when people who like seasons 1 and 2 better explain why it was better they always lose me when they say "the characters were what mattered the most the supernatural plot was basically not that important it was ALL about the characters" like...that's just what YOU were more interested in not what was happening in the show? like wdym the supernatural plotline wasn't that important in seasons 1 and 2. saying that it was more balanced or more subtle i get but saying that the supernatural plot wasn't THAT important and that it's not what made anyone love the show is a blatant lie

listen to me. tiffany relating to bride of frankenstein (1935) is a subversion of the title of the film bride of chucky because even though she is the titular bride of chucky, it's not the bride who she related to in the movie, it's the original frankenstein monster. she goes to all this trouble to put chucky back together and bring him back to life (like the creature demands to have someone made for him that he can spend his life with) and then she finds out that he never intended to propose to her and laughs at her for assuming that after finding the ring on the mantel the night he died (like the creature is rejected immediately by the bride who is afraid of him), and the shot of her crying while watching the movie is a direct response to the creature's tears in the movie. then at the very end it's the creature's words that she uses when she says "we belong dead." so the assumption that she is moved by the movie because she feels kindred to the bride (just because "bride" is in both titles of the film and they're both women) is incorrect, she's actually aligned with the creature in both scenes that reference bride of frankenstein. and this makes way more sense for her character throughout the film, since as the writers have said she has "more conventional" motivations (such as the desire for love and companionship and understanding, just like the creature) than chucky, who is more "straightforwardly bloodthirsty." hey did you hear me. i said

was thinking about this earlier but the dynamic of cannibalism being associated with high society and the culinary elite (hannibal comes to mind specifically) while also simultaneously being associated with the socially isolated and economically impoverished (as in texas chainsaw massacre) is so interesting to me i want to read 10 million books on why it happens so much in media....

i can only speak from a place of personal opinion and general knowledge, because i haven't read that many papers or in-depth studies on cannibalism, but i think it often comes down to an interesection between the themes of the story you're telling and class structures and divisions. cannibalism is a compelling form of narrative symbolism because it's undeniably impactful and hard to ignore. when portrayed as a practice associated with the culinary and social upper class, it might be used as a critique of the rich and powerful and their lack of ethics and willingness to consume and destroy others for their own self-interest by showing them literally preying on and consuming their victims, or a horror story/cautionary tale about how having everything can lead you to never be satisfied and turn to increasingly extreme measures to feel like life is worth living, or a dark fantasy of indulgence and excess. when associated with the poor, marginalized and isolated, it's often based in bigotry and harmful stereotypes of the "primitive" "inhuman" "savage" "other", however it might also function as a revenge fantasy where the most oppressed and exploited members of society turn on their oppressors and take "eating the rich" to its most literal extreme, exposing the fragility of class divisions and pointing out that those in positions of social and economic power are hardly the mythic titans their propaganda tries to make them out to be, but ultimately just as mortal and made of flesh and blood as any other human being, and not immune to being dragged down from their position at the top of the food chain and torn to pieces by the crowd (as well as reminding the audience of their own fragile mortality and precarious position in the social order, and the humanity we all share in common - however cannibalism often divides the perpetrators from both their victims and the audience, so this is rarer than the other interpretations mentioned).

cannibalism and power often go hand in hand. cannibalism has historically been used as both a means of displaying your power over defeated opponents and delivering a final, humiliating blow to their image by consuming their flesh, and a means of othering and dehumanizing your opponent by portraying them as the cannibalistic monster.

both the very rich and very poor also tend to be perceived as more distant from the people who make and consume these stories, making them easier to project fiction onto and transform into symbols and narrative devices (or, in the worst cases, dehumanize) than those who occupy the same social spheres as the creator. they can be held at an arm's length without discomfort and, depending on the target audience, may be a source of fascination due to the differences in their lived experiences. it adds to the fantasy, and makes any inaccuracies, exaggerations and fabrications feel more plausible because the majority of the audience probably don't have any personal experiences of being in those positions to draw on.

Autistic Anime Boys Prelims - Propaganda Division - Group 6

Propaganda:

Kiriwo -

"Seems innocent at first and he's just a guy with a special interest in magic items, but watch out."

Arjuna -

"MASKING KING!!!!!! ok joke aside one of his biggest things is that he's super scared that if anyone gets too close to him they'll notice he's not perfect/has a 'secret darkness' (that's literally just a guy) and overall a lot of his storyline is a strong parallel for being neurodivergent and becoming more comfortable with accepting it. he's also super strict and hard on himself for any sort of failure that isn't in line with what's socially appropriate but at the same time he doesn't always have a good grasp on what that is which is how you get stuff like him blowing up a forest to try and impress someone. it also runs in his family bc his brother is autistic as hell too."

Sherlock -

"God, where do I start? I mean what Holmes adaptation, even if he's not the main character, would this be if he were not autistic coded? And our combo of autism and ADHD is absolute perfection, all tied up with a pretty, excitable face. Hit him with the crime hyperfixation and do not make him wear socks."

Apollo -

"Not canonically autistic but he has ZERO volume control plus he scripts/repeats stuff (“I’M FINE!!!”), sometimes mimics other people’s speech patterns (like replying “ja” to Klavier), sensitive to loud noises (stayed backstage at a concert cuz it was too loud) and bright lights (complained about the stage lights being too bright at the same concert + screamed when opening the hatch to the bright stage at magic show), and has been really into space since he was a kid, which could definitely be a hyperfixation (not to mention how he read every single one of Phoenix’s old case files back when he admired him). Plus he’s a little TOO normal, to the point where it circles back around to making him the odd one out, which is absolutely what masking feels like for me. Even when he tries to be fun and weird he gets strange looks/made fun of for not being weird in the right way. The list of autism symptoms is just a checklist for him at this point."

Heiji -

"90% of the cast in detective conan is autistic but heiji is the most autistic of them all."

Urara -

"Another alien who is so excited to dance with everyone that he does not understand that his intended purpose of inviting people to dance via water communication is brainwashing them into dancing and is causing extreme chaos. He nearly causes an apocalypse by being so excited about dancing but he apologizes and tries to make friends with Yuki at the end of the story. He is extremely soft spoken and try, finding it difficult to begin conversations and fidgeting."

Shu -

"speaking specifically about the first season but he was the "explains everything so the audience knows whats happening" guy. he was pretty antisocial (not sure if thats just how he was or if he lived alone [which was fucked up cause he was 11]) . im trying to think of more but my brain goes hghghhhggggh im just a big fan of him."

