#- sympathize with a character who act bad because of her traumas or at least not hate on her

[medusasea]

Rescue Deku Arc

I want to say I was hoping at one point there would be a rescue Deku arc. You can argue that the ending of his vigilante arc sort of was, since his friends saved him from himself, but I wanted one in which he gets kidnapped, specifically by AFO with AFO locking him up in a vault. Ironically, I also imagined AFO being a foil to Overhaul who tortured Eri and only saw her as a tool, I was imagining AFO going to start sympathizing with Deku and treating him unexpectedly humane for a prisoner.

Just the possibilities. AFO locks Deku in a vault because Yoichi is inside of him and AFO is possessive towards his brother like usual. Yoichi relieves his trauma but he gets character development. Midoriya can only rely in the other OFA users and they get more development. Class A-1 class and the teachers search desperately for their kidnapped friend. Inko is heartbroken, but she still has hope. Tomura doesn't have to worry about Deku, so he gets to terrorize more people.

Since AFO is also sympathetic in this version, Midoriya gets to hear more from his side of the story and realizes they are two sides of the same coin. Both AFO and Midoriya faced discrimination, Midoriya for being quirkless and later for looking creepy, AFO for having a quirk. Both of them inspire people. Both of them worked hard to become powerful. Both of them have multiple quirks and are good at analyzing them. Both of them are very observant. Both of them love their families and care about their comrades, it's just that AFO expresses it in an unhealthy way. Midoryia inspires to be the number 1 hero, while AFO used to want the same, until society broke him, so he decided to become number 1 villain as revenge. At first Deku is extremely skeptical, but Yoichi confirms that AFO did indeed wish to be number 1 hero in his youth, or at least he doesn't deny it.

Given how vague Yoichi's introduction to Deku was, I was hoping Deku would become a little suspicious on why Yoichi didn't tell when him when exactly AFO started his villainy, especially his murders, how AFO acted and how their life was before Yoichi's imprisonment and Yoichi didn't even tell his own name. I was hoping the manga would go on the route that AFO used to be good until he turned to villainy and that Yoichi and the rest of the OFA users didn't tell Deku those details out of fear, but doing so made everything worse, since Deku feels like they might be hiding even more and he feels disappointed.

Considering how people with quirks were treated during AFO's time, catastrophes were happening anyway, I thought it would've been clever if a plot twist was that AFO wasn't as bad towards the people he made deals with as Yoichi claimed. A vague vague statement "dispose of them" that Yoichi used can mean many things. I wasn't expecting AFO to be blameless, I was in fact expecting him to have indeed abandoned certain people in times of need, but that doesn't mean he went out of his way to harm them. For him to abandom them, they would have to be in a bad situation. Again, society discriminated against those with quirks and their allies, I expected society to have killed or injured many of them, with the worst that AFO did being choosing to not save all of them. Perhaps not even out of selfish reasons, maybe he had a plan to change the system and considered that saving those people would hinder his plan, so he chose to not save them for the greater good. I would also add AFO being traumatized after the first time he gave someone many quirks and destroyed their brain in the process. he tried to save the person, but failed.

He only imprisoned Yoichi after the latter not only stood up to him, but also called his intentions evil. We know that AFO's group ended up killing another that refused to join them, but they were actually evil, or at least AFO's group thought so. AFO didn't ask nor manipulate his own people into doing this, in fact, they are the ones who convinced him that it was the right choice. Had the second and third user not fought against him, AFO wouldn't have fought them either, but they not only stand up to him, they also assume the worst and steal his brother away. AFO finally snaps completely and decides that if everyone will treat him like a demon lord, he might as well act like one.

I am not condoning AFO locking Yoichi up, it's just that in this version AFO is a well-intentioned extremist who rationalizes his acts. He is also as mentioned far less of a monster and has more standards, had the (first few) OFA users not intervened, it still wouldn't be pretty, but he wouldn't have been as bad as him becoming the symbol of evil. Also, because of the OFA users AFO didn't keep his position of power, which is actually for the better, but had they not called him Demon Lord and had they tried to understand him, he would've actually gone way easier on them, though he still would've oppressed them and he likely wouldn't have given up without a fight. In this version he also never really got to rule over entire Japan, but had he, he would've been a dictator, albeit not nearly the worst.

Deku fears AFO might be in the right, or at least he fears he could've ended up like him if his life was different. AFO sees this and sees potential into turning the boy to the dark side, but he refuses. At the same, AFO sympathizes with Deku' pain, especially since he went through similar experiences, and feels respect for Deku for putting actual effort into understanding him and not just assuming the worst like every other hero. So AFO is hesitant to further hurt Deku.

Also, because why not? Have All Might retain his powers again. I know some people might dislike this, since they want for AFO and All Might to stay retired for the sake of the theme of passing the torch, but in this version AFO kept his promise of passing the torch to Tomura. AFO escaped prison, but he does smaller work at the moment. As for All Might, he gets entirely focused on saving Midoriya, so he doesn't really return as the number 1 hero, not for anyone else besides Deku anyway. Also, I don't plan for this to be the final arc in my reimagining (I don't know if I will ever write down an entire story though, I might simply limit myself to ideas, rather than a complete plot). So while All Might is back, the torch still (mostly) belongs to Deku. All Might also hears about AFO's past and is even more shocked than Midoriya.

This post turned out even longer than expected and I could go on even longer. You can disagree with this reimagining, but I personally love stories where the protagonist gets kidnapped, especially if they are competent fighters.

[im-out-of-it]

“Before you die?” Ari hissed. “Is this a way to honor Christopher?”

Rage flashed across Anna’s face- rage directed at herself, Ari guessed. “I couldn’t protect him. I wasn’t ready for an attack. But at least I can stand against these creatures now-”

“No,” Ari said. “The responsibility for Christopher’s death is belial’s. They are a horror, the watchers, because of whose bodies have been possessed. But Chimeras are just demons. Like any other demons. They are the instruments of Belial, and it is belial we must defeat.”

ok so we’re still not taking accountability?

1. Cordelia had no business being there. she doesn’t have a weapon and she’s not enough of a scary person to terrify Tatiana. she’s one of the reasons Kit is dead. he moved to save her and selfish Cordelia can’t even have gratitude or grieve the man who saved her life. (I literally never once heard or say or think about Kit. it’s always poor james and I guess Matthew too)

2. why did you not think a fight wouldn’t ensue? Tatiana came into the institute, ready to kidnap and as we all know would have killed a child. A CHILD. A TODDLER. YOUR BROTHER ANNA. like does everyone forget that little Alexander almost died? it’s probable he’s going to have that trauma for the rest of his life. why would you think James could reason with her? she’s literally yelling for y’all to come outside and it’s definitely not happy or pleasant yelling lmao

3. when has anyone had one peaceful conversation with Tatiana? I’m sorry but if anyone should know what she’s capable of, it should be Anna.

(also Thomas is the one that should’ve been there)

I emphasize and sympathize for Anna but why didn’t anyone tell Cordelia she should’ve stayed inside with Grace? I can’t stand Grace most of the time but at least she actually helped and didn’t worsen matters

yes Belial is responsible BUT STOP ACTING LIKE ITS ONLY HIM. TATIANA KNEW WHAT SHE WAS DOING FROM DAY ONE. she’s wanted Gabriel’s and gideons children to suffer as well as them. doesn’t make sense but when does a CC story make sense?

we’re putting the blame on the wrong people here- and I’m not saying belial isn’t at fault because he definitely is but let’s actually look at the people who share the blame. Belial wasn’t threatening Tatiana with all the fucked up shit she accomplished. she wanted her brothers to suffer as well as Will, Jem, and the fairchilds. but I think she hates her brothers the most. I seriously don’t get why anyone didn’t say “ummmm Cordelia you can’t lift a weapon without the mother of demons showing up so what help could you be?”

I’m not even trying to be rude but Cordelia acts like she’s the toughest warrior there is. girl, what are you using????? definitely not your brain. or when she thought she could reason with a demon lmao I’m sorry but any character arc went through the window when CC started this Lilith stuff. bad enough we had to deal with some of it in TMI but let’s just reuse and recycle storylines because that’s fun

CORDELIA IS AT FAULT SINCE SHE HAD NO BUSINESS BEING THERE

YOU CANNOT REASON WITH A MAD WOMAN WHO IS DETERMINED TO HAVE HER REVENGE

TATIANA IS AN INSTRUMENR BELIAL USED BUT A LOT OF HER ACTIONS IS ON TATIANAS HAND. BARBARA CHRISTOPHERS DEATH IS ON HER HANDS AS WELL AS TORMENTING ALEXANDER AND JESSES DEATH IS ON HER HANDS

I’m not saying that everyone should blame Cordelia but there definitely needed to be some accountability. seriously stop blaming a prince of hell for everything. this discussion with Ari makes no fucking sense. and what makes me mad is that all Cordelia is worried about is James.

CHRISTOPHER DESERVED BETTER

[just-a-little-unionoid]

Okay but honestly that's on you if you didn't get that Félix had an objective in mind from the begining? Cuz like, personally I totally saw it? Arguably I was wrong about the actual objective, I thought he just wanted the rings (I had a theory about it, which was that they were the Gemini Miraculous, and he wanted them both because of that and also just bc they were family heirloom), and it turned out it wasn't exactly wrong but I was wrong on the reason. Anyway, point is that in the very first episode he had reasons for what he did, and the title itself was an extradiegetical clue about him being the actual villain of the episode, not the trio or Hawkmoth, meaning that there was something deeper.

