You seem to have some thoughts on the matter. How do *you* feel about Baldur's Gate 3

Not really any opinions on BG3 specifically, except that it's clear that Larian put a lot more effort into balancing the game than WotC ever has, and it's unfortunate for Larian that the game's development was used to harbor Zac S accomplice Mike Mearls so that WotC could state he was no longer on the D&D design team when people were calling for consequences for his roll in bringing on, enabling, and protecting known serial sexual abuser and transphobe Zac S as a heralded consult in 5e's development.

Mechanically I've seen a lot of talk about how...not even true RAW, but improved RAW 5e just isn't as fun for people when there's not a DM to handwave things or allow cool off the cuff "Greentext" moments that have nothing to do with the actual ruleset being ostensibly played and paid for. Even with some added stuff for Martials to do there's no "Describe your attack" or "Make a called shot" that is so often used to downplay that Martials are on a whole different, lower magnitude of agency to exert influence on the world around them. And this is after Larian went out of their way to improve them! Buffed Action Economy, setpiece combat with interesting interactions, some semblance of giving them actual abilities, but it can't make up for the fact they're 5e Martials. It is hilarious seeing people brought face to face with the actual ruleset for the first time instead of what their DM does to make the system a fun experience.

And I just saw earlier today, it's got people talking about how there's so much Fantasy Racism if you play a Tiefling that is just so unnecessary except for the fact that it is RAW and how the game is presented without your DM and table going "But we're going to ignore that".

Which is very much the same in that it is people being brought face to face with the actual system WotC produces and sells for the first time instead of their DM's system they've agreed to give WotC credit for. I maintain that 5e was a system designed for passive revenue generation because D&D is the property Hasbro got as a free gift when they bought Magic the Gathering, and it was designed specifically for DMs who were used to 3.5's brokenness and doing the heavy lifting to run games for new-to-TTRPG players and that's why the true north of the ruleset development was to not look intimidating to new players. And for that narrow purpose, it succeeds! But then it got popular and the system was not prepared for such wild ideas as "New DMs wanting to run games without an internalized encyclopedic knowledge of the system". To use a car as a metaphor, WotC realized they could design a game that used the DM as the engine instead of the driver's seat, saving a ton in development costs in doing so. And BG3 has some people realizing that what they thought was a car was actually just a frame they paid full price for.

TL;DR: No significant thoughts on Baldur's Gate 3 really, same thoughts as always on WotC and 5e that people will awkwardly ignore and sweep under the rug until their NEXT big PR fiasco that they'll shallowly ask forgiveness for and people will somehow give them and the cycle will begin anew.

Shelby said a lot during her stream, teetering from honorable to downright strange, and I want to address some of the issues. Before I say anything, I am still supportive of Shelby’s story, but this stream revealed a lot to me. I especially push Shelby supporters to read this, as this stream pushed MANY people I know to a neutral stance.

Shelby claimed having a depressive disorder just involved "feeling depressed", which is a harmful misconception that minimizes our struggles. Depression is more than feeling sad, and is categorized as being "different from regular mood changes and feelings about everyday life." It can involve constant hopelessness, angry outbursts, loss of motivation in most activities, and can lead to fluctuating weights, suicidal ideations, and self-sabotaging. To say "we all feel a little depressed sometimes" is to dismiss the lifelong struggles people with depression go through.

Shelby also implies that people with mental illness cannot change, and that recovery is not possible if your depression has hurt others. Not only is that an incredibly harmful idea to spread, it's blatantly incorrect. Just as habits and thoughts are trained throughout your life, they can also be untrained. There is genuine psychological basis in this, and to say that recovery is impossible is scientifically false. Personalities shift our entire lives, and changes in our physical and mental environments help us train new habits. This is part of the reason we try forming better schedules in new environments, and why a consistently stressful environment can bloom negative habits.

People don't chose to have mental illness, and if you're never taught to handle it, it can be extremely easy to hurt others. The most powerful tool to recovery is believing you can be better, and Shelby telling people to not even try is just enabling self-destructive people to hurt others for the rest of their lives. Change is a long process, but it's absolutely possible- Something as simple as a disruption in your life, a wake up call, and a drive to be a better person are the first steps to kickstarting change.

Shelby’s claims are very strange considering the rest of the stream. Earlier, she went on a rant about content creator’s influence on teenagers. She acknowledged teenagers are impressionable, and that it’s important to take care of those looking up to you. She recognized her fanbase was mainly teenagers, many of whom struggle from mental illness. It feels backwards to emphasize being a good role model before telling thousands of kids that their mental illness makes them a bad person. Her statement was about treating people with kindness no matter what, but she couldn’t keep that energy for people with depression.

Shelby herself was able to find help in therapy, so to deny that others should seek help feels selfish. She also confirmed on stream that she's seen the informative resources people sent her, and that she has ignored them. I can excuse the stereotyping if she's willing to be educated, but she's made it clear she believes she’s right. This is one thing I cannot defend, and I can't forgive her for slandering myself and thousands of struggling teens’ progress to their faces.

One final thing Shelby mentioned was that we should wait for evidence, and it's alright to feel doubtful. I want to revisit her statement with the current evidence we have, that I will take with a grain of salt by her own request. With the proof we have, nothing that Shelby claims comes across as abusive outside of the biting.

Shelby said she would get locked in his house at times. UK houses need a key to unlock the inside, and Wilbur likely only had one. While at his house, Shelby had access to her phone, and there were ways she could communicate with him or call for help if this was a problem. We have no evidence to claim that he trapped her. Shelby also stated her family never met Wilbur, because she had to travel to meet him. It wouldn't be unreasonable to stay in his house for an extended amount of time, and that was entirely her choice. She certainly might have felt neglected, but to claim that it was entrapment is baseless.

Wilbur was also busy with tours, absent nearly 200 days of the year. Feeling lonely makes sense, but raising that as abusive and holding it against him is ridiculous. As a famous musician, Wilbur has obligations that he legally can't drop. This was something she needed to be aware of when pursuing a relationship with him. She's allowed to wish things were different, but genuinely expecting him to abandon his lifelong passion is more than a little strange. This doesn't detract from her feelings, but to hold his legal obligations over his head when she should’ve known he'd be busy is unreasonable.

Shelby has also made a point of publicly shaming his hygiene. The inability to care for yourself and your space is a common symptom of depression. It was kind of her to clean, but her words imply she thinks he's just lazy. She explicitly notes that Wilbur didn’t expect her to clean, but that he waited for her to clean. This is weird to specify, as people with depression typically don't make plans to clean for long periods of time. She likely just assumed his inaction was a sign for her to do it, rather than something he struggled with and had no plans to do anyway. I don't think she was right for shaming his depressive habits, and I don't think he was right for dismissing her help. However, the comments he made about her cleaning very strongly imply that he never had plans to clean either way. This just reads as a choice to help out, not expectation or pressure.

