“When toxic behavior is portrayed as romantic, it’s problematic. When problematic behavior is portrayed as a character flaw for a character to work through, it’s good storytelling.”
Katsuki Bakugou, my friends.
His behavior was problematic but never once portrayed as romantic at the same time. Katsuki said and did awful abusive things, and he also chose to be better when he was given the chance. If you’re still hung up on chapter 1 Katsuki now then I don’t think you’ve been reading the same story I have.
I can’t speak for everyone, but I’m not shipping Izuku with an irredeemable abuser. I’m shipping him with his most important person. His narrative foil. His childhood friend who made awful mistakes and then made it right when he saw he was wrong. The person Izuku looks up to and strives to emulate, despite their past struggles.
Bakudeku is so good because of how flawed these boys are, and how hard they’ve worked to get over it, and how much they matter to each other after it all
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Bruce: Has anyone seen Damian?
Dick: I think he was going to go somewhere with Jon and Billy.
Bruce: Oh, okay.
Jason: Pretty sure they were going to an art museum.
Tim: Why would they do something like that?
Meanwhile
Jon: You know, the Mona Lisa is smaller than I thought it’d be.
Billy, looking at an enormous painting on the other wall: How does someone even paint something that big?
Damian: Oh, we’re definitely going to the Sistine Chapel next.
Jon: Ooh, and then we can get pizza.
Billy: And gelato.
Damian: Obviously.
Meanwhile, back in Gotham
Dick: Wait, does someone need to go pick the boys up from the museum?
Bruce: Damian just texted and said they’re going for pizza.
Tim: You know, that’s much more what I would have expected from them.
Jason: Look, just because YOU are a little uncultured piece of-
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I wonder why christian misrepresentation are rarely talked about if compared to other religion misrepresentation. Like, I've seen people really vocal about Greek myths misrepresentation in LO and such (and it's valid because it's a culture and religion) but I rarely saw the same thing with christian even though there are many media who use christian religion innacurately, to the point where it comes off as using it as an aesthetic and not a proper religion.
Is it because of rampant religious trauma especially in western world? No ulterior motives on this question. I'm not a christian and yet I'm curious about this. I apologize if this sounds harsh.
I obviously don't have The Answer(tm) to this but personally speaking (and I'm about to get VERY personal here so take this with MOUNTAINS OF SALT), I think it's just the obvious - Christian mythology is one of the most well-documented and strongly protected out of virtually any other religion on the planet. Especially here in the West, it's commonplace for kids to go to Sunday school, for couples to have Christian weddings even if they're not practising Christians themselves, even the American anthem references the Christian God. It's simply not as easy to 'misrepresent' it because the representation is written into our very fabric of society. Even Greece itself is primarily made up of Orthodox Christians.
So anyone that does 'misrepresent' it are either completely mislead hardcore Christians, or people who are doing it intentionally, such as with the intent to make a parody of it or to deconstruct it through a different context or whatever have you. And of course, people will still get mad at those things, if you're implying that people aren't vocal about Christian misrepresentation then frankly IDK what to tell you there LOL If you want a contextual example in the realm of webtoons, Religiously Gay was dragged to hell and back during its launch for having a very crude and insulting depiction of St. Michael, and frankly, yeah I don't disagree because what the fuck is this-
(like at best it's just terrible character design lmao that said, there's also plenty else to criticize Religiously Gay for, including its fetishy representation of gay relationships and the fact that it's still just the "naive person who looks and acts like a child hooks up with mean person in a position of power" trope, blech, but the character design is definitely the first thing you notice)
There are even plenty of hardcore Christians who will deadass claim "misrepresentation" over things that ARE factually correct but they just haven't read the actual Bible and simply cherry pick what works for their own agenda. And of course those people are routinely called out by people like myself who know for a fact that Jesus wouldn't have promoted the war crimes that many modern day Christians are committing and justifying today. So it really depends on the definition of "misrepresentation" here.
The issue specifically with LO and Rachel that I personally call her out for (and many others) is that she's called herself a "folklorist" and claimed she's so much more knowledgeable on Greek myth than anyone else, while making a complete mockery of the original mythologies while not being honest about her intent as to whether LO is actually supposed to be a legitimate retelling OR a parody (because it sure acts like the latter more than the former, but she still seems to expect us to take it seriously and consider her knowledge of Greek myth superior?) Which leads to a lot of her teenage audience claiming shit like "Persephone went down to the underworld willingly" and "Apollo did assault Persephone in the original myths actually" and the classic "why would Lore Olympus lie or make up fake myths?"
You just can't pull off this extent of erasure with Christian mythology because we have a whole ass book of it that's been preserved, sold on shelves, and systematically integrated into society for thousands of years. Of course, there are people who will still try their damned best to twist the Bible to match their own bigotry with the whole "Jesus hates gays" bullshit (he would never), but it's met with equal amounts of 'misrepresentation' that are actually fully well-read and are intentionally subverting and changing things to either critique, parody, or restore the original intent of a lot of stories in the Bible without all the manufactured right-wing crap.