Vash -

"ain’t no way i’m the only one who’s submitted him. go look at the gif of him crawling in the dirt like a bug while he dodges bullets and get back to me."

Hyakkimaru -

"Due to a terrible curse he has lived his whole life without several body parts including his eyes and ears. Because of this he is often overstimulated and awkward in new situations (when he doesn't do what he does best, killing monsters and samurai with his sword arms) He can't say or express much, and often comes off as strange and creepy, but he is actually a cutie patootie full of emotions, has a big heart, a keen brain, endless inner strength and loves the people close to him! This adorable, cursed, demon slaying boy deserves everything!"

Kei -

"He has the tbh face. Also he canonically has sensory issues and gets sensory overload. He constantly wears earbuds. He has an extremely rigid sense of morality and considers himself a savior figure. He has a hard time relating to other people and is a bit awkward in his interactions."

here for the mandalorian rant ☕️

um well the first episode of the brand new season of disney+’s flagship star wars show was entirely... filler. the dialogue was incredibly bad, not even written badly but as if no-one had written it at all. entirely flat and devoid of life, in a show with a faceless protagonist whose dialogue literally has to carry all the weight. din continues to have no opinions, no emotion and nothing to say

as for the plot, what even happened in this episode? we open with the mandalorian covert ritually giving a child their helmet, but this is not explored at all, it’s only there to be interrupted with a giant monster fight for absolutely no reason, as if this show has been written by six-year-old me livening up clicking my barbies together by grabbing my toy dinosaurs. din has conversations with the armourer and bo-katan purely to rehash the information we’ve already been given, partly because half of it was in a bad show the casual audience won’t have watched. neither of these characters is doing anything.

din visits greef karga, who is now discount lando “gone respectable” but instead of having personality he’s just really into gentrification and this is presented completely uncritically. din, a character most charming for being the beaten up mercenary underdog of the galaxy, suddenly hates pirates and disorder (well, hates would imply he shows emotion—dislikes pirates and disorder? is mildly perturbed by pirates and disorder?), and pals around with high magistrates who offer him a position as a cop/landed gentry (they actually use the words “landed gentry”). there’s a couple of meaningless unfunny comic relief scenes because this is all that grogu is here for now, complete with a reference to, of all things, the rise of skywalker. in what is apparently the main plot of the episode, which is, i repeat, the first episode of the brand new season, din takes up a fetch quest to get a random droid part for an absolutely laughable reason that does nothing but completely negate a character arc from season 1 and everything we have been shown since, just reminding you that not even death will be allowed to have emotion or narrative weight, or prevent disney from dragging back onto your screen anything that will sell. he doesn’t actually do this fetch quest, btw, he just gets given it, because apparently we have to do multiple episodes of this

did i get everything? was that the whole episode? oh wait there was the fight with the pirates in space. i forgot it because there was zero tension. those pirates also earlier wanted to... have a drink in a school with greef, i guess, in a completely baffling scene? i can’t imagine there was any point to this pirate bit except to put fight scenes into this filler episode and force the visual effects people to carry the entire lumbering weight of this show. one has to assume that otherwise the pirates would have had personalities or motivations. oh, also purrgils appeared in this episode, because this is the Star Wars Cinematic Universe, and you’d better watch all the interconnected shows so all your beloved characters can eventually come together to swap lifeless quips on screen, just like you always wanted.

a droid drops a statue’s head on top of a murder droid to stop it, purely so din can say, “now that’s using your head.” if you were wondering what i meant about the dialogue.

i don’t even need to get into the politics of the story they’re telling. i don’t need to humiliate it further by comparing it to andor. it’s just bad to watch on a basic technical fundamental level, and it’s not headed anywhere better, because they will be churning out this story for cash forever with no goal or meaning, under circumstances where i cannot seriously even imagine caring about star wars anymore. hope this helps!

In the Tyler Family panel, Billie recalls the 2000s fashion as a strange time in fashion history but loved Idiot's Lantern, and they agree Jackie would have shared Rose's clothes to be the Cool Mom. 🤣

Shawn says he was surprised to be asked back at first since his character died, but it made sense for him to come back in a multiverse story.

He says it was easy to come back and Camille adds it's the quality of writing makes it easy because you know who you (the character) are at that point because you can trust the writers are guiding it.

Billie says she struggles with how much she didn't understand how it was going to take over her life before s1 airs. Before social media, even though everyone hated it and the idea of her doing it, but it wasn't the constant stream of trolls the new actors have to hear about now with social media. She says with RTD, Julie, and Phil, there was so much confidence and joy, it was easy to believe it would be good.

Camille says her neighbors and friends were surprisingly fans. She didn't realize how many people she knew who loved it and knew about it.

They talk about how cold it was filming the Cybermen. Billie says her jaw locked because it was so cold!! The trick to getting through them was "youth" and she doesn't do night shoots anymore if possible because of that experience.

Camille talks about how Jackie "grew a pair" lol

Billie: "She's a boss!

Camille: "It's Russell, really."

Billie: "No, it's you!"

Love that Jackie's speech and situation in Love and Monsters got a shout-out. Especially going off on Elton for taking advantage of her: "Many people can relate to that moment, I think."

Talking about Pete not being the perfect husband:

Billie: "Why did they break up again?"

Shawn: "Because I died!"

Billie: "I forgot!!!" 🤣

They banter so well! Total family vibes between them all.

Fun moment where Shawn thought Billie was saying "old Pete" when she was saying "alt Pete!" Lol

Rose having the "rose-colored glasses" taken off: Billie says many can relate to realizing their parents are flawed people, and things are more complicated than you thought.

Camille says the Tylers spoke a language people understood, making something fantasy into a relatable story that was relevant to the audience.

Mod jokes that Rose "parent trapped them" across multiple universes!

Billie talks about how she enjoyed the overall romance and human element of their series, as opposed to the more sci fi feel in other later seasons.

Camille says Chris's intensity helped launch the reboot, but David's "Labrador" energy was different and special too to keep it going.

Billie says there was a totally different energy after they knew it was a success, allowing for more playfulness with David's Doctor and in general on set.

Billie says she always thought there was something complex about the romance with the Doctor, it's weird for a 19 year old to just take off in a box, and maybe wasn't written with Chris but it was there in spirit, and then was written in more explicitly in their relationship with David. Hard to keep that intensity of awe and adoration platonic! Camille adds the chemistry between them was a big element as well.

