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you-usuratonkachi · 2 years

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about El's character arc and Mike's monologue

so i went back to rewatch the parts of the show that had Mike and El and El and Brenner, because I had noticed parallels between Mike and Brenner, and I wanted to single those scenes out to make sense of them. I might have gotten what they were trying to do with that...? Maybe. I'm not sure myself because the whole thing is kinda convulted, but hear me out.

The whole issue with Eleven this season is a fundamental insecurity: she does not feel like she's worth it without her powers. She doesn't know how to live as Jane. Not to mention she is having flashbacks/dreams about something she might have done in the past that she forgot.

So before Mike comes to California she's already feeling vulnerable.

She lies to Mike in her letters because she feels like she lost the only interesting part of herself (the part that she feels Mike likes her for) and she tries to make up for it by telling him that everything is fine and dandy and she has lots of fun and she's popular and everything she feels like he might like in a girl (who does not have powers).

When she strikes Angela, she triggers her own trauma.

It's her highest insecurity moment.

She's scared that she might have done something far worse than stricking Angela. Mike is already freaking out over a "small" cut, how would he react if he knew she had murdered children at Hawkins lab instead?

She was hanging onto the hope that none of it was true, that it was just some kind of nightmare, but seeing Mike take it so badly fueled her insecurities: she feels like a monster.

He says he "cares" for her, not love. Not like last season. Because she has no powers anymore? Because now she just strikes bullies in their faces? Because she is not able to make them pee their pants anymore? She's not cool anymore, she's just scary.

So when he says "you're a superhero" she does not believe him. Because she doesn't believe in herself either.

Was the issue truly stemming from Mike?

I think all considered he had a fair reaction. Kinda insensitive towards her feelings but fair. No matter how shitty Angela was, what El did was not cool either. So I know it's not a popular opinion and we all think Angela deserved it, but Mike has quite an adult reaction to it. Insensitive towards El's feelings, but fair. He basically calls her out for her bad behavior at the dinner table (albeit a bit passively aggressively... 😅).

It's not that Mike was scared of her, he was displeased with her behavior (plus the fact that she lied to him the whole time).

What she thinks she saw in him, it's what she saw in herself. She's projecting her insecurities.

(Now, while this is true, it doesn't change the fact that Mike couldn't say ILY when she needed it the most. Would it have solved the problem? Probably not, but perhaps she would have opened up to him about how she truly felt. But he couldn't say it anyway).

Later in the show, she starts training with Brenner and she has a whole conversation about Monsters and Superheros.

He says that people cannot be so easily defined and just by accepting the bad and the good we can become whole. To which she answers "what if I don't want to become whole?"

She does not want to accept the bad in herself, because she wants to be able to stay a superhero.

Later she learns that it wasn't her that killed the other kids in the lab and she realizes that the only reason why she opened the gate at all was because Brenner made her search for One. It wasn't her, it was him. So she rebels against him. Asks him if he even cared about the children.

He says he loved all of them. That he tried to help and understand Harry because...

So Brenner manipulated and abused her to get One back. So she would somehow open the gate. It was not her. It was him. He's the monster.

With this and by leaving Brenner behind, she finally feels like, after all, she might still be that superhero she wanted to be.

So yeah, rethinking the whole situation with El and Benner, I do feel like what Mike told her in the monologue was actually what she wanted to hear.

Because when she argues that she wants to go save her friends, Brenner tells her:

"you came to me broken, but you've learned how to walk again. but if you want to defeat one, you'll have to do more than walk. more than run. you will need to fly"

He's doubting that she can do that.

On the other hand, when Mike calls out to her as she fights Vecna, he says:

"you can fly, you can move mountains."

which is in direct contrast with what Brenner told her. So Brenner didn't believe she could do it. Mike did.

he ends it with "you're my superhero" which is what she wanted to be.

So, in truth, the monologue wasn't THAT bad. There is some sort of continuity with the storyline. While Mike did not evolve at all and told her exactly what he told her the first time (minus the ILY), El did change.

In that moment, coincidentally, it might have been exactly what she wanted to hear.