I have to admit the whole senti thing feels rushed and not thought through from the start, I won't deny it, like I said I had a whole theory about all of this (in which Félix and Adrien where still magical boys but from a different miraculous, without mind control)

Frankly not telling LB was dumb but that's not necessary bad writing, from what we know to this day (again, could not have been that was intended at first) he's a traumatized teenager and saw multiple times LB and CN kill people like him, I would say it's not inconsistant that he didn't want to tell them he and his cousin were Sentis.

That's literally just not true, the main antagonist is a man, and he won't get any redemption. You can't say with a straight face that male and female characters are treated differently about redemption when you literally have Gabriel out there currently dying for his crimes, when he also had numerous chances to stop and he didn't. And don't tell me there are more antagonists female characters bc frankly, beside Félix, how much male villains are redeemed? The whole story is female driven, of course there are more female antagonists.

And like I would get you point if much more male antagonists were redeemed when female one were not, in proportion I mean, but it's just not the case 🤷

Also sorry I've seen the last two episodes out and "actively discourage anyone from sympathizing with Chloé"? Agree to disagree on that. It's very clear that the girl suffer a lot, and to me it doesn't seem like any kind of "Karma", you're supposed to feel bad for her. She was also sympathetic in season 2 and 3, so why would be the point if not for us to sympathize?

Listen, I get that this show is overall poorly written, but still give the writers some credit? If you sympathize with Chloé it's mostly because you were meant to. They gave explicit and implicit reasons why she is like she is, she's not just evil for the sake of it, but there are also reasons why her and Félix act differently, they don't have the same traumas at all, they are also just not the same characters, why would they even remotely act the same? (and again they're not telling the same story)

Also Félix was never exactly a bully? He was mean but that was mostly to get people akumatized, at no point he made people suffer just for the bit ?

Well, I hear you but my point still is that it's not a good reason. I stand on my positions about treating them so differently (in one post appart, could have as well be the same) is a huge double standard and very hypocritical.

Pretty sure he was calling them that not just for being Chloé stans but for harassing him about being mean to her like she was an actual person. You can like a character without being weird about it, you can like a character without trying to excuse all their bad actions.

Again that's your opinion, maybe you find him unlikeable (which people also think about Chloé but here you don't want to hear that anyway), but some people do. I personally sympathize a lot with an autistic and borderline coded teenager who does shit because of his traumas. You don't have to, but don't act like your experience is universal.

Also I can be wrong but I don't really think that's what OP was talking about anyway

If you feel bad for Andre or Felix, GTFO off my page.

[esther-dot]

I'm almost certain of at least one thing. They won't villainize or take Sansa's crown away from her. If anything, HotD has demonstrated one thing. Hbo/the writers are too afraid of being called misogynists, and despite everything they did with Sansa's storyline in got, they did present her coronation as a triumphant moment. So while I do believe they may play with certain tropes I dislike (Sansa being annoying blah blah blah), I doubt they would ever take her power away from her for the sake of a man, even if that man is Jon Snow. No doubt they would still mess up with a lot of other things tho lol

“I doubt they would ever take her power away from her for the sake of a man, even if that man is Jon Snow”

I agree that they wouldn’t take her crown away, but in s8 they tried to act like Sansa breaking her promise to keep Jon’s parentage a secret was unforgivable while a little mass murder by Dany was bad but... understandable? As in, they never allowed Sansa to explain her actions, they never tried to get the audience to sympathize, but they spent all season trying to paint the woman who came to Westeros specifically to wage war as a victim. Missandei’s death was inserted for the sole purpose of getting people to side with Dany, but they couldn’t grant Sansa a decent length convo to explain any of her reasonable, correct, fears and choices.

They sacrificed Jon on the Dany altar as well, so it’s easy to think this is only a Dany centric issue, not misogynistic thing, but there was no indication that Jon had made a mistake, we didn’t get a good, solid critique of Jon’s choices, and that’s why, for someone like me, the sequel fills me with fear. The sequel wouldn’t be Dany-centric, it would be Jon-centric, and unless set entirely beyond the Wall, Jon would very likely end up in some sort of conflict with Sansa. On the one hand, I love! Their arguments are great tv! On the other, it’s only good if Sansa’s concerns and her side of the issue is given the same weight as Jon’s, and I sincerely doubt they would be.

So, no, I don’t worry they’d take her crown, but I do worry that if it is picking up relatively soon-ish after the end of GoT, they’d focus on Jon’s resentment that Sansa broke her promise and not allow her to point out that he lied to the North about why he bent the knee and that he ignored her warnings and led their men into a massacre. That he broke trust with her before she did with him. I think it would be amazing to dive into their mutual grievances, but there’s like, a 2% chance of that happening unless there’s a jonsa on the writing team. 😂 As you can imagine, I therefore think any new challenges, (grievances the FF have against the Northerners that Jon may take up with Sansa, perhaps?) would present Jon as the self-sacrificing good guy without doing justice to Sansa’s stance.

It isn’t that I need show Jon or Kit to feel one way or another about Sansa, it’s that Sansa was the most coherent character in the later seasons, she had the best ending, not because she ended up in power, but because it fit with the beginning of the story and her arc rather than feeling slapped on/contradictory. Any interactions she might have with Jon in a sequel have the potential to be played the same way her disagreements with Jon in GoT were. She is ultimately correct but the narrative never presents her with the sympathy it does Jon, and that, even if they don’t strip her of a title, undermines her ending (for me).

I also have to say, I love Jon and Sansa as individual characters. My love for them isn’t contingent on a ship. Despite Jon’s failures on s7-8, I still love him, I would still like to see him heal and be happy. I do not like the dismissal of his trauma simply because he is a man. However, the choice to make Jon KitN in s6 and Sansa QitN in s8 means that we are in a pickle. Jon having kids was referenced enough in s7 that some fans still believe Dany was pregnant. Even after they were done teasing Targ restoration, in s8 we have that scene of Jon finding out Gilly is preggers, so again, the idea of Jon having kids was put into the scripts/Kit’s mind. He wants that for Jon. I assume that getting Jon’s happy ending is what this sequel series is about. But, Jon can’t have kids without it being a threat to Sansa unless they are Sansa’s kids too. Even if the show takes place beyond the Wall and his love interest is a FF woman, his children are a threat to Sansa and her kids. I don’t know that they care about that though. The politics became such a joke in the end of GoT, I don’t feel sure that they’d focus on realities beyond Jon’s feelings. Even as a Jonsa, I don’t hate the possibility of Jon finding happiness with a different women (theoretically) because I care about him. What I do hate as a Sansa fan, is that there’s no guarantee they care about or respect her (and her ending) enough to protect it.

Also, I didn’t watch HOTD, but from what I’ve gleaned, the fear of appearing sexist hasn’t kept HBO / the writers from still delivering pretty sexist content. It sounds like they don’t want their female characters to intentionally be evil, but they still don’t mind fridging them or having them be sexually harassed/ abused. IMO, that’s trying to protect themselves, not showing any deeper understanding or care for their female characters. And if anything, it looks to me that they’re more dedicated than ever to whitewashing Targaryens which is a major problem.

Anyway, my disinterest in the sequel doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy other people’s excitement for it and I will continue to engage with/support that, but I don’t trust HBO. It would be lovely to have a great sequel that rights some GoT wrongs, but I don’t think there was a sea change. Kit and Co. could surprise me tho!

[chuunijianghuyuri]

The only moment in Heaven's Feel that makes sympathizing with Matou Sakura a bit difficult for me personally is the moment where she takes her own worst pain and decides to inflict it upon her own older sister. There's various moments within the route where she is jealous and inflicts violence out of jealousy, spiteful, and other emotions commonly seen as negative. All of her moments are understandable or can be understood by the reader even if one argues of course that she shouldn't have done some of those things, and all but I'd argue one in my mind can also even be easily sympathized with as well.

One of the most common cruelties in society, or at least the parts that I'm aware of, is taking the very same traumatic experiences that have been inflicted onto you and proceeding to inflict them onto others, perhaps with the mindset that if you went through it then so should them and everyone else around you. Some of the other worst cruelties in society are of course rape and incest. In one of the bad endings of Heaven's Feel, in Matou Sakura's jealousy and spiteful rage towards her sister who she sees as unfairly having a better life than her and taking her only love of Emiya Shirou away from her, she rapes her own older sister so that she can experience the same pain that she's had with her older brother and her grandfather's magical worm antics. It is easily the cruelest moment in the entire visual novel, I can't think of anything that comes close, and it is also the least sympathetic even if one understands why they did it. Where Tohsaka Rin discovers her bisexuality with two people she feels fondness towards including Saber in her somewhat surprise in a consensual manner in the Fate route, Matou Sakura perhaps even fittingly discovers her bisexuality via sexually violating her sister in what she is surprised to be feeling pleasure out of and similar to how her older brother has sexually violated her for so long.

It is for many people, very understandably so, always going to be difficult to try to sympathize with a character that is a rapist, let alone an incestuous rapist, because of the severity of the act in real life and the trauma that many carry with them from their own experiences and those of others that they know of. Even in just a bad ending that one might never reach, it is much harder to sympathize with her when it is there, and being fully aware that is one of the many timelines and possibilities that can occur with said character under the right conditions. Even then with the given themes of Heaven's Feel, I think that the reader should still try to sympathize with the character and understand why they do the things that they do as a whole even if they can understandably never sympathize with the act or even other acts throughout the story. It seems to me as more significant and valuable to try to sympathize with and understand what she's going through and why she does things that can at times be cruel, rather than condemn them entirely based off of one possibility or her other spiteful acts.