Based on the evidence we have now, the points Shelby made just come across as her dating a mentally ill man and not being prepared for the challenges that come with that. Her family never met him, and he was very busy, so there wasn’t much outside opinion she could get. It's reasonable for her to feel neglected, but that doesn't necessarily mean it was intentional harm. It's important for both parties to get help, to communicate what happened and talk about their feelings. Wilbur stated he was committed to talking with her and addressing her concerns, while Shelby blocked him and refused to communicate, despite telling him she wanted to remain friends. All she's done since is reject his apology (even though he made a statement, not an apology, for legal reasons) and ignore his requests to speak. This avoidance to communicate is likely why the lines of consent and expectation were blurred in their relationship, as they've both expressed an inability to communicate.

This was not written to discredit Shelby's experience, I do believe she has trauma. However, you can absolutely be traumatized by relationships that weren't necessarily abusive. I've experienced years of PTSD from completely fabricated nightmares, and have trauma from repeated hallucinations of my ex. She’s not lying about her feelings- But between the contradictions, refusing to talk with Wilbur about an apology, and the insistence to "communicate” despite the fact that she blocked him, I can't support Shelby's actions.

I will always fight to uplift victims, and I am sympathetic of her story, but I can't defend someone who makes no effort to communicate or educate herself before speaking. Until either of them presents something that is beyond "he said, she said" I will remain neutral. I think they both deserve a chance to change and talk about this privately, and I will be waiting for a better response in the mean time. There was clearly miscommunication, and this was brought to us prematurely (shown by her contradicting statements.) I urge you all to look at the evidence and hopefully come to a similar conclusion. You can feel for someone's experiences and sympathize with their mental state without endorsing them. Stay safe, be kind, and don't jump to any conclusions. 🤍

Why Adam Wilkins is the most hated character on Invincible?

He has a very rocky relationship with his daughter and is generally unsupportive of her decisions and aspirations to be a superheroine.

He's a misogynist who holds outdated views on gender roles and chastises his daughter for not having traditionally feminine aspirations as a way to cover his insecurities and fragile masculinity. He states that the only reason he ever let Eve become a superhero was because he assumed her then boyfriend, Rex was going to "protect her", even though Eve is extremely powerful herself.

While it's shown that he does care about Eve and most of his disdain for his daughter's career choices come from a place of worry about her welbeing and the welbeing of those around her, that is simply too weak of an excuse to justify his actions, as he damaged his relationship with his daughter because of his own choices, to the point Eve started to actively dislike him. Even though he sometimes brings up good points, such as calling out Eve for using her powers in an inconsequential manner, the way he goes off about them doesn't help and only further cements him as a bad father.

While it's shown he had a good relationship with Eve when she was a kid, ever since the day he learned she had a special ability to identify atoms and molecules, Adam began forming a disdain for his daughter and started acting rude and abrasive towards her.

He was also rude to her babysitter after he started praising his daughter's advanced intelligence. He initially refuses to send her to a school for gifted children, calling her a freak. When Eve didn’t show up to her birthday, he ate a part of the cake and when called out by her, he furiously yelled at his daughter.

When she runs to her room he rudely yells at her that that he and his wife are the only family she has.

While it's implied that he does genuinely love his wife (especially in the flashbacks seen in the Invincible: Atom Eve special), it's rarely ever shown onscreen, and it's stated that they frequently fight a lot. It's also implied that he might even be psychologically abusive towards her as well, to the point she's completely submissive to him and enables his behavior.

Season 1

After finding out that Eve had broken up with Rex after she found out he was cheating on her with Dupli-Kate, Adam lashes out at his daughter, telling her to forgive him, saying that "everyone makes mistakes".

When Eve tells him that she's considering quitting the superhero career, Adam rudely tells her that it was "about time".

When Eve decides to leave her family home in order to become a full-time superhero away from them, Adam doesn't respect her choices and further insists that she quits her dreams in order to live a "normal life". He even told Eve to her face that the worst day of his life was when she got superpowers, something that really hurt Eve emotionally.

Season 2

While he does take a job at Burger-Mart in order to provide for his family after being fired from his previous job at the furniture store, Adam is shown to have been very reluctant to do so and puts the blame on the superheroes for having destroyed their corporate office, essentially blaming his daughter for getting fired.

He stubbornly refuses to get his daughter's help for income, purely out of a place of insecurity, and still persists on lashing out on Eve, despite her being very understanding towards him.

After Eve uses her powers to turn an apple into gold and gives them to sell it, Adam angrily refuses to do so and, later on, even throws the apple in the trash.

During their argument in Eve's second visit to their house, he blames her for an accident in Chicago, where Eve had used her powers to build on an abandoned lot, not knowing it was actually unstable. While Adam tries to rightfully talk some sense into Eve to not use her powers irresponsibly, he's still overly harsh to her, telling her that her powers don't make her a hero, they make her dangerous.

Overall, Adam is generally an unpleasant and rude person who is unreasonable to his daughter for no good reason, and is by far one of the most hated characters in the series.

Read some more of Toxic Parents tonight and wow!!!! the amount of anger I have!!! and the incredible unwillingness I have to actually remember my childhood and feel associated feelings!!!!! Like, there are events I keep telling over like talismans, because these are the events that prove I'm not crazy. These are things that happened that should never have happened. The time Dad kicked the door in is the biggest one. The time I spent twelve straight hours cowering in the far back of our station wagon with my fingers jammed in my ears so I wouldn't hear my father screaming at my mother and my mother sobbing as we drove to a different state. The time I told my mother I had gotten accepted to graduate school and her first words were, "How are you going to pay for it?" instead of "Congratulations" or "I'm proud of you."

But these aren't all of it. They're so far from all of it. One memory I have is not of the presence of abuse, but the sudden, bewildering absence of it: my sister drove me to the nearest town with a mall, an hour and a half away. We were stopping to pick up snacks for the drive back, I think at a Safeway. I picked up a box of Golden Grahams cereal and nervously asked my sister if I could have it. She said, "Of course you can, you know what you want." In the limbus of a childhood spent being told I was picking the wrong soda for myself when I gave my order at fast food restaurants, suddenly being told I could have what I wanted T-boned me emotionally. It was like running into a wall I hadn't known was there. What? I can just want things? I can just get things and have them because I want them? I don't have to justify it, or lie, or hide what I want? No one is going to tell me I'm stupid for wanting something or that I'll regret it?

Just an incessant drip-drip-drip of emotional abuse, sometimes punctuated by a flash flood. "If I leave your mother, how do you think you're going to eat? You're going to end up on the street."

