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linkspooky · 3 years

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Shigaraki and Dabi

Heroes hurt their own families in order to help complete strangers. Words said by Shigaraki, and lived by Dabi. If you haven’t noticed, there’s quite a lot of parallels between the two of them. Especially their childhood selves, dark haired hero hopefuls whose hair turned white due to stress and eventually fell and became villains. They were the children closest to the heroes, the son of Endeavor, the grandson of Nana Shimura, and yet both of them fell through the cracks the hardest. Let’s talk about the foiling of these two, under the cut.

1. Father Says No

Both Shigaraki and Dabi are characters who grew up in a strict, patriarchical household where the father was the head of the household and determined all the rules.

The Shimura household was built by Koutarou, who held all the money, and therefore determined all the rules. The same can be said for the Todoroki household, which only came into being to fuel Enji’s ambitions. This is something Enji literally thinks, his first priority when having children was not to love and raise them, but to raise heirs that would carry on his quirk and make up for the weakness in it.

Enji also literally used his financial wealth and status to pressure her family into arranging a marriage. In the households, the patriarch is the ultimate authority and cannot be questioned. Koutarou sets the rules of the household because he has all the money. Endeavor sets the rules of the household because these children are there to be his heirs. Toya and Tenko both break the rules in their father’s households in some way and become scapegoats.

Ironically, they break the rules in opposite ways. Tenko, because he wants to become a hero.

Toya, because his flawof the flames being too harsh for his flame constitution and burning his own skin makes him unable to become a hero and carry on his father’s legacy.

Quick tangent to explain what I mean with Toya. This is speculation, because we haven’t been shown the exact details, so feel free to point and laugh at me if I’m wrong. Endeavor says (incorrectly) that if Toya had reached his goal for him, that all of his pent up negative emotions would have disappeared just like that. (They wouldn’t.)

Which means, Endeavor once again projected himself on his child. Toya was supposed to fix all Endeavor’s hurt feelings for him. So, when Toya failed at the training. When Toya wasn’t good enough. When Toya was flawed.

Which means it’s likely, Toya went in Endeavor’s mind from being the one who could carry his dreams, to being the one that Endeavor could scapegoat to blame for his negative emotions. Which meant, at some point he tossed Toya aside. At that point he started treating Toya differently. Toya probably pushed himself more and more to try to go back to the way things used to be, which is probably why his hair turning white, he started to crawl to Natsu every day.

There’s also a lot of similiarities and differences between their households.

Enji wanted his children to be born heroes. Koutarou’s rule was no heroes allowed.

Shimura and Toya both had a sibling they would run to and confide in. For Shimura it was Hana, and for Toya it was Natsu.

Shimura Tenko is the youngest sibling in the household. While Touya Todoroki was the oldest.

On the surface, the Shimura household seems more comfortable than the Todoroki household. Shimura receives a lot of comfort from his other relatives, his grandparents, his mother, his sister. However, none of them really confronted the problem in the household and at the end of the day Tenko was still getting beaten.

The Todoroki household also doesn’t seem like it was a place of much comfort for Toya. It really does seem from flashbacks that all he had to confide in when things started going wrong was Natsu (again feel free to taunt me cruelly if I’m wrong).

So, you have Tenko who is quietly and gently denied by his family, and Toya who suffers all alone in his household, either getting beaten himself, pushing himself too hard in training, or hearing his father beat his mother and Shoto.

However for both of them, it’s a gradual accumulation over time. The stress of the household overtakes them. Their hair turns from its original dark coloring to white from the sheer stress of it alone. They, as children, are made to bear the stress of their entire unhealthy household, because they are the scapegoat.

Endeavor genuinely believes that if Toya had somehow lived up to his promise he would never have turned abusive.

Kotaro believes that it was Tenko who was upsetting the peace of the household, because he would just not stop it with the hero talk.

They both soak up all this stress until it explodes outward. However, the incidents that turned them from Tenko -> Shigaraki, and from Toya -> Dabi are entirely different.

Toya committed what was essentially a suicide. He either staged his own death, or failed at his own suicide and survived. Tenko didn’t kill himself, he killed everyone else around him. Shigaraki destroyed the household that was denying him.

To simplify the manner in which they lash out. Touya destroys himself, Tenko destroys other people, especially the ones he believes are oppressing him or his friends.

Well you say, Dabi is trying to take down endeavor. However, Dabi still sees Endeavor and himself as one in the same. His flames are Endeavor’s flames.

One last thing, Dabi and Shigaraki are both marked by their father’s abuse. Dabi was burned by Endeavor’s flames. Dabi literally lives with third degree burns, looking like a living zombie. Then makes his burns even worse by using his flames in the self destructive manner Endeavor taught him.

Not only does Shigaraki still carry the lip and eye scars from being beaten up with a gardening tool, but Kotaro’s hand reaching out to his face is a symbol that Shigaraki keeps on him literally to this day by wearing a hand over his face constantly.

2. Friendship and Ideals

So I think all the subtle differences in their backgrounds is what leads to them expressing themselves differently as adults. There are several similarities between them, but I think hardcore Shigaraki fans can tell you all the reasons they prefer Shigaraki, and hardcore Dabi fans can do the same with Dabi.

I think a lot of it has to do with their relationships to their families. Families define how you connect with other people.

Shigaraki was instructed to always keep his family close to him. He’s always confronting his own feelings about his family, his pain from his family, that’s why when he lashes out he also takes his own personal feelings and pushes them outwards. Shigaraki isn’t concerned with right or wrong, moreso, these are my feelings. I reject the society that rejects me. What Shigaraki is concerned first and foremost, is feelings. His own feelings of being rejected, and also the feelings of people who were rejected just like him.

Shigaraki is the heart of his group. He’s the person they all rally around, because they gave him a place of belonging. And, Shigaraki has also expressed several times murderous monster that he is that he cares about the individual feelings of those closest to him. I won’t let you trample on Twice’s feelings, his first thing to do when waking up is order the league to be close to him.

Unlike Dabi, we’ve also seen Shigaraki directly confront the feelings of his missing family once more. He forgives his sister, he tries to comfort his mom. He destroys his father again. He tells his family that he denies them. He tells his grandfather that he still hates her.

I would say that Shigaraki carries those feelings with him, while Dabi dissociates himself from his feelings.Shigaraki directly confronts those feelings because Shigaraki is the heart, feelings are what matter more to him.

Dabi has feelings, obviously. Dabi has feelings even if he processes them in a way that’s not easy and palatable. Everyone in fact has feelings (though sometimes I wish I didn’t). Everyone expresses things in their own way if not in the typical way.

Dabi is completely closed off in regards to his own feelings. He’s not like Shigaraki who is open enough about them he’ll tell his backstory to the whole league on the spot. In fact that’s another difference, the league generally knows Shigaraki’s issues, when they had no idea about Dabi’s.

When really there was no good reason not to tell them. What are they not going to be up for murdering the number one hero?

Friendship is a priority for Shigaraki. Individualism is a priority for Dabi.

Dabi’s feelings towards the league are a messed up jumble, but his behavior towards them is pretty consistent. He takes every oppurtunity he can to insist that he’s not a part of them, that they’re all crazy and he’s the only sane one, that he doesn’t care about their feelings. This can’t all be Dabi just being tsundere or whatever, it’s physical steps taken for Dabi to distance himself from others.

Dabi’s individual goals are more important than his connections to other people. Shigaraki has no distinct goal besides empty lashing out and therefore connects to people with similiar hurt feelings than his.

Remember, Dabi self destructs. It’s likely, Dabi sees himself as a martyr. An individual willing to burn himself to take down the society with him. He’s trying to die for some cause like stain.

So before I develop on this tangent one more difference in similarity between them. Shigaraki’s family is dead. He can’t really do anything but carry on their feelings with him. Tomarau means, to mourn.

Dabi on the other hand, his family is still alive.He could have before the whole killing spree just shown up on their front doorstep. The reason he hasn’t, is because he can’t forgive Endeavor’s sin.

Whatever pushed him this far, whether it be a strong sense of justice, or a desire for personal revenge. Dabi values that, more than he values his connections with other people, even his own family who is still alive. This is once again the complex way Dabi handles his feelings, it’s likely he pushes his family away, the same way he pushes the league away and doesn’t process them. That’s why he says I thought about it so much I went crazy. He just insists he doesn’t care, and doesn’t think instead. Shigaraki lives constantly confronting his own feelings, Dabi lives by avoiding them.

Dabi is impersonal, aloof, and only ever thinks of himself as an individual. He will cooperate with others if it suits his needs, but the bond of the league hasn’t quite reached him yet. There’s a consequence for this.

So twice dying was Hawks fault. Because Hawks you know, stabbed him.

However you could say, Dabi’s planning centering all around himself, and what he can accomplish as an individual, meant he failed to accomplish that Twice might get hurt as a result of him letting Hawks into the league as a Spy. It’s an unintended consequence, but still a consequence.

Dabi showed up to save Twice but couldn’t. Then afterwards Dabi uses Twice’s death in the most gratuiotious way possible. Dabi insists once again he doesn’t care, that he never cared about Twice except as a tool that would have made fighting the heroes a lot easier.

Shigaraki destroys everything around him. He destroys for the sake of the people around him. Dabi destroys himself, his own feelings, he self destructs. When people get caught up in his flames they’re sacrifices for his cause.

Their priorities and the way they lash out are different. Dabi cares more for ideals than people. Shigaraki cares more for people than ideals.

However, they don’t have to destroy each other. Shigaraki trusts Dabi. Shigaraki of all the members of the league (with Toga as well) is the heart, is the best at sympathizing with the pain of other people because he is constantly in pain himself.

Dabi made a mistake and as a result Twice got killed. He gambled with too high of circumstances. Twice let a secret slip and invited the heroes to the League’s compound. Twice brought Chisaki for a meeting and because of that Magne died. This kind of scenario has happened before. Of course Dabi insists that his motivations were less pure than Twice’s, he didn’t care what happened to the rest of the league as long as he got the dirt he wanted for his big reveal.

I’m not suggesting that Dabi is secretly a sweetheart, or a misunderstood angsting teddy bear. Just that Dabi is currently closed off from all of his feelings, that’s why he denies too the feelings of people around him and their attempts to reach out for him. Dabi has refused the compansionship of the league.

It doesn’t have to be like this. Characters can develop. Shigaraki especially has been shown to reach out to people multiple times. Kurogiri is fond of him. Himiko and Twice in their moment of weakness, are convinced to stay on Shigaraki’s side because he shows their face to them. Spinner basically questioned why he was even staying with the league at his lowest point when he thought they had no reason to be there, and it was Shigaraki who he found his cause in.

Dabi is lacking something. He’s burned off and emotionally stunted his ability to develop connections with other people.

Shigaraki is lacking something. He is, again and again, told that he needs a plan besides destroy everything. Shigaraki is very observant of the world, and understands the truth, but he can’t get people to listen. Unlike Dabi who planned to such an extent, that he literally made a live public broadcast to turn public opinion against Endeavor because that was more important than winning a fight.

It’s true Dabi and Shigaraki could turn against each other, because Dabi doesn’t value people, because Shigaraki considers his lashing out more important than his ideals. They could also be the ones to balance each other out. We’re at an important turning point now, Dabi can either break off from the league now that his individual mission is compelte, or he can finally be reached by the league.

I think Shigaraki might reach him, because even though they’re grown up so differently they started in the exact same place. They were both boys who wanted to be heroes, and just wanted one person to tell them it was okay, that they could be heroes too.

#shigaraki tomura #shimura tenko #dabi #todoroki touya #todoroki toya #league of villains #league of villains meta #mha meta #my hero academia #my hero academia meta #my hero academia theory #bnha 291 #bnha 291 spoilers #lov meta #league of found family #todoroki family

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norvem · 3 years

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Do you think the Sinclair backstory is fake or not? (I know this is a big topic in the HoW fandom atm)

*cracks my knuckles* Oh boy anon you don’t know what you’ve just unleashed! I’m putting this under a read more. Disclaimer before I write anything, I think both theories are valid! There's a lot of culminated evidence that suggests both theories (Brain’s interview, the original script proving it all to be fake etc etc.) So believing that the backstory is fake or isn’t is not inherently wrong!

Ok with all of that out of the way here’s what I think about the Sinclair backstory

Personally I think it’s half-true and half-false. I feel some of the stuff to be true (Trudy illness + dying, the abuse and the boys being put into foster care) but I also think given Bo’s character that he twisted some things. With Bo it’s hard to take what he says at face value since when we learn all of this he’s talking to Carly and Wade in his good guy persona. However there is one thing we know of that is 100% true. We know that Bo and most likely Vincent as well as Lester were abused. There’s physical proof so there’s no denying that plus I don’t think abuse is one of those things Bo would lie about, he just doesn’t strike me as that kind of character. Now into the things that are debatable but I still believe are true.

The main thing that I’ve seen that causes people to dismiss the backstory is Trudy specifically when we see her in the coffin. Now we see Trudy alive in two instances. First, is the beginning of the film now we really don’t see her here, we have some voice clips, close up of her hands (very important) and small fragments of the lower half of her face (easy to miss but still there) I at first thought it was two different actress but I after rewatching that’s just simply not true. Now the next time we see Trudy clearly (we get blurry photos in the movie on newspapers but they’re really hard to see), alive is much later in the film where Carly’s in the house. We see a bunch of photographs of Trudy smoking and with the two boys. Now this lays the ground base for a couple of things. First off as i mentioned earlier we see a close up of Trudy’s hands which are wrinkly this obviously suggests that she’s somewhat old. In my personal belief i think she’s around her 50s in the beginning (I have a young mum who’s around 40 her hands are nowhere near as wrinkly) however because Trudy does smoke she could actually be younger and the damage smoking does to her (as well as working with the wax — she works around fumes a lot) just may have aged her skin.

Now onto the point I'm trying to make. I don’t think Trudy is in the coffin. I think it’s another old woman, keep in mind this old woman and the Trudy we are shown look very different so I'm crossing out that the woman in the coffin is actually Trudy, but I believe the old woman is supposed to mimic Trudy. We learn from Bo that Trudy had an illness that left her bedridden which wasn’t able to be cured causing Dr.Sinclair to take his own life, I think this is true but I think she gained this illness much later in life then early on like Bo implies (plus with Lester in the picture it makes sense that she’s fairly old). I think she died from the illness but it horribly ravaged her with all the fumes she works around this destroys her body which in turn led to her appearance changing dramatically. Since she died in such a state I don’t think Bo would want to actually use her body like that, he would think it’d be disrespectful to Trudy. I think Bo’s actually doing all of this as some way to get Trudy’s attention if you think about it all of his motivations lead back to Trudy I think he blames himself for how she dies (catholic guilt and whatnot) I believe Bo is much more emotionally connected to his mother then Vincent ever was, but that’s a whole meta for another day. There’s also a bunch of symbolism that we see Bo with and only with Bo (the two knives in the coffin, the christian ring we never see Vincent with any of this ). So I see this as Bo’s elaborate plan to try and apologise to his family, and I think Vincent only goes along with it because he has no one else and also because he’s very attached to what he does now.

Now whether or not Trudy actually started this whole humans under the wax thing is very debatable to me (just like the backstory haha). On one hand you have Dr.Sinclair who makes for a prefect contender for murdering people however at the same time Ambrose wasn’t an unknown town like it is in the movie it’s actually somewhat well known (well known enough to get newspapers — though it could be local but i don’t know enough about that i’m british). However would a whole town be ok with letting murders go on? Potentially yes and potentially no, it really does depend on the person however i am sceptical and believe with the latter unfortunately.

That’s all I can think of now at the moment (this turned more into a Bo analysis then anything else…..) I got interrupted half way through this so any gems of thoughts I have probably got stolen away by time unfortunately, to be honest i don’t think i would have added much more the main debate for whether their backstory is fake at all seems to be linked to Trudy and I can’t blame them Bo’s main allure is his charm and amazing lying skills so anything he says cannot be taken as gospel.

I did warn you that this would be long anon….

#Meta #House of Wax #Bo Sinclair #since he does get mention a lot but i won’t tag the others #I hope this is coherent enough for anyone I genuinely enjoy this debate a lot because there’s no right or wrong answer #I do want to read the original script one day when I get the chance #bc I know it’s implied Bo kills his parents?? I think don’t quote me on that

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mostly-delusional · 3 years

Text

Like a phoenix, I will rise

!!!SPOILERS FOR KAZ'S BACKSTORY!!!

I dwell in the nothings and the nowhere places

The void of emptiness is my home

Kaz stared at his reflection in the mirror. A new face was looking back at him, one he didn’t, couldn’t recognize as his own. His clothes were damp, heavy with the burden of the ordeal he had just gone through. Wet locks of hair fell in his eyes, drops of water dripping from them one by one. His eyes were puffy and red, traces of tears washed away by the water. His skin itched, as if hundreds of insects were crawling upon it. His head felt heavy and he couldn’t bring himself to turn around. He was soaked from head to toe, and his breath came out in short puffs. His chest thumped at a pace he could not keep up with.

Don't look back and maybe all of it will disappear. You'll wake up in a few moments. All of this will be gone. It's just a bad dream. Jordie will shake you back to reality and hold you close to him. You'll be fine.

He squeezed his eyes shut and tried driving out the images of his brother among a hundred other bodies. But in the darkness behind his eyelids, Kaz could only see himself pushing against the waves in the Reaper’s Barge, his brother by his side. He could still feel the waves hitting him, trying to propel him towards the horror that had lain behind him. The stink of bodies was still fresh in his nose and bile rose up to his throat. A faint sound of giggling reverberated in his mind.

Saskia.

Jacob Hertzoon’s daughter. But she wasn’t actually a part of his family, was she? No, just another con artist. Kaz felt his heart shattering into a multitude of little shards. He felt himself slipping away. He tried holding onto that nine-year-old part of him, but to no avail. It was too late now.

But it is here that my soul can create itself

And I'll emerge full born as my own

His eyes shot open. Kaz looked into those brown orbs in the mirror. But they weren’t his. He saw hatred pooling inside them, their brown darkening with hunger.

Kaz Rietveld was dead. The little boy who clutched his brother’s hand a little too tight when afraid, who brightened at the sight of candies and toys, who was far too innocent for the sordid streets of Ketterdam was dead. He was floating somewhere in the Reaper’s Barge, forgotten.

I walk in the gutter of my humanity

As one who is disfigured and frail

Yet still believe, that one day I will be transformed

And in spite of my limits, I will prevail

The streets looked mammoth without Jordie by his side. Kaz felt small walking among the crowd. No one paid him mind, as if he were a phantom passing through. People pushed past him and he struggled to stay on his feet. They were mindlessly walking on the streets, eyes set on defined goals. Kaz wanted to scream. He wanted to ask them to stop and look at him. To let him pass through. To help him. But everyone just went about their business and he could do nothing but stare at his feet helplessly. Tears were prickling at the corners of his eyes and a sob threatened to tear past his lips.

“Lift your head up and walk right through them. Don’t stop, don’t hesitate. If you do, they’ll just drag you back to the bottom of the Barge. Ketterdam is not a place you can afford to be soft in, Kaz. You need to make a place for yourself. Will you do that? For me?” Kaz didn’t know if it was Jordie’s voice in his head, or if he was just being delusional. But he pushed his fear aside nonetheless.

A man harshly collided with Kaz and he staggered back.

“Watch where you’re going, boy!” The man bit out.

Jordie’s words echoed in his mind and Kaz simply stomped on the foot of that man as hard as he could before running away. He didn’t stop running until he reached the doors of a dingy looking building. A rusting crow sign hung on the door with the words ‘The Crow Club’ engraved on it. He pushed open the double doors and walked inside.

