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#big part of his guilt complex is bc

eilidh-eternal · 2 months

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🥤 ⇢ recommend an author or fanfic you love

Ohhhhhh I have SO MANY recommendations!

@yeyinde their entire masterlist. Absolutely transformative experience reading anything and everything Lev writes. I want to be her when I grow up

@groguspicklejar Chink In the Armor! Best medieval Ghoap AU I’ve ever read!!!! Mafia!141 is so deliciously angsty and she captures it soooo perfectly! Kelsi is absolutely my go to for any and all Kyle pretty boy Garrick reads!!!

@gemmahale Gemma my beloved🖤 everything she writes is literal treasure. Priceless. Deserving of a pretty glass case and soft leather bindings. There are worlds in her head I could not dream up in 100 lifetimes, and her OC’s are sooo complex and well rounded!

@peachesofteal once again, her entire masterlist. Everything she writes is guaranteed to leave me staring at the damn wall with the loading circle spinning on my forehead, wishing I could jump through my screen and live in the worlds she writes

@luminousbeings-crudematter Folie á Deux, Donner Party, and Land Softly are some of my favorites! I still need to work my way through the rest of Lumi’s masterlist😅 but the way she writes Simon 😳 my enclosure only has so many bars, I’m going to have to replace it soon

@391780 oh god too many to count! I looooove the way Early writes dark!141 and ALL of her stories highlight and praise big soft bodies🥰 she also does comic relief INSANELY well, and I just know anytime I sit down to read her fics I’m gonna have a good laugh (get wrecked König)

@moondirti I have just read the first part of Cabin fever and I am already IN LOVE with Dee and their writing style! Cannot wait to read more when I have the chance!

@ceilidho I was not a Price girly when I started getting into CoD, but Ceil’s take on him has irreversibly altered my brain chemistry🫠 and her characterization of a darker Simon?! Canon. She’s in charge now.

@auspicioustidings OH MY GOD!!!! Mhairi just started Ae Fond Kiss and I am so, so, sooooo in love with the concept for this fic! It’s already incredibly gut wrenching and I know I’m gonna be a sobbing mess throughout this series! Truly on the edge of my seat!!!

@pfhwrittes P has such a wrinkly brain! I’m absolutely in love with their Here Be Kink and Dealing Drugs and Feelings collections! Absolutely phenomenal writing! Everything they write is so dark, decadent and rich🤤

@kaadaaan Offer Me His Hunger is such a beautifully written descent into madness and obsession, and Vi does a truly immaculate job of portraying it! I chew on drywall thinking about this DAILY!!!!

@ohbo-ohno PUPPY! SOAP! Don’t Leave Me Locked In Your Heart was the beginning of a very transformative experience for me and with every new fic Bo writes I descend further into madness😵‍💫 I cannot unsee Soap with big puppy eyes and a pouty face and I think Bo should be on the writers team for his “surprise I’m not dead but guess what? I’m Very Fucked Up™️ now” story arc in MWIV bc that was not him in that tunnel

@glossysoap The go-to for any and all Captain related thoughts! Price and 09’ Soap can captain my ship anytime as long as it’s Glossy’s version🫡 Peppers is absolutely deserving of it’s namesake🥵

@charliemwrites never misses! All of her characterizations are spot-fucking-on and she has a wonderful selection of CoD characters that span multiple genres! I’m particularly in love with Woof Woof Johnny🥴 (nasty little freak🖤) and Fields of Elation

@vanderilnde RUGBY! PLAYER! SOAP! He’s dirty and nasty and pervy and pathetic!!!! What more could you want from a man like him? And the way Orion writes him…… CHEWING ON GLASS! I love when soap is a pathetic little whore and Orion NAILED IT!!!

@the-californicationist Oooohhhhh Guile and Guilt was one of the first CoD fics I ever read and it lives in my head 24/7, even when Johnny is whispering Nasty™️ ideas in my ear. The story, the poetry, the characterizations…. IT’S LITERAL PERFECTION!!!!

#eilidh’s asks #author recs #fic recs

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tapioca-puddingg · 4 months

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Why GoWR Valhalla Is Important

Hey. It's me again. This time I'm not yelling about Kingdom Hearts or Drakengard, but I wanted to talk about God of War Ragnarök: Valhalla today and why I think it's important in trauma-centered narratives. This isn't a detailed analysis, just me spitballing.

SPOILER WARNING: There will be spoilers for God of War Ragnarök: Valhalla, so please proceed with caution!

EDITED: 2/26/24

As a brief summary, Kratos spent almost the entirety of GoW 2018 refusing to talk about his past. His guilt, shame, and trauma deeply affected his relationship with his son, to the point where he didn't want to be around Atreus bc he was terrified of being a bad influence on him. It was only when Atreus' life was in danger did it force him to finally admit just a sliver of the truth. Now I don't mean to say that Kratos revealing his godhood wasn't a big deal because it absolutely was, I'm just saying that it's just one piece of a MUCH bigger story. Anyway, he recognized his past mistakes, but the shame was too much for him to openly acknowledge it until damn near the end of the game.

Come Ragnarök, Kratos was pretty much an open book. He had grown SO much in those short years of fimbulwinter: He openly talked about his trauma to Mimir and Freya. He worked so hard to be a good father and a good support system to his friends. He went out of his way to make amends with Freya and restore their friendship. And he fought to restore peace to the Nine Realms.

But come Valhalla, Freya wants to recruit Kratos to be the new God of War of the nine realms, or at least to be a part of the new peacekeeping council that she's putting together. Kratos is extremely hesitant to take up the mantle. He doesn't feel worthy or deserving enough to hold this position given all that he's done. He and Mimir (and later on, Tyr) are constantly going back and forth about it. Both perspectives are completely valid. Valhalla is about Kratos facing his past in a more literal sense; parts of Greece have been manifested from Kratos' memories of it, so it's like he gets to be there in real time again. This is about helping him process what happened and to add some nuance to the conversation. It's like free therapy for Kratos.

It's funny too bc you have both opposing viewpoints being represented. On one hand, you have Mimir and Tyr being the supporting/validating voice, and Helios is the contrarian. Since he's a manifestation of Kratos' memories, he represents the doubts that Kratos has about himself. The harsh voice to show how hard he is on himself, and not without good reason.

The reason why I think Valhalla is so important is bc in media, survivor narratives are often linear. The character just "gets over" their trauma and then that trauma isn't addressed again. It's presented more as a hurdle than a lifelong battle. I guess this goes to show how misunderstood survivorhood is. But that isn't how healing works. We regress sometimes, and sometimes we still mull over the things that have happened to us. We might heal, but that trauma does leave emotional scars. So even after the many leaps and bounds Kratos has made, he's not "over" his past, far from it! It still haunts him every day and every night. Valhalla is Kratos still processing everything. From my own healing journey, I've learned that it takes a long, long time to fully process your trauma, if there even is a "fully", anyway. It takes a long time to learn and understand all the complexities and how it affects you in current day. And it takes even longer to process such a complicated history like Kratos'.

Generally speaking about the idea of processing trauma, I said earlier that survivorhood is extremely misunderstood by the masses. Imo, our society is very anti-victim/anti-survivor. So with that in mind, from the perspective of the audience, some might perceive the processing trauma bit as repetitive or "milking it". These are mediums of entertainment after all, so ofc I understand wanting to put out an engaging story where the audience doesn't lose interest. But screw those ppl lol. We have to understand why we do what we do if we want to do better, and it's amazing that a video game is willing to have these conversations. Being more open about all the nuances of processing trauma, grief, healing, etc will go such a long way.

Even the roguelite gameplay style perfectly reflects this theme. Processing this stuff is slow. It doesn't happen overnight. Unless you're in Valhalla, I suppose.

Okay I said this wasn't a detailed analysis but I lied. I'm a liar now

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chirpsythismorning · 5 months

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This is a continuation in exploring why I think Mike's character regression over the seasons can be explained in part by guilt, which he has yet to confront

Original post

Now we're onto s2, which jumps us ahead in the timeline a bit.

Mike has been calling out to El on the walkie for approx. 252 days now, under what he views as the false hope she might actually be alive. This is mostly based on the fact that Mike thought he saw El outside of his house a few hours after she 'died' (he did see her, bc she was there...) and so a part of him does think there's a chance. And yet this is also isn't something Mike seems to be comfortable talking about the others with.

Which brings us to the crazy together scene. Although this scene has a lot going on, there's one aspect of it in particular that I want to focus on, as it's the driving force for what is going to be discussed, which is that Halloween night was also the last night Mike called El, aka day 353.

I just want to preface what follows, with the fact that I do not personally think Mike giving up calling El, as a concept on its own, means that he couldn't possibly love El romantically or something. It's not even about that idea from an audience perspective. And this is because any average person, in reality, mourning someones' death, should not be calling out to that person for almost a year. Letting go doesn't make you a bad person, whether it was romantic, platonic or even familial. It's called healing and accepting what is and trying to move on and live your life.

Neither does Mike giving up after that night make him heartless or a bad character in my opinion. It literally just makes him human. But that also doesn't mean that's how Mike feels about it, nor does it mean that the manifestation of this guilt isn't going to affect his behavior over the course of the series, causing some very unfortunate choices on Mike's part to then lead to some very unfortunate events for everyone...

