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quietwingsinthesky · 1 year

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Omg sorry for coming into your inbox like this but I have Thoughts about AU Lucifer. As in, the one AU Michael killed. I kind of read into AU Michael's bravado about killing Lucifer as covering over extreme guilt and pain (his refering to him as 'my Lucifer' when talking to Cas broke my fucking heart), and I just like, wonder how that fight went. Was this Lucifer full of rage and pain and wanted to kill Michael and failed? Or was he despairing and did he let Michael do it? It sounds like it was a pretty fierce fight, given that Michael said he tore him apart in the sky, but just, ugh my God, I have such thoughts about them and everything with the alternate universe that could have been explored so much more. Ugh I'm sorry

god, yeah. the potential that was squandered with au!michael. look, i know this might be an idea that appeals only to me, but i do think he should have tried to lobotomize lucifer when he had him captured in a futile attempt to remake his own lucifer that he'd killed. and i think he still should have talked about killing his lucifer like he's proud of it, like he enjoyed tearing him apart, but fuck, imagine him saying stuff like that while we know he's literally trying to torture/mindfuck the main universe lucifer into being his perfect little brother again.

sorry lmao everything about any version of michael with me comes back to 'i think he should be contradicting everything he does and says all the time because he has Serious Damage going on' You know, he couldn't have his lucifer, because his lucifer had to die, had to be killed by michael, but there was a point in which lucifer was good and obedient enough that michael could love him without fear of losing him, and if he could just get that lucifer back, everything will be Fine.

(and obviously this wouldn't work. but it would be fantastic lucifer whump, too, which is always a benefit. to me :3)

#ask #spn #au!michael #lucifer spn #if you give me the option i will always go 'hey i think this character should be brainwashed or mind controlled'#because i. love when characters who Need their autonomy get it stripped from them.#late seasons lucifer who is. i mean he is a nihilistic shitlord but he's also very aware that he can Do Shit now.#where he couldn't before. this is not handled or written well but like. s5 lucifer does not have the freedom to do much of anything.#he has a role to play. he's gonna play it well. but none of this is really up to him. he understands he doesn't have free will.#whereas like. later seasons lucifer is freed from that constraint. this is both a good and bad thing for him. and for the world at large.#anyway. au!michael/lucifer lobotomy sessions <3 #where lucifer is fighting it obviously. but you know. you just know.#there's like a tiny part of him. back of his mind. that's going 'but he would love me.'#that's not au!michael's lucifer. that's not lucifer's michael. but maybe. maybe its close enough.#<3 tortures that man. out of love.#you know what my memories of the au!michael episodes are so fuzzy anyway im just gonna pretend this Did happen.#rewriting my memory of the show just like dean rewrote his gay little stint in purgatory

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revenantghost · 10 months

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Man, I think the best and worst part of Knives’s character is just how compelling he is*

I get it. You get it. We all understand exactly how and why he is the way he is. So many people have put this idea into better words than I could. He witnessed an unspeakable horror at an incredibly young age. He knew he was different, that he was other, and a worry set deeply into his bones that humanity would reject him for being born who he is.

And he was right. It was so much worse than he could have ever realized. He was born to be an object for humanity to use as they see fit. All he wanted was love and peace for himself and his brother. And after seeing that? What they did so mercilessly to Tesla? Who can blame him for not believing in any future with humanity in it. Who can imagine a future without unbelievable strife and prejudice when you’re outnumbered and are seen as an item to dissect and toy with as you see fit

And yet

In his fear, in his need to control and correct, the cycle continues. The abused becomes the abuser. He assaults his brother multiple times. He takes away Vash’s autonomy and manipulates his body without his consent. Hell he happily experiments with/tests and uses Vash’s body while unconscious. He says he loves Vash while refusing to hear a word coming out of his mouth. Because, if he has a moment of doubt, any hint of weakness, all of that anger slips away and he becomes that boy again--afraid and weak and alone

In his fear, he takes plants. He strips them of their independence and will, denying them their souls. Again, he uses the bodies of his siblings against their will. He displays their corpses to keep him angry instead of putting them to rest. He kills and breaks apart the body of his sister so that he doesn’t have to die, so that he can be reborn. He willfully denies the thoughts, dreams, and pains of his sisters and instead absorbs them, impregnates them, tries to kill them in the “right” way

In his fear, he drove humanity into hurting his kind more. He forced their hand into injuring and killing more plants than they’d ever dreamed of harming. He’s the one that put Vash into a constant position where he’s gaining mountains of scars. (His brother who, on the opposite end of the spectrum, has let the cycle of abuse continue while using himself as a shield instead of breaking free from the pattern.) He uses and discards the humans near him no matter the kindness and devotion they shows him

The same behavior Knives shows everybody and everything else

He’s awful. Absolutely sick and perverted and so stuck in his own mind that all he does is hurt and hurt and hurt

And yet

I get it. I’ve been traumatized to the point where all I want to do is cause pain in return. To feel that justice can exist and will come to pass, no matter the cost. To be so afraid that anger is the only safe emotion you can cling to. It’s what makes him one of the most compelling antagonists I’ve ever seen. Kudos to Nightow for fucking me up about Knives and his pain more by the day, honestly

*Except for ‘98 Knives lmao, that man is fabulously unhinged and overly dramatic about everything and I love him for it

#Trigun #Trigun Maximum #Trigun Stampede #Tristamp #Trimax #Trigun Meta #My Trigun Meta #Long Post #I did NOT intend for this to be so long #Maybe a quarter of this length at MOST #Ohhhh this didn't show up in the tag I'M VERY ANGY

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daresplaining · 14 days

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I'm going to need to know your FULL opinion on the erosion of Elektra Natchios in The Red Fist Saga ASAP!

OOF. Okay, here goes...

Elektra's role in the Red Fist Saga directly follows the Woman Without Fear mini-series, so I feel like I should start there, especially since I haven't really talked about it yet on this blog. Woman Without Fear was an Elektra solo comic that came out just as Devil's Reign was ending and the creative team was gearing up for the Red Fist Saga. The mini-series's purpose was to introduce big, shocking changes to Elektra's origin story. These changes didn't end up having much to do at all with the Red Fist Saga, or with anything else really, but they did functionally strip her of her agency and autonomy and made her motivations instead revolve around Matt. Now, Elektra's origin story has changed before. Frank Miller himself gave us three versions: the original, introduced in Daredevil volume 1 #168 and #190, a slight variation in Elektra: Assassin (he changed the timeline a bit and modified the character of Elektra's father), and then an entirely new, in my opinion much less interesting version in Man Without Fear-- which was not intended to be part of the 616 continuity, though that didn't stop later writers from drawing from it, including Zdarsky, who seems to have used it as a core text to inform his characterization of Elektra in general.

I know you know Elektra's original origin story, but I'll provide the general gist for anyone who might be unfamiliar: Elektra Nachios was the daughter of a rich Greek diplomat and his wife. Her mother was gunned down by assassins while pregnant, but Elektra survived. Her father, now paranoid and fearful, put Elektra in martial arts classes from a young age, while also keeping her sheltered to protect her from harm. She ended up attending college in the US, where she met Matt Murdock, another sheltered kid with a beloved but overprotective father. They fell in love, but the magic was destroyed when Elektra and her father were taken hostage by terrorists. Matt tried to be a hero, and Elektra's father ended up getting killed. Shattered by grief, Elektra left school and traveled across the world to train with Stick, who had trained her childhood martial arts teacher before casting him out (in Elektra: Assassin, the timeline is slightly different; Elektra trained with Stick before attending Columbia, though the end result is the same). Stick saw Elektra's skill, but judged that she was too emotionally compromised to complete the training and kicked her out. Elektra devised a desperate plan to prove herself to Stick: infiltrating the Hand and taking them down from the inside. She failed tragically. Turned cynical by grief and hardship, she used the skills she had picked up from all of her training as weapons to protect herself from a harsh and unforgiving world. She carved herself a life from the tragedies she had endured. She became an assassin.

Note that I mentioned Matt's name a grand total of two times in that synopsis. It's not to say that Matt isn't important to Elektra, of course he is, but he isn't that important to her origin story. The star of this beautiful tragedy is Elektra, as she should be.

