#She is a hero not a love interest

[angy-grrr]

spoilers for chapter 429

idk if you guys remember but ochako does have parallels with All Might, specifically as the side who saves. It’s not that he feels the same for them both or something like that, they serve to represent the type of heroism he naturally goes to; his friend is not his love interest, from his perspective she’s out there having a crisis over not being able to save her, and Izuku reminds her that she is a hero bc she is his hero -she saved him multiple times, and she should be able to feel like a proper hero.

This conversation is not about the nature of their relationship, is about heroism; Izuku relates to a conflict between being a hero who saves and failing to save someone, and doesn’t want to see Ochako ending spiraling because she couldn’t also fulfill that role as expected. She’s his hero not because he loves her romantically -he’s a nerd I’m sure he would be way more nervous and blushing if he was confessing anything he thought was romantic- but because she’s able to go and do what All Might does to Izuku, save him physically and emotionally.

He knows she hides her feelings in order to not be a burden, yet he doesn’t talk about his own feelings outside of his guilt in heroics -what does he feel about losing OFA? About his own failures? About the people he personally lost? He can’t talk for others and claim Ochako is everyone’s hero, but he can speak for himself, and that’s his personal perspective -she is a hero to him, she’s his hero. And then the class appears to make sure she’s able to get support and understand she’s not alone, and she’s important to them too.

but Izuku doesn’t get support. Izuku cries a little and talks a little about himself, but he doesn’t get supported. If this was meant to be romantic, I don’t understand why he would hold back what’s inside of him.

the end of the chapter reveals that boy is going to be helped by that woman who regretfully ignored Tenko, and they both witness it and are happy about it while hearing izuku inspired that change, and iida wonders what’s up with them -this is the conclusion to their relationship. In their hearts these two are saviors who struggle to be heroes who save others, and they are happy there are appearing more people who want to be heroes like them. Heroes who save. Save like All Might.

That grandma for example, interpreting the narrative as what I think is intended, would be that boy’s All Might; she’s his hero.

Izuku and Ochako are heroes who save, and Deku is here to remind her at least she did save him many times, that she is still a hero because she is his hero. I don’t believe is meant to be interpreted as romantic, not that Izuku sees that phrase as it neither -after all, he said he does want to be like All Might and feels good to imitate him, but he doesn’t love him.

Ochako’s All Might hair moment, the parallels with Toshinori telling him he can be a hero, the trying to save from black suffocating quirks, the we can do it and do your best…

Do I need to remind you heroes arent a romantic thing for Izuku Midoriya?

[beanghostprincess]

To be a sapphic you have to do the upside down pose or else it doesn't count

[thenotoriousscuttlecliff]

The older I get the more I realise there is just nothing to Jean and Logan as a couple, he's just the cool bad boy alternative to her straight laced boyfriend, and no writer has ever bothered to develop them beyond that. Logan really has more of a dynamic with Scott than he ever had with Jean. When written well, Scott and Jean feel like genuine partners with neither character overshadowing the other, but when she's paired with Logan, Jean seems to just become the love interest or worse a prize for Logan to win for being a good person, the relationship always reduces her.

[modawg]

my favorite hc is that annabeth gets INSANE cuteness aggression when it comes to percy and that’s where all her attitude came from before they started dating

the only ppl who knew were her siblings bc she’d come home everyday after doing anything with him and immediately crash out on anything in her vicinity (normally her bed) but she was like extremely conscious of what was going on; self diagnosing

like her and her siblings would act like it’s some disease she’s dealing with coming home to her slumped on the floor like this

and everyone’s like “that damn cuteness aggression got her again 😕😕keep fighting annabeth our prayers are w you💔❤️‍🩹😭😫✊”

then when they started dating she could unleash it in a sea of kisses and sucking on his face (literally) whenever he did anything normal and percy just always side eye her bc girl calm down

percy is the type to fight cuteness aggression with soft kisses and words of affirmation while annabeth like literally has to keep her hands to herself until she’s calm enough to just brush a strand of hair out his face without yanking his hair out