Billie says it was always a thrill to get the script, eager to read the script as soon as she got it to see what new world they were building with each episode. She says she didn't want to go to set when shooting Tooth and Claw because she was riveted reading the Doomsday script! Haha

Billie says the costume tricks can help body language shifts when changing character, like with Rose possessed by Cassandra, the push-up bra helped develop a unique physicality for the previously (literally) flat character!

Camille says they got in trouble for talking a lot because they got on so well!

Billie says she loves the new episodes, especially the dance numbers and theatrics now, and that's exactly where the show should go. "It's super fun again." Sitting down and watching a family show with the kids, an event for everyone to watch together.

Camille said it was good but it would be better if the Tylers were there! 😁

They love Ncuti as well. Excellent casting.

Billie praises RTD's heart and rooting for all walks of life. Everyone can feel represented. Camille says he is so good at pulling heartstrings and "that's what we want as Doctor Who fans." They also love his joy but also his power if they are being unkind. He defended the actors from stupid questions from the press and "told it like it was" when he needed to be the man in charge.

I think the show does a really good job at validating and empathizing with Akemi’s concerns as a woman living under a patriarchy while also acknowledging her privileges, not just as a wealthy person, but as a literal princess. There’s a lot to be said about Akemi’s dynamic with Madame Kaji and the other sex workers but right now I’m focusing on her and Mizu as two main characters whose experiences as women contrast each other the most. I specifically want to talk about the end of episode 5 because it’s a culmination of so many things.

*SPOILERS BELOW

Mizu obviously isn’t there to personally see the misogyny Akemi experiences so from her perspective, she has no real reason to empathize with her running away. Mizu also just has her own priorities with her revenge quest. But even with the lack of context or understanding of Akemi’s situation, Mizu and the other sex workers' judgment of Akemi isn’t unfounded because she has real privilege over them. As a princess, she has an unfathomable amount of wealth that lets her live a life of comfort and luxury so far removed from other people’s experiences to the point where, Akemi herself states that being rich like that makes you forget that you’re rich. And while Akemi is clearly shown to utilize the skills sets she does have to her advantage when she runs away, it’s not an insult to her intelligence to acknowledge that getting as far as Madame Kaji’s establishment was also the result of luck because there’s so many ways that things could’ve gone wrong on the way there. 

So for Mizu to encounter Akemi

A princess who ran away from all that luxury for the sake of a failed marriage with a guy who bullied/hate crimed Mizu as a child and wants to duel and kill her for his honor/social status in the present (when social climbing was never truly possible for Mizu even when disguised as a man and because we know how her marriage ended)

A princess who tried to kill her and says she only regrets not doing it immediately 

A princess who calls her a monster just like everyone else 

A princess who has no idea Mizu’s even a woman or all the experiences that got her to this point, including the assassination of Kinuyo (who didn’t want to die) at Madam Kaji’s request because women have to be practical and think of the results (not how they get there) when it comes to revenge 

A princess who may have fought to help defend Madame Kaji and her girls but then expected a mentally, emotionally and physically exhausted Mizu (suffering from multiple puncture wounds after doing the majority of the killing/defending) to fight Akemi’s own guards like a personal attack dog when doing so would’ve more than likely killed her and Ringo while Akemi still lived and got taken back home…. *takes a deep breath*

It’s totally understandable why Mizu just lets them take Akemi. 

On Akemi’s part, she doesn’t know the context around why Mizu is the way that she is but at the end of the episode assumes that she’s not capable of love when they’ve only known each other for… not even a day and half technically speaking. Meanwhile Mizu’s assessment of Akemi’s privilege is still accurate in certain ways despite her lack of context that makes Akemi empathetic to us as the audience. Also, not that Mizu sees this happen, Akemi is able to maneuver her way around the shogun’s court and her new husband while also uplifting and hiring Madame Kaji and her girls to both their benefit. A path she chooses to continue taking at the end of the season. It’s still within the confines of the patriarchy and not without its challenges, but Akemi is taking advantage of the privileges she does have when she previously took them for granted. 

Both Mizu and Akemi are just so nuanced and well written and this scene is a perfect example of how and why they clash due to such drastically different lives shaped by their social status. I’m curious to see how their journeys will go from here and what circumstances reunite them (for better or worse) given where they left off with each other during the season finale.

The way that Mike talks about El screams idolization to me. Do I think he loves her? Yes. I do think he cares about her. Do I think he’s IN love with her. No. If he actually was in love with her, I feel like he’d talk about traits and qualities of hers that he loves that are beyond just her powers. Like how Jonathan and Nancy explained why they love each other. They were actual meaningful traits and qualities. I don’t know what Mike loves about El beyond her powers.

This is literally the first thing that comes out of his mouth regarding El last season. Like, yes, that’s an amazing thing that she did, Mike. Can you also mention something else, though? What else do you like about her? What else do you admire about her?

It’s clear that Mike struggles with low self esteem and doesn’t view himself in a positive light. He doesn’t see his own self worth. To Mike, he’s unimportant. He’s a nobody. He’s nothing except a nerd, a loser, a freak who’s been bullied his entire life. He has El on this extremely high pedestal and feels like he can’t measure up to how incredible and amazing she is, because she’s a superhero. That’s what he continues to focus on. It’s not El’s fault that he feels this way either. She’s never talked about how amazing she is because she has powers. She’s never made it seem like she’s above anyone or better than anyone due to her powers. If anything, she’s talked about how she feels like a monster because she’s different. She feels like she doesn’t belong anywhere. She even voices that to Mike.

El cries to Mike, doubting that he loves her anymore because he never says it. He can’t even write it. And what does Mike tell her in response to that? Does he tell her that he loves her? It’d be the perfect time to say it if he does. She’s crying and could use some clarity and reassurance. But no, he doesn’t tell her that he loves her. Instead he tells her this. And of course brings up how she’s a superhero…

Even when he finally voices that he loves her, it falls flat to me and feels off. As the audience, we know that Mike’s initial reaction to finding El in the woods was not love at first sight. He wanted to get her back to wherever she came from and continue to search for Will. So yeah, that’s not true. Maybe he forgot what he was genuinely feeling in that moment? It’s either that or he’s knowingly lying to her. And then when he explains why he loves her… when we finally get to hear the reasons why…

BAM! Again… it all circles back to her being a superhero. He loves her for exactly who she is… a superhero who can fly and move mountains and… yeah… the momentum died when Mike brought up that. El’s reaction to that didn’t look positive either. I just felt so awkward and uncomfortable and confused watching this monologue. Seeing Will’s reaction and having him in frame didn’t help at all. Let’s not forget he basically had to push Mike to not stop and continue talking to El by reminding him that he was the heart. Why’d they choose to do that? All it did was make my heart break even more for Will. Especially after watching him give Mike the meaningful painting he made for him and the beautiful monologue where he disguised his feelings as El’s.

