#also stop making the roles in found families so nuclear
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come-see-our-show · 1 year ago
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I am a firm believer that the Baker and Cinderella have zero romantic feelings for each other.
Cinderella’s arc is about her learning to stand up for herself and rejecting the traditional roles of womanhood that a leading lady in a fairytale is put into.
She’s not a servant. She’s not a princess. She’s not a wife. She’s trying to figure out who the he’ll she is.
The Baker is probably mid-late 20s (because he isn’t much older than Rapunzel), and I don’t think Cinderella is a child (maybe she’s 19-22), but she’s still so young. The Baker is quite literally “meant to have children.” He is very much an adult whereas Cinderella is still in the process of entering it.
I don’t want her to be the Baker’s lover because he doesn’t need another one, especially while he’s grieving his recently dead wife. And I don’t want her to be Red and Jack’s mother. Jack literally says, “I don’t want another mother, I want a friend (and a pet).” So I see her as more of an older sister figure to the kids, and a friend/companion to the Baker. They’re partners, but not romantically.
She’s still growing up. Let her find who she is. Let her find her “something in-between.”
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My problem with Bat/ Bat ships isn't that they exist, it's how many people like them.
Wait! Hear me out. I swear I have a reason.
I'm good at ignoring ships that squick me, so I do. I also want to make it very clear I am not I am not hating on individuums who ship Bat/ Bat.
But to me, how much people ship them is kind of indicative of how little we value adopted children in our society. People say they aren't "really related" so it's fine.
Because you just don't see that level of engagement with ships involving biologically related family.
And it's that attitude shining through more than the shipping itself I dislike.
"Fiction isn't reality" no, it isn't, write the darkest thing you want. Explore fucked up concepts. That doesn't make you a bad person. It's completely normal.
However oftentimes Fiction is often still a reflection of reality. From reading, we can learn about our society (or other societies, if we venture beyond our own culture.) It says something, whether the author meant for it to mean something or not.
We understand where you're coming from and agree that adopted children/siblings are real family and shouldn't be valued less. We also agree that fiction mirrors reality which mirrors fiction, although that process is much more complex than many people claim.
However, 1) not every family is your typical nuclear family. Everybody defines their family and their relationships with its members in their own way. Some people call all adults that are close to them uncles and aunts, regardless of any actual biological connection. Someone could have been raised by their biological parents, but don't claim them as parents because of personal reasons and even view other adults who filled the parental roles better as their actual parents. Someone could have a biological sibling that is much older than them, grow up without them in their life and due to that think of them as more of a cool friend than a sibling. (All examples are taken from our own personal experiences.)
It's especially apparent in cases of found family, which batfamily certainly is. Tim and Jason haven't met until Jason was 18 and Tim was 16. Both were adopted by the same man, but they didn't know each other. Does that automatically makes them brothers? Even though without the adoption papers they would be total strangers? If Jason's death invalidated the adoption papers does it mean he and Bruce stopped thinking of each other as parent and child? Bruce and Dick have an age difference between 10 to 20 years and viewed each other more as brothers, partners and mentor/mentee at first. Bruce and Tim for a long time also thought of each other as mentor/mentee, especially since Tim still had a living father. That was also the case of Dick and Damian. Tim had a crush on Cass in the comics at the beginning of their friendship. Jason and Dick were technically brothers before Jason's death, but they weren't close at all and only met a few times. Barbara is a mother/sister figure to Cass even when she was dating Cass' adopted brother Dick. We don't think Jason and Cass even met once in post-crisis comics, despite technically being siblings. (Sorry we're only mentioning that one era, we aren't as knowledgeable about new52 and rebirth.)
The recent push to make the batfamily a nuclear family in our opinion does a huge disservice to the characters and their interesting and complicated relationships that can't fit neatly into boxes labeled "sibling" or "parent".
2) some people think of batfamily as a family AND still ship them at the same time. Yes, some claim they aren't "really related", but there's another side that absolutely views them as related and wants to explore what happens when two brothers or a father and son fall in love.
3) there's actually a pretty big engagement with ships involving biologically related family. Wincest (ship between biological brothers Sam and Dean from Supernatural) is the 15th most popular ship on AO3 of all time. We still remember how prominent the fandom discourse about shipping the Weasley twins from Harry Potter was. In almost every fandom, there're at least a few incest ships. Are they more popular than adopted sibling incest ships? We don't know, but if anyone wants to measure it in some way, we'd love to find out.
Edit: 4) as people have rightfully pointed out in the comments and reblogs, a lot of fics are AUs where one or both characters weren't even adopted and met in different circumstances. You can see that in a lot of fandoms, people will imagine close friends or even strangers as biological family and vice versa: write biological or adopted family as just friends or even strangers.
We're looking forward to hearing what other people think about this topic!
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the-ninja-legacy-whip · 1 month ago
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How would you describe Lloyd's sibling relationship with all of the Ninja? What kind of brother/sister is who to Lloyd? (Including maybe a emotional support Ninja?)
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Lloyd's siblingship-
Kai: Cool Role-Model Older Brother
Jay: Older Brother that lets him Get Away with Stuff He Shouldn't (and shares his personal interests)
Cole: Responsible But Chill Older Brother (who Lloyd mimics a music taste from)
Zane: The Brother That WILL Put his Foot Down (especially if it's when Kai can't)
Nya: Girl Brother (just kidding that joke's been made before bUT we all know how much Nya means to Lloyd)
Bonus Jesse: Anxious Brother Emotional Support Brother Brother-in-Law Brother That Makes Sure He's OKAY (and also EATSSSS)
Now, as for everyone else with each other, I definitely read them as having sibling dynamics sometimes, but as a whole I wouldn't define nor label their whole interactions as "de facto siblings" either. It goes hand-in-hand with the "found family doesn't mean giving everyone a clear-cut nuclear label" thing people have been yapping about (which I agree with), and their occasional use of referring to each other as "brothers" I always read as "brothers-in-arms" and not...literally...brothers. Ahaha.
All that being said, I'm more in the camp of everyone being what someone else needs/perceives at a given time.
