#I just want her to heal and be actual person with agency

[harley-rose25]

In which I give the longest explanation of my opinions on Eremika and why I don't like it.

If you see my other AoT post, I likely give the impression of being a hardcore eremika anti; and while I'm not clearly not a fan of the ship I also don't believe that it just came out of nowhere, or was completely unexpected; like some eremika antis seem to think. Seasons 1-3 I honestly expected an eremika ending. Season 3 I had some thoughts that maybe we were getting a erehisu instead, but ultimately I assumed either an eremika or a no-pairing ending even by the end of season 3.

This is not because I thought the ship was built up well or had really good moments pointing towards a mutual romance/love. There are some moments where Eren shows some level of care or affection towards Mikasa; but, to me, it doesn't come off like he's in love with her. It can be interpreted that way, but I felt it was more like showing general platonic care and that those more romantic feeling could be built up or in some cases like his feelings were moving in that direction. The reason I assumed it was the most likely end game ship if there was to be a ship is because of other cannon ships where one character is in love, often obsessively so with the other and the other is either oblivious, doesn't really care, or actively seems to dislike them until the end of the series when suddenly they're also in love. ie; Sakura and Sasuke, Hinata and Naruto, Aang and Katara. Eren and Mikasa dynamic reminded me of these, especially Sakura and Sasuke.

My main issues with the eremika ship are: 1. how it compares to erehisu; Eren and Mikasa do have deep emotional moment together but Eren and Historia have deep emotional moment because of each other. That is, Eren's emotional moment with Mikasa would be just as emotional even if she wasn't there, where as Historia is integral to the moments she has with Eren. In season 4 the erehisu ship is really build up by how desperate Eren is to protect Historia, how he angrily jumps to her defense, how he's shown visiting her at the farm, how he smiles at her and no one else. Even other characters notice this; in season 3 Jean tells Eren he should stop holding hands with Historia all the time (I'm aware that the hand holding was because they were trying to get more memories/activate the founding titan, but it means that Eren and Historia had a lot of confirmed off screen time together), and in season 4 Hange looks at Eren smiling at Historia and then later tells Eren that She thought He would never sacrifice Historia; strongly indicating an assumption of a deeper level of care. All in all I think erehisu had better scenes to building a relationship of mutual care and understanding and also better scenes showing that Eren cares about Historia in a way that isn't shown with anyone else (save maybe Armin) This means that when we end up with eremika now it feels a little cheap or just off. If we got more moments showing a deeper level of care and understand between Eren and Mikasa or if The moments between Eren and Historia, and Erens reactions to Historia didn't have so much weight then an eremika ending would make more sense.

reason number 2: What it does to Mikasas character; Mikasa's love for Eren seems born out of an obsession that comes from losing her parent in a violent murder/kidnapping and then being saved by him. This is then compounded when Eren's mom dies since she was like an adoptive mother to Mikasa. She's a traumatized young girl who never actually deals with her trauma and instead hyperfixates on Eren. Mikasa entire character arc is her chasing after Eren like a neglected dog until that one scene where for like 5 minutes she finally starts to see Eren for the violent psychopath he actually is and questions what she had seen in him; but never mind that because she's back to being so obsessively in love with him that even after he dies she spends that rest of her life visiting his grave with her (probably husband and kids) and also never takes off that scarf.

reason number 3: Mikasa doesn't understand Eren. People argue that Mikasa understood Eren in a different ways, that she understood certain parts of him, but that's literally just admitting that there's clearly parts of Eren she doesn't understand. Actually, I'd argue that as its depicted Mikasa doesn't seem to understand Eren on a fundamental level. Examples: When he failed at the initial ODM gear test she told him to give up being a soldier and then went on to say that he needn't drop out alone, that she would be following him; when he passed the ODM gear test she says that he's relieved that he wont be separated from her. She assumes that the reason he'd be upset about failing to make it as a soldier is related specifically to her and not wanting to be apart from her; When Connie is angry about Eren laughing after Sasha's death he asks Mikasa why he would do that and she can't answer; despite the fact that she's witnessed him laughing in an emotional and traumatic situation before and should have been able to understand that he does it as a coping mechanism. She'd also completely blind to his obvious anti-social personality disorder (psychopathy), though to be fair so is everyone else including most Eren stans. (like, I love Eren, I stan Eren but he is like text book certifiably ASPD psychopathic)

[transhitman]

Ok I posted about this in anger a while back but I'm gonna say it more intelligently and actually tag it because I think it's something people need to hear. Something that bugs me about how people talk about the morality of the men in this game is that a lot of analysis totally glosses over Anya's motives and what she actually asks of people, and in doing so once again strips her of agency. Like. The reason Curly sucks isn't because he failed to properly punish Jimmy, it's because he ignored Anya in favor of her abuser. He didn't listen to her regarding how to move forward, he didn't give her a way to protect herself. No matter what he would have done to Jimmy, Anya is still traumatized and in danger, and that's the most important point of failure.

I think a lot of people are projecting a revenge fantasy on Anya, and while I'm not gonna argue about the validity of revenge here, for Anya specifically I think that's a major mischaracterization. She's the one who says that our worst moments don't make us monsters. And while yes, this could just be her trying to appease her abusers, she still doesn't strike me as a particularly vindictive person. She's a nurse, symbolically in a role associated with care and healing. Before the crash, she seems like a very soft-spoken and restrained person. Hell, she can't stand giving Curly his meds because she feels so bad for him. There isn't really a point in the game where she calls for violence at all. And even if punishing Jimmy or Curly is morally correct (subjective), saying that it's what anyone Should have done still glosses over Anya's wants and needs. It still centers the abuser, even in vitriol.

It's especially weird to see people judge Swansea on these grounds, because like... We don't know what his dynamic with Anya was like. We don't actually know what she said to him, if she even confided about her pregnancy or the SA at all! I honestly think Swansea's actions give more credence to the idea that Anya herself wanted a peaceful resolution. The whole "Oh, I'm holding it together" thing, him becoming more hostile after speaking with Anya... He waits until Daisuke AND ANYA are dead before trying to kill Jimmy. I think the obvious reading is that he wants Jimmy dead, but Anya asked him not to do anything crazy. Genuinely, I think Anya just wanted to be safe. She wanted out above everything. She didn't want more violence. The only violence she commits is against herself in the end, in order to escape this hell her coworkers made for her.

And like. Swansea is kind of the only one who actually did try to protect Anya in a meaningful way. I won't say that he couldn't have done more for her - all of the men on that ship failed her in some regard - but Swansea intentionally keeps the axe out of Jimmy's hands. He keeps the pod a secret, probably to give to Daisuke, but we can't say anything for sure. I joke that Swansea should have killed Jimmy from the start, but if we're being real that would have been an insane thing to do given what the characters know. But Swansea isn't the point of this post. Like. Idk I just think it's really bizarre that when people discuss Anya's assault, they still do it from the perspective of the men involved. It's weird and I don't like it. Like people have said before me: it's not enough to hate abusers, you have to love victims.

[ecoterrorist-katara]

“Katara deserves a quiet life after the war, so becoming a healer (who made no contributions to the field) is actually a good arc!”

It is already bizarre to me that in ATLA, Katara is this confident & combative & ambitious girl who LOVED to fight and wanted nothing more than to help as many people as possible…then comics!Katara and TLOK!Katara showed neither her previous personality traits nor a career commensurate with those traits…

but it’s even more bizarre to me that ATLA fans would defend her trajectory as if it were some kind of progressive story of recovering from war trauma.