percy: wise girl your shaking!! (*´д`*) are you ok?? >_<

annabeth: SAVE UOURSELLFFFFFF

[bayetea]

there are many things about hazel's povs that have an intensely de-racialized vibe to them (read: divorced from the black girl experience) but I think any black person will tell you that the most obvious sign is the complete lack of attention paid to her hair

like firstly:

she's from the 1930s her hair was definitely getting permed and straightened (it was not acceptable to just wear your natural hair out back then. optics + cultural assimilation/you'll be hard pressed to find photos of black american girls with unstraightened hair in that time period unless they're from like..... harlem)

I do believe that marie was straightening it for her For A Time but then she became more neglectful and stopped so hazel had to do it herself. I'm almost positive that hazel wouldn't have even been permitted to set foot in her school building without straightening it because that's just how much of an expectation it was

ok she comes back from the dead. what's she doing to her hair now bc it's not just gonna be cutesy effortless curls falling over her shoulder no matter what the length is

how does she feel about living in a time period where natural black hair is more accepted (read: more, absolutely not fully)

there are no black people around her At All. in fact she's around a lot of white people on the argo (+nico) so that would probably be giving her some intense feelings of double consciousness (look this term up if you don't know what it means) and that would inform how she feels about her hair

theoretically she ought to be wearing her hair in braids for simplicity's sake but I think it's more likely that she would cling to what she knows (perming/straightening) because it's not easy for a 14 year old girl (PSA hazel is 14.5 in hoo not 13 btw 👍) to go from assimilating to deeply-ingrained white hair beauty standards to just proudly wearing a distinctly black hairstyle all by herself

mind you black women and girls can do whatever they want with their hair and straightening/perming it does not always/have to come from a place of self-hatred or whatever but in this particular case back then straightening one's hair was political And a survival tactic. it was as normal as brushing your teeth. it was enforced through dominant cultural messagings about the Absolute Necessity of conforming to white conventions of beauty. if you don't understand then think of it similarly to how you'd think of 1930s women needing to be perpetually dolled up and modestly dressed in order to be considered "good women" and anyways I'm just saying that this would be a lot to unpack for a 14 year old girl so hazel's probably just continuing to do this impractical thing (straightening her hair all the time) like 60% out of habit and 20% out of shame and 20% she doesn't know what else to do

something something about a missed potential character arc regarding all of this and in general there's so little mind paid to race in hazel's povs which is just ridiculous to me because a black girl from the jim crow era should have at least a few feelings about where she fits into modern society even if that society is camp jupiter. rick demonstrates his capacity to talk about how his characters feel about their race most notably in the kane chronicles so I don't think was too much to ask for. see this quote from an early son of neptune chapter:

^ like....... hazel's feelings of out-of-place-ness are There in the text and important to take note of when understanding her character (note that she's been there for like a year already and she still feels like she doesn't belong) but the emphasis is always put on her Being from a different time or Being undead and is never put on her out-of-place-ness regarding her race as a black girl from segregation times who is literally so out-of-place in this weird post-racial camp jupiter society. it feels like such an obvious thing to consider so its glaring absence really bugs me when I reread her povs and it bugs me when her hair is never talked about by extension because It Matters

you might be thinking "well she had a lot going on and she's not a superficial person maybe she just didn't care what was going on with her hair" and my response is simply that Black girls don't get to "not care" about their hair it is not the same thing as a white person going to school with bedhead it's not the same thing At All (if you aren't black then chances are you've never actually seen what untouched black hair looks like in the morning), especially when it's been beaten into your head for your entire life that your hair is ugly and you have to "do something to it" for it to be acceptable (and again...... she's from the 1930s so that feeling is magnified like 50x over). remember that perpetually dolled up modest 1930s woman I mentioned previously. picture her time traveling to camp jupiter of all places in 2010 and struggling to drop all of her makeup/hairstyling routines and internalized misogyny and conceptualizations of what women are "supposed" to be. this is the kind of fascinating character exploration that we really missed out on with hazel (and tbh regardless of her race she was never believably written as someone from the 1930s. I don't think rick even really tried to be honest)