Sometimes, that means Cole's gotta pull the older brother card to get Jay to calm down; sometimes that means taking a step back and letting Kai defer into a more fatherly-leadership role; sometimes he looks to Zane for the comfort of a potential lover; sometimes Nya is both the sister he's always wanted, and an answer to many of his problems; sometimes Jay is the annoying younger cousin yet good friend you can't imagine your life without
Sometimes Kai's subconsciously trying to parent everyone else; sometimes he wants someone to tell him what to do; sometimes he's the brother doling out hard-hitting but necessary advice; sometimes he's that friend you wish would mind his own business a little more (but then regret the one time that he does); sometime he wishes he wasn't suddenly the "middle child" without a defined role in things
Sometimes Jay's playing kid brother to mostly everyone else; sometimes that means he's the friend that snaps everyone else back to their senses; sometimes he's a boyfriend trying to figure out the right way to get his partner to stop being so upset; sometimes he's like the boy next door that you forget exists until he's blowing something up in your backyard and you have to rush out to put out a fire—
Sometimes Zane is he "mom friend", sometimes he's the strange older cousin with extremely helpful advice you wouldn't have considered otherwise; sometimes he's playing mediator trying to maintain peace with everyone else; sometimes he's so lost in himself that he doesn't realize what he means to all those around him who love him
Sometimes Nya is treated as the precious little sister who no one is allowed to harm (unless you want a gang of angry older brothers on your back); sometimes she's the really cool aunt pulling amazing helpful gifts out of thin air; sometimes she'd the friend giving you the advice you didn't realize you needed
Their dynamics are nebulous and never really defined (which is also partly why the full-lean into RGB Sibs and the sheer lockout of the other three bugs me a bit), but while they are certainly family, siblings isn't always what I'd boil them down to.
All-in-all they started as loose friends united under a cause only they could achieve/understand, only to be left to fend for themselves and a green child of destiny they technically didn't ask for nor expect... but now, whatever they are now, they wouldn't change it for the world.
(which also makes some of the stuff in DR such a bitter pill to swallow)
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oscconfessions · 9 months ago
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People need to stop constantly referring to Bot as Fan and Test Tube's kid and only seeing them as part of their family as if that's ALL they are, I hate always seeing comments on pictures with Bot Fan and Test Tube immediately having to say "Oh my god the family!!" or stuff like "Omg it's Fan and his kid!!!"
There's so much more to explore with their whole dynamic other than constantly forcing these familial roles on them. Why not focus on how their actual dynamics work out and talk about how Fan and Bot seemed to get along way better than Test Tube and Bot did because of how overly protective Test Tube was of Bot, leading to them being more uncomfortable around her? Why not focus on how they'd Actually interact instead of narrowing them down into this Happy Family dynamic?
People also tend to ignore how Bot canonically IS upset with Fan and Test Tube but has not mentioned anything about it directly to them (In their exit interview, Bot goes "But... they made me like this", but immediately tries to deny they said that) And most likely is attempting to keep normalcy in their relationships with their creators because they are scared of defying them or making a big deal out of their own feelings Which will Not be good for them in the long run. People usually don't acknowledge this because all I see is people focusing on how Happy and Cute they are as a family (Nuclear family, not a found family, may I add), completely disregarding how messed up Bot's creation is in the first place and how they secretly are still frustrated.
I see Bot as someone who has to stick around Fan and Test Tube because that's their only sense of home, and they feel this need to appeal to them (as shown before Bot's elimination, they are still terrified of not having their approval) and people really tend to gloss over how uncomfortable Bot truly is around Test Tube. That's why I hate when they're narrowed down to just being their Child. (Also, I don't consider Bot to BE a child, I see them as a young adult)
But of course this doesn't mean Bot is forever suffering and secretly is never happy around Fan and Test Tube, they've shown to enjoy their time and is focusing super hard on actually having good moments with them, they are just ignoring their true feelings about them that AE will hopefully unpack somehow but What do I Know! Oh dear god this is long sorry
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the-snail-that-reads · 2 months ago
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I see the "odile being a mom is NOT accurate" posts and I agree so hard - @wish-upon-the-universe
Yeah, I really don't like it when people assign nuclear family roles to found families when they don't apply. Which is sort of why I stopped posting stuff about my Traveling Companions AU. Because even after going out of my way to say that Siffrin didn't really view Odile like a mother in that au people just kept putting it in that context.
I think this happens so often with older female characters and it's kind of disappointing.
But I also don't like policing in fandoms! So while it's a pet peeve of mine I think people should be allowed to make whatever connections and comparisons they want without negative nancys getting on their case.
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yellowocaballero · 2 years ago
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I said a little bit about this in a comment a few hours ago (hey kenny) and I actually really felt like saying more.
For all that gay people/Tumblr people/AO3 peope/waves hand are really, really into found family they are actually pretty allergic to conceptualizing familial relationships outside of nuclear family roles.
I see a billion posts on Tumblr about how friendships can be just as important as romantic relationships, if not more, but nobody ever actually writes the friendship as important as a romantic relationship. Or friendships are interpreted as romantic, or friendships are sidelined for the romantic relationship. It's always a weird disparity between what people say are important and people actually find important for me.
So when we do step out of romantic relationship and into gen relationships, we typically enter the trope world of #foundfamily. But the same kind of flattening of characters for the sake of shoving them into yaoi ghost archetypes honestly also really happens with family relationships.
There is always a dad. There's always a mom. There's always siblings (frequently the canon female love interest). Maybe an uncle? Ex-wife if we are feeling sexy that day.
I really rarely see people interested in #foundfamily relationships outside of those boxes. It is overwhelmingly, entirely American-centric. There's no recognition of the unbelievable diversity and breadth of human relationships, or the very many ways there are to love somebody. In fanfic, if there's a much older male character emotional close to younger characters, he's dad mode. And the relationship then follows the character and story beats of the father-child relationship intended to draw out those fuzzy family feelings. Damn, I read found family stuff to get away from the intense claustrophobia of the fandom's favorite ship, I'm not here to get family yaoi ghosted here too.
I think you can create a very unique and engaging relationship if you're wiling to engage with the unknown and uncomfortable. Make a path without the paint by numbers story beats and character arcs. Please stop letting tropes rule your writing instead of construct it.
Write stories about love. Write relationships about loving each other. Just start from there, and don't worry about anything else. Create a relationship that is its own. Let it breathe. It can stand on its own two feet. It'll be a richer relationship and a richer story.