The place could hardly pass as a gambling club, what with the chipped paint on the walls and the dank atmosphere. Thugs and thieves huddled in every corner, their raucous laughter banging on his eardrums. He pushed past them and walked around the tables when suddenly a hand shot out and seized his wrist.

Kaz bristled. He could hear waves slapping against his mind again. The voices muffled, as if his head was pushed under water. His own shouts of help began blaring like an alarm inside his head.

He needed to get the hand off of him and leave this place.

“Let go!” Kaz cringed at the rasp that escaped his lips. His voice was barely recognizable, sounding like two rocks being rubbed against each other. His throat itched and forming any words hurt. Still, he conjured every fiber of confidence and said, “I told you to let go!”

“What do you think you’re doing in here, huh?” The man ignored what Kaz had said and tightened his grip. “A little pigeon like you shouldn’t be lurking around places where you’re not supposed to be.”

Kaz was disgusted. The man’s touch reminded him of the countless bodies he had been surrounded with in the Barge. The contact of his skin felt like someone was clawing at his arm.

“I’m here for a job. Get your filthy hands off of me.” Kaz snatched his wrist away.

The man laughed, his head tipping back in merry. “Would you look at that? Pigeon says he wants a job.” He sneered and the other males sitting around the table laughed along.

“Don’t listen to them. They’ll realize who you are and what you can do soon enough. The door across the room is the office of this club’s owner. Go to him.” He could hear Jordie again. His brother’s voice guided him to the wooden door, leaving those laughing men behind him.

I must wait for my value to be recognized

By others that have forced me down here

And until then I shall be my own counsellor

To nurture my progress through the years

The old man argued a lot and tried to push Kaz out of his office. He even called a few of his bouncers to drag Kaz outside, but Kaz bit one of their hands as they tried getting a hold of him.

“Get that filth away from me or I'll rip them out of their sockets and feed them to you.” Kaz glared up at the men towering above him, and then turned back to Per Haskell as if his bouncers were a bunch of flies he had brushed aside. “I know how to land a punch when necessary. I can pick locks and steal. I’m better than any of your errand dogs.”

“Are you now?” The old man challenged.

He wasn't. The lie had slipped through effortlessly and Per Haskell didn't need to know that as long as Kaz got the job.

“They’ve been sitting out on the tables wasting away their money, not even noticing the notes being slipped out of their pockets by the waitress. They’re a bunch of rabid dogs who need to be controlled. I can do that. Give me the job.”

It wasn’t an offer or a request. Just a full-fledged order. “They won’t listen to you if you talk to them like a lonely child in need of help. Don't let them see your weakness.” Jordie had reminded him before Kaz had pushed open Haskell’s door.

I shall become the hero of my tragedy

The master of my fate and intent

To become the very person that I need to be

The force that will plot my ascent

Kaz never looked back after that. He pushed through life, kicking down anyone who tried to drag him back to the Barge. he learned the ways of gambling, picking locks and stealing without being caught. He learned how to think like a businessman and how to outsmart people. Even Jordie's voice had silenced, taken over by the whispers of revenge.

Kaz was well on his way to become the king of the Barrel and he wasn't going to back down until he claimed the crown.

The words written in red are taken from a poem on google.

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kittyprincessofcats · 3 years

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I love both shows (Spop and Su) but I wanted to ask about some things you’ve said:

“Can’t believe “It’s okay for fans to be disappointed when oppressive dictators who’ve murdered millions and have tried to kill the protagonists before get forgiven without having to face consequences” is a so hard to understand for some people, but here we are”

“So did Steven Univerae end with the Diamonds in prison where they should be, or did I do well to stop watching when I did?”

With that logic can’t the very same thing be said and applied to She ra regarding Catra?

“So did She ra end with Catra in prison where she should be, or did I do well to stop watching when I did?”

Hi there. First of all, I want to say sorry for taking so long answer this. January’s been a very busy month for me and I literally just didn’t have the time to write the kind of reply I think this ask deserves.

Next, I want to make a few things clear just so we’re on the same page:

I love both shows as well and nothing I’m about to say is intended to be seen as hate against Steven Universe. SU meant a lot to me and I was a big fan of it for many years. Change Your Mind disappointed me a lot as an episode and as a finale, precisely because I didn’t want the Diamonds to get any sort of redemption, but just because it was a dealbreaker for *me*, that doesn’t mean I harbor any ill feelings towards the fans or writers of the show. None of this is meant to be a personal attack against anyone who worked on this show or likes it.

I stopped watching SU after CYM, so this post will ignore anything beyond that. I have not seen the SU movie or Steven Universe Future and I don’t intend to. Please don’t try to convince me otherwise. I’m not comfortable watching more.

I wrote the posts you quoted because I got quite a few rude messages after I said I didn’t like Change Your Mind and that I don’t want to keep watching SU. The first one was a response to people who were giving me a hard time for not liking the Diamond redemption – it wasn’t me saying that /no one/ should like it, just that my feelings on it were valid as well and people shouldn’t badger me about it.

In that sense, YES you could say the same thing about Catra! If someone wanted to stop watching SPOP because Catra’s redemption made them uncomfortable (maybe because they knew someone like her in real life or something similar), that’d be absolutely fine! I’d never send them the kind of messages I got or try to pressure them into continuing a show they’re not comfortable continuing. Because respecting real people is more important than a show or a fictional character.

I’ll be honest: I’m a little tired of justifying my feelings about the SU finale to people. But I believe you’re asking out of genuine curiosity and I haven’t made too many posts defending Catra yet, so I’ll try to analyze this step by step for you – and anyone else who might be curious.

So, without further ado: Here’s my essay on why Catra’s redemption works for me but the Diamonds’ doesn’t.

Short explanation: Because if you compare the scale of their actions, their motivations, what’s supposed to make them sympathetic to the audience, their build-up, and how their respective redemptions are handled, then the Diamonds aren’t an equivalent to Catra – they’re an equivalent to Horde Prime. And if SPOP had suddenly redeemed Horde Prime at the last minute after building him up as the big bad, I wouldn’t have liked that either.

Long (very long) explanation under the cut

Okay, let’s get into this in detail.

1. The scale of their actions

Let’s look at the evil stuff these characters have done first.

The Diamonds: Created an intergalactic empire, conquered millions of planets (destroying all life of them in the process) for millions of years, created a strict caste system in which all gems only have one function to follow and where Pearls are essentially slaves who have to obey every order, persecute and send shattering robonoids after gems that don’t fit into the system or fuse outside of their caste (off-colors), created a human zoo and kidnapped people for it, shattered anyone who wasn’t loyal to them, bubbled all the Rose Quartzes, created the Cluster and the other fusion experiments out of the shards of their fallen enemies (essentially torturing them for all eternity), corrupted all the gems on Earth, including those that were loyal to them. And that’s just what we get told upfront in the show. We’re talking about intergalactic dictators with no respect for life who will ruthlessly kill anyone who gets in their way.

Catra: Helped Hordak conquer one (1) planet. Bad, yes – but not nearly on the same scale as devoting eons to conquering entire galaxies. Also, Catra isn’t the one who founded the Horde in the first place; she just happened to grow up there (likely because she was taken from her real home as a baby) and was raised with their ideals. The Diamonds, on the other hand *are* the people who started their empire.

So yeah, the Diamonds aren’t Catra – they’re Horde Prime. He’s the one who founded the intergalactic Horde and destroyed millions of planets. (There’s even a whole parallel about how both Horde Prime and White Diamond think they’re perfect and everyone should be like them…)

Now, you could argue that Catra opening the portal was a crime on a larger scale. But even that would have likely only destroyed Etheria – one planet, not millions. The scale we’re talking about is still way smaller than Horde Prime’s or the Diamonds’ actions.

Catra’s other “crimes” in the show are things like being a toxic friend, manipulating and lying to people. Those are things I’m going to ignore for this post, since you specifically asked if Catra shouldn’t be in prison for her crimes. Being a toxic friend is bad and all, but it’s not actually something illegal that you can get thrown in jail for, so it’s irrelevant for this discussion. And it still wouldn’t be on the scale of the Diamonds, who, let me repeat, have destroyed countless galaxies.

2. Motivations for their actions

“But what about *why* they did all of those things? Isn’t that relevant?” It is, and I’m glad you asked. Let’s have a look.

Catra: Catra grew up in the Horde through no fault of her own and was mistreated and abused her whole life to the point where survival and safety became her primary motivations. She was treated as second best to Adora, filling her with a desire to prove herself. She got told as a child that she’s only worth “keeping around” if Adora values her, so she tied her self-worth to Adora’s approval. She feels betrayed when Adora leaves the Horde, because she interprets it as Adora caring more about strangers than about her. She stays with the Horde because they’re the devil she knows, because she wants to prove herself and because she’s hurt about the only person who ever showed her kindness leaving her. She grew up without a proper parental figure and without ever learning what healthy relationships are supposed to work like, so it’s understandable why she has no concept of it. She opens the portal because she sees her abuser working with (and seemingly being accepted by) her enemies and that knowledge makes her feel powerless to the point where she’d do anything to get back at them. She’s been abused and victimized her entire life and all of her actions are a direct result of that. Catra thinks that if she gains enough power, it’ll finally give her the safety and approval she craves.

In general, Catra’s story always makes it clear that she’s a victim of physical and emotional abuse who never learned what healthy relationships are supposed to look like and who’s lashing out in the only way she knows how. Some people might disagree on this, but I personally never had a point in the show where I couldn’t relate to her or couldn’t understand why she’s doing a certain thing. SPOP did a brilliant job of making sure that even at her lowest point, Catra’s actions are still understandable when you think from her point of view.

The Diamonds: … Uhm yeah, I’m drawing a blank here. Unless there’s some explanation in the movie or SU Future, we never actually learn why they did any of what they did. We get an explanation for some of their deeds – that they created the zoo because they thought Pink wanted it, that they corrupted the gems as revenge for Pink’s supposed death – but what the show never goes into is the real problem: Why they’re dictators in the first place. Why they consider themselves superior to other gems. Why they shatter anyone who doesn’t fit it, etc. They’re just dictators… because they’re dictators. We never get to understand their motivations.

And just to be clear – I think that in itself is perfectly fine. I don’t think SU should have had to give us any more explanation than that. SPOP also never explains why Horde Prime conquers other planets in the first place. He just does it because he’s evil and power-hungry and the show needs an antagonist. I think not giving a villain a deeper motivation is fine – if you’re not planning to redeem them.

3. What makes them sympathetic

Catra: I pretty much explained this already. We’re told from season 1 that Catra was abused by Shadow Weaver, that Adora was the only person who cared about her, that she was always treated like she was second-best. Heck, there’s an entire backstory episode just about everything Catra’s been through. We’re meant to feel bad for her, even when she’s evil. We’re meant to cheer for her when she stands up to Shadow Weaver and defeats her. We’re meant to feel for her when Shadow Weaver stabs her in the back and Hordak sends her to the Crimson Waste. Her entire breakdown is meant to be tragic and engaging. When you’ve watched a character suffer so much through no/little fault of their own, when you’ve watched them stand up to bigger villains in a way that makes you root for them, it makes sense that you want them to eventually get their happy ending.

The Diamonds: I realize in retrospect that the writers probably meant for us to feel bad for the Diamonds, too. Like when they’re grieving Pink, during What’s the Use of Feeling, Blue?, or when they complain how stressed they are in Change Your Mind. But the thing is… it just didn’t work for me. After the show spent all that time showing us all the death, despair, and destructions the Diamonds had caused, after it was made clear that the Crystal Gems had lost multiple friends and allies to them, it just didn’t make me feel sympathetic that the diamonds had lost one (1) person. So what if someone shattered Pink for being a dictator? The Diamonds themselves have shattered millions of gems and now that it’s someone they care about I was suddenly meant to feel bad for them? I didn’t.

When That Will Be All first aired, I loved What’s the Use of Feeling, Blue? – because I thought the show was doing this brilliant thing where they show that evil people can still have loved ones and have feelings but that doesn’t make them less evil. Every horrible person in history had feelings and loved ones. That doesn’t excuse their actions. In retrospect I find it disappointing to know that we were meant start feeling bad for the Diamonds due to their grief for Pink, that we were meant to see Pink/Rose as the evil one for starting a rebellion against them, that we were supposed to believe Bismuth was in the wrong. Rebelling against a dictatorship is a good thing. Standing up for equality is a good thing. I don’t like that the show suddenly tried to spread this message that conflict is always bad even when you’re actively fighting against tyranny and oppression. What happened to the Crystal Gems and their cause? What happened to the Steven from season 1 who reassured Lapis that “They’re mean, and that’s why we *have to* fight them”? And no, the “but being a dictator is so stressful, please feel bad for us” part didn’t work for me either.

4. A well-written redemption arc

For a well-written redemption arc, a character needs to actually regret what they’ve done and realize they were wrong. Then they need to put in the effort to be better from now. They need to… actually change. And then they need to do things that make up for their actions.

Catra: We get to see Catra go through an amazing character arc that culminates in her redemption and her eventual love-confession to Adora. The entire arc that was built for her over 5 seasons leads up to that moment and it’s so satisfying when it finally happens because it makes sense. We get to see her make big mistakes, get to see how she finally even scares Scorpia away, how Scorpia leaving breaks her, how Double Trouble gives her a harsh but needed lecture, how she understands that she and Glimmer aren’t so different, how she finally remembers Adora and decides to save her. We see her regret her actions as early as season 1, when she feels visibly bad after leaving Adora on the cliff in the temple. In season 4, she has nightmares about Entrapta and feels guilty for what she did to her and for opening the portal.

And from the moment she decides to change, she’s willing to make huge personal sacrifices to make up for her actions: She sacrifices herself to save Glimmer, gets tortured, mind-controlled and nearly dies in the process. The heroes saving her doesn’t come from nowhere and their forgiveness is well-earned because she was willing to put herself on the line to save someone else. She then keeps helping the heroes, apologizes to everyone she’s hurt, is again willing to sacrifice herself for Adora in the finale, and finally saves the entire universe from Horde Prime by staying with Adora and confessing her love to her. If we’re trying to be realistic about this – I’d say saving the whole universe from an intergalactic dictator would at least dramatically shorten her prison sentence? So no, I don’t think Catra should have ended up in prison.

The Diamonds: So the thing about their redemption arc is… they don’t really have one. We’re just kind of meant to forgive them out of the blue. Steven and the Crystal Gems ask the Diamonds for help to cure the corrupted gems and they manage to convince them, but there’s never any point where the Diamonds regret their actions. They only start to regret their actions towards Steven and Pink, but there’s never even an ounce of regret for what they did to anyone else. The Cluster? The deaths? The millions of destroyed planets and civilization? The humans and Rose Quartzes in the zoo? The presumably thousands of off-colors fighting for their lives underground on homeworld every second? That’s all swept under the rug in the finale. And therefore, the Diamonds can’t even get to the point where they make sacrifices for someone else or do anything that would lead me to forgive them, because they’re not even at a point where they realize they’ve done anything wrong. The show treats them like they’re redeemed in the end, but they’re not. Everything they’ve done just gets ignored.

5. Being held accountable for their actions

Another thing that’s important for redemption arcs is that the heroes don’t just ignore what a character has done and act like it never happened.

Catra: SPOP never shies away from admitting that Catra has done bad things. Even after her heroic sacrifice, the other characters don’t just all forgive Catra at once. Adora still calls her out when she’s being selfish, some of other princesses are resentful towards her, Frosta punches her in the face, etc. One heroic sacrifice isn’t enough: You see Catra constantly working on herself afterwards and doing what she can to become a better person and make up for her actions. And most importantly, those actions are addressed in the show. (Arguably they could have addressed what happened to Angella again, but overall Catra’s actions get acknowledged in the show.)

The Diamonds: My other big problem with SU suddenly acting like the Diamonds are redeemed is that their actions never get addressed. People act like when I say I wanted the Diamonds to be held accountable that means I wanted Steven to shatter them in cold blood – no, I just wanted Steven to at least *say* that what they’re doing is wrong. Like I said, all of their actions other than corrupting gems and treating Steven & Pink badly completely get swept under the rug in Change Your Mind. It’s like we’re meant to assume that everything else will be fine now just because Steven managed to convince the Diamonds to do one (1) thing for him. What will happen to their colonies now? What about the humans and Rose Quartzes in the zoo? What about all the off-colors fighting for their lives underground on homeworld? What about the enslaved Pearls and the class system? None of that ever gets addressed in the finale – we’re just supposed to take that happy ending at face value and believe that all the other stuff will get fixed now, even though the show never says that!

(Before you tell me how any of that gets addressed in the movie or in Steven Universe Future – I don’t care. SU Future is a new show that takes place after a timeskip. The movie is also a separate thing. SU should make sense as a show on its own and it doesn’t. Change Your Mind was presented as a finale and therefore should wrap up the most important plots and it didn’t.)

For all we know after watching CYM, Steven doesn’t actually care about anything the Diamonds have done. He’s sitting on their shoulders and laughing with them in the end and we’re meant to take that as a happy ending. For all we know, there’s still an oppressive class system and gems getting shattered for not fitting into it on homeworld. The Cluster’s still suffering. The Pearls are still slaves. The Diamonds are still dictators and that aspect never changed – because it’s never addressed. When White Pearl regains consciousness, Steven says “Welcome Back”, but nothing in this episode ever implies that she’s not still WD’s slave. When Lars and the Off-colors arrive on Earth, the fact that they’re terrified of the Diamonds is played for laughs. The finale revolves only around Steven’s feelings while Garnet and Pearl never get a moment of standing up to the people who hurt them.

“But Steven needed the Diamonds’ help the heal the corrupted gems!”

Yes, that’s the in-universe explanation. But a writer still invented that rule. And even so, they could have added a scene where Steven takes the Crystal Gems aside and tells them “Hey, I know these people killed many of your friends, enslaved and persecuted you, but I just want you to know that I don’t actually like them or consider them family and I’m only doing this to help the corrupted gems. You’re my real family.”

6. Identifying with their victims

I don’t remember who made that post, but there was a post on Tumblr somewhere that said that how likely someone is to forgive a villain often depends on how much they identify with the people that villain has hurt. And if I’m being very honest, that’s what a lot of my hate for the Diamonds boils down to:

The Diamonds don’t appear in Steven Universe until way later in the show. The way we first learn about them is indirect. We know the Crystal Gems fought a war against someone and are hiding on Earth from someone, but that someone doesn’t get a face until way later. By that point, we’ve already been told that fusions like Garnet are illegal on homeworld, that Pearls are considered lesser gems, and that Amethyst would be defective by homeworld’s standards. And all of those things made me personally sympathize with the Crystal Gems and their found family of misfits – and it made me angry at whoever did all of this to them. You can easily read the discrimination Ruby and Sapphire faced for their relationship as a metaphor for homophobia or prejudice against interracial relationships, the discrimination Pearl faces as racism or classism and how Amethyst is treated as ableism.

(Getting personal here for a moment: I’m gay and my parents are from a homophobic country that’s run by a dictator, so I strongly identified with Garnet and how she can’t go back to homeworld because she wouldn’t be allowed to exist as her true self there. Am I maybe reading too much into the show there? Yeah. But honestly, if the Diamonds’ redemption relies on people not identifying with the Crystal Gems – aka the literal protagonists of the show – too much, then maybe it’s just not a good idea. Yeah, maybe if I hadn’t identified with the CGs so strongly, I wouldn’t have minded the Diamond redemption – but it also means I’d have never loved SU as much in the first place.)

