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makeste · 3 years

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I like Bakuguo but his attitude is starting to really piss me off. He's talking about Daku as if he's just ~crazy~ and as if he isn't partly to blame for Deku's toxic self-worth issues. It's infuriating to watch. If Bakuguo doesn’t admit out loud and in front of his friends that his bullying of Deku played a part in Deku's current destructive state and if he doesn’t verbally apologize and reaffirm Deku's worth then I can no longer like Bakuguo's character or Hori's writing.

tbh I don't really know why this is the discourse of choice for people all of a sudden, but this is already the second ask I've gotten about it, so I might as well address it lol.

I think fandom is conflating fanon!Deku and canon!Deku here again. fanon Deku is of course much more sensitive and woobified and has much shakier self-esteem. fanon Deku is the one that turns evil in so many AUs because of Kacchan's bullying. fanon Deku is the one that actually jumps off the roof in so many fics, as opposed to fishing his notebook back out of the pond a few minutes later grumbling about how Kacchan needs to think before he speaks or else he could land himself in serious shit one day if god forbid anyone actually does take his cruel words to heart.

and just to clarify before I get any further, I am not saying this to excuse Kacchan's actions in any way, because what he did was still completely terrible and unacceptable and WAY over the line, and what's more he knew it, too. the bullying was still shitty and horrible and awful, and definitely impacted Deku and made him miserable. I fully acknowledge that, and that Kacchan has a lot of atoning to do for it. this is not a "Kacchan did nothing wrong" post.

but that being said, I don't think canon Deku's reckless self-sacrificing nature actually has anything to do with the bullying. I think they're two completely separate things. canon Deku actually has pretty decent self-esteem in spite of everything Kacchan did to him. canon Deku doesn't think he is useless. canon Deku had a wholeass fight with Kacchan less than 10 chapters into the series in which he explicitly spelled it out for Kacchan that he had a lot of worth, and was going to prove it to him. canon Deku was persistent in wanting to become a hero and hoping and believing that he could find some way in spite of being quirkless. canon Deku never let go of that dream even when no one else supported it. I don't think he would have even given up on it after being told no by All Might, tbh -- we just never got to see how it would have played out because of everything that happened with the sludge monster shortly afterward. but he's not the type to ever give up on something that easily, and we've seen that. canon Deku never thought he was useless, but rather wanted to prove to everyone else that he wasn't.

the drive that Deku has to save and protect others even at the expense of his own safety is something entirely separate from that. he doesn't break his body for others simply because he has no self-esteem and thinks that his own life isn't important. he does it because he can't stand the thought of someone else getting hurt, and knowing that he could have done something to prevent it. it's as simple as that. like, Spider-Man has the whole "with great power comes great responsibility" thing, right? and he doesn't have low self-esteem; he simply believes that if he has the ability to help someone else, then he has a responsibility to help them. it's a personal creed. and Deku is based on Spider-Man. his philosophy is based on that philosophy, which was one of Horikoshi's core influences and is one of the core creeds in superhero fiction.

Deku is self-destructive not because he doesn't value himself, but because he is literally physically incapable of standing back and doing nothing if he knows that he can do something. he's the type of person who sees a car speeding towards someone and leaps in to push them out of the way. NOT because he wants to get himself fucking pancaked by a speeding car, but simply because he can't sit back and watch the other person get hurt without taking action. his body moves before he can think. and that's where the whole "doesn't take himself into account" thing comes in -- the fact that his thought process simply stops at "get them out of the way of the car", and never extends beyond that to "hey, and maybe I should try to find a way to do this that doesn't involve me getting hit in their place." to him, that's simply less important than the first priority, which is getting the other person out of the way.

and regarding that last part, while that may seem like a self-worth issue if he's prioritizing everyone else above himself, I think what it actually is just selflessness taken to extremes. like for instance, when a parent sacrifices themselves to save their child, them placing the child's life above their own isn't necessarily because they don't see themselves as having value. rather, it's that they love the child so much that they place their well-being even above their own. and that's what Deku is like as well. except that in his case he cares about EVERYONE, and so is willing to sacrifice himself for anyone. and that selflessness is his defining character trait, and simultaneously the most admirable and the most terrifying thing about him. it's both his greatest strength and his greatest weakness, which I think is fascinating to explore.

but anyway, so that's also why we never really see anyone thoroughly chewing him out for this behavior either. because the thing is, it is admirable how selfless he is. it's just that there's also a reason why most people are at least a little bit selfish. and that's because too much selflessness will ultimately and inevitably wind up getting you killed. at some point you either have to learn when to put the oxygen mask on yourself first, or else find yourself a loyal group of friends (or classmates) to watch your back, and make sure that mask gets on you when you need it. and maybe help you land the plane too while they're at it.

anyway so that was a lot of rambling, but basically it all boils down to three things:

when Deku berates himself for being useless (for instance at the end of the War arc), he's doing it out of frustration for not being able to push the others out of the way of the metaphorical car. that's the kind of uselessness he can't stand. the sitting-back-and-doing-nothing uselessness.

Kacchan's bullying was terrible, and it might have indeed played a part in Deku's choice of the word "useless" as a way of berating himself in these instances, but he is not the one who gave Deku this mindset of taking himself out of the equation. that's something that was already inherent to Deku from day one. (but that said, Kacchan has a lot of things to apologize to Deku for anyway, so if he wants to add this to the list I certainly won't stop him. he gets mad about Deku's suicidal attitude because it worries him, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he doesn't feel responsible for it. people underestimated his feelings of atonement before 284/285, and I think they're still underestimating him now.)

and lastly, one last important note, which is that Deku's current "saving" mindset isn't wrong, just as Kacchan's "winning" mindset was not wrong either. the lesson to be learned here is NOT that being selfless and wanting to save other people is bad. rather, it's the fact that he's trying to do it alone that's got him all fucked up right now. basically when you think about it, selflessness is really just selfishness on someone else's behalf. which means that in order for Deku to be saved, it isn't necessary for him to change his outlook or his selfless attitude, even if it is pretty crazy lol. rather, all he really needs is a good group of friends who are willing to act selfishly on his behalf in return. protecting each other through mutual selflessness lol. teamwork as self-preservation. hence why the U.A. kids are here now.

anyway so yeah, I think that's everything. sorry this got so long and out of control lol. this is just a very specific nuanced thing that's hard for me to express, but which I feel is very important when it comes to Deku's character. Kacchan didn't unleash Depressed Nomad Deku on the world (or at least not in this respect). but that being said, he and the others will hopefully be the ones to nudge him back on the right course again.

#bnha 319 #midoriya izuku #bakugou katsuki #bnha meta #deku meta #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha #asks #anon asks #long post

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bakasaiga · 3 years

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Kagome & Towa: Heroines of Complementary Feminism

Two Sides of the Same Coin

Read the full article here: “Kagome & Towa: Heroines of Complementary Feminism” by bakasaiga

Introduction: Character Design

Judging from each heroine's apparel alone, any spectator can tell that Towa's design can be largely inspired by the progressive themes of 2020. Compared to Kagome's iconic sailor uniform, short skirt, and luscious black hair, Towa sports a clean white boys' school uniform with fitting trousers, an assertive belt, and a thin red ribbon. Towa's pale short hair contrasts Kagome's dark locks. Their skin tones even differ as Kagome's emits a tanned warmth while Towa's elicits an iciness inherited from her father.

Though the two young women seemingly embody contradicting features, their attitudes, personalities, and incentives argue far from that. It's not as if Kagome has never worn pants, nor that Towa is allergic to skirts. Yashahime establishes that Towa primarily wears men's clothing because of its convenience in combat. Likewise, we've seen Towa in "girlier" attire before too.

Towa wears her hair short, insists on fashioning sleek trousers, and gets into fights, but this doesn't make her any less feminine than Kagome. Towa's warmth mirrors that of her mother, an inherently feminine trait. She wears her heart on her sleeves, similar to Kagome and Rin but in a slightly different way. Similarly, despite Kagome's delicate demeanour, she's far from fragile. In the first episode of the original InuYasha series, she's established to be quiet hot-headed, outspoken, and strong-minded — qualities that would seemingly contradict a dainty sailor uniformed gal.

The point here is that Towa's androgynous features don't automatically equate her to be butch, nor does Kagome's inherent docility translate to softness. The irony is that Towa is the one who's considered soft throughout the commentary of Moroha and Setsuna in Yashahime and Kagome is characterized as stubborn and commanding in InuYasha.

The reason why Towa's depiction of gender is so striking is because it's not particularly linear or black and white: it is truly all-encompassing, and to some degree, intersectional. She may appear to be a stereotypical "tomboy" (author's note: this term is outdated, but I'll use it to convey the sentiment for convenience sake), but her warm, idol-crazed, pink bracelet-wearing self can speak otherwise. Likewise, Kagome's countless fashionable short skirts, high ponytails, and praised femininity don't revoke her ability to assume dominance, dictate decision-making, or oppose those who get in her way. These Higurashi daughters challenge one-dimensional approaches to feminism and gender, while simultaneously strengthening their cause.

Unbridled Sexualization

When the audience is formally introduced to our 14-year old heroine in Yashahime episode 2, Sunrise isn't shy to uphold that same raw sexuality they did for Kagome, a 15-year old at the beginning of the original series. There are enough debates on the morals and ethics of fictional depictions when it comes to sexualizing teenage girls, but it's also important not to ignore this aspect of female adolescence. Of course, their bodies are developing (some, quicker than others) and Sunrise's choice to make their newest protagonist equally as sexually appealing as their last one remains a consistent expressive choice, upholding the author's intent and style.

Sure, on the surface, Towa's considered the classic "tomboy," but that doesn't disqualify her from developing cleavage or wearing a bra. Kagome's raw sexuality is consistently played up in the original series, with characters commenting on her short skirt, countless hot springs episodes, and form-fitting outfits to top it all off. The best part of this is that this doesn't devalue either of these female icons. Sexuality isn't unnatural and the "fanservice" depicted in these times of provocation are some of the most tasteful executions in shonen anime. They're not at inappropriate times and they are intricately woven into the plot.

Modesty empowers some, nudity empowers others.

There's no right or wrong in these approaches. What's most meaningful about this is that the author is also a woman who recognizes the sophistication between the lines of these portrayals. Rumiko Takahashi subversively bolsters this message that women don't need to be afraid or shameful of their bodies through the delivery of two very different, yet similar heroines. She brings to life a story for both boys and girls.

Modern & Forward-thinking

Released in 2020, Yashahime isn't shy to explicitly express its messaging behind gender and feminism. Towa consistently makes references to the norms of the modern era and observes how innately backwards they are. In episode 12, her passionate line, "No matter what era you live in, what girls feel will never change," indiscreetly stands out from the rest of the episode's narrative.