Except she loses. Max isn't saved (or I guess partially) nor Vecna truly defeated.

Brenner was right. She wasn't ready.

In the last ep, after the time skip, Will asks Mike if she talked to him at all. Mike says no, then corrects himself and says "a little" and right after that Mike and Will sit down and Mike tells him that she told him that Brenner was right, that she hadn't been ready.

So the parallels between Brenner and Mike are basically about one person who didn't believe in her and one person who did. Except the person who didn't believe turned out to be the one in the right.

So right now it doesn't really matter whether Mike loves her or not, the same way it did not matter whether Brenner loved them or not. At the end of the day, Brenner failed them all (which is why she does not acknowledge him as he dies). At the end of the day, whether she is Mike's superhero or not, she failed Max.

"There's more to life than stupid boys" because after all this wasn't about Mike. It was never about Mike. It was her trauma, her insecurities, her feelings projected onto Mike.

This said, while Mike's monologue perhaps had some kind of sense after all, it also failed in so many ways.

1. Yes El was projecting mostly, but the fact that Mike cannot name a single quality of hers that isn't her powers is also very true (bad writing? I guess even the writers forget that she's an actual person and not just their magic caster) so it's not surprising that between Brenner and Mike she doesn't feel like she has any worth without her powers

2. He still couldn't say ILY when she needed it the most and his excuse for it still sucked balls. Truly. Especially because he was never shown to be angsty about losing her for shit. He (the writers?) just pulled that out of his (their?) ass. Bad writing once again? Possible.

3. Mike quoted Will's confession and basically responded to it, thinking that was what she wanted to hear.

Everything else I can shrugg of as partial bad writing, but the parallel about "needing" after Will reminds Mike that he's the heart and therefore about his whole confession and therefore about the fact that El will always need him is not random. It was intentional. The whole thing hurting Will was intentional. They made it a point to show him throughout the monologue because his feelings are important for the plot, I assume.

So yes, I do believe that the monologue could say almost whatever because it wasn't supposed to work. The point of it all, it's that it failed. It's that by the time everything is done and is over, El realizes that it wasn't Mike, it was her all along. It's not Mike that has to believe in her. It's herself.

She has to find herself, accept herself as a whole, with or without powers. Believe that she's the superhero herself.

She doesn't need to hear that from Mike.

She does not need him.

This is where her arc is truly going. Her entire plotline it's about learning that she's sufficient. That she does not need to be validated or pushed by anyone else.

She did not need papa to love her. And she does not NEED Mike to love her either. She needs to love HERSELF.

This is what she's ultimately learning in this last part of the story.

Do you see where I'm going with this?

What she's learning and what Mike wants right now go in opposite directions (he wants her to need him). She's working on herself but he's suck in whatever his issue is. Either inferiority complex or internalized homophobia or general insecurities or all of the above.

What does this say about M*leven and where they are ending up? I'm not sure. It all depends on how Mike develops next season, truly. Will he be able to develop with her or will she ultimately decide that she's better being on her own as she finds herself?

Plus let's not forget that while everything might feel linear and orderly and very sensible written down like this, I have taken out one important piece from the picture, so that I could single out her journey, because that piece is not part of her journey, but is very much part of Mike's. And visually? It's been part of M*leven's journey throughout the season: Will.

After all, Brenner was still El's catalyst for her character development, while Mike was kind of collateral demage.

I think ultimately, Mike's catalyst will be Will (and viceversa). Because it kinda... always has been.

The writers made it a point to hammer Will in our heads throughout the season. Even if El's journey makes sense and so does M*leven, the visuals kept reminding us of Will over and over.

The monologue quoted Will's confession and this will have repercussions.

Lies were told and sooner or later the truth always finds ways to come out.

I think ultimately, Mike being sincere or not is still in question, because despite the whole narrative following through for his monologue, he just so happened to say what he thought she wanted to hear. And he thought so because 1. she said she wanted him to say ILY 2. she told him she was gonna be a superhero again 3. he believed what Will told him

The fact that he was only able to confess to her when she was on the verge of death? Still true. The fact that he thought that she wouldn't "like the truth"? Still true. The fact that he has behaving out of character with Will? Still true.