you might also be wondering "how was rick supposed to know/attempt to portray any of that" and then my second answer is that If you're going to write a character who is not the same race as you then you should do some research and we have the internet now so research has never been easier 👍 this would be especially important to do if that person is a poc from the jim crow era I think! (he could have at least googled black hair 1930s)

anyways what I choose to believe (this is pure fanfiction) is that during hazel's first year at camp jupiter (remember that she was there for about a year before son started) nico would have helped her figure something out after observing her distress over her hair c: like they both secretly watched youtube videos on black hairstyles circa 2010 and then they got attacked by monsters for using a laptop (neither of them know how to use a laptop but he's trying his best for her) but then after killing them he helped her do her hair as something she likes that is easy to maintain <3 (I could also see reyna doing this because she surely knows a thing or two from her spa days)

[sometimesmaybespoof]

When she Half on my Life till I 2

[fauvester]

nicktoonsunite's tigerghost haunting my brain

[dalish-rogue]

Happy Dragon Age Day from my current worldstate!

💙 Warden Nelya Mahariel (archer rogue, Zevran romance) ❤️ Champion Garrett Hawke (primal/force mage, Anders romance) 💚 Inquisitor Herah Adaar (two-handed warrior, Blackwall romance) 💜 Rook Faye Mercar (veil ranger rogue, Lucanis romance)

[redeemed-wren]

I'm hoping episode 3 let's Ruby see the dark side of the Doctor. I feel that adds a very important dynamic to a Doctor-companion relationship, when they see how dark he can be and still choose to travel with him early on.

Rose watching Nine drag Cassandra back to die. Eleven yelling at Amy "Nobody human has anything to say to me today!" Donna begging Ten to stop drowning the spider babies, and then again to go back and save someone in Pompeii.

Fifteen has been FUN and I know he can do emotional range, I've seen his fear and his tears already. But I want to see him dark, and I want to see Ruby respond to that. I think it would add a LOT of depth to their relationship and is something missing.

Plus showcasing the Doctor's flaws (selfishness) will make him a much more interesting character. I want to see some conflict between the Doctor and Ruby.

[yuseirra]

If I had to name you, it would be 「My Hero.」 A straightforward wish that goes beyond the time it stopped I don't need anything else but you So just breathe here, forever. In a world where it's hard to breathe, I will hold on to the strength you've given me. Let's take the bad ending that we saw And change it to a sweet dream. Looking back, you have always been here smiling. It's okay if you tell me "see you again" in my memories, But... If I meet you again, you will still be 「My Hero.」 An honest wish That goes beyond the time we found it So that I'll be able to find you again Just breathe here, forever Even on a journey where we can't meet I'll jump through time and space Even if you say "please", there are wishes that don't come true...

[ganondoodle]

Regarding Demise: He is an interesting concept, as is the whole eternal cycle, but for that to actually become something worthwhile the games/stories would have to actually DO something with it. So far they are introduced in Skyward Sword and thats it! No other game even references them. And, yes, that cheapens EVERY other game because there is this implication that its all out of the control of the actual characters in the story because of this one asshole that we only ever saw once! Why not have Ganondorf realize that he is possessed/manipulated by this weird old Demon God? How would he react, would he embrace it, would he rebel, would he be broken by the realization that none of his actions were ever *his*? I dont even care which of these options they pick, as long as they pick any of it and do just ANYTHING with the concept.

Or maybe Link or Zelda figures out the Cycle and starts looking into breaking it because endlessly repeating Demon Attacks kinda suck and you dont want that for your descendants.

Or have a game focus on them remembering bits from past lives and having to piece it all together or, again, just ANYTHING!

The closest they ever came to was with BOTW Zelda praying to Hylia, aka HERSELF, to unlock her powers, which is some brutal narrative irony, but not much more.