Woman Without Fear introduces something new-- at least, new to the comics (more on that in a moment). It takes the Elektra: Assassin timeline and suggests that she trained with Stick when she was still a child. (It also brings in things from the Man Without Fear Elektra origin, but I don't think I'm going to get into that here because that is a whole other rant and this post is long and tangent-y enough already). It then suggests that when Stick rejected her, she still ended up with the Hand-- but not of her own will, with the intention of destroying them. No! She was successfully recruited. And once the Hand had her in their clutches, they sent her out to go after another target: Matt Murdock. In this shiny new backstory, Elektra and Matt run into each other at college not as two kindred spirits, but because Elektra was ordered to hang out with him in order to bag him for the Hand...before, oh no!, accidentally falling in love with him. To add extra insult to this character assassination, we're told in the main series that even her behavior during her father's hostage situation was intended as a test for Matt.

What this change indicates to me is a fundamental lack of understanding of Elektra's character; or worse, a lack of respect for her complexity, or a conviction that she operates at her best as a tool to further Matt's narrative.

What is possibly most baffling to me about all of this is that this change had pretty much no bearing on the Red Fist Saga. Why was it made? What was the point? The term "MCU-ification", referring to changes being made in Marvel's comics that seem aimed at aligning them more closely with the MCU, gets thrown around a lot-- possibly too much-- but this really does seem like a case where there's no other clear explanation for the change other than to shift 616 Elektra's backstory closer to that of her live action counterpart. (In the Netflix show, Elektra recruited Matt for Stick; something I, as a huge Stick and Elektra fan, actually thought was a cool What If?/alternate universe because it presented an opportunity to explore a different take on their relationship). The new backstory is mentioned a few times in the main Daredevil series, but otherwise it seems irrelevant to the plot. And that's because Elektra herself is kind of irrelevant to the plot. She seems to have three purposes in this story: 1. To serve alongside Stick as an exposition machine and provide details about the Hand/Fist/Pinky Toe/etc.; 2. To be someone Matt loves and thinks about in moments of danger and conflict (despite the fact that they have very few moments of actual emotional connection in this story, despite getting married!), and 3. As a warm body onto which Matt can project his perpetual internal musings on good and evil ("Elektra was Bad, but she is Good now. She, like all people who have done bad things, is still worthy of God's love and is capable of rehabilitation, and look! Her decision to take on the Daredevil identity is proof that she is now Good! She has become a worthy soldier of God." Man, I wish I was exaggerating.)

Elektra's appearances in Daredevil comics have always centered around Matt to some degree, simply because it is his comic. There's miles of difference between reading a DD comic with Elektra cameos and reading an Elektra solo series. But that doesn't mean it isn't frustrating to have comics like the Blackman/Del Mundo run, or the Dark Reign solo tie-in, that delve so deeply into Elektra's rich psyche, that truly do look at her worldview in a way that is complex and morally difficult and so, so compelling, and then to have comics like this where she barely even feels present because so little effort has been made to do anything other than slap some vague morality lessons onto her and make sure she and Matt sleep together every other issue.

#Daredevil vol. 7 #Woman Without Fear (2022)#Elektra Natchios #Asks #Commentary #Adventures in Continuity #Reading “Woman Without Fear” truly felt like being punched in the face. And to what end?

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andreal831 · 6 months

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Klaus and Rebekah -- Abuse

I often call Klaus out for his treatment of his siblings. Just like I call out the majority of the characters for their behavior. However, Klaus stans get very offended when I do this, even though they are the ones who say they love how evil he is. I often get accused of being biased and 'hating' Klaus. I promise you, I don't. I do not care enough about any fictional character to hate them. I may not like them or they aren't my favorite characters, but I clearly still tolerate them enough to watch the show. It's also funny because I don't talk about my least favorite characters specifically because I don't like them. Therefore, the fact that I spend time talking about Klaus means I like him to an extent. I like aspects of his character and was disappointed in his lack of development.

Too many people want to erase his abuse towards Rebekah or, even worse, justify it. As someone with a degree in Psychology and who works every day with victims of abuse, I wanted to break this down for the fandom.

First, I cannot stand it when Klaus stans want to pretend Klaus's actions are justified. Abuse is never justified. Mikael's treatment of Klaus was not okay even if Mikael thought he was creating a strong warrior. And Klaus' treatment of Rebekah is not okay even if he thinks he knows best.

Second, being abused and having trauma does not justify or relieve responsibility from someone if they then become an abuser themselves. It does happen, unfortunately, but they need to be held responsible as abusers.

Third, there are different types of abuse. One is not more damaging than another, they are all terrible and cause long-lasting trauma.

Psychical Abuse

"Involves the use of physical violence, or threats of it, to maintain power over an individual. Because of this, survivors are afraid and uncertain when more abuse will occur. This often reinforces the regular use of other, more subtle, types of abuse."

Physical abuse is the one that is talked about the most because it is so easy to see. Klaus has been physically abusing Rebekah for about 900 years. He does it so frequently that she often flinches away from him. She never knows what to expect from him, if he is going to be a loving brother or revert back to her abuser. This creates its own trauma as she loves the caring side of her brother but is terrified of what he can turn into. It's part of the reason they have such a codependent bond. She still sees the brother she loves and wants to save him.

The first moment of physical abuse that we see is after the Hunters dagger their family and Klaus slaughters them all. Klaus grabs her roughly and screams in her face. This is after Rekekah wakes up covered in blood and sees the man she loves dead. She is clearly terrified of Klaus in this scene. People will try to justify this and say Klaus was "in the right" since Rebekah shouldn't have trusted the Hunter. But, I'll refer you back to my first point, we do not blame victims for their abuse, we do not justify abusers in their actions. Rebekah did not plot against her family. She made a mistake in trusting someone, a mistake that everyone in that family has made. Hell, Klaus is sleeping with Genevive while she is actively trying to murder his child. He sleeps with Aurora while she kidnaps Rebekah and throws her into the ocean. But Rebekah was in love with the Hunter. Even after what he did, she still buried him in peace. Klaus was not in love with the women he allowed close to him and hurt his family. He does not have a moral high ground. And even if he did, again, we do not justify abuse.

This event starts a cycle of abuse. Klaus holds onto the weapons, even though, at this time he is not any stronger than his siblings and they cannot be used against him. He doesn't do it to protect them but to threaten them. Anytime they disagree with him, he threatens to take years away from them, to strip them of their bodily autonomy. They are so scared of those daggers that they won't even stand against Klaus for each other.

We don't see much of their lives, but in every era after this, we see Klaus physically abusing Rebekah. He is constantly waving the daggers around and using them against her. This is physical abuse. He is stripping her bodily autonomy away from her and taking years of her life away from her. We don't know how many times this happens but we know she lost 14 years of her life in the span of 200 years, so I can only imagine how much of her life she truly missed out on.

In the 1800s, he threatens her away from Marcel and when she doesn't obey him, he daggers her and costs her 52 years of her life. In 1920, he daggers her for wanting to be with Stefan, taking 90 years of her life away. In Season 4 TVD, he daggers her for months because she doesn't want to help him make his hybrids.

He has no problem choking her and breaking her neck after he left her to be abused and tortured by vampire hunters. He compels Marcel to kill her witch body if she disobeys him. Not to mention the sanitorium episode where she is running, scared for her life from her brother. He constantly threatens her with bodily harm if she goes against him.

Emotional Abuse

"Includes non-physical behaviors that are meant to control, isolate, or frighten someone. These behaviors are often more subtle and hard to identify but are just as serious as other types of abuse."

Even as a human Klaus is condescending to Rebekah, telling her she cannot play with knives because she is a girl, despite the fact that Rebekah is the only one of his siblings who has ever been brave enough to stand up to Mikael. I know it is the times, but as a reminder, Viking women often wielded swords.

Klaus emotionally manipulates Rebekah from early on. He continues to gaslight her and make her emotionally dependent on him. He even jokes about his abuse to her and their siblings, often make jokes about daggering them and finding a place to store them if they disagree.

The first time is right after they are turned when Klaus tells Rebekah their father killed their mother. This is a lie. He killed Esther and he knows it. He tells Rebekah that so she won't leave him. Even if it comes from a place of fear, this is emotional manipulation. He does not allow Rebekah to make an informed decision. Their entire vow is based on this lie.

Klaus is very good at framing himself as the victim and making his siblings feel guilty, even when he has done the same or worse. He refers to himself as their "bastard-brother" often and talks about them abandoning him, which is just a lie. Rebekah and Elijah never once abandoned him for 900 years. Elijah only left to lead Mikael away and the only time we see Rebekah leave is when she is daggered. Yes, Rebekah begins to act in reaction to Klaus' abuse, but it takes about 700 years of being abused before she even does this. Also, you can't use Rebekah calling Mikael as an explanation since he didn't find out about that until 2012/2013.