Where it starts to get sort of complex is that I think the whole point of the crazy together scene and where it ended up was to for it to showcase how Mike and Will were both willing to accept each other, despite these secrets they've been keeping to themselves.

Will revealed the truth to Mike about how he could still see into the UD, with the addition of seeing this big 'shadow in the sky', followed by asking Mike to not tell the others because they wouldn't understand. Mike then responds by saying El would understand, followed by confiding his own secret to Will that he's been keeping from the others, which is that he thinks he's seen signs that El could still be alive.

The scene then ends with them in agreement that if they're both going crazy, they'll go crazy together, with it arguably being their most incriminatingly romantic moment to date, as it juxtaposes other uncannily similar romantic mentions on the show involving that same word.

But no matter what happens, they're promising to support each other, specifically the weird shit they have going on and could presumably continue to explore that weirdness, without telling anyone else who might judge them for it or misunderstand their feelings entirely...

This is why Mike had no problem with Will going crazy in s2 because as promised, he was going to be right there with him. Also meaning, Mike COULD have had no problem continuing to test out his theory that El was alive, because Will would have supported him.

Obviously, Will sort of had his hands tied in s2 (literally?), but the point still stands. It's not like this was something Mike HAD to give up, because that conversation between him and Will instilled that they would support each other and what makes them feel crazy.

I think the issue though, is that what's causing Mike so much grief daily for almost a year now, is the guilt that came with El's death and him feeling responsible. And so, in contrast to Will's slightly more justified assumptions that what he's seeing could actually be real based on what's happened to him, it's like Mike is asking himself whether he's actually seeing El because she's still alive OR is he just imagining she's still alive because he wants to forgive himself?

A kid deducing that in their head would make them feel pretty awful, don't you think? Maybe even lead them to calling out to that person for almost a year in hopes that they might still be alive?

Meaning Mike choosing that night to walk away, to give up, is likely a result of his conversation with Will making him feel more comfortable with finally letting go of some of that guilt in order to actually start the process of moving on. Because a big part of why he didn't want to move on was because of guilt in the first place.

Also confiding in Will and only Will, not the others, who were hell bent on interpreting all of Mike's feelings for El as romantic, was maybe Mike's way of avoiding the pressure to associate his whole relationship with El as strictly romantic. With Will, maybe Mike knew he wasn't going to spin it into something like that. And he would’ve been right, because Will didn't.

October 30th, Halloween Night (Day 353 - Last call)

You cannot tell me that day 353 isn't framed as the last call. Like Mike is literally walking away dramatically, leaving El alone, with her now just a tiny dot surrounded by darkness. The way it's framed leaves the viewer genuinely feeling heartbroken because there's some very evident finality to what is being presented. And we even see that El feels it too, hence the episode cutting off dramatically with her tear filled eyes.

And so why did Mike choose THIS moment to give up? Why did he choose now to put his 353 day streak to rest? Like, that was impressive as hell. He could have easily kept that going, but instead he decided that this was going to be the last time he was going to try calling out to her...

November 1st (Day 354)

El is still pretty bummed that Hopper came home late last night, but I'm guessing she's even more bummed still processing what might have very well been Mike finally giving up that night too.

Although I don't think El would blame Mike for giving up, still, she too throughout all of this had been building up hope herself. El's been clinging onto the bond she made with Mike, specifically the romantic moments, to the point where she has been watching shows with romantic themes, putting herself in the position of the love interest.

So him not giving up, to El, has been a signal that what they are feeling between each other is very deep and... romantic. Him keeping this going this long is a sign to her that these feelings are pretty much guaranteed. And if he doesn't continue, that hope would obviously dwindle.

At breakfast that morning, Hopper acknowledges the TV cord peaking out of El's room, which is the device she uses to visit Mike from the void, all the way from the cabin. Without it, she is not able to 'communicate' with him, let alone see if he actually didn't give up after that night she feared he did...

Unfortunately her and Hopper have an argument after this, leading to her storming off to her room. And after Hopper is gone, El finds herself being so impatient to see Mike after almost a year of waiting, that she decides to take fate into her own hands. She isn't willing to wait until the evening, which is roughly speaking the usual time Mike uses the walkie to call her every night. She needs to see him now.

And lucky(?) for her, she does!

Finally! A SIGN! After almost a year of no signs that El is alive, since the night she went missing, Mike is getting a sign El is alive!

And he runs after it! He goes to check to confirm his (valid) suspicions, only for her to not be there, with Mike looking disappointed, but also kind of like he's accepted it's a lost cause at this point.

Mike's hope that El is alive and okay and the relief that would come with finally letting go of this massive weight of guilt, is not within reach. He just needs to accept it and let it go. He needs to forgive himself and move on.

On top of all of this, Will is experiencing his own version of crazy. And Mike seems more concerned with focusing on this and supporting Will, than holding onto this hope that El is alive.

So even though Mike just got a sign that El is alive (which parallels to the initial evidence of her being alive outside his house, what literally initiated him to call out to her for almost a year), he doesn't revert back to his approach of not giving up. He sticks by his decision.

The irony of what happens with El the same night that Mike doesn't call, for the first time, is not lost on me...

Tragically, El doesn't know Mike actually gave up (just like she feared he did) because she lost her ability to communicate with him that night.

I wonder how differently things would have played out if she new the truth. Would she have held onto this really romanticized idea of her and Mike's relationship because he never gave up? Or would she have maybe reassured Mike that it was okay that he gave up and moved past it and still hoped and tried to make it work? Honestly, I think the later.

Because again, it's not Mike giving up that makes him a bad person or something that refutes his ability to love her romantically, it just means that it's not true that he never gave up.

And Mike being the only person to know this fact... Um... Cannot be good for him.

October 2nd (Day 355)

As El is trying to revive a modicum of hope that she can see Mike again through the void, to confirm her hopes that he didn't give up, by using the TV like she usually does, she discovers that the cord is broken. It's a lost cause.

On the other side of town, Mike is entirely focused on Will. The previous night, he did not reach out to El. He gave up. And El is none the wiser.

The writers made the choice to have one more night that Mike could have called El because he was at home that night on day 354, a day that actually involved an incident that you'd think would have reignited his hope that she was alive, before he inevitably jumped head first into focusing on Will, with him not being home for the rest of the season. They could have shown us Mike calling out to El from the other side of town, and then cut to her in her room not knowing... And yet, they didn't...

This is where I jump to the end, because the focus primarily when it comes to El and Mike's arcs for the rest of the season are with El trying to find her mom and discover more about herself, while Mike is trying to be there for Will in any way he can.

The sad part is that despite Mike giving up and trying to move on from El's death, that guilt is never really going to go away. He gave El expectations that she had to risk her life to find Will, and all of that built up and inadvertently led to her death.

But maybe Mike can right the wrongs he had El endure by following through on his focus of not letting Will die too? Maybe if Mike can save Will, El wouldn't have died for nothing?

But with this guilt and Mike trying to overcorrect it all, he's also experiencing very real and emotional moments with Will. Will is his best friend, and just a year ago Mike risked everything to get him back. A lot of those moments he experienced with El in s1, moments mixed with romantic expectations, are now also lingering here with him and his friend in s2. Except these aren't forced expectations. Everything Mike’s feeling and doing the entire time comes naturally to him, with none of it requiring pushing or advice from those around him. It's just pure instinct.

In the end, Mike's beside Joyce and Jonathan, who are sharing memories they have with Will to him in hopes it will prove to them he's still in there and able to be saved.

This emotional sequence builds up to Mike using his own memory of Will to try to reach him, one that comes off as platonic in every sense of the word, but visually, and when looked at in the grand scheme of things, especially with what is about to follow and those romantic expectations with El soon being thrust back on him... Well... Shit is about to get real messy.

Upon reuniting with El, Mike was quick to want to tell her that he never gave up, only for her to interrupt him with the exact number of days he called (before he gave up).

This is news to Mike for an abundance of reasons. It means he's not crazy and that El actually was alive those two times he saw her. All this (survivors) guilt that's been building up over the last year could have been avoided if he'd known that she didn't die, that she was okay.

It also means that for some reason, El heard him, and yet she doesn't know that he gave up...

And here Hopper is, revealing that he's been hiding her the whole time aka the perfect person for Mike to take all of this pent-up emotion out on.

Hopper then tells Mike that they will discuss this privately, which I find to be very interesting because it offers a chance for the viewer to see just a glimpse into Mike's emotional state at this moment, without everyone around to affect his ability to truly open up about how he's feeling. And not alone just anywhere in the house, but in Will's room...

Mike is understandably upset because El is alive and Hopper knew this whole time and didn't tell him.

While Hopper didn't technically lie to Mike, at least not in canon because we never got an outright scene on-screen of Mike asking Hopper if El was alive with him denying it (all while knowing she was), it's at the very least a lie of omission...

But the thing is, if Hopper not clueing Mike in on El being alive qualifies as a lie of omission (off-screen), so does Mike not telling El he gave up (on-screen).

If anything Mike's lie of omission also qualifies as a plain old lie, because he outright told El he didn't give up (lied) and didn't correct her when she informed him she knew he didn't. She fully believed it, despite him knowing deep down that it wasn't the full truth.