I’ve seen multiple takes like this. “Katara is not a YA heroine, she’s not a bloodthirsty girlboss who loves fighting so it’s actually a good thing that she doesn’t have to fight anymore” “after everything she’s been through she deserves a quiet life and a loving family”

For Katara, fighting in the war was actually empowering. It didn’t burn her out. It didn’t disillusion her. It didn’t take more out of her than she can give. Katara is not Katniss Everdeen, who needed to step back and discover her own agency and a sense of peace after fighting in a war she never chose to start. Katara’s war trauma largely happened before she took an active part in it. After she chose to be a part of the war, she became a waterbending master, made close friends, found her father again, got closure for her mother’s murder, defeated the Fire Lord, and met the love of her life. If Katara were a real person, maybe she’d be traumatized, but nowhere in the text of ATLA does she exhibit the sign that she’s tired of fighting on behalf of the world. If anything, she just got started.

If you take her post-ATLA arc at face value (vs as bad writing), it’s a tragedy of a woman who has learned to minimize her own relevance and her own power. In The Promise, she begins deferring serious decisions to Aang. She doesn’t even express a strong opinion about the fate of the entire colony of Yu Dao, or the fate of her friend Zuko. In North and South, she accepts Northern encroachment of the South in the name of progress. In TLOK we see her not as a politician or a chief, but rather as “the best healer” — albeit one who apparently never established a hospital, or trained acolytes of her own, or done anything to help people at scale, which she has always wanted to do. It’s even more egregious when you remember that in Jang Hui, she was not satisfied to simply heal the sick as the Painted Lady. She wanted to solve the root of the problem, so she cleaned the river and committed full-on ecoterrorism. Just because the war is over doesn’t mean she wants to stop helping people. In fact, the problem she addressed in Jang Hui is exactly the type of problem that would become more prevalent after the war ends, judging by the rapid industrialization between ATLA and LOK.

In the original ATLA, I think Katara is about as close to a power fantasy as you can get for a teenage girl, because she gets to be messy and goofy and powerful, even though she also had to perform a whole lot of emotional and domestic labour. But post-ATLA, she doesn’t get power and she doesn’t get to make a change. She gets love and a family. That’s it. And her grandkids don’t even remember her. Her friends and peers, on the other hand, were shown doing all sorts of super cool things like, you know, running the world they saved.

It’s not feminist to say that a female character deserves “rest” when she’s shown zero inclination that she wants a quiet life. Women who want a quiet life deserve to get it — I think Katniss’ arc is perfect — but women who want power deserve to get it too, especially when they’re motivated by compassion and a keen sense of justice. There’s nothing feminist about defending the early 2010s writing decisions of two men. Like just admit that they fucked up! It’s fine! Maybe they’ll do better in the future!

[adventures-in-mangaland]

Another Dead Boy Detectives Fic Rec List

Netflix sucks and I'm sad, but the Dead Boy Detectives fandom continues to be awesome, so here are some more very quick fic recs!*

Tonight's the Night You Fight Your Best Mate's Dad by Opossum_Subatomic

Everyone's Alive College/University 5+1 things fic featuring Charles bringing Edwin coffee and slowburn payneland. Also Family/Wedding Drama involving Everyone Thinks They're Dating so acute is verges on Fake Dating. This author is seriously fantastic, everything they write is gold.

You should also check out Kissing Lessons, which is a high school AU that does what it says on the tin while also giving non-binary Monty and polyamory.

Ornithology by Rosie447

Monty gets a job working at Tragic Mick's. This one's not actually payneland, being gen and Monty-centric. I know, gasp. It's a fantastic and very sweet exploration of Monty discovering his sense of self post canon and works as a great metaphor for recovery from toxic family/relationships. Also, the ex-animal solidarity and bonding with Mick is lovely.

what some circumstance stole by Chrome

The Sandman crossover featuring Edwin and Hob being kidnapped and tortured together. Their friendship is really wholesome with eventual Father Figure and Found Family Feels for the whole agency and background Dreamling.

dandelion wine (life and death in summertime) by world_wanderer

Payneland Right Person Wrong Time AU in which neither of them die but they still meet and become friends. The May/December friendship is sweet but tragic, with a bittersweet ending. Superb.

Mirror Image by Anonymous

Charles' afterlife gets taken over my an evil shape-shifting doppelganger, leaving him with plenty of time to regret never talking to Edwin about his feelings. Angsty but with Feelings Realisation and the Power of Love and Friendship vibes.

my healing needed more than time by babyseraphim

Case fic with de-aged Charles! Baby Charles is precious but be prepared for discussions of childhood trauma/abuse.

The same author has also written I'm So Aces at Babysitting, which is a really cute two-chaptered AU featuring Charles and Edwin babysitting the kid versions of each other, with bonus Crystal and Niko doing the same. It's very wholesome and the author writes little kids really well.

Pouring into me by tragedy_machine

Love me some "Charles wants to date Edwin to figure out his feelings but gets turned down" fic. Feelings are hard, OK?

thank u, next by KiaraSayre

Edwin fucks and Charles seethes. It's very funny and also features some interesting worldbuilding with the Fae.

Like We've Never Known Hurt by dearheartdont

Just cute established relationship PWP and praise kink. So good.

all of these hollows by handwrittenhello

The boys are alive again but sans memories. Can they still find each other and prove their devotion to the Night Nurse?? While also evading heavenly and hellish forces trying to keep them apart??? Very interesting concept executed well.

Suo Gân by emryses

The agency takes on the case of a traumatised Edwardian ghost searching for her missing baby... Read it for Edwin family feels.

Where Primroses Bloom by PantryJesus

Reading aloud as a love language and Watership Down feels. Idk, I'm now convinced that Edwin is kind of rabbit-coded with the whole "if they catch you they'll kill you. But first they must catch you" thing. A lovely well written fic.

I'm so sick of online love by Hse11z5

College/University AU where the boys meet through a dating app. It's cute.

you can have the best of me, baby (and I will give you anything) by aletterinthenameofsanity

Again, it's the Friends with Benefits but with real feelings and mutual pining for me. Now has a Charles PoV companion fic.

True Love's Kiss by Asidian

In which Charles curses himself with a Sleeping Beauty enchantment in order to confirm his feelings for Edwin and Crystal is the real MVP. I love this one because the boys are both SO stupid but in very different in-character ways.

I also recommend Promised, in which they kind of play the Green card angle to keep Edwin out of Hell? Which honestly needs to be more of a trope. And Tight Quarters, starring the boys trapped in a magic circle, leading to Forced Proximity induced Feelings Realization (in more ways than one! 😉).

Something I Can Turn To by DontOffendTheBees

I love some domestic fluff, in this case as an Everyone's Alive/Childhood Friends AU in which the boys are poor but happy living together. I liked how they both survive their respective traumas, but Reality Ensues.

I also recommend Lived My Whole Life Before the First Light for a lovely but melancholy Soulmate AU that goes for the "seeing colours" trope for extra wistful angst.

Dining at the Ritz by TerresDeBrume

Meeting the Parents fic in which Edwin's parents are awful and Charles is Not Having It. This has Everyone Thinks They're Dating and autistic Edwin stimming representation, plus discussions of racism, classism and ableism. The fic is also part of a great Modern AU series in which the boys attended St Hilarion's at the same time and Charles saved Edwin from a non-supernatural but still almost deadly prank. Highly recommended!

The Case of the Couples Retreat by juliasfanart

Listen, I can't get enough of undercover fake dating/relationships at a couples retreat, OK? Some minor angst but overall very cute and fluffy.

acu (aysar cinematic universe) by ObsessedWithFandom

The agency is hired to solve the mystery of Charles' death and bring his killers to justice. I'm genuinely obsessed with this series; I love its OCs and Charles having an exboyfriend gives Edwin a fun crisis. Plus haunting Charles' killers is very satisfying and cathartic. Just imagine they're Netflix execs, y'all.

*Not actually quick, as it turns out. 😅

I love doing these lists because I always think I've only got a few recs and then I look back over my recent bookmarks and I've got a metric ton of great fics to rec. You guys are so talented. ❤️

[ohnoitstbskyen]

Since I asked you about Sephiroth, I also wanted to ask about what you think of Aerith’s character and her characterization throughout the franchise.

Hhh oh god. Yeah.

So, again, Aerith begins in Final Fantasy VII as a seemingly intentional semi-subversion of the Princess Holy Maiden White Mage JRPG trope.

