#the disabled instead of acknowledging he actual fucking problems?
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I'm going to be real that anti-intellectualism as a term reads like reverse oppression to me as a disabled person.
Like as a term it fucking tells you nothing because intellect, the concept of intelligence, isn't under fucking attack aside from people rightfully pointing out its roots in eugenics. No one is Oppressed for being well educated and there's not even really any measurable social consequences one that basis in specific.
The only times it's used in a way that isn't just blatant ableism is when it's critiquing willful ignorance but at the same time the term like.... doesn't at all express that? Just say that bigots are intentionally restricting information that could change their politics because they benefit from that bigotry, just say willful ignorance, intellectualism isn't under fucking attack when people are routinely denied basic freedoms and human rights based on their lack of intelligence.
#it just#god everytime I hear people talking about it it makes less sense to me#I cannot see one argument that it's a real issue that doesn't admit that either#1. you think disabled people are choosing to be disabled and simply lazy#2. you do not consider disabled people a real part of society and think they exist in a vacuum in space somewhere#so you can just go 'well of course this isn't about them [nothing ever is because they don't exist in my brain unless they're demanding#things from me]#like as if y'all will just fucking know who's disabled and who's showing disabled traits/symptoms just cos'#as if people who never read (and I literally mean never even your strawman 'has never read a book in their life' illiterate cause uh. those#are disabled people and/or poor people el em ey oh not some random republican#are the same as people falling into alt-right pipelines or spreading cult ideologies like#these are straight up not the same fucking problem they're not even related so why must we have a term that places the blame of bigotry on#the disabled instead of acknowledging he actual fucking problems?#like imo it's very similar to how ppl call emotional abuse narc abuse because they don't want to acknowledge that abusers just. choose to#be abusive like no bad people aren't anti-intellectual they're pro bigot
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Don't try to emotionally manipulate with music me Last Twilight, I know what's up. How the hell did we get here??
The ending seems almost completely detached from everything that was happening till episode 11. Till the breakup if I want to be generous. Here's some disorganised thoughts.
Why was the timeskip so long?? 3 years of not speaking to each other is not chicken change. Speaking of, why didn't they speak to each other? This isn't legend of Korra, they have Line. We hear all about what Day was up to but there's one shot of Mhok working in a kitchen and otherwise not kpim. Why. Mhok took than job to build his career and I feel like leaving with no notice no nothing probably torpedoed his reputation. Was that job important or nah?
I don't care about Day + Nights dad. If we were going to bring a side character back for 2 seconds at the wedding it should have been Gee because apart from Aon she's Day's closest friend. Or was before she just vanished off the face of the earth as much as August who literally isn't in the country.
I would have liked to see any of Night + Phojai's relationship onscreen. There wasn't enough going on in this episode (even thought it was bare long :/) to not touch on *anything* that happened between phoomjai being born and them getting married. How did Ramon react? I don't think Khun "I can excuse classism" would be chill.
Why the ever living FUCK did Day fully regain his vision. I would have been down if some serious side effect like night blindness or astigmatism or the many problems resulting from having to take anti rejection medication and becoming immunocompromised was brought up but nope. Day struggled a bit for a few years and and got his eyes switched back on easy peasy.
Day being sighted again makes how Ramon was like "I'll stop being abusive (regardless of if or to what extent she meant well) once you stop being disabled" something that will never be grappled with. I doubted they were gonna after episode 11 but still, it was nicer than being certain.
Day broke up with Mhok because he thought Mhok pitied him for being blind. Mhok (and also Mhok's backstory) said it was because of Rung, and I thought this was going to be a segue into Day realising that it wasn't all self confidence and roses chez Mhok but apparently I was completely wrong
Day didn't have to really deep that Mhok has stuff going on because Mhok ACTUALLY has nothing going on. It was just pity. Somehow.
I do not understand why this point causes all the problems in episode 11 and was not mentioned at all in the finale. I don't understand why the solution to this supposed pity was to make day sighted again instead of addressing that.
The thought process send to have been that if Mhok doesn't trust anyone to care for Day and Day doesn't think he needs caring for, by restoring Day's vision they can both be right. It's like when gender screwy dramas sidestep the male lead thinking too hard about his orientation after taking for who he thinks it's a guy by being like, he somehow sensed that it was a girl all along and crucially before he kissed them. Nah. NAH FAM. I didn't forget.
Day + Mhok going back up that mountain at their sighted leisure makes hollow the struggle to reach the top first time round. The view wasn't as nice because it was rainbow bereft just like any of Mhok's actions in this episode (Rung's name means rainbow in English). It's like their relationship in a nutshell. Rung and the ripple effects her death have on Mhok's decision making have no place, no acknowledgement, no nothing.
If I rewatch this Mhok + Days story is going to end on the mountain, first time round, because everything after that was setting up the character assassination arc.
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re: your dotc rewrite, the details are much better than the original. if you take recommendations, maybe emphasize before gray wings death that he avoids or rejects assitamce from shadowclan? that or when he was kicked out, nobody knew he had asthma? its more a “depends on how you read it” thing, but him being kicked out to die of his asthma just feels a little too cruel for the much kinder characters of your dotc rewrite, even when he is a horrible asshole, yknow? especially with ableism being a huge part of the original arc (clear sky kicking out disabled cats to die all the time).
love your rewrites so far, especially interested that instead of “fixing” some of the chaarcters you just role with the way they were accidentally written horrible and give them consequences. keep up the good work! ☺️
This is a longer post but has a lot of detail.
Yes! I should probably clear that up! His asthma, when he was kicked from Windclan, was not bad. Like at all. Only like.... 2 cats actually knew, Pebble Heart and Hawk Swoop, who was nosy, and is now dead. He himself downplayed it and insisted he was fine, just a tickle, bit of prey scratched my throat, guess I can't run so fast anymore, I'm getting old/out of shape/my legs are just sore. His demise was his own making. If he'd just acknowledged he had any problem at all, he would still be alive. (Well, not nowadays, you know what I mean)
Excuses. Just like canon. At least you can say he never let it get him down. But medical problems don't go away just because you ignore them.
He gets worse after he is kicked out. And he is kicked out for saying something fucking HORRIFIC to Wind Runner about her dead baby. They put up with his Clear Sky bootlicking, but he tried to drive out Bumble before, and now this? No. Go find another group. Sorry, but you clearly won't change after driving Turtle Tail, Jagged Peak, Bumble, Tall Shadow, and Thunder Storm away.
After this, the story isn't from his point of view. Thunder Storm sees him again coming up to their camp, that tickle in his throat getting worse and tighter. Thunder Storm, bless his heart, wants to help, but he can't forget how Gray Wing treated Bumble. He offers a deal. Apologize, and you can stay.
"What?! No! She should be sorry to ME for stealing Turtle Tail! We aren't kittypets, and that's that!"
Thunder Storm is about to offer some help (remember Cloud Spots is not here yet) but Gray Wing snaps at him. His uncle won't change...
Clear Sky is a bust. Sky Petal still doesn't like him, and although this is after The First Battle, when Gray Wing coughs, Clear Sky (IN CHARACTER) says no. We have sick cats here, and my Sky Petal is pregnant. No. But... Clear Sky says he is sorry, and that's enough for Gray Wing to go "yeah, I get it. That's okay. My brother is so caring about his new mate" (nevermind that he said 'my' Sky Petal)
He stays with River Ripple's camp, getting jumpscared by a little gray molly, but Frosty Paws is kind, offering him some herbs before she slinks back into the shadows, making Gray Wing wonder if she is a spirit cat. He tells Dappled Pelt about it and she gets very excited.
Frosty Paws gave him catmint.
He is kept in River Ripple's camp for a while (River Ripple POV!) until River Ripple is forced to intervene with the One Eye problem. Clear Sky and One Eye are leading attacks on others.
River Ripple tries to be understanding when Gray Wing insists that Clear Sky is good deep down, just afraid... But he looks at the quickly whitening tom, and says
"Fear doesn't justify murder. Fear doesn't make a cat do this."
When Gray Wing lashes out, he tears River Ripple's ear, Night and Storm Bird tell him to leave. All he does is complain about the taste of their beloved, sacred fish, and how unfair it is that Turtle Tail left him for that fat housecat. Funny though, the ripped spot has to be severed, and it looks like it changed the course of his ear completely, like a river that changed how it flows. Well, no use dwelling on it, let's go chill on Sunningrocks, after all, only we can swim to it. :)
He isn't seen for a while because he doesn't get pretty much any more POV time. But Path Of Stars happens.
He gets weak, collapsing on a big root in the marsh, and found by Tall Shadow, who drags him back to camp. Hell has broken lose, with Star Flower trying to pick off the Proto-Clan Cats one by one. She tells him to wait in camp, Thunder called a meeting between the 5 leaders and she needs to make sure River Ripple attends.
There, he sees Pebble Heart examining Bumble, looking a little bigger, next to Turtle Tail, who looks so excited she is shifting from paw to paw. Bumble is expecting another small litter for them. Pebble Heart comes over to him, and offers him treatment, but he stomps over to Turtle Tail and tries to pick a fight with her. How dare she leave to Moor, and leave him when he helped raise her kits and-!
She slaps him. Claws sheathed. She never got this catharsis with her first abusive mate, but she'll do it with her second one. She tells him that she doesn't love him anymore, that Bumble has helped her when her night terrors get bad, Bumble was there when Owl Eyes got a bad cold and she worried herself sick. Bumble was the one who helped her sneak out, and prevented twolegs from stealing her kits. Bumble never tried to punish her for being her own cat.
He stays quiet, before he stalks out of camp, Pebble Heart tries to reach out to him, but Gray Wing just hisses at him to get away, go with your real parents then... But all Pebble Heart wanted was to treat a cat in need. He had found many herbs he wanted to try.
His asthma attack hits when he reaches the Five Oak Trees that lead to each territory.
He lays the curse down on the other Clans, not finding it in himself to fully curse Shadowclan, not looking their way when his gaze sweeps the different territories. He dies at Clear Sky's Oak. The fifth tree. His outstretched claws reaching to Riverclan, the last cats who rejected him.
He has a place in the Dark Forest, but his hate and anger bind him to the earth. He is known by the Clans as Gray Wing the Cruel, Enabler of Tyrants, Layer of Curses.
And He is Waiting for His Starless Clans.