What I’m saying is that we first learn about the Diamonds from the point of view of the people they oppressed, persecuted, and tried to kill. We also meet the off-colors and learn about their plight, how they had to spend eons hiding from robots that want to kill them, how they believe the way they are is wrong, etc. We see the Cluster, the people in the zoo etc. and get told the Diamonds did all of this. And then Change Your Mind expects us to suddenly randomly forgive them with no build-up and be okay with Steven calling them “family” over the actual people who raised him.

Catra, on the other hand, is first introduced to us as Adora’s best friend. We get to meet her from the point of view of the protagonist who obviously loves her. Throughout their separation and their struggle, the relationship between these two characters drives the show. Their episodes together are emotional and well-written and make the audience root for them to eventually find their way back together again. We meet her as an abuse-victim who thinks her best friend left her, and we get so many reasons to sympathize with her before she ever hurts anyone.

(And yeah, it helps that the show never lets us personally meet any of the people from the lands she conquered. Yes, we feel bad for Scorpia and all that – but again, being a toxic friend isn’t actually a crime. And yes, we feel bad for Entrapta - but so does Catra, and Entrapta ends up being fine and forgiving her.)

7. A satisfying ending for a show

This is more general, but SU didn’t have a satisfying conclusion imo, because almost none of the things that needed fixing were ever addressed. We’re meant to take “but the Diamonds say please and thank you now” as a good conclusion without getting to the part where they murder people every day. For all we know, Steven doesn’t even care about that part because the writers never made him act like he does.

And yes, I realize that the Diamonds are meant to be a metaphor for a conservative family that finally learns to accept their queer child (Steven), but that metaphor just didn’t work for me (a queer child of an unaccepting family) at all. Because they’re not presented as an unaccepting family: The show spent 4 seasons building them up as dictators and the ultimate big bad, only to drop the “they’re related to Steven” thing in there last minute and sweep the other stuff under the rug. We’ve also spent 5 seasons seeing the Crystal Gems, the people who literally raised him, as Steven’s family, so suddenly giving that title to their oppressors feels super wrong to me.

To give you a comparison, imagine the following ending for She-Ra: Near the end of season 5, Adora suddenly finds out she’s Horde Prime’s long-lost granddaughter. After calling him out for treating her/her parents badly, he finally regrets that part of his actions and promises to leave Etheria alone so Adora and her friends can live there in peace. However, he’s still going to conquer and destroy the rest of the universe and keep Hordak and the other clones mind-controlled. Adora is fine with this and you see her and Horde Prime laughing together in the end. Catra and all the other people Horde Prime chipped and tortured are seen being okay with him now because as long as Adora, the main character, is happy all the hurt Horde Prime caused anyone else doesn’t matter. When the Star Siblings show up on Etheria while fleeing from the Horde army, the fact that they’re scared of Horde Prime is played for laughs. The End.

… Sounds pretty stupid, doesn’t it? I’m glad SPOP had the guts to just let Adora kill Horde Prime instead. Because some people are not redeemable, and that’s an important lesson, too.

Anyways, I’ve been rambling for too long. The bottom line is: The Diamonds are way more comparable to Horde Prime than to Catra. The scale of their actions is the same as that of Horde Prime, their motivations are never explained, we never get any reasons to sympathize with them, the main characters have all been victims of their regime, their redemption arc is nonexistent, they never get called out for their actions and the way their story is concluded is just badly written and leaves way too many factors unaddressed. They get forgiven without ever even being sorry and the Crystal Gems never get a moment to shine and stand up to them. So yes, I consider them irredeemable and was disappointed the show didn’t end with them getting imprisoned at least. (I was kind of hoping for a Homeworld revolution where everyone finally stands up to them, but… *sigh*.) If the show was going to redeem them, they should have at least done it properly by actually showing them have a change of heart and making them try to make up for their actions, instead of letting us assume that all happened off-screen.

Catra on the other hand gets presented as someone to root for from the beginning. She’s only in the Horde due to unfortunate circumstances, got abused and mistreated her whole life, is motivated by a desperate attempt to prove herself and make sure she doesn’t get hurt again, and never committed crimes on the same scale as the Diamonds. Her change of heart is believable and what her arc has been building up to for 4 seasons, she makes great personal sacrifices for Glimmer and Adora, gets held accountable for her actions, helps save the entire universe and is a character who has already suffered her entire life – so yes, I strongly believe that she deserves to live a happy, free, and peaceful life after the show.

#spop #Catra #SU critical #redemption arcs #writing #... do I really dare to post in the 'su critical' tag again? yeah let's do it #just to be clear again - this is CRITICISM not hate #long post #... wow this really got long #replies to people #noideahowtocallmyblog

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chikkou · 3 years

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Will you talk more about Lisa?? Lisa the character specifically but also your feelings on his feelings about Buddy? I just thought your analysis was so good and I want to hear other thoughts you have on her.

yall are honestly spoiling me rn sdhkfdjfks this is like a dream come true

i already got into the stuff with buddy in this ask here but i have a LOT to say about lisa and the connection between her and buddy so u better settle in!

ok so firstly ill start with lisa. i played the original lisa game (lisa the first) not long after it first dropped in 2012, and im not even kidding when i said it changed me LMAO.... seeing a story about a girl suffering is nothing new, but austin jorgensens approach to it was so fucking unique. you dont just witness it, you get to EXPERIENCE it right along with her. many stories that involve sexual abuse/rape show or otherwise depict it explicitly for the shock value, which is both disgusting and, in my opinion, extremely fucking exploitative. i feel that it is horrific to dignify an act so deeply evil with screentime. but lisa stood out to me immediately because, even though you know exactly whats going on, the game NEVER shows anything explicit. everything is layered in subtext and symbolism, and austin is fantastic with indirect storytelling, so you learn so much from just a little drop of information. this applies not just to the game proper, but to the character as well.

in case its not clear: i absolutely ADORE lisa. she is my favorite character in all of the games, bar none. its going to sound kind of fucked up, but as a kid around her age going through some fucked up shit, her committing suicide at the end felt like a sort of victory to me. she knew she could never escape from marty or what he was doing to her. he leaks into every single part of her psyche, everything she ever cared about or loved is ruined because of him, and even the vague memory of her mother is completely corrupted, and turned into a muddled version of him. lisa the first also had the added benefit of some religious commentary, as there are crosses all over their home and marty is characterized as an extremely religious man, which i fucking LOVE and wish had come back in the painful, but its an acceptable loss. anyway, lisa committing suicide at the end was an act of defiance against not just marty, but martys god, as suicide is considered a mortal sin in catholicism. lisa knew she’d never be free of marty in life, so she escaped the only way she could; she was defiant to the end.

ive seen people complain that the painful has a bit of a “lost lenore” thing going on, since lisas death seems to fuel the Manpain of both brad and buzzo, but i actually disagree. on the contrary, its just like austin himself said - lisa will never be gone. lisa is ALWAYS there, with brad, and buzzo, and buddy, and marty, and yado, and the ENTIRE FUCKING WORLD. i dont necessarily think that there is something paranormal going on in the game, but i AM going to say that, unlike other cases of a girl/woman dying for a mans backstory, lisa isnt just a bittersweet memory they can reflect on and then put away when its convenient for them. she is a presence that is felt throughout the entire game. brad sees her more than once, sometimes watching, sometimes reprimanding him. buzzo is clearly haunted by her, as he cries out to her a few times in the joyful. every character who was directly touched by lisa - brad, marty, and buzzo - calls out to lisa as they die. call it their guilt or call it her actions, but in either case, it is clear that lisa just as significant of a character in the painful as she was in the first, even if she cant always be seen. even in a meta-sense, every game in the series - even the joyful, whose protagonist doesnt even know who she is - is named after her. she is at the center of everything that happens in them.

that actually brings me to buddy, because i find the dynamic between her and lisa fucking fascinating. as i previously mentioned, brad never talked about his past with buddy, and snaps at her for bringing up his adoptive son dusty (rando), so it goes without saying that she definitely doesnt know who lisa is. in spite of that, though, lisa is a fucking massive part of buddys life, and while she may not know the person herself, i think she is aware that when people (and brad especially) look at her, they arent seeing HER.

i mentioned it in another post, but even though brad takes it upon himself to raise and “protect” buddy, he seems to almost unwittingly recreate lisas appearance, primarily by allowing her hair to grow long even though he knows what a risk that is to her safety. he also treats buddy in a manner thats incredibly similar to how marty treated lisa (sans sexual abuse, of course) - he insults her, does not let her leave the house at all, and forces her to do unsavory things that no one should ever have to do (in buddys case, this means killing at least two innocent people because brad doesnt want a “weak” daughter). the most literal comparison between buddy and lisa is the fact that they are both very young girls being essentially held captive by their father figures, albeit for different reasons, and both long for freedom from their captors.

theres also the fact that both buddy and lisa have to deal with misogyny and the effects of rape culture firsthand; they both battle against men who feel entitled to do with them whatever they please, and the threat of ongoing sexual abuse looms heavy over both of their heads. neither one can seek help from anyone; the neighbors in brad and lisas town seem complacent at best, if they even know what is happening to lisa at all, and buddys only allies (sans rando) are long dead by the start of the joyful. this is not just a hypothetical or a distant possibility. this is the real, tangible fate that will befall them if they cant somehow secure their safety.

sadly, because lisa wasnt playable in either of the rpgs, we dont know if she was able to fight as brad was, but it is highly probable that she had the innate skill but was never able to learn it (as marty highly discouraged them from learning “their grandfathers karate,” and seemed disgusted whenever brad did so). however, she did have ONE weapon she could make use of, and this is a weapon buddy ends up using, as well - her femininity. she became close to bernard (aka buzzo), made him fall in love with her, and then used him as a last ditch effort to stop martys abuse by having him mutilate her face. im not saying lisa never cared about bernard - in fact, i think she DID really love and care for him - but her own fucked up experiences with “love” meant she really couldnt understand what it was supposed to be like, or that it was wrong to manipulate the people you care about. lisa did very few things wrong - it pretty much just stops at the maiming of the cat and her manipulation of bernard - but she knew that she would never get away from marty without some kind of drastic action being taken, and scarring herself was her last ditch effort before ultimately committing suicide.

buddy ends up taking a somewhat similar tack in the joyful, and like in lisas case, its simultaneously resourceful and horrific. one of buddys key moves in the joyful is to flash the enemy (which the player obviously doesnt see) in order to distract them long enough to get the kill. its fucking horrible and disgusting and makes you feel so dirty, but then, how must buddy feel having to do something like that just to survive? shes just a child, but in a world where almost every man is out to get you, she knows this has to be done to save herself, very much like lisa. unlike in lisas case, though, buddy is successful in securing her safety in this way - lisas effort is for naught, and leads to her committing suicide not very long after.

in a way, i sort of attribute buddys brutality to lisas omnipresence; all of the men pursuing buddy are just like marty, monsters who would harm a fucking child for their own disgusting ends, and i think that when buzzo said that lisa wouldve loved olathe, what he means is that she would have loved seeing so many horrible men being punished for what theyd done. so in my opinion, buddy carving out a place for herself in olathe by killing all those who would subjugate her seems very much in the mentality lisa would have had. sure, there are some innocents who sadly get roped into it, but that would definitely not be her intention; for example, if buzzo could have practiced amputation without harming a living thing, i dont think lisa would have asked him to practice on the cat. note the LACK of brutality at the beehive and the swamp bar, two of the few peaceful places in the painful and both devoid of predatory men hunting for buddy - lisa has no qualm with any of them. but marty? brad could hardly even get a full sentence out before killing him on the spot. i dont doubt that that has a great deal to do with lisas presence.

ok i talked for a while LMAO but basically i think that, in a more metatextual sense, lisa and buddys relationship really strikes me as an accurate depiction of generational trauma. of course it was intentional with the more obvious trauma chain (marty to brad to buddy), but the trauma chain of marty to lisa to buddy is rarely ever addressed due to lisa not physically appearing in the painful. however, i believe it may inform buddys actions a great deal more than people realize - after all, buddys experience is unique, but who could understand it better than lisa? who knows that sort of pain, of being alone on an island, the lone woman trapped with a man (or men) who want nothing more than to cause you harm? even without her realizing it, lisa is guiding buddy, encouraging her to take back what is hers no matter the cost, to punish those who would try to take what they want from her. lisa might be dead, but she is a vengeful presence throughout every game, and buddys actions feel like theyre meant not only to save herself, but to avenge lisa, even if she doesnt realize it. at the end of the day, buddy and lisa both get to exact revenge against all the men who have wronged them, and they succeed. they are aggressive, and violent, and selfish, and ANGRY - and they have every fucking right to be.

#lisa the first #lisa the painful #lisa the joyful #long post #yall GOTTA stop u know good and damn well i will talk about this game all fucking day hdskjdsk #rape mention #abuse mention #lisa #anya's anons

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zerobotic · 3 years

Text

Well, you asked for it and you can’t say I didn’t warn you :3

First off, the usual disclaimer that I did enjoy DH2. I thought it had some very interesting level design ideas with the clockwork mansion and crack in the slab, the new powers were very cool and fun to use, and it polished some of the rough edges from the first game’s mechanics. It’s just the story and such that disappointed me after how much I loved the first game.

So to start off here’s some of the things I found disappointing or frustrating (and keep in mind these are all just my personal feelings on the games):

“Spoiled rich person learns a lesson from poverty tourism” is a plot that gets on my nerves in general and that’s more or less what happened here with Emily’s story

Like, not to disagree with an anti-rich-people story but the first one did a much more poignant job of highlighting greed and corruption and letting you be the one actually fighting it, rather than putting you in the position of perpetuating it. It felt like the first game showed it, while the second game just preached about it.

Boy this sure did feel out of character for both Corvo and Emily. Emily watched her mother be murdered at ten years old for the sake of political power, and then was held hostage for six months while being told her father was executed for her mother’s death. She got a firsthand view of how much the people of the empire were suffering during this time, and then when she finally got rescued she was immediately kidnapped and used as a pawn again by yet more schemers after her mother’s throne. You cannot tell me that’s a person who would grow up to be spoiled and carefree and complacent with their position, or someone who wouldn’t give a shit about their people. Yes, I know that she was a headstrong, rebellious kid with an adventurous streak, and I’m not trying to claim she wouldn’t probably still prefer, on some level or another, to escape to the rooftops with a sword rather than being stuck in court. I’m just saying that kids grow up and change and whoever wrote the second game seems to be stuck on taking ten-year-old Emily at face value for her adult self’s personality too, instead of considering how the first game’s events might have actually influenced her. She’s got more than enough firsthand experience to know to be wary of scheming nobles. (Also I definitely got the feeling, playing the first game, that at least a bit of how Emily behaved at the Hound Pits was her trying to cope with what was happening.) You also can’t tell me that Corvo, father and royal protector of the current empress, man with the most reason and justification to be paranoid out of everyone in the whole damn empire after everything he’s been through, would be so negligent in paying attention to a coup that the first mission claims pretty much everyone in Dunwall knew was happening.

Building off of that, in general it felt like the first game wasn’t allowed to have much of an impact. It pays lipservice to Jessamine’s death, and acknowledges Corvo having been a badass back then, but that’s....about it? Like I said in the other post, the first game felt so saturated in grief, both for Jessamine and for everything else going on in Dunwall, that it really influenced the overall tone of the game. The second one kinda feels like the first one never happened, or at least didn’t have any lasting influence on the characters or world, and it’s kind of jarring going from one to the other.

So with all that said, here’s my idea for a different DH2. Still using Karnaca as the setting and Delilah as the primary antagonist, just...different.

"Delilah wants to use a reality-altering painting to change the world into her vision of it” is still a plot point. Except, instead of the end of the game, it’s the beginning. It’s a logical extension of her actions and powers during the Daud DLC - the plan to use Emily’s painting to take over almost worked til it was stopped, so there’s clearly potential there. She’ll just think bigger, more direct this time.

The game starts on a ship. Emily and Corvo are en route to Karnaca for some sort of diplomatic mission. We get to know them a little bit during this opening trip: Emily isn’t an absent, complacent ruler, she's a young woman who inherited a difficult throne as a child, after a series of traumatic events, and now she's trying hard to live up to her mother's legacy and prove herself worthy to an empire that still seems to only see her as the child she was during the interregnum. She’s doing her best, but she’s insecure about all of that, and spends a lot of time frustrated with the back and forth scheming of the nobles, trying to please everyone instead of putting her foot down and getting things done. Corvo is trying to keep her safe where he failed Jessamine, but court still isn’t his preferred arena either.

The night before they’re due to arrive in Karnaca, we start getting hints that something is...off. Strange dreams, maybe?

They land in Karnaca and things are different than expected. But they don’t get time to look around, because there's guards there to arrest them, claiming they’re wanted criminals. They’ve got music boxes or something that can strip Corvo of his powers, and only one of them gets away while the other is taken. The one that gets away is stuck alone, disoriented, and hunted in an unfamiliar city - even if you play as Corvo, things are different than he remembers. More different than can be explained by just time.

They meet Meagan Foster. She takes them to meet a group of ex-whalers (the player character doesn’t know who they are). They’re a group that got back in touch with each other in Karnaca after Daud left and the whalers split, and they still do shady shit, but these days it’s generally more smuggling type stuff and they’ve put down the assassin blades. They’re the equivalent of the loyalist home base in this game. Meagan is still the Samuel stand-in, taking the player places and narrating things as necessary.

Information is shared and the player finds out that somehow, the world is changed from what they remember. Delilah is the empress, here, come by it what seemed like legitimately at some point in the 15 years between Jessamine’s death and now, and Emily and Corvo are wanted criminals. No one seems aware of the change except for the player and the whalers (who only remember it because of their experience with magic, though the player character doesn’t learn that til much later).

Clearly it’s Delilah who did something, because she has magic, and she’s the one on the throne now.

The Outsider shows up in their dreams that first night in the new world, but something is clearly wrong in the void, too, and it seems like he’s barely capable of reaching out and communicating with them. He offers the mark, but disappears before really getting a chance to explain anything.

The player goes through the game now with the goal of finding out what happened, how it happened, and how it can be fixed. DH2 and DOTO explained a lot more than I felt they should’ve, at times, and I preferred how the first game balanced worldbuilding with mystery. So, let things be explored and figured out along the way.

Things are real bad in this universe. From Emily's perspective as she goes through the game, we get commentary questioning whether or not she was doing a good job, and comparing it to how things are in Delilah's world. There’s lots of corruption and poverty and people suffering, and the question "is this just Delilah's world? How much of this going on in mine too? In trying to navigate court instead of putting my foot down, was I failing my people in the end after all? Would it have been better if my mother was still the empress?" The difference between this and what DH2 did is that she was trying, there was just a lot hindering her, including her own doubts. In this one, those questions aren’t preaching, they’re a sign that she does care and is pained by the idea of her people suffering like this again, by the mere possibility that it might not be just Delilah’s world.

Corvo and Emily have distinct perspectives, not just the same lines very slightly altered.

The bloodfly infestations are either 1) a natural thing that wasnt supposed to turn ugly like this and has been affected by Delilah’s magic, or 2) wholly the product of unnatural magic. None of this "we need them and they’re always like this, just not this bad" stuff. if you're gonna repeat the plague motif, make it actually horrifying, like the rat plague was. In fact, there’s obvious magic influence here and there in general - maybe not quite as thorough as at Brigmore Manor, but it’s present enough to give you the creeping feeling that things aren’t right, here, visual confirmation of Delilah’s influence, that things have been changed and twisted from their normal state of things. Hell, maybe this is where the hollows from DOTO come in, the original world and Delilah’s altered version of it trying to bleed through each other in some spaces. Maybe that’s a different explanation for the crack in the slab mission, even.