[coruscant-cosmonaut]

If I'm honest, I find it disappointing that B*lly has become the poster boy for the Stranger Things fandom lacking empathy for characters handling trauma poorly. Because there is an issue with it, but...uh...he is the worst example of it? Like ever? Like, by season:

Even in season 1, we have Lucas clearly struggling with the stress of Will going missing. He wants to find his friend, he feels like he's being manipulated and his friends care more about a stranger than Will. In my mind it's like, of course he'd be upset! But there are people to this day who still hate him for being rude to El.

Season 2 is just the spawn point thousands of traumas.

Nancy lashes out at Steve because she's traumatized by Barb's loss and everyone, including him, is ignoring that. The fandom calls her a bitch - hell, I even saw a post saying she abused him!

Mike is traumatized by watching El - in his mind - literally being vaporized and dying inches from his face. Probably also, I don't know, from nearly dying when he threw himself off a cliff. Yet there was so little sympathy from fans when he didn't want Max in the party (which is entirely reasonable, by the way! He was rude about it, but Dustin and Lucas were entirely unfair for only half letting Max in, knowing it put her in danger.) People who do give him slack don't at all acknowledge his suffering - even wanting him to go back to this era.

Max herself! She'd just been hauled across the country, isolated to her abusive family. And I still saw a lack of sympathy.

In season 3 and 4 Mike is massively struggling. He's an insecure teen in his first relationship. He's not even a year out from believing he watched El die. And you don't expect him to be a little concerned when people are asking her to use her powers willy nilly again? To worry she won't need him in season 4? For fucks sake! People have that worry in normal, non-super power relationships.

Let's not even get into Will. People seem to be of two mind with him. The truth is, he was immensely self-centered and selfish in season 3 and 4. I sympathize with his struggle, but it was rude to constantly nag Lucas and Mike when they were clearly upset and entitled to expect Mike to do all of the work to connect with him after the move.

But he's not the goddamn devil! He's a traumatized kid trying to get back to normal. Yet people seem to act like admitting his behavior was bad is the same as calling him evil - either refusing to admit it and boiling him down to a poor innocent baby or treating him like the single worst person in existence.

And finally, Lucas. Again. If anyone tells me he "abandoned his friends" I will bite them. Or at least block them. He didn't want to be bullied and he finally found a way to not be! More over, Lucas actually seem to enjoy basketball. Imagine watching him find a new hobby and explore it, his friends shoot it down and even mock him for it, and then decide "yeah, Lucas is the bad guy." Good lord.

And I'm sure people could find more. But yes, the person that really needs to be defended is the racist abuser. The one the creators have gone out of their way to say is a racist abuser. I could turn this into a whole rant about how protagonists are held to impossibly high standards, especially compared to antagonists, but that's another post.

[showtoonzfan]

TRIGGER WARNING: MENTIONS OF SEXUAL ABUSE, ADDICTION AND ASSAULT

As much as I dislike to admit it, Angel Dust is NOT a one note character. It’s clear he has layers to him, there’s been so much information on him personality wise and as a character over time, and his deeper side is something that Viv wants to explore in the show.

However, yes this is going to sound petty, but I really hope someone ESLE writes him because the way Viv handles his character is not for me. Like I’ve said before, I’ve restrained myself from talking about Angel since he’s a hefty subject (and the most popular in the fandom and I don’t want rabid fans at my neck) but I still would like the take the time to discuss his issues just a tad, though this’ll be short. The truth is I don’t think Viv can handle someone as deep as he seems to be. He’s a character who’s abused, an addict, a murdering psychopath with a twisted sense of humor, a character who doesn’t show his deep feelings to others, a person who while loves his work, the fame and attention he has, he feels trapped it seems at the same time, there’s just.....a LOT to him. While I think Viv overcompensates him WAAAAY too much, he still deseves to be written well, especially since a lot of people look up to him for being a gay man struggling. The issue is simply that he’s written by Viv. In the pilot, he’s an annoying, obnoxious, unlikable hyper sexual douchebag who spouts sex jokes every second, and every time I see him I want to get the raid and spray it till the damn can is empty. He seems to be treated as a joke and not at the same time, but for the pilot, it’s definitely a joke. As someone who’s followed Viv for a long time and seen her livestreams, she clearly thinks liking dick is funny, and spouting sex jokes is peak comedy. It seems she takes how Angel acts regularly as a pawn, making him the comic relief character but also this predatory hyper sexual dude and it’s disgusting. And no, not that he’s in HELL it’s disgusting, it’s disgusting because he’s gay and portrayed as someone making sex jokes every 5 seconds and it doesn’t make me like him, it makes me annoyed. Like I said, Angel has layers and there’s more to him as seen in the pilot, but the persona he puts on is still that of a stereotype. She’ll use him as a joke and then suddenly tell us to get serious because he has a pimp who physically and sexually abuses him, and it’s just all done sloppily. Like all of this is happening to him and yet we have to laugh when he flirts with other characters and cracks sex jokes? And then we’re supposed to feel bad for him when he’s clearly a horrible person with barley any redeeming qualities? Because I’m sorry, I don’t feel bad for him, or at least I can’t sympathize with him fully because of how shitty he acts. Not to mention all the fan service that doesn’t even collide with what she’s trying to get across with his character. One moment he’s a deep troubled character, then he’s an UWU hot boy who likes sex so laugh and drool at him please. It’s just so much, I don’t even think Viv knows what she WANTS his character to be because he seems to flip flop all the time.

But for now, that’s all I’m saying. I just hope someone else will write him, someone who knows how to write characters with trauma, complex characters, and especially GAY characters, because not every gay person talks about how much they like dick every 5 seconds. You can feel free to disagree with me, I’m not going to argue but please do NOT harass me in the comments. You can feel free to voice your opinion on Angel Dust though, thank you.

[stillness-in-green]

What's your opinion about eri? I mean, she's cute and pitiful, but does she seem... bland, at some points? I don't know how to put it in words but, like from writing good characters point of view, rather than the good, nice person point of view, or something?

She’s boring. Boring! My god. She’s cute and all, but with only very rare exceptions, she’s cute in the way that a stuffed animal is cute—harmless, an object to be acted upon, something to be plucked, somewhat worse for wear, out of a garage sale and taken home and cleaned up, then put on the bed to sit there and look cute and be periodically cuddled.

That’s overstating things somewhat, obviously, but I think Eri was at her most interesting when she was at her most difficult—and she was never really all that difficult.

(Hit the jump for more about the wrinkles Eri introduced in the "saving" narrative, her parallels with Shigaraki, and the impact of her powers on the story.)

So, as I said, Eri was never really all that challenging for Deku personally, but at least back in her origin arc, we had the idea that she was difficult for the heroes to reach because she couldn’t bring herself to believe that being “saved” was a possibility for her, because Overhaul had firmly established himself in her mind as just too strong to fight. She tried to run away, of course, but she never confronted him directly, because doing so was useless, so that was the mentality she had when anyone else confronted him as well.

I liked the approach that before heroes could save her, they needed to make her believe that saving her was even within their capabilities. I liked even more that, even after they got her out of there, they immediately ran into the problem that just because they got her out didn’t mean they’d addressed her trauma. There’s fantastic nuance to the idea that a hero can get someone out of immediate danger, but if the person they saved is just dumped right back into a bad situation, or into a freefall with no social safety net, the hero has done nothing but stave off an inevitable situation where that person gets themselves into trouble again—maybe a trouble they need once more to be saved from, or maybe a trouble that now involves saving others.

The big problem with Eri is that she was just so…Easy Mode. She was easy to sympathize with because she was little and cute and wounded (but in a clean way). She wasn’t angry and disillusioned like Kouta was. She was never creepy and covered in blood and smiling in a weird way like Tenko was. She was tattered and hurt-looking enough to make viewers want to take care of her, but not so much so that she became uncomfortable to look at. Possibly because Overhaul is a clean freak, she was never dirty or grubby; she had those big doe eyes and a perpetually sad or scared face, rather than being angry or—what seems more likely for her situation—completely shut down emotionally. There’s basically no one who could reasonably look at her and think, “I don’t know; I don’t know if trying to rescue that person is worth our time and effort.”

Compare this to victims like Tenko: also a child, but one who looked off-putting enough that people kept shying away from him. Or try Bakugou instead: older, less sympathetic, so he got hints dropped by a reporter that he might have gone villain already and no longer needed to be “saved.” This scales all the way on up to e.g. the Noumu, the all-out villains, the masses of the PLF, and so on.

One of the things that strikes me as most interesting about Eri from a narrative perspective is how clearly saving her serves as a prelude to saving Shigaraki. From manifesting (alleged) quirk mutations that lead to them killing their parents, to being picked up, abused and manipulated by villains, all the way from rejecting heroes’ attempts to save them despite how obviously they need it down to their very coloring, Eri was obviously a dry run for Shigaraki. She therefore serves as a highly useful comparison point for how things are liable to go with Shigaraki.

The trouble for me is that there’s no middle ground there. Eri is the version of Shigaraki who’s nice and sweet and easy to save, who doesn’t lash out, whose ignorance or warped understanding of morality and social norms goes no further than the extremely on-the-nose “doesn’t know how to smile.” Her issues all basically get resolved in the space of a school concert, with no further plot time dedicated to e.g. her long-term housing situation, her schooling, or her upbringing outside of training her quirk.(1)

That by itself makes her not as interesting as she would be if the horrific situation she was rescued from were allowed to influence her in more realistic, ongoing ways, but it’s particularly annoying because it makes her—well, not even much of a dry-run for Shigaraki, either.

I’ve seen people suggest that Eri isn’t the preview for Shigaraki, but rather the Good End of Shigaraki: the version that suggests that children like Tenko are not beyond help if they’re helped in time. I don’t think that’s Horikoshi’s intent myself,(2) as there’s far too much of the series’ overall tone riding on the matter of saving Shigaraki, but I can understand why some people who don’t care about the villains might get to that conclusion, because there’s so little bridge between them, so little that points in the direction from Eri towards Shigaraki.