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hugogetspowerbottomed · 8 months ago
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You asked for vat7k hot takes uh
I posted this one publicly anyways so I'm not going anon lol but I HATE how ppl make Nuru mother around Varian and Hugo. She's 16. They're 18 and 19 respectively. Yes, she can be a mom friend - but shes still younger than them and a kid. She's not responsible for them or their actions.
I honestly more so think ppl should show Varian and Hugo playing a guardian role for both Nuru and Yong more - they're the adults of the group. Nurus and Yongs parents (esp Yongs bc hes 12) entrusted them with their kids safety and well being. If anything they should be the ones taking charge and making sure the two minors don't get themselves in serious trouble.
Please I beg I need content of Varigo desperately attempting to "parent" and having no clue what they're doing lmao
People need to stop making Nuru what the atla fandom thought Katara was. Idk what it is about people assigning the "girlie girl" of the group the mom friend title like Nuru doesn't even have any canon characteristics beyond like two thing and people still find somehow to fit her into a fake gender norm bc heaven forbid a found family not be nuclear.
I agree that varigo should be taken on a more parental role (I would argue mentor/babysitter role tho) bc its way more realistic and ALSO FUNNIER. WHERE ARE MY MOM HUGO FICS. Where are my fics where Hugo is like "I'll never be a brat to Donella again (lie)" bc Nuru and Yong burnt down another forest plsss I need it SO BADLY and I need "only child with mommy/daddy issues" Varian to ALSO be an over confident bossy mom friend who is so way in over his head that even Hugo is like well this can only end badly AAAAHHHHH
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wishcamper · 10 months ago
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All in the Family: ACOTAR PART II
Welcome back to our multi-part lesson on ACOTAR and Family Systems! Today’s topic is family roles, the interplay between them, and their combination’s influence on the nuclear family emotional process in the Inner Circle.
Pre-requisites: Part I
Creds: license and mf master's degree in counseling babyyy. and unhinged enough to write it all down.
No content warnings, just garden variety family dysfunction.
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oh my god what the fuck does that mean
Let's back up and start with the structure of the IC pre-Archeron invasion. We have Rhysand, Cassian, Azriel, Morrigan, and Amren in a found family. This is where we have to suspend our disbelief a bit, because you’ll notice there are no parents in this family. However that doesn’t mean no one functions as a parent, because in any system there is a hierarchy, at least in an emotional sense, and the power vacuum will always get filled.
When a parent is missing from a nuclear family, very often one of the children will step in to fill the role and rebalance the system. Older siblings caring for younger ones, female children picking up housework, even phrases like calling someone the “man of the house” confer symbolic authority and responsibility to someone theoretically on the same level as the others. The dark end of this road is emotional incest, when parents rely on a child emotionally in the same way they would a spouse, a dynamic that is deeply inappropriate and incredibly damaging for a child.
Okay, so let’s talk about sibling position to see who is most likely to step up. This is a found family, so obviously none of these are based in biology, but if we look at the core four, they have a pretty clear birth order layout in terms of both power and personality. 
Rhys: A textbook oldest child - responsibility-seeking, serious, tending toward leadership roles. Oldest children often feel the burden of setting a good example for others. Prone to relieving anxiety via control.
Az and Cas: Classic ends of the middle child spectrum (invisible to hyper-visible). Middle children are flexible, adaptable, and competitive, and often struggle with questions identity. They may seek to meet needs for connection and validation in unhealthy ways.
Mor: Baby of the family energy through and through. Youngest children are more likely to be outgoing, creative, and rebellious, and struggle with inferiority and self-centeredness. Interestingly, they’re also more likely to abuse alcohol and are overrepresented in psychiatric populations.
Amren, hilariously, comes across as an only child - they tend to be wise, independent, and private, struggling with social skills and receiving criticism. (1)
So who’s filling our parental roles here in the IC? Who has power over the others? Rhysand is an obvious choice - he regularly makes decisions for the group as well as individual members on the basis of his feelings and his political position. I think you could even argue Rhys sees the people of Velaris as his children, too, though he definitely plays favorites lol. Amren also emerges as a person with power, given everyone is afraid of her and she has influence over Rhys. Amren has some authority over the others, though she is less invested in their personal lives and so functions differently in the system than Daddy Rhys.
So Rhys is one parent, and Amren is like a weird aunt. It’s very normal in systems with a parentified child (PC) that the other children feel resentful - they’re all supposed to be on the same level, and yet one of them has been exalted above the rest. The PC can respond to this so many ways - force, charm, control, bribes, threats, ignoring them - it’ll depend on the person and the individual system. But the PC will also feel that counter-resentment and leverage the power position to create balance in the family (Cassian, Azriel, stop trying to kiss your sisters). The irony is that, in this system, no one asked Rhys to be in power over his friends - he decided he wanted them in his court and blurred those lines himself. I suspect this was intentional, though likely unconscious, because it gives him a nuclear option if he ever needs to reestablish order and control in his family. We see him pull rank in tense personal moments that have literally nothing to do with politics despite his excuse they do.
(I do think, though, that there’s an argument to be made here that, for people in certain positions of prominence and influence, all your choices are political. Your image is part of your power and so, by extension, the parts of your personal life that become public have an effect on your ability to rule. Rhys and Feyre use this rationale with Nesta in ACOSF, though my babe isn’t exactly a Hunter Biden. More of a Claudia Conway, I’d say.)
Let's go back to our scary image from the beginning.
Bowen believed in the importance of visualizing this structure, so he advocates for family mapping or construction of a genogram (2). Given what we’ve unpacked so far, we can roughly plot the individual connections and hierachy. I’ve created this one to show the basics of the relationships and power structure in the IC, and we’ll get more specific from here.
Solid lines=connectedness
Dashed lines=conflict
Arrow=direction of energy
Squiggles=ambivalence/fluctuation
Line thickness=emotional closeness
Amren’s special line to Rhys=whatever ulterior motive she has
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If you remember from my last post, one of the most important forces in a family is the triangle. Take another look at the triangles above, and see which ones seem unstable to you. The one that immediately stands out to me, even just visually, is the Cas/Az/Mor triangle. Each individual relationship has a different tenor, which creates a lot of instability. You can see how Mor needs that closeness with Cas to balance the tension with Az, but in order to keep their relationship stable, Cas and Az have Rhys as a moderating presence. Because what is the one thing they all have in common? A close relationship with Rhys. And Rhys has Amren to reinforce his power and responsibility, keeping the whole system in balance.
