated by an evil Wizard)

Fionna and Cake clearly have a great potential for heroism, but they do need to be a bit more considerate of the situation and people around them. And it does make sense considering that from their perspective - they’ve been living a very ordinary life up until now (and Cake was literally an animal. A very clever animal, but still not bound by the same standards of morality as the talking animals in Ooo). Action and adventure and fantasy stuff has been purely the realm of daydream and video games for them - and Fionna literally speaks about it in these terms.

(also, Fionna's Main Character Syndrome was undoubtedly validated when God literally told her that she was created to be the main character of her universe)

So yeah, it takes them some time to really process how to be heroes - they need to grapple with questions that Finn and Jake already kinda dealt with seventeen years ago. And actually a lot of those; how to resolve a situation without necessarily using violence, when does a 'villain' actually deserve sympathy and kindness, the importance of the larger context of any given conflict... their confrontations with Ice King all played a big part in that. It was never just him, but he was still a very major part.

And for Fionna and Cake right now, learning these lessons require some amount of personal introspection. So while it was a sweet attempt at comforting, I dunno if Simon’s little ‘the only problem with that universe is that this Alternative Me was terrible because he didn’t even acknowledge or remember Betty as the love of our life and the light of my entire universe’ thing is actually Good.

I’m not quite sure Simon is the best person to teach Fionna and Cake heroism 101, because he is so focused on the Crown Quest as the thing that brings back Meaning to his life, and because his fatherly instincts just kinda go “Sad Young Person???? MUST GIVE COMFORT!” and also on account of the kidnapping.

I’m sure Fionna is going to become the heroine she dreams about eventually, it’s just going to be a bumpy ride. The best we can hope for is that they accept Simon’s comfort, that she doesn't start believing that she is nothing but an Error for the entire universe like the Scarab claims, but don’t necessarily listen to all of Simon's his words either.

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sage-nebula · 6 months

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Personally, I love that Whisper is a little messy.

I love that she is—for a Sonic character, at least—complicated. Overall, she's a good person. She wants to help and protect others. She's compassionate, and brave. She accepts others for who they are even when it might be inconvenient. (Ian Flynn clarified on a Bumblekast that when Whisper replied "I don't" to Lanolin when Lanolin asked her how she handled Tangle in the Urban Warfare arc, what Whisper meant was that Tangle is her own person and Whisper doesn't try to control her one way or the other. It wasn't her being angry.) She's usually patient and owns up when she makes mistakes. She's smart and capable, but still humble. She's determined and diligent and loyal.

But she is also traumatized, and while some of that trauma comes through in Socially Acceptable™️ ways of being sad and soft-spoken, it also comes through in less Socially Acceptable™️ ways. She self-isolates to the point where it damages her inter-personal relationships, sometimes on purpose. She is willing to commit murder against those who have caused great harm and has attempted to kill both Mimic and Eggman in canon twice each. She can be terse and is hypervigilant and sometimes violent as a result of her hypervigilance, warranted or not. (Because although we know she's right about Duo being Mimic, that doesn't give her a pass to put hands on Lanolin the way she does.) She regularly fails to communicate her feelings until cornered or she hits a breaking point. She spent the vast majority of her time in the story steadfastly refusing to heal from her grief over the deaths of her friends by saving the recording of the moment they died so she could watch it again and again.

None of this to say Whisper is a bad person. She's not. She's a severely traumatized 16 year old girl. She deserves to be given grace. But she is complicated. She's messy. Saving the body cam footage of when your friends were murdered so you can watch it over and over and keep that grief and need for vengeance festering in your heart is not a healthy coping mechanism. Self-isolating to the point where you won't even say goodbye (as she was going to do when she left the Restoration prior to Trial By Fire before Tangle happened to catch her in the act) isn't great behavior, either. And while the topic of whether a villain deserves to die for their actions is a moral quandry comics fans have wasted decades arguing about, the fact remains that the willingness to do so is rare by Sonic hero standards. In fact, it's usually only the antiheroes (such as Shadow) who are willing to do it. But Whisper shot Eggman through the heart in Urban Warfare; he would be dead right now if she hadn't been stuck halfway in cyberspace.

Yes, Whisper is soft with her wisps and her girlfriend and her friends. She tells jokes about toasters. She gets very excited to chill at the beach, and she is willing to put herself on the line time and again to protect strangers. But she is also willing to do the things she feels must be done, no matter how her friends might not approve, and sometimes her coping behaviors (or lack thereof) are awful. This wolf contains multitudes.

And I love her for it.

#sth #whisper the wolf #idw sonic #i'm a trauma survivor myself (albeit a different kind of trauma) and there have been times #ESPECIALLY in my teen years #when my behaviors as a result of my trauma were not the best #so it's nice to see a character who has not great behaviors as a result of trauma #be treated sympathetically regardless #esp a female character

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tyrantisterror · 2 months

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Ok, one more Utena post even though I'm technically done with this year's rewatch.

There's a trope - an archetype, really, though I'm not sure if it's actually been named as one yet - in fairy tales where a female character, often a young one, is given instructions or some other form of social contract to follow, disobeys, and suffers peril and misfortune as a result. Little Red strays from the path and gets vored by a wolf, Goldilocks breaks into a house and gets eaten by bears, etc. It feels pointed to me because boy characters who do the same get the opposite result more often than not - Jack not only repeatedly breaks into a giant's house, but robs the place several times, makes out with the giant's wife, and murders the giant in cold blood when he's caught. There's counter examples you can find (boy who cried wolf did not come to a good end), but overall, the formula is:

disobedient boy gets a shitload of money and fame, often slays a monster or beast along the way

disobedient girl gets punished, often by way of being mauled by wild animals

With me so far?

Ok, so, Utena opens by establishing a purposeful artifice, telling the prologue of the story in the style of a shadowplay theater production, and structuring the narration as if it's a fairy tale. Utena, in this telling of the start of the story, is the disobedient girl. She is instructed to remain pure of heart so she can become a princess and marry a prince, and decides instead to be a pirnce herself. Not a pirncess, a dragon-slaying, damsel-rescuing prince. Instructions disobeyed, cue up the wild animals of disproportionate moralizing bad ends. They even end the narration with, "But was [a girl wanting to be a prince] such a good idea?"

In essence, gender roles, immutable, unchangeable gender roles, are the fairy tale that our characters playing out. And, as the show goes on, it extend even farther than that, where all sorts of societal expectations we force upon the young - gender roles, compulsive heterosexuality and monogamy, on and on it goes - are that fairy tale, that theater script, that theatrical artifice. These kids are being forced to become archetypes against their will.

And, by the standards and tropes of fairy tales, Utena must be punished for her disobedience. She must face a great humbling that either destroys her or forces her to obey. That's how the fairy tale goes - that's what's in the script of the shadowplay.

We even get reminded of this with our Nanami side stories - Nanami, even more than Utena, is the archetypal Disobedient Fairy Tale girl, and her episodes always focus on her getting humbled for one of her abundant character flaws (and often involve some trauma related to rampaging animals). She constantly reminds us what will become of the disobedient girl - and thus what will become of Utena.

But Nanami also breaks her narrative, which ends up being what our heroes must do as well. When she's set up for her ultimate humiliation - tricked by the brother who she has misplaced a great deal of her desperate need for affection onto into believing he's not biologically related to him, and thus could consummate her icky childish crush on him if she truly wanted to, which, as is later revealed, would just end up being for real incest since they actually ARE biologically related, and is all around icky regardless - Nanami decides to fucking bail. She wants to get away from everyone and her brother especially, she wants to go to another school, she wants to exit the narrative. She's forced to have a final bout with Utena, but ultimately not only avoids her ultimate humiliation/punishment for her disobedience, but makes good on her desire to leave the role she's assigned - from this point on, she has nothing to do with the plot of the show, appearing briefly in the background now and then and ducking out of the movie entirely.

And that, ultimately, is what Utena and Anthy do - as do at least three members of the supporting cast, possibly, depending on how you interpret things. They look at the fairy tale they've been made to live in and decide to fight tooth, nail, and tire tread (when Utena turbo teens into a car) to escape it. The ultimate disobedience, you could call it - a full on revolution.