Mechanically she is absolutely a classic white mage, but she's also a street kid with way more life experience than Cloud, who both connects instantly with him due to his similarities with Zack, her dead ex (because, of course, Cloud is directly copying Zack's entire personality), but she also notably pushes back against him, and repeatedly refuses to let him treat her like a damsel in distress, and takes direct agency over where the story is going and what's going to happen.

As she becomes more and more conscious of her Magic Special Lineage, she changes, of course, and... arguably falls a bit more into a straight rendition of the Holy Maiden trope. Albeit I have always quite loved the reveal that Aerith isn't killed by Sephiroth just as a big tragic fridging to advance the story through Cloud's pain, but as an intentional gambit on her part to ultimately defeat the villain. The translation of the game is famously a bit wonky, but my reading of the story is that she

realizes that Sephiroth is manipulating Cloud as his primary agent in the world and that she needs to get away from him

realizes that in order to cast Holy and defeat Meteor she needs to enter the Lifestream, so

she manipulates Jenova/Sephiroth into killing her in the one place on the Planet that has the strongest connection with the Ancients so she can take advantage of their knowledge to figure out how to make Holy work.

It also kinda seems to me like she realizes that Cloud is the best chance the planet has of a champion who can defeat Sephiroth and unblock the Lifestream for the Holy spell, and maybe she sacrifices herself in part in the hopes of breaking Cloud out of Sephiroth's influence. which, yeah, that is definitely some fridging-trope nonsense.

The original game absolutely isn't perfect on how it handles it, but Aerith is (especially for the late 90s) a remarkably active player in the story, with a lot of agency entirely separate from the male protagonist, who comes into a role that requires her to separate herself from the main party and go off to set her own plans into motion.

I am overall less fond of how she got portrayed in media after the original FF7, where she really did seem to get boxed into an entirely unironic Holy Maiden trope - especially by Advent Children which casts her as a literal lover/mother to Cloud, whose especially pure and holy influence heals the blight of Geostigma once her darling Cloud overcomes his personal conflict. And certainly, a lot of portrayals of Aerith I've seen tend to focus way more on her mystical, divine Cetra Chosen One-ness than on her actual upbringing as a scrappy sassy street kid.

The Remake games... have generally walked the line okay, I think? Aerith with the steel chair might genuinely be my favourite gif from any videogame ever,

(she's just so happy to be beating the shit out of this man)

although I do feel like her portrayal in those games make her a bit too much of a Love Interest To The Protagonist character. I feel the balance in the original focused a lot more on her coming into an understanding of her role in the story separate from her attachment to Cloud, but I also have massive nostalgia glasses on my face about Final Fantasy VII, so I recognize that I am biased here.

I'm curious how the Remake trilogy, which is a wild metacommentary on the legacy of its own original, will ultimately handle her, and I really do hope it doesn't confuse the idea of a "good ending" for Aerith with the idea of being romantically paired up to a male character, or with the idea of literal or metaphorical motherhood or some other bioessentialist nonsense.

[runawrites-blog]

Deadpool Being A Girl Dad Would Include 🌸

-Wade Wilson is the biggest Girl Dad™️ and anyone who disagrees can fight me on it

-Of course, he would have been happy about a boy just as much as a girl but when you came back from a doctor’s appointment to tell him he’d have a daughter he was overjoyed

-When you ask him if he’s crying and tell him how sweet he’s being he just tells you to fuck off and you just hug him tightly

-He buys his daughter so many stuffed toys, going through the whole animal kingdom, then buying unicorns and dinosaurs, too

-He loves painting your daughter's nails and he lets her paint his nails, proudly walking around with his colourful nails and showing off how he matches with his baby girl

-speaking of matching, he will wear clothes that match the ones your daughter is wearing and it won’t matter what colour or motives they have because he’ll gladly wear matching Hello Kitty sweaters just as much as he’ll wear a matching dinosaur shirt

-You have to lecture him on safe sleeping and not letting his daughter sleep in a bed full of stuffed animals

-From the day that he found out he'd have a daughter he was going over names every day, looking them up online, asking his friends about their opinions and overall being very imaginative

-Some of the names were better than others but eventually, you two came to a compromise

(-I personally headcanon his daughter's name to be Bea after Bea Arthur from Golden Girls because in the first Deadpool, he wears a shirt with her face on it, I just needed to share this)

-He adores dressing his daughter in cute outfits, not necessarily in the sense of dressing her in puffy dresses or clothes covered in bows, but in clothes with cute prints

-Wade gets that a baby needs comfortable clothes but that doesn’t mean they can’t have cute kittens on them or be brightly coloured or covered in a glittery print

-He would also totally let his daughter choose what she wants to wear, letting her pick the wildest mix-matched outfits ever

-When his daughter gets old enough to actually understand what books you two are reading to her, he goes out of his way to look for ones with positive female role models

-He buys books where the girl saves the day, where the female characters are strong and independent, where they have agency and big dreams because he wants his daughter to know that she can be anything she wants to be and that she can do that on her own

-That doesn’t mean he isn’t protective because if any bad guys catch wind of the fact that he has a daughter and threatens her, he’ll go ballistic on them

-Spends hours watching Barbie movies with your daughter and then dances around the flat singing along to the songs with her while she pretends to be a princess or fairy

-Wade tries to learn how to do your daughter’s hair and spends countless hours on the internet, looking up tutorials on how to do elaborate hairstyles

-He is always distraught when he can’t get it right and you have to come in and help him

-Totally has tea parties with his daughter and her stuffed animals

-He’ll also be super interested in her hobbies, be it football or ballet, baseball or horseback riding, he will let her talk his ear off about it

-Speaking of ears, when his daughter wants to get her ears pierced he goes with her and lets her sit in his lap so she won’t be afraid but it’s actually him who ends up flinching more than her when he sees her little face scrunch up in pain

-Then he’ll buy her twenty new pairs of earrings while you go on telling him that the piercing needs to heal first and she won’t be able to wear them for another month or so anyway

-Wade is the Dad his daughter's friends feel safe around, and they ask for help if anyone makes them feel uncomfortable or unsafe

-loves watching stereotypical girl shows with her, like My Little Pony or Winx Club

-listens to boybands with her

-has pyjama parties with her where they paint each others' nails, watch romcoms, eat popcorn and do face masks

-Wade is the Dad who loudly cheers his kid on during school functions, big games, dance recitals, you name it and he never misses one of these events

-If he has to show up in full Deadpool gear so he will make it on time then he will

-When his daughter gets older and gets her first period, he panics a little but when you sit down to talk to her about it he is there to reassure her, too

-never embarrassed to buy pads or tampons for his daughter and brings home her favourite sweets to make her feel better

-imagine him standing at the cash register in full Deadpool getup buying menstrual products and chocolate for her

-he is also very good at getting blood out of clothes, so that comes in handy, too

-he will teach her self-defence, showing her all the ways she can protect herself, verbally and physically

-insanely proud when she managed to take him down and slam him onto the floor

-isn't the biggest fan of going shopping but will do the stereotypical dad thing where he sits down and lets his daughter put on a full fashion show to show off her new clothes

-he knows what it's like to feel insecure about your looks so if his daughter ever feels insecure or not pretty enough he will actually sit down to have a serious talk with her and tell her how beautiful he thinks she is

-has the sweetest nicknames for her, from regular ones like "Honey" to things like "Light of my Life" or "My Little Princess"

[mrnightingale]

DBDA Character Appreciation Week: #4 Niko Sasaki

I love her sm!!! Outfit ideas here by @katygorl

The yellow one is w a pastel highlighter, and the other two w colouring pencils and greyish purple and violet highlighter. I really like this one, I think I'm starting to find a colouring technique I don't completely hate!!! Whoohoo! (Btw in the purple one, the flowers on her top and boots are two different types of Violets, and she's holding a pink sea glass bc palasaki my beloved ones, they're matching ✨✨✨).