#warrior cats#warrior cats rewrite#wcr#warriors#dawn of the clans#gray wing#turtle tail#bumble wc#pebble heart#river ripple#tall shadow#clear sky#petal wc#sky petal#thunder wc#thunder storm#wind runner#riverstar#skystar#shadowstar#windstar#thunderstar#(those leader tags are in order for a reason)
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When I was little, in one of the earliest grades I forget which, my teacher sent me home with a note for my parents explaining that I was probably intellectually disabled and they should have me evaluated. The reason was that I was having an inordinate amount of trouble cutting and pasting. I'm sure the fact that I didn't talk and other kids treated me like a plague carrier contributed to this casual diagnosis. As my father tells it, he and my mom kind of freaked out about the possibility that they had a retarded child, and booked an IQ test for me. The legend goes that I tested higher than my mother, who had scored pretty high already, and it turned out the whole thing had been a misunderstanding; I was so shy that I always got stuck with left-handed scissors, because there was never enough of everything for the whole class, and I just never told anyone I needed something that I probably wasn't going to get. So therefore all my cutting and pasting efforts looked pretty "retarded". Ha ha ha. But I think that my parents' initial reaction to the note, that they thought it was completely possible that I was handicapped, is telling. I used to think about this anecdote in terms of how painfully introverted I've always been, but as a full grown adult I often wonder if my life could have been different if I had been put in special education. I'm just really, really incapable of things that my peers seem to do easily. Just now I was trying to organize something, and I even looked up the answer I needed (I typically use a calculator for even basic addition and subtraction, and look everything up online because whenever I just trust myself something gets ruined), and basically all I needed to know was whether or not 2 was greater than 10, and I just could not wrap my head around it, and actually I should have known the answer to my problem immediately because it was the same answer I already had for a different but related problem, but instead of just connecting the dots I started from scratch and got it wrong. And I didn't even know I had it wrong until I moronically said my conclusion out loud and someone else had to say "Ummm..." And I remember the last time I did this exact type of thing wrong, too. And on it goes. I don't know what the fuck to do with my life. I'm really fucking stupid, but you're not even allowed to admit that or someone accuses you of being negative or hard on yourself or some other thing that gives them permission to not listen to you and go on believing that life is equally great for everyone and we're all filled with the same limitless potential. It's painful to hear people tell me that secretly I'm actually smart when I don't produce any evidence and I don't reap any of the benefits. I usually go to the same allegory I use in response to the idea of being "beautiful in my own way", that saying I'm really smart when I can't do anything smart people do is like telling me I have a million dollars in the bank, just for some reason no one will take my money. I honestly think that, a lot of the time, people just assume I'm smart because I'm dorky and awkward and wear glasses and say a lot of adjectives. But I've never done anything in my life that would prove to someone that I'm smart and I struggle with the most humiliating concepts and operations all the time. I barely even got through college. It's just not there.
I feel constantly misunderstood by people, it's the whole reason I write, to try to become articulate enough to be understood, but after experiencing the same thing over and over again I think I have it inside out. I'm constantly struggling to get anyone to acknowledge or agree with what I'm saying because I'm way behind everybody else. I think it must be me who doesn't understand what anybody else is saying. That's a more rational explanation and I have to remind myself of it next time I find myself compulsively reiterating something that left everyone else scratching their head. I'm always wrong, and things have happened to me in my life that could only have happened to someone really fucking stupid. And like that would be fine if there were something for me to do. If there were some sort of halfway house I could get admitted to, or some sort of jail for stupidity. Sometimes I fantasize about like a commune I could go to where I can just do really basic manual labor like farming, and just eat what comes out of that, and just stay in my little cell all the time and be contained by having a stable routine and only one place to go. But of course any situation like that winds up turning into Jonestown or Willowbrook or whatever. Eventually I'll do something so stupid it will kill me and I'll win a Darwin award or something, but the more pressing issue is that my stupidity contributes to my emotional dysfunction. It's agonizing to be stupid, to be beneath everything you care about and admire and would like to do, and then you become hard to be around because having emotional problems is a bad quality that makes people dislike and avoid you (and who could blame them). And because I'm an intellectually-oriented person, like culturally and such, my stupidity becomes the defining characteristic of my existence. It would be OK if I were "sweet and dumb", or a dumb jock, or a sexy bimbo, or if I had a goal in life that was more material and sentiment-oriented like being a really great mom. But I don't have any of those co-components going on, only the dumb part, and you can't do anything with dumbness. It doesn't have a silver lining or a useful byproduct. It's incredibly destructive actually. I really don't know what I'm supposed to do with myself, and I don't want to do anything of the things I'm doing now. There just aren't any options for someone like me.
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Okay, following up in my heated ask about Viv where I stated her ableism... (And other things about her too but mainly the ableist part) I do apologize for being so heated but as an autistic it hit me hard in a way seeing a joke being played for laughs the way it did
critic-cal-zonez post is an example of what I meant yesterday in my ask where they stated Viv made a very tasteless joke about (blitzo almost calling a neurodivergent character r*tarded) (only to acknowledge Viv can't say the r word because it's used as a slur towards neurodivergent people). Meanwhile in the pilot episode of helluva boss Vivs writing team use the r word freely and even after fans called it out they never apologized for it. You'll find this *joke* in the newest episode "Western Energy" where blitzo waited 5 years to take loona to the vet for a shot. At 3:27 (start of joke) to 4:22 (end of joke) is what I referred to. That being the joke made in the episode about neurodivergent and lower functioning autistic people. Basically playing off the joke like being neurodivergent and autistic automatically means I'm r*traded and stupid and deserve to be treated like crap because of it hope that explains it all :D
Ah, that is very concerning.
They used the r word towards a character who had a “slow” though process, while another character who’s definitely autistic gets called “smooth head, slow-” for not catching up immediately on what Blitz was saying, and he’s also a hyperfixator, both of which are autistic traits. -and even “reta^^^” in the pilot and then this episode now referenced when it depicted the r word as “offensive and quirky!”, shooting itself in the foot since that means that the show showing a slur as “quirky!” is not just something horrible that the writers did-
But it’s now canon in Helluva Boss…
-and people defended this as “But it’s a demon in-“ but that doesn’t fucking matter if it’s depicted/animated as “cute and quirky!” In the scene instead of as a problem especially since we now know that Vivziepop is 100% an ableist person.
These are the same people who have insulted people by calling them “mentally unstable” or a “psycho!” and constantly use the show as a way to mock something people have in real life- aka MENTAL DISORDERS!
Moxxie is called slow and “retar^ded!” and is constantly insulted whenever he has a hard time understanding why Blitz is insulting him, which isnt just gaslighting, but ableism that the show 100% romanticizes to the point of having Millie, his “defensive” wife excuse what Blitz does or just not exist at all every time this happens. It’s 100% ableism on the writer’s part, and the fact that people tried to use the fact that it’s a depiction of ableism to gaslight people into not seeing the way the ableism is being depicted is absolutely disgusting.
Anyone who actually supports the disabled doesn’t write ableism this way, anyone who actually supports us doesn’t defend it either. 
It’s also super weird that the only characters in the show that get ableist insults are ones with neurodivergent traits. Also, Vivziepop is ableist in real life so… that explains a lot.💀
#helluva boss#helluva boss criticism#tw ableism#tw ableist language#She’s an actual ableist irl so that explains everything honestly 💀💀💀#She as in Vivziepop.
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I've seen all kinds of apologism and denial in fandoms for all different kinds of terrible things.
But I think the ones that hit me the hardest are the fascism and genocide apologism.
The reason I ended up liking the super hero genre is because it's about people rising up to the occasion to protect those who cannot protect themselves.
I'm disabled and I've always been a weak link in my family. But instead of getting bitter about it and hating because of it, I told myself I didn't want that for other people. That if I did that, I'd just be perpetuating the cycle further and not working to solve anything.
I don't fight to hurt them to supplement my pain, I fight to change minds and guess what. People's minds change. It's not always easy, but they do.
Being a hero means doing the right thing and treating everyone fair and justly. And I don't have a problem with people liking villains either, I like villains.
But I guess I'm just bewildered and jaded at this point by so many of the awful things people say to justify a character's actions instead of just liking the character. Or even how obtuse some people will be to claim others are justifying a character's actions when they actively don't.
I like Homelander but he has rape apologist stans.
I like Loki but he has genocide apologist stans and that also applies to Billy Butcher.
I like Magneto but he has fascism apologist stans, sometimes genocide too if not just general mass murder apologists.
I like Valkyrie, and hell, admittedly I've seen more claims of slavery apologism than actual slavery apologism, but even I have enough good sense to know there are going to be actual slavery apologists who stan her.
The genocide apologism fucking hurts more than anything though. It shows how much people have become desensitized to violence and what the loss of a life really means. And it perfectly explains why people are so quick to jump to suicide baiting someone which is never okay.
Your life is the most precious thing you have. And that goes for everyone, not just you. Life is precious and should be considered such before any of the fictional nonsense. We should be cherishing good fiction and creativity instead of trying to use it to hurt people or justify such awful things or as some kind of virtue catapult to see who has the next big revolutionary take.
Worse when they justify violence against certain groups while trying to make a bigger deal of it for different ones. No. No violence is okay, it doesn't matter who it's against. Self defense is not violence, and violence is not self defense so stop conflating the two. Creating double standards does not help and never will.
I'm tired of this and wish it would stop. Criticism should be acknowledged and considered with nuance, if not researched at the very least. Not everything is a personal attack just because someone disagrees with you or points something out you may have not noticed. You are not the only person in the world nor are you the smartest with end all be all opinions. The disingenuity is insidious in fandom and getting old or never was young to begin with, but it all needs to stop.
It's not just some pixels behind the screen, there's a real living breathing person on the other end with thoughts and feelings just like you, and their life is just as precious as yours and should be treated as such.
Please just be human.
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Fuck it, we Post Kankri edition
So just like the last ‘fuck it, we post’ Everytime I try to explain this in words I just end up needing to Fic It to get the Vibes Right so instead we’re rambling.
Tw Abelism
So to dissect the ‘Kankri Abelism Attack of 20XX we first have to kind of acknowledge the obvious? Culling as a system on Beforus sucks, but on some level for some people: it works or could work.
As a system, it removes the rights of the disabled and those of lower castes who are viewed as incapable of caring for themselves even when they are. I don’t think I can help you if you don’t get the implications of the line ‘Latula would not be allowed to skateboard if she was caught being disabled.’ At it’s most literal level, Latula, who is not shown to be harmed in any way by skating would not be allowed to do so as a hobby because of the risk that it may hurt her. Anything more intense than ‘moving moderately quickly on a board with wheels even if you have on padding’ would likely be banned as well. I’m not delving into what Kankri specifically said about the system and the places where it lines up with what Porrim says about how woman are treated because that’s a whole THING and this post needs SOME level of focus on it. Anyway.
Kankri lived like that for most of his life, there was an assumption placed on him from hatching that he was incapable of doing normal Troll shit. Something he knew was wrong- there are a lot of ways how he could know it was wrong from visions of Alternia to ‘tried to do something he was banned from and succeeded before getting caught.’ No matter what the way, he’s aware he can do things despite society insisting he’s weak, and at this point is running on the idea that if he proves he’s capable, that’ll help change things.
And here sits Latula, the ideal. She’s disabled but not in a way that would require many significant changes. She doesn’t need a handler and has shown herself capable of doing anything any other Troll can. On some level, he wants to be like her (or at least the ‘I’m so chill and cool and have no weaknesses or insecurities! Problems, what’re they lmao 😜’ mask of her.) so she gets to be a ‘good role model’.
On the other hand, you have Mituna, who he doesn’t actually know how to treat. Because Mituna DOES require extra help and since his idea of Culling never reached the step of ‘no actually, it’d be bad to be treated as a lesser even if I WASN’T capable of self sufficiency.’ So he says stupid shit instead. And it still fucking sucks, but it’s more interesting character wise than most of the other bigoted character’s mindsets? This is NOT a defense of that moment, I sincerely dislike when people do that but Idk… It’s been rolling in my mind forever. So anyway.