So while Mike is taking all of his anger out on Hopper as this fighting match comes to a head, it takes a turn.

Hopper is fine with Mike blaming him, he says it's 'okay'. But it's not. Nothing about this is okay to Mike, seeing as this isn't even the whole problem. It's not the problem Mike's actually hiding within his outburst in the first place.

Suddenly Mike starts screaming to Hopper that he's a 'disgusting, lying, piece of shit', chanting LIAR over and over and over again, shoving him repeatedly, only for him to fall into Hopper's arms and start crying, with Hopper reassuring him that he's okay.

Something tells me Mike's emotions here aren't all about Hopper...

Something tells me that Mike's fixation with the word liar doesn't apply to Hopper here as much as it applies to Mike himself (in his eyes)...

The main reason why I think this is what's actually going on here, is because there was no reason to put so much emphasize on this concept of Mike literally walking away that last time he called her.

Why go through the trouble of creating this misunderstanding, by having the TV not work, with El not being able to go into the void to see Mike, THE very night he gave up, if to not plant the seed that this misunderstanding was going to bear some significance? That this misunderstanding (lie? lie of omission?) was going to lead to El assuming Mike didn't give up, all while Mike knows he gave up, but going along with the story that he didn't, for both El's sake and his own?

BECAUSE it's a surprise tool that will help us later!

I also think it's interesting that they decided to have Will go off and dance with a girl at the snowball BEFORE Mike decided to devote himself to El here on out. Like... that is quite the choice after a season of highlighting this bond between Will and Mike where they promise to go crazy together, which is a moment we know Will took romantically.... So, is it possible Mike also took it romantically? We know Will also took Mike's speech to him in the shed romantically, so is it possible Mike did too, with that experience only heightening his emotions and confusion over his feelings for El when he found out she was alive shortly after, leading to his outburst? But then Will is going and dancing with the girl, and here we have Mike's own version of falling behind (the Time After Time lyrics were more literal than you think).

What if they didn't do all of that? Would things have maybe panned out slightly differently if Mike wasn't under the (incorrect) assumption that Will didn't take those moments romantically?

While Mike's guilt might have started in s1, when he played the biggest role in pushing expectations onto El to help them find Will, only for her to 'die', it doesn't end there. Mike's guilt only builds when he holds the knowledge that he did give up hoping she could be alive, all while allowing El to believe the opposite based on what she saw, which was a guiding force for not only her love and dedication to him flourishing, but also for him to then shift his own version of expectations onto himself going forward to make it up to El by trying to be who she wants him to be.

We see how romanticized 353 days is interpreted exclusively as meaning Mike has to be in love with El. But he did give up. So what does that mean for all of this? For their picture perfect love story?

What does it mean for Mike to hold onto this truth, a truth that makes him feel immense guilt, only for him to spend the next year or so making it up to her...?

It means either Mike has to come clean, or he has to deflect and double down.

What option do you think a guilt-ridden, repressed homosexual kid in the 80's is going to choose?

Answer? Deflect and double down.

In s3, Mike is so focused on worrying about El (giving her what he thinks she wants) so he can right all the building up of wrongs he has done at her expense since he met her, and as a result loses Will in the process (where have we heard this before...?)

Instead of Mike having a moment in s3 where he acknowledges that he himself was the first to ever refer to El as a weapon in the first place, to try to save Will in s1, he's now turning around and blaming the others for using El as a weapon 'for no reason'...

No reason? Really Mike? Is it for no reason, or is it just not a good enough reason to you this time?

Or maybe has Mike just actually spent enough time with El now to truly feel a bond with her in order to see her as a full person, slightly outside of this imaginary superhero he's cooked her up to be when he met her that day in the woods, the day his life started because she was his first and only hope of finding Will? (I say slightly bc... I mean we all saw what happened in s4?)

I honestly think it's a mix of both...

I also think it's not a coincidence that Mike doubling down instead of facing the truth about this manifestation of guilt only makes things worse for him. And El. And Will.

Because suddenly he's choosing this moment to blurt out that he loves and can't lose her again, in front of everyone, even to his own dismay and shock. And when El walks in and gives him a chance to say it to her himself, like any person whose in love with someone would want to do, to make them feel loved, he looks terrified.

And when the season ends and Mike is given another chance to say it finally, to El directly, in roughly the exact same spot he had his emotional outburst in the previous season over finding out she was alive at the same time he was still grappling with losing Will again, IN WILL'S ROOM, he freezes. He just lets what happens, happen.

Because after everything, with El right now in front of him, telling him she loves him while being fully convinced he loves her too after everything they've went through, how could he possibly take it back, or try to make her understand his complicated feelings about all of this?

Answer? He can't.

As hard as it is to believe (not that hard honestly based on his track record), Mike's deflection and stalling era is just beginning...

#byler #stranger things #mike wheeler #st analysis #it's just a tragic bizarre love triangle ok it's doing it's job #anyways #mike is a repressed coward #but also a guilt ridden child #both can be true at once #doesn't make him a bad person #just makes him a human with poor choices #and when you make some of the choices he's made and refuse to confront them for what they are #and choose to keep doubling down and stalling instead of facing that truth #the truth will eventually come to bite you in the ass #especially when there is a bad guy that feeds off guilt..#like i'm sorry mike but you're toast #he can try to deny it all he wants (granted he doesn't have much time at this rate...)#he can try to be the perfect boyfriend he thinks el deserves #he can try to convince himself that writing to el is his way of being devoted to her in the way that a boyfriend is supposed to be #and simultaneously not write to will bc that's romantic and that's a gesture reserved for el ('ThAtS bEcAuSe ShE's My GiRlFrIeNd WiLl!')#and compensate in his own mind by calling will a bunch #hoping his friend will answer so that he can convince himself they're still platonic and do this all the way he's supposed to #but dude...#why didn't you tell will you called?...#why didn't you tell el you stopped calling?...#i think i have an idea...

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leafykat · 2 months

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ATLA LIVE ACTION RANT/MANIFESTO

After watching it I started typing and couldn't stop. Sorry it's really really long and probably not very coherent.

(Since I wrote this, Big Joel put up a vid on his side channel talking about his thoughts on the first episode and he had a lot of points I agree with so watch that too if you’re interested) <- eta: ok jk sorry it already got taken off youtube it's only on his patreon now

I really dislike starting the story with the beginning of the war. It's like they don’t trust the audience enough to care about the protagonists without laying out all the Big Important World Context out right at the start, or they don’t trust us enough to understand non-linear storytelling. I’m trying really hard not to just hate on changes simply for being different than the show I grew up with, because god knows I have my own issues with it. There are scenes that are nearly shot-for-shot, line-for-line remakes of the original, which makes the parts they change really jarring and frustrating. I don't mind the way they combined some episodes or storylines or changed some details, like, June being the one who hits on Iroh instead of the other way around, but other changes just feel like they either miss something fundamental (to me) about the characters or the story or are just… arbitrary, which is almost worse.

One thing that REALLY frustrated me right from the start was that Aang wasn’t actually trying to run away. He goes flying to “clear his head” and gets caught in a storm coincidentally right as he says “ok Appa let’s head home”. Why? Everyone treats him like a coward anyway. Everyone is way meaner to him than in the cartoon about something that, in this version of the story, objectively was not his fault. Why? In the cartoon, he feels intense shame that he wasn’t there for everyone, even though he was twelve and about to be taken from the only person that wanted him to have a childhood, and he got so overwhelmed and scared by what the world expected from him that he tried to run away from it. In the live action, he gets to reunite with the spirit of Gyatso, who says, “you couldn’t have done anything if you had stayed. You just would have died,” (paraphrasing bc I can’t be bothered to give it more views just to get exact quotes) which is fine, I don’t think he needed a spirit world reunion with Gyatso but I can accept it. But if that’s what that gives Aang closure, what is the point of changing him to be less responsible for disappearing? In the cartoon Katara is the one who reassures Aang and helps him process his guilt, representing the people of the present who he can still help. The live action has the voice of the past, the people that he’s ‘failed’, reaching forward in time to absolve him of any sins. And remember that in this version he literally was trying to go home. It just feels like they’re trying to remove moral complexity from his character.

Less importantly (except to me maybe) I think that showing us the Air Temple pre-genocide removes impact of seeing it for the first time in the cartoon. I loved Aang hyping it up to Katara and Sokka, unwilling to believe that it could have fallen. It almost makes the viewer think maybe some of them could have survived in secret. Then, the contrast between his idyllic memories and reality start to sink in. It was an incredibly hard-hitting moment, dulled in live action by the audience having seen exactly what happened to the temple already (including an incredibly hamfisted “you can’t beat us while we have the power of the comet!” line from who I think was Sozin.) I think Momo is pretty cute though.