Deku is thick-headed. It’s clear at this point that he doesn’t see this stuff until it’s shoved in front of him while someone yells in his ear about it, ideally while crying. I suspect that’s why we have Crying Inner Five-Year-Old Tenko, because Deku and/or the narrative has been so bad at establishing a continuous line between where Eri was when heroes saved her and where Shigaraki is now. Thus, instead of a line that points from Eri to Shigaraki, Vision!Tenko becomes a line that points backwards, as if Deku hasn’t matured in his understanding of how to save people at all.

I wish it didn’t have to be that way, and one way we might have had a Deku who didn’t need that psychic vision would have been an Eri who was a little bit farther down Shigaraki’s road to begin with.

On the other big consideration with Eri, her power and the role it will play in the narrative, I have less to say. I used to be extremely concerned that she would be used to rewind Shigaraki back to his child self (which is, to quote a webcomic, “just a complicated way of annihilating the person [he] is today”), but I don’t really think that’s on the table at this point. Her ability to rewind people is tied to her horn, a finite resource, and going by how much it shrank when all she did was rewind Mirio six months, the amount of it growth she would need to rewind Shigaraki 16+ years is just not something I think is feasible.

Also too, there’s been no indication thus far that people who get rewound lose their memories of the intervening period, and what has it actually fixed in Shigaraki’s psychology if you just put his current mindset back in the body of a five-year-old, probably against his wishes?

That just leaves the prospect of healing fatal wounds, and while that’s possibly an option, it would be so time-consuming that you’d quickly run into the same problem—if she had a good build-up she could help a number of people whose injuries were all relatively recent, or one person who’d been out of commission for some time, but until the heroes figure out what her accumulation condition is,(3) they’re stuck waiting for her horn to build up naturally. She might have one more major play in the story, but it’s going to have be either saving one person on very recently injured with the little horn she has available right now, or it’s going to be in the epilogue, and either way, I’m not expecting her to come in and handwave Shigaraki back to harmlessness.

That, of course, is setting aside the fact that keeping Eri around for no reason but that her quirk is potentially convenient for the heroes is only less dehumanizing than what Overhaul was doing to her because the heroes aren’t literally enacting medical torture on her in the meantime. Seriously, let that girl find something—anything—else to do with her life. It’d go a long way towards helping flesh her out as a character beyond the sad waif who needs to be made to smile again because no one likes it when cute girls aren’t smiling or the heal spam button whose only relevance to the plot is who she’s undoing consequences for today.(4)

Aside: ...I am, it must be said, somewhat annoyed at the idea that Mirio needed his powers back to be a hero. Jesus wept, guys, he’s a third-year high school student who fought Overhaul solo for five full minutes while protecting a helpless child, possibly still under the effects of a quirk wreaking havoc on his sense of equilibrium, and quirkless. I’m not saying it’s bad for him to want his quirk back, or bad for Eri to want to restore him, but why in god’s name was someone that good at fighting ever pulled out of the Hero course? Fuck’s sake. He could never have gotten his quirk back at all and he would still have been, exactly as Nighteye predicted, as fine a hero as any.

Thinking about it takes me right back to one of my early objections to the entire premise of Deku as a character: "Wait, why would he need a super-power to be a hero? Hasn't the author ever heard of [long list of American superheroes who fight crime with entirely mundane talents and abilities]?" I got past that question for Deku because the legacy power plotline is more interesting anyway, but I shouldn't have needed to get past that question for Mirio because Mirio would have been a goddamn amazing way to address the entire setting's belief that people are defined by the quirks, for better or for worse, and a great way to challenge Midoriya to continue deepening his understanding of what it means to be a hero.

---

1: I mentioned this once before in, I want to say, one of the MVA In Memorium posts, but it’s striking that Eri is reassured by even the main character that her quirk is kind and gentle, rather than Deku reassuring her that she is herself a good person. Person and quirk are completely conflated, and while I’m sure it was a nice thing for Eri to hear in the moment, what with Chisaki having tried to pour so much poison in her ear about how cursed her quirk was (more, one suspects, to keep her easy to handle than because Overhaul himself believed such spiritualistic nonsense), it becomes a lot more problematic when you consider that Eri is staying at the school entirely on the understanding that Aizawa and the rest are helping her train her quirk. Absolutely no mention is given to the rest of her development as a human being and citizen of the world.

2: Largely because, “Every victim has an expiration date, and if they don’t get saved or somehow manage to save themselves before then, too bad; now they have to die,” is a monstrous read on the material and its genre.

3: Hmm. I wonder if there’s someone the heroes could ask about that. Someone they have in custody and who has something he very badly wants that it wouldn’t hurt anyone to grant him in exchange for his knowledge of the workings of Eri’s quirk. No? Oh, well. Guess everyone’s just going to have to suffer in the meantime.

4: RIP all lasting consequences of the Overhaul arc; you were nice while we had you.

[scandalsavagefanfic]

Hello! I am a huge fan of ur writing. I've loved everything I've read of yours. I've read alot of what you've posted, except for a couple of the tags that are squicky for me (so I'm very thankful you tag very thoroughly). No judgement for the squick, it's just not for me. & when I'm having a bad day, I usually just go thru ur ao3 and find something to reread. I think about Therapy's Bruce & Jason every damn day. While I obvs appreciate ur darker more "problematic" content (I really vibe with some of the themes you write about bc of my own trauma, & so it's very cathartic to read about in a fictional setting), I am truly a sucker for ur more happy content. The Happily Ever After verse also lives in my head rent free. Idk more wholesome stuff just seems more special when you write it. Anyways. I would die for you. But the point of this ask is cause I'm curious as to why you don't like Urban Legends? I'm sorry if you already talked about it here or on twitter and I missed it. I was just wondering because I really enjoy your take on things and would love to hear why you dislike it. I've been enjoying it so far personally, but I am always open to DC comics criticism.

Aw thank you so much! I'm so flattered by everything you just said. You're so sweet ❤❤❤❤❤

I haven't talked about Urban Legends here or twitter (I haven't been very active in either place lately. Just a lot going on and no energy 😔) but I'm happy to do it here.

Before I start though, I just want to add a standard disclaimer and make it clear that if you like it, there's nothing wrong with that and you don't have to let me ruin it for you lol. Like what you like.

That said, since you asked...

I said this when I was talking about it on discord, that there is a difference between hope and expectation. I always hope that a new story centered on Jason (or anyone really, but things have been especially egregious for Jay for 15 years) will be good or at least treat the character with a minimal level of respect (to be honest, the bar is super fucking low). But my expectations always temper my hope, to keep it from getting unrealistic. Because my expectations are based on experience.

The long history of Jason Todd, since even before his resurrection, has been one of retroactively trying to make him "a bad seed" in order to absolve Bruce of any responsibility in his death.

I don't even expect DC or their writers to start honoring the fact that Jason was not an angry, reckless Robin (and less of the later than Dick or Tim and definitely Damian). There plenty of ways that retcon can be folded into his history and be compelling and sympathetic. And if they're going to stick with that retcon, I'm only asking that they do it in one of those compelling and sympathetic ways because Jason was 15 when he died, heroically, in one of the most selfless acts in comics, to save a woman who literally handed him over to be brutally murdered. He was 12 when Bruce plucked him off the streets, he'd been homeless and fending for himself for at least two years. I personally think that Jason's story hits harder for him and Bruce if their original, canon relationship, of Jason as starry-eyed and eager to learn and absolutely devoted to Bruce and Bruce to Jason, is preserved. But Jason's origins does leave room for a meaningful interpretation of him as angry and frustrated at the lack of meaningful results of Bruce's methods.

And that's really where my irritation at stories like Batman: Urban Legends, Cheer and Batman The Adventure Continues has it's roots.

Every time one of these stories comes out, I think (or hope, rather) that this will be the one that remembers and respects the origins of the Jason and the Red Hood, that takes into account the changed sensibilities of comics readers in the 30 years since Jason's death and the subtle, 20 year, retroactive campaign to make him the "bad Robin". The "born bad" trope is played out and literally no one likes the message it implies. That some kids are just bad eggs and there's nothing parents or the adults around them can do. Especially when it's played as the kid's fault. If Jason's time as Robin is going to be characterized by anger, then it should be rooted in anger at the social injustices he witnessed as he grew up in an impoverished, crime-ridden, area and the horrors he faced raising himself when every day was a battle for survival. There are topical, meaningful, stories to tell with that backdrop.

But those are never the stories we get.

⚠⚠ Spoilers for Batman: Urban Legends, Cheer ⚠⚠

I'm particularly disappointed in Urban Legends because for the first issue, it looked like that was the kind of story we were going to get. I was put off by the first flashback of Jason being mesmerized by Bruce's guns, and I got that feeling in my gut that it was a bad sign. Jason depicted as impatient and overconfident and the scene with the guns is heavy-handed foreshadowing that got my spidey-sense tingling. I had a inkling then (in the first three pages) of how this story was going to play out, but it was early and I could still see many narrative paths that could lead to a satisfying story. My concerns were soothed somewhat and the little flame of my hope fanned, with the flashback of Alfred scolding Bruce, with Barbara's concern for Jason. A bit of worry returned with the way Jason ruthlessly pursued an addict who didn't appear to be a dealer and with the ending of the issue. The stuff with the addict sat wrong with me but the ending was tempered some by how despicable Tyler's dad was written. The scene was clearly set so that the reader could sympathize with Jason's decision and the scene with the addict could be brushed aside as a side-effect of comics over-the-top need for constant action, so I still held hope.