Words can't explain how much I love Niko, she's incredibly sweet and friendly and empathetic, and I love her dynamic with practically every character in the show, but what I love the most is that we can actually see on-screen how much she grows through the chapters, how stronger she's getting. I love DBDA because it portrays how different people deals with their feelings in a realistic way, how every teen has their own problems and it takes them with the care it deserves, it doesn't feel exaggerated but every topic is given the adequate seriousness it requires, and honestly is such a masterpiece in the storytelling and pacing through the chapters between the cases and their own character arcs that their evolution doesn't feel rushed at all, but then you look back and see how much they changed, and is really heartwarming.

I love Niko because at first she's locked up in her room and doesn't talk with anyone, and slowly starts opening up with Crystal, and the boys, and then you think she's okay, but she's not. Dealing with depression and mental health issues it's much more difficult than it might seem from the outside, because one day you're feeling Good Enough to go and talk to people with a smile on the face, but that doesn't mean you're really okay. That just means you're feeling Good Enough to keep the mask on through a conversation. And Niko feels pretty realistic and natural to me because healing requires time, and support, and the agency is supporting her but they're not rushing her up to join on cases until she's ready, and that's beautiful. I think it's beautiful bc it shows a healthy environment that provides comfort and support and she's getting better thanks to it, and thanks her own hidden strength, and they're helping her realize where that strength comes from.

And, idk, as I have already said millions of times, I really love Niko and Edwin's relationship, it feels so genuine and heartwarming and bro I want the Niko to my Edwin soooo bad. Help. But my point is. I think the best word I could find to describe their relationship is "comfort" bc they can be themselves with each other, talk about their problems without pressure, knowing that the other will accept them no matter what and will help and support them and, idk, the scene when they're watching Scooby Doo while Niko writers the letter to her mother and Edwin is just there, not intervening but just saying there so she's not alone, idk, it spokes so deeply to me. Like if they could face everything as long as they have each other. I know there's always been Charles and Edwin, and they fighting together against everything, but the relationship w Niko is set in a different emotional basis and I think that's something Edwin needed, being able to talk about his feelings, and the same with Niko.

Brooooo help I love this show so fucking much, it's a masterpiece in every aspect but I'll never stop rewatching and looked amazed by the characters. They're unapologetically queer, and real, and they deal with the Life, and oh fuck, Life is hard as hell, Life is a kick after kick and punch after punch and somehow we have to keep living through it, and I feel so seen when I look at the screen and I can relate with some things that I used to think they were so personal and that I was alone w that, only bc there wasn't any representation of it. We're not alone dealing with Life, and this masterpiece of art that it's Dead Boy Detectives shows it perfectly.

It's queer and flamboyant and bizarre, you have ghosts running for their afterlifes, you have a psychic dealing with her toxic demon ex-boyfriend, and a quirky witch and her familiar twink that actually shows real abusive relationships, you have a Cat King whose only relationships are shallow, and a Night Nurse that knows everything about everything and still has a lot to learn, and you have Niko, a lonely, aloof girl with two dandelion spirits in a bell jar in her room, a girl who grew up with the support of their friends and started to live again, and love again, and love Life, and still, she gave her life for their friends.

And her death matters.

[that-hazbin]

Media Demon AU

Vaggie would be even more conflicted when she falls, imagine she gets her wings ripped off by Lute, same reason and Charlie finds her and takes her to a actual Sinner hospital.

Now I can't understand Pride Ring having a hospital at all in the Canon verse. The sheer variety of demon physiology makes such a thing as surgical medical care near impossible to practice. Sinner Demon doctors would have to have started out as vets to be able to adapt to the vast variety of pseudo species that appear every day.

They probably wouldn't be able to identify Vaggie as a Exorcist via her golden blood because no one knows Exorcists can bleed yet! (so sickfic away with Charlie handfeeding Vaggie various cultural get better foods until she finds one that works)

In this AU I'd assume any medical progress would hinge solely in the research of Angelic Steel and reversing the damage the metal causes so if the sinner dies they won't be smited. Carmine making a mint in money and hero worship from Hell's sinner demons for saving their lives.

Imagine Vaggie with Charlie in the waiting room as the doctors hurry about full triage mode treating angelic steel injuries. Crying children who have just been orphaned being comforted, (and oh Vaggie feels the guilt as she realises the unbaptised? children in hell aren't exceptions or mistakes to the extent that hell has Child Protection Services and adoption agencies out of nessesity) Broadcasts on the TV with lists of the confirmed dead and interviews with the afflicted in damaged areas as if the Exorcists were a indiscriminate natural disaster like a Earthquake or Tsunami instead of heaven mandated duty, radio broadcasts warning of damaged infrastructure and guiding people to relief centers and soup kitchens.

Then the next thing Vaggie knows is the doctors are sympathetically informing her that her wings have 50/50 chance of regrowing and talking about similar wing mutilation cases at the hands of Exorcists and warning her to avoid dying to reform fully healed as she risks permanent double death with the angelic steel contamination in her and Vaggie just feels sick..

Vaggie would definitely be less open about carrying a Exorcist spear and probably just get a normal one for defense purposes for one, threatening people with double death seems a bit extreme.

Because these demons are people too.

OOOOO oh my GOSH this actually gives me so many ideas. First of all, LOVE the idea that Hell is in a good place to actually study angelic steel and possibly treat angelic wounds, even the most serious ones. On one hand, Carmilla might lose business, but on the other hand, she is ALSO an overlord who owns a LOT of souls and doesn't want to lose any of them. Not to mention, Hell has changed so dramatically that the weapon industry isn't as lucrative as it was in the past— but medical equipment, security, and, funnily enough, instruments are a much more profitable venture now. So it wouldn't be farfetched for her to turn her business towards reforging angelic steel for other purposes, and funding medical research with the intent of uplifting her medical equipment profits. It benefits people while also making her bank, AND increasing the odds of keeping her daughters safe in the case that shit goes tits up during an extermination. (Not to mention that the hero worship definitely helps her out.)

I also really love the idea that television and radio is being used here to both warn the population of damaged areas, and informing the public of the death toll. I imagine the entire Pride Ring just dead silent as a news reporter reads through the confirmed casualties, individuals desperately hoping not to hear a name they recognize. There would definitely be Missing Persons reports as well for anyone whose body isn't accounted for. It would absolutely be treated the same way a natural disaster would, but it's routine.

As for Vaggie... OOOO boy. Imagine if Vaggie doesn't meet Princess of Hell Charlie, but instead meets DISGUISED CHARLIE.

The royal family is still not seen in an all too good light, what with the ongoing exterminations, so Charlie goes out mostly in her half-imp persona, having long learned how to do the spell herself after meeting Alastor. It's easier for her to help out the injured when they aren't hung up on their resentment of the monarchy, so it makes sense for her to be out in disguise. Then she meets Vaggie, who's lost a lot of blood, and helps guide her to the hospital.

Vaggie would definitely be unnerved by... everything about Hell. During the extermination, you don't really have the luxury or mindset to think about where you are and what you're doing. You're a tool meant to accomplish a task, only following orders. Vaggie breaks out of the mindset when she's face-to-face with a child who is cowering, cornered and shaking with sobs. She actually stops, thinks, and is like "Woah okay, this is fucked. No thank you." Suddenly the demon isn't a faceless number, that is a child. And before she even gets to process this, Lute comes in, takes out her eye, rips out her wings, steals her halo, and leaves her to bleed out in Hell.

And now Vaggie really doesn't have the time to think about anything, because she is stranded and very possibly dying.

When she's safe in a hospital, with a kind and caring woman by her side, she's going to start feeling safe enough to start processing everything. And yeah, the guilt is going to hit her like a fucking truck. It's going to hit her way harder than it would in canon, because this version of Hell makes it IMMEDIATELY clear that people aren't black and white. Pictures of missing people will be up on the TV and she'll see for herself that some of these people are happy and loved. There's different radio stations putting out heartfelt messages to those who have been lost in the recent extermination. Interviews, memorials, the works. Her worldview is changed.