Another thing that pissed me off was the way they handled the Agni Kai: They combine Zuko's duels with Zhao and Ozai into one, where Zuko not only fights back against his father but gets an opportunity to deliver (presumably) a winning blow and hesitates. This choice weakens important aspects of his backstory and, to me, flattens his relationship with Ozai: 1) That he was never a prodigy firebender like Azula, feeding the inferiority complex that Ozai fostered 2) The Agni Kai was meant to be public humiliation, meant to teach Zuko ‘respect’. It was in front of hundreds of people, and it was a thirteen-year-old child against a full grown firebending master. Zuko prostrates himself and begs his father for mercy. His refusal to even fight embarrasses Ozai by exemplifying the 'weakness' Zuko's mother 'instilled' in him. In his duel with Zhao, Zuko makes a conscious choice to be merciful despite Zhao telling him to “do it” and kill him. Despite knowing how the fire nation views it as weakness, as cowardice, especially in this specific setting. It foreshadows his later choices, and shows his innate kindness. Combining the two duels doesn't allow us to see that parallel nor that growth. Reducing his act of mercy to a mere hesitation in the moment of victory, furthermore, reduces his agency.

In fact, the adaptation softens a lot of Zuko's role as an antagonist, giving most of his actually villainous actions from the cartoon to other characters. They keep him capturing Aang in the South Pole, but Zhao leads the attack on Kyoshi village, they remove the episode with the pirates (s1e9), combine aspects of episode s1e15 ‘Bato of the Water Tribe’ with ‘the Blue Spirit’ (s1e13) and ‘the winter solstice’ (s1e7/8) removing three instances of Zuko capturing or attacking Aang in favor of one with Zhao capturing and Zuko rescuing him. But I guess they add a fight in Omashu. Look, this is inevitable as a result of combining 20 episodes into 8. I don’t really mind streamlining a lot of these episodes, nor removing others (having episodes like ‘the great divide’ and ‘the fortuneteller’ only referenced as rumors Zuko hears in a bar is cute, to be honest), though the change to the Bato episode where Sokka merely has a flashback of his father implying he thinks Sokka is an incompetent warrior is a really unnecessary and bad change, to me. But they took out almost every instance of Zuko posing an actual threat to Aang and replaced it with one fight scene in Omashu. To me, what it feels like is the show runners know Zuko is going to become a Good Guy and thus they don’t want to make him act too Bad.

On the topic of Kyoshi island: giving Aang a reason to go there aside from wanting to ride the giant Koi, whatever. Removing Sokka’s chauvinism, okay, I guess. But it ends up replaced with extremely awkward flirting between him and Suki that feels motivated by nothing beyond each being the first non-relative young adult of their preferred gender either one has ever met. Whether or not you want to have Sokka start off sexist, and that could be a whole conversation on its own, him humbling himself enough to ask Suki for instruction was an important moment of growth for him that he doesn’t really have in this version. And they don’t even put Sokka in the dress and makeup!!! BOO! Also minor moment but I think it’s also sus for the show to have Suki remove her makeup as soon as it’s time for her to be a love interest and then just not wear it again. BOO!! She looked really cool though. It’s not like I think her first appearance in the cartoon is full of depth or whatever, and I think the cartoon turned her into a cardboard cutout as soon as she became a love interest, but it’s like the live action clipped through a wall straight to my least favorite parts of s3 Suki. It’s just disappointing. I also don’t like Aang being able to just talk to Kyoshi and his other past lives so easily but that might just be my cartoon-purist talking.

I didn’t mind putting Jet and Teo into Omashu, even though I think Danny Pudi’s ‘I had no choice’ justification for working for the Fire Nation holds up less well when he’s in a position of privilege in an Earth Kingdom stronghold as opposed to protecting a community of refugees in an isolated air temple. I don’t think they needed to add the Cave of Lovers plot from season 2 into the mix though. Not only that, but to rework that plotline so that 1) Aang isn’t even there, 2) it’s Sokka’s idea to put out their lights and follow the crystals, 3) that’s not actually The Solution 4) badgermoles can sense…. Emotions???????? Sorry that’s so fucking stupid it makes me angry. They include the legend where Oma and Shu learned earthbending from the badgermoles, so why would these giant creatures have learned to sense human emotion instead of the pre-existing explanation from the cartoon: sensing the world through the earth. You know, the thing that connects them to Toph’s earthbending. I guess setting up stuff as far away as… next season… isn’t important. They used the stuff from the season 2 episode “the swamp” for aspects of the winter solstice plot anyway, which is where Aang originally had a vision of Toph and thus was able to identify her as an earthbender in spite of her appearance. I guess they can come up with something else, but it’s just a decision that feels arbitrary. Sokka could have had his flashback without the spirit vision, but since this is before he meets and loses Yue they needed something, I guess. At this point I’m describing these changes not necessarily because I think they’re inherently bad but because I want to describe how fragile this jenga tower is getting, and how unnecessary they feel.

Ultimately it’s like… the things they’re the most faithful to are all the most surface-level easter egg references, while missing or changing the actual soul of the source material. Gran Gran gives the opening monologue word-for-word because Fans Will Get It. They include Bumi’s rock candy trick and lettuce leaf joke but make him resentful and angry at Aang for no reason I can understand. Sokka isn’t sexist anymore, he just has issues where his dad apparently thinks he ‘shouldn’t have lives in his hands’. Ozai is… wait- is he tearing up while he scars Zuko’s face?

I know we all love Daniel Dae Kim but we did not need Ozai so much this season, let alone Azula, let alone Mai and Ty Lee. We especially didn’t need a scene where Ozai praises Zuko to Azula while belittling her. For the record, because people defending this scene seem to think the issue is that the rest of us fail to understand that Ozai is playing his children against each other: That is not the issue. It’s that he did not play his children against each other in this specific way. He uses Azula to show Zuko how much he fails to measure up and threaten his position as heir, and he uses the example of Zuko’s failure to keep Azula in line. If she’s good enough and Zuko is bad enough maybe she’ll become heir. After all, that’s what happened to Ozai and Iroh. They are allowed to change this dynamic in adaptation but personally I think it’s a change for the worse, and the shot of tears in his eyes as he abuses his son lends credibility to an interpretation that maybe he does want Zuko to succeed. Lol. The cartoon focuses on Iroh’s reaction, his inability to watch, instead of Ozai’s… emotional conflict? Or whatever.

Katara and Sokka getting stuck in the spirit world as a replacement for their fever in The Blue Spirit is fine, I think condensing that plot and the winter solstice works decently. It’s fine that they changed Aang’s motivation for finding Roku to be getting info on how to save his friends instead of getting crucial info about Sozin’s Comet. After all, they clumsily introduced that in episode 1. It’s honestly fine (Read with as much cope in my voice as you want.) Combining that with Zuko’s half of The Storm is also…. Okay, even if I’ve already described why I don’t like how they adapted Zuko’s backstory. What frustrates me is that The Storm parallels Aang and Zuko’s backstories in a way that works really well with the events in The Blue Spirit. In fact, they’re back-to-back episodes. But the live action has moved Aang’s backstory to the beginning of the first episode. So instead of getting to see how they’re both constrained by the roles and times they were born into, and how heavily others’ expectations weigh on both of them, we have to have Aang explicitly spell it out for us. Rewatching these two episodes of the cartoon I was just really struck by how efficient the storytelling is. All Aang has to say after he’s saved Zuko is that he misses his friend from the Fire Nation, and that he wonders if he and Zuko could have been friends if they’d been born into a different time. All Zuko has to do is attack him in response. Because we’ve just seen why they can’t be friends in this time, in this world. The live action has to create some plot point about Aang having stolen Zuko’s diary, and Zuko having researched Airbender culture or something. They bond a little bit over brushes before Aang goes like ‘why don’t you turn against your family?’ The conversation (before that part) is cute, just like, not a good replacement for trusting the audience.

I guess once we’ve gotten this far it doesn’t matter much that Katara and Sokka have been captured by Koh, because of course they were. Yeah, they changed how it works, yeah, now he steals your face once you’ve succumbed to despair or something. Whatever. At this point it feels like nitpicking to point out that what made Koh so scary was that he would steal your face if you showed him any emotion at all. Who cares anymore.

^ok I wrote most of that before having seen the last two episodes, which cover the last three episodes of the first season of the cartoon. Dude it got even worse somehow. It’s been a couple days and my friends and I rewatched all of s1 of the original show in the meantime.

First of all, the changes to the dynamic between Hahn, Sokka, and Yue were completely inexplicable to me. Yue gets nominally ‘empowered’ in the sense that she’s no longer trapped in an arranged marriage to a total shithead, but at the same time they made Hahn seem like a… genuinely good guy? He’s humble, asks Sokka for his expertise, and nobly accepts that Yue broke up with him. When asked about it, Yue says ‘he’s great, he’s just not the guy of my dreams’, before kissing Sokka. (They also reveal that she was the sexy fox spirit that flirted with Sokka in the spirit world —I didn’t mention it before because I didn’t think it mattered at the time— so I guess we are meant to believe that Sokka is the boy of her dreams. Which we know from these two and a half conversations that manage to be way less cute than the awkward/shy flirting from the original show.) Even if they wanted to completely change Hahn’s character, Yue’s conflict in the original show was between her heart and what she saw as her responsibility to her people. They could just as easily have kept that element: that she isn’t in love with Hahn, but that for Political Reasons can’t just break things off. That’s way more interesting! But I do love a forbidden romance, so maybe that’s just me. The adaptation does say that they were at one point betrothed, which raises more questions than it answers. If both of their parents were anticipating this marriage so much that they set it up years in advance, why were they okay with her just breaking things off because she didn’t like him like that? Are arranged marriages in the Northern Water Tribe (I’m so sorry I forgot the name they gave it in this adaptation) purely meant to be love matches? There’s no financial or political element at all? Even for a princess? Whatever. Hahn still dies, this time it’s just offscreen. This time I’m actually a little sad for him, if just for his wasted potential.