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On Tom Taylor, the Current Nightwing Run & Ableism
I did mention I was gonna do a post about it, so here we are. There are some things I want to make clear before we begin: the issue exploded on Twitter on the very first day of disabled Pride month; disabled people have been discussing the ableism in Taylor’s Nightwing run since it began; nobody has blamed Taylor for what happened to Barbara in 2011. We are, however, blaming him for the way she is written in his series during 2021.
I am also going to be discussing the ableism in the fandom in this post. The reactions I have seen, from here to Twitter to TikTok, are showing not only a great misunderstanding of the situation, but a purposeful misunderstanding. The very real reasons disabled people are angry right now have been twisted to make us seem ridiculous and overly sensitive and I cannot help but feel that is very intentional.
Another quick addition: disabled people are not a monolith. Barbara Gordon spent over 20 years as a paralyzed wheelchair user. Stating (and I would like to note, never truly showing) that she is a part time cane user now is still erasing her disability. These things are not interchangeable.
So, with that out of the way, let’s begin.
Tom Taylor’s run is ableist. That is a fact of this situation. He made the active choice to include a version of Barbara Gordon that is ableist caricature. Story wise, the role that Barbara plays could have easily been filled by anyone else. There is no real season, within the narrative and outside of it, for Taylor to include this version of Barbara Gordon, who has received a decade of criticism from disabled people. It’s very well known that this iteration is problematic, to put it kindly, and Taylor is aware of that.
He made the active decision to include her, anyway, showing, at the very least, that he is passively, if not actively, ableist. Passive ableism is still ableism and disabled people are allowed to take issue with that.
That alone is reason enough for disabled people to be angry. But that’s not why things exploded on Twitter.
On July 1st, the very first day of disabled pride month, the new design for Barbara was dropped. After months of teasing Barbara’s return to a wheelchair using Oracle (see: Last Days of The DC Universe, Batgirl (2016), etc), they debuted... a new Batgirl costume that the artist has openly said draws inspiration from the Burnside suit.
There’s a lot of issues to unpack here, so let’s start small: the issue with consciously calling back to Burnside. The Burnside era of Batgirl stories was... beyond awful. The villain of the series’ first arc, was an AI based on Barbara’s brain patterns when she was disabled. It was evil because of all the rage and pain Barbara felt. The actual Barbara, on the other hand, was good -- because she was able bodied. Because her PTSD had been tossed aside. It was a horrifically ableist era that drove the idea that Barbara’s life was terrible when she was disabled; that it was some horrible, twisted secret.
Comics have kept that narrative going. Barbara is seen hiding books on chronic pain; she reacts aggressively to the mere idea that she could be in a wheelchair again, acting like it would be weakness. Whereas Barbara had once been Oracle not because of, but in spite of, her disability, who was fantastic representation for the disabled community, she now acts like it is the most shameful thing in her life.
To call back to Burnside is to call back to that ableism and make no critique of it. If anything, it’s to embrace the ideas of that era.
There is also the design itself to consider. Many people have pointed out the inclusion of a back brace, as if that saves it from ableism -- it does not. Any person who has ever worn a back brace can take one look at this design and know that they did not consult a disabled person. Hell, by how impractical that thing is, I doubt they even Googled a picture of a back brace.
It’s a superficial acknowledgement that Barbara is supposed to be disabled. Something that was apparently thrown in to appease the numerous complaints of Barbara being able bodied; something that no one working on it put any effort into.
When it comes to aids, this is not a new thing for Barbara in Infinite Frontier. She’s said to be using a cane occasionally, that we got a better look at in Batman: Urban Legends, and as any cane user can tell you... that is not a cane that could feasibly be used. It’s another pathetic attempt to acknowledge that Barbara is supposed to be disabled, without actually doing anything of importance.
[IMAGE ID: A segmented cane with a tri-pointed handle with a wrist strap. There is a stripe across the sections to connection them, labelled “solar battery charger buttons”. The text reads: “telescoping antenna doubles as cane or weapon if needed”. END ID]
Dropping this design (which we have now established to be problematic) on the very first day of disabled pride month is a sickening move. The very first day, and DC has doubled down on their disability erasure, thrown in superficial things like a back brace to act like it’s fine.
Tom Taylor is definitely involved in this, whether you like it not. No, he is not in anyway responsible for the events of the New 52 and what they did to Barbara Gordon, but that does not absolve him of blame for what is currently being done to her in his run.
When the design dropped, it started trending due to disabled fans reactions. To be clear: we were directly calling out the ableism in this design. This was Tom Taylor’s response:
[IMAGE ID: A tweet from TomTaylorMade that says: “Hey, @Bruna_Redono_F I think our new Batgirl suit is getting some attention.” He then adds a winky face emoji and tags @jesswchen and @drinkpinkkink. Attached are a screenshot showing that Batgirl is trending in the United States and a picture of the design itself. END ID]
This is him, bragging about how the disabled community reacted. Perhaps before this tweet, you could’ve made an argument that he was not ableist, but after he flaunted the fact that disabled people were rightly furious over this, like it was something to be proud of? No. If you are defending him, you are a part of the problem.
Taylor has included ableist writing in his Nightwing run, beyond the inherent ableism that comes with the current iteration of Barbara Gordon (whose inclusion, yet again, is his decision).
[IMAGE ID: A panel from Nightwing #79. Barbara and Dick are standing in his apartment. Barbara is saying: “I have some pretty new technology holding my spine together. I’m happy to do most things -- eat pizza in the park, take down low-level thugs -- but leaping from rooftops seems... unwise.” END ID]
What Barbara says in the panel above has bothered a lot of disabled people. The implication that she couldn’t “eat pizza in the park’ and “take down low-level thugs” without a spinal implant that conveniently erases her disability is... fucked up, to put it mildly. Those are both things that Barbara has done in a wheelchair. The first one is something wheelchair users can do and the implication that it’s not is beyond offensive.
But, let’s leave Barbara behind for a moment. I have previously mentioned that disabled people have been discussing the ableism present in this run long before July -- and that ableism is not only centred on Barbara. Dick is also a player in all this.
Dick Grayson was shot in the head. I don’t believe I need to retread the story, but just in case: Dick was shot in the head by KGBeast, developed amnesia from the event, and went by Ric Grayson for a long enough period in comics. If you have been active within the DC fandom for the past year or so, you know all about this controversial storyline and its fallout.
The Ric Grayson arc concluded itself the issue before Taylor became the writer for the series and ever since his tenure has begun, Taylor has completely ignored the reality of Dick being a disabled man. We understand this is comics, that things do not function the way they do in our world, but still -- it is clear that this gunshot wound to the head has affected Dick massively. We had an entire arc dedicated to how he struggled to find himself in the aftermath.
Taylor is choosing to write Dick as an able-bodied man, despite his canonical injuries and how they would impact his life.
This man is choosing to give empty gestures towards Barbara being a disabled woman (as discussed above, the completely dysfunctional back brace, etc) whilst writing her as able-bodied as possible. He writes both Dick and Barbara as able bodied as humanly possible. That is ableist. He is ableist. This is the same man that said he made a dog disabled ‘in honour of Barbara’. I do not think I need to elaborate on why that is bad.
The least he could’ve done, was get a sensitivity reader. We know that Taylor is not beyond getting people from marginalized communities to consult on his work (see: Suicide Squad), so why, when writing two characters that should be disabled, one that the disabled community have been criticising for a decade, does he not reach out to a single disabled person? A mere Google search could’ve improved the situation massively. In both the new design and the current writing, it is beyond clear that this is not just an able-bodied person writing it -- it’s an ableist person.
He could have listened to the numerous disabled fans that spoke out. Instead, he chose not only to refuse to do that, but to describe justifiable anger as ‘raging’. He treated us like we were crazy for daring to speak out about blatant ableism being parading around of us in our pride month.
Tom Taylor has failed to do the bare minimum and in doing so, he is, at very, very least, guilty of complicity. Again: passive ableism is still ableism.
The argument at hand is not just about Barbara Gordon and the continuing ableism that shines out from her current writing. The argument is about the treatment of disabled characters in his run. It has also become about the way he treats physically disabled people.
We also can’t have this conversation without acknowledging the fandom’s role in it all. I waited a day to write this up, to allow all the reactions to flood in... and I am sickened.
We have everything across the board. Able-bodied people that have actually listened to disabled people, who have supported us (which is deeply appreciated). Able-bodied people who may have had good intentions, but a skewed sense of the situation and perpetuating some of the more insidious lies being spread around (IE. that this is only about the new costume).
There are, obviously, the ableist reactions, though, that we will be discussing here. People deeming the current issues as ‘crazy’, calling disabled people ‘overly sensitive’ and ‘delusional’. Many people have completely glossed over the examples given for why Taylor, specifically, is ableist, and instead have resorted to telling disabled people that we are wrong and should be mad at DC instead.
It’s important to note that Tom Taylor is an adult man. He doesn’t need a fandom to attack disabled people for daring to call him out. He is not the victim in this situation; he has, for quite a few disabled people, been the aggressor.
I have seen claims that Infinite Frontier is a ‘slow burn’, implying that disabled people need to patient... as if we have not waited a decade for less ableist writing. There is a complete refusal from able-bodied fans to actually listen to what disabled people are saying. They would much rather rush to the defence of the (honestly rather mediocre) current Nightwing run.
Disabled fans know that comic book spaces are ableist. We know that both DC and Marvel and many of their writers are ableist. We are still allowed to be pissed as hell about it and acting like the current reaction being had right now is disabled people being ‘overdramatic’ is yet another example of how the able-bodied side of the fandom both refuses to listen to and undermine disabled people when we call out ableism.
We know it when we see it. We always do and we always will and we will always be able to recognize it far faster than an able-bodied person. If this many disabled fans are coming out and talking about an issue, calling it ableism, then it’s time for you shut up and listen.
Stop being a part of the problem and start supporting disabled fans for once.
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apparently im actually on starlight now which thank god im that much closer to the end
Starlight liveblog: chapter 5 to 7
this isnt even about warriors but i think its so weird when people use leaped instead of leapt. leapt just sounds better imo
so like. in the context of canon, hawkfrost wanting to camp on the island makes sense. like. yeah, its more protected than the place mistyfoot suggested, but fucking...the argument they should have made is that the elders and disabled cats would have trouble getting there, but it isnt brought up in the argument even tho that would have shown thst misty knows what shes doing? instead, the scene just makes mistyfoot look kind of irrational and it sucks.
why does bramble need to hear tallstar's dying words tho
and why didnt Barkface come back with Onewhisker?? i know he was getting herbs but he had to know there was nothing else he could do for him...?? like. there legitimately shouldve been at least one other windclan cat here it just...it feels juuuuust a little contrived to me
Firestar proving once again that he has no fucking sense as a leader as he offers to announce tallstars decision for onewhisker...like bro. even brambleclaw is like "um maybe dont?"