I also think it's notable that the ultimate villain of the story, the final antagonist, is the prince who gave Utena the instructions, Akio/Dios. Dios himself tried to live up to his role to the letter, to follow his own instructions/archetype as the charming prince who rescues damsels and slays monsters. And it nearly killed him. But rather than shake off the archetype, he's decided to own and exploit it, using it to control everyone around him - he becomes the one who masterminds the literal machinery of the narrative, the industrialized, heartless mechanisms of a formulaic world where people can only live the roles they're assigned and never go off script. And when it's destroyed, so is he - he has allowed himself to be someone who can only exist in this world of limited, simplified, impossible-to-live-up-to roles.

Like, as meta writing goes, it's just a fucking banger.

#Here's to all the disobedient girls out there #Valentines with Utena

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randomnameless · 7 months

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The phrase “we have been aware of the high levels of competency from KT's writers, especially with their work for 3H” is worrying; i'm not going to shit-talk them just for thinking that 3H has a good story, especially when someone's standards for what makes a story good or not is subjective and could be different from ours, but KT's story-telling skills are never going to improve if people keep only telling them that Three Houses' deeply-flawed story was actually a narrative masterpiece, instead of a self-contradicting mess with plot points it introduces solely as gotchas and has no intention of ever following up on in any meaningful way, characters getting assassinated left and right to try and argue that female Ashnard might actually be right and not so different from them in terms of morality and goals (while they're in the middle of fighting for their lives and watching their friends die in battle because she decided to invade their home unprovoked and solely for a landgrab), and an over-powered villain group that should have ended the story long before it even started because the writers decided to give them a stockpile of magic nukes they can launch at anywhere in the world, which was also introduced solely for shock value and without them realizing how much of the story is ruined by making it so that the villains who want to kill everyone and take over the world can just nuke anyone they want (that isn't inside Garreg Mach when they launch it) with no consequences.

I just don't like what it means for the future of FE stories if the worst story in the series keeps getting praised as one of the best, even by separate developers, is all.

Wait and see anon!

For what it's worth, while Engage's sales are apparently not as stellar as Houses in the same timeframe (like House after month 1 and Engage after month 1?), Nopes totally crashed.

Amazon isn't the only market in the world, but in some places in the world (tfw not for amazon.fr) Nopes is now sold at around 15 bucks, which is ridiculous considering older games released on consoles still being in circulation are more expensive than this thing that is barely 1 year old(even the first FEW?).

Also, Engage was supposed to have been released earlier but Covid and Houses being released later than planned meant it was delayed, but Engage was supposed to be Fodlan's antithesis, at least writing wise - you'd think IS would have tried to retrofit more Fodlan themes (maybe more uwu maybe some villains aren't BaD and earl grey because they luf u) but they didn't.

Imo, fwiw, while KT apparently loved how Fodlan was received, IS is aghast and doesn't want to touch it within a 10 meters radius, only if it means selling units in FEH and even there, they sometimes retcon Fodlan units (hello F!Billy/Sothis) or challenge them in various FB (Brave!Supreme Leader, but also in the most recent one, Sylvain harping on his Crust being BaD...) clearly showing how they don't really want to follow KT's direction regarding those units - at times, it's almost as if the CoS receives more development in Heroes than in both Fodlan games!

So I'd like to see what IS has in store for the next FE games (or the next non remake FE game), even if in my opinion, given how Heroes has to retcon/finish the writing (Mercedes reveals more about her Adrestian family in FEH than in two of her games!) for characters just to sell them in the gacha game ffs, speaks volumes on what they think of Fodlan's writing.

On top of that, FE16 was the first game where people received surveys/mails from Nintendo/IS asking them if they understood the game... - so despite Fodlan selling well (better than expected?), imo it's clear the writing isn't to praise, at least for IS, and they don't want anything to do with it (Nopes' DLC was scrapped, when shiny!Rhea's sprite was datamined, so either they made an useless sprite, either this sprite might have been used in a future DLC?)

They can still butcher a future remake (plz no jugdral) by adding pointless supports between units and trying to uwu more than needed the red emperor - or add an OC waifu du jour who will sell merchs and try to uwu her if she is on the side of the red emperor - but I feel like we will see where they will go with a brand new game (since Heroes's writing is... as consistent as a fog and basically circles around "women sad'n'lonely*, men evyl", female playable OC simps after the avatar and is useless in the resolution of the plot because Alfonse will finally find a mc guffin way to defeat the villain of the year).

*i truly hope Vero isn't any indication to what the writing of the future games will be, like heavy retcons from her first apparition to "i was brainwashed and akshually everyone supports me from my home even if i send them to death against askr because the voice in my head told me to do it" because that'd suck, but vero is a young woman, thus she could be monetised for alts, figurines and even DLC content in a main game!

#anon #replies #fwiw even the main redshit subs seems to be tired of the 'uwu stellar writing uwu'#i mean some people on the main sub #and call out the crap writting and incoherent plot points #I'm not joking about the CoS or at least Nabateans lol #they receive more love in FEH than in both games combined #especially Rhea which makes me happy #and billy too!#also lol@the shitstorm when Cyril was released #bcs some people didn't get the memo that Gonerils had him work without being fed in the main games #but here FEH puts it in your face through his own lines and Sharena's description #sure it's not too much because it's FEH and Cyril is a grail unit thus didn't get any FB #but it's better than the nothing he got in Nopes #and the bonkers supports and endings he can have in Houses that completely elude the topic #even Hubert in his support comments on how Adrestian Nobles treated Petra when she was brought to Adrestia #but in Cyril's support it's never mentionned he's just insulted and that's it #no one mentions how that certain house has almyran servants they forgot to feed #top tier writing uwu or is it just not throwing dirt on a waifu who can sell alts?#character rant #FE16

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la-pheacienne · 1 year

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I think there's a good chunk of the asoiaf readers/fandom that don't see Lyanna and Rhaegar as this tragic love story and blames Rhaegar about Elia's death and everything because of two things.

First, the sonewhat weird age difference. Lyanna dies at 16, and Rhaegar dies at 24. Meaning they must've run away around, 15 and 23.

But GRRM really isn't very good/reasonable with his female characters age.

And second, because of Rhaegar crowning Lyanna 'Queen of Love and Beauty', and the "humiliation of Elia Martell". And yeah, perhaps not Rhaegar's smoothest moment, but you know... Elia's family is planning a Targaryen Restoration. So, it's complex.

Well, at least I think those are part of the reasons.

Sorry about my English, not my 1st language.

Don't worry for the language nonnie, English isn't my first language either, so I make mistakes all the time, in french too.

So about the age difference, for one, I literally ship Daemyra 😂 While GRRM is weird with the age issue, I don't think there is anything weird in that case, sorry. We are in a faux medieval universe, Lyanna was already betrothed and of age for in universe standards and Rhaegar was still really young. I also shipped Cosette and Marius who fell in love with her when she was like 14? They didn't have sex then but my point is, who cares. In my personal life I have diametrically different standards, but that's fiction.

Rhaegar crowning Lyanna instead of his wife, apart from disrespectful to Elia, was also a naive political move, especially if we take into consideration the political context and what followed afterwards. But in Rhaegar's head, at the moment, it was a gallant gesture of reward to Lyanna for being the Knight of the Laughing Tree, while winning the Northerners favour. It absolutely didn't work, but he believed it would work, because he believed that being gallant and chivalrous was the absolute peak qualities of a Crown Prince.

Him leaving with Lyanna was ethically controversial at best. And I say controversial and not downright bad for two reasons:

1) he was in an arranged marriage, that speaks for itself

2) him running away with Lyanna and sticking to her because he loved her was still more authentic, more honorable even (yes I will go there) than staying with his wife and having mistresses all around, which was oh so common at the time (like Robert). What he chose instead was ultimately much more damaging than just keeping his position and fucking around, of course, but that's what choosing to live in an authentic and truthful way gets you. It can destroy you and those around you. That's the tragedy of it. We now know, after the facts, how catastrophic it was, but in Rhaegar's head at the moment, it was the right thing to do. The foolishness of the act itself is proof of Rhaegar's overall sense of morality and honesty, if he just wanted to fuck and have heirs and keep his position, it would have been so easy for him to do that without risking angering his father and the Northerners, possible exile and a damaged reputation. He could have had it all, quite literally. If he had chosen that, probably the war would have been avoided and everyone would be happier and there would be no ASOIAF, but Rhaegar would then be an unethical person.