They actually take out the engagement necklace stuff altogether, including the history between Pakku and Katara’s grandma, and the story of how and why she fled. I don’t really know why but maybe they thought “you lost the so-called love of your life to backward practices” was a weak reason to change his mind. So instead they have it that he doesn’t change his mind but it turns out Katara doesn’t need a master anyway because she’s already good enough to be a master! Despite not having been able to waterbend ‘more than a thimbleful’ before meeting Aang, and us not really getting to see her train at all. Gran Gran gave her the waterbending scroll she stole from the pirates in the cartoon, so I guess we can assume that contained everything you’d ever need to know. She loses the fight but wins the hearts and minds of the people. The women of the tribe support her when she goes against Pakku and go “we want to fight too!” Oh, did I mention this is all after they realize the Fire Navy is at their doorstep, so it’s less a fight about the right to learn waterbending than about the right to fight in war. And then again the issue of Katara needing to learn from Pakku is sidestepped by her magically being good enough now on her own. I don’t actually mind the change to include other women from the North standing up against sexism but to be honest I don’t understand taking out the betrothal stuff. It was a deliberate parallel in the cartoon- women trapped in loveless arranged marriages and also forbidden from learning any waterbending aside from healing. But whatever, it’s a choice. I can live with it.

What I don’t like is the way they’ve undermined Katara’s journey in season 1. Aang teaches Katara how to waterbend at first, and she also doesn’t learn to heal on her own before an elder shows her how to do it. In the cartoon, she’s been trying and figuring things out on her own all her life. Her hunger to find someone to teach her is a major motivator for why she wants to go to the North Pole. We see her struggle, get intensely frustrated and jealous that Aang picks up waterbending more naturally than she does, and work really hard at it. Her dedication and hard work are what Pakku eventually praises about her when he teaches her. He compares her to Aang, who is naturally talented but distracted. This is after an indeterminate amount of time, but whatever, condensed timeline, 8 episodes, whatever. We don’t even see Aang waterbend at all this season, which is kind of wild to me. I guess if you take out the Summer Solstice Comet deadline to master all four elements (which they did) Aang doesn’t really need to rush. Instead they kind of just have Aang have a thing of like “I have my friends to help me” which is….. ok….. Oh wait, is this why they don’t care that much about foreshadowing Toph? Are they just not gonna bother having Aang learn the elements and just have her show up and join them for whatever reason? Is that why they just totally removed ‘The Deserter’? Wait sorry, I’m assuming they’re planning that far in advance at all, my bad.

Okay also like I have to talk about this because it bothers me so much. Zhao was handled so badly. Whatever, have a Fire sage just give him the moon/ocean spirit exposition in a flashback instead of the way it unfolded in the cartoon (I guess we’re already not bothering to set up the great library since the gaang already met wan shi tong, I guess that’s… fine… Appa can get captured a different way, if they’re even going to bother with that plotline in season 2. If they’re even going to do a season 2.) Sure, the moon and ocean spirits are only in the physical realm and vulnerable for ‘only one night’ now as opposed to permanently. Zhao knows this but not that they’re fish. Okay. Whatever. Blah blah blah. Those are personal nitpicks. But what really gets me is that in the end, Iroh and Zuko kill Zhao. Or rather, Zuko doesn’t finish him off, Zhao tries to attack when his back is turned, and Iroh finishes him off (similar to the way their Agni Kai in the cartoon plays out.) In the cartoon, Zhao and Zuko are fighting, Aang-as-Ocean-Spirit grabs Zhao, and Zuko reaches out to try and help Zhao, which Zhao refuses. He chooses to meet his fate at the hands of the spirits he provoked rather than swallow his pride. This is such a good conclusion to Zhao’s character! The live action also fails to set Zhao up as a formidable firebender, which is also not strictly necessary but I think complements other elements of his character well. His first episode in the cartoon includes the Agni Kai between him and Zuko, establishing Zhao both as a firebending master and as someone who values his ambition and pride above all else. In s1e16, ‘the deserter’ we see him as the embodiment of fire’s destructive hunger: he is baited into destroying his own ships in his desire to “win” his fight with Aang. He gloats of how his siege of the North Pole will earn him a place in the history books, and to win he is willing to kill the moon, against Iroh’s exhortations. In the live action, we get a weird revelation that he was working with Azula, and she was the mastermind behind a lot of his plans? Huh? He also “reveals” that Ozai was only ever using Zuko to “motivate his sister”, which is both incredibly heavy-handed and completely redundant. I guess I should mention that the finale has a couple scenes thrown in where Azula is doing firebending training to pass some kind of arbitrary Test Ozai has set for her, while Mai and Ty Lee watch and tell her that her dad is like, being way too hard on her and she knows he’s manipulating her right? Thanks girls!

Anyway, I guess since the live-action completely removed the golden child/failure dynamic between Azula and Zuko we needed something to replace it. The “my father always said Azula was born lucky. He said I was lucky to be born” line summed up that relationship dynamic nicely. Oh well, who needs it. Instead Zuko is good enough to have beaten Ozai in a duel at 13, but Ozai decided he was weak for hesitating. Meanwhile Azula is struggling to meet his expectations. He banished his heir on a mission that, for the last hundred years, was considered a complete dead-end, so that he could, uhhhhh, Motivate her when he miraculously started succeeding. Masterful gambit, sir. Okay sorry to harp on that again. Back to Zhao. Actually, what else is there to say. He has a couple funny lines but he’s just not the same guy at all on either a superficial or deeper level. It’s so disappointing. It’s also just a really weak choice to make Iroh and Zuko responsible for his death. Maybe they couldn’t figure out how to make the special effects look good when the ocean spirit picked him up. It just misses the point of Zhao’s ultimate tragedy, to me. The man so lacking in self-control, so ambitious, so assured in his own superiority, that he saw the spirits themselves as his prey. To be destroyed by the forces he tried to destroy is so poetic! Instead let’s water down Zuko’s mercy and Iroh’s pacifism.

This is all I can remember at this point aside from nitpicks. Do I think the Koh vs Kuruk backstory needed to be spelled out like that? No. Did we need to almost have Momo DIE to get Sokka and Yue to the oasis? Not really. I don’t think the way Zhao “assassinated” Zuko in the live action made as much sense, but we took out the pirates so oh well.

When you get to a certain point I guess the question becomes ‘how much can you change in an adaptation and still call it an adaptation’. What do adaptations owe to their source material? Where does the spirit of a story reside? If the same plot beats happen, does it matter if characters are different? If the characters are faithful, does it matter if events are moved around? If the destination is the same, how much does it matter how you get there? What do I personally want to see in a ‘live-action’ adaptation of Avatar, this show that I loved so much growing up? Well, assuming that “don’t make one” isn’t a possibility, I would have preferred they follow more in One Piece’s footsteps. That adaptation wasn’t perfect either, and it condensed around 100 chapters of manga into 8 hours, but it really felt like it got the characters right. Avatar had a tough job too, but it condensed 7 hours 40 minutes of cartoon into 8 hours of- wait. No. Well at least we got the cabbage merchant.

#u guys dont even know how much the original shaped my adolescence....#for that reason i was probably the most annoying person possible to watch the remake with #thank u to my friends

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call-me-strega · 10 months

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Analysis/Call-Out of the Spider Society

The whole situation with everyone chasing Miles is astounding to me because most of these guys didn't even question why Miguel was telling them this. It also stuck out to me that the Spiders that learned about canon events seemed okay with finding out that some deaths were supposed to happen which lead me to think about it more critically.

No one can tell me that the vast majority of Spiders don't have a guilt complex a mile high. They also tend to feel like they are outcasts or some other form of isolation from family and friends due their secret identities. They all have gone through thoughts of "it's my fault bc I didn't use my power/I failed/I'm Spider-(wo)man, etc"' and "I can't tell anyone about being Spider-(wo)man bc they wouldn't understand/it would endanger them/it would endanger me". All the Spiders want the same things Miles did in the movie: To be able to talk to someone who gets it. Who understands the guilt, the powers, and the struggle of a double life. The only difference is that these guys are able to get it and Miguel was the one to give it to them.

Their loyalty to Miguel mostly comes from the precieved solution he offers. Not only does he have the power to give them access to a multiversal base, to people who understand, but he also has an explanation that plays into a Spider's guilt complex: "Your Uncle Ben/Aunt May/Parents/Best Friend/Captain/etc were always meant to die. That's part of what made you Spider-(wo)man. There was nothing you could have done about it because it is something that needed to happen for the good of the multiverse and you are better for it." Which essentially boils down to "It's not your fault" something a large majority of these Spiders need to hear. Additionally, it's basically canon that every Spider is a huge nerd so the fact that there is some sort of scientific force outside their control that causes this may come as a comfort to some of them.