I think it would be very, very interesting if disguised Charlie doesn't click with Vaggie the same way canon Charlie does simply because she didn't have to take her home to treat her. Could you imagine? Charlie doesn't need to personally oversee this person's recovery. She doesn't need to stick around, and there's more sinners out there who need treatment. So, she'll leave.

I think it would be VERY funny if the person who gets Chaggie together is actually Alastor. He knows the general timeframe that Vaggie falls and probably regularly checks the hospitals and streets just to make sure he doesn't miss her— and he finds her ALONE in a HOSPITAL. WHERE THE FUCK IS CHARLIE??

Listen, he didn't particularly like Vaggie, but she DID try to save his life in the other timeline despite their mutual distaste. And, okay, MAYBE her sarcastic attitude grew on him a little...

Fuck it, he cares. Time to adjust the Grand Plan.

So, he enters her room. Vaggie is immediately on edge, because this guy is not a doctor, and a stranger walking into your hospital room when they have no business being there is very unnerving. Alastor shuts the door behind him, and walks over to sit by her bedside.

"I'd like the preface that I don't particularly care about the atrocities you've committed in the past," he'll start off with, because he does not want her flying off the handle before he finishes speaking, "considering that everyone in Hell has done something immoral, but I would like to know exactly what you did for your exorcist friends to reject you so violently."

And Vaggie is terrified. But this guy isn't attacking her, so she answers.

"Huh. Well then, I'd like to make a deal. You promise to never intentionally or willingly hurt anyone whose wellbeing I personally care about, and I'll set you up with an identity, some cash, a roof over your head, protection, and a job. What do you say?"

And this is how Alastor plots to one day get Vaggie employed at the hotel. Not knowing that Vaggie's current job as bodyguard to his little half-imp star is already pushing the Chaggie agenda.

[akutasoda]

i saw requests are reopening!! if it's not too much trouble, could i ask for ranpo, yosano & whoever else with a reader who has bad insomnia and can't sleep?

thank you ^^

sleepless nights with you

synopsis - how are they when you have insomnia

includes - ranpo, yosano, fyodor

warnings - gn!reader, reader has insomnia..., fluff, wc - 530

a/n: it's actually very ironic you sent this request as i currently have insomnia- had it for two weeks now rrr not fun :(

ranpo edogawa ★↷

↪for the greatest detective in the world, he wouldn't exactly know how to help with insomnia. all his ideas were what he would do and that probably wouldn't help you much. so he does turn to get advice from yosano.

↪his initial reaction would be to scoff at her advice. ranpo understood that you should adhere to her words but having scheduled bedtimes and such seemed boring. but it wasn't for him, it was for you. and he wanted you to cure your insomnia as quickly as possible.

↪naturally ranpo would help you as much as he could. he kept your room dark, he made sure it was as comfortable as possible - he enjoyed that the most as ranpo quite liked how comfy your room had begun, the perfect place to cuddle up with you.

↪yosano's suggested bedtimes went largely ignored by him, and you as a result. but every night without fail, ranpo always was beside you. talking with you, eating sweets and such. helping you drift off slowly but surely.

akiko yosano ★↷

↪as the agency's designated physician/doctor, she would be the best person to go to for any issue. from simple colds to serious injuries, she would always heal them for her coworkers and especially you. although insomnia isn't exactly something that can be cured in similar ways.

↪fortunately, she was still well versed in methods that could help you - making sure your room is dark and quiet, your surroundings are comfortable, following bedtime routines etc.

↪and yosano could make sure to enforce it with you. it wasn't that she was trying to be mean or anything, yosano just wanted to help cure your insomnia as quickly as possible as it definitely wasn't something you wanted.

↪she'd help set up your room to be darker and make sure it was comfortable. she'd talk to you and help keep your mind off things to then hopefully see you get tired quicker. yosano would even enforce a regular bedtime to make sure that even if you had a rough night, you got a decent amount of sleep.

fyodor dostoevsky ★↷

↪it would probably be safe to assume that he has had quite a few run ins with insomnia himself - or at least something similar. so when you approached him about your insomnia, he definitely could give you some advice (and help you enforce the ways put in place to help you)

↪he'd start insisting you go to bed earlier and he would make sure of it. fyodor wasn't being mean about it, he just wanted you to cure your insomnia as quick as possible - he would excuse all your grumbling and complaints at first.

↪fyodor also built up a habit of bringing you tea or whatever drink you'd prefer, as long as it was sensible, to then sit with you until you fell asleep before returning to work. it didn't matter if you got up again as he would just help you go back to sleep.

taglist - @little-miss-chaoss, @vi-chan07

[hexite-nightmares]

My very unorganized thoughts on S2 of Arcane but only about Viktor

Alright I finally had time to think and write everything down so here we go. I want to preface that I have been weary about this season ever since I watched the act 1 leaks. Mainly because it was very clear he was never going to be a machine, and they didn't give him enough screen time to develop his motivations into ACT 3 Viktor being convincing enough

LET'S START WITH THE FALSE PROPHET VIKTOR

Alright so he has about 11 minutes ish of screentime. Aside from the glaring issue of Jayce reviving him and not destroying the hexcore, taking away agency from a disabled character. It was clearly a false prophet situation, but it was so fucking confusing on whether he could feel like a regular human, if he was under the Hexcore's control which makes the agency issue worse or just jaded. He all of a sudden starts speaking like he's reading Deuteronomy passages ?? We don't know for sure if he's aware that he's basically creating a hive mind now, did he start his plans of making everyone into one right here? Sky seems to encourage him to do this, what does she know about it since shes been in the hexcore ALONE for a little longer? (writers didnt confirm whether it was the real her or not) . Act 1 Viktor's issues are mostly about agency, and a seeming full abandonment of his identity as a scientist, his personality does a full 180. He doesn’t seem to question that the object that revived him and killed Sky is giving him healing powers, but he’s angry at Jayce so we have no clue if he’s being controlled or not.

The show doesn't seem to care to spend time with him bc Isha and Ambessa I guess.

Anyways lets move on to not even act 2, but ep 6, his only episode in this act.

I had huge gripes with this episode, mainly because whatever the fuck was going on with Viktor trying to "keep" Vander's humanity, when he clearly was taking it away from everyone he touched, does he actually believe what he's saying or is he under the Hexcore's control still?. Obviously the glaring issues of Sky being there without any actual input, they're cosmic friends I guess but with very generic lines, and the fandom has to fill in the blanks with whatever Amanda Overton feels like saying about Sky in the moment(if we don't see it in the show I don't take it as her development, sorry). So Viktor builds Colloidal silver drinking Joshua tree and ppl think it's fucking Eden, Jinx calls him a Machine Herald when there's NO SIGN OF MACHINERY JUST PURPLE MAGICAL METAL LOOKING FLESH. We get a whole ass different realm with no explanation other than, oh yeah Viktor is inside there. Jayce comes in and almost kills him. The only option there is at this point is for Singed to start his MH era. The choice of becoming MH is nonexistent now, other people have to jumpstart things for him. I know some people interprete this commune as Viktor achieving his dreams, thinking he was being himself, that he was in paradise with Sky and.. that wasn’t the case for me.. it was extremely sinister. Worst part of this Act, is that MH was seemingly a damn trial experiment for Orianna.

BONUS:

So it seems that Christian Linke has confirmed Sky was the hexcore using its influence to manipulate viktor into the glorious evolution. He said it was meant to be as a misdirect. So to everyone who got dunked on here for “wanting to be spoonfed” or “not reading into it deep enough” for thinking he was being mind controlled, you were right about it being the hexcore. Viktor has been confirmed to have no agency until episode 9 I guess. He also mentioned Viktor’s goal was getting the most power/influence… we never saw a fucking glimpse of this in season one I’m sorry.