I see what Rhaegar did more as an "error of judgement" (in the sense it is used for heroes of greek tragedies), than a "vice".

#rhaegar targaryen #aspa rambles #lyanna stark #anonymous #asoiaf #got #I'm on my Rhaegar bullshit again but you're not helping guyss

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aspiringwarriorlibrarian · 1 year

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Hmm...I dunno.

I feel like something that's been bothering me is that I feel like RWBY is as much about questioning the idea of treating life as a fairy tale.

When we hear about Fairy Tales, as is portrayed by RWBY, it's sometimes seen as either a silly fantasy, or as a necessary morality tale, or as a righteous path to be followed.

Or in the case of Ozma, a means to try to piece together and frame his life and the neverending misery he's in.

But the point about RWBY I've come to the conclusion about is that it's a story that actively questions why we treat people's stories as a fairy tale AT ALL.

Not every story should be so black and white, or at the least it shouldn't be treated so black and white. And it feels like the story is going out of it's way to question why we're so keen on shoving the story into the narratively black and white moral framework of a fairy tale, when it's plainly clear that life isn't a fairy tale at all.

Life is consistently portrayed as messy, complicated, where people can take the wrong meanings from other people's stories, or find inspiration in ways that can be seen by others as overlooking the complicated nature of what really happened.

Take Pyrrha. Her mom framed her ultimate sacrifice as something positive, that she knew what she needed to do and everything.

But the actual Pyrrha was a complicated mess of a person who was put into a terrible situation where there wasn't really a good answer at all. It was no fairy tale, but a tragedy where the moral wasn't straightforward, if it existed at all.

Fairy Tales boil things down to easy morality tales with good and bad examples, while often times conflating or removing the nuances of the situation entirely.

I dunno if I'm doing a good job explaining this or not.

With that in mind, reducing Neo's situation (and arguably even Salem and Cinders' situation) to being a bog-standard "they will be proven completely wrong and used as the bad example in a fairy tale" situation doesn't sit right with me. Because I think the actual situation is going to be substantially more complex than we give it credit for.

Oh it's definitely going to be more complex. It's Neo herself who will simplify it, because that's what she's always done. She took the entire millennia long battle between Salem and Ozma and turned it into her personal revenge story. She repeatedly refuses to consider other people as their own agents and not supporting characters to her protagonist. So of course she's going to decide she's The Hero and ironically condemn herself to the role of minor villain. It's what she's always done.

And while RWBY is more complicated than fairy tales, it is not a stranger to bad examples. Pyrrha dying because she went off on her own, Ironwood dying because he tried to hold up Atlas alone, Ozma dying over and over and over because he wouldn't trust people. The moral of how dangerous it is to see yourself as a lone hero is repeatedly stressed. And I highly doubt Neo is going to break the streak, especially since she's effectively used her Semblance to become her own friends and cut off everyone else. Her character arc and the tone of the story don't support her suddenly getting to cheat her way past the character development the tree demands.

#rwby spoilers #rwby theories #neo politan

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darkonekrisrewrite · 9 months

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I can't stress enough how bad it would be for Toga to die and for Ochako to have to walk the hero path as she is now without her

Even without the plot implications here ^ on why that shouldn't happen, the idea and message that a hero, with all their morals/standards, will change things, change their society, to at least make sure the circumstances that created their villain will never happen again, is a fantasy.

And despite it being a fantasy, it's definitely not one that should be spread using a manga series with over over 85 million copies in circulation.

Not in the current world with everything going on right now.

A series so known the world over needs to be smarter than that.

There's too much popular fiction out there that glorifies people who 'stand up' and 'speak the/their truth', like it's so profound and revolutionary, and then have whatever problems be miraculously fixed or even just implied to be in the process of being fixed.

Dumbing down and sanitizing the course/actions of making things change, making real and necessary change.

Things that a 'Hero' can't make happen and still be a 'Hero', so it's all just skimmed over or ignored for the sake of an easy victory/ending.

Or just straight up lying about doing things ''''the right way'''' and saying that was what made everything work out okay.

It's really not good that's there's so much of that out there.

If Bnha is going to tell a story with all these themes and real world parallels, then it can and should be better than that.

An apt. Quote from Dracula Untold (it's actually a very nuanced and accurate quote). — 'Sometimes the world doesn't need another hero, sometimes what it needs is a monster.'

In bnha's case, and also in many real world cases; both are needed, that's the truth.

#toga himiko #himiko toga #hero society #ochako uraraka #bnha #mha

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villainsandvictimsalliance · 2 years

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I really think people that want Endeavor to die have an immature view on the situation. I understand that enji did terrible stuff but he has to pay for that. But how is he gonna pay for everything if he dies? Gonna waste Todoroki fam money on flowers for his grave?😭 Anyway. There is no situation where enji dying is a good writing. And if he lives he can still be useful as an old hag mentor like allmight, not only sit and suffer. Fans that want endeavor dead have that childish thought that person that they dislike should just die. Right now endeavor is being a good character after pussying out for villain hunt arc and I think it's great. We've seen him at his weakest most pathetic spot so when he drags afo's crusty ass through mountains and does badass stuff with fire we can have that feeling of happiness (I mean I did idk what others feel tho lmao).

I hope endeavor meets touya again and continues to help his family to have better lives and leave as he wanted in his dream

Okay, let me point out first where I don't agree with you and then where do I agree with you, okay?

First thing, I can't call immature the people who want Enji dead. I don't know what they have gone through, I can't know if they find in it a way of deal with their anger and trauma, I don't know. I talk a lot but at the end of the day, wanting a fictional character dead is not murdering a real person, you know?

They can hate Enji all they want.

I just disagree with them. If we speak in terms of narrative, Enji being alive is better for the story. If we talk about a projection from the real life into the situation, Enji dying could be equal parts the remedy and the poison. Maybe some of the Todorokis would heal after that, it is a possibility. Maybe they wouldn't. Maybe they could get worst, we don't know. Ultimately this all depends on what story Horikoshi wants to tell, but I'd rather have the current story where different victims have different responses to the abuse they were exposed to and they have different ways of healing. Dabi has the right to never again see Enji, but Fuyumi also has the right to build a relationship with her father, if she wants to.

Now, I agree Enji is a better person than he was. Not because he's good exactly, but because he recognized how bad he was and he's at least thinking about how he can fix what he broke. It's undeniable that he is on a redemption arc, it's undeniable that he is better, but it doesn't mean either us or the characters have to forgive him or forget his mistakes.

Enji has also always been a good character in terms of what he brings to the table with his character construction. Not good in moral terms, but written interestingly. His constant dancing between the villain and hero standards, how morally gray he is, that's amazing. A great way of making someone root for a certain character is giving them a character to root against. It happened with Deku and Bakugo at the beginning, for example. Not necessarily a villain, but an antagonist, someone who gets in the way of your hero.

I'm not particularly rooting for Enji to get better because of him, but because it'd serve the Todorokis narrative. Shouto doesn't need his dad to die at war. Touya hasn't solved his issues with Enji. And I mean, Enji was never there for Touya, so he should be there for his son now. Even if Touya tells him to go away and doesn't want to see him ever again, Enji has to try. For all the people who looked up to him, for all the people he let down, he has to try.

I wish the Todorokis to be happty and healthy. I want Endeavor to pay for his crimes. So if he changes and some part of the family accepts him back, as long as he's not causing more damage and as long as it is actually healing instead of hurting, I'll accept it.

That's my opinion on this matter.

#Shan's asks #bnha #mha #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #league of villains #lov #Endeavor #Enji Todoroki #Touya Todoroki #Shouto Todoroki #Toya Todoroki #Shoto Todoroki #Dabi #Bnha 357 #Mha 357

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agentem · 8 months

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Peter and Miles (take two)

I don't think I did a good job explaining what I learned from the racist video yesterday.

There are two leaps of faith in Spider-verse. Miles' leap of faith is to believe he can be Spider-man. Peter's leap of faith is about allowing other people to be Spider-man (whether Mayday or Miles, to allow for a successor in general).

Miles' leap is being tested by Miles G. Though our Miles doesn't realize it, Miles G. is actually proof he can be Spider-man, because Miles G was the one who was "supposed" (I use somewhat sarcastic quote marks) to be bitten. Miles will have to help Miles G. become Spider-man without the spider.

