#The amount of times I see abuse justified infuriates me

[wellzofyouth]

Iwtv is such a complex and beautiful show but its been wrapped up in shipping and fandom culture to the point where anything or any theme that isn't centered around who's fucking who (race, gender, class, memory, fatherhood, ABUSE etc etc) gets ignored or downplayed.

It's so sad that you can't even engage or analyze those topics without being dragged into discourse because somebody perceived you to be attacking their "canceled wives" or not understanding Gothic romance or whatever.

It's so sad that some people in this fandom make light of real world problems/tragedies just so they can feel better for liking flawed characters. It's downright infuriating how infuriating how some of yall treat others who call out bigotry in this fandom.

Idk it makes me so sad because this is like the first show Ive seen that engages with things like being a gay black male during that time period as well as being a father mourning the loss of your daughter, religion, and family and all that. So when it gets boiled down to just discourse of whatever because you want to actually engage with text instead of seeing it as simply source material for ao3 fic its like whatever man.

And I'm not saying this to be pretentious or get on my tumblr soapbox to preach about media literacy or anything. It just upsets me.

[germygilbert]

it is like. both fascinating and infuriating to me when people downplay Liam's overdose at the end of season four

1.) I don't expect to hold addicts 100% accountable for their behavior while on drugs i think there's some play in culpability. HOWEVER:

2.) I do think that people who completely write this off and excuse this for the benefit of Fiona are pretty racist or at least have the biggest racism blinders on BECAUSE

2a.) like point blank comparing this specific act of neglect to other acts of neglect (which were no doubt terrible and traumatizing) is one thing. acting like they are on the same level or that say, monica's neglect of Carl is somehow worse is literally just racism

2b.) The choice in drug, as my girlfriend pointed out for a white caregiver to expose a black toddler in her care to, is intentional. You are meant to think about the racial dynamic at play here in regards to conversations and behavior around drug use for the last fifty plus years. Liam is a fucking BABY and you still cannot muster pretend imaginary sympathy for him? How racist do you have to be to react to this arc in this way. Has it been over a month since you called a black drug user a cr*ckhead be honest

3.) Lip losing his shit on fiona while this was happening was not an example of him "perpetuating Frank's cycle of abuse omfg

3a.) I'm not going to say Lip's behavior towards Fiona while she was being incarcerated was completely justified of course but that was their little brother who they both love dearly who might die and Lip is justifiably freaking the fuck out. this is categorically not the same thing as an abusive father yelling in order to exercise control

3b.) Your baby brother does not have the power required to exercise an abusive dynamic over you. Of course he can replicate abusive behavior as anyone who was raised by an abusive parent or otherwise can. The line of thinking that Lip is "abusing" Fiona here shows an irresponsible and, in the wrong hands, entirely dangerous misunderstanding of how and when abusive dynamics come to be

3c.) that is not even Frank's brand of abuse. I can count on one hand the amount of times that Frank uses yelling as a tactic. The name of his game is manipulation and he usually exercises it by acting overly kind to the youngest gallaghers in order to get them to participate in his insane schemes. We see him doing this to Carl and Debbie and Liam and we even hear of him doing this to lip when he was younger. He only hits Ian once and we have reason to believe that is the only time he has hit one of his children. textually. He understands he can't control Lip Ian and Fiona by series start and as such he moslty leaves them alone and occasionally even pals around with them. We SEE him discard Debbie and Carl when they begin to question him and argue against his hair brained ethically heinous schemes

4.)the narrative is indeed asking you to engage with the theme of cycles of abuse being replicated by people who mean well. During this specific arc is asking you to do so with FIONA, not Lip, FIONA, who is liam's legal guardian who she is in this moment recklessly endangering. Even if you pretend the race thing isn't there (which is extremely difficult because its place in the narrative is, as I've pointed out, intentional) Fiona still allowed a baby to eat cocaine through her neglect. You are supposed to be thinking about this. You are supposed to be comparing i in your mind to Carl's childhood injuries and Frank using drugs as a sleep sedative for infants. At all times throughout the show you are meant to be examining how many steps away each character is from being "just as bad as frank"

I know fandom is specifically designed to stomp out critical analysis but omfg.

[zumpietoo]

Ummm.....

I can't help myself....

Okay, first off "Martha" (Milly).....I don't think jeebus would, in fact, spend at least 8 years stalking and obsessing over me (as you've outed yourself as doing), but I'm actually gonna address every single "misconception" (lies) you have here....

A) I love the use of projection (again) and bad, outdated pop psychology. I was actually just observing that "narc" is, these days simply what lazee people use to justify "I don't like this person, but am obsessed with controlling them and they won't comply". Because we all know the crazee one (the cowardly anon hater who routinely stalks me).

B) Speaking of stalking....I'd think you'd have noticed (given how you do it), I'm waayyyy too busy these days to manage to post all that much. Period.

C) Umm....never stalked PP. Never will. Never asked ANYBODY to drive by her house, never remotely "threatened" Amy, tho she did, in fact, threaten me, multiple times. And failed to follow through on any of them. Whose family do I remotely "stalk" (plus aren't you the ones claiming insider knowledge on CabanaBoi's "old $$$" family---are you simply pissed that I swept that myth away with facts?). I'm free to look at other, published info on the internet and I'm a good detective. Too bad you aren't.....because all this seems to fully infuriate you.

So nope....sorry, not sorry.....I do, however, clearly seem to be YOUR "whole world", which, dude.....pathetic. I'm similarly guessing you're among those who routinely send hate to Cole and created multiple socks to impersonate him, etc?

D) OML....dude, while this is patently untrue....if it were (again, god, nooooo), WTF would it be to you, anyway? And why is my spending a small amount of $$$, as I please, a crime/so distressing to you/remotely your fucking business?

However, perhaps you'd like to explain why you still hate Cole "4 years later" and, for that matter, moi? To the point of you and your friends maintaining tumblrs specifically to spread lies about him, his family and me (and my family) and to "destroy him/me"? Just saying.

I enjoy making fun of PP because she's an asshole, on every conceivable level.....who still seeks ways to pine after/indirect Cole/etc.....you might notice I also still bag on KokeJ and Crotchi, too.....cuz they, too....are assholes.....plus, OFC, if you don't like it, why TF are you still here?

E) I'm fully aware and, once again, I also, routinely, post Cari and, again, am very happy for them....I get you hate that (because you're likely a still SH, yourself), but there it is.

I'm also now long happy about my divorce....which I continue to not understand why my having moved on from an abusive relationship is something you see as a character flaw? How unspeakably misogynistic of you!

Lastly.....again, you're the one obsessing over shit that didn't happen 4+ years ago and still stalking me here, endlessly, for no apparent reason. Again, projection is a thing and you need to stop trying to analyze my "flaws" and figure out why you care, Martha....

And why you're so an obsessed coward....

I do appreciate you confirming you are, in fact, one verrrrryyyyyyy crazeee, obsessed person!

[hello-nichya-here]

Hello. So I wanted to know your opinion on something. If that's ok. So I was just casually ranting about what a selfish person Comic!Ursa was and then one person came in Ursa's defense. Here's what he said (this is a translation from Russian language)

"Having separated Ursa from her beloved, Ozai put a huge amount of stress on her. And Ozai couldn't replace the love he deprived her of since he didn't love her. In short, Ursa's temptation to get back at Ozai (the letter she wrote that infuriated Ozai) can be quite justified."

Omg it's not even half of what he said and I'm already cringing at his response. It can not be justified. Because the letter she sent, her desire to make Ozai feel bad, jeopardized the life of an innocent child who had nothing to do with it. How is that not obvious? Smh. 

Next. "And the reason she didn't bid farewell? It could only be guessed. Perhaps, Ursa thought that her children would grow distant to her as a result of her silent disappearance. (...omg that's not how it works...) And without knowing the truth they would love and respect Ozai, feeling comfortable in the palace. Instead of planting deep hatred towards Ozai for banishing their mother and bitterness over their mother gone. Let's suppose she did the the latter. What then? The children would have been subjected to a severe amount of stress. They would have either lived n the palace they hated or would have escaped with the mom with no secure certain future provided. Yes, Zuko and Azula are subjected to stress in both cases. But one of the cases is less traumatic and gives more perspectives. Why Ursa did this and not that is a great deal of food for thought. I just think she had the right to say what she said to Ozai." 

...is what he said. *sigh*

He meant the scene in S&S where Ursa faced Ozai accused him of having no place in his heart neither for a son, nor for a daughter, nor for a brother or something. Meanwhile Ursa abandoned her children adrift and deliberately erased her memory about her past live so she could start a new family with her boyfriend. The scene of Ursa being a huge hypocrite.

Anyways, so. Do you think Comic Ursa can be at least somewhat justified/understood in the slightest?

Thank you for your time.

***

Like you said, even if we take the abuse Ursa suffered as canon and not as the retcon it is, what she did was still awful because she wasn't putting just herself in danger - she was actively, knowingly making Zuko a target.

And that lack of responsibility and just basic common sense is more than enough proof that she wasn't "thinking of what was best for them" when she didn't say goodbye to her kids - and even if it that was what the writers were going for, it's fucking stupid. HOW is not getting to see your mother one last time before she disappears/dies less traumatic than at least having that memory? Especially for Azula, whose last moment with her mother would be a fight? What mother wouldn't want to at least try to remedy that a bit?

"Do you think Comics!Ursa can be at least somewhat justified/ understood in the slightest?" No. That would be show!Ursa because she's the type of imperfect mother you can at least sympathize with a bit. Comics!Ursa reminds me of the type of mother that lets her kids starve because she doesn't want fat babies.

[starleska]

when Logic twists: an analysis of Logan, cognitive distortions, and a future Side

spoilers ahead! this is a little deep-dive into some foreshadowing in the latest Sanders Sides episode, and what i believe the team are going for in terms of Logan’s arc. just some thoughts i had after the episode - i hope you enjoy, and would love to hear your thoughts too :) tw for discussion around mental illness, trauma, abuse, intrusive thoughts, therapy, etc. 

so, we all know that Thomas does a marvellous job portraying difficulties with mental health. he uses interactions between his Sides to carve out fun stories that dramatise the the internal struggles which come with facing complex situations, including those which arise from your specific history and mental illnesses. the writing behind Sanders Sides often uses consideration of real symptoms and therapeutic techniques in order to impart useful advice to the audience who may be struggling with similar issues. with all of this in mind, i thoroughly believe that a good chunk of you are correct about this new Side (foreshadowed in Logan’s eyes) being Wrath, or some variant of Stress or Anger, and here’s why: 