In this way, the IC’s system, while dysfunctional, is relatively stable pre-Archerons.
To understand how that’s possible, we have to talk about anxiety. Anxiety is the main energy that moves conflict through the family and sets off the nuclear family emotional process (NFEP). Anxiety must go somewhere. In enmeshed systems like this one (members’ emotions and security are highly dependent on one another), members relieve their anxiety through the system instead of resolving it individually or in dyads. In cut off, emotionally distant systems, anxiety gets internalized or displaced outside the family.
Given the sheer variety of relationships in the system, the most likely source of anxiety is Morrigan. She has a different relationship to every person in the system. She’s in the middle of the power hierarchy between the “parents” and the “kids”, and floats around inside the relatively stable triangle of the bat boys, with individual connections to each one . She also has a pattern of internal conflict that she moderates externally via alcohol and relationships. Despite not having the most power externally, Mor’s actions and reactions often cause the rest of the system to shuffle around her, giving her a great deal of power.
But don’t just take my word for it - let’s look at this in action.
Say Mor, Cas, and Az go out together bc apparently that is something they do regularly. Mor feels Azriel getting too close, which triggers her anxiety because she does not want to talk about whatever is between them. In response, she communicates her displeasure by leveraging the triangle and focusing her intimate attention on Cassian. But this creates conflict for Cassian, who wants to moderate Mor’s anxiety without rupturing his relationship with Azriel. Hence, we get the weird overfamiliar platonic besties routine, threading the needling of giving Mor the protection she’s asking for without out-and-out antagonizing his brother. Azriel buries his hurt feelings and retracts emotionally, despite wanting to be connected, and they go back to how they were.
So we can see how Mor has generated the anxiety, and it follows down the chain: she passes it off to the boys, who deal with it through emotional cutoff (Az) and enmeshment (Cas). Cassian steps in between the conflict at Mor’s unconscious request and takes inappropriate responsibility for Azriel’s feelings of rejection and Mor’s anxiety, while Az puts his feelings away and reestablishes emotional distance. This is the NFEP in action.
And yet Cassian and Azriel are still shown to be close, so where do these feelings go? I mean, they do physically fight each other all the time lol. Azriel banks a lot of repressed resentment he has to discharge elsewhere. Cassian feels the burden of peacemaking and internalizes the unresolved conflict as his own fault, doubling down on his commitment to making it better. Mor avoids contending with her own feelings because everyone else is doing it for her.
And here’s where Rhys becomes a moderating presence for all of them. Rhys has ultimate decision-making power over who is in and who’s out of the family, and sets the rules of engagement. He decides who gets respect, who’s allowed to initiate conflict. Rhys hold’s the power in the bat boys triangle, the strongest alliance in the system, incentivizing Cas and Az to get along with each other. He also incentivizes Mor/Cas/Az to keep their shit together because Amren has influence over him, and they need their alliance to leverage power against her. Rhys doesn’t have a problem with the buffer, so they rest of them “don’t” either.
The best question to ask when it comes to dysfunction is this: who benefits? We can see this in larger systems, too: who benefits for housing disparity, patriarchy, systemic racism, ableism, homophobia and transphobia? People in power. If a system is balanced via dysfunction, it’s because whoever is in power wants it that way. With families, this is often more unconscious - perhaps Rhys is just as afraid of family disintegration as Mor, and believes addressing their issues will cause them to split. Perhaps there is a more generational pattern at play. I think it’s worth considering not just how this family functions, but what conscious and unconscious choices are being made given their individual families of origin.
And then the Archeron’s come, and all these cracks will be exposed and the system will get blown to shit. See you next time, class dismissed!
Sources: 
Eckstein, D., & Kaufman, J. A. (2012). The role of birth order in personality: An enduring intellectual legacy of Alfred Adler. The Journal of Individual Psychology, 68(1), 60–61.
Brown, J. (1999). Bowen family systems theory and practice: Illustration and critique. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy, 20(2), 94-103.
Genogram made with Canva, art by @artworks_by_rokii, rosalynnart on deviant art, @sallteas
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hajihiko · 2 years ago
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Ok so I have a comic in the making for it but I'm struggling so
Vis-a-vis survivors, the whole class, and found family
BC we all know by now that found family doesn't mean the same roles as biological nuclear family, right
Youve got stuff you lean into more, like friendship, familial relationship, romantic relationship, etc. One or more might be the most comfy for you or one you can't imagine being without (this is also very nuanced). Do you need friendship above all? Maybe family (traditional) means so much to you? Maybe you just want that soulmate spouse stuff in the romance movies?
Well tough luck you have your old classmates and that's IT. That's ALL you get. Even if you're super brave and you'd ask out some random cutie or you make friends super easily, not anymore! Not an option! The world hates you! ALL the love you can realistically attain in the semi-near future is in these people.
Of COURSE their intricate web of relationships is wacky. They're all trying to fill their gaps with what little they have. Romance friendship and family stops having such clear edges when their societal roles are null because society no longer exists for you.
So yea their found family is their own weird stew of everything they need and they just keep hoping it'll hold.
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analogskullerosis · 1 year ago
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Thoughts on the Doom Patrol Finale
"It's okay. I made it home."
I thought the finale was wonderful. It was a perfect send off for the show and I think all the main characters got a good conclusion to their stories, even if I think some had bigger flaws than others. I think the show came full circle and did exactly what it wanted to do. While I would've liked to have seen a fifth season, I'm satisfied with what's here. I would say the theme for the final episode of Doom Patrol revolved around "breaking the cycle" and realizing that the only way things get better is by embracing change and to stop running around in circles. Let go of your worries and just be what you're meant to be.
Vic's ending was simple but sweet. The entire show he's been struggling to find his purpose and how he can help people in a way that isn't joining the Justice League or being a comic book superhero like Batman or Superman. Becoming a teacher with Derrick for the next generation of students pave the way and teach them valuable skills via robotics and prosthetics work (which Vic's Cyborg parts basically are) felt like the best ending for him. He wanted to be a hero and he is, it's just in the more subtle, usually unspoken/unthanked way that teachers can be viewed as "heroes".