(The Truth is Miles was always destined for Greatness as that is the path is parents and his Uncle put him on. He was always going to become super, whether through the spider or through Uncle Aaron's tech. But he is currently choosing what KIND of super he is. Here "Spider-man" simply means a super hero. He could have been a super non-hero or anti-hero like Uncle Aaron. Miles G. "chooses" the Prowler path simply because it's all he knows he can be. Our Miles will have to show him otherwise in Beyond. But in 1610, both his parents and especially his father chose the path of light. I kind of hate to take it away from him, but as much as Peter encourages Miles, his true mentor is his dad. Jefferson's choices have ripple effects in Miles' timeline, whether 1610 or 42.)

Both Peter A and Peter B were going to stop being Spider-man. Peter A, because the Universe has been kind to him, accepts immediately that someone else CAN be Spider-man. That the Universe will simply send another person to pick up his slack.

Miguel thinks he is a variant of Peter. Or at least he is holding his life to Peter's set standards (the "canon"). But he, is not a variant of Peter. He's his own person. He's confusing "being Spider-man" with being a variant of "Peter Parker" (or Pavitr). Miguel, Miles, Gwen, Hobie, etc are not bound by the same rules.

Mayday's path, for example, will probably be more similar to Gwen and Jessica (Again, I think the female Spiders are important here.) as it is to her father's path. Because she is a different person. Allowing for different people to be Spider-man or Spider-Woman means allowing for more variation in what is considered "canon."

It is true that anyone can wear the mask but Miguel is representing the fans to resisted the creation of Miles Morales in the first place. That he wasn't Spider-man simply because he wasn't Peter. To assume "Spider-man" had to fit into set boxes.

That's what Miguel is the perfect "villain" in Miles' story. Because he was created BEFORE Miles was. He is actually one of the earlier non-Peter variations of Spider-man. He just thinks Peter's path is his path, and he is holding himself to it still.

Miles is about throwing everything out, except that Spider-person is a superhero. Anyone can be Spider-man. That was the point. Miguel represents a certain reaction to what Spider-man should be by fans.

The beginning and ending voice-over is supposed to be Gwen talking to Peter. Her convincing him that Miles must be saved no matter what is an important change in the Multiverse. He can't let Spider-man die. And he knows that Spider-man is not him forever.

ETA: I do wonder if Mayday will prove to have different Spider-Powers than Peter. She may be the origin of Madame Web. (Does her pointing at Gwen show precognitive abilities?) Or maybe that is from Jessica's baby. I'm not sure.

I think Miles has to show Miles G. he's a hero and fight bad guys on Earth-42, probably access the Multiverse somehow (through Spot?). But Peter B, Gwen and possibly Jessica have to defeat Miguel, or at least prove Miguel is wrong somehow.

I think Miguel and Miles are like Hobie (who can also be the Prowler) in that he accessed the Multiverse through science and technology. They don't have any "destiny" either. I do wonder what that makes Lyla. Is her algorithm simply incomplete?

#across the spider-verse #spider-verse #miles morales #miguel o'hara #atsv #beyond the spider-verse #spider-woman #spider-man 2099 #ultimate spider-man #mayday parker #spider girl #madam web

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funkymbtifiction · 2 years

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Hey, Charity. Hope you're having a good day. 😊 I came to figure some things out and narrow things down further. I swear I pretty much got it down flat I'm just making a few mistakes here and there so I'm just asking for clarity.

Ever since I started looking at my behavior as a whole, and probably because I have noticed how I am on my own beforehand so keeping track of things is easy, I have started to notice that I don't have Ne (at least not very high(?) or Fi....

What you wrote is consistent with IFJ, yes. You judge things by an objective moral standard (behavior, how this impacts others, leaving space for them to grow and possibly get better as a human being), rather than a subjective, rooted place of "but I don't feel that way / that argument doesn't change how I feel." Regarding your dominant process -- if it is easy for you to do Ni things like switching your vantage point in order to see something from a different light, that is indeed Ni. You gave more evidence for Ni in what you wrote (vague, lacking in sensory details or specifics) than for Si -- you don't appear to fully understand either one, and admitted that you related to some Ni stuff in my book ("sure I do that, but it's not special or anything").

I get your resistance to being an INFJ, because you think you aren't "good enough" to be one -- but all INFJs are different. They see things through the lens of intuition, reading between the lines, and putting together random pieces until it clicks and makes sense, but not all of them have a "grand vision for their life" (that shows up more in fiction than in reality). Some of them just intuit things, and go about life in a relatively "normal" fashion. My ENFJ friend says she never knows what her future is going to hold -- but she will know it when she gets there, because it feels like she's on the right path when she trusts her intuition. (I will go for this... and then I feel like it would be a good idea to switch my major to this, within the same field, and who knows, maybe I will wind up a psychologist!)

I know you identify as a 9w1, and that's possible, but I also would not entirely rule out 6. You are doubting that you are "good enough" to be an INFJ (rather like I doubted I could be an ENFP, since they seemed cool and less grounded than I am). You are doubting that your intuition is any good or "special." You are doubting that you can trust it. Why don't you want to be a "rare" type? Answer that, and you will know if it comes from 9 or 6. If the latter, you don't want to be "a rare type" because that alienates you from people, puts you under threat, and you might face jealousy or rejection, and you want to be "normal" so you can feel safe and not second-guess your type anymore. You should also remember that 9s have trouble identifying what they want as separate from others, so they are less likely to have long-term goals they are working toward, since they don't know!

You identify strongly with NJ characters, you understand how they think, and you admit that you are someone who sticks to one interpretation or one way forward in a story, and would not change it to suit the audience's reaction or their feelings. That's Ni, not Si and Ne. You mentioned how the Stranger Things writers have changed things as they went along -- Steve was supposed to be a one episode guy, then a one season guy, and now he's one of the most beloved characters with the best arc (from jerk-wad to hero). That's how Ne works, even in an inferior position. It evolves, it changes, it moves into another direction, it winds up different from what was first planned.

Don't be afraid to be an INFJ, or fearful that you aren't measuring up to other ones -- it's how you think. I think my earlier typing of INFJ is correct. I don't see any reason to think Si-dom instead.

#question #mbti #infj

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elekinetic · 1 year

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What part of the Star Wars sequels was your LEAST favorite and what is the thing you would change first in a rewrite

r3ylo. they so very very very badly dropped the ball with their relationship and their characters, specifically ben. oh my god. and listen listen listen, you had PERFECTLY GOOD LEGENDS CONTENT TO RECYCLE RIGHT THERE. i mean b3n solo is already a hodge podge of ben skywalker (luke's son) and jacen solo, so lets just fucking give him jacen's name and reskin rey as jaina solo, jacen's twin sister.

we give jaina rey's kindness, headstrong leadership, and reservation. we make her a little more jaded bc hello, her twin brother left their family and destroyed their uncle's temple to go become a sith lord. that would make anyone a little pessimistic.

we'd follow jaina, who works as part of the resistance under her mother, leia. standard child of divorce stuff: feels like she'll never live up to the expectations of her mother, longs for freedom outside of the diplomatic role she's been assigned, holds her mother to a higher standard than her dad (is it really an ella nancysglock idea if there aren't themes of strained daughterhood & motherhood?) jacen showed force sensitivity from a young age and got whisked off to train w uncle luke while jaina stayed with her mom and learned the politics. (imagine one of our opening scenes being jaina in full diplomatic getup on one of the republic planets, slipping out of a meeting and pulling off her robes, wiping off her makeup. she's just about to jump a balcony to sneak out when she hears a very familiar older female voice say, "you might as well walk out the front door if you're gonna be so obvious about sneaking out." leia. of course.) the first act of ep 7 finds jaina discovering her force-sensitivity. when she goes to find luke in ep 8 (a la rey), there's the added dynamic of "you never knew me as well as my brother" and luke seeing so much of his sister (and han to an extent) in jaina.

rey + ben's soul-bondy thing would be a twin sense thing for jacen and jaina (like what is vaguely established between luke and leia in the ot). luke + jacen would have even clearer narrative parallels (male twin luke brought to the light, male twin jacen brought to the dark). jacen would be a more sympathetic villain bc jaina's draw toward him and care for him are pre-established, as well as the reason their relationship is strained. we'd spend time throughout the trilogy unpacking their complicated dynamic via those soul bond vision communication things that started between r&b in tlj.