Actually, if you’re gonna repeat the plague motif, lean into the similarities between the rat plague era and now. Have them be reminded here and there by things they see, recount what happened and how terrible it was, compare it to now. Give NPCs lines about the comparison and how some of them left Dunwall only to be stuck living through something like this a second time. Let the first game have happened and had an impact, folks, cmon.

On a similar note, if you’re gonna keep Delilah's backstory the same when we finally learn it, let Emily and Corvo get mad about it. They lived through the first game - what right does Delilah have to talk like she's got a monopoly on suffering and that's why she should have the throne?

Delilah's mistake was assuming Emily was a sheltered child who wouldn’t come for her, rather than someone who's already been through a lot and come out on top. That was almost a satisfying thing about the second game but they messed up the execution of the whole concept and I want it to actually pay off.

I’m not sure if the targets in this one should be the same or how much should change there. Honestly, except for Breanna, the targets in DH2 felt a lot less relevant to what was going on than the DH1 targets did, like...why are half these people even at this ritual? But for simplicity’s sake let’s keep it as close as we can, while also adjusting for the fact that this reality has been tailor-made for Delilah and her buddies. Perhaps the Duke is only the Duke here because things were rewritten to put one of Delilah’s allies in charge, and it was supposed to still be his father. Hypatia isn’t the crown killer (what even was that plot point honestly), she’s the doctor they found to help Delilah recover after her time in the void, and now they’ve rewritten things to imprison her in the institute to keep her quiet and out of the way, and you get wind of it and go to see what she knows. Etc. Is Sokolov involved in this version of things? I dunno! But speaking of Sokolov I want some sort of explanation for where the other surviving loyalists are, damnit.

Delilah did something in and to the void, just like in canon, but it actually has a visible impact here (beyond just a total aesthetic redesign of the void between games that never gets commented on). The void is struggling under her influence when you find shrines, and you never know what you're gonna find at one of them, or what the Outsider is gonna be like, if he even shows up. Honestly, I’m not a huge fan of the way DH2 gave him a human backstory, because I liked the mystery there behind what he was and what the void was, but this is open to go either way, either with Delilah finding his death site like in canon, or some other way she found to influence it. I’m not sure how the progression would go of how the void changes over the course of the game, but it would be cool to get to help/save the Outsider in some kinda way.

Finding Corvo's childhood home should have more impact. Let it be like when you find the saferoom in Dunwall tower, in the first game. A temporary refuge in a dangerous place, full of obvious memory and grief - not so much for the time spent here since that's so long in the past, but for all that's been lost, everything they've been through and are in the middle of going through. Especially if you're playing Emily - this is the home of the father she just lost.

Let the heart be vague and ominous again, and let our interactions with it be sad, especially as Emily! I’m still messed up about the first time I heard "the doom of Pandyssia has come to the city" in DH1, and the lines about the floodwaters and the plague victims, give me stuff like that! Especially in a world that isn’t meant to exist the way it currently is, where things have been twisted almost beyond recognition. And give me lines that remind Emily of the mother she lost and how this is the first time she's heard her voice since she was a child!

Give us more on citizens and how they're suffering in this world, the way the first game showed us plague victims who died in each other's arms, journals from the desperate and dying, living people sent to the flooded district. Let it be a reminder to Emily why it's worth it, why she has to change the world back and what she wants to be fighting for when she gets her throne back. Another reason to question - has she been doing all she can? (Alternatively, a source of righteous fury for high chaos Emily.)

This is a journey of self discovery for Emily, either low or high chaos. It's about realizing she hasn’t been doing all she could, despite her intentions, because she's been trying to please everyone and in the end it still wasn’t good enough. She needs to stop living under her mother's shadow and come into her own (and the heart plays a role in this epiphany, probably. This might actually come to a head when she has to let her mother's spirit go, if we're gonna keep that plot point.)

High chaos Emily is similar but in a more "alright no more nice empress" kinda way whereas low chaos is more about conviction to put her foot down to do what's right.

You meet people during the game who in a good ending become part of her new council. Common people, who are more in touch with what needs to be done. It pisses nobles off but she's determined to do better, after everything. It helps both her and Corvo come to terms with the whole safety thing, because you can't ever make sure you're totally safe but you can try to make sure the empire can keep going should something happen to its ruler.

In fact, part of Corvo's perspective on this game probably would involve him still wanting to keep Emily out of things for safety's sake, and wondering if sheltering her from knowledge of magic and such contributed to this situation.

When it's revealed who the whalers are, it's late in the game after we've already come to like them a lot. They don't betray you like the loyalists did, but it should still feel like a punch to the gut for Emily and Corvo.

They don’t know where Daud is, haven’t seen him since the whalers disbanded .

Billie talks about that whole thing, and it's complicated. She decides maybe she should try to find him, after all. Cue DLC, which is about finding Daud, and helping/saving him, and the two reconciling and Billie finding some kind of...if not redemption, then absolution. A parallel to the first game’s DLC, Billie getting an arc like that in Emily’s game the way Daud got that arc in Corvo’s game. Y’know, instead of DOTO going and undoing all of Daud’s character growth.

I know I’m kind of handwaving the actual mechanics of who the targets are and how you actually go about uncovering what happened and how you can fix it and take down Delilah in the end, but this is all just. Concepts. If I were to try to write this as a fic or something I’d have to actually sit down and work out all those details, but for now this is something that’s just been living in my head since like an hour after I finished DH2 for the first time a couple years ago.

(I did warn you it was gonna be long lmao)

#turnabout rambles #mvtk42

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qqueenofhades · 4 years

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Nicky as an archer, rather than a swordsman? I saw someone suggest this due to the expense of being an actual knight not necessarily aligning with him having been a priest (plus the whole first crusade not having Templars etc) - and apparently the Genoese were known for their archers?

Ahaha, oh dear. Fair warning, you are going to make me roll out my grouchy “I realize it’s graphic novel canon but It’s Just Not Realistic for Nicky to actually fight in the First Crusade if he’s a priest” medieval historian Complaints again, but alas?

I talked in this ask about the medieval relationship between clerics, violence, and weapons, and how they were forbidden from dealing with/bearing swords or even any kind of weapon at all, at least in very strong theory. This would be the same with crossbowmen, which is indeed what the Genoese were known for (in this ask, I discussed Nicky having/using a crossbow as part of his weaponry if he was a regular Genoese soldier, especially since we see him using a long rifle in the present, and crossbows were the assault rifles of their day). While yes, Nicky could technically have gone on crusade as a priest and broken the rules in order to handle weapons, there’s almost no chance he could have gotten up to combat speed with them in two-ish years, especially since so much of the First Crusade involved politics, sieges, laboriously painful travels, and infighting as much or more than any actual fighting. (We’re assuming he left with the main Genoese contingent in 1097, but he could have also arrived in 1099 with the Genoese reinforcements, hence seen almost no fighting before the battle/siege/sack of Jerusalem.) There were the sieges of Nicaea, Antioch, and Jerusalem, and the battle of Dorylaeum, as well as skirmishes and clashes along the way, but a pervasive and major problem on the First Crusade (and then later on the Second Crusade as well) was the involvement of untrained commoners who simply did not know how to fight.

This was why Pope Urban seems to have envisioned the crusade as a professional military undertaking for trained soldiers, rather than a popular religious expedition which many laypeople joined up and then caused major logistical difficulties for the army as a result. The People’s Crusade of 1096 ended in disaster at the Battle of Civetot for this very reason; it’s simply not possible to pick up a sword or a crossbow or anything else and be an effective fighter with it on the spot (especially if you’re facing trained soldiers on the other side, you will get ANNIHILATED). Boys had to train from the age of seven to master weapons, arms, armour (and later, as it developed, the code of chivalry). If you’re interested in reading more about this:

Graham A. Loud, ‘Some Reflections on the Failure of the Second Crusade’, Crusades 4 (2005), 1–15. (This article discusses the Second Crusade’s failure overall, including the fact that Bernard of Clairvaux’s populist preaching caused a number of untrained commoners to take the cross and that there was no improved notion of how the army would have expected to use them.)

Conor Kostick, ‘God’s Bounty, Pauperes and the Crusades of 1096 and 1147’, Studies in Church History 46 (2010), 66–77. (This explores the phenomenon of ‘populist crusading’ among laypeople in the early crusades and how, yes, it went very badly wrong both times.)

Marcus Bull, ‘The Roots of Lay Enthusiasm for the First Crusade,’ History 78 (1993), 353-72. (This discusses how the crusading message was spread beyond Urban’s initial call for military recruits and how that was taken up among medieval society.)

Albert of Aachen, in the Historia Ierosolimitana, was scathing about the efforts of the everyday/untrained crusaders; he called them “a stupid and insanely irresponsible mob of pilgrims” (congregatione pedestris populi stulti et vesane levitates) and this view was shared to some degree among the other First Crusade chroniclers as well, especially in their treatments of Peter the Hermit (the populist leader of the People’s Crusade; they admired his personal religiosity but weren’t all that sure of the actual value of his overall efforts). Obviously yes, some of it is elitism and wanting to make their noble patrons look better and come out as the “real” crusaders, but there’s no reason not to think that the soldiers on the crusade regarded their untrained counterparts as an active liability, because... this would generally be the case if you’re trying to fight and the guy next to you wants to come along and wave a sword he does not know how to use. So while yes, many priests and monks did travel on the crusade in defiance of ecclesiastical orders, if Nicky wanted to even live long enough to get to Jerusalem and meet Yusuf and get killed there for only the first time, he either already knew how to fight (and thus wasn’t a priest) or had been trained for a while before he became a priest (and that’s confusing on its own, but let’s just say that this is me being pedantic and leave it at that).

ANYWAY. Long story short: yes, Nicky could definitely be (and probably was) a crossbowman, since it fits both with the well-attested presence of Genoese crossbowmen in the crusades and the fact that we see him with an assault/sniper rifle later. However, since he also has a broadsword (which is very explicitly a knight’s weapon), the fact of him using both or either of these weapons in active combat on the crusade still doesn’t fit with the supposed graphic novel backstory of him being a priest. He also couldn’t have (or at least is quite unlikely) learned on the journey, because as noted, it doesn’t work like that and would have been against the rules for clerics anyway. So if Nicky was a fighting priest, he was clearly less observant of the spiritual aspects of the role/the church’s strict proscriptions on violence for clerics, and would be more similar to the secular bishops who served in the church as a career. But then it makes less sense to paint him as exceptionally devoted to any of the religious premises of the crusades. Of course, you can break the rules in the name of doing the Right Thing, but eh... it just still doesn’t make sense without a lot of caveats and explanations and headcanoning and work-arounds, and it’s easier just to see him as a regular Genoese soldier at least for the purposes of film-verse backstory. So yes.

#history #medieval history #history of warfare #docbeeski #ask #the old guard meta

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consummate-deviant · 4 years

Text

I reckon I’m gonna talk about Hordak for a minute

So, I feel the need to talk about Hordak. This is, perhaps, not unusual. Once upon a time ago, writing stupidly long pseudo-essays about characters I rather liked used to be my thing… and it’s still a bug that bites me from time to time. The timing certainly seems right! Homeboy has been the topic of conversation lately, thanks to the recent release of She-ra season 4, and the manifold feels associated with it. I’m fond of Hordak, as it were, so I don’t mind sharing my perspective on the subject, since there’s some confusion as to his appeal.

The two stances I see taken on Hordak most often, by those who don’t like him, I should specify, are as follows:

A.) He’s an irredeemable villain who has done terrible things, and I don’t see why anyone would like him.

And

B.) He’s a lame, nonthreatening villain.

I’m not going to be engaging with mindset ‘B’ quite as much as with mindset ‘A’ in the following post, in part because the reasons why he’s so lame and nonthreatening are kinda tied to what I’ll be discussing by implication, but mostly because my response to mindset B can be summed up with the following: “You are not wrong, at all. However, that’s literally the entire point of his character, so while you aren’t wrong to be disappointed if you were hoping he would be a more measured, megalomaniacal sort, it’s also not a failure on the part of the writers, since his lack of suitability for the role he was trying to play was always going to be what his story was about.”

Mindset ‘A’, though... well... that’s a bit tricky. Ultimately “irredeemable” is a personal value judgment. The threshold a character must cross before one audience member feels they no longer deserve forgiveness can vary quite wildly from another, and while trying to pass one’s personal opinion off as an objective fact is something of a pastime on the internet, I am- and I cannot state this emphatically enough- NOT your dad… probably. At least, I hope to god… Look, odds are really good that I’m not your dad, so… you do your thing and shine like the crazy diamond you are. I probably can’t change your mind, and considering I don’t even know you, it’d be kinda creepy if I thought I could! What I can do, though, for those genuinely curious how anyone could consider him redeemable, is share my own perspective on the character, and why I think redemption is the direction the story is going, based on how I’ve read the text thus far… So I’m gonna do that. Let’s go over Hordak as he has appeared in the She-Ra reboot.

Part I: Season 1 Hordak

Now see, when we kick things off, I totally get where both the ‘A’ group and the ‘B’ group are coming from. Hordak, as he appears in season 1, seems ruthless, intimidating, and single-minded. Hordak doesn’t carry the conflict in season 1, serving as more of a background presence while Catra and Shadow Weaver, who have a more personal investment in the central narrative, do all the heavy lifting of antagonizing the heroes and angsting.

This keeps the attention off of Hordak, which is precisely how he likes things. When people aren’t going out of their way to interact with him, then it’s easy for him to control what few interactions he does have. That’s what season 1 shows us: Hordak, when he has perfect control over his own narrative. Every scene that features him is shot with a low angle, often with his form either concealed in shadows or with his face partially out of frame. When he speaks, he’s always calm and distant… but calm in that ‘he could totally fly into a rage at any instant’ way that keeps people on their toes. Pragmatic, taciturn, perfectly measured and groomed,… pretty tall! By any metric a reasonable person can measure a competent, intimidating villain, Hordak circa season 1 seems like he’d pass the test.

Part 2: Season 2-3 Hordak

Here’s the thing... though... about season 1 Hordak... that we learn pretty quickly when we transition into season 2: Season 1 Hordak is a massive fraud. Like, seriously, he’s a fabrication created out of necessity to hide a single, prevailing truth: Hordak is an awkward dork who is kinda terrible at being an evil overlord.

I’ve seen some people describe Hordak’s season 2-3 character development with the expression “You thought I was Ozai, but I was actually Zuko this whole time!” Now, I like this expression fine. I’ve borrowed it a time or two in the past, but with regard to Hordak, I prefer to phrase it like this: “You thought I was Emperor Palpatine, but I was really the Wizard of Oz this whole time!” The former expression gives someone an idea of the tropes of the character pretty well, but the latter does a better job, I feel, of showing the relationship between season 1 and later seasons with Hordak. Hordak is a competent, unflappable, all-seeing leader… hey, hey! Pay no mind to the man behind the curtain! Hordak’s past… as a mindless clone created to lead other mindless clones in a mindless clone army… has left him laughably unprepared for the task of leading others. He’s smart, like, in a general bookish sense, but he has no charisma, no interpersonal talents to speak of, and doesn’t really seem to have any grasp of how to motivate his underlings, save to reward talent with promotion.

Out of necessity, Hordak keeps his true self buried underneath multiple layers of protection. The first layer is the season 1 illusion: Delegate direct command of his soldiers to a single adjutant, interact with that adjutant just enough to keep them in line, and remain in his sanctum all day, like the geeky shut-in he is.

The first layer is pretty nice, and seems to have bought him quite a few years running the horde… but what happens if, say, some uppity Force Captain decides to pester him with personal status reports… or some absent-minded inventor decides to raid his lab for a six-sided hex driver? Personally interacting with his minions for too long will reveal the illusion he’s been hiding behind! Well, fear not... This is where the second layer of protection comes in handy.

Yes, Hordak’s second layer of defense: blustering, shouting, and intimidating. Threaten them with dire consequences for bothering him, let them visit the planet with nearly-enough-atmosphere for a few seconds… do everything in his power to frighten them so badly they never want to directly interact with him again. What should happen if this second layer fails him, though? They learn of the most terrifying secret in Hordak’s entire arsenal.

...There is no third layer…

Nope. If a minion is plucky enough to peak behind the curtain of his grand illusion, and then bold enough to stand their ground at the explosion of hot air that follows… he has basically no follow-up left. One of my favorite nonverbal scenes in the entire series is the moment where he realizes that his screaming is having no visible impact on Entrapta. There’s a look on his face that seems to say ‘What the hell am I supposed to do now!?’… like, it’s clear the dude has never needed a third step to scare someone away before.

Ah, but you, my savvy reader, have no doubt cottoned on to the error in my argument thus far. Establishing that Hordak is an awkward, introverted nerd doesn’t really change the fact that he built the Etherian horde. The fact that he’s not especially competent doesn’t change the bad deeds his committed! Well, rest assured, you beautiful person who can claim no paternal relation to me, I agree! However, characterizing Hordak like this goes hand in hand with the other big reveal of season 3: his backstory.

Now, cards on the table, I’ve been taking Hordak as he comes, and up until this point I didn’t really have any strong idea of whether they were going the big-bad or redeemed-bad route with him. It wasn’t until season 3, when his origin was revealed, that I genuinely began to suspect that the redemption path was where the writers were headed, because it re-frames his actions in a subtle, but pretty important way.

With no Horde Prime, when one looks at Hordak, they see a man who orchestrated a corrupt and oppressive system for his personal benefit, who holds others in disdain due to self-aggrandizement, and is motivated by a desire to be seen as greater than everyone else. That is a character who would be very hard to convincingly redeem. While I’m loathe to raise the specter of Steven Universe discourse here, it’s a lot like the notion of redeeming the Diamonds… and, while I have no strong feelings about that show one way or the other, suffice it to say I can at least see why their redemption is controversial.

Horde Prime shifts the context of Hordak’s actions, though. Now, Hordak is a man who perpetuates the very system he is, himself, a victim of, because it’s the only system he knows. His conflict with others is born from the projection of his own self loathing. Said self-loathing comes from his chief motivation, which is to be acknowledged as worthy by an authority figure who has no interest or desire in ever offering him that acknowledgment.

Such a character is still flawed and villainous, because of course it is. If a character has done nothing wrong, they don’t need redemption in the first place. It’s a lot easier to accept the struggles of a flawed character if they’re a victim of oppression rather than its source. To borrow the SU comparison one final time, the Horde Prime twist reveals to us that Hordak isn’t a diamond, he’s just another one of the countless gems caught in their system.

By the by, does “perpetuates a system they, themselves, are victims of, suffers from conflicts born of projected self loathing, and desire to be acknowledged by an authority figure who has no interest or desire in providing said acknowledgment” sound familiar? I hope so! It ties into my final point of the day.

Part 3: Season 4 Hordak (aka “Hordak and Catra have basically the same arc”)

Now, implying similarity in the character arcs of Hordak and Catra has, historically, been a fraught endeavor. Even I, Hordak stan extraordinaire, felt that we needed to see a bit more of where the writers were wanting to take Hordak before we went and made comparisons. Then season 4 happened… and guys… the subtitle of season 4 may as well have been “Hordak and Catra have basically the same arc.”

Well, that’s a bit of an oversimplification. Catra had people she could perceive as her peers, which granted her a social circle outside of her direct superiors whom she could feel camaraderie with, which added a dimension to the emotional turmoil she felt, but in broad strokes it seems to be a comparison that the writers are inviting us to make. Their alliance in season 4 is based around their commonality. They motivate one another by feeding into the insatiable hunger both of them feel for external validation… in that regard, they bring out the worst in each other, and thus season 4 ends with both of them brought to their lowest point.