Bramble: Onewhisker isnt acting very leaderly right now
Also Bramble: I think Onewhisker would make a better leader than Mudclaw
Ngl folks Im team Mudclaw right now. Not only were there just not enough witnesses from Windclan, but Thunderclan is the one announcing the news?? Thats sus as hell and Firestar should keep his fucking nose out of it
wow they actually acknowledged that Ashfoot is Crowfeather's mother
see like. my issue with this arc is that a lot of characters are called out on their dumb shit, or at least the pov character will think it's wrong, but there are no consequences and its never followed up on? like you cant just point out the problem. you gotta do something about it!
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So like. Looking back on Chameleon, it wasn't actually that bad. It was frustrating, but the parts that are the most frustrating are on the writers making this fucked to keep the plot going. So like. Here's ways to 'fix' it where instead of a salty "oh everyone has a brain cell" things are just. Slightly adjusted?
Problem 1: Moving the seats:
While Marinette is still sus of Lila and that comes up, have a line shutting down the thing. Yes, Marinette is allowed to be upset she won't be sitting with her best friend. However, point out that someone would have to be alone in the back. This is a consequence of her being so late to class(incredibly late as the rest of the classmates already showed up and discussed this).
Demanding that everyone change seats to accomodate her wants is exactly what she called Chloé out on in Origins. Yes it still sucks, and perhaps at lunch they could discuss a compromise, but at the time, accomodating a student's disability took priority.
Also maaaaaaybe have Marinette acknowledge that while she doesn't believe Lila's story of how she got tinnitus, she has no idea if the tinnitus is real or not.
2: Marinette trying to tell Alya and Nino and they don't listen.
Honestly this part is a trainwreck because as soon as Alya and Nino scold Mari for following Lila and Adrien, which is understandable because girl that's a lil stalker-y, Marinette doesn't even bother to tell them the rest. I have two solutions for this:
The first is that Marinette begins to tell them, but remembers that she was following them because of the Grimoire and that if Alya and Nini followed up by asking Adrien, Adrien would point out that he didn't see Mari. Both things could bite her in the ass on the Secret Identity thing, so she decides to not tell them. Therefore, she can't explain exactly why she knows Lila is lying about being Ladybug's bff.
The second is that she does tell them about "Ladybug showed up and called Lila out", but Alya and Nino are skeptical. Not that they don't believe Mari, but Ladybug showing up to scream at and insult Lila? That doesn't sound like Ladybug, even if Lila was lying? Ladybug is so much nicer than that even to Chloé why would that happen? There must be more to the story. Maybe it wasn't the real Ladybug and just some Ladybug Cosplayer/Adrien fangirl trying to ruin Lila's rep? Maybe it was Ladybug trying to protect her friend by publicly denouncing the friendship but didn't realize how it would look? Clearly there's more going on here. Still frustrating but less so because Marinette at least made more of an effort to tell them.
3: the napkin thing.
Okay this was so dumb even for Lila's other lies (which I've already ranted about how not only are they meant to be obvious for the target audiance, but aren't actually that unbelievable).
An easy way to fix this? Cut out the whole "oh I've seen a napkin gouge out eyes!" Lie.
Marinette throws the napkin at Lila, Lila catches it, then pretends "oh ow that hurt". Instead of making something up, one of the classmates points out "Lila's wrist is sprained, not paralyzed. You threw something at her face and her body reacted on instinct despite the injury. That's just how bodies work and doesn't prove anything at all".
4: Adrien's advice.
Again, I have gone on record saying that Adrien's advice actually makes sense given his perspective of Marinette not telling him about the threats.
But that's the thing! The problem isn't Adrien's advice! It's because at best Marinette isn't taking Lila's threat seriously and doesn't think it's worth bringing up because she thinks he's right about it sorting itself out. At worst, Marinette is too focused on pleasing Adrien because of her crush that she doesn't dare contradict him in case it ruins her chances. Either way this is on her.
Honestly there's no reason she shouldn't tell him other than that, and it's flimsy at best. So I'm going to say fix it by telling him.
At which point Adrien would take this more seriously, but we could still have the "don't call her out" thing because he sees that Lila is more of a strategiest and will be able to turn it around, so taking a step back to plan would be better.
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Long Apple rant.
This is regarding an issue where the biggest reseller of Apple products in my country, does not want to replace a woman’s Macbook with factory defect, which arose within a month of usage. The MacBook in question is a MacBook Pro M1 bought in March 2021. She’s had a very terrible time with Apple support, and they kept her laptop saying they were waiting for parts, kept transferring it from one repair shop to another, and blamed her for not returning the laptop within 7 days (which is the law), when the defect only arose a month later. The MacBook still isn’t repaired and she still hasn’t gotten her MacBook back yet.
The issue I think, with the MacBook the PowerMac Center won't replace is not because it's out of the seven day replacement period, but because they literally do not know how to repair the MacBook. The new MacBooks probably have zero reparability. Also because PowerMac Center has shit customer service. Feeling Apple Store.
I had an Acer laptop break down three months before the warranty expired. Went to Acer in Paco, Manila, told them the problem, and left my laptop there. After about a day or two they said the problem was the motherboard. They replaced it and I got it back a few days later. Replacing the motherboard is like already giving you a new laptop. And they didn't charge me anything. I took it back about a month later to have it cleaned out just before the warranty expired. Didn't charge me anything. Easy as pie.
If "Apple Geniuses" in the US or "engineers" here in the PH knew how to fix your defective/broken MacBook, they can give it back to you in no time. But they don't know how to fix it, because Apple designs these machines to be as difficult to repair as possible, or impossible to repair, so that when it breaks, you have no choice but to buy another one. They do this by soldering everything in, using proprietary screws so that you can't fix the device yourself, and serializing parts so that you can't use them to repair other devices. They said they're waiting for parts from Singapore. These parts probably don't even exist. I don't even think they produce parts in Singapore. The company that manufactures parts for Apple products are both in Taiwan.
If you want to know more about how Apple Products have shit reparability, please visit the following people on YouTube: Louis Rossmann, Hugh Jeffreys, and Jessa Jones from iPad Rehab. Please support Right to Repair.
There has been news that Apple is claiming it didn’t hit targets because people were having their iphones repaired instead of buying new iphones (read it here: https://www.apple.com/.../letter-from-tim-cook-to.../...)
And then when you go to Apple Genius Bars to have your Macs checked out, they’ll overestimate the repair for your laptop and just tell you to buy another one because it’s too expensive to repair it, even if the actual repair just takes shoving a good connector back into its slots.
Louis Rossmann is a person fighting for Right to Repair and he despises Apple to his very core that his mission is to fix every MacBook he can get his hands on just to spite Apple ahahaha I love him.
Here are some of his videos: > Here’s a video from cbc news where they consult Louis after going to the genius bar “Genius Bar caught ripping customer off ON CAMERA” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XneTBhRPYk&t=1s
And another girl being ripped off by the Genius Bar saying they can’t repair her laptop, when the problem was they just didn’t shove the battery connector back into the motherboard well enough: https://youtu.be/K1A9y4S60kg
Jessa Jones from iPad Rehab also has been repairing and retrieving data from iphones that genius bars/apple centers claim cannot be retrieved or saved: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPjp41qeXe1o_lp1US9TpWA
Also check out Hugh Jeffreys who fixes iPhones and shows you that iPhones serialize parts so that you can’t have parts replaced on newer iPhone because the phones disable themselves when new parts are placed in https://www.youtube.com/user/hughydo
I’m NOT that much of a hater, because I use a MacBook and an iPhone for work, and an iPad for personal use and media consumption, and I’m a cheap fuck so I’ll never really get my own mac or a new iPhone (I have an iPhone 6 Plus) but these practices are insane.
But I get why people use it. It “feels premium” and “is designed so well” and “the ecosystem works so well with each other across all devices” and of course, “I look so cool using it.” I also acknowledge that Apple has made considerable leaps and bounds when it comes to technology and their ecosystem, but that doesn't mean I don't think it's shit. And they keep competitors on their toes (also burning them to the ground when they enter a new market—bye Tiles), but holy shit these practices, man.
Apple also claims that they're going green right? But if they don't let you repair and they don't repair their devices, what happens to all the other broken devices? That all goes to a landfill. They want to go green and save paper by not giving you a charger in the box? Well it takes more boxes and more plastic when you buy that charger either from them, or from an online store. It takes more boxes, more plastic, more bubble wrap, more gas!! More emissions!! To deliver that charger to you!! THAT’S NOT GREEN AT ALL. Just because they're "reducing their footprint" doesn't mean it's going be the same for everybody else that's fulfilling their jobs to get the thing to you, the user.
There was an issue where they sued a disposal company for repairing and reselling all the working iPhones they gave to them to destroy. Why destroy something that can be repaired or still used? Granted they have the right to sue cos the disposal company didn't do as asked, but why would they have all those working devices destroyed? Because they don't want you to repair your Apple device. They want it to stay broken so you buy a new one. You can read that here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/.../apple-geep-iphone.../
Basically, Apple still wants control over the device you bought from them. It’s like saying you buy a car from Ford, but you can’t use tires that aren’t from Ford, because if you do use tires from Bridgestone, the car won’t work. And if you bring the car to Ford, they’ll say they can’t fix your tires, so you have to buy a new car. That’s fucking stupid.
some more stuff on right to repair to help you understand it:
MKBHD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTbrXiIzUt4
Linus Tech Tips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvVafMi0l68
Louis Rossmann: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Npd_xDuNi9k
Also a video from Linus Tech Tips where Apple refused to fix their iMac Pro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-NU7yOSElE
#apple#rant#personal#thoughts#power mac center#macbook pro#macbook pro m1#m1 chip#m1x#powermac center#apple computers#iphone#ipad#airpods#airpods pro#right to repair#loius rossmann#mkbhd#marques brownlee#linus tech tips#ltt#ipad rehab#cbc news#apple genius bar#genius bar#apple philippines#consumer care#department of trade and industry#dti philippines#consumer protection
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Hot take: Bakugou's character wouldn't survive if not for the one he kept abusing all his life. 90% of his character revolves around his victim and yet the fandom paints him as this super developed, fleshed out character when in reality he'd never be anything bigger than a side character if not for Deku.
Also the concequences he supposedly received are just him being teased or not getting the win he wanted, no being kidnapped doesn't count, he literally got away with his shit while even been treated like a victim and the privilege to know something about Deku that isn't any of his business. And now because he sacrificed himself that one time the fandom acts like Izuku owes his ass anything. It's disgusting.
I have given up on him actually being half the decent character ppl make him out to be and the fandom reaction to him makes me hate him even more.
He's not complex, he's just a pretty boy, asshole archetype who gets nicer and has some more cooperative and ppl love to eat that shit up while making up stuff for him. He changes but he's doesn't change for what matters and definitely pales in comparison to other characters who are better written than him.