Logan is the side of Thomas which is constantly needing to pick up the slack. not only does he spend a good deal of his time de-escalating conflict between the other Sides, he is constantly letting his own dreams (and consequently, needs) fall by the wayside to comfort, validate and assist Thomas' overall desires. we even literally see him benched during the court case with Janus - his input is considered unimportant unless he is deemed as the voice of reason. with this understanding, Logan is viewed by the other Sides as a Side who doesn’t need help. He’s Logic, so they believe he always knows what is appropriate, and how to control himself - or even that he doesn’t need to control himself at all.  yet i don’t believe this to be the case, and i think ‘Working THROUGH Intrusive Thoughts’ foreshadows this in an intriguing way: by utilising the dynamic between Logan and Remus. for context, i am speaking as an individual who suffers from Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD), a form of PTSD. whilst the Thomas we know in the Sanders Sides universe is of course somewhat sanitised and simplified for the easier imparting of moral lessons, we know that this Thomas suffers from issues with intrusive thoughts, low self-esteem, and high anxiety. whether or not these can all be attributed to an underlying condition is irrelevant, but what is intriguing is whether these symptoms are being exacerbated by traumatic, triggering or otherwise stressful events affecting Thomas’ life - which, based on the direction ‘Working THROUGH Intrusive Thoughts’ went (using the relationship with Nico as a conduit), i think is true. when you experience a number of traumatic events or an acute amount of stress, your Logic can become faulty. let’s think about Logan not as a super-genius who just knows what is the correct thing to do all of the time: his knowledge comes from a bank of information and experiences, which he constantly uses to provide a ‘rational’ stance next to the more ‘emotional’ traits of each Side. yet Logic relies on evidence in order to build up this ‘rationality’. let’s think about a scenario wherein you are told every day by someone that you are ugly. now, if this occurred later in life, your Logic might have already rationalised that this is not the case - that you are beautiful just as you are, that this person is seeking to hurt you, that they are projecting, etc. your Logic would make those reasonable counterpoints based on past experience. however, if you were told by multiple people throughout your life, every day, that you are ugly - say, from caregivers, or close friends - you would internalise ‘i am ugly’ as part of that internal Logic. in the first scenario, you would be able to accurately evaluate the thought, ‘i am ugly’ as a cognitive distortion. however, in the latter scenario, you may be unable to, because you have this bank of ‘evidence’ that other people perceive this as reality. even if those people are abusers, or have an ulterior motive, the notion will be internalised and become your reality - so your Logic will say, ‘i am ugly, based on all of the evidence.’  i find this interesting because in this latest episode, they specifically had Logan call attention to cognitive distortions. we must remember that Logan is a part of Thomas. this is Thomas attempting to rationalise with himself, to implement mindfulness and CBT techniques which he knows to be successful, because they have worked in the past and he has it on scientific authority that they help with intrusive thoughts. but this leads us to a question: what happens when you experience so many traumatic events, or so much stress, that your Logic turns against you and begins to validate your intrusive thoughts?  imagine for a moment Logan’s awesome rational power - but levied in support of all of Thomas’ deepest fears. in my own experience with CPTSD, a horribly thorny mental trap is the one you fall into when you start down the path of ‘i must be a horrible person, just like they said. i must have deserved everything done to me. look at all of the evidence.’ these thoughts often appear rational due to the intense nature of the sufferer’s pain, particularly if that pain is repeated or prolonged. i believe that Logan’s outburst, paired with Thomas’ fretting over not receiving a call back from Nico, are supposed to represent the building stages of this mental trap. such thoughts are difficult to emerge from, but they become even more difficult to deal with when met with a powerful emotion: Rage. if you have cause to think thoughts of the ‘i am a disgusting human being’ variety thanks to trauma, stress or similar negative events, often there is a good deal of pent-up Rage stored alongside. justifiable Rage, one might say - it certainly feels so in the mind of someone who has suffered so terribly. if one is prone to hating themselves, feeling inadequate or other fertile breeding ground for intrusive thoughts, they may also sometimes snap into the opposite extreme - becoming infuriated by everything that has happened to them, and that they are still needing to deal with yet more pain in the present. this is something i have suffered from personally: when mixed with trauma, it is equal parts emotional dysregulation, and being triggered by something. you might be enRaged by the idea that you were ever ‘passive’ as a victim of something terrible, and want to ‘fight back’. in other words, the emotional state of your Rage will feel justified - and this can cause you to engage in some deeply destructive behaviours. this is why i believe this new Dark Side will be Rage (or an equivalent). Logan’s ‘STOP IGNORING ME!’ speaks of a breaking point brought on by years of fixing other people’s problems, only to receive very little in return. there’s a misconception that people who are ‘good’ at handling stress or fixing other people’s problems (i.e., not showing much of the strain) are simply less stressed as a whole, and therefore should be saddled with yet more stress. Logan’s screaming at Remus, and Remus’ delight at Logan’s response, shows us that Logan is exhausted from all of the hard work that he’s had to do in order to fight Thomas’ intrusive thoughts and cognitive distortions, alongside the massive amount of stress in his life. likewise, by giving into his impulsivity and opening up more opportunities for further stress, Thomas has allowed Logan - and his Logic - to become vulnerable to Remus and intrusive thoughts. Logan may have successfully been able to dispel the intrusive thoughts which had no basis in reality (for instance, a murderer hiding in Thomas’ closet) - but what happens if Thomas is given validation for an intrusive thought? in other words - what if Logan feels he has reason to listen to Remus? i believe this Rage has been simmering within Thomas for a long time, and his debut is going to be explosive. there are lots of ways this debut could be written; some have theorised that Logic and Rage will be a kind of antithesis to the Creativitwins, wherein the two are fused as Thomas has internalised his Rage as having a Logical root. this would have Rage not as a separate side, but a kind of version or alternate mindset for Logan, a bit like how he was when in Virgil’s room. i would not be surprised at all for this episode to include both Remus and Janus - Remus, revelling in the intrusive thoughts which Logan/Rage is now allowing to fly free, and Janus, delighting in Logan/Rage’s validation of destructive behaviours, which may well include Deceit. i could also see Virgil being drawn in by this irresistible combination of Anxiety-fuelling thoughts - intrusive thoughts inspiring inadequacy, Deceit inspiring fear of being found out, and the terror of Logic being twisted to validate every fear Virgil has ever had for Thomas. you know when someone has hurt you really badly, and so in your head you come up with countless (awful, unrealistic, hurtful) ways to ‘get back at them’? that’s what i think the next Sanders Sides episode is going to be like.  of course, like Anxiety, Intrusive Thoughts and Deceit, Rage will have his uses too. i believe, if any of this theorising is correct, that the next Sanders Sides episode will follow a narrative discussing if Rage is justified when one is hurt to a massive extreme, and what Logic can one follow when it backs up every destructive impulse. are you being Logical if you are full of Rage? basically, i think Logan (influenced by a breaking point and giving over to Rage) is going to do everything in his power to be destructive, under the idea that it is the only Logical thing to do. i believe he will fall to the horrific power of cognitive distortions and mental illness, and that the other Sides will need to use their strengths to bring him back. anyway, that’s all my thoughts! my apologies for any inaccuracies, or if anything in here was upsetting. i’d love to hear what you think about this, and your own theories! :D take care 💏

[ohmygeese]

Doomsday: Rambling about c!Tommy and his relationship with c!Techno

Again, all roleplay. Swearing and opinions ahead!

I think the problem with Tommy's character is that everywhere he goes, there's tragedy.

I can assure you that even if he gave up the discs a long time ago, Dream would still be at his tail because he even said, "[Tommy] You're fun to play with." Dream would just move on and target L'manberg or worse, Tubbo. Because Dream doesn't like anyone who questions his utter control of power and you know, with or without the discs, Tommy will still go against Dream cus honestly same. (He is such a bitchboy dickhead fucker. Anyone who has a crush on c!Dream please check on yourself.)

In short, Dream would remain the constant in Tommy's story with or without the discs. Dream will be there to destroy everything he's worked for. Dream would be there to twist his words and actions. Dream would be there to manipulate the people he loves against him.

The SMP will still believe that Tommy is the main cause of all the server's problems. Partly because of Dream's mindgames but at the same time, it's because he's easiest to blame. (S1 and S2: "This is all Tommy's fault" *looks at Dream, El Rapids, Captain Puffy, Vilbur, George etc etc*)

Everyone sees Tommy as reckless and selfish. They say he steals for his own benefit. They say he griefs and is the reason the server looks as blown up as it is. They say he never learns from his lessons.

But you see, as much as these sentences are partially true (I'll admit it okay. I'm a tommyinnit apologist after all), they can never be more wrong. He's being framed for blowing up at least 4 server buildings for god's sake. Also, how do you expect a kid to "learn his lesson" when you use violence, manipulation, and trauma to teach it? Like it seems like you're taking inspiration from Asian parents but let me tell you, it doesn't work.

I can guarantee you that blowing up a child's home will not teach him about the failures of government. I can assure you that bringing him back to his abuser will not give him character development. I can 100% say that blaming the kid for every time you're home got destroyed will not repair it. It will just break the kid more.

And despite that, Tommy still remains the most strong willed of the server. Why? Say thanks to Vilbur and his nightmares woohoo. He doesn't blame the SMP for leaving him, wanting to put it behind him to save his home. He always knows that Dream is just puppeteering everyone and that's why, even with Techno, he was so adamant in bringing him down. (I remember when Ghostbur asked him who blew up NLM, Tommy immediately answered Dream sith conviction and said Techno and Phil with a little bit more hesitance which is just hnggggg). This is not even touching the amount of sacrifices Tommy has given to protect the people and places he loved.

He doesn't want to be the bad guy like Vilbur said. And he will always strive against it in the ways he knows how. Protect Tubbo. Protect L'manberg. Get discs. Kill Dream.

And that's what Techno does not understand. He is completely valid in his quest for revenge but fails to take into account Tommy's trauma specifically the trauma he himself has inflicted on the kid. For someone who says healing takes time, he fails to see that Tommy is scared of what he has become and is trying to escape from that. He fails to see that the one thing Tommy needs is a sense of normalcy and his home: L'manberg. (And honestly, they both fail in that regard but the difference is Techno can carry himself in a 1v30 and can always count on Phil. Tommy can't say the same. And besides Techno isn't the target of a literal god who doesn't have any morals. At least, not yet......)

But Geese, you say. "Tommy's selfish for leaving Techno after everything Techno has done for him." Stfu, you sound like my mom. Yes, Tommy's relationship with Techno, by far, is the healthiest one Tommy has ever had on the server. But I don't think it's healthy to say Tommy owes Techno for being treated like a human? That should be given fact! Tommy should be treated with care and that shouldn't come with a price. Yes, Techno deserves the care to be reciprocated as well but Tommy has done that. Before he sided with Tubbo, he always acted on what he thinks would make Techno proud. You would know if you watched his streams.

So Tommy, after seeing the destruction of his home, tired of everyone seeming to act against him, calls Techno selfish and a tyrant. Cus honestly he is. Tommy is right in saying how Techno could have compromised. He could have targeted the Butcher army. Gotten leverage. Done minor terrorism like they planned to. Quackity was on his last life for fuck's sake (I have such a vendetta against c!Quackity and I am not afraid to say it). But to destroy L'manberg was overstepping it because other people lived there. He lived there. In Tommy's eyes, if Techno did consider him as friends, he would've spared L'manberg. (Also the tnt was just overkill like really dude. It was cool at first but it was also kind of not especially with c!Dream acting like a prick with it.) And it's heartbreaking seeing both sides. (Which not a lot of people consider in the fandom but who am I to complain.) They care about each other but not in what they believe in and their methods.

And yet the fandom, at least what I saw from people livetweeting on twitter, is just "Tommy is selfish." And last night, I was like that because I was so goddamn tired of the discs but then I realized, after everything that happened during Doomsday, that's the only thing he can count on to give him some sense of power against the one person he knows that started it all. Yes, I agree. Tommy shouldn't care about the discs anymore but I think he already has this unspoken rule within himself that it's okay for Dream to burn the discs due to the many times he has said to just burn the discs. This frees himself from upcoming manipulation. He just needs it to control Dream in return.

I can't wait for Wilbur to come back. Because I truly believe that he is the only one who fully understands Tommy (pre-exile of course). I just want Tommy to have a therapy arc or some shit man.

Sidenote: It's really infuriating how other people can have their "villain arcs" but once Tommy says discs everyone just points a gun at him. I am so tired.

Anywayz, c!Tommy is a traumatized kid. c!Techno is justified but honestly overkilled it (but hey that's Techno for ya). c!Phil is still a shit father. c!Tubbo should be checked on. I want to punch c!Quackity in the face (also c!HBomb but that's another long talk and I aksksjsjk, whatdoesthedoghavetodowithanything *silently screams*). I don't trust any adult on this server other than c!Sam, c!Ponk, and c!Connor (it feels weird to say c!Connor but we gotta get crumbs of his lore). We should talk about how c!Captain Puffy is one of the main culprits that started all of this mess. And, it's all c!George and c!Dream's fault. Amen.

[the-nado-hunter]

So i just finished watching infinity train book 3, and god damn i’m thinking a lot about all the characters with trauma in animation and whether they get a redemption arch or not.

So when should a character get a redemption arch? When should they not?

I wound up thinking about some of the paralells between simon and catra, both of them have similar bouts grasping for power and control, both of them do some really bad things, and both of them blame someone else for “making” them do bad things.

So what’s the difference? Why did Catra end up redeemed and Simon died in probably one of the most horrific ways I’ve ever seen in modern western animation that’s generally aired with a familly audience in mind (save for maybe the hanging scene in Tarzan)? What’s the difference between the two?

I think for one Catra was actually manipulated, and Simon only thought he was being manipulated. Simon was convinced anything that didn’t align with what he thought had to be a lie. He was abandoned, even if on accident, that’s hard for a kid in a scary place to go through, and he latched on to Grace early on but he retained trust issues after that.

Catra was abused and manipulated by shadow weaver who had pit her against adora since they were children and never ever given the attention and love she needed as a child. She learned that climbing for power in the hoard was the only way to not be hurt. In her mind, everything would be fine if she could gain control.

Simon also felt that control was the best way to cope. Being a part of the Apex as a leader by Grace’s side meant he felt fulfilled and never had to deal with either the consequences of their actions due to the apex members convincing themselves that non-passengers were all liers/manipulaters, so it made it easy to harm and destroy them because they convinced themselves they didn’t need to feel empathy for them because they were “nothing”. Even if people like Lake, Hazel, Tuba, Samantha the Cat, and Atticus have all shown us to this point that they certainly do have feelings and act in self preservation as well as feel loss on a deep level. Its actualy being around and getting to know Hazel due to mistaking her for a passenger that lets Grace begin to see that... but Simon resents Hazel from beginning to end, wheels Tuba and feels no regret for it, even before knowing she wasn’t a passenger he didn’t treat Hazel with any empathy despite Grace begging him to “think of how you felt when you lost your friend when you were her age”, and treated Hazel as a means to an end at best. Because Hazel upset the status quo he felt initially, his control was slipping, he couldn’t tell everything that was going on with Grace all the time, and he reacted violently.

Then in She-Ra... eventually Catra listened, she felt guilt, she was open to being wrong, while she had her moment of anger of being treated unfairly and tried to blame adora for all her problems despite adora offering to help and let Catra come with her numerous times... she realized she needed to change, she realized she needed to work through things, and realized that if she wanted adora to stay in her life, she had to show Adora she cared and stop pushing her and everyone else away out of fear.

Simon on the other hand... never questioned himself. Even when repeatedly hurting and trying to kill someone he supposedly loved. When he hurt Grace he didn’t feel remorse, he felt there was something wrong with her for feeling hurt. When Grace didn’t act or say the things he wanted, he got angry and violent. He invaded her memories and her mind and forced her to relive trauma- giving the excuse that if she hadn’t lied to him, this wouldn’t have happened. This a tactic a lot of abusers use, they blame the victim for making them act that way. Its a way of control by trying to tell the victim “if you do what I say, you won’t get hurt” Sure, when he shoved Grace off the train and thought she had died, maybe somewhere deep down there was a thought of “oh god what have I done” but he still reacted violently. His trauma consumed him, because he didn’t want to change, he was unable to see anything wrong with what he was doing because he was right. I’d theorize that even in that moment where his expression shifted then shifted back, even then he was justifying in his own mind that it was necessary, that Grace made him do that.

The train couldn’t help someone who can’t change. Its tragic, because when we see a character like that on screen and watch him through the lighter moments in the show you... hope that he’ll be redeemed... right? Have a change of heart? But he didn’t. If he had any remorse at all, it was too little too late. That is a real thing that happens, you hope that people will change, get help, turn around and redeem themselves... but sometimes... that doesn’t happen. And it’s not on the people around that person to “fix” them, its not their responsibility to feel guilty for not “doing enough” or “doing the right things” when that person refuses to do anything differently and continues to harm people and act in violence. That’s full on victim blaming, and no one ever deserves that.