I would also like to point out, Klaus is celebrated for killing his abuser but Rebekah is condemned for 'trying' to kill hers. I also hold that she didn't actually want him dead, she acted in pain and instantly regretted it. He is also the one who abandons her multiple times, even leaving her in Mystic Falls after she has been daggered for 90 years.

Klaus has no compassion for Rebekah's feelings. He is constantly belittling her for loving or caring for others. He would often make comments, especially in front of others, about her being stupid or naive. Like making fun of her love for Alexander in front of Stefan or making fun of her in front of Marcel. This is a very common way for abusers to control their victims. If the victim feels small and insignificant, they do not feel brave enough to leave. He constantly makes her feel like she is nothing, that she has nothing so she has no choice but to stay with him.

He lets her think he is dead for days, despite what he knows it will do to her. When he reveals himself, he leaves her in the hands of self-declared vampire hunters and makes no move to rescue her even later.

And then Klaus' moment of 'growth' is when he doesn't kill her in the cemetery in Season 1, but "sets her free." Again, this is a way for him to exercise his control over her life. He is exiling her but frames it in a way that he is the good guy. He has complete control over her life still. She is not allowed to return to see Marcel, Hayley, Elijah, or anyone. She only is able to return when Klaus needs her.

Sexual Abuse

"Sexual abuse is when a partner controls the physical and sexual intimacy in a relationship. This often involves acting in a way that is non-consensual and forced."

I think we can all admit, Klaus and Rebekah have a very strange relationship. He is very possessive of her and it often comes across as a toxic boyfriend.

For some reason, Rebekah has to ask her brothers' permission to turn her boyfriend, Emil, into a vampire. Further showing her lack of autonomy. Klaus laughs at her and shames her for her love life. He then takes it a step further and throws Emil off the balcony, proving to Rebekah once again that she is not allowed to have anyone in her life outside of him. He even does it with his siblings when he sees Rebekah and Elijah acting too close, he attempts to victimize himself, pretending they are excluding him because he is their half-brother, rather than for the real reason that he has hurt them once again.

The next romantic interest for Rebekah is Marcel. I'm not going to get into the problems there, but we do need to acknowledge the grooming that occurred. But that is not why Klaus is opposed to the relationship. He doesn't want Rebekah to pursue Marcel because he views them as being his. He doesn't want them to have anything in their life outside of him. When she disobeys, he punishes her. He doesn't punish Marcel even though Marcel was the one who pursued her. He only punishes her. Not only does he dagger her, but he barters her life for Marcel's desire to become a vampire. He does this specifically to drive an even deeper wedge between Rebekah and Marcel, so that when he undaggers her after 52 years, she will not seek a relationship with Marcel.

Klaus then wants props for later "giving permission" for Marcel and Rebekah to have a relationship. It is completely sick that he thinks he is allowed to regulate his sister's love life.

Rebekah next forms an attachment with Stefan. She actually meets Stefan first, but because Klaus is jealous, he is constantly throwing fits in the 20s and wants to separate the two. When it is time to run, he doesn't give Stefan the chance to come with them. He compels Stefan to forget about them, despite it being Rebekah's boyfriend. Rebekah decides she wants to stay with him and he daggers her for 90 years for this 'betrayal.' In fact, he only releases her when he plans to use her against Stefan. When he is done with her, he abandons her in Mystic Falls to go create his own family of hybrids.

And if you think this is okay because Rebekah is 'breaking their vow,' I want you to really think about that. Rebekah is 900 years old and not allowed to essentially move out and start her own life because her older brother never learned to make his own friends/romantic partners.

I also think we need to evaluate the vow. While Klaus may have kept to the words of it, he did not keep to the meaning of it. "Always and forever" was meant to show their loyalty and love for each other. Not that they were not allowed to have their own lives. Klaus broke his vow by keeping them in a box and robbing years of their lives. That is not an act of love but an act of abuse.

When they are back in New Orleans, he is constantly using her past with Marcel against her. He blames her for the issues with Marcel even though he was the one who introduced Marcel to the family and supposedly raised him. It is just another way to emotionally manipulate her as well as control her romantic life.

And then at the end of The Originals, the only glimpse of remorse we see is that he tells Caroline to get the cure for Rebekah. He doesn't apologize for the thousand years of abuse he inflicted on her and acts like this one act (which he has very little to do with) will make up for the rest of it. Someone recently pointed out the timing of it. Klaus didn't want her to take the cure before, but now that he is dying, he is fine with it. Since the show did very little to show growth in his relationship with Rebekah, it's not out of the realm of possibility that he has it in his head that Rebekah will be able to join him in the afterlife sooner if she takes the cure.

All of this to say, Klaus spent 900 years abusing his sister. Yes, she began to react against him, but that doesn't make it okay for him to continue to abuse her. It is fine to like Klaus' character, but it is not fine to justify abuse. People suffer this type of abuse every day and justifying it on social media allows this abuse to continue to be justified in real life. Don't be so blinded by a fictional character as to hurt real-life victims.

#anti klaus mikaelson #not really anti #but accountability #rebekah mikaelson #the vampire diaries #tvdu #the originals #klaus mikaelson #the mikaelsons #tvd

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msfcatlover · 10 days

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I have been thinking so much about Jean-Paul Valley in my Reverse!Robins AU. Specifically, how he’d react to Steph’s return.

Because, listen: here is a man who had his autonomy stripped from him. Had his identity stripped from him. By the cult his father secretly raised him to serve, while letting Jean-Paul think he was having a normal childhood (and he did. That is one of the things I like about JPV as a character; in the original “Azrael: Fallen Angel” & “Knightfall” stories, he had a perfectly normal childhood… aside from the hypnotic brainwashing implanted while he slept.) This guy who was tricked into murdering several people, when he never, ever wanted that.

He gets saved by the Bats. And they help him. They really, genuinely help him, and sure, Duke & Damian are still teenagers (JPV’s like… 20-22 at this point in my mind,) but they’re also his anchors to reality. Damian, who also was raised to be a weapon by someone he should’ve been able to trust. Damian, who has experience with cults & rebuilding your identity after losing everything. Damian, who’s basically JPV’s “Brainwashed Cult Assassins Anonymous” sponsor. Duke, who also had a normal childhood. Duke, who knows Gotham like only a kid who was raised in its heart can. Duke, who agrees that this whole situation is certifiably fucked, but never hesitates to help Jean-Paul potentially recover a lost memory or find a new one, because it’s not just about who Jean-Paul was before the cult of St Dumas got their hands on him, it’s about remembering that he’s a living human being right now.

They take him in. They save him. They help him save himself. Bruce offers to pay for him to go back to college, for fuck’s sake!

They gave him his life back.

Jean-Paul can never, ever repay them. They tell him they don’t need it, but he wants to and he can’t. He feels so selfish to take & take without giving back, but how do you pay someone back for all that?

So his couch is always open to them, whenever they want. He’ll be their ally, their friend, their confessor, their confidant, their homework editor if need be. And when newer batkids join, well, Jean-Paul would’ve done his best anyway, but the fact he’s entrusted with Duke & Damian’s apprentices is just. It’s something else. And it’s hardly a hardship—the kids are a delight. Obnoxious, sure, and messy, and pushy, and constantly interrupting, and sometimes they break his stuff, and always they eat all his food, but Jean-Paul has more civilian friends now, and they tell him that’s just what kids are like.

What matters is that he loves them. He loves them because Duke & Damian love them, and then he loves them for being them.

And then. Stephanie. Dies. (Because Jean-Paul is broken, he’s a sinner, he can never make up for what he’s done, what he is, and he can never have nice things. Because Steph was sunshine & rage & stubbornness, because she joked that “We blondes have to stick together!” Because no one was there for her when it mattered most. This has to be punishment, right? He got too close, and Steph paid the price.) (His therapist says he’s being irrational again, but it doesn’t feel irrational. They say they need to adjust his medications. Jean-Paul knows better than to trust himself, but he can trust in Bruce to make sure the therapist is safe, so Jean-Paul doesn’t fight it. He’s not happy, but he doesn’t fight it. Because if he starts hallucinating again, he knows it won’t just be his father hovering over him, demanding to know why Azrael refused to avenge them. So yeah, sure, adjust the meds if you think it’s needed—he doesn’t miss Steph that badly. Yet.)

And then. Steph. Comes. Back.

She’s not dead. She’s not dead, but she’s different, she’s so very, very different. Damian says she fights like she spent time with the LoA, that same cult that raised Damian which he’s told Jean-Paul so much about over the years. Training like that takes time, but it’s been 6yrs, and she’s back, risen & gifted back to them! And she’s killing, but Jean-Paul’s killed before, and he’s been kidnapped by a cult before, and he thinks he knows how this goes. Death Mask isn’t Azrael, but he thinks it’s close enough.