Then we also have to examine what Miguel has them doing in the Spider Society. His mission is to maintain the balance and stability of the multiverse, something that sounds like a mission any Spider can get behind when it's on paper. Then they also have to witness what happens when anomalies pop up in the wrong universes. Not only do the cause mass destruction and mayhem but the universe who are unable to get them under control fall into ruin. This helps build the mentality that all anomalies alre inherently bad and that Miguel's mission is objectively correct through experience and observation.

Moreover, I highly doubt that most of these Spiders even know who Miles is much less what the big deal about him is. They've probably been left out of the loop in regards to how Miguel is approaching him and the realities of his situation. They don't know because it's not their job to worry about these things. The Spider Society to them is a place where they can interact with peers and protect more people. They even acknowledge that their are certain deaths they can't prevent because of the laws of multiversal balance. They aren't doing a good thing by chasing down Miles but the don't really know any better.

Which brings me to the why. As I said before most of the Spiders don't know Miles' situation so here's what they do know. Miguel gave them a place to belong. Miguel has a noble cause and wants to help people and maintain stability of the multiverse. The anomalies they've been dealing with endanger the multiverse ergo, anomalies are bad. Miguel says this guy is an anomaly and danger to the multiverse and he wants us to stop him. Miguel hasn't given us a reason to to trust him so far. Furthermore, there is an underlying fear of "I don't want to lose the place/people who understand" that comes from a precieved threat to the multiverse that comes into play here. If you take in these facts it seems only logical that the Spiders would chase down Miles on Miguel's orders. And as for the Spiders who are in the loop, they've already decided to side with Miguel because they think he's right.

Now I've reached the call-out portion of the rant. It upsets me that none of the Spiders stop to think critically and examine what they are doing. This anomaly is another Spiderman, one that has no ill intent and is just a kid who looks terrified by what's going on. Nobody thought there was something fishy here? And why are they chasing him blindly too? It is incredibly easy of Miles to trick and lead them away from the base. None of them could stop for one minute to think of a better plan? Send one person to talk him down or maybe set a trap? Or even just try to understand where the guy is coming from and not chase him down.

Also the part of the portion where they just accept that some people can't be saved is off to me. Even if you can't save everyone doesn't mean you stop trying. That's the essence of what Spider-man, and honestly super heroes in general, stand for. To try and save everyone, no matter the odds, no matter how hopeless it seems. Even if some Spiders took comfort in the idea that it had to happen and it wasn't their fault doesn't mean they should lie down and let it happen. Miles' question is right "If you knew this before Uncle Ben died would you not try to save him still?" A supposedly destined fate isn't an excuse to stop fighting back and trying to save everyone. That's just it: why do you let the fear of consequences let you submit to fate when it is the essence of your character to fight and protect against the odds?

Yes it's valid that you have some fears but since when have you let them hold you back from helping people. Helping people is a call that the Spiders literally can't ignore so why would they let it happen. There is no way that every Spider-person should have just accepted it. They shouldn't have blindly taken part in a manhunt for a kid who didn't accept that he shouldn't try to save certain people. Nor should they have failed to think critically on better ways to approach the situation.

I sincerely hope that their will be more internal conflict in the Spider Society in the next movie. I want there to be people who are more critical of Miguel and those who are willing to fight back. There has to be a number of Spiders who get where Miles is coming from and are willing to support him. Here's to hoping this is elaborated on in the next movie.

#atsv #across the spiderverse #spider society #movie analysis #call out post #miles morales #miguel o'hara

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darcyolsson · 6 months

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In the shadowhunter universe i think the circle has the most amount of fucked up relationships. Like everybodys got complex outside the norm relationships with at least two other members. The circle is so fascinating to me. The most popular and charismatic guy is evil and the few people who figure it out takes forever to do so. People are properly rebelling against their parents. They make themself a big menace as teenagers. And on the other side youve got the downworlders reaction to this. Tessa and Magnus are heartbroken. They give up on Stephen. There is so much going on but we are given so little.

YEAH i think the circle is such an underexplored aspect of the tsc universe!! i highly doubt we'll ever get any sort of series or even a full side book dedicated to them but the tidbits of info we do have from the short stories are so fascinating. it honestly brought some much-needed nuance to the tmi parents, bc even though we do have a few details about what went down (like the circle originally not being anti-downworlders, but sort of gradually moving in that direction after valentine's father died) i did feel like tmi left me wondering a bit how they all ended up as a part of an extremist group.

my favourite thing about the circle is that, at least at the start, they all have very similar views to the tmi gang: that the clave is corrupt in many ways (objectively true), and needs to be reformed. especially in tftsa it's a statement we hear simon say over and over and over again and i just LOVE that juxtaposition, the implication that if a different kind of person had gotten a hold of simon & clary and even the rest of the gang they could've ended up exactly like their parents.

and tbh, i just love reading about the circle and their drama and misery, lol. i love it when characters act really terribly i love it when characters manipulate & get manipulated and are then eaten alive by guilt. the evil we love is a gem, just robert experiencing flop after flop and ruining everyone's lives. and then becoming miserable for the rest of his life because of it. genuinely very fun. i think cc does morally gray characters very well (when she wants to, which is rarely </3) and i just love to watch miserable people be miserable what can i say!!

also, so true what you said about fucked up relationships. the circle didnt fit into the big love web i made for all of tsc because there's nothing linking them to any of the tmi/tid/tda/etc characters (thank god lmfao), but behold, i made them their own tiny love dodecahedron for funsies:

is it more contained than the 74-people big tsc love web*? perhaps. is it any less insane? absolutely not.

*which, by the way, misses many people, as i've found out in my tmi and novella reread. but they dont fit on there so i'll have to recreate it in its entirety if i want everyone to fit, which is not something i want to spend my time doing, because i am insane but not that insane

#looking forward to reading gotsm and wanting to throw up bc of all that happened to céline #literally a grooming victim whose entire life was controlled by valentine including the false story of her death 👍#tsc #the circle #tmi #vic reads tftsa

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pentacentric · 7 months

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I am so so not gonna rb that john post bc of how it frames John caring so much about Sam & not Dean & such shallow take on John overall in general but i wanted to tell you how immaculate and on points your tags were.

I don't know why it's a war (i know why & you can see which side of fandom is shaping it as if John was attending to Sam 24/7 taking him on freaking themeparks every weekend) it's frustrating & upsetting. Let's not forget that in his last living moments John he was telling Dean he gotta kill Sam. Like this guy would've killed Sam unlike Dean. But hey, Sam had such loving tender father figure who cherished him. Anyway sorry for the ramble. I rarely see someone actually acknowledging that there's NOT supposed to be a competition but minimizing Sam's abuse and suffering is very common here bc they gotta remove Sam from the story in one way or another. I even consider myself a big john lover just bc how flawed but layered and damaged he was but he wasnt a good father for Sam either. He did NOTHING for Sam. Hell it was even Dean who carried Sam out of the fire. It was Dean saving and cherishing Sam, not John. I mean, I don't think there's an argument that he loved them both but that doesn't change how be treated them BOTH

Thank you❤️ 100% in agreement with you. This fandom can be a little exhausting at times as we all know and I generally try to stay out of that kind of discourse, but sometimes stuff like it slips in my feed and I just get so frustrated and I can't help myself. It's always nice to know there's other people that understand that the whole battle thing is just pointless.

And trauma fighting aside, even, it's such a bad take on its own. Like, not only are you completely erasing Sam's whole story and character (which is pretty much a capital crime, really), you are actually doing such a disservice to Dean! It removes so much complexity and nuance from his character, and only adds to the whole boring Dean woobification syndrome where he's the only one that suffered and is alone in the world and no one understands him (except, maybe hmmm I wonder…). Like Dean didn't have Sam suffering right there by his side. Like it wasn't the two of them against the world (which John was a central pillar of). Like all of that isn't such an integral part of why they are so intrinsically intertwined, which is what makes Dean Dean and Sam Sam and drives the whole damn show! You can't say you love Dean and try to remove his actual bond with Sam or reduce it to some kind of fanonized parentified-child/golden-child guilt trap. Because that's not it at all. And if they think that, they don't know Dean it all.

And I agree with you about John. I don't hate him (and JDM made me love him, even, with the way he portrayed him), but I can also be hard on him sometimes because he does have a lot of faults and he is abusive and it's very recognizable. But it's in a very realistic way where he isn't truly a bad person. That's part of his complexity as a character and why he's interesting. Like, someone can be loving and intend to do well and have a lot of great attributes, and also a total fucking mess and abusive and a kind of shitty parent at the same time. John may have tried, but he did utterly fail them in as many ways as he overall kept them safe and cared for them. It's fascinating because in those situations children tend to be pulled between loving that parent and wanting their approval and affectio , and also being resentful and hurt and angry, and both sets of feelings are totally valid. I think the show captures that really well with the way the boys react and develop as characters themselves. Villainizing John is as reductive as erasing Sam's canon history.