Even when Catra is in full villain mode, as Double Trouble pointed out you can tell her heart isn’t in it. What she did to Entrapta in a moment of panic haunted her, loosing Scorpia was a wake up call of how she pushes people away. She came to the conclusion that she wasn’t right, then in the last season she stopped blaming everyone else, she stopped blaming adora, she and adora both stood up to shadow weaver for constantly trying to tear them apart and torturing Catra to try and make Adora do what she wanted.

Catra... broke out of it. When she saw Adora and how angry she was after Catra opened the portal, when Double Trouble gave her a reality check, and I’d argue especially after she was rescued from Horde Prime and Adora, incredibly hurt said “you don’t have to see me anymore” fully realized she has to figure out how to stop pushing others away, because she doesn’t like that she’s hurt her friends, and she accepts responsibility and tries to help. She’s not going to be perfect, we still see that she lashes out and pushes people away here and there even after being saved from horde prime, but the difference is she wants to change, she wants to do good, she not only wants adora in her life, but wants adora to be happy, and it infuriates her when Adora feels like she has to sacrifice herself for everyone else.

Simon didn’t stop when he saw Grace was hurt, crying, scared of him, growing away from him, and instead of feeling sympathy, sitting down and talking to her not going “what’s wrong with you??”. When grace realizes Simon is hurt when in the cabin with Samantha, she immediately goes after him and says “this must be hard for you, i’m sorry I didn’t see it... this is why I’ve been distracted.” But even then, Simon still seems to take Grace’s problem as a threat, something that needs to be fixed so things can go back to “normal” I.E. when he felt in control. Grace herself pointed out he was making everything about him. Because at all points when he sees her upset, he blames her, tells her she’s been brainwashed, that she’s not acting “normal”. He blames her every step of the way then plays victim. By the end he’s become an abuser through and through, the whole time blaming everyone else for his own actions. He invaded Grace’s mind, forced her to relive her most traumatic memories to trap her in her own mind, then tried to kill her right after she saved him.

I think that’s the difference between the two. One wanted to change and recognized their actions hurt people and felt guilt for it... anything Catra did is a byproduct of what the Horde raised her to be, for anyone that was found as a child by the hoard and manipulated and played against Adora by Shadow Weaver. She was trained to be a soldier, and told she would suffer if Adora fell out of the Hoard’s control. When she has her breakdown when she’s supposedly at the top of her game, its because she deep down doesn’t want to do this, she’s climbed her way to the top hoping that she’ll stop feeling and be “happy”, but she’s got to the top, and lost everything that she really cared about, and it gets to her.

The other insisted they were right and if someone was hurt by him they made him do it right up until the end. He became the leader of the Apex, his whole body covered in numbers, more than anyone - but as long as Grace was around to question him, his control wouldn’t be absolute. There’s still a certain amount of doubt to be eliminated.

And that’s why one got a redemption arch and was given the chance to change... and one was completely destroyed by their own actions. Catra (and also Glimmer honestly) shows how you can come out of trauma on the other side and begin to heal while still acknowledging that your trauma doesn’t justify your actions when they hurt people, but you can take steps and accept help that make it so your not having to face it all alone.

Simon is a cautionary tale about how when trauma goes un-dealt with, when don’t want to change, accept help, or even consider any other view point , and don’t take accountability for the damage you inflict on others, it consumes you and inevitably destroys you. And eventually the trauma he inflicted on everyone else came back to bite him.

Last thing I’ll say is fucking good for Grace for telling him to his face she’s not responsible for him and his actions, and no longer taking all the blame he was throwing at her for daring to have empathy, be kind, and want things to be different.

Those are my thoughts at least. I’m so glad these shows are taking a serious hard look at these topics, and now we can say we have shows that cover these topics in an adult way and don’t sugar coat it. Simon is a well written character, because it shows how someone can become abusive and violent resulting from trauma... but unlike a lot of movies about serial killers and whatnot, it doesn’t for a moment try to say he’s justified in anything he does. We feel the very real emotions from Grace coming to terms with changing her own views and also the horror and hard emotions that come from this guy that was her closest friend turning on her and hurting her like this. Those are some really... really complicated emotions to go through in a short animated show, but god damn... they did it

[flowermist7432]

Kinda mouthing into the void cause it's eating at me since it keeps happening around my life daily and even happened recently, and my secret vent account kinda reaches no one. To anyone who needs to hear this. Don't compare your trauma to others who "have it worse" to minimize your current state of abuse.

By compareing experiences others have it, not only does that make it so it minimizes how bad it is and so you can justify how technically yours/others situations are okay actually- intern totally covering the fact its still abuse; but its also insainly uncomfortable.

I can't tell you the painful heartbreak it is to attempt to talk to someone who use to be in my situation that its not okay- only for my own traumas and abusers to be brought up in tern to be like "its not as bad as [X] so."

Its.. so depressing. Its uncomfortable. It's also infuriating. The fact that my own traumas are used to cover up abuse because its "not as bad" is the quickest way to grind my gears. Stop it. Never EVER tell me its not as bad as mine. I dont fucking want to hear that! It impedes process to get out of this dumb cycle of excusing abusers and abuse because they arent like mine or like others.

There's a whole darn musical called Six where the entire showing is about these women of history trying to see who had it worse like it was not only a competition but also used to make the others feel like theirs wasnt even worth being mourned over. Which caused an awful divide and fighting amongst them all, but in the end they realize that it doesnt matter who had the worst time, its about how they all were done wrong and thats all that matters. And no amount of fighting over who's neglect was the most terrible, it does not make it better for either party.

Anyway thats my thing. So uh.

TLDR; Dont compare others or your abuse to someone else's because its "not as bad as theirs" cause its not okay and also makes me incredibly angry and sad--

[allofthefeelings]

Hi. I forgot that sad endings exist, and now, I'm scared stupid after your last BW movie post. She's dead already! I want something close to happy! (Oh god, I hope the fanfics come through 😭😭😭)

(Before I begin, I would also like you to know that, while this is over 4000 words long, I did cut a several-paragraphs-long digression comparing the BW movie to Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas. You’re welcome.)

I know I’m once again outing myself as an optimist here, and I’m sure I’ll also end up getting smug asks in four months when much of my speculation is wrong, but what the hell. If I was on this tumblr to be right I would have made a LOT of different decisions.

So.

I really, truly don’t think we’re going to get a sad ending.

But the question is, how does it achieve a not-sad ending? Or, to completely re-frame and re-structure: for a character like Natasha, what exactly is a happy ending?

Buckle in, because this gets long.

I think we can all agree that, by definition, we’re starting the movie from a point of melancholy at best, just because we know that in 2023 Natasha will be dead. She doesn’t get to ride into the sunset in any way, shape, or form. Every other solo movie- even the ones with tragic endings, like Thor Ragnarok’s destruction of Asgard and a large portion of its people- have given characters a path forward and the odds that even if this won’t give them a happy ending, it gives them a way towards one. It ends with hope. There isn’t room for that here, for obvious reasons. But what there is room for- and this is, ironically, achievable because of one of the major flaws of IW- is the idea that she did achieve growth, and then had six years to live the life she wanted.

Or, not the life she WANTED, which probably would not have been one part on the run/five parts half of society obliterated by Thanos. Let’s say she had the chance to live a terrible life self-actualized.

IW’s complete and utter lack of meaningful characterization for 90% of the cast means that we don’t really have a sense of where Natasha was in that movie. That gives a lot of room to play with, to put Natasha at the end of the BW movie in a place that she wants to be in. In other words, they can retroactively argue that the reason Natasha isn’t given room to grow in IW is that she had achieved her growth in between CW and IW.

Which, look. Doylistically this is beyond bullshit. Doylistically this is actually offensive, and if they’re looking to retroactively placate us about how Natasha’s arc went, it really doesn’t work. I’m not talking about what was intended, or what was achieved; I don’t think this is either of those. I’m talking about what we can choose to read into it.

And, frankly, as a Natasha fan, that’s pretty much all we do anyway. I can argue (and clearly have argued) her arc for ages, but that’s all the work I’ve done, and you (collective, Natasha fans) have done- not the work the text has done.

None of this is remotely answering the question. But I think it’s necessary groundwork to begin to answer the question.

Because what the BW movie can give us is that growth arc that takes place in the negative spaces of canon.

Well, first of all, the BW movie gives us the fact that things happen at all in the negative spaces of canon. I know I’ve discussed this already, but it’s worth mentioning again: the way audiences are supposed to read texts is that everything pertinent happens on screen. Even supplemental texts that are considered canonical (cut scenes, novelizations, official tie-in comics, movie scripts) are deemed inherently less valuable because they aren’t on the screen. This movie affirms that important events are happening off-screen, to everyone- or at least everyone who isn’t front and center.

This is, again, infuriating, and I feel like when I say this I’m inadveretently contributing to justification. That is not my intention. Natasha’s growth should have been on screen and should have been seen as important. I hate that it’s reduced to a single movie after ten years and the character’s death. I don’t think this justifies it. AT THE SAME TIME, I think this opens space for us to look at lots of characters who haven’t gotten the screen time they deserved.

(Like, they may never give Rhodey the movie he deserves, but at least no one can tell us that if he did something worth seeing it would have been on screen. This movie’s existence is a rebuttal of that. This is a digression but one I’m gonna keep making until everyone starts casually referring to awesome shit Rhodey did off-screen because WHY THE FUCK NOT, YOU CAN’T PROVE IT DIDN’T HAPPEN, “IT DIDN’T HAPPEN ON SCREEN” IS NO LONGER PROOF OF ANYTHING EXCEPT THEY HAVEN’T DONE THE SET-IN-THE-PAST MOVIE YET. Y E T.)

But we also get the possibility of growth, and to analyze what growth means for Natasha’s character.

So here is an issue: I can tell you, with a frankly absurd amount of confidence, what I read Natasha’s arc as. I can lay it out from film to film, I can point to key growth moments, I can read a lot into every scrap that made it into the final cut and I can tell you exactly why, and I feel like if you dig into my history you’re going to find a lot of me citing specific scenes to make my point so I’m not going to go too in-depth on an already-long post that is getting exponentially longer. I think that Natasha’s key arc is in figuring out who she is and what she needs, and how to be a person rather than a reflection of what is asked of her. I think that the mirror imagery in the trailer and in the SDCC/D23 BW footage lends credence to this being a key theme of the movie.

But I have absolutely no idea if I’m right, because the MCU has never considered Natasha to be important enough to be the focus, and as a result I read her arc mostly through the ways she mirrors other characters’ stories, usually to show their strengths by comparison. I do my best to make arguments that are textually supported, but at the same time, it’s like describing the sun entirely from the way that its light reflects off the moon.

So I can say that for the BW movie to be satisfying, it needs to offer completion to her arc, which is then capped in IW/Endgame but would have reached its climax in the BW movie. But since I cannot confidently tell you what her arc has been so far, I can’t figure out exactly how that arc could be satisfactorily completed. Which means, after SEEING the movie, I will have to retroactively figure out how they saw her arc, and then figure out if this was a satisfactory way to end it.

But an argument done in hindsight is colored by what I’ve already seen, and that’s a cheat. So let’s start over.

Here is what we know:

Natasha was taken from her family very young (Endgame: didn’t know her father’s name). As a child, she was abused and manipulated by the Red Room (Agent Carter; Age of Ultron). She was trained to be a Black Widow, did terrible shit for them for a while, defected, became a mercenary, did terrible shit for the highest bidder (Avengers). Clint was sent to kill her but made a different call and brought her in to SHIELD (Avengers). Natasha quickly rose in the ranks and became one half of a STRIKE team watched over by Fury’s right-hand man, Coulson (Avengers). Natasha also became very close with Nick Fury, the head of SHIELD (IM2, Cap2). At some point in there she was shot by the Winter Soldier (Cap2). She was one of the people behind putting together the Avengers Initiative, identifying Tony Stark as not qualified (IM2), and recruited into the team herself (Avengers). She did not leave the Avengers teams for the next 11 years; she was on the first iteration (lasting through Age of Ultron), the second (Age of Ultron through Civil War), and then the Secret Avengers (which we can now assume starts post-BW through Infinity War) and Avengers 3.0 (five-year gap team), as well as the Quantum Realm Team-Up Team right up til she got yeeted off Vormir.

We’ll set Secret Avengers and Team 3.0 aside for the moment, as they’re things that will exist post-BW movie canon.

Natasha’s narrative role has often been to be so amazing that when she’s bested, we know the other person is really good. The best way for me to pull this together into a coherent throughline is that Natasha tends to be bested by people with passion and emotional stakes. When Natasha is just doing her job, but Pepper cares about Tony or the Dora Milaje care about T’Challa, she is outmatched. In Cap2, when Natasha cares deeply about SHIELD and who she’s loyal to, she is able to outmatch everyone she faces, but since she’s a secondary character and her act isn’t as highly visible on screen, her heroism isn’t as spotlighted.

(That said, make no mistake, WE WILL BE COMING BACK TO HER HEROIC MOVE IN THIS MOVIE.)

Her role has also been, as I mentioned earlier, to be a mirror to the white male heroes. She mirrors Tony in IM2, Clint in Avengers, Steve in Cap2, and Bruce in Ultron. I can make a strong argument, that I feel is supported by each text, that each of these mirrors is about moderation, and both the white man of choice and Natasha finding that the ideal is somewhere between both points: the space between how and why Tony and Natasha handle secrecy; between how Clint and Natasha handle guilt; between how Steve and Natasha handle trust; between how Bruce and Natasha handle self-hatred. That the writers and directors often disagree with my read of this does not, in any way, dissuade me from believing it, but it does mean that this may not be the arc we’re looking at in the movie.

