#I love tragic antags

[bravelittleocelot]

Honestly I wanna ramble some more cuz I'm so excited for vengeance and I heard love in paradise and gods games again, and I just,,,,,, I don't think I've actually rambled about my interpretation of love in paradise much outside of calling out the racism im noticing,,, so I'm going to do that now and then I'll stop posting for a bit cuz I need to lmao

this got long so I'm putting it under a cut, last chance to not read this. if you just want to argue with me about it just scroll by or block me. I'm not here to change anyones mind or argue I just want to talk about how I interpret the songs. Please don't bring up how you think she raped him on this post.

I think that both Calypso and Ody went through those seven years literally like, that bus meme LMAO. But I still think they developed in really interesting ways too (for better and worse). like,,, when we first meet Her we meet this goddess who has no idea how to exist with another person, she dismisses everything Ody says, she seems to view him closer to a pet than anything else (one way to interpret why she does this is because up until now she's had animals and inanimate objects to keep her company? If what I'm gathering from not sorry for loving you is right she was just fuckin left there) but by the end of the song she's pleading for him to listen to her. She's calling him Ody - he doesn't tell her his name in the start of the song (and as much as I like the theory that he repeats the things his friends have said to him in his sleep, I prefer the idea he did introduce himself at some point) and I think it really does feel like she's listening to what he's saying but she has no idea how to handle it. Like, even if we do use the "she still sees him as a pet" interpretation, your pet becomes suicidal, wtf are you gonna do? If my cat went to a cliff and started screaming about me not knowing what he's done and gone through I wouldn't know what the fuck to say either. I don't think she's trying to seduce him off the cliff (and I think it's super weird people make it out that's what happens!) I think she's literally on her knees begging the only person she's ever known to come back to her so that she can help him,,,, she doesn't help him, obviously, she triggers the fuck out of him but by god she's trying!!! lmfaooo.

....actually I guess Ody is more a golden retriever but you hear me.

Anyway

She's an antagonist for a reason, she literally cannot understand why keeping him captive there is wrong. I still don't think she rapes him, but I do think it took her a long time to understand he has boundaries. and I think "and if I pushed you/ came on too strong" etc in not sorry for loving you shows us, she, still, can't understand why what she did was bad after all this time, she was just trying to love him in the way she wanted to be loved. and that is, honestly, terrifying and heartbreaking all at the same time.

as a side tangent, Because we know Jorge loves to use wordplay (look how he used double meanings during Suffering) when she sings "Under my spell, we're stuck in paradise. No one can come or go, my island stays unknown" you can for sure take that to mean "under my Curse, we're stuck here Together", and tbh I feel like that's backed up in what I've heard of Not Sorry For Loving you? She's, for sure trapped him, im not arguing that, but she's stuck there too. I don't have a point here cuz imo it doesn't actually make her anything other than more tragic and more of an antagonist cuz girl you KNOW what it's like to be stuck there, it might be paradise but you said it yourself you're!! stuck!! Jorge uses his words so carefully (at least 98% of the time), she's not just casually saying stuck imo!! Actually maybe I do have a point cuz imo that makes it even more interesting!! Like, no wonder she doesn't want to let him go!! He's the only person she's ever met and probably the only person she ever will meet!! "My island stays unknown"!! Selfishly, there's no fucking way she'd let him go without divine intervention!! Scary!!! UGH I love this, it's so tasty and complicated and!! That makes a good antagonist!!! She's great I love her 10/10 mr jorge this is a GREAT version and I will marry her.

And Ody,,,,,,,

God where do I even begin with Ody. I said before that I think the worst part of this for him was to be reminded of Polites every fucking day for seven years. Because lets be real, she might be Coping but she calls her own prison a paradise, she greeted him with open arms and greets her world with open arms (lmao and he becomes her world.... im not crying much its fine) . And like, there are a few ways to view that last bit of the song cuz she IS repeating things from the people he loved most, he could've been talking in his sleep and she's trying to use familiar phrasing or she could just be, yknow, Like This. and personally I love the idea that Ody was faced with someone who reflected all the pieces of the people he loved back to him, everyone except!! his wife!! She reflects the words of his mom, the strength of Eury, the open arms of Polites.... and my GOD would that be torture on top of being trapped. I said it before, there's three people on that island, Ody, Caly, and the intense!! guilt!! Ody feels!! And she makes it worse!! He's trapped, and he can't even escape the people he failed because she constantly reminds him of them (accidentally but still, constant).

but like he says in not sorry for loving you ( and I do not want to hear a fucking word about Stockholm syndrome this is my post and I'm putting my foot down) he loves her. cuz again, of course he loves her, how could he not love someone who reminds him of all the best parts of the people he loves. It's not romantic, it's not in the way she wants to be loved, It's probably incredibly painful, he for sure also hates her, but they spent seven years together. Seven years of existing together isn't something to sneeze at!! No matter what happened, there had to be Moments. Moments that gave him some sort of peace because otherwise he would've been on that cliff before the year was up.