At the end of season 4, if the princesses had never arrived, and Double Trouble hadn’t been there to finally force her to confront the emotions she insistently projected onto others, Catra would have assumed the mantle she claimed from Hordak. She would have ruled the horde, devoid of satisfaction or happiness, and any children she took into her numbers she would have treated in exactly the same way Shadow Weaver treated her, and the same way Horde Prime treated Hordak.

To escape that fate, she needed her chance to face the system that oppressed her, and then the chance to face herself… and only once she had done both, could she start to move forward again. That’s why we see the start of her recovery in the final scenes of the season. Catra did unspeakably terrible things- by the end of season 4 her atrocity count easily rivals Hordak’s- and not everything can be blamed exclusively on others, but we, as an audience, have seen enough of what made her the way she is… that’s why most of us are onboard with her eventual redemption.

Catra is, beneath all the layers of spite and illusions of who she thinks she should be, a sweet kid who ultimately wants to reconnect with a friend she fears abandoned her, and to be respected and appreciated by the authority figures in her life. Hordak is, ultimately, a hikikomori dweeb who, not too long ago, was content to spend the rest of eternity with his gamer girlfriend in his lab, pretending to put together a portal machine.

The villain of She-ra is Horde Prime, and the system he put into place to feed his arrogance at the expense of those trapped within it. For those inside that system, like Catra or Hordak, they don’t cross the line and become truly irredeemable until they are given a clear and unambiguous chance to escape from that system and change their life for the better… but refuse to grasp it. Even then… sometimes it takes them a little while to see the hand being offered to them… and sometimes that hand is in the form of a fist.

In conclusion

Look, guys, I’ll be real with you… I made a play at pretending that I wrote this for some point or another… but I kinda didn’t. When I get into a fandom headspace, words get stuck in my head, y’know? When they do, they buzz around like bees until I write ‘em someplace… so here we are.

I’m not so arrogant as to assume I can change anyone’s mind with my 4 AM word vomit about the emaciated bat villain in my favorite children’s cartoon. This is just a thing I wrote! Maybe if you agree with it it makes you happy, and if you disagree with it then it doesn’t get’cha too worked up! I was gonna include Hordak’s relationship with Entrapta into the proceedings… but honestly, that would have doubled the length of this thing, and would have been kinda tangential to the point. I may do a more shippy essay thing later on… but if there’s one thing I learned from the last time I wrote a bunch of these… it’s that planning them out never works well. I guess if people wanna see it I can write it though.

Anyway, I’m rambling, so I’m gonna letcha go! Thanks for listening to my TED talk. Remember, villains are an artform, people are complicated, and hot cocoa is the best winter beverage. I’m going back to fanfic writing until the next bout of insomnia!

#she ra hordak #entrapdak #hordak #she ra 2019

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loz-and-lu-fan-blog · 5 years

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“What you are to me”

*basically this is mostly backstory and lore. But it’s told through Fi perspective and her outlook on the hero. Get ready for some angst*

Unlike most I was born with a ready purpose in mind. I wasn’t a child, I wasn’t born with no idea how the world work. I was a spirit, hand crafted by the goddess of Hyila; I wasn’t human and I never would be.

I was born with the purpose to kill the demon king, at least that what Hyila, the goddess that created me, said. However their was a problem with me, I wasn’t powerful enough in the goddess words; she wasn’t powerful enough. I wouldn’t be strong enough to strike down the demon king, my sword wouldn’t be strong enough.

So Hyila started to look for another solution, leaving me alone and unaided. So I did what any child would do, I wondered and explored. I wondered across the land of hyrule, my blue and white appears made people fear me; they stayed away from me knowing I was ether a demon or from her grace. So I explored this weird world, trying my best to learn and become stronger because that’s what my Grace wanted.

I wondered into an area I did not know. It looked like Hyrule but it didn’t have her Grace’s feel to it. Their was something powerful here but it wasn’t her Grace.

So I wondered, I saw familiar faces that used to look at me with fear; now they have friendly expression and they waved. Some of the children went up to try and talk to me, I hardly every respond.

Then I met them.

They had to be the ether the gods or demons of this world. I could feel their power, as much as I hate to admit; they were easily more powerful then my Grace, maybe even the demon king. I didn’t know what to expect.

Their were two goddess, one looking a lot like Hyila, blond hair and blues eyes; however she didn’t stick around for formalizes. After she left, their was only one other Goddess with orange skin and purple hair; who called herself Majora.

Then the only god.

He was terrified, easily over 8 feet tall. He hand long white hair with piercing red eyes. Tribal markings covered his face and likely his body. He wore blue and silvers; amour very clear visible; and a giant double helix sword on his back.

I didn’t know what to expect when he saw me, death or maybe something less merciful. However the terrifying aura change when he kneeled down to talk to me.

“My name is Oni” he said. Power, war and death clung to him however a warm smile was still present on his face. He said he knew i was a young spirit, that he didn’t want me to fear him.

“Would you like to meet my son?” The Oni ask.

I didn’t say no, afraid I would incurred his wrath if i did, so I followed the god. Into this lovely little temple, and that were I met him. Link. However I didn’t know it at the time.

It was just a ball of light and energy, it burned brighter then Hyila’s golden light yet it gave off a sense of innocences. A spirit of a god full of potential, who purpose was not yet played out. I could almost hear him, despite him not having a physical form. Their was a pull to the little ball of light, the same pull I had seem with children in families.

I don’t know how long a stay by the soul, my arms wrapped around the air, singing to it. It was only when the moon was high in the sky that the Oni took me away from the soul, telling me I should head back.

And I did, in my excitement I rushed back to Hyrule remembering the way. I ran to her Grace and told her about my day. I ran and told her all about the Oni and little soul I had met.

That was a mistake.

Hyila disappeared for some time and came back with the little god’s soul I had met in termina. Being young I didn’t think much of it, it was only after years of thought did I realize what Hyila had done. She went to a realm she wasn’t supposed to be in, and she stole a God’s soul, likely having to attack some of the others.

However at the time a didn't care, I had a friend now.

Hyila gave the God’s soul a human body, we named him Link. Her Grace put me in charge of raising the hero, I had a spell on me to make me appear human. So I live in a small village with Link on the surface.

I watched as the God hidden as a human grew, and I grew as well. I watched him as he played and laugh, I watched him cry; I watched him learned.

Then it Hyila took it away.

At 15 years old Link was taken away from me. The soldiers came and took my Link away from me, dragging him away from me. He was dragged away from me, screaming and crying; a child taken away from me.

Hyila explained that I couldn’t grow stronger if I stay to raised Link. She said a gods soul in pain would be enough to make the goddess sword powerful enough, make my sword powerful enough. She said the only way to be strong enough to protect Link was to use his pain to get stronger.

I did what was asked.

Thoughts 10 years were agonizing, feeling the pain of a love one hurts so much. The 10 years should have passed by fast, but it felt like an 100 years. In that time I lost my white and light blue color, they burned to a dark purple and blue. I stopped showing emotions, if I did I would have broken down crying everyday I was separated from him.

I changed.

And so did Link.

When I saw him again, he had grown cold and distant. I don’t know if he blame me or Hyila for the years in prison. While he had changed the longer I spent around him, the more of the small child I raised I could see. His laugh, his kindness was still their just buried under years of pain. I grew close and to care of all over again.

The Demise came.

The land on the surface was destroyed, and Link sent the land skyward, my sword was stuck in the ground, drawn away from him again.

Hyila came back to me after the battle. She told me he didn’t survive the battle, his soul was killing his human body and she didn’t have enough power to make him a body that could hold a god’s soul. So she did something unexpected.

She shattered his soul. His once whole god soul was now 9 human souls, scatter through time. She promise me that he would be able to live a happy life now, that everything would be ok. So I let it go and slept peacefully in the sword, knowing that the little child I once raise would have a chance to be happy.

Then i saw him again. I saw one part of his soul, this time one of the children of the sky. I knew it was him, he had the first Link’s kindness and smile. I decide not to tell him, afraid I would break down if I told him. I valued the time with him, hoping that after Her Grace was helped he would get to live out his happy life.

Then Demise utter his curse.

I knew I would see more of his soul again, and I didn’t think I could handle it; so I hid in the sword.

I’ve met many different Links throughout the timelines, all different in their own way but all content to the first. I’ve seen some in pain, where I curse myself for not having a form to comfort them. I’ve seen some in ignorance happiness were their souls seem to burn brighter.

I love them all.

What are they to me?

They’re my sons.

#linkeduniverse #linked universe #the legend of zelda #link #fi's first meeting with well.. the first hero #loz fi #lu au #linked universe au #first hero #first link #loz theory #loz lore #loz au

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kinetic-elaboration · 4 years

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September 4: 1x13 The Conscience of the King

Past midnight and I’m tired but!! The Conscience of the King!

This was a wild ep. A lot to untangle about it.

Dramatic Shakespeare! Jim’s very invested in the performance.

I legit thought that the guy next to him was McCoy the first time I watched this. I hadn’t seen much ST at the time and that’s my excuse but also in my defense he has a similar facial structure and it’s dark.

“What do I do about my log???” New hydration game: drink whenever someone mentions their logs.

So Tarsus had only 8,000 people--that’s not very many. They must have been very isolated and new. And Kodos killed 4,000.

The Karidian players are part of the “Galactic Cultural Exchange Project.”

One of my problems with believing this Kirk/Lenore romance outside the usual honeypot aspects is that she is a little young for him perhaps??? I say as if I didn’t know couples with a bigger age gap but--she’s only 19 so it’s different.

So Kodos faked his death, fairly immediately had a daughter, and then changed his identity. Her age being exactly 19 is probably just about keeping math simple but I would like to read more into it than that.

Major plot hole that there’s a PICTURE of Kodos in the database. Like???? Then everyone knows what he looks like? The idea that only 9 people have the secret knowledge to bring him to justice and yet also everyone with an internet connection can see his photo is just nonsense.

Kirk, being charming at a party. I feel like his flirt game isn’t so strong at first (here, have this glass I’ve already sipped from?) but it gets stronger as their conversation goes on. He doesn’t have the greatest lines but his attitude is so charming and attractive it legit does not matter what he’s saying.

I used to feel, at least, that Lenore was one of his real, legit love interests, probably because of the ending and because it was one of the first eps I saw so I took it as more face value, but on a rewatch... not really sure. At any rate this initial flirting is all about the Strategy.

I find it somewhat disturbing that Lenore played her father’s wife.

The Astral Queen??

Lenore is really bad at judging Kirk, like from beginning to end. If this were airing now and I were in the fandom, I’d be getting into internet fights with people about how her analyses of him are biased and shouldn’t be taken at face value because they clearly have no connection to how he actually is. “Where’s the brash young man from the party?” Was there ever a brash young man? Is he in any way different on their walk versus inside??

A dead body, what a mood killer.

I like the aesthetic of this planet, though.

Wow, wtf, Kirk, your friend’s widow is crying and you give her a five-second hug and then literally push her off screen? Gotta hurry it up ma’am!

So he just has to say ‘over and out’ and the communicator cuts the transmission and he can call someone else. Very high-tech.

Spock is displeased. A little suspicious. A little jealous.

How did you know she was coming on the ship? “I’m the Captain.”

Spock should appreciate how sneaky Kirk is being with all his schemes. It’s not Menagerie level but still.

Riley! I wish he were in more eps. He’s one of my favorite minor characters. I realize he’s only in this one because they accidentally cast the same actor twice but still--he had potential. I see he’s been taken out of Navigation. And given a backstory in Engineering, and then moved to Communications. But he keeps the gold shirt. Busy fellow.

“Star Service.”

So he transferred Riley to protect him because he figured... no one knows where Engineering is?

I love this Spock and McCoy scene. McCoy being so laid back and Spock being like “I am suspicious of this suspicious situation.”

Vulcan was never conquered though??

“Your personal chemistry wouldn’t allow you to see that” sounds an awful lot like a veiled “you’re gay” reference.

Someone finally comments on the romantic lighting that follows Kirk around.

Wow, how did all this “surging and throbbing” talk get past the censors? Tone it down, Lenore.

Kirk claims he eventually really liked her, but this is like the last positive scene they have and he’s still CLEARLY fishing for information.

Love that cut from Lenore and Kirk making out to Spock alone on the bridge at night, brooding. (No one needs to steer the ship at night I guess?)

Poor Riley, stuck by himself in Engineering during the late shift. “You’ve been a bad boy.” I love when the crew gets to just hang out and be friends. Also interesting that Uhura has borrowed Spock’s harp.

Spock: “Riley can’t die because KIRK.”

This is a great triumvirate scene. I love how they play off each other, and how they simultaneously care about each other and about their jobs and doing the right thing.

I do find it weird that McCoy is so anti this whole investigating Kodos thing. Like, this isn’t some crazy vengeful path that Jim’s on or whatever he’s implying. Jim’s actually being pretty careful and slow in his actions? And there is someone actively killing people, like--the threat is imminent? It’s just a weird side to represent. I get the balance they’re trying to portray with the three sides but McCoy just doesn’t have a good argument and Jim doesn’t really need to be pulled back--if anything, he needs to be pushed, as Spock is pushing him.

“Logic isn’t enough. I’ve got to feel my way.”

Double red alert sounds like double secret probation.

Spock shushing the Captain.

Throw the phaser out the window.

Lol after all this hullabaloo about being extra sure and all this scheming to get people on his ship--Kirk just comes out and asks Karidian if he’s Kodos. Well that’s one way about it!

Kodos, like his daughter, fundamentally misunderstands Jim. I know he seems very ‘starship captain with his technological tests’ or whatever but--to call him not human?? He is the MOST human!!

Kirk does understand life or death decisions but he would never have made the decision Kodos made.

I’m with Spock, this is not ambiguous. This man is clearly Kodos. I’m glad there was a character actively saying that the alleged tension in this “who is he really?” plot line is not actually real.

This guy is such a manipulative drama queen oml.

I feel like the morality of this situation is not as gray as some characters are trying to make it. Like, no, Lenore, no one’s crying a river for Kodos lol.

The Kodoses again are either not good at reading Kirk or are deliberately trying to gaslight him into incorrect beliefs about himself because he has literally been nothing but human and merciful this entire time!!! An inhuman person would be like “logically he has to be Kodos” and an unmerciful person would be like “and he needs to die” and just like killed him 10 minutes into the ep.

This is the downside of audio logs--private things don’t stay very private.

Riley’s on the loose! Very IC of him.

I love that the ship has a theater, btw.

Riley must have been very young on Tarsus. No more than maybe 6, 7 years old. Knowing what I know about people’s inability to actually remember things or identify people with any accuracy at all, I don’t actually believe he recognizes Kodos’s voice. But what were we saying about how Kirk is unmerciful and in human?

Riley sure backs down fast when Kirk says so.

This Lenore and Kodos scene is probably the best in the whole ep. Really laying bare their fucked up relationship and how absolutely, tragically, irredeemably mad she is. The drama! I love a true wild woman.

The irony! The Shakespearean over-the-top-ness of it all!

You know at least one person in the audience thinks this is just a really weird play.

Leave it to McCoy to ask all the wrong questions lol. He wants to know if Jim liked the girl--who the fuck cares? He knew her for one day. Maybe he was briefly legit interested in her for a few minutes there, but she’s certifiable AND she tried to kill him, so that’s that on that.

The real important thing we should be talking about here is how Jim feels about the death of a man who killed 4,000 people and traumatized him for life.

And Spock stays away entirely, instead of walking over the chair as he usually does. Giving Kirk space to sort out his feelings, perhaps?

So yeah there’s a lot to unpack in this ep.

I think I once ran across a tumblr post that said this ep implied Kirk was slated to be on the to kill list but honestly it’s pretty clearly the opposite--Kodos killed exactly who he wanted to kill, so if Kirk’s alive, Kirk was supposed to live. (I guess they thought the implication came from Kirk being one of the people to see him? But we have no idea what the circumstances of that were, or why the people to see him included a couple of teenagers and a small child.) Also I think I heard once that there was a deleted line about Kirk saying he was one of the people considered worth saving.

This ep is really wild because introducing Tarsus into Jim’s background really changes a lot and introduces a lot into his character and yet it’s basically just done for plot purposes, to make sure the main character stays at the center of the story. But truly it must have transformed him to witness that at ~15.

Overall we hear very little from Kirk directly here. We know he wants to be sure Karidian is Kodos, and he goes to a lot of trouble to be sure, even though it’s quite obvious there’s no mystery to these massive coincidences. We know from his actions--bringing the players aboard, using Lenore, transferring Riley--that he’s deeply affected by this. And sometimes people (who don’t know him well) talk about him, mostly incorrectly (though in a way where I wonder if the writer was trying to get us to think this stuff is true of him? for the dramatic effect?) But for all that, he doesn’t talk about his feelings much at all.

Another take on this ep that I also saw on tumblr and liked a lot was that Kirk is so optimistic and hopeful in part because of Tarsus, because he saw that Kodos rushed to kill people when he really didn't need to, when he didn't think the supply ship would come in time--but then it came early. So the lesson to take from that is, to always be hopeful, to always believe in the last minute save, to always prioritize people's lives and safety first because anything could happen.

I feel like we're supposed to feel bad for Kodos in some way because he left all the mass murdering behind ages ago BUT it doesn't work so well because we're also supposed to believe, imo, that he was the killer, not Lenore. Like, Spock wants Kirk to act as if this man is Kodos and be proactive, but he's not doing it because he's a vengeful person--he's doing it because Kodos, he thinks, is threatening Kirk. Spock never goes beyond that to advocate, for example, a vengeance killing versus giving him to the authorities versus idk just yelling at him or something. So this idea that interfering with Kodos in any way is just being mean is sort of bizarre--there's an active threat here.

Plus sorry but committing genocide 20 years ago isn’t something we just sweep under the rug. He was the mastermind of something truly horrendous and he got away with it! I’m not going to feel bad for him!

And on top of that the idea that he was just killing people to save other people is one thing--at least morally gray I GUESS lol. But he was targeting people for his own eugenics purposes!! He even says this is part of "the Revolution." The famine was an excuse. He wanted to kill them.

Like I realize most of the people getting on Kirk's back for literally everything are the Kodoses, who are nuts and evil, but I feel like he took a lot of shit for doing nothing wrong.

My mom was wondering how Lenore knew her father was Kodos. I’m not entirely sure but I will say I love her and how just unrepetentedly mad she is. I prefer Lenore to most TOS women because I often feel like the show doesn't......really know how to write women. With Lenore there was no attempt to make her anything but off her rocker nuts. And the twist that she was the killer was effective.

She has that very classic insanity, which is the person who has only one thought and it consumes them. Only one purpose. I think she must have been raised separate from literally everyone but her father--he's been a traveling actor her whole life, so she never socialized, she never went to school, she had no other family. He's very private so she never had, like, a social circle. So he's her WHOLE WORLD. And then maybe she got suspicious as to why that was, and discovered his past. And then she felt that this past threatened him, and anything that threatened him threatened EVERYTHING. So she became...this person we see here.

And, as my mom also pointed out, the ‘body burned beyond recognition’ story is so suspect. With all their future tech? There was no way to id it? Also, what was the official explanation as to how that happened? We know 4,000 people were killed; we know a supply/rescue ship came early, and we know Kodos died and his body wasn’t identified. But what’s the rest of the sequence of events? Was there a riot or revolt and he was killed? Did he kill himself? It’s unlikely he burned to death on accident. The point is that he did not fake his death by himself.