Even more than before, after analyzing the whole thing, I'm convinced that it's a mediocre confession because it was supposed to be.

Because ultimately what El learns from it, is that she thought she needed it, but she didn't.

#byler #eleven #jane hopper #i don't know what to tag exactly #so that I don't make people upset #but yeah #i think she's going through an amazing journey #I don't know whether Mike will be in it as a significant other at the end of it #it really all depends on Mike's character arc #will they finally show us HIS perspective next season?#there's so much that is up in the air with him #but if Will is gonna be center next season you bet everything you want that Mike is gonna be under the spotlight #'cause he's the heart #of course #his character arc is inherently connected with will's #I strongly believe that

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adore-gregor · 2 years

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I drove past the Bischofshofen hill at my work

I wanted to show it the middle finger and scream "f*** you" for ruining Gregor's career 😤

(I didn't because my coworker would have declared me insane)

#for anyone who wants to say it wasn't just bhofen he was jumping not that well before or after either i know but idc #bhofen was the beginning of the end #everything went downhill from there #when gregor messed up that one jump after those amazing training jumps that was the most heartbreaking shit 🥲💔#when he refused equipment control i knew it was bad #because after that oesv just said screw gregor let's not support him anymore or give him any chances #and that led to the horrible outcome of him jumping in coc and tearing his acl #everything together led to to his career end #i strongly believe that #so f*** bhofen #i now hate this hill with a passion 😤#since this day #also how sad and heartbroken gregor looked that day #but yeah next time i drive past without my coworker i'm gonna curse that hill 😂#and yeah i'm petty like that 😅🤷‍♀️#(btw i don't live close to bhofen this was more of an out of the ordinary drive because we were driving to salzburg)#(this was the first time i drove there at my work this year it's actually quite far away)

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asharaks · 3 months

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it is, i think, symptomatic of the way larian has built this brand: bg3 was always marketed as being mature (read: sexual), and that was one of the big draws for players - myself included! especially as media pulls more towards extremes, with mainstream video games starting to get increasingly graphically sexual, graphically violent, and the vogue for 'grey morality' becomes the norm, those boundaries get pushed, and it becomes more and more of a selling point.

larian obviously focused on this, along with the How Do You Do, Fellow Kids brand, the increased accessibility of game devs on twitter, and adopted it heavily into their marketing strategy, and are now pretty reliant on the horny gamer crowd for a lot of their audience, and more importantly, they're doing this on purpose.

which is how you end up in situations like this.

characters (white men) the players want to fuck get centred: they get updates, they get more content, they get favoured. halsin's gone from a side character in EA to a half-fledged romance option, to a full romance option: he shows up in the promotional material, is larian's poster boy for the sex scenes, he gets more content with every update.

now gortash gets more heavily implied situationship lines with the dark urge, because players are horny for him. nevermind that some people aren't playing that way, or that he was originally set up to be a lower-level antagonist; nevermind that if the durge's storyline needed expansion, it should've been with orin and sarevok and bhaal, or that it muddies the writing for the rest of gortash's arc + characterisation: people want to fuck him, so it gets put in the game. it's not even to do with karlach, whose quest so desperately needs expansion! it's specifically catering to the people who want their character to have a Relationship with the slaver, because they're either not interested in or not able to focus on strengthening the weak spots in the narrative: they're just doing things that will net the 'my favourite dating sim' people lmfao.

meanwhile, literal main character wyll gets his quest demoted to a subquest, doesn't get bugfixes, doesn't get a single unique romance greeting after 6 patches and months of requests. he's not a Horny character, so he doesn't get the focus: he's not a player favourite, so he gets nothing. it's just... so unbelievably, indisputably racist, and it's incredibly grim and disappointing to watch it happen in real-time.