And now, reading the section on how children end up feeling about the passive parents who enable abuse, I just think, oh, there's me! There's me. I hated her and pitied her and loved her and wanted more for her. I didn't have the adult emotional capacity to understand how much of her life she was complicit in, but damningly, I did vaguely, tangentially understand that she was constantly making excuses for Dad--coming to my bedroom to sit on my bed and tell me, while crying, that he was sorry, while he never apologized. Making it my job to comfort her. I said to her once that I remember, "If he was really sorry, he'd stop doing this," and she just looked at me with something that looked like sorrow but I could tell was rage--she was angry at me for not forgiving him and letting us snap right back into the "good" phase between angry outbursts, where we could, for however long it lasted, pretend to be a normal family.

And how she always resented me. She resented that I was separate from her, she resented that I could do and see and understand things she couldn't, she was angry when I went into Psychology, even angrier when I went into medicine. She's been throttling down her anger at Dad for as long as I've been alive, pretending to be malleable, having vague health complaints and maladies mixed in among the real ones, forever retiring to her bed with a washcloth over her eyes instead of interacting with me.

And now that I'm an adult, and not just an adult but a middle-aged doctor, why don't I call? Why do I insist on bringing up the past? Why do I expect Dad to apologize? I'm hurting his feelings, after all.

The past. Sure. When I graduated from medical school, he named the worst doctor we ever met and said, "He went to medical school, too. Don't get a big head."

And when we were talking, once, not long ago, maybe two years or so, about how he used to stand there and yell at us--I can't remember any of the words anymore, just the way he looked, the tone of his voice, the experience like being buffeted by a strong wind--he said, "At least your sister fought back. You just stood there and took it."

I can't imagine a clearer illustration that he doesn't actually regret his behavior. He doesn't regret his actions. He still feels justified. We were disappointments, we were failures, we weren't him, we weren't what he wanted for us, and more than that, we were convenient targets for his rage. You can do almost anything to your children and get away with it. And he didn't hit us, so it was okay, and the fact that we were hurt by the actions he took with the intent to hurt us means that we were weak. And it's okay to hurt the weak.

Christ! This is the man who, in a fit of sullen self-pity, when I gave him a mug that said "World's #1 Dad" for Father's Day when I was probably eight or nine, talked about how we both know that's not true. As if a child is your therapist. As if it were my responsibility to reassure him.

My mother has read Toxic Parents. My mother has read Why Does He Do That? She has a bachelor's and most of a master's in psychology. She has an IQ of 150. She is a bad mother. It feels like the worst judgment you can make, a bad mother. It feels worse than calling someone a bad father. Because we expect less from fathers. But a bad mother is unnatural.

But lots and lots and lots of mothers are bad at being mothers. And I love mine and I hate her, and I'm angry and I'll always be angry, and I'll die angry, and I have to try to carve what happiness I can from a world I entered into under false pretenses. I was always told I was wanted. I knew I wasn't. I may have been intentional, but I wasn't wanted.

My mother's mother just died last week. I didn't know her. She chose not to know us. I hadn't seen her since I was twenty-two and graduated from college. My mother is struggling with her relationship with her mother. She often tells me her mother was a narcissist. I want to ask her what she thinks she is. She's not a narcissist, but she's an enabler, she's a doormat, she's a classic case of codependency, and I don't think she sees it that way. I always got the sense she was just waiting for us to grow up and go away so she and Dad could go back to being happily miserable alone together.

I asked her, this last year, if she'd read Why Does He Do That? and she said she had, and she asked me carefully why I was thinking about it, waiting for me to confess to her that my husband of ten years was abusive. She's been gunning for this relationship since the beginning--I'd been with him for maybe a year when she mailed me a copy of He's Just Not That Into You (or maybe it was the sequel, It's Called a Breakup Because it's Broken) along with an article on how to date as a single older woman. I was 23. She was flabbergasted when I said I thought Dad was abusive. Denied it immediately. I listed examples and she didn't even say words, just made simultaneously pained and exasperated noises.

She wants me to be single and a career failure and pathetic so she can feel good about herself in comparison. Dad thinks he wants me to be like him, but if I actually behaved like he does, I think he finally would belt me.

I had to hide everything good in me from them so they wouldn't deliberately ruin it. I couldn't tell them about my writing. The first time I finished writing a novel I told Mom and she didn't even acknowledge it, just told me to do the dishes. I was sixteen. I can't tell them what I love about my husband because it would be like speaking to them in a foreign language. They think it's a performance, like their performance, and they're always waiting for me to slip up and reveal the misery they're sure is lurking just underneath.

I've done well. They don't own me. I wish I had real parents, but I'm going to try not to shop for oranges at the hardware store anymore.

Why Morpheus won’t separate Cain and Abel to save Abel

   Before The Sandman was a thing, long, long ago Cain and Abel were old Horror anthology comic hosts.   Cain hosted The House of Mystery.  Abel hosted the House of Secrets. Cain, Abel, Eve, Lucien, The Hecate, The mad Mod witch, and even Destiny were all old horror anthology hosts.   Cain and Abel were the DC equivalent of the Crypt Keeper and The Vault Keeper from EC comics.   They would antagonize each other but ultimately loved each other and The Crypt Keeper (In this case Cain) usually would best his brother in their competitions and mischief against each other.   In The Sandman they are the personifications of the idea of Cain and Abel.  Lucifer respect's Cain's mark but it's also suggested that they are also Romulus and Remus and in Tales in The Sand we see their forms change based on what the human dreamer expects to see.  They were black for Nada.  Eve even says "I'm not really your mother." to Cain. In the context of The Sandman Morpheus made their existences as comfortable as possible.  Cain and Abel would exist as a pair with or without him. They're a set of architypes.  They are characters of story.   They were likely created by the collective human unconscious, the very idea of who Cain and Abel are supposed to be.  That's why Daniel was able to re-create Abel when The Kindly Ones killed him in a way he would not revive from.

Cain and Abel are two parts of a whole.  They are incomplete without each other and deeply suffer if one is missing. It's not a normal human abusive relationship. They are two parts of a story. Imagine if half your body was missing. That's how one feels without the other. They literally need each other or they feel incomplete. Neil used them as an allegory for domestic abuse but that doesn't mean they can be resolved like an actual codependent domestic abuse situatution.  No amount of therapy can fix them and to sesparate them would only make them suffer far worse than Cain's routine killings.   If Cain isn't there Abel is likely to start killing himself to compensate or seek harm some other way and no amount of therapy will fix that. With Cain however there's the promise that the story will reset within a few hours and they can enjoy some tea together or tell a scary story to a visitor.   Ultimately the real tragedy is that they love each other but Cain is a slave to the story he must act out.   And Abel, being the keeper of secrets, knows this.  It's a compulsion.   When he says Cain can't help it, he means it.  It's not like an abusive husband where he can learn to control himself. He simply MUST fulfil the story.  He has no choice.  The need to kill to Abel will over come him.   Sometimes Cain feels bad about it (that's why he gave him Goldie's egg in the comics).  Sometimes he tries to make light of it like they are back in their horror host days.   Sometimes he tries to do it quickly so they can go back to being kind to each other.  ("I'll see myself out.  It's your turn to make dinner.")  