Rita's death was sad, but necessary in order to help the rest of the team move on to their final destinies. It's often said that mothers (or grandmothers, in Old!Rita's case) are what keep families together. With her death, the Doom Patrol also died with her. She died beloved and with her family by her side... although she was embarrassed that her family only seemed to think of her by bringing her favorite alcohol... and her body blobbed up and popped like a slime balloon afterwards... But being reunited with Malcolm in the afterlife was a lovely conclusion for her. Being reunited with her lost love in a garden felt like something out of an old movie. Perfect for Miss. Rita Farr. The rest of the team paying tribute to her and watching her movie Secret Rendezvous was a lovely way to remember her. Their Lovely Rita died a star.
Speaking of dying as a star, Larry! Larry went nuclear!! Him flying into the sun during the Bad!Future at the beginning of the season was wild, his future with Rama here at the end was beautiful and it was the ending Larry deserved. He broke the cycle by not having Rama be the same "What If?" that John Bowers had been. He freed himself and was able to truly love without fear or hesitation again. Turning into a bright star in space was perfect for Larry because the entire show he had been introverted and shy and reserved. He made it a point to hide for as long as he could and never let anybody see him. His journey was all about a man embracing the things that make him who he is and to let the world see him in his glory, no matter what they think. Joining with Rama in space and becoming a star (which is how I interpreted their joining to signify) means that for the next couple thousand years, Larry can be seen shining bright in the night sky, whether people like it or not.
Jane becoming Kay again (or simplty, K., as Vic suggested) was the ultimate win. The underground was destroyed and K. found her peace. Her going to space with someone who she could find comfort in and explore with was a lovely ending for her. She wanted to leave Doom Manor and explore the world, now she can. Admittedly, I wish her relationship with Casey Brinke would've had more time devoted to it, but it's not a pairing I mind. As much as I wish she could've found her way back to Shelley Byron, I suppose I treat Shelley as an unreachable fantasy (she is fog, after all) whose role was not so much to be an endgame romantic partner to her, but to be a guiding hand and help Jane/K. begin to become comfortable in her body and sexuality again and ultimately help her reach her ending. Her conclusion had flaws, but her journey was still very very satisfying and I can be happy with her having Casey Brinke, her painting, a ship with a view, and a nice cat (so long as Casey doesn't... you know.) Her ending felt like it answered the ending Grant Morrison gave her after their run of the comics. "There is another world. There is a better world. Well... there must be." The show's answer is, "Yes, there is. She found it."
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Laura's ending was my second least favorite (next to Dorothy, who just flat out fucking disappeared!!!) and I wish she had gotten a little more, but I got to see Michelle Gomez wield a flamethrower and smile bigger than a child on Christmas Day, so I can't be too mad about it. If you believe in fire as a thing that cleanses things and allows people to start over, Laura's ending worked for her character. The place that really and truly broke her is about to be violently burned down. A woman like her needed violence to heal her and I think burning down the Ant Farm was just that.
Cliff's ending was the one that got me the most. "I thought I came home to live, but I think I came home just to die." The gift that Isabel/Immortus gave him was a sweet gift. He gets to see the cycle be broken right before his very eyes. He gets to see Rory's whole life play out and while you fear he's repeating his grandfather's actions, those fears are quickly put to bed when you see that he's perfectly fine and everything works out. He doesn't become RJ Steele, he doesn't fall into the same traps and vices that hurt Cliff Steele, he becomes a different man. Rory Steele is there for Clara Steele and he gets to meet his own grandson as a flawed, but supportive and good man. When Cliff powers down and it hangs on that shot of Cliff's robot face, I broke. The journey is completed. Cliff was in an accident and spent the whole series trying to get home. He did just that. It was the most beautiful way Cliff Steele's story could've ended. I loved every minute of it.
I was happy that the Immortus plot and the Butts plot was wrapped up in about five minutes with no explanation. It didn't need one. This show was never about them. It was a show about a bunch of misfit-assholes-turned-superpowered-weirdos who had to learn to care for one another, helping each other guide through trauma and pain and become better people at the end of it. They did just that. Larry was right: every single threat the team dealt with was created by them in some way. If there's no Doom Patrol, then the world is safe for another day. The only way this all ends is by the Doom Patrol disbanding for good. If you view Doom Manor as one giant therapy/rehabilitation retreat, then all of the members of the manor were stamped and cleared to leave. They left and they all found their own happiness, happiness that would be strange and weird and nonsensical if it was any show other than Doom Patrol. In the end, the cycle was broken and the characters became free to explore the world beyond the manor. No more chaos, no more fear, only peace.
The only cycle that never seems to break is the one where the Doom Patrol dies at the end of almost every iteration of the comics... until some weirdo (Grant Morrison, Rachel Pollack, Gerard Way, etc.) comes along and resurrects them, brings them back to life. I suspect the Doom Patrol will go through that cycle again. They will die, the team will be disbanded and gone for a while, then some weirdo will lovingly make up some way to get them all together again. It doesn't have to make perfect sense, just so long as they're all together again somehow.
There's so much more to say, but I'll leave it with this for now: Doom Patrol has become one of my favorite shows of all time. It's hilariously ridiculous, wonderfully weird, delightfully strange, and the most beautifully human show about superpowered misfits coming together and helping each other find brighter days after experiencing nothing but the darkest ones. They're my new go-to example of what a found family should be and I think the finale was satisfying. I think the show wrapped up the best way that it could've and I think every person that had the pleasure of working on it should be proud of what they've unleashed onto the world.
Long live the Doom Patrol.
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anonymous-dentist · 1 year ago
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Hi anon, sorry to bring the sbi family fanfic discussion again and for the long post , (your posts ware what made realize why i hated this thing so much)
I don’t know if is the same type of fans but i noticed that some ficwritters that are really foucused on philza and wilbur (and sbi family i think?) Are kinda trying to add cellbit to this situation? Like i read some philza focused fanfic where he interacts with cellbit and the ficwritters act like cellbit is his kid? Its weird idk how to explain very well (this is also the same people that kinda write cellbit as a native english speaker (american and european) and not a brazilian (its something that is too hard to explain right now)
And its kinda stressing me out because cellbit is written in such a weid way and its infesting the spiderbit tag lol and i dont understand what is going on half of the time since idk what the hell sbi even is (brazilian with 0 understanding about english speaking mcty)
Sorry for the long post
Oh yeah no I don’t really get it but like. I also do! Because q!Phil has become one of only a literal handful of people on the island to actually properly trust q!Cellbit and so they’re like. Friends. But obviously you can never just be friends with someone not your age and so. Fandom assigned family dynamic. It’s super weird and lowkey like. Idk it’s just weird lol.