(holy shit, did they remove the character limit on asks?? omg a GODSEND)
Well yeah, if it weren’t for Izuku and how he treats Izuku he wouldn’t have anything to improve from; people only think he’s developed because he no longer outright bullies him and “””worries””” (I say in heavy quotes) about him, and “reflects” on how he treated him even though he.......... comes to the absolute wrongest, most idiotic conclusions imaginable, that put the brunt of the excuses on Izuku instead of himself, but Toshinori validates him because Horikoshi has made Toshi into Bakugou’s uwu stan and stan of the two boys’ “friendship” (completely ignoring the fact that THIS KID FOR TEN YEARS BULLIED HIS SON). He’s basically already been devolved to acting like a side character for a long time now, with his funny anger quirk pun partly intended that’s just treated like a joke at this point, just like everyone else’s character quirks, even though it would be far more interesting for him to, you know. actually get some therapy and learn to calm himself and become an actual pleasant person to be around. But that’s not what makes him “funny”, that’s not him, according to most people, so he’s always going to stay like this, a boring angry pomeranian who flies off the handle at everything for no reason, who has done the absolute bare minimum of “changing”, which makes him a perfect character in everyone’s eyes.
“He changes but doesn’t change for what matters” pretty much sums up the problem with him in a nutshell, and is the exact reason he frustrates me so much, that I’ve ranted about plenty before. Bakugou has never been viewed through the lens of a bully, an abuser, he was never set up to be that, at least not realistically, and so his development hasn’t happened in accordance with that setup either, and people don’t have a problem with it and actively praise it because the manga actively downplay(ed)s the severity of that origin story. People can ignore the reality of how seriously traumatic being bullied for ten years of your childhood, verbally and physically would be, and how seriously and with such sensitivity such a relationship and character arc must be handled, because aside from the very first chapter when Izuku and Bakugou are still in middle school, really, with the “take a swan dive off the roof” comment and others, it’s never focused on in that way ever again; ever since, it’s just been treated as a typical anime “rivalry”, that both of them need to better themselves to overcome. The story and teachers say “the two of them are so alike but they just keep missing each other; if they just made up for each others’ weaknesses and understood that they both want the same thing, they’d be stronger together!”, and Izuku HIMSELF tries so hard to reach through to Bakugou, always still considering him his friend, always feeling like he’s the one equally at fault for their relationship being as rocky as it is, when BAKUGOU!!! FUCKING!!! BULLIED HIM!!! FOR TEN YEARS. bullied a DISABLED CHILD, which again, as a disabled person who relates to Izuku and how he felt about his quirklessness, feelings that continue to affect him even long after he gets a quirk because of how he was treated when he was younger, is DEEPLY unsettling to me. You CANNOT read/watch MHA without the metaphor of quirklessness = disabled being very apparent, and so that makes Bakugou’s bullying and how it is so utterly glossed over and purposefully forgotten a hundred times more disturbing and aggravating than it already is! If this were any other shounen rivalry then yes, it could be resolved with effort from both parties, because both parties have their own personal reasons for why they have trouble getting along with the other, and the fun is watching to see how they will overcome those, but Izuku and Bakugou were never on an equal playing field to begin with; this is a bullying story, with its victim trying desperately to win over and befriend his abuser, when he owes him absolutely NOTHING and has a BOATLOAD of unresolved issues thanks to said bullying, with no outside help from adults for either of them because none of them are acknowledging it as fucking bullying. I guarantee you that if the manga went into much more painful, bleak detail and showed many more flashbacks of how Izuku was treated by Bakugou in the past, and then still continued with the “development” he’s had since, people would be unable to ignore it like they can now, and it would make all of them extremely uncomfortable like it does those of us now who already dislike him. Hori himself has said he doesn’t understand why Bakugou is so popular, but he’s able to just continue as he does with him because no one is complaining, and because he said he regrets making him so awful in the beginning, as if that magically makes it disappear as much as it already has in 90% of the fandom’s collective mind. You wanna know an actual good manga that also deals with a bully of a disabled child growing and improving himself and forming a close relationship with his former victim? A Silent Voice. Such a journey is long, and hard, and it is painful, with many ups and downs and many nasty, hateful, guilt-filled, depression-filled feelings from both sides, along with from other characters who either also partook in the bullying, were bystanders to it who did nothing, or were indirect victims as well. The bully is bullied himself after what he does, and then grows up nearly suicidal, closing himself off and struggling to be social and make new friends because he doesn’t know how and doesn’t entirely feel like he deserves it (and the story notably doesn’t go the route of “he was abused too at home and so that’s why he bullied”), and tries and fails many times to make amends with the person he hurt before he finally is at peace with himself and everyone; the victim, meanwhile, drowns in continued guilt and suicidal feelings over feeling like she’s a burden to others, both from her disability and from watching all the infighting and victim blaming and finger pointing that ensues between her old classmates when all of the nasty emotions are brought back to the surface, along with dealing with budding romantic feelings for her past bully when he genuinely starts being kind towards her and making an effort to connect with her. ASV is entirely about this complex narrative, it’s able to dedicate everything it has to telling this story tactfully and with all the time and attention it needs. MHA, meanwhile, is a shounen battle manga, and so it was never going to do this narrative and Bakugou’s arc justice, even though I honestly think it could have if Hori really wanted to, because Izuku and Toshinori’s relationship has such masterfully subtle and touching emotions and care, at least early on; Horikoshi knows how to write good, subtle character arcs. I’m not asking for something ASV level, of course not, when the series has so many other things it has to juggle. I just wanted Bakugou to be treated as exactly what he is: a former bully, who can be taught, and learn, and reflect, and change, and become a better, more humble, more interesting person, and actually become someone worthy of all the praise and love he gets, not only for Izuku’s sake, but for his own, as well. They don’t excuse his actions in the slightest, but it’s still undeniable that Bakugou himself is a victim of how the adults in his life have treated him and raised his own expectations of himself, giving him the crippling insecurity issues he has, and that they continue to harm him (and Izuku) by simply letting him continue to go on angrily the way he does, instead of getting him help and some therapy in order for him to change and heal from things like being kidnapped by villains (which is no small thing to go through!! on top of his guilt over Toshinori’s final battle!) and becoming a better person to the one he hurt in the past, and it all just makes me so sad, not because I’m all “uwu poor Bakugou”, but just cause his character deserves better, as a person he deserves better, just like Izuku deserves better than everything he’s gone through because of him. This is all just a very long-winded way of agreeing with you OP that yes, none of Bakugou’s “punishments” for his behavior mean anything because he’s punished as a rival student who needs to humble himself in order to get along with his friend he doesn’t like, not as a former(??) bully who needs to be separated from his victim. The bar is set so low, was never set where it should be, and so absolutely no progress to “better himself” Bakugou makes either will mean anything, as long as it’s never acknowledged that he needs to make amends as a bully and abuser.
#my hero academia#boku no hero academia#my meta#replies#'i've ranted about this in-depth so many times; I'll keep it brief this time' I say#3 hours later:#every fucking time#the bakugou salt will never go away#and never will I cease being disturbed and disgusted by just how easily the fandom glorifies his development#and glosses over the reality of what he's done#'izuku has forgiven him so it's fine' IZUKU 👏 IS 👏 A VICTIM 👏 HIS WORDS 👏 MEAN NOTHING#HE IS BIASED TOWARDS BAKUGOU BECAUSE OF HIS LOW SELF-ESTEEM#AND HE HAS NEVER THOUGHT THERE WAS ANYTHING TO FORGIVE#AS LONG AS HE BELIEVES THAT THERE HAS BEEN NO IMPROVEMENT ON BAKUGOU'S END#god that scrapped cover concept of middle school Bakugou spitting blood makes me so fucking mad#'look it symbolizes that his old self is dead' THEN PROVE THAT HE'S ACTUALLY LEARNED ANYTHING#PROVE IT TO /IZUKU/#MAKE AMENDS AND APOLOGIZE THE WAY ONE SHOULD#Anonymous
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A brief history of Unitarian Universalism (casual, with swears, have not fact checked as such but I think it’s correct):
In New England back before US independence, there was Calvinism -- you know, that predestination thing, you’re already going to go to heaven or hell, but you should be good anyways so people will think you’re going to heaven, or something like that. Then there wasn’t.
Then there was Congregationalism. Which was a lot more chill, but still very “fuck Catholicism”. And around this time, deism was on the rise: the idea that maybe God created the universe, then fucked off, and hasn’t been actively involved with anything since. Then, some people who were actually reading the Bible, because you can’t look down on Catholicism unless you actually read the Bible, were like... wait, maybe Jesus isn’t all that. You know -- the Savior, the Son of God, one third of the Trinity, all that. Maybe he was just, like... a prophet, or some guy who said some interesting things. A teacher.
And other congregationalists were like: uh, what, no, Jesus has to be all that. If you don’t think Jesus is all that, how can you even call yourself a Christian?
And they decided they couldn’t really be around each other any more. So the first group, which was mostly in Boston, started calling themselves Unitarians (because they rejected the doctrine of the Trinity and instead believed in a one part God), and incidentally at some point also stopped calling themselves Christians because the other guys had a point, and the others called themselves the United Church of Christ (UCC.)
Emerson and Thorough -- sorry, Thoreau -- were both Unitarians, as were John Adams, John Quincy Adams, and pretty much everyone else from Boston in early US history. (We like to claim Jefferson, because his beliefs were kindasorta similar to Unitarian beliefs at the time, but as I understand it he was never actually part of a Unitarian congregation.)
(Btw: if you’re lgbtq+ and Christian, they’re a pretty friendly denomination. If you’re lgbtq+ and Christian and you think the UCC is too liberal (in the religious sense) or you want a majority-lgbtq+ congregation, consider MCC, which is otherwise unconnected to all this. If you’re not Christian and are lgbtq+ -- atheist/agnostic, or maybe something else if you’re down with worshipping with people that aren’t specifically your thing -- Unitarian Universalism tends to be pretty good. As in: we have a bunch of gay/lesbian ministers and other religious leaders, and a few transgender ones. (Knowledge of less mainstream lgbtq+ identities can vary a lot between congregations and generations -- the younger generations tend to be more aware than the gen x’ers.) I’ve been involved with Church of the Larger Fellowship for most of the past year, which did zoom worship before it got cool and serves people around the world, and people like me who live a mile from a UU brick and mortar congregation but still can’t get their disabled ass over there anyways. Anyways, CLF has more POC on the worship team than most UU congregations (the denomination does tend to run pretty white), is very social justice oriented even by UU standards, and is somewhat more cool about general weirdness than most congregations, which again for UU congregations is saying something.)
Then, at some point (sadly, I’m significantly more familiar with the history of the first U than the second) there was this other protestant denomination in the South (as in, the US South) where people decided that God was too nice to send people to hell for all eternity, so they started calling themselves the Universalists, as in Universal Salvation. All dogs go to heaven.
Well, time passed, each denomination evolved in its own way. (In particular, Unitarianism caught humanism pretty hard -- the joke was the Unitarians believe in one God at most.) In the -- ok, I’ll look this one up -- in 1961, there was a big old merger, creating Unitarian Universalism, and in the process, everyone got together and was all...wait, so what are our official beliefs about God and stuff? Should we even have official beliefs about God? Maybe we can unify around some ideas around how people should treat each other instead.
So they did: they drafted a set of Principles (broad-strokes guidelines on how people should act -- peace is good, truth is good, people have value, stuff like that) and a set of Sources (where UU’s get their ideas about God and morality and so on from, starting with direct experience) and left everything else up to the individual. And then a little while later, the tree-huggers got a seventh Principle and a sixth Source added in -- respect for the environment and Earth-centered religions, respectively -- so now the joke is that UU’s believe in one God, more or less.