Greek myth, on the other hand, has some stories that are well preserved, and others, not so much. And in the modern day outside of the poems and hymns, you'll also rarely, if ever, see anyone use stories from Greek myth to ostracize, torture, and murder other people. "Misrepresenting Christianity" is more often done by actual Christians who are using the Bible to commit hate crimes than the people who have actually read the Bible and are just taking creative liberties with it for the sake of deconstructing / parodying / analyzing / subverting it. Veggie Tales "misrepresents" Christian stories because obviously Moses wasn't a fucking cucumber lmao but it still accomplishes its goal by retelling Christian stories in a way that's fun and educational for children.
By comparison (on the whole, I'm not comparing LO to Veggie Tales LMAO) LO just isn't clear in its intentions beyond Rachel's initial statements that she was trying to "deconstruct" the myths, while labelling herself as a folklorist. Therefore, I'm going to criticize how she does it because the way she's done it up until now has been very mishandled and has resulted in a lot of misinterpretations of the myths simply for the sake of fandom. And yes, these people exist in Christian media as well - they're called TV evangelists.
And that's my (very heavy) two cents.
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okay but real talk i personally reeeally do not like the evil miquella theories especially the mIqUelLa is gRiFiTh ones i have to roll my eyes 😒
imo it just.,,, completely goes against his character??????
like his whole thing from the very beginning was to cure malenia from her crippling rot and then created a haven for outcasts of the golden order, so he's had nothing but good intentions from the very beginning. and if he were to become evil or some shit out of nowhere, it would be so contradictory to him and what the lore says he stands for and it feels like it would be just a cheap "pull out the rug from under you" moment :/
the one thing that i do like is that yeah, he has compelling powers and uses love to win people over, BUT THAT DOESNT HAVE TO BE A BAD OR EVIL THING????? AND THERES SO MANY PEOPLE THAT SEE IT AS SUCH AND IM JUST LIKE
and honestly it would be even better for miquellas character if he was acutely aware of his powers to compel affection and he too saw it as a little shmarmy and tried to mitigate his abilities
and this whole line here makes me firmly believe that miquella, as he is now, does not have a shred those compelling abilities or anything for that matter.
so Miquella literally gave up EVERYTHING to even be able to come to this world of shadow because there is something here that he sees as extremely important for the fate of the world.
Miquella is literally the epitome of a being who is both kind and humble.
And that is what makes Miquellas character so interesting. Because in the context of all the Souls games where ruin and depression is practically the norm, a character that stands for hope and actually has the power/chance to grant hope to the rest of the world is so incredibly special.
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Okay, I see a lot of people talking about Laerryn’s work in terms of the spell Plane Shift. Now I know that’s ultimately my fault because of how I spoke about the remains of the solar bow, but that isn’t what she’s attempting.
Now let me say all this with the grain of salt that I’m not trying to remove all blame from LCS - I know who she is and what I built into her and what she’s capable of and willing to do - but I do think it’s inaccurate to call her uncaring (in terms of the citizens of Avalir) and despotic in her single-mindedness.
First, the Astral Leywright. Simply put, it builds a new leyline road through other planes. Now, Laerryn runs and maintains the engines & batteries, but she doesn’t steer the city. That’s Helmswoman Akami Rowe’s job. That’s the Navigator’s Guild’s choice. *That* is why LCS thinks of it as a gift to the city and to history - it’s an opportunity, not an obligation (or worse, a coercion like Plane Shift would be.) Yes, she’s taken a lion’s share of the energy stored for this Replenishment - but just this once (and what are 7 years to an elf, really?) and the thing she gives back is a new leyline that goes not North or East or South but OUT. (And the solar bow’s planar attunement was primarily to help the AL know the directionality of building a leyline in a new axis.) And Avalir could (not MUST) use it. Anyone can use it.
And sure, maybe the Septarion and the citizens will be too confused or scared to use it at first but that’s fine - the point wasn’t that we have to go NOW, only that this was her one chance to make the leyline at ALL (or at least until the next apogee solstice). So her thought is that the city doesn’t have to understand right now, but eventually they’ll get it and history will remember her fondly for making the road to the next big discoveries a little easier.
Keep in mind, Laerryn is one of the smartest people in the city (e1 “often the most cerebral”) that took a vital but understated job (e1 “no one understands exactly what you do to ask you for anything”) with no laurels attached (e2 her envy when walking through the Magisterium and seeing the resources allocated on their behalf vs. the Court of Workings) so if she wanted glory she could just pick a different job and immediately get the praise her talents would garner. Instead, she dedicated her life to quietly and dutifully protecting the Heart of Avalir, and expanding on the city’s mission statement (travel the leylines collecting knowledge and magic to share with the world).
With all that said, please continue raging at Laerryn’s choices because that’s fun and good and fine and honestly I love watching it. I just wanted to clear up that one fuzzy area.
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