A discussion surely must follow!
First, a brief rundown of SBI:
SBI is Sleepy Boys Inc., a group made of up streamers Philza, Wilbur Soot, Tommyinnit, and Technoblade. (Originally it was just Phil, Wilbur, and Techno, but Tommy wiggled his way in somehow.) They’re Best Friends, but somewhere along the way their fandoms said. Fuck it. Family dynamic… mostly because the ccs lowkey thought it was funny and ran with it. Wilbur alone would rather die than not have Philza Minecraft be his father
This dynamic spread to their characters on the dsmp despite them literally not once ever referring to each other all as family; iirc Techno himself said he at least wasn’t part of the family because that dynamic would be fucked up after all the shit his character did to both c!Wilbur and c!Tommy. But c!Phil was c!Wilbur’s father even though he did fully murder his ass, and Wilbur and Tommy were brothers because they’re Wilbur and Tommy and you’d have to kill them to stop them from being brothers. Tommy was never established to be c!Phil’s son, and Phil never seemed to consider him one
But then the dsmp started dying around summer 2021 and everyone was kinda just left with fanon, and SBI fanon can get weird. I’m talking borderline fetishistic nuclear family stuff, especially when you get into ‘Dark SBI’ content with Phil kidnapping Tommy or whatever and forcibly making them family? It gets weird, take a look through the tag sometime
The thing with a lot of these fics is that like. It’s gotten to a point where it’s a fandomized version of both cc! and c!SBI with some really freaky characterizations and some really diehard fans. I’ve talked about that before, so I won’t do it again.
The weirdest thing I’ve noticed about these fics, though- and this goes back to what we were talking about with Cellbit inexplicably being added to the mix all of a sudden- is that everybody has to be a family.
You’ll be hard pressed to find a SBI fic where the characters have friends. Even Tubbo and Ranboo, usually delegated to a ‘Tommy’s friend!’ role despite them not interacting much like as a group ever are treated either as extensions of Tommy himself or as his found family ‘brothers’ who Phil also inevitably helps take care of rather than as friends, and they act that way. Niki isn’t usually ever written in as Wilbur’s friend, she’s Benchtrio’s sister/mother-figure, or she’s described as Wilbur’s found family sister. Jack Manifold? Lumped in with Niki with Benchtrio as their older brother/father-figure. Quackity? Either Wilbur’s boyfriend, thus a member of the family, or Tommy’s older brother/father-figure.
Even characters who never really interacted with SBI as a “family” on the dsmp get this treatment: you’ll read an SBI fic with c!Purpled in it and he’ll be Tommy’s brother figure. c!Sam is Tommy’s father figure. Schlatt is Tommy’s uncle or Wilbur’s brother. Puffy is an aunt. Sapnap and Dream? Tommy’s brother or father figures. Even Hannah is being written as Tommy’s cool older sister figure these days despite only really interacting with him once on the smp
And you can see this kind of behavior continuing now in the qsmp fandom… if the new ccs/characters in question aren’t “problematic”. Chayanne can’t see Techno as a personal hero, he has to see him as an older brother or an uncle. Tubbo is Phil and Fit’s son and Tommy’s brother. Niki is Tallulah’s mom. Quackity is Wilbur’s boyfriend.
What you’ll actually be hard pressed to see is this kind of dynamic with Phil and other, “problematic” ccs, aka ccs who aren’t like. English ccs.
Because you won’t find q!Forever included in the family dynamics despite him basically being q!Phil’s best friend and closest confidant. It took longer for q!Missa to be added to Phil’s wiki page than it did for Techno to despite them literally being explicit canon husbands, and you’ll be lucky if Missa is even mentioned in a “qsmp” SBI fic. Etoiles? Not even mentioned despite him and Phil more or less actually leaning into the family dynamic with the “brothers” thing. Even Tallulah and Chayanne are left out or mischaracterized in “qsmp” SBI fics, giving Tommy the spotlight.
You won’t find nearly anybody who isn’t an English cc in these fics, and this is NOT accusing anyone of xenophobia. It’s most likely just because the SBI people are used to watching only Phil or only Wilbur and they don’t speak enough of the other languages to really care about the non-English ccs and thus disregard their characters and lore. It’s not just SBI people who do this, it’s plenty of people speaking every language on the server not watching anyone whose languages they don’t speak. Yk?
But that brings us to q!Cellbit, and I’m surprised the SBI guys have latched onto him the way they did considering he’s everything they seem to dislike: his first language isn’t English, he doesn’t talk with Phil a lot, he and Tallulah get along really well, he makes fun of Wilbur being gone. And, honestly? The SBI guys did hate him for a long time because of those things, they constantly undermined his efforts and said Phil would be a better Order leader and said that he should never speak to Tallulah again because he was making her sad and he’s friends with their least favorite person ever, Forever.
But then q!Phil said he trusted Cellbit, and it’s like a switch was flipped. Starting around the Pills Arc when they first teamed up, SBI people were suddenly on board with Cellbit despite being part of the haters literally days before. Why? Well. Phil and Cellbit are friends now, and so now he gets the privilege of being in the fics.
The problem with this is that these people have never watched Cellbit. They’ve seen ten minutes of him total from Phil’s pov, and that’s all they’re going to use to write his character. So of course there will be mischaracterization.
And, of course, they’ll be family. Because, as I said, there’s this weird allergy to the concept of friendship in SBI fics. You’re family or you’re an enemy.
Constant fanon mischaracterization of Phil has basically turned him into a universal father figure even if he doesn’t have that dynamic with the characters he’s like the “father” of. q!Cellbit’s only familial figure outside of his actual canon family is generally seen as q!Bad, who even referred to him as family last night on stream. But, because Phil and Cellbit are friends now and Cellbit is younger than Phil is, they have to have a father-son dynamic, because that’s what Phil’s only character trait is in the SBI fics he’s in. He’s the dad whether it makes sense or not.