now im sure ur thinking, "but ella, one of the best themes of the sequels (which was terribly mishandled) was that you didn't have to be born into a special family to be a hero, that you can choose your family and make a difference no matter who you are!" to that i say: yes. 100%. which is why we're giving finn & poe actual storylines. the other big theme of the sequels is legacy, right. what does it mean to be a skywalker, a solo? thats why we see rey, a nobody, rise to heroism and take on the skywalker name while ben, who was born into the family, fall from grace and struggle with morality (in theory). i think we can do this better though. lets have jaina and jacen BOTH be born into the skywalker family (bc hey, it is the skywalker saga) and watch them struggle with light and dark. lets take that "dark rey" shit from tlj and push it further. lets see jacen seduced by the dark and pulled toward the light because he still cares about his sister. lets see jaina raised in the light and tempted by the freedom of the dark side.

lets also see jaina and finn choose each other as chosen siblings. lets see finn develop a real dynamic with jacen. (finn is a real protagonist in this as well, im just not talking about his role in the story as much in this post. but trust, he is a huge part of the story.) lets see more of leia & poe's mother/son dynamic. lets push those ben/poe parallels further.

tldr. replacing rey & ben with jaina & jacen solo so they're twins now. obviously no romance. finn & poe get bigger storylines and there are much deeper themes about family, chosen AND blood.

#star wars #star wars (ella's version)#fuck yeah new tag #thank u for asking me this ratt #is anyone wanted to ask me more abt this id love u forever

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seyaryminamoto · 3 years

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I'm just thinking about what you've said in the past about Zuko's morals in The Southern Raiders and what bugs me the most is that Zuko could have easily been Yon Rha. Yon Rha's big sin, as far as Zuko knows when he makes his proposal (before Katara tells him the whole story), was raiding the Southern Water Tribe in a manner which lead to someone's death, and Zuko raided both Kyoshi Island and the Southern Water Tribe. Zuko would be an acceptable target for vengeance under his own standards.

:'D very fair point of view, Anon. I've always focused on another angle with this particular problem, namely the fact that Zuko's traumatic Agni Kai happens because he was trying to defend soldiers from being used as bait, slain in battle as though their lives were meaningless... and then he's offering Katara his assistance with killing a soldier if that's the only way to become her friend. There's such a profound incompatibility between both ideas, such a massive rift in reasoning, that I can't help but wonder if Ozai, intentionally or not, actually taught Zuko through their Agni Kai that the lives of their people aren't worth anything after all.

In general, that episode's plot is just... very questionable. I understand these kids are jaded, they've seen pleeenty of ugly stuff and even done some ugly stuff themselves, but the core of the problem with Zuko, back in the day, was that his violent pursuit of the Avatar caused lots of trouble and nobody liked him because he was being a selfish ass who wanted to fulfill the Fire Lord's orders at all costs :'D so... as blind as Katara may be over anything to do with Kya, it baffles me that neither Sokka nor Aang would step up to tell Zuko that this sort of ridiculous reasoning, impulsive behavior and willingness to resort to violence is EXACTLY what made him an asshole during the months he chased them, and that changing sides without changing those violent impulses doesn't amount to jackshit. I'd honestly prefer it if Katara were the one to tell him as much, because then she'd have the bonus of telling Zuko: "That's funny, because this sort of BS is precisely why I can't trust you!" and Zuko would be at an even bigger loss than before :'D but of course, when emotions are involved, Katara loses sight of reality and common sense, it's true...

Looking at it the way you do, just imagine if Yon Rha had told Katara "Oh. Sorry. Nice to see you again!" the way Zuko does with Suki :'D I'm pretty sure she would've actually killed the guy without even hesitating.

It's not to say that Zuko has objectively murdered anyone with the particular cruelty Yon Rha killed Kya: as far as we know, he didn't. We do know, however, that he's imprisoned people in nightmarish conditions (something even his sister cannot be said to have done), as he does in LOK, conditions bad enough that one of those prisoners (who, arguably, wasn't in the worst of conditions) said he'd rather die than return to that imprisonment. So, however "deserved" the Red Lotus's imprisonment might have been, dehydrating a waterbender and freezing a firebender for well over a decade sounds like one hell of an act of cruelty, which says he's perfectly capable of cruelty, all the same as Yon Rha was, and Zuko can't even say he's following someone's orders: he's the one who chooses to do this, plain and simple. So cruelty is NOT beyond Zuko. He can be harsh and nasty whenever it suits him. Despite what he'd have the audience believe, he isn't truly the poster child of peace and kindness :')

As you've said, Zuko caused lots of damage with his careless actions back in Book 1, actions that could have certainly cost lives if this show had been written to be grittier and darker than it was.

As a careless, casual example, here's the typical, boring old trope of "there's a kid in danger and the hero swoops in to save them!" (and there's poor Sokka on the background too ;_;). That ship just comes into shore, breaks all the ice it cares to, and it could have cost at least the two lives of those in the scene here (and who knows how many more that we aren't seeing). Is this not the same as attacking someone deliberately, with killer intent? Sure, it's not, but the ultimate outcome would be the same: someone's died, and it's your fault. And if you're a good person, you would feel bad about it. In fact, you might not even be able to think of yourself as a good person if anyone's death can be pinned on you.

Again, we don't know for sure that his actions cost any lives, but that they could have speaks for itself. That he was once part of the Fire Nation killer machine, that he was a tool to his father (even if not one he particularly cared for), should have made him all the more willing to understand that soldiers are as brainwashed as he was. No, this isn't to defend Yon Rha by any means, he was indeed a piece of shit... but Zuko doesn't even wait to meet him to confirm this. He's ready to help Katara kill a guy who, for all he knows, could have spent his whole life repenting for his actions (yes, we know that's not the case, but if the show had wanted to give us more nuance in the Fire Nation army, it could have been). Zuko doesn't even hesitate, and he even eggs on Katara until she finally decides she's not going to do it -- then he proceeds to badger Aang non-stop about how he MUST kill Ozai, funny how that goes. Which allows the interpretation that Zuko didn't learn anything at all from the Southern Raiders adventure.

In the end, if Zuko's actions cost any lives whatsoever (like, I don't know, maybe lives of the people whose food he stole in the Earth Kingdom (: what, me still being salty about this in the year of 2021? Noooo waaaaay...), you're quite right to say that it'd be fine, as far as his own philosophies are concerned, for Zuko to be executed by the injured party. It'd only be fair, right? Yet I guess that's the beauty of Zuko being Zuko: fairness isn't part of it. Justice? I don't think he's actually familiar with the concept. His sister made lots of mistakes, same as he did, but has he attempted to help her find her way, same as he was helped? Has he given her another chance? The answer is nope. Chit Sang is a convicted murderer who claims he didn't do the crime he was put in jail for: Zuko doesn't even bother asking any questions about who he is, or trying to get to the bottom of this problem. He's fine with getting the guy out of prison without first confirming whether his story checks out or not. Even back in The Blue Spirit, when he was "under" Ozai's thumb, and Ozai's priorities should have been his own, he decides that it's more important for him to capture Aang himself, and somehow the show spins that situation into "hey, Zuko's not that bad :>" when... everyone knows he's not setting him free out of any selflessness on his part, in fact, it's the entire opposite.

So yeah, more sketchy Zuko things that remain unresolved, unaddressed and go ignored all the time. Again, things that don't make much sense with the character he's supposed to be. And as usual, it's stuff we're supposed to shrug off or make a thousand excuses for in order to always find a way to see Zuko as a perfectly good person, when, as I've said before, being good takes efforts Zuko often didn't bother making, not before his "change of heart", not afterwards either.