And regarding the whole Zelda is Hylia thing, I've seen some headcanons about how Skyward Sword Zelda is terrified of herself after learning that, because she now has to assume that everything she did was planned by a version of her that she no longer is. Is Link her friend or is he the useful pawn that Hylia needs to turn into the Hero? Does she even deserve his affection when she probably manipulated him into becoming her champion and fighting, possibly dying for her all her life?

Thats juicy, thats something you can do something with but Nintendo really does like to plan those stories game per game without any care for the larger story.

Which I guess is the Irony of it all. They tried the whole larger connected story/universe thing once: With Skyward Sword. After all that was also the time we got the first Hyrule Historia & "official timeline" as well as "How it all began" in the game itself.

It felt like the start of a new era for Zelda games and stories and then it just... wasn't.

And while I get that they want to focus on gameplay over story, I will never stop mourning the stories we could get/have gotten, if they put a bit more thought into things.

I actually feel like its harder to make the 'cycle' into an interesting plot point when its a .. divine thing that happens, and not perpetuated by the people (though not impossible, given how the series is build up it would need alot of work to not make it worse still..)-

i actually cannot stand the idea that ganondorf is possessed or manipulated, made eviler by demise somehow (demise is dead, leave him beeeeee hes not some evil master mind behind anything aaaaah) bc it STILL takes away ganondorfs agency and character and gives right into the whole hes basically born evil and just pushes the fault tm onto someone else it in turn legitimizes that the kingdom of hyrule and its high rule (heehoo) is right and if only gan wasnt manipulated hed be good tm, aka allied with the goodest guys, hed gladly accept their invitation and join their holy empire of goodness tm if wasnt for da demon

(and i love to say, who decides what is good tm and evil tm? bc hyrules monarchs making every other tribe their subordinate and persecuting shiekah for example isnt what id call good but its fine bc the good holy guys did it in the name of "peace" -what is their idea of peace? everyones under their rule and must worship their god? uh oh- and resistance to it is gonna get you labelled as evil!! (unless you join their holy kingdom and become their vassal of GOOD) what good and evil boils down to in zelda is .. being allied/ruled by the kingdom of hyrule and being opposed to them, even if its only not wanting to be subjugated by them)

i can see the appeal to some degree, but i dont like the idea of ganondorf even being able to be manipulated or possessed, what makes his character, before it got flattened into well he just be demon in the eyes of the average fandom, interesting is his unbreakable will, that drive to keep on living and resisting those that want him dead, its poetic and sad, to the point that (until totk ...) it was really just ONE ganondorf that refused to die and came back over and over (also something i found a compelling thought for botw, that after all this time theres nothing left BUT his will to resist, its a tragic idea that rly spoke to me)

my personal idea of the cycle is that its only a cycle bc they, the kingdom of hyrule and their belief system, keep it going, its not a divine thing that needs to be broken (though the divine surely messes with it, just for the bit i guess) but something that keeps repeating bc hyrule is so soaked into the idea that their princess once was a god and hers is the right to rule it all in light- so anyone who doesnt agree must be of the demons from the darkness seeking to destroy the world, and what means the 'world' could just mean the kingdom of hyrule- in botw even with the calamity people went on and lived, same in windwaker, they dont need the holy kingdom to live- (who is to say the 'monsters' are bad for the land, to me they mostly looked like well adapted territorial beasts, and the bokblins etc clearly arent mindless monsters either, why do they need to be eradicated? they attack you? ok dont go into their territory, or defend yourself, you dont need to exterminate something just bc it could be a threat at some point)

(i do agree that conflict with zelda being interesting but uuuh .. well they never did anythign with that huh)

in the end, demise was just a throw away villain, and if i may get my tin foil hat back here, i feel like the whole creation myth skyward sword does was really just a way for them to get out of the predicament of having to consider a villain to be treated like a person to save themselves from having to think about what they imply and can just go, well this is the evil demons, this is the good gods- ironically enough the attempt to get out of having to consider complicated writing it ends up reversing straight back into the WORST of kinds of implications .. that arent even subtext anymore, if totk is anythign to go by, the most 'simple' or 'easy' narrative to go for might not be actually simple, just a so often retold one that it appears simple if not made aware of its dark maw, the status quo repeated ad nauseam