If that makes sense.
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margokesses · 10 months ago
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You guys have got to stop turning giving people in the found family trope the roles of people in a nuclear family.
That guy is not someone's "father figure" just bc he checks in on them and makes sure they're alright. That's just called being a friend.
That woman is not the "mom" of the group. She just doesn't wanna have to deal with anything extreme so ofc she carries first aid stuff and snacks. She already is going through so much stress she doesn't wanna have to deal with someone dying.
Those 2 people do not give off sibling vibes. Sometimes it's fun to just annoy and argue with people it's really not that deep.
Also I could go into how fandom turns found family into nuclear family bc fandom is mostly white but that's a conversation for another day
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twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat · 8 months ago
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jjk chapter 254 spoilers under the cut !!
WHAT A FUN CHAPTER it was nice to see kusakabe get his moment….. even if it was short-lived :’3 HE’S FINEEEE GUYS DW look at this panel. look how sick it is. you think this is the kinda guy to go down like that??? kusakabe is a like a cockroach he could survive a nuclear bomb…. trust…..
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but no i !!!!! loved. his thoughts abt yaga T_T how kusakabe really is just a decent guy once you get down to it. he owes yaga a debt but it’s less of a debt and more of a deep respect… he tells himself that yaga is dead so it doesn’t matter but he still imagines yaga’s sad expression and still latches on to what he would’ve wanted. he cares.
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and i think this was also such a great moment :(( bc kusakaba has been running away from battle for. as long as we’ve known him LMAO but this is him taking on a more protective role towards the kids!! something akin to nanami and the importance he placed on adulthood. and it’s also so good when you remember kusakabe’s previous stance on yuji…. how he thought it was best for him to be executed. but deep down he cares!!
i’d have liked to see more interactions between him and miwa bc it’s obvious those two are especially close :(( and that makes a lot of sense because both are them are just. Nice. they’re kind people. miwa is just way less cynical. their banter is always so fun and i need my dosage of found family father/daughter moments so akutami BETTER supply me with more …. 😒😒😒
anyway i like kusakabe i think he’s nice :3
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ALSO CAN WE TALK ABOUT THIS PANEL HELLOOOOO????? I CRIED???????? THEY ALL LOOK SO GOODDDDD one of the most handsome gojo’s i’ve seen in a while….. his dimples and his smile :’3 and he thinks kusakabe is a nice guy!!!! do you think they ever explored each other’s bo/GUNSHOT
okok i think i’ve gotten all my thoughts out……. almost. BECAUSE LOOK WHO’S BACK ‼️‼️
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MY MANNNNN MY GUY maybe now the fandom will stop sleeping on him smh……… he didn’t survive gojo fucking satoru and train yuuta in africa for this disrespect. miguel is probably the strongest sorcerer outside of japan he is a Problem and i believe in him!!!!! i’m also excited bc i think this means we might be getting more old characters back soon :3 i wanna see larue. and if we see larue we might see todou…. maybe even yuki….. (<- delusional) BUT most of all: if we get larue or even just miguel there’s the SLIGHTEST chance we might get some flashbacks of cult leader geto and if that happened i would forgive akutami for literally Everything <33333
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seth-burroughs · 1 year ago
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yakou for the ask meme? (i also hate what the fandom has done to him so i trust your rc opinions. keep up the good work)
Thank you anon I'll do my best🙏
Yakou:
favorite thing about them
How he's a fucking loser but pulled off the most elaborate murder plan just to get revenge for his Dead Wife and stabbed Dr. Huesca not once but like three times and was fine with dying afterwards if it meant that bitch is gonna die too. And now he's stuck with him in the restricted area for an indefinite period. Oh well
Not my actual favourite thing about him (because I cannot choose man) but I really wanted to point it out because I don't see enough people talk about the sheer BLOODLUST that guy had in chapter 4 like holy shit good for him I think he should be allowed to kill murder & destroy whoever he wants
least favorite thing about them
Nothing comes to mind, I'd say he got underutilized but that's the case with most of the characters here tbh (mdarc feels kinda rushed 😔😔) and Yakou is not THAT bad compared to the peacekeepers it's like. It's fine!
favorite line
Can't really pick, probably the chat Yuma had with him in the prologue, but there are a lot
brOTP
Him and the NDA, but especially Yuma his best pal buddy bro ziomek morda mordeczka Yuma who never remembers to get the fucking groceries.
OTP
none tbh
nOTP
Uhhhhhhhh yakou/seth, yakou/yomi. honestly i'm not big on any Yakou ships can't imagine him in a healthy romantic relationship (viviakou toxic sludge is fine though)
random headcanon
Makes the best fucking spaghetti sauce you ever ate in your entire life. But he puts like an entire garlic in it and you can choke to death on the smell. Also he's a trans man. Usually I don't really hc male characters as trans men etc (rather I go the other way, like a canonically female character being a trans man, non-binary et cetera) but both he and Vivia fit the vibes so! Let's goooooo.
unpopular opinion
I HATE HATE HATE the common fandom hc of Yakou being a father figure to Yuma or the whole NDA or to any character. The vibes aren't aligning on that one, he's their extremely tired boss/acquaintance/pal/best pal that lets them do terrible things to his budget if they torment him hard enough. And also because I constantly see Yuma getting treated like a 12 year old, no guys he doesn't need an adult male role model and father figure, he needs his 6ft tall 1000+ years old death god gf back from the book and to explore his much more attractive rich and successfull perfect homunculus clone's body that'll fix him I believe.
Also: I'm all for NDA found family (even if we didn't get much of them from the actual game...) but please stop making them like. a nuclear mom dad and their beautiful two children family it doesn't have to conform to any rigid roles pleaseee sometimes you're found family and fuck each other it's FINE jeuss. I was about to say something but I'm having a real one right now qhat what I forgot what I typed I suggest you forget too.
Anyway him and Yuma play minecraft together they pull of the most complicated redstone mechanisms and once every few days his house gets burned down by Desuhiko who logs into Yuma's computer while he isn't looking. He always leaves behind a very visible trail of cheeto dust on the keyboard however Yuma would never snitch on the boy that makes him warrior cats pride pfps free of charge so he just tells Yakou it's a hacker
song i associate with them
Generic old songs on the radio. I don't have any
favorite picture of them
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h-HELLO???
