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icharchivist · 1 year

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Hello! I am trying to find new stuff and i see you're a big fan of GBF. By any chance, is there any Plural rep in this game? (i.e. characters who are more than one character. D.I.D./multipersnality/possessed people/one dude split into multiple dudes, that sort of thing)

hey!

Yeah, there are!! quite a few actually on the possessed front and also in term of alter.

That being said i wouldn't really know if those representation are really positive or not? GBF is a fantasy RPG that includes a lot of violence, and while some of those violence are genre-typical, i feel there might be concerns about seeing those on characters with alters.

That being said, all the characters i'll mention in this post are for the most part, friends of MC/The crew, and out of the ones who are not, 2 of them have been stuck in villain jail but has been treated as mostly sympathetic, and two others have been on the path of redemption/considering eventually revalue MC and become their friend. GBF really redeem their villains so much that anyone can become a friend down the line, so take that as you will.

Out of the actual characters i can think of:

One of the most notable one to me would be Ayer

He's a normal kid who's always been driven by battle and fighting, and we learn eventually that he has an alter called Bowman that is basically encouraging him to fight for himself and all that jazz. Bowman is also a playable character.

Though i'm not very familiar with Ayer, so i don't know how well it's handled, i just know that Ayer and Bowman are both really popular so people seem to like how it's dealt with?

Else we have more the general fantasy possessed people with different voices/alter/influence on each other.

Another one that applies to multiple people inside one body, who's unambiguously a good character, is Tikoh:

Her/Their? story is really fucked up though, and it's probably one of the story that justify the most GBF's high age rating, so if you have some triggers you need to check out before going in, do ask me about it.

But for her, tldr, Tikoh is a healer with a weapon gifted by the stars itself, that only a few selected people can control, who gives her healing abilities outside of the norm. She had for best friend a kid named Shannon. But following a horrifying tragedy, Shannon was "killed" in front of Tikoh by a guy who wanted to test out Tikoh's abilities. Unable to heal Shannon, Tikoh did the next best thing and tied Shannon's soul to her own.

The two of them now lives in harmony in her body, described often as not knowing "when one ends and the other start". While Tikoh is in control most of the time, she often ends up using Shannon's unique language gimmick which could imply that it's Shannon talking, but since both girls are on the same wavelength, it's not something either of them really bring up. They care for each other a whole lot and are now on a path of revenge against the man who started it all. Tikoh does hope eventually down the line to restore Shannon into her own body, while they also mentioned how it would feel lonely if they ever split at this point.

Not playable but another one of the most notable one on that would be Geo:

Geo is a primal beast. if you're new to gbf don't let the "beast" part make you feel like it's bad or anything, they're basically godlike creatures who were created as weapons originally but were abandoned centuries ago and developed free will and a will to live for themselves. There's a lot of Primal Beasts characters in game and we love them all so much, and reclaiming their place as people is one of the huge theme of the story.

Geo is particular in the sense of, he saw the suffering Primals are going through as immortal beings forced to see people they love die, that he took it upon himself to give those primals a place to be at home and at peace, never alone... inside of him. It reflects also on him as Geo would have the various primals inside of him talk through him at random.

Originally an antagonist, and while currently still one, his "twin sister" for lack of a better word, Zooey, has been doing everything to have Geo consider joining us instead. (the thing about antagonists in gbf is that most of them gets redeemed in some way, especially when they have sympathetic motives. I believe Geo will eventually join us, down the line).

(when i say her twin, it applies to split people. There was a primal beast named Cosmos who couldn't move from the place she was tied to, so, she sent some parts of herself to see the world for her. Eventually, those parts all became individual people: Zooey, Geo and Yuni. Cosmos died, but the three other parts, who are driven by the same starting soul and Cosmos's desire to protect the people living in the Skies, still live on.)

(There are quite a few characters who are split or copies of one another. Most noticeably are the ones we call the Lucifaces, with Lucio being the original, who had a clone named Lucilius, who then made his own clone with Lucifer. I don't know if it applies to how you see it per se but i bring them up still. Lucilius is described by being plagued by visions of Lucio's life, which had made him unable to really determine his own reality. Lucifer also had Sandalphon who inherited his powers when shit hit the fan, and Sandalphon also inherited Lucifer's memories, often having him zone out and live out one of Lucifer's memory.

There's also Shalem and her clone, Beelzebub, but while we know that, neither of them really explored what it'd mean for them to be clones.

Another notable one on that is the Orchis/Orchid/Zwei situation. Orchis was the original, until an accident basically blasted her soul outside of her body. Her body was left an empty shell with magical powers due to the incident... But as she was exploited by people, this "empty shell" developed her own personality and her own sense to live. She decided to show herself as different to Orchis by becoming Orchid. When later on they manage to bring Orchis back into her body, Orchid's homemade soul was transferred into another body and now Orchis treats Orchid like her little sister.

Zwei meanwhile was a clone of Orchid, made to try to replace her. Zwei developed herself as her own person still, and while i haven't advanced into this storyline much i know Orchid and Orchis both are working together for Zwei to accept herself as herself rather than a copy of them. Idk if it counts with what you want but yeah)

In term of "characters who merged and sometimes take turn with one another", there's Azrael and Israfel. Again, though, two chara who gives you food for the gbf's age rating:

Az&Iz are twin primals, who were always together, until they huhhh got locked into a horrifying torture prison by an antagonists and experimented on until the two of them fused completely. They now have only one body, that is horrifically disformed, and as such they use cute mascot outfit to walk into the world.

Azrael is the one who's the most in control, as Israfel is often tired and asleep, so Az goes through life like this and Iz often ends up advising her later on.

Az recently joined a theater troupe and made friends there and Iz is cheering for her!

Other than that: there are a couple characters who are possessed by primal beasts. Noteworthy are Vira and Yurius for example. It means they always have the primal talk to them inside their head. They both started out as antagonists because this influence was driving them over the edge though, but as it is, nowadays, they both made peace with the primal inside of them and consider them a friend.

Vira especially often gets her primal talk to her to give her love advice lmao

I haven't read any of her story so i don't know where she falls on that, but there's also the case of Jeanne D'arc. While on one hand she has a lot of units showing her as chosen by God to fight the darkness crawling into the world, there's units of her where she has been consumed by the darkness and had her personality changed due to that.

Those are the most noteworthy people with very clear alter/people influencing them/possessing them i can think of.

There characters who could be taken into this category if you stretch a bit, because of things like. amnesia and such.

One that comes to mind is Aoidos, a musician who has amnesia, and we learnt later that he used to go by Benjamin and was part of a Snuff band (... again, high rating game for a reason). Benjamin also has his own unit ever since, and Aoidos learnt to embrace this part of himself.

Other than that we have characters like Lunalu who is a writer and who often makes up story about self insert characters in stories. One of her unit is said self insert character, when, during an event, she was talking about a story she loved and couldn't help slipping into characters for this OC she loved so much.

There's probably a lot of people i'm missing, especially in NPC and also unfortunately into one-event villains.

I would love to say those stories are well handled but between my own lack of experience on that regard and the heavy themes of gbf to start with, i cannot garentee those are stories you would look for.

out of all of them, the one i think is the best handled and is unambiguously positive is definitely Tikoh, but like i said, Tikoh is part of one of the most mature and gore-y storyline the game has yet, so it might be a lot to have to stomach for an otherwise really good "two people in one body" storyline.

If you need clarification about anything, don't hesitate to ask. I just hope it works out for you!

Take care!

#ichareply #ichafantalks gbf #anonymous

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makeste · 3 years

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BnHA Chapter 305: Worst Intervention Ever

Previously on BnHA: Shinomori, whose name took me an entire week to memorize, was all, “nice to meet you Deku, I’m ten feet tall, do you want to know how I died?” and without waiting for an answer explained that he kicked it from old age at forty thanks to good ol’ OFA. Deku was all “wait a minute, then how come All Might, who’s fifty-five and is definitely dyeing his gray hair, is still alive?” First and Shino were all, “we really have no fucking clue but we think it’s cuz he’s quirkless, JUST LIKE YOU!” So basically, since quirkless people don’t exactly grow on trees these days, Deku is probably going to be the last user of OFA. The chapter ended with Nana being all, “psst, Deku, about my grandson. Uh, can you kill him?” which is sure to lead to a very interesting conversation this week.

Today on BnHA: Nana And The Gang are all “so, Deku, how can we put this delicately. The thing is, we’re pretty sure that AFO really fucked my grandson up, so on the off chance you can’t save him, how would you feel about, you know... [throat slitting gesture].” Deku is all “idk you guys, I kinda feel like he’s really just a traumatized child at heart and he’s in a lot of pain and stuff and so I should try to help him.” The Vestiges are all “BUT WHAT IF YOU CAN’T” and Deku is all “BUT I WANT TO TRY, DAMMIT” and the Vestiges are all “well when you put it that way, we, uh, were just testing you, so congrats, you passed!” The chapter ends with First being all, “ANYWAY SO WHY DON’T YOU TWO SHY BOYS STANDING OVER THERE IN THE SHADOWS COME SAY HELLO” before we CUT AWAY FOR ANOTHER WEEK, goddammit.

seriously, Nana

just... have you met Deku?? look, if you really want Tomura dead, just sic him on the U.A. first years and tell Shouto and Honenuki that it’s a training exercise

oh my god lmao

we’re too far away to see Nana’s face here so I will just assume that she turned and is staring DIRECTLY INTO THE CAMERA for this one line lmao. “I just wanted to clarify in case anyone felt inclined to take my dialogue out of context and spend an entire week complaining about it”

oh my god?! are you all purposely trying to make me sad??

someone stop me before I launch into an impromptu rant about all my Tomura feels. WHY IS NOBODY STOPPING ME. oh my god but yes, exactly. he’s just in pain all the time. this is exactly why I think Tomura has such high redemption potential even though so far he seems to lack so many of the redemption arc essentials such as feeling remorse, wanting to change, and taking responsibility for his actions. the reason why I’m willing to overlook all that in his case is because Tomura has essentially had zero agency his entire life. AFO molded him into a killer by making sure he was in constant mental agony, and making it so that the only thing that even slightly relieved that agony was killing peeps. like, please don’t think I’m making excuses for him or anything, but if you take a child and manipulate their existence to make it virtually impossible for that child to grow up as anything other than a killer, and basically never give him the chance to be anything else, then no shit he’s gonna be a killer?? he’s basically never had the choice not to be. it’s never been an option for him. anyways I feel like I am EXPLAINING MYSELF SO BADLY but nonetheless I am prepared to die on this hill

anyway so now Nana is all “that’s a rhetorical question btw because Our Hearts And Minds Are One so we can feel everything you feel bro.” so yeah, that’s interesting

now Banjou is getting started on the “let’s try and talk Deku out of wanting to save Tomura because it’s insane” part of their OFA Mystical Space Void Reunion agenda

look, Banjou, I feel you, I really do. you guys don’t think it’s realistic that Deku can defeat Tomura without killing him. so if it’s a choice between killing Tomura vs letting Deku and everyone else in the entire world die, then duh, you think Deku should kill him. I get it! and if this were a real life mass murderer I’d totally agree with you. but the problem is that this isn’t real life, this is a sympathetic shounen villain with a tragic past who might as well have FUTURE REDEMPTION ARC RECEIPIENT stamped on his forehead at this point

so First is all “look, there’s absolutely no doubt my brother has fucked this kid up good and proper by now”, which, again, fair

though, that’s kind of exactly my point though. everything that Tomura is, everything he’s done, he’s done because of AFO. AFO has so effectively shaped his personality and his worldview by this point that it’s all but impossible to penetrate that. he’s AFO’s puppet. but the problem is that rather than treating him like a victim, you all are treating him like a casualty. like he’s already a lost cause. but good luck trying to convince Deku of that

WHOA WHAT, RANDOM SUPER-IMPORTANT AND BIZARRELY UNRELATED EXPOSITION DROPPED IN JUST LIKE THAT??

way to still not reveal Sixth’s name, btw. THE PEOPLE WANT TO KNOW, DAMMIT. but also so this confirms something we basically already knew already, which is that not even AFO can steal OFA. it literally can’t be taken away by anyone unless the owner wills it. SO SUCK ON THAT AFO YOU EGG

(ETA: so I have no idea why this was omitted from this translation, but apparently the Sixth’s name was revealed as “En”, which is obviously not his full name but at least it’s something. also he most likely has a fire or smoke-related quirk based on the kanji used, 煙.)

so Banjou is saying that Deku’s “lack of an iron will” could be a disadvantage against AFO. hahaha what?? Midoriya “I’ll break all of my bones without blinking an eye just to protect someone” Izuku lacks an iron will? do tell

he says this is going to be a test of Deku’s determination. well yeah, no shit. but just not in the way you guys think

OH HELLO AGAIN

darker hair again here! but I don’t trust the contrast in these scans at all after last week. his coveralls are way darker than they looked before too, and you can clearly see he’s standing in the shadows now

(ETA: yep, once again the raw shows that his hair is considerably lighter than what’s shown in these scans here. although there’s no mistaking now that his hair is consistently being colored in this slightly darker shade, and it’s not just the lighting.)

anyways lol First was saying something about how AFO can’t steal OFA, and they’ve spent all this time cultivating it as the ultimate weapon against AFO, and blah blah blah. go on then, keep lecturing

NANA GODDAMMIT NONE OF THIS IS YOUR FAULT

girl what?? you did everything in your power to protect your family, and AFO, fucked up man that he is, targeted them anyway. there is one person and one person only to blame for what’s happened to Tomura, and that potato-faced asshole needs a good kick in the balls

NANA GODDAMMIT DON’T MAKE ME COME OVER THERE

SO HELP ME GOD!! I WILL GIVE YOU THE BIGGEST HUG YOU’VE EVER HAD!! THAT IS A THREAT

so now Nana is all “I’m just going to call my grandson a Thing to ensure that fandom has only the freshest, grass-fed no-hormones-added discourse this week”

I don’t even need to drop into the tags to know exactly which specific people are going to respond to this, and what kind of posts they are going to write lmao. everyone’s all caught up in the “that thing”, and meanwhile I’m over here completely hung up on this “nay” that’s appeared out of NOWHERE you guys. look at that. she really said “NAY”

Nana, my love, my dearest, I feel you girl I really do. but he’s not an unforgivable manifestation of pure evil, Deku is exactly right actually, he’s a boy in pain. you guys need to stop questioning Deku’s shounen protagonist instincts here and just let him work his sparkly magic. “let’s try and convince Midoriya Fucking Izuku that he can’t save someone” is a plan that is NEVER going to turn out well you guys

“DEKU GODDAMMIT WHAT IF WE CAN’T SAVE HIM” lmao it’s like an intervention

“DAMMIT DEKU JUST ADMIT YOU HAVE A SAVING PEOPLE PROBLEM!”

RED ALERT IT’S ANOTHER CLOSE-UP OF THE BACK OF MISTER TWO BON CLAY’S HEAD OMG

(ETA: I was too distracted with freaking out about Two and Three to really appreciate how ridiculously handsome First looks in this panel. but on my second readthrough it stood out so much that I had to go back and add an extra bullet point just to talk about how hot he is. look at him. wtf.)

THAT IS DEFINITELY AN UNDERCUT. THE PLOT THICKENSSSS. also those are fucking exhaust vents on Mister Three’s neck. MISTER THREE COULD YOU POSSIBLY BE RELATED TO THE IIDAS, PLEASE TELL ME YOUR SECRETS I’M DYING OVER HERE

so now Deku is launching into what will undoubtedly be a “saving people problems require SAVING PEOPLE SOLUTIONS” heroic counter-speech!

I mean, they can already feel the “lol nah I’m gonna try and save him” feelings running through him lol. ~OuR hEaRtS aNd MiNdS aRe CoNnEcTeD~ and all that. this is just a formality, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love a good shounen protag speech

oh wait hold up, do you mean to tell me that the whole “hearts and minds are connected” thing I was just mocking just a paragraph ago actually allowed Deku to feel what Tomura was feeling?? like literally feel it??

YET AGAIN these Tomura feels are pounding on my front door you guys?? they just will not quit?? people my house is already full of feels, does it look like I need you to sell me any more of them?? -- what do you mean, they’re free??

AW YISS THAT’S IT DEKU. THAT’S SOME GOOD SPEECH RIGHT THERE

I appreciate the contrast here between the Douchebag Triumvirate of Overhaul, Muscular, and Stain versus the Misguided Twosome of Gentle and La Brava. never let it be said that Deku doesn’t know the difference between a redeemable villain and an unredeemable one

OH NO -- OH MY GOD

someone please help me I need directions to the OFA Spooky Galactic Nebula Realm in this fictional Japanese manga land. it’s not on google maps. I need to give these two babies a big hug and wrap them up in a blanket and treat them to some McDonalds Happy Meals please help

other things: (1) ENDEAVOR CHILLING OUT IN DEKU’S “PEOPLE I HOLD DEAR” PANEL LMAO NEON DISCOURSE EXTRAVAGANZA, (2) “ONE FOR ALL IS A POWER TO SAVE, NOT TO KILL” I’M ABOUT TO CRY DEKU I LOVE YOU SO MUCH HOW IS IT EVEN POSSIBLE TO FEEL ALL THIS LOVE, (3) [SLAMS HANDS ON TABLE] THERE’S YOUR MOTHERFUCKING IRON WILL!!!!!!!! -- I’m sorry, please don’t call security, I’ll be good

I just randomly remembered that Deku is still saying all of this in his muffled “FMMPHHMMPHMM” voice and I’m somehow cracking up lol. so actually it’s a very good thing Their Hearts And Minds Are Connected, otherwise they’d no doubt be all, “...what?”

(ETA: so I completely missed this on account of it literally not being visible in the scan at all, but in the raw you can clearly see Baby Kacchan and Baby Shouto fanboying over All Might in two of these panels, and excuse me, ma’am??

thank you very much Deku for including them in your montage, particularly since you’ve never seen Baby Shouto before lol. amazingly accurate image you managed to conjure up, all things considered.)

SDKFJLSKHG -- AS IF ON CUE???

HE’S SO ADORABLE HELP?? Trippy Space All Might looks like he’s about to cry, and First is all “don’t crack a smile... you have to be Firm and Serious here... dammit, don’t smile” omg

anyways! YOU GO DEKU. “MY QUIRK MY RULES, BITCHES” damn, son

KLJLKKHLG TRIPPY SPACE ALL MIGHT LITERALLY ACTUALLY IS CRYING ALL MIGHT HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME

“I JUST... [CLENCHES FIST] REALLY LOVE SAVING PEOPLE” FUCKING HELL LMAO THIS IS THE WORST INTERVENTION OF ALL TIME

Deku is literally all “sure, maybe I’ll have to kill him, but have you guys also considered, MAYBE NOT??” it’s no use Nana he’s too powerful

LMAO FIRST

“like I’ve been saying this whole time, you should definitely try saving Shigaraki Tomura.” “but, uh... First, didn’t you just -- ” “shut up”

(ETA: clearly it’s not just his brother who inherited those smooth-talking genes.)

so now Deku has turned back into a sixteen year old and his clothes have gone missing again. just OFA things

dskljdlsklgk

yes... sure... “testing” you...