Morpheus was never cruel to them by keeping them together.   He wasn't "enabling abuse."   Saying you can't forgive him keeping them together is to badly misunderstand the situation.   They would seek each other with or without him. And the collective human unconscious NEEDS them.  They embody a type of story.  Not only that but they are nightmare weavers. They create nightmares.  Cain introduces himself as such when he's nursing Morpheus back to health in The Sandman issue 2 (Chapter 2) Imperfect hosts.   The Dreaming NEEDS them.   Cain creates all the Nightmares that are mysterious.  Abel creates the ones that hide secrets.   They are the keepers of Mystery and Secrets.  

  Caitlin R. Kiernan went even further with her version of The Dreaming (though it’s no longer canon) to suggest that if one went missing humans would go mad.  Without Cain a primal violent urge in humanity would rise and cause a spike self-harm, abuses, and murder.  Cain was, according to her, a vicarious outlet for those darker urges. This is not to say their situation is hopeless.  No.   An ex-friend of mine had a theory that as the collective idea of who Cain and Abel are evolves, so do they.  And that means if a more popular version of them emerges where Cain doesn't want to kill his brother, or stops himself, that version will be what they embody.  So there is a chance that one day they will change. Remember, Merv was once a Turniphead according to the The Tempest.  Creatures of story change according to the collctive idea of that story. Morpheus knew that their story was a tragic and harsh one. He is not the cause of it.  He is, however, the source of their only comfort.   The promise that the story resets, that Abel always recovers and they can still have tea together later.   That they can live side by side MOST of the time peacefully (When Cain isn't fulfilling his compulsive need to kill Abel). Abel, being the keepr of secrets, knows one great secret.   That Cain does love him and can't bear to be without him.   And that's why he puts up with it.   Their story is a cruel one but Morpheus didn't cause it.   What he gave them is the comfort between the routines.  Their big old haunted houses and graveyard where they can have tea and raise gargoyles together.  It's the only comfort he can give them.   To separate them would be far worse. Morpheus has done a lot of terrible and stupid things.  Letting Cain and Abel house The Houses of Mystery and Secrets together is not one of them.

what I love most about your 666 vox is that even though he and alastor make an olympic sport out of bending the boundaries of "safe and sane" sex, he seems to VERY firmly believe in the "consensual" part... him letting go of alastor the SECOND he uses his safe word, holding himself back when alastor can't handle touch during his rut, all that stuff. so what would his reaction be if the events of bus stop happened in the same verse and he learned about what valentino did? I know you mentioned it in another ask before but it's been rotating in my mind for days lol - ✨

Alright, y'all get the long and serious answer for this one! >:) Buckle up, buttercups! And thank you SO much for your kind words! <3

I genuinely think that Vox is a fairly shitty person who does not typically particularly care about the violation of consent. He is so free not just with lying, selling spyware, and enabling enabling Valentino, but also with dominating people's will with his hypnosis in his introduction. I think that, if anything, he gets a power trip out of it and he sees what Valentino does, generally, as an extension of that! They're the Vees! They're powerful, they're winning, they have Pentagram City wrapped around their fingers!

However, in 666, his view of Alastor and the fact that Alastor lets him do things is obsessive and borderline worshipful, in, like, a fucked up sadomasochistic way! 666 is written from Alastor's POV so you get to see a lot of his own emotional progression with regard to how he views Vox, but on Vox's end, he's also seeing Alastor differently. He would not be able to genuinely think that he's fallen in love with Alastor if he wasn't able to get past being worshipfully infatuated with him first. He's still obsessive, but especially after O.T.O Special 6.66, Now Streaming: The Birds and the Bees, Natural Wonders! (aka. the rut fic, I know, my fucking titles—) where Alastor starts offering Vox more genuine vulnerability without the looming threat of his shadow, he sees Alastor as more of an actual person rather than a celebrity figure to fight or fuck or both.

Which means that, before Vox made that transition, he would probably be pissed that Valentino ruined his chances to get up to more shit with Alastor. He is very careful with regards to Alastor's consent in the first two installations of 666 because he's extremely aware of how easily Alastor could withdraw it, and how little Vox could do about that. He's not willing to lose Alastor after the taste he's finally had! He's practically manic about finally getting what he wants!

After he's developed more genuine feelings for Alastor (and Alastor has moved solidly into being one of the relatively few people that Vox registers as not just being an NPC or untouchable raid boss in his life), he would be... absolutely fucking mortified, I think. The empathy would fucking suck! That's why he prefers not to have it for most people!

But the thing is, he also loves Val. He has history with Val. And he knows what Val is like. I think he would be less actually, genuinely, overtly angry at Valentino in this scenario than he would have been if he'd just seen Val as ruining his big break with Alastor. He'd make a show of it, sure, but how the hell can he really blame Valentino when he genuinely wouldn't have given (has never given) half of a shit if it had actually been Angel Dust?

And he also knows what Alastor is like. I think his decision would be forced by the fact that despite what happened, Alastor is alive and Valentino is very much about to not be. In a triage situation, one of those people is by default a higher priority.

Alastor, of course, would never forgive that. He would also never forgive the fact that Vox knows what happened—and knows it in a universe where Alastor had dared allow Vox liberties and slowly, eventually, trusted him not to abuse them.

Like I said! It would absolutely nuke the relationship, and I think Alastor would put a great deal of effort into turning all of V Tower and its inhabitants, likely especially Vox, even moreso than Valentino, into so much rubble and a wet smear on the ground.

A few more things because I am not done talking about this finale.

I know a lot of people think that this issue of Gabriel being seen as a hero and Marinette keeping the fact that Adrien is a sentimonster and that his father is Monarch is going to come back as a major plot point, or that Gabriel isn't really redeemed and that this isn't the end. And I'm not saying I have evidence that it's not going to turn out that way, but like... this is Miraculous we're talking about.

The show which famously tries to offer sympathy to bad people because of their tragic backstory by:

Trying to half-assedly "redeem" Natalie into some kind of super mother figure for Adrien, even though she enabled and participated in his abuse for years and never showed remorse for it, or even took accountability for it. Her callously killing Sentibug is never brought up again either. And she still does not give Adrien the Amok that helps him choose for himself or tell him he is a sentimonster, and yet is framed as a good parental figure for him.

Trying to redeem Andre Bourgeois and frame him as some kind of great person by having him adopt Zoe and send Chloe to live with her abuser by disowning her, even though it's his shitty parenting that let her get to this point. And letting him get off scot-free for all the times he abused his power as Mayor.