ACT 3

First awful problem here is obviously Singed having to jumpstart things. Viktor is aware for his choice of whatever is happening with the egg thing. Yet....there's still no sign of machinery. We get a scene where Sky fucking dies again, he refers to her as Ms Young, which im guessing is a parallel to the other time he dismissed her in S1. But of course we get the double fridging in the show, cuz making female characters just for the sake of advancing her crush's plot line is sooo amazing. Here lies sky, the character who is barely a character. Well after that we get the sequence of his transformation and we get that butt ugly mask. His personality does another huge change again. So we know the hexcore is not influencing him anymore as the hexcore completed its goal of the glorious evolution.. so I guess viktor really does think this is the right way?

A huge issue I have again, is the lack of agency. In this particular scene Jayce goes "My partner died in this room" yeah..Viktor didn't fully choose to become this right? it all started with Jayce using the hexcore on him, it’s been manipulating him the whole ass season…Kinda wish there was some sort of acknowledgement from Jayce that he’s basically the catalyst of this.

He gets his laser because...fanservice. There's no way he went all the way to the lab and magically attached it to himself just to cut off a wall. He keeps going on that choice is false, but a few minutes before he said he’d evolve all of those willing?

In the cosmos, beautiful sequence. I don’t love Jayce’s dialogue choices(about his disease) here and then it all being about viktor hating himself.. since the hexcore was leading to all of this, his motivation for it all being self hatred feels a bit eh. The sequence is beautiful and Jayce and Viktor destroying the anomaly with the rune shard is nice, that part was cute. But then they kinda disappear and we only know that viktor is alive so far, no clue about Jayce. The sequence is touching towards the end and I’m a sucker for characters finding each other in every timeline/universe but it can’t make up for all the other things that are bothering me. This seems to be the one time Viktor has some sort of agency I guess.

Then obviously the worst part that will bother me forever. The thing that made me almost slam my laptop shut

This retcon is just awful I shouldn’t even have to say why, it makes things fucking weird and it’s frankly stupid. Also viktor can’t rock a beard like that.

Anyways this is very disorganized, fuck you riot I felt like an insane former this whole time but I was right.

[wannabe-cartoonist-blog]

Last Game hair style fixes, in order of who needed it most.

I've never liked the canon hair styles in Last Game. They're either hideous, or just simply don't fit the characters/style of the main series. I get its a (mostly different) art department and meant to age the characters up, but most of the time, they simply just look off-model to me. I know I'm not the only one who's got issues with the hairstyles in this movie too, so I did my best to fix them up and give them styles that I personally think suite them. Originals below cut as well as my explanations! Important to note, these are my preferences/headcanons for them so take everything I'm about to say with a grain of salt.

**Akashi isn't here, because believe it or not, I actually think his hair looks the best out of everyone in LG.

I wouldn't change it. I like to draw him with neater hair/his bangs pushed out of his face when I age him up, but for the summer after the Winter Cup - when LG takes place - the canon hair is exactly the sort of style I think he would/should have. I like the allegory that the rough chop is something he did when his mental health wasn't good, so now as his mental scars heal, it's growing back out. ❤️

Midorima

A neater/shorter hairstyle does fit Mido's character/personality, but the LG hair simply just doesn't look like the same hair type we see in the main series. Mido's hair has got the slightest wave to it (which I tend to over-exaggerate whenever I draw him).

With this in mind, I went and gave his hair some more body/volume by extending the sides. (You'll see a lack of volume/body is the key issue with the other LG hairs as well).

Murasakibara

Mura's hair in this movie looks so so flat and greasy. Now I didn't do the best job fixing it up, but this is basically how you'd go about doing it; just add more flowy strands. His hair is pretty pin-strait in canon, but there's lots of flowing strands, even when he's not moving much, which give it a clean-look.

When it's all just one limp form, like the movie does, it appears unclean as opposed to just long and sleek.

Momoi

Another victim of the lack of body/volume. The style they gave her is also simply bad, like she just took a pair of scissors and cut in a straight line. There isn't even really any style to it. Its kinda just laying there on her head, which is not what her hair usually looks like in the main series. There's always strands/some lift to it. Also Momoi has always had some sort of bangs/framing pieces in her face, so for her whole forehead to be out was just a tiny bit jarring.

I think the style I came up with is a little more mature while still having personality and life to it. Plus, LG takes place in the summer, so a shorter hair style would be more comfortable in the heat.

Kise

Kise I don't think I did a good job of fixing to my liking either. It was hard to edit it without making it look bad in general, because I really don't think this choppy sort of style suites him like at all, so it was too much to change. Now his hair is one of the better drawn ones in this movie for sure, but it feels more like a Kagami hairstyle than a Kise one to me. I just don't think his modeling agency would let him have such a choppy, hard-to-style haircut. I also think a more polished look fits his handsome, princely sort of appeal that makes him popular with girls.

Aomine

Alright, now its time for me to be playful and silly with some out-there hair styles. Aomine (and Kagami's hair) in Last Game I don't mind. After Akashi, I would say Aomine looks the best. BUT. We have NEVER seen Aomine with long hair, even in flashbacks when he's a child.

So for him to finally decide to grow out his hair - in the SUMMER HEAT - just feels like a weird move to me. Feels out of character. He strikes me as someone who likes his hair out of his face when he plays ball and just wants to roll out of bed and not worry about brushing/styling it or anything. The animators also aren't consistent in this movie and sometimes his hair looks particularly long in the front and back, which again, I don't think he'd like. This picture below and the ones above are from the same movie/take place within like a week of each other, yet look so different.

He looks cute and it definitely gives him a more youthful look; which is a weird choice, because they want to age up everyone else but Aomine in this movie. So, I think a fade would really suite him (I don't think I drew it that well tho). Keeps his hair short and out of his face but also ages him up a little more with a mature style.

Kagami

Alright, Kagami's look here is pure indulgence. @knbposting said "Kagami with a mullet" and I haven't stopped thinking about it. Sue me. His LG hair isn't bad and makes sense for his character and the time of year. But its just sorta plain. Honestly, Kise's hair style in this movie would probably suite Kagami more. I always liked how in the main series, Kagami's hair is a little scruffy in the back so I really wanted to lean into that.

Is a mullet suitable for the summer heat/something he'd like? Well, maybe not but I think it ages him up while also seeming like something he'd get at some point in his life. So here we are. I will end this with saying this is probably the longest he'd ever let his hair get.

Kuroko

Finally, we have Kuroko, whose hair I've barely changed. Now, the animators/artists do a really bad job of keeping his face on-model (eyes too beady, features too sharp) but that's a whole 'nother issue, and I managed to find a scene where they kept him on-model lol. I think a shorter, neat style is good for the summer and suites him, but a main feature of all the hair throughout the main series is the spikes/strands of hair on nearly every character - Kuroko especially - so I just added a tiny bit more here.

And that's the end! If you read all the way to here, thanks for coming to my insane-person rant.

[knight-says-pow]

“Catradora walked so CaitVi could run” no, actually. Catradora ran on its own. The only correlation between these two ships are the sapphics Going Through It™️

Glimadora waked so CaitVi could run.

The dynamic of someone from a high struggle environment that relies on combat and someone from a high position of privilege who desires combat, learning to work together despite both having personal losses to opposite sides of the same conflict? One of them having a living person they still care for that they’re trying to save from the other side? Where all three get into multiple fights that puts person A in the position of “choosing” even though they proceed to not because they can’t? Yeah. Yeah.

Same people same dynamics same struggle, only difference is CaitVi did it romantically on purpose and became canon

Catra and Adora came from the same roots, one of them just switched sides. Their relationship is about healing past mistakes and repeating their own story, it’s about the final selfish act of choosing each other for once. That couldn’t be further from what Caitlyn and Vi have going on.

Glimmer and Caitlyn have basically the same arcs. Even down to the “listens to a war pig’s manipulation for power out of grief for their mother.” They are mirrors of each other. Adora and Vi both chose to switch sides for the sake of more agency, they have martyr complexes and want to save everyone to the detriment of their combat strategy.