And. And. And. He can save her. Because he knows what to do now, after nearly a decade in recovery. He can make up for his sins, he can bring her home again, and maybe, finally, he’ll have finally managed to pay them all back! He can give Steph her self back to make up for—(“You didn’t kill Stephanie,” his therapist reminds him, “you never laid a finger on her. Remember? You didn’t hurt her. It’s not your fault.” But it feels like it is, it feels like it, he can’t shake the idea that he did)—and he can give the Bats their sister back to make up for all that they’ve given him over all this time! A life for a life, and yes! This feels right!

He cooks up scenarios, imagines Steph reaching out in a moment of lucidity, or showing up injured on his doorstep guided by muscle memory, or running into her on the street or in a cafe and the look of alarm & recognition in her eyes as she—like he did, still does occasionally—knows that she knows him but can’t remember. He imagines the conversations they could have, all the different variations, and knows that it will take time, but patience is a virtue and Jean-Paul’s gotten rather good at it. He can be her anchor.

He just needs to figure out how to start.

(And meanwhile, Steph’s on the other side of Gotham like, “Why are my ears burning, and why do I feel like I’m staring down a tsunami-level wave of second-hand embarrassment right now?”)

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harlivycentral · 1 year

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I wanna talk about Harley & Ivy's dynamic in Conner and Palmiotti's iconic Harley Quinn run, why I love it so much, and why I'm hopeful that the new Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn series will pick up and expand on that legacy. Let's start with the two times we see Harley & Ivy kiss in the Conner and Palmiotti run.

I believe these are the only two times we see Harley & Ivy really kiss each other in Conner & Palmiotti's run (aside from the infamously edited kiss when Ivy throws Harley a surprise party). But there's something incredibly sweet to me in the fact that there's a recurrent theme of Ivy & Harley kissing each other to save each other.

The first kiss is from Harley Quinn Annual (2013) #1, where Ivy has been brainwashed, and Harley's first instinct to bring Ivy back to herself is to kiss her. The next kiss is from Harley Quinn (2016) #29, when Harley's been dosed by Scarecrow's fear gas during a mayoral debate (remember when Harley was running for mayor?), and Ivy leaps onstage to give Harley the antidote via a kiss. When either of them have been overcome by mind-altering substances, most of their selves and their autonomy stripped away, the other knows that a reminder of their relationship and what they mean to each other will bring them. They each instinctually recognize that their relationship with one another is a foundational and safe one that reminds each of them of who their authentic self is.

These kisses just encapsulates what I love about Conner and Palmiotti's run, which is that, even when DC wouldn't ever quite let them make Harlivy canon, they still managed to write Harley & Ivy as clearly such a grounding, safe force in one another's lives. Ivy isn't in every issue of their run, but she tends to turn up whenever Harley is going through something major. Every other character just seems to go along with Harley's hijinks, viewing her as indestructible (probably because Harley tends to think of and present herself that way). But then Ivy shows up, asking Harley when the last time she ate was, taking her out to dinner and a movie and checking in that she's not overtaxing herself, like we see in Harley Quinn (2016) #16 (below) or making sure she's emotionally prepared to face Joker when she has to break into Arkham in Harley Quinn (2013) #25.

But the thing is, it's not just Ivy taking care of Harley that we see in the series. Harley also takes care of Ivy, cajoling her into much-needed vacations like the spa day we see them take in Harley Quinn (2016) #1, which Harley puts together as a thank you for Ivy helping her out at the end of her New 52 series.

It's clear that they appreciate and trust one another, and each of them is always trying to make sure the other is getting the rest and care they need. The few times we see Harley really and truly relax in this series, it's usually with Ivy. It's no coincidence that Conner and Palmiotti chose to end their last Harley comic with Ivy & Harley finally together on a much-talked about and much-needed vacation.

They wanted to leave the character on a good note, and what better way than with Ivy? Harley and Ivy's relationship was the heart of the run, and Conner and Palmiotti's ending solidifies that. (Then there is the tagged on Harley Quinn and the Birds of Prey series, which gives Harley another ending that I love so much it will have to get its whole own post another time. Needless to say, Ivy is also a crucial part of that ending as well.)

However, while Conner made it clear on twitter (and in the writing) that she and Palmiotti were intentionally writing Harley and Ivy's relationship as romantic, this was before DC would allow it to be canon (although the subtext is very much there). Which may explain, at least in part, why Harley asks Ivy to move in with her multiple times throughout the series, only for Ivy to rebuff her every time.

Which, of course, brings us to the new ongoing Poison Ivy series and the soon-to-be-released first issue of Howard's Harley Quinn run. In the new Poison Ivy series, we're once again seeing Harley asking Ivy, if not to move in with her, to come back to Gotham to be with her. In a reversal, we now have Ivy living in Seattle while Harley is in Gotham (whereas Conner and Palmiotti had Harley living in Brooklyn with Ivy back in Gotham).

It's the same conflict we've had before--Ivy not sure she can move in with Harley--but we get the the argument in a new context, one in which Ivy refers to Harley as the woman she loves, where she kisses Harley with no pretext needed and talks about how much she loves spending time in bed with her, where the relationship is clearly romantic and the conflict thus no longer feels manufactured to keep them apart. I think Conner and Palmiotti did a wonderful job writing Harley and Ivy's dynamic, given the editorial constraints they were working with, and the return to the conflict in the recent Poison Ivy series doesn't read to me as stasis but as an opportunity to more fully explore and resolve the emotions underlying Ivy's reluctance to move in with Harley in the past.

In both Conner and Palmiotti's run and Poison Ivy's current solo series, Harley is a respite for Ivy, and that scares her. Ivy's afraid to lean too fully into the safety and comfort of her relationship with Harley because she's worried what it will mean for her work, for her quest to protect and avenge the environment. Now that current creative teams are able to fully acknowledge the depth of feeling between Harley and Ivy, and no longer have to keep their relationship boxed in as not-quite-romantic, I'm hopeful that this re-exploration of Ivy's feelings about moving in with Harley will get a different resolution than they did in Conner and Palmiotti's run.

Conner and Palmiotti were able to write Harley and Ivy as a very healthy couple, where they both took care of and supported each other. When we saw them navigating fears about how their relationship might affect their work, it never broke them apart. Harley and Ivy are now canonically both gay and survivors of abuse at the hands of men. It's incredibly special to get to see gay women who are survivors of abuse in a healthy relationship with one another, one where they're equals who support each other. Conner and Palmiotti laid the groundwork of this dynamic, and I'm hopeful that we'll see it meaningfully expanded on in the near future.

#Harley Quinn #Poison Ivy #harlivy #DC comics #harley trauma recovery tag

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aheathen-conceivably · 22 days

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oh. my. god. the writing in your latest post!!!! it's just sublime! the insight into jo's head is so raw, i love it

Ahhh my Nonny friend! Thank you so much.

Jo has really been getting into my head this arc. Like little by little she’s been taking over my brain, and this post was the final nail in the coffin if you will, or peeling back that last layer of the onion to see what’s been festering beneath the surface of the flapper we met and fell in love with (which, also, the one Gio fell in love with too 👀).

This whole arc her life has been being stripped back, not only from the excitement and the glamor of the roaring 20s, but also her sense of self. The deceptive simplicity of their lives now (and the 1930s as a broader idea), has not revealed a better, calmer life for her the way it has for our other three characters.

She’s kind of known that from the beginning though, right? But she’s been putting all of her (considerable) strength into trying to make it work, because despite everything, Josephine wants to do what she perceives as the right thing. She wants to be loyal to her family and the people she loves, and she knows that she derives joy from their presence. Only this is fighting with her need to reestablish her sense of freedom and autonomy, in turn creating a toxic cocktail of love and guilt thats then amplifying the feeling of being trapped all the more. To the point that this is absolutely a woman who is very close to snapping…

But what does that breaking point look like if it happens where she is now? Feeling powerless and trapped with no one to blame for her misery other than herself? When she’s consumed by her past and her pain almost to a delirious degree?

Or what if she can find a way to “outsource” these feelings? To pin them on someone or something and justify her actions so that she doesn’t have to deal with the unpleasant knowledge that it’s coming from within? Welp. Welcome to arc two babes.