And speaking of that??? What did he say to her all these years. That's what I want to know. Cuz despite me calling bullshit on sir yaps a lot NOT telling her about what happened to him, can we talk about

You don't know what I've gone through You don't know what I've sacrificed Every comrade I long knew Every friend, I saw them die And all I hear are screams

cuz what if!! she doesn't know!!! what if this whole time he tried to just talk about them like they were still alive or focus in on getting home to his wife and as he lost hope he stopped speaking so much, kept seeing her act like the people he loved, kept watching her try and love him in all the wrong ways, and kept the demons and guilt at bay until he just broke???

Also? again, the pet thing, if we want to go there.... if your golden retriever burst out with "ALL MY FRIENDS DIED" what the fuck would YOU do.... sorry im coping with humour, ANYWAY.

idk like, I just feel like there's so much to unpack here and I hope we DO get a little backstory on their lives together, I want to see people explore this in more ways than what I've seen. Cuz I think he connected to her, I think he understands that she's trapped there too, I don't think this makes it better but I think it enriches the story and it gives them such a cool dynamic.

Anyway this is long enough, it's late and I'm having many thoughts. Again if you don't agree with me that's ok just scroll on, I'm just yelling at the void

[abijahfowler]

sigh… every time an irredeemable antagonist gets uwuified or romanticized an angel loses its wings… i can’t keep doin this shit no more

give me the character you have lost your priveleges

[theminecraftgay]

Put Rai in a bunnysuit and abandoned him in my drafts. Sorry buddy. (Ft Taki)

Rai and Taki use he/him pronouns

[rainbow-crane]

I'm feeling like being controversial today. Here, take some DR character opinions. Clutch your pearls besties

17- Makoto. I feel nothing for this character, in any positive or negative direction. To me, he's only ever been the vessel for which THH takes place for the player. That's kind of it. Bro is just chilling. (Note: these opinions are exclusive to the THH game.)

16- Leon. He suffers from what I like to call chapter 1 syndrome. Not only was he killed extremely early, but he had no plot or character significance before or after the fact in-game. I think the idea of a character that hates their talent is really interesting, and his design slaps, but he just didn't have any sticking power for me.

15- Yasuhiro. He's got funny moments here and there (the ghost bit in the ch 5 trial never fails to make me laugh) but he has no story. They don't do anything with him besides 'stupid occult man' jokes, and I can't help but feel like there was wasted potential to do something with his fortune-telling talent that was only ever used as another gag of his stupidity. Disappointing as a character, but at least he was around longer than Leon.

14- Byakuya. Asshole characters are always hit-or-miss for me, and Byakuya missed by a ton. I know he *technically* got showed up during the chapter 4 trial, but getting upstaged once and acting like nothing happened afterwards isn't enough of a character arc for me to find him surviving over so many others in the cast worth it. He's also just pretty weak as an antagonist in comparison to the others in the series(not to mention there was an objectively better option for antag in this very cast). He's the type of character I'd probably like way more in like, Ace Attorney, but here I just got so sick of hearing him speak.

13- Hifumi. I can appreciate the attempt to make a subversion of the 'perverted nerd' character, but they failed the second they actually made him a perverted nerd, even if they gave him that bare minimum ideal of rape being bad. Fanon interpretations of what could've been prop him up for me a good bit, too.

12- Mukuro. Similar to Makoto, she feels like a character that exists to serve a narrative purpose, and we never really meet her as herself in-game. Unlike Makoto, we actually got FTEs playable in the post-game that allude to a greater story with her and her doubt in despair that makes her retroactively more tragic and adds both to herself and her sister.

11- Toko. They just didn't do enough with her in THH to warrant me placing her any higher than this. I think the differences between her and Genocider are interesting, and I wish they'd been given more growth in the game instead of spending the entire game post-chapter 2 pining over and stalking Byakuya. Toko gets ranked lower because she wasn't as fun to have onscreen and I got sick of her insisting people disliked her for being ugly, even though she's pretty conventionally attractive beyond having glasses.

10- Junko. She was an incredible mastermind twist and had a ton of charisma and presence in the final trial, from her sprites to the VA's performance, but they just didn't use her enough to warrant putting her any higher than the characters above.

9- Mondo. I like the characters he's attached to more than I do Mondo himself. I like the 2-sided coin of toxic masculinity they write between him and Chihiro, and I love his relationship with Taka, but I just don't care much for him outside of what he provides for those characters. He's fine.