During the original series, the easter eggs of feminism weren't nearly as explicit, but they certainly painted and complemented core aspects of the story. The notion of Kagome's choice and agency throughout InuYasha is hinted at consistently. Kagome, a woman of the modern era, remarks on some temporal differences with feudal Japan. In episode 41, when Miroku is re-acquainted with Koharu, someone he had proposed to at a young age, Kagome monologues internally, "Girls of the feudal era are amazing," as their foreign relationship structure unfolds in front of her.

Though some may view Kagome's response to Koharu's "unhealthy" and "brainwashed" or "conditioned" love for Miroku as poor writing, or blame it on Kagome's adolescent ignorance, I find that hard to believe. The compelling aspects of Kagome's feminism aren't that she'd outright denounce the sexist mechanisms of the feudal era or explain to everyone why what Miroku did was wrong (applying a modern approach, though it's evident that the entire gang looked down on Miroku for his age-inappropriate lechery anyway). Kagome's feminist approach is her belief in the agency and free will of the woman, Koharu. She never berates Koharu for these feelings, belittles her wishful thinking, or tries to force some type of moral superiority over her. Kagome never invalidates Koharu. And this is the critical point of her complementary feminism to Towa. Towa verbalizes the feelings of girls never change regardless of the time period. When I heard this line, I painted an instant connection with an homage to the original series' depictions of a "first love" and the ongoing conflicting feelings of the women in the InuYasha franchise. The concept of a "first love" transcends through time and Kagome's validation for Koharu complements Towa's statement and vice versa. Kagome and Towa aren't the only ones who demonstrate conflicting internal feelings — Sango, Kikyo, Kagura, Rin, Kagome's mother... they all have their moments of internal conflict about their own life choices...

Read the full article here: “Kagome & Towa: Heroines of Complementary Feminism” by bakasaiga

Twitter @bakasaiga PIXIV @bakasaiga Vocal.Media @bakasaiga Instagram: @SesshomaRin

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kpopfanfictrash · 2 years

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Hey Shanna, Ive been a reader of your works for quite sometime now and being in the world of bts fan fiction even longer. I absolutely love it and so much so that I've sorta been inspired to write a ff of my own 🙈

So I had a question for you. It's okay if you feel like its too vague 😅 (that's how it sounds in my head too) so, when I was crafting my characters and writing them in the story, something feels off? IDK how to explain it but my characters feel dry? Like how do I make them feel more alive 👉🏼👈🏼

sorry if this sounds vague 😅 IDK how to word it better

Hi, anon! Hm, you're right, this question is a little vague. I have some thoughts, but they could be totally off-base. I'll just throw a few things out there, and hopefully one of them helps!

A lot of the time when my characters feel dry/boring/one-dimensional, it's because I've made them too perfect. Or too consistent. Humans are messy, imperfect and often hypocritical. No one does the right thing all the time, and when a character does, it makes them unrelatable. Not only that, it's basically impossible for a character to be all things all the time. What I like to do is pick traits I know my character does have, and then consider the corresponding negative traits. For example, if I've created a passionate, ambitious and honest character, they might have corresponding traits of being over-zealous, callous and potentially rude. A character who's super-nice might not stick up for themselves. A character with strong empathy might not make the most logical decisions. If you've made a character with only positive traits, they're likely going to feel a bit off as you read.

Similarly, people aren't always consistent. Character traits should guide how they act, but it's important to ask yourself when your characters might be tempted to stray from the norm. Even a very quiet person might berate someone if pushed too far, or they say the wrong thing. At what point would your character act contrary to how they typically are? Having a character be quiet all the time is unrealistic, since everyone has moments when they’re pushed outside their comfort zone.

One last thought is you may be writing too efficiently, or not building enough backstory for your readers to care. Yes, a story should be comprised of plot points and yes, each scene in the story should exist to move the plot along BUT! The purpose of some of those scenes can be to build a relationship or develop a character. Sometimes writers are so excited to get to the Main Scene (the kiss! the smut! the heist!) that they rush through all the little build-up scenes which make the Main Scene impactful. For example, Mr. Darcy's character reveal in Pride and Prejudice would have been much less impactful without all the brushes and interaction with Elizabeth before then.

Hope something in the above was helpful, anon! Best of luck with your writing!

#asks #on writing

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celestial-ringleader · 3 years

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This is an unnecessary rant about Gambit but here we are

Hi yeah so I’m procrastinating pretty hard on my school work and current pile of WIPs forming on my google docs, but I’ve noticed a lot more x-fans calling Remy narcissistic and since I did an ungodly amount of research into Gambit as well as being very into deep-diving into a character’s psychology, I figured I’d jump on that and put my two cents in.

But first I should start with saying that I’m not a professional in the field of psychology (I’ve only taken one class in psychology and I don’t plan on furthering myself in that field) and the information I’m getting is mostly from the DSM-5 as well as other articles discussing NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) and of course the many, many panels I have stock-piled about Remy, so yeah don’t take what I’m saying here as gospel. Another thing, I realize that not everyone has to deep-dive into a character to find enjoyment with them, I have a few characters that I only really like because I think they’re cool, so this isn’t me trying to berate fans for not doing the same amount of research fueled by hyperfixation as I have. Honestly this is just me wanting to ramble about Remy and I just so happen to go way too deep into it sometimes kdjbvdjk

That being said, I’m completely open to critique and if I make a mistake in my assumptions I’m cool with it, just don’t be an ass about it. I’m doing this because it’s fun and I wanted to share my own personal opinions on a popular fandom headcanon, I’m not looking to start an argument over this I literally do not have the time for that.

Anyways this is gonna be a long post so I’ll put it under a read more, in case you don’t want to read this long-winded rant: TLDR; Remy isn’t a Narcissist, at most he’s egotistical/full of himself.

Don’t tag as any kind of ship, this isn’t about shipping.

Okay, so what is NPD?

So to start off, I’ve often seen people treat Narcissism the same as someone who’s incredibly prideful and arrogant (and sometimes they’re treated as synonyms of each other), and this is simply not the case. According to the DSM-5 (which I actually did read for a paper I did for sociology not that long ago) NPD is a personality disorder which is mostly characterized with a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and a lack of empathy. But there’s a lot more to diagnosing someone with NPD beyond those three things; also within the DSM-5 there’s a list of nine criteria, five of which must be met for a formal diagnosis:

Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements).

Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love.

Believes that he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions).

Requires excessive admiration.

Has a sense of entitlement (i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations).

Is interpersonally exploitative (i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends).

Lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others.

Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her.

Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes.

(Link to DSM-5 pdf) It goes way more in depth into the criteria than I am so yeah

Okay, that’s great and all, but what does this have to do with my point over a fictional character? Well on the surface you would probably assume that Remy ticks most of these boxes, and in a way I can agree, but it’s also to understand the context behind his psychology to find other possible reasons for his behavior rather than just having NPD. Sure someone can have narcissistic personality traits, but that doesn’t immediately mean they are one since some behaviors can overlap and be caused by something completely different.

To not make this go on forever, I’ll only focus on the main traits of NPD and go into why Remy doesn’t fit into that specific personality disorder.

[Disclaimer this will be my own interpretation of canon, so for all I know this could be different than what you think and I’m cool with that, just know that there’s probably gonna be bias and I can’t help it sometimes.]

Desire for Grandiosity

A notable trait in someone with NPD is wanting everything they can get, having high ambitions and doing anything to achieve that goal because they feel entitled to it. And sometimes this can lead to either conscious or intentional exploitation of others to achieve said goals. However, Remy doesn’t have big goals or ambitions in life; he doesn’t want to become a King of Thieves, he doesn’t want to be the next folk hero, he doesn’t even want to be super powerful**; all he wants is to settle down and live a normal life. That’s it. Of course he fully expects to never get that considering how eventful and crazy his life has been since he was born, but it’s something he’s expressed on multiple occasions. All he wants out of life is peace*.

*Here he was talking to Rogue about this very same thing when they were both going on a mission together in New Orleans, I can’t remember the full context but it was before their relationship really kicked off.

Very simple, mundane hopes and dreams despite the craziness of his life up until that point.

**During a fight with another version of himself called New Sun, who was powerful enough to kill the Dark Phoenix and destroy his entire planet because of a surge of his powers, he says he doesn’t want to have that kind of power. He sees this great Omega-Level power and rejects it wholly because he doesn’t want to be above everyone else.

(And yes, he does manage to kill New Sun at the cost of burning out his powers, reducing them back down to how they normally are)

As much as I don’t like citing Excalibur because frankly that characterization of him is not my favorite (that’s a rant for another day) but at the prospect of possibly having kids he seems to like the idea, and during the Hellfire Gala he mentions being okay with just watching Rogue from afar while staying home. While the rest of Excalibur is questionable at best, this is at least consistent with his dream of living a normal life with the person he loves. Nothing grand whatsoever.

Normally I would try to cite HoM because that was literally an AU where everyone got their dream life, but apparently he was also a thief in that AU too which makes me so mad that the writers would just ignore canon but whatever.

Lack of Empathy

I feel like I don’t need to explain this, but after hearing about people online accusing him of being heartless and downright awful, I guess I have to debunk it now.

NPD usually leads to someone not understanding how other people feel or what the consequences of their actions could be, in some cases they genuinely can’t understand how their manipulation could affect their friends and loved ones and assume it’s probably their fault, not on the Narcissist. Empathy, according to google, is being able to understand and share the feelings of others, and if there’s anything Remy has, it’s empathy. In his first debut we saw him treating Storm with kindness simply because he could and empathized with her, saying that thieves need to stick together. Later on, we see him comforting her after a nightmare and not showing any signs of fear or caution most likely because he knows how it feels and goes with the next best thing to distract her from it: taking her out on a night of stealing and enjoying the town. Again, probably because that’s his best method of helping himself, so he does the same to her.

This kindness and understanding is very consistent with his character, extending it to Laura despite how much everyone was warned away from her, and to Jubilee because in a way she’s very much like him. He also shares this same empathy with Rogue when she needs it the most, once again knowing and understanding her pain.

He’s been through a lot of pain so he goes to great lengths to ensure none of his loved ones have to feel like he did.

Arrogance and Egotism

One thing I’ve seen talked about a lot is that Remy is typically seen as an arrogant bastard who just loves to talk himself up and...yeah this is pretty much true. Most writers consistently have him boast and brag and not surprisingly this is what most fans (and writers) turn to when throwing the Narcissistic label onto him; he acts super arrogant and just loves himself so much, so therefore he’s a narcissist. But as I said before, being arrogant isn’t the end all of NPD.

Judging from what I’ve gleamed from his past and what’s been hinted at on several occasions, I don’t think his arrogance comes from being a Narcissist. In fact on several occasions, he talks down about himself, even outright admitted to Rogue that he hated himself, especially after the events of what happened in Antarctica:

Someone who’s truly a Narcissist wouldn’t admit this sort of thing, they wouldn’t show shame in their actions nor think that they’re not deserving of anything; but Remy does say these things, even believing that Rogue deserves better than him because of how much baggage he has despite how much he loves her. It’s sort of become a meme at how little he pays attention to his own lack of self-esteem since he gases himself up around others, but that’s just it: he doesn’t gas himself up because he believes he’s better than everyone, he’s doing it because he believes he’s lesser and is compensating for the lack of self-esteem. Which is something trauma survivors tend to do: think the “fawn” in fight/flight/fawn. He’s pushing this persona because he knows people like the persona, but deep down he’s very troubled and believes himself inadequate (couple that with abandonment issues and suddenly there’s a lot more reason to believe he isn’t a Narcissist).