#listen Nonny listen #I’m sorry #I know you didn’t ask for this Ted talk but my brain is fully rotted #so I used you as an excuse to go off about this whole thing 🙃#I thank you for your kindness and your service 🫡#Josephine Duplanchier extra #ask #answered

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burst-of-iridescent · 11 months

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so i just went through your entire anti-lok tag and everything you said in it was SO WELL WRITTEN. i wanted to ask if you might have any analyses or anything (or just good old rants! we love being bryke haters) - about something that i noticed, which is this sort of... ATLA/TLOK dichotomy between how all aang's villains seem to be focused on gaining power/dominating the world or whatever, but the villains in TLOK seem to revolve around very pointed targeting of korra and specifically stripping her of her agency/bodily autonomy, but i don't know how to expand on that point.

(idk just. TLOK has a whole list of scenes that make me VIOLENTLY uncomfortable in a way even the worst of ATLA doesn't? and i thought you might have some input to share about it, if you don't mind me asking)

thank you sm!! i'm glad you enjoy my lok and bryke salt <33

i know what you mean, because it's something that struck me when i was watching lok as well. korra's villains are far more personal to her (particularly in what they do to her, or want from her) than azula or ozai or even zhao ever were to aang, and while that isn't necessarily a bad thing (in fact it can often be good to have a personal relationship between your hero and villain; just look at how much more impactful and meaningful zuko and azula's arc was compared to aang and ozai's), there is a way to do it right and that was... not what bryke did.

we didn't need to see korra brutally bloodbent and stripped of her bending, or brutally attacked by unalaq, or brutally tortured by the red lotus or - you got it - brutally beaten up by kuvira (over and over again, might i add). i'm not saying that violence never has its place in storytelling, but it needs to have an actual purpose that's not just shock value. atla, for instance, knew when and how to utilise violence: the sight of gyatso's skeleton in the southern air temple, aang's murder by azula, even katara bloodbending... the violence in all of those scenes was necessary either to communicate vital information to the audience, or drive home the emotive and narrative significance of the moment, or both.

in lok though, bryke hardly, if ever, achieved either of these objectives - especially because it was mainly only ever korra who got the brunt of the violence. no other character is repeatedly targeted and assaulted and violated even half as much as korra is, even when they're facing the same antagonists. tenzin's fight against the red lotus in book 3 gets a tasteful pan to black (one of the few times i think bryke did use violence purposefully; knowing what not to show is just as important as knowing what to show, and leaving the audience with the dread of tenzin's fate was actually sadder and more terrifying than letting us see what happened to him) but korra's agonizing torture at the hands of the red lotus is so long and drawn-out that it begins to veer into torture porn.

imo, this can probably be attributed to two things: 1) bry.ke thinking trauma = character development because they don't know how else to write a good character arc (and they still somehow fucked it up - i will never forgive them for making korra thank zaheer, of all people, for helping her overcome her trauma, like what the absolute fuck bry.ke), and 2) they wanted lok to be "more mature" than atla, which shows both that they fundamentally didn't understand atla, or what constitutes good storytelling, and also that someone desperately needs to tell them that simply upping the violence and hamfistedly handling "complex" topics does not maturity make.

(given the way bryke has written women, i also have to side-eye the fact that the strong-willed, independent, brown female protagonist is beaten and battered and torn down far more than the peaceful, affable light-skinned male protagonist ever is, even during an actual war.)

and of course, contrary to what our dear bryke probably expected, simply brutalizing korra season after season in the name of shock value and development did not, to anyone else's surprise, make lok the better show in the end.

#anti lok #anti bryke #apologies for how long it took me to get to this ask! thank you for being so patient <3 #as an aside i see your tags and comments on my posts a lot and i always love reading them #please feel free to let me know more of your thoughts anytime! <3

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mythicalwatch101 · 6 months

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HELLO. I AM HERE TO TALK ABOUT KROMER/CANTO 3

kromie is one of my Favorite characters Of All Time and if i see one more person horribly misinterpret her & her story & her motivations i am for real going to distort

FIRST AND FOREMOST

CANTO 3 ISN'T ABOUT ABLEISM

(it's not about racism either. she's not "cyborg racist". god damn it.)

canto 3 is about

religious extremism & societal pressure

PROSTHETICS IN THE CITY ≠ DISABILITY

prosthetics in the pm world are pretty obviously NOT the same as prosthetics in our world, and using them to point towards kromer being ableist is one of the weakest arguments i have ever seen in my entire life. give me ONE piece of evidence of kromer being ableist that doesn't mention prosthetics i fucking dare you

look at that. it's not about needing a missing arm replaced, or legs that you can walk on; it's about doing away with all of the inefficiencies of a flesh and blood body. you can get so much more work done if you don't need to eat or sleep!

unfortunately, there are many ways to be ableist and if she truly was, to the point where it was an important part of her character with an entire canto centered around it (like hating pm-prosthetics is), then i feel like maybe

just maybe

she would express this in other ways

that don’t involve slaughtering people that just happen to be made of metal.

just a thought.

which brings me to my next point

Prosthetics in the City are about class and money and the societal pressure i mentioned earlier

UNNECESSARY PRESSURE TO CONFORM TO THE AESTHETIC

WORTHLESS SURGERIES THAT POOR PEOPLE CAN’T AFFORD AND YET FEEL THE NEED TO GET ANYWAY

SINCLAIR’S BODILY AUTONOMY BEING STRIPPED AWAY FROM HIM SO THAT HE MATCHES HIS FAMILY

sinclair's family even turned their DOG into a robot for god's sake

it's a fad! it's cool to turn yourself into a robot! it's the new thing everyone is doing, so now you have to do it too to fit in with everyone else! even sinclair himself acknowledges this when talking about his family

also adding a ruina screenshot from this post i saw a while ago that i think you all should read

was hesitant to include it because i wanted to make my point without dragging ruina into this, to prove that you don't NEED the context from ruina to understand kromer's beliefs and motivations, but like. look at this. what the fuck.

"adjust emotions" "completely shut off desires" look me in the eyes and tell me this has ANYTHING to do with disability. i dare you. this is some rich people shit

prosthetics are a LUXURY for some, and a TOOL for others; something for rich people to enjoy, and for poor people to either get a shitty version of, or to sell their soul to afford, so that they can survive in the capitalist's dream world! kind of reminds me of cars, actually

(the extra info abt prosthetics from ruina helps, but as someone who has mostly only played limbus & doesn’t have the full context of the other games, it’s obvious even to me that they're not a disability thing)

in conclusion;

kromer is not ableist

she just really really really likes flesh and is super weird about it

to paraphrase/add to something someone said in that post i linked earlier: the district has an "ideal form" for the human body, and kromer has an "ideal form" for the human body, but these "ideal forms" are not the same

she prefers the human body the way it is, and when she sees this "ideal form" that's like the exact opposite of HER "ideal form" starting to take over, she resorts to being a violent bloodthirsty cult leader about it because she sucks ass and is incapable of being normal

she is a bad person and you are allowed to hate her ofc but please for the love of god hate her for something she’s actually done. stop making shit up

#just like my earlier post about dante my thoughts are very jumbled and disorganized #and i wrote this out of order and then pieced it all together in a way that i hope makes sense #so if the pacing or the order things are written or whatever seems weird that's why #limbus company #project moon #long post #myth posts #i've had this rant rattling around in my brain for a while but i'm only writing & posting it now because i've reached the #''too many people are misinterpreting my fav'' breaking point. i can't take this anymore. augh #kromie i'm so sorry people are misinterpreting you like this. get behind me i'll protect you

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booktomoviebrawl · 8 months

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We are not judging how bad the movie is, we are judging which adapted the book the worst. There are good movies that are bad adaptions.

Propaganda below the cut (spoilers may apply)

Ella Enchanted:

Literally just They Would Not Fucking Say That the whole time. Also wtf is up with the holding hands and singing with the ogres??? BOOK ELLA HELPED GET THEM KILLED

The movie completely missed the point of the book. The characters were changed, the plot was changed, the message was changed!! The book is a coming of age story that expands upon Cinderella, explaining all bizarre set ups on the story. Ella's autonomy is taken away from her constantly and it is a horrible struggle for her! In the movie, it is mostly treated as a joke. And we don't see Ella come up with creative ways to defy her curse, like she does in the book. The romance in the movie is a strange "not like other girls" story we see over and over again in movies. In the book, it is a friendship formed by two people who have a lack of control in their lives and become close friends who then fall in love after years of knowing each other. There are more reasons it was a bad adaptation but those are my main points of contention as of right now.