HEY

FIRST OF ALL, DAMN YOU HORIKOSHI YOU MADE NANA CRY. even if I’m pretty sure they’re actually tears of happiness/relief. and SECOND OF ALL, “TELL MY BOYFRIEND I SAID HI” DJSKDLKJJL ANYWAY MAYBE GRAN, NANA, AND MR. SHIMURA WERE IN A THROUPLE

[SCREAMS]

WHY WOULD YOU END IT THERE?? WHY WOULD YOU END IT THERE!!!!!

(ETA: and two-to-one odds that we cut away to some other scene once they finally start to turn around next week. I’M CALLING IT NOW. giving myself a week to brace myself for the rage.)

fucking hell. well if anyone needs me I will be adding Horikoshi fucking Kouhei to the list of irredeemable villains, peace

#bnha 305 #midoriya izuku #shigaraki tomura #shimura tenko #shimura nana #ofa the first #banjou daigorou #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha #'deku. sweetheart. your other vestiges and I just want what's best for you'#'have you tried... *not* saving people?'#only to backpedal SPECTACULARLY when he was all 'WHAT DO YOU MEAN NOT SAVING THEM'#yeah okay guys #you're not fooling anyone #but it's okay I still love you

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hello-nichya-here · 3 years

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Ok, so what in your opinion is the WORST mistake that the showrunners for Game of Thrones made in terms of content, either it's addition or redaction?

WARNING: Looooooong post ahead

Themes are for eighth-grade book reports

This absurd quote by one of the showrunners explains why exactly the show fell appart. They wanted to make a story... without themes. Anyone with a minimally functioning brain will tell that this is impossible because every story, even the simplest and least complicated story there ever, has a theme. Even a nihilistic story has a theme "Nothing matters". Every. Story. Has. A. Theme.

But Game Of Thrones didn't, at least not after the writers ran out of books to adapt and did their own thing. Everything every character did was no longer to build a narrative, but to essentially act as click-bait. The focus was to make people keep watching, not on making any content that was worth watching.

The first four seasons had it's problems, just like the books had it's problems, but Martin's writting was so brilliant that it managed to stay good even while being handled by absolute clowns. The moment season four ended was the moment the show stopped being an adaptation and became it's own thing - and like I explained before, said thing wasn't a story.

Shock

Both the show and the books had MANY shocking, heart-breaking and downright horrifying scenes: Daenerys being raped by Drogo; Bran being pushed out the window after accidentally seeing the queen fucking her brother; the whole deal with Craster and his daughters; the Dotrakhi destroying Mirri's village and her revenge against them and Daenerys; Ned's death; Melisandre giving birth to a shadow baby that killed Renly; The Red Wedding; Jeoffrey's death; Tyrion killing his father; Theon being tortured by Ramsay...

The difference is there were REASONS behind the shocking scenes Martin created. Even when you look at things like rape and torture scenes and threats of rape/torture - Martin used those scenes to remind us that the world he created is an EXTREMELY dangerous and downright vile place, and that the characters are never truly safe, and that there are WAY worse things than just being killed.

Dumb & Dumber on the other hand, gaves us scenes like an evil, former man of the night's watch evily making an evil speech to his fellow evil men, evily drinking whine from a human skull while nameless women were being raped in the background - but little does he know that Jon Snow, the hero, is about to wreck his shit. It takes something that could realistically happen (and that did happen in the books) and takes it up to eleven because the writers think shock is the same as quality and that the audience is SO STUPID that they need to practically make the actor jump out of the TV, grab us by the shoulders and scream "I'M EVIL! I'M THE BIG BAD! ROOT FOR THE HERO TO KILL ME!"

Pretty much every bad guy became a parody of Jeoffrey, ironically enough because the writers took Jeoffrey too seriously. He was a cruel, sadistic character, who had WAY too much power - but he was also a spoiled baby whose reply to Tyrion bitch-slapping him wasn't a threat, but "I'M TELLING MOM!" Jeoffrey worked because he was only allowed to do his thing whenever smarter, more competent characters like Tyrion and Tywin where not around, meaning his actions, while inhumane, never reached the point of no longer being believable.

The horrible things that happened to the characters no longer felt "right". For instance, Sansa had just been taken to the Eerie by Little Finger, who has a weird complex in which he sees her both as the daughter he never had with Catelyn AND as a replacement for Catelyn, and she was starting to truly be a player instead of a pawn... and then the writers realized "Oh shit, we should have not cut the Jeyne Pool/Fake Arya' plot, that was important" and forced it on Sansa, making Little Finger hand her on a silver plater to Ramsay and turning her into a victim AGAIN, this time to a man that dramatically fights his enemies without a shirt own, practically saying "come at me bro"

Compare this to Ned's beheading, or Catelyn and Rob being betrayed and killed by the Freys. These moments were shocking and downright depressing - but they were earned. The writting was on the wall for anyone to see: Ned was at the mercy of Jeoffrey, and the Starks had given the Freys, who are notoriously disloyal, a reason to resent them. These twists felt completely natural, were the only logical way for the situation the characters were in to play out, AND they had consequences to plot instead of just making the audience gasp and then being forgotten about.

Plot armor

It's kind of ironic and almost tragic that the show that became famous for killing characters later became the worst type of high-stakes series, putting the characters in situations they could NOT survive, not even if a goddamn miracle happened, and having them live anyway. What's even worse is that it happened repeatedly. If I had to see Jon Snow almost die and then survive anyway one more fucking time I was going to lose my mind.

There's no bigger proof that there were just no consequences for the "main" characters anymore than watching the second, third, and fourth episodes of season either. The first sets up that this battle against the night king and his army of undead is likely going to kill the majority of them, if they're lucky... and then in the third we see the plot armor in all of it's "glory", and then in the forth we find out that the Dotrakhi, who had ALL been killed, actually still have half the numbers they had the night before, somehow. Even red-shirts weren't dying anymore.

DORNE

This disaster needed it's own session because HOLY SHIT, it's a miracle/tragedy that everyone didn't go "Fuck it, I'm never watching another episode of this stupid show."

The Dorne plot in the books isn't perfect, but what the show did to it was so fucking bad that I'm pretty sure the writers didn't even read the Dorne chapters in the books, they just looked at a wiki, wrote down the names of a few characters and then did their own shitty thing.

In the books, Doran Martel is a clever, dangerous man, who pretends to be harmless so people will understimate him and step right into his trap. In the show, Doran Martel... died. That's it. I can't remember anything else that happened to him. Add him to the list of "Brilliant characters that became stupid due to shitty writing", I'm sure Tyrion, Varys and Little Finger will love making him company.

The sand-snakes, one of the main driving force of that plot, were all distinct characters in the books, with their personalities, goals, methods and motivations - basically they were created by a writer who knew what he is was doing. In the show they were all the same "character" who could be perfectly described by that horrible, cringy, PAINFUL line one of them (I can't even remember which) said to Bron "You want a good girl, but you need the bad pussy" (Seriously, if that actress ever kills the show-runners as revenge for having to say that, she'll be 100% justifyed in doing so)

And we cannot forget the driving force behind that unwatchable shit show: Ellaria Sand. In the books, the death of Oberyn made her believe that revenge only leads to more blood-shed. In the show, his death enraged to the point of wanting to avenge him and his family, and she did this... by killing his family. If that doesn't explain how insane and stupid this plot-line was, I don't know what will.

Hype = Character assassination

Many shows are based around the conflict between the bad guys and the good guys. Game Of Thrones is not one of these shows. Or at least it wasn't. As they ran out of ideas, the writers started mutilating every single character until they could be label as "Good" or "Bad", regardless of what felt right to the story and to the point that there was nothing left of said characters. Stannis's actor, Stephen Dillane, straight up said that the only thing he got from being on the show was money and that his character's motivations and decisions were nonsense - ironically enough, that kind of brutal honesty means that the writers had THE perfect actor play Stannis, and wasted his fucking time.

Here's a list of the characters that fell victims to this horrible fate: Catelyn Stark, Tyrion Lannister, Sansa Stark, Arya Stark, Jon Snow, Melisandre, Stannis, Jorah, Daenerys (bonus points for being mutilated into being both a generic, shitty "hero" and a generic, shitty "villain") Greyworm, Rhaegar Targaryen, Lyanna Stark...

Pretty much the only character who became more complex in the show than she was in the books was Cersei. While her book self was never just a "Generic Evil Queen", the show version of her was far more sympathetic, which made the stories she was part of interesting. Too bad the writers ran out of ideas of what to do with her after season six and just left her by the window drinking whine until Dany showed up to kill her. Which brings us to...

Why is this happening?

Cersei was seen as a threat in the last two seasons based on nothing but the things she HAD done. Her story just ended the very second season six did, but since she was still alive despite being one of the bad guys she had to die... I guess. She (and by extention Jaime) joined the list of characters that had nothing to do, but were still around: Davos, Theon, Yara, Melisandre, Bron, Sam, Gendry, Bran (the last one being SO unnecessary that he was cut from season five and no one noticed)

To combat that issue, the writers gave characters "motivations" that made no sense. For exemple: Sandor Clegane. His only reason to be in the show was so he could kill his brother. The problem was that Gregor was already dead. He was a walking corpse. There was nothing left of the abusive brother Sandor once knew, meaning he had no reason to fight him, and that, to keep Sandor around, the writers should have come up something new (like the redemption that book fans have been waiting for, and that has a lot of backing evidence). You might as well have had HIM be the one to randomly fly out of nowhere and kill the night king despite having no connection to him.

And since we're talking about the night king... Arya was the one to kill him. Why? Because the writers ruined Jaime's redemption arc, meaning that the only fitting ending for him was to die with Cersei, and so Arya could not kill Cersei despite wanting to, having the ability to do, AND having heard a prophecy that said she'd "Shutting brown eyes, blue eyes, and green eyes forever", the last one being the only one she had not done AND applying to Cersei. But Dumb & Dumber admitted they had no plan for this, so now that they were at the last season, they needed to do something with it, and they retconned it to mean Arya would kill the night king...

But Arya killing him meant Jon had nothing to do, so Dany had to go mad so he could kill her. To "hint" at that, they ignored all the not at all subtle foreshadowing the previous season had of Dany and Jon having a kid, and they even showed her getting jealous that he was technically the true heir... even though that made no sense since they were going to rule together anyway, and even after Dany went full "Mad Queen" she ASKED HIM TO RULE WITH HER. But anyways, he kills her and becomes king...

Except he doesn't actually become king and him being a secret Targaryen has no effect in the plot, because Bran needed to become king so there'd be a reason for him to be alive, because his magical powers turned into a plot-device. A plot-device that wasn't used at any goddamn point. Seriously, the only thing as bad as Bran becoming king was Euron's existence - dude was THE most useless villain ever AND the worst Jeoffrey parody.

A darker story (literally)

I could not end this rant without bitching about this. What is the point of spending an ungodly amount of money on sets, costumes, make-up, special effects... and then using such poor lighting that no one can see what the fucking is going on?

Anyway, this disaster of a series was so absurd it should be used as an exemple of what NOT to do.

#asks #long post #got #game of thrones #asoiaf #a song of ice and fire #rape #violence #death

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raekahwritings · 3 years

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Shindo Yo: Rankings Don’t Matter (Part 1)

Pairing: Shindo Yo x Reader Rating: General Audience Word Count: 5682 Words A/N: Huge shout-out to @bezczelnyguy because I promised to get a work out this weekend <3 But this will have a part 2 to continue the story and ~smut~ later. Not beta-read so pardon any mistakes!

You were simply an ordinary civilian, a quirk-less person lost in the sea of Tokyo where many pro-heroes resided. Heroes, rankings, and media were part of the everyday life here. It wasn’t uncommon to see them patrolling or to see some incident here and there.

You simply took it all in stride. Despite heroes and villains abound, it wasn’t as if you didn’t have an ordinary life, a place where you liked working, hobbies to do, and friends you could meet.

But there was one person who disrupted the normalcy you’ve always come to expect.

Hence why you were at a nondescript café that was close to work and offered a cozy atmosphere.

“I hope I’m not too forward but are you expecting somebody?” A college-age student had approached you and was gesturing to your empty seat—you gave them an apologetic smile in return. You had been sitting here for awhile by yourself, idly reading a book.

“I’m afraid so.” He looked a little disappointed at the answer. But you pointed out to a table where someone else was leaving. “I think the seat is opening up over there.” You were careful to give a small friendly smile but nothing more. He threw you a lingering glance, but you didn’t really notice since your attention was elsewhere.

How could you notice? Butterflies were jumping around in your stomach; you were nervous yourself. You tried to sip at your tea nonchalantly and conspicuously glancing at the door. Your days were ordinary… with one small exception. Shindo, Pro-Hero Grand from the neighboring agency, had taken to joining you on Sunday mornings. Granted, you had to sit through his rambling about his heroic antics, patrols, and hilarious stories of his fellow comrades. You weren’t sure when Shindo became endearing— he used to be an arrogant asshole that you wanted to take down a peg.

But you got to see past his cocky, smug façade to see the vulnerable pro-hero who was desperately trying to make top ten. You had seen him work over-time, bumping into him at the late hours of the night, and watched him try to laugh off his hard work and dark eye circles as ‘partying’. You knew better—you even sneaked him coffees at his office at those late-night hours. You used the excuse: you were in the area and had seen his office light on. Sure, most people thought he was an asshole—like Bakugo. You had seen him aggravate other heroes but in turn, help them recognize their shortcomings. You knew how preciously loyal he was to his friends.

“Miss me?” Shindo did not disappoint. He strolled through the door and dropped himself into the seat, without a word of askance and simply assumed it was for him. Which you didn’t bother correcting— he knew too well otherwise. You rolled your eyes at his ‘grand’ entrance, sighing with faux irritation. Not that you really were irritated—Shindo was too handsome today, a black shirt and dark wash jeans fitting perfectly to his toned body.

“What if I was expecting somebody else?” You played off his words with your cultivated façade and blasé indifference. Not that it made a difference because Shindo simply smirked with roguish charm.

“Then you should’ve stopped me.” He waved the barista over, giving her a charming smile. “Darling, would you mind getting me a coffee?”

“Um..” She looked uncertain, holding her hands up in a fraught gesture. “You have to go to the counter to pay…” She nervously stuttered, unused to refusing a pro-hero and unsure.

You stood up, shoving a hand into Shindo’s smug face. “Don’t worry, I’ll come to the counter and pay.” She looked a little more at ease now, she was clearly nervous about dealing with a pro-hero’s demands. It was good that you dealt with enough of them in your line of work that you were no longer dazzled by them. “With his money of course.” You held up Shindo’s wallet, clasped between two fingers-- Shindo looked up and down in alarm.

“What the fuck?” He looked at his empty pocket. He didn’t even know you could pickpocket, much less sneak past him—he was a pro-hero for god’s sake.

You gave him a saccharine sweet smile—“You don’t get to order the barista around like your waitress, darling.” You used his little pet-name, throwing it back at him. You flipped your hair in an exaggerated gesture, prompting Shindo to laugh despite himself. He didn’t mind sitting there alone as you chit-chatted with the barista while they made his drink. They knew you quite well since you often came during the week.

The coffee barista happily made his drink, especially as you fished out an extra five dollars as tip from Shindo’s wallet, and you leaned forward in anticipation. Smells wonderful. You always enjoyed the fresh scent of coffee. The door opened and you didn’t give it a passing glance. But maybe you should’ve.

You really should have.

Camie and Yaoyoruzu, the two prettiest pro-heroes had walked in through the door. Yaoyorozu with her huge chest and Cami with her flirtatious demeanor. Their laughter rung out in the coffee shop, all eyes turned to them and they provoked a sinking feeling that had your stomach lurching. You hoped they were just passing through. You drummed your fingers anxiously against the bar, hoping Shindo wouldn’t turn around.

But he did. Shindo looked lazily over to you and looked delicious in his seat. From the way that the two other pro-heroes turned, they also appreciated the sight. You could see Camie look coquettishly over and Yaoyorozu put on her most charming smile. And the fucking nerve, they went over to him and you could hear, “My oh my, is this seat taken?”

Shindo didn’t even get a chance to reply before Camie slid into your seat. “Well, I’m sure they wont mind if we wait here a few minutes with you?”

The way she just said that, the way she assumed no one would ‘mind’ had you taking action. You collected your drink and marched on over—the barista even giving you a sympathetic glance. “Excuse me, I think that’s my seat.” You dropped Shindo’s wallet and drink on his table, giving him a heated glare—silently signaling to him that you should’ve stopped them. It was your table that you’d been holding onto.

Camie didn’t even bother to look your way, just cooing to the male pro-hero. “My my, you’ve even got your assistant to bring you a drink? Or is she simply the help?” Momo giggled at the demeaning statement, leaning over to teasingly snatch a sip of Shindo’s drink and murmured in a coy voice, “My, my, you like it dark and strong?” Camie even pressed a hand to the male’s arms, running her fingers lightly up his arm.

You cleared your throat loudly. “I’m not his assistant or help. I was actually the the one sitting here first so if you could kindly give me back my seat.” You look pointedly at Camie, tempted to snap your fingers in her face and see if she would deign to give you her attention.

When it was clear you weren’t leaving, she finally looked your way and gave you an eye-roll.

It only took a moment to assess you, you were no threat. “Honey, I’m a pro-hero. I need to talk some ‘business’ with Grand over here.” Her voice dripped with disdain, for you, a civilian. “Or did you want to ask for his autograph? That’s a little annoying of you, but fans are so disrespectful now.”

Momo, the creation hero, looked at you with faux-sympathy. “We are sorry to interrupt your ‘fan moment’ but as my partner said, please cooperate since we have patrols with Grand to discuss.” To make things even worse, she was still holding Shindo’s drink, her pink lipstick staining the cup. She licked her lips with obvious innuendo to Grand.

You stood there… a little in shock. They were lying to your face and it was somehow alright because they were pro-heroes? You tried to find words, trying to quell the nuclear fury rising up in you. But Momo put her arm on you, giving a gentle chastising ‘tut tut’ and pushing you gently away. “You’re looking quite emotional. As a fan, please learn to control yourself.” Your indignation shrank rapidly as people started to murmur around you—some even looking at you with a shaming look. Did they hear what happened? No, but Momo had fooled the others with a fake-sympathy look.