Issue 2 made me uncomfortable and it's where my hope starts to take a backseat to my expectations. I can dismiss Jason's self-deprecating internal monologue as unreliable narration, except that the flashback reinforces his thought process to explicitly show that it's not unreliable narration, and should be taken at face value. Jason faces physical abuse at the hands of his mother's drug dealer and when the flashback continues later, Jason kills the drug dealer. To be clear, this is a pre-Bruce Jason. His mom is still alive. He's like... 10. He kills this guy for shoving his head into a wall and implying Jason's mother paid for her drugs with sex. This is a scene that serves a single purpose. To show that Jason has always been prone to violence.

In the spirit of full disclosure, there is the small chance the drug dealer might not be dead. But the story obviously wants the reader to think he is, and it hasn't done anything to change that yet.

Starlin already did this story with The Diplomat’s Son in 1988 and he did it infinitely better. AND that’s still technically canon. So now I’m supposed to believe that Jason lost his cool bad enough to kill two douche bags before his sweet 16? Like it’s totally normal for abused kids raised in poverty, who’ve led hard and heartbreaking lives to just... haul off and kill people? That’s bullshit, and when taken with the Jason in the third issue, who is little more than an idiot thug, this story is really doubling down on some fucked up stereotypes.

Which brings us to the most recent issue. I went into this installment with very low expectations. I thought this story was going to be about Jason, through this experience with Tyler, a young boy with a similar background to Jason's, coming to the realization that Bruce's way is the best way and that Bruce did his best by Jason.

That would be annoying (in no small part because it takes increasingly absurd levels of plot armor to keep Bruce's no kill rule relevant, let alone irrefutably right). But I can probably live with that, if only because maybe if Jason officially falls back into line with the Bats crusade, maybe I'll get stories that treat him with respect, stories that don't relegate him to comic relief, dumb brute, or a background body with no lines in a story about the Joker burning Gotham (like Jason would just fucking stand there quietly for that).

And that may still be where the story is going, Jason realizing Bruce is right.

But holy shit do I not have the right words to describe how fucking insulting and gross issue three is.

From start to finish--including the flashback--Jason is written as cruel and fucking stupid. Like straight up dumb.

The entire issue is Bruce explaining the fucking basics to Jason like it's his first day. And Jason flies off the fucking handle and terrorizes a doctor he knows isn't a part of making the Cheerdrops, beats the shit out of some random addicts, and finally, when he can't accomplish anything on his own because he's a dumb brute he calls Barbara for help and rushes in with no information where he's promptly incapacitated and must now wait to be rescued by Batman.

This panel is the least of the issues sins but I can’t screenshot the entire story but it’s representative of the tone for the whole issue (and retroactively tainted the prior two issues).

This is beyond insulting. The only conclusions Jason comes to in this issue are the ones Bruce leads him to by talking to him like he can’t make the simplest connections. And like... in this story Jason can’t make the simplest connections.

This (and the Jason throughout the entirety of this issue) is a far cry from the Jason we fell in love with in Under the Red Hood, who was competent and strategic and intelligent enough to seize control of Gotham’s underworld from Black Mask (who’s no fucking slouch, he’s the first and only person to unify organized crime in Gotham) AND elude and manipulate Bruce until the time and place of his choosing.

This is a far cry from even the Red Hood and the Outlaws Jason who is competent enough to fight the League of Shadows and Ra’s al Ghul (among very dangerous and skilled others) and smart enough to create antidotes for mind control nanotech viruses.

As he should be, by the way. Jason Todd is one of the best, most comprehensively trained fighters in DC’s stable of non powered vigilantes. He’s not irrational or hot headed. He’s pragmatic, tactically minded, and patient. He’s a detective. Right now. Has been since he was 12. Bruce doesn’t have to make him one because he already is. 

Jason is not a stupid thug who uses his fists because his brain doesn’t work. And I can’t tell you how so very exhausted I am by this narrative. 

This is actually the most egregious example of Jason’s skills and intelligence being not just undermined but dismissed entirely. Even Morrison’s Jason had some degree of competency. 

The one, single redeeming factor of this story is the art. It’s beautiful. And Marcus To is a godsend he seems to be one of only a couple of artists who remember that Jason was a child when he was Robin and I’m literally only buying this book because of him. 

Anyway, I’m sorry. I didn’t want that to come out so... um... passionately lol. I’m just very very tired. My intention with this isn’t to ruin it for you, if you like it, that’s fine. 

But this issue shot this story to the top of my "Vehemently Despise” list. 1) Batman: Urban Legends (Cheer), 2) Battle for the Cowl/Morrison’s Batman and Robin, 3) Batman The Adventure Continues.

I hope the next issues somehow salvage this dumpster fire. But I’m not expecting it.

(Damnit. That sounded harsh again. To reiterate, I’m not trying to judge anyone who enjoys it, I just personally hate it and you asked me why lol 😅)

[arcane-ish]

I think that is a really interesting speculation and it doesn't seem to me that unlikely, especially since Amanda loves Caitlyn and I presume she was heavily involved in the culmination of their relationship. I can easily picture her making time for that.

It would also make a lot of sense with the themes of the show, especially for those of us who see some visual parallels between Caitlyn and Silco this season and Silco was a character heavily shaped by trauma.

That said, irregardless of what happened between Jinx and Caitlyn, I doubt it will change the critique of people who critique her from the "systemic" POV. Who approach it as "everybody has trauma, but because Caitlyn is in such an exalted and oppressor position, she just has completely different levers to pull, ways to make other people suffer for it than Jinx or Vi have". Because Caitlyn can just terrorize an entire city without even having to put in much personal effort. (and just because the show might not be about political issues doesn't change that certain people will insist that it should be understood that way, regardless of whether the characters or the writers understand it like that. ie just because maybe the writers didn't mean a save the damsel or fridge the girlfriend story to be sexist doesn't mean that people will see it as being part of a larger sexist narrative)

I feel like in the end, the people who already sympathize with her will sympathize even more deeply with her and the ones who don't likely won't be impressed just because Caitlyn's trauma was slightly worse than just losing her mother.

(which in the end is maybe another parallel to Silco, having had genuine trauma in his past and genuinely loving Jinx doesn't magically make him not a bad person anymore, so why would it be different for Caitlyn if she had genuine trauma and genuinely loves Vi)

The more interesting aspect is probably the character level. If Vi hears about it and she loves Cait and she sympathizes, does that mean that Vi will never forgive Jinx or never feel comfortable around her again?

From a shippy point of view I just don't think that it can work for Caitlyn to tell her story and for Vi and stand up and make excuses for Jinx. So the only thing that could work would be if Caitlyn got to a point where she learned to sympathize with Jinx (ie no longer blame Jinx because she sees it as Jinx having a mental illness).

I just have a hard time picturing that on a show as violent as this they can really do much to "impress" people. I just think that there's a low chance that they would go for something like rape. I guess Caitlyn could reveal that she has scars on her body that are underneath her clothes (which certainly would be a good setup for CaitVi in my ways), though I personally that doesn't seem like Jinx's typical modus operandi? I guess there could have been something related to drowning (to parallel Silco) or gas (as this is something that has been done by several characters on the show by now). But just Jinx saying cruel things to her and dragging her around is not going to impress the Cait-dislikers.

Even if it's still going to be a powerful moment for Caitlyn and Vi, less for how what Jinx did was particularly awful, but for how Caitlyn kept it bottled up (with the timeskip at least a couple of weeks, maybe months) and is finally opening up about it to Vi. (could maybe fit nicely into Cait having issues being emotional with Vi/always pulling back, back in s2Act1)

Basically, I assume the emotional performance will be excellent and it's going to be serve as a great and satisfying explanation for Caitlyn x Vi shippers as to why Caitlyn broke up with Vi in Act 1 (and pacifiy the people whose main anger against Cait was that she hurt Vi). But it might not move the needle for people who think Caitlyn sucks for using The Grey on Zaunites.

In this interview Amanda said something that caught my attention. Do you think that in ep 8 Caitlyn will talk about what Jinx did to her when she kidnapped her? Bc Amanda said that in ep8 there's a Caitlyn line that will make us say "Oh so that's why"

Amanda means this line that Cait is going to say will let us know why she was so mad at Jinx in ep 3 and how Caitlyn went completely blind when she saw Jinx in her target and bc of her anger and also her fear and terror of Jinx, Cait has completely lost control of herself in this moment. (there is someone who made a post on this topic @loycos and talked about what happened to Cait in ep3 and how Cait didn't see Vi or Isha in front of her bc of her anger and her deeply terrified of Jinx) I mean look at her eyes and the expression on her face, yes she looks angry but she is also terrified.

This is a natural reaction. I mean for example, imagine that you see something that scares you so much. There are two reactions, either flight or fight, and these reactions always come without a person thinking. At this moment the person is only thinking about getting rid of the thing that scares him, and he does not focus on what is around him bc these strong feelings control him.

Anyway, what makes me sure that this scene might happen in ep 8 (Caitlyn talking about what happened to her when Jinx kidnapped her) is Reed Shannon (Ekko VA) comment when he saw the drawing and said "I thought this was a leak" Reed might be joking as usually, but why this particular drawing and why he chose this word "leak".

But honestly if this scene actually happened and we knew what happened to Caitlyn, it would make us understand more why she was so angry and scared of Jinx when she saw her in front of her and it would also explain why she literally went blind and didn't see anything around her at that moment, neither the child nor Vi, all Cait saw was Jinx, she just wants to bring down Jinx. I mean look at these pictures she is so terrified of her

Again Caitlyn's insistence on killing Jinx in the scene in ep 3 was not only motivated by revenge on Jinx, but also out of fear and terror of her.