By the arcs that I’ve traced, though, they have a fair amount of leeway to give a satisfying conclusion no matter what the plot is. By having other characters mirroring Natasha, she is centered in a way she never had been, and simply being the protagonist of her own story is part of Natasha’s journey we haven’t seen. We know that this is going to in some way revisit the Red Room, and that means that we’ll get to see a story where Natasha is passionate about and personally connected to what she’s fighting. We also know that whatever the story is, it will not be Natasha mediating someone else’s approach to the world, but Natasha’s approach to the world with someone else (I’m guessing Yelena?) mediating her worldview, in a way that gives Natasha growth but does not undercut her as someone who had so much to learn from the REAL hero.

All plot to the side, simply because Natasha is the protagonist, there is an element of satisfaction inherent, both textually and metatextually, because Natasha’s role of being sidelined is both within the text and within the media landscape a struggle she’s finally able to overcome. There is also a metatextual satisfaction just in cleaning up the bits and pieces of canon that we’ve gotten that were left hanging. For example, in her heroic climax in Winter Soldier, Natasha- who was so focused on being able to transform into whatever was necessary- released a fuck-ton of national security information on the internet, including her own history, that made her both immutable and knowable. (Do you ever think about how this means that people living within the MCU know more about Natasha’s background than we, the audience, does? Because I do, c o n s t a n t l y.) Natasha went from working undercover and in the shadows to being an Avenger and releasing not just her own and not just SHIELD’s but also the Red Room’s dirty laundry in public, and that has never had narrative consequences; this is a great opportunity to use that, closing a loop that most people probably forgot even existed.

Speaking of closure.

I think this movie HAD to be designed with that specifically in mind. I don’t think they necessarily expected the backlash they got from Natasha’s death (I’m going to be honest here; I didn’t expect it from anyone but Natasha fans), but at least they had to know that people who had been promised Natasha would get her due in canon would be frustrated and want some sign that the complexity of the character that had been talked up for a decade was actually part of the story they put on film. Marvel wants to placate fans, yes, but they wouldn’t waste millions upon millions of dollars on a movie to get us to shut up; their job is to bring in money, and it’s not like they haven’t gotten ten years’ worth from us. They’re also savvy enough to know that for a character who’s no longer alive in canon, they need to do things that make their story relevant even without them having future appearances- and I think we’ll see that in Yelena and Taskmaster- but also to make this story have stakes.

Yeah, we never spend a Marvel movie saying “Oh geez, what if the hero dies?” (well, aside from Civil War, because comics oontext), but right now we’re going in knowing (or, bare minimum, thinking we know) exactly what happens to Natasha. Where she’ll end up just under two years from when the story starts is set in stone (NO PUN INTENDED). So we need another way to give the story stakes. Natasha’s life and her future aren’t up in the air. Her past is, I guess, but they’ve been clear this movie isn’t about her past. And where that leaves us is the emotional journey. I outlined above what I think that is, but it doesn’t have to be that to be satisfying- it just has to be some way to leave Natasha changed in a way that surprises us as audience.

And, sure, that could be loss- that could be betrayal from everyone in this movie, leaving her alone and with no one to turn to but the Avengers- but I don’t think that is. I think that’s looking at Natasha’s story like she’s still a secondary character, rather than the protagonist. The basic structure of a superhero movie (and specifically a Marvel movie) is that the protagonist suffers defeat but ultimately triumphs, internally if not externally, having learned something that takes them farther on their emotional journey. Since (as far as we )know this is the only movie Nat’s getting- she’s not getting a trilogy or a Dis+ show- this needs to take her farther than most single-protagonist movies have.

In terms of another kind of closure: If the movie doesn’t offer at least a hint of a way Nat could come back (and I’m still hoping for that no matter how unlikely it is, and if it doesn’t happen I’m hoping for it in the Dr Strange sequel, and after that I’m sure I’ll find another path), I think there’s an excellent chance the post-credits scene will be a funeral for her. Given that they have SebStan and Mackie and Emily Van Camp shooting together right now, it would be very easy to at the VERY least get us a scene of them mourning her. It’s not the same as Tony’s giant lakehouse memorial, but it’s about half the characters who were close to her when she was alive (the others being Clint, Maria, and Fury, and I’m pretty sure they could have put an hour of time on the FFH set to the latter two having five seconds of looking solemn). I think that, given the backlash to Endgame, they need something like this: we need to see, on screen, conclusive proof that Natasha’s life mattered, not just for the audience, but for the world she lived in.

My dream would be for the entire movie to use a frame story OF her funeral- people talking about her, different memories and different understandings, that combine in different ways to collectively show a whole. Fucking Rashomon that shit. But we all know they’re not going to do that.

I recognize I am still talking satisfying and not happy.

But what exactly is happy? What exactly is the happy ending Natasha might want?

She’s not a character who wants to retire or settle down somewhere. As much as we in the audience talk about wanting her to get a break, we’ve never seen that from her, and we also don’t see a world that could really offer that to her; especially post-Cap2, Natasha does not have the luxury of escaping her past even if she did want to.

We don’t know her goals. We don’t know what she wanted outside of making amends for her past. We’ve gotten that from almost every other character- say what you want about Steve’s Endgame ending (god knows I have), or about Bruce being a public figure that kids love, but at least there was groundwork laid for it.

i think the best argument we have for what makes Natasha happy is in Civil War, when it’s taken away. Natasha is willing to give up things that are important to her (her autonomy) in favor of not losing her team; being together is the priority for her. By the end of Civil War, she’s lost even that; she’s seen to have betrayed her entire team and has no one. By IW we know that she re-finds her group, that she and Steve and Sam and Wanda are a tightly-knit unit, but we have to piece it together ourselves, and we have no way to know that it’s by choice rather than necessity. (The BW trailer is really the first time we get evidence that Natasha has more resources than just the Avengers or SHIELD; even fic has tended to just posit she has empty safehouses, not living people she can go to.) The BW movie could give her that team, and retroactively make her appearance in IW a reward for her- having found the team she wanted- rather than just the natural place for her to end up.

But I can’t see how that would even work without at least some of Chris Evans, Anthony Mackie, and Elizabeth Olsen appearing in this movie and showing on screen that Natasha has her people. We haven’t seen evidence they aren’t, but at least I haven’t heard any rumors they are, the way we’ve heard rumors about RDJ.

And there’s something awful, to me, in Natasha constantly being supporting in other people’s movies, which exist to seem self-contained even if they’re not, but then in her movie her emotional fulfillment relying on things that happen elsewhere- the implication that her emotional arc can’t even support a single movie.

In terms of what we’ve seen achieved, Natasha seems happiest when she’s solving a problem, when she’s fighting and winning and being the hero she doesn’t quite believe she is. But that’s not something that can be an end to an arc, of a decade or even of two hours. No matter how great that is, it’s a momentary thing, and it’s fleeting. That’s happiness but not narratively satisfying

This remains not an answer to the original questions.

I think part of the issue is, it’s not necessarily that we need Natasha to be happy, for her to have a happy ending. It’s that we, the audience, wants to be happy- and frankly, I don’t think that’s unreasonable; we’re not going to blockbusters to have our hearts torn out (and I think that after Endgame especially, Natasha fans are not ready or willing to do that again). And so we’re looking less at how Natasha can be happy, but how we can be happy. Selfishly, I’d even add: how we can be happy without doing the work. How we can be happy without conspiracy-theorizing our way to a satisfying narrative, but rather, a narrative that’s already on the screen, that we can just roll around in and enjoy.

I realize how bizarre this is to say after 3000+ words, but: I want the opportunity to be a lazy viewer. I want the chance to take things in without having to take responsibility for making them into something I want to see. I don’t want to have to reverse-engineer her story; I want to dig into the minutiae that is maybe actually intended.

On some level, that’s going to be the happy ending for me. Just having a whole text to dive into is a gift. (I am probably monkey-pawing myself just by saying this, which is the same kind of bullshit I argued for Age of Ultron- but then, I still can rewatch Ultron and find a lot that I like.) And Natasha getting a narrative win- which, as protagonist, she kind of has to- will be a happy ending for me.

But I’m a Natasha fan. This is expected.

What I think is the real question under all of this- what I’ve been struggling to tease out from my own feelings, and maybe now I’m finally getting to it- is a different question entirely: how can Marvel craft a story that sticks with their formula of giving a protagonist a win and something like a happy ending, while telling a story about a character who has been sidelined for ten years until they killed her off? Setting aside those of us who are overly invested in Natasha’s arc, what is the path to telling a story that the majority of the audience- most of whom haven’t traced her history, many of whom are casual fans, some of whom probably didn’t even see Endgame- finds fulfilling and happy?

The hero has to win, obviously. The hero has to triumph. Natasha has to come away having saved the world (stopping a villain from destruction), her world (protecting those close to her), and her internal world (some kind of emotional progress/catharsis). There will be moments intended for the audience to cheer. That’s a formula that you can find in nearly every superhero movie, and with good reason; I can’t think of why it wouldn’t apply here.

So looping back around, the question about the sad ending really is just for those of us who are deeply engaged. It’s not “will Natasha triumph?” because yes, she will- of course she will. We are going to get a movie where the world will be saved by Natasha (which has happened before) and the text will acknowledge that (which it really has not). The real question at hand is “will Natasha’s triumph be enough to mitigate the substantial losses she’s had in the other movies, or will it be bittersweet, her success here just underscoring the way that her biggest narrative win was to kill herself for no recognition?”

Which, of course, on some level, will vary from audience member to audience member. But I think that, with the awareness of how Endgame worked, and the knowledge of exactly when this movie is coming out, they have to at least try to give her- and us- this.

It’s now 5:15 AM and this is over 4000 words long and if you’ve read all this you deserve a medal. I’m happy to clarify or expand on anything in a few hours when I get up; I know that I circled a few points rather than clearly making them, but I’m no longer even completely sure what is common knowledge and what is me projecting. Hopefully this can at least start a conversation?

ETA: And anon, I am sure no matter what happens, fanfic will have our backs.

[hugsandnoregrets]

Major ‘YOU’ spoilers ahead

Okay so I’m going to compare the first book to the show, and some of small but insidious changes made to the plotline that makes Joe all the more lovable, redeemable, and ‘stannable’ (?) in the show, and changes that make Beck look worse. I know that many say Beck is worse in the book, but I am not of that opinion, and a lot of what I have to say might be ‘debatable’ but I got fired up.  

In the book... 

-Joe uses gross language about women... a lot. There is little of his show! desire to help women and protect them from evil men. In fact he calls a variety of women ‘sluts, whores, hoes, cunts, bitches, etc.’ at least once or more in the book in his internal monologue, even about women who are doing nothing to harm him.  -He is WAY more weird in the book sexually. Lots of jerking off to Beck and lots of fantasies and masturbation in public or inappropriate places. He constantly sexualizes Beck and plenty of others.  -No Paco. Paco does not exist and he is not mentoring a sweet little boy with an abusive dad. He is not being altruistic.  -He totally murdered Candace by drowning her and then blames her in his head. Because she broke up with him. Maybe she cheated on him but that was not something I saw in the first book.  -Benji did not accidentally murder anyone in the book, he was a run of the mill asshole and there is 0 justification for his murder other than him being a rich asshole.  -He calls either Juniors or Young Women or whatever fashion section for young women in Macy’s something like ‘Young Sluts’ or ‘Little Sluts’ or something like that and it really skeeved me out. -He never even fucking LIKED Karen he thought of her as ‘easy’ and stupid and simple. There was no Beck ‘seducing’ him into cheating on Karen only to cheat on him later. He broke up with her before getting back with Beck. He said vile shit about Karen. 

-When he followed Beck to the Dickens festival, she did not see him, and she sought him out, of her own volition, to tell him the truth about her dad. Not because she was caught.  (Also, random, but Beck has an okay amount of money and support in the book, a weird addition to the show) 

-He had issues with her personality from the start. He practically only liked her because she was attractive and liked to read. That is it. He described her as Natalie Portman and then immediately started railing on her personality flaws within 2 chapters. There was no sweet innocent girl who turns out to be a bitch or a giant fake person. He was aware of her big flaws all along, and he wanted desperately to ‘fix’ her.

-Dr. Nicky existed in her life around the same time, or even before Joe did. And her daddy issues are WAY bigger in the book. Like mentally her father fucked her up and she is insecure and sexual and wants to make men want her. She did not start an affair after dating Joe forever and being in love. The affair with her therapist had been going on.

-ALSO they had the 8 second sex and then don’t talk for like 2.5 months. Then they get into an intense ~month long love affair before she starts pulling away again. This isn’t some giant long romance. She obviously is stringing him along but he thinks she’ll be his wife if he can get rid of the other people in her life. 

-His apartment is gross and messy and full of creepy stuff. 

-She finds his box, but there is no evidence of murder. She simply wanted to break up with him. It could’ve been the end. BUT the show portrayed it as if she found all his murder evidence and he had NO CHOICE but to kill her to save his own skin. This is not the case in the book. She simply wanted OUT. There was no risk of jail, there was no risk of him getting in trouble, there was no reason he had to put her in the box/cell, other than she WANTED TO BREAK UP. That was IT. He was punishing her for leaving.

-He literally blamed her panic about his stalker box on her PERIOD. He thinks of women as silly and irrational. 

There are a million other reasons that the book was different from the show. Brunette Beck, no Anika, white Karen, Ethan got a job there way later, no sordid Karen affair, no creepy professor, etc... but I really wanted to focus on the ways that the show subtly added bits and pieces of things that made Beck look more villainous and Joe look more angelic. I know it is supposed to be shades of gray but I fucking DESPISED Joe in the book. I wanted him dead. Beck was annoying but I was infuriated that he murdered her, in no way did she deserve it. And Dr. Nicky is a fuck too. 