In Conclusion. . .

Remy isn’t a Narcissist despite what comic writers want to present to the x-fans out there. To me, and this is going purely off my own personal interpretation, Remy is someone who’s done horrible things in his past and has paid the price for it ten times over, and how he tries to safe-guard himself from his own demons is by touting himself as some big-shot with an angel’s smile; nothing can stop him because he’s on top of the world. But in the end, all that is is a persona, a mask he presents to the rest of the world. After experiencing so much pain in his life, he has to keep whatever is left of his mental state safe by covering it up, not exposing his wounds and insecurities to anyone. And oftentimes he’s so good at keeping it that he forgets he’s wearing it, but if that means Remy LeBeau gets to rot away in a corner while Gambit lives high on life, then he’s content with keeping it that way.

At least until the mask falls off. . .

Anyways.

This took a lot longer than I expected, namely because I was trying to do this between school work and also procrastinating so much on finding the panels and writing out all my thoughts concisely (and not in the form of screeching and keysmashes like my metas usually are). But in the end I had a fun time doing research into this and of course any chance to talk about Remy (and debunking popular fanon around him) is just a fun time for me period. Just as a reminder, this is my own personal opinion and it doesn’t have to be yours, we can disagree and I’m fine with that; this is just how I show love of a character by putting them through Pain and talking about the Pain.

But with that being said I hope y’all enjoyed this long ramble and have a good day/night/afternoon!

just wanted to have something cute at the end

#robin speaks #long post #remy lebeau #character meta #mental disorders #suicide ideation tw #gambit #he's so complex and i love him that way #i might do more posts like these in the future

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wowsoboring · 3 years

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Deconstructing Baseless Harry Potter Arguments#2 (i) : Harmione Edition

Obviously I once again do not mean to target all Harmione shippers. I know quite a few who're very good human beings and tolerant and accepting above all. However these aren't. In this case, you might sense quite a bit of levelheadedness in the beginning, however you must not be fooled as it goes south and takes a nasty turn very quickly. Don't get your hopes up, this is some of the worst shit I've ever seen, especially the way in which it progresses through its course. Naturally, for this post I have picked my own style of writing which will match that of those redditors. Reddit is the perfect breeding ground for all these weird cults, honestly. I shall be resorting to a formal language and style of conversation, very much like a debater would to sound as pretentious as these do. These posts are found on the instagram handle toxicharmonyshippers who gather such toxic musings and sayings for Harmione shippers while respecting the ones that are nice.

Oh yes, let's use words like 'vehemently' to sound smart, why not? Of course, this little tidbit of the highly stupendous post seems more or less civil at the start. They also have the common decency to say "some Romione shippers" rather than generalizing all of us. Very nice of you, how very saint like. Let's wait till they drop the act and show us their true colors. Harkening back to the argument, I have but one question for you, "where do you find these people?". Where's the proof? Who are these radical Romione shippers who worship Ron and dislike Hermione? I haven't seen any such shippers and I am surrounded by Romione shippers on tumblr, instagram and fan fiction sites as well and haven't met the people you speak of. Some point out her flaws, yes, but no one hates her or dislikes her that much. I have seen two or three Romione shippers across hundreds and thousands who're skeptical of Hermione's perfection. Skeptical. Not hating, disliking, or anything. Of course, unlike this person, I have evidence: find these pi charts for your referral (clickable): https://imgur.com/a/QfPnQbB

you can, through these, see the amount of Hermione bashing across Harry Potter fanfiction and you can see that even in Romione fanfiction there's more Ron bashing. Hermione-bashing is a non-issue. That's what it is. Regarding the "nagging" statement, where's the lie in that? "Annoying" is somewhat subjective, I personally don't find her annoying at all. Who are these people and how often do you find them? "Mary Sue" is only reserved for Movie!Hermione. I have only seen book fans call her that. No one has ever called Book!Hermione Mary Sue. The movie does paint her as a flawless, all-rounder who's also drop-dead gorgeous. Only things she's bad at are flying and divination, all of which she denounces as useless, even though flying is like biking for wizards, divination, sure, not that important. with a teacher like Trelawney, even I would denounce it as hokum.

Remember what I said about waiting for them to show us their true colors, well here they are. Bask in the glory of their senseless arguments. Why, I am from reddit, heck I have 25 thousand karma points on there, I just left because it was too stupid for me but I can argue like them very well. And in this case I would like to say that these people are under the impression that Ron is just there in the story for the sake of existence. And he doesn't work hard. That argument is of course, wrong. Because Ron (in no particular order):

1) fights a troll when he's 11

2) is willing to sacrifice himself when he's 11

3) stands up for his friends

4) makes sure Harry feels like he belongs in the family

5) worries about Harry and rescues him from literal jail

6) stands up against Draco rather than by-standing and enabling his behavior

7) tries his level best to make sure Norbert the dragon is in safe hands and carries it out, albeit not in perfection

8) is with Harry every step of the way in his confronting the basilisk

9) sends Harry and Hermione long letters and calls them often to check up on them

10) stands up on a bitten leg to defend his best friend

11) always apologizes for any of his mistakes and is forgiving when others wrong him

12) works his way to join the Quidditch team unlike Draco who most certainly bought his way in

13) destroys at least 2 horcruxes

14) finds out how to defeat a horcrux

15) has an excellent enough memory and observation to notice Harry speaking parseltongue and also using it to his benefit which proves he's resourceful

now since I have 8 more such pictures to rebut and I do have a life, I will stop. These aren't even a twelfth of the remarkable things Ron has done though, so rest assured.

oh wait what did you say about him just existing and not working for anything? If I recall correctly, he did just as well as Harry did in school and didn't score well only in subjects he didn't care about. Which is true for most people except for Hermione who has an eidetic memory which not everyone has, understandably. Rote memorization is not the best way to get by in life, by the way.

what are the "so many reasons" behind why Harry is the best fit for Hermione? Kindly share so I can rebut those too, I'm rather free nowadays, my finals have been cancelled. You say there are so many reasons but don't even give one, yet you want me to take you seriously. I'm afraid that's impossible.

Romione shipper here, i don't dislike Hermione. I haven't met or seen many people in the book!romione fandom who dislike Hermione (except for Movie!Hermione). The question of someone you like ending up with someone you dislike doesn't particularly make sense. In Friends, Chandler ends up with Monica: now I'm not the biggest Monica fan (I don't hate her but I don't like her very much either) but they are my favorite couple because they make sense. It's about compatibility and character traits, not liking or disliking because that's just a set-up for a ghastly invitation for people to pair up hideousness. "Oh yeah, I like Harry and I also like Hagrid, they should be together. I mean it would be very very disgusting but that's my logic, now, you can't fight it. "- that's how you sound. Please read what you write. Your logic is just...abysmal. That's all I can say without breaking my resolve and berating you with colorful profanities.

This is without the doubt, the easiest one to rebut. It's a delight to see such terrible arguments at my disposal. Come on, dear Harmione shippers, write something that makes me question my choices, not things that make me scoff in disbelief.

In this case, you're essentially providing us with theories. Unproved theories and speculation of what you believe because you'd say anything you like. Where's the proof of your theory, though? Where is that crazy radical Romione shipper who does this? Kindly show me these people. Oh yes, you wanna say we objectify Hermione and disrespect her and view her as a prize. This aches me, that you believe this. No one has ever insinuated this, ever, in the history of anything. What is this winner-loser theory? How do you round off Harry Potter to "an alpha-male ends up with lead-lady" trope and still say you're a fan of the series? Harry Potter doesn't fit in with that format. Ron, Hermione and Harry are co-heroes. Similar to how there's no main character in Friends or the Heroes of Olympus series or the Avengers. We're not living in the 80s anymore. Hermione will be a hero, invariably whether she ends up with Harry, Ron or no one. She ends up with Ron and that's it. Talking about her like this doesn't make you sound any better either. Now you're calling me a misogynist because I don't support the ship of two people who describe themselves as siblings. That's very mature of you. Well here's the thing- I'm not a misogynist. It's as simple as that. I believe that women are capable of anything and everything. I believe Hermione is an amazing person and she is a hero and a different person. I believe the series would be impossible without her. I believe she is no one's prize. There's no requirement of a prize. I just think, similar to canon and the truth and her romantic interest, she will have a great relationship with Ron. There's nothing complex or deep about it, really. No personal weird-thing, no psychological complex, no internalized misogyny. There's nothing deeper than what I said. I am not sexist. I am a feminist. I am all for women empowerment. I love women with the fabric of my being. I love Hermione. I think she's amazing. You only become sexist when you ship people with unstable power dynamics, a bully-victim relation or something of the sort. Neither Romione, nor Harmione are sexist. Heck if you paired Neville with Hermione you wouldn't be sexist. And I hate talking about this so much, I can't even tell you. This talk does make it sound like I treat Hermione like an object and I assure you I respect her and I normally won't talk like this unless someone just outright calls me sexist for something that's not sexist. And this is that situation.

in the case of Romione, no one is too good for anyone. Both are amazing people who're heroes and have done amazing work. That's all I have to say. There's no league, they are romantically interested in each other. I have no intention on sounding lame, but, in love there is no league. As long as you're not putting in any effort and are extremely lazy and leech off of your partner, there is no such concept and no, Hermione is not "too good" for him. Unless of course you're talking about movie Hermione, who is too good for anyone.

5) (halftime!)

oh yes they try to pull this off and wonder why we hate them. Classic. This person likes to sound british, so let's switch up our language, yeah? At least then I won't be out of my element. Let me correct ya, Ron at his best is an amazing, loyal, friendly, brave, strategic hero. There you have it. Ron and 'git' can't be used in the same sentence. Now if you talk about Ron's achievements, I re-iterate you to point two. If it's too much work, here:

1) fights a troll when he's 11

2) is willing to sacrifice himself when he's 11

3) stands up for his friends

4) makes sure Harry feels like he belongs in the family

5) worries about Harry and rescues him from literal jail

6) stands up against Draco rather than by-standing and enabling his behavior

7) tries his level best to make sure Norbert the dragon is in safe hands and carries it out, albeit not in perfection

8) is with Harry every step of the way in his confronting the basilisk

9) sends Harry and Hermione long letters and calls them often to check up on them

10) stands up on a bitten leg to defend his best friend

11) always apologizes for any of his mistakes and is forgiving when others wrong him

12) works his way to join the Quidditch team unlike Draco who most certainly bought his way in

13) destroys at least 2 horcruxes

14) finds out how to defeat a horcrux

15) has an excellent enough memory and observation to notice Harry speaking parseltongue and also using it to his benefit which proves he's resourceful

hey, see, I like Ron and I took the time to copy-paste this instead of asking you to scroll up. And I'm a lot of bad things but I am not lazy. I stick to my deadlines like Hermione. I start my homework in library class and continue it during phys ed the day its given. And I am not exaggerating. Bloody hell, I wish I was. I'm the ceo of deadlines, mate, don't tempt me! So you can see that Ron is much more than just a "nice bloke". And being a "nice bloke" isn't a bad thing either. He's all the things I said: intuitive, strategic, helpful, loyal and on top of that he's also a nice person. Yes, I do see a bit of myself in Ron. I do. I see the insecure side. I waste my time hating myself and criticizing myself and undermining myself, telling me I'm no good. But Ron overcomes that. He inspires me to appreciate myself. Is that a bad thing? Are you going to shame me for having a low self-esteem? Do you want to worsen my low self-esteem and make me feel more like shit?