“Shindo, you can’t be serious?” You looked at him, he actually looked uncomfortable. Probably because he knew the truth. Even worse, you noticed he didn’t shake off Camie or Momo. Which made your stomach drop—not only were all eyes on you but Shindo didn’t even offer a word to your defense.

I guess he’s the same as the others…

You swallowed your anger, trying not to let the sickening insecurity overwhelm you. Because, obviously. Every guy is just aiming for a beautiful pro-hero. You probably never had a chance with Shindo—he was probably passing the time with his adoring, annoying fan.

Did he ever even like you? Was he just putting up with you?

“Fine. Whatever. I don’t need anyone’s autograph, Grand.” You injected his pro-hero name with disgust. Hurt, heart-aching, disappointed disgust.

You turned on your heel, boots because you weren’t traipsing around in six-inch heels like Camie, and walked out. Because you were fucking mortified, being humiliated in your favorite café in front of everyone and labelled as a desperate fan.

Surprise, surprise, no one followed you.

You took a brisk walk home. You were too angry to even signal for a taxi or go onto the subway…. You weren’t sure what was gonna happen if you had a moment to stop— you’d probably cry on the goddamn subway. You rubbed your arms, trying to soothe your volatile emotions because you refused to cry in public.

You really thought Shindo was better than this. But no. You pulled out your phone to block all mentions of Shindo across your social media, to block the other pro-heroes. Because you knew if you saw mentions of any of them from today, you probably would die from embarrassment and the cringeworthy memory. For all that it was worth, this incident was gonna be tweeted in a matter of minutes and you only hoped no one would identify you.

You came home, collapsing into your bed and trying to gather yourself. You could’ve called your friends to vent—but god, you felt so stupid. You had waited in that café all morning on your day off. You had stupidly looked forward to seeing him. If you told anyone now, they would know about your crush on the hero. People would think you were the wanna-be fan that Camie and Momo had made you out to be. So you turned on Netflix, drowning out the day’s shitty feelings with numerous rom-coms. Did it make you feel better? Not by much but it helped you not to focus on the hurtful ball of anxiety burning its way through your stomach.

You eventually fell asleep. You eventually woke up and dragged yourself to work. You faked a smile to your co-workers, pretending everything was fine. Your work was done. You avoided the café like a plague. That was day one.

Day one of not seeing Shindo ever. He didn’t even know your phone number, you had always left the meetings to chance. His chance. To tell the truth, you had sat there every Saturday in hopes he would come.

You eventually made it to two weeks—but something happened that you never expected.

You ran into the barista whom you got Shindo’s coffee from. “…Y/N?” The same one that had been there. She looked down at you in the convenience store with you bent over and awkwardly trying to look at coffee grinds. You wanted to duck out and pretend you never heard her. But that was cowardly of you and that wasn’t you. So you gave her an awkward smile—“Hi.” You tried not to look embarrassed. “What brings you around here this late?”

She gave you a commiserating look. “Work ended late. How about you?” You gave her an empathetic nod, you had been putting in a lot more time than usual.

“Same.” You didn’t say much. Images flashed by, little taunts from Camie and Momo and you kept your mouth shut from sounding more like a ‘desperate fan’. She looked at her purchases, seemingly a little... nervous? Well, you were too. So you would make your excuses and leave before she thought worse of you. You gathered your items, trying not to seem in an obvious rush and making an excuse to go—

“Wait!” She blurted out. You froze. “You never come anymore. Is it because of last time?”

Oh god. You wanted to die. Even your friendly barista saw that and commented.

Who were you kidding though, everyone probably saw that.

“Well, it was really embarrassing.” You... admitted. Because this was really hard for you to talk about. “I can’t show my face around right? Everyone probably thinks the worst of me.” Even though I’m not, you wanted to say.

“Um…” She looked around, pitching her voice low. “I know it’s not my place to say but… something happened after you left. And the pro-hero you were with? He keeps coming back and I’m pretty sure he’s looking for you.”

Shindo, looking for you? A small kindle of hope flared but it was crushed nearly immediately. How much more do you want to delude yourself? You shook your head in sad denial. “Believe me, he’s not.”You were an inconsequential ‘civilian’ that was around for him to brag to. He could find those girls, a dime in a dozen, who would probably prostrate for a chance to be seen with him. You wouldn’t humiliate yourself anymore by pretending it was something more. “Thank you though. It’s..” Probably shows how pitiful I am, probably.

But the fact she came out of her way to talk to you… That was really kind of her. “….Nice to know someone noticed I wasn’t around. I hope you believe me when I say, your shop makes wonderful coffee and has wonderful employees.” You smiled, a little more genuinely than before. “I’ll miss it but I’m sure that’s why people, even Grand, comes back.”

You genuinely meant it. They were your favorite coffee place and they deserved to know it. The barista gave you a flustered look, she hadn’t expected the sudden compliment from you. “So…” You didn’t want to make the moment too heavy. “Would you tell me your coffee secret? I honestly need to know what kind of beans you use so I can buy some at home.” You gently changed the subject.

She enthusiastically gave you a recommendation and you both parted ways with a bit of a smile. Your heart weighed painfully but a little less heavy than before.

The next day, you tried to pick up the pieces of your life. You went out for lunch. You laughed a little more genuinely at a a co-workers crazy business antics. You accepted an assignment to help market another pro-hero agency, making preliminary notes on their current heroes and sidekicks.

“You want me to meet up with them now?” You looked up at your manager, a little confused. You didn’t usually handle the interview or meeting side, preferring to work on the back-end computer-crunching and paperwork when it came to marketing and deals. Your manager nodded and gave you a folder.

“This one likes a more personal and hands-on approach when it comes to their team.” What an unusual approach. You… took the folder.

“Hm. Uravity, huh?” You knew this pro-hero—she was definitely one to look out for. Everyone had said she was one of the sweetest pro-heroes around, preferring a personable approach to her business. She could make friends with even the surliest of pro-heroes That’s how you found yourself in her office with tea and cookies; you had politely refused but she firmly believed in having delicious sweets to accompany the meeting.

Which you couldn’t resist once she shoved a plate at you. “Gosh, this dessert is fantastic.” You almost couldn’t bear to eat the deku-themed matcha pudding. She laughed as you eventually, ever-so-slowly and sadly ate it.

“Y/N, thank you for assisting us! Call me Ochaco, I look forward to working with you…” She eagerly shook your hand. You had been with her for an hour beforehand, discussing potential marketing strategies and merchandise before gathering up your documents and getting ready to go.

“I’ll send you the preliminary marketing outline by the end of the week..” You didn’t get a chance to say much more since the door opened very abruptly, slamming and startling you. Uravity—no, Ochaco didn’t seem surprised when Lord Explosion Murder, Bakugo shouted aloud, “Get this poser fucking away from me! I don’t want to work with two-face here!” The explosion hero shoved someone behind the door, someone you couldn’t see…

Ah. I should’ve left sooner.

You managed to steel yourself because you heard him before you saw him—Shindo. No, you corrected yourself, Grand. He followed Bakugo in, frustratingly trying to re-iterate his side of the story. You inched towards the door since he seemed focused on Bakugo… You tried to look engrossed into your clipboard and rush past.

“Y/N?” He looked at you incredulously. You nearly escaped without a second look but there seemed to be a brief pause in the conversation between the pro-heroes.

You mustered a tight smile. “I’m sorry but I have to head out.” You pushed past him into the hallway. “Please excuse me.”

You speed-walked to the elevator but diverted to the emergency stairwell, hoping for a moment to pull yourself together. Shindo was as handsome as when you walked away at the coffee shop. Was it too much to hope that he magically got uglier? The low burn of humiliation still stayed at the pit of your stomach, tempered by time but still there. You could keep your composure but for how long?

Shindo abandoned his argument with Bakugo to follow you. He was a moment too late though, he tried to head for the elevator but saw no one. Damnit. He walked back to Ochaco, determined to find out why you’d been there. He had been looking for you for weeks but you hadn’t come back to the café and he never got your full name to start asking for you.

“Uravity!” She looked startled at both your sudden departure and Grand’s abrupt return. “What’s Y/N doing here?” Ochaco tilted her head in confusion. “She’s one of the civilians on our new marketing campaign.” He gestured impatiently for her to continue. “I can give you her company information and business card if you’re looking for her?”

Shindo nearly tripped over himself to get to Ochaco. “Yes.” He, with cool finesse, don’t let Bakugo tell you otherwise how he fumbled with the card—noted your information and took a picture.

You made sure to throw yourself into work for the rest of the afternoon, ignoring the growing pit of anxiety in your stomach. Shindo was a bad premonition. Like when a black cat crossed your path and mirrors would crack. You weren’t superstitious though so you tried to push it out of your mind.

Work was where you were safe and comfortable. Nothing bad will happen, you reason. So when you finally decided to call it a night much later than usual— it was already 8 pm? They would lock your building soon. You wished you could stop by the coffee store to get more work done… Like I can go back there. You tiredly tried to massage your frown away, rubbing between your eyebrows as you packed up and left. You even thought you smelled their special brew…. No, you were probably imagining things.

Right up until you saw Shindo outside your office door, holding an iced latte in his hand. You stared at him; honestly you thought you were dreaming— so you decided to slam your door shut.

You gave yourself a moment to breathe. You had run into him earlier today so surely you were hallucinating.

“….Seriously?” You heard his muffled voice through the door.

I’m not dreaming then. You, honest to god, wondered if you could get out of the fire escape. But the likelihood of you climbing out your window and breaking your neck outweighed the nervousness and fear of opening your door, like a normal human being. Just be normal, Y/N, don’t freak out.

So you did open the door.

“Did you find the wrong person? I don’t recall having an 8 pm meeting.” You tried to be curt and short. If not... who knows what you would say?

“Uh.” Shindo was thrown off by your brusque words. Honestly, he didn’t think this one completely though. He had decided to see you, maybe catch you before you could disappear again. He’d been at the coffee shop, dropping by with a hope of seeing you. And with each casual look, with each hopeful inquiry, he realized you hadn’t stopped by since the time with Camie and Momo…

He had sat there on Sunday, hoping you wouldn’t be holding any grudges— but thirty minutes in, Shindo had left. You weren’t coming anymore.

So what though? He had sullenly stayed quiet. It wasn’t like you two were dating, it wasn’t like you two had promised anything. He had nothing to apologize for. He didn’t need to sit in a coffee shop, you didn’t help his rankings.

But he didn’t get to see your laughing face when he re-told his arguments with his fellow heroes. He didn’t get to see the fond smiles you threw his way. He didn’t get to see you standing sheepishly outside his agency with ‘extra’ coffee just the way he wanted it. Black as hell, and not your usual sweetness. He didn’t get a chance to walk you to the station.

He had seen the hurt flicker on your face, he had been at a loss for words. And the worst part was that no matter how he justified himself, he couldn’t get rid of the acrid feeling that lingered in his stomach.

“I wanted to make sure you were okay. I haven’t seen you since…” He trailed off, not quite sure how to put this. Shindo was rarely at a loss for words, he usually had a number of things to say. He knew what people were like and what they wanted to hear. It was just a matter of pushing the right buttons.

What every girl wants to hear. Shindo lathered on the charm a bit and held the latte for you. “I just wanted to see you. Is it a crime?” He knew the drink was one of your favorites. “It’s a hero’s dream to walk a beautiful girl home after a long day of work, hm?” He gestured to you and the late night, holding out a hand to you. Hook, line, and sinker.

He knew he got you when you finally looked at him. When you reached out to take his hand… Now everything will be fine, you’d be happy, he’d be fine—

“Go fuck yourself, Grand.” You held up your middle finger.

Shindo was in fucking shock. Shit, if you had a camera out, you would’ve loved to take a picture. You had never seen Shindo’s mouth hang open, the delayed look as he tried to process your words.

“Oh, I’m sorry? Maybe I should’ve told you more clearly.” You had time to think, you weren’t scared off by public shaming—not here and now. No cutesy, bitchy pro-heroes to stop you now. “I’m not one of your fangirls who’ll fall for that little line. I’m not sure why you’re here but you need to leave.”

You locked the door behind you and walked away.

Walked away from him.

“Y/N.” Shindo tried to stop you. “Why are you being so cold? I thought we were friends, I thought we had something more going on for us.”

You turned around, indignation fueling your sudden and startling courage to walk back and get into his face. You grabbed onto his shirt, pulling his infuriating face to yours. “Us? Shindo, you think I’m something more than a little fangirl who adoringly listened to your stories?” You waited a beat for his answer. “Because you made it pretty fucking clear, that’s what I am.” You both knew what happened in the coffee shop that day.

“Y/N, are you seriously mad about that? What did you want me to do? What did you want me to say?” Shindo glared down at you. What the hell did you want from him? Why were you so angry?

You laughed but it was harsh and acrimonious, to both of you.

“Oh god, is that your answer? You really think I’m just a fangirl. You come up to me, you say these sickeningly sweet lines and you think I’m just gonna fall over for you? You think I’ll follow your script? Did you come because I stopped showing up and losing one of your little worshippers?”

Shindo…. Couldn’t deny it. And you saw from the split-second look of guilt before he schooled his expression into a cajoling one. You knew because you had seen it a million times before, every-time he would face the public, every time he would get on TV. Two-faced was the right word. If you didn’t know better, you would’ve fallen his sugar-sweet words and missed the flash of guilt.

“Y/N…” Shindo knew he could get you to calm down, to soften up towards him….

“Don’t say anything Shindo. I can pretty much guess what one-liners you’re gonna feed me next.” You shook your head, a little in disbelief and a little in hurtful realization of what you’d say next. Because this was the moment, this was when you could face him honestly and get it over and done with.

“Shindo, I like you.” You could finally say it aloud. And you could feel relief wash through your chest at finally saying it. “I came every Saturday because I stupidly hoped you actually liked me and enjoyed my company.”

Shindo’s look soured. “I didn’t promise you anything and I most certainly didn’t encourage—”

“You didn’t.” You gestured to him, a melancholy look peeking through your resolute face. “You hate agendas, you hate when people lie to you, and you didn’t ask for it.” You said this as a fact, and Shindo couldn’t agree more. He despised it. You knew how much people forced things onto him and the overbearing expectations that came with being the so-called perfect hero.

“And that’s why I never said anything, I just wanted you to know that someone actually cared, that I want to listen to you and make you laugh.” The memories washed over you—you both had shared stories in the coffee store until your ribs hurt. There were hours of conversation and stories between you two. You had never asked for more— he gave all that he could give.

You barreled on. “That the heroes that everyone sees? They actually are people, and you don’t ask for people to fall in love and become, I don’t know, become crazy stalkers and shit.” He had numerous experiences with those. He had told you that he moved apartments a number of times. “That you don’t need to be this dumb Casanova everyone thinks you are and you can just be a huge dork.” You loved it when Shindo had admitted to you that ‘cool and manly’ things were kind of shit, that he had secretly made references to dumb rom-coms that you both pretended not to watch.

What little you knew; you knew for certain. “So yes. You didn’t ask for me to fall in love and I never wanted you to know. Friends was more than I could’ve asked for.” You could feel your eyes watering and you wiped it on your sleeve. You looked at him, really looked at him through a hurt smile. Shindo was letting you talk and at least for that, you were grateful you could get this mess of a confession off your chest.

“But I never thought, never thought you’d be cruel enough to let Camie and Yaoyorozu talk to me like that.” You got a little choked up and consolingly ran your hands up and down your arms. The warmth gave you courage to ask about the doubts that had been plaguing you. “What were we? Fangirl to a hero? Friends? Acquaintances?” You no longer knew. From the looks of it, Shindo didn’t know either.

“Whatever we were, I know that I didn’t deserve that. No one deserves that.” Shindo looked like he wanted to find the chink in your logic, something to say—but there was no way around it.

“Y/N, that wasn’t what it looked like.” He tried to find the words, he tried to justify himself.

You genuinely wondered what Shindo had to say. “Tell me more.” Because you couldn’t see how it could be anything else.

Shindo…. Found himself grasping at straws. “I wasn’t trying to be cruel, I just didn’t think it mattered to you—“ You both heard what was unsaid. If you were ignored. Some words, even unsaid, couldn’t be taken back. “Shit, I didn’t mean It like that. I just thought you wouldn’t mind waiting. They’re pro-heroes, I can’t look bad in front of them.” Shindo said frustratedly.

“Waiting.” You nodded. “Looking bad.” You shifted the bag on your shoulder, coming to a conclusion by the way you extricated yourself from the situation. “I guess that’s that.” You brushed past him.

Shindo watched you brush by…. Watching you walk out again. Damn if he would let you leave with such an arbitrary statement— he swiveled you and caught your shoulder. “What do you mean by that?”

You gently pried his hand away. “Good luck finding someone waiting as you climb those pro-hero rankings…. Grand.” You pushed him softly back, away from you. To Shindo, this was nothing. You had little strength; it was a gentle tap at best. But damn, did it make him feel like the air got taken out of him. It left him with a dirty, gut-wrenching pit in his stomach with the finality of it. “You don’t need a civilian like me holding you back in front of all those oh-so-successful pro-heroes.”

Shindo watched you walk away from him, latte ignored, and you left the office. Because what could he say? You were right, he desperately wanted to get to the top ten pro-hero rankings and no civilian would stop him.

#shindo smut #bnha smut #shindo yo #bnha x reader #smut #shindo yo x reader #boku no hero #shindo x reader

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thevindicativevordan · 3 years

Note

Any thoughts on Grant Morrison's Action Comics run? Beyond T shirt-and-jeans Superman being great.

That whole run reinvigorated my love of the character.

There have been numerous thoughtpieces about New 52 Superman, how he worked and how he didn't but these two entries really do a great job of summing up why Morrison's take on Superman was great. Morrison laid the foundation for a new generational Superman that DC completely fucked up and ran into the ground. I'll always be bitter about that, even if I had tapped out of reading the New 52 Superman books by the end due to how bad they got. Editorial and their idiotic mandates were what screwed over the potential of this take in my eyes.

Now I get that it wasn't to everyone's taste, but I cannot fathom how anyone could ever claim that Pre-Flashpoint Superman was better. If you liked Byrne's reboot better, your guy already got rebooted after Infinite Crisis. For someone like me who really enjoyed the Johns/Busiek era, that era's potential got spoiled after Johns & Busiek left, with New Krypton imploding and the awful Grounded taking it's place. When you get to the point where the best Superman book is the one starring Lex Luthor, it's time to reassess the franchise and figure out where the hell it went wrong.