The book was subtle, witty and generally amazing. Ella is a strong character, the exploration of her grief over losing her mother takes up a good 1/3 of the book, all the characters are complex and interesting, and she and Prince Charmont are a romantic couple who actually like each other. Its messaging is about autonomy and strength of will, and its world is rich and interesting and well-built with all its magical creatures. Meanwhile, the movie strips out all of the complexities, completely changes the plot from Cinderella to Hamlet, makes Ella and Char a standard Bickering Romcom Couple, and makes its message more about "we all need to get along!" by making all the fantasy races boring and one-note. As a movie, it's...meh, but as an adaptation, THEY MURDERED MY GIRL!

Fahrenheit 451:

The attempt to modernize the story to include the internet really didn’t work. Neither did replacing the book people painstakingly preserving knowledge with dumb technobabble about rewriting a bird’s DNA to include the text of every book ever written. Worst of all was what they did to Clarisse McClellan; turning her from a blithe spirit who inspires Montag to be a better person into a traitor selling out the book people. They also aged her up to make her a love interest for Montag because of course they did.

Okay so I don't remember the plots that well since I only watched the movie once in middle school BUT I do remember how VISCERALLY ANGRY the movie made me feel. For one, they didn't stick to the plot of the book AT ALL. The movie killed the protag, Guy Montag, at the end, when he got to live and rebuild society in the book. In addition, there was a character, Clarisse McClellan, who was a teenage girl (and possibly a daughter figure to Montag) in the books, but then was aged up to be Montag's LOVE INTEREST in the movie, which felt incredibly gross to me. There are probably other things that I'm missing, but these are the two that I remember.

The original book is a perfect example of what happens when you suppress the written word. It focused less on the relationship with humans and technology and more on the freedom of press access. In a world only a few books are allowed, that would also mean only a few ideas would be.

Now I’m talking about the modern movie by HBO. The wife is gone, who stood as an amazing parallel to Guy Montag’s thoughts of her just being okay with living in her dystopia while Guy questioned it. The girl is now a love interested, while in the book she was there to help Montag explore his worldview more. Also, books was more about censorship than human’s relationship with technology. Yes there are themes of it. But the movie makes Montag into a social media star.

Speaking of Clarisse (the girl), she’s a traitor to the resistance in the movie, she tells Montag where the books of the old lady are. It’s the resistance against a world where free speech is limited. And the old lady goes “heres the code word” *sets herself on fire* while in the book after the books are set ablaze she just burns with them.

the books are also in the DNA of a bird.

Like what the fuck is this movie Fahrenheit 451 is an A-B type of story! If it ain’t broke. Don’t fix it

#tournament poll #ella enchanted #fahrenheit 451

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stainedglassthreads · 10 months

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I’ve talked about this a lot before but I feel like what’s so great about Undertale’s characters is that all (well, most) of the flaws of the characters are really just their positive traits, exaggerated to such a degree that they’re no longer useful.

Asgore is a kind king who will always put the needs of his people before his own needs, and will stop to help even the meekest and lowliest Whimsun or Froggit. Even if if goes against his morals and slowly destroys his mental health until he wants to die. Asgore is very in-touch with his emotions for a male character, and is very open about crying easily and being kind to others--but he also lets his anger make him make a decision in front of the entirety of his kingdom that they love, but he regrets very, very soon afterwards. His traits and feelings and emotions exist at different levels--we get the example of him going to MK’s school to talk about responsibility, we get the note that anyone can come to his house at any time and talk about their problems, but we ALSO get the lead-up to his boss fight of monsters speaking of him like he’s a God they worship, because they fully trust HE will be the one to destroy the Barrier and lead them back to the Surface.

Toriel is kind and loving and dotes on her children, but she’s been through so much loss that she becomes smothering, overprotective, and overbearing. Toriel is an incredibly moral person, but she sticks so hard to her sense of ethics that she leaves her husband over it. Toriel sticks so strongly to her sense of ethics that, even when she has herself totally convinced that there’s no way to talk Monsterkind and Asgore down from their war, she still tries to teach Frisk how to peacefully defuse a conflict until she can come and scare off that monster. But she also fails to see how much harm even a child can cause with enough LV until it’s too late.

How Chara’s completionist tendencies are remembered as a cute character quirk by the Dreemurrs in the Winter Alarm Clock dialogue, but we see how horrifying it can be in No Mercy when Chara is stripped of emotion and remorse, left with nothing but the purpose of power. How Frisk’s determination can be equally terrifying--whether you choose Pacifist or No Mercy, it results in no monster you can find and fight being left behind. For better or for worse.

Undyne is passionate and dedicated and determined and wants so very much to imitate heroism. In No Mercy this is what spurs her character development and allows her to become Undyne the Undyine, but in Pacifist this also leads to her trying to chase down and brutally murder a child who has quite literally never harmed a fly. Alphys only ever wants to help people and be liked, but when she makes an honest mistake and creates the Amalgamates, she’s so terrified of how others will react that she hides them away and makes everyone miserable, herself included.

Etc, etc, etc. This great character writing even continues in Deltarune. Rudy wants to be the kind, chilled out parent to make up for his wife’s overbearingness--but at the same time, he knows he’s not doing so great right now, and it’s unknown if he’s ever tried confronting his wife about how she’s tried to raise Noelle and the effects it’s had on their daughter. Lancer is very earnest and eager to please, whether he’s trying to be the Bad Guy for his Dad, or Susie’s friend, and it hurts to see him so earnestly trying to protect Susie, even as she lashes out against him, in Deltarune’s first chapter. Ralsei tries incredibly hard to support and comfort Kris, to the extent he surrenders his own autonomy and free will. Asgore is still the kind and helpful and thoughtful king from Undertale--but he’s no longer a King, and he’s broke, and he sometimes sees his ex-wife at the grocery store, and if he doesn’t learn to move on from the past and put himself first it’s not going to end well, and Undyne is still passionate and heroic but she’s now stuck in a town where there’s no bad guys for her to fight, and--

...Anyways. I have Thoughts about utdr characters. The sky is blue. What else is there to say.

#utdr #undertale #deltarune

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xeyesofstardust · 1 year

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Here's the thing about Legacies

Like TVD, I think Legacies had the potential to be a supernatural power house like BTVS was before it but they were so stuck in the formula and doing what they'd always done before that they refused to take risks and apart of that was refusing to get rid of Julie Plec as a writer.

The TVDU was/is in desperate need of some new blood to actually take the series where it should've been taken.

Both TVD and Legacies biggest strengths were its female characters and how powerful they were capable of being but unfortunately Julie Plague had this disgusting habit of stripping them of their power just to hand it off to a male character to prop them up constantly.

She did this with Bonnie and Elena (& sometimes but not too much with Caroline) - stripping them entirely of their autonomy, turning them into a damsel in distress just so she could prop up the Salvatores.

I knew from the second it was announced Nina Dobrev was leaving the show that she was going to do with to Bonnie.

I'd hoped there would've been someone to stop her from this but I didn't hold my breath for it because we all know the TVDU writers room are just Julie Plex yes men.

Caroline was mostly spared from this (only finding herself in the whole damsel and distressing in the beginning of S01 and S07) but I think it's that way because Julie started using her as a self-insert for herself after S03 when she became oddly fixated with the Salvatore Brothers that creeped me out.

I think if I could change one thing about Legacies is make it more about female empowerment like Buffy always was. Get rid of all that stuff where they sacrifice all of Hope's storylines for ship stuff.

I mean, I love Landon and all his dorkiness. I mean I love Landon, all his dorkiness included.

I mean I love Landon and his dorkiness but I think these characters should learn to exist without a relationship defining them.

But characters should be able to exist on their own without there being so reliant on who they are currently dating and that's the problem with Julie Plec. She cannot write a character without them being defined by who they are dating and she completely massacre's them when their already established as being interesting on their own and removes everything until there is nothing left but who they are in love with.

It makes me so angry that she does this and it's why I don't really accept anything that happened on TVD as cannon after she became the head writer.

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andreal831 · 3 months

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TVDU needs a more diverse representation of feminine strength

Can we leave behind this idea that woman have to exhibit stereotypical masculine traits to be "badass"?

We see this with nearly ever female character in TVDU. While, yes, there are women who have these traits naturally, TVDU forces this idea that femininity is bad and every woman responds to trauma or grows as a character by adopting masculine traits. This is referred to as the "tomboy" trope. We often see the feminine characters portrayed as naïve or ditzy and the masculine characters as strong and brave.

We have these characters in the beginning of the show that are nice, gentle, caring, all these things that we associate with femininity. But when they "grow" as a character, the become cruel, harsh, and selfish. They become their male counterparts.