Of course I know The Horde was an active oppressive force while Zaun was oppressed, I’m not oblivious, but when Adora joined the rebellion the power dynamic changed. She was the ex horde solder there, she was the outcast who couldn’t slip up or would risk a much more critical response than anyone else. Within Glimmer’s kingdom she absolutely had less if no real power and this was made a point when Glimmer started abusing her “I’m the queen not you” line.

What did Caitlyn do when Vi would try to change course? Oh, right, pulled rank and flaunted her authority to everyone else. What did Vi do? Go off n try her own plan with Jayce. Who else did that? Right, Adora.

I could keep going with comparisons but genuinely this post would never end

[ecoterrorist-katara]

I have been thinking a lot about blood bending lately and why the writers decided to go with the storyline of it being banned. I personally do not think it should have been. Like any bending form it can be used for awful things or it could be used for great things (my first thought is always in a medical sense but I’m sure there are other uses). And then I started to wonder if part of why they did that is bc that storyline was connected to Katara more than anyone else, and maybe this was a way to sideline her/focus more on Korra and the new gang instead of exploring with the older characters along with the new ones. But I was wondering if you had any thoughts on it!

hi anon! Sorry for getting to your ask a little late. I was at music camp (okay it’s a professional development program for musicians but I think of it as music camp in an effort to remind myself to have fun) and it was a big challenge since I’m chronically ill and needed a whole apothecary of meds to get through it. (I’m fine now! But needed to pace very carefully before & after and therefore stayed away from Tumblr)

It’s absolutely weird to me that bloodbending is singled out in a world where people can literally steal breath from one’s lungs, but it’s even weirder to me that they had a whole “ban bloodbending” storyline and sidelined Katara, because like…in what world would Katara feel strongly enough about bloodbending to ban it, yet do nothing to enforce the ban? The only explanation that makes sense is that she banned it because she was so ashamed, and stayed away from all the stuff around Yakone et al because she couldn’t bear to be reminded of what she’d done. And like all interpretations of canon Katara in LOK, that is just horribly heartbreaking.

I don’t begrudge the creators for wanting LOK to be about the new generation and I don’t mind seeing the Gaang play second fiddle. But I do object to the creators putting Katara in these situations where she could something in her wheelhouse, that’s in-character with her skills and ambitions, that is in line with her cultural impact as a role model for girls…and then sidelining her. Yakone is a big example, obviously, but so is Katara’s lack of involvement in the Civil War, the Red Lotus kidnapping, etc.

Like you said, bloodbending is useful in terms of the medical implications, but I also think it’s a humane tool in battle as long as it’s only used to incapacitate and not control. I can’t think of many better ways of incapacitating an enemy without causing serious damage (it’s even more efficient than chi-blocking!). If a bloodbender can stop encroaching enemies in their tracks with a flick of their wrist — well, that actually seems more humane than freezing them into ice cubes, which is the go-to waterbender move. I mean, Katara stops Hama with bloodbending in The Puppetmaster; she doesn’t actually control Hama with it. It’s terrible to override people’s bodily autonomy and make them do things they don’t want to do, but that is a very specific use of bloodbending.

I do think, though, that Katara is not the type of person to recognize all the other potential uses of bloodbending unless someone prompts her, and unfortunately that person is not going to be Aang. It doesn’t help that Katara’s first experience with bloodbending is being stripped of her own agency; similarly, it becomes her go-to weapon when she encounters (she thinks) the person who made her feel the most powerless in her life. To Katara, bloodbending is about taking power from someone else…and on her own, she’s not likely to see other applications. Katara is an excellent fighter with a lot of raw power, finesse, and creativity, but she’s not actually all that in-tune with her element, and I think that’s another reason she was never very interested in healing in canon (Katara and waterbending could be a whole other meta). Katara would’ve been an equally excellent bender no matter which element she wields, unlike Toph and Aang, who are uniquely suited to their elements. Katara borrows a lot from the more aggressive forms of bending (fire and earth): grabs people with water tentacles, hits them with ice disks, overwhelms them with big waves. For all that waterbending is about going with the flow and using the opponent’s strengths against them, Katara doesn’t exactly exemplify that philosophy (unlike Aang, btw, who is more intuitive as a waterbender than she is; that is why he picked it up more quickly at the beginning). She addresses all her problems head-on and is more likely to meet them with raw power than anything else. If I were to guess her astrological placements, she’d be an Aries Mars, minimum, if not an Aries Sun as well (she’d be a Cancer Moon though…I have Thoughts on ATLA astrology lmao).

Anyway, all this to say: I don’t think Katara would’ve thought of the healing implications of bloodbending on her own, when she’s already been traumatized by it, and that’s pretty tragic tbh. I like the Zutara interpretation of Zuko inspiring Katara to think there are other uses for bloodbending (as a wielder of a potentially destructive element), but I think Toph could’ve had a conversation with her about other uses for bloodbending as well, since Toph is really creative with earth. Actually, I think Zuko or Toph or Sokka could’ve all had a conversation with Katara about coming to terms about doing things that one is not proud of & moving past them, but I guess Katara can only follow the rigid moral code of her Do No Wrong boyfriend. Anyway, LOK’s despicable treatment of ATLA’s female characters is nothing new, but Katara’s is the most obvious and egregious because she’s actually there. We have no idea what happened to Suki or Azula or Mai or Ty Lee, and what we do see from Toph is not great either (in what world would she retire to be lonely in a swamp when having her friends meant the world to her…). All the boys got to have cool fulfilling lives and all the girls who aren’t lost to history are sad sacks, thanks Bryke! On a non-sarcastic note, thank you anon for such an interesting question!

[ilikekidsshows]

My current problem with the fandom stems from the sheer hypocrisy, especially surrounding their treatment of Marinette vs Adrien regarding salt and salt fics. With the former, despite her taking the side of her boyfriend's ab*ser and a literal terror*st while seeing her boyfriend as a literal object, she still gets excused for this constantly by the fandom, and people lament about all the difficulties she's taken on to 'protect' Adrien.

Meanwhile, Adrien, who just wanted Marinette to stop going mad over exposing Lila, is painted as a doormat and manipulator who doesn't care about Marinette even though he did try to talk to Lila about her actions and came to Marinette's defense when she was about to be expelled before working to get back into school.

It's just frustrating the blatant double standard, how people will bend over backward to excuse or make light of every one of Marinette's worst moments, but Adrien (and their class) get their lives destroyed in salt fics and treated worse than Marinette ever was in those stories. Meanwhile, Marinette is this poor, innocent angel without a wicked bone in her body when that's not really the case in-universe. She will sabotage other girls, has control issues, especially with regard to Adrien, and has used her friends for her own benefit occasionally, but none of these flaws are ever addressed by anyone. No, they're downplayed or nonexistent in favor of Saint Ladybug given everything she ever wanted handed to her on a silver platter while everyone else has to burn for joining Lila.

Honestly, I wish there was a story that had both Marinette and Adrien realizing they're just not right for each other and just going their separate ways to find themselves, without salting on anyone else.

---

Hard same. Like, it's so crazy that this show somehow manages to pit the fans of the different halves of its main couple against each other. It’s also clear it’s happening because they've managed to frame the relationship in a way where the other gaining something requires something to be taken away from the other. Their needs directly contradict each other because they don’t truly have any shared goals. It's so unhealthy.

Like, Marinette gets a boyfriend who caters to her every whim without her having to give anything back and only ever sets boundaries that benefit her, while Adrien loses the chance to grow out of his abuse reponses. Marinette gets the boy of her dreams she can only say she likes for being pretty and who she can’t talk to, while Adrien loses the chance to date a person who actually makes him feel loved. Marinette gets to be with the target of her obsession, while Adrien loses the chance to even choose a girl other than Marinette. Marinette gets to choose how everything in their relationship progresses, while Adrien loses the right to determine anything that happens in the relationship.

