#adults making it worse by saying shit like

[dammit-tazmuir]

I just genuinely do not remotely understand where you're getting this notion that "there's nothing sympathetic about Ianthe" or that "we're not supposed to care about her." Like where is your textual evidence? Because I have literally not seen one single person in this fandom yet who doesn't adore her, and I have a very hard time believing that's by accident.

I've seen people shit on Corona, and even rip her apart to emphasize Ianthe's tragedy without acknowledging how mutually toxic they are. I've seen people fail to acknowledge the nuance and sympathetic circumstances around all of John's stuff. I've seen almost nothing but making Silas the butt of jokes, and only very rarely any appreciation. I've seen people have problems with Palamedes of all people. I've seen criticism for Paul's existence.

I have at not one point yet encountered a person who doesn't adore Ianthe and want good things for her. I have never seen a single person be like "fuck that toxic bitch, I hope she gets what's coming to her" the way they do characters like John. Like maybe I've just been lucky so far, but I'm sorry, it REALLY, REALLY does sound like you personally sympathize with her LESS than most people do and are projecting that onto other people? Or taking "she's awful" extremely literally. Have you never seen or written a character that makes you go "oh they're the absolute worst, I adore them"? Is that just a new concept? I want to understand here.

I typed up a whole big thing about personal theories for Ianthe's mentality but decided it was probably too much and saved it elsewhere, so let me know if you want that I guess, but no worries if not.

For that matter though, what specifically proves that "Harrow is a terrible person"? Because a lot of fans find her deeply relatable, and there are both fans and other characters who don't see her sour grumpy attitude as particularly offputting and some actively find it endearing. "She made Gideon's life shitty for 16 years" can only do so much heavy lifting when we know for a fact Crux and other adults were worse offenders, Gideon was also constantly shitty to Harrow, Harrow was literally younger than Gideon, and Harrow was dealing with severe and untreated mental illness that Gideon personally exacerbated. (We KNOW Gideon is inclined to pull pranks on Harrow and rearrange things when she's out of the room and do other things that were very likely to cause Harrow to need to go to Crux for reality checks, that Gideon is a significant contributor to her fearing she's simply insane, and that she was actively afraid to let Gideon specifically know bad her brain was even though that could have helped a lot of them a lot.) And also when that stopped nearly immediately the second they were away from the adults perpetuating it. I don't know man but I feel like staying in a pattern one was raised in when it's never been challenged says a lot less about a person than how they behave and adapt once it's gone.

Is it because the baby nun who was 500% paranoia by volume between her hallucinations and her recent trauma she can't properly remember and having been raised to be extremely secretive at all times Or Else wasn't ecstatic about being romantic or bffs with someone who she knows killed and ate one of the only other friends she had in cold blood while also dealing with constant attempts on her life? Because even with all that she was honestly still pretty soft with Ianthe. Denying being friends in words doesn't change that she was relying on Ianthe and trusting her even more than she did their God and being fairly intimate with her. Actions should speak louder than words.

Like genuinely, why do you think "we're not supposed to" like or care about or sympathize with Ianthe, or that Harrow is objectively terrible start to finish? I don't see it.

A big reason I ignore all the meta from Tamsyn Muir about The Locked Tomb is that her values system about some of her characters seems deeply at odds with their characterization in-book.

Muir clearly loathes Ianthe, and yet HTN shows an Ianthe who is deeply insecure, scared, and desperately lonely. Yeah, she killed her Cav and a few other people. This is quite bad. I do not think Ianthe is a good person. But I don't find her irredeemable like Muir says.

Hitting on Harrow isn't ideal, but also Harrow is her only friend and flirtation is one of the few ways Ianthe knows to show her companionship. Throughout HTN, Ianthe seems to be trying to make friends, to be helpful, and is rebuffed at every turn by Harrow.

In contrast, while Harrow is less evil than many of the other characters, she is clearly a profoundly horrible person. She is mean and cruel to those around her, she has made Gideon's life absolutely miserable for 16ish years, she rebuffs basically every single offer of help and friendship anyone but Gideon ever shows her in either of the two series (and quite meanly; basically anything anyone ever gets from her is some verbose equivalent of "go fuck yourself".)

But we spend all this time in her head, so we know it's because she's scared and insecure and doesn't know how to handle it. So very much of her behavior is forgiven by Muir and by the audience because of this. A sizeable portion of the fanbase seems to be mad at John for trying to tell her to get more sleep, or to try doing something relaxing (make soup), or even to ask other people for help. Yes, you cannot will your way out of depression, but "try to get more sleep" and "do soothing things" are basically foremost of any serious advice for how to deal with it.