8- Genocider. Basically everything I said with Toko, but she's way more entertaining from her cheery and violent personality and is just more expressive and fun. I got excited whenever she came onscreen because I knew I was about to have a good time.

7- I don't think you could change Kyoko's role in the story much at all without drastically altering the game as a whole. Makoto may be the POV, but Kyoko is undoubtedly the main character of THH and not only is she the most capable member of the class, but her growth as she opens up to Y/N Makoto and puts her faith not only in the absolute truth, but also hope is beautiful to watch, especially as we get to learn the mystery of who she is and where she came from. In another world, she'd be my #1, but I've never actually shed tears for her so she ends up as low as 7th.

6- I'd say from an objective standpoint, Sakura is probably the most well-written character in THH. Her internal conflict as she's forced to play the role of spy paired with her rapidly growing relationship with Hina as she finally, finally finds someone that sees her as the woman she so desperately wants to be acknowledged as, growing past her greatest weakness- her fear- to stand up to Monokuma, and having to take the role of a fighter on for a class of people that hated her to be both victim and killer, freeing her classmates from having to become either- I think I've made my point. I still wish we'd gotten that 3rd-person fighter about Sakura.

5- When I went into THH, I fully expected Hina to be a dumb blonde character for the entire game, with no substance beyond her character design. Maybe that low expectation was what made her shoot so high up my list. She wasn't the smartest character, sure, and the game definitely focuses on her body an uncomfortable amount, but she still has an incredible arc in her relationship with Sakura. Her depiction of grief is so deeply emotional, and her sense of justice, which up until then had been alluded to but never put into her hands, became a weapon that almost took down the entire class with her tears. Not only does she lose her best friend, but she's then manipulated by Monokuma to make that pain so much worse by pinning the blame for her loss on everyone around her and herself. Her attempt of a murder-suicide of the entire class followed by the reading of Sakura's real will and her guilt and regret afterwards is one of the strongest moments of the series. I've always thought if Makoto didn't exist, Hina would've been a great choice for a protagonist for this game, since she starts with that same optimism and easygoing ability to make friends that Makoto does, but is a strong character in her dedication to her sports and fierce love of those closest to her.

4- As a trans man, Chihiro's story was a lot like looking in a mirror, especially when I was playing the game as someone who'd only just started opening the closet door. His insecurities due to his body and his attempts to forcibly feminize himself to receive acceptance and masquerade as something he wasn't was something I was intensely familiar with, and the tragedy of his finally gaining enough confidence to open up to a close friend and seek out help to try and become his true self, only to be betrayed by said friend and killed before he ever got the chance, was one of the best personal gut punches I've gotten from this series. Regardless of the transphobia and misogyny written into said storyline, he's a character I'll never not relate to. There's a ton to dive into with Chihiro's character writing, and he's one of those characters I can tear into like a raw steak and go not only into how he's treated by the show, but also by how many ways there are to write him better than the game actually did and all the different ways different corners of the fandom have treated him. (Also, to be clear, I'm not opposed to transfem Chihiros hcs, I'm using he/him bc that's what's canon.)

3- Taka. My beloved boy, underrated outside of his relationship with Mondo. I'll defend this man until the day I die, and will always believe he should've been a member of the surviving cast over Hiro. His constant uphill battle with trying to connect with and protect his classmates only to fail at every turn from his lack of understanding of social norms, going as far as to rationalize hobbies as a form of studying in his first FTE, and his pure joy in finally connecting with someone being decimated by the reality that that man went on to be a killer is so powerful. Watching him completely snap and go near comatose, only being pulled out of stasis by the news that an AI of Chihiro still exists and begging for forgiveness for not being able to prevent his death was shattering, and his fusion with his perception of Mondo pushing him over the edge only to be killed unceremoniously in the background of Celeste's plan was infuriating. This man struggled and clawed his way through the first half of the game for whatever scraps of screentime the creators would leave him, and then they tossed him out when they couldn't think of anything better to do. Justice for my man!!!

2- Celeste. Remember when I said there was a character more well-suited for the role of antagonist than Byakuya in this game? Well, this is she. Not only would she have worked as a narrative foil to the player, as Makoto and Celeste are both in the class for their luck-based talent, but she would've had a much more powerful and thematic rivalry with Kyoko, the girl who seeks out absolute truth, as the girl who wraps herself in a veil of lies. I already found her fascinating as she was, having a character that's unashamedly a bad person and follows her own ideals with no regard for the effects on the rest of the class beyond how easy it'd be to manipulate them, but her lack of regard for the class trials and refusal to cooperate could've been how she functioned as an antagonist, refusing to help the group when it didn't immediately serve her or intentionally leaving out details that put her in a bad position. Essentially, she'd function as an antagonist in a way inverse to how Kokichi functioned, which not only would've been phenomenal for THH, but for the parallel storytelling V3 later goes on to employ. That said, that's all hypothetical, but even without all of that, she's still an intriguing character that I can't stop thinking about.