And not like those idiots who say that Caitlyn wanted to kill the child on purpose to get to Jinx or even say that she wanted to kill Vi too, or bc she's a cop and the cops kill children and blah blah... That's really ridiculous and annoying!! Bc if we focus a little bit on the period that Caitlyn went through we will see that Cait didn't have time to process all these things that happened to her, from the torture that happened to her when Jinx kidnapped her, then the killing of her mother, then the attack on the memorial ceremony. (I know that Jinx is not the reason, but from Caitlyn's perspective she thinks that Jinx and the Silco followers are the reason)

And in the end I hope that no one comes who doesn't like the post bc I am defending Caitlyn's character. If you don't like this character I don't care, there is no need for you to write a stupid comments. Please don't tire your little fingers if you don't like my post block me this is better for you and me. I will not waste my time responding to you, I will delete your comment and block you immediately.

I am a student at the Faculty of Psychology, and when I talk about trauma and the interpretation of human behavior and reactions, I know well what I am talking about. Bc most of the characters' reactions in this show are very realistic and need to explanation, writers do not want to explain everything in the show, they want viewers to occupy their mind and explain the events themselves (And I still repeat the point that the show focuses on the development and complexity of the characters more than anything else, and does not focus on solving political issues, the show is not about politics, okay)

And btw some people ask me about my opinion of Jinx's character, I have no problem with her character at all, I like her and I understand her condition, when I criticize her actions, it doesn't mean I hate her.

One day I may do a post about her character development and her condition, but I see that there are many posts about her and her actions, and I feel like I won't say anything new about her. Unlike the rest of the characters like Vi and Caitlyn, there are not many people talking about them. And maybe I will make a Viktor post bc I really like the development of his character. When the show ends, maybe I will.

[bookofmirth]

TW: SA

Do you think we'll ever get a passage in the next ACOTAR books with Lucien discussing how he was forced to participate in the Calanmai Rite with Ianthe to help the SC? Because I'm just wondering if other characters would sympathize with him, especially Rhysand who has been in a similar situation where he performed sexual acts to protect his Court.

I also wonder what their reactions would be to what Lucien has endured in SC. They saw some of it when Lucien asked permission to give his ideas and they seemed shocked, but at the same time none of them did anything to help Lucien when he returned with a black eye after getting physically abused by Tamlin.

I can't help but especially wonder what Elain's reaction will be too because Lucien specifically asked Feyre to not tell Elain about what happened during Calanmai. I just really want a scene where everyone understands that Lucien has been through some shit and has had just as hard of a life as they have too, possibly even worse because at least everyone there had someone to look out for them.

Hello thanks for hurting us all

Do I want it? Honestly... idk. Do I think it will happen? Probably not?

I'm not sure if I want it to happen, because I don't think that Lucien should have to expose his every trauma to get people to sympathize with him and stop treating him like an errand boy. He told Feyre because they were already "friends" and he didn't want it to get out to Elain. The IC is already sending him to work with Tamlin, even though they know that he comes back with bruises, like you mentioned. They already know about his situation with Autumn and Beron, and losing Jesminda (I'm assuming here, that would have been some big news in the courts, that a High Lord exiled his son and killed his son's lover). They know he lost an eye to Amarantha. If they don't have sympathy for him at this point - and to be fair, it seems that Feyre and Cassian do, from what I remember - then knowing about his sexual assault won't help, and I personally don't think he should have to make that public in the effort to gain their trust.

So in that sense, no, I don't want anyone else to know because it's none of their business and they should already recognize what he has lost and have basic empathy.

Sidenote - it honestly makes me gag a little bit that this is also the conversation where Feyre said that she was such a better friend to him than he was to her, just because she said that she won't tell Elain. That's basic ass courtesy, to not spread news of someone's assault, not her being a super good friend. As if he wasn't one of the only two (2) people who tried to help her during the trials with Amarantha, and as if she didn't fuck him over when they were in Spring like the day before, and as if he never tried to stand up for her with Tamlin. But I digress.

But in terms of Elain, yes, I hope that Lucien does tell her at some point. He was very adamant that he made the intentional choice to be with Ianthe, but... he didn't. Not when he also says this:

Ianthe insisted, Tamlin was in a bad spot, Tamlin refused, Lucien did his duty... all excuses. It's a lie he tells himself for multiple reasons, but Feyre recognizes that. This is clearly something that he has to work through and identify as being Not Okay.

Perhaps his decision to tell Elain what happened will signal that shift in him. I'm not sure why he doesn't want her to know - it happened before he knew they were mates - and there could be many reasons. Maybe he doesn't want it to seem like he was unfaithful. Maybe he is ashamed (not that he should be, obviously) and using Elain as an excuse not to have it be common knowledge. Maybe he doesn't want to have to explain it, and therefore think about it and end up deconstructing the lies he has built around it. I'm very curious how it will be dealt with. I do have faith that it will be handled well.

[personasintro]

hi i saw the post where people in the comments were genuinely confused about why people dislike kiko so much and i wanted to have this discussion because while i agree the hate she gets is overboard and the people who say mean things about her to try and sound funny in the wattpad comments are immature and can be misogynistic when its just petty hating on her for being with jk. i think it’s also confusing when people just assume that’s why people dislike her and that some don’t actually just dislike her for what she did. i’m a very loyal and trusting person and was kinda shocked by her selfishness in some parts (not the abortion though that was completely and ultimately her choice and i sympathize with her for that decision fully). but i don’t think i would even dislike her rn if she had just waited to tell him when she was ready without getting back together with him, like that’s understandable. but instead she did get back with him and while they were together again it felt like it was never her priority to tell him the truth. it’s the fact that she was selfish in being intimate with him again while letting him be oblivious to the fact that he almost had a whole child and he was actually never cheated on but still had to go through that pain of thinking he wasn’t good enough. even though she was feeling guilty she still didn’t respect him enough to at least tell him first before she even thought about getting back together. like i said i would understand that she wasn’t ready to tell him but by her getting back together with him because she missed him she made things so much worse and made it hurt so much more for him and herself. i wish she would have just let herself have some time to genuinely process what happened and through that gain the strength to tell him eventually. i know she had the fear of losing him but i feel like she had to face reality at some point and had the responsibility to do what was right for both people no matter how much it hurt because instead of that she ended up putting both of them through like actual trauma with the lies. that is my reason for disliking her, she seems kinda complicated because she’s not able to face some consequences of her actions sometimes out of fear(which again i get but isn’t an excuse to hurt people) or like she just kinda acts upon her emotions without thinking about others and the right way to go about things (again not the abortion ik she genuinely wasn’t ready for a child and she thought that through) but all her actions after that just made me think she’s kinda messy and i think it’s very valid to dislike her without having any immature prejudice reasons. like imagine if she was able to stand in her decisions and just completely own them and say “this is what i want and i’m sorry if it hurts you(if jk would’ve been upset about the abortion) but it’s what’s best for me” and ik that takes a lot of strength(and maybe didn’t happen for sake of the plot lmao) but again i don’t think she’s a bad person just not someone i personally like.

so yeah ik it’s kind of an old topic but i just wanted to put this out there for some incite into the people who aren’t just disliking her bc she’s jks love interest and wanted to share my thoughts. i do feel bad for the hate her character gets and am kinda hoping for a small kiko redemption/closure arc because ik she is genuinely a sweetheart and deserves kindness from the readers in the end. i noticed a lot of complex characters in all your stories and just want to say i appreciate the work you put into writing them, love youuu and hope you can see where i’m coming from💗💗

yeah I wrote her character for people to decide what they think about it, I didn't write her "as the typical bad female character" in mind or "the perfect woman" as well :) there are things I don't agree with what she has done but as a writer, I know she's not a bad person... she just did bad things and caught herself in the web of lies. it's unfortunate and very sad!

up until then, she actually never really hurt anyone. everyone knew her as the "sweetest girl" who's always friendly and kind-hearted. I'd say her decision fucked her up a lot and it resulted in her lying but let's take into the account that yes, she did lie and should've handled things differently because lying is never the answer, but she didn't do it with ill intention, she actually thought she's protecting jk. I talked about this many times before but if he didn't get back to her after finding out that "she cheated" he'd be heartbroken from the heartbreak but he'd be somewhere else at the moment and wouldn't care such a burden in his heart. yes, he would live in a lie but he'd be happy and not a heartbroken mess. that's what she had in mind when she simply broke up with him. but of course, jk knew her well enough to know that she's lying and there's something else to this whole thing which turned out to be right. again, she didn't want to lie but she did it to protect jk because she knew he'd be fucked up from her lies and the lack of trust she had in him.

but she didn't view it like that, she thought she's doing the right thing and at the end she was wrong. we all could be saying "yes this is what she should've done" "I'd have done things differently" well we never know as long as we're not in the same situation and spot. it's easy to judge on the outside when there were million of different feelings inside her that we don't understand or never experienced.

that's life and I guess that's what I tried to show with her – that we people sometimes do so many wrong things but in the moment they might seem like it's the best solution, especially when we do it because we care about someone deeply and we don't want to hurt them :)

[vidalinav]

I hate that Nesta’s protectiveness, the one quality in the narrative that even Feyre saw as Nesta showing her love for Elain, and the part of her that was again shown when she chose to die with Cassian, that was honored as she stood at Enalius’s passing, because she wholeheartedly wanted her friends to live, which can even be passed to the act of her wanting to tell her story and help the fae, because she wanted to protect the humans—to give them a chance, that part of her that started scrying because she wanted Nyx to be born in a better world, that sacrificed her powers for her sister and her nephew, because she wholeheartedly did not care about herself, she cared about other people’s well-being, that quality I never found bad or awful towards Nesta, that one quality I actually thought highlighted how good Nesta was, and how caring, is used by Elain as Nesta’s character flaw even though Nesta is only protective of Elain during three instances: one when they were human, which Nesta conceded on letting Feyre and the IC use the house after Elain says they should, one when Elain was lifeless for a bit and deeply traumatized, and once in ACOSF about scrying when the last time she scryed Elain was taken by the cauldron and Hybern.