Again, this isn't saying that woman are not just as capable of these traits as the men, they are. It's also not saying that all men behave this way. And there is nothing wrong with mixing and matching traits and characters, however, we need to see more diversity shown in a positive light. I wanted to see the show glorify more strong "girly" female characters or even strong, feminine men. We see Stefan tend to exhibit more compassionate traits, but he is often mocked for it or it is shown as a reaction to his addiction, rather than a natural way for men to behave.

Katherine is a great example of women taking on more "masculine" tendencies. While she may have started out exhibiting strong feminine qualities when she was human, her fighting to survive made her leave behind her feminine qualities and adopt more masculine ones. We also have to acknowledge how naïve they portrayed Katherine as a human. She was not only kind and compassionate, but easily manipulated by Klaus. We don't see the cunning woman that we see in present time. But this can make sense since she had five hundred years to harden. We don't see her go through it all, but the way she talks about her life, the audience can understand how she changed. The writers saw how much people loved Katherine and really just said copy/paste. All of the women go through so much that they just keep applying this same formula to each of them.

Elena essentially becomes Katherine for a few seasons. I love early seasons of Elena and then the very end when she turns human again. But as a vampire, she loses, ironically, so much of her humanity. The thing that made her character special. She was a caring person and her friends and family were her whole world. She wanted to be a doctor and save people and help those around her. She didn't want to harm anyone or be cruel. But as a vampire, she becomes so wrapped up in her personal life that she neglects everything else. She compromises her morals over and over again and you see her becoming Katherine at a much quicker rate. It's also worth noting how often Elena's autonomy is stripped away from her as a human versus the independence she can only seem to get by being a stereotypical vampire.

I know the writer's racism is the reason we didn't see Bonnie go down this path because they didn't want to give her a main storylines. If they had, they likely would have done the exact same thing, because it was all they knew how to do with women. But I love that Bonnie was always a caring person. Yes, it was frustrating to watch people take advantage of her, which they often do with caring characters. But it was refreshing to see her fight against the stereotype of needing to be a selfish, angry person in order to be a badass. She was an amazing, strong character and it was rooted in her compassion. Most of the women, in TVD specifically, have periods where I just don't like the characters, but Bonnie never does. And she isn't given enough credit for actually standing up for herself. But because she does it in a compassionate way, it is overlooked. Bonnie set healthy boundaries, rather than cutting people off or trying to kill them. She was the humanity of the entire show.

Bonnie and Cami to me play the same role in the show. They are the moral compass for the audience. They help remind the audience that the vampires are still the bad guys even if they are the main characters. While I understand Cami's vampire era, I hated that they made her go "dark." We've already seen this way of dealing with trauma. I would have loved to see someone handle their trauma in a healthy way. The show seemed to think the only way to handle life was to get angry and hard. They essentially try to push Cami to be more like Klaus. Whether this is because they felt like she needed to be more "badass" to be with Klaus or because they were attempting to turn the audience against her, I don't know. But they took a character who's strength came from her hope in humanity and twisted her to be just another angry vampire.

I also find it interesting that no one says Klaus or Vincent were trying to "change" Cami by reminding her of who she was before like they do with Stefan and Elijah. But that's another post.

A woman doesn't need to shed her femininity in order to be strong and independent. Masculine traits should not be the only ones we value. (I could write another post on how the men are seen as lesser when they exhibit more feminine traits)

We see bits of this with Rebekah in TO. We start seeing more of a compassionate side of her come out. But a lot of it is shown as her being naïve. They belittle her for still fighting for love after all of this time instead of showing the strength it takes to still be able to want to find love after being hurt so many times. She is vulnerable with Marcel and he uses it to figure out where her family is. Anytime she is respected by the other characters, and even the fandom, it's when she is ripping people' hearts out. We also can't talk about Rebekah without talking about how, when women turn into vampires, they are concerned about having children, but we don't see the same conversation with men.

And don't even get me started on the "crazy ex-girlfriend" trope that they reduce even the strongest women down to (Katherine, Qetsiyah, Rebekah, Aurora, Celeste, etc.)

Hayley is a little different because she is introduced in the show and "she's not like other girls." I think a bit of it is she is older and not into the "teen drama." But either way, she was introduced as a tomboy. I do like that they bring out her more feminine sides at times, but it is usually followed up with someone taking advantage of her. I've talked about it a lot, but her autonomy is constantly being stripped away. Anytime she shows any kind of vulnerability, she is immediately stripped of her own rights.

I haven't watched Legacies, but I did watch a few episodes of season 1. I thought they had done a better job of diverse femininity. Hope seems gentle and kind, Josie really plays into her femininity, while Lizzie was feminine but had strong "masculine" traits. But based on the edits/clips I've seen, Josie leaves the show and Lizzie and Hope both just become mini Klauses.

I would have loved to just see a strong woman who never had to compromise who they are and still survive. I really think Bonnie is the only one. This isn't to say there aren't problems with how Bonnie's character is depicted. There are many. The amount of times women in the show, specifically Bonnie, has to sacrifice their very lives for men to survive is ridiculous. I just love that she never had to adopt stereotypically masculine traits in order to survive or be seen as strong. She gained respect because of her love and compassion.

I also purposefully didn't talk about Caroline because I think she is a difficult character to nail down on what her underlying personality is. She is similar to Lizzie where she appears very feminine with strong "masculine" traits. I think a lot of this gets lost in the writing. She tends to be used as plot devises for the men, rather than being her own character in her own storylines. But just the fact that the fandom hates "insecure, human" Caroline and say it's a good thing Katherine killed her says enough about how the fandom views teenage girls and women.

#the tomboy trope #feminine women are just as strong #feminism isn't making everyone behave like men #I could talk forever about the issues of how feminism/femininity is depicted in tvdu #tvdu #the originals #the vampire diaries #tvd #women in tvdu #tvdu metas #metas

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the-apples-were-monitored · 2 months

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never vibed with the arguments that are like "they had to basically brainwash fred to get her to fall in love with wesley" because that's like...not true??? first of all, fred showed attraction to wesley well before they came to wolfram and hart. (there was some fucked up attraction to him going on during the arc after she killed her professor. i argue that it wasn't just wesley getting between them that killed fred and gunn's relationship, it's also that fred was finding herself more attracted to the type of darkness she was finding with wesley, who treated her as more of a grownup with agency than as a pure princess to be protected. no shade on the part of gunn because i genuinely love him, but i think fred outgrew the sunshine and rainbows kind of love when it was preventing her from exercising the full range of her emotions with regards to her need for vengeance.) there is something to be said for fred not having access to her memories after coming to wolfram and hart, so her desires were influenced by an incomplete understanding of her own context, and there is an interesting philosophical debate to be had for whether angel was in the right for taking their memories without their consent but people rarely want to get into this unless talking about its effects on the fred/wesley relationship.

fred made the decision to come to wolfram and hart. this was before her memories were altered. i wish people would look at the alteration of the memories as an opportunity to further explore these characters in a new context, in new situations, with new narrative purpose, but people won't do that because they're searching for all the reasons the dynamics are problematic. i know this because i don't see any real good faith criticism of the same sorts of philosophical quandaries in dollhouse, a show people write off as being problematic for the characters lack of agency when that is indeed the point of the show and the question they're asking.

there is much to say about how healthy or "good" the pairing of fred and wesley is, but i get a lot out of untangling it as a narrative and interrogating its internal workings. i hate the lazy love triangle and how it destroyed wes and gunn's bromance, but i like looking at things from fred's perspective and calling into question what she needs from each relationship. there is so much to say as a whole about whedon routinely stripping the autonomy of his female characters, but i hate lumping fred's attraction to wes into that category

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apollo-cackling · 10 months

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but actually speaking of feverwake, it does something with its politics that... I can't say whether it's good but definitely feels intentional?

massive spoilers for feverwake. as in "this involves the twist the entire first book was based on" (/that might in retrospect be pretty (intentionally) obvious but it's still something better to be figured out by the reader)

I've seen some criticism of its (esp the 1st book's) politics being shallow which.. yeah. I love the books but yeah.

but also all of the politics in the book weren't intended to be political critique as much as... characterisation? idk how to say it but

take noam. he grew up poor, the son of undocumented immigrants living among other undocumented immigrants. he's very passionate about immigrant rights and yeah, obviously.

and the narrative utility is that this is something lehrer preys upon. lehrer uses noam's passion (and need for a father figure and desperation to not be trash) to draw noam ever closer and mould noam into a tool for his own use. lehrer uses his own revolutionary past to lure noam in, giving noam the tantalising hope that by following lehrer, he'll finally be able to help his people, that this way, he'll finally not be trash, hooking noam with something he can't give up.

lehrer subtly strips away noam's principles as he starts working for lehrer's cause, beginning with planting the idea that leads to noam proposing shutting off the power for a few days in the immigrant sector to stir unrest among the immigrants to create the ideal situation for lehrer's coup, even if that means some folks die because they couldn't get access to medical care, and culminating with making noam personally assassinate brennan, the last person he has left from his old life, cutting off that thread forever.

it's also something lehrer uses to play noam against dara, take noam's preconceived notions and deeply entrenched beliefs that noam never even suspects that dara was getting abused by lehrer and just thinks it's teenage rebelliousness, even when... yeah it got. pretty obvious.