1- Sayaka. I hated Sayaka when I first started playing, not because of anything she was doing, but because I didn't like how the game was seemingly gluing her to Makoto's hip. I didn't like having to slough my way through tutorial after tutorial going through her to talk to the entire rest of the class, and I didn't like being forced to burn my first FTE on her when there were other characters I wanted to learn about. I cheered when I found her body because it meant I wouldn't have to jump through hoops to speak to the other characters anymore. All that hatred dissipated as the first trial took place. Taking the cutesy sidekick girl and making her not only the first victim (something that was huge for the genre at the time) but also going on to reveal that she was actively betraying us and plotting to frame us for murder to save herself and her fellow idols was a genius move. Since then, Sayaka has become a stronger presence in my mind for this series, and her impact on the series as a whole can't be overstated. She put the first killing game into motion. She carried with her the first despair, and inspired the first hope from Makoto. Her desperation for a dream she had to fight tooth and nail for, that desire to hang onto her dream that'd kept her going for so long pushes forward everything. 11037 became a staple point for the series and the fandom, not just because of the poor western translation, but also because that was her point of regret, the guilt that stopped her from killing Leon successfully and ultimately saved everyone, her final moments being to save Makoto and the others. Every moment spent with her at the beginning is designed not just to make her seem like the desirable sidekick girl, but also to weave into your perception of her the darkness she carries on the inside, the dedication and determination to remain liked and retain her fame by any means necessary, feigning being agreeable yet still unwittingly developing genuine feelings for someone who's nothing but genuine. The money I'd pay for a prequel anime about Sayaka's rise to the title of SHSL Idol is unreasonably high.

[nettleshuttle]

the more i think about it, the more certain i am that dm’s bakura and malik are easily the best ygo antagonists/villains

malik has a huge importance plot-wise and can actually play the damn card game. the decks he uses, first slifer and then ra, are cleverly managed and both give the good guys quite the scare. the typical revenge-oriented villain trope does determine much of his motivation, but the interesting twist is how he actually strives for groundless payback after putting all the blame on the pharaoh — he needs revenge for revenge’s sake, something to give him purpose and keep him going, until he’s so into it that he can no longer tell the difference. his gravekeeper background and the trauma he suffered at young age both make a lot of sense, as does the way he acquired the rod. his family, ishizu and rishid, do a great job in complementing and completing his character. besides, he’s one of the few (only?) ygo villains that act fucked up (real evil, i give him that) and get plausible retribution arcs afterwards — a good wrap-up with realistic, justified pacing is what most of them lack (ekhem yuri, ekhem quattro).

bakura is the major villain of the whole dm (it would appear) — and i love the way he’s absent through a good half of the whole plot anyway. his character is introduced in pegasus’s island, then he plays his part at battle city and returns only for the final arc, showing some very nice long-term pacing (just the way the millennium eye shows up after a long time to serve its purpose). the ryo-dark bakura-zorc-thief king set up makes a surprising lot of sense and explains a good part of the plot. the “evil non-human destruction entity” part is a bit cheap, but i can let it slide because it’s rather congruous. bakura’s motivations are really my favorite — his issue with the pharaoh is a tragic conflict, making his drive both understandable and condemnable. his personality and emotions adds a lot to the mix (as does being near-immortal): he’s not very goal-oriented and likes to do what he pleases, which is perfectly reflected in the battle city duel against yugi. it’s a shame that he gets annihilated without at least a proper death scene, but i guess it is rather deserved. either way, he’s the only major villain in ygo that is so well-developed (or at all) and has so much in common with a human being, especially if we count ryo in. the fact that he sucks at the card game makes it even better for the chaotic-evil “do i look like i have a plan” character he is, though they could have let him play more than, like, three duels in total.

being two revenge seeking antags with very different motivations, backgrounds and priorities — as well as very different endings to their respective stories — they do a fantastic job with forming the main villain body in dm. the personality split thing also works vastly different for the two of them, adding to the interesting dynamic. when i say that battle city is the best duel monsters arc and that they carried the battle city arc, well, i mean it. their interactions, ship it or not, are a great thing in dm. besides, there’s a sense of completion in the ends they meet that doesn’t exclude the bitter-sweetness of an open ending and a feeling of making sense, of plausibility that many other ygo antags fail to reach, even complexity of character aside.