But fan reaction really proves to me that my girl Beck is despised for a lot of reasons and honestly, compared to Joe, it’s unfair and weird. I am a Show!Joe fan, and I am glad for the changes, but I hate how Beck lost some interesting nuances, and Joe almost seemed ‘forced’ or ‘justified’ into his awful behaviors. 

[mandaloriangf]

the reylo batb au debacle

long post ahead. tw: racism

i. preface

i dont make call out posts. i think a lot of people abuse call outs, like that one reylo who made a post about me that just consisted of screenshots of me venting on my own blog in the proper tags. i dont know if i would call this a call out, per se. most people (antis, reylos, and bystanders) probably already know the gist of this situation. my reason for making this post is primarily because the original post of mine has gotten rather long with me reblogging it and adding on (you can see the most recent version here) and i would like to have more of a masterpost of sorts, since im a petty bitch who can’t let things go. 

ii. the story

i was alerted by an anon to a fic, which is an a/b/o beauty and the beast retelling with rey as belle and kylo as the beast. in gaston’s place is finn. i haven’t read the fic word for word nor do i want to, but i searched finn’s name in the fic and this is what came up.

(note: most of these screenshots are from my original post, but i’ve added on with chapters that have been published since then)

“Myself if necessary; somewhere out there is my mate, and I will wait for them.” She said resolutely, holding her breath against the smell of pine and charcoal rolling off him. She had never found Finn’s scent a pleasant one.

“I believe Rey is missing,” Finn said with a scowl. “and I don’t like it when my things go missing.”

“Rey has never been yours.” Obi snapped. “She’s not a piece of property.”

“Details.” Finn smirked. “Now, are you going to tell me where she’s really run off to? Or are you holding fast to your ridiculous story of monsters and secret castles?”

Obi narrowed his eyes, refusing to entertain the brute anymore than he had to. “I think it’s time you were on your way, Finn. Please feel free to head in the opposite direction should you feel the urge to call upon me again.”

Finn shook his head, rolling his eyes heavily. “I’ll be back, Obi. I will find out where Rey is hiding.”

Obi shut the door in his face quickly, eager to be rid of the boorish oaf. He leaned against the wood, pinching the bridge of his nose and rubbing gently to ease his frustration. He should have been more open to Finn’s help, he could take all of it that he could get. Still, seeking aid in Finn felt like escaping the hounds to land in the fire. Hardly an improvement.  

“She’s the only one who’s rejected me. Me. The nerve of her. No. This won’t stand. I’ll track her down if it’s the last thing I do.” Finn snarled.

Finn took a long swig from his freshly filled tankard the server had just finished capping off, a small smile playing at his mouth as his plan gained more and more merit in his mind. Rey would not allude him for much longer. He would find her, and show her exactly who she belonged to.

Charles frowned. “I don’t want Finn anywhere near Rey. I don’t trust him. He’d sooner force her into mating with him as rescue her.”

They crept deeper into the forest, making sure to maintain vigilance as they scanned the forest for anything strange. Finn wondered idly how Rey would have even made it through this woods, a mere woman. When he brought her back home, he would be sure to have a talk with her about what is and isn’t acceptable.

She scrambled backwards then, her back meeting Artoo’s haunches as he pranced away. She felt distress coursing through her, wanting no part of Finn or his strange obsession with her. “You’ll not touch me.”

“Shh.” He whispered. “You’re only confused. All will be well.”

“Leave, Finn. Go back to Jakku. No one wants you here, least of all me.” She spat.

He growled low, yanking her up by her hair. “You’ll learn your place, Rey. Once I bring you back to Jakku. First though, I will take care of the bastard who dared to touch what was mine.”

“I. Am. Not. Yours.” She ground out, her scalp smarting from the grip he still kept on her hair.

“You will be.” He assured darkly.

He didn’t realize he had lost until it was too late. He glanced down, the iron bolt plunged deep into his chest. For a moment he merely stared at it, his breath coming out in heavy pants as he tried to process what he was seeing. A gurgle sounded in his chest, coughing up a spray of blood. His mouth fell open in disbelief, taking a step backwards as his hand went to the bolt.

He gripped it in his fist, tugging it outwards and throwing it to the ground. His hands pawed at the hole in his chest, blood pouring over his fingers as he swayed slightly. His knees trembled, falling to be ground and kneeling. He gave a final shuddering breath, falling forward in a slump and going still. Rey dropped the bow as if it burned her, leaning her back against the tree she’d used to steady herself and gasping for breath. She felt relief and remorse in that moment, the knowledge that she’d taken a life outweighed only by the knowledge that she’d saved one.

(context: the above is rey murdering finn to save kylo)

as you can see, finn, star wars’ first ever black lead, is portrayed as a violent, aggressive, rapey misogynist who threatens rey psychically and sexually. he believes rey, a white woman, is his property and rey must kill him to save her lover, a white man. i mean, this whole thing should be very obvious. i dont care that its fiction, i dont care that its fanfiction. fiction does not exist in a vacuum and if you believe so, biases like this WILL go unchecked. 

i was infuriated after reading this and found a note where the author addresses previous accusations of racism

I was more or less labeled as a racist today for my characterization of Finn, and I felt the need to briefly address that. It was never my intention to lead anyone to believe that my dislike of Finn has anything to do with his race. I dislike his character canonically purely for reasons that have nothing to do with the color of his skin. I obviously realize he’s not a villain, and that he’s out of character. I will not apologize for the way that I’ve written him, as I know in my heart I meant no malicious intent, but I will apologize to anyone who has thought even in the slightest that I was being oppressive or insensitive. I know myself and that’s not who I am, and that was never my intention. I want to go ahead and post this because I don’t know when my next will be and I wanted to leave it on a good note. I don’t foresee a long gap, don’t worry, but at this moment I don’t feel good about the story and I need a few days to reassess where it is going.

iii. the comments

while i easily could’ve just moved on since there are a number of reylo fics out there much like this one, knowing that this one had such popularity and such a tone deaf author, i decided to venture into the comments and lo and behold, the amount of hate for finn was blinding. 

there are plenty more, but i hope this can give you a taste of what the comments section looks like. 

the author’s hate for finn basically boils down to this: he’s indecisive and he lied to rey. that’s it. that’s what the author uses to justify writing finn in a vicious, anti-black stereotype. 

at some point, an anonymous commenter called out the racism.

a concerned citizen: So are you ever gonna address how racist your characterization of Finn is or what.

ktf: Oh lord. No because it’s blatantly not true. He is characterized heavily in concordance with the classic Gaston character. Possessive, arrogant, pig headed… Your complaint is reaching and you can take it elsewhere. Jeez Louise. So silly. Have you even seen Beauty and the Beast? I don’t like Finn as a a character in canon for reasons that have nothing to do with his race (because I admittedly love John Boyega irl as well as in Pacific Rim, the only other film I’ve seen him in) and as such I characterize him as an asshole for my own self satisfaction.

a concerned citizen: Look I love Reylo as much as the next guy but if you need explaining why it’s racist to make the black character who is, in canon, nothing but a kind and supportive friend, into a sexually aggressive misogynist then I don’t know what to tell you. It costs zero dollars not to demonize black characters for your own “self satisfaction.”

ktf: So, to be clear, if I had used ANY other character from the film who had been kind and supportive, Poe, Han, Holdo, Leia, Snap, Kaydel, Luke… as long as they hadn’t been a POC it would totally fine? Do you see my confusion? It’s an alternate universe.

a concerned citizen: A: Demonizing black men as sexual aggressors bent on possessing/raping white women is a long-standing trope used by white supremacists. It’s done to dehumanize black men and drum up fear in white folk so that they feel threatened enough to commit acts of violence. This is one of the most basic tactics of antiblack racism.

B: Gaston was never a part of the original fairy tale. He was made up for the Disney adaptation to add tension and to counterbalance the Beast to make the message crystal clear for the little ones watching– don’t fear The Other. Gaston represents the cultural hegemony of masculine behavior in Belle’s culture; the Beast, on the other hand, is The Other, the outsider, the marginalized force. Black people have practically been The Other in Western media for centuries. Now I’m not telling you that you have to make Finn the Beast or else it’s bunk, just that you have to be aware of the characters’ roles and what they fulfill in the narrative. Making Finn the Gaston character was a conscious decision you made– you took a black character and plopped him into a role that was specifically made to be the representation of toxic masculinity, that decision isn’t made in a vacuum.

C: Absolutely no one is holding your feet to the fire to make sure that you follow the plotline of the source material verbatim. Certainly you took liberties with what form of beastliness Kylo had, so you could have similarly chose to alter Gaston’s characterization in some way or you could have made Finn a different character entirely. Like I mentioned before, Gaston was not in the original fairy tale and so the narrative works fine without him. Finn exhibits none of Gaston’s character traits in canon so you chose willingly to sand him down so you could fit a square peg in a round hole– an action that, as mentioned previously, reflects the rhetoric of white supremacy for the past few centuries.

ktf: Okay. You know what? You obviously woke up this morning itching for a soapbox. So, may the force be with you and may your crusade keep you warm at night. This is a fan fiction, not a doctoral thesis, so if you don’t mind I’m just going to continue living my life. I can assure you no thoughts of “demonizing” a race ever crossed my mind while writing this. It’s not who I am. This doesn’t deserve my time because you, A. Know nothing about me. B. Obviously have way too much time on your hands. C. Aren’t worth the stress you’re causing. Have a blessed day!

iv. the aftermath

since my original post, i have been silently blocked by the author. antis who are poc have gotten anon hate, which has often been radicalized while i, a white anti, have not received anything wrt this fic. the author has gotten cocky about the whole situation, she has a bunch of adoring readers who coddle her, and she refuses to listen to any form of criticism.

now that i’m at the end of this post, i’m not really sure what i want to come out of it. i wanted to include more, but there’s so much shit to wade through in the comments and that doesn’t even account for what’s on the author’s tumblr. reylos, this shit has to fucking stop. you need to hold each other accountable, you need to call each other out bc this is exhausting. 

[echodrops]

Issues with Voltron Season 6 (Part 2)

A continuation of my extremely long vent about the most recent Voltron season.

<- Part 1 is back here.

This time, it’s all about Lotor!

3) Lotor’s entire character makes no sense.

This is such a mess that I really don’t even know where to start. I’m just gonna make a bullet list and then try to break things down from there:

Lotor’s endless drive to harvest quintessence is never grounded in a visible need; therefore, the extent to which he is willing to go to get that power feels entirely unjustified.

The executive producers, VAs, and the show itself went out of their way to flat out tell us that Lotor is a “genuine” character who meant well and really did want to bring peace to the universe--which leads to the frightening conclusion that the EPs think someone who engages in genocide can actually be genuine about wanting peace.

Lotor’s casual disregard for life is utterly at odds with someone who would genuinely want peace--and even more at odds for someone who had actual Alteans to learn from, which leaves the viewers confused about his motives in a way that is terrible for young watchers and bad even for older viewers.  

The extent to which the rift influenced Lotor’s actions throughout the course of his life is never clarified, leaving viewers completely unsure whether he would have taken any of the actions he did without the influence of the rift. Clone Shiro in this season tells us the rift only amplifies evil that already exists--ergo, Lotor is, contrary to everything we’ve been told--not genuine about wanting peace and is, instead, at his core, evil. The conflicting messages here are ridiculously unorganized.

Lotor’s desperation to regard himself as a member of the Altean race is almost unspeakably horrific in retrospect, and the fact that the show went so far out of its way to portray him as a person who saw himself as Altean and nevertheless chose to murder them by the thousands is disturbing in the extreme. Even more unsavory are the implications this entire thing has for mixed-race people, since the show also went out of its way to treat Lotor as a mixed-race character--and then gave him absolutely nowhere to fit in. And that’s not even mentioning the implications for abuse survivors...

The idea that Lotor’s feelings for Allura were real is so gross I almost can’t even bear it--and this as someone who was FIRMLY on the Lotura ship before season six. If you can go from claiming you love someone to wanting to kill them in one line of dialogue, your feelings weren’t real! That’s all there is to it. “But he was corrupted by the rift!” Except the rift only amplifies what was already there, right?

Okay so, let’s just start with that first idea, because honestly, fixing that problem could actually have fixed many of the others. We know that Lotor’s plan is to harvest the infinite quintessence between universes in the rift. Sure, makes sense. Except for the part where the reasoning behind that plan is never examined in detail. Why does Lotor need that much quintessence? We viewers assume that it’s because the entire Galra Empire runs on quintessence--that the empire will crumble without a constant supply of energy. I can only guess what we, as viewers, are supposed to believe that this will be a terrible thing and that, at this point, the universe actually needs the Galra Empire in order to survive... Except that’s surely only true in a significantly smaller capacity. There are undoubtedly planets that rely on Galra technology in order to ensure survival--but not every planet. Probably not even MOST planets. The Galra Empire does not need to exist in its current capacity by any means--significantly scaling back on the expansion efforts alone would easily save the amount of quintessence necessary to begin transitioning Galra-dependent planets to independence from both the Galra Empire and quintessence use.

The only conclusion I can come to here, and the one I think the writers want us to come to, is that Lotor had no intention of ever dissolving the Galra Empire and freeing the universe from his control. Which is all well and good. Power is appealing, especially to someone like Lotor who likely desired that power his whole life. As far as villains go, this is stock behavior and I totally get it--what I don’t get is why in the world any of our intrepid heroes bought into this? When I said there was an idiot plot raging, this is exactly what I meant.

Viewers accept Lotor’s plan because we know he’s villain-coded. But the team supposedly believed him to be a good guy--in what way, and in what universe, would have supplying the Galra Empire with infinite quintessence helped anyone except the Galra Empire? “No, no,” you might say, “Lotor convinced the team that the Galra Empire was only expanding because they needed to harvest quintessence from other worlds! Without that need, they would have stopped oppressing other planets, obviously!”