This is why I can’t sympathize with Elain as a victim to Nesta’s ways as it’s portrayed in three instances: when she cries in the library knowing full well the current state of affairs, when she accuses Nesta of only thinking of how her trauma affects her and saying that she remembers Feyre rescuing her, and when she talks of the duke situation and says that she hopes Nesta channels all of “that” into something more productive. And then when Feyre agrees that they ALL coddle her, when Amren says that they shouldn’t underestimate her, and when Rhys again says that perhaps they haven’t seen what Elain is made of, and when Azriel is like we shouldn’t subject her to that darkness. Some of this I would understand Elain getting mad, but not for Nesta coddling, because Nesta at this point hasn’t even seen Elain for a WHILE, which makes all the difference, because how can she coddle someone she has pushed away? I can see her being angry for what Nesta says, the dog comment (actually that was never said out loud) or the father comment or what the IC do because they don’t give her tasks and kind of just let her be, but the context of the situation DOES matter, because these situations in which Nesta is saying something mean is a situation where Elain is really oblivious and not reading the context of the situation, and it comes at the end of the scene when it’s already been taken too far. She’s not mean for sport lol. I would even understand the anger based on feeling left out, but that’s not what she gets angry about. It’s directly and only at Nesta and for that one quality, and it has made this notion both in the book and the fandom that Elain is “coddled” specifically by Nesta as opposed to giving Nesta the validation that she is deeply afraid and her MO entirely is that she protects the people she loves. She has not told Elain she has no free will, she has not taken it away. That has NEVER happened. Elain consistently thrived for almost all of the book series, until she turned fae. There was no forever under Nesta’s thumb. 

It reminds me a little of when Elain says that her father could never say no to Nesta as if this grown ass man had no control and all of the control/responsibility was on this 14 year old girl. What? It’s also why I think Elain has much of the same skewed, problematic perspective as Nesta had in the beginning of ACOSF where she thought people sided with Feyre. I have such a problem that people in this fandom use that dialogue as a way that Elain is the rational one, or the one whose finally and rightfully sticking up for herself, or who is a victim of other people. Like no I’m sorry. I do agree that she is neglected in some sense, but there is more evidence that that is her choice than it is because of other people. She literally says that Nesta can’t hate her choice to live a simple life but also hate her getting involved. She locks herself away when Nesta is there. She pretends to garden for other people or whatever as Cassian notes it might have been a lie. She avoids Lucien. She is the one who though Feyre thinks she’s pleasant, they’re not extremely close, and that happened without Nesta involved at all. 

The mere act of saying it’s because of other people makes her a victim which is her whole character arc from the beginning, of her not helping even when she could just as much as Nesta. Nesta is both held accountable for her healing as in everyone pretty much pushes her to do it faster, and then also for that situation. Elain isn’t held accountable for either. Neither her own healing, Bc they didn’t push her at all even now. And also for that hunting situation.

We’ve seen literal evidence of Elain in ACOMAF where Elain is like softly being like Nesta we need to help and Nesta concedes. We’ve seen Elain stab the King of Hybern. We’ve seen her be pretty mean too in ACOSF, or at least biting back. She can help if she wants. That is not Nesta’s fault so I really really hope that that is her skewed narrative and it becomes an objective of character development as Feyre was to Nesta and it’s not used as another way that Nesta is criticized for something in the book as well as the fandom that is far more complex than “oh Nesta is mean. She hurts everyone. She’s an awful character. Blah blah blah.” But ultimately, I hope it’s used for Elain taking accountability of her own life. That it is not other people’s fault, she’s not happy or doing something or close with many people. Her narrative right now, even with the mate bond situation, is that she lacks control of her own life, but... uhh hate to break it to you. 

The evidence is there guys. Elain is having problems. Nesta is not THE problem, which for gods knows why I’ve seen on so many posts when they want to defend Elain. Defend Elain, she’s not a bad character. But not for this lol. This is one of her character flaws. 

[tiredrobin]

@avimaka hi, to preface im so so so sorry for how long this is. i love to talk so much, and i implore u to ignore this if ur like "what the hell calm down" HFHSDFHSDFHSD

nods. and thats, like, normal! for literally any fandom! theres always gonna be character interpretations that just dont Jive, but in a lot of cases im personally generally somewhat capable of putting that aside and still finding value and enjoyment in works with characterizations that dont necessarily fit My Vision. theres always some new angle to look at things, which is a nice experience, and even if i decide that the fic im reading has nothing to offer me beyond distaste, at Least its managed to help me better Understand Myself and my thoughts and feelings on the character in question

except, somehow, that isn't how it works with six!!! i get So Upset in a way that is distinctly silly and unproductive whenever an interpretation feels inaccurate, ESPECIALLY when i feel like the author is… glossing her over? i guess? she's a weird, awkward kid who does Weird Things like snap mannequin/prosthetic fingers out of place for apparently no visible reason and warm herself in front of a furnace fire someones being roasted in. (and like. i personally feel like she acts weird that whole chapter in a way that to me implies discomfort/stress, either due to general fear or what could be a particular trauma-based response. all of this takes place literally immediately after getting kidnapped by the bullies and rescued by mono!!! but its still Weird, shes still a little weirdo, and it bothers me so much when people reduce her weirdness to, like… "gremlin energy" or whatever. idk.*)

she clearly has a rich internal life, and we literally only see what she gives us. and a lot of what ive made brief contact with tends to feel weirdly reductive of that. add on to the desire to, like… idk, make her more Appealing? i guess? her actions are reduced as well into something easier to sympathize with. which is not in itself A Bad Thing or even Actually Reductive, because most people are sympathetic because most people are just doing their best. i am a firm loud Six Defender for Life and i think all her decisions have reason (MAYBE not Active Reasoning on her part, but at Least reactive-type reason) behind them, reasons i understand and will shout from the rooftops in order to add to my defense of her; and taken in that light, with those reasons, its a very simple matter to find her sympathetic. but what i've seen seems to either paint her in a distinct… uhm.

okay, so the issue is a little more complex than i can (or should) try to get into this post/reply-that-im-using-as-an-excuse-to-ramble. really what's happening—what all this nonsense im spouting sums up to—is that i have my own extremely particular concept of who she is (a traumatized nine year old with symptoms that arent pretty and look weird, all in my own particular flavor of understanding), and im not actually making room for other interpretations. i am so set into my personal nuance of her, nuance that literally no one can Perfectly Replicate because its nuance born of my own interpretation (an interpretation which is not The Only Right One, no matter what my brain insists), and then im getting Upset when the things i read dont hit all the beats i expect.

so ACTUALLY what im saying is that i keep throwing hissy fits (internal) over Perceived Slights against her character. my annoyance is unfair and in some cases obviously misplaced: most interpretations have value, even if i cant see it. people who write her as a gremlin-y kid have merit, and people who treat her like she's older (as in, knowing she's nine but writing her with the internal life of an older child) and should—but refuses to—have a stronger moral compass are Obviously acknowledging the themes of the story itself and channeling that thru her, even if it feels ultimately unkind to her. all these angles—and even the angles that outright change her decision to drop mono (which i really cannot jive with At All)—have merit and value but i'm over here holding a big sign that reads BUT IS IT WHAT I WANT???? as if thats the Only thing that matters. its NOT, but im acting as if it is

so ACTUALLY what im REALLY saying is i cant read little nightmares fanfiction because im being a huge nerd doofus about six. thank u for listening and im so sorry to subject u to this rant

—

*not to say she DOESNT have gremlin energy, its just that when people define her personality around that single aspect of herself it just feels frustrating and demeaning of her character and the story as a whole

worst thing on the planet is i cant actually read little nightmares fic because in my mostly isolated fixation space ive reached my own sort of conclusions and headcanons that im so invested in and firm about that anything i try to read has me going "but do you understand the layers of nuance to six" like cups my cheeks. "its fanfiction not an essay and the authors opinions are secondary to the actual contents and messages of their works" i tell myself, but my brain screams BUT ARE THEY NORMAL ABOUT SIX because i see so many people rewriting her actions or behaviors into something more palatable despite her character being the most goddamn compelling thing ive seen in MONTHS. so i try to read a fic and someone says something a LITTLE sideways of my thoughts on her and i just leave. like hi robin. how bout YOU be normal abt six

[kirua9]

Ranking Diaboys~

Disclaimer: that is just my opinion

1. Laito. He is an absolute winner for me. The reason is his elaborated character; also he is charming and mysterious at the same time. I can feel his pain in this crooked voice when he's crying and feel the pain through his fake smile. He is sensitive and vulnerable but hates showing it, hates conflicts and showing the strength. But man he is so lonely... Kinda depressed man but it doesn't matter. Love him😭

2. Reiji. God he is so underrated🙄. Like... Why? Such a good character with his own background, which explains lots of the main issues. His behavior makes a lot of sense, and despite trauma he's able to analyze his mistakes/change his mind/admit his faults. I like this maturity of him.

3. Kanato. I remember that I used to dislike him, but goddammit I was such a fool 👺. He is bad tempted/ tantrumed but I enjoy these bright splashes of his furious emotions. He makes me shiver!