Currently there’s a movement on to add an 8th Principal that explicitly names racial equality and fighting oppression as something we value, since while the current Principles mention justice and equality, they don’t specifically name race, and the people of color who have stuck with the predominantly white denomination figure Unitarian Universalism can and should be doing better on that front.
Unitarian Universalism runs religiously liberal (ie, decentralized, individualistic, non-authoritarian, non-dogmatic, inclined to believe science over the Bible) and politically progressive. Unitarian Universalist congregations tend to be very politically active and concerned with social justice, mostly in a well-educated middle class kind of way: committees, Robert’s Rules of Order, donating to non-profits, Get Out the Vote, inviting in speakers and asking “questions” that aren’t really questions, forming partnerships with other congregations and community organizations, etc. Many UU congregations have put a Black Lives Matter sign out (and when necessary keep putting it out when it gets torn down or vandalized), shown up for the protests, opposed the weird immigration BS that’s been going on in the US recently, etc. In addition to more charity style work, like food pantries and homeless shelters.
Point is: yeah it’s got flaws (don’t even get me started on Unitarian Universalism’s flaws) but if you’re a social justice person and want to meet other social justice people who are doing things, Unitarian Universalism can be a good place to look for that. You get more done in groups.
You’re less likely to burn out, too.
With marginalization, it’s complicated, right? Again, for LGBTQ+ people, it’s going to be better than most religious organizations. For people a little bit on the autism spectrum, you probably won’t be the only one. (If you’re unmistakeably autistic, people might be weird/ableist; it might depend on the congregation.) If you’re from a working class background or are currently kinda broke, you might run into some frustrations or feel like you don’t fit in; if you’re a poc or if you’re disabled (or your kid is) or you want a lot of personal support, you might struggle more -- this really might vary a lot, but at least the congregations I’m used to tend to assume congregants can mostly stand on their own feet, metaphorically speaking, and have some extra time/money/skills/whatever that can be directed out into the wider world. It can be a good place for pagans and Buddhists and other people who don’t want a church but are having trouble finding a church-like religious community where you can hang out with people on the same spiritual path. (Uh, for a while UU congregations were emphatically not churches and some officially still aren’t; others gave up and were all “eh, it looks like a church, whatever, we’re just a weird church.)
Some congregations are more atheist-dominated than others -- many avoid Jesus language most of the time, some avoid God language most of the time (UU’s who believe in God tend to believe in God in a relatively abstract/metaphorical way), some I hear are pagan-heavy, others do use Christian language a lot more. In all honesty you don’t have to go to Sunday worship if you don’t want to, and really a lot of UU’s don’t; if you want to be heavily involved in the congregation but don’t want to go to Sunday worship and don’t want to deal with pressure to, one way out is to teach RE (religious education -- basically “Sunday school”) the RE curricula are amazing, just absolutely astounding, and if you’re teaching it you get a ton of leeway with adjusting anything you don’t like. (Which could happen -- a lot of this stuff was developed before the idea that cultural appropriation is a big problem became mainstream in social justice circles.) What adult worship is like has basically zero correlation (perhaps negative correlation) to what RE is like. (Which sucks for young adults coming of age in a UU congregation, like I said don’t get me started on UU’s flaws.)
Finally: for people who care about sex positivity and sex ed, Unitarian Universalists (in partnership with UCC) developed Our Whole Lives, a sex ed curriculum that, well, it’s not abstinence based education. You wouldn’t expect sex ed coming from a religious org to be better than the sex ed in schools, would you? And yet. Comprehensive sex ed that acknowledges gay bi and trans people and that disabled people have sex too and teaches about birth control and masturbation and abuse and consent and boundaries and bullying and internet safety and abortion. It’s good stuff. The course aimed at teens is most popular of course, but there’s actually (age-appropriate) OWL curricula for all stages of life: young kids, adults, older adults, everyone. And it’s versatile enough to be taught in secular contexts (after school programs etc). Given the direction that unfortunately a lot of school districts in the US have been going in in terms of sex ed, it’s a really important program.
#Unitarian Universalism#unitarian universalist history#feels weird plugging the denomination when I get so frikkin frustrated but still#if it's not something you know about and you care about social justice#it's something you should know something about#even if you're not interested personally#I'm open to questions on this drop me a line
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Hypothetically, If the discussion Guts and Casca had in front of the cart were Griffith was sleeping before the eclipse wouldn't have happened, what do you think would have happened?
Also assuming fate isn’t a thing or the behelit went to someone else, I think Guts would insist on staying with Griffith and Casca would eventually give up trying to convince him to leave and stay too.
Judeau would try to talk them out of it but it doesn’t work so he shrugs and gives it up.
Rickert and the second unit (the ones who got eaten by Count Slug and Rosine) arrive and have run into the performing troupe that Rickert did in canon, which turns out to be Judeau’s old troupe. This isn’t that important except that they get a session with Puck’s healing magic.
Puck doesn’t manage to do a whole lot because he can’t regrow appendages or knit tendons back together but he does heal all Griffith’s open wounds and decrease the hell out of the scarring. This is important mostly for my peace of mind because I hate the fucking half flayed thing, there’s no way Griff lives through that in reality. But also it can have a sad emotional impact when they have to accept that not even a magic elf can fully heal Griffith. And Griff with less scarring and more conventional prettiness works better thematically here too.
The hawks disband shortly after, some leaving with Judeau to become thieves, some leaving to start new merc bands somewhere else, some continuing to follow Guts and Casca and Griffith. Corkus probably takes off. Rickert and Pippin might stay, or might go with Judeau, idk. The Raiders stick with Guts.
They settle somewhere as far away from Midland as they can reasonably get and Guts turns the Raiders and whoever else is still hanging on into a new band while Casca becomes the stay at home girlfriend. This requires Guts to be gone for days to weeks at a time, probably.
It’s terrible. Casca hates taking care of Griffith for many reasons including being terrible at domestic stuff, being awkward and not taking well to caring for someone else in general, and being viscerally disturbed and upset by Griffith’s weakness when her life used to revolve around her admiration of his strength.
Guts meanwhile has a bit of a visceral aversion to going out to fight and earn money to support someone he doesn’t actually get to spend quality time with, and he also sucks as a leader bc he’s too reckless and single-minded.
Griffith is depressed and doesn’t really make an effort to communicate with Casca and their homelife is nearly as miserable as Griffith’s nightmare for him and worse for Casca bc she’s real and not an imaginary version of herself.
Guts and Casca’s relationship crumbles for many reasons including resentment, distance, Guts’ recklessness upsetting her when he gets injured, jealousy over Griffith, and Guts starting to acknowledge all the repressed feelings between him and Griff.
They solve their problems by swapping roles. There should probably be a somewhat signficant catalyst for this decision, but idk what.
Like okay Guts’ thing here is recognizing that he and Griffith are in love and also that Guts is worth more to Griffith as a companion than as a provider, bc yk daddy issues.
Casca’s thing here is recognizing that she doesn’t have to play emotional support all her life and she should go out and do the thing she’s good at that empowers her and makes her feel good and lead a damn army and start dating outside her friend group.
And Griffith’s thing here is making an effort to remain a whole and complete person instead of retreating into a silent still image of himself like in his nightmare (with some good ngriff references maybe). So like, it’s emotionally easier to not even attempt to do anything bc moving and talking is a reminder of his disability and how he’ll never be able to resume his previous life, but eventually he realizes he can still be happy with what he has (if that includes Guts), and starts putting in the effort anyway to live this new life.
Like you can speak without a tongue and be understood, it just causes a significant speech impediment, and I feel like Griffith starting to do so would be a good illustration of personal growth.
And I guess the whole point of this idea is rejecting the idealized images of yourselves in favour of the reality, hence the maybe slightly implausible but still imo v justifiable initial heteronormativity of their arrangement.
I guess it could be kind of an issue if Casca becomes the merc leader because a non-white female commander would be kind of a red flag since Midland would still be after them, but the King dies after like 2 years anyway so they’d probably be fine. Let’s say they got far enough away that they assume they’re safe and it doesn’t even figure into their decision as to who does what.
Hmmm I wasn’t actually expecting to suddenly write a whole ass fic outline in response to this question lol but I guess tbf I’m p sure I’ve talked about some of these ideas before, they just kind of came together surprisingly well all of a sudden.
Ty for asking!
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superhero’s
Summary: Could you do one where Freddy Freeman (Shazam) is Eddie's son and is about to meet Richie?
A/N: sorry it took me so long to post!
Eddie is nervous. He rarely lets himself admit to it, and the instances where he does have been few and far between after Freddy was born and he became a dad, but today Eddie can say it without thinking of how to hide it. Freddy can discern it, just like he always can when it comes to his father, but he either can’t conjure up the words to reassure him, or he knows tonight is not going to go well and wants to prepare his father for it.
Eddie adores Freddy to bits, unsurprisingly. His son looks like a mirror image of himself when he was a kid, and it’s sometimes eerie for Eddie to come downstairs and see his son. It’s like feeling he’s been send back into the past to watch himself from the third person view. Though their physical appearances are similar, their personalities have a few major discrepancies.
For one, Freddy is a lot more brave then Eddie was at age, a lot more brave than Eddie is today. He’s obsessed with superheroes and convinced that they’re real, and he’s been know to dive headfirst into danger out of idolatry of these heroes.
He has a leg problem that he never lets other or himself acknowledges, but that’s no setback for the power of his mind. Once Freddy is convinced of something, it’s very difficult – impossible even- to throw him of his game. That Eddie likes a whole lot, that he can stand up for himself and is able to secure boundaries no matter who they’re aimed at, he likes the impulsivity a lot less.
It’s because their way of handling things is so fundamentally different, that Eddie is afraid how he’s going to react to Richie. He’s not sure if Freddy will appreciate any of the jabs Richie makes, if he will accept a new man moving in with them, or what he will do if he deems Richie unworthy.
Freddy on the other hand is a lot more collected, to no one’s surprise. He’s been playing videogames for most of the day, and an abandoned comic book is carelessly thrown over the entry way table. He hasn’t said anything about the impending meeting, and acts indifferent, but Eddie thinks it’s just an act.
He watches from the corner of the room as Freddy concentrates on his game, fingers pressing the console so hard Eddie fears he’ll need to buy him a new x-box if he keeps it up. Under his breath, he mutters along with his actions, some words a lot more explicit then Eddie would normally allow.
His presence looming behind Freddy is unnoticed, because if Freddy knew Eddie was standing there, he would have stopped his stream of curse words and smiled cheekily his direction, the way he always does when he’s trying to get his dad to break the house rules and escape repercussions.
Eddie coughs once, but willingly waits for his son’s video game to end so he won’t have to start over. He’s not always blessed with the patience to wait, his road rage is a clear example of that, but Eddie fight hard against the instincts that his child has to drop everything for him. Myra accuses him of trying to be the favorite parent over it, but Eddie has no such intentions. After growing up with a mother like his, he’s all too aware of how fast the lines between requesting respect and demanding it get crossed. He doesn’t over want to be an overbearing presence in his son’s life that Freddy dreads coming home too.