[the-illiterate-pirate]

“hey is keicho nijimura considered a minor antag? I mean my man appeared for two episodes т-т

anyway, could you write him going on a date with reader to cafe deux magots or to take a stroll on the beach or something nice like that? he deserves to relax once in his life goddammit”

My philosophy is, if he hot, has a banging music reference, and dies tragically within five or less episodes, he's a minor antag /j

Fr though I'm down for writing any of the "villain of the week" characters! They're my favorites but barely have anything written for them! Smh. I'm answering this early to say OFC I'D LOVE TO WRITE FOR KEICHO! THE IDEA IS SO CUTE, AND I AGREE COMPLETELY. And dw I'll tag you properly once I've finished the oneshot!

[inprisonforsparkling]

You're doing the ask game!! *hands you Kokichi in my open palms*

THANK YOUU

favorite thing about them

Kokichi Ouma is an unbelievably tragic character. He's trying to save everyone. He can't, won't, trust anyone. He sacrifices everything, even ultimately himself, to try and stop the killing game, in vain. He lets multiple people die specifically for his plan, which fails. Idk man i have a lot of feelings about this guy

least favorite thing about them

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh i can't actually. Think of anything? Like the most obvious thing would be chapter 4 but i actually love how that turned out, plot-wise. Like i didn't want Gonta or Miu to die but i actually really like the way it went

favorite line

"I stole your heart, so now I'm satisfied! I don't need to steal your life anymore!" OR "The killer is Gonta." because that was just . Man

brOTP

Cross-games but honestly, the antag trio is so funny to me. Byakuya hates being here. Nagito is obsessed with the both of them. Kokichi is here to cause chaos. Alternatively they absolutely click for some reason and they're three gossipy bitches.

Also Celeste and Kokichi would be a fun dynamic.

OTP

SAIOUMA. idk if you noticed but . They are my favorites. I'm also not opposed to oumota!

nOTP

Uhhh I personally think of Rantaro and Kokichi as having a sibling-like relationship, so I don't really like seeing them shipped too much. It's fine though they DO have an interesting dynamic regardless of the kind of relationship

random headcanon

He has freckles. This is the highest honor i can bestow upon any character

unpopular opinion

Uhhhhh idk

song i associate with them

buddy i have got a whole playlist. BUT i'll pick one. Dear Dictator by Saint Motel is so kokichicore you wouldnt believe

favorite picture of them

[tres13]

Girl help, how do I tell my dad the “childrens’ story” he wrote and wants me to illustrate actually kinda sucks?? 😭😱 Like the plot details contradict themselves, the tone is bland and a little condescending, it’s too long and wordy for kids but no adult I know is gonna read this and enjoy it (plus proofreading errors but that’s fixable, the rest kinda *isn’t*); like it’s not a dumpster fire, it’s not *tragically bad*, it just lowkey sucks, it’s boring and not engaging AND it has some lovely allistic ableism thrown in and represented as a type of “hero’s reward” bullcrap (Giant Eyeroll), AND the child heroine is portrayed as *wildly* inaccurate for her age group, *AND* it’s like fifty pages long and he wants complicated full color illustrations with human and magical creature protags/antags, some with backgrounds!!??? Like BRUH.

And no, he’s not offering to pay me LOL, he wants to collab on it as a “cool, family project” *screaming crying throwing up* I’m an adult with bills and he’s a well-off retiree who’s comfortable misgendering me on a constant daily basis. I want to throw things, but I have to grin and bear it I guess bcuz my poor ass can’t afford to buy my own house lmaooooo…

[the-cheshire-cat-grin]

I love this post because literally everyone in my story is insane. I get to a point and think "a mentally stable person with critical thinking skills could probably figure this out" then i remember the protag and antag are both overemotional impulsive idiots that go from 0 to 10000 in like 3.75 seconds. And thats what makes my story equal parts tragic and hilarious

i finished reading your story and i must say that, while it's alright, there's so many plot holes because the characters made irrational decisions and didn't think logically 100% of the time. consider fixing this next time please

[rwqv]

yes vro u get it ...... i hate it when people just say that megumis whole thing is just being the "potential man" cus thats his whole character arc ..... vro ...

why were u thinking while driving ummm officer write her a ticket ... no but ur rigjht except for the fact that naoya was not an ignorant teenager but an ignorant 27 year old LOLL but i get what u mean. all of the toji parallels with maki are effing sick like ugh as the number one toji glazer for life i loved it so bad

cursed naoya was literally so ugly like i lost all my feelings for naoya when i saw cursed naoya LMFAOOOOO but i lowkey like predicted that he would somehow come back ... cus i was like no way they'll show this character that wanted to kill off all the mcs and who was such a big antag just for him to die so easily .. and then boom he came back

vro yusukugojo would be actually insane and lowkey too goated ..

dude i remember watching the scene where toji shoots riko with my brother and i like had to pause and take a walk because wtf .... why did i actually believe theyd get a happy ending like girl there r still so many episodes left ur in for it ...

i disliked toji at first but after realizing that his character was so much more than a broke ahh assassin i learned to love him so bad .. i like to say that i appreciate his writing and his sexiness a healthy (unhealthy) amount ...