Great--except they seemingly weren’t using that quintessence for any purpose but to continue expanding! The show never--at any point--shows us the Galra using the quintessence they harvest for any purposes other than evil. There’s never any moment of “Actually, we need this quintessence to power lifesaving hospital technologies for our sick and elderly!” or “We use this quintessence to amplify our food production so that we can feed all our children!” This isn’t something you should leave it up to the viewers to assume--the writers needed to do this work at least in part, to ensure that Lotor’s entire plan made sense in the first place. Until we really SEE the need for the quintessence, Lotor’s entire scheme looks like nothing more than a power-hungry bid for endless energy to continue fueling his dark empire--and our heroes look like the complete and utter idiots who thought that sounded like a good idea.

Pidge’s lines from this season confirm that Coran really did share the entire story of what happened to Zarkon back in the day with all the paladins. This means that Allura--knowing that it resulted in the zombification of Zarkon and Honerva and ultimately the death of her father--still went with Lotor into the rift in this season. I can hardly fathom the degree of idiocy it would take a real woman to choose this course of action. Poor Allura did not deserve this treatment.

Which leads into the second issue: it’s impossible--literally impossible--to see Lotor as a genuine character who really did want to bring peace to the universe unless a serious need for endless quintessence is properly articulated. There are plenty of powerfully advanced races like the Olkari who do not appear to fuel their creations by harvesting life energy. We, as viewers, cannot buy into the idea that Lotor absolutely needs this quintessence--enough that he is willing to kill thousands of people--without that need being better explained on screen.

Because it never was, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, in the writing of the show that makes Lotor’s treatment of the captive Alteans seem justified. The show didn’t portray this as a difficult choice for Lotor to make, didn’t give him a scene where he had to choose between say... one or two Altean lives and harvesting enough quintessence to save a whole planet or something. We never see him do ANYTHING positive with the quintessence he harvested from the Alteans or even expressing any regret for the act of harvesting it in the first place--and yet we’re somehow supposed to believe that he “genuinely” wanted peace for the universe? That he meant well? That he did what he “had” to do? Are the EPs literally crazy?

Nothing from the many interviews about Lotor’s character makes sense. This is not a portrayal of the nuanced, complex villain we were promised--even the show’s depiction of Zarkon as a semi-well-intentioned extremist was more believable and sympathetic!

By definition, a complex villain is one whose motivations are deeply explored and even more deeply-rooted in their actions, who exhibits enough “human” qualities to make the character compelling even as we recognize his or her evildoing, and whose actions, in turn, have logic behind them--the line separating a complex villain from a complete monster is that the audience can, at the end of the day, understand why the villain made the choices they made, and come to the nerve-wracking realization that, in that specific character’s shoes, we too might have made the same choices.

Because we’re never given deeper insight into Lotor’s motivation--never really shown why that quintessence was so very important to him--any degree of complexity, humanity, sympathy, and relatability Lotor had is chucked wholesale into the garbage after “The Colony.” How are we as viewers supposed to “genuinely” buy into Lotor’s rhetoric after this, to believe he wanted peace despite being seemingly remorseless at the slaughter of thousands of people?

At best, all the EPs’ talk of Lotor being authentic and complex and meaning well was empty air to hype up the audience. At worst, the writers of this series actually think they can actively include Holocaust imagery into their show and then still call the perpetrator of it “genuine.” I don’t know whether to be mildly insulted or outright infuriated.

I won’t even touch on the gross implications this whole thing has for real life abuse survivors, given that it implies they can’t rise above their parents’ actions. (Even worse that Haggar’s motivations continue to be unclear--is she headed to some kind of redemption, instead of being the supreme villainness she SHOULD have been all along?) Other people have posted about this issue and probably have more personal experience with the topic, so they can express that part better than me.

But I do want to talk about the whole super gross implications this has for mixed-race people, since that’s a little closer to my personal realm. In a previous post, I cautioned that Keith should not be read as a mixed-race character and that doing so was dangerously reductive of the show’s narrative. I still hold to that--because the show clearly has NO interest in portraying Keith as a mixed-race person. He’s literal walking, talking proof that you can include something in your show and still not have it be “representation.” Despite his alien mother being shown on screen as part of his life, there is still zero effort on the part of the show to portray Keith as actually part-alien or deal, with any degree of seriousness, with the emotional, psychological, and social implications of his being a mixed-species character. It’s simply not part of his narrative and, at this point, I somewhat doubt it ever is going to be. Keith’s being part-Galra is little more than flavor text and a convenient excuse to get him out of Team Voltron during the Clone Shiro plot line.

But Lotor is a totally different story. The show writers went out of their way to emphasize his existence as part-Galra, part-Altean, and to deliberately portray him as--up until season six--deeply longing to be discover more about his Altean heritage, to be part of that culture, and to seek--supposedly--the same aim as his Altean ancestors: universal peace. We’re led to believe that for him, Altea was something that existed like a fairy tale, something that he desperately craved to learn more about his whole life. Therefore, his coming into contact with Allura was painted (in the show!) as a chance for him to learn more about his other half, to finally come to truly understand what it meant to be Altean, to learn not from artifacts but from a real person who could understand his goals, desires, and beliefs. He began referring to himself as Altean. He called Allura’s people his own. We were supposed to see this part as “genuine.”

And then “The Colony” came in like Miley Cyrus to utterly undermine all this emotional labor the previous seasons had been building up. Lotor didn’t need to learn about Alteans from legends--he had ACTUAL ALTEANS he could have spoken to and spent time with. He didn’t need to treat the Altean culture like an anthropological study--he had real Alteans who were happy enough with him that they would have welcomed him living among them. I’m sorry, let me just go back over this point one more time: By virtue of the location of their colony in the time-space abyss, he could have spent literal years living among the Alteans and no one in the Galra Empire would have noticed.

He had every opportunity to connect to the people he supposedly idealized so much--the people whose values he claimed to espouse--the people he is related to--and he instead chose what? To run some like weird captive breeding program to build up stock for his quintessence draining plans as if they were animals, rather than a people of which he supposedly sees himself a part.

As a pure, complete monster type villain, this is actually pretty compelling. It is indeed the story of many REAL cultures around the world, who now deal with mixed-race individuals (namely half-white/half-minority people) coming back and trying to appropriate or capitalize on the minority culture that makes up their other half. (As a personal aside, I’m half Native American, a registered member of my father’s tribe, with grandparents who were essentially kidnapped and forced to attend Christian schools--and there’s a very good reason that I don’t attend any tribal events or attempt to assert myself into Native American spaces: because I recognize that, by virtue of being mixed with the race of my own grandparents’ oppressors, minority spaces are not a place where I belong.) All that to basically say that if the writers had committed to making Lotor a pure villain, this would actually have been a very realistic and tragic point, and his desire to be seen as Altean could have (should have) been treated as a deeply insidious attempt to gain even further control over his victims and to more potently manipulate Allura.

But the writers didn’t commit to that. They and every additional piece of information about Lotor given outside the show waffles painfully, leading to the implication that Lotor really did want to see himself as Altean, that he really believed he could follow in Alfor’s footsteps to bring peace to the universe. Which is honestly more fucked up than I really have any words for, because it directly implies that mixed-race people do not ever--perhaps cannot ever--fit in. By bringing up this issue of race, placing Lotor in that liminal zone, making him express a desire to be part of one of the cultures that make up his genetic background--and then effectively ending his story with “And then he killed thousands of the people he wanted to be a part of for profit!”--the writers might as well have said “He can’t be Altean because he’s too Galra” while also saying “But honestly, he’s genuine at heart--he’s much too Altean to be Galra!” The writing of the show created a situation in which there was no place for Lotor--and then made Lotor look like the bad guy for it. What the hell kind of message does that send to real mixed-race kids out there? YIKES YIKES YIKES YIKES.

And I’m saying all of this as a Lotor fan! Lotor was a favorite of mine in the original Voltron, and a favorite of mine here in Legendary Defender too. Whether they painted him as a complete monster or a redeemable anti-hero, I wanted to love this character. But the wishy-washy, conflicting messages the writing of the show is giving is beyond frustrating. I would have loved a pure villain Lotor--a true magnificent bastard, a master manipulator. I would have loved a misguided anti-hero Lotor. But a character placed half-way between not by intentional design but by clumsy and callous execution? Sorry, I can’t accept that. I love Lotor, so seeing him done so dirty by bad writing is one of the premiere moments that made me realize I can finally give up on this iteration of Voltron ever truly becoming great. 

I still had more to say, so here’s:

My Issues with Voltron Season 6 (Part 3)

[deathspeaker]

Politicians are not scientists and shouldn't decide laws governing scientific research without understanding science.

Or: How I learned how stupid the decision to classify MDMA (Street name: Ecstasy) as schedule 1 really was.

Anyone who has a passing understanding of MDMA is likely aware of the study done that showed MDMA use 'puts holes in the brain'. That's usually what most casual folks know about it.

But the truth is... infuriating.

So. Here we go. This is how the 'study' (in quotations due to my disgust at the lack of proper science actually being applied to it) was conducted. First, it was in rats, which is fine, rats and mice and rabbits are often the first testing grounds for a lot of things and this isn't inherently bad (animal rights/advocacy issues aside), but as the Twitter user @justsaysinmice is quick to point out, even if you show in lab animals a result, you can't extrapolate that as performing the same in humans. Humans aren't mice/rats, I know, shocking, world-shaking stance there.

Secondly, they injected MDMA into the rats. HOW a substance is taken matters, profoundly. You can't just inject something that is only taken orally and pretend they are equivalent or processed by the body in any similar fashion. An oral dose of a drug, vs one inhaled, vs injected, will cause different reactions, even if those differences are ONLY in how fast the drug takes effect (inhaled tends to be the fastest delivery method with injected equal to or just behind, those with science degrees PLEASE correct me if wrong!).

Thirdly, they injected an amount that was above the 'typical dose' of average users (I couldn't find an exact quote on this matter that was in simple English/wasn't presented without additional context such as 'higher dose was required to cause similar concentration in plasma samples in rats vs humans'), oh btw I'm talking about the original 1985 research conducted, much more recent research has been better such as using oral dosing vs injection. The reason I'm speaking about the 1985 research is because THAT is what politicians used to justify labeling MDMA as a schedule 1 drug.

I'm not going to just blanketly make a statement like 'the scientists involved were idiots', because there could be a wealth of reasons why it played out this way. It's the reaction to this research by the politicians and their ignorance of just... SCIENCE in general that pisses me off.

At the time they were actually surprised when scientists, researchers, and psychiatrists came out AGAINST labeling it schedule 1.

A quick side note: a schedule 1 drug is BTW seen as having 'no worthwhile medical benefit' (which is fundamentally untrue for a large portion of drugs labeled schedule 1, such as pot) and is a high potential for abuse, which is hypocritical when you consider how liquor is viewed. Liquor has virtually no benefit that isn't 'make person feel better for a bit' and causes measurable harm to the individual and the people around them. So if they actually cared about 'potential abuse' liquor would be treated differently but liquor has a longer cultural tradition and is more normalized and outlawing it went SUPER POORLY for everyone (I argue criminalizing drugs has had the same 'super bad result' but the government uses it as a very useful tool to oppress people so they see it as a benefit).

Anyway, back to MDMA and its classification. The science behind the decision to classify it was faulty and misunderstood profoundly by the FDA and DEA and other government bodies and they were legit surprised so many argued passionately against their decision.

But here is the thing. In the many years since then, research has changed, and gotten better, though it has been difficult because of that classification. First and foremost, MDMA, even when abused, doesn't cause 'holes in the brain'. Not in humans. The few scraps of evidence towards that have either been in rats (which doesn't mean the same will happen in humans) or fabrications. Ophra famously had someone on and showed brain scans 'showing holes in her brain' was just a complete misunderstanding of WHAT the scans were actually showing changes in cerebral blood flow (not holes, not holes at allll). Heck, calling it a misunderstanding I don't think is accurate, it was a complete fabrication and an intentional fear-mongering lie!

Cases of 'overdoses' can't even be attributed to MDMA, because unaltered MDMA (or Molly the powder form of MDMA) is virtually impossible to come by outside of research labs. Out in the real world, it's often cut with... who knows what. Anything from relatively benign fillers to other drugs that could cause poor interactions, to just overdoses. This isn't the fault of MDMA, and it's disingenuous to lump a street drug with a drug made in a lab under careful control and consistent verifiable makeup.

It's also unfair to compare a drug that can have negative reactions in some populations to a drug like heroin. Most of my prescribed medicines have warning labels even scarier than the know, provable side effects of MDMA (which include being dangerous to people with heart disorders, seizure disorders, and high blood pressure, which BTW my prescribed Trazadone is also listed as being dangerous for people with these conditions and Trazadone is considered a rather 'safe' drug. Up to 375-400mg for outpatient use. I'm at 300. Inpatient it can go up to 600mg!!! BTW the recommended dose is about 150 for most patients! And yes, I would love to stop taking it but I also enjoy being able to sleep and doctors refuse to try something else). The evidence that it causes 'damage to serotonin production' (the scariest side effort that evidence can suggest it might cause and isn't a fabrication) is starting to come into question.

A lot of scientists discovered they had unconscious biases in how they gathered and processed the data they gathered. Such as research showed that MDMA users (in this trial) tended to have a specific variant of the S100B gene, which is associated with certain psychiatric conditions, and that those in that study either self-reported depression or were diagnosed with depression vs the control group which virtually had no one with that gene variant and much lower rates of depression (self-reported or diagnosed). The original conclusion came to the iffy notion that MDMA caused depression/psychiatric issues, instead of the much more likely, people with psychiatric issues were more likely to USE MDMA. (A profoundly important distinction).