#anon #welp I guess my Zuko posts have been doin' the rounds #:'D #and no they never are about the things I like about him #... which...#... do I like anything about him?#O_O #well that answers that LOL

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comradekatara · 3 years

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the gaang + how well they would do on the infinity train?

this is suuuper hard because there are so many factors to take into consideration. first is obviously the train itself. the train's function in a metanarrative sense is to serve as a vehicle for storytelling, dissecting & deconstructing the process of a narrative and how a character's arc is propelled by their circumstances. the train supposedly functions to improve its passengers, and yet we also know that The Train is a deeply flawed mechanism that can corrupt and further traumatize its passengers just as much as it can "fix" them. when the train invites you in with the single-minded goal of getting your number to zero, assuming you ever disembark, you're probably gonna be left with even more trauma than when you arrived, or at the very least, weirder trauma.

grace wanted to be seen, but instead of learning to value herself for her own intrinsic worth instead of relying on validation from those around her, she was enabled by that validation and literally started a cult. likewise, since jet is basically a less heinous version of simon, i see him taking a similar path to the apex (though he would of course name them the freedom fighters) trying to overthrow the tyrannical one-one and reinstate the True Conductor. he would think his path is righteous. he would think he is protecting those kids from evil. who knows what would happen once he learns the truth.

then there is the matter of what the train wants from you. the train arrives at a pivotal moment in one's life, when they are at an emotional crossroads and need a catalyst for growth. for example, jesse's problem was relatively small (because he is perfect) but hurting his brother caused him emotional turmoil nonetheless, so the train stepped in. this means that to answer this question properly, i would have to answer not only when the train arrives for them, but why, and seeing that every single atla character carries massive amounts of baggage (most of it flavors of trauma that infinity train has not addressed), this proves extremely difficult. i have to identify the most narratively satisfying moment in each character's lives to have the train arrive, and then i have to make assumptions about which cars would propel them which way (emotionally). you're asking me to outline nine different fanfictions.

only jet's character feels similar enough to any of the characters we've seen in infinity train for me to even have an inkling as to what path he would take. while sokka and tulip are quite similar as people (rational, scientific yet creative thinkers who over-rely on logic over feeling, are deeply loyal, and instinctually blame themselves for the problems caused by others), their character arcs themselves have little in common. both aang and hazel experience a tragic loss of pure, childhood innocence (which is why i cry over both of them every day), but in relatively dissimilar ways (at least appa gets to return to aang). min-gi and zuko are both pressured by their upbringings to conform to a standard that makes them miserable to please their parents, only to ultimately embrace their own passion & truth... but not only do those arcs play out completely differently, zuko and min-gi are completely different people, and if anything, zuko's approach to life is far more like ryan's (ie, jumping off a cliff and hoping he lands on his feet).

but what i think you're really asking, at the end of the day, is how emotionally mature, self-aware, and capable of positive growth is each atla character? because how am i supposed to know what the train would do to their psyches, considering each external situation would shape them differently, and unless i'm supposed to meticulously craft fanfiction for each one of them (which i wouldn't be opposed to doing, but only for one character, i simply cannot do all nine – also, i'm surprised infinity train AUs aren't more common, but then again i'm not particularly familiar with fanficition, so maybe it is!), it would only be an approximation, in which i identify their core problem (which again, is not how real people work, or even how atla characters work, but how The Train works) and then analyze how long it would take for each of them to solve said problem.

so, that was a very long-winded preface. without further ado:

aang's main problem is that he keeps running away from his problems, which is to say, distracting himself from the enormity of his grief. personally, i would say his coping mechanism isn't the worst. after all, he experiences so much world-shattering pain in such a short span of time, and he does deserve to preserve his childhood and his innocence for as long as possible. but, for the purposes of the narrative, the train must necessarily disagree. he must confront his grief head-on, without distracting himself from it or flying into a destructive rage that he'd only regret later. it also depends on who his companions are. with katara by his side, he can get through anything (and vice versa), but it's unclear who will be there to guide him through his pain. that said, i know he'd make it through okay. he's aang. he has to.

katara lives in a fairytale. like i said with aang, that's not really a bad thing. she's a great kid with big dreams and a big heart. she wants to save the world, and – guess what! – she does. but living in a storybook strips one's worldview of the nuances of life, not simply the harsh realities of the world, but also the full extent of one's personhood, outside of simply the black and white worldview of heroes and villains. katara's apotheosis is when she confronts yon rha, looks him in the eyes, and sees a human being staring back at her, another human being. she is no longer in a revenge tale. she is out of stories to tell herself. (life doesn't make narrative sense.) ironically, the train is a metaphor for storytelling, so katara coming to realize that she isn't in a story would both be confusingly meta and also fucking brilliant (if i do say so, personally). i don't know how exactly it would play out, but by god i would pay to see it.

in many ways, sokka is remarkably open-minded, and in many ways, sokka is extremely stubborn. i think he'd come to terms with his own emotional growth (which would be rooted in learning his own self-worth) faster than he'd come to terms with the train itself. "okay, fine, yeah, i deserve love regardless of what i can do for other people, but WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS PLACE?!?!?" his journey through the train is actually everyone else's dream experience on the train. passengers and denizens alike keep falling in love with him (or at the very least, admiring him more than they've ever admired anyone they've ever met), but he doesn't even notice because he's too busy being extremely suspicious of everything he comes into contact with. yes, he'll solve your problems and puzzles and help people and make meaningful connections and eventually he might start to realize that he is worth something even when he's alone, even (especially) when he's being unconventional or "weird" or "selfish." but even once he does get his door, does he walk through it? oh no, he takes it apart and tries to figure out how it just created a fucking portal. so while he would technically "do" quite well, he is never leaving that fucking train. rip sokka.

well, toph needs to learn to accept and embrace her own vulnerability. she definitely goes through that same crystal karaoke car tulip did. that, or the train just tortures her by putting her in increasingly more painful situations in which she must ask for help. but that's too awful to even think about, so i'm just gonna say she has to sing karaoke.

zuko needs to learn to trust his instincts and his own internal moral compass instead of the external pressures being forced upon him by his Father (capital F to emphasize that his nation & his father – aka the patriarchy – are one & the same for him, lmao). and he would fail. a lot. but eventually he would realize that his number goes down when he lets himself be himself, and he would leave the train happy. he probably also gets a bunch of cute little talking animal companions to guide him through. he deserves it.

the train appears to suki while she's having a breakdown in solitary confinement at the boiling rock. she finds healthy ways to cope with being put through hell while on the train, and by the time she gets off, she's being let out of solitary. it is a very rewarding experience, and one that she can swear wasn't just some hallucination. she's constantly telling herself yes, of course it was just a hallucination.... but still... it felt so real....

if i had to diagnose azula with one singular problem that plagues her at the core of her very being, it would have to be her fear of rejection. but it's not good enough to just keep having train cars reject azula, she has to accept that rejection, instead of just intimidating people into submission after the fact. she needs to understand why she is being rejected, and be fine with it, and learn from it, instead of letting her lack of universal perfection in every area anyone could ever excel in shake her to her very core. when ty lee proved that she secured the affections of dumb stupid boys better than azula ever could, she did an arson to cope (which of course is still very valid of her uwu). azula needs to learn to come in second place, third place, even last place, and shrug it off, think to herself, "hopefully i'll do better next time, and if not, that's okay also," and once that happens, everything else will fall into place. though maybe she could read bell hooks or smth at some point on the train cuz i think that could help too.

mai needs to stop being so goddamn depressed all the time. has she tried lexapro, or perhaps using a lightbox in winter? her favorite coping mechanism, knives, only helps her feel something some of the time, but most (if not all) of the time she's still being expected to play a part. has she tried, like, being herself? i heard from zuko (you know, the guy? from the train?) that "being yourself" works wonders. so the train gives her that opportunity. and she actually even enjoys herself for once in her miserable fucking life.

omg there must've been some sort of mistake ty lee was totally sent here by accident because she's actually super happy all the time and doesn't have any problems!!!!!!!! jk, can u even imagine? ty lee hates her life too, she just doesn't go around advertising it like mai does with her big dyke boots and depressing eyeliner. but apparently she also needs to learn how to "be herself," whatever that means. as if life isn't a constant performance, you know, like jacques said or whatever. she sees mai on the train. she rolls her big beautiful brown eyes. "oh god, not you too."

#obeetlebeetle #fuck this took me over an hour to write #asks #the gaang and #analysis #AUs #synthesis #mailee infinity train au when.....#sokka is the only one who dies on the train. unfortunate. aunt wu was right once again.#god this question was hard #so many factors to consider #i want the mailee season tho #and i want it NOW!