If they wanted me to root for M*leven, they could’ve easily had El say this to Mike. El loves Mike, right? She says that she loves him. I don’t exactly know why though. She’s never voiced why to Mike or to anyone else. I can’t solely blame Mike as the reason why I don’t ship M*leven when I don’t know why El is in love with Mike either. This could’ve been why, but no, the writers chose to not only make Will in love with Mike, but that he feels better for being different and loving him. All his life he was made to believe that he was a mistake for being different, but Mike makes him feel the complete opposite. He also mentions how El (he) is always going to need him. He says this to Mike, someone who wants and needs to be needed. You know what Will said meant the absolute world to Mike. It was exactly the kind of thing he needed to hear. How the hell do you top this?? Why would they choose to do this? Why make Will in love with Mike? Why make him have this type of love for Mike? The type of love Mike needs and wants? Why not have El feel this way about Mike and say this to him instead of Will? Throughout season 4 Mike and El just seemed to make each other feel bad and insecure pretty much the entire time. Not on purpose or knowingly, though. I don’t believe that they want or mean to make each other feel that way. They’re just not good for each other relationship wise. At least not from what I’ve seen so far. I have no idea how they’re gonna turn it around in the final season. Also, they’re just gonna throw away Will’s love for Mike? They used Will’s love for Mike to fix M*leven’s relationship then? And Will gets what? Nothing? No love for the gay character who’s unconditionally in love with his best friend? He should just be happy that his friends and family accept him for who he is? Because we know they will. That’s not going to be shocking. What would be shocking is if they didn’t. I don’t think that’s the type of twist the writers would want to do. That’d be beyond horrible. So yes, Will should just be happy and thankful that his family and friends don’t hate him for being gay. He doesn’t need love like everyone else. We don’t need to see the only gay character experience love and a relationship. Or maybe we will with some random, last second, half assed love interest. Oooo yay! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

I thought the moon spirit and the ocean spirit were gonna be Katara and Sokka, and that would’ve made ATLA even more interesting.

The spirits of the ocean and moon gave up their immortal forms to live on the earth. Why would they choose to be koi fish?

It would make much more sense for those spirits to take an avatar-like spirit form where they attach to different members of the Water Tribe. Always pushing and pulling at one another, of course the spirits would attach to a brother and sister.

Katara, being the water bender, would naturally be the moon spirit. Sokka would be the ocean spirit. But they had no idea.

So if they were the spirits instead of the koi fish, the story would’ve become much more layered.

And way darker.

When the Fire Nation invaded the Northern Water Tribe at the end of season 1, Admiral Zhao intended to kill the moon spirit. Let’s say somehow Zhao had figured out Katara was the moon spirit, and followed her north with Aang. So to kill the moon spirit, he would kill Katara.

After killing Katara, of course that would set off Aang’s avatar state and the water monster form.

Yue would still give up her life to bring back the moon, but she would be giving her life for Katara. This would absolutely destroy Sokka. First he loses his sister. Then the girl he loves gives her life for his sister.

After this, Sokka and Katara would simultaneously have a closer and more strained sibling bond. Sokka becomes even more protective to make sure he never loses Katara again. But he also resents her for being the reason he lost Yue. Katara would be wracked with guilt over this.

It becomes the source of tension between the two of them that builds throughout season 2 before coming to a head, where Sokka and Katara have a massive falling out. Katara says Sokka blames her for Yue’s death. Sokka admits it. They trade hurtful comments that cut deeper and deeper every time. While this is going down, they’re on a boat, and the waves surrounding them are getting more and more treacherous. They’re pushing and pulling at one another, just like the moon and sea. Then to save themselves, literally, they have to make amends to calm the sea around them.

It would’ve added so many more layers to their already complicated relationship.

It’s (to me) such an obvious choice to make Katara and Sokka the moon and ocean spirits, I feel like the writers HAD to have considered it! If they did, I get why they went a different direction. Having Katara die, even temporarily, never would’ve been allowed by Nickelodeon. ATLA is already pretty dark for a kid’s show.

If their target audience had been just a bit older, I truly think the writers could’ve run with that plotline.

so someone made a tweet about how it's dangerous to portray abusers as 100% evil because they're frequently charming and have lives outside of the abuse they do, etc

and the thing is - they're right about that, but it's a massive stretch to apply it to Valentino

put it this way - if we want to understand abuse and avoid doing it ourselves, we collectively need to avoid othering abusers as incomprehensible monsters who cannot be understood, because then we can't learn how to recognize the signs and help the people who need it, or stamp out those urges within ourselves

but there's a difference betweent that and what Viv is doing with Val. the way Viv writes Val makes me think that she struggles to really want to condemn him for how he treats Angel. to her it's just a dramatic element to a story with the benefit of getting flowers for 'talking about abuse' when her handling of it is frequently cartoonish. most abusers don't hit their victims or abuse them in front of other people, but Val gives Angel a black eye right in front of the princess of hell, before they're due to do a shoot. both Val and Stella are incredibly stupid characters, and just like Crimson Viv's only understanding of abuse seems to be 'whatever makes my characters miserable and therefore sympathetic', instead of what it should be - a means of establishing a pattern of control

same reason why none of her shows allow the characters to escape or even try to kill their abuser despite it being set in Hell. the abusers just have to stick around forever for angst reasons. the only character who has managed to even attempt it is Stolas, and despite him having all the power, money and resources he could hope the show won't allow him to cut Stella out of his life because the divorce plotline is like a never ending nightmare in HB. a better show might use it as a comment on how abusers effectively terrorize their victims in lifelong campaigns for the upper hand, but here it's just an excuse to get the audience to feel sorry for a literal prince instead of questioning why he doesn't think it's wrong to extort sex out of someone far less wealthy and powerful than him

not to mention that part of the reason abusers are charming is to make it harder for their victims to come forwards and be believed. Val by comparison is just a pathetic wet cat who needs coddling by Vox and talking out of impulses that should have exposed him as an abuser long ago. in anyone else's hands I'd assume they were trying to do the thing The Idol attempted (the Weeknd's car wreck of a tv show) of pointing out the charming abuser isn't charming, they're just pathetic, but Viv herself seems to genuinely like Val and want people to simp for him

did Viv even write Angel's prequel comic? the Valentino in that is so much more convincing as an abuser - he restrains Angel's freedoms by threatening him, punishes him, demeans him, tries to keep him in a strict little box about what he is and isn't allowed to do, etc. and he does it in the privacy of a limo, around other employees, not where there'll be witnesses

Well said. I'd argue that it's fine to portray some abusers as 100% evil -- sometimes it works, and the world's no worse off for the abusive dog boyfriend from Courage existing -- but Viv does this thing where she refuses to portray abusers as 100% evil, or even evil period, if they're male characters she likes. Female characters like Stella? Need to be killed, then killed some more, and if you sympathize with them at all Viv will make fun of you publicly. It's so much more dangerous than if she just made them all outright monsters.