Trying to redeem Felix by glossing over such crimes as him giving all the Miraculous to Gabe, him committing genocide, him trying to ruin his cousin's life, him victim blaming Adrien, him returning Adrien's Amok to Gabe, and many such things. All because he had a tragic backstory and cared for sentimonster rights (even though he killed two on-screen with only regret for one of them) so that clearly means that he did nothing wrong and does not need to be held accountable for those things, even though he showed no remorse for it or desire to do better.

And the show which also famously ignores major plot points and leaves them behind with little to no resolution in favor of dropping new bombs on the audience, such as:

Choosing to ignore the Ladynoir conflict in Season 4 by having Chat Noir just push aside his legitimate grievances with Ladybug's bad decisions to continue being her emotional support partner. This conflict was not addressed ever again, even in Season 5, and was left without any resolution.

Neglecting any exploration of Chat Blanc beyond some obligatory mentions now and again to remind the audience of why the show needs more seasons.

The whole plot with the alternate love interests Luka and Kagami, which was built up across a whole season and dismissed within two episodes of the next season so that the writers could focus on the new Love Square drama they came up with for Season 4.

Luka's conflict about knowing Chat Noir and Ladybug's identities, which was written out in one episode, only for it to have been ultimately pointless in favor of having Kagami know it anyway.

These are great examples of how the show neglects to build up and conclude previously established plot points and conflicts in favor of substituting them with other ones and/or does the absolute minimum to somehow write them out in order to move the story forward and focus on other new plot points that they came up with for the new season.

From these, we can understand that:

Trauma is a valid excuse for everything, and a tragic backstory frees you from accountability unless you're Chloe.

And:

Previously established conflicts are not brought up or explored in any meaningful capacity in order to make way for new ones.

Knowing this, I think it's highly unlikely that the show will ever explore this idea of Gabriel not having truly become a martyr and a hero, and that even if it is the case, it will be neglected as a plot point in order to push this Lila thing to the front. At most, we will get a moment where Adrien learns the truth and instantly forgives Marinette for doing what his abuser asked because she did it out of love, and no one will question the implications of this in any meaningful way. This is because Adrien is not allowed to have feelings that inconvenience Marinette in any way, be it his hurt at her keeping secrets from him, or now her siding with his father and outright lying to him, because his role in the story is now that of Marinette's love interest and emotional support partner, and that's all he's good for. And as for Adrien acknowledging that Gabriel was a bad father again, combining the redemption that simply having trauma gives him and the fact that Thomas "Chloe is not an abused child" Astruc doesn't seem to understand the severity of such things, I doubt we will ever see him outright reject his father ever again.

For all these reasons, I really do believe that it is wishful thinking to expect this to be addressed in any way that matters. If it is not forgotten, it will be relegated to a single moment and forgotten after. That is, if it was ever meant to be explored. The writers of this show are... not the best at dealing with this sort of thing, after all. After all I've seen, it is not surprising to me at all that Gabriel was redeemed. There is a clear trend of characters with any motivation that could be construed as sympathetic or with a tragic backstory portrayed as being justified in their actions, having their actions erased and ignored or at the very least severely downplayed for the sake of making them out to be better than they are. Gabriel has been consistently given sympathetic scenes throughout the season, which culminated in this finale which absolves him of every wrongdoing.

And I know people feel like this is clearly not the end, but that's how a lot of people felt about the Ladynoir conflict in Season 4, and look how that turned out. This show has always been bad at dealing with nuance. An abused child is portrayed as irredeemable and evil, and her enabling father is portrayed as a good person for giving up on her (I don't even like her, but damn). There is a trend of demonizing those characters who really should not be, and offering sympathy to characters who haven't earned it. I have no trouble at all in believing that Gabriel is supposed to sympathized with and redeemed by the end. He gets his happy ending, he gets what he wanted, and his actions make the world a better place.

I've seen the idea that Gabriel actually lost floating around, but did he? He already knew he was dying, and he had, to some degree, come to terms with it. And in the end, he was clearly very happy with just dying if it meant being able to make his wish. His end is clearly portrayed as him making the ultimate sacrifice to wish for a better world, as one last good thing he does for his son. It's portrayed as him asking Marinette to hide all this from him to protect him. Of course, anyone with common sense can see that this is still really controlling and manipulative, but the show pretty clearly frames it as a selfless act. The line "all the times I tried to be a good father," isn't framed as the delusional statement it is. He's smiling in that scene, surrounded by light, and that's not the framing for someone who's supposed to be read as manipulative and evil at that point. The writers seem to genuinely believe that the man was a good father at some points. I've also seen others say that clearly Gabriel was not redeemed by the end because he refused Marinette's hand, but that's not really true. He did paralyze her, but then he freed her and returned all the Miraculous, and Marinette ends the season by fulfilling his dying wishes and letting the world know he was a hero. He paralyzed her, but then he also clearly listened to her. He was also genuinely emotional. Her words did reach him and it is framed as him making a "selfless choice" even though it clearly is not.

I've also seen people say Adrien's reaction isn't necessarily acceptance of Gabriel's heroism since he might be trying to cope with his loss by convincing himself Gabriel was a hero, or that abused children often cannot recognize that their parent is not a good person. And I agree, but that is clearly not what is happening here. Adrien has already expressed disgust for who his father is, and it is possible for him to fall back onto old thoughts and feelings regarding him, but that isn't what's going on here. This here, is Adrien being fed a lie that his father was a good man and a hero by people he trusts. This is Adrien being told what to think and feel, because there are statues of Gabriel being erected and Ladybug spreading the word that he is a hero. This is Gabriel's abuse being erased to portray him as good. And Adrien, after spending the whole season working up to calling Gabriel out, ends the season with hoping to be like him.

And I've seen arguments about how episodes like Chat Blanc and Ephemeral were there to show us that Adrien facing his father isn't a good idea because his reaction makes him vulnerable, but then... why would you write that! Why would you set the protagonist up with this plot point only to write reasons to leave him out of his own plot and character arcs? What about that is good writing? It only makes this finale more deserving of critique! It is not the defense it's trying to be. It just shows they couldn't care less about their own narrative.

I get that this could lead to a potential arc about trust and honesty and all that, but... we've done that before. How many times will Marinette learn the same lesson? How many times will Adrien forgive her for it? How can you even forgive something like this? And even if it all comes to light, what purpose does this serve in anyone's arc? Gabriel is dead, so there's no consequences for him. Marinette has been "learning" the same lesson for two seasons now, and not even losing all the Miraculous made her stop keeping secrets. And what more does it contribute to Adrien's arc to have him learn the truth later rather than now? How does it add to his story to know that everyone he trusts lied to him? Nothing, if you think about it. It really takes away from his story, because he can no longer confront the man who did this to him, he can no longer get that closure, because Gabriel is gone! Sure, it'll be dramatic and all, but that's all it is! But that is how Miraculous operates: shock value and dramatic scenes over consistency and character arcs. Which is why characters like Marinette aren't allowed to retain the lessons they should have learnt ages ago, and characters like Adrien are actively pushed away from their arcs to make way for some other drama.