One downfall of this ep is that it is very complicated for only 50 minutes. So much stuff is cut short or cut out--a lot of the backstory, most of Kirk’s feelings, but even stuff like Riley backing down so fast, or Tom’s widow getting literally pushed off screen while she’s grieving. The idea that Lenore and Kirk were supposed to have a real romance somehow? And, the eugenics angle is obviously a huge part of the story but it’s barely touched upon.

According to the trivia on amazon, the original script explained Kirk's presence on Tarsus as being related to Starfleet--he was just out of the Academy and stationed there. That would make him older than other episodes assume him to be--about 42, versus 34-36. But I like it better having him be a teen bc then we don't expect him to know all the stuff that went down later, the aftermath etc. My mom suggested he might have been doing the high school version of a study abroad year, since he’s so smart. This would also explain why his family doesn’t seem to have been on Tarsus, even though if we take his age from other episodes, he was not an adult.

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I don’t think AOS Kirk was on Tarsus, if in fact Tarsus happened at all in the alternate universe. I just see no evidence in his character that would make me think he’d had that experience.

Next up is Balance of Terror, yet another favorite episode. I mean Mark Lenard?? Romulans?? Can’t go wrong with that.

#star trek tos #the year 2020 #2020: fandom thoughts #2020: star trek #wow this got long i am so tired now it's 2am

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nicnacsnonsense · 4 years

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@saretton was talking about a Cyrano de Bergerac AU earlier and y’all I got carried away again. Basic backstory here is Crowley is Cyrano, Aziraphale is Christian, and Anathema is Roxane. Crowley is in love with Aziraphale (obv) and Aziraphale has convinced himself he’s in love with Anathema because of internalized homophobia. The turning point in the story is when Anathema turns Aziraphale down in favor of Newt and Aziraphale realizes he’s actually rather relieved and maybe he wasn’t all that into her after all., Then Anathema points out all the things Aziraphale has been saying to her and writing to her (words that he is getting from Crowley) sound like they’re actually intended for someone other than her. Aziraphale does some thinking and concludes that Crowley is in love with someone, which is problematic because Aziraphale is actually in love with Crowley. Anyway, I wrote the very end scene where they finally get together because I’m Azcrow trash and have no self-control. Here you go:

“What brings you to my humble abode, angel?” Crowley had sprawled out in his usual position on the settee, and Aziraphale’s breath caught in his throat. The sinewy beauty and easy grace of the man – how had he been so blind as to never notice it before? How was he supposed to go on now that he did? How was he supposed to listen to Crowley call him angel in that tone of casual fondness without losing all control over himself and doing something that would ruin their friendship forever?

“Aziraphale?” Crowley prompted.

Aziraphale shook himself and took a seat in the armchair he always sat in, the one he’d come to think of as his in the back of his mind. “My apologies; I was lost in thought for a moment,” he said. “I stopped by because I spoke with Miss Device yesterday afternoon.”

Crowley tensed. It was a subtle movement, but Aziraphale was watching too closely to miss it. He assumed it was out of concern for Aziraphale; the meeting yesterday had not been one they had anticipated, so Crowley had been unable to help Aziraphale prepare for it. “How did that go?”

“She informed me that while she values our friendship and is flattered by and appreciates the overtures I’ve made of late, she bears no romantic feelings toward me and has instead decided to accept the suit of Newton Pulsifer.”

“I’m sorry,” Crowley said, genuine regret lacing his voice. “I know you love her.”

“That’s the funny thing,” Aziraphale said, and in the light of a new day it did seem funny. One of those casual anecdotes about an embarrassing moment some years past and oh, wasn’t I foolish? “I don’t love her; I don’t think I ever did. That is, I certainly return her sentiments regarding our friendship, but beyond that my infatuation stemmed more from the idea of her as the sort of person I ought to be in love with than any genuine feeling.”

“It certainly seemed genuine enough,” Crowley remarked archly. A fair enough attitude as he as certainly suffered the brunt of Aziraphale’s misguided infatuation.

“It seemed so to me as well, but I have a rather marvelous gift for self-deception I’m discovering. Though I suspect deep down part of me must have known, which is why I failed so abysmally at expressing it.” He was quite certain of that in fact. Because looking at Crowley now Aziraphale felt he could write sonnet upon sonnet, pages and pages and pages of love letters. He would go on his knees before Crowley and spill his heart out in hundreds of thousands of eloquently-spun words if he thought it would do any good.

Aziraphale sighed. “It all worked out for the best, I suppose, and I do wish the two of them happiness. I very much appreciate all the help you’ve given me throughout this endeavor, regardless of how it ended.”

“Of course,” Crowley said easily. “I’d do anything for you angel, just say the word.”

Aziraphale’s smile faltered for a moment, but he reclaimed it by forcing himself to take Crowley’s offer in the congenial spirit it was offered and to ignore how differently Crowley might feel if he knew of Aziraphale’s unnatural desires. “Thank you. And what about you?”

“What about me?”

“Really, don’t play coy. When we were speaking yesterday Miss Device pointed out how most of the things you wrote for me to give her actually sounded as though they were written with someone else in mind entirely. You’re in love.”

Crowley bolted up in alarm. “That’s not—I didn’t— Don’t be angry ange— Aziraphale. Nothing has to change; I just—“

“Don’t be absurd, Crowley. Of course I’m not angry. Well, perhaps a little hurt you didn’t think to mention that you’d fallen in love, but I understand some people finds these kinds of things difficult to talk about. I don’t hold it against you. As for nothing changing…” Aziraphale found he could no longer stand to look at Crowley, so ducked his head and watched his hands gently wringing in his lap. “Things should change. I read everything you wrote and heard all the words you said; it’s clear how deeply you feel for this woman. You should tell her— no, I insist that you tell her how you feel. There’s no way she’ll turn you down with how beautifully you express yourself. I realize my experience with Miss Device might not be exactly confidence-building in that regard, but I’m sure your lady will be able to sense the genuineness of your feelings. And of course if there’s anything I can do to help, I—“

Crowley kissed him.

Aziraphale barely had time to register what was happening before Crowley pulled away again. At some point he must have risen from the settee and was now knelt on the ground in front of Aziraphale, gazing upon him as earnestly reverent as any man at worship.

Aziraphale felt like he’d been hit by a runaway carriage. All those lines, all the little clues to the identity of the woman Crowley loved that Aziraphale had seen, but had been unable to puzzle out. They were all about him. “You’re in love with me,” he breathed.

“Shit. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…” Crowley placed his hands on Aziraphale’s knees and pulled them away again, as light as a butterfly. When Aziraphale didn’t protest, Crowley set them back down, his long fingers curled tight as though he feared Aziraphale might bolt any second. “I meant what I said. Nothing has to change. Just let me stay by your side as your friend. Let me stay in your life. All I’m asking for is just the smallest, most insignificant crumb of you, and I swear to you I will never—“

Aziraphale kissed him.

Crowley seemed too shocked at first to respond, but Aziraphale continued the kiss until Crowley, tentatively at first and then with more and more fervor, returned the gesture. Aziraphale straightened back up, gently guiding Crowley along with him until they were both in the chair with Crowley astride Aziraphale’s lap. Crowley’s hands were fisted in Aziraphale’s shirt as he desperately tried to pull them even closer together. Aziraphale’s own hands were resting on Crowley’s shoulders, but after a minute he daringly reached up to run one through Crowley’s fine fire-strand hair. Crowley whined into Aziraphale’s mouth. He broke the kiss and buried his face in Aziraphale’s neck, ripping his glasses off and tossing them across the room to do it.

Aziraphale held Crowley in his arms, one hand still gently carding Crowley’s hair, and marveled at the turn his life had taken. An hour ago this was something he believed he would never have. A day ago this was something he had never even knew he wanted. And now here he was. At that exact moment he decided that the world was wrong about these feelings. How could they be anything but good and right when he felt so blessed?

Crowley mumbled something into Aziraphale’s neck. “What was that?” Aziraphale asked. “I didn’t quite catch it.”

Crowley turned his head slightly. “I said, is this real?”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said, his voice choked with emotion. He urged Crowley up to look at him and, oh, there was the reason for the glasses. Because Crowley’s eyes were so expressive. There was so much love there, Aziraphale felt he was drowning in it. And alongside the love there was hope, cautious and terrified, but hope.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale repeated. “My darling. My dearest. My closest and truest companion. My love, my light, my joy. My heart’s only.” Aziraphale watched as with each endearment the hope in Crowley’s eyes brightened. Crowley had gifted Aziraphale with so many beautiful words, and though Aziraphale hadn’t always listened as closely as he should have, he’d heard them all. And now it wa time he shared some of his own with Crowley. He leaned forward and spoke directly into Crowley’s ear:

“I confess this to you now, my dear,

The strangest truth I have.

Because you have always seen more clear,

Than I myself ever have.

I feel the warmth of you in my arms.

You scent is far too dear to be faked.

I wish to keep you here safe from all harms,

And to always bestow upon you more love than I take.

The beauty of your eyes–”

Here Crowley made a noise of protest. Aziraphale hushed him and continued.

“The beauty of your eyes,

Burnt amber in the light,

Is far greater than imagining could provide.

My mind would never get it right.

These sensations are far too vivid,

For this to be a dream.

But the joy here is far more fervid,

Than I have ever experienced in reality.

I no longer know what is true,

And would not care if I did.

For either I find myself here with you,

Or we lie together dreaming instead.”

For a long moment Crowley said nothing, and Aziraphale began to get nervous. “I know it’s not as good as the ones you wrote. Some of the rhymes were dreadful and I’m sure the meter was all wrong and—“

Crowley gently cupped Aziraphale’s face. “I think you’re right. This is too perfect to be anything but a dream.” He kissed Aziraphale, long and slow and deep. “So let’s never wake up.”

#good omens #aziraphale #crowley #ineffable husbands #cyrano de bergerac #cyrano de omens #fanfiction #fandom fusion

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slasherparty · 4 years

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Josef with a trans male s/o / Josef learning to control his urges for his s/o?

dami i know this is you. come off anon coward

anyways yes this request is perfecto, i’ll take any opportunity to write about this soft creepy wolf man. this is gonna be long so beware, i have much to say.

Josef & his trans bf / general relationship stuff:

josef can be good with boundaries, surprisingly. maybe his experience crossing every personal boundary upheld by modern society allows him the sensitivity to know just how far he can push until he breaches ‘fuck off’ territory. in any case, he listens and memorizes what his boyfriend needs him to respect.

this isn’t to say he’s good right off the bat, of course. his passion for the hunt is something so deeply rooted in his psyche, it took an existential crisis and 24 hours in the woods with a certain purple-haired aspiring filmmaker to get to the bottom of (and who knows, we probably only scratched the surface on that, assuming he was honest with his backstory).

josef has moments where he’ll slip into odd topics. maybe not odd to him, but certainly to anyone who values privacy. he’ll mention details to his boyfriend that the other man never told him, suggesting he’s been doing a little more observation than expected of a romantic partner. he’ll casually bring up details of activities his boyfriend knows josef wasn’t there to witness, and otherwise didn’t tell him about.

an extension of this is his penchant for ‘candid photography’, or whatever you call taking pictures of people without them knowing (while peering from an obscured location). this is normally something he’d do to prepare for his cat-and-mouse routine of luring and pursuing strangers, but he’s never had someone stick around beyond that. what makes the time he spends with his victims meaningful is knowing they’ll become a part of him at the end of it. at least that’s the belief he held, until he met the person who eventually became his boyfriend. now he’s got an entire folder filled with strange, blurry pictures of him that span well beyond what he’s used to keeping.

he knows the secret photos bother his boyfriend. they bother everyone, and that’s the point. in the beginning, he would show them to him as a confessional, hoping to tap into the part of people that forgives odd behavior so long as the confessor puts up a genuine, honest face. it’s just one of the ways he prods people open, gains their trust and digs inside them, until he’s crossed so many thresholds that he’s become a permanent part of their day to day thoughts. “i took these because i wanted to get to know you before we actually met,” he’ll say. “i was just so nervous!" but his boyfriend, even before reaching that status, didn’t play the game right. he played none of josef’s games right, really. his bullshit detector was fine-tuned and looked past everything josef came up with. maybe that’s why he made it farther than any of the others.

after accepting this, josef started keeping the photos to himself. before, they were playful tools, meant to be archived later next to another tape with a scribbled name on it. now, he keeps them for… well, sentiment. not the kind he gets from victims, but as a reminder of a living, breathing form he can continuously document and observe. besides, what his boyfriend doesn’t know won’t hurt him. he’ll make sure of that.

when talking about josef’s different habits and urges, it’s impossible to not bring up his counterpart, peachfuzz. what’re the ramifications of him when it comes to the boyfriend thing? the wolf almost has a life of his own. sure, the mask makes an appearance to perturb and incite paranoia, but there’s another layer to all that. sometimes, usually at night, his boyfriend will wake up with peachfuzz standing over him or sitting upright in bed, head tilted in his direction. other times, he’ll hear noises only to find josef wandering the dark with the mask on, silent and unresponsive (save for guttural growls and pants). these are the times his resolve is tested. josef can be reasoned with, but peachfuzz is his own animal - for lack of better phrasing.

every word of benevolence josef would use to describe peachfuzz before was inconsistent with the way he behaved with the mask on. the chasing, the growling, the hiding behind corners, even josef’s occasional drunken admittance of fear involving the mask; all of this was taken as a scare tactic. that is, until about three months into the relationship when his boyfriend woke up from what was supposed to be a peaceful night with his hands bound, tied to a chair, peachfuzz waiting silently in the darkened doorframe. he was only partially in view, just enough to show the glint of a knife waiting in his hand.

that night was spent in terror, expecting the worst before passing out in exhaustion. peachfuzz never moved once. the next day, josef acted like nothing happened, and the events of the night were never brought up. suffice it to say peachfuzz became a tense topic. josef’s boyfriend asked him to keep the mask locked somewhere, for ‘safekeeping’. the nighttime incidents happen less frequently, and as far as his boyfriend knows peachfuzz hasn’t tried anything since.

josef’s behavior adapts to whoever he’s pursuing, with the exception of his ulterior activities. he thrives on attention, negative or positive, as long as he gets to experience a person in their most genuine form. if he has a partner, they are someone tried and true that reached beyond the veil, saw something raw and didn’t run. while he still feels the need to consume and absorb, with enough work and communication this can be managed. he’s soaked up so many people throughout the years that the urge to start the cycle again will be difficult to break. after all, it’s his passion. but he can be cooperative for the right person.

josef is a true romantic. he really, genuinely is. he might be misguided, but he puts his heart into everything he does. it’s not out of the realm of possibility that every victim he’s taken he considered to be a soulmate. he focuses in on one person until he becomes them. when that doesn’t happen, there’s another route. when he met his boyfriend that path was opened. he becomes an extension of josef that, while insatiably hard to resist taking, is able to exist alongside him as an equal.

sorry this is long and rambly and mentions basically no trans-specific stuff but! i hope this is okay. josef is a bicon and loves his trans boyfriend, fight me.

#creep #creep 2 #creep movies #josef from creep #josef x reader #creep x reader #peachfuzz #horror imagines #horror writing #x reader #slasher imagines #slasher headcanons #horror headcanons #slasher hcs #slasher writer #slashers #horror movies #mark duplass

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electratm · 4 years

Text

Posting a quick intro because I’m super excited to get into interactions! Hi guys it’s ya girl Theo, I’m 20 and cursed to be in the GMT+2 timezone. I’m currently in uni studying journalism and pr, but you guessed it I won’t be able to save this PR wreck aka Electra Romero. I’ll have some ideas for connections down below, but if you want to reach me do it though my dms here or you can find me on my discord — theoffs#3866 !

. * ◜ oh my god , you’ll never guess who’s coming to this party tonight ! according to stan twitter , i heard that it’s electra romero, a singer who’s currently signed to gold crown entertainment . wait , you don’t know who she is ? well , el is a cis female known around los angeles as having a striking resemblance to camila mendes, & the resemblance is uncanny . they’re a twenty-two year old who has been signed to gold crown for THREE YEARS, & have an identical career to camila cabello, which probably explains why they’ve amassed such a following . ever since they signed to gold crown , they have been known for being quite astute & maverick, but crown exposed seems to want to paint them as nothing more than detached & irascible . i’m beyond excited that they’ve made it this far in their career - every time i see their instagram , i can’t help but picture her collection of electric guitars, patched denim jackets, drunken swearing at paparazzi . oh wait , they’re coming over here – act natural !

Basics —

Name: Electra Rosario Romero Nicknames: El, Romero Age & Birthday: 22 / March 1st 1997 Zodiac sign: Pisces Gender: cis female Occupation: singer / songwriter sexuality: heterosexual ( bicurious ) Born: Los Angeles, California Ethnicity: Brazillian Career Claim: Camila Cabello Pinterest: here.

Background — ( death tw )

when I first applied I didn’t have that much of a backstory on her, but the more I worked on her pinterest and mock blog I fell in love with her messed up self. So the gist of it is that her family moved to L.A before she was born, her mother an aspiring singer and her dad wanted to do anything for his woman plus he is a car mechanic so he could find a job anywhere. Before her they had another daughter, her older sister by 4 years and a younger brother that was born 6 years after her. They were never the happiest family, high school sweethearts that got knocked up and wanted to escape the life in Brazil so they went with the ‘American dream’ only it was a goddamn nightmare. Her father found the work he was looking for, but her mother was seriously struggling and her only way of getting jobs being to sleep with whoever offered and she kept it a secret from her husband. Even with doing that it didn’t really lead anywhere, she grew old and bitter and wasn’t the best mother to her three kids. They didn’t see their father that often either, but that’s just cause he worked his ass off to keep them with clothes on their backs and to be able to afford food which obviously isn’t easy in L.A. It was home that never felt like home for Electra, she knew it like the palm of her hand, but there wasn’t that feeling of security as they lived in a pretty crappy neighbourhood.

They still got around though and the three kids practically raised themselves. Her older sister playing the biggest role in her life as she practically raised her and taught her everything while her mother was off hooking up with random men. Her sister was quite the social butterfly in contrast to Electra and always did what was best for their family. Even if that meant doing some not so ethical stuff to get money. When Electra was 14 though things got really bad and her life literally turned upside down. Her sister had began stripping for money, something she made El swear to keep a secret, not that she understood it well, but she knew neither of her parents especially her father would be okay with that. That left 14 year old Electra looking after her then 8 year old brother after school, making sure he’s fed and okay. Electra actually learned how to take care of herself and others real young. But one day as he was walking back from school just as he was calling her to ask what they’ll have for lunch he hadn’t looked around while crossing the street and was hit by a car mid conversation with Electra. He died on the spot and although it’s not her fault she has always thought that she had a part of it because she was supposed to protect him.

It was a devastating few months for the Romero’s, not long after her younger child’s death her mother finally went ahead and left them for another man. Everything that happened made Electra sick and angry, but neither of them could stop and mourn properly cause if they did they’d have no place to live. That’s when around the age of 15/16 Electra started getting into songwriting. Being slightly more mature going into adolescence she started to experience the things that are love and friendship and got caught up with them. Smoking, underage drinking, stealing her first electric guitar and learning to play it so she could impress her then boyfriend. She did whatever she could to distract herself from the sad reality that was her life and for a while it worked like a charm. Her making a living out of singing never seemed like an option to her as she knew her father and sister wouldn’t approve. She saw what happened with her mother and even thinking about it wasn’t a topic of discussion. So it remained a silly little hobby she’d work on while she skipped on school to hang out with her friends until the moment when one of them suggested that she’d upload one of them for her as at the time Electra couldn’t afford owning a computer. She didn’t think much of it and agreed, but instead she went viral and not long after a producer reached out to her with the chance to join a girl group he was forming. Electra was probably drunk or high when that happened, but somehow she ended up agreeing.