Which is exactly what Morrison did. For this new Superman, Morrison mined all the best ideas of every Superman era to really give what I consider the ideal "base" for Superman. They also took pains to address common criticisms about Superman, working to correct his pop culture image. People have been complaining that Superman is "too perfect", "too unrelatable" for a long time, so Morrison addressed that. They gave Superman his balls back, and let him reacquire that Golden Age edge he had originally.

There are a lot of complaints you can make about Morrison's Superman, but I don't see how you could accuse this guy of being "flawless" or "bland". He definitely had a personality that you could describe, love him or hate him. Compassionate, but not a pushover. Clearly holding himself back, but unafraid to occasionally let loose. Flaws that were patently obvious, Clark had a temper here that could get him into trouble. There was a real showcase of anger here, of Superman being furious at the way people were treated by the rich and powerful, then doing something about it that I ate up.

I read this run just as I was coming into my teens and it hit perfectly for where I was in life. Did not want a Superman who would smile and tell me it gets better, I wanted a Superman who looked you in the eye and told you he felt that same anger, and then encouraged you to go out and do something about how you felt. That was what this run delivered in spades, and it expanded what I believed could be done with Superman.

While it totally blew my mind to see Superman acting this way the first time I read Morrison's Action Comics run, in retrospect it really isn't that different from how Superman has acted even under Byrne. One of the few traits I've seen carry across Superman incarnations in the comics is that he has a temper underneath that affable nature. "Don't tug on Superman's cape" as the old song goes. This run simply elevated that to the forefront of the character again, for the better in my eyes given I believe "Wrath" is Superman's Deadly Sin.

In fact, one of the strongest features of this run is that Superman gets actual character development over the course of the run, analogous to what Batman underwent in Morrison's Bat-Epic. While the Bat-Epic was merely Morrison re-canonizing Batman's entire history, and applying a retroactive character development storyline that culminated in Morrison's current Batman work, their Action Comics run had them attempt to craft something similar for Superman from scratch. What that meant was Morrison attempting to draw on the most important traits of every Superman era and incorporate those into this new take. So Superman had the Golden Age temper, compassion for the oppressed, and cockiness. The Silver Age supergenuis, proud scion of Krypton who cherished his Kryptonian nature, member of the Legion of Superheroes, and participant in stories that weren't afraid to get weird. Superman's wrestling with his place in the world, the importance of Clark Kent, and making journalism a key part of the character strike me as all being hallmarks of the Bronze Age. From Post-Crisis we got that Clark views himself as human and loves his adopted parents, considering them as equal to his birth ones.

One of the big frustrations for me with the endless origin stories for Superman, is that so many of them follow a predictable and stale formula where Clark puts on the suit and is essentially ready to go. Doesn't interfere with human affairs, is modest and humble, restrained in usage of his powers, it's like Clark has meta knowledge of what he "should" be, despite that he shouldn't have any foreknowledge of what a "superhero" should look like. He operates the same way at the start as he does in the modern day, and that's really boring to me. This Superman, because of the difference in powers and attitude, operated extremely different from his "present day" incarnation. Dangling Glenmorgan over the edge of a building isn't something a fully powered and mature Superman should do, but it works great to make his early days different and exciting to read about, it makes returning to that era something you can do different storytelling with. This run is the only time where I really cared that Superman is "supposed" to be the first superhero, because figuring out what that means here is a big part of how he develops.

We all know the common complaint that Superman is "too powerful" and that "nothing can hurt him" (funny how Thor never gets hit with those accusations), so Morrison made sure to show that this take on Superman could be beaten even if he could never be defeated. Events conspired to force Clark to use his brains as well as his powers to overcome the challenges in front of him.

Examples include him using his heat vision to fry Lex's equipment and escape the military, using his rocket ship to defeat Brainiac, and rallying the population of Metropolis to banish Vyndktvx. Not to say that Clark never used his brains before to win, but this run was very upfront and in your face about how important Clark's intellect is to triumphing over his foes. Can't take seriously the complaint that Superman is too overpowered when Morrison constantly showcased how even a very powerful Superman could get his shit wrecked by his Rogues.

Another example of Morrison addressing criticisms is Kryptonite. A lot of people poke fun at how convenient it is that pieces of Superman's homeworld follow him all the way to Earth. Isn't that a bit of an asspull? So Morrison made Kryptonite the power source of Superman's rocket, giving it a perfectly natural and believable reason both for it to end up on Earth, and for Lex & the military to get a hold of it since Pa Kent gave the military the rocket. That's still my preferred explanation for how Kryptonite ended up on Earth.

It also provides a better explanation for all the different Kryptonite variants. DC can handwave away the different types as a result of Lex experimenting or the different "forces" on Earth such as magic or the Speed Force or whatever creating the different variants. That to me is much more believable than Kryptonite travelling all across the galaxy yet still ending up on Earth somehow.

There have also been a lot of complaints about Superman's villains, and Morrison diligently set about reworking them. By far one of my favorite aspects of the run, was the villain revamps. Nimrod felt like a clean revamp of Terra-Man, making him into Superman's Kraven the Hunter struck me as a patently obvious route to go, wild no one has followed up on that or used him since. Metallo felt like a good synthesis of Johns take of him as an Anti-Superman weapon, and the sympathetic aspects of Corben's origin that are always there, I liked that Morrison didn't make him a total bastard before his transformation like Johns did. Brainiac got some sympathy added to him in that the collected worlds that were already marked for damnation, thus he was "saving" them in a fashion. Clay Ramses embodied toxicity as a wife-beater even before becoming Kryptonite Man, and I thought his backstory was a great way for Clark to still deal with "real" issues via a manner he could punch. Ramses is still the best take on Kryptonite Man. Vyndktvx felt like the greatest realization of the threat Mr. Mxyzptlk could pose should he decide to get serious since Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?, plus I'm a sucker for stories where superheroes fight the Devil. Drekken and Superdoom took the only interesting aspects of Doomsday (his ability to evolve and that he can kill Superman respectively), and were much more interesting characters.

And oh my God, speaking of Superdoom, that part of Morrison's Action run has aged like fine wine. I don't know if they caught wind of DC's plans for the character, or if they were just prescient, but everything that Superdoom is playing on is still sadly all too present. What Superdoom is as a character is a condemnation of what DC keeps doing with Superman: killing him off or making him evil.

When you realize what Superdoom (demand for a more violent and "realistic" Superman) and Vyn (WB/DC) stand in for, it makes the frustration Morrison is channeling much more palpable. Those two plotlines are all DC can think of to do with the character, returning to those again and again. Endlessly attempting to recapture the high of Batman and Doomsday beating the shit out of Supes in The Dark Knight Returns and Death of Superman. Overcoming these two obstacles is Superman's greatest challenge as conceived by Morrison, because both are out to corrupt and ruin the very idea of him. It's not just a physical death he faces, but a metaphysical one as well. Sadly it's a threat Superman just can't seem to lick in the real world, with more and more takes on "Evil Superman" coming.

Lois and Jimmy are great here, because Morrison actually made the investigative journalism aspect of Superman important. Lois is an active participant in the story, trying to break in to the base where Clark is being held by her father, competing with Clark for stories (I love how Morrison writes the banter between the two of them), and generally being classic Lois. Jimmy though benefitted from being positioned as a peer rather than as a kid in comparison to the two, something I wish the comics had carried forward. It looks like My Adventures With Superman is going with that interpretation at least, so I hope others do as well. Jimmy being Clark's roommate really adds to their bond, and I wish we had gotten more stories with that status quo.

Investigative reporter Clark Kent was so actively used here that it feels jarring reading other Superman runs where they tend to downplay and ignore it. Following Clark as he travels to different areas of Metropolis and actually interacts with people, instead of hovering above them as Superman, makes him feel human. Watching Clark actively pursue stories aimed at bettering peoples livelihoods, and seeing how those stories crossed with the superheroics, was one of my favorite aspects of the run. It's one unfortunately few other writers seem all that interested in, especially the New 52 writers who followed Morrison (I know editorial probably bears a lot of blame for that though).

Besides all that, this run was a lot of fun! The Legion of Superheroes showed up, their connection to Clark restored, and they got to play a big role in Clark's adventures! Krypto the Superdog! Martian colonies! Memorizing all of medicine, Superman performs a lifesaving operation! Lex using a "bullet train" to knock Clark out! 5-D imps! Rampaging robots from beyond! A Phantom Zone Halloween story! John Henry Irons suits up as Steel and kicks ass alongside Clark! Every Superman Rogue teams up to try to kill him, but Lex Luthor saves his life because that's a privilege he reserves for himself! Showcasing their trademark love for the Supermythos, Morrison took us on a tour of Superlore that demonstrated the depth and width of what could be done with Superman. Meanwhile the backups by Sholly Fisch excelled at giving us smaller, more human stories about Superman (the one where Clark meets Pa again via time travel "after" Pa has died always gives me a lump in my throat to read).

Ultimately this didn't get to be the foundation for the next generation of Superman stories as it deserved. Johns made New 52 Superman the scapegoat in Doomsday Clock for a lot of storytelling choices he did over in Justice League, something that pisses me off to no end. You want to tell me that this guy "didn't relate" to people, didn't inspire "hope"?

Like hell he didn't. This guy was Superman in every way that mattered and he deserved better than to be framed as the scapegoat for all the stupid decisions DC made about what to do with him. Greg Pak was able to do some great work with this version after Morrison, and just like how Gene Yang got a redemption work starring Superman, I hope to one day see Pak return to the character. Would love to read a Black Label Superman story by Pak that follows his take on young Superman.

All wasn't lost however. Against all odds, and Rebirth trying it's damndest to sweep everything under the rug, it looks like parts of this era have actually survived to the current Infinite Frontier era. With Morrison being heavily involved no less, both as an ideas guy and as an actual writer.

Superman & the Authority is explicitly Superman coming full circle back to the attitude displayed by his young counterpart under Morrison. Janin has outright said that the costume Clark wears here is reminiscent of the t-shirt and jeans era of Superman, and this book so far feels saturated with an energy level from Morrison I haven't seen in their work for hire since they left Action. Reaching old age and realizing he never really delivered on the high ideals of his beginnings, it's Superman putting together a team to hopefully succeed where he couldn't alone. Scathing in how it criticizes the superhero status quo, this has been extremely entertaining to read. Wish Morrison was writing 12 issues with this team, and that ultimately it will be up to PKJ to deliver on the potential is a drawback (although I've loved PKJ's Action run so far), but I'm glad to see DC finally treating Morrison and their ideas with more respect than was shown during Rebirth.

Jon meanwhile feels like an even more explicit attempt at redoing New 52 Superman. There's the updated new suit, designed to appeal to a new generation with it's streamlined look. Positioning Jon as a Superman who wants to tackle the "real" issues, with Taylor explicitly comparing him to Golden Age Superman which as I mentioned was an era Morrison tried to reincorporate into their reboot. There's the Legion of Superheroes connection which played an important role in Morrison's reboot. The rumors about Jon's sexuality are interesting, hinting that DC is willing to go outside the box with him in a way they never would with Clark. I'm excited to see what kind of Superman Jon ends up becoming, if he can deliver on the promise of the New 52 Superman all the better.

This run deserves to be remembered and to have the lessons it tried to teach respected. Probably my favorite mainline run on Superman, I hope more people come around to liking it as time goes on.

#superman #grant morrison #action comics #new 52

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miraculouscontent · 3 years

Text

Didn’t Need Burrow (April 11th-16th)

Anonymous said:

Didn't Need Burrow: After the Truth episode occurs, Luka will either not appear nor be talked about(not even by Marinette, Juleka, Sass, or Anarka) at all, or, if he does appear, he'll avoid Marinette like the Black Plague. Guess who's fault it'll be(Kagami will still appear and be on good terms with Adrien, though, since anything that makes Marinette happy needs to be either ruined or gotten rid of, while anything that makes her miserable needs to stay around just to be rubbed into her face.).

I s2g if they have Adrien and Kagami patch things up immediately just to make Marinette feel awkward--

Anonymous said:

Didn't Need Burrow: The idea that Nino's hat is a keepsake from his late brother comes up during an episode where it inevitably gets damaged and/or destroyed. Marinette is somehow responsible/blamed for this, and/or is forced to try and repair it regardless of feasibility, while being guilt-tripped/ridden every inch of the way. Bonus points for Adrien making some clueless comment about buying a replacement and STILL being treated as more empathetic to Nino's feelings even while ignoring them.

“Bonus” if everyone pressures her over the hat, which eventually leads to Marinette realizes that it can’t be fixed to be the exact same way, so she hides it and lies about it, leading to the episode blaming her for hiding things from her “totally understanding friends” (who are suddenly “totally understanding” and are only upset that she lied to them/”thought so lowly of them”) instead of her friends for making her feel like she had to be perfect.

Anonymous said:

Didn't Need Burrow: A Sleeping Beauty-inspired akuma will ensnare Ladybug, 'forcing' Chat Noir to kiss her awake. While Adrien/Chat naturally claims that he would 'never take advantage of his lady', he is openly gleeful at the prospect and taunts her afterwards, complete with a call back to Oblivio as he tells her to 'check the LadyBlog' to find out what happened. Her dismay over this is played entirely for laughs.

*flashbacks to the “jokes” in “Prime Queen”*

Anonymous said:

Didn't Need Burrow: Just like in countless Salt Fics, Alya will get upset at Ladybug for claiming that it's 'too dangerous' for her to be Rena Rouge anymore after Miracle Queen. Regardless of what she does/how she lashes out, Marinette will be held 100% responsible for the fallout, with Su-Han criticizing her for selecting Alya/the others in the first place AND for 'allowing' their identities to be exposed.

That’s what you get for trusting people, Marinette (apparently).

Anonymous said:

Didn't Need Burrow: Alya will expose more Miraculous-related secrets on the LadyBlog, such as posting the identities of the heroes who were 'already outed' by Miracle Queen. Marinette will be blamed for this, with Su-Han reading her the riot act for every single choice she's made.

And also, Alya will get no flack for this because “she’s a journalist!! she’s just doing what she’s supposed to do!”

Anonymous said:

Didn't Need Burrow: After spending most of the season taking the piss out of Marinette at every available opportunity, Su-Han will start warming up to her just in time to be taken out of the equation by something like Alya posting another 'big scoop' on her blog revealing his existence to the villains. Marinette will be left with even less support and all of the guilt, while Alya learns absolutely nothing from the experience because why would she?

Considering “Truth,” I just automatically presume that characters who support Marinette lovingly/unconditionally will either be abused or kicked to the curb.

Anonymous said:

Don't need Burrow: "Queen Banana" will be like typical episode with Chloe akumatization. 90% Chloe drama and angst, 10% akumatized Chloe (and probably 0% sense)

Show, I’m begging you, just let this character’s focus die already. We are SO tired...

Anonymous said:

didnt need burrow: the show ends with hawkmoth (now shadowmoth i guess) being defeated, heavy implications that the LS will be canon, but no solid proof, any other plot holes disappear in the cheery end music and all fans are left annoyed at the open ending filled with plot holes (bonus: That Guy says smin like "you would know if you watched carefully" to anyone that asks wtf happened)

Fun for us love square salters at least so there’s that? :P

Anonymous said:

Didn't Need Burrow: Trixx wants to return to Alya despite the danger/her past exposure, and ignores Marinette's concerns, leaving/reuniting with Alya over her protests. This is either played as 'It's fine, and Marinette should have trusted Alya more' or 'It's not fine, and it's all Marinette's fault for trusting Alya in the first place and letting Trixx get so attached'. Or both.

Astruc would totally use the opportunity to brag about the whole, “She’s already taken!” line in “Truth” being foreshadowing.

Anonymous said:

Didn't Need Burrow: Bunnix reveals that there is an alternate, 'better' future in which Lila never worked with Hawkmoth and became a heroine instead. The turning point was, naturally, that Ladybug never called her out for lying/stealing from Adrien. (Possibly because Adrien never snooped in the safe in this timeline, yet it's still depicted as Marinette's fault.) May couple with confirming she's the future Hawkmoth and that it's all Mari's fault the heroes are still fighting her years later.

Which means that Chat makes the “reversible” mistakes (i.e: Cataclysming Bunnyx’s miraculous) while Ladybug makes the “permanent” ones.

Anonymous said:

Didn't Need Burrow: Marinette/Ladybug will get accused of being a selfish glory hound who needs to learn how to share the credit and 'be a team player'... after Adrien/Chat slacks off during a fight and refuses to help. Bonus points if this is tied into the exposed heroes' predicament somehow, implying that the REAL reason she won't give them 'their' Miraculi back is that she's selfish/short-sighted/not good at working with others/insert other bullshit excuse here.

T_T

I’m so tired.

Anonymous said:

Didn't Need Burrow: Marinette will do something unbelievably selfless and self-sacrificing, only to promptly be slammed by the narrative and treated as though her decision was incredibly selfish.

Honestly you could just ad lib that.

“Marinette will do [something positive], only to promptly be slammed by the narrative and treated as though her decision was [negative].”

Anonymous said:

Didn't Need Burrow: Su-Han will pressure, belittle and berate Marinette until she breaks and agrees to give up being Ladybug/the Guardian. This is naturally treated as the worst thing she could possibly do, with everyone (including Su-Han) ripping into her for it. There is no equivalent of Plagg's 'I've had many holders, but nobody can replace you, Adrien' shilling, beyond Marinette being informed that she MUST continue and deal with her many inadequacies by becoming BETTER. She has no choice.

“You’re the worst Ladybug!”

“Okay I’ll stop being Ladybug.”

“HOW DARE YOU”

“?!?!?!”

Anonymous said:

Don’t need Burrow to know that the writers will retcon Marinette allowing Adrien to BORROW her lucky charm so that Marinette actually GAVE it to him instead.

Bonus: of course, the birthday scarf issue/secret is never addressed. RIP in piece, Marinette gift number xxx0

Technically, this has already happened even back in “Befana,” so I don’t count it. Adrien has said that Marinette gave him that lucky charm forever.

Definitely adding that scarf one though.

Anonymous said:

Didn't Need Burrow: We get Love Square scenes (shipping fuel) in the next episode (even though Maribug and Adrichat just broke up with Luka and Kagami).

I mean, we got love square shipping fuel in the Adrimi and Lukanette episodes, so :|

I’ve just come to expect inappropriate timing at this point.

Anonymous said:

Didn't Need Burrow: In a future episode Chat Noir will be even worse than he was in Lies and still be portrayed sympathetically. I don't know how you can get that low, but I have faith that the writers will be able to pull it off and that's not a good thing

“I don't know how you can get that low“

they’ll find a way, I’m sure

Anonymous said:

Didn't Need Burrow: Kagami will become an antagonist/team up with Shadow Moth post-Adrimi breakup for the plot twist "the main villain has been in the show all along." ((This is based on the end card for Lies. I really hope they don't do this because Kagami is one of the only reasons I'm still watching the show.))