Now the person who replied to your comment saying, "he isn't a nice bloke most of time.", he is. He is not being nice twice in a span of 7 years. How often do you act rudely or with jealousy? Wasn't Harry yelling at everyone in caps lock in OOTP. Now I don't condemn him for that because he's a fucking hormonal teenager like me and that would make me a hypocrite, but by your logic why don't you condemn him? Or why not condemn Hermione for saying "I only date good Quidditch players" and shoving canaries at Ron's face because someone else kissed him, while she kept using Krum and Cormac to make him jealous. She wasn't being a nice girl, then, was she? Now, once again, i don't dislike her or hold that against her because guess what, mate, I'm a hormonal teenage girl who gets jealous most of the time and would probably react in a similar fashion in the spur of the moment (Not defending her actions here, just putting myself in her shoes.) In short, Ron is a nice bloke MOST OF THE TIME.

It would be misogynistic to think that. The thing is, NO ONE DOES my dear friend! My dear daft friend. I have never heard anyone say that! why are you so hell-bent on portraying us as misogynists when no one ever says that? Stop assuming. Just stop. You are crossing a limit here, aren't you? Yes you are. You cannot say these sort of things. We never said that or believed that, no one ever said this to be a reason to ship Romione. God what is wrong with you? Literally, stop fucking ASSUMING god damn it! Do you want me to assume things about Harmione shippers? Do you want me to go there? Because I will go there! I will go there the moment you tell me to. Just challenge me.

Ron is not a perfect best boi , the reason why so many of us like him is that he's imperfect and tries to become better through the course of time. You are once again assuming and I am once again asking you to stop.

Ron might be an ordinary wizard. He might be poor, sure, but he's a pure-blood and won't face much if he chose not to fight. But he did. He fought. Now I identify with Ron's attitude a fair bit, but I am also likely to spend my day in a library without noticing. People aren't one dimensional. Stop trying to act like you're a psychologist, i know you're not. I don't even think Hermione's overbearing at all! You just insulted someone you're a big fan of. Jesus.

Both Hermione and Ron are strategic, jealous, passionate, feisty, argumentative, intellectual...

that's like 6 similarities. They aren't polar opposites in the slightest. Their differences are just: workaholic, not workaholic. Nerd, not a nerd. Like that's fucking it, man!

being relaxed doesn't make you less independent or driven. A relaxed and levelheaded Hermione will think through things, not be impulsive, not panic etc. She doesn't need Ron. I don't understand your obsession with acting like we ever insinuated that. Then she doesn't need Harry either lol. Stop shipping her with Harry, then or like shut the fuck up. Being a bit relaxed won't stop her or anyone from hitting great strides. Just don't get relaxed to the point you're lazy and casual about everything, that's it.

What do you mean? Ron is balanced. He does finish his work on time. And even if he does procrastinate, she could also help him not and be more driven. Of course, this is an open invitation for you to call me a sexist bitch because I said that she could help him and now you'll think her goal is to help him become better yada yada yada. Fuck off. Defeating the horcrux taught him enough. He respected her. He remembered about the elves when she didn't. He begged to be tortured instead of her. He wouldn't need it because school work and jobs are different and the same person might perceive those differently. Calmness and relaxation doesn't hinder your potential. Not caring and laziness does. You can't function if you work and are stressed 24/7 with zero breaks. Period.

10)

No i do not want (nor does anyone want) Hermione to become Ron. Being slightly calmer doesn't change up your personality. I'm sure many people dislike those sort of fanfics without a doubt. I hate OOC and I don't want Hermione to lose her intellect with Ron because that makes no sense. Ron himself is intellectual and loves arguing with her. They'd boost each other, more like it.

-------

okay thats it i am exhausted as fuck. thanks for reading, i appreciate it. notes and reblogs are appreciated, this takes work.

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piracytheorist · 2 years

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#file this under another reason why Ethan Winters is my comfort character

this is like none of my bussiness and u can totally tell me to take a hike, but may i ask what u mean with this? is it bcuz ethan talks back?

Ref my tags on this post

It's because he talks back and his quips suck. In a way, they make me laugh, in another, they make me realize that I wouldn't have done any better.

Ethan is a comfort character to me because he is very non-intimidating, in the best way. Characters who are smart and quick-witted and look cool all the way through? The more these traits are highlighted, the more intimidating they are to me. Not that they're objectively bad, mind you, it's just very not my thing.

(It's also different when they are like that and we realize soon after it's a façade that they put on to cover how fucked up they are emotionally; and I don't mean "Oh they do have feelings" I mean absolutely fucked up. Killian Jones may look cool and shit but the moment we had a glimpse on how messed up he is - and how he knew he was messed up - he stopped being intimidating to me, and then his own self-awareness and his effort to become better propped him up to fave character status)

Personal story but, I was bullied pretty bad at school, and for long years through. Most of my bullies were "cool" students, with a cool sense of fashion, popular, ready to talk back to anyone... and seeing "cool" characters in media doesn't do it for me. I don't immediately hate them (it's only happened once that I saw a main character and felt all the vibes from my worst bully, even though the character was a good guy in the story, and I had to quit watching because even when I tried I couldn't not see my bully in him), but the "cooler" and more well-standing and well-spoken they are, the more I tend to not enjoy them. Especially if, as I said above, there's no indication that this cool appearance is just for show while inside they are suffering and hating themselves.

And Ethan is... none of that. Nor is he striving to be any of that. He's got a plain sense of fashion, he has nothing obvious that makes him stand out (I mean, mold notwithstanding), his trauma is immediately visible in his demeanor, and he throws the lamest insults out there, many times without a convincing voice either. Like, his "Looks like your outside matches your inside now" that he throws at Lady D? It's not only cheesy, it sounds like it's struggling to come out of his mouth. He doesn't sound intimidating at all. The only time I felt convinced his voice showed his anger was when he flipped Heisenberg off, and both times he confronted Miranda (and even then... there was a tiny part of me that wanted to laugh at his "Fuck you, you crazy bitch!" because I'm sure he meant it, but... it's just something about it). Even when he was temporarily angry at the Duke; "You'll pay if I find out this is a lie"... it's still lame. And it's understandably so. Ethan is in shock, deep in the denial stage after realizing his daughter's head is in a jar. It would have been simply unreal for him to be able to throw a convincing insult or threat. That said, props to Todd Soley, cause those deliveries are very hard to make purposefully. Like in general, for an actor, one of the hardest things to do is to act badly on purpose.

And again, all this makes Ethan non-intimidating, and comforting to me. It makes him feel like a character I could sit down and talk to. Like one who would be just as lame and uncharismatic as I am. Like people talk shit about Ethan not having charisma... without understanding there are people out there who want to see just that. Who see fictional characters struggle with words and coolness and see a total bro in them. Not in a "Oh he's adorable, like a shy puppy" way, but in a "I know buddy, I also berate myself for that lame thing I said five years ago" way.

And to me, being able to relate and sympathize with my fave characters is very important. Like, I appreciate the beauty and the aesthetic of Lady D. She's a compelling part of the story. But how could I ever hope of sitting down and having a chat with her? In my favourite characters, I've grown to want to see someone who would welcome me and yes some of my favourite characters have murdered people but they wouldn't do that just because I sat down to have a chat with them (though it's different for everyone, my way of loving characters is not the one correct formula, and I have had a small share of problematic faves, who would absolutely murder me just because I sat down to talk to them - and those are cases of almost irreparable fucked-up-ness, so they did have that at least).

Also, not to mention real-life issues, but this fucking pandemic, pal. I just want to hang out with people who are past pretending that they're handling it. After all this time of willing compromises I vibed so hard with Ethan being "uncool" and 100% done with everything but still going on.

I hope that made sense, lol. It's very long winded but god I cannot believe how a character so simple and everyday-like like Ethan has managed to hit me so deep that I make such long posts XD

#Ethan Winters #Resident Evil #Resident Evil 8 #also #some personal stuff #anonymous #ask and ye shall receive

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salamoonder · 4 years

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Bi Critter here and I'm feeling conflicted. I always knew that Caleb was bi and I LOVE that we got canon confirmation. But also I HATE what I'm seeing in the fandom. The idea that you're only bi/bi enough if you're with someone of the same sex. Like, all the shit I've seen is the reason I've been uncomfortable considering myself bi. Like, when Liam said Caleb was in love with Jester on Talks it "didn't count" but saying he's attracted to Essek is glorious valid Shadowgast confirmation?

hello anon! this seems to be a hot topic on my blog recently lol, i have been thinking a LOT about biphobia in this fandom--and in the world in general--so i hope you’re prepared for a long and rambly answer.

first off: i am OVERJOYED at the canon confirmation. love that for us.

second off: i am firmly with you on the feeling conflicted.

within ten minutes--ten minutes of that reveal--i saw someone say “that’s an awful thing to say about a mlm character” in response to a criticism of caleb which largely had nothing to do with his attraction to men. and i think that right there boils down all my biphobia rage in one argument.

if your support of or love for a character boils down to whether or not they’re a man who is attracted to men or not then i want nothing to do with you. that is fetishization. and this goes for literally...like...everything.

i was raised, the way i’m sure a lot of people were, to treat everyone with kindness because you never know what they’re going through. and while i disagree with a lot of how my parents raised me that is the one thing that really stuck. it’s still probably the biggest part of my life philosophy.

now i’m not saying you should be nice to everyone or that you should never set boundaries. i am a firm believer that every person deserves to be treated with respect up to the point where they prove that they are unworthy of that respect. even then--even then--and this is something that hugely annoys me as someone who is vaguely leftist--the bare minimum that we as a society must do is not make it actively harder for someone to be a better person. we can’t berate people just for doing good simply because it isn’t more good. (i promise i’m bringing this back around to biphobia).

and also--i’m sure this will annoy some people but fictional characters quite literally do not have rights. they are not real; they are not human. but people’s reactions and responses are real and those responses have real effects on real people. if your respect for someone is contingent upon them being in love with only men or in love with only women or autistic or disabled or black? i don’t want it. that is putting a value judgement on traits that exist in a vacuum. i’m not saying that we shouldn’t support marginalized people or that they don’t need more support because they are marginalized, i mean i personally am a trans, nonbinary, greyace, bisexual, polyamorous, neurodivergent person of color living below the poverty line, i fucking know marginalized, please support me i need a lot of support--but i don’t only want to be valued because i am those things. i had a girl decide i was a lesbian and start flirting with me because she found out i was attracted to women--it was extremely, extremely uncool.

what i am seeing in the fandom right now is a lot of people whose like of a character is hinging upon the fact that he is into men. not even that, entirely, but specifically with liam--hinging upon his character(s) potentially having a romantic relationship with a man. as if that’s the only part of caleb, or vax, that mattered. (as if that’s the only part of liam that mattered--having fictional relationships with men.)

i think now more than ever the world needs compassion. and while caleb might not be real, liam is, and so is the rest of the cast and crew, and so is the critter community. and when bisexual critters like us especially see this attitude that liam’s only valid if shadowgast happens, or that his crush on jester is disgusting, that reflects on us and it shows us what these people really think of bisexuals. only valid if it’s gay enough. “het” crushes are gross. the works. i’m sure you know. it creates an environment that is not safe for us.

anyway, this got long. whoops. moral of the story: time for me to dig out that “it has been zero days since the cr community was biphobic” post, and also--fucking fantastic, caleb, you funky little bisexual.