Singing career / present —

Somehow Electra had been discovered by an actual producer that wasn’t going to scam her, and not only that, but he made a pretty decent girl group. Her and the four other girls who also had gone viral in some shape or from made quite the team, each girl different in her own way and attracting all sorts of people. He signed them to his record label and they started blowing up within a year of their release, yet Electra never seemed to take it as seriously as the rest of them. There she was all glamorous singing repetitive pop songs in a short skirt, something that even she found embarrassing, but the money was good. Her family made a big deal out of it and didn’t want to do anything with her, seeing that she never told them and they found out when they saw one of her first preformances. Not facing them wasn’t that hard as they were almost always on the road doing show after show without consideration for their wellbeing. Not only was this not her music, it wasn’t her life anymore she had no control over it. About a year after they’d began she started getting out of control, skipping rehearsals, snapping at the crew and overall being super problematic which they ignored for as long as they could, but she couldn’t stop crossing the line. After roughly two years the management kicked her out which they played out as a mutual decision, but it was obvious that she’s at fault. And again it was her fault that her family couldn’t get any money again, this time she could truly blame herself, but she had been so sick of being controlled all the time.

For awhile not working felt good, she got her own sound back, even wrote enough to have her own album, but all the people she had alienated while constantly on tour left her with nothing, but her music. Her sister was okay with talking with her, but her father still refused as he saw the wife that left him in the face of his own daughter. Even if he was mad at her Electra still wanted to provide for them, it’s what she was taught to do so when Gold Crown entertainment reached out to her with a whole plan to get her back in the spotlight she was all up for it. A fake relationship and collab that would make her out to be a new and changed person, inspired by it all she writes an album that becomes an instant hit and suddenly everyone adores her again. They let her write her own songs which she was happy about, but she had to follow this whole PR scheme to redeem herself. She didn’t really care if people liked her, what mattered was that at the end of the day each scandal or drama she was involved with brought money to the table and soon enough she would establish a much more successful image for herself than her girl band days that she wasted. This time she wasn’t going to fuck up.

Personality —

Electra isn’t the nicest person, but she cares a lot. The people that gain her trust are very special to her and she’d do anything for them. She values family even if it’s as broken as hers with a workacholic father, a stripper sister and a mother that’s nowhere to be seen. She’s an honest and authentic person even if what she has to say isn’t pretty. El has seen quite the stuff growing up and doesn’t share it, especially the stuff that makes her vulnrable. Her life is strictly business and she can’t go around telling people her sob story as she feels guilty for it really being that way. At this point she just tries to keep her temper intact and do what she has to in order to have some advantage. She often contradicts herself with the things she believes yet still does the opposite thing cause she’ll get something out of it. She’s been in love and experienced real friendship, but that hasn’t helped her or filled the void of guilt in her heart.

Wanted connections —

I have a lot of those! Whether it’s acquaintances, friends, frenemies, enemies, hookups, pr relationships, I want them all! Here are the main ones that I feel like are crucial to her story:

The PR relationship of a lifetime. This can be taken in any way whether they get along, have actual feelings or hate each other’s guts. The main idea of it is that when Gold Crown reached out to her and had a plan for her getting back to the spotlight this relationship was involved. What started out as an innocent collab at first would blossom into a romance. One that would inspire her to change her ways and write a whole album! Or at least that’s what the public has to see. In reality Electra is trapped by it as cause of it she can’t really have a real relationship with anyone. The only thing she can do is have hookups with people she’s certain won’t rat out that her other relationship is fake.

Roomies. I suppose not long after she turned 18 and was still in her girl group she moved out due to her strained relationship with her family and started living with someone else. Could be another member from her girl group or just a friend from the business she made along the way. She’s probably really close to that person they’re one of the few to see her caring and protective side.

Hookups. You know a girl has her needs. Whether she was sad, got drunk and somehow ended up in bed with that person or they made a fwb kinda deal it’s always fun to play out.

Ex-band members. Another person to leave the band after her or they fell apart who knows, but they all share the long weeks of preforming every night and know the struggle that came in being in a girl band.

Dumped for the job. Another starlet she met in the start of her career. At first they hit it off and even got together, again one of the few people to know the real her and what’s she’s all about and that’s what drove them apart. Inspired but this post. Probably tried to stick by her in her rough patches, but she just kept pushing him away and with her offer for the PR relationship it was obvious it was never going to last. There may still be some lingering feelings, but not all of them are good.

These are the main things I can think of. I’m good with anything tbh and if you’re stuck you can take a look at my wanted tag or we can just brainstorm so like this post or hmu!!!

#gold:intro #death tw #this is the longest intro i've written in ages so you can tell how into my girl i am #come give us some love!!#also i'm not sure how many years I wrote her as being in gold crown in my app whoops #also this hasn't been proofread #too lazy for that sry

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inflammatoryfandomblog · 5 years

Text

on blake and running away

this post will be just me rambling about some tension i’ve noticed in the show for the longest time, yeah? i'm not trying to like, take people’s favorite characters away from them or whatever, but it’s me trying to come to terms with the fact that “running away” seems to be a very common theme for WBY... and for BY, it’s handled a bit oddly.

adam is mentioned as a matter of course, but i don’t really look at him the way you are used to--i don’t talk about the race stuff at all. i exclusively look at his abuse to Blake here; let it not be said that i’m so hung up on the race stuff that i ignore this part of his character. but if talk about abuse triggers you, you may not want to read this--it doesn’t really talk about personal experience at all and it’s not graphic, but this is a deeply personal Topic so i will warn you right now.

since this is long (no, really, it’s long as hell because it takes some explaining, and it’s more me trying to wrap my head around this than coming to a conclusion), i’ll stick it under a readmore:

Hello there!

Now, let’s all get on the same page, shall we? We all know that Adam’s a slimy creep in the show, right? And that most of his words to Blake should be taken in the context of what he intends to do and comes forth from his character?

This is a pretty basic observation... the things that characters say can be safely assumed to have a purpose in some way. Like Adam saying “my dear” or “wow we finally have alone time!” or whatever crap isn’t meant to be taken at face value as romantic, right? In fact, because Adam is (supposed to be) charismatic and an emotional abuser, you should generally assume there is some ulterior motive to what he says. (If this isn’t obvious to you, see Blake telling Yang that Adam only has power because of his manipulation in the Brunswick Arc.)

Which kind of strikes me as weird because... this isn’t really in line with how the writer’s depend on Adam’s dialogue sometimes? At certain points you’re supposed to take his framing as basically true--think of when he yells “what does she even see in you?” which ... is supposed to be taken by the audience as “see, even Adam sees their relationship, in case you haven’t gotten it yet!” rather than the kind of meaningless unhinged statement an abusive, jealous controlling asshole would make,

And like, if it were limited to rare instances like this, I wouldn’t really care about it that much, I would just take the unnatural dialogue as the audience clue-ins they’re meant to be and take Adam’s talkativeness in the final fight as RT being excited that Garrett Hunter can finally do the bare minimum of voice acting. But the reason it bugs me is because Adam was previously used to outright tell us Blake’s supposed character flaw of running away and we were just... supposed to take it at face value?

So, Adam constantly taunts Yang during their volume 6 fight, reminding her of Beacon to no end. And if you know Adam’s character, you’d know that this is meant to be intimidating shit-talking to Yang and to get her to attack him. It’s not even really subtle. “You’re a coward! Just like [Blake]” etc etc etc

(The fact that it doesn’t really work at all in this fight and he fucking keeps taunting her even when it clearly doesn’t work is the reason why Adam is annoying as hell during that fight. I’m salty that I was forced to be put through his voice acting, yes, I’m allowed to be petty.)

Remember this line of dialogue from him, because it’ll be important later: “You’re a coward! Just like her!” He frames her running away as a flaw pretty consistently, and this actually lines up with her character arc:

So flashback to the earlier volumes, right? Blake’s self-identified flaw is that she “always runs away” in volume 2. In that infamous volume 3 fight, Adam says, in response to Blake’s “I’m not running!”: “You will.” And that’s what happens, and it’s supposed to fuel most of the Yang-Blake drama in subsequent volumes.

Volume 4 has Blake outright say that the reason she ran away was because she wants her friends to hate her so they can be safe, and Sun basically tells her, “you don’t have to be alone, your friends are here.”

In volume 5, Yang reinforces that this is supposed to be a trait of Blake, and it’s also framed negatively: “she ran!” Now Weiss contextualizes this in their talk by basically saying that Blake is lonely and she ran away because she wanted to protect them, and Yang repeats the whole notion of “she doesn’t have to run! We were here for her.” In that very same volume, Blake “now he can see what it feels like to run away” when she successfully out-organizes Adam. The parallel between Blake now having Support and Backup and Therefore She Doesn’t Need to Run Away Anymore, while Adam Lost His Influence and Therefore Must Run Away.

In the V6 ending song “Nevermore,” Blake’s first singing part implies that her running away is a character flaw that she got over by killing Adam:

Will I be afraid (Adrienne) Nor will I run away (Casey) It's behind me (Adrienne + Casey) Freedom is finally here (Casey)

So it’s clear that the story the show wants you to take away from this is that Blake always runs away because she views herself as a burden to her friends and won’t let them help her, and she needs to open up more and be more confident in her value as a person and push people away. Her arc is about that in volume 5, where she defeats people via the Power of Friendship. She spells out her character arc to Sun in volume 5, chapter 5:

“I’m going to try and help [Ilia] the way you helped me. You showed me that sometimes you need to be there for a friend even when they don’t want you to be. I was drowning in guilt and fear, and I tried to push you away, but you didn’t give up on me. And I can’t give up on Ilia; it’s about time I saved my friends for once.”

Blake’s character arc post-season 3 revolves around being comfortable with relying on support and supporting others, and that helpfully stops her from running away and lets her face her big problems.

This would all be all well and good if it weren’t for the fact that running away actually isn’t the bad thing that the show tries to frame it to be, if you were to judge by what actually happened in the events of the show and the actions of other characters, and this is where my big beef with Blake’s arc comes from. I’m going to argue that running away wasn’t actually a character flaw Blake had at all, and the show treating it as such is it basically siding with Adam on this particular issue.

Blake has run away 3 times in the show’s runtime thus far.

1. The first time was in the Black Trailer

2. The second time is in volume 1 when she inadvertently reveals herself as an ex-White Fang member to Weiss

3. The last time is during the epilogue to volume three when she absconds to Menagerie

All three instances were actually valid and ended up being good for Blake. (1) is her escaping an abusive relationship. (2) leads to her finding Sun and opening up to a fellow faunus for once. (3) is Blake running away back to a support system she already had--her parents, who are pretty loving and accepting of her. The fact that she ran away might be the best thing Blake did--yeah, it wasn’t perfect, Yang was hurt--but objectively, Blake reconnected with the people who love her unconditionally and she was also there to save her parents from being murdered by Adam.

To pile on to these instances, Blake’s personality is actually rather confrontational. She constantly gets in arguments with Weiss in volume 1, and in volume 2, her character arc is basically her freaking out because they weren’t doing enough about Torchwick.

But but but--! I hear the objection to this statement--Blake in volume 2 herself said that she always runs away from her problems! Checkmate atheists!

Well, dear reader, it’s not. Self-perception isn’t necessarily always true, especially if you’ve been emotionally abused before, as Blake has been. In volume 2, Blake sees herself as a coward who runs away all the time even though this is directly contradicted by her personality and actions.

Now, who in her past might benefit from framing “running away” as a bad thing? That leaving him to “run away” to other people means she’s a coward?

If you bothered to remember the quote I told you to remember earlier, it’s Adam! Adam stands everything to gain by telling Blake that running away is Bad; stay with me, Blake, don’t run and abandon me like your parents did. This would be the most striking and lasting example of emotional abuse, directly related to Blake’s self-perception and tying into a lot of the things she does in the show.

Would be. But the show sort sides with Adam here--running away is Bad. Adam is, according to the explicit messages of RWBY, what the show wants you to believe, right in saying that Blake always runs away.

But she doesn’t. Hell, she doesn’t even run away from him when the going gets tough, and Adam himself doesn’t even believe that Blake is a coward. Remember the first time she him saw in in volume 3? They were really far apart and Blake could have just ran, but Adam stabbed a random civvie knowing that Blake would rush in to protect him. And like clockwork, Blake indeed did attack Adam to try to prevent harm.

(And yes, Adam used the exact same trick to lure Yang into attacking him, except instead of stabbing a nondescript extra, he stabbed Blake. Connections!)

This kind of stuff partially why I’ve always been uncomfortable with the abuse backstory, because much like the racism stuff that I have a problem with, the show just... ignores the big elephant in the room. Blake already had this self-image discrepancy going on in the first 3 volumes, but it never properly gets addressed again. Like with the violent-but-not-extremist White Fang and Sienna, it gets a throwaway line to explain its absence: “Yeah, look, Adam called Yang a coward! We’ll just vaguely nod at this!” But Blake’s arc proper? There’s nothing about coming to terms with her running away or using it as a concrete in-story example of her untangling Adam’s abuse--that might actually get people uncomfortable, you see--so it slowly gets morphed into the safer and easier plotline of “see, you just need to let yourself rely on people!”

And it’s weird that it got dropped so easily because “running away” is pretty much a... not a theme, but a thing three of the four main girls have going on. Yang has abandonment issues because her mother up and ran away--in fact, the language of how Running Away is Bad and Cowardly is brought up in the talk-ju-jitsu scene with Raven.

This is probably the easiest connection in the world to make--Raven and Blake both ran away, but as far as Yang is concerned, it’s okay with Blake because... “she came back,” which... uh??? uhhhh???? It uncritically accepts that Running Away is a Bad Thing--it’s the coming back part (which wasn’t even an intentional thing on Blake’s end; she didn’t even know RWBY would be there) that “redeems” Blake’s sin--see Yang’s “you came back!” and Weiss’s “she will [come back.]”

Which... is actually kind of weird in light of how Running Away vis-a-vis Blake is handled (ie, she gets the notion that it’s a bad thing from Adam--but certainly she shouldn’t go back to him). The show didn’t need to do everything in its power to frame Running Away as a bad thing; it could acknowledge that while it may hurt somebody, running away is sometimes the best thing you can do, and this could actually tie into Yang’s abandonment issues, because if there was a character that also needed untangling with the concept of Running Away, it was her.

But it seems like Blake and Yang won’t really talk about any of this in the future, because we can’t have conflict because of people’s differing experiences with running away, apparently. Blake’s act at the end of volume 3 did hurt Yang and potentially... swept under the rug, because Blake Came Back, Guys! We can put a ring on it now. Because getting over abuse is always straightforward, you will never make mistakes trying to heal yourself, and there are never hard decisions to make!

I never see people talk about this, so maybe it’s worth a mention. But Weiss is also technically guilty of Running Away--from an abusive household, in this case, much like her sister. And here, much like with Blake, it’s a good thing. But with Weiss, the narrative actually admits that leaving was the right thing to do for herself and her character arc is actually about that. So it’s exceedingly strange for me that Blake doing the exact thing Weiss does is a “flaw” she had to get over, instead of something that could be looked at and digested.

Blake’s experience with abuse is an element that never seemed to really resonate with me personally, because what I saw on screen and what was implied didn’t add up perfectly. I like the message of “support systems matter” of Blakes volume 4-5 arc in concept, but it never felt exactly right, because what Blake actually resolved and what was visibly her problem never felt 1:1 to me.

#rwde #me.txt #rwby #begone thought #dumbassessays

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falneou17 · 4 years

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BanG Dream! Favorite List

So... people have been requesting I made this for quite some time now, and I decided that I might as well. It might be a nice thing to look back on the past three years and see how I have formed and changed my opinion on the various characters.

The main reason why I held back with it for so long, aside from wanting to avoid giving off the wrong idea with who my least fave is, is because I was playing on the JP server while conversing with people who were only playing on EN. I stopped playing JP about a year ago now (the last event I remember playing on the JP server was Babyglow, actually), so the EN server has more or less caught up to what I remembered from the JP side of the franchise; which means that there is still a decent chance that my preferences might change from this point onwards. Not to mention that the third season will air next month, too.

I want to do these regularly-ish, but with how “fixed” the rankings have been ever since RAS’ introduction I wonder how often that can be done.

Icons are taken from the bandorisorter tumblr.

Favorites

1. Yamabuki Saaya Same old song and dance, she has been my favorite BanG Dream! girl since day one. She radiates an aura similar to Saten Ruiko from the Raildex franchise (who also happens to be my all-time favorite character), and this, coupled with her supportive, sacrificial, helpful nature really helped Saaya in solidifying a spot in the #1 spot. The only way I can feasibly see her drop from this spot is if she doesn’t receive any character growth and development because she has been, admittedly, rather static in this department.

2. Aoba Moca A name people still think is my fave of the franchise, she might really become it soon depending on how much Saaya grows in the future. A “simple” character at face value, I really started finding out just how deep her character is when I started getting more into her design and learned more about her. She is overall a really fun character to work with and nothing says that more than the fact that she has been the centerpiece of all my multi-chapter fanfics for this fandom at the time of writing this.

3. Mitake Ran Ran goes almost hand-in-hand with Moca, but where Moca had the element of surprise and curiosity to keep her high on the list, Ran felt like this mixture of two characters of a different franchise I really enjoyed, combining both their strong points into who we now know is Mitake Ran. And I am sure you all already know how much I like Ran considering the BlueFlora works I have done since April of 2017.

4. Hazawa Tsugumi Tsugumi is probably the easiest character, at least among the Afterglow girls, for people outside the BanG Dream! fandom to relate to, and for good reason. She’s a hard worker, remains positive, and you know things will go south when Tsugumi isn’t being optimistic and charging forward like no tomorrow.

5. Imai Lisa Lisa shares a lot of similarities with Saaya, or at least how I described Saaya. Nevertheless, there are still a handful of factors that would explain the gap between them. The first is that I saw Saaya on the screen first, so Lisa was doomed to become “similar to Saaya” as a result (the way the first season animated both girls didn’t really help). The second is the way Lisa is shipped by the general fandom that makes me feel a lot more restricted in using her freely. The final point is not Lisa’s fault, but while Nakashima Yuki has done an amazing job at taking over the role... she is not Endō Yurika.

Loves

6. Uehara Himari I make fun of Himari a lot, but she is still an amazing character and a great gear in the Afterglow machine. And while I personally feel like the English translation of Himari’s catchphrase is not doing it justice, I am very much aware of how important Himari is to the chemistry of Afterglow. She is the leader of Afterglow, after all.

7. Shirokane Rinko What started out as just a playful headcanon has really gotten traction and popularity amongst my readers and helped Rinko rise up to this spot, managing to even beat out the fifth member of Afterglow in the process. Although very different from the characters I usually wrote for, Rinko manages to be this breath of fresh air to allow for a different pace than what I usually work with. The only reason that is holding Rinko back is not even her own fault: Akesaka Satomi made Rinko into the character that I’ve come to know and love; she was Rinko, so losing her was and always will be a big blow to me. Shizaki Kanon is doing her best, and I respect her as a seiyuu in her own right, but... she’s never going to replace Akesaka Satomi as Rinko in my eyes.