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practically-an-x-man · 3 months ago
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1, 10, 13 and 24 for the ask game? (hope you had fun at round two of Deadpool & Wolverine!)
Thank you so much!! (and I did!! it's just as good the second time around!)
Since you mentioned the movie, I'll answer for the Deadpool/X-Men fandom :D
Choose Violence Ask Game
the character everyone gets wrong
This is less about the character and more about how fanfic authors write him, but... Deadpool himself. I get that he's tough to write, and it's hard to do fourth-wall breaks and have them come across as funny rather than cringey, but it's just... I don't know how to describe it, it's just not quite right. It just comes across as super heavyhanded rather than playful and cheeky. Even when people manage to get his characterization decently accurate (though that's also rare - as is typical of fanfic, he gets smoothed out and softened a lot), there's something about his style of humor that just never seems to land in the fanfics I've read.
Maybe it's just that his humor translates more to a visual-forward media like comics or movies, and it doesn't quite work in pure prose, but it just irks me either way.
10. worst part of fanon
The X-Men of course is a super found-family-heavy franchise, and I love that in canon... but people get so weird about it in fanon. It's the same pitfall you see in found family tropes a lot, where people try to ascribe these nuclear family dynamics onto the characters regardless of whether it fits, and it grinds my gears so much. Yes, these people love each other like family! No, that does not make Charles and Erik the dads and Logan the grumpy uncle and Kurt the baby brother or whatever! They don't have to have an assigned "role" in this found family dynamic, and their dynamics in canon are way too complex to even fit those roles without chopping away massive pieces of their characterizations.
13. worst blorboficiation
RAVEN FUCKING DARKHOLME!! Look. I love her. I really really do. But oh my god she needs to stop being people's blorbos. It's a mix between people who have only seen the movies turning her into this sweet, monogamous, never-does-wrong hero character, and people who have actually read the comics getting rightfully pissed off at that characterization.
I don't think Jennifer Lawrence made a bad Raven, and I think it works for her as a young Raven still trying to find herself, before she has the confidence that will lead to her being the bisexual, morally-flexible antihero we see in the comics, but I also think that people get way too devoted to that depiction of her and brush away all those sharper sides.
24. topic that brings up the most rancid discourse
Anything ship-related, especially when it relates to Scott, Jean, Ororo, Logan, or some combination of the four of them. I hate shipping discourse as a whole, but there's something about those four characters that just send people into this absolute frenzy over what the "right" ship is.
I've only seen it kicking back up again, first with X-Men '97 and now with the Honda Odyssey scene in Deadpool and Wolverine. Y'all. It's fiction. All of your ships can coexist, it's not like the fictional characters are going to seek out a divorce lawyer because you posted some rarepair fanart.
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cringengl · 2 years ago
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Vecna, Will Byers and the importance of family in Stranger Things
We all know that family is important in Stranger Things, so much time is spent on giving El a family, which is juxtaposed to her 'family' at the lab. The reason the name "Papa" is so chilling is because it's an affectionate term that is being used for an abuser. Found family is especially important, not only shown through El, but Steve as whilst he might have started becoming a better person at the end of s1, his character development is truly shown through characters such as Dustin and Robin.
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So what does this mean for Will and Vecna??
We all know of the parallels/similarities between Vecna and Will, such as them both being described as "sensitive", their mindflayer drawings, their connection to the UD as well as just looking similar. Although some believe that these similarities may be hinting towards a villain arc for Will in s5, I believe the opposite. This is because of the big glaring difference between the two characters- their family.
The Byers and the Creels are the complete opposite.
Joyce is a single mother, Jonathan is described in s1 (and in Stranger Things Puzzle Tales) as a "Lonley Freak", whereas Will is bullied for being gay (even if he hasn't come out), even Lonnie is shown to be living in a run down house with a young girlfriend. The Byers therefore are almost the opposite of a picture perfect family. Despite this the Byers are a loving family, who are always there for eachother. There are so many examples if this that I'm bound to miss a great one, but Joyce and Jonathan doing everything possible to get Will back safe despite being told he was dead, Jonathan and Will building Castle Byers and how Jonathan is always there for Will, the stories Jonathan and Joyce tell Will to stop his possession and Jonathan telling Will that he'll always love him in s4. Therefore, whilst the Byers don't look like an ordinary family, they love eachother like a family should.
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The Creels are a picture perfect family. Their big house seems perfect, they have parents that are together with two children, everyone is dressed in nice clothes, it's the perfect example of the nuclear family. However, during Vecna's monologue, he says that the reason he hated his family was because they were awful people hiding behind a front, such as Victor making that awful mistake during the war but pretending to be a normal father. Vecna despises people conform, put on a facade, lie and so he is now trying to gain power to change the world, for what he thinks is for the better.
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Whilst the Creels may have been living a lie, the Byers have not. Will has constantly shown himself to be truthful.
He can't lie to Mike about what he rolled in s1 ep1.
He is bullied for wearing bright clothes, but us not deterred from it (showing that he is being his true self).
Will, Mike, Dustin and Lucas are true to their nerdiness by dressing up for Halloween.
Will doesn't care for the expectations of growing up and doesn't try to conform to them in s3 by being the only one who still wants to play DnD instead of getting older.
Will even says to El that Mike doesn't like it when people lie to him, insinuating that Will doesn't lie to Mike at all.
(This is why the painting is going to be such a big deal in s5, because it's the first time that we really see Will lie)
But what does the difference between Will and Vecna's family mean for s5??
Since family plays such a big role in Stranger Things as well as themes like lying and conformity I feel that Will is going to be almost a mirror image to Vecna, in that they may be similar, but that doesn't mean that they are destined to go down a certain path. Vecna may point out all the injustices that Will has had to face and say "join me to create a better world since we are so alike", but with the love from his new found family, the Hopper Byers, Vecna will be defeated mainly by (and most likely by) Will and El.
Because El's storyline is also about family, I believe that is also what will fuel her to defeat Vecna.
Will and El therefore show how important family is and the support of the found family within Stranger Things may be the key to defeating Vecna, someone who never got to experience this.
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WILL'S POWER IS HIS HEART
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