Other researchers have been reexamining their data in a similar way. Does MDMA cause damage to serotonin production, or do people with damaged serotonin production seek out MDMA? You can't really take healthy people and dose them with MDMA to test out if it causes damage to serotonin production!

Similarly, other drugs being studied for 'cognitive decline after abuse' (including of people who stopped taking the drug over a decade or longer) were widely reported to and were believed to show that, yes, drug use and abuse cause cognitive decline!... until the data was reassessed and found the differences were within a margin of ERROR and didn't always control for things such as socio-economic status (poor people aren't dumber than well off people, but well off people have more opportunities to receive better education and perform better on tests). BTW this includes drugs like METH! Which even my 'I'm pretty pro-drug' self fine with its production being very illegal (because making it is dangerous and can kill people who aren't even involved in the process. Growing pot doesn't hurt anyone).

Internalized, subconscious and unexamined biases can hinder science so much. Just look at the harm done in psychology for treating homosexuality as a disorder for the majority of the recognized practice has existed. Trans people are still going through this problem BTW and the issues are the exact same. BIASES standing in the way of real science.

This is why having diverse people in science is so important! The more white, and male, and upper-class science is the more biases are unexamined. I'm not saying this because 'Oh boyyy I hate those white, cis, heteronormative men who are from money!!!' but because this is a literal, factual issue in the history of science.

Just look at archeology. Numerous digs have been mislabeled, misidentified, or just... explanations for it being fabricated because at the time, literally everyone working in archeology was white, well off, cis, hetero AND from a culture that devalued women and non-het people. Reexamining 'warrior burials' has shown that a lot of them weren't even MEN but women! Which also could include a very interesting discussion about trans people in the ancient pre-writen-history world. A skeleton having female markers doesn't mean the person actually lived as a woman in life. That's a cis-normative bias and yes, there are people who will VICIOUSLY balk at this suggestion I just made despite it being a VALID IDEA THAT SHOULD BE EXAMINED. I'm 100% ok with being wrong if there is evidence to show I am wrong. But dismissing the idea out of hand because of a cis-bias, is anti-science!

Sorry for going on a tangent. I just suffer from crippling (legitimately mean crippling in the most literal sense of the word) anxiety, depression, and PTSD, and discovering there are potential treatments that can cause profound positive changes in people and have been proven to cause these profound positive changes in people, but I can't have them because some regressive politician has decided based on a mix of bias, prejudice, propaganda, greed, religion and a moral view on things completely at odds with my own prevents me from receiving this help while my life WITHERS AROUND ME... is soul crushing.

Trazadone is the only anti-depressant I'm still taking. Nothing has worked. Not long-term. Literally, none of the anti-depressants or even off-label drugs for depression have helped me. They at best work a tiny bit for a small window before they stop working, or just behind that do absolutely nothing positive for me and have annoying side efforts or to the worst, have profoundly negative life-threatening side effects. I have no real options left.

Seriously. I know others in my boat, do you know what they picked? Electroconvulsive therapy; which is known more often as electro-shock therapy. They rebranded it because people 'got the wrong idea' about it, and yeah, they did tend to have a more extreme idea of what it was based on how it USED to be administered and movies/tv leaning too heavily into a dramatic and no longer accurate portrayal.

But don't be mistaken. Even in its kinder, more mild modern version, it is TERRIFYING. And if it works for people I am so fucking happy for them! My mother's boyfriend's daughter went through a course for it (I have complex opinions on her issues that I won't go into as that's neither here nor there) recently. And it's still too soon to even know if it's worked. It's also incredibly expensive, even if you have insurance.

My experience with it is deeply traumatic. I was in a mental ward with this vibrant, amazing older woman I connected with. She and I had similar issues with depression and anxiety. I was going through what I later realized was an autistic burnout (but the doctors I was dealing with ranged from medically neglectful to virtually incompetent on autism) but at the time I just thought was a really bad depressive episode. I think her burnout more had to do with the changes she was experiencing in life with her kids leaving the nest, her marriage struggles, and her job issues (all very valid reasons to get depressed!). One day she was the lovely woman I was enjoying getting to know. Then that afternoon she was wheeled in, drooling, occasionally twitching slightly (it wasn't dramatic, just small involuntary spasms but still noticeable), catatonic and unresponsive. I was so upset and asked what happened was told 'She went in for Electroconvulsive therapy'.

That night at dinner she had to be spoon-fed and she could barely perform the act of eating. The next day before her second go through she was still wheelchair bound and could talk but still had weird moments where she seemed to shut down, couldn't hold a conversation, or would seem to forget the last few seconds. She was eventually moved to a different facility to continue the treatment and I soon after got discharged due to the whole 'medical neglect' thing. I don't know how it worked out for her. But I have heard from people who swear by it saving their life, but because of that experience, it's not something I am willing to go through. I'm not that desperate, especially knowing that there are drugs out there (though illegal) that are profoundly safer and less traumatic and have a higher success rate (ECT btw claims a success rate of '50-90%' but the language used is ALWAYS 'improves symptoms of depression' which is vague language BULLSHIT. That could mean as little as a 1% life improvement to 99% but they're still claiming that the entire span of improvements as 'successes' and the numbers of those 'successes' is as low as 50%. That's a gamble I'm unwilling to take to go through something that traumatic without the promise of it even being worth it).

Again. If it helped you, if it saved your life, I'm happy for you! I don't want to come off as saying 'No one should ever do ETC because my experience with it has been traumatic and I personally don't trust the stats on it'. If it's what you choose to do, I fully support you. But just like how I don't like meatloaf, and won't eat it unless desperate (or forced to by social situations which my brain considers equally life or death because of my anxiety meter being broken) my not liking it or wanting it, isn't the same of not wanting anyone else to eat it.

BTW an interesting article to read that offers sources for some of what I discussed: https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/9/21035472/mdma-ecstasy-drug-misconceptions-science-bad-research-effects-columbia-prison

I even went to some websites that are specifically for drug use reduction and even THOSE websites were significantly more fair and even-handed and honest than a lot of the shit I've heard said about MDMA

[finsterhund]

tired and weak

I don’t know if I’m going to be able to bounce back.

I don’t know if I’m stable or functional right now.

I am no longer spending days weeping, getting the violent psychotic meltdowns or other overtly physical symptoms but I don’t think I’m okay.

But I can’t keep myself shut up not doing any of the things I like to do online because isolating myself is not helping me. I only did it because my psychotic episode was causing me to hurt my friends. I did this for them, but it’s not helping me beyond cutting off things that my psychosis could latch onto. It is more than capable of doing it on its own.

I am coming to terms with how my situation is not healthy, it is not sustainable, and it is not safe.

I feel that I am not safe and I do not have anyone I can trust. That my environment is unhealthy and is continuing to retraumatize me and that I am not receiving adequate care.

I am unable at this time to tell how much of this is delusion and how much is that people in my life are actually a danger to me. Psychosis is like that. But things have been getting clearer on many relationships and issues.

My roommate told me that he is going to be writing a letter to the landlord to try and convince them that I need to get my service dog and if that works I wouldn’t need to take it to court. But I can’t tell if that’s just an empty promise. I feel like I am being told what I want to hear in an effort to keep me under control. That I am being satiated just enough so I don’t get violent or kill myself. But that my environment is never going to improve in its current state.

There’s been a lot of empty promises. And with my psychosis makes the already difficult issues impossible to navigate.

I am very disabled. I know I type really well and talk a big game, all bark and no bite though basically. Truth is I am unable to take care of myself. And with covid and me being high risk I don’t know if I am capable to put myself into a new situation/environment where I can thrive at this time. I am at the mercy of whoever I can find as a guardian. This is not healthy, and is something that I cannot yet find an escape from. All that it seems I can do is hold on and wait until an opportunity presents itself, to submit to the freeze and fawn response until I’m able to make my move. A move I will need support that I can’t even begin to wrap my head around to make.

Obviously “cringing and waiting” isn’t something that severe mental illnesses are going to be play nice with. And this is why I am unstable.

I must stress that I am not an independent. I am not functional in society as an independent. And even with my service dog this may stay the same financially. I am stunted, slow, whatever gentle word you want to call mental retardation. And that on top of debilitating mental disorders and trauma disorders prevents me from functioning on my own.

I cannot have a job. I cannot leave the house by my own. I have a learning disability surrounding numbers, time, math, etc. I am slow enough that it is extremely difficult for me to go about daily adult tasks that most people take for granted. My physical body being shit just ads to that and makes me slow in an equally useless and infuriating way.

It is very easy to take advantage of me. And the combination of me being a dependent when combined with that is dangerous for my health.

I will be making a doctor appointment for the explicit purpose of getting a note to try and pressure the landlord. I know that once me and my service dog are a working team more opportunities to become more independent and to get myself out of this situation will be presenting themselves. But nothing can happen immediately, yet at the same time I am suffering from things not being resolved immediately.

I am living in a way that is constantly exposing me to stress and pain. And I have acknowledged I need to get out of it but don’t yet have the means to know how.

I do have friends who may be capable of helping, but the virus has put a roadblock on that help for now.

Things like moving, programs for people with disabilities, hospital visits, etc. have all been made impossible by the virus.

I have ruled out moving back in with my mother. Even though she has improved and I definitely see her as a victim of abuse and living with undiagnosed mental illnesses of her own it just is not safe for me to live with her.

The only thing I can do now is make the effort to try and protect myself from the things that are hurting me emotionally that I am currently incapable of getting away from.

And trying to push towards my dog.

Everything else is waiting for things to be capable of changing.

I have pinpointed what I believe triggered this week’s psychotic break. Residual trauma from the first Christmas spent knowing the holiday killed Zippy, combined with frequent exposure to traumatic stimuli and unhealthy power dynamics, financial and social stress, as well as an increased lack of support regarding being invalid.

I am not in a healthy situation.

I began to sniff out bad people with the intent to keep track of them to make sure they weren’t planning to hurt me. This is the same maladaptive strategy I have been using to make sure my birth father wasn’t planning to kill everyone at my mom’s house way back when. In reality, exposing myself to the evil culture of bad people is not helping me psychologically. And I am powerless to actually kill them like I wish I could. But I felt like I had some level of control knowing their every move after I have no control in the situations I am spending my daily life in. It’s like drinking a poison so you can ignore a gunshot wound. I wish I could treat the wound, but drinking the poison makes me forget about it for a while. Both are unhealthy, but the act of creating a new problem makes it easier to ignore the initial one that I have no ability to change. At the cost of my rapidly fraying mental stability.

My environment is not one that I can control. And it is not one that I can currently fix or leave.

For my safety I am not capable of going into detail about certain people and their effect on my health. Being a dependent means that this directly can threaten me at an already vulnerable time.

I need to get out of my current situation, but am incapable of doing so. This has caused an extreme amount of stress to build up to the point that my antipsychotics weren’t enough to keep me safe. I was told that even being on anti psychotics you can still experience episodes and down periods. Which is scary to think about.

But I have no avenue to change this situation at this time.

I do not know if I am fit to hold communications with people right now. I will not be returning to social groups until I am told explicitly that it is okay to do so. By my primary care physician, by my psychiatrist, and by the people I socialize with themselves. But I will now state that anyone may come to me with the explicit understanding that I don’t know if I am rational or mentally safe right now. You will be communicating with me at your own risk and understand that I may still be experiencing heightened amounts of unreality and delusions.

I am no longer experiencing violent symptoms. I have made the steps to prevent myself from doomscrolling and keeping tabs on my abusers. But I understand that I am not above the possibility of lapsing back into doing this.

I am now on my pain meds again. Being off them for an extended period of time was likely contributing to my psychological pain despite these meds themselves not being addictive, the relief they give me might have been.

I am currently only with 3 dolars in my bank account and 5 dollars cash. I will be getting paid in 12 days. I should have enough food to last me this long. It is stressful, but I was already anticipating this situation to happen at this time.

I am extremely sorry for allowing my delusions and sickness to hurt innocent people. It was not my intent to cause pain to others. Whilst I would like to explicitly remind people that my mental illness directly influences how I perceive reality and this can make it impossible to tell if I am justified in my actions at times, it still doesn’t make up for the pain it may cause in the process.

Friends have expressed pain at me saying that I am not recieving help and nobody is helping me despite them trying to support me online.

Please understand that I appreciate the energy you are sending my way, but I am explicitly venting about my living situation that you nor I have any way of fixing. In the future to help my friends not feel like I am ignoring their attempts at helping me I have created this disclaimer that I will be putting on posts about situations that online friends cannot help or change. I hope this will alleviate the pain of your efforts not solving my problems.

I appreciate everything people try to do for me, even if my mental illness makes me not see it at the time. I understand it is very difficult to be close to someone who doesn’t perceive reality properly all the time, and I may not always show it when I am being helped due to one issue being immediately replaced by another, but I do appreciate.

I have been told that despite me being clingy that I tend to push people away and isolate myself when I am hurting. This is because I was abused and treated badly for expressing clinginess. This included targeted stalking when I was still a minor. My brain had it beaten into me that if I was clingy towards people they would hate me and not want to be my friend. As a result I experience clinginess by violently wishing I could be close to them while trying to hide that from them and give them space. If anything this presents itself as persecutory jealousy. It is something I am trying to stop doing.

I also apologize for friends trying to do things with me, encourage me, socialize with me, and me being too exhausted to appreciate or join in. This is equal parts my distress at my living situation, my mental health, and my physical health. I spend most of my life far too exhausted to consistently socialize except for manic periods where I am desperate to do so. Again, the solution to this issue is post-covid changes to my living situation and the resources I have access to.

The point that I think sums this up though is that I cannot keep living like this. I will continue breaking down, I will continue having episodes, and I will continue lashing out. Violence is and always has been my answer to fear in situations I cannot change or leave.

I don’t know if there’s a way to fix this during covid, but I KNOW there isn’t an immediate way to fix this before I get my service dog.