#also #and I can't believe I'm saying this #it feels like character assassination against enver 'can't be in a room with you without 5 robocops for protection' gortash. like come on.#stop trying to make him sexy he'll never be sexy #he's a slaver.#i feel like larian have backed themselves into a corner where they have to pander to this side of the fanbase #because they've encouraged it so strongly that now it feels like a majority share of their audience are here for the sex #bg3 #larian critical #bg3 fandom critical #to be clear. Yes i am being a hater #baldur's gate 3

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cult-of-the-eye · 6 months

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If Timothy Stoker were there to witness jmart, you better believe this man is Number One Hater of it (jokingly, of course). My man is borderline homophobic the way he is constantly tearing them to shreds. Idiot man and his idiot boyfriend. He's the best man at their wedding.

#tma #the magnus archives #jonathan sims #martin k blackwood #jmart #tim stoker #timothy stoker #jonmartin #tma crack #i strongly believe in this

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poorly-drawn-mdzs · 5 months

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Bonus 8: How met your mother (CSSR design by @qourmet!)

[First] Prev <–-> Next

#poorly drawn mdzs #mdzs #cangse sanren #wei changze #jiang fengmian #It was important to me that WCZ had the hereditary mole. I will die on this hill.#I have been *waiting* for the day to finally arrive when I could finally make this comic. It's been marinating for months.#My mission is to redraw all of qour's character designs one day. They are just *that* good.#CSSR has the vibes of a wandering menace who shows up in towns like a stray cat arriving at a new doorstep for treats. 10/10.#While YZY strongly leads us to believe that JFM was in love with CSSR and that's his whole motivation behind taking wwx in-#-I do think this is (once again) rumour being presented as reality. It's the juicer story to tell after all.#It is still possible that he did love her! But I think that story undercuts the relationship he also had with WCZ.#Yall ever think about how JC and WWX parallel their fathers? How Wei Changze also left the Jiang Leader's side? I do.#Unlike JC though It is far more hilarious and plausible to imagine JFM begging to be CSSR and WCZ's third. You know he would.#My wild headcanon is that JFM and YZY are in a mlm and wlw arranged marriage situation. Deeply unhappy as partners. Better as friends.#they care for each other and I'll admit that there is a beautiful tragedy in them having romantic feelings for each other the whole time.#But I am also here for the gaffs. Let them be unfulfilled homosexuals together.#Meanwhile cssr and wcz are having incredible hetrosexual sex in a bisexual way that WILL leave him pregnant by the end of it.

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buggachat · 5 months

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(random s5 finale musings) tbh I don't think Marinette chose to keep The Secrets™ from Adrien because Gabriel asked her to. I feel like Marinette keeping secrets like that is so consistent with her character; she hates giving people bad news, she hates rocking the boat, she hates upsetting people, she always chooses to keep any 'controversial' information to herself for as long as she can get away with (examples: bubbler scarf, telling Queen Bee she was benched, confessing to Adrien, warning Chat Noir about Scarabella or Rena Furtive, never told Chat Noir about Chat Blanc, etc) that I just totally believe she would've done it either way. She was even already having nightmares about Adrien hating her for finding out she defeated his father, so I feel like Gabriel's request was moreso giving her a go-ahead than it was a primary deciding factor, yknow?

#ml s5 spoilers #tbh half the time when thinking about it I forget that gabriel asked her to do it at all #because it just feels like such a Marinette™ thing to do to me lol #to be fair maybe I'm downplaying it? I do think Gabriel's plea struck some emotional chord with her too and helped push her that direction #but again I. totally believe she'd do it either way #and I do strongly believe that her decision is moreso ''I don't want to hurt Adrien'' than it is ''I want to honor Gabriel's final wish''#she loves to avoid verbal/emotional problems and hoooo boy idk a worse verbal/emotion problem than #telling your boyfriend that his entire life is a lie and that he's not entirely human and that he was abused and controlled and puppeteered #all his life and also that his father was a terrorist and that she saw his mom's corpse in the basement #I mean. I don't think I'd have the emotional maturity to break that to someone either and I'm not.... FOURTEEN.... LOL

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saddest-girl-in-the-whole-world · 1 month

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Gideon at the end of Nona The Ninth strikes me as.. really odd. I know some people thought she's out of character because she's kinda mean - which I don't agree with - but honestly every time I get to that part I think: She's smarter than that.