#spn meta #sam winchester and dean winchester #we love john here #but we also don't let his shit slide #spn and abuse #fandom critical #a little at least #if canon spn has more nuance than your take you might wanna rethink things

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ghoulsbeard · 9 months

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I was so excited when I saw the OC asks you reblogged!!! I have a few for you hehe. :) For Loveday: 2 and 9; For Agrak: 13 and 25; For Gal: 4 and 19; For Liathari: 6 and 10; For Mikal: 7 and 8; For Kit: 14, 16, and 26; For Tony: 15, 20, and 27.

omfg thank you so much!! <3 :)

2) Can they take care of a plant? What about a pet? What about a child?

loveday would be one of my first choices for any of these… he grew up with a garden, understands what is involved, likes researching for it; he grew up caring for animals and enjoys it; he loves kids & is good with them :)

9) Do they empathize with non-sentient things (dolls, plants, books…)?

not really

13) Name one thing their parents taught them.

agrak’s mother is the one who first taught her smithing…. though she learned from her grandmother too

25) safety or possibility?

safety... she doesn’t like taking risks

4) Do they look good in red?

gal would say so.. but only certain shades

19) Do they study before tests? Practice before job interviews?

intensely… but he likes to seem as if he didn’t

7) Describe them in three words. Now let them describe themself in three words.

brilliant, creative, gracious… mikal might say adaptable, shy, lucky

8) Do complex puzzles intrigue or frustrate them?

she is an adamant puzzle enjoyer

14) Would they agree with the term ‘guilty pleasure’? Do they have any?

HMMMM…. no

i think he feels guilty when he’s enjoying something he believes he shouldn’t - but he wouldn’t acknowledge the guilt that much

16) If money wasn’t a limit, what would they wear?

his splurge would be on custom made jewelry and some extremely nice sheer gown(s).. the sort of thing he couldn’t justify blowing his entire salary on bc when would he wear it

26) Talent or effort?

4 himself..? probably talent he almost always expects himself to screw up/things to go awry

15) What would they consider a waste of time– other than school or work?

difficult q … hm

probably bad faith arguments about politics or similar topics that touch on personal convictions - like when someone is trying to piss you off or get some strong reaction and they don’t actually want to have any kind of conversation . no point to any of it

20) What do they like that nobody else does?

deeply enjoys washing the dishes in the galley if that counts

27) Forgiveness or vengeance (or…)?

depends on what it’s for…case by case

e.g. if its someone he has to live and work with he’s going to let it slide.. especially if he doesn’t think its a big deal or if they seem genuinely upset about it… if it’s something that really bothers him hed keep an eye out for a repeat

but if its someone he can feasibly cut off entirely he will cut them off. - seethe for a while about whatever it was - eventually stop caring enough to stop seething. he won’t forget it entirely bc they could come around again

if its something that he believes requires some action on his part to even the scales then he’ll even the scales. this does not happen often

#oc hour #hopefully i answered the right numbers #thanks…!!!!!!!! :)

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jaegerisim · 10 months

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Unpopular opinion: Billy Hargrove, as a character, is not the monster that many people make him out to be. He’s a complex character and the message behind him is interesting imo.

He had lots of family trauma and likely most of his hatred is learned via how his father treats him and those around him. I’m not saying trauma excuses Billy’s behavior, and at the same time it does offer an explanation. It makes his character more complex and makes his death hit harder.

Billy sacrificed himself to save El and the party. If he had lived, maybe he would have had a redemption arc? But that’s not the message the Duffers wanted. Billy did a lot of shitty things and one big act of heroism isn’t enough to save his character.

Billy doesn’t get a redemption arc.

In stranger things the good guys win. Billy wasn’t a good guy.

But he wasn’t all bad. To me it hurts to think about a 17 year old abused by his father and manipulated/ possessed by vecna who dies by sacrificing himself to save his sister and her friends.

I feel bad for him, even though like Max I’m glad he’s not around to torment her and her friends.

Billy is a good complex bad guy.

I never see people talk about Billy as a character. It’s either people acting like he doesn’t exist or worshipping him. I’m not a Billy or harringrove Stan by any means. Hell no. (Steve deserves better lol like Eddie (steddie <3))

But I wish people talked about Billy as a character more, especially how his character impacts Max and everything.

Hiii nonny! Thank u for submitting this ask!!

Ok well I agree on some parts and I disagree on others.

Billy's character is a complex one and a mirror to Will and Jonathan, his relationship with Max is too.

Billy is Jonathan's mirror in the sense that both grew up with an abusive father and a younger sibling to take care off. Jonathan chose to be a good person and love Will while Billy decided to lash out on Max and abuse her. The similarities with Jonathan end there.

Will's parallels to Billy go way deeper. Other than the obvious name sharing. Both were victims of the mind flayer but, Will was able to fight against it bc he had ppl who loved him. Billy had no one, so he gave up. The thing is, that if Billy had no one, that is his own fucking fault bc he was violent, abusive and an overall piece of shit to absolutely everyone.

His sacrifice isn't his redemption, the fact that he decided to try and fight to save Max and The Party doesn't make him a saint. It only shows that he still has a tiny sense of morality. Also he already knew he was going to die, so he just decided to die attempting to save the others. We shouldn't worship him for this, ok?

And you are right that Billy's character is important, especially to Max's arc. He is important in the way that when he died he passed on to Max an enormous sense of guilt which is why Vecna targets her.

So, really, it's Billy's fault that Max is in a coma. He could have chosen to be good or change, but nah, he chose the easy way out.

In conclusion, Billy is a complex character but that doesn't make him any less of an asshole and I hate him quite a lot. 😊

PD: as an ex steddie shipper who only likes the fanart now, stonathan is waaaayy better 😊😊😊

#billy hargrove #billy hargrove analysis #el has hot takes and unpopular opinions

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abcd-em · 5 months

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Love all the thought and time you give your stories. Like w HFSG, as Peter processes things, he realizes that it was not just SM that ended his marriage but also the lack of communication btw the two on a lot of important areas in their lives. I appreciate that bc yes SM is a big part of it and it causes Peter to have the biggest guilt complex, but they both could have done better and now moving forward, hopefully Peter can operate differently in his relationships. Now, I’m curious to see how Gwen reacts when maybe she sees him doing things differently w MJ bc I’m guessing the will happen. Thanks again for sharing your stories w us!

I have re-read this anon so many times bc YOU GET IT!!! YOU ABSOLUTELY GET IT!!! This is everything I've been trying to show with Gwen and Peter.

Honestly one of my favourite things about this fic has been writing the stublities of their relationship, and I think my favourite detail is probably the difference in the wedding photographs that are hung up at their respective family's homes.

Spider-Man WAS/IS a big issue in their relationship, it was one of the primary reasons for the breakdown of it, but other factors contributed to that. It might NOT have been such a big issue if they'd known how to talk to one another about it a little better but they don't!!! And they're still learning how to do that as friends!!

You're right about Peter doing better - he still has a lot of room for growth but he's getting better at communicating wants, needs and his feelings, and MJ has been a huge part of doing that bc she isn't interested in playing those type of games.

Its WHY this has been such a slow burn for Peter and MJ. The boy got DIVORCED and has to process that!!!

Anywayzzz thank u for this ❤️

#em answers

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ojirocardigansniper · 1 year

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30, 34, 38, and B for blink !

Tahnks for blowing up my whole shit ian i love you.

30. Who do they most regret meeting?

the second i saw 30 was this i said outloud OH FUCK. onehit kill. can't be any answer other than her best friend. they are pair bonded like parrots (Tragic). girl meets boy because her job is going to be listening for response from the gods he's killing himself to communicate with, and her job is going to be watching him die, teaching the next one to die, and the next, until her drowning day finally comes. she met his predecessor in uer end stages of sickness, so she knows how it will look for him. No matter how much she loves him or how many times she can get away with dumping out his ritual cup, he's committed to what he's doing, what he's been raised to do... so yeah, she regrets meeting him. not that she thinks of it as something she chose to do, seeing as it's all divine-vision-scraps that brought her there. but when she still sometimes wishes for another life for them, often she thinks separate lives would have the best chance of peace.

34. How hard is it for them to shake a sense of guilt?

mm. impossible really. survivor's guilt alchemized into rage at who seemed responsible, but it's still there. she feels simultaneously that she doesn't deserve the losses she's suffered, and that she's still here and alive. there's also insanely complex guilt around everything with her partner's slow ritual death and the death of their mentor the same way. the struggle between prolonging the suffering overall versus staving the worst of it off now. (under my breath) the phrase Quality of Life is not part of their lexicon and it shows . whats that hospice by the antlers you say ? something something shiva4shiva? noooo haha whattt

38. What memory do they revisit the most often?

ah jeez. ah fuck. hard to say. technically i suppose memories of her death (past visions of it) but that's not voluntary. unconsciously i think she very often revisits childhood memories of her brother- always has fragments of them floating about without realizing. one of her core unfulfilled needs is that close companionship she lost back then- she's been trying to fill that hole ever since, no matter if she does so on purpose. i'm really trying to think of things she would consciously try to remember and. mostly coming up with 'tonguing the hole in the gum' type things. don't forget the pain of this or you'll stop letting it drive you. (kicks a rock) she's in my personal bouquet of wretched girlies with baru cormorant for a reason...