TEH draws its scope very close and focuses a lot more on the personal but this still is a throughline, noam helping lehrer hunt down scientists developing a vaccine even though, yanno, that's something that would help his immigrant community a lot, wouldn't it? and noam agreeing to lehrer annexing atlantia, and helping to orchestrate the political theatre that smooths it over. he does speeches to try and undermine lehrer, but in the end that was more him struggling to maintain his sense of autonomy than actually being effectual.

it's like. just tracking this you can see how subsumed noam becomes in lehrer's influence.

and the part with witchings. you begin reading the series and it's like oh another series where the magic users are oppressed *eyeroll*. but then you read the traitor's crown and you realise oh, this is lehrer's excuse. this is the dichotomous worldview calix lehrer the teenager who's gone through immense trauma clung to to explain what's happened to him, and which adalwolf, intentionally or not, reinforced through letting calix help with the avenging angels. carolinia, built from lehrer's will and receiving very little outside information, reflects this. (lehrer putting his body + carolinia in stasis is a neat reflection of this)

(plus this being a worldview that morally justifies all his hostility to/strong-arming of york, texas, europe, etc. and really looking at lehrer's actions he is mainly motivated by his want to be admired, to be perceived as this messianic, godlike figure)

(which is why I wish the traitor's crown was incorporated into the main books. it recontextualises the books in a way that makes them work so much better, in a way that the snippets already in TFK gestures at, but doesn't manage to do as well)

like does that make sense, on a character level, the politics are used excellently and achieves exactly what it was aiming for (so in teh the politics are put a lot to the side bc lehrer is slowly stripping away noam's identity, and his politics with it). idk if what it's aiming for is good, but it did achieve exactly what it's aiming for

#my rambles #feverwake #book meta #accidentally just wrote uh. *checks*#680 words on this #thematically teh throws a lot out because it draws the scope so tight around dara noam and lehrer esp with the ending #I mean I don't mind I find all three very compelling and on a character level the ending is satisfying. but. yk #a lot of the ending falls apart the more you think about it #I do disagree with the argument that it's unrealistic for [redacted] to be convicted though bc that was international court #and basically all the countries around have a vested interest in taking [redacted] off the playing field #now that brings up other problems. but. yk #books

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ghostdrinkssoup · 2 years

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thinking about how power is thematically handled in hannibal, specifically in s2. the entire season essentially follows will’s attempts to usurp power and take hannibal down, having realised he’s been manipulated and stripped of his autonomy

s2a is interesting because for the majority of it he’s confined to one space, in one location, while the rest of the plot moves around him. he’s enraged in a way we’ve never seen from his character before, and slowly we watch the beginning of his corruption. at first he tries to take hannibal out through forceful, blunt means, either by trying to directly persuade people or by getting that one guy to murder him on his behalf, but none of these attempts work. again, the setting of this arc is notable because of the use of confined space: the more he tries this approach the more trapped he is. he literally has no room to move

so he changes tactics, and the moment he does we move into s2b. will learns that he needs to play by hannibal’s rules if he wants to win, like a game of chess. power isn’t gained through physical strength, we, the audience, learn this in s1 through hannibal’s characterisation. we’re vaguely aware of the nature of his crimes (we know he’s a cannibal and we know he feeds people his victims at his dinner parties) but we never really see him murder anyone, at least not straight away. sure, we see the crime scenes and we’re disturbed by the cooking montages, but the way the show paces our exposure to its horror elements is essential for two reasons:

one, it allows the audience to grow attached to hannibal (despite ourselves) because the focus is on his social charm and “person suit”, allowing us, like will, to ease into the horror (you could say it’s an acquired taste *laugh track*) and two, it shows us that hannibal relies less on physical brutality to control people and more on power and influence. mind games, if you will. the cannibalism itself (although highly morbid) is presented in an illusory, artistic way, and shows to what extent hannibal is able to exert dominance over other people. it’s his dinner table, these are his parties, and he’s the calm, collected host who’s perfectly happy to feed a man his own leg because he knows he’s in control. in fact, the grotesque nature of the cannibalism isn’t explicitly shown until the wrath of the lamb, after he submits to will and finally relinquishes control (when he lets him pull them both off the cliff). added to this, he doesn’t often threaten anyone if he isn’t already planning on killing them and he’s shown to be highly persuasive if he wants to be. he rarely ever lies directly, but rather twists aspects of reality and subtly distorts them (he does this a lot with abigail actually, and it’s how he’s able to convince her not to tell the authorities he’s the man on the phone). in s2b, will begins to mimic this

s2b is one of my favourite arcs in the entire show because the moment will realises how he has to catch hannibal, he’s set free from the confined space of the prison and is allowed to roam wherever he likes. he stops presenting as someone outwardly unstable and learns instead the importance of blending in with normal people, just like hannibal does. if you look unhinged and spout unhinged things, like will did previously, people are less likely to believe you in comparison to the guy who looks put together and has manipulated the entire situation to frame you. so will takes on the persona of “the manipulator in plain sight” and it’s here that the tables finally begin to turn

and it’s so great because will succeeds. he reels hannibal in this way, something that’s also foreshadowed in s1 when hannibal pricks his finger on the lure in will’s house (my favourite minor s1 detail) and gains influence over him. I really love how so much of what was already set up in s1 bleeds into s2, such as the foiling between hannibal and franklyn and how hannibal realises he wants will to be his friend, how he faces this growing intrigue he can’t control, how he’s disappointed when will doesn’t show up to sessions and drives out to find him, etc

the thing is will already had power over hannibal in subtle ways before he even realised what (or who) he was dealing with. in fact, will had power over hannibal the moment they met, when his rude, standoffish disposition doesn’t get him killed. he had power when he tells hannibal he doesn’t find him “that interesting” and hannibal simply tells him “you will” implying a level of interest that was of no consequence then, but would be detrimental later on. it’s why when bedelia tells him he’s obsessed with will it feels like the most natural conclusion to make, and the story hasn’t even reached its romantic arc yet. to summarise, the only reason the power will had over hannibal wasn’t obvious in s1 was because he had no reason to manipulate him and, more to the point, hannibal wasn’t completely obsessed with him yet

jump cut to mizumono because oh boy

the specific kind of power will has over hannibal is worth examining because it’s not like it was something he had to try particularly hard to achieve, nor was it something he ends up using to his advantage. by the end of s2b will has already decided last minute that he wants to run away with hannibal, so it’s not like he wasn’t influenced by him either, and more so, it’s not like their connection wasn’t genuine. rather, much like hannibal in s1, will slowly loses sight of the objective and grows attached to the person he’s trying to manipulate. it’s not an immediately obvious role reversal, but it’s a role reversal nonetheless, and the results are horrifying for the both of them

the dialogue in mizumono is so important because hannibal specifically asks will if he believed he could change him, because he hasn’t realised he’s already lost the game. he lost the moment he decided he missed will enough to want him out of prison, and honestly? he lost the moment he grew attached to him at all. even though will is the one bleeding out on the ground, he still has power over hannibal (again, you don’t need to physically maim someone to have power over them. the show has gone out of its way to correlate explicit acts of violence with a loss of control) and it hasn’t fully hit hannibal yet how much of himself he’s given up just by being vulnerable and allowing will to see glimpses of the monster behind the veil (“I let you know me / See me.”) and this is further evidenced by how will’s response (“I already did”) had such a profound impact that it sets up the entirety of s3a because it’s too late, hannibal, who thought himself indestructible, has already been influenced by someone else and by the time he realises it, and tries to retaliate against it, he’s already spiralled so far that he can’t bear to live without him

#I’ve actually had this saved in the drafts for ages #it started out as mizumono brainrot and then I just kept adding observations #and now it’s another one of my mini essays #I just !! really like how this show represents its themes !!#tumblr is simply where I unleash all my silly little thoughts #hannibal #hannigram #will graham #hannibal meta #ghost speaks

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