#cr discourse #talks machina #queerly beloved #caleb widogast #anonymous

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

Text

Ducktales Final Four: The Life and Crimes of Scrooge McDuck Review! or The Batman Trial Episode but with Ducks, Sharks, And the Fonz

Hello all you happy people and welcome to the penultimate Ducktales review... for season 3 anyway. I still have most of season 1, all of season 2 (I did cover one but I’ll probably redo it), the tie-in comics, the 87 series, and even then i’ll never really be done with ducks between all the scrooge comics and other duck related shows like Darkwing Duck and Quack Pack. But as far as covering the show as it comes out as i’ve done for the past year, that’s’ts almost done. It’s honestly just starting to hit as I type this: this is the second to last episode. After next week while there’s always fan fiction (And I certainly aim to contribute to that), a possible Darkwing Duck Reboot under frank (though that’s in doubt) where they could show up, and a movie down the road given what we saw with Phienas and Ferb and the show’s popularity it’s still not the same as getting these well animated, well crafted adventures every week with breaks or the ocasional entire week of them. The show won’t go on, and whatever happens with the property next is a mystery no amount of ducks can solve.

So with all that in mind naturally this episode is a breather episode: It’s not unimportant: like the rest of the season it ties off a lot of loose ends, adds in some stuff we didn’t know we wanted, and in general feels necessary like every episode this season. It’s something I credit the season for immensley: They knew this would probably be it so while they had more stories to tell, they made sure if these were their last, to leave no loose ends. And outside of ones they just never wanted to address in the first place like “What happened to Donald’s parents”, “Why was every trace of Della missing despite Scrooge’s search for her having just ended”, and “What did Della thing of the decades long seperation”, they’ve tied up pretty much all of them except for FOWL and what Beakly was lying about, and I feel both are about to ducktail into one another int he finale. Could be wrong but I applaud them for tying off almost every loose end and character arc by this episode that isn’t related to FOWL in some way. Not every show can do that: She Ra was a masterpiece but still had a few things like Scorpia and Catra’s broken relationship, Hordak’s reformation and Adora’s Parents just left up in the air due to time constraints, Steven Universe ONLY got to go back and answer a lot of questions because they were lucky enough to get an epilogue mini series, and Star Vs... was not as good as either show by the end and by the finale about 80% of things it’d brought up all had the following answer:

My point is it’s VERY hard, even when you know the end is coming to tie everything up in a neat bow. And I can’t know how good the finale be or how satsifying it will be but given how well this season’s wrapped everything up so far, i’m betting on immensely. But we can talk about that when it finally comes around next week. For now we have a trial episode to talk about that’s mostly good.. mostly. See why the mostly under the cut as I discuss and recap the episode with full spoilers. Count it down!

We open in the Mansion, where a bunch of tribble like Fuzzy creatures are running amok. Unsuprisingly, Scrooge bought one for Louie as a pet to teach him responsiblity.. again. And once again he instead turned into a get rich quick scheme, didn’t read the manual and now they have an infestation.

ONCE AGAIN, Louie is written like he’s barely changed at all in the past three seasons. Anyone whose been following my reviews regularly knows this has been a pet peeve of mine for the entire season. Despite having an ENTIRE arc about Louie growing as a character and learning the human cost of his scheming and to use his angle seeing talent’s wisely, the writers keep writing him as if he learned nothing. I went back to track it and while not as often as it felt I noticed a few things. The first is that it WASN’T like this for the first half of the season. No really. He even learns brand new lessons in The Trickening and Louie’s Eleven. Granted he also exploits his uncle in Louie’s Eleven but that’s mostly played for laughs.. still not a great bit but not a major part of the episode.

So he was fine for the first act of the season... but then for whatever reason from Let’s Get Dangerous onwards (Again I don’t count the Christmas episode as both of those are meant to slot in anywhere and chronologically take place before this season for the timeline to make any sense), he’s just...

He’s utterly insufferable in his small parts of the first half of Let’s Get Dangerous! as he berates Huey for daring to look a gifthorse int he mouse.. even though everytime he’s seemingly got something for nothing or minimal effort it’s backfired and it’s something that seeemd to stick with “The Richest Duck in the World!”. He’s fine in Impossibin and alright in split sword as while he clearly hadn’t learned lying isn’t the best policy we at least got a good story out of it. He then went right back to obnoxious with New Gods on the Block where he, EPISODES AFTER THE SOLEAGEO FISACO again thinks an easy way out is the right way, and has NO guilt over possibly killing a bunch of people with his gold powers and in fact is disapointed he dosen’t get to keep a living being turned to gold!. He spents all of Fight for Castle McDuck being a huge dick to Huey AGAIN iwth no lesson, and now has yet another family endagering get rich quick scheme he feels no remorse about.

I will admit when I”m wrong and I DID think it was in way more of the season than I thought. And let’s face it in real life personal issues don’t just go away and you can sometimes slide back, i’ve done it way too many times and i’m not proud of it. We’re only human. But this isn’t real life, this is cartoon ducks. And cartoon duck wise most character development has stuck or if a bad trait’s come back it’s been in a new way. Webby is still trusting, but knows how the world works now and while idolizing scrooge dosen’t think he’s perfect anymore. Huey is no longer a skpetic towards the super natural and hasn’t forced a party on anyone. Dewey hasn’t craved other people’s love or thought he needed to earn his mom’s love again. And that’s just the other kids. They aren’t the same people theyw ere going in, neither is Louie. So it’s grating when an episode acts like h’es exactly the same, let alone almost a fifth of the season.

What makes it even worse though is that he had an ENTIRE STORY ARC dedicated to learning some of these lessons already. With the others if one episode were forgotten i’d let it slide as it happens with tv, i’m used to it. It’s not a great look but it happens. Mistakes happen again we’re all human. But you can’t act like an entire arc of a series didn’t exist. While they ignore Della’s history somehow being hidden for the rest of the show they don’t ignore that Dewey spent a whole season looking for her, as he never hides something like that from his brothers again nor do they, and he’s out of them the biggets mama’s boy. While they did take a while to adress Lena, partly because the episode got pushed back, they didn’t act like season 1 never happened and she was still working for her aunt. Della still isn’t on the moon and Owlson still isn’t working for glomgold. Actions. Have. Consequences. That’s the whole point of this episode, but they act like none of it got through to louie and it makes his arc feel like a giant waste in hindsight. This episode even feels like it was SUPPOSED to be in that arc: Louie is back to his season 2 characterization, Scrooge is actively trying to mentor him again.. it just feels really out of place as our second to last episode in that way and drags it down a bit.

Thankfully after Scrooge bars the door, and possibly leaves everyone to their deaths but he presumably has enough faith in the kids, the twins and Beakley to take care of it, he gets a summons to court.. and gets kidnapped. He and Louie are whisked away to a mystic court presided over by a giant statue of justice holding scales, that judges someone based on Karma. Scrooge’s foes have brought him to court, blaming him for being evil and if he looses he looses EVERYTHING. And their proscutor?

Sadly not Droopy, maybe next continuity, but searing the same Hannibal-Esque Getup is Doofus Drake to Louie’s horror. As for why he’s like this.. he thought iht was fun. Great gag.

After the credits we find out why he’s doing this: He’s still pissed about Louie taking half his inheritance and giving it to his family, so he’s going to take LOUIE’S inheritance. It’s.. honestly a great setup: Doofus was already a villian I liked, being a nice weird evil mirror dewey instead of a walking fat joke like last series. So I was glad to both see him pop up one last time to make it a full trilogy of apperances as an angonist and to see him take a step up from his passive roll in the past: in his first two apperances while he was evil and abusive, and still is, his evil was mostly due to his own warped logic, feeling he could put shock collars on and control people and that Louie lying to him was enough to warrant making him into a pinata. He’s still a bad person mind you: kid or not he ensdlaved his parents, tried to enslave louie and goldie and in general REALLY needs some help empathizing with people. But my point is that before he didn’t come after anyone.. so it’s a nice capper to have his final turn as antaognist be him going after our hero.. and at his most dangerous. Before someone would’ve come for Louie eventually in Doofus’ first apperance and Goldie would’ve found a way out or Scrooge, despite grumbling about it, would’ve helped.. if nothing else than to lord having to save her from a 12 year old over her. Here if he wins the family is out on the street and three of their greatest enemies are now infinitely more well funded.

So while naturally unnerved by his rival Louie offers to defend Scrooge who denies it despite the fact that Louie is REALLY good with words, and Scrooge, while not bad with them, can’t stop shouting and keeps pissing off the baliff, played by my boy Henry Winkler whose done a lot of voice work and also played Fonzie on Happy Days, is currently on the HBO series barry and in general is just a fucking delight. The irony is also not lost on me that he’s not playing a lawyer here despite being one on arrested development.

We get our first witness: FLINTHEART GLOMGOLD. Hell. Yes. It’s nice to see him in his full glory one last time, as I don’t know how much he’ll be in the finale. Scrooge blows of the Duke Baloney thing, which is fair given that while Scrooge screwed up there, Glomgold still stole money from him right after and then spent his whole life trying to one up him. But Glomgold has a different tale in mind as he stole something else from him: the limelight.

It was 1980-something and Glomgold was a bonified celebrity in Duckberg for his hot dogging, grandstanding and treasure hunting loved by all and took Baba Wawa, a nice mix of Barbra Walters and the parody of her on SNL by the late Gilda Radner, to a shark shaped cave to get the gem of the shark god, a ruby tooth at the end of the cave. Naturally Scrooge popped up and easily made his way through and stole the spotlight. As it turns out he wasn’t always well loved and it makes sense: he dismises Baba asking him about how disliked he is, and dosen’t care and even in the current story, or rather season 1 of it, he dismiseed PR entirely in Jaw$. He was rich enough and enough of a job provider he just didn’t see the need for fame or glory, that just came second so it’s logical no one liked him. Fortunes naturally reverse as you’d expect though: Glomgold dashes forward and ends up putting Baba and her camerabird in danger and being Glomgold he irrationally assumes she’s working for Scrooge and leaves her to die. Scrooge however, after getting the rock, goes out of his way to save her because it’s the right thing to do. He can be selfish at times, and as we’ll see monstrously so, but at his core Scrogoe is a good man who will do right when the chips are down. So this leaves Glomgold trapped and Scrogoe getting his good press instead and realizes he likes the attention.