I know fanon Gideon usually portrays her as a huge idiot and a goofball (fair enough for the most part) but she's also one hell of a skeptic and stubborn character that does NOT bend to authority easily. And let's remember The Unwanted Guest: We know that just by the nature of the Lyctor process Gideon must have picked up some stuff from Harrow as well, we even see it happen when she starts discussing basic necromancy at the end of Nona.

So, Gideon is now being sent to the ninth to kill Alecto, John's Cavalier, and take his place going forward, or at least this is what she says.

You see what I'm going at? She's smarter than that.

I am NOT saying she is acting out character by the way! But I think we don't give her motivations enough credit beyond being reckless because of grief. Gideon Nav who all her life has done nothing but hatch escape plans and NEARLY succeeded? Gideon Nav who is carrying part of Harrows soul? Gideon Nav WHO WATCHED THE EVENTS OF HARROW THE NINTH UNFOLD WITH HARROWS EYES?

I guess what I'm wondering is: What's her plan?

#she is the smartest idiot known to man and god #and i dont believe this is just suicidality #she's now part harrow #she wouldn't kill herself now not just like that - her life has cost far too much now #and if theres anything i strongly believe about her and harrow is that theres nobody more stubborn than them #anyyywaaay #Gideon Nav #the locked tomb #gideon the ninth #nona the ninth #harrow the ninth #harrowhark nonagesimus #the locked tomb spoilers

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bruciemilf · 2 months

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Yk what I need??? NEED the batKids to just admire Bruce’s beauty ( USHSJSNSNS ur last post about Jason calling Bruce pretty just added fuel to the fire )

Love ur blog :)!!!

Thank you! And that’s so adorable! I just adore the image of Bruce, wide awake at 3 in the morning, applying concealer all over the swollen bruises acquired tonight.

The brush is thick and fluffy, designed to spread a generous amount while maintaining a smooth application, its bristles silver and pale. Dick thinks it belonged to Bruce’s mom, because he looks terribly sad using it.

“You should be asleep, “ Bruce sighs, not entirely delighted his ward is losing precious resting time. He’s read, clearly, that children need a minimal 8 hours of sleep.

“So should you! What are you doing up?”

“Getting ready for a meeting at 7.”

“You’re like, really pretty.”

Bruce pauses, skin blossoming with sudden, flustered heat, “Oh, thank you, Dickie, that’s very kind—“

Dick’s smile beams like moonlight, “So you agree. You think you’re really pretty.”

“…I haven’t watched a single movie in 12 years, so, I think that joke is wasted.”

“Dammit. Thanks a lot, trauma.”

Oh, but Jason? The tiny boy could watch Bruce for hours. His face is so interesting. B’s eyelashes are so long, and his eyes are such a pretty hazel, just like Catherine’s, and his smile is awesome.

He feels really special, because Bruce smiles for no camera, but when Jason asks him to take his picture, he does it without complaint.

“B, boys can be pretty too, right?”

Bruce pauses a bit, not entirely confident. Should he treat this as something casual? Should he break out the educational, but welcoming dialogue? Is it something else? Why aren’t there parenting classes?

“Hn. Yeah.”

“I think you’re the prettiest man in Gotham!”

“I’m afraid that’s not true, Jason.”

“What?! How come?!”

“Because the prettiest boy in Gotham is standing right in front of me.”

Tiny Jason squeaking and squealing joyfully while Bruce takes him in his arms, peppering his soft cheeks with kisses, while a teenage Dick rolls his eyes in the background, trying not to smile.

#sorry I wanted to add more but this was getting long lol #tim admires the way Bruce can stealth and act. he’s like a social chameleon. (it’s the autism)#damian strongly believes Bruce is the most beautiful person in the world. after his mom. and he has NO problem fighting Jon abt it bc NO #your mom is pretty but not his baba pretty #as he grows up jason still likes watching Bruce get ready. but Bruce’s prettiness is more of an inconvenience #‘ugh pretty privilege am I right’ ‘dude yea. your dad is smoking ‘ ‘TF did u just agree’#bruce wayne #dc comics #dc #battinson #dick grasyon #batman #bruce wayne is a good dad #batdad #asks

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