GROWLSLLSSSSS TOJI GIRL DAD OMG ..... ive been wanting to talk about toji and write for him SO FUCKING BADDDDDD but flore hates him so ... ill just go die now i guess ...... but TOJI GIRL DAD IM GOPING VERALLLLLL ..... he would totally let his daughter put makeup on him and he would totally wear the smallest princess costumes that dont fit his huge ahh ... and growllslss he would totally take that shit so seriously . "he" as in the man i made up in my head in place of toji fushiguro whos the love of my life and father of my kids ,,,

something abouit toji has been making me go crazy lately like .... i might cheat on gojo for him LOLLLL joke lang joke lang

everytuime i think of toji i go fucking feral like its not even a joke anymore ... if i had the will to wriute i woild write and write and write until i turned into the apple logo like him

higuruma ... hehe ... the man U are higuruma ..... goodness the bathtub scene made me go in sane in the mem brane liek ..,.. hooweee .... what doja cat said

naoya is 27 and still acting like this bro 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 grow up bro you are NOT sat or u gojo 😭 i wish he died the first time but noooo come back and then noooo come back ahain as a cursed spirit just LET IT BE no one likes you (except for people in japan i guess. number 5 is too high)

i swear if jjk shippuden doesnt happen where they are all happy and fun i will cry and yknow what else id kinda like to see is what sukuna said in yujis head… i think thatd be funny

OR special afterlife episode

toji is such a tragic character tbh… at least he found enlightenment hope hes with mamaguro he loved her so much id die

I LOVE TOJI GIRL DAD i love toji in general. hed be such a good father (lie) and care about his kids (lie) hed buy her everything she wants because she made a pouty face and he cant resist it and would carry her on his shoulders bc she wanted uppies and go shopping at the mall and ride the carousel with her on the unicorns even though he barely fits… hed pretend to be hurt if his daughter hit him playfully in a “fight” and say “wow ur rlly strong” and shed giggle and laugh and itd be one of his favorite sounds and shed hold his finger with her whole hand and laugh and he’d realize “ill never get to experience this again”

if one time shed ever ask what hes going out to do and what his job is and he’d just say “im out to fight bad guys” and shed think hes a superhero and tell all her friends at school that and hed be a superhero in her mind forever

sorry … id talk about toji anyday everyday hes sassy

OH MY GOD THE BATHTUB SCENE it is all over the SCREEEN

i tihink jjk has fan service for the male characters not the female characters like i see gege is trying a bit with that killer body mei mei has but gege just draws buff men too good

[bravelittleocelot]

listening to the full musical up until this point further solidifies my feelings on Calypso.

My tragic antag I love you

Gigi your Calypso is SO gorgeous and funny

[suu-zu]

Finished the first Fatal Frame game last night, only took me like 10+ years to get around to it lmao

I came in expecting ghosts and more of an earlier Resident Evil vibe (someone on the team was DEFINITELY a fan of RE, there was a bunch of fun references) and ended up pleasantly surprised by pretty fun photography combat and a sweet if not tragic love story (shoutout main antag, I support you, you deserved a chance to live how you wanted to)

Battle Mode unlocked after first clear was cool too, I like when games had other cool mini games hidden in them as a treat for clearing, like in Dino Crisis 2(?) where there was a dinosaur fighting game you could play with a friend in the extras menu

I'll definitely carry on with the other games in the series since I've managed to track them all down over time, but I think my next game will be either Haunting Ground or the FAITH trilogy, I've wanted to peep those for a long time and I've managed to avoid spoilers up to this far aha

[astrxealis]

i will never be over shb/enw oh my god

[fishoutofcamelot]

Yknow season 4 really shoulda leaned more into the agravaine subplot. Like. He was a sniveling henchman, but he had the potential to be so much more than that.

Kinda like how a save-the-world plot doesn't pack much tension, but drama between two friends certainly does. Smaller-scale conflicts create a lot more tension because there's less certainty that they'll have a happy resolution, whereas the main conflict of the story will almost certainly get resolved so we don't have to worry about it.

That's why stories should always include a Small-Stakes Villain. Someone who threatens the protagonist in a way that is both narratively unpredictable and emotionally severe. Like Umbridge from Harry Potter.