As the flashback ends Glomgold fills in the gaps, pointing out he was stuck with the sharks for days, but slowly bonded with them learned from them and they became family, helping him with traps, joining him for thanksgiving and even getting a heart taatoo with a shark on it. Awww. Look I didn’t really need to know where Glomgold’s love of sharks came from, nor that he had some weird tarzan origin story with them.. but my life is 100% better knowing all of this so thank you Frank and Matt. Thank you. I’m also entirely convinced the two have had this whole part of his backstory ready to go for three seasons and were waiting to use it, along with the other two bits we’re about to get to. This episode as you can tell is also a vingette episode, but one where the wraparound is way more improtant than usual.. but it works given the setting and allows the stories to be as long as they actually need to be, and it addds some nice stakes instead of just having Scrooge’s villians gripe about him.

Scrooge protests and the Bailiff puts a clamp on his beak, so he has no choice in the matter when Louie steps up for the defense. Louie also proves that irresponsible he may be.. he’d be a damn good lawyer, as he easily picks things apart, pointing out Glomgold was ALREADY bad by then, Scrooge had no intent to steal the spotlight and Glomgold is currently planting dynamite under his chair, with predictable and hilarious results. So he gets put on the “good” side of the scale. Next witness.

Next up is Ma, and I was delighted that as I’d hoped and theroized this episode wrapped up one little plot point that while not major, was something I was curious about: Ma’s claims Scrooge stole Duckburg from her family. This was also likely the backbone of the episode at one point as Frank pitched a beagle trial episode at one time, but Disney nixed it. Likely the magic stuff was added both to justify it better and to distract Disney Channel’s higher ups because they constantly underestimate what a child will like. It was for the best though as the beagles are just a bit weaker here: While Character Actress Margo Martindale is a delight and was specifically cast for the role, overall it just feels like they ran out of ways to make the beagles a big threat and releigated them to muscle when needed, to the point they only appeared in one episode besides this one this season as with FOWL about, they didn’t really need villians of the week and what ones they did use like Glomgold and Mark were far more entertaining villains who needed a coda to their stories.They aren’t bad characters, but in a series where their breaking into the bin or mansion wasn’t a story the crew was interested in they served no real purpose.

So we finally get answers about the whole Deed thing: It was sometime in Ma’s childhood, good look guessing when, and the Beagles owned Duckburg having clearly overwhelmed Fort Duckburg at some point in history between Clinton’s defense of it and now, with Grandpa “Pa” Beagle finally making an apperance. In the comics he was basically what Ma is to both series: the scheming brains behind the beagles who showed up on occasion and it was a good idea to use him as the past version of her.

Scrooge naturally comes a calling and unsurprisingly Ma was lying: Scrooge offered to buy the place first from Pa, he refused outright, and then when Scrooge showed off the money he was offering, Pa bet the deed for it in an arm wrestling contest. Not only that but as Scrooge finds out as he almost looses, Pa was cheating having a smaller beagle boy operate pull a lever in a device attached to his arm to give pa extra force. Scroooge simply dropped a few coins to distract the guy and claimed victory and the deed.

Little Ma is left dejected though and Doofus claims he ruined his life, but Louie steps up, at this poitn Scrooge has learned to reign himself ina nd accepted Louie as his defense without saying anything, a nice subtle bit. He probably realized that while irrepsonsible.. Louie has everything to loose her and no reason to slack off and dosen’t even relaly have to lie for his uncle to get him off: he’s simply using his ablitiy to see all the angles to poke holes in their story.

Case in point, he orders the “tape” to continue and finds Little Ma berating her dad for his failure and forcefully taking control of the family. LIke Glomgold, Scrooge may of cost her something.. but it was something she and her family hadn’t earned and they were still on a bad road. Scrooge just made it worse.

But suprisingly, its MAGICA, who we’ve established is an uncaring monster, who has a story Scrooge genuinely feels bad about. Like the rest she was not a good person: Long ago she and her brother Poe were extorting a villiage, and lording over it as gods, changing the population into goats, toads and other things. The only diffrence from what Magica would do to the blot and presumiibly others later, is that Poe reigned in her manical tend ices, trying to get her to think things through. The goat transformation was so they’d have milk and at least get something out of it and as to not waste all their slaves. Poe is voiced by Martin Freeman of The Hobbit and Black Panther fame. Great actor, does amazing work here. So like the others Scrooge changed things, and fought someone with bad intentions for his own self. He talked Magica into fighting him with both amulets by playing into her ego and Poe trying to talk her down, and easily deflected her bolt with the dime to turn her into a crow with her own spell. So far it’s just like the other tales in a nice mirror.. it’s what comes next that makes Scrooge into a bad guy too. Not as bad as Magica and Poe.. but sitll not good. Poe dives selflessly in front of the coin.. and shockingly while she cared nothing for Lena.. that wasn’t the case for Poe. Magica is truly devastated, desperatly trying to put the amulet back on and begging scrooge for help while he just ignores her and fills up his sack. And while they both deserved it... Scrooge and Louie both recognize he was wrong as the flashback ends with Poe escaping and Magica sitll haven’t having found him to this day. And props to Catharine Tate here a she takes a normally hammy terrible person who was wholly unsympathetic and manages to make her painfully human.

What makes the act so terrible is not who it happened to, they both desrved it, but Scrooge’s attitude, utterly callous to magica’s pain with not a drop of sympathy. While she deserved it as did Poe.. he’s not doing this to her as some justice for her crimes, or because she did something horrible to him or any valid reason.. he’s doing it because he’d rather get more of her and poes gold than lift one finger to help someone who had , for all his evil, selflessly sacrificed himself for his sister. For all Poe’s evil and tyranny.. there MIGHT of been a good man in them, in both of them.. and Scrooge could’ve cared less. He shut the door on Magica ever becoming a good person, ever getting her brother back to line his own wallet and to satisfy his own ego. See that’s the true mark of a hero: how they treat others, even the worst of them. And in his lowest moment Scrooge could’ve cared less about anyone but himself.

Scrooge feels bad and Louie does finally get the responsibility thing and this is where things start to go off the rails: he apologizes to Doofus and admits he dosen’t want an enteral rivalry and h’es sorry for any pain he caused. The off the rails part is because Doofus is genuinely not a good person, ahs done very bad things and is trying to bankrupt Louie for the crime of “taking half your fortune after you used it to torment and enslave your own parents’. It just.. dosen’t play as well as they’d like. That said I DO like both Louie deciding to bury the hatchet instead of just avoiding him and Doofus showing some nobiity in accepting it. Maybe he’ll change.

He goes off into the night, and Scrooge genuinely apologizes and accepts repsonsiblity... and here’s where the plot finishing going off the rails and into someone’s living room: the bailiff AWARDS THEM SCROOGE’S FORTUNE BECAUSE HE ADMITTED SOME CUPLABLITY AND WAS HUMBLE.

This just.. it makes no sense, it will never not baffle me and it hurts my brain> Yes he admitted some wrong doing and apologized for it.. but it was also THROUGHLY proven the other two weren’t his fault, and he was simply being a good man which should get him some good. Thankfully the conclusion is a bit better, as Louie points out while they made him, he made you so who made who, who made you... okay i’m getting into the AC/DC of things point is these incidents all shaped Scrooge into a better person. His mistake with Magica. is clearly learned from. He’s stopping a group of bullies in Ma’s story and saving a life without a second thought in the second. He learned to value others, to value family all because THEY showed him what happens when you don’t. By seeing the worst person he could be.. he became the best. So the trial’s thrown out his assets are returned, and their teleported out before magica can hit them with lighting. Lesson learned.. well kinda Louie tells scrooge to do it because he got the pet.

Final Thoughts for The Life and Crimes of Scrooge McDuck:

Great title aside.. this one is a mess. It’s not a terrible episode: the flashbacks are genuinely engaging, each one helping flesh out the villians and in Ma’s case pulling one last dangling plot thread. Glomgold’s was just entertaining , clevelry using his 80′s origns for an 80′s style news special and giving us the origin to his love of sharks that we didn’t know we needed., Ma’s tied up a loose plot threat with a fun flashback and Magica’s was genuinely heart wrenching and did the tall task of making us feel for someone that terrible. The wraparound.. was a bit weaker. Doofus was the best part, playing an excellent manipulative bastard lawyer, and being a genuine threat and his walking away peacefully was a nice touch, and Louie having to defend scrooge was great and showed him off better than ever. And Louie did get some moments to shine.. it was just wierldy bookened with him acting terribly AGAIN, in a way he should know better than in an episode where he acts fine for most of it and even then he thinks lying to a judge is a good idea! I know he’s 12 but he’s not this stupid and while as I made very clear i’ve seen this shit before, I haven’t seen it flip flop in the same episode. Louie deserves better than this.

But it’s also in service to a responsiblility aseop that just.. dosen’t work as presented. Yes you should take responsiblity for your past, yes you should learn from your mistakes and own up to them, I have, and yes it’s all too easy to slide back> That’s all fine.. but him apologizing to Ma, whose family was terorrizing a town, and Glomgold, who he did nothing to, and having Louie apologize to Doofus, who while he tried to exploit him still enslaved his own parents and deserved to loose half his fortune AND loosing half his fortune wasn’t even the main thing Louie wanted to do as his main goal was getting BOYD a loving family.. it’s bullshit. Just pure Grade-A bullshit. Why are you booing them their right. It’s a good idea for a moral but it’s executed so overwhelmingly poorly it bogs down what was otherwise an exceptional episode, into just passable. It’s just mind numbing and saddening to know the next to last episode wasted so much good ideas on a clumsy moral. Thankfully I have hope the finale will be better, and again at least we got some good out of this one.

Next Time: Endgame Baby! Clan McDuck and their Amazing Friends Vs F.O.W.L. for the fate of adventure itself! One last ride! I can hardly wait!

This week on the blog: Ducks Ducks and more ducks.. and a top 12 list of my faviorite superheroines later today’s for international women’s day. But after that we have more of the Della arc, the last step in the Lena arc before Shadow War next week, and the 87 ducktales pilot treasure of the golden suns!

If you liked this review, share it around, follow for more, and you can comission your own for 5 dolalrs an issue or episode, or kick in some money on my patroen, link on my blog. Even a dollar a month helps and my next stretch goal is 5 dollars away and if we reach it i’ll review both the super ducktales mini series introducing gizmoduck AND a darkwing duck episode a month. Until the next rainbow it’s been a pleasure.