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persepholline · 3 years

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I've read that article about the romanticization of the Darkling and while I absolutely understand people who are pissed off/sad and I agree that it's shitty, I find LB's attitude towards Darkles stans very funny in a "girl what are you doing" sort of way because it's so petty like I've never heard of a bestselling author writing a portion of their fans into their books as a crazy cult before, it clearly hit a nerve

I'm new to the fandom but the feeling I get is she wrote something problematic ten years ago and became very embarrassed about it afterwards so she turned on the fans that liked it as a way to absolve herself. Especially since fandoms in general have become a lot more focused on discussion of what constitutes healthy/acceptable relationships to write about. And in a way I get it I had a huge Twilight phase in high school and afterwards I was super embarassed about it because of how problematic and cringe it was. But now with distance and more maturity I'm able to both still see why it was problematic and also why I was drawn to it (mostly the very unhinged representation of female desire) and like...it's really not the end of the world and no it never made me believe that breaking into somebody's room at night to watch them sleep was actually ok in real life lmao. This feels so obvious to me but apparently it needs to be said.

(More under the break this is turning into an essay, I've been thinking of this a lot recently)

And of course it's good to have these discussions about how historically romance tropes have echoed social dynamics of men's shitty behavior being romanticized and excused. But these days they often are so simplistic and focused on chasing clout that they become this weird new puritanism and moral panic about oh now women are reading novels it's going to make them hysterical or something

So you have these weird assumptions that you can't like a character and also be critical of their actions, or enjoy certain parts of a character and not others, or wish they were written differently and like them more for their potential (which I'm sure stings a bit for an author lol) - it assumes that if you like a character it means you would approve of their actions in real life, or that people just stupidly reproduce whatever they see on TV. That tendency to treat fictional characters like real people is the thing that actually worries me, to be honest, because it indicates a lack of distance and critical capacities regarding how stories are used and received. But people - fans and authors - are so scared of being called out as problematic and harassed for it that they're going to shy away from any nuance.

And yeah I think that it's good that standards of what constitutes an ideal relationship are evolving and becoming more feminist and communicative and all that and we definitely need more of that. But not all fiction has to be aspirational! Sometimes you just want to read about fucked up shit, because it's cathartic or fascinating, even healing at times because with fiction you are absolutely in control and can choose when to close the book. Toxic relationships in fiction can have an appeal specifically because they go to extremes of feeling that we don't want to go to in reality, in exactly the same way as horror movies or very violent action movies - which I don't see a lot of people besides fundamentalist Christians argue that they turn you into violent psychopaths (and that feels very obviously sexist). And for women, who are often taught growing up that love is the purpose of life, the "saving someone with your ability to love" can be a power fantasy in the same way that being a buff superhero who saves the day with their capacity for incredible violence can be a power fantasy for men. Still doesn't mean those women are going to fall in love with actual murderers or that those men are going to start beating up people at night. And love is scary, and weird, and weirdly close to horror at times, with all the potential for loss of self and being vulnerable and overwhelming feelings and potential for being horribly hurt and it should be possible for stories to explore that without anybody screaming about how this is going to Corrupt the Youth or something

And I mean I get it LB wanted to write a cautionary tale for teenagers, but it just did not work for reasons a lot of people have already written about - the fact that the Darkling is the leader of an oppressed minority and is the only one with a real political agenda to end that oppression in the first trilogy, the fact that he helps Alina come into her own power while her endgame LI is someone she keeps herself small for, that she's shamed for wanting power after growing up without any, a generally very wonky conception of privilege, and a lot of other stuff with yucky regressive implications to the point where stanning the villain actually feels liberating and empowering which is a surefire sign that the narrative is broken (unless it's a villain focused story lmao). But of course that Fanside article makes almost no mention of the political dynamics, it's all about interpersonal stuff which is an annoying trend in YA, there are those massive events happening in the background but it's made all about the feelings of the hero(ine) ; war as a self-development quest (which is kind of gross). Helnik is kind of an example of this too - I like them, I think they're fun ! But Matthias spends a big part of the story wanting to brutally murder Nina and her kind, and he mostly changes his mind because he finds her hot. Like you don't feel there is some sort of big revelation that his entire moral system and political framework is completely rotten ; it's all better because of feelings now.

As a teenager that kind of sanctimonious bullshit would have annoyed the hell out of me ; I read those books in my early twenties and I found the ending so stupid I wouldn't have trusted any message or life lessons coming from them. And I liked reading/watching dark stuff as a teenager, as a way to deal with the very intense inner turmoil I was dealing with - and I turned out fine ! Meanwhile I've seen several times women in very shitty relationships being obsessed with positive energies and stories ; they were so terrified of their life not being perfectly wholesome they ended up being delusional about their own situations.

Like personally I think the Darkling is a compelling, interesting, alluring character and also a manipulative, murderous piece of shit and that Alina should get to punish him (like in a sexy way) - but he's also the end result of centuries of war, oppression and trauma and reducing that to "toxic wounded boy" feels kind of offensive ngl ESPECIALLY since the books don't offer any kind of systemic analysis or response to oppression beyond "the bad guy should die" and "now the king/queen is a good guy our problems are solved!!!!"

In Lives of the Saints, we see how Yuri is abused extremely badly and almost killed by his father, and so when his father dies when the Fold swallows Novokribirsk, he thinks the Starless Saint has saved him. Later in KoS/RoW he's turned into this fanatic who explains away all the Darkling's crimes. The other followers talk about how the Starless Saint will bring equality for all men. Then the Darkling comes back and actually thinks his followers are pathetic, which feels again like a very pointed message to his IRL stans. Which is absolutely hilarious to me. Like oh no, if he was real he would not like you and think you're pathetic ! Yeah ...but he's not. Real. Damn right he would not like the fics where Alina puts him on a leash. I'm still going to read them. What is he going to do about it, jump out of the page ? Jfjfjjdhfgfjfj

Anyway I think the intended message is "assholes will use noble political causes for their own gain and to manipulate people" and "being abused/oppressed is not an excuse to behave badly." Which. Sure. But that's kind of like...a tired take, honestly ? A big number of villains nowadays are like this ; either they've been bullied as kids, or they're part of an oppressed group, or they have "good ideals but too extreme". This is not surprising because a lot of mainstream heroic narratives present clinging to the status quo as Good and change as chaotic and dangerous. And like sure in real life people often do bad shit because they're wounded and in danger. But if you want to do a story like that, you have to do it with nuance, talk about cycles of violence, about how society creates vulnerable people to be exploited, about how privilege gives you more choices and the luxury of morals, etc. The Grishaverse does not have this level of nuance (maybe in SoC a little bit but definitely not in TGT). So it kind of comes off as "trauma makes you evil" and "egalitarianism is dangerous" and "if you're abused/oppressed you're not allowed to fight back". And ignores the fact that historically, evil generally comes from unchecked privilege.

I guess my point is that there are many things I like about LB's writing, she knows how to create these really exciting character dynamics, and the world she has created is fascinating. But these stories are not a great starting point for imparting moral lessons. And her best characters tend to be, at least in canon, the morally grey ones. I hope one day she'll be at peace with the fact that she wrote the Darkling the way she did and leave his fans alone but in the meantime I'm just not going to take this whole thing seriously I'm sorry

#darklina #the darkling #alina starkov #aleksander morozova

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absynthe--minded · 3 years

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Beren, the Nauglamír, and Editorial Oversight

this is gonna be a long one, guys.

so one of the things that makes Christopher Tolkien’s contributions to the greater legacy of the Tolkien Legendarium so complex is that he, as the posthumous editor of his father’s works, essentially was able to declare what is or isn’t “canon” in a way that no amount of scholarship (fannish or professional) will be able to truly successfully challenge. it’s his vision of Arda that was published as the Silmarillion, and his interpretations of the Professor’s works that have come to act as the standard and the baseline. after all, the Silm’s been traditionally published and translated into many languages; it’s far more accessible than out-of-print/print-on-demand copies of the History, and reading it doesn’t require you to slog through pages and pages of commentary or to have a good solid understanding of what the story is so you can follow along with lists of bullet points outlining events timeline-style.

of course, Chris also made mistakes, and those mistakes became enshrined in canon just as surely as anything else. I and many others have discussed the Gil-galad problem (namely, that Gil-galad’s parentage is oblique and strange at best and downright contradictory at worst, and Christopher’s choice to make him Fingon’s son was an admitted error) but it’s not the only case of a decision later proving to be the wrong one.

with that background, let’s talk about Beren.