I’d only be here for that if her endgoal is getting Luka and Marinette as far away from the plot as possible.

Anonymous said:

Didn't Need Burrow: We STILL don't know how the Peacock Miraculous got damaged and how Emilie Agreste fell sick. Bonus points, we find out in the season/series finale or on social media.

Double bonus if Astruc claims that the decision is good and they did it on purpose (probably to keep people talking).

Anonymous said:

Didn't Need Burrow: Zoe debuts as the new Bee holder on the same episode Chloé is akumatized.

I’m 100% expecting Chloe to be salty at all the adoration that Zoe gets.

Anonymous said:

Didn't Need Burrow: if Adrien is ever in the wrong about something, it will only be for about five minutes and it will ultimately be blamed on Marinette.

Marinette: *breathes*

writers: Yes! Something we can blame on her!

Anonymous said:

Didn't need burrow: The relationship between the Couffaines and Jagged will not be explored. They might perform a song together and that's all, Luka forgives Jagged for abandoning him (his daddy issues just magically disappear so he doesn't bring it up anymore) while Juleka doesn't interact with Jagged at all

I’m torn between, “Luka will basically never appear again,” and, “Luka will suddenly appear much more often now that he’s no longer a ‘threat’ to the love square (Marinette didn’t break up with him because of Adrien but sure).”

Anonymous said:

Didn't need Burrow: "Gabriel Agreste" will be all about how he's not really evil just misunderstood. He had a lonely childhood or some garbage and we should feel totally sad for him you guys.

wow i hate it

#Didn't Need Burrow

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mc-lukanette · 3 years

Text

"And yeah," Chat finished, laying back on the rooftops with a sigh, "I don't think Kagami's mad at me, but she won't look me in the eye either."

Ladybug gave him a smile that was both amused and sympathetic. "You probably overwhelmed her."

He gave her a questioning look, encouraging her to go on. Ladybug didn't mind, of course; it was practically routine for them to sit down and vent to each other and help wherever they could. Plus, with no villain like Hawk Moth around, they could talk freely about their identities.

She clarified, "I know you've been dating for years, but you're... a lot sometimes. I'm sure Kagami likes that sort of thing or she wouldn't be dating you, but remember, you had your mom to get you used to hugs. Kagami never had that."

"Oh," Chat uttered. He frowned, running his claws through his hair and ruffling it. "So I did it again."

"I don't think going overboard is a bad thing," she offered gently. "But also, the flowers, the date, and then all that affection when you two got home?"

Chat tilted his head at her. "I was just excited to celebrate the anniversary of when we got together."

Ladybug blinked, pointing out, "It's... not your anniversary?"

"That's what I mean!" He stretched his limbs out for emphasis. "I couldn't wait! I figured maybe we could have a—" He paused, and she could see the moment it registered with him why Kagami was thrown off. He bit his bottom lip, then continued sheepishly, "...a pre-anniversary?"

Ladybug snorted behind her hand, having to try hard not to do a full-blown laugh. Chat sat up, pouting at her.

"H-hey! Don't laugh at my pain!"

"No, no!" she replied, managing to stifle her giggles enough to speak. "It makes total sense now."

"What?" he asked, genuinely confused.

She cleared her throat, calming down fully, then explained, "Kagami's competitive. She definitely knew you were doing all that for a reason and she wasn't prepared, so she couldn't compete with it."

"Ah—" He glanced upwards, acknowledging that. "Yeah, that—mm." He sighed as he slumped forward. "You're right."

"Just talk to her. You'll work it out," she assured. Then, more teasingly, she added, "Just don't be surprised when she lays it on even thicker than you did."

"I'm looking forward to it," he retorted with a huge grin on his face. He glanced out over the city, his grin turning into a calmer smile as if he were reminiscing. "Thanks. You're always good with this."

"It's not a big deal, " she argued, waving a hand dismissively. "I'm happy to help."

"No, I mean it," he insisted. "You're really good at this. I'm surprised you aren't dating already." He leaned in close, continuing, "You always seem really happy for me and Kagami. Don't you want that yourself?"

The question caught her off guard. She looked away from him, recoiling slightly from the closeness. He must've noticed too, as he pulled back almost immediately, clearly remembering their talk about "boundaries."

"Sorry. I just—" He rubbed an arm, seeming to reconsider his words but being unable to hold back all of his curiosity. "...don't you like someone at least?"

She paused, though certainly not because she had to think about who she liked. She'd already thought about it a lot and simply hadn't done anything about it. She knew Chat meant well and she didn't like there being secrets between them, but he could also be a bit... forward, when it came to such things.

"If I tell you," she began, noting Chat already breaking out into a curious smile, "you have to promise not to drop in on them and declare yourself as the Messenger of Love who simply must know why your two favorite sweethearts haven't gotten together yet."

He nodded in eager agreement, not even trying to deny that he'd do something like that.

She hesitated, but knew that she'd been wanting to get her crush off her chest for a while now anyway. Finally relenting, her expression grew fond as she confessed, "I like Luka."

Suddenly, Chat straightened, the smile vanishing from his face. "Wait, Luka? Luka Couffaine?" he asked, his mouth hung open in a slight gape. "Really?"

"What?" She pouted, offended at the implication. "Luka's a great guy!"

"I know!" he replied, hands shooting up defensively. "Just—" He shrugged. "—why aren't you together then?"

She blinked. "What do you mean? He doesn't like me that way."

Chat's gape grew wider. Raising a brow, he asked, "Are—are you sure?"

She couldn't fathom why he seemed so baffled by the statement. "Positive."

He shook his head, like he was clearing himself of thoughts, but continued to press the issue anyway. "Bugabud, have you seen him? He's always looking your way. He smiles at you all the time like you'd just made his year. He's written a ton of songs for you—about you—"

"Not a ton," she cut in, though she had to pause as she put together the actual number. "It's only like, um..." She averted her gaze, scratching her cheek sheepishly. "m-maybe thirty or so—?"

"Thirty," Chat stressed, emphasizing how large of a number that really was. He gestured wildly at the rooftop below them, exclaiming, "He worships the ground you walk on!"

"That's some you-level exaggeration you've got going on," she chided. "He loved me, once, but—" She looked down, recalling her moment with Luka at the TV station, mixed emotions swirling in her chest. "...it was a long time ago, and we were young."

"...You're serious," he uttered in disbelief.

"It's true."

When he didn't respond, she glanced up at him to see him staring back at her with a stern expression, his brows furrowed and his hands pressed against each other in front of his mouth. She honestly didn't understand where all the shock came from, though she supposed that part of it was Chat being the romantic that he was. He'd become even more passionate about love ever since he started dating Kagami, seeking everyone's happiness when he could even if it failed.

After a few more seconds, Chat took a breath, his eyes unmoving from hers. Lowering his hands, he said curtly, "No."

"Wha? No what?"

"I'm helping you," he insisted, "If you and Luka aren't together by next week, I'm not worth my miraculous."

"Chat." Ladybug shook her head. "You just promised—"

"Not like that," he assured. Gesturing outwards, he continued, "You two are crazy for each other, and I'm telling you, Luka's still in love with you. I wouldn't say it if I wasn't sure."

She, however, wasn't sure, giving him a skeptical look along with a hard, "Hm."

"Just... let me try, okay?" He leaned in, though was careful not to lean as much as he had before, when he'd made her uncomfortable. "You've been helping me with Kagami before we even got together—" The even when you liked me went wisely unsaid, but it was implied. "—and now I'm finally getting a chance to return the favor. I want you to have the happiness you gave me."

He was officially pleading with her, and she wasn't sure whether she regretted telling him about her crush or not. She'd daydreamed on occasion of what it'd be like to actually be together with Luka, or if she'd actually accepted his confession all that time ago, but they were just that: daydreams. She knew Chat's heart was in the right place, but that didn't automatically make it a good idea to go along with it.

Nevertheless, he was looking at her like he'd be heartbroken if she denied him. Sighing, she gave in to the request, however hesitantly. "Alright. I trust you." At his sunshine-level smile, she lifted a finger to insist, "But, I'm telling you, he doesn't feel that way anymore."

He shrugged, smiling casually at her. "If you say so~"

"You don't believe me," she observed with a squint.

"Not necessarily." He tapped his chin, looking thoughtfully off to the side with a hint of concern. "I just can't believe that my denseness from way back then was actually contagious."

"Wha—hey!"

#lukaneventte: No Context November #Flower Arrangement Shipping #bonus Adrimi #((No one's allowed to say that I never include Adrien positively in fics. :P))#Pro LukaMari #Lukanette

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testudoaubrei-blog · 3 years

Text

TL/DR - Catra is a uniquely complex and compelling character who has -so much going on- compared with most characters in any medium. Her character arc is psychologically astute, morally powerful and dramatically compelling, and it pushes the boundaries of the audiences sympathies in ways that are really groundbreaking for a kids show, and her arcs conclusion celebrates love, growth, and the power to change in a way that is all too rare in TV for grown ups.

Content note for mentions of suicidal ideation and self harm.

Well, now that the summary is out of the way, here’s a massive fucking dissertation on why Catra is such a great character.

This is the first of a series of posts outlining things that make She Ra a truly great show, one that stands out even 15 years into a golden age of TV animation for kids. This isn’t going to be a comprehensive account for why the show is great - the real answer is that this show has so many arcs and so many fully realized characters and they are all growing and changing in ways that interact with each other and complement each other so well. But I’m going to highlight some particular standouts, things that this show does better than anything else, things that made me step back and say ‘holy shit they did this in a show pitched at 10 year olds?!’

And so the first of these posts is about Catra. I’ve never seen a character in a kids TV show like Catra before. Depending on the season, she’s an anti-villain, an outright villain and an anti-hero and then, in the end, a hero. Being glib, I describe her in villain mode as a Saturday morning cartoon Supervillain as written by like, Dostoevsky. She’s got the trappings of classic villain camp - long speeches, sneering, over-complicated plans, she’s oddly ineffectual at times etc/ Yet all of this is underlaid and justified by something much deeper - her feelings of rejection, her desire to lash out at everyone around her, at her self-hatred and hatred of everyone and everything else (at least by Season 4. Good God.) And her actions are as dark as her motivations - she nearly destroys reality out of spite, betrays literally everyone who cares about her (often multiple times) and isolates herself so completely that in the season 4 finale she is a solitary, suicidal wreck of a person. Hell, in her last fight with Hordak, I was definitely rooting for Hordak (to say nothing of Glimmer, who is a pretty impressive antiheroine, like if Sparkles had just blasted her into glittery oblivion would we have held it against her?).

Let's start by discussing trauma. It comes up a lot with Catra for obvious and good reasons. But I almost feel like that word is insufficient for what's going on with Catra, or at least, we shouldn't stop with it (I know there are terms like complex trauma, but rather than simply using those I want to explain the difference between Catra’s consistent abuse and a single traumatic event). To use another example from a different show, Korra was also traumatized in season 4. But she was traumatized by a series of an events when she was a young adult. She had something horrible happen to her, and it fucked her up, and then she had exposure therapy with Zaheer and at least starts to get better. Catra...Catra is much more consistently abused. It's not just that shadow weaver traumatized her with the various acts of torture, but that Shadow Weaver taught Catra both an explicit worldview and a series of coping mechanisms that she struggles with through young adulthood. First, Shadow Weaver trained Catra to seek her approval. This is something she is particularly vulnerable to with Shadow Weaver, but also what she does with Hordak and to a extent Double Trouble. Catra's instinct when people mistreat her or show that they aren't trustworthy is to invest further in the relationship, until the breaking point. By contrast, when people treat her well Catra lashes out or takes them for granted. This is uh…a dymamic I am acquainted with among people who have been abused as kids, people whom I love. It is pretty rough.

She also developed a desire to prove herself. This starts off being tied to her drive for approval, but combined with her competitive streak (which is expressed in both healthy and unhealthy ways with Adora) it turns into a desire to beat Shadow Weaver and then Hordak at their own game.

At the same time, Catra learned by always being blamed for everything to evade and deny responsibility, no matter what. I think this form of self reassurance is tied to her self doubt (I think at some level she does think she is worthless) and her self hatred. It is also enabled by Adora’s martyr complex and willingness even act as Catra’s punching bag (as we see in the flashback in Corridors). This is a dynamic that actually repeats in an even worse fashion with Scorpia. Far from being arrogant, her constant evasions, put downs against others and preening speeches sound like the words of a woman who is trying to convince herself most of all. This tendency borders on narcissistic self delusion by season 3-4, which she begins recounting her version of events and possibly believing it even when it is obviously false, and everyone knows it.

When it comes to worldviews, Shadow Weaver taught Catra that love is about control and manipulation. We see this in seasons 1-3 where she congratulates herself for manipulating Adora when all she has done is take advantage of Adora's lingering love for her. Meanwhile, she’s learned that power is her only protection, and that the only way to stay on top is to abuse those beneath her.

The final kind of static tendency in Catra is her identity in the horde and her view of herself as one of the bad guys. This is something she rarely articulates but underlies much of her her decision to stay and not join Adora (at least at first). I think one thing to consider is that even if Catra never believed horde propaganda, it may have made her cynical and unwilling to imagine something better for herself or the world. Another factor is having struggled to belong in the horde for so long, she isn't going to give up now. At first this ties into her desire to win the approval of shadow weaver and Hordak, then it comes from her desire to prove herself better than them. Another factor is her self hatred. She sees herself as someone who hurts people, perhaps as a monster. She sees herself as a bad guy and so team evil is her side.

So yeah, our girl is kinda fucked up.

And yet Catra is never reduced to the sum of her traumas and bad habits. At every step of the way she is shown as a moral agent. She is shaped by shadow Weaver's abuse but she remains aware of and responsible for her actions. This is a double edged sword. She is fully responsible for her actions, but also she is never shown as broken by abuse or mental illness. She’s fully responsible, but by the same token is also redeemable, because she still has a choice.

So with that our of the way, let's go to Catra's arc.

I’m not going to recite everything terrible Catra does because I’m still on my first complete rewatch and I honestly find it hard to list it all. It’s a lot. So let’s talk about her shifting motivations. Early on, we see her desire for approval and recognition motivating her in ways that are so easy to sympathize with - she’s been told she’s worthless for years, and she wants to be worth something. We see how much she’s been scarred by Shadow Weavers abuse and by the ruthlessness and callousness of the Horde, and can sympathize with her desire to survive and advance since her own position is so untenable. We also see how, at first, she wants to be reunited with Adora. Her first huge turn into much darker territory is Promises, when she tries to kill Adora in order to permanently sever her connection with her own life and eliminate a possible rival for advancement (should Adora ever return). She’s told herself that she doesn’t want Adora back, and at least partly means it. Yet we still show her care for Scorpia and Entrapta and even Shadow Weaver in Season 2. It’s when Catra realizes that Shadow Weaver has chosen Adora over her once again that she takes her darkest turn. It’s not just that she destroys reality out of spite, it’s that she rejects her chance for a better and happier life, betrays every friend she has and focuses single-mindedly on hurting Adora (and arguably herself) and then on surviving when her attempt fails. Then Catra spends an entire season both fully inhabiting her role as a villain (and not a sympathetic one - really only our history with her leaves us sympathetic) and being utterly self-destructive and miserable. At the end, as mentioned, she’s a broken, suicidal wreck who has destroyed everything she’s strived for. If this was an HBO drama, we’d roll credits here and she’d go down as another self-destructive antihero. It would perhaps be too much to call her ‘Walter White as a catgirl’, but still. Of course, her story doesn’t end there.

Something that is incredibly dark that is happening in step with this is Catra’s hardening of herself, indeed, her dehumanization of herself. We see her struggle with her natural compassion, her kindness, her need for connection, her desire for happiness, and we see her ignore it all, stamp it down and nearly snuff it out. This is a huge factor in her descent into becoming a real villain (no ‘anti’ qualifiers needed). Every step of her descent is a struggle for Catra - not going with Adora in the second part of ‘The Sword’, trying to kill Adora in ‘Promise’, going back to the Horde, betraying Entrapta, lying about Entrapta, threatening Scorpia, destroying the world - but she always chooses evil. And with every step she becomes more isolated, more callous, and more cruel. Her default reaction becomes not just bravado and mockery and insolence, but threats, bullying and intimidation, until her management style is identical to Hordak’s, and indeed, is quite a bit worse. Catra starts off fighting for Hordak and Shadow Weaver’s approval and struggling to survive, and ends up cackling maniacally at her brutal and murderous conquests. She has very deliberately turned herself into a cruel conqueror, and a tyrant. This self-dehumanization is a huge part of evil in the world, I think, and it’s really powerful to see it so clearly in a kids show.

Meanwhile her insistence on evading all responsibility finally results in a self-serving, self-protective narrative that insulates her from responsibility or self-examination but also cuts her off from reality and other people. It’s always a bit unclear to what extent her various untruths (about Adora leaving her, about Shadow Weaver’s escape and her concealment of it not being her fault, about Entrapta betraying Hordak) are things she believes, lies she is telling to have power over others (mostly Scorpia) or things that she doesn’t quite believe but is trying to convince herself of. It’s probably all of these at various times, and in different degrees for each lie. The end result is that Catra is even more alone, because only she inhabits the safe cocoon of lies she’s built around herself. It also is the key to her and the Horde’s downfall - Catra is so isolated and in such denial that she can’t see how thin her forces are spread, and this crack shows up even in episode 1 of Season 4, with her insistence that the Princess Alliance is in shambles (when, in fact, it’s already rebounding, and proves more resilient than she allows herself to believe, and is led by a woman as ruthless and determined as herself). This part of Catra’s arc brilliantly shows how deception (of yourself and others) can feel protective by keeping shame at bay, but ultimately is destructive and strips someone of so much of the intellectual and moral qualities that we call ‘human.’ It’s also chilling to see since we’ve seen the end game of this mentality play out in US national politics, at the highest level.