Additionally: I do not want to be institutionalized, being trapped in a psych ward when you are not explicitly a danger to yourself or someone else will only make you worse, and calling police for “wellness checks” on disabled people who have ugly/scary mental illnesses will get them killed. Please understand that the system itself will not help me. I need to find a different solution. This unfortunately does involve jumping through hoops that I cannot at this time.

Again, I would like to state that I will be trying to return online, but I will not be engaging with people who haven’t explicitly come TO ME until my doctor, my psychiatrist, and those people themselves, let me know that I am allowed to do so. Please be advised that I may not currently be in a safe place mentally.

I will be trying to interact with art and media that I enjoy with minimal social contact with people outside of those who have come to me and are okay with that. Stressful things i will make every attempt to ignore.

[sunlitroom]

I would love to know your opinion on Sofia's and Carmine's relationship. I don't quite understand it, she was seeking his love and approval but then decided to kill him?

Thank-you for the question anon.  I was feeling a bit under the weather, and some meta was the perfect distraction :)  Brace yourself, lengthy reply ahead:

Parents.  Can’t live withthem, can’t live without them.  Not in Gotham,at least, where parents exert a punishingly strong influence over theirchildren – alive or dead.

The shadow of Jim’s fatherlooms large over him, and he has (weirdly, but that’s a whole other post) idealisedhis father’s ability to lead a double life – to simultaneously maintain anapparently idyllic family home and a murky professional life.  Actually – a triple life, because severalpeople saw him as a shining professional example.  Jim ties himself in unhappy knots trying tolive up to his example, can’t seem to escape it.

Neither can Bruce – whose whole life is shaped by his parents’murders.  Even when Bruce thought he hadrevenged them by killing Ra’s – he still can’t find any closure. He abandonedhis moral code to avenge them, and afterwards found himself still grieving andalone, and now tormented by the thought that he’s let them down.

Oswald has very similar problems.  He adored his mother – difficult though thatrelationship looked.  All his actionswere motivated by his desire to justify her belief in him.  But she wound up dead, and even though it wasTabitha who put a knife in her back, Oswald feels a huge amount of guilt at herdeath, as well as a persistent fear that she might not be proud of him – alongside the ‘usual’ grief.  This was all reinforced with Elijah’s murder.  Oswald got his revenge, but I’m willing tobet there’s a horrible little thought buried deep that events were precipitatedby his appearance in Elijah’s life.  He’sweighed down by grief and guilt, as well as the thought that the only peoplewho ever loved him are both already gone. It’s worth noting that the parent/child relationship he’s recentlyforged is with an orphan.

There’s others, too. Barbara’s chilly upper-class parents, whose removal is presented as keyin her character progression.  Jerome’s backgroundwas marked by abuse, and he kills both parents as punishment.  Selina’s mother abandoned her (twice).  Ivy’s parents died.  Jonathan’s father experimented on him, butJonathan still mourns for him.  Fish seeminglykeeps her mother hidden in plain sight. Carmine is manipulated through Liza’s resemblance to his mother.

So, parents in Gotham are crucial – but their absence evenmore so.   The moment we see Carmine andSofia, then, we should probably have guessed that the clock was ticking for him, evenbefore we heard about his illness.    

When we first meet Sofia she is living with Carmine.  However, we’re told that this is a newdevelopment, and that she’s only been able to have a relationship with him sincehe became ill.  That’s odd for a start, sincehe seemed to have a cordial relationship with Mario – who had turned his backon the family business.  That’s got to because for resentment.  Sofia’s followedin her father’s footsteps, yet he gets on better with the child who chose to dosomething different.

Sofia mentions to both Jim and Oswald that she was sent awayfrom Gotham at 13 for her own safety. Given that she is insistent that Gotham is her home and ‘birth-right’,that’s another seed of resentment planted: her father sent her away from herhome, and from him.  She claims now itwas for her own safety (although I find this questionable, tbh) – but a 13-year-oldis unlikely to have been as rational as that. It’s not implausible to think that she’d have been left conflicted:angry, homesick, missing him, wondering if he even misses her at all.

We hear other bits and pieces about her childhood before shewas sent from town.  She seems to havebeen aware of what her father did, and saw things that a child shouldn’t see.  Her father demanded toughness from her whenshe broke her ankle.  She’s acutely awareof the position she held, reminding the restaurant owner of the earrings hegave her for her birthday when she was a girl. There’s virtually nothing we hear that isn’t about her role as a daughter,as a Falcone.  It’s everything to her. 

Even Jim – in a rare moment of perceptiveness – was able tosee that Sofia is driven by a need to prove herself to her father.  Oswald tests that theory out, and we see thathis comment ‘my parents loved me without condition’ hits home.  Sofia’s usually stone-faced or wearing a mask– but that got a reaction.  So Sofia presumablydoesn’t feel that her father loves her – and that there’s some invisible conditionto winning that love

The big confrontation she has with her father is actuallyexcellent for revealing what a clusterfuck their relationship actually is.

First up – you have all the mafia stuff complicating their relationship.  Carmine isn’t only her father, he’s also herDon.  There’s a bit in the Godfather thatillustrates this really well.  The Don’s oldest son is scolded like amisbehaving child for disobedience.  That’sgoing to sting in a ‘good’ relationship, but in Sofia and Carmine’s?  A relationship that’s already pretty fractured?  That’s likely to be intolerable.  

Secondly, you’ve got this idea of conditional love.  It’s logical that Sofia might have thoughtremoving the man who ousted him, getting the GCPD under her thumb and winningthe city back might have won love and respect – but when she tells him this, Falconeisn’t interested – is contemptuous of her, even repulsed.  

Sofia can’t believe this response.  This was both the best gift she could give,and the definitive way of proving her worth and winning his love – and it still isn’t good enough.  It’s also worth acknowledging that it’s also a definite‘fuck you’, though – even if it doesn’t superficially seem like one.  She defeated the man who defeated Carmine, she corrupted the man he sought to corrupt, and she won back the city he lost.  She’s not only proved herself, she’s bested him.  There’sunderlying anger and bitterness, then, evident even in her attempt to win hisapproval.

Third, you’ve got Carmine’s little comment about wanting tosee what she would do: Who is this daughter I raised?  That points to estrangement and lack ofknowledge.  To Sofia, who seems to have spenta lot of time moulding herself in her father’s image – who identifies herselffirst and foremost as a Falcone –that’s got to be infuriating.  He doesn’tsee her, doesn’t know her.

Fourth – you’ve got the moment when he hits her.  I don’t think either of them flinched enoughfor that to have been a first time.  Shedoesn’t look disbelieving and shocked after, and he doesn’t lookregretful.  

Last up, and probably most importantly – he manages toneatly voice Sofia’s whole problem in one crushing sentence.

Anyone but my daughterwould be dead right now.

For me – I think it’s likely that this is the final straw – because this is Sofia’s catch 22.  Sofia’s self-image is bound up in being aFalcone.  She might be cunning and manipulativeand ruthless – but all her success in Gotham is ultimately dependent on beingFalcone’s daughter.  She happened to bethere when Jim went to Carmine for help. Her name piques Oswald’s interest. It helps her influence political figures.  It makes Victor turn traitor.  It ensures that the restaurant owner carriesout her wishes.   She mentions it sooften that Barbara starts to simply eyeroll at the sound of it.

But this reliance on her name means that her successes can alwaysbe claimed by Carmine – which is exactly what he does in this scene.   She’s a somebody only by merit of being hisdaughter.  Without that, she’s a nobody.  Her achievements are meaningless, and were totallydependent on her family name.

So, what’s left for her? At the end of the day, I think Sofiaultimately psychologically needed him gone more than she needed his appreciation.  In fact, I wonder if the only reason that theywere able to have a relationship latterly was because she knew he wasdying.   With Carmine safely dead – Sofia gets to be the Falcone, and the memory of herfather, which can be snipped and twisted to meet her needs, much more manageable and useful to her than the man himself.

Does this sound plausible to you, anon?  Thanks again for asking - and I’d love to hear what your theories are :)

[the-nado-hunter]

JKR and Harry Potter

So I’m also one of the kids that grew up with Harry Potter, and it was very dear to me. Being a pretty lonely kid that was socially isolated for a very long time, it was a world I could escape to where I could imagine having friends, using magic, fighting evil... all the stuff you love as a kid. Many people started reading and writing because of that book series. The Harry Potter fandom has done some INCREDIBLE things, The Harry Potter Alliance is a group that gets fans into activism and stands with Trans lives and does great work for social activism, and are in no way affiliated with Warner Brothers or JKR as they are an independent 501c3 non profit... so if you still have some scrap of energy left for Harry Potter as a fandom, it may be worth seeing how you can get involved with them, or other organizations looking to protect trans lives. Turn that energy into action, because Joanne using her platform to validate TERFs and spread TERF ideology is dangerous, she’s empowered them to come out of the woodwork and be more nasty than ever... and is currently endangering trans lives.

So of course when JKR’s transphobic views came to the public eye my heart was broken, I was already disillusioned by her making Nagini... a snake acting as a pet/servant to Voldemort, an Asian woman and her retroactively claiming being a werewolf was an allegory for AIDS both of which have so many problems that go along with it I don’t even know WHERE to start. With that you could maybe be like “well I can just not see fantastic beasts so I don’t support that!” or “We can ignore any crap she’s adding that wasn’t in the original text” But now... not only that but with the context of how the author is as a person and her ideology... a lot of problems with the original books series that you could have maybe explained away or just been too ignorant to notice, are now glaringly obvious and questionable.

And it just gets worse and worse. Her new book about a man dressing as a woman to commit murders is baked in TERF propeganda, not to mention her pen name Robert Galbraith is the name of a notorious anti-LGBTQ+ man who  who pioneered a range of practices that would later be known as conversion therapy. Now she’s claimed its a coincidence, and she didn’t know... but we ALL know Rowling has carefully chosen names and always seems to do extensive research behind the meaning of names, so her conveniently after expressing transphobic views just being like “oopsie!” Seems incredibly unlikely... but lets say somehow she didn’t know, she definitely knows now, she’s been informed, but she’s not going to change her pen name. She shrugged it off and just said “i was just oddly fascinated with the name”.

Now her experience with abuse is, horrible, No one should have to go through that. However, she’s used that, and pointed to that to try and justify her bigotry towards trans lives. She’s focused on the people who are: sending her death threats, which no one should do by the way, instead of the many many many trans people who tried, very kindly to explain to her why her words and actions were hurting them, not to mention many people in the trans community have dealt with abuse, and misgendering and the kind of actions and words she’s spouting can be potentially re-triggering, and once again... its empowered TERFs to harass and threaten trans people. So JKR whining about some people being mean online in response to her bigotry seriously lacks perspective.

So yes... it hurts to let something go that was a comfort and a way of coping for a long time... but Trans lives matter more to me right now.

I see some people struggling to let Harry Potter go, and try to pull a “death of the author” or “Hatsune Miku wrote Harry Potter”, Lindsay Ellis has a great impromptu video on why, in this situation pulling “Death of the Author is kind of impossible” . The short version is that because anything with the Harry Potter name on it that you buy sends more money to her... you can’t really continue to support Harry Potter without aligning yourself with her. 

I see a lot of people, with the announcement of the open world Harry Potter game doing mental gymnastics to try and justify supporting the game when literally a day before they were screaming “Fuck JKR!”. Put. Your money. Where your mouth is. A video game is not more important than human lives.

Don’t get me wrong, this looks like the game I DREAMED of existing when I was a kid. And it pisses me off so much to not be able to having that coping mechanism. But once again. TRANS LIVES MATTER MORE TO ME THAN A VIDEO GAME OR MY OWN PERSONAL COMFORT.

Here’s some of the common arguments I hear and what’s wrong with them.

1. She’s wealthy anyway, supporting the game or not supporting the game won’t change anything. You can’t really buy anything that isn’t supporting something problematic

- Maybe not, but it’s the morals and principles of the thing. This isn’t like... being stuck in a situation because of late stage capitalism where “Well I need to eat even if the company selling me this is corrupt!” This game, these books, the park, the movies, the merchandise - they are a luxury . You don’t need them to survive, you’re well aware of how this women hurts people, and you have an active choice here. Continuing to invest in anything HP still puts a big message out there that you care more about a brand than Trans lives. 2. Think about the poor game developers of the Harry Potter game! - First of all, are you high??? The developers are going to make the same amount of money no matter how well the game does. Most of the money from people buying is going to go to corporate levels at Warner Brothers and JKR herself. If your in the camp of “well it would suck to work on something for so long only for it to go nowhere...” That’s just... how the game industry is. Developers know that and accept that on ANY project they work on. There are projects that get super close to release only to be cancelled at the last minute, there are SO many game projects that never make it to the public eye. But the devs are like “hey I get paid either way”. Again, stop making up stupid reasons to try and justify supporting a transphobe that is actively endangering trans lives.

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Harry Potter was dear to me as a kid. Its hard to let go of something that got you through a lot, but think of all the trans folks that also grew up with that world that was so meaningful to them only to be told “this world isn’t for you and the author is actively supporting causes that harm you and using her large platform to spread propaganda because she knows she’ll be believed more than the lived experiences of trans people or medical science.” Can you even imagine what that would feel like???  Have some god damn empathy, and if you say you support trans lives. Actions speak louder than words EVER could.

As for me on a personal level, I can’t even look at anything fan related to Harry Potter without being infuriated. I see anything HP related, and I get pissed off. The love of it is gone for me. It’s been dead for almost two years now. The only way I could see ever returning to it is if one way or another the money from it no longer goes to Joanne, but that’s not going to happen for a long time, and even then, I’m not sure if I’d be able to come back to it.

Trans lives matter. And they matter more to me than any fantasy world or brand ever could. Period.