Also I don't know if Faustisse wrote the Angel prequel comic, but it wouldn't surprise me. The writing was too mature to be all Viv.

I mean, the thing that’s really amazing to me about the Rocky Horror Cult Phenomena is how much it fits with the themes of RHS. Like, Rocky Horror becoming The Midnight Movie and gaining this huge culture of callbacks and cosplay around it wasn’t like something anyone planned for or anything like that - it was a super-unexpected and strage and organically-grown thing and it just amazing how well it resonates with the movie itself. So many movies gain Fandoms that are kinda at Odds with What the Movie is Actually, so it’s really incredible that even with the Rocky Horror Fandom being what it is, it’s also so in-sync with the movie it’s based around in a strange way. 

Like, if you actually wanna think seriously about RHS, there are few major lenses of interpetation you can view it through: as a 70′s-style mockery of the 50′s, as a narrative about both the anxiety and thrill that comes with the changing times, as a Garden of Eden allegory starring a weird Reverse-God whose gospel is debauchery... but I think one of the biggest ones for me is how it is obviously a tribute to the experience of watching horror and sci-fi movies late at night - and the way these movies, however silly, can offer a sort of getaway from the restrictive, repressive environment of your everyday life. 

Like that is kinda what “Science Fiction/Double Feature” is literally about?

It’s about how much the speaker wants to watch a late-night screenings of science fiction\horror movies. And the verses are peppered with all of these vaugely sexual innuendos, it’s clear that this is at least part of why the speaker wants to go to the late night double feature picture show. Whatever it’s because sci-fi outfits allow for a bit more fanservice than your Regular Movies (”And Flash Gordon was there/In silver underwear”), or cause the thrills of the monsters can become strangely sexual (”And I really got hot\When I saw Janette Scott\Fight a Triffid that spits poison and kills”) or just for some midnight alone-time in the back row...

And in the stage version that line is usually sung by an Usherette character which kinda makes it like... it puts another layer of reality between the audience and the plot. Like, what is seen on stage isn’t a musical abstraction of Brad and Janet’s misadventure but a musical abstraction of the experience of the Usherette (and the cinema audience played by the Actual Audience) watching a horror movie starring Brad and Janet. In the Picture Show, this is replaced with just like... a lot of intentionally kitchy transitions and editing tricks to constantly remind the audience that This Is a Movie. Because regardless of the medium, Rocky Horror is in some way about the Experience of Watching Movies.

And this also comes up when the Criminologist speculates about the nature of reality - it is actually true that life is an illusion and reality is a figment of the imagination, because he is a fictional character in a movie. And Magenta’s verse in “Time Warp”

Like, I suppose literally in-universe she’s talking about her hobby of spying up on people in the castle (like she did to Janet and Rocky in ‘Touch-A-Touch-A-Touch-A-Touch Me’) but like... this is also about being The Audience? Like, the Audience watching the movie are the one who are sitting invisible in ‘another dimension’ and see everything that’s going on... and are being freed by fantasy. (and also it’s important to note that Magenta and the Usherette generally share an actress on stage, and in the Picture Show, share lips but not a voice).

I think you can very easily read Rocky Horror as being About how yeah these old horror movies are cheesy and stupid but they’re also, like, a place of escape from mainstream conservative culture, where you can allow yourself to celeberate the weird and transgressive. Even if it’s kinda bittersweet under the conditions that this transgressiveness always has to come from Monsters and Aliens, and that it was to always Obviously Be Bad, and it must be Defeated and Destroyed at the end - as both the protagonists and the audience must return to the daytime world of normalcy.

Even with Magenta kinda being the Usherette, I think the comperison between Brad and Janet and the Audience is a bit more important. They’re the one who transition from the everyday daylight world of social norms into the late-night world of transgression and release that is Frank’s Fantastic FuckCastle. I mean, that’s why they have so little agency in the plot, they are mostly just sitting back and watching the events unfold. That’s also why Brad seems to have adapted the “Dr. Frank N. Furter did nothing wrong” position by the movie’s climax (”What’s his crime?”). It’s kinda like he’s not really viewing him as a real life person within his own reality, but like a fictional villain. Which is also how Frank views himself - as we can see at the end of “I’m Going Home”. From an in-universe perspective, it seems like a delusion. but from our perspective he is 100% correct. There IS an audience of people watching that entire show unfurl and cheering for him. 

Basically yes I am saying Frank N. Furter is himself’s, Brand and Janet’s Problematic Fave

And then when Frank dies and the Servant Duo beams back to their home planet, it’s explictly not a triumphant moment. It’s not a moment of heroism or any sort of moral victory for normalcy over transgressivism. Like, Frank and Riff-Raff share a lot of the same rotten personality flaws - it’s just that Frank is confident and flamboyant about them while Riff-Raff is resentful and self-loathing. That’s part of why Columbia and Rocky had to die, to drive home the fact that Riff-Raff isn’t doing any of this out of concern for Frank’s victims or even really to go home. It’s purely about his own personal beef. And for Brad and Janet, the ending is really melancholy due to the way they have been stranded back in the ‘real world’. All of the strange characters are either dead or gone, the setting itself literally beamed off the planet. They’ve been changed by their experience, but now they’re back in this daylight world that they escaped from. Cause in the end, the Science Fiction Double Feature always ends. 

And you’ve got all of this, and then you look at Rocky Horror The Cultural  Phenomena and it’s like....... it became like the ultimate encapsulation of what it was tributing to begin with. The Rocky Horror Picture Show is THE late-night science fiction/horror movie event. Midnight Screenings carry this movie and this movie is iconic to Midnight Screenings. And it’s this place that allows you an escape from normalcy and a space to be transgressive - through shouting sexual and\or dark jokes along with everyone else in the movie theater and through being a space for experimenting with gender presentation and\or sexually provocative outfits....It really just became the extremely concentrated version of the experience it was trying to convey in the first place.