The sheer scope of Morgana's threat upon the kingdom decreases the tension regarding whether or not she'll be defeated - of course she will, that's how stories work. But agravaine? His role in the story is more personal. The threat he poses isn't a tangible victory, but an ideological/emotional one. Even if he fails, the effects of his manipulation on Arthur has the potential to heck things up even post-mortem. If they had made it so Arthur was that much more beguiled by his uncle, to the extent that its causing a visible strain on his relationship with Merlin, now *that* would've been some good stakes. Seeing Arthur make progress towards seeing magic as good, only for him to take two steps back into Agravaines propaganda and become even more anti-magicthan before, would have been fascinating. Because we know Agravaine will be defeated, but we don't know how much Arthur and Merlin's relationship will suffer before that point. And since we're supposed to be invested in that relationship, since their relationship is the core of the show, agravaines presence would be that much more threatening.

[helly-watermelonsmellinfellon]

Why tf is harrymort something you ship? Not only is Voldemort constantly trying to kill Harry, has killed Harry's parents, threatened to kill all of Harry's friends, and actually did sort of kill Harry, but like. He's definitely over fifty in the books. IDK how old he is exactly, but he's old enough that he was a feared political cult leader missing 6 chunks of his soul and a Hogwarts graduate when Harry is a baby. It's creepy, man.

Bruh, all of my ships are incredibly problematic in more than one way. I'm suspicious over that being the only one you seem to take issue with.

1.) You lack imagination. HP is a very fleshed out fictional universe with many options at your fingertips for fanfic. Tom Riddle appears throughout the series, in the ages newborn, 11, 15, 16, 18, 20+, 30+, 50, and 70. Harry has appeared in the ages of 1, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 37/38. Time Turners exist. Alternate Universes exist. You can do literally anything because HP is a massive sandbox. I can have Harry find the Diary in his 6th Year and then he is actually older than Diary-Tom. I can have Adult-Harry Time Travel to any point between 1950 and 1970 and end up in a relationship with Adult-Tom.

2.) What attracts me is the potential. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean there aren't ridiculous connections between Harry and Voldy. People would see Voldy's obsession as some kind of mad crush if Harry was a girl and we all know it. Just because Harry's a boy doesn't mean Voldy getting touchy feely isn't weird, or Tom staring at him 'hungrily' many times isn't suggestive, or Harry remarking 18 times between 2 books that Tom Riddle is 'handsome' while doing nothing to tell people about how attractive the supposed love of his life(Ginny) is.

3.) My weakness is Protag/Antag ships. Ever since I was a child and a romance was happening in something I was watching, my first thought was always preferring the hero with the villain. I didn't understand why until I was about 13. Suddenly it's, how would that work? How can they realistically go from being enemies to being in love? Can any fic writers manage it since it isn't canon?

Bruh, I shipped Sailor Moon with almost every enemy she had(even Diamond tbh). I shipped Kagome Higurashi with Naraku and Sesshomaru from the moment those characters were introduced in the story(Inuyasha). Long before we learned any back story on them. I shipped Naruto with almost every member of the Akatsuki at some point out of curiosity the moment I learned about the organization. I shipped Kaname Kuran and Zero Kiryu(Vampire Knight).

As a result of my Protag/Antag obsession, most of my ships end up being unhealthy by nature. Even in cases where they are undeniably canon, like Luo Binghe/Shen Qingqiu | Shen Yuan, they aren't very safe or sane.

Something you need to remember is that it is fiction about fictional characters. Real people are not being harmed. And the only way someone could realistically be 'triggered' by such content is if they go to specific lengths to see it. You have options to curate your online experience. Don't follow blogs/accounts about topics you don't like, mute words/tags that bother you, block ppl who make you uncomfortable. It takes a few minutes to ensure your future is hassle free.

I'm at that age where I've been in fandom spaces so long I don't care about people's ships or interests. Spending my personal time worrying about some stranger's obsession with Tragic Non-Con Reylo fanfic won't do me any favors when I honestly dgaf. I'm here for the fandom stuff I like and only occasionally participate in discourse, and that is never aimed at ships and is always about characters and the people who wrote them.

So yes, I ship fucked up shit, and I could write the fucked up stuff(maybe, if I ever get emotional strength to) but typically I'm more into nuance and drama and slow burns that take 400K words to work through. I don't do Non-Con Triggering horrible stuff because mentally I can't handle writing or reading it very much. But I'm also not up in arms over the people who do. Let people like what they like. Ship and let ship. Live and let live. They're pixels on a screen or words on a page. They don't exist. They aren't real. They are meant to entertain us, and how people find their enjoyment in fiction isn't for anyone to decide.