Beren and Lúthien are in an unusual position in the Legendarium as a whole. Not only are they the sole author-insert characters, they’re also uniquely positioned as moral compasses - every other person in the Silm is morally ambiguous to some degree, or does bad or questionable things; not so with these two. If Beren or Lúthien does something, it’s explicitly the right thing to do, and this is confirmed by the narrative. If someone else opposes them, that is the wrong course of action. They’re not merely protagonists who make a lot of good choices, they’re good people, and the things they do are right because of their moral fiber and nobility. Of the active agents who are developed to any great degree, they’re the least complex and the most clear-cut, and the narrative itself treats them differently from other characters, validating them and framing them as the sort of spotless heroes that are in short supply in this Age.

This characterization runs headlong into the actions Beren takes in early drafts of the story and in the published Silm, where after dwarves kill Thingol and sack Menegroth, Beren (with the help of some allies, usually either Green-elves or Ents) ambushes them and duels the Lord of Nogrod for possession of the Nauglamír, a necklace originally owned by Finrod in Nargothrond that Húrin brought to Doriath after his release from Angband. Thingol commissioned dwarven artisans to alter the piece and create a setting in it for the Silmaril that Beren and Lúthien had won for him from Morgoth, and there was a dispute about payment that escalated to violence and ended in his death at dwarvish hands. The battle, later called the Battle of the Thousand Caves, was more or less a victory for dwarvish forces, as they escaped both with the Nauglamír and several other treasures from Menegroth and they defeated Sindarin forces that set out to stop them.

In most versions of the story, Melian sends Mablung to Ossiriand to warn Beren and Lúthien of what’s happened, and essentially asks them to do something to stop the retreating dwarvish forces from reaching Nogrod, where they came from. Beren does this, killing the Lord of Nogrod himself and taking the Nauglamír and the Silmaril home to Lúthien, who then gives it to Dior, who takes it back to Doriath when he takes the throne there. This is the version of the tale that’s in the published Silmarillion, and the one that’s consistent throughout the earlier drafts that Tolkien himself wrote.

But it’s not the only version that exists.

In The War of the Jewels, which compiles versions of the story written late in Tolkien’s life, we find The Tale of Years. This is not a cohesive narrative, instead functioning (like many of the writings that make up the bulk of the History of Middle-Earth) rather like a series of bullet points mentioning and summarizing key events. It progresses chronologically, giving a sense of passing time and organization to the First Age, and it has this to say about the Nauglamír and the battle at Sarn Athrad:

“The Dwarves of Belegost and Nogrod invade Doriath. King Elu Thingol is slain and his realm ended. Melian escapes and carries away the Nauglamír and the Silmaril, and brings them to Beren and Lúthien. She then forsook Middle-earth and returned to Valinor.

Curufin and Celegorm, hearing of the sack of Menegroth, ambushed the Dwarves at the Fords of Ascar as they sought to carry off the Dragon-gold to the mountains. The Dwarves were defeated with great loss, but they cast the gold into the river, which was therefore after named Rathlóriel. Great was the anger of the sons of Fëanor to discover that the Silmaril was not with the Dwarves; but they dared not to assail Lúthien. Dior goes to Doriath and endeavours to recover the realm of Thingol.”

(This quote is taken from the latest and typed version of the Tale of Years, an earlier handwritten version exists that is shorter but includes the same relevant details.)

Christopher Tolkien elected not to use this version of events, instead choosing to maintain the earlier tale where Beren had an active role; he was never truly satisfied with this, or with the Ruin of Doriath as a whole. In the commentary to the Tale of Years he wrote that “It seemed at that time that there were elements inherent in the story of the Ruin of Doriath as it stood that were radically incompatible with ‘The Silmarillion’ as projected, and that there was here an inescapable choice: either to abandon that conception, or else to alter the story. I think now that this was a mistaken view, and that the undoubted difficulties could have been, and should have been, surmounted without so far overstepping the bounds of the editorial function.” We have, for a second time, an admission of error, though unlike the Gil-galad question there is not a specific choice singled out as a flaw.

Why am I talking about this? Well, simply, I think that the version of the story where Celegorm and Curufin attack the Dwarvish host is the one that makes the most sense, and I’m here to make my case for its adoption as fanon. I’m not trying to take a purely scholarly view - I can’t prove that Tolkien’s true vision was for this version of the text, and of course it’s only in the one draft - but as a fandom we’ve reached the consensus before that specific versions of the story are preferred, even when they only appear in a single draft (Amrod’s death at Losgar stands out as the best example).

So here’s my argument.

1. Beren is not a violent man, and having him act as a murderer is out of character.

This one is pretty simple - Beren is an outlaw fighting against Sauron, a defender of his family’s land, a nobleman in his own right, and a vegetarian who is keenly aware of what it is to be hunted and pursued. The man we’re introduced to in the other versions of the story is not someone who would answer violence with violence unless there was no other choice, and in fact he becomes less violent as the story goes on. Putting him in a position where he’s acting militarily against the Dwarves introduces elements to his character that simply don’t exist before this story. It’s inconsistent, and it also ends his life on a strange, sour note - he’s not an uncomplicated hero anymore, he’s also got blood on his hands.

2. Beren is one of the moral compasses of the Silmarillion, and having him be the one to spearhead the ambush of the Dwarves frames that act of violence in a very troubling light.

Like I said above, Beren and Lúthien are good people who do good things, and those things are good because of who’s doing them. If Beren kills the Dwarves and the Lord of Nogrod, that act becomes justifiable, and perhaps even the right thing to do, simply due to the fact that one of the two true heroes of the First Age is doing it. The narrative never frames this as a downfall or a moral event horizon for Beren, either - he made the correct decision and the consequences that come afterward aren’t things that can be blamed on him. But wholesale slaughter, even slaughter of people who do bad things, is not something Tolkien ever condones or paints in a truly positive light, so it makes more sense for it to come at the hands of people who aren’t solely positive forces. It’s thematically in line with what Tolkien does through the rest of the text, and it feels more like Arda, at least to me. I think an argument could be made that Tolkien realized that making Celegorm and Curufin the responsible party would achieve this end, and that’s why this version exists in the first place, but there’s no proof of it.

3. The Laiquendi are nonviolent, and it makes no sense for them to be involved in this fight. The Ents being involved at all is somewhat nonsensical based on what we know of them in The Lord of the Rings.

Another simple one - we don’t know much about the Laiquendi, but we know they’re not really keen on warfare or on any undue violence, so having them be Beren’s backup is a weird divergence from their presentation in the rest of the Legendarium. And the Ents are pretty universally depicted as uninvested in the wars of the incarnates, only taking action against Saruman when it becomes apparent they have no other choice - why should they care about Thingol’s death, or care enough to murder dwarves?

4. Melian’s actions make far more sense in a version of the story where she doesn’t merely abandon Doriath once she realizes Thingol is dead.

If Menegroth is already sacked, and she cannot hold the realm together on her own as its Queen without really fucking shit up with reality-warping shadow magic, her choice to abandon it after delivering the Silmaril safely to her daughter and warning her that Dior will be needed soon is far less irresponsible.

5. Celegorm and Curufin ambushing the dwarves makes more sense than any other alternative.

Of course Celegorm and Curufin were actively watching Doriath for any sign of weakness. Of course they noticed the dwarves leaving with stolen treasures, and heard rumors that Thingol was dead and his killers had the Silmaril. Given the choice of following Melian (if they even were aware of Melian’s departure) and following dwarves, of course they picked the dwarves. Their ambush and attack and slaughter is consistent with their past behavior, as is their refusal to attack Lúthien because they were scared as fuck of her.

What’s more, this also explains the Fëanorians’ refusal to attack Doriath immediately after the dwarves do - they were unsure of whether or not Lúthien was in Menegroth and ruling as its queen or acting in some capacity as Dior’s defender. Celegorm in particular isn’t the type to hesitate - he’s impulsive, and rash, and rushes into bad decisions without considering their consequences, it’s even in his name. But they waited for years, giving Dior time to marry and have children of his own, and then even sent letters rather than attack directly - and yes, some of this might have been Maedhros’s influence, or an attempt by all of them to stave off the Oath, but it’s also plausible that they were trying to figure out whether or not they’d have to take on the same woman who made fools of them before.

I, at least, think this version of the story makes the most sense, and I’ll be adopting it into my personal canon. I obviously think it’s worth advocating for on a larger scale, and I hope I’ve made a good argument for its widespread adoption.

#silmarillion meta #silmarillion #tolkien #absynthe's meta #beren and luthien

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