And the whole Audience Participation and Shadowcast phenomena really works to enchance the movie’s film of nonreality, which is I think Important to it. Like you know, when you’re sitting in a very rowdy movie theatre shouting profanities at the screen while a bunch of friends mimic the actors’ actions with a few cardboard props because they’ve seen the movie so many times they know them by heart - the murder and the cannibalism seems more and more unreal by emphasizing how much it’s Performance. But “Don’t Dream It, Be It” - already an in-universe Performance by the one character who knows there’s an Audience, feels just as real as ever. 

And it just, it FITS SO WELL TOGETHER, it’s amazing none of this was intentional or even predicted. It’s really just beautifully poetic that this fandom happened.

Thinking about Garou

Question: "Compared to the first season, which draws attention to Saitama's exhilarating punches, the second season focuses on story development. Did you have any specific goals while drawing the story?" Murata: "There was one thing that I requested from ONE Sensei before drawing my re-illustrated manga. At first, there were plans to cut out Garou's childhood with the bully in my version, but that scene really left an impression on me. I thought it was a vital part of understanding Garou's position, so I discussed it with ONE Sensei and requested that I be able to leave it in for y version. And it was paced so well in the anime! I believe it ended up being a very high-quality scene." -- From the liner notes of One-Punch Man Season 2.

I'm including this because I feel it's fundamental to really talk about Garou with any depth. Garou without context does not make sense. He is a kind, sensitive, and thoughtful young man who wants to do good in the world. Yet, he caused a horrifying amount of harm, both directly and indirectly, and ultimately undermined his own goals.

I'm glad that ONE listened to Murata about keeping Garou's childhood flashback. Without it, he'd just have been a thug attacking heroes for no reason to us (pretty much as the heroes saw him). Not only that, but ONE has gone a lot further in the manga in showing us the context in which Garou grew up that's been very helpful for understanding who Garou is, what he saw, and making some sense of his powerful yet contradictory desires.

Ultimately Garou is Garou. He's his own person and the buck for his actions firmly stops with him. No matter what, I can't imagine him not being an independent thinker with the determination to put his thoughts into action.

But...

...the tragedy of his thinking becomes clear when we see his thinking of monsters as metaphors for what is misunderstood or unacceptable in ourselves (a popular enough one IRL where monsters aren't real) and compare it with the reality of his world in which monsters have won, successfully restricting humans to one continent, and people like heroes because they are reminders that sometimes, even apparently overwhelming evil can be defeated. Nothing good happens when you deny the reality around you.

You know Garou's rant about uniting the world with fear? It's a standalone rant in the webcomic. The manga gives us a snapshot of the context in which he came to this conclusion. As this is a place that is no stranger to natural disasters -- forget the monsters -- Garou has no doubt experienced at least one big storm, or flood, or earthquake, or volcanic eruption in his life. In those days and weeks that follow, he's no longer an outcast. Nobody cares about where you come from or who you are: people help each other. At least until normalcy is restored. That's something he's directly experienced.

That's just human nature: even in individualistic societies, for every report of looting in the wake of a natural disaster, there are hundreds of people trying to help. And this is a much more collectivist society that has to deal with disasters semi-regularly. That's the sense of looking out for each other in the face of a tragedy bigger than any person he wanted to recreate—only permanently.

Then we get bits of Garou through the people around him. We got nothing about his parents in the webcomic but in the manga, his parents refuse to see him or get him out of custody. They've given up on him. To make it worse, the audience ONE is writing for understands that Garou is a minor until he's 20 (the law recently changed in Japan but it wasn't even up for debate when ONE started writing OPM). So they've done the equivalent of washing their hands of a 16-year-old. That's got to have hit Garou very, very hard, even if he was estranged from them. He'd have liked it if his father cared enough to tell him what to do.

We see how Bang has literally taken on the role of in loco parentis. It's been interesting to see that the reason Bang has chased after Garou so relentlessly is because he sees himself in the young man. However, we also see that he deeply misunderstands Garou too. Bang beat up people because he was an extremely selfish young man who felt he was entitled to everything.

Garou beat up people because he is an extremely thoughtful young man who sees himself as bringing a great good into the world at the expense of some heroes.

It's definitely going to cause trouble but that's okay -- nothing in life is smooth and such differences are inevitable. With love, such struggles are worthwhile.

Garou's an object lesson in why the energy to do things in the world rarely comes with the power to make those changes. His overly simple solutions were disastrous. But one thing we can also say about Garou: he's a fast learner. He's literally rebuilding his life little by little in the webcomic by rebuilding the world around him. In the manga, he's been given the opportunity to sift through his thinking and find what's genuinely good. We'll see how it all shakes out.

One of the things I find so interesting is how Jing is so very much not what a FL’s endgame love interest, especially in an epic xianxia, looks like (I mean in terms of character and narrative, not physical looks. Deng Wei is a ridiculously handsome man, like the rest of XY’s choices.)

I wonder if that is where at least some of puzzlement over XY’s choice/dislike of Jing as endgame that I’ve seen come from.

Jing is NOT the male lead - that is Cang Xuan, XY’s cousin who she never has even a glimmer of romantic feeling or attraction to. But Jing is also not the biggest badass or most magically powerful or most ambitious or with most status or most grand gestures or most epic story or even most outsize interaction with FL (vampy took her on dates to freaking underwater with his magic while Jing got her a practical gadget to use to go underwater herself; Vampy gave up one of his nine lives to heal her; Jing was only able to preserve her body so it would not be beyond saving and also try to die himself. Vampy’s power is battle while Jing is a tracker. Jing’s love is all-consuming and devoted but it’s also quiet.)

Jing does not come out first in anything except possibly torture (tho honestly that’s a bit of an open season on that one) and abnegation for FL’s sake. I mean the three guys are (future) emperor, a legendary rebel general with nine lives and an insane amount of magic and a…wealthy merchant.

And in a lot of ways it goes against the accepted usual narrative. Of course the top alpha dog would get the FL - the biggest bestest dude!!!! There are not many dramas where FL ends up not with ML and the ones I can think of still have a guy with outsize power/not that quiet/unhinged charisma - think of Ji Chang Wook in Empress Ki for example. The closest I can think of is in The King Loves also based on a novel where FL did not end up with the royal ML but the SML, the quiet royal bodyguard (but even there Rin was the best fighter in the drama.)