His tactic pays off in the end, to Myra’s irritation. Where Freddy will roll his eyes whenever Myra asks him to do something, he now gets his game - Eddie doesn’t know which game he’s playing, he’s pretty much clueless about videogames in general- to a safe point, pauses it and looks acceptingly in Eddie’s direction.
‘What’s up dad?’
‘Is that your favorite game you’re playing?’ Eddie fumbles, having no idea what video game he was actually playing or what his son’s best-beloved even is. ‘The one with – spiderman?’ He guesses, judging by the eye roll that Freddy gives him he’s gravely mistaken.
‘Spiderman? Dad my favorite video game is batman arkham underworld. About batman, not Spiderman’, Freddy voice trails off and he draws out the last few words, clearly pulling Eddie’s leg about not differentiating the two superheroes. ‘I should be offended that you don’t know that. Don’t you ever listen to what I have to say?’
Eddie laughs, but it’s strained and shaky from the nerves jumping over on his vocal cords. He came up to Freddy’s room because Richie should be arriving in less than five minutes, and he get a word on how open to the conversation Freddy really was. Now that he’s up here though, Eddie can’t conjure up a worse thing but to ask.
‘Dad, I’m sure you didn’t come here to talk about a videogame you’re not interested in. Spit out what you want to say.’
‘I- I need you to give Richie a chance. He’s brazen and sometimes a whole lot of weird, and he’s fucking stupid too sometimes’, Freddy doesn’t comment on the way Eddie smiles with full dimples out at the mere thought of Richie, ‘but I love him and if you could keep an open mind that would be great.’
Eddie walks deeper into Freddy’s room, on the verge of pacing around, feeling stupid for begging to his son about Richie. He can’t help it, he loves Richie almost as much as he loves Freddy, and it would kill him in the two most important people in his life didn’t get along.
‘Dad-‘
‘If you don’t like him then we can talk later. I love you and if you don’t like Richie that’s not going to change anything, but I’m aware Richie might not give the best first impression – the first time I ever met him he poured sand over me and I intended on killing him - so if you could stick it out for the entire evening then you can decide for yourself if you like him or not.’
‘Dad, it’s fine. I’m not going to judge the guy from doing different.’ Freddy chuckles, but it lacks all the normal energy and joy it normally contains.
At once, Eddie feels stupid. All he had considered was how nervous Richie was to meet Freddy, but he hadn’t contemplated how on edge Freddy was to be introduced to Richie. ‘Bud.’
‘No, it’s fine. I mean my own mom didn’t even accept me with my disability but some random stranger sure will.’
‘Freddy..’, Eddie trails off, he inches himself closer to sit beside Freddy on the floor, despite his kneecaps creaking. He’s all to aware that this is a delicate situations. Despite his resentment towards Myra for dragging him back into he’s old mindset that he was sick, she’s Freddy’s mom, and he would never do anything to harm their relationship.
‘Your mom loves you. Every part of you.’
‘No she didn’t, she liked that she could take care of me and get sympathy for it, but as soon as I tried to create some independence she hated it.’
It’s quiet in the room for a long time. It lays heavy on Eddie’s stomach, but he’s at a loss for words. The only thing he can do is to comfort his son, by hugging him close and trying with all his might to take over his sadness. Freddy asks him often what super power he would like to have if he had the change, and Eddie always responds with time travel, to have a redo of his childhood, but now he knows the actual answer is that he would like to absorb other people’s sadness and take it upon himself. Anything to get his son to stop suffering.
He can’t condone Myra’s actions, her cold behavior when Freddy managed to jump over small hurdles and she refused to see it and instead tried her best to sink his confidence by convincing him he did it wrong, no matter how much he had hoped his son would have a better relationship with his mom.
‘Richie’s not like that’, Eddie eventually settles on saying, because he knows that with all his heart. ‘And if he was I would kick his ass. If he would make fun of you’, he ruffles Freddy’s hair and is delighted to hear him laugh. ‘Then I’ll never allow him to set one foot back in this door.’
‘Okay dad, you don’t have to oversell it.’
‘Do you not think I would do it? I spend more than 300 dollars on comic books for you.’
‘Yeah cause buying comic books and beating him up are comparable.’
Freddy is back to his old chipper self, for now at least, and he reaches for his cane to help him walk.
‘Well, if what you’re saying is true, I better go check him out and see if he’s good enough for my old man. Race you down the stairs?’
Freddy doesn’t wait for Eddie’s answer before he’s off, fully ready to throw himself off the stairs if it means being the first one down. Eddie slows down tremendously, praying that he’s son won’t actually do that, but enjoying their little game anyway.
‘Flight or Invisibility?’ Freddy asks later at the dinner table, looking at Richie specifically as he asks.
Richie’s looking a little bit pale, and he glances at Eddie not understanding. Alas, he gets no help from him, Richie’s on his own on this one.
‘Euh, invisibility?’ The answer is said with uncertainty, but Freddy dismisses it as he jumps on the opportunity to talk about more superhero stuff.
‘Really? You picked invisibility? Okay wow, that’s surprising cause they once did this test where it showed that-‘ Freddy continues to ramble, but all Eddie can do is stare dreamily at his own little family.
#richie and eddie#eddie kaspbrack#eddie imagine#freddy freeman#my writing#eddie x freddy#eddie has a son#Richie is about to have a son#freddy freeman imagines#the losers club imagines#eddie as a dad#shazam
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How I would do RWBY pt.4
World Travel Arc.
Season Four.
Cinder was found by Salem after fall of Beacon.
Missing arm and eye.
Salem helps her and even rewards her.
She accomplished her goal of shooting Ozpin with the arrow.
It didn’t take, sure, but that’s not Cinder’s fault.
Arm is replaced with grimm arm.
An eye was also offered but Cinder refused because she wants a visceral reminder of her failure.
Translation: Because chuunibyou.
Cinder spends her time training to compensate for and overcome her new disabilities.
Has massive grudge against Ruby.
What should have been two easy wins were stolen from her by sheer dumb luck and circumstance.
She has made it her goal to prove that she is more powerful than Ruby and will do so by tearing her heart out and turning it to ash.
Salem decides that Ruby will be an issue to her long term plans and sends her best assassin, Tyrian, to kill her instead of Cinder.
Just like Summer.
She doesn’t want to send Cinder on the grounds that she thinks that homegirl REALLY needs to chill.
Ruby is full murderhobo.
Killing grimm and taking whatever freelance bounty money she can on her way to Mistral.
Fuck if she knows what she’s going to do when she gets there but she hasn’t planned all that far ahead.
She just wanted to not be stuck at home again.
Finds JNR, who had volunteered for general assistance in the areas around Mistral.
JNR says that there’s both a grimm issue and a bandit issue in the area.
Ruby wants everything to do with it.
Blake is on her way back to Menagerie.
Encounters SSSN who are on light duties and are being sent to putz around in Menagerie.
Sun asks her ‘what the fuck is your plan?’
Blake says that the only place for her in the world is back home with her family.
Weiss is also back home with her family but is far less into the idea.
Dad is distant and detached.
Mother is drunk and miserable.
Winter is the only one she properly interacts with, training and sparring to keep herself in shape.
Winter offers a position in the military, a cushy one at that (Can I get an amen for nepotism?)
Weiss ignores the offer, is depressed, misses her friends.
Yang is stuck at home, also depressed, dealing with deepening abandonment issues, and constantly fiddling with the trinket Raven gave her.
Having Ruby run off only made things worse. Combining her abandonment issues with the feeling of letting her sister down when she needed her most.
Tai barely pays attention to her outside of his constant worrying about Ruby but eventually sees the trinket and tells Yang about Raven.
Is very clearly bitter about the whole thing but is pretending he isn’t.
VERY rose (ha) tinted glasses about Summer.
Not that she was secretly a piece of shit or anything, but to hear Tai talk about her she made saints look like goatfuckers.
Ironwood shows up and gives Yang robo-arm as an apology for saying he’d help her after the fight with Mercury and then letting her down.
Ironwood helps break Yang out of her funk, offers some military style counseling, helping her work off the muscle atrophy, even teaches her some spec-ops chokeholds and the like.
Yang says it’s nice to have an actual male role model/father figure in her life.
Ironwood rips Tai’s shit in for being such a bad parent to Yang.
Tai has no real counters to what Ironwood is saying.
He realizes that he’s been a neglectful asshole and starts helping retrain Yang too.
Weiss makes a scene at an event her father is putting on.
Jacques sits her down after it and says that they’re going to have a completely frank conversation.
Topic shifts to their viewpoints and life choices.
He’s fine with his daughter disagreeing with him, he just wants her to understand him and he her.
Weiss calls him out on the blatantly bad shit the SDC has done.
Jacques defends his points, saying that he tried to make things better for the faunus and the White Fang just made everything worse for everyone.
Weiss tells him that passing the buck is bullshit.
Agree to disagree.
Jacques gives her a spiel laced with double meanings about freedom and making your own path.
Weiss leaves that night. (keikaku doori (Translation: All according to keikaku (Translators note: Keikaku means plan)))
Jacques might be a dick but he does want his family to be as genuinely happy as he can make them.
Blake gets back home.
Gets royal reception on the grounds that she’s the daughter of the chief of the kingdom.
Sun sends SSN to get on with their mission, he’s gonna be a while, faunus business.
They understand, they’re hip to this sort of thing, and tell him that if he needs them they’re just a phone call away.
He calls Blake out for being one of the most privileged faunus alive while lecturing others on said topic.
Blake and Sun walk in on White Fang people trying to recruit Ghira.
Notices Blake in the process of telling them to leave.
Ghira shoves everyone out of his way to embrace his long believed dead daughter.
Emotional reunion.
Sees Sun, makes joke about ‘Adam’s cheerier replacement’.
Blake gets sad.
Ghira assumes Adam died or something and doesn’t press the matter.
Calls for a royal banquet to celebrate the return of his daughter.
Sienna is present.
Sienna is overjoyed to see Blake alive and well.
Blake is happy to see ‘aunty’ Sienna but is apprehensive to talk that much with Sun glaring at them both.
Ilia is there (as head of local White Fang cell) and is happy to see her old friend is alive.
She already knew but has to keep up appearances, especially after The White Fang was seen at Beacon.
Very poor publicity to be seen operating at a place like that.
Ilia had been reassigned to Menagerie before the fall happened so she’s not guilty of taking part.
Later has small meeting with Blake, Sienna, Ilia, Sun, Ghira, and Kali.
Sienna tries (again) to bring Ghira into the White Fang.
His joining would bring all of Menagerie and the connected resources into the conflict.
This is opposed by everyone else present barring Ilia.
Ghira says that he has washed his hands of the problems in Atlas and has local stuff that he believes is more important in the long run.
Supporting Wild Call is how he helps the rest of his people.
Kali’s been running Wild Call since Ghira stepped away to run Menagerie.
Sienna talks about how faunus are treated in certain parts of the world.
It really is nowhere near as bad as she says it is.
Blake brings up terrorist acts in places completely innocent of any faunus abuse.
Sienna ‘condemns’ these acts and blames them on ‘bad apples’ like Adam, citing the fall of Beacon.
Says that Adam was acting alone and without official endorsement.