I said at the opening that we’ve never seen a sympathetic character like Catra in a kids show. What about Zuko? I would argue that Zuko is never a cruel, or as callous, or as self-destructive as Catra is at her worst. Zuko is motivated by a desire for recognition from his abusive father (much like Catra is initially motivated by desire for recognition from Hordak and Shadow Weaver, and indeed Adora), and perhaps a desire to belong in the Fire Nation. All of this gets wrapped together in his ‘Honor’. He’s a young man with a very weak sense of what he truly believes, instead relying on external guides to what he should do. He’s also incredibly self-involved, and initially indifferent to anyone’s pain but his own and anyone’s needs but his own need to restore his honor. Uncle Iroh is there throughout to push Zuko both to see the needs of others and to become his own person. Zuko’s redemption arc, then, is a twofold quest to recognize other people and to find his own moral center and act from it. This is a pretty powerful coming of age story in that it is about him becoming his own person and throwing off the shackles of his upbringing. Politically, it’s a powerful story of a young man taking responsibility for his own actions in an authoritarian regime and refusing to participate in its imperialism any more and to embrace a new way forward both for himself and his nation. At the same time, in some ways it is easy to sympathize with Zuko because his greatest crimes are those of weakness - he’s not strong enough to stand up to his nation and his family until midway through the last season. Catra though...Catra does what she does, eventually, because she wants to hurt people. She’s cruel, and spiteful, and destructive in ways that are truly scary and which prevent any excuse or mitigation.

Which brings up the other comparison - Azula. But while Azula is (somewhat inconsistently) shown either as a monstrous child sociopath or a traumatized and broken child who can’t help it (and thus, perversely, as not a moral agent but something like a monster), Catra is consistently shown as a moral agent. Catra chooses her own path, every step of the way. She has so many chances to do something else - Adora’s offers to leave together in the two-part series opener, Promises, Scorpia’s suggestion that they dessert the Horde and become desert gang leaders, etc - and until season 5, she turns them all down. While Azula seems destined for evil and madness, with Catra we see a young woman very deliberately walk down the path into unmitigated evil with both eyes open. And then we see it destroy her.

And after she is basically destroyed, we see her build herself back. This process actually starts in Season 4 with the creeping realization that even when she is winning she is miserable and alone. She doesn’t even notice Scorpia is gone for several episodes, then she completely loses it. She spends the entire time when she is at her most triumphant isolated and raging and borderline incoherent, as ineffectual as she accuses Hordak of being. She’s won, and she’s alone, and she’s the most unhappy she has ever been, and I think for the first time she realizes that. And that’s the worst blow to her, even before all the external things come crashing down. She’s already miserable before Double Trouble and Glimmer deal her a triple coup de grace of destroying all her armies*, turning her and Hordak against each other and then Double Trouble’s epic evisceration. By the time Glimmer shows up, Catra is, as mentioned, literally suicidal. But she’s also already begun the process of changing in that she knows that she has a problem (her, and her self/other-destructive tendencies). Moreover, she knows, at some level, that what she really wants isn’t conquest, or to prove herself as the baddest leader of the Horde, but love - and she’s seen how she’s squandered that at every opportunity.

Let’s just pause for a moment to observe how much better Glimmer is at villainous machinations than Catra. In a couple episodes she makes a faustian bargain for unlimited power, kills all her enemies armies, sets her two chief foes at each other’s throats and literally cripples one while rendering the other helpless. And given her ironic non-answer about hurting Catra (‘we’re the good guys, remember?’ and the fact that she’d tried to kill Catra twice before**, she walked into Hordak’s sanctum fully intending to end Catra’s life, one way or another. She does all this through ruthlessness, recklessness and treachery, and she could give like, a TED talk on villainy. Of course it also blows up in her face and is actually way worse than the portal did in Catra’s, endangering the whole universe (I always assumed that the portal only threatened Despondos), dooming Etheria to invasion and all that. Of course, Catra pulled that switch and then fought Adora knowing that the world was ending, while Glimmer was just ignoring warnings from...just about everyone, including Shadow Weaver. So yeah, Glimmer, best kids show antihero since Princess Bubblegum***(unless we’re counting Catra as an antihero, which works for the first half of season 5).

Anyway, at the beginning of Season 5 Catra is adrift. Though some interpretations, like TV tropes, see her as immediately falling back into old habits and casting her lot in with Prime, I see her actions from the end of Season 4 onwards as more ambivalent. She seems to be kind of...going through the motions. She doesn’t have any of the drive or passion in her plotting that she once did, she seems to be maneuvering into Prime’s good graces out of habit. At best she’s back in the survival mode of early season 1, but without the ambition and desire to prove herself that motivated her. Some interpretations put a lot of stock in Prime being someone that can’t be bargained with or appeased, but...I don’t buy it. I take him, to an extent, at his word when he says that he was ‘exalt’ Catra (I am sure it is something awful). Catra actually gets what she wants halfway through “Corridors.” Only it’s not what she wants. She’s done jockeying for advantage, especially in a world where she truly would be alone because all she has is this psychopathic narcissist and his clones for company. She wants connection. She wants to do what is right. She’s suppressed all her humanity (felinitity? Anyway) for years and it’s made her miserable, and now she’s ready to embrace it. At the same time she confronts her own culpability, seeing just how much harm she’s done and admitting it for the first time. Her first lifeline is Glimmer, the only person she can actually talk to, the only other Etherian, the woman whose mother she doomed and who has nearly killed her three times. But Glimmer is also going through her own dark night of the soul - Glimmer and Catra’s character arcs were converging at the same time that Catra’s and Adoras and Glimmer’s and Adora’s were diverging. And they come together on either side of that forcefield, just talking and being people in an environment that is designed to be as dehumanizing as possible. Even this barest lifeline is enough for Catra to hold on to for dear life, and enough to inspire her to not just feel bad about the bad things she’s done, but do something good.

But the first way she does this is a cop out. Her plan, like Shadow Weaver’s in the finale, is to sacrifice/kill herself doing ‘one good thing.’ That way she doesn’t have to figure out how to live with the consequences of her actions, face the possible rejection of the people she loves whom she’s wronged, and do the hard work of building herself back up as a better person. She gets to die a hero rather than live as a villain. That said, unlike Shadow Weaver she does at least get off one apology, and it makes all the difference.

Then Adora fucks Catra’s sacrifice up, in glorious, space operatic, gay AF pulp fiction fashion, by saving the cat. Catra is mind controlled or unconscious for most of this episode, but what she does do is so crucial. When Adora comes for her, she reaches out to her, as soon as she is able. She doesn’t push her away, she takes Adora’s help, and her love, and Adora does the rest in badass fashion. The next few episodes plus the so perfect its canon Don’t Go are my favorite part of Catra’s entire arc.

She nearly falls back into her old habits, at least partly. Now that she has to live with what she’s done rather than just dying for it she just wants to run away again. But when she has to choose between losing Adora all over again and confronting herself and her past, she chooses Adora, and asks her to stay.

Catra then spends the rest of Season 5 slowly easing herself into the very human world of the Princess Alliance - the comaradery, the dedication to others and a cause, the goofiness. I’m going to talk a lot more about her relationship with Adora in my Catradora post, but I do want to highlight three moments.

The first is Catra running away again. This is actually a big change from what she’s done before - she’s not leaving because she’s angry, or bitter, or spiteful, she’s leaving because she doesn’t want to see the woman she loves sacrifice herself yet again (maybe this time for good) after being manipulated by the woman who had abused them both. But then she comes back. And then she confronts her abuser in a way that she has never done before - for the first time in the series, she not only calls Shadow Weaver out but calls her to do the right thing, and doesn’t give up until she does (this is after Adora also calls SW out and cuts her off forever, meaning that her two charges have finally called her on her bullshit and chosen each other over her, more in my Shadow Weaver Rant...and I guess my Catradora rant).

Then, at the end, Catra both stays with Adora through her potentially fatal harnessing of the Heart of Etheria and then her comes in and rescues her by challenging her to do something for Catra and for herself. Not to be with Catra, or to kiss her, or love her, but just stay for her. Needless to say, Adora responds far more enthusiastically than Catra had dared hope. (more on this in my Catradora rant).

Catra starts the show convinced she doesn’t need anyone except Adora, and she’s willing to even push Adora away if she can’t have Adora on her own terms. She goes down that path - ambition, manipulation, treachery, cruelty and isolation - until she has nothing left. She then slowly, painfully, turns around and reaches out and begins to heal the pain in Etheria and the universe rather than causing more. This is a psychological journey in many ways, but even more than that it is a profoundly moral one. It is a story of her accepting responsibility for her actions, facing reality, reaching out to others and making amends. It is in every sense a redemption. And while it works perfectly with Adora’s own development into her own, fuller, happier, healthier person, it works not because of Adora or the power of love, but because of Catra herself. Adora’s companionship, Adora’s rescuing of her and holding her to account, all of these are necessary for Catra to change for the better. But in the end it is Catra herself who chooses the right path, maybe for the first time in her life. And that’s what makes the romance work in turn - Catra is motivated to change not simply by a desire to impress her girlfriend or by Adora’s shining goodness (to the contrary, Adora’s a healthier and less self-sacrificing person at least in the finale...she comes around later than Catra) but by her desire to be true to herself and seek out what she really needs and wants - which is love, and connection, and to do good rather than evil. It’s a gorgeous story that takes an antihero all the way down to hell and then back again, and this makes it a truly unique redemption arc in all of kids TV - not just because of how far Catra falls, but how far she travels overall.

*(I know a lot of fanficcers talk about there being a lot of Horde Soldiers left but like...in the show...they’re nearly all dead, guys. Glimmer and company...okay mostly Mermista... just about killed them all in an afternoon. The cadet Triad survives because they deserted and weren’t there to get drowned/frozen/suffocated by plants when the grand invasion of Brightmoon went sideways)

**Okay, once she was only an accessory to Shadow Weaver’s attempted murder of Catra, the other time she leaves Catra for dead in ‘Pulse’

***I stan PB so hard guys. So hard. Machiavellian genius, mad scientist, god figure, possible Nietzschean Ubermensch? She’s so great. So great.

#she ra #she ra adora #she ra catra #spop catra #redemption arcs

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theliterarywolf · 3 years

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Can someone at Disney explain to me why, out of ALL the villains that you could recontextualize into sympathetic anti-heros, you picked the puppy murderer who wanted to skin adorable innocent animals into coats? Like say what you want about Maleficent and how it's ruined Disney and Hollywood as a whole, at least she didn't perform animal cruelty!

Silly Taka, no one at modern Disney can think more than two moves ahead. They needed a girl-boss anti-villain! Could they have created a new one and had their first new merchandise mascot in almost a decade? -- when I say 'Merchandise Mascot', I'm referencing characters that are plastered onto so much merchandise that a good percentage of the population hasn't even seen the original films they come from, i.e.: Jack Skellington, Tinkerbell, Stitch -- Yes, but that's haaaaard~

Anon said: To be fair they could pull a maleficent and have this be an alternate timeline where she doesn't become a villain and skin puppies for a coat and they just chose cruella for the aesthetics. Or maybe they'll have the cruella personality somehow split off and whatever her actual name will have to fight her to keep the dogs safe god that dropped my iq typing that

People keep telling me that that's close to what they did... Which leads further into my frustrations of 'Disney, do something original for fuck's sake *looks at Raya* Not like that'

Anon said: Not only do the dalamations actually kill Cruella's mom, they did it in the stupidest way possible. Do they bite or maul her to death? No, one of them jumps on her and pushes her off a cliff and into the ocean.

Well, I mean, everyone knows that an average of 3 British middle-aged women are killed by level 20 Dalmatians using Tackle every year. It's common knowledge, anon, gosh.

Anon said: Just to play De Vil's advocate, her Stepmoms death isn't actually used to justify her puppy hatred, in fact it's not even really connected to why she wants a dalmatian coat, she's shown to like them towards the end of the movie, though with the implication she still wants to skin their babies for fashion. Imo the movie was pretty fun and she's still very much a villain protag where that scene is really only meant to further her grudge with the Baroness. The scene is still stupid though.

Okay, even if I tried to look at this through a similar perspective of someone like Wolf from Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts where a character is actively wearing the pelt of something that tried to kill her as a symbol of 'Fuck around and find out', it still feels like they handled it in a clumsy way here. Especially with 'Oh, I feel no grudge towards your kind... But I am still going to commit a crime against your species in the future, so keep an eye out~'

More and my responses beneath the break

Anon said: Actually if I had to say a few things about Cruella it's that it actually never delves into why she's so obsessed with furs. Fashion yes, but not furs specifically. General consensus I've heard though is that the movie could've been a really good standalone unconnected to any prior ips.

THAT'S ALL I WANT! FOR DISNEY TO JUST MAKE NEW IPs! I wouldn't care so much if we were following a murderous girl-boss anti-villain as long as we're not trying to woobify a pre-existing character who is already evil for evil's sake!

Anon said: Hey, since we're all collectively ragging on Cruella, thought I'd share something I stumbled on during a 2am YouTube crawl. Some dude on YouTube made a fake trailer for a theoretical Live Action Origin Movie about the dude that shot Bambi's mom

... As bad as this is for me to say, I wouldn't actually be opposed to watching a film following a guy who has essentially lost everything (job, family, house, etc.) and is living as a hermit in the forest. One day he happens upon a clearing full of animals and he needs to stock his rations for the upcoming winter and he manages to snag a doe.

Of course, as he's retrieving his kill, he sees the poor, now-orphan fawn looking at him in fear and horror before it bounds away into the woods. The rest of the movie is about the hunter trying to survive, thinking about his (mankind's) place in nature and just how much he should be taking and hurting to justify his own existence. The climax of the movie could be the fire but now written as a forest-clearing event that takes out the hunter's shelter and meager possessions. As he's trying to see what little can be saved, he hears a crack. Immediately grabbing for his gun, he takes aim and sees a buck. However... As both man and animal stare each other down, the hunter recognizes the buck as the same scared fawn from all those years ago.

And, thus... He lets him go. Bambi turns away and guides his family away from the burnt remains of the woods, and the hunter finally decides to go back to the city to try and rebuild a life without encroaching on the natural world.

Or something like that.

Anon said: You know who's actually a well written, sympathetic, female Disney villain, Demona from Gargoyles. An animated series from the 80s did a better job at giving a reason for being a villain than "wah, my mom got killed by Dalmatians but I'll still adopt them and use faux fur." I might even say Eclipsa from Star vs was a better "villain" than 2021 Cruella. I put " " because Eclipsa didn't really feel like a villain, more of a morally grey character IMO.

Sad to say, I doubt Disney will ever give us something in the same vein as Gargoyles anytime soon.

God... *holds back a scream* Season 4 of Star vs. would have been so much better if we just focused on Eclipsa and the other Queens of Mewni! Why couldn't Seasn 4 of Star vs. focused on Eclipsa and the other Queens of Mewni!!

Anon said: I feel like you probably could do a decent Cruella movie. A young woman starts her career in fashion at the bottom with earnest intentions to make an honest living. Heck she could be against fur in the beginning, but finds that she has to compromise more and more on her ethics until her rise to the top were she has lost all of her morality and no longer recognizes the person in the mirror. At that point, she's too far gone, and in the pursuit of even higher fashion heights, is willing to make a coat from puppies.

Anon, are you in my head? Because that's close to how I rewrote the premise of a movie like this when the trailer first dropped.

#replies #hey anyone want to give feedback to my version of a 'Hunter from Bambi' movie?

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ablackfangirlwrites · 4 years

Text

72 hours

When you find out you only have 72 hours left to live and you only want to spend it with one person

Keigo | Hawks

"Hey, Kid."

Keigo said walking into your hospital room.

"....hi..."

Keigo tilted his head sympathetically usually when he called you kid you'd pout and argue that he wasnt that much older then you

But instead you gave him a weak smile

"Aw, whatever it was it couldn't have been that bad." He teased you.

The two of you had been friends for years

Keigo wanted to see you give him a real smile

When he first started being a hero thats when the two of you met

It actually was an accident

He was chasing a villain through a crowd and the villain decided to use you as a distraction by throwing you in the street

And he saved you

Once the fiasco was over you had found him and thanked him for saving you

And from then on the two of you hit it off

But only as friends

You knew he was a busy hero he didnt have time for a girlfriend besides the two of you were only friends

Plus there were so many girls that wanted him too

So what could you offer? It was easier to just stay his friend

And he had the same thought pattern more or less

Just stay your friend that way he could be close to you

Better he stay your friend then potentially mess up something by being in a relationship with you and you guys have a bad break up

"I'm gonna die Keigo..."

You told keigo trying to keep your from crying

But it wasnt working your were in tears

"What?" Keigo frowned walking further to your bedside

Eailer that day you happened to be close to a villain attack and ended up getting hit by their quirk in the crossfire

Whiched landed you in the hospital

And from what the doctors and police had told you apparently the villain that they were chasing was very dangerous and had a life shortening quirk

"They said I have 72 hours to live..."you sobbed

When you told keigo that he already figured out what had happened to you

And for the first time in his life he felt truly devastated

You were the first friend he had since he left from all his training from the commission

You were the first person he was ever in love with

And you were gonna die

"I dont wanna die keigo." He could hear the fear in your voice

"You're not gonna die Y/n," he tried to consoled you "I will figure this out, I wont let you die."

He was about to get up and leave but you quickly grabbed his hand

"Please don't leave me."

You weren't close to your family and Keigo was the only person you had left

"Y/n...I cant sit here and watch you die...I have to figure something out."

"The doctors already said there was no cure....the police said the same thing everyone that villain hit died three days later and I know you know that."

He did know it

The villain that hit you was on everyone's radar and he had killed a lot of people

And now all he could do was be angry that he wasnt the one who caught him

Cause if he was you wouldn't be in this situation

He knew there were so many attempts to stop the casualties from dying but none had worked

The two of you sat in silence for a while neither of you knowing what to do or say

Finally keigo spoke up, "What do you wanna do?"

Trying to suppress a cry, you'd whispered, "everything."

Up until now your life hadn't been that eventful

Yes you went out with friend and had good times but there was still so much you didnt do

Hawks sighed, "fine then we'll do everything."

"Hawks that impossible I dont-"

"We will do everything we can for the next 72 hours." He cut you off

"What?"

"We're going to do everything. Everything and more whatever you wanted to do in your life we'll do for the next three days." He told you.

You protested but keigo wasnt having it

He got and started to pull you up with him

"I wont let you go dying sad and alone in bed. We're going to take these next three days and live."

The two of you would do just that too

He'd take you everywhere he could too you'd see all the big sight of your city you lived in but never had the time to go see

He take you to eat all the food you ever wanted to try

Everything that you wanted he provided

And you enjoyed it as much as you could on the first day

By the second day you were so tired from all the excitement you wanted to stay home but Hawks insisted that you didnt

Things were bittersweet but the two of you were making the most of it

On the second days evening you were at a bar and you got into talk about all the other things in life you really wanted

"I wanted to get married you know Keigo..."