And of course the other thing that reinforces this whole departure from the usual narrative and can drive frustration is if you look at the three arcs/obstacles to FL for the three men. Cang Xuan is freaking fighting and scheming to win an empire! And accepting the whole drama maxim “love is never fated for an emperor.” Vampy is literally a sworn enemy of XY’s brother and fights to restore the long-defunct kingdom. So we have a would be emperor and a rebel leader. And then Jing’s problem is getting out of his engagement to an awful woman to be free to marry XY and/or leaving his monster family and abandoning his name to follow XY. I can see someone going “that’s nothing!”

BUT!

I love the narrative for getting that to a person living it, it’s all-consuming but also sticking to its guns that who XY will end up with is not about the usual tropes but what makes sense for her as a character. And so there is a reason Cang Xuan is the ML but Jing is the endgame and she does not end up with Vampy either. Cang Xuan’s wishes and plans drive the plot but that is precisely both why Jing is secondary in the plot but the one XY picks - she wants someone who will not drive the plot because what she wants is someone she wants cottagecore life with and there is no plot in cottagecore. The very fact that all Jing yearns for and all he fights for is domestic bliss (a traditionally FL obsession) - even all his scheming to help CX ascend is because he wants to assist FL’s desires - is why she ends up with him.

As she pretty much point blank stated in 33, everyone in her life put her second to a great cause and she’s done with that. The girl does not want a man who will change the world, she wants someone who is content to live in it with her.

ETA: I keep saying it but what the audience would pick in her place remains irrelevant. I mean I would not pick any of the three myself - I don’t feel like eternally sharing my man with 100 women as anyone with Cang Xuan would have to, Vampy’s greatest desire is to perish in the fight and the lack of appeal of that as a dating quality is obvious, and with his fam, marrying Jing would be like marrying into the Manson Family. But I am not XY so here we are.

Could you make a post about a character slowly losing their humanity while trying to hold onto it? It's a main theme in my current WIP and I cannot for the life of me figure out how to go about it.

Losing their humanity like “The Fly” or “Metamorphosis” where it’s a curse/transformation/sickness, and is both quite literal and mental? Or losing their humanity as in, a character has done unspeakable things and is spiraling into psychopathy?

There’s so many directions you could go here depending on what your genre, rating, and tone is. First, you have to define what humanity means to you as an author and what it means to your world and your characters. Murder might be the worst crime in one novel, and a casual occurrence in another. So, at what point is your character no longer “human”?

This is incredibly specific to your story and advice here is definitely not ‘one size fits all’ so I’ll do my best and I’ll use a very popular movie to back me up: The Dark Knight.

Harvey Dent goes from saint to savage in less than 3 hours, about… I think three weeks maybe in-universe? The movie pulls this off in a few ways:

Right off the bat, there’s hints that this character has a loose circuit somewhere. Comics fans know he becomes Two Face, but layman audiences are still thrown a bone with Harvey’s rather quick rise to prominence in infamously-crime-ridden Gotham. So, he’s not starting as Mr. Rodgers.

Harvey’s job puts immense pressure on him to perform with a lot to lose if he fails. This makes his room for error to avoid catastrophe very narrow and raises the stakes for every action he takes. In essence, any one mistake can be devastating, making catastrophe more believable in the story.

When he starts losing, he loses a lot very quickly. Harvey is bombarded with the mob gremlins trying to escape the law, the Joker running around blowing up holes in the justice system and raining chaos everywhere, his wishy-washy girlfriend who’s hesitant to accept his proposal, and increasing pressure to hand over his hero, Batman, to a maniac, to stop the murders, and he can’t do much of anything about it. Even with small victories, it’s one step forward and three steps back and he’s being fundamentally and existentially thwarted at every turn.

He’s desperate, afraid, and powerful, three *very* bad traits in combination. His slippery slide into madness gets a little steeper when he kidnaps a criminal and screams through an interrogation, then it drops off a cliff when Rachel dies instead of him in a so-called game of chance.

“Chance” here, and Harvey’s ability and presumption of control, is his whole identity. He’s Two-Face. He’s got a double-headed coin to rig his bets. When Rachel dies, he’s lost control over everything, and he just shatters. She dies and he lives and he abandons his core values to embrace Joker’s vision of absolute anarchy, because what’s the point in trying to fight fate?

All of this works despite this monster of a plot, where he’s not even the main villain, because he had so far to fall, and the world of Batman lends itself to insanity coming on quickly. Joker even says that “madness is like gravity, all you need is a little push”.

So without having any details on your WIP I’d have this to say:

Figure out what moral code or person or object your character holds most central to their identity

Circle the drain of destroying it, forcing the character to grow desperate enough to protect it, going to ends they normally wouldn’t with the best of intentions

Destroy that thing

Let them crumble in the aftermath as they can no longer reconcile their core beliefs with the world they live in, and lash out as the wounded animal they’ve become

As horrible as Walt's parting words to Jesse in Ozymandias were, in some ways it seems like they would be psychologically freeing for him.

Walt giving him over to people who he clearly hired to kill him and telling Jesse, "oh, before these people torture you for information and then shoot you, I want you to know I also let your girlfriend die of an overdose" with zero additional context is such clear and unequivocal proof that Walt was always a soulless monster who never cared about him. Which like, we the audience know is not true, Walt is grief-stricken, blames Jesse for Hank's death (lol Walt actually it is 10000000% your fault and you're projecting but what else is new?) and this final parting shot is a big fat "I never loved you" shaped-lie and the kind of deeply personal knife twist you could only give someone you loved like family and felt betrayed by, but Jesse has zero reason to think that.

Jesse can't comprehend that Walt thought Jane was so bad for him it would be better if she died rather than drag him down into a heroin-fueled OD spiral with her. Maybe years down the line he would be able to understand that was the rationale for this repulsive act, but there's a very good chance he will never understand it, and this will just be one of the giant mysteries of their relationship that haunts him for the rest of his life.

In the moment, though, his cruelty is the ultimate bridge-burning severance. All "complication" and gray areas are gone. No more mixed feelings.

A lot of what makes the relationship so uniquely upsetting for him is never really knowing if Walt cares about him or not, because so much of their dynamic is built on lies and manipulation. And in the short-term, this removes the ambiguity! Mr. White really always was the devil in a family man, chemistry teacher skin suit! Even if Jesse is beating himself up for loving this monster and having such misplaced faith in him, at least he can now just hate the guy in peace.