(and if i may, the whole gameplay over story thing is bs in my eyes, that sounds like the typical attempt of dismissing any critique, just like the stupid, and frankly, offensive "its just for kids" argument, story and gameplay are inherently intertwined, the story influences the gameplay, the gameplay influences the story, especially in a series like zelda that is a futile thing to go for and a reason why the stories themselves lack depth, how are you gonna have an epic adventure that drives you to get through any amount of puzzles and battles if there is no story to motivate you, at this point it feels like the series has set itself up for catastrophic failure bc i imagine, people might just keep buying and playing the games bc its attached to the series, bc they hope to see characters they loved return, new ones that will grab their attention, perhaps be taken away by a world that meant alot to them once before, hope that there will be something exciting-

i am not saying the series has no value or doesnt do anything well (hello who am i) but how many times can you repeat 'this guy good he fight evil guy he get the pretty princess as reward' without any interesting twists or narrative, even the most beloved characters can only keep it passable for so long, even the best gameplay loses its potential if its surrounded by cardboard characters and a story so "simple" as offensive it fits into a single page, i often wonder how a game would be seen if it wasnt titled -the legend of zelda- ..

it hurts especially when looking at its long history, how much estblished thigns it could exploit and expand, the potential the series has is still immense, it hurts to see it be wasted over and over :(

[thefriendoforatioisdead]

The idea that Tiwa is Ran's ex makes total sense because this woman clearly has a thing for rebels who are ready to defy anyone to bring truth/justice and put their own career at risk in the process

[red-high-tops]

[yellowsubiesdance]

i think i’ve learned a lot when it comes to not applying my own values to the media i consume

for my script analysis class yesterday, we discussed two gentleman from verona, and nearly every classmate of mine was up in arms about how sexist the story is.

and i'm not saying it's not, or that it's not infuriating to read. but i'm also not putting my energy into getting upset about something written 500 or so years ago. and i'm not about to put my own beliefs onto these characters that are not me. i'm going to let their choices speak for themselves, and interpret it in the context of the story.

all that said, this now brings me to the point of alastor in episode 5, and how viscerally people are responding to it. those of you up in arms about the choices he’s making, and the violent threat he gave husk, you’re missing the entire point of his character, of this place they’re in, of the story being told. he’s an overlord, and he became an overlord by killing much bigger overlords and broadcasting their deaths over the radio.

HE IS NOT A GOOD PERSON.

if you started this show with the belief that every character working the hotel is a good person, you’re in the wrong place. watch the good place if you’re looking for a good wholesome story about getting dead sinners into heaven, because that’s not what this show is about.

you’re more than welcome to hate him after seeing the way he exerted power over a being whose soul he owns, but you’re doing the media you’re watching a disservice by writing it off so quickly. if you don’t like to be uncomfortable watching media, watch something else. this is an uncomfortable show, it handles uncomfortable topics, and it’s going to be an uncomfortable ride, and if you’re not up for something like that, then you should take a break from it and pick up something else. you don’t have to get online and defend your own ideals while you watch a show that goes against your ideals.

[bayetea]

just all of this from moa regarding frank/hazel/leo. the most uncomfortable romantic tension ever because nobody understands it and nobody involved wants it to be there

especially "Hazel's eyes glittered like gold. 'Gold is easy,' she said. It didn't seem that way to Leo--not when he looked at her." like we can interpret this in a few ways. what an interesting thing to think about a girl you just met

and the whole "if this is a private special thing that she's only done with her boyfriend then I either really don't want to try it or I really really do want to try it" like STOP cut the cameras

[sincerely-sofie]

*silently slides Twig/Ark content onto your dash* *scurries away into the night*

(Read the rest under the cut!)