And this is me saying this while believing they aren't going to bring it up anyway. How many times have we seen this kind of thing happen? For a conflict to be set up only to be ended unceremoniously with no proper conclusion? What reasons are there to believe that the show will actually follow through with this plot? Other than speculation, I mean. I don't see any. The ending did not indicate that there was anything wrong with what happened. The seasons prior set up the conflicts for the next season in the finale episodes. In Season 3, we had Gabe fixing the Peacock and Marinette becoming the guardian. In Season 4, we saw Monarch rise and Marinette lose all the Miraculous. In Season 5, we see Lila get the Butterfly Miraculous and that light that scared her or whatever it was. But we never see any set up for this being a plot point. There is no point in which we are supposed to think this is wrong. A set up, for example, would be something like Marinette looking to the Gabriel statue with a frown, or Adrien feeling unsettled somehow. But there's nothing like that. For all intents and purposes, Gabriel is done and there are new threats to move on to. And removing all that stuff with Lila, it just seems like it could be a solid series finale. The conflict is over, all the characters are back and together and happy, the main couple kisses as the theme music plays in the back in a scene that's clearly the sort of scene used in the ending of a show, and no one even hints at anything being wrong. It's all audience interpretation, and quite frankly there's no real reason to believe it's setting up something. Something was already set up and it wasn't the thought that this ending is in any way flawed. It's a charming, idyllic ending where all the characters are clearly happy and content, basking in the end of Monarch.

And what he did is not clear at all. Did he not actually rewrite the world? It seems like he just traded his life for Natalie's (and Emilie's???? Is that her?), because Hawkmoth still existed here, the Alliance rings still exist, which means everything happened exactly how it did, and the only thing that's changed is that Natalie has recovered. But this just makes the "clearly something isn't right" argument less valid. This isn't Gabriel's "ideal world," which needs to be fixed, this is just the normal world, where there is a statue of Gabriel only because Ladybug told everyone he was a hero. The things that are being done are completely against everything Gabriel ever believed in, so clearly the world is not based on his ideals, and it hasn't been rewritten. So, the only one really responsible for Gabriel being seen as a hero is Marinette (this is not a criticism of Marinette btw, just the writing). This is just the normal world, and the only thing that needs to be "fixed" is that Marinette should tell the truth. But the writers clearly think that Gabriel is fully redeemed, so there isn't anything that needs to be fixed. So why would they address this plot point again? They have no reason to.

And if he did rewrite the world, then the writers just made Gabe rewrite everything and everyone's memories so that he didn't have to be held accountable by anyone, especially the son he abused. That's going to be even harder to fix.

Any resolution to something I don't believe will be resolved anyway will undoubtedly a side story or a minor plot point. Remember, this is the show which is notorious for setting up plot points only to do nothing with them in the end. Everyone was so hyped about the resolution to Luka discovering both Mari and Adrien's identities only for the writers to decide Kagami fit that role better and shittily write Luka out in one episode. Everyone was talking about how Luka keeping secrets would undoubtedly have massive repercussions only for no one to give a shit about it and simply write Luka out for a few episodes and have him come back with no consequence in the finale. And this is a pattern for this show.

All this to say that no, we're probably not going to address this. It hasn't happened before, and I doubt it will happen this time. I've tried to give this show chance after chance, but it never delivered, and I don't trust it to do so anymore. I'll take all this back gladly if it does deal with this conflict well, but as of right now, I feel very confident in putting this post up.

I am about to be so real.

I fucking hate DC comics.

Like have they given us Dick Graysons butt? Yes. Jason Todd’s thunder thighs? Yes. Damian being teeny tiny? Yes. Tim being a bi gremlin? Yes.

But you know the fuck what. I simply cannot get over their aversion to men having problems and like dealing with it in a healthy way. Why is modern Bruce literally the worst person ever?

And I don’t mean in WFA or fanfic or cute little cartoons. Why in the Batman Comic series is Bruce one of the worst people ever? Bruce “I care about kids who were hurt like me and want to try and give them a better life” Wayne has fully morphed into Bruce “Teehee I beat my children and blame them when sociopaths that I enable hurt them” Wayne.

Like literally fuck off. It’s not even just that. The whole Red Robin arc when Dick is just “wow my brother is having a really hard time. I’m gonna call him crazy, take away the thing that’s been helping him to stabilize and give it to someone who tried to kill him multiple times and is consistently verbally abusive towards him. That will be really good for him.”

Literally what the fuck. Don’t even get me started about tarantula or Damian dying or any interaction between Bruce and Jason.

Like I’m just so fucking tired of this company peddling media about how it’s normal and right to forgive people who habitually abuse you. How it normalizes unsafe and unstable relationships between men.

And a huge part of this is because they just write this shit for shock value. Like what horrible thing can we run these characters through and never talk about ever again just so people will talk about it. Remember that like 3 comic long shit show of Dick getting brainwashed by the fucking Joker? Like it’s literally Dick beating the shit out of his brothers and being like I don’t know you and I don’t care and then it’s just like haha back to normal everything is great now.

I fucking hate it. It’s bad writing, it’s an irresponsible narrative about how trauma effects men and I’m just tired.

I really do like the fandom too. I think DC fans have created a lot of safe spaces for queer people, people of color and people with disabilities. But so much of what the fandom runs on is just so far from canon. I know tons of people irl who have never read a release post new 52. And I know some people who have never read a DC comic period cause they saw a glimpse of the toxic waste in there and noped out.

Like I know I’m just some guy on the internet but seriously if your canon comic material is so bad that a very large portion of you fanbase feel they can’t read it or would rather write there own story that just completely changed your characters you need to take a long look at what you are producing. Dick maybe being bi in Gotham Knights is cool. The rep for a character that has been coded as queer for a very long time is cool. But representation is in fact second to writing a good story and having good characters and DC is failing spectacularly at both right now.

What you say to this

Let's debunk all the lies:

1 - "Kataang is one-sided" We literally hear Katara talk about how he gives her hope in the begining of EVERY SINGLE EPISODE, she canonically starts thinking of him as potential boyfriend instead of just a friend right in the middle of the first season (and after it we never see her having a crush on another boy like say Jet), the kiss on the cave at the start of season two is HER idea and she clearly enjoyed it, she is visibly upset when he's pulling away from her after Appa's kidnaping, her rage at his death is a clear parallel both to Tui and La as well as Oma and Shu, she is jealous when he's paying attention to other girls and flirting with him, she clearly liked the kiss during the Invasion even if she didn't see it coming, she threated to murder Zuko if he ever hurt Aang again, and even in the Ember Island fiasco she full on says to Aang that what her actress said about her only seeing him as a little brother is not true.