(Though...was Jesse even thinking much about Walt in that five month period of servitude? I get the sense that in Granite State the two of them in their respective prisons are avoiding thinking about each other because they both blame one another for where they ended up.)

Then the finale happens and all that uncomplicated hate gets mucked up again, because hey, what is Walter White good for if not messing with your head?

Walt comes into the compound with a plan to kill everyone there, has Jesse brought into the room where he's going to set off his robot machine gun death trap, clear proof that Jesse was one of his intended victims (if he'd come there to liberate him he would have done it and then gone to the lab to let him out.) Then he sees Jesse, pathetic and in chains, and....tackles him to the floor and shields him with his body before setting off the trap, calmly watches as Jesse strangles his chief captor, then once everyone in the room except the two of them are dead he...slides Jesse his gun and tells him to shoot him. Which is Walter accepting that he deserves death at Jesse's hands, an apology, forgiveness and what he wants to happen all rolled into one. Jesse demands he admit this is what he wants, sees that Walt has been shot (meaning he will forever live with the knowledge Mr. White literally took a bullet for him) and refuses to indulge him in this final act of murder/suicide.

Then he follows Jesse out of the clubhouse and has the gall to SMILE AND NOD AT JESSE before he jumps into Todd's car and speeds off to freedom?? Like, really? How DARE you, Mr. White!

Everything about this is completely consistent with the selfish asshole that Jesse has known for the past two years....but also very clearly and unequivocal proof that he cares about Jesse and always did! There is zero reason for him to do this except for the history between them. This is the bizarre swan song of their demented criminal partnership.

And Jesse gets his second chance...solely because of Walter White.

Walt freed Jesse in the only way he possibly could that would keep him out of jail. He could have turned himself in, reported Jack and Co. and gotten them all arrested, Jesse included. Instead he perpetrated incredibly fucked up, science-adjacent violence to kill everyone who hurt his partner and died in the act. This is the Heisenberg equivalent of a giant-ass apology.

Which means that in the years that follow, Jesse will have to parse through everything that happened between them, reevaluate it all, live in that bizarre gray area when in many ways it would have been easier to just hate him. Not to say there won't be a part of him that does. But it won't be the only part.

Poor Jesse. He will forever have to live with the knowledge that Mr. White did, in fact, care about him, and the inevitable ambivalent and complicated feelings that come from that.

I dunno if there’s a name for this type of genre/setting, but. I’m really digging how S3 seems to be going for that type of story, often coming-of-age, involving a ragtag group of tweens investigating their suburban neighborhood, performing historical research and unraveling a mystery, in response to supernatural happenings. There’s a monster lurking out there, and they have not much beyond your typical, everyday household objects to defend themselves; And of course, the beloved flashlight!

Obviously three of our protagonists DO have actual magic, but I have to wonder if prolonged separation from the Demon Realm will cause a witch’s magic bile to run out... Thus forcing the kids into a time limit and making them struggle even further against the odds, esp since even their original strength wasn’t enough to defeat Belos’ monster form. This might be why Amity has her Palisman; Willow and Gus have more innate talent and thus ‘bile’ to run off of, but Amity isn’t as gifted and so runs out a lot more quickly, and has to rely on her staff as a backup.

Which, I guess is not unlike Belos, perhaps; I can definitely see him focusing on the kids’ palismen, as he deals with his own dwindling time and energy... Anyhow, I dig this type of horror story where the kids are forced to confront the hidden sins of their town’s past, as a literal ghost comes back from the dead to haunt them.

It’s a mystery and of course you have the occasional kind adult or parent struggling to make things right; Struggling against the danger that threatens the idyllic life kids are meant to have, because these types of stories I imagine are meant to shatter the illusion of a perfect suburban neighborhood, show there’s shadows lying beneath the picturesque surface and nostalgia. A critique of that nuclear family image, because of the skeletons in the closet... Typically the ones who don’t fit in, the outcasts from whom the protagonists are, and find acceptance in fighting the idyllic facade. They too relate to being unacceptable and hidden away, hence their connection to the hidden darkness they unravel. I guess that’s what’s at root behind the fundamental appeal of these stories, what makes them resonate with audiences so much, that and the rad aesthetic of course.

It’s all really a metaphor in a way for a protagonist’s struggle with their parents and their need to be accepted, even as the parent adjusts to a shaken-up status quo they’re totally unprepared for and how they can somehow maintain their duties as an adult amidst all this, accepting that this status quo isn’t so perfect after all. Like Paranorman, Stranger Things, Deltarune. I don’t know WHAT the name is for these type of stories is, but I’m delighted to see The Owl House naturally develop our protagonists’ circumstances into this kind of familiar, recognizable story. The perfect neighborhood isn’t so perfect actually, it’s all a social critique by the end of the day.

And of course, the beta AU aspects are noticeable, especially the baseball bat that is a common trope of these kinds of stories; Which just gets back to what Dana said about her original intentions for the show to be darker, even as it literally becomes so! She DID clarify that Luz and the kids were made younger and more cheerful, precisely as her own creative choice; To paraphrase, if everybody is edgy then nobody is edgy, the brightness of someone like Luz was chosen by Dana herself, not Disney, as a way to contrast with the surroundings.

BUT... That’s how it starts for the story! But as things develop and Luz’s character grows and is hurt, experiences the loss of innocence in coming of age stories... Yeah, I can see the vibes of the Beta AU always having been the intention for the crew, they just opted to have the cast evolve into that, instead of starting off that way! Which of course, creates the nice contrast between then and now that makes the darkness of recent events all the more apparent. I dig it.

It truly feels like such a natural and perfect way to portray Luz’s arc to evolve in her return to the human world, confronting what she’s learned of it since then, and coming to terms with how she doesn’t fit the mold that Gravesfield wants, recognizing its cruelty towards those outcasts, and unveiling the truth. All while finding her acceptance from her mother and peers... Because that’s what it’s really about at the heart of the story, what it’s a metaphor for. It’s the ideal and classic genre to explore and settle her issues back home, in a home that isn’t as normal as some might claim it is away from the Demon Realm.

This could easily be its own isolated, more mundane AU and I love the range this show offers; I’m almost surprised the show didn’t go for this setting earlier, but that’s only because there’s a time and place for it and the time is now after carefully building up to it. Luz is truly disillusioned with the human world after living in a different place and seeing how it easily could and should be better, which just allows her to really make a stand against it this time. Now she knows another life is viable and isn’t interested in returning back to this one. This could be the end of her hero’s journey with how Luz has come back changed; But unlike the classic version, the beginning is not her end.