She’s lying through her fucking teeth, but the only other one who knows that for sure is Ilia.
While taking part in the fall was technically unsanctioned, Sienna knows all about Salem and was okaying Adam’s efforts working with her.
Ilia suddenly feels very guilty for some odd reason.
Ghira is very confused, doesn’t keep up too much with world affairs, generally too busy.
Blake rounds on Sienna for trying to shift the blame to Adam, cites all of the bullshit attacks she was involved in, letting it be known that she herself was in the White Fang.
Ghira and Kali both become enraged at Sienna, who told them that Blake was killed years ago at a protest gone south.
Sienna tries to make excuses for the cause.
Is escorted with Ilia from the palace at gun point.
Kali and Blake reconnect as Ghira has a sit down with Sun, telling him to tell him everything he knows.
Weiss is stowed away on airship bound for Vacuo/Mistral (doesn’t really matter which, ship gets taken down either way).
Ship gets attacked by grimm and gets splashed.
Weiss makes it to shore and travels southward, realizing that maybe she should have planned this a little more than not at all.
Wonder who she picked that up from.
Ends up surrounded by bandits who see the pretty girl from Atlas who might just be worth a lot of cash.
Weiss kicks the shit out of them.
Raven shows up.
Weiss loses.
Yang decides enough of her sulking and gets ready to set off to find Ruby and either 1. Bring her home 2. Look after her and keep her safe on her personal quest 3. Kick her ass for running off and making everyone worried 4. Some combination of the above. (Maybe hit up where Raven’s map leads along the way if she gets the chance)
Tai acknowledges that he can’t always protect his girls.
Tells Yang to not be too hard on Ruby, realizing that she would never have been happy with a calm, sheltered, life.
Summer was the same way.
He also apologizes for neglecting Yang for as long as he did.
Yang gets a hug from Tai, a salute from Ironwood, and a slobbering from Zwei.
Yes, the dog is still here. He’s a good dog. Every story could use a good dog or twelve.
Gets to the continent that Mistral is on. (I do not care about the name)
Starts biking in the direction that the conflict zones are, hoping to find word about Ruby along the way.
Gets accosted by bandits along the way.
Kicks the crap out of them.
Raven shows up saying that she expected nothing less from her daughter.
Yang realizes that she is indeed around where the map was pointing her.
This was supposed to be a test to see if Yang was resourceful enough to track her down.
Didn’t really mean to come this way just yet, but sometimes things just work out that way.
Raven happily takes her daughter to the main camp.
Yang is apprehensive to get comfortable and seems a little disappointed that her mother is just some asshole bandit.
Raven gives her a speech all about survival of the fittest and might makes right and all that jazz.
Yang wants to know why she left her in the first place and why she is suddenly wanting to be back in her life after all this time.
She’s got a lot of questions and Raven has very few answers.
Raven avoids Yang’s questions and says that she’s always been watching her from behind the scenes.
Yang actually dislikes that even more because it means that she could have been there for her the whole time, yet wasn’t.
Raven continues by saying that if Yang’s so weak that she couldn’t beat a pissant like Neo then she really needs mama to teach her what’s what.
Offers Yang a position in the tribe and even offers to make her second in command.
Yang then sees Weiss in a cage.
Raven explains that she’s going to be given to Salem to use as a hostage in Atlas.
Yang had already given up on getting answers and was already going to tell Raven to eat shit but now...
Demolishes the camp, takes Weiss away on the bike, and leaves the trinket Raven gave her in the dirt.
Would have taken the time to kick the shit out of Raven, but she needed to get Weiss out of there.
Raven is livid.
In Menagerie, Ghira and Kali have very upfront conversation with Blake.
They are upset with her that she ran off with terrorists but are happy she’s alive.
They also admonish her for running/taking the easy way out of every problem she’s had.
Blake is exasperated that the last place she could run off to is calling her out for running off so much.
Adam is all like ‘what up bitches, imma kill ya’.
Has sizable team of White Fang commandos with him and some grimm Salem sent.
Ilia shows up with her own commandos to counter his.
Both sides duke it out with the Belladonnas (Nightshades technically) getting pissed and telling all of them to get off their lawn.
Blake fights Adam.
Starts losing.
Sun calls SSN in for the assist.
They help but not all that much.
Sienna shows up to break the stalemate.
Starts kicking the shit out of Adam’s posse.
Officially denounces and attaints Adam for his crimes.
Adam leaves and swears vengeance, telling Blake that if he can’t kill her, he’ll kill RWY and make sure they know it was her that sent him to them.
Blake finally learns her fucking lesson.
Start to pack up to stop Adam before he kills RWY and, either afterwards or in the process, find and reconcile with RWY.
Takes the time to actually explain why she’s leaving this time.
Ghira understands.
Sienna takes partial blame and offers Blake the last known location of a red hooded huntress with a big fucking scythe her spies found.
Blake thanks her, but refuses an escort, hitching a ride back to the mainland with SSSN.
Ghira and Kali thank Sienna for the help but still tell her to get the fuck out and that the White Fang and their war are both not welcome in Menagerie.
In the name of their past friendship, they don’t just shoot her.
Blake has parting conversation with Sun about justifications and personal growth.
She and Sun amicably part ways.
SSSN go back to their usual shit and Blake starts hunting for Ruby.
Her logic is that, as far as she knows, Weiss is surrounded with SDC security and Yang is probably somewhere safe-ish, while Ruby is actively in a dangerous locale and ripe for predation.
Speaking of…
Ruby and JNR are clearing out local grimm around Mistral as expected.
Include sad scene or two there they find the ruins of Nora’s home village, destroyed by bandits.
Tyrian is all like ‘what up bitches, imma kill ya’.
Ruby is actually very eager for a fight against one of the important bad guys.
That excitement is curbed when Tyrian lets her know that he was the one to kill Summer.
Ruby is now more scared than anything.
R+JNR fight him and get their asses handed to them.
They try running but Tyrian isn’t giving up the chase.
Turns into cat and mouse game.
Jaune is pushed to his tactical limit against an incredibly intelligent and just as unpredictable enemy.
Everyone is scared out of their minds.
The cat (Tyrian) is just playing with his food (R+JNR) at this point.
Could have killed them at any point but he’s a sadistic animal that gets off on this shit.
Nora flies into a fury, bellowing that she will never lose anyone close to her ever again.
This creates an opening in Tyrian’s style.
Jaune’s planning manages to exploit this enough so Ruby gets a good hit on him, severing his tail.
He is very unhappy at this development.
Decides that he’s done playing with his food.
Wrecks R+JNR.
About to kill Ruby when Qrow ex machina runs him off.
Jaune discovers his semblance is healing and uses it on everyone that needs it. Which is everyone.
Qrow is annoyed that Ruby ran off on her own but understands.
Says that there’s an abandoned chateau that can serve as a pit-stop.
Been in the Branwen family for ages.
They abandoned it after they lost their fortune and it got overrun with grimm in the past.
Grimm have since moved on but the building is still there.
He’ll explain everything he can when he knows they’re out of danger.
Raven contacts Salem and tells her which direction Yang and Weiss are going.
Salem barely cares about what one of her least important agents is up to.
Notices that Ruby is in the same area and gets wind that Tyrian failed.
Sends Cinder and company to meet up with Raven and get hunting.
Salem makes a point of ordering Cinder to let Tyrian take on Ruby and not get involved against her.
Cinder just happens to ignore that order.
Blake does a little extra tracking but heads in the right direction.
Yang and Weiss hear about a red hooded huntress with a big scythe and follow the rumors.
Everyone converges at the chateau at the same time.
It’s a very all over the place scene.
Ruby is happy to see Weiss and Blake but is a little wary of Yang after how their last conversation went.
Yang is eager to make things up with Ruby but more than a little scornful of Blake.
Blake is scared of everyone’s rejection but understands their anger and is more than willing to work through it if they’d have her.
Weiss is happy to see everyone but her happiness and excitement is curbed by how everyone else is reacting to each other.
The tension explodes when Cinder and co. arrive.
Ruby and Cinder lock eyes.
Ruby goes quiet for a moment-
And then goes completely Broly BERSERK!
Group of boss fights.
Ruby madly charges Cinder in a rage.
JNR, Qrow, and Weiss begin fighting Emerald, Mercury, Tyrian, and grimm they brought.
Blake fights Adam. (again)
Yang fights Raven, constantly calling her on her shit.
Abandoning her and Tai to be some asshole bandit, siding with Salem, being a coward, et cetera.
Says that she has figured out that the reason Raven left was because she’s just a chicken shit coward who can’t deal with the world.
All of her issues and traumas have manifested into a sort of nirvana of wrath that gives her a one-time, ‘fuck you, mom’, power up that puts her at Raven’s power tier level.
Ruby vs Cinder takes them away from the others.
Ruby is in berserk, adrenaline filled, wrath fueled, fugue state, taking hits that should be stopping the fight but aren’t.
Cinder is also not fighting at her best due to A. missing eye, B. her grimm arm having a built in weakness to Ruby, and C. the fact that she had no idea that Ruby would go fucking mental like this.
Ruby eventually knocks Cinder down a pit and promptly passes out from blood loss.
Blake beats Adam and tells him to fuck off, saying that she will not stoop to his level of murder.
Yang overpowers and beats Raven, but barely.
JNR is busy with the grimm and Qrow is busy with Tyrian, who has a freaky grimm tail now.
Weiss is fighting both Emerald and Mercury.
Is losing pretty hard.
Yang shows up to fight Mercury.
WY have their first proper rival fights against E+M.
And proceed to lose.
Raven has heel-face turn and bails them out.
Tyrian is killed at the same time. Small justice for Summer.
Qrow reunites with Raven.
The Branwen siblings intimidate E+M, faking not being fuckoff exhausted.
Dare they stand against this deadly alliance?
Nope.
Emerald and Mercury cheese it.
Raven explains that since Yang beat her, Yang is now in charge of the bandits.
Raven says how proud she is that her daughter is such an ass kicker.
Yang is about to tell her off but then realizes that Ruby is still gone.
They find her in a widening pool of her own blood.
Jaune heals her.
Everyone wonder just what the fuck that was that Ruby did.
It’s not its own power or a sub-power of her new semblance.
She was just that fucking angry at seeing Cinder.
RWBY has a big ‘we beat the middle to high tier bad guys’ group hug.
Ruby affirms that she senses that Cinder is still alive but accepts the hug anyway.
Raven says that Salem’s next target is Mistral itself with Adam’s White Fang hardliners.
Yang says thanks for the info and then tells her to do what she does best and fuck off.
Literally everyone mirrors the sentiment.
Raven leaves in a huff but starts to question her morals.
RWBY is now reunited as a team.
They’re not quite back to normal, but they’re all together again.
Reunited RWBY, JNR, and Qrow now on course to Mistral proper to recoup and make new plans.
Season four done.
#RWBY#does this count as rwde?#Ruby Rose#Weiss Schnee#Blake Belladonna#Yang Xiao Long#Taiyang Xiao Long#Raven Branwen#Cinder Fall#Tyrian Callows#Salem#Team JNPR#but without the P#I regret nothing#Qrow Branwen#How I would do...
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