John doesn't know why she's been not getting enough sleep. But he's also a deeply fucked-up person. And yet he's trying with Harrow. Badly, clumsily, but trying. He doesn't really know why she's been on such edge and miserable. But Harrow never tells him. She has John and Ianthe (and probably Mercymorn and Augustine, although they're even more fucked up) she could have tried asking for help, and refuses.

But, Harrow is the protagonist, and we see inside her head, and she's not willing to actually murder Gideon, and she thinks murdering 200 children was bad, actually. So we're expected to sympathize with her.

Don't get me wrong, I sympathize with her. I want her to be better. I like fucked-up protagonists who aren't great people.

But do not, for one second, suggest that Harrow is not one of the worst human beings in this series (behind John, Cytharea, Mercymorn, Augustine, and Ianthe, in roughly that order). She brings an untold amount of her misery upon herself by being deliberately, not prickly, but just so. fucking. awful.

[stinky-ahh-gay]

Sometimes i just want to enter a deep sleep, i want to Sleeping Beauty my way out of everything bc shit is getting too overwhelming.

Sleeping is such a good experience bro, you get to snor mimimi and dream about fucked up shit that would never happen in this world, and even if it's your worst nightmare it will never be real.

[septimus-heap]

Agh I know I talk abt this all the time but I really do think marcia would have been such a good parental figure, if that had been her goal. Unfortunately!!! Unfortunately!!!!!!! Her goal was "train an apprentice" and in that! IF septimus was, say, a young adult who's only connection to her was because he was her apprentice, then a lot of the stuff he does WOULD be considered out of line, and the way marcia treats him WOULD make sense. Unfortunately for both of them, septimus is a very traumatised child and marcia is for all intents and purposes, his stand-in parental figure. Marcia was the first person to offer septimus a home and the first adult to show him kindness and she's pretty much the only adult he can talk to about young army stuff as far as I can tell. He is not just her apprentice but neither of them recognise that, and that's. A bad thing

[subsequentibis]

i don't find being a dad an overly compelling or coherent part of tommo's character but i DO like that he gets to apply Stolen Dad Valor to situations now

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

dsmp is coming back in so much force I’ve seen people make up boundaries again 💚

[gibbearish]

btw its interesting the way james tries to imply that like. well the videos that have plagiarism are the ones our dumb stupid annoying patrons requested about bad topics that didnt deserve to have the effort put in to covering them well so basically its fine. like obv thats interesting on its own but moreso the fact that he doesnt actually /say/ it, or like. give a list of the videos hes referring to, just says "those videos are very clear on which ones they were" i think as a nod meaning like "yknow the ones everyones talking about". unless what hes meaning is that like they put a note in certain videos saying "this video was requested by a patron, we here at james somertom incorporated do not espouse these views" which seems unlikely to me. idk methinks maybe it's because there is indeed a lot more than people think and with all the buzz he's not sure which ones have been discovered yet or not, so putting down a solid list that missed some would look like he was still hiding things whereas putting down a fully sourced list would be admitting to wayyyy more than anyone's found yet

[britneyshakespeare]

i love bratz as dolls but i fuckin hate mga as a brand. fuckin idiots

[archersgoon]

anyway that being said i do think the dynamic b/w tariq and hypothetical siblings is like. tormented. bc like i said before i think there's a large age gap so it's like this notably older guy who is technically your half(as far as you know for a long while)-brother who's always doing his own super official thing separate from you and any other siblings. like he's the firstborn the king the cursebreaker beloved of the people. you're just a guy. many different directions to take this very few of them positive

[swagging-back-to]

not sorry. i extend very little sympathy and patience towards tras who are underage, and the only ones who do get said sympathy are TIFs. but again. it's MICROSCOPIC levels of sympathy.

[mifhortunach]

.

[deadallover]

Literally the ONLY thing disney had going for it was a couple of amazing films from my childhood and they INSIST on systematically ruining each and every one.

[sealeneee]

siiiiiiigh

[mars-ipan]

i do love my family very dearly but the internalized ableism the men in here struggle with is. so much

[dragonomatopoeia]

seeing a pro wrestling gifset + explainer reblog and having to try so so so so so hard not to go into the long and complex history of labor in professional wrestling

[spitblaze]

I live in fear that I will one day be tumblr callout posted for something stupid but ultimately innocuous I say about myself in the name of comedic oversharing

[heartshattering]

Feeling like I want to give up again...