4. Ayato. You know he is a character which annoys but gives DELIRIOUS ENERGY. I like his mischievous nature, he is so lively; he definitely acts like school boy, favorite bastard. 😏

5. Carla. He looks mysterious and... sublimely? Although he is a character from 3rd game, it doesn't look like he's appeared here only for plot. He has a great story/background and reasons why I should sympathize him. Also he is super powerful but he doesn't shows off or something. He always acts graciously. 🛐

6. Azusa. He used to be the most unattractive character in DL universe for me, but that was my stupid lookism (I thought he was a strange zombie guy and his slow speech was disturbing me.) But now I realize how cunning and manipulative he is, that is astonishing. And honestly I like the idea of his masochistic side/ he is being a victim. 😈

7. Subaru. I don't like tsunderes. They are cute sometimes, but only sometimes. Subaru's emotional instability mixed with his enormous strength scares. It's not like Kanato's tantrumed instability, Subaru seems to be more addiquate, but at the same time he can break a wall or something. Kanato is manipulative one ( so as a paradox he controls situation) while Subaru seems to be absolutely blind when he is angry (he is more addiquate but can't control anger.) So he isn't less violent than Kanato or someone and I refuse to deal with him 😶, but I can understand why people love him. He has a kind heart.

8. Yuma. I like his straightforwardness and dominance towards EVERYONE yoy 🙊. I don't like he's manner of talking with Yui (like calling her a pig, what? Have you seen yourself? You are a boar 🐗 then !) But I like his passionate attitude about his garden and his opinion of Shuu. Idk why but I think he is a yaoi character only 🙈. I ship Shuu×Yuma. That's all.

9. Ruki. Oh man... He is strange. And it seems to be that he can't learn from his mistakes, which is strange, again 🙃. His attitude about that situation from the past (when he's father became bankrupt) hasn't changed (cause of his arrogance? Jeez) at all and that's tricky. Why? He can't analyze his failures? Or he even doesn't think there are HIS failures? I don't understand this man. But at least he seems to be a good leader..

10. Shin. Another bastard 😏. But... he likes being a dog. I don't like dogs. I don't even like animals lmao. Honestly, Shin is charming at some point, but it's not worth it, that's not enough for me. And he looks like as if he was only a comedian character (you know that villains duo: the buffoon and competen one.)

11. Kou. What a pain... Another complicated personality, but omg he is terrible... Cynical, hypocritical, violent but, he has a dream. A very abstract dream and an empty one, he wouldn't fulfill his crooked soul with that bLuE SkY. That is not enooouuuggghhh. I hate him, he is awful and I can't sympathize him, but at the same time I understand how cruel was his fate. 😔

12. Shuu. Shoe. Ahem. The worst one. People who like him. Why? He's just pretty? THAT IS BECAUSE HE IS BLONDE? I like blonde anime guys, but omg it looks like Rejet wash away his sins cause he is the most popular. I mean his routes are boring as himself is ъуъ... I do not deny he's having an apathy/depression but this man literally does nothing. Nothing bad or good. NOTHING. How am I supposed to like him if he is just laying and dreaming. I don't find him sexy either idk.

13. Kino. Why does he exist? The way he has "born" already screams that Rejet don't have any ideas for characters. And again. Why am I supposed to love this man ? He has appeared in 4th game, like IN THE FREAKING END of the story. No, that's weak reason. Cmon Kino looks like Reiji and Azusa have a child but he acts like Ayato and Shin have a child!

Yare yare daze guys, he is just out of blue

Well that was my explanation which took me years to tap. Ahem, bye 💅

[dalekofchaos]

Making peace with Chloe Price

So I can honestly say in recent months, especially after playing TLOU 2 and replaying ME2(specifically around Jack’s story) I can safely say I don’t hate Chloe Price anymore. 

I have been learning to understand Chloe as a character more and I think what really helped me with understanding her more is that I see similarities between her and Jack, Ellie or possibly Abby especially with them both acting irrationally and sometimes mean due to emotional struggles and how deeply they may feel their pain at times.

It’s a bit unfair to compare Jack and Chloe’s upbringing since Chloe really wasn’t tortured to the degree Jack was, but I felt Chloe and Jack handled their trauma in similar ways.

Ellie is a character who despite not liking or disliking a few of her actions especially her irrational ones, her irrational behavior is understandable and something you may empathize with or even feel similarly to her due to Joel's passing and how traumatic that was for her. Revenge consumes her entirely and she wants to honor Joel in a way that he imo wouldn't have approved of especially considering the bittersweet consequences she has to pay in the end. But she does irrational things and acts irrationally only thinking with her emotions and if this would please or honor Joel. Hell, tbh she can act like asshole sometimes and I don't like her when she acts like that, blowing off Jesse to go after Abby, leaving Dina, torturing Nora, I don't like that she does these things and I know she doesn't like some of these things but I have to understand that she is her own person and will react in her own complex and complicated ways in whatever the story throws at her or whatever she goes through and her current state of mind.

Same with Abby because she is majorly hated for her actions and rather her lack of sympathy or regrets for her actions that she believes she was justified in. Abby was hypocritical when she did beat and ultimately torture Joel in front of Ellie but I'll give her a little bit of leeway by saying she didn't know Ellie was his daughter or someone in that role. But people often shame her for not regretting what she did to Joel which she does feel but she never openly expresses it or expresses it in the same or similar ways to Ellie who is far more expressive and you can sympathize with her more. Abby imo is the more unlikeable or unsympathetic side of Chloe, the side that will park in a disabled spot with no regard for disabled folks, the side of her that is fine guilt-tripping Max if she doesn't like the outcome of what Max did. Abby isn't a terrible person in my eyes, some may think she's bad and some may think she's good and I respect their opinions though I may not agree with it. For me, Abby is shaped by the military-style life she has been accustomed to and has grown up heavily in and is a soldier, especially a very loyal and capable soldier, one of Issac's strongest. Hell, David and. so many other characters who have served in the military who are mostly cold and being in the military or living a similar life can deeply change people. It's not an excuse for her actions but explains them more. Abby isn't liked by the fandom for many reasons but all are valid because they don't have to like her at all but like I said at least understand or empathize with her. I am not sure if what Abby did killing Joel was right in any way or form but all I know is that it was karma coming to Joel for his actions that had changed and or hurt the lives of many. But Abby is a very imo complex character who tries to not show too much emotion or struggles deeply with these emotions that she's feeling. But one thing a lot of people don't like is she basically doesn't regret some of her morally wrong actions, for example, she doesn't regret what she did to Joel, she doesn't ponder on what she did to Ellie and Dina as well as Tommy, maybe she believes they deserved it or she's genuinely trying to move forward is something for us to think about. But Abby imo comes across as a very standoffish, reserved, and uncaring character when imo she's rather complex and not regretting something she doesn't see as bad shouldn't be something she should be punished for or praised for. It's just how she saw the situations she ended up in.

I felt the reason I somewhat disliked Chloe was because I didn't understand or respect that she is complex, flawed, traumatized, and her own person with her own reactions and actions she will do. Hell, I don't like some of them and how she reacts to some things and how she responds to some things not going in her favor but it doesn't make her a terrible character, yeah she reacts and responds in ways that can be seen and or are toxic and they shouldn't be praised especially the emotional-manipulation sometimes. I don't like how Chloe focuses on herself or how reckless she can be at times putting herself and others at risk but all I can do is either hope she changes and minimizes that behavior or respectfully dislike her. I am empathetic towards her, I don't love love her, but I don't hate her much anymore and I am trying to respect she is her own character and she's gonna be complex with her own responses and reactions towards what happens in her life.

I especially feel like I understand Chloe more since my own father is dying from cancer and I have had a pet that died and the pandemic has doubled my abandonment issues. And replaying LIS 1 and BTS has helped me cope.

I honestly deleted all the Anti Chloe posts I’ve made in the past two years as I no longer feel that way(and I feel embarrassed) about Chloe and to any of the fans I’ve rubbed the wrong way about my past views, I am sorry. 

On the subject for apologizing for content that I have made, I am sorry for generalizing the majority of Chloe/Pricefield fans for hating on LIS 2, it is really the only toxic aspect of the fandom and my comment about white passing was wrong and I am sorry. Back to LIS 2. If it’s not your thing, fair, but it’s really shitty to insinuate that the Max and Chloe cameo pic was the only good thing to come out of the game.(also on subject of the cameo, fuck David. Why does he get to live but Kate doesn’t??? no I will never be over this BULLSHIT) 

To be clear, I still don’t like the ableism that comes with Chloe whether it was intentional or not and while it’s not Chloe’s fault persay as the story is focused on Max and Chloe, I still hate the fact that DONTNOD had an amazing cast of characters and did fuck of all nothing with them or did anything to develop said characters(particularly Warren, Kate and Victoria) and did the bare minimum with even giving any of them nuance(not saying Nathan needed nuance, just saying I wish they completed the planned story instead of killing him off screen). But that’s the fault of lazy game designers not the character. I also don’t like that some of the die hardcore toxic aspect of the fandom have harassed and bullied my friends just for shipping Grahamfield or admitting they aren’t a big fan of Chloe or at all or even suggested Rachel deserved her fate(yes let’s victim blame the girl who was gaslit, used and lied her entire life and groomed by two predators).  Like my problems with Chloe when I think about it are minor and not really the character’s fault and more so to do with the toxic aspect of the fandom.

Chloe’s life would’ve honestly been better if Joyce wasn’t her mother or if she had been the one to die(yes I’m serious) it would’ve been still tragic, but William would not have neglected her needs and introduced someone who was abusive in her life and certainly would not have done so while Chloe was still in obvious pain. Joyce was a terrible mother and Chloe deserved better.(there I got that out of my system)

While I still prefer Amberprice, Marshfield and Grahamfield, I do love Pricefield. 

While I am still learning, I do love Chloe Price and I’ve made peace with her.