2 - "The age/maturity gap makes it weird" It's literally the same age gap as Zutara. It's TWO years, not twenty. Katara likes having fun and goofing around just as much as Aang does. Aang steps up and embraces his responsibilities just as much as she does when he discovers what the Fire Nation did to the world, and his people. Honestly, despite being older, Zuko is the least mature of all three - hell, 16-year-old Zuko is less mature than 13-year-old Zuko, which makes perfect sense because his abuse and banishment made him double down on all of his flaws, mainly his stubborness and tendency to lash out in rage.

3 - "They spent the second half of book 3 always fighting and disagreeing" They literally were only in conflict during The Southern Raiders, Ember Island Players, and then on the first episode of a four-part saga. Three episodes out TEN. Katara and Zuko meanwhile spent 5/6 of the entire series being enemies, AND she only forgave him when there was only ONE more episode left until the finale.

4 - "Zutara doesn't have any real red flags" Ya know, besides the fact that Zuko's nation and family commited genocide against Katara's people, and that he believed that was 100% okay, and that he chased her and her friends all over the world being openly hostile and violent, and he once hit her so hard it knocked her out cold, and he constantly calls her a peasant because he's very classist AND racist to the point of not recognizing her father's authority/status, and he attacked her when she offered to heal his uncle and then again in Ba Sing Se after she thought they had bonded, him helping Azula in battle was why she got to murder Katara's best friend and then he also sent an assasin after the Gaang to finish/repeat the job, and after all that he still felt entitled to her forgiveness after he was accepted into the group. Once again: this is why no one takes zutarians seriously. They love bragging about their ship being "complex and intriguing" then try to completely negate canon because for all their talk about "calling out abuse in Kataang/Maiko", they are, at their core, enablers.

5 - "Zutara was part of Ehasz's vision for book 4" No, it wasn't, and the man said so himself. He liked Mai and Maiko, and wrote lots of Kataang episodes. He has repeatedly let everyone know that the supposed interview in which he talks about how Bryke forced Kataang to happen at the last minute is FAKE.

6 - "We didn't get book 4 because Bryke wanted a movie" Bryke didn't really WANT the Shyamalan movie, but Nickelodeon, their bosses, wanted money. They literally walked out on the production because they were unhappy with it. They were OFFERED to make season four, but didn't feel it was necessary and stuck to three - and while I don't think that was the best choice, it still worked and it was a decision fully divorced from any movie deal or ship war.

7 - "People get angry at mention of zutara despite there being nothing wrong with the ship itself (besides not being canon)" Literally no one is obligated to like a ship just because YOU think it's perfect, and that kind of entitlement, the "I'm better/smarter than everyone else" complex, combined with all the lies, is exactly why people tend to hate the SHIPPERS and by extension the ship itself.

Admiting that zutara has always been pure fanon and that it isn't for everyone doesn't mean you have to stop liking it. Quit acting like a spoiled child, go enjoy your ship in peace, and respect other people's right to be indifferent to it or actively disliking it. Their personal preference is not a personal attack against you, stop treating it as such.

I start to feel like "how you treat characters doesn't reflect your beliefs" is not as absolute as I thought. Yes, sure, if you like a villain it doesn't mean you'd condone war crimes they did in real life. But you know what kind of treatment of fictional characters DOES reflect the person's beliefs?

When they use the logic of "ugh you only seek nuance and analyze this male character because you want to simp, you don't have to woobify an awful person you know" @ "how can you seek nuance and analyze this objectively flawed female character, she is irredeemable??".

Basically, they are admitting that the only reason they'd give a thought to someone is if they have an interior and frankly shallow motive. They admit that they only treat someone as a human being if they either find them sexy or if they personally like them platonically and by result wish to perceive them as perfect. From my experience these people DO project this mentality on real people too, not just characters. They will forgive the one they personally like for every objectively horrible thing, like, absolutely awful shit just gets glossed over. And worse yet, they forgive them uncritically. They simplify them into one dimensional being that can do no wrong even if they did EVERYTHING wrong, even if they hurt innocent people, same as they do with the nuanced, flawed (usually female) character they reduced to flat portrayal just because they liked this character.

As usual, the best way to deal with is to ask it back at them. When they accuse you of having shallow interior motive for analyzing a fictional character like a human being, simply ask them, "Is this the only reason why YOU would analyze a character fairly?". There is always hope that the doubt will be triggered.. you may not see the results just yet, but one day it could come back at them.

But yes, please pay attention to how they treat characters, because when we are discussing the issue of analyzing those written BASED ON human beings, there is no way to really avoid giving out how they REALLY treat the human beings. If you found a person screeching at you for digging into nuance of """irredeemable""" character and accusing you of simping, you've found a love-blinded enabler of people they like and overly judgemental bully of people they don't like. This is the person that is most likely to cover up their bully stalker friend or their abuser groomer partner or what else. AND this is the person that at the same time will try to ruin your life over the most dumb mistake if you failed to meet their attraction standards, romantically or platonically.

So, from what I can gather, Lily thinks:

A. Treating people horribly and committing heinous crimes is forgivable and ok, as long as you have trauma and other people have hurt you.

B. Everyone * magically except her* who has ever done bad things are actually just born evil and are only lying about being traumatized and abused ' for attention'.

C. You're only guilty of a crime if you confess to it. If you keep denying that you did it and blame other people for your own actions, the problem will magically go away.

She genuinely hasn't the faintest idea of how real adult humans work in the real world lol. This is such child-like thinking.

and that is another of the reasons why what Courtney said makes a lot of sense regarding the kind of person LO is now. if she has grown up having everything she did wrong dismissed because of her diagnoses, if she saw again and again her own father convincing everyone to not present charges for her, if her parents never did anything about the molestation going on even after Courtney told them about it, then LO basically was taught that she never has to face any consequences if she just doesn't want to. that there's always something else to blame, that's never her fault, that she never has to make ammends or apologize. if you have a child being taught that, then can you be really surprised when as an adult they think just sorta feeling bad about something is just good enough of a torture that they don't need to apologize? can you really be surprised when they think you even expecting or demanding an apology from them is abusive? they already felt bad! for two whole minutes even! how can that not be enough? what do you mean that she'd actualy need to take accountability? no, that's too hard. too difficult. better yet to deny everything and blame everything else on someone else. LO always had daddy to clean up the messes for her or enable her bad actions, so she never learned to just... don't do the messes in the first place.

cyclical violence & the dsmp finale

I’m seeing a lot of folks on Twitter interpret the DSMP series 1 finale as “can you believe they forced an abuse victim to befriend his abuser in the end, that’s so sick and tasteless!!” and after a bit of pondering (i.e. absolutely rabid conversations with @ringenthusiast) I think I’ve realized why that interpretation bothers me. Personally I find it extremely reductive to read DSMP as being solely about abuse rather than as a story in which abuse happens and is explored, but even if you’re only prepared to consume it solely as an abuse narrative, you absolutely must acknowledge that the story is about both interpersonal and systemic abuses, and moreover that it’s about how interpersonal and systemic abuse enable each other.

c!Tommy is a victim of horrific interpersonal abuse. c!Dream is a victim of horrific systemic abuse. c!Dream is the perpetrator of the interpersonal abuse c!Tommy suffers, and his abuse of c!Tommy is later continually used as a justification (both in canon and in fandom) for why c!Dream deserves to suffer systemic abuse. This isn’t a coincidence, it’s clearly a very well-planted and thoroughly developed overarching theme: abuse is cyclical. Abuse perpetuates itself. One type of abuse perpetuates and enables other forms of abuse. That’s the point.