B) What inspired you to create them?

time honored tradition of fandom au that got out of fucking hand 🫡 haikyuu au with the highschool bestie, we cooked up a big kingdoms+fantasy setting thru like 2016-2018 and then i continued going feral over a handful of characters that lived rent free in my mind for the next. three years ish? before i finally was like ok i should make it official and stop calling these bitches the names of anime characters. For ayirine specifically some of her core traits have been there since the beginning (foresight, dead twin, death by drowning, kills her best friend) but since filing off serial numbers i transed her gender and made her more actively suicidal (its themes. sorry) and REALLY WEIRD re: her religious convictions. also structurally she's become a prequel tragedy / cautionary tale preceding the main chunk of the narrative, which, not that we had a lot of structure before due to being high schoolers just having fun worldbuilding, but her killing her best friend used to be a W for the then-protagonists bc he was the leader of their enemy, et cetera. by now ive wandered entirely away from the adversarial narrative and into the weeds of other stuff i can personally tell a better story about, due to having Many Thoughts Head Full. i like putting together stories that are dioramas of people and their strange selves much more now than i did when i was a #teen and mostly just liked cool settings and shit. now im like if the characters in the setting arent fascinating then well i almost dont care how cool it is.

ok swag that wasnt as interminably long as i thought it was. no readmore then (gestures to followers) Look at my melodramatic oc boy

#chat #asks #btw ayirine is blinks actual name ifanyone doesnt know. it took me like a full year and a half to settle on her fuckign name .#so icalled her blink after her character playlist (which is named that bc she gets vision fragments everytime she closes her eyes at all)#shes my awful girlie. i love her. she has never had a happy ending ever in her existence as a character. its like that sometimes #blink #ouroboros ocs #fwiends <3

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jack-kellys · 2 years

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i’ve come to ask for hunted au hcs 😁 (i definitely like this au a Normal Amount and am Not unhinged about it at all)

oh no of course. it’s a totally normal au so yeah why would you

send me an au (mine or an idea u got!) and i’ll give you some headcanons!

so jack’s dad was a cop, which is complicated, because jack’s dad was an asshole.

but jack thought it was something that he could do better? like he never saw his dad as a cop just that his dad was an asshole and a cop as well. so the idea of doing it better, being the hero, seduced him into it… so jack’s hatred of the NYPD is much more systematic than davey’s because. that’s literally how they got his ass. and he’s sooo ashamed of it so it’s both a guilt complex and a driving force behind his work, which are my favorite kinds of characters.

jack is alsooooo not an alcoholic but not…… not…… he has an issue let’s call it

also he’s not adverse to blood, but he actually really doesn’t like it. like he’ll look away from a body when he can afford to.

most of my daveys are rationalizers and justifiers, whether it be funneling his own emotions or defending his actions. historically bad at being wrong, especially since he rarely is. but when he is, this davey specifically is… ugly about it. he’s uncomfortable with being wrong, and when he knows he is, he’ll nitpick and criticize and rip into the person who is right’s way of working. petty, as all the greatest daveys are <3

davey also has very few pictures of his family like on display in his apartment. not like he doesn’t have any, but for him, it distracts him since he’ll get emotional and therefore distracted.

charlie morris is the best character (headcanon). it’s a fact i’m joking

but is more of a little brother figure than i normally make him (despite. ok bfu is an outlier he’s young in that) like he’s five years younger than jack, finished college like a couple years prior. he’s also a really good sketch artist because jack taught him

he also very accidentally stumbled into whatever profession this is.. like he studied biomed in college and thought he was going to work in labs for the rest of his life, which was fine, since that’s not too much movement for him and also solid in like. job retention. but in the meantime he was going to do some assistant work. but jack’s ad for an assistant did not indicate the forensics of it all, so c didn’t learn on the fly per se bc it’s his background, but his detective work is seriously extremely impressive since that was newer for him.

basically he’s the genius of this story. big shock rizz gives charlie the coolest parts of the aus they write

finally we have katherine. and katherine is a reporter, which is bad. which can be good. but while kath is more protective of jack because of their personal history, i will say that she will stop at nothing for a good article.

which i’m hoping will bite ppl in the ass later. we’ll see what i do with her.

#yeahhhhhh!!!!!#hunted i also have words down for a. what is it now. fourth chapter #bonus info: we gettin. some spice #:)#thanks kath!#jack kelly #davey jacobs #charlie morris #katherine pulitzer #newsies #fizz freaks #fizz wants to write #hunted au #newsies aus #mutuals

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crypt1dcorv1dae · 3 months

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Y'know what's an awful aspect of our money struggles, and the fact dad's job is unstable, and all this shit? Is that some part of me feels like it's MY FAULT and I feel SELFISH to insist that we stay, instead of moving to Mississippi, where it would be much cheaper to live. I now feel like shit for wanting to stay with my family in the only place I've ever called home. I didn't want my sick, mentally disabled mother to go through the trauma of being separated from ALL of her family in a completely alien environment with absolutely nobody she knows

Like, yeah, it's still possible we might need to move a bit further away, but absolutely not THAT far... Maybe, like, out of the county, or into a neighboring state, not FUCKING MISSISSIPPI....

But I still feel selfish. Even tho my feelings were absolutely valid. And I HATE that I feel this way and I hate even more than I know it's absolutely just bc we (me + my siblings) all have these awful guilt complexes from the goddamn trickle down Catholic Guilt our parents have despite NOT BEING RAISED RELIGIOUS and it's all. So stupid. I hate this

I want to help and I know part of why is bc I'm terrified dad is gonna change his mind and decide we're moving far far away after all, and this was all just a grace period, the calm before the storm .... And part of why is bc I have the feeling of guilt bc I feel like the reason we're suffering so much financially is because of me, somehow, like me choosing to stay is something that we have to all be like karmically punished for, and that's so stupid but it's how I feel and..... And yeah I also want to help because I don't want my dad to be suffering, but unfortunately a big part of why is just to avoid worse things. I'll happily pay rent to avoid having to move to the goddamn bible belt, I'll NEVER be able to transition there...

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1800duckhotline · 2 years

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phoebe: nurse. outsider to the ghorkon village. russian. comes from the city similarly to daniil. her vibes are absolutely rancid but she has this air that makes you feel like that if you wrong her you'll have a target on your back (and you wouldn't be entirely wrong). very irreverent to people in power which includes vlad I and II and the other bitches that govern the different factions, but is especially vile towards daniil like she doesn't even try hiding it. however seems to respect clara and artemy, as well as most children would think of her as actually pretty nice. she would be mostly seen around where the stamatins seem to be (she doesn't bug them and they don't bug her back) - tisha: assassin. native to the ghorkon village. also horrid rancid vibes. he was born there and jumps in and out of the city quite frequently because of his... "interesting" occupation. he probably knows bad grief pretty well considering tisha is essentially a thug who's very good at murdering unsuspected. he avoids interacting directly with the people in charge. proooobably would meddle better with artemy out of all the 3 healers (though i think artemy would Not like him lmao). he absolutely does drugs. in the story it would come to surface some way or another that he has done services for phoebe in the past and that he might be like, actually boycrushing on her, even if he's completely aware she is just using him. (im not done holdawn)

elaine: phoebe's "patient". elaine is an outsider and probably comes from germany, though it is uncertain. first of all: she loves messing around wth all of the 3 healers - though she is especially mean to clara because elaine is quite literally a bully. she's about 19-20 and phoebe isn't possessive of her but elaine more or less always would ask help to get away from her LMAO - would be the first one to explicitly mention that phoebe's life story is actually hella sketchy (that she was part of a cult as a young child) and that her double-facedness between patients and not-patients is not that surprising as she has an ego the size of the polyhedron (ha ha) and thinks of herself as some kind of god. not her though, elaine doesn't! but she likes testing people's patience. anyway, elaine would probably like hanging out with the younger characters. she actually would frequent the theatre pretty often too.

salice: so here's the thing what the fuck would a possibly not entirely normal human would fucking do in a vaguely-timed russian setting, especially what is an ITALIAN doing here of all places, well i will tell you she's just here because i want her to be. and because she is a lawyer and probably works for the saburovs since these fucking people have no idea how the law actually works. to be fair she's also here because she is in fact a necromancer and she finds it fun to meddle with corpses while no one is watching, to practice her magic and to try and sort of see what the fuck the sand plague is about. she is essentially immune to it, though it seems there's another kind of sickness that's damaged her enough for her to need a mask to cover the side of her face! who knows what her deal is... anyway despite being a lawyer , she does not care about adhering to the law, there's another big-egoed bitch in town. probably would actually get along with daniil ? lmao? i can see it. she is very condescending towards most people though and That will come back to bite her in the ass

phoebe's isnt elaborate yet bc she was in fact part of a cult that revolved around flies while she was young, though she didnt participate by choice, and because of the inhumane sacrifices they made she decided to poison & kill all of them, which gave phobe a god complex and a survivors guilt simultaneously at the same time. though she does not really regret killing them actually LOL. shes not rly an "angel of death" type of nurse, she loves helping people back to health - especially elderly and children. bc they remind her of her grandma and herself when she was little (she has a very idealized image of her grandma who was the one that put her in the cult). but yeah, idk hwo to integrate that smoothly since its not rly relevant to the story - she's mostly in the ghorkon city initially just because she is kind of going around the continent with elaine, trying to find a "cure" for her, even if elaine doesn't rly need a cure as much as she needs therapy, but they're then both stuck in the ghorkon city bc of the sand plague outbreak. and boy it is a doozy

#oc rambles #pathologic au #bc im demented for my ocs dont look too closely at this but i need to save it somewhere or lese ill forget

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