#ducktales #the life and crimes of scrooge mcduck #scrooge mcduck #louie duck #doofus drake #magica de spell #poe de spell #FLINTHEART GLOMGOLD #ma beagle #the beagle boys #disney channel #disney #ducks #uncle scrooge

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piduai · 3 years

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that part when sugimoto kills jack the ripper and he says "rather than worrying about who gave birth to you, the important part is what you live for" is a nice allusion to ogata being all like: if i had present and loving parents i wouldnt've turned out so fucked up :/ like naaaah man i dont believe it, you would still be the same insane man you are, ogata had present grandparents who cared enough about him to feed him and take care of him when his mother couldnt, (and he liked his granny enough to not kill huci) but still poisoned them for no reason before going to the army. also killing your mother at cold blood at the age of 8 thinking your doing something good for her is not something a good and sane person would do im sorry. i wish he could find peace one day but as you said, he wouldnt recognize it even with a microscope, that man was broken from the start. sad

hmmm i don't know. sugimoto saying that to jack was immediately picked up as having a connection to ogata (not through sugimoto himself lol he's not aware of ogata's past, narratively speaking), and people being able to overcome natural circumstances and better themselves is certainly a theme in gk, or the opposite. look at usami. i'm fully convinced that usami and ogata are juxtaposed and are supposed to be each other's foils - they might be two peas in a pod, but their backgrounds are pretty much the opposite. usami had most stuff ogata lacked as a child yet he turned out the way he did. look at this, for example:

when i say that noda is a good writer, this is what i mean. it's the way he conveys information subtly and succinctly, his attention to detail and the cohesivity of the story. usami's parents were given exactly one page in the whole manga, but it conveyed quite a lot of information. they loved each other - enough to have four children despite being obviously low income, enough to flirt with each other in front of their children, who are welcoming of their display of affection, therefore it's obvious that they don't lack in affection from their parents either. it's a nice detail, an important one, and noda made sure we know. usami had exactly what ogata is convinced makes him defective - a loving family, a warm home, a happy childhood. yet usami still turned out not alright.

however... people are different and complex. two people can be brought up in identical circumstances, yet turn out nothing alike. human brains are incredibly complicated, any given event in a person's life can have a very long-lasting rippling effect and be a turning point. any given psychology course will dedicate a lot of time to developmental and child psychology and therapy is majorly focused on looking at the core of things and searching for it in early childhood. children are malleable because their brains are developing, but once a neuro connection is strongly established, it's quite hard to change later - not impossible, neuroplasticity is a thing, but hard, and requiring a conscious effort. humans are social animals, community is unimaginably important to us, connecting to others is arguably one of the core needs of a human being. we learn how to connect with others from the moment of our birth, and naturally the first-comers, the people who establish us as human by taking care of us and connecting with us are our primary care-givers - namely, our parents.

the truth is that since the child-parent bond is typically the first one in most humans' lives, the relationship between a child and their parents is tremendously important. the other truth is that if a child is not loved and not desired, it is guaranteed to fuck them up for the rest of their life. we need to be loved early on in our childhood in order to be able to create healthy connections with others later in life, it's a must for natural, lasting, positive relationships. a person rendered unable to form healthy bonds with others will still typically seek connection, except in their case they will do it in negative, (self-)destructive ways. which is exactly ogata's case.

when i think ogata i think tunnel vision. he's incredibly self-aware in some areas while being completely blind in others, his perception of himself and others is so wrapped in itself it gives him an emotional handicap and an utter inability to accurately asses his circumstances. i think he is absolutely correct in blaming the fact that he's defective and lacking something fundamental on his parents being the way they were. i do feel sympathy for both him and his mother. you're saying that his grandparents were good to him because they fed him, but don't forget their circumstances either. they were poor. poor enough to either sell their daughter into prostitution or just accept the fact, though i'm inclined to think that they sold her because it was commonplace to do that in order to cover debt and get rid of a hungry mouth. doesn't strike me as the most affectionate household. people keep pets and feed them, but they don't give their cats or dogs the kind of affection a child needs.

i do agree with you that there was obviously something very off about ogata from the very beginning. thing is, even with extremely mentally unstable parents, even with neglect, even with poverty, children rarely poison their mothers on purpose. sure his logic was simplistic and childish, he didn't do it out of malice or ill will, he even thought that he's doing it for her sake, but he still purposefully murdered her. people who aren't naturally missing a few screws don't do that, ogata was well past the age of not understanding why hurting others is wrong.

he's got plenty of traits that make him unlikeable as a person. he is petty, arrogant, self-absorbed, rude, selfish, treacherous, awkward, has poor social skills, berating, 0 charisma, a liar etc etc... these traits can be found aplenty in people who had happy childhoods too. would he still be an asshole if he had better circumstances? most probably. the difference is that he'd be much less likely to self-sabotage, wouldn't waste so much time on introspection, and wouldn't react to basic, human kindness with murder. at the end of the day he's a fictional character and not a real person, being the way he is is very deliberate and constructed, and if he were different or had a different life then he wouldn't be ogata.

#like he'd still probably be an ass but either more like koito or patrick bateman style lmao #anon #btw bold of sugimoto to talk shit when HE had good and loving parents

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autumn-foxfire · 3 years

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Seen too many people say Tomie was a good mom because "she still loved him!" "she got him that plushie!" "she gave him that letter!" And I'm trying so hard not to use the "yeah but it squicks me out bc she reminds me of my mom esp when people write meta explaining her" card bc I know you're not supposed to project on fictional characters like that, yada yada can't be a hypocrite with what we say to villain stans.

(+) but its just so unhealthy. I hate seeing Hawks feel guilty about "turning his back on her" and "not saving her" when he's been expected to since he was born. And he's not obliged to care about abusive or toxic parents. And who tf says he didn't save her, ahem. She should take some responsibility herself. He literally went through all that training and saved her from poverty. Being proud of him doesn't mean much when she was the one asking why he was even born or what good was he

(+) until money came knocking in the form of the Hpsc. And look, I get it. Not all bad parents will be on "be utter crap" mode 24/7, there's gonna be cooldown periods where they're semi-decent. And it shouldn't erase the hurt, it doesn't make all the bad times "okay" all of a sudden. But I think it hurts because Hawks is so forgiving. He doesn't mind. That one moment does wonders to make her a more preferable parent to him

(+) even tho I think her true colors would be right back to how she was before without that fancy house and her child bringing in all these luxuries. "Let's hope you grow up as strong as this guy." Doesn't feel as sweet to me, I'm sorry. Maybe she means it? Hori always sprinkles in good and bad traits. It's realistic and complex, but I need to think it over more. My feelings keep changing about this line.

(+) Rn I'm stuck on "it's just a comment, it was before she presumably got worse, anyone could say that to their child but is it hope out of care or hope bc anything else would make Keigo so pointless?" Still. Doesn't. Erase. How. She. Hurt. Him. I'll respect Hawks's feelings about this, but I don't think its healthy for him to feel guilty like this. Give him a better family please, its obvious his sense of self-worth came from her.

I understand how you feel Nonnie and I think on this matter, it comes down more to personal feelings rather than hard facts.

For me, I agree with your view that Tomie wasn’t a good mother. She was neglective to him at the worst and verbally abusive to him too and has probably been the root to many of Hawks self-esteem issues that we’ve seen him express in adulthood.

I think Tomie’s feeling for Hawks were complicated because she was an abused and mentally ill woman. Hawks was clearly an unwanted child (...and damn does that hurt to write) whose birth caused issues for her and her relationship with his bastard father and we see this expressed many times in the chapter (with both parents berating him for being born like he had any choice in that matter).

However, her going out to buy him the Endeavor plushie and going against the rules set by their abuser to do so also shows us that she does care about Hawks, even if a little. Sure Hawks might have excused it as “to shut him up” but it takes more then just that to go against an abuser and her comment to Hawks about hoping he grew up to be as strong as Endeavor also shows us she cares about him.

Tomie may have loved Hawks but it requires more then just love to be a good mother. I’d argue that Tomie was a bad parent towards Hawks and her treatment towards him shouldn’t just be brushed off because she was caring at times.

Her running away from her problems again, putting herself above the life of her son, shows us that she’s not a good parent, in my opinion. Just like how she put her child at risk by making him homeless, she put him at risk once again and can’t even bring herself to apologise to him for doing so. She’s not ready to face her problems and if she keeps running, I don’t think she ever will be.

Hearing Hawks blame himself for not “saving” his mother hurt me too because it should never be the obligation of the children to save their parents, especially ones who have hurt them in the past and he’s done plenty for her to begin with. However I think (and hope) this was just to showcase to us more of Hawks more negative traits where he tries to blame himself for everything that goes wrong (like he did when the League joined up with the MLA and formed the PLF).

I hope someone tells Hawks there is nothing wrong with cutting ties with someone who has hurt you too much and you don’t have to “save” them at the expense of yourself just because you’re a good person. I don’t want him to blame himself for Tomie anymore.

...Hawks past hurts me so much because it’s such a complicated situation where he was failed by both his parents T-T

#bnha #bnha manga spoilers #bnha 299 #bnha hawks #hawks #bnha tomie #thanks for the ask!!#Anonymous

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sorry-but-we-have-moved · 4 years

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The ABSOLUTE CRAZIEST shit happened on my Sims 3 game last night, so i’m going to make a long list detailing the events in chronological order.

Also note, my Sims are both fictional characters and OCs living on this resort-type lot. The lot is custom built, and the main focal point of the story is the pool, which is located in the center of the lot. In hindsight, this all could have been avoided had i had more step-ladders and had never added a fence around the edges to prevent Sims from climbing out. Also, it probably didn’t help that i used a trick to merge the basement with the pool, a trick that proves itself to be very buggy. I’ll be referring to Sims by their first names, and i’m only tagging/including the ones that are relevant to the story.

- The household i’m controlling is 8 people, 2 older adults and 6 younger adults, 7 are related to one another. At the beginning of this story, they’re all pretty spread out and split up in the place.

-Alice, the oldest youngster, is the only one at the pool besides her father Jack. She jumps in via diving board.

- ^ Seeing this, Jack decides to enter the nearby bar to “express fear of swimming” to Mei, who is listening to a woman named Salotta play piano. Mei doesn’t seem to want to respond to Jack, or she’s too enthralled with the piano playing to pay attention. He sits and waits there for many, many minutes.

- Meanwhile, Alice(OC) is already out of the pool, which is now filled to the brim with other sims. I initially don’t see this as a problem because they’re still able to swim around and use the ladders. What i don’t realize is the ones who have to wait on others to climb out are the ones in danger.

- Jack finally gives up trying to tell Mei of the impending disaster and just turns to face the piano player and listen. Again, i figure since he’s no longer worried about the pool, that the trouble is over. How wrong i am.

- Seconds later, Hoang(OC) drowns. Everyone’s first reaction is to immediately try and leave the pool.

Then, after climbing out, Lucio makes his way onto the water slide and re-enters the pool Hoang just died in.