8. Udagawa Tomoe Tomoe is a weird one. On the one hand, she’s very fun, energetic, and is tunnel-visioned enough to be fairly predictable in a fun way. On the other hand, she is the most static character in her band and one of the most static of the entire franchise, so... she’s still really high up thanks to the Afterglow bias in me, but who knows for how long that can last?

9. Maruyama Aya I really am unable to talk about Aya without bringing up her seiyuu, Maeshima Ami, because the phrase “the seiyuu is the character” rings very true when it comes to this one. And she is a very fun character, too! I am not really good with stumbly fumbly characters, but watching Aya on the screen has never been a bad thing. It also helps that her singing voice matches Misawa Sachika’s so much, reminding me of Misawa Sachika’s Polaris mini-album and even convincing me for a short period that Misawa Sachika was Aya’s seiyuu.

10. Okusawa Misaki/Michelle I am not really breaking the mold here, having Misaki be my favorite Hello, Happy World! character, so I don’t think I need to add much to it. In a nutshell, Misaki is to Moca as Lisa is to Saaya. But instead of being put in a band I like overall, Misaki was put in what is arguably my least fave band of the franchise (mostly because the style of music does not fit me, personally, and I like the other five bands more)... which really limits how much Misaki can rise in my list.

11. Wakamiya Eve I only have one thing to say about her: BUSHIDO. In all seriousness, Eve is adorable and her fascination with Japan can really act as a parallel to how some fans adore the culture. In short, much like the vocalist of her band, there is never a dull moment when Eve is around.

12. Asahi Rokka Rokka is a really fun addition to the cast through the second season that aired earlier this year. And what is really interesting about her is that, while the other four RAS girls have been a hit or a miss in the fandom, Rokka seems to be almost universally liked. She is just an adorable bundle of cute, what’s more to say about her?

Likes

13. Tamade “CHU2″ Chiyu So remember how I said in Rokka’s entry that RAS’ characters tend to be a hit or a miss? Well, CHU2 is, in my experience, the most polarizing of the RAS girls; people either love her or hate her. I personally really like her, because while she may appear as a brat at first there is obviously a lot more going on beneath the surface. And I enjoy watching those characters develop, so here’s to hoping that season 3 is nice to CHU2.

14. Nyubara “PAREO” Reona Now unlike CHU2, I can’t really pinpoint what it is exactly about PAREO that makes me like her. But I do, she is enjoyable, her dedication to RAS and CHU2, while bordering something else entirely, is still... quite admirable to see, in its unique way.

15. Ichigaya Arisa Arisa is a weird one. I enjoy watching the subtle actions she does in the background to show that she cares for and supports her friends, but at the same time... she’s competing with Himari for the title of “who can be the butt of all jokes”... which is a bit of a shame, but oh well. Another thing that is kind of holding her back is the fact that one of her defining qualities, being a tsun, is... not the most unique personality trait in the anime world, to put it lightly.

16. Tsurumaki Kokoro Kokoro is... an interesting case. I think I mentioned earlier that I am not really good with eccentric characters, and Kokoro is exactly that with a capital E, but on the other hand... the few times when we do get to see through that bubble of energy we get treated to a surprisingly deep character. It also helps to share birthdays with me, I suppose.

17. Hikawa Sayo Another really weird one to place, and one that will probably define the rest of the list. Sayo, by far, has received the absolute most character growth of any of the other girls. That is normally a good thing, but in Sayo’s case it kind of acts like a double-edged sword; while she grew to be a better person and a better sister, above all else, she... lost things that really defined who she was in my eyes. And because of that, I don’t quite know where to place her... I do enjoy her and still like her, but... I dunno...

18. Hanazono Tae Tae has always been a fan favorite ever since she first appeared in the anime, but... she faces a problem I have mentioned before: she’s pretty static. She’s still fun and the fact that I am kind of looking forward to the way her seiyuu continues to grow will probably keep Tae up, but not too high.

19. Udagawa Ako All right, so Ako being here should already tell its own story, but... generally speaking, when a character is “created” with its whole purpose being to surpass another specific character, they will never come close to that character on my list simply because I end up thinking of Ako relative to Tomoe (in Ako’s case). Ako is fun to see and her chuunibyou side makes for some cute interactions, but aside from that... with the fall of Rosela came the fall of its members...

20. Satou “MASKING” Masuki At this point in time, we don’t really know that much about her. She had like... what? Five lines in the entirety of season two? From what I have seen of her so far, however... she catches my interest, but depending on how well her character and backstory are handled she can rise or fall accordingly.

21. Minato Yukina So remember the whole “fall of Roselia” I mentioned? It is not really their fault, losing Endou Yurika and Akesaka Satomi was a big blow, but the effects it had on both the characters and their respective seiyuus are still... there. Yukina in particular also suffers from the whole notion that she is introduced as this super professional singer with more talent than she knows what to do with, but... in part due to the seiyuu shift of Lisa and Rinko, Roselia’s songs have taken a hit in how much I enjoy them (to emphasize this point: I haven’t really enjoyed a new Roselia original song ever since Akesaka Satomi left Roselia). The only two things keeping Yukina in this “tier” is that she is still somewhat interesting to work with and her rivalry with Ran can provide... quite the amusement.

Above Neutral

22. Shirasagi Chisato Once we’re in this tier, it... really is a bit of a blur as to who is placed where relative to each other. I can say that Chisato is probably at the upper end of it by the process of tiebreakers: BanG Dream! Livestream and events involving their seiyuus. Uesaka Sumire is always fun to watch on the screen and has made me warm up to Chisato in the process.

23. Matsubara Kanon Pretty much exact same reasoning as above, with Kanon being slightly lower simply because I tend to like serious characters more than those that fumble around. I will say, though, that the few times when we get to see a confident and determined Kanon on the screen, it was a lot of fun to see.

24. Hikawa Hina So remember my point with Ako about characters who are focused on their relationship and interactions with one specific character? Hina serves as this unreachable goal for Sayo to reach, and with a lot of the scenes that are being shown use Sayo’s perspective to do so... Hina’s innate genius is also somewhat of a double-edged sword for her ranking here, because while scenes involving Hina are anything but dull, I... prefer characters who work hard to get where they are above someone who is “born” with the ability to stand out.

25. Wakana “LAYER” Rei I feel kind of bad putting LAYER all the way down here, but as a character, she is rather... static and uninspiring, at least at this point in time. As a vocalist, however, LAYER is probably my second favorite in terms of the singing voice, so I am hoping that the third season can catapult LAYER up a couple places.

Neutral

26. Toyama Kasumi The “face” of BanG Dream!, so to say. I will say that, for a typical happy-go-lucky energetic female lead, Kasumi has a lot more depth to her than others. Unfortunately, being the character we see the world through, I’ve never managed to really relate to her. So while she is almost in the next tier, she barely misses it.

27. Yamato Maya Maya is, actually, a really interesting character with a lot of room to grow and become her own person. Unfortunately for Maya, she did not catch my eye early enough so by the time I got used to characters like Moca and Ran running around, Maya... kind of faded into the background.

28. Ushigome Rimi I don’t know how to say this without being too mean to Rimi, but... Rimi has been really static. Rimi interactions and scenes, more often than not, either consist of her love for Choco Cornets and/or her relationship with her older sister. A lot of potential, a lot of possibilities, but none that have really been taken advantage of...

29. Kitazawa Hagumi Hagumi suffers a really horrible fate, and I think that she would have been a lot higher on the list if she wasn’t in Hello, Happy World. Hagumi’s character and personality traits overlap with Kokoro’s a lot, and with Kokoro being the vocalist of the band Hagumi has really been living in her shadow... which isn’t doing her a lot of favors.

So, that’s my list. Oh, I missed somebody? Right right, let’s fix that~

Unsalvageable/Very Bottom

30. Seta Kaoru Where do I begin to properly explain how I feel about this character? For starters, Bang Dream is a gacha game where we grind up resources, save for weeks, sometimes even months, for that one card we want (unless we’re spending money on the game i.e. whaling). So what do you think will happen to the character who keeps dropping in a banner she is not even a rate-up in while you really wanted a limited card you have saved eight months for? Or if she keeps arriving as the guaranteed 3* in like 80% of all your pulls for over a year? For reference, I managed to get the skill level of her Phantom Thief 3* to level 5 by using duplicate copies of her Initial 3*. And vice versa.

The gacha side of my reasonings aside, the actual reason why she is and always will be at the bottom is for a reason that cannot be removed without changing who she is. Her over-the-top, flirtatious attitude really, there is no going around this, annoys me, and even if it is just a front... I’ve already associated at least three people I know irl to her, and since I despise those three for how they behave irl... I can never see myself saying that Kaoru is not my least favorite of the franchise.

The only way for Kaoru to no longer be at the bottom is for BanG Dream! to introduce a character I despise more. Which, to be fair, is a possibility with Argonavis, but not only am I just not interested enough to properly invest time in checking them out, they are also in an alternate universe or something if I remember correctly... so comparing the girls to the boys in Argonavis is like comparing... Railgun characters to Index characters, in a way, which isn’t really “fair”. I probably will if I decide to check out Argonavis, but don’t be surprised to see this one at the bottom still.

#BanG Dream! Fave List #Falneou17

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yeonchi · 4 years

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Doctor Who Series 12 Review Part 3/10: Orphan 55

Air date: 12 January 2020

So, it’s been a couple of weeks since the last review. While I usually like to start writing the episode reviews right after I’ve watched them, circumstances have required me to mull on my thoughts for a little while. If current affairs and other fans’ reactions to this episode are any indication, this one’s going to be a doozy, so I’ll get right into it.

This episode’s spoiler-free thought: “I finally found one of the things I was looking for.”

Major spoilers continue after the break. I’ll be talking about the main topic of this week’s review after my thoughts and verdict for the episode.

The third episode paradigm

It’s looking like the third episodes of each series are dedicated to tackling issues in society and as such, they tend to have quite a few SJW red flags. Series 11′s Rosa tackled racism while this episode eventually turns out to be tackling climate change and global warming.

At the same time, it seems like the writing is too focused on the issues that it sometimes neglects to explain particular plot points. In Rosa, we hear that Krasko killed around 2000 people, but we never hear who the victims were or what Krasko’s motivations were (I would presume that it’s racism). As for this episode’s neglected plot point, that’s coming up next.

Ryan and the SJW tipping point

It’s already the third episode and Ryan is still getting some character development. I thought Yaz was supposed to be the focus of this series. Despite this, however, the unfortunate thing has happened - the SJW agenda has finally made a negative impact on the story for me.

After the Doctor helped Ryan get rid of the Hopper virus, he meets Bella, who had also been infected with said virus. It is revealed that Bella is seeking to destroy Tranquillity Spa, owned by her mother Kane (who she initially claimed to Ryan as being dead), because she left Bella and her father when she was little. Ryan connected with Bella on the topic of missing parents, but somehow the story fails to have Ryan relate to Bella with how his father abandoned him, but was able to reconcile with him in the end. However, I’ll give Ryan credit for making an attempt to act like the Doctor while dealing with Bella.

I don’t really mind the Ryan/Bella shipping in this episode, but the real downer of the episode’s conclusion is that the Doctor seemingly leaves Bella and Kane to deal with the Dregs because they had too many people on the teleport with a minute until a massive bomb goes off. Instead, we get a little lecture on how Orphan 55 doesn’t have to actually happen and how we (as humans) should “be the best of humanity”. I thought Ryan was gonna go all Donna Noble there (I think Tosin Cole could pull it off) and beg the Doctor to save Bella and Kane - for all we know, it’s not a fixed point in time or anything. The Doctor could just return them to where they came from relative to their time.

You know, for a series whose episodes are supposed to be 50 minutes long, this episode fell short by three minutes and a bit - this was also the case in The Witchfinders. If we used this scene from The Fires of Pompeii for comparison, then even with the rest of the episode as it is, you could still fit in a scene where the Doctor saves Bella and Kane and have them listen to the Doctor’s speech in the TARDIS. This is how you don’t let the SJW agenda get (too much) in the way of a good story.

Other general thoughts

Doctor Who has covered parallel universes on occasion along with alternate timelines, though they usually get cancelled out in the case of the latter. However, this is seemingly the first time that we see a possible future story. Assuming that alternate timelines are parallel universes themselves, I could write it off as the Time Lords facilitating simple travel between universes, except we just saw in the last episode that the Master killed all the Time Lords.

God, Vilma’s acting is so over the top, especially after Benni goes missing and all the chaos starts. I guess that’s what happens when you hire boomers and make their characters stereotypical. There are two things that Vilma’s acting reminds me of, namely Shakespeare’s plays and Greta Thunberg. You could leave Vilma and Benni out of this episode and nothing of value would be lost.

Speaking of those two, why does Vilma act so surprised when Kane tells her that she killed Benni? It was literally his final request. Then again, it’s like telling someone that they want to be euthanised minutes before they die without warning. Boomers should just all die lol.

They made catgirls/foxgirls an actual thing with Hyph3n. Oh wait, this isn’t anime, so they’re more animal than human.

Tokusatsu reference time. The Dregs seem to resemble the Sheerghosts of Kamen Rider Ryuki or the Orphnochs of Kamen Rider 555, but with a generic design that makes them look like footsoldiers. The latter would be more applicable because of their evolution.

Not many people seem to talk about annoying kids in tokusatsu, probably because most of them get forgotten over time. Sylas toes the line between being the common annoying (and dickish) kid in distress to being the rare kid that is actually useful. Him locking the linen cupboard with his father, Nevi, and everyone else inside confirms the former, while his superior knowledge of mechanics confirms the latter.

This episode has no cold opening. The writers must have forgotten again.

Summary and verdict (the tl;dr ending)

If this episode was about changing the Earth’s future outright so that humans don’t become the Dregs, then my thoughts would be very different. As it is now, I’m conflicted as to whether I should give a higher rating for the attempts to make this a good story, or a lower rating for this episode being too SJW that it forgets to be good.

A summary of the third episode comparison - Krasko got no (proper) backstory while Bella and Kane get no ideal resolution other than they’re going to die fighting off Dregs as a bomb is about to explode.

Ed Hime, who wrote this episode, also wrote It Takes You Away in Series 11. What happened here? That episode was way better than this one.

Rating: 5/10

Climate change - the big SJW red flag (and a side note on police brutality at protests)

It’s no secret that climate change is a problem and has been for decades. It seems that climate change is worsening the effects of disasters around the world. British charity Christian Aid published a report detailing 15 disasters in 2019 that caused at least a billion dollars of damage. Not detailed though is the Australian bushfires, which if I’m correct, are still burning right now. The first of those bushfires started in June which snowballed into the worldwide tragedy we have now. Dust storms, hail storms and even the Wuhan coronavirus (SARS 2.0) aren’t helping things at all, as heatwaves have been getting hotter and hotter every year.

The main reason why I’m calling climate change an SJW red flag is because in recent years, environmental activists such as Greta Thunberg and the Extinction Rebellion group started highlighting this issue more and more through protests, speeches and whatnot in the hope that governments can take immediate action (because evidently, international agreements such as the Paris Agreement and the actions that are being taken in accordance to them are too slow and not enough).

Greta and XR have received criticism for their words and actions. In the case of Greta Thunberg, she was criticised for being over-emotional, taking a gap year from school to focus on her activism (let’s face it, if the option were available, I think a lot of kids would take it even if it meant that they wouldn’t be with their cohort anymore), apparently being manipulated by her parents for political points or the fact that people are defending her because she has Asperger syndrome, OCD and selective mutism, on top of being ignorant about climate change (which is pretty much the general argument of her naysayers).

Extinction Rebellion protests have been criticised for their civil disruption; the ironic thing about it is that they have protested on public transport when it is actually something that helps their overarching cause. Who can remember when those protesters got dragged off the Tube train? And what about them gluing themselves onto roads? Compared to the former, it’s a step in the right direction for their message, but don’t say I didn’t warn you if someone gets called a terrorist just because they drove their vehicle into a pack of vegans.

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I want to take a moment to go on a tangent here. Over the last year, there have been a lot of political protests around the world, so XR and all the other climate protesters should think about their place because if their country has really bad political problems (no, Trump and Brexit don’t count), they would probably have bigger things to worry about.

I’ve never really heard anyone compare XR or the climate protests to the protests going on about Hong Kong, particularly in regards to police brutality. I don’t really mind anyone else taking leaves from their books, but the one thing I which I find absolutely offensive and insulting is that protesters outside of Hong Kong are complaining about police brutality, like come the fuck on. I’ve been following Hong Kong news since before Occupy Central in 2014 and I’ve been following it through last year as the worsening police brutality reached depths you vegans aren’t even worried about yet. However, to play devil’s advocate, the protesters are just as worthy of criticism compared to the police and frankly, in Australia, both the protesters and police are getting off easy compared to in Hong Kong.

You’re worried about getting pepper sprayed, beaten up or discriminated because you’re disabled, LGBT, black, Muslim, whatever? Try getting randomly searched or arrested while going about your day (especially if you’re a high school/uni student), finding out the police are colluding with gangs, getting beaten or molested after being subdued, being arrested just for helping someone as a medic or most importantly, being fired to oblivion with live bullets, water cannons that dye your skin blue, pepper spray, bean bag rounds, rubber bullets or more importantly, carcinogenic Chinese tear gas. Until the climate protests get to the point where you need a centralised website to detail your protests, press conferences and police brutality to the world, keep crying in your echo chambers about ACAB or whatever while being ignorant to the fact that like there are starving people in war-torn countries, there are people in Hong Kong who are living under a bigger climate of fear than you are. Fuck you vegans. You make me sick.

Before I return to the main topic, let me leave you with a choice quote from a Spectator Australia article from November 2019 aptly named “Hong Kong is fighting for its very soul, Extinction Rebellion are throwing tantrums”:

It is beyond a joke to suggest that the publicity stunts of Extinction Rebellion are comparable to the protests in Hong Kong. Doing so is an insult to people who are truly fighting for their future. At best it reflects a lack of self-awareness by the climate activists, at worst it is an attempt by Extinction Rebellion to piggyback on the global sympathy that genuine protestors have stirred in Hong Kong and divert it towards themselves.

My opinion on Greta Thunberg? The tone of her voice has already committed the logical fallacy of appealing to emotion. She looks like one of those kids who do or say extraordinary stuff so they can get their 15 minutes of fame in the form of adults fawning over them, but she continues to do it and somehow, people don’t get bored of it. I respect her for having the courage to give the speeches (there were a lot more than what I originally thought, tbh), but it shouldn’t have to take an anxious and emotional girl with Aspergers for governments to do something about climate change if they think it’s so important. As a friend of mine said, however, “It'll take the end of the world to get them to stop taking money from oil and coal.”

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Watch the above video from the 10 minute mark onwards, because I have similar feelings about this whole thing.

I remember watching the film 2012 in the first year after it was released and I started getting worried that the stuff that happened in the movie would actually happen on 21 December 2012. In May 2011, I remember going on a quick weekend holiday in the country and reading about Harold Camping’s prediction of the end times in the newspaper. It said that the rapture would take place a week after, on May 21, and that the end of the world would take place on 21 October. Talk about “fool me once, fool me twice”, huh?

I’m not a fan of the climate protests, XR or otherwise, but I’m not a climate change denier either. I care enough about the environment to do my bit when I get the opportunity and that is pretty much it. I have a lot of things on my mind already and having another thing to worry about is the last thing I need.

Damn, writing this review after my two week break really took more effort than I thought it would. Stay tuned for the middle of the week as I review the fourth episode, Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror.

#doctor who #doctor who series 12 #thirteenth doctor #doctor who series 12 review #thirteenth doctor review

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