[marley-manson]

Finished it and really enjoyed it. Normally I'd roll my eyes at a show with a majority female cast very pointedly in roles/archetypes that usually go to men also being all about misogyny and patriarchy, BUT the show was a) funny and irreverent enough that it wasn't a downer for me the way it usually is, and b) I really enjoyed the gender politics overall.

Like I feel like they did a good job keeping it non-essentialist and focused on social power dynamics (give or take like one detail that mildly annoyed me but is also a minor spoiler so I'll mention it below). Plus it was nuanced enough for me - it wasn't just about misogyny, racism/colonialism and homophobia were major issues as well, and women were also antagonists on those points.

Adored the dynamic between Eddie and Dulcie, it was almost HarryKim-esque lol, and god what a good dynamic for two women. They had great chemistry, sex jokes continued throughout, I adore Eddie's like, entire presence to pieces and even Dulcie was extremely likeable to me, much more than most straitlaced foils to epic energetic weirdos (Kim also being a notable exception lol.)

Also basically every single character on the show was great, from the protags to the antags to everyone in between. Just excellent fun character writing, not a single person on this show who detracted from my enjoyment.

And now a few spoilers, not for the central mystery but for one fairly early plot reveal, a few little details and scenes, and all the lesbian relationship stuff.

Tragically, the wives didn't divorce after all 😭 I absolutely did not buy their reconciliation. Even more tragic, Eddie like, fucking reveals that she's fucked women before and is potentially down to fuck more right after they get back together???? Like wow way to dig in the knife, show.

To be fair since it seems Dulcie and Cath have essentially just swapped which one's gonna be miserable with their lifestyle in season 2, I still have hope that their marriage is gonna end. What I really want is for Dulcie to cheat again - and speaking of holy shit did I love the reveal that she cheated with her last partner and quit her last job to appease Cath. And she clearly still has a crush on that woman as well, as seen when speaking to her on the phone?

Like I cannot emphasize enough how doomed this marriage is, I just hope the show knows it. Especially since I checked ao3 and there's only 3 pages of fic, and most of it is poly which I am not about. On the plus side the majority is actually explicit, which is wild for an f/f fandom, fucking nice.

Anyway despite hating their relationship I do like Cath as a character lol, she's shitty which is a good thing for endearing her to me, and also really funny, and I think she should have a gf who like, has similar interests and also wants to live on a farm and raise animals for a living, while Dulcie plows Eddie into next week in the big city.

The one detail that jumped out to me as irritatingly gender essentialist, btw, and this is the minor early spoiler, is the recurring discussion of male vs female serial killers and how they used that to help solve the case. Like to be fair even that seemed largely grounded in social dynamics, but like the poison thing??? Can a man not drug murder victims just to make things easier for him? Does it have to be a girl thing? Come on. I will say though that they at least made a joke about those male vs female profiles being outdated, even if they're still annoyingly relevant. So yk, some self awareness is shown. (this is not a spoiler, they go back and forth several times wrt the killer's gender but the drugging is always framed as a girl killer thing regardless of their current theory)

Also since I've spoiled that it's about a serial killer, I want to add that I loooooved the narrative's attitude towards a spree of murders with cis white male victims. It felt like an ideal balance of like, rote condemnation (yeah murder is bad, the protags are dedicated to finding the murderer even if it turns out to be a man-hating lesbian, it makes things worse for everyone in the town, the whole final episode, etc) while also indulging in the visceral satisfaction of men being the victims instead of women. The irreverence towards the victims, the scene where the mayor loses her filter in a panic and is like, 'hey maybe this town is actually the safest place for everyone who isn't a white cis dude, ever think of that?' lmao, or even just the scene in the first episode where Dulcie mentions finding a naked body over the phone to her superior and he automatically assumes the victim is a woman and has to be corrected.

The reactionary, perfectly pathetic response from the conservative men of the town was also pitch perfect. The fucking reclaim the night march lmao? There's such an air of awareness that their demographic being specifically targeted by a serial killer is a major anomaly and their reaction is disproportionate and silly, and basically just an excuse to try to reclaim power in the town. Felt very of the moment.

There are definitely a few nitpicks to be made about the politics, especially wrt some of the cop show elements but like, it is a cop show, you set your expectations accordingly. Point is I had a good time with what it had to say and how entertainingly it said it.

So yeah, basically loved the show, hope season 2 is good too and if Dulcie and Cath don't break up, they at least keep teasing Dulcie/Eddie and making graphic gay sex jokes about them.

decided to watch Deadloch on a whim after seeing like 2 gifsets of Eddie looking like a fun character, knowing absolutely nothing about the show, and was instantly rewarded with surprise lesbian sex 👍

(Between the main character and her wife, not the buddy cops, buuuut they're having marriage issues and there's fun chemistry and many sex jokes between her and Eddie so the vibes are excellent and i'm having a great time so far)