He would just listen to you

"I wanted to get married and live in a little apartment with my husband and just kiss him when he left for work and be so happy when I saw him come back. We'd be so in love... I wanted to have children too...I mean at least one" you were smiling as tears started to fall you wanted that life with him but you knew it was unlikely and now you knew it would never happen

"But I wont get any of that cause some stupid villain..."

"Then marry me?" Keigo said

You laughed but keigo grabbed your hand

"Marry me f/n? In the morning let's do it."

"Keigo-"

"I can't give you any children, but shit-" keigo had been feeling so many emotions with all this going on but he kept up a smile for you

"I hate that it took this all to happen. But I do love you F/n...more than a friend, and i would be so happy if you married me tomorrow."

You couldn't believe what you were hearing.

"You're serious?"

He just nodded

Not knowing where to even start you cried boy happy and sad tears telling him "Yes!"

"Keigo I've loved you for so long!"

And for the first time the two of you shared a kiss

First thing the next morning the two of you went to the court house to make it official

The two of you were so in a rush you didnt even get real rings instead the two of you bought ring pops

Hawks got you a cherry flavor one

And you got him watermelon

The marriage was simple and quick

The two of you didnt want to waste any time together

Cause these were your last 24

You did a few couple things but more than anything you just wanted to spend the rest of the time you had with him

Hawks got the two of you a honeymoon suite

Where the two of you laid in bed talking

Imagining what your lives would have been like together

Things eventually got started to get a bit hot and heavy but you'd stop him

Looking away from his gaze while he was over you

"Keigo...I've never....you know.."

He'd frown, "You never what? Ohhhh." He then exclaimed once he realized what you meant

"Really?...wait so you were gonna die without-"

Feeling embarrassed you tried to to hid your face, "I know just never talked to anyone really and you were the only one I wanted for so long....and I didnt want to tell you...I didnt know how you'd react I'm sorry dont-"

"Babe, clam down."

He rested his head against yours

"We dont have too."

"But I want too." You'd tell him

And so Keigo would make love with you for the first time

After the two of you would lay there together

Smiling, "we should have done that a long time ago."

Keigo laughed, "I know right"

Laying on his chest, "We're idiots."

"I love you f/n..."

"I'm glad to be spending my last few hours with you."

You smiled and held on to him tighter

"You're the best husband I could have asked for."

"You're the best wife."

"Do you think you'll get married again.."

Keigo didnt answer you

"I want you too."

"Y/n...."

You sat up, "This is my final will...and testimony...I want you to find someone else...dont live alone and sad. our friendship is beautiful and I love you..so when I'm gone I still want you to live...live for both of us...okay?"

Keigo wanted to stop you from talking but he knew this was important for you even if he didnt want to hear it

"....okay."

"You promise?"

Keigo didn't look at you, "...promise."

You knew this was going to be hard for him it was already so hard for you

"I'm going to leave now."

"What?" Keigo sat up alarmed "where are you going?"

"I dont want you to see me dead. The last memory I want you to have of me is a happy one."

As you said that you started to get dressed

"Can I talk you out of this? Stay with me?" He wasnt ready to say goodbye

But you said no

By now you only had about two hours left and your mind was made up

"Take this." He got up and gave you one of his feathers "so I'm with you."

"God, that's cheesey." You tried to laugh

But he didnt show any emotions he just wanted to be with you anyway he could "Please."

You nodded taking his feather and the of you shared your last kiss

Then you left

Keigo didnt sleep that night he only wondered what you were doing

After that night Keigo never saw you again

He didn know where you went he only knew you were gone

Keigo wasnt really the same after you were gone he did everything the same

But something was always missing

His best friend

But for your sake he did what you asked he lived

#hawks x you #my hero academia hawks #hawks x reader #bnha hawks #mha hawks #hawksbnha #boku no hero academia hawks #keigo x you #keigo takami x reader #keigo x reader #bnha keigo #my hero academia keigo takami #bnha x reader #bnha imagines #bnha headcanons #mha x reader

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bangtan-pugh-bug · 3 years

Text

Scott Lang x reader slow burn Chapter 10

Warnings: none really just more angst and swearing but less than last week because i wanted to do a more light hearted chapter (this is just that by my standards lmao) I hope you enjoy … there is going to be smut VERY soon

The last week had been harder to manage than any ‘villain’ or threat to humanity that your friends had faced. Of course the physical and global destruction was lacking but your heart felt broken beyond repair. It had been a fucking disaster from start to finish and was not getting much better.

‘Come on Y/N, it’ll be okay.’

But Thor was wrong, it wasn’t. You had had to form a set of strict rules to get through each day. Number 1 (pretty obvious) :avoid Scott like the plague. Number 2: drink less and Number 3: try and stop crying over IT. None of them were proving easy and not at all fun but they did make you look a little less unhinged to your friends. Of course Thor and Tony knew how upset you were with Nat not far behind. The constant sympathetic ‘poor you’ looks were growing patronising and getting old. If they couldn’t treat you like a stable person how could you act like one?

Contact with Scott had been incredibly brief and tense to say the least. You just missed him. Who were you meant to fool around with? Who was going to hold your hand while you slept or make fun of Parker or drive you home to keep you safe? When you were alone and closed your eyes you could hear him: ‘I’m sorry if I’ve lead you on in anyway.’ But by Friday it didn’t make you cry anymore to recall it. It wasn’t sad it was frustrating. ‘Lead you on’ of course he’d lead you on and you wanted to call him out for it. Call him what your heartbroken self wanted to, a-

‘Prick!’

It was Monday: Thor’s weekly game night with ‘Noobmaster69’ and he was losing. Horrifically. Asgardians weren’t exactly fond of losing and there was, you had to admit, a lot of joy in witnessing someone so powerful fail so badly. Well you had to find relief in something. Although you did have one thing to be proud of: finally washing your greasy hair only to hear Peter singing as he got out. And you didn’t poke any fun at him because Scott wasn’t there to hear.

After deciding to stay on the couch with Thor, watching him being competitive, you continued your silent ‘soul searching’ that was so tiresome. You had become an expert on analysing every Scott interaction you had and without new ones to ‘study’ you were spent. Bored. Bored of waiting for nothing. Occasionally, you’d press pause on your self pitying to smile at Thor. Being so preoccupied with Scott had made you more neglectful of his friendship. All of your friendships really. You couldn’t remember the last long conversation you’d had with Tony that wasn’t about Scott.

‘Die! Die! Oh come o-ah Scott!’

You tried not to turn to look but it was unavoidable. Scott was stood beside the tv all of a sudden, looking dishevelled and out of place. It had been torture not to ask anyone and everyone what exactly he’d been doing the last week. ‘He’s out.’ ‘No ones seen him much today.’ ‘I dunno, maybe he’s partying.’ Fucking torture to hear. Although it was probably best he was out doing ‘things’ and away from you. At least you wouldn’t have to try and make eye contact without fighting tears. Except for that night. Of course he had to be in that night.

‘Thor…Y/N.’ Scott was almost worse than you for subtlety, his green eyes darted from Thor gaming happily to your pained eyes. And his were pained too. There was a guiltiness pressing down on him but Nat would have thought that was good. You didn’t want to be awkward around him or continue this ‘avoiding each other at all costs’ thing so you tried to end it the best way you knew how.

‘Did you hear Peter’s singing?’

It was the first thing you’d said to Scott that wasn’t ‘er’ or ‘hi’ in so long you could see relief wash over him. And you felt it wash over you in a smooth satisfying wave because his reply was:

‘Yes! It was Britney, so I had to listen.’

You both laughed, still feeling the need to to stay on opposite sides of the room for safety reasons. Thor looked amused for a moment but was invested in his game. Sweet.

‘Well,’ you leaned across the couch craving your neck closer to Scott. ‘If you like Britney maybe we should have a 00s themed party!’ Was it out of pocket? Probably. Did it feel forced to say? Yes. Did Scott look confused? Absolutely but he played along for both your sakes. It felt silly to suddenly be discussing pop star icon: Britney Spears to the man you’d been crying so heartedly over for so long. You couldn’t help feeling that he knew this wasn’t the two of you going back to ‘normal’. Not really. You had admitted far too much to ever have a ‘normal’ friendship. However it was a start.

‘Can the two of you discuss whatever nonsense Britney Spears is somewhere else?’ Thor looked as annoyed as you could be over something unimportant. Still the two of you shared a look meaning ‘Let’s leave him to it’ and walked together out of the living room. It didn’t hit you that this was the first time you had been alone with Scott since the car ‘incident’ until Nat saw you both and walked away.

‘Wow.’ You both scoffed at his strong words against Britney. ‘To speak of our lord and saviour in such a distasteful way.’ Scott dramatically put his hand on his heart and ‘fell’ backwards in agreement. ‘The horror!’ He exclaimed before you both chuckled.

‘Hey guys?’ It was Peter and he looked confused at the sight of you and Scott laughing. But who wouldn’t be after all the avoiding? You were just as confused as a participant. ‘Everyone’s kind of busy and I wanted to see B-‘

‘Back to the future playing in IMAX yes I’ll take you.’ The look in Peter’s face- bless him- he looked so pleased. Such a child. ‘Pff.’ You couldn’t help but laugh at how much of a dad Scott had just become (and the twisted part of you brain did find it a bit hot).

‘There’s a showing at 2:45-‘

‘Right. Well we’ll go to that one.’

‘Um,’

Whilst Scott was buying tickets he didn’t notice Peter’s anxious eyes flitting towards you in hopes you would offer to come. The truth was you didn’t know if one brief Britney discussion guaranteed an invite. It didn’t seem like enough but Peter looked concerned for you. Did he not want to be alone with Scott or did he not want you to feel left out? Which was it?

Your eyes moved from Peter’s to Scott’s but he chose not to give a verbal response so you let it be. ‘Enjoy yourselves,’ you smiled, overly enthusiastic as you walked away backwards. Something that didn’t escape your notice as you left was the sign of relief from Peter. There was your answer.

Mirroring Peter you let out a sign of your own, that Scott probably heard, and went to your room- but not before passing Wanda. ‘What’s wrong?’ Before you could think of a response she grinned and grabbed your hand. ‘Tony’s taking us to his pool. He’s had it redone- come on let’s go, come with us.’ Hmm. Swimming. Interactive. But she looked so excited- bless her- so you caved and returned her smile before getting changed.

Less than 15 minutes later you were sat in the passenger seat of Tony’s favourite car (you’d called shotgun of course) listening to Eminem. Poor Wanda was crammed in between Sam and Thor behind you, probably wishing she had just flown there. ‘Sam why couldn’t you have flown- to make room for Wanda?’ You asked. ‘I’m not gonna risk getting them wet. Do you know how difficult they are to re-‘

‘Look at her she’s squished though.’

‘I’ve not had enough sleep for this.’

‘I’m not arguing with you I’m just say-‘

‘Children children!’ Tony commanded the car, to no ones surprise. ‘This is not about flying. This is about getting Y/N to cheer up and for all of you to appreciate my architectural skills.’ He was driving over the speed limit but who was going to tell Tony to slow down? The man was overly caffeinated and overly theatrical.

Another 15 minutes later and you were in the ridiculously fancy changing rooms Tony had had built. ‘Why did you build so many if it’s private?’ You yelled over the door.

‘It was a strange week! Inspiration struck!’

Thor seemed to be struggling with the term ‘modesty’ because-

‘Jesu- fuck! PUT PANTS ON!’

The sound of Wanda being flashed by a God was enough to make you almost pee from laughing. They were all such children. That was a clear explanation for why you had admired Scott as soon as you’d met him. Yes he was silly but he’d actually been married. He was mature in other ways. You tried not to picture him in the cinema with Peter because what did you have to be jealous of? Peter was still dating MJ as far as you knew and Scott saw him the same way you did. You still wanted him there with you all even if it was going to be uncomfortable.

And then sadness clung itself to you like a rope with no slack. You forgot why you were even where you were in the first place. Why had you come? Oh for Wanda. But Tony said this was to cheer you up? You’d even forgotten how to swim properly, it had been so long. It had been too long since anything normal.

Tags: @supraveng @thottio @wandamaximoffshoe @aliceblxck @merleisapartygod

#marvel #marvel fandom #paul rudd #scott lang #antman #antman x y/n #antman x reader #Scott Lang x reader #Scott Lang slow burn #slow burn #angst #Scott Lang angst #Scott Lang x y/n #marvel x y/n #scott lang fluff #avengers

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smp-live · 3 years

Text

Was scrolling through c!Wilbur crit blogs again and it got me thinking about why exactly I argue in favour of him so much so here’s a random ramble (that got long) about it:

Most c!Wilbur critics (at least, in the tag, not directly post-lore stream. The ones that do actual analysis on him) are like... really reasonable about it, actually, lmao. Like it’s mostly just calling him a bad person because of power hunger/manipulation/being a bad dad/whatever else. (Not talking about antis. I mean people who are really critical of him, but recognize that he’s a well-crafted character with nuance.)

Which I agree with! I consider myself an apologist, my writing and analysis leans really sympathetic, and I still agree that he’s a shitty rat bastard that I would run far away from irl. Even at the beginning of the story, he’s very morally grey, sometimes using underhanded persuasion tactics, doing ehh things like stealing, and it only gets worse from there.

But on the other hand, he’s... not that bad. Like I saw one person say about c!Dream, “My reaction to most critique of him is... so what?” and that’s how I feel about c!Wilbur, I suppose. Yeah, he tried to rig an election - but it was a last-ditch effort at not going full dictator, he didn’t follow through, and later on he - in part - decided to blow it up because they couldn’t get it back while being democratic. And yeah, he manipulated people - all in all, it wasn’t really really bad things, mostly to paint himself in a better light because of his insecurities, and people sometimes fall into manipulative language without even outwardly realizing that it’s a shitty thing to do. Of course, that shows a bigger underlying problem in their mindset and the way they interpret relationships and possession, but then that’s a different discussion - and definitely one that applies to c!Wilbur.

(Not saying he doesn’t ever intentionally manipulate people. I think that a. sometimes it might be accidental, (”If you wanna be President you’re gonna have to get on my good side,” mans was Not thinking straight,) and b. other times he falls into old habits/coping mechanisms that happen to be manipulation, (Tommy at Las Nevadas.) Other than the election and maybe some times in the early founding of L’Manberg, I can’t think of any moments where I’m like, “Yeah, he is Purposefully Manipulating here.” And even then, it just doesn’t strike me as a terrible thing. People manipulate, it’s a thing they do. That’s it. A morally grey action.)

And I think the majority of the reason I make more posts painting him in a positive light and don’t really discuss my critique of him is because it feels like the fandom has an overwhelming bias of hatred/crit, even if a lot of that isn’t, y’know, proper analysis of his character. I instinctively want to balance it out for this character I love/relate to, because a lot of what I see straight-up ignores the lighter side of his moral-greyness.

Like, a while back, I posted a couple clips from late-election arc, of Wilbur talking about how he feels about Fundy siding with Quackity and against him. And the way I initially saw it while watching was, “Okay. He feels betrayed by his son who disagrees with his politics - and thus, him as a person, because your politics are a reflection of your identity, especially in Wilbur’s mind - and it’s perfectly understandable that he’d want to vent about that in private to a close friend. On the other hand, he should be able to recognize that Fundy’s allowed to be his own person and shouldn’t be babied. Fundy is in the right, here, but Wilbur’s feelings shouldn’t be dismissed.”

But then 90% of the tags were just straight-up hate for c!Wilbur, going as far as to say that he should die again. (And this was after we found out how bad the afterlife was for him.) That fucking floored me. I just couldn’t understand how they took this nuanced character aching for ‘the son he knew’ back (hm. very similar to c!Phil, actually) and turned it into ‘wow. This suicidal man sucks and should maybe die.’ I was so close to making a post defending him before realizing - I was letting fandom bias against a character push me further onto the sympathetic side.

And that’s such a fuckin’ weird thing to have happen, because you’d think that exposure to negativity about a character would make you feel more negative about them? But without fail, every time I scroll through the crit tag, or read a critical post about c!Wilbur/L’Manberg, I maybe lean a bit more towards that side for a few hours before swinging back hard onto the apologist side. Because a lot of the critique, to me, is really just, “so what?” after I let it stew a bit.

Then there’s the whole mental health issue. Obviously it doesn’t excuse the shit he did - I know people who have been in the middle of breakdowns and the stuff they say still fucking hurts, even if they didn’t truly mean it. But recognizing that he needs help? That for pretty much all his time on-screen, he was depressed and paranoid, which obviously affects the way he acts? That’s obvious. And were he in the position to get professional help - which he deserves - everything would be much better off. That’s the root of my apologism, I think: He deserves to get better. He’s not inherently evil, or bad, just a fucked up little man who’s ruined his own life and needs help. I want to see him, specifically him, get better.

Narratively, his punishment has been extreme and disproportionate. Every mistake, every choice - good or bad - has led to suffering, on his part. Start a fun little rebellion, maybe to gain some power? War and betrayal. Declare an election to consolidate said power? Lose, and get exiled. Blow up a nation? Die, and even in the afterlife, he can't catch a break. Purely as a sympathetic human, it feels like he deserves to rest. Deserves to heal.

But even medicated and less anxious, or going to therapy for his neuroticism and depression, or whatever, he still would be quite morally grey. A lot of his manipulation, his power hunger, comes from this neuroticism; from needing to feel safe and needed, (just like Quackity.) Not all of it, though. He’d still have his unhealthy ideals about relationships and possession, for example. Less prominent, sure, but still there. Some people, I feel, discount how tied up with his mental illness it is, while others don’t really recognize that it’s also a personality problem. Like, changing those beliefs is changing part of who he fundamentally is, as a person.

Actually, I think the c!Wilbur apologist community, in general, tends to scapegoat his mental illness a little too much? Not in that we explain his actions with it or ask people not to villainize it, (although sometimes I feel that what we call villainizing mental illness is a bit excessive, but it’s not my place to talk about that as someone who doesn’t really relate to Pogtopia!Wilbur,) but in that we use it in discussions a lot. Which is fair, because it permeates every single aspect of his character, but even without it he’d have toxic traits? Like his possessiveness is not purely a byproduct of his mental illness, imo. Nor is his treatment of Fundy. It’s amplified by it, surely, but that little seed of it is there in the first place. Just as c!Dream’s abuse needs to be addressed as a central part of his character, c!Wilbur’s possessiveness does too - and also outside of the context of their mental health, because they’re both brought on by an internal personality flaw, some fucked-up belief, if that makes sense.

As I said before: c!Wilbur is a mess of a human being that I would hate if I actually met. (irl I would’ve been a SWAG supporter, based on policies, but since this is fiction, I was POG.) But because he’s a character, that flies out the window, and I can love him - not even just as a character, in the sense that I appreciate he’s well-crafted, but in terms of personality and all that shit, while recognizing he’s a kinda crappy guy. Because he’s a character. That’s the fun of it.