- A majority of them just never leave the pool, in fact they started having a fucking breath holding contest. BLU Scout and Candie(OC), nearby also holding a contest are Troy and Alice. The choices Sims make in the face of death truly astound me.

- At this point, Hoang appears to have been blipped from existence because there’s no ghost, no corpse, no urn or gravemarker, and no sign of the Grim Reaper coming to get his body. The only one who’s reacting to his death is Guthard(OC) because they shared a household. Guthard also happened to be present in the pool when Hoang died.

- Back in the bar, everyone is reacting to the drowning with symbols that suggest they want to try to find Hoang’s body in the pool but can’t. Everyone in the pool appears stuck, like they, too, are searching or they’re just in total shock.

- ^ Remember, Jack has the Hydrophobia trait. He has a fear of swimming, and knew something bad was going to happen with the pool. But, against his better judgement he is now IN that very pool, looking highly distressed but again, he put himself in there. Also, people are still having underwater contests cause that’s what you do when someone drowns. - Also, he just casually turns into Jesus because of course he does:

- ^ The Grim Reaper finally shows up to try to collect Hoang’s ghost. But there’s a problem. He, like others, is climbing into the pool to try to find the body, but it’s not there. So he spends a good few minutes climbing in and out of the pool from different floors, taking the nearby tube elevators as he does.

- Suddenly, ANOTHER person drowns, this time it’s Akande (Doomfist). Now, HIS death is really fucky for several reasons. Shortly after he drowns, EVERYONE that was in the pool suddenly ascends through the roof of the lot. The only remaining Sim is Ashe because she was taking the water slide.

- After some searching, i find everyone NOT on the roof, but on the bottom floor in the basement area. Outside of the pool somehow.

- Now Akande is wandering around, apparently trapped in physical form so he’s not going to be collected to go to the underworld anytime soon:

-He produces TWO, i repeat, TWO gravemarkers in his name. One of these, i’m assuming is Hoang’s and the name’s just a misprint by the game, but there’s another glitch going on that is absolutely hilarious. - Akande is technically a ghost according to the game, since he started phasing through walls and doing the floating animation. But at the same time, he doesn’t have the ghost texture, and he’s able to interact with the environment like he never died, with the added bonus that he can haunt things and people.

- ^ Angela, whom always has some form of interaction with him in previous playthroughs, decides to strike up a casual conversation with him now that he’s a permanent ghost resident. Gabriel (Reaper), who’d been absent this entire time, suddenly rushes to the scene and looks at Akande like “oh what the f***?” - And just like other playthroughs Akande makes a mean comment to Angela which she berates him for before leaving. Even while dead, he’s still an ass.

- ^ I check on the other members of the household to see how they’re handling the chaos, Hazel(OC) is just in the kitchen sharing a canned soup lunch with Jenny(OC) so i’d say this didn’t get to him too much. Also, Akande decides to get himself a ghost salad from the mini-fridge:

- After eating the salad he goes and grabs one of the soccer balls from the “item shop” i have set up on the lot. Then everyone walks in and grabs a ball for themselves, now they’re taking soccer lessons from Akande’s ghost

- Alice, for some reason, goes all the way to the opposite end of the lot to play soccer not with Akande, but with BLU Scout from earlier - Akande sees himself in one of the mirrors on the lot and thinks he looks pretty good as a ghost - Then he goes upstairs and haunts a telescope for a few minutes

- ^ This also happens - Third drowning death happens out of nowhere, and it’s Juelle(OC). This leads to a cascade effect and Jenny(OC) drowns around the same time, and despite me taking the time to actually delete some of the fence now that i’ve suspected it to be the problem, it doesn’t prevent the next several deaths from happening - Mei is the next one to drown. And Angela just. Decided to quicken the process:

Mercy said “No heals 4 U” - Junkrat and Roadhog end up dying together which idk whether to be happy or sad about that, either way they died a couple - Candie and Tyreen go down next, followed by Ashe and Salotta (The piano player from earlier) - Lucio dies right next to the fucking step-ladder like he was gonna climb out and then just gave up

Like seriously dude - Troy lasted a pretty damn long time in this cursed fucking pool, but then he drowns as well:

- Akande is still living as a fucking ghost btw, and he’s casually floating past the pool as all of this happens like “hm. interesting.” - The Grim Reaper, meanwhile, FINALLY gets around to sending ghosts into the underworld. Sometimes people walk by it, react to it like it’s a roadshow, and go about their business. Just some normal everyday shit, y’know? - When he finishes, Grim goes down to the laundry room and does laundry for everyone, only to leave a soggy pile of clothes on the floor in front of the washing machine.

- ^ He also goes upstairs and mops up a puddle someone made, i guess someone pissed themselves seeing him or the ghosts - Laughs while pointing at Gabriel (mad he took the moniker of Reaper i guess?) and then just poofs out-of-scene - Moira starting mourning Akande and Roadhog (Junkrat and Roadhog were part of the Talon household cause convenience) in the kitchen which makes Akande start ghost crying - At this point the population on this lot has been dramatically reduced, so it’s actually impossible to fill it up to the point of overcrowding. And it seems that everyone’s learned their lesson, and they never get in the pool ever again. They just walk past it on their way to the bar or something. Also, shockingly, no one from my active household ended up dying. - However, Kyle(OC) ended up frozen for a few minutes because he was going to mourn basically EVERYONE who ended up drowning and that filled his action queue too full. I had to cancel the actions so he could use the bathroom and get some sleep

- TLDR This story ultimately ends, entire households have been decimated, pets have lost their owners to a fucking pool, i can’t do anything with the gravemarkers even on my own community lot, no one wants to go swimming ever again in their lives, i think i now have PTSD

ᴼᴷᴬʸ ᵗᶦᵐᵉ ᶠᵒʳ ᵗᵃᵍᵍᶦⁿᵍ ʰᵒˡʸ ˢᴴᴵᵀ

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shadowed-dancer · 3 years

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Quirk Questions 2: Electric Boogaloo

Followup to this post, inspired by this series. Once again, this is all just for fun

World Building

Is EVERY teacher at UA a pro hero? UA isn’t just a hero school, they have Business courses, Support courses, and General Studies. While we know support kids have a pro teacher (Mr Powerloader), and I could see the Business kids MAYBE having a pro, I thought it was implied that General Studies is totally unrelated to hero work. So do they just have random pros teaching them? Or do they get actual teachers?

What the heck do copyright laws look like regarding a hero’s name? I understand Iida taking “Ingenium” because it’s a family thing, but Deku legit though that “Super All Might” and “All Might Jr” would be acceptable. And Red Riot is OBVIOUSLY copying Crimson Riot, so where does it become ok?

Building off of that point, how about hero names in relation to other pieces of media? Eraserhead is the name of an ACTUAL FILM but Aizawa is allowed to use it no problem, so does that logic apply to fictional characters? Deku implies that comics and stuff existed before quirks, and that their world was essentially identical to ours, so at one point were there heroes that named themselves after fictional comic characters like Iron Man and Wonder Woman? Mina even tries naming herself “Alien Queen” and the issue isn’t “that’s from a movie”, it’s that it’s too scary.

It’s unclear who gives quirks their names, but judging by the fact that Endeavour’s quirk is canonically called “Hellflame”, I can guess that the person chooses the name themselves. Question is, do your children have to use the same name you chose? Like certain things are easy, Bakugo’s kid probably wouldn’t change “explosion” because it’s very on-the-nose. But if Endeavour had a kid that made orange fire just like him, would that kid be forced to call their quirk “Hellflame” too? Or could they opt to just call it “fire”.

Does hair colour actually have any bearing on what quirk a child gets? Using the Todoroki’s as an example, the one’s with (mostly) white hair got ice quirks, Shoto has his hair split down the middle with ice on the white side and fire on the red, and Touya had with red hair and a fire quirk. We also saw this is Jiro, since she has her mom’s hair colour AND quirk. So, in universe, can parents guess their kid’s quirk based on which hair/physical traits they got?

Bakugo

Does Bakugo just leave nitroglycerin everywhere he goes? And isn’t that dangerous? What happens if he’s on the subway, gets some sweat on the pole, and then someone with an activated flame/heat quirk touches it? Would he get in trouble for the ensuing explosion? Has this ever happened??? In the movie “Two Heroes” we see Todoroki ignite some of Bakugo’s sweat, so we know it can be activated by other heat sources. I just feel like that’s SO DANGEROUS.

Similar to the previous question, but what about the food he cooks? I’d hope he washes his hands, but if some sweat manages to get in some bread dough (for example), and then he puts it in the oven, wouldn’t that cause an explosion?

Best Jeanist

Best Jeanist controls clothing fibres, but that’s really vague. Can he control the fibres of a wool sweater? And if so, where is the line? Can he control wool while it’s still on the sheep?

Mirio’s costume is said to be made out of his hair, so could Best Jeanist control it? It’s clothing, but it’s not clothing fibre.

Twice

In my previous post, I wondered if a clone of Hagakure would turn into visible mud upon destruction. But now I’m wondering: could he even make a clone of her in the first place? He can’t technically see her, so he’s missing the visual component, and even if he got exact measurements there’s no way for him to know details like face shape.

Followup, I guess technically he could cover her with paint and then clone her, but the manga says that the clones come out in the same state as when he took the measurements, meaning the clone would be covered in paint. However, could that clone wash off the paint and then be invisible?

Can Twice make a clone of someone if he doesn’t know their quirk? He says he needs as much information as possible, “you name it, I need it” but does that translate to things like quirk information? And if it IS possible to make a clone without knowing the quirk, will the clone possess it anyways?

How long do the clones last if they aren’t destroyed. He says his clones were hanging around for 9 days, so could he just send one out into the world to live its life? And if it lasted long enough without getting destroyed, would it age?

How EXACTLY is Twice aware of the state of his clones? He berates Dabi for his clone getting taken out “by a magic scarf” but like... how did he know that? I can assume he felt the clone get destroyed (like some sort of intuition), but how’d he know the details of the scarf? Can he see through their eyes or something?

Assorted

If Hagakure gets cut, is her blood visible? And are her... other bodily fluids visible? (She’s running around naked, this is something she should think about at least once a month).

You know that dude who worked with Overhaul who could “steal things people have equipped”? Where the hell is that line drawn? He’s able to steal the stuff Tamaki manifests ON HIS BODY, but what else is considered stealable? Could he steal Twice’s clones? Could he steal fire? Could he steal clothes? Could he steal clothes and drag the person along with them?!?! Like Aizawa’s scarf is a perfect example. Technically it’s a weapon he has “equipped”, but it’s also wrapped around his neck. If he tried to steal it, would it drag Aizawa long with it? How about weapons that are strapped to the body like Kaminari’s aiming disks?

You think Shigaraki ever just... accidentally disintegrates his clothes in public? Like, he has no control over his quirk. You think he ever just accidentally put his hands in his pockets, accidentally touches the fabric, and then boom his hoodie is gone.

#bnha #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #bnha quirks #quirk questions

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