Any attempt at giving Adrien any of the healing, agency and boundaries any person should rightfully have in a relationship, requires us to strip away the benefits Marinette gets from this relationship. Adrien's gain would be Marinette's loss. That's why the “these two would both be better off if they just broke up” take is considered salt, in addition to the fact that Adrien is one of the two things Marinette wants the most. So, any suggestion of even a temporary breakup is met with: “You want to punish Marinette (by taking her prize away)! You just hate Marinette!”

The weird thing is that Marinette stans have been opposed to Adrien from almost the start. It could be they bought into Marinette's entitlement and resented Adrien for not just instantly giving Marinette the prize she deserved. Or it could be that, before he was beaten down into blind obedience, Adricat was one of Maribug's primary foils and would be the one to push back against her when she was doing something ill advised and Marinette stans grew to resent him for “bad advice” that just wasn't what they or Marinette wanted to hear. Adrien is hated for his roles in the story, the unattainable love interest and the person who questions the lead, so it's not something that could easily be changed and it seemed more unforgivable.

In contrast, the biggest problem with Maribug was always her refusal to see Adricat as a human being. Any way she treats them wrong can be traced back to this attitude. Adrien was a prize to be won, and Cat Noir was a fae creature emotional support dispenser. And yet, despite this far bigger problem, I never hated Marinette with the vitriol Marinette stans have always hated Adrien with, probably because Marinette's problems were small character details, they were things she could easily grow out of with some character development.

Ironically, Adrien's role in the story has now been changed, into doting boyfriend and team hype man, while Marinette dehumanizing Adrien has only gotten worse.

[pilot-boi]

Whiteknight time travel Au

Pyrrha: Weiss why are we throwing away Jaunes razors

Weiss: Dear trust me give it 2 weeks and you'll never let a blade near his face... more than you already do

*weeks later*

Pyrrha: Weiss you are right it was worth it

Passing student: How could there be a not a single razer or blades in a 50 mile radius

Weiss: Did you buy all th-

Pyrrha: Razors in a 50 mile radius yes

Weiss:(kisses her) I love you so much

Pyrrha summoned them to her with her Semblance, it was deeply alarming

But also, gonna be the person to say it, Weiss wouldn’t do this to him

Fair warning, this is going to turn into a Jaune meta rant. I didn’t mean it to, it just sort of happened

Jaune growing the beard and the hair in the Ever After, no matter how attractive it was to Weiss, was representative of him not caring for himself. That’s why his armor was rusted but Crescent Rose was in perfect condition, he was putting all of his energy into worrying about/taking care of his friends and NONE into taking care of himself

And don’t say it’s because he didn’t have a way to cut it, he absolutely did. Crocea Mors was still sharp, even rusted, and if he wanted to he could’ve used that to cut his hair. Knives clearly existed and were sold, hell the Paper Pleasers had fucking scissors. If he cared about taking care of his appearance, he could’ve done so

But he didn’t. He let his physical body rust just as surely as his armor

Jaune’s whole arc is about loss of agency, and failing to live up to his own expectations

He didn’t REALLY have a choice about leaving Pyrrha, he didn’t REALLY have a choice about killing Penny, he didn’t REALLY have a choice about getting sent into the past. And then as a result of these traumas, he took agency away from the Paper Pleasers

He failed to become the hero on his own, so he doubled down on shouldering the burdens of his team. He failed to stand by Pyrrha’s side as her equal, so he doubled down on becoming a warrior. He failed to focus on protecting his friends at Haven, so he doubled down on becoming a healer/defender. He failed to heal/defend his friends and KILLED Penny, so he broke

His sword shattering was symbolic of that being the last straw. He couldn’t be a hero, he couldn’t be a leader, he couldn’t be a warrior, he couldn’t be a protector. In Jaune’s mind, he had nothing left to be

THATS why he let himself fall apart in the Ever After, in his mind he was only living to get RWBY back to Remnant. The one last thing he could do for them. THATS why he clung so hard to the role of the Rusted Knight, after so long with no purpose it was finally something he could be

That’s also why he focused so much on “protecting” the Paper Pleasers, and especially why he named them after his friends

His fragile helpful loving friends that he NEEDS to protect. Jaune knows he has more Aura than his friends (more than anyone he’s even met) and he’s meant to take the hits that his friends can’t. His weapon is a shield, and HE is a shield. The Paper Pleasers were representative of everything he failed to do for his friends, every time he failed to protect them

“Because I can actually protect these people!”

Jaune lost all of his agency when he landed in the Ever After. He didn’t chose to kill Penny, he didn’t choose to fall, he didn’t choose to go back in time. So he took away the Paper Pleaser’s AND ALYX’S agency because he was terrified of not being able to protect them

Weiss saw what happened to him at his worst, she saw what happened to Jaune when every choice was taken from him and he had nothing but failure to remember.

So no way in hell would Weiss take away his agency now, or make him think he’s failing her by not looking “mature”. She might joke with him about it, but she’d never take away his choice in the matter

[impatient-traveler]

The Aera problem

Thought I'd write up a post about this, mainly because I want to put this information out there but I don't want it to be in a reply where it'd come off like I'm descending on any specific person.

To clarify ahead of time: You're perfectly free to accept whatever parts of official XV-related content you want! You can enjoy them and be excited about them and I'm happy for you. I just also think there's a lot of context that some people might be missing on this that they might want to know.

So, Terada. For those who don't know, Terada took over game director duties as Tabata was forced to focus on the next project (Agni/Forspoken, at the time it was still closer to Agni). That was about when EpP was being developed, though that was mid transition and not fully him. Which is why you start to notice contradictions around that point.

Terada is a fucking sexist, there's no putting it mildly. He's done such delightful things as: arrive at a fan gathering, notice it was mostly women, and open his panel with "wow that's a lot of females". Another time he talked about how it's guys that play video games, don't you know? Women don't do that. And said that there's no point in the game having more costume options for the characters because "nobody wants to dress up men".

He's also a liar, loves to take credit for other people's accomplishments, and everything he makes is just really badly written, but those are kind of tangential to what I'm trying to say here.

The main issue is that then, after no previous mention of Ardyn ever having had a love interest or family, we suddenly are told "actually, ALL of his motivation was about a dead woman". We had been already given plenty of reasons for the way he was: He'd been in the process of healing the Scourge, he was accused and "ostracized and daemonized" in his own words. We know he was imprisoned for some time, (again: I am treating pre-Terada stuff as canon here, so it wasn't necessarily all the time up to when he entered the Niflheim political scene) and we know he's unable to die! That's plenty!! That's a great reason to be upset!!!

And suddenly Aera gets introduced and none of what I just said is given *any* more attention. In fact it's actively stated (by him being perfectly docile at the start of EpA) that none of that mattered! He's fine! Totally not broken by betrayal and imprisonment!! Instead we're given a new character that has no reason to be there and no agency at all. She's just an accessory for Ardyn to be sad about.

Time to bring up another anectode about Terada. They did a livestream when the EpA anime dropped. They did a Q&A there. It wasn't live questions. These had been gathered, vetted, and pre-approved. He had EVERY OPPORTUNITY to prepare for it. He gets asked something along the lines (paraphrasing but I remember it very well): "I'm very interested in Aera! What can you tell us about her? What is she like?" What followed was a solid minute of the guy going "uhhh... ummm... well... uuuhhhhh.... she likes.... uhhh.... tea.... and uhhh... a-archaeology?" You know, like she has a shot in the anime where she's drinking tea, and another where her and Ardyn are in some old ruins for 5 seconds.

Alright, long enough post already. One last thing is many of you might point out that there's little difference betweeen Aera and Luna. And that's a valid point, but I have to disagree. Luna has many problems as a character, I won't deny that. She's criminally underutilized. But she has infinitely more agency than Aera, she's at least mentioned/acknowledged infinitely more, and the game actually properly explores and develops Noctis's OTHER reasons for doing what he's doing, so she's not solely a convenient piece of motivation for him.