#Enderspeak #idk just musing and working out thoughts that got long but I actually kinda like #I think I'm gonna try to not let that bias sway me as much anymore. write more crit posts even if they're made with love in my heart <3 #I might have to stick a disclaimer on them though because each time I get a pure hate comment part of my soul shrivels #You can also tell I've been reading a lot of books/treatises written by old white guys recently because I feel like my opinion #on everything is needed and wanted lol #Also on the villainization thing: if someone who does feel okay talking about it could write a response with their thoughts #that'd be neat #Because I. don't know how to phrase what I'm thinking in a way that feels right & not like I'm butting in somewhere I don't belong #But I'm not saying it's a bad/wrong thing. Sometimes I just see a post of someone complaining and I'm like #''Is it really?'' but I don't really have a personal frame of reference to know so #take my words with a grain of salt - I will defer to those who know better #Actually take this whole post with a grain of salt I might hate it in a few hours #Update from a few hours later: well I don't disagree with what I said but it's a bit more extreme than I'd put it now so

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qqueenofhades · 4 years

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The photo set you reblogged of Yusuf and Niccolo helping throughout time just filled me with so many happy feels and it made me realize that it seems so common in media with immortal couples that they take breaks from each other and reconnect after a few decades. Which is a great trope but seeing these two that seems to have been attached at the hip since the day they met just fills me with all the heart eyes.

(I haven't read your fanfics for them yet. I know I'm a bad fan but if it helps I havent been able to read anything since all this started but while writing this ask I got the feeling that all this rambling I spewed out is a big theme)

Hush. Bad fan nothing. We all are coping with this stupid, awful year in different ways, some of us by escaping into fandom and some of us being unable to engage with it and some of us doing both or anything else. You certainly don’t owe me or anyone any obligation to interact with our content, fic or otherwise. So just to have that there on the top. You’re good, hun. :)

ANYWAY, thank you for giving me a chance to meta a bit on the boys and their relationship and to have a window into what my brain looks like pretty much 24/7 these days. (I blame them.) I keep thinking about all the ways this couple is depicted in the TOG film and how lovely it was and how unusual it is for me to have an OTP where I actually love them in canon and don’t need to violently disavow it in order to create AU fan content with just the characters. (See: Timeless, Game of Thrones, pretty much any show I’ve hyperfixated on at some point.) I love AUs anyway, because that’s the way my brain works, but the fact that I can also enjoy canon just as much is rare for me and for a lot of us. I saw a post somewhere remarking on how the fanfic for Joe/Nicky isn’t fixing anything, which is usually the point of transformative fanworks: we take something that canon atrociously fucked up and fix it. But in this case, all our interpretations are based on actually appreciating the way they’re presented in canon and wanting to enjoy that and uphold it, and that -- especially with a couple like this one -- is shocking??

Like. Despite my historian gripes about the occasionally incongruous details for their graphic-novel backstories (which are the only things I HAVE fixed in my fics), I’m just... deeply appreciative of the care which everyone, writers and actors and all else, put into depicting Joe and Nicky and their relationship. And god YES, one of the things I love the absolute MOST is that they’re a loving, faithful, committed, happy married queer couple over centuries, and that seems to be the case for as long as they’ve known each other/ever since they got together. (See Booker’s “you and Nicky always had each other.”) These fools can’t sleep apart from each other even when they’re stuck on a freight train in the middle of nowhere, they flirt like teenagers at dinnertime and even when they’re strapped to gurneys in a mad-scientist laboratory, they make out to enrage bad guys and also because they’re just still that goddamn into each other after all this time.

I think it was Marwan Kenzari who pointed out that there’s simply no way to truly state the depth of their knowledge and devotion and commitment to each other. They’re 950 years old. They have known each other since they were in their thirties; they’ve been husbands for literal centuries. There is no way anyone else in the world could possibly come close to replicating the kind of bond they have with each other, and neither of them have ever had any inclination to look, because why would they? Especially with the fact that queer couples in media, even otherwise sympathetically portrayed ones, often have Drama and Third Parties and Promiscuity and whatever else (because of the tiresome old canard that Gays Equal Hypersexualized!), and Joe and Nicky don’t need or want ANY of that. There’s no urge to make their relationship a cheap source of soap-opera conflict. It’s the rock and the center and the core of both of their lives, and everything they do stems from that.

There have been some great metas/comments on how neither Joe and Nicky are sexualized, they dress like stay-at-home dads during quarantine (Marwan Kenzari and Luca Marinelli are both objectively gorgeous men, and they’re out there looking like that, god bless), and the viewer is never invited to goggle at or fetishize their relationship. There are no leering or exploitative camera angles on anyone, and their expressions of love aren’t posed or intended to titillate the audience, they’re just solidly embodied and natural and lived in. It’s never bothered to be stated clunkily in dialogue that they’re a couple; we just see them exchanging looks and smiles in the early part of the film, and then we see them spooning on the train after the mission in Sudan, which confirms it.

At every turn, the narrative celebrates the kindness and love shared by the Immortal Family, the individual characters, and Joe and Nicky, especially and explicitly in queer form. The villains of the film are also defined by how they react negatively to that love. @viridianpanther had a great meta on how Keane as a villain is especially set up to menace Joe and Nicky as the narrative representation of toxic masculinity, aggressive heterosexuality, and the usual “Kill Your Gays” trope that we’ve all come to wearily expect. But instead, after that scene where Joe and Nicky fight Keane, Nicky is shot and comes back to life in Joe’s arms rather than dying permanently like we probably all momentarily expected, and then Joe gets to FUCKIN’ BREAK THE NECK of the guy who enacted that violence.... good GOD. The first time I watched it, I almost couldn’t believe it was happening. (This goes for the whole film, but especially that scene.) Like... when do we get that?? When do we EVER get that???

Obviously, there are so many stereotypes, whether visually or in behavior or character traits, that could have been assigned to a gay Italian character (excessively dramatic, effeminate, fashionable, etc) or a gay Arabic/Muslim character (explicitly announcing He’s Not Like Those Muslims, having to actively reject his heritage to make him more palatable to westerners, being tormented over being gay, etc) and Joe and Nicky subscribe to none of those. I get very emotional about Joe referring to Nicky as the moon when he is lost during the truck scene partly because it’s SUCH a common motif in Arabic love poetry. To call someone your “moon” is a beautiful way to say they’re the light of your life, and since the Islamic calendar is obviously lunar and the holidays, months, and observances, are set by the phases of the moon, this also has a deeper religious significance.

I don’t know for sure if they did that on purpose, but it it’s a lovely and subtle way of showing us how Joe clearly doesn’t have an issue with being both queer AND Muslim, and is able to draw on both facets of that identity in a way that a lesser narrative would have denied him. And that is just really wonderful. Yes, we’re seeing these characters when they’ve had centuries to settle into themselves, but there are plenty of writers who would have forced those conflicts artificially to the surface, rather than letting them be long in the past. It’s the same way when you watch a film set in the medieval era, it wants you to know that it Is Set In The Medieval Era. Cue the filth, misogyny, racism, violence, etc! Rather than it being a lived-in reality, it has to be jarringly drawn attention to, and I’m just so glad they didn’t do that with Joe and Nicky. And for them to have met in the crusades and fallen in love??! Come on. That’s just rude. Rude to me, personally.

Anyway, this was a rather long-winded and feelsy way of saying that these characters are constructed, acted, and written organically in such a way that you hate to even THINK of them being separated, and it’s not because they can’t function without each other, but because they are two halves of a whole. We also see that the characters themselves can’t stand being forced apart: Joe’s freakout in the truck scene when Nicky briefly won’t wake up, Nicky making sure to tell Joe that he’s glad he’s awake in the lab, the whole post-Keane fight scene that I talked about above, the way Nicky fights ferociously to get to Joe when Merrick’s stabbing him, etc. For that to be given to the queer couple, where the strength of their love and devotion is reinforced as one of the emotional goals of the story, and for that queer couple to be written in the way that Joe and Nicky are, both individually and as a unit, is just so very rare.

Because yes, there’s plenty of drama and angst and pain in their lives, but there’s none at all in their relationship, and that’s what fans keep telling TV writers the whole time: they WANT to see the couple confront things as a unit, rather than being kept on tenterhooks the whole time and forced to go through manufactured or artificial drama. It would feel especially wrong for Joe and Nicky, who have known and loved each other for 900 years. The fact that their respective actors also put so much care and love into them is very obvious, and makes me feel even luckier that they’re played by people who clearly get them and honor them and know what they’re doing.

Basically: of course Joe and Nicky have been with each other the whole time, and of course we’re all drowning in feelings over it, and I feel very blessed that this ship exists, and I very much need the sequel ASAP. Thanks.

#the old guard meta #joe x nicky #immortal husbands #long post #roseoswiins #ask

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benevolent-savage · 3 years

Text

this is what happens when u enable me lets go

(spoilers ahoy)

Firstly, here’s some somewhat miscellaneous reasons that don’t contribute to any sort of narrative analysis but are still parts of the character I like.

His boss fight is my favorite in the game thus far. It’s not super hard, but it isn’t super easy either, and I even managed to solo it on my Balance after a few practice rounds. Sufficiently challenging without feeling unfair.

His boss fight music. It is a bop and a half, go give it a listen, my soul ascends from my body a few centimeters every time I hear it start up.

His voice. I’m sure it’s processed at least a little but gotdamn his voice is so deep and spooky it startled me when I first heard it. Very curious who his actor is; I think he and Inyanga Whitestripes share the same one. Either way, very well voiced and acted.

His design is very good. It’s the perfect mix of innocuous but also spooky sorcerer fella who knows some shit. And I was afraid that the designers would try and make him like. Handsome? Under the hood? To try and make him more sympathetic? But they didn’t and I’m glad for it.

With those out of the way, the next thing to establish, I guess: I don’t interpret Old Cob to be the main villain of arc 3, nor do I interpret Raven as such. They’re definitely antagonists, but they’re not the ultimate problem; the ultimate problem is their divorce, and how they keep dragging people into their bs. It’s established the Aethyr is a physical manifestation of their anger towards each other, and as it thins, communication between them becomes possible, as Sparck puts it in this thinly veiled metaphor toward the start of Empyrea part 2.

But Cob’s still an antagonist and I love him so I’m gonna talk about that. Most of this is going to be talking about his motivations for doing what he does, since I don’t see him quite as the ‘likes to watch the world burn for the hell of it’ archetype that others might.

One of the reasons that drew me to his character is how legit his gripe is, when put in perspective. Old Cob- or Grandfather Spider, if you prefer- is not a mortal like the other antagonists of previous arcs, which establishes he has a different thought process right off the bat. This new universe was built on his suffering and he has a grudge against the ex wife who made it, so as a god, it makes some sense he’d try to destroy it and build one he would like better. He’s fully aware that what he is doing will hurt people but decidedly doesn’t care, and I appreciate that so much. He’s chaotic as fuck and he owns it, along with his superiority complex that’s as wide as the day is long.

Yet his reasoning is like. Weirdly understandable? Like, if my ex-whatever put me in jail for a lifetime sentence and stole my kidney to pay for a new house or something, I too would go apeshit and want my fuckin kidney back. That’s mostly how I interpret his situation. He’s not doing this for hell of it, he’s doing it because he wants to get back at his ex because he’s bitter and petty and for the most part he knows this but he feels justified in doing do because she ripped out his goddamn kidney- I mean heart, and he wants that back.

And then, even after all that, he and his magic are treated as if they’re inherently evil. While, sure, Shadow is a ‘dark magic’, its actual properties aren’t anything malicious by itself. It is described as “a magic that changes reality,” and that’s it. Incredibly exploitable and you should practice caution while handling it, but used correctly it is powerful and helpful; this is likely alluding to the backlash mechanic, where likes decrease the percent of damage you take, dislikes increase the percent, and I imagine the person meant to be the literal embodiment of the magic in question to be similar in nature: not inherently harmful and lashes out if he feels he’s been mistreated.

Going off that, I’m not sure he ever wanted the FirstWorld to be destroyed, and therefore believes his incarceration to be entirely unjust; he doesn’t deny that he instigated the fight between the Titans, but when it comes to being accused of its actual destruction, he gets angry.

...Okay the written text doesn’t really display how mad he got here, but he was like. Big Angy. Super offended. Honestly, a big part of why I love and analyze the hell out of his character comes from how his VA delivers his lines and his voice in general. If you haven’t heard it for some reason, I recommend looking it up. Anyway, here he’s basically saying he didn’t destroy the First World, and even if he did, he’s suffered enough punishment because of it, to my interpretation. The only one I remember blaming him for it is Raven; Bartleby was there, and I don’t recall him blaming anything other than the Titans for it. This is of course not accounting for the various changes made to the lore since he was introduced, but they could have easily thrown in a line like ‘And now Spider plans to destroy the Spiral the way he destroyed the FirstWorld!’ or something to make it clear it was done intentionally.

And this may very well be straying into headcanon territory here, but I think he holds positive relationships very closely to him, even if things went sour in the end; he clearly still has some remaining affection for the Titans, calling them ‘the children’ and being incredibly angry at Raven for forcing one of them to destroy his Heart.

When Rat loses in Polaris he shows up to praises his efforts and even comfort him, in his own weird way. He reprimanded Scorpion in Mirage, but it’s because Scorpion wasn’t doing what his dad asked him to and got his ass kicked as a result. As for Bat, every time they’re in the same room together he pays him some sort of compliment.

Bat claims that he and his brothers are meant to be his tools, and to some extent that’s true, but he also genuinely cares about them, and it’s really interesting to see a villain defect from the usual ‘not caring about anyone other than themselves’ and openly show affection for his kids while still managing to be an incredible asshole.

In line with this is his relationship with the Wizard. There is, of course, a foundation of manipulation to their dynamic, at least to some degree. I thoroughly believe that Spider was overshadowing Coleridge, at least partly, so our character could bust him out of prison.

And while this is happening, he regains some of his spent power and removes threats to it as well, namely Morganthe, using the Wizard’s help. In fact, I have very little doubt that he was at least partially responsible for her fall; his timing on that two-liner was too on the nose.

But even with that, I think he genuinely treasures the Wizard’s help and company, which is why he attempts on four different occasions to either sway them to his side, or warn them away from what he’s doing.

Boy, I want that vacation, but it’s your fault I’m here.

And then, of course, his relationship with Raven, something that is basically a summation of his character arc. Laden with baggage and tragic in concept, it is my belief that most of what he’s doing isn’t because he genuinely hates the Spiral or he wants to get back at her, but because he loved her and treasured their relationship; so upon her mistreating him, he lashed out at everything she’d made and detested it as a result. But only because he felt betrayed and hurt so he has to inflict that on other people because he is, as aforementioned, a petty and bitter old fuck.

Moving off that line of thinking, an admirable quality he possesses is how smart he is. This guy has so many wrinkles in his brain it must look like a raisin. Well, perhaps not ‘smart’ exactly, but how good he is at manipulating certain situations to his advantage. Like in Mirage; you just know that he was fully expecting Mellori to be there and fully planned to use her as a back up plan, or you could even argue that the whole debacle in Mirage was a ploy to get his hands on her, while having the added possible benefit of things actually working out.

Actually his scheme in Mirage was really interesting now that I think about it. His aim was to turn back time to when the FirstWorld was whole, further implying that he never wanted its destruction in the first place. It would also, of course, be a time where he had his Heart and would have the ability to avoid having it ripped out again. This would involve not having the Titans fight each other again, or at least not starting it and suffering the consequences. It would be everything he wanted to achieve knocked out in one go with minimal muss or fuss, compared to other methods. It’s probably a part of why he shows up personally to bargain with Eerkala and the Cabal, and why he directly intervenes in our Wizard’s efforts to stop him; it was too important to trust to any of his kids, so knowing Scorpion probably wouldn’t have been able to execute it anyway, he used his kid as a distraction for the most part.

I also like looking into the fact that his element, besides Shadow, is Storm, as opposed to pure Shadow or Death, as most major antagonists are. Storm is a school based on invention, experimentation and improvement. This is something that interests me for two reasons: one, the magic of major antagonists is always a part of their character, Malistaire the most blatantly, and two, because of this line he says in Mirage.

To my interpretation, this would imply that he sees the Spiral as something that could be improved. And as a god, he would of course find it his obligation to try and fix this flaw. When he made the barter with the Cabal, I don’t doubt he was being at least partially honest about restoring the FirstWorld; it would certainly fix the flaw it has in the context of stealing his internal organs, but he would also probably seek to improve it, make it more suited to Shadow or something.

Something else I find intriguing is how weirdly honest he is; I don’t recall him ever lying to us once, unless you count omitting certain facts as lying. But that’s absolutely something I can see him using against people, like “I didn’t lie to you, I just didn’t tell you, your fault for not asking ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ .” As said before, he;s really good at manipulating people and he weaponizes whatever he can; @that-wizard-oki made a really great post about how he uses conflicts- his fault or not- to his advantage, and does his own thing in the background without interruption, Mirage and Neumia probably being the best example of this, with Scorpion and the Cabal serving as distractions while he either carries out things himself or gives instructions.

To pull all of this together narratively, I think it’s important to consider this line from Mellori during one of their confrontations:

He feels powerless, so he puffs up his god status. He has little power to fight with, compared to before, so he mostly manipulates and creates back-up plans while causing conflicts to serve as distractions. His love hurt him, so he lashes out at others and drags them into his problems.

You may ask, “But Sam, these are all bad qualities, why should we like him because of this?” And I would respond “Because it makes him a complex and interesting antagonist.” The kind of character that executes his shitty actions in such a way that you can’t help but respect- even just for the level of dramatics put in to it- while also having a motive that makes you stop and consider that maybe he has a point but is very much handling the situation the wrong way.

Like, c’mon, he ticks so many villain boxes. Tragic backstory? Check. Blatant thespian who owns it? Check. Gets his hands dirty before the climax of the story? Check. Smart/ manipulative/ has back-up plans? Check. Understandable, strong motives? Check.

He’s got layers. Like onion. I felt like there was always something new to discover about him, and for that I can assert my opinion that he’s one of the best characters in Wizard101.

lmao if you read this far into my simp-for-shithead post congrats. feel free to shoot me more asks on the subject bc i cant write persuasive-essay-esque format anymore my brain is rotting. if you will excuse me, im off to listen to the chronoverge combat track for the 82937487734th time

#i get that a lot of people havent gotten far enough into the game to meet him but I ENCOURAGE U TO TRY BC HE'S A GOOD AND FUN CHARACTER OKAY #i need more cob content >:U #wizard101 #w101

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