There are plenty of examples of this theme being explored outside of the “Dream vs. Tommy” conflict -- the instance that immediately comes to mind is c!Quackity being treated terribly by c!Schlatt, only to turn around and torture an incarcerated person, ostensibly for profit but also presumably for personal enjoyment. Again, abuse is cyclical. This is actually why I think it’s really important that c!Tommy and c!Quackity are, in a sense, set up as foils for each other. c!Quackity makes the decision to become as bad as (if not worse) than his abuser, and that decision is a source of strength and agency for him even though the audience is expected to understand it as a downward spiral. c!Tommy’s approach is different, after he sees c!Dream’s perspective from limbo. It has to be different because c!Tommy is different.

It’s kinda wild to me that anyone could watch the DSMP finale (not to mention the past two years of the show) and not see the final interaction between c!Tommy and c!Dream as a representation of restorative justice. You are not obligated to fix, forgive, or offer redemption to someone who hurt you... but you are obligated to at least try to see them as a person, because the alternative can and will enable atrocities.

This is both a positive ending for c!Tommy and a very uplifting message to end series 1 on. Remember what I said earlier about c!Quackity and c!Tommy being narrative foils? Well, they certainly are, at least insofar as the theme of cyclical abuse is concerned. c!Quackity is an abuse victim who becomes an abuser. That’s an arc that makes sense for his character and personally, as a longtime c!Quackity stan I’m happy with it... but it would be super depressing if that was how every abuse plotline in the series turned out. The final interaction between c!Tommy and c!Dream offers an alternative outcome: that abuse victims are not obligated to forgive or attempt to understand their abusers, but in some cases it’s worth it to try. The abuse c!Tommy suffered makes him neurotic and angry and depressed and fearful and paranoid, but he never lets it make him unkind. He never becomes an abuser himself. The message is clear: abuse can be cyclical, but it doesn’t always have to be. You can break the cycle. The snake doesn’t always have to swallow its own tail.

That, to me, is an incredibly meaningful ending.

Being able to empathize with bad people is not a bad thing. Empathy does NOT equal endorsement. Being able to empathize with people is important in understanding how to prevent bad things from happening. Being able to empathize can be healing for many people. That does NOT mean that if you don't personally empathize with someone who has harmed you that you're a bad person. How you feel about your own personal experiences is completely valid. I think it's important to be allowed to feel how you feel. What I am saying is that it's not bad to understand why people are the way they are and to seek to understand other people. Someone is not an "abuse enabler" just because they can empathize with and understand how people end up as they are. Or can see alternative perspectives? Many people with trauma from abuse feel empathy for the people who've harmed them or find solace in recognizing that person was going through their own issues as well. I'm so sick and tired of whenever an abuser is portrayed as anything but am over villainized caricature people say it's romanticizing or simply having empathy for people who have done grave harm is seen as a bad thing. Sometimes it's not even being made to feel bad for people who have done bad but simply people with so called "evil thoughts or disorders"(great way to talk about people with intrusive thoughts or personality disorders by the way jackass) . It's not ever bad to empathize with people who've done wrong.

There's no limits to who you can empathize with.

None whatsoever

You can empathize with murderers, mass shooters, your abusive parents or partners, domestic abusers, rapists, child sexual abusers, child physical and emotional abusers, dictators, fascistic politicians, war criminals, animal abusers, cult leaders, people with personality disorders, or etc. , or cannibals, stalkers,wealthy people , cops ,or anyone for that matter fictional or not.

It doesn't mean you condone shit or endorse shit!!! And also half the time people aren't being called out for empathizing with people who've done bad but simply for people who've thought bad things(people with PDs or intrusive thoughts and shit). Don't say "thought crime doesn't exist" and then enforce thought crime. Humans are complex. And just because someone feels bad for someone who abused them or tries to see things from their point of view doesn't mean they're justifying or minimizing their abuse. Empathizing with bad people actually allows us to understand and prevent and build bridges. For some people that's their path towards healing is empathizing with and maybe even forgiving the people who've done them wrong and their path to recovery is none of your business.

If you don't empathize with bad people or don't care to or want to. That's fine. Again that's fine completely. It's not my place to tell you how to feel about the things that have caused you grave emotional distress. Never was and never will be. I'm just saying don't call the people who do empathize and who do explore that capacity. I've literally seen a professional child sexual abuse expert be called a "pedophile enabler" for trying toe explain his own research into the minds of people who've committed sexual offense against children. That's his literal job! yes it's good to empathize with bad or evil people. It's important. It's not wrong to do that. And unless you want to hang every criminal who you've decided should be hung building some sort of path to integration or healthy place to keep them locked away from society should be the standard.

I thought Lunatic's focus episode was really really good, which is largely why his ultimate fate leaves me so cold.

I felt like the focus ep did a good job of demonstrating how Yuri wasn't being literally haunted by an evil ghost--his hallucinations were a product of his own mind, his guilt and self-loathing. That's why the hallucination disappearing wasn't about forgiving Legend, but Yuri allowing himself to move on.

With both his parents, Yuri is tormented by hatred and love.

He wants Legend to be this evil boogeyman figure; he literally projects Legend as an evil boogeyman figure haunting him into his reality. But the boogeyman take on the situation isn't quite right--he had positive memories with his dad, he craved his father's love and affection, he wanted his father to get better and succeed when he was a boy. Yuri wishes he'd been too cool for it all and hated Legend for the pathetic, cruel man he ended his life as the whole time but he knows he didn't and that's part of why he's so disgusted with himself.

Somewhat similar situation with his mother. She helped enable the abuse and continued to rub salt in the wound after she developed dementia--she kept hurting him, and he wishes he could just stop caring but he can't. His inability to reconcile the suffering he experienced with the love and need for affection he can't stop feeling is what compounds his suffering.

His breakdown in his mother's pool of blood left me with this cathartic rawness. He'd finally been able to let go of his father's toxic identity (a literal legend) and let it stop haunting him, accept that he was only a man. It was like lancing an infected wound, draining the pus--an ugly, painful, necessary experience. It was great.

...and then he just kills himself because it would be too narratively complicated if he survived and the heroes